Front matter (continued 2)

Evidently the French authorities excelled the English in the art of economising space, as nothing was on the floor that could be accommodated above it. In the hanging cupboards were tin plates and cups and various utensils of the dinner-table.

The Englishman noted that though the Lebel rifles stood in a rack in a corner of the room, the long sword-bayonets hung by the pillows of their owners, each near a tin quart-pot and a small sack.

On their beds, a few Légionnaires lay sleeping, or sat laboriously polishing their leatherwork--the senseless, endless and detested astiquage of the Legion--or cleaning their rifles, bayonets, and buttons. Whatever else the Légionnaire is, or is not, he is meticulously clean, neat, and smart, and when his day's work is done (at four or five o'clock) he must start a half-day's work in "making fantasie"--in preparation for the day's work of the morrow.

Rising from his bed in the corner as the party entered, Legionary John Bull approached the Corporal in charge of the room and suggested that the English recruit should be allotted the bed between his own and that of Légionnaire Bronco, as he was of the same mother-tongue, and would make quicker progress in their hands than in those of foreigners. As the Corporal, agreeing, indicated the second bed from the window, to Rupert, and told him to take possession of it and make his paquetage on the shelf above, the Cockney recruit pushed forward:

"'Ere, I'm Henglish too! I better jine these blokes."

"Qu'est-ce-qu'il dit, Jean Boule?" enquired the Corporal.

On being informed, Corporal Achille Martel allotted the fourth bed, that on the other side of the Bucking Bronco, to Recruit Higgins with an intimation that the sooner he learnt French, and ceased the use of barbarous tongues the better it would be for his welfare. The Corporal then assigned berths to the remaining recruits, each between those of two old soldiers, of whom the right-hand man was to be the new recruit's guide, philosopher and friend, until he, in his turn, became a prideful, full-blown Legionary.

The young Russian who had given his name as Mikhail Kyrilovitch Malekov observed that the card at the head of the cot on his right-hand bore the inscription: "Luigi Rivoli, No. 13874, Soldat 2ième Classe."

As he stood, irresolute, and apparently in great anxiety and perturbation, nervously opening and shutting a cartridge-pouch, his face suddenly brightened as his twin entered the room and intercepted the departing Corporal.

"Mille pardons, Monsieur," he said, saluting smartly and respectfully. "But I earnestly and humbly request that you will permit me to inhabit this room in which is my brother. As we reached this door another sous-officier took me and the remainder to the next room when twelve had entered here.... Alas! My brother was twelfth, and I thirteenth," he added volubly. "Look you, Monsieur, he is my twin, and we have never been separated yet. We shall get on much faster and better, helping each other, and be more credit to you and your room, petit père."

"Sacré Dieu, and Name of a Purple Frog! Is this a scurvy and lousy beggar, whining for alms at a mosque door? And am I a God-forsaken and disgusting pékin that you address me as 'Monsieur'? Name of a Pipe! Have I no rank? Address me henceforth as Monsieur le Caporal, thou kopeck-worth of Russian."

"Oui, oui; milles pardons, Monsieur le Caporal. But grant me this favour and I and my brother will be your slaves."

"Va t'en, babillard! Rompez, jaseur!" snarled the Corporal.

But the Russian, true to type, was tenacious. Producing a five-franc piece he scratched his nose therewith, and dropping the wheedling and suppliant tone, asked the testy Corporal if he thought it likely Messieurs les Caporaux of the Seventh Company could possibly be induced to drink the health of so insignificant an object as Recruit Feodor Kyrilovitch Malekov.

"Corporals do not drink with Légionnaires," was the answer, "but doubtless Corporal Gilles of the next room will join me in a drink to the health of a worthy and promising 'blue,'" and, removing his képi, he stretched his gigantic frame and yawned hugely as the Russian dexterously, and apparently unnoticed, slipped the coin into the képi. Having casually examined the lining of his képi, Monsieur le Caporal Martel replaced it on his head, and with astounding suddenness and ferocity pounced upon an ugly, tow-haired German, and with a shout of "Out, pig! Out of my beautiful room! Thy face disfigures it," he hunted him forth and bestowed him upon the neighbouring Corporal, M. Auguste Gilles, together with a promise of ten bottles of Madame la Cantinière's best, out of the thirty-and-five which the Russian's five-franc piece would purchase.

In a moment the Russian had opened negotiations with the Spaniard who had taken the bed next but one to that of Mikhail.

Like all educated Russians, Feodor Kyrilovitch was an accomplished linguist, and, while speaking French and English idiomatically, could get along very comfortably in Spanish, Italian, and German.

A very few minutes enabled him to make it clear to the Spaniard that an exchange of beds would do him no harm, and enrich him by a two-franc piece.

"No hay de que, Señor. Gracias, muchas gracias," replied the Spaniard. "En seguida, con se permiso," and transferred himself and his belongings to the berth vacated by the insulted and dispossessed German.

Meanwhile, Reginald Rupert, with soldierly promptitude, lost no time in setting about the brushing and arrangement of his kit, gathering up, as he did so, the pearls of local wisdom that fell from the lips of his kindly mentor, whose name and description he observed to be "Légionnaire John Bull, No. 11867, Soldat 2ième Classe."

Having shown his pupil the best and quickest way of folding his uniform in elbow-to-finger-tip lengths, and so arranging everything that he could find it in the dark, and array himself en tenue de campagne d'Afrique in ten minutes without a light, he invited him to try his own hand at the job.

"Now you try and make that 'paquetage of the Legion,'" observed the instructor, "and the sooner you learn to make it quickly, the better. As you see, you have no chest for your kit as you had in the British Army, and so you keep your uniform on your shelf, en paquetage, for tidiness and smartness, without creases. The Légionnaire is as chic and particular as the best trooper of the crackest English cavalry-corps. We look down on the piou-piou from a fearful height, and swagger against the Chasseur d'Afrique himself. I wish to God we had spurs, but there's no cavalry in the Legion--though there are kinds of Mounted-Rifle Companies on mules, down South. I miss spurs damnably, even after fourteen years of foot-slogging in the Legion. You can't really swagger without spurs--not that the women will look at a Legionary in any case, or the men respect him, save as a fighter. But you can't swing without spurs."

"No," agreed Rupert, "I was just thinking I should miss them, and it'll take me some time to get used to a night-cap, a neck-curtained képi, a knapsack, and a steel bayonet-scabbard."

"You'll appreciate the first when you sleep out, and the second when you march, down South. The nights are infernally cold, and the days appallingly hot--and yet sunstroke is unknown in the Legion. Some put it down to wearing the overcoat to march in. The steel scabbard is bad--noisy and heavy. The knapsack is the very devil on the march, but it's the one and only place in the world in which you can keep a photo, letter, book, or scrap of private property, besides spare uniform and small kit. You'll soon learn to pack it, to stow underclothing in the haversack, and to know the place for everything, so that you can get from bed to barrack-square, fully equipped and accoutred in nine minutes from the bugle.... And don't, for Heaven's sake, lose anything, for a spiteful N.C.O. can send you to your death in Biribi--that's the Penal Battalion--by running you in two or three times for 'theft of equipment.' Lost kit is regarded as stolen kit, and stolen kit is sold kit (to a court-martial), and the penalty is six months with the Zephyrs. It takes a good man to survive that.... If you've got any money, try and keep a little in hand, so that you can always replace missing kit. The fellows here are appalling thieves--of uniform. It is regarded as a right, natural and proper thing to steal uniforms and kit, and yet we'd nearly kill a man who stole money, tobacco, or food. The former would be 'decorating' yourself, the latter disgracing yourself. We've some queer beasts here, but we're a grand regiment."

The disorderly heap of garments having become an exceedingly neat and ingenious little edifice, compact, symmetrical, and stable, Rupert's instructor introduced the subject of that bane of the Legionary's life--the eternal astiquage, the senseless and eternal polishing of the black leather straps and large cartridge-pouches.

"This stuff looks as though it had been left here by the Tenth Legion of Julius Cæsar, rather than made for the Foreign Legion," he remarked. "Let's see what we can make of it. Watch me do this belt, and then you can try the cartridge-cases. Don't mind firing off all the questions you've got to ask, meanwhile."

"Thanks. What sort of chaps are they in this room?" asked Rupert, seating himself on the bed beside his friendly preceptor, and inwardly congratulating himself on his good luck in meeting, on the threshold of his new career, so congenial and satisfactory a bunk-mate.

"Very mixed," was the reply. "The fellow on the other side of your berth is an American, an ex-U.S.A. army man, miner, lumber-jack, tramp, cow-boy, bruiser, rifle and revolver trick-shooter, and my very dear friend, one of the whitest men I ever met, and one of the most amusing. His French conversation keeps me alive by making me laugh, and he's learning Italian from a twopenny dictionary, and a Travellers' Phrase Book, the better to talk to Carmelita. The next but one is a Neapolitan who calls himself Luigi Rivoli. He used to be a champion Strong Man, and music-hall wrestler, acrobat, and juggler. Did a bit of lion-taming too, or, at any rate, went about with a show that had a cageful of mangy performing lions. He is not really very brave though, but he's a most extraordinary strong brute. Quite a millionaire here too, for Carmelita gives him a whole franc every day of his life."

"What made him enlist then?" asked Rupert, carefully watching the curious astiquage methods, so different from the pipe-clay to which he was accustomed.

"This same girl, and she's worth a thousand of Rivoli. It seems she pretended to turn him down, and take up with some other chap to punish Rivoli after some lover's quarrel or other, and our Luigi in a fit of jealous madness stabbed the other chap in the back, and then bolted and enlisted in the Legion, partly to pay her out, but chiefly to save himself. He was doing a turn at a café-chantant over in Algiers at the time. Of course, Carmelita flung herself in transports of grief, repentance, and self-accusation upon Luigi's enormous bosom, and keeps him in pocket-money while she waits for him. She followed him, and runs a café for Légionnaires here in Sidi-bel-Abbès. She gets scores of offers from our Non-coms., and from Frenchmen of the regular army stationed in Sidi, and her café is a sort of little Italian club. My friend, the Bucking Bronco, proposes to her once a week, but she remains true to Luigi, whom she intends to marry as soon as he has done his time. The swine's carrying on at the same time with Madame la Cantinière, who is a widow, and whose canteen he would like to marry. Between the two women he has a good time, and, thanks to Carmelita's money, gets all his work done for him. The brute never does a stroke. Pays substitutes for all fatigues and corvées, has his kit and accoutrements polished, and his clothes washed. Spends the balance of Carmelita's money at the Canteen, ingratiating himself with Madame! Keeps up his great strength with extra food too. He is a Hercules, and, moreover, seems immune from African fever and le cafard, which is probably due to his escaping three-parts of the work done by the average penniless. And he's as nasty as he is strong."

"What's his particular line of nastiness--besides cheating women I mean?" asked Rupert, who already knew only too well how much depends on the character, conduct, manners, and habits of room-mates with whom one is thrown into daily and nightly intimate contact, year after year, without change, relief, or hope of improvement.

"Oh, he's the Ultimate Bounder," replied the other, as he struck a match and began melting a piece of wax with which to rub his leather belt. "He's the Compleat Cad, and the Finished Bully. He's absolute monarch of the rank-and-file of the Seventh Company by reason of his vast wealth, and vaster strength. Those he does not bribe he intimidates. Remember that the Wages of Virtue here is one halfpenny a day as opposed to the Wages of Sin which is rather worse than death.

"Think of the position of a man who has the income of all in this room put together, in addition to the run of his best girl's own café. What with squaring Non-coms., hiring substitutes, and terrorising 'fags,' he hasn't done a stroke, outside parades of course, since he joined--except hazing recruits, and breaking up opponents of his rule."

"How does he fight?" asked Rupert.

"Well, wrestling's his forte--and he can break the back of any man he gets his arms round--and the rest's a mixture of boxing, ju-jitsu, and la savate, which, as you know, is kicking. Yes, he's a dirty tighter, though it's precious rarely that it comes to what you could call a fight. What I'm waiting for is the most unholy and colossal turn-up that's due to come between him and Buck sooner or later. It's bound to come, and it'll be a scrap worth seeing. Buck has been a professional glove-man among other things, and he holds less conservative views than I do, as to what is permissible against an opponent who kicks, clinches, and butts.... No, fighting's apt to be rather a dirty business here, and, short of a proper duel, a case of stand face to face and do all you can with all Nature's weapons, not forgetting your teeth.... 'C'est la Légion.'"

"How disgustin'!" murmured the young man. "Will this bird trouble me?"

"He will," answered the other, "but I'll take a hand, and then Buck will too. He hates Luigi like poison, and frequently remarks that he has it in for him when the time comes, and Luigi isn't over anxious to tackle him, though he hankers. Doesn't understand him, nor like the look in his eye. Buck is afraid of angering Carmelita if he 'beats up' Rivoli.... Yes, I dare say Buck and I can put the gentle Neapolitan off between us."

Reginald Rupert stiffened.

"I beg that you will in no way interfere," he observed coldly. "I should most strongly resent it."

The heart of the old soldier warmed to the youth, as he contrasted his slim boyish grace with the mighty strength, natural and developed, of the professional Strong Man, Wrestler, and Acrobat--most tricky, cunning, and dangerous of relentless foes.

"You keep clear of Luigi Rivoli as long as you can," he said with a kindly smile. "And at least remember that Buck and I are with you. Personally, I'm no sort of match for our Luigi in a rough-and-tumble nowadays, should he compel one. But he has let me alone since I told him with some definiteness that he would have to defend himself with either lead or steel, if he insisted on trouble between him and me."

"There now," he continued, rising, "now try that for yourself on a cartridge-pouch.... First melt the wax a bit, with a match--and don't forget that matches are precious in the Legion as they're so damned dear--and rub it on the leather as I did. Then take this flat block of wood and smooth it over until it's all evenly spread. And then rub hard with the coarse rag for an hour or two, then harder with the fine rag for about half an hour. Next polish with your palm, and then with the wool. Buck and I own a scrap of velvet which you can borrow before Inspection Parades, and big shows--but we don't use it extravagantly of course....

"Well, that's the astiquage curse, and the other's washing white kit without soap, and ironing it without an iron. Of course, Madame la République couldn't give us glazed leather, or khaki webbing--nor could she afford to issue one flat-iron to a barrack-room, so that we could iron a white suit in less than a couple of hours.... The devil of it is that it's all done in our 'leisure' time when we're supposed to be resting, or recreating.... Think of the British 'Tommy' in India with his dhobi, his barrack-sweeper, his table-servant, and his syce--or his share in them. If we did nothing in the world but our daily polishing, washing and ironing, we should be busy men. However! 'C'est la Legion!' And one won't live for ever.... You won't want any help with the rifle and bayonet, I suppose?"

"No, thanks, I've 'had some,' though I haven't handled a Lebel before," and Reginald Rupert settled down to work while Legionary John Bull proceeded with his toilet.

"Anything else you want to know?" enquired the latter, as he put a final polish upon his gleaming sword-bayonet. "You know enough not to cut your rifle-sling stropping your razor on it.... Don't waste your cake of soap making a candlestick of it. Too rare and precious here."

"Well, thanks very much; the more you tell me, the better for me, if it's not troubling you, Sir."

John Bull paused and looked at the recruit.

"Why do you call me 'Sir'?" he enquired.

"Why? ... Because you are senior and a Sahib, I suppose," replied the youth.

"Thanks, my boy, but don't. I am just Légionnaire John Bull 11867, Soldier of the Second Class. You'll be a soldier of the First Class, and my senior in a few months, I hope.... I suppose you've assumed a nom de guerre too," replied the other, making a mental note that the recruit had served in India. He had already observed that he pointed his toes as he walked, and had a general cavalry bearing.

"Yes, I gave part of my own name; I'm 'Reginald Rupert' now. Didn't see why I should give my own. I've only come to have a look round and learn a bit. Very keen on experiences, especially military ones."

"Merciful God!" ejaculated John Bull softly. "Out for experiences! You'll get 'em, here."

"Keen on seein' life, y'know," explained the young man.

"Much more likely to see death," replied the other. "Do you realise that you're in for five years--and that no money, no influence, no diplomatic representations, no extradition can buy, or beg, or drag you out; and that by the end of five years, if alive, you'll be lucky if you're of any use to the Legion, to yourself, or to anyone else? I, personally, have had unusual luck, and am of unusual physique. I re-enlisted twice, partly because at the end of each five years I was turned loose with nothing in the world but a shapeless blue slop suit--partly for other reasons...."

"Oh! I've only come for a year, and shall desert. I told them so plainly at the enlistment bureau, in Paris," was the ingenuous reply.

The old Legionary smiled.

"A good many of our people desert, at least once," he said, "when under the influence of le cafard--especially the Germans. Ninety-nine per cent come to one of three ends--death, capture, or surrender. Death with torture at the hands of the Arabs; capture, or ignominious return and surrender after horrible sufferings from thirst, starvation and exposure."

"Yes; I heard the Legion was a grand military school, and a pretty warm thing, and that desertion was a bit of a feat, and no disgrace if you brought it off--so I thought I'd have a year of the one, and then a shot at the other," replied the young man coolly. "Also, I was up against it somewhat, and well--you know--seeking sorrow."

"You've come to the right place for it then," observed Legionary John Bull, sheathing his bayonet with a snap, as the door banged open.... "Ah! Enter our friend Luigi," he added as that worthy swaggered into the room with an obsequious retinue, which included le bon Légionnaire Edouard Malvin, looking very smart and dapper in the uniform of Légionnaire Alphonse Dupont of the Eleventh Company.

"Pah! I smell 'blues'! Disgusting! Sickening!" ejaculated Légionnaire Luigi Rivoli in a tremendous voice, and stood staring menacingly from recruit to recruit.

Reginald Rupert, returning his hot, insolent glare with a cold and steady stare, beheld a huge and powerful-looking man with a pale, cruel face, coarsely handsome, wherein the bold, heavily lashed black eyes were set too close together beneath their broad, black, knitted brows, and the little carefully curled black moustache, beneath the little plebeian nose, hid nothing of the over-ripe red lips of an over-small mouth.

"Corpo di Bacco!" he roared in Italian and Legion French. "The place reeks of the stinking 'blues.' Were it not that I now go en ville to dine and drink my Chianti wine (none of your filthy Algerian slops for Luigi Rivoli), and to smoke my sigaro estero at my café, I would fling them all down three flights of stairs," and, like his companions, he commenced stripping off his white uniform. Having bared his truly magnificent arms and chest, he struck an attitude, ostentatiously contracted his huge right biceps, and smote it a resounding smack with the palm of his left hand.

"Aha!" he roared, as all turned to look at him.

"Disgustin' bounder," remarked Reginald Rupert very distinctly, as, with a second shout of "Aha!" Rivoli did the same with the left biceps and right hand, and then bunched the vast pectoralis major muscles of his chest.

"Magnifique:" cried Légionnaire Edouard Malvin, who was laying out his patron's uniform from his paquetage, preparatory to helping him to dress.

"As thou sayest, my gallo, 'C'est magnifique,'" replied Luigi Rivoli, and for five minutes contracted, flexed, and slapped the great muscles of his arms, shoulders, and chest.

"Come hither--thou little bambino Malvin, thou Bad Wine, thou Cattevo Vino Francese, and stand behind me.... What of the back? Canst thou see the 'bull's head' as I set the trapezius, rhomboideus, and latissimus dorsi muscles?"

"As clearly as I see your own head, Main de Fer," replied the Austrian in affected astonishment and wonder. "It is the World's Most Wonderful Back! Why, were Maxick and Saldo, Hackenschmidt, the three Saxons, Sandow--yea--Samson and Hercules themselves here, all would be humiliated and envious."

"Aha!" again bawled Rivoli, "thou art right, piccolo porco," and, sinking to a squatting position upon his raised heels, he rose and fell like a jack-in-the-box for some time, before rubbing and smiting his huge thighs and calves to the accompaniment of explosive shouts. Thereafter, he fell upon his hands and toes, and raised and lowered his stiffened body a few dozen times.

The display finished, he enquired with lordly boredom: "And what are the absurd orders for walking-out dress to-night. Is it blue and red, or blue and white, or overcoats buttoned on the left--or what?"

"Tunic and red, Hercule, and all ready, as you see," replied Malvin, and he proceeded to assist at the toilet of the ex-acrobat, the plutocrat and leader of the rank-and-file of the Seventh Company by virtue of his income of a franc a day, and his phenomenal strength and ferocity.

Turning round that Malvin might buckle his belt and straighten his tunic, the great man's foot touched that of Herbert Higgins (late of Hoxton and the Loyal Whitechapel Regiment) who had been earnestly endeavouring for the past quarter of an hour to follow the instructions of the Bucking Bronco--instructions given in an almost incomprehensible tongue, of choice American and choicer French compact.

Profound disgust, deepening almost to horror, was depicted on the face of the Italian as he bestowed a vicious, hacking kick upon the shin of the offending "blue."

"Body of Bacchus, what is this?" he cried. "Cannot I move without treading in vidanges? Get beneath the bed and out of my sight, cauchemar!"

But far from retreating as bidden, the undersized Cockney rose promptly to his feet with a surprised and aggrieved look upon his face, hitherto expressive only of puzzled bewilderment.

"'Ere! 'Oo yer fink you're a kickin' of?" he enquired, adding with dignity, "I dunno' 'oo yer fink you are. I'm 'Erb 'Iggins, I am, an' don't yer fergit it."

That Mr. Herbert Higgins stood rubbing his injured shin instead of flying at the throat of the Italian, was due in no wise to personal fear, but to an utter ignorance of the rank, importance, and powers of this "narsty-lookin' furriner." He might be some sort of an officer, and to "dot 'im one" might mean lingering gaol, or sudden death. Bitterly he regretted his complete ignorance of the French tongue, and the manners and customs of this strange place. Anyhow, he could give the bloke some lip in good old English.

"Bit too 'andy wiv yer feet, ain't yer? Pretty manners, I don't fink! 'Manners none, an' customs narsty's' abart your mark, ain't it?"

But ere he could proceed with further flowers of rhetoric, and rush in ignorance upon his fate, the huge hand of the American fell upon his shoulder from behind and pressed him back upon his cot.

"Hello, Loojey dear! Throwin' bouquets to yerself agin, air yew? Gittin' fresh agin, air yew, yew greasy Eye-talian, orgin-grindin', ice-cream-barrer-pushin', back-stabbin', garlic-eatin', street-corner, pink-spangled-tights ackerobat," he observed in his own inimitable vernacular, as he unwound his long blue sash preparatory to dressing for the evening.

"Why don't yew per*chase* a barrel-orgin an' take yure dear pal Malvin along on it? Snakes! I guess I got my stummick full o' yew an' Mon-seer Malvin some. I wish yew'd kiss yureself good-bye, Loojey. Yew fair git my goat, yew fresh gorilla! Oui, vous gagnez mon chevre proprement."

"Qu'est-ce qu'il dit?" asked Rivoli, his contemptuously curled lips baring his small, even teeth.

"Keskerdee? Why, yep! We uster hev a bunch o' dirty little' keskerdees' at the ol' Glowin' Star mine, way back in Californey when I was a road-kid. Keskerdees!--so named becos they allus jabbered 'Keskerdee' when spoke to. We uster use their heads fer cleanin' fryin'-pans. 'Keskerdee' is Eye-talian--a kind o' sorter low French," observed the Bucking Bronco.

It is to be feared that his researches into the ethnological and etymological truths of the European nations were limited and unprofitable, in spite of the fact that (like all other Legionaries of any standing) he spoke fluent Legion French on everyday military matters, and studied Italian phrases for the benefit of Carmelita. The Bucking Bronco's conversational method was to express himself idiomatically in the American tongue, and then translate it literally into the language of the benighted foreigner whom he honoured at the moment.

The Italian eyed the American malevolently, and, for the thousandth time, measured him, considered him, weighed him as an opponent in a boxing-wrestling-kicking match, remembered his uncanny magic skill with rifle and revolver, and, for the thousandth time, postponed the inevitable settlement, misliking his face, his mouth, his eye, and his general manner, air, and bearing.

"Give some abominable 'bleu' the honour of lacing the boots of Luigi Rivoli," he roared, turning with a contemptuous gesture from the American and the Cockney, to his henchman, Malvin. Fixing his eye upon the swarthy, spike-moustached Austrian, who sat at the foot of the bed opposite his own, he added:

"Here, dog, the privilege is thine. Allez schieblos"[#] and thrust out the unlaced boots that Malvin had pulled on to his feet.

[#] A curious piece of Legion "French" meaning "Be quick."

The Austrian, squatting dejected, with his head between his fists, affected not to understand, and made no move.

"Koom. Adji inna. Balek! fahesh beghla,"[#] adjured the Italian, airing his Arabic, and insulting his intended victim by addressing him as though he were a native.

[#] "Get up. Come here. Take care! You ugly mule."

The Austrian did not stir.

"Quick," hissed the Italian, and pointed to his boots that there might be no mistake.

The Austrian snarled.

"Bring it to me," said the great man, and, in a second, the recruit was run by the collar of his tunic, his ears, his twisted wrists, his woolly hair, and by a dozen willing hands, to the welcoming arms of the bully.

"Oh, thou deserter from the Straf Bataillon,"[#] growled the latter. A sudden grab, a swift twist, and the Austrian was on his face, his elbows meeting and overlapping behind his back, and his arms drawn upward and backward. He shrieked.

[#] Penal battalion.

A quick jerk and he was on his feet, and then swung from the ground face downward, his wrists behind him in one of Rivoli's big hands, his trouser-ends in the other. Placing his foot in the small of the Austrian's back, the Italian appeared to be about to break the spine of his victim, whose screams were horrible to hear. Dashing him violently to the ground, Rivoli re-seated himself, and thrust forward his right foot. Groaning and gasping, the cowed Austrian knelt to his task, but, fumbling and failing to give satisfaction, received a kick in the face.

Reginald Rupert dropped the cartridge-pouch which he was polishing, and stepped forward, only to find himself thrust back by a sweep of the American's huge arm, which struck him in the chest like an iron bar, and to be seized by Légionnaire John Bull who quietly remarked:

"Mind your own business, recruit.... C'est la Légion!"

No one noticed that the Russian, Mikhail, was white and trembling, and that his brother came and led him to the other end of the room.

"Bungler! Polisson! Coquin! Lick the soles of my boots and go," cried Rivoli, and, as the lad hesitated, he rose to his feet.

Cringing and shrinking, the wretched "blue" hastened to obey, thrust forth his tongue, and, as the boot was raised, obediently licked the nether surface and the edges of the sole until its owner was satisfied.

"Austria's proper attitude to Italy," growled the bully. "Now lick the other...."

Le Légionnaire Luigi Rivoli might expect prompt obedience henceforth from le Légionnaire Franz Joseph Meyer.

Standing in the ring of amused satellites was the evil-looking Apache, a deeply interested spectator of this congenial and enjoyable scene. His hang-dog face caught the eye of the Italian.

"Come hither, thou blanc-bec," quoth he. "Come hither and show this vaurien how to lace the boots of a gentleman."

The Apache obeyed with alacrity, and, performing the task with rapidity and skill, turned to depart.

"A nimble-fingered sharper," observed the Italian, and, rising swiftly, bestowed a shattering kick upon the retreating Frenchman. Recovering his balance after the sudden forward propulsion, the Apache wheeled round like lightning, bent double, and flew at his assailant. Courage was his one virtue, and he was the finest exponent of the art of butting in all the purlieus and environs of Montmartre, and had not only laid out many a good bourgeois, but had overcome many a rival, by this preliminary to five minutes' strenuous kicking with heavy boots. If he launched himself--a one-hundred-and-fifty pound projectile--with his hard skull as battering-ram, straight at the stomach of his tormentor, that astounded individual ought to go violently to the ground, doubled up, winded and helpless. A score of tremendous kicks would then teach him that an Apache King (and he, none other than Tou-Tou Boil-the-Cat, doyen of the heroes of the Rue de Venise, Rue Pirouette, and Rue des Innocents, caveau-knight and the beloved of the beauteous Casque d'Or) was not a person lightly to be trifled with.

But if Monsieur Tou-Tou Boil-the-Cat was a Roi des Apaches, Luigi Rivoli was an acrobat and juggler, and, to mighty strength, added marvellous poise, quickness and skill.

"Ça ne marche pas, gobemouche," he remarked, and, at the right moment, his knee shot up with tremendous force and crashed into the face of the butting Apache. For the first time the famous and terrible attack of the King of the Paris hooligans had failed. When the unfortunate monarch regained his senses, some minutes later, and took stock of his remaining teeth and features, he registered a mental memorandum to the effect that he would move along the lines of caution, rather than valour, in his future dealings with the Légionnaire Luigi Rivoli--until his time came.

"Je m'en souviendrai," said he....

An interesting object-lesson in the effect, upon a certain type of mind, of the methods of the Italian was afforded by the conduct of a Greek recruit, named Dimitropoulos. Stepping forward with ingratiating bows and smiles, as the unfortunate M. Tou-Tou was stretched senseless on the floor, he proclaimed himself to be the best of the lustroi of the city of Corinth, and begged for the honour and pleasure of cleaning the boots of Il Signor Luigi Rivoli.

Oh, but yes; a lustros of the most distinguished, look you, who had polished the most eminent boots in Greece at ten leptas a time. Alas! that he had not all his little implements and sponges, his cloth of velvet, his varnish for the heel. Had he but the tools necessary to the true artist in his profession, the boots of Il Illustrissimo Signor should be then and thenceforth of a brightness dazzling and remarkable.

As he gabbled, the Greek scrubbed at Rivoli's boots with a rag and the palm of his hand. Evidently the retinue of the great man had been augmented by one who would be faithful and true while his patron's strength and money lasted. As, at the head of his band of henchmen and parasites, the latter hero turned to leave the barrack-room with a shout of "Allons, mes enfants d'Enfer," he bent his lofty brow upon, cocked his ferocious eye at, and turned his haughty regard toward the remaining recruits, finishing with Reginald Rupert:

"I will teach useful tricks to you little dogs later," he promised. "You shall dance me the rigolboche, and the can-can," and swaggered out....

"Nice lad," observed Rupert, looking up from his work--and wondered what the morrow might bring forth. There should be a disappointed Luigi, or a dead Rupert about, if it came to interference and trouble.

"Sure," agreed Légionnaire Bronco, seating himself on the bed beside his beloved John Bull. "He's some stiff, that guy, an' I allow it'll soon be up ter me ter conduct our Loojey ter the bone-orchard. He's a plug-ugly. He's a ward-heeler. Land sakes! I wants ter punch our Loojey till Hell pops; an' when it comes ter shootin' I got Loojey skinned a mile--sure thing. J'ai Loojey écorché un mille.... Nope, there ain't 'nuff real room fer Looje an' me in Algery--not while Carmelita's around....

"Say, John," he continued, turning to his friend, "she up an' axed me las' night ef he ever went ter the Canteen an' ef Madam lar Canteenair didn't ever git amakin' eyes at her beautiful Looje! Yep! It is time Loojey kissed hisself good-bye."

"Oh? What did you tell her?" enquired John Bull. "There is no doubt the swine will marry the Canteen if he can. More profitable than poor little Carmelita's show. He is a low stinker, and she's one of the best and prettiest and pluckiest little women who ever lived.... She's so débrouillarde."

"Wot did I say? Wal, John, wot I ses was--'Amakin' eyes at yure Loojey, my dear.' I ses, 'Madam lar Canteenair is a woman with horse-sense an' two eyes in 'er 'ead. She wouldn't look twice at a boastin', swankin', fat-slappin', back-stabbin', dime-show ackerobat,' I ses. 'Yure Loojey flaps 'is mouth too much. Il frappe sa bouche trop,' I ses. But I didn't tell her as haow 'e's amakin' up ter Madam lar Canteenaire all his possible. She wouldn't believe it of 'im. She wouldn't even believe that 'e goes ter the Canteen. I only ses: 'Yure Loojey's a leary lipper so don't say as haow I ain't warned yer, Carmelita honey,' I ses--an' I puts it inter copper-bottomed Frencho langwago also. Yep!"

"What did Carmelita say?" asked John Bull.

"Nix," was the reply. "It passes my com*pre*hension wot she sees in that fat Eye-talian ice-cream trader. Anyhaow, it's up ter Hiram C. Milton ter git upon his hind legs an' ferbid the bangs ef she goes fer ter marry a greasy orgin-grinder ... serposin' he don't git Madam lar Canteenair," and the Bucking Bronco sighed deeply, produced some strong, black Algerian tobacco, and asked High Heaven if he might hope ever again to stuff some real Tareyton Mixture (the best baccy in the world) into his "guley-brooley"--whereby Legionary John Bull understood him to mean his brûle-gueule, or short pipe--and relapsed into lethargic and taciturn apathy.

"How would you like a prowl round?" asked John Bull, of Rupert.

"Nothing better, thank you, if you think I could pass the Sergeant of the Guard before being dismissed recruit-drills."

"Oh, that'll be all right if you are correctly dressed. Hop into the tunic and red breeches and we'll try it. You're free until five-thirty to-morrow morning, and can do some more at your kit when we return. We'll go round the barracks and I'll show you the ropes before we stroll round Sidi-bel-Abbès, and admire the wonders of the Rue Prudon, Rue Montagnac, and Rue de Jerusalem. Our band is playing at the Military Club to-night, and the band of the Première Légion Étrangère is the finest band in the whole world--largely Germans and Poles. We are allowed to listen at a respectful distance. We'll look in at the Village d'Espagnol, the Mekerra, and the Faubourg des Palmiers another time, as they're out of bounds. Also the Village Négre if you like, but if we're caught there we get a month's hard labour, if not solitary confinement and starvation in the foul and stinking cellules--because we're likely to be killed in the Village Négre."

"Let's go there now," suggested Rupert eagerly, as he buttoned his tunic.

"No, my boy. Wait until you know what cellule imprisonment really is, before you risk it. You keep out of the trou just as long as you can. It's different from the Stone Jug of a British regiment--very. Don't do any rabiau[#] until you must. We'll be virtuous to-night, and when you must go out of bounds, go with me. I'll take you to see Carmelita this evening at the Café de la Légion, and we'll look in on Madame la Cantinière, at the Canteen, before the Last Post at nine o'clock.... Are you coming, Buck?"

[#] Time spent in prison or in the Penal Battalions--which does not count towards the five years period of service.

And these three modern musketeers left the chambrée of their caserne and clattered down the stone stairs to the barrack-square.

CHAPTER III

CARMELITA ET CIE

"Those boots comfortable?" asked John Bull as they crossed the great parade-ground.

"Wonderfully," replied Rupert. "I could do a march in them straight away. Fine boots too."

"Yes," agreed the other. "That's one thing you can say for the Legion kit, the boots are splendid--probably the best military boots in the world. You'll see why, before long."

"Long marches?"

"Longest done by any unit of human beings. Our ordinary marches would be records for any other infantry, and our forced marches are incredible--absolute world's records. They call us the 'Cavalerie à pied' in the Service, you know. One of the many ways of killing us is marching us to death, to keep up the impossible standard. Buck, here, is our champion."

"Waal, yew see--I strolled crost Amurrica ten times," apologised the Bronco, "ahittin' the main drag, so I oughter vamoose some. Yep! I can throw me feet considerable."

"I've never been a foot-slogger myself," admitted Rupert, "but I've Mastered a beagle pack, and won a few running pots at school and during my brief 'Varsity career. What are your distances?"

"Our minimum, when marching quietly out of barracks and back, without a halt is forty kilometres under our present Colonel, who is known in the Legion as The Marching Pig, and we do it three or four times a week. On forced marches we do anything that is to be done, inasmuch as it is the unalterable law of the Legion that all forced marches must be done in one march. If the next post were forty miles away or even fifty, and the matter urgent, we should go straight on without a halt, except the usual 'cigarette space,' or five minutes in every hour, until we got there. I assure you I have very often marched as much as six hundred kilometres in fifteen days, and occasionally much more. And we carry the heaviest kit in the world--over a hundred-weight, in full marching order."

"What is a kilometre?" asked the interested Rupert.

"Call it five furlongs."

"Then an ordinary day's march is about thirty miles without a halt, and you may have to do four hundred miles straight off, at the rate of twenty-five consecutive miles a day? Good Lord above us!"

"Yes, my own personal record is five hundred and sixty miles in nineteen days, without a rest day--under the African sun and across sand...."

"I say--what's this game?" interrupted Rupert, as the three turned a corner and entered a small square between the rear of the caserne of the Fourth Company and the great barrack-wall--a square of which all exits were guarded by sentries with fixed bayonets. Round and round in a ring at a very rapid quick-step ran a dismal procession of suffering men, to the monotonously reiterated order of a Corporal--

"A droit, droit. A droit, droit. A droit, droit."

Their blanched, starved-looking faces, glazed eyes, protruding tongues and doubled-up bodies made them a doleful spectacle. On each man's back was a burden of a hundred pounds of stones. On each man's emaciated face, a look of agony, and on the canvas-clad back of one man, a great stain of wet blood from a raw wound caused by the cutting and rubbing of the stone-laden knapsack. Each man wore a fatigue-uniform, filthy beyond description.

"Why the hell can't they be set ter sutthin' useful--hoein' pertaties, or splittin' rails, or chewin' gum--'stead o' that silly strain-me-heart and break-me-sperrit game on empty stummicks twice a day?" observed the Bucking Bronco.

Every panting, straining, gasping wretch in that pitiable peloton des hommes punis looked as though his next minute must be his last, his next staggering step bring him crashing to the ground. What could the dreadful alternative be, the fear of which kept these suffering, starving wretches on their tottering, failing legs? Why would they not collapse, in spite of Nature? Fear of the Legion's prison? No, they were all serving periods in the Legion's prison already, and twice spending three hours of each prison-day in this agony. Fear of the Legion's Hospital? Yes, and of the Penal Battalion afterwards.

"What sort of crimes have they committed?" asked Rupert, as they turned with feelings of personal shame from the sickening sight.

"Oh, all sorts, but I'm afraid a good many of them have earned the enmity of some Non-com. As a rule, a man who wants to, can keep out of that sort of thing, but there's a lot of luck in it. One gets run in for a lost strap, a dull button, a speck of rust on rifle or bayonet, or perhaps for being slow at drill, slack in saluting, being out of bounds, or something of that sort. A Sergeant gives him three days' confinement to barracks, and enters it in the livre de punitions. Very likely, the Captain, feeling liverish when he examines the book, makes it eight days' imprisonment. That's not so bad, provided the Commander of the Battalion does not think it might be good for discipline for him to double it. And that again is bearable so long as the Colonel does not think the scoundrel had better have a month--and imprisonment, though only called 'Ordinary Arrest,' carries with it this beastly peloton de chasse. Still, as I say, a good man and keen soldier can generally keep fairly clear of salle de police and cellule."

"So Non-coms. can punish off their own bat, in the Legion, can they?" enquired Rupert as they strolled toward the main gate.

"Yes. The N.C.O. is an almighty important bird here, and you have to salute him like an officer. They can give extra corvée, confinement to barracks, and up to eight days' salle de police, and give you a pretty bad time while you're doing it, too. In peace time, you know, the N.C.O.s run the Legion absolutely. We hardly see our officers except on marches, or at manoeuvres. Splendid soldiers, but they consider their duty is to lead us in battle, not to be bothered with us in peace. The N.C.O.s can do the bothering for them. Of course, we're pretty frequently either demonstrating, or actually fighting on the Southern, or the Moroccan border, and then an officer's job is no sinecure. They are real soldiers--but the weak spot is that they avoid us like poison, in barracks."

"We're mostly foreigners, of course," he continued, "half German, and not very many French, and there's absolutely none of that mutual liking and understanding which is the strength of the British Army.... And naturally, in a corps like this, they've got to be severe and harsh to the point of cruelty. After all, it's not a girls' school, is it? But take my advice, my boy, and leave the Legion's punishment system of starvation, over-work, and solitary confinement outside your 'experiences' as much as possible...."

"I say--what a ghastly, charnel-house stink," remarked the recipient of this good advice, as the trio passed two iron-roofed buildings, one on each side of the closed main-entrance of the barracks. "I noticed it when I first came in here, but I was to windward of it I suppose. It's the bally limit. Poo-o-oh!"

"Yes, you live in that charming odour all night, if you get salle de police for any offence, and all day as well, if you get 'arrest' in the regimental lock-up--except for your two three-hour turns of peloton des hommes punis. It's nothing at this distance, but wait until you're on sentry-go in one of those barrack-prisons. There's a legend of a runaway pig that took refuge in one, gave a gasp, and fell dead.... Make Dante himself envious if he could go inside. The truth of that Inferno is much stranger than the fiction of his."

"Yep," chimed in the American. "But what gits my goat every time is cellules. Yew squats on end in a dark cell fer the whole of yure sentence, an' yew don't go outside it from start to finish, an' thet may be thirty days. Yew gits a quarter-ration o' dry bread an' a double ration of almighty odour. 'Nuff ter raise the roof, but it don't do it. No exercise, no readin', no baccy, no nuthin'. There yew sits and there yew starves, an' lucky ef yew don't go balmy...."

"I hope we get you past the Sergeant of the Guard," interrupted John Bull. "Swank it thick as we go by."

The cold eye of the Sergeant ran over the three Legionaries as they passed through the little side wicket without blazing into wrath over any lack of smartness and chic in their appearance.

"One to you," said John Bull, as they found themselves safe in the shadow of the Spahis' barracks outside. "If you had looked too like a recruit he'd have turned you back, on principle...."

To Reginald Rupert the walk was full of interest, in spite of the fact that the half-vulgar, half-picturesque Western-Eastern appearance of the town was no novelty. He had already seen all that Sidi-bel-Abbès could show, and much more, in Algiers, Tangiers, Cairo, Alexandria, Port Said, and Suez. But, with a curious sense of proprietorship, he enjoyed listening to the distant strains of the band--their "own" band. To see thousands of Legionaries, Spahis, Turcos, Chasseurs d'Afrique, Sapeurs, Tirailleurs, Zouaves, and other French soldiery, from their own level, as one of themselves, was what interested him. Here was a new situation, here were new conditions, necessities, dangers, sufferings, relationships. Here, in short, were entirely new experiences....

"This is the Rue Prudon," observed John Bull. "It separates the Military goats on the west, from the Civil sheep on the east. Not that you'll find them at all 'civil' though.... Reminds me of a joke I heard our Captain telling the Colonel at dinner one night when I was a Mess Orderly. A new man had taken over the Grand Hotel, and he wrote to the Mess President to say he made a speciality of dinner-parties for Military and Civilised officers! Bit rough on the Military, what?"

Having crossed the Rue Prudon rubicon, and invaded the Place de Quinconces with its Palais de Justice and prison, the Promenade Publique with its beautiful trees, and the Rue Montagnac with its shops and life and glitter, the three Legionaries quitted the quarter of electric arc-lights, brilliant cafés, shops, hotels, aperitif-drinking citizens, promenading French-women, newspaper kiosks, loitering soldiers, shrill hawkers of the Echo d'Oran, white-burnoused Arabs (who gazed coldly upon the hated Franswazi, and bowed to officials with stately dignity, arms folded on breast), quick-stepping Chasseurs, scarlet-cloaked Spahis, and swaggering Turcos, crossed the Place Sadi Carnot, and made for the maze of alleys, slums, and courts (the quarter of the Spanish Jews, town Arabs, hadris, odjar-wearing women, Berbers, Negroes, half-castes, semi-Oriental scum, "white trash," and Legionaries), in one of which was situated Carmelita's Café de la Légion.

§2

La Belle Carmelita, black-haired, red-cheeked, black-eyed, red-lipped, lithe, swift, and graceful, sat at the receipt of custom. Carmelita's Café de la Légion was for the Legion, and had to make its profits out of men whose pay is one halfpenny a day. It is therefore matter for little surprise that it compared unfavourably with Voisin's, the Café de la Paix, the Pré Catalan, Maxim's, the Café Grossenwahn, the Das Prinzess Café, the restaurants of the Place Pigalle, Le Rat Mort, or even Les Noctambules, Le Cabaret de l'Enfer, the Chat Noir, the Elysée Montmartre, and the famous and infamous caveaux of Le Quartier--in the eyes of those Legionaries who had tried some, or all, of these places.

However, it had four walls, a floor, and a roof; benches and a large number of tables and chairs, many of which were quite reliable. It had a bar, it had Algerian wine at one penny the bottle, it had vert-vert and tord-boyaud and bapédi and shum-shum. It had really good coffee, and really bad cigarettes. It had meals also--but above all, and before all, it had a welcome. A welcome for the Legionary. The man to whose presence the good people of Sidi-bel-Abbès (French petty officials, half-castes, Spanish Jews, Arabs, clerks, workmen, shopkeepers, waiters, and lowest-class bourgeoisie) took exception at the bandstand, in the Gardens, in the Cafés, in the very streets; the man from the contamination of whose touch the very cocottes, the demi-mondaines, the joyless filles de joie, even the daughters of the pavement; drew aside the skirts of their dingy finery (for though the Wages of Virtue are a halfpenny a day for the famous Legion, the Wages of Sin are more for the infamous legion); the man at whom even the Goums, the Arab gens-d'armes shouted as at a pariah dog, this man, the Soldier of the Legion, had a welcome in Carmelita's Café. There were two women in all the world who would endure to breathe the same air as the sad Sons of the Legion--Madame la Cantinière (official fille du régiment) and Carmelita. Is it matter for wonder that the Legion's sons loved them--particularly Carmelita, who, unlike Madame, was under no obligation to shed the light of her countenance upon them? Any man in the Legion might speak to Carmelita provided he spoke as a gentleman should speak to a lady--and did not want to be pinned to her bar by the ears, and the bayonets of his indignant brothers-in-arms--any man who might speak to no other woman in the world outside the Legion. (Madame la Cantinière is inside the Legion, bien entendu, and always married to it in the person of one of its sons.) She would meet him as an equal for the sake of her beautiful, wonderful, adored Luigi Rivoli, his brother-in-arms. Perhaps one must be such an outcast that the sight of one causes even painted lips to curl in contemptuous disdain; such a thing that one is deterred from entering decent Cafés, decent places of amusement and decent boulevards; so low that one is strictly doomed to the environment of one's prison, or the slums, and to the society of one's fellow dregs, before one can appreciate the attitude of the Sons of the Legion to Carmelita. They revered her as they did not revere the Mother of God, and they, broken and crucified wretches, envied Luigi Rivoli as they did not envy the repentant thief absolved by Her Son.

She, Carmelita, welcomed them, Legionaries! It is perhaps comprehensible if not excusable, that the attitude of Madame la Cantinière was wholly different, that she hated Carmelita as a rival, and with single heart, double venom and treble voice, denounced her, her house, her wine, her coffee, and all those chenapans and sacripants her clients.

"Merde!" said Madame la Cantiniére. "That which makes the slums of Naples too hot for it, is warm indeed! Naples! Ma foi! Why Monsieur Le Bon Diable himself must be reluctant when his patrol runs in a prisonnier from Naples to the nice clean guard-room and cellules in his Hell ... Naples! ... La! La!..." which was unkind and unfair of Madame, since the very worst she knew of Carmelita was the fact that she kept a Café whereat the Legionaries spent their half-pence. It is not (rightly or wrongly) in itself an indictable offence to be a Neapolitan.

So the Legion loved Carmelita, Madame la Cantiniére hated her, the Bucking Bronco worshipped her, John Bull admired her, le bon M. Edouard Malvin desired her, and Luigi Rivoli owned her--body, soul and cash-box--what time he sought to do the same for Madame la Cantinière whose body and cash-box were as much larger than those of Carmelita as her soul was smaller.

Between two fools one comes to the ground--sometimes--but Luigi intended to come to a bed of roses, and to have a cash-box beneath it. One of the fools should marry and support him, preferably the richer fool, and meantime, oh the subtlety, the cleverness, the piquancy--of being loved and supported by both while marrying neither! Many a time as he lay on his cot while a henchman polished the great cartridge-pouches (that earned the Legion the sobriquet of "the Leather-Bellies" from the Russians in the Crimea), the belts, the buttons, the boots, and the rifle and bayonet of the noble Luigi, while another washed his fatigue uniforms and underclothing, that honourable man would chuckle aloud as he saw himself frequently cashing a ten-franc piece of Carmelita's at Madame's Canteen, and receiving change for a twenty-franc piece from the fond, yielding Madame. Ten francs too much, a sigh too many, and a kiss too few--for Madame did not kiss, being, contrary to popular belief with regard to vivandières in general, and the Legion's vivandière in particular, of rigid virtue, oh, but yes, of a respectability profound and colossal--during "vacation." Her present vacation had lasted for three months, and Madame felt it was time to replace le pauvre Etienne Baptiste--cut in small pieces by certain Arab ladies. Madame was a business woman, Madame needed a husband in her business, and Madame had an eye for a fine man. None finer than Luigi Rivoli, and Madame had never tried an Italian. Husbands do not last long in the Legion, and Madame had had three French, one Belgian, and one Swiss (seriatim, bien entendu). No, none finer in the whole Legion than Rivoli. None, nom de Dieu! But a foreign husband may be a terrible trial, look you, and an Italian is a foreigner in a sense that a French-speaking Belgian or Swiss is not. No, an Italian is not a Frenchman even though he be a Légionnaire. And there were tales of him and this vile shameless creature from Naples, who decoyed les braves Légionnaires from their true and lawful Canteen to her noisome den in the foul slums, there to spend their hard-earned sous on her poisonous red-ink wine, her muddy-water coffee, and her--worse things. Yes, that cunning little fox le Légionnaire Edouard Malvin had thrown out hints to Madame about this Neapolitan ragazza--but then, ce bon M. Malvin was himself a suitor for Madame's hand--as well as a most remarkable liar and rogue. Perhaps 'twould be as well to accept ce beau Luigi at once, marry him immediately, and see that he spent his evenings helping in the Canteen bar, instead of gallivanting after Neapolitan hussies of the bazaar. Men are but men--and sirens are sirens. What would you? And Luigi so gay and popular. Small blame that he should stray when Madame was unkind or coy.... Yes, she would do it, if only to spite this Neapolitan cat.... But--he was a foreigner and something of a rogue--and incredibly strong. Still, Madame had tamed more than one recalcitrant husband by knocking the bottom off an empty bottle and stabbing him in the face with it. And however strong one's husband might be, he must, like Sisera, sleep sometimes.

The beautiful Luigi would hate to be awakened with a bottomless bottle, and would not need it more than once.... And the business soul of scheming, but amorous Madame, much troubled, still halted between two opinions--while the romantic and simple soul of loving little Carmelita remained steadfast, and troubled but little. Just a little, because the fine gentilhomme, Légionnaire Jean Boule, and the great, kind Légionnaire Bouckaing Bronceau, and certain others, seemed somehow to warn her against her Luigi; seemed to despise him, and hint at treachery. She did not count the sly Belgian (or Austrian) Edouard Malvin. The big stupid Americano was jealous, of course, but Il Signor Inglese was not and he was--oh, like a Reverend Father--so gentle and honest and good. But no, her Luigi could not be false, and the next Légionnaire who said a word against him should be forbidden Le Café de la Légion, ill as it could afford to lose even halfpenny custom--what with the rent, taxes, bakshish to gens-d'armes, service, cooking, lighting, wine, spirits, coffee, and Luigi's daily dinner, Chianti and franc pocket-money.... If only that franc could be increased--but one must eat, or get so thin--and the great Luigi liked not skinny women. What was a franc a day to such a man as Luigi, her Luigi, strongest, finest, handsomest of men?--and but for her he would never have been in this accursed Legion. Save for her aggravating wickedness, he would never have stabbed poor Guiseppe Longigotto and punished her by enlisting. How great and fine a hero of splendid vengeance! A true Neapolitan, yet how magnanimous when punishment was meted! He had forgiven--and forgotten--the dead Guiseppe, and he had forgiven her, and he accepted her miserable franc, dinner and Chianti wine daily. Also he had allowed her--miserable ingrate that she had been to annoy him and make him jealous--to find the money that had mysteriously but materially assisted in procuring the perpetual late-pass that allowed him to remain with her till two in the morning, long after all the other poor Légionnaires had returned to their dreadful barracks. Noble Luigi! Yet there were people who coupled his name with that of wealthy Madame la Cantinière in the barrack yonder.

She had overheard Légionnaires doing it, here in her own Café, though they had instantly and stoutly denied it when accused, and had looked furtive and ashamed. Absurd, jealous wretches, whose heads Luigi could knock together as easily as she could click her castanets....

Almost time that the Légionnaires began to drop in for their litre and their tasse--and Carmelita rose and went to the door of the Café de la Légion and looked down the street toward the Place Sadi Carnot. One of three passing Chasseurs d'Afrique made a remark, the import of which was not lost on the Italian girl though the man spoke in Paris slum argot.

"If Monsieur would but give himself the trouble to step inside and sit down for a moment," said Carmelita in Legion-French, "Monsieur's question shall be answered by Luigi Rivoli of La Legion. Also he will remove Monsieur's pretty uniform and scarlet ceinturon and will do for Monsieur what Monsieur's mamma evidently neglected to do for Monsieur when Monsieur was a dirty little boy in the gutter.... Monsieur will not come in as he suggested? Monsieur will not wait a minute? No? Monsieur is a very wise young gentleman...."

An Arab Spahi swaggered past and leered.

"Sabeshad zareefeh chattaha," said he, "saada atinee."

"Roh! Imshi!" hissed Carmelita and Carmelita's hand went to her pocket in a significant manner, and Carmelita spat.

A Greek ice-cream seller lingered and ogled.

"Bros!" snapped Carmelita with a jerk of her thumb in the direction in which the young person should be going.

A huge Turco, with a vast beard, brought his rolling swagger to a halt at her door and made to enter.

"Destour!" said the tiny Carmelita to the giant, pointed to the street and stared him unwaveringly in the eye until, grinning sheepishly, he turned and went.

Carmelita did not like Turcos in general, and detested this one in particular. He was too fond of coming when he knew the Café to be empty of Légionnaires.

An old Spanish Jew paused in his shuffle to ask for a cigarette.

"Varda!" replied Carmelita calmly, with the curious thumb-jerking gesture of negation, distinctive of the uneducated Italian.

A most cosmopolitan young woman, and able to give a little of his own tongue to any dweller in Europe and to most of those in Northern Africa. Not in the least a refined young woman, however, and her many accomplishments not of the drawing-room. Staunch, courageous, infinitely loving, utterly honest, loyal, reliable, and very self-reliant, she was, upon occasion, it is to be feared, more emphatic than delicate in speech, and more uncompromising than ladylike in conduct. She was not une maîtresse vierge, and her standards and ideals were not those of the Best Suburbs. You see, Carmelita had begun to earn her own living at the unusually early age of three, and earned it in coppers on a dirty rug, on a dirtier Naples quay, for a decade or so, until at the age of fourteen, or fifteen, she, together with her Mamma, her reputed Papa, her sister and her brother, performed painful acrobatic feats on the edge of the said quay for the delectation of the passengers of the big North German Lloyd and other steamers that tied up thereat for purposes of embarkation and debarkation, and for the reception of coal and the discharge of cargo.

At the age of fifteen, Carmelita, most beautiful of form and coarsely beautiful of face, of perfect health, grace, poise, and carriage, fell desperately in love with the great Signor Carlo Scopinaro, born Luigi Rivoli, a star of her own firmament but of far greater magnitude.

Luigi Rivoli, one of a troupe of acrobats who performed at the Naples Scala, Vésuvie, and Variétés, meditating setting up on his own account as Strong Man, Acrobat, Juggler, Wrestler, Dancer, and Professor of Physical Culture, was, to the humble "tumbler" of the quay, as the be-Knighted Actor-Manager of a West End Theatre to the last joined chorus girl, or walking-lady on his boards. And yet the great Signor Carlo Scopinaro, born Luigi Rivoli, meditating desertion from his troupe and needing an "assistant," deigned to accept the services and whole-souled adoration of the girl who was as much more skilful as she was less powerful than he.

When, in her perfect, ardent, and beautiful love, her reckless and uncounting adoration, she gave herself, mind, body and soul, to her hero and her god, he accepted the little gift "without prejudice"--as the lawyers say. "Without prejudice" to Luigi's future, that is.

During their short engagement at the Scala--terminated by the Troupe's earnest endeavour to assassinate the defaulting and defalcating Luigi, and her family's endeavour to maim Carmelita for setting up on her own account, and deserting her loving "parents"--it was rather the girl whom the public applauded for her wonderful back-somersaults, contortions, hand-walking, Catherine-wheels, trapeze-work, and dancing, than the man for his feats with dumb-bells of doubtful solidity, his stereotyped ball-juggling, his chain-breaking, and weight-lifting, his muscle-slapping and Ha! shouting, his posturing and grimacing, and his issuing of challenges to wrestle any man in the world for any sum he liked to name, and in any style known to science. And, when engagements at the lower-class halls and cafés of Barcelona, Marseilles, Toulon, Genoa, Rome, Brindisi, Venice, Trieste, Corinth, Athens, Constantinople, Port Said, Alexandria, Messina, Valetta, Algiers, Oran, Tangiers, or Casa Blanca were obtained, it was always, and obviously, the girl, rather than the man, who decided the proprietor or manager to engage them, and who won the applause of his patrons.

When times were bad, as after Luigi's occasional wrestling defeats and during the bad weeks of Luigi's typhoid, convalescence, and long weakness at Marseilles, it was Carmelita, the humbler and lesser light, who (the Halls being worked out) tried desperately to keep the wolf from the door by returning to the quay-side business, and, for dirty coppers, exhibiting to passengers, coal-trimmers, cargo-workers, porters and loafers, the performances that had been subject of signed contracts and given on fine stages in beautiful music-halls and cafés, to refined and appreciative audiences. Incidentally the girl learned much French (little knowing how useful it was to prove), as well as smatterings of Spanish, Greek, Turkish, English and Arabic.

So Carmelita had "assisted" the great Luigi in the times of his prosperity and had striven to maintain him in eclipse, by quay-side, public-house, workmen's dinner-hour, low café, back-yard, gambling-den, and wine-shop exhibitions of her youthful skill, grace, agility, and beauty--and had failed to make enough by that means. To the end of her life poor Carmelita could never, never forget that terrible time at Marseilles, try as she might to thrust it into the background of her thoughts. For there, ever there, in the background it remained, save when called to cruel prominence by some mischance, or at rare intervals by the noble Luigi himself, when displeased by some failure on the part of Carmelita. A terrible, terrible memory, for Carmelita's nature was essentially virginal, delicate, and of crystal purity. Where she loved she gave all--and Luigi was to Carmelita as much her husband as if they had been married in every church they had passed, in every cathedral they had seen, and by every padre they had met....

A terrible, terrible memory.... But Luigi's life was at stake and what true woman, asked Carmelita, would not have taken the last step of all (when every other failed) to raise the money necessary for doctors, medicine, delicacies, food, fuel, and lodging? If, by thrusting her right hand into the fire, Carmelita could have burnt away those haunting and corroding Marseilles memories, then into the fire her right hand would have been thrust. Yet, side by side with the self-horror and self-disgust was no remorse nor repentance. If, to-morrow, Luigi's life could only thus again be saved, thus saved should it be, as when at Marseilles he lay convalescent but dying for lack of the money wherewith to buy the delicacies that would save him.... Luigi's life always, and at any time, before Carmelita's scruples and shrinkings.

In return, Luigi had been kind to her and had often spoken of matrimony--some day--in spite of what she had done at Marseilles when he was too ill to look after her, and provide her with all she needed. Once even, when they were on the crest of a great wave of prosperity, Luigi had gone so far as to mention her seventeenth birthday as a possibly suitable date for their wedding. That had been a great and glorious time, though all too short, alas! and the sequel to a brilliant scheme devised by that poor dear Guiseppe Longigotto in the interests of his beloved and adored friend Carmelita. Poor Guiseppe! He had deserved as Carmelita was the first to admit, something better, than a stab in the back from Luigi Rivoli, for the idea had been wholly and solely his, until the great Roman sporting Impresario had taken it up and developed it. First there was a tremendous syndicate-engineered campaign of advertisement, which let all Europe know that Il Famoso e Piu Grande Professors Carlo Scopinaro, Champion Wrestler of Europe, America and Australia, would shortly meet the Egregious Egyptian, or Conquering Copt, Champion Wrestler of Africa and Asia, in Rome, and wrestle him in the Graeco-Roman style, for the World's Championship and ten thousand pounds a side. (Yes actually and authoritatively diecimila lire sterline.) From every hoarding in Rome, Venice, Milan, Turin, Genoa, Florence, Naples, Brindisi, and every other town in Italy, huge posters called your attention to the beauties and marvels of the smiling face and mighty form of the great Carlo Scopinaro; to the horrors and terrors of the scowling face and enormous carcase of the dreadful Conquering Copt. (To positively none but Luigi, Guiseppe, and the renowned Roman Impresario was it known that the Conquering Copt was none other than Luigi's old pal, Abdul Hamid, chucker-out at a Port Said music-hall, and most modest and retiring of gentlemen--until this greatness of Champion Wrestler of Africa and Asia was suddenly thrust upon him, and he was summoned from Port Said to Rome to be coached by Luigi in the arts and graces of realistic stage-wrestling, and particularly in those of life-like and convincing defeat after a long and obviously terrible struggle.) ... Excitement was splendidly engineered, the newspapers of every civilised country and of Germany advertised the epoch-making event, speculated upon its result, and produced interesting articles on such questions as, "Should a Colour-Line be drawn in Wrestling?" and, "Is Scopinaro the White Hope?" A self-advertising reverend Nonconformist announced his intention in the English press of proceeding to Rome to create a disturbance at the Match. He got himself frequently interviewed by specimens of the genus, "Our representative," and the important fact that he was a Conscientious Objector to all forms of sport was brought to the notice of the Great British Public.

The struggle was magnificently staged and magnificently acted. Every spectator in the vast theatre, no matter whether he had paid one hundred lire or a paltry fifty centesimi for his seat, felt that he had had his money's worth. In incredibly realistic manner the White Hope of Europe and the Champion of Africa and Asia struck attitudes, cried "Ha!", snatched at each other, stamped, straddled, pushed, pulled, embraced, slapped, jerked, hugged, tugged, lugged, and lifted each other with every appearance of fearful exertion, dauntless courage, fierce determination and unparalleled skill for one crowded hour of glorious life, during which the house went mad, rose at them to a man, and, with tears and imprecations, called upon the Italian to be worthy of his country and upon the Conquering Copt to be damned.

Few scenes in all the troubled history of Rome can have equalled, for excitement, that which ensued when the White Hope finally triumphed, the honour of Europe in general was saved, and that of Italy in particular illuminated with a blaze of glory.

Anyhow, what was solid fact, with no humbug about it, was that Luigi received the renowned Roman Impresario's fervid blessing and five hundred pounds, while the complacent Abdul received blessings equally fervid, though a less enthusiastic cheque. Both gentlemen were then provided by the kind Impresario with single tickets to the most distant spot he could induce them to name.

For Carmelita, the days following that on which her Luigi won the great World's Championship match, were a glorious time of expensive dinners, fine apartments, and beautiful clothes; a time of being café and music-hall patrons instead of performers; of being entertained instead of entertaining. The joy of Carmelita's life while the five hundred pounds lasted was to sit in a stage-box, proud and happy, beside her noble Luigi, and criticise the various "turns" upon the stage. Never an evening performance, nor a matinée did they miss, and Luigi drank a quart of champagne at lunch, and another at dinner. Luigi must keep his strength up, of course, and the soothing influence of innumerable Havana cigars was not denied to his nerves.

And then, just as the five hundred pounds was finished, a wretched Russian (quickly followed by an American, two Russians, a Turk, a Frenchman, and an Englishman) publicly challenged Luigi in the press of Europe, to wrestle for the Championship of the World in any style he liked, for any amount he liked, when and where he liked--and that branch of his profession was closed to Luigi--for these men were giants and terrors, arranging no "crosses," stern fighters, and out for fame, money, genuine sport, and the real Championship.

Then had come a time of poverty, straits, mean shifts and misery, followed by Luigi's job as a "tamer" of tame lions. This post of lion-tamer to a cageful of mangy, weary lions, captive-born, pessimistic, timid and depressed, had been secured by Guiseppe Longigotto, and handed over to Luigi (on its proving safe and satisfactory), in the interests of Giuseppe's adored and hungry Carmelita. Arrayed in the costume worn by all the Best Lion-tamers, Luigi looked a truly noble figure, as, with flashing eyes and gleaming teeth, he cracked the whip and fired the revolver that induced the bored and disgusted lions to amble round the cage, crouching and cringing in humility and fear. That insignificant little rat, Guiseppe, was far more in the picture, of course, as fiddler to the show, than he was in his original role of tamer of the lions. Followed a bad time along the African coast, culminating, at Algiers, in poor Guiseppe's impassioned pleadings that Carmelita would marry him (and, leaving this dreadful life of the road, live with him and his beautiful violin on the banked proceeds of his great Wrestling Championship scheme), Luigi's jealousy, his overbearing airs of proprietorship, his drunken cruelty, his presuming on her love and obedience to him until she sought to give him a fright and teach him a lesson, his killing of the poor, pretty musician, and his flight to Sidi-bel-Abbès....

To Sidi-bel-Abbès also fled Carmelita, and, with the proceeds of Guiseppe's dying gift to her, eked out by promises of many things to many people, such as Jew and Arab lessors and landlords, French dealers, Spanish-Jew jobbers and contractors, and Negro labourers, contrived to open La Café de la Légion, to run it with herself as proprietress, manageress, barmaid, musician, singer, actress, and danseuse, and to make it pay to the extent of a daily franc, bottle of Chianti, and a macaroni, polenta, or spaghetti meal for Luigi, and a very meagre living for herself. When in need of something more, Carmelita performed at matinées at the music-hall and at private stances in Arab and other houses, in the intervals of business. When professional dress would have rendered her automatic pistol conspicuous and uncomfortable, Carmelita carried a most serviceable little dagger in her hair. Also she let it be known among her patrons of the Legion that she was going to a certain house, garden, or café at a certain time, and might be there enquired for if unduly delayed. Carmelita knew the seamy side of life in Mediterranean ports, and African littoral and hinterland towns, and took no chances....

And by-and-by her splendid and noble Luigi would marry her, and they would go to America--where that little matter of manslaughter would never crop up and cause trouble--and live happily ever after.

So, faithful, loyal, devoted, Carmelita might be; generous, chaste, and brave, Carmelita might be--but alas! not refined, not genteel, not above telling a Chasseur d'Afrique what she thought of him and his insults; not above spitting at a leering, gesture-making Spahi. No lady....

"Ben venuti, Signori!" cried Carmelita on catching sight of Il Signor Jean Boule and the Bucking Bronco. "Soyez le bien venu, Monsieur Jean Boule et Monsieur Bronco. Che cosa posso offrirvi?" and, as they seated themselves at a small round table near the bar, hastened to bring the wine favoured by these favoured customers--the so gentle English Signor, gentilhomme, (doubtless once a milord, a nobile), and the so gentle, foolish Americano, so slow and strong, who looked at her with eyes of love, kind eyes, with a good true love. No milordino he, no piccol Signor (but nevertheless a good man, a uomo dabbéne, most certainly...)

Reginald Rupert was duly presented as Légionnaire Rupert, with all formality and ceremony, to the Madamigella Carmelita, who ran her bright, black eye over him, summed him up as another gentiluomo, an obvious gentilhomme, pitied him, and wondered what he had "done."

Carmelita loved a "gentleman" in the abstract, although she loved Luigi Rivoli in the concrete; adored aristocrats in general, in spite of the fact that she adored Luigi Rivoli in particular. To her experienced and observant young eye, Légionnaire Jean Boule and this young bleu were of the same class, the aristocratico class of Inghilterra; birds of a feather, if not of a nest. They might be father and son, so alike were they in their difference from the rest. So different even from the English-speaking Americano, so different from her Luigi. But then, her Luigi was no mere broken aristocrat; he was the World's Champion Wrestler and Strong Man, a great and famous Wild Beast Tamer, and--her Luigi.

"Buona sera, Signor," said Carmelita to Rupert. "Siete venuto per la via di Francie?" and then, in Legion-French and Italian, proceeded to comment upon the new recruit's appearance, his capetti riccioluti and to enquire whether he used the calamistro and ferro da ricci to obtain the fine crisp wave in his hair.

Not at all a refined and ladylike maiden, and very, very far from the standards of Surbiton, not to mention Balham.

Reginald Rupert (to whom love and war were the two things worth living for), on understanding the drift of the lady's remarks, proposed forthwith "to cross the bar" and "put out to see" whether he could not give her a personal demonstration of the art of hair-curling, but--

"Non vi pigliate fastidio," said Carmelita. "Don't trouble yourself Signor Azzurro--Monsieur Bleu. And if Signor Luigi Rivoli should enter and see the young Signor on my side of the bar--Luigi's side of the bar--why, one look of his eye would so make the young Signor's hair curl that, for the rest of his life, the calamistro, the curling-tongs, would be superfluous."

"Yep," chimed in the Bucking Bronco. "I guess as haow it's about time yure Loojey's bright eyes got closed, my dear, an' I'm goin' ter bung 'em both up one o' these fine days, when I got the cafard. Yure Loojey's a great lady-killer an' recruit-killer, we know, an' he can talk a tin ear on a donkey. I say Il parlerait une oreille d'etain sur un âne. Yure Loojey'd make a hen-rabbit git mad an' bark. I say Votre Loojey causer ait une lapine devenir fou et écorcer. I got it in fer yure Loojey. I say Je l'ai dans pour votre Loojey.... Comprenny? Intendete quel che dico?" and the Bucking Bronco drank off a pint of wine, drew his tiny, well-thumbed French dictionary from one pocket and his "Travellers' Italian Phrase-book" from another, cursed the Tower of Babel, and all foreign tongues, and sought words wherewith to say that it was high time for Luigi Rivoli "to quit beefin' aroun' Madam lar Canteenair, to wipe off his chin considerable, to cease being a sticker, a sucker, and a skinamalink girl-sponging meal-and-money cadger; and to quit tellin' stories made out o' whole cloth,[#] that cut no ice with nobody except Carmelita."

[#] Untrue.

This young lady gathered that, as usual, the poor, silly jealous Americano was belittling and insulting her Luigi, if not actually threatening him. Him, who could break any Americano across his knee. With a toss of her head and a contemptuous "Invidioso! Scioccone!" for the Bronco, a flick on the nose with the krenfell flower from her ear for Rupert, a blown kiss for Babbo Jean Boule, Carmelita flitted away, going from table to table to minister to the mental, moral, and physical needs of her other devoted Légionnaires as they arrived--men of strange and dreadful lives who loved her then and there, who remembered her thereafter and elsewhere, and who sent her letters, curios, pressed flowers and strange presents from the ends of the earth where flies the tricouleur, and the Flag of the Legion--in Tonkin, Madagascar, Senegal, Morocco, the Sahara--in every Southern Algerian station wherever the men of the Legion tramped to their death to the strains of the regimental march of "Tiens, voilà du boudin."

"Advise me, Mam'zelle," said a young Frenchman of the Midi, rising to his feet with a flourish of his képi and a sweeping bow, as Carmelita approached the table at which he and three companions sat, "Advise me as to the investment of this wealth, fifty centimes, all at once. Shall it be five glorious green absinthes or five chopes of the wine of Algiers?--or shall I warm my soul with burning bapédi...?"

"Four bottles of wine is what you want for André, Raoul, Léon, and yourself," was the reply. "Absinthe is the mamma and the papa and all the ancestors of le cafard and you are far too young and tender for bapédi. It mingles not well with mother's milk, that...."

In the extreme corner of the big, badly-lit room, a Legionary sat alone, his back to the company, his head upon his folded arms. Passing near, on her tour of ministration, Carmelita's quick eye and ear perceived that the man was sobbing and weeping bitterly. It might be the poor Grasshopper passing through one of his terrible dark hours, and Carmelita's kind heart melted with pity for the poor soul, smartest of soldiers, and maddest of madmen.

Going over to where he sat apart, Carmelita bent over him, placed her arm around his neck, and stroked his glossy dark hair.

"Pourquoi faites-vous Suisse, mon pauvre?" she murmured with a motherly caress. "What is it? Tell Carmelita." The man raised his face from his arms, smiled through his tears and kissed the hand that rested on his shoulder. The handsome and delicate face, the small, well-kept hands, the voice, were those of a man of culture and refinement.

"I ja nai ka!--How delightful!" he said. "You will make things right. I am to be made machi-bugiyo, governor of the city to-morrow, and I wish to remain a Japanese lady. I do not want to lay aside the suma-goto and samisen for the wakizashi and the katana--the lute for the dagger and sword. I don't want to sit on a tokonoma in a yashiki surrounded by karo...."

"No, no, no, mon cher, you shall not indeed. See le bon Dieu and le bon Jean Boule will look after you," said Carmelita, gently stroking his hot forehead and soothing him with little crooning sounds and caresses as though he had really been the child that, in mind and understanding, he was.

John Bull, followed by Rupert, unobtrusively joined Carmelita. Seating himself beside the unhappy man, he took his hands and gazed steadily into his suffused eyes.

"Tell me all about it, Cigale," said he. "You know we can put it right. When has Jean Boule failed to explain and arrange things for you?"

The madman repeated that he dreaded to have to sit on the raised dais of the Palace of a Governor of a City surrounded by officials and advisers.

"I know I should soon be involved in a kataki-uchi with a neighbouring clan, and have to commit hara-kiri if I failed to keep the Mikado's peace. It is terrible. You don't know how I long to remain a lady. I want silk and music and cherry-blossom instead of steel and blood," and again he laid his head upon his arms and continued his low, hopeless sobbing.

Reginald Rupert's face expressed blank astonishment at the sight of the weeping soldier.

"What's up?" he said.

Légionnaire John Bull tapped his forehead.

"Poor chap will behave more Japonico for the rest of the day now. I fancy he's been an attaché in Japan. You don't know Japanese by any chance? I have forgotten the little I knew."

Rupert shook his head.

"Look here, Cigale," said John Bull, raising the afflicted man and again fixing the steady, benign gaze upon his eyes, "why are you making all this trouble for yourself? You know I am the Mikado and All-powerful! You have only to appeal to me and the Shogun must release you. Of course you can remain a Japanese lady--and I'll tell you what, ma chère, ma petite fille Japonaise, not only shall you remain a lady, but a lady of the old school and of the days before the accursed Foreign Devils came in to break down ancient customs. I promise it. To-morrow you shall shave off your eyebrows and paint them in two inches above your eyes. I promise it. More. Your teeth shall be lacquered black. Now cease these ungrateful repinings, and be a happy maiden once again. By order of the Mikado!"

Once again the voice and eye, and the gentle wise sympathy and comprehension of ce bon Jean Boule had succeeded and triumphed. The madman, falling at his feet, knelt and bowed three times, his forehead touching the ground, in approved geisha fashion.

"And now you've got to come and lie down, or you won't be fit for the eyebrow-shaving ceremony to-morrow," said Carmelita, and led him to a broad, low divan, which made a cosy, if dirty, corner remote from the bar.

"That's as extraordinary a case as ever I came across," remarked John Bull to Rupert as they rejoined the Bucking Bronco, who was talking to the Cockney and the Russian twins, "as mad as any lunatic in any asylum in the world, and yet as absolutely competent and correct in every detail of soldiering as any soldier in the Legion. He is the Perfect Private Soldier--and a perfect lunatic. Most of the time, off parade that is, he thinks he's a grasshopper, and the rest of the time he thinks he's of some remarkably foreign nationality, such as a Zulu, an Eskimo, or a Chinaman. I should very much like to know his story. He must have travelled pretty widely. He has certainly been an officer in the Belgian Guides (their Officers' Mess is one of the most exclusive and aristocratic in the world, as you know) and he has certainly been a Military Attaché in the East. He is perfectly harmless and a most thorough gentleman, poor soul.... Yes, I should greatly like to know his story," and added as he poured out a glass of wine, "but we don't ask men their 'stories' in the Legion...."

Carmelita returned to her high seat by the door of her little room behind the bar--the door upon the outside of which many curious regards had oftentimes been fixed.

Carmelita was troubled. Why did not Luigi come? Were his duties so numerous and onerous nowadays that he had but a bare hour for his late dinner and his bottle of Chianti? Time was, when he arrived as soon after five o'clock as a wash and change of uniform permitted. Time was, when he could spend from early evening to late night in the Café de la Légion, outstaying the latest visitors. And that time was also the time when Madame la Cantinière was not a widow--the days before Madame's husband had been sliced, sawn, snapped, torn, and generally mangled by certain other widows--of certain Arabs--away to the South. This might be coincidence of course, and yet--and yet--several Légionnaires who had no axe to grind and who were not jealous of Luigi's fortune, had undoubtedly coupled his name with that of Madame....

"An' haow did yew find yure little way to our dope-joint hyar?" the Bucking Bronco enquired of Mikhail Kyrilovitch, as he did the honours of Carmelita's "joint" to the three bleus who had entered while John Bull was talking to the Grasshopper.

"Well, since you arx, we jest ups an' follers you, old bloke, when yer goes aht wiv these two uvver Henglish coves," replied the Cockney.

The American regarded him with the eye of large and patient tolerance. He preferred the Russians, particularly Mikhail, and rejoiced that they spoke English. It would have been too much to have attempted to add a working knowledge of Russian to his other linguistic stores. Nevertheless, he would, out of compliment to their nationality, produce such words of their strange tongue as he could command. It might serve to make them feel more at home like.

"I'm afraid I can't ask yew moojiks ter hev a little caviare an' wodky, becos' Carmelita is out of it.... But there's cawfy in the sammy-var I hev no doubt," he said graciously.

The Russians thanked him, and Feodor pledging him in a glass of absinthe, promised to teach him the art of concocting lompopo, while Mikhail quietly sipped his glass of sticky, sweet Algerian wine.

Restless Carmelita joined the group, and her friend Jean Boule introduced the three new patrons.

"Prahd an' honoured, Miss, I'm shore," said the Cockney. "'Ave a port-an'-lemon or thereabahts?"

But Carmelita was too interested in the startling similarity of the twins to pay attention to the civilities and blandishments of the Cockney, albeit he surreptitiously wetted his fingers with wine and smoothed his smooth and shining "cowlick" or "quiff" (the highly ornamental fringe which, having descended to his eyebrows, turned aspiringly upward).

"Gemello," she murmured, turning from Feodor and his cheery greeting to Mikhail, who responded with a graceful little bow, suddenly terminated and changed to a curt nod, like that given by Feodor. As Carmelita continued her direct gaze, a dull flush grew and mantled over his face.

"Cielo! But how the boy blushes! Now is it for his own sins, or mine, I wonder?" laughed Carmelita, pointing accusingly at poor Mikhail's suffused face.

"Gawdstreuth! Can't 'e blush," remarked Mr. Higgins.

The dull flush became a vivid, burning blush under Carmelita's pointing finger, and the regard of the amused Legionaries.

"Corpo di Bacco!" laughed the teasing girl. "A blushing Legionary! The dear, sweet, good boy. If only I could blush like that. And he brings his blushes to Madame la République's Legion. Well, it is not porta vasi a Samo!"[#]

[#] Lit., "to carry coals to Newcastle."

"Never mind, Sonny," said the American soothingly, "there's many a worse stunt than blushin'. I uster use blushes considerable meself--when I was a looker 'bout yure age." He translated.

Carmelita's laughter pealed out again at the idea of the blushing American. Feodor's laughter mingled with Carmelita's, but sounded forced.

"Isn't it funny?" he remarked. "My brother has always been like that, but believe me, Padrona, I could not blush to save my life."

"Si, si," laughed Carmelita. "You have sinned and he has blushed--all your lives, is it not so--le pauvre petit?" and saucily rubbed the side of Mikhail's crimson face with the backs of her fingers--and looked unwontedly thoughtful as he jerked his head away with a look of annoyance.

"La, la, la!" said Carmelita. "Musn't he be teased then?..."

"Come, Signora," broke in Feodor again, "you're making him blush worse than ever. Such kindness is absolutely wasted. Now I..."

"No, you wouldn't blush with shame and fright, no, nor yet with innocence, would you, Signor Feodor? E un peccato!" replied the girl, and lightly brushed his cheek as she spoke.

The good Feodor did not blush, but the look of thoughtfulness deepened on Carmelita's face.

To the finer perceptions of John Bull there seemed to be something strained and discomfortable in the atmosphere. Carmelita had fallen silent, Feodor seemed annoyed and anxious, Mikhail frightened and anxious, and Mr. 'Erb 'Iggins of too gibing a humour.

"You are making me positively jealous, Signora Carmelita, and leaving me thirsty," he said, and with a small repentant squeal Carmelita flitted to the bar.

"Would you like a biscuit too, Signor Jean Boule?" she called, and tossed one across to him as she spoke. John Bull neatly caught the biscuit as it flew somewhat wide. Carmelita, like most women, could not throw straight.

"Tiro maestro," she applauded, and launched another at the unprepared Mikhail with a cry of "Catch, goffo." Instinctively, he "made a lap" and spread out his hands.

"Esattamente!" commented Carmelita beneath her breath and apparently lost interest in the little group....

A quartet of Legionaries swaggered into the café and approached the bar--Messieurs Malvin, Borges, Bauer and Hirsch, henchmen and satellites of Luigi Rivoli--and saluted to Carmelita's greeting of "Buona sera, Signori...."

"Bonsoir, M. Malvin," added she to the dapper, low-bowing Austrian, whose evil face, with its close-set ugly eyes, sharp crooked nose, waxed moustache, and heavy jowl, were familiar to her as those of one of Luigi's more intimate followers. "Where is Signor Luigi Rivoli to-night? He has no guard duty?"

"No, mia signora--er--that is--yes," replied Malvin in affected discomfort. "He is--ah--on duty."

"On duty in the Canteen?" asked Carmelita, flushing.

"What do I know of the comings and goings of the great Luigi Rivoli?" answered Malvin. "Doubtless he will fortify himself with a litre of wine at Madame's bar in the Canteen before walking down here."

"Luigi Rivoli drinks no sticky Algerian wine," said Carmelita angrily and her eyes and teeth flashed dangerously. "He drinks Chianti from Home. He never enters her Canteen."

"Ah! So?" murmured Malvin in a non-committal manner. And then Carmelita's anxiety grew a little greater--greater even than her dislike and distrust of M. Edouard Malvin, and she did what she had never done before. She voiced it to him.

"Look you, Monsieur Malvin, tell me the truth. I will not tell my Luigi that you have accused him to me, or say that you have spoken ill of him behind his back. Tell me the truth. Is he in the Canteen? Tell me, cher Monsieur Malvin."

"Have I the double sight, bella Carmelita? How should I know where le Légionnaire Rivoli may be?" fenced the soi-disant Belgian, who desired nothing better than to win the woman from the man--and toward himself. Failing Madame la Cantinière and the Legion's Canteen, what better than Carmelita and the Café de la Légion for a poor hungry and thirsty soldier? If the great Luigi must win the greater prize let the little Malvin win the lesser. To which end let him curry favour with La Belle Carmelita--just as far as such a course of action did not become premature, and lead to a painful interview with an incensed Luigi Rivoli.