I listened for a moment; the sound of the cannonade appeared to be steadily receding westward.
“It seems to me like retreat!” I said, sharply.
“Ritrite? Quis qui ci, ritrite?”
I looked at the simple fellow with tears in my eyes.
“You would not understand if I told you,” said I. “Are you detailed to look after me?”
He said he was, and I informed him that I needed nobody; that it was much more important for everybody that he should rejoin his battalion in the street below, where even now I could hear the Algerian bugles blowing a silvery sonnerie—“Garde à vous!”
“I am Salah Ben-Ahmed, a marabout of the Third Turcos,” he said, proudly, “and I have yet to explain to these Prussians who my seven ancestors were. Have I my inspector’s permission to go?”
He was fairly trembling as the imperative clangor 70 of the bugles rang through the street; his fine nostrils quivered, his eyes glittered like a cobra’s.
“Go, Salah Ben-Ahmed, the marabout,” said I, laughing.
The soldier stiffened to attention; his bronzed hand flew to his scarlet fez, and, “Salute! O my inspector!” he cried, sonorously, and was gone at a bound.