"Nationality?"
"Swede."
Captain Tavernay had a smattering of most languages, and he was greatly inclined to try his new recruit with a few questions in the Swedish tongue. But the etiquette of the Legion forbade. He went on without a smile--
"Age?"
"Thirty."
"Vocation?"
"Fisherman."
Captain Tavernay looked up. This time he could not help smiling.
"Well, it is as good as any other," said he; and suddenly there was a sound of cries, and three soldiers burst out of a narrow entrance on the further side of the parade-ground and came running across the square to the Captain's quarters. Both Tavernay and Stretton looked through the door. There was not a tree in that great square; the sunlight poured down upon the bare brown space with a blinding fierceness. All the recruits but Stretton had marched off; a second ago it had been quite empty and very silent. Now these three men were hurrying across it, shouting, gesticulating with their hands. Stretton looked at them with surprise. Then he noticed that one of them, the man running in the middle and a little ahead of the others, carried a revolver in his hand and brandished it. Moreover, from the look of his inflamed face, he was shouting threats; the others were undoubtedly shouting warnings. Scraps of their warnings came to Stretton's ears. "Mon Capitaine!" "Il veut vous tuer!" "Rentrez!" They were straining every muscle to catch the threatening soldier up.
Stretton strode to the door, and a voice behind him cried--