A report came from the Arab police that a légionnaire and a girl mounted on a presumably stolen horse had been met with by a police patrol on the southern road. The girl was mounted behind the légionnaire. The patrol, consisting of two officers, allowed them to pass; they were riding at full speed and the officers never thought for a moment that it was the case of a légionnaire deserting. Légionnaires making off are always on foot, they avoid the high roads and they don't carry girls with them. Then, recovering from their surprise, the police officers consulted together and determined to follow, but the légionnaire had got a long start and a very good horse. They followed for two miles or so without gaining on the suspects, their horses being poor and already tired by a long day's work. They dropped the chase, returned to Sidi-bel-Abbès and telegraphed to the nearest southern police post. No news of the supposed fugitives had been received. They must have left the road and taken to the plain. Then Abraham Misas appeared on the scene. He turned up at the barracks, interviewed the colonel and literally wailed over his lost daughter. It was a bad quarter of an hour for Colonel Tirard, and he swore terrible oaths as to what he would do with that scamp of a Raboustel when he was brought back. He got rid of the old man at last, and day followed day, but no news came, and week followed week without a breath or word from that mysterious south into which the lovers had vanished like figures in a dream. The affair caused a great stir in Sidi-bel-Abbès, where it is remembered yet. The escape of a soldier would not give the good people of the town a moment's thought, but the escape of a soldier taking away with him a girl of the town, a daughter of an honest citizen, made them furious. This delighted the Legion, who hate the townsfolk for various and substantial reasons. Raboustel became a hero. He had undoubtedly made his way across the frontier into Morocco. The thing had been done once or twice before by deserters. After a month had passed this supposition became an assured fact and Raboustel began to suffer the fate of the heroes, kings and captains who had vanished. People began to forget him. "And you never saw him again?" I said. "There you are wrong, Monsieur," replied Jacques. "I saw them both. It was this way. Three months or so after he had made his escape, taking the girl with him, an Arab tribe down south began to light matches. That sort of thing spreads and must be put out quickly, or you would soon have the whole of the south on fire, so, one night we got our orders to march. The whole regiment went. "It was really not much of an affair and we soon dealt with it; what made us swear was not the fighting, for there was scarcely enough fighting to go round, but the distance. The place was very far south, in the region of the sand dunes.