~~~ Project Gutenberg Australia ~~~
~~~ Project Gutenberg Australia ~~~
Title: Stories of the Foreign Legion Author: P C Wren * A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook * eBook No.: 0700341h.html Language: English Date first posted: March 2007 Date most recently updated: March 2007 This eBook was produced by: Don Lainson dlainson@sympatico.ca Project Gutenberg of Australia eBooks are created from printed editions which are in the public domain in Australia, unless a copyright notice is included. We do NOT keep any eBooks in compliance with a particular paper edition. Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing this file. This eBook is made available at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg of Australia License which may be viewed online at http://gutenberg.net.au/licence.html
STEPSONS OF FRANCE
GOOD GESTES
David and His Incredible Jonathan
PORT O' MISSING MEN
FLAWED BLADES
At the Depôt at Sidi bel-Abbès, Sergeant-Major Suicide-Maker was a devil, but at a little frontier outpost in the desert, he was the devil, the increase in his degree being commensurate with the increase in his opportunities. When the Seventh Company of the First Battalion of the First Regiment of the Foreign Legion of France, stationed at Aïnargoula in the Sahara, learned that Lieutenant Roberte was in hospital with a broken leg, it realized that, Captain d'Armentières being absent with the Mule Company, chasing Touareg to the south, it would be commanded for a space by Sergeant-Major Suicide-Maker--in other words by The Devil.
Not only would it be commanded by him, it would be harried, harassed, hounded, bullied, brow-beaten, and be-devilled; it would be unable to call its soul its own and loth so to call its body.
On realizing the ugly truth, the Seventh Company gasped unanimously and then swore diversely in all the languages of Europe and a few of those of Asia and Africa. It realized that it was about to learn, as the Bucking Bronco remarked to his friend John Bull (once Sir Montague Merline, of the Queen's African Rifles), that it had been wrong in guessing it was already on the ground-floor of hell. Or, if it had been there heretofore, it was now about to have a taste of the cellars.
Sergeant-Major Suicide-Maker had lived well up to his reputation, even under the revisional jurisdiction and faintly restraining curb of Captain d'Armentières and then of Lieutenant Roberte.
Each of these was a strong man and a just, and though anything in the world but mild and indulgent, would not permit really unbridled vicious tyranny such as the Sergeant-Major's unsupervised, unhampered sway would be. Under their command, he would always be limited to the surreptitious abuse of his very considerable legitimate powers. With no one above him, the mind shrank from contemplating the life of a Legionary in Aïnargoula, and from conceiving this worthy as absolute monarch and arbitrary autocrat.
The number of men undergoing cellule punishment would be limited only by standing room in the cells--each a miniature Black Hole of Calcutta with embellishments. The time spent in drilling at the pas gymnastique 1 and, worse, standing at "attention" in the hottest corner of the red-hot barrack-yard would be only limited by the physical capacity of the Legionaries to run and to stand at "attention." Never would there be "Rompez" 2 until some one had been carried to hospital, suffering from heat-stroke or collapse. The alternatives to the maddening agony of life would be suicide, desertion (and death from thirst or at the hands of the Arabs), or revolt and the Penal Battalions--the one thing on earth worse than Legion life in a desert station, under a half-mad bully whose monomania was driving men to suicide. Le Cafard, the desert madness of the Legion, was rampant and chronic. Ten legionaries under the leadership of a Frenchman calling himself Blondin, and who spoke perfect English and German, had formed a secret society and hatched a plot. They were going to "remove" Sergeant-Major Suicide-Maker and "go on pump," as the legionary calls deserting.
1 The "double" march. 2 Dismiss.
Blondin (a pretty, black-eyed, black-moustached Provençal, who looked like a blue-jowled porcelain doll) was an educated man, brilliantly clever, and of considerable personality and force of character. Also he was a finished and heartless scoundrel. His nine adherents were Ramon Diego, a grizzled Spaniard, a man of tremendous physical strength and weak mind; Fritz Bauer, a Swiss, also much stronger of muscle than of brain; a curious Franco-Berber half-caste called Jean Kebir, who spoke perfect Arabic and knew the Koran by heart (Kebir is Arabic for "lion," and a lion Jean Kebir was, and Blondin had been very glad indeed to win him over, as he would be an invaluable interpreter and adviser in the journey Blondin meant to take); Jacques Lejaune, a domineering, violent ruffian, a former merchant-captain, who could steer by the stars and use a compass; Fritz Schlantz, a wonderful marksman; Karl Anderssen, who had won the médaille for bravery; Mohamed the Turk--just plain Mohamed (very plain); Georges Grondin, the musician, who was a fine cook; and finally the big Moorish negro, Hassan Moghrabi, who understood camels and horses.
The Society had been larger, but Franz Joseph Meyr the Austrian had killed Dimitropoulos the Greek, had deserted alone, and been filleted by the Touareg. Also Alexandre Bac, late of Montmartre, had hanged himself, and La Cigale had gone too hopelessly mad.
It had been for a grief unto Monsieur Blondin that he could by no means persuade old Jean Boule to join. On being sworn to secrecy and "approached" on the subject, ce bon Jean had replied that he did not desire to quit the Legion (Bon sang de Dieu!), and, moreover, that if he went "on pump," his friends les Légionnaires Rupert, 'Erbiggin, and le Bouckaing Bronceau would go too--and he did not wish to drag them into so perilous a venture as an attempt to reach the Moroccan coast across the desert from Aïnargoula. Moreover, if he came to know anything of the plot to kill the Sergeant-Major he would certainly warn him, if it were to be a mere stab-in-the-back assassination affair, some dark night. A fair fight is a different thing. If Blondin met the Sergeant-Major alone, when both had their sword-bayonets--that was a different matter. . . .
Monsieur Blondin sheered off, and decided that the less Jean Boule knew of the matter, the better for the devoted Ten. . . .
"Ten little Légionnaires
Going 'on pump,'
Got away safely
And gave les autres the 'ump,"
sang Monsieur Blondin, who was very fond of airing his really remarkable knowledge of colloquial English, British slang, clichés, rhymes, and guinguette songs. Not for nothing had he been a Crédit Lyonnais bank-clerk in London for six years. Being a Provençal, he added a pronounced galégeade wit to his macabre Legion-humour.
One terrible day the Sergeant-Major excelled himself--but it was not, as it happened, one of the Ten who attempted to "remove" him.
Having drilled the parade of "defaulters" almost to death, he halted the unfortunate wretches with their faces to a red-hot wall and their backs to the smiting sun, and kept them at "attention" until Tou-tou Boil-the-Cat, an evil liver, collapsed and fell. He was allowed to lie. When, with a crash, old Tant-de-Soif went prone upon his face, paying his dues to Alcohol, the Sergeant-Major gave the order to turn about, and then to prepare to fire. When the line stood, with empty rifles to the shoulder, as in the act of firing, he kept it in the arduous strain of this attitude that he might award severe punishment to the owner of the first rifle that began to quiver or sink downward. As he did so, he lashed and goaded his victims mercilessly and skilfully.
At last, the rifle of poor young Jean Brecque began to sway and droop, and the Sergeant-Major concentrated upon the half-fainting lad the virulent stream of his poisonous vituperation. Having dealt with the subject of Jean, he began upon that of Jean's mother, and with such horrible foulness of insult that Jean, whose mother was his saint, sprang forward and swung his rifle up to brain the cowardly brute with the butt. As he bounded forward and sprang at the Sergeant-Major, that officer coolly drew his automatic pistol and shot Jean between the eyes.
Had Blondin acted then, his followers, and the bulk of the parade, would have leapt from their places and clubbed the Sergeant-Major to a jelly. But Monsieur Blondin knew that the Sergeant-Major had seven more bullets in his automatic, also that the first man who moved would get one of them, and suicide formed no part of his programme.
"Not just anyhow and anywhere in the trunk, you will observe, scélérats," remarked the Suicide-Maker coolly, turning Jean over with his foot, "but neatly in the centre of the face, just between the eyes. My favourite spot. Cessez le feu! Attention! Par files de quatre. Pas gymnastique. . . . En avant. . . . Marche!" . . .
The plan was that the Ten, stark naked--so as to avoid any incriminating stains, rents, or other marks upon their garments--should, bayonet in hand, await the passing of the "Suicide-Maker" along a dark corridor that evening. Having dealt with him quietly, but faithfully, they would dress, break out of the post, and set their faces for Morocco at the pas gymnastique.
As for Monsieur Blondin, he was determined that this should be no wretched abortive stroll into the desert, ending in ignominious return and surrender for food and water; in capture by goums 1 in search of the 25 franc reward for the return of a dead or alive deserter; nor in torture and death at the hands of the first party of nomad Arabs that should see fit to fall upon them. Blondin had read the Anabasis of one Xenophon, and an Anabasis to Maroc he intended to achieve on the shoulders, metaphorically speaking, of the faithful nine. Toward the setting sun would he lead them, across the Plain of the Shott, through the country of the Beni Guil, toward the Haut Atlas range, along the southern slopes to the Adrar Ndren, and so to Marakesh and service with the Sultan, or to escape by Mogador, Mazagan, or Dar-el-Beida. No more difficult really than toward Algiers or Oran, and, whereas capture in that direction was certain, safety, once in Morocco, was almost equally sure. For trained European soldiers were worth their weight in silver to the Sultan, and, in his service, might amass their weight in gold. A Moorish villa (and a harem) surrounded by fig-orchards, olive-fields, vineyards, palm-groves, and a fragrant garden of pepper-trees, eucalyptus, walnut, almond, oleander, orange and lemon, would suit Monsieur Blondin well. Oh, but yes! And the Ouled-Naël dancing-girls, Circassian slaves, Spanish beauties. . . .
1 Arab gens d'armes.
The first part of the plan failed, for ce vieux sale cochon of a Jean Boule came along the corridor, struck a match to light his cigarette, saw the crouching, staring, naked Ten, and, being a mad Englishman and an accursed dog's-tail, saved the life of the Sergeant-Major. That the Ten took no vengeance upon Jean Boule was due to their lack of desire for combat with the mighty Americain, le Bouckaing Bronceau, and with those tough and determined fighters, les Légionnaires Rupert and 'Erbiggin. All four were masters of le boxe, and, if beaten, knew it not. . . .
The Ten went "on pump" with their wrongs unavenged, save that Blondin stole the big automatic-pistol of the Sergeant-Major from its nail on the wall of the orderly-room.
They took their Lebel rifles and bayonets, an accumulated store of bread and biscuits, water, and, each man, such few cartridges as he had been able to steal and secrete when on the rifle-range, or marching with "sharp" ammunition.
Getting away was a matter of very small difficulty; it would be staying away that would be the trouble. One by one, they went over the wall of the fort, and hid in ditches, beneath culverts, or behind cactus-bushes.
At the appointed rendezvous in the village Négre, the Ten assembled, fell in, and marched off at the pas gymnastique, Blondin at their head. After travelling for some hours, with only a cigarette-space halt in every hour, and ere the stars began to pale, Blondin gave the order "Campez!", and the little company sank to the ground, cast off accoutrements and capotes, removed boots, and fell asleep. Before dawn Blondin woke them and made a brief speech. If they obeyed him implicitly and faithfully, he would lead them to safety and prosperity; if any man disobeyed him in the slightest particular, he would shoot him dead. If he were to be their leader, as they wished, he must have the promptest and most willing service and subordination from all. There was a terrible time before them ere they win to the Promised Land, but there was an infinitely worse one behind them--so let all who hoped to attain safety and wealth look to it that his least word be their law.
And the Ten Bad Men, desperate, unscrupulous, their hand against every man's, knowing no restraint nor law but Expedience, set forth on their all but hopeless venture, trusting ce cher Blondin (who intended to clamber from this Slime-pit of Siddim on their carcases, and had chosen them for their various utilities to his purpose).
At dawn, Blondin leading, caught sight of a fire as he topped a ridge, sank to earth, and was at once imitated by the others.
He issued clear orders quickly, and the band skirmished toward the fire, en tirailleur, in a manner that would have been creditable to the Touareg themselves. It was a small Arab douar, or encampment, of a few felidj (low camel-hair tents), and a camel-enclosure. Blondin's shot, to kill the camel-sentry and bring the Arabs running from their tents, was followed by the steady, independent-firing which disposed of these unfortunates.
His whistle was followed by the charge, which also disposed of the remainder and the wounded, and left the Ten in possession of camels, women, food, weapons, tents, Arab clothing, and money. Fortune was favouring the brave! But the Ten were now Nine, for, as they charged, the old sheikh, sick and weak though he was, fired his long gun into the chest of Karl Anderssen at point-blank range. . . .
An hour later the djemels were loaded up with what Blondin decided to take, the women were killed, and the Nine were again en route for Maroc, enhearted beyond words. There is a great difference between marching and riding, between carrying one's kit and being carried oneself, and between having a little dry bread and having a fine stock of goat-flesh, rice, raisins, barley, and dates when one is crossing the desert.
In addition to the djemels, the baggage-camels, there were five mehari or swift riding-camels, and, on four of these, Monsieur Blondin had mounted the four men he considered most useful to his purposes--to wit, Jean Kebir, the Berber half-caste who spoke perfect Arabic as well as the sabir or lingua-franca of Northern Africa, and knew the Koran by heart; Hassan Moghrabi, the Moorish negro, who understood camels and horses; Mohamed the Turk, who also would look very convincing in native dress; and Jacques Lejaune, who could use a compass and steer by the stars, and who was a very brave and determined scoundrel.
When allotting the mehari to these four, after choosing the best for himself, Blondin, hand on pistol, had looked for any signs of discontent from Ramon Diego, Fritz Bauer, Fritz Schlantz, or Georges Grondin, and had found none. Also when he ordered that each man should cut the throat of his own woman, and Hassan Moghrabi should dispose of the three superfluous ones, no man demurred. The Bad Men were the less disposed to refuse to commit cold-blooded murder because the stories of the tortures inflicted upon the stragglers and the wounded of the Legion are horrible beyond words--though not more horrible than the authentic photographs of the tortured remains of these carved and jointed victims, that hang, as terrible warnings to deserters, in every chambrée of the casernes of the Legion. They killed these women at the word of Blondin--but they knew that the women would not have been content with the mere killing of them, had they fallen into the hands of this party of Arabs.
As, clad in complete Arab dress, they rode away in high spirits, le bon Monsieur Blondin sang in English, in his droll way--
"Ten little Légionnaires
Charging all in line--
A naughty Arab shot one
And then--there were Nine."
The Nine rode the whole of that day and, at evening, Blondin led them into a wadi or canyon, deep enough for concealment and wide enough for comfort. Here they camped, lit fires, and Georges Grondin made a right savoury stew of kid, rice, raisins, barley, dates, and bread in an Arab couscouss pot. The Nine slept the sleep of the just and, in the morning, arose and called ce bon Blondin blessed. With camels, food, cooking-pots, sleeping-rugs, tents, clothing, extra weapons, and much other useful loot, hope sprang strong as well as eternal in their more or less human breasts.
Blondin led them on that day until they had made another fifty miles of westing, and halted at a little oasis where there was a well, a kuba (or tomb of some marabout or other holy person), and a small fondouk or caravan rest-house. Jean Kebir having reconnoitred and declared the fondouk empty, and the place safe, they watered their camels, occupied the fondouk, and, after a pleasant evening and a good supper, slept beneath its hospitable and verminous shelter--four of the party being on sentry-go, for two hours each, throughout the night.
At this place, the only human beings they encountered were a horrible disintegrating lump of disease that hardly ranked as a human being at all, and an ancient half-witted person who appeared to combine the duties of verger and custodian of the kuba with those of caretaker and host of the fondouk. Him, Jean Kebir drove into the former building with horrible threats. Fortunately for himself, the aged party strictly conformed with the orders of Kebir, for Blondin had given the Berber instructions to dispatch him forthwith to the joys of Paradise if he were seen outside the tomb. Next day, as the party jogged wearily along, Blondin heard an exclamation from Jean Kebir and, turning, saw him rein in his mehara and stare long and earnestly beneath his hand toward the furthermost sand-hills of the southern horizon. On one of these, Blondin could make out a speck. He raised his hand, and the little cavalcade halted.
"What is it?" he asked of Kebir.
"A Targui scout," was the reply. "We shall be attacked by Touareg--now if they are the stronger party, to-night in any case--unless we reach some ksar 1 and take refuge. . . . That might be more dangerous than waiting for the Touareg, though."
1 Fortified village.
"How do you know the man is a Targui?" asked Blondin.
"I do not know how I know, but I do know," was the reply. "Who else would sit all day motionless on a mehara on top of a sand-hill but a Targui? The Touareg system is to camp in a likely place and keep their horses fresh while a chain of slaves covers a wide area around them. In bush country they sit up in trees, and in the desert they sit on camels, as that fellow is doing. Directly they spot anything, they rush off and warn their masters, who then gallop to the attack on horseback if they are in overwhelming strength, or wait until night if they are not."
Even as he spoke the watcher disappeared.
"Push on hard," ordered Blondin, and debated as to whether it would be better for the mehari-mounted five to desert the djemel-mounted four and escape, leaving them to their fate, or to remain, a band of nine determined rifles. Union is strength, and there is safety in numbers--so he decided that the speed of the party should be that of the well-flogged djemels.
"Goad them on, mes enfants," cried he to Diego, Bauer, Schlantz, and Grondin. "I will never desert you--but you must put your best leg foremost. We are nine, and they may be ninety or nine hundred, these sacrés chiens of Touareg." An hour of hard riding, another--with decreasing anxiety, and suddenly Blondin's sharp, clear order:
"Halte! . . . Formez le carré! . . . Attention pour les feux de salve!" as, with incredible rapidity, an avalanche of horsemen appeared over a ridge and bore down upon them in a cloud of dust, with wild howls of "Allah Akbar!" . . . "Lah illah il Allah!" and a rising united chant. "Ul-ul-ul-ul Ullah Akbar."
Swiftly the trained legionaries dismounted, knelt their camels in a ring, took cover behind them, and, with loaded rifles, awaited their leader's orders. Coolly Blondin estimated the number of this band of The-Forgotten-of-God, the blue-clad, Veiled Men of the desert. . . . Not more than twenty or thirty. They would never have attacked had not their scout taken the little caravan to be one of traders, some portion of a migrating tribe, or, perchance, a little gang of smugglers, traders of the Ouled-Ougouni or the Ouled-Sidi-Sheikhs, or possibly gun-running Chambaa taking German rifles from Tripoli to Morocco--a rich prey, indeed, if this were so. Each Chambi would fight like Ibliss himself though, if Chambaa they were, for such are fiends and devils, betrayers of hospitality, slayers of guests, defilers of salt, spawn of Jehannum, who were the sons and fathers of murderers and liars. Moreover, they would be doubly watchful, suspicious, and resolute if they, French subjects, were smuggling German guns across French territory into Morocco under the very nose of the Bureau Arabe. . . . However, there were but nine of them, in any case, so Ul-ul-ul-ul-ul Ullah Akbar!
"Don't fire till I do--and then at the horses, and don't miss," shouted Blondin.
The avalanche swept down, and lances were lowered, two-handed swords raised, and guns and pistols presented--for the Touareg fire from the saddle at full gallop.
Blondin waited.
Blondin fired. . . . The leading horse and rider crashed to the ground and rolled like shot rabbits. Eight rifles spoke almost simultaneously, and seven more men and horses spun in the dust. At the second volley from the Nine, the Touaregs broke, bent their horses outward from the centre of the line, and fled. All save one, who either could not, or would not, check his maddened horse. Him Blondin shot as his great sword split the skull of Fritz Bauer, whose poor shooting, for which he was notorious, had cost him his life.
"Cessez le feu," cried Blondin, as one or two shots were fired after the retreating Arabs. "They won't come back, so don't waste cartridges. . . . See what hero can catch me a horse."
As he coolly examined the ghastly wound of the dying Fritz Bauer, he observed to the faithful Jean Kebir "Habet!" and added--
"Nine little Légionnaires--
But one fired late
When a Touareg cut at him--
And so there were Eight."
"Eh bien, mon Capitaine?" inquired Kebir.
"N'importe, mon enfant!" smiled Monsieur Blondin, and turned his attention to the property and effects of the dying man. . . .
"We shall hear more of these Forsaken-of-God before long," observed Jean Kebir when the eight were once more upon their way.
They did. Just before sunset, as they were silhouetted against the fiery sky in crossing a sand-hill ridge, there was a single shot, and Georges Grondin, the cook, grunted, swayed, observed "Je suis bien touché," and fell from his camel.
Gazing round, Blondin saw no signs of the enemy. The plain was empty of life--but there might be hundreds of foemen behind the occasional aloes, palmettos, and Barbary cacti; crouching in the driss, or the thickets of lentisks and arbutus and thuyas. Decidedly a place to get out of. If a party of Touareg had ambushed them there, they might empty every saddle without showing a Targui nose. . . .
A ragged volley was fired from the right flank.
"Ride for your lives," he shouted, and set an excellent example to the other seven.
"What of Grondin?" asked Kebir, bringing his mehara alongside that of Blondin.
"Let the dead bury their dead," was the reply. (Evidently the fool had not realized that the raison d'être of this expedition was to get one, Jean Blondin, safe to Maroc!)
An hour or so later, in a kind of little natural fortress of stones, boulders, and rocks, they encamped for the night, a sharp watch being kept. But while Monsieur Blondin slept, Jean Kebir, who was attached to Georges Grondin, partly on account of his music and partly on account of his cookery, crept out, an hour or so before dawn, and stole back along the track, in the direction from which they had come.
He found his friend at dawn, still alive; but as he had been neatly disembowelled and the abdominal cavity filled with salt and sand and certain other things, he did not attempt to move him. He embraced his cher Georges, bade him farewell, shot him, and returned to the little camp.
As the cavalcade proceeded on its way, Monsieur Blondin, stimulated by the brilliance and coolness of the glorious morning, and by high hopes of escape, burst into song.
"Eight little Légionnaires
Riding from 'ell to 'eaven,
A wicked Targui shot one--
And then there were Seven,"
improvised he. . . .
Various reasons, shortness of food and water being the most urgent, made it desirable that they should reach and enter a small ksar that day.
Towards evening, the Seven beheld what was either an oasis or a mirage--a veritable eye-feast in any case, after hours of burning desolate desert, the home only of the hornéd viper, the lizard, and the scorpion.
It proved to be a small palm-forest, with wells, irrigating-ditches, cultivation, pigeons, and inhabitants. Cultivators were hoeing, blindfolded asses were wheeling round and round noria wells, veiled women with red babooshes on their feet bore brightly coloured water-vases on their heads. Whitewashed houses came into view, and the cupola of an adobe-walled kuba.
Jean Kebir was sent on to reconnoitre and prospect, and to use his judgment as to whether his six companions--good men and true, under a pious vow of silence--might safely enter the oasis, and encamp.
While they awaited his return, naked children came running towards them clamouring for gifts. They found the riders dumb, but eloquent of gesture--and the gestures discouraging.
Some women brought clothes and commenced to wash them in an irrigation stream, on some flat stones by a bridge of palm trunks. The six sat motionless on their camels.
A jet-black Haratin boy brought a huge basket of Barbary figs and offered it--as a gift that should bring a reward. At a sign from Blondin, Mohamed the Turk took it and threw the boy a mitkal.
"Salaam," said he.
"Ya, Sidi, Salaam aleikoum," answered the boy, with a flash of perfect teeth.
Blondin glared at Mohamed. Could not the son of a camel remember that the party was dumb--pious men under a vow of silence? It was their only chance of avoiding discovery and exposure as accursed Roumis 1 when they were near the habitations of men.
1 Europeans.
A burst of music from tom-tom, derbukha, and raita broke the heavy silence, and then a solo on the raita, the "Voice of the Devil," the instrument of the provocative wicked note. Some one was getting born, married, or buried, apparently.
Fritz Schlantz, staring open-mouthed at cyclamens, anemones, asphodels, irises, lilies, and crocuses between a little cemetery and a stream, was, for the moment, back in his Tyrolese village. He shivered. . . .
Jean Kebir returned. He recommended camping on the far side of the village at a spot he had selected. There were strangers, heavily armed with yataghans, lances, horse-pistols, flissas, and moukalas in the fondouk. In addition to the flint-lock moukalas there were several repeating rifles. They were all clad in burnous and chechia, and appeared to be half-trader, half-brigand Arabs of the Tableland, perhaps Ouled-Ougouni or possibly Aït-Jellal. Anyhow, the best thing to do with them was to give them a wide berth.
The Seven passed through the oasis and, camping on the other side, fed full upon the proceeds of Kebir's foraging and shopping.
That night, Fritz Schlantz was seized with acute internal pains, and was soon obviously and desperately ill.
"Cholera!" said Monsieur Blondin on being awakened by the sufferer's cries and groans. "Saddle up and leave him."
Within the hour the little caravan had departed, Jacques Lejaune steering by the stars. To keep up the spirits of his followers Monsieur Blondin sang aloud.
First he sang--
"Des marches d'Afrique
J'en ai pleine le dos.
On y va trop vite.
On n'y boit que de l'eau.
Des lauriers, des victoires,
De ce songe illusoire
Que l'on nomme 'la gloire,'
J'en ai plein le dos,"
and then Derrière l'Hôtel-Dieu, and Père Dupanloup en chemin de fer. In a fine tenor voice, and with great feeling, he next rendered L'Amour m'a rendu fou, and then, to a tune of his own composition, sang in English--
"Seven little Légionnaires
Eating nice green figs,
A greedy German ate too much--
And then there were Six."
Day after day, and week after week, the legionaries pushed on, sometimes starving, often thirsty, frequently hunted, sometimes living like the proverbial coq en pâte, or, as Blondin said, "Wee peegs in clover," after ambushing and looting a caravan.
Between Amang and Illigh lie the bones of Jacques Lejaune, who was shot by Blondin. As they passed out of the dark and gloomy shade of a great cedar forest, there was a sudden roar, and a lioness flung herself from a rock upon Lejaune's camel. Lejaune was leading as the sun had set. Blondin, who was behind him, fired quickly, and the bullet struck him in the spine and passed out through his shattered breast-bone. He had been getting "difficult" and too fond of giving himself airs on the strength of his navigating ability, and, moreover, Monsieur Blondin had learnt to steer by the stars, having located the polar star by means of the Great Bear. Jean Kebir shot the lioness through the head.
It was a sad "accident" but Blondin had evidently recovered his spirits by morning, as he was singing again.
He sang--
"Six little Légionnaires
Still all live,
But one grew indiscipliné--
And then there were Five." . . .
Distinctly of a galégeade wit and a macabre humour was Monsieur Blondin, and even as his eye roamed over the scrubby hill-sides and he thought fondly of the mussugues, the cistus-scrub hillocks of his dear Provence, he calculated the total sum of money now divided among the said Five, and reflected that division, where money is concerned, is deplorable. Also, as he gazed upon the tracts of thorn that recalled the argeras of Hyères, he decided that, all things considered, it would be as well for him to reach Marakesh alone. He understood the principle of rarity-value, and knew that either one of two newcomers would not fetch a quarter of the price of a single newcomer to a war-harassed Sultan whose crying need was European drill-sergeants and centurions.
Jean Blondin would rise to be a second Kaid McLeod, and would amass vast wealth to boot. . . .
At Aït-Ashsba, bad luck overtook Ramon Diego. At the fondouk he smote a burly negro of Sokoto who jostled him. The negro, one of a band of departing wayfarers, was a master of the art of rabah, the native version of la savate, and landed Ramon a most terrible kick beneath the breast-bone. As he lay gasping and groaning for breath, the negro whipped out his razor-edged yataghan and bent over the prostrate man. Holding aloof, Blondin saw the negro spit on the back of Ramon Diego's neck, and with his finger draw a line thereon. Stepping swiftly back, the gigantic black then smote with all his strength, and the head of Ramon Diego rolled through the doorway and down the stony slope leading from the fondouk. As the negro mounted his swift Filali camel, Blondin investigated the contents of a leather bag which Ramon always wore at the girdle, beneath his haik. On being told of the mishap, Jean Kebir was all for pursuit and vengeance. This, Blondin vetoed sternly. There were now only four of them, and henceforth they must walk delicately and be miskeen, modest, humble men. Only four now!
"Five little Légionnaires,
Each man worth a score;
But a big nigger 'it one--
And then there were Four,"
sang Monsieur Blondin.
But what a four! Jean Kebir, the genuine local article, more or less; Hassan Moghrabi, near his native heath and well in the picture; Mohamed the Turk, a genuine Mussulman, able to enter any mosque or kuba and display his orthodoxy; and himself, a pious man hooded to the eyes, under a vow of silence.
In due course, the Four reached the Adrar highlands, and tasted of the hospitality of this grim spot, with its brigands' agadirs or castles of stone. A band swooping down upon them from an agadir (obviously of Phœnician origin), pursued them so closely and successfully, that Mohamed, the worst mounted, bringing up the rear, was also brought to earth by a lance-thrust through his back, and ended his career hanging by the flesh of his thigh from a huge hook which protruded from the wall above the door of the agadir.
Though greatly incensed at the loss of the Turk's camel and cash, Monsieur Blondin was soon able to sing again.
"Four little Légionnaires
Out upon the spree,
The Adrar robbers caught one--
And soon there were Three," . . .
he chanted merrily.
As the Three watched some hideous Aïssa dervishes dancing on glowing charcoal, skewering their limbs and cheeks and tongues, eating fire, and otherwise demonstrating their virtue one night, near Bouzen, a djemel, thrusting forth his head and twisting his snaky neck, neatly removed the right knee-cap of Hassan Moghrabi, and he was of no further use to Monsieur Blondin. He was left behind, and died in a ditch some three days later, of loss of blood, starvation, gangrene, and grief.
Clearly Jean Blondin was reserved for great things. Here were the Ten reduced to Two, and of those two he was one--and intended to be the only one when he was safe in Maroc. Singing blithely, he declared that--
"Three little Légionnaires
Nearly travelled through,
When a hungry camel ate one--
And now there are but Two." . . .
On through the beautiful Adrar, past its forests of arbutus, lentisk, thuya, figs, pines, and palmettos to its belt of olive groves, walnut, and almond; on toward Djebel Tagharat, the Lord of the Peaks, the Two-Headed. On through the Jibali country, called the "Country of the Gun" by the Arabs, as it produces little else for visitors, toward the Bled-el-Maghzen, the "Government's Territory," experiencing many and strange adventures and hair-breadth escapes. And, all the way, Jean Kebir served his colleague and leader well, and often saved him by his ready wit, knowledge of the country and the sabir, and his good advice.
And in time they reached the gorge of Bab el Jebel, and rode over a carpet of pimpernels, larkspur, gladioli, hyacinths, crocuses, wasp-orchids, asphodels, cyclamens, irises and musk-balsams; and Blondin realized that it was time for Jean Kebir to die, if he were to ride to Marakesh alone and to inherit the whole of what remained of the money looted in the fifteen-hundred-mile journey, that was now within fifteen hours of its end. . . .
He felt quite sad as he shot the sleeping Jean Kebir that night, but by morning was able to sing--
"Two little Légionnaires
Travelling with the sun,
Two was one too many--
So now there is but One,"
and remarked to his camel, "'Finis coronat opus,' mon gars." . . .
Even as he caught sight, upon the horizon, of the sea of palms in which Marakesh is bathed, he was aware of a rush of yelling, gun-firing, white-clad lunatics bearing down upon him. . . . A Moorish harka! Was this a lab-el-baroda, a powder-play game--or what? They couldn't be shooting at him. . . . What was that Kebir had said? . . . "The Moors are the natural enemies of the Arabs. We must soon get Moorish garb or hide"--when . . . a bullet struck his camel and it sprawled lumberingly to earth. Others threw up spouts of dust. Blondin sprang to his feet and shouted. Curse the fools for thinking him an Arab! Oh, for the faithful Jean Kebir to shout to them in the sabir lingua franca! . . . A bullet struck him in the chest. Another in the shoulder. He fell.
As the Moors gathered round to slice him in strips with flissa, yataghan and sword, they found that their prey was apparently expending his last breath in prayers and pæans to Allah. He gasped:
"One little Légionnaire,
To provide le bon Dieu fun,
Was killed because he killed his friend--
And now there is None." . . .
There was.
Decidedly of a galégeade wit and a macabre humour to the very last--ce bon Jean Blondin.
"Que voulez-vous? C'est la Légion!" . . .
It was one of La Cigale's good days, and the poor "Grasshopper" was comparatively sane. He was one of the most remarkable men in the French Foreign Legion in that he was a perfect soldier, though a perfect lunatic for about thirty days in the month. When not a Grasshopper (or a Japanese lady, a Zulu, an Esquimau dog or a Chinese mandarin) he was a cultured gentleman of rare perception, understanding, and sympathy. He had been an officer in the Belgian Corps of Guides, and military attaché at various courts. . . .
From a neighbouring group talking to Madame la Cantinière, in the canteen, came the words, clearly heard, "Ah! Oui! Oui! Dans la Rue des Tournelles." . . .
"Now, why should the words 'Rue des Tournelles' bring me a distinct vision of the Café Marsouins in Hanoï by the banks of the Red River in Tonkin?" asked the Grasshopper a minute later, in English.
"Can't tell you, Cigale; there is no such rue in Hanoï," replied Jean Boule.
"No, mon ancien," agreed the Grasshopper, "but there was Fifi Fifinette's place. Aha! I have it!"
"Then give us a bit of it, Cocky," put in 'Erb (le Légionnaire 'Erbiggin--one, Herbert Higgins from Hoxton).
"Yep--down by the factory, near Madame Ti-Ka's joint, it were," observed the Bucking Bronco.
"Aha! I have it. I remember me why the words 'Rue des Tournelles' reminded me all suddenly of the Café Marsouins in Hanoï," continued the Grasshopper. "It was there that I heard from Old Dubeque the truth of the story of Ninon Dürlonnklau, who was Fifi Fifinette's predecessor. She was a reincarnation of Ninon de l'Enclos, and of course Ninon dwelt in the Rue des Tournelles in Old Paris a few odd centuries back."
"Did they call the gal Neenong de Longclothes because she wore tights, Ciggy?" inquired 'Erb.
"Put me wise to Neenong's little stunts before I hit it for the downy," 1 requested the Bucking Bronco.
1 Go to bed.
"Ninon de l'Enclos was a lady of the loveliest and frailest," said the Grasshopper. "Oh! but of a charm. Ravissante! She was, in her time, the well-beloved of Richelieu, Captain St. Etienne, the Marquis de Sevigné, Condé, Moissins, the Duc de Navailles, Fontennelle, Des Yveteaux, the Marquis de Villarceaux, St. Evrémonde, and the Abbé Chaulieu. On her eightieth birthday she had a devout and impassioned lover. On her eighty-fifth birthday the good Abbé wrote to her, 'Cupid has retreated into the little wrinkles round your undimmed eyes.'". . .
"Some girl," opined the Bucking Bronco.
"And she lived in the Rue des Tournelles, and so the mention of that street called the Café Marsouins of Hanoï in Tonkin to my mind (for there did I hear the truth of the fate of Ninon Dürlonnklau, the predecessor of Fifi Fifinette whom some of us here knew). . . .
"And the chevalier de Villars, the son of Ninon de l'Enclos, was her lover also, not knowing that Ninon was his mother, nor she that de Villars was her son--until too late. Outside her door a necromancer prophesied the death of de Villars to his face. An hour later Ninon knew by a birth-mark that de Villars was her son, and cried aloud, 'You are my son!' So he fulfilled the prophecy of the necromancer. He drove his dagger through his throat--just where this birth-mark was. What you call mole, eh? . . . Shame and horror? No . . . Love. They who loved Ninon de l'Enclos loved. Her arms or those of death. No other place for a lover of Ninon. You Anglo-Saxons could never understand. . . .
"And in Hanoï lived her reincarnation, Ninon Dürlonnklau, supposed to be the daughter of one Dürlonnklau, a German of the Legion, and of a perfect flower of a Lao woman. And, mind you, mes amis, there is nothing in the human form more lovely than a beautiful Lao girl from Upper Mekong.
"And this Ninon! Beautiful? Ah, my friends--there are no words. Like yourselves, I seek not the bowers of lovers--but I have the great love of beauty, and I have seen Ninon Dürlonnklau. Would I might have seen Ninon de l'Enclos that I might judge if she were one half so lovely and so fascinating. And when I first beheld the Dürlonnklau she was no jeune fille. . . .
"She had been the well-beloved of governors, generals, and officials and officers--and there had been catastrophes, scandals, suicides . . . the usual affaires--before she became the hostess of legionaries, marsouins,1 sailors. . . .
1 Colonial infantry.
"She had herself not wholly escaped the tragedy and grief that followed in her train, for at the age of seventeen she had a son, and that son was kidnapped when at the age that a babe takes the strongest grip upon a mother's heart and love and life. . . . And after a madness of grief and a long illness, she plunged the more recklessly into the pursuit of that pleasure and joy that must ever evade the children of pleasure, les filles de joie."
'Erb yawned cavernously.
"Got a gasper, Farver?" he inquired of John Bull.
The old soldier produced a small packet of vile black Algerian cigarettes from his képi, without speaking.
"Quit it, Dub!" snapped the deeply interested Bucking Bronco. "Produce silence, and then some, or beat it." 1
1 Go away.
"Awright, Bucko," mocked the unabashed 'Erb, imitating the American's nasal drawl and borrowing from his vocabulary. "You ain't got no call ter git het up none, thataway. Don't yew git locoed an rip-snort--'cos I guess I don' stand fer it, any."
"Stop it, 'Erb," said John Bull, and 'Erb stopped it. There would be trouble between these two one hot day. . . .
"The Legion appropriated her to itself at last," continued the Grasshopper, "and picketed her house. Marsouins, sailors, pékins 1--all ceased to visit her. It was more than their lives were worth, and there were pitched battles when whole escouades of ces autres tried to get in, before it was clearly understood that Ninon belonged to the Legion. And this was meat and drink to Ninon. She loved to be La Reine de la Légion Étrangère. This was not Algiers, mark you, and she had been born and bred in Hanoï. She had not that false perspective that leads the women of the West to prefer those of other Corps to the sons of La Légion. And there were one or two moneyed men hiding in our ranks just then. She loved one for a time and then another for a time, and frequently the previous one would act rashly. Some took their last exercise in the Red River. An unpleasant stream in which to drown.
1 Civilians.
"Then came out, in a new draft, young Villa, supposed to be of Spanish extraction--but he knew no Spanish. I think he was the handsomest young devil I have ever seen. He had coarse black hair that is not of Europe, wild yellow eyes, and a curious, almost gold complexion. He was a strange boy, and of a temperament decidedly, and he loved flowers as some women do--especially ylang-ylang, jasmine, magnolia, and those of sweet and sickly perfume. He said they stirred his blood, and his prenatal memories. . . .
"And one night old Dubeque took him to see La Belle Dürlonnklau.
"As he told it to me I could see all that happened, for old Dubeque had the gift of speech, imagination, and the instinct of the drama. . . . Old Dubeque--the drunken, depraved scholar and gentilhomme.
"Outside her door a begging soothsayer whined to tell their fortunes. It was the Annamite New Year, the Thêt, when the native must get money somehow for his sacred jollifications. This fellow stood making the humble lai or prolonged salaam, and at once awoke the interest of young Villa, who tossed him a piastre.
"Old Dubeque swears that, as he grabbed it, this diseur de bonne aventure, a scoundrel of the Delta, said, 'Missieu French he die to-night,' or words to that effect in pigeon-French, and Villa rewarded the Job-like Annamite with a kick. . . . They went in. . . .
"As they entered the big room where were the Mekong girls and Madame Dürlonnklau, the boy suddenly stopped, started, stared, and stood with open mouth gazing at La Belle Ninon. He had eyes for no one else. She rose from her couch and came towards him, her face lit up and exalted. She led him to her couch and they talked. Love at first sight! Love had come to that so-experienced woman; to that wild farouche boy. Later they disappeared into an inner room. . . .
"Old Dubeque called for a bottle of wine, and drank with some of the girls.
"He does not know how much later it was that the murmur of voices in Madame's room ceased with a shriek of 'Mon fils,' a horrid, terrific scream, and the sound of a fall.
"Old Dubeque was not so drunk but what this sobered him. He entered the room.
"Young Villa had fulfilled the prophecy of the necromancer. He had driven his bayonet through his throat--just where a large birthmark was. What you call mole, eh? It was exposed when his shirt-collar was undone. . . . Ninon Dürlonnklau lived long, may be still alive--anyhow, I know she lived long--in a maison de santé. Yes--a reincarnation. . . .
"That is of what the words la Rue de Tournelles reminded me."
"'Streuth!" remarked le Legionnaire 'Erbiggin, and scratched his cropped head.
Little Madame Gallais was always a trifle inclined to the occult, to spiritualism, and to dabbling in the latest thing psychic and metaphysical. At home, in Marseilles, she was a prominent member and bright particular star of a Cercle which was, in effect, a Psychical Research Society. She complained that one of the drawbacks of accompanying her husband on Colonial service was isolation from these so interesting pursuits and people.
Successful and flourishing occultism needs an atmosphere, and it is difficult for a solitary crier in the wilderness to create one. However, Madame Gallais did her best. She could, and would, talk to you of your subliminal self, your subconscious ego, your true psyche, your astral body, and of planes. On planes she was quite at home. She would ask gay and sportive sous-lieutenants, fresh from the boulevards of Paris, as to whether they were mediumistic, or able to achieve clairvoyant trances. It is to be recorded that, at no dance, picnic, garden-party, "fiv' o'clock," or dinner did she encounter a French officer who confessed to being mediumistic or able to achieve clairvoyant trances.
Nor was big, fat Adjudant-Major Gallais any better than the other officers of the Legion and the Infanterie de la Marine and the Tirailleurs Tonkinois who formed the circle of Madame's acquaintance in Eastern exile. No--on the contrary, he distinctly inclined to the materialistic, and preferred red wines to blue-stockings--(not blue silk stockings, bien entendu). For mediums and ghost-seers he had an explosive and jeering laugh. For vegetarians he had a contempt and pity that no words could express.
A teetotaller he regarded as he did a dancing dervish.
He had no use for ascetics and self-deniers, holding them mad or impious.
No, it could not be said that Madame's husband was mediumistic or able to achieve clairvoyant trances, nor that he was a tower of strength and a present help to her in her efforts to create the atmosphere which she so desired.
When implored to gaze with her into the crystal, he declared that he saw things that brought the blush of modesty to the cheek of Madame.
When begged to take a hand at "planchette" writing, he caused the innocent instrument to write a naughty guinguette rhyme, and to sign it Eugénie Yvette Gallais.
When besought to witness the wonders of some fortuneteller, seer, astrologer or yogi, he put him to flight with fearful grimaces and gesticulations.
And this was a great grief unto Madame, for she loved astrologers and fortune-tellers in spite of all, or rather of nothing. And yet malgré the fat Adjudant-Major's cynicism and hardy scepticism, the very curious and undeniable fact remained, that Madame had the power to influence his dreams. She could, that is to say, make him dream of her, and could appear to him in his dreams and give him messages. The Adjudant-Major admitted as much, and thus there is no question as to the fact. (Indeed, when Madame died in Marseilles many years later, he announced the fact to us in Algeria, more than forty-eight hours before he received confirmation of what he knew to be the truth of his dream.)
Two people less alike than the gallant Adjudant-Major and his wife you could not find. Perhaps that is why they loved each other so devotedly.
"I wonder if my boy will be mediumistic," murmured little Madame Gallais, as she hung fondly over the cot in which reposed little Edouard André. "Oh, to be able to hold communion with him when we are parted and I am in the spirit-world."
"Give the little moutard plenty of good meat," said the big man. "We want le petit Gingembre to be a heavyweight--a born and bred cuirassier." . . .
"Mon ange, do you see any reason why twin souls, united in the bonds of purest love and closest relationship, should not be able to communicate quite freely when far apart?" Madame Gallais would reply.
"Save postage, in effect?" grinned the Adjudant-Major.
"I mean by medium of rappings, 'planchette,' dreams--if not by actual appearance and communication in spirit guise?"
"Spirit guys?" queried the stronger and thicker vessel.
"Yes, my soul, spirit guise."
"Oh, ah, yes. . . . Better not let me catch the young devil in spirit guise, or I'll teach him to stick to good wine and carry it like a gentleman. . . . He must learn his limit. . . . How soon do you think we could put him into neat little riding-breeches? . . . Cavalry for him. . . . Not but what the Legion is the finest regiment in the world. . . . Still Cuirassiers for him."
"My Own! Let the poor sweet angel finish with his first petticoats before we talk of riding-breeches. . . . And how, pray, would the riding-breeches accord with his so-beautiful long curls. They would not, mon ange, n'est ce pas?" . . .
"No--but surely the curls can be cut off in a very few moments, can't they?" argued the Major, with the conscious superiority of the logical sex.
But she, of the sex that needs no logic, only smiled and replied that she would project herself into her son's dreams every night of his life.
And in the fulness of time, Edouard André having arrived at boy's estate, the curse of the Colonial came upon little Madame Gallais, and she had to take her son home to France and leave him there with her heart and her health and her happiness. She, in her misery, could conceive of only one fate more terrible--separation from her large, dull husband, whom she adored for his strength, placidity, courage, adequacy, and, above all, because he adored her. Separation from him would be death, and she preferred the half-death of separation from le petit Gingembre.
She wrote daily to him on her return to Indo-China--printing the words large and clear for his easier perusal and, at the end of each weekly budget, she added a postscript asking him whether he dreamed of mother often. She also wrote to her own mother by every mail, each letter containing new and fresh suggestions for his mental, moral, and physical welfare, in spite of the fact that the urchin already received the entire devotion, care, and love of the little household at Marseilles.
Their unceasing, ungrudging devotion, care and love, however, did not prevent a gentle little breeze from springing up one summer evening, from bulging the bedroom window-curtain across the lighted gas-jet, and from acting as the first cause of poor little Edouard André being burnt to death in his bed, before a soul was aware that the tall, narrow house was on fire.
Big Adjudant-Major Gallais was in a terrible quandary and knew not what to do. He had but little imagination, but he had a mighty love for his wife--and she was going stark, staring mad before his haggard eyes. . . . And, if she died, he was going to take ship from Saigon and just disappear overboard one dark night, quietly and decently, like a gentleman, with neither mess, fuss, nor post-mortem enquête.
But there was just a ghost of a chance, a shadow of a hope--this "planchette" notion that had come to him suddenly in the dreadful sleepless night of watching. . . . It could not make things worse--and it might bring relief, the relief of tears. If she could weep she could sleep. If she could sleep she could live, perhaps--and the Major swallowed hard, coughed fiercely, and scrubbed his bristly head violently with both big hands.
It would be a lying fraud and swindle; but what of that if it might save her life and reason--and he was prepared to forge a cheque, cheat at cards, or rob a blind Chinese beggar of his last sabuk, to give her a minute's comfort, rest, and peace. . . . For clearly she must weep or die, sleep or die, unless she were to lose her reason--and while she was in an asylum he could not take that quiet dive overboard so that they could all be together again in the keeping and peace of le bon Dieu. . . . Rather death than madness, a thousand times. . . . But if she died and he took steps to follow her--was there not some talk about suicides finding no place in Heaven?
Peste! What absurdity! For surely le bon Père had as much sense of fair-play and mercy as a battered old soldier-man of La Légion? But it had not come to that yet. The Legion does not surrender--and the Adjudant-Major of the First Battalion of The Regiment had still a ruse de guerre to try against the enemy. He would do his best with this "planchette" swindle, and play it for what it was worth. While there is life there is hope, and he had been in many a tight place before, and fought his way out.
To think of Edouard André Lucien Gallais playing with "planchette"! She had often begged him to join hands with her on its ebony board, and to endeavour to "get into communication" with the spirits of the departed--but he had always acted the farceur.
"Ask the sacred thing to tip us the next Grand Prix winner," he had said, or "But, yes--I would question the kind spirits as to the address of the pretty girl I saw at the station yesterday," and then he would cause the innocent machine to say things most unspiritual. Well--now he would see what sort of lying cheat he could make of himself. To lie is not gentlemanly--but to save life and reason is. If to lie is to blacken the soul--let the soul of Adjudant-Major Gallais be black as the blackest ibn Eblis, if thereby an hour's peace might descend upon the tortured soul of his wife. The good Lord God would understand a gentleman--being one Himself.
And the Major, large, heavy, and slow-witted, entered his wife's darkened room, and crept toward the bed whereon she lay, dry-eyed, talking aloud and monotonously.
". . . To play such a trick on me! May Heaven reward those who play tricks. Of course, it is a hoax--but why does not mother cable back that there never was any fire at all, and that she knows nothing about the telegram? . . . How could le petit Gingembre be dead, when there he is, in the photo, smiling at me so prettily, and looking so strong and well? What a fool I am! Anyone can play tricks on me. People do. . . . I shall tell my husband. He would never play a trick on me, nor allow such a thing. . . . A trick! A hoax! . . . Of course, one can judge nothing from the handwriting of a telegram. Anybody could forge one. A letter would be so difficult to forge. . . . The sender of that wicked cable said to himself, 'Madame Gallais cannot pretend that the message does not come from her mother on grounds of the handwriting being different from that of her mother--because the writing is never that of the sender, but that of the telegraph-clerk. She will be deceived and think that her mother has really sent it.' . . . How unspeakably cruel and wicked! No, a letter could not be forged, and that is why there is no letter. Let them wait until my husband can get at them. Mon petit Gingembre! And it is his birthday in a month. . . . What shall I get for him? I cannot make up my mind. One cannot get just what one wants out here, and if one sends the money for something to be bought at Home, it is not the same thing--it does not seem to the child as though his parents sent it at all. How lucky I am to have mother to leave him to. She simply worships him, and he couldn't have a happier time, nor better treatment, if I were there myself. No--that's just it--the happier a child is the less it needs you, and you wouldn't have it unhappy so that it did want you. How the darling will . . ." and then again rose the awful wailing cry as consciousness of the terrible truth, the cruel loss, the horrible fate, and the sensation of utter impotence of the bereaved, surged over the wearied, failing brain. She must cry or die.
The Major sat beside her and gently patted her, in his dull yearning to help, to relieve the dreadful agony, to do something.
A gust of rebellious rage shook him, and he longed to fight and to kill. Why was he smitten thus, and why was there no tangible opponent at whom he could rush, and whom he could hew and hack and slay? He rose to his feet, with clenched fists uplifted and purpling face.
"Be calm," he said, and took a hold upon himself.
Useless to attempt to fight Fate or the Devil or whatever it was that struck you from behind like this, stabbed you in the back, turned life to dust and ashes. . . . He must grin and bear it like a man. Like a man--and what of the woman?
"He's happy now, petit, our petit Gingembre," said the poor wretch.
"He's just a jolly little angel, having a fête-day of a time. He's not weeping and unhappy. Not he, peaudezébie!"
"Burning!" screamed the woman. "My baby is burning! My petit Gingembre is burning, and no one will help him. . . . My baby is burning and Heaven looks on! Oh, mother!--Annette!--Marie!--Grégoire! rush up to the bedroom! . . . Quick--he is burning! The curtain is on fire. The blind has caught. . . . The dressing-table is alight. . . . The blind has fallen on the bed. His pillow is smouldering. He is suffocating. The bed is on fire . . ." and scream followed heartrending scream.
The stricken husband seized the woman's hands and kissed them.
"No, petit, he never woke. He never felt anything. He just passed away to le bon Dieu in his sleep, without pain or fright, or anything. He just died in his sleep. There is no pain at all about that sort of suffocation, you know," he said.
"Oh, if I could but think so!" moaned the woman. "If I could only for a moment think so! . . . Burning to death and screaming for mother. . . . Edouard! Shoot me--shoot me! Or let me . . ."
"See, Beloved of my Soul," urged her husband, gently shaking her. "I do solemnly swear that I know he was not hurt in the least. He never woke. I happen to know it. I am not saying it to comfort you. I know it."
"How could you know, Edouard? . . . Oh, my little baby, my little son! Oh, wake me from this awful cauchemar, Edouard. Say I am dreaming and am going to wake."
"The little chap's gone, darling, but he went easy, and he's well out of this cursed world, anyhow. He'll never have suffering and unhappiness. . . . And he had such a happy little life." . . .
Then, for the first time in his career, the Major waxed eloquent, and, for the first time in his life, lied fluently and artistically. "I wonder if you'll believe me if I tell you how I know he wasn't hurt," he continued. "It's the truth, you know. I wouldn't lie to you, would I?"
"No, you wouldn't deceive me, and you haven't the wit if you would," replied his wife.
"No, dearest, that's just it. I wouldn't and couldn't, as you say. Well, look here, last night the little chap appeared to me. Le petit Gingembre himself! Faith of a gentleman, he did. . . . I may have been asleep, but he appeared to me as plain as you are now. . . . As pretty, I mean," he corrected with a heavy, anxious laugh and pat, peering into the drawn and disfigured face to see if his words reached the distraught mind, "and he said, 'Father, I want to speak to mother, and she cannot hear because she cries out and screams and sobs. It makes me so wretched that I cannot bear it.'"
The man moistened parched lips with a leathery tongue.
"And he said, 'Tell her I was not hurt a little bit--not even touched by the flames. I just slept on, and knew nothing. . . . And I couldn't be happy, even in Heaven, while she grieves so.'"
The woman turned to him.
"Edouard, you are lying to me--and I am grateful to you. It is as terrible for you as for me," and she beat her forehead with clenched fists.
"Eugénie!" cried her husband. "Do you call me a liar! Me? Did I not give you my word of honour?"
"Aren't you lying, Edouard? Aren't you? . . . Don't deceive me, Edouard André Gallais!" and she seized his wrist in a grip that hurt him.
"I take my solemn oath I am not lying," lied the Major. "Heaven smite me if I am. I swear I am speaking the absolute truth. Nom de nom de Dieu! Would I lie to you?"
He must convince her while she had the sanity to understand him. . . . "I believe you, Edouard. You are not deceiving me. Oh, thank God! I humbly thank the good merciful Father. And it was--it was--a real and actual communication, Edouard--and vouchsafed to you, the scoffer at spirit communication."
"Yes, but that's not all, my Eugénie. The little chap said, 'I cannot come to mother while she cries out and moans. Tell her to talk with me by "planchette," you joining with her.' He did," lied the Major.
"Oh! Oh! Edouard! Quick! Where is it? . . . Oh, my baby!" cried Madame Gallais, rising and rushing to a cabinet from which she produced a heart-shaped ebony board some ten inches long and six broad, having at the wide end two legs, an inch or so in length terminating in two swivelled ivory wheels, and, at the other end, a pencil of the same length as the legs.
Seating herself at her writing-table, she placed the instrument on a large sheet of paper, while her husband brought a chair to her side.
Both placed their hands lightly on the broad part of the board and awaited results.
The pencil did not stir.
Minute after minute passed.
The Adjudant-Major was a cunning man of war, and he was using all his cunning now.
The woman uttered a faint moan as the tenth minute ebbed away.
"Patience, Sweetheart," said he. "It's worth a fair trial and a little patience, isn't it?"
"Patience!" was the scornful reply. "I'll sit here till I die--or I'll hear from my boy. . . . You didn't lie to me, Edouard?"
The pencil stirred--stirred, moved, and stopped.
The woman groaned.
The pencil stirred again. Then it moved--moved and wrote rapidly, improving in pace and execution as the Major gained practice in pushing it without giving the slightest impression of using "undue influence."
His wife firmly and fanatically believed that the spirit of her child was actually present and utilizing, through their brains, the muscles of their arms, to convey to the paper the message it could neither speak nor write itself.
Presently the pencil ceased to move, and, after another period of patient waiting, the stricken mother took the paper from beneath the instrument and read the "message" of the queer, wavering writing, feeble, unpunctuated, and fantastic, but quite legible, although conjoined.
"My Dearest Maman," it ran. "Why do you grieve so for me and make me so unhappy? How can I be joyous when you are sad? Let me be happy by being happy yourself. I cannot come to you while you mourn. Be glad, and let me be glad and then you must be more happy still, because I am happy. I never felt any pain at all. I just awoke to find myself here, where all would be joy for me, except for your grief. I have left a world of pain, to wait a little while for you where we shall be together in perfect happiness for ever. Let me be happy, dearest Maman, by being resigned, and then happy, yourself. When you are at peace I can come to you always in your dreams, and we can talk together. Give me happiness at once, darling Mother. Please do. Your Petit Gingembre". . . which was not a bad effort for an unimaginative and dull-witted man.
He had his instant reward, for on finishing the reading of the "message," Madame Gallais threw her arms round his neck and burst into tears--the life-giving, reason-saving, blessed relief of tears.
An hour later she slept, for the first time in five days, holding her husband's big hand as he sat by her bed.
When she stirred and relinquished it, the next morning, the Major arose and went out.
"What a sacred liar I am!" quoth he. "Garçon, bring me an apéritif."
It is notorious what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive. And Major Gallais practised hard. Two and three and four times daily did he manufacture "messages" from the dead child, and strive, with his heart in his mouth, to make the successful cheat last until the first wild bitterness of his wife's grief had worn off.
His hair went grey in the course of a month.
The mental strain of invention, the agony of rasping his own cruel wound by this mockery--for he had loved le petit Gingembre as much as the child's mother had done--and the constant terror lest some unconvincing expression or some unguarded pressure on the "planchette" should betray him, were more exhausting and wearing than two campaigns against the "pirates" of Yen Thé.
But still he had his reward, for his wife's sane grief, heavy though it was and cruel, was a very different thing from the mad abandonment and wild insanity of those dreadful days before he had his great idea.
Many and frequent still were the dreadful throes of weeping and rebellions against Fate--but "planchette" could always bring distraction and comfort to the tortured mind, and the soothing belief in real presence and a genuine communion.
But there was no anodyne for the man's bitter grief, and the "planchette" became a hideous nightmare to him. Even his work was no salvation to him, for though the Adjudant-Major is a regimental staff officer, corresponding somewhat to our Adjutant--(the "Adjudant" is a non-com. in the French army)--and a very busy man, Gallais found that his routine duties were performed mechanically, and by one side of his brain as it were, while, undimmed, in the fore-front of his mind, blazed the baleful glare of a vast "planchette," in the flames of which his little son roasted and shrieked.
And still the daily tale of "messages" must be invented, and daily grew a greater and more distressing burden and terror.
How much longer could he go on, day after day, and several times a day, producing fresh communications, conversations, messages, ideas? How much longer could he go on inventing plausible and satisfactory answers to the questions that his wife put to the "spirit" communicant? How could Adjudant-Major Gallais of La Légion Étrangère describe Heaven and the environment, conditions, habits, conduct and conversations of the inhabitants of the Beyond? How much longer would he be able to use the jargon of his wife's books on Occultism and Spiritualism, study them as he might, without rousing her suspicions? The swindle could not have lasted a day had she not been only too anxious to believe, and only too ready to be deceived.
What would be the end of it all? What would his wife do if she found out that he had cheated her? Would she ever forgive him? Would she leave him? Would the shock of the disappointment kill her? Would she ever believe him again?
What could the end of it be?
He must stick it out--for life, if need be--and he was not an imaginative man.
What would be the end?
The end was--that she felt she must go home to France and see her boy's grave, tend it, pray by it, and give such comfort as she could to her poor mother, almost as much to be pitied as herself.
Gallais encouraged the idea. The change would be good for her, and he would be able to join her in a few months. Also this terrible "planchette" strain would cease for him, and he might recover his sleep and appetite. . . .
"To think that we shall be parted, this time to-morrow, my dearest Edouard," wept Madame Gallais, as they sat side by side in their bed-sitting-room, in the Hôtel de la République at Saigon. "I on the sea and you on your way back alone. If everything were not arranged, I would not go. Let us have a last 'planchette' with our son, and get to bed. We are having petit déjeuner at five, you know."
The Major racked his brain for something to write, as Madame went to her dressing-case for the little instrument (to the Major, an instrument of torture)--racked his brain for something he had not said before, and racked in vain. He grew hotter and hotter and broke into a profuse perspiration as she seated herself beside him. Nom de nom de Dieu de Dieu de sort! What could he write? Why had his brain ceased to operate?
Nombril de Belzébuth! Could he not make up one more lie after carrying on for weeks--weeks during which his waking hours--riding, drilling, marching along the muddy causeways between the rice-fields, working in his office, inspecting, eating, and drinking--had been devoted to hatching "messages," conversations, communications and lies, till he had lost health, weight, sleep, and appetite. . . .
No. . . . He could not write a single word, for his mind was absolutely blank.
Minutes passed.
Sweating, cursing, and praying, the unfortunate man sat in an agony of misery, and could not write a single word.
Would not le bon Dieu help him? Just this one last time? . . .
Minutes passed.
Not to have saved his life, not to have saved the life of his wife, not to have brought back le petit Gingembre, could the poor tortured wretch have written a single word. . . . What would his wife do when she discovered the cheat--for if no words came during the next minute or two he knew he must spring to his feet, make full confession, and throw himself upon his wife's mercy.
That or go mad.
What would she do? . . . Leave him for ever? . . . Spit upon him and call him "Liar," "Cheat," and "Heartless, cruel villain"?
Would the dreadful reaction and shock kill her?--deprive her of reason?
Suddenly he perceived that, with hands which were acres in extent, he was endeavouring to move a "planchette" the size of Indo-China--a "planchette" that was red-hot and of which the fire burnt into his brain. Its smoke and fumes were choking him; its fierce white light was blinding him; the thing was killing him.
By the time, several weeks later, that little Madame Gallais had nursed her husband back to sanity and consciousness, the first bitterness of grief was past and she herself could play the comforter.
"Oh, my Edouard," she wept upon his shoulder when first the brain-fever left him and he knew her, "we have lost our little Gingembre--but you have me, and, oh, my brave hero-husband, I have you. I shall weep no more." . . .
"Planchette" stands on Madame's desk--but she does not use it.
As she stood on the deck beside her lover-husband and gazed upon the thrillingly beautiful panorama of Marseilles, there was assuredly no happier woman in the world. As he looked at the rapt face and wide-opened glorious eyes of the lovely girl beside him there can scarcely have been a man as happy.
They had been married in England a week earlier, were on their way to his vast house and vaster estate in Australia, and had come round by sea, instead of suffering the miseries of the "special" across France (which saves a week to leave-expired returning Anglo-Indians).
Happy! Her happiness was almost a pain. As a child she had childishly adored him; and now he had returned from his wanderings, after a decade of varied, strenuous life--to adore her. Life was too impossibly, hopelessly wonderful and beautiful. . . . He, who had been everywhere, done everything, been everything--soldier, sailor, rancher, planter, prospector, hunter, explorer--had come Home for a visit, and laid his heart at the feet of a country mouse. Happy! His happiness frightened him. After more than ten years of the roughest of roughing it, he had "made good" (exceeding good), and on top of good fortune incredible, had, to his wondering bewilderment, won the love of the sweetest, noblest, fairest, and most utterly lovable and desirable woman in the world. She whom he had left a child had grown into his absolute ideal of Woman, and had been by some miracle reserved for him.
And which would now know the greater joy in their travels--he in showing her the fair places of the earth and telling her of personal experiences therein, or she in being shown them by this adored hero who had come to make her life a blessed dream of joy? Not that the fair places of the earth were necessary to their happiness. They could have spent a happy day in London on a wet Sunday, or at the end of Southend pier on a Bank Holiday, or in a prison-cell for that matter--for the mind of each to the other a kingdom was.
"Would you like to go ashore? . . . 'Madame, will you walk and talk with me,' in the Cannebière?" he asked.
"Of course, we must go ashore, Beloved Snail," was the reply. "I have no idea what the Cannebière is--but," and she hugged his arm and whispered, "you can always 'give me the keys of Heaven,' and walk and talk with me There." (He was "Beloved Snail" when he was a Bad Man and late for meals; "Bill" when he was virtuous or forgiven.)
The ship being tied up, and a notice having guaranteed that she would on no account untie before midnight, this foolish couple, who utterly loved each other, walked down the gangway, passed the old lady who sells balloons and the old gentleman who sells deck-chairs, the young lady who sells glorious violets and the young gentleman who sells un-glorious "field"-glasses; through the echoing customs-shed and out to where, beside a railway-line, specimens of the genus cocher lie in wait for those who would drive to the boulevards and in hope for those who know not that four francs is ample fare.
To the sights of Marseilles he took her, enjoying her enjoyment as he had enjoyed few things in his life, and then in the Cannebière dismissed the fiacre.
"In Rome you must roam like the Romans," he observed. "In Marseilles you must sit on little chairs in front of a café and see the World and his Wife (or Belle Amie) go by."
"Fancy sitting outside a public-house in Regent Street or the Strand and watching Londoners go by!" said the girl. "Isn't it extraordinary what a difference in habits and customs one finds by travelling a few miles? Think of English officers sitting, in uniform, on the pavement, like those are, and drinking in public," . . . and she pointed to a group of French officers so engaged. "Do let's go and sit near them," she added. "I have never seen soldiers dressed in pale blue and silver, and all the colours of the rainbow. . . . Aren't they pretty--dears!" . . .
"Their uniforms look quaint to the insular eye, madam, I admit," he replied, as he led the way to an unoccupied table near the brilliant group, "but they are not toy soldiers by any means. They all belong to regiments of the African Army Corps, the Nineteenth, and there isn't a finer one on earth."
"Darling, you know everything," smiled his wife. "Fancy knowing a thing like that now! I wonder how many other Englishmen know anything about this African Army and that it is the Ninety-Ninth. Now how do you know?"
It was his turn to smile, and he did so somewhat wryly.
"What will you have?" he asked, as an aproned garçon hovered around. "Coffee or sirop or--how would you like to be devil-of-a-fellow and taste a sip of absinthe? . . . You'll hate it."
"No, thank you, Bill-man. Is the syrup golden-syrup or syrup-of-squills or what? No, I'll have some coffee and see if it is."
"Is what?"
"Coffee." . . .
Meanwhile an elderly, grizzled officer, with a somewhat brutal face, was staring hard and rudely at the unconscious couple. He wore a dark blue tunic with red-tabbed and gold-braided collar and cuffs, scarlet overalls, and a blue and red képi. So prolonged was his unshifting gaze, so fierce his frown, and so obvious his interest, that his companions noticed the fact.
"Is the old hog smitten with la belle Anglaise, I wonder, or what?" murmured a handsome youth in the beautiful pale blue uniform of the Chasseurs d'Afrique to an even more gorgeous officer of Spahis.
"I have never known Legros take the faintest interest in women," replied the other. "There will be a beastly fracas if the husband glances this way. He'll promise Legros to ponch ees 'ead if he thinks he's being rude--as he is."
Certainly the elderly and truculent-looking officer was being rude, for not only was he staring with a hard, concentrated glare, but he was leaning as far forward as he could, the better to do it. Anyone--man, woman, or child--being conscious of this deliberate, searching gaze, must resent it. It was that of a gendarme, examining the face of a criminal and endeavouring to "place" him and recollect the details of his last encounter with him, or of a juge d'instruction examining a criminal in that manner which does not find favour in England.
"It is as good as sitting in the stalls of a theatre, sitting here and seeing all these varied types go by, isn't it, Bill?" observed the girl. "Oh, do look at that--that boy in brown velvet and a forked beard!"
"We are sitting in the Stalls of the Theatre of Life, my child," was the sententious reply, but in reality they were sitting nearer to the Pit.
The brutal-looking officer scratched the back of his neck slowly up and down with the forefinger of his left hand, a sure sign that he was wrestling with an elusive reminiscence. For a moment he took his eyes from the face of the Englishman and looked sideways at the pavement, cudgelling his brains, ransacking the cells of his memory. With a muttered oath at failure to recapture some piece of long-stored information, he put his hand into the inside pocket of his tunic and produced a tiny flat case. From this he took a pair of pince-nez and adjusted them upon the bridge of his broad, short nose. From the slowness and clumsiness of his movements it was evident that he had only just taken to glasses, or else wore them very seldom.
The latter was the case, as Lieutenant Legros considered spectacles of any kind a most unmilitary and pékinesque adjunct to uniform.
A quiet, gentlemanly-looking officer, a Captain, wearing a similar uniform to that of Legros, observed the action.
"Evidently something interests our friend beyond ordinary," he remarked, and followed the look that the elderly Lieutenant again fixed upon the Englishman, whom the Captain now noticed for the first time.
Sitting with his back to the road, and almost facing Legros, he got a better view of the Englishman's features than did that deeply interested officer, who, without reply, continued his searching scrutiny. Evidently a person of great powers of concentration. As his glance fell upon the young couple, the Captain started slightly and then looked away.
"Who's for a stroll?" he remarked, half rising. But his suggestion was not adopted, for glasses were charged, cigarettes alight, the shade of the café and awning very agreeable, and the sunshine hot without.
"Have an apéritif first, mon ami, and be restful," said a Zouave officer, and tinkled the little table-bell loudly.
The Englishman half-consciously turned toward the sound, and looked away again without noticing the baleful, steady glare fixed upon him through the glasses of the Lieutenant.
"Dame!" grunted that officer, and smote his brow in an agony of exasperation at the failure of his memory. . . . Curse it! Was he getting old? He had the fellow's name and the circumstances of his case on the tip of his tongue, so to speak--at the tips of his fingers, as it were--and he could not say the word he was bursting to say; could not lay his twitching mental fingers on the details. . . . He knew. . . . He was right. . . . He would have it in a minute. . . .
A paper-boy passed the long front of the café and shouted some wholly unintelligible word as he gazed over the serried ranks of chairs and loungers.
"What does he say, Bill?" asked the girl. "It sounds like Barin. How ill the poor lad looks! Fancy having to sell papers for a living when you are starving and horribly ill, as he obviously is," and as her hand stole to her charitable purse, she gratefully thought of the utter security, peace, comfort, and health of her life--now that Bill had linked it to his. . . . What was the phrase? . . . Yes--she had "hitched her wagon to a star"; her poor little homely wagon to the glorious and brilliant star of her Bill's career. . . . The inquisitorial Lieutenant used the paper-boy for the purposes of his tactics. Rising, he made his way between the chairs and the groups of apéritif-drinking citizens, to where the boy stood, bought a paper, and returned by a route which brought him full face-to-face with the Englishman. Recognition was instantaneous and mutual. The brutal countenance of the elderly Lieutenant was not improved by a sardonic smile and look of mean and petty triumph as he thrust an outstretched index-finger in the Englishman's face and harshly grunted.
"Henri Rrrobinson!" and then laughed a sneering, hideous cackle.
Staring in utter bewilderment from the French officer to her husband, the girl saw with horror that his jaw had dropped, his mouth and eyes were gaping wide, and he had gone as white as a sheet.
"Sergeant Legros!" he whispered.
"Lieutenant Legros," grunted the other.
What had happened? What in the name of the Merciful Father was this? Was she dreaming? Her husband looked deathly. He seemed paralysed with fright.
The Lieutenant half turned, and shouted to a couple of sombre and mysterious-looking gens d'armes who had been standing for some time on the little "island" under the big lamp-post in the middle of the road. As they approached, the Englishman rose to his feet.
"Listen, darling!" he hissed. "Get out of this quick--to the ship. Take a fiacre and say 'P. and O. bateau.' I'll join you all right. They have . . ."
The Lieutenant put a heavy hand on his shoulder and swung him round.
"Arrest this man," said he to the gens d'armes, "and take him to Fort St. Jean. He is a deserter, one Henri Rrrobinson, from the First Battalion of the Foreign Legion. Deserted from Sidi-bel-Abbès eight years ago. But I knew the dog. Aha!"
The group of officers whom Legros had just left, joined the gathering crowd.
"Poor devil!" said Captain d'Armentières. He too had recognized the soi-disant Henry Robinson. . . . "Poor girl!" he added. "Poor little soul!" She looked like une nouvelle mariée too. Of course Legros had only done his duty--curse him. Curse him a thousand times for a blackguardly, brutal ruffian. The girl was going to faint. . . . Her wedding-ring looked brand-new. "If this is his wedding night, he'll spend it in the salle de police of Fort St. Jean," he reflected. "If he is on his honeymoon, he'll spend it in the cellules until the General Court-Martial at Oran gives him a few years rabiau with the Zephyrs. If he survives that, which is improbable, he will finish his five years of Legion service. No--she won't see much of him during the next decade. . . . Poor little soul!"
The gens d'armes duly arrested the deserter. He caught the eye of the Captain.
"Captain d'Armentières," said he, "you are a French gentleman. This lady is my wife. We have been married a week. I beg of you to see her safe on board the P. and O. steamer Maloja, which we have just left, for an hour's visit here."
"I will do so," said d'Armentières.
A fat and kindly Frenchman, who understood English, translated for the benefit of the crowd. It became intensely sympathetic--at least with the girl. The French, for some reason, imagine their Foreign Legion to be composed of Germans, and the French do not love Germans. . . . And then, having commended his wife to d'Armentières (whom he had liked and admired in the past when he had played the fool's prank of joining the Legion "for a lark"), he thought rapidly and clearly. . . .
If they once got him inside Fort St. Jean (the clearing-house for drafts and details going to, and coming from, Algeria--recruits, convalescents, leave-expired, all sorts; Legionaries, Zouaves, Turcos, Spahis, Tirailleurs) he was done. In a short time he would be a convict, in military-convict dress, enduring the living-death of existence in the Zephyrs, the terrible Disciplinary Battalion, compared with whose lot that of the British long-sentence convict at Dartmoor, Portland, or Wormwood Scrubbs is a bed of roses in the lap of luxury. After that--back to the Legion if he were alive to finish his five years, of which there were four unexpired. And his wife--stranded, without money, in Marseilles, unless d'Armentières got her to the ship. And what would she do then--at the end of the voyage? . . . God help them! . . . A few minutes ago--happiness unspeakable, safety, security, peace, all life before them. Now--in a few minutes he would be in gaol and his adored, adoring wife a deserted, friendless stranger in a strange land. . . . Would they allow d'Armentières to take her to the ship? Would they want her to give evidence--put her in some kind of prison until the Court-Martial sat? Suppose d'Armentières had not been there, and she had been left to the tender mercies of Legros--or utterly deserted, fainting on a café chair. . . .
Well, things couldn't be much worse (or could they) if he "resisted the police," assaulted the duly-appointed officers of the law in the execution of their duty, and made a break for liberty. No, things couldn't be worse. Neither he nor she would survive the next ten years. And there was a chance, or the ghost of a shadow of a chance. The deck of the Maloja was English soil, and they could not lay a finger on him there. If only she were safe on board, he'd make the attempt. There was a chance--and he had always taken the sporting chance, all his life. . . . And this vile cur of a Legros! He had many a score to pay off to Sergeant Legros--the prize bully of the XIXth Army Corps. Now this! If he could only have his hands at the throat of Legros. As these thoughts flashed through his brain, "May I say farewell to my wife and see her into a fiacre with you, Captain d'Armentières?" he asked. He appeared to be as cool as he was pale. The Captain was the senior officer present.
"Yes," he said. "I will drive her as quickly as possible to the ship," and willing hands helped the fainting girl into the fiacre. . . . Was she dying? As she lost her hold and sank into the bottomless depths of unconsciousness she was finally aware that her husband winked at her violently. That wink, in a face which was a pallid, tragic mask, was the most dreadful and heartrending thing she had ever seen. Anyhow, it meant some kind of reassurance which he could not put into words without disclosing some plan to his captors. She fainted completely, in the act of wondering whether this was merely that he was putting a good face on it and pretending for her benefit, or whether he really had a plan. Anyhow, she was to go to the ship--and, in any case, she was dying of a broken heart. . . .
As he watched his wife driven rapidly away, the Englishman formulated his plans.
He would delay as long as he could in order that his wife might be on board the ship before he reached it, if ever he did.
He would go quietly and willingly--but as slowly as possible--while the road to Fort St. Jean was the road to the ship. He would then break away from his pursuers and run for it. He would show them what an old Oxford miler and International Rugger forward could do in the way of running and dodging, and, perchance, what sort of a fight an amateur champion heavy-weight could put up.
But strategy first, strength and skill afterwards, for he was playing a terrible game, with his wife's happiness at stake, not to mention his own liberty. With a groan, he artistically smote his knees together and sank to the ground. That would gain a little time anyhow, and they'd hardly carry him to Fort St. Jean, nor waste a cab-fare on the carcase of a Legionary.
He wasn't quite certain as to the nearest way from the Cannebière to Fort St. Jean, but he remembered that it was down by the waterfront. Yes, he could again see its quaint old tower, like a lighthouse, and its drawbridged moat, as he closed his eyes. Part of the way to it would be the way to the P. and O. wharf at Mole C, or whatever it was, anyhow. Would they take him by tram? That might complicate matters. If they were going to do that, should he make his break for liberty at once, or on the journey, or at the end of it? It would be comparatively easy to make a dash before or after the tram-ride, but they'd surely never let him escape them from a crowded tram. Would they handcuff him? If so, that would settle it. He'd fight and run the moment handcuffs were produced. You can't run in handcuffs, although you think you can. Would they shoot? It would be Hell to be winged in sight of the ship. Was the P. and O. wharf British soil, as well as the ship?
Almost certainly not.
Lieutenant Legros kicked him in the ribs.
"Get up, tricheur," he shouted. He was in his element, and fairly gloated over his victim, who only groaned and collapsed the more.
To those of the crowd who realized that he was an Englishman, he was an object of pity; to those who concluded that, being a Legionary, he was a German, he was merely an object of interest.
The officers who had been sitting with Legros departed in some disgust, and the crowd changed, eddied, and thinned. . . . Only a sick man being attended to by a couple of gens d'armes!
These latter grew a little impatient. The sooner they could dispose of this fine fellow the better, but they certainly weren't going to march to Fort St. Jean at the request of a Lieutenant of Legionaries. Let the army do its own dirty work. They'd run him in all right to the nearest lock-up, and he could be handed over to the military authorities, to be dealt with, whenever they liked to fetch him. To the devil with all Légionnaires, be they deserters or Lieutenants! "He had better be taken to the police-station on a stretcher, mon Lieutenant," suggested one of them. "It would appear that he has fainted."
"Stretcher!" roared Legros, and spat. "Pah! That is not how we deal with swine of Légionnaires who sham sick. Stretcher! Drag him face downward by one toe at the tail of a dust-cart more likely!"
Oho! Police-station, was it? Not Fort St. Jean immediately. And where might the nearest police-station be, wondered the prostrate Englishman. He must not let them get him there. The boat would sail at midnight, whether he were on board or not--and once the cell door closed on him it would not open till the morning.
Perhaps he had better take his leave at once. Unless they went in the direction of the docks for some part of the way it would be a cruelly punishing run. . . . Just as bad for them though, and he'd back himself against any of these beefy old birds for a four-mile race. . . .
His wife must be half-way there by now--more, if d'Armentières urged the cocher, as he would.
Was it likely that d'Armentières would collect a guard of gens d'armes, dock police, soldiers, or customs officials at the wharf gate or the ship's gangway, and lie in wait to see if he tried to get on board? No--d'Armentières was not that sort.
(He was not, and when, later, Lieutenant Legros was reduced to the rank of sergeant for what was practically the brutal murder of a Legionary, Captain d'Armentières thought of this incident and rejoiced.)
And if he did--let them stop him if they could. He'd break through the scrum of them all right. Lay some of them out too.
What was Legros saying? Urging the gens d'armes to boot him up and lug him off by the scruff of his neck, eh?
He groaned again, sat up with difficulty, shakily and painfully rose to his feet, then smote Legros a smashing blow between the eyes, butted the gendarme who stood on his right, and with a dodge, a jump, and a wriggle was away and running like a hare.
To the end of his life he never forgot that race for life, and for more than life. Scores of times he lived through it again in terrible nightmares and suffered a thousand times more than he did on the actual run itself. For then he was quite cool, steady, and unafraid. He imagined himself to be running with the ball at Blackheath or Richmond, threading his way through the hostile fifteen, dodging, leaping, handing-off. But there were one or two differences. In Rugger you may not drive your clenched fist with all your might into the face of any man who springs at you. . . . Nor do you run for miles over cobbles. . . .
It was really surprisingly easy. Once he had got clear and put a few yards between himself and the uninjured gendarme, it was even betting that he'd win--provided his wind held and he didn't get the stitch, and that he did not slip and fall on the cursed stones. For the folk behind he cared nothing, and with such in front as grasped the situation in time to do something, he could deal. Some he dodged, some he handed-off as at Rugger, and some he hit. These last were slower to rise than those he handed-off, or caused to fall by dodging them, as they sprang at him.
When he turned a sharp corner he was so well ahead of the original pursuers that he was merely a man running, and that is not in itself an indictable offence. Certainly people stopped and stared at the sight of an obvious foreigner running at top speed, but he might have a boat to catch, he might be pursuing a train of thought or his lost youth and innocence. Que voulez-vous? Besides, he might be English, and therefore mad.
And then the blue-faced, panting gendarme would round the corner at the head of such gamins, loafers, police agents, and other citizens as saw fit to run on a hot afternoon. Whereupon people in this sector of street would look after the runaway and some run after him as well. So the pursuing crowd continually changed, as some left it and others joined it, until there remained of the old original firm scarcely any but the distressed and labouring gendarme--who, at last, himself gave up, reeled to the wall, and whooping and gasping for breath, prepared to meet his Maker.
Before the poor man had decided that this event was not yet, the Englishman had dashed round another corner and actually leapt on to an electric tram in full flight toward the quais!
Ciel! How mad were these English! Fancy a man running like that now, just to catch a tram. No, he would not go inside; he preferred to stand on the platform, and stand there he would.
He did, and anon, the tram having stopped at his polite request to the conductor, he strolled on to the P. and O. wharf and marched up the gangway of the good ship Maloja.
A steward informed him that his wife were ill, 'aving been brought aboard by a French gent and took to 'er cabing. She were still lying down. . . .
She was, at that moment, very ill indeed, mentally and physically.
But not for long, when his arms had assured her that they were not those of a vision and a ghost. . . .
If you ever travel Home with them, you'll find they don't go ashore at Marseilles. No, they don't like the place--prefer to stay on board, even through the coaling.
Le Légionnaire Jacques Bonhomme (as he called himself) was dying, and Sergeant Baudré, in charge of the convoy of wounded, proceeding from the nasty, messy fighting at Hu-Thuong to the base hospital at Phulang-Thuong, kindly permitted a brief halt that he might die in peace.
The good Sergeant Baudré could not accord more than an hour to the Legionary for his dying arrangements, because he had been instructed by his captain to get back as quickly as possible, and Phulang-Thuong lies only twenty-four miles south of Hu-Thuong.
Sergeant Baudré had other reasons also. For one, he was apprehensive of attack by some wandering band of De Nam's "pirates," and the outlaw brigands who served Monsieur De Nam, mandarin of the deposed Emperor of Annam, Ham-Nghi, were men whose courage and skill in fighting were only excelled by their ingenuity and pitilessness in torturing such of their enemies as fell into their hands. No, Sergeant Baudré had seen the remains of some of the prisoners of these "Black Flags," and he shuddered yet whenever he thought of them.
And what could he do, strung out over a mile, with a weak escort of Tirailleurs Tonkinois to provide his point, cover-point, and main body with the wounded, and an escouade of Legionaries for his rearguard? The sooner he got to Phulang-Thuong, the better. Returning, unhampered by the wounded, he could take care of himself, and any band of "Black Flags" who chose to attack him could do so. They should have a taste of the fighting qualities of Sergeant Baudré and his Legionaries. As it was--Sergeant Baudré shrugged his shoulders and bade Legionary Jacques Bonhomme die and be done with it.
"I thank you, Sergeant," murmured the dying man. "May I speak with le Légionnaire Jean Boule, if he is with the squad?"
The Sergeant grunted. He ran his eye along the halted column. Would those Tirailleurs Tonkinois stand, if there were a sudden rush of howling devils from the dense jungle on either side of the track? And why should they be allowed to take their women about with them everywhere, so that these should carry their kit and accoutrements for them? Nobody carried Sergeant Baudré's hundredweight of kit when he marched. Why should these Annamese be pampered thus? Should he send the squad of Legionaries to the head of the column when they advanced again? It would be just his luck if the column was attacked in front while the Legionaries were in the rear, or vice versâ.
Sergeant Baudré strolled toward the rear. He would get the opinion of "Jean Boule" in the course of a little apparently aimless conversation. He had been an officer before he joined the Legion, and these English knew all there is to know about guerilla fighting. . . .
From his remarks and replies it was clear to the good Sergeant that the Englishman considered that any attack would certainly come from the rear.
"Without doubt," agreed Sergeant Baudré. "That is why I keep the escouade as rearguard."
"By the way," he added, "Légionnaire Bonhomme wishes to say 'Au 'voir' to you. He is off in a few minutes. Go and tell him to hurry up. We march again as soon as we have fed. He is the first stretcher in front of the Tirailleurs' women."
Legionnaire John Bull hurried to the spot. He knew that poor Jacques Bonhomme's number was up. It was a marvel how he had hung on, horribly wounded as he was--shot, speared, and staked, all at once, and all in the abdomen. He had been friendly with Jacques--an educated man and once a gentleman.
A glance showed him that he was too late. The man was delirious and semi-conscious. If he had any message or commission, it would never be put into words now.
The Englishman sat on the ground beside the stretcher and took the hand of the poor wretch. Possibly some sense of sympathy, company, friendship, or support might penetrate to, and comfort, the stricken soul.
After a while the over-bright eyes turned toward him.
"Any message, Jacques, mon ami?" he whispered, stroking the hand he held.
But Jacques Bonhomme talked on in the monotonous way of the fever-smitten, though with a strange consecutiveness. John Bull listened carefully, in the hope that some name, rank, office, or address might be mentioned and give a clue to relatives or the undelivered message or last commission.
. . ."Only five minutes in each year! Morel tells me there are five hundred and twenty-five thousand and six hundred minutes in each year, and I believe him implicitly, for he is the finest mathematical professor the Sorbonne ever had. I believe him implicitly. He is no Classic, but he has good points and can do wonderful things with figures. Wonderful feats! He knows all about things like the Metric System, Decimals, and Vulgar Fractions and similar things of which one hears but never encounters. He can not only add up columns of francs and centimes, such as are found in the bills which tradesmen are fond of writing, even when they have received payment, but he can deal with things like pounds, shillings, and pence; dollars and cents; yen and sabuks; or rupees, annas, and pice, not only with marvellous accuracy, but with incredible rapidity. This makes him an invaluable travelling companion for a Classic who knows none of these things--apart from the fact that he can also find out the times of trains and steamers from railway and shipping guides. It is wonderful to see him seize a book, scan it for a moment, and then say unhesitatingly that a train will leave the Gare de Lyon at a certain hour on a certain day, that it will just catch a ship at Marseilles on the next day, and that this ship will just catch another at Aden, so many days later, and that this one will land you in Japan at a certain hour on a certain day. And yet he is not a bit proud of these things--no prouder than I am of my little metrical translation of the Satires and Odes of Horace into Greek. And he thinks I travel with him for the sake of his delightful company! A man who cannot utter a hackneyed Latin quotation without some horrible false quantity. Poor Morel! . . .
"And this piece of information as to the number of minutes in a year is one of the most useful calculations he ever did on my behalf, except the one he did in answer to my query as to how many waking minutes there are--how many minutes in what one might call an active or waking year. That is to say, counting only the minutes when one is not asleep. He tells me there are three hundred and seventy-two thousand and three hundred waking minutes in the year for a man who averages seven hours sleep a day, or rather night--for he never sleeps in the day. How he knows I cannot tell, but I believe him absolutely, for he is as truthful as he is clever. So now I know that if I subtract five from this last appalling total I can tell how many minutes of the year I spend in thinking of the other five. After arriving at an aggravating variety of results, I again sought the good Morel's help, and he assures me that, subtracting five from the last total with which he furnished me, I have three hundred and seventy-two thousand and two hundred and ninety-five minutes.
"Thus I can now tell you clearly, that I spend three hundred and seventy-two thousand and two hundred and ninety-five minutes of the year in thinking of the other five--the five I spend with Her. . . .
"That is my point--do you understand?
"But although these magnificent figures give me much gratification, they cannot be taken as what Morel calls 'final,' for though during the majority of those minutes I am thinking of the other five consciously, I am only thinking of them subconsciously during the remainder, when I am lecturing, writing Greek hexameters, or reconstructing Greece and Rome for bored students who care for none of these things so long as they pass their absurd examinations--for we have not the spirit of study any more in France, but only the letter, thanks to those same examinations that prohibit thought, research, reading and culture absolutely. Moreover, the figures are also what Morel calls 'vitiated,' by the fact that a vast number of my sleeping moments are also given to dreaming of those five, and dreaming, as any philosopher will tell you, is far better and finer than thinking. Morel stoutly denies this--but that one would expect from so uneducated and uncultured a man. What I want to know is whether you think I might balance the waking moments when I can only think of her subconsciously against the sleeping moments when I am actually dreaming of her, and consider that the total of three hundred and seventy-two thousand and two hundred and ninety-five is approximately correct? The matter is of the first importance to me. I hate figures, as a rule, for they give me a headache, but in this one instance I want them correct. As I am so often told that I must be more scientific, accurate, and exact, I have tried to express myself mathematically and can do no better. To me it seems that I might just as well have said, 'I spend all the year in thinking of five minutes of it'--but I suppose some queer child of the new generation of Frenchmen would at once point out that I spend nearly a third of my time in sleeping, and much of it in working. . . . My head is in a dreadful whirl and muddle about it though. . . .
"Every year she goes to the tiny Breton village of Poldac for one week. I suppose she feels that she must have one week's rest and communion with her own soul if she is to live. On the first day of every July she goes, and her train stops at Pennebecque for five minutes. As you have guessed, I go to Pennebecque every year for that five minutes. It is the longest stop that the train makes. . . . And the setting of the scene is so wonderful, it is worthy to frame such a picture. I would not see her in the dust and noise and bustle of the Gare de l'Ouest, or at any ugly little wayside station. Yes, I go to Pennebecque to see her for five minutes every year. The only other train that passes through that tiny place does so at night. So I arrive over-night and sit on a seat and wait, almost too happy and exalted to breathe. . . .
"I have sat on that seat, for the last night of June, for seven years. And I have striven not to pray that the Marquis might die. And yet would not he be better dead--the poor, lolling-tongued, squint-eyed, half-witted Marquis? Think of that marvel of beauty, grace, goodness, and wit, the Marquise de Montheureux, making herself the nurse, the attendant, the keeper, of a lunatic!
"Yes, but for that one week in the year she is never out of his sight, night or day. If she but turns her back he weeps and sobs aloud. She tends that great, slobbering, dribbling lout, that mindless, soulless clod--no more sentient nor responsive than a hippopotamus--as the most devoted of young mothers tends and nurses her firstborn. . . .
"For one week in the year she lives her own life, and for five minutes in the year I see her. For six months I do nothing but look forward to that five minutes, and for six months again I do nothing but look back upon it.
"The first time, she did not see me, or did not recognize me as the man whom she had seen at the neighbouring chateau of the de Grandcourts--where I was tutor to the young Comte.
"The second time I ventured to bow, having debated the matter for a year, and she bowed and smiled, with the remark that only the other day, the Comtesse de Grandcourt was speaking of me and my good influence over the headstrong and rather wild boy who had been in my charge.
"The next year she spoke to me and commented on the curious coincidence of my being there again. She is of the real and true noblesse, you see, and has the kind, gentle, and unassuming manner of the genuine aristocrat. Noblesse oblige. She was as sweetly, graciously kind to the village curé, to her own servants, or to me as she was to de Grandcourt himself. She was a noble, and her nobility was made patent by her nobleness. It is your bourgeois 'noble' whose nobility has to be advertised by gilt and plush and display and rudeness to 'inferiors.'
"The fourth year she did not remark on the 'coincidence' of my presence at the station. She understood. And she accepted the bunch of roses I took. Oh, the sleepless nights I passed in the agony of that struggle to decide whether to take the roses!
"The year she did not come was rather terrible. I did not know what an eternity could be covered by two years. The bellowing calf of a Marquis was 'ill,' forsooth, and she never left his bedside. . . . Curse him! Had he not even the sense and understanding to see what he was making of her life, and to die like a man?
"Bon Dieu! Surely to die is easy--it is living that is so hard. But no--Monsieur le Marquis de Montheureux could not die. He must go on living, even though he could not wash his own face nor feed himself. . . .
"The sixth year she gave me so beautiful and kind and understanding a smile! She knew that I lived but for that five minutes. How I sang through the next twelve months! She knew. She understood. She smiled at me. Why should I not love her? It did neither her nor anyone else any harm, and it made my life--well--glorious, and gave it all the fineness and fulness that it possessed.
"For I simply did everything as though she were watching me, and as though account were to be rendered to her instead of to God. Was this an offence against Le Bon Dieu? . . .
"Sin? I dare to think for myself in religious matters. And I say that what is absolutely good must be of God--and if it isn't, I can't help it. And I lived as though she were watching me.
"The seventh year she gave me her hand. Had my heart been other than strong I should have died. . . . For twelve months I pondered the possibility of daring to put my lips to it, should she give me her hand again. Whenever she encountered de Grandcourt, he used to bow in the ancient grand manner, sweeping the ground with his hat, as though it were a great mousquetaire headdress, and as she swept him a mock curtsey in return he could kiss her hand. Why should not I? No de Grandcourt could honour her more nor love her as much. . . .
"That eighth year, I, poor fool, had determined that, if she again gave me her hand, I would kiss it. What Emperor then could have the pride and glory of the man who had kissed the hand of the Marquise de Monthereux? Would I, Cæsar Maximilien Raoul de Baillieul, then change with any king on earth?
"The day came, and I sat in the usual place, awaiting her, and picturing her. She would wear, this year, a silken dust-cloak of a lavender tint, and her glorious hair would be uncovered. One hand would be bare, the other gloved in a shade of lavender. I felt certain of these details.
"The train came at last, and yet all too soon. When she had come and gone there would be twelve months to live through, before I might see her again.
"I went to the window of the nearest first-class carriage.
"There she sat alone, and, as I approached, the beautiful slow smile, to me the loveliest thing on earth, warmed her glorious face.
"She was arrayed in lavender-coloured silk, her head was bare and so was her hand. She extended it towards me. With heart beating as though I had just run a race, I stepped to the window--and she was not. The carriage was empty, and as I clung to the handle, a little faint, her maid, dressed in deep mourning, came to a neighbouring window and looked out. . . .
"Madame la Marquise had died of typhoid which had broken out in Montheureux village. She would stay and work among her stricken people. The Marquis had died within twenty-four hours. No, not of the disease. Of grief. He had grasped that she was dead, and that he would never see her again. The maid was on her way to Poldec to arrange about Madame's cottage and property there.
"It appears that I fell there as one dead and lay ill for weeks.
"But no, I must not commit suicide or I might not enter the Heaven where she is . . . the Heaven that our Wise Men decided does not exist, when they turned God out of France. . . . But I must crucify myself in some way or go mad. Physical pain and strife and stress alone can save me.
"I shall enlist in the Foreign Legion. Perhaps I shall earn an honourable death against the enemies of France.
"Oh, Rose of the World. Rosemonde, Rosemonde, Rosemonde--"
"Finished?" quoth Sergeant Baudré, approaching. "Dump him in that rice-mud. He'll be more useful dead than he ever was alive." . . .
A sluggish, oily river with mangrove-swamp banks; a terrible September day with an atmosphere of superheated, poisonous steam; and the two French gunboats, Corail and Opale, carrying a detachment of the French Foreign Legion, part of an expeditionary force entrusted with the task of teaching manners, and an enhanced respect for Madame la République, to Behanzin, King of Dahomey.
The Legionaries standing, squatting, and lying on the painfully hot iron decks, were drenched in perspiration. The light flannel active-service kits, served out to them at Porto Novo, clung wetly to their bodies. From under the big ugly pith helmets of dirty white, dirty white faces showed cadaverous and wan. For a month they had forced their way through the West African jungle, sometimes achieving as much as a mile an hour through the sucking mud of a swamp; sometimes thrusting their stifling, choking way through elephant grass eight to ten feet in height; and again fighting through dense tangled bush with chopper, coupe-coupe, and axe. They had travelled "light," with only rifle and bayonet and one hundred and fifty rounds of ammunition, but even this lightness had been too heavy for some. The more coffee and quinine for the rest! To give variety to the sufferings of fatigue, fever, hunger, thirst, and dysentery, the Dahomeyans frequently attacked in the numerical superiority of a hundred to one. No mean opponents either, with their up-to-date American rifles and batteries of Krupp guns for long range work, and their spears and machetes for the charge.
As usual, the Legion was marking its trail with the generous distribution of the graves of its sons.
And now the VIIth Company had left swamp and jungle for the floating ovens Corail and Opale. Terrific heat, but no sunshine; the "landscape" minatory, terrible; life, the acme and essence of discomfort and misery. Even the Senegalese boatmen seemed affected and depressed.
"Say, John! Is this-yer penny-steamboat trip fer the saloobrity of our healths?" asked the Bucking Bronco, in a husky voice, of his neighbour le Legionnaire Jean Boule or John Bull. The old soldier wiped the sweat from his face with his sleeve.
"I overheard Commandant Faraux telling Colonel Dodds that there is a ford up here somewhere, and that it must be found and seized," he answered wearily. "I expect we're looking for it now."
"Well, I ain't got it. Search me!" said the American. "I allow Ole Man Farrow's got another think comin' if he . . ."--a ragged crash of musketry from the bank a hundred yards distant, and the ironwork of the Opale rang again under a hail of bullets.
In ten seconds the Legionaries were lining the sandbagged bulwarks with loaded rifles at the "ready."
"Oh, the fools--the silly bunch o' boobs!" murmured the Bucking Bronco. "I allow thet's torn it! The pie-faced pikers hev sure wafted the bloom off the little secret."
"Yes," agreed John Bull, "you'd have thought even Behanzin's generals would have had the sense to lie low and not announce themselves until we'd got our column fairly tied up in the middle of the ford." . . .
The roar of Hotchkiss guns and Lebel rifles from the two boats drowned his further remarks, as well as the irregular crashings of the bursts of Dahomeyan musketry. . . .
The debarkation of the VIIth Company was unhindered, the ford seized, and the safe passage of the Expeditionary Force guaranteed, the Dahomeyans having retired.
"Waal!" remarked the Bucking Bronco to his friend as half the VIIth Company moved off next morning, as Advance Guard. "Strike me peculiar ef thet ain't the softest cinch I seen ever. Guess Ole Man Behanzin ain't been to no West Point Academy. They say his best men is women--an' I kin believe it!"
"Amazons," remarked Jean Boule. "I pray we don't come across any. Fancy shooting at women."
"You smile your kind, fatherly smile at 'em, John, an' I allow they'll come an' eat outer yer hand. . . . Are they really fightin'-gals, with roof-garden hats an' shirt-waists, and mittens on their pasterns? . . . Gee-whiz! Guess I'll take a few prisoners an' walk with a proud tail!"
"They're women, all right," was the reply, "and I believe they are as dangerous as dervishes--apart from any question of one's not shooting to kill when they charge. . . . If all I've heard about them is true, chivalry is apt to be a trifle costly."
"Waal, John, as Légionnaires, we ain't habituated to luxury any, and can't afford naw then costly. Ef any black gal lays fer me with an axe--it's a smackin' fer hers."
"Yes--but what are we going to do if an Amazon regiment opens an accurate and steady fire on us with Winchester repeaters and then charges with the bayonet?"
"Burn the trail for Dixie," grinned the American. "I guess we'd hit the high places some, an' roll our tails for Home. Gee-whillikins! Charged by gals!"
"That's all very well," grumbled the Englishman, "but the Legion doesn't run, either from men or from women. If an Amazon regiment charges us, we've got to fight. . . . It would be ghastly."
Even as he spoke the deadly silent forest suddenly gave birth to thousands of black shadows, all moving swiftly and noiselessly, and from all directions, upon the tiny column of the Advance Guard.
With one accord, at some signal, they halted, rested the butts of their rifles on their thighs, fired, and then, howling like devils, charged with great élan, led by a number of tall, muscular women, handsome and finely made.
"Gals!" gasped the American, as the column instinctively halted, faced outwards in two ranks, and poured magazine fire into the dense masses of the charging savages.
"Look at her!" he cried, and pointed to a young woman, who, bare to the waist, and wearing a fez cap, a short blue cotton kilt, and a leather belt and cartridge-cases, came bounding straight toward him. In her right hand she brandished a thick-backed, heavy chopping-sword like a coupe-coupe or machete, and in her left carried a bright new repeating-carbine. Nothing could have been more dashing, courageous, and inspiring than the leading of this Fury, as she rushed straight for the levelled rifles of the Legionaries, waving her men on and yelling mingled words of encouragement, threat, and taunt at them as she strove to bring them to the consummation of the charge.
Her efforts were in vain, however. The Dahomeyan male warrior is not of very heroic stuff, and does his best fighting in a surprised camp, a broken square, or against a scattered line. His métier is the ambush, the rush at dawn, the hacking and hewing hundred-to-one fight in dense jungle where the foe cannot form or charge, the tree-top sniping, the trampling flat of a worn-out enemy by sheer weight of numbers.
Before the steady fire of an unbroken line he generally wilts away, and vanishes shadow-like into the impenetrable depths of his native jungle, to try another surprise, another ambush, another dawn-rush of ten thousand men, at the next opportunity.
As usual, beneath the accurate fire that mowed them down in swathes, the Dahomeyans broke and fled, slowly followed by their Amazon leaders, who shrilly cursed, and fiercely struck at, the retiring faint-hearts.
Just as the "cease-fire" whistle blew, the woman who had been charging at the Bucking Bronco and John Bull (and who had stood screaming at her followers as they halted, faltered, and broke) threw up her arms and fell.
"That weren't me," quoth the Bucking Bronco, "an' I hope it was a dod-gasted accident. She was some gal, that gal. Let's have a look at her if we ain't agoin' to charge nor nawthen."
The officer commanding the Advance Guard was certainly not going to charge. He was only too thankful to have beaten off the sudden and well-executed attack. How marvellously the brutes had materialized from the apparently uninhabited forest, still silent and gloomy as the tomb. But what fools! That force alone, properly handled, and attacking while the column was in the middle of the wide deep ford, might have told a very different story.
"Bugler," called he, "blow the 'alarm' and the 'regimental-call' till your veins crack and your lungs burst. . . . No--turn toward the river, sot, I want the main body to hear. . . . Sergeant-Major, send two of the strongest running back with this." . . .
They were the last words he spoke. The Amazons themselves were charging this time--a whole regiment--and no regiment in this world ever charged with greater dash, courage, violence, and determination. Firing as they came, and utterly disregarding the steady magazine-fire of the Legionaries, they swept down upon them like an avalanche--like cavalry--and burst upon the little line, through it, and over it, like a hailstorm across a wheatfield.
Rushing at Captain Roux, one fired her Spencer carbine into his chest, while another drove a spear into his abdomen. As he fell, a third stooped and deliberately hacked off his head with her chopping-knife. There was no question of "sparing women" as these furies, each as big and strong and well-armed as any Legionary, hacked, hewed, and thrust, or, kneeling a few yards from their victims, gave them the contents of the magazines of their carbines. . . .
While parrying the fierce thrusts of one stalwart virago, John Bull, struck on the head from behind by two assailants at once, fell to the ground, even as his eye had subconsciously taken in and registered upon his brain a picture of his mighty friend swinging his rifle round and round his head by the muzzle, the butt describing a circle within which he stood unhurt as to his body, though apparently shocked in mind, to judge from his roar of "Scat! ye shameless jumpin' Jezebels!"
Without thought of defending himself, the bugler continuously blew the "alarm" and the "regimental call" (in the hope that it might carry back to the main body, which apparently had delayed longer at the ford than had been expected) until he went down with a bullet through his leg and another in his shoulder, two of seven fired at him from a score paces distance by a young Amazon. A minute later, the man rose to his knees and blew with almost undiminished strength, until the same young woman riddled his chest, at point-blank range, with another magazineful.
Recovering consciousness, John Bull saw a gigantic Amazon make a dive at the knees of the Bucking Bronco, ducking beneath the whirling rifle-butt. A moment later he was down, but, instead of being hacked to pieces, was borne away, kicking and cursing, by a dozen powerful women.
Knowing what that meant, he would rather have seen his friend killed before his eyes. . . . As another wave of faintness swept over him, he heard the distant strains of "Tiens! Voilà du boudin"--the March of the Legion, and knew that the buglers of the column were sending the encouraging notes ahead of their straining bodies, as the remainder of the force hurried to the rescue. Poor Bugler Langout's message had carried on the heavy air, which seems to blanket the sound of rifle fire while transmitting that of a whistle, bugle, or war-drum to a surprising distance.
Heavy fire from the debouching troops saved the few survivors of the Advance Guard--but it was not until the whole column had fought a tough action in company squares, that the Amazons and the rallied and reinforced Dahomeyans acknowledged defeat, for that day at any rate, and disappeared shadow-like into the jungle as suddenly as they had come.
John Bull and the assistant-surgeon decided that the butt-end of a carbine had struck the former on the head, and that almost simultaneously a chopping-sword had struck the butt of the carbine while it was in contact with his skull, inasmuch as his head bore no cut, there were splinters of wood in his hair, and a carbine with a hacked stock lay beside him when he was picked up and examined. He had nearly been handed over to the burial-party instead of to the carriers, and, when he realized that the Bucking Bronco had been carried off, he almost wished that this had actually happened. Most horrible stories of the fate of prisoners of the Dahomeyans were current throughout the expeditionary force, though no proofs of their truth had yet materialized.
When a list of the killed, wounded, and missing was made out, it was found that the Sergeant-Major had disappeared also, and one of the survivors remembered seeing him borne off in a surging crowd of Amazons, "like a band of big black ants carrying off an injured wasp," as he graphically described it.
That night John Bull, old Tant de Soif, the Grasshopper, Jan Minnaerts, Black Gaspard, Achille Martel, and one or two more of the escouade to which the Bucking Bronco belonged, volunteered to go out as a scouring-party to reconnoitre for the enemy, and, incidentally, to try to discover some traces of their missing comrade and the sous-officier.
"Let Jean Boule be in charge," said Lieutenant Roberte, commanding the remnants of the VIIth Company, vice Captain Roux, killed in action, "he has some sense, and can use the stars. If you fall into the hands of the enemy, I shall punish you severely--give you all a taste of the crapaudine perhaps. Bonne chance, mes enfants." . . .
* * * * *
"We must turn back, mon ami," said Martel to John Bull at last.
"But yes," agreed old Tant de Soif, "it is useless to throw good meat after bad. . . . They have died their deaths by now--or are being taken to the sacred city of Kana for sacrifice."
"I smell smoke," suddenly said the Grasshopper, wrinkling his delicate nostrils. "Nom de Dieu!" he added, "and burning flesh."
It soon became more than evident that he was right. Either they were approaching the spot where flesh was being burnt, or a faint breeze had sprung up and wafted the foul smell in their direction.
Treading like Dahomeyans themselves, they turned from the jungle track they had discovered, along another that lay plain in the moonlight across a little open glade, and seemed to lead in the direction of the smell. Thousands of bare feet must recently have made the path--the feet of men hurrying along in single file. . . .
* * * * *
Although scarcely recognizable as a human being, the Sergeant-Major, a huge stalwart Alsatian, was still alive.
Steel and fire had been used with remarkable skill, that so much could have been done and the spark of life still kept in the unspeakably tortured, defiled, and mangled body. A score of Amazons were at work upon him.
The Bucking Bronco, stark naked, but apparently uninjured, was bound to a young palm. Either he was merely awaiting his turn and incidentally suffering the ghastly ordeal of seeing the tortures of the Sergeant-Major and enduring the agonies of anticipation, or else he was being reserved as an acceptable offering to King Behanzin and a candidate for the wicker torture-baskets of the sacrificial slaughter-house of Kana.
"A volley when I shout," whispered John Bull, "then a yell and the bayonet."
A few seconds later he was killing women, driving his bayonet into their bodies until the curved hilt struck with a thud. The thuds gave him infinite pleasure--and then he was violently sick. Surprised by the sudden volley, ignorant of the strength of their assailants, and only partly armed, the Amazons broke and scattered into the jungle. While John Bull, with shaking hands, prised at the Bucking Bronco's bonds with his sword-bayonet, old Tant de Soif put a merciful bullet into the brain of the Sergeant-Major and then busied himself about collecting the dismembered fragments of that unfortunate.
"For all the world like picking up an old woman's packages when she has slipped up on a banana-skin," quoth he. He was a quaint old gentleman, a vieux moustache who had seen many queer things in his forty years of assorted service in the Line, the Infanterie de la Marine, and the Legion.
"We daren't stay to bury him," said Martel; "they'll rally and return in a minute."
As the little party retreated at the pas gymnastique, the Bucking Bronco remarked to his friend, panting ahead of him, "Say, John! I allow I'm a what-is-it henceforth--an'-a-dern-sight-more. You know--a Miss-Hog-you-beast."
"A what?"
"A Miss-Hog-you-beast."
"Yes! What some people call a misogynist. I don't blame you!"
The MacSnorrt was on the downward path, and had been for many years. Physically, mentally, and morally he was deteriorating; and as for the other aspects--social, financial, and worldly--he had been Chief Engineer on a Cunarder, and he was now the blackest of the black sheep of the VIIIth Company of the First Battalion of the Legion. From sitting at meals with the passengers in the First Saloon of a great liner, he had come to sitting with assorted blackguards over their tin gamelles of soupe; from drawing hundreds per annum, he had come to drawing a half-penny per day; his brain was failing from lack of use and excess of absinthe and mixed alcoholic filth, his superb health and strength were undermined, and he was becoming a Bad Man.
The history of his fall is told in one short word--Drink; and drink had turned a fine, useful, and honourable man into a degraded ruffian. The man who had thought of fame, wealth, inventions, patents, knighthood--now thought of the successful shikarring of the next drink, or the stealing of the wherewithal to get it. Whether this poor soul were married and the father of a family, I never knew, and did not care to ask, but it is quite probable that he was. Such men usually are. Let us hope he was not. Sober, he was a truculent, morose, and savage ruffian--ashamed of his ashamedness, hating himself and everybody else, dangerous and vile; a bad soldier till the fighting began, and then worth two. Drunk, he was exceedingly amusing, and one caught glimpses of the kindly, witty, and genial original.
* * * * *
The best of soldiers, be he Maréchal or Soldat deuxième classe, as was the MacSnorrt, may be overcome by a combination and alliance of foes, any one of whom he could defeat alone.
As the MacSnorrt endeavoured to make clear to Captain d'Armentières next day, it was merely the conjunction against him of a good dinner, Haiphong, the stupeedity of the Annamese male in wearing a chignon and a petticoat like a wumman, shum-shum, sunstroke, and his own beautiful but ardent disposition, that had been his undoing. With any one of these he could have coped; by their unholy alliance he had been--he freely admitted it--completely defeated.
Captain d'Armentières heard him with courtesy, and awarded him eight days' salle de police and the peloton de chasse with sympathy.
He had known of similar fortuitous concatenations of adverse circumstance before in connection with le Legionnaire MacSnorrt.
It was the Captain's ordonnance, one Jean Boule, who had, luckily for that reveller, discovered the MacSnortt and encompassed his capture by a strong picket.
Passing a pagoda one night, he had heard, uplifted in monologue, a rich voice whose accents, or accent, he had heard before, that of the MacSnorrt, the Bad Man of the VIIIth Company, recently arrived in a draft from Sidibel-Abbès to reinforce the VIIth after certain painful dealings with the Pavillons Noirs, the "pirates" of the Yen Thé.
Mingled with, but far from subduing the vinous voice and hiccups of the MacSnorrt, were the angry murmurings, quick whispers, and the lisping and clicking voices of a native Annamese and Chinese crowd.
Was the fool interfering with those so-tender "religious susceptibilities," and intruding upon priests and their flock in search of moral consolation and fortification? He had no business in there at all.
Following the wall and rounding a corner, Jean Boule came to a gate. Pushing it open gently, he looked in.
Reclining majestically upon the ground, his back against the wall, was the MacSnorrt. In his vast left paw was a bottle of shum-shum, the deadly, maddening spirit distilled from rice. Clasped by his mighty right arm to his colossal bosom, the MacSnorrt held--a doi or Sergeant of Tirailleurs Tonkinois! 1
1 Known as Les Jeunes Filles to the Legion, by reason of their long hair.
The little man, his lacquered hat, with its red bonnet-strings on one side, his cignon in grave disarray, looked even more like a devil than was his normal wont, as he struggled violently to escape from his degrading and undignified situation.
It was clear that, if the Annamese could get at his bayonet, there would be a vacancy at the head of the clan of MacSnorrt and at the tail of the VIIIth Company of the Legion.
"Lie ye still, lassie," adjured the gigantic Legionary, as his captive struggled again vainly, for the great right arm was not only round his waist, but round both his arms, and he could only pick at the handle of his bayonet with ineffectual finger-tips.
"Lie ye still, ye wee prood besom, or I'll e'en tak' ane o' the ither lasses to ma boosom," threatened the MacSnorrt, but softened the apparent harshness of the threat by a warm lingering kiss upon the yellow cheek of the murderously savage soldier.
He then applied the shum-shum bottle to his lips, poured a libation of the crude and poisonous spirit, and then frankly explained to his captive that he had not selected "her" from among the other "sonsie lassies" by reason of any superior beauty, but simply because he liked her saucy fancy-dress--quite like a vivaandière, and he had always had a tender spot in his hearrt o' hearrts for a vivaandière.
The enraged and half-demented Sergeant screamed to the little crowd of priests, loafers, coolies and Haiphong citizens to knife the foreign devil, or, taking his bayonet, to drive it in under his ear. . . . The crowd allowed "I dare not" to wait upon "I would"--for the moment.
"Aye! . . . Oo-aye! It's not Jock MacSnorrt that could reseest the blaandishments o' onny little deevil o' a vivaandière," confessed the aged roué. . . . "It was for the sake o' the vivaandières I joined the French airrmy, ye'll ken--when I was an innocent slip o' a laddie. . . . Romaantic! . . .
"Aye--an' they're mostly fat auld runts wi' twa chins," he added, with a sudden fall to pessimism and confession of disillusionment.
"'Tis the ruin o' the British Airrmy, ye'll ken," he confided to the ugly crowd that gradually closed in around him, "that they hae no vivaandières to comfort the puir laddies. . . . Hae the Gorrdons onny vivaandières, I'll ask ye? The Seaforrths? The Caamerons? The Heelan' Light Infantry? The Royal Scots? . . . They hanna. It a' comes o' such matters being in the han's o' the Southrons--the drunken an' lasceevious deils. Look at the Navy. . . . Is there a ship o' them a'--fra' battleship to river gunboat--that has a vivaandière, I'm speirin' ye, lassie? There isna. . . . An' theenk o' the graan' worrk they could do for the puir wounded--instead o' they bluidy-minded, sick-bay orrderly deevils!
"Losh, maan! Contemplate it!
"Eh, Wooman in oor 'oors o' ease
A settin' lightly on oor knees. . . .
"Lie still, ye haverin', snoot-cockin' besom--an' I'll tell ye a' aboot the horrors o' a naval engagement--an' I seen hunnerds. I'll tell ye a' aboot the warrst o' the lot--when I lossed ma guid right arrm. Then conseeder what a deeference ane bonnie vivaandière lassie might ha' made . . ." A violent struggle from the insanely incensed and ferocious doi.
"Wull ye bide quiet, ma bonnie wean? Or shall I send ye awa' oot into the cauld warrld to airrn yere ain leevin'? Ye're awfu' sma' for sic a fate, ye'll ken, ma bairnie! An' this is no Sauchiehall Street, I'm telling ye. . . . Did ye see the wee-bit gunboats we came in, the morrn? Well, imaagine ane o' they ten times increased and multiplied, an', in fact, made a hantle bigger. I sairved in ane o' yon, but I shall not disclose in what capaacity--save an' except that it was honourable to me on the ane side an' to her Majesty on the ither. . . . Wull ye bide quiet like a respeckitable tai-tai or I'll hae ye awa'. . . .
"Eh! maan, a naval engagement's graand. Watter everywheer! On board, I mean. Everywheer. Gaallons o' it." . . .
"May a cat tread on your heart!" hissed the struggling doi. "May dragons tear you! May the bellies of mudfish be your grave! May you be cast on a Mountain of Knives." . . .
"What did ye say, lassie? Why do they want watter on booarrd? To hide the awfu' things that fall aboot! Eyes, arrms, legs, noses, ears, toes, fingers--ye wouldna hae them lying there plain for the eye o' man to see? No! Gaallons o' watter. . . ."
"Bide ye quiet, kuniang, or ye won't be a kuniang much longer, I'm thinkin'. Aye! Dozens o' gaallons o' watter. Everywheer. Hoses playin' a' aboot the plaace. Pumps squirrtin' it. Inches o' it on the decks. An' blood! Ma certie! Lassie--ye'd never believe. Hunnerds o' gaallons o' watter, an' as the shells burrst a' aroond--what falls into the watter in a pairrfect hail?" . . .
"Devils draw your entrails!" panted the writhing doi.
"Eh? Bullets, d'ye say? That's wheer ye're wrang, lassie. Na! Na!--Eyes, arrms, legs, noses, ears, toes, fingers! Ye'd scarcely credit it. An' thousands o' gaallons o' watter! Juist to hide the awfu' sichts and sounds. . . . There'll be a gun-team working their gun in watter. Thousan's o' gaallons o' watter. Feet deep. An' a maan wull stoop to fish up a shell for the gun--an' what'll he bring up belike?"
"Be the graves of your ancestors torn open by pariah dogs and their bones devoured!" cursed the Sergeant, getting one arm free at last.
"Bring up a shell, d'ye say, ma wean? More likely an eye or an arrm or a leg, or a nose or an ear or a toe or a finger frae beneath that fearfu' flood. . . . Oo-aye! Meelions o' gaallons o' water! Feet deep. An' the bed o' that awfu' sea, a wrack o' spare-parts o' the human forrm divine! Meelions o' gaallons o' watter. Yarrds deep on the decks. They always hae it the like o' that in a naval engagement. Aye--I seen hunnerds . . ." and the doi had got at his bayonet at last. Then the bonze struck heavy blows upon the big bell hanging near in its bamboo-frame support, and the crowd closed in. If the doi struck, they would hack and tear this foreign devil to pieces.
With a weeeep of steel on steel the bayonet cleared the scabbard and the doi struck at his captor's throat as John Bull sprang forward. But the sound of the drawing of the bayonet had an extraordinary effect on the MacSnorrt--and it was with the weapon held only in his left hand that the doi struck--and missed. Seizing him by the throat with both huge hands the Légionnaire scrambled to his feet and used him as a battering-ram in his headlong roaring drive at the closing knife-drawing crowd.
With a yell of "Ye doomed dirrty Jael!" he wrenched the bayonet from the little Annamese and flung him headlong as the crowd gave back.
John Bull sprang to his side, and the two in a whirling, punching, struggling plunge fought their way to the gate, burst through it--and were promptly arrested by the picket, opportunely passing.
With these new enemies the MacSnorrt did further battle, until a tap on the head from a Gras rifle in the skilful hands of Sergeant Legros brought him to that state in which he was perhaps best--unconsciousness.
We were heavy sportsmen (à l'Anglaise) at Bellevue at that time. Not only did we lay out a race-course, but we imported hounds and performed the Chasse au renard. We got up point-to-point races and paper-chases. There were actually Ladies' races, and some folk went so far as to talk about pig-sticking.
"Of course, Madame Merlonorot will ride when she comes out to Algeria?" asked Madame Paës.
"Dieu! Rather!" replied Colonel Merlonorot of the Zouaves. "I am on the look-out for a good thing for her now. She wants all the equine perfections embodied in one Arab pony. Won't keep a string. . . . Too much bother. . . . Must have won a good race or two, must have been hunted by a lady, must hack quietly in both saddles, must trap, and be trusted to take no exception to camels, Arab music, whirling dervishes, or fireworks. Also he must make the promenade in the governess-cart upon occasion! What?"
"It's a far cry from the race-course to the governess-cart, isn't it?" inquired Madame Paës.
"Yes. But she'll expect me to produce all that in the next month--and not to spend more than about three thousand francs! . . . Let's know if you hear of anything that might meet most of the requirements--and available within the month, will you, dear Madame? Must be a racer, though--and that limits the field when you're looking for a hack. . . . She's great on Ladies' Point-to-Points, Hunt-races, Chasse au renard, and everything you can do on a horse. She would play le polo and would pursue the pig with a spear if I would consent!"
"I will remember, Colonel--and I have an idea. . . . Three thousand francs for a pony that meets all the specifications?"
"About that, and a thousand thanks. Must be young, thoroughbred, and something to look at--and be vetted sound all over, of course." . . .
Three thousand francs! It would mean Home this year instead of next. Paris in Spring! It would mean avoiding the awful prostrating heat of la canicule for the babies--neither of them robust, both of them showing the signs of French babyhood kept too long in Africa's forcing-house. It might mean life to one or both of them, especially with the usual cholera, smallpox, typhoid, and dysentery epidemics about, as they grew weaker. And Guillaume needed his long-overdue leave badly. He was overworked, run down, ill, and his temper--never very good--was getting unbearable. Fancy having leave and being too poor to take it! What a shame it was that the condition of the majority of married junior officers of the XIXth Army Corps should be one of cruel grinding poverty, pitiful shifts to keep up appearances, and a weary, heart-breaking struggle to make ends meet. Well, one must "drag the lengthening chain" and, having once clasped it on, must take the consequences. One can't start life afresh in France at thirty odd--and, well, one can always hope, or nearly always. And one might win a prize in the Lottery. (Think of it! One's chief hope for a brighter future, a chance of winning a prize in the Lottery!) . . . Three thousand francs!
But young Belzébuth had never run a race in his life and never taken part in the Chasse au renard nor the pursuit of the spear-threatened pig, unless, perhaps, when he had had an English master in Maroc. Still, he was a real picture, was rising seven, sound as a bell, quiet as a mouse, and undoubtedly thoroughbred.
He hacked in both saddles and was a fast and steady trapper--and took the babies for an airing daily. Certainly he had a turn of speed--and there was simply no tiring him.
He would take Guillaume (a very bad and nervous rider) for a ride in the morning, and in the trap to the barracks after breakfast. He would bring him home to lunch, and then take the babies for their drive in the evening.
Sometimes he would finish up the day by taking the trap to a distant villa when a dinner-party was toward. And when Guillaume was away on manœuvres or marches, Madame Paës, horse-woman born and bred, got her only riding.
Three thousand francs! And Guillaume had bought him for two hundred francs when Lieutenant d'Amienville--who ought not to be allowed to keep a pig or a pariah dog, much less a horse--went away. Starved, neglected, and dying for want of work, Belzébuth had looked a bad bargain at 200 fcs. A man ought not to go unprosecuted who buys a horse and uses a motor-car, leaving the horse to the mercy of a rascally homard who feeds it on offal and never takes it out of the stall. Her heart had ached when she had seen the staring coat, blear eye, and overgrown hoofs of the walking skeleton that Lieutenant d'Amienville swore had cost him, raw, a couple of thousand francs. She could have hung her sun-hat on him in a dozen places. But she knew a good horse when she saw one. Had not her father run his own horses at Longchamps and Auteuil before he went bankrupt?
And, under her care, Belzébuth had soon changed into a picture of bright, sleek, healthy happiness, and had served them exceedingly well.
Could she make him worth three thousand francs before Guillaume returned from manœuvres, sell him to Colonel Merlonorot (her father's old comrade), and put the money into Guillaume's hand, saying, "Book the passages for Marseilles to-morrow, mon ange."
Could she? For, the utmost screwing and scraping, the most optimistic view of the saleable value of the few goods and chattels, the estimating the cheapest and nastiest journey to Paris--left a gaping chasm of a good thousand francs between hope and realization of a holiday in La Ville Lumière. No, nothing could bridge it--unless Belzébuth would fetch three thousand francs instead of the three or four hundred they had expected. Five hundred was the highest Guillaume had ever dreamed of--and that was after a cheery dinner at some Mess and a little champagne.
Even five hundred would be a profit of a hundred and fifty per cent. she believed.
Yes--four hundred would be cent. per cent., and five would be half as much again.
What would three thousand be on two hundred? Fifteen per cent.? No, of course not. Fifteen hundred per cent.? It sounded impossible.
And of course it was impossible.
Still--she would add five pounds of avoine daily to Belzébuth's blé and son, and start training him while Guillaume was away. She would join the club of the Chasse au renard at once, and she would enter for the Ladies' Race in the Desert Point-to-Point, which would be run just three weeks hence at Bellevue.
But what a terrible plunge! A hundred francs to the cercle, and Heaven alone knew what oats were fetching. Or perhaps she could hunt three or four times only, and pay a small donation or something? And she could certainly, avoid getting the Beaune that Médecin-Major Parme had ordered her to take, since she had had malarial fever, and use the money for oats. But what a speculation! It is an ill-wind that blows no good at all--the fever had reduced her weight, and she could ride at about seven stone now.
But what would Guillaume say of the wasted money--if she failed? Well, it wouldn't be all waste, for Belzébuth's value would go up, in any case, if she hunted him well and he got a place in the Point-to-Point.
The proverbs say that where there is a will there is a way, and that Heaven helps those that help themselves.
She would simply live to sell Belzébuth to dear rich old Colonel Merlonorot for three thousand francs, as a racer, hunter, hack in both saddles, bright trapper, and confidential nursery-pony! For the next month she would give mind, soul, and body to winning the Desert Point-to-Point. . . .
* * * * *
Belzébuth was taken for a long quiet ride next morning, and for another in the evening, and his mistress personally superintended his feed and toilet.
Next day he was introduced to a new and glorious place where the going was beautiful and you went straight ahead between railings, with plenty of room and no obstacles.
He took his furlong burst on the race-course at a good pace, and improved daily at two, three, and four furlongs.
Madame Paës' notions of training were original, but based on the sound principle, "Train for what you have to do by repeatedly doing it--and work up gradually to the first doing."
After a week Belzébuth was doing his mile on the racecourse and doing it uncommon well (as one or two observers noted). Also he went down the lane of jumps cleverly and willingly, beautifully schooled.
One morning, Colonel Merlonorot noticed Madame Paës at the meet, on a very likely-looking bay Arab--good in the legs, well ribbed up, high in the withers, and with a blood look about him. ("He liked the look of that beast. Nom d'un pipe, he did!")
Madame Paës had not hunted since she had scrambled about with the North Devons in Angleterre--a long-legged, long-haired Diana of fourteen (at a Devonshire school) on a fat pony.
She was now a tiny, slim, pale, big-eyed Diana of twenty-four--and as good as a jockey.
But she looked as though she had been too long in Exile (which was exactly the case), and fitter for a deck-chair on a homeward-bound liner than for a saddle in the hunting-field. . . .
When would they get off? How would Belzébuth behave? Would he belie his nursery mildness and go fou when it was a case of full cry and all away? Would the unwonted oats and the rousing on the race-course and over the jumps react unfavourably now for the weak-backed, weary rider? He was certain to be méchant, and might buck or bolt. Would trembling hands and aching arms be unable to hold him? How her back ached, too! . . . Dear old Belzébuth, be good! It's for the babies and Guillaume. . . . God knew she'd sooner be in bed than in the midst of this gay throng of strong and happy men and women, well-content, well-clad, well-fed. . . .
Well-fed! A melancholy fact. Madame Paës, wife of a French commissioned officer, was not well fed. A woman of the unselfish sort does not buy costly tonic-foods, dainties, and wines, and eat the money that is sorely needed for other things. For plain food she had no appetite. To people who have been brought up in a chateau atmosphere, an income--which to ci-devant dwellers in Montmartre or the bourgeois suburbs is wealth--may be degrading poverty.
The Paës had expenses which it was due to their honour and proper pride to have--and which are not due to the honour and proper pride of the bourgeoisie. . . . And these expenses and the health of Guillaume and the babies came before food and clothes for Madame Paës, in Madame Paës' opinion.
* * * * *
A note of music from the clump of jungle that had swallowed up the hounds. A crash of the grand wild music. A line! Hounds are off and the first "run" is on.
Belzébuth commenced by a series of bounds, the outcome of a high and joyous heart, good feeding, and good condition. He felt a touch of the curb, arched his back in protest and went along at a smart canter, a vision of dainty horse-flesh.
The jackal got into a vineyard, was put out again, and had to make for open country.
It was fine going, and Madame Paës let Belzébuth go. He went--and in five minutes the first rider behind the Master was Madame Paës, and she was holding Belzébuth in, or he would have passed the Master's big Syrian-Barb who was doing his possible under Colonel de Longueville's fifteen stone.
When the end came, Madame Paës was in at the death, lengths ahead of the second arrival, and minutes ahead of the field. Belzébuth had hardly turned a hair, and the Master presented the rider with the brush and a compliment. Madame Paës took her pony home, the while the field jogged on to the next likely cactus covert.
In another week Belzébuth was doing two kilometres on the race-course, morning and evening.
At the next meet, a very long run (twenty-two kilometres, the Master said) was finished by a field of four arriving thus: the Master and Madame Paës together; Captain Dutoit of the Spahis, seconds later; fourth man, Major Bruil of the Chasseurs d'Afrique, minutes later. Rest nowhere--and strung out for miles. Belzébuth had been held, while the other horses had been spurred.
Belzébuth hunted twice more, and the hunt-correspondent of the "Depêche Algérienne" singled him out for high praise.
Madame Paës dropped race-course practice and hunting, and let him do exercise walks in the compound on one day, and a point-to-point run on another.
Riding out alone to some scrubby, sandy jungle, she would endeavour to estimate a two-kilometre distance, note a clump of palms, a tree, a hut, a hillock, and other natural landmarks, and then ride from one to the other at Belzébuth's best speed.
Once she had a narrow escape of settling the question of Belzébuth's value, and all other values, finally. Emerging at a furious gallop from a cactus-strewn area, in which pace could only be maintained and disaster avoided by skilful "bending," she came upon a beautiful smooth patch with a gentle rise ending in--a wadi or gully, thirty feet deep and fifty wide. She realized the fact in time to bring Belzébuth round in a curve that missed the precipice by inches.
On the Wednesday before the Saturday on which the race would be run, Madame Paës took Belzébuth out for his last training gallop. In the middle of it she put him at a terrasse, a "bund," or low earthen embankment, round what had once been a cultivated field.
The three-foot banks Belzébuth preferred to clear. The four-foot variety he liked to treat as on-and-offs--alighting on the two-foot top and leaving it like a bird.
This particular bank was a delusion and a snare.
Though fair-seeming to the eye on Madame Paës' side of it, on the other it was eroded, crumbling, beetling.
Belzébuth landed beautifully on the top--and horse and rider went down in a cloud of dust and an avalanche of clods and stones.
The horse turned a complete somersault across the woman.
But the flood that had caused the erosion had made some amends by scooping a channel at the base of the undermined bank, and instead of breaking every bone in Madame Paës' body and crushing her chest, Belzébuth's weight forced her into this channel and rested on its sides.
He arose and stood steady as a troop-horse.
His mistress lay still and white.
Soon she stirred, sat up--and straightened her tricorne hat. Then, too shaken to stand, sick and faint, giddy and stunned, not knowing whether she was seriously injured, she crawled to Belzébuth and examined his knees.
"Oh! Thank God!" she whispered, on finding that, instead of being broken as she had expected, they were unmarked.
What did her own injuries matter so long as Belzébuth's knees were right?
A blemish there--and two hundred francs was his price.
An hour later, Madame Paës, looking like death on a bay horse, rode into the compound of her villa and went straight to bed.
Next day she could not move.
On the Friday she was better, but unable to get up.
On Saturday she would leave her bed and, if necessary, be carried downstairs, driven to the starting-point, and lifted on to Belzébuth.
Who could ride him for her at seven stone--and ride him as she would? Nobody.
All Bellevue was en route for the scene of the famous Bellevue Point-to-Point races, consisting of team-races for horses, another for ponies, a handicap, and an open race for quadrupeds of any size and bipeds of any weight.
Then came the Ladies' Point-to-Point, over two and a half kilometres of fairly good course and a few jumps.
The ordinary course was a stiff one, and so arranged that a really bold and resolute rider could shorten the distance on the average man by taking wadis, and the other "places" that discretion would ride round.
The Ladies' Course included nothing that gave the stout heart and strong seat a marked advantage. So much the worse for Madame Paës, who was out, not so much to win a race and glory, as to win health and happiness, possibly life itself, for her children and husband.
A large crowd, on horseback for the most part, surrounded the tents (where the officers of the Chasseurs d'Afrique were "At Home"), the starting-point, and neighbouring winning-post.
Madame Paës lay in a long chair, with closed eyes--while the men's four races were run--limp, relaxed, and weary to death.
Oh, for a cushion to put under her weak and aching back!--and oh, for a petit verre of eau de vie to give her heart and strength! But her idolized Guillaume (a prig of the first water and petty domestic tyrant) did not "approve" of alcohol for ladies. There were so many things of which Guillaume did not "approve" for other people, though he appeared to approve of most things for Guillaume.
At last! The bell for the Ladies' Point-to-Point, the most popular and famous race in the Colony.
Madame Paës mounted Belzébuth and walked him to the starting-point.
Nine competitors.
Colonel Lebrun's wife on the pride of the Chasseurs (but a heavy, bumping, mouth-sawing rider who would spoil any horse's chance).
Madame Maxin on a characterless, unreliable racer.
Little Angélique Dandin, on her brother's one and only pony.
Madame Malherbe, cool, quiet, neat, and businesslike, on a light and dainty black mare with slender legs but powerful quarters.
Major Parme's wife on the best horse that her money could buy--but a woman who thought far more of hat, habit, and figure than of seat and hands.
Madame Deville, riding (astride) her husband's charger and intending to win if spur and quirt would do it.
Colonel de Longueville's wife, a fine horsewoman, handsome, smart, and clever, on the pick of her husband's racing-stable. And a couple of quidnuncs.
A bad field to beat.
Betting was on Madame Maxin if her horse "behaved." If he didn't, Madame de Longueville must win in a common canter.
Strangers liked the look of Madame Malherbe, but local wisdom knew her mare couldn't live with the two other.
General Blanc, starter, drew the attention of the ladies to a pair of red flags half a kilometre away, a pair of blue ones to the right of these and half a kilometre from them, another pair of red to the right of the "field," and a pair of white, at present behind their backs and some three furlongs distant.
"You must pass between the red flags, then between the blue, then the red, and lastly between the white, and finish here," said he. "There is nothing serious in the way of ditch or wall. Pick your own route--and any competitor not passing between the flags is, of course, disqualified."
A silly question from Madame Lebrun--politely answered.
All ready? . . . The flag falls.
Madame Paës thanked Heaven they were away at last.
A hundred yards from the starting-point is a brushwood jump which must be taken--or a large patch of dense cactus-jungle skirted to the left or right.
Should she try and take it first of all?
She hated jumping in company. Yes. A flick told Belzébuth he might stretch himself for a bit, and he cleared the jump ten lengths ahead of the next horse.
"Nom de Dieu! It's an 'outsider's year,'" said General Blanc. "Bar accidents, that's the winner. Who is she?"
Madame Lebrun's horse--with a round dozen stone hanging on his mouth--refused; the lady and the animal parted company, and the subsequent proceedings interested them no more.
Madame Parme elected to skirt the jungle, and was out of the race from that moment.
A quidnunc took alarm at the pace and pulled with all her strength.
The virtueless and evil-reputed racer drew level with Belzébuth, Madame Maxin spurring, and Madame de Longueville passed both.
Madame Paës was holding Belzébuth in from the moment he had cleared the first jump.
Madame Deville began flogging, like a jockey, in the first quarter-mile of the race, and passed Madame de Longueville with a spurt. Shortly after she took fifth place and kept it. . . .
Between the first flags passed Madame de Longueville with the wicked racer at her girth and Belzébuth at her tail, Madame Malherbe a dozen lengths behind, and Madame Deville thirty.
Angélique Dandin came later in the day, having lost her way. Neither quidnunc continued her wild career to this point. . . .
Gradually the distance between the leading three and the following two lengthened--and, for a kilometre, Madame Paës, Madame de Longueville, and Madame Maxin ran neck and neck.
Suddenly the bad-charactered racer took a line of his own, missed the next flags by a few metres, and bolted into the desert. At the second flags, Madame de Longueville led, Belzébuth consenting--or rather, being made, to consent; Madame Malherbe, creeping up, passed the flags three lengths behind, and Angélique Dandin, catching Madame Deville, led her through, a score lengths in rear. . . .
Madame Paës was filled with hope.
Should she let Belzébuth out yet? No, not till the last flags--if she could live so long--if her heart would beat instead of stabbing--if her brain would not reel so--if the blue mist would clear from her eyes.
(Those who had climbed to points of vantage shouted that Madame de Longueville would win in a walk--had led from the start--was going strong--except for that dark horse which seemed to manage to hang on. . . .)
A fairish jump ahead--should she pass Madame de Longueville? No, let her take it first, and let Belzébuth save himself for the three-furlong run home.
At the last flags Madame de Longueville led by twenty lengths, Madame Paës second, Madame Malherbe third, Angélique Dandin a neck behind, and Madame Deville, still flogging, a safe fifth.
And then Madame Paës gave Belzébuth a sharp flick, raised her bridle hand, and called to him.
The roar of applause and welcome to Madame de Longueville died down with curious suddenness as Belzébuth sprang forward, passed Madame de Longueville's lathered grey Arab as though he were standing, forged rapidly and steadily ahead, and, finishing in a quiet canter, won the race by a good furlong. Madame Paës reeled in the saddle and fell heavily into the arms of Colonel Merlonorot, who came forward to help her to dismount.
"Splendid! Splendid!" said he. "Mon Dieu! If I hadn't just bought my wife a horse, I'd ask if that pony of yours is for sale. You should run him at Longchamps!"
. . . "If I hadn't just bought my wife a horse". . . what was he saying? "If I hadn't just bought my wife a horse, I'd ask if that pony of yours is for sale." . . .
Then it was all for nothing--and money wasted!
Madame Paës fainted quietly and privately in a comfortable chair at the back of the empty reception-tent of the Spahis.
Colonel Merlonorot drove her home in his uncomfortable high dogcart--(quite à l'Anglaise).
Just time to change and rest before Guillaume arrived. . . .
He burst into her room, looking fagged, white, and weary--and his greeting, after five weeks' absence, was--
"What on earth have you been doing with my horse? It's as lame as a tree, and the valet has got its near fore in a bucket of hot water. . . . It's a shame, I say. . . . The only horse I have got, and you can't take a little care of it! What am I to do to-morrow? I suppose it doesn't trouble you that I must cycle to barracks in the sun? . . . Peste! . . . Nom d'un Nom! . . ." and much more.
Poor Guillaume! He was so overworked and ill--but she wept bitterly, and, lying awake all night, wished she were dead. But a note was handed in at breakfast, next morning, from Colonel de Longueville, which ran:
"DEAR MADAME,
"I should like to offer my very hearty congratulations on your, and your pony's performance yesterday, and to ask whether your husband would take 4,000 fcs. for him.
"I gave that for the pony that Belzébuth left standing yesterday--so it's not a very brilliant offer. I should train him for bigger things.
"With my most distinguished regards and compliments,
"HENRI DE LONGUEVILLE,
"Colonel."
Madame Paës, being very weak and tired, wept again.
Ex-No. 32867, Soldat première classe, shuffled out of the main gate of the barracks of the First Battalion of La Legion Étrangère at Sidi-bel-Abbès for the last time, and without a farewell glance at that hideous yellow building. He had once been Geoffry Brabazon-Howard, Esquire, of St. James's Street and the United Service Club, but no one would have thought it of the stooping, decrepit creature in the ill-fitting blue suit of ready-made (and very badly made) mufti, the tam-o'-shanter cap and blue scarf, from the fourrier-sergents store. He looked more like a Basque bear-leader whose bear has been impounded, or an Italian organ-grinder who has had to pawn his organ--save that the rather vacant eye in the leathern face was grey and the hair, beneath the beret, of a Northern fairness. A careful observer (such as a mother or wife, had he had one to observe him) would have noticed that his hands shook like those of an old man, that his eyes were heavy and blood-shot, as though from sleeplessness, and that his legs did not appear to be completely under control. A casual passer-by might have supposed him to be slightly drunk, or recovering from a drunken bout.
He had that day received his discharge from the Legion, his bonus as holder of the médaille and croix, his papers and travelling-warrant to any place in France, the blessing of his Captain, and the cheery assurance of Médecin-Major Parme that he was suffering from cerebro-spinal sclerosis, and would gradually but surely develop into a paralysed lunatic.
Certainly he felt very ill. He was in no great pain, and he regretted the fact. He would far rather have felt the acutest pain than the strange sensation that there was a semi-opaque veil between himself and his fellow-men, that he lived quite alone and unapproachable in a curious cloud, and that, although he slept but little, he lived in a dream. He was also much distressed by the feeling that his hands were as large and thick as boxing-gloves, that his feet had soles of thick felt, and that he had fourmis (pins-and-needles) in his legs. He would gladly have exchanged the terrible feeling of weakness (and imminent collapse) in the small of his back for any kind of pain. And, above all things, he wanted rest. Not sleep! Heaven forbid. Sleep was the portal of a Hell unnameable and unimaginable, and the worst of it was that insomnia led to the very same place, and one lived on the horns of a dilemma. If one did things to keep oneself awake, they either lost their efficacy and one slept (and fell into Hell) or one got insomnia (and crawled there with racking, bursting head and eyes that burnt the brain).
Rest! That was it. Well--he had done his five years in the Legion and got his discharge. Why shouldn't he rest? He would rest forthwith, before he set out upon his Quest, the last undertaking of his life.
He sat down on the pavé in the shade of the Spahis' barracks and leant against the wall. In five seconds he was asleep.
Later, two gens d'armes passed. One turned back and kicked him. "Get out of this," said he tersely.
Ex-No. 32867 of the Premiere Legion Étrangère staggered to his feet with what speed he might.
"I beg your pardon," said he in English. "I am afraid . . ." and then he realized who and what and where he was.
Mechanically he walked back to barracks and made to enter the great main gate. The sentry stopped him, and the Sergeant of the Guard came up.
"By no means, verminous pékin," 1 quoth Sergeant Legros. "Is this a doss-house for every dirty tramp of a broken-down pékin that chooses to enter and defile it?" and he ordered the sentry to fling the thing out. "But that a French bayonet must not be used as a stable-fork, I would . . ." he began again, but Ex-No. 32867 perceived that this was not the place of Rest, and shuffled away again.
1 Pékin = civilian.
Sergeant Legros spat after him. If there was one thing he hated more than a Legionary, it was a time-expired man, a vile dog who had survived his treatment and escaped his clutches. . . .
Ex-No. 32867 passed along the barrack wall, his eyes staring vaguely ahead. If he might not sit on the ground and could not get back to his chambrée and cot, where could he go for rest? He could not set forth upon his Quest until he had rested. His back was too near the breaking-point, his knees too weak, his feet too uncertain. There were seats in the gardens by the Porte de Tlemçen, if he could get so far. But in the Place Sadi Carnot he suddenly found that he had sat down. Well--he would. . . . He fell asleep at once. . . .
The gendarme seemed very suspicious, but that is only natural in a gendarme. Yes--the papers were apparently in order, but he would do well to remember that the gendarme had his eye upon him. He could go, this time--so, Marche!--and sit down no more for a siesta in the middle of the road. . . .
Where was it he had been going for a rest? . . . A bright idea--Carmelita's! She would let him rest, and, if not too busy, would see that he did not fall asleep and go to Hell. . . .
"Bon jour, mon ami!" cried Carmelita, as he entered the little Café de la Légion. "Che cosa posse offrirve? Seet daown. What you drink?"
Ex-No. 32867 raised his beret, bowed, smiled, and fell asleep across a table. Carmelita raised puzzled brows. Drunk at this time of day? She pulled him backward on to the wooden bench, untied his scarf, and, going to her room behind the bar, returned with an old cushion which she thrust beneath his head. He at once sat up, thanked her politely, and walked out of the café.
"Eh! Madonna! These English," shrugged Carmelita, and resumed her work. If one stopped to notice the eccentricities of every half-witted Légionnaire, one might spend one's life at it. . . .
Ex-No. 32867 strolled slowly along to the railway-station, showed his papers to the Sergeant of the Guard on duty there, sat him down, and went to sleep. Five minutes later he arose, approached the ticket-office, tried hard for a minute to penetrate the half-opaque veil that hung between him and his fellow-men, and then sat down beneath the guichet and went to sleep. . . .
The station-master was doing his best to make it clear that he hated filth, dust, dead leaves, stray pariah dogs, discharged Legionaries, and similar kinds of offal to remain unswept from the clean floor of his station.
The awakened man peered hard through the half-opaque veil that hung between him and the great man, made a mighty effort of concentration, and then said quite distinctly:
"I want a third single to Oran. I am starting on my Quest, after waiting five years."
"Then wait another five hours, Mr. Discharged Legionary," said the functionary, "and come again at 9.20 for your third single to Oran--if you are not too drunk. Meanwhile, you cannot sleep here, unless it is in the permanent-way with your ugly neck across a rail."
The time-expired considered this.
"No, I go on a Quest," said he, and the station-master, with a gesture of a spatulate thumb in the direction of the door, indicated that the sooner the son of a camel commenced it the better for all concerned.
He was an unsympathetic person--but then he was held responsible when unconsidered trifles of Government property were stolen from the station precincts. And it is well known that a Legionary will steal the wall-paper from your wall while your back is turned, cut it up small, and try to sell it back to you as postage-stamps as soon as darkness sets in.
Ex-No. 32867 got to his feet once more, marched mechanically to barracks, was somewhat roughly handled by the guard at the order of Sergeant Legros, and, having staunched the bleeding from his nose, split lip, and cut cheek with the lining of his beret, made his way to the Café de la Légion. Entering, he bowed to Carmelita with a dignified flourish of his pulpy beret, fell at full length on the floor, and went to sleep.
"Queer, how differently drink takes different people," mused Carmelita, as she again applied the cushion to supporting the battered head--and yet she had hitherto known this Guillaume Iyoné or Dhyoni (or William Jones!) of the IIIrd Company as a soldier of the soberest and quietest. Quite like old Jean Boule of the VIIth. Doubtless he had been "wetting his discharge papers." Apparently he had done it to the point of drowning them.
At l'heure verte, l'heure de l'absinthe, the café began to fill, and for a time the sleeper was undisturbed by the va et vient of Carmelita's customers. . . .
"'Ullo, Cocky!" remarked le Légionnaire 'Erbiggin ("'Erb"), entering with his compatriots Rupert and John Bull, followed by the Grasshopper and the Bucking Bronco. "Gorn to yer pore 'ed, 'as it? Come hup--an' 'ave s'more," and he sought to rouse the sleeper.
"Strike me strange ef it 'ent thet com-patriot o' yourn, John," said the Bucking Bronco. "Willie the Jones, o' the IIIrd Company. . . . Guess he's got a hard cider jag. Didn't know he ever fell off the water-cart any."
"William Jones" sat up.
"Really, I beg your pardon," he said. "I thought I . . ." and then peered through the heavy blanketing veil that was daily thickening between him and his fellow-men.
"He's no more drunk than I am," said John Bull. . . . "I suppose he's just discharged. I thought he was in hospital. . . . Looks as though he ought to be, anyhow."
"I have rested, and I must begin my Quest," said "William Jones," Ex-No. 32867. "I have a glorious Quest to undertake, and I have little time. I . . ."
"Yus. Ingkquest's abaht your mark, Cocky," observed 'Erb. "Crowner's ingkquest."
"Help me up," added the sick man. "I must begin my Quest."
"De sot homme, sot songe," murmured La Cigale, shaking his head mournfully. "I too have Quests, but they tangle and jangle in my brain--and folk say I am mad or drunk. . . . Some will say you are mad, mon ami, and some will say you are drunk."
"Are you going to England?" asked John Bull, as he helped the man to his feet.
"England? . . . England? . . . Oh, yes, I am going to England. Where should I go? She lives in England," was the reply.
"Have you friends?"
"She is my Friend. Of Friendship she is the Soul and the Essence."
"Chacun aime comme il est," remarked the Grasshopper. "This is a gentleman," and added, "Il n'y a guère de femme assez habile pour connaître tout le mal qu'elle fait."
"I allow we oughter take him daown town to the railway deepôt and see him on the cars," put in the Bucking Bronco. "Ef we don't tote him thar an' tell him good-bye, it's the looney-house for his. He'll set down in the bazaar and go as maboul 1 as a kief 2 smoker." . . .
1 Mad. 2 Hemp.
"I was going to say we'd better see him off," agreed John Bull. "If he gets to England, he'll have more chance than as a discharged Legionary in Algiers--or France either. Wish we could get an address from him. We could tie a label on him."
But they could not, and after the Bucking Bronco had procured him food from Carmelita's "pie-foundry," as he termed her modest table d'hôte, they took him to the station and, under the cold eye of the Sergeant of the Guard at the platform gate, saw him off. . . .
As one in a dream, as one seeing through a glass darkly and beholding men as trees walking, Ex-No. 32867, William Jones, alias Geoffry Brabazon-Howard, Esquire, made his way to London. There is a providence that watches over children and drunken men, and Ex-No. 32867 was as a compound of both. He knew he was exceeding ill and quite abnormal in some directions, such as never being quite certain as to whether he was really doing and experiencing things, or was dreaming; but what he did not realize was that, concurrently with severe insomnia, he was liable at any moment to fall suddenly asleep for a few minutes, wherever he might be, and whatever he might be doing. He was aware that he had brief periods of "abstraction," but was quite unaware that they were periods of profound slumber. Unfortunately they only endured for a few seconds or a few minutes, and, though serving to place him in endless dangerous, ridiculous, and awkward situations, did not amount to anything approaching a "living-wage" of sleep--rarely to more than an hour in the twenty-four and generally to much less.
At times he was, for a few hours perhaps, entirely normal, to all appearances; and could talk, behave, and transact business in such a way that no casual observer would be aware of anything unusual in the man. He himself, however, when at his best, was still aware of the isolating-medium in which he moved and lived and had his being; the slowly thickening cloud, the imponderating veil, that shut him in, and cut him off, with increasing certainty and speed.
What would happen when he could no longer pierce and penetrate this fog, or wall, of cloudy glass; this vast extinguisher of sombre web, and could hold no communication with the outer world?
Was he becoming an idiot before becoming a paralytic, and thus having the gross presumption to reverse the order of things foretold by Médecin-Major Parme?
On arrival at Charing Cross, he had strolled idly through the streets of London, slept on a bench in Leicester Square; had thought he was in the public gardens outside the Porte de Tlemçen at Sidi-bel-Abbès, and hoped that the Legion's famous band would come and play its sad music in that sad place; and, being "moved on," had wandered away, dazed and bewildered, going on and on until he reached Hammersmith. Here he found his way into one of those Poor Man's Hotels, a Rowton House--vaguely under the impression that it was some kind of barrack.
Here he had a glorious time of Rest, broken only by the occasional misfortune of having a night's sleep, or rather a nightmare in the unnameable Hell to keep out of which he exerted all his failing faculties. And at the Hammersmith Rowton House he became an object of the intensest interest to such of his fellow-inhabitants of that abode of semi-starvation and hopeless misery as were not too deeply engulfed in their own struggle with despair and death to notice anything at all.
For "William Jones" began to blossom forth into a "toff," a perfect dook, until it was the generally accepted theory that he was a swell-mobsman just out of gaol, and now working the West End in the correct garb of that locality.
Little by little the man had replaced his old clothes by new, his beret by a correct hat, his scarf by the usual neck-wear of an English gentleman, his fourrier-sergent's suit of mufti by a Conduit Street creation, his rough boots by the most modish of cloth-topped kid; and generally metamorphosed William Jones, late of the Foreign Legion, into Geoffry Brabazon-Howard, Esq., late of St. James's Street and the United Service Club.
In one of his hours of mental clarity and vigour, he had called at his bank and drawn the sum of ninety pounds, left at current-account there when he disappeared into the Legion; and in another such hour (and in his new clothes) had called at his Club, seen the secretary, and arranged for the revival of his lapsed membership.
It had taken both the bank-manager and the secretary some time to recognize him, but they had done so eventually, and had been shocked to think of what the man must have been through to have changed as he had, and to look as he did.
He had been through a good deal. In addition to the very real hardships of campaigning in the Sahara as a private of the Legion, he had had black-water fever and dysentery, had been wounded in the abdomen by an Arab lance, carried away by the Arabs while unconscious from loss of blood from this wound, and kept until he should recover consciousness and be eligible for torture. (It is pointless to torture a practically dead person.) The badness of his wound had saved his life, for by the time he had sufficiently recovered to be interesting to his captors, they were attacked and routed, and "William Jones" had been restored to the bosom of his company only slightly tortured after all. The shock to an enfeebled man, who was also suffering from a hideous wound, had been considerable, however.
Thereafter, enteric had done little to improve his health, and his resultant slowness and stupidity had earned him the special attention of Sergeant-Major Suicide-Maker and Sergeant Legros.
So there is little wonder that his banker and club-secretary were shocked at the change in him, and wondered how many days or weeks he had to live.
And to the secretary, who saw him almost daily, it was clear that the poor chap was sometimes queer in the head too--and no wonder, looking as awfully ill as he did.
For example, one day he would walk into the Club, sit down on the Hall-Porter's stool, and go to sleep immediately!
Another day he would do the same thing on the stairs, or even the front steps.
If he sat down in a smoking-room arm-chair and fell asleep, as is a member's just and proper right, he would spring up if anyone approached, say, "I really beg your pardon. I am afraid I . . ." and walk straight out of the Club.
What would the worthy secretary have thought had he known that Geoffry Brabazon-Howard, Esquire (once of the Black Lancers), walked daily to the Club from the Hammersmith Rowton House in the morning and back to that same retreat in the evening; and that such food as he ate, was eaten in his cubicle there, or at a coffee-stall? At a Rowton House one has the "use of the fire" in the basement for one's cooking purposes, but Geoffry was a most indifferent cook, and it is difficult to purchase really cookable provisions on a sum of fourpence a day. For this was the amount that he had decided upon as the irreducible minimum to be expended on food if he were to keep up the strength required for the daily journey to the West End and back. After paying for his clothes and setting aside his club fees, he would have enough to live on at this rate, until the London season and through it, if he were very, very careful. He would have to renew some of his clothing, perhaps, later on--boots, linen, ties--and there were always incidental and unavoidable expenses. However, with great care and a little luck, he could last to the end of the season and pursue his Quest. And this great absorbing Quest, which had made him expend his all in fine clothing, club membership, and the appearance of being a "person of quality" and a gentleman of means and leisure?
Merely to come face to face with, to meet on terms of equality, to have just one encounter and conversation with--a woman.
Before he died he must see, and speak to, Peggy once again--to Lady Margaret Hillier--because of whom he had vanished into the French Foreign Legion, and of whom he had thought daily and nightly ever since.
He had had a thin time, he was near the end of his tether, life held nothing for him, and he had no desire to prolong it--but before he lay down for the last time he would see Peggy again, hear her voice, feast his eyes on her beautiful face, and his ears on the sound of her words and laughter, yea, feast his very soul upon the banquet that it had dreamed of--and then he would have no further use for clubs, fine clothes, a penny chair in the Park, nor anything else.
The ass was quite mad, you perceive. . . .
Now one can live on fourpence a day, and for a very long time too. If one starts in robust health and strength, one can maintain an appearance of health and the power to work for a quite surprising period. But if one is really very ill, on the verge of a nervous collapse, and badly in need of a rest-cure with special diet, tonic, and drugs--fourpence a day is not enough.
They give you a surprisingly filling meal at certain coffee-shops and cocoa-houses (like Pearce-and-Plenty or Lockhart's) for fourpence, but one meatless meal per diem is not enough. It is, on the whole, better to have two pennyworth at dawn and two pennyworth at sunset, and a good drink of water at midday. Better still is it, if you are really experienced in the laying-out of money, to have a pennyworth at dawn, two pennyworth at midday and a pennyworth at sunset. (You can go to bed with a full stomach by supping on a quart of water.)
But Geoffry had not complete liberty in the matter. One cannot go for a twopenny midday meal in a silk hat, faultless morning coat buttoned over the white waistcoat of a blameless laundress, and in patent cloth-topped boots. Geoffry was, by force of circumstances, debarred this thrice-a-day system of feeding, and was constrained to breakfast (in rags) at an early coffee-stall and to dine at the same, in the same decrepit clothing, late at night. After breakfast he would return to his cubicle, dress for the Club, and creep forth, still in the early hours of the morning. (One attracts attention if, in the broad light of naked day, one issues from a Rowton House in the correct garb of Pall Mall and Piccadilly.) At night he would undress, carefully fold his immaculate clothes, don his rags, and sally forth to dine on twopence. The coffee-stall keeper regarded him as a broken-down torf and eke a balmy, but coffee-stall keepers are a race blasé of freaks, social, moral, and mental.
Between these meals Geoffry Brabazon-Howard pursued his Quest. He went to his Club and listened eagerly for "society" gossip, and read "society" papers (of the kind that inform the public when Lady Diana Blathers dines at the Fritz, and photographs her inhaling the breath of an abortive animal, apparently a bye-product of the dog-industry; announces the glad tidings that Mrs. Bobbie Snobbie has returned to Town; or that the Earl of Spunge was seen scratching his head in Bond Street yesterday). Having sought in vain for news of Lady Margaret Hillier, he slowly paraded the fashionable shopping thoroughfares, and then, utterly weary, turned into the Park, selected an eligible site for seeing the pedestrians, carriage-exercisers, and riders, and sat for hours watching and waiting, hoping against hope--as he thought. In point of fact he spent a great portion of this time in dropping asleep and being awakened by nearly falling off the chair. He was sometimes tempted to expend this chair-penny in food, but restrained the base cravings of his lower nature. He pictured himself arrayed in the correctest of dress, nonchalantly seated on a Park chair, gaily observing the gyrations of the giddy throng of fashionable human ephemeræ--suddenly seeing Peggy, and rising, accosting her with graceful badinage, airy flippancy, and casual interest. Peggy would laugh and talk amusingly and lightly, he would beg her to come and lunch with him at the Club, or take tea if such were the hour; he would feast his eyes and ears and soul as he had promised himself--and then?--then he would lay down his arms and cease to fight this relentless Foe--sickness, disease, and death--that besieged him day and night, and sought to prevent his walk to the Club, sought to thwart the pursuit of his Quest. Having seen Peggy again, heard her laugh and speak, looked into her hopelessly perfect and wonderful eyes, he would surrender the fortress he no longer wished to hold, and would permit the Enemy to enter--trusting that le bon Dieu, Le Bon Général, would see to it that, for a broken old soldier, death was annihilation, peace, and rest. . . .
Daily he grew thinner, as a sick man living on fourpence a day must, and frequently he would finger the sovereign that always lay in his waistcoat pocket--ready for the day when Peggy should lunch at the Club with him. It is not wholly easy to keep a sovereign intact while you slowly starve and every fibre of your being craves for tobacco, for brandy, for food--as you smell choice Havanas in the Club smoking-room, see fat, healthy men drinking their whiskies and brandies, and when you are violently smitten by rich savours of food as you pass the door of the dining-room.
The fragrance of coffee and eggs-and-bacon! The glimpse of noble barons of beef on the sideboard! The sight of tea-and-toast at four in the afternoon when you have had nothing since four in the morning! But the sovereign remained intact. With that he and Peggy could have an excellent lunch--without wine--and Peggy never touched wine. . . .
He started to his feet.
* * * * *
"I really beg your pardon! I am afraid I . . ." A stranger had awakened him as he slept in a smoking-room arm-chair. . . . He did not recollect how he came to do such a thing when he should have been in the Park. . . . What was the man saying--"Ill?"
"I was afraid you were ill. To tell the truth, I jolly well thought you were dead for the moment. Let me drive you to my doctor's. Splendid chap. Just going that way. . . . No--don't run away."
"Most awfully kind," replied Geoffry, peering through the veil, "but I'm quite all right. Just a bit tired, you know. I am going to have a real Rest soon. . . . At present I have a Quest."
The poor devil looked absolutely starved, thought Colonel Doddington. Positively ghastly.
"Come and have some lunch with me," he said, "and let me tell you about this doctor of mine, anyhow."
Geoffry flushed--though it was remarkable that there was sufficient blood in so meagre a body and feeble a heart for the purpose.
Lunch! A four-course lunch in a beautiful room--silver, crystal, fine napery, good service--perhaps wine, certainly alcohol of some sort, and real coffee. . . .
It was a cruel temptation. But he put it from him. After all, one was a gentleman, and a gentleman does not accept hospitality which he cannot return, from a stranger.
"Awfully sorry--but I must go," he replied. "I'm feeding out." He was--late that night, on twopence.
He fled, and outside mopped his brow. It had been a terrible temptation and ordeal. For two pins he would go back and have a brandy-and-soda at the cost of two days' food. No, he dared not risk collapse--and two days' complete starvation would probably mean collapse. Collapse meant expense too, and money was time to him. The expenditure of more than fourpence a day would shorten the time of his Quest. A day lost, was a chance lost. She might pass through London at that very time, if he lay ill in the Hammersmith Rowton House.
That night he had to take a 'bus home or lie down in the street. Next day, dressing took so long and his walk to the Club was so painful and slow, that he had to omit the Bond Street, Regent Street, and Piccadilly walk, and go straight to the Park.
There he had shocking luck. A zealous but clumsy policeman rendered him First Aid to the Fainting with such violence that he spoilt the collar and shirt-front that should have lasted another two days. Why could not the worthy fool have left him to come out of his faint alone? He went into it alone, all right. And there was an accursed, gaping crowd. Nor could he give the policeman two pennies, and so gave him nothing--which was very distressing. A most unlucky day!
Well--the days of his Quest were numbered, and the number was lessened.
Next day he found the Enemy very powerful and the tottering fortress closely beset. He would be hard put to it to walk to the Club--but come!--an old Legionary who had done his fifty kilometres a day under a hundredweight kit, over loose sand, with the thermometer at 1200 in the shade; and who had lived on a handful of rice-flour and a mouthful of selenitic water in the Sahara--surely he was not going to shirk a stroll from Hammersmith Broadway to Pall Mall and round the Town to the Park?
He had got as far as Devonshire House, when a lady, who was driving from the Berkeley Hotel, where she had been lunching, to the Coburg Hotel, where she was to have tea with friends who were taking her on to Ranelagh, suddenly saw him and thought she saw a ghost. As her carriage crawled through the crush into Berkeley Street it brought her within a yard of him.
She turned very pale and lay back on the cushions. Immediately she sat upright again, and then leaned towards him. It could not be! Not this poor wreck, this shattered ruin--her splendid Geoff--the Geoff who had seemed to love her, five years ago, and had suddenly dropped her, and so been the cause of her marrying in haste and repenting in even greater haste, to the day of her widowhood.
"Geoff!" she said.
He raised his hat with a trembling hand and his face was transfigured. . . . Was he dying on his feet, wondered the woman.
"Get in, Geoff," she said, and the footman half-turned and then jumped down.
Geoffry Brabazon-Howard, with a great and almost final effort, stepped into the victoria.
"Will you come to lunch with me at . . ." he began, and then burst into tears.
Later, it was the woman who wept, tears of joy and thankfulness, after the agonizing suspense when the great specialist staked his reputation on his plain verdict that the man was not organically diseased. He was in a parlous state, no doubt, practically dying of starvation and nervous exhaustion--but nursing could save him.
Nursing did--the nursing of Lady Peggy Brabazon-Howard. . . .
La Cigale, the Mad "Grasshopper" of the VIIth Company, was solemnly dancing by the light of the moon. He was a fine soldier and a hopeless lunatic, and had once been a Belgian Officer (Corps of Guides, the most aristocratic in the Belgian Army) and military attaché at various Embassies. No one knew his story, not even le Légionnaire Jean Boule, whom he loved and who, through great suffering, had attained great understanding and sympathy.1
1 Vide "The Wages of Virtue." John Murray.
This same gentleman, accompanied by the Bucking Bronco, Reginald Rupert, and 'Erb, was even now looking for him, knowing that he was always worse at the period of full moon and apt to do strange things.
They found him--solemnly dancing by the light of the moon--on a patch of green turf by the palms of the oasis.
"Doin' a bloomin' fandango on the light fantastic toe--all on 'is little own!" observed 'Erb.
"Funny how the moon affects madmen," said Rupert.
"Yes," agreed John Bull. "Ancient idea too. Luna the moon, lunatic. Evidently some connection."
"Shall we butt in an' put the kibosh on it?" asked the Bucking Bronco.
"No," replied John Bull. "Let's settle down and have a smoke. We'll see him to bed when he's tired of dancing. If he wearies himself out there'll be more chance of some sleep for us. . . . We can't leave him to himself to-night."
"Nope," agreed the Bucking Bronco. "Remember the night he went loco once and for all? When the grasshopper jumped into his soupe."
"Yes; but it wasn't the locust in his gamelle that was really the last straw. He'd have had permanent cafard from that day, anyhow. . . . Look!--he's stopped." . . .
The Grasshopper, hearing voices, had ceased his posturing, bowing, and dancing. Crouching low, he progressed toward the shadow of the palms by long leaps.
"Hullo, mon ami!" cried John Bull; "come and have a smoke."
"She always danced like that to the Chaste Huntress of the skies when she showed mortals her full face," said La Cigale, as he flung himself down by his friend.
"'Oo did?" queried 'Erb.
"Diane de Valheureux," was the reply. "That is why Delacroix killed her. That Delacroix of the artillery."
"I could onnerstand 'im killin' 'er if she sung, but I don' see wot 'e wanted to kill her for fer dancin'," observed 'Erb. "Too bloomin' pertickler, I calls it."
"He was jealous," replied La Cigale, as he pressed his thin hands over his forehead and smouldering eyes.
"Diane was born at the full of the moon out in the beautiful garden of her father's château. It was her mother's whim--a woman of fire and moonbeams and wild fancies and poesies herself: Pan's own daughter.
"And from the day she could walk, Diane must go out and dance in the light of the full moon.
"I loved Diane. Also did Delacroix. He was mad for love of her. I was sane for love of her, since my love showed me all Beauty and Harmony and the utter worthlessness of the baubles that men strive for.
"She loved me--I think. If she did not, certainly she loved no one else. I understood, you see. And, on one evening, given by God, she let me dance with her in the forest while Diana smiled full-face from Heaven.
"And her parents gave her to Delacroix, who had great possessions and a soul that values great possessions at their untrue value. The soul of a pedlar--the base suspicious mind of a ferret.
"After she was married--and broken-hearted--she still had one joy. She could still dance with the fairies in a glade of the forest at full moon. She could, do I say? She could not do otherwise when Diana and Pan and the Old Gods called--this night-born elf of night, moonlight, and the open sky and earth. And, returning from her midnight dance with the fairies, by the light of the Harvest Moon, she found that the husband whom she had left snoring, sat glowering--awaiting her--his mind a seething cesspool of foul suspicions.
"He killed her--of course. Such things as Fairy Dianes are killed by such other things as Hog Delacroix. And my heart broke. As your fine poet says, I think:
'There came a mist and a blinding rain,
And life was never the same again.'
Never. Nor had I the satisfaction of dealing with Delacroix. The brave soul fled and disappeared."
"You'll cop 'im yet, Ciggy," interrupted 'Erb. "Cheer up, Ole Cock. We'll all lay fer 'im, an' do 'im in proper, one o' these dark nights."
"I have settled accounts with him, now, I thank you," continued La Cigale. "I suddenly came face to face with him on board the troopship L'Orient at Oran. It was when the Legion sent drafts to Tonkin, to fight the Black Flags.
"I was on sentry, and looking up, as a man came along the gangway, beheld the evil face of Delacroix!
"By the time I had recovered my wits, and realized that it was he in the flesh, and not his ghost, he had passed on and was swallowed up by the part of the ship devoted to officers.
"I saw no more of him until it was again my turn for sentry duty. By this time we were at Port Said, and as desertion was easy here--since a man had but to dive overboard and swim a few yards or even rush down a gangway when we were coaling--all sentries were given ball-cartridge and strict orders to shoot any soldier attempting to leap overboard or make a burst for the coal-wharf and British soil. (Once ashore, he must not be touched, or there would be trouble with England--and he might, with impunity, stand on the quay and deride us.)
"It was not likely that any of the French regulars would desert--artillery, line, or marsouins--but there would have been but few of the Legion who would not have made the promenade ashore but for these precautions.
"And as I stood there--my loaded Lebel in my hands--who should approach the head of the gangway over which I stood sentry, but this Delacroix, this thing whose foul hands--the very hands there before my eyes--had choked the life out of my Diane!
"Should I blow out his vile brains, or should I give myself the joy unspeakable of plunging my bayonet into his carcase?
"Neither. Too brief a joy for me--too brief an agony for him.
"As he passed, I held my hand with an effort that made me pale.
"The third time I saw him was in the Indian Ocean as we headed south for our next stopping-place, Singapore.
"He was leaning on the rail of the officers' promenade-deck, smoking a cigar after his comfortable lunch. The deck was empty. I ran lightly up the companion from our troop-deck, polluted the promenade-deck with my presence, sprang at him, seized him from behind, flung him overboard, and sprang after him with a cry of 'Diane'!
"I must watch him drown; I must shout that name in his ear as he died. I must be with him at the last, and my hands must be at the throat of the foul dog. Not mine to fling him overboard and be clapped in irons while they threw him life-belts, and then lowered boats!
"Swimming with powerful strokes to where he had struck the water, I waited till he came up, and then seized him by the throat and strove to choke the life out of him as he had done to Diane. He struck at me wildly, and I thrust his head again beneath the water. But, yes! with a shout of 'Diane!' I dragged him below and swam downward as deeply as I could go. With bursting lungs I swam upward again and gloated upon his purpling face, and then--down, down, down, down, once more. . . .
"When they dragged me into the boat, I was senseless and he was dead. I had swum with him for nearly an hour.
"When I recovered on board the ship, I was the hero of the hour--the man who had sprung into the sea, without stopping to divest himself of so much as his boots, to save an Officer. . . .
"What am I saying? . . . I am sleepy. . . . Bon soir, mes amis," and the Grasshopper rose and retired toward the tents.
"Some story!" remarked the Bucking Bronco, as the four followed. "Wouldn't thet jar you! Sure it's the mos' interestin' an' wonderfullest yarn I heerd him tell yet. Ain't it, John?"
"M--m . . . yes. . . . It is the more interesting and wonderful," was the reply of John Bull, as he thoughtfully flicked the ash from the end of his cigarette, "by reason of the fact that I happen to know--that the Grasshopper cannot swim a stroke."
Jean Jacques Dubonnet had distinguished himself that day, and he lay on his bed that night and cried. His companion, old Jean Boule, in that little hut of sticks and banana-leaves, had just been congratulating him on the fact that he had almost certainly won himself the croix de guerre or the médaille militaire for his distinguished bravery. And he had burst into tears, his body shaken with great rending sobs.
John Bull was not only a gentleman; he was a person of understanding and sympathy, and he had suffered enough, and seen enough of suffering, to feel neither surprise, disgust, nor contempt.
"God! Oh, God! I am a coward. I am a branded coward!" blubbered the big man on the creaking bed of boughs and boxes.
Was this fever, reaction, drink, le cafard, or what?
Certainly Dubonnet had played the man, and shown great physical courage that day against the Sakalaves, the brave Malagasy savages who have given Madame la République a good deal of trouble and annoyance, and filled many a shallow grave with the unconsidered carcases of Marsouins 1 and Légionnaires in the red soil of Madagascar. As the decimated Company had slowly fallen back from the ambush in the dense plantations of the lovely Boueni palms, Lieutenant Roberte had fallen, shot through the body by a plucky Sakalave who had deliberately rested his prehistoric musket on his thigh and discharged it at a dozen yards range, himself under heavy fire. With insulting howls of "Taim-poory, taim-poory," half a dozen of the enemy had sprung at the fallen man, when Dubonnet, rushing from cover, had shot two in quick succession, bayoneted two others, kicked violently in the face a fifth, who stooped over the Lieutenant with a coupe-coupe, and then, swinging his Lebel by the butt, had put up so good a fight that he had driven the savages back and had then partly dragged and partly carried his officer with him, to where the Company could rally, re-form, and make their stand to await reinforcements. Undeniably Dubonnet had risked his life to save that of his officer, and had fought with very great courage and determination or he could never have reached the rallying-place with an unconscious man, when so many of his comrades could not reach it at all.
1 Colonial Infantry (Infanterie de la Marine).
Yet there he lay, weeping like a child, and calling upon his Maker to ease his guilty bosom of the burden it had borne so long--the knowledge that he was a "branded" coward.
It was terribly, cruelly hot in the tiny hut, and, to John Bull, who arose from his camp-bed of packing-case boards, it seemed even hotter outside, as he went to fetch the hollow bamboo water-"bottle" which hung from the tree under which the hut was built. Was it possible that the Madagascan moon gave out heat-rays of its own, or reflected those of the sun as it did the rays of light? It really seemed hotter in the moonlight than out of it. . . . Carrying the bamboo water-receptacle, a cylinder as tall as himself--really a pipe with one end sealed with gum, wax, or clay, when a joint of the stem does not serve the purpose--the Englishman passed in through the doorless doorway and delivered an ultimatum.
"Whatever may be the trouble, mon ami, weeping will not help it. Enough! . . . Sit up and tell me all about it, or I'll wash you off that bed like the insect you're pretending to be. . . . Now then--a drink or a drenching?"
"Give me a drink for the love of God!" said Dubonnet, sitting up. "Absinthe, rum, cognac--anything," and he clutched at the breast of his canvas shirt as though he feared it might open and expose his breast.
"Yes. Good cold water," replied John Bull.
"Cold water!" mocked the other between sobs. "Cold Englishman! Cold water!" and he bowed his head on his knees and groaned and wept afresh.
The old soldier carefully poured water from the open end of the great pipe into a gamelle and offered it to the other, who drank feverishly. "Are you wounded in the chest, there?" he asked.
This cafard, the madness that comes upon soldiers who eat out their hearts in the monotony of exile and wear out their stomachs and brains in the absinthe-shop, takes strange forms and reduces its victims to queer plights. How should le Légionnaire Jean Jacques Dubonnet, Soldat première classe, recommended for decoration for bravery in the field, be a coward?
"Oh, merciful God--help me to bear it. I am a Coward--a branded Coward!" wailed the huddled figure on the rickety, groaning bed.
"See here, comrade," said John Bull, overcoming a certain slight, but perceptible, repugnance, and placing an arm across the bowed and quivering shoulders, "I am no talker, as you are aware. If it would give you any relief to tell me all about it--rest assured that no word of it will ever be repeated by me. It may ease you. I may be able to help or comfort. Many Légionnaires, some on their death-beds, have felt the better for telling me of their troubles. . . . But do not think I want to pry." . . .
Swiftly the wretched man turned, flung his arms about the Englishman's neck, and kissed him.
John Bull forbore to shudder. (Heavens! How different is the excellent French poilu from the British Tommy!) But if he could bring peace and the healing, soothing sense of confession, if not of anything approaching absolution, to this tortured soul, the night would have been well spent--better spent than in sleep, though he was very, very tired.
"I will tell you, mon ami, and will pray to you then to give me comfort or a bullet in the temple. A little accident as you clean your rifle! I cannot do it. I dare not do it--and no bullet will touch me in battle--as you have seen to-day. I live to die, and am too big a coward to take my life. . . . I am a branded coward. . . . See! See!" and he tore open the breast of his shirt. At once he closed it again, and hugged himself.
"No, no! I will tell you first," he cried.
The madness of le cafard, no doubt. The man had only recently been drafted to the VIIth Company from the depôt, and had appeared a morose, surly, and unattractive person, friendless and undesirous of friends. Accident had made him the stable-companion of the Englishman in this little damp fever-stricken hell in the reeking corner of the Betsimisarake district, in which the remains of the Company were pinned. . . .
The deplorable and deploring Dubonnet thrust his grimy fists into his eyes and across the end of his amorphous nose, as, with a sniff which militated against the romantic effect of the declaration, he said, "I swear I loved her. I loved her madly. It was my unfortunate and uncontrollable love that caused the trouble in the first place. . . . But it was her fault too, mind you! Why couldn't she have told me she had a husband, away at Lyons, finishing his military service--a husband whom she had not seen for six months, and whom she would not see for another six? . . . Too late the fool confessed it--a month before he was coming, and a couple of months before something else was coming! And he famous, as I learned too late, for having all the jealous hate of Hell in his heart, if she so much as looked at another man. He, a porter of the Halles, notorious for his quarrelsomeness and for his fearful strength and savage temper. She hated him nearly as much as she feared him--and me, me she loved to distraction. And I her. . . . Believe me, she was the loveliest flower-seller in Paris--with a foot and ankle, an eye, a figure, ravishing, I tell you . . . and he would break her neck when he saw how she was and stab me to the heart. She would never have told him it was I she loved, but those others would--for dozens knew that she was my amie, and many in my gang did not love me. I am not of those whom men love--but women, ah!--and there were jealous ones in our ruelle who would have gone far to see her beauty spoiled and my throat cut. . . . It was all her fault, I say! Did she not deceive me in hiding the fact that she had a husband? She deceived us all. But when this scélérat should turn up from Lyons, and find her at her pitch or in the flower-market, would any of them have held their tongues? . . . Can you not see it? . . . The crowd at the door, the screams as he entered and dragged her out into the gutter by the hair, his foot on her throat . . . and, afterwards--his knife at my breast. . . . Would any of the gang have stood by me? No, they would have licked their chops and goaded him on . . . and, oh God, I am a coward. . . . I can fight when my blood is up and I have to struggle for my life. . . . I can fight as one of a regiment, a company, a crowd, all fighting side by side, each defending the other by fighting the common foe. . . . I can take my part in a mêlée and I can do deeds then that I do not know I have done till afterwards. . . . I can fight when the tiger in me is aroused and has smelt blood--but I am a coward if I am alone. I, alone, dare not fight one man alone. . . . Were I being tracked alone through the jungle here by but one of the six men I attacked to-day, my knees would knock together and my legs would refuse to bear me up. I should flee if they would carry me, flee shrieking, but they would not bear me a hundred metres. They would collapse, and I should lie shuddering with closed eyes, awaiting the blow. I can hunt--with the pack--but I cannot be hunted. No. When our band waylaid the greasy bourgeois as he lurched homeward from his restaurant in the Place Pigalle or his Montmartre cabaret, I was as good an apache as any in the gang, and struck my blow with the best; but if it was a case of a row with the agents de police, and we were being individually shadowed, my heart turned to water, and I lay in bed for days. In a fair fight between about equal numbers of anarchists and apaches on the one hand, and messieurs les agents on the other, if it came upon us suddenly as they raided our rookery, I could play a brave man's part in the rush for the street; but I cannot be the hunted one--I cannot fight alone with none on either side of me. Oh God, I am a coward," and the wretch again buried his face in his knees and wept and sobbed afresh.
A common, cowardly gutter-hooligan apparently; an apache, a Paris street-wolf, and, like all wolves, braver in the pack than when alone; but in John Bull's gaze there was more of pity than anything. Suppose he, John Bull, had been born in a foul corner of some filthy cellar beneath a Paris slum? Would he have been so different? Was the man to blame, or the Fate that gave him the ancestry and environment that had made him precisely what he was?
"You will be called out before the battalion and decorated with the cross or the médaille, mon ami, for your heroism to-day. Put the past behind, and let your life re-date from the day the Colonel pins the decoration on your breast. Begin afresh. You will carry about with you always the visible sign and recognition that you are a hero--there on your breast, I say." . . .
With a shriek of "What do I bear on my breast now?" the ex-apache tore open his shirt and exposed two strips of strong linen sticking-plaster, each some ten inches long and two inches wide, that lay stuck horizontally across his broad chest.
What was this? Had he two ghastly gashes beneath the plaster? Had all that he had been saying been merely the delirium of a badly-wounded man? Seizing their ends, the apache tore them violently from his skin, and, by the light of the little lamp, John Bull saw, deeply branded, and most skilfully tattooed in the ineradicable burns, the following words (in French):
J. J. DUBONNET
LIAR AND COWARD
The Englishman recoiled in horror, and the other thought it was in contempt.
"Where are your fine phrases now?" he snarled, with concentrated bitterness. "'You will carry about with you always the visible sign and recognition that you are a hero,'" he mocked. "I do indeed! . . . Oh God, take it from me. Let me sleep and wake to find it gone, and I will become a monk and wear out my life in prayer," . . . and he threw himself face-downward on the bed and tore the covering of his straw pillow with his teeth.
"See, mon ami," said John Bull, "the médaille will be above that. It will be superimposed. It will bury that beneath it. Let it bury it for ever. That is of the past--the médaille is of to-day and the glorious future. That is man's revenge--the cruel punishment and vengeance of an injured brute. The médaille is man's reward--the glad recognition of those who admire courage." . . .
"It is not the husband's work," growled Dubonnet. "He never caught me. My own gang did that--my comrades--my friends! Think of their loathing and contempt, their hatred and disgust, that they could do that to a man and leave him to live. Think of it! . . . And I dare not kill myself and meet her. I am a coward. I fear Death himself, and I fear her reproachful eyes still more. . . . I am a coward and I am a liar. I broke my faith and word and trust to her--and I feared the death that she welcomed because I was by her side to share it. She drank the poison in her glass, threw herself into my arms, and bade me drink mine and come with her to the Beyond, where no brutal, hated husband could drag her from me to his own loathed arms. . . . And I did not. I could not. She died in my arms with those great reproachful eyes on mine, and whispered, 'Come with me, my Beloved. I am afraid to go alone.' And when I would not, she cursed me and died. And I let her go alone--I, who had planned our double suicide, our glorious and romantic suicide in each other's arms--that we might not have to part, might not have to face her husband's wrath, might be together for all time, though it were in hell. . . . Before she drank, she blessed me. Before she died, she cursed me--and still I could not drink. . . . And now I have not the courage to go on living, and I have not the courage to take my life. . . . And they are going to brand me as a hero, are they? . . . That on my coat and this beneath it!" and peals of hysterical laughter rang out on the still night.
"Yes--that on your coat," said the Englishman. "Does it count for nothing? Let the one balance the other. Put the past behind you and start afresh. . . . Can you bear pain? Physical pain, I mean?"
"Is not all my life a pain?--did I not have to bear the pain of being branded with a red-hot iron? What is physical pain compared with what I bear night and day--remorse, self-loathing, the fear of the discovery of this by my comrades? How much longer will it be before some prying swine sees these strips and refuses to believe they hide wounds--laughs at my tale of attempted suicide in a fit of cafard--hara-kiri--self-mutilation with a knife." . . .
"Because, if you can face the pain, we can obliterate that. We can remove the record of shame, and you can wear the record of courage and duty without fear of discovery of the . . ."
"What do you say?" cried Dubonnet, as the words penetrated his anguished and self-centred mind. "What? Remove it? How--in the name of God?"
"Burn it out as it was burnt in," was the cool reply. "I will do it for you if you ask me to. . . . The pain will be ghastly and the mark hideous--but it will be a mark and nothing else. Anyone seeing it will merely see that you have been severely burnt--and they'll be about right."
Dubonnet sat up.
"You could and would do that?" he said.
"Yes. I should make a flat piece of iron red-hot and lay it firmly across the writing. It would depend on you whether it were successful or not, and would be a good test of nerve and courage. Have it done--and make up your mind that cowardice and treachery were burnt out with the words. Then start life afresh and win another decoration." . . .
"There are anæsthetics," whimpered Dubonnet. "Chloroform." . . .
"Not for Legionaries in Madagascar," was the reply. "Unless you'd like to go to Médecin-Major Parme with your story and ask him to operate, to oblige a young friend?"
Dubonnet shivered, and then spat. "Médecin-Major Parme!" he growled.
"If you like to wait a few weeks or months or years, you may have the opportunity and the money to buy chloroform," continued the Englishman, "or the means for making local injections of cocaine or something; but I suggest you make a kind of sacrament of the business--have the damnable thing burnt out precisely as it was burnt in, and as you clench your teeth on the bullet in manly silence and soldierly stoicism, realize it is the past that is being burnt also, and that the good fire is burning out all that makes you hate yourself and hate life. Let it be symbolic."
John Bull knew his man. He had met his type before. Too much imagination; too little ballast; the material for a first-class devil, or a first-class man; swayed and governed by his symbols, shibboleths, and prejudices; the slave and victim of an idée fixe. . . . If he could get him to undergo this ordeal, he would emerge from it a new man--a saved man. An anæsthetic would spoil the whole moral effect. If he would face the torture and bear it, he would regard himself as a brave man, just as surely as he now regarded himself as a coward. He would recover his self-respect, and he would be brave because he believed himself to be brave. It would literally be his regeneration and salvation.
"It would hurt no more in the undoing than it did in the doing," he continued.
The poor wretch shuddered.
"She had written a few words of farewell to one or two," he said, "and told how we were going to die together, and when and where. . . . Her mother and some others burst in and found me with her body in my arms and my untasted poison beside me. . . . I went mad. I raved. I denounced myself. A vile woman who had once loved me, jeered at me and bade me drink my share and rid the world of myself. . . . I could not. . . . My own gang bound me on my bed, and one of them brought an old chisel and the half of an iron pipe split lengthways. With the straight edge and the semicircular one, they did their work. I was their prisoner for--ah! how long? And then they tattooed the scars--not satisfied with their handiwork as it was. . . . Before her husband found me I had fled to the shelter of the Legion. . . . I told the surgeon at Fort St. Jean that it was done by a rival gang because I had pretended to join them and did not. He gave me a roll of the sticking-plaster and advised me, for my comfort, to hide my 'endossement' as he brutally called it." . . .
"Well, now get rid of it," interrupted John Bull.
"The flat iron clamp, binding the corners of that packing-case, would be the very thing. You are not a coward. You proved that to-day. Prove it more highly to-night, and, when they decorate you, let there be a still more honourable decoration beneath--the scars of a great victory. . . . Come on." . . .
When old Jean Jacques Dubonnet fell, many years later, at Verdun, the Colonel of his battalion, on hearing the news, remarked, "I have lost my bravest soldier."
The marks of a terrible burn on his chest were almost obliterated by German bullets and bayonets.
The Legion's net is as wide as its meshes are close; and some rare, as well as queer, fish find their way into it.
Possibly the rarest that it ever contained was a Mahratta soldier who, during the Great War, found his way, always toward the rising sun, across a hundred miles of African jungle, until he reached the sea, and there, boarding a dhow at night, was carried across hundreds of miles of ocean.
The crew of the dhow was an interesting one, among its members being two French gentlemen, one an Intelligence Officer and the other a kindly priest, formerly of Goa--neither of whom was in anywise distinguishable from his sea-faring Arab colleagues.
The dhow, of a humble, unobtrusive and diffident disposition, had business at a lone coastal outpost where flies the Tricouleur, and where sins and suffers a small garrison, of Colonial Infantry and of the Legion. . . .
Here the said priest, whose fairish knowledge of the Marathi tongue had enabled him to understand something of the soldier's story, was glad to assist him to attain his highest ambition--to fight against his personal and national enemies, once more.
As a trained soldier and a stout fellow he found favour in the sight of the Commandant of the post, was duly enrolled as a soldier of France, and eventually found himself precisely where he desired to be. . . .
* * * * *
Mahdev Rao Ramrao, son of Ramrao Krishnaji, was born in a little mud-walled village that nestles above its rice-fields on the slope of the Western Ghats, in the Deccan of India.
High up above the village, its outline clear-cut against the sky, was the fort, "Den of the Tiger," from which Mahdev Rao's forbears, led by Shivaji the Great, had swept down to harry the plains, to plunder towns, and to fight the invading Mussulman. . . .
As he toddled about the crooked streets of tiny mud-built Nagaum, clutching the finger of his grandfather, Krishnaji Arjun, the little fat Mahdev Rao, clad in an embroidered velvet cap and a necklace, learned that he was a Pukka Bahadur, a mighty one, the son, grandson, great-grandson, and general descendant of soldiers, fierce fighting men--from the days of Shivaji the Great three hundred years ago, to the days of Wellesley Sahib (who had fought in those very parts), Nicholson Sahib, Outram Sahib (whose Orderly, grandfather's own father had been), Havelock Sahib, Roberts Sahib, even unto the days of the Great Lat-Sahib Kitchener, the Elephant of War, whose shadow had destroyed the Hubshis 1 and their prophet the Mahdi. . . .
1 "Woolly ones" (negroes).
And, as he grew up, Mahdev Rao understood that he was a Kshattria, of the caste next to the Brahmins themselves; that he was a cradle-ordained soldier, and that he had traditions to reverence and maintain. So he developed into a fine proud youth, self-respecting, ambitious, and religious beyond the conception of the vast majority of Europeans.
In due course, the day came when, as his father, his grandfather, and his great-grandfather had done, he sallied forth from Nagaum, and tramped to the recruiting-depôt at Belara to take service under the Sahibs as a Sepoy--to serve the King Emperor as his father and grandfather had served the Queen, and his other ancestors had served John Company or their own Rajah in due season. His intention was to be faithful to his salt; his ambition was to rise to be a Havildar, possibly a Jemadar, and conceivably a Subedar; his hope was to return to Nagaum full of honours, with medals and a pension, and to superintend the cultivation of the family plot of land (theirs since the days of Shivaji, the Scourge of the Deccan) and the upbringing of his sons and grandsons. . . . But Fate willed otherwise, and affairs in Nagaum were affected by the fact that an egotistical megalomaniac was making a God in his own image, seven thousand miles away in Berlin. . . .
* * * * *
As a white-clad recruit at Belara, life went very well for Mahdev Rao the Mahratta, and when he found himself a khaki-clad full private of the Old Hundredth Bombay Rifles, he found himself indeed.
He was that happy man, the man whose day is full of work that is his hobby, work that he loves, work that is his play. The Jemadar of his double-company was an old friend of his father, and his own Havildar was a Nagaum man. Him, Mahdev Rao cultivated with such words and gifts as are fitting--and highly politic. The Captain Sahib of his double-company was a pukka Sahib, a great shikari, horseman, athlete and soldier. The descendant of Pindaris could understand and admire the descendant of Norman free-booters and Elizabethan gentlemen-adventurers and soldiers of fortune. The Colonel Sahib, with his nine medal-ribbons, white moustache, and burning eye, was Mahdev Rao's idea and ideal of a Man. At an age when Mahdev Rao's people were getting a little senile and more than a little shaky, he seemed as young and active as a Mahdev himself--yea, though as old as Mahdev's grandfather. Sepoys who had seen him at work on the Frontier, when the Ghazis charged home like wounded tigers, spoke of him with bated breath. This was a Bahadur of Bahadurs, a Man. Oh, to die in battle under his approving eye! What bliss! . . . The Adjutant Sahib, Mahdev disliked and feared, though he respected him. (It seems the painful duty of a good Adjutant to make himself disliked and feared, as it is his gratifying privilege to be respected.) . . .
And, by the time war broke out, in August, 1914, the Regiment was Mahdev Rao's happy home; the Colonel Sahib was, in his own expressive phrase, "his Father and his Mother," and his Mahratta comrades were his brothers.
Incidentally and severally, his guru, his Captain, Lieutenant, Subedar, Jemadar and Havildar were also his Father and his Mother; and the honour of his Regiment was the honour of Mahdev Rao. Even the Punjabi Mahommedans and Pathans of the other double-companies were worthy souls, inasmuch as they were part of the Regiment; and still more so the Sikhs, Rajputs, and Dogras; but, of course, the very salt of the Regiment, which was the salt of the Army, which was the salt of the Earth, was Mahdev Rao's double-company of Deccani Mahrattas.
When it was known, a few months later, that the Regiment was to go on Active Service, Mahdev Rao's cup of happiness was already full, by reason of the fact that he had that very day defeated Pandurang Bagu and became champion wrestler of the Regiment--a distinction which guarantees that its holder would give a little trouble to any wrestler in the world, be his nationality and eminence what it might. . . . Judge of the swamping, seething overflow of the said cup of happiness when the news came, plain and indubitable, through the regimental babu, that the Old Hundredth Bombay Rifles were to proceed forthwith to the city of Bombay and embark for East Africa!
Here was news indeed! News of increased saving from pay, decreased expenses, a certain medal, the chances of decoration and promotion; and adventure, experience, change. . . . Of course, to cross the Black Water was to lose caste, but the guru and the village priests would soon put that right and provide dispensation at not too exorbitant rates. Marvellous fellows, the Brahmins, at wangling a thing when there was money in it. . . .
* * * * *
The ten days' journey from Bombay to Mombasa was very wonderful to Mahdev Rao, who had scarcely seen the sea before, and had never set foot on a ship or boat of any description. . . . The problem of how it propelled itself without sails or wheels puzzled him exceedingly, and still more so the problem of how it found its way, day after day, night after night, from one spot on the coast of India to another spot on the coast of Africa. And not just any old spot, mark you, but a definite given place at which it would arrive at a stated time. Certainly the Sahibs up on the bridge could not see across the space of a ten days' journey with the most powerful of field-glasses. . . .
It was a surprise to him to find that the shores of this new and strange continent were remarkably like those of India, and that the coconut groves of the Kilindini inlet, between the island of Mombasa and the mainland, might have come straight from Bombay . . . But then surprises came so thick and fast, that his mind, always more tenacious than acute, became dulled, and he ceased to be surprised at anything--even at the fact that he was expected to fight in jungle so dense that no human being could move through it, save along the foot-wide paths that wound and twisted from village to village or from ford to ford. But how was a man to fight in such country, and what was a double-company to do, accustomed as it was to attack in extended order, and taught never to fire a round until there was a visible enemy to fire at? How could it fight in single file, with an impenetrable wall of trees, creepers, bush and thorn on either side? . . .
The days between the debarkation at Mombasa and the occupation by his double-company of an advanced outpost (days of weary marching through jungle and swamp) passed like a dream, and Mahdev Rao settled down to the routine of this new strange life in a swamp-jungle, and soon felt as though he had never known any other.
It was not a pleasant life, for it was monotonous, unhealthy, and dull, the heat was terrific, food was not all it might have been, fever and dysentery were rife and, in his own phrase, "air and water were bad."
But Mahdev Rao was too keen a soldier to grumble. One did not expect Active Service to be like a furlough-trip to one's home, nor to have the comforts and luxuries of Nagaum, Belara or Bombay, in this enemy's country--the loathsome swamp where lived the Hubshis under the rule of their Germani masters (a kind of White Men, he gathered, who were not Sahibs).
So he trudged along cheerily when his half of the little garrison went marching on a reconnaissance into the enemy's country; did his sentry-go smartly; sat watching with keen untiring eyes on the machan in the tree-top, when such was his duty; and scouted warily along the jungle tracks when sent out with a comrade to patrol to the next outpost. . . .
"That Mahdev Rao's a good lad," remarked Captain Delamere to Lieutenant Carr as they sat in the grass-hut "Officers' Mess" of the outpost, one evening, and tried to masticate the tinned string and encaustic tiles, served out to them under the name of bully-beef and biscuit.
"Always merry and bright, and chucks a chest when some of the other blokes begin to slouch and lag a bit."
"Yes," agreed Carr; "he'll make a damgood Havildar some day. . . . Might make him a Lance-Naik now. . . . Hardly the brains to go further than Havildar, I am afraid . . . but we c'd do with a few thousand Mahdev Raos out here." . . .
"We'll give him a stripe," said Delamere, as he tried to cut up some black-cake ration-tobacco (horrible cheap poison), with the one and only table-knife.
"Why the devil can't they issue tobacco a man can smoke, if they're going to issue a tobacco-ration at all? . . . " he growled, and added: "Yes--we'll give Mahdev Rao a stripe." . . . But it was some one else, and a very different person, who gave Mahdev Rao his stripes.
For, on the following day, he and Pandurang Bagu, patrolling to meet the patrol from the next outpost, were ambushed.
There was a sudden burst of fire from a tree-top, as well as from the bush before and behind them, and Pandurang Bagu went down with a heavy bullet of soft lead in his shattered hip-joint. Almost simultaneously, Mahdev Rao was felled by the blow of a rifle-butt, as he raised his rifle to fire at big khaki-clad Hubshis, in tall khaki grenadier-caps, who rushed at him in front.
"Good!" grunted the Swahili sergeant in charge of the squad. "That one will be able to talk. Kill the other."
Seven bayonets were plunged into Pandurang Bagu as, with trembling hands, he raised his rifle. As one does not get the pleasure of plunging one's bayonet into an enemy every day, the Swahilis and Yaos made the most of their opportunity, and Pandurang Bagu's life ebbed quickly out through dozens of wounds. . . . The Sergeant was a happy man, and his ebon countenance was wreathed in smiles. He had been sent out, by the Herr Offizier, with orders to ambush a patrol and bring in at least one member of it alive--and he had succeeded to perfection.
One night's wait in a most admirable ambush; strict orders not to shoot the last man of the patrol--be there a dozen or be there but two--and to spring out at each end of the ambush and capture the survivor alive; five seconds of smart work as per programme, and the job was done.
And done very neatly--for there are few braver or more skilful soldiers in the world than these African Rifles, when fighting in their own unique jungle. . . .
* * * * *
When Mahdev Rao recovered consciousness (which he did very quickly, thanks to his thick skull and thicker turban) he found himself a prisoner. His hands were bound behind his back, he was stripped almost naked, and his kit and accoutrements were being examined and looted by his captors.
He realized that he was bare-headed and that the long tuft of hair, left among the cropped stubble (that the gods might lift him into heaven, when his time came), was hanging down his back.
He ground his teeth at the shameful outrage these casteless sons of pariah-dogs had put upon him, in knocking his turban off and exposing his bare head. He rose to his knees and staggered to his feet, only to be knocked down again from behind.
"If you strike him senseless, you will have to carry him, Achmet Ali," said the Sergeant. "He has to be in the boma 1 by tomorrow morning, alive, and able to answer the questions of the Bwana Macouba." 2 . . .
1 Enclosure; jungle fort. 2 Great Master.
"I am the hero who knocked him down first," said Achmet Ali, and straightway improvised a chant.
"I am the hero,
The swift-striking hero,
I am the hero
Who knocked him down first."
"Be also the hero that drives him along with a bayonet, then," interrupted the Sergeant, "and you'll be the hero whose head I will blow off if the dog escapes."
And, for the remainder of that day and all that night, the askaris drove Mahdev Rao (as the potter and dhobi of Nagaum drive their donkeys) with blows and curses.
Once, during one of the brief halts, food was offered him (cold boiled rice and a plantain), and he tried to give these foul Untouchables, these casteless carrion-scavengers, some faint idea of the unutterable pollution of the very thought of taking food from their defiling hands--the filthy Hubshi dogs! . . .
"He is too frightened to eat, poor heathen Infidel dog," remarked the Sergeant to Achmet Ali, as he turned towards Mecca and prostrated himself in prayer. . . .
While fording a river, next morning, Mahdev Rao endeavoured to drown himself and the hero, to the boundless amusement of the rest of the squad. The hero revenged himself by making a pattern of cuts upon his captive's back with the point of his bayonet. But they were only about an inch long and quarter of an inch deep, and not likely to affect his value when questioned by the Bwana Macouba as to the number and disposition of the British forces.
* * * * *
The Germani boma was very similar to the one from which Mahdev Rao had come, but considerably larger. Dazed and starving as he was, he noted its strength, the height of its palisades, the depth of its trenches, the number of its machine-guns, and the strength of its garrison of native African Rifles (askaris) and Germani Europeans. He was surprised to see that the majority of the latter wore beards. . . . He had never before seen a European officer or soldier with a beard. . . . Obviously the askaris were well drilled and highly disciplined.
Also, everything about the place was well done. The huts were neater and stronger and better thatched than in his own boma, paths were more neatly made and kept, the earthworks were bigger and stronger. Evidently the Germanis had more coolie-labourers and got more work out of them, or else they gave more attention to these details. Certainly it was a very strong boma, and very strongly garrisoned. He had seen twelve machine-guns and two small quick-firers (something like Indian mountain-battery guns) already. He would have a lot to tell the Captain Sahib when he escaped and got back to the outpost. . . . But would they not take very especial care that he did not escape, after he had seen so much? . . . And how was he to find his way back to his Company through that dense blind jungle, if he did escape? . . . It had got to be done, anyhow--and then he could lead the Captain Sahib and the double-company to this place, and they could rush it at dawn, with much slaughter of black untouchable pariahs who kept a high-caste Indian bare-headed, offered him polluted food and water with their defiling hands, struck him, and generally behaved like the savages they were. . . .
Doubtless, however, their Germani masters would punish them and do justice. Though not pukka Sahibs, they were White Men, and, as such, would have understanding and a sense of decency.
White Men do not offend against the religion of others; they understand caste and respect it; they know that prisoners of war are to be honourably treated. . . . Yes, they understand a high-caste man, and know the difference between a dog of a low-caste negro askari of Africa, and a high-caste Kshattria Sepoy of India; the difference between one who comes next to the Brahmins themselves and one who is utterly beyond the pale, a walking pollution to earth, air, and water, whose very shadow is a defilement and a desecration to what it falls upon. . . . Yes, it would be all right when he was brought face to face with their officers, even though they were Germanis. . . .
He was hustled into a filthy grass hut in which were four negroes--spies, defaulters and guides, the last being kept in bonds with the criminals, by reason of their incurable desire to leave the service of their employers and captors. . . .
Later he was haled forth--still bare-headed, bound, and half-naked--to where, beneath a tree, sat three Europeans, attended by a Sergeant and guard of askaris, and one or two nondescript persons, including a half-caste in European clothing, a clerk, and a servant. On a camp-table before the White Men were bottles of beer, glasses, a revolver, a heavy kiboko 1 of rhinoceros-hide, a map, and a notebook.
1 Whip.
The central figure of the three (one Von Groener), who wore a khaki uniform, blue putties and a white-topped peaked cap, bade the half-caste ask the prisoner the name of his regiment, the number of men in his boma, and the number of machine-guns it contained--for a start.
The "half"-caste, a Negroid Goanese-Arab-Indian, put the questions in the barbarous Hindustani of the Goanese quarter of Dar-es-Salaam. Mahdev Rao, a Mahratta, always speaking Marathi in the Regiment, knew little more Hindustani than he did English.
"Tera pulton ka nam kya hai?" said the "interpreter." "Kitni admi tera boma men hain? Kitni tup-tup tup-tup bandook hain?" 1
1 " What is the name of your regiment? How many men are there in your outpost? How many machine-guns?"
Mahdev Rao had a fair idea as to what the man was driving at, but he looked stupid, and, in Marathi, replied:
"I do not understand."
Mr. Alonzo Gomez had never heard Marathi in his life.
"The man does not understand the language of India, Herr Kommandant," he said, in clumsy German, to the officer who sat in the centre.
"But that is absurd," replied that worthy. "If he comes from India he knows the language of India. Tell him I will kiboko the flesh from his bones if he tries to fool me."
"Bwana Sahib tumko kiboko diega," 1 answered Gomez to the prisoner.
1 " The Master will flog you."
"I will try him in English," said the senior officer to the others. "The English give all drill-orders in English; therefore this animal understands English."
"Ja! Ja!" agreed the other two. "Ganz klein wenig."
"Hear, pig-dog," quoth the senior gentleman, "his battalion what his name calls? How large are man-number of it? How large are gun-machine-number of it? Isn't it?"
To Mahdev Rao, at least two of the gutturally pronounced words were familiar. "Sahib," he said in Marathi, "I am a Sepoy and a prisoner of war. I am not a spy. And I am very tired and thirsty." . . .
"The swine is contumacious," said the senior. "He understands both English and Hindustani. He is shamming. We will help him to find his wits--and his tongue," and he gave a curt order to the askari Sergeant. (Also to the Swahili servant--concerning the replenishment of the beer supply.) He was a handsome man of about forty, with a small forked beard, a cold blue eye, and a hard domineering expression. Once he had been an ornament of Berlin and Potsdam, an Ober-Leutnant of Grenadiers; but debt, drink, cards, and an unfortunate duel, had sent him into exile. In exile he had grown morose, bitter and savage, loathing and blaming everything and every one--except himself.
Of his companions, one was a ne'er-do-well relation of a German General and had been shipped to German East Africa to die of fever, beer, and dissipation; the other was an ex-Feldwebel of the Prussian Guard who had made money as an elephant-poacher and then done exceeding well as a trader and planter--well from the financial point of view bien entendu; from the moral point of view he had not done very well.
The three were not typical of their class, and were of wholly different fibre from their General (a great soldier and a gentleman).
They were three bad men, bad by the standards of the German colony--and the order that Ober-Leutnant von Groener had given, and that his colleagues had applauded, was that Mahdev Rao, prisoner of war, captured in uniform, upon his lawful occasions as a soldier, should be tied to a tree and flogged with the terrible rhinoceros-hide kiboko with which the German instils discipline into his native soldiers, servants, coolies, criminals, and lady "housekeepers."
Mahdev Rao was seized by the askari guard, and so tied that he was hugging, with arms and legs, the big tree beneath which the "court" was sitting.
In the hands of a huge, brawny, and most willing Sergeant of askaris, the five-foot kiboko, tapering from the thickness of a man's wrist to that of his little finger, supple as india-rubber, and tougher than anything in the world, is a most terrible instrument of torture and punishment. The "draw" of the scientific pulling-stroke (as of one who cuts through a stick with one slice of a knife) of the kiboko lacerates and mangles, blood leaping at every blow. . . .
By the time the three German gentlemen considered that Mahdev Rao was sufficiently exhorted, encouraged, and rebuked (for his contumaciousness), he was also senseless and apparently dead. . . . It was annoying, as the Herr Ober-Leutnant had hoped to obtain much interesting and useful information concerning the Indian Expeditionary Force, and to send it to Head-Quarters. . . .
Mahdev Rao recovered consciousness in the same prison-hut. He was alone, and the fact that there was no one present to see such a fall from grace, aided the terrible pangs of thirst in inducing him to drink from the gourd of water that stood in the corner. . . . Later, he ate a couple of plantains. . . . As they were covered by their skins, the interior had not been defiled--or, at any rate, one could take a certain amount of comfort from such a theory and argument.
Later still, he bowed to the inevitable, and ate the cold boiled rice his askari gaoler brought him. It was a terrible thing to do--but life was dear--and revenge was dearer. He would live, at any cost, to be revenged upon that--that--swine, and son of swine--that offspring of pariah curs--that carrion-eating lump of defilement and pollution--who had had him, him, Sepoy Mahdev Rao of the Old Hundredth Bombay Rifles, flogged, publicly flogged, by black beasts of Hubshis. . . .
Great as were his physical sufferings, his mental sufferings were a thousand times greater. His body felt pain: his mind felt agonizing tortures and excruciating torments unspeakable. . . . He ground his teeth, clenched his fists, and cried aloud in rage and horror--and then fell silent and still . . . for no--he must not go mad, he must not lose strength, he must not die--until he had had his revenge. . . .
Next day he was questioned again and flogged again.
At the end of a week, the Ober-Leutnant decided to send him to Head-Quarters at Mombobora. There was a Missionary Father in the town, who had worked in India and would know the language perfectly. There was also a hospital, where they would patch the dog up, that he might be able to converse with the Father. . . . Anyhow--since the Colonel seemed to think that he, the Ober-Leutnant, had shown little skill in his endeavours to get information from this Indian, let him see if he could do any better himself. . . .
At Head-Quarters they learnt nothing from Mahdev Rao, though he learnt much from them concerning the difference between German and British methods of dealing with native prisoners who will not "talk."
He was not flogged, but he was abused, starved, bound, insulted, and finally herded with a chain-gang of negro criminals, and set to such work as road-sweeping and latrine-cleaning.
What this means to a man of caste, no one who has not lived in India can guess, and no one but a high-caste Indian can know. Nothing worse can happen to him.
And, from time to time, he was brought before the Missionary, who talked to him in excellent Marathi, promising him all kinds of rewards if he would describe the composition and disposition of the Expeditionary Force from India. . . . Were there Pathans and Gurkhas in it? . . . Were there field-batteries? . . . Were there Pioneer Corps? . . . Had part of it gone by the Uganda Railway to Nairobi and the Lakes? . . . Were the Sepoys loyal? . . . If he returned to them with much money and more promises, would he be able to induce any of them to desert? . . . What was the state of feeling in India? . . . And much more, until Mahdev Rao, maddened, sullen, brutalized, barely sane, by reason of his wrongs, cruelties, and immeasurable degradations, would lift up his voice and curse the padre, the evil white fakir, until his guards smote him on the mouth and dragged him away--a naked, filthy wreck of a man. . . .
Constantly he sought an opportunity of escape from the town, but found none.
He must have food, a weapon of some kind, and he must get more strength and recover his health, get rid of this fever, before he could take the opportunity if one offered. But when he was not road-sweeping or road-making with the chain-gang, he was otherwise working, always under the eye of an askari guard, who asked nothing better than an excuse to shoot him. . . .
No--he must wait, and it was always possible that the Germani officer, who had flogged him, might come to this Head-Quarters, and save Mahdev Rao the journey to that gentleman's boma.
For Mahdev Rao's one idea now, his one reason for living, was to avenge himself upon Ober-Leutnant von Groener--the man who, instead of treating him as a prisoner of war, had had him publicly flogged, and had then sent him to this place where a high-caste Indian Sepoy was as a cannibal negro criminal, and was herded with them. . . . He did not wish to live. He did not wish to return to India--he was too eternally and utterly defiled, polluted, and out-caste for that. But he did not intend to die until he had met the Germani who had had him flogged, the man whom he regarded as the arch-type of his captors, the man who had brought him into this living death of defilement, the man who was the cause of all his woes. . . .
To listen seriously to the Missionary Father's temptations to treachery never occurred to him. He was Sepoy Mahdev Rao of the Old Hundredth Bombay Rifles, a soldier of the King Emperor, and son of a long line of brave and honest fighting men, "true to salt," and loyal as hilt to blade. . . .
* * * * *
One morning, with the rest of a road-sweeping gang, Mahdev Rao was working at a spot just outside the native "town" of Mombobora, where a little bridge crossed a muddy stream, more mud than stream, that lay between two tracts of cultivation. . . .
A squad of askaris tramped past . . . a doctor and two nurses . . . a small herd of cattle . . . a German lady in a kind of rickshaw . . . an officer in a hammock slung from a stout bamboo pole, borne by four Kavarondo natives . . . a file of negresses with water-jars upon their heads . . . and then--did his eyes deceive him?--his Enemy, the man who had had him flogged!
* * * * *
. . . Strolling along, taking the morning air, came Ober-Leutnant Fritz von Groener, who had been summoned to Mombobora by the Colonel, and had arrived on the previous day.
As he reached the little bridge, a crouching man, a filthy, half-naked wretch of the road-gang, suddenly rose and sprang at him, drove him sideways and backwards, before he could raise his heavy whip or draw his automatic--and seized him in a grip, scientific and powerful, the hold of a champion wrestler, in whom was the strength of madness and the lust of revenge.
Before the lounging askari guard heard a sound of the struggle, the two, swaying and straining, fell against the low coping of the bridge, toppled over it, and splashed heavily into the liquid mud beneath--the German officer beneath the Indian soldier, whose hands were at his throat, whose knee was on his chest, and who, slowly, strongly, surely, thrust his head beneath the foul slime, and held it there as the writhing bodies sank and splashed in the watery mud. . . .
It is probable that the Herr Ober-Leutnant was dead before Askari Mustapha Moussa, in charge of the road-gang, had realized that something was wrong, had reached the bridge-head and had made up what must be called his mind, that it was his duty to risk a shot at the "coolie."
Certainly he was dead enough when the hands of Mahdev Rao were at length torn from his throat, and the two were dragged from the mud into which they were disappearing. . . .
* * * * *
Rumours of the approach of an enemy force caused much confusion that night, and Sepoy Mahdev Rao, sentenced to be shot at dawn, decided to view the dawn elsewhere than in Mombobora, or to die in an attempt to turn this confusion to good account. . . .
A competition in lying was proceeding, and entries were good. (One Légionnaire told of his beloved pet rabbit which nibbled lead, ate cordite, swallowed a burning match--and then went out and shot its own, and its master's, supper.)
"Yep," growled the Bucking Bronco, as the little group of Legionaries, from all corners of the earth and all strata of human society, turned toward him, "I allow I can tell as big a lie as Ole Man Dobroffski--even if I ain't the Czar of Roosia's gran'pa's little gan'chile, Wilhelmine-Bungorfski-Poporf."
Père Jean Boule, "father" of the Second Battalion, and incidentally an English baronet, moved uneasily. The Bucking Bronco had always disliked the Russian aristocrat, and had never made any secret of the fact. If ever they fought, there would not be two survivors of that fight . . . and the Bucking Bronco was his beloved and loving friend, and a mine of virtues, though a Bad Man--of the best sort. He had been, among other things, a miner, cowboy, tramp, lumberman, professional boxer, U.S.A. trooper, and ornament of a Wild West show, of which he was the trick revolver-shot.
"Ah . . . you allus was a purple liar, Buck," put in 'Erb, the Cockney, as the American produced a deplorable French pipe and some more deplorable French tobacco. (How his soul yearned for a corn-cob and some Golden Bar, or "the makings" and a bag of Bull Durham!)
"I give a guy a picky-back once," continued the Bucking Bronco, ignoring 'Erb, whom he usually treated as a mastiff treats a small cur.
"But how interesting!" murmured the ex-Colonel of the Imperial Guard, who called himself "Dobroffski."
"And it killed that guy, and it killed his gal, and it sent me bug-house--loco--for Devil-knows-how-long-an'-all," continued the American, ignoring Dobroffski as he had ignored 'Erb.
"What is it that it is, then--this 'bug-'ouse' and this 'loco'?" murmured le Légionnaire Alphonse Blanc, whose English included no American.
"Same as what you'd call 'dotty'--or 'off 'is onion'--'looney'--'balmy on the crumpet'--in yore silly lingo," explained 'Erb helpfully.
"Fou," murmured La Cigale, for the benefit of Blanc and Tant-de-Soif, whose knowledge of English was limited also. (La Cigale, the ex-Belgian officer, knew all there was to know about démence, poor soul.)
"Wot killed 'em? Was it the sight o' the faices you made--doin' the job o' work?" inquired 'Erb.
The Bucking Bronco leaned back against the wall of rough-hewn, thickly-mortared grey stones, spread his huge legs abroad, and blew a cloud of smoke. He was wearing his capote (the long blue great-coat) and red trousers tucked into black leggings, but he shivered as though cold.
"I can see that gal's face now," he said, staring out across the ocean of sand that surrounded the fort; and the enormous powerful man, with his long arms, big hands, leathern face, and heavy drooping moustache, looked ill and fell silent.
"Wish I could, Ole Cock," observed 'Erb. "Where's she 'iding?"
"And Bud Conklin's feet, too, a danglin' just above me face. Ole Bud Conklin, what I'd bin a road-kid with, an' took the trail with ever-since-when--ranchin'; gold-prospectin', with a rusty pan and a bag o' flour; ridin' the blind, right across the States; lumberin'; throwin' our feet fer a two-bit poke-out, in the towns; and trampin' through the alkali sage bush, as thirsty as a bitch with nine pups.
"Bud Conklin was a blowed-in-the-glass White Man, an' I was the death of him. Yes, Sir. And his gal--a little peach, named Mame Texas. . . . I guess she begun life as 'Mame o' Texas,' never hevin' hed no parients--nawthen to speak of--'cos Dago Jake had lifted her outer Ole Pete Frisco's ranch when his gang shot th' ol' sinner up, down Texas way (an' he never hed no wife--nawthen to speak of) and burnt the place down.
"An' when she filled out and grow'd up a bit, Dago Jake he got that sot on the gal, he allowed as he'd give any man lead-pisenin' as looked at her twice; an' he beat her up every time he got a whisky-jag, so' she shouldn't look twice at nobody else.
"Marry her? No! There wasn't no sky-pilots around Hackberry Crossin' by the Frio River in them prickly-pear flats; an' Dago Jake dassn't show his ugly face near no church-bearin' city--even if he'd held with matterimony as a pastime.
"Nope! Nix on marryin' fer Jake.
"Then me an' Bud eventuates in Hackberry Crossin', travellin' mighty modest and unconspishus, after arguin' with a disbelievin' roller of a Ranger as allowed we'd found our pinto hosses before no one hadn't lost 'em.
"An' it was up to us to lose ourselves an' keep away with both feet after we'd collected that cracker-jack's hoss, an' gun likewise, and the financial events in the pockets of his pants.
"He was a sure annoyed boob when me an' Bud told him good-bye an' set his erring feet for Quatana--having took his belt and pant-suspenders and bootlaces so's he'd hev to hold his pants up with one hand an' his boots on with the other. An' then we burnt the trail for Hackberry Crossin', day an' night, and went to earth at Dago Jake's, sech being Jake's perfession.
"Bud didn' look at Mame twice. Nope, once was enuff, but it lasted all the time she was in sight! . . . Bud took it bad. . . . He wrote po'try. An' he made me listen to it while we wolfed out mornin' frijoles an' cawfy, or evenin' goat-mutton steaks an' canned termatoes, an' forty-rod whisky. Bud's fav'rite spasm begun:--
'O Mame, which art not in reach,
O Mame, thou art a peach!
I fair must let a screech
Or else my heart it will be too full for speech.'
An' there was about twenty noo verses each day. He made 'em up outa his silly head while we lay doggo, up in the pear-thicket along the arroyo behint Jake's abode.
"An' by the time the Sheriff, an' the Lootenant of Rangers, an' the Town Marshal o' Quatana begun to allow that no such suspicious characters as me an' Bud hadn't ever crossed the Frio at Hackberry Crossin', Bud was nearly as much in love with Mame as Mame was with Bud.
"They hed got it bad.
"And soon that low-lifer coyote of a Dago Jake, he begins to smell a rat, and afore long he smells a elephant. Bud wants to shoot him up, but Mame won't stand for it. She don't want Bud to swing fer a goshdinged tough like Jake. 'It would be man-slaughterin' murder,' says she; 'besides which, Jake kin pull a gun as quick as greased lightnin'. Yew ain't got nawthen on Jake at that game,' she says, 'wherefore I holds it onlawful and calc'lated to cause a breach of the peace--and o' yew likewise, Bud,' an' she kisses him like hell, we-all being in the pear-thicket, an' me lookin' the other way like I was searchin' fer me lost youth an' innercence. . . ."
"Wot abaht this 'ere picky-back, Buck?" interrupted 'Erb. "Thought you was agoin' to tell a thunderin' good lie abaht killing yer pal an' 'is donah, through playin' picky-backs with 'em."
Le Légionnaire Reginald Rupert, leaning forward from his place on the bench, smote 'Erb painfully in the ribs: William Jones crushed the little man's képi over his face: while La Cigale, in the voice of one who chides a dog, hissed "Tais-toi, canaille!" in an unwonted fit of anger at the unmannerly interruption.
"But what is it that it is, this peek-a-back?" whispered Alphonse Blanc to John Bull, as the Bucking Bronco turned his slow contemptuous regard upon 'Erb.
"As to say, sur-le-dos," replied the old Legionary, seizing the Cockney in a grip of iron as he prepared to deal faithfully with Rupert and Jones (who had been Captain Geoffry Brabazon-Howard of the Black Lancers).
* * * * *
"And the end of it was," continued the American, "that we made our get-away, the three of us, one night; mighty clever, we thought, until we heard Dago Jake laugh--at our very first campin' ground! . . .
"I'd kep' first watch, an' then Bud the next--and Mame, she must sit up and keep watch with him. . . . 'Fore long they was doin' it with their four eyes shut, being as tired as a greaser's mule, and aleanin' agin a tree, wrop in each other's arms. . . .
"I ain't ablamin' 'em any. . . . They paid--most, anyhow. . . .
"When I wakes up, hearing Dago Jake's pleasin' smile, he'd got 'em covered with his gun, an' half-a-dozen of his gang (blowed-in-glass-Bad-Men-from-Texas they was, too) had got me covered also likewise.
"'First on you as moves, and I let some daylight into the dark innards o' that respectable young female as yore acuddlin', Bud Conklin,' says Jake. 'Git up and hands up.'
"'Do it smart, Buck,' ses Bud, and we jumps up and puts our hands up, right there. I guess Bud hoped as how Jake might forgive the gal an' take her back--when he'd done with Bud. . . .
"I'd hev reached for the hip-pocket o' me pants and pulled my gun--for I allow that no moss don't grow on me when I start in to deliver the goods with a gun--for all his bone-head bunch o' shave-tails, but I allowed Jake would shoot the gal up, all right; and that was where the outfit had got the bulge on us. . . . Yep, it was Jake's night to howl. . . .
"And right here's where the picky-back eventuates, Sonny," he added, addressing 'Erb.
"Yep. Mr. Fresh-Tough Coyote Dago Jake had thought out a neat cinch--cool as ice--with his black heart boilin' and bubblin' like pitch. . . . In about half no-time, me an' Bud was roped-up with raw-hide lariats--me like a trussed fowl and Bud with his hands only. They was bound fit to cut 'em off, but his legs was free--and all the time Dago Jake covers the gal, and asks in his dod-gasted greasy voice--like molasses gurglin' outer a bar'l (no, I didn't like Jake's voice)--whether she'd hev her ears shot off or be crippled fer life with a shot in each knee, if she stirred an inch, or me an' Bud tried to move hand or foot. . . . Yes, Sir, Jake fair gave me the fantods that bright an' shinin' morn.
"Then, when they'd done tyin' me an' Bud like parcels, they bound the gal to the tree what we'd been campin' under. They tied her hands behind her; they tied her feet an' knees together; and they tied her to that tree like windin' string round a bat-handle. . . . And then they puts a halter round Bud's neck an' ties the other end to a branch--after settin' Bud up on my shoulders, with his legs one each side of my head an' his feet danglin' down on my chest. . . . Yes, Sir. . . . And I calc'lated that if I co-lapsed, Bud's feet would still dangle--about a yard from the ground or a couple o' foot, when the rope stretched and gave a bit, or the bough bent a little. . . . And Mame stood face to face with us six feet away. . . ."
* * * * *
The Bucking Bronco fell silent--and no member of the little group of Legionaries broke the silence. I could see from their faces that even Tant-de-Soif and Alphonse Blanc grasped the situation--while from La Cigale, Dobroffski, and the Japanese, scarcely a nuance of meaning was hid.
It was plain that John Bull, Reginald Rupert, and William Jones visualized the scene more clearly, and felt its poignant horror more fully than did 'Erb, ex-denizen of the foulest slums of London.
"'Streuth!" 'Erb murmured at last, and scratched his head.
"And then, 'I fear I must now leave you for a spell, ladies an' gents,'ses Dago Jake," continued the American, "after he'd smacked his lips some, an' pointed out our cleverness and beauty to the grinnin' outfit--'but I'll look in a bit later on--say this day week or so, an' pay my respex'--and the hull outfit rides off, laffin' fit to bust.
"And there was we-all--Bud hevin' as long to live as I could stand up under his weight; an' me an' Mame with as long to live as starvation 'ud let us.
"No, there wasn't no hope of nobody comin' along through them prickly-pear flats. That didn't eventuate to happen once in a month--apart from Dago Jake layin' hisself out to see that it didn't happen till we-all had got what was acomin' to us.
"He c'd fix it to detain anybody what might come to Hackberry Crossin' plannin' to follow the trail we'd took West--which was as onlikely as celluloid apples in Hell--an' nobody never come East along it, 'cos there was a better one.
"Nope--we'd chose that highly onpopulous thoroughfare apurpose, travellin' modest an' onconspishus as before, an' the more so for to avoid unpleasantness for Mame consevent upon pursuit by Dago Jake.
"And there wouldn't be no Ranger patrol along neether. If any come at all, it'd be along the trail we'd reckoned as Jake'd take when he found we'd vamoosed durin' his temp'r'y indisposition of whisky-jag. . . .
"Gee-whillikins! what wouldn't I have give fer that same Ranger, that Bud an' I had held up an' dispoiled contumelious, to happen along--even if it meant ten years striped pyjamas in the County Pen or in St. Quentin with hard labour, strait-jacket an' dungeons. I'd ha' fell upon his neck an' kissed him frequent an' free. . . . Yep. . . . And then some." . . .
The irrepressible 'Erb improved the occasion, as the big American ceased and seemed to stare into the past.
"Ah!" he moralized, "if you'd bin alivin' of a honest life an' keepin' out o' trouble wi' the p'lice, you'd never 'a come to trouble like that. . . . It was all along 'o yore interferin' wi' the copper as wanted to see the receipt for them 'osses, that you come ter grief."
"An' that's where yore wrong agin, Sonny," replied the Bucking Bronco with his big-dog-to-little-dog air of forebearance. "Though I allow youse an authority on avoidin' trouble with the perlice"--('Erb's presence in the Legion was consequent upon his hurried leaving of his country for his country's good)--"for it was entirely due to that same Ranger's ferocious pussonal interest in me that I'm alive to-day. He'd allowed he would trail me and Bud if it took the rest of his misspent life--an' arrest us lone-handed. He was that mad! Walkin' on foot without pant-suspenders is humiliatin' to a sensitive nature what has jest bin relieved of its gun."
He fell silent again, and nobody spoke or stirred.
"We talked a bit, at first," he continued after a long pause, "an' ole Bud Conklin showed his grit, cheering up Mame, an' sayin' Dago Jake was only playin' a trick on us. But the gal knew Dago Jake, an' soon she began to lose holt on herself. . . . I ain't blamin' her any. . . . She loved Bud Conklin, y'see. . . . She cried, and struggled, and screeched, and I wished she'd stop--until she begun to laugh, and then I'd rather she'd cried and screeched.
"And 'Come up, ol' hoss,' says Bud to me, when fust I staggered a bit--jest quiet like--jest like he'd said a thousand times when a tired pony stumbled under him.
"And by-an'-by he leans down an' whispers, 'I'd kick free of yer, pard, if it wan't for the gal.'
"An' when I begins to tremble an' sway around, he leans down agin and says very quiet, 'Hold up till the gal faints or sleeps or su'think, Buck,' he says. 'Hold up, ole pard. . . . She'll go mad for life if I dances an' jerks afore her eyes!' . . . An' I know he weren't hevin' no daisy of a dandy time up there--and that he'd have kicked clear long ago but for the gal. . . .
"Faint? Sleep? Not she. . . . There she stood, face to face with us--havin' highstericks a spell, then laffin' a spell, then prayin' some. . . . Then croonin' over Bud Conklin like he was her babby. . . . Whiles, she'd praise me fer standin' firm an' savin' her man--an' there was a spell when the pore thing thought I was God.
"One time, 'bout mid-day, Bud Conklin swore an' cursed at Dago Jake till I fair blushed to hear him--an' then I waded in and beat him holler at swearin', an' cursin' the name of Dago Jake. . . . But that didn't cut no ice--nor cut our raw-hide lariats neither.
"In all them story-books about Red Injuns an' Deadwood Dicks an' such, the blue-eyed, golden-haired Hero allus busts his bonds. He figgers to bust 'em on time; then to find a saddled hoss standin' ready; likewise to pick up a new-loaded gun and a square meal by the road-side, before gallopin' a hundred miles to make a fuss o' the Villain and make a date with the Heroine--jest as that husky hoodlum's criminile advances, drugs, stranglin's and starvin's is gettin' irksome to the young female. . . .
"I guess Dago Jake an' his outfit wasn't the guys as had roped up aforesaid Hero. . . . Nit. . . . But they was the guys as had roped up us, an' we didn't bust no bonds. Nary a bust. And once, towards evenin', I began to sway so bad that I half dropped Bud, an' on'y got him straight on my shoulders agin, jest in time . . . (an' I hear the screech that Mame let, now, sometimes). 'Air you achokin' any, Bud?' I ses. 'No, pard,' ses he, 'I ain't chokin' none, but you couldn't git a cigarette-paper between my neck an' this derned lasso. I allow nex' time will give little Willie a narsty cough an' a crick in the neck.'
"An' at the same time we notices that Mame was still an' quiet, with her eyes shut. 'Now, Buck,' ses Bud, 'fall down an' roll clear. . . . Better she sees me dead than watch me dyin'.'
"'Fall down, nawthen,' says I. 'I'm agoin' to stand right here till the Day o' Jedgement; an' then I allow I'll donate Mister Tin-horn Dago Jake a tomato-eye.' And right then Mame opens her eyes an' smiles sweet, up at Bud.
"'Hevn't we played this silly game long enuff, Buddy?' she says. 'I'm so tired. . . . Let's go git married, like we planned'--an' I heerd Bud cough. She shuts her eyes agin then--an' very slow an' careful I turns right round so's not to see her no more.
* * * * *
"An' I stood still till it was dark. . . .
"So whether Mame died afore Bud or not--she didn't see him die, an' that there fact has kep' me from goin' bug-house like Cigale . . .
"Her dead face an Bud's boot-soles fer a day or two! . . .
"Yep. It were that Ranger as arrested us. A dead woman tied to a tree, a dead man danglin' from it, an' a dead man lyin' just below his feet--o'ny he wasn't quite dead.
"He was a White Man, that Ranger. He was hoppin' mad when he figgers out what had happened, an' gives me rye-whisky, an' dopes me to sleep, an' lets me lie there some.
"He was young an' innercent, an' when he'd donated me some grub an' some more whisky, I talked to him eloquential. I did wanta tell Dago Jake good-bye, before the Ranger hiked me off to his Lieutenant, an' they rounded Jake an' his gang up. The Ranger allowed it was Bud what had held him up and treated him contumelious that day, an' thet as pore Bud had handed in his checks, an' I'd nearly done likewise, he was agoin' to fergit me. . . . He on'y wanted me as witness agin Dago Jake and Co., for the murder of Mame an' Bud. . . .
"An' as we jogs along I talks to him some more, an' in the end he lets me go to the adobe hut to tell Jake good-bye afore he arrests him.
* * * * *
"'Bout four oclock a.m. in the early morning it was, and Jake sleepin' off a whisky-jag! . . . But he sobers up right slick when I wakes him and he sees my pretty face. . . . He didn't even reach for his gun--not that it was still there if he had. I allow he thought I'd come from hell for him.
"I had.
"Yep. I tells Dago Jake good-bye all-right--all-right. An' without usin' no gun, nor knife, nor no other lethial weepon. I takes my farewell o' that gentle Spani-ard with my bare hands, and then I walks outer the shack a-singin'--
"'Roll your tail an' roll it high,
Fer you'll be an angel by-an-by,'
an' walkin' with a proud tail accordin'.
"'How is Dago Jake?' ses the Ranger.
"'He ain't,' ses I. . . ."
* * * * *
As usual it was 'Erb who spoke first.
"I b'lieve you bin tellin' the troof, Buck," said he, "an' that's disqualified in a bloomin' competition for 'oo can tell the biggest lie. My performin' rabbit wins, bless 'is liddle 'eart! Come along to the canteen, and . . ."
"I know a performin' train wot's got yore performin' jack rabbit skinned a mile," interrupted the American.
"Performin' train?" inquired 'Erb blankly.
"That's so," was the drawled reply. "You never seen such a slick train in Yurrup nor Africky. . . . I was makin' a quick get-away from that Ranger--an' he gallops on to the platform at the deepôt as this U.P.R. double-express fast train glides outa the station. I leans well over the side of the observation-car and plants a kiss upon his bronzed an' manly cheek. . . . At least, I begun the kiss there, but where did that kiss finish?
"On the southern end of an ole cow abrowsin' beside the track thirty-three miles down the line! Some train, and some travellin' that! . . . You an' yore performin' rabbit! You make me tired."
"'Streuth!" murmured 'Erb again, and scratched his cropped head, as was his custom when endeavouring to grapple with mysteries beyond his ken.
* * * * *
"Soldats de la Légion,
De la Légion Étrangère,
N'ayant pas de nation,
La France est votre Mère." . . .
I
The three brothers sat in a solemn row upon Beau Geste's bed by the window in their barrack room, enjoying the blessed peace of a Sabbath afternoon.
John Geste yawned cavernously, and the pot-shot made by his brother Digby, with a small piece of soap, was entirely satisfactory--to Digby.
"The child seems bored," observed Beau Geste; "he must do more Arabic. Yes," he continued, "and I think I must institute a course of ethnological studies, too."
"Oh, splendid," agreed Digby, "I shall love that. What is it?"
"What I mean," continued Beau, "is that it would be rather interesting to see how many different nationalities we can discover in the Legion; how many different trades, professions, and callings, and--"
"And all that," said John, having completed another yawn.
"How is Beau like Satan?" asked Digby.
"How's he unlike him?" interrupted John, ere Digby answered his own question with the statement:
"Because he'll find some mischief still for idle coves to do. They'll make him a sergeant, if he's not careful."
"Why mischief?" asked John. "Ethnology isn't mischief, is it?"
"It would be, my lad, if it took the form of going about asking personal questions of les légionnaires. They'd do you a mischief, too," was the reply.
"That's just the point," observed Beau. "No questions to be asked at all. See who can get the finest collection of nationalities, professions, home-towns and all that, without asking anybody anything. No vulgar curiosity. . . . All diplomacy, suggestion, induction, deduction . . ."
"Then production," murmured Digby.
"Quite so, my dear Watson. The one that gets the biggest bag, to give the other two a present. Splendid idea. Keep your young minds active. Train the faculty of observation."
"When do we compare notes?" asked John,
"When I think I've got the biggest list," replied Beau.
"And what if the same feller appears in more than one list?" inquired John.
"Cancel him out, or toss for him, or find who discovered him first, fathead."
"I'm afraid the idea's too late to save you, John," observed Digby--"mind dead already."
One evening a month later, the three brothers, sitting in a row as was their wont, with their elder and leader in the centre, adorned a broad, low divan in Mustapha's café.
"Well, pups, how's ethnology going?" inquired Beau, as he put his clay coffee-cup on the floor beside him.
"Fine," said Digby. "I'm a great man with a great mind. A diplomatist is lost in me."
"Is he?" inquired Beau, in some concern. "Let's get him out."
"No; you don't understand, Beau," observed John. "He means he is a diplomatist. He's right, too. Nobody but a clever diplomatist could hide the fact that he is a diplomatist so well as Digby does."
"Anyhow, I bet I win," said Digby triumphantly. "All authentic, too."
"Then you'll give us each a present," pointed out John. "Shall I choose a fiddle, or a free excursion-ticket, single, to--to--Brandon Abbas? Read out yours."
"No, we'll declare ourselves in order of merit," interposed Beau. "I've got a grocer, Bingen; a shipping-clerk, Barcelona; an officer of the Imperial Guard, St. Petersburg; a valet, Paris; a surgeon, Vienna; a commercial traveller, Hamburg; a vendor of unpostable post-cards, valued and respected citizen of Marseilles; a stevedore, Lisbon; a street-corner fried-bean merchant, Sofia; a teacher of languages, Warsaw; a fig-packer, Smyrna; a perfectly good, nice-mannered, bloody-minded brigand, Bastilica--"
"There isn't any such place," interrupted Digby. "Where is it?"
"Nothing to be ashamed of in honest ignorance, my lad. It's right in the middle of Corsica, fifty miles from Ajaccio--according to the brigand," replied Beau.
"Isn't that where Napoleon Bonaparte was born?" inquired John.
"Bastilica?" replied Digby. "Why, of course; I remember the place quite well now."
"A restaurateur from Ancona; a rock-scorpion from Gibraltar; a Japanese barber from Yokohama--he speaks English with an American accent, he understands Russian, I know, and I'll bet you he could not only drill a battalion but handle a brigade or a division."
"Oh, you mean that chap Yato," interrupted Digby. "I've got him. He's a wonderful tattooer, too. He's going to do portraits of you two on my back, so that I can't see them."
"Will he, too, tattoo, two, to . . ." murmured John sleepily.
"Cancel him out, then," said Beau.
"I've also got a Portuguese cove from Loanda. That's in Angola, Portuguese West Africa."
"Well, we know that, don't we?" complained Digby.
"No," answered Beau and continued: "A Swedish sailor from Göttenburg, and two frightful asses from Brandon Abbas."
"Rotten list," commented Digby; "barely a score."
"Well, how many have you got?" asked his brother.
"Oh, in round numbers, about a hundred."
"Round numbers? All round the truth, I suppose?"
"Well, listen and don't be jealous," answered Digby, producing a paper. "I've got a Russian banker from Odessa; an Italian opera-singer; a Dutch bargee; an Austrian count--or dis-count, perhaps; a Munich brewer's drayman; a Spanish fisherman; a Goanese steward; a Danish farm-boy; a beastly, bounderish, bumptious, Byzantine blackguard; a French actor; a schoolmaster from Avignon; a gambling-hell keeper from Punta Arenas--wherever that may be; a bank-clerk from Rome; a lottery-ticket seller from Havana; a hybrid Callao maquereau; another cosmopolitan gent from Sfax, who, on being asked his trade, always says, 'Je faisais la mouche'--"
"But no questions were to be allowed," interposed Beau.
"I didn't ask any, clever; I overheard, see? . . . A Dutch Colonial soldier, a Bowery tough; a Dresden--"
"Shepherdess," murmured John.
"Wrong again," said Digby--"street-scavenger; a Finnish--"
"Time we got to the finish," murmured John again.
"Bloater-paster, or salmon-smoker--"
"Funny stuff to smoke," commented Beau, "but probably better than this French caporal tobacco."
"A colonel of Don Cossacks."
"From Donnybrook?" inquired John.
"Yes, and Donegal--or perhaps Oxford," replied Beau.
"A bootblack from Athens; a poor fellah from Egypt; a boatman from Beirut; and two frightful asses from Brandon Abbas. . . . Oh, and a lot I haven't written down. Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggarman, thief; painter, pander, pedlar, parasite, printer, professor, prize-fighter, procureur, prefect, priest, pro-consul, prince, prophet-in-his-own-country. . . . Oh, lots. Get you all the names and addresses by and by."
"What have you got, John?" inquired Beau, turning as with bored distaste from the loquacity of his twin.
"I've got another Jones," replied John, alluding to Digby's nom de guerre of Thomas Jones.
"What is a Jone, by the way?" inquired Digby. "I ought to know, as I am some."
"Dunno. Anyhow, this is the only other Jones," replied John. "He's an Englishman--public-school, Oxford, and all that. Indian Army, too, poor beggar. In a rotten state, living on his nerves. Sensitive sort of chap. Shoot himself one of these days. This is about the last place in the world for a man like him."
"Sounds as though it will be the last place in the world for him," observed Digby. "Let's get hold of him and shed the light of our countenances upon him, thus brightening his dark places. Does he seem to be a criminal, like Beau?"
"No, nor a moral wreck like you."
"Moral wreck!" commented Digby. "Better than being an immoral wreck anyhow." And his look was accusatory.
"Neither criminal nor moral wreck," continued John. "Simply a gentleman, like me."
"Oh, a gentleman like you, is he?" remarked Beau. "Then I don't think we'll associate with him."
"Yes, we will. I'm bringing him here to-morrow night, to meet you two. He's simply longing to talk English to people of his own kind. And I'll tell you something else. Unlike most people here, he wants to talk about himself, too. He's in a queer state of nerves--neurotic."
"Poor chap, we must see what we can do for him," agreed Beau; and Digby nodded.
A lean haggard man, his sensitive young face a mask of misery, old and lined, haunted and hopeless, arrived with John the following evening at Mustapha's café. That he was in a terribly nervous condition was all too evident--a reserved and reticent gentleman, devil-driven to be garrulous, talking the harder the more he was ashamed of talking. He seemed literally dying to express himself, to make a clean breast of something terrible, something that still stung and scorched and branded him.
His story, told in a swift rush and a curious metallic voice, without break or hesitation, greatly interested the sympathetic, silent brothers. It interested them yet more, next day, when they learned that, for some reason not divulged, he had shot himself during the night.
Five minutes after his introduction by John to Beau and Digby, he told them that his meeting with them was a godsend, for there was something he must get off his mind.
And a pitiful thing it was, to the listeners, prepared as they were to hear a dark story of vice, crime, ruin and downfall. . . . Pitiful, pathetic, tragic and ridiculous, like a torrent in spate, the absurd story came.
"Looking back and considering the affair again in all its bearings," he said, "I am still of opinion that I did my painful duty and nothing more; that I acted as a man of conscience should do, and that I have nothing whatever wherewith to reproach myself.
"Only the fool or the moral coward says, 'Am I my brother's keeper?' For what had my dear mother trained me, and my dear father in God developed my sense of responsibility to my neighbour and myself, but that I should act precisely as I did in that affair?
"I suppose it is the Devil himself who is the fons et origo of those foolish, unworthy and sinful doubts that do sometimes try to raise their poisonous heads in my disordered mind when I look back upon the little incident.
"However, I will tell the exact truth as to what I thought and said and did; and you shall judge as to whether any high-minded, conscientious and morally courageous person could have done otherwise than I did.
"I was brought up by the best mother a man ever had, a human saint, and by a priest whose chief regret, I think, was that burning at the stake has become unpopular. No, he didn't want to burn anybody; he wanted to be burnt--for his faith. He sought a martyr's crown and found a comfortable living, much honour and preferment. Finding also that honour is not without profit save in its own country, he determined to go abroad and find profit to his soul among the heathen--and possibly the martyr's crown beneath the solar topi--it would look odd on top of one.
"And I went to India to join the Indian regiment into which I was exchanging, by the same boat that took him to join the holy army of martyrs, if he could contrive it. It was a great joy to my mother that I was to travel with the good man and not be left to stray alone into the detrimental atmosphere of Gibraltar, Malta, Port Said, Aden, Bombay or other such colourful, and therefore wicked, places.
"And on that accursed boat I saw my new colonel's young wife kiss another man. I saw him with his arms about her waist. I saw him go into her cabin, when the colonel lay snoring in a chaise longue upon the deck.
"When I heard them plotting together to go off, at Port Said, on Christmas Day, my terrible struggle with my conscience was ended. My conscience had won, and I knew I must tell the colonel the horrible truth, however agonizingly distasteful and obnoxious this hateful duty might be. Yes, I was a Young Man with a Conscience. . . . But let me tell the facts in sequence as they occurred.
"My new colonel (of the regiment to which I was going), returning from leave and his honeymoon trip, was a grey, stern man; a typical dour Scot, very unapproachable, and the last man in the World with whom one would attempt to jest or trifle.
"His bride was a beautiful young girl who might well have been his daughter--as merry, frivolous and gay as Colonel Gordon-Watts was sober, hard and dour. Opposites attract--and it was plain that he worshipped her.
"I admired her greatly, and she was very kind to me on the one or two occasions on which I spoke to her. Sometimes I felt I would rather be promenading with her, sitting beside her deck-chair or playing deck-quoits and bull-board with her than eternally walking and talking with my good and kind mentor.
"But I was far too much his spiritual child, his acolyte and disciple, to think of breaking away from his control. You see he had educated me from childhood until I went to Oxford, and he had settled there, with those admirable Fathers irreverently known to undergraduate youth as the Cowley Dads, and continued to exercise his powerful influence upon my character. I was with him daily and much of every day, and, as you hear, even now that I was in the army--with a university commission, as my mother would never hear of my going to Sandhurst--and was going abroad into the wide and wicked world, he was with me still. Yes, I was a Young Man with a Conscience.
"No, I did not make any attempt to desert my mentor and cabin-companion in order to bask in the society of the colonel's wife; but while my ear listened to my spiritual father and my tongue replied to him, my eye undoubtedly followed her.
"Nothing happened until we reached Marseilles and the overland passengers came on board. When I went on the promenade deck that evening, one of them already sat beside her, and I was very sorry to see her accept a cigarette from him and smoke it. He was, like herself, young, and again like herself and most unlike the colonel, merry, frivolous and gay.
"They had evidently made friends very quickly and they were always together. Certainly they made a splendidly matched couple, and certainly she seemed far more merry and bright in his company than in that of her husband."
"How they laughed together!
"And the colonel seemed content. He would sit in the writing-room scribbling away, all the morning, at some military text-book or other that he was compiling; sleep all the afternoon; scribble again in the evening; walk violently round and round the deck, for exercise, before dinner, and go to bed quite early. I confess that I envied the handsome, laughing youth and that I often longed to talk to someone other than my spiritual father--someone like this merry, frivolous girl, for example.
"And on the second day out from Marseilles I received a terrible shock.
"Coming suddenly round the corner from the music-saloon, I almost ran into her deck-chair as she withdrew her hand from that of her new companion with the words:
"'You are a darling, Bobby; you shall have a hug for that'--and, as I dodged the foot-rest of her chair, her eye met mine, even as she spoke. Did she look confused, uncomfortable, guilty? Not she! Her gaze was utterly untroubled, and it was evidently nothing to her that I must have heard every word she said.
"Perfectly shameless!
"And as for him--he had the effrontery to murmur quite distinctly, 'Hold up, old hoss!' as I stumbled and blundered past.
"Of the three, it was certainly I who would have struck an observant onlooker as the guilty one, as I flushed to the roots of my hair and hurried away, not knowing where to look.
"Think of it! Married a month, and the man had not been on the boat three days! I trembled from head to foot, and went straight to my cabin, feeling shocked to the point of physical sickness.
"Should I tell Father Staunton?
"Ought not I to tell her husband? Was not I an accessory after the fact, almost an accomplice, practically compounding a felony, if I stood by and said nothing? Was I my brother's keeper? I knew I was. I knew it was my duty to save the Colonel from shame; to save this woman from ruining her life; to save this young man 'Bobby' from himself.
"But I knew I was not brave enough to do it. And the devil tempted me with whisperings of 'Most un-gentlemanly of you to tell tales of a lady!' 'Gross impertinence!' 'Colonel Gordon-Watts will refuse to believe you, but not to kick you downstairs.' 'Mind your own business, you young fool,' and even: 'Make love to her yourself, since she's of such an oncoming disposition'--whereat I jumped with horror and told myself I would do my painful, dreadful duty.
"That evening, while Father Staunton was undressing in the cabin, I went on deck. It was a glorious moonlight night. As four bells rang and the lascar look-out replied with his sing-song cry of 'Ham dekhta hai' to show that he was awake and watchful, I was moved with an idle inclination to go right up into the bows and watch the phosphorescence as the knife-like stem churned up the sleeping waters.
"I ran down the companion, crossed the well-deck, and climbed the iron ladder to the fo'c'sle.
"He and she were there, leaning on the bulwarks--and his arm was around her waist!
"Going up on deck early next morning, I saw them meet--and kiss! During that day, as on previous days, the young man (his name was Mornay, by the way) cultivated the society of other young women a good deal, presumably as a blind. But, as I sat reading in the lounge before dinner, Mornay and Mrs. Gordon-Watts came and sat down close behind me, and they made their arrangements for going off together, on Christmas Day, at Port Said!
"They spoke with shameless openness and lack of decency; and I distinctly heard Mornay say: 'Slip away while he's writing, then,' and a few minutes later: 'Bring all the cash you can scrape together, mind! You'll want it at . . . and I am nearly broke. I can't keep--' and her reply, with a heartless giggle: 'Suppose he comes after us!'
"I sprang up, and leaning over, said: 'Pardon--I am hearing much of what you say, and I shall--'
"With brazen effrontery, Mornay interrupted with, 'Right-o, old thing! Sorry if our artless prattle disturbed you,' while Mrs. Gordon-Watts stared at me as though she thought me eccentric.
"I rushed to my cabin.
"How shall I tell of the agonies of indecision, cowardice and self-contempt that I suffered, as I wrestled with my conscience once more. I ought to stop this thing. It was my bounden duty to warn the Colonel. Was I my brother's keeper? And so on, ad nauseam.
"And a thing which somehow, and strangely, seemed to make it all worse, if that were possible, was the fact that she was not the only woman that he pursued. He was a perfect Don Juan and made up to every pretty girl and woman on board, married or single.
"'An arrant flirt,' thought I, 'a lady-killer; a heartless, conscienceless scoundrel.' And yet I could not deny that he was popular with all on board. He was in the greatest demand, always and everywhere--in fact, 'the life and soul of the ship,' as Mrs. Gordon-Watts truly said.
"And while I sat on my berth, and suffered, Father Staunton entered and I laid the matter before him. I weakly suggested that he, a priest, was the fitter person to intervene.
"'No, my son,' said he, 'I go to no man with a tale about a tale. . . . And I shall leave it to your own conscience. Do what you think right, but be no self-deceiver. Be very sure of your motive before you act or decide not to act.'
"And I read this to mean, 'Do not stand by and see this happen because you are a coward while you pretend it is because you are not a busybody. . . . Do not shirk your duty because you have told yourself that this is not your business and that you have no duty in the matter at all!'
"I had no sleep that Christmas Eve. I tossed from side to side, a prey to doubt, fear, self-contempt and indecision. I was stretched upon the rack of my Conscience.
"But in the morning, the glorious Christmas morning, I arose, calm and decided, and dressed as one dresses who goes to execution. Conscience had triumphed and I was going to do the right thing at any cost to myself--and the right thing in this case was, believe me, a loathsomely distasteful thing for me to do. I would go through with it, however--and I would do it openly and fairly, sparing myself nothing. I would tell Colonel Gordon-Watts, in the presence of his wife and her lover.
"There would be no backbiting, no 'tale about a tale,' no hole-and-corner sneaking about that.
"As the passengers trooped up from breakfast, I followed the Colonel, with whom were his wife and Mornay, on to the deck; and with beating heart and dry mouth, I went up to him and said:
"'May I have a word with you, sir, on a matter of the most urgent and vital importance--and may Mrs. Gordon-Watts and Mr. Mornay be present?'
"The Colonel stared, looking more like a cold volcano than ever.
"'What the dev--' he began, and I could feel my knees turning to tape and my heart to water, as Mornay interrupted with:
"'If it's to form a syndicate for a bet on the day's-run sweepstake, on the strength of a tip from the engine-room, let us congeal ourselves and hist.'
"Mrs. Gordon-Watts giggled. If Mornay and she guessed at my business with the Colonel, they acted cleverly, I thought. There was no trace of guilty confusion. No; they did not dream of what was coming.
"'Well? Out with it,' growled the Colonel.
"He had vile manners, as I had already discovered in my brief and rare encounters with him on board.
"'It would be better for all concerned, if we were alone--we four, I mean,' said I.
"'Let's go up on the bridge and ask the captain to clear out for a while,' suggested Mornay. 'He won't mind.'
"The lady laughed again.
"'I am very much in earnest, sir,' continued I to the Colonel, ignoring Mornay.
"He saw from my manner, and probably from my appearance, that I certainly was very much in earnest.
"'Come in here,' he said, indicating the empty smoking-room. All the passengers were crowding forward on the starboard side of the deck, to watch Port Said rising out of the sea.
"Sir,' said I, 'it is my unspeakably painful duty to tell you, before this man, Mornay, that I have seen him embrace and kiss your wife, have heard him address her in terms of intimacy and endearment, and have heard him arranging to go off with her--and with what money she could secure--at Port Said. I have said it and done my duty. My conscience is clear. . . .'
"The Colonel's eyes blazed. His wife and Mornay stared at me open-mouthed. Thus we hung for seconds that seemed like years, without sound or movement--till suddenly Mornay threw himself down upon the couch behind him and buried his face in a cushion; the Colonel raised a hand--not to strike, but to cover his poor twitching mouth; and Mrs. Gordon-Watts burst into wild hysterical screams of distraught laughter.
"And I had made this ruin!
"But I had obeyed my Conscience. . . .
"And then--and then--the Husband turned, first to the Wife, and then to the Other Man, and said:
"'Is this thing true? If so, you are not to waste more than ten pounds in the shops, Lilian. And if you, Bobby, have been kissing your own sister for a change, it's a change in the right direction!'"
II
"I say," said Digby as he entered the Barrack Room, a few days later, and strode across to where Michael and John, sitting on the latter's bed, industriously waxed and polished belts, straps and pouches. "Did you see the draft that came in this afternoon from Colomb Bechar or somewhere?"
"No," replied Michael. "Why?"
"Well, they've got about the ugliest lad I've ever seen, among them. . . . Awful face."
"Worse than John's?" asked Michael.
"Well, you can't very well compare them," replied Digby. "John's ugliness is what you might call natural. He was born like it. This other fellow's is artificial. Been made like it."
"Got an artificial face, has he?" inquired John.
"Not exactly that either," replied Digby, pushing John off his bed, and seating himself by Michael. "It's the ugliness that's artificial. It's as though I didn't like your face--which I don't, of course--and set to work with cold steel and red-hot iron to improve it, or at any rate to change it."
"Wouldn't any change be an improvement?" asked Michael, looking up from the pouch that he was polishing.
"Well, I gather it wasn't so in this man's case," replied Digby. "His escouade seemed quite proud of his face, and one of them was telling me about it. He's an Englishman. It seems he got a poisoned foot and couldn't get his boot on. He fell behind, as they were doing a forced march to relieve a threatened post, and couldn't stop for anything or anybody. They hadn't even any mule or camel cacolets for the sick and wounded. He kept going, with the utmost pluck and endurance, sometimes hopping, sometimes using his reversed rifle as a crutch, and at last going on all fours . . . When he completely collapsed and couldn't even roll, the tribesmen who had been watching the Company and stalking this straggler, came down like a wolf on the fold and gathered him in--not without loss to themselves as they rushed him from all points of the compass.
"Well, it seems they were so annoyed with him, for shooting frequent and free, that they had a bit of fun with him, then and there, before taking him up to the kasbah or caves, or whatever it was, in order to let the ladies torture him properly.
"Apparently they slit his cheeks perpendicularly and threaded twigs through the latticework, so to speak, and did something similar with his forehead. An argument then arose as to whether the girls would mind if he were handed over to them without ears, nose, lips and eyelids. Some murmured 'Place aux dames,' while others said, 'There will be plenty of him left for them.'
"Like the sensible fellers they are, they compounded and compromised and split the difference and said they'd just have his ears for luck, and for something to send in to the Commandant of the nearest Fort, on his birthday, or for Christmas or something.
"Well, one nasty man had just grabbed this chap's right ear, and had just begun to cut with a rather blunt knife, when round the corner came a policeman, and the boys had to run for it. In other words, along came a half-troop of Spahis who were following the Company.
"I gather that the Spahis were divided in their minds as to whether it would be kinder to shoot him, or to save him up, when the vile corpus or vile body sat up and said that if anybody shot him, he'd punch him on the nose. He said this in English, a language understanded of the sous-lieutenant of the Spahis, so they pulled most of the brushwood out of the latticework which was his face, tied his ear on with string, mopped him up a bit, and put him up behind a trooper."
"Poor devil," murmured John. "He must be a stout lad."
"Yes, let's go and call on him," suggested Michael. "He might like to have a jibber with fellow-countrymen."
"We will," agreed Digby. "Better look him up tomorrow, as he may be among those of the draft who are being sent to Arzew to recuperate."
"Where's that?" inquired John.
"You're an ignorant lad," replied Digby. "It's a health resort, on the coast, about one hundred miles west of Oran. Didn't you even know that much? I learnt it this afternoon."
The brothers found le légionnaire Robinson to be a pleasant English gentleman with a most unpleasant face, hideously scarred, and rather terrible to behold. It was obvious that he was still most painfully self-conscious.
As the four chatted, Robinson sat with his hand across his face, as does a weak-eyed person in a strong light. Although it was easy to see that the poor fellow was very uncomfortable among strangers, the tact, charm, sympathy and savoir faire of the three Gestes won upon him, and put him at his ease. Before long he was laughing and telling them the story of his ghastly experience.
"I suppose I'm a légionnaire for life," he smiled wryly and whimsically, "now that my face is my misfortune . . . This home of the Soldiers of Misfortune is the best place for it . . . the only place. Can't go about scaring women and children . . . Might get a job at a sort of Barnum's Show, I suppose.
"Rather hard luck," he added. "I had only four months more to serve. . . ."
"Rough luck," murmured Michael, "but look here, you know . . . I think you make too much of it. . . . What I mean to say is . . . it'll get a great deal better in course of time . . . scars do, you know, and these are very recent. . . . And then these great surgeons can do most marvellous things."
"Why, yes," agreed John. "It's astonishing what they can do in the way of grafting new flesh, and that sort of thing. I knew of a man whose nose was most hideously smashed . . . flat with his face . . . bone all gone--and they built him up a perfectly good nose."
"Sort of thing he took off at night with his wig and false teeth?" inquired Robinson grimly. "I shouldn't care to wear a mask."
"Nothing of the sort," objected John. "This fellow's nose was not detachable. It was built up under its own skin, so to speak. I believe they inject molten paraffin wax, and mould it to the required shape as it cools--something of that sort."
"Yes," added Digby. "I distinctly remember reading of a great Viennese surgeon who practically rebuilt the shattered face of a man whose gun burst as he was firing it. According to the account they even made him a new jawbone, and grafted on to it skin which they took from his leg. There was a portrait of him, and he looked perfectly normal, quite good-looking.
"Why not take your discharge, and go to the best surgeon in the world? Costly job, I suppose, but if a loan . . . we should be . . ."
"Oh, I've plenty of money now, thanks," replied Robinson. "Reminds one of the Spanish proverb, 'God gives nuts to him who has no teeth.' I hadn't a bean in the world. Partly why I came to the Legion. . . . But the day I came out of hospital--and had a good look at my face--I got a letter from home. Plenty of money, now."
"Well, that's all right then," observed Michael, "and you can spend some of it to good purpose."
"My dear chap, it's hopeless. You know it is. It's most kind of you to be consoling and encouraging, and all that, but the damage is done, and it's irreparable. If the marvellous surgeon had been on the spot, I've no doubt he could have done something and made, at any rate, a tidier job of it than Nature and my comrades' dirty paws did. It's far too late now, and I'll spend the rest of my young life where nothing matters--thanks all the same."
"Well, anyhow," replied Michael Geste, "you see if I'm not right. Things will improve enormously in time. The scars will lose all colour and cease to be livid. They will become mere seams and lines . . . hardly noticeable."
"That would be a pity in a way, too," smiled Robinson. "My escouade would be disappointed. They would miss my face. Perhaps some sniper won't--if I can get on active service again."
§ 2
"Where's Beau?" inquired Digby one afternoon, a couple of months later, as he joined John at the trough in the lavabo where they washed their white uniforms.
"Dunno," replied John, "but he'll be in for evening soupe all right. Why?"
"A job, my little lad! . . . A geste . . . a deed . . . a do. . . . You know that dear fellow, Klingen. He was telling his gang an extraordinary yarn while we were peeling potatoes this morning. . . . Reminded me of that lass who chased the Crusader home."
"What lass was that?" inquired John.
"D'you mean to say you don't know that, you uneducated worm . . . you worm that dieth not. No, that was a sharp-headed worm, wasn't it? Nothing sharp-headed about you, John Geste."
"We were talking about a girl," interrupted John coldly. "Who was she?"
"How the devil should I know?" replied Digby. "It's you who ought to know useful things of this sort, so that you can be helpful to Beau and me."
"You don't mean Mrs. à Becket by any chance, do you?"
"That's it, my lad," said Digby, smiting his brother with his wet tunic. "Why couldn't you have said that at once, without all this jibber. Thomas à Becket went to the Crusades and there picked up with a Saracen lassie."
"But I thought he was a turbulent priest, and a perfectly good Archbishop of Canterbury," observed John. "I think it was T. à Becket Senior. Old Mr. Gilbert."
"No, no," replied Digby. "It was Tom Cantuar all right, and all this happened when he was young and merry and bright, before he had found grace. . . ."
"Was her name Grace?" asked John. "I thought it was Zuleika or Zenobia or Aggie."
"Will you shut up and listen, and improve your mind!" admonished Digby. "He took up with this young woman, and they were walking out . . . keeping company . . . you know . . . when T. à Becket's time expired, or else he was due for leave and furlough, and in the hurry of packing his kit and getting his papers signed and proving to the Quartermaster that he was a liar . . ."
"He was--or the Quartermaster was?" asked John.
". . . he quite forgot, or else mislaid, Grace or Zuleika or Zenobia or Aggie--and in any case he couldn't have taken her aboard the transport as she wasn't married to him 'on the strength.' Well, there it was. T. à Becket safe in England and poor Grace walking up and down the Pier or the beach at Acre or Joppa or Jaffa or Haifa weeping and wailing. . . ."
"Whaling?" queried John. "From a pier or a beach?"
". . . and Grace's Pa making kind inquiries for T. à Becket with a thick stick."
"How do you inquire with a stick?" asked John.
"I'll show you in a minute," promised Digby, and continued:
". . . When Grace found that Thomas had done a bunk--and she having nearly filled the bottom drawer and all--two of everything and all hand-stitched--she up and had an idea. Drawing her savings from the Post Office, she left Pa and Ma to scratch for themselves; she went down to the shipping office and just said 'Single, London,' and went straight aboard a perfectly good fifteen-ton lugger or yawl or scow or junk or barge or battleship and 'proceeded' to London, which she knew to be Thomas's home-town, as she had seen it on his washing.
"Safely arrived, she took a room in a perfectly respectable boarding-house in Bloomsbury, patronized entirely by clergymen's daughters, had an egg to her tea, and then went out to look for Thomas. . . .
"Now the artful dog, Thomas, had never given her his proper name and address, and she only knew him as Thomas, Tommy and Tom, and there were quite a lot of gents so named in London Town. However, she worked clean through the London Directory and the Bars and Night-clubs of the Shaftesbury Avenue district, and in the end, probably the West End, she met her own True Thomas, who promptly said he was just having a last drink before setting out to look for her, having been engaged hitherto in getting a home together. Whereupon they married and were happy ever after. . . . She was housekeeper at the Palace when he settled in at Canterbury as Archbishop, because you know how people talk and all that, when celibate clergymen . . ."
"But my poor dear excellent ass," interrupted John, "what's all this got to do with the unspeakable Klingen and the deed we have to do?"
"Nothing, probably," replied Digby, "and then again, you never know. As I was saying when you interrupted, he was telling his gang an extraordinary yarn while we were peeling potatoes this morning.
"It appears that, last night, as he was strolling down the Rue de Tlemçen, a beauteous maiden stopped him and asked him if he was English. I gathered that he behaved precisely as Klingen would behave in the circumstances, and that she cleared off with her chin in the air, followed by Klingen with his mind in the gutter--until she went into the Hôtel de l'Europe and thither he could not follow her. Then up spake a lad whose name I don't know, and said he'd had a similar experience. A pretty girl had stopped him near the hotel, and, with blushing apologies, asked him if he were English. Apparently this chap behaved like an ordinary decent person--said he was sorry but he wasn't English. The girl then explained that she wanted to find an English légionnaire. Her idea seemed to be that her best plan was to find any Englishman, as he would be more likely to know the Englishman."
"Of course, the chap she wants will have changed his name, and her only chance--if the man has been transferred from Sidi--is to meet somebody who can identify him from her description," said John.
"Clever lad," approved Digby, "you've got it. Here's a girl looking for her Thomas, and hasn't got the vaguest idea as to what he now calls himself. She can't even go about like Grace or Zuleika asking for him by his Christian name, and, even if he's in Sidi, it's like looking for a needle in a haystack; and if he's in Morocco or the Sahara or the Sudan or Madagascar or Tonkin, she'd never find him at all. He may be here, of course. . . ."
"And that's where we come in," said John, wringing out the shirt that he had washed. "By Jove," he added, suddenly straightening himself up, "it couldn't be Isobel!"
"Of course not, you fat ass. That's what I thought the moment Klingen spoke. But it was only yesterday you had a letter from her. And if she came here, she'd have no need to stop strangers in the street and ask if they spoke English. She'd only have to send a card round from the hotel to the Barracks addressed to Légionnaire John Smith, No. 18896, saying that she was at the Hotel."
"Of course," agreed John sadly. "I spoke before I thought."
"People who never think, inevitably do that," observed Digby loftily.
"Now stop both thinking and talking and listen," he continued.
"La Cigale, who was standing there, peeling away as though he'd been a hotel scullion all his life, instead of a military attaché and ornament of Courts, suddenly said:
"'Why! That must be the lady with whom I had so charming and delightful an adventure last night.'
"You know how the poor old dear talks. He went on:
"'I was sitting in the Gardens, not feeling very happy, when a lady came and sat down on the same seat. She was young, beautiful, and a gentlewoman. She paid me the compliment . . .'
"And here the poor old dear bowed most gracefully toward me--
"'. . . of asking me if I were English. I replied in French that I was not, but that I could speak the language quite well, and we had quite a long talk. I promised to mention to all the Englishmen whom I knew, that there was an English lady looking for a compatriot. But the whole matter had gone completely out of my mind until Klingen spoke just now. It must be the same lady. . . . This absent-mindedness is terrible. . . .'
"And the old chap went off into apologies and regrets that he'd forgotten to tell us."
"Hullo, here's Beau," interrupted John. "Beau," he added, "get some mutton-fat, or dripping or something, and make your hair extra beautiful. We're going calling on a lady this evening, at the Hôtel de l'Europe."
Beau's eyes opened a little wider as he looked from John to Digby.
"Claudia here?" he asked.
"No," replied John. "Nor Isobel."
"Oh no," added Digby. "It's Grace or Zuleika or Zenobia or Aggie or somebody," and he proceeded to tell Beau that there was an English girl who had the courage to walk the streets of an evening and stop passing soldiers, to inquire if they were English or knew any Englishmen in the Legion.
"We must go and put ourselves at her disposal," said Michael Geste.
§ 3
Helen Malenton, sitting at "tea" in her room, and honestly endeavouring to detect any remotely tea-like flavour in the luke-warm liquid that trickled reluctantly from a grudging coffee-pot, was losing heart and hope, if not faith and charity. From the day that Barry had disappeared, leaving only a letter of passionate renunciation of her, and even more passionate denunciation of himself, she had kept a stout heart, high hope and profound faith.
Being a firm believer in the great truth that Heaven helps those that help themselves, she had done her utmost to merit the help of Heaven, but hope had been deferred and undoubtedly her heart had grown sick--with apprehension, disappointment, and the feeling that the expected help had not been forthcoming.
She rose and went to the window that looked across a dirty street to a dusty garden, and, turning from the familiar and unsavoury prospect, began once more to pace the more familiar and less savoury room--hideously ugly as only the sitting-room of a provincial hotel can be.
"I won't give up," she said. . . .
"Faith as a grain of mustard seed . . . I know he's alive, because he could not die without my being aware of it. . . . My heart would die too. . . . Only believe and . . . if you want anything hard enough it comes to pass. Effort is never wasted."
Seating herself on an unbelievable sofa of stamped velvet, she stared unseeingly at the incredible carpet, her tense hands clenched on either side of her drawn face.
"Oh God," she whispered aloud. "Do help me. Life isn't a welter of blind chance. . . . Oh, how long? . . . If there were a ray of hope. . . . A sign. . . ."
She sprang from her seat as the door opened and a dirty nondescript garçon of no particular nationality, and arrayed chiefly in a green baize apron, entered bearing an envelope in his grimy hand--an envelope addressed "To the English lady staying at the Hôtel de l'Europe."
Murmuring that this was apparently pour mademoiselle, the youth explained that three soldiers were waiting below, for an answer.
Tearing the envelope open with trembling fingers, Helen Malenton read:
"Three English légionnaires would like to inquire whether they can be of any help to you; and, if so, will be delighted to put their services at your disposal."
Foolish and irrational hope sprang up in her heart.
An answer to prayer? A gleam of light in her darkest hour, the darkest hour before the dawn?
"Where are they, these soldiers?" she asked eagerly.
"Below in the fumoir, madame."
"I will come down," said Helen quietly, and endeavoured to conceal the excitement that surged up within her, and caused her limbs to tremble.
Three handsome youths, obviously Englishmen, rose and bowed as she entered the stale and dingy lounge.
"Good evening. Will you allow our excellent intentions to excuse our intrusion?" said one of them. "I am--er--William Brown and these are my brothers Thomas Jones and John Smith."
Helen Malenton gravely shook hands with her visitors as Digby remarked:
"Same family, but different names. Curious, but quite simple--like us."
"Yes," agreed John. "William is curious and Thomas is simple."
"I think I understand," replied the girl. "My name is Helen Malenton, and I'm most grateful to you for coming. I most thankfully accept your offer of help. I have just discovered that a friend of mine--my fiancé, in fact--is in the Legion, and I've come to look for him. He disappeared suddenly. Nothing wrong; he is absolutely incapable of doing anything base or mean."
Her voice trembled.
"Look at me, Miss Malenton," smiled Digby. "You have but to glance at my countenance to be assured that I could do nothing wrong, and am absolutely incapable of anything base or mean. Yet I disappeared suddenly, and am in the Legion. And, in a lesser degree, this applies to my brothers--who also disappeared suddenly."
The girl smiled, and with regained self-control, continued:
"I am sure you all understand."
"Absolutely," murmured Michael. "We are in a position to do so, and may I add we quite understand that a man who is your fiancé must be an honourable gentleman."
"Oh, he's one of the noblest and bravest of men who ever lived," said the girl impulsively. "He hasn't a fault or a failing, except that he is headstrong and rash, and yet very sensitive really. You know how such a person can be beautifully good-tempered and yet--well--at times hot-tempered."
"Oh, rather," agreed Digby. "They are the best sort. Pure gold from the furnace--and with the warmth of the furnace still in the heart of them--noble, brave and generous. I'm like that myself," and smiled infectiously.
Helen Malenton laughed for the first time in many months.
"Oh, we'll find him all right," he added. "What's he like? Is he like me in face as well as character?"
"No," smiled Helen. "He's a very handsome man. . . ."
Michael and John grinned appreciatively, and Digby looked sad, modest and embarrassed.
". . . but as dark as you are fair, I was going to say. Tall, broad-shouldered and spare. Extremely handsome--almost too much so, for a man--large eyes, silky black hair with a lovely wave in it, aquiline nose, small moustache, rather small mouth, a cleft chin. He had a complexion like a girl's. I used to chaff him about it, and tell him it wasn't right. He would laugh, and say it was due to his having been brought up solely by his mother, for his father died when he was a baby."
An awful thought struck Michael Geste. Jones! Of course it must be the poor chap who called himself Jones! Poor devil! . . . And oh, this poor, poor girl! The unhappy, overwrought, devil-driven Jones, too sensitive, highly-strung and introspective even for ordinary life--much more so for life in the Legion--the very last place in the world for a man of his temperament.
Had they done their best for him? What more could they have done? They'd been most kind and friendly of course, and they had only got to know him on the day he committed suicide. It was Digby who had discovered him and brought him along. Had he said anything about a girl, in telling them his tragi-comic piteous story?
And he had shot himself.
The poor girl was just too late. . . . Ghastly . . . Oh, this was terrible.
He glanced at his brothers, and realized that the same thought had entered their minds. Digby was eyeing him apprehensively and he generally knew what his twin was thinking. John was looking very grave and thoughtful.
"You haven't told us his name," he said, for the sake of saying something while he considered the best way of breaking the terrible news to the girl, should his fears prove justified.
"Chartres," was the reply. "Sir Barry Chartres; but I don't suppose he would use his own name."
"I know the name perfectly well," remarked Beau, and added, "No, he wouldn't use it in the Legion. You don't know what he calls himself now, of course."
"No," replied the girl.
"I wonder if he called himself Jones," said John, eyeing Michael.
"Quite likely," replied the girl. "Do you know an Englishman of that nom de guerre?"
"We did," admitted Michael.
"Did?" queried Helen Malenton quickly. "Is he . . . ?"
"Was Sir Barry Chartres ever in the British Army? Did he ever go to India?"
"Yes, yes, he did. He transferred from his County Regiment to the Indian Army, in the hope of seeing some active service."
The girl rose to her feet and faced them with shining eyes and parted lips.
"What is your friend like? You said 'did.' Does that mean he has gone away from here? Where, where . . . ? Oh, it must be Barry! There wouldn't be two Englishmen here, who had both been in the Indian Army. Oh, please tell me quickly where he has gone?"
Seldom had the three brothers felt more miserably uncomfortable.
John and Digby looked to Beau for the next move, feeling that the situation could not be in better hands, and, while prepared to help him in every way, thankful that he was leader and spokesman.
What could he do? This was going to be really painful.
"Look here, Miss Malenton," said Beau Geste. "Suppose you leave everything to us. We are complete strangers to you, I know, but you can trust us absolutely. . . ."
"Rather," chimed in Digby and John.
". . . and we will do our best for you; we should love to. What I suggest is that you go back to England at once and we'll carry on. Do! I'll write to you immediately, when there is any definite news. It must be wretched for you here, and we three can do all sorts of things that are impossible for you. Go home tomorrow, and leave it to us."
"I don't know how to thank you," replied Helen Malenton. "But I couldn't, I simply couldn't. I had to come here, the moment I discovered that Barry had joined the Legion, and I must stay here until I am absolutely convinced that he is not in Sidi-bel-Abbès. And I shall only leave this place to go to some other in which he may possibly be."
"Suppose, for the sake of argument, he were dead," said Michael gravely.
"Oh, he isn't, he couldn't be," the girl protested.
"I want you to answer my question," replied Michael. "Suppose it."
The girl smiled through gathering tears.
"Why then I could--and should--follow him, of course," she answered. "I don't want to talk wildly, and be melodramatic, but I am going to find him, either in this world or the next."
A silence fell upon the four. Digby wiped the palms of his hands with his handkerchief.
Suppose it had been Isobel looking for him.
"Please don't," murmured John, with the slight nervous cough which his brothers knew to be an expression of deep embarrassment at deep feeling.
Suppose it had been Isobel looking for him.
"Well, then," said Michael, "if you won't go home and won't leave here till you have a clue leading elsewhere, just remain quietly here, and let us work for you. We'll hunt out every English légionnaire in Sidi, and do our utmost to find out what has become of all those who have been here during the last five years. It'll be quite simple, for there are very few Englishmen in the Legion. We shall be able to eliminate most of them from the list very easily."
"Yes, but where has this friend of yours gone, please?" interrupted the girl. "You don't tell me. It is almost certainly Barry. I'll follow up this clue just as soon as I'm sure that Barry himself is not here--and that should be easy, now that you three are going to help me. I thank you a thousand times."
"Not at all. Pray don't speak of it," replied Michael. "It is both a duty and a great pleasure. My only fear is lest we fail or--or--have to bring you bad news. We'll go now, and start work at once."
And the brothers rose to take their departure.
"Where did your friend go, please?" repeated the girl as she extended her hand to Michael.
"That's what we're going to find out," was the reply.
§ 4
"A brave and charming gentlewoman," said Beau as they marched down the street from the Hôtel de l'Europe.
"Yes," agreed Digby. "If only the late Mr. 'Jones' had been as brave, and had stuck it out a little longer! How are we going to tell her he blew his brains out just before she came?"
"We aren't," replied Michael.
"You mean we're going to say he died fighting bravely beneath the Legion's flag?" asked John.
"I'm not sure we're going to tell her he's dead at all," was the enigmatic reply.
"Enlighten us, Uncle," said Digby.
"I'm not at all certain that poor old Jones is the man. I've got an idea."
"So have I," said John.
"The Man with the Face?" asked Michael.
"Clever lad," he approved.
"By Jove!" ejaculated Digby. "Of course! Of course! Brainy birds! I never thought of that. He fits exactly, and of the two it's far more likely that her man would be the one who didn't commit suicide. I don't believe it was poor old Jones at all. Oh brains, brains! I somehow feel certain it is the Man with the Face."
"So do I," agreed John. "Her description of the long-lost lover suits him even better than the late Jones. I got the impression of a big chap from her description, and Jones wasn't enormous."
"No," observed Michael, "but he wasn't by any means a small man, and I wouldn't build much on that particular point. I imagine that any average-sized man is a fine huge hero to the girl who loves him."
"Yes, I suppose even we are," agreed Digby, his thoughts at Brandon Abbas.
"Yes," said Michael and John simultaneously, their thoughts in the same place.
"Still it really is an idea and a clue--and a hope," said Digby, "and we'll follow it up for all it's worth. I vote we now palter with the truth, and say that the ex-Indian Army man, to whom we referred, is at Arzew, and that we are on his trail."
"It isn't paltering with the truth so much as switching it over," said Michael. "A line of inquiry that was to lead us to the Legion Cemetery in Sidi-bel-Abbès, now leads us to the Convalescent Camp at Arzew."
"I say," broke in John. "There isn't very much time to lose, is there? Didn't the Man with the Face say his time was up, and that he was going to re-enlist? Pretty rotten for Miss Malenton if he did so, just before we told her we'd found him!"
"Yes, and that raises another snag," said Michael loftily. "A point upon which I have been wisely and profoundly pondering while you and your brother jibber and jabber and gabble."
"A snag isn't a point, may I observe?" commented Digby coldly. "A point is that which has no parts nor magnitude."
"Like your brain, my lad," answered Michael. "You call this unfortunate gentleman 'the Man with the Face.' Well, does it or does it not occur to what we must call your mind, that if he is the man, he is certainly not going to bring his poor carven face and lay it before his best girl?"
"By jove!" said Digby. "I never thought of that."
"What a ghastly position!" murmured John.
"But surely," he added, "the girl wouldn't turn him down because he's hideously disfigured. Not if she really loves him."
Would Isobel turn him down if his face were so slashed and scarred that he was unrecognizable? She would not.
"But it's not of the girl that I'm thinking at all. It's the man, my good little asses. I believe she'd stick to him if he'd lost both eyes, both ears, both lips, and both nose. He'll raise the trouble, not she."
"You're right, Beau," said Digby. "He will. I've got the impression that he is the sort of person who'd do just that. I believe he'd sooner meet anybody in the world than the woman he loved."
"I can quite understand it too," agreed Beau. "He'd feel that she'd be repressing shudders the whole time, and fighting a desire to scream. He'd be afraid that, purely out of loyalty and decency, she'd swear she not only still loved him, but couldn't live without him."
"While, all the time, life was a purgatory to her--a hideous nightmare," added John.
"Depends on the woman, of course," said Digby. "There are women who'd honestly and truly love their man all the more because he was a bit chipped and cracked. Want to make it up to him, and mother him."
"Yes," agreed John, "there are. And then again there are equally fine women who simply could not bear it--literally could not stand the sight of a face like that, without being physically sick."
"And that's what poor old Carven Face will think, I'm afraid," said Michael. "He'll write and tell her he's not the only pebble on the beach and beg her to acquire a nice round smooth pebble that has not been carved--by Arabs. We'll do our best, anyhow, and we shall have to be careful and clever."
"John, you'll have to be careful," stated Digby.
§ 5
Le légionnaire Robinson had returned from Arzew, his intention of re-enlisting confirmed by an offer of promotion to the rank of Corporal if he did so. He realized that he would probably regret the step when it was too late, but after impartially studying his terrible face, with the help of a good mirror, he decided that the best place for such a work of art was a desert outpost at the ultimate Back of Beyond.
"A pretty picture," he smiled grimly, as he regarded his reflection. "A picture which should certainly be hung," and he smiled again.
But only le légionnaire Robinson knew that the facial contortion was a smile.
Seated alone in a dark corner of the canteen, on the night of his return to Sidi-bel-Abbès, his hand, as usual, across his face as though to shade his eyes, he saw an Englishman enter the room and approach him. Pulling his képi well down over his face, he turned away and appeared to fall asleep.
"Discouraging," murmured Beau to himself as he turned to the zinc-topped bar, and procured a bottle of wine and a couple of glasses.
Seating himself beside Robinson, Beau Geste poured out two glasses of wine, coughed slightly, somewhat in the manner of John, and remarked:
"As you say, Robinson, this is an unwarrantable intrusion."
"I haven't said anything," growled Robinson.
"No, not aloud," agreed Michael. "Very nice of you, but I am butting in nevertheless, and I apologize--and my reason is my excuse. I've got a most important message for you."
"Oh?" grunted Robinson, evincing no interest whatever.
"From a lady," added Michael.
"Yes?" growled Robinson, with the complete indifference of one who received messages from ladies every few minutes.
"From Miss Helen Malenton," enunciated Michael, slowly and distinctly.
Robinson's hand, extended to raise his glass, knocked it off the table.
"Ah?" he murmured, in the tone of one who was more than a little bored by Miss Malenton's attentions.
Watching the man's face as closely as was possible, Michael decided that it had shown no faintest sign of any feeling whatsoever; no slightest flicker of emotion; no shadow of change of expression, as he spoke the girl's name. But, as he told himself, he could not see the eyes properly, and the rest of the face was hardly calculated to register emotion of any sort. In fact, it was not a face at all, but a mask, a mask of tortured flesh, probably incapable of showing what its unfortunate owner felt, even when he wished it to do so.
Yes, decided Michael, le légionnaire Robinson was well entrenched behind the double defence of the mask he wished to wear and the mask he had to wear. Only his hands betrayed him, as so often they betray the man who has perfect facial control.
This was going to be a difficult job, and Robinson was going to behave exactly as they had feared.
"She is here," he said quietly. "Here in Sidi-bel-Abbès."
"Yes?" was the discouraging reply, in a voice as cool and quiet as Michael's own.
"She wants to see you, Robinson," continued Michael.
"To see me?" asked Robinson. "Five sous a peep, or something like that? Have you gone into the impresario business, or what?"
The man was certainly bitter.
"Don't you want to see her?" said Michael patiently.
"Not the faintest desire, thanks," was the uncompromising answer.
Michael sighed, and picking up Robinson's glass, he refilled it.
"Let's drink to her health," he suggested.
"With pleasure," growled Robinson. He raised his glass, muttered something unintelligible, and drained it.
"She's an amazingly brave, staunch, loyal woman," observed Michael.
"I'm sure she is," agreed the other.
"And she's in a pretty bad way, too," added Michael somewhat sharply. And--
"Look here, Robinson," more sharply still, "at the risk of your considering me an impudent meddler, I really must say this--When a girl has suffered on a man's account as Miss Malenton has done on yours--and when moreover she has travelled to Sidi-bel-Abbès to look for him--I do think it's up to him to see her."
"Yes," agreed Robinson politely.
"Well, don't you think it's the very least he can do?"
"Oh, quite," agreed Robinson again.
"Then you will see her?" said Michael promptly.
"No, Mr. What-is-your-name, I will not--and we'll now close this somewhat boring conversation," yawned le légionnaire Robinson, as he arose and departed thence.
§ 6
"Ah, this is a job that wants brains, of course," observed Digby at the conclusion of Michael's account of his discouraging interview with le légionnaire Robinson. "Leave it to me; do as I tell you, and all will be well.
"D'you mind if I visit Miss Malenton unhampered and unhindered--I mean, unaccompanied and unsupported, by your two silly faces?" he added.
"Quite hopeless, my dear chap," said John, "even if Miss Malenton were not absolutely wrapped up in her lost lover. And, in any case, she would prefer a visit from the nicest of us."
"We must try and keep him out of the sun, Beau," urged Digby, surveying his younger brother compassionately; "and while he keeps out of the sun I'm going into the shadows--of the Hôtel de l'Europe to propound a scheme to Miss Malenton."
"And why this sudden desire for a tête-à-tête?" inquired Beau. "If you feel you have a Mission and a Message and that we are neither worthy nor competent . . ."
"Well, it's only partly that," smiled Digby. "But I feel you'd be much more competent to play your little parts in my plan, if you knew nothing about it."
"Quite probably, I should say," observed Michael. "What are our parts?"
"Merely to lend your countenances and your money to my scheme. It's a dinner-party. We are going to dine and wine Mr. Robinson. A dinner to mark the occasion of his coming promotion and re-enlistment--a most hilarious celebration and all that."
"Where?" inquired John.
"At the Hôtel de l'Europe," was the reply.
"He'd never go there," objected Michael. "He literally wouldn't show his face in a crowded café like that."
"We shall have a private room," said Digby. "He'll come all right. He's very fond of me--naturally."
"And if he does, what's the idea? Make him drunk and get his word of honour that he will at least consent to an interview with Miss Malenton before he re-enlists?"
"Wrong again," was the answer. "Now ask no more questions, but be prepared to dine and wallow in the wassail on Sunday evening with Robinson at the Hôtel de l'Europe. This is Friday, isn't it? I'm going to see Robinson to-night and Miss Malenton to-morrow, and thereafter you shall behold the wondrous works of your Uncle Digby."
As one man, his brothers emitted a loud derisive grunt.
The charming Digby charmed, and the morose and bitter Robinson succumbed, on learning that the dinner was to be held in a private room, and that absolutely nobody but the three Englishmen was to be invited to it. "It's extraordinarily nice of you fellows," he growled, "and I can't refuse."
§ 7
The dinner went extremely well, for the Gestes were what they were, and Robinson strove to be what he once had been, a gay and debonair gentleman. The warmth of their kindly friendship unfroze the once genial current of his soul.
No mention whatever was made of Miss Helen Malenton, and when, at the wine-and-walnut stage of the feast, she entered the room, neither Michael nor John was greatly surprised.
The four men rose to their feet, and Robinson stared, his mangled face utterly expressionless.
Helen Malenton, her eyes shining, her countenance transfigured with emotion ineffable and uncontrolled, gazed at him for a moment, uttered a little gasping cry, rushed to him and flung her arms about his neck.
"Oh Barry, Barry, my darling!" she sobbed.
Seizing her arms in his hands, Robinson removed them from about his neck and gently but firmly pushed her from him.
"I don't know you," he said.
"Oh my own darling, my dearest!" cried the girl. "Your friend told me that your face had been wounded. . . . I was prepared for it. . . . My sweetheart, it is nothing to me."
"I don't know you," repeated Robinson, his outstretched hand between them.
"Barry my love, my darling, don't be so foolish! If such a thing be possible, I love you all the more! . . . How can you possibly think I should shrink from you? Why, my darling sweetheart, I used to think you were far too handsome for a man. . . . You were pretty almost. I swear to God that I like you better like this, even though I couldn't love you better."
The man's hand fell to his side in a gesture of resignation and acceptance, and the girl's arms were again clasped about his neck.
"I am not Barry," he groaned, and as, with the laugh of a mother humouring her child she drew his head down until their lips met, his arms went about her and crushed her to him.
Except for themselves, the room was empty.
§ 8
"Once again, good-bye, and God for ever bless you," said le légionnaire Robinson, wringing the hands of the brothers, as the four stood at the barrack-gate.
"You'll keep your promise and visit us on the island that we are going to buy--one of the Islands of the Blest, of which we shall be the sole inhabitants, and where no one but her will see my face. . . . God! To think that to-day I should have re-enlisted and gone back into hell instead of going off into Paradise with this noble and wonderful woman. How can I ever begin to thank you?"
"No need," replied Beau Geste. "It's been the most tremendous pleasure. We shall always be happy to think that we brought you and Miss Malenton together again."
"You didn't bring us together again," smiled Robinson.
Surprised, the Geste brothers stared uncomprehendingly.
"I never set eyes on her in my life until last night," he said, and as he turned away added, "But she won't believe it!"
§ 1
Le Légionnaire Yato was one of the quietest, most retiring and self-effacing men in the Company, and one of the most modest. It seemed to be his highest ambition--an ambition which he almost attained--to escape notice, to blush unseen, and to hide his light beneath a bushel.
And yet, to those who had the seeing eye, he was an extremely interesting person, and for many reasons. He greatly intrigued the Geste brothers, and in spite of his meek, self-effacing humility, they took note of him from the day he arrived, and watched him with interest.
At first sight, and to the casual eye, he was a poor specimen--small, narrow-shouldered, weedy, with yellowish face, a wiry scrub of short hair, and a silly sort of little straggling moustache, the loss of one hair of which would have made an obvious difference.
The mere look of him caused Sergeant-Major Lejaune to feel unwell, and he made no secret of the fact. Indeed, he promised to stuff the little man into a slop-pail and to be ill upon him.
Never had the Geste boys, who were watching the arrival of this batch of recruits, seen so hopelessly dull, stupid and apathetic a face in their lives, as that of this recruit, while Sergeant-Major Lejaune regarded it; never had they seen one more acutely intelligent, expressive, spirited and observant as Sergeant-Major Lejaune passed on.
"See that?" chuckled Digby to his brothers.
"Yes," replied Beau. "If I were Lejaune I think I'd let that gentleman alone. Wonder what brought him here."
"He's come 'for to admire and for to see,' I should think," said John, "and come a long way too." And as the line of recruits turned to their left and marched off, he added, "His shoulders have been drilled too, and I'll bet you any amount he's worn a sword and spurs."
Other interesting facts transpired later. The mild little man could cut your hair and shave you beautifully, and he could speak your language if you were English, French, Russian or German. He could also sketch rather marvellously, and do pictures of surpassing merit in water-colour and in oil. He preferred to do these drawings and pictures out in the open air--the more open the better--and he had done some beauties of the country round Quetta, for example, and the Khyber Pass, showing all the pretty forts and things.
His manners were delightful, and he gave offence to no man, least of all to those set in authority over him.
To their surprise, the Geste boys--who, during his early recruit days went out of their way to help this lonely little stranger in a strange land--discovered that he knew England fairly well, particularly Portsmouth, Plymouth, Weymouth, Rosyth, Aldershot and Chatham.
For the most part, le légionnaire Yato's inoffensiveness, humility, excellent manners, and blameless conduct, kept him out of almost all trouble, official or private--but not entirely. Although a man may camouflage himself with a protective colouring of drab dullness and uniformity, which does indeed protect him by hiding him from general notice, it may not always suffice to hide him from particular notice. His very quietness and mild meekness may be his undoing through attracting the eye of those who need a butt for their diversion, and even more urgently need long-suffering meekness and mildness in that butt.
Two such were Messieurs Brandt and Haff, men who, themselves the butt of their superiors for their stupidity, slovenliness, and general worthlessness, must find someone to be their butt in turn. Almost a necessity of their existence was someone upon whom they could visit the contumely heaped upon themselves. Subconsciously they felt that, for their self-respect's sake, they must stand upon something lower than themselves, or be themselves the lowest things of all.
And this recruit, Yato, seemed so suitable to their purpose, so dull and stupid, so unable to protect himself, so harmless, helpless and hopeless, so proper a target for the shafts of their wit.
So they put thorn-brush in his bed, and unpleasant matter in his képi and on his pillow; stole his kit; put a dead mouse in his coffee; arranged a booby-trap for his benefit; fouled his white uniform after he had washed and ironed it; gave him false information, messages and orders, to his discomfiture and undoing; hid his brushes just before kit inspection; stole his soap; cut his bootlaces and generally demonstrated their own wit, humour and jocularity as well as his stupidity, harmlessness and general inferiority to themselves.
One day, Beau Geste and his brothers entered their barrack-room and discovered the cringing Yato ruefully eyeing les légionnaires Brandt, Haff, Klingen and Schwartz--four huge and powerful men, who were proposing to toss him in a blanket, having first denuded him of all clothing. The bright idea had been that of Brandt. He had proposed it; Haff had seconded it; and the two, realizing with their wonted brilliance that a blanket has four corners, had impressed the services of the delighted and all-too-willing Schwartz and Klingen.
"Where shall we do it?" roared Schwartz, a great bearded ruffian, strong as a bull, rough as a bear, and sensitive as a wart-hog.
"You won't do it at all," said Beau Geste, advancing to where the four stood about Yato's disordered bed, from which they had dragged a blanket.
"I do not like to be touched and handled," said Yato quietly, in the silence that fell upon the surprised bullies. "Please leave me alone."
"They are going to leave you alone," said Beau Geste.
"Yes! Watch us!" shouted Brandt, and sprang at the cringing little Jap as the mighty Schwartz turned upon Michael Geste, his great hands clenched, his eyes blazing, and his teeth bared. But as he raised his fist to strike, he swung about as something, or someone, fell against him from behind.
It was Brandt.
Using his right arm as though it were an axe, of which the side of the hand from little finger to wrist was the edge, Yato had struck Brandt an extraordinary cutting chopping blow on the neck, below and behind the ear.
As Brandt fell against Schwartz and to the ground, apparently dead, the Jap seized Haff by the collar of his tunic, where it fastened at the throat, and jerked his head violently downward, at the same time himself springing violently upward, so that the top of his bullet-head struck Haff between the eyes with tremendous force.
The huge Schwartz, changing his line of attack, as he turned about, sprang upon Yato, as might a lion upon a gazelle. The gazelle threw itself at the lion's feet--but not in supplication. Before the astonished Gestes could come to the rescue, they saw Yato fling his arms about Schwartz's ankles, causing the upper part of his body to fall forward. And as it did so, Yato astonishingly arose, hugging Schwartz's ankles to his breast.
The result of this lightning movement was that the big man pitched upon his head so heavily that nothing but its thickness saved him from concussion of the brain, and it seemed impossible that his neck should not be broken. And, almost as the body of Schwartz reached the ground, Yato sprang at Klingen, who was in the act of drawing a knife.
Seizing the wrist of the hand that held this ugly weapon, the Japanese wheeled so that he stood beside Klingen, shoulder to shoulder, and facing in the same direction. As he did so, he thrust his left arm beneath Klingen's right, and across his chest, at the same time pulling Klingen's straightened right arm violently downward. There was a distinctly audible crack as the arm broke above the elbow.
Where four burly bullies had gathered about a cringing little man, three lay insensible and one knelt whimpering with pain.
"I do not like to be touched and handled," smiled Yato.
"I don't think you will be, to any great extent," smiled Digby Geste in return.
§ 2
But a man may be touched without being handled, and it was the dominating desire of Klingen's life to "touch" Yato.
It became essential to his continued existence that he should avenge his broken arm, his humiliating defeat and utter overthrow.
For Klingen was a conceited man, devoid of pride, but filled with self-esteem.
He was handsome and he knew it. But "handsome is as handsome does," and Klingen had done most evilly. It was, in fact, by reason of his last and most treacherous love-affair that he was hiding in the Legion.
He was big and strong and bold, and he had been made to grovel groaning at the feet of a man one-half his size. He hated pain, and he had been made to suffer agony unspeakable.
And so he was obsessed with thoughts of vengeance, and lived for the day when the Japanese should make full payment for the insult and the injury he had put upon the bold and brave, the hardy and handsome Klingen.
Meanwhile, a certain poor satisfaction could be obtained by lashing the unspeakable Oriental verbally; for, curiously enough, the Japanese did not resent such abuse--apparently. So when Klingen came out of hospital he poured forth upon his quiet shrinking enemy all the choice epithets, insults and injurious foulness that he had perpetrated, polished and perfected during the miserable leisure of his enforced retirement.
He assured Yato that he was a yellow monkey, a loathsome "native," a coloured man, if indeed he were a man at all. Klingen explained fully and carefully that he had always drawn the colour line, and had drawn it straight and strong; also that it was, to him, the very worst aspect of life in the Legion that one was forced to herd with coloured men, natives, that foul scum (or sediment) of humanity which is barely human. He explained that while he hated niggers, abhorred Arabs and detested Chinese, words utterly failed him to express the loathing horror with which he regarded Japs. Brown was bad, black was worse, but what could be said of yellow? That vile bilious colour was disgusting in anything--but in human beings it was . . . !
One could be but dumbly sick, and whenever his revolted eye fell upon le légionnaire Yato, his revolting stomach almost had its way, and in crude pantomime Klingen would express his feelings.
And Yato would smile.
Furthermore, the good Klingen was at infinite pains to indicate the private and personal hideousness of Yato as distinct from his national bestiality. He would invite all present to contemplate the little man's unspeakable eyes, indescribable moustache, unmentionable nose, unbelievable hair, and unutterable ugliness.
And Yato would smile.
But it was noticed that Klingen never touched the Japanese, nor sought physical retaliation for his broken arm. Nor did Messieurs Haff, Brandt and Schwartz. In fact, these three appeared to entertain feelings rather of reluctant admiration and sporting acquiescence, than of hatred and vengeance, and when Klingen proposed various schemes for Yato's undoing, they would have none of them. They were quite content to regard him as a freak of nature and a human marvel.
Of him they had had quite enough, and it was their firm intention to leave him severely alone.
Not so Klingen. If Klingen were to live, Yato must die; or, better still--far, far better still--suffer some dire, ineffable humiliation, life-long and worse than death.
* * * * *
Seated in a row, on a bench in the Jardin Publique, Beau Geste in the middle, the three brothers contemplated the Vast Forever without finding life one grand sweet song.
Life was hard, comfortless, small and monotonous; but quite bearable so long as it yielded a lazy hour when they could sit thus, smoking their pipes in silent communion, or in idle and disjointed conversation about Brandon Abbas. Frequently Michael would speculate upon Claudia's doings; Digby and John upon those of Isobel.
"Here comes old Yato," murmured Digby. "I'm going to hit him, one day," he added.
"What for?" inquired John.
"Fun," replied Digby.
"Fun for whom--Yato?" inquired Michael.
"Yes," replied Digby. "I want to see what happens to me."
"You won't see," asserted Michael. "You'll only feel."
"Well, you two shall watch and tell me exactly what happens," said Digby. "Then I can do it to you two."
"Good evening, gentlemen," said Yato, with a courteous salute. "Excuse that I approach you."
The brothers rose as one, saluted the tiny man, and invited him to be seated with them.
"Excuse that I intrude with my insignificant presence, gentlemen, but I would humbly venture to do you the honour, and pay you the compliment, of asking a favour of you. You are samurai. If one of you gave assent with no more than a nod of his head, it would be a binding contract. . . . Will you do something for me?"
"Yes," replied Beau Geste.
"You do not stop to make conditions, nor to hear what the request may be. You do not fear that it may be something you would not like to do."
"No," replied Beau Geste.
"Ah," smiled Yato, "as I thought. Well, I'm going a long walk one day soon, and I may want something done for me by a friend, after I have gone. I do not know that I shall, but it is quite possible. . . ."
"We shall be delighted," said Beau Geste, and his brothers murmured assent.
Yato bowed deeply.
"Honourable sirs," he said.
"Better not tell us anything about your--er--long walk," said Beau Geste. "We shouldn't give you away, of course, but we're not good liars I'm afraid."
"Oh," smiled Yato, "tell them anything and everything that you know, should you be questioned. The honourable authorities will be entirely welcome to me--if they can catch me."
And he rose to go.
"I will leave a note under your pillow or in your musette," he continued, addressing Beau Geste. "Goodbye, gentle and honourable sirs. May I have the distinction of shaking the hands?"
"Queer little cove and great little gentleman," observed Digby when Yato had departed.
"Yes," agreed Michael. "A very good friend and a very dangerous enemy, I should say. I suppose he's in the Japanese Secret Service."
"I don't think I will hit him, after all," mused Digby.
§ 3
Colonel the Baron Hoshiri of the Japanese General Staff, and of the French Foreign Legion (in the name of Yato), made his way along the Rue de Daya with, as he would have said, a song in his heart. There was no smile upon his grim lips, nor expression of joy in his eyes nor upon his face. They were, in fact, utterly expressionless.
But he was very, very happy, for he was returning to his heaven upon earth, at the feet of Fuji Yama--the land of the cherry blossom, the chrysanthemum, the geisha, and the Rising Sun. He was leaving this land of barbarians devoid of manners, arts, graces and beauty.
Also, he had found a little friend, and she gave the lilt to the song that was in his heart.
A Flower from Japan.
Soiled and trodden and cast aside by these barbarian brutes, but still a Flower from Japan.
A pitiful little story--heart-breaking--but the little flower, picked up from the mud, dipped in pure cleansing dew, and set in a vase of fair water, was reviving.
He would take it back to Japan and it would bloom again and live, a thing of beauty and of joy.
Yes, a pitiful little tale.
Her parents had taken her to the yoshiwara to earn her dowry. There she had met her future husband, and thence she had been taken--rescued rather it seemed to her--by this man who so earnestly begged her to become his wife. He seemed a nice kind man, and her heart did not sink very much when he told her that they were going to travel to the wonderful West--for he was a merchant, and his business lay in Marseilles.
This was quite true, and in Marseilles, where his business lay, he sold her--in the way of business. Mr. Ah Foo (born in Saigon of a Chinese woman and a French Marine) did very well out of his little bride Sanyora--as he did out of all his other little brides, for he was what one might call a regular marrying man, and had entered the bonds of matrimony scores of times, and each of his wives had entered a bondage unescapable.
From Marseilles, Sanyora had been sold to a gentleman who travelled for his house, in Algiers, and had been taken to that house. Thence she had been appointed, without her knowledge or consent, to a vacancy (created by death--and a knife) in Oran. From there she had been sold into an even fouler bondage in Sidi-bel-Abbès.
Could she do nothing for herself? Yes--fight like a tiger-cat until drugged, and scream appeals for help--in Japanese, the only language she knew.
And, in that language, Colonel Hoshiri had heard her cry to God for death, as he passed below the open shutters of a house in a slum of the Spanish quarter. He had entered, asked for the Japanese girl, made his way to her room, addressed her in Japanese, and told her he only wished to be a friend and deliverer.
And now Sanyora had her own pretty room in a private house in a respectable quarter, and the Colonel had a haven of rest and peace--a refuge and quiet place in which he could take his ease and hear his own language from beautiful lips. Between them, they had made it a tiny corner of Japan, and, day by day, Sanyora grew more and more to be the dainty, charming and delightful geisha, wholly attractive mistress of the arts that delight and soothe and charm the eye and ear--and heart.
* * * * *
As usual, le légionnaire Yato was watched and followed by his bitter and relentless enemy, Klingen. A stab in the back, as he passed through some dark alley, would be simple enough, but it would be too simple. To a devil like Yato, it would have to be a death-stroke, and he might die without knowing who had killed him. That would be a very poor sort of vengeance.
What Klingen wanted was to hurt him, and hurt him, and hurt him . . . humiliate him to the dust . . . disgrace and degrade and shame him . . . torture him to death . . . but a long, slow, lingering death. . . .
One night Yato might go to le village Nègre. Anything could happen there. There was no foul and fearful villainy that one could not buy, and a very little money went a very long way in le village Nègre. One could certainly have a man waylaid, knocked on the head, gagged and bound and tied down on a native bedstead in a dark room in a native house. One could hire the room and have the key. One could visit one's victim nightly, and taunt him throughout the night. One could let him starve to death, or keep him alive for weeks.
The things one could do! What about that lovely trick of inverting a brass bowl on the man's bare stomach . . . a rat inside the bowl . . . some red-hot charcoal on top of the bowl. . . .
How long does it take the rat to eat his way into, and through, the man? Might it not be too quick a death? No, that was the whole point of it--a good sound slow torture.
Klingen licked his lips and followed the distant figure of Yato with his eyes.
Going to the same house again, was he? A pity he did not go to le village Nègre. What could be the attraction here? A woman, of course.
Klingen pondered the thought. There might be something in that . . . especially if he were fond of her. An idea--of dazzling brilliance. Jealousy! No vengeance like it--for a start. Get his woman from him. Was there a girl alive who would give a second glance at that hideous little yellow monkey when the fine big handsome swaggering swashbuckling Klingen was about? What an exquisite moment when the girl (seated on Klingen's knee, her head on Klingen's shoulder, her arms round Klingen's neck) turned languidly to Yato as Yato entered Yato's own room, and said to him in accents of extremest scorn, "Get to hell out of this, you dirty little yellow monkey. The sight and the smell of you make me feel sick in my stomach."
That would be a great moment. And these women could be bought.
* * * * *
Ah, yes . . . the little yellow devil was turning into the same house again. It must be a woman.
Klingen reconnoitred once again. The usual type of house with a common stairway leading up from a gloomy little basement hall to a rookery of rooms, apartments and flats occupied by hard-working poor people of the better sort.
Klingen hesitated, and for the first time entered the house and looked round the dingy entrance-hall, stone-floored, stucco-walled, gloomily lit by a smoky oil-lamp hanging against the wall, and by the rays that shone through iron-barred window-spaces from a street lamp.
Should he climb the bare, wooden stair that led to the floors above? Why not? Anyone might enter the wrong house by mistake when searching for a friend. Still, it was a pity Schwartz, Haff and Brandt could not be persuaded to come along and have some fun at the expense of the yellow monkey.
Footsteps. . . . Someone coming down the stairs. . . . A little man in seedy European clothing. . . . An idea . . .
"Excuse me, Monsieur," said Klingen, as the man reached the bottom of the stairs. "Can you tell me which is my friend's room? A légionnaire--a little fellow--Japanese."
The man shrugged his shoulders and made a gesture with his hands which showed that he was a Spaniard; also that he did not understand a word of what was being said to him.
Klingen mounted to the first floor, a bare landing, around three sides of which were closed, numbered doors. Should he tap at each in turn, and inquire for some non-existent person? And what should he do if one of them were opened by Yato? Suppose the yellow tiger-cat attacked him again? His mended arm tingled at the thought. What was he doing here at all? This longing for vengeance was driving him mad. . . .
Klingen turned back, descended to the street, and took up his stand in a doorway from which he could keep watch upon the porch of the house in which was his enemy.
Another idea! . . . What about waiting until Yato left the house? He could then go in and knock at every door and ask:
"Is my friend le légionnaire Yato here--a little Japanese?" If one of the doors were opened by some woman who replied, "No, he has just gone," he would know that he had found what he sought, and would get to work forthwith. He would soon show her the difference between a Yato and a Klingen. And if Klingen knew anything of women, and he flattered himself that he most certainly did, there was a bad time coming for the yellow devil. . . . He could almost hear the very accents in which she should say:
"Get out of my sight, you filthy yellow cur. I've got a man now!"
"Yes, and Klingen would have his knife ready too, and this time he'd throw it, if Yato made trouble. And he also flattered himself that he knew something of knife-throwing.
* * * * *
Ha! There he was. . . . Blister and burn him!
The retreating form of Yato turned the corner of the street, and Klingen darted across into the house. Running lightly up the stairs he knocked at the first door. No answer. He knocked again, and laid his ear against the wood.
Silence.
He knocked at the next. A fat, slatternly woman, candle in hand, opened the door and eyed him hardily.
"Well?" she inquired, running her eye contemptuously over his uniform.
"Monsieur Blanc?" inquired Klingen.
The woman slammed the door in his face.
The third and fourth rooms were apparently empty.
A child opened the door of the fifth, and seeing a légionnaire, shut it instantly. Hearing a man's deep growling voice within, Klingen passed on.
To Klingen's inquiry, at the sixth room, as to whether Monsieur Blanc lived here, the woman who occupied it replied that he did, but was at the moment in the wineshop round the corner!
"Then may he sit there till he rots," observed Klingen, and climbed the second flight of stairs, and, arriving at a landing similar to the one below, repeated his strategy and tactics.
The first door was opened by a tiny dainty Japanese girl, and Klingen thrust his way into the room, closed the door behind him, locked it, and removed the key.
He had found what he wanted.
The girl stood staring, between terror and surprise. This man was in a similar uniform to that which her lover wore. He must be his friend, otherwise how would he have known she was here? But her beloved had only just gone. Had something happened to him, and why had this man thrust in so roughly, uninvited. But they were rough and rude, these Western barbarians. Why had he come? Did he think this place was like one of those dreadful houses in Marseilles, Algiers and Oran? And she shuddered at the thought.
Oh, if she could only understand what he was saying and make herself understood by him! He seemed to be speaking of someone named Yato. Was it conceivable that he might understand a word of Japanese?
"I am the servant of the Colonel Hoshiri. What do you want?" she said in her own tongue.
And, for reply, Klingen snatched her up in his arms and kissed her violently.
Well, this was a fine affaire! . . . This marched! . . . She might, or might not, be Yato's girl, but most certainly she was. A Japanese would hardly be visiting a house in a Sidi-bel-Abbès side-street in which there was a Japanese woman, unless he were visiting her. Japs were not so common in the African hinterland as that. . . . But anyhow, and whoever she was, this was still a fine affaire, for here was Klingen the irresistible, locked up in a room with as pretty a little piece as he had ever clapped eyes on. And a very nice room, too, if a little bare. Bed, cushions, hangings, flowers in vase--yes, all very nice indeed.
And now for the little woman. A pity they could not understand each other's language, but the language of love is universal. He could soon make himself understood all right.
When le légionnaire Klingen let himself out of the room an hour or so later, he left a sobbing girl lying upon the bed weeping as though her heart would break; moaning as though it were already broken.
But Klingen, as he walked back to barracks, smiled greasily as he licked his lips, and encountering Yato in the barrack-room, laughed aloud.
Yato was sitting on his bed engaged in astiquage--the polishing of his belts and straps.
Having whispered his story, punctuated with loud guffaws, to a little knot of his friends who evidently enjoyed the joke hugely, Klingen went over and stood in front of the Japanese, his hands on his hips, and, rocking himself to and fro, from heels to toes, leered exultingly. Without looking up, Yato continued waxing and polishing a cartridge-pouch.
Suddenly he stopped--remained perfectly still, and stared at the floor between himself and Klingen.
Beau Geste drawing near, and watching carefully as he polished his bayonet, thought that Yato sniffed silently, as though trying to detect and capture an odour. Yes, decided Beau, Yato could smell something, and that something puzzled him. Rising to his feet, his hands behind him, and moving slowly, the Japanese approached Klingen, his head thrust forward, his nose obviously questing.
"What the hell!" growled Klingen, as Yato, his face not very much above the big man's sash, deliberately smelt at him.
Yato returned to his cot without remark.
But it seemed as though a shadow crossed his face. It was almost as though he changed colour.
§ 4
Le légionnaire Klingen, smart in his walking-out kit, a red képi, dark-blue tunic with green red-fringed epaulettes, red breeches and white spats, tightened his belt a little, pulled his bayonet frog further back, and swaggered from the barrack-room.
It was "holiday" (pay-day) and he intended to expend on wine the entire sum of 2½d. which he had received. Thereafter, being full of good wine and good cheer, it was his intention to see how the little Japanese girl was getting on, and to cheer her loneliness with an hour of his merry society. He would watch the yellow monkey go in, and wait till he came out, and if the girl had locked her door, he would tap and tap and knock and knock without saying anything until she did open it.
What a fighting little spit-fire she was. But that was nine-tenths make-believe, and the other tenth was ignorance of French.
From his seat on a barrel, in the corner of a dark wine-shop which commanded a view of the street in which the girl's house stood, Klingen saw Yato approaching. Pulling down the vizor of his képi, and bending his head forward, so that his face was concealed, he waited until the Japanese had passed, and then abandoned himself to the pleasures of drinking, anticipation, and thoughts of revenge.
He was absolutely certain that the girl was Yato's, and, as he rolled his wine upon his tongue, he rolled upon the debauched palate of his mind the flavour of the lovely vengeance that combined the enormous double gratification of deep enjoyment to himself and deep injury to Yato. He honestly agreed with Klingen that Klingen was a great man, and never greater than in this manifestation of his skill--that made his own pleasure his enemy's agony at a time when his enemy's agony was his own greatest pleasure.
On the whole, it had turned out to be quite a good thing that Schwartz, Brandt and Haff had declined to take any further hand in baiting Yato. Any vengeance, obtained with their help, could only have been crude and obvious, and have contained but the single satisfaction of injuring Yato.
But this was subtle, private, worthy of Klingen.
"Yes, my friend," he mused, sucking the wine-drops from his moustache. "I hurt you by delighting myself, and you add immeasurably to that delight by being hurt."
And he laughed aloud.
A couple of thieves and their women, a fat person clothed from head to foot in brown corduroy, and an obese dealer in old clothes who wore a tarboosh (or fez), a frock-coat, a collarless blue shirt, football shorts, and a pair of curly-toed slippers, all turned to stare at the big soldier who laughed loudly at nothing.
"Mad," said a thief, and shrugged his shoulders.
"Drunk," growled the other.
"Mad and drunk," said a lady.
"Que voulez-vous? C'est la Legion!" observed her sister in joy, and drank to the health of le légionnaire Klingen, in methylated spirit. As his tenth caporal cigarette began to singe his moustache, and the last glass of his third bottle began to exhibit sediment, Klingen again pulled his cap over his eyes, and dropped his chin upon his chest. A small figure in the uniform of the Legion was passing on the other side of the road.
Two minutes later, Klingen was knocking at the door of the room in which dwelt the Japanese girl. To his first knock no answer was vouchsafed; to the second, a thin, high, childish voice replied unintelligibly. It might have been in invitation or prohibition.
Klingen turned the handle and, to his surprise, found that the door was not fastened. Entering the room, he saw a little figure on the remembered bed, its back toward him, its head and shoulders covered by a silken shawl. Turning, he locked the door, and slipped the key into his pocket.
The figure on the bed moved slightly and did not turn to him.
The little hussy! What was the game? Perhaps-I-will-perhaps-I-won't? Or was she pretending she hadn't heard him come in? Going to make a scene, perhaps, in the hope of extorting payment. Well, she'd be a clever girl if she got money out of Klingen! The other way about, more likely.
With quickened breathing, gleaming eye, and smiling lips, Klingen took a couple of steps in the direction of the bed, and from it, casting off shawl and covering, sprang Yato, lightly clad, his face devilish in its ferocity.
Klingen's right hand went to his bayonet and Yato's right hand, open, shot upward, so that the bottom of the palm struck Klingen beneath the chin. As it did so, Yato heaved mightily upward, as though hurling a sack of potatoes which was balanced on his hand. It was as if the Japanese lifted Klingen by the face, and flung him backward off his feet. But even as his enemy was in the act of falling, Yato flung his arm about him, and turning him sideways, fell heavily with him--Klingen being face downward. Instantly Yato, whose knee was in the small of Klingen's back, his right hand on his neck, seized Klingen's right wrist, and, dragging the arm upward and backward with a swift movement, dislocated his shoulder, and, as the prostrate man yelled in agony, Yato, with a similar movement of dexterous and powerful leverage, dislocated the other.
As Klingen again roared with pain, Yato hissed like a cat, and, with a grip of steel, dug his thumb and fingers into his victim's neck, with a grip that changed a howl to a broken whimper.
Five minutes later, Klingen's wrists were bound behind him with steel wire, his ankles were fastened together with a strap, and he was bound down upon the bed with a many-knotted rope, in such a manner that he could not raise his knees, nor his head, nor change his position by so much as an inch.
A large handkerchief or rag completely filled his mouth, and a piece of steel wire, passing round his face from beneath his chin to the top of his head, prevented him from ejecting it. In fact, the so-recently active and joyous légionnaire Klingen could now move nothing but his eyes, could only see and hear--and suffer.
What was this yellow devil going to do with him? Mutilate him as the Arabs mutilate les légionnaires when they fall into their hands? And Klingen shuddered, as he thought of the photographs that hang in every Legion barrack-room for the discouragement of deserters . . . photographs of the remains of things that have been men.
Was Yato going to carve and fillet him? Blind him? Cut his tongue out? Torture him with a red-hot iron? Cripple him for life? Destroy his hands, and so his livelihood? Or merely leave him there to die a dreadful lingering death of thirst and starvation?
He thought of what he himself had hoped and intended to do, if he could have had Yato waylaid in le village Nègre.
And he could not utter a word of supplication or remonstrance, nor make offer and promise of impossible reparation and bribe.
What was the cruel, wicked devil doing now? Heating an iron, sharpening a knife, boiling some water? These cursed Japs were artists at fiendish torture, and had a devilish ingenuity beyond the conception of simple, honest Westerners with their kindly hearts and generous natures.
What was he doing? O God, what was he doing? Something unthinkable . . . something unimaginable.
But, strangely enough, Yato was merely engaged in the exercise of one of his many peaceful and lawful pursuits. Seated comfortably beside le légionnaire Klingen, to whom he addressed no remark of any sort, he was making a selection from a number of small objects neatly packed in a sandal-wood box. A faint, but pleasing odour came from this; also a small oblong cake of some black substance, in the powerful delicate fingers of the Japanese. Taking a tiny saucer from the box, he poured into it a little water from the flower-vase, and in this placed the end of the black cake, that it might soak while he dispassionately studied the contorted face of his enemy. Anon, taking the cake in his fingers, he sketched broad lines of the deepest black upon Klingen's forehead and cheeks. Klingen, expecting either burn or slash, winced and shuddered as the substance touched his face. Settling down to his work, unhurried, methodical, and calm, Yato rubbed and dipped, rubbed and dipped, until the face of Klingen was as black as soot--even to the eyelids, lips, ears, and throat.
Having completed this portion of his task to his satisfaction, Yato again considered the contents of the box, and selected another small stick. With this he most carefully continued his work, a keen and conscientious craftsman.
And then, changing his tools, Yato, with patient artistry, laboured long and well, to render indelible his striking effects. With a long-handled brush, whose bristles were needles of steel, he tapped and tapped and tapped at forehead, cheeks and chin, until the blood began to ooze. With separate and single needles, he worked faithfully and well, in the places where the broader tools would fail of full effect. . . .
And at last he rose, an artist satisfied, fulfilled, and gazed upon the face of his enemy.
§ 5
Le légionnaire Yato was not seen again in the barracks of the Legion. But, three days later, Beau Geste received a letter which reminded him of his promise to help his humble Japanese comrade. All the latter had to ask was that his honourable friend would proceed, forthwith, accompanied by his two honourable brothers, to a described house, and there, having asked a certain man for the key, go to room No. 7, and give freedom and assistance to an unfortunate man confined therein. Should they fail to do this, the poor fellow would starve to death. . . .
Michael, Digby and John did as they were asked.
"Good God! Yato!" ejaculated Michael, as they gazed upon Klingen.
"The wicked devil!" murmured John.
"What they call a 'gentleman of colour,'" observed Digby,--for, until the worms devoured it, the whole face of Klingen would be a deep blue-black, save for the nose of glowing red.
"Ready, pup?" inquired Michael Geste, turning to where his brother John was endeavouring satisfactorily to arrange his hair by means of a brush originally intended for quite other purposes, and a mirror so small that the work had, as Digby observed, to be done by sections--if not by numbers.
As the three brothers looked each other over, in turn, with a view to avoiding unpleasantness at the gates, where a crapulous and arbitrary Sergeant of the Guard would turn them back if it were possible to find the slightest fault with their appearance, La Cigale approached them.
La Cigale, the Grasshopper, a nobleman of ancient family and once an officer of the Belgian Corps of Guides, was a kind and gentle madman, whose mental affliction had hitherto in no way interfered with his soldiering. At times he was quite mad, and at others appeared quite sane.
Returning to the depôt at Sidi-bel-Abbès, from a long tour of foreign service, he had re-enlisted for the third time, a veteran soldier de carrière. With the Geste boys he was a favourite, as well as a source of wonder, admiration and respect. Michael said he was not only a noble, but one of Nature's noblemen, as well as one of God's own gentlemen; Digby said he reminded him of himself; and John, that he was about the most lovable and pathetic thing in human form.
And he had been for fifteen years a private soldier of the Legion!
"Are you gentlemen going anywhere in particular?" asked La Cigale with his pleasant, friendly smile.
"No," replied Michael, "just going to walk abroad, and give the public a treat."
"You were going alone, of course, a single and indivisible trinity."
"We were," admitted Michael, "but we should be delighted if you would care to join us."
"Charmed," murmured Digby and John.
"Thank you so very much," replied La Cigale. "I'm sure that you mean what you say, and that your politeness is not hollow. . . . Had you not invited me, I was going to summon up courage to ask if I might come with you to-night. . . . I am frightened."
The brothers glanced at the old soldier's Croix de Guerre, Médaille Militaire, and other medals, with incredulous smiles.
"And of what is the doyen of the First Battalion of the First Regiment of the Legion afraid?" asked Michael.
"Of loneliness," was the reply, "and of myself. It is terrible to be utterly lonely in the midst of such a crowded life as this, and it is even more terrible to be afraid of oneself--afraid of what one may do. I am haunted by the dread of doing something awful, horrible, disgraceful, and knowing nothing about it until it is too late. And I get these attacks--I can't describe them. I have one coming on now. Every nerve in the body tingles and burns, from the brain to the finger-tips and toes. Every cell in the body shrieks and screams, and I must do something, do something--something drastic, and do it instantly. But what that something is, I do not know. It is agony unspeakable. I would sooner have a dozen wounds."
"Come for a walk and a talk," interrupted Michael Geste, as La Cigale paused. It was obvious that the less he thought about himself the better.
"Let's go and find a quiet spot in the Gardens, and perhaps you'll give us the pleasure and benefit of hearing of some of your campaigning experiences? We should like to follow in your footsteps, you know."
"Rather," agreed Digby, "and get as many decorations among the three of us."
"Regard us as your sons, sir, and take us in hand," murmured John.
The quartette set forth, saluted the Sergeant of the Guard, and found themselves safely in the lane that separates the Legion's Barracks from those of the Spahis.
Having induced La Cigale to share a light and not wholly inelegant meal at the Café de l'Europe, Michael Geste proposed that they should adjourn and listen to the Legion's band as it played in the public Gardens.
"For myself--I dare not," replied La Cigale. "At times music has a terrible effect upon me. If they were to play a selection from a certain opera that was world-famous when I was a young man, I should go mad. I should completely lose control of . . ."
"Then let's go and sit on a seat in the moonlight, and you shall talk to us. We should enjoy that far more," said Michael quickly. "Come along."
"Not in the moonlight," objected La Cigale, "if you don't mind. Some nice dark place in deep shadow. I think moonlight is terrible--such memories."
* * * * *
"I can't tell you how delightful it is to me, to know you," said La Cigale, as they seated themselves on a bench in a dark corner of the Gardens. "Gentlemen and Englishmen. I've always been fond of the English. There was an astonishingly delightful Englishman here, who was a friend of mine for years. Killed trying to escape, with two compatriots--one of them a charming fellow--and a very attractive American.
"Then there was poor young Edwards--yes, he called himself Edwards, I remember."
"And what became of him?" asked Michael, as La Cigale fell into reminiscent silence.
"To young Edwards? Oh, it was a terrible tragedy. I will tell you."
§ 2
"David Edwards, as he called himself, joined the Legion some years ago, and was one of the most puzzling of the many people whose presence in the Legion is a puzzle to all who know them.
"He was one of the nicest fellows I've ever known, and it was impossible to suppose that he had left his country for his country's good, or had chosen the Legion as a refuge. It was quite obvious that it was not poverty nor vice, crime, debt, disgrace nor anything of that kind, that had been the cause of his coming here. Nor did he strike one as being of the born soldier type--one of those men who are cut out for a military career, and are fitted for no other. And he wasn't one of the wildly adventurous sort, mad-cap and hare-brained. It was my good fortune to be put in charge of him when he arrived, that I might show him the ropes, and instruct him as to astiquage, paquetage and so forth.
"We had much in common, including one or two acquaintances, for I knew the part of England from which he came, and he knew Brussels, where his father, evidently in the Diplomatic Service, had been stationed.
"He was extremely kind and friendly to me, but his real friend, pal, and copain was, extraordinarily enough, an astounding rascal of the name of Jean Molle.
"It was indeed a case of the attraction of opposites, for this man Molle was all that Edwards was not--the one a gutter-bred rough, the other a public-school man of family and refinement.
"It was really interesting to watch these two, and try to discover what it was in each that interested the other. One would have supposed that Edwards would only have seen in Molle a coarse ignorant ruffian, devoid alike of manners and morals, and that Molle would have seen in Edwards a white-handed, finnicking fine gentleman, full of irritating affectations and superiorities.
"Molle, who had been a Paris market-porter at his best, and a foot-pad apache at his worst, was a huge powerful person of most violent temper, and an uncontrollable addiction to drink. But he was droll, I must admit--really very funny when half-sober or half-drunk, and a born mimic, clown, and buffoon. I should think that he must have been attached to a circus in some such capacity, or perhaps was born in one, and he made David Edwards laugh--laugh until the tears ran down his face, and he had to beg Molle to stop impersonating a curé, a cocotte, a Colonel, an old market-woman, a Sergeant-Major, or whatever it might be.
"Yes, Molle was very good for Edwards from that point of view, for he kept the Englishman laughing--and laughter is the salt of life, both as savour and a preservative. And, of course, Edwards did not understand the vileness of one half of Molle's remarks, spoken in his almost incomprehensible and wholly untranslatable argot of the slums and halles of Paris.
"And Edwards was good for Molle in every possible way, and gave the creature ideas such as he had never before dreamed of, standards and ideals hitherto unglimpsed by this sewer-rat.
"Surely a more ill-assorted pair never foregathered, even in the Foreign Legion. I think Edwards grew quite fond of Molle, as the benefactor often does grow fond of the beneficiary, and undoubtedly Molle really loved David Edwards. He would have thrashed anyone who said a word against him, and killed anyone who injured him.
"They quarrelled, of course--as friends must do--generally on the subject of Molle's drunkenness and debauchery. He was one of those canaille who simply must, from time to time, give way to the demands of their gross appetites, slink into some horrible hole, and drink themselves insensible.
"Edwards was really wonderful when his friend eluded him and got drunk. He would go from wine-shop to wine-shop in the Spanish quarter, search the houses that are in bounds for troops, ransack le village Nègre itself, and when successful, be rewarded by a torrent of oaths and a drunken blow. Time after time he was punished with salle de police for coming in late, supporting his drunken friend, whom, for hours, he had been trying to get back to Barracks.
"Never did he desert the drunken brute, even though it meant being out the whole night and returning too late for parade, but not too soon for severe punishment.
"I myself, when on guard, have seen them at the gate in the small hours of the morning--Edwards, who was a teetotaller, by the way, bleeding about the face, and with torn and muddied uniform, supporting and endeavouring to control the singing, shouting, raving Molle, and striving to prevent him from assaulting the Sergeant and resisting the Guard.
"After these disgusting, disgraceful affairs, Molle would be tearfully repentant, grovelling in apology, and loud in self-accusation and promises of reform, and for a time he would behave well, would walk out with Edwards and return quiet, clean, sober and punctual for roll-call.
"Nevertheless he was always extremely dangerous after one of these orgies, for his terrible temper would be in a highly explosive condition--a thing not to be wondered at, in view of the fact that he had consumed gallons of assorted alcohol, and been knocked on the head when fighting like a wild beast to prevent being thrown into the salle de police.
"I never ceased to admire the moral and physical courage with which Edwards would come between Molle and his desires when the evil fit was on him, and tackle him when he was in the surly and quarrelsome stages of drunkenness. Undoubtedly, Edwards saved Molle from three times as much imprisonment as he got, and Molle was the cause of practically every punishment awarded to Edwards.
"Can you understand such a friendship between two such men--between a cultured man of breeding and a dissolute brute like Molle? But there it was. And the only explanation I can offer, is that Edwards imagined himself more or less responsible for this creature who had attached himself to him as a stray and homeless mongrel dog will attach himself to a man, and who loved him as such a dog will do.
"Some men will risk their lives to save a dog, and thereafter be very fond of it, and I suppose it was in some such spirit that Edwards risked his life in le village Nègre, and his peace, prospects and reputation in the Legion--and became fond of the dog Molle.
"And then one night the tragedy occurred, strangely, suddenly and unexpectedly, as tragedy does occur.
"Molle had been drinking. After evening soupe he had evaded Edwards, slipped out by himself, and gone to drink in a low wine-shop. Unfortunately he had not the money to buy enough liquor to make himself drunk, but merely sufficient to see him through the successive stages of hilarity and despondency into that of a quarrelsome moroseness.
"Making his way back to Barracks when his money was gone, and carrying, with the air of a dour teetotaller, enough assorted liquor to intoxicate half a dozen, he strode past the Guard Room across the Parade Ground, and up to his Barrack Room. Here he sat himself down in morose and sulky silence, and sullenly cleaned and polished his kit.
"As he sat, gloomy, heavy and repellent, a dangerous and ugly customer to tackle, Edwards came into the room. He was wearing walking-out kit and overcoat.
"'Oh, there you are,' he cried, on catching sight of Molle. 'I've been looking for you everywhere.'
"'Am I a dog that I should be hunted? And by a thing like you?' growled Molle, glaring angrily at Edwards.
"'Yes,' replied Edwards pleasantly. 'A dirty dog,' and strode across to where Molle sat.
"'Oh! I am a dirty dog, am I?' muttered Molle quietly, without looking up.
"'Regular mongrel,' agreed Edwards, 'but full of clever tricks. . . . Sit up and beg. . . . Up, Fido! Beg, Fido!'
"Molle rose to his feet obedient--and spat in Edwards' face.
"I told you he was a creature of pleasant habits! And I told you Edwards was brave.
"Although Molle was about twice his size, and four times as strong, he let drive instantly with all his strength and landed Molle as fine a smack in the eye as ever I saw a man receive.
"Molle struck back, hitting Edwards with such force that both he and Edwards fell to the ground.
"At that moment there was a cry of 'Fixe!' and every one sprang to attention, as our Major came into the room. Molle, full of liquor though he was, scrambled to his feet, and stood like a statue at the foot of his bed, steady as a rock.
"Edwards lay where he was--on his face--gasping and coughing.
"'What's this, then?' snapped the Major, a man who was always in a terrific hurry. He occasionally made these sudden inspection raids, and indiscriminately dealt out severe punishments to all and sundry.
"Edwards gasped, groaned, and partly raised himself on his right elbow.
"'I am drunk,' he said clearly, and collapsed.
"'Drunk and fighting in the Barrack Room,' shouted the Major. 'Assaulting your comrades. No one else here is drunk. A drunken, quarrelsome disturber of discipline. . . .'
"And more of the same sort of thing, ending up with an order that the drunkard should be removed immediately and thrown into prison.
"'He is not drunk, Monsieur le Majeur,' interrupted Molle, stepping forward and saluting. 'It is I.'
"'Four days' cells for daring to address me, for contradiction and attempted interruption of the course of justice,' roared the incensed officer, as soon as he recovered from his shocked surprise at Molle's temerity.
"I would have spoken up for Edwards myself, but for the absolute certainty that I should also incur a sentence of imprisonment without the slightest possibility of doing him any good. Quite the contrary, in all probability.
"Edwards, really looking the part of a quarrelsome drunkard who had been badly knocked about, was carried off and dumped in a cell, while Molle was led away to the salle de police.
"That night I was on guard, and as it happened, it was I who first entered Edwards' cell in the morning, to take him the loaf of bread and drop of water that would be his food for the day. He was lying face downward on the dirty floor, his left arm bent beneath him, and his right extended, the hand touching the wall of the cell. Just above it, I could see, in the dim light, smears and smudges, such as might have been made by a child playing with a house-painter's brush on which still remained a very little half-dried red paint.
"Just so might a little girl, named Susan, have tried to write her name upon the wall--for the first smeared hieroglyphic was a crude but unmistakable S, followed by what was almost certainly the letter U.
"A finger, dipped in blood, had made the rough double curve that was an S, had twice made a stroke beside it, and, when a little more of the slow and painful medium was available, had joined the bases of the strokes with a curve.
"I saw this much, at a glance, as I knelt to do what I could for John Edwards. He was quite dead, and had obviously died from loss of blood, after having stabbed himself, or having been stabbed, in the left breast.
"Yes, my friend was dead; I could not be mistaken as to that--I who have seen so many die.
"I looked again at the wall. 'SU' he had painfully scrawled while still comparatively strong. I think he had then fainted, or perhaps had waited. . . .
"So much of the blood had been absorbed by his clothing, and the pad he had made with his neck-cloth.
"Oh yes, he had done his best, poor boy, but had probably grown too weak to do any more for himself than to staunch the flow of blood.
"Yes, as I read the signs, he had fainted, had revived, and realized that he was dying; had painfully scrawled the first two letters, and had then collapsed--probably through fresh hæmorrhage caused by the effort.
"For there was a space after the U, and then a straight stroke, followed by a curved one. Near the top of this was a single finger-print. Evidently, with failing sight and ebbing strength, he had tried to make this curve into the letter C, and, ere the heavy hand fell from the wall, he had smeared the beginning of another stroke.
"'SUICI' had been accomplished, and he had then either rested from these last labours of his brief life, or had again been overcome by that dreadful sinking faintness that attacks us as the life-stream ebbs from wounds.
"Once again he had recovered. This time he had made a mighty effort, and had been but too well provided with the dreadful medium in which he worked.
"Below the other letters, and a foot to the right of them, shakily but clearly were written the final D and E.
"Suicide!
"Why? And with what weapon. And where was it?
"He was not wearing his bayonet, of course. Had he a dagger or clasp-knife which he had returned to its place of concealment, after inflicting upon himself a death-wound? And if so, why?
"And then again, why spend his last minutes of terrible agony--as he lay upon the very brink of the grave, and imminent dissolution was upon him, in such work? Why, I asked myself, should he have been at such pains--such unthinkable pains--to smear this dreadful writing on the wall, in his own life-blood?
"When a légionnaire commits suicide, he commits suicide, and there's an end of it. He doesn't trouble to write about it. It is obvious. If he should have anything to record about his death, he would write it before killing himself, wouldn't he?
"Reverently I assured myself of the fact that he had no concealed knife or dagger, and then that there was, in the cell, absolutely nothing of any sort or kind with which he could have inflicted this wound upon himself. A man cannot give himself a neat and clean stab, three quarters of an inch long, a quarter of an inch wide, and deep enough to kill him, without a knife, or something that can be used as a knife blade.
"Men have hanged themselves with their braces, strangled themselves with their bootlaces, opened veins and arteries with a nail, and battered their heads against their cell walls. There is always a way for a determined man to put an end to himself, but he can't fatally stab himself--without at least a piece of glass, or of hard and pointed wood.
"Could David Edwards have had an enemy who had entered his cell and murdered him during the night?
"Absurd nonsense! How could such a man get into the cell, unless it were the Sergeant of the Guard himself? And, if a prisoner were murdered in this way, would he write 'Suicide' upon the wall as he died?
"It has taken me some time to tell you all this, but I don't suppose it took a second for these thoughts to flash through my mind.
"And then I decided that when a man, at such terrible cost, proclaims the fact that he has committed suicide, he has almost certainly not committed suicide at all, and of course I was confirmed in this belief by my absolute certainty that there was nothing in the cell with which he could have stabbed himself.
"Although I knew that it was perfectly useless to do so, I opened the door of the cell, and examined the floor of the narrow passage outside. As you may not be aware, those beastly cells have no window, grating, nor aperture communicating with the open air. There is nothing but the grating above the door that opens into the passage. It was just conceivably possible that Edwards had stabbed himself with a knife, and had then contrived to throw it between the bars of the grating, so that it fell in the passage without.
"Apart from the fact that this would be an extremely difficult thing to do, and that the sentry would hear the knife fall, why should a suicide do such a thing, particularly when he intended to take the trouble to proclaim the fact that it was suicide?
"Surely it would be obvious enough that he had taken his own life, if the knife were found lying beside him, or gripped in his hand, or sticking in his chest. On what conceivable grounds should a man, after inflicting a mortal wound upon himself, proclaim the fact of suicide and carefully conceal the means whereby it was effected?
"Life has presented me with some sore puzzles, my friends, but I think this was the most insoluble problem with which I had been confronted.
"Well, there it was, in all its stark simplicity of fact. Edwards was dead, with a stab near the heart; there was no knife or other weapon in the place, and he had written the word 'Suicide' in his own blood.
"And there it was in all its bewildering complexity, its incredibility, its sinister insoluble impossibility. And there I left it.
"I reported to the Sergeant of the Guard that the prisoner in No. 1 had committed suicide.
"The body was carried to the hospital for autopsy, and thence to the mortuary, in the kind of coffin they give the légionnaire.
"Next day, David Edwards was buried in the Cemetery of the Legion, and doubtless one can still find his grave--for it became rather famous, and probably the légionnaire-pensioner in charge of the Cemetery looks after it. In the past he must have made quite a few sous by exhibiting it.
"No, it was not the mystery attaching to the death of Edwards that made his grave a nine days' wonder. No one takes much notice of the suicide of a légionnaire, however interestingly he made contrive his death.
"It was what happened, a week after he had been buried."
§ 3
"When Molle came out of prison, his first thought was of his friend, and he hurried in search of him. I was in the Barrack Room when he entered, looking all the worse for his term of cellule punishment.
"He stared in astonishment at seeing another man sitting on Edwards' cot and obviously occupying his place.
"'Here, you--where's Edwards?' he said, approaching the new-comer, a big Alsatian named Gronau.
"'Dead and buried,' growled the fellow, with an ugly laugh.
"Molle planted himself in front of Gronau, his big hands tense, flexed, about to clutch. . . .
"'Where's Edwards? I asked you,' he said.
"I got up with some idea of getting Molle away, but Gronau answered again,
"'Dead, I tell you! . . . Dead and buried. Dead and damned.'
"And Molle sprang upon him, literally like a wild beast.
"It took half a dozen of us to get him off Gronau before he had choked the life out of him.
"The Alsatian, although a big powerful fellow, was like a child in the hands of Molle.
"We got him down and held him down, and for a time it was more like holding a horse than a man.
"Then suddenly he fell quiet, as though all his strength had gone out of him. And it had.
"His attack on Gronau was his last activity--his last effort, if you understand me.
"He had grasped the fact that David Edwards was dead, and it broke him, mentally and physically. Yes, that is what he was, a broken man--heart-broken and broken in spirit.
"For a few days he moved about, doing things automatically. He reminded me of those stories, that one has heard and read, of the dog that loses its master and straightway loses all interest in life, refuses food and pines and droops. Sometimes such a dog will go and lie upon its master's grave and refuse to be moved.
"Such a dog was Molle.
"He never spoke: he never smiled; scarcely did he raise his eyes from the ground. He did not sleep; he did not eat, and, marvellously, he did not drink.
"What would one have expected such a creature to do? Obviously to drink himself to death.
"Granted that he were sufficiently human and humane to have been capable of such a love, one would have supposed its effect would have been a plunge into the depths of debauchery, a drowning of sorrow in drink. Surely, nine times out of ten, a man of this type would seek the only anodyne he knows, his accustomed way of escape from reality.
"But no! this astonishing Jonathan took the loss of his David differently, and the debauché became the ascetic, instead of submerging his troubled soul beneath a sea of alcohol.
"I tried to get en rapport with him.
"He did not so much repulse me as fail to realize me. I made no impression upon him, and nothing that I said appeared to reach his mind. I think that was wholly unreceptive, as though it had frozen into a solid block of fact--one dreadful fact--My friend is dead.
"One day I said to him, 'Look here, Molle. If you don't eat you'll die. Even your strength can't last much longer. Come out with me to-night. We'll have supper together in some nice quiet place.'
"'Eh?' he replied.
"And when I had repeated what I had said, he again murmured, 'Eh?'--and that was as far as I could get with him.
"I completely failed to make him realize that I, more than any man, could understand how he suffered. I, who had lost every one and everything; I, whose mind, like his, had suddenly died.
"With a word of sympathy on my lips, and genuine sorrow in my heart, I turned and left him.
"But I spoke to him once again, and got an answer.
"For my evening walk, I strolled to the cemetery to visit the grave of David Edwards, just to lay a flower and say a word of farewell to a dead comrade.
"A foolish thing, of course, and one I often wonder at--this connecting of the freed and soaring spirit with the poor corrupting clay, and its last resting-place.
"But poor humanity must have its concrete symbols. . . .
"And there was Jean Molle before me lying prone upon the grave.
"I went to raise him up. His left hand was buried quite deeply into the ground, and in his right hand was the knife with which he had stabbed himself.
"As I turned him over, to see if anything could yet be done to save him, I saw that the hand that had been buried clutched an earth-stained letter.
"'What has happened?' I asked, bewildered.
"Molle opened his eyes.
"'I cannot get it down to him,' he moaned. . . . 'Oh, David, my friend, my friend! . . . I did not mean to do it. . . . Can you hear me, David, and will you believe me? . . . I did not even know that a knife was in my hand, when you came to me that last night in the barrack-room, and I struck you, David. . . .'
"I tried to stanch the blood that flowed from his bared breast.
"'Get him the letter,' he whispered, 'I cannot reach to . . .' and died.
"I buried the letter. . . . Doubtless Edwards received it. . . ."
"I say, citizens," quoth Digby Geste, as his brothers entered the barrack-room, "Ludwig'll . . ."
"Ludwiggle?" enquired Michael. "Who's he?"
Digby sighed. "As I was about to say, Ludwig'll . . ."
"You did say Ludwiggle," pointed out John.
Digby ignored his younger brother.
Addressing Michael he said firmly, "Ludwig'll . . ."
"He's got this Ludwiggle on the brain," observed Michael. "What's his surname--Hornswoggle?"
"Yes, obviously; what else could it be?" accommodated Digby in a soothing voice, and continued, "Well, Ludwig Hornswoggle'll clean our kit to-night. In fact he's very keen on getting the job, and keener still on the threepence he'll earn by it. Thinking of marrying, I believe, and wants to get a few sticks of furniture for the home."
"Good for Ludwiggle," agreed Michael. "We'll go to Mustapha's and improve the shining hour, and our shining Arabic."
Le légionnaire Ludwig Müller alias Hornswoggle, having received payment in advance and a promise that it would be recovered if the work were not satisfactorily done, settled down to the evening's labour, as the boys, having brushed each other's coats, took their caps.
"Good-bye, Ludwiggle," observed Michael, as they left the barrack-room. "You speak English, don't you?"
"Yes, yes, I speak it much," replied Müller. "I haf been waiter in London."
"'Thig or glear?'" murmured Digby.
"Well then," replied Michael, "you will achieve a just and accurate perception of what I would fain indicate when I say that you have had payment a priori, and if we are unable to approve the result of your industry and application, both intensive and extensive, you'll get some a posteriori too."
"Yes, and a forteriori also, Ludwiggle. Now excogitate the esoteric implications of those few ill-chosen words."
Ludwig Müller grinned and waggled his hands.
§ 2
"Good heavens, listen," said Michael, suddenly seizing the arms of his brothers, between whom he was walking, as they passed a low café in the Spanish quarter.
"Rough-house," observed Digby, as a man came flying backward through the doorway. "That is what the instructed call being thrown out on your ear," observed John.
"I thought I heard English," said Michael.
"Scotch," said Digby, "or did I smell it?"
"Only the soda," corrected John. . . . "By Jove, it is English," he added, as a bull voice roared above the din.
"Is there a man among ye has the Gaelic? . . . Is there a man among ye can speak English even? . . . Is there a man among ye at all? Ye gang o' lasceevious auld de'ils, decked oot like weemin' in spite o' yer hairy long whuskers, full beards and full skirts, ye deceitful besoms. Whuskers and petticoats wi' the vices o' both and the virtues o' neither. I'll sorrt ye."
And there were sounds of alarums and excursions within.
The door opened, and a légionnaire came out laughing--a Frenchman called Blanc, once a Captain in his country's Mercantile Marine.
"Ho, ho, ce bon McSnorrt," he chuckled.
"Hullo, there's a compatriot of yours in there," he added, on catching sight of the brothers. "Perhaps you could get him back to Barracks. I can't. He's not coming out of there till some one speaks to him in Gaelic, has danced the sword-dance or sung a Chanson Écosse about Scots who have bled at the same time and place as Monsieur Guillaume Wallace."
Blanc laughed again.
"He's taken a dislike to Arabs, Jews and Spaniards to-night, because they can't talk Gaelic, and he'll kill a few in there unless they kill him first. . . . Well, I've done my best with the old fool."
A few questions elicited the information that ce bon McSnorrt was a Scot with a perfectly unpronounceable name--really more a sneeze than a name, explained Blanc,--something between McIlwraith and Colquohoun, who had, long ago, been re-named "McSnorrt" by an English légionnaire calling himself Jean Boule. He had taken his discharge three times, and each time had re-enlisted destitute, after a period of peace, retrenchment, and reform, during which he had, according to his own account, been Chief Engineer on great liners.
Apparently he was the pride and joy of his officers in the day of battle, and their despair, disgrace and utter curse, in the piping times of peace. On more than one occasion, nothing but his decorations and glorious fighting record could have saved him from the Zephyrs or a firing-party. According to Blanc, he had been very bad in the days of his friend Jean Boule, and ten times worse since the removal, by the hand of death, of that gentleman's restraining influence.
Followed by his brothers, Beau Geste pushed open the door and entered the wine-shop.
Brandishing an empty bottle, a red man--red of hair, beard, nose and eye--enormous and powerfully built, was threatening an audience of grave and wondering Arabs and grinning, sneering, or scowling Spaniards, Jews, and nondescripts, while he bitterly and passionately harangued them on the shortcomings, impropriety, and general unsuitability of native dress; on their inability to sing the songs that he approved, and their complete ignorance of Gaelic.
Inasmuch as his address concluded with the firm assurance that no man should leave the building until he had cast off his unseemly garb, danced a sword-dance, sung "Annie Laurie," and spoken Gaelic, there appeared to be every probability of serious trouble.
Even as the boys entered, a big, powerful, and truculent-looking Spaniard set down his glass with a loud bang on the zinc bar, lit a cigarette, spat in the direction of the self-constituted censor of local morals, manners and customs, and strode toward the door.
As the McSnorrt gripped him by the arm, he whipped out a knife. Quick as he was, the drunken Scot was quicker. Seizing the upraised hand, the McSnorrt forced the man's arm downward and backward, and then, with a mighty heave and lift, swung round and flung him, like a sack of straw, against the swing-doors--and the subsequent proceedings interested him no more.
There was a general movement and ugly murmurings, as knives were drawn and empty bottles seized, preparatory to a concerted rush.
"Speak Gaelic, ye ignorant and contumeelious spawn of Gehenna, ye dommed dirrty, degraded, derelict descendants o' the Duke of Hell," roared the McSnorrt, in reply to cries of "Stab him," "Get behind him," or "Throw a knife in his ear," and general exhortations of all to sundry that they should do drastic things with promptitude and despatch.
"Hi, comrade, hae ye the Gaelic yersel'?" shouted Michael, as he thrust through the encircling company of murderous blackguards, choice specimens of a cosmopolitan and criminal underworld.
"Not a worrd, laddie, an' I was never further norrth, ye'll ken, than my ain fair city o' Glesgie. Not a worrd, an' I doot if ever I hearrd one. . . . But the soond of yon lovely tongue wad be sweeter in ma ears than that o' the bonnie pibroch itself. . . . Oh, to hear the skirrl o' the bonnie, bonnie bag-pipes, playing 'Lochaber no more,' or the 'Flowers of the Forest' in this meeserable land o' dule and drought. No, I hae na the Gaelic, but I'm goin' to hearr it the nicht. An' no man leaves this den o' thieves until I do, yersel's included."
"Then listen," replied Michael, "listen, my little one, and you shall hear," and in fluent Arabic he continued, "You are a filthy drunken disgrace to the most decent, self-respecting, thrifty and sober people in the world. You are a noisy ruffian, debauched, beastly and detestable, a shame and a reproach to the white race, and to the Foreign Legion."
Michael paused for breath.
"How did you like that?" he inquired. "Pretty good Gaelic, eh?"
"Graand, man! Gie's your hand. Och, the bonnie, bonnie Gaelic. It minds me o' when I was a wee laddie, and paddled i' the burrn. . . . Or the Clyde at Greenock, anyhow."
And the McSnorrt swallowed hard.
"Oh, cheer up, wee Macgreegor," begged Digby. "Listen."
And at the top of his voice he tunefully declared that Maxwellton's braes were bonnie.
Scarcely had he uttered the name of Miss Laurie, and the gift of her promise true, than the McSnorrt burst into tears, and was led weeping away--away back to Barracks, to the strains of "Loch Lomond," and the promptings of a somewhat vituperative-seeming Gaelic.
§ 3
Every fifth day is "pay-day," the great day when a soldier of the Legion has five sous to spend, and can spend it with untrammelled recklessness.
It was a Fifth Day at eventide, and the McSnorrt, established as usual in the Canteen, was rapidly recovering from the drear and dreadful drought of the four previous days, when chill penury failed to repress his noble rage.
Warmed by wine, the McSnorrt was expanding, mellowing and waxing genial, shedding moroseness like a garment, and finding joy, relief, and satisfaction in self-expression. Speech bubbled up within this usually inarticulate man, and he spake with tongues; also he remembered his love of the Gaelic, as he caught sight of the three boys who had come to his rescue in the wineshop last pay-day.
With a roar and a shout and a wave of one mighty paw, while the other banged a bottle heavily upon the table, he attracted the attention of the Geste brothers and bade them come, and in return for their Gaelic, hear words of wisdom and delight from a great and good man who had drunk exactly 3,000 gallons of whisky before the three of them had been born.
Nothing loth, the brothers gathered round the veteran reprobate, a man with a vivid imagination, an inexhaustible fund of strange experience, and, on the rare occasions when not possessed of a dumb devil, a copious flow of potent speech.
Ere long, the party was joined by Maris and Cordier, friends of the brothers, and practised users of the English tongue.
Michael, Digby and John, finishing a brief argument as to whether one Robinson, the Carven-Faced Man, should be written down a liar, and if not, should be esteemed something of a knave, were anon aware that the McSnorrt, ancient mariner that he was, had fixed them with a glittering eye and was unfolding a round, if not unvarnished, tale of which they had missed the beginning.
"Aye . . . aye, this Mr. Bute-Arrol was a well-kenned and highly respected man. Last of a great shipping firm he was, and an ornament to Glasgow as he walked aboot it, a fine big upstanding man with the sea in his eyes, and the sun-bronze on his face.
"More like a ship's captain than a shipping-owner, he was, and well he might be, for he had sailed the seven seas, and travelled far and wide. Aye, and Mr. Bute-Arrol, partner in the Bell, Brown, Scott and Bute-Arrol's 'Loch' Line, was a man of parrts and education. . . . Hobbies he had. . . . Nane of yer fule hobbies o' collectin' stamps, or moths, or trouser-buttons, or doin' fret-work or photography, but scienteefic and literary, ye ken.
"And, I say, scienteefic. There was botany and orchids, that cost him a fortune, from South America to New Guinea, and trees and shrubs in his grounds such as ye'd have to go to Kew Gardens to see the like of.
"And then there was zoology and all sorts of weird beasties, snakes and lizards and fishes, chameleons and similar molluscs, and brachycephalous orrnithorhincusses; marvellous-coloured bugs, beetles, salamanders, iguanas and all such-like lepidoptera and hagiologies. He'd got conservatories and an aviary and an insect-house and a reptile-house, all kept as warm as the tropics while Christians went blue-nosed with the Glasgow east wind and whisky.
"Aye, he was a man of interests, this Mr. Bute-Arrol, and three of his greatest were early gold coins, scarce First Editions of bukes, and rare poisons. . . . Yon disreppitable and unneighbourly family of Borrgias. . . . That lassie they ca'ed Madame Brinvilliers, famous poisoners of history--he'd quite a library of them, and the men that hunted him his orchids, humming-birds, butterflies and such bichus, had to bring him poisoned arrows o' the heathen, and the little darts they puff through the long blow-pipes. Sumpitans, I think they ca' them. And he'd be extra douce wi' any hunter or agent or captain who'd send him, or bring him, specimens o' yon wourali stuff fra' South America, or dhatura fra' the East, stropanthus from Africa, and dozens of other such unwholesome food-stuffs from China to Peru--things ye'd never hear of unless ye went there, and then likely not--and all unknown to the British Pharmacopœia.
"Aye, he was a grraand man, and I'm tellin' ye he had grraand hobbies, and great ideas.
"Aye, and something else he had, and that was a great enemy, a successful rival in love, which was bad, and a successful rival in business which was waur. McRattery his name was, and if ye'd say Bute-Arrol was the finest figure o' a man, a citizen, a gentleman, a pillar o' law, order and property, and ornament o' the Kirk in all Glasgow, ye might perhaps add, 'Unless it's yon Mr. McRattery.'
"A pair they were, but not a pair that would ever run in harness, ye ken, nor side by side, nor in the same direction.
"Rivals and enemies, from their school-days at Fettes, to the prime o' manhood. What the one had, the other must have more of; what the one did, the other must outdo; what the one was, the other must be in higher degree. Aye, what the one wanted, the other must get first.
"And McRattery put the crown on his life's work o' rivalry, thwarting and competition, by cutting in and getting Mary MacDonald just when Bute-Arrol decided that it was time he had a son to follow him, and had marked bonnie Mary down for the high honour and advancement of becoming Mrs. Bute-Arrol.
"Big men they were both, wise and patient and clever, learned and able and dour, ill men to cross, wilful and set in their ways, and neither to haud nor to bind when once started on a course. And perhaps, after all, McRattery was the bigger man, for not only had he beaten Bute-Arrol in love and war, but he had fought fair, and sans rancune, as these French havering bletherers say.
"Fight he would, while there was breath in his body, but he bore no malice, and would always fight fair; and ye couldna say the same o' Bute-Arrol.
"He'd fight fair wi' the steepulation that a's fair in love and war. An' he did bear malice. He was a good hater, and he wasna the man to stultify himself wi' impotent hatred, either. An' McRattery marryin' Mary MacDonald was a turnin'-point in Bute-Arrol's career. Aye, the down-turnin' point, for he grew more and more dour, and then soured and warped.
"And then two things happened which turned bad to worse, and that was very bad indeed.
"The first of these was the death of Mrs. McRattery, that had been his beloved Mary MacDonald; and the second was McRattery beating him over a huge Admiralty contract.
"What made Mary's death more terrible to him, was his firm belief that her life could have been saved. He had a mind like Aberdeen granite, and hard as granite was his belief, his certainty, that if Mary had been Mrs. Bute-Arrol instead of Mrs. McRattery, she'd have lived to four-score.
"'Yon meeserable money-grubbing McRattery simply let her die--or else she died wilfully, bein' sick sorry and tired at the sight of her husband's ugly face, and the sound of his croakin' voice. Why; had the creature been a man, he would have defied and fought Death himself--and kept her alive, despite the Devil and all the Imps of Hell. No, she shouldn't have died if she'd been Mary Bute-Arrol, and she wouldn't have wanted to, forbye.'
"That was the way he talked. But when McRattery undercut him with a big contract for the Navy, he didn't talk at all.
"He never said another word against McRattery.
"On the contrary, if anybody at the Club criticized the man, Bute-Arrol wouldna' let it pass, if it were unfair. And, whiles, he would take an opportunity o' publicly speaking worrds o' praise concernin' McRattery; and though he made no overtures nor approaches to his rival, it got aboot that auld Wullie Bute-Arrol's bark was waur than his bite, and that he had naethin' against Eckie McRattery in spite of a'.
"Weel, ye ken hoo things get roond, and in time, McRattery got to hear that Bute-Arrol wouldna hear a worrd against him. And one day, when he said, daffing-like, at his own table, that yon Bute-Arrol was a thrawn diel and an ill cur to turn from his bone, a crony said:
"'Nay, dinna misca' the man, Eckie, for I heard him only yesterday at the Club uphaudin' and defendin' ye like a brither, and sayin' ye were a man that had earrned and desairved every penny o' your fortune, and every step o' your success . . .' and the like.
"An' McRattery, being the man he was, made to out-do Bute-Arrol in generosity, as he had out-done him in business and in love.
"Aye, aye, it's a queer worrld," mused the McSnorrt, gazing pensively into his empty glass and slowly shaking his huge red head.
It was noticeable--that in talking to the Geste brothers--he talked less and less like a Clydeside docker from Glasgow, and more like the educated man he was.
"Aye, a queer worrld," he continued, when his glass was replenished, "an' one o' its queer sights was seen when William Bute-Arrol sat down at a banquet as one of the guests of Alexander Buchanan McRattery--the guest of honour on his host's right hand.
"I can tell ye aboot that banquet at first hand, for I've talked many a time an' oft wi' a man who was there, Sir Andrew Anderson he was, and a great and wealthy marine engineer before he retired. He died at the age of 90, when I was a lad, and many a good turn he did me, had I but had the sense to ha' taken advantage o' them.
"According to his account, it was a richt merry and successfu' dinner, and ye'd have thought that McRattery and Bute-Arrol had been lifelong friends instead o' rivals and enemies.
"For McRattery fairly laid himself out to charm and captivate Bute-Arrol, and Bute-Arrol fairly laid himself out to be pleased and pleasant.
"That dinner-table was a battlefield o' magnanimity. Each o' the two big men strivin' to outdo the other in generosity and great-hearted forgiveness and forgetting o' what there was to forgive and forget.
"They drank each other's health and each made a little speech full o' kindness and compliment to the other, and when they had come to the coffee and liqueurs and big cigar stage, and men leant back in their chairs and unbuttoned their minds socially and right sociably, there was no pair o' cronies that chatted more easily and freely than the generous-hearted Eckie McRattery and his one-time rival and enemy Wullie Bute-Arrol.
"And McRattery must needs strike a match and light Bute-Arrol's cigarette for him, and Bute-Arrol must clip a cigar for McRattery--more like loving brothers than life-long rivals and enemies ye'd believe.
"And as it happened, auld Andrew Anderson was watchin' and wonderin', as McRattery, with his cigar in one hand and a match in the other, laughed long and loud at some sly quip or jest, or mayhap sculduddery, o' Bute-Arrol's.
"And that hearty merry laugh was the last sound poor McRattery made in this worrld, for still shakin' wi' laughter, he put his cigar to his lips, lit it, took one long satisfyin' draught, slowly poured it out fra his smilin' lips, and then gave a start, and, with a terrible expression on his face, gazed around him and died.
"Died there in his chair wi'oot a worrd. His head just fell on to his shoulder, and he sank heavily against his neighbour--William Bute-Arrol.
"O' coorse they all sprang to their feet and dashed water in his face, opened the windows, fanned him, tried to make him drink brandy and did sic-like things, until the doctor came and said he was dead. For dead he was--cut off in the prime of his health and strength, and no healthier heartier stronger man had walked the streets of Glasgae that day.
"An inquest there was, and the two best doctors in the city confessed themselves puzzled and defeated.
"Deceased had a heart as sound as a bell, they said, and not an organ that wasna perfect.
"Naturally, the immediate supposition was that he'd eaten somethin' that had disagreed with him. But how should he have eaten or drunk something that had disagreed with him to the point o' killin' him, when not anither man at the table had felt the slightest qualm o' pain, ill-health or discomfort?
"The contents of the stomach bein' analysed showed absolutely no trace o' anything deeleterious, and the cause o' death was a fair mystery. Apart from the offeecial and scienteefic investigation, the guests themsel's worked it out that he had not tasted a thing from soup to coffee that others had not shared.
"And when some auld fule spoke of suicide, he had but to be asked why Alexander Buchanan McRattery, in boisterous spirits, rude health, and at the height of his success and fortune, should commit suicide, and at such a time and place. And moreover, what of the analyst's report on the absolutely normal and innocuous contents o' the stomach?
"No, it was a mystery, unfathomable and complete.
"It was a nine-day's wonder, too, and the town talked of nothing else, but this awfu' tragedy that cast real gloom over the dead man's wide circle o' freends and acquaintances.
"And none more sorrowfu' and sympathetic than his new friend and old enemy, William Bute-Arrol.
"Aye, an' it was practical sympathy too, for, in order, perhaps, to show how deeply he had been affected by McRattery's death at his very side, nay in his arms, at the very banquet given to celebrate and demonstrate their reconciliation, Bute-Arrol had adopted McRattery's orphan child.
"What were the worrkin's of his mind when he thought o' doin' sic a thing? Who shall presume to fathom the dark mysterious depths of the human mind? Aye, and ye might ask the question anither way, or rather ask a different question a'thgither. Who shall dare presume to fathom and unnerstand the worrkings o' Providence? God moves in a meesterious way His wonders to perforrm.
"Weel, whatever was the man's motive--whether it were a gesture to catch the public eye; whether it were a salve to his conscience; or whether he had some dark design upon the child, and thoughts o' carryin' vengeance against his father even beyond the grave--no-one will ever know.
"But see the result, ponder the ways of the A'mighty, and turrn fra your wickedness. . . ."
The McSnorrt paused and drank deeply.
"Especially drink," he added, wiping his bearded lips with the back of a vast and hairy hand.
"See what happened," he continued.
"Now Alexander Buchanan McRattery's son Uchtred, aged aboot five or six years when Bute-Arrol adopted him--wi' the willing and even thankful agreement o' the executor, a child-hatin' plausible scoundrel, who later defaulted and went to prison--was a healthy and active young limb o' Satan, wi' an enquirin' mind and busy fingers.
"Folk who liked childer said he was an enterprisin' and original laddie; and those who didn't like childer said he was a mischievous and meddlesome young deil.
"But every one thoct it was graand to see the way he and dour Bute-Arrol got on togither, walkin' hand in hand aboot the grounds o' the big hoose, or the boy slippin' awa' doon fra the nursery to get a bit fruit or sweetie or jeelypiece, at dessert.
"Whiles he'd sit curled up in a chair and watch Bute-Arrol with solemn big eyes, and Bute-Arrol'd sit sippin' his porrt and thinkin' his deep thoughts as he stared at the child.
"An' mind ye, the child was fond of him, there's no denyin', and was the only one in that hoose from the butler to the sixth gardener's under-gardener that wasna afeared o' the man.
"No one ever saw Bute-Arrol caress the child, any more than they saw the opposite or heard an unkind worrd; but it was clear enough that the little lad was happy, and had taken no scunner at his dour unsmilin' guardian.
"When the late McRattery's executor absconded to South America and finished what the ruinous strike in the ship-yard had begun, folk wondered if the boy was goin' to become Bute-Arrol's heir--and some of Bute-Arrol's relations had disturrbin' thoughts.
There was other folk--but ye ken what folk are--professed the opeenion that Bute-Arrol deleeberately turrned a very blind eye on the doin's o' the said executor, and had more than a finger in the McRattery strike.
"But what I started to tell ye was this--the boy lived happy and contented with his governess in Bute-Arrol's hoose, and had the free run of it, an' of the grounds too. And while it was a false and maleecious slander to say he was wantonly mischievous, there's nae denyin' he could poke and pry and investigate with the best--an' what normal healthy boy will not?
"An' one day he found something.
"It was in a most attractive and wunnerful box in a big room that opened oot o' his guardian's bedroom--a sort o' combined dressin'-room and study that Bute-Arrol used more than any o' his fine graand rooms doon-stairs. There was a huge great desk in it, and this big old bureau, and a fine safe, and twa-three wardrobes and some big deep arm-chairs, and Bute-Arrol would smoke his ceegar there in his dressing-gown late at night, an' he'd read an' write there more than in his great library.
"Weel, prowlin' round this room, as he loved to do, fingerin' this an' that, the boy spied this fine box.
"Chinese it was, ebony and ivory and mother-o'-pearl, with bands o' brass, brass corners and a brass lock,--and to crown a', a key in the lock. Ye'll imagine it wasna long before the laddie had that box open, and sniffed its lovely scent o' sandal-wood, and pried into every compartment and drawer, amusin' himself, absorbed and happy, for an hoor that went like a meenit.
"He did no harm, and he kept nothing for himself, and the one thing he took oot, he only took that he might do something with it for his guardian--just the little childish ploy that a wee laddie would think of. He guessed that the box had come oot o' the safe or the bureau, had been left out by mistake, and would disappear again when his guardian came home and entered the room.
"That night the boy slippit doon and watched over the banisters o' the stairs until the right moment, and then, in his wee dressin'-gown and bedroom slippers, marched into the big dinin'-room where Bute-Arrol sat all by his lane, the butler havin' set his wine in front o' him and gone for the coffee.
"'Hullo, Uncle,' called the little lad. 'Can I have some grapes?'
"Bute-Arrol, unsmilin', nodded at the child.
"'Help yersel',' he growled, and the boy marched round the table, and then to the big sideboard, spyin' oot the land.
"As the butler came in, carryin' a big silver tray on which were coffee and a box o' ceegars, Bute-Arrol took a ceegar, laid it on the cloth beside his plate, and helped himself to coffee--which he took with hot milk, cream and sugar. While he did so, the wee laddie came behind his chair, and picked up the ceegar.
"'Can I have some coffee, Uncle?' he asked.
"'Ye canna,' Bute-Arrol replied, 'but ye can hae a sup o' milk.'
"'Pooh! Wha wants milk?' replied the child. 'I'll hae a glass o' wine.'
"'Ye willna,' said Bute-Arrol, and picked up the ceegar that the boy had laid down again, beside his plate.
"The butler put match-box and ash-tray on the table, as usual, and went out.
"Bute-Arrol put the ceegar to his lips, lit it, and took a puff or two.
"He then leant back in his chair, and, wi' an awful look o' fright an' terror on his face, stared at the laughing wee laddie who held out a gold ceegar-piercer in his hand--a thing like a wee pencil-case that ye press at the top, and a sharp hollow steel piercer pushes out of it and into the ceegar.
"'I did the ceegar for ye, Uncle,' laughed the child gleefully.
"Bute-Arrol groaned.
"'The judgment of God,' he whispered, and died--poisoned with the instrument he had used to poison the boy's father."
The McSnorrt paused dramatically, and his hearers, who had ceased to smoke and to drink, sat silent.
"How d'you know all this?" asked Beau Geste at last.
"Ma real name's Uchtred Buchanan McRattery," replied the McSnorrt.
§ 1
"Poor old Cigale's pretty bad these days," said John Geste to his brothers Michael and Digby as he stepped into a tent of the standing camp some ninety kilometres south of Douargala.
"Yes," replied Digby, as he rose to help his brother remove and stow his kit in the tiny space which was allotted to each of the twelve men who lived in the little tent that could uncomfortably accommodate eight.
"Moon getting to the full," observed Michael. "We shall have to keep an eye on the poor old chap. What's his latest?"
"Seeing ghosts," replied John. "He's just been telling me all about it in the Guard Tent. When he was on sentry last night, he saw somebody approaching him. Such a very remarkable and extraordinary somebody that, instead of challenging, he rubbed his eyes and stared again. He told me all this in the most rational and convincing manner. It was really almost impossible to do anything but believe. He said:
"'When I looked again I hardly knew what to do. There undoubtedly was a man coming towards me out of the desert, from the direction of the ruins. Nothing strange in that, you may say, but the man was a soldier in uniform. And the uniform was not of this regiment, nor of this army, nor of this country--nor of this century--no, nor of this thousand years. His helmet was of shining metal, with ear-pieces and neck-shield, but no visor--rather like a pompier's helmet, but with a horsehair crest and plume, and he had a gleaming cuirass of the same metal. In fact, I thought, for a moment, that he was a trooper of the Dragoon Guards until I saw that he carried a spear, at the slope, across his right shoulder, and for side-arms had a short sword--broad, but not much longer than a dagger. Under his cuirass he wore a sort of tunic that came down to his knees, and over this hung a fringe of broad strips of metal on leather. He wore metal greaves on his shins and sandals on his feet.
"'In fact, he was a Roman soldier marching on patrol or doing sentry-go on his beat. For one foolish moment I thought of enemy tricks and stratagems and also of practical jokes, but then I realized that not only could I see him as plainly as I see you now, but that I could see through him. No, he was not nebulous and misty like a cloud of steam; his outline was perfectly clear-cut, but, as he approached me, he came between me and one of the pillars of the ruins, and though I could see him perfectly clearly and distinctly, I could also see the pillar.
"'I was in something of a quandary. As you know, I try to do my duty to the very best of my poor ability, and aim at being the perfect private soldier. But there is nothing laid down in regulations on the subject of the conduct of a sentry when approached by a ghost.
"'In the Regulations it says, "Anyone approaching," and at once the question arises as to whether a ghost is anyone. You see, it is the ghost of someone, and therefore cannot be someone, can it? . . .'
"Thus spake the good Cigale," continued John, "and I assured him that personally I should not turn out the Guard nor rouse the camp to repel ghosts."
"No," agreed Digby. "I don't think I should, either. Sure to be a catch in it somewhere. The moment the Sergeant of the Guard came, the dirty dog would disappear--the ghost, I mean--and then you'd be for it.
"On the other hand," he continued, "if you didn't challenge him, he might go straight into the General's tent and give the old dear the fright of his life--and then you'd be for it again."
"Very rightly," agreed Michael. "What good would the General be at running a scrap next day, if he'd had a Roman soldier tickling him in the tummy with the butt-end of a spear all night?"
"True," mused John. "It's a problem. There ought to be a section in the Regulations. They certainly provide for most other things."
"And supposing it were the ghost of a most lovely houri approaching the General's tent?" asked Digby. "Should it be left to the sentry's indiscretion? And suppose the General came out and caught him turning her away--or turning unto her the other cheek also--"
"It's weird, though," Michael broke in upon these musings. "You can be absolutely certain that La Cigale thought he saw a Roman soldier, and if you think you see a thing, you do see it."
"What's that?" inquired Digby incredulously. "If I think I see a pimple on the end of your nose, I do see one?"
"Yes, you do, if you really think it. There is an image of it on the retina of your eye--and what is that but seeing?"
"He did more than see him, too," put in John. "He had a long conversation with him. They compared notes as to their respective regiments--the Third Legion, and the French Foreign Legion."
"By Jove, that's interesting!" observed Beau Geste. "I should have liked to hear them."
"I wonder if you'd have heard the ghost?" said Digby. "Of course, if you thought you heard him, you would have heard him, eh?
"I say," he added. "I just thought I heard you ask me to have a cigarette. Therefore I did hear it."
"Yes," agreed Michael. "And you thought you saw me give you one. Therefore I did give you one. Smoke it."
The tent-flap was pulled aside, and La Cigale entered.
"Come along, old chap! Splendid! We were just talking about you and your interesting experience with the Roman legionary," Beau continued.
"Yes, yes," replied Cigale. "A charming fellow. We had a most interesting conversation. His depôt was here, and he'd served everywhere from Egypt to Britain, had sun-stroke twice in Africa, and frost-bite twice when stationed on The Wall, as he called it--Hadrian's Wall, that would be, between England and Scotland.
"He actually spoke of the Belgæ, and must have been stationed quite near my home at one time. A most intelligent chap, and with that education which comes from travel and experience. A little rocky on Roman history, I found, but who would expect a private soldier to be an authority on history--even that of his own country?"
§ 2
La Cigale fell silent and mused awhile, breaking thereafter into mutterings, disjointed and fragmentary.
"Most interesting fellow. Rome in Africa, five centuries; France in Africa, one century; the sun the unconquerable enemy of both. Rome did not assimilate although she conquered. Will France assimilate, or be herself assimilated?"
And turning to Michael Geste, said:
"He was stationed at Cæsarea once. They called it 'The Athens of the West.' We talked of Masinissa, the Berber King of Cæsarea and all Numidia. You will remember he fought against Rome, and then against Carthage in alliance with Rome. He was the grandfather of the great Jugurtha.
"We chatted also of his son Juba, who fought for Pompey in the civil war and committed suicide after Cæsar defeated him at Thapsus.
"Most interesting fellow. He told me that Antony's wife Octavia adopted Juba's little son and brought him up with Antony's own little daughter by Cleopatra--young Silene Cleopatra he called her. Quite a charming little romance he made of it, for the two kiddies grew up together at the Roman Court and fell in love with each other--married and lived happy ever after. They went back to Cæsarea and he ruled in the house of his fathers. Rather nice to think about when one considers those cruel times--"
§ 3
"Oh, for God's sake, shut your jabbering row," growled The Treasure, from where he was lying on his blanket. "Enough to make a dog sick to listen to you."
"Then suppose the dog goes and is sick outside, and doesn't listen," suggested Digby.
"Yes, a charming little story," agreed Michael. "What else did your visitor talk about?"
"Oh, places where he was stationed," replied La Cigale, "and about his Legion. He was frightfully proud of that--like we are of ours. He was in the Third African Legion. 'The Augustine,' he called it. He says it was three centuries in Africa. They only kept one legion in Africa, he tells me, though there were three in Britain. Great fellows, those Romans, for system and organization. What do you think? In this Third Legion of his, the recruiting was almost purely hereditary. Think of that--hereditary drafts. When a man had served his time in the Legion they gave him land on the understanding that he married and settled down there, and sent his sons into the Legion. No wonder there was esprit de corps in the Augustine Legion. By the way, they built that place over there in A.D. 100, called it Sagunta Diana, and built it on the ground plan of a Roman camp.
"By Jove, he did a march that I envy him. First they marched right across North Africa, from here to Alexandria. There they embarked in triremes for Italy, and marched to Rome. Thence north, right up Italy, and all across France to a place whence they could see Britain. Then by transports again to Dover, whence they marched to London, and from there through the length of England to Hadrian's Wall. Twenty times 2,000 paces was their day's march--all marked off by regular camping-places.
"He tells me they had a frightful row in camp outside Alexandria with the Sixth Legion from Judea--the Ferrata Legion they called it. It seems the Third Legion hated the others coming into Africa to relieve them while they did their tour of foreign service; they looked upon Africa as their own, and didn't want interlopers in their stations, such as Timgad, Lambæsis, Mascula, Verecundia and Sitifis. He called Timgad Thamugadi. I didn't recognize the word at first, as he pronounced it. He was awfully interested to hear that I'd been there and could identify some of the temples in which he had worshipped. It is still in a wonderful state of preservation, as you know. Lambæsis was his favourite camp, for some reason. He was delighted when I told him that the Arch of Septimus Severus is almost as perfect to-day as when he saw it last. That led us to speak of the Arch of Caracalla. That's at Thevesti--about 200 miles from Carthage, you know. I'm afraid he began to think I was pulling his leg when I told him I knew it, as well as his beloved Temple of Minerva. He got quite excited."
The Treasure growled, cursed, and spat.
"Told you all that, did he?" he said. "Damn fine ghost! Pity he couldn't have told you something useful. Where he'd buried a few bottles of wine, for example. D'you know what there was when you and your ghost was jabberin'? Two village idiots together--that's what there was."
"If you interrupt again I'll put your face in the sand, and sit on your head till you die," murmured John Geste.
"But there wasn't two crétins," continued The Treasure. "There was only one barmy lunatic, and he was talkin' to hisself. 'E's talkin' to three others, 'e is, now."
John Geste rose to his feet, and The Treasure scrambled from the tent in haste.
"And this is a most interesting thing," continued La Cigale, still staring at the ground between his feet, as was his habit when not on duty or employed. "Very curious, too. He told me about a deserter from the Roman army--the Legionary Tacfrineas he called him, who went over to the enemy, and organized the Berber tribes against Rome. The Third Legion was frightfully sick about it. Of course, it was just as though one of us deserted and joined the Senussi or the Touareg or the Riffs, and taught them our drill and tactics, trained their artillerymen, gave them our plans and passwords and generally made them about ten times as dangerous as they are.
"I'd certainly never heard of this Tacfrineas before, so I couldn't have imagined all this, could I?"
And he gazed appealingly at the faces of the three brothers.
"Of course not," said Beau Geste. "Extraordinarily interesting experience. It must give you great pleasure to think that, out of all the Battalion, it was you whom the Roman soldier chose to visit."
"Oh, yes. Indeed yes," agreed La Cigale, smiling. "I feel quite happy to-day, and can even bear the sight--and smell--of The Treasure. And the Roman soldier has promised to come and visit me again when I am on sentry, and he's going to tell me a great secret. I don't know what it is, but it's something about some gold."
La Cigale fell silent, pondering, and gradually the light of intelligence faded from his eyes, his mouth fell open, and he looked stupid, dull and miserable.
Digby Geste leant over and shook him by the knee.
"Splendid, old chap," he said. "You're a very remarkable man, you know. I envy you. What else did you and the other old légionnaire yarn about?"
"Oh, we compared pay, rations, drill, marches and all that sort of thing, you know," replied La Cigale, brightening like a re-lighted lamp. "They had the same infernal road-making fatigues that we do.
"Why, he tells me they built one hundred and ninety miles of solid stone road from Thevesti to Carthage. Think of that--stone!
"Oh, yes, we exchanged grumbles. They had the same god-forsaken little outposts down in the South and much the same sort of tyranny from 'foreign' N.C.O.'s, of whom they were more afraid than they were of the Centurions themselves. Yes, they had an iron discipline and even severer punishments. In a case where a man here might get crapaudine, because there were no cells in which to give him thirty days' solitary confinement, he would have been flogged to death in the Third Legion, or perhaps crucified.
"I say, I do hope he comes again. Do you think he will? He gave me the happiest night I've had since I went--went--went--"
La Cigale groaned, and gazed stupidly around.
"Eh?" he asked. "What's this?" and lay down upon his blanket to sleep.
§ 4
La Cigale's bête noir was a person who, in full possession of his faculties, had less understanding and intelligence than La Cigale at his maddest.
He was that curious product of the Paris slums, that seems to be less like a human being than are the criminal denizens of the underworld of any other city--Eastern or Western, civilized or savage. He was not so much a typical Paris apache, as an apache too bestial, degraded, evil and brutish to be typical even of the Parisian apache. Even the Geste brothers, who could find "tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything," could find no good in "The Treasure"--as Sergeant-Major Lejaune, with grim irony, had christened him. They had, individually and collectively, done their best, and had completely failed. That such a creature, personally filthy (inside his uniform), with foulest tongue and foulest habits, degraded and disgusting, a walking pollution and corruption, should be one's intimate companion at bed and board, was one of the many things that made life in the Legion difficult. One had to sleep, eat, march, and take one's ease (!) cheek by jowl with The Treasure, and could not escape him.
§ 5
And the Treasure, by nature indescribably objectionable, deliberately made himself as personally and peculiarly objectionable to La Cigale as he possibly could. From the store of his vile, foul manners, he gave the sensitive ex-officer constant experience of the vilest and foulest of his filthy and revolting speech. Of his mean, low, injurious tricks, he reserved the worst for La Cigale. When accused by a non-commissioned officer of some offence, he invariably laid the blame upon La Cigale, in the reasoned belief and reasonable hope that the poor madman would have either too little wit or too much chivalry to defend himself and arraign his lying accuser.
On one occasion, at Ain Sefra, Beau Geste had seen The Treasure, just before kit inspection, direct the attention of La Cigale, by a sudden shout and pointing hand, to something else, while he snatched a belt from La Cigale's kit and placed it with his own. This saved him from eight days' prison and transferred the punishment to the bewildered La Cigale, who could only stammer to the roaring Sergeant-Major Lejaune that his show-down of kit had been complete a few seconds before. But it had earned The Treasure a worse punishment, for the indignant Beau Geste had soundly and scientifically hammered him, until he wept and begged for mercy, with profuse protestations that he had not done it, but would never do it again.
He never did, but he redoubled his efforts to render La Cigale's life insupportable, and showed something almost approaching intelligence in ascertaining which of his foul habits and fouller words most annoyed, shocked disgusted and upset his unhappy victim.
For Beau Geste, The Treasure entertained a deep respect, a great fear and a sharp knife, the last-named to be taken as prescribed (in the back), and when opportunity and occasion should arise. These would have arisen long ago but that his enemy had two brothers and two horrible American friends who rendered an otherwise perfectly simple job not only difficult but extremely dangerous . . . (Remember poor Bolidar!)
Like almost all of his kind, The Treasure was a drunkard, and there was nothing he would not do for money, inasmuch as money to him was synonymous with liquor. Having been, in private life, a professional pickpocket and sneak-thief, he was able to keep himself modestly supplied with cash while avoiding the terrible retribution which overtakes the légionnaire who robs his comrades.
§ 6
"Do you know, young gentlemen," said John Geste, one afternoon, to his two brothers as they strolled from the parade ground whence they had just been dismissed to the tent where they would now settle down to the cleaning of their kit, "I've had an idea?"
Digby seized John's wrist that he might feel his pulse, and observed:
"An idea, Beau! He's had an idea. Hold him while I fetch some water."
"He's got plenty already," replied Michael unperturbed, "on the brain. Idea's probably drowned by now."
"No, no," said John. "It's still swimming around. It's this: La Cigale is for guard again to-night and simply bubbling with excitement at the thought of seeing his Roman soldier again."
"What! Do you want to go and pal up with him?" interrupted Digby. "Butt in and make up to La Cigale's old pal--severing two loving hearts--green-eyed jealousy--"
"No, the pup only wants to see a ghost," said Michael.
"Well, of course, I would," admitted John. "But what I was going to say, when you two--er--gentlemen began to bray, was this. Poor old Cigale may do anything under the disturbing influences of full moon and a private visit from this Shade."
"Shady business," murmured Digby. "He may go clean off the deep end in his excitement--start showing him round the camp, take him in to gaze upon the slumbering features of Lejaune, or even toddle off with him to visit a two-thousand-years-closed wine-shop in the forum at Sagunta Diana. It occurred to me that a few of us three might exchange with fellows who are for guard, and keep an eye on the poor old chap."
"Quite so," agreed Beau Geste. "Good lad. I fancy Lejaune would be only too glad of the chance to smash La Cigale for being a gentleman and an ex-officer. And if the doctor or the colonel or a court-martial officially pronounced him mad he might be put in a lunatic asylum. And that would be about the cruellest and most dreadful thing one could imagine, for he's half sane half the time, and as sane as we are occasionally."
"Oh, yes," agreed Digby. "Far saner than some people--John, for example."
§ 7
In the early moonlit hours of the following morning, John Geste patrolled the beat which adjoined that of La Cigale, while Michael and Digby took turns to sit outside the guard tent to watch.
For an hour or so of his tour of sentry go, La Cigale behaved quite normally.
Suddenly John, marching on his beat towards where La Cigale stood staring in the direction of the ruins of Sagunta Diana, saw him spring to attention, present arms, hold himself erect and rigid as a statue, relax and stand at ease, change his rifle from his right hand to his left and then, bowing, warmly shake hands with some person invisible.
"I am so glad you've come again, my friend," John heard La Cigale say. "Most kind and charming of you. I'm awfully sorry I can't show myself as hospitable as I should like to be--but you know what it is. No, we shan't be disturbed until I'm relieved. Grand Rounds passed some time ago."
John Geste shivered slightly.
A most uncanny experience. It was perfectly obvious that La Cigale was talking to somebody whom he could see and hear and touch.
Could it be that ghosts really exist, and are visible to those who are what is called psychic?
He stared and stared at the place where anyone would be standing who was talking, face to face, with La Cigale. Nothing, of course.
He rubbed his eyes and, clasping the blade of the long bayonet in his hands, leant upon his rifle while he concentrated his gaze as though peering through a fog.
Nothing, of course.
But was there nothing? Was there a shadow confronting La Cigale? The shadow of a medium-sized thick-set man leaning upon his spear in the very attitude in which John was leaning upon his bayonet and rifle.
Or was it pure illusion? All moonshine--a curious optical delusion enormously strengthened by La Cigale's conduct and the fact that he was talking so naturally.
Yes, a clear case of hetero-suggestion. Curious, though, that one's ears could so affect one's eyes that one could imagine one saw what one imagined one heard.
Would he hear the Roman soldier's voice in a moment? If so, he would be perfectly certain that he could see the figure of a Roman soldier wearing a helmet like that of a fireman; a moulded breast-plate from which depended heavy hangings; metal greaves; and high-laced sandals--a man who bore a longish shield curved at the sides and straight at the top and bottom, on which was painted an eagle, a capital A, and the figure III.
He only thought he saw him now, of course, and in a moment he would think he heard his voice. At present there was but one, and hearing it was like listening to a person who is using the telephone in the room in which one is.
* * * * *
"Were you really? No! How very interesting!"
* * * * *
"Oh, yes; I've been there several times. To think that we have trodden the same streets, entered the very same shops and dwelling-houses, temples and theatres, actually drunk from the same faucet and washed our hands in the same stone trough! I think that one of the most interesting--the most human and real--things in all the wonderful Pompeii are those grooves worn in the edges of the troughs where thousands of people for hundreds of years all laid their right hands on the same spot to support themselves as they bent over the trough to put their lips to the faucet from which the water trickled."
* * * * *
"Yes, of course you have, many and many a time, and so did I once--just to be one with all those departed Romans."
* * * * *
"Yes, that's what makes it so wonderful. Not merely a case of my having been in a place which is only on the site of a place in which you have been. Yes, exactly. The very same actual and identical houses. You and I, my friend, have trodden on the same actual paving-blocks, and have sat upon the same stone seats. I have walked in the very ruts in which the wheels of your chariot rolled as you drove it down the stone-paved High Street of Pompeii, and I have stood in the wineshops in which you have drunk."
* * * * *
"Yes, a very funny picture, indeed. It is still there, the colours as perfect as when you saw it last. They've got glass, and a sort of blind over it now, and a custodian to guard it. To think you actually saw it being painted and remember roaring with laughter when Balbus drew your attention to it."
* * * * *
"Oh, didn't you? A pity. History says that he was living there about that time."
* * * * *
"Yes, you must have hated returning from furlough just then even to the Third Legion."
* * * * *
"Well, no, we aren't supposed to do it--and there'd be precious little to be had if we were. One hears tales, of course. There's a place we call Fez where one or two are supposed to have got hold of a little."
* * * * *
"Really? By Jove, that would be an interesting find for anybody who unearthed it now. . . ."
* * * * *
"I could? I'm afraid it wouldn't be of much use to me--though it would be most awfully interesting to see it. There would probably be coins of which no known specimen exists at the present day. Priceless. Oh, yes, they would fetch any sum. . . ."
* * * * *
"By Jove, that was hard luck! They don't seem to have changed much, from your day to ours. We call them Bedouin and Touareg. Attack us in much the same way. Stamp us flat occasionally, but discipline always tells. . . ."
* * * * *
"Could you really? The very spot? Very kind of you--most charming. I should love to see the coins."
* * * * *
"Oh, no, I shouldn't wish to remove it, but if you could spare one or two specimens that are unknown to-day, I should love to have them as souvenirs. I should not part with them of course. One or two early Greek gold ones."
* * * * *
"Now at once? Really most kind of you. A very great honour. Oh, no, I wouldn't dream of showing anybody else. I never betray a confidence. . . ."
* * * * *
And then John Geste rushed forward as La Cigale, throwing his rifle up on his right shoulder, marched off in the direction of Sagunta Diana. Digby Geste came hurrying from the direction of the Guard Tent.
Seizing La Cigale's arm, John swung him about.
"What are you doing, man?" he expostulated. "You can't leave your post like this. You're a pretty sentry! You don't want to be shot, do you?--not at dawn by a firing party of your own comrades, at any rate!"
Digby arrived and seized La Cigale's other arm.
"Come home, Bill Bailey," quoth he. "Setting us all a nice example, aren't you? And I thought you were the model légionnaire."
"Good God, what am I doing!" stammered La Cigale and passed his hand across his eyes as the brothers released him.
"Thank you so much, gentlemen. This absent-mindedness is terrible. Do you know, a friend of mine, a most interesting chap, strolled over from his lines and we fell into conversation. I actually forgot that I was on sentry. I am getting so absent-minded. When he invited me to come over and--er--look at something, I was just going to walk across with him. Thank you so much."
"All right now?" asked Digby.
"Oh quite, thank you!" replied La Cigale. "It was only a momentary aberration. I'd sooner die than leave my post, of course."
"What became of him?" asked John.
"Oh, he went off without me," replied La Cigale. "There he goes, look. I hope he's not offended."
§ 8
The brothers stared and stared in the direction of La Cigale's extended hand.
"See anything, John?" whispered Digby.
"Well, do you know?" answered John, "I couldn't absolutely swear that I didn't see a nebulous figure. And the astounding thing is that I saw or thought I saw something that La Cigale never mentioned."
"The shield?" whispered Digby. "With a capital A and the Roman III, and something at the top?"
"Did you see it, too?" inquired a voice from behind. Michael had joined them.
"Clearly," replied Digby. "Did you, Beau?"
"Absolutely distinctly," replied Michael. "I saw a Roman soldier. I could describe every detail of his kit; I could sketch him exactly as he was."
"I, too," affirmed Digby.
"You, John?" asked Michael.
"Couldn't swear to it," replied John. "Cigale was chatting away so naturally with somebody--that I couldn't help fancying that I saw the man to whom he was talking. I certainly didn't see anything clearly and definitely like you two seem to have done. And yet I fancied I dimly saw the III A shield. If nobody else had mentioned it I should have thought that I'd dreamed the whole thing."
"Rum business," murmured Digby.
"Not an 'absinthe' business, anyhow," replied Michael, as John and La Cigale turned about and began to pace their respective beats.
"You and I are fey, Digby Geste," smiled Michael, linking his arm through that of his brother as they turned back to the guard-tent.
§ 9
The Treasure lay hid in the black shadow of a crumbling arch watching with wolfish eyes a man who laboured to remove the light, loose sand that had collected at the base of a wall at a point twenty-five paces from a pillar--the fourth of a row that had once supported and adorned the front of a Temple of Diana. Something approaching excitement stirred the sluggish depths of his evil and avaricious soul as he once more assured himself that he was on the track of something good.
Yesterday--with his back turned to his comrades and an appearance of great absorption in his work--he had listened with close attention as this bloomin' lunatic told his blasted friends, those bestial Englishmen, about how he was going to sneak over to these ruddy ruins and dig out a cache of gold coins of which he had got wind. Some poor legionary had hid his little bit of loot there one night and the place had been rushed and sacked at dawn, the next morning. Gold coins, too! Nice, handy, portable form of loot, too! And the dirty double-crosser was only going to take one or two to look at, was he? The sacred liar! Not so fou as he pretended, that Cigale. Oh, very tricky. Well, other people might know a few tricks, too! What about letting the swindling silly hound sweat for the stuff, and a better man scoop it when the fool had got it?
§ 10
An hour or so later, La Cigale straightened himself up, gazed around the moonlit ruins in a dazed manner, climbed out of the hole that he had excavated, and made his way towards the camp.
The Treasure crouched back, motionless, in the darkest shadow, until his comrade had passed, and then, rising, followed him--a large stone in his right hand.
The Treasure was a workman skilled in all branches of his trade--one of which was the throwing of knives and other weapons of offence. The heavy stone, flung at a range of six feet or so, struck the unfortunate Cigale at the base of the skull, and by the time he had recovered consciousness The Treasure had come reluctantly to the conclusion that the accursed lying swindling crétin had only got a single old coin of some sort, gold, and curiously shaped, about his person. One ancient gold coin, the size of a two-franc piece.
By the time La Cigale had painfully raised himself upon his hands and knees, The Treasure was working feverishly in the excavation that his comrade had recently left.
By the time La Cigale had recovered sufficiently to rise to his feet and gaze uncertainly toward the ruins whence he had come, a dull rumbling, followed by an earth-shaking crash had startled the watchful sentries of the camp. An undermined pillar had fallen.
The Treasure was seen no more by his unsorrowing comrades.
Buried Treasure.
§ 1
The full moon, a great luminous pearl, and the incredible tropic stars--palely blue diamonds scattered over darkly blue velvet--looked down upon four weary, dirty men who lounged around a small camp-fire beneath a stunted, crooked palm beside a puddle of slimy water, rock-circled, thing-inhabited, malodorous.
One of the men was fair, huge, with huge moustache, a great laugh, great hands, and gross appetite. He looked too dull to be wicked, or successful. Drink had washed him into the Legion.
The second was dark, tiny, the ideal gentleman-jockey in build; pretty, small of mouth, and large of eye. He looked too clever to be trustworthy or determined. Racehorses had carried him to the Legion.
The third was grey, tall, spare and gaunt, a light-cavalry type. His craggy face was sad and weary, bitter, and somewhat cruel. He looked too cynical to be very intelligent or helpful. Vengeance had driven him to the Legion.
The fourth was Digby Geste, typical English gentleman. Brother-love had led him to the Legion.
Around them stretched to the horizon, on every side, the illimitable desert plain, still, mysterious, inimical, its dead level of monotony broken only by an occasional bush or boulder. A select small company of vultures formed a large circle around them, and took an abiding interest in their risings up, and their lyings down--particularly the latter.
A more select and smaller company of human vultures had made their camp a mile or so distant--by the simple process of lying down in their tracks, eating dates, and going to sleep--while one of their number, having wriggled like a snake with incredible flatness, speed and skill to within view of the men around the little camp-fire, squatted behind a boulder and also took an abiding interest in their risings up, and their lyings down, and particularly the latter.
To the vultures, the chance of a meal was something to follow up for days, and to the human vultures the chance of a rifle, worth its weight in silver, was something to follow up for weeks. Should the watcher, one night, see the sentry nod, sit down, lean back, sleep--he would wriggle near, satisfy himself, and then flee like a deer to his fellows. There would be a quick loping run, a close recognisance, a sudden swift rush, a flash of knives, and soon the meal, ready jointed, would await the other vultures.
§ 2
"Suppose the good Archangel Gabriel suddenly alighted here, with easy grace, and, folding his wings, granted us each a wish, what would you have, Zimmerman?" the dark little man suddenly asked the huge, fair one.
"Eh? . . . Me? . . . Grant me a wish? . . . Like those people in the Grimm fairy tales?" replied Zimmerman, a harmless, worthless waster--once.
"Oh, I don't know. . . . Pick up a diamond as big as my fist. . . . Strike for Berlin, home and beauty then. Take a suite in the Hotel Adlon in the Pariser Platz, do the Weinrestaurants, tanzlokals, theatres, beer-halls, night-cafés of the Kurfürstendamm, for a bit. Look up all the boys--and the girls. . . . Oh, ho! Champagne . . . fresh caviare . . . feasting . . . races . . . the tables . . . Peacock Island, Grunewald; Charlottenburg, night-clubs . . . Ho, ho! When I drove my girl down the Unter den Linden, every one would turn and look at us. Then I'd take her down to Monte Carlo, by way of Paris. Nothing wrong with Paris, and Monte Carlo, after you've picked up a diamond as big as your fist. Yes, I'd give her a time she'd remember. Let her see all the shops in Paris and Monte. . . . Let her see me win a pile of hundred-franc notes at the Casino. . . . Let her see me shoot the pigeons."
"She'd love that, I'm sure," observed Digby Geste.
"Yes, she would so! . . . Gott in Himmel! I'd melt that diamond down. . . .
"What would you do, Gomez? . . . Madrid, a Senorita, and the bull-ring? . . . Carmelitas . . . fandangos, guitars, wine of Oporto and Xeres, serenades?"
"Not a bit of it. I should make straight for England. Get another string together, and train 'em myself."
"Win the Derby, Oaks, and the Grand National, all in the same year, what? . . ."
"Yes . . . I'd have my stables all white tiles, mahogany, porcelain and silver plate--the talk of the countryside--and my horses the talk of England, the talk of the world. . . . Ascot . . . Goodwood . . . Newmarket . . . Longchamps . . . Auteuil . . ."
He sighed heavily.
"Well, thank the good God for tobacco, even French tobacco, until Gabriel comes," guffawed Zimmerman.
"What would be your line, Jones," he added, turning to Digby Geste.
Digby took his pipe from his mouth, slowly blew a long cloud of smoke, and gazed at the great ball of gentle light that hung from the velvet dome of the low sky.
What boon would he ask, if one were to be granted to him?
It cannot be said that his thoughts turned to Brandon Abbas, for they were already there.
What would be the loveliest thing his mind could possibly conceive? What about a drive in the high dogcart with Isobel?--through the glorious Devon countryside; the smart cob doing his comfortable ten miles an hour; harness jingling; hoof-beats regular as clockwork; Isobel's hand under his right arm; Devon lanes; Devon fields and orchards; Devon moors; glorious--beyond description.
But then he would have to keep at least one eye on the horse and the road, and that would leave only one eye for Isobel. . . . When one is driving a horse, one should drive him properly, with the care and attention which is one's courtesy to a horse that is worth driving. . . . Well up to his bit, with watchful eye and ready hand . . .
No, not a drive. What about two long chairs in the Bower, side by side, but facing opposite ways, so that he would have a full view of Isobel's face . . . nothing for his eyes to do but to watch every change of expression in her wonderful eyes, and lovely face . . . nothing for his ears to do but note every change and inflexion and sound of her sweet voice?
Or what about asking something bigger--something really big? . . . Why not ask that time be pushed forward a few years, and that the three of them be distinguished officers? Beau a Colonel, John and he Majors, going home on leave after a glorious campaign; home to Brandon Abbas and Isobel . . . Isobel . . . Isobel's arms about his neck . . . the little church in Brandon Park . . . the Chaplain at the altar . . . Beau should give her away . . . John should be best man. . . . Oh, too wonderfully beautiful . . . too terribly glorious . . . too unthinkable. . . .
He turned to Zimmerman.
"What would I like best in all the world?" he said. "Oh, I should love, beyond expression, beyond the power of human speech . . . to hit a very bald man on the head with a very long cucumber."
His companions pondered this ambition.
"No, no! Not a bald man. Not just any bald man. It's l'Adjudant Lejaune one would like to hit on the head with a long cucumber," said the Spaniard. "Now, that really would be a deed worth doing! . . . Smack! . . . Just when he's bawling his foulest insults. . . . One could die happy after that. Yes, a really great conception, Jones. Can you beat it, Budiski? What would you like?"
"I? . . . I'd ask for nothing better than two minutes with a certain Russian gentleman I know . . . a perfect little gentleman. A General, in fact," replied the grey-haired, grey-faced man.
"I've followed his career with interest ever since he was quite a junior officer. . . . I have shot him once. . . . That's why I am here. . . .
"He came with his half-company to our village when I was a lad . . . long, long ago. . . . It was pogrom time, and everybody was accusing everybody, when they weren't shooting them instead. . . . And our Russian masters were 'pacifying' that little corner of our country by the excellent Russian method.
"Any Lieutenant was the equal of Julius Cæsar in respect of his complete ability to 'make a solitude and call it peace' . . .
"They banged on our door one night, because ours was the biggest, and most comfortable house in the neighbourhood. . . . Ostensibly, because there was a blood-stained hand-cart in our stables. Of course there was. . . . It had been put there by the worthy soul who had used it to remove bleeding carcasses from where they were inconvenient, to where they were useful evidence against his enemy. . . . Probably--in proof of his hatred of all evil-doing, and his love of all Jews and Russians--he had shown the dripping push-cart to the Russian police.
"Anyhow, there it was, and there were the Russian soldiers round our house, in which slept my father and mother in a front room; my sister Wanda--a lovely girl of about eighteen--in the next room, and I and my young brother in a big room at the back. . . .
"He was a good boy, that young brother of mine. I was rather fond of him. Perhaps some of you can understand that?"
Digby Geste nodded his head.
"And we both adored Wanda. She was one of those simple, gentle, kind natures who, knowing no evil, are slow to think there is any in others, and imagine that all men--and women are like themselves. Not clever, you know, nor accomplished, nor advanced, nor up-to-date, but just merely simply something to thank God for, in a world like this."
"Marguerite, before Faust came on the scene, eh?" said the big German.
The Pole regarded him absent-mindedly, and continued:
"I suppose there is a God of Love--a beneficent Deity?"
"Of course there is," observed Digby Geste. "Didn't he create your Wanda?"
"And didn't he watch what followed? . . . I pulled on an overcoat, and ran downstairs as my father opened the front door to the soldiers. In five minutes they were all over the house, and they brought Wanda and my mother and my young brother down into the big living-room where the Lieutenant, his drawn sword in his hand, lolled in a chair, questioning my father, or rather abusing and bullying him and shouting accusations to which he would hear no answer.
"I can see that intérieur now, the impudent hard-faced rascal in my father's chair. A Sergeant and half a dozen grey-coated, flat-capped soldiers at attention behind him. Other soldiers replenishing the fire, lighting more lamps and candles, ransacking the place for food, drink, and loot . . .
"For the sake of his wife and children, my father was humble, meek, conciliatory, deprecating. It did not take the brave Lieutenant, who was prosecutor, witnesses, judge and jury all in one, many minutes to try the old man, find him guilty, and sentence him to death.
"'Remove the prisoner,' said he, having delivered sentence. 'Bind him, and take him outside--under a tree with a suitable bough.'
"As my mother and Wanda threw themselves on their knees before this upright judge, a Corporal and four men seized my father, tied a rope round his body, so that his arms were bound to his sides, and led him out into the snow, over which the cold, grey dawn was beginning to break.
"Smiling evilly on the two imploring women, the gentleman leant forward. With his left hand he gave my mother a rough thrust that sent her sprawling, and then, cupping Wanda's chin in his palm, he turned her face up to his, and kissed her on the lips.
"The brave rash boy, my brother Karol, sprang forward, before his two guards could stop him--and even as I shouted, 'Don't, you young fool,' and, with bursting heart, firmly controlled myself for the sake of all of us--he struck the Lieutenant heavily between the eyes, sending that hero over backwards, chair and all.
"Leaping to his feet, as the guards sprang upon my brother, and on me, this brave Russian officer put his sword-point to my brother's throat--and thrust . . .
"I fought like a madman . . .
"I hear my mother's screams to this day . . .
"Wanda had fainted.
"The Lieutenant gave orders that she should be carried to her bed, and tied to it securely. Also that I and my mother should be bound.
"'Take the old hag out to her husband,' he ordered, as they tore her from my brother, who lay bleeding to death among their feet.
"I lost control.
"'Yes,' I shouted. 'You foul dog! You cowardly, inhuman devil! You Russian! Bind an old woman, lest she hurt you! . . . Bind her, and feel safe, you miserable swine!'
"And I contrived to spit on him.
"Calmly he wiped his face, and sat himself down again.
"'Bring the woman back, Sergeant,' he ordered quietly, 'and send a man to tell Corporal Kyriloff to fetch the old man back, too. . . . Bring the next prisoner before the Court.'
"I was dragged before his chair, my arms roped to my sides, and my ankles bound together. He eyed me very coldly.
"Always beware of those who, while a seething hell of rage boils within them, eye you coldly, and speak quietly.
"'You have resisted, insulted, and attempted to kill a Russian officer in the execution of his duty,' he said quietly. . . . 'You are condemned to death. Your father has already been condemned to death. Your brother has been put to death. . . . But the Court is merciful. Like your ruler, the Great Czar, whom I have the honour to serve, and against whom you Polish scum treasonably plot and rebel, the Court is just--but it is merciful. . . .
"'Of the five of you, but two shall die, and one is already dead. . . .
"'Or, at any rate, the dog is dying,' he added, stirring my brother's body with his foot, 'so but one remains.'
"My mother's mind rose triumphant from the abyss of horror, woe, grief, and fear into which it had sunk while they held her back from the body of her dying youngest-born.
"'Me! Me!' she cried. 'Kill me! . . . They are innocent, innocent . . .'
"'Gag her, if she speaks again,' growled the Lieutenant, pouring himself out a glass of vodka.
"'But one remains,' he repeated, smacking his lips. 'Yes, in my mercy, I will hang but one.'
"'The one who spat upon you,' I said. 'The one who will surely kill you some day, somewhere, somehow, unless you hang him now.'
"'No, no, my son!' shrieked my mother, and a soldier clapped his great hand upon her mouth.
"'The Lieutenant will hang me,' said my father with calm dignity.
"'No, the Lieutenant will not hang you,' replied that Russian dog, 'but hanged you shall most assuredly be.'
"And turning to me, he asked in that cold, cruel voice, so suave and quiet now:
"'Do you love your dear Mother?'
"'In a way you could not begin to understand,' I answered.
"'And that nice, plump, pretty little partridge, your Sister?' he continued.
"'To a degree that no foul animal could begin to understand,' I replied, hoping to turn all his wrath to me.
"What less could one do?
"'Ah, that is good,' he smiled. 'Most excellent. . . . And you would save that dear Mother, and beautiful Sister, at any cost, eh?'
"'From what?' I asked.
"'Wel-l-l,' he drawled, 'from a certain--unpleasantness. . . . Your Mother from dying of cold and hunger in a Warsaw prison cell, or perhaps in the Loubianka dungeons, or, possibly, on that little stroll to Siberia. . . . Who shall say? . . .
"'And the nice plump partridge . . . from being "the little friend of all the soldiers" when she begins to bore me. . . .
"'They do bore one, you know,' he drawled, 'even the prettiest of girls--in time. They mope, most of them, and fail to realize their good fortune; or else they are spit-fires, and one has to take--er--disciplinary measures.
"'Well, what about it? Would you like to save them, and your own life, too?'
"'Yes,' I replied.
"'Ah, then you shall.'
"My little Lieutenant smiled.
"'When you've done a small job for me, that is,' he added.
"'How do I know that you would keep your word?' I asked.
"'I always keep my word,' he replied. 'It is the word of a Russian officer.'
"'That is the trouble!' I remarked. But nothing could anger him now--outwardly, that is to say.
"'What do you Polish boors know of the word of a gentleman?' he continued, and then rose to his feet.
"'Come--we're wasting time,' he said briskly. 'You wish to save your Mother from death, and your Sister from shame, I understand. . . . Then come and hang your father for me.'"
§ 3
The others stared aghast at the old man's twitching face. Like most of his countrymen he was a good raconteur, and could dramatize a tale as he told it.
"'Hang your father'?" murmured Digby Geste. "Did you say . . ."
"Yes, my friends," continued Budiski. "The Russian Bear stood declared, in all its shocking savagery. Fang and claw were revealed. My little Russian gentleman had dropped his semi-transparent mask of civilization. He had been struck by a man, and now he was about to strike back as a beast--the most terrible, relentless, savage, and hypocritical of beasts--the Bear.
"Have any of you ever stood face to face with the bear, and seen it change--change from a rather absurd, stupid, earth-bound thing, somewhat ridiculous--into a monster, a great and terrifying Thing reared upon its hind legs, towering above you, capable of removing your face with one wipe of its paw, capable of removing the front of your body with another? . . ."
The speaker paused, and stared into the embers of the dying fire.
"You hardly believed your ears when I told of it," he continued, turning to Digby Geste.
"Judge then whether we believed our ears when we heard those words, 'Come and hang your father for me.'
"We thought it was a joke--a typical Russian joke. . . .
"It was--but it was a practical joke.
"'Fetch the girl again,' said my Lieutenant to the Sergeant, and the great brute, a huge Siberian, strode off and returned in a minute with my poor Wanda--weeping, half-fainting in his arms.
"'Aha, our little plump partridge! . . . Bring her here,' said this officer and gentleman; and, as Wanda sank to the ground, when the Sergeant put her down beside the chair, he added:
"'Here, wake up, my dear, don't be alarmed. . . . Your brave brother is going to save you,' and he shook her, tearing the shoulder of her nightgown.
"'Oh, thank God,' she said, and, realizing that her father had been brought back, uttered a cry of joy, and scrambled to her feet to rush to him.
"The Lieutenant pulled her back, tearing her nightgown the more.
"'Gently, gently, golubtchick,' he said, as he drew her to him. 'Your brother hasn't saved you yet. . . . He's going to rescue you and dear Mamma from the naughty men, by doing a little job for me.'
"Wanda raised trusting and grateful eyes to the face of this nobleman--this true boyar. My Lieutenant smiled at her, and cupped her chin again.
"'Yes, sweet child,' he added, as he kissed her.
"'He's going to hang Papa' . . . and this time his words became real to us.
"We understood.
"'No!' my mother screamed. 'No!'
"'What?' shrieked Wanda.
"'No, no, no,' screamed my mother.
"'Very well,' smiled my Lieutenant, and turning to the Sergeant gave the order:
"'Take the old woman to the Guard Room just as she is, and the girl to my quarters. Let her dress, and take what clothing she wants."
"'Stop!' cried my father, as the Corporal and a couple of men began to hustle my mother from the room, and the Sergeant seized Wanda.
"'Stop. . . . You will save your mother and sister, my son,' said our brave old father, a picture of noble dignity. 'You have never disobeyed me, and you will not disobey me now. Do not hesitate for a moment. Are we Russians that we should save ourselves by sacrificing our women? I will show these scum how a man can die, and you will live to protect your mother and sister. . . . And perhaps to avenge me ' . . .
"'No, no, no!' screamed my mother. 'Take me! Take me!'
"Wanda shrieked in the Sergeant's arms.
"'Quick, my son,' urged my father. 'How could we live and face each other . . . afterwards? . . . How could we? . . . I order you to save your mother and sister. . . . How can you hesitate?'
"I turned to the grinning Lieutenant.
"'End this joke, I beg of you, your Excellency,' I prayed. 'See, you have killed my brother. If we have done wrong, you have punished us enough. . . . You do not make war on women and old men. . . . Hang me, and let them go. . . . You said that two would be enough--two out of five, and they are innocent. We have never plotted, nor talked sedition, nor raised a hand against the Government. . . . Be merciful. . . .'
"'Wel-l-l, wel-l-l,' drawled the Lieutenant, 'Mercy is undoubtedly a beautiful thing. I will allow my soft and kindly nature to triumph once again. . . . Yes, yes, my heart shall rule my head. . . . Your adored Mother, and worshipped Sister, shall go free. . . . Your well-beloved and revered father shall not be hung.'
"'God bless you, sir,' I whispered.
"'No, he shall not be hung, since you intercede for him so movingly,' he continued. 'He shall hang you, instead!'
"I stared this monster in the face, incredulous--though subconsciously I knew that he meant what he said. . . .
"And for the moment I was even thankful that my mother and my sister were not there.
"'Well? . . . Come, hurry up! . . . I can't spend the whole night here. Either hang your father, or let him hang you, and thank me for my mercy,' he yawned.
"'Yes, my son, hasten,' said my father. 'Your mother will die of cold . . . And Wanda will . . .'
"Oh, my God. . . .
"'Father,' I cried, 'let me die.'
"'Silence, my son,' replied the old man. 'Show now of what stuff we sons of Poland are made. . . . You are young and strong, and I look to you to protect your mother and sister--to work for them . . . to comfort them . . . to save them . . . And to remember . . . I am old and feeble, and near my end. . . . It is a strong man they need. . . . Obey me for the last time, as you have always obeyed me.'
"And the terrible knowledge grew in my heart that I must drink of this cup. How could I thrust this burden upon my father--this crushing burden, this unbearable cross for him to carry to his grave? For, through every day and hour and minute that he lived, he would have the burning, corroding thought of the deed that he had done. Death would be nothing to it.
"I would choose the harder part. . . .
"But some day I would meet this devilish Russian, face to face. . . .
"'So be it,' I said. 'Give me your blessing, my father.'
"And the brave old man thanked, praised, and blessed me.
"I turned to the Lieutenant.
"'If it is possible that you can do this thing,' I said; 'if you can look forward to remembering this night upon your death-bed; if your own soldiers will not prove to be human beings, tear you limb from limb, and stamp you into the mud where you belong--I will save my mother and sister.'
"The Lieutenant smiled.
"'Ah,' he remarked silkily. 'I doubt if you will ever spit upon a Russian officer again . . . any more than your dead brother will strike one!'
"He sent two men with orders that my mother and sister be brought back forthwith.
"By the time they arrived, my father was standing beneath the 'suitable' tree, the noose about his neck, the rope dangling from the branch above.
"And God was merciful, for my mother, with a terrible cry of 'Jan! Jan!' sank down senseless upon the show.
"I glanced from my mother to Wanda, and saw that her body was hanging inanimate in the arms of the big Sergeant.
"Her eyes were closed.
"'Now, my son,' said my father in a firm voice. . . ."
§ 1
"Look here," said Digby Geste, known locally as légionnaire Thomas Jones No. 18896, "will you kindly endeavour to get into your magnificent brain, Monsieur Tant de Soif, once and for all, the fact that I will not drink absinthe with you? . . . Very kind of you, and all that; but I don't like it, and I don't want it, and I'm not going to drink it."
"And would you have me faire Suisse?" asked the légionnaire Tant de Soif, as, with trembling hands, he poured an evil-looking fluid from his water-bottle into a tin mug.
"I don't care what you faire, you old marvel, so long as you don't faire yourself a nuisance. If you do I'll pour that muck out on the sand."
Tant de Soif shuddered.
"Hush!" he begged. "Do not utter such horrible words--even in jest! . . . It is a kind of blasphemy," and he drank deeply from his mug.
"Horrible language," he grumbled, wiping his bearded lips with the back of his hand. "Never heard anything like it in all my forty years of soldiering--and I've heard some awful language, too, in the Marsouins 1 and the Legion. . . . And so I must faire Suisse at last--after fifty years of soldiering! . . ."
1 Colonial Infantry.
"Once again, faire what you like, only don't faire nuisance. That's just what you are when you're drunk--'a fair nuisance.'"
"Eh? . . . Mon Dieu! . . . To me! . . . After sixty years of soldiering! . . . What did you say? A nuisance? . . . Say it again. . . ."
And, with drunken gravity, old Tant de Soif rose to his feet, drew his sword-bayonet, and advanced upon the admired comrade whom he loved as a son.
"Say it--hic--again if you please," he requested.
"Vous êtes une peste pour tout le monde," repeated Digby slowly. "Understand? A nuisance to everybody, when you're drunk."
And, seizing the bayonet with his left hand, he gave the aged gentleman a shove with his right. The bayonet and its owner parted company.
"A nuisance when I'm drunk?" murmured Tant de Soif incredulously, as he sat suddenly down. "And am I to hear that said of me, after seventy years of soldiering? . . . Why, I was born drunk--I've lived drunk, and shall die drunk! and be a loved and respected centenarian soldier. . . . Yes. . . . The Government will give me a tomb like that of Fräulein Eberhardt, the Spahi Sergeant, at Figuig. . . . On it they will write the dignified and simple epitaph, 'One hundred years a soldier.'"
A tear trickled from the eye of Tant de Soif as he contemplated his apotheosis.
"More likely 'One hundred years drunk,' you old lunatic," laughed Digby Geste. "That's what you are--the original and authentic Lunatic among the Tombs."
"Undeniably we are in a tomb," replied Tant de Soif, nodding his head thoughtfully, "but it is not I who am the lunatic. . . . It is not I who am refusing good liquor. . . . No, indeed! . . . Nor have I, in eighty years of soldiering, met a man who did. . . . No, not until this night. . . . And now I am in a tomb with him. I, Tant de Soif, with a lunatic in the Tomb."
In a tomb they undoubtedly were, and in a place of tombs, built