Gradually, however, custom resumed its power. There was a man hanging limp over the parapet of the well. He looked as though he had knelt down and stooped over to drink, and in that attitude had fallen asleep. But he might so easily be pushed into the well, and custom had made the preservation of wells from impurity an instinct. He removed the body and went in search of Tavernay. Tavernay was sitting propped up against a camel's saddle; the doctor was by his side, a blood-stained bandage was about his thigh. He spoke in a weak voice. "Lieutenant Laurent?" Stretton went in search. He came across an old grey-headed soldier rolling methodically a cigarette. "He is dead--over there," said the soldier. "Have you a light?" Laurent had died game. He was lying clasped in the arms of a gigantic Touareg, and while thus held he had been stabbed by another through the back. To that end the contemptuous smile of a lady far away in Paris had brought him. He lay with his face to the sky, his wounded vanity now quite healed. He had earned Tavernay's praise, at all events, that day. For he had fought well. Of the _sous-lieutenants_ one was killed, the other dangerously wounded. A sergeant-major lay with a broken shoulder beside one of the guns. Stretton went back to Tavernay. "You must take command, then," said Tavernay. "I think you have learnt something about it on your fishing-boats." And in spite of his pain he smiled. Stretton mustered the men and called over the names. Almost the first name which he called was the name of "Barbier," and Barbier, with a blood-stained rag about his head, answered. Of the two hundred and thirty men who had made up the two companies of the Legion, only forty-seven could stand in the ranks and answer to their names. For those forty-seven there was herculean work to do. Officers were appointed, the dead bodies were roughly buried, the camels collected, litters improvised for the wounded, the goat-skins filled with water. Late in the afternoon Stretton came again to Tavernay. "We are ready, sir." Tavernay nodded and asked for a sheet of paper, an envelope, and ink. They were fetched from his portfolio and very slowly and laboriously he wrote a letter and handed it to Stretton. "Seal it," he said, "now, in front of me." Stretton obeyed. "Keep that letter. If you get back to Ouargla without me, give it to the Commandant there."