me.

Cruchot was a gendarme. He had seen twenty years of service in the
colonies, from Nigeria and Senegal to the South Seas, and those
twenty years had not perceptibly brightened his dull mind. He was as
slow-witted and stupid as in his peasant days in the south of France. He
knew discipline and fear of authority, and from God down to the sergeant
of gendarmes the only difference to him was the measure of slavish
obedience which he rendered. In point of fact, the sergeant bulked
bigger in his mind than God, except on Sundays when God's mouthpieces
had their say. God was usually very remote, while the sergeant was
ordinarily very close at hand.

Cruchot it was who received the order from the Chief Justice to the
jailer commanding that functionary to deliver over to Cruchot the person
of Ah Chow. Now, it happened that the Chief Justice had given a dinner
the night before to the captain and officers of the French man-of-war.
His hand was shaking when he wrote out the order, and his eyes were
aching so dreadfully that he did not read over the order. It was only a
Chinago's life he was signing away, anyway. So he did not notice that he
had omitted the final letter in Ah Chow's name. The order read "Ah Cho,"
and, when Cruchot presented the order, the jailer turned over to him the
person of Ah Cho. Cruchot took that person beside him on the seat of a
wagon, behind two mules, and drove away.

Ah Cho was glad to be out in the sunshine. He sat beside the gendarme
and beamed. He beamed more ardently than ever when he noted the mules
headed south toward Atimaono. Undoubtedly Schemmer had sent for him to
be brought back. Schemmer wanted him to work. Very well, he would work
well. Schemmer would never have cause to complain. It was a hot day.
There had been a stoppage of the trades. The mules sweated, Cruchot
sweated, and Ah Cho sweated. But it was Ah Cho that bore the heat with
the least concern. He had toiled three years under that sun on the
plantation. He beamed and beamed with such genial good nature that even
Cruchot's heavy mind was stirred to wonderment.

"You are very funny," he said at last.

Ah Cho nodded and beamed more ardently. Unlike the magistrate, Cruchot
spoke to him in the Kanaka tongue, and this, like all Chinagos and all
foreign devils, Ah Cho understood.

"You laugh too much," Cruchot chided. "One's heart should be full of
tears on a day like this."

"I am glad to get out of the jail."

"Is that all?"