Port o Missing Men
Author: P C Wren
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Short stories; Foreign Legion
Description: Six further short stories of the Foreign Legion. These follow directly on from "Flawed Blades" 1: The Return of Odo Klemens 2: The Betrayal of Odo Klemens 3: The Life of Odo Klemens 4: Moon-rise 5: Moon-shadows 6: Moon-set

PORT O' MISSING MEN

Percival Christopher Wren

1934

Contents

1: The Return of Odo Klemens

2: The Betrayal of Odo Klemens

3: The Life of Odo Klemens

4: Moon-rise

5: Moon-shadows

6: Moon-set

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1: The Return of Odo Klemens

"DID I EVER SEE Odo Klemens again, after he deserted from the Red Devil's poste with a haversack full of bombs, and his dog Abd-el-Kader?" smiled Tant de Soif. "Yes and No. I did and I didn't. But I'm quite sure that I heard his voice. There was no mistaking that at all. It was a very curious voice— with steel in it.

"What? No mistaking his face and figure either? No, you're right. Talking nonsense, am I? Don't listen then.

"What I was trying to say was that I was on sentry, one day, months later, and in quite a different place, when an ordinary-looking légionnaire sauntered past me; perfectly ordinary-looking, and yet not in the least so, if you understand me.

"You don't? No, nor do I. He couldn't have been perfectly ordinary-looking, for it was Odo Klemens, and nobody could ever describe Odo thus.

"A what-d'-you-call it? A hallucination? No, for he addressed me by an extremely foul, offensive and derogatory term of endearment that nobody but Odo ever used.

"He stopped, yawned, scratched his head and, passing me again, said,

Shut your eyes and your ears and your mouth, Old Bottle, or I'll open the rest of you.'

"Well, it was no business of mine, was it? This was just a légionnaire in uniform, going about his business. It was no affair of mine that his face and voice were like those of my beloved friend, my copain, Odo.

"So I forgave him for having landed me in the cart with the Red Devil over that matter of the vanishing bombs; and again sloping my rifle, proceeded to pace my beat in a smart and soldierly manner.

"By and by, I seemed to see Odo Klemens stroll out again and disappear down the track and round the mountain-side....

"Other things disappeared too.

"Apparently somebody had borrowed the Commandant's field note-book and diary, out of the pocket of his tunic where it hung on a nail in his quarters; also some documents— telegrams, correspondence, orders, from a file in his office; some maps and a few other odds and ends, such as his field-glasses, compass, automatic, and things like that: likewise a cipher-code, and other curious and interesting things.

"It didn't look a bit like the work of a stray dog or a goat or anything of that sort, especially as the telephone-wire had been cut.

"It was a most amazing business, and there was a frightful to-do about it.

"It must have been somebody in the poste, somebody who could read French, and who knew exactly what he was looking for. Whoever it was, had visited the quarters of every officer, and been all over the place.

"A regular puzzle— for why should any of us cut our own telephone-wire, and steal our own maps and codes and things. And as the affair had happened in daylight, it was out of the question that any Arab should have got inside; or, having got inside, should walk about as though the place belonged to him.

"It was unfortunate for Sergeant Schrammel that he had been the senior non-commissioned officer in the poste at the time, as he was held responsible. All the Officers and most of the non-commissioned officers and men had been out on a reconnaissance-in-force, or a tactical exercise, or picnic or something; and the audacious thief, if he had come in from the outside, must have known it. But of course this was impossible. I gave my evidence, as required, and spoke up for Sergeant Schrammel. Of course no Arab could have got into the place, and of course sentries were on the alert, regularly posted and relieved, and everything done according to the book.

"I did not mention my what-d'-you-call-it— hallucination— about Odo Klemens, for naturally the Commandant didn't want to hear anything about day-dreams and foolish fancies. He was too busy with the sober and serious facts of life, just then. Besides, there may have been something wrong with the litre of wine I had had at soupe.

"Well, it was all satisfactorily cleared up, by reducing Sergeant Schrammel and four Corporals to the ranks, severely punishing everybody who'd been on guard that day, and making a report to the effect that an even wilier Arab than most had been even wilier than usual.

"Of course that satisfied everybody, except the people who were punished. It satisfied me especially, because it proved to me that I had been wrong in imagining that I had seen Odo. And even then I sometimes thought I had, because nobody but he had ever called me— what Odo called me again that day.

"That's why I answered 'Yes and No'; 'I did and I didn't'; when you asked me whether I ever saw Odo again after he deserted with the bombs, and his dog Abd-el-Kader, from the Red Devil's poste.

"Hear his voice again? Oh yes, there was no doubt about that. No doubt whatever. I had quite a chat with Odo, and reminded him of the fact that he owed me five sous.

"See him? No, I didn't see him.

"Why not? Because it was pitch dark, my good camel.

"The groupe mobile had broken up and gone into little postes again, and we were having rather a bad time in this one.

"They were a nasty lot, those Chleuchs. Got on one's nerves. It was the first time we had come across a new trick of theirs, and, until we grasped the idea, it had quite a success with us.

"What was getting on our nerves was the fact that the sentry on the wall— or who should have been on the wall— wasn't always there when visiting-rounds came along. When the Sergeant went to relieve him, he'd relieved himself. Or somebody else had.

"One could have understood his being found at his post, shot, or even knifed, by some devil who'd climbed up; but during this epidemic, the sentry's body was always found, in the morning, outside the wall. He'd be lying there, with his throat cut; and with nothing else. No rifle, ammunition and bayonet, of course, and usually no clothes either.

"It seemed such a silly idea for a sentry to go down there to have his throat cut, or, putting the boot on the other leg, it seemed such a silly idea for the Arab to go up and do his job, and then take the trouble to remove the remains. Obviously, one or the other must have happened. Either the sentry must have gone down to have it done, or the Arab must have come up to do it.

"Anyhow, there it was. Sentry after sentry was found down below; and there was never once any blood or sign of a struggle, up on the wall.

"Very funny. There were numberless theories. Some people held that the silly sentry must have been fooled into coming down for a drink or purse of money or a new chapeau rond— bowler hat— set with diamonds; and when the silly crétin got down there, he got his throat cut for his pains.

"But the objection to that theory was the fact that, if a man were fool enough to contemplate going down in response to some such inducement, he'd stop to reflect upon the fact that he couldn't get back again. He'd have to go round to the front door and sit on the doorstep and come in with the milk, and this would be bad for his character, and give him an undesirable moral reputation.

"Nor would he take his rifle down with him.

"Besides, how many men understood sufficient of the local dialect of Arabic to be able to understand what was said to them and be open to conviction, be amenable to reason— or reasons?

"Others thought that the men were trying to desert, and were caught in the act by prowling enemies who hung about round the poste all night. That again was absurd, of course. It might have happened once, but hardly twice, let alone several times.

"I remember one funny fat German lad had an idea that beautiful houris came and lured these poor fellows to their doom. I forget what he called them. Lorelei, or some such nonsense. But as I pointed out to him— first see your houri. For these jobs were always done on dark nights.

"Another half-wit spun some yarn or other about Oriental magicians who could put a spell on you, hypnotize you, so that you had to come when you were called. I told him that if he was called and felt he'd got to go, it would be a good plan to send a bullet first, or at least to go with his bayonet in front of him.

"Well, what is rather interesting is that, one night, this German boy and I were for guard, and he went on sentry after telling me exactly what he'd do if he beheld a houri.

"Whatever he beheld, he didn't do it; and we never saw him again— alive.

"Same thing. Missing from his post; and his body down there a few yards from the wall, in the morning, stripped and mutilated. Not a sound out of him, either. Just disappeared from his post in perfect silence. Why hadn't he challenged and fired his rifle? Why had he gone down? For, quite obviously, the business had been done down below there. Not a spot of blood up above, nor the slightest sign of a struggle.

"Wasn't that funny? Because if an Arab had somehow got up on to the parapet, crept up behind him and laid him out without a sound— why, as I said before, should he go to all the trouble of moving the body away?...

"Then came the turn of the man who talked about magicians and hypnotism. Polowski, his name was, this gentleman who suffered from intelligence.

"His magician got him all right; and before he could do anything with his rifle or bayonet.

"'Well,' I said to him, as I viewed his most unpleasant-looking corpse, 'he hypnotized you all right. Why didn't you listen to my warning and take my advice?'

"But I felt very uncomfortable myself nevertheless, for of course poor young Schultz and this Polowski had only been talking nonsense about their houris and their magicians.

"I should have known how to deal with either of those funny things myself; but what troubled me was that I had not the faintest idea as to what it really was that would go for me, sooner or later. We all felt the same, too, so you can imagine that that big poste was not a very happy one. Nobody there cared the smell of a cork for any human being on earth, or for anything they could see.... Of course.... But as you may have noticed, these are apt to be just the people who get most bothered about things they can't see and don't understand.

"Well, there it was. For a week or two, all would be well; and then somebody's copain, perhaps the only friend he had in the world, the only thing he loved, would be down below there, butchered and mangled.

"Oh yes, the Commandant and Officers did everything they knew. Sentries were visited constantly; strictest orders were given about shooting on sight— or sound; pickets and patrols were almost incessantly moving about; and N.C.O.s got hardly any sleep at all. If somebody was trying completely to upset the poste and shatter everybody's nerves and demoralize the lot of us, he was in a fair way to succeed.

"One night there was an alarm. The sudden bang of a rifle, a 'Qui va là?' and then 'Aux armes!'

"The sentry swore he'd heard voices just down below the embrasure by which he was standing, and that he had immediately challenged and fired. Oh yes, he was quite certain he had heard voices.

"Perhaps he had.

"So did Joan of Arc.

"Anyhow, the voices had not left any footprints or other traces, and the Commandant seemed to be in two minds as to whether he should boot Gomez in the seat of the pants for a liar, or give him half-a-litre of wine for a wide-awake sentry, prompt and alert.

"His escouade didn't quite know what to make of his yarn either, because he told us, in private, that the voices he'd heard spoke French. When we wanted to know exactly what the voices had said, he swore that, first of all, there was a low guarded sort of whistle and then a whisper in French, asking him who he was and inquiring after three or four of us by name.

"Had it not been for recent murders, Gomez would have answered. He would have hung out through the embrasure, he said, and had a chat with whoever was down below, just to while away the time, and on the chance that he might hear something to his advantage.

"As it was, he instantly and very naturally connected this curious phenomenon with the dirty work that had deprived us of the society of Schultz, Polowski, Rameau, Lincke, and the rest. So, without answering at all, he just shoved his rifle out through the embrasure, fired, challenged, and bawled the alarm.

"He was so earnest and certain, that some of us believed him as a truthful upright man, and others admired him as a most circumstantial and convincing liar.

"It was all very puzzling and troublesome, because we badly wanted to find out what really was happening, and to know what was the best thing to do when our own turn came.

"Mine came all right, and I found that Gomez had spoken the truth.

"There never was a more wide-awake sentry than I, that night.

"Sergeant Montreuil had just paid me a surprise visit, and I was very much on the alert.

"Suddenly there was a very quiet, yet urgent, sort of whistle just down below where I was standing. It was the sort of hsst kind of whistle that you give when you want to attract the attention of one particular man without attracting that of others; the sort of noise you make when you want to get somebody's attention without in the least advertising your presence.

"I pricked up my ears.

"There it was again.

"Hsst! And then:

"'Sst! Who's up there? Is that you, Skin-the-dog?'

"Well! That was funny.... Definitely there was somebody down below who talked French, and knew that, for a certain reason, Zigzig Dubonnet was known as 'Skin-the-dog.'

"I leant through the embrasure, shoved my head out and looked down.

"It wasn't very much good doing that, because in spite of the stars it was a dark night— black, yet shiny, like the seat of the Duke of Hell's dress-trousers. But it seemed to me it would be rather futile simply to bang off my rifle at nothing, and then report that I'd heard a voice. In the first place, I probably shouldn't be believed; and in the second, I should probably be told I was a bone-headed mule for not trying to find out who it was and what he wanted; what he wanted me to do, c'est à dire; what inducement he would offer me to come down and be killed.

"Anyhow, I hung out over the wall and peered down into the darkness below.

"'Let's have a look at you,' said I, conversationally. 'Strike a match.'

"But something struck me instead; struck my head and knocked my képi off.

"No, it wasn't a stone. I thought so myself for a moment, until I realized that, whatever it was, had come from left to right at the same level as my head, so to speak. For it had definitely struck the left-hand side of my képi and knocked it across my head, over on to my right ear, before carrying it away altogether.

"In my surprise I uttered an exclamation, and I heard a quiet chuckle down below.

"'Why, it's old Tant de Soif,' said the voice, disguised and hoarse, in a sort of loud whisper.

"'It is,' said I, 'and what the devil do you think you...'

"And then things happened.

"I was struck again— lightly, this time— on the side of the neck, and instantly something coiled itself round and round my head and throat and neck and the arm that I instantly shot out.

"And, before I could utter a sound, I was hauled through the embrasure and fell with a thud on to the sand below.

"Almost before I struck the sand, I saw it all!... A decoy called the sentry and he stuck his head and shoulders out over the wall, just visible from below and silhouetted against the sky.

"Another man, standing ready, whirled round and round, in an upright circle, a rope with a stone attached to the end of it. Not round his head, you understand, parallel with the ground, but perpendicularly, parallel with the wall.

"Suddenly he lengthened the rope so that the stone passed above the sentry's head as it was stuck out over the wall. When the rope touched him, the remaining end, with the stone attached, whirled swiftly, coiling about him. And as it did so, the man at the other end hauled, and jerked him off the wall before he could free himself.

"A Portuguese told me they hunt in Brazil with a weapon— called a bola, or something— made on the same principle, with a couple of leaden balls at the end of a cord. They throw it, and it coils round the legs of the animal— wild horse, jaguar, Indian, or what-not.

"I thought of all this in the very act of falling, and I knew that in the half of two seconds I should be filleted alive.

"As I hit the ground, men sprang upon me, pinned me down, arms and legs and throat, and another clapped his hand over my mouth and stuck the point of his knife in under my ear. Not far enough to cause any great oozing forth of the brain, but enough to be uncomfortable.

"'Make a sound, and I'll slit your throat,' said the voice in French. 'Now listen. You tell your Commandant that the Arabs are going to attack Poste G to-morrow, in tremendous force. I have come to warn him. See? I don't want them to get Poste G because it is full of good friends of mine— if for no other reason. I'm risking my life doing this. Tell him to send all you lot to Poste G as quickly as possible. It's the only chance of saving it. And don't forget I've risked my life to-night to warn him. Now we are going to take your rifle and bayonet and ammunition and your coat and képi, and I'm going to make them spare your life so that you can warn the Commandant.... And don't, for your own sake, make a row until we are well away.'

"Anyhow, I couldn't make much row with a fist like a ham clamped over my mouth, and with the point of a knife sticking in under my ear.

"Nor did it seem a sound plan to do so while they were tearing off my capôte.

"Suddenly I was alone, released, unhurt, except for a nasty shaking and a jab under the ear.

"I was just going to let a loud yell and start bawling 'Aux armes!' when it occurred to me that I should almost certainly get shot for my pains. So I crawled a reasonable distance from the Fort, lay down and took a nap till daylight. And in the morning I arose, blew my nose by way of toilet, and then marched, in broad daylight and good order, up to the gate.

"They could hardly believe their eyes.

"Here was dear old Tant de Soif restored to their midst, safe and sound, hale and hearty! Tant de Soif whose absence had been discovered during the night, and for whom they had been bitterly mourning.

"'At last, at last!' they had said. 'After forty years of soldiering; after seven campaigns in five different parts of the world; seventeen battles and thirty-nine skirmishes they've got our beloved and admired Tant de Soif at last.'

"And here I was back once more, all present and correct.

"'Well, I'm damned,' gasped Père Poussin. 'I knew this animal wasn't dead. The Devil looks after his own!' and burst into tears.

"And thus it was that all of them, excepting, of course, non-commissioned officers, who affected to regret that I had not shared the fate of the other butchered sentries, loudly rejoiced.

"Of course I had to tell my tale to the Commandant, and a noble tale I made of it. In spite of my natural modesty, I didn't come out of it at all badly.

"And when I had done, he sat for some time in thought, his head on his hand, sometimes shooting a question at me, sometimes gazing right through me, sometimes tapping the blotting-paper on the table in front of him.

"'Going to attack Poste G, eh?' he said at length. 'Going to attack Poste G— and we are to march every man we can spare, to their relief.'

"'Oui, mon Commandant,' I agreed, 'or to strengthen the garrison of Poste G before they are attacked.'

"There was a long silence.

"'Quite so,' he said at last, and turned to Adjudant Schonfeld.

"'Said they were going to attack Poste G in tremendous force, eh! Then I think we will get three-quarters of the garrison of Poste G over here, for this is where the attack will come.... Get on the telephone at once, Schonfeld.'

"And that was what he and the Commandant of Poste G decided on.

"Of the hundred men in Poste G seventy-five were despatched immediately, by a forced march, to our poste; and we made every possible preparation to give the Arabs a warm reception when they attacked us.

"And meanwhile they fell upon Poste G precisely as the voice had warned us, overwhelmed it, burnt and destroyed it, and killed every single man of its defenders.

"A clever trick to get the garrison away....

"And out of that little business Odo Klemens got two machine-guns, thirty rifles, a tremendous haul of ammunition and some fine pickings.

"Oh yes, the voice had been that of Odo Klemens. But I did not mention the fact to the Commandant."

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2: The Betrayal of Odo Klemens

YOUNG FAT'MA, undesired and uncherished daughter of Yakoub Ali ben Abdul Hassan, known as El Wazir ed Dimiryat, of the fierce fighting tribe of the Beni Baggaroni, was, as has been said elsewhere, a merry lass, a great flirt, a person of character (not all bad), and, at the age of fifteen, a woman who knew her own mind.

After the sudden death of her boy-friend, Ibrahim ben Ghulam Mahommed, killed at the age of sixteen by the bursting of his ancient gun as he took a potshot at a French soldier, Fat'ma was, for a time, noticeably less merry, even less flirtatious.

But only for a time.

The world is wide; the sun is bright; the mountains are glorious— and men are plentiful. There are rounder pebbles in the brook than ever came out of it. Besides, young Ibrahim had been but a boy, albeit a handful of a boy for a lass to manage, and Fat'ma was now a grown woman— sixteen herself, next month of Ramazan.

Well, well. Poor Ibrahim. Lifelong playmate.... But... What an amazingly lovely man was the Hadj el Aleman.1 Now that was a man, not a puling boy, making a great to-do about killing his first Frenchman. Why, the Hadj el Aleman killed them wholesale. Where her own father, Yakoub Ali ben Hassan— great warrior that he was— had slain his tens, the Hadj el Aleman had slain his hundreds; thousands, perhaps.

____________

1 The German.

He was as great a raider and slayer as El Raisuli himself; great almost as our Lord Sidna Abdel-Krim.

Why, he had captured real forts, and looted and burned them after putting their garrisons to the sword. He had laid ambushes in defiles, trapped whole detachments, holding them there under a rain of tribesmen's bullets until they had perished to a man.

He had swooped suddenly down upon convoys of food, clothing, ammunition and the shraab of the Infidels. He had gone alone, or with but one or two followers, and decoyed the French sentries from their posts, bringing them to serve under the banner of Abdel-Krim. Others, who would not come, he had slain, and everywhere he had left a writing, a piece of the white paper, with 'Hadj Aleman' written on it.

He could ride like a Bedouin; fight like a Riffian; run up a hillside like a mountaineer; shoot like a hamsain marksman; do anything.

He was a wonderful hero, of whom all men were talking.... And he had looked at her. He had looked at her in such a way that she knew she had found favour in his sight.

It had been an honour and a thrill and a joy, the proudest and happiest moment of her life, when he had taken from her, in her father's house, a cup of coffee that she had prepared with her own hands.

He had ridden up with his followers, her father among them, and, entering, for rest and refreshment after a six-hours' ride, had caused a tremendous stir in the household, and, indeed, the whole village.

The men had sat in a circle on the floor in the best room in her father's house, and drunk hot mint-tea, while a meal of couscous and stewed kid had been prepared.

And when, after they had eaten, she had herself brought the little clay cups of coffee, he had noticed her, given her a long, long look, and smiled. Also he had touched her hand. And she had understood.

And the tales she had heard of him that night, as her father's wives, women-folk, and slaves of the haremlik had finished the remains of the meal and cleared away the dishes! The stories they had told of him and his courage and daring, his marvellous adventures, his audacity, skill, knowledge— and success.

And that curious story of the young French officer, a mere boy, and the strange madness with which Allah had suddenly— but, happily, only briefly— smitten El Hadj Aleman, the ruthless, the fierce, the slayer, the scourge of the French.

Old Miriam had seen it herself. She had been there. Aye, and with a good sharp kitchen-knife in her hand, too. A knife with which she had cut the throat of many a kid, and jointed many a sheep.

The young officer had been marching at the head of a small half-company of French soldiers. In his inexperience, or his helplessness to do otherwise, he had led them through a deep and gloomy defile. Suddenly the steep boulder-strewn hillsides had come to life. From behind every bush and rock had arisen a silent grey-clad man, who, raising his rifle, had taken steady aim and fired... and fired... until scarcely a man of the French had been left upon his feet.

What could they do, the poor silly sheep that huddled together and fired at nothing— fired at the empty place where a minute before a tribesman had lain hidden?

And then, at a sudden uprising and shout from El Hadj Aleman, the sons of Allah had risen to their feet, drawn their swords and knives, and rushed like an avalanche down upon the wounded remaining few. These they had overborne, cut down, stabbed and stabbed again, hacked to pieces.

All save one, the young officer, who had looked but little older than poor Ibrahim ben Ghulam Mahommed. Upon him, her uncle Haddu ben Hamid had leapt like a tiger, borne him to the ground, and strangled him till he was all but dead.

And from him he had driven off the others, saying:

"Let's take him with us and have some merry sport; thereafter giving him to the women, belike."

And so, leaving in the defile the naked mangled corpses to bake in the sun and be eaten by dogs, jackals, crows and vultures, they had brought him back alive, almost unhurt, to Hamid's house; and old Miriam, who had been there at the table at the time, had seen him come— and had sharpened her knife.

Then the men had wrangled. Some had wanted to mutilate him, keep him alive, and make him a slave. Others had said:

"No. Bind him to a pole and feed him, feet first, into a fire."

Others had said:

"Bury him alive."

And there had been an amendment in favour of doing this, but leaving his head exposed to the sun, the insects, and the dogs.

Finally it had been decided to strip him, submit him to hideous indignities, and pile great heavy stones upon his body so that he could not move, but also could not die, until he starved to death, or died of pain, sunstroke and madness.

But this was altogether too slow a business to suit some of the men and any of the women; and old Miriam, running out from ben Abdul Hassan's house, with a bowl of honey, had poured it over his face as he lay gasping and trying not to groan with pain....

Ants... starving village curs....

Some hours later, Hadj el Aleman, knowing nothing of what had been done with the captive, sent for him that he might interrogate him, give orders for him to be shot at dawn, or have him returned in humiliating fashion, the bearer of an impudent and defiant letter, to the French.

And when Hadj el Aleman was told that the French officer could not come to him, and why, he rose from the mattress on which he had been resting, rushed forth from the house, dashed into the jeering crowd of men and women that thronged around the tortured officer, thrust men left and right and, with his bare hand, struck senseless a man who confronted and opposed him.

The Shereef of the village and the Badsha of Targuit remonstrated with him and he struck them both. Clearly he was afflicted of Allah. Mad. For he had grievously and impiously smitten the Shereef himself in the face, and knocked the turban from the head of the Badsha.

Mad or not, Hadj el Aleman or German deserter from the French Army, he must not do that.

Such things could not be countenanced.

He must be seized and secured; and a dozen men, springing upon him, eventually overcame him and bore him to the ground.

Shouting and cursing, kicking and struggling, fighting like one possessed of a devil, he was carried back into the house, held down and secured; and there, gagged and bound, he lay writhing, fighting to burst his bonds; while, outside, the tortured French officer screamed to his God for mercy.

It might have gone hard, even with the Hadj el Aleman himself, but that the Shereef, who loved him, pleaded for him, pointing out that the Afflicted of Allah are responsible neither for their thoughts, their words, nor their deeds; and that, moreover, they themselves would be pretty quickly afflicted of El Sidna Abdel-Krim, did any harm come, at their hands, to the Kaid el Hadj...

Later, it transpired that the Kaid himself had once, when fleeing from the French to join the Beni Warrain, been treacherously seized by some villagers, had seen his own grave dug, been thrust into it, and actually buried to the neck, before the head man of the village, returning in time, had objected, pointing out that it was a wicked waste of a perfectly good slave, and had had him disinterred.

Doubtless it was this that had given him a kind of objection to that sort of thing; otherwise why should he, the Scourge of the French, who hated and slew them at every opportunity, have objected to the torturing of this lad.

Yes, a strange man, this hero; but brave as a lion, swift as an eagle, strong as a horse, straight as a lance, and beautiful... how beautiful— with his great dark eyes, like those of a Moor; his thick black beard, curly and soft as silk; and his lovely smooth brown skin, far darker than her own.

Really a Moor, of course, a Riffi and a Prince in Islam, for all his nickname of Aleman.

A lovely man....

But so was Hassan the Pedlar.

THE KAID EL HADJ, the Hadj el Aleman, sat busily writing in his fine house, or rather the fine house of the Badsha of Targuit; successful, established, at the height of his influence and power.

To him, squatted on his cushioned mattress in the bare whitewashed room, entered his confidential devoted servant, Ali, bearing a kettle of boiling tea and a glass from which to drink it.

"There's a man, Sidi," said he.

"Lots of them," smiled the Kaid el Hadj. "What sort of a man?"

"A Roumi. By his clothes, or rags, a deserter from the Spanish Foreign Legion. He is a German, and craves speech with the Hadj el Aleman."

"A spy, scouting; or a captured runaway?"

"Allah knows, Sidi. He seems to be one of those who would fain serve our Lord, Abdel-Krim."

"Bring him in when I have drunk my tea and smoked my pipe of the forbidden."

For, known only to his confidential servant, and one or two intimates of a like laxity, the Kaid el Hadj smoked a daily pipe of the prohibited hashish.

"WELL, who are you? What do you want?"

The man, a dark bearded fellow, clad in ragged khaki, gave a military salute.

"A German-Balt, your Excellency," he answered. "From Grusche in Courland. I speak Lettish better than I do German, and I have been talking Spanish so long that I speak that better than either; and I can talk French too. I could be very useful your Excellency. A trained soldier. Artillery during the war; infantry, of course, in the Spanish Foreign Legion. Saw a lot of rough guerrilla warfare against the Bolsheviks after the war; in the Baltic Landwehr. Wounded at the storming of Riga.

"Then the Regiment was almost wiped out by the Lithuanians at Radziwiliski. When we were disbanded, in Jüterborg, after the settlement, I went to Germany, and starved for a winter. Tramped to Neustadt and joined the French Foreign Legion. They had a depôt there, during the Occupation. Got so fed up with the Legion that I deserted into Spanish Territory, was arrested there and given the choice of joining the Spanish Foreign Legion or being returned to the French one. Joined the Spanish."

"And know a good deal about Spanish ways and methods, eh?"

"Yes, your Excellency. I could be very useful."

"Know Melillah and Ceuta, and some of the border outposts, eh?"

"Yes, your Excellency. Especially those nearest to the Riff country. Oh, I could be very useful."

"H'm. And why did you desert from the Spanish Legion?"

"To better myself, your Excellency," replied the man simply. "A good soldier. Name of Kreuder..."

The Hadj el Aleman grinned.

"We get any number of deserters from the French and Spanish Legions here," he said. "We generally give them a kick in the seat of the pants, and let them go. Deserters are apt to get the deserting habit."

"Not always, your Excellency," replied the man meaningly as he gazed hardily and fearlessly into the eyes of Odo Klemens.

The adventurer laughed.

This might be a man after his own heart.

"Know Dusseldorf, by any chance?" he asked.

"Not to say know it," replied the man. "I begged through the streets one happy week-end of east wind and ceaseless rain; and dossed down in the railway-station waiting-room until a damned officious copper came and kicked me out, asked for my papers, and, because I couldn't square him, ran me in."

"Do you remember any of the buildings, streets, big shops?"

The man thought a while.

"I remember the Carsch Store."

"Yes, yes!... Well, well!... In the Kolnstrasse..."

"And I got a stale loaf from Bauer's Restaurant."

"Yes, yes!... Well, well!... Mein Gott, the gallons of lager I've drunk in the garden behind the Bauer, when I was a... But that'll do about Dusseldorf.... And so you want to serve under the banner of El Sidna Abdel-Krim, Kaid of the Mountains?"

"I want to serve you, your Excellency," replied the man.

"Well, it's good to talk German again," said the Hadj Aleman, and, frowning, added:

"Damn Germany!... Damn France!... Damn Europe!... Damn Christianity and all Christians.... And you too!... Would you be prepared to renounce your nationality and your religion, to become a professing Mahommedan and a naturalized Moor and Riffian, like myself?"

"And to marry two or three fine Arabiya," grinned the man. "Would I not? To have a harem and..."

"To Hell with you, you damned rascal," growled the hadji. "I'll talk to you again later on, and we will see what can be done about you."

And, clapping his hands, he gave orders to his servant that the man should be fed and well treated— and well watched also.

For some weeks the German deserter hung about, unobtrusively making himself useful where he could, and evidently taking most careful note of all things. Obviously a man who intended to make good, to make his way in the world, this new Moorish world into which he had escaped.

But, evidently he had, alas, the deserting habit; for, from the service of Abdel-Krim— or of the Hadj el Aleman— he deserted also.

YES, this Hassan the Pedlar was undeniably a fine figure of a man, and a man with some sense, too: a man with a wonderful understanding of what a girl liked, and of what she wanted.

And amazingly generous too. Quite different from those pigs of Jew pedlars who sometimes came round, haggling and driving hard bargains; and who frequently got robbed and well beaten for their pains.

He must be a pretty wealthy man too, this Hassan the Pedlar. No miserable little donkey-load of cheap Mericani stuff for him, with a negro half-wit for his only assistant, servant, and donkey-boy.

No, something quite different from those hungry burro-wallopers who sometimes found their way up here. Why, he'd got a regular caravan down in the valley— camels and several men— and he rode a fine horse.

And what an interest he took in Fat'ma, daughter of Yakoub Ali ben Abdul Hassan.

And Fat'ma gazed, smiling reminiscently, at a quite handsome little bangle that adorned her shapely arm. Oh, a really generous man, though of course nobody gave something for nothing.

Still, some things that called themselves men tried to give nothing for something, or just as little as they possibly could, and their own mothers couldn't call them generous.

But this Hassan the Pedlar...

What would it be like to marry a wealthy merchant who spent most of his time travelling, but who nevertheless had a fine house in Fez, as Hassan said he had. Perhaps he was a liar, like most other men.

Still, his horses and camels and well-armed servants were real enough. So were his bales, his carpets, rugs, silks, shawls, robas, veils, trousers, vests, slippers, lovely leather-work; and his box that he said contained priceless jewellery, gold ornaments and precious stones. Perhaps!...

Anyhow, the lovely necklace, or head ornament, of rows of gold coins, was real enough. She had had it in her own hands and examined every coin, and the links that joined them together. She had put it round her throat, draped it across her forehead. Why, it must be worth... She didn't know what it was worth, but a gold twenty-franc piece was worth twenty francs, wasn't it?

And as for the man himself, there wasn't a bigger, broader, finer man in all El Moghreb.

But, of course, the Hadj el Aleman would be a better catch, although Hassan the Pedlar was an equally lovely man. The Hadj el Aleman, honoured and beloved of El Sidna Abdel-Krim (Lord of the Atlas, grand Kaid of the Riffi, conqueror of France and Spain, and probable future Sultan of Morocco), might rise to any height; might even become Sultan himself.

On the other hand, suppose he fell from grace? With a word, Abdel-Krim could strip him of everything and throw him into a pit to starve; blind him, and cut off his hands and feet; destroy his house utterly.

Still, one had to take chances in this life. Not that she would have very much say in the matter. Her father would dispose of her as he thought fit, and as he would dispose of any other of his stock, his cattle, his camels and his horses.

Unless, of course, she ran off with this Hassan the Pedlar. That would be a great lark.

But she'd be much more of a grand lady if she married the Hadj el Aleman. But then he had three wives and some children already, not to mention some matrimonial odds and ends among the Beni Wazain, from whom he had come to the Riff country.

He was certainly attracted; and, according to Miriam, listening behind curtains and doors, he had spoken to her father about her.

Would he demand her hand in marriage, or would he just...

The Kaid el Hadj el Aleman.... Why was Hassan the Pedlar so interested in him, so anxious to see him, to prostrate himself before him, and pay his respects?

Business, no doubt. A man in El Hadj's position could put a lot of trade in Hassan's way; and, of course, make a nice commission out of Hassan in doing so.

Anyway, there could be no harm in doing as Hassan asked, and letting him know, without fail, when the Kaid el Hadj el Aleman came to her father's village again.

How patient these merchants were. He seemed prepared to sit down there, in his secret camp, almost indefinitely, provided that he could at length get hold of El Hadj, get audience of him, and bring off a deal.

What would it be? Jewellery for the ladies of the household of the Abdel-Krim brothers; horses, camels, food, or clothing for the hamsain? 1... That would be a nice useful contract, some supplies or other, for the regular army.

____________

1 Regular army.

Yes, no wonder he hung about. No wonder he made up to Fat'ma after she had scoffed at him and told him— a little prematurely— that El Kaid el Hadj Aleman was a candidate for her hand.

Well, it was true enough that she had found favour in the sight of the hadji; and Miriam swore that he had spoken about her to her father.

That was it— trade....

Well, business is business; and there was no reason why Fat'ma should not earn the gold coin necklace.

ODO KLEMENS, El Hadj Aleman, dismounted from his horse and handed the rein to the obsequious Ali, his body-guard and confidential slave.

Alone and on foot, he strode ahead of his little retinue and guard who, off-saddling, settled down to cook a meal, and rest.

Where was it the minx had said? The mouth of a cave, a few minutes down the path beyond the village as the moon rose above the Djebel Zirash.

Damn those village dogs!

Yes, this would be the track.... What would 'a few minutes' be? Half a kilometre?

And how was one to find a cave in that darkness?

Perhaps the moon would shine right into it, when it rose above the mountain.

Anyway, she would see him, and...

Strong arms flung about him from behind, pinioning his own to his side. Hands of steel at his throat. A sack over his head. His feet jerked from under him. A stunning blow as he fell. All in a second or two.

Delilah!

"NO, I AM NOT a traitor and a renegade," replied Odo Klemens angrily, as he stood between two powerful men, his hands tied behind his back, and faced his captor, Hassan the Pedlar, who spoke in perfect French.

"No?"

"No. I was a German and I was a Christian. I changed my nationality and I changed my religion."

"And the little matter of your oath to serve France faithfully for five years, in the French Foreign Legion?"

"France herself broke the contract; sent me to prison and..."

"Sent you to prison for swindling, robbing and starving your fellow-soldiers; most of them fellow-Germans."

"France ill-treated me, tortured me, and I left her service— and became a naturalized Riffian. You have no right..."

"Left her service and became a naturalized Riffian! And suppose, during the Great War, I were in the trenches on the Western Front, and suddenly found a German bayonet at my throat. I should be justified in experiencing a sudden change of heart— and nationality— eh?... Suddenly become a patriotic German, ask for a German uniform— and bayonet... and join my assailant in a charge upon my comrades. Noble, eh?"

Odo Klemens spat.

"Casuistry," said he.

"I quite agree. You are made of it."

"Take him away," he added. "We break camp and ride in an hour."

Before Odo Klemens turned about, he spoke to his captor again.

"Where have I seen you before?" he asked suddenly.

"Me? Oh, quite recently," smiled the man who had caught him. "I'm 'a good soldier. Name of Kreuder.' Kreuder, the 'German deserter from the Spanish Foreign Legion.'... Also 'Hassan the Pedlar.'... Incidentally, too, Colonel Le Sage of the French Secret Service."

___________________

3: The Life of Odo Klemens

THIS IS THE TRUE story of the life of a very remarkable man who was, according to one's point of view, a brilliantly clever and most courageous Soldier of Fortune, or a shameful and disgusting traitor.

The French authorities not unnaturally regarded him as the latter. To many of his comrades, especially his compatriots, he was a hero to envy and to emulate. To others, he was a dog for whom shooting was far too good a death.

It was to men whom protracted monotony, hardship, misery and privation were driving to desperation and madness that the conduct and fortune of Odo Klemens appealed. Men, in short, who were threatened with, or actually suffering from, le cafard. If he could desert, not only successfully but extremely profitably, why could not they desert with, at any rate, some hope of reaching safety?

These poor fellows, temporarily unhinged, and far more to be pitied than despised, were apt to forget how nearly impossible successful desertion is, or was for them; how utterly hopeless were the conditions under which the attempt must be made, with hundreds, if not thousands, of kilometres to march before reaching the place of refuge; the almost insurmountable difficulty of crossing the terrible mountain ranges, with their frozen passes, their burning valleys; the almost complete absence of food and water; the fact that their uniforms would, a hundred times, make them targets for tribesmen's rifles.

It is not when men are marching and fighting that this spirit arises and spreads; not when the active service is really active that this desert madness of le cafard smites them. It is when they are suffering the treble strain of the heaviest manual labour, the minimum of sleep, and an unbroken monotony of danger and unrelieved hardship— which includes bad and insufficient rations and water.

It is then that all sense of proportion is lost, together with sanity and all sense of decency and self-respect; then that good soldiers fall gradual victims to the temptation and example of men like Odo Klemens.

Especially so, when the tempter follows the villainous practice of approaching small and lonely postes at nighttime and, calling to the sentries, urges them to drop down over the wall; urges them to join him and exchange a life of slavery for one of freedom, luxury and power; of wine, money, women, rank, honour and all that the heart of man could desire— merely by going and joining him, the future Kaid of the Atlas, if not Sultan of Morocco.

ODO OR HERMANN Klemens was, according to his especial comrade, Schlatz, and the evidence produced at his court-martial, a German, born at Dusseldorf, and, by now, about forty-five years of age.

The son of a quite successful tradesman of that town, he might have lived in peace, comfort, and prosperity all his days; or, at any rate, up to the Great War. Apparently, however, he had too little to do, and too much money on which to do it; and became a man about town.

When the town is Dusseldorf, this may not mean anything particularly fierce; but Odo Klemens fell in love with a music-hall dancer from Paris; and when she finished her engagement in Germany and returned to France, Klemens accompanied her.

So did a quite considerable portion of his father's bank-balance, which he had obtained by forging his father's name.

Odo Klemens now became a man about town, in Paris, quite a different rôle from that of such a man in Dusseldorf. Before long, his money was gone, and promptly the lady followed it, with an equal finality and completeness.

To avoid the rigours of the Paris winter, he made for the Riviera, got as far as Marseilles, and there lived by his wits until he got a job of some kind on a ship going to Constantinople.

After knocking about in the Turkish capital for a time, he went on tramp and made his way to Persia. He settled in Teheran and, using his undoubted ability, good education, and his knowledge of French and German, succeeded to such effect that he was taken into partnership by a Teheran merchant, and quite quickly amassed, doubtless in curious ways, a sum of money which, if not a fortune, was enough to bring him back in comfort to Europe.

By his own account, as related to his comrade Schlatz, whom he had no reason to deceive, he lost the whole of this capital at the Monte Carlo roulette tables, eventually being reduced to such complete destitution that the Casino paid his fare to Paris, whither he wished to go.

In Paris, for a time, he again lived by his wits as a tout, interpreter and guide; and in less creditable capacities.

Obviously he was a man who could stay for long at no place and in no occupation. For soon, he went on tramp once more, this time right across France, down the length of Italy, back again and across the south of France, and from one end of Spain to the other.

It is a pity that he did not keep a truthful diary, for it would have been worth reading, and would have shed light on many dark and curious paths and ways of the under-world of Southern Europe. The tales he told of his adventures on this odyssey are equally interesting and amusing, in spite of the fact that they all redounded to the credit of the skill, cleverness and courage of Odo Klemens.

In Spain, he undoubtedly earned his living for a time in the bull-ring, though probably not in the rôle of matador.

At Barcelona he was gored by a bull, and laid up in hospital.

And here again, in falling, he fell on his feet, as he had so often done before; for the wife of the German Consul, who was much given to good works, took great interest in this particular hospital, and soon discovered that the wounded bull-fighter was a German.

And here, Klemens had a real chance in life for, on his recovery, he was invited to the Consulate, was most kindly treated, not only by this good woman, but by the Consul himself, and was offered employment in the capacity, and of a kind, for which he was most eminently fitted— Secret Service.

He was to proceed to Tangier, and put himself at the disposal of the German Consul who was in immediate need of a brave and hardy man, clever and competent, who could and would travel about Morocco from place to place, in some suitable disguise.

From time to time, he would bring or send reports upon people, tribes, Kaids, routes, oases, places, events, and certain special subjects of peculiar interest to the German Consul.

This proposition must have sounded ideal to Odo Klemens who, as soon as he was quite fit, proceeded to Tangier, entered the employment of the German Consul, and sat him down forthwith to perfect his knowledge of Arabic, and thoroughly to study the country of Morocco and its people, their history, religion, politics and dialects.

By the time his restless spirit was beginning to chafe at his quiet life of study and physical inaction in Tangier, he was entirely competent to travel about Morocco in the disguise of a native merchant, and to keep the German Consul informed of every move of French, Spanish, Shereefian or Rebel troops; of every bazaar rumour; of the gossip of market-places, serais, caravans, oases, soldiers' camp-fires, and military messes; and generally to be the Consul's eyes and ears.

To understand the position to which Klemens eventually rose under Abdel-Krim, it must be borne in mind that he carried on his work as a German spy throughout the length and breadth of Morocco, in every town and suk and oasis; on every road; with every tribe; and with every adventurer and rebel of the Raisuli type, for quite ten years— and he must, by the end of that time, have known Morocco and the Moroccans as almost no foreigner had ever done before.

And then, suddenly, he received instant and final dismissal from the German Secret Service.

Exactly why he was so immediately and ignominiously expelled from the Service, he never told Schlatz or any other of his comrades; but, judging by some of his earlier, as well as his later, actions, it seems more than probable that he was caught in some such difficult and dubious action as trying to serve two masters.

Whatever it was, he doubtless had, or discovered, some good reason and excuse for what he had done; for Klemens would never admit that he was guilty of treachery or double-dealing.

It is probable that, like many spies, he was a double-spy; a double-crosser, in fact, acting for two or more countries at once, and taking money whenever and wherever he could sell information.

Anyhow, of whatever offence he was convicted, the matter must have been serious, as he had to flee, literally, for his life, leaving behind him the savings, pickings and accumulations of that ten years of deeply interesting, really thrilling, and thoroughly exciting work as a disguised Secret Service agent.

His most obvious and immediate refuge from the long arm of German law and the outraged German Consul, was the nearest depôt of the French Foreign Legion. Thither he fled incontinent; enlisted, and was safe; and, for the time being at any rate, declared himself an implacable bitter enemy of Germany and the Germans, particularly of those in Morocco.

IN VERY MANY WAYS Odo Klemens was an ideal recruit for the French Foreign Legion. He was really tough, really hard, physically, mentally and morally. He was already inured to continual imminent danger; to the hardest and poorest of living; to the longest of marches and the worst of climates, both hot and cold. Also he knew life and men, both kinds, and backward; knew his world and his way about it. When Odo Klemens joined the Foreign Legion, he was already a hard case.

Before long, the recruit Klemens became soldat deuxième classe; in record time, soldat première classe; and, very soon after, was promoted Corporal for bravery in battle.

Again Corporal Klemens distinguished himself for courage and initiative, and was promoted Sergeant on the field. And, being quick, clever, educated, and able to talk German, French, Spanish and Moorish like a native, he was appointed Commissariat-Sergeant of his unit.

Now Commissariat-Sergeant Odo Klemens had not held that rank and office very long before it became quite obvious that the men's food was getting poorer and poorer, and Klemens richer and richer.

A cunning trap was laid for him by his Accounts Department officer. Klemens was caught red-handed, court-martialled, found guilty of gross dishonesty and serious theft, sentenced to imprisonment and reduced to the ranks.

Life in the ranks as a fallen non-commissioned officer suited Klemens ill. At the first opportunity he deserted, and, escaping, went straight to the Taza tribe against whom his unit was fighting. These people, who were old friends of his, received him with open arms. He accepted the leadership which they offered him, and sent impudent messages to his late Commandant.

For a time he was content to be Sheikh of this tribe and to harry the little French outposts of that part of Morocco. He would go by night and endeavour, sometimes successfully, sometimes not, to seduce former comrades from their allegiance and duty. Many sentries he murdered.

On more than one occasion, he entered garrison-town, camp, or outpost, in uniform, walked about as though the place belonged to him, spied out the land, obtained information, and departed undetected and unscathed.

On one occasion, he entered an officer's quarters, stole his uniform, put it on, and rode away on the officer's horse.

Once, having dressed a party of his tribesmen in French uniforms stripped from men slain in battle, or from sentries killed at their posts, he marched them up to an unsuspecting outpost, and attacked and captured it ere the alarm could be given and the gate closed.

In a remarkably short space, he became a real danger and a menace to the outpost line, and something of a thorn in the side of the French General commanding that zone.

He had only been some months with the Beni Wazain tribe before his reputation spread throughout the whole country, and a very important Shereef approached him, urged him to embrace the Mussulman religion, and gave him the hand of his daughter in marriage.

He also gave him a commission to fight and harry the French whenever and wherever he could, and to do everything possible, by raiding, sniping, cutting off convoys and undermining the discipline and loyalty of the Foreign Legion and native troops, to bring about the defeat of the Infidel.

Nor were the ambitions of the Shereef mere pious hopes and nothing more, his orders and directions but evidence of his aspirations. He provided Odo Klemens with hordes of fanatical fighting men; and Klemens provided them with what most they needed— strong leadership, firm discipline, sound organization, and modern military strategy and tactics.

It seems that, bitterly as Klemens had hated Germany and the Germans since his disgrace and dismissal from their Secret Service, he now hated the French even more. Apparently he deeply resented their discovery of his defalcations and their infliction upon him of punishment, imprisonment and possibly worse— for there are rumours that he suffered the crapaudine torture, for violent and rebellious conduct while in prison.

Certainly the French had no more dangerous individual enemy at this time than the new Sheikh and leader of the Beni Wazain tribe.

It is probable that after his ten years of wandering in Morocco, living the whole time as a native, Klemens greatly preferred life in the rôle of an Arab; and it must have seemed to his friend and patron, the Shereef, to the fighting men the latter put at his disposal, and to the tribesmen of the Beni Wazain, that Klemens was no ordinary Roumi— no ordinary Infidel, if ever he had been one.

Not only did he speak their language perfectly, but he had all the ways, manners, customs, habits and knowledge of an Arab, and was indistinguishable from one of themselves, save for the fact that he was, according to his own account, a Haji, a man who had acquired merit and religious rank by performing the Haj, the pilgrimage to Mecca.

This alone gave him a special standing and a claim to veneration.

It is not known whether Klemens had, in point of fact, visited Mecca, but, inasmuch as he had been a carpet-merchant in Persia, it is quite possible that he had successfully ventured with his Teheran partner as far as the Holy City.

And yet, just when his fame was great, his position strong, and his popularity enormous, owing to his successful raids on the French postes, and to his great personal courage, his marked ability and gifts for guerrilla warfare, he fell from grace.

The position of any foreigner among fanatical tribesmen, changeful and suspicious, is apt to be precarious; but one suspects that there was some good reason for the fact that 'misfortune' once again overtook Odo Klemens.

At any rate, he was suddenly accused of being a traitor and a spy, and was flung into a silo or pit, to die of starvation.

And once again Fate intervened to save this remarkable man from what was apparently certain death.

A wealthy and influential tribesman, whose interests Klemens had served, rescued him by night, spirited him away, and kept him in his household, disguised in the rôle of a slave.

From this man's tents, Klemens escaped, and made his way to a distant tribe to whom also he was known, and who appeared to have heard nothing of his recent downfall. Them also he led against the nearest French postes, attained prominence and rank, again married the Sheikh's daughter, and was in a fair way to succeed his father-in-law as ruler of the tribe.

Before this occurred, however, all men had begun to talk of the new hope of Morocco, the new Mahdi who was going to throw off the foreign yoke and drive every invader from the sacred soil of Moghreb— Abdel-Krim, the Kaid of the Atlas, who was not only defying, but defeating, French and Spanish troops, on equal terms and in open battle.

As usual, Odo Klemens was beginning to find the present task boring and monotonous; beginning to yearn for fresh fields and pastures new, a wider life and a bigger stage.

Also there was a woman in the case, once again; a woman in that part of the country, whom he had seen and long remembered.

So one day he rode off, leaving his adopted tribe, his lawful wife, and his son and heir, behind him.

"Leave thy father, leave thy mother

And thy brother;

Leave the black tents of thy Tribe apart!

Am I not thy father and thy brother,

Thy mother?

And thou— what needest with thy Tribe's black tents

Who hast the red pavilion of my heart?"

And in the end, this woman played the part of Delilah and was the cause of his capture, downfall, and ruin.

IN ODO KLEMENS, Abdel-Krim saw not only a man after his own heart, but one of the very type that he most needed— an experienced soldier versed in the latest arts of modern warfare; a man of the highest courage and greatest initiative; a bitter enemy of the French; a born leader of men; and one whose only hope was in the success of Abdel-Krim.

First of all he was appointed Kaid-el-Hamsain, or Colonel of Riff Regulars, and given command of an expedition which Abdel-Krim was planning to launch suddenly against the Spaniards.

This was entirely successful, and Odo Klemens was rewarded with the permanent rank of Kaid; a suitable house at Adjir; the hand of one of Abdel-Krim's relatives; horses, flocks and herds.

ODO KLEMENS now settled down to hard work as Instructor-General of the Riffian Army, and employed what spare time he had in map-making, military photography, and the organizing of artillery and bomb-throwing schools.

Intentionally or not, Klemens so inspired his followers that he became a legend in his lifetime, known throughout Morocco as El Hadj Aleman, the German Haji. By all priests and people he was accepted as not merely a good Mahommedan, but definitely as a Holy Man who, unlike his less fortunate or less pious followers, had made the Pilgrimage to Mecca, and established for all time his claim to special sanctity.

Not only this, but in war, if not in peace, he outdid the Riffs themselves in ferocity, making himself, to these wild mountaineers, what Hereward the Wake was to the Saxons, William Wallace and Robert Bruce to the Scots.

Upon the minds of the French soldiery, too, he made a deep impression, as it was his habit, when cutting off a convoy, annihilating a small detachment, capturing a poste, or even slaying a sentry, to 'leave his card.' To the breast of one of the dead he would attach a piece of paper bearing the words 'El Hadj Aleman.'

It is little cause for wonder that his capture was earnestly desired by the French authorities, and that there was a price upon his head.

Whether regarded as a shameful renegade from Christianity, from European civilization and from his German nationality and his adopted French allegiance, or not, he was undeniably a most romantic figure, a very brave man indeed, leading a life incredible in its difference from that to which he had been born, and from that prevailing a few miles away across the Straits of Gibraltar.

He had gone back three or four centuries.

From time to time, a representative of some European power or newspaper would make his perilous way to Abdel-Krim's headquarters, and would there encounter his Chief of Staff, his Quartermaster-General, his Commander-in-Chief, his Instructor-in-Chief, El Hadj Aleman, late Sergeant Odo Klemens of the French Foreign Legion.

To these people Klemens would show hospitality— provided there were no reason to suppose they were French or German or Spanish emissaries— expatiate upon the wrongs suffered by Abdel-Krim and the Riffians at the hands of France and Spain, and explain himself.

He was not a renegade Christian.

He was a convinced Mussulman, a Mahommedan, a True Believer.

Christianity he had renounced and abjured, as he had a perfect right to do. Mahommedanism he had embraced as the only religion worthy of a man and a warrior.

He was not a renegade German.

He was a naturalized Riffian; and surely there was no more disgrace in a German becoming a naturalized Riffian than in a German becoming a naturalized American?

He was not a deserter from the French Army, treacherously fighting against his own side.

He had served the French well, and they had served him badly; and so he had terminated his contract and left their service. Had not every man a perfect right to do this, if he had the will, the courage and the power? When he had joined the French Foreign Legion he had joined as a German and a Christian. When he had ceased to be either, he had ceased to be the man who had enlisted.

What would be really wrong would be for him, a Mahommedan and a Riffian, to serve in the Christian European army which was fighting against his religion and his nation.

"So utterly have I renounced the Christian religion, German nationality, and French allegiance, that I have taken Riffian wives. My sons are Riffians; and I will never leave the country of the Riff. Allah is my God, Mahommet is my salvation; the Atlas country is my home, and the Riffian people are my nation," said he.

"'What will happen to me if Abdel-Krim is conquered and captured?'... That will never come to pass; but should it do so, I shall be in precisely the same position as any other Riffian Kaid.... Why not, since I am a naturalized Riffian?"

BUT HERE Odo Klemens was mistaken. Abdel-Krim was defeated, captured and exiled. Odo Klemens was taken in an ambush laid for him near Tamzount by a French officer of the Secret Service.

Treated as a deserter, and marched with manacled hands to Taza, he was sent to Mekinez to be tried by General Court-martial.

Here he stoutly defended himself, after denying that he was subject to the jurisdiction of the Court.

His defence was that he was not a Frenchman; and that, after leaving the French service, he had renounced his German nationality, embraced Islam, and become a naturalized Moor of the Riff.

As was his duty, he had fought for his adopted country, and had fought honourably against her enemies, whether Spanish, French or Moorish; for Abdel-Krim's hand had been against that of the Sultan, and against that of the great Shereefian rebel Raisuli.

Far from being a renegade deserter, he was not even a soldier of fortune. He was a patriotic son of his country, and had but defended her sacred soil....

The Court-martial, however, took a different view, and sentenced Odo Klemens to death.

On revision, the severity of this sentence was increased and he was sentenced to eight years in a Penal Battalion.

____________________

4: Moon-Rise

"THAT IS A dreadful noise," observed Tant de Soif, as we entered our chambrée. I had to agree, for it was a rather dreadful noise.

"Ah, as I thought. It emanates from the interior of the aged intolerable man they call Père Poussin," continued Tant de Soif.

"Is he in pain, or is he what he would call singing?...

"Yes, he is, in effect, 'singing.'"

Turning upon us unabashed, the aged Père Poussin, who was probably fifty-five or so, yet higher lifted up his voice.

"Elle s'a cassé sa jambe de bois

Sa jambe de bois

En montant d'ssus les ch'vaux d'bois

Sa jambe,

Sa jambe de bois!"

he sang.

"Peace, my child," requested Tant de Soif, politely and with restraint.

Making a grimace and gesture unworthy of his years and station, Père Poussin executed a not inelegant pas seul, and increased the volume, if not the acceptability, of his song.

"Mariez-vous donc! Mariez-vous donc!

C'est si gentil, c'est si bon!

Pourquoi rester, mon garçon?

Allons...

Mariez-vous donc, garçon!"

he chanted.

"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," said Tant de Soif, "and that, I think, will be quite sufficient."

Unwarned and undaunted, Père Poussin sang on.

"Pour le repos, le plaisir du militaire,

Il est là-bas, à deux pas de la fôret,

Une maison aux murs tout couverts de lierre.

'AUX TOURLOUROUS' c'est le nom du cabaret."

"Had I a cartridge, my dear Père Poussin, I would put it to a splendid use, and again earn and deserve, if not receive, the gratitude of mankind. Both as a philanthropist and a man of musical taste, I would use it to shoot you. But yes, even though I were surrounded by a million howling foemen, and it were the last cartridge in the world."

At these words, the grey-bearded Père Poussin dropped upon a bench, flung his arms upon the table and buried his face in them.

"There, there," muttered Tant de Soif, evidently much concerned. And quietly, to me, "One mustn't use the phrase 'the last cartridge' in front of ce pauvre Poussin."

Tant de Soif said this, not only with obvious concern, but as though I had been guilty of the alleged indiscretion.

Crossing over to where his copain sprawled, apparently sobbing, Tant de Soif patted his back gently, and talked to him as might a mother to a distressed unhappy child.

"There, there, there, mon brave," he soothed, "don't take on. There, there. No one would say a word to bring it all back, upset you, disturb you.... Hush now. And we'll have a litre."

He glanced at me and raised his eyebrows. I nodded acquiescence.

"A litre, at the very least," continued Tant de Soif, stroking the grey head that lay bowed upon the table. "Come on, my Spring Chicken."

"He was such a brave boy, such a fine lad," sobbed Père Poussin, making me feel most uncomfortable, for he literally did sob, with the frank and complete abandon of the Latin of his class.

"He was; he was," agreed Tant de Soif, his gnarled hand gently shaking his comrade's shoulder. "He'd have been an adjudant. An adjudant, do I say? An Officer, if he had... lived."

Père Poussin raised a tear-stained face and wiped parts of it with his cuff.

"Why don't you say 'if he hadn't been murdered,'" sniffed Père Poussin.

"Because I'm not a damned old fool like you," roared Tant de Soif, giving the venerable head before him a quite useful clout. "Because it would be a cursed silly lie, and I, unlike yourself, am not a silly old liar.... Get dressed and come and get drunk, or as drunk as you have the capacity to get."

Père Poussin rose to his feet.

After all, wine is wine.

"It was terrible, you know," whispered Tant de Soif to me, as Père Poussin went to the shelf whereon his uniforms were folded en paquetage. "Shot..."

"His friend?" said I. "Poor chap! A gun-accident?"

"But no. Au contraire."

"What, shot on purpose?"

"Shot deliberately."

"Murder?"

"Battle, murder and sudden death.... Battle and sudden death certainly.... Sudden death after battle, anyhow.... He'll tell you."

For some reason, perhaps because of Tant de Soifs somewhat mysterious manner, I thought of a firing-party at dawn, a blindfolded figure bound to a stake, the signalling fall of an officer's sword, a volley....

"I shouldn't care to ask him," I said.

"He'll tell you when he's had a bottle of pinard. It was my original prescription, and it has become routine. When anything brings it all up again like this, I give him all the wine I can possibly raise, and make him tell the story to someone who's never heard it; make him get it all up; get it out.... Works like a charm.... In the early days I thought he was going as mad as La Cigale, but my prescription did the trick, saved him, body and soul and mind. And now, instead of being as mad as La Cigale, he's as sane as you or I."

Tant de Soif turned upon me with sudden swiftness.

"He is as sane as you or I, isn't he?" he asked insistently, truculently.

"Obviously," I replied. "Probably a good deal saner than I."

Tant de Soif gripped, and shook my wrist, causing my hand to waggle in a foolish manner.

THE CANTEEN was quiet that night, being Friday and all pay spent the night before.

Père Poussin was not drunk.

How can a man be said to be drunk when his articulation is perfect, his speech coherent, his selection of the mot juste unerring, his memory unfailing, his replies unhesitating and accurate?

Of course Poussin was not drunk that evening, even if I did carry him from canteen to chambrée and Tant de Soif did put him to bed.

"DID YOU EVER hear of the affair at Ain Zeb, mon ami?" Père Poussin asked me, as he raised his fourth bumper, first to me, and then to his lips.

"No," he continued, with some bitterness in his voice. "Who has? Who remembers; who knows; who cares?"

"What was the affair at Ain Zeb?"

"Nothing, nothing. Only an 'affair of outposts'— or rather, of patrols. Only an affair of an inexperienced young Officer, a sergeant-major who hadn't the guts to stand up to him, contradict him, and protest; and of a couple of score of fine légionnaires thrown away, massacred, butchered... all but one. Forty— of whom I'm the sole survivor.... Oh yes, that's all the affair at Ain Zeb was.

"And who do you think was the last survivor with me... the thirty-ninth... the last to die, that is to say?" he continued. "It was a boy... a mere child... Adolphe, young Adolphe, le petit Adolphe.

"And how old do you think he was? Well, I'll tell you how old he wasn't. He wasn't seventeen, and he died with his boots on... in the uniform of the Legion."

"Magnificent," I murmured, as Père Poussin addressed himself more particularly to me.

"Ah, and he was magnificent. And white, mind you. White as you or I: and French to the last drop of his blood. Born in France, of a good French girl. Her father worked in the O'Brien 1 vineyards.

_____________

1 Haut-Brion?

"But was he going to labour in the vineyard? His father's son?... In the vineyard of Empire, if you like.... On his sixteenth birthday, he started off, tramped to Marseilles, went to the Bureau de Recrutement, said he was a run-away Belgian, nineteen years of age, and enlisted in the Legion.

"Rolled up at Sidi bel Abbès, grinning and wagging his tail, and asking where his father was. I tell you, notre brave Rollet was pleased. He roared with laughter when, inspecting recruits, they pointed the boy out to him and told him who he was.

"He clapped the youngster on the back with his own hand.

"'Mon Dieu,' he swore, 'that's the style. Why can't each of my rascals beget a young rascal like himself, and bring him to the Legion? That's how the Romans did it in their Third African Legion.'

"Yes, Rollet himself spoke to the boy, and saw that when he had finished his recruit-training, he was sent out to our Company. He's a man, is our Rollet.

"And yet, if he hadn't taken an interest in him himself, and seen to it that he joined his father (a damned old vaurien) the boy might have been alive to-day."

Père Poussin stopped, and his old— or old-looking— face twitched.

What could one say? This was real grief.

"Courage, mon brave," cried Tant de Soif. "He died, as he'd have wished to die, in the uniform that his father and grandfather and great-grandfather wore.... He died... er..."

Tant de Soif, too, stopped.

"He died gloriously, a soldier's death, in battle," said I indiscreetly, unmindful of Tant de Soifs mysterious-seeming hints of an hour before, in the chambrée.

Père Poussin raised his eyes to mine.

"He died," he said, "in the uniform he loved, and had always longed to wear, at Ain Zeb.

"As I told you.

"The thirty-ninth légionnaire to die.

"I was the fortieth— and lived.

"YOUNG Lieutenant de Ménard would halt just there and nowhere else. Even we, tired as we were, grumbled that the site was undefendable. No water. Commanded from every side by collines, by higher ground, rocks, sand-dunes."

"If I'd been there, I'd have marched up to de Ménard and told him so," interrupted Tant de Soif, pot-valiant.

"Well, luckily you were in more suitable company— with the mules," replied Père Poussin, with asperity, "or doubtless you'd have done wonders."

"A snug enough place, I grant you," he resumed, "for a Section with plenty of water, and moving in safe and settled country. But we had only what was in our water-bottles, both for drinking and for cooking, and we were in the zone dissidente, and actually on our way to strengthen a poste around which Sheikh Sidi Omar bin Marbrouk himself was raiding with a few thousand of the best. Worse than the Touareg, Ouled Sidi Sheikhs, or the Chambaa themselves, they were."

"Why wasn't there any water there if it was called Ain^1 Zeb?" asked Tant de Soif, to show his close interest in the story which he must have heard a hundred times before.

_________

1 Ain = fountain, well, spring.

"Because it was dried up, my good camel; or gone underground; or because a well there had been buried and concealed by the Arabs; or because there was a perfectly good oasis— a kilometre away— and our clever young de Ménard couldn't read his map; or hadn't got a map; or was too tired to go any farther; or didn't give a damn; or decided that we had sufficient water for the night— which we had— and that he'd better reconnoitre the oasis at dawn, and catch the Arabs who were camping there, as they probably would be.

"How do we know what's in an Officer's mind— always assuming that there's anything in it at all?

"Anyhow, there it was. Young de Ménard must camp there and nowhere else, down in this snug depression where wandering scouts, raiding-parties, or harkas would never see us unless they chanced upon us— which would be like a man chancing on a needle in a hay-stack— in this snug, but large, shallow depression commanded on all sides by higher ground, sand-dunes, rocks, where, if we were caught, we should be caught like rats in a trap.

"Why, when we got 'Sacs à terre' and 'Aux murailles,' even old Zarinieff, who, as you know, hadn't too much intelligence, was soldier enough to remark to me:

"'But Name of a Name of a Name of a Billion Bounding Blue Baboons! Surely the good God has already made the murailles. We are already within a perimeter-camp... rather a large one, I admit, but it would be better to man the natural walls of this crater than to build our own walls in the middle of it'— or words to that effect.

"Even the poor Tant de Soif here would have seen that it was rather like making a tea-cup inside a saucer and defending that instead of defending the saucer itself.... But I am wandering from the point...."

"You are indeed wandering in your mind, mon pauvre Poussin," agreed Tant de Soif. "However, there isn't much room to wander there, so you will not get lost."

Père Poussin ignored the remark.

"Well, we couldn't build any walls, because there was nothing but sand. So we scratched a square of shallow trenches, and willingly obeyed the order for each man to contribute a quarter of his water to the cooking-pot, and drink the rest.... Of course, de Ménard must have been absolutely certain that we were close to an oasis, and would be there next day.... Or that, in any case, the Mounted Infantry Company would overtake us, and they had spare water-fantasses on their mules.... I don't know.... Legion officers generally have a good reason for what they do— unless they've got cafard.

"Well, I was for guard that night, and worked it so that my turn of sentry-duty coincided with young Adolphe's, and that he and I were next to each other, and met at the end of our respective beats.

"And, of course, we stopped a while and talked, each time, for I loved young Adolphe better than anything else in the whole world... better even than myself and my life... better even than the miserable and drunken old Tant de Soif with whom it's been my misfortune to soldier for forty years— from Dahomey to Tonkin and from Madagascar to Algeria."

Tant de Soif patted Père Poussin on the back and drank some of the speaker's wine, as the hand of the latter abandoned its clutch upon his glass while, with his cuff, he frankly and unashamedly wiped away the tears that streamed from his eyes.

"Think of it, mes amis, a boy not only through his recruit-drill and depôt-training, but out on active service before he was seventeen!... Marching with the best of us; spoiling for a fight; merry all the time; and not only suffering every hardship cheerfully, but frequently remarking that, with luck, he might see fifty years of service....

"Yes, we stood and talked... and I gave him what I could of such soldier-knowledge and wisdom as I had gathered in forty years of service. Le pauvre brave Adolphe...."

And under the influence of wine and emotion, Père Poussin again broke down and sobbed, while Tant de Soif did his best to comfort him with loving-kindness, foul oaths, and quite considerable punches in the ribs and smacks upon the head.

"There, there," he said, "it's all over long ago and the boy's happy. Shut up, you doddering dotard, or I'll so disperse you that you'll be good for nothing but autopsy by the Butcher.... There, there, mon brave, drink up and tell us the rest of the story, for you are cleverer at it and more interesting than any professional story-teller of the Bazaar. Come on, now, you damned old fool, or I'll have your gizzard for a tobacco-pouch."

"Sixteen years of age," continued Père Poussin, "as good a man as any of us, and better than most. Doing his forty to fifty kilometres a day, without a whine or a snivel, a groan or a curse....

"Yes, we talked there in the starlight, and I can remember every little word he said, for it was the last time. It was the last time that I and Adolphe talked together... the last time."

"On this earth, mon brave," interrupted Tant de Soif. "Le grand Général le bon Dieu will see to it that you and Adolphe meet at the Last Muster, and talk to your heart's content in the chambrée of the good soldier's Heaven. Of course He will. And don't contradict me, you drunken dodderer, or I'll punch you on the nose— a thing one could not miss in the dark."

"But though we talked, was young Adolphe neglectful of his duty? Not he. It was Adolphe who saw the Arabs first. And I tell you, mes amis, that boy fired his rifle, and bawled 'Aux armes' right in the middle of a sentence. He just caught his gun up from 'Stand at ease' and fired it without stopping to bring it up to his shoulder, and shouted the alarm as he did so. Right in the middle of what he was saying.... There's soldierly promptitude for you....

"But, as it turned out, it might have been better if he hadn't been so watchful and so smart. The Arabs would have caught us napping, and the agony would not have been prolonged.... And I should not be alive to-day, a drunken disgrace to the finest Regiment God ever made."

"Oh?" ejaculated Tant de Soif, bestowing a heavy thump upon his copain. "So I go about with 'a drunken disgrace to the Regiment,' do I?"

"No," replied Père Poussin. "I do that.

"Almost before the words were out of the boy's mouth," he resumed, "I had my rifle up, too, and in a couple of seconds from his sighting the crawling assassins we were shooting to kill. And before their rush was fairly started, the walls were manned, and the N.C.O.s giving orders for salvo fire.

"The Legion is not often caught napping and, thanks to Adolphe, it wasn't caught then. I wish it had been. We should have died just the same, and died quicker. But what am I saying? Of course, we shouldn't have died quicker. The tortures!... The tortures!... Why, I've seen a skewer on which were a légionnaire's eyes, nose, lips, ears, fingers, toes and..."

"That's enough," growled Tant de Soif.

"...and the poor devil still alive."

Père Poussin fell silent.

"No," he continued, "it was better so. Adolphe's warning was in time, and the men died like men, fighting to the last. Back to back, and their faces to the foe, against odds of ten to one..."

Père Poussin's words reminded me of

"The Scottish spearmen still made good

Their dark impenetrable wood;

Each man stepping where his comrade stood,

The instant that he fell."

"...died like men of the Legion, that never retreats and never surrenders... died fighting for Honneur et Fidélité... killing, until killed by, the enemies of France.

"...All but me— and one other.... One other.... Young Adolphe. He was not killed by an enemy of France."

"Get on with it, now," growled Tant de Soif.

"Well, the Arabs settled down to do the thing in style— five or six hundred of them to the forty of us— and the fight lasted all day. The whole of a waterless day, thanks to young de Ménard's cock-sure cleverness.

"I'm not blaming the boy really. He died like a man, like an Officer of the Legion, after displaying the utmost courage, coolness and skill.

"He didn't exactly apologize to us for landing us in that death-trap, and without any water; but he said the right words, and called us all the things we liked to be called; and found time, as he went round, to clap each man on the shoulder and swear at him.

"He was a good lad, de Ménard, and he set a fine example.

"I suppose he didn't want to live, once he realized what he had done— but we wanted to.... Anyhow, I did— with young Adolphe there.

"Yes, all day it lasted, and most of us would have died of the heat and thirst if the Arabs hadn't killed us.... A natural oven, without water, and, as everyone knows, there's nothing like the excitement of fighting for turning your tongue into glue-coated leather, and your lips into cracked charcoal.

"And the Arabs had got us sitting. They'd only got to keep a hundred or so continuously shooting at us, from cover, at short range, while the rest played cards, had a manicure, got a shampoo and shave, powdered their noses, took an apéritif, or went to the pictures, until it was their turn for the tir aux pigeons— sport without danger.

"And they didn't spare ammunition either, thinking, no doubt, they'd get ours. But that was what de Ménard didn't intend them to do.

"'Shoot just as often as you see something to shoot at, mes enfants,' said he, 'and don't miss.... They're bound to get us— let 'em get us with our pouches empty.'

"Every now and then, a few of the more courageous and enterprising, or more impatient, would get up a charge and try to ride over us, break us up and scatter us. But de Ménard saw to that all right— although he'd been shot through the chest.

"Towards evening, after he had been hit again, in the mouth, and could talk no more, he carried on just as well with his whistle, although he blew blood through it, as well as through the hole in his chest.

"He got around, too, probably doing that foolish thing, looking for the bullet that would finish him.

"Surely even a youngster like that knows that the only time you are really safe is when you want to die. It's just the cussedness of things. If the vaguemestre gives you a letter saying that your aunt has gone to Heaven and left you ten thousand francs, you'll stop a bullet that same day— fired a mile away, at somebody else. But whoever got a bullet when he wanted one? Not young de Ménard, anyhow. He died slowly, from loss of blood, and his last croak was a joke that made us laugh.

"Sergeant-Major Brasche— whose fault it really was that we were in that trap, because he ought to have prevailed on young de Ménard to choose a better site for the camp— crocked up and went mad. I said he was a bit of a weakling, didn't I? Oh, he was brave enough, and a very good non-com., but when it came to the pinch, he lacked just one thing— guts.

"And, mind you, guts isn't the same thing as courage. Courage shows in a fight or a charge, for example. Guts shows towards the end of a long march, when you're a walking agony, and if you stopped you'd fall down, and nothing on earth would get you up again.... Or towards the end of a long day of being shot at, front, rear, and both flanks.

"So Sergeant-Major Brasche's courage got the better of his guts— we'll put it like that, for he was a good soldier. And, just before sunset, he jumped to his feet, fixed his bayonet, and did a charge all by himself.

"Curiously enough, he got there, too, though le bon Dieu alone knows how many times he got chipped on the way. Reached the nearest group of them, got his bayonet into his man, and died happy.

"We helped him all we could, of course, but they were all round him, like flies on a spot of honey— or blood.

"Sergeant Risskoff got a nasty one, right across the front of his stomach, and that bullet acted just precisely as a butcher's knife does across the throat of a sheep. Now he had got guts— even after he'd lost 'em— for he rolled over on his back, folded his hands across his front as though to hold himself together— and died for hours, without a sound.

"Charmantelle— you remember Sergeant Charmantelle... been a Dragoon officer before he joined the Legion... huge great big chap— got one sideways, too. Took out all his front teeth. That was funny because he'd always been so proud of 'em. You remember the old joke about him, eh, mon ami?"

"Yes," replied Tant de Soif, and quoted, "'There's lots of good things about Charmantelle— thirty-six good teeth.'"

"Well, that's about all the good there was to Charmantelle, but one has to admit that he died well. The last thing he said— and it must have cost him some effort to speak at all— was,

"'Well, I shan't be able to eat for a long time, but I can still drink, thank God.'

"Schleydel died noisily, moaning and groaning and bawling something or other in German. But, in fairness, one has to admit that he was probably quite unconscious. For he'd got a bullet clean through the head, just above the ears.

"Matalones got one in the head, too, through the left eye, and he ran round and round in a circle until he got another.

"Every time I heard a bullet strike a man, I glanced at young Adolphe who was lying next to me, a few feet away on my right, firing as coolly and steadily as if we were on the rifle-range.

"Once he crawled over to Guajiros who was lying with his face buried in the sand and his bare head and neck exposed to the sun. A bullet had taken his képi off, after he had sunk down, shot in the neck.

"Adolphe put the képi back on his head, and turned him over, so that he could breathe; then took Guajiros' ammunition and crawled back to his place.

"Towards evening, ammunition became a problem, of course. Corporal Gueldre started a round of all the dead and wounded— too badly wounded to be able to shoot, I mean— collecting their ammunition. And when he was hit, Corporal Djoolte, another damned good Dutchman, carried on and distributed it among us.

"'Got any ideas, old soldier?' he croaked to me, as he crawled to where I lay. 'What about a smack at them with Rosalie^1?'

_____________

1 Bayonet.

"'What's the good of running about in the sun, Corporal?' I asked. 'How can we get through them on foot? And where'd we go, if we could? More comfortable here.'

"'Quite right. Just what I think,' agreed Corporal Djoolte. 'It's just possible we may stand them off till they get tired of it.'

"After he'd been round, Djoolte, now in command, signalled the Cease Fire, and gave orders that there was to be no more shooting until the Arabs charged.

"That was all very well, but they didn't charge. They simply wriggled and crept and crawled a little nearer, and a little nearer, while keeping up as hot a fire as ever. Before long, Djoolte, in the centre, raised his head to give another order, and got a bullet between the eyes.

"Then someone's nerve gave out and he started shooting. It wasn't young Adolphe.

"Then old Zarinieff jumped up, bawled,

"'I've had enough of this,' and did exactly what Sergeant-Major Brasche had done.

"At that we all started firing, to give him what support we could. But, of course, he didn't last long.

"When I glanced round a few minutes later, I was surprised to see how few of us were left; not more than about half a dozen, besides Adolphe and me.

"And do you know what I thought of, mes amis? Those pictures in the Salle d'Honneur, at the Depôt. And I wished some artist could see what I saw, and paint a picture of it. You know the sort of thing. The Last Stand, or perhaps, The End of the Day at Ain Zeb, or something of that sort.

"Of course, I was too busy to think much about anything. But you know how these queer thoughts pass through your mind, and what I was really thinking about all the time was young Adolphe.

"Curiously enough, I hadn't any— what do you call it?— premonition of death. Not a bit of it. In fact, I felt quite sure that I should come through this scrap all right, as I'd come through so many before.

"Le bon Dieu alone knows why I should have thought so, for I'd never been in so tight a place in all my service, and there seemed no earthly possibility of escape. How could there be any end to it but death— either with or without torture, according to one's luck?

"And— a still more curious thing, mes amis. Almost to the last minute, I had a feeling that the Arabs weren't going to get my young comrade... my young Adolphe.

"And so it went on, until there were only Schlosse, Ceppina, Adolphe and me.

"Just about sunset, Schlosse, a good man who had been a Sergeant, and degraded to the ranks for drunkenness, made another tour round the last of the killed and wounded, for ammunition. And what do you think Ceppina did?... Went to sleep. Fact. I thought he was dead till I heard him snore.

"Schlosse, who seemed to think he was a Sergeant again, rolled over and over until he was near enough to kick Ceppina in the ribs and give him some more ammunition.

"'Don't you go to sleep till you've fired that lot,' said Schlosse.

"And those were the last words of a good soldier who'd seen a lot of trouble in his time.

"Still the Arabs kept on shooting and crawling nearer, and Ceppina, Adolphe and I were lying, like three spokes of a wheel, with our feet to the hub and our faces outward.

"Every now and then a few Arabs would start a little rush, and it was a case of rapid-independent to stop them. It was no good husbanding ammunition when they started that game.

"Presently I noticed that Ceppina had stopped firing, and, looking round, saw that he was asleep for good, this time with his head in a pool of blood.

"I took his ammunition and gave half of it to young Adolphe.

"Adolphe... and I... alone... among... the dead....

"Still, if you can believe me, I did not feel that I was going to die. Nor that the Arabs were going to get young Adolphe.

"Then I noticed that the Arab fire was slackening, and I could see that a lot of them, in front of me, were looking up at the sky, and wondered what for.

"I wondered all sorts of things. You know, one's head gets queer at the end of a day like that, and one is apt to think queerly... and to act queerly, too.

"Then I realized something that I tried not to realize. But it was no good doing that.

"Adolphe had ceased firing.

"I sighted at an Arab who was raising himself on one hand, and beckoning to others. And when I had sighted, I held my fire and held my breath, and listened for the sound of Adolphe's rifle.

"Adolphe had ceased firing.

"I shot the Arab, and then turned round with my heart in my mouth— or in my boots.

"No, it was all right. Adolphe had put his rifle down. And, with his chin on the backs of his hands, he lay flat, and stared in front of him.

"He had fired away all his ammunition.

"And only then I realized that I had but two more cartridges myself.

"I gave one of them to Adolphe.

"And still I felt that this wasn't Père Poussin's last fight, and that the Arabs would not get Adolphe.

"Suddenly the Arabs gave a great cheer— if you can call their yelling a cheer— pointed to the sky, and sprang up, hundreds of them, all round us.

"I glanced at the sky and saw— the new moon.

"Then I heard Adolphe's rifle. They were charging from that direction.

"His last cartridge.

"Adolphe had fired his last shot.

"In the breach of my rifle was my last cartridge.

"I could be sure of killing one man.

"And then— what?

"Adolphe and I taken alive. Adolphe in their hands— alive, young, strong, unhurt.

"I saw again, as clearly as though it lay there before me, the living body of that comrade of mine— the living body from which they had cut off everything that can be cut from a man... and the skewer...

"And I thought of the men we'd found lying with their burnt-off feet and charred legs in the ashes of dead fires.

"And I thought of all the portraits of mutilated légionnaires that are hung in the Barrack chambrées at the Depôt for the 'information and guidance' of recruits.

"And I went mad, mes amis.

"Or did I become sane— saner than I've ever been in my life?

"I don't know.

"What I do know is that I sprang to my feet, swung about and— shot young Adolphe through the back of the head.

"Shot him from behind— as he stood, like a young lion, with his bayonet at the 'ready.'

"The last cartridge.

"Then I turned my back, and the one thing I wanted, the one thing before I died, was to get my bayonet into an Arab.

"Let them come.... I was ready to die now. More than ready.... After what I had done.

"But they did not come.

"They halted, pointed, wavered, broke, fled.

"For, over a ridge, waving his sword and yelling, 'C-h-a-a-a-r-g-e!' at the top of his voice, like a trumpet-call, galloped— a French officer.

"Straight at them, like a thunderbolt, he came, and they did not wait for the squadron of Spahis, the galloping Company of Mounted Infantry, the machine-guns, the Tirailleurs, the Senegalese and Company of the Legion that were— not— following him.

"They fled, and the officer, still yelling 'C-h-a-a-a-r-g-e!' and turning in his saddle to beckon on the men who were not behind him, galloped on at break-neck pace.

"Then he wheeled about, trotted his horse up to me and saluted me with his sword, as though I'd been a General....

"I NEVER see the new moon without thinking of him, Lieutenant Lucien de la Haye de Milvorde de Brabant. I heard that he was killed in the Sharia massacre. He was a brave man, that one.

"Did ever one solitary man charge an army, single-handed, before?"

"How came he to be there?" I asked.

"In command of a convoy, going to the same fort that we were bound for. He'd heard the firing, headed for it, and, the only mounted man, reconnoitred forward alone, seen what was up, and charged alone, single-handed, as I told you.

"Lieutenant Lucien de la Haye de Milvorde de Brabant.

"There was something about him.... I know not what... something kind... something that impelled me to tell him that, with my last cartridge I had shot... my own son.

"My own beloved son... my little Adolphe."

_____________________

5: Moon-Shadows

OF ALL THE extraordinarily interesting men I ever met in the French Foreign Legion, perhaps the most interesting was the one known as La Cigale (the Grasshopper).

His was an amazing case.

He was as mad as a hatter, completely insane, at times, especially at full moon; he was eccentric, odd, peculiar, and rather mad, most of the time; and upon occasion, for brief periods, he was as sane as you or I.

But mad, sane, or merely eccentric, he was always and invariably a gentleman, a gentle man, and a good soldier.

All we knew about him was that he was a Belgian nobleman of very ancient family, had been an officer in the Belgian Corps of Guides, and military attaché at more than one of the Belgian Embassies.

That was all I knew, at any rate, until he honoured me by telling me his story— under the influence of a fear, I believe, that his next attack of insanity would be final and complete. Or it may have been that he had a premonition of approaching death.

LA CIGALE and I were seated, side by side, on a bench beside the guard-room door, after Retreat, one particularly sultry evening.

"The sun seems to achieve the impossible and get more powerful every day," I remarked, as La Cigale unhooked his boucheron and feebly fanned his face with his képi.

"It's the increasing power of the moon that troubles me more," he replied. "It'll be full moon in a day or two....

"I say," he added, "you'll see me through, once again, won't you? It's terrible.... Hell, twelve times a year. And yet one can only die once. Why don't I die!"

"You'll recover," I said, with false cheery optimism.

"Madness is death— the death of the mind," he continued. "And when I am mad, I don't suffer. It is the going mad that is so terrible. When the Arabs have tortured a man to death, he is dead and feels nothing. But think of what he suffered first. I'm not whining or complaining— I'm wondering why I keep on."

"Because you're a brave man," I said. "Whatever one's religious views on the subject may be, as to the right and wrong of committing suicide, it is evasion, escape, desertion, a kind of cowardice, isn't it?"

"It's defeat, anyhow," replied La Cigale. "Admission of defeat. Defeat by Fate, circumstance, pain, fear. But then, what is Man that he should not be defeated by Fate?"

"Oh... I don't know. I suppose Man can defy Fate and conquer circumstance and put up a good fight against pain and fear.... But it's easy to talk, I admit."

"When you say Fate, do you mean God?" asked La Cigale. "Because that raises a big and difficult question. From one point of view, Fate is God and God is Fate. Yet you just spoke of defying Fate, though you wouldn't speak of defying God, of course.... And God wouldn't wish to drive you to suicide.... It's this moonlight that defeats me... the moon....

"Do you think the moon really has any direct effect on one's mind— or is it association of ideas... memory connections?"

La Cigale was sane enough to-night, but this was dangerous and difficult ground.

"I've heard that it is a bad thing to sleep exposed to the rays of the full moon," I hedged.

"Oh, you're begging the question, my dear chap. What I meant was, does the full moon itself drive me mad, or is it the painful memories evoked by the full moon?"

"I don't know. Does the full moon evoke painful memories? I beg your pardon. I..."

I hastened to apologize for the thoughtless question. In the Legion one does not ask such things, nor make references to the past.

"Oh, not at all, my dear chap. I'll tell you."

"No, no. Please don't think I was being inquisitive."

"Of course not. I'd like to tell you. I've a sort of feeling it might be a good thing— if it won't bore you— to talk about the affair.

"You have the expression in English 'to make a clean breast of it.' Not that my breast is unclean in that connection. And they say confession is good for the soul, though again I haven't anything to 'confess' in that respect. But the doctors have an idea, nowadays, that weeding the garden of the mind is very beneficial to the health. Or perhaps a better simile is ventilating the room in which dwells the mind. No, that doesn't quite satisfy, either. Perhaps a surgical simile is best— probing and opening up... getting that which is festering in the dark recesses of the mind, up into the light of day....

"I'll tell you why I hate moonlight— hate it apart from any question as to whether moonlight itself affects one mentally and physically.

"I won't mention any names, although it's all so long ago. You might not think it, but I was an Officer once....

"As a matter of fact, I did think it," I said.

"Yes, but what you didn't know or think, is that I was an Officer of the Legion."

"No!" I said, astounded.

"I was. A sous-lieutenant.... I had been a Captain in our own Army. I won't bore you with reasons... private affairs... a love affair really... a French girl....

"I was able to pull strings.... I had been a Military Attaché in France and was persona grata to the Minister of War, whom I'd been able to serve in what was, to him, a rather important affair.

"Well, as I say, I got a commission in the Legion and, moreover, got sent on active service almost at once.

"The French girl, the name of whose family you would recognize at once— a name known throughout Europe— had a twin brother.

"It was one of those cases of twin minds as well as twin bodies— what the medical psychologists call 'identical' twins. In childhood they were not happy apart. Neither of them could be happy unless the other was happy. If one suffered, the other suffered. If, on the rare occasions when they were parted, anything important happened to one, the other knew of it. I don't mean that the other knew exactly what had happened, but the other inevitably and infallibly knew that something had happened.

"And yet here's a curious thing. Although these twins were two bodies with but a single mind, so to speak, and each literally loved the other as itself— and more than itself— their characters differed utterly.

"Diane was essentially good. I don't mean in the religious sense particularly, but good in the sense of being a person of good will, full of kindness and friendliness, incapable of baseness, meanness, treachery, cruelty.... A character wholly admirable, wholly lovable.... Yes, Diane was essentially good in the best and widest and truest sense of the word.

"Now the same could not be said of Raoul. I don't for one moment mean that he was essentially bad. Not at all. But whereas nobody could fail to be struck by the sweetness, kindness and goodness of his sister, no one, I am afraid, was ever struck by the sweetness, kindness and goodness of Raoul.

"By his charm, yes; by his grace, ability, courage, yes; by his wit and skill and beauty, yes.... But not by his kindness or goodness.

"A very accomplished young man. A very competent, ambitious, successful soldier.

"Apart from the fact that he was Diane's brother, I loved him very much indeed. Everybody did. But he being Diane's brother, I did more than love him very much indeed.

"For one thing, he was so amazingly like her. Why, before he grew into a broad-shouldered well-set-up young man, they had only to exchange clothes to exchange personalities. I mean that no one but themselves would know that the exchange had been effected.

"As children, as boy and girl, as growing youth and maiden, they could at any time do this, and deceive everybody, so alike were they.

"Thus you may imagine what the society of Raoul meant to me. To look at him was almost to look at Diane. To hear his voice was almost to hear hers. Is it cause for wonder that I loved Raoul, and that I shut my eyes to everything that I did not wish to see?

"Poor Raoul!...

"As you will have guessed, if you find my story worth guessing about, it was to be with Raoul that I left my own Army, and the rather idle, somewhat aimless life I was leading as a Military Attaché.

"To be with Raoul was the next best thing to being with Diane. Also to be with him and... what shall I say?... keep an eye on him, look after him... was the way I could best serve Diane.

"Perhaps you wonder— if, again, this little tale is worth wondering about— why I did not propose marriage to Diane and settle down with her in Paris.

"There were difficulties. Her parents and her very powerful family had other views for her. Incidentally the 'other views' were an elderly man who bore a famous and honoured name in an infamous and unhonoured manner.

"Also, Diane, while admittedly very fond of me, did not actually love me. Certainly not in the way in which I loved her. That I won't attempt to describe. I'll merely say that I adored her; that she filled my life; was my life; was the reason why I left everything and followed— her brother.

"He needed some following, too, for he was wild and high-spirited. He took what he wanted, did what he wished, and was all-too-frequently in trouble of some sort. A throw-back to the days and ways of the grand seigneur untrammelled.

"He called me, half wryly, the Keeper of his Conscience; and I called him, quite wryly, the Keeper of my Purse— for he was terribly extravagant and he owed me a great deal of money. I don't mean that I gave him money to squander, but that he was constantly coming to me to get him out of those scrapes which need a golden key to open the door of escape.

"Oh, yes, undoubtedly he traded on my devotion to Diane, but then that was quite understandable and excusable, in view of the fact that it was my devotion to Diane that had made me his friend, and now his brother-in-arms, companion and mentor....

"Had I any hope of success with Diane?... Oh yes. I could not otherwise have borne to do as I did, and constantly to seek the society of her brother. I felt that, in time, her family might be induced to withdraw their opposition for, although I am not a Frenchman and one of their Boulevard St. Germain ancienne noblesse, my family is as noble as theirs, and has lived in its own chateau for more centuries than their family has lived on its estates, or any other French family has done.

"Also I felt pretty sure that Diane, a girl of great strength of character, would never agree to marry Monsieur le Marquis de M.... Also I knew that, if she did not love me, she loved nobody else. And as your poet says, 'Hope springs eternal in the human breast.'

"Anyhow, I was writing to her by every mail, assuring her of the health, happiness, and good conduct of her adored twin, and of my unchanging and unchangeable love.

"Nevertheless, when we went on active service, it was, in spite of what I'd said of Raoul's conduct, about time.

"For although his military duties were performed impeccably, it was becoming increasingly difficult to keep him out of serious trouble....

"I expect you know all about Colonel Jeffre's great desert march, and of the amazing disaster to Colonel Dubosc's relief column that was sent after him several months later— the 'relief' column whose survivors he himself relieved?

"We were with Colonel Dubosc's column.

"Yes, I am one of the survivors of the Sharia massacre. Didn't you know?... No, I suppose I never mentioned it to anybody since I rejoined the Legion as a private soldier, all those years ago.

"Poor Colonel Dubosc. What an example that fine soldier was, of those who suffer from the vices of their virtues, as the expression is. His great military virtue was his leonine courage, and he had its complementary defect of rashness. If only his caution had been one half as marked as his courage, he'd probably be alive and a Maréchal of France to-day.

"You know what happened at Sharia, of course?"

"Not the details," I replied. "Only that there was a very complete disaster. I've never before had the privilege of talking with a survivor."

"Well, it was the old, old story of over-confidence. Despising your opponent and forgetting that discretion is an admirable part of valour.

"Not that Colonel Dubosc absolutely ignored the usual military precautions, of course. He was too good a soldier to do that: but they were regarded by him, and consequently by his Staff and by the whole force, as mere routine, and therefore to be performed— as routine.

"Every night, when the column camped, on its march to the relief of Colonel Jeffre, it did so in the proper manner as laid down in the book— but only because it was so laid down, and not because the column was moving in the presence of an extremely dangerous enemy, amazingly mobile, recklessly brave, and perfectly adapted to the conditions under which it was fighting.

"So the perimeter-camp was made every night, surrounded by a shallow trench when in sandy country, and by a low wall of piled stones, where the ground was hard and rocky.

"Guards were mounted and sentries posted in the correct manner— and that was that.

"There was no real watchfulness, no hint of anxiety as to the safety of the column, no special precautions such as, most certainly, should have been taken— such, in fact, as Colonel Jeffre invariably took. That was why Colonel Jeffre to whose relief Colonel Dubosc was proceeding, scarcely lost a man, whereas Colonel Dubosc lost himself, forty-six officers and over nine hundred of other ranks.

"It happened at full moon.... Full moon....

"After a terribly hot and tiring march, Colonel Dubosc halted the column and, as soon as possible after the orders Sacs à terre and Aux murailles, bivouac was made, the men fed, and the weary column fell asleep. And I should think that statement includes every one of the sentries, though I'm by no means certain that trouble would have been averted if they'd all been wide awake and keenly watchful."

"Why?" I asked, as La Cigale paused and gazed absently before him.

"Why? Because the camp was most unfortunately or carelessly sited. Although, from where the column had halted, the desert looked fairly level as far as the horizon, in all directions, there was, as a matter of fact, a fold of the ground, a wide shallow depression, half a kilometre from the camp. And to this depression there led a broad winding wadi, the whole geographical formation rather simulating a dried-up lake and a dry river-bed leading to it— which probably it was.

"Anyhow, with consummate skill and daring, a great Arab harka which doubtless had been following us for days, made its way, cavalry, camelry and infantry, unheard and unseen, along the wide shallow river-bed, and debouched into the depression.

"Here they formed up, made their plan of attack, and waited until the small hours when the camp was absolutely silent and still, not a man stirring and, as I've said, probably not a sentry awake.

"All this was, of course, reconstructed afterwards by Colonel Jeffre and his Staff. Naturally, nothing of it was known to Dubosc's column. All that was known to any of them was that they awoke to find the Arabs among them.

"I don't know who the Arab leader was on that occasion, but he was a good man. He actually formed his cavalry up, in a long double rank, on the edge of the depression, his camel-men in a line behind them, and his spearmen and swordsmen in support.

"Then, all being ready, he simply charged— just as though attacking a square or a line of infantry.

"Walk... trot... canter... gallop... charge... and, like an avalanche, the horsemen dashed down upon the camp, leapt the low walls— and swept across the bivouac like a wave breaking over a sand-castle.

"Before a shot was fired, they were among the suddenly-awakened men, hacking, slashing, stabbing and trampling the bewildered, unarmed, almost unresisting mob— for that is what the column was at that moment... its last moment.

"...One shot as the Arabs charged; one cry of 'Aux armes'; and every man would have snatched his rifle and rushed to his post. Before the Arabs had crossed the few hundred yards that lay between their starting-point and the camp, a burst of fire would have mown them down. Few of the horsemen would have reached the walls.

"But it was the Arabs themselves who gave the alarm, as they crashed, a living avalanche, into the camp.

"Of what avail for a thus-awakened man to seize his rifle and dash to the wall when the Arabs are already within it— hundreds and hundreds of them, each with raised sword or couched spear, slashing or thrusting at anything and everything that moves.

"Men sprang to their feet only to have their skulls cleft or almost severed from their shoulders.

"Here and there a man with fixed bayonet thrust at a horseman, only to be cut down by another from behind. Here and there a man fumbled to load his rifle, only to be trampled, speared, or hacked, as he did so.

"And behind the cavalry came the great Wave of camel-men on their swift war-camels, their long spears couched.

"And behind them again— worst of all, perhaps— running like grey-hounds and yelling like fiends, charged the swordsmen...

"It wasn't a fight, it was a massacre.

"The horses and mules, tethered in the centre of the camp, stampeded; and, within a few minutes of the charge, the area within the perimeter was a hell upon earth, complete chaos, utter confusion, a whirling yelling inferno, a mad maelstrom, a seething sea of men and animals, of slaughter and destruction.

"Here and there little knots of soldiers got back to back and, with fixed bayonet and clubbed rifle, sold their lives dearly. Here and there little bands of fugitives fled together, loading as they ran, blindly seeking some rallying-point, some chance to stand and form and fight.

"In vain.

"Herded, harried, hunted, they were borne down by sheer weight of numbers, surrounded, hacked to pieces, annihilated.

"Colonel Dubosc's body was found just outside the little tent d'abri in which he slept, and from which he had evidently rushed to his death. His left hand still clutched his emptied revolver, and his broken sword transfixed an Arab who lay at his feet. Dubosc had died a soldier's death, paying the penalty of his rash indifference to danger— his careless negligence, if you like; and the men, as usual, had had to join in the payment of the Commander's debt to the exacting and unrelenting God of War.

"My own experience, that ghastly unforgettable night? Yes, I was going to tell you, wasn't I?...

"I was dreaming that I was at Longchamps or Auteille, at the Races. The horses were coming up the straight; the crowd was shouting; the drumming of hooves growing louder and louder. So loud it grew that it woke me.

"What?... Yes.... It was the drumming of hooves.... I raised my head and, as I did so, my astounded and incredulous brain, still half-drugged with sleep, had to realize that a regiment of cavalry in full charge, actually charging in line, was but a few yards from the wall nearest to me.

"Even as I sat up in bewildered amazement, the whole line took the wall in its stride, and was down upon us like the wave of a tidal bore; like a tornado, a cyclone, an avalanche— I know not what.

"As I sprang to my feet, an Arab slashed at me with his sword. Had he had the sense to give me the point, I shouldn't be here now. Why didn't he?...

"I ducked and sprang, and a horse knocked me flying. Unhurt, I jumped up as a great sinewy fellow, active as a cat, rushed at me with a raised spear. I don't know whether he'd been thrown from his horse, or whether he had charged on foot with the cavalry. Anyhow, there he was, the first dismounted man I saw. Unarmed myself, I ducked and butted him in the stomach, like a goat. Unsoldierly conduct, worthy of an apache, but highly effective, for he did not know the proper counter of swinging up his knee to smash my face and save his stomach.

"We went down together, I on top, and, as he struggled to get above me, I aided him with all my heart.

"In a moment, he was the top dog, and I clasped him to my bosom. Oh, how I clasped... my arms about him like a band of iron... my left hand gripping my right wrist like a vice.

"While that six feet of india-rubber man was above me, I was fairly safe from hoof or sword or spear.

"It was almost like being under water, almost like being buried alive, so dense was the whirling press of struggling, fighting, yelling humanity around me.

"Suddenly the heavings and strainings of my protecting foeman ceased. Either a horse had smashed his skull, or an undiscriminating enthusiast had driven a spear into him, en passant.

"Sorely was I tempted to lie still, beneath him; but I was an Officer, and it is not the rôle of an Officer to lie shamming dead.

"Pushing the inert body from off me, I scrambled to my feet, picking up the dead man's spear as I did so. An Arab on a white horse was in the very act of cutting down, from behind, a légionnaire who, clad only in his trousers, was desperately, with whirling gun-butt, fighting two spearmen.

"Into this horseman's right side, beneath the raised sword arm, I drove the spear, and with it pulled him from the horse.

"Seizing its reins, I managed to vault on to its back and was thankful for the voltige schooling of my cavalry days in Belgium.

"Now what?

"Any hope of rallying some men?

"Absolutely none. The place was a solid mass of seething humanity. A slaughter-house, a shambles. It was a case of sauve qui peut, and a faint possibility of doing some good outside, if one could get outside. Possibly some of the troop of Spahis had got away.

"The horse was a good one, a fiery stallion needing controlling rather than urging.

"With raised spear and, I believe, ferocious yells, I drove him through the press and at the wall. Had the enemy been fewer, my chances would have been smaller. In a few bounds, and without serious wounds, I was outside the camp and, like a thunderbolt, through the thinner press of running swordsmen without.

"Nowhere could I see anything resembling a square or clump or knot of our men putting up a fight against the Arab hordes. Here and there a fugitive was being pursued, and here and there a fallen man was being hacked to pieces with insensate fury.

"One or two mounted men looked like out-distancing their pursuers.

"What should I do?

"I would ride in the direction of Colonel Jeffre's column— the force that we had been hastening to 'relieve,' and which was probably within only two or three days' march of us.

"If I could reach Colonel Jeffre and warn him— not that he was a man who needed much warning— he might yet be in time to retrieve some of the stores which we had been bringing him. He might yet be in time to avenge the massacre.

"Not that there was much chance of my reaching him, though there was just a possibility of my encountering one of the méhariste scouts that he used with such consummate ability.

"Riding hard, I was almost clear of the enemy when suddenly I was aware that, away on my right front, a small fight was going on; for several revolver shots were fired.

"Changing direction half-right, I urged my horse on, and with an Arab spear for cavalry-lance, charged headlong upon a group of Arab swordsmen encircling, and closing in upon, a French officer. As he fired again, at a man who suddenly rushed upon him, I bawled at the top of my lungs to distract the attention of another swordsman who was charging the officer from behind.

"I was just in time, and my Arab spear went through him like a knife through butter.

"The Officer's shot brought down the man in front of him, and as I drove at another of his assailants, all of whom now turned their attention to me, he swiftly re-loaded, and shot two more.

"Wheeling about again, I dashed across to him.

"'Quick,' I shouted. 'Hang on to my stirrup leather,' and, as he raised his head, the shadow of the peak of his képi left his face, and I saw that it was Raoul.

"'Thank God!' I said. And it shows how incredibly sudden and swift; how crashing, crushing, and stunning had the whole affair been, that until this moment, I had not thought of him.

"I felt ashamed.

"'Steady the pace a bit,' he panted, running beside me. 'I can't keep this up long.'

"What would I not have given to have been astride my own faithful charger, trained and steady as a circus horse, instead of this wild bounding Arab stallion, so difficult to manage and control.

"A charger would have carried us both at once. With this wild beast it would be hopeless to attempt to mount together, apart from the obstacle of its impossible saddle, with its high-peaked pommel and crupper.

"There was one thing, I could always stop the brute dead, thanks to the cruel great thorn-bit that savagely tortured its mouth.

"I did my best to keep at a steady trot, not too fast for the runner clinging to my stirrup, nor too slow to give us hope of out-distancing pursuit by the swift-running swordsmen who hung upon our flanks and rear like wolves.

"'Hold tight, and run like the devil for a minute,' I shouted, and, after a sharp spurt that must almost have pulled Raoul's arm from his shoulder, and his feet from the ground, I drew rein, pulled up, and sprang to earth.

"'Up, quick,' I said to Raoul, and gave him a hoist, for he was pretty well spent with that gruelling run.

"Our pursuers had gained but little upon us, before we were off again, I, now clinging to the stirrup-leather and running for dear life.

"And soon, as I ran, with swiftly tiring limbs and labouring breath, I considered the feasibility of dispensing with the saddle, and making the attempt to ride the horse bare-backed, with one of us sitting behind the other.

"Quickly I abandoned the idea. The horse, though swift and fiery, was light and weedy; and, though Raoul was a fine horseman and I had been a Cavalry Officer, I doubted whether the pair of us could stick on a wildly bucking bare-backed horse....

"How much longer could I run?...

"How much longer could Raoul expect me to run?

"I glanced up at him and met his look, as he turned his face sideways down to me...

"...and brought his right hand over across his left elbow...

"...and pointed his revolver at my face...

"...and fired...

"...and missed me...

"...and fired again.

"YES. MY FRIEND, comrade, and brother-officer, Raoul, to whose rescue I had come, shot me down in cold blood— murdered me, as he supposed— and intended," continued La Cigale.

"Did you ever notice the wound-mark I have on my left shoulder, near my neck?" he asked.

"Yes," I said.

"That is the mark of his bullet, or one of the marks, rather. He had tried to shoot me through the head, but the bullet, instead of piercing my skull and brain, travelled through the bone itself, entering just— here... and coming out— here... and then striking my shoulder— here, and penetrating deep down into my chest.

"It was the restive horse that saved me, I suppose, bounding and prancing as it did; otherwise Raoul would not have missed me with the first shot, and only hit the side of my head with the second."

"What a treacherous ungrateful devil!" I said, as La Cigale paused in his story. "I doubt if I ever heard of a baser deed.... The man must be a monster... a cold-hearted sub-human..."

"Oh, I don't know," interrupted La Cigale. "I wouldn't say that. Selfish and self-centred, I grant you, with a definite chacun pour soi philosophy... Nietzschean... the over-man."

"Over-devil," I growled.

"Well, there it was. I suppose poor Raoul realized that we couldn't both get away at the speed of the slower... while one was a drag on the other. And there were lots of swift camel-men about. Doubtless he argued that it was better for one of us to escape than for both to be butchered."

"Then why didn't he throw himself off your horse? Panic, I suppose."

"Oh no. No. Raoul was a very brave man."

"That makes it worse, then," said I.

"Well, that's rather a fine point, a matter of opinion. Isn't cowardice the lowest vice a soldier can exhibit? Which is really worse; to be so terrified that you shoot down the friend who is trying to save your life; or, having calmly and coolly calculated the chances, to decide that only one can escape and that you shall be the one?"

"A pretty choice," I observed. "But at any rate a coward can't help being what he is. Surely, better cowardice than blackest ingratitude and foulest treachery."

"Well, as I say, Raoul was a very brave man, and evidently decided that a man's first duty is to himself, and self-preservation his first law.

"Anyhow, Raoul shot me down— and escaped."

La Cigale fell silent, his troubled eyes obviously seeing nothing of what was present before them, and everything of what was past. Terrible unforgettable things that had driven him mad. Or— an idea occurred to me— had the bullet touched and damaged his brain, in what he called its passage through the bone of his skull?

"Isn't it a curious thing," he resumed, "that I should remember everything up to the time when I fainted from loss of blood? One would have thought unconsciousness would have been instantaneous, and that the mind would have retained no memory of events immediately preceding the shooting.

"But no such luck! Everything is as clear as though it happened yesterday. As clear, indeed, as though I had been a mere onlooker; and, myself uninjured, had watched it happen to someone else.

"Nay, I can see it now. The moonlit desert, bright as day; the rocks, stones, sand, an occasional thorn-bush or cactus; the Arabs running like grey-hounds; Raoul's face— his face as he bent over and downward toward me; and his eyes as they met mine.

"Do you wonder that I hate and fear moonlight?

"Before I collapsed and fainted, I saw that he had got away from his pursuers. The moment I fell, releasing my hold upon the stirrup-leather, the stallion bounded forward at redoubled speed, and was away— like a racehorse when the starting-gate goes up.

"Do you know, my friend, I felt a thrill of joy, a feeling of immense relief and gratitude."

"To the good Raoul?" I asked.

"No, to the good God. For I was perfectly sure that if Raoul had been killed, Diane would have died of grief... Died of a broken heart."

"Do people die of broken hearts?" I asked.

"Well, no, perhaps hearts don't literally break, and doctors don't recognize 'broken heart' as a certifiable cause of death.... But people do die of grief, you know. Just pine and lose interest in life, and die of the sheer lack of desire to live. Why, animals do that much.

"Yes, I can honestly say I was glad and thankful to see Raoul getting away, because news of his death would have been, to put it mildly, a terrible blow to Diane. She was not an ordinary sister, you remember, but a twin; and not an ordinary twin, but an 'identical' one.

"No, curiously enough, the swordsmen who had been pursuing us paid no further attention to me at all. I suppose that when they abandoned the hopeless chase of Raoul, they found me apparently quite dead, if they returned straight in their tracks and found me. Presumably they were in too great a hurry to get back and join in the orgy of looting and slaughter at the camp.

"No, memory spares me nothing, except as to what happened between the moment of losing consciousness, when I thought I was dying, and awakening to discover that unfortunately I was alive.

"Mon Dieu, I had a bad time before Colonel Jeffre's scouts arrived.

"It appears that some of the Spahis of our column did get away; and one of them, galloping all night, had the luck to run into a peloton of Jeffre's méharistes, out scouting for our force. Their Officer sent some of his men back to inform Jeffre while with the remainder, guided by the Spahi, he made a reconnaissance in the direction of the scene of the massacre.

"Unfortunately, they found me just living, gave me water and first-aid, kept me alive, and eventually in Jeffre's field hospital I was patched up, together with a few other wounded survivors.

"These were few indeed, as all who were not actually dead had been left for dead, and, as you know, when the Arab has finished with a wounded man, he generally is finished."

Again La Cigale fell silent and stared unseeingly before him— or seeing too much.

"I was in a queer state," he resumed, "even when I was able to get about again. The moonlight.... The moonlight seemed to have got into my brain... through the bullet-hole, perhaps."

I looked at him sharply. Was he beginning to wander in his mind, as he so often did?

"No, I'm not talking nonsense," he smiled. "I was only speaking figuratively. But it's quite a good figure— of speech. It really did seem to me then, as indeed it so often seems to me now, especially at full moon, that its light is shining right into my head, right into my very brain... through the hole that Raoul's bullet made in my skull... just as moonlight shines into a garret room through a window in its sloping roof— a great white cold light, powerful as the beam of a searchlight; a light by which I see every incident of that terrible massacre again; a light by which I see myself murdered once more, by my friend and comrade and brother-officer, Raoul, the twin-brother of Diane.

"Yes, I was in a queer state and the Médecin-Major who looked after me, kind good chap, thought I was mad. He decided that the events of that night had turned my brain. In his opinion, the bullet had not caused any cerebral lesion. No, it was when I first asked him to see me through the next period of full moon that he began to eye me queerly, and talk to me soothingly, as though I were a child— or a lunatic....

"And do you know what my great terror was, from the hour I was picked up?

"It was the fear that, at any moment, Raoul might ride into Colonel Jeffre's camp. That— and the fear that he might not do so.

"Can you understand me?

"My dread, my horror, was the thought that I might come face to face with Raoul.

"My fear, my agony of anxiety, was that he might be dead.

"I wonder that the suspense, in my then weak state, did not kill me: but I suppose nothing can kill me— and I refuse to kill myself.

"Perhaps you cannot understand my abject quivering fright at the thought of seeing Raoul. Can you?"

"Yes, I can," I assured La Cigale.

"Yes, of course you can.... What should I have done if he had come? What could I have said? I suffered so, at the mere thought of it, that it was really as though I were the murderer.

"Really, I think that I could better have faced him— with less perturbation, less horror; far, far less shame and misery of soul— had it been I who had tried to kill him. Can you understand that?"

"I can," I assured La Cigale, "for in that case you would have been of that type. A man who can try to murder his friend is the kind of man who can face him afterwards. The sort of man who'd be sick, to the depths of his soul, at the bare thought of such a deed, is of the sort who'd almost die of shame for the friend who tried to kill him."

"Yes, of course you understand, mon ami. That was it. I felt I should die of shame, as you say, if I saw Raoul....

"Well, I was spared that, anyhow. Raoul, with his usual luck and, one must add, with his usual intrepidity, endurance and courage, rode for two or three days, and then either bluffed, over-awed, or bribed with promises, the petty Sheikh of some little oasis, and induced him to produce guides and camels.

"With a wretched and ill-equipped little caravan, he made his way north and east, until eventually he either struck a caravan route or reached a French outpost.

"At any rate, he got back to civilization, the heroic survivor— believed for some time to be the sole survivor— of the massacre of Sharia, long before Colonel Jeffre's slow-moving column, and very long before I did.

"Yes, I was a long time in hospital at Figuig— and when sufficiently recovered, physically and mentally, to go before a Conseil de Réforme,1 I failed to pass it and was discharged from the Army.

"Yes, 'invalidation'; 'congé de réforme,' 2 No longer bon pour le service.

________________

1 Medical Board. 2 Invalided out of the Army.

"SO THERE I was, you see. At what you call a loose end. Othello's occupation was gone— and Othello was undoubtedly and admittedly in a queer state.

"Did I tell you that I'd forgotten my name? That was strange, wasn't it? I could remember absolutely every incident and detail of the night of the massacre, but I'd forgotten my own name.

"It was discovered for me, later, and I wrote it down, and kept it with my address, always handy. Thus I could always tell anyone who I was, and be sure as to where I lived.

"And still my great fear was that I might meet Raoul. It was so powerful and obsessive that only one thing could overcome it, and that was my longing to see Diane.

"At first, and for a long time, I could not go near her for fear I should see her brother, and because I should have to talk to her about her brother. But gradually the longing overcame the fear.

"No, I'd had no letter from Diane. You see, it was supposed that I had perished with the rest of the column, and as I had, for a long time, lost my identity and forgotten my name, no one knew that I had survived.

"The 'nine days' wonder'— of the loss of Colonel Dubosc's column— was ended, and something else filling the public eye, long, long before I was released from hospital at Figuig, and returned to France.

"So I did not hear from Diane. And, had she written to me, the letter would not have reached me, as, quite apart from any question of temporary loss of memory and general 'queerness,' I had deliberately and intentionally 'disappeared.'

"It seemed to me to be the only way in which I could live in the same world as Raoul. If I remained myself and retained my name and lived the old life in the old way, we were bound to meet, and I would far sooner have met Death himself.

"I'm glad you can understand that feeling. I doubt whether most people could.

"I don't quite know how I lived through the weeks and months that followed.

"And then, one day, love conquered fear, as I say, and I wrote to Diane.

"I told her— what was quite true— that I had been badly wounded at Sharia; and that upon recovery I had been invalided out of the Army, that I had since been in a Nursing Home, very ill and unable to write letters, but that I was now up and about again, and, above all things, longed to see her.

"I had the most charming reply conceivable.

"She wrote from the villa of a friend with whom she was staying at Antibes.

"It was everything but a love letter; and it would have lifted me from the hell in which I existed, up into the seventh heaven of happiness, but for the fact that the letter closed with the statement that Raoul would be coming over from Monte Carlo to join them in a day or two...

"Another mauvais quart d'heure. An impasse. I must meet Diane. I simply must. I could not meet Raoul. I simply could not.

"And then I took myself in hand. I wrestled and fought with myself. I drove myself out into the open, so to speak, and made myself realize, admit, and face that elusive and so often terrible thing, the subconscious motive.

"Why did I so fear to face Raoul, to whom I had never done any harm in my life?... Raoul whom I had always helped, befriended, excused and defended? Was it not the purest moral cowardice on my part? Was I not simply afraid to meet him?

"Yes, but why 'afraid,' myself argued with me.

"Afraid of unpleasantness, I replied. Afraid of an awkward situation. More than awkward, of course— tragic, terrible, almost unique.

"Yes, I decided, although, like any person of a certain sensitiveness, any fineness of nature, gentlemanly instincts, you naturally shrink with loathing from the thought of thrusting your unspeakably embarrassing presence upon the poor devil who has tried to murder you— the real reason is cowardice.... A cowardly fear of unpleasantness.... It isn't the unpleasantness for him that you feel, nearly as much as the unpleasantness for yourself. You must go. Go and get it over, this interview with Raoul.

"After all, it is his trouble, not yours. It was his crime, not yours. You can't go on avoiding him and Diane for the rest of your life, because of what he did. And if you could do so, why should you? Surely he's done you enough harm already, in shattering your health and ruining your career.

"Thus I argued with myself. Common sense arguing with instinct; reason arguing with profound, deep-rooted unreasonableness; freedom wrestling with inhibition.

"What casuists we are, and how faithfully a man can act according to his conscience, once he has taught his conscience to act according to him!

"I don't know.... I decided in the end that it was not gentleman-like sensitiveness that I was up against, but sheer funk of a nasty situation, and I decided to go. Raoul need not meet me if he didn't wish to; and if we did meet, I need say nothing whatsoever about what lay between us. If Raoul chose to say anything, offer any explanation, I still need say nothing. If he offered— apology... I could accept it. If he begged forgiveness, I could forgive him from the bottom of my soul, absolutely, and start afresh.

"I went.

"It was again my luck, or fate, that I should arrive at the villa at the time of full moon.

"Another of the scenes that I cannot forget, even when I forget my name, is that truly lovely sub-tropical garden, as I walked up through it to the very beautiful villa which, I had to admit, was fit setting even for that human jewel, Diane.

"In that moment, I was, in spite of everything, happy. In spite even of the moonlight. Happy to be there within a few yards of her.

"Happy even to be myself, since myself was about to see her, to speak to her, to kiss her hand, to hear her voice.

"I think, mon ami, that that was the last time that ever I was happy.

"I felt that she too would be happy, because, ironically enough, the full of the moon was her time of joy. She was always filled with a kind of sweet delirium of gaiety when the moon was full, and always said she could not bear to spend an hour of that time beneath a roof. She wanted to dance by the light of the moon; to dance, bathed in moonbeams. That's interesting, you know, for her mother was like that, and Diane was born in a garden, by the light of the full moon.

"But Diane was not awaiting me in the garden. Nor on the piazza.

"A man-servant showed me into the big empty drawing-room through whose fresh windows came the scents and the light of the glorious evening.

"I looked out and in my thoughts quoted,

"'If earth holds a haven of bliss

It is this— it is this— it is this.'

"Perhaps she would enter by one of these doors that opened on the terrace.

"That starry sky, that sleeping sea below, that garden of white light and black shadow— what a frame for my picture.

"I heard a sound behind me, and, turning about, saw her.

"'Diane!' I whispered.

"But this was not my Diane, the warm sweet living embodiment of kindliness. This was a woman haughty and hard, cold and... cruel.

"'How have you dared to come?' she said. 'How have you dared? Are you mad... or shameless beyond belief?'

"'Diane!' I said. 'What have... ?'

"'I know everything,' she replied with an air of terrible finality. 'Raoul returned from Monte Carlo this afternoon, and I told him, as a delightful surprise— delightful, mark you— that you were coming. The effect upon him was amazing, terrible. I could feel that something awful, something ghastly was wrong.... I felt as I felt that night when he was fighting for his life at Sharia— that dreadful night when I knew that he was in terrible danger.'

"'Yes... Diane... ?' I faltered.

"'I begged him to tell me. I implored him to tell me, and though for a long time he refused, at last I wrung it from him.

"'He told me everything.

"'You.... Oh, what are you? Words fail me.... To write to me like that... after what had happened— and to propose coming here. It was too late to communicate with you when I'd wrung the truth from Raoul. Did you not get the message that I left at your hotel, or have you ignored it?'

"'I received no message at the hotel, Diane,' I replied. 'I was in too great haste to come.'

"'And now will you hasten to go,' cut in Diane with a voice of ice, a face of marble, and a glance of steel.

"'But Diane,' I expostulated. 'Diane...' I begged.

"'Go!' she said, once more, pointing.

"'Diane.... But cannot you forgive him... ? I can.... I do.... And if you cannot— why punish me? Was it my fault that....'

"'God give me patience,' cried this Diane whom I did not know, and turned upon me like a tigress.

"'Was it your fault?' she mocked in a terrible voice.

"'Was it your fault that you took his horse when he risked his life to help you? Was it your fault that you fired at him and then struck him down, as he ran beside the horse on which he had put you?'

"I recoiled, aghast, stricken absolutely dumb.

"'I'll tell you what was not your fault, you... you... snake. It was not your fault that you missed him when you tried to shoot him. Now will you go... go... go... before I shoot you myself?'

"And Diane darted across the room.

"YES... I REALIZED that I must go. I must not let Diane shoot me and bring terrible scandal, shame, and tragedy upon herself.

"Besides, if that happened, the truth might come out— certainly the truth that I had been found shot, from above, through képi, head, and shoulder, obviously by someone riding on a horse.

"Yes, I must go. For if nothing worse happened, I might, in my weakness, misery and protesting agony of mind, myself tell her the truth— show her my wounded head, demand to be confronted with Raoul, force her to believe me, and in so doing— kill her. Kill her happiness, most certainly.

"This I realized as Diane crossed the room— to ring a bell.

"I walked out on to the terrace, out of the house.... Out of Diane's life... out of my senses... into the moonlight... into the moon-shadows.

"RAOUL WAS decorated and given a fine appointment in French Cochin-China.

"I grew a beard and rejoined the Foreign Legion, this time as a private soldier.

"Diane married Hog Delacroix of the Artillery."

"Didn't you once tell us that you killed Delacroix?" I asked.

"Oh, no. If I did, I was out of my mind. Dreaming. A wish-fulfilment dream. At full moon probably. No, Delacroix is still alive, the General Delacroix....

"Raoul, a distinguished Governor, is still alive.

"Diane is still alive.

"I am still alive.

"Have you a match?"

______________________

6: Moon-Set

WE ARE TOLD, on good authority, that Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It is at least equally true that Romance is in the soul of the romantic. A profession, an institution, a situation, an episode, a career, an event, a story, is romantic if the romantic think it is.

For him or her whose soul is unromantic nothing is romantic, and the world holds no romance.

To the romantically-minded person, the French Foreign Legion is a romantic Regiment, especially if he does not happen to belong to it. But even to some of its members the Legion is romantic, though not, possibly, at all times and places, and not during all its manifold incarnations, manifestations and activities. Not, for example, when it is demonstrating as a gang of road-mending navvies, labouring under almost intolerable conditions and the eyes of non-commissioned officers who are filling the rôle of slave-driving chain-gang overseers rather than that of soldiers.

At such times it is not easy for the most deeply romance-imbued young Romantic to say to himself,

"I am a Crusader, fighting for the spirit of civilization. I am one of the Last of the Mercenaries. We are true lineal descendants of the Legions of Rome who conquered the world for Peace and made it safe for Aristocracy— in the true sense of All That is Best."

It is easier for him to take the view that he is an incredibly underpaid manual labourer doing the heaviest of unskilled work with the lightest of recompense; and to ask himself why (if he must be an unskilled manual labourer) he does not labour in his own country for a hundred times the pay and a thousand times the comfort and amenities.

Trade follows the flag.

Roads follow the Legion.

A COMPANY of the Legion, rifles and bayonets laid aside, was labouring with pick and shovel— just a gang of assorted foreign workmen, no longer smart soldiers; completely shorn of all martial pomp and glory, might, majesty and power; and with nothing whatsoever of military circumstance, save the iron military discipline that kept them unflaggingly and unceasingly at their heavy, back-breaking, heart-breaking, soul-breaking toil, the doing of so very much for so very little.

There were men among them of almost all ages from sixteen to sixty; of almost all social grades from scavenger to titled, once-wealthy, once-landed ex-Colonel of Cavalry; of almost all countries of Europe, from Scotland to Bulgaria, and of all continents from America to Australia.

The utterly heterogeneous become completely homogeneous: they who had been almost all things and all men in all countries, now one and undistinguishable— the road-gang.

And yet not wholly undistinguishable one from another.

SLOWLY and carefully (as, gratefully, men straightened their backs, stood up, and stood aside) a large dust-covered touring-car made its way along the less-uninviting side of the broken road that had been hastily called into existence by the exigencies of war— and almost blotted out of existence by the passage of the engines of war, heavy guns and lorries, and the toiling feet and hooves of tens of thousands of men and horses, mules and cattle.

Near the end of the long line of the labouring road-gang, the car came almost to a standstill as its driver cautiously made his careful way between a great mound of road metal and the edge of the deep road-side ditch.

It was not his habit to display the virtue of patience, nor to exercise caution, but the occasion was special, for one of his passengers was a lady of rank and fashion, the widow of a distinguished French General, and the other was an elderly priest, a member of that noble and justly famous Order, known across Northern Africa as The White Fathers.

The town-Arab chauffeur had no particular use or admiration for Christian priests or Generals' widows, but these particular passengers had been committed to his charge by the owner of the car, with the firm and certain assurance that if anything untoward befell them through fault of the chauffeur, he would, upon his return, lose his life, his health, his job, and his wages for the trip.

So he passed the dangerous place at the lowest speed of which the car was capable, and gave the man who was in his way time to step out of his way, and also gave the lady time to see the man's face... time to look at it again, to recognize it, to rise quickly to her feet, to extend a hand, to call a name, and quickly sit down again, trembling.

The chauffeur half turned his head, and glanced behind him.

"Drive on, drive on," she said.

Laying his hand, that suggested a withered leaf and also an ancient Japanese carving, over that of the agitated excited woman.

"Was that he, my daughter?" the priest inquired.

"Yes, Father, yes, it was.... God be thanked.... It was Lucien... Lucien himself.... I knew him instantly."

"You are sure? Perfectly sure... after all these years?"

"Certain, Father. Absolutely certain. His face has hardly changed, only aged.... I could pick him out from an army, from a million.... Oh, my poor Lucien.... If only I had changed as little..."

The priest made no reply, though there had been a time when he would (quite truthfully) have told her that she was still a beautiful woman, and, for him at least, had not changed in a quarter of a century.

"Stop for a minute," the woman bade the chauffeur, as the car turned a bend in the road, and rising ground hid the road-gang from sight.

"Are you sure this man understands no French?" she asked the priest in English.

"Quite certain," was the reply. "Beyond Oui, Monsieur; Non, Monsieur; Pourboire, and Merci; he knows no more French than you do Arabic. We can talk freely before him.

"And behind him," he added with the whimsical smile that so frequently lighted and beautified his face.

"I have found Lucien," murmured his companion. "What shall I do now? Advise me, Father. Help me. Surely the end justifies the means. Think what he has suffered... for all these years... an innocent man.... And he loved me."

"And you found that you loved him— after he'd gone away?" mused the priest.

"Yes... and loathed him... for what I thought he had done.... Loved Lucien so much that I married Delacroix— to show myself how much I did not love Lucien.... And Raoul's dying confession showed that, instead of Lucien being the murderer, he was the victim.... And a generous hero.... Oh, Raoul, Raoul...."

And the woman broke down and wept.

The old priest comforted her as best he could.

"Oh, the wasted lives," she sobbed.

"Better to have led his life— than Raoul's," said the priest.

"Oh, Lucien's ruined, wasted life... and mine...."

"No life is wasted; nothing is wasted," said the priest. "All things are ordained by..."

"Then it was ordained that I should find him," interrupted the woman. "Find him and save him... and make the little restitution I can for what Raoul... and I... did to him.

"Think of what he has suffered, Father. And think of what I have suffered since poor dying Raoul's letter of confession came to me, and my husband would not help me in my search for Lucien.... Since my husband's death I must have seen the face of almost every soldier in the Foreign Legion, in every part of the French Empire.... Lucien left no word, no name, no trace.

"It was Raoul's last letter that gave me this idea. He said,

"'If Lucien is alive, which is unlikely, he'll be in the Foreign Legion.'

"Father, you'll help me to save him...."

"'To do a great right, do a little wrong,' eh, my poor child? No, it's no part of our work here in Africa to help soldiers to desert from the Army of Occupation that is conquering heathendom for civilization, and for Christ."

"But, Father, the circumstances...."

"Yes, circumstances alter cases, I know, my child.... But I'm not going to help the case to alter the circumstances. Besides, are you sure that this man, once an Officer— and once an Officer of the Legion, too— would consent to be 'saved'? I doubt whether he would desert...."

"It would be so simple, so comparatively easy. A swift powerful car, as near as possible to his poste; he on sentry-duty, one dark night; civilian clothes, money, passport, papers.... We should just be tourists. I see no obstacle that cannot..."

"I do," said the Father. "The man himself. He wouldn't consent. He wouldn't do it."

"He would for me, Father."

"Not even for you, my daughter.

"Not even for Diane," he breathed.

"You refuse to help me— and Lucien?"

"No, I do not refuse to help you— and Lucien.... For you, because I have always loved you; for Lucien, because he deserves it; for myself, because it is a duty as well as my greatest pleasure, I will do anything in the world— that my conscience permits— to help you both.... Should I be here, at this moment, were I not more than anxious to help you?...

"As for Lucien, I will visit him, talk to him, tell him everything, try to express to him my admiration of his noble conduct and his noble silence, give him any message from you, see his Officer and try to arrange for a meeting between you and Lucien... do anything, as I say, that is permissible, above-board and lawful. But I won't help him to desert, nor connive at his desertion. I won't be a party to it. In fact, my dear, if anything of the sort should be contemplated, don't tell me about it, for I warn you that, if I came to know that it was being planned, I should... do my duty."

The woman sighed.

"The end and the means," she murmured.

"Wretched sophistry, my daughter. The end never justifies the means— if the means are wrong. Isn't it perfectly clear and obvious that if the means are wrong— they are wrong?... And while I wear this dress, I will not deliberately and consciously set my hand, or give my consent, to anything I know to be wrong."

The woman sighed again.

"Will you get a letter to him for me?" she asked. "At the earliest possible moment. He looks so ill... and I am so afraid. Think if I lost him now... now... in the hour of finding him after all these years of search. Will you get a letter to him, Father? Now... to-day... to-morrow, at the latest?"

"Of course I will, my dear child," replied the priest, "provided you give me your word that it contains no plans of escape or arrangements for desertion. I won't carry any letter containing an incitement to crime, making myself an 'accessory before the fact' of crime."

"Crime, Father?"

"Desertion is a crime, my dear. Punishable, in some circumstances, by death: in others, by a long term of imprisonment. And rightly so."

The woman's hardly-won composure broke down.

"Oh, you men," she cried. "Even you good men. Especially you good men!

"Father, cannot you see that I must and will save Lucien? Cannot you understand that... ?"

"And cannot you trust in God, my dear? Cannot you see and understand that whatever is, is best; because the fact that it is, proves that it is God's inscrutable purpose that it should be? Your Lucien is in God's hands, and he will save him— or take him— in his own way, and in his own good time."

The woman, with a gesture and a look that curiously combined resignation and impatience, with almost a suggestion of controlled anger, said:

"You will give him a letter, anyhow?"

"Most certainly I will."

"Thank you a thousand times, my dear Father.

"For even the good God needs instruments in the carrying out of His inscrutable purposes," she added.

If there were the faintest soupçon of a flavour of bitterness in her voice and of subtlety in her smile, as she referred to the letter and God's need of an instrument, it was unnoticed by the simple and single-minded priest.

THE INSTRUMENTS chosen by God for the release of Lucien— better known to his comrades as La Cigale— were strange ones.

Young Fat'ma, undesired and uncherished daughter of Yakoub Ali ben Abdul Hassan, known as El Wazir ed Dimiryat, of the fierce fighting-tribe of the Beni Baggarani, was a merry lass, a great flirt, a person of character (not all bad) and, at the age of fifteen, a woman who knew her own mind.

That her father had ceased from beating her when she had made an almost successful attempt to kill him, upon the last occasion of his so doing, accounts for some of her merriness, much of her freedom, and all of her outrageously flirtatious conduct with young Ibrahim ben Ghulam Mahommed, a budding warrior of sixteen years and the neighbouring hill-village, a ksar of some strength and importance.

When a boy of the Beni Baggarani is big enough to walk beneath the weight of a rifle, and strong enough to lift it to his shoulder, he at once and automatically attains the status of warrior, and becomes a member of the fighting forces of the tribe, enrolled as such "with the rank and pay of a sapper," infantry soldier, scout, sharpshooter, raider, rifleman, sniper, camel-corps guide, and, if he be lucky, mounted-infantry trooper, cavalryman, lancer and hussar, as well.

Hitherto, Ibrahim ben Ghulam Mahommed had not been lucky, and his war-like excursions and alarums had been confined to the guarding of tribal flocks and herds of sheep and goats, with a gun longer than himself and even more dangerous— to himself. This archaic weapon, of greater interest and value to a collector than to a warrior, had undoubtedly fired real bullets with real powder, and at a real enemy— to wit, Kirk's Lambs, the famous Regiment that defended Tangier until brought to England to defend the honour and life of His Majesty King James II instead; and to decimate the countryside, after the Battle of Sedgemoor and before the Bloody Assize of Judge Jeffreys of glorious memory.

Since the Siege of Tangier, and during the slow passage of some two and a half centuries, the gun had declined in usefulness, if not in value; until Ibrahim knew, and the tribesmen knew, that whatever else you might do with the gun, you couldn't fire it. Save with a suicidal purpose, that is to say; for, if fired, it would assuredly burst and undoubtedly disperse the features of the face and the fingers of the hand of the fool who fired it.

Thus, although Ibrahim loved his gun, with its inlaid worm-eaten butt, exactly resembling in size and shape that of a billiard cue, and although he was as brave as a lion, he dared not fire it.

He would pour his home-made gunpowder (ground-up charcoal, sulphur and saltpetre, with a sprinkling of stolen cordite and other high mysteries and explosives) from his ram's-horn powder-flask into its bell mouth, and down its five feet of fairly straight iron barrel, until it reached the rusty end of its journey, and the large hole that opened into the little lidded pan, at that part. He would then wedge a stout tuft of sheep's wool into the cleft head of the long slow "hammer" that could be brought down to the pan by manipulation, careful and patient, of its latter end, which protruded trigger-wise beneath the gun.

He would open the lid of the pan, put yet more of the precious powder therein, close the lid, sling the gun across his shoulder, and make a ferocious grin of fierce defiance against imaginary foeman. He would then refuse to entertain the sad and bitter thought that nothing on earth would induce him to level the gun at an approaching enemy, open the lid of the pan, set fire to the oiled wool, waggle the trigger end of the hammer until its depressed and fiery head reached the exposed powder, look along the non-existent sights and, until something happened, put all his trust in Allah, as he could put none in the gun.

No, not even for Fat'ma could it be done.

Ibrahim ben Ghulam Mahommed was not going to appear at the Gates of Paradise with his face blown off, and be unrecognizable to the Prophet for the good Mussulman that he was. Not even for the greater honour and glory of Ibrahim ben Ghulam Mahommed and the establishment of his name and fame as a warrior who had killed his man, won his spurs and established his position.

No, not for honour. Not for a brace of pacing camels. Not even for a war-horse. Certainly not for a woman. Let Fat'ma chaff and jeer and gibe and taunt as she might.

And these things Fat'ma did unmercifully.

"BE YOUR WOMAN? Yours? Allah! Since when have little boys...?"

"Am I not a warrior? Do I not defend the flocks? Do I not take my turn as watchman and sentinel? Do I not go on razzia with the men?"

"Yes, the boy goes with the men, sometimes. I don't say boys are not useful. So are horses and mules and camels— and women," scoffed Fat'ma.

"Do I not carry a gun?" expostulated the youthful Ibrahim.

"A gun? Is that thing you carry a gun? Oh? I thought it was a hoe, or a huqua, or a staff, or a tentpole, or something."

"The sort of thing that an ignorant woman would think! Know that it is a gun that has been borne to the certain knowledge of my family, by all my fathers, from the days of the great-great-grandsire of my great-grandfather's great-grandfather."

"Allah! How great, and how many greats!" murmured Fat'ma. "And will it go off bang?"

"What do you suppose guns do, my good Fat'ma?"

"I wasn't talking of guns, my good Ibrahim, but of that— er— great-great-gun."

"Of course it will, foolish girl."

"Would you fire it, foolish boy, or aren't you quite so foolish?"

"What a question? Of course I would."

"In the lab-el-baroda, without a bullet?"

"No, in battle, with a bullet."

"Would it kill a lion?"

"Undoubtedly."

"Then go and kill one, and bring me its skin."

"Will you be my woman, if I do?"

"Perhaps... perhaps not... when you're grown up.... Would it kill a man?"

"Of course it would."

"A hell-doomed accursed Frenchman?"

"Why not?"

"Because you wouldn't give it the chance. You dare not. You'd be afraid of both the Frenchman and the gun."

"Oh?"

"Well, would you fire it at a Frenchman?"

"Undoubtedly."

"Then go and kill one, and bring me his skin."

"Will you be my woman if I do?"

"Yes. For then you would be grown up. Then you would be a man."

"I'm as much a man as you are a woman, anyhow," asserted Ibrahim, with an angry and ugly scowl.

Fat'ma laughed merrily.

"Go and mind the sheep, then, little man, and mind the Frenchman doesn't get them— or you."

Muttering a real curse into an imaginary beard, the goaded Ibrahim sprang to his feet.

"Look here, talker," quoth he. "If I bring you a French soldier's képi and buttons for a betrothal gift, will you be my woman?"

"What! are you going on a journey, Ibrahim?" asked Fat'ma in innocent wide-eyed surprise.

"To a little Jew's little shop in the little mellah of a little town?" she added with a maddening titter.

"Oh, you laugh, do you?" growled Ibrahim. "And suppose I bring the buttons on the coat— and the coat is wet with blood; warm with blood?"

"Going to kill a kid, Ibrahim?" inquired Fat'ma.

Ibrahim gnashed his teeth.

"I may do, yet," quoth he, "and its name may be Fat'ma, daughter of Yakoub Ali ben Abdul Hassan."

"Oh, you call my father a goat, do you?... That will please him."

Ibrahim departed thence, strong but not silent, though his speech was incoherent.

LA CIGALE, on his turn of sentry duty from two a.m. to four a.m., stood at his post and stared watchfully out across the rocky plain that stretched to the not-distant rocky hills that lay at the foot of the great towering mountains, apparently all carved from that same solid rock.

No better sentry and no better soldier than La Cigale, doing nothing with eye-service as men-pleasers, but as unto his god of Duty, his oath of allegiance, his unbending uncompromising military conscience.

Once a man of the world, of spacious life, wide range and innumerable interests, the catastrophe that had ruined his life, killed his ambition, and wrecked his mind and body, had reduced and concentrated his remaining interests and abilities to the exact performance of the duties of a private soldier.

An audible groan escaped him, as he stood watchful and wary.

"I can't! I can't!" he whispered to the moon-lit silent night. "How can I desert my post? I could as easily commit a theft or a murder. If I cease to be a good soldier, I cease to be anything at all. Desert my post?... Almost in the very presence of the enemy?

"Suppose an attack were made...

"And suppose no attack is made, the principle is the same.... Betrayal of trust.... Failure in the one remaining thing that I am fit and competent to do. I've never failed in my duty yet— from wilful fault or negligence, at least.

"Desert my regiment?... Lucien de la Haye de Milvorde de Brabant a deserter! Last of perhaps the oldest military family in Europe. Last of my line— and first of my kind— a deserter. It would be bad enough if I were a Frenchman.... But to disgrace my country as well as myself.... I can hear our Captain Dupont, that canaille from the gutter—

'Huh! Another Belgian deserter. These damned Belgians are no good.'

"How can I desert my regiment and the flag— with its motto 'Honneur et Fidélité' that I have chosen and followed? Have I now neither honour nor fidelity?... How can I desert? How can I?...

"Diane!

"Diane waiting for me there.

"Diane waiting for me. Waiting through the night. How can I ignore her? How can I?... I must see her... speak to her.

"And if I do, I shall weaken and fail. I shall give in. I shall desert. I owe it to her to do so. Think how she has suffered since Raoul confessed... suffered for him... suffered for me. It would be ungenerous to refuse her the happiness of making me happy...."

MOVING LIKE a ghost in the shadows, an unarmed soldier crept to La Cigale's side.

"Sst! Give me your rifle," he whispered, "and, for God's sake be back before appel."

La Cigale handed his comrade his rifle and fixed bayonet.

Drawing a deep breath.

"I'll be back," he said, "before moon-set— long before Relief. Have no fear.... And God reward you."

The soldier patted La Cigale on the back.

"Bonne chance, mon gars," he said, and anxiously watched his comrade climb through the embrasure, down the rough face of the low wall, and into the black shadow that it threw upon the rocky ground beneath.

"Shan't see him again," mused the self-appointed sentry, "and good luck to him, poor devil....

"And eight days' solitary for me," he added ruefully.

For an hour the man paced his beat, from time to time halting to stare out across the plain or to peer anxiously down into the shadows below the wall.

"Couldn't expect him to come back," he mused. "Why should he? And yet I never knew him tell a lie or play a trick before. But then, he never had such a temptation before.... Poor, poor devil....

"Wonder if he ever told his story to anyone but me.... Wonder if he'll recover.... Wonder if she'll make him happy. Wonder if he'll take his name and rank and place in the world again. He could. No one would ever know that Monsieur le Comte de Don't-know-who was the half-wit, La Cigale, who deserted from the Legion.

"And yet, somehow, I don't see La Cigale deserting. But then the circumstances.... And the woman.... I should do it.... And I should think she'd kidnap him, if he wouldn't come quietly.

"And yet La Cigale gave me his solemn word that if I'd do this, he'd come back before I was caught helping him to get away.

"No, it's too much to expect... in the circumstances. But wasn't it like La Cigale to get a substitute, instead of leaving his post vacant!

"No... we shan't see him again— and how I shall miss him. Gentlemen aren't so common, nowadays, in the Legion— or out of it."

"DIANE!..."

"Lucien!..."

The woman sprang from the car and ran toward where a man in the uniform of the French Foreign Legion climbed up on to the road.

"Oh, Diane! Diane!"

"Oh, my poor, poor Lucien!"

A long, long silence, as the man took the woman in his arms, clasped her to his breast, and strained her to him with all his strength— the strength of the pent-up passion and pain of past years; a mighty strength, yet all too weak for the woman who now so gladly would have died for him; and who had been cheated— like the man— of the glory and the grace, the passion and the power, of the love that had been theirs, of the life they might have had.

"Come, Lucien, my love, my heart, my life...."

The man's fine and strong, yet delicate, face set hard. In the moonlight it looked as though of carven marble, the face of the effigy of a crusader on a tomb.

"Good-bye... Diane...."

Good-bye?

"Good-bye."

"Lucien?"

"I cannot desert my post. I could not be here now, but that it is well filled, Diane."

"Lucien! You don't... ? You don't love me?"

"Diane, you know... you know.... Nay, you cannot know how I love you."

"Then, Lucien... ?"

"Diane, I'm a soldier— the poorest, lowest soldier. But... Diane, you couldn't love a deserter. There is a man waiting for me now. But for him I could not... Diane, you couldn't love a liar and a trickster? I gave him my word. And I gave France my signed promise. Honneur et Fidélité."

"Lucien!"

"Diane, how could I? Would you let me?"

"But you can send the man money, compensate him a thousandfold. We can make him rich. Make him thank God you broke your word to him.... Lucien...."

"And my word to France, Diane?"

"Cannot France get ten thousand more for the asking? Without asking? Isn't cannon-fodder cheap and plentiful enough— that you should... ?"

"It isn't a question of the tricked man, nor of France, Diane. It is a question of myself. It is not what they are, or want; it is what I am, and want. Am I a liar and a trickster— to the man? Am I a deserter and traitor— to France? Do I want to come to you... soiled, spoiled, unclean?"

"Lucien.... What do I care how you come to me? As though you could ever be unclean. And haven't you given the best years of your life to France?"

"Diane, there is another thing."

The woman stepped back, removing her arms from about her lover's neck, her hands coming to rest upon his shoulders.

"We'll overcome that, too, my Lucien."

"Diane, I'm going mad. At times I am completely mad. Each period lasts longer. Soon I shall be permanently and completely..."

The woman laughed aloud.

"My Lucien," she murmured, and drew his face down to hers, closing his lips with hers.

"Oh, my poor Lucien. With me you shall know only the madness of love.... My Lucien...."

"HOW LONG we have been here! Come, Lucien, the moon is setting."

The man glanced at the moon, showing clear of the distant mountain-tops, kissed the woman tenderly on the lips, rose to his feet, and fled. Fled, as though pursued by wolves, by foes, by fiends from Hell....

Anon he broke into the long steady pas gymnastique of the Legion.

A LOUD explosion— like the bursting of a bomb.

La Cigale, soldier instinctive, sprang behind a rock.

Dead silence.

Cautiously and skilfully reconnoitring forward to the spot whence the sound had appeared to come, he found the body of an Arab, a beardless youth, who lay apparently dead, a great gun across him.

"Poor devil," murmured La Cigale. "Gun burst at the breech and... Wonder if he's dead. Don't see what one can do for him. Haven't even got a water-bottle."

La Cigale straightened himself up— and felt a hideous searing pain— a tremendous blow from behind.

With a cry and a stagger, he turned about as he fell... and saw an Arab... girl.

"Ibrahim!" shrieked Fat'ma. "Ibrahim!"

And stabbed again.

La Cigale's head fell back, his glazing eyes beholding the moon.

"Thank you," he said, smiling at the girl. "I thank you."

And died.

The moon set.

End

Table of Contents

- 1: The Return of Odo Klemens
- 2: The Betrayal of Odo Klemens
- 3: The Life of Odo Klemens
- 4: Moon-rise
- 5: Moon-shadows
- 6: Moon-set