“After all, what’s the difference,” I mused, “he or another!  At school he was charming, and we have had only the most pleasant relationships.  Besides, I haven’t enough yearly income to afford the rank of Captain.”

And I left the office, whistling as I went.

* * * * *

We were now, Chatelain and I, our guns resting on the already cooling earth, beside the pool that forms the center of the meager oasis, hidden behind a kind of hedge of alfa.  The setting sun was reddening the stagnant ditches which irrigate the poor garden plots of the sedentary blacks.

Not a word during the approach.  Not a word during the shoot.  Chatelain was obviously sulking.

In silence we knocked down, one after the other, several of the miserable doves which came on dragging wings, heavy with the heat of the day, to quench their thirst at the thick green water.  When a half-dozen slaughtered little bodies were lined up at our feet I put my hand on the Sergeant’s shoulder.

“Chatelain!”

He trembled.

“Chatelain, I was rude to you a little while ago.  Don’t be angry.  It was the bad time before the siesta.  The bad time of midday.”

“The Lieutenant is master here,” he answered in a tone that was meant to be gruff, but which was only strained.

“Chatelain, don’t be angry.  You have something to say to me.  You know what I mean.”

“I don’t know really.  No, I don’t know.”

“Chatelain, Chatelain, why not be sensible?  Tell me something about Captain de Saint-Avit.”

“I know nothing.”  He spoke sharply.

“Nothing?  Then what were you saying a little while ago?”

“Captain de Saint-Avit is a brave man.”  He muttered the words with his head still obstinately bent.  “He went alone to Bilma, to the Air, quite alone to those places where no one had ever been.  He is a brave man.”

“He is a brave man, undoubtedly,” I answered with great restraint.  “But he murdered his companion, Captain Morhange, did he not?”

The old Sergeant trembled.

“He is a brave man,” he persisted.

“Chatelain, you are a child.  Are you afraid that I am going to repeat what you say to your new Captain?”

I had touched him to the quick.  He drew himself up.

“Sergeant Chatelain is afraid of no one, Lieutenant.  He has been at Abomey, against the Amazons, in a country where a black arm started out from every bush to seize your leg, while another cut it off for you with one blow of a cutlass.”

“Then what they say, what you yourself—­”

“That is talk.”

“Talk which is repeated in France, Chatelain, everywhere.”

He bent his head still lower without replying.

“Ass,” I burst out, “will you speak?”

“Lieutenant, Lieutenant,” he fairly pled, “I swear that what I know, or nothing—­”

“What you know you are going to tell me, and right away.  If not, I give you my word of honor that, for a month, I shall not speak to you except on official business.”