"I thank you all. I thank the curé and Lieutenant Lièvre."-Page 184.

I found that the general opinion was the same as Duval-Choisy's. The offence was so flagrant that it could not be passed over; striking an officer is punishable with death, and the sentence is generally carried out in our army. De Ravenel's family had got to him at once; and before the court-martial could be notified, here had come the story of his suicide. There were many suspicious circumstances about the prompt removal of the body; the military authorities were strangely reticent; and I had a hint given me from a high quarter that I need not suffer my mind to be agitated about de Ravenel's tragic fate.

I recovered rapidly, and was ready to leave with my battalion, on May 11th. I had heard no word of Renée Dufour in that time. I had some hours of madness before leaving, when I felt like writing her a letter, bidding her farewell, but some instinct of manliness stopped me. Even

if she were insane enough to wish to marry me, her family would be justified in preventing it. I had nothing; I could give her nothing. No. The story of her preference for me, which had maddened de Ravenel, was mere idle gossip, because I had got the priest for her father when she asked me. She had probably never thought of me again.

At last, on a June evening, we sighted Algiers, and next morning the debarkation began. Everybody knows what followed. We beat the Algerians and the Kabyles and all the other tribesmen in all the pitched battles when they dared to face us, but they kept up a harassing guerilla warfare which was infuriating. We had to build a chain of block-houses

along all the territory outside the city of Algiers to protect our outposts and the few people who dwelt there.

The first year or two was exciting enough. Many of us got promotion-I got my captaincy-but after that, there was a time of stagnation. There were troubles in France and the troops were withdrawn, leaving only a handful in Africa. I had done my share in the campaign, and after that the homesickness which seizes every Frenchman away from France seized me. We were quite idle, the authorities being content that we should simply hold what we had got-and to be idle in Africa, as it was then, was very dreadful. The officers who had friends at home got ordered back, but I, with a few other Misers, remained on the plain around Algiers.

The men suffered more, of course, than the officers. From some of the best disciplined regiments in France they grew to be among the worst. At every de

parture for France there would be an outbreak from those who remained behind. Expeditions were organized against the Kabyles and Bedouins to counteract this and give the men something to talk about-but soldiers, unluckily, can think -and when they saw that we could not keep what we took, that we were not numerous enough to make a strong demonstration against the tribesmen, that beyond our line of block-houses we were powerless, and, above all, the occasional finding of a soldier with his head cut off, it was hard upon them. They would talk about the Emperor then; there was no stopping them. For my own part, I stood the ordeal fairly well. I tried to put Renée out of my head-and how well I succeeded may be imagined when I say that I never looked at those great, brilliant, golden stars of the African nights, which seem so large and so near, without thinking of her, and wondering if she were still alive, and if she were married

and this dreamer was a battered, middleaged Captain of the line! And this lasted for thirteen years. Yes, I was thirteen years in Africa. Of course I might have gone back to France many times, but, unluckily, I learned Arabic, with many of its dialects, very well. It has always been my perverse fortune to get in trouble, not through my faultswhich are numerous enough, and all well grown for their age-but by my few good qualities. The authorities put me into the Bureau arabe. I, a soldier, was made a clerk. In vain I swore I would resign, I would leave the army, I would turn Mahometan, but it was no use. After my time the officers were astute enough never to acknowledge how much Arabic they really knew; but I, in an insane moment, had boasted of mine, and I had thirteen years in which to repent of it. Algiers in the 30's was a dreary place, half desert, half Paris, French African, the Arab slipper-maker next door to the French milliner—a boulevard on the edge of the desert. I think I grew morose in the thirteen years when I was a French grand-vizier. As chief of the bureau, I had the privilege of ordering Arabian heads to be cut off. I did not avail myself of the privilege, but sometimes longed rather to cut some other heads off. I grew to be "old Lièvre" among the young sub-lieutenants. I kept away from the quarters where the French ladies with their smart gowns were to be found. The ugly ones I did not like, and the attractive ones always reminded me of Renée; so I avoided women altogether.

At last this slavery to a bureau became intolerable. One day I determined to be free. I went to head-quarters and announced that I would like to be relieved from the Bureau arabe. The Commandant smiled, and made out my orders at once. I was to proceed to Fort Mastagnan, nearly two hundred miles from Algiers, and take command of the little fort, with a garrison of what do you think? One hundred and fifty disciplinaires.

To command a mud fort, two hundred miles in the interior, with a garrison of a hundred and fifty rapscallions under punishment! Of course the Commandant expected me to beg off at once, and to go back to doing a clerk's work in the Bureau VOL. XXII.-20

arabe. But I swore to myself that I would not go back to the Bureau arabe. The Commandant did not urge me. He evidently thought that a slight experience of Fort Mastagnan would bring me to terms; so he let me go. Within a week I was ready to start. It was a weary journey. My first sight of Mastagnan was not as melancholy as one might suppose; for disciplinaires are soldiers after all, and have the same childish light-heartedness of other soldiers. It was about five o'clock in the afternoon, and although it was in the rainy season, the sun shone every day at that hour. The fort was perched upon a plateau, with great mountain-peaks towering over it, and the sun glinted upon the silvery mountain-torrents that foamed down the face of the rocks.

My ragamuffins were drawn up to receive their new Commandant, and although not very smart looking—except one man who was orderly to the former Commandant-they were not very bad looking. The officer whom I was to relieve recommended his orderly to me.

"A very sharp fellow calls himself Laurent-has a life-sentence for striking an officer, but I think he expects it to be commuted very soon. I can't make him out; I am afraid he is a gentleman; he writes a better hand than I do, and except for his damned superiority in everything, has not a fault."

"I will take him," said I.

Not a

The first time my orderly and I came face to face I saw he was the Marquis de Ravenel, and he saw that I was Captain Lièvre, and each knew the other recognized him. But never saw I such coolness and self-possession as Laurent's. He had, at last, learned self-control. wink betrayed him, and I, scorning to be outdone by my orderly, was as cool as he. This, then, explained the mystery. By some sort of juggling his family had saved his life, and had got him off to Africa, ostensibly for life. They had probably been working all the time for the commutation of his sentence, the restoration of his civil rights, and he would return to France something of a hero, to be rehabilitated with title, money, and everything. suppose the impulse to kill me should come upon him? Well, he had plenty of chances. We got on from the start

But

Laurent's face quite inscrutable, while I, in a very little while, had trouble to keep from smiling every time I saw, or even thought of, the Marquis touching his cap to Pierre Lièvre, holding my horse, running my errands, standing at attention. whenever I spoke to him.

As with my predecessor, he did everything better than I did. His accent was Parisian - mine, I am afraid, was not. He wrote and spoke half a dozen other languages besides, of which I knew not a word. He had made himself a kind of mandolin, on which he played charmingly, while he sung airs from the operas that had been new thirteen years ago, and he was leader of the disciplinaires' band. Oh, it was a comedy to see us together! I wondered often if he remembered Renée Dufour. Alas for me! I had not forgotten her.

Meanwhile I had been looking closely about me, for the Commandant of a fort in the enemy's country, with a garrison of disciplinaires, needs to keep his eyes open. The fort had good walls, stout and high. On the northern side it was protected by an inaccessible precipice. We had one field-piece, and plenty of ammunition and provisions. I considered the fort practically impregnable, if I had a good garrison. I had no doubt they would fight; disciplinaires are generally good fighters; but suppose the tribesmen should come, five or six thousand strong, as they might, for they had lately begun to attack us in vast numbers when they attacked at all. Then, if only the morale, of the disciplinaires could be kept upbut there is something overpowering to the rude mind of a private soldier in the thought that he is outnumbered fifty to one, even though he be well armed and protected. After considering this part of it, I sat down to do what I had always intended, but had not, until then, set about, and that was, to make my will. But when I actually began it, I was troubled with two difficulties I had nothing to leave, and nobody to leave it to. So I did not make a will.

I am happy to say that I found Fort Mastagnan a great improvement on the Bureau arabe. I was as well satisfied as ever in my life. True, I had the same old pain at my heart, but that I should

have had anywhere. And the sight of those solemn peaks piercing the clouds, and the vast loneliness of the hills and valleys around the fort in the mountains, was soothing to my soul.

Some months passed. We often saw bands of Kabyles and other tribesmen stealing along the valleys at nightfall, the light trampling of their horses' hoofs faintly audible in the clear air. Sometimes the morning sun shone on a group of dazzling white burnouses disappearing quickly in the gorges of the mountains. We had not so far had a single Kabyle carbine fired at us, but it was coming.

One night in December, when the air was sharp, as I sat at my supper of barley-broth and mutton it was mutton, mutton, mutton, summer and winterLaurent entered my room, and saluting, said, calmly :

'Sir, the tribesmen are pouring down the mountain-side."

I seized my field - glass and ran out. There was no moon, but the sky was bright with stars, and by their faint, unearthly shimmer I could see a cloud of horsemen pouring, as Laurent said, out of the great mountain-gorge above us. On they came, in myriads. The Arab horses rush noiselessly down the steepest declivities in an indescribable manner; it is more like the flight of eagles than the bound of horses. The riders, enveloped in their white burnouses, out of which their black eyes gleam like points of flame, looked ghostly, and if I were a poet, instead of a plain Captain of the line, I could tell, as it should be told, the weirdness, the wildness, the barbaric majesty of the sight. It was as if some great serpent of the night were unwinding himself, to spring upon that little fort on the mountain-side-for as the Arabs came into the plain, the vast circle coiled around the fort, and then gave one prolonged savage shriek of hate, and menace, and triumph. There were not less than eight thousand of them in sight-and we were a hundred and fifty.

Meanwhile my rapscallions were under arms by the tap of the drum, and I proceeded to harangue them.

"It is a movement in force," said I. "Thousands of tribesmen cannot move without the knowledge of our superiors.

We shall be rescued-be sure of that and meanwhile we must take care of ourselves. You know what Arabs do for their prisoners. Not always this-" I passed my hand across my throat-" that is mercy; but to be slowly tormented to death, to be dragged at the heels of horses, to die of blows and thirst and hunger -that is the punishment reserved for French prisoners—and afterward their heads are cut off. Now, my children, let us not die in that manner."

A shout arose from my fellows at this. "However," said I, "there is small danger of that, for I have arranged, if ever the Arabs get over the stockade, to blow us all up at the first wink!”

This they cheered tremendously. "And more," said I, "there is a chance for every one of you to wipe out everything against you. Gallantry in the face of an enemy will condone any crime a soldier may commit. Vive l'armée!"

At this, a great cheer went up. Fear and hope the two great mainsprings of human action-had been touched, instead of a hundred and fifty disciplinaires, I had a hundred and fifty heroes.

And now my awkward pen falters and I can scarcely go on. Oh, for the burning words of a Froissart to tell what happened when eight thousand Kabyles and Bedouins came surging upon us! In the darkness the trampling of their horses' feet sounded like thunder. They had each a long, single-barrelled rifle, but they soon found that rifle-balls do not penetrate thick walls. We knew they would attempt to storm the place, and when we saw a hundred dark heads over the parapet on the south side, it took not a minute for us to direct all our fire at them, while our one gun was dragged across the courtyard, and pointed through a hole in the wall. And when it barked out, I heard, for the first time, the Arabs shriek with pain; for these followers of the Prophet are great and admirable in agony and They suffer and die with majestic calmness. But the very suddenness of the assault drew from them a yell that smote the black heavens above them.

All night the disciplinaires fought as I never saw men fight before or since such coolness, such discipline!

Laurent was my aide-de-camp as well as my orderly; and when the mountain-tops grew rosy in the coming dawn, he was at my side, cool, smiling, and spick and span as ever. That is the way with the thoroughbreds. I am afraid I was frowzy and rather ill-tempered. About sunrise the Arabs gave us a little peace, and, still under arms, we had something to eat. Laurent-that is, the Marquis de Ravenel

brought my coffee and barley-bread to me upon a tray with a white napkin. I was a long time eating and drinking—all for effect-it nearly choked me. Then I ordered the band out-we had a pretty good one-and Laurent, the leader, looked at me meaningly, and I understood and nodded back, and it burst into-not Vive Henri Quatre, or any of those Bourbon airs, for which soldiers do not care a fig— but into La Marseillaise! You should have seen my poor fellows! They shouted, they wept, they embraced-they cheered me-they cried, "Now, will we hold out!" Oh, it was an inspiration! They were every inch Frenchmen then! All day the attack continued intermittently. I was more sure of the morale of the men then than before; still I thought the day with its monotony more dangerous than the night with its excitement. As the sun sank in beauty-the day had been mild and clear

Laurent went and fetched his mandolin, and sitting in the middle of the courtyard, sang some of his gay songs, all about love and wine, and the men began to laugh and actually to dance. I daresay the Arab devils outside thought we were crazy, but we were watching them all the

same.