ever met. It
was quite a fete with us whenever he dined at mess, for his jokes and
good stories kept every one brisk; and then to hear him sing! _ma foi_,
it was wonderful! One minute some rattling refrain that seemed to set
the very chairs dancing, and then suddenly a low, sad air that fairly
brought the tears into your eyes. They were in mine, I know, every time
I heard him sing those last two verses of 'The Conscript's Farewell:'

I thought to gain rich spoils--I've gained
Of bullets half a score:
I thought to come back corporal--
I shall come back no more.

Feed my poor dog, I pray thee, Rose,
And with him gentle be:
He'll miss his master for a while--
Adieu! remember me![8]

"Well, as I was saying, Eugene had been put over the work, and I don't
know where they could have found a better man for it. Whether it poured
with rain or came on hot enough to cook a cutlet without fire, it was
all one to him: there he was at his post, looking after everything,
with his eyes in ten places at once. You may think that under such a
chief the laborers had no chance of idling; and everything was getting
on splendidly when one morning, as he was standing on the parapet of a
bridge, his foot slipped and down he went, I don't know how far. The
fall would have killed him outright if by good luck there hadn't
happened to be an Arab underneath (the only time that an Arab ever _was_
of any use, I should say), and Eugene, alighting upon _him_, broke his
own fall and the Bedouin's neck to boot.

"Now, if there had been nobody there to tell tales, this wouldn't have
mattered a pin, for an Arab more or less is no such great matter; but,
as ill-luck would have it, there were three or four more of the rascals
near enough to see what had happened, and of course they raised a
hue-and-cry directly. And when it was noised abroad that a Christian dog
(as they politely call us) had killed a Mussulman, you should have seen
what an uproar there was! The people came running together like vultures
when a camel drops down in the desert, and there was a yelling and
dancing and shaking of fists that made one's very head turn round. Poor
Eugene would have been torn to pieces on the spot if the guard hadn't
formed round him and defended him; and the only way we could pacify the
mob was to promise them justice from the district magistrate; so away to
the magistrate we all went.

"Now, I dare say Mr. Magistrate was a very good