"Only that your name was Fin Tireur.'"

"'Fin Tireur.' Yes; that's what they call me in the desert."

"You're a sportsman? A 'capital shot'?"

He laughed suddenly, and his laugh made me feel cold.

"Oh! they don't call me 'Fin Tireur' because I can hit gazelle, and
bring them home for supper. No, no! Shall I tell you why?"

He looked at me half defiantly, half wistfully, I thought.

"But if I do, perhaps your stomach will turn against the food I cooked
with these hands," he added suddenly, stretching out his hands towards
me, "You are English, m'sieu?"

"Yes."

"Then I daresay you won't understand." "I think I shall," I answered,
looking full at him.

The way he had spoken of his child had drawn me to him. Whatever he had
done, I felt that chivalry and tenderness were in this man.

"Why do they call you 'Fin Tireur'?" "The men of the Midi, m'sieu, are
not like the men of the rest of France," said Fin Tireur--"at least
so they say. We are boasters, perhaps; but we've got more love of
adventure, more wish to see the world, and do something big in it.
They're talkers, you know, in the Midi, and they tell of what they've
done. I heard them at Cassis when I was a boy, and one day I saw a
Zouave in front of the inn balcony, where folks come on fete days to eat
the bouillabaisse. The talk I had heard made me wish to rove; but when I
saw the Zouave, in his big red trousers and blue and red jacket, I
said to myself: 'As soon as my three years' service is over I'll go to
Africa, and make my fortune.' I did my three years at Grenoble, m'sieu,
and when it was done I carried out my resolve. I came to Africa; but I
didn't come alone."

He puffed at his cigar for a minute or two, and the hot look in his eyes
became more definite, like a fanned flame.

"You took a comrade?"

"I took a wife, a girl of Cassis. A good girl she was then."

He paused again, then continued, in rather a loud voice: "She was good,
m'sieu, because she had seen nothing. That's often the way. It was I
who put it into her head that there were things to be seen better than
rocks, and dead white dusty roads, and fishing boats against the quay.
I've thought of that since I--since I got my name of Fin Tireur. Her
name was Marie, and she was eighteen when we stood before the priest.
Next day we went to Marseille, and took the boat for Algiers. Our heads
were full of I don't know what. We thought we were clever ones, and
should do well in a country like