“But one morning one of the travellers suddenly
turned round and approached the man behind him.
And they all stopped to look.
“The man toward whom the famished soldier drew
near did not flee, but lay flat on the ground, and
took aim at the one who was coming toward him.
When he believed he was within gunshot, he fired.
The other was not hit, and he continued then to advance,
and levelling his gun, in turn, he killed his comrade.
“Then from all directions the others rushed
to seek their share. And he who had killed the
fallen man, cutting the corpse into pieces, distributed
it.
“And they once more placed themselves at fixed
distances, these irreconcilable allies, preparing
for the next murder which would bring them together.
“For two days they lived on this human flesh
which they divided between them. Then, becoming
famished again, he who had killed the first man began
killing afresh. And again, like a butcher, he
cut up the corpse and offered it to his comrades,
keeping only his own portion of it.
“And so this retreat of cannibals continued.
“The last Frenchman, Pobeguin, was massacred
at the side of a well, the very night before the supplies
arrived.
“Do you understand now what I mean by the horrible?”
This was the story told us a few nights ago by General
de G——.
I was sitting on the pier of the small port of Obernon,
near the village of Salis, looking at Antibes, bathed
in the setting sun. I had never before seen anything
so wonderful and so beautiful.
The small town, enclosed by its massive ramparts,
built by Monsieur de Vauban, extended into the open
sea, in the middle of the immense Gulf of Nice.
The great waves, coming in from the ocean, broke at
its feet, surrounding it with a wreath of foam; and
beyond the ramparts the houses climbed up the hill,
one after the other, as far as the two towers, which
rose up into the sky, like the peaks of an ancient
helmet. And these two towers were outlined against
the milky whiteness of the Alps, that enormous distant
wall of snow which enclosed the entire horizon.
Between the white foam at the foot of the walls and
the white snow on the sky-line the little city, dazzling
against the bluish background of the nearest mountain
ranges, presented to the rays of the setting sun a
pyramid of red-roofed houses, whose facades were also
white, but so different one from another that they
seemed to be of all tints.
And the sky above the Alps was itself of a blue that
was almost white, as if the snow had tinted it; some
silvery clouds were floating just over the pale summits,
and on the other side of the gulf Nice, lying close
to the water, stretched like a white thread between
the sea and the mountain. Two great sails, driven
by a strong breeze, seemed to skim over the waves.
I looked upon all this, astounded.
