ile showed itself
in the midst of his crisp grey beard, and he had the look in the eyes
peculiar to those who come from the other side of the Mediterranean.

Rashid "behaved very well." He had found native words when tending the
dying man, and had lavished on him the consolations necessary to those
of his country.

When the Algerian was dead, he arranged the winding-sheet himself, in
his own fashion; then he lighted a cigarette, and set out in search of
Monet and Renaud.

For lack of space, we had no mortuary at the time in the ambulance.
Corpses were placed in the chapel of the cemetery while awaiting burial.
The military burial-ground had been established within the precincts of
the church, close by the civilian cemetery, and in a few weeks it had
invaded it like a cancer and threatened to devour it.

Rashid had thought of everything, and this was why he went in search of
Monet and Renaud, Catholic priests and ambulance orderlies of the second
class.

The meeting took place at the foot of the great staircase. Leaning over
the balustrade, I listened, and watched the colloquy of the rival gods.

Monet was thirty years old; he had fine, sombre eyes, and a stiff beard,
from which a pipe emerged. Renaud carried the thin face of a seminarist
a little on one side.

Monet and Renaud listened gravely, as became people who were deciding
in the Name of the Father. Rashid was pleading for his dead Arab with
supple eloquence, wrapped in a cloud of tobacco-smoke:

"We cannot leave the Arab's corpse under a wagon, in the storm. ... This
man died for France, at his post.... He had a right to all honours, and
it was hard enough as it was that he could not have the obsequies he
would surely have had in his own country."

Monet nodded approvingly, and Renaud, his mouth half open, was seeking
some formula.

It came, and this was it:

"Very well, Monsieur Rashid, take him into the church; that is God's
house for every one."

Rashid bowed with perfect deference, and went back to his dead.

Oh, he arranged everything very well! He had made this funeral a
personal matter. He was the family, the master of the ceremonies, almost
the priest.

The Algerian's body accordingly lay in the chapel, covered with the old
faded flag and a handful of chrysanthemums.

It was here the bearers came to take it, and carry it to CONSECRATED
GROUND, to lie among the other comrades.

Monet and Renaud were with us when it was lowered into the