r share of the old profits into cash and on
putting into the new venture the six million francs which they had
received from their governor....

"Need I say more, Monsieur le President? Must I tell you what a chief
like Arsene Lupin was able to attempt seconded by sixty fine fellows of
that stamp and backed by an army of ten thousand well-armed and
well-trained Moorish fanatics? He attempted it; and his success was
unparalleled.

"I do not think that there has ever been an idyl like that through which
we lived during those fifteen months, first on the heights of the Atlas
range and then in the infernal plains of the Sahara: an idyl of heroism,
of privation, of superhuman torture and superhuman joy; an idyl of hunger
and thirst, of total defeat and dazzling victory....

"My sixty trusty followers threw themselves into their work with might
and main. Oh, what men! You know them, Monsieur le President du Conseil!
You've had them to deal with, Monsieur le Prefet de Police! The beggars!
Tears come to my eyes when I think of some of them.

"There were Charolais and his son, who distinguished themselves in the
case of the Princesse de Lamballe's tiara. There were Marco, who owed his
fame to the Kesselbach case, and Auguste, who was your chief messenger,
Monsieur le President. There were the Growler and the Masher, who
achieved such glory in the hunt for the crystal stopper. There were the
brothers Beuzeville, whom I used to call the two Ajaxes. There were
Philippe d'Antrac, who was better born than any Bourbon, and Pierre Le
Grand and Tristan Le Roux and Joseph Le Jeune."

"And there was Arsene Lupin," said Valenglay, roused to enthusiasm by
this list of Homeric heroes.

"And there was Arsene Lupin," repeated Don Luis.

He nodded his head, smiled, and continued, in a very quiet voice:

"I will not speak of him, Monsieur le President. I will not speak of him,
for the simple reason that you would not believe my story. What they tell
about him when he was with the Foreign Legion is mere child's play beside
what was to come later. Lupin was only a private soldier. In South
Morocco he was a general. Not till then did Arsene Lupin really show what
he could do. And, I say it without pride, not even I foresaw what that
was. The Achilles of the legend performed no greater feats. Hannibal and
Caesar achieved no more striking results.

"All I need tell you is that, in fifteen months, Arsene Lupin conquered a
kingdom twice the s