ent was to
construct a roundelay of which this should be the prevailing sentiment.
He indulged the fancy that he might succeed in producing a composition
which would have a fine effect here in Algeria, where poetry in that
form was all but unknown.

"I know well enough," he said repeatedly to himself, "what I want to
say. I want to tell her that I love her sincerely, and wish to marry
her; but, confound it! the words won't rhyme. Plague on it! Does nothing
rhyme with 'simplicity'? Ah! I have it now:

'Lovers should, whoe'er they be,
Love in all simplicity.'

But what next? how am I to go on? I say, Ben Zoof," he called aloud to
his orderly, who was trotting silently close in his rear, "did you ever
compose any poetry?"

"No, captain," answered the man promptly: "I have never made any verses,
but I have seen them made fast enough at a booth during the fete of
Montmartre."

"Can you remember them?"

"Remember them! to be sure I can. This is the way they began:

'Come in! come in! you'll not repent
The entrance money you have spent;
The wondrous mirror in this place
Reveals your future sweetheart's face.'"

"Bosh!" cried Servadac in disgust; "your verses are detestable trash."

"As good as any others, captain, squeaked through a reed pipe."

"Hold your tongue, man," said Servadac peremptorily; "I have made
another couplet.

'Lovers should, whoe'er they be,
Love in all simplicity;
Lover, loving honestly,
Offer I myself to thee.'"

Beyond this, however, the captain's poetical genius was impotent to
carry him; his farther efforts were unavailing, and when at six o'clock
he reached the gourbi, the four lines still remained the limit of his
composition.

CHAPTER II. CAPTAIN SERVADAC AND HIS ORDERLY

At the time of which I write, there might be seen in the registers of
the Minister of War the following entry:

SERVADAC (_Hector_), born at St. Trelody in the district of Lesparre,
department of the Gironde, July 19th, 18--.

_Property:_ 1200 francs in rentes.

_Length of service:_ Fourteen years, three months, and five days.

_Service:_ Two years at school at St. Cyr; two years at L'Ecole
d'Application; two years in the 8th Regiment of the Line; two years in
the 3rd Light Cavalry; seven years in Algeria.

_Campaigns:_ Soudan and Japan.

_Rank:_ Captain on the staff at Mostaganem.

_Decorations:_ Chevalier of the