shade, he would have given—about all he had to give had been given to his duty in this engagement which could never bring him glory, or distinction or any renown. The work of a spahi with a native regiment is not a very glorious affair. He was simply an officer who fell doing his daily work. 

 Pitchouné barked and cried out to him: "Courage!" 

 "I shall die here at the foot of the mimosa," Sabron thought; and his hands hardly had the courage or strength to grasp the first bushes by which he meant to pull himself up on the bank. The little dog was close to him, leaping, springing near him, and Sabron did not know how tired and thirsty and exhausted his brave little companion was, or that perhaps in that heroic little body there was as much of a soldier's soul as in his own human form. 

 The sun was so hot that it seemed to sing in the bushes. Its torrid fever struck on his brow, struck on his chest; why did it not kill him? He was not even delirious, and yet the bushes sang dry and crackling. What was their melody? He knew it. Just one melody haunted him always, and now he knew the words: they were a prayer for safety. 

 "But," Sabron said aloud, "it is a prayer to be said at night and not in the afternoon of an African hell." 

 He began to climb; he pulled himself along, leaving his track in blood. 

 He fainted twice, and the thick growth held him like the wicker of a cradle, and before he came to his consciousness the sun was mercifully going down. He finally reached the top of the bank and lay there panting. Not far distant were the bushes of rose and mimosa flower, and still panting, weaker and ever weaker, his courage the only living thing in him, Sabron, with Pitchouné by his side, dragged himself into healing hands. 

 All that night Sabron was delirious; his mind traveled far into vague fantastic countries, led back again, ever gently, by a tune, to safety. 

 Every now and then he would realize that he was alone on the vast desert, destined to finish his existence here, to cease being a human creature and to become nothing but carrion. Moments of consciousness succeeded those of mental disorder. Every now and then he would feel Pitchouné close to his arm. The dog licked his hand and the touch was grateful to the deserted officer. Pitchouné licked his master's cheek and Sabron felt that there was another life beside his in the wilderness. Neither dog nor 

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