On the day following our engagement the whole garrison turned out under arms to assist at the funeral of the _tirailleur_ who had been killed. He was buried in the small, well-kept cemetery, situated just below the slope to the north-west of our position. The French people have had at all times a great respect for their dead, and their soldiers whose lot it has been to lay down their life, _au champ d'honneur_, as they so eloquently express it, have always received their full share of the respect paid to the departed. In France there exists a fund, known as _L'OEuvre des tombes_, subscribed to by thousands of the charitable public; and the money thus obtained is expended on the hundreds of far-away colonial graveyards, which are kept in excellent order, and in erecting an iron cross, bearing the name and corps of the deceased, over the last resting-place of each soldier of the Republic who falls in fight or dies of disease. This is done without restriction of race or religion. I went to see Tho that evening, and found Linh-Nghi with him. They both amused me by their evident regret at not having assisted in the engagement of the previous day. The little sergeant's complaints were based on plain, unsatisfied bloodthirstiness; those of my ex-rebel friend clearly originated in that spirit of unslakable vengeance which only an Asiatic can acquire. It was instructive to note how they, after each pipe of opium, built fresh plans, and devised new methods for the merciless slaughter of their enemies. From them I learnt that a spy had come in during the day with information that De-Tam, the most capable of all the rebel military leaders, had been in command of the troops that had attacked us; and that this famous captain, for whom they evidently cherished much hate, and a good deal of reluctant admiration, had been severely wounded towards the end of the fight, his left arm having been shattered by a bullet just below the shoulder. This proved to be a fact. I met the famous chieftain in 1897, when he was a partisan of the French, and the crippled state of his limb--due, no doubt, to the elementary treatment of the wound by the native medicine-man--was an evident proof of it.