The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-03-11
led the way to the buttes, but his men did not

led the way to the buttes, but his men did not
follow him
AT the close of the war Veret left the army
and engaged in business He allowed himself
to lend money at a somewhat illegal interest,
and the law thought fit to interfere: but, taking
into consideration his antecedents and bravery
justice was lenient. But a second aud moro
serious charge he was condemned to heavy
fine and his name erased from the registers of
the order. The Gazette des Tribunaux gave no.
tice of his sentence just as of yere the official
paper had announced his nomination. Crushed
by this blow, more than by the loss of fortune
unfairly gained. Veret left France. He went to
Egypt, and then to the Soudan. For the last
three years he has served the Mahdi and organ
lied his troops. He is scarcely fifty years old,
and, by strange anomaly, has as a colleague on
foreign soil the man who fifteen years ago
fought against him on the barricades of Paris,
Olivier Pain.
Pain is by profession a journalist, but above
all a man of adventure of enterprise, a traveller,
and possesses unbounded activity and fabulous
recklessness. At twenty three he abhorred the
empire and hated the Emperor hence he be-
came blind partisan of such men as DacoSta
and Rochefort. The latter, unused to sincere
devotion, felt drawn toward the young idealist,
and as soon as he himself left the prison
of ST. Pelagie he attached him to his fortunes
and In due time had him appointed Gen
eral Secretary to the Foreign Office From that
date Oliver Pain believed himself destined to
remodel the maps OF Europe, Asia and Africa.
his services took up arms against the regular
army, and on the Gath fought necessarily on the
Place du Chateau d'Eau, leaving his comrades
only when he fell under his seventh wound Two
young girls received and nursed him, but as soon
as he was able he escaped to Rouen, where lived
college friend whom he believed he could trust
The college friend, however, unwilling to extend
his hospitality to so doubtful guest, on his own
responsibility, communicated with the police, with
the immediate result that the same evening Pain
was arrested and taken back to Paris to prison,
and passed before council of war, who ulti-
timately dispatched him to New Caledonia,
Rochefort. Both men resolved to es-
cape Rochefort had made UP his
mind to leave the settlement, even before he
reached it, and with that view had provided him
self with several bath cork slabs. These the two
men cut into strips and manufactured into life
preserving belts Pain could not swim, but
taught himself to do SO, and, owing to the exces-
slve heat of the climate, was able to spend most
OF his time In the water. At the end of a month
they strapped on their belts and never swan
back to shore. A boat lay in wait for them three
miles out.
When the Turco- Russian war broke out, Oil
vier Pain applied for and obtained post of mill
tary correspondent. He succeeded in crossing
the Russian lines. gained Plevna and was taken
into the confidence OF Osman Pasha. But the
| adventurous demon within him i'll brooked the
took active service with his employer, and
fought the Russians beguiling his leisure
by being the intermediary between the Grand
Duke, who corresponded in French and Osman
Pasha. Pain was captured by the Roumanians
wearing Turkish artillery uniform and was car
ried over 400 leagues in a Siberian cold to Size
ran on the Volga thrust into prison and guarded
by two Russian soldiers Shortly afterward
Rochefort received pathetic appeal from Pains
father implOring him to exert his influence for
his son, whose trial was impending, with certain
and deadly results Rochefort true to his affec
ton for his quondam pupil, appealed to the
Swiss Home Minister and to the Federal Chancel
lor, and through their intervention the Council
of State telegFaphed to ths Swiss charge a af-
flares at ST. Petersburg claiming Pain as a Swiss
citizen.
Alexander II ordered the liberation of the
communard on the plea that, being profession
ally reporter he had used arms in self-defense.
Pain returned to Geneva, but not for long. AS
soon as the general political amnesty was pro-
nounced he started for Port Vendre to be among
the first to welcome his old companions of New
Caledonia. He then resumed his old vocation
on the Paris press till the day when the English
war commenced in the Soudan. Irresistibly at
tracted, he offered to join the camp of the Mahdi,
wrote back couple Of articles, and then the in
telligence reached the Office of his paper that he
had been received into the councils of the Nah
di, taken active service under him, become gem
eral-in-chief, and, finally, that he had taken a
prominent part in the capture of Khartoum. It
is said by those who know him best that his own
particular ideas are recognizable in the strategy
adopted by the Mussulmans
The adventurer, the communard, the exile of
New Caledonia, the prisoner of Sizeran, the
refugee of Geneva, the councillor of the vic
torious Mahdi is, withal, excellent husband
and father. In his varegated career he yet
found time to marry for love in Geneva and has
four children, whom he adores, even if it be at
distance
AS sign Of the feeling which begins to per-
wade society, it is noticeable that when Mrs.
Gladstone went to visit the wife of General
Earle to offer her coincidence on that officers
DEATH the widow refused to see her, sending
back a message that she would never receive the
wife Of the man who had murdered her husband.