""Perhaps indeed that is so."
"And I, who had seen some very terrible things in my time, began to cry. And I felt, in the presence of this corpse, in that icy cold night, the midst of that gloomy pain, at the sight of this mystery, at the sight of this murdered stranger, the meaning of that word "Horror."
"Now I had the same sensation last year while interrogating one of the survivors of the Flatters Mission, an Algerian sharpshooter.
"You know the details of this atrocious drama. It is possible, however, that you are unacquainted with them.
"The Colonel traveled through the desert into the Soudan, and pa.s.sed through the immense territory of the Touaregs, who are, in that great ocean of sand which stretches from the Atlantic to Egypt and from the Soudan to Algeria, a kind of pirates resembling those who ravaged the seas in former days.
"The guides who accompanied the column belonged to the tribe of Chambaa, of Ouargla.
"Now, one day, they pitched their camp in the middle of the desert, and the Arabs declared that, as the spring was a little farther away, they would go with all their camels to look for water.
"Only one man warned the Colonel that he had been betrayed: Flatters did not believe this, and accompanied the convoy with the engineers, the doctors, and nearly all his officers.
"They were ma.s.sacred round the spring, and all the camels captured.
"The Captain of the Arab Intelligence Department at Ouargla, who had remained in the camp, took command of the survivors, spahis and sharpshooters, and they commenced the retreat, leaving behind the baggage and the provisions for want of camels to carry them.
"Then they started on their journey through this solitude without shade and without limits, under the devouring sun which burned them from morning till night.
"One tribe came to tender its submission and brought dates as a tribute. They were poisoned. Nearly all the French died, and, among them, the last officer.
"There now only remained a few spahis with their quartermaster, Pobequin, and some native sharpshooters of the Chambaa tribe. They had still two camels left. They disappeared one night along with two Arabs.
"Then, the survivors understood that they were going to eat each other up, and, as soon as they discovered the flight of the two men with the two beasts, those who remained separated, and proceeded to march, one by one, through the soft sand, under the glare of a scorching sun, at a distance of more than a gunshot from each other.
"So they went on all day, and, when they reached a spring, each of them came to drink at it in turn as soon as each solitary marcher had moved forward the number of yards arranged upon. And thus they continued marching the whole day, raising, everywhere they pa.s.sed, in that level burnt-up expanse, those little columns of dust which, at a distance, indicate those who are trudging through the desert.
"But, one morning, one of the travelers made a sudden turn, and drew nearer to his neighbor. And they all stopped to look.
"The man toward whom the famished soldier drew near did not fly, but lay flat on the ground, and took aim at the one who was coming on.
When he believed he was within gunshot, he fired. The other was not hit, and he continued then to advance, and c.o.c.king his gun in turn, killed his comrade.
"Then from the entire horizon, the others rushed to seek their share.
And he who had killed the fallen man, cutting the corpse into pieces, distributed it.
"And they once more placed themselves at fixed distances, these irreconcilable allies, preparing for the next murder which would bring them together.
"For two days, they lived on this human flesh which they divided amongst each other. Then, the famine came back, and he who had killed the first man began killing afresh. And again, like a butcher, he cut up the corpse, and offered it to his comrades, keeping only his own portion of it.
"And so this retreat of cannibals continued.
"The last Frenchman, Pobequin, was ma.s.sacred at the side of a well, the very night before the supplies arrived.
"Do you understand now what I mean by the Horrible?"
This was the story told us a few nights ago by General de G----.
A NEW YEAR"S GIFT
Jacques de Randal, having dined at home alone, told his valet he might go, and then he sat down at a table to write his letters.
He thus finished every year by writing and dreaming. He made for himself a sort of review of things that had happened since last New Year"s Day, things that were now all over and dead; and, in proportion as the faces of his friends rose up before his eyes, he wrote them a few lines, a cordial "Good morning" on the 1st of January.
So he sat down, opened a drawer, took out of it a woman"s photograph, gazed at it a few moments, and kissed it. Then, having laid it beside a sheet of note-paper, he began:
"My dear Irene.--You must have by this time the little souvenir which I sent you. I have shut myself up this evening in order to tell you."
The pen here ceased to move. Jacques rose up and began walking up and down the room.
For the last six months he had a mistress, not a mistress like the others, a woman with whom one engages in a pa.s.sing intrigue, of the theatrical world or the "demi-monde, but a woman whom he loved and won. He was no longer a young man, although he was still comparatively young for a man, and he looked on life seriously in a positive and practical spirit.
Accordingly, he drew up the balance sheet of his pa.s.sion, as he drew up every year the balance sheet of friendships that were ended or freshly contracted, of circ.u.mstances and persons that had entered into his life.
His first ardor of love having grown calmer, he asked himself with the precision of a merchant making a calculation, what was the state of his heart with regard to her, and he tried to form an idea of what it would be in the future.
He found there a great and deep affection, made up of tenderness, grat.i.tude, and the thousand subtle ties which give birth to long and powerful attachments.
A ring of the bell made him start. He hesitated. Would he open? But he said to himself that it was his duty to open on this New Year"s night, to open to the Unknown who knocks while pa.s.sing, no matter whom it may be.
So he took a wax candle, pa.s.sed through the antechamber, removed the bolts, turned the key, drew the door back, and saw his mistress standing pale as a corpse, leaning against the wall.
He stammered.
"What is the matter with you?"
She replied,
"Are you alone?"
"Yes."
"Without servants?"
"Yes."
"You are not going out?"
"No."
She entered with the air of a woman who knew the house. As soon as she was in the drawing-room, she sank into the sofa, and, covering her face with her hands, began to weep dreadfully.
He knelt down at her feet, seized hold of her hands to remove them from her eyes, so that he might look at them, and exclaim,