The Portland daily press., 1878-12-02
IBID PRESS.
- lLippincott's Magazinel
Inc Colonies Sentence.
AN ALGERIAN STORY as
BY DAVID KER.

I've known many clever fellows in nv
Line LINE, SAD Paul Dupont, French sous-leu-
senant IN the-th of the line, as be sat SIN
RR ags us conee In front of the Hotel de Ia
hegence at Alglers, "but by far the cIeverest
nan ever met was our Colonel Hanr; DO
Maiet. People said he ought to have hesn
an Goocot, out that was giving him bnt haif
ms due, for I'll be bound he could have ~,
nankeo any lawyer that ever wore 1T
N nls ia tS days be always We, gown.
ca a~e - ., solomon the Secopt :, .aa . Dy the
Beore be eo cs, ne ga came y it. ri tell y y1u
tary commantant ant =, :" . as lie Maet was mill.
that be did one of b. - iran, and it was there
alDg a camel lis best strokes -outgener-
whom - >dgh-paced Moorish rascaIs of
Jew .de saying goes. Two Maltese to
r and three Jews to Moor Now this
-Angerine, when pulled up for some offence
OF otner, sWore that he wasn't Muley the
camel driver at all, but quite another man;
ana as his friends all swore the same, and
ne mad managed to alter his appearance bit
before he was arrested, he seemed safe to get
OF. But our colonel wasn't to be done
In that way. He pretended to dismiss the
case, and allowed the fellow to get right out
INTO the street as if all was over; and then he
suddenly shouted after him, 'Muley, the
camel driver, want to speak to you' The
w tossoo, neaIing MS own name turned ard
came back before he could recollect himself:
and 50 he was caught in spite of all his cun-
ming -'' W."
The fame OF this exploit went abroad like
wildhre, and it got to be saying among us.
whenever we heard OF any very clever trick.
that 1t was one of Colonel de Malet's iudg.
menus and so, when he was transferred
from Oran to Algiers, it was just as if we all
knew him already, although none of us had
ever seen him before. But it wasn't long
before we got much better story than that
about him; for one night man dned at our
mess who bad known the colonel out iD =
dia, and told us grand tale of how a.
astonished them all at Pond ..e had
seems that some things .lcherry. 1t
from the officers quartz lad been stolen
tell who had dope srs, and nobody could
morning the > 1t. The first thing next
early par colonel went along the line at
dier' .ade, giving each of the native sol
q small strip of bamboo; and then he
said, very solemnly, MY children, there is
guilty man among us, aRd it has been re-
vealed to me by Brahma himself how his
guilt is to be made clear. Let every man OF
you come forward in his turn and give me
his piece of bamboo. and the thief, let him
do what he may, will have the longest piece
Now you know what superstitious hounds
those Asatic fellows always are; and when
they heard this announcement they looked at
The colonel took the bamboos one after
another. as solemnly as if he were on court
martial, but when about dozen men had
gone past he suddenly sprang forward and
seized one of them by the throat, shouting at
the full pitch Of his voice, you are the man 7
SHOWN went the fellow on his knees and
yelled for mercy, confessing that he scas the
man, sure enough. As for the rest, they
looked as frightened as if all the gods in the
caverns of Elephants had come flying down
among them at once: and from that day forth
they salaamed to the very ground at the mere
sight of the colonel half mile off,
How on earth did you manage that, col
onelT asked the senior major, great tat fel-
low, as stupid as carp.*
"'Nothing simpler, my dear fellow an
swered de Malet laughing. the strips were
all the same length, and the thief, fearing to
get the longest piece, betrayed himself by bit
ing off the end
"This, as you may think, added good deal
to the colonel's reputation and when we had
soon saw that he could fight as we'll as ma
nGnvre. In the thick of the skirmish one OIL
the rogues, seeing de Malet left alone, flew al
him with drawn yataghan, but the colonel
just dropped on his horses neck and let the
blow pass over him, and then gave point and
ran the fellow right through the body, as
neatly as any fencing master could have done
it. You may be sure we thought none the
less OF him after that but all this was moth
ing to what was coming.
swell, de Malet had been with us about a
year when the railway was begun from A,gi-
ers to Blidah, and the directing engineer hap
pened to be one of my greatest friends, Eu-
1t was quite a fete with us whenever we dined
- at mess, Tor HE Jokes and good stories kept
every ONO brisk; aad then to-hear him sing
ma fol, it was wonderful One minute some
rafting refrain that seemed to set the very
air that fairly brought the tears into your eyes.
They were in mine, know, every time
heard him sing those two last verses of sThe
Conscriprs FAREWELL
thought to gain rich spoils-pve gained
OF bullets half score:
I thong to come back corporal
shall come back no more.
Feed my poor dog. I pray thee, Rose,
And With him geutle be:
He'll miss his master for while
Alden! remember melt
swell, as was saying, Eugene had been
put over the work, and don't know where
they could have found better man for it.
Whether it poured with rain or came on hot
enough to cook outlet without fire, it was
ali one to him: there he was at his post, look
ing after everything, with his eyes in ter
places at once. You may think that under
such chief the laborers had no chance Of
idline; and everything was getting on splen
didly, when one morning as he was standing
on the parapet of a bridge, his foot slipped
and down h3 went, I don't know how far
The fall would have killed him outright If by
good luck there hadn't happened to be az
Arab underneath 1.-THE only time that an Arat
tuds of any use, should say,) and Eugene
alighting upon him, broke his own fall and
the Bedouin's neck to boot.
Now, ii there had been nobody there tc
foil FOL I1ptf nil,
for an Arab, mole or less. is no such great
matter; but. as ili-luck would have it, there
were three or four more of the rascals near
enough to see what had happened, and oil
course they raised hue and cry directly.
And when it was noised abroad that Chris
tian dog las they politely call u.s. had killed
a Mussulman, you should have seen what an
uproar there was The people came running
together like vultures when camel drops
down in the desert, and there was yelling
and dancing and shaking of fists that made
ones very head turn round. Poor Eugene
would have been torn to pieces on the spot
if the guard hadn't formed round him and
defended him; and the only way we could
pacify the mob was to promise them justice
from the district magistrate; so away to the
magistrate we all went.
Now, l dare say Mr.. Magistrate was a
very good fellow in his way and don't want
to say word against him, but still, it must
be owned that he wasn't exactly the kind Of
man to stand firm in the miest of a rabble of
wild Mohammedans, all bowling and -four
ishing their knives at once under his very
nose. To tell the plain truth, he was frigt-
ened ont of his wits; and the only thing he
thought of was how to shit the responsible.
ty on tomebody else's shoulders as fast as
possible. So he said land it was very lucky
he did, as it turned Quit that Latour, being
in government employ, must DO tried by
military law. and he nacked them all off tn
the commandment, who, as I've told you, was
no other than Colonel de Malet.
1t was no easy matter for the colonel to
get at the facts of the case, for all the rascals
Kept shriekiDg at once; but at last, bit by bit
he managed to get pretty clear idea,of what
had happened; and then he said, very SOL
EMMY, "a French officer does his duty, let it
be what it will. You have come here for JUS
tice, and justice you shall have
There was great of triumnh from