the train stopped and the _apache_ was persuaded to go out and get his
prisoner's canteen filled. Then we drank again.

He smiled as he told me he was getting ten years. Three years at solitary
confinement was it, and seven working in a gang on the road? That would
not be so bad. He wished he was not married, had not a little child. "The
bachelors are lucky in this war"--he smiled.

Now the gendarmes began cleaning their beards, brushing their stomachs,
spreading their legs, collecting their baggage. The reddish eyes, little
and cruel, woke from the trance of digestion and settled with positive
ferocity on their prey. "You will have no use...."

Silently the sensitive, gentle hands of the divine prisoner undid the
blanket-cover. Silently the long, tired, well-shaped arms passed it
across to the brigand at my left side. With a grunt of satisfaction the
brigand stuffed it in a large pouch, taking pains that it should not
show. Silently the divine eyes said to mine: "What can we do, we
criminals?" And we smiled at each other for the last time, the eyes and
my eyes.

A station. The _apache_ descends. I follow with my numerous _affaires_.
The divine man follows me--the v-f-g him.

The blanket-roll containing my large fur-coat got more and more unrolled;
finally I could not possibly hold it.

It fell. To pick it up I must take the sack off my back.

Then comes a voice, "allow me if you please, monsieur"--and the sack has