ions and the deadliest conflicts of the world are
carried on in every individual breast capable of feeling and passion.

From personal inquiry I can vouch that the story of the convict mutiny
was in every particular as stated by him.

When I got back to Horta from Cayenne and saw the "Anarchist" again, he
did not look well. He was more worn, still more frail, and very livid
indeed under the grimy smudges of his calling. Evidently the meat of the
company's main herd (in its unconcentrated form) did not agree with him
at all.

It was on the pontoon in Horta that we met; and I tried to induce him to
leave the launch moored where she was and follow me to Europe there and
then. It would have been delightful to think of the excellent manager's
surprise and disgust at the poor fellow's escape. But he refused with
unconquerable obstinacy.

"Surely you don't mean to live always here!" I cried. He shook his head.

"I shall die here," he said. Then added moodily, "Away from them."

Sometimes I think of him lying open-eyed on his horseman's gear in the
low shed full of tools and scraps of iron--the anarchist slave of the
Maranon estate, waiting with resignation for that sleep which "fled"
from him, as he used to say, in such an unaccountable manner.

A MILITARY TALE

THE DUEL

I

Napoleon I., whose career had the quality of a duel against the whole
of Europe, disliked duelling between the officers of his army. The great
military emperor was not a swashbuckler, and had little respect for
tradition.

Nevertheless, a story of duelling, which became a legend in the army,
runs through the epic of imperial wars. To the surprise and admiration
of their fellows, two officers, like insane artists trying to gild
refined gold or paint the lily, pursued a private contest through the
years of universal carnage. They were officers of cavalry, and their
connection with the high-spirited but fanciful animal which carries men
into battle seems particularly appropriate. It would be difficult to
imagine for heroes of this legend two officers of infantry of the line,
for example, whose fantasy is tamed by much walking exercise, and whose
valour necessarily must be of a more plodding kind. As to gunners or
engineers, whose heads are kept cool on a diet of mathematics, it is
simply unthinkable.

The names of the two officers were Feraud and D'Hubert, and they were
both lieutenants in a regiment of hussars, but not in the same regi