“‘I will not give you further trouble,’ she said; and though I protested, she was firm.  And at last she walked away, alone, to the huddle of little buildings, and I saw her pass among them and out of my sight.  Then I turned and went over to the camp, where my duty lay.”

“That was a sorrowful place, that Torah.  The troops were chiefly men of the Foreign Legion, of whom three in every four expressed in their eyes only patience and the bitterness of men whose lives are hidden things.  With them were some elderly officers, whose only enthusiasms showed themselves in a crazy bravery in action, the callous courage of men who have already died once.  From some of these I heard of Bertin.  It was a brown, sun-dried man who told me.”

“‘Yes, we know him,’ he said.  ’He passes under various names, but we know him.  A man wasted, thrown away, my friend!  He should have joined us.’”

“‘You would have accepted him?’ I asked.”

“‘Why not?’ was the answer.  ’It is not honest men we ask for, nor true men, nor even brave men—­only fighting men.  And any man can be that.’”

“It made me wonder if it were yet too late for Bertin, ’and whether he might not still find a destiny in the ranks of that regiment where so many do penance.  But when I saw him, a week later, I knew that the chance had gone by with his other chances, It was in a cafe in the village, a shed open at one side to the little street of sand, and furnished only with tables and chairs.  A great Spahi, in the splendid uniform of his corps, lounged in one corner; a shrouded Arab tended the coffee apparatus in another; in the middle, with a glass before him, sat Bertin.  The sun beat in at the open front of the building and spread the shadows in a tangle on its floor; he was leaning with both elbows on the table, gazing before him with the eyes of a dead man.  He had always promised to be stout, but he was already fat—­a flabby, blue-jowled heap of a man, all thick creases and bulges; and his face had patches of blue and purple in its hollows.  He was ponderous, he was huge; and with it there was an aspect of horror, as though all that flesh were diseased.”

“I paused by his table and slowly he looked up to me.  His features labored with thought, and he recognized me.”

“‘Saval!’ he ejaculated hoarsely.  ‘You—­you want me?’”

“I sat down at his table.  ‘I haven’t come to arrest you,’ I told him.  ’But you had better know that the authorities have decided to arrest you.’”

“He gasped.  ‘For—­for——­’”

“‘I don’t know what for,’ I told him.  ’For whatever you have been doing.’”

“He had to blink and swallow and wipe his brow before he mastered the fact.  His mind, like his body, was a shameful ruin.  But the fact that he was not to be arrested at the moment seemed to comfort him.  He leaned over the table to me.”

“‘My wife’s here,’ he said, in a raucous whisper.”