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 UCSB LIBRARY 

 
 Between Two Opinions * 
 
 * Or the Romance of a Spahi 
 
 By * * * * 1? * Pierre Loti 
 
 j 
 
 Translated by M. L. Watkins -g <g ^ ^ 
 
 Chicago and New York * * * 
 Rand, McNally & Company
 
 Copyright, 1890, by Rand, McNally & Co.
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 I. 
 
 In descending the coast of Africa, after 
 passing the southern extremity of Moroc- 
 co, one travels for several days and nights 
 in sight of an interminable country of 
 desolation. It is the Sahara, the great 
 "sea without water," which the Moors 
 also call " Beled-el-ateuch," the land of 
 thirst. 
 
 These shores of the desert are five hun- 
 dred leagues long, yet there is no harbor 
 for the ships which pass that way. 
 
 The solitudes spread everywhere with a 
 sad monotony, without a plant or a ves- 
 tige of life only the moving sand-hills, 
 the boundless horizons, and the blazing 
 light of the sun. 
 
 (5)
 
 6 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 At last there appears above the sands 
 an old, white city, planted amid rare, yel- 
 low palm-trees. It is Saint Louis of the 
 Senegal, the capital of Senegambia ; its 
 mosques, towers, and houses of Moorish 
 architecture all seem to sleep there, under 
 the burning sun, like those Portuguese 
 towns that formerly flourished on the 
 coast of Congo Saint Paul de Loando 
 and Saint Felipe de Benguela. 
 
 On approaching the city, one is sur- 
 prised to find that it is not built on the 
 shore, and that it has not even a harbor, 
 nor any communication with the outside 
 world. The coast, which is almost straight 
 and very low, is as inhospitable as that of 
 the Sahara, whose eternal line of breakers 
 prevents the approach of ships. 
 
 The two Jaloff villages, Guet-n'dar and 
 N'dar-toute, that lie between Saint Louis 
 and the sea, are formed of thousands and 
 thousands of mud houses, Lilliputian huts,
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 7 
 
 where swarms a strange population of 
 black people. 
 
 This barrier made by the sea, separat- 
 ing this country from the rest of the world, 
 is the chief cause of its gloom and stag- 
 nation. Saint Louis affords no harbor for 
 the packet and merchant boats when they 
 sail into the other hemisphere, and people 
 go there when they are forced to go; but 
 no one ever remains there, for it is like 
 some vast and silent prison. 
 
 In the northern part of Saint Louis, 
 near the mosque, not many years ago, 
 there stood a little, old, isolated house, 
 owned by a certain Samba-Hamet, a mer- 
 chant of some means, who trafficked up 
 and down the river. This house was 
 whitewashed, and its cracked, brick walls 
 and dry, decayed timbers served as the 
 abode of legions of insects, white ants, 
 and blue lizards. 
 
 Two storks frequented the roof, chat-
 
 8 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 tering gravely to the sun, craning their 
 necks toward the deserted street when by 
 chance a human being passed that way. 
 
 A brittle, thorny palm-tree, the only sign 
 of verdure in that vicinity, each day threw 
 lightly upon the glowing walls its meager 
 shadow. On the branches of the palm, 
 there were perched numbers of blue and 
 yellow birds, which in France are called 
 bengalis. 
 
 Everywhere there is sand always sand 
 never a piece of moss nor a sprig of 
 grass on the arid soil; all is withered and 
 scorched by the burning breath of the 
 Sahara. 
 
 O, the gloom, the sadness of the land 
 of Africa !
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 II. 
 
 On the ground floor of this isolated 
 house there dwelt, amid the wreck of her 
 fortunes, a horrible old negress named 
 Coura-n'diaye, an ancient favorite of a 
 great, black king. Here she had installed 
 herself with her fantastic rags, her little 
 slaves bedecked with glass beads and 
 trinkets, her goat, her big-horned sheep, 
 and her cadaverous yellow dogs. 
 
 On the upper floor there was a large 
 square room, which was reached by an 
 outer stair-way of worm-eaten wood. 
 Every evening at sunset, a man wearing 
 the red uniform and Mussulman fez of a 
 spahi mounted the stair-way and entered 
 the upper apartment of the house of 
 Samba-Hamet. The storks on the roof, 
 catching a glimpse of him when he was
 
 io The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 yet a great way off, at the other end of 
 the deserted street, recognized his step 
 and the bright colors of his uniform, and 
 permitted him to enter without showing 
 any inquietude, as a personage long and 
 well known. 
 
 He was a very tall man, and of a pure 
 white race, though the sun of Africa had 
 already bronzed his face and breast. He 
 was also extremely handsome, having large, 
 dark eyes, almond-shaped, like those of an 
 Arab, and from beneath his fez, which 
 was pushed back from his spotless brow, 
 there escaped a mass of soft, brown curls. 
 
 His bearing was noble and manly, and 
 he held his head boldly erect. Strength 
 and suppleness seemed blended in his 
 graceful form, which was admirably set off 
 by his gay uniform. He was unusually 
 serious and pensive, but his smile had a 
 feline grace, and disclosed teeth white and 
 beautiful.
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 1 1 
 
 III. 
 
 One day this spahi wore even more 
 than usual a thoughtful, serious air, as 
 he ascended the wooden stair-way of the 
 house of Samba- Ha met. 
 
 On entering the upper apartment, in 
 which he seemed to be perfectly at home, 
 he looked surprised to find it empty. 
 The room was bare, and destitute of 
 furniture except for several long benches 
 covered with mats, and a tara, a kind 
 of sofa of light straw which is made by 
 the negroes of the coast of Gambia. 
 From the high ceiling were suspended 
 parchments and talismans written by the 
 priests of Maghreb. 
 
 The spahi approached a chest in one 
 corner of the room a chest ornamented 
 with copper bands and sparkling with
 
 1 2 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 variegated colors, similar to those in 
 which the Jaloffs store away their pre- 
 cious objects and, on endeavoring to 
 open it, found it shut fast. 
 
 He then threw himself upon the tara 
 and took from his pocket a letter which 
 he began to read, after having kissed the 
 signature. 
 
 It was a love-letter without a doubt, 
 written by some beautiful woman, a fair 
 Parisian or romantic seriorita, to this 
 handsome spahi in Africa, who seemed 
 just formed to play the grand role of 
 hero in the melodrama of love. 
 
 The letter will probably give us a clue 
 to some dramatic adventure from which 
 the story will begin.
 
 The Romance of a Spaki. \ 3 
 
 IV. 
 
 The letter upon which the spahi had 
 pressed his lips bore the post-mark of an 
 obscure village of the Cevennes, and was 
 written by a poor, old, trembling hand 
 unused to holding the "pen. The lines 
 ran together, and the mistakes were nu- 
 merous. It said : 
 
 MY DEAR SON : This present is to give you 
 news of our health, which at this time is good, 
 thank God. But your father says he is beginning 
 to feel old, and as his eyesight is failing him fast, 
 I, your old mother, must take the pen to speak to 
 you. You know that I do not write well, so you 
 must excuse everything. 
 
 This is to tell you, my dear son, that since you 
 left us, nothing has gone well with us; prosperity 
 as well as joy left us with you. The year has 
 been a hard one on account of a terrible hail 
 which fell in this country, and destroyed almost 
 everything we had.
 
 T4 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 Our cow is sick, and it has cost us a great deal 
 to doctor her. 
 
 Since your father returned to this country, his 
 day's labor does not amount to much, for the 
 younger men do their work in a shorter time 
 than he. 
 
 It is necessary for us to repair a part of the roof, 
 which threatens to fall whenever it rains. 
 
 I know that in the army one has not much 
 money, but your father says if you can send us 
 what you promised, without depriving yourself, it 
 will help us greatly. 
 
 The M6rys could well assist us, but we do not 
 wish to ask it of them, being loath' to have them 
 think us beggars. We often see your cousin Jeanne 
 M6ry, who grows more beautiful every day. It 
 seems her greatest pleasure to come to us to ask 
 after you. She says that she wishes for nothing 
 better than to marry you, my dear Jean, but that 
 her father will not hear to it, because, he says, 
 you are too poor; and he says, too, you have been 
 a bad subject in your day. 
 
 I believe, however, if you win your promotion 
 as quartermaster, that on your return to this 
 country in your military clothes he will decide in 
 your favor. I can die happy if I see you welJ
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 15 
 
 married. You will build a house near to ours, 
 which is not fine enough for you. Peyral and I 
 1 draw plans for it every evening. 
 
 Without fail, my dear Jean, send us a little 
 money, for I assure you we are in need of it; 
 we have not been able to recuperate this year, on 
 account of the hail and the cow. 
 
 Adieu, my dear son. The people of the village 
 inquire of you, and wish to know when you will 
 return. The neighbors all send good wishes, and 
 as for myself, you know that I have not had a 
 moment of happiness since you left us, three years 
 ago. I close, embracing you, as does Peyral. 
 
 Your old mother, who adores you, 
 
 FRANCOISE PEYRAL.
 
 1 6 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 V. 
 
 Jean, after reading the letter, leaned 
 out of the window and began to muse, 
 regarding vaguely the great African land- 
 scape unrolled before him. 
 
 The pointed silhouettes of the Jaloff 
 huts massed by the thousand at his feet, 
 and in the distance the great, restless sea, 
 with its eternal line of breakers. 
 
 A sickly sun was just sinking behind 
 the horizon, still shedding a dull glimmer 
 on the desert and the limitless waste of 
 sand. A caravan of Moors slowly wound 
 its way across the dreary plains, and a 
 black cloud of vultures circled in the air. 
 And beyond a point that fixed the eye 
 the cemetery of Sorr, where already lay 
 so many of his comrades, mountaineers 
 like himself, victims to the fever in that 
 terrible climate.
 
 The Romance of a Spa/ii. 1 7 
 
 Oh, that he might return to live near 
 his old parents, in a little cottage with 
 Jeanne Mery ! Why have they exiled 
 him to this land of Africa? What is 
 there in common between him and this 
 strange country? 
 
 It is true, that gay uniform and that 
 Arabian fez give him an air of splendor ; 
 but what a disguise for the poor, little 
 peasant of the Cevennes ! 
 
 Jean remained a long time at the win- 
 dow, dreaming of his native village. 
 Poor warrior of the Senegal ! 
 
 The sun went down, the shadows of 
 night fell, and his heart was full of a 
 vague sorrow. 
 
 From N'dar-toute he heard the sudden 
 clash of the tam-tam, calling the negroes 
 to the bamboula, and in the Jaloff huts 
 fires were flashing. 
 
 It was an evening in December. A 
 rough wind whirled the sand about in
 
 1 8 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 gusts, and it soon began to grow cold, a 
 sensation almost unknown in that burning 
 country. 
 
 Suddenly the door opened, and a yel- 
 low dog of the laobe race (the native dog 
 of Africa) entered the room, with the 
 stealthy movements of a jackal, and began 
 to gambol at his master's feet. 
 
 At the same time there appeared in the 
 door-way a young black girl, laughing 
 gayly, who made Jean a brusque, comical 
 little courtesy, the reverence of the 
 negress, and said, "K'eon " (good-day).
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 19 
 
 VI. 
 
 The spahi regarded her abstractedly. 
 41 Fatou-gaye," he said, in a mixture of 
 Creole-French and Jaloff ; " Fatou-gaye, 
 open the chest, that I may get the silver." 
 
 "Tes Khaliss!" responded she, open- 
 ing wide her great eyes under their dark 
 lashes. " Tes Khaliss!" (pieces of silver) 
 she repeated, with the mixture of fear and 
 audacity of a child expecting punishment. 
 
 Then she pointed to her ears, from 
 which were suspended three pairs of ear- 
 rings of exquisite workmanship. 
 
 They were jewels set in the pure gold 
 of Gallam, which the black artists have 
 the secret of fashioning as they crouch 
 on the sands, working mysteriously under 
 the shade of their low tents. 
 
 Fatou-gaye had just purchased these
 
 2O The Romance of a Spain. 
 
 long-coveted ornaments with the silver, a 
 hundred francs, which Jean had amassed 
 little by little, the result of his poor sav- 
 ings as a soldier, and which were destined 
 for his old parents in France. 
 
 The eyes of the spahi darted lightning ; 
 he took down his whip to strike her, but 
 his heart failed him, and his arm fell 
 helpless to his side. He quickly grew 
 calm; he was tender-hearted, Jean Peyral, 
 with all his faults. 
 
 He did not even reproach her, for he 
 knew it would be useless, and besides, it 
 was partly his own fault ; he should have 
 concealed the money more carefully. It 
 was now necessary to find it elsewhere at 
 any price. 
 
 Fatou-gaye knew well how to soothe 
 and flatter Jean, and as he reclined non- 
 chalantly on his tara, she knelt beside 
 him on the floor and embraced him with 
 her beautiful, shapely arms, encircled with
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 2 1 
 
 silver bracelets, and leaning her head on 
 his breast, regarded him with her dark 
 eyes full of fire and passion. 
 
 Jean did not long withstand these warm 
 caresses, and soon she had obtained his 
 full pardon for her fault. 
 
 He postponed till to-morrow the search 
 for the money so anxiously expected at 
 the home of his old parents.
 
 PART I. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Three years had elapsed since Jean 
 Peyral first planted his foot on the soil 
 of Africa, and since his arrival he had 
 passed through the many phases of a 
 great moral transformation. 
 
 Temperament, climate, and nature had 
 gradually wrought the change, and still 
 kept him under the spell of their ener- 
 vating influence. 
 
 He felt that he was gliding down un- 
 known precipices, for to-day he was the 
 lover of Fatou-gaye, a dusky young girl 
 of the Khassouke race, who had thrown 
 over him her seductive charms, enthrall- 
 ing his senses as if with the spell of 
 her amulets. 
 
 The past history of Jean is not very 
 
 (23)
 
 24 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 complicated. At the age of twenty, 
 chance took him from his mother's side, 
 and he went away with the other sons of 
 his mountain village, singing very bravely, 
 that he might not shed tears. 
 
 His tall stature and fine form had 
 marked him for a cavalryman ; the mys- 
 terious fascination for the unknown made 
 him choose the corps of the spahis. 
 
 His childhood was spent in an obscure 
 village in the depths of the forests of the 
 Cevennes mountains, where he had grown 
 like a young oak in the pure mountain 
 air. 
 
 His father and mother were the most 
 cherished figures of his childhood, and 
 deep in his heart there were ineffaceable 
 memories of his early happy life the 
 little old-fashioned cottage at the edge 
 of the forest, the mountain stream, the 
 mossy paths, his many youthful advent- 
 ures and liberty.
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 25 
 
 In his boyhood he knew nothing of the 
 world outside of the village, which to 
 him had no boundary but the wild country 
 inhabited by shepherds. He spent whole 
 days in the forests wandering under the 
 great oaks, sometimes in the deep reverie 
 of a young shepherd, and then again 
 savagely climbing the trees and breaking 
 their branches like the wild, untamed boy 
 that he was. 
 
 On Sundays he accompanied his parents 
 to church, attired in clothes very fine for 
 a mountaineer, always holding by the 
 hand little Jeanne Mery, whom they took 
 with them as they passed the house of 
 his uncle Mery. 
 
 As he grew older, that spirit of inde- 
 pendence and the desire to roam increased. 
 He appropriated horses for long rides, and 
 poached with an old gun that hardly ever 
 went off. His frequent encounters with the 
 gamekeeper greatly mortified his uncle
 
 26 The Romance of a Spa hi. 
 
 Mery, who dreamed of his learning a 
 trade and of his making himself a useful 
 and respectable citizen. 
 
 It was true, he had been a "bad sub- 
 ject ;" but the people in the village loved 
 him, even those who had suffered most 
 from his youthful misdemeanors, for he 
 had a frank and noble heart, and no one 
 could resist his smile. 
 
 His uncle Mery, with his sermons and 
 threats, had no influence over him ; but 
 when he found that he had wounded his 
 mother, his heart swelled within him, and 
 the great, strapping youth would lower his 
 head and weep. 
 
 He was an untamed colt, but not a 
 libertine. 
 
 The village, with its environments of 
 simplicity and innocence, shielded him 
 from the unhealthy contagions and pre- 
 cocious depravity of the dissipated and 
 abandoned of large cities ; so that, when
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 2 7 
 
 his twenty years suggested it was time 
 for him to enter the service, Jean was as 
 pure and almost as innocent of the evils 
 of life as a little child.
 
 28 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 II. 
 
 But after awhile he encountered sur- 
 prises of every kind, and, in passing 
 through a large city, he followed his com- 
 panions into resorts of debauchery, and 
 for awhile his head was turned with the 
 novelty and fascination of such a life. 
 But at last his soul revolted with disgust 
 at its revelations ; and in a few days a ves- 
 sel bore him away very far away on a 
 calm, blue sea, and landed him, bewil- 
 dered, exiled, by the side of the Senegal. 
 It was a day in the month of Novem- 
 ber, the time when the great baobabs 
 shed the last leaves of autumn on the yel- 
 low sands, that the first curious gaze of 
 Jean Peyral fell on the corner of the 
 globe where his destiny had abandoned 
 him to spend five years of his life.
 
 Tke Romance of a Spa hi. 29 
 
 The strange country made a vivid im- 
 pression on his mind, and the life of a 
 spahi pleased him, for he took great de- 
 light in having a horse, in curling his 
 mustache, in wearing his Arabian fez, his 
 big saber, and his red uniform. He also 
 made the discovery that he was hand- 
 some and attractive.
 
 30 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 III. 
 
 November is the belle saison on the 
 Senegal, corresponding with our winters 
 in France, and it is then that the heat 
 decreases in intensity, and the dry wind 
 of the desert succeeds the terrible storms 
 of summer. Not a drop of rain falls, and 
 each day the soil is unceasingly, unmerci- 
 fully scorched and burnt by a devouring 
 sun. 
 
 This is the season when lizards abound, 
 water fails in the cisterns, marshes dry 
 up, vegetation withers, and even the cac- 
 tus and thorny fig-tree refuse to open 
 their dull- yellow blossoms. But the 
 evenings are cool, and at sunset a strong 
 sea-breeze rises, which causes the break- 
 ers to roar and Lish the shore, and shakes 
 down pitilessly the last sad autumn leaves.
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 31 
 
 Sad autumn, which brings with it 
 neither the long evenings, as in France, 
 nor the charm of the frosts, the harvest, 
 and golden fruits ! For there is no fruit 
 in that God-fors.iken country ; nothing but 
 the arachis and the bitter pistachio. 
 
 As far as the eye can see, there are 
 great hot plains, gloomy and desolate, 
 covered with withered herbs, and here 
 and there, side by side with the diminu- 
 tive, stunted palms, grow the colossal 
 baobabs, the mastodons of the vegetable 
 kingdom, whose gigantic branches are in- 
 habited by vultures, bats, and lizards.
 
 32 Tke Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The ennui which Jean now so often felt 
 was to him an entirely new sensation ; it 
 was a kind of vague melancholy, a long- 
 ing for the mountains, the village, and the 
 cottage of his old parents. 
 
 The spahis, his new companions a 
 great many of whom had carried their 
 formidable sabers into India and Algeria 
 had caught there, in the ale-houses of 
 these maritime towns, a spirit of libertin- 
 ism, and their contact with the world had 
 furnished them with a ready stock of cant 
 phrases and cynic pleasantries, which they 
 were always ready to apply to everything. 
 
 Brave fellows they were at heart, joy- 
 ous comrades ; but they had ideas which 
 Jean could not understand, and pleasures 
 which were revolting to him.
 
 The Romance of a Spa hi. 33 
 
 For Jean was a dreamer, because he 
 was a mountaineer. Reflection is almost 
 unknown to the giddy and foolish popula- 
 tion of large cities ; but among men reared 
 in the country, among sailors and the sons 
 of fishermen who have grown up in the 
 paternal bark amid the dangers of the 
 sea, we meet with men who dream true, 
 silent poets, who comprehend everything, 
 but who have not the gift to put their 
 thoughts into words, and so they remain 
 forever untranslated. 
 
 Every evening Jean walked on the great 
 sea-shore when the sands were rosy and 
 purple in the light of indescribable sun- 
 sets. He bathed in the mighty breakers 
 of the coast of Africa, and dreamed him- 
 self once more a child as he rolled in the 
 waves that covered the sands. 
 
 The beach at twilight always swarmed 
 with black men returning to the villages 
 laden with sheaves of millet, and fisher-
 
 34 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 men bringing in their nets, followed by 
 crowds of noisy women and children. 
 There are wonderful fish in the river Sen- 
 egal ; the women carry on their heads 
 baskets full of them, and the young black 
 girls return to their lodgings crowned 
 with crawling fishes pierced through the 
 gills. 
 
 At each step unexpected pictures greet- 
 ed his eye, warm and glowing in the weird 
 light; for there are many strange and un- 
 familiar scenes in that country extraor- 
 dinary figures from the interior, and pict- 
 uresque caravans of Moors who descend 
 by the Cape of Barbary. 
 
 The crests off the purple sand-hills and 
 the great, gloomy desert gleam for a mo- 
 ment in the last rays of the sun, which 
 fades away in a bloody vapor, and all the 
 black people throw themselves on their 
 faces to offer up their evening prayer. 
 It is the holy hour of Islam, and from
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 35 
 
 Mecca to the coast of the Sahara the 
 name of Mahomet is heard on every 
 tongue, passing like a mysterious breath 
 over the land of Africa, growing fainter 
 and fainter as it crosses the Soudan, final- 
 ly dying away on these black lips on the 
 shores of the great, restless sea. 
 
 The old Jaloff priests in their flowing 
 robes turn toward the sea in reciting their 
 prayers, and the whole sea-shore is cov- 
 ered with prostrate forms. A mighty 
 silence ensues, and night descends sud- 
 denly, with the rapidity peculiar to that 
 country of the sun. 
 
 At the close of day Jean returned to 
 the barracks in the southern part of Saint 
 Louis, for at twilight all was silent and 
 tranquil there. His comrades were gener- 
 ally scattered about the streets in search 
 of pleasure, and it was then that these 
 isolated quarters seemed to him very sad 
 and lonely, and he thought of his mother.
 
 36 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 V. 
 
 In the southern part of Saint Louis 
 there were a number of ancient brick 
 houses of Moorish architecture, which in 
 the dead of night were always brilliantly 
 illuminated, when elsewhere silence and 
 darkness reigned. From these houses, 
 which are inhabited by negroes, would 
 issue strange odors developed by the 
 tropical heat, and the night was made 
 hideous with infernal noises. 
 
 There the spahis were masters of the 
 scene ; it was there the poor warriors in 
 the red uniform went to make an uproar, 
 stupefying themselves with alcohol, which 
 they poured down in unreasonable quan- 
 tities, from necessity or bravado. But 
 Jean avoided these disreputable places, 
 and prudently stored away his small sav-
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 37 
 
 ings, thinking even then of his happy re- 
 turn home. He was very wise and seri- 
 ous, yet his companions did not ridicule 
 him, for the handsome Muller, a big Al- 
 satian youth who was accounted very 
 knowing at the barracks on account of 
 his vast experience in duelling and other 
 thrilling adventures, had taken Jean into 
 his favor, and somehow the others were 
 always of the same mind as Fritz Muller. 
 
 However, Jean's best friend was Nyaor- 
 fall, a black spahi, an African giant of 
 the magnificent race of Foota-Diallonke. 
 He was a singular character, on whose 
 lips was always a mysterious smile a 
 beautiful statue in black marble. 
 
 Such was the friend of Jean, and he 
 often accompanied him to his home at the 
 village of Guet-n'dar, where the black 
 made him sit among his wives upon a 
 white mat, and offered him, in negro hospi- 
 tality, the Kouss-Kouss and the gonrous.
 
 38 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 VI. 
 
 At Saint Louis the days passed by with 
 the dreary monotony characteristic of life 
 in all small colonial towns, but the mild 
 season of the year brought a little anima- 
 tion to the streets of the necropolis; for 
 every day at sunset the women whom fever 
 had spared promenaded on the Govern- 
 ment square, and on the avenue of yellow 
 palms leading to the village of Guet-n'dar. 
 
 They were attired in European cos- 
 tumes, which gave one an impression of 
 Europe in that land of exile. Indeed, 
 the great Government square, with its 
 symmetrical buildings, was not unlike a 
 portion of some southern town of Eu- 
 rope, apart from that immense horizon 
 of sand that infinite breadth of space 
 defining afar its interminable line.
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 39 
 
 The handsome spahi always walked 
 alone with a serious and reserved air, and 
 soon awakened the curiosity of the inhab- 
 itants of Saint Louis, who imagined him 
 the hero of some romantic adventure. 
 
 Among the gay promenaders who often 
 threw glances on Jean, was a woman 
 more beautiful than all the rest, and she 
 it was particularly who seemed to regard 
 him with peculiar interest. 
 
 Some people called her a mulattress, but 
 her skin was so white that others swore 
 she was a Parisian. Her complexion was 
 very white, and her hair was of a reddish- 
 blonde the blonde of the mulattress. 
 Her eyes were dark and dreamy, half- 
 closed, and full of a Creole languor. 
 
 Although she was the wife of a rich 
 river merchant, the people of Saint Louis 
 addressed her disdainfully by her Chris- 
 tian name, as a woman of color, and she 
 was known to all as Cora.
 
 40 The Romance of a Spa hi. 
 
 The other women soon discovered from 
 her toilets that she had lived in Paris, and 
 even Jean discerned that her flowing 
 robes, severely simple as they were, pos- 
 sessed a peculiar grace which the others 
 had not. He saw, too, that she was very 
 beautiful, and he felt a tremor, a kind of 
 delicious thrill, when he passed her, for 
 she always lowered her eyes beneath his 
 gaze. 
 
 "She loves you, Peyral," said the hand- 
 some Muller, with the air of a man well 
 versed in the affairs of the heart.
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 41 
 
 VII. 
 
 It was true, she did love him after a 
 fashion, and one day she invited him to 
 her house to tell him of it. 
 
 Poor Jean ! the two following months 
 slipped away amid enchanted dreams. 
 This unknown luxury, this elegant, per- 
 fumed woman strangely stirred his pure 
 but ardent heart. Love, which he had 
 heretofore regarded cynically, now held 
 him a slave. And it had all been be- 
 stowed upon him unsought, unreservedly, 
 like those grand fortunes in fairy tales, 
 the thought of which often filled him 
 with disquietude, for there was to him 
 something immodest and revolting in 
 this avowal of love. But he did not 
 allow his mind to dwell upon that part 
 of it, for in her presence he was intoxi-
 
 42 The Romance of a Spa hi. 
 
 cated with love, and thought of nothing 
 else. 
 
 Then he began to devote much time to 
 his toilet. He perfumed himself, and 
 curled his mustache and brown hair, and 
 it seemed to him, as to all young lovers, 
 th it he began to live the day he found 
 his mistress.
 
 The Romance of a Spa hi. 43 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Cora loved him, it is true, yet her heart 
 was not much involved. 
 
 A mulattress of Bourbon, she had been 
 reared in all the idleness and luxury of a 
 rich Creole ; but the white women around 
 her kept her at a distance with a merci- 
 less disdain, for, as a fille de couleur, she 
 was repulsive to them. The same race 
 prejudice followed her to Saint Louis, 
 and though she was the wife of one of 
 the most influential merchants on the 
 river, they avoided her as a creature unfit 
 for their association. 
 
 In Paris, however, she had a number of 
 refined lovers, and as her fortune enabled 
 her to cut a considerable figure while in 
 France, she enjoyed elegant vice to her 
 heart's content.
 
 44 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 Besides, she had a lovely face and form; 
 beautiful, soft hands ; languid, fascinating 
 manners ; and then, too, she was sur- 
 rounded by an atmosphere of romance 
 and mystery. 
 
 She loved Jean because he was tall and 
 handsome ; she was delighted with his 
 boyish, ingenuous manners, and, above all, 
 she was pleased with his fine red uniform.
 
 The Romance of a Spaki. 45 
 
 IX. 
 
 The house in which Cora lived was a 
 large brick building, as white as an Ara- 
 bian caravansary, with something of an 
 Egyptian aspect, like the rest of the 
 houses in the most ancient quarters of 
 Saint Louis. 
 
 Below, there was a great court, where 
 camels and Moors of the desert came to 
 crouch upon the sand, and where also 
 swarmed a strange mixture of dogs, 
 ostriches, and black slaves. 
 
 Above, there were innumerable veran- 
 das resting on square columns, resem- 
 bling the terraces of Babylon. 
 
 The upper apartments were reached by 
 white marble stair-ways of a monumental 
 look. 
 
 It was all in ruins, and as gloomy as
 
 46 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 everything else at Saint Louis, a city 
 whose glory has long since departed a 
 colony of other days. 
 
 Still there was a certain air of grandeur 
 about the salon, with its seigniorial dimen- 
 sions and furniture of a hundred years 
 ago. It was haunted with blue lizards, 
 cats, and parrots ; even gazelles sported 
 there over the fine mats of Guinea. 
 
 Black slaves, listlessly dragging along 
 their sandals, crossed and recrossed it 
 with a mournful tread, leaving behind 
 them an acrid odor of soumere and scented 
 amulets. 
 
 An indescribable melancholy of exile 
 and solitude rested on all things, and it 
 grew more intense during the hours of 
 evening, when there was perfect silence 
 save for the unceasing plaint of the Afri- 
 can breakers. 
 
 In the apartment occupied by Cora 
 everything was bright and modern.^ The
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 47 
 
 furniture, which had recently arrived from 
 Paris, was fresh, comfortable, and elegant, 
 and the air was full of the odors of es- 
 sences bought from the most fashionable 
 perfumers of the boulevard. 
 
 It was here that Jean spent hours of. 
 ecstasy ; it affected him as the chamber 
 of some enchanted palace, for he had 
 never dreamed of such splendor and 
 luxury. 
 
 This woman had become his life, his 
 happiness, and she, a creature blase and 
 weary of other pleasures and amusements, 
 desired to possess him, body and soul. 
 
 With the ingenuity of a Creole, she 
 succeeded in appearing to her lover 
 younger than she really was, playing with 
 admirable skill and cunning the irresisti- 
 ble comedy of love. 
 
 She had her wish: she possessed Jean, 
 body and soul.
 
 48 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 X. 
 
 Among the captives in the house of 
 Cora there was a queer little negress 
 named Fatou-gaye, of whom Jean had 
 taken scarcely any notice. 
 
 She had recently been brought to Saint 
 Louis and sold as a slave by the Moors, 
 who had taken her captive in one of their 
 raids on the country of the Khassoukes. 
 
 Her malicious disposition and fierce, 
 independent spirit caused her to be 
 consigned to a very obscure place in 
 the domestic arrangements of the house- 
 hold. 
 
 Not having reached a marriageable age, 
 at which time the negresses of Saint 
 Louis consider it proper to clothe them- 
 selves, she was generally quite nude, 
 wearing only a necklace of charms and
 
 The Romance of a Spain. 49 
 
 glass beads. Her hair was carefully 
 shorn, except of four little locks, \vhiqh 
 were plaited and oiled, and placed at reg- 
 ular intervals from her forehead to the 
 nape of her neck. Each of these plaits 
 terminated in a coral bead, except the 
 middle one, which was reserved for some- 
 thing more precious. This one was orna- 
 mented with a sequin of gold, very an- 
 cient, which must have been brought 
 originally from Arabia, and whose pere- 
 grinations across the Soudan no doubt 
 were long and complicated. 
 
 Without this queer head-dress, one 
 would have been impressed with the 
 beauty and regularity of Fatou-gaye's 
 features, for she was of the Khassouke 
 type in all its purity, possessing a fine 
 Grecian form, and skin as smooth as pol- 
 ished onyx. Her teeth were white and 
 dazzling, her expression mobile and ani- 
 mated ; but the most attractive feature of
 
 50 The Romance of a Spa hi. 
 
 this strange little face were her dark, brill- 
 iant eyes, encircled with blue, moving 
 restlessly about under their black eyelids, 
 and which at times were as soft as velvet, 
 and then again as bright and sparkling as 
 diamonds, changing with the passions of 
 her capricious heart. 
 
 When Jean went to the house of Cora 
 he sometimes encountered Fatou-gaye, 
 and, as she saw him approaching, she 
 would envelope herself in the folds of a 
 bright blue bon-bon, her holiday attire, 
 and advance, smiling, to meet him, the 
 soft and flute-like voice of the negress 
 assuming its most wheedling intonations. 
 
 Hanging her head with the affected air 
 of a monkey, she would say : 
 
 " May man coper, souma toubab." 
 (Give me a copper, white man.) 
 
 This was the refrain of all the children 
 at Saint Louis, and Jean was used to it. 
 If he was in a good humor, and had a sou
 
 The Romance of a Spaki. 5 1 
 
 in his pocket, he gave it to Fatou-gaye, 
 and she, strange to say, instead of buying 
 sweetmeats, as did the other children, 
 would conceal herself in some obscure 
 corner and sew the money carefully in the 
 sachets of her amulets.
 
 52 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 XL 
 
 One night in February Jean suspected 
 something was wrong. 
 
 Cora had requested him to leave be- 
 fore midnight, and at the moment of his 
 departure he imagined he heard footsteps 
 in the adjoining apartment, as if someone 
 awaited her there. 
 
 At midnight he bade her adieu, and 
 left the house ; but in a little while he re- 
 turned stealthily, walking noiselessly on 
 the sands, and, climbing the wall to a 
 balcony, he peered through the half-open 
 door into the chamber of Cora. 
 
 A young man in the uniform of an 
 officer of the Marines had taken his 
 place beside Cora, and he seemed to be 
 perfectly at home there, reclining grace- 
 fully on a sofa, with an air of ease and 
 familiarity.
 
 The Romance of a Spa hi. 53 
 
 She sat near him, conversing with him 
 in a language which Jean did not under- 
 stand. They were really French words, 
 but Jean did not comprehend them. To 
 him they were mocking enigmas, these 
 brief words, and far beyond the reach of 
 his understanding. 
 
 Cora was changed. Her expression 
 was not the same, and a peculiar smile 
 played on her lips. 
 
 Jean trembled ; the blood rushed to his 
 heart, and in his head he felt a roaring 
 like the sea. He was ashamed of being 
 there ; yet he wished to remain and 
 further comprehend. 
 
 He heard his own name pronounced, 
 for they were speaking of him, and he 
 drew nearer, supporting himself by the 
 wall, to hear the words more distinctly. 
 
 " You are wrong, Cora," said the young 
 officer, tranquilly, with a perceptible smile 
 on his lips. "In the first place, he is very
 
 54 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 handsome, this youth, and then you love 
 him." 
 
 "That is true," she replied; "I love 
 you both, and I have chosen you because 
 your name is Jean, also ; if I had not 
 taken this precaution, I would long ago 
 have betrayed myself by using your 
 name; I am so thoughtless." 
 
 She then drew nearer to the new Jean 
 and caressed him, speaking to him soft, 
 endearing words, lisped in the winning 
 accents of a Creole, and on his lips she 
 pressed kisses warm and passionate. 
 ***** 
 
 But the officer had seen the obscure fig- 
 
 o 
 
 ure of Jean Peyral gazing at them through 
 the open door with blood-shot eyes. 
 
 He said not a word, but made a sign to 
 Cora with his hand. 
 
 The spah i stood there, transfixed, im- 
 movable ; but when he saw that he was 
 discovered, he retreated hastily into the
 
 Tke Romance of a Spahi. 55 
 
 shadows. Cora suddenly advanced to- 
 ward him, her countenance distorted with 
 the look of a wild animal. She frightened 
 him ; she was near enough to touch him. 
 
 Closing the door with a gesture of 
 rage, she placed across it a bar of iron, 
 and all was over. 
 
 This mulattress, the grandchild of a 
 slave, was miserably disguised as an 
 elegant lady of gentle birth ; for she had 
 neither remorse, fear, nor pity. 
 
 ***** 
 
 After awhile Cora and her lover heard 
 a noise as of a body falling to the ground, 
 falling heavily, making a great noise in 
 the silence of the night ; and then, to- 
 ward morning, a sound as of someone 
 feeling his way in the darkness. 
 
 And Jean Peyral, regaining conscious- 
 ness, raised himself up and crept away, 
 timidly, confusedly, in the gloom of the 
 night
 
 56 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 XII. 
 
 Staggering along like a drunken man, 
 sinking ankle-deep in the sand of the de- 
 serted street, Jean went as far as Guet- 
 n'dar, the negro village with its thou- 
 sands of thatched roofs. 
 
 In the darkness he stumbled over men 
 and women asleep on the ground, wrap- 
 ped in ghostly garments of white, who 
 appeared to his excited imagination as 
 phantom people. 
 
 He rushed blindly along, and at last 
 found himself on the sea-shore. 
 
 Hundreds of crabs, crawling about on 
 the beach, fled at the sound of his foot- 
 steps. He remembered to have seen, 
 once, a dead body, cast up on the sea- 
 shore, torn and mangled by crabs, and a 
 thrill of horror seized him at the thought 
 of such a death.
 
 The Romance of a Spa hi. 57 
 
 The breakers and the surging waves 
 were already shining in the first glimmer 
 of dawn. They had for him a peculiar 
 fascination. How fresh and cool they 
 would feel to his burning head ! In their 
 beneficent humidity death would seem 
 less cruel. 
 
 Then he thought of his mother ; of 
 Jeanne, the little friend and sweetheart of 
 his boyhood, and he no longer wished to 
 die. 
 
 He sank upon the sands, and soon fell 
 into a deep, unnatural sleep.
 
 58 The Romance of a Spaki. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 It had been daylight three hours; but 
 Jean slept on. 
 
 He dreamed of his childhood in the 
 forests of the Cevennes ; he was a child 
 again, roaming with his mother in the 
 shadows of the grand old oaks, where the 
 ground was covered with lichens and 
 tender grass, gathering bluebells and 
 heather. 
 
 *'*** 
 
 At last he awoke and stared around 
 him, bewildered. The sands were glow- 
 ing in the heat of the torrid sun ; black 
 women wended their way over the burn- 
 ing soil, singing strange and unfamiliar 
 songs ; great vultures passed and repassed 
 in the air above him, and in his ears was 
 the shrill hissing of the grasshoppers.
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 59 
 
 He discovered that his head was shel- 
 tered from the burning rays of the sun by 
 an awning of blue cloth supported on 
 sticks driven in the sand, which threw 
 over him, with its fantastic folds, a cool, 
 gray shadow. 
 
 The pattern of the cloth was familiar 
 to him, and on turning his head he per- 
 ceived Fatou-gaye sitting near him, re- 
 garding him anxiously with her great, 
 dark eyes. 
 
 She had followed him and improvised 
 this awning as a protection from the tor- 
 rid heat; it was her holiday dress of 
 bright blue cloth, which Jean had often 
 seen her wear. 
 
 She had crouched there a long time in 
 a kind of ecstasy, kissing his eyelids softly 
 when she could do so unobserved very 
 softly, for fear of awakening him, for then 
 he would hasten away, and she would no 
 longer have him there to herself alone.
 
 60 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 11 It is I, white man," she said, with an 
 air of tragic seriousness, and in an incom- 
 prehensible jargon. " I have done this 
 because I knew that the sun of Saint 
 Louis was not good for the toubab of 
 France. I know well there was another 
 lover who came to see her, for I kept 
 awake all night to listen. I was hidden 
 away under the stair-way among the 
 gourds, and when you fell at the door I 
 saw you, and when you went away I fol- 
 lowed you." 
 
 Jean looked at her in astonishment, his 
 eyes full of gentleness and gratitude, for 
 he was deeply touched. 
 
 " Do not speak of this, little Fatou," 
 he said ; " but return quickly to your mis- 
 tress, and I will go to the barracks. Do 
 not tell anyone you found me lying on 
 the shore." 
 
 And he caressed her gently, as he would 
 scratch the neck of a little tame kitten
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 61 
 
 that came every night to the barracks and 
 curled at the foot of his bed. 
 
 But she, thrilling under the innocent 
 caress, lowered her head and drooped her 
 eyelids. With a choking sensation in 
 her throat, she gathered up her holiday 
 garment, folded it carefully, and went 
 away, trembling with joy.
 
 62 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 / 
 
 Poor Jean ! suffering was a new thing 
 to him, and he rebelled against the un- 
 known power that was crushing his heart 
 with bands of iron. 
 
 His soul was filled with concentrated 
 rage ; rage against the man whom he 
 wished to destroy ; rage against the 
 woman whom he longed to murder with a 
 blow from his whip or his spur. He was 
 consumed with an intense desire for re- 
 venge. 
 
 That same day he obtained permission 
 to accompany Nyaor-fall, the black spahi, 
 to a point north of Saint Louis, in the 
 direction of the Cape of Barbary, to ex- 
 ercise their horses. 
 
 They galloped furiously across the des- 
 ert under a somber, threatening sky, for
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 63 
 
 in that country the winter skies are fear- 
 ful and marvelous, and the banks of black 
 clouds hang so low on the horizon that 
 the desert beneath them has the appear- 
 ance of an endless waste of snow. 
 
 As the two spahis rode along, their 
 burnos floating behind them in the 
 breeze, enormous vultures stalking leis- 
 urely about on the sands were startled 
 and took their flight, describing fantastic 
 circles in the air above them. 
 
 At nightfall Jean and Nyaor returned 
 to the barracks, weary and exhausted, on 
 jaded steeds. 
 
 The next morning, after the excitement 
 of the previous day, Jean was prostrated 
 with a burning fever, and they laid him, 
 helpless and unconscious, on his poor 
 gray mattress, and carried him to the hos- 
 pital.
 
 64 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 XV. 
 
 Noon ! The great hospital is as silent 
 as the grave. 
 
 Noon ! The grasshopper chirps shrilly, 
 and the Nubian women, with plaintive 
 voices, sing vague and dreamy airs. 
 
 On all the desert plains of the Senegal 
 the vertical rays of the sun beat down 
 fiercely, and the great horizons dapple 
 and quiver in the torrid heat. 
 
 Noon ! The hospital is as silent as the 
 grave. 
 
 The long galleries and corridors are 
 empty. A clock on a high, white wall 
 marks, with slow-moving hands, the mid- 
 day hour. Around its dim and faded dial 
 is the sad inscription : " Vitce fugaces 
 exhibet /wras." 
 
 The twelve strokes of the weak bell
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 65 
 
 sound feeble and muffled in the hot air, 
 but they reach the ears of the dying, who, 
 in their feverish wakefulness, imagine it is 
 the solemn tolling of a knell. 
 
 Noon ! The mournful hour when the 
 
 sick die ! 
 
 ***** 
 
 In an open chamber on the upper floor 
 the silence of death reigns, and only 
 whispered words are spoken. 
 
 There is no perceptible sound except 
 the soft footsteps of the good Sister 
 Pacome as she walks lightly on the mats, 
 with a look of agitation on her serious 
 face, which is so pale and sallow under 
 her great white cap. A physician and a 
 priest are also there, sitting near a bed 
 which is draped in white curtains. 
 
 Through the open windows there is 
 nothing to be seen but the sun and the 
 sand, the distant blue lines of the bound- 
 less horizons, and the blazing light. 
 
 5
 
 66 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 Will the spahi die ? Has the moment 
 come for his soul to take its flight at this 
 stifling hour of midday, so far away from 
 home and his mother? 
 
 Where will he find a resting-place on 
 
 these desert sands ? 
 
 # # * * * 
 
 No, he will not die to-day ; the doctor, 
 who has waited there to see him breathe 
 his last, quietly retires. 
 
 Evening, with its fresh, invigorating 
 breezes, brings relief to the sick and 
 dying; Jean becomes more calm, and his 
 fever decreases. 
 
 Crouching before the door, on the 
 street below, is a little negress, playing 
 osselets with the white pebbles. She has 
 been there since morning, dissimulating, 
 for fear of attracting the attention of 
 those who pass by, and of being driven 
 away. She was afraid to make inquiries, 
 and she well knew that, if he died, his
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 67 
 
 body would be borne through that door, 
 over yonder to the lonely cemetery of 
 Sorr.
 
 68 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 For a week longer his fever continued, 
 with delirium each day until noon. They 
 awaited anxiously the crisis, and at last 
 the disease was vanquished, and the 
 danger past. 
 
 Those who have had fever on the 
 banks of the Senegal well know the fearful 
 hours of sleep and torpor that weigh so 
 heavily on the sick during the warm mid- 
 day hours. 
 
 One day, just before noon, Jean fell 
 into a kind of trance, full of suffering and 
 confused visions. He believed that he 
 was dying, and he became unconscious. 
 
 At four o'clock he awoke and asked for 
 water. The visions fled, retreating into 
 the distant corners of the room, behind 
 the curtains, then vanished entirely.
 
 The Romance of a Spaki. 69 
 
 He no longer felt as if they were pour- 
 ing burning lead upon his head, for he 
 was better. 
 
 Among the forms, real and imaginary, 
 smiling and grimacing, that floated around 
 him, he sometimes saw the lover of Cora 
 standing at his bedside, regarding him 
 with a look of pity It was a dream, no 
 doubt, like the visions he had of his 
 native village and the beloved ones, who 
 stood near him with strange miens and 
 distorted faces. 
 
 The most singular thing about it was 
 that, since he dreamed he saw him there, 
 he no longer hated him. 
 
 One evening, when his head was per- 
 fectly clear and all the confused visions 
 had vanished, he saw standing before him, 
 at the foot of the bed, the young officer, 
 in the same uniform he wore that night at 
 the house of Cora, his blue sleeves glitter- 
 ing with golden stripes. Jean raised his
 
 70 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 head and regarded him with astonish- 
 ment, at the same time extending his 
 feeble arm to ascertain if there really was 
 anyone there. 
 
 The young man, seeing that he was 
 recognized, instead of disappearing, as he 
 generally did, took the hand of Jean, and, 
 pressing it, said, simply, " Pardon." 
 
 Tears, the first that he had shed for 
 years, flowed from the eyes of the spahi, 
 and his heart felt lighter.
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 71 
 
 XVII. 
 
 His convalescence was of short dura- 
 tion ; the fever once conquered, his youth 
 and strength soon effected his recovery. 
 
 But he could not forget, and at times 
 his mental anguish was intense. He 
 sometimes indulged in foolish thoughts of 
 vengeance, and he became almost savage ; 
 but these moods were fleeting, and he 
 would say to himself that he would be 
 willing to endure almost any humiliation 
 to possess Cora as before. 
 
 The officer of the Marines, his new 
 friend, often came to sit at his bedside. 
 
 He spoke to Jean very gently, as he 
 would to an erring child, although he was 
 scarcely so old as the spahi. 
 
 " Jean," he said, one day, " Jean, you 
 know that w'oman ; well, if it will make
 
 72 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 you calmer, I give you my word of honor 
 that I have not seen her since the night 
 
 o 
 
 you remember. There are many things 
 in the world of which you yet have no 
 knowledge later on you will understand. 
 You will also understand that it is very 
 foolish to grieve over so small a matter. 
 As to Cora, I wish you to swear to me 
 that you will never see her again." 
 
 This was the only allusion he ever made 
 to her, and Jean, having made the prom- 
 ise, felt less wretched. 
 
 Undoubtedly there were many things 
 he did not understand. There was a so- 
 ciety advanced far beyond his knowledge ; 
 tranquil and refined perversities which his 
 imagination had never pictured. 
 
 And he soon began to love this friend, 
 who, though still somewhat of a mystery 
 to him, was so kind after being so cynical, 
 and looked at things with such an air of 
 ease and indifference.
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 73 
 
 He had come to offer Jean his protec- 
 tion because of the anguish he had caused 
 him; but he only made him an offer of 
 protection, not of advancement ; he never 
 touched on that, and Jean's youthful 
 heart was yet filled with the bitterness of 
 its first despair.
 
 74 The Romance of a Spahi, 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 It was nearly midnight at the house of 
 Dame Virginie Scolastique. 
 
 The cabaret was large and gloomy, and, 
 like other disreputable places, the doors 
 were closed and secured with heavy bars 
 of iron. 
 
 A little fetid lamp threw a sickly light 
 upon a confused mass of objects, stirring 
 about painfully in an atmosphere redolent 
 of smoke, absinthe, musk, and spices. 
 
 Upon the table and on the floor were 
 broken glasses, bottles, and various gar- 
 ments dragged along by the sabers of the 
 spahis in a sea of beer and alcohol. 
 
 The feast had been joyous and the 
 noise uproarious; but now it was over, 
 both song and tumult, and was followed 
 by the drowsiness and depression which 
 always comes after hard drinking.
 
 The Romance of a Spa hi. 75 
 
 The spahis were there ; some of them 
 leaning on the tables, with dull, sunken 
 eyes and beastly smiles, and others, more 
 respectable, striving to overcome their 
 drunkenness, were holding their heads up 
 proudly, their eyes, full of an iiTexpressi- 
 ble gloom, resting gravely on the scene. 
 
 In the distance if one had listened 
 could be heard the cry of the jackal roam- 
 ing around the cemetery of Sorr, where 
 many among the revelers there already 
 had their places marked on the desert 
 sands. 
 
 Dame Virginie was copper-colored and 
 thiclo-lipped, and around her head was 
 bo/md a Madras handkerchief of gor- 
 geous colors. 
 
 She was drunk also. Lying near her on 
 the floor was a tall young spahi of a fine, 
 robust figure, and hair as golden as ripe 
 wheat. He was unconscious, and on his 
 forehead was a deep gash. Dame Vir-
 
 76 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 ginie, aided by a black slave, was spong- 
 ing the wound with cold water and a vin- 
 egar compress. Neither pity nor sensi- 
 bility prompted her to do this, but rather 
 a fear of the police. 
 
 She was greatly disquieted, for the 
 blood continued to flow ; it had already 
 filled a dish, and as it could not be ar- 
 rested, fear sobered the woman. 
 
 Jean was there, seated in one corner of 
 the room, more intoxicated than all the 
 rest; yet he sat upright in his chair, his 
 eyes fixed and gloomy. It was he who 
 had wounded his comrade with a bar of 
 iron snatched from the door, which he 
 still held in his clenched hand, unconscious 
 of the blow he had given. 
 
 A month had elapsed since his recov- 
 ery from the fever, and every evening 
 since then he could be seen dragging him- 
 self into dens of iniquity, in the first 
 ranks of scoffers and debauches.
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 77 
 
 There was much of boyish recklessness 
 in his behavior, it is true ; nevertheless, 
 he had run a terrible course since the 
 month of his suffering. 
 
 He had devoured immoral romances, 
 where all was new to his imagination, and 
 otherwise abandoned himself to unhealthy 
 extravagances, completing the round of 
 revelry and dissipation at Saint Louis, 
 where he made an easy conquest of every 
 woman with whom he was thrown, his 
 good looks assuring him possession with- 
 out resistance. 
 
 And then he began to drink. 
 
 You who lead domestic lives, seated 
 peacefully with your families around the 
 fireside, judge them not harshly, the sail- 
 ors, soldiers, and those whom destiny has 
 thrown, with their ardent natures, into ab- 
 normal conditions of life, upon the great 
 seas or in the distant countries of the sun, 
 amid unheard-of privations and influences
 
 78 The Romance of a Spa hi. 
 
 of which you know nothing. Judge them 
 not harshly, poor exiles ! 
 
 Then Jean began to drink, and he 
 drank more than his companions ; he 
 drank terribly. 
 
 Heretofore he had remained pure and 
 uncorrupted in spite of all his tempta- 
 tions, and he still retained the manners of 
 a great, untamed boy. When the pen- 
 sioners of Dame Virginie came near 
 enough to touch him, he scattered them 
 with the end of his whip as unclean ani- 
 mals, and they began to regard him as a 
 fetich man, whom they dared not ap- 
 proach, and the miserable little creatures 
 no longer attempted to beguile him. 
 
 He was terribly savage when he was 
 intoxicated, when he lost his head, with 
 that great physical force unchained. 
 
 This evening he had been startled by a 
 random word about one of his amours 
 and he remembered nothing more, but sat
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 79 
 
 there immovable, still clutching in his 
 hand the bloody iron bar. 
 
 Suddenly his eyes darted lightning ; it 
 was the old hag he wanted now. and 
 without any apparent motive ; but, pos- 
 sessed with the unbridled rage of a 
 drunken man, he raised himself half-way 
 from his chair, furious and menacing. 
 
 The old woman uttered a hoarse cry, 
 and for a moment she trembled with fear. 
 
 "Hold him!" she fairly screamed to 
 the drowsy forms of those who were 
 asleep under the tables. 
 
 Some heads were raised, and one lan- 
 guid hand attempted to hold Jean back 
 by his coat, but this help was not suffi- 
 cient. 
 
 " Give me something to drink, old 
 witch !" he cried. "Something to drink, 
 old night hag! Give me something to 
 drink, I say ! " 
 
 "Yes, yes," she replied, in a voice
 
 8o The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 shaking with fear. "Yes, here is some- 
 thing to drink. Bring me some absinthe 
 quickly, to finish him absinthe dashed 
 with brandy." 
 
 She did not consider expense on such 
 occasions. 
 
 Jean drank it all at one draught, and 
 dashing the glass against the wall, he fell 
 to the floor like a thunderbolt. 
 
 " That finished him !" chuckled the 
 old woman; "there is no danger in him 
 now." 
 
 She was very strong, this old Virginie 
 Scolastique, and solidly built ; and being 
 sobered all at once, with the assistance of 
 a black slave and the little negresses, she 
 lifted Jean, an inanimate lump. After 
 having searched his pockets in order to 
 take from them the last pieces of silver, 
 she opened the door and threw him out. 
 
 Jean fell heavily to the ground, his arms 
 outstretched on the sands.
 
 The Romance of a Spaki. 81 
 
 Then the old hag, vomiting a torrent of 
 vituperation, slammed to the door, which 
 closed with a horrible, grating noise. 
 
 And all was silent. The wind blew 
 mournfully from the direction of the cem- 
 etery, and the only sounds to break the 
 great calm of midnight were the lugubri- 
 ous yells of the jackals in a sinister con- 
 cert over the resurrected bodies of the 
 dead.
 
 82 The Romance of a Spaki. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 FRANCOISE PEYRAL TO HER SON. 
 
 MY DEAR JEAN : We have received no response 
 to our last letter, and Peyral says it has been a 
 long time since we have heard from you. I can 
 see that he suffers greatly each day when Toinon 
 passes by with his mail-box and says there is 
 nothing for us. I also feel great anxiety, but I 
 always believe that the good God will take care of 
 you, my dear son, for I pray to Him very often that 
 He will allow no misfortune to befall you. 
 
 Your father says he understands how it is, be- 
 cause he was in the army, and that he has seen 
 rough roads for young men who are not prudent 
 in their selection of companions, and who allow 
 themselves to be led into drinking. And he warns 
 you against association with wicked women, who 
 will surely bring you to grief in the end. I say 
 this to please your father; as for myself, 1 am sure 
 that my dear boy is prudent, and that he has 
 something in his heart which will keep him aloof 
 from all such evils.
 
 The Romance of a Spalii. 83 
 
 Next month I think we will be able to send 
 you a little money, for I know in that country 
 one has to pay a great deal for trifling things; 
 and I am sure you will not spend the money reck- 
 lessly after your father has gone to so much trouble 
 to obtain it. As for myself, the wants of women 
 are few; I speak for him only. 
 
 We talk of you every evening as we sit under 
 the chestnut tree; we rarely ever spend a day that 
 your name is not mentioned. 
 
 The neighbors send you good wishes. 
 
 My dear son, your father and I embrace you 
 affectionately. May the good God protect you. 
 Your mother, 
 
 FRANCOISE PEYRAL. 
 
 When Jean received this letter he was 
 in the prison of the barracks, where he 
 was confined for drunkenness. 
 
 Fortunately, the wound inflicted on the 
 head of the blonde soldier had not proved 
 serious, and neither the wounded man 
 nor his comrades wished to denounce 
 Jean. 
 
 His clothes were blood-stained, his shirt
 
 84 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 in tatters, and in his head there were still 
 the fumes of alcohol. A mist was before 
 his eyes, and it was with difficulty that he 
 read the letter. 
 
 Between him and the pure affections of 
 his childhood there was now a dark 
 shadow ; this shadow was Cora his pas- 
 sion, his despair. He had some moments 
 of oblivion, and then it was he could think 
 with happiness of other days. 
 
 The poor, confiding letter touched his 
 heart ; he kissed it fervently, and began to 
 weep. 
 
 Then he swore he would' never drink 
 again; and as the habit had not yet a 
 strong hold on him, it was easily broken. 
 
 He never drank again.
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 85 
 
 XX. 
 
 Several days after this, an unforeseen 
 circumstance brought a happy and salu- 
 tary diversion into the life of Jean Peyral. 
 
 An order was given for the spahis to 
 establish themselves men and horses 
 for a change of air in encampment at 
 Dialambam, several miles south of Saint 
 Louis, near the mouth of the river. 
 
 On the day of their departure, Fatou- 
 gaye came to the barracks, gaily attired 
 in her bright blue holiday garment, to say 
 farewell to Jean, and he embraced her, 
 kissing her gently on her two little black 
 cheeks. 
 
 And at night-fall they started on the 
 march. 
 
 As for Cora, after the first moments of 
 rage and excitement were over, she re-
 
 86 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 gretted' her lovers, for in truth she had 
 loved them both. The two Jeans ap- 
 pealed equally to her senses ; treated as a 
 divinity by Jean Peyral, and, on the other 
 hand, by the officer as a pretty girl. 
 
 But no one witnessed her mortification, 
 for she was never again seen at Saint 
 Louis strolling along the sands. One 
 day she went away secretly sent by her 
 husband on an official errand to a factory 
 far away, south of Saint Louis. 
 
 Fatou-gaye had undoubtedly gossiped, 
 and the last escapade of the woman Cora 
 created at Saint Louis a profound sensa- 
 tion.
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 87 
 
 XXI. 
 
 One calm night toward the end of Feb- 
 ruary a real winter night, clear and cold, 
 after a day of burning heat the column 
 of spahis, en route for Dialambam, crossed 
 the plains of Legbar. 
 
 They were straggling at their own 
 pleasure, and Jean lingered in the rear, 
 walking along tranquilly in company with 
 his friend Nyaor-fall. 
 
 The Sahara and the Soudan both have 
 cold nights, which are even more brilliant 
 and transparent than the winter nights in 
 France. 
 
 A deep silence rested on the whole 
 country. The heavens, as blue as sap- 
 phire, were profound and mysterious. 
 Myriads of stars twinkled in the blue 
 depths of the skies, and all objects were
 
 88 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 defined with a wonderful accuracy in the 
 silver moonlight. 
 
 In the distance, as far as the eye could 
 see, were great marshes covered with a 
 dreary vegetation of mangroves. So it is 
 in the whole country of Africa, from the 
 left banks of the river Senegal to the 
 inaccessible confines of Guinea. 
 
 Sirius rose, the moon was in its zenith, 
 and the silence was overwhelming. 
 
 The great euphorbias lifted their 
 branches heavenward, mingling their 
 shadows with the shadows of the lesser 
 plants on the ruddy sands. Scattered 
 here and there were clumps of stunted 
 trees and pools of stagnant water, over 
 which floated thick, white vapors. The 
 scene was full of mysterious immobility. 
 
 The air was heavy with the odors from 
 the great marshes, and at this hour of the 
 night the miasma of fever is most subtle 
 and fatal.
 
 The Romance of a Spa hi. 89 
 
 Everywhere along the route were scat- 
 tered ghastly skeletons, the decaying bod- 
 ies of camels bathed in a black and fetid 
 blood, lying there in the moonlight, dis- 
 playing their hideous, mangled carcasses, 
 torn and disemboweled by the vultures. 
 
 From time to time they heard the 
 plaintive cry of the marsh-bird, the only 
 sound amid an awful calm. 
 
 On every side the baobabs stretched 
 out their massive branches, like great 
 bowlders or trees of stone. The moon 
 shone on these rigid structures with a sad 
 cheerlessness, giving them the appearance 
 of objects cold and petrified. Whole 
 families of vultures were perched upon 
 the polished branches, fast asleep, their 
 large folded wings gleaming in the moon- 
 light with a blue metallic luster. 
 
 They permitted Jean to approach them 
 and touch them as if they were be- 
 witched.
 
 90 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 At two o'clock there' was a strange 
 concert of voices, as of dogs baying the 
 moon, but something more lugubrious 
 and funereal. 
 
 In Saint Louis, at the dead of night, 
 Jean had often heard, such groans in the 
 distance ; but this evening it seemed they 
 were there close to him in the bushes, the 
 weird yelping of the jackal mingling with 
 the sharp cry of the hyena. It was a 
 combat between two roving bands in their 
 raids on the bodies of the camels. 
 
 "What is that?" demanded Jean of 
 Nyaor. A horrible presentiment oppressed 
 his heart, and a cold chill crept over him. 
 
 "Those who are dead," answered Nyaor, 
 with an expressive wave of the hand. 
 " Those who die on land are sought out 
 by these beasts and eaten by them." 
 
 And as he said " eaten by them," he 
 gnawed his black arm with his shining 
 white teeth.
 
 T/ie Romance of a Spa hi. 91 
 
 Jean comprehended and trembled ; and 
 ever after that, each time he heard in the 
 night those mournful, weird voices, he 
 remembered this explanation, the graphic 
 description of the mimicking Nyaor. 
 
 And he, who in the daylight feared 
 nothing, shuddered with the vague and 
 gloomy fear of a superstitious mountaineer. 
 
 At last the voices died away in the 
 distance, now and then sounding faintly 
 from some other point on the horizon, and 
 then ceasing altogether. 
 
 The milky vapor thickened over the still 
 waters, the dew began to fall, and the 
 damp air from the marshes was cold and 
 penetrating. 
 
 Dawn approached, the moon sunk be- 
 hind the western horizon, and solitude op- 
 pressed the heart. Finally there appeared 
 low on the horizon the pointed roofs of 
 the village of Dialambam, where to-mor- 
 row the spahis would pitch their tents.
 
 92 Tke Romance of a Spa hi. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Around the encampment of Dialam- 
 bam were great marshes filled with stag- 
 nant waters, and arid plains where the 
 stunted mimosa grew in profusion. 
 
 Jean often took long, solitary strolls 
 with his gun upon his shoulder, hunting 
 sometimes, and then again dreaming in 
 the vague reveries of a mountaineer. 
 
 And he also loved to take his canoe to 
 ascend the yellow waters, losing himself 
 in the mazes of the Senegal. 
 
 In the wide marshes there were pools 
 of warm and tranquil waters, sleeping there 
 unruffled under the blazing sun. On their 
 banks the soil was treacherous and inac- 
 cessible to the foot of man. 
 
 White aigrettes walked gravely in the 
 depths of the monotonous verdure of the
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 93 
 
 9 
 
 humid mangroves, and great, hissing 
 lizards crawled in the mud. Water-lilies 
 and white and red lotus-flowers bloomed 
 there in the heat of the tropical sun, for 
 the delight of the alligator. 
 
 And Jean Peyral began to love this 
 country.
 
 94 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 The month of May arrived. 
 
 The spahis began joyously to fold up 
 their baggage and pull down their tents, 
 collecting their possessions with energetic 
 ardor. 
 
 For they were about to return to Saint 
 Louis, to the great white barracks, which 
 had been repaired and repainted in their 
 absence. They were going to resume 
 their old pleasures to find again their 
 sweethearts and their absinthe. 
 
 The month of May ! In France this is 
 the beautiful month of verdure and of 
 flowers, but in the sad country of Dialam- 
 bam there is nothing suggestive of spring- 
 time. The trees, herbs, and all vegeta- 
 tion that does not grow in the muddy 
 waters of the marshes are withered and
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 95 
 
 lifeless, for not a drop of water falls in 
 this country for six months, and the soil 
 is dry and parched. 
 
 Then the temperature rises, the even- 
 ing breezes cease; the winter season is 
 over, and spring-time arrives with its sul- 
 try heat and torrents of rain. This is the 
 season of the year regarded with fear by 
 the Europeans on the Senegal, because it 
 brings lassitude, fever, and often death. 
 
 It is necessary to live in this country of 
 thirst to appreciate the indescribably de- 
 licious sensation one feels at being wet to 
 the skin by the large drops in the first 
 wave of the storm in the first rain-fall. 
 
 And the first tornado ! In the immobile, 
 sombre sky there is a kind of leaden dome, 
 and a strange signe du del rises above the 
 horizon. The clouds assume fearful and 
 fantastic forms, bringing to mind the 
 eruption of a mighty volcano the explo- 
 sion of a world.
 
 g6 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 Then they form themselves into grand 
 arcs, rising one above the other; and then 
 again the dark, heavy masses of clouds col- 
 lect, resembling vaults of stone that seem 
 about to fall on the world to crush it. 
 
 Artists who paint the deluge, the cata- 
 clysm of a primitive world, have not de- 
 picted objects more grotesque, nor skies 
 more terrible. 
 
 Suddenly there bursts from the clouds 
 a terrific rain-storm ; the trees are lashed 
 as with whips ; the leaves, the birds and 
 vultures are blown about in a furious 
 gale. Everything in the path of the 
 storm is overturned ; the tornado is un- 
 chained ; nature is convulsed ; it is like 
 the passage of a frightful meteor. 
 
 The cataracts of heaven are poured 
 down upon the earth, the wind blows a 
 terrific gale, and the ground is covered 
 with a debris of branches, birds, and 
 flowers.
 
 The Romance of a Spa hi. 97 
 
 But suddenly the fury of the storm is 
 allayed; the last blasts of the gale chase 
 from the skies the dull, copper-colored 
 clouds, and sweep away the tattered rags 
 of the tempest ; the meteor has passed, 
 and the heavens become pure, blue, and 
 immobile. 
 
 The first tornado surprised the spahis 
 en route to Saint Louis, and, breaking 
 ranks, they soon became a noisy, joyous 
 band, running toward the village of Tour- 
 oukambe in great disorder. 
 
 The women beating the millet, the chil- 
 dren playing in the bushes, the pilfering 
 fowls, the dogs sleeping in the sun, all ran 
 to the huts precipitately, and crowded 
 under the pointed roofs. 
 
 These huts already too small were 
 invaded by the spahis also, who walked 
 right in, stumbling over the gourds, upset- 
 ting the Kouss-Kouss. 
 
 Their horses, haltered near by, rushed 
 
 7
 
 98 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 about frantically, neighing and pawing 
 the ground with fright ; the dogs yelped; 
 the goats, sheep, and all the domestic ani- 
 mals of the village ran to the doors, bleat- 
 ing, yelping, leaping, endeavoring to push 
 their way in with their horns, claiming 
 their share of shelter and protection. 
 
 The cries, the screams, the bursts of 
 negro laughter, the hissing noise of the 
 tempestuous wind, and the thunder 
 drowning all with its formidable artillery, 
 made a wild, discordant tumult; a grand 
 confusion under a black and raging sky ; 
 darkness at midday, with only a rift of 
 light now and then, from a flash of light- 
 ning. 
 
 When the tornado had passed, and 
 order was restored, the spahis started 
 forth on the beaten path, refreshed by the 
 rain and the rest by the wayside. 
 
 Soft, little clouds floated above them in 
 the clear, blue heavens, curling and twist-
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 99 
 
 ing like airy vapories, then fading away 
 in the distant blue ether. 
 
 Strong odors rose from the moistened 
 earth ; Nature was beginning her rejuve- 
 nation.
 
 ioo Tke Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 Fatou-gaye lingered at the entrance of 
 Saint Louis for many hours, that the ar- 
 rival of the troops might not escape her. 
 
 When she saw Jean pass, she saluted 
 him with a discreet " Keou" (good-day), 
 accompanied by a graceful little courtesy, 
 for she did not wish to disturb him in 
 ranks. She had the good taste to wait 
 two long hours before she went to see 
 him at the barracks. 
 
 She had changed greatly ; in three 
 months she had developed suddenly, like 
 the plants in her own country. 
 
 She no longer demanded coppers, and 
 she had acquired a certain graceful timid- 
 ity so becoming to young girls. 
 
 A bon-bon of white muslin now covered 
 her shapely form, as was customary with
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 101 
 
 girls of a marriageable age, and she was 
 highly perfumed with musk and soumere. 
 
 Scattered over her head were innumer- 
 able little tight curls, for she had permitted 
 her hair to grow that she might go at an 
 early day to a practiced hair-dresser, who 
 would arrange it in the elaborate head- 
 dress which always adorns the heads of 
 African women. 
 
 At present it was too short, so it lay 
 in curled and disheveled masses, which 
 changed her looks entirely, and from being 
 comical and savage, she had become grace- 
 ful and almost charming. 
 
 In her tout-ensemble were blended the 
 child, the young girl, and the black imp ; 
 a very fantastic little person ! 
 
 " She is pretty, that little Fatou-gaye ; 
 don't you think so, Peyral?" laughingly 
 remarked the spahis. 
 
 Jean had discovered that she was pretty, 
 but it mattered little to him.
 
 IO2 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 The months of calm and reflection 
 which he enjoyed during encampment 
 had a most salubrious effect on him in 
 every way. He had by degrees recovered 
 his moral equilibrium, and the images of 
 his old parents and his betrothed had 
 regained all their honorable charm and 
 former empire. 
 
 He entirely abandoned his reckless 
 habits, and he could not now understand 
 how Dame Virginie Scolastique had ever 
 counted him among her clients. 
 
 Not only had he sworn never to drink 
 absinthe, but also to remain faithful to 
 Jeanne Mery.
 
 The Romance of a Spahi, 103 
 
 XXV. 
 
 When Jean took his twilight strolls he 
 often encountered Fatou-gaye on the way, 
 her hair, which had grown very quickly, 
 standing out from her head like the wool 
 on a black sheep. 
 
 Formerly, during the first months of his 
 life in Africa, he had regarded the black 
 population with disgust. In his eyes they 
 all had the appearance of monkeys, and 
 beneath that oily, polished ebony he had 
 never been able to recognize one from 
 another. But after awhile he grew ac- 
 customed to their faces, and he could 
 distinguish them. When he saw the 
 young black girls passing by, adorned 
 with trinkets and silver bracelets he com- 
 pared them, pronouncing this one pretty, 
 that one ugly, this one graceful and
 
 IO4 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 charming, and that one savage ; in fact, 
 they were no longer repulsive to him. 
 
 Jean often visited his friend Nyaor at 
 Guet-n'dar, and the scenes of the interior 
 of a Jaloff hut, of a life in common, 
 troubled him greatly, and made him feel 
 more keenly than ever his exile in that 
 accursed land, where he was entirely iso- 
 lated from his kind. 
 
 He often dreamed of her whom he had 
 loved with the chaste love of his boyhood 
 of Jeanne Mery. Alas! he had only been 
 six months in Africa, and almost as many 
 years must elapse ere he returned. 
 
 He sometimes felt that he would not 
 have the courage to live alone, with no 
 companion to make the years of his exile 
 endurable. 
 
 There was Fatou-gaye, but what a prof- 
 anation of himself ! He would then be 
 no better than his comrades, the clients 
 of old Virginie!
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 105 
 
 For he possessed a kind of dignity, an 
 instinctive modesty which had preserved 
 him from all corrupting influences, and his 
 soul revolted at the thought of descend- 
 ing so low.
 
 io6 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 He continued his long evening walks, 
 though the heavy rains had begun to fall. 
 
 The wide marshes were filled with fetid, 
 stagnant waters, and a rank, herbaceous 
 vegetation covered the face of the earth. 
 Even the light of the sun was pale from 
 excessive heat and deleterious exhalations, 
 and fever and miasma were each day gain- 
 ing on the land. 
 
 Often at sunset, when Jean was alone 
 amid these desolate scenes, his heart was 
 oppressed with an unaccountable melan- 
 choly ; there was something in the aspect 
 of nature in that gloomy and abnormal 
 country that paralyzed him. 
 
 At the hour of twilight these African 
 marshes have a sadness which can never 
 be expressed in any human language. 
 
 The eternal gloom of the land of Ham 
 rests on all things.
 
 The Romance of a Spaki. 107 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 June is ever the ideal marriage month. 
 
 Often, during these enervating even- 
 ings, Jean would meet nuptial corteges 
 filing their way across the yellow sands 
 in long, fantastic processions. They all 
 sang, and the chorus of voices most of 
 them in a fine, apish treble was always 
 accompanied by a contretemps a beat- 
 ing of hands and blows on the tam-tam. 
 
 The songs at these negro celebrations 
 were always suggestive of a gross and 
 voluptuous sensuality. 
 
 June ! It was indeed spring-time, but 
 the spring-time of Africa, fleeting and 
 feverish, with enervating odors and op- 
 pressive storms. 
 
 It was the return of butterflies, of 
 birds, of life. Humming-birds doffed 
 their robes of gray and resumed the gor-
 
 io8 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 geous colors of summer ; all had become 
 green, as if by enchantment; soft, warm 
 shadows fell from the light foliage of the 
 trees and herbs on the moist soil. 
 
 The mimosa, flowering in profusion, 
 resembled enormous bouquets ; birds flit- 
 ted airily among the large tufts of orange 
 blossoms, singing low, sweet notes. 
 
 Even the clumsy baobab was reclothed 
 in a fresh foliage of pale and tender 
 green,. 
 
 The large, odorous blossoms of the 
 datura, moistened by the light showers, 
 yielded their sweetest perfumes, and from 
 the tops of the plants 'fire-flies twinkled 
 with phosphorescent scintillations. 
 
 Nature was in great haste to rejuve- 
 nate, and in eight days she had accom- 
 plished it all.
 
 The Rot) i a nee of a Spahi. 109 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 " Anamalis fobil ! " howl the griots, 
 fiercely striking the tam-tam, their eyes 
 inflamed, muscles distended, and the 
 sweat streaming down their distorted 
 bodies. 
 
 And they all repeat, clapping their 
 hands in a frenzy, "Anamalis fobil! 
 Anamalis fobil!" 
 
 These are the first words, th^ predomi- 
 nant refrain, in that mad, devilish chant 
 teeming with passion and voluptuousness 
 the chant of the spring-time bamboula. 
 
 "Anamalis fobil!" they all cry in a 
 frenzy of passion. 
 
 It is the alleluia of negro love, the se- 
 ductive song full of nature, of the air, the 
 earth, the perfumes of flowers. 
 
 At the spring-time bamboula, the
 
 no The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 young boys and girls, attired with great 
 splendor in their nuptial robes, mingle 
 freely together, dancing on the sands, 
 wildly singing in a mad rhythm, "Ana- 
 malis fobil ! "
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 1 1 1 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 Anamalis fobil! The milk-white buds 
 on the great baobabs had burst into a 
 tender foliage. 
 
 Jean felt the African spring-time burn- 
 ing in his blood; it ran like poison through 
 his veins. 
 
 The sap that rose in the plants was 
 empoisoned, the flowers were full of dan- 
 gerous perfumes, the beasts were fierce, 
 the reptiles venomous. 
 
 The voluptuous delights of life in this 
 new season of the year were new to him, 
 and the fire of youth for he was on ( ly 
 twenty-two years old burned within 
 him, and he felt that it would consume 
 him. 
 
 Anamalis fobil ! how quickly time was 
 flying! June was almost gone, and al-
 
 1 1 2 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 ready in the vital heat the foliage was 
 turning yellow, the plants were dying, and 
 the over-ripe fruit was falling to the 
 ground. 
 
 Anamalis fobil ! There is a certain 
 kind of bitter fruit in that hot country 
 the gourous of the Senegal, for instance 
 which in our temperate latitudes would 
 be detestable, but which obtained there 
 when one is suffering from thirst, is 
 eagerly coveted and is strangely sweet. 
 . . . And so this little black creature, 
 with skin as smooth as marble, and her 
 dark, enameled eyes already lowered be- 
 neath the gaze of Jean this savory fruit 
 of the Soudan, mellowing prematurely in 
 the sensuous, tropical spring-time was 
 full of intoxicating sweets, and untasted, 
 unhealthy delights.
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 1 1 3 
 
 XXX. 
 
 Anamalis fobil ! Jean with great haste, 
 but a little abstractedly, was making his 
 evening toilet. 
 
 That morning he had requested Fatou- 
 gaye to meet him at twilight beneath a 
 certain great, isolated baobab in the 
 marshes of Sorr. 
 
 And now, before going, he leaned out 
 of the window to collect his thoughts, if 
 possible, while he breathed the fresh air 
 of evening. 
 
 He trembled at what he was about to 
 do. For several days he had resisted the 
 complicated feeling struggling within 
 him, for, with the instinctive horror and 
 dread of a superstitious mountaineer, he 
 had a vague fear of those charms and 
 amulets, lest their enchantment might 
 hold him forever in a gloomy bondage.
 
 114 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 He felt that he was about to step 
 across the fatal threshold to sign a fune- 
 real compact with the black race, and 
 that dark shadows were descending which 
 would separate him forever from the be- 
 loved ones so far away. 
 
 A warm twilight fell along the river, 
 the old white city gleamed for a moment 
 in its rosy lights, and then the purple 
 shadows deepened. Long files of camels 
 took their way across the sands, going 
 north\vard. Already the clash of the 
 tam-tam could be heard in the distance, 
 and the griots singing in a frenzy, "An- 
 amalis fobil ! Faramati hi !" 
 
 The hour appointed for the meeting 
 with Fatou-gaye had nearly passed, and 
 Jean hastened to join her on the marshes 
 of Sorr. 
 
 Over these strange nuptials the lonely 
 baobab threw its deepest shadows, and 
 the heavens, which hung like a great yel-
 
 Tke Romance of a Spahi. \ 1 5 
 
 low vault above them, were sad, motion- 
 less, and oppressive, charged with elec- 
 tricity, terrestrial emanations, and vital 
 substances. 
 
 To paint these nuptials, it would take 
 colors so warm and glowing that no 
 palette could furnish the like. 
 
 It would take African words and 
 sounds, and, above all that, silence ! It 
 would take all the perfumes of the Sene- 
 gal, its tempests and burning heats, its 
 most transparent lights, its darkest shad- 
 ows, and the great, solitary baobab in the 
 depths of the marshes of Sorr ! 
 
 Jean, though intoxicated with delight, 
 felt a thrill of horror when he saw there 
 so near to him the gleam of those brill- 
 iant, enameled eyes. 
 
 Bats flew noiselessly above them in a 
 flight as soft and gentle as the flutter of a 
 silken scarf. They approached very close 
 to them ; their curiosity was excited, for
 
 u6 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 Fatou-gaye wore a robe of white which 
 trailed on the rosy herbs. 
 
 Anamalis fobil ! Faramati hi !
 
 PART II. 
 
 i 
 
 Three years have passed. . . . 
 
 Three times have the terrible wind and 
 spring returned ; three times the saison de 
 la soif, with its chilly nights and desert 
 winds. 
 
 Jean sleeps upon his tara in the airy 
 upper apartment of the house of Samba- 
 Hamet ; near him lies his wolf-dog, 
 thirsty and motionless, tongue hanging 
 out, and nose on its paws, in the attitude 
 and with the expression of the sacred 
 jackals in Egyptian temples. 
 
 It is noon the dreamy, silent hour of 
 the siesta and warm, warm, strangely 
 warm, like the oppressive days of sultry 
 July ; yet it is a day in December, and 
 the wind, blowing gently across the sands,
 
 1 1 8 The Romance d>f a Spahi. 
 
 gives them an undulating motion, as if 
 there were thousands and thousands of 
 minute waves upon the great mer-sanseau. 
 
 Fatou-gaye, resting on her elbows, re- 
 clines upon the floor, as nude as a statue 
 (costume of the interior), her polished, 
 black limbs lying in curves of exquisite 
 grace. Her hair was arranged in a most 
 extraordinary head-dress, adorned with 
 amber and coral. 
 
 All is silent around the house of Sam- 
 ba-Hamet, save for an almost impercepti- 
 ble rustling of flies and the slight noise of 
 the sands which are blown in blinding 
 gusts against the house. Jean has almost 
 fallen asleep listening to the low, croon- 
 ing songs of Fatou-gaye, who sang airs 
 she had never heard, but which neverthe- 
 less were not original. They were her 
 own dreamy, passionate reveries, trans- 
 lating themselves into musical sounds, 
 strange and somnolent; a kind of reflex
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 1 1 9 
 
 action an effect produced upon the brain 
 by all the overwhelming force of circum- 
 stances. 
 
 Peace had been restored between Jean 
 and Fatou-gaye ; Jean had forgiven, as 
 he always did, and the affair of the Kha- 
 li ss and the ear-rings of the gold of Gal- 
 lam were soon forgotten. 
 
 Money was found elsewhere and sent 
 to France. Nyaor-fall had loaned it to 
 him in large, white pieces engraved with 
 ancient effigies, which he had, with many 
 others, hidden away in a copper box. Jean 
 was to repay him when he was able. It 
 was a grave responsibility for him, it is 
 true, but his poor parents, who had 
 counted upon him, were not disappointed; 
 as for the rest, it mattered little. 
 
 Asleep on his tara, with the little slave 
 crouching at his feet, Jean had an inde- 
 scribable air of superb indifference the 
 affected air of an Arabian prince for he
 
 I 20 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 possessed all the poor majesty of a fils de 
 la tente; he was no longer the little mount- 
 aineer of the Cevennes. 
 
 The three years on the Senegal, which 
 had mowed down here and there in the 
 ranks of the spahis, had spared him. He 
 was much bronzed from contact with the 
 burning rays of the sun, but his strength 
 had developed and his manners accentu- 
 ated in all that was elegant and graceful. 
 He had become a model soldier, punctual, 
 vigilant, and brave, but the golden lace of 
 a quarter-master was always refused him ; 
 for many reasons, but principally because 
 of his life with a black woman. 
 
 Rioting, intoxication, being reported 
 for assault, frequenting ale-houses, and 
 otherwise debasing himself, was bad 
 enough, but to live with a captive slave, 
 even though she had been baptized, could 
 not be forgiven him ; her color was unpar- 
 donable.
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 1 2 1 
 
 He had often received from his supe- 
 riors violent remonstrances and terrible 
 threats of punishment. Before the storm 
 he showed a bold spirit, listening with the 
 stoicism of discipline, dissembling under 
 an air of contrition ; he had even evinced 
 a willingness to undergo the lash. But 
 he still protected Fatou-gaye, and nothing 
 more was ever done about it. 
 
 His feelings for the little creature were 
 complicated ; the most skillful would have 
 lost his labor in trying to unravel it. 
 
 He abandoned himself to her influence, 
 and was powerless to separate himself 
 from her ; following unresistingly the 
 dictates of his troubled heart, for in those 
 early days of separation and exile he was 
 indecisive and easily decoyed. And day 
 by day the shadows deepened over the 
 memories of the past. 
 
 Two years had passed since Jean and 
 Fatou-gaye first inhabited the house of
 
 122 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 Samba-Hamet. In the house of Cora 
 she had been a captive, not a slave, an 
 essential distinction established by the 
 laws of the colony, and of which she very 
 soon took advantage. 
 
 As a captive she had the right to escape, 
 and they could not pursue her, and after 
 she had fled, she was free. She had made 
 use of the privilege. Moreover, she was 
 baptized, which was another guarantee of 
 liberty. Cunning as an ape, she turned 
 it all over in her little head and com- 
 prehended. 
 
 For a wbman who has not abjured the 
 faith of Maghreb to give herself to a 
 white man is an act of ignominy which 
 is punished by the scorn and contempt of 
 the public. 
 
 For Fatou-gaye, however, this terrible 
 prejudice no longer existed. It is true 
 they called her Kafir, and she was excess- 
 ively sensitive on this point.
 
 The Romance of a Spa hi. 123 
 
 The word Kafir ( infidel) is the Roumi of 
 the Algerians, the Giaour of the Orientals. 
 
 There would frequently arrive from 
 the interior, bands of Khassoukes, whom 
 Fatou-gaye readily recognized at a dis- 
 tance by their towering head-dress. She 
 would run timidly and excitedly around 
 them and endeavor to engage them in 
 conversation in the beloved language of 
 her native country; but they, after a word 
 or two with the arch little creature, would 
 turn their heads with scorn and laugh at 
 her with an inexpressible curl of the lip. 
 
 And Fatou-gaye would turn away with 
 shame and a heavy heart. But, after all, 
 there was nothing that gave her so much 
 happiness as to be a Kafir and possess 
 Jean.
 
 124 The Romance o_f a Spahi. 
 
 II. 
 
 Poor Jean slept deeply upon the light 
 tara the heavy, dreamless sleep of mid- 
 day ; but the first moments of his awaken- 
 ing were very sad and gloomy. 
 
 That awakening after the deep trance of 
 sleep at midday, the sudden realization of 
 things after perfect oblivion, was terrible. 
 
 At first his ideas were confused, discon- 
 nected, and mysterious ; but suddenly his 
 mind became clear, painfully clear, and 
 there arose before him from the depths 
 of an irrevocable past the forms of his 
 beloved ones in the cottage of the Ceven- 
 nes, and he seemed to hear the faint tink- 
 ling of the herd bells mingling with the 
 shrill piping of the African grasshopper. 
 
 Those sounds at midday in the feverish 
 half-wakefulness of the siesta, those vague,
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 125 
 
 unconscious thrills, brought tears to his 
 eyes ; it was the result of circumstances, 
 the paraphrase of silence and heat, of 
 solitude and exile. 
 
 He suffered once more the anguish of 
 separation and lost happiness ; his whole 
 life seemed wounded. Over all things 
 hung the gloomy aspect of the tomb. 
 
 He arose quickly, seized with a desire 
 to go far away; his heart was full of the 
 rage of despair, and he thought of the 
 dreary years that lay between him and his 
 return. The feeble pulsations of the arter- 
 ies in his forehead sounded to him like 
 the beating of some great, mysterious 
 clock of eternity, and he felt that his life 
 was rolling away from him, and he was 
 powerless to stop it. 
 
 Fatou-gaye vaguely comprehended that 
 this awakening was a dangerous moment, 
 a critical time, when the white man was 
 beside himself. She watched him as he
 
 126 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 slept, and when she saw him open his great, 
 melancholy eyes full of a wild despair, 
 she approached him humbly to do his 
 bidding. Entwining her supple arms 
 about him, she would look into his eyes 
 questioningly, and say, in a voice as soft 
 and languishing as the notes of a griofs 
 guitar: "What is it, my white man?" 
 And so these gloomy impressions of Jean 
 were not of long duration ; and when he 
 was wide awake, his habitual insensibility 
 resumed its sway, and he saw things in 
 their accustomed light.
 
 The Romance of a Spain. 127 
 
 III. 
 
 Fatou-gaye's hair-dressing was a very 
 important and complicated performance, 
 occurring once a week, and often occupy- 
 ing a whole day. 
 
 In the morning she walked to the negro 
 village, Guet-n'dar, where, in a hut of 
 reeds and straw, there dwelt a hair-dresser 
 of great renown among the Nubian 
 women. 
 
 She would remain there for hours sit- 
 ting on the sands before the door, giving 
 herself up entirely to the hands of the 
 patient and careful artist. 
 
 He unplaited her hair at once, taking 
 off, one by one, the jewels, and after 
 combing out the thick tresses he began to 
 reconstruct the wonderful edifice, adorn- 
 ing it with coral, bands of gold, spangles
 
 128 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 of copper, and balls of amber and em- 
 erald. 
 
 The amber balls were as large as apples, 
 and were precious heir-looms inherited 
 by Fatou-gaye from her mother. She had 
 brought them from the far-off Gallam into 
 the land of her captivity, concealed in a 
 casket . 
 
 The most difficult part to arrange of this 
 wonderful coiffure were the curled masses 
 just above the nape of the neck, for there 
 it was necessary to comb out the innu- 
 merable little kinks, which would then 
 resemble a thick black fringe. 
 
 Then with deft and nimble fingers the 
 hair-dresser would roll each of these 
 locks separately around a straw, and paste 
 them there with gum, which held the 
 straws permanently in their places. 
 
 In the evening Fatou-gaye would re- 
 turn home with her hair supported on 
 these straws, which had the appearance 
 of the quills upon a porcupine. In the
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 1 29 
 
 morning, however, when the straws were 
 removed, the effect was startling and 
 beautiful. 
 
 She enveloped it all in a blue trans- 
 parent gauze, as light and airy as a cob- 
 web a fashion peculiar to the Khassouke 
 women and this coiffure would last, night 
 and day, for a whole week. 
 
 She wore elegant sandals of leather, 
 tied on with flaxen strings passed between 
 the great and little toes, after the manner 
 of the buskins of the ancients, and a gar- 
 ment similar to those worn by the Egyp- 
 tian women of the time of Pharaoh, 
 which they bequeathed to the Nubian 
 women. 
 
 Across her bosom was thrown a bon-bon, 
 a large square of muslin with an opening 
 through which the head is passed, and 
 which reaches almost to the knees. 
 
 Her ornaments were heavy rings of 
 silver riveted to her wrists and ankles,
 
 130 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 and necklaces redolent with the odor of 
 sou-mere. 
 
 The soumere is a kind of berry which 
 matures on the banks of the Gambia. 
 It has a pungent, penetrating odor, a per- 
 fume sui generis, characteristic of the 
 Senegal. These berries are woven into 
 necklaces, and are the favorite adornment 
 of the African women. 
 
 Fatou-gaye was very beautiful with this 
 high, fantastic head-dress, which gave to 
 her the air of a Hindoo divinity arrayed 
 for a religious festival. She did not have 
 the flat nose and thick lips that we gen- 
 erally regard as the common type of the 
 negro race; but she possessed the pure 
 Khassouke type of beauty a straight, 
 delicate nose, with nostrils thin and flexi- 
 ble, a perfect mouth, glittering white 
 teeth, and, above all, large dark eyes 
 encircled with blue, which sometimes were 
 full of a strange gravity, and then again 
 with mysterious malice.
 
 Tke Romance of a Spahi. 131 
 
 IV. 
 
 Fatou-gaye was very indolent ; it was 
 truly an odalisque that Jean was wor- 
 shiping. 
 
 She knew how to repair her scanty gar- 
 ments, and she always looked as neat and 
 dainty as a little black cat when she ar- 
 rayed herself in her snowy-white clothes; 
 but beyond the care of her person, she 
 was incapable of labor. 
 
 The poor Peyrals could no longer send 
 to their son their small savings, for noth- 
 ing succeeded with them any more, as the 
 old mother had written, and since they 
 were obliged to have resource to the mod- 
 est purse of Jean, Fatou-gaye's income 
 was more slender than ever. But hap- 
 pily she was a person of very frugal hab- 
 its, and her wants were few.
 
 132 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 Everywhere in the Soudan the woman 
 is placed in strong contrast with the man, 
 in the most degrading conditions of infe- 
 riority. Many times during her life she is 
 sold as a beast of burden, at a price de- 
 pending entirely on her looks her ugli- 
 ness, defects, and old age. 
 
 One day Jean demanded of his friend 
 Nyaor : 
 
 " What have you done with your wife 
 Nokhoudounkhuille, the one that is so 
 beautiful ? " 
 
 And Nyaor replied, with a tranquil 
 smile : 
 
 " Nokhoudounkhuille talked too much, 
 and I sold her ; with the money they 
 gave me for her I bought two sheep that 
 never speak." 
 
 The women labor hard beating the mil- 
 let for the Kouss-Kouss; from morning till 
 night in all Nubia, from Timbuctoo to 
 the coast of Guinea, in every hut under
 
 The Romance of a Spahi, 133 
 
 the burning sun is heard the sound of the 
 pestles falling noisily in the mortars of 
 stone. 
 
 Thousands of arms encircled with glit- 
 tering bracelets grow weary and exhaust- 
 ed at this labor. This monotonous sound, 
 mingled with the sharp, querulous voices 
 of the women, who chatter away like 
 monkeys, is the characteristic tumult that 
 afar in the desert announces the approach 
 to an African village. 
 
 The product of this eternal beating, 
 which has been done by generations of 
 women, is a coarse meal of millet, from 
 which they make an unsavory liquor 
 called Kouss-Kouss. This Kouss-Kouss 
 is the chief food of the black people. 
 
 Fatou-gaye escaped the legendary la- 
 bor of the women of her race, but each 
 evening she descended to the lodgings of 
 Coura-n'diaye, the ancient poetess of El 
 Hadj, the female griot, and there, after
 
 1 34 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 paying her feeble monthly allowance, she 
 had the right to sit among the slaves of 
 the old favorite, around a large gourd 
 smoking with Kouss-Kouss, to satisfy the 
 greedy appetite of a sixteen-year-old girl. 
 
 Extended upon a tara of finely woven 
 mats, old Coura-n'diaye presided with an 
 inexpressible dignity. 
 
 The scenes at these repasts were inde- 
 scribably noisy. The little black slaves, 
 crouching on the ground around the 
 gourd, leaned over the crude liquor and 
 ate it with their fingers, occasionally 
 bursting into peals of merry laughter, dis- 
 playing their white teeth set in gums as 
 red as a peony. The stealthy paws of 
 cats, the noses of the yellow dogs and the 
 big-horned sheep were also thrust into 
 the gourd for their share of the Kouss- 
 Kouss.
 
 The Romance of a Spa hi. 135 
 
 V. 
 
 The deserted square before the house 
 of Samba-Hamet was always very sad 
 and lonely at twilight. Jean often re- 
 mained for hours leaning out of the win- 
 dow at that time, when all was silent save 
 the rustling of the parchments of the 
 priests suspended from the ceiling, as they 
 fluttered about in the evening breeze. 
 Fatou-gaye had hung them there to guard 
 them while they slept. 
 
 This evening he sat in the door-way 
 smoking cigarettes, which he had taught 
 Fatou-gaye to make, watching with his 
 great, languid, brown eyes the little 
 negresses who had come to play in the 
 dim, weird twilight on the deserted square, 
 where they flitted about like moths in the 
 evening breeze.
 
 136 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 The sunsets in December invariably 
 bring to Saint Louis refreshing breezes, 
 while overhead the clouds hang like dark 
 curtains, growing darker and darker 
 toward night-fall ; but never a drop of 
 rain falls, for this is the dry season, and 
 there is no moisture anywhere. This 
 respite at twilight always gives one a 
 sensation of physical solace, yet it also 
 brings with it a feeling of intense sadness 
 and melancholy. 
 
 As Jean sat there before his lonely 
 door he was lost in a deep reverie his 
 thoughts were very far away. Every day 
 at the barracks he took a journey, as the 
 flight of a bird, over the great geograph- 
 ical charts, and as he sat there he traveled 
 it again in spirit. 
 
 He first traversed the gloomy desert; 
 and this part of his journey, through 
 those infinite, mysterious solitudes where 
 the burning heat and all the sands re-
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 137 
 
 tarded his footsteps, he accomplished but 
 slowly. 
 
 Then he crossed Algeria and the Med- 
 iterranean, and reaching the coast of 
 France, he ascended the Rhone. Finally 
 he came to the little black marks on the 
 map that represented to him lofty pinna- 
 cles in the clouds the Cevennes. 
 
 Mountains ! It had been so long since 
 his eyes had rested on anything but the 
 low, sombre plains, 50 long since he had 
 seen mountains, that he had almost for- 
 gotten their aspect. 
 
 And forests ! The grand forests of oak 
 trees in his own country, so cool and 
 shadowy, where flowed rivers of spark- 
 ling waters, and whose soil was covered 
 with a carpet of green mosses and wild 
 flowers! What a relief it would be to 
 him if he could behold that moist, green 
 earth, instead of the arid sands swept by 
 the desert winds!
 
 138 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 And he saw in this ideal voyage the 
 dear village, the old church, upon which 
 he imagined there was snow, and his cot- 
 tage near by, and he seemed to hear the 
 ancient bell sounding the Angelus. 
 
 He saw it all as in a vision in the blue 
 vapors of the cool December twilight, 
 and the familiar faces of his loved ones 
 shone on him tender and beautiful as he 
 viewed them in the rosy lights of mem- 
 ory. Was it possible that they existed in 
 reality, and were not even so far away 
 but that he might reach them in a few 
 days ? 
 
 What were they doing then, his old 
 parents, at this hour when he was think- 
 ing of them so intensely ? Seated by the 
 fireside, no doubt, near the wide chimney, 
 where blazed a cheerful fire made of the 
 dry branches collected in the forests. He 
 could see there each familiar object of 
 his childhood : the little lamp for winter
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 139 
 
 evenings, the old furniture, the cat doz- 
 ing on a stool, and in the midst of it all 
 the beloved tenants of the cottage. 
 
 It was seven o'clock ; the evening meal 
 was finished ; his old father sat in his 
 habitual attitude, his head supported on 
 his hand the head of an old cuirassier 
 who had become a mountaineer. And 
 his mother: she was knitting, perhaps, the 
 long needles flying in and out of her 
 active fingers, or holding the distaff, spin- 
 ning flax. And Jeanne Mery, she was 
 with them probably ; his mother had writ- 
 ten him that she often came to keep 
 them company winter evenings. She was 
 "changed, but more beautiful than ever" 
 they had written him, for she had blos- 
 somed like a flower into lovely woman- 
 hood no longer the little Jeanne he 
 once knew. 
 
 Night had fallen over the lonely square, 
 but the little negresses still flitted about
 
 140 The Romance of a Spahi\ 
 
 in the growing darkness, the fluttering 
 folds of their flowing garments resembling 
 the outstretched wings of bats as they ran 
 about in the cool breeze with the sportive 
 movements of little kittens gamboling 
 when the wind is dry and frost is in the 
 air. 
 
 The moon rose and made a vivid pict- 
 ure of the spahi in his gay red uniform ; 
 and Fatou-gaye, who sat near him, her 
 towering head-dress glittering with amber 
 and gold, her great eyes full of a dreamy 
 melancholy, was a bit of color that made 
 the picture perfect.
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 141 
 
 VI. 
 
 A PEDANTIC DIGRESSION ON MUSIC AND 
 
 THAT CLASS OF PEOPLE CALLED 
 
 G RIOTS. 
 
 The art of music in the Soudan is con- 
 fined to a peculiar caste of men called 
 griots, who are from father to* son itiner- 
 ant musicians and composers of heroic 
 songs. 
 
 These griots beat the tam-tam at the 
 bamboula, and on festive occasions sing 
 the praises of persons of rank. 
 
 When a chief desires to hear his own 
 name exalted he commands the griots, who 
 come and sit before him on the sands 
 and improvise in his honor a long series 
 of official couplets, accompanying their 
 sharp voices with the notes of a primitive 
 little guitar whose strings are stretched 
 over the skin of a serpent.
 
 142 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 The griots are the most philosophical 
 and idle of people, leading wandering lives 
 and taking no thought of the morrow. 
 
 They roam from village to village, or 
 follow in the suite of the grand chiefs 
 who go to battle ; here and there receiv- 
 ing alms, and treated everywhere as pari- 
 ahs, like the European gypsy. 
 
 Sometimes they are loaded with gold and 
 favors, and then again in other countries 
 they are excluded during their lives from 
 all religious ceremonies, and at their death 
 from the rights of sepulture. 
 
 They compose plaintive romances with 
 vague, mysterious words ; heroic songs that 
 are melodious even in their monotony ; 
 marches for the warriors, in a nervous, 
 stately rhythm, and airs for the dance 
 which bring to mind the frenzied ravings 
 of enraged beasts. 
 
 But there is a peculiar melody in all 
 the music of the blacks, as with all primi-
 
 The Romance of a Spa hi. 143 
 
 tive people, which is expressed in short, 
 sad phrases with a gamut, more or less 
 accidental ; rising at one moment to the 
 highest notes of the human voice, then 
 descending suddenly to the lowest, drag- 
 ging itself along in a kind of lamenta- 
 tion. 
 
 The negresses always sing at their 
 work during the warm, drowsy hours of 
 the siesta. 
 
 In the great calm of midday, so ener- 
 vating there on the banks of the Senegal, 
 the plaintive songs of the Nubian women 
 have a strange charm.. Transported from 
 this exotic frame-work of sun and sand, 
 they would no longer possess the same 
 thrilling pathos. 
 
 Although these negro melodies seem 
 primitive on account of their repetitions 
 and unceasing monotony, they are really 
 very often difficult and complicated. 
 
 The marriage processions which one
 
 144 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 so often meets winding slowly over the 
 sands always sing- under the guidance of 
 the griots, their strange chorus being in- 
 variably accompanied by a persistent con- 
 tretemps, bristling with fantastic difficul- 
 ties. 
 
 A simple instrument, reserved for wo- 
 men, plays an important part in the 
 music of these assemblages. It is only 
 a gourd flattened at one end, which is 
 struck with the hand,, sometimes at the 
 opening, and then again on the side, pro- 
 ducing two very different sounds the 
 one dry and sharp, the other dull and 
 muffled. It is so difficult to draw any 
 sound from this instrument that the result 
 obtained is surprising. The effect of the 
 distant voices of the negroes mingling, 
 half-drowned by the noise of hundreds 
 of these instruments, is strange, and 
 weird. 
 
 The perpetual contretemps of the ac-
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 145 
 
 companiment, the unexpected pauses, per- 
 fectly understood and observed by all the 
 performers, are the most noticeable char- 
 acteristics of this music, inferior perhaps, 
 but very different from ours. 
 
 10
 
 1 46 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 VII. 
 
 A passing griot strikes the tam-tam ; 
 it is a summons, and they all gather around 
 him, the women arranging themselves in 
 a circle, singing sensual and passionate 
 songs. 
 
 The one who arrives first leads the 
 throng, and darting into the middle of 
 the circle, dances to the music of the tam- 
 bour very slowly at first, with licentious 
 gestures, then faster and faster, until she 
 reaches a frenzy. As she moves her body 
 there is a noisy clashing and jingling of 
 glass beads and trinkets, and her move- 
 ments resemble the friskings of a foolish 
 ape or the contortions of one possessed. 
 
 When completely exhausted she retires, 
 panting and overcome, the slimy drops 
 of sweat bathing her black skin.
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 147 
 
 Her companions gather around her 
 with whoops of applause ; then another 
 woman takes her place within the circle, 
 and each one successively until they have 
 all had their turn. 
 
 The older women are even more con- 
 spicuously and outrageously indecent. The 
 infants, which they often carry on their 
 backs, being frightfully tossed about, raise 
 their voices in piercing cries ; but the 
 negresses on such occasions seem lost to 
 all maternal sentiments, and nothing can 
 induce them to pause in their mad dance. 
 
 On the Senegal the time of full moon 
 is particularly consecrated to the bam- 
 boula and other great fetes of the negroes. 
 In that country of endless sands it seems 
 that the moon attains a greater size than 
 elsewhere, and its light is more brilliant 
 and ruddy. 
 
 The crowd begins to gather at the close 
 of day; the women are attired in gorgeous
 
 148 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 colors and bedecked with jewels and the 
 fine gold of Gallam. Their arms are orna- 
 mented with heavy silver rings, and around 
 their necks is a wonderful profusion of 
 trinkets, amber, coral, and glass beads. 
 
 When the red disk of the moon appears 
 above the horizon, shedding its bloody 
 lights upon the sands, the furious tumult 
 begins. 
 
 At certain seasons of the year the lonely 
 square before the house of Samba-Harnet 
 becomes the theatre of these weird bam- 
 boulas. 
 
 On these occasions Coura-n'diaye would 
 lend Fatou some of her precious jewels 
 that she might attend the fete, and some- 
 times she herself would appear, as in 
 olden times. Then there was a great 
 buzz of admiration as .the old griot 
 advanced, glittering with gold and jewels, 
 her head thrown back and a strange light 
 shining in her aged eyes.
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 149 
 
 With a brazen face she would appear 
 as nude as a statue, though her body 
 was as tough and wrinkled as a black 
 mummy. 
 
 She would then display the marvel- 
 ous gifts of El Hadj, the Conqueror. 
 There were necklaces of emerald of the 
 purest water, rows upon rows of golden 
 bells of inimitable workmanship; there 
 was pure gold on her arms and ankles, 
 and her head was adorned with exquisite 
 ornaments of antique gold. 
 
 Then the old, bedizened idol would 
 begin to sing, and becoming more and 
 more excited each moment, she wildly 
 tossed about her skeleton arms, though it 
 was with difficulty she lifted the weight 
 of her heavy bracelets. Her harsh and 
 cavernous voice resounded as from an 
 empty carcass, then sank into a groan 
 a posthumous echo of the poetess of 
 El Hadj. In her bright, dilated eyes one
 
 1 50 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 seemed to see a reflection of the great, mys- 
 terious wars of the interior of former 
 days the armies of El Had] flying 
 through the desert horrible massacres, 
 where whole tribes were left to the vult- 
 ures the siege of Segou-Koro, and the 
 villages of Messina, Medina, and Timbuc- 
 too all burning under the blazing sun like 
 a fire of herbs on the plains. 
 
 Coura-n'diaye would be entirely over- 
 come with exhaustion when she had fin- 
 ished her songs, and on returning to her 
 house she would throw herself, panting 
 and trembling, upon her tara, and after 
 her little slaves had taken off her jewels 
 and arranged everything to make her 
 comfortable, she would remain there, silent 
 and motionless, for many hours.
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 1 5 r 
 
 VIII. 
 
 One morning Fatou-gaye conducted 
 Jean out of Saint Louis in the direction of 
 Guet-n'dar, leading him, after the fashion 
 of negroes, by one finger held in her little 
 black hand covered with silver rings. 
 
 Guet-n'dar is a negro village built upon 
 the sands, and is composed of thousands 
 of small, round huts with pointed roofs of 
 stubble, many of which assume the most 
 extraordinary shapes. 
 
 Some of them are tall and peaked, 
 menacing the skies; others are horizon- 
 tal, threatening their neighbors, and many 
 of them have a parched and shriveled 
 look, as if they were suffering from the 
 drought and were about to roll themselves 
 up like the trunk of an elephant. 
 
 Under the uniformity of the blue sky
 
 152 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 i 
 
 these hundreds of peaks and points give 
 one an impression of many horned objects. 
 
 Guet-n'dar is divided by a wide street 
 of sand running from north to south, very 
 straight and regular, opening afar in the 
 great desert the desert that forms both 
 country and horizon. 
 
 On either side of this vast, sandy way 
 are numbers of narrow streets turning in 
 and out as tortuously as the paths in a 
 labyrinth. 
 
 It was in the month of January, and 
 seven o'clock in the morning ; the sun 
 was just rising, and at this hour the 
 air is fresh and agreeable even on the 
 Senegal. 
 
 Jean walked along with a firm and 
 steady step, smiling inwardly at the droll 
 expedition upon which he was allowing 
 Fatou-gaye to take him, and at the 
 thought of the personage they were about 
 to visit.
 
 The Romance of a Spa/ii. 153 
 
 He permitted himself to be led along 
 with a good grace, for he was amused 
 and interested. 
 
 He was very handsome this morning, 
 for the rare freshness of the pure air had 
 brought out all of his physical elasticity, 
 and had upon him a most exhilarating 
 effect. 
 
 Fatou-gaye appeared to him in a most 
 favorable light, and he almost loved her. 
 
 It was one of those singular, fugitive 
 moments when memory was dead and the 
 land of Africa seemed to smile upon him ; 
 when he abandoned himself without a 
 retrospective glance to the life which for 
 more than three years had lulled him into 
 a dangerous sleep haunted with prophetic 
 dreams. 
 
 Behind the reedy palisades that bor- 
 dered the streets of Guet-n'dar could be 
 heard the sonorous blows of the pestles 
 beating the millet for the Kouss-Kouss.
 
 154 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 mingled with bursts of negro voices and 
 the rattling of their glass beads and 
 trinkets. 
 
 At every street corner were skulls of 
 great horned sheep attached to the end of 
 long wooden poles, and skimming about 
 everywhere were fetich lizards with sky- 
 blue bodies and heads of a beautiful orange 
 color which were swinging about perpetu- 
 ally from side to side. 
 
 The air was full of the strong odors of 
 negroes, leather amulets, Kouss-Kouss and 
 soumere. 
 
 Little negresses appeared at the gates 
 with strings of blue pearls around their 
 necks and their pear-shaped heads covered 
 with coquettish little kinks; their mouths 
 were stretched from ear to ear with smiles, 
 and craning their necks over the gates 
 they regarded Jean with curiosity and 
 astonishment, chattering away in an in- 
 comprehensible jargon.
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 1 5 5 
 
 These scenes forcibly reminded Jean 
 that he was in a land of exile ; yet there 
 was a certain charm about it all, and the 
 rising of the tropical sun, the limpid 
 morning air with its animating inspira- 
 tion had a magical effect on the young 
 soldier. He responded gaily to the salu- 
 tations of the little negresses, smiled upon 
 Fatou-gaye, and for the moment the past 
 sank into oblivion. 
 
 They finally arrived at the hut of an 
 old black man with a sharp and cunning 
 look in his eye, named Samba-Latir. 
 When they were seated upon mats on the 
 ground in the house of their host, Fatou- 
 gaye began the conversation, explaining 
 the situation, which was, as will be seen, 
 of a very grave and critical nature. 
 
 For several days, always at the same 
 hour, she had met a certain ugly old woman, 
 who regarded her in a very singular man- 
 ner out of the corner of her eye, over her 
 shoulder.
 
 156 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 Yesterday, Fatou-gaye had returned 
 home in tears, declaring to Jean that she 
 was bewitched, and that night she was 
 obliged to bathe her head in cold water 
 to diminish the first effects of the evil 
 eye. 
 
 In her collection of amulets there were 
 those against all sorts of accidents, pains, 
 bad dreams, poisonous plants, dangerous 
 falls, and venomous reptiles ; against the 
 infidelity of Jean, the devastations of 
 white ants, and alligators ; but there was 
 not a single one to ward off the bad luck , 
 which certain people have the power to 
 throw over those who pass them not an 
 amulet to drive away the baleful effects 
 of the evil eye ! 
 
 And this was a recognized specialty of 
 Samba-Latir, who had the charm already 
 prepared. 
 
 With a mysterious air he took from an 
 old chest a small red bag attached to a
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 157 
 
 leather string, and placed it around Fatou- 
 gaye's neck, at the same time pronouncing 
 cabalistic words to conjure the malignant 
 spirit. 
 
 This only cost ten francs, and Jean, who 
 did not know how to bargain even for an 
 amulet, paid it without murmuring. But 
 he felt the blood mounting to his temples 
 when he saw his money go that way, for 
 he thought with a pang of remorse of his 
 old parents, who deprived themselves of 
 many things that were certainly of more 
 value than the amulets of Fatou-gaye.
 
 158 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 IX. 
 
 LETTER FROM JEANNE MERY TO HER COUSIN 
 JEAN. 
 
 MY DEAR JEAN: Almost three years have passed 
 since your departure, and I am always looking for 
 you to say something about your return home. 
 I have great faith in your remaining faithful to 
 me, yet I can not deny that there are times in 
 the lonely hours of the night when regret seizes 
 me and my heart is full of fear. 
 
 My parents say that if you had very much de- 
 sired it, you might have obtained a permit to pay 
 us a visit. 
 
 It is true our cousin Pierre returned twice to 
 this country during the time he served as a 
 soldier. 
 
 They say that I am going to marry that big 
 Suirot, but you must not believe it, for you know 
 I could never marry that great simpleton. They 
 may talk, but I know there is no one in the whole 
 world so dear to me as my dear Jean. 
 
 They also say that I am putting on airs because
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 159 
 
 I will not dance with that numbskull Toinon, and 
 others like him, but it is not true. I sit quietly 
 on the bench before the door, with Rose, and think 
 of you, whom I love more than all the rest. 
 
 Thank you for the picture, which is very good, 
 though they tell me you are greatly changed; it 
 is like you, though somehow you have not the 
 same expression. 
 
 I hung it above the chimney among my Easter 
 boughs, so it is the first thing that greets my eyes 
 when I enter my chamber. 
 
 I have not yet dared to wear the bracelet you 
 sent me that was made by the black people, for I 
 am afraid that Rose and Olivette may ridicule me. 
 They already think that I affect the airs of a fine 
 lady. When you return, and we are married, it 
 will be different; I will then wear it openly, with 
 the beautiful chain and scissor-case of my aunt 
 Toinette. 
 
 Only come, for you see that I am longing for a 
 sight of you. I have the appearance of being 
 happy, but sometimes regret and disappointment 
 rise in my heart so strong that I go to my own 
 room and weep. 
 
 Adieu, my dear Jean. I embrace you with all 
 my heart. JEANNE MRY.
 
 160 The Romance of a Spa hi. 
 
 X. 
 
 Fatou-gaye's hands, which were a beau- 
 tiful glossy black outside, were pink inside. 
 For a long time Jean shuddered whenever 
 he caught a glimpse of that inside color, 
 and a cold chill crept over him as if he 
 had touched the feet of an ape. 
 
 Her hands, nevertheless, were small 
 and delicate, and attached to round and 
 very slender wrists ; but those fingers of 
 two different colors had something about 
 them that was not human, which to Jean 
 was horrible. 
 
 And there would escape her sometimes, 
 when she was very animated, certain in- 
 tonations in a strange treble, and peculiar 
 gestures, which recalled mysterious re- 
 semblances and troubled his imagination. 
 
 But after awhile he grew accustomed to
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 161 
 
 them, and no longer allowed these pecu- 
 liarities to annoy him, and at times when 
 Fatou-gaye was gentle and amiable he 
 loved her, though he often laughingly 
 called her by an odd Jaloff name that 
 means "little monkey." 
 
 This nickname mortified Fatou greatly, 
 and Jean was much amused at the seri- 
 ous and imposing airs she assumed. 
 
 One fine day Fritz Muller paid a visit 
 to Jean, and mounting noiselessly to the 
 threshold, he paused a moment to watch 
 the following scene : Jean, who was laugh- 
 ing like a boy, held Fatou-gaye by the 
 arm, and turning her around, at the same 
 time gazing intently at her, he seemed to 
 be closely inspecting her. Suddenly, with 
 an air of conviction, he thus expressed 
 his conclusions: 
 
 "Yes, Fatou, you are a perfect little 
 monkey ! " 
 
 And she, greatly vexed, replied : 
 11
 
 1 62 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 " Oh, T' Jean, T' Jean ! you ought not 
 to say so ; for in the first place the mon- 
 key knows not how to speak, and I know 
 very well." 
 
 Then Fritz Muller laughed aloud, and 
 Jean joined him; but Fatou-gaye assumed 
 an air of offended dignity, as if to pro- 
 test by her deportment against these impo- 
 lite criticisms. 
 
 "A very pretty little monkey, anyhow," 
 said Muller, who greatly admired Fatou- 
 gaye. He had lived in the black country 
 a long time, and recognized in her one 
 of the most attractive of the beautiful 
 daughters of the Soudan. "A very 
 pretty little monkey ! If all the mon- 
 keys in the woods 'of Gallam were like 
 her, one could have become acclimated 
 in that accursed, God-forsaken country."
 
 The Romance of a Spaki. \ 63 
 
 XI. 
 
 A noisy crowd of men in the uniform of 
 the spahis were assembled one evening in 
 a large hall. 
 
 The windows were thrown open to 
 catch the evening breeze ; swarms of fire- 
 flies, attracted by the dazzling light, came 
 to beat their wings against the great, 
 swinging chandeliers. 
 
 Scattered about in the crowd were ne- 
 gresses and mulattresses, who* were there 
 to serve the spahis, for it was a grand 
 banquet. 
 
 That day there had been &fete at Saint 
 Louis a military fete a review of the 
 troops at the barracks, horse-races on the 
 desert, canoe-races on the river ; in fact, 
 the usual programme of merriment and 
 rejoicing of a provincial town. In addi-
 
 164 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 tion to which, the musicians had been 
 brought from Nubia. 
 
 All the handsome, robust men of the 
 garrison spahis, sailors, and sharpshoot- 
 ers were promenading the streets. 
 
 There were also mulatto men and 
 women in holiday attire old Signardes du 
 Senegal, grave and dignified, their high 
 coiffures of Madras silk handkerchiefs 
 arranged in the fashion of 1820, and 
 young Signardes in more modern toilettes, 
 much faded and wrinkled, and smelling 
 of the coast of Africa ; then there were 
 other females in fresh, fashionable cos- 
 tumes; and behind them, as if for an off- 
 set, were crowds of little negroes bedecked 
 with beads and savage ornaments. 
 
 It was a day of wonderful animation 
 for Saint Louis, and all the inhabitants 
 of the old city thronged the usually de- 
 serted streets, ready to return to-morrow 
 to the gloom of the silent houses under 
 their uniform shroud of white lime.
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 165 
 
 The spahis, who by order had paraded 
 all day on the Government square, were 
 joyous and excited at the unusual exer- 
 cise and movement. That evening they 
 would receive their promotions and the 
 medals that had arrived by the last mail 
 from France. 
 
 Jean usually sat apart from his compan- 
 ions, but this evening he joined them 
 around the festal board. 
 
 A number of toasts were drunk. Many 
 songs were sung ; songs brought from 
 Algeria, India, and elsewhere; some as 
 solos, discreet and comical, and others 
 in a fearful chorus, accompanied by the 
 breaking of glasses and blows of the 
 hands on the table. They also repeated 
 anecdotes and threadbare jokes, and 
 above the uproar could be heard words 
 to make the devil blush. 
 
 Then suddenly, amid the surging tu- 
 mult, a spahi raised his glass, and pro- 
 posed this unexpected toast :
 
 1 66 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 "To those who fell at Mecca and Bob- 
 diarah ! " 
 
 How strange, how unforeseen ! An 
 homage, a sacrilegious pleasantry, in 
 memory of those long dead ! 
 
 He was very drunk, the spahi who had 
 proposed the funereal toast, and his eyes 
 were dull and gloomy. 
 
 Alas, in a few years who will give a 
 thought to " those who fell at Mecca and 
 Bobdiarah," whose bones are already 
 bleaching on the desert sands ! 
 
 The people at Saint Louis who saw 
 them depart may retain a memory of 
 their names for a little while; but after a 
 few years, who will remember them, who 
 will speak of them ? 
 
 And every glass was emptied in mem- 
 ory of " those who fell at Mecca and 
 Bobdiarah." 
 
 This strange toast was followed by a 
 great silence of awe and astonishment,
 
 7* he Romance of a Spaki. 167 
 
 and it seemed as if a black pall had fallen 
 upon the joyous feast of the spahis. 
 
 Jean particularly, whose eyes had been 
 flashing with merriment, and whose ring- 
 ing peals of laughter had been heard 
 above the others, became grave and 
 thoughtful, powerless to explain where- 
 fore. 
 
 " To those who fell on the desert ! " 
 somehow those words thrilled him with 
 horror, and a tremor ran through his flesh 
 as when he heard the voices of the jack- 
 als borne to him on the wind from the 
 gloomy plains of Sorr. 
 
 Notwithstanding, he was very brave, 
 and had no fear of battle; and when he 
 heard of Boubakar-Segou, who was then 
 roaming about with his army near the 
 gates of Saint Louis, he felt his heart 
 bound at the thought of seeing a battle, 
 even if it was only against a negro king. 
 He felt that it would awaken him from
 
 1 68 The Romance of a Spa/it. 
 
 the life of dreamy idleness in the old 
 white house, under the charm of a dusky 
 child of the Khassoukes. 
 
 Poor fellows ! You who drink to the 
 memory of the dead ; who laugh, who 
 sing, profit by the joyous passing mo- 
 ment ! Yet those gay, reckless songs 
 have a mournful sound in the land of the 
 Senegal, where many of you, beyond a 
 doubt, have your graves already marked 
 on the desert sands.
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 169 
 
 XII. 
 
 In Gallam ! Who can comprehend 
 what mysterious echoes these words 
 awaken in the heart of the negro exile ? 
 
 When Jean demanded of Fatou-gaye, 
 long ago in the house of Cora: 
 
 "Where was your home, little one?" 
 she responded in tremulous tones: 
 
 " In the land of Gallam." 
 
 Poor negroes of the Soudan exiled, 
 driven from their native villages by all 
 the devastations of these primitive coun- 
 tries ; by great wars and great famines ; 
 sold into captivity, sometimes going on 
 foot before the lash of a master, over a 
 country more extensive than Europe ! 
 Still the memory of their native land is 
 ineffaceably written in the depths of their 
 faithful hearts.
 
 I 70 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 Where formerly could be seen, in the 
 far distant Timbuctoo, the grand palaces 
 of white clay of Segou-Koro, mirrored in 
 the bright waters of the Niger, or where 
 the simple, straw-thatched villages lifted 
 their pointed roofs in the heart of the 
 desert, or in some deep defile of the 
 mountains of the South, there the pas- 
 sage of the conqueror has left but a 
 heap of ashes a charnel-house for the 
 vultures. 
 
 In Gallam ! Words to be repeated with 
 mystery and contemplation ! 
 
 " Some day," said Fatou-gaye to Jean, 
 " some day you will go back with me 
 into the land of Gallam." 
 
 Old, sacred land, of which she dreamed 
 for hours with closed eyes ! The land of 
 gold and ivory, in whose warm waters 
 sleeps the alligator in the shadows of the 
 lofty mangroves, and where the heavy 
 foot of the elephant is heard striking the
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 171 
 
 ground as he rushes through the forest 
 solitudes. 
 
 Formerly, Jean had dreamed of seeing 
 this country; Fatou-gaye had excited his 
 imagination with her extraordinary re- 
 citals and descriptions, but he no longer 
 had any curiosity to see more of the coun- 
 try of Africa. He liked better to con- 
 tinue his monotonous life at Saint Louis, 
 always to be ready there for the happy 
 moment of his return to the beloved 
 Cevennes. 
 
 He no longer wished to go into the 
 land of Gallam, where the air was so hot 
 and oppressive, and he began to have a 
 horror of burying himself in the suffoca- 
 tion of the interior. 
 
 He dreamed of his own native land, 
 with its mountains and shining rivers, 
 and thought no longer of the land of 
 Fatou-gaye; it made him warm, and gave 
 him the headache.
 
 172 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Fatou-gaye could not look upon a hip- 
 popotamus without running the fearful 
 risk of dropping dead ; it was a curse 
 thrown over her family many years before, 
 in the land of Gallam. 
 
 They had endeavored in every way to 
 exorcise the spell, but in vain, and there 
 were numerous instances of persons drop- 
 ping dead at the sight of these enormous 
 beasts, and the curse had followed her 
 ancestors unmercifully for several gen- 
 erations. 
 
 In the Soudan, it is no unusual thing 
 to hear of such a curse; certain families 
 can not see a lion, others a hippopotamus, 
 and others an alligator the worst mis- 
 fortune of them all, a misfortune so great 
 that charms and amulets avail nothing.
 
 The Romance of a Spa hi. 1 73 
 
 One can imagine the precautions nec- 
 essary to be taken by the ancestors of 
 Fatou-gaye, for in Gallam the hippopot- 
 amus is always abroad, roaming about in 
 the swamps, where he loves to sport in 
 the undergrowth and stagn an t^ waters. 
 
 Fatou-gaye, having learned there was 
 a pet hippopotamus at a certain house in 
 Saint Louis, always avoided passing that 
 way, for fear of yielding to the great 
 curiosity she had to look upon this terri- 
 ble beast, of which her friends had given 
 her minute descriptions.
 
 I 74 The Romance of a 
 
 XIV. 
 
 The warm, oppressive days passed by 
 in dreary monotony; they were all alike, 
 never any change the same regular 
 duties at the barracks, the same burning 
 sun on its white walls, the same unbroken 
 silence resting on all things. 
 
 There were rumors of war with Bou- 
 bakar-Segou, the son of El Hadj, and 
 the spahis discussed it unceasingly, for 
 nothing ever happened in that dead city; 
 the sounds from Europe seemed extin- 
 guished by heat and distance. 
 
 Winter approached ; the breakers on 
 the coast were calm, and there were 
 days when the air failed the lungs, when 
 the warm sea waters were as unruffled 
 and as smooth as oil, reflecting like a 
 great mirror the burning tropical lights.
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. i 75 
 
 Jean often suffered from weariness and 
 lassitude in that enervating climate, and 
 from time to time with homesickness, 
 which was always there in his heart ready 
 to awaken to make him suffer. 
 
 Did he love Fatou-gaye? He did not 
 know, himself; he certainly considered 
 her an inferior being a little nearer his 
 equal, perhaps, than his yellow wolf-dog 
 and he did not trouble himself to ascertain 
 what other feelings he had for the little 
 black creature, whose soul was as black 
 as her skin. 
 
 She lied and dissimulated, and pos- 
 sessed an incredible amount of malice and 
 perversity. Jean knew this ; but she was 
 so absolutely devoted to him the devo- 
 tion of a dog for its master, the adoration 
 of a negro for his fetich that he was 
 touched and softened by it. 
 
 Sometimes pride awoke in his heart, 
 and his dignity as a white man revolted
 
 i 76 The Romance of a Spaki. 
 
 at the life he was leading. The troth he 
 had plighted with Jeanne Mery, and this 
 treachery to this little black creature, 
 sometimes rose before his honest con- 
 science, and he was ashamed of his weak- 
 ness. 
 
 Fatou-gaye had grown to be very beau- 
 tiful. As she walked, supple and grace- 
 ful, with the swinging movement which 
 the African women seem to have bor- 
 rowed from the feline tribe of their own 
 country, as she passed along with a white 
 muslin bon-bon thrown gracefully over 
 her swelling bosom and shapely arms, 
 she possessed the lovely grace of an 
 ancient amphora. 
 
 Under that high head-dress, sparkling 
 with amber and jewels, her form for the 
 moment had something of the mysterious 
 beauty of an idol of polished ebony. 
 
 Her great dark eyes, encircled with 
 blue, were always half closed and dreamy,
 
 The Romance of a Spa hi. 177 
 
 and when she smiled, disclosing her pearly- 
 white teeth, there was about her a certain 
 indescribable charm and grace ; a combi- 
 nation of the monkey, the young virgin, 
 and the tigress. 
 
 Jean had a superstitious dread of her 
 amulets; not that he had any faith in 
 them, but seeing them everywhere, and 
 knowing they were kept to bind him 
 closer to her, he began to regard them 
 with a peculiar horror. 
 
 They were on the ceiling, on the walls, 
 concealed under the mats, on the sofa 
 they were everywhere presenting the 
 fantastic appearance of things bewitched. 
 
 When he awoke in the morning he felt 
 them gliding over his chest, and at last it 
 seemed that he was irrevocably entangled 
 in their dark, invisible manacles. 
 
 After awhile his money gave out. He 
 declared very decidedly that he would 
 send Fatou-gaye away, and employ the 
 
 12 

 
 i 78 The Romance of a SpahL 
 
 last two years of his exile in winning the 
 golden epaulets of a quarter-master that 
 had so long dazzled his eyes and hopes. 
 He determined to send to his parents 
 a small amount each month, to render 
 their lives more comfortable. Then he 
 would purchase wedding presents for 
 Jeanne Mery, and he would also lay 
 aside a little money to assist him in de- 
 
 ^ 
 
 fraying the expenses of the marriage fes- 
 tivities. 
 
 Was it the baleful spell of the amulets, 
 the force of habit, or the inertia of his 
 will-power in that enervating climate? 
 For Fatou-gaye continued to hold him 
 under her little black hand he did not 
 send her away. 
 
 Yet he dreamed of his betrothed, and 
 there was a radiance around his memory 
 of her. " She grows more beautiful every 
 day," they had written him. He tried to 
 picture her as his wife, with all the lovely
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 1 79 
 
 promise of her youth fulfilled, and his 
 whole heart was full of her image. 
 
 And his old parents, how he loved 
 them ! For his father he had a profound 
 and filial love, a veneration that ap- 
 proached idolatry. But the most tender, 
 most sacred spot in his heart was given 
 to his mother. 
 
 Take soldiers, sailors, and all of those 
 young men abandoned to a life on the 
 great seas, or in lands of exile take the 
 most rude and careless, the most dissi- 
 pated, the most reckless of roues look 
 into their hearts, and nearly always you 
 will find enthroned in that sanctuary a 
 mother an old peasant woman, perhaps ; 
 a good woman from Brittany in her high 
 white cap, or a woman of Biscay with 
 her head-dress of woolen.
 
 180 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 XV. 
 
 Winter arrived for the fourth time. 
 
 The days were sultry and oppressive, 
 without a breath of air stirring. All 
 along the coast of Africa, the sands were 
 dazzling and white under the burning 
 rays of the sun. 
 
 The sea waters were calm and un- 
 ruffled, save when the battles of the 
 sharks made them turbulent, for these 
 were the days for the great fish combats. 
 Suddenly, the polished surface of the 
 waters become troubled over an extent of 
 several hundred meters, and the water is 
 tossed up violently in jets and sprays. 
 
 This agitation is caused by immense 
 banks of fugitive fish scampering away 
 with all the swiftness of their millions of 
 fins, before the hungry, voracious sharks 
 in pursuit of them.
 
 The Romance of a Spain. 181 
 
 These are also the days best loved by 
 the negro boatmen for their long, swift 
 boat-races, and the shores are crowded 
 with black people who stand in animated 
 groups, exciting the contestants with a 
 great tumult of cheers ; and there, as in 
 France, the victors are welcomed with the 
 clapping of hands, and the vanquished 
 with hisses. 
 
 Jean never appeared at the barracks 
 unless his presence was absolutely needed; 
 and his comrades often filled his place. 
 The officers shut their eyes to this ar- 
 rangement, which permitted him to pass 
 almost the entire day at the house of 
 Samba- Hamet. 
 
 For they all loved Jean; the charm of 
 intelligence and honesty redeemed him, 
 and his attractive form, voice, and man- 
 ner had gradually cast over them a spell 
 of which they were almost unconscious. 
 He had, in spite of everything, won their
 
 1 82 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 esteem and respect, at the same time 
 making for himself a sort of situation 
 that gave him almost liberty and inde- 
 pendence. 
 
 One day he entered the barracks at 
 call of retreat. 
 
 The old quarters did not wear their 
 accustomed look of loneliness and gloom. 
 
 Groups of spahis were ascending and 
 descending the stair-way, conversing ani- 
 matedly and noisily. 
 
 There was something in the air. 
 
 "Good news for you, Peyral !" cried 
 Alsatian Muller; " you go to-morrow to 
 Algeria, lucky fellow that you are." 
 
 Ten or twelve spahis had arrived from 
 France by a boat from Dakar, and as 
 many of the old ones were to be sent, as a 
 special favor, to finish their time of service 
 in Algeria. 
 
 Jean was among the number. They 
 were to leave the next morning for Dakar,
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 183 
 
 where they would take a packet-boat des- 
 tined for Bordeaux. Then they would 
 go to Marseilles by way of the south, and, 
 with the delays of the route, would catch 
 a glimpse of their native land. At Mar- 
 seilles they would take a packet-boat for 
 Algeria, a land of milk and honey for the 
 soldier; and so the last years of their 
 service would pass away as a dream.
 
 184 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Jean returned to his lodgings, strolling 
 along the deserted banks of the river. 
 
 A starry night had fallen upon the Sen- 
 egal ; the fragile crescent of the moon 
 hung low on the horizon ; fires were flash- 
 ing on the opposite bank of the river in 
 the negro village of Sorr, tracing on the 
 still, warm waters their vague lights and 
 shadows. 
 
 In the distance he heard the deafening 
 noise of the tam-tam sounding the spring- 
 time revelry, which he had heard four 
 times already at the same place, and 
 which was blended with the memory of 
 his first enervating pleasures in Africa ; 
 it now saluted him on his departure. 
 
 His mind was troubled ; his thoughts 
 and impressions were confused and in- 
 coherent.
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 185 
 
 The air was full of heat and phos- 
 phorus; a tranquil melancholy, a calm full 
 of mystery, rested on all the borders of 
 the Senegal. 
 
 Was it really true, this unexpected 
 news ? It had been whispered for a long 
 time ; now it" was confirmed, and his name 
 was on the list. To-morrow he would de- 
 scend the river, never to return ! 
 
 Preparations for their departure would 
 not begin until to-morrow; this evening 
 there was nothing to do but to dream - 
 to bid adieu to all things in that land of 
 exile. 
 
 In less than a month, he would proba- 
 bly pay a flying visit to his native village ; 
 he would embrace his old parents, and 
 the betrothed of his boyhood Jeanne 
 Mery, now grown into a serious woman- 
 he would see them all in passing, as in a 
 dream. 
 
 But he was not prepared for the meet-
 
 1 86 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 ing, and painful reflections mingled with 
 his great, unexpected happiness. 
 
 He was about to return, after an ab- 
 sence of four years, almost a beggar- 
 without even having won the modest 
 shoulder-straps of a sergeant and shab- 
 bily dressed, for he would not have time 
 to provide himself with a new and suitable 
 outfit in which to make his appearance at 
 the village. 
 
 And then to acclimate himself in Al- 
 geria to spend the remaining years of 
 his service anywhere but on the banks of 
 the gloomy Senegal, whose sadness was 
 now so familiar to him ! 
 
 Alas ! he loved the Senegal; he realized 
 now that he was attached to that unfort- 
 unate country by a number of strong and 
 mysterious ties. 
 
 He had been foolishly overjoyed at the 
 thought of his return, yet he loved the 
 land of sand, the house of Samba-Hamet,
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 187 
 
 the excessive light and heat, and even the 
 great gloom and silence; he was not pre- 
 pared to leave it all so suddenly. 
 
 The effluvium, the subtle exhalations, 
 all that by which he was surrounded, had 
 by degrees become in filtered into the 
 blood in his veins. He felt an invisible 
 power holding him back as if he was 
 inextricably entangled in the gloomy 
 shackles of those amulets. 
 
 His brain was confused ; he was dazed ; 
 this sudden deliverance frightened him.
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Military departures are always sudden. 
 The following day, the baggage was hastily 
 packed, the papers put in order, and Jean 
 found himself leaning over the side of the 
 vessel, descending the river. 
 
 Through the smoke from his cigarette 
 he could see Saint Louis disappearing in 
 the distance ; crouching near him on the 
 deck was Fatou-gaye with all her posses- 
 sions, inclosed in haste in three large 
 gourds. 
 
 Jean had taken his last franc to pay her 
 way to Dakar ; he had done so willingly, 
 happy to rid himself of this last phantasy, 
 but glad to keep her a little longer under 
 his protection. The tears which she shed, 
 the cris de veuve, as was customary in her 
 own country, were heart-rending to hear,
 
 The Romance of a Spaki. 189 
 
 and touched him deeply; he forgot that 
 she was wicked, deceitful, and black. 
 
 As his heart expanded with joy at the 
 thoughts of his return, his pity and ten- 
 derness for Fatou-gaye increased ; he 
 would carry her with him as far as Da- 
 kar it was time gained in which to decide 
 what to do with her.
 
 190 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Dakar is an old colonial town built on 
 sand and rocks of a reddish color an im- 
 provised harbor for the packet-boats of 
 that western point of Africa called Cape 
 Verd. 
 
 Here and there on the desolate sand- 
 hills grew the mighty baobabs, and over 
 the whole country floated dense clouds of 
 vultures and eagle-fishers. 
 
 Fatou-gaye was temporarily installed 
 there in the house of a mulattress. She 
 declared that she did not wish to return 
 to Saint Louis, and there her plans ended. 
 She knew not what would become of her; 
 neither did Jean, for he had failed to 
 reach any decision in regard to her, and 
 besides, he had no money. 
 
 The next morning, a few hours before
 
 The Romance of a Spaki. \ 9 i 
 
 the departure of the packet-boat, Fatou- 
 gaye crouched on the floor in the hut of 
 the mulattress, beside her three gourds. 
 She was speechless ; her eyes were fixed 
 and immovable, full of grief and wild de- 
 spair, as if her heart was broken. 
 
 Jean stood near her twisting his mous- 
 tache, not knowing what to do. 
 
 Suddenly the door opened noisily, and 
 a spahi entered like the wind, his eyes 
 flashing with excitement, his manner anx- 
 ious and confused. 
 
 It was Pierre Boyer, who for more 
 than a year had been the comrade and 
 room-mate of Jean at Saint Louis. 
 
 They were both reserved, and rarely 
 ever spoke, but they esteemed each other, 
 and when Boyer went to serve at Goree, 
 they grasped each other's hands with cor- 
 diality. 
 
 Taking off his cap, Pierre murmured a 
 rapid excuse for entering so unceremo-
 
 192 The Romance of a Spa hi. 
 
 niously, and trembling with emotion, he 
 took Jean's hand. 
 
 " Peyral," said he, " I have been search- 
 ing for you all day; listen to me a mo- 
 ment. I have a great favor to ask of 
 you ; hear what it is, and reflect on it. 
 To-morrow you are going to Algeria. 
 Alas ! to-morrow I go to Guadiangue, 
 in Ouankarah, with some others from 
 Goree. They are fighting there ; it will 
 only be for three months, and you will 
 surely gain promotion or a medal. We 
 have the same time, are the same age, so 
 it will not change the time for your re- 
 turn home. Peyral, will you exchange 
 places with me ? " 
 
 Jean had divined it from the first ; his 
 eyes were dilated with intense emotion ; 
 a tumultuous flood of thoughts, convic- 
 tions, and indecisions rushed through his 
 brain ; he lowered his head, folded his 
 arms in deep thought. Fatou-gaye, who
 
 The Romance of a Spa hi, 193 
 
 understood it all, arose, panting, breath- 
 less, awaiting the sentence that was about 
 to fall from his lips, which she trembled 
 to hear. 
 
 " Peyral," continued Boyer, " you will 
 make a good thing of this 
 
 "Have you asked the others?" said 
 Jean. 
 
 "Yes," he replied, "but they have re- 
 fused me ; they have good reasons for it, 
 but it will just suit you. The Governor 
 of Goree is interested in me, and prom- 
 ises you his protection if you will ex- 
 change. We thought of you at first 
 (looking at Fatou-gaye), for you like this 
 country. On your return from Guadian- 
 gue, you will go to finish your service at 
 Saint Louis; they have agreed to this, 
 and it shall be done, I swear to you." 
 
 " But we will not have time to arrange 
 matters," interrupted Jean, who, feeling 
 lost ; wished to recover himself if possible. 
 
 13
 
 194 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 " Yes," said Boyer, " we have the 
 whole afternoon before us ; you will have 
 nothing to do, all has been arranged with 
 the Governor; the papers are ready, your 
 signature is all that is needed. I will go 
 to Goree and return in two hours, and all 
 will be done. Listen, Peyral : here are 
 my savings, three hundred francs ; they 
 are yours, to install yourself on your re- 
 turn to Saint Louis, or to spend as you 
 wish." 
 
 "Thank you," said Jean; "but I will 
 not accept pay for this ; " and he turned 
 away his head proudly. 
 
 And Boyer, who saw that he was of- 
 fended, grasped his hand, saying gently: 
 
 " Do not be angry, Peyral." And they 
 stood before each other, speechless and 
 silent. 
 
 Fatou-gaye, who saw that she might 
 lose all by speaking, knelt on the floor, 
 reciting prayers, embracing Jean's knees,
 
 T/ie Romance of a Spahi. 195 
 
 and endeavoring to drag him toward 
 her. 
 
 Jean, who was ashamed that Boyer 
 should witness such a scene, said roughly: 
 
 " Leave me, Fatou-gaye, I entreat you. 
 You are becoming silly." 
 
 But Boyer did not regard the scene 
 as ridiculous ; on the contrary, he was 
 touched by it. 
 
 The sunlight crept through the open 
 door, and illuminated their gay uniforms 
 and lighted up their handsome, animated 
 faces, now so full of anxiety and inde- 
 cision. It fell on the silver rings that 
 encircled the arms of Fatou-gaye, and 
 made them shine like glittering serpents. 
 
 There they stood, those three aban- 
 doned human beings, in the poor, bare 
 hut of wood and straw, with beating 
 hearts and flashing eyes, about to decide 
 their destinies. 
 
 ' Peyral," continued Boyer, in a low,
 
 196 The Romance of a Spaki. 
 
 gentle voice, "it is because I am an Al- 
 gerian; you know what this means. In 
 that country there is a village where my 
 parents are expecting me. I am their 
 only child ; you ought to know what it is 
 to return to one's country." 
 
 "Well, yes," said Jean; "I will ex- 
 change ;" and throwing his red cap behind 
 him, he stamped the ground with his foot. 
 "I will remain. Let us go." 
 
 Pierre clasped him in his arms and em- 
 braced him, and Fatou-gaye raised a 
 shout of triumph ; then hiding herself be- 
 hind Jean, shook with sobs, which ended 
 in bursts of nervous laughter.
 
 The Romance of a Spa hi. 197 
 
 XIX. 
 
 It was necessary to hasten ; Pierre 
 Boyer went as he came, without cere- 
 mony. 
 
 He hurried to Goree, bearing the pre 
 cious paper to which Jean had placed his 
 soldier's signature, correctly and legibly 
 written. It was signed and countersigned, 
 his baggage was transferred, and the sub- 
 stitution effected. 
 
 All was concluded so rapidly that the 
 two spahis had no time for reflection, and 
 promptly at four o'clock the packet-boat 
 put itself en route, carrying away Pierre 
 Boyer, and leaving poor Jean behind. 
 
 When all was irrevocably ended and 
 Jean found himself alone on the sandy 
 beach watching the departing vessel, he 
 grew desperate, and his heart was full
 
 198 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 of anguish and terror at what he had 
 done. 
 
 He became enraged with Fatou-gaye ; 
 her presence horrified him, and he drove 
 her away from him. 
 
 He felt as if he had just signed a com- 
 pact of death with the black country, 
 which seemed to possess for him a fatal 
 fascination. 
 
 He ran along the sands without know- 
 ing where he was going ; he wished to 
 breathe the fresh air, to be alone, and to 
 follow with his eye as long as he could 
 the disappearing boat. 
 
 The sun was yet high when he started 
 out, and under the great, blazing luminary 
 the desert plains had an impressive 
 majesty. 
 
 For a long time he walked on the wild 
 coast, then on the crests of the sand-hills, 
 and /then high up on the ruddy cliffs, to 
 catch the last glimpse of the vessel fast
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 199 
 
 fading from view in the distance, flying 
 over the waters before a strong wind. 
 
 He was so distracted with grief that he 
 no longer felt the burning rays of the 
 sun ; he thought of the years that he had 
 yet to spend in that gloomy land, when 
 he could have been yonder, swiftly sailing 
 toward his dear old home. 
 
 What malignant influence, what charm, 
 what amulet, had kept him there, great 
 God! 
 
 He walked onward toward the north 
 so as not to lose sight of the boat which 
 was rapidly disappearing. A shower of 
 startled locusts beat against his face and 
 breast as he passed through the winter 
 herbs ; his hands were torn and bleeding 
 from contact with the thorny plants. 
 
 He had gone a great distance into the 
 depths of a rough, savage country in the 
 direction of Cape Verd. 
 
 For some time he had seen ahead of
 
 2OO The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 him, afar off, a large, isolated tree, more 
 immense even than the baobab, with a 
 dense, dark foliage- a giant of the flora of 
 the ancient world, forgotten there for 
 ages. 
 
 He sat down, exhausted, on the sands 
 beneath this great dome of shadows, and 
 bowing his head, began to weep. When 
 he arose, the boat had vanished, and 
 night had fallen. 
 
 The evening was clear and cool ; as the 
 twilight shadows deepened, the immense 
 tree rose like a great black mass on the 
 desolate plains. 
 
 Before him lay the tranquil sea, the 
 terraced cliffs, and as far as the eye could 
 see, the mighty Cape Verd, with its mo- 
 notonous plains, divided into deep defiles 
 and ravines, a dismal and dreary country 
 with little vegetation of any kind. 
 
 Behind him, in the direction of the in- 
 terior, were mysterious ridges of low hills,
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 201 
 
 and in the distance the great baobabs, 
 casting shadows like those of the madre- 
 pore. 
 
 The atmosphere was dense and heavy 
 almost to suffocation ; the sun went down 
 in thick vapors, its yellow disc strangely 
 increased and distorted in the mirage. 
 
 The air was filled with perfumes from 
 the large white blossoms of the datura 
 and the sickly odor of the belladonna. 
 Myriads of moths flitted about these 
 poisonous flowers, and from the bushes 
 sounded the plaintive notes of the ring- 
 dove. 
 
 The whole land was covered with a 
 deadly vapor, and the horizon was dull, 
 sombre, and almost indefinable. 
 
 And there behind him lay the interior, 
 which to him was once so full of wonder 
 and mystery now it was nothing to him. 
 Podor, nor Medina, the land of Gallam, 
 nor the far distant Timbuctoo he no
 
 2O2 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 longer wished to see them ; his heart di- 
 vined their gloom, sadness, and suffoca- 
 tion. His thoughts were of his own 
 country, and he only desired to free him- 
 self from this horrible nightmare and de- 
 part at any price. 
 
 The tall African shepherds with fierce 
 and savage countenances passed him, 
 driving toward the village their lean, 
 hump-backed beeves. 
 
 The image of the sun, which is called in 
 the Bible " a sign in the heavens," van- 
 ished as quickly as a pale meteor, and it 
 was night. Above him, the boughs of the 
 mighty tree formed a gloomy temple. He 
 fell asleep, and dreamed of his own home 
 at this hour on summer evenings ; of his 
 mother, his betrothed ; then he dreamed 
 that he was dead, and would never see 
 them again.
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 203 
 
 XX. 
 
 The die was cast, and it was necessary 
 for him to go on to the end of his destiny. 
 
 Two days afterward, Jean embarked in 
 the place of his friend on board of a little 
 man-of-war vessel, to report at the distant 
 post of Guadiangue, in Ouankarah, where 
 they were sending men and munitions to 
 reinforce that obscure post. 
 
 In the adjoining country affairs were 
 in a confused state, so much so that cara- 
 vans could no longer cross the desert. 
 
 It was a dispute between the negroes 
 of different rapacious tribes and pillaging 
 kings, which would no doubt be settled 
 during the winter, when Jean, according 
 to the promise made by the Governor to 
 Boyer, would be returned to Saint Louis, 
 to end his years of service.
 
 2O4 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 There were many people crowded on 
 the little vessel. Fatou-gaye was there ; 
 she had succeeded in getting aboard with 
 her usual cunning and persistence, passing 
 herself off as the wife of a black sharp- 
 shooter ; she had followed Jean, with her 
 three gourds. 
 
 Then there was a regiment of soldiers 
 from Goree, who had been in encamp- 
 ment there for a season, and about twenty 
 native sharp-shooters with their whole 
 families. 
 
 It was a curious mixture, for they had 
 several wives apiece, and numerous chil- 
 dren ; besides, they were taking with them 
 their provisions, millet in gourds,, and 
 their clothes, also packed in gourds, 
 their amulets, and a crowd of domestic 
 animals. There was a great agitation on 
 board at the time of their departure ; a 
 great entanglement of people and things. 
 
 The negresses slept tranquilly on the
 
 The Romance of a Spa/ti. 205 
 
 floor of the deck, wrapped up in their 
 clothes, as close together as sardines in 
 a box. 
 
 The vessel moved gently southward, 
 and was soon lost in regions where the 
 tropical heat every moment became more 
 and more intense.
 
 206 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 It was a night of equatorial calm; an 
 absolute silence reigned; the air was still 
 and motionless, and there was scarcely a 
 perceptible movement of the sails. 
 
 The warm sea waters were gleaming 
 and phosphorescent, reflecting as in an 
 immense mirror the brilliant heavens 
 above them ; they were like two great mir- 
 rors the sea and the sky reflecting each 
 other, blending in the distance. 
 
 The vessel seemed to be sailing through 
 a terrible gulf with no horizon, where all 
 was overwhelmed in a cosmic profundity, 
 vague and infinite ; the moon dipped into 
 the sea, a blood-red circle without a ray, 
 amid vapors pale and phosphorescent. 
 
 In the first geological ages, before day 
 was separated from darkness, when all
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 207 
 
 things wore the tranquillity of expectation, 
 the repose between the creations must 
 have been a grand and inexpressible im- 
 mobility. At that epoch when the world 
 was not yet condensed, when the clouds 
 were suspended, uncreated lead and iron, 
 when all eternal matter was sublimated in 
 the intense heat of a primitive chaos 
 what a sublime silence then !
 
 208 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 They had been en route three days. 
 
 At sunrise, when all things were glitter- 
 ing in the light of golden clouds, they 
 saw far away in the distance a line of 
 green an indescribable green that brill- 
 iant color with which the Chinese paint- 
 ers trace on a fan some gorgeous land- 
 scape. 
 
 This line was the coast of Guinea. 
 On arriving at the mouth of the Diak- 
 halleme, the vessel directed its course to- 
 ward the wide entrance of the river. 
 
 The country there is as flat as that of 
 the Senegal; otherwise the face of nature 
 is entirely different Everywhere there is 
 an equatorial verdure of eternal freshness, 
 and the foliage on the trees is a bright 
 emerald green, a color which the trees in
 
 The Romance of a Spa hi. 209 
 
 France never attain, even in the leafy 
 month of June. 
 
 All along the banks of the river there 
 are forests of a uniform breadth, overshad- 
 owing warm, inert waters forests full 
 of poisonous odors and venomous reptiles. 
 
 This country, as all of Africa, rests 
 under a spell of gloom and silence; yet it 
 is a great relief for the eye after the 
 monotony of the sands of the desert. 
 
 At the village of Ponpoubal, on the 
 Diakhalleme, the vessel landed its passen- 
 gers to await the canoes which would 
 carry them to their destination. 
 
 On this July night at nine o'clock, 
 Jean, with Fatou-gaye and the spahis from 
 Goree, took their places in a canoe man- 
 ned by six black rowers under the guid- 
 ance of Samba-Boubon, the most experi- 
 enced pilot on the rivers of Guinea, to 
 proceed to Guadiangue, situated several 
 leagues up the river. 
 
 14
 
 2io The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 The night was warm, starry, and cloud- 
 less a real equatorial night. 
 
 They glided up the calm river with 
 astonishing swiftness, borne toward the 
 interior by the rapid current and the inde- 
 fatigable efforts of the rowers. The banks 
 of the river faded away into obscurity, 
 and forest after forest fled by them. 
 
 Samba-Boubon led the chant of the 
 rowers, sometimes pitching his plaintive, 
 ringing voice on the highest key, then 
 descending suddenly to low, soft notes 
 full of a strange melancholy. 
 
 Then the chorus would begin, slow 
 and grave, and all through the night was 
 heard that plaintive voice, always followed 
 by the same response from the rowers. 
 
 For a long time they chanted the praises 
 of the spahis, their horses, and even their 
 dogs, and at last the praises of the family 
 of Soumare, and of Saboutane, a legend- 
 ary woman of the coast of Gambia.
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 2 1 1 
 
 When fatigue or sleep relaxed the reg- 
 ular movement of their oars, Samba-Bou- 
 bon hissed through his teeth like a ser- 
 pent, and this hissing was repeated by all 
 the rowers, who became reanimated in 
 their ardor as if by magic. 
 
 All night long they glided past the 
 great forests sacred in the religion of the 
 Mandingoes, whose ancient trees extended 
 overhead their gaunt and angular branches 
 like gigantic structures of bones dimly 
 defined in the starlight grand rigidities 
 of stone. 
 
 The songs of the rowers, the rushing 
 of the waters, the weird chatterings of the 
 monkeys in the woods, and the cries of the 
 marsh-birds mingled their sad, nocturnal 
 voices in the depths of the forest; and 
 sometimes in the distance they heard the 
 cries of human beings, the cries of the 
 dying, the firing of guns, and the deafen- 
 ing strokes of the warlike tam-tam, all
 
 212 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 blending in a wild harmony with the mel- 
 ancholy music of the black rowers. 
 
 As they passed the outskirts of some 
 of the villages along the route, the forests 
 were brilliantly illuminated by the light 
 of blazing fires, for there was warfare in 
 all that country Sarakholes against Lan- 
 doumans, Nalous against Tonbacayces 
 and many of the villages were fired. 
 
 For leagues there was silence the 
 silence of night in deep forests unbroken 
 save by the monotonous chants and the 
 muffled sound of the oars dividing the 
 still waters through the region of shadows. 
 
 They were borne along swiftly toward 
 the interior ; the rowers rowed with fury 
 and superhuman force, and as they neared 
 their destination, they seemed electrified 
 as with a fever. 
 
 At last the dim outlines of a high rock 
 rose before them, from which gleamed 
 bright lights.
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 213 
 
 Samba-Boubon waved a torch, and 
 raised a rallying cry; the inhabitants of 
 Guadiangue came to meet them, and their 
 journey was at an end. 
 
 Guadiangue is perched upon the sum- 
 mit of a vertical rock, which they ascended 
 by tortuous paths, illuminated by the 
 flaring torches of the blacks. 
 
 When they reached the top of the rock, 
 they were conducted to a large flat house 
 which had been prepared for them, where 
 they slept on the ground on mats, await- 
 ing the break of day.
 
 214 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 After a few hours of sleep, Jean was 
 the first to awaken, and on opening his 
 eyes he saw the daylight gleaming 
 through the chinks of the wooden house, 
 revealing the prostrate forms of his com- 
 panions reposing on the ground, their 
 heads resting on their clothes. 
 
 There were Bretons, Alsatians, and 
 Picards, all with the blonde hair of the 
 North; and Jean in the first moments of 
 his awakening had a kind of dazed con- 
 ception of the sad scene, and he thought 
 of all these young lives wasted in a coun- 
 try of exile, and some of them so soon to 
 meet death. 
 
 Reclining near them was the graceful 
 form of Fatou-gaye, her black arms, en- 
 circled with silver rings, thrown above her
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 2 1 5 
 
 head ; those supple arms which he knew 
 on her awakening would be so eager to 
 entwine about him. 
 
 It began to dawn upon him that he was 
 lost in the depths of an immense savage 
 region, farther than ever from his native 
 land ; so far that even a letter could not 
 reach him in an obscure village of 
 Guinea. 
 
 He rose noiselessly, so as not to awaken 
 Fatou-gaye-and the spahis, and approach- 
 ed an open window to get a glimpse of 
 this unknown country. 
 
 The village crowned a precipice more 
 than a hundred metres high, and the hut 
 in which he stood seemed suspended in 
 the air. At his feet was spread out a 
 landscape of the interior, scarcely visible 
 in the pale morning light. There were 
 abrupt hills covered with an unfamiliar 
 vegetation, at the foot of which flowed 
 the river that had brought him there,
 
 216 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 gliding like a silver ribbon through the 
 marshes, half veiled in a white cloud of 
 morning vapors.
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 2 1 7 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 Jean left the house and started out for 
 a stroll through the village; he could 
 have imagined himself anywhere than in 
 an obscure corner of the interior of 
 Africa. 
 
 The verdure, the bright foliage of the 
 trees, the limpid river flowing over a bed 
 of many-colored stones, between two walls 
 of humid, polished rocks, made the scene 
 one of picturesque beauty. 
 
 Scattered about everywhere were groups 
 of women with complexions of a reddish- 
 brown, the color of the rocks, washing 
 their clothes in the river, and relating 
 with animation the thrilling events of a 
 combat the night previous. Warriors 
 were passing and repassing over the ford, 
 armed cap-a-pie, ready for battle at a 
 moment's notice.
 
 2 1 8 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 There was a certain novelty about all 
 this which delighted Jean ; it was so dif- 
 ferent from the oppressive silence and 
 gloom which weighs on the hearts and 
 spirits of those who dwell on the banks 
 of the Senegal. 
 
 He felt the exhilarating charm of the 
 forests, flowers, hills, and bright waters ; 
 there was nothing sad or depressing in 
 this terrible splendor in nature. 
 
 Suddenly he heard the deafening noise 
 of the tam-tam, the music of war, and it 
 approached so near that Jean and the 
 women who were washing in the stream 
 ran to look out through the blue openings 
 in the rocks. An ally chief was passing 
 above them with great pomp and splen- 
 dor, marching to the sound of martial 
 music, the arms and trinkets of the war- 
 riors in his suite flashing in the blaze of 
 the sunlight as they moved along. 
 
 It was nearly midday before Jean re-
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 219 
 
 turned to his quarters in the village, walk- 
 ing through verdant paths in the shade of 
 the trees overhanging the streets. Some 
 of the houses in Guadiangue are high, 
 and almost elegant under their tall roofs 
 of stubble. 
 
 Although the foliage and vegetation 
 wore the vivid colors of early spring-time, 
 and the shadowy forests looked cool and 
 inviting, the days were extremely hot and 
 oppressive. In the morning, even before 
 sunrise, in these forests inhabited by 
 monkeys, green parrots, and rare hum- 
 ming-birds, the air was hot and em- 
 poisoned with deadly odors; serpents 
 glided through the wet herbs, and it 
 seemed that all the heat of the equator 
 had concentrated there. 
 
 Jean began to regard his sojourn in 
 Ouankarah as a time of delightful freedom 
 in a country marvelous for the beauty of 
 its vegetation and the grandeur of its
 
 22O The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 forests ; a happy respite after the crush- 
 ing monotony and gloom of his life at 
 Saint Louis. 
 
 In three months, as was predicted, the 
 country was at peace ; war and the 
 slaughter of the blacks was at an end. 
 
 Caravans began to pass again, bringing 
 to Guadiangue from the depths of the 
 interior gold, ivory, feathers, and other 
 products of Guinea and the Soudan. 
 
 An order was received for the reinforce- 
 ments to return, and a vessel came to meet 
 them at the entrance of the river to carry 
 them back to the Senegal. 
 
 But they were not all there, poor spahis ; 
 some of them were left sleeping under the 
 burning sun, far away from home and 
 friends, victims of the deadly African 
 fever. 
 
 Jean's hour had not yet come, and he 
 descended the river in the canoe of 
 Samba- Boubon.
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 221 
 
 XXV. 
 
 The journey in the canoe was begun 
 this time at full midday. The waters 
 were stagnant and motionless ; the sun 
 was in the zenith, and the heat was so 
 terrible that the black rowers in spite of 
 their courage were forced to cease rowing. 
 The canoe drifted slowly on, drawn gently, 
 almost insensibly, by the river current. 
 
 The water failed to appease their thirst, 
 and they were exhausted and bathed in 
 perspiration. Sometimes they rowed 
 close to the banks, to profit by the dense 
 but dangerous shade of the forest trees. 
 Then the spahis caught a glimpse of 
 people moving about in the deep shadows 
 of the mangroves, for there is a race of 
 people who inhabit the marshes of Africa, 
 dwelling there among the great roots of 
 those trees.
 
 222 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 And there, not two paces from them, 
 were serpents gliding along so gently that 
 they did not awaken the sleeping birds. 
 Great blue alligators were stretched out 
 lazily in the mud, their slimy mouths 
 gaping wide. On their backs were perched 
 airy white aigrettes, who slept there to 
 escape the mud that covered everything. 
 
 Martin-fishers with brilliant plumage 
 were taking their afternoon siesta, in com- 
 pany with the lizards, on the branches of 
 the trees almost dipping in the sluggish 
 waters. 
 
 Rare butterflies flitted hare and there ; 
 with their gorgeous wings closed, hiding all 
 their metallic splendor, they resembled 
 dead leaves, but with their wings spread 
 open they shone like sparkling jewels in 
 the sunlight. 
 
 Entwining, interlacing everything, were 
 myriads of roots of the mandrake trees ; 
 they look like strands of threads, or the
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 223 
 
 thousands of veins in the trunk of an 
 elephant, and cover vast areas of country. 
 
 In the mud with the alligators were 
 immense shoals of crabs perpetually mov- 
 ing their white ivory claws as if to seize 
 in their dreams an imaginary prey. 
 
 The canoe dividing the waters of the 
 Diakhalleme continued its sinuous course 
 down the river, threading its way quickly 
 through the sombre forests. As they 
 neared the sea, the hills and tall trees of 
 the interior disappeared, and they soon 
 reached an immense flat country with lit- 
 tle verdure of any kind except the groves 
 of mandrakes, through which ran other 
 water-courses. The consummate skill of 
 Samba-Boubon was needed to thread the 
 way through this labyrinth of rivers. 
 
 The cool shadows of evening began to 
 fall, and the mournful cadence of the 
 voices of the oarsmen, or the plunge of 
 the hippopotamus as it floated off, leaving
 
 224 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 behind it great whirling eddies on the 
 surface of the warm, dark waters, were the 
 only sounds to break the mighty silence. 
 
 Fatou-gaye, who was lying at the bottom 
 
 ,of the canoe for greater safety, closed her 
 
 eyes with fear and trembling, though she 
 
 was already doubly protected with leaves 
 
 and moist canvas thrown over her head. 
 
 When they arrived at Pouponbal, she 
 had accomplished the entire journey with- 
 out daring to look up for fear of seeing a 
 hippopotamus. 
 
 Jean, 'in order to arouse her, had to 
 swear that they had arrived at their 
 destination, and the danger over, con- 
 sequently. 
 
 She was quite benumbed, and responded 
 faintly, entreating Jean to take her in 
 his arms and carry her to the boat, which 
 he did. 
 
 Those childish ways of hers succeeded 
 very well with Jean, and sometimes he
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 225 
 
 allowed himself to spoil Fatou-gaye, for 
 he needed someone to cherish, and he 
 bestowed his caresses on her for want of 
 a better object. 
 
 15
 
 226 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 The Governor of Goree fulfilled his 
 promise to Pierre Boyer, and Jean was 
 returned to Saint Louis to finish his time 
 of exile. 
 
 When Jean saw once more the white 
 walls of the old city he experienced a deep 
 emotion, for he was attached to it as one 
 is always attached to a place where one 
 has lived for a long time and suffered. 
 
 Houses were not much in demand at 
 Saint Louis, so the house of Samba-Hamet 
 had found no new tenants. 
 
 Coura-n'diaye saw Jean and Fatou re- 
 turning, and opened the door of their old 
 lodgings, and things soon resumed their 
 former course of monotony and gloom. 
 
 Nothing had changed; the tame storks 
 that inhabited the roof clacked, as they
 
 The Romance of a Spaki. 227 
 
 basked in the sunshine, in the same 
 wooden voices, like the grating of a wind- 
 mill, and everywhere there were the same 
 familiar sounds. 
 
 The negresses were eternally beating 
 the millet for the Kouss-Kouss ; the same 
 quiet and tranquillity existed at the bar- 
 racks the same silent monotony, the 
 same overwhelmed nature; and Jean soon 
 grew weary of it all. 
 
 From day to day he shunned Fatou- 
 gaye, and she grew more and more wicked 
 and exacting; especially since she knew 
 that he remained on her account. 
 
 There were frequent scenes between 
 them. Sometimes he was exasperated 
 beyond endurance with her malice and 
 perversity, and he commenced to beat her 
 with blows from his whip; not very hard 
 at first, but each time with increased vio- 
 lence, and sometimes on her naked back 
 there were bloody stripes, and then he was
 
 228 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 ashamed of himself, and resolved never to 
 strike her again. 
 
 One day, on returning to the house, he 
 saw a Khassouke more like a gorilla 
 than a man pass hurriedly under the 
 window. He did not mention it to Fatou- 
 gaye ; it was a matter of no consequence 
 to him, after all, what she did. All senti- 
 ments of tenderness and pity which he 
 had once felt for her, had vanished. He 
 was weary of her, and allowed her to re- 
 main because he was too indifferent to 
 force her to go. 
 
 The last year of his exile was drawing 
 to a close ; he began to count by months. 
 
 Sleep, which at best comes slowly in 
 that enervating country, often fled from 
 him, and he passed hours of the night lean- 
 ing out of the window, dreaming of his 
 return. The moon in her course across 
 the desert always found him there at the 
 window. He loved the brilliant nights ;
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 229 
 
 the ruddy splendor of the moonbeams 
 reflected on the sands and on the bosom 
 of the dark river ; even the sinister cries 
 of the jackals on the plains of Sorr had 
 become a familiar sound to him, and no 
 longer disturbed him. 
 
 And when he thought of leaving it all 
 forever, for a moment a gloom overcast 
 his joyful anticipations.
 
 230 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 Jean possessed an old silver watch, 
 which he esteemed as highly as Fatou did 
 her amulets ; it was his old father's watch, 
 which he had given him on his departure 
 for Africa. With a medal he wore on his 
 breast, suspended by a chain around his 
 neck, he held it the most precious thing in 
 his possession. 
 
 The medal was an image of the Virgin, 
 and was placed there by his mother once 
 when he was very ill, loner a^o in his child- 
 
 * o > 
 
 hood, and he had never abandoned it. 
 He was lying on his little bed, attacked 
 by some malady of childhood, and on 
 opening his eyes from a deep sleep he saw 
 his mother near him, weeping. It was a 
 winter afternoon, and through the window 
 he saw the snow lying on the mountains 
 like a white mantle.
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 231 
 
 His mother raised his head gently and 
 passed the medal around his neck; then 
 she kissed him, and he fell asleep again. 
 
 That was fifteen years ago, and the 
 medal still remained in its place. 
 
 As for the watch, forty years had passed 
 since it was purchased by his father, sec- 
 ond hand, with his first savings as a sol- 
 dier. It had once been a remarkable 
 watch, but now it was somewhat out of 
 order ; it was big and bulging, and showed 
 considerable old age. 
 
 His father, however, had considered it 
 an object of great value, for watches were 
 not common among the mountaineers of 
 his village. 
 
 The watchmaker in a neighboring town, 
 who repaired it for Jean just before his 
 departure, declared the movements very 
 remarkable, and his old father confided to 
 him the companion of his youth with all 
 sorts of recommendations.
 
 232 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 At first Jean wore it proudly, but since 
 he had been in the regiment, whenever he 
 looked to see the time there were bursts 
 of laughter, and his companions made so 
 many untimely jokes about the onion that 
 several times Jean felt his face flush with 
 anger and chagrin. He would have pre- 
 ferred all sorts of blows and injuries to 
 himself rather than a want of respect for 
 the old watch. 
 
 It pained him more because he knew 
 that the poor old watch was ridiculous, 
 and it gave him an inexpressible pang for 
 his comrades to make fun of it, especially 
 since he found it so droll himself. 
 
 Finally he ceased to carry it altogether, 
 to spare himself these mortifications ; he 
 did not even wind it up, so as not to wear 
 it out. Since the shaking-up it had on 
 the voyage, and under the influence of the 
 warm climate, it began to indicate the 
 wrong hours ; in fact, it never kept the 
 right time.
 
 The Romance of a Spa hi. 233 
 
 He put it away tenderly, with his letters 
 and other precious articles, in a box in 
 which he kept the souvenirs of his native 
 land. 
 
 For a long time Fatou-gaye refrained 
 from touching it, though it interested her 
 greatly. But one day when Jean was absent 
 she opened the precious box, and taught 
 herself how to wind the watch. When 
 she placed it to her ear and heard the 
 ticking, her antics were as ludicrous as a 
 monkey with a music-box.
 
 234 The Romance of a SpaJii. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 Several weeks had passed since Jean 
 had opened his box of treasures to look 
 at his old watch. 
 
 One day when he was on duty at the 
 barracks, he was suddenly seized with a 
 presentiment. He returned to the house, 
 walking rapidly, and on his arrival he 
 opened the box. 
 
 He felt a sudden pang, for the watch 
 was not there ! 
 
 He feverishly turned over the other 
 articles in the box, but the watch was 
 gone. 
 
 Fatou-gaye sat in one corner of the 
 room, humming abstractedly. She was 
 
 u 
 
 stringing beads, arranging them into 
 different designs for a necklace, prepara- 
 tory for the grand fete next day. It was
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 235 
 
 the bamboula of Tabaski, at which she 
 wished to appear beautiful and finely 
 dressed. 
 
 "You have misplaced it," said Jean, 
 turning to her in a rage. "And I told 
 you never to touch it ; what have you 
 done with it? Answer me quickly." 
 
 A cold perspiration was on his brow, 
 and, wild with fear and anxiety, he shook 
 Fatou-gaye rudely by the arm. 
 
 " Ram " (I do not know), responded 
 she, with exasperating indifference ; and 
 that was her only answer to his excited 
 interrogations. 
 
 But all at once a light broke upon him ; 
 he saw her new clothes of most gorgeous 
 colors, folded carefully and concealed in 
 a corner, ready for to-morrow's festivities. 
 He understood then, and seizing the hol- 
 iday garment, he unfolded it and threw it 
 upon the floor. 
 
 " You have sold the watch ! " cried he,
 
 236 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 in a rage. "Tell me quickly, Fatou-gaye, 
 is it true ?" 
 
 She threw herself on her knees on the 
 floor, and he took down his whip. 
 
 She well knew that in stealing the pre- 
 cious charm she had committed a very 
 grave fault ; but she possessed both impu- 
 dence and audacity, for she had already 
 done so much, and Jean had always par- 
 doned her. 
 
 But she had never seen him like this. 
 She screamed aloud with terror, and 
 threw herself at his feet, crying : 
 
 " Pardon, T'Jean, pardon !" 
 
 Jean did not feel her influence in this 
 moment of his fury, for he had the violent 
 passions of a savage boy. He struck 
 Fatou-gaye harshly upon her naked back, 
 marking it with streaks of blood, and 
 
 o 
 
 with every blow his rage increased. 
 
 Then he was ashamed at what he had 
 done, and throwing the whip upon the 
 floor, he sank down upon the sofa.
 
 The Romance of a Spain. 237 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 A moment afterward, Jean went run- 
 ning to the market-place at Guet-n'dar. 
 
 Fatou-gaye had confessed all, and given 
 the name of the black merchant to whom 
 she had sold the poor old watch. He 
 hoped it was still there, so that he might 
 buy it back again. 
 
 He had just drawn his monthly pay, 
 and this would be sufficient. He ran 
 very quickly, that he might arrive before, 
 some black purchaser had carried it off, 
 for then it would be lost to him forever. 
 
 Upon the sands at Guet-n'dar there 
 was a great tumult, a confusion of all 
 races, a Babel of all the languages of the 
 Soudan. 
 
 They held there perpetually a grand 
 market, attended by people from all coun-
 
 238 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 tries, who sold everything the most 
 trifling of articles, and the most precious. 
 
 There were jewels, cheap and costly ; 
 incongruous things, such as gold and 
 butter, meat and ointments, sheep on foot 
 and manuscripts, captives and soup, amu- 
 lets and cabbage. 
 
 On one side of the market-place, mak- 
 ing a background for the picturesque 
 scene, was an arm of the river, with Saint 
 Louis in the distance ; its long, straight 
 streets, old white houses, and Babylonian 
 terraces blending their lights and shad- 
 ows under the lofty palm trees that lifted 
 their golden tufts against the deep blue 
 skies. On the other side was Guet-n'dar, 
 the negro village, with its thousands and 
 thousands of pointed roofs. 
 
 Near by were stationed caravans ; cam- 
 els slept on the ground, and Moors un- 
 packed their bales of arachis and "leather 
 fetich-bags. Merchant men and women
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 239 
 
 crouched upon the sands, elbowing each 
 other, their wares almost under the feet 
 of their customers. 
 
 There were merchants of sour milk 
 contained in goat-skins, the hair turned 
 inward ; merchants of butter, who fish out 
 their merchandise with their fingers from 
 the hairy leather bottles ; they also offer 
 for sale little balls of salt, which they roll in 
 their hands, afterward running their fin- 
 gers through their hair to cleanse them. 
 These merchants are of the Puehle race, 
 and wear enormous chignons ornamented 
 with copper. 
 
 Then there were merchants of simples, 
 balls of charmed herbs, lizard tails, and 
 magic roots ; and merchants who kneel 
 on the sands offering for sale gold dust, 
 emeralds, pearls, and amber ; merchants 
 of pistachios, live ducks, and dead eat;- 
 ables, provisions dried in the sun, and 
 sugar pates covered with flies.
 
 240 The Romance of a Spalii, 
 
 There were merchants of salt fish, of 
 pipes, of ancient jewelry of everything. 
 And among their wares were old clothes, 
 butter of Gallam for curling the hair, 
 tresses cut or torn from the heads of dead 
 negresses, trinkets, amulets, old guns, old 
 Korans, musk, flutes, silver - handled 
 poignards, gongs, horns of giraffes, and 
 old guitars. 
 
 Seated under the yellow cocoa trees 
 were beggars covered with vermin, lepers 
 holding out their hands, eaten with white 
 ulcers, demanding alms, and lean old 
 women, almost skeletons, with swollen, 
 deformed limbs, in the midst of debris of 
 all kinds. 
 
 And upon it all the perpendicular rays 
 of the sun beat down with a heat as burn- 
 ing and intense as that of a fiery furnace, 
 and always always for a horizon the 
 desert, the infinite breadth of sands. 
 
 Jean stopped before the stall of a cer-
 
 The Romance of a Spa hi. 241 
 
 tain Bou-Bakary-Diam, and regarded with 
 anxious eyes and a beating heart the 
 heterogeneous mass of things spread out 
 before him. 
 
 " O, yes, white man," said Bou-Bakary- 
 Diam, in the Jaloff tongue. " You mean 
 the watch that talks. At four o'clock 
 the young girl came to sell it to me for 
 three Khaliss of silver, and as it talked, 
 I sold it very readily that same day to a 
 chief of Trarzas, who has gone with a 
 caravan to Timbuctoo." 
 
 And so it was all over; it was lost to 
 him forever, the poor old watch ! Poor 
 Jean was as broken-hearted as if he had 
 lost a beloved friend through some fault 
 of his own. If he could only have gone 
 and embraced his old father and asked 
 his pardon, that would have brought some 
 consolation. Or if it had fallen into the 
 sea or river ; or if he had lost it on the 
 desert ; but to have it sold, profaned by 
 that Fatou-gaye ! 
 
 16
 
 242 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 That Fatou-gaye, who for two years 
 had taken from him his savings, his dig- 
 nity, his life ! To protect her he had re- 
 mained in Africa ; for her he had forfeited 
 his future as a soldier for that black 
 creature, covered with her hateful amu- 
 lets. And as he thought of her wicked 
 ways, her impudence, her audacity, he 
 was filled with an ungovernable rage. 
 
 He left the market-place and walked 
 rapidly toward the house ; his blood was 
 boiling and his brain on fire.
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 243 
 
 XXX. 
 
 Fatou-gaye awaited his return with 
 great anxiety. As soon as he entered the 
 door she saw that he had not found the 
 old watch, and his manner was so threat- 
 c'ning that she thought he was going to 
 kill her. She realized what she had done, 
 for she knew that if anyone had taken 
 from her a certain cherished amulet, the 
 most precious one in her possession, given 
 to her by her mother long ago in the land 
 of Gallam, she would have thrown herself 
 upon the robber and torn him to pieces. 
 
 She understood that she had done some- 
 thing terrible, influenced by wicked spirits 
 and her great love for fine clothes ; she 
 knew that she had brought a great sorrow 
 to Jean, and she longed to fall at his feet 
 and embrace him. She almost hoped he
 
 244 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 would beat her again, that she might 
 touch him ; for she felt that she could die 
 happy pressed close to him, begging for 
 mercy. And now that he was going to 
 kill her, she had nothing to risk ; she 
 would put her arm around him, cling to 
 him, reach his lips. 
 
 If Jean could have read what was pass- 
 ing in her little black heart, he would have 
 forgiven her, for it was not difficult to 
 move him ; but Fatou-gaye did not speak ; 
 she thought it was useless. The idea of 
 
 o 
 
 that last struggle, in which she would cling 
 to him, kiss him, die for him, pleased her; 
 and she waited, fixing upon him her great 
 dark eyes, full of passion and terror. 
 
 But Jean said nothing to her ; he did 
 not even look at her, and he threw down 
 the whip as he entered, for he was ashamed 
 of his former brutality to the little creat- 
 ure, and did not wish to strike her again. 
 Then he began to tear down the amulets
 
 The Romance of a Spa hi. 245 
 
 from the walls and threw them out the 
 window; and he took her clothes, her 
 trinkets, her gourds, and without saying a 
 word, dashed them out on the sands. 
 
 It began to dawn on poor Fatou-gaye 
 what awaited her ; she divined that all 
 was over ; she was to be driven away, 
 ruined. 
 
 When all her possessions had been 
 thrown out of the window, scattered upon 
 the square below, Jean pointed to the 
 door, saying simply, in a deep, stern 
 voice, "Go!" 
 
 And Fatou-gaye, with her head bowed 
 low, went out, not opening her lips. 
 
 She had never imagined anything so 
 horrible as being driven away from him 
 like that ; she could not shed a tear or 
 utter a lamentation ; she felt that her 
 heart was breaking.
 
 246 The Romance of a Spa hi. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 Then Jean began calmly to collect his 
 possessions, and he packed them carefully, 
 a habit acquired at the barracks in spite 
 of himself ; but he hastened, also, for fear 
 of being overcome with regrets. 
 
 He felt somewhat consoled by what he 
 had just done, regarding it as a tribute 
 paid to the memory of the old watch. 
 He was happy at having at last had the 
 courage to send Fatou-gaye away, and he 
 said to himself he would soon see his old 
 father, and, confessing it all, would obtain 
 his pardon. 
 
 When he had finished, he descended to 
 the apartment of Coura-n'diaye. Fatou- 
 gaye had fled there ; he saw her crouching 
 silently in one corner of the room. The 
 little slaves had collected her things from
 
 The Romance of a Sf>ahi. 247 
 
 the street and put them in gourds near 
 her. He did not speak to her, but ap- 
 proached Coura-n'diaye and paid her his 
 monthly rent, anticipating that he would 
 never return ; and throwing his light bag- 
 gage over his shoulder, he departed. 
 
 Poor old watch ! His father had said 
 to him : "Jean, it is a little old, but still 
 it is a very good watch ; they don't make 
 as good nowadays. When you are rich, 
 in the future, you can buy a fashionable 
 one if you wish ; then return this one to 
 me. I have worn it forty years, and when 
 they bury me, if you have no further use 
 for it, put it with me in the coffin ; it will 
 keep me company then." 
 
 Coura-n'diaye took the money from the 
 spahi without making any comment on his 
 abrupt departure. 
 
 When Jean was out of doors he called 
 his wolf-dog, who followed him with his 
 ears hanging down, as if he understood 
 the situation and was sorry to depart.
 
 248 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 Then Jean went away without turning 
 his head, walking rapidly through the 
 lonely streets of the dead city.
 
 PART III. 
 
 * 
 
 I. 
 
 When Jean had thus definitely expelled 
 Fatou-gaye, and was comfortably installed 
 at the barracks with his modest posses- 
 sions brought from the house of Samba- 
 Hamet, he felt really light-hearted, for it 
 seemed to him that he was now making 
 some progress toward the blissful time 
 when he would bid an eternal farewell to 
 Africa. Nevertheless, he had in his heart 
 some pity for her, and desired to send 
 her a little money to facilitate her ar- 
 rangements in other quarters. 
 
 Not wishing to see her, he charged 
 Muller with the commission. 
 
 Muller went to the lodgings of Coura- 
 n'diaye, but Fatou-gaye had departed. 
 She had suffered much grief, said the 
 
 (349)
 
 250 Tlie Romance of a Spa hi. 
 
 little slaves in the Jaloff tongue, as they 
 gathered around him, all speaking at the 
 same time. 
 
 In the evening she refused to eat the 
 Kouss-Kouss which they offered her. 
 
 "That night," said the little Sam-Lele, 
 " I heard her talk in her sleep, but I 
 could not understand what she said, and 
 then the wolves howled, which is a bad 
 sign." . 
 
 She went away before sunrise, bearing 
 her gourds upon her head. 
 
 Bafou-fale-Diop, the head woman of 
 the slaves of Coura-n'diaye, a person of a 
 very prying nature, followed her some 
 distance, and saw her cross the wooden 
 bridge over a narrow arm of the river, 
 walking in the direction of N'dar-toute, 
 apparently knowing quite well where she 
 was going. 
 
 They conjectured she had gone to seek 
 the protection of a rich old Mahometan
 
 The Romance of a Spa hi. 251 
 
 priest who lived at N'dar-toute, who 
 greatly admired her beauty ; she was 
 pretty -- indisputably so although a 
 Kafir. 
 
 For a long time Jean avoided passing 
 by the old white house, but after awhile 
 he ceased to care anything about it. 
 
 And since he had recovered from that 
 intoxicating fever of the senses, excited 
 by the climate of Africa, and resumed 
 the dignity of a white man, sullied so long 
 by his life with Fatou-gaye, he looked 
 back upon it all with a shudder of pro- 
 found disgust, and resolved to lead an 
 entirely new life of honesty and morality. 
 
 In the future he would live at the bar- 
 racks like a prudent man, and save his 
 money to purchase for Jeanne Mery a 
 number of souvenirs of the Senegal. He 
 would take her, among other things, some 
 of those beautiful mats and embroidered 
 cloths, to adorn their little cottage ; they
 
 252 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 would be the wonder and admiration of 
 all the people of the village. And he par- 
 ticularly wished to present to her a pair of 
 ear-rings and a cross of the fine gold of 
 Gallam, which he had already ordered to 
 be made by one of the best black artists 
 in that country. She would wear them to 
 church on Sundays, and certainly there 
 would be no other young woman in the 
 village with such fine jewels. 
 
 And so this poor spahi, with such a 
 grand, grave air, formed in his young 
 head a number of childish projects, inno- 
 cent dreams of happiness, of domestic 
 life and peaceful honesty. 
 
 Jean was now nearly twenty-six years 
 old, but he looked much older, which is 
 often the case with those who have led 
 rough lives upon the sea or in the army. 
 These five years on the Senegal had 
 changed him greatly; his features were 
 more accentuated, thinner, and much
 
 The Romance of a Spa hi. 253 
 
 bronzed by contact with the burning rays 
 of the sun. He had acquired a military 
 air; his chest had expanded and shoulders 
 broadened, but his figure was still supple 
 and slender. 
 
 This air of distinction and his manly 
 beauty inspired with involuntary respect 
 and admiration all who approached him. 
 A painter would have chosen him as a 
 noble type of manly perfection.
 
 254 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 II. 
 
 One day Jean found two letters in- 
 closed in an envelope bearing the post- 
 mark of his native village ; one was from 
 his mother, the other from Jeanne Mery. 
 
 LETTER OF FRANCOISE PEYRAL TO HER SON. 
 
 MY DEAR SON: Something strange has hap- 
 pened since my last letter, which will astonish you 
 greatly. But do not grieve about it; only pray to 
 the good God as we do, and keep a brave heart. 
 I will begin by telling you that there has come to 
 this country a young bailiff, M. Prosper Suirot. 
 He is very unpopular here, as he is so hard on the 
 poor people, and very sullen in his manner; but 
 that he has a good position, no one can deny. 
 
 This M. Suirot has demanded in marriage the 
 hand of Jeanne Mery, and your uncle Mery is 
 willing to accept him as a son-in-law. Mery 
 came here one evening recently, and made quite a 
 scene. It seems that he has been making inquiries 
 about you from 'your officers without our knowl-
 
 The Romance of a Spain. 255 
 
 edge, and they have given him some information 
 very detrimental to you. They say you have a 
 black wife there, and that you live with her against 
 the wishes of your superiors, which is the reason 
 you have not been promoted. There are bad 
 rumors afloat about you, my son, many things that 
 I could never believe; but your uncle showed us 
 a paper upon which we could see the seals of 
 your regiment. Now Jeanne has come over to our 
 house in tears, vowing that she will never marry 
 Suirot, and that she will always remain faithful to 
 you. She will enter a convent if they press her too 
 closely, she declares. She writes you the inclosed 
 letter, and tells you what you must do; she is an 
 intelligent girl, so take her advice and write im- 
 mediately to your uncle as she tells you. You will 
 return to us in a few months, and with good con- 
 duct until then, and reliance on God,' no doubt all 
 may be arranged yet. We are much grieved, as 
 you must know, and are afraid your uncle M6ry 
 will forbid Jeanne to visit our house, and that 
 would make us very unhappy. 
 
 Peyral joins me in embracing you, and prays 
 you to write to us immediately. 
 
 Your old mother, who adores 'you, 
 
 FRANCOISE PEYRAL.
 
 256 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 JEANNE MERY TO HER COUSIN JEAvN. 
 
 MY DEAR JEAN: I am so unhappy that I almost 
 wish to die. I regret that you have not returned, 
 and do not even speak of it, especially since my 
 parents, agreeing with my godfather, wish me to 
 marry Suirot, of whom I have already written to 
 you. They are continually telling me that he is 
 rich, and that I ought to feel honored that he has 
 requested me to marry him. I continue to say no, 
 and to weep. I am so unhappy, my dear Jean, at 
 having them all against me. Olivette and Rose 
 laugh at me for always having red eyes; I believe 
 they would willingly marry Suirot if he only de- 
 sired it. At the thought of it, I shudder with 
 horror, and I will fly to a convent if they press me 
 too closely. If I might only go to your home 
 sometimes to speak to your mother, for I have as 
 much affection for her as if I were her own daugh- 
 ter; but they open their eyes when I go there so 
 often, and soon they may forbid it altogether. My 
 dear Jean, it is necessary for you to do all that I 
 am about to tell you. 
 
 I understand there are some bad rumors about 
 you, but I content myself by believing they are 
 circulated to influence me, so they do not trouble
 
 The Romance of a Spa hi. 257 
 
 me. They can not possibly be true, for no one 
 knows you so well as I do. Still, I would be glad 
 if you would explain some things to' me; you know 
 it is always pleasant to be assured that what one 
 believes is true. Then write immediately to my 
 father, and demand my hand in marriage, prom- 
 ising to conduct yourself as a well-regulated, 
 prudent man, against whom no one can whisper 
 an unkind word. After that, I will beg him upon 
 my knees. May the good God have mercy upon 
 my dear Jean. 
 
 Your betrothed for life, 
 
 JEANNE ME"RY. 
 
 To those who live in obscure villages 
 the vocabulary of passion is unknown ; 
 they only know how to translate their 
 feelings into simple, tranquil phrases. 
 Jeanne must have been deeply moved in 
 writing this letter to Jean; but he also 
 spoke that simple language, and under- 
 stood all she wrote of her love and reso- 
 lutions. His reply to her was full of ten- 
 derness and gratitude. He also addressed 
 
 17
 
 258 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 a letter to his uncle Mery, a formal re- 
 quest, accompanied with sincere pledges 
 of prudence and good conduct, and then 
 he awaited with much anxiety the return 
 of the mail from France. 
 
 M. Prosper Suirot was a young bailiff, 
 stiff and pompous ; and a fierce free- 
 thinker, having imbibed all of the atheistic 
 nonsense of the age. He was very near- 
 sighted, his small, red eyes peering through 
 smoky spectacles, which would have ex- 
 cited the contempt of Jean, who always 
 felt an instinctive repulsion for persons 
 badly formed and ugly. 
 
 Influenced by the dowry and beautiful 
 figure of Jeanne Mery, the little bailiff 
 believed, in his puffed-up vanity, that he 
 was greatly honoring the young peasant 
 girl by offering her his ugly person and 
 high social position. He intended after 
 their marriage to place her high in society, 
 and that Jeanne should become a fine lady.
 
 Tke Romance of a Spa hi. 259 
 
 III. 
 
 Several months passed, but the mail 
 from France brought no letter for Jean. 
 
 In the letters from his mother Jeanne 
 had always sent some message of love and 
 fidelity. His uncle Mery might remain 
 inflexible, but so would Jeanne; so he was 
 full of hope, not doubting but that all 
 would be satisfactorily arranged on his 
 return to the village. 
 
 He indulged more than ever in delicious 
 dreams. After nearly six years of exile, 
 this return to his native village appeared 
 to him in the most glowing colors, and all 
 his dreams were radiant with rosy antici- 
 pations. To arrive in the gay uniform of 
 a spahi in the village diligence, to see the 
 Cevennes reappearing with their familiar 
 lights and shadows, the well-known paths,
 
 260 The Romance of a Spa hi. 
 
 the beloved steeple, the paternal roof by 
 the wayside and then to clasp in his 
 arms in ecstasy his old parents! 
 
 They would go together to the Merys ; 
 the young girls, all the good people of the 
 village would run to the doors and win- 
 dows to see them pass. He would appear 
 very grand to them in his red clothes and 
 his military air. His uncle Mery would 
 see the golden lace of a quarter-master 
 (which he intended to win) shining on his 
 sleeve, and the effect would be irresisti- 
 ble. After all, his uncle Mery was a 
 good man and had loved him, though he 
 had grumbled about his conduct formerly. 
 
 Far away in exile, one always sees those 
 who remain at home in the most favorable 
 light; they are always good and affection- 
 ate ; only their defects are forgotten. 
 
 Jean was confident his uncle would not 
 remain obdurate when he saw his two 
 children supplicating at his feet. He
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 261 
 
 would certainly relent ; he would place 
 Jeanne's hand in his own, and then what 
 happiness, what a sweet and beautiful life, 
 what a paradise on earth ! 
 
 Jean never pictured himself dressed 
 like the men of his village, wearing the 
 modest hat of a mountaineer ; he never 
 allowed his thoughts to dwell on this 
 subject. In his red uniform, under the 
 sun of Africa, he had really begun to 
 live, and had grown to be a man. And 
 he loved it all his Arabian fez, his sabre, 
 his horse, and that great, God-forsaken 
 country the desert. 
 
 He knew not how often delusions van- 
 ished and ideals were wrecked for poor 
 sailors and soldiers when they return to 
 the long-dreamed-of village which they 
 had left in their youth, and which, when 
 far away, they had only seen through the 
 enchanted prisms of sweet memory. 
 
 Alas ! what sadness, what weariness,
 
 262 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 often follow these poor exiles to their 
 own country ! 
 
 Young men like Jean, acclimated, ener- 
 vated in the land of Africa, have often 
 wept for the desolate banks of the Sen- 
 egal, the long rides on horseback, the free 
 life, the burning sun, and the limitless 
 horizon, for all of this is wanting else- 
 where ; arid when it no longer exists, in 
 the tranquillity of home, they feel the 
 need of the devouring sun, they sigh for 
 the desert, and are homesick for the end- 
 less sands.
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 263 
 
 IV. 
 
 In the meantime, Boubakar-Segou, a 
 powerful black king, was playing his 
 pranks in Diambour and the country of 
 Djiagabar. 
 
 An expedition of war was in the wind ; 
 it was whispered in official circles at Saint 
 Louis, and commented upon and discus- 
 sed in a thousand ways by the spahis, 
 marksmen, and the infantry troops of the 
 marines. It was noised abroad, and each 
 one expected to win his promotion a 
 medal or a grave. 
 
 Jean was about to finish his service, and 
 he was anxious to regain all he had lost 
 by his past misconduct. He had dreams 
 of wearing in his button-hole, on the yel- 
 * low ribbon of the brave, the military 
 medal. He wished, in bidding an eternal
 
 264 The Romance of a Spa hi. 
 
 farewell to Africa, to do some act of valor 
 that would make his name remembered 
 at the barracks of the spahis in that cor- 
 ner of the world where he had lived and 
 suffered so long. 
 
 Between the barracks, the officers of 
 the marines, and the Government officials 
 a rapid exchange of correspondence took 
 place ; and there arrived at the quarters 
 large sealed envelopes that greatly excited 
 the curiosity of the spahis. 
 
 A long, serious expedition was pre- 
 dicted. 
 
 The spahis sharpened and polished their 
 great sabres, refilled their powder-flasks, 
 and drank absinthe v/ith gay words, bra- 
 vados, and joyous anticipations. 
 
 One day about the first of October, 
 Jean was sent to the palace of the Gov- 
 ernment to carry an important document. 
 
 As he hastened along the long straight 
 street, which was as empty and as dead as
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 265 
 
 a street of Thebes or Memphis, he saw a 
 spahi approaching him, bearing in his hand 
 a letter. 
 
 It was Sergeant Muller, who was dis- 
 tributing among the spahis the mail from 
 France, which had arrived but an hour 
 ago with a caravan from Dakar. 
 
 " This is for you, Peyral," he said, as 
 he extended to him a letter bearing the 
 postmark of his native village. 
 
 The letter which Jean had been expect- 
 ing for a month burned his hand, and he 
 hesitated to open it, finally resolving to 
 finish his mission before reading it. 
 
 At last he arrived at the railings of the 
 Government house ; the gate was open, 
 and he entered. 
 
 In the garden there was the same lack 
 of animation he had observed in the 
 street. A great tame lioness lay extended 
 on the sands ; ostriches slept on the 
 ground, under the stately blue aloes, in
 
 266 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 the cool gray shadows. It was mid- 
 day ; no one was in sight; silence reigned, 
 the silence of a necropolis. The shadows 
 of the yellow palm trees fell on the great 
 white terraces and relieved the glare of the 
 burning sun. 
 
 Jean hastened in search of someone to 
 whom he might deliver the document. 
 He at last arrived at a bureau where he 
 found the Governor surrounded by the 
 different heads of the colonial service, 
 deeply engaged in discussing weighty 
 matters. 
 
 In exchange for the document which 
 Jean brought they gave him another, 
 addressed to the commandant of the 
 spahis. 
 
 It was a definite order to march, and 
 that afternoon it was communicated offi- 
 cially to all the troops at Saint Louis.
 
 The Romance of a Spa hi. 267 
 
 V. 
 
 When Jean found himself once more 
 in the solitary street he opened the letter, 
 trembling with a vague fear. 
 
 He found only the handwriting of his 
 old mother. The penmanship was more 
 irregular than ever, and it was stained 
 with tears. 
 
 He eagerly devoured the contents; it 
 bewildered him, and he leaned against a 
 wall for support. 
 
 All was over ! They had taken away 
 from him his betrothed, whom his old 
 parents had chosen for him the sweet- 
 heart of his boyhood : 
 
 The bans are published; the marriage will take 
 place in a month. I do not doubt it now. 
 Jeanne never comes to see us. I would not 
 write it to you sooner, my dear son, so as not to 
 trouble you when you could do nothing. We are
 
 268 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 in great despair. Yesterday, Peyral had a presenti- 
 ment that terrified us. It was that you would 
 never return from Africa. We are both old, my 
 dear Jean, and I beg you on my knees not to allow 
 this news to keep you from being prudent, and 
 that you will come home as soon as you expected. 
 If you disappoint us, I would rather die at once, 
 and so would Peyral. 
 
 His brain was full of incoherent and 
 tumultuous thoughts. He made a rapid 
 calculation of dates no, it was not over 
 yet. He would telegraph ! But why did 
 he dream of such a thing; there was no 
 telegraphic connection between France 
 and the land of the Senegal and what 
 more could he have told them than he 
 had already written? 
 
 O, that he might sail on some vessel 
 at that moment, leaving all behind him ! 
 That he might arrive in time to throw 
 himself at their feet with tears and suppli- 
 cations; he might be able to soften their 
 hearts.
 
 The Romance of a Spa hi. 269 
 
 What impossibilities, what impotency ! 
 All would be consummated ere he could 
 reach them to utter one cry of grief. 
 
 He felt that around his head there 
 were bands of iron, and his whole body 
 seemed to be undergoing some terrible 
 pressure. 
 
 He suddenly remembered that the doc- 
 ument consigned to him by the Governor 
 was an important one; so, piously kissing 
 the name of old Francoise, he folded the 
 letter and staggered along like a drunken 
 man. 
 
 Around him all was asleep in the great 
 calm of mid-day. The ancient Moorish 
 houses shone milk-white against the in- 
 tense blue of the skies. Now and then 
 there floated from behind the brick walls 
 the plaintive song of a negress. Little 
 negroes adorned with necklaces of coral 
 slept on the door-steps, their faces up- 
 turned to the blazing sun dark spots in 
 bold relief in that uniformity of light.
 
 270 The Romance of a Spaki. 
 
 Lizards glided across the smooth sands 
 of the streets, tracing thereon zigzags as 
 fantastic and complicated as Arabian 
 characters ; and in the distance could be 
 heard the noise of the pestle beating the 
 Kouss-Kouss, a sound so regular and mo- 
 notonous that it made a kind of silence, 
 dying away in the heavy strata of the 
 noonday atmosphere. 
 
 This tranquillity of overwhelmed na- 
 ture seemed to exult over him, and had 
 the effect of intensifying his grief. It 
 depressed him as some physical suffering; 
 it suffocated him as a winding-sheet of 
 lead ; all at once the whole country im- 
 pressed him as a vast tomb. 
 
 He awoke from his deep sleep of five 
 years, and there rose in his heart a great 
 revolt against all things in the world. 
 
 Why had they taken him from his vil- 
 lage, from his mother, to bury him, at the 
 most beautiful time of his life, in this 
 country of death !
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. ?. 7 1 
 
 What right had they to make him a 
 spahi- half African unhappy classifica- 
 tion ! A vagabond of the sword, forgot- 
 ten by all, and now, his crown of sorrows, 
 renounced by his betrothed ! 
 
 He was filled with a terrible rage ; he 
 felt a desire to torture, to strangle, to 
 crush someone in his powerful arms. 
 He could not weep, though he felt that 
 in that whole country he had not a friend, 
 not a heart comrade to whom he might 
 recount his sorrows. He was all alone, 
 amid the heat, the sands, and the mighty 
 silence.
 
 272 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 VI. . 
 
 Jean ran on to the barracks, and threw 
 to the first man he saw the papers that 
 had been entrusted to him ; then he rushed 
 into the open air and began to walk 
 swiftly and aimlessly his way of stifling 
 grief. 
 
 He crossed the bridge at Guet-n'dar 
 and turned southward toward the point 
 of Barbary ; as on that momentous night, 
 four years before, when he had fled in 
 anguish from the house of Cora. 
 
 But this time he was suffering the pro- 
 found and deep despair of a man whose 
 life was ruined. 
 
 For several hours he walked toward 
 the south, losing sight of Saint Louis and 
 the thatched roofs of the negro villages, 
 and finally, heart-sick and foot-sore, he
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 273 
 
 sank down at the foot of a sand-hill that 
 commanded a view of the sea. 
 
 He was confused and dazed by the 
 burning heat of the sun, and as he gazed 
 distractedly around him he discovered 
 that he had never been on this spot be- 
 fore. The hill was bristling with strange 
 tombstones, bearing inscriptions in the 
 language of Maghreb, and bones that long 
 ago had been unearthed by the jackals 
 lay bleaching in the sun. 
 
 The absolute aridity of the surround- 
 ing country was here and there relieved 
 by a few signs of verdure. Fresh, green 
 garlands of rope-weed crept in and out 
 of decayed skulls and entwined around 
 the crumbling bones of arms and legs, 
 now and then blossoming into clusters of 
 brilliant scarlet flowers. 
 
 Near by, other funeral hills rose out of 
 the smooth plains with lugubrious aspects, 
 and on the sea-shore were great flocks 
 
 18
 
 274 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 of pelicans of a pinkish-white color that 
 assumed singular forms and uncouth di- 
 mensions in the twilight mirage. 
 
 The sun dipped into the ocean ; a fresh 
 breeze rose; Jean commenced to read his 
 mother's letter once again : 
 
 Yesterday, my dear son, Peyral had a presenti- 
 ment which greatly terrified us; it was that you 
 would never return from Africa. We are both old, 
 and your poor mother begs you on her knees not 
 to allow this news to keep you from being pru- 
 dent, and that you will come home as soon as 
 you had expected. If you do not, I would rather 
 die at once, and so would Peyral. 
 
 Jean became convulsed with sobs; he 
 felt that his heart was broken, and all his 
 rebellious nature was spent in tears.
 
 TJie Romance of a Spaki. 275 
 
 VII. 
 
 Two days after this, all the marine 
 boats that were needed for the expedition 
 were grouped in the bend of the river 
 near Pop-n'kior, north of Saint Louis. 
 
 The embarkment of the troops took 
 place in sight of a vast concourse of peo- 
 ple. The wives and children of the sharp- 
 shooters crowded on the beach, howling 
 to the sun as if they had lost their senses. 
 Moorish caravans, just arrived from the 
 Soudan with their loads of incongruous 
 baggage and their beautiful wives, formed 
 a circle on the sands' waiting to see 
 them off. 
 
 About four o'clock, the flotilla which 
 was to ascend the river as far as Dialde, 
 in Gallam, was loaded with its cargo of 
 human beings, and set out on its journey 
 under the heat of a fiery sun.
 
 2 76 The Romance of a SpahL 
 
 Saint Louis soon disappeared in the 
 distance, its regular outlines becoming 
 dim and indistinct, and finally faded 
 away in pale-blue streaks on the yellow 
 sands. 
 
 Wide and salubrious plains stretched 
 out on each side of the river, and as far 
 as the eye could see there were deserts, 
 eternally warm, eternally gloomy. And 
 this was but the entrance to that immense 
 country forgotten of God the vestibule 
 to the vast solitudes of Africa. 
 
 Jean, with the other spahis, had em- 
 barked upon the Faleme, which sailed 
 rapidly ahead, and was soon two days in 
 advance. 
 
 Before his departure he had written a 
 reply to the poor old Francoise. Upon 
 reflection, he disdained to write to his 
 betrothed ; but in the letter to his mother 
 he poured out his whole soul, and said all 
 he could to comfort her and give her
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 277 
 
 hope and peace of mind. "After all," he 
 wrote, " she was too rich for us, and we 
 can easily find in France another young 
 girl who will marry me, and we will so 
 arrange it that we may all live together 
 in the old house, so that we may not be 
 separated from you. I have no other 
 thought now than the joyful anticipation 
 of seeing you, and in three months I will 
 return. I swear to you that I will never, 
 never leave you again." 
 
 This was really his intention, and every 
 day he thought much of his old parents; 
 but the idea of spending the rest of his 
 days without Jeanne Mery threw a thick 
 veil of mourning over the bright dreams 
 of his return. He felt that he no longer 
 had an object in life, and the future 
 lay before him, shrouded in the deepest 
 gloom. 
 
 By his side, on the deck of the Faleme, 
 was Nyaor-fall, the tall black spahi, and
 
 278 The Romance of a Spa hi. 
 
 to him he confided his troubles, as he was 
 his most faithful friend. 
 
 Nyaor scarcely understood these senti- 
 ments, as he had never loved. He pos- 
 sessed, it is true, under his thatched roof, 
 three wives whom he had purchased, but 
 he counted upon selling them as soon as 
 they ceased to please him. 
 
 Nevertheless, he comprehended that 
 his friend Jean was unhappy ; so he smiled 
 at him pleasantly, and in order to distract 
 his mind he related some very ludicrous 
 anecdotes of a certain race of negroes 
 who sleep standing.
 
 The Romance of a Spaki. 279 
 
 VIII. 
 
 The flotilla sailed up the river with all 
 possible speed, anchoring each day at 
 sunset, and resuming the route at day- 
 break. 
 
 At the first French post they took on 
 more black men and women and other 
 baggage. At Dagana they rested for two 
 days, and the Faleme received orders to 
 continue her route alone to Podor, the 
 last post before they entered the land of 
 Gallam, where there were already assem- 
 bled several companies of sharp-shooters. 
 
 The Faleme ascended the narrow yellow 
 stream that separates the Moorish Sahara 
 from that great mysterious continent in- 
 habited by the blacks, and was soon lost 
 in the interior. 
 
 Jean contemplated with deep melan-
 
 280 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 choly the solitudes through which they 
 were passing, following with his eye the 
 ever-receding horizon, and the Senegal, 
 that trailed behind them in the infinite 
 distance like a sinuous ribbon. 
 
 To him there seemed to be a curse on 
 all the land ; and as the great plains 
 unrolled before him, he was impressed 
 with an indefinable fear, as if the earth was 
 closing behind him, shutting off forever 
 his return. 
 
 On the gloomy banks of the river bald- 
 headed storks and large black vultures 
 stalked gravely, casting shadows like 
 those of human beings. Sometimes a 
 curious monkey darted out of the man- 
 drake thickets, startled at the sight of the 
 vessel threading its way up the silent river; 
 and now and then a fine white aigrette 
 or a martin-fisher, with gorgeous plumage 
 of blue and emerald, flew out of the reeds, 
 awakening in its flight the lazy alliga-
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 281 
 
 tors sleeping in the mud on the banks of 
 the river. On the southern bank, the 
 side inhabited by the sons of Ham, nu- 
 merous villages were scattered at intervals 
 in the depths of the desert plains. 
 
 As they neared these habitations of 
 men they could see from afar groups of 
 gigantic fan-shaped palms, a kind of fetich 
 tree that protects the towns. In the midst 
 of the vast naked plains these palms re- 
 mind one of giants keeping guard in the 
 desert. Their trunks are of a reddish 
 color, and are as smooth and straight as 
 Byzantine columns. On the top of each 
 tree is a meagre tuft of foliage, pointed 
 like the beams of a star. 
 
 On approaching nearer such a group 
 of palms, one never fails to discover a 
 negro ant-hill numbers of pointed gray 
 huts massed together on the yellow 
 sands. 
 
 Sometimes these African towns are
 
 282 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 quite extensive. They are always sur- 
 rounded by a tatas, a thick wall of mud 
 and wood, which protects them from the 
 invasion of their enemies, and from wild 
 beasts. 
 
 A white flag floating from a roof a 
 little elevated above the others indicates 
 the residence of the king. 
 
 At the gates of these ramparts there 
 appeared the sombre forms of old priests 
 and chiefs, covered with amulets, their 
 great black arms contrasting strangely 
 with their long white robes. 
 
 They gazed with awe at the Faleme 
 as she glided up the river, her guns and 
 battalions ready to fire at the least hostile 
 movement. 
 
 Why do these men dwell there in the 
 depths of an arid, desolate country, spend- 
 ing their whole lives with no knowledge 
 of the outside world ? They know noth- 
 ing of anything but the desert and the 
 implacable sun.
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 283 
 
 On the Sahara side of the river there 
 is the same look of desolation, the same 
 dreary waste of sand. 
 
 Sometimes they saw in the distance 
 dense clouds of smoke rising upward 
 from the fires of herbs lighted by the 
 Moors. The chains of red hills on the 
 horizon, seen through this smoke, had the 
 appearance of innumerable furnaces whose 
 flames seemed reflected on the surface of 
 great lakes, which, in this country of burn- 
 ing droughts and parched sands, are per- 
 petually pictured in the never-ceasing 
 mirage. 
 
 The landscape dappled and trembled 
 in the intense heat. The scene changed 
 as in a vision, and the eye grew weary in 
 watching the panorama. 
 
 Sometimes there appeared on the 
 banks men of a pure white race. They 
 were bronzed and savage, but their feat- 
 ures were regular and handsome, and
 
 284 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 their long flowing hair gave them the 
 appearance of Biblical prophets as they 
 stood there in the sun with uncovered 
 heads, clothed in long, dark-blue robes. 
 They were Moors of the tribe of Brak- 
 nas and Trarzas bandits, thieves, and 
 robbers, the most worthless of all the 
 African races.
 
 The Romance of a Spain. 285 
 
 IX. 
 
 The eastern breeze, like a powerful 
 breath from the Sahara, rose by degrees, 
 augmented in intensity in proportion to 
 its distance from the sea. A dry wind, 
 as hot as the air from a forge, blew from 
 the desert, scattering over everything a 
 fine powdered sand, and carrying along 
 with it the burning drought of Beled-el- 
 Ateuch. 
 
 Water had to be thrown continually on 
 the canvas that sheltered the spahis. 
 
 As they approached Podor, the largest 
 town on the river, the banks on the 
 Sahara side became more animated. It 
 was the entrance to the country of 
 Douiach, which has become enriched by 
 the cattle raids made by the Moors on 
 the black country. These Moors swim
 
 286 TJie Romance of a Spa/ii. 
 
 across the Senegal in long caravans, driv- 
 ing before them in the water the stolen 
 animals. 
 
 Encampments began to appear on the 
 plains; tents made of camel's hair were 
 stretched upon wooden poles, resembling 
 the great wings of bats spread out on the 
 sands, black and grotesque, in the heart 
 of that yellow country always uniformly 
 yellow. 
 
 There were increased life and anima- 
 tion everywhere, and crowds of people 
 thronged the banks of the river to watch 
 them pass. The copper-colored Moorish 
 women, their heads adorned with chaplets 
 of coral, jogged along on little hump- 
 backed cows, and capering behind them 
 on the backs of restive calves were chil- 
 dren, their heads covered with shaggy 
 tufts of hair that resembled mane, and 
 bodies as tawny and muscular as young 
 satyrs.
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 287 
 
 X. 
 
 Podor is an important French post on 
 the southern bank of the Senegal. There 
 is a great fortress there that is cracked 
 and blistered by the sun, for it is the hot- 
 test place on earth. 
 
 A long, almost shady street runs along 
 the river, built up of ancient sombre-look- 
 ing houses. On this street may be seen 
 French traders, jaundiced by the fever 
 and the enervating climate; also black 
 and Moorish merchants, who crouch there 
 on the sands, offering for sale ostrich 
 feathers, amulets, ivory, and gold-dust. 
 
 Back of this European street lies the 
 straw-thatched negro town, honey-combed 
 with long narrow streets. It is sur- 
 rounded by a thick wooden barricade, 
 and is fortified like a citadel.
 
 288 The Romance of a Spain. 
 
 The evening after their arrival, Jean 
 took a walk in company with his friend, 
 Nyaor-fall. The sad songs and strange 
 voices that floated from behind the walls, 
 the unusual scenes, and the hot wind that 
 burned in spite of night, filled the heart 
 of Jean with a vague terror, and an inex- 
 pressible anguish, produced by homesick- 
 ness and solitude, weighed upon his 
 spirits. He had never suffered so not 
 even at the distant post of Diakhalleme. 
 
 Around Podor were fields of millet, 
 brier-patches, stunted trees, and a few 
 herbs. Across the river, on the Moorish 
 side, lay the open desert. And there at 
 the entrance of that painful route which 
 loses itself in the sands as it trends north- 
 ward, was a sign-post bearing the pro- 
 phetic inscription, " The way to Algeria ! "
 
 The Romance of a Spa hi. 289 
 
 XI. 
 
 When Jean rejoined his companions on 
 the Faleme, it was five o'clock in the 
 morning, and a dull-red sun was rising 
 over the country of Douiach. The 
 Faleme was preparing to start. The 
 negresses were already on deck, wrapped 
 in their fantastic garments, and lying so 
 close together that one could see nothing 
 on the floor but a confused mass of stuff, 
 above which were thrown many black 
 arms encircled with bracelets. 
 
 As Jean passed among them, he felt 
 himself suddenly held back ; a pair of 
 supple arms entwined themselves around 
 him like serpents, and a woman clung to 
 him, embracing him. 
 
 "T'Jean! T'Jean!" said a queer little 
 voice, which he at once recognized. 
 
 19
 
 290 The Romance of a Spahi, 
 
 "T'Jean, I have followed you, fearing 
 that you might gain Paradise in the war. 
 T'Jean, will you not look at your little 
 son?" And the two black arms lifted 
 above her a little brown baby. 
 
 "My son!" repeated Jean, with the 
 brusqueness of a soldier, nevertheless 
 with a tremor in his voice. " My son ! 
 What is it you are saying, Fatou-gaye?" 
 
 "Alas, it is true!" continued he, in a 
 voice full of emotion, lowering his head 
 to regard the child. " It is undoubtedly 
 true, for the child is almost white ! " 
 
 The child was the image of Jean, hav- 
 ing inherited his rich dark complexion 
 and large solemn eyes. Holding out its 
 little hands to Jean, it frowned with an 
 expression already grave and questioning, 
 as if seeking to comprehend how the 
 blood of a mountaineer of the CeVennes 
 had become mingled with th-e impure 
 blood of a black race.
 
 The Romance of a Spa hi. 291 
 
 Jean was overcome by some hidden 
 mysterious power, and his heart was 
 troubled. He stooped and embraced his 
 little son with tenderness, and sentiments 
 heretofore unknown penetrated the very 
 depths of his soul. 
 
 The voice of Fatou-gaye awakened in 
 him a crowd of slumbering echoes. It 
 seemed to him that now they were bound 
 together by ties too powerful for even 
 separation to weaken. 
 
 And then, too, she had been faithful 
 to him in her way; and now he felt so 
 abandoned and forsaken by all. He per- 
 mitted her to place around his neck an 
 amulet, and he divided with her his 
 rations for the day.
 
 292 The Romance of a Spa hi. 
 
 XII. 
 
 The vessel continued its course ; the 
 river ran more southward, and the coun- 
 try changed. 
 
 Groves began to appear on the banks 
 of the river, and here and there were 
 mimosas, gum trees, tamarinds, with their 
 airy, graceful foliage, and green herbs 
 scattered over grassy meadows. 
 
 It was no longer the flora of the tropics, 
 but rather the delicate vegetation of a 
 northern climate. Aside from the ex- 
 cessive heat and monotonous silence, 
 there was nothing to remind one of the 
 heart of Africa. It was more like the 
 banks of some peaceful ri-ver of Europe. 
 In those groves a Watteau shepherdess 
 would not have been out of place. 
 
 Nevertheless, there were some negro
 
 The Romance of a Spa hi. 293 
 
 pastoral scenes which arrested the eye ; 
 some amorous African couples, bedecked 
 with beads and trinkets, herding their 
 lean oxen and goats, while near by were 
 innumerable gray alligators, half plunged 
 in the warm waters, asleep in the sun. 
 
 Fatou-gaye was smiling, with a singular 
 look of joy in her eyes, for she saw that 
 she was approaching the land of Gallam, 
 her own country. There was only one 
 thing to mar her bliss ; that was, in pass- 
 ing the grassy marshes and stagnant 
 pools bordered with mandrakes, her soul 
 was filled with inquietude for fear of 
 seeing protruding above the water the 
 snout of an hippopotamus, the sight of 
 which would be to her a sign of death. 
 
 What cunning, what perseverance, what 
 insinuation she must have employed to 
 obtain passage on the vessel upon which 
 Jean had embarked ! 
 
 Whence had she fled when she left the
 
 2 94 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 house of Coura-n'diaye? to what covert 
 had she flown to conceal herself till the 
 birth of the child of the spahi ? 
 
 But now she was happy; she was return- 
 ing to Gallam, and he was with her 
 her dream was accomplished.
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 295 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Dialde is situated at the confluence of 
 the Senegal and a nameless river that 
 flows from the south. It is a negro set- 
 tlement of little importance, defended by a 
 small block-house of French construction, 
 which resembles the detached forts of the 
 interior of Algeria. 
 
 It being the nearest point to the coun- 
 try of Boubakar-Segou, the French troops 
 were to encamp there and reunite with 
 the allied armies of Bambarras, in the 
 midst of friendly tribes. 
 
 The flat country around the village 
 had the same monotony and aridity that 
 characterize the borders of the lower 
 Senegal. 
 
 Nevertheless, there was some verdure, 
 some clumps of trees and small forests,
 
 296 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 Vhich reminded one that the country of 
 Gallam had been entered the wooded 
 regions of the centre of Africa.
 
 The Romance of a Spaki. 297 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Some timid old women of the allied 
 tribes brought information that they had 
 seen upon the sands near Dialde fresh 
 foot-prints of a numerous troop of infantry, 
 which could be none other than the army 
 of the great black king. 
 
 For several hours the three spahis 
 Jean, Nyaor, and Sergeant Muller had 
 traversed the plains east of the encamp- 
 ment without seeing a human foot-print, 
 or any trace of the passage of an army. 
 
 The sun revealed the foot-prints of every 
 beast of Africa, from the big round hole 
 scooped out by the heavy foot of the hip- 
 popotamus to the small delicate triangle 
 left by the hoof of the light gazelle as it 
 takes its nimble course across the sands. 
 
 The sands, indurated by the winter
 
 298 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 rains, preserve with perfect fidelity the 
 marks left upon them by the inhabitants 
 of the desert. One can see there the im- 
 press of the paws of the monkey, the 
 great swinging footsteps of the giraffe, 
 the tracks of lizards, of serpents, of lions, 
 of jackals, and the prodigious boundings 
 of the hunted deer. 
 
 What a terrible animation comes to 
 these desert plains at night-fall! As long 
 as the sun looks down upon them with its 
 flaming eye, all is silent; but what imagi- 
 nation can picture the fearful orgies of 
 that savage life ! 
 
 As the spahis rode along, the game 
 concealed in the bushes took a startled 
 flight, and flying about in the range of 
 theirguns were red partridges, blue and red 
 jackdaws, pheasants, gorgeous thrushes, 
 and tremendous buzzards. But the spahis 
 did not molest them, too engrossed in 
 their search for the foot-prints of men.
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 299 
 
 Evening approached; dense vapors hung 
 over the horizon ; the sun was dull and 
 heavy, with that immobility of aspect 
 which the imagination gives to the ante- 
 diluvian sunsets at an epoch when the 
 atmosphere, charged with vital substances, 
 suspended over the primitive world the 
 monstrous germs of mammoth and plesi- 
 osaurus. At last, sinking behind myste- 
 rious vapors, it became livid and rayless, 
 appearing through the vapors enlarged 
 and distorted, and then suddenly it was 
 extinguished. 
 
 Nyaor, who had been following Jean 
 and Muller with his habitual indifference 
 and silence, suddenly declared the recon- 
 noissance was growing imprudent, and 
 that his friends would be unnecessarily 
 rash if they continued it. 
 
 Almost any surprise or attack was to 
 be apprehended; besides, there were every- 
 where to be seen the fresh foot-prints of
 
 300 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 lions. Their horses had already begun 
 to smell the five claws so clearly defined 
 on the sands, and trembled with fear. 
 
 So they turned their bridles, and were 
 soon flying like the wind in the direction 
 of the block-house. In the distance they 
 could hear the terrible and cavernous 
 voice which the Moors compare to thunder 
 the voice of the lion in chase. They 
 were brave men, but the sound of that 
 voice gave them a kind of vertigo and 
 made them redouble their speed. Their 
 fear was contagious, and their steeds 
 bounded forward through the reeds and 
 bushes, which lashed their knees and im- 
 peded their flight. 
 
 But they soon perceived the river which 
 separated them from the encampment 
 and the inhabited world. The block- 
 house at Dialde gleamed in the last red 
 light of the sun as they swam the river 
 and entered the camp.
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 301 
 
 XV. 
 
 Although twilight was the most melan- 
 choly hour of the day, it brought to this 
 village an original and strange animation. 
 There was a confused murmur of voices 
 as the shepherds returned with their 
 flocks, the warriors sharpened and bur- 
 nished their prehistoric guns, and the 
 women prepared the Kouss-Kouss for the 
 army, all mingled with the bleating of 
 goats and the plaintive howlings of the 
 wolf-dogs. 
 
 Fatou-gaye sat at the entrance of the 
 block-house with her infant in her arms, 
 wearing the humble and suppliant air she 
 had assumed since her last meeting with 
 Jean. 
 
 And Jean, whose heart was sad and 
 lonely, came and sat beside her, and took
 
 302 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 his child upon his knee. Somehow he 
 felt cheered and softened by the presence 
 of his black family, and he \vas happy to 
 find at Dialde someone who loved him. 
 
 At a short distance from them the griots 
 were chanting- war-songs softly, in a sad 
 falsetto, accompanied by their little guitars 
 of two strings, which gave forth a sound 
 like the shrill noise made by a grass- 
 hopper. 
 
 They chanted African airs that harmo- 
 nized well with the desolation of the sur- 
 rounding country, but which have a cer- 
 tain charm an indescribable, monotonous 
 rhythm. 
 
 Jean's little son was a sweet babe, 
 though its expression was serious, and it 
 rarely ever smiled. Fatou-gaye had ar- 
 rayed it in a blue frock, with a necklace 
 of coral, like other Jaloff infants; but she 
 had not shorn off the little curls, as was 
 customary with the children of that
 
 The Romance of a Spa hi. 303 
 
 country, and they already lay upon his 
 brow in soft ringlets, which heightened 
 its resemblance to Jean. 
 
 The spahi remained at the door of the 
 block-house for a long time, playing with 
 the little boy, and the dying light of day 
 shone on this singular picture : Jean, in 
 all his manly beauty and warlike bearing, 
 holding in his arms the child with its tiny 
 angelic form ; Fatou-gaye on the ground 
 beside them, gazing at them with eyes full 
 of love and adoration; and behind them, in 
 the shadows, the sinister black musicians. 
 
 Fatou-gaye was in ecstasy at being so 
 near to Jean, and to know that she was 
 forgiven ; and she sat on the ground be- 
 fore him like a dog at the feet of its 
 master. 
 
 Poor Jean! he was still a boy, notwith- 
 standing his precocious physical develop- 
 ment, which had given him a mature and 
 serious manner, and he danced the little
 
 304 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 child upon his knee with all the awkward- 
 ness of a soldier. There was a fresh 
 young smile on his lips, but the child 
 would not smile, though he put his little 
 dimpled arms around the neck of his 
 father; he laid his head upon his shoulder 
 and regarded him with a look of deep 
 gravity. 
 
 At night-fall Jean installed Fatou-gaye 
 comfortably within the block-house, then 
 gave her all the money he had left, which 
 amounted to fifteen francs. 
 
 " Take this," he said, "and to-morrow 
 morning buy Kouss-Kouss for yourself and 
 fresh milk for the little one."
 
 The Romance of a Spaki. 305 
 
 XVI. 
 
 He then took his way back to the en- 
 campment to learn the news, and later on 
 to sleep. 
 
 In order to reach the tents of the 
 spahis it was necessary for him to pass 
 by the encampment of the allied tribes of 
 Bambarras. 
 
 The night was transparent and lumi- 
 nous, and the buzzing of insects was almost 
 deafening. In all the hollows of the sands 
 and on every herb were thousands and 
 thousands of crickets and grasshoppers, 
 and it seemed as if the air was full of an 
 infinite number of little bells and rattles, 
 which at one moment swelled forth 
 tumultuously, and after awhile would 
 almost die away, as if the crickets had 
 
 given the order to sing more softly. 
 20
 
 306 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 Jean walked along abstractedly, wholly 
 absorbed in his thoughts. He did not 
 look ahead of him, and all at once he 
 found himself encircled by a ring of whirl- 
 ing dancers, who sang softly and harmo- 
 niously as they glided around in a circle, 
 a favorite dance of Bambarras. 
 
 The dancers were all tall men, clothed 
 in long white robes, and on their heads 
 were white turbans with black horns. 
 
 They floated so softly and slowly around 
 him that it seemed to Jean as if it were a 
 dance of the fairies there in the starlight. 
 The only perceptible sound was the rus- 
 tling of their flowing draperies, whose 
 thousands of folds were spread out like 
 the wings of great white birds. They all 
 assumed different attitudes simultane- 
 ously, balancing themselves on the point 
 of the toe, and swaying gently backward 
 and forward. 
 
 The noise of the tam-tam was faint
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 307 
 
 and muffled in the distance, and the sad 
 notes of the flutes and ivory trumpets 
 seemed veiled and far away. 
 
 As they whirled around Jean they in- 
 clined their heads in sign of recognition, 
 and smilingly whispered: 
 
 " T'Jean, T'Jean, enter the dance!" 
 
 Jean recognized nearly all of them, 
 even in that strange raiment. They were 
 the black spahis and sharp-shooters, who 
 had assumed the white robe and uncouth 
 head-dress of the Temba-sembe of their 
 festivals. 
 
 They whirled around and around, keep- 
 ing time to the weird, monotonous music, 
 which seemed to thrill them as a magic 
 incantation. 
 
 As they passed him, Jean nodded his 
 head and smilingly called their names. 
 
 " Good evening, Niodagal! Good even- 
 ing, Imobe-Fafandon ! Good evening, 
 Demba-Taco, and Samba-fall ! Good
 
 308 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 evening, tall Nyaor!" For Nyaor was 
 there, the grandest of them all. 
 
 He hastened onward, and endeavored 
 to disentangle himself from the long chain 
 of dancers that coiled and uncoiled itself 
 about him. The night, the dancers, the 
 low faint music impressed him strangely, 
 as if they belonged to another world. 
 
 But they repeated their invitation, 
 "T'Jean, T'Jean, enter the dance!" float- 
 ing around him like spirits, amusing them- 
 selves by keeping him entangled in the 
 mystic circle, which widened as he walked 
 along.
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 309 
 
 XVII. 
 
 As Jean lay under his tent that night, 
 his brain was busy with plans for the 
 future. 
 
 He determined to return at once to 
 see his old parents he would allow noth- 
 ing to defer his departure ; but he would 
 return to Africa to find his son, for he felt 
 that he really loved him with his whole 
 heart, and he would never abandon him. 
 
 Near by, in the camps of the Bam- 
 barras, he could hear the voices of the 
 griots singing their plaintive, consecrated 
 war-songs, soothing the first dreams of 
 the black warriors. They entreated them 
 to be brave, and to load their carbines 
 heavily on the day of the fight, which was 
 soon to dawn upon them, for Boubakar- 
 Segou was not far away.
 
 310 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 What would he do at Saint Louis when 
 he returned to find his little child ? 
 
 Would he reenlist, or would he try his 
 fortune in some other venturesome pro- 
 ceeding ? 
 
 He might become a trader on the 
 river. But no ; he felt an invincible aver- 
 sion for any occupation but that of the 
 field and of arms. 
 
 At last the noises of life in the village 
 of Dialde had ceased, and the encamp- 
 ment was silent. Far away in the dis- 
 tance could be heard the roar of the lion, 
 and that most lugubrious sound on earth 
 the yelping of the jackals. It was a 
 funereal accompaniment to the dreams of 
 the poor spahi. 
 
 Overcome with the fatigues and advent- 
 ures of the day, Jean soon fell asleep, 
 still dreaming of the future. 
 
 But in his dreams he could see the 
 dancers whirling slowly around him, pass-
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 311 
 
 ing and repassing him with mute gest- 
 ures and languishing attitudes, keeping 
 time to that sweet, unearthly music. 
 " T'Jean, T'Jean, enter the dance !" 
 Their heads, which were inclined to 
 salute him, seemed to bend beneath their 
 heavy head-dress. They made horrible 
 grimaces and assumed ghostly forms, and 
 bending over him with a knowing air, 
 upon their lips the smile of phantoms, 
 they whispered softly: 
 
 "T'Jean, T'Jean, enter the dance!" 
 And just as he seemed about to yield 
 to this weird invitation, he fell into a 
 deep and dreamless sleep.
 
 312 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 At three o'clock the morning of the 
 great day, the day of the combat, all was 
 in a state of agitation and excitement at 
 the encampment at Dialde. The spahis, 
 sharp-shooters, and allied troops were all 
 preparing to march with their arms and 
 munitions of war. 
 
 The Mahometan priests were repeat- 
 ing their long prayers and distributing 
 talismans. 
 
 By order of the chiefs, the black war- 
 riors had loaded their carbines with 
 lead almost to the muzzles, as they did 
 on the days of all great battles ; and it 
 often happens, in the wars in black coun- 
 tries, the whole load is scattered at the 
 first discharge. 
 
 They were to march in the direction of
 
 The Romance of a Spain. 313 
 
 the village of Djidiam, where, on the in- 
 formation of native spies, Boubakar- 
 Segou was entrenched with his army 
 behind the thick walls of mud and wood. 
 
 Djidiam was the strongest fortress of 
 this almost legendary king, who was the 
 terror of the surrounding country; a sort 
 of myth, whose strength lay in his flight 
 and concealment in the impenetrable re- 
 cesses of that murderous country where 
 he dwelt undiscovered. 
 
 That afternoon they proposed to camp 
 under the great trees, not far from the 
 enemy's quarters, in order to fall upon 
 Djidiam at night, and set fire to the vil- 
 lage, which would burn under the clear 
 heavens like an auto-da-fe of straw. Then 
 they would return, victorious, to Saint 
 Louis before the fatal fever had decimated 
 their ranks. 
 
 During the night, Jean wrote a tender 
 letter to his old parents, and sent it with
 
 314 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 the other mail on the Faleme, which that 
 evening would descend the river. 
 
 A little before sunrise, he embraced 
 his infant, asleep on the arm of Fatou- 
 gaye, then mounted his horse.
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 3 1 5 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Early in the morning, Fatou-gaye also 
 started out, with her infant on her back. 
 
 She went in the direction of Nialoum- 
 
 bae, a village of an allied tribe, where 
 
 dwelt an old Mahometan priest who was 
 
 famous in all the country around for fort- 
 
 * une-telling and soothsaying. 
 
 She was conducted to the hut of the 
 centenarian, whom she found reclining on 
 a mat, as if dying, muttering prayers. 
 
 They had a long interview, and the 
 priest gave her a small leather bag, which 
 evidently contained something precious, 
 for she concealed it carefully in her 
 bosom. 
 
 He then gave the infant a beverage 
 which put him into a deep sleep. 
 
 In payment, Fatou-gaye gave him three
 
 3 1 6 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 large pieces of silver, the last franc of 
 poor Jean. She then enveloped her little 
 son, who seemed to sleep a magical sleep, 
 in a blue embroidered cloth, and bearing 
 him upon her back, she walked in the 
 direction of the woods where the troops 
 would encamp in the evening.
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 3 1 7 
 
 XX. 
 
 Seven o'clock in the morning. An 
 obscure spot in the country of Diambour. 
 On one side are grassy marshes filled 
 with herbs and stagnant water, and low 
 hills bound the horizon ; on the opposite 
 side, as far as the eye can. see, are the 
 great plains of Dialakar. 
 
 All is silent and desolate. 
 
 Jean, with ten or twelve other spahis 
 in charge of an adjutant, have been sent 
 out to reconnoitre. 
 
 In the air there was no presage of death, 
 nothing funereal. The sun mounted 
 tranquilly in the heavens. The herbs 
 and bushes in the marshes still glittered 
 with the dew of night, and butterflies 
 with gorgeous wings flitted above the 
 water-lilies that unfolded their snow-white 
 blossoms on the pools of water.
 
 3 1 8 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 The heat soon became oppressive, and 
 the horses stretched out their necks to 
 drink, sniffing the stagnant waters with 
 dilated nostrils. 
 
 The spahis paused for a moment to 
 hold council, and dismounted to moisten 
 their hats and bathe their heated brows. 
 Suddenly, in the distance they heard a 
 sound like the noise of many drums 
 beating simultaneously. 
 
 "The great tam-tams!" said Sergeant 
 Muller, who had often seen war in the 
 black country. 
 
 And instinctively those who had dis- 
 mounted ran to their horses. 
 
 But a black head rose near them from 
 the bushes ; it was an old priest, who 
 made a strange sign with his lean arm, 
 as if a magic order addressed to the reeds 
 of the marshes, and a shower of lead fell 
 upon the spahis. 
 
 The weapons aimed deliberately from
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 3 1 9 
 
 the security of this ambuscade took 
 deadly effect. Five or six horses fell, 
 mortally wounded, and others, surprised 
 and affrighted, reared and plunged, tram- 
 pling under foot their bleeding riders. 
 
 Jean was unhorsed, and fell to the 
 ground with a ball in his breast. 
 
 At the same time, forty hostile heads 
 emerged from the high bushes, and forty 
 black demons reeking with mud arose, 
 grinding their white teeth like enraged 
 monkeys. 
 
 O, heroic combat, that a Homer might 
 have sung, but which remains obscure 
 forever, forgotten, like many another 
 struggle in the far-distant Africa ! 
 
 They performed prodigies of strength 
 and valor, the poor spahis, in their last 
 defense. The struggle inflamed them, as 
 it ever does when men are courageous by 
 nature and born brave. They sold their 
 lives dearly; but a few years only will
 
 320 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 elapse at Saint Louis ere they are for- 
 gotten. Who will perpetuate their names, 
 the names of those who fell that day in 
 the far-off country of Diambour, on the 
 plains of Dialakar ? 
 
 In the meantime, the noise of the tam- 
 tam drew nearer and nearer, and sud- 
 denly the spahis, as if in a dream, saw 
 passing over the hill a great black army 
 of half-naked warriors, glittering- with 
 beads and trinkets, running in the di- 
 rection of Dialde in detached crowds. 
 Enormous tam-tams, gongs of war, which 
 four men could hardly drag along ; lean 
 horses of the desert, full of fire and fury, 
 their harness plated with copper which 
 gleamed in the blazing sun, their manes 
 and tails as red as blood all made the 
 scene fantastic and demoniacal ; an 
 African nightmare, as fleeting as the 
 wind ! 
 
 Boubakar-Segou was passing by!
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 3 2 i 
 
 He was going to subdue the French 
 columns. 
 
 They passed along without noticing 
 the spahis, leaving them to the ambushed 
 troops who had already overwhelmed 
 them. 
 
 Some of the spahis pushed forward 
 from the bushes on the edge of the water, 
 and fled onward over the burning sands, 
 but they were soon exhausted by the ter- 
 rible heat. Not being able to reload 
 their guns, they fought with their knives, 
 kicked and upset their opponents with 
 their feet, and scratched and bit them. 
 
 Jean was attacked by two black fiends, 
 who seemed to be incensed and enraged 
 at his superior strength. He threw them 
 to the ground repeatedly in his fury, but 
 they arose each time and confronted him 
 with increased rage. 
 
 As he lay there, dazed and confused, 
 
 grasping their oily black limbs with bleed- 
 21
 
 322 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 ing hands, he witnessed the last terrible 
 scenes : H is dying comrades fallen around 
 him; the great army of the black king in 
 the distance, flying over the burning sands ; 
 at his side the handsome Muller, vomit- 
 ing blood, the death-rattle already in his 
 throat ; and a little further on, the tall 
 black form of Nyaor, who was endeavor- 
 ing to open a way in the direction of 
 Salde, mowing through the crowd of 
 black demons with terrific blows of his 
 sabre. 
 
 Finally, Jean grew weaker, and suc- 
 cumbed to his opponents. They threw 
 him on his back, holding him by his arms, 
 and one of them pressed against his 
 breast a great iron knife. 
 
 It was a moment of terrible anguish 
 for Jean. There was no human succor 
 near; his comrades had all fallen; he was 
 alone and forsaken. The thick cloth of 
 his red coat and the coarse linen of his
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 323 
 
 soldier's shirt resisted the entrance of the 
 knife ; but the black men pressed it very 
 hard, and Jean uttered a loud, hoarse cry 
 as the blade, with a horrible grinding noise, 
 plunged into his chest. Then they drew 
 it out with both hands, and kicked his 
 body from them ; and raising a shout 
 of victory, they turned in the direction of 
 the army, and in a moment had gone like 
 the wind.
 
 324 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 The two armies met; it was a bloody 
 battle, but it made little noise in France. 
 Such combats, occurring in far-distant 
 countries, pass unnoticed by the crowd, 
 and only those who mourn the loss of a 
 brother, son, or lover remember them. 
 
 The French troops were weakening, 
 when, almost at the end of the action, 
 Boubakar-Segou received a load of buck- 
 shot in his right temple. The brains of 
 the black king oozed out as white as 
 milk, and he fell, surrounded by his 
 priests, entangled in his long chaplet of 
 amulets, the iron cymbals of war clashing 
 furiously in his dying ears. His death 
 was the signal for retreat to his followers, 
 and they fled precipitately into the impen- 
 etrable country of the interior.
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 325 
 
 When the French troops returned to 
 Saint Louis they carried with them the 
 bloody head-band of the rebel chief. It 
 was burned and riddled by bullets, and 
 attached to it was a long string of talis- 
 mans and embroidered bags containing 
 mysterious powders, cabalistic figures, and 
 prayers in the language of Maghreb. 
 
 The death of Boubakar-Segou had a 
 considerable moral effect on the natives, 
 and this combat was followed by the sub- 
 mission of most of the insurgent chiefs. 
 
 It was a victory, and on their return to 
 Saint Louis there were several promotions 
 and decorations; but the ranks of the poor 
 spahis were sadly reduced.
 
 o 
 
 26 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Left alone on the sands, with the dew 
 of death gathering on his brow, poor 
 Jean crawled painfully along till he 
 reached a tamarind tree, and lying down 
 in the shade of its foliage, waited to die. 
 
 His throat was agitated with convulsive 
 movements, and he knew that his end was 
 approaching. He suffered terribly from 
 thirst, and the arid sands drank up the 
 blood that flowed from his wounds. 
 
 He had strange visions. He saw famil- 
 iar faces ; the chain of the Cevennes, 
 his beloved home in the purple shadows 
 of the mountains. Once more he walked 
 with his dear old mother, holding her 
 hand, through the mossy paths, as in his 
 childhood. O, for one caress from his 
 mother ! for the touch of her hand on his
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 327 
 
 brow ! O, for one draught of water from 
 the limpid stream that ran through the 
 forest, to cool his parched throat and 
 burning brain ! 
 
 Was this the end of all things ? Was 
 he to die here, all alone, under the blazing 
 sun on the desert sands? Was he never 
 to hear his mother's voice again never to 
 see her face ? He raised himself up, for 
 he did not wish to die. 
 
 " T'Jean, T'Jean, enter the dance !" 
 
 There seemed to float before his eyes, 
 as if in a terrible whirlwind, the phantom 
 dancers, mounting in rapid circles and 
 quickly vanishing in the embrace of the 
 blue ether. 
 
 Jean longed to follow them, but they 
 floated away swiftly, like smoke before 
 the wind. 
 
 Suddenly he felt that he was being 
 lifted up as if on wings, and he thought 
 it was the supreme moment of death. It
 
 328 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 was only a contraction of the muscles, a 
 horrible spasm of grief. 
 
 A jet of blood flowed from his mouth, 
 and hissing against his temple he seemed 
 to hear a voice : 
 
 " T'Jean, T'Jean, enter the dance !" 
 
 At last he grew calmer, and sank down 
 exhausted upon his bed of sand. 
 
 Memories of his childhood crowded 
 through his brain, strangely vivid and 
 clear. He heard the old songs with 
 which his mother had lulled him to sleep 
 in his little cradle ; suddenly the village 
 clock sounded noisily in his ears, and 
 then in the midst of the gloomy desert 
 he seemed to hear the Angelus ! 
 
 Tears rolled down his bronzed cheeks; 
 the prayers of his youth revisited his 
 memory, and he prayed once more with 
 the fervor of a little child. In his hands 
 he held the image of the Virgin which 
 his mother had placed around his neck!
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 329 
 
 He had the strength to carry it to his lips. 
 He kissed it passionately, and with his 
 whole soul he prayed to that mother of 
 griefs to whom his mother knelt each 
 evening. 
 
 Radiant dreams, illusions, and the 
 forms of those who had long been dead, 
 appeared to him; and then in the crush- 
 ing silence of that mighty solitude, he 
 murmured faintly, again and again, " Meet 
 me in heaven! meet me in heaven!" 
 
 It was now past mid-day; Jean was 
 suffering less. 
 
 The desert, under the intense heat of 
 the tropical luminary, appeared to him as 
 a great white furnace whose heat no 
 longer burned him. His chest dilated as 
 if to inhale more air, his mouth opened 
 for the last time, and there, under the 
 fierce, blazing light of the glowing sun, 
 he passed away, gently, peacefully.
 
 330 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 On Fatou-gaye's return from the vil- 
 lage of the old priest, the women of the 
 allied tribes told her that the combat was 
 over. She hastened to the encampment, 
 panting and exhausted, dragging- her 
 weary footsteps painfully over the burn- 
 ing sands. 
 
 On her back she bore her sleeping in- 
 fant, still enveloped in the piece of blue 
 cloth. She had carefully concealed in her 
 bosom the mysterious leather bag given 
 to her by the old priest. As she neared 
 the encampment she saw the Mussulman 
 Nyaor-fall, who regarded her gravely as 
 she approached him. 
 
 In the language of his country she 
 spoke to him three words: 
 
 "Where is he?"
 
 The Romance of a Spahi. 331 
 
 And Nyaor with a mournful gesture 
 extended his arm in the direction of the 
 lonely plains of Dialakar. 
 
 "Yonder," he said; "he has gained 
 Paradise."
 
 332 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 All day long Fatou-gaye wandered 
 about feverishly in the thickets on the 
 sand, still carrying on her back her sleep- 
 ing child. She advanced, returned, and 
 sometimes ran about with the excited 
 movement of a panther which has lost its 
 young. She sounded the bushes, pushed 
 aside the thorny briers, searching every- 
 where under the scorching sun. 
 
 At three o'clock, far away on the arid 
 plains she perceived the dead body of a 
 horse ; then a red coat then two then 
 three. It was the scene of the attack. 
 
 Here and there the light shadows of 
 the tamarind and mimosa rested on the 
 dry, parched earth, and afar off, across 
 the barren, limitless waste, could be seen 
 the silhouette of a village, its pointed roofs
 
 The Romance of a SpaJii. 333 
 
 clearly defined against the deep-blue of 
 the horizon. 
 
 Fatou-gaye paused, trembling, terrified. 
 She saw him lying there with outstretch- 
 ed arms, his mouth open, his face up- 
 turned to the burning sun. She repeated 
 a kind of invocation, a pagan rite, touch- 
 ing the amulets suspended from her neck, 
 speaking in a whisper ; her eyes were 
 haggard and bloodshot. 
 
 After awhile she saw coming toward 
 her from the distant village a number of 
 old women of the hostile tribes. These 
 old negresses were hideously ugly, and as 
 they approached the bodies of the spahis 
 the trinkets and glass beads with which 
 they were profusely adorned jingled 
 noisily. They moved the bodies about 
 with their feet, and grinning and chatter- 
 ing like monkeys, they violated the dead 
 with insulting buffoonery. 
 
 They tore the gilt buttons from the gay
 
 334 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 uniforms, decorating their woolly heads 
 with them, and gathered up the steel spurs, 
 caps, and belts. 
 
 Fatou-gaye, crouching like a cat ready 
 to spring, was concealed among the 
 bushes. When she saw them turn toward 
 the body of Jean she bounded forward, 
 uttering a cry like a wild animal, and 
 cursed the wojnen in an unknown tongue. 
 Her child, awakening, clung terrified to the 
 back of the enraged mother. 
 
 The old women were so frightened at 
 the sight of her that they fled. They 
 were already laden with spoils, so they 
 moved off, thinking to return on the mor- 
 row. 
 
 Speaking words that Fatou-gaye could 
 not comprehend, they would go a short 
 distance and then return to taunt her, 
 laughing ferociously and gesticulating 
 like chimpanzees. 
 
 When Fatou-gaye was once more alone
 
 The Romance of a Spa hi. 335 
 
 she knelt by the side of Jean and called 
 him by his name repeatedly, " T'Jean ! 
 T'Jean ! " in a shrill voice that sounded in 
 the solitude like the voice of an ancient 
 priestess calling the dead. She crouched 
 there under the implacable sun of Africa, 
 her eyes fixed on the great sombre hori- 
 zon, for she was afraid to look at the 
 body of Jean. 
 
 Above her the vultures were flying 
 boldly, beating the heavy air with their 
 large black wings. They hovered over 
 the dead bodies, but dared not touch them; 
 they were too fresh. 
 
 Fatou-gaye saw the image of the Vir- 
 gin in the hand of Jean, and she under- 
 stood that he had died praying. She 
 also had an image of the Virgin, and a 
 scapulary, among the charms around her 
 neck. At Saint Louis a Catholic priest 
 had baptized her, but she had no faith in 
 them.
 
 336 The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 So she took an amulet of leather, the 
 one given to her long ago by her mother 
 in the land of Gallam, and kissing it ten- 
 derly, for it was her favorite charm, she 
 placed it around the neck of Jean. 
 
 Then she took her little child to stran- 
 gle it; but not wishing to hear its cries, 
 she filled its mouth with sand, and in a 
 rage of grief and despair she dug a hole 
 in the sand and* buried it there, pressing 
 it very hard until the vigorous little limbs 
 stiffened and fell still and helpless. Then 
 she threw herself upon the body of 
 Jean. 
 
 Thus died the child of Jean Peyral. 
 Mysterious Providence ! Why was life 
 given it? What did it come to find upon 
 this earth, and whence did it return ? 
 
 Fatou-gaye wept tears of blood, and 
 her heart-rending groans resounded over 
 the plains of Dialakar. At last she took 
 from the leather bag she had obtained
 
 The Romance of a Spain, 337 
 
 from the old priest a bitter powder. She 
 swallowed it, and her agony began. 
 
 For a long time she lay there strug- 
 gling under the blazing sun, in horrible 
 convulsions, clutching her throat with her 
 fingers, and tearing her hair so gaily 
 adorned with amber and coral. 
 
 And the vultures hovered above her, 
 waiting to see her die. 
 
 22
 
 338 The Romance of a Spaki. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 At sunset on the plains of Dialakar she 
 lay extended on the body of Jean, clasp- 
 ing in her stiffened arms the body of her 
 little child. 
 
 And the night descended warm and 
 starry on those forms resting so peace- 
 fully there after their savage life de- 
 scended silently, mysteriously over all the 
 gloomy land of Africa ! 
 
 That same evening the nuptial cortege 
 of Jeanne Mery passed before the house 
 of the old Peyrals at the foot of the 
 Cevennes.
 
 Tke Romance of a Spahi. 339 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 APOTHEOSIS. 
 
 At first it was but a groan in the dis- 
 tance, at the extreme end of the horizon 
 of the desert, then the lugubrious concert 
 sounded nearer and nearer the weird 
 yelpings of the jackal, the sharp, fierce 
 cries of the hyena. 
 
 Poor old mother! That human form 
 vaguely defined in the dim starlight, 
 lying there in the depths of that fearful 
 solitude, mouth gaping, arms extended 
 under the blue heavens, who is asleep 
 there at the hour when all the savage 
 beasts are awake and roaming, who will 
 never rise again poor old mother, poor 
 old woman, it is your son ! 
 
 By the light of the stars the famished 
 band, grazing the thickets and jumping
 
 34-Q The Romance of a Spahi. 
 
 over the high bushes, rush upon the 
 bodies of the spahis, and begin the repast 
 desired by blind nature the living in one 
 form or another feeding upon the dead. 
 
 In his hand the man still held the 
 image, the woman her charms of leather. 
 Guard them well, O precious amulets ! 
 
 To-morrow the vultures will continue 
 the work of destruction ; then their bones 
 will be dragged over the sands by all the 
 beasts of the desert, at the mercy of the 
 winds and grasshoppers. 
 
 Old parents seated by your fireside in 
 your humble cottage far away old father 
 bent with age, dreaming of your son, the 
 handsome youth in the gay uniform old 
 mother who prays each evening for the 
 absent one wait for your son await 
 forever the coming of the spahi !
 
 UCSB LIBRARf 
 
 University of ^gjjj* 
 
 luff! lOIS III HSl M*l W 
 
 from which it was borrowed