Author: P C Wren
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Short stories; French Foreign Legion
Description: Seven short stories of the French Foreign Legion. 1: No. 187017 2: Bombs 3: Mastic— and Drastic 4: The Death Post 5: E Tenebris 6: Nemesis 7: The Hunting of Henri

FLAWED BLADES

Percival Christopher Wren

1933

Contents

1: No. 187017

2: Bombs

3: Mastic— and Drastic

4: The Death Post

5: E Tenebris

6: Nemesis

7: The Hunting of Henri

_________________

1: No. 187017

EXCEPT WHEN, with solemn countenance and serious voice, old Tant de Soif was deliberately pulling the leg of a bleu, or ragging Père Poussin, he was, for an old soldier, a remarkably truthful man.

Undeniably, some of his stories were almost incredible, but then old Tant de Soif had undoubtedly had some almost incredible experiences in the course of his long and varied military service in Cochin China, Madagascar, the Sahara, Morocco and Dahomey.

The most astounding story of all, concerned the last-named country, for Tant de Soif had served in the horrible Dahomeyan campaign.

So strange and so interesting was the story, and such was Tant de Soif's warmth of asseveration as to its truth and his own personal friendship with Captain Battreau, that I was at pains to verify it.

TANT DE SOIF'S amazing story is not fiction, but unadorned recorded fact which can be verified by reference to French newspaper files of 1891.

It is one of the most astounding examples of the aptness of the old saw, Truth is stranger than fiction.

Any writer of fiction who had the courage to use this incident in a novel, would inevitably be laughed to scorn by the wise and learned men who reviewed his book.

The story begins in the year 1870, when the Hun was ravaging France, Paris was besieged, and its inhabitants thankful to be able to buy the flesh of cats, rats and mice at fabulous prices.

As in 1914, every Frenchman who could bear arms was fighting to save his beloved country and to drive the loathed invader from its sacred soil. Young boys and old men marched and fought beside those of military age. Among the first was a boy named Battreau, a burning patriot and a keen and ardent soldier, who quickly rose to the rank of Sergeant.

Battreau was the Happy Warrior

"that every man in arms should wish to be",

for his profession was his hobby, he loved his work, and this campaign was to him a Crusade and a Holy War. Unlike the majority of soldiers, especially those of a conscript army, he positively enjoyed drill, and regarded his Chassepôt rifle rather as a pet or a beloved comrade than as a heavy encumbrance and a beastly thing that he had to sweat over, and keep speckless.

If ever young Battreau got a punishment, which is improbable, it was certainly not for having a dirty gun. To him indeed was applicable the saying that "A soldier's best friend is his rifle."

Curiously enough, the number of Battreau's gun was 1870, and 17 his own age— 187017, a number easily remembered and one that he never forgot. And Private Battreau did more than love and polish and treasure his beautiful new gun; he used it to some purpose, for he proved, even from his recruit days, to be an exceptionally fine shot.

According to those who knew him, Battreau, although a keen soldier, was anything but bloodthirsty, and it was not in a revengeful spirit of murderous triumph that he recorded on the butt of 187017 the number of Germans who, to his certain knowledge, he killed with it.

No doubt he shot many more than his tally showed, but whenever, in single combat or when sniping, he killed his man, he drove a tiny tack or shoe "brad" a little way into the butt of his rifle, and then pulled it out again.

What with its number, composed of the date of the year and his own age, and the neat row of tiny holes in the stock, it was not likely that Private Battreau, Corporal Battreau, Sergeant Battreau, would have any difficulty in identifying his rifle among a number of others, or in recovering it from any comrade who "scrounged", "found" or "won" it when its owner's back was turned.

And at St. Privat, during the terrible battle of Gravelotte, the gun received an honourable scar, a decoration that would have enabled its owner to identify it among a thousand others, even had he been blind.

For when the famous and magnificent Prussian Guard charged the French position and was repulsed with tremendous slaughter, Battreau, suddenly feeling a jarring shock and a blow that nearly knocked him down, found that a German bullet had passed clean through the stock of his rifle.

As neatly as though the work had been done by a cabinet-maker or a highly skilled carpenter, a smooth, clean hole had been drilled through the butt of 187017.

His beloved gun, that had killed so many of the enemies of his adored country, had saved his life, for the bullet, in passing through the thick wood, had lost so much of its velocity that when it struck Battreau's heavy leather pouch and belt, it failed to penetrate to his body, and merely knocked him backward, with no greater injury than a severe bruise.

Is it to be wondered at, that Battreau's affection for his rifle was increased immeasurably, and that he would scarcely have parted with it for its weight in gold?

Throughout the remainder of the Franco-Prussian War, Sergeant Battreau served and suffered, starved, frozen, ragged, often sick and weary unto death, but with 187017 still upon his shoulder, as he marched the long, long roads of France.

At the end of the campaign he was alive, unwounded, and determined to remain in the army as a professional soldier. One can imagine the pride he took in his curiously decorated rifle, and the number of times that he told the story of how it got the hole in its butt and saved its owner's life.

One can also imagine the regret with which Sergeant Battreau parted with this "best friend" when the French Army discarded the Chassepôt gun and was re-armed with the Gras rifle.

Poor Battreau made application to be permitted to keep 187017 as his personal property, but his request was refused. Red tape is red tape, and is nowhere ruddier that in the French Army.

How could the French Republic be expected to lose the few francs, or even sous, that an old discarded gun might yet be worth, and give it to the man who had carried it so long, fought with it so bravely, and killed so many of the Republic's enemies?

Could not Sergeant Battreau be permitted to buy it from Madame la République at its original cost, or more?

Certainly not, replied the Red-Tape-Worms of the War Office. Whoever heard of such a thing as Madame la République trafficking in old iron? The rifle must be returned to store at once, and with no more idiotic applications from presumptuous and half-witted sergeants.

BUT TRAFFIC in old iron Madame la République undoubtedly did, and sold the whole discarded consignment to a syndicate of those Christian patriots who supply the ignorant, barbarous and comparatively harmless savage with weapons of precision wherewith he may fight the fellow-countrymen of the said Christian patriots, or slay his brother with greater facility and despatch.

THE SCENE is changed— also the date.

It is now the year 1891, and a small French force, headed as usual by a detachment of the French Foreign Legion, is making its way from Porto Novo, in the Bight of Benin on the West Coast of Africa, up the left bank of the river Oueme, with the high hope, firm intention, and moderate chance, of reaching Abomey, the capital of Behanzin, King of Dahomey.

With this detachment of the French Foreign Legion was one Captain Battreau, formerly a Sergeant of the Line and now a distinguished officer of the Legion.

Of all Captain Battreau's military experience, this campaign was the worst.

As frequently happens in war, the enemy was almost the least of the enemies to be fought: and whenever the Dahomeyans attacked the little expeditionary force on the march, or in the perimeter camps of their halting-places, they were regarded rather as an added nuisance than as the dangerous and murderous enemy that they were.

Far worse than these savages were the terrible heat; the vitiated, steam-laden air; the stifling gloom of the dense impenetrable jungle; virulent malignant fever; the agonizing labour of hacking their way through dense pathless jungle at the rate of three miles a day; and almost unbearable thirst.

The torture of thirst was not rendered easier to bear by the knowledge that the force was advancing parallel to the bank of a great river. Although this was only a few miles away, it was as inaccessible, owing to impenetrable jungle, as if it had been in another continent.

On many a day the force would struggle for hours to cross a mangrove swamp so water-logged and swollen that it was almost impassable, and yet as devoid of visible water as any desert. Here water was an enemy, and, turning the ground beneath their feet into slimy mud, but added to their sufferings.

Nor was the force allowed, as Captain Battreau humorously remarked, to fight in peace— to fight its way through the terrible swamps and jungle where the overhead foliage was so dense that the rays of the sun never penetrated it.

Without the faintest warning, and at any place or moment, thousands of silent shadows would suddenly materialize from the surrounding jungle, and swoop like hawks upon their prey, each shadow a tall savage armed with slashing coupe-coupe (or machête), sword and spear. Or the heavy boding silence of the jungle would be shattered by sudden volleys, and from both flanks a heavy fire would be poured in, at short range, upon the struggling men hacking their way in the thick bush or stifling elephant grass in which they worked blindfold, swallowed up like dogs in a cornfield.

At night, too, when the weary force sank to the ground, too exhausted to eat, there was little rest, for, in addition to constant heavy sniping, most determined attacks were made by innumerable hordes of spearmen, outnumbering the French by thousands.

As usual, whatever the sufferings of the other units, those of the Legion were greater; for they were in the van; they blazed the trail, they bore the brunt of the frontal attacks, and to them fell the lion's share of camp and water fatigues, and picket and outpost duty.

Always to the fore, leading, encouraging and heartening his splendid légionnaires, was Captain Battreau, admired, beloved and trusted by his Company, every man of whom knew him to be a better soldier than himself, a man whose word was "Come on" rather than "Go on", first in the fight and last to lie down in camp, as careless of his own life as he was careful of those of his men.

AND ONE DAY happened the incredible thing, the impossible event, the fact far stranger than any fancy.

The Legion advance-guard, debouching suddenly from the terrible, gloomy jungle, entered an open glade or savannah, and simultaneously came under a tremendously heavy fire from a force completely concealed in the thick bush opposite.

"Come on, boys!" yelled Captain Battreau. "Into them with the bayonet!" and, drawing his revolver, he led the charge of his weary, thirsty, half-starved men, across the open.

The Dahomeyans stood fast, and in a few moments spear clashed on bayonet, and a fierce hand-to-hand struggle took place.

As Captain Battreau, leading, rushed at a tall Dahomeyan, who had just re-loaded his rifle, the savage threw it forward and fired at Battreau point-blank. As he did so, Battreau pulled the trigger of his revolver, and both men fell to the ground, the Dahomeyan with the revolver bullet through his heart, Battreau untouched.

As he himself afterwards said, he had not the faintest idea as to whether he flung himself down when he saw the muzzle of a rifle pointing straight at his face, or whether he tripped over a tussock of grass, or some such obstacle.

What he did know was that, as he arose, slightly stunned by the explosion, so close to his face, of the heavy rifle, he saw with no small surprise, that the rifle lying at his feet was a French Chassepôt, complete with bayonet.

Snatching it up as an excellent weapon for use in the hand-to-hand rough-and-tumble into which he was about to dash, his eye fell upon something the sight of which gave him pause, even in that moment of strenuous excitement.

There was a hole through the butt of the rifle!

Swiftly turning it over, Captain Battreau read the number. It was 187017. In the stock was a neat row of tiny holes.

In Captain Battreau's hand was his own rifle— the rifle with which he had fought throughout the Franco-Prussian War of 1870.

For a moment the noise of battle all about him was that of Gravelotte, and the fall from which he had just risen was that caused by the blow of a Prussian bullet that had passed through the stock of his rifle before striking him.

"I am fey... I am mad... I am dreaming," said Captain Battreau, and rushed into the fight, wielding once more, with deadly effect, the weapon that he had used more than twenty years before.

There was nothing dream-like, from the Dahomeyan point of view, about this terrible white man, and, before long, the savages broke and fled, leaving their dead upon the ground; and the survivors of the Company triumphed with the feeling of satisfaction that follows a hand-to-hand and man-to-man fight on equal terms, with no advantage from superior weapons.

For though disciplined troops armed with a rifle should, and almost always do, defeat a savage enemy, it is quite a different matter when bayonet meets spear, and the better man wins.

Captain Battreau sat himself down and stared at 187017, still unable to believe the evidence of his senses. But there was no room for doubt.

There could not possibly be in the whole world two Chassepôt rifles, each bearing that number, each marked with that record of slain Germans, and each with a bullet-hole drilled through the butt in exactly that spot.

CAPTAIN BATTREAU again made application for permission to keep the rifle, and this time, as it was no longer the property of Madame la République, this was graciously accorded, and 187017 returned to France in his possession.

This story, as Tant de Soif told it to me, is absolutely true.

_________________________

2: Bombs

OLD TANT DE SOIF, Father of the Battalion, was inevitably a walking encyclopædia of Legion lore, and it was to him that one applied for historical and other information.

If not exactly arbiter elegantiarum, he was undeniably arbiter on disputes and questions concerning matters of fact and fiction relating to the Battalion and the Regiment.

"Did I know Odo Klemens? Why, it was through Odo that I came near to losing my own identity. I, Tant de Soif, almost came to be known merely as The Friend of Odo Klemens," he would say when questioned on the subject.

ONE had to believe Tant de Soifs oft-told biography of Odo Klemens because it rang true, and contained those little touches that no one would think of inventing.

Moreover, I discovered as an indisputable fact, that Tant de Soif was at one time a comrade, if not the copain, of Odo Klemens.

Nevertheless, I have not yet made up my mind as to whether he was embroidering the story and varnishing the tale when he told us the amazing yarn about Odo Klemens' dog.

"THAT WAS another thing about Odo Klemens," quoth Tant de Soif, after reminiscing about some of his hero's doings when scouring Morocco and combing her cities in disguise, searching for secret-service information, and spying upon spies.

"Another of the many strange qualities that made him so different from ordinary men— the amazing power he had over animals— including women.... Talk about old Bombelli taming his lions! Klemens would have tamed them and the Strong Woman too.... Why, he could tame army mules; tame mad camels; tame wild goats, wild sheep, any wild bird.... I tell you he would make a vulture alight near him and eat out of his hand...."

"Could he tame Sergeants and make them eat out of his hand?" inquired Bombelli.

"He did better than that, Funny-Face. He became a Sergeant himself and had other people eating out of his hand.... He'd have broken a thing like you and thrown the bits to his dog.... You keep your head shut when I'm talking about a man whose buttons you aren't fit to polish....

"Where was I when the hole in that thing's face fell open?... Yes.... I said he'd have fed his dog on bits of Bombelli— though I don't say the dog would have eaten them— though he was only a village pariah cur when Odo Klemens adopted him.

"Just that. We were going through a ksar with our bayonets, in style.... I dashed into a house and saw Klemens, who had just pinned a man to the wall. Such a funny sight. The Arab, who'd got a knife, couldn't reach Odo with it, and Odo couldn't withdraw his bayonet, and there they were, planté là.... Stuck.... Odo was laughing— as he held on to the butt of his rifle at arm's length (and the Arab looked just like a big dirty beetle on a pin)— because a pariah pup was biting away, like the devil, at Odo's gaiters and trying to hang on to his trousers.

"He could have kicked it half a mile, stove its ribs in, but he only laughed and encouraged it.

"When I finished off the Arab and we got Odo's bayonet out of the beam he'd driven it into— and it took the two of us to shift it— Odo grabbed the dog, held it still, and stared into its eyes.

"Then he flattened it, belly down, on the floor, and kept drawing his finger down its head, between the ears, to the nose, and prolonging the line on the ground while he talked to it in Arabic, repeating the same two words over and over again....

"All this only took a minute or so, yet when we bolted out of the house, the dog followed us as though Klemens had owned it for years.

"Wherever we went that day, the dog went too— and it must have seen some funny sights.... Me, I had something else than village curs to attend to, but when we made camp that night, there was the dog all right; and Odo told me it had stuck to him all day, and hadn't tried to help any more Arabs again. Quite the other way round.

"Well, that dog became like Odo's shadow, and he taught it all manner of amazing tricks— really astounding when you remember it wasn't a civilized poodle from a Paris flat, but practically a wild and savage animal.

"Odo called him Abd-el-Kader because he was a good fighter. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about it all was the fact that the dog would go and do something Odo told him to do, when he spoke in an ordinary conversational way, using quite a long sentence.

"It's one thing to shout 'Beg, Fido!' or 'Jump, Fido!' at a dog, and make some appropriate gesture which the dog understands and connects with the order and the trick that is expected of it.

"But it's quite another thing to say quietly,

"'Go into the barrack-room and bring me my képi off my bed'; or to pick up a stone, spit on it, show it to the dog, and say,

"'If I throw this stone, be good enough to leave it alone, will you?'— and to have correct obedience every time.

"You don't believe it, Bombelli? No? Of course you don't. You haven't the intelligence, nor the imagination. You think that everybody is a Bombelli, I suppose— and that what you can't do, nobody can do. Why, man, Odo Klemens could do much more than that— he could have taught you tricks. Made you quite useful. Useful to him, anyhow....

"Well, as I was saying, when poor Bombelli's face leaked again, it was really wonderful.... Why, I've heard Odo say to that village pariah cur,

"'If I throw this stone over my right shoulder, you'll stand as you are. But if I throw it over my left shoulder, you'll lie down at once. If, however, I do neither, but just drop it, you will bark twice...' and the dog would do accordingly, and be right every time."

"What language did he talk?" asked Bombelli.

"The dog, do you mean, Fish-face? He generally barked in Arabic."

"No.... Odo Klemens, of course," replied Bombelli angrily.

"Oh, Klemens.... He began by talking Arabic, but when the dog was well trained, he would speak German to it. Sometimes French, for the public benefit, when he was showing-off, so that everyone would know what he had told the dog to do.

"He got very fond of the beast— we all did, in point of fact— and I think he would have killed anyone who mistook it for a tender spring-chicken when we were on short rations. Any stranger passing through, I mean, for anyone of our Section would as soon have thought of eating a comrade as of eating Abd-el-Kader. Cannibalism, eh, Poussin?"

"Certainly— if you ate a dog," replied Père Poussin.

"I don't know what we should have done without that dog— especially when things were very difficult and there was a lot of cafard about. We had a bad time in that poste, just about then, because on top of the usual troubles of life in the Legion, we were haunted by an extraordinarily clever thief, or else by a djinn— an evil spirit, as invisible as it was malevolent.

"When I say a thief, I mean one from outside, of course, an Arab; and the fact that someone was stealing things was connected with another undeniable fact— that someone, or something, not in uniform, was seen flitting or slinking or dodging about.

"Seen by more than one person, more than once.

"About half of us had had some queer experience or other, with this visitant; and those who hadn't had one, invented one— so that there was plenty of mystery and unrest in that damned poste.

"Then, one evening, my turn came for a bit of a surprise and a little shock....

"No, I didn't see anything— that was the uncanny part of it. I wished I had seen something.

"I was on sentry, and as we were liable to be attacked at any hour of the day or night, each sentry was given a couple of bombs— and instructions to use them, pretty dam' quick, if he saw, or heard, occasion to do so....

"As you know, Arabs like bombs even less than they do bayonets. They dislike Rosalie for her own sweet sake; but for Arabs, bombs have a nasty effect both here and Hereafter, since a good Mussulman can't go to Heaven if he is blown to pieces on earth.... How could Mahommet recognize him for a True Believer if he arrived at the gates of Paradise in a thousand bits? It might be some damned dog of an Infidel, trying it on....

"Well, there I was, doing sentry, with my two bombs at my feet, nice and handy; and, for the sake of my own hide, I was keeping a sharp look-out, I can tell you.

"By-and-by, I turned and glanced round the poste, for a change, and, as I moved, I half-unconsciously glanced down to see that I did not kick or tread on my bombs.

"Well— there wasn't much fear of my doing that— for they weren't there...!

"Those two little flat iron 'pine-apples' simply weren't there....

"They had vanished— and they had been there less than two minutes earlier.

"And, another thing, not a living soul had been anywhere near me for a good half-hour.

"What d'you make of that, Bombelli? Any funny remarks or clever theories?... No?... You surprise me; I should have thought you could explain it instantly....

"I don't mind telling you, mes amis, that I was in a perishing blue funk, and for two reasons. I'd got to explain the disappearance of those bombs to Sergeant-Major Essad— a damned old Turk, if ever there was one; and I'd got to explain it to myself too.

"One doesn't like it when solid heavy things— such as bombs— vanish into thin air.... Bombs aren't feathers to be blown away by the wind, are they? No, bombs do their own blowing— and it's you who go away.

"Oh, I was frightened all right....

"I was afraid of Sergeant-Major Essad; I was afraid of whatever invisible Thing or Power had pinched the bombs; and I was also damned well afraid that they'd come flying back— over the wall or out of the blue or somewhere.

"I stood and sweated; stood and gaped like a... like a Bombelli... and wondered what the devil to do.

"I felt I ought to do something and do it quick— but I couldn't very well give the alarm, and then say it was because my two bombs had evaporated or lost themselves or something.

"I tell you I had un mauvais quart d'heure then, and a worse one when I was up before Sergeant Essad. He was a terror— that one.

"They called him 'The Red Devil'.

"Been an officer in Albania or somewhere, and had had to bolt for his life from Abdul the Damned.

"A huge chap he was, with red hair and a perfectly red face, not brown at all; blue eyes; and the biggest moustache I have ever seen. He had to turn sideways to get it through a gateway.

"He had a voice to match it, too, and could drill a battalion a mile away.

"But he never roared at individuals. Not even at defaulters. No, his voice was very soft and gentle and quiet for them. The sweeter and softer it was, the worse for the defaulter, and the bigger the trouble that was coming.

"And he never said what he'd do to you— he merely did it. No threats— but a punishment worse than the sentence. Yes, Essad Bey's bite was a lot worse than his bark; and his performance worse than his promise.

"Was his voice sweet and low when I was brought up before him?

"Like silk. Like the voice of a girl talking love.

"'Ah! They disappeared, did they, Légionnaire Soif,' he whispered, smiling.

"'Disappeared when you weren't looking, eh? Vanished— pouf!— just like that, eh?... When you weren't looking.... Exactly.... When your eyes were shut, in fact.... Not looking.... Precisely.... You have told the truth.... Not looking.... And sentries are not posted for the purpose of looking, one observes.... No, no!... They are not there to look.... They are there for ornament.'

"I respectfully swore that I had never relaxed my vigilance for a second; that I had borne myself in a smart and soldierly manner; and that no human being had approached within a hundred feet of me, from the moment when I was posted to the moment when I was relieved.

"Essad smiled pleasantly.

"'Any private theories of your own to explain this remarkable phenomenon?' he purred.

"Absolutely none.

"Sergeant-Major Essad had a theory though.

"'I believe your story, mon brave,' he murmured, 'and I have a theory.... You will find it proves to be correct, I am certain,' and his blazing cold eyes smiled into mine.

"'It is this. You had, perhaps— in fact, you had, without doubt— just a moment or two of, shall we say, absence of mind— for you have a mind, I verily believe.... And at the end of this brief period of absence (of mind) you— shall we say?— awoke.... That is to say awoke, not from sleep, but to the more immediate realities of existence. You have told me you did not sleep on your post, and of course that settles the matter. But you brought your bright intelligence back to earth and mundane matters again— and as you did so, you yawned and stretched and violently shook yourself.... One does, you know.... And as you violently shook yourself, a number of strong hearty healthy insects fell from your clothing and person to the ground— near the bombs.... These the insects immediately shouldered and bore away.... Doubtless they took them to your bed, where they will surely be found.

"'Sergeant, put Légionnaire Soif, who "wasn't looking", where he will have no occasion— or indeed opportunity— to look.

"'Let there be neither water nor food nor blanket to look at, and let the little place be so perfectly dark that he couldn't look at them if they were there.... For how long?... Oh— I don't know— you mustn't be too red-tape-bound, Sergeant. Say about as long as Jacob's Ladder put end-to-end with the Prophet's Beard... or until we want him again... whichever is the mercifully shorter period....'"

Old Tant de Soif took a pull at the contents of my mug, bowed to me, and wiped his beard with his sleeve.

"That's how Sergeant-Major Essad, the 'Red Devil', talked," he continued.

"It was how he acted too; for I was in solitary confinement in the dark until The Red Devil wanted the cell for somebody else.

"And it didn't do me any good. Nor Sergeant-Major Essad either.... No.... For he died bravely, leading his men, with his face to the foe— and a Lebel bullet through the back of his neck...."

"Who fired it?" asked Otho Bellême. "You?"

"Huh! Who fired it? Who knows? Some good friend of Sergeant Essad, anyway. Why?"

"Only that— if you did it— I was going to say that you are a filthy cowardly cur whose corpse a starving hyena would be ashamed to eat," replied Bellême.

"Sure thing," agreed Joe Mummery, and Sailor Harris nodded emphatic agreement.

"I didn't say that I did it," replied Tant de Soif, after an appraising stare at Bellême.

"No," said Bellême.

"Well— go on," I urged, in the rôle of peace-maker.

"So there I sat in the dark— and a heat like the ground-floor of Hell— wondering, day and night, what the devil had become of those two bombs, until I got bombs on the brain, and could see them floating about in the pitch darkness.

"And I got a bit of a shock one day or night,— for night and day were exactly the same in that Black Hole— when I came to myself, so to speak, and found I was crawling round and round the floor of the cell looking for— bombs.

"Meanwhile things were happening outside.

"Sentries kept getting glimpses of the thief, at nighttime— apparently an Arab in a white burnous or sheet or something— and no less than four men lost their bombs.

"I heard all about it when I came out from my little hell one evening, just before Retreat.

"This happened when Sergeant-Major Essad wanted the cell for someone else.

"I was brought up before him, yellow, filthy, bearded, half mad, and with my bones sticking through my scaly hide.

"'Look here, Légionnaire Soif,' he purred, 'I really can't let you have that room, Number Four, any longer. You have had your turn and must make way for others. I'm sorry, but you'll have to clear out at once. And you've no cause to grumble at being turned out, for you have had it all to yourself and had a nice rest too. Not to mention a special diet.... Quite a "cure", as the doctors call it.... At least, I hope it has been a cure— for your sake, Légionnaire Soif....

"'Now go and cleanse, beautify, and perfume yourself, and report for guard in an hour. You'll be on sentry, with two bombs, and I don't really advise any of that "not looking" this time.... Good evening, Légionnaire Soif.'

"That was how The Red Devil talked.

"Well, I got cleaned up somehow, and reported for duty at guard-mounting, though I could scarcely stand, and kept turning giddy; and the light hurt my eyes so badly, after those days and nights of utter blackness, that I could hardly see.

"And there I was again, on sentry-go once more, and with two bombs at my feet....

"Bombs! They fascinated me. I'd fairly got bombs on the brain, I tell you. I leant against the wall and stared at them till the tears ran down my cheeks. I wasn't going to take my eyes off those damned bombs for the whole two hours of my tour of duty. Not once.

"Or so I thought.

"But it wasn't very long before I discovered that such a thing can't be done. Especially by a man in a very weak condition. He falls down if he tries it.

"I soon found that my eyes wandered.

"And, suddenly, they had good cause to wander, for I heard a sound, and instantly glancing in the direction whence it came, I distinctly saw someone— or something— move.

"It might have been a man dressed up in a white sheet, or it might have been an Arab in a white burnous, or again it might have been a ghost.

"Anyhow, whoever it was, or whatever it was, I wasn't going to give it a chance to get my bombs.

"In the same second that I saw the Thing, I glanced down at the bombs to be sure they were there all right, and threw up my rifle.

"If this was what had got me a solitary confinement sentence, I was going to shoot it first, challenge it second, kick it third, and talk to it afterwards.

"...It was moving across my front stealthily. The light— or rather the darkness— was very patchy, and the Thing progressed in a curious manner. Not exactly undulating like a snake, but rising and falling as it went along, so that at one moment it looked about six feet high, and the next moment about three feet low.

"Pausing for a moment so as to get it at its biggest, I fired. And it wasn't a case of,

"'Halt! Who goes there?... No answer.... Bang!', so much as a case of,

"'Bang!... Halt! Who goes there? .... No answer.'

"And over I rushed to where the Thing had fallen to get the answer.

"The answer was the Company cook, groaning and moaning and calling me a sacred assassin.

"Luckily for me, the silly fool, who was dressed up to look more or less like a ghost, was on his way back from his little raid on the store-room, and laden up with bottles of wine and other stuff that he'd stolen.

"It was thus easy enough for me to pose as the eagle-eyed ever-watchful hero who had laid the ghost, solved the mystery, and obviously caught the thief who, for some strange reason, had been stealing hand-grenades from the sentries.

"It had only taken me a few seconds to shoot Cookie (and he was the type of cook that deserves to be shot daily), to identify him, and get back to my post: and as I reached the spot where my bombs were— I saw that they weren't.

"No, mes amis. Those two good solid little iron pine-apples were not.

"They weren't there.

"They'd gone.

"I gazed at the spot whence they had gone.

"I tapped my forehead hard with my knuckles.

"'Good evening, Tant de Soif,' said I to myself.

"'Good evening,' said myself to me.

"'The bombs were there when you fired your rifle, Tant de Soif, were they not?' asked I.

"'They were, my dear friend,' replied myself. 'I glanced down at them as I brought my rifle up from the "Order" to the "Present".'

"'And you shot the wine-stealing, bomb-throwing rascal in his tracks, didn't you?'

"'I did,' I replied.

"'So he couldn't have pinched them, could he?' I asked myself.

"'Of course he couldn't,' was the reply. 'Don't ask such silly questions.'

"'Then who did take them?' I asked.

"'How the devil do I know, you silly old fool?' I replied.

"And so brief a time had elapsed since I fired my rifle, that it was only at this moment that the guard turned out, the hue and cry was raised, and the hulla-balloo began.

"Well, somehow the Sergeant of the Guard got the impression, from my prompt and intelligent answers to his foolish questions, that Cookie was the bomb-thief, and had stolen my two bombs and had been shot by me, in the execution of my duty, as he had attempted to get away with them.

"I don't know how it was, but he certainly seemed to get that impression.

"'Then where the devil are they now? What's he done with 'em, salaud?' roared the Sergeant.

"To which I could but shrug my shoulders and answer,

"'Where indeed?... What indeed, mon Sergent?'

"And really, you know, it wasn't my business, was it? I could do no more than shoot the treacherous scoundrel, the villainous robber, who came to steal my bombs, could I? Surely it was for him to explain what he'd done with them, not me.

"But unfortunately— or fortunately— Cookie couldn't explain.

"He was dead... and gone to his own place— apparently taking my bombs with him.

"At least, that was how I tried to explain it to The Red Devil when he had me up and put me through it.

"And at the end of our long and unpleasant interview, I don't know whether The Red Devil or I was the more puzzled man.

"From his point of view, and knowledge, there had been a thief about, at night. Several sentries had seen someone dressed up in white, dodging about inside the poste: and ten bombs had been stolen, and every time from a sentry.

"It was quite impossible for the men to steal them, as there was daily kit-inspection, and no possible hole or corner in the poste that could be used as a place of concealment.

"And now a sentry had seen this strange, lurking, stealthy figure, white-clad, mysterious and suspicious-looking, and had, according to his own account, challenged it three times.

"Instead of replying, it had rushed at him, ducked beneath his fixed bayonet, snatched up his bombs and fled.

"Naturally thinking it to be an Arab rifle-thief turned bomb-thief, the sentry had again challenged the figure, called upon it to halt, and then, as it neither replied nor halted, had very properly shot it dead.

"But the supposed Arab raider had turned out to be the Company cook, and his loot, bottles of wine instead of bombs.

"But the sentry's bombs had been taken.

"Where were they?

"Yes, The Red Devil was a puzzled man.

"And in addition to the major problem of the bombs was the minor problem of the sentry.

"If he were an abominable liar— and of course he was an abominable liar, like all légionnaires (until they are promoted to be N.C.O.s)— what had he done with the bombs? He certainly hadn't got them, any more than the dead man had, and whether he were a liar or not, he had undoubtedly killed a man in defence of his bombs.

"Why should the sentry have shot the fellow, if he had not been behaving in the way that the sentry said he had?

"And undoubtedly, the dead man had been engaged in some villainy or other, or why was he got up in that fantastic fashion— dressed as a ghost?

"And, anyway, if he hadn't been stealing bombs, he'd been stealing stores.

"And once again, where were the stolen bombs?

"Yes, The Red Devil was puzzled.

"But he wasn't as puzzled as I, who knew that neither Cookie nor anybody else had been within twenty yards of those two bombs.

"The Red Devil sat at his table and stared me in the eyes until I began to feel that he could read every thought that was in my mind, and a good many that weren't.

"'I'll see you again later,' he whispered, at length, 'when I have made further inquiries, and if I find you've told me a word of untruth, you shall have some cause to share your mother's favourite wish.'

"He didn't say what that was, but I imagined the fellow intended to suggest that my mother wished I'd never been born.

"However, that very night something occurred to turn The Red Devil's attention elsewhere.

"Another sentry lost his bombs!

"That really put Sergeant-Major Essad on his mettle.

"He swore by Allah and a number of other remarkable phenomena that he would do the next bomb-loser to death in a curious manner.

"And that he would raze the poste to the ground, tear it to fragments piecemeal, and sift the scraps through a sieve, but that he'd find those bombs— if they were in the Fort.

"You can imagine the state we were all in by that time, and, had it not been for the fact that Essad stopped the issue of bombs pending the solution of the mystery, I don't know what would have happened. We should have all shot each other, I think, we were so jumpy and nervous.

"The day that The Red Devil cancelled the order for issuing bombs, I was sitting talking to Odo Klemens.

"'And thank le bon Dieu for that,' said I. 'If I'd gone on sentry one more time, with a couple of hand-grenades, I should have thrown them at myself.'

"Odo Klemens laughed.

"'Wonderful mystery, wasn't it?' he said,

"'A bit too wonderful for me,' I agreed. 'Thank God we shan't have any more of it.'

"'No, we shan't have any more of it,' grinned Odo, and laughed again.

"'Something seems to be amusing you,' I growled.

"'Something certainly is amusing me,' he laughed afresh.

"I didn't like Odo's laugh. It was always more or less unpleasant, and when it did not give the impression that he was laughing at you, it quite distinctly gave the impression that he was laughing at something you were too stupid to understand.

"I quite distinctly remember feeling, on that occasion, that he was enjoying a joke that, though far too subtle for me, was fully shared by Abd-el-Kader.

"He patted the dog's head and pulled its ears as he spoke, and the dog rolled over on its back, its bent legs in the air, and laughed aloud.

"Odo Klemens laughed again.

"And the dog laughed again.

"It rolled over on its side, helpless with laughter.

"I was quite annoyed at the way they shared the joke while excluding me, so I got up and went to the cookhouse.

"...Did I mention that The Red Devil had appointed me Company cook— solely on the grounds that I'd shot the official incumbent?...

"However, as you know, mes amis, I am of a gentle and forgiving nature, and when Abd-el-Kader called round, a little later, I gave him a big bone that had already seen its best days— and a good many of them.

"With a word of thanks and a nod, the dog took the bone, and did not gnaw it.

"On the contrary, he marched away with it and a great air of purpose.

"'Well, damn it all,' said I. 'Is the dog going to sell it, or frame it, or what?'

"I followed him to see what he did do with it.

"He did nothing with it— except use it to keep me following him. So long as I followed, he did nothing; and as long as he did nothing, I followed.

"And I got tired first.

"'Well,' thought I, 'Abd-el-Kader is as clever as the devil, as artful as the devil's daughter, and as cunning as her mother. But surely I, Tant de Soif, a man, am as intelligent as Abd-el-Kader, the dog?'

"So when I saw old Père Poussin, I seized him by the arm, turned my back on Abd-el-Kader, and pointed up to the sky.

"'Look, petit Poussin,' said I.

"'What at?' asked he.

"'Nothing,' said I.... 'But listen. Follow Abd-el-Kader, your cousin, without appearing to follow him, and see what he does with that damned great bone that he's carrying about like a cornet-player. Go on, my clever Poussin. Follow him.... Watch him.... Secret Service....'

"'Follow him yourself,' replied Père Poussin, who, as you all know, is a mannerless and foolish old man.

"'I've been doing so for some hours,' I replied. 'Now you take up the trail, and I'll give you my wine-ration to-morrow if you— deserve it.'

"By-and-bye, Poussin came and told me that, from a coign of vantage, he had looked down upon Abd-el-Kader, and watched his doings unseen.

"The dog had merely buried the bone.

"Nothing much in that!... Quite so.

"But, that evening, being on sentry, I noticed Abd-el-Kader leave the fort.

"'You'd better do your business quickly, my lad,' I admonished him as he passed, 'or take your latchkey with you.'

"And, as I spoke, I noticed that, whether Abd-el-Kader had got his latch-key with him or not, he'd certainly got the big bone.

"'Well, now,' thought I, 'where's he taking that? Does he think he'll get a better price for if in the Arab market?'

"It struck me as queer that Abd-el-Kader should bury the bone in the poste and then, just before the gates were shut, exhume it and take it outside. Very curious; for Abd-el-Kader always had a good reason for anything he did.

"So I watched him, thinking I'd see which way he went, and note whether he came back before Retreat.... The thought did cross my mind that he might be going to treat himself to a night out, and that the bone was intended to be in the nature of a— what shall we say?... A love-token; a bribe; a pourboire... ? But I put the thought away.

"'Honi soit qui mal y pense,' said I. 'What reason have I to doubt the moral character of Abd-el-Kader?'

"But, somewhat to my surprise, he didn't go very far, nor had he any assignation.

"He merely went to our only tree, some four hundred metres away, and there, so far as I could see, he again buried the bone.

"Having done so, he deliberately made a detour, approached the poste from a different direction, and, just as the gates were being shut, came in with a rather smug look on his face, as of one who says,

"'Something attempted, something done, to earn a night's repose.'"

Tant de Soif stopped and eyed his audience.

Bellême passed him a mug, and Tant de Soif bowed and drank.

"Next afternoon," he resumed, "finding myself passing our only tree, I remembered Abd-el-Kader, and thought I'd play a little trick on that self-sufficient dog. Since he had refused to let me see what he did with that bone, I wouldn't let him see what I did with it. I'd remove his bone, and then watch him scratch his puzzled head when he came to look for it.

"I kicked away some sand, and delved a little with my hands, and, sure enough, discovered the bone.

"Also, some other bones.

"Likewise, some things that were not bones.

"Not bones at all. Nothing like bones.

"And what were they?

"The missing bombs!

"I nearly fainted.... And I nearly swore.

"I saw it all.

"Odo Klemens!

"Yes; my friend Odo Klemens. He had trained that infernal dog to steal and bury bones in the poste— secretly. Then, to dig them up and take them out of the poste— also secretly. When no one was looking.

"When Abd-el-Kader was word-perfect in his part, and as clever as Houdini, Cinqvalli— or ce bon Bombelli himself— Odo had led him on, from stealing bones to stealing bombs, and following the same procedure with them.

"Doubtless he deceived the dog, or at any rate interested him, by rubbing the bombs with mutton-fat.

"I don't know.

"But I do know that, in one blinding flash of revelation, I saw the whole thing.

"I saw those bombs disappearing, one after the other, from the very feet of the nervous, worried sentries who gazed anxiously and watchfully around, looking for the approach of a man, an Arab, a ghost, a devil, a djinn— while Odo Klemens' faithful doggie, Abd-el-Kader, sat at their feet or played around and helped beguile the tedium of their watch.

"'I see it all,' said I.

"'And I'll see some more,' I added.

"'Mon Dieu, yes. I'll bide my time and catch ce bon Monsieur Odo Klemens out. I'll watch, and I'll wait, and I'll see some more.'

"But I didn't see any more— for Odo Klemens and Abd-el-Kader deserted that night.

"And in the morning, full of importance, honest indignation, and vindicated righteousness, I obtained an interview with The Red Devil himself.

"I told him the whole story.

"I led him to the cache of bombs.

"There were no bombs.

"There was only me... and The Red Devil."

_____________________

3: Mastic— And Drastic

OLD TANT DE SOIF, incurable laudator temporis acti, was reminiscent on the subject of his admired and beloved Captain Le Sage, of whom our Lieutenant Desalles reminds him. Tant de Soif can pay no man a higher compliment than to permit him to remind Tant de Soif of this legendary officer, his beau idéal of a leader and a fighting man.

"Lieutenant Desalles will do," said he, as we lolled and lounged through siesta-time after our sumptuous lunch.

"He has the makings of a Legion officer of the old school and the right stamp.... But yes, he will grow up into something very like a man.... He may even become another Le Sage— of whom he already begins to remind me, young as he is.

"'What was Le Sage like?'... Oh, like a soldier. Like a man and a leader and an officer worthy to command légionnaires— by which I mean légionnaires also of the old school, of the type that has vanished, or is rapidly vanishing.... Men like myself, par exemple. He was quiet... almost gentle... and grim; low-voiced, easy; very clever; with the determination of a bull-dog. He had no courage because he had no fear and did not know what danger was.

"He neither wanted to live nor to die; to be wounded nor remain unwounded; to be promoted nor to be passed over; to be decorated nor to be left in obscurity.

"He cared for none of these things. No— but he cared for us.... And he cared for his job.

"What he did want, was to be the perfect soldier and officer, rendering absolute obedience— even unto Death— and exacting it.

"He lived for his work— and we lived for him.

"'What was he like?'... Oh, tall, splendid physique, well set up, strong, lithe, and agile.

"'In face?'... Oh, rather narrow and long, with grey-green eyes; straight mouth beneath small clipped moustache; a twinkle of humour about both mouth and eyes— when they were not grim and hard with determination, pain or anger.

"For he was quick to anger as he was slow to forgive.

"Ah, I shall not look upon his like again, unless I live to see Lieutenant Desalles grow into such another...

"My Captain...

"Did I tell you about him and the enterprising citizen who proposed to turn an honest penny by poisoning, maddening and actually killing us, Le Sage's silly légionnaires, in his foul bouge?

"No?... Oh, that was good. Really good. And so typical of our quiet, clever and ruthless Captain Le Sage.... A neat little sample of his methods, and an epitome of his logical thought, character, actions and ways.

"Le Sage, you must know, considered no man as being drunk so long as he could perform his duty when on duty, and behave quietly and properly when not on duty.

"He did not punish for drunkenness, but he severely punished the wrong-doing due to drunkenness. I mean that drunkenness was absolutely no excuse whatsoever for any misconduct whatsoever.

"Also he tried to see that we got nothing but good wine— when we got anything at all. And he was as blind as any blind man to those things which a good officer knows that it is better for him not to see.... On a feast day, or some good occasion and opportunity for proper rejoicings....

"But a real breach of discipline— Heaven help him who committed it.

"And when he marched us into Fort Bugeaud, away down in the South, there was not a finer Company, commanded by a finer officer, in the French Army— and that is to say in the whole world.

"There was nothing to do at Fort Bugeaud— except work... nothing to see but sand and sky... nothing to drink but some poor wine in the little shops of the bazaar— miserable huts and holes-in-the-wall mostly kept by Arabs... and nothing to eat but army rations.

"However, we being the men we were, and Le Sage being the commandant that he was, we didn't fare too badly. He found us plenty to do, and saw that we did it; and there was no harassing for the sake of harassing, no overdriving, no bullying, and very little punishment indeed. Fort Bugeaud was the model poste, for efficiency, smartness and discipline.

"And then, suddenly, trouble began— quite remarkable, inexplicable, and ugly trouble.

"It began by Maartens and Burgher, two very good Dutchmen, being brought back from the bazaar one night, drunk and very much more than drunk.... Mad, in fact.... Absolutely raving mad, fighting mad... amok... dangerous....

"Now Maartens and Burgher were two of those proper légionnaires who never get drunk in any circumstances, or under any temptation, inducement, or compulsion. Those two had never been drunk once in all their years of service, for nothing could make them drunk.

"Nor— if any conceivable mixture and variety of good liquor could have been poured into them in such quantities as to intoxicate those two Dutchmen— would it ever have had the effect of making them fighting-drunk.

"For they were stolid, sensible men, who, being paid to fight, fought when they had to, for their pay and nothing else.

"When they had to fight, they fought like tigers, but they did not fight for amusement— any more than a navvy digs up a road for amusement, after he has done his day's work at digging up a road.

"And here were Maartens and Burgher dragged back from the village into the poste, like the most savage of wild beasts just captured in the jungle.

"Their uniforms were shameful— and shameless— rags; they were covered in blood and dirt; and they had made the picket that brought them in nearly as bad as themselves.

"And, safe inside, they were like a pair of panthers in a trap.

"Maartens sprang on Sergeant Meredal, knocked him out, and nearly killed him before we tore the raving maniac from the prostrate form of his superior officer. Not that we tore too hard, for we weren't very fond of Sergeant Meredal, whereas we had the greatest liking for Maartens, and admired him the more for putting up this wonderful drunk— Maartens who had always been as sober as a judge, when full as an egg and tight as a tick....

"And while I was trying to get Maartens' hands from around Sergeant Meredal's neck just in time for that competent N.C.O. to recover (and no sooner), I saw Burgher shake off the three or four men who were holding him, and make a swift dash in the direction of Captain Le Sage, who was approaching to see what all the row was about.

"I stuck out a leg and luckily brought him down, for he had murder in his eye, and absolute madness in the hole where his mind should have been. Just sheer blind, maniacal lunacy, for both he and Maartens loved Le Sage as a father, and a fine one at that....

"Well— it was a job of work to get those two madmen in cells, and then we had to go in to them again, for Le Sage said they were to be bound, hand and foot, for their own good, and gagged for his. He'd have had no sleep otherwise, and he never lost his proper sleep unless he were fighting overtime, or doing a forced march. He used to say that it was a soldier's duty to sleep, when it wasn't his duty not to sleep....

"He gave orders for Maartens and Burgher to be brought up before him next morning. But it wasn't next morning for the Dutchmen. They were deaf, dumb, blind and silly; and we only knew that they were still alive because they still breathed.

"Not that one should really call the disgusting noise 'breathing'... worse than old Père Poussin sleeping on his back.... Snorting, snoring, what you will.

"Anyhow, they were making sounds indicative of life— and suggestive of early death.

"I never in all my days saw two such utter complete and perfect drunks— until a day or two later... and then I saw three of them.

"One of them was Père Poussin here, and as you know, Père Poussin is no drunkard.... He does his best, I admit, but there is no man alive— except myself and the survivors of the garrison of Fort Bugeaud, if there be any— who ever saw Père Poussin drunk. But he was as drunk as seven owls that night, all right. And the other two were Petrovitch and an ex-Prussian Grenadier named Krafft.

"Now Petrovitch was a former Sergeant of the Russian Guard— the famous Preobrazhenski Regiment, a man weaned on vodka, and who could drink vodka or any other neat spirit just as freely as the modern soldier can drink cold water after a dry march, and with as little effect on his brain, if he had any.

"And Krafft was a man of iron, a real Prussian, who could look a nine-gallon barrel of beer in the face at sunrise, and defeat it ere the sun went down upon his thirst that day.

"Now what, I ask you (and Captain Le Sage asked himself), could have happened to three such men as these, that they also should be brought in— not so much intoxicated as poisoned— not so much drunk as mad.

"For they had gone mad as dogs do when they get rabies and develop hydrophobia.

"In a sense, they had always suffered from hydrophobia, of course, as they hated water, whether inside them or outside them, whether falling upon them from Heaven as they marched, or splashing beneath their feet as they forded streams.

"The scene they made in the village, on the road coming back, and inside the poste, was similar to that staged by Maartens and Burgher, but conceived and executed on a grander scale, because they were grander men— bigger and stronger, both as men and as drinkers.

"Also, there were three of them.

"And I can inform you, mes amis, authoritatively, that there was considerable wear and tear, especially tear, and much disharmony and friction, before those three heroes were safely trussed-up in the cells.

"When I looked in, later on, to see that Père Poussin was comfortable, I could only distinguish him from the Russian and the Prussian by the fact that his right hand still clutched a good fistful of beard. Not his own, for he shaved regularly every Saturday night so as to start the week well, and look smart and soldierly all the time.

"Well, while these three poor fellows were still unconscious, and breathing like stranded whales, Burgher and Maartens recovered sufficiently to attend a reception held in their honour, and in the orderly-room, by Captain Le Sage.

"The charge was one of resisting the guard, damaging Government property, over-staying leave, and using language prejudicial to good discipline.... No mention of drunkenness.... Nothing about striking a superior officer— which would have been somewhat more than serious for Messieurs Burgher and Maartens, with a prison and Penal Battalion sentence as the least they could hope for.

"The two Dutchmen, still as drunk as newts and sick as salamanders, pleaded absence of mind, recent bereavements, some bad tinned fish, birthdays, senility, moon-stroke and a bottle of flat beer between them, taken upon empty stomachs and a foolish impulse.

"Captain Le Sage sentenced them to twenty-one years' solitary confinement— with remission of twenty years and fifty-one weeks, provided they told him exactly what they had drunk, and where they had got it.

"But that was the trouble....

"Anxious as they were to shorten their sentence by even twenty years and fifty-one weeks, they simply could not tell Le Sage anything about it....

"Not a word....

"They could not even tell us, their admiring comrades, who longed to emulate their really fine feat and, if possible, to lower their record— until that night the record drunk of the Foreign Legion. They could not even tell each other— for they did not know....

"All they did know was that they had marched out of Fort Bugeaud one evening, sober soldiers of blameless life and spotless record, and had more-or-less awakened two or three days later more-or-less alive, to find themselves bound and gagged comfortably at home in their old familiar prison-cells.

"As to the intervening period, their minds were blank, and blank they remained.

"Le Sage sent them back to la boîte, and there applied various stimulants— to the memory.... But you can't stimulate what is dead.... You can't get something out of nothing— and their minds were nothing.... They were vacant....

"Then came the turn of Père Poussin, Krafft and Petrovitch, who, as I have told you, had set up a fresh record so soon after the new one established by Maartens and Burgher.

"Just the same with them.

"Not even the wiliness or the ruthlessness, not even the cajolery or the leniency of Captain Le Sage could get out of these three any account of what had happened to cause their downfall, from the position of soldiers who can carry their liquor, to the level of pimply pékins who cannot.

"Nor is it for one moment to be supposed that these five were stoutly guarding a sacred secret— the whereabouts of a hidden shrine in which Bacchus could be invoked with a liquor so potent that even a seasoned légionnaire could not get away with it....

"Old Père Poussin would have told me at once, and if he had not, I'd have wrung his soul from his miserable body and his secret from his more miserable soul.

"No— they simply did not know.

"Whatever they had drunk was like one of those poisons that injure the mind more than the body, and destroy the memory completely.

"In this case, of course, it was only the destruction of memories and not of the memory itself— and of memories, curiously enough, connected with the drink itself, prior and posthumous... I mean posterior.... What are you laughing at, Poussin, my gentle jackal? Yes, I said 'posterior'... .

"Speaking to the more intelligent of my audience, I remark that, curiously enough, they remembered everything up to the time of going in search of a drink.... They clearly remembered what they said and did when dressing for walking-out, and when going along the road to the village... things like that... but nothing about the place to which they went, nor of what they did there. "Not one of the five could remember that. A queer business...."

TANT DE SOIF fell silent in reminiscence for a minute, and I tried to recall the name of a drug (dhatura) of which I had heard a good deal in India— a horrible poison used by the thugs— of which a certain dose would infallibly kill a man, a lesser dose render him insane for life, and a yet smaller one cause complete loss of memory and general vacuity of mind.

"Well," continued Tant de Soif, "Le Sage dealt faithfully with the five of them, and promised that what they got was nothing to what they would get if it happened again, and less than nothing to what anybody else would get if it happened to him.

"Naturally this rendered us all very anxious.

"No, my excellent Harris, not anxious lest we should inadvertently drink of this new and strange potion, and innocently come upon trouble.

"Not at all.

"Our anxiety was lest Le Sage should discover the source of it before we did.

"Then, while the five heroes were still gareeb and miskeen, still shaky and quiet, sick and sorry, distrustful of life and of alcohol itself, D'Alvers, a nice French boy, who had come to the Legion because his Mistress had married his Papa— a distinguished General— followed in their footsteps....

"Only he did not follow them far enough.... Only into the cells— and not out again....

"He died there.

"A joke's a joke, as Bellême frequently observes, but this was carrying a joke too far— carrying it to the Gates of Hell and through them.

"True, he was only a child of three years' Cavalry service and four years' Legion, and he had been trying to drink himself to death ever since he joined us, but it was not right that one evening's fun should kill him.

"Yes, he behaved exactly as the others had done— like a cross between a wild beast and a raving lunatic. No— he did not die of the treatment he got, because he was not gagged nor unduly trussed up... nothing like crapaudine, only just hands and feet for his own good.

"Why wasn't he gagged? Because he wasn't howling. He was dumb and frothing at the mouth.

"Either he had had a bigger dose than the others, which is likely— as he only drank in order to forget and to hasten his end— or else he was of poorer drinking-physique than the others, which is also likely.

"Probably both.

"Anyhow, he died.

"No, my dear Cigale, it was not a lovely death.... Not at all.... Not the peaceful and pleasant passing of one who sinks beneath the strong Waters of Lethe after having bathed in them for a life-time.

"Le Sage was really troubled about it— for he knew le bon papa Général, and he was fond of the boy, a real soldier who, but for the unfortunate love-affair, would undoubtedly have grown up to be a distinguished General himself.

"Yes, Le Sage was troubled, angry, and on his mettle.

"As usual, when in trouble, he sent for me.

"'Tant de Soif,' he said, 'you damned drunken old scoundrelly grognard'— that was only his way of showing his affection for me, just a term of endearment— 'Tant de Soif, mon vieux, I want your help... I rely on you.... You have got to find out what this high-explosive poison is, and where these half-witted, half-human idiots are getting it.

"So far, I am defeated. I have been to every filthy bouge and casse-croûte, every hut and hole and shed that sells anything at all, and have found— nothing. Nothing but the usual muck with which you peripatetic barrels— no, you walking dust-bins, you wandering garbage-boxes, you perpendicular sewers— poison your foul and worthless selves....

"'You are a Frenchman, Tant de Soif. You have been decorated twice. You are a soldier and a patriot, a man of honour, a real...'"

"'Liar,' interrupted Père Pousin. 'A real liar.' That's what Le Sage said. He also said, 'Tant de Soif, if that great red nose of yours can't smell out this stuff, what good is it and what good are you? None— for you certainly are no good for anything else, you drunken disreputable ration-robber.' That's what he said...."

And having delivered himself thus, Père Poussin closed his eyes and his mouth and began to snore.

"The poor ancient is failing— rapidly," observed Tant de Soif with apparent concern. "Poor old soul.... Drink.... Drink.... Alas!

"However, as I was saying, Le Sage turned to me in his trouble, and when such a man as My Captain wants my help, he gets it.

"'I want your help,' he repeated. 'I rely on you. You've got to solve this mystery. Find out what they're getting, and find out where they're getting it.'

"'Consider it done, mon Capitaine,' replied I, in a prompt and soldierly manner, as I saluted, turned about, and marched from the orderly-room.

"'Hi!' he called, as I reached the door. 'I can consider it done, can I?... Well, don't you keep me considering too long.

"'You are excused from duty until you've solved the problem, or until somebody else gets drunk,' he added, and as I again saluted he added some more.

"'And if that happens before you track it down— I'll put you into cells for thrice that period....'

"Once more I saluted and turned to go.

"'Hi!' called Captain Le Sage again, as he saw my back. 'Here's a franc. Lay it out wisely and well in the wine-shops, for I'll have it— and another— out of you, if you discover nothing. So don't go and sit down and drink it, and come back with a conte borgne.'

"WELL, off I went to the wine-shops of the village nègre, with a roving commission, and thoroughly and copiously, albeit discreetly, I sampled their goods— or rather their bads.

"Alleged wine I drank in each; near beer, problematical pernod, reputed rum, villainous vermouth, ambiguous absinthe, synthetic syrops, concocted cognac, supposititious slivoviche, absolute alcohol and pure genuine, unadulterated, methylated spirit. Also tchum-tchum, a very beautiful rice-spirit.

"All these things I drank, severally and separately, as well as in every conceivable permutation and combination. Did they make me drunk? Not in the slightest degree, much less raving mad.

"Also I tried a very good combination of tchum-tchum, methylated spirit, pernod and rogomme on old Poussin here. Did it make him raving mad? No.... Make him drunk? No.... On the contrary. Our Poussin demanded that I add cognac to the mixture to give it a kick.

"By the time I had worked through the whole lot— every single place in the bazaar where one could get a drink of any sort— I had to confess that I was puzzled.

"Foiled, defeated, despairing? No. But puzzled, decidedly.

"I followed all our distinguished drinkers about, tracked them to their lairs, spied upon them— in their own best interests, bien entendu— but discovered nothing.

"For each one merely emerged on his feet, or on his ear, at closing time, or at such time as, having spent his sous, he could no longer maintain his position against the assaults of mine host and his myrmidons.

"But whether he came out on his own feet or on a comrade's back; whether he came out on his own back or beneath his comrades' feet, dragged along by his own, he was no more drunk than a good soldier should be.

"Every man of them was able to hit— or miss— a comrade, to embrace him or to kick him, and if some weakling were not equal to these feats, he was at least ordinarily peaceful, could easily be dragged along the road, and be quietly, comfortably, thrown into cells.

"Yes, I was puzzled, and by the time a week had passed, I was worried as well as puzzled, for Le Sage was always a man of his word, and I knew that if we had another such delirium tremens case that Saturday night, I should get three weeks' cellule punishment.

"Then Luck, Chance, Fate, or the Guardian Angel of all Good Soldiers, or my own private Patron Saint, took a hand and came to my help.

"There was a queer chap in the Company then, a Finn. I don't know whether Finns are really Swedes, Russians, Eskimos, or a kind of Red Indian, but they have very fine heads.

"Manly beauty? No, I don't mean that. Great brains and intellect? No, that's not what I mean. When I say fine heads, I mean very strong heads.

"They're rightly called Finns, for fins suggest fishes and they can drink like fishes. In a manner of speaking, you might say that all Finns are teetotallers, inasmuch as no Finn has ever been seen the worse for liquor. No Finn ever gets drunk. He can't.

"Well, one night, when I was sadly returning to Fort Bugeaud very late— I had a permanent late pass, of course— I suddenly almost stumbled over the body of one of our men.

"The corpse was lying with its feet in the gutter and its head against the doorstep of a house.

"'Mon Dieu!' thought I. 'Murder! Stabbed in the back for a handful of copper coins.'

"Stooping, I turned the body over, so that the moonlight fell upon its face. It was Idensalmisen— the Finn whom I mentioned.

"No need to close his eyes, as they were already shut. No need to staunch his wound, as there wasn't one. No need to fetch a stretcher-party for the body, as it suddenly heaved a sigh and emitted a gentle snore.

"In my relief, and to show my pleasure, I fetched Idensalmisen a good kick in the ribs. When I say a good kick, I mean one calculated to rouse the dead— or the drunk.

"It did not rouse Idensalmisen, and as he was not dead, obviously he must be drunk.

"Idensalmisen had broken the Finnish national record. He had achieved the impossible. He had got drunk.

"But what, what could possibly have made Idensalmisen drunk?

"And then my Patron Saint or the Guardian Angel of all Good Soldiers opened the door of his guard-lantern and let in a great light upon my brain.

"Of course! Of course! Ten Thousand Thundering Tin Devils Capering Convulsively on a Corrugated Iron Roof! That which had put Idensalmisen gently to sleep must be the Identical Drink that had driven Maartens, Burgher, Père Poussin, Petrovitch and Krafft raving mad, and had killed the French boy.

"It leapt to the eye. I felt certain that I was seeing daylight— as well as moonlight— at last.

"And assuming that I was right, where had Idensalmisen got it? Would he remember, when he recovered? And would he tell me if he did remember?

"Both were possible, if not probable. Seeing that a poison, which had sent five men mad and killed another, merely put the good Idensalmisen peacefully to sleep, it seemed quite likely that the same poison might have no effect upon the memory of the granite-headed Finn.

"Another idea occurred to me— for, as you have noticed, I am a man of ideas— and that was the notion that the house outside which Idensalmisen was lying might very well be the one in which he had been defeated. Defeated by the bottle, I mean.

"Judging from the way in which he was lying, his appearance, and the cleanness and general condition of his uniform, Idensalmisen had not been in trouble. He had not been fighting; he had not been violently thrown out of a wine-shop; and he had not been rolling about in the gutter.

"In fact, it seemed to me probable that he had stepped out of the house, thought to himself, 'I feel very sleepy. I think I'll have a nap,' had promptly lain down, and with the low door-step for a pillow, peacefully composed himself to slumber.

"I looked up at the house.

"It was one of the best, or should I say, one of the least bad, of the shops in the bazaar, a place kept by a camp-follower, a sutler, who called himself a Greek because he was as much that as anything, or perhaps because he was neither wholly Arab, Negro, nor Mussulman.

"Anyhow, he dressed more or less like a European, wore a fez cap and called himself Papadopoulos.

"Les légionnaires called him Papa Something-else in recognition of the fact that, even for a half-caste Greek sutler, he was something quite special.

"Yes, he was a bad one, that Monsieur Papadopoulos. And my comrade Idensalmisen was lying outside his house.

"Well, as soon as the bright light, which I told you about, illuminated my brain, I stopped kicking Idensalmisen and kicked the door of Monsieur Papadopoulos instead.

"Getting no more result from kicking the door of Papadopoulos than I had from kicking the ribs of Idensalmisen, I rested awhile.

"Then for a time I kicked alternately at the door and the Finn.

"When this again became monotonous, I desisted, sought for a stone, found what I wanted, and threw it at the window which opened on to the rickety verandah that overhung the ramshackle shop of Monsieur Papadopoulos.

"Noises followed. A satisfactory crash, a tinkle of falling glass, squeals, squeaks and squawks from frightened or delighted or hopeful females, and a loud roar from Monsieur Papadopoulos.

"'Thieves! Robbers! Assassins! Murder!' he bawled. 'What's that?'

"'It was the Archangel Gabriel's slipper,' said I.

"'What?' shouted Papadopoulos, bounding out on to the verandah in the shirt and trousers which evidently he wore in bed, as well as out of bed. 'What?... The Archangel Gabriel?'

"'Yes,' said I, 'and worse— the picket. Come down and open the door at once.'

"I think Papa had gone to bed a little drunker than usual, or perhaps had been awakened too suddenly, and was somewhat confused in his mind. Anyhow, a minute later, bolts and bars were withdrawn, the door unlocked and opened, and there stood Papa, full of wrath, fear, bluster and liquor.

"'What's this?' he bawled.

"'A corpse,' said I. 'A murdered man. A légionnaire. Killed in your house... assassinated by...'

"'Nonsense! Rubbish! He's...' spluttered Papa. 'Why, he walked out of my shop as...'

"'Oho!' said I. 'Aha!' said I. 'Walked out of your shop, did he? I thought so. Well, I'm going to walk into it.'

"'You're not,' contradicted Papa, as he suddenly sat down, and I stepped over him into the dark interior.

"'Assault!' shouted Papa. 'Battery! Robbery with violence! Burglary!'

"'Murder too,' I agreed. 'If you don't light the lamp.' And I drew my bayonet as noisily as I could.

"I was not going to stick Papa, of course. It was only for what they call moral effect. Or immoral effect. Anyhow, Papa lit the lamp as quickly as could reasonably be expected.

"'Now then,' said I. 'First of all, we'll bring the corpse inside, and then we'll reconstruct the crime. Then I'll fetch the picket to arrest you, so be careful— for anything you may say will be twisted into evidence against you.'

"'I tell you I'm innocent,' shouted Papa.

"'Don't tell me,' I replied coldly. 'Tell Captain Le Sage. But don't tell him more than once, unless you want to make him angry. Come and fetch the body in before somebody else robs it. You take the feet... so...'

"Reverently we laid the body of Idensalmisen on the floor beneath the lamp, and I closed and locked the door.

"'Now then,' said I. 'Tell me exactly what happened.'

"Papadopoulos had been pulling himself together, and what brain he had was beginning to work.

"'Happened?' he blustered. 'How do I know what happened? I never saw him before in my life. Is it my fault that somebody knocked the drunken dog on the head, outside my shop?... Are you such a fool as not to know that when they murder a man in one of the dives, they always lay his body outside somebody else's house?'

"'Oh, that's your habit and custom, is it, Monsieur Papadopoulos?' I replied. 'Well, we'll use that piece of evidence against you. Now then, stop lying, and tell the truth. Directly you saw, by the pure cold light of the moon, the poor dead face of my murdered comrade, the first words you uttered were,

"'"He walked out of my shop."

"'Those were your very words, your voluntary free confession. And to that I'll take my solemn oath before the drum-head court-martial that to-morrow will sentence you to be shot.'

"I spoke like Justice Incarnate, cold, incorruptible, remorseless, inexorable, inevitable— and Papadopoulos was badly shaken.

"He began to wilt, to tremble, to pale beneath his dirt.

"'Soldiers of France are not murdered,' I began.

"Idensalmisen emitted a loud snore.

"'No,' agreed Papadopoulos quickly. 'They get drunk.'

"He perked up visibly, shrugged his shoulders and laughed loudly. Papadopoulos was himself again.

"But I had been myself the whole time.

"'Soldiers of France are not murdered with impunity, I was about to say,' I resumed, 'and soldiers of France are being poisoned, assassinated, murdered, destroyed in this foul den, this sewer, this sink of iniquity.'

"'That one, for example?' sneered Papadopoulos, as Idensalmisen snored again.

"'Yes, that one, par exemple. That one, now dying at your feet. That one who will soon be as dead as poor young D'Alvers, the son of a General. Yes, Monsieur l'Assassin, what of D'Alvers, now lying stiff beneath the sand?... Poisoned by you.... What of him and of my other comrades, Maartens, Burgher, Poussin, Petrovitch, Krafft? All dead; all murdered; all poisoned.... And who all died accusing you.'

"'What?' cried Papadopoulos, aghast.

"'Yes,' said I. 'All dead... and this one dying.... All poisoned here.'

"I knew he could not have seen any of the five, for those who weren't in the holes labelled Cells, were in the similar hole labelled Hospital.

"'Now will you tell me the truth? Or must... ?'

"And I pointed the question— with the tip of my bayonet, to which Papa's paunch seemed to act as a powerful magnet.

"'What?' cried Papadopoulos again. 'Dead? Died accusing me?'

"'Yes, Monsieur l'Assassin,' I replied. 'Poisoned by you, Mr. Retail-Grocer-and-Wholesale-Murderer.

"'Your infamous name will live. Live to be spat upon by all decent men, and coupled with those of the most notorious and infamous criminals, the scum of the earth.

"'Now then, once again and for the last time, how did you poison them? What dreadful drink did you give to these splendid men, these distinguished drinkers, these men who could drink anything without turning a hair, much less without turning the whole place upside-down? What did you give them, I say?'

"'What did I give them?' snarled Papadopoulos. 'What should I give them but a bottle of good honest pinard? If I ever gave them anything at all, that is to say. I doubt if I ever set eyes on one of them. What do I know of your silly Burghers and cunning Kraffts and Spring Poussins? What you want...'

"And suddenly he stopped, and a look of slyness, an artful smile, and the light of an idea illuminated his dull and greasy countenance.

"'Yes?' I drawled sneeringly. What you want, I say, is a drink,' continued Papadopoulos.

"And, even as he spoke, I saw his game, I got his idea, I followed his train of thought! A very nice train, too, mes amis, and going in the right direction; in fact, straight to the very point at which I wanted to arrive.

"They are curious, these sudden premonitions, revelations, illuminations; these je ne sais quoi— whereby one knows, with absolute certainty, what is about to happen, what is about to be said, what is about to be done... perhaps some trivial, inconsequent thing... perhaps something of the first magnitude and highest importance.

"Before he said another word, I knew with absolute certainty that ce bon Papa was going to pour me out a bottle of the identical high-explosive that had shattered my five comrades, blown poor young D'Alvers to Hell, and put Idensalmisen gently to sleep.

"I was right.

"'You wait one moment,' said Papa, 'and I'll give you a bottle of the best wine you ever tasted. None of your Algerian slops. Some real Greek wine that's travelled thousands of miles and cost me an incredible amount for carriage alone. And if I give you a bottle of this priceless stuff, you've got to carry this dog's-body out again, and get him along the road.... Get him back to the Fort. You wouldn't abandon a comrade in distress, would you?... Leave him for the picket to find?...'

"I could have laughed aloud. Instead, I smiled pleasantly.

"This was good. This marched indeed. Papa was going to put me to sleep, too— or to death; or else send me raving mad like Messieurs Burgher, Maartens, Poussin, Krafft and Petrovitch. He was going to produce a bottle of the very stuff, the poison— stronger than a cocktail of arsenic, strychnine and prussic acid— of which I was in search.

"Bon. I had deserved well of My Captain. I, Tant de Soif, had done as he had bidden. I had discovered the man, the place and the potion.

"My smile must have grown wolfish, for, without another word, Papa waddled off, leaving me alone with the body of my comrade and the stock-in-trade of Monsieur Papadopoulos.

"Promptly I 'decorated myself' with a few useful and profitable articles, until, hearing the clip-clop of the returning slippers of Papa, I again kicked Idensalmisen in the ribs, and then bending tenderly over him, held his hand and soothed his brow.

"'Yes, he is dying,' I said, as Papa entered the shop from the door at the back, behind the counter. 'Dying here in a foreign land so far from home and...'

"'Well, drown sorrow then, légionnaire,' interrupted Papa brutally, as with a loud pop he drew a cork and poured a yellowish liquid, heavy and oily-looking, into a mug.

"'There,' he said, 'drink that, and you'll feel better.... Then you help your dying comrade home.'

"I picked the mug up and smelt the stuff.

"Now of what did it remind me? I wonder if you've noticed— but of course you must have done— how smells evoke memories. Yes, much more than sounds or sights. I never smell a tannery without seeing a certain town in France where I had happy days.... I can never smell a certain flower without immediately seeing a girl who— But we're talking of the poison of Papadopoulos....

"Directly I smelt this 'wine ', I had a vision of my Section at work on a ground-clearing fatigue. I was hacking-down and grubbing-up lentisk bushes.

"I beheld the scene as distinctly as I now smelt resin.... 'Greek wine!' We got some once, I remembered, on the way to Saigon— or was it Beyrout? Anyhow, we got it at Alexandria. They called it Greek wine, and we called it stewed pine-bark, boiled resin, and extract of fir-cone.

"'Drink it, man, drink it. Drink it down,' urged Papa. 'You a légionnaire, and afraid of a half-litre of fine wine!'

"Cautiously I tasted it, just a sip.

"Name of a name! But it was fiery stuff. It was real drink. It made tchum-tchum— a sip of which will knock a mule down— seem like milk, seem like a bland and gentle beverage for the weaning of tender infants.

"Tilting back my head I filled my mouth. It burnt it. My friends, that distilled brimstone burnt the mouth of Tant de Soif. The mere fumes of it affected my brain.

"Staggering to the door of the shop, mug in hand, I lurched out into the street, emptied my mouth into the gutter— and smacked my lips.

"I could taste nothing, feel nothing.

"Mon Dieu! What marvellous stuff! What a temptation! Bottled Satan!

"Did I fall? Did I falter? Did I fail? Did I show myself unworthy of My Captain's trust? No. A thousand times no!

"I thought of Le Sage and said, 'Get thee behind me, bottled Satan.'

"I thought of three weeks in a black but red-hot cell... and I was true to my trust, faithful to my master, loyal to my officer.

"'Get thee behind me, Papadopoulos,' I bawled; dashed the contents of the mug upon the ground; and stormed back into the shop.

"'I'm drunk,' I roared. 'I'm mad. I'm the Archangel Gabriel....'

"Papadopoulos sniggered.

"'That's so, légionnaire,' he said. 'You are, and you'll be in Heaven in a minute. That way to Heaven, through the door, and turn to your left. Take your copain with you. Come on, catch hold....'

"And a minute later, Idensalmisen and I were out in the street and Papa's door was banged, barred and bolted behind us.

"'BON, MON ENFANT,' said Captain Le Sage next morning when I told him of the adventure of the night.

"'And le légionnaire Idensalmisen is still asleep, is he?... H'm.... While ideas were flowing so freely into your otherwise empty skull, you didn't get the bright idea of bringing the bottle along with you, I suppose?... No?... You wouldn't. Would you know it again, or a similar one?'

"'But yes, mon Capitaine. Half-litre size, with sloping shoulders, rather like a hock-bottle; indentation in the base and a thickened rim round the neck."

"'Most observant. First-class scout— among bottles,' said Le Sage. 'Good. You are excused— cells. I'll think about that franc. Return to duty. Tell Sergeant Salzburger that I shall accompany the picket to-night, and that he's to take you.'

"Oh yes, mes amis, Le Sage was like that.

"Sure enough, out he marched with the picket that evening, and went into every wine-shop in the place.

"Oh, but it was amusing!

"Salzburger would kick open the door, call out, 'Garde à vous,' and everyone would jump up and spring to attention.

"Then Le Sage would stalk in and look round, and there would be some funny sights as a drunken man would be wedged upright between two faithful comrades, or a more drunken one shoved under a divan....

"One splendid fellow, all present and correct, stood magnificently to attention— with a basin on his head....

"The procedure in each place was the same.

"Having satisfied himself that all things were in order, and that every légionnaire who should have a pass had got it, Le Sage smiled in a fatherly manner, and then, in his most brutal voice, ordered everyone to clear out immediately and to report at the poste as soon as possible or a good deal sooner. Back to barracks at the pas gymnastique....

"You'd have thought there was a road-Marathon in progress.

"And, last of all, we came to the shop of Monsieur Papadopoulos. The same there.

"'Garde à vous!... Fixe!... Show all passes.... Excellent.'

"And then,

"'Sergeant Salzburger, take names. Every man, drunk or sober, dead or alive, to be inside Fort Bugeaud within five minutes.'

"You should have seen them jump to it— and run for it. Believe me, My Captain was a disciplinarian.

"'Carry on, Sergeant Salzburger,' says he, as soon as the shop was empty.

"'Close the door and guard it, Tant de Soif,' he added, as the picket tramped off.

"And you can bet that having closed the door, I mounted guard on the inside.

"Then Le Sage turned to Papadopoulos, who was looking mighty uncomfortable, and a bit yellower than usual.

"'Now, my friend,' said Le Sage, and seated himself at a little table by the counter. 'I must apologize for— er— disturbing harmony and— er— possibly interfering with business and— er— curtailing profits and— er— spoiling sport, and all that. However, we'll have a little harmony all to ourselves, you and I, shall we... and perhaps a little— er— profit, eh?'

Papadopoulos spread his big hands abroad and raised his shoulders above his ears.

"'M-Monsieur le C-Commandant...' he stammered.

"'Yes, a little harmony and a little profit. You and I are going to crack a bottle together, Monsieur Papadopoulos. Or better still, we'll have a bottle each. More profit, eh, Monsieur Papadopoulos, if not more harmony!

"'Yes, a bottle each. Now, first of all, you fetch me a bottle of your very best. The very best you've got, Monsieur Papadopoulos.'

"'Monsieur le Commandant, it is too much honour for my poor wine-shop. Hélas! I have nothing worthy; nothing better than the wine of Algérie, only poor pinard!'

"'And it's half water, eh? And dirty water at that. Well, it has to be good enough for my brave fellows, so it has to be good enough for me. Bring me a bottle.'

"With more waggles of his great hands and shrugs of his fat shoulders, Papadopoulos began another apology: but as Le Sage eyed him with the tigerish glare— that could make even us légionnaires tremble— and picked up his riding-whip, Papadopoulos leapt about and seized a bottle from the scores arrayed on the shelf behind him.

"With this and a glass and a corkscrew in his hands, he galloped round the counter, placed the glass on the table before Le Sage, drew the cork and poured out the wine.'

"Picking up the glass, Le Sage smelt the wine, tasted it, and replaced the glass upon the table.

"'Like a kind of wine,' he said. 'There's a smell and a flavour about it that suggests a sort of... almost... should one say?... a species of bad claret, hein?... H'm. Now a bottle for Monsieur Papadopoulos. Yes, a bottle for Monsieur Papadopoulos, and he and I will sit down and drink together— in harmony... and with profit.'

"'Oh, M'sieu le Commandant. It is too great an honour... far, far too great an honour,' gabbled Papadopoulos.

"'I agree,' assented Le Sage. 'But get your bottle.'

"With a somewhat shaky hand, Papadopoulos returned behind the counter and took another bottle from the same shelf— a bottle exactly like the one he had given Le Sage.

"'Oh dear me, no,' protested Le Sage, as Papadopoulos turned round with the bottle in his hand. 'Surely Monsieur le Propriétaire doesn't propose to drink the same poor stuff as he gives his customers. Most unfitting! We're not driven to that yet, I think. No, no, put that back, Monsieur Papadopoulos, and get yourself a bottle of your best, your rarest, your ripest.'

"'But M'sieu le Commandant, I assure you, with my hand on my heart,' began Papadopoulos.

"'And I'll assure you with my hand on your throat,' replied Le Sage, 'if you don't do what I tell you. You go and get a bottle of that rare old Greek wine, the fine grand wine that has travelled thousands of miles and cost you an incredible amount for carriage alone. Leave me the Algerian slops, and get Monsieur le Propriétaire— as is only fitting— a bottle of that priceless stuff, that "best wine he ever tasted".'

"'M'sieu le Commandant,' whimpered Papadopoulos, 'I do not understand....'

"'No? Well, get a bottle of the wine you gave my rascals, Burgher and Maartens and Krafft and Poussin and Petrovitch. Yes, and poor young D'Alvers. Get a bottle of the wonderful wine you opened last night for that scoundrel over there.'

"And swinging his great body round, Le Sage pointed at me.

"I thought he'd forgotten all about me, or supposed that I had mounted guard outside the door— and I knew that, in the confusion and his general fear and perturbation, Papadopoulos had not noticed me.

"'Come here, salaud,' shouted Le Sage. And in a smart and soldierly manner I marched forward and stood to attention in the light of the lamp.

"'Recognize him?' he growled at Papadopoulos. 'He's the man you didn't poison last night. The one you did poison is still asleep.'

"Papadopoulos stared at me and his loose mouth fell open.

"'Wonderful feller, isn't he?' jeered Le Sage. 'All merry and bright, smart and smiling— after drinking a bottle of your rare Greek wine— perhaps.

"'Rare Greek wine!' he growled. 'Well, it's going to be rarer.

"'Go and get a bottle, quick,' he snapped.

"'It's finished, M'sieu le Commandant. I swear to God that was the last bottle. It's finished.'

"'What's finished?' asked Le Sage quietly.

"Papadopoulos bit his knuckle.

"'The wine, Excellency.'

"What wine?'

"'The... the... the... the wine you were talking about.'

"'Ah? Yes? The wine that killed my légionnaire. So you did sell it to them, did you? Until it was finished, eh?'

"Le Sage rose to his feet and I thought Papadopoulos was going to fall down.

"'Listen, my good Papadopoulos,' said Le Sage in his softest, silkiest voice. 'Be wise. Be advised. Go and find just one more bottle of the rare old Greek wine.'

"'Excellency, there isn't one. There's not one left. Before God, I swear...'

"'Last chance, Monsieur Papadopoulos. Go and get a bottle of the rare old Greek wine. I don't swear anything at all, but I do most faithfully promise that it will be worse for you if I have to get it myself.

"'And mind you,' he added, 'I'll find it all right, if I have to bring my men here and pull the place to pieces.... Now I'll give you one minute in which to go and get a bottle— half-litre size, sloping shoulders, like a hock-bottle, base indented, and rim round the neck, eh?'

"And Le Sage glanced at the watch on his left wrist, as he took up his riding-whip in his right hand.

"With the sweat running down his fat face, Papadopoulos threw his hands downward, outward and apart, as though he were pulling open a concertina, shrugged his shoulders, shook his head, cast up his eyes, and turned to the door behind him.

"'Go with him, you,' snapped Le Sage.

"Nothing loth, I saluted, dashed round the counter and through the doorway, in pursuit of Papa.

"Down a short flight of steps he waddled into a sort of cellar or silo, dimly lighted by a native lamp.

"'Sh!' whispered Papa, glancing apprehensively over his shoulder. 'What about a ten-franc note— and the wrong bottle, hein? Ten francs.... A thousand centimes. A clean, new ten-franc note....'

"I felt that if I were exceeding my duty and going beyond my instructions in fetching Papa a kick, I could plead excess of zeal.

"It was a good kick.

"I exceeded again.

"Papa, with a groan, and what I think was a wicked word in Greek, scurried to the corner of the cellar and picked out one of a mound of bottles, lying on their sides, piled one upon the other.

"It was of the right size and shape, anyhow, whatever it might contain.

"'Ah!' smiled Le Sage, as we re-entered the shop. 'Found one, have you, Monsieur Papadopoulos? Good. Now, open it and come and sit down.'

"'M'sieu le Commandant, it is too much honour. I...'

"'Open that bottle, pour out a glass, and sit down on that chair.'

"Trembling, with shaking hands, Papa obeyed as best he might.

"'Ah, a golden wine,' observed Le Sage. 'Wine of Chios?... Allow me.'

"And picking up the glass, Le Sage smelt the liquor.

"'H'm. Curious. Also resinous. D'you know, my friend, anyone who did not know that this was rare old Greek wine might be forgiven for thinking it was raki or arrak or medicine... or furniture polish... or mastic?

"'D'you know, Monsieur Papadopoulos, that that's what I should have called it— mastic? Just nasty, dangerous, deadly poisonous mastic. However, I'm glad I'm wrong. I'm glad it's rare old Greek wine— for your sake. Drink it up.'

"'But M'sieu le Commandant, your Excellency, I never drink. I'm a man of the most abstemious... the most teetotal...'

"Le Sage laughed.

"'Come, come, Monsieur Papadopoulos. Abstemious of truth,' he said. 'A teetotaller there, all right.'

"Papadopoulos spread piteous, appealing hands.

"'In fact, you're a damned liar,' continued Le Sage. 'You go to bed drunk, or as drunk as you can get, every night of your life.'

"And then his voice changed suddenly and sharply.

"'Drink that up,' he ordered, and unfastened the flap of his pistol holster.

"Really pale by this time, and with a hand that shook till the 'wine' spilt, Papadopoulos obeyed.

"'Ah!' smiled Le Sage, and sipped at his own drink. 'A glass of wine with Monsieur Papadopoulos!

"'Fill up again,' he said in his orderly-room voice, a minute later, 'and don't spill any.'

"'M'sieu le Commandant, I beseech...'

"Le Sage put his hand on the butt of his revolver.

"'At once,' he said, and with a quick look round like that of a trapped beast, a glance that came to rest on Le Sage's half-drawn automatic, Papadopoulos again obeyed.

"'Ah!' smiled Le Sage, 'we'll call that Burgher's bottle, eh? Now we'll have Maartens'. Then Krafft's. Then, after that, Poussin's and Petrovitch's. Then one for Idensalmisen— who is still asleep. And so we shall arrive at D'Alvers' bottle. Eh, Monsieur Papadopoulos? D'Alvers' bottle. I hope we get as far as D'Alvers' bottle.

"Papa hiccupped.

"'Oh, but a monumental, a colossal hiccup.

"'You should put your hand up when you do that,' rebuked Le Sage.

"'Go and get Burgher's bottle,' he continued.

"'M'sieu le Comma... Comma... hic...'

"Le Sage made a threatening movement, and Papadopoulos lurched to his feet.

"'Go with him, you,' ordered Le Sage.

"And again we went to the cellar.

"'Twenty fr... fr... hic... ancs,' hiccupped Papadopoulos, and made toward a different heap of bottles.

"I kicked him twice.

"I could not lose twenty francs for less.

"For a teetotaller, Papa had a good head and a good stomach.

"He opened the second bottle himself, poured out the two big glasses one after the other, at Le Sage's word of command, and drank them both.

"'Now, I think, a bottle for Krafft, eh?' suggested Le Sage.

"Papa's reply was really inaudible, incoherent, and incomprehensible; and it was quite obvious that the third bottle would have to be brought for him.

"I fetched it and opened it, but Papadopoulos drank it.

"I imagined that the last of his powers to fail would be the power of lifting a glass to his lips.

"THEY SAY, my friends, that there is good in everyone; something to admire in the worst of us.

"By the time Le Sage had made Papadopoulos drink to the living men, whom he had nearly killed, I began quite to admire him. Papadopoulos was a really eminent drinker.

"Yes, I found myself admiring him.

"He couldn't talk, he couldn't walk, and I doubt if he could see.

"But he could drink. He could drink, and he could understand what was said to him.

"And so it went on.

"Then suddenly Le Sage said,

"'We will now drink to the memory of a man, a fine man, a soldier who called himself D'Alvers. Open the bottle, Tant de Soif, and fill the glass of Monsieur Papadopoulos.'

"I did so.

"Le Sage raised his glass.

"'To the memory of le légionnaire D'Alvers,' he said. 'Drink, Monsieur Papadopoulos.'

"For the last time, Papadopoulos obeyed. Lowering his head to the glass, he drank suckingly... clutched the glass in his two hands, drank from it, dropped it with a crash, and sprawled across the table.

"'Hi! Wake up!... Manners, manners!... Sit up, man,' cried Le Sage.

"But Papa could not sit up. In fact, he couldn't sit at all, for suddenly he slumped, lurched from his chair, fell, and lay sprawling on the floor.

"'Wake him up,' ordered Le Sage. 'Revive the gentleman. Bring him round.'

"I rendered First Aid.... And Second.... And Third.

"I did things to Papa that should have raised the dead, let alone the drunk. Things that should have galvanized a mummy into life.

"Le Sage stood tapping the leg of his boot with his whip.

"'Well, you certainly found the stuff, my lad,' he said at length. 'That was the genuine article, all right.'

"'Oui, mon Capitaine,' said I. 'I'm afraid I shan't be able to bring him round— for some more. He's dead drunk.'

"Le Sage laughed.

"'He's drunk dead, too, mon enfant,' he said. 'Quite dead.'

"AND, AS always, My Captain was right.

"Papadopoulos was dead... dead as poor D'Alvers."

_____________________

4: The Death Post

I NEVER QUITE got at the actual facts of this story— never quite got hold of it properly. Perhaps that is why it interested me so much; kept me guessing, as it were.

The peculiar circumstances in which it was told, and the handicaps which hampered both teller and listener, offer good enough excuse for any vagueness.

While listening to the story I felt that I was listening to the truth— one of those strange human documents which carry conviction.

Undeniably Krassilov had been what he said he had been. His speech, face, ankles, wrists, hair, all bore mute testimony; and his hands— particularly his hands.

AND HOW I should have liked to see the woman Katinka, and have a talk with her. I may go that way, some day, and seek her out.

There are women who are worth crossing the world to visit, let alone merely crossing Europe.

Yes, if I ever go down the Danube again, I shall go and see whether she is anything like the picture I have made of her. Perhaps I shall go down the Danube on purpose.

MOST PRISONS have their drawbacks. Some seem to aim at having little else. I am not properly acquainted with English prisons, as, upon the few occasions when I have sojourned in them, I have been a guest, not of His Majesty, but of the Governor— and none but the prisoners really know the prison.

Of French, African, Mexican, Colonial, Portuguese and Moroccan and South American "military" prisons I have had some experience, and can testify that the prisons of some of the South American Republics are not to be recommended.

Certain captious and crapulous people who speak ill of French prisons should try some of those of Central and Southern America. Thereafter they would know when they are well off— if they had a Thereafter.

Personally, I've found the military prison at G— , where I met "Krassilov", very comfortable. True, bare feet are cold in wooden sabots during the winter; and are cut till they bleed, by rope-soled sandles, in the summer; the cachot is not a nice place, and life is apt to be hectic in the salle de discipline; the boule of dark saw-dust-and-acorn bread is not appetizing; but apart from cold, hunger, solitary confinement in the cachot underground cell, corporal punishment in the salle de discipline, and sleeping on the damp bare stones of a cell-floor at the whim of a warder, things are quite comfortable.

What was really delightful was the hour in the yard when, instead of marching round and round until the rope-soled espadrilles made our feet bleed, we were allowed, or rather ordered, to sit on the stone ledge that runs right round the four walls.

Sitting there, each man in his own numbered place, with the sun shining warmly upon the lucky ones whose seats faced it, one could close one's eyes, hear the song of a bird, and imagine that one was free, imagine that one had but to open one's eyes again to see grass and trees; a desert, the sea, the Place de l'Opéra at l'heure d'absinthe, Bond Street on a sunny morning, the hunt crossing a green field...

Well, so one might see them, some day... perhaps.

Yes, that was very nice.

Krassilov's place was next to mine. We were not allowed to talk, of course— hence the handicap to storytelling. If a warder— and they were Corsicans to a man— saw a man talking, or thought he saw a man talking, or thought he would think he saw a man talking, he would give him a dose of cachot.

And there he would sit in a darkness as of black velvet and a silence that could be heard, for the number of days decreed.

If he were the sort of man whom warders do not like— and the sorts of man whom Corsican warders do not like are numerous— he might receive visitors in the cachot; three or more.

And when he emerged, on the completion of his sentence, he would look as though he had been fighting. He had not been fighting, really. No one could call it a fight when one of his visitors held him while the other two or three hit him, though accidents have been known to happen— to warders— even under such conditions.

Anyhow, in these circumstances, conversation becomes precarious, and story-telling, however disjointed and fragmentary, really quite difficult.

Hence, as I've said before, the general unsatisfactoriness of Krassilov's story.

KRASSILOV was really clever. He would sit, with a face of stone, staring straight to his front; and, out of one corner of his immobile mouth, would talk and talk and talk— in perfect French or perfect English— until the patrolling guard was within earshot.

So long as Krassilov was not heard talking, all was well, for it would not be seen that he was doing so. I had not a tithe of his skill and cleverness. I could not talk without moving my lips nor cure myself of the natural habit of turning my head toward him when I spoke to him.

Thus I could not question him, and, as I've said before, many puzzles remain unsolved and will do until I meet Katinka— or, indeed, Krassilov himself. This is hardly likely as, if he survived his prison sentence, he has been returned to the Legion.

So I am only able to give you his story as he gave it to me, and then only after having afforded this apology and explanation.

"MARRIED?" asked Krassilov, as we sat and stared in front of us like the graven images of a temple wall.

With an imperceptible movement, I touched him twice with the little finger of my hand that rested beside his upon the stone bench.

This meant "No". Nor was I.

"Are you thinking of a woman?"

I touched his hand once, which meant "Yes".

"So am I. Katinka, the most amazing woman who ever lived. Absolutely beautiful— truly beautiful— and with such a great good heart... and such a wicked woman. Katinka!

"She keeps a sailors' dive in Galatz, and sells horrible things to ships' firemen, greasers, deck-hands, and the dock-rats and longshore scum. Horrible things; aniseed mastika, sawdust gin, 'Jamaica' rum made in Roumania; local 'French' cognac; imitation whisky, which is flavoured methylated spirit; and Roumanian beer which, alas, is genuine; and the most terrible syrops, apéritifs and liqueurs.

"She had one advertisement which she considered a special draw for English seamen, a picture of a big bulbous bottle with red cherries on the label, and, underneath it, the legend,

"'Bestest English Cheery Brandey.'

"I tasted it once and found it neither cheery nor brandy.

"Katinka!... Lovely, kind, sweet, savage, wicked woman— the only other person alive who knows the true story of the Double-Murder Post... the Death Post, as they call it in those parts. The Greek told her his end of the story, and I told her my end.

"Laugh! How Katinka did laugh... about the Greek. She saw the hand of Providence in it. As well as mine, presumably.

"I'm not very fond of Greeks myself, but Katinka loathed them all, for the sake of this one. He was a stranger and she took him in.

"And he took her in.

"Swindled and robbed her, in return for what she'd given him. And Katinka was a generous giver and had a lot to give.

"Mind you, she was a self-respecting woman, and, though generous with her favours, her kissing went by favour. She never..."

"Stand!... Left turn!... March!"... and off we went again, round the prison yard.

ON ANOTHER day Krassilov took up the tale again, and from what he told me then, I now make this:—

THE GREEK, SKIRIOS, according to the tale he told Katinka, spent his happy youth and early manhood basking on the sun-drenched cobbled quays of Piræus. His chief delight was to sit and watch the panting Levantines, sturdy brown-legged dock-labourers of every Eastern Mediterranean mixture and hue, creed, and colour, as they sweated like beasts of burden beneath their heavy loads.

It lent a brightness to the sky, a colour to the sea, warmth to the sun, to watch them trotting up and down narrow bending springing planks, on to, and off from, gaudily painted xebecs, the shapely seaworthy vessels with high in-curving stem and stern-posts, that are the direct descendants and replicas of the pirate-ships of the ancient Corsairs of the Barbary coast.

Indeed, as they bowed themselves beneath the weight of the various baled, boxed, and bottled products of the Ægean archipelago, or of imports for the Islanders, these ill-paid toilers of the deep might have taken comfort, and an added delight in their interesting labours, from the knowledge that they laboured where, twenty centuries earlier, their slave ancestors performed similar tasks for Roman masters and on Roman galleys, which, having a rounded stem and a pronounced 'tumble home', some others of these present vessels closely resembled.

The dignity of labour! What is it, compared with the dignity of sitting at ease and watching labour?

Otium cum dignitate.

And so Skirios sat, at ease with dignity, his sole support a fat and nagging wife, and enjoyed his sweet and simple life.

Well, on a soft spring morning, as this Skirios told his Katinka, he awoke as usual, yawned, stretched himself; contemplated the glorious sunshine from the balcony upon which he lived, when at home; asked the high gods of Olympus why his wife so exactly resembled what she was; gazed upon her with distaste; ate his breakfast, and a portion of hers, with relish; and then withdrew from her the light of his countenance and the comfort of his presence.

Thinking no evil, and fearing none, he strolled along his beloved quays, passed Island caïques, lateen-rigged feluccas and assorted gondola-shaped coasting-craft, until he finally came to anchor before a slovenly draggle-tailed 'parish-rigged' volecera.

He chose this vessel for his contemplation as, here, the babel towered highest, and the men who laboured to and fro discharging her sacks of sand-ballast, were really working, really doing feats of weight-lifting and balancing, properly earning the appreciative attention with which he now honoured them.

Calm, content, peaceful and philosophic, gently bathed in the warmed and soothing ozone, Skirios looked upon life and found it good. All was for the best in this best of all possible worlds.

Happy Skirios.

But call no man happy until he is dead.

Into the world of Skirios an unsavoury bundle of rags precipitated itself, panted to suggest that it had been running, drew breath, gulped, and with luscious grief announced, in few words and much pantomime, that Madame Skirios, falling down the long steep flight of steps that led to the Skirion eyrie, had broken her neck and was dead.

And this was the first blow that a hitherto kindly Fate dealt Skirios the Greek.

And what a blow was this that struck from beneath him, as it were, the sole prop, stay, and support of his manhood.

Still was the hand that for so long had shielded him from the awful horror of work; that had kept him well-fed, well-clad, and clean.

A stroke of Fate indeed which, in a second, turned Skirios the Greek from a gentleman of leisure into a man who, though far from wanting work, badly needed it.

A blow indeed, that knocked poor Skirios right off the quays of Heaven into a hell of a ship, which, flying the Red Ensign of Great Britain, was owned by a Greek captain and manned largely by Greek sailors and firemen.

With heavy heart, light pocket and empty stomach, Skirios reluctantly accepted a sea-going appointment and, upon a day, left his native shores— as a Messroom Steward.

Greek met Greek when the Chief Steward tried to make Skirios work twenty hours a day.

Skirios knew there was no law against this. He also knew that, provided he avoided the heinous crime of 'refusing duty', there was no law to prevent his striving to gain the world's record for doing the minimum of work in the maximum of time.

The Chief Steward, admitting that his respect for Skirios almost equalled his dislike of him, also admitted himself beaten, and laid the matter, and the body of Skirios, before the Captain.

Captain Logodedes, a man of humour, promptly promoted Skirios to Ordinary Seaman, and put him at the disposal of the Mate.

Again Greek met Greek, and the greater set the lesser to trimming a cargo of lead ore and, with picturesque imagery, informed Skirios that he was going to make him sweat.

It is a curious and perhaps humiliating thought that, had Skirios but perspired, the deaths of two men would have been avoided.

In delicate and dilettante fashion he did toy for a time with lead ore, and, though the zealous Mate worked wonders of mateliness, he failed to hurry Skirios. So signally did he fail, that he offered heavily to back him to lose a race against an enhæmorrhaged limpet.

Upon the swarthy visage of Skirios not one drop of perspiration could he induce. Nor all his piety nor wit could squeeze out a single drop of it.

The Mate, admitting that his respect for Skirios far exceeded his dislike of him, refused to admit himself beaten. He had said that Skirios should sweat, and sweat he should, even though others should behold this portent.

In the stoke-hole— whether he work or not— even Skirios must perspire, and the Mate delivered him over to the Second Engineer. Here, Greek met Scot, and there was no tug-of-war.

The Greek was handed a heavy shovel, told to trim coal, and the Mate was justified of his faith, for Skirios took one look at the Second Engineer and the Black Squad, and sweated in anticipation. Anticipation of bad trouble, for the face of the Second Engineer prophesied it; and the tongues of the Black Squad, of whom he had already fallen foul, promised it.

During the brief day of his unjust (mess) stewardship, he, in his ignorance of sea-usage and his unawareness of its awful and ineluctable sanctity and sacredness, had made a very bad break indeed. He had given, for a consideration, bien entendu, scraps from the cabin tables to such of the deck-hands as sufficiently desired them.

Now a custom, as old as the mechanical propulsion of ships, decrees that the leavings, remnants, and remains of all meals served at cabin tables shall be sent in their entirety and in the second dog-watch straight to the firemen's fo'c'sle. Here a stew is made of them, a savoury mess, known in British ships as Black Cap. Woe to the man who should endeavour to fit Black Cap to any but a fireman's head.

Woe to Skirios: for one, Mikhail Dulaspoff, had, with his own eyes, seen him do this thing; seen him sell cabin-leavings to a deck-hand.

Mikhail Dulaspoff, groping dimly in his not ill-lit nor ill-furnished mind, for something in the nature of a punishment that should fit the crime, conceived the bright idea of seeing whether the cap would fit the head— the Black Cap, that is to say— and at the first opportunity, crowned Skirios with the kid from which the luscious stew had just been poured.

The kid or pot was very hot, very greasy, and did not fit, being far too big and completely obscuring the handsome features of Skirios, ears and all.

The other members of the Black Squad, hugely amused, applauded the vastly diverting spectacle, and, unlike Skirios, did not object to the head of Skirios being inside their cooking-pot.

Doubtless it was very funny; doubtful whether the Russian would still have thought it so, had he been a thought-reader. Blank of countenance, Skirios the Greek, sitting in judgment on Mikhail Dulaspoff, passed silent sentence upon him and, in a double sense, the Black Cap was on the judge's head.

"Stand!... Left turn!... March!"... Curse the damned warder.

Again seated beside my friend and fellow-convict— military convict, bien entendu; and a man may be a military convict for daring to say 'No', or for a crime that would cost a civilian anything from five francs to nothing— my fellow-convict Krassilov, I waited hopefully to hear his soft ventriloquial voice resume its stream of witty monologue, humorous, sardonic, and amusing.

"Yes, our poor friend Skirios must have talked a lot about himself to Katinka while he was in favour.

"Oh that Katinka!... If that Roumanian girl, with her touch of tzigan gipsy blood, could but have had a bigger stage... she would have held it... Fit to be a King's mistress and a power behind the throne.

"And there she was, mistress of a wine-shop and a Skirios.

"That Skirios!... And Mikhail Dulaspoff!..."

My friend laughed softly. A curious laugh.

"Mikhail Dulaspoff... I can tell you something about him— from personal knowledge... oh, very personal knowledge.

"Of the true spy breed. Not the spy that risks his life in enemy countries in war-time. But the police-spy, the informer, the stool-pigeon; the double-dyed, double-damned scoundrel who'd implicate his own mother in something, sell her to the police for five roubles, and testify against her in Court for five more.

"Mikhail Dulaspoff! That dog! No; vermin that the village cur would scratch from itself in disgust.

"However, Mikhail Dulaspoff got what he earned, and, after a dog's life, died a dog's death, as you shall hear.

"And meanwhile he was leading a dog's life in hiding and disguise as a fireman on this ship— he who had been, and might still have been, a well-paid naval artificer. He was a big strong man, something of a coward, and a great bully.

"Doubtless, while hiding about the purlieus of the wharves and dock-streets of his native Odessa, he had found plenty of dock-rats, pimps, panders, crimps'-touts and such other nimble-witted herring-gutted scum, whom he could bully.

"But among seamen, be they deck-hands or firemen— I think you call them stokers ashore, don't you?— there are very few weaklings, and these few play the rôle of the bullied but poorly.

"At sea, Mikhail Dulaspoff had found the sport of bullying and baiting disappointing. In the darkness of the middle watch, the victim was apt to be careless and elusive. One such had allowed— quite accidentally, of course— an ash-bucket to fall from above on the spot where Mikhail Dulaspoff had been standing but a second before. Do you know what a ship's ash-bucket weighs?... No, nor do I, but if one fell on me now, I should never speak again.

"Then too, on a previous voyage, whilst engaged in 'scaling' the inside of a boiler, Mikhail Dulaspoff had been so grievously scalded that, when hauled unconscious through the man-hole, he had been nearly dead.

"Doubtless the steam had been turned on by accident, by mistake, or in error— but it had been done, curiously enough, by the man whom Mikhail Dulaspoff had elected to bully.

"Hence the arrival in the stoke-hole of Skirios the Greek, already marked out for punishment by reason of his simony when mess-steward, brought lip-licking joy to the heart of Mikhail Dulaspoff, as he promised himself rare sport, true sport— that is to say, sport without danger.

"The poor Johnny Greeko was so devoid of spirit, so flabby, so mean a worm, that retaliation simply need not be imagined.

"But it is a long worm that has no turning, and this particular specimen was really more of a snake.

"Nor could it be said that the sport itself came up to expectation, for the creature's very lack of spirit spoilt it. You can't hunt a beast that will not run, nor bring down a bird that will not rise. What apparently feels no pain cannot, with any real satisfaction, be tormented; and Skirios apparently enjoyed the very practical jokes which Mikhail Dulaspoff played on him.

"Did a well-aimed lump of coal hit the communal tin of oatmeal-water from which Skirios was drinking, he was the first to applaud the sureness of aim with which the bully had prevented him from moistening his furnace-parched throat.

"When Skirios suddenly leapt and wildly clutched at the burning cigarette-end dropped down the back of his neck, his own laughter was as loud as that of the rest.

"So, by cheerfulness and good temper, Skirios won the contemptuous half-liking of the stoke-hole, and gradually such crude jests as the addition of paraffin to his drinking-water, or the anointing of his luxurious curling locks with dirty engine-oil, became more and more infrequent, until at last Mikhail Dulaspoff's persecution palled, turned to boredom, and died a natural death.

"Then came the turn of Skirios the Greek, who smiled and smiled and was a villain, cunningly, slowly and imperceptibly contriving that Mikhail Dulaspoff's dead persecution should be resuscitated as cultivation. He set himself to work to win the friendship and affection of the man who had despised and bullied him."

"YOU KRASSILOV. You spoke."

My comrade rose to his feet, stood at attention and, as the warder bore down upon him, removed his beret and stood bareheaded, as is the law. Very right and proper too. Who is a military prisoner that he should stand covered in the presence of a Corsican guard?

"I, Monsieur le Brigadier? Talking?"

"Yes. You. Talking. Or was it that salaud next to you?"

I gazed to my front, apparently deaf, dumb, blind and silly.

"No, Monsieur le Brigadier."

"Then it was you, was it?"

"I, Monsieur le Brigadier? Talking?"

"Well, I'll report you for three days' cachot, anyhow. If you weren't talking then, it'll do for next time. Sit."

"WHAT WAS I saying when that crumbling crippled cretin of a cock-eyed Corsican corruption interrupted me? One of these days I'll smite him on the left cheek and then turn unto me his right cheek also. It would be worth what I should get. I'll..."

"Stand!... Left turn!... March!..." Off again. Great life, this.

"DO YOU KNOW Galatz? The gentle and joyless Roumanian town of Galatz? No? Well, don't. It only affords the visitor one pleasure, and that's the pleasure of getting out of it.

"A few miles east of it— I don't think any hero has ever tarried long enough to measure the exact distance— the starboard bank of the Danube (and that's a yellow, treacherous, fast-running river) is broken by an excavation known as the Baderland Dock. Here, surrounded by innumerable and colossal piles of timber, ships take on dangerous towering deck-cargoes until they themselves resemble floating timber-yards.

"Such foolish and misguided mariners as leave the Baderland Dock for the town of Galatz, must traverse a road— sous ce nom là!— rough, pot-holed, deep-pitted and, of necessity, raised high above the surrounding marsh land.

"On both sides, at both ends of this track, lived dock-labourers and other working-folk, and le bon Dieu himself alone knows why they live there, and why they live at all.

"Here the presence of sordid hovels, faced with Danube mud and raised but a few feet above the mud they deface, awful Desolation, tragic and grand, is ruined and robbed of Nature's one redeeming gift of great spacious emptiness.

"Quite oratorical that: almost poetic, n'est ce pas?

"But such considerations troubled not the soul of Skirios the Greek, whose ship lay in the Baderland Dock.

"On the contrary, he appeared to find this terrible road through this dreadful place peculiarly suited to his taste and particularly suited to his purpose— for he had just performed the expensive and difficult feat of almost quenching the thirst of his mess-mate, Mikhail Dulaspoff.

"In doing so they had almost depleted the stock of a Galatz wine-shop, and now, along this Via Dolorosa, Skirios aided Mikhail Dulaspoff's wandering and erratic way, out of the town.

"Across trackless leagues of frozen Russian swamp the North wind blew with a keenness that seared the skin, and the falling, swirling snow steadily added to the high-piled drifts.

"Under such conditions, had he not been cheerfully drunk, Mikhail Dulaspoff would have insisted that the long dark journey to the docks should be made by sleigh.

"Even for a ship's fireman, and a Russian at that, he had been unusually reckless. To mix drinks is bad, even when there are only seven kinds to mix. But to drink them mixed, and with permutations and combinations, is worse. You can make quite a number of combinations with seven, you know.

"Anyhow, his mixing efforts and labours had made him thirsty, and as he staggered along, partly supported and entirely guided by Skirios, he demanded a drink from the bottle borne, with intent, by his hospitable shipmate.

"Having emptied the bottle, and playfully endeavoured to smite his admiring friend with it, he announced his intention of retiring, for the night, upon the nice white bed— a couch of snow— ready prepared for him by the wayside... there, by that stone post... bed-post, ha, ha! . . .

"Some friends would, in the circumstances, have discouraged this idea, for, in the snow, to sleep may be to dream, but it is not to wake.

"Skirios did not discourage the idea.

"On the contrary, he applauded it.

"And, further, he assisted Mikhail Dulaspoff to carry it into execution

"Execution! Ha, a good word, that....

"Mikhail Dulaspoff laid himself down, composed himself to slumber— and instantly fell asleep....

"Skirios contemplated his enemy, and the smile that bared his teeth was a smile of the mouth only.

"'So!' he said. 'So!' and stooped.

"An interesting phenomenon of natural history, of which you may or may not be aware, is the fact that the distinguishing feature of the fireman ashore is an appropriately black square muffler, which at once obviates the need for a collar and for the meticulous washing of the neck.

"This muffler is always folded at the back and the ends are crossed in front and attached to the braces.

"Thus worn, the muffler is useful, comfortable, ornamental, and fashionable.

"What more would you have?

"Nothing more— but possibly something less, for, thus worn, it is, in point of fact, admirably adapted for conversion, by an ill-disposed person, into a most effective tourniquet.

"And so Skirios stooped . . .

"Stooped, thrust his hand into the knotted muffler; twisted hard; and held on.

"'So!' he said, after a minute or two, 'So!' and rose again.

"The judge had not only worn the Black Cap and passed sentence, but had himself carried the sentence into execution.

"Skirios next removed everything from the pockets of his late colleague, and substituted some Greek-stamped Piraeus letters addressed to himself, Leonidas P. Skirios, as well as one or two Greek copper coins.

"Now Skirios, while acting as Mess-room Steward and neglecting no opportunity for investigation of all things interesting and possibly profitable, had discovered the chart-room locker in which the 'Discharge Books' of the crew were kept— and it was not solicitude nor anxiety for the welfare of Mikhail Dulaspoff that had induced him to remove that fireman's 'Continuous Certificate of Discharge' and hide it in a safe place against such time as it might be useful.

"Among other information this comprehensive certificate gave the height, colour of eyes, colour of hair, complexion, tattoo-marks, and other distinguishing marks; and it bore the 'signature' of the holder.

"With the exception of 'Clasped Hands tattooed on right forearm' the general description of the characteristics of Mikhail Dulaspoff applied equally well to Skirios; and, as it happened, Mikhail Dulaspoff, for excellent reasons, had professed to be unable to sign his name.

"Curiously enough at about this time 'Clasped Hands' appeared tattooed on the right forearm of Skirios the Greek.

"Thus, henceforth, Skirios the Greek, a mere coal-trimmer, could assume the identity of Mikhail Dulaspoff and earn the, to him, fabulous wage of a fireman; and from this so clever enemy himself, Skirios the Greek had learnt not only something of the Russian language, but much of the art of stoking a furnace... He! he! how amusing.

"Well, as to this foul vermin, Mikhail Dulaspoff, his body was found a few days later by a relieving detachment of the miserable conscripted soldiers, who, in Roumania, are posted wherever a ship is moored, in order to make the administration of palm-oil to the Custom's officers a little more difficult and costly— difficult and costly to the importer, that is to say. For all imports into Roumania are liable to duty. Only liable, you understand....

"Upon inquest, it was cleverly assumed that deceased was a seaman who had fallen asleep and died in the snow.

"The assumption was correct. He was a seaman. He had fallen asleep. And undoubtedly he had died in the snow.

"His papers were examined and, in due course, Captain Logodedes, now at the port of Kustenje, was informed that a Greek deserter from his ship had been found dead.

"BUT, FAR from dead, Skirios the murderer lay low in Galatz, found a home in Katinka's capacious heart and wine-shop; and, boastful in his cups, told her the story of his life, and of Mikhail Dulaspoff's death.

"And, after a while, seeing his chance of large profits and quick returns, he robbed her and left her.

"That was a silly thing to do because..."

"Stand!... Left turn!... Quick march!..."

"I'LL TELL YOU about Pierre Bordeau and how he came to encounter Skirios the Greek.

"Of course you know all about the great 'affaire Dreyfus,' mon ami? Did you know that there was very nearly a great 'affaire Dreyfus' in Russia? It would have been the affaire— er— Krassilov, had I not escaped— and become Pierre Bordeau. A very nasty, dirty business, as nasty and dirty as the affaire Dreyfus was.

"I was Engineer-Captain in the Imperial Russian Navy, and the carrion cur Mikhail Dulaspoff, beside being a parasite of the Secret Service, a police-spy, a stool-pigeon, informer and agent provocateur, was a naval artificer. Behind the respectable facade of his uniform, he worked his side-line of spying and informing, on a system of payment by results; the more results the more payment, and the bigger the better.

"For the low and evil knave that he was, he must have had a certain amount of brain and quite a stock of low cunning, for he conceived the brilliant idea of selling some plans and drawings to a deeply interested Foreign Power and, moreover, of earning a noble lump of informer's reward by discovering who had done this foul deed, and denouncing him to the police!

"He did it well, too, as I had good cause to know. For it was I whom he selected for the honour of being his victim. I whom he had never seen, any more than I had seen him....

"He did it so well that not only was I arrested, but my wife, who was supposed to have been my accomplice, was thrown into prison, too.

"She went into that prison a healthy young woman who had never had a day's illness in her life. She died there in a few weeks....

"I, thanks to a certain mechanical ability with tools and locks and things, escaped, and so there was no big public affaire— er— Krassilov.

"That vile secret-selling traitor Krassilov disappeared and Pierre Bordeau took his place.

"Later, the informer Mikhail Dulaspoff disappeared too, with the police on his track.

"Ha! ha! Let us talk of Pierre Bordeau."

IT WAS KRASSILOV who talked of Pierre Bordeau, and I was only too glad to listen as he told the absorbing tale.

This is how the amusing Krassilov talked of himself as Pierre Bordeau:—

"Clad in greasy cap, dirty ragged singlet, oil-soaked dungaree trousers, and with dilapidated shoes on his sockless feet, Pierre Bordeau appeared to spend all his waking hours in plunging a bare muscular arm into the viciously throbbing intricacies of the engines. Even to the habit of chewing the end of an open-mesh sweat-rag suspended from his neck, he seemed just typical of all Mercantile Marine greasers— those useful ratings who, promoted for industry and experience in the stoke-hole, lubricate vast engines, and generally assist the more capable and skilled Engineer-of-the-Watch.

"And what supported Pierre's claim to be typical was a 'Discharge' which certified that he had served as a fireman on the steamer Prætoris. A beautiful specimen of the forger's art.

"In point of fact he'd never fed roaring furnaces or scraped the interiors of boilers, but fortunately the English Port Official who gave him his first 'Continuous Certificate of Discharge' was not sufficiently curious to ascertain whether a Prætoris had ever been on the British Register; and, as a greaser, he'd passed from ship to ship, French, English and American.

"Aboard ship, undue reticence does not make for popularity, and it was some tribute to Pierre's personality, tact, and ability, that he was quite well liked, and had no enemies in the fo'c'sle.

"Finding that he met all queries, casual and other, with a persistent if polite evasiveness, his fo'c'sle shipmates were content to regard him as a dark horse, and leave it at that.

"No one ever suggested or dreamed that he was a Russian aristocrat, once an officer and a gentleman.

"To his superiors, Pierre, even more than to his messmates, was an object of wonder.

"A greaser who can read, write, and speak three languages, and has a working knowledge of several others, is quite rare.

"If an irate Customs Officer demanded that, in accordance with the certified store-list, five barrels of oil should be forthcoming, it was Pierre who was commissioned to explain, in the Customs Officer's native tongue, that engines must be oiled and that the fifth barrel had been used on the passage from the last port.

"When ragged and illiterate Mediterranean deck-passengers stared stupidly at the harassed First Mate, and produced neither ticket nor passport in reply to his objurgations, it was Pierre who was sent for, to interpret, and to smooth difficulties.

"A Chief Engineer, while forcefully admonishing a bumptious and careless junior, was heard to inform the young man that

"'That Frenchie, Bordeau, knows as much about engines as I do, and that's a sight more than you'll ever learn. And he's a gentleman, too, and that's a sight more than you'll ever be.'

"And in course of time and the mysterious workings of Providence, this 'gentleman' greaser found himself on board a ship bound for Constantinople, Burgas, Varna, Constanta, the River Danube and Galatz.

"And, at Galatz, he found himself, one night, in the wine-shop of Katinka.

"Oh, that Katinka... But this is the story of Pierre Bordeau.

"Well, Pierre Bordeau fell madly in love with Katinka, so it's the story of Katinka too, isn't it— at the moment?

"And one night, as he leant against the zinc-topped bar, trying to drown his sorrows in wine, and himself in the deep wells of Katinka's eyes, the door was thrown open and a man strode in...

"No, not strode in... came sheepishly inside and said, as though he and she were alone in the room— alone in all the world,

"'Take me back, Katinka.'

"Katinka raised her head and stared with hardening eyes.

"'You!' she said incredulously, and reached beneath the bar.

"A moment later the man leapt for the door, as Katinka levelled her pistol at him.

"I laughed.

"'Who's he?' I said as the door swung shut.

"'Mikhail Dulaspoff,' she said.

"'What!'

"'Mikhail Dulaspoff. D'you want him?'

"'I do.'

"'Get him, then,' snapped Katinka, as I sprang for the door almost as quickly as the man had done.

"He was outside, at a safe distance.

"'Hullo! Thrown out already? Going back to your ship? I'll come part of the way with you,' he said.

"So that was how he lived nowadays, was it? Robbing drunken sailors as they reeled and staggered from Galatz to the Baderland Dock.

"'Yesh,' I hiccupped. 'Goin' back ship. Le's get boll' wine. Good f'ler. Both good f'lers. Get two boll's. Drink all the way.'

"And, a quarter of an hour later, I and this dog— this dog and I— were outside the town and reeling along the road to the Docks.

"'About half-way,' I thought would be the best place, equally distant from the town and the Docks, safest from interruption, and from discovery later.

"By-and-by we reached a spot where stood a stone pillar or post. This place would do as well as another; very lonely and deserted, and far from the habitations of men.

"'Funny thing happened here once, old drunk,' said the animal whose arm I tightly held.

"'And another one's going to happen now,' I replied.... 'You are Mikhail Dulaspoff.'

"'That's right,' was the reply.

"The man was startled.

"'Good old Mikhail,' he went on. 'Good old Dulaspoff. Fireman. "Tattoo signs or other marks; hands clasped on the right forearm." How did you know me?'

"'Mikhail Dulaspoff,' I said softly.

"'That's me. Good old Mikhail. Good old Dulaspoff.'

"'Ah! And I, my good Mikhail Dulaspoff, am Engineer-Captain Krassilov,' I said, and took him by the throat.

"He hadn't a chance, for my hands are of steel.

"As his face darkened and his eyes protruded, I talked to him. I talked to him of my wife who, through him, had died in prison. I talked to him of my ruined career, my wrecked and blasted life, my shamed family, our blackened name, and— by-and-by— I dragged his corpse to the stone, gave it a last kick, and returned to Katinka.

"HOW THAT KATINKA laughed when I told her all about it— all my story!

"And how I laughed— on a different note— when I learned that I'd killed the poor Skirios who had himself, on that very spot, killed the real Mikhail Dulaspoff!

"'OH, POOR SKIRIOS!' chuckled Katinka. 'That taught him not to delude and swindle and rob and desert me!'

"Yes, if he hadn't done that, and hadn't murdered Mikhail Dulaspoff, he'd never have died on the very same spot, and in the very same way, that Mikhail Dulaspoff died.... I do call it amusing!... Really funny, that two Mikhail Dulaspoffs should have been murdered on the very same spot!... That stone'll get a bad name— they ought to call it The Death Post."...

________________________

5: E Tenebris

IT IS A GOOD wind that blows nobody any ill.

A sudden gust of violent rage, mad, irrepressible, swift rage that turned a smoulderingly angry man into a raving lunatic, proved a gust that brought ill to all of us in G—  prison, beginning with Guard Ghisonaccia, one of our Corsican warders.

It was the neatest killing I have ever seen, murder or otherwise, in peace or in war; so amazingly quick, clean, and efficient that it was more like a feat of conjuring than anything else. Yes, much more like a juggler's trick than a murderer's vengeance. An unarmed murderer, too.

Not that he called himself a murderer, of course, or was called a murderer by any of his comrades.

He and they called it an act of just retribution... a commendable deed of righteous vengeance... a proper punishment.

Anyhow, there it was.

It is also an ill wind that blows nobody any good. This one brought me one of Krassilov's stories; and the chance to hear it in peace, if not in comfort.

I've told you about the great gravelled square in the G—  prison, with the broad stone ledge running all round the walls, a couple of feet from the ground; the ledge on which we used to sit, each in his numbered place, and the lucky ones in the sunshine.

We'd had our exercise, round and round the square; and were sitting silent, like graven images, each in his appointed spot on the stone ledge, and leaning against the wall.

Krassilov was on my right hand, and on my left an empty space vacated by Chavart, who, after growling a threat at a guard, had disappeared into the cachot underground cell— never to return.

Krassilov appeared to be brooding heavily. Perhaps on the fate of Chavart, a dauntless fellow of whom he approved.

As a rule, Krassilov would talk through absolutely motionless lips, as we sat thus, and as opportunity offered. But that day he would not say a word, even when Guard Ghisonaccia was several feet away. Nor would he reply to my questions and remarks in finger language, tapped by my finger-knuckles against his thigh.

I was just asking him if he were ill when at a sudden

"Garde à vous. Levez-vous. Droit..."

we sprang to our feet, turned to our right into line, and marched off to the monotonous staccato,

"Droit! Gauche! 'Oit! gau'!'... 'Oit! gau'!'... 'Oit! gau'!'..."

The long line filed round the vast square, parallel to the lofty walls, the guards on the right of the line, about one to every dozen prisoners.

As it happened, Krassilov and I were so near the end of the line that there was no guard behind us. The guard Ghisonaccia, in charge of the last dozen or so, was marching just in front of, and to the right of, Krassilov and myself, and from time to time barking out his

"'Oit! gau'!'... 'Oit! gau'!'... 'Oit! gau'!'..."

And suddenly it happened, the amazing feat of juggling.

Someone noiselessly, and yet with a rapidity that would make a flash of lightning seem lethargic, whipped Ghisonaccia's bayonet from its sheath and drove it sideways, from back to front through its owner's heart.

Really I think that at the beginning of a second the bayonet was in its sheath, and at the end of that same second the bayonet was in Ghisonaccia— not only in him, but through him. As quick as that.

A hand had shot out from the side of a man in that line of uniformly clad prisoners, and had returned to the man's side— and Ghisonaccia was dead.

It was as sudden and soundless as though a bullet had been fired from a perfectly silent gun.

I couldn't be certain at first, nor for several seconds, that I wasn't dreaming... seeing things... the victim of hallucination. One gets queer in prison, you know, and fancies things.

In two steps I was past Ghisonaccia, and, out of the corner of my eye— for even then I did not turn my head, as I had suffered many things for such a crime as turning my head— I saw that Ghisonaccia had lurched sideways... had gone a queer colour... was wearing his bayonet in the wrong place and manner, the handle protruding beneath his left shoulder-blade, the point sticking out through his breast-pocket . . .

And yet his very voice, or the voice of his ghost— already haunting us— went on with his monotonous,

"'Oit! gau'!'... 'Oit! gau'!'... 'Oit! gau'!'..."

But that was nonsense.

And yet there it was.

"'Oit! gau'!'... 'Oit! gau'!'... 'Oit! gau'!'..."

Of course, the juggler-conjurer was also a ventriloquist: the quickness of his hand had deceived the eye and the cleverness of his voice was now deceiving the ear.

In the very tone and accent of the dying or dead Corsican guard— and probably with absolutely motionless lips he continued his victim's monotonous mechanical,

"'Oit! gau'!'... 'Oit! gau'!'... 'Oit! gau'!'..."

And as I listened, as though in a dream and yet with every sense taut, alert, and hypersensitive, I heard Ghisonaccia fall.

No cry, no groan, not even a gasp— but just the sound of a man falling down, a sound almost drowned in the noise of shuffling rope-soled espadrilles, and the loud insistent

"'Oit! gau'!'... 'Oit! gau'!'... 'Oit! gau'!'..."

The nearest guard, twenty yards in front, had heard nothing, though doubtless he subconsciously heard what he supposed to be his colleague's,

"'Oit! gau'!'... 'Oit! gau'!'... 'Oit! gau'!'..."

Not a prisoner turned his head.

None of those in front of me, that is to say.

And I doubt whether any of those behind me did so, though those at the very end of the line— where Ghisonaccia should have been— must have seen him stagger sideways and fall, even if they did not see that incredibly dexterous hand dart out from the line and back into its grey obscurity, its complete anonymity.

On shuffled that long flexible serpent of woe, that worm of misery— the worm that had turned— leaving its victim bleeding in the dust of its trail.

To the right wheeled its head, and on along that side of the huge parade-ground it continued its way....

Every prisoner stared at the back of the head of the man in front of him; every guard, his thoughts on his dinner, his girl, his pinard, or the charge he was going to frame against one of the wretched prisoners, gazed at the ground, and, from time to time, at the men marching on his left hand.

To the right again wheeled the head of the worm of misery, and still no guard saw that which he did not expect to see; and no prisoner affected to see that which perhaps already he had seen....

Suddenly, one of the guards caught sight of the huddled figure lying prone, silent, and still on the other side of the square.

For a second or so, he must have wondered whether he were dreaming, and whether the ugly vision of the corpse of a colleague— that obtruded itself upon his thoughts of his dinner, his girl, his pinard, or his case against a prisoner— was not a vision indeed.

But no, there in the dust lay a man in the blue uniform of a prison guard, his outflung hand, palm uppermost, stretched forth in mute appeal to the unanswering heavens, a glittering spike of steel protruding from his left breast, his képi on the ground beside his head....

Suddenly the guard ran to the head of the line, seized the arm of 'Brigadier' Morsiglia, an old Corporal of Spahis, and pointed.

Brigadier Morsiglia acted promptly.

"Halte! Droit! Fixe!"

The guards then took station behind their respective squads of prisoners, and mentioned what would happen to any man who turned and looked behind him.

There may perhaps have been one or two prisoners so sunk in apathetic lethargy that they had not already seen the body of their enemy lying where he fell— but I doubt it.

When one does for a brief space get out into clean air; get out from beneath a low ceiling; get out from the pressure of four enclosing walls; get out from gloom into sunshine; get out from a living grave into the living day; one's soul as well as one's body arises from that grave.

One must be very ill indeed, or very far gone adown the road of prison madness, when one ceases to take notice, to take interest, to take stock of everything animate and inanimate that lies without one's cell.

The passage of a bird is something to remember; sounds that penetrate from the world beyond the prison walls; the feel of sun-warmed stones as one sits and pats and strokes them with one's hands; the doings of the busy bustling ants beside one's feet; the movements of the sunshine-beetle that one had captured to take back to one's cell as a companion, and had repentantly released; the changing sky, the changing light, the changing green, from Spring-time to Spring-time, of the only tree (God bless it!) that one had seen for years; these things are happenings, events, importances. And the man who has ceased to notice them will probably never notice anything again.

Thus, the number of those who had not seen Ghisonaccia's body must have been few.

Imagine, then, the suppressed excitement, the incipient hysteria, the almost unbearable strain among those abnormal men— men, c'est à dire, rendered abnormal by the dreadful life they led.

A guard had been killed.

It must have been the guard at the end of the line.

That would be Ghisonaccia, the worst and most bitterly hated of them all. Hated for his vile perjured injustice, his currying of favour by the constant reporting of absolutely imaginary crimes.

Most prisoners hate most guards. But it is by no means true that all prisoners hate all guards.

I, personally, am not much given to hating, and throughout my life have hated very few people indeed. But I hated Ghisonaccia bitterly and actively, not because he did his duty, but because he made the tears and groans, despair, suffering, blood and very lives of helpless broken men the miserable stepping-stones to his paltry success.

He had caused the deaths of men far less criminal than he; the undeserved punishment of men entirely devoid of criminal attributes; of men who had never deliberately done an evil deed in all their lives.

Personally I disapprove of murder (though I hold that there are many far worse sins), but I was glad that Ghisonaccia had been murdered, and my one regret was that he should have died so quickly and without knowing whose hand had sent him to his deserved place in Hell.

One is apt to feel like that when, helpless and innocent, one is tried, condemned (unheard), and cruelly punished for offences that one has neither committed nor dreamed of committing.

And as I felt, so felt every man in that long line of prisoners, many with far more reason, and far more violently.

ONE HAS heard of a police institution known in America as the Third Degree. I myself have had no experience of this form of examination, but the torture through which every man, who had been present on that parade, was put, in the course of the next few days might, without exaggeration, be called the Thirty-Third Degree.

If this estimate be just, the method adopted for extracting the truth from the men who had been at the end of the line, the men of Ghisonaccia's own squad, was surely that of the Hundred and Third Degree.

It failed.

Whether that was because of the staunch loyalty, esprit de corps, and prisoner-honour of the men examined, or whether it was because everybody accused everybody else and a dozen swore they'd seen a dozen different men commit the dreadful deed— so that Ghisonaccia ought to have looked like a bristling pin-cushion— I do not know.

But what I do know is that having said what was the simple truth— as long as I could say anything at all— I was condemned to solitary confinement in total darkness until I could say something different.

It was only natural that I should fall under the heaviest suspicion of either being the murderer or of knowing who the murderer was, inasmuch as Ghisonaccia had been, according to all the evidence, marching close to me.

So he had.

And somebody marching close in front of me had done it— and I had seen him do it. But who it was, I did not know and did not wish to know.

Presumably, the two or three men who had been in front of me, and the two or three behind me, were suffering the same extreme of inquisition and punishment. One thing, of course, was quite certain— somebody would face the firing-party or turn his back to the blade of Madame la Guillotine.

For preference, the authorities would discover the right one; but if getting him meant getting a whole group, then the group would face the firing-party or the axe, or go with him to the 'Dry Guillotine'.

Meantime I was enduring solitary confinement in total darkness.

A prolonged spell of this punishment usually drives a man insane, frequently completely and permanently mad.

And I imagine that those whose reason is most likely to survive the ordeal are those blessed with the most mental resources. I mean men who, for example, have well-stored memories and can use them both in assisting the flight of time and in keeping at bay the spectres of suicidal ennui, horror and fear— fear of darkness, of silence, of blindness, of being left to starve, and that very fear of going mad that induces madness.

There is something curiously unsettling to the mind in having no record whatsoever of the flight of time; in not knowing whether one has been in darkness for hours, or days, or weeks; in not knowing whether one has slept for minutes or for hours; in not knowing whether it is night or day.

One stands, as it were, outside of Time, and that is a very uncomfortable situation to occupy.

Happy, then, is the man (or let us say comparatively happy) who has learnt by heart poems and songs and long extracts from the Classics, from the works of Shakespeare and the other great playwrights.

In this particular, I was singularly fortunate, but soon found— if soon it were— that it was dangerous to recite aloud any poem that had a strongly marked rhythm, the sort of poem that set itself to music, or rather that one's mind subconsciously sets to music.

It was with something of a shock that, one day— or one night— I found that I was not only reciting a simple poem aloud, but was marching round and round my cell in time to the 'music' of the poem which I was not only reciting, but actually singing.

This would not do.

And I promptly went back to Shakespeare, taking each play that I knew, and each part in that play, acting the part with voice, bearing, and gesture, as though I were (God forbid!) on the stage of a London theatre— passing from Henry VIII to Katherine of Aragon and from Katherine to Cardinal Wolsey, and striving to be the individual I was impersonating.

But when my mind was tired, I would tire my body, performing every physical exercise of which I'd ever heard, and inventing many others of which I had not— all the time with a growing sense of postponement, of putting off, of evading... the moment when my mental labours would end in gibberish, and my physical efforts in the dashing of my head against the wall.

How I used to envy those fortunate thrice-happy prisoners who were merely condemned, even though for life, to confinement in an ordinary lighted cell, be it lighted never so dimly.

It was not so much that one wanted to see as that one wanted to know that one could see.

One of the worst things about this confinement in the dark, is the belief which is bound to grip one sooner or later, that one does not see because one cannot see. One ceases to believe that one is in darkness, and soon believes that the darkness is in oneself.

By a piece of ingenuity somewhat devilish, food is introduced into these particular punishment cells in G—  prison, without the accompaniment of either light or sound. Also, so far as one could tell, the meals (a boule of black bread and a gamelle of water) were put through the door hatch at irregular intervals.

Anyhow, by the time the amazing diversion occurred, I was quite ready for it, as no doubt the authorities intended.

How long I had been in this dreadful darkness, and possibly more dreadful silence, I do not know— though it was certainly not less than six weeks— when suddenly, at what hour of the day or night I cannot say, the door was flung open and my eyes were blinded by the terrible brilliance of the light that shone from a dirty smoky slush lamp, in which burnt the stump of a candle. It was the first light that my eyes had seen for more than forty days and forty nights, and it hurt them terribly, unbearably.

But as I clapped my hands to my face, I caught sight not only of my goaler, but of two other guards and a prisoner. From the slight sounds that tore the heavy pall of silence, I gathered that the prisoner was thrust into the room, and the door quietly closed and locked behind him.

"Who are you?" said a voice, a little later.

I told him, and asked his name, for I was afraid to believe that I had recognized the voice.

"Krassilov," came the answer, and in my weakness, misery, and despair, almost I could have wept for joy.

"Krassilov!" I said..." But why?"

Could it be that there were, after all, gleams of mercy, pity, decency, in the hearts of our goalers? But of course there were not, and Krassilov's quiet cynical laugh confirmed my second thoughts.

"'Why,' my dear chap?" he whispered, and groping for my hand, drew me close to him and put his lips to my ear.

All but inaudibly, barely framing the words, he whispered almost soundlessly,

"Why?... So... that... we... shall... talk... and... give... ourselves... or... someone... else... away. Don't... say... a... word... that... they... are... not... welcome... to... hear. Only... say... things... you... want... them... to... know."

Then slowly, laboriously and patiently, for we had all the time there was, Krassilov tapped a message with his finger-tips on my forehead. At the end of each sentence I touched his hand, once if I had understood, and twice if I had not.

By the time he had finished, I knew that he had already had a man— almost certainly a spy, an informer, a stool-pigeon— in his cell for a period of time that he estimated at two or three days. This man had artfully questioned him as to what he knew about the murder, and Krassilov had artfully replied as to what he did not know about it.

Krassilov, simply for the sake of human company— even that of an informer— played his fish as long as he possibly could: talked 'about it and about', as long as there was a word that could be said, and left him as wise at the end as he had been at the beginning.

Knowing Krassilov, I should imagine no one ever said more and told less on a given subject in a given time than he did to the police spy.

When every conceivable word (that shed no light upon the subject) had been said, Krassilov's companion had been withdrawn.

And that scheme having failed, the new plan, according to Krassilov, was to put the likeliest criminals together in pairs, and listen to their unguarded speech when they thought themselves alone.

How were the spies to hear?

He did not know. Heaven alone knew.

Quite likely there was some concealed aperture at which a warder could listen. There might be some kind of instrument. Quite probably a third man would come into the cell and listen to our talk— another informer, possibly a fellow-prisoner who had been tortured into consenting to do this.

Anyhow, we were together, and must do whatever lay in our power to remain together. Certainly we must talk, and keep our listener employed; dole him out crumbs of information— false information, of course; lead him on and keep him hoping to hear more, hoping and expecting to learn the truth and solve the mystery.

Now that I had company, the society of an intelligent and educated man whom I thoroughly liked and respected, I felt altogether different— comparatively happy, in fact.

A queer thing, this human happiness... that a man could lie starving, ill, and filthy in a darkness blacker than the hobs of hell, and feel happy merely because he had a fellow-sufferer with whom to commune; because he had discovered he was not blind; and because the inevitable hour of insanity had been postponed....

"SST!" Close to my ear, Krassilov's lips made the faintest sound of warning.

On the back of my hand his fingers tapped, in our long-short dash-dot Morse, the words,

"Hatch... door..."

His hearing was evidently better than mine, for I had heard nothing.

Krassilov apparently had heard the sound, normally inaudible, of the slight brief movement of a tiny trapdoor opening on well-oiled hinges.

With difficulty I repressed an almost overwhelmingly powerful impulse to grope my way through the pitch darkness to the door, feel for the aperture, and drive a smashing blow with all my strength at the side-turned face that filled it.

Krassilov's hand gripped mine, as though in restraint, and gave it a meaning pressure as he spoke.

"Mais non, mon ami, vous n'avez pas raison," he said in French, as though contradicting some remark of mine.

"I tell you it is so. I saw him do it with my own eyes. I quite admit that it is more than supernormal... that it is, as you say, even supernatural. But what I have seen, I have seen, and what I know, I know. I saw him as plainly as I saw the man marching in front of me. He came walking across the exercise-ground, straight to Ghisonaccia, whipped out Ghisonaccia's own bayonet, drove it through him, and quietly walked away again....

"I marvel you didn't see him yourself," continued Krassilov, giving my hand a squeeze.

"Perhaps I did," I replied, taking his cue. "Perhaps I did."

"And don't want to give him away, eh?"

"No need to name names is there?" I growled.

"Why not? There's nobody in here but us, is there you fool? You don't think I'm an escroc, do you?"

"I don't know," I grumbled. "You might be. Anyhow, what I say is there's no sense in naming names."

There certainly wouldn't be in this case, so far as I was concerned, for I hadn't the vaguest idea as to what name to mention, nor indeed as to what he was driving at.

"Oh, quelle sottise! Rot! Bosh! Look here. D'you mean to tell me you didn't see Chavart kill Ghisonaccia?" and Krassilov tapped my hand in request for an affirmative reply.

"Well... it's you that have said the name, Krassilov. I wouldn't have uttered it myself, not even to you. I say..."

"Did you, or did you not, see Chavart do it?" interrupted Krassilov.

"Of course I did," I replied.

Was there, or was there not, a sound from the direction of the door?

Although, as I have said, my hearing was not as sharp as that of Krassilov, it was, after those endless weeks of appalling silence, nevertheless preternaturally acute, and I thought I heard the shadow of a sound. Possibly of breathing, possibly of a mere movement of a head.

"Well, why couldn't you say so before?" said Krassilov.

"Once again, because there's no sense in naming names," I replied doggedly, "and because, for all I know, you may have turned police spy and informer."

"Look here, do you want me to wring your dirty neck?" snarled Krassilov, as he gently patted my hand.

"You're welcome to try," I replied.

"'Police informer'!... 'Spy,'" he growled.

"Anyhow, you're suddenly shoved in here with me and begin asking me whether I didn't see Chavart."

"And you did see him."

"Yes," I said.

"Thank God for that. And we won't quarrel over insults, mon ami. You know I'm not a police-spy. They've put me in here because there aren't enough cells... so they're doubling up.... Two in every cell.... Splendid."

"Yes, company's company," I agreed sententiously. "Even yours," I added unpleasantly.

Krassilov's taps told me that I was on the right line.

I yawned loudly.

"Why did you thank God that I'd seen Chavart too?" I said.

"Because Chavart is dead," replied Krassilov in a solemn and portentous voice.

"What! They've killed him for killing Ghisonaccia?" I asked.

"No, you fool. Ghisonaccia killed him."

"What are you talking about, my good idiot?"

"Chavart and Ghisonaccia. Ghisonaccia killed Chavart in his cell. While two other guards held Chavart, Ghisonaccia killed him. They reported Chavart as having died, and he was buried in the prison grave-yard. A week later Chavart killed Ghisonaccia with his own bayonet, before our eyes."

"This poor Krassilov has gone mad," I said aloud. "Talk sense," I added. "How could the Chavart— whom I and you saw kill Ghisonaccia— be dead?"

"Ah," observed Krassilov weightily. "Tell me that!...

"They put another man in my cell, a little while ago," he continued, "and he whispered the same question in my ear. Did I see Chavart do it, and if so, how was it possible?"

"That makes three of us," I said.

"More," replied Krassilov. "While we stood on parade, the man on my left whispered,

"'Chavart did it.'

"That makes four."

"Five," I lied. "The man marching behind me said,

"'Mon Dieu, Chavart!' as Ghisonaccia fell."

"Of course, everybody behind Ghisonaccia saw Chavart; and none of the guards, nor any of the prisoners in front, had a chance to see him."

"Then obviously he can't be dead," I said.

"But he is dead, you fool. Dead, dead, dead! He's dead and buried. I talked with two of the men who put him in his grave."

"You mean it was his ghost that..."

"Call it what you like," answered Krassilov. "Ghost, spirit, astral form.... Anyhow, it was Chavart all right, as a dozen of us could testify. And I'll tell you another thing. He's going to do the same for the warders who held him, and he's going to haunt every man in this place who..."

Suddenly, abruptly, Krassilov stopped, and I strained my ears to try and catch the sound for which he was listening....

Yes, I was sure of it, this time....

Someone was breathing, or someone's heart was beating, or someone's neck had moved against the collar of his tunic— someone who was either in our cell or at the opened hatch.

". . . maltreated him," continued Krassilov, "brought false charges against him, beat him up, starved him, used his poor body as a ladder-rung to promotion.... Oh yes, he killed Ghisonaccia and he's going to kill a few more, and he's going to haunt the rest until they commit suicide, and put an end to their wretched lives of horror, fear, terror, despair. Each one of them whom Chavart himself does not kill, will walk with Chavart beside him; will lie down with Chavart standing by his bed; will awaken in the night from brief nightmare-haunted slumber to meet dead Chavart's cold accusing eye; will rise up in the morning watched by Chavart; will go forth to each dark day's dreadful work accompanied by Chavart... until— suicide!

"Oh yes, some of them are going to learn something about murdering harmless, helpless, defenceless men in underground cells."

We both strained our ears through the listening silence.

"Chavart was a wonderful man, you know," continued Krassilov. "He had been stationed at Pondicherry in French India.... He was a Yogi. He had amazing powers....

"In life and in death," he added in a sepulchral voice.

"Oh, they made a mistake when they murdered Chavart.... Murdered his body, that is to say. They could not murder his— spirit."

"Why did Ghisonaccia kill him?" I asked.

"Because of something that Chavart said to Ghisonaccia," replied Krassilov.

"I wonder what that was," I mused.

"Didn't you know? Chavart told Ghisonaccia he would kill him on the parade-ground."

"Why?"

"Because he killed Chavart's mouse."

"Killed his mouse?"

"Yes. That was one of the many wonderful things about Chavart the Yogi. He had amazing power over animals. He could converse with them. That is to say, he could convey his thoughts to their minds, and himself understand the thoughts of their minds.

"This mouse of Chavart's was his copain. It used to sit down to meals with him every day. Chavart and the mouse would break bread together, and have a chat about things. When Chavart couldn't sleep, the mouse would come out and keep him company.

"Where did it live? In Chavart's cell in general and in his breast-pocket in particular. He told me that the more he knew of warders the more he respected the intelligence of mice.

"Whenever it heard a footstep outside, it would hide, preferably in Chavart's breast-pocket if there were time to get there.

"Of course this mouse took half the punishment out of prison. It made life worth living— even prison-life. Wherever Chavart went the mouse went too— always in his breast-pocket.

"Chavart came to love that mouse so much that he wouldn't have left prison without it.

"Well, one day, Chavart was lying on his back with his knees drawn up, and the mouse, sitting up on one of Chavart's knees, was listening attentively and intelligently to what Chavart was telling it, while it washed its face and stroked its whiskers and tidied up generally after a good meal.

"Suddenly it pointed.

"I don't mean it extended a finger, so to speak, and pointed like a human being.... You know how a trained sporting-dog points? Well, the mouse turned to the door and pointed. Someone was watching through the 'Eye'.

"A key turned in the lock, and the door opened. By the time Ghisonaccia was in the cell, the mouse was in Chavart's pocket. When Ghisonaccia went out of the cell, the mouse came out of the pocket— probably with a sort of wink at the smiling Chavart.

"But the mouse had winked too soon.

"Chavart, who so rarely smiled, had smiled too soon.

"It was the last time that Chavart smiled; and that night was the last night that Chavart slept with his mouse beside him.

"For next day, as Chavart left his cell, he met Ghisonaccia.

"Ghisonaccia grinned, and, raising his hand, struck Chavart on the chest... just above the heart....

"Hard enough to hurt Chavart? Oh dear, no! A mere nothing.... A playful blow... playful as Ghisonaccia's smile. Just Ghisonaccia's fun.

"Fun to Ghisonaccia— but death to the mouse.

"Death to Chavart's mouse.

"Death to Chavart.

"Death to Ghisonaccia."

I WOULD GIVE a good deal to know what the prison authorities, and, more particularly, the warders and guards, thought of Krassilov's remarkable story, and how far despondency and alarm were spread by the apparently unanimous evidence as to the ghostly slayer of Ghisonaccia.

Anyhow, it was a good effort and was undoubtedly as widely circulated and discussed as Krassilov intended.

Nor did the ingenious man leave it at that, but enlarged, embellished, and improved the story until, at times, I found myself believing it, and imagining that I had indeed seen the revenant of poor Chavart.

This was the easier, in view of the fact that Ghisonaccia had always been especially attentive and brutal to Chavart who was his bête noire.

It was only when I pulled myself together and deliberately recalled the actual details of the incident, and again saw the incredibly swift and dexterous movement of the arm in front of me, that I realized Krassilov's cleverness and very remarkable powers of suggestion.

Of course, conditions were all in his favour; the eerie darkness, and one's queer mental state.

But even so, it was interesting and a little frightening, to note how powerfully Krassilov's fiction strove with reality's fact. To the unintelligent, uneducated guard, listening (also in the complete blackness of pitch darkness), the fantastic story of Chavart's ghost must have seemed mere simple obvious truth— told as Krassilov told it, and with such a wealth of corroborative evidence.

And when the subject was absolutely exhausted, and there positively remained no further word to be said, we had perforce to talk of other things.

For talk we must. There would be time enough to sleep when we were again separated; and after weeks and weeks of the dreadful reason-destroying silence, and unbearable isolation, we must hear each other's voices while we might.

Only when we slept did we cease to talk, and we slept scarcely at all. When conversation failed, we recited to each other English, French, Greek and Latin classics— Shakespeare, Molière, Homer, Virgil— and discussed the extracts and poems that we repeated.

Occasionally Krassilov sang Russian folk-songs. He was no Chaliapin, but never did human voice give me greater pleasure or affect me more. When first we fell silent, or perhaps I woke from the first brief sleep that had overcome me since Krassilov entered my cell, I said,

"Tell me a story, Krassilov."

"What about?"

"Oh, the sea."

And promptly Krassilov murmured,

"'The sight of salt water unbounded... and the crash of the comber, wind-hounded...' Ah, shall we ever again behold the sea, my friend? Would that you and I were dying of thirst on a raft in the middle of the Pacific instead of rotting in this black hole!... A tale of the sea, you say..."

He fell silent for a few moments.

"When we were capping quotations and chopping Classics just now, the chaste Diana turned up, and Actæon who was destroyed for spying on her— torn to pieces by the hounds. What you call 'peeping Tom', eh? Well, as it happens, I can tell you a yarn of the sea, and of Diana and Actæon as well. You won't believe it...."

"I will," I interrupted.

"...but it is true, and Diana and Actæon were real ships.... Queer coincidence, but Lord! what would life be without them?

"It was after that Russian police informer, of whom I told you, had laid my life in ruins: and I had gone to sea with a pen in my hand and the hope in my heart of some day becoming a tiny little cheap-imitation Conrad.... He was a Pole, as of course you know, named Joseph Conrad Korzeniowski, who'd never heard a word of English nor seen the sea until he was a man, and it seemed to me that I, a Russian, might humbly follow— at an immeasurable distance— in his golden footsteps.

"I thought, too, that I might become an English seaman.... What a change and what a disguise, thought I, if I could turn from Russian Naval Engineer Officer into British sailor, bosun, Mate and Master....

"But I was going to tell you about Diana and Actæon not about the man called Krassilov.

"HOW HOT it can sometimes be in your cold England! Under a brazen sky reminiscent of that of the Sahara, London, that day, positively panted in what was to me an incredible heat— the kind of heat that sends you to sleep. Nor were lullaby and sedative wanting, for I seemed with one ear to be listening to the distant drowsy hum of that Fenchurch Street, and, with the other, to the quiet and steady flow of Captain Jones' lecture on seamanship.

"The good Captain (square-rigged, Extra Master's Certificate) was the founder, proprietor, instructor, and everything else of Jones' Aldgate Academy.

"When I went there, I found ten sunburned youths, burly and large-fisted, at his seamanship table.

"Two of them, not having finished their apprenticeship, were to fill up space and to help advertise the Academy, paying only a nominal sum for their tuition: one sought a First Mate's and one an Only Mate's certificate; and the remaining six were 'up for Second Mate'.

"Thus the larger fees of the aspirant for Master's and Extra Master's certificate were lacking, and these fees were poor Captain Jones' chief weapon for keeping the pack of wolves from the door.

"You may imagine, then, that in spite of Captain Jones' insular prejudice against Dagoes and Square-heads, the only types of foreigner that he recognized, I was a welcome pupil at the Aldgate Academy.

"And curiously enough, this good Captain Jones came to like me, and it was through him that I came to know the Diana, and...

"Moreover, it was on this day of which I am speaking, that I first heard of a ship being moored with her anchors at the hawse-pipe, and the after-ends of her cables at the bottom of the sea— a most curious maritime accident. And that very accident happened to the Diana.

"That's interesting, isn't it?

"Well, old Jones was meandering on, most monotonously, and we were endeavouring to repel drowsiness most unsuccessfully.

"Suddenly, the too even tenor of his way was interrupted by a loud emphatic snore.

"Looking round, we discovered that a huge young man had succumbed, rested his head upon his arm, and frankly— and noisily— gone to sleep.

"The words froze upon the outraged lecturer's lips, while a flush of anger burned upon his cheeks.

"What would ce bon Capitaine Jones do, I wondered? Would he avenge the insult with a blow? He would, apparently, for swiftly, yet silently, he strode to where, all unconscious of his fate, the unhappy victim snored.

"Did the Captain raise his red right hand and administer the swift blow of remonstrance and retribution?

"No. He raised his voice instead.

"Bringing his lips close to the ear of the sleeper, he bellowed with the brazen voice of the Bull of Bashan,

"'All hands on deck.'

"How everybody roared with laughter as the sleeper awoke, attempted to leap from his bunk, and, with one hand, grab imaginary trousers, and with the other, nonexistent sea-boots.

"When the laughter and applause had died down, Captain Jones resumed,

"'As it is possible, Mr. Smith, that you did not hear my last remark but one' (more laughter), 'I'll repeat it. I was just saying, with reference to my hints on the Mooring of Ships, that it does not often occur that a ship at sea, or elsewhere, is moored by the wrong ends of her chain. Yet it has happened, for I was once so "anchored".'"

Krassilov laughed.

"Well, so in point of fact was I, my friend," he said. "In the Diana. And that was what reminded me of Captain Jones.

"Yes. Oh, that Diana! Both the ship of that name and the girl, Diana Robinson.

"I wish you could have seen Diana Robinson.

"Well, well.... In spite of the fact that she belonged to Rudolf, Rosenbaum, Ritzenheimer & Rumpf's famous fleet of starvation rattletraps, the Diana was a really lovely-looking ship, a witch, a yacht, a dream. Among that rotten firm's other straight-fronted, made-by-the-yard, iron boxes, she stood out like a queen, an Ocean Queen.

"And because her fine lines reduced her carrying capacity, that gang of coffin-ship owners had bought her for a song, and when I took command, she was being maintained as cheaply and cleanly as David's sow.

"Of course, they got me cheaply too, or I should never have got the job. Still, I know a ship when I see one, and all the wicked cutting-down of the Mate's store-list couldn't really affect her essential beauty; couldn't disguise the raking masts and funnel and her lovely long clipper bow.

"Incidentally that bow was the good Mate's bête noire.

"'Give me a ship with a straight stem,' he used to growl. 'Berthing this bitch has knocked years off my life. One day that bow is going to lift a truck off the dock-side, capsize a cargo-shed, or knock over a Customs House. Then we shall all be for it.'

"Nevertheless, I noticed that whatever other part of the ship went bare, the Mate could always find some paint with which to refresh, adorn and beautify the figure-head— Diana the Chaste, Goddess of the Hunt.

"'Diana the Chased!' he would growl. 'Don't wonder she was chased. I'd chase 'er meself— with my wife chasin' me. She's some chaser....'

"Whoever carved that figure-head was a master-craftsman, an artist to his finger-tips. Evidently he had intended that the figure-head of the Diana should be Diana, and nobody else, so that even before the ship was named, you would not guess that she would be called the Britannia, Venus, Cleopatra, or Mrs. Grundy.

"His goddess looked like a goddess. 'Incedit dea aperta,' a goddess revealed, with her quiver at her side and crescent on her beautiful well-poised head. His Diana looked out proudly 'O'er the vassal waves that rolled below'.

"To her rounded bow, held in the left hand of one straight arm, she fitted a long arrow with the hand of the other gracefully-curved and shapely arm.

"When the short hunting-dress was painted a snowy white, the arrow tipped with gold, and the crescent silvered till it gleamed, Diana was the pride of the Mate's brave heart and the delight of his roving eye.

"I want you to remember that clipper bow, star-stabbing bowsprit, chaste Diana, and the golden arrowhead— especially that sharp bright arrow-head....

"Diana, Goddess of the Chase.... She brought no luck to her poor namesake ship....

"In your Law Courts, Counsel loved her as a most remunerative vessel— remunerative to them, that is, though not to her Owners.

"My first voyage in her was singularly unfortunate... although personally I hadn't a great deal of which to complain.

"Bound down-Channel, and having cleared the Straits, I left the Mate and the Third Officer on the bridge, and went below for a shave. When the youngster came and reported that the Royal Sovereign Light Vessel was in sight, and bore a quarter-point on the starboard bow, I sent him aft to read the log.

"Without stopping to tell me that the Mate also had left the bridge (apparently he thought that such a minor detail wouldn't interest me) the smart young Third Officer leapt to do my bidding, while I, all unconscious that the officer of the watch was not at his post, continued to lather my chin.

"You'd scarcely believe, would you, that a middle-aged Chief Officer— a family-man who hoped for a command, and expected to get one— could desert the bridge of a steamer, doing twelve knots, at a place as crowded and busy as Hyde Park Corner, would you?

"No, and yet that grey-haired bone-headed fool did that very thing, just because he'd forgotten to fill his tobacco-pouch. It's almost incredible. But that's the sort of man Rudolf, Rosenbaum, Ritzenheimer & Rumpf employed. They got them cheap, like they did me.

"Suddenly the babel of shouts and curses that sent me, razor in hand, flying up the bridge-ladder, brought him from his room, one hand clutching a plug of tobacco, and the other an open knife.

"Mechanically I remembered Sound Signals for Vessels in Sight of One Another, and that three short blasts mean 'My engines are going Full Speed Astern'.

"Scarcely had the steam of my third blast left the whistle, when fairly and squarely between funnel and bridge, we hit a big tramp steamer, and, my friend, the name of that big tramp steamer was the Actæon!

"Wasn't that an amusing coincidence— Diana and Actæon?"

"Yes," I agreed. "One of those strange things that do happen."

"Ah, but there was more to it than that, and stranger to come.

"Well, as I was saying, I had perfectly uselessly, and really most fatuously, done the correct thing: and later on, in London, at the inquiry, I was actually complimented on my presence of mind and scrupulous adherence to the Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea.

"I almost laughed in Court, for my three blasts and putting the engines Full Speed Astern didn't effect the issue one iota— did not make one hair's-breadth of difference.

"But never mind, I'd done the correct thing, and a Court of Inquiry will always tell you that you are not there to think or use your discretion, but to do whatever is Laid Down in the Book, and not to use your judgment as to its probable efficacy.

"Anyhow, like a knife into cheese, the Diana's sharp stem cut clean into that steamer's rusty side. Through shell-plating, steam-pipes, decks and angle-irons; through the very hatch-coamings, she thrust and sheared— and when the awful heartrending sound of crashing, grinding, hissing, and jarring, had almost subsided, a Limehouse fireman suddenly bawled,

"''Ere, why don't you look where you're goin'?'

"And our poor demoralized Mate, who was wholly responsible, burst into noisy sobs.

"I am not a phlegmatic Englishman, my friend, and I admit that I administered to that man the kick of a lifetime....

"In order that her crew should not go down with her, I went gently ahead and kept going, in order that, for as long as possible, Diana herself should plug the huge gash that she had rent in the side of Actæon.

"As it happened, I needn't have worried. Actæon had no intention of leaving Diana, and hung on like grim death. We were held as though we were part of her.

"When the Captain's daughter, all the seamen, the officers (with the exception of the Third Mate) and the Captain himself had been hauled aboard the Diana, I put her engines Full Astern— and found that I couldn't make her budge an inch.

"Eventually, after going ahead and then astern until the engineers were nearly frantic, the Diana came away with a rush, and it almost seemed as though, in sinking, the poor old Actæon took a last dying bite, revengeful and despairing, at Diana.

"It was a bite, too: a real mouthful.

"We were laden with general cargo for Adelaide and Freemantle, and part of it consisted of whisky— quite a lot of which, from Number One hold, never reached Australia.

"You have an expression 'drinking like a fish', haven't you? Well, the Actæon gave the little fishes plenty with which to get canned.

"As she plunged to Davy Jones, she took our forepeak, our chain-locker and, from under the fore-hatch, about twenty feet of the for'ard ballast tanks— and naturally, while many tons of our cargo dropped out, an equal bulk of the English Channel rushed in.

"With the weight of water in Number One hold putting us down by the head, our Chaste Diana's arrow actually stabbed the 'vassal waves', and our uplifted racing propellor beat the air more than it did the water, and she was about as easy to handle as a water-logged sand-barge.

"A most delightful state of affairs in that particular situation, as any sailor will tell you.

"And then, just to cheer us up, we found that not only were both chains holding us, but they were taking the strain down through the deck abaft the windlass. And since that windlass was on the fo'c'sle-head— which was now merely a precarious jutting-out platform— our cables were what Captain Jones of the Aldgate Academy had called 'end for end', anchors on board ship and cable-ends on sea-bottom!

"Of course, I tried to heave them out, but as the Actæon was apparently anxious to come up with them, I was afraid to put any further strain on our already strained and unsupported fore-deck.

"Much against the grain, and with bitter curses at the Mate, the Actæon, Fate, and a fool called Krassilov, I unshackled those perfectly good chains, and, since she wanted them so badly, let the Actæon have them....

"IT'S MARVELLOUS how tug-boats scent trouble from afar. They're the vultures of the ocean. It's a case of,

"'Look aht for my 'eavin'-line, Sir,'

and somebody, without thought, hauls away, and the moment the tow-rope is aboard, a colossal great account for 'assistance rendered' is automatically incurred.

"Why, one night, off Gravesend, I dragged anchor a little, and was only just in time to cut a tug-boat's heaving-line that my Third Mate had seized and was hauling in with great enthusiasm.

"What I called the young fool was nothing to what the tug-boat's skipper called me— and had I not arrived just in the Old Nick of time, that would have been less than nothing to what my Owner would have called me.

"Nevertheless, for once in my life, I was really glad to see the tugs, and having engaged four to tow us stern first, we limped home into London River.

"Thus, as though coyly retreating backwards before the advances of importunate Olympian lovers, Diana left poor stricken Actæon to be torn by the hounds— of Neptune....

"Hark!"

I listened, straining my ears as we both lay motionless and silent.

I could hear nothing.

Apparently, neither could Krassilov.

"I thought that hatch opened again," he said.

And again we listened.

"NOW, I'll tell you about the other Diana, the girl," he resumed, a few minutes later.

"I learned a lot about Diana Robinson— before I had finished with the Diana-Actæon business— and guessed a good deal more, and I'll tell you the truth as I see it.

"Whether she was a shameless minx, or merely a girl wildly in love for the first time, I don't know. But, of course, the terms may be synonymous.

"Anyhow, it clearly transpired that she deliberately dogged the footsteps of the Third Mate of the Actæon and quite unintentionally fell into his very willing arms. Nevertheless, I have reason to believe that an hour before the trouble with the sailor, he had been less necessary to her comfort, and of no more personal interest than the Cook's Mate.

"It happened like this.

"With a magazine in her hand, she had made herself comfortable on the settee in her father's sitting-room, and lulled by the rhythmic beating of the ship's heart and the warm softness of the starry night, it was only subconsciously that she heard seven strokes struck on the wheel-house bell above her head.

"By merely stretching forth her hand, she could have touched the Captain in his arm-chair, but his voice, saying something about half-past eleven and beauty sleep, seemed to come from another world.

"Suddenly, the faint hum of the electric fan was broken by hideous noises— curses and a sound like that of a body being dragged down the bridge ladder.

"Captain Robinson, who was getting on in years, and hated unusual happenings and emergencies, got up, went to the chart-room door and called out excitedly.

"Outside the door, the Third Mate, in deep tones, calm and deliberate, answered,

"'It's all right, Sir. This man's been drinking, I should think. He can't keep a straight course, nor a civil tongue, so I've put him off the bridge. I think he'd better stay off... and take his trick at the wheel when he can both steer and be civil.'

"Suddenly, and as though from nowhere, an ugly knife materialized in the hand of the swarthy glittering-eyed seaman, and, from the doorway, Diana saw him crouch and spring.

"But even before she could cry out, the officer also sprang, and she marvelled that so huge a man could move so swiftly, so lightly.

"There was a blow, a clutch of a big hand— and the keen knife stuck quivering in the deck, instantly to be kicked overboard by the Captain, as the sailor's empty brown hand was pushed up and over its owner's head.

"'Now, if you struggle you will certainly dislocate your shoulder,' said the Third Mate's quiet voice. '... Go for'ard at once, before I hurt you,' and, most vigorously propelled, the sailor clattered down the main deck.

"With evident relief, the Captain returned to the Chart Room. The young man had handled the matter very well, thought he, and now the matter was closed.

"That was where he was wrong. It was only just beginning.

"Another of the Olympians had joined Actæon. Suddenly and unannounced, as so often happens, Eros had come on board, and had already invaded the boat-deck.

"Brought up almost entirely among men, the Captain's daughter knew a man from a man, and with the infallibility of youth, the essential qualifications and characteristics of a really 'real' Man. And in these few moments this stalwart young officer, of whom she had hitherto taken no particular note, had exhibited some of those most essential, according to her strict code.

"His defeat of an insolent, dangerous and treacherous foe had been extremely competent, easy and quiet. Unruffled, he had shown a respectful deference to her father; there had been a complete absence of anger, bluster, and bravado; and although he had been quite unaware of the presence of a woman, there had been no bad language, no coarse, ugly or blasphemous words. In fact, he had spoken very nicely, and where some young men would have swaggered and expected approval for their achievement, his cultured voice had been rather apologetic.

"And there he stood, illuminated by the brilliant cabin light.

"That was his fate, for it cost him his life and herself great sorrow.

"It was strange, thought Diana, that hitherto she had not noticed him particularly.

"Certainly Eros was now busily at work.

"How blind she had been!

"She must have seen him— but without seeing.

"Certainly a seafaring giant, more or less, was nothing unusual, but this man was definitely unusual in face and voice and figure.... He had acted with the grace and speed of a tiger.... Every movement was eloquent of latent dynamic energy....

"How splendidly his beautiful head was set on the great broad shoulders; what magnificent eyes he had; and what hair! Absolutely wasted on a man.

"And how he was staring! But then, so was she. They were staring at each other. He was positively devouring her with his eyes— as her favourite novel said.

"Thus Diana.

"But upon the Third Officer, Eros had wrought with equal skill— equally well... or ill. And it is not matter for wonder that the youth found the girl desirable.

"I tell you, mon ami, she was beautiful, and I do not use that word lightly."

"I seem to remember a Katinka," I murmured.

"Quite so," agreed Krassilov. "Diana was the blonde counterpart of brunette Katinka. Katinka was a type— the type— of Latin beauty; dark, expressive, changeful, glowing, warm.... Diana was a type— the type— of your Anglo-Saxon beauty; fair, calm, poised, cool... oh, maddening in her unchanging unconscious uncaring loveliness. I fell in love with her myself.

"No, it is not strange that the Third Officer stared. A well-bred man of fastidious taste, he decided that here was Diana indeed.... Diana re-incarnate... amazingly appropriate... that the gods had been amusing themselves with a whimsy most à propos. Then, forcing his mind back to earth— and sea— he realized that he was staring, bowed, and expressed his regret that Miss Robinson had been disturbed and his hope that she had not been alarmed.

"Diana, wondering why her heart fluttered, as never before in the worst emergency had it so misbehaved, coolly assured him that most certainly she was in no wise disturbed— much less alarmed.

"In proof of this she suddenly paled and gasped,

"'Oh... that man stabbed you! There is blood on your arm!'

"Surely young Eros smiled and held his breath as he waited to hear— and see— the answer.

"He heard— and saw.

"'It's only the scratch of a broken button, Miss... Diana.'

"But she had, as she spoke, unconsciously (perhaps) clutched his wrist... and as he whispered the last word 'Diana' he bent, and reverently but firmly pressing his lips to the back of her hand, kissed it warmly.

"The ship's bell tolled 'One'.

"HOW SWIFTLY the hours had passed.

"With clenched, clasped hands, Diana gave herself up to a riot of contending thoughts, gave way before a rush of overwhelming feelings, and merry Eros shook with silent laughter.

"The Third Officer had kissed her hand!

"What impudence! What folly! What cheek! And if the man must kiss, why not cheek? Why not lips, if it came to that?

"Why, she didn't so much as know his name.

"She could soon remedy that, however.

"Oh, Henry Dallingham, was it?

"Henry Dallingham, a mere junior officer. But what a fascinating one!... If he had kissed her lips! Fancy being held in those mighty arms... close against that great broad chest....

"That's quite enough, Diana. And don't all sailors kiss... any girl who'll allow herself to be kissed? A girl in every port. And, after all, he'd only kissed her hand. That was nothing.

"But the look in his wonderful clear eyes, as he stared at her— that wasn't 'nothing'. It was very much 'something'. Although quite nice and respectful, it was undoubtedly 'something'.

"He wanted her.

"Eight bells....

"'All's well, Sir.'

"He would be coming off watch now. He would go down to the main deck, turn sharp to the left and enter the starboard door of the thwartship alley-way.

"Swiftly and silently Diana ran down her father's private staircase, through the saloon and out into the alley-way. As the Third Officer reached the door, she stepped out and collided with him, and, to steady herself, clutched his arm.

"The Actæon obligingly lurching at the moment, the Third Officer was constrained to throw his arm about her to save her from a fall.

"As she made no further movement, though the ship made several, he assumed that the situation was not distasteful to Diana Robinson.

"A man of action, and ever an opportunist, he murmured a question.

"'Er— do you believe in love at first sight, Miss Robinson?...'

"About half an hour later, during which time she had not been wholly silent, she observed,

"'I only came out here for a breath of fresh air,' and added,

"'This air is much superior to that outside my room.'

"And a little later still,

"'Yes. You may have just one more... Harry. Good night... dear.'

"Fortunately for her peace of mind, Diana, having reached her cabin, could not see her new-found lover as he heavily pounded with clenched fists upon the bulwarks, nor note the look of remorse and despair with which he gazed unseeing at the horizon; nor hear the words which, through clenched teeth, came whispered forth as though wrung from him by pain.

"'You fool!'

"YOU SAY, in your beautiful language, that Distance lends enchantment, and that Time magnifies the charm of a voice that is still.

"We, a gloomy people, express it differently, and with a note of cynicism.

"When Time had partially healed her wound, Diana Robinson, as she herself told me, regarded the period of her first love-affair and brief courtship as the happiest period of her life.

"Nevertheless, into her golden happiness there began to creep, after a few halcyon days, the shadow of misgivings and doubts.

"In vain she occasionally reminded herself that 'perfect love casteth out fear'. Why, then, did she find herself increasingly afraid?

"And why did her lover withhold all mention of his earlier career... prevaricate about his previous work... make contradictory statements about his boyhood and parentage?

"And why did he insist so strenuously that she must not say anything to her father: prohibit so peremptorily any announcement of their engagement? Why did he insist so seriously that Diana Robinson's future husband must be Captain Henry Dallingham?

"Could a past that had to be concealed like this be honourable or blameless?

"Personally I think that there is no more erroneous and fatuous saying than your adage that love is blind. I should say that on the contrary no eyes are keener than those of one who loves, especially of a woman in love, and for the first time.

"And all the skill of the Third Officer's plausible and willing tongue failed to remove from Diana's mind the feeling that there was something wrong; that he was not all he appeared; and that some trouble, danger and shame overshadowed him.

"Being the Captain's daughter, and privileged, she would pay sudden surprise visits to the bridge, coming upon him unawares; and usually she would find him standing dejected, staring out to sea with an expression of misery upon his handsome face— misery, remorse, and fear.

"Nevertheless, in the dark and gloomy sky that was spreading over her happiness like the pall of night, there was one bright and steady light, one glowing, gleaming beacon— the conviction, the certainty, that he loved her passionately.

"Then, one day, Fate intervened— with an instrument too small to see... a microbe.

"The strong young giant suddenly went down with a violent attack of a malignant malaria.

"All else was forgotten but his danger, and Diana's one anxiety was that, as his nurse, she might make no mistake, and might successfully and soon bring him back to consciousness and health.

"For when he was not asleep, or in what seemed to her to be a state of coma, he was delirious, and, curiously enough, in his delirium, he shouted, talked, mumbled and muttered in a foreign language. Always in a foreign language; never in English.

"Taking a firm stand against her father's expostulation, Diana insisted on tending the invalid almost constantly. She would only leave him when her place could be taken by someone in whom she had complete trust.

"Regularly she visited the invalid before she retired at night, and spent a last hour in soothing and comforting him if he were awake, or watching him if he were asleep.

"One night, before the arrival of her relief, the Senior Apprentice (a youth who would have dived overboard to retrieve her handkerchief), she laid her cool hands on the sick man's forehead, kissed the crisply waving hair above it, and murmured his name.

"Suddenly springing up, he snatched his jacket from its hook upon the bulkhead, violently ripped open a portion of its lining, snatched forth an oilskin envelope, emptied its contents upon the bedside-table, and, with feverish anxiety and haste, spread them out before her.

"As he did so, he gabbled in a foreign tongue— which she knew was neither French nor German, and believed to be neither Spanish nor Italian— and repeatedly uttered what were apparently the names of women.

"'Alexevana... Marya... Katrina... Daria...'

"But surely these were Russian.

"What an extraordinary thing!

"And then with utter amazement, Diana realized that the papers were beautifully drawn maps and plans; fortresses, harbours, air-and-sea routes, and, curiously enough, headed with such words as Flugmaschinen Linien, Harven für Untersee Boote, Amunitions fabric...

"But these were German and she could understand them.

"And among these papers, maps, plans, drawings, charts and blue-prints, were photographs— a photograph of an officer in military uniform, the photograph of 'Henry Dallingham'; a photograph of that same Henry Dallingham seated beside a bold and flashy-looking, if beautiful, woman, his arm about her waist.... Another photograph that...

"Diana flung it from her as though it burnt her hand.

"The Third Officer, babbling incoherently, fell back upon the pillow.

"Diana's knees seemed about to give way. With a hand to her twitching mouth, she hurried from the cabin. Face down on her settee she was wracked with a paroxysm of sobbing.

"So that was it!

"That was the cause of his strangeness, his secrecy, anxiety and worry.

"For many generations her forebears had sailed, first under the White Ensign and then under the Red— that your British Mercantile Marine fondly terms the Old Red Duster. And this man— this spy— would sail under its protection, would he— to use it for subversive ends; to wrong it; to violate it? Sail in her father's ship: make love to her father's daughter!

"What an unimaginable fool she had been! Of course he did not love her. She was a pawn in his game. The sort of woman he would love would be the things in that... photograph; the women whose names he called on in delirium.

"Strange that they should all be Russian names. Doubtless the language in which he had gabbled had been Russian, too, although the writing on his maps and plans had been German.

"A sort of double disguise, perhaps— a Russian pretending to be German, if it were discovered that he was not English.

"What was he? One of those avowedly and unashamedly murderous Bolsheviks?

"Whatever else he was, he was a very clever man, for he had deceived her completely.

"Possibly Diana Robinson might prove to be a clever girl— and deceive him completely.

"After bathing her eyes and adding a touch of colour to her white cheeks, she returned to the sick man's cabin. Apparently no one had entered it in her absence. The hateful creature still lay muttering in his bunk— the papers and photographs as she had left them on the table.

"Picking up his coat and gathering the papers together, Diana returned to her room. Here she packed the oilskin envelope with notepaper of a bulk about equal to that of the maps, plans and photographs, replaced the packet inside the lining of the coat, and, with deft fingers, so skilfully re-sewed it that the owner of the coat would be unlikely to notice that it had been disturbed....

"Such is woman's power of dissimulation, and courage in bearing and hiding pain, that when Diana entered the Captain's cabin, he had no idea that anything was wrong, no inkling of his daughter's anguish.

"Smiling brightly at her father,

"'Daddy,' she said, 'I'm tired of this nursing job... and I think you ought to take charge of the Third Mate's clothes. And you must put a man to look after him. He's too much for me. I found him delirious and trying to get up and dress to go on watch.'

"So, with feminine guile, Diana ensured that the spy's self-revelation would not be repeated....

"For Diana the days passed somehow, as, with unusual good fortune, the Actæon carried her fine weather to the very chops of the Channel.

"One morning, feeling himself able to resume duty, the Third Officer went up to relieve the Mate for the forenoon watch.

"Having seen him enter up the compass deviation obtained from an azimuth, Diana visited the bridge, and for the first time the flash of the Third Officer's white teeth brought no answering smile to her face.

"'Why so solemn, my nurse... my dear?' he asked, gazing into her eyes and scanning her face anxiously.

"'I'm no longer one of your— dears,' replied Diana, quietly and somewhat grimly. 'And I wouldn't nurse you if you were dying.... But because I have been your... fool, I'll give you twenty-four hours in which to get out of England when we get there... twenty-four hours, from the time of your discharge in London, in which to get back to Germany, or Russia, or wherever your sty is.... I ought not to give you a chance at all.... But at the end of that time, I'll certainly put the police on your track.'

"The Third Officer grinned, chuckled, and then laughed so heartily and with such apparently genuine amusement, that Diana was amazed, frightened.

"Was it possible she had been guilty of misjudging him? And if not, what aplomb, what readiness and perfect poise! What an actor was this spy!

"Could she have been mistaken?

"Of course not. Photographs are photographs. And delirious Englishmen don't talk nothing but Russian. Nor do English officers secretly carry plans of English Naval Bases, Munition Works and Forts; nor masses of notes and formulæ written in a foreign language.

"No, obviously he was a spy, and, thought Diana bitterly, if there were many such, it boded ill for England.

"With a sort of amused, gay tenderness, he chaffed the indignant yet bewildered girl.

"'You are overwrought, Diana,' he concluded. 'You've been on board too long, and then this nursing... over-conscientious kindness and loving care. And this spy-business— of course it worried and upset you and gave you a shock. I shall have to make a confession now...'

"Diana recoiled.

"'...and tell you a secret— something I had not intended to mention until I succeeded. I am writing a book... a spy story. I hope to make money... possibly become famous. I wanted to give my sweetheart a surprise.'

"'You've certainly given me a surprise,' replied Diana, and added bitterly,

"'What a fool you must think me!'

"'But why, Diana? Why? What makes you say such a thing? Why should I think you're a fool?'

"'Because you imagine I am so easily deceived.... A book! A spy story!

"'Plausible rubbish,' she added, fighting back the tears that would well up— force their way, it seemed, from her aching heart to her smarting eyes.

"The Third Officer, striding forward, extended his arms.

"'Diana,' he said, 'tell me... answer me one question. Do you believe that I love you?... Love you absolutely... want nothing in the whole world as I want you?'

"'I did think so,' replied Diana. 'I did believe it. Yes, I believed it— perhaps because I wanted to.... Now I need— proof.'

"'Proof, Diana? Why, what proof can I give? What proof is there that I would not give? Tell me how I can...'

"Straining every nerve to prevent her voice from faltering, her gaze from wavering from his, Diana made answer.

"'By throwing overboard the packet that you carry inside the lining of your jacket.'

"The Third Officer gave a perceptible start. The expression of his face changed, and the look in his eyes hardened. But almost simultaneously, he laughed lightly, merrily.

"'But, darling, not the manuscript of the great work? You're not jealous of that? You don't mind my trying to leave the sea and make name and fame and wealth as a writer of fiction that...'

'"I am not alluding to fiction,' interrupted Diana coldly, an angry frown marring her young face. 'I'm referring to maps and plans and charts and drawings and masses of notes written in a foreign language— secret information that you have gathered to send to your German or Russian employers.'

"And then to Diana's shame and horror, if not to her surprise, the man, with flushed face and clenched fist, swore in some foreign tongue.

"Most obviously he was swearing; swearing at her; cursing her.

"She had been right. The man was a foreigner, a Secret Service Agent, a spy.... And she had loved him so.

"And now how she hated him! How she loved him!

"Oh, God! What should she do?

"Even now she must fight against herself— fight to prevent herself from forgiving him, comforting him, loving him, throwing her arms about his neck as he stood there, holding to the rail with a grip that whitened his knuckles, his face a study of misery, anger . . .

"Suddenly he turned to her.

"'Diana,' he said, 'will you hear me? Will you give me a chance to explain... to tell the truth... to do myself justice... clear myself... in your eyes? Be just, Diana. Give me a hearing. I cannot tell you the whole story here, now. Give me a chance, Diana. I'll tell you the truth, and you shall judge. Don't condemn me unheard. Don't ruin my life... and yours. For you do love me, Diana. You know you do. I know you do. You love me and I worship you... adore you.

"'You'll hear me, won't you? Give me a chance... give us a chance. Oh, Diana, be just... be fair... be sensible. May I come to your cabin... or will you come to mine?'

"'Throw that packet overboard— now,' replied Diana, 'and then I'll answer you.'

"'Diana!...'

"Turning on her heel, the girl walked away without another word, and descending from the bridge went to her cabin.

"Gazing after her, the Third Officer ground his teeth and swore again.

"The horns of a dilemma indeed! The fruits of his long, arduous and dangerous labours he would not give up. This girl who had got into his very blood, the first woman for whom he had ever really turned aside, he would not give up.

"His work was his life, success his mistress.

"This girl was his life.... His mistress?

"A look of cunning displaced that of despairing anger upon his flushed face. His set jaw and mouth relaxed as his lips pursed and then twisted into an unpleasant smile.

"An idea, a plan.

"Success would be— glorious success. Failure would make the position but little worse than it already was.

"And serve her right, the little devil. How dared she? And how on earth had she found him out, discovered his secret? His intuition, instinct, experience, psychology, flair... all were at fault if she were other than she seemed.

"Surely she was not of those who go through the pockets of a sleeping man; search a sick man's clothes and kit; open his correspondence; pry into his obviously most private and secret documents.

"Could it be possible that it was a case of diamond cut diamond, and that the chit was, herself, a Secret Service Agent?

"Could it be possible that she was not the Captain's daughter at all; that she had been following him the whole time, and had come on board this ship simply to fool him and trap him, and get his documents— his notes and plans and papers?

"Could it be possible that she was no more English than he was— and that the fruits of his labours were to be plucked by those who were as much the enemies of his country as they were the enemies of England?

"Oh, nonsense! She was English, all right. Yes, but was she in the English Secret Service? And was his work to be undone?

"No, nonsense! She was just Miss Bread-and-Butter, the Captain's daughter, and very much a girl in love. And his plan would work.

"It would have to work. He'd make it work. And she'd be only too glad for it to work— afterwards.

"But what a mystery... about her discovery of that packet— her thorough investigation of its contents.

"Well, well, you never knew with women: and the more you knew the less you were certain. Perhaps she thought she'd discovered a bundle of love-letters and therefore opened the packet....

"That girl was going to be useful to him later on.

"But, God, how he loved her!

"DIANA WOKE suddenly and shot upright in bed.

"What was that?

"'Who's there?'

"'It is I, Diana... Harry.'

"'How dare you! Go at once. Get out. You can't talk to me here... now.'

"'I don't want to talk to you, Diana.'

"'Then why have you dared to come here?'

"'Because I had no choice... because I love you... and because you love me. Diana, you're going to be mine... now. Now and always. I love you so much that I'm going to make sure of you. I daren't risk losing you. You gave me such a fright with your foolish talk, your mad suspicion.... Diana... No, you can't get to that bell, and if you scream, I'll gag you. Quiet! I...'

"His great hand was over her mouth. She was suffocating; she was going to faint.

"Crash!...

"Amid a sudden rush and trampling of feet and a burst of shouting, the Actæon staggered under a giant's blow, and taking a quick and awful list to starboard, shuddered horribly throughout her length.

"The Third Officer was thrown from where he knelt above Diana, across the cabin and against the door.

"Like a pen piercing thin paper, a bowsprit ripped open the side of the cabin, and there, before him, serene, aloof, yet menacing and terrible, appeared another Diana, white, avenging, armed, gazing into his staring eyes.

"To his shocked brain, it seemed as though, with an awful shrieking and a dreadful grinding, the Goddess Diana herself had burst in, to protect her namesake. And, indeed, as he shrank back against the stout teak door, a golden arrow-head was presented at his breast.

"Closer... closer... closer... his brain reeling, his knees giving way beneath him; mind and body failing together; no strength to save himself; no weapon for attack or defence; no space in which to move... the arrow... the arrow...touching him... hurting him....

"One arm he flung above his head, one he threw across his face.

"As the arrow transfixed his heart, he shrieked,

"'Diana!'

"And struck by a piece of flying metal, the ship's bell tolled 'One'."

"KRASSILOV," I said, a little later, when my mind had returned to earth and the bitter blackness of our cell. "I thank you from the bottom of my soul. You took me out of prison."

"Krassilov," I asked, a little later still, "did Chavart have a mouse?"

"He did."

"Did Ghisonaccia kill it?"

"He did."

"Did Chavart say he would kill Ghisonaccia?"

"He did."

"Did Ghisonaccia kill Chavart?"

"He did."

"Did Chavart's ghost kill Ghisonaccia?" I tapped.

"It did not."

"Who did?"

"I did, of course. Didn't you see me?"

"Yes."

__________________

6: Nemesis

I WOKE SUDDENLY from what was either a brief doze, a short light nap, or else a long, profound, and heavy slumber. One never knew which, in that ghastly darkness, that awful pitch-black silence.

Instantly I stretched forth my hand to "see" whether Krassilov was still there. He was, thank God, and I put away from me the thought of how I should feel when they took him away again, and I was once more alone to fight a losing battle with madness.

On the whole, it would be worse than before Krassilov came; the silence would be even deeper, the blackness even blacker.

Before long, I should not really be alone in my cell. There would be a Thing. It would lurk and creep and crawl, circling around me. I should get up into a corner, and then it would sidle along the wall toward me, first on my right and then on my left, advancing and retreating— sometimes touching me before it drew back. Always it would retreat after an advance, but never, never would it retreat quite as far. Each approach would be from a nearer spot, nearer and nearer, until at last it sprang and fastened on me and seized me for its own— for ever.

A vast Thing, like a colossal spider, and its name— Madness.

And when it sprang and seized me I should scream, and then, insanely striving to shake it off, to free myself from its clutch, to get its terrible claws from out my brain, I should leap up and dash my head against the wall. Again... and again... and again.

"What's up?" said Krassilov.

"Nothing," I replied.

"Sounded as though you were choking. You reminded me of Antonovitch."

And he laughed.

"I suppose there is some sort of ventilation to these cells," he added.

"I suppose so," I replied. "Must be, or we should be dead by now.... I suppose we aren't dead, are we? Dead and in Hell?"

"In Hell, but not dead," answered Krassilov. "I'm awfully sorry that— er— Chavart's ghost should have brought you to this suffering.... However, you'll agree that it was in a good cause... oh, an excellent cause."

And Krassilov again laughed his curious sardonic chuckle. It recalled to my mind something that he had said when he laughed before— something about reminding him of Antonovitch.

"Who was Antonovitch?" I asked.

Again Krassilov chuckled.

"Ha, ha! ce bon Antonovitch. There's one thing, my friend, a comforting thought to me. He's a million times worse off than we are. A tender-skinned, juicy worm, wriggling on the red-hot floor of the cellars of Hell.... A murderous, treacherous, sadistic slaughterer.... Tovarisch Antonovitch, born a gentleman and died a willing, nay, an enthusiastic, servant and helper of the bloody-handed, bloody-minded butchers who had tortured and slain every friend, relation, comrade, and caste-fellow that the dog had ever had.

"Oh, but what a cosmic jest of the High Gods! What a colossal, noble joke! He was the man who digged a pit for his enemy and fell into it himself; the engineer who was hoist with his own petard.

"Oh, ce bon Antonovitch! I'll tell you. Really too funny."

"Did you play one of your practical jokes on him?" I asked, thinking of a certain Skiros and of one Ghisonaccia.

"No. It was practical enough, but it wasn't one of mine. It was one of Fate's little jokes— Fate's little ironies....

"He was a Tovarisch, one of the new Comrades, so-called because they have not a comradely atom in their make-up. Called Comrades by themselves, bien entendu, because their name is Hate; their religion, Hate; their attributes hatred, envy, treachery, lying, and all those qualities that go to make all that is not a gentleman....

"Well, Tovarisch Antonovitch was travelling on the ship on which I held undistinguished office in the engine-room, though I'm not certain that those facts were in any way connected. There was sufficient possibility of it, however, for me to take an interest in the doings of Comrade Antonovitch; to watch his comings and his goings, so far as I could, when the ship was in port, and to learn of his habits from the cabin-steward and deck-steward, to whom I made myself agreeable and profitable.

"'A studious gent,' he was reported to be. 'Always mucking about with paper and pencil, figuring things out, and over-inclined to raise 'ell if so much as a scrap of paper was tidied up in his cabin.'

"'What sort of scraps of paper?'

"'Oh, bits of paper all covered over with figures and letters— silly stuff.'

"'And books.'

"'All day long he'd have his nose in books, up on deck.'

"'What sort of books?'

"'Oh, silly books. Not the sort anybody would pinch and return when done with. Science an' all that.... Chemistry an' all that.... You know.... Books full of nothing but figures and letters, like the papers he scribbled.... Barmy sort o' bloke. Might be a professor, or a schoolmaster, or something silly like that....'

"All this information gave me a pretty shrewd guess at the object of the activities of Tovarisch Antonovitch.

"What was he like? Oh, one of the half-baked intelligentsia type; intense; had what he would have called pale clean-cut features and burning eyes; and what I called skinny pasty face with a mad look in it.

"He used to talk to himself too, out loud. He'd stand and stare at the horizon and suddenly say:

"'The third time. Surely the third time. The third time is always successful.'

"My friend the deck-steward told me that, not only had he heard him say these words, but that on one occasion when the Comrade had rung for him, and he had immediately responded, there was a slight misunderstanding. For Antonovitch, with a frightful scowl, growled,

"'The third time.'

"And the deck-steward was constrained to point out that it was only the first time— that he had rung the bell.

"I came to the conclusion that the good Comrade had had two unsuccessful shots at some villainy or other, and expected to bring it off the third time.

"One day he rang his cabin bell— kept his finger on it until the steward came running.

"Antonovitch was lying on his bunk, one hand clutching his throat and the other still pressing the bell.

"'Help!... Help!... Good God! What is it? What is it?' he gasped chokingly.

"'Wot's wot, Sir?' asked the surprised but phlegmatic steward.

"Antonovitch gasped, coughed, clutched at his collar.

"'Help!... Help!' he croaked. 'It is suffocating me.'

"As the steward informed us that night, as we took the air upon the after well-deck, he fair thought the bloke had got the D.T.'s proper. And then he noticed that there was a curious smell in the room— a nasty and increasing smell of smoke and burning and of roasting flesh— apparently coming up through the floor of the cabin or in at the port-hole.

"Yes, even as he sniffed, it got quite nasty, and where Mr. Antonovitch was lying, just under the port-hole, it must be worse.

"And then the fire-alarm bells rang, a bugle-call was blown and the siren hooted.

"Promptly the steward fled to take his place at fire-stations. Within a quarter of an hour he returned to reassure Mr. Antonovitch.

"'It's all right, Sir,' he smiled. 'Nothing to be alarmed about. Your cabin's right over the cook's galley, and a lot of fat caught fire and blazed up.'

"'Blimey!' declared the steward in telling us this incident, 'you'd 'ave thought old whiskers had been nine-tenths stuffocated and the other tenth spifflicated, the bloomin' fuss he made. Said it was 'orrible, and he'd nearly died... nearly been choked by the 'orrible fumes... and he'd have the law of the Company. 'Oo did they think they were, and 'oo did they think 'e was, going about choking him like that?...

"'Never asked whether poor old Cookie and the cook's mate had had their faces burnt off by the blaze.'

"And the second incident.

"We were headed for Colon at the entrance to the Panama Canal, for which port, or rather gateway or clearing-house, Antonovitch from the West was bound, to meet a Comrade from the East, one of their damnable fomenters of trouble, whose ultimate success would be the negation and disproof of the Eternal Justice of Things and the Somehow Good.

"Now our course for Panama lay just south of the Island of Oruba, about a dozen miles off the coast of Venezuela— a god-forsaken hole that produces nothing but oil.

"At about midnight, as we passed just south of the island, I came up on to the after well-deck for a breath of air. The wind was north-west and just strong enough to waft to us the filthy and somewhat suffocating smell of a burning gusher or something of the sort. There was a lurid light above Oruba, and a dense black cloud of smoke which stretched out towards us like a gigantic hand, the finger-tips of which just failed to reach and clutch us.

"It may have been the ordinary normal glow and fumes from a great oil-refinery, but I remember thinking I shouldn't have cared to be on board a sailing-ship becalmed in the middle of that fog of smoke.

"As I say, it was unpleasant for a couple of minutes on the open deck, and must have been still more unpleasant in any cabins on the starboard side, that were just at the proper level to get the full benefit of it.

"Apparently Comrade Antonovitch's cabin was, for once again his bell pealed with a continuous ring.

"But by the time the man on night-duty had discovered who was making the din, and had reached the corridor leading to Antonovitch's cabin, that gentleman staggered forth in his pyjamas, gasping, coughing, clutching his throat, fighting for breath.

"'Air!' he managed to croak. 'Air!' and fell to the ground, apparently in a fit of some kind.

"As the bewildered night-watchman remarked later, if air was all the gent wanted, there was plenty of it about, and he might as well come up on deck and sample it up there.

"Did he want a doctor?

"No, he wanted air.

"Up on the deserted deck, Antonovitch quickly recovered, but begged the steward not to leave him there alone. When the man again offered to fetch the doctor, Antonovitch assured him that that was not necessary. He was in perfect health, and all that he needed was fresh air.

"'Are many dead?' he asked. 'I expected to see the stairs and corridors choked with them, dying as they fled from their cabins.... How did you escape?"

"The steward's opinion that he had got hold of a 'delirious trimmer' changed to a certainty that he'd got hold of a lunatic.

"'Escape what, Sir?' the steward humoured him.

"'The gas, man.... The gas.... I was never nearer death in my life.... I was sitting working and became subconsciously aware of the smell, and at the back of my brain a foolish fancy toyed with the thought that the smell came from the formulæ and figures on my paper. Mathematical chemistry... but you wouldn't understand.... And suddenly I awoke to reality and leapt to my feet, choking, suffocating, dying....'

"Eventually the steward brought up Antonovitch's overcoat and rug, for he firmly refused to return to his cabin.

"And 'the third time,' as Antonovitch himself was so fond of saying.

"At Colon he went ashore— and so did I— and at the Washington Hotel I saw a face that I had never expected to see again, that of the Comrade who there met Antonovitch.

"He brought him something— whether chemicals, documents or money— for Antonovitch, who had gone there empty-handed, drove away from the hotel with a heavy suitcase.

"From Colon we went to Kingston, and thence to Havana, where we coaled.

"Now, coaling at Havana is, for passengers, a nasty, dirty and noisy business. Much more so than at places like Aden or Port Said, where an endless procession of niggers walks up the gang-planks, each with half a pound of coal-dust in a strawberry-basket on his head.

"At Havana it comes on by the truck-load and not by the basketful. The trucks run to the end of the line, tip up, and hurl the whole load on to a sloping iron chute, down which it rolls, and from the end of which it falls with a noise like thunder, through a hatch into the bowels of the ship.

"The row is deafening, the coal-dust is all-pervading, and the heat is dreadful, as every door, window, and port-hole in the whole ship is hermetically sealed. Otherwise there'd be a quarter-inch layer of coal-dust on every bed, sofa, cushion, carpet, tablecloth and everything else in the ship.

"Tovarisch Antonovitch sat working as usual, far into the night. It was terribly hot and stuffy in his cabin in spite of the electric fan, and from time to time he would leave his cabin, go up the saloon companion, open the door and emerge upon the blackened deck, in search of somewhat cooler and fresher conditions.

"But not for long. Like most other people, he was defeated by the coal-dust and the hellish din.

"In his cabin this was but a heavy rumble; outside it was deafening— like standing under an iron bridge while express trains rushed across it.

"At about two o'clock he had had enough of exchanging bad for worse, and gave it up.

"Leaving his work on the little desk which was part of the furniture of his cabin, he undressed and went to bed.

"At four o'clock, I— of all people in the world— had occasion to go to his cabin, and you can take it that what I tell you now is truth and fact, although I was not present when it happened.... A child could have reconstructed it....

"Antonovitch went to bed— and to sleep.... He dreamed.... His dream was horrible... awful beyond telling.... The horror of his life was upon him.... He was being suffocated... choked.... He was dying.... Gasping and whooping, he was vomiting his very lungs.... And yet he could not wake; could not move; could not leap up and flee to safety. He was bound hand and foot with invisible bonds. Could he but burst them, he could save himself.

"A last mighty effort, with the strength of despair.

"He opened his eyes.

"The cabin was full of smoke.

"Fire!

"No.... The slowly revolving electric fan was oozing a dense oily heavy stream of smoke that coiled downward to the floor like a wreathing, writhing serpent. And the floor was hidden from his sight in this dense green-grey dreadful smoke.

"The unoiled electric fan had run hot and ever hotter until the packing of greasy cotton-waste had caught fire and smouldered.

"All this he saw at a glance, and with another mighty effort struggled into a sitting position, coughing, choking, gasping— rose to his feet, screamed, took a staggering step in the direction of the door and collapsed into the terrible sea of smoke— and died a dreadful death....

"WORD SOON came from neighbouring cabins that smoke and smell were issuing from Number 13. The Fourth Engineer, with me at his heels, was soon on the spot. A glance showed us what had happened and in a moment we had stopped the fan and opened the port-hole.

"While the Fourth Engineer's head was stuck well out of the latter, as he inhaled draughts of fresh air and coal-dust, I looked at Tovarisch Antonovitch's papers lying as he had left them on the table.

"I laughed. I admit it....

"I enjoyed Fate's little joke....

"Poison-gas...!

"AS I DISCOVERED from the diary that I promptly annexed, the Comrade was at work on his third formula. He was inventing a poison-gas, one container of which, dropped on a city, would turn it within a few minutes to a City of the Dead...."

__________________

7: The Hunting of Henri

HENRI DELAVIGNE is a scamp. The word suits him admirably, and he it.

He is not a rascal, a rogue, a scoundrel, or a blackguard, by any means, much less a criminal. He is a scamp, a chenapan; wicked, lovable, amusing— a graceless detrimental, or rather a graceful detrimental, for, like so many of these deplorably charming ne'er-do-wells, he is extremely handsome, almost faultless of face and figure.

The other day Henri gave us a full, true, and particular account of how he came to be in the Legion. At least, he said it was true, and it certainly was full and particular.

Fortunately his listeners were also full— and not particular.

Edited and expurgated, Henri Delavigne's story may be reconstructed as follows:

"VERY EXTRAORDINARY conduct!" remarked Madame Dartois to her husband, as they entered the empty drawing-room of The Old Bungalow, which is in Whereisit, which is by the sea at the back of beyond in Annam or Tunisia or French Somaliland or somewhere.

"Étonnant," agreed Monsieur le Colonel Dartois meekly. "Sure you haven't mistaken the day, or anything?" he added.

"Guillaume!" ejaculated the outraged lady. "Do I— moi qui parle— ever make mistakes?"

"No, ma mie," hastily replied Guillaume.

"'Christmas Day at 8.30' was what she wrote to me, a fortnight ago. And 'Christmas Day at 8.30' I believe to-day is?"

"It is, ma chérie."

"Christmas Dinner to the Garrison and Civil Station— and the woman not in the house even! I was never so insulted in my life. Shameful! Disgraceful! Scandalous!"

Madame Dartois' long earrings trembled as her wrath and indignation waxed. So did her long husband. He knew her temper and her manners— and he feared a scene when the remiss and errant hostess did appear.

"Not like the Boirots at all," he observed.

For Monsieur and Madame Boirot had invited all the French residents of Whereisit to dinner, that Christmas Day, and were not present to receive them. Not even in the house, according to the native butler!

Another couple entered— Médecin-Major Luynes, the portentous Doctor of Whereisit, and his weary wife.

Médecin-Major Luynes is one of those "twice-born" who would have done better to be born once and born well.

"Punctuality is a virtue," he remarked weightily, as he pulled at his cuffs.

"Wonder what's happened to them," said Colonel Dartois, greeting the newcomers.

"Procrastination is the thief of time," observed Médecin-Major Luynes as he smoothed his hair.

"And they, mere civilians of less than ten years' service," snorted Madame Dartois. "I don't care if the man is the District Officer."

"Better late than never," affirmed Médecin-Major Luynes, tugging at his waistcoat.

"Guillaume, you'll call Monsieur Boirot to account for this," said Madame Dartois.

"Certainly, ma belle."

More guests arrived.

At twenty minutes to nine, a dozen people were present, hungrily awaiting an absent host and hostess.

"I am absolutely certain that we shall find that it is in no way their fault," said Madame Lebrun, who was as charitable and kindly as she was beautiful; and added,

"I vote we make a beginning— and an end."

"It is not usual to sit down without one's host and hostess," said Médecin-Major Luynes oracularly, and with truth, as he screwed his moustache.

"No— nor to sit down with them when they aren't there," replied Colonel Dartois with equal truth.

"Give them till nine," said Madame Lebrun. "They are sure to be here by then."

But they were not.

Nor by nine the next evening. Nor the next. Nor by New Year's Day.

A widely known and greatly respected member of local French Colonial Society, and his wife— equally well known and respected— and his camel— even more widely known, but less respected, had vanished into thin air and disappeared as completely as if the earth had opened and swallowed them up upon Christmas Day— after they had invited the whole Station to dinner.

They had— metaphorically at least— left the children in the nursery, the horses in the stables, the dog in the kennel, the cat on the rug, the canary in the cage, the needle in the unfinished needlework, the unsigned papers and files on the office-table, and departed without a word to a soul— as though they wished to insult and flout and annoy the whole Station by a practical joke in the very worst taste.

They owed no man a sou, had consciences of the clearest, possessed not an enemy in the world, appeared devoted to their home, were sane, sound, wholesome, normal people.

And they had vanished, apparently, while a score of hungry guests irritably wondered what on earth had become of them. Had they disintegrated, evaporated, spontaneously combusted?

On Boxing Day and the following days, it appeared that no shipping-office had news of them, no railway-station had seen them, no wandering Arab or other native knew anything of them or their camel.

The Police were at fault, the trackers were at fault, the large rewards were unavailing.

The Boirots and their camel were simply gone. Apparently they had not left by sea, by rail, or by road; nor were they in Whereisit, the environs of Whereisit, or the vicinity of Whereisit.

They had merely ceased to exist, and no longer were.

MADAME Boirot and Monsieur Henri Delavigne were friends, birds of a feather who had flocked together with (so far) the happiest results. Both were athletic, fond of all sports, lovers of animals, devoted to the chase in every form, and to the open air in every kind of weather.

Madame Boirot, who had been christened Poppæa for some reason, was no beauty; but she was a female athlete, great at tennis, golf, badminton, swimming, fencing, running, sculling, and could hold her own across country with anybody on any horse.

With gun, rifle and revolver, she required some beating, and, mirabile dictu! she could throw a stone or a ball as well as she could cast a fly.

She should have been named Atlanta or Herculea rather than Poppæa.

Monsieur Boirot affected to feel a gentle sorrow for all other men, as he had never met the man whose wife could saddle, bridle, and groom a horse as well as ride it; take a safe and distinguished place with the 'guns' as well as feed them; sail a boat as well as row it; train a hawk as well as fly it; and beat the average man at the lighter games as well as the average woman at the duties of the drawing and dining rooms.

Her favourite, if deplorable, way of spending the Sabbath was to sally forth before dawn with Monsieur Henri Delavigne, and upon Monsieur Tartarin de Tarascon, with a gun and cartridge-belt apiece, the tiffin-basket, and a supply of water; and to return at night with such grouse, partridge, bustard, quail, snipe, duck, hare or buck as Fate might will.

Monsieur Tartarin de Tarascon was Madame Boirot's camel, trained and maintained for purposes of shooting. When the question of naming him had arisen, Madame Boirot had said that obviously he was Monsieur Tartarin himself, in the flesh— camel-flesh.

Monsieur Tartarin was unreliable, and, in many ways, objectionable.

The school-boy who described the camel as 'a beast with a good heart but bad breath' would have found Tartarin undeserving of even this limited eulogy. His heart was as bad as his breath, and though he would do you a good hundred kilometres in a day, and live for a space on broken gingerbeer-bottles, he did everything grudgingly and under protest.

He got up with a bubbling growl, and he lay down with a bubbling growl. With the same he received a blow or a bowl of hot bran, a rebuke, or a pile of succulent camel-thorn. He would repay the gift of a generous meal with an attempt to take you by the neck; and the safest place in his immediate vicinity was on his back— provided you had his rein and could thwart an attempt at eating your leg by jerking at his delicate nose.

A lady novelist has written of a Rare and Beautiful-Minded Camel who 'gurgled with pleasure' at the approach of his master, and 'knelt proudly to receive him'. Tartarin gurgled without pleasure at the approach of anybody, and extended his well-furnished mouth to receive him. And the bite of a camel is one of the worst bites in the world.

But Tartarin was a most useful beast.

Tartarin was a perfect pantechnicon. Whatever you fancied as a useful adjunct to an outing on Tartarin, you might take. If to guns, ammunition, tent, food, water, camera, satchel, and other impedimenta, you chose to add an arm-chair, a bath, or a wardrobe, you had only to tie it somewhere on Tartarin. And as he would stand (or rather kneel) for hours, when you went off on foot, he made an admirable headquarters.

You could ride him to a place twenty kilometres distant, and plant him in a chosen spot, as house and home; sally forth on foot; and return again to him for food, rest and shelter, after shooting over the adjacent parts of the map.

But you could not safely come in reach of his ugly, sideways-biting mouth.

Yes. After a week's domesticity, Madame Boirot found it glorious to get away into the desert on Monsieur Tartarin.

"WHERE SHALL we go to-morrow, Henri?" asked Madame Boirot on Christmas Eve. "Let's have 'a day in the country' and get an appetite for our Christmas dinner."

"I shall be delighted," replied Monsieur Delavigne quite truthfully. "Let's ride Monsieur Tartarin to the sea— it's only thirty kilometres— and then prospect for curlew along the shore. I don't suppose a human being goes there once in a century. We shall pick up a few sand-grouse on the way, and I hear there's a bit of grass near the oasis beyond, where we may put up some quail, and there may be a duck and a wisp of snipe by the water. Then to the sea for a curlew— I have never bagged one yet, though I have heard they are to be found along the shore. I want to stuff and mount a good one, with about two feet of bill."

"Excellent programme, mon garçon," agreed Madame Boirot. "I'll look out some 'fives' and 'sixes' for my twenty-bore, and give orders for some appropriate food. Let's get away before dawn, and see the sun rise in the desert. We can be back comfortably by the evening."

"Yes, I'll send word round to Ali to bring Monsieur Tartarin round to my bungalow to-night. Then he'll be here in time in the morning, anyhow."

At five o'clock on the morrow, Madame Boirot, briefly clad in shirt, khaki shorts, putties, brown sun-helmet and hob-nailed boots, emerged from The Old Bungalow and circumspectly approached Monsieur Tartarin, who, kneeling, chewed the cud of bitter and resentful recollection.

Near, yet far— far enough for safety— awaited Monsieur Henri Delavigne, and further still, Ali the Camel-man slept peacefully.

The gentle application of a toe brought Ali the Camel-man back from dreams of the houris of Paradise to the realities of Tartarin of Tarascon, and he bestirred himself to place the large 'Zarles' double saddle-frame on his loudly complaining charge, to fasten cushions, and to stock saddle-bags, attach folding chairs and tiffin basket, and festoon the gentle creature with satchels, cartridge-bags, flasks, camera, field-glasses and other details.

All being in readiness, Madame Boirot climbed into the rear seat and sat sideways, with her feet on a board which was slung to the saddle, and her gun across her lap; then Monsieur Henri Delavigne, scrambling into the front seat, intimated to Monsieur Tartarin that the time had come for him to arise and go thence.

"Does the Presence require this slave?" inquired Ali.

The Presence did not, and the slave returned to his dreams while, silent as a spectre, the big camel padded out of the compound and disappeared down the track that led away to the mysterious limitless desert of sand and sea.

With gun in one hand and nose-rope 'reins' and stick in the other, Delavigne drove the supercilious and disgusted-looking animal along, at some eight miles an hour.

He congratulated himself that daylight would find them where game was to be expected, and that by about nine-thirty, the drinking time of the sand-grouse, he and his companion would be ensconced and awaiting them, near the only fresh water— if water there still were— for miles.

"I do love swaying along in the darkness like this," said Madame Boirot. "There is nothing else quite like it, when you can't see the ground, and seem to be neither on earth nor water."

"We shall be quite sure we're on earth all right, if he trips over anything, ma chère Poppæa," replied the unpoetic and shivering male— and conversation languished until a glow of delicate, silvery grey, slowly turning to shell-pink, defined the eastern horizon.

"The sun is rising in the east, Henri," said Madame Boirot.

"Habit it's got," replied her cavalier.

"I do love to see it slowly...."

"I shall be glad to feel it quickly...."

"Poor old Henri, what a miserable cold mortal you are since that malaria! Have a look into your cognac flask."

"Alcohol, ma chère, gives a meretricious and delusive sense of warmth, while driving the blood to the surface and actually lowering the temperature of the whole body," replied Monsieur Henri Delavigne sententiously. "Yes... I think I will. Shame to abuse good cognac, seeing I lived on it for a while, after enteric. Good old friend of mine."

"You remind me of poor Colonel Dubord's reply to Zouzou D'Anton's valedictory advice on the 'Massilia'.... 'Have a good time at home, Colonel, and avoid the World, the Flesh and the Devil.'"

"What did Dubord say?"

"He emerged from a large bock and, fixing Zouzou with a cold and fishy eye, grunted.

"'I'll ask you to speak respectfully of the World, the Flesh and the Devil, young man— they're the three best friends I've got!'"

"Don't tell me such shocking things. Dubord's a moral wreck."

"Better than being an immoral wreck like people who nip brandy at six a.m. Look! There's the sun."

"You're right, clever woman. It is the sun. Now try to be silent for five— er— seconds... and look around for birds, and keep a beady eye below for bustard tracks...."

The grey desert turned to gold as the sun crept higher, the horizon widened, and, in a few minutes, the cold night had changed to hot day.

Suddenly Delavigne drew rein, and brought Monsieur Tartarin from a long swaying trot to a stately walk, and then to a standstill.

Both riders sat motionless as, without turning his head, Delavigne whispered,

"Five grouse, fifty yards left front, Pop, see them?"

"No. Wait a bit. No. Yes! By the hillock."

"That's it. Your go. I'll put Tartarin down on the far side."

A circular detour soon brought Tartarin and his riders to a point on the far side of the big mound of sand, so curiously wind-wave marked.

Here seductive whisperings and downward tugs of the reins induced the camel to drop on his knees, and laboriously settle down in the kneeling position that enabled Madame Boirot to descend from his back.

Slipping cartridges into her gun, she started off in the direction of the sleeping birds, leaving her companion seated on Tartarin, but ready for a shot if the grouse flew over.

With gun well forward, she slowly approached the birds.

A cluck, a whirr of wings, and they were in flight with surprising celerity. Madame Boirot did not act as so many lady-shots would have done in like circumstances, and fire both barrels into the 'brown' when the birds rose.

Letting them rise and settle into steady flight, she chose the nearest and gave him the right barrel, bringing him down stone-dead. With the left she aimed at two, flying one behind the other, in a straight line with herself, fired, and saw one fall in a cloud of feathers, and the other slant to the earth.

A howl of joy from her cavalier brought a flush of pleasure to her cheek.

On reaching the third bird, she was relieved to find it dead. A wounded and living bird or animal spoilt her day completely.

Tying the three birds to a cord of the saddle-frame, Delavigne observed that a hundred and fifty per cent of kills was tolerablish shooting....

The loudly protesting Tartarin was soon under way once more, his haughty nose being turned in the direction of the distant oasis pool.

Shadows shortened, gun-barrels became uncomfortably hot to the touch, thoughts turned to shade and drinks; but the eyes of the riders scanned the terrain for game and tracks of game, rather than the horizon for the first glimpse of the palms of the oasis.

"Look!" said Madame Boirot, pointing over Delavigne's shoulder. "What is he stalking? Pull up."

Tartarin's driver tautened the nose-rope and looked in the direction indicated by his companion's finger.

In a few moments, he caught sight of a jackal creeping along behind the ridge of a sand-hill, and, from time to time, stopping to look cautiously over it. His behaviour made it evident that he, too, was hunting. At the end of the ridge he flattened himself to the ground and lay, a picture of concentration, expectation and watchfulness, perfectly motionless save for the tip of his bushy tail, which moved rhythmically to and fro.

"Wonder what he is after," whispered Delavigne.

"More grouse, I expect."

"Yes. Let's ride straight to him, and see," replied Madame Boirot.

As the silent-footed camel approached, the unconscious jackal, after apparently making himself smaller and flatter for a minute, suddenly sprang forward, and, as he disappeared over the side of the ridge, two large grey birds slowly flapped into the air and rose heavily in widening circles.

It was Delavigne's turn, and bustard are not easy to miss. A left and right brought the pair crashing to the ground, and sent the shocked and grieved jackal fleeing far to healthier parts.

"Outarde! What luck! Well shot, Henri!" cried Madame Boirot.

"Well, I couldn't miss them if I tried. Not with my eyes shut, could I?" was the reply.

"Yes. Monsieur Tartarin simply breathed with all his might, and I could see your gun sway as you aimed. It isn't everybody who could hit a hay-stack from a camel. Especially from such an unobliging pig as Monsieur Tartarin."

"Must train him better," said Delavigne. "Impress on him 'Breathing to be restrained while in the act of firing'— that is, while we are in the act of firing, bien entendu."

"That's it, Henri.... Mon Dieu, I believe two outardes, left and right from a camel, is a record hereabouts. They're getting awfully scarce. Best meat in the world."

"But yes. Of a tenderness. It's a marvel to me how one of them survives a season— big and clumsy as they are— with panther, wolves, foxes, wild dogs, jackals, snakes, hawks and humans on their track."

"Let's go and collect a few duck, snipe and grouse now, and make the local record bag."

"We will. But how sadly our average is falling, Pop! We're only a hundred and twenty-five per cent now, although we've missed nothing. Rotten!"

"You are enough to turn the gods sulky, Henri. Five birds to four cartridges, and you grumble!"

"I am not grumbling at the five birds to four cartridges, but at the fact that our average is falling without our making a miss. Nom du diable! Why should it go down through no fault of ours? The more hundred per cent shooting we do, the more it will fall, till from being a hundred and fifty per cent it will be a hundred-decimal-something per cent. Low, I call it."

"It's the way of the world and mathematics, I suppose. Bear up, mon Henri," murmured Poppæa.

Once more the sour misanthropist was set in motion, and, strictly under protest, settled into his long swinging stride, the dangling bustard apparently consenting with nods of their fantastically swaying heads.

"Get up and run, you little fool," said Delavigne suddenly, leaning over and apparently apostrophizing the earth, as the track wound round the base of a hill.

Turning and craning over to her right, Madame Boirot saw a large hare crouching motionless, with its head in a tussock of coarse grass and its body completely exposed.

"Throw a cartridge at him," said she.

Taking a careful aim, Delavigne dropped a cartridge on to the self-deceiver and, a second later, the latter was in full flight, tearing away up the hill-side, as hares invariably do, provided there is a hill-side handy.

"I'll give him forty metres and the choke-bore," said Madame Boirot.

She did, and Puss, turning a couple of somersaults, kicked his last and lay still.

"Good girl," said her approving Henri. "Dead as a— corpse."

The hare joined the bustard and their danse macabre, and Delavigne bemoaned the fact that their shooting average was now only a hundred and twenty per cent instead of a hundred and twenty-five, and that it was one of Life's little ironies and a sling or arrow, whichever you liked, of outrageous Fortune.

"Behold the oasis," said he suddenly, as a clump of palms broke the level line of the far horizon.

"Bon!" said Madame Boirot. "We shall get there in time to clear up the duck and snipe, and to lie up for the grouse as they come to drink.... Give old Tartarin a prod."

Delavigne flourished his stick, and emitted a loud howl, Monsieur Tartarin gave a bound forward, rolled an eye, emitted a bubbling growl, and commenced to protrude a sample of his many stomachs from the corner of his mouth.

"If he's going to hang some of his interior out to dry, I shall give up," said the driver; "I am delicate before breakfast."

"Oh, good Monsieur Tartarin, don't lay the matter before us," implored the passenger.

But Monsieur Tartarin was obdurate, and ere long, much that was inner became outer, and that which had lain in darkness was brought to light. Camels have no finer feelings, no thought for others, no gentility of soul, and therefore no manners.

"Take no notice and he'll withdraw the proposition," said Delavigne. "He's like the agitator politician, only happy when noisy and offensive, and as anxious for notice as a Maire."

"We'd better drop him well away from the pool, or we shan't find much duck when we get there," suggested Madame Boirot.

"Yes, we'll give him quarter of a kilometre or so— if you think you are really equal to a quarter of a kilometre over this deep fine sand, to the grass and palms. It's most terribly difficult going, you know."

"A kilometre, mon enfant," was the confident reply.

Monsieur Tartarin, having been made to kneel, his driver descended and tied the long nose-rope to the stump of a thorn-bush.

"Come along then, Pop," said he, "bring the glasses," and as Poppæa hummed an air, continued, "And don't make those disgusting noises, ma chérie. You're worse than Tartarin.... This time in the morning too!... I don't want to find all the duck dead— or gone...."

"If they're gone we shan't find them," was Poppæa's mild reply, "and if they're dead we shan't have to shoot them...."

Ten minutes of really hard labour, tramping over hillocks of fine wind-drifted sand, brought the pair, exhausted, to a clump of stunted palms whence the pool could be swept with field-glasses, its reed-and-islet-broken surface searched, and its muddy beast-trodden marge examined.

"Duck!" whispered Delavigne.... "No, they're not, though.... Those beastly long-necked cormoran things... and some silly foulques.... Yes, wait a minute, there's a nice little breakfast-party of duck at the far end.... Have a look."

Madame Boirot adjusted the glasses and scanned the lake.

"Yes, about seven— mallard; and those foulque might be teal, I do believe."

Crouching and creeping, the stalkers left the palms and followed the little valleys between the low sandhills and then reappeared at the other end of the pool.

With extreme caution, on hands and knees, they traversed the little belt of lye-bush, and finally reached a spot where, hidden themselves, they could have shot the duck sitting, or rather floating.

"Ready, Pop? Rise with me, and get what you can.... I'll take the drake and that grey-brown beggar beside him.... Up!"

They rose together and the duck with them.

Bang!... Bang!... went Delavigne's twelve-bore, and two birds splashed into the water.

Crack!... Crack!... went his companion's twenty-bore, and two more joined them without a kick or a flutter. A few feathers floated on the bosom of the lake, from which rose a variety of aquatic waders and swimmers of non-game species.

Flying at a height of about a hundred yards, the survivors of the band of duck wheeled round in a great circle and slanted down from a furlong distance toward the pool, on a line that would bring them straight over the hidden foe, at thirty yards elevation.

"Now!" said Delavigne.

Again he and Poppæa rose and threw forward their guns.

But duck, whistling down the wind toward one, present a different target from that offered by duck rising and flying away from one— and Delavigne fired too soon with his right barrel and too late with his left.

Madame Boirot, more patient, careful and judgmatical, allowed beautifully for pace and angle, and brought her first bird almost to her feet, and her second into the water.

"Sorry, mon cher," she cried, with a merry laugh.

"Sufficient grounds for a— divorce," growled her lover, snapping out his cartridge-cases, and re-loading.

"Perhaps they were bad cartridges," suggested the wily woman.

"Yes— or perhaps the two birds I didn't hit were so old and tough that the 'number fours' with which I missed them rebounded," was the reply.

Quarter of an hour later the pair were dealing faithfully with such quail as they could put up from the adjacent grass-patch.

And similarly, later, with the thirsty grouse that began to arrive at the pool.

"And now for some breakfast," quoth Delavigne when sport slackened, "and then for the sea and some curlew, if we're lucky.... I hope you've brought stacks of food and gallons of wine. I'm fading... wasting away, dying— darling...."

In the shade of a clump of palms, Madame Boirot spread their Christmas breakfast, laying out a spotless white cloth, and adorning it with a cold chicken, sandwiches, eggs, a yard of bread, a cucumber, tomatoes, tinned butter, tinned fish, tinned jam, tinned milk, tinned biscuits, tinned cake, tinned fruit, and a large bottle of wine, as well as dainty coffee-cups, glass and cutlery— the whole a curious note of civilization and refinement in that lonely desert wilderness.

After breakfast, Delavigne lit a cigarette and stretched himself luxuriously on the sand, while his companion boiled more water in the spirit-kettle, for washing-up.

"I wish you'd take to tobacco, Pop," said he, lazily watching her in supreme contentment; "a cigarette after a shooting-breakfast is one of the great things of life.... To have missed it is not to have lived, or to not have lived, or to have not lived, whichever you like.... Besides, it would soothe your angry passions and make you a better and a . . .

"Hi!... Help!... Confound that foul, infernal, damnable, filthy, god-forsaken brute of a camel— look at him," he suddenly yelled, springing to his feet and pointing to where, in the distance, the faithful Tartarin was making good time on the homeward journey.

"He's a conscientious objector to work on Christmas Day, no doubt," observed Poppæa.

"And there's twenty miles of fine, loose, deep, powdery sand between here and home," added Delavigne, as he snatched his stick and started off, "and not a human being nearer.... I wish he'd trip on his nose-rope and break his blasted neck...."

Madame Boirot withheld valedictory remarks anent cigarettes and the soothing of angry passions, for this was no joke.

Or was it?

She certainly could not do twenty miles, nor two, over that treacherous, soft, almost impalpable dust.... And the best to be hoped for was a run for poor old Henri under a burning sun, just after a heavy morning's work.... It was enough to give him apoplexy, sunstroke, and all kinds of collapse, poor boy.... Dear boy.... Darling boy.

Suppose he failed to catch the brute— what should they do?

Suppose Henri dropped suddenly with heat-stroke!

Ah! The wretched beast was turning aside to browse on some thorn-bush. If Henri had the sense of a guinea-pig now, he'd stalk him instead of chasing over that red hot sand, as fine as flour, and yards in depth.

Ah— again!... Henri had dropped flat and was crawling between the sand-hills.... He must be simply suffocating and choking, poor darling boy....

What a Christmas if they were stranded there! . . .

The errant Tartarin browsed, and Madame Boirot lost sight of her bon ami until he suddenly arose on the far side of the thorn-bushes and made a swift dash for the wanderer, ran beside him as he fled, seized his trailing nose-rope and brought him to anchor....

"Shall I cut his cursed throat or blow his beastly brains out?" panted Henri on his return.

"Better wait till we're home again," was the reply, "or we shall only be cutting off our retreat to spite our camel, as it were.

"What about that tip in the Koran?" she continued: "Put all thy trust in Allah— but tie up thy camel thyself, eh, my Henry?"

"Tais-toi, ma gosse," replied Henri with a gross familiarity— his punishment a smile.

"Well, have another cigarette, mon gars, anyhow; it will soothe your angry passions and make you a better and a..." observed Madame Boirot— her punishment a kiss....

Anon the journey was resumed, and Tartarin's rider neither spared the rod nor spoiled the camel.

"Thalatta!" cried Delavigne suddenly, half an hour later, as the horizon shone white for a moment, where the sun caught the long low line of a breaking wave.

Soon the sand grew cleaner, harder and whiter, and produced a sparse outcrop of round-stemmed bents; the wind had a salty tang; a rust-marked log, once part of some ship, stood forlorn; desert turned to dunes, and the travellers reached low cliffs of sand-strewn earth and rock that, with an expanse of wet and shining beach, separated land from sea.

Ahead, as far as the glass-aided eye could see, stretched the same monotonous expanse, unbroken.... Sand, sea, sky— sky, sea, sand.

For an hour they jogged along the low cliffs, a few yards above the shell-strewn beach, till, cutting across the neck of a promontory, a new vista of beach was revealed, and with it, a most delightful sight.

"Down; quick! Henri," whispered Madame Boirot, and Monsieur Tartarin was brought somewhat hastily to earth.

"It's like going to the good old Jardin des Plantes for a Christmas treat again, isn't it?" she continued, "and standing outside the 'Aquatic Birds Enclosure'."

"Quite," agreed her Henri, and placed a large stone on the end of Tartarin's nose-rope. "Come on"... and the two crept, crouching, to the low cliff edge and gazed upon a remarkable assembly.

A group of snowy white pelicans preened their feathers, yawned with huge cavernous pouched bills, or waddled solemnly about.

Near them straddled and squatted a company of beautiful, rose-tinted, red-legged flamingoes, writhing snake-like necks into marvellous contortions, and looking with their high-bridged haughty beaks like a gathering of ancien régime Marquises and Duchesses, self-consciously exclusive and proud.

In marked contrast was a flock of big, squat and vulgar sea-birds, goose-like in form, and plebeian in behaviour.

A big band of solemn, silly spoon-bills looked down their quaint noses, and reminded the hidden onlookers of wise fools and dull philosophers; while here and there strode a secretive martinet-looking adjudant-bird in black and white uniform.

A few great grey storks stalked majestic, while delicate little cranes craned slender necks over pool and rivulet. Small sea-gulls of a dozen different species and colours basked in groups, each after his kind.

"There must be fresh water hereabouts, for there to be such a mixed crew of sea-farers and land-lubbers," said Delavigne at last. "Not a game-bird among them though.... Not a swan, duck, snipe or curlew."

"No," agreed Madame Boirot, "and it would be a shame to shoot.... I should like to see them all fly though. Let's just ride toward them slowly— there is a way down, just along there...."

A few minutes later, Tartarin's feet were padding the sands of the beach, and the birds, with discordant cries and ungainly hopping runs, rose in a cloud, and flying, fled septemvious.

Poppæa and Henri gazed in admiration, while the face of Monsieur Tartarin wore a malignant supercilious sneer.

"And now what?" asked the lady, as the cloud of birds thinned and disappeared.

"Back to the oasis and a siesta in the shade of the palms," suggested Henri.

"And home in the cool of the evening, eh?" agreed Poppæa.

LET DELAVIGNE himself conclude his tale:—

And later on in the oasis we composed ourselves.

Later still— how much later I know not— I awoke.

I yawned. I stretched myself. My thoughts turned to food and drink. My eyes turned to the rustling palm-fronds above me, and then to Poppæa beside me.

She was sleeping like a little child.

Or perhaps not sleeping like a little child. Nor like a little devil. Not sleeping at all, probably. I know not.

I sat up and looked at the inviting table equipage, lacking in nothing but the table.

I then looked at Monsieur Tartarin, the thrice-accursed camel.

I did not look at Monsieur Tartarin, the thrice-accursed camel— for he was not there.

I rubbed my eyes.

That did not bring him back.

Definitely he was not there.

Amazed, bewildered, incredulous, I rose to my feet and strode to the spot where he had been: where he was not: whence he had departed.

Why did I do this?

Was it to see whether that Son of Sin and Father of Sorrow was hiding under a leaf of the bush to which I had tied him?

I know not.

But it is a sort of human instinct to do such things, as witness the way in which one will repeatedly search the pockets which one knows to be empty; and again and again open a ravished box as though to assure oneself that the stolen treasure has not miraculously materialized within it.

Anyhow, I hurried to the bush, a shrub so small that it would not have concealed a reclining goat, much less an unusually enormous camel.

Of course, Tartarin was not there. I knew he was not there.

No, but something else was; something the sight of which caused my heart to stand still.

A cold hand seemed to be laid upon that so-warm young heart; to seize it, to grip it, to hold it in suspended painful animation— if animated it were.

What did I behold?

I will tell you.

A small portion of the nose-cord of the accursed camel, a small portion still firmly tied and skilfully knotted about the tough stem of the bush.

Broken?

Oh, but no. A thousand times no. No camel in this world ever broke its nose-cord. Far too painful an operation.

It is because the nose of the camel is extremely tender that one can ride and guide it exactly as one does a horse, and with but the slightest little-finger pressure upon the nose cord rein.

Why, one has only to make a camel kneel, throw the cord-rein over its head on to the ground and lay one's camel-stick on it, for the camel to remain anchored, planté là indefinitely, eternally.

It was only because I'd failed to do this that the brute had already run away once, that day. And that was why I had taken no risks the second time.

Not content with merely putting the rein on the ground with a stick or a stone laid on it, I had, as I have said, tied the rein firmly to the trunk of the young tree— tied it as though the camel had been a boat and the sand, upon which he knelt, a swift-running stream.

Broken?

That strong cord that would have held a plunging horse?

No. It had been cut.

I untied the piece of cord and examined the ends. They were flat, unfrayed... cut, as I had expected.

And why did this cold fear paralyse me with its mortal chill?

Because there wasn't a human habitation for twenty miles, nor a human being.

Water in those parts was plentiful, oases numerous, a river not far distant. The sand, soft, fine and loose as flour, prohibited cultivation, and there was nothing whatsoever to attract anyone save the rare occasional sportsmen, like ourselves, from the Station.

You still do not see why I was terror-stricken?

That cord had been cut by human agency, had it not?

It had been cut, then, by one of the only two people there.

I had not cut it.

Who had then?

Madame... As you say.

Yes. Madame Boirot had cut the cord because her fingers had not the strength or skill to untie my knots.

She had then doubtless urged the camel to its feet and dealt it a mighty blow with the big cane which lay beside it.... Possibly a rain of blows... until the brute had fled for his life from the abominable woman who thus assailed him.

Sorely was I tempted to follow his example. But alas, I am not a camel— though certain Sergeants have seemed to doubt it.

I am not a camel and I cannot flee like one across miles of steeply sloping little mountain ranges of fine dust....

Trapped!...

Trapped by Poppæa Boirot.

Compromised.... Ruined....

I should be out with her all night.

All night, do I say! More likely a week— or a month.

And that damned camel would go straight back to the Station with neatly cut reins for evidence.

And who would believe that I had not cut them and driven the beast off; I, the ravisher who had been fool enough to forget that the cut reins would give me away, and prove that the affair was no accident?

Thus would they argue.

I thought of old Boirot, the District Officer— my chief, the husband of Poppæa and the master of my destiny. In his hands lay my future, my career.

And I, his subordinate, his assistant, would be the villain who, with plausible and specious talk of a shooting-trip, had taken his wife out for the day and kept her out— for the night.... Half-a-dozen nights, probably.

He'd divorce her, of course.... Jump at the chance.... Positively leap....

Poppæa! I should have liked to do unto her stout and sunburnt neck as she had done to the camel-cord.

Oh, fool!... Fool that I had been, to make love to this abominable woman, in the interests of my career!

At least, it had turned out badly, anyhow; laudable, admirable, and sensible as the idea itself may have been.

Suddenly I turned from my contemplation of the horizon— over which the camel had long since disappeared— and glanced at Poppæa, lying some fifty yards away beneath the palms.

As I did so, I swear I saw her head flop suddenly back upon the rug.

Nevertheless, when I reached her side, she was still sound asleep.

I gazed upon her brick-red countenance, both in sorrow and in anger.

I had compromised her— and would have to marry her, eh?

"I won't, my love," I said aloud. "I won't. Par Dieu, I won't.... No. Nothing on earth shall induce me to do it. I'd die sooner...."

"Sooner than do what, Henri?" asked Poppæa, suddenly opening her eyes.

"Sooner than desert you, chérie," I replied, for Poppæa was a formidable woman when roused.

"Desert me, Henri? What do you mean?"

"You will be amazed and astounded, as well as alarmed and horrified," I replied, "to learn that Monsieur Tartarin has— er— run away."

"Runaway? How did he get free? How could he? I thought you tied him to a bush over there somewhere."

"I did," I replied.

"Then how has he got loose?"

"He— er— deliberately ate his nose-rein."

"Ate it?"

"Well, bit through it. Bit through both reins— close up to the stem of the bush."

"The brute, Henri!"

"Yes, the dirty dog, Poppæa!"

"What are we to do, mon Henri?"

"Le bon Dieu knows, my Poppæa. It would take you a week to wade that twenty miles of deep yielding dust, Poppæa.

"And it would take me a month to carry you," I added.

"We are marooned at this oasis with an uncrossable sea of sand on one side, and the ocean on the other."

Poppæa rose to her feet, cast herself upon my bosom, and her arms about my neck.

THE SUN went down and the stars came out.

"You told no one where we were going, did you, Henri?"

"No, Poppæa. Did you?"

"No, Henri."

"I suppose not, Poppæa."

"What do you mean, Henri?"

"Well— er— your husband never asks, does he?"

"No."

"Don't you think we'd better make a start, now the sun has set, Poppæa? We could get a few miles in the direction of home, before you became too exhausted to go any further."

"And to-morrow? With no shelter from the sun, no food, no water?..."

"We could carry some water and some of these birds...."

"And eat them raw? Have we fuel... have we cooking utensils? Besides, how should we find our way in the darkness? No, Henri. I do not desire to wander in that terrible desert until we go mad and die of hunger and of thirst."

We fell silent.

"I have it, Poppæa," said I suddenly. "I know. I'll set off now with the water-bottle and a brace of grouse. I'll go and get help."

"And leave me here alone?" cried Poppæa. "Henri, you surprise me. You would abandon me here to be murdered?"

"By whom?" I asked.

"I know not... it matters not.... You would not leave me here to die? Suppose you never reached the Station.... Suppose you died of exhaustion and sun-stroke... or lost yourself in that terrible desert, as inevitably you would do? No, no, my dear one, let us at least die together...."

WE DID NOT die together.

We did not die separately.

On the third day, December the twenty-seventh, a dhow was beached at the spot where we had seen the flamingoes, pelicans and other birds.

The rascally owner of the dhow said he had come ashore for fresh water.

I did not contradict him in front of Poppæa, but I thought it remarkable that he should have come straight to that particular oasis in search of fresh water, and without any visible means of support for the water— no goat-skin, water-bag, gourd, barrel, or fantasse.

"What are you going to carry the water in?" I asked.

"Us," grinned the Arab.

And he and his fellow-pirates drank.

I fear Poppæa thought me a little ungracious to our preserver.

But there was a certain lack of, je ne sais quoi, spontaneity perhaps, about our preservation. It looked too much like a put-up job. And I can tell you, mes amis, that I was not a happy man, as I contemplated my coming interview with Papa Boirot.

For we had been 'absent without leave' for three days, and it would take us another three to get back by sea, what with the voyage to the nearest port, and camel-transport thence to the Station.

A nice thing if Papa Boirot took it into his head to commit a crime passionel!

It would be just like the old fool, I sadly reflected, to be waiting for us with a gun— and kill two birds with one barrel, as we walked in at the door of the bungalow.

It would be just like that purple pig of a Boirot to rid himself of his Poppæa and advertise himself as a man of spirit, at one fell swoop, and before I could shout,

"I don't want your Poppæa— wouldn't have her at a gift."

The one gleam of comfort, and that but a cold one, was the thought that if he killed me, I should be dead.

Anyhow, I would enter that accursed bungalow behind Poppæa— one should always give a lady precedence— and surely she was tough enough to stop the first bullet completely, in which case I should be gone before he could fire the second.

Gone for help, bien entendu. Others should overpower and secure the madman.

Just as I was thinking thus, Poppæa, who was riding behind me, on the camel I had hired at the port, broke in upon my reflections.

"Cheer up, mon ami," she said, embracing me about the waist. "Why so silent? The worst he can do is to make a scene now, and divorce me as soon as possible.... You are not afraid of that little fat man?... No, no, forgive me, I did not mean that.... You are afraid he will not divorce me, but he will, he shall."

And Poppæa gave me another squeeze.

My stomach was very empty, and that sudden contraction of her powerful arms almost had disastrous results. Or was it her promise that Monsieur Boirot would certainly divorce her?

How much quicker, easier, and cheaper, for him to shoot her!

Even as I sadly pondered the possibility of pointing this out to Monsieur Boirot, we sighted the Old Bungalow, and, a few minutes later, the camel on which Poppæa and I were riding, entered the compound.

Now for it.

Bringing the camel to its knees, I dismounted, helped Poppæa to alight, and led the way to the front door, on the steps of which squatted a uniformed rekass of Monsieur Boirot's retinue.

Rising, he salaamed, and opened the lattice-door that gave access to the wide verandah.

Stepping courteously aside, that Poppæa might precede me, I placed myself exactly behind her and followed her into the house... and into the drawing-room... and into the dining-room... and into the office-room in which Monsieur Boirot did much of his work... and into the little room, sacred to Monsieur Boirot, where he kept his riding-boots, guns, and such impedimenta, smoked his cigars and took his siesta....

"Courage, mon ami," whispered Poppæa.

But the house was very still, sinister, and boding. The place was silent and aware.

Where was the waiting Boirot?

Where was he lurking?

Where, pistol in hand, was the outraged, ferocious, vengeful Boirot? . . .

"Upstairs," whispered Poppæa.

"I don't like to," said I, very truthfully.

"Come along, Henri...."

"I have a delicacy," I began.

"Well, don't," interrupted Poppæa.

"Don't come?" I asked.

"No, don't have a delicacy.... A little late in the day...."

"Bon Dieu!" cried I suddenly, and leapt round as though I had indeed been shot.

I had heard a sound... a footstep....

And I had no pistol.

I regretted my gun, reposing in its case on the back of the camel.

But one cannot walk into the bungalow of one's Chief, creeping behind a loaded double-barrelled gun, as though one were stalking a tiger.

A bead curtain was drawn aside and a man entered the hall.

It was not Boirot.

It was the native major-domo, bearing a letter.

My heart resumed its task of beating, and I breathed again.

Salaaming low, the man presented the letter to Poppæa.

Snatching the letter from the man, Poppæa opened it with fumbling fingers.

"Quick," I breathed. If Boirot had written to forbid her the house, I was going while the going was good, pronto....

I saw Poppæa's face harden. Almost, it paled. Certainly it looked very ugly.

"What?" she cried. "What?..."

"Well, what?" I begged, almost dancing with anxiety and terror.

"The scélérat!... The brute!... The cur!... The scoundrel!... The treacherous snake!... The low, base, mean, deceitful hound!"

"Who?... Who?..." I yelped.

"This Boirot creature. This thing I married. This viper I have cherished... and whom I trusted so."

"Why, what... what's he done?"

"Run away! Gone off! Eloped with that vile half-caste girl of Raphaëlle's."

"Name of a Name of a Name..." I cried.

Here was a blow indeed!...

"But how long did he wait?" I asked. "We've only been gone a week. How did he know we hadn't some perfectly good excuse? How did he know we hadn't met with an accident?"

"How long did he wait?" screamed Poppæa.... "Wait? Wait, did you say? He didn't wait at all, the dastardly, treacherous, useless yellow-belly! He went an hour after we did! Look!"

And Poppæa thrust the letter at me.

With shaking hands I took it and read,

"DEAREST POPPÆA,

When you get this I shall be far away, and for many days shall be getting ever farther from you— please God.

I leave you my blessing, Poppæa, and very little else, save my forgiveness and the earnest wish that you may be happy with your Henri.

He loves you from the bottom of his heart. I heard him say so. He kisses you with an ardour and fervour which prove it. I have seen him.

I even hope you'll be as happy with him as I shall be with Bobo.

Faites-lui mes amitiés. Express to him my most distinguished consideration and sentiments, my admiration, my congratulations, my felicitations.

As ever— nay, more than ever—

Your

PÉPÉ."

"WHEN DID the Master give you this letter?" asked Poppæa, in a voice of ice.

"On Christmas Eve, Madame," replied the man, "with strict instructions to give it to Madame just before dinner on Christmas Day.... But how could I do, Madame, when Madame was not here?"

"Go," replied Madame.

"Henri," she said, turning to me, as the butler disappeared. "Can such things be? Are such things possible? Do such men live?

"But he shall not live! He shall die!" she added fiercely. "You, mon Henri, shall kill him.... And then we can be married...."

Emotion overcame her.

"Oh, mon Henri!" she wept. "That man..."

An idea struck me— the idea of a lifetime... a ray of light... a beam of sunshine.

A ray, a beam, do I say? It was a glorious flood of brilliant light.

"Yes, yes," I said quickly. "That man.... Of course he shall be punished. I will follow him! At once I will follow him. Now, this very night, I start...."

Poppæa flung her arms about my neck.

"I will start to-night," I repeated. "I will begin my search at once... I will go now."

I did.

I'm still searching for him.

Without the loss of an hour, I joined the Foreign Legion.

Strangely enough, he does not appear to be here.

"AND WHAT will you do at the end of your five years, if still you have not found him?" I asked.

"Re-enlist," smiled Henri the Scamp.

The End

Table of Contents

- 1: No. 187017
- 2: Bombs
- 3: Mastic— and Drastic
- 4: The Death Post
- 5: E Tenebris
- 6: Nemesis
- 7: The Hunting of Henri