H. De Vere Stacpoole

“ He was awakened by the bugles of the Legion sounding the réveillé, so it seemed to him for a moment, then the bugles of the Legion became the crying of birds.
Birds were flocking about the ravine, great birds whose shadows swept the ground in front of the cave. With the return of consciousness to Jacques came the return of full mental energy. He remembered everything, and recognized to his astonishment that it was evening, towards sundown, and that Mansoor was still in exactly the same position, his face half sheltered by his arm, taking aim. ”

“ His love for Mimi was not of the nature that makes a man regardless of all things should he be betrayed, but it was strong enough to raise the Apache in him.
His dreams of wealth and motor-cars had been smashed by this scoundrel Zeiss; that fact was almost more powerful with him than the fact that Zeiss had stolen Mimi from him, and more potent than either of these was the fact that Zeiss, his friend, had betrayed him.
Twenty minutes passed and then Jacques, rising from his bed, went off downstairs to the canteen. He had discovered a way to revenge himself, clean and without danger. ”

“ Stars like the points of needles were piercing the pansy-coloured sky when Jacques and his companion reached the Place Sadi Carnot. The Place was crowded, légionnaires, visitors and townsfolk crowding around the bandstand, some seated, others standing about in groups. The warm air was filled with the scents of jessamine and garlic, the African earth, caporal and cigar smoke, all vague and blended to form the smell of Sidi-bel-Abbès en fête. ”

“ Jacques, marching well and firmly, had the appearance of a man still capable of covering many miles. His legs were still all right, but his head was giving out. The higher nervous centres could not hold to their work much longer, and that is one of the most fatal forms of exhaustion. For half a minute at a time he would forget Mansoor. At any moment he might fall together like a house of cards and lie on the ground, not dead, but sleeping peacefully, a prey to the man he was pursuing. ”

“ There is a railway between Sidi-bel-Abbès and Oran, that is to say, a trap for runaway légionnaires. Jacques was not such a fool as to use the railway, or even to walk along the embankments. Time was of no matter to him. The pursuit would be after him before he could reach Oran, even by rail; he had to trust entirely to his disguise and to luck. He recognized that Choc would be his main difficulty; he could not disguise Choc.
He had lit a cigarette and he passed along to the city gates without let or hindrance; a bourgeois taking an evening stroll with his dog excited no comment. ”

“ No man can buy his discharge from the Legion. No man, once he has signed the fatal paper, can escape from the consequences of his act by influence. You may be the son of a prince—it does not matter, or of a Rockefeller—it does not matter, you have to dree your weird for five years and carry your rifle and knapsack under the blazing sun to the last day of your term of enlistment. ”

“ It is I, Jacques, that am talking, and I know what I am talking about. A man, if he is very quick-witted, if he has plenty of money, if he can talk two languages, and if he is an expert at disguise, may succeed in escaping as far as Oran. If he is under special convoy by order of good luck he may reach Marseilles, and if he escapes the military police at Marseilles, who have eyes back and front and at the ends of their fingers, he may get out of France. Now, mark you, it's not a question of escaping from Sidi-bel-Abbès or Algeria, it is a question of escaping from France. ”

“ At the word "girl" he had been on the point of laughing, then he saw in a flash that this was a serious business for Raboustel.
The position of a man in the Legion is such that honest aspirations and ambitions are absurd, unless they be purely military, and even then they are rarely fulfilled, and as for love!
Jacques whistled when the other told him all.
"You will have trouble there," said he. "You will have the old man on top of you; does he know about it?"
"Not he," said Raboustel.
"Well, he is sure to get to know, and then your trouble will begin. You see, you are a légionnaire." ”

“ No man knew better than Jacques what possibilities for making money lay in Sidi-bel-Abbès. As cunning as a monkey and as sharp as a weasel, Jacques had plumbed all the depths of the town.
Though the pay of the Legion is only a half-penny a day there is money in the Legion. Nearly every légionnaire who has a friend or a relative in any part of the world becomes a beggar-man, money orders are constantly arriving and the money when it arrives is spent at once. He reckoned on the Legion as a good customer for the new business. ”

“ Pelletan had developed rapid consumption as a result of his life in the Legion acting on an hereditary tendency to the disease. Jacques had been kind to him. This scoundrel of a Jacques had one great quality: he was a man. A bad man, but still a man. Cruel as death to a slacker, his instinct told him that when Pelletan fell out on a march, or when his accoutrements were not absolutely spick and span, the fault was not in the soul of Pelletan but in his body. ”

“ Jacques looked at Karasloff in surprise. He had noticed lately that Karasloff was growing thinner.
"Killing you!" said Jacques. "What ails you?"
The Slav smiled and shrugged his shoulders.
"I think it is this way with men," said he, "they do not bear transplanting. The real soil in which the mind grows is the social condition to which it is accustomed. Minds die when torn up by the roots from everything to which they have been used to. Then there are some men whose bodies are affected by their minds, and to whom mental decay means bodily decay—that is how it is." ”

“ Jacques laughed, then he explained, and as he explained Mimi counted the money, dropping it back into the little paper bag coin by coin.
"So you see," finished Jacques, "it's yours; and since you are mine, ma mie—it's mine. Take it and use it. In three years I will be a free man, and if you care for me as you say you do, and if you have any luck with the business you start in, we may do well together, you and I. There's not a man knows more of the ins and outs of Sidi-bel-Abbès than myself." ”

“ I want the sight of money and I want it bad; every time I pass the Crédit Lyonnais I can scent the gold there just as you smell the cooking going on in a café. I'll break in there some day, and if I can't do anything more I'll just roll in the twenty-franc pieces, swallow them, choke myself with them. That's how I feel—you'll see."
"Then they would shoot you," said Kandorff, "and I would never get my fifteen centimes back." ”

“ The child had become a companion, an interest, almost a necessity of life, and had you told him that it was the good influence of the child upon him that was now driving the child away from him, he would not have understood you.
No. The uniform had hit him in the face, that was enough for him.
El Kobir said nothing more. Like Jacques, he did not want to part with the child, yet he was a just man. Had he been an unjust man or a hard-hearted man, he would not have wanted to keep the child. Our good qualities hit us very hard sometimes. ”

“ Well, do not mind him, give him another six months of drill and route marching and he will sing another tune.—If you care for him, mademoiselle, as a woman ought to care for a man, don't regard his tantrums and keep on writing to him even if he tears up your letters."
The effect of this speech was astonishing. Mademoiselle Seraskier, after looking at Jacques for a moment with eyes dancing with merriment, suddenly turned and ran from the room; she seemed choking with laughter, and the incensed Jacques was turning to go, when the old lady held him. ”

“ Coffee was brought in by an Arab woman, and cigarettes. El Kobir talked about business and how Sidi-bel-Abbès was falling off in foreign visitors, and Jacques, set going by the coffee and the general atmosphere of mild festivity, talked of the Legion and its desperate adventures, not excluding his own.
Whatever the secret of personality may be that attracts children to grown-up people, Jacques must have possessed it, for in half an hour Ivan was sitting on his knee listening to his wild tales, enraptured and worshipping. ”

“ El Kobir has a good many well-to-do friends and Ivan goes and plays with their children, but he is always there to meet me in the evening."
"Well," said Jacques, "you were safe in offering that five francs. I never would have guessed what you were after; we don't have much to do with children in the Legion, and that's a fact; but it seems to me now there is a good deal of sense in children, and the man who has one, and looks after it, spends his time better than sitting round in the canteen or in the cafés. I'll come with you some other evening, if I may?"
"With pleasure," said Karasloff. ”

“ He spent his evenings mostly in Sidi-bel-Abbès, in the Place Sadi Carnot listening to the band, or in one of the better-class cafés, unapproachable to the ordinary légionnaire on account of the prices charged—thirty centimes for a cigar, half a franc for a vermouth, and so forth.
Jacques sometimes saw Schneider seated before one of these cafés reading the Echo d'Oran and sipping his wine. Jacques, who had taken an interest in the man at first sight, found as time went on that his interest was steadily growing. He watched him as a cat watches a mouse. ”

“ Though he had started in life as an Apache, Commonsense had been talking to him for the last two years or so, pointing out that a franc made by robbery is not worth two sous made by work. The rate of exchange is always against the criminal; so appalling is it that one may wonder at any man with an ounce of brains doing business on such ruinous terms. Jacques had recognized this, and he had determined, on finding himself his own man again, to take to honest ways. ”

“ A tipsy Spahi just back from Senegal had fallen foul of an old man. The Spahi had the old fellow by the beard and was about to strike him—kill him, perhaps, when I felled the Spahi with a blow just beneath the ear. It is necessary to be brutal at times, to strike hard, and to strike swiftly. I would have had trouble over this business, had the military police come along, but luckily for me it was one of the mounted Arab police that was attracted by the crowd, and when he heard the story and found that I had been defending a true believer he made no trouble. The old man was El Kobir. ”

“ The next day the same thing happened, but on the third evening, as luck would have it, the old man was away on some business and Manuella, that was her name, was in the shop.
She came forward smiling and they talked together as before. Love grows quickly in Algeria, especially when he is pressed for time, and before they parted that night there was an understanding between these two, and Raboustel returned to barracks in such a high state of spirits that his companions fancied he had been drinking.
Now nothing much more disastrous can happen to a légionnaire than to fall in love. ”

“ Mansoor, two days ago, had murdered a légionnaire; it was a sordid and ferocious crime, committed on account of a woman. The criminal had made his escape, Sidi-bel-Abbès had been searched, Oran sealed, and the desert posts warned, but the murderer was still at large, hence the reward. Jacques and Kandorff stood amongst the crowd that had gathered to discuss the notice.
"They'll never get him," said Kandorff.
"And why not?" asked one of the crowd.
"Why not? Well, just for the very good reason that he is an Arab and the Arab police will shelter him and wink at his escape." ”