Produced by Al Haines.

[Illustration: Cover]

                                  THE
                            WAGES OF VIRTUE

                                   BY
                       PERCIVAL CHRISTOPHER WREN

                                 LONDON
                     JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET

FIRST EDITION . . . November, 1916
Reprinted . . . . . December, 1916
Reprinted . . . . . May, 1917
Reprinted . . . . . September, 1917
Reprinted (2/-) . . January, 1920
Reprinted (3/6) . . April, 1925
Reprinted . . . . . September, 1925
Reprinted (2/-) . . November, 1925
Reprinted (3/6) . . December, 1925
Reprinted . . . . . March, 1926
Reprinted (2/-) . . August, 1926
Reprinted (3/6) . . October, 1926
Reprinted (2/-) . . January, 1927
Reprinted (3/6) . . March, 1927
Reprinted (2/-) . . March, 1927
Reprinted (2/-) . . June, 1927
Reprinted (3/6) . . June, 1927
Reprinted (2/-) . . February, 1928
Reprinted (3/6) . . May, 1928

_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_

BEAU GESTE
BEAU SABREUR
THE WAGES OF VIRTUE
STEPSONS OF FRANCE
THE SNAKE AND THE SWORD
FATHER GREGORY
DEW AND MILDEW
DRIFTWOOD SPARS
THE YOUNG STAGERS

                         _All rights reserved_

                                   TO
                         THE CHARMINGEST WOMAN

                                CONTENTS

Prologue

      I. Soap and Sir Montague Merline
     II. A Barrack-Room of the Legion
    III. Carmelita et Cie
     IV. The Canteen of the Legion
      V. The Trivial Round
     VI. Le Cafard and Other Things
    VII. The Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing
   VIII. The Temptation of Sir Montague Merline
     IX. The Café and the Canteen
      X. The Wages of Sin
     XI. Greater Love...

Epilogue

"Vivandière du régiment,
C’est Catin qu’on me nomme;
Je vends, je donne, je bois gaiment,
Mon vin et mon rogomme;
J’ai le pied leste et l’oeil mutin,
Tintin, tintin, tintin, r’lin tintin,
Soldats, voilà Catin!

"Je fus chère à tous nos héros;
Hélas! combien j’en pleure,
Ainsi soldats et généraux
Me comblaient à tout heure
D’amour, de gloire et de butin,
Tintin, tintin, tintin, r’lin tintin
D’amour, de gloire et de butin,
Soldats, voilà Catin!"

BÉRANGER.

                                PROLOGUE

Lord Huntingten emerged from his little green tent, and strolled over to
where Captain Strong, of the Queen’s African Rifles, sat in the
"drawing-room."  The drawing-room was the space under a cedar fir and
was furnished with four Roorkee chairs of green canvas and white wood,
and a waterproof ground-sheet.

"I do wish the Merlines would roll up," he said. "I want my dinner."

"Not dinner time yet," remarked Captain Strong. "Hungry?"

"No," answered Lord Huntingten almost snappishly.  Captain Strong
smiled.  How old Reggie Huntingten always gave himself away!  It was the
safe return of Lady Merline that he wanted.

Captain Strong, although a soldier, the conditions of whose life were
almost those of perpetual Active Service, was a student--and
particularly a student of human nature.  Throughout a life of great
activity he found, and made, much opportunity for sitting in the stalls
of the Theatre of Life and enjoying the Human Comedy.  This East African
shooting-trip with Lord Huntingten, Sir Montague, and Lady Merline, was
affording him great entertainment, inasmuch as Huntingten had fallen in
love with Lady Merline and did not know it.  Lady Merline was falling in
love with Huntingten and knew it only too well, and Merline loved them
both.  That there would be no sort or kind of "dénouement," in the
vulgar sense, Captain Strong was well and gladly aware--for Huntingten
was as honourable a man as ever lived, and Lady Merline just as
admirable.  No saner, wiser, nor better woman had Strong ever met, nor
any as well balanced.  Had there been any possibility of "developments,"
trouble, and the usual fiasco of scandal and the Divorce Court, he would
have taken an early opportunity of leaving the party and rejoining his
company at Mombasa.  For Lord Huntingten was his school, Sandhurst and
lifelong friend, while Merline was his brother-in-arms and comrade of
many an unrecorded, nameless expedition, foray, skirmish, fight and
adventure.

"Merline shouldn’t keep her out after dusk like this," continued Lord
Huntingten.  "After all, Africa’s Africa and a woman’s a woman."

"And Merline’s Merline," added Strong with a faint hint of reproof.
Lord Huntingten grunted, arose, and strode up and down.  A fine
upstanding figure of a man in the exceedingly becoming garb of khaki
cord riding-breeches, well-cut high boots, brown flannel shirt and
broad-brimmed felt hat.  Although his hands were small, the arms exposed
by the rolled-up shirtsleeves were those of a navvy, or a blacksmith.
The face, though tanned and wrinkled, was finely cut and undeniably
handsome, with its high-bridged nose, piercing blue eyes, fair silky
moustache and prominent chin.  If, as we are sometimes informed,
impassivity and immobility of countenance are essential to aspirants for
such praise as is contained in the term "aristocratic," Lord Huntingten
was not what he himself would have described as a "starter," for never
did face more honestly portray feeling than did that of Lord Huntingten.
As a rule it was wreathed in smiles, and brightly reflected the joyous,
sunny nature of its owner.  On those rare occasions when he was angered,
it was convulsed with rage, and, even before he spoke, all and sundry
were well aware that his lordship was angry.  When he did speak, they
were confirmed in the belief without possibility of error.  If he were
disappointed or chagrined this expressive countenance fell with such
suddenness and celerity that the fact of so great a fall being inaudible
came as a surprise to the observant witness.  At that moment, as he
consulted his watch, the face of this big, generous and lovable man was
only too indicative of the fact that his soul was filled with anxiety,
resentment and annoyance. Captain Strong, watching him with malicious
affection, was reminded of a petulant baby and again of a big naughty
boy who, having been stood in the corner for half an hour, firmly
believes that the half-hour has long ago expired.  Yes, he promised
himself much quiet and subtle amusement, interest and instruction from
the study of his friends and their actions and reactions during the
coming weeks.  What would Huntingten do when he realised his condition
and position? Run for his life, or grin and bear it?  If the former,
where would he go?  If, living in Mayfair and falling in love with your
neighbour’s wife, the correct thing is to go and shoot lions in East
Africa, is it, conversely, the correct thing to go and live in Mayfair
if, shooting lions in East Africa, you fall in love with your
neighbour’s wife?  Captain Strong smiled at his whimsicality, and showed
his interesting face at its best.  A favourite remark of his was to the
effect that the world’s a queer place, and life a queer, thing.  It is
doubtful whether he realised exactly how queer an example of the fact
was afforded by his being a soldier in the first place, and an African
soldier in the second. When he was so obviously and completely cut out
for a philosopher and student (with relaxations in the direction of the
writing of Ibsenical-Pinerotic plays and Shavo-Wellsian novels), what
did he in that galley of strenuous living and strenuous dying?  Further,
it is interesting to note that among those brave and hardy men, second
to none in keenness, resourcefulness and ability, Captain Strong was
noted for these qualities.

A huge Swahili orderly of the Queen’s African Rifles, clad in a tall
yellow tarboosh, a very long blue jersey, khaki shorts, blue puttees and
hobnail boots, approached Captain Strong and saluted.  He announced that
Merline _Bwana_ was approaching, and, on Strong’s replying that such
things did happen, and even with sufficient frequency to render the
widest publication of the fact unnecessary, the man informed him that
the _macouba Bwana Simba_ (the big Lion Master) had given his bearer
orders to have the approach of Merline _Bwana_ signalled and announced.

Turning to Huntingten, Strong bade that agitated nobleman to be of good
cheer, for Merline was safe--his _askaris_ were safe--his pony was safe,
and it was even reported that all the dogs were safe.

"Three loud cheers," observed his lordship, as his face beamed ruddily,
"but, to tell you the truth, it was of _Lady_ Merline I was thinking....
You never know in Africa, you know...."

Captain Strong smiled.

Sir Montague and Lady Merline rode into camp on their Arab ponies a few
minutes later, and there was a bustle of Indian and Swahili "boys" and
bearers, about the unlacing of tents, preparing of hot baths, the taking
of ponies and guns, and the hurrying up of dinner.

While Sir Montague gave orders concerning the _enyama_[#] for the
_safari_ servants and porters, whose virtue had merited this addition to
their _posho_[#] Lady Merline entered the "drawing-room," and once again
gladdened the heart of Lord Huntingten with her grace and beauty.  He
struck an attitude, laid his hand upon his heart, and swept the ground
with his slouch hat in a most gracefully executed bow.  Lady Merline,
albeit clad in brief khaki shooting-costume, puttees, tiny hobnail
boots, and brown pith helmet, returned the compliment with a Court
curtsey.

[#] Meat.

[#] Food.

Their verbal greeting hardly sustained the dignity of the preliminaries.

"How’s Bill the Lamb?" quoth the lady.

"How’s Margarine?" was the reply.

Their eyes interested Captain Strong more than their words.

(Lady Merline’s eyes were famous; and, beautiful as Strong had always
realised those wonderful orbs to be, he was strongly inclined to fancy
that they looked even deeper, even brighter, even more beautiful when
regarding the handsome sunny face of Lord Huntingten.)

Sir Montague Merline joined the group.

"Hallo, Bill!  Hallo, Strong!" he remarked.  "I say, Strong, what’s
_marodi_, and what’s _gisi_ in Somali?"

"Same as _tembo_ and _mbogo_ in Swahili," was the reply.

"Oh!  Elephant and buffalo.  Well, that one-eyed Somali blighter with
the corrugated forehead, whom Abdul brought in, says there are
both--close to Bamania over there--about thirteen miles you know."

"He’s a liar then," replied Captain Strong.

"Swears the elephants went on the tiles all night in a _shamba_[#]
there, the day before yesterday."

[#] Garden.  Cultivation.

"Might go that way, anyhow," put in Lord Huntingten. "Take him with us,
and rub his nose in it if there’s nothing."

"You’re nothing if not lucid, Bill," said Lady Merline.  "I’m off to
change," and added as she turned away, "I vote we go to Bamania anyhow.
There may be lemons, or mangoes, or bananas or something in the
_shamba_, if there are no elephants or buffaloes."

"Don’t imagine you are going upsetting elephants and teasing buffaloes,
young woman," cried "Bill" after her as she went to her tent.  "The
elephants and buffaloes of these parts are the kind that eat English
women, and feeding the animals is forbidden...."

It occurred to Captain Strong, that silent and observant man, that Lady
Merline’s amusement at this typical specimen of the Huntingten humour
was possibly greater than it would have been had he or her husband
perpetrated it.

"Dinner in twenty minutes, Monty," said he to Sir Montague Merline and
departed to his tent.

"I say, Old Thing, dear," observed Lord Huntingten to the same
gentleman, as, with the tip of his little finger, he "wangled" a
soda-water bottle with a view to concocting a whiskey-and-soda.  "We
won’t let Marguerite have anything to do with elephant or buffalo, will
we?"

"Good Lord, no!" was the reply.  "We’ve promised her one pot at a lion
if we can possibly oblige, but that will have to be her limit, and,
what’s more, you and I will be one each side of her when she does it."

"Yes," agreed the other, and added, "Expect I shall know what nerves
are, when it comes off, too."

"Fancy ’nerves’ and the _Bwana Simba_," laughed Sir Montague Merline as
he held out his glass for the soda....  "Here’s to Marguerite’s first
lion," he continued, and the two men solemnly drank the toast.

Sir Montague Merline struck a match for his pipe, the light illuminating
his face in the darkness which had fallen in the last few minutes.  The
first impression one gathered from the face of Captain Sir Montague
Merline, of the Queen’s African Rifles, was one of unusual gentleness
and kindliness.  Without being in any way a weak face, it was an
essentially friendly and amiable one--a soldierly face without any hint
of that fierce, harsh and ruthless expression which is apparently
cultivated as part of their stock-in-trade by the professional soldiers
of militarist nations.  A physiognomist, observing him, would not be
surprised to learn of quixotic actions and a reputation for being "such
an awful good chap--one of the best-hearted fellers that ever helped a
lame dog over a stile."  So far as such a thing can be said of any
strong and honest man who does his duty, it could be said of Sir
Montague Merline that he had no enemies.  Contrary to the dictum that
"He who has no enemies has no friends" was the fact that Sir Montague
Merline’s friends were all who knew him.  Of these, his best and closest
friend was his wife, and it had been reserved for Lord Huntingten
unconsciously to apprise her of the fact that she was this and nothing
more.  Until he had left his yacht at Mombasa a few weeks before, on the
invitation of Captain Strong (issued with their cordial consent) to join
their projected shooting trip, Lady Merline had fondly imagined that she
knew what love was, and had thought herself a thoroughly happy and
contented woman.  In a few days after his joining the party it seemed
that she must have loved him all her life, and that there could not
possibly be a gulf of some fifteen years between then and the childish
days when he was "Bill the Lamb" and she the unconsidered adjunct of the
nursery and schoolroom, generally addressed as "Margarine."  Why had he
gone wandering about the world all these years? Why had their
re-discovery of each other had to be postponed until now?  Why couldn’t
he have been at home when Monty came wooing and ... When Lady Merline’s
thoughts reached this point she resolutely switched them off.  She was
doing a considerable amount of switching off, these last few days, and
realised that when Lord Huntingten awoke to the fact that he too must
practise this exercise, the shooting trip would have to come to an
untimely end.  As she crouched over the tiny candle-lit mirror on the
_soi-disant_ dressing-table in her tent, while hastily changing for
dinner that evening, she even considered plausible ways and possible
means of terminating the trip when the inevitable day arrived.

She was saved the trouble.

As they sat at dinner a few minutes later, beneath the diamond-studded
velvet of the African sky--an excellent dinner of clear soup, sardines,
bustard, venison, and tinned fruit--Strong’s orderly again appeared in
the near distance, saluting and holding two official letters in his
hand.  These, it appeared, had just been brought by messenger from the
railway-station some nineteen miles distant.

Captain Strong was the first to gather their import, and his feeling of
annoyance and disappointment was more due to the fact of the
interruption of his interesting little drama than to the cancellation of
his leave and return to harness.

"Battle, Murder and Sudden Death!" he murmured.  "I wish people wouldn’t
kill people, and cause other people to interfere with the arrangements
of people....  Our trip’s bust."

"What is it?" asked Lady Merline.

"Mutiny and murder down Uganda way," replied her husband, whose letter
was a duplicate.  "I’m sorry, Huntingten, old chap," he added, turning
to his friend.  "It’s draw stumps and hop it, for Strong and me.  We
must get to the railway to-morrow--there will be a train through in the
afternoon.... Better luck next time."

Lord Huntingten looked at Lady Merline, and Lady Merline looked at her
plate.

                                   2

Down the narrowest of narrow jungle-paths marched a small party of the
Queen’s African Rifles.  They marched, perforce, in single file, and at
their head was their white officer.  A wiser man would have marched in
the middle, for the leading man was inevitably bound to "get it" if they
came upon the enemy, and, albeit brave and warlike men, negroes of the
Queen’s African Rifles (like other troops) fight better when commanded
by an officer.  A "point" of a sergeant and two or three men, a couple
of hundred yards in front, is all very well, but the wily foe in ambush
knows quite enough to take, as it were, the cash and let the credit
go--to let the "point" march on, and to wait for the main body.

Captain Sir Montague Merline was well aware of the unwisdom and military
inadvisability of heading the long file, but did it, nevertheless.  If
called upon to defend his conduct, he would have said that what was
gained by the alleged wiser course was more than lost, inasmuch as the
confidence of the men in so discreet a leader would not be, to say the
least of it, enhanced.  The little column moved silently and slowly
through the horrible place, a stinking swamp, the atmosphere almost
unbreatheable, the narrow winding track almost untreadable, the
enclosing walls of densest jungle utterly unpenetrable--a singularly
undesirable spot in which to be attacked by a cunning and blood-thirsty
foe of whom this was the "native heath."

Good job the beggars did not run to machine guns, thought Captain
Merline; fancy one, well placed and concealed in one of these huge
trees, and commanding the track.  Stake-pits, poisoned arrows,
spiked-log booby-traps, and poisoned needle-pointed snags neatly placed
to catch bare knees, and their various other little tricks were quite
enough to go on with.  What a rotten place for an ambush! The beggars
could easily have made a neat clearing a foot or two from the track, and
massed a hundred men whose poisoned arrows, guns, and rifles could be
presented a few inches from the breasts of passing enemies, without the
least fear of discovery.  Precautions against that sort of thing were
utterly impossible if one were to advance at a higher speed than a mile
a day.  The only possible way of ensuring against flank attack was to
have half the column out in the jungle with axes, hacking their way in
line, ahead of the remainder.  They couldn’t do a mile a day at that
rate.  That "point" in front was no earthly good, nor would it have been
if joined by Daniel Boone Burnham and Buffalo Bill.  The jungle on
either side might as well have been a thirty-foot brick wall. Unless the
enemy chose to squat in the middle of the track, what could the "point"
do in the way of warning?--and the enemy wouldn’t do that.  Of course,
an opposing column might be marching toward them along the same path,
but, in that case, except at a sudden bend, the column would see them as
soon as the "point."  Confound all bush fighting--messy, chancy work.
Anyhow, he’d have ten minutes’ halt and send Ibrahim up a tree for a
look round.

Captain Merline put his hand to the breast pocket of his khaki flannel
shirt for his whistle, with a faint short blast on which he would signal
to his "point" to halt.  The whistle never reached his lips.  A sudden
ragged crash of musketry rang out from the dense vegetation on either
side, and from surrounding trees which commanded and enfiladed the path.
More than half the little force fell at the first discharge, for it is
hard to miss a man with a Snider or a Martini-Henry rifle at three
yards’ range. For a moment there was confusion, and more than one of
those soldiers of the Queen, it must be admitted, fired off his rifle at
nothing in particular.  A burly sergeant, bringing up the rear, thrust
his way to the front shouting an order, and the survivors of the first
murderous burst of fire crouched down on either side of the track and
endeavoured to force their way into the jungle, form a line on either
side, and fire volleys to their left, front and right.  Having made his
way to the head of the column, Sergeant Isa ibn Yakub found his officer
shot through the head, chest and thigh.... A glance was sufficient.
With a loud click of his tongue he turned away with a look of murderous
hate on his ebony face and the lust of slaughter in his rolling yellow
eye.  He saw a leafy twig fall from a tree that overhung the path and
crouched motionless, staring at the spot.  Suddenly he raised his rifle
and fired, and gave a hoarse shout of glee as a body fell crashing to
the ground.  In the same second his tarboosh was spun from his head and
the shoulder of his blue jersey torn as by an invisible claw.  He too
wriggled into the undergrowth and joined the volley-firing, which,
sustained long enough and sufficiently generously and impartially
distributed, must assuredly damage a neighbouring foe and hinder his
approach.  Equally assuredly it must, however, lead to exhaustion of
ammunition, and when the volley-firing slackened and died away, it was
for this reason.  Sergeant Isa ibn Yakub was a man of brains and
resource, as well as of dash and courage.  Since the enemy had fallen
silent too, he would emerge with his men and collect the ammunition from
their dead and wounded comrades.  He blew a number of short shrill
blasts on the whistle which, with the stripes upon his arm, was the
proudest of his possessions.

The ammunition was quickly collected and the worthy Sergeant possessed
himself of his dead officer’s revolver and cartridges....  The next
step? ... If he attempted to remove his wounded, his whole effective
force would become stretcher-bearers and still be inadequate to the
task.  If he abandoned his wounded, should he advance or retire?  He
would rather fight a lion or three Masai than have to answer these
conundrums and shoulder these responsibilities.... He was relieved of
all necessity in the matter of deciding, for the brooding silence was
again suddenly broken by ear-piercing and blood-curdling howls and a
second sudden fusillade, as, at some given signal, the enemy burst into
the track both before and behind the column.  Obviously they were
skilfully handled and by one versed in the art of jungle war. The
survivors of the little force were completely surrounded--and the rest
was rather a massacre than a fight.  It is useless to endeavour to dive
into dense jungle to form a firing line when a determined person with a
broad-bladed spear is literally at your heels. Sergeant Isa ibn Yakub
did his utmost and fought like the lion-hearted warrior he was.  It is
some satisfaction to know that the one man who escaped and made his way
to the temporary base of the little columns to tell the story of the
destruction of this particular force, was Sergeant Isa ibn Yakub.

One month later a Lieutenant was promoted to Captain Sir Montague
Merline’s post, and, twelve months later, Lord Huntingten married his
wife.

Captain Strong of the Queen’s African Rifles, home on furlough, was best
man at the wedding of the handsome and popular Lord Huntingten with the
charming and beautiful Lady Merline.

                                   3

At about the same time as the fashionable London press announced to a
more or less interested world the more or less important news that Lady
Huntingten had presented her lord and master with a son and heir, a
small _safari_ swung into a tiny African village and came to a halt.
The naked Kavarondo porters flung down their loads with grunts and
duckings, and sat them down, a huddled mass of smelly humanity. From a
litter, borne in the middle of the caravan, stepped the leader of the
party, one Doctor John Williams, a great (though unknown) surgeon, a
medical missionary who gave his life and unusual talents, skill and
knowledge to the alleviation of the miseries of black humanity.  There
are people who have a lot to say about missionaries in Africa, and there
are people who have nothing to say about Dr. John Williams because words
fail them.  They have seen him at work and know what his life is--and
also what it might be if he chose to set up in Harley Street.

Doctor John Williams looked around at the village to which Fate brought
him for the first time, and beheld the usual scene--a collection of huts
built of poles and grass, and a few superior dwelling-places with
thatched walls and roofs.  A couple of women were pounding grain in a
wooden mortar; a small group of others was engaged in a kind of rude
basket weaving under the porch of a big hut; a man seated by a small
fire had apparently "taken up" poker work, for he was decorating a
vase-shaped gourd by means of a red-hot iron; a gang of tiny naked
piccaninnies, with incredibly distended stomachs, was playing around
a...

_What?_

Dr.  John Williams strode over to the spot.  A white man, or the ruin of
a sort of a white man, was seated on a native stool and leaning against
the bole of one of the towering palms that embowered, shaded, concealed
and enriched the little village.  His hair was very long and grey, his
beard and moustache were long and grey, his face was burnt and bronzed,
his eyes blue and bright.  On his head were the deplorable ruins of a
khaki helmet, and, for the rest, he wore the rags and remains of a pair
of khaki shorts.  Dr. John Williams stood and stared at him in
open-mouthed astonishment.  He arose and advanced with extended hand.
The doctor was too astounded to speak, and the other could not, for he
was dumb.  In a minute it was obvious to the new-comer that he was
more--that he was in some way "wanting."

From the headman of the villagers, who quickly gathered round, he
learned that the white man had been with them for "many nights and days
and seasons," that he was afflicted of the gods, very wise, and as a
little child.  Why "very wise" Dr. John Williams failed to discover, or
anything more of the man’s history, save that he had simply walked into
the village from nowhere in particular and had sat under that tree, all
day, ever since.  They had given him a hut, milk, corn, cocoanut, and
whatever else they had.  Also, in addition to this propitiation, they
had made a minor god of him, with worship of the milder sorts.  Their
wisdom and virtue in this particular had been rewarded by him with a
period of marked prosperity; and undoubtedly their crops, their cattle,
and their married women had benefited by his benevolent presence....

When Doctor John Williams resumed his journey he took the dumb white man
with him, and, in due course, reached his own mission, dispensary and
wonderful little hospital a few months later.  Had he considered that
there was any urgency in the case, and the time-factor of any
importance, he would have abandoned his sleeping-sickness tour, and gone
direct to the hospital to operate upon the skull of his foundling.  For
this great (and unknown) surgeon, upon examination, had decided that the
removal of a bullet which was lodged beneath the scalp and in the solid
bone of the top of the man’s head was the first, and probably last, step
in the direction of the restoration of speech and understanding.
Obviously he was in no pain, and he was not mad, but his brain was that
of a child whose age was equal to the time which had elapsed since the
wound was caused.  Probably this had happened about a couple of years
ago, for the brain was about equal to that of a two-year-old child. But
why had the child not learned to talk?  Possibly the fact that he had
lived among negroes, since his last return to consciousness, would
account for the fact.  Had he been shot in the head and recovered among
English people (if he were English) he would probably be now talking as
fluently as a two-year-old baby....

The first few days after his return to his headquarters were always
exceedingly busy ones for the doctor.  The number of things able to "go
wrong" in his absence was incredible, and, as he was the only white man
resident in a district some ten thousand square miles in area, the
accumulation of work and trouble was sufficient to appal most people.
But work and trouble were what the good doctor sought and throve on....
One piece of good news there was, however, in the tale of calamities.  A
pencilled note, scribbled on a leaf of a military pocket-book, informed
him that his old friend Strong, of the Queen’s African Rifles, had
passed through his village three weeks earlier, and would again pass
through, on his return, in a week’s time.  Having made a wide détour to
see his friend, Strong was very disappointed to learn of his absence,
and would return by the same devious route, in the hope of better
luck....

Good!  A few days of Strong’s company would be worth a lot.  A visit
from any white man was something; from a man of one’s own class and kind
was a great thing; but from worldly-wise, widely-read, clever old
Strong! ... Excellent! ...

                                   4

Captain Strong, of the Queen’s African Rifles, passed from the strong
sunlight into the dark coolness of Doctor John Williams’ bungalow side
by side with his host, who was still shaking him by the hand, in his joy
and affection.  Laying his riding-whip and helmet on a table he glanced
round, stared, turned as white as a sunburnt man may, ejaculated "Oh, my
God!" and seized the doctor’s arm.  His mouth hung open, his eyes were
starting from his head, and it was with shaking hand that he pointed to
where, in the doctor’s living-room, sat the dumb and weak-witted
foundling.

Doctor Williams was astounded and mightily interested.

"What’s up, Strong?" he asked.

"B--b--b--but he’s _dead_!" stammered Strong with a gasp.

"Not a bit of it, man," was the reply, "he’s as alive as you or I.  He’s
dumb, and he’s dotty, but he’s alive all right....  What’s wrong with
you? You’ve got a touch of the sun..." and then Captain Strong was
himself again.  If Captain Sir Montague Merline, late of the Queen’s
African Rifles, were alive, it should not be Jack Strong who would
announce the fact....

_Monty Merline?_ ... Was that vacant-looking person who was rising from
a chair and bowing to him, his old pal Merline? ... Most undoubtedly it
was.  Besides--there on his wrist and forearm was the
wonderfully-tattooed snake....

"How do you do?" he said.  The other bowed again, smiled stupidly, and
fumbled with the buttons of his coat....  Balmy! ...

Strong turned and dragged his host out of the room.

"Where’s he come from?" he asked quickly. "Who is he?"

"Where he came from last," replied the doctor, "is a village called, I
believe, Bwogo, about a hundred and twenty miles south-east of here.
How he got there I can’t tell you.  The natives said he just walked up
unaccompanied, unbounded, unpursued.  He’s got a bullet or something in
the top of his head and I’m going to lug it out.  And then, my boy, with
any luck at all, he’ll very soon be able to answer you any question you
like to put him.  Speech and memory will return at the moment the
pressure on the brain ceases."

"Will he remember up to the time the bullet hit him, or since, or both?"
asked Strong.

"All his life, up to the moment the bullet hit him, certainly," was the
reply.  "What happened since will, at first, be remembered as a dream,
probably. If I had to prophesy I should say he’d take up his life from
the second in which the bullet hit him, and think, for the moment, that
he is still where it happened.  By-and-by, he’ll realise that there’s a
gap somewhere, and gradually he’ll be able to fill it in with events
which will seem half nightmare, half real."

"Anyhow, he’ll be certain of his identity and personal history and so
forth?" asked Strong.

"Absolutely," said the surgeon.  "It will be precisely as though he
awoke from an ordinary night’s rest....  It’ll be awfully interesting to
hear him give an account of himself....  All this, of course, if he
doesn’t die under the operation."

"I hope he will," said Strong.

"What _do_ you mean, my dear chap?"

"I hope he’ll die under the operation."

"Why?"

"He’ll be better dead....  And it will be better for three other people
that he should be dead.... Is he likely to die?"

"I should say it’s ten to one he’ll pull through all right....  What’s
it all about, Strong?"

"Look here, old chap," was the earnest reply. "If it were anybody else
but you I shouldn’t know what to say or do.  As it’s _you_, my course is
clear, for you’re the last thing in discretion, wisdom and
understanding....  But don’t ask me his name....  I know him....  Look
here, it’s like this.  His wife’s married again....  There’s a kid....
They’re well known in Society....  Awful business....  Ghastly
scandal.... Shockin’ position."  Captain Strong took Doctor John
Williams by the arm.  "Look here, old chap," he said once again.  "Need
you do this?  It isn’t as though he was ’conscious,’ so to speak, and in
pain."

"Yes, I must do it," replied the doctor without hesitation, as the other
paused.

"But why?" urged Strong.  "I’m absolutely certain that if M----,
er--that is--this chap--could have his faculties for a minute he would
tell you not to do it....  You’ll take him from a sort of negative
happiness to the most positive and acute unhappiness, and you’ll simply
blast the lives of his wife and the most excellent chap she’s
married....  She waited a year after this chap ’died’ in--er--that last
Polar expedition--as was supposed....  Think of the poor little kid
too....  And there’s estates and a ti---- so on...."

"No good, Strong.  My duty in the matter is perfectly clear, and it is
to the sick man, as such."

"Well, you’ll do a damned cruel thing ... er--sorry, old chap, I mean
_do_ think it over a bit and look at it from the point of view of the
unfortunate lady, the second husband, and the child....  And of the chap
himself....  By God!  He won’t thank you."

"I look at it from the point of view of the doctor and I’m not out for
thanks," was the reply.

"Is that your last word, Williams?"

"It is.  I have here a man mentally maimed, mangled and suffering.  My
first and only duty is to heal him, and I shall do it."

"Right O!" replied Strong, who knew that further words would be useless.
He knew that his friend’s intelligence was clear as crystal and his will
as firm, and that he accepted no other guide than his own conscience....

As the three men sat in the moonlight that night, after dinner, Captain
Strong was an uncomfortable man.  That tragedy must find a place in the
human comedy he was well aware.  It had its uses like the comic
relief--but for human tragedy, undilute, black, harsh, and dreadful, he
had no taste.  He shivered. The pretty little comedy of Lord Huntingten
and Sir Montague and Lady Merline, of two years ago, had greatly amused
and deeply interested him.  This tragedy of the same three people was
unmitigated horror....  Poor Lady Merline!  He conjured up her beautiful
face with the wonderful eyes, the rose-leaf complexion, the glorious
hair, the tender, lovely mouth--and saw the life and beauty wiped from
it as she read, or heard, the ghastly news ... bigamy ...
illegitimacy....

The doctor’s "bearer" came to take the patient to bed.  He was a
remarkable man who had started life as a ward-boy in Madras.  He it was
who had cut the half-witted white man’s hair, shaved his beard and
dressed him in his master’s spare clothes.  When the patient was asleep
that night, he was going to endeavour to shave the top of his head
without waking him, for he was to be operated on, in the morning....

"Yes, I fully understand and I give you my solemn promise, Strong," said
the doctor as the two men rose to go in, that night.  "The moment the
man is sane I will tell him that he is not to tell me his name, nor
anything else until he has heard what I have to say. I will then break
it to him--using my own discretion as to how and when--that he was
reported dead, that his will was proved, that his widow wore mourning
for a year and then married again, and had a son a year later....  I
undertake that he shall not leave this house, _knowing that_, unless he
is in the fullest possession of his faculties and able to realise with
the utmost clearness _all_ the bearings of the case and _all_ the
consequences following his resumption of identity. And I’ll let him hide
here for just as long as he cares to conceal himself--if he wishes to
remain ’dead’ for a time."

"Yes ... And as I can’t possibly stay till he recovers, nor, in fact,
over to-morrow without gross dereliction of duty, I will leave a letter
for you to give him at the earliest safe moment....  I’ll tell him that
I am the only living soul who knows his name as well as his secret.
He’ll understand that no one else will know this--from me."

As he sat on the side of his bed that night, Captain Strong remarked
unto his soul, "Well--one thing--if I know Monty Merline as well as I
think, ’Sir Montague Merline’ died two years ago, whatever happens....
And yet I can’t imagine Monty committing suicide, somehow.  He’s a chap
with a conscience as well as the soul of chivalry....  Poor, poor, old
Monty Merline!..."

                          THE WAGES OF VIRTUE

                               CHAPTER I

                     SOAP AND SIR MONTAGUE MERLINE

Sir Montague Merline, second-class private soldier of the First
Battalion of the Foreign Legion of France, paused to straighten his
back, to pass his bronzed forearm across his white forehead, and to put
his scrap of soap into his mouth--the only safe receptacle for the
precious morsel, the tiny cake issued once a month by Madame La
République to the Legionary for all his washing purposes.  When one’s
income is precisely one halfpenny a day (paid when it has totalled up to
the sum of twopence halfpenny), one does not waste much, nor risk the
loss of valuable property; and to lay a piece of soap upon the concrete
of _Le Cercle d’Enfer_ reservoir, is not so much to risk the loss of it
as to lose it, when one is surrounded by gentlemen of the Foreign
Legion.  Let me not be misunderstood, nor supposed to be casting
aspersions upon the said gentlemen, but their need for soap is urgent,
their income is one halfpenny a day, and soap is of the things with
which one may "decorate oneself" without contravening the law of the
Legion.  To steal is to steal, mark you (and to deserve, and probably to
get, a bayonet through the offending hand, pinning it to the bench or
table), but to borrow certain specified articles permanently and without
permission is merely, in the curious slang of the Legion, "to decorate
oneself."

Contrary to what the uninitiated might suppose, _Le Cercle d’Enfer_--the
Circle of Hell--is not a dry, but a very wet place, it being, in point
of fact, the _lavabo_ where the Legionaries of the French Foreign Legion
stationed in Algeria at Sidi-bel-Abbès, daily wash their white fatigue
uniforms and occasionally their underclothing.

Oh, that _Cercle d’Enfer_!  I hated it more than I hated the _peloton
des hommes punis, salle de police, cellules_, the "Breakfast of the
Legion," the awful heat, monotony, flies, Bedouins; the solitude,
hunger, and thirst of outpost stations in the south; I hated it more
than I hated _astiquage_, _la boîte_, the _chaussettes russes_,
hospital, the terrible desert marches, sewer-cleaning fatigues, or that
villainous and vindictive ruffian of a _cafard_-smitten _caporal_ who
systematically did his very able best to kill me.  Oh, that accursed
_Cercle d’Enfer_, and the heart-breaking labour of washing a filthy
alfa-fibre suit (stained perhaps with rifle-oil) in cold water, and
without soap!

Only the other day, as I lay somnolent in a long chair in the verandah
of the Charmingest Woman (she lives in India), I heard the regular
_flop, flop, flop_ of wet clothes, beaten by a distant _dhobi_ upon a
slab of stone, and at the same moment I smelt wet concrete as the _mali_
watered the maidenhair fern on the steps leading from Her verandah to
the garden.  Odours call up memories far more distinctly and readily
than do other sense-impressions, and the faint smell of wet concrete,
aided as it was by the faintly audible sound of wet blows, brought most
vividly before my mind’s eye a detailed picture of that well-named
Temple of Hygiea, the "Circle of Hell."  Sleeping, waking, and partly
sleeping, partly waking, I saw it all again; saw Sir Montague Merline,
who called himself John Bull; saw Hiram Cyrus Milton, known as The
Bucking Bronco; saw "Reginald Rupert"; the infamous Luigi Rivoli; the
unspeakable Edouard Malvin; the marvellous Mad Grasshopper, whose name
no one knew; the truly religious Hans Djoolte; the Russian twins,
calling themselves Mikhail and Feodor Kyrilovitch Malekov; the terrible
Sergeant-Major Suicide-Maker, and all the rest of them.  And finally,
waking with an actual and perceptible taste of soap in my mouth, I
wished my worst enemy were in the _Cercle d’Enfer_, soapless, and with
much rifle-oil, dust, leather marks and wine stains on his once-white
uniform--and then I thought of Carmelita and determined to write this
book.

For Carmelita deserves a monument (and so does John Bull), however
humble....  To continue....

Sir Montague Merline did not put his precious morsel of soap into his
pocket, for the excellent reason that there was no pocket to the single
exiguous garment he was at the moment wearing--a useful piece of
material which in its time played many parts, and knew the service of
duster, towel, turban, tablecloth, polishing pad, tea-cloth,
house-flannel, apron, handkerchief, neckerchief, curtain, serviette,
holder, fly-slayer, water-strainer, punkah, and, at the moment, nether
garment.  Having _cached_ his soup and having observed "_Peste!_" as he
savoured its flavour, he proceeded to pommel, punch, and slap upon the
concrete, the greyish-white tunic and breeches, and the cotton vest and
shirt which he had generously soaped before the hungry eyes of numerous
soapless but oathful fellow-labourers, who less successfully sought that
virtue which, in the Legion, is certainly next to, but far ahead of,
mere godliness.

In due course, Sir Montague Merline rinsed his garments in the
reservoir, wrung them out, bore them to the nearest clothes-line, hung
them out to dry, and sat himself down in their shadow to stare at them
unwaveringly until dried by the fierce sun--the ancient enemy, for the
moment an unwilling friend. To watch them unwaveringly and intently
because he knew that the turning of his head for ten seconds might mean
their complete and final disappearance--for, like soap, articles of
uniform are on the list of things with which a Legionary may "decorate"
himself, if he can, without incurring the odium of public opinion.  (He
may steal any article of equipment, clothing, kit, accoutrement, or
general utility, but his patron saint help him and Le Bon Dieu be
merciful to him, if he be caught stealing tobacco, wine, food, or
money.)

Becoming aware of the presence of Monsieur le Légionnaire Edouard
Malvin, Sir Montague Merline increased the vigilance of his scrutiny of
his pendent property, for ce cher Edouard was of pick-pockets the very
prince and magician; of those who could steal the teeth from a Jew while
he sneezed and would steal the scalp from their grandmamma while she
objected.

"Ohé!  Jean Boule, lend me thy soap," besought this stout and dapper
little Austrian, who for some reason pretended to be a Belgian from the
Congo. "This cursed alfa-fibre gets dirtier the more you wash it in this
cursed water," and he smiled a greasy and ingratiating grin.

Without for one second averting his steady stare from his clothes, the
Englishman slowly removed the soap from his mouth, expectorated,
remarked "_Peaudezébie_,"[#] and took no further notice of the quaint
figure which stood by his side, clad only in ancient red Zouave breeches
and the ingratiating smile.

[#] An emphatic negative.

"Name of a Name!  Name of the Name of a Pipe! Name of the Name of a
Dirty Little Furry Red Monkey!" observed Monsieur le Légionnaire Edouard
Malvin as he turned to slouch away, twirling the dripping grey-white
tunic.

"Meaning me?" asked Sir Montague, replacing the soap in its safe
repository and preparing to rise.

"But no!  But not in the least, old cabbage.  Thou hast the _cafard_.
Mais oui, tu as le cafard," replied the Belgian and quickened his
retreat.

No, the grey Jean Boule, so old, so young, doyen of Légionnaires, so
quick, strong, skilful and enduring at _la boxe_, was not the man to
cross at any time, and least of all when he had _le cafard_, that
terrible Legion madness that all Legionaries know; the madness that
drives them to the cells, to gaol, to the Zephyrs, to the firing-party
by the open grave; or to desertion and death in the desert.  The grey
Jean Boule had been a Zephyr of the Penal Battalions once, already, for
killing a man, and Monsieur Malvin, although a Legionary of the Foreign
Legion, did not wish to die. No, not while Carmelita and Madame la
Cantinière lived and loved and sold the good Algiers wine at
three-halfpence a bottle....  No, bon sang de sort!

M. le Légionnaire Malvin returned to the dense ring of labouring
perspiring washers, and edged in behind a gigantic German and a short,
broad, burly Alsatian, capitalists as joint proprietors of a fine cake
of soap.

Sacré nom de nom de bon Dieu de Dieu de sort! Dull-witted German pigs
might leave their soap unguarded for a moment, and, if they did not,
might be induced to wring some soapy water from their little pile of
washing, upon the obstinately greasy tunic of the good M. Malvin.

Légionnaire Hans Schnitzel, late of Berlin, rinsed his washing in clean
water, wrung it, and took it to the nearest drying line.  Légionnaire
Alphonse Dupont, late of Alsace, placed his soap in the pocket of the
dirty white fatigue-uniform which he wore, and which he would wash as
soon as he had finished the present job.  Immediately, Légionnaire
Edouard Malvin transferred the soap from the side pocket of the tunic of
the unconscious Légionnaire Alphonse Dupont to that of his own red
breeches, and straightway begged the loan of it.

"_Merde!_" replied Dupont.  "Nombril de Belzébutt! I will lend it thee
_peaudezébie_.  Why should I lend thee soap, _vieux dégoulant_?  Go
decorate thyself, _sale cochon_.  Besides ’tis not mine to lend."

"And that is very true," agreed M. Malvin, and sauntered toward
Schnitzel, who stood phlegmatically guarding his drying clothes.  In his
hand was an object which caused the eyebrows of the good M. Malvin to
arch and rise, and his mouth to water--nothing less than an actual, real
and genuine scrubbing-brush, beautiful in its bristliness.  Then
righteous anger filled his soul.

"Saligaud!" he hissed.  "These pigs of filthy Germans!  Soap _and_ a
brush.  Sacripants!  Ils me dégoutant à la fin."

As he regarded the stolid German with increasing envy, hatred, malice
and all uncharitableness, and cast about in his quick and cunning mind
for means of relieving him of the coveted brush, a sudden roar of wrath
and grief from his Alsatian partner, Dupont, sent Schnitzel running to
join that unfortunate man in fierce and impartial denunciations of his
left-hand and right-hand neighbours, who were thieves, pigs, brigands,
dogs, Arabs, and utterly _merdant_ and _merdable_.  Bursting into the
fray, Herr Schnitzel found them, in addition, _bloedsinnig_ and
_dummkopf_ in that they could not produce cakes of soap from empty
mouths.

As the rage of the bereaved warriors increased, more and more Pomeranian
and Alsatian patois invaded the wonderful Legion-French, a French which
is not of Paris, nor of anywhere else in the world save La Légion.  As
Dupont fell upon a laughing Italian with a cry of "Ah! zut!  Sacré
grimacier," Schnitzel spluttered and roared at a huge slow-moving
American who regarded him with a look of pitying but not unkindly
contempt....

"Why do the ’eathen rage furious _to_gether and _im_agine a vain thing?"
he enquired in a slow drawl of the excited "furriner," adding "Ain’t yew
some _schafs-kopf_, sonny!" and, as the big German began to whirl his
arms in the windmill fashion peculiar to the non-boxing foreigner who
meditates assault and battery, continued--

"Now yew stop _zanking_ and playing _versteckens_ with me, yew pie-faced
Squarehead, and be _schnell_ about it, or yew’ll git my goat, see?
_Vous obtiendrez mon chèvre_, yew perambulating _prachtvoll bierhatte_,"
and he coolly turned his back upon the infuriated German with a polite,
if laborious, "Guten tag, mein Freund."

Mr. Hiram Cyrus Milton (late of Texas, California, the Yukon, and the
"main drag" generally of the wild and woolly West) was exceeding proud
of his linguistic knowledge and skill.  It may be remarked, en passant,
that his friends were even prouder of it.

At this moment, le bon Légionnaire Malvin, hovering for opportunity,
with a sudden _coup de savate_ struck the so-desirable scrubbing-brush
from the hand of Herr Schnitzel with a force that seemed like to take
the arm from the shoulder with it.  Leaping round with a yell of pain,
the unfortunate German found himself, as Malvin had calculated, face to
face with the mighty Luigi Rivoli, to attack whom was to be brought to
death’s door through that of the hospital.

Snatching up the brush which was behind Schnitzel when he turned to face
Rivoli, le bon M. Malvin lightly departed from the vulgar scuffle in the
direction of the drying clothes of Herren Schnitzel and Dupont, the
latter, last seen clasping, with more enthusiasm than love, a wiry
Italian to his bosom.  The luck of M. Malvin was distinctly in, for not
only had he the soap and a brush for the easy cleansing of his own
uniform, but he had within his grasp a fresh uniform to wear, and
another to sell; for the clothing of ce bon Dupont would fit him to a
marvel, while that of the pig-dog Schnitzel would fetch good money, the
equivalent of several litres of the thick, red Algerian wine, from a
certain Spanish Jew, old Haroun Mendoza, of the Sidi-bel-Abbès ghetto.

Yes, the Saints bless and reward the good Dupont for being of the same
size as M. Malvin himself, for it is a most serious matter to be short
of anything when showing-down kit at kit-inspection, and that thrice
accursed Sacré Chien of an _Adjudant_ would, as likely as not, have
spare white trousers shown-down on the morrow.  What can a good
Légionnaire do, look you, when he has not the article named for
to-morrow’s _Adjutant’s_ inspection, but "decorate himself"?  Is it
easy, is it reasonable, to buy new white fatigue-uniform on an income of
one halfpenny per diem? Sapristi, and Sacré Bleu, and Name of the Name
of a Little Brown Dog, a litre of wine costs a penny, and a packet of
tobacco three-halfpence, and what is left to a gentleman of the Legion
then, on pay-day, out of his twopence-halfpenny, nom d’un pétard? As for
ce bon Dupont, he must in his turn "decorate" himself.  And if he
cannot, but must renew acquaintance with _la boîte_ and _le peloton des
hommes punis_, why--he must regard things in their true light, be
philosophical, and take it easy.  Is it not proverbial that "Toutes
choses peut on souffrir qu’aise"?  And with a purr of pleasure, a
positive licking of chops, and a murmur of "Ah!  Au tient frais," he
deftly whipped the property of the embattled Legionaries from the line,
no man saying him nay.  For it is not the etiquette of the Legion to
interfere with one who, in the absence of its owner, would "decorate"
himself with any of those things with which self-decoration is
permissible, if not honourable.  Indeed, to Sir Montague Merline,
sitting close by, and regarding his proceedings with cold impartial eye,
M. Malvin observed--

"’Y a de bon, mon salop!  I have heard that le bon Dieu helps those who
help themselves.  I do but help myself in order to give le bon Dieu the
opportunity He doubtless desires.  I decorate myself incidentally. Mais
oui, and I shall decorate myself this evening with a p’tite ouvrière and
to-morrow with une réputation d’ivrogne," and he turned innocently to
saunter with his innocent bundle of washing from the _lavabo_, to his
_caserne_.  Ere he had taken half a dozen steps, the cold and quiet
voice of the grey Jean Boule broke in upon the resumed day-dreams of the
innocently sauntering M. Malvin.

"Might one aspire to the honour of venturing to detain for a brief
interview Monsieur le Légionnaire Edouard Malvin?" said the soft
metallic voice.

"But certainly, and without charge, mon gars," replied that gentleman,
turning and eyeing the incomprehensible and dangerous Jean Boule, _à
coin de l’oeil_.

"You seek soap?"

"I do," replied the Austrian "Belgian" promptly. The possession of one
cake of soap makes that of another no less desirable.

"Do you seek sorrow also?"

"But no, dear friend.  ’J’ai eu toutes les folies.’  In this world I
seek but wine, woman, and peace.  Let me avoid the ’gros bonnets’ and
lead my happy tumble life in peaceful obscurity.  A modest violet, I.  A
wayside flow’ret, a retiring primrose, such as you English love."

"Then, cher Malvin, since you seek soap and not sorrow, let not my
little cake of soap disappear from beneath the polishing-rags in my
sack.  The little brown sack at the head of my cot, cher Malvin. Enfin!
I appoint you guardian and custodian of my little cake of soap.  But in
a most evil hour for le bon M. Malvin would it disappear.  Guard it
then, cher Malvin.  Respect it.  Watch over it as you value, and would
retain, your health and beauty, M. Malvin. And when _I_ have avenged
_my_ little piece of soap, the true history of the last ten minutes will
deeply interest those earnest searchers after truth, Legionaries
Schnitzel and Dupont.  Depart in peace and enter upon your new office of
Guardian of my Soap!  Vous devez en être joliment fier."

"Quite a speech, in effect, mon drôle," replied the stout Austrian as he
doubtfully fingered his short beard _au poinçon_, and added uneasily, "I
am not the only gentleman who ’decorates’ himself with soap."

"No?  Nor with uniforms.  Go in peace, Protector of my Soap."

And smiling wintrily M. Malvin winked, broke into the wholly deplorable
ditty of "Pére Dupanloup en chemin de fer," and pursued his innocent
path to barracks, whither Sir Montague Merline later followed him, after
watching with a contemptuous smile some mixed and messy fighting (beside
the apparently dead body of the Legionary Schnitzel) between an Alsatian
and an Italian, in which the Italian kicked his opponent in the stomach
and partly ate his ear, and the Alsatian used his hands solely for
purpose of throttling.

Why couldn’t they stand up and fight like gentlemen under Queensberry
rules, or, if boxing did not appeal to them, use their sword-bayonets
like soldiers and Legionaries--the low rooters, the vulgar,
rough-and-tumble gutter-scrappers....

Removing his almost dry washing from the line, Sir Montague Merline
marched across to his barrack-block, climbed the three flights of stone
stairs, traversed the long corridor of his Company, and entered the big,
light, airy room wherein he and twenty-nine other Legionaries (one of
whom held the very exalted and important rank of _Caporal_) lived and
moved and had their monotonous being.

Spreading his tunic and breeches on the end of the long table he
proceeded to "iron" them, first with his hand, secondly with a tin
plate, and finally with the edge of his "quart," the drinking-mug which
hung at the head of his bed ready for the reception of the early morning
_jus_, the strong coffee which most effectively rouses the Legionary
from somnolence and most ineffectively sustains him until midday.

Anon, having persuaded himself that the result of his labours was
satisfactory, and up to Legion standards of smartness--which are as high
as those of the ordinary _piou-piou_ of the French line are low--he
folded his uniform in elbow-to-finger-tip lengths, placed it with the
_paquetage_ on the shelf above his bed, and began to dress for his
evening walk-out. The Legionary’s time is, in theory, his own after 5
p.m., and the most sacred plank in the most sacred platform of all his
sacred tradition is his right to promenade himself at eventide and
listen to the Legion’s glorious band in the Place Sadi Carnot.

Having laid his uniform, belt, bayonet, and képi on his cot, he stepped
across to the next but one (the name-card at the head of which bore the
astonishing legend "Bucking Bronco, No. 11356.  Soldat 1ère Classe),
opened a little sack which hung at the head of it, and took from it the
remains of an ancient nail-brush, the joint property of Sir Montague
Merline, alias Jean Boule, and Hiram Cyrus Milton, alias Bucking Bronco,
late of Texas, California, Yukon, and "the main drag" of the United
States of America.

Even as Sir Montague’s hand was inserted through the neck of the sack,
the huge American (who had been wrongfully accused and rashly attacked
by Legionary Hans Schnitzel) entered the barrack-room, caught sight of a
figure bending over his rag-sack, and crept on tiptoe towards it, his
great gnarled fists clenched, his mouth compressed to a straight thin
line beneath his huge drooping moustache, and his grey eyes ablaze.
Luckily Sir Montague heard the sounds of his stealthy approach, and
turned just in time.  The American dropped his fists and smiled.

"Say," he drawled, "I thought it was some herring-gutted weevil of a
Dago or a Squarehead shenannikin with my precious jools.  An’ I was jest
a’goin’ ter plug the skinnamalink some.  Say, Johnnie, if yew hadn’t
swivelled any, I was jest a’goin’ ter slug yew, good an’ plenty, behind
the yeer-’ole."

"Just getting the tooth-nail-button-boot-dandy-brush, Buck," replied Sir
Montague.  "How are you feeling?"

"I’m feelin’ purty mean," was the reply.  "A dirty Squarehead of a
dod-gasted Dutchy from the Farterland grunted in me eye, an’ I thought
the shave-tail was fer rough-housin’, an’ I slugged him one, just ter
start ’im gwine.  The gosh-dinged piker jest curled up.  He jest wilted
on the floor."

The Bucking Bronco, in high disgust, expectorated and then chid himself
for forgetting that he was no longer on the free soil of America, where
a gentleman may spit as he likes and be a gentleman for a’ that and a’
that.

"I tell yew, Johnnie," he continued, "he got me jingled, the lumberin’
lallapaloozer!  There he lay _an’_ lay--and then some.  ’Git up, yew
rubberin’ rube,’ I ses, ’yew’ll git moss on your teeth if yew lie so
quiet; git up, an’ deliver the goods,’ I ses, ’I had more guts then yew
when I was knee high to a June bug.’  Did he arise an’ make good?   _I_
should worry. Nope.  Yew take it from Uncle, that bonehead is there yit,
an’ afore I could make him wise to it thet he didn’t git the bulge on
Uncle with _thet_ bluff, another Squarehead an’ a gibberin’ Dago put up
a dirty kind o’ scrap over his body, gougin’ and kickin’ an’ earbitin’
an’ throttlin’, an’ a whole bunch o’ boobs jined in an’ I give it up an’
come ’ome."  And the Bucking Bronco sat him sadly on his bed and
groaned.

"Cheer up, Buck, we’ll all soon be dead," replied his comrade, "don’t
_you_ go getting cafard," and he looked anxiously at the
angry-lugubrious face of his friend.  "What’s the _ordre du jour_ for
walking-out dress to-day?" he added.  "Blue tunic and red trousers?  Or
tunic and white?  Or _capote_, or what?"

"It was tunic an’ white yesterday," replied the American, "an’ I guess
it is to-day too."

"It’s my night to howl," he added cryptically "Let’s go an’ pow-wow
Carmelita ef thet fresh gorilla Loojey Rivoli ain’t got ’er in ’is
pocket.  I’ll shoot ’im up some day, sure...."

A sudden shouting, tumult, and running below, and cries of "Les bleus!
Les bleus!" interrupted the Bronco’s monologue and drew the two old
soldiers to a window that overlooked the vast, neat, gravelled
barrack-square, clean, naked, and bleak to the eye as an ice-floe.

"Strike me peculiar," remarked the Bucking Bronco.  "It’s another big
gang o’ tenderfeet."

"A draft of rookies!  Come on--they’ll all be for our Company in place
of those _poumpists_,[#] and there may be something Anglo-Saxon among
them," said Legionary John Bull, and the two men hastily flung their
capotes over their sketchy attire and hurried from the room, buttoning
them as they went.

[#] Deserters.

Like Charity, the Legionary’s overcoat covers a multitude of
sins--chiefly of omission--and is a most useful garment.  It protects
him from the cold dawn wind, and keeps him warm by night; it protects
him from the cruel African sun, and keeps him cool by day, or at least,
if not cool, in the frying-pan degree of heat, which is better than that
of the fire. He marches in it without a tunic, and relies upon it to
conceal the fact when he has failed to "decorate" himself with
underclothing.  Its skirts, buttoned back, hamper not his legs, and its
capacious pockets have many uses.  Its one drawback is that, being
double-breasted, it buttons up on either side, a fact which has brought
the grey hairs of many an honest Legionary in sorrow to the cellules,
and given many a brutal and vindictive Sergeant the chance of that
cruelty in which his little tyrant soul so revels.  For, incredible as
it may seem to the lay mind, the ingenious devil whose military mind
concocts the ordres du jour, changes, by solemn decree, and almost
daily, the side upon which the overcoat is to be buttoned up.

Clattering down the long flights of stone stairs, and converging across
the barrack-square, the Legionaries came running from all directions, to
gaze upon, to chaff, to delude, to sponge upon, and to rob and swindle
the "Blues"--the recruits of the _Légion Étrangère_, the embryo
_Légionnaires d’Afrique_.

In the incredibly maddeningly dull life of the Legion in peace time, the
slightest diversion is a god-send and even the arrival of a batch of
recruits a most welcome event.  To all, it is a distraction; to some,
the hope of the arrival of a fellow-countryman (especially to the few
English, Americans, Danes, Greeks, Russians, Norwegians, Swedes, and
Poles whom cruel Fate has sent to La Légion).  To some, a chance of
passing on a part of the brutality and tyranny which they themselves
suffer; to some, a chance of getting civilian clothes in which to
desert; to others, an opportunity of selling knowledge of the ropes, for
litres of canteen wine; to many, a hope of working a successful trick on
a bewildered recruit--the time-honoured villainy of stealing his new
uniform and pretending to buy him another _sub rosa_ from the dishonest
quartermaster, whereupon the recruit buys back his own original uniform
at the cost of his little all (for invariably the alleged
substitute-uniform costs just that sum of money which the poor wretch
has brought with him and augmented by the compulsory sale of his
civilian kit to the clothes-dealing harpies and thieves who infest the
barrack-gates on the arrival of each draft).

As the tiny portal beside the huge barrack-gate was closed and fastened
by the Corporal in charge of the squad of "blues" (as the French army
calls its recruits[#]), the single file of derelicts halted at the order
of the Sergeant of the Guard, who, more in sorrow than in anger, weighed
them and found them wanting.

[#] In the days of the high, tight stock and cravat, the recruit was
supposed to be livid and blue in the face until he grew accustomed to
them.

"Sweepings," he summed them up in passing judgment.  "Foundlings.
Droppings.  Crumbs. Tripe.  Accidents.  Abortions.  Cripples.  Left by
the tide.  Blown in by the wind.  Born pékins.[#]  Only one man among
them, and he a pig of a Prussian--or perhaps an Englishman.  Let us hope
he’s an Englishman...."

[#] Civilians.

In speaking thus, the worthy Sergeant was behaving with impropriety and
contrary to the law and tradition of the Legion.  What nouns and
adjectives a non-commissioned officer may use wherewith to stigmatise a
Legionary, depend wholly and solely upon his taste, fluency and
vocabulary.  But it is not etiquette to reproach a man with his
nationality, however much a matter for reproach that nationality may be.

"Are you an Englishman, most miserable _bleu_?" he suddenly asked of a
tall, slim, fair youth, dressed in tweed Norfolk-jacket, and grey
flannel trousers, and bearing in every line of feature and form, and in
the cut and set of his expensive clothing, the stamp of the man of
breeding, birth and position.

"By the especial mercy and grace of God, I am an Englishman, Sergeant,
thank you," he replied coolly in good, if slow and careful French.

The Sergeant smiled grimly behind his big moustache. Himself a cashiered
Russian officer, and once a gentleman, he could appreciate a gentleman
and approve him in the strict privacy of his soul.

"_Slava Bogu!_" he roared.  "Vile _bleu_!  And now by the especial mercy
and grace of the Devil you are a Légionnaire--or will be, if you survive
the making...." and added _sotto voce_, "Are you a degraded dog of a
broken officer?  If so, you can claim to be appointed to the _élèves
caporaux_ as a non-commissioned officer on probation, if you have a
photo of yourself in officer’s uniform.  Thus you will escape all
recruit-drill and live in hope to become, some day, Sergeant, even as
I," and the (for a Sergeant of the Legion) decent-hearted fellow smote
his vast chest.

"I thank you, Sergeant," was the drawled reply. "You really dazzle
me--but _I_ am not a degraded dog of a broken officer."

"_Gospodi pomilui!_" roared the incensed Sergeant. "Ne me donnez de la
gabatine, pratique!" and, for a second, seemed likely to strike the cool
and insolent recruit who dared to bandy words with a Sergeant of the
Legion.  His eyes bulged, his moustache bristled, and his scarlet face
turned purple as he literally showed his teeth.

"Go easy, old chap," spoke a quiet voice, in English, close beside the
Englishman.  "That fellow can do you to death if you offend him," and
the recruit, turning, beheld a grey-moustached, white-haired elderly
man, bronzed, lined, and worn-looking--a typical French army _vielle
moustache_--an "old sweat" from whose lips the accents of a refined
English gentleman came with the utmost incongruity.

The youth’s face brightened with interest.  Obviously this old dear was
a public-school, or ’Varsity man, or, very probably, an _ex_-British
officer.

"Good egg," quoth he, extending a hand behind him for a surreptitious
shake.  "See you anon, what?"

"Yes, you’ll all come to the Seventh Company.  We are below strength,"
said Legionary John Bull, in whose weary eyes had shone a new light of
interest since they fell upon this compatriot of his own caste and
kidney.

A remarkably cool and nonchalant recruit--and surely unique in the
history of the Legion’s "blues" in showing absolutely no sign of
privation, fear, stress, criminality, poverty, depression, anxiety, or
bewilderment!

"Now, what’n hell is he doin’ in thet bum outfit?" queried the Bucking
Bronco of his friend John Bull, who kept as near as possible to the
Englishman whom he had warned against ill-timed causticity of humour.

"He’s some b’y, thet b’y, but he’d better quit kickin’.  He’s a way-up
white man I opine.  What’s ’e a’doin’ in this joint?  He’s a gay-cat and
a looker. He’s a fierce stiff sport.  He has sand, some--sure. Yep," and
Mr. Hiram Cyrus Milton checked himself only just in time from defiling
the immaculate and sacred parade-ground, by "signifying in the usual
manner" that he was mentally perturbed, and himself in these
circumstances of expectoration-difficulty by observing that the boy was
undoubtedly "some" boy, and worthy to have been an American citizen had
he been born under a luckier star--or stripe.

"I can’t place him, Buck," replied the puzzled John Bull, his quiet
voice rendered almost inaudible by the shouts, howls, yells and cries of
the seething mob of Legionaries who swarmed round the line of recruits,
assailing their bewildered ears in all the tongues of Europe, and some
of those of Asia and Africa.

"He doesn’t look hungry, and he doesn’t look hunted.  I suppose he is
one of the few who don’t come here to escape either starvation,
creditors, or the Law.  And he doesn’t look desperate like the average
turned-down lover, ruined gambler, deserted husband, or busted
bankrupt....  Wonder if he’s come here in search of ’Romance’?"

"Wal, ef he’s come hyar for his health an’ amoosement he’d go to Hell to
cool himself, or ter the den of a grizzly b’ar fer gentle stimoolation
and recreation. Gee whiz!  Didn’t he fair git ole Bluebottle’s goat? He
sure did git nixt him."

"Bit of a contrast to the rest of the gang, what?" remarked John Bull,
and indeed the truth of his remark was very obvious.

"Ain’t they a outfit o’ dodgasted hoboes an’ bindlestiffs!" agreed his
friend.

Straight as a lance, thin, very broad in the shoulders and narrow of
waist and hip; apparently as clean and unruffled as when leaving his
golf-club pavilion for a round on the links; cool, self-possessed,
haughty, aristocratic and clean-cut of feature, this Englishman among
the other recruits looked like a Derby winner among a string of equine
ruins in a knacker’s yard; like a panther among bears--a detached and
separated creature, something of different flesh and blood. Breed is a
very remarkable thing, even more distinctive than race, and in this
little band of derelicts was another Englishman, a Cockney youth who had
passed from street-arab and gutter-snipe, _via_ Reformatory, to
hooligan, coster and soldier.  No man in that collection of wreckage
from Germany, Spain, Italy, France, and the four corners of Europe
looked less like the tall recruit than did this brother Englishman.

To Sir Montague Merline, fallen and shattered star of the high social
firmament, the sight of him was as welcome as water in the desert, and
he thanked Fate for having brought another Englishman to the Legion--and
one so debonair, so fine, so handsome, cool and strong.

"There’s Blood there," he murmured to himself.

"His shoulders hev bin drilled somewheres, although he’s British," added
the Bucking one.  "Yep.  He’s one o’ the flat-backed push."

"I wonder if he can be a cashiered officer.  He’s drilled as you say....
If he has been broke for something it hasn’t marked him much.  Nothing
hang-dog there," mused Legionary John Bull.

"Nope.  He’s a blowed-in-the-glass British aristocrat," agreed the
large-minded Hiram Cyrus, "and I opine an ex-member of the commishunned
ranks o’ the British Constitootional Army.  He ain’t niver bin batterin’
the main-stem for light-pieces like them other hoodlums an’ toughs an’
smoudges.  Nope. He ain’t never throwed his feet fer a two-bit
poke-out.... Look at that road-kid next ’im!  Ain’t he a peach?  I
should smile!  Wonder the medicine-man didn’t turn down some o’ them
chechaquos...."

And, truly, the draft contained some very queer odd lots.  By the side
of the English gentleman stood a big fat German boy in knicker-bockers
and jersey, bare-legged and wearing a pair of button-boots that had
belonged to a woman in the days when they still possessed toe-caps.
Pale face, pale hair, and pale eyes, conspired to give him an air of
terror--the first seeming to have the hue of fright, the second to stand
_en brosse_ with fear, and the last to bulge like those of a hunted
animal.

Presumably M. le Médicin-Major must have been satisfied that the boy was
eighteen years of age, but, though tall and robust, he looked nearer
fifteen--an illusion strengthened, doubtless, by the knickerbockers,
bare calves, and button-boots.  If he had enlisted in the Foreign Legion
to avoid service in the Fatherland, he had quitted the frying-pan for a
furnace seven times heated.  Possibly he hoped to emulate Messieurs
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego.  In point of fact, he was a deserter
(driven to the desperate step of fleeing across the French frontier by a
typical Prussian non-commissioned officer), and already wishing himself
once more _zwei jahriger_ in the happy Fatherland.

Already, to his German soul and stomach, the lager-bier of Munich, the
sausage, _zwieback_, and _kalte schnitzel_ of home, seemed things of the
dim and distant past, and unattainable future.

Next to him stood a gnarled and knotted Spaniard, whose face appeared to
be carven from his native mahogany, and whose ragged clothing--grimy,
oily, blackened--proclaimed him wharfside coal-heaver, dock-rat, and
longshoreman.  What did he among the Legion’s blues?  Was it lack of
work, was it slow starvation?  Or excess of temper and a quick blow with
a coal-shovel upon the head of an enemy in some Marseilles
coal-barge--that had brought him to Sidi-bel-Abbès in the sands of
Africa?

By his side slouched a dark-faced, blunt-featured Austrian youth, whose
evil-looking mouth was unfortunately in no wise concealed by a sparse
and straggling moustache, laboriously pinched into two gummed spikes,
and whose close-set eyes were not in harmony of focus.  His dress
appeared to be that of a lower-class clerk, ill-fitting black cloth of
lamentable cut, the type of suit that, in its thousands, renders day
horrible in European and American cities, and is, alas, spreading to
many Asiatic.  His linen was filthy, his crinkly hair full of dust, his
boots cracked and shapeless.  He looked what he was--an absconding
Viennese tout who had had a very poor time of it. He proved to be a
highly objectionable and despicable scoundrel.

His left-hand neighbour was a weedy, olive-faced youth, wearing a velvet
tam-o’-shanter cap, and a brown corduroy suit, of which the baggy,
peg-top trousers fitted tightly at the ankles over pearl-buttoned
spring-side patent boots.  He had long fluffy brown hair, long fluffy
brown beard, whiskers, and moustache! long filthy finger nails, and no
linen.  Apparently a French student of the Sorbonne, or artist from The
Quarter, overwhelmed by some terrible cataclysm, some _affaire_ of the
heart, the pocket, or _l’honneur_.

Beside this gentleman, whose whole appearance was highly offensive to
the prejudiced insular eye of the Englishman, stood a typical
_Apache_--a horrible-looking creature whose appalling face showed the
cunning of the fox, the ferocity of the panther, the cruelty of the
wolf, the treachery of the bear, the hate of the serpent, and the rage
of the boar.  Monsieur l’Apache had evidently chosen the Legion as a
preferable alternative to the hulks and the chain-gang--Algeria rather
than Noumea.  He lived to doubt the wisdom of his choice.

Beside him, and evidently eyeing him askance, stood two youths as
extraordinarily similar as were ever twins in this world.  Dark,
slightly "rat-faced," slender, but decidedly athletic looking.

"Cheer up, _golubtchik_!  If one cannot get _vodka_ one must drink
_kvass_," whispered one.

"All right, Fedia," replied the other.  "But I am so hungry and tired.
What wouldn’t I give for some good hot tea and _blinni_!"

"We’re bound to get something of some sort before long--though it won’t
be _zakuska_.  Don’t give way on the very threshold now.  It is our one
chance, or I would not have brought you here, Olichka."

"Ssh!" whispered back the other.  "Don’t call me that here, Feodor."

"Of course not, Mikhail, stout fellow," replied Feodor, and smote his
companion on the back.

Regarding them, sharp-eyed, stood the Cockney, an undersized,
narrow-chested, but wiry-looking person--a typical East End sparrow;
impudent, assertive, thoroughly self-reliant, tenacious, and courageous;
of the class that produces admirable specimens of the genus "Tommy."

In curious contrast to his look of _gamin_ alertness was that of his
neighbour, a most stolid, dull and heavy-looking Dutchman, whose sole
conversational effort was the grunt "_Verstaan nie_," whenever
addressed.  Like every other member of the draft he appeared "to feel
his position" keenly, and distinctly to deplore it.  Such expression as
his bovine face possessed, suggested that Algerian sun and sands
compared unfavourably with Dutch mists and polders, and the
barrack-square of the Legion with the fat and comfortable stern of a
Scheldt canal boat.

Square-headed, flat-faced Germans, gesticulating Alsatians and
Lorraines, fair Swiss, and Belgians, with a sprinkling of Italians,
swarthy Spaniards, Austrians and French, made up the remainder of the
party, men whose status, age, appearance, bearing, and origins were as
diverse as their nationalities levelled by a common desperate need (of
food, or sanctuary, or a fresh start in life), and united by a common
filthiness, squalor, and dejection--a gang powerless in the bonds of
hunger and fear, delivered bound into the relentless, grinding mills of
the Legion.

And thus, distinguished and apart, though in their midst, stood the
well-dressed Englishman, apparently calm, incurious, with equal mind;
his linen fresh, his face shaven, his clothing uncreased, his air rather
that of one who awaits the result of the footman’s enquiry as to whether
Her Ladyship is "at home" to him.

More and more, the heart of Sir Montague Merline warmed to this young
man of his own race and class, with his square shoulders, flat back,
calm bearing, and hard high look.  He approved and admired his air and
appearance of being a Man, a Gentleman, and a Soldier.  Had he a son, it
was just such a youth as this he would have him be.

"Any ’Murricans thar?" suddenly bawled the Bucking Bronco.

"Nao," replied the Cockney youth, craning forward. "But I’m
Henglish--which is better any d’y in the week, ain’t it?"

The eye of the large American travelled slowly and deliberately from the
crown of the head to the tip of the toe of the Cockney, and back.  He
then said nothing--with some eloquence.

"Say, ma honey, yew talk U.S. any?" queried a gigantic Negro, in the
uniform of the Legion (presumably recruited in France as a free American
citizen of Anglo-Saxon speech), addressing himself to the tall
Englishman.  "Youse ain’t Dago, nor Dutchie, nor French.  Cough it up,
Bo, right hyar ef youse U.S."

The eyes of the young Englishman narrowed slightly, and his naturally
haughty expression appeared to deepen toward one of contempt and
disgust. Otherwise he took no notice of the Negro, nor of his question.

Remarking, "Some poah white trash," the Negro turned to the next man
with the same query.

Cries in various tongues, such as "Anybody from Spain?" "Anyone from
Vienna?" "Any Switzers about?" and similar attempts by the crowding,
jostling Legionaries to discover a compatriot, and possibly a "towny,"
evoked gleams and glances of interest from the haggard, wretched eyes of
the "blues," and, occasionally, answering cries from their grim and
grimy lips.

A swaggering, strutting Sergeant emerged from the neighbouring
regimental offices, roared "_Garde à vous_," brought the recruits to
attention, and called the roll.  As prophesied by Legionary John Bull,
the whole draft was assigned to the Seventh Company, recently depleted
by the desertion, en masse, of a _cafard_-smitten German _escouade_, or
section, who had gone "on pump," merely to die in the desert at the
hands of the Arabs--several horribly tortured, all horribly mangled.

Having called the roll, this Sergeant, not strictly following the
example of the Sergeant of the Guard, looked the draft over more in
anger than in sorrow.

"Oh, Name of the Name of Beautiful Beelzebub," bawled he, "but what have
we here?  To _drill_ such worm-casts!  Quel métier!  Quel chien d’un
métier! Stand up, stand up, oh sons of Arab mothers and pariah dogs,"
and then, feigning sudden and unconquerable sickness, he turned upon the
Corporal in charge with a roar of--

"March these sacred pigs to their accursed sties."

As the heterogeneous gang stepped off at the word of command, "_En
avant.  Marche!_" toward the Quartermaster’s store of the Seventh
Company, it was clear to the experienced eye that the great majority
were "Back to the army again," and were either deserters, or men who had
already put in their military service in the armies of their own
countries.

In the store-room they were endowed by the _Fourrier-Sergent_, to the
accompaniment of torrential profanity, with white fatigue-uniforms,
night-caps, rough shirts, harsh towels, and scraps of soap.  From the
store-room the squad was "personally conducted" by another, and even
more terrible, Sergeant to a washing-shed beyond the drill-ground, and
bidden to soap and scour itself, and then stand beneath the primitive
shower-baths until purged and clean as never before in its unspeakable
life.

As they neared the washing-shed, the bare idea of ablutions, or the idea
of bare ablutions, appeared to strike consternation, if not positive
terror, into the heart of at least one member of the squad, for the
young Russian who had been addressed by his twin as Mikhail suddenly
seized the other’s arm and said with a gasp--

"Oh, Fedichka, how can I?  Oh Fedia, Fedia, what shall I do?"

"We must trust in God, and use our wits, Olusha. I will..."

But a roar of "Silence, Oh Son of Seven Pigs," from the Sergeant, cut
him short as they reached the shed.

"Now strip and scrub your mangy skins, you dogs. Scrape your crawling
hides until the floor is thick in hog-bristles and earth, oh
Great-grandsons of Sacréd Swine," he further adjured the wretched
"blues," with horrible threats and fearful oaths.

"Wash, you mud-caked vermin, wash, for the carcase of the Legionary must
be as spotless as the Fame of the Legion, or the honour of its smartest
Sergeant--Sergeant Legros," and he lapped his bulging chest lest any
Boeotian present should be ignorant of the identity of Sergeant Legros
of the Legion.

Walking up and down before the doorless stalls in which the naked
recruits washed, Sergeant Legros hurled taunts, gibes, insults, and
curses at his charges, stopping from time to time to give special
attention to anyone who had the misfortune to acquire his particular
regard.  Pausing to stare at the tall Englishman in affected disgust at
the condition of his brilliant and glowing skin, he enquired--

"Is that a vest, disclosed by scrubbing and the action of water?  Or is
it your hide, pig?"  And was somewhat taken aback by the cool and
pleasant reply,

"No, that is not a new, pink silk vest that you see, Sergeant, it really
is my own skin--but many thanks for the kind compliment, none the less."

Sergeant Legros eyed the recruit with something dimly and distantly akin
to pity.  Mad as a March hare, poor wretch, of course--it could not be
intentional impudence--and the Sergeant smiled austerely--he would
probably die in the cells ere long, if _le cafard_ did not send him to
the Zephyrs, the firing-platoon, or the Arabs.  Mad to begin with!  Ho!
Ho!  What a jest!--and the Sergeant chuckled.

But what was this?  Did the good Sergeant’s eyes deceive him?  Or was
there, in the next compartment, a lousy, lazy "blue" pretending to
cleanse his foul and sinful carcase without completely stripping?  The
young Russian, Mikhail, standing with his back to the doorway, was
unenthusiastically washing the upper part of his body.

Sergeant Legros stiffened like a pointer, at the sight. Rank
disobedience!  Flagrant defiance of orders, coupled with the laziest and
filthiest indifference to cleanliness!  This vile "blue" would put the
Legion’s clean shirt and canvas fatigue-suit on an indifferently washen
body, would he?  Let him wait until he was a Legionary, and no longer a
recruit--and he should learn something of the powers of the Sergeant
Legros.

"Off with those trousers, thou mud-caked flea-bitten scum," he
thundered, and then received perhaps the greatest surprise of a
surprising life. For, ere the offending recruit could turn, or obey,
there danced forth from the next cubicle, with a wild whoop, his exact
double, who, naked as he was born, turned agile somersaults and
Catherine-wheels past the astounded Sergeant, down the front of the
bathing-shed, and round the corner.

"Sacré Nom de Nom de Bon Dieu-de-Dieu!" ejaculated Sergeant Legros, and
rubbed his eyes. He then displayed a sample of the mental quickness of
the trained Legionary in darting to the neighbouring corner of the
building instead of running down the entire front in the wake of the
vanished acrobat.

Dashing along the short side-wall, Sergeant Legros turned the corner and
beheld the errant lunatic approaching in the same literally
revolutionary manner.

On catching sight of the Sergeant, the naked recruit halted, and broke
into song and dance, the latter being of that peculiarly violent Cossack
variety which constrains the performer to crouch low to earth and fling
out his legs, alternately, straight before him.

For the first time in his life, words failed Sergeant Legros.  For some
moments he could but stand over the dancer and gesticulate and stutter.
Rising to his feet with an engaging smile--.

"Ça va mieux, mon père?" observed the latter amiably.

Seizing him by arm and neck, the apoplectic Sergeant Legros conducted
this weird disciple of Terpsichore back to his cubicle, while his mazed
mind fumbled in the treasure-house of his vocabulary, and the armoury of
his weapons of punishment.

Apparently there was method, however, in the madness of Feodor
Kyrilovitch Malekov, for a distinct look of relief and satisfaction
crossed his face as, in the midst of a little crowd of open-mouthed, and
half-clothed recruits, he caught sight of his brother in complete
fatigue-uniform.

Gradually, and very perceptibly the condition of Sergeant Legros
improved.  His halting recriminations and imprecations became a steady
trickle, the trickle a flow, the flow a torrent, and the torrent an
overwhelming deluge.  By the time he had almost exhausted his vocabulary
and himself, he began to see the humorous and interesting aspect of
finding two lunatics in one small draft.  He would add them to his
collection of butts.  Possibly one, or both of them, might even come to
equal the Mad Grasshopper in that rôle.  Fancy more editions of La
Cigale--who had provided him with more amusement and opportunities for
brutality than any ten sane Legionaries!

"Now, do great and unmerited honour to your vile, low carcases by
putting on the fatigue-uniform of the Legion.  Gather up your filthy
civilian rags, and hasten," he bawled.

And when the, now wondrously metamorphosed, recruits had all dressed in
the new canvas uniforms, they were marched to a small side gate in the
wall of the barrack-square, and ordered to sell immediately everything
they possessed in the shape of civilian clothing, including boots and
socks.  Civilian clothing is essential to the would-be deserter, and La
Légion does not facilitate desertion.

That the unfortunate recruits got the one or two francs they did receive
was solely due to the absence of a "combine" among the scoundrelly
Arabs, Greeks, Spanish Jews, Negroes, and nondescript rogues who
struggled for the cast-off clothing.  For the Englishman’s expensive
suit a franc was offered, and competition advanced this price to four.
For the sum of five francs he had to sell clothes, hat, boots, collar,
tie, and underclothing that had recently cost him over fifty times as
much.  That he felt annoyed, and that, in spite of his apparent
nonchalance, his temper was wearing thin, was evidenced by the fact that
a big Arab who laid a grimy paw upon his shoulder and snatched at his
bundle, received the swift blow of dissuasion--a sudden straight-left in
the eye, sending him flying--to the amusement and approval of the sentry
whose difficult and arduous task it was to keep the scrambling, yelling
thieves of old-clo’ dealers from invading the barrack-square, and
repentant recruits from quitting it.

When the swindle of the forced sale was complete, and several poor
wretches had parted with their all for a few _sous_, the gate was shut
and the weary squad marched to the offices of the Seventh Company that
each man’s name and profession might be entered in the Company Roll, and
that he might receive his _matricule_ number, the number which would
henceforth hide his identity, and save him the trouble of retaining a
personality and a name.

To Colour-Sergeant Blanc, the tall English youth, like most Legionaries,
gave a _nom d’emprunt_, two of his own names, Reginald Rupert.  He
concealed his surname and sullied the crystal truth of fact by stating
that his father was the Commander-in-Chief of the Horse Marines of Great
Britain and Inspector-General of the Royal Naval Horse Artillery; that
he himself was by profession a wild-rabbit-tamer, and by conviction a
Plymouth Rock--all of which was duly and solemnly entered in the great
tome by M. Blanc, a man taciturn, _très boutonné_, and of no
imagination.

Whatever the recruit may choose to say is written down in the Company
lists, and should a recruit wax a little humorous, why--the Legion will
very soon cure him of any tendency to humour.  The Legion asks no
questions, answers none, takes the recruit at his own valuation, and
quickly readjusts it for him. Reconducted to the Store-room of the
Seventh Company, the batch of recruits, again to the accompaniment of a
fusillade of imprecations, and beneath a torrential deluge of insults
and oaths, was violently tailored by a number of non-commissioned
officers, and a fatigue-party of Légionnaires.

To "Reginald Rupert," at any rate, the badges of rank worn by the
non-commissioned officers were mysterious and confusing--as he noted a
man with one chevron giving peremptory orders in loud tone and bullying
manner to a man who wore two chevrons. It also puzzled him that the fat
man, who was evidently the senior official present, was addressed by the
others as "_chef_," as though he were a cook.  By the time he was fitted
out with kit and accoutrement, he had decided that the "chef" (who wore
two gold chevrons) was a Sergeant-Major, that the men wearing one gold
chevron were Sergeants, and that those wearing two red ones were
Corporals; and herein he was entirely correct.

Every man had to fit (rather than be fitted with) a red képi having a
brass grenade in front; a double-breasted, dark blue tunic with red
facings and green-fringed red epaulettes; a big blue greatcoat, or
_capote_; baggy red breeches; two pairs of boots; two pairs of linen
spats, and a pair of leather gaiters. He also received a long blue
woollen cummerbund, a knapsack of the old British pattern, a bag of
cleaning materials, belts, straps, cartridge-pouches, haversack, and
field flask.

To the fat Sergeant-Major it was a personal insult, and an impudence
amounting almost to blasphemy, that a képi, or tunic should not fit the
man to whom it was handed.  The idea of adapting a ready-made garment to
a man appeared less prominent than that of adapting a ready-made man to
a garment.

"What!" he roared in Legion French, to the fat German boy who understood
not a word of the tirade. "What?  Nom d’un pétard!  Sacré Dieu!  The
tunic will not easily button?  Then contract thy vile body until it
will, thou offspring of a diseased pig and a dead dog.  I will fit thee
to that tunic, and none other, within the week.  Wait!  But wait--till
thou has eaten the Breakfast of the Legion once or twice, fat sow...."

A gloomy, sardonic Legionary placed a képi upon the crisply curling hair
of Reginald Rupert.  It was miles too big--a ludicrous extinguisher.
The Englishman removed it, and returned it with the remark, "Ça ne
marche pas, mon ami."

"_Merde!_" ejaculated the liverish-looking soldier, and called Heaven to
witness that he was not to blame if the son of a beetle had a walnut for
a head.

Throwing the képi back into the big box he fished out another, banged it
on Rupert’s head, and was about to bring his open hand down on the top
of it, when he caught the cold but blazing eye of the recruit, and
noticed the clenched fist and lips.  Had the Legionary’s right hand
descended, the recruit’s left hand would have risen with promptitude and
force.

"If that is too big, let the sun boil thy brains and bloat thy skull
till it fits, and if it be too small, sleep in it," he remarked sourly,
and added that thrice-accursed "blues" were creatures of the kind that
ate their young, encumbered the earth, polluted the air, loved to _faire
Suisse_,[#] and troubled Soldiers of the Legion who might otherwise have
been in the Canteen, or at Carmelita’s--instead of being the valets of
sons of frogs, nameless excrescences....

[#] To drink alone; to sulk.

"Too small," replied Rupert coolly, and flung the cap into the box.
"Valet?  I should condole with a crocodile that had a clumsy and
ignorant yokel like you for a valet," he added, in slow and careful
French as he tried on a third cap, which he found more to his liking.

The old Legionary gasped.

"Il m’enmerde!" he murmured, and wiped his brow.  He, Jules Duplessis,
Soldat 1ère Classe, with four years’ service and the _medaille
militaire_, had been outfaced, browbeaten, insulted by a miserable
"blue."  What were the World and La Légion coming to?  "_Merde!_"

While trying on his tunic, Rupert saw one of the Russians hand to the
other the tunic and trousers which he had tried on.  Apparently being as
alike as two pins in every respect they had adopted the labour-saving
device of one "fitting on" for both.

Having put on the képi, Mikhail bundled up the uniform, struck an
attitude with arms akimbo, and inquired of the other--

"Do I look _very_ awful in this thing, Fedia?"

"Shut up, you little fool," replied Feodor, with a quick frown.  "Try
and look more like a _mujik_ in _maslianitza_,[#] and less like a young
student at private theatricals.  You’re a Legionary now."

[#] The week before Lent, or "mad week," when all good _mujiks_ get
drunk--or used to do.

When, at length, the recruits had all been fitted into uniforms, and
were ready to depart, they were driven forth with the heart-felt curse
and comprehensive anathema of the Sergeant-Major--

"Sweep the room clear of this offal, Corporal," quoth he.  "And if thou
canst make a Légionnaire’s little toe out of the whole draft--thou shalt
have the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour--I promise it."

"_En avant.  Marche!_" bawled the Corporal, and the "blues" were led
away, up flights of stairs, and along echoing corridors to their future
home, their new quarters.  A Légionnaire, carrying a huge earthenware
jug, encountering them outside the door thereof, gave them their first
welcome to the Legion.

"Oh thrice-condemned souls, welcome to Hell," he cried genially, and
kicking open the door of a huge room, he liberally sprinkled each
passing recruit, murmuring as he did so--

"Le diable vous bénisse."

                               CHAPTER II

                      A BARRACK-ROOM OF THE LEGION

The room which Reginald Rupert entered, with a dozen of his fellow
"blues," was long and lofty, painfully orderly, and spotlessly clean.
Fifteen cots were exactly aligned on each long side, and down the middle
of the floor ran long wooden tables and benches, scoured and polished to
immaculate whiteness.  Above each bed was a shelf on which was piled a
very neat erection of uniforms and kit. To the eye of Rupert
(experienced in barrack-rooms) there was interesting novelty in the
absence of clothes-boxes, and the presence of hanging-cupboards
suspended over the tables from the ceiling.

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