Fin Tireur | Page 2

desert my child?"
"But," I said gently, "she is dead."
"Yes; but I have promised her that her bon papa will lie with her
presently for company. Leave her alone with the Arabs!"
A sudden look of horror came into his face.
"You don't like the Arabs?"
"Like the dirty dogs! You haven't been told about me, m'sieu?"
"Only that your name was Fin Tireur.'"
"'Fin Tireur.' Yes; that's what they call me in the desert."
"You're a sportsman? A 'capital shot'?"
He laughed suddenly, and his laugh made me feel cold.
"Oh! they don't call me 'Fin Tireur' because I can hit gazelle, and bring
them home for supper. No, no! Shall I tell you why?"

He looked at me half defiantly, half wistfully, I thought.
"But if I do, perhaps your stomach will turn against the food I cooked
with these hands," he added suddenly, stretching out his hands towards
me, "You are English, m'sieu?"
"Yes."
"Then I daresay you won't understand." "I think I shall," I answered,
looking full at him.
The way he had spoken of his child had drawn me to him. Whatever he
had done, I felt that chivalry and tenderness were in this man.
"Why do they call you 'Fin Tireur'?" "The men of the Midi, m'sieu, are
not like the men of the rest of France," said Fin Tireur--"at least so they
say. We are boasters, perhaps; but we've got more love of adventure,
more wish to see the world, and do something big in it. They're talkers,
you know, in the Midi, and they tell of what they've done. I heard them
at Cassis when I was a boy, and one day I saw a Zouave in front of the
inn balcony, where folks come on fête days to eat the bouillabaisse.
The talk I had heard made me wish to rove; but when I saw the Zouave,
in his big red trousers and blue and red jacket, I said to myself: 'As
soon as my three years' service is over I'll go to Africa, and make my
fortune.' I did my three years at Grenoble, m'sieu, and when it was done
I carried out my resolve. I came to Africa; but I didn't come alone."
He puffed at his cigar for a minute or two, and the hot look in his eyes
became more definite, like a fanned flame.
"You took a comrade?"
"I took a wife, a girl of Cassis. A good girl she was then."
He paused again, then continued, in rather a loud voice: "She was good,
m'sieu, because she had seen nothing. That's often the way. It was I
who put it into her head that there were things to be seen better than
rocks, and dead white dusty roads, and fishing boats against the quay.

I've thought of that since I--since I got my name of Fin Tireur. Her
name was Marie, and she was eighteen when we stood before the priest.
Next day we went to Marseille, and took the boat for Algiers. Our
heads were full of I don't know what. We thought we were clever ones,
and should do well in a country like Africa. And so we did at first. We
got into a hotel at Algiers. She was housemaid, and I was porter in the
hall, and what with the goings and comings--strangers giving us a little
when we'd done our best for them--we made some money, and we
saved it. And I wish to God we'd spent it, every sou!"
His voice became fierce for a moment. Then he continued, with an
obvious effort to be calm: "You see, m'sieu, at Algiers we had nothing
to say to the Arabs. With the money we'd saved we left Algiers, and
came into the desert to take a café which was to let near the station at
Beni-Mora."
"I've just come from there."
"They call it 'Au Retour du Sahara.'"
"I've had coffee there."
"That was ours, and there little Marie was born. In those days there
weren't many strangers in Beni-Mora. The railway had only just come
there, and it was wild enough. Very few, except the Arabs. Well, they
were often our customers. We learned to talk a bit of their language,
and they a bit of ours; and, having no friends out there, I might say we
made sort of friends with some of them. The dirty dogs! The camels!"
He struck his clenched hand down on the table. As he talked he had lost
his former consciousness of my close observation.
"But they know how to please women, m'sieu.
"They are often very handsome," I said.
"It isn't only that. They can stare a woman down as a wild beast can,
and that's what women like. I never so