He smiled.

"I don't dislike such evidence of a good memory," he said simply.

He was in excellent, too excellent spirits.

"Don't blame me. I set out for a short ride as usual. Then, the moon
rose. And then, I recognized the country. It is just where, twenty
years ago next November, Flatters followed the way to his destiny in
an exaltation which the certainty of not returning made keener and
more intense."

"Strange state of mind for a chief of an expedition," I murmured.

"Say nothing against Flatters. No man ever loved the desert as he
did ... even to dying of it."

"Palat and Douls, among many others, have loved it as much," I
answered. "But they were alone when they exposed themselves to it.
Responsible only for their own lives, they were free. Flatters, on the
other hand, was responsible for sixty lives. And you cannot deny that
he allowed his whole party to be massacred."

The words were hardly out of my lips before I regretted them, I
thought of Chatelain's story, of the officers' club at Sfax, where
they avoided like the plague any kind of conversation which might lead
their thoughts toward a certain Morhange-Saint-Avit mission.

Happily I observed that my companion was not listening. His brilliant
eyes were far away.