besought to witness the wonders of some fortune-teller, seer, astrologer or yogi, he put him to flight with fearful grimaces and gesticulations.
And this was a great grief unto Madame, for she loved astrologers and fortune-tellers in spite of all, or rather of nothing. And yet malgré the fat Adjudant-Major's cynicism and hardy scepticism, the very curious and undeniable fact remained, that Madame had the power to influence his dreams. She could, that is to say, make him dream of her, and could appear to him in his dreams and give him messages. The Adjudant-Major admitted as much, and thus there is no question as to the fact. (Indeed, when Madame died in Marseilles many years later, he announced the fact to us in Algeria, more than forty-eight hours before he received confirmation of what he knew to be the truth of his dream.)
Two people less alike than the gallant Adjudant-Major and his wife you could not find. Perhaps that is why they loved each other so devotedly.
"I wonder if my boy will be mediumistic," murmured little Madame Gallais, as she hung fondly over the cot in which reposed little Edouard André. "Oh, to be able to hold communion with him when we are parted and I am in the spirit-world."
"Give the little moutard plenty of good meat," said the big man. "We want le petit Gingembre to be a heavy-weight—a born and bred cuirassier." ...
"Mon ange, do you see any reason why twin souls, united in the bonds of purest love and closest relationship, should not be able to communicate quite freely when far apart?" Madame Gallais would reply.
"Save postage, in effect?" grinned the Adjudant-Major.
"I mean by medium of rappings, 'planchette,' dreams—if not by actual appearance and communication in spirit guise?"
"Spirit guys?" queried the stronger and thicker vessel.
"Yes, my soul, spirit guise."
"Oh, ah, yes.... Better not let me catch the young devil in spirit guise, or I'll teach him to stick to good wine and carry it like a gentleman.... He must learn his limit.... How soon do you think we could put him into neat little riding-breeches? ... Cavalry for him.... Not but what the Legion is the finest regiment in the world.... Still Cuirassiers for him."
"My Own! Let the poor sweet angel finish with his first petticoats before we talk of riding-breeches.... And how, pray, would the riding-breeches accord with his so-beautiful long curls. They would not, mon ange, nest ce pas?" ...
"No—but surely the curls can be cut off in a very few moments, can't they?" argued the Major, with the conscious superiority of the logical sex.
But she, of the sex that needs no logic, only smiled and replied that she would project herself into her son's dreams every night of his life.
And in the fulness of time, Edouard André having arrived at boy's estate, the curse of the Colonial came upon little Madame Gallais, and she had to take her son home to France and leave him there with her heart and her health and her happiness. She, in her misery, could conceive of only one fate more terrible—separation from her large, dull husband, whom she adored for his strength, placidity, courage, adequacy, and, above all, because he adored her. Separation from him would be death, and she preferred the half-death of separation from le petit Gingembre.
She wrote daily to him on her return to Indo-China—printing the words large and clear for his easier perusal and, at the end of each weekly budget, she added a postscript asking him whether he dreamed of mother often. She also wrote to her own mother by every mail, each letter containing new and fresh suggestions for his mental, moral, and physical welfare, in spite of the fact that the urchin already received the entire devotion, care, and love of the little household at Marseilles.
Their unceasing, ungrudging devotion, care and love, however, did not prevent a gentle little breeze from springing up one summer evening, from bulging the bedroom window-curtain across the lighted gas-jet, and from acting as the first cause of poor little Edouard André being burnt to death in his bed, before a soul was aware that the tall, narrow house was on fire.
Big Adjudant-Major Gallais was in a terrible quandary and knew not what to do. He had but little imagination, but he had a mighty love for his wife—and she was going stark, staring mad before his haggard eyes.... And, if she died, he was going to take ship from Saigon and just disappear overboard one dark night, quietly and decently, like a gentleman, with neither mess, fuss, nor post-mortem enquête.
But there was just a ghost of a chance, a shadow of a hope—this "planchette" notion that had come to him suddenly in the dreadful sleepless night of watching.... It could not make things worse—and it might bring relief, the relief of tears. If she could weep she could sleep. If she could sleep she could live, perhaps—and the Major swallowed hard, coughed fiercely, and scrubbed his bristly head violently with both big hands.
It would be a lying fraud and swindle; but what of that if it might save her life and reason—and he was prepared to forge a cheque, cheat at cards, or rob a blind Chinese beggar of his last sabuk, to give her a minute's comfort, rest, and peace.... For clearly she must weep or die, sleep or die, unless she were to lose her reason—and while she was in an asylum he could not take that quiet dive overboard so that they could all be together again in the keeping and peace of le bon Dieu.... Rather death than madness, a thousand times.... But if she died and he took steps to follow her—was there not some talk about suicides finding no place in Heaven?
Peste! What absurdity! For surely le bon Père had as much sense of fair-play and mercy as a battered old soldier-man of La Legion? But it had not come to that yet. The Legion does not surrender—and the Adjudant-Major of the First Battalion of The Regiment had still a ruse de guerre to try against the enemy. He would do his best with this "planchette" swindle, and play it for what it was worth. While there is life there is hope, and he had been in many a tight place before, and fought his way out.
To think of Edouard André Lucien Gallais playing with "planchette"! She had often begged him to join hands with her on its ebony board, and to endeavour to "get into communication" with the spirits of the departed—but he had always acted the farceur.
"Ask the sacred thing to tip us the next Grand Prix winner," he had said, or "But, yes—I would question the kind spirits as to the address of the pretty girl I saw at the station yesterday," and then he would cause the innocent machine to say things most unspiritual. Well—now he would see what sort of lying cheat he could make of himself. To lie is not gentlemanly—but to save life and reason is. If to lie is to blacken the soul—let the soul of Adjudant-Major Gallais be black as the blackest ibn Eblis, if thereby an hour's peace might descend upon the tortured soul of his wife. The good Lord God would understand a gentleman—being one Himself..
And the Major, large, heavy, and slow-witted, entered his wife's darkened room, and crept toward the bed whereon she lay, dry-eyed, talking aloud and monotonously.
"... To play such a trick on me! May Heaven reward those who play tricks. Of course, it is a hoax—but why does not mother cable back that there never was any fire at all, and that she knows nothing about the telegram? ... How could le petit Gingembre be dead, when there he is, in the photo, smiling at me so prettily, and looking so strong and well? What a fool I am! Anyone can play tricks on me. People do.... I shall tell my husband. He would never play a trick on me, nor allow such a thing.... A trick! A hoax! ... Of course, one can judge nothing from the handwriting of a telegram. Anybody could forge one. A letter would be so difficult to forge.... The sender of that wicked cable said to himself, 'Madame Gallais cannot pretend that the message does not come from her mother on grounds of the handwriting being different from that
