“What are you doing? What do you want? Why are you accompanying the
army?”
“He stammered out some words in some unintelligible dialect. He was,
indeed, a strange being, with narrow shoulders, a sly look, and such an
agitated air in my presence that I really no longer doubted that he was
a spy. He seemed very aged and feeble. He kept looking at me from under
his eyes with a humble, stupid, crafty air.
“The men all round us exclaimed.
“'To the wall! To the wall!'
“I said to the gendarmes:
“'Will you be responsible for the prisoner?'
“I had not ceased speaking when a terrible shove threw me on my back,
and in a second I saw the man seized by the furious soldiers, thrown
down, struck, dragged along the side of the road, and flung against a
tree. He fell in the snow, nearly dead already.
“And immediately they shot him. The soldiers fired at him, reloaded
their guns, fired again with the desperate energy of brutes. They fought
with each other to have a shot at him, filed off in front of the corpse,
and kept on firing at him, as people at a funeral keep sprinkling holy
water in front of a coffin.
“But suddenly a cry arose of 'The Prussians! the Prussians!'
“And all along the horizon I heard the great noise of this
panic-stricken army in full flight.
“A panic, the result of these shots fired at this vagabond, had filled
his very executioners with terror; and, without realizing that they were
themselves the originators of the scare, they fled and disappeared in
the darkness.
“I remained alone with the corpse, except for the two gendarmes whose
duty compelled them to stay with me.
“They lifted up the riddled mass of bruised and bleeding flesh.
“'He must be searched,' I said. And I handed them a box of taper matches
which I had in my pocket. One of the soldiers had another box. I was
standing between the two.
“The gendarme who was examining the body announced:
“'Clothed in a blue blouse, a white shirt, trousers, and a pair of
shoes.'
“The first match went out; we lighted a second. The man continued, as he
turned out his pockets:
“'A horn-handled pocketknife, check handkerchief, a snuffbox, a bit of
pack thread, a piece of bread.'
“The second match went out; we lighted a third. The gendarme, after
having felt the corpse for a long time, said:
“'That is all.'
“I said:
“'Strip him. We shall perhaps find something next his skin.”
“And in order that the two soldiers might help each other in this
task, I stood between them to hold the lighted match. By the rapid
and speedily extinguished flame of the match, I saw them take off the
garments one by one, and expose to view that bleeding bundle of flesh,
still warm, though lifeless.
“And suddenly one of them exclaimed:
“'Good God, general, it is a woman!'
“I cannot describe to you the strange and poignant sensation of pain
that moved my heart. I could not believe it, and I knelt down in the
snow before this shapeless pulp of flesh to see for myself: it was a
woman.
“The two gendarmes, speechless and stunned, waited for me to give my
opinion on the matter. But I did not know what to think, what theory to
adopt.
“Then the brigadier slowly drawled out:
“'Perhaps she came to look for a son of hers in the artillery, whom she
had not heard from.'
“And the other chimed in:
“'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, on that icy cold night, in
the midst of that gloomy plain; at the sight of this mystery, at the
sight of this murdered stranger, the meaning of that word 'horror.'
“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 that atrocious drama. It is possible, however,
that you are unacquainted with one of them.
“The colonel travelled through the desert into the Soudan, and passed
through the immense territory of the Touaregs, who, in that great ocean
of sand which stretches from the Atlantic to Egypt and from the Soudan
to Algeria, are a kind of pirates, resembling those who ravaged the seas
in former days.
“The guides who accompanied the column belonged to the tribe of the
Chambaa, of Ouargla.
“Now, one day we encamped in the middle of the desert, and the Arabs
declared that, as the spring was still some distance away, they would go
with all their camels to look for water.
“One man alone 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 massacred round the spring, and all the camels were 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 began to retreat, leaving behind them the
baggage and provisions, for want of camels to carry them.
“Then they started on their journey through this solitude without shade
and boundless, beneath the devouring sun, which burned them from morning
till night.
“One tribe came to tender its submission and brought dates as a tribute.
The dates were poisoned. Nearly all the Frenchmen died, and, among them,
the last officer.
“There now only remained a few spahis with their quartermaster,
Pobeguin, 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 would be obliged to eat each
other, and as soon as they discovered the flight of the two men with the
two camels, 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 passed, in that level,
burnt up expanse, those little columns of dust which, from a distance,
indicate those who are trudging through the desert.
“But one morning one of the travellers suddenly turned round and
approached the man behind him. And they all stopped to look.
“The man toward whom the famished soldier drew near did not flee, but
lay flat on the ground, and took aim at the one who was coming toward
him. When he believed he was within gunshot, he fired. The other was not
hit, and he continued then to advance, and levelling his gun, in turn,
he killed his comrade.
“Then from all directions 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 between
them. Then, becoming famished again, 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, Pobeguin, was massacred 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----.