y, and fifteen years her
inferior in those civilized dexterities. But she thanked me very
sweetly for my aid."

"Another dawn, and we were at Torah. A half-circle of dusty palms
leaned away to one side of the place, the common ensign of a well on
a caravan route. The post was but a few structures of wood and mud,
and, a little way off, the tents of the camp. In the east, the sky
was red with foreknowledge of the sun; its light already lay pale
over the meanness of all the village. I helped her from the train,
and demanded to know whither I should conduct her."

"'I will not give you further trouble,' she said; and though I
protested, she was firm. And at last she walked away, alone, to the
huddle of little buildings, and I saw her pass among them and out of
my sight. Then I turned and went over to the camp, where my duty
lay."

"That was a sorrowful place, that Torah. The troops were chiefly men
of the Foreign Legion, of whom three in every four expressed in their
eyes only patience and the bitterness of men whose lives are hidden
things. With them were some elderly officers, whose only enthusiasms
showed themselves in a crazy bravery in action, the callous courage
of men who have already died once. From some of these I heard of
Bertin. It was a brown, sun-dried man who told me."

"'Yes, we know him,' he said. 'He passes under various names, but we
know him. A man wasted, thrown away, my friend! He should have joined
us.'"

"'You would have accepted him?' I asked."

"'Why not?' was the answer. 'It is not honest men we ask for, nor
true men, nor even brave men--only fighting men. And any man can be
that.'"

"It made me wonder if it were yet too late for Bertin, 'and whether
he might not still find a destiny in the ranks of that regiment where
so many do penance. But when I saw him, a week later, I knew that the
chance had gone by with his other chances, It was in a cafe in the
village, a shed open at one side to the little street of sand, and
furnished only with tables and chairs. A great Spahi, in the splendid
uniform of his corps, lounged in one corner; a shrouded Arab tended
the coffee apparatus in another; in the middle, with a glass before
him, sat Bertin. The sun beat in at the open front of the building
and spread the shadows in a tangle on its floor; he was leaning with
both elbows on the table, gazing before him with the eyes of a dead
man. He had always promised to be stout, but he was already fat--a