f the
world against England. He went to Tunis in the spring of 1896,
commissioned, it was said, by the French Government to lead an
expedition into the Soudan to incite the Arabs to resist the English
advance in Africa.

Whether the Marquis actually had the support of the Government is more
than dubious. When he set out on his expedition to the wild tribes of
the Tunisian desert, he set out practically alone. At the last moment,
the Marquis changed his Arab escort for a number of Touaregs, who
offered him their services. They were a wild, untrustworthy race, and
men who knew the country pleaded with him not to trust himself to
them. But the Marquis, who had prided himself on his judgment in
Little Missouri in 1883, had not changed his spots in 1896. His
camel-drivers led him into an ambush near the well of El Ouatia. He
carried himself like the game fighting man that he had always been,
and there was a ring of dead men around him when he himself finally
succumbed.

Nineteen days later an Arab official, sent out by the French military
commander of the district, found his body riddled with wounds and
buried in the sand near a clump of bushes close to where he had
fallen. His funeral in Paris was a public event.

It was a tragic but a fitting close to a dreamer's romantic career.
But the end was not yet, and the romance connected with the Marquis de
Mores was not yet complete. The investigation into his death which the
French Government ordered was abandoned without explanation. The
Marquis's widow protested, accusing the Government of complicity in
her husband's death, and charging that those who had murdered the
Marquis were native agents of the French authorities and had been
acting under orders.

The Marquise herself went to Tunis, determined that the assassins of
her husband should be brought to justice. There is a ring in her
proclamation to the Arabs which might well have made the stripped
bones of the Marquis stir in their leaden coffin.

In behalf of the illustrious, distinguished, and noble lady,
the Marquise of Mores, wife of the deceased object of God's
pity, the Marquis of Mores, who was betrayed and murdered at
El Ouatia, in the country of Ghadames, salutations,
penitence, and the benediction of God!

Let it herewith be known to all faithful ones that I place
myself in the hands of God and of you, because I know you to
be manly, energetic, and courageous. I app