Atlantida | Page 3

Nothing
much in the theatres. I have taken out a summer subscription for l'Illustration. Would you
care for it? In the country no one knows what to do. Always the same lot of idiots ready
for tennis. I shall deserve no credit for writing to you often. Spare me your reflections
concerning young Combemale. I am less than nothing of a feminist, having too much
faith in those who tell me that I am pretty, in yourself in particular. But indeed, I grow
wild at the idea that if I permitted myself half the familiarities with one of our lads that
you have surely with your Ouled-Nails.... Enough of that, it is too unpleasant an idea."
I had reached this point in the prose of this advanced young woman when a scandalized
exclamation of the Sergeant made me look up.

"Lieutenant!"
"Yes?"
"They are up to something at the Ministry. See for yourself."
He handed me the Official. I read:
"By a decision of the first of May, 1903, Captain de Saint-Avit (André), unattached, is
assigned to the Third Spahis, and appointed Commandant of the Post of Hassi-Inifel."
Chatelain's displeasure became fairly exuberant.
"Captain de Saint-Avit, Commandant of the Post. A post which has never had a slur upon
it. They must take us for a dumping ground."
My surprise was as great as the Sergeant's. But just then I saw the evil, weasel-like face
of Gourrut, the convict we used as clerk. He had stopped his scrawling and was listening
with a sly interest.
"Sergeant, Captain de Saint-Avit is my ranking classmate," I answered dryly.
Chatelain saluted, and left the room. I followed.
"There, there," I said, clapping him on the back, "no hard feelings. Remember that in an
hour we are starting for the oasis. Have the cartridges ready. It is of the utmost
importance to restock the larder."
I went back to the office and motioned Gourrut to go. Left alone, I finished Mlle. de
C----'s letter very quickly, and then reread the decision of the Ministry giving the post a
new chief.
It was now five months that I had enjoyed that distinction, and on my word, I had
accepted the responsibility well enough, and been very well pleased with the
independence. I can even affirm, without taking too much credit for myself, that under
my command discipline had been better maintained than under Captain Dieulivol,
Saint-Avit's predecessor. A brave man, this Captain Dieulivol, a non-commissioned
officer under Dodds and Duchesne, but subject to a terrible propensity for strong liquors,
and too much inclined, when he had drunk, to confuse his dialects, and to talk to a
Houassa in Sakalave. No one was ever more sparing of the post water supply. One
morning when he was preparing his absinthe in the presence of the Sergeant, Chatelain,
noticing the Captain's glass, saw with amazement that the green liquor was blanched by a
far stronger admixture of water than usual. He looked up, aware that something abnormal
had just occurred. Rigid, the carafe inverted in his hand, Captain Dieulivol was spilling
the water which was running over on the sugar. He was dead.
For six months, since the disappearance of this sympathetic old tippler, the Powers had
not seemed to interest themselves in finding his successor. I had even hoped at times that

a decision might be reached investing me with the rights that I was in fact exercising....
And today this surprising appointment.
Captain de Saint-Avit. He was of my class at St. Cyr. I had lost track of him. Then my
attention had been attracted to him by his rapid advancement, his decoration, the
well-deserved recognition of three particularly daring expeditions of exploration to
Tebesti and the Air; and suddenly, the mysterious drama of his fourth expedition, that
famous mission undertaken with Captain Morhange, from which only one of the
explorers came back. Everything is forgotten quickly in France. That was at least six
years ago. I had not heard Saint-Avit mentioned since. I had even supposed that he had
left the army. And now, I was to have him as my chief.
"After all, what's the difference," I mused, "he or another! At school he was charming,
and we have had only the most pleasant relationships. Besides, I haven't enough yearly
income to afford the rank of Captain."
And I left the office, whistling as I went.
* * * * *
We were now, Chatelain and I, our guns resting on the already cooling earth, beside the
pool that forms the center of the meager oasis, hidden behind a kind of hedge of alfa. The
setting sun was reddening the stagnant ditches which irrigate the poor garden plots of the
sedentary blacks.
Not a word during the approach. Not a word during the shoot. Chatelain was