“I do not think that there has ever been an idyl like that through which we lived during those fifteen months, first on the heights of the Atlas range and then in the infernal plains of the Sahara:  an idyl of heroism, of privation, of superhuman torture and superhuman joy; an idyl of hunger and thirst, of total defeat and dazzling victory....

“My sixty trusty followers threw themselves into their work with might and main.  Oh, what men!  You know them, Monsieur le President du Conseil!  You’ve had them to deal with, Monsieur le Prefet de Police!  The beggars!  Tears come to my eyes when I think of some of them.

“There were Charolais and his son, who distinguished themselves in the case of the Princesse de Lamballe’s tiara.  There were Marco, who owed his fame to the Kesselbach case, and Auguste, who was your chief messenger, Monsieur le President.  There were the Growler and the Masher, who achieved such glory in the hunt for the crystal stopper.  There were the brothers Beuzeville, whom I used to call the two Ajaxes.  There were Philippe d’Antrac, who was better born than any Bourbon, and Pierre Le Grand and Tristan Le Roux and Joseph Le Jeune.”

“And there was Arsene Lupin,” said Valenglay, roused to enthusiasm by this list of Homeric heroes.

“And there was Arsene Lupin,” repeated Don Luis.

He nodded his head, smiled, and continued, in a very quiet voice: 

“I will not speak of him, Monsieur le President.  I will not speak of him, for the simple reason that you would not believe my story.  What they tell about him when he was with the Foreign Legion is mere child’s play beside what was to come later.  Lupin was only a private soldier.  In South Morocco he was a general.  Not till then did Arsene Lupin really show what he could do.  And, I say it without pride, not even I foresaw what that was.  The Achilles of the legend performed no greater feats.  Hannibal and Caesar achieved no more striking results.

“All I need tell you is that, in fifteen months, Arsene Lupin conquered a kingdom twice the size of France.  From the Berbers of Morocco, from the indomitable Tuaregs, from the Arabs of the extreme south of Algeria, from the negroes who overrun Senegal, from the Moors along the Atlantic coast, under the blazing sun, in the flames of hell, he conquered half the Sahara and what we may call ancient Mauretania.

“A kingdom of deserts and swamps?  Partly, but a kingdom all the same, with oases, wells, rivers, forests, and incalculable riches, a kingdom with ten million men and a hundred thousand warriors.  This is the kingdom which I offer to France, Monsieur le President du Conseil.”

Valenglay did not conceal his amazement.  Greatly excited and even perturbed by what he had learned, looking over his extraordinary visitor, with his hands clutching at the map of Africa, he whispered: 

“Explain yourself; be more precise.”

Don Luis answered: