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Page 1
"'How "well known"?' I said. 'If you would only explain me the
mystery, I should be vastly obliged.'
"After a few minutes, during which we made acquaintance, we went to
dine at the first restauranteur's whose shop caught our eye. At
dessert a bottle of champagne completely refreshed and brightened up
the memories of this odd old soldier. He told me his story, and I saw
that he was right when he exclaimed, 'Well known.'"
When she got home, she teased me to that extent, was so charming, and
made so many promises, that I consented to communicate to her the
confidences of the old soldier. Next day she received the following
episode of an epic which one might call "The French in Egypt."
During the expedition in Upper Egypt under General Desaix, a Provencal
soldier fell into the hands of the Maugrabins, and was taken by these
Arabs into the deserts beyond the falls of the Nile.
In order to place a sufficient distance between themselves and the
French army, the Maugrabins made forced marches, and only halted when
night was upon them. They camped round a well overshadowed by palm
trees under which they had previously concealed a store of provisions.
Not surmising that the notion of flight would occur to their prisoner,
they contented themselves with binding his hands, and after eating a
few dates, and giving provender to their horses, went to sleep.
When the brave Provencal saw that his enemies were no longer watching
him, he made use of his teeth to steal a scimiter, fixed the blade
between his knees, and cut the cords which prevented him from using
his hands; in a moment he was free. He at once seized a rifle and a
dagger, then taking the precautions to provide himself with a sack of
dried dates, oats, and powder and shot, and to fasten a scimiter to
his waist, he leaped on to a horse, and spurred on vigorously in the
direction where he thought to find the French army. So impatient was
he to see a bivouac again that he pressed on the already tired courser
at such speed, that its flanks were lacerated with his spurs, and at
last the poor animal died, leaving the Frenchman alone in the desert.
After walking some time in the sand with all the courage of an escaped
convict, the soldier was obliged to stop, as the day had already
ended. In spite of the beauty of an Oriental sky at night, he felt he
had not strength enough to go on. Fortunately he had been able to find
a small hill, on the summit of which a few palm trees shot up into the
air; it was their verdure seen from afar which had brought hope and
consolation to his heart. His fatigue was so great that he lay down
upon a rock of granite, capriciously cut out like a camp-bed; there he
fell asleep without taking any precaution to defend himself while he
slept. He had made the sacrifice of his life. His last thought was one
of regret. He repented having left the Maugrabins, whose nomadic life
seemed to smile upon him now that he was far from them and without
help. He was awakened by the sun, whose pitiless rays fell with all
their force on the granite and produced an intolerable heat--for he
had had the stupidity to place himself adversely to the shadow thrown
by the verdant majestic heads of the palm trees. He looked at the
solitary trees and shuddered--they reminded him of the graceful shafts
crowned with foliage which characterize the Saracen columns in the
cathedral of Arles.
But when, after counting the palm trees, he cast his eyes around him,
the most horrible despair was infused into his soul. Before him
stretched an ocean without limit. The dark sand of the desert spread
further than eye could reach in every direction, and glittered like
steel struck with bright light. It might have been a sea of
looking-glass, or lakes melted together in a mirror. A fiery vapor
carried up in surging waves made a perpetual whirlwind over the
quivering land. The sky was lit with an Oriental splendor of
insupportable purity, leaving naught for the imagination to desire.
Heaven and earth were on fire.
The silence was awful in its wild and terrible majesty. Infinity,
immensity, closed in upon the soul from every side. Not a cloud in the
sky, not a breath in the air, not a flaw on the bosom of the sand,
ever moving in diminutive waves; the horizon ended as at sea on a
clear day, with one line of light, definite as the cut of a sword.
The Provencal threw his arms round the trunk of one of the palm trees,
as though it were the body of a friend, and then, in the shelter of
the thin, straight shadow that the palm cast upon the granite, he
wept. Then sitting down he remained as he was, contemplating with
profound sadness the implacable scene, which was all he had to look
upon. He cried aloud, to measure the solitude. His voice, lost in the
hollows of the hill, sounded faintly, and aroused no echo--the echo
was in his own heart. The Provencal was twenty-two years old:--he
loaded his carbine.
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