.

"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
irreconc