e it out, doctor. Take it out, and I
shall be all right."

Thus said a Zouave, who had been lying helpless for three days on his
bed.

"If you knew how strong I am! Look at my arms! No one could unhook a bag
like me, and heave it over my shoulder--tock! A hundred kilos--with one
jerk!"

The doctor looked at the muscular torso, and his face expressed pity,
regret, embarrassment, and, perhaps, a certain wish to go away.

"But this wretched bullet prevents me from moving my legs. You must take
it out, doctor, you must take it out!"

The doctor glances at the paralysed legs, and the swollen belly, already
lifeless. He knows that the bullet broke the spine, and cut through the
marrow which sent law and order into all this now inanimate flesh.

"Operate, doctor. Look you, a healthy chap like me would soon get well."

The doctor stammers vague sentences: the operation would be too serious
for the present... better wait....

"No, no. Never fear. My health is first-rate. Don't be afraid, the
operation is bound to be a success."

His rugged face is contracted by his fixed idea. His voice softens;
blind confidence and supplication give it an unusual tone. His heavy
eyebrows meet and mingle under the stress of his indomitable will; his
soul makes such an effort that the immobility of his legs seems suddenly
intolerable. Heavens! Can a man WILL so intensely, and yet be powerless
to control his own body?

"Oh, operate, operate! You will see how pleased I shall be!"

The doctor twists the sheet round his forefinger; then, hearing a
wounded man groaning in the next ward, he gets up, says he will come
back presently, and escapes.

XIV

The colloquy between the rival gods took place at the foot of the great
staircase.

The Arab soldier had just died. It was the Arab one used to see under
a shed, seated gravely on the ground in the midst of other magnificent
Arabs. In those days they had boots of crimson leather, and majestic red
mantles. They used to sit in a circle, contemplating from under their
turbans the vast expanse of mud watered by the skies of Artois. To-day,
they wear the ochre helmet, and show the profiles of Saracen warriors.

The Algerian has just been killed, kicked in the belly by his beautiful
white horse.

In the ambulance there was a Mussulman orderly, a well-to-do tradesman,
who had volunteered for the work. He, on the other hand, was extremely
European, nay, Parisian; but a plump, malicious sm