could I do more than lay my information before Colonel Levasseur. He was Commanding Officer of the troops and Governor of the town, and I was merely a detached officer of the Intelligence Department, sent to Zaguig to make arrangements for pushing off "into the blue" (on very Secret Service) as soon as word came that the moment was ripe. . . .
Extracts from a letter, written by my uncle at Algiers, and which I found awaiting me at Zaguig, will tell you nearly as much as I knew myself.
" . . . and so, my dear Henri, comes your chance--the work for which the tool has been fashioned. . . . Succeed and you will have struck a mighty blow for France (and you will not find France ungrateful). But mind--you will have to be as swift and as silent as you will have to be clever, and you must stand or fall absolutely alone. If they fillet you and boil you in oil--you will have to boil unavenged. A desert column operating in that direction would rouse such a howl in the German Press (and in one or two others) as would do infinite harm at home, and would hamper and hinder my work out here for years. The Government is none too firmly seated, and has powerful enemies, and you must not provide the stick wherewith to beat the dog. "On the other hand, I am expecting, and only waiting for, the dispatch which will sanction a subsidy of a million francs, so long as this Federation remains in alliance with France and rejects all overtures to Pan-Islamism. That is the fear and the danger, the one great menace to our young and growing African Empire. "God grant that you are successful and that you are before Bartels, Wassmuss or any Senussi emissaries. "What makes me anxious, is the possibility of this new and remarkable Emir el Hamel el Kebir announcing himself to be that very Mahdi whom the Bedouin tribes of that part are always expecting--a sort of Messiah. "As you know, the Senussi Sidi el Mahdi, the holiest prophet since Mahommet, is supposed to be still alive. He disappeared at Garu on the way to Wadai, and an empty coffin was buried with tremendous pomp and religious fervour at holy Kufra. He reappears from time to time, in the desert, and makes oracular pronouncements--and then there is a sort of 'revival' hysteria where he is supposed to have manifested himself. "If this Emir el Hamel el Kebir takes it into his head to announce that he is the Mahdi, we shall get precisely what the British got from their Mahdi at Khartoum--(and that son of a Dongola carpenter conquered 2,000,000 square miles in two years)--for he has got the strongest tribal confederation yet known. . . . "Well--I hope you won't be a Gordon, nor I a Wolseley-Kitchener, for it's peace we want now, peace--that we may consolidate our Empire and then start making the desert to bloom like the rose. . . . "You get a treaty made with this Emir--whereby he guarantees the trade routes, and guarantees the friendship of his tributary tribes to us, and a 'hostile neutrality' towards the Senussi and any European power in Africa, and you will have created a buffer-state, just where France needs it most. "Incidentally you will have earned my undying gratitude and approbation--and what you like to ask by way of recognition of such invaluable work. . . . We must have peace in the East in view of the fact that the Riffs will always give trouble in the West. . . . " . . . Sanction for the subsidy may come any day, but you will have plenty of time for your preparations. (When you get word, be gone in the same hour, and let nothing whatsoever delay you for a minute.) . . . d'Auray de Redon came through from Kufara with one of Ibrahim Maghruf's caravans and saw this Mahdi or Prophet himself. . . . He also takes a very serious view, and thinks it means a jehad sooner or later. . . . And, mind you, he may be Abd el Kadir (grandson of the Great Abd el Kadir, himself), though I believe that devil is still in Syria. "The fellow is already a very noted miracle-monger and has a tremendous reputation as a warrior. He is to the Emir Mohammed Bishari bin Mustapha Korayim abd Rabu what the eagle is to the hawk--a dead hawk too, according to an Arab who fell in with Ibrahim Maghruf's caravan, when fleeing from a great slaughter at the Pass of Bab-el-Haggar, where this new 'Prophet' obliterated the Emir Mohammed Bishari. . . . The said Arab was so bitter about the 'Prophet,' and had such a personal grudge, that d'Auray de Redon cultivated him with talk of revenge and gold, and we may be able to make great use of him. . . . I shall send him to you at Zaguig with d'Auray de Redon who will bring you word to start, and any orders that I do not care to write. . . . "In conclusion--regard this as THE most important thing in the world--to yourself, to me, and to France. . . ."
Attached to this letter was a sheet of notepaper on which was written that which, later, gave me furiously to think, and at the time, saddened and depressed me. I wondered if it were intended as a warning and "pour encourager les autres," for it was not like my uncle to write me mere Service news.
"By the way, I have broken Captain de Lannec, as I promised him (and you too) that I would do to anyone who, in any way, failed me. . . . A woman, of course. . . . He had my most strict and stringent orders to go absolutely straight and instantly to Mulai Idris, the Holy City, and establish himself there, relieving Captain St. André, with whom it was vitally important that I should have a personal interview within the month. "Passing through the Zarhoun, de Lannec got word from one of our friendlies that a missing Frenchwoman was in a village among the mountains. She was the amie of a French officer, and had been carried off during the last massacre, and was in the hareem of the big man of the place. . . . It seems de Lannec had known her in Paris. . . . One Véronique Vaux. . . . Loved her, perhaps. . . . He turned aside from his duty; he wasted a week in getting the woman; another in placing her in safety; and then was so good as to attend to the affairs of his General, his Service and his Country! . . . "Exit de Lannec. . . ."
Serve him right, of course! . . . Yes--of course. . . .
A little hard? . . . Very, very sad--for he was a most promising officer, a tiger in battle, and a fox on Secret Service; no braver, cleverer, finer fellow in the French Army. . . . But yes, it served him right, certainly. . . . He had acted very wrongly--putting personal feelings and the fate of a woman before the welfare of France, before the orders of his Commander, before the selfless, self-effacing tradition of the Service. . . . Before his God--Duty, in short.
He deserved his punishment. . . . Yes. . . . He had actually put a mere woman before Duty. . . . "Exit de Lannec." . . . Serve him right, poor devil. . . .
And then the Imp that dwells at the Back of my Mind said to the Angel that dwells at the Front of my Mind:
"Suppose the captured woman, dwelling in that unthinkable slavery of pollution and torture, had been that beautiful, queenly and adored lady, the noble wife of the stern General Bertrand de Beaujolais himself?"
Silence, vile Imp! No one comes before Duty.
Duty is a Jealous God. . . .
* * *
I was to think more about de Lannec ere long.
§ 2
I confess to beginning with a distinct dislike for the extremely beautiful Miss Vanbrugh, when I met her at dinner, at Colonel Levasseur's, with her brother. Her brother, by the way, was an honorary ornament of the American Embassy at Paris, and was spending his leave with his adventurous sister and her maid-companion in "doing" Algeria, and seeing something of the desert. The Colonel had rather foolishly consented to their coming to Zaguig "to see something of the real desert and of Empire in the making," as Otis Hankinson Vanbrugh had written to him.
I rather fancy that the beaux yeux of Miss Mary, whom Colonel Levasseur had met in Paris and at Mustapha Supérieur, had more to do with it than a desire to return the Paris hospitality of her brother.
Anyhow, a young girl had no business to be there at that time. . . .
Probably my initial lack of liking for Mary Vanbrugh was prompted by her curious attitude towards myself, and my utter inability to fathom and understand her. The said attitude was one of faintly
