ma boule"
followed "Fringue sur l'aviron "; and from that the voice slid into a
little love-chant, tender and delicate:

"A la claire fontaine
M'en allant promener,
J'ai trouve l'eau si belle
Que je m'y suis baigne.
Il y a longtemps que je t'aime,
Jamais je ne t'oublierai."

"II y a longtemps que je t'aime," broke in the chorus, the wide lake
modulating the music as water only can. John remembered the abattis
and all its slaughter, and marvelled what manner of men they were
who, fresh from it, could put their hearts into such a song.

"Et patati, et patata!" rapped in the big sergeant. "For God's sake,
Chameau, what kind of milk is this to turn a man's stomach?"

The chorus drowned his growls, and the bowman continued:

"Sur la plus haute branche
Le rossignol chantait,
Chante, rossignol, chante,
Toi qui as le coeur gai . . .
Chante, rossignol, chante,
Toi qui as le coeur gai;
Tu as le coeur a rire,
Moi je l'ai--t a pleurer. . . ."

"Gr-r-r--" As the song ended, the sergeant spat contemptuously over
the gunwale. "La-la-la, rossignol! et la-la-la, rosier!" he
mimicked. "We are not _rosieres_, my friend."

"The song is true Canayan, m'sieur, and your comrades appear to like
it."

"Par exemple! Listen, Monsieur Chameau, to something more in their
line." He inflated his huge lungs and burst into a ditty of his own:

"C'est dans la ville de Bordeaux
Qu'est arrive trois beaux vaissaux--
Qu'est arrive trois beaux vaissaux:
Les matelots qui sont dedans,
Vrai Dieu, sont de jolis galants."

The man had a rich baritone voice, not comparable indeed with the
bowman's tenor, yet not without quality; but he used it affectedly,
and sang with a simper on his face. His face, brick red in hue, was
handsome in its florid way; but John, watching the simper, found it
detestable.

"C'est une dame de Bordeaux
Qu'est amoureuse d'un matelot--"

Here he paused, and a few soldiers took up the refrain
half-heartedly:

"--Va, ma servante, va moi chercher
Un matelot pour m'amuser."

The song from this point became indecent, and set the men in the
nearer boats laughing. At its close a few clapped their hands.
But it was not a success, and the brick red darkened on the singer's
face; darkened almost to purple when a voice in the distance took up
the air and returned it mockingly, caricaturing a _roul