that I am to stop twenty years in New Caledonia."

The gendarme laughed. It was a good joke, this funny Chinago trying to
cheat the guillotine. The mules trotted through a coconut grove and for
half a mile beside the sparkling sea before Ah Cho spoke again.

"I tell you I am not Ah Chow. The honourable judge did not say that my
head was to go off."

"Don't be afraid," said Cruchot, with the philanthropic intention of making
it easier for his prisoner. "It is not difficult to die that way." He
snapped his fingers. "It is quick--like that. It is not like hanging on
the end of a rope and kicking and making faces for five minutes. It is
like killing a chicken with a hatchet. You cut its head off, that is all.
And it is the same with a man. Pouf!--it is over. It doesn't hurt. You
don't even think it hurts. You don't think. Your head is gone, so you
cannot think. It is very good. That is the way I want to die--quick, ah,
quick. You are lucky to die that way. You might get the leprosy and fall
to pieces slowly, a finger at a time, and now and again a thumb, also the
toes. I knew a man who was burned by hot water. It took him two days to
die. You could hear him yelling a kilometre away. But you? Ah! so easy!
Chck!--the knife cuts your neck like that. It is finished. The knife may
even tickle. Who can say? Nobody who died that way ever came back to
say."

He considered this last an excruciating joke, and permitted himself to be
convulsed with laughter for half a minute. Part of his mirth was assumed,
but he considered it his humane duty to cheer up the Chinago.

"But I tell you I am Ah Cho," the other persisted. "I don't want my head