"Why must the child go?" said he.
Jacques grumbled in his throat for a moment, then he burst out, "I don't know what ails me or why I should make fantasie over the business. Do I want to get rid of the child? I've got fond of that child. He's got sense in his head, more sense than a battalion of numskull légionnaires. Now, when I don't want to do a thing, nobody can make me do it. I don't speak of regimental orders, but in ordinary things I say that when I don't want to do a thing nobody can make me do it. I don't want to get rid of the child; why then do I say he must go? I cannot tell you that.
"Now, listen! when Karasloff was dying, he said to me, 'I leave you Ivan to send back to my people. He will take his own place among them when I am dead. They do not know where he is. I took him away because he was the only thing I cared for, you must return him to my people when I am dead.' Karasloff has been dead five months," finished Jacques.
El Kobir was silent for a moment, then he spoke:
"But how are you to know where to send him?"
"Oh, mon Dieu, how? Karasloff gave me the address of his people just before he died, and I promised to write to them."
"That was five months ago," said El Kobir.
"Yes, five months ago. I did not want to send the child off, and so I have played false with Karasloff for five months."
"Not so," replied El Kobir, "you only delayed in performing a promise, you did not break it."
"Oh, as for that," said Jacques, "I said to myself when he was dead that I would keep the child, promise or no promise; then, lately it came to me that a child has no say, he just has to take his marching orders, and I fell to wondering if I was marching him into a ditch; just now when he came in wearing that rig-out, it was as if the uniform hit me in the face. No, he has to go back to his own people."