Then there was Latour, a Frenchman, serving his second year. Daily he received letters, a very unusual thing in the Foreign Legion; love-letters from a woman who was waiting for him five long years. Latour, who had committed a crime in France, expiated his deed in the Foreign Legion. He served solely for the purpose of "rehabilitation." Sentences of the Civil Court are in France entered in the personal papers of the criminal. Without his papers he cannot get work. Naturally employers are shy of taking men who have been in conflict with the law and such a man very seldom succeeds in finding work. It is a barbarous system. Ten years must elapse before such a man is considered rehabilitated and "clean papers" are issued to him. If a man is willing to serve in the Foreign Legion, however, the term of rehabilitation is shortened to five years, and after five years' service new papers are given to him. He has then a new start in civil life after five years instead of ten. Like many other French légionnaires, Latour was serving for rehabilitation. The strangest man of all, however, seemed to me this man Smith, American, légionnaire, philosopher. I have always believed, and believe yet, that he actually loved the Legion, that he could not part from the strange life there. He could speak Arabic like a native. Many a time when we were lying in our bunks, he would mumble to himself in Arabic for hours. If I, in curiosity, asked him what he was about, he would say: "Oh nothing, Dutchy. I'm a bit off my base. I very often am, you know." But occasionally he would straighten up and sit down beside me, talking of strange things, reciting whole chapters of the Koran. Like this: "Well, sonny, know anything about the Chapter of the Prophet's Stallions?" "You don't? Listen." "When of an evening the stallions, standing on three feet and placing the tip of their fourth foot upon the ground, were brought before the Prophet, he said: 'I have loved the love of things of this earth more than I have loved all thoughts of the things of heaven, and I have wasted the time in feasting my eyes on these horses. Bring them to me.' And when the horses were brought to him, he began cutting off their legs, one by one, saying: 'All' il Allah....'" "Yes, Dutchy, the Koran's something interesting." Many chapters of the Koran I have learned from Smith. Such things happened every day. But soon the enormities lost their power of fascination. A host of new impressions were forced upon me, until the senses were dulled and one soon got wonderfully indifferent--absolutely indifferent.... CHAPTER V THE MILITARY VALUE OF THE FOREIGN REGIMENTS