ed in it as did the thrushes, whom he
hated with the jealous hate of a rival. He repeated incessantly: 'The
thrushes eat all the grapes, captain!'

"One evening I was sent for. Something had been seen on the plain coming
in our direction. I had not brought my field-glass and I could not
distinguish things clearly. It looked like a great serpent uncoiling
itself--a convoy. How could I tell?

"I sent some men to meet this strange caravan, which presently made its
triumphal entry. Timbuctoo and nine of his comrades were carrying on a
sort of altar made of camp stools eight severed, grinning and bleeding
heads. The African was dragging along a horse to whose tail another
head was fastened, and six other animals followed, adorned in the same
manner.

"This is what I learned: Having started out to the vineyard, my Africans
had suddenly perceived a detachment of Prussians approaching a village.
Instead of taking to their heels, they hid themselves, and as soon as
the Prussian officers dismounted at an inn to refresh themselves, the
eleven rascals rushed on them, put to flight the lancers, who thought
they were being attacked by the main army, killed the two sentries, then
the colonel and the five officers of his escort.

"That day I kissed Timbuctoo. I saw, however, that he walked with
difficulty and thought he was wounded. He laughed and said:

"'Me provisions for my country.'

"Timbuctoo was not fighting for glory, but for gain. Everything he found
that seemed to him to be of the slightest value, especially anything
that glistened, he put in his pocket. What a pocket! An abyss that began
at his hips and reached to his ankles. He had retained an old term used
by the troopers and called it his 'profonde,' and it was his 'profonde'
in fact.

"He had taken the gold lace off the Prussian uniforms, the brass off
their helmets, detached their buttons, etc., and had thrown them all
into his 'profonde,' which was full to overflowing.

"Each day he pocketed every glistening object that came beneath his
observation, pieces of tin or pieces of silver, and sometimes his
contour was very comical.

"He intended to carry all that back to the land of ostriches, whose
brother he might have been, this son of a king, tormented with the
longing to gobble up all objects that glistened. If he had not had his
'profonde' what would he have done? He doubtless would have swallowed
them.

"Each morning his pocket was empty. He had, then, s