As he studied the map, the master seemed to command not only a sheet of cardboard, but also the highroad on which a motor car was spinning along, subject to his despotic will.

He went back to the table and continued: 

“The battle was over.  And there was no question of its being resumed.  My forty-two worthies found themselves face to face with a conqueror, against whom revenge is always possible, by fair means or foul, but with one who had subjugated them in a supernatural manner.  There was no other explanation of the inexplicable facts which they had witnessed.  I was a sorcerer, a kind of marabout, a direct emissary of the Prophet.”

Valenglay laughed and said: 

“Their interpretation was not so very unreasonable, for, after all, you must have performed a sleight-of-hand trick which strikes me also as being little less than miraculous.”

“Monsieur le President, do you know a curious short story of Balzac’s called ‘A Passion in the Desert?’”

“Yes.”

“Well, the key to the riddle lies in that.”

“Does it?  I don’t quite see.  You were not under the claws of a tigress.  There, was no tigress to tame in this instance.”

“No, but there were women.”

“Eh?  How do you mean?”

“Upon my word, Monsieur le President,” said Don Luis gayly, “I should not like to shock you.  But I repeat that the troop which carried me off on that week’s march included women; and women are a little like Balzac’s tigress, creatures whom it is not impossible to tame, to charm, to break in, until you make friends of them.”

“Yes, yes,” muttered the Premier, madly puzzled, “but that needs time.”

“I had a week.”

“And complete liberty of action.”

“No, no, Monsieur le President.  The eyes are enough to start with.  The eyes give rise to sympathy, interest, affection, curiosity, a wish to know you better.  After that, the merest opportunity—­”

“And did an opportunity offer?”

“Yes, one night.  I was fastened up, or at least they thought I was.  I knew that the chief’s favourite was alone in her tent close by.  I went there.  I left her an hour afterward.”

“And the tigress was tamed?”

“Yes, as thoroughly as Balzac’s:  tamed and blindly submissive.”

“But there were several of them?”

“I know, Monsieur le President, and that was the difficulty.  I was afraid of rivalry.  But all went well:  the favourite was not jealous, far from it.  And then, as I have told you, her submission was absolute.  In short, I had five staunch, invisible friends, resolved to do anything I wanted and suspected by nobody.

“My plan was being carried out before we reached the last halting-place.  My five secret agents collected all the arms during the night.  They dashed the daggers to the ground and broke them.  They removed the bullets from the pistols.  They damped the powder.  Everything was ready for ringing up the curtain.”