which attach to your office. He is not obliged to know that the
officer who abandons a post like Hassi-Inifel, if it is only for two
hours, risks not finding much left on his return. The Chaamba
brigands, my dear sir, love firearms, and for the sake of the sixty
muskets in your racks, I am sure they would not scruple to make an
officer, whose otherwise excellent record is well known to me, account
for his absence to a court-martial. Come with me, if you please. We
will finish the little inspection I began too rapidly a little while
ago."

He was already on the stairs. I followed in his footsteps. Chatelain
closed the order of march. I heard him murmuring, in a tone which you
can imagine:

"Well, we are in for it now!"




II

CAPTAIN DE SAINT-AVIT


A few days sufficed to convince us that Chatelain's fears as to our
official relations with the new chief were vain. Often I have thought
that by the severity he showed at our first encounter Saint-Avit
wished to create a formal barrier, to show us that he knew how to keep
his head high in spite of the weight of his heavy past. Certain it is
that the day after his arrival, he showed himself in a very different