This he often did and took his thoughts with him and came back to his tent more conscious of his solitude every night of his life. 

 There had been much looting of caravans in the region by brigands, and his business was that of sentinel for the commerce of the plains. Thieving and rapacious tribes were under his eye and his care. To-night, as he stood looking toward the west into the glow, shading his eyes with his hand, he saw coming toward them what he knew to be a caravan from Algiers. His ordonnance was a native soldier, one of the desert tribes, black as ink, and scarcely more child-like than Brunet and presumably as devoted. 

 "Mustapha," Sabron ordered, "fetch me out a lounge chair."  He spoke in French and pointed, for the man understood imperfectly and Sabron did not yet speak Arabic. 

 He threw himself down, lighted a fresh cigarette, dragged Pitchouné by the nape of his neck up to his lap, and the two sat watching the caravan slowly grow into individuals of camels and riders and finally mass itself in shadow within some four or five hundred yards of the encampment. 

 The sentinels and the soldiers began to gather and Sabron saw a single footman making his way toward the camp. 

 "Go," he said to Mustapha, "and see what message the fellow brings to the regiment." 

 Mustapha went, and after a little returned, followed by the man himself, a black-bearded, half-naked Bedouin, swathed in dust-colored burnoose and carrying a bag. 

 He bowed to Captain de Sabron and extended the leather bag. On the outside of the leather there was a ticket pasted, which read: 

 "The Post for the —— Squadron of Cavalry—" 

 Sabron added mentally: 

 "—wherever it may happen to be!" 

 He ordered bakshish given to the man and sent him off. Then he opened the French mail. He was not more than three hundred miles from Algiers. It had taken him a long time to work down to Dirbal, however, and they had had some hardships. He felt a million miles away. The look of the primitive mail-bag and the knowledge of how far it had traveled to find the people to whom these letters were addressed made his hands reverent as he unfastened the sealed labels. He looked the letters through, returned the bag to Mustapha and sent him off to distribute the post. 

 Prev. P 22/96 next