“But one morning one of the travellers suddenly turned round and approached the man behind him.  And they all stopped to look.

“The man toward whom the famished soldier drew near did not flee, but lay flat on the ground, and took aim at the one who was coming toward him.  When he believed he was within gunshot, he fired.  The other was not hit, and he continued then to advance, and levelling his gun, in turn, he killed his comrade.

“Then from all directions the others rushed to seek their share.  And he who had killed the fallen man, cutting the corpse into pieces, distributed it.

“And they once more placed themselves at fixed distances, these irreconcilable allies, preparing for the next murder which would bring them together.

“For two days they lived on this human flesh which they divided between them.  Then, becoming famished again, he who had killed the first man began killing afresh.  And again, like a butcher, he cut up the corpse and offered it to his comrades, keeping only his own portion of it.

“And so this retreat of cannibals continued.

“The last Frenchman, Pobeguin, was massacred at the side of a well, the very night before the supplies arrived.

“Do you understand now what I mean by the horrible?”

This was the story told us a few nights ago by General de
G——.

MADAME PARISSE

I was sitting on the pier of the small port of Obernon, near the village of Salis, looking at Antibes, bathed in the setting sun.  I had never before seen anything so wonderful and so beautiful.

The small town, enclosed by its massive ramparts, built by Monsieur de Vauban, extended into the open sea, in the middle of the immense Gulf of Nice.  The great waves, coming in from the ocean, broke at its feet, surrounding it with a wreath of foam; and beyond the ramparts the houses climbed up the hill, one after the other, as far as the two towers, which rose up into the sky, like the peaks of an ancient helmet.  And these two towers were outlined against the milky whiteness of the Alps, that enormous distant wall of snow which enclosed the entire horizon.

Between the white foam at the foot of the walls and the white snow on the sky-line the little city, dazzling against the bluish background of the nearest mountain ranges, presented to the rays of the setting sun a pyramid of red-roofed houses, whose facades were also white, but so different one from another that they seemed to be of all tints.

And the sky above the Alps was itself of a blue that was almost white, as if the snow had tinted it; some silvery clouds were floating just over the pale summits, and on the other side of the gulf Nice, lying close to the water, stretched like a white thread between the sea and the mountain.  Two great sails, driven by a strong breeze, seemed to skim over the waves.  I looked upon all this, astounded.