acquiesced the neighbour, finding himself the more immediate recipient of the information.
"But yes—very. Any time you may be thinking of buying, let me know, and I shall be charmed to place my knowledge and experience at your disposal. Charmed. Yes, I will look the beast over.... Always best to take advice when buying a horse. Terrible rogues these Arabs. You are certain to be swindled if you rely on your own judgment. Cunning fellows these native piqueurs. Hide any defect from inexperienced eyes—bad hoofs, sand-crack, ring-bone, splint, wind-galls, souffle, sight, teeth, age, vice—anything. Charmed to give you my opinion at any time.... Try him for you too." ...
"Most extremely amiable of you, I'm sure. Most kind. A thousand thanks. I realize I have a terrible lot to learn about horses yet," replied the favoured one.
"Yes, they take a lot of knowing," replied the "Général," and, as the man rose, bade farewell to his host, saluted the company, and departed to catch the ten-fifteen to Oran, that young but knowing gentleman observed generously:
"An agreeable fellow that—a most amiable person. Who is he?"
"Vétérinaire-Colonel Blois!" replied d'Armentières. "Probably the cleverest veterinary-surgeon in the army.... You may know his standard work." ... But Lieutenant d'Amienville again changed the subject hastily, and then scolded a servant for not bringing him what he had not ordered. Thereafter he was silent for nearly five minutes.
Some one mentioned Adjudant-Major Gallais and his curious end. (He dreamed that he saw his wife murdered by burglars in their little flat at Marseilles, was distraught until news came that such a tragedy had actually happened at the very time of the dream, and at once shot himself.)
"A very remarkable case of coincidence, to say the least of it," observed Captain d'Armentières. "Personally I should be inclined to call it something more."
But Lieutenant d'Amienville was a modern of the moderns, an agnostic, a sceptic.
"All bosh and rubbish," quoth he. "Sottise.... There is no such thing as this occultism, spiritualism, telepathy, and twaddle. To the devil with supraliminal, transliminal, subliminal, astral, and supernatural. There is no supernatural." ...
"So?" murmured a dapper little man in scarlet breeches and a black tunic which had the five-galoned sleeve of a Colonel.
"All nonsense," continued the young gentleman. "All this that one hears about mysterious and inexplicable occurrences is always second-hand. Second-hand and third person.... Third person singular—very singular. Ha! Ha! ... Yes, all rot and rubbish. Now, has anyone of us here ever had an experience of the supernatural sort? Not one, I'll be bound. Not one.... But we all know somebody who has. It's always the way." ...
"Well," remarked Captain d'Armentières, "I was once throttled by a Dead Hand—if you would call that an experience."
"I was speaking seriously," replied the Lieutenant loftily.
"So was I," answered the Captain coldly.
"What do you mean?" queried the youth, fearing the, to him, worst thing on earth—ridicule.
"Precisely what I say," was the quiet reply. "I was once seized by the throat, and all but killed, by a Dead Hand, in the middle of the night as I lay in bed.... I give you my word of honour—and I request—and advise—you not to cast any doubt on my statement."
The pointed jaw of Lieutenant d'Amienville dropped, and he stared round-eyed and open-mouthed at the officer of the Legion, apparently sane and obviously sober, who could say such things seriously.... Could it be a case of this cafard of which he had heard so much? No—le cafard is practically confined to the rank and file—and this man was, moreover, as cool as a cucumber and as normal as the night. He glanced round the table at his fellow-guests. They looked expectant and interested. This vieux moustache was evidently a man of standing and consideration among them.
"Tell us the story, mon gars," said the Major of Spahis, pouring cognac into his coffee.
"Do," added the Captain of Zouaves.
"Let's go out into the garden and have it," proposed the Colonel of Tirailleurs Algériens, half rising. "May we, d'Armentières?"
"Yes—I must hear this," acquiesced the young Lieutenant with an air of open-mindedness, but reserved judgment.
"Come on, by all means," answered d'Armentières. "I should have thought of it before, Colonel"; and the party rose and strolled across the veranda out into the garden of the Cercle Militaire.
Légionnaire Jean Boule, or John Bull, standing at the gate leading into the high-road, and awaiting his officer as patiently as a good orderly should, thought the scene extraordinarily stage-like and theatrical, albeit he had seen it many times before.
The brilliant moonlight on the tall and beautiful plane-trees, the cypress and the myrtle, the orange, magnolia, wistaria, bougainvillea, the ivy-draped building of the Cercle with its hundreds of lights, the gorgeous scarlet of the Spahi, the pale blue of the Chasseur, the yellow and blue of the Tirailleur, the scarlet and black of the Legionary, and the other gay uniforms made up a picture as unreal as beautiful.
Gazing upon it, he thought of days when he, too, sat in such groups in such club-gardens when Life went very well.
In the distance, the famous band of the Legion was playing Gounod's Serenade—probably in the Public Gardens outside the Porte de Tlemçen....
"En avant, mon choux," said the Médecin-Major, as the party settled into wicker chairs, and the bare-footed, silent servants ministered to its needs with cigarettes, cheroots, and weird liqueurs.
"And forthwith," added the Colonel, puffing a vast cloud as he lay back and gazed sentimentally at the moon.
"Well—as you like, gentlemen—but it was nothing. Just a queer little experience. It won't interest you much, I'm afraid," said d'Armentières.
Then Lieutenant d'Amienville commenced a dissertation upon auto-suggestion, illusion, and self-deception, but the remainder of Captain d'Armentières' guests intimated clearly to their host that they wanted his story, and wanted it at once.
"Have it for what it is worth, then," said that officer. "But I request Lieutenant d'Amienville clearly to understand that what I am about to tell you is the absolute truth—the plain and simple tale of what actually occurred to me personally. Moreover, should he, while believing in the honesty of my belief, doubt the trustworthiness of my observations and conclusions, I may mention that my ordonnance will be found waiting near the gate—and may be called and questioned. For he was concerned in the matter, and not only saw the marks upon my throat, but actually touched the Dead Hand which all but choked the life out of me."
The voice of the "Général" was stilled within him, but his face was very eloquent indeed. "It happened in Haiphong," continued the quiet, cultured voice of the weary-looking man, "when the Legion sent big drafts out to Tonkin in '83. I was commanding a detachment then, with the rank of Lieutenant. We had disembarked at the mouth of the Red River into two old three-decker river-gunboats, and I had had an infernally busy day—what with the debarkation from the ship and then again at Haiphong, after the six-hour journey up the river. On top of all I had high fever.
"Now, before getting into bed that night, I
