which I had covered the cradle.  Michel put it all in place again, and there was a new revolt.  In short, it was necessary to yield because she wanted to be able to lean outside of her box, under the fiery sun, to look at the head of the column, of which I had the command.  I saw this on arriving at the resting place.  Then Michel brought her under my tent.  She had not yet fallen asleep, but followed with her eyes all of my movements, with a grave air, without a smile, or gleam of mischief.

“She refused to eat and drink; the next day she was ill, with sunken eyes and body burning with fever.  When the major wished to give her medicine she refused to take it and ground her teeth together to keep from swallowing.

“There remained still six days’ march before arriving at Oran.  I wanted to give her into the care of the nuns.  She died before I could do so, very suddenly, with a severe attack of meningitis.  She never wanted to see me again.  She was buried under a clump of African shrubs near Geryville, in her little campaign cradle.  And do you know what was found in her cradle?  The charred skeleton of the poor chameleon, which had been the indirect cause of her death.  Before leaving the bivouac, where she had committed her crime, she had picked it out of the glowing embers, and brought it into the cradle, and that is why her little fingers were burned.  Since the beginning of the meningitis the major had never been able to explain the cause of these burns.”

Robert was silent for an instant, then murmured:  “Poor little one!  I feel remorseful.  If I had not given her that blow.... who knows?... she would perhaps be living still....

“My story is sad, is it not?  Ah, well, it is still the sweetest of my African memories.  War is beautiful!  Eh?”

And Robert shrugged his shoulders....

THE LAST LESSON

BY ALPHONSE DAUDET

I started for school very late that morning and was in great dread of a scolding, especially because M. Hamel had said that he would question us on participles, and I did not know the first word about them.  For a moment I thought of running away and spending the day out of doors.  It was so warm, so bright!  The birds were chirping at the edge of the woods; and in the open field back of the saw-mill the Prussian soldiers were drilling.  It was all much more tempting than the rule for participles, but I had the strength to resist, and hurried off to school.

When I passed the town hall there was a crowd in front of the bulletin-board.  For the last two years all our bad news had come from there—­the lost battles, the draft, the orders of the commanding officer—­and I thought to myself, without stopping: 

“What can be the matter now?”

Then, as I hurried by as fast as I could go, the blacksmith, Wachter, who was there, with his apprentice, reading the bulletin, called after me: