at the ship.

Dozing and waking, Max heard excited talk of _la boxe_ and the coming
event. He was vaguely interested, for he had been the champion boxer of
his regiment--a hundred years ago!--but he was too weary in body and
mind to care much about a match at Sidi-bel-Abbes. When he was not
trying to sleep, he was mentally composing a letter to his colonel, with
discreet explanations, and a justification of his forthcoming immediate
resignation from the army: or else a written explanation of his farewell
to Billie, following up the telegram; or thinking out business
directions to Edwin Reeves. Suddenly, however, as he was dully wondering
how best to send the heiress to New York without going back himself, a
name spoken almost in his ear had the blinding effect of a searchlight
upon his brain.

"La petite Josephine Delatour," said the young man who lived at
Bel-Abbes. He was evidently answering some question which Max had not
caught.

"The handsomest, would you call her?" disputed a commercial traveller,
who also knew the town. "Ah, _that_, no! she is too strange, too
bizarre."

"But her strangeness is her charm, _mon ami_! She has eyes of topaz,
like those of a young panther. If she were not bizarre, would she--a
little nobody at all--be strong enough to draw the smart young officers
after her? There are girls in Bel-Abbes, daughters of rich merchants,
who are jealous of the secretary at the Hotel Splendide. Before she
came, it was only the officers of high rank who messed there. Now it is
also the lieutenants. It is not the food, but Mademoiselle Josephine who
attracts!"

"Once upon a time she thought me and my comrades good enough for a
flirtation," said the commercial traveller. "But she looks higher in
these days, especially since her namesake in the Spahis joined his
regiment at Bel-Abbes. She told me they had found out that they were
cousins."

"The lieutenant doesn't go about boasting of the relationship," laughed
the youth from Bel-Abbes. "He comes to my father's cafe, which is the
best in the town, as you well know. If any one speaks to him of _la
petite_, he laughs: and it is a laugh she would not like."

Max's ears tingled. He felt as if he were eavesdropping. He wished to
hear more, though at the same time it seemed that he had no right to
listen. Luckily or unluckily, the boxer broke in and changed the
subject.

Early in the morning, passengers for Sidi-bel-Abbes had to descend from
the train go