fet de Police and about which I know that he caused inquiries to be
made; and that matter is how I employed my time, or, rather, how Arsene
Lupin employed his time during the last three years of his service with
the Foreign Legion."

"Those inquiries were made by my orders," said Valenglay.

"And they led--?"

"To nothing."

"So that you do not know what I did during my captivity?"

"Just so."

"I will tell you, Monsieur le President. It will not take me long."

Don Luis pointed with a pencil to a spot in Morocco marked on the map.

"It was here that I was taken prisoner on the twenty-fourth of July. My
capture seemed queer to Monsieur le Prefet de Police and to all who
subsequently heard the details of the incident. They were astonished that
I should have been foolish enough to get caught in ambush and to allow
myself to be trapped by a troop of forty Berber horse. Their surprise is
justified. My capture was a deliberate move on my part.

"You will perhaps remember, Monsieur le President, that I enlisted in the
Foreign Legion after making a fruitless attempt to kill myself in
consequence of some really terrible private disasters. I wanted to die,
and I thought that a Moorish bullet would give me the final rest for
which I longed.

"Fortune did not permit it. My destiny, it seemed, was not yet fulfilled.
Then what had to be was. Little by little, unknown to myself, the thought
of death vanished and I recovered my love of life. A few rather striking
feats of arms had given me back all my self-confidence and all my desire
for action.

"New dreams seized hold of me. I fell a victim to a new ideal. From day
to day I needed more space, greater independence, wider horizons, more
unforeseen and personal sensations. The Legion, great as my affection was
for the plucky fellows who had welcomed me so cordially, was no longer
enough to satisfy my craving for activity.

"One day, without thinking much about it, in a blind prompting of my
whole being toward a great adventure which I did not clearly see, but
which attracted me in a mysterious fashion, one day, finding myself
surrounded by a band of the enemy, though still in a position to fight, I
allowed myself to be captured.

"That is the whole story, Monsieur le President. As a prisoner, I was
free. A new life opened before me. However, the incident nearly turned
out badly. My three dozen Berbers, a troop detached from an important
nomad tribe that used to pillage