ng about
Captain de Saint-Avit."

"I know nothing." He spoke sharply.

"Nothing? Then what were you saying a little while ago?"

"Captain de Saint-Avit is a brave man." He muttered the words with his
head still obstinately bent. "He went alone to Bilma, to the Air,
quite alone to those places where no one had ever been. He is a brave
man."

"He is a brave man, undoubtedly," I answered with great restraint.
"But he murdered his companion, Captain Morhange, did he not?"

The old Sergeant trembled.

"He is a brave man," he persisted.

"Chatelain, you are a child. Are you afraid that I am going to repeat
what you say to your new Captain?"

I had touched him to the quick. He drew himself up.

"Sergeant Chatelain is afraid of no one, Lieutenant. He has been at
Abomey, against the Amazons, in a country where a black arm started
out from every bush to seize your leg, while another cut it off for
you with one blow of a cutlass."

"Then what they say, what you yourself--"

"That is talk."

"Talk which is repeated in France, Chatelain, everywhere."

He bent his head still lower without replying.

"Ass," I burst out, "will you speak?"

"Lieutenant, Lieutenant," he fairly pled, "I swear that what I know,
or nothing--"

"What you know you are going to tell me, and right away. If not, I
give you my word of honor that, for a month, I shall not speak to you
except on official business."

Hassi-Inifel: thirty native Arabs and four Europeans--myself, the
Sergeant, a Corporal, and Gourrut. The threat was terrible. It had its
effect.

"All right, then, Lieutenant," he said with a great sigh. "But
afterwards you must not blame me for having told you things about a
superior which should not be told and come only from the talk I
overheard at mess."

"Tell away."

"It was in 1899. I was then Mess Sergeant at Sfax, with the 4th
Spahis. I had a good record, and besides, as I did not drink, the
Adjutant had assigned me to the officers' mess. It was a soft berth.
The marketing, the accounts, recording the library books which were
borrowed (there weren't many), and the key of the wine cupboard,--for
with that you can't trust orderlies. The Colonel was young and dined
at mess. One evening he came in late, looking perturbed, and, as soon
as he was seated, called for silence:

"'Gentlemen,' he said, 'I have a communication to make to you, and I
shall ask for your advice. Here is the question. Tomorrow morning the
_City of