"Old Dubeque called for a bottle of wine, and drank with some of the girls.
"He does not know how much later it was that the murmur of voices in Madame's room ceased with a shriek of 'Mon fils,' a horrid, terrific scream, and the sound of a fall.
"Old Dubeque was not so drunk but what this sobered him. He entered the room.
"Young Villa had fulfilled the prophecy of the necromancer. He had driven his bayonet through his throat—just where a large birthmark was. What you call mole, eh? It was exposed when his shirt-collar was undone.... Ninon Dürlonnklau lived long, may be still alive—anyhow, I know she lived long—in a maison de santé. Yes—a reincarnation....
"That is of what the words la Rue de Tournelles reminded me."
"'Streuth!" remarked le Légionnaire 'Erbiggin, and scratched his cropped head.
III. An Officer And—a Liar
Little Madame Gallais was always a trifle inclined to the occult, to spiritualism, and to dabbling in the latest thing psychic and metaphysical. At home, in Marseilles, she was a prominent member and bright particular star of a Cercle which was, in effect, a Psychical Research Society. She complained that one of the drawbacks of accompanying her husband on Colonial service was isolation from these so interesting pursuits and people.
Successful and flourishing occultism needs an atmosphere, and it is difficult for a solitary crier in the wilderness to create one. However, Madame Gallais did her best. She could, and would, talk to you of your subliminal self, your subconscious ego, your true psyche, your astral body, and of planes. On planes she was quite at home. She would ask gay and sportive sous-lieutenants, fresh from the boulevards of Paris, as to whether they were mediumistic, or able to achieve clairvoyant trances. It is to be recorded that, at no dance, picnic, garden-party, "fiv' o'clock," or dinner did she encounter a French officer who confessed to being mediumistic or able to achieve clairvoyant trances.
Nor was big, fat Adjudant-Major Gallais any better than the other officers of the Legion and the Infanterie de la Marine and the Tirailleurs Tonkinois who formed the circle of Madame's acquaintance in Eastern exile. No—on the contrary, he distinctly inclined to the materialistic, and preferred red wines to blue-stockings—(not blue silk stockings, bien entendu). For mediums and ghost-seers he had an explosive and jeering laugh. For vegetarians he had a contempt and pity that no words could express.
A teetotaller he regarded as he did a dancing dervish.
He had no use for ascetics and self-deniers, holding them mad or impious.
No, it could not be said that Madame's husband was mediumistic or able to achieve clairvoyant trances, nor that he was a tower of strength and a present help to her in her efforts to create the atmosphere which she so desired.
When implored to gaze with her into the crystal, he declared that he saw things that brought the blush of modesty to the cheek of Madame.
When begged to take a hand at "planchette" writing, he caused the innocent instrument to write a naughty guinguette rhyme, and to sign it Eugénie Yvette Gallais.
When besought to witness the wonders of some fortune-teller, seer, astrologer or yogi, he put him to flight with fearful grimaces and gesticulations.
And this was a great grief unto Madame, for she loved astrologers and fortune-tellers in spite of all, or rather of nothing. And yet malgré the fat Adjudant-Major's cynicism and hardy scepticism, the very curious and undeniable fact remained, that Madame had the power to influence his dreams. She could, that is to say, make him dream of her, and could appear to him in his dreams and give him messages. The Adjudant-Major admitted as much, and thus there is no question as to the fact. (Indeed, when Madame died in Marseilles many years later, he announced the fact to us in Algeria, more than forty-eight hours before he received confirmation of what he knew to be the truth of his dream.)
Two people less alike than the gallant Adjudant-Major and his wife you could not find. Perhaps that is why they loved each other so devotedly.
"I wonder if my boy will be mediumistic," murmured little Madame Gallais, as she hung fondly over the cot in which reposed little Edouard André. "Oh, to be able to hold communion with him when we are parted and I am in the spirit-world."
"Give the little moutard plenty of good meat," said the big man. "We want le petit Gingembre to be a heavy-weight—a born and bred cuirassier." ...
"Mon ange, do you see any reason why twin souls, united in the bonds of purest love and closest relationship, should not be able to communicate quite freely when far apart?" Madame Gallais would reply.
"Save postage, in effect?" grinned the Adjudant-Major.
"I mean by medium of rappings, 'planchette,' dreams—if not by actual appearance and communication in spirit guise?"
"Spirit guys?" queried the stronger and thicker vessel.
"Yes, my soul, spirit guise."
"Oh, ah, yes.... Better not let me catch the young devil in spirit guise, or I'll teach him to stick to good wine and carry it like a gentleman.... He must learn his limit.... How soon do you think we could put him into neat little riding-breeches? ... Cavalry for him.... Not but what the Legion is the finest regiment in the world.... Still Cuirassiers for him."
"My Own! Let the poor sweet angel finish with his first petticoats before we talk of riding-breeches.... And how, pray, would the riding-breeches accord with his so-beautiful long curls. They would not, mon ange, nest ce pas?" ...
"No—but surely the curls can be cut off in a very few moments, can't they?" argued the Major, with the conscious superiority of the logical sex.
But she, of the sex that needs no logic, only smiled and replied that she would project herself into her son's dreams every night of his life.
And in the fulness of time, Edouard André having arrived at boy's estate, the curse of the Colonial came upon little Madame Gallais, and she had to take her son home to France and leave him there with her heart and her health and her happiness. She, in her misery, could conceive of only one fate more terrible—separation from her large, dull husband, whom she adored for his strength, placidity, courage, adequacy, and, above all, because he adored her. Separation from him would be death, and she preferred the half-death of separation from le petit Gingembre.
She wrote daily to him on her return to Indo-China—printing the words large and clear for his easier perusal and, at the end of each weekly budget, she added a postscript asking him whether he dreamed of mother often. She also wrote to her own mother by every mail, each letter containing new and fresh suggestions for his mental, moral, and physical welfare, in spite of the fact that the urchin already received the entire devotion, care, and love of the little household at Marseilles.
Their unceasing, ungrudging devotion, care and love, however, did not prevent a gentle little breeze from springing up one summer evening, from bulging the bedroom window-curtain across the lighted gas-jet, and from acting as the first cause of poor little Edouard André being burnt to death in his bed, before a soul was aware that the tall, narrow house was on fire.
Big Adjudant-Major Gallais was in a terrible quandary and knew not what to do. He had but little imagination, but he had a mighty love for his wife—and she was going stark, staring mad before his haggard eyes.... And, if she died, he was going to take ship from Saigon and just disappear overboard one dark night, quietly and decently, like a gentleman, with neither mess, fuss, nor post-mortem enquête.
But there was just a ghost of a chance, a shadow of a hope—this "planchette" notion that had come to him suddenly in the dreadful sleepless night of watching.... It could not make things worse—and it might bring relief, the relief of tears. If she could