"You tell me that, captain, in order not to vex
me; but I can see very well that you are vexed
about it yourself. Sacre—! It shall never be
said that a thief of a Bedouin — I have a plan
of my own—"

In vain did the captain endeavour to console
the disconsolate chasseur; who promised, it is
true, not to rush into danger, but who would not
swear to give up the pursuit of the robber.

"Let me see," said our chasseur, as he
returned to the stable, which was by no means the
worst lodging in Méchouar, " how I must set
about to catch my thief. If I go pittering and
pining to my comrades, they will all of them
want to come with me, although I was the only
one to fall asleep, like the great big imbecile
that I was. I must undertake the expedition
alone. The Bedouin has the colt; he will be
wanting the mother. Good; we will try and
have a meeting tête-à-tête."

The day after the colt had been so cleverly
conjured away, the chasseur led the mare, as
usual, to graze and lay down in the shade of
the olive-tree, exactly as he had done the day
before. That day, nothing new occurred. Next
day, a repetition of the same occurrences. On
the third day things took quite a different
turn.

While the sentinels, believing their comrade
asleep at his usual resting-place, gave a look
now and then at the mare who was fastened
with a long rope to a stake fixed in the
ground, an Arab, almost naked, jumped on
the animal's back, after cutting the rope round
its foot. But, at the same instant, another
individual, just as lightly clad as the former,
pounced upon the robber, dashed him to the
ground, and literally strangled him, without
cord or lasso, with the help of nothing but his
hands. The chasseur's plan had perfectly
succeeded. For three days, after pretending to
fall asleep beneath his favourite olive-tree, he
had crawled out of his uniform, which remained
on the spot to deceive the thief, and then,
creeping in another direction, had crouched in
a hole dug close to the mare, who served to
decoy the ravisher of the colt.

Sailors are notoriously superstitious; it
appears that soldiers also are occasionally given to
regard events in a supernatural light. Some at
least of the Chasseurs d'Afrique (among whom
M. Gandon may be reckoned) entertain a belief
in presentiments and warning hallucinations:
they hold that we are sometimes permitted to
catch a glimpse of the future, and to have a
knowledge of distant facts, by means of the
momentary separation of the mind from the
body. During the African campaigns, it was
observed that privation of food, thirst, and
fatigue, singularly predisposed the soldier to
have the most extraordinary dreams—dreams
which seemed to last for years, whilst the
dreamer had not slept more than a couple
of minutes. In some of these cases, the soul
was so completely detached from the body that
the latter was insensible to physical sensations,
how painful soever they might be in the waking
state: while the former was gifted with a power
of clairvoyance which would be incredible were
it not attested by facts.

It is well known that Socrates spoke with
deep conviction of the familiar demon who
accompanied him everywhere. A distinguished
naval officer was witness, during a considerable
space of time, to a fact of a similar nature.

The vessel on board which this officer was
sailing happened to meet with a violent storm
in the South Sea. Monstrous waves broke over
the deck without cessation, sweeping before
them everything that was not very firmly
fastened. The sailors, hanging on to the rigging,
had the greatest difficulty in resisting the fury
of the sea, when suddenly was heard the shout,
"A man overboard!"

It was a sailor named Smith, who was carried
away by a mighty wave. In such a frightful
sea, all means of salvage were almost impossible.
What, consequently, was the captain's
surprise when, to his profound stupefaction,
he saw, a few minutes afterwards, the same
Smith, with the sea-water pouring from his
clothes, quietly helping his comrades to work
the vessel, as if nothing had happened!

When the storm had subsided a little, and
danger was over, they inquired of Smith the
particulars of his miraculous preservation.

"As soon as I was washed overboard," he
said, " I saw a man sitting by my side on the
crest of the wave. He took me by the hand,
and brought me back on deck without my feeling
the slightest pain. More than that: although
I saw the ship pitching and rolling horribly, I
felt no anxiety about her fate; my neighbour's
calmness reassured me, for I was fully aware
that he would save me. Look, there he is—
there! He never leaves me now."

So saying, Smith pointed to a spot beside
him where every one else saw only vacancy, but
where he distinctly beheld, as he affirmed, his
imaginary comrade.

From that time Smith became taciturn, and
he was frequently observed, when quite alone,
to express by his looks and gestures his
consciousness of being in company with another
person. Any interrogation by his messmates
on the subject of his vision, appeared to him a
mockery, so firmly was he persuaded that his
phantom friend was as visible to others as to
himself. When urged by his questioners to give
a description of his companion, the portrait he
drew was exactly his own. Before long, this
fixed idea obtained such an ascendancy over
his imagination, and even over his senses,
that he behaved in every respect as if he had
been two persons. If it were wanted to take in
a reef, to furl a sail, or perform any other perilous
manœuvre in boisterous weather, whenever
the task required the powers of two robust and
practised men, Smith would allow no other
sailor to help him, but executed the work alone,
with supernatural precision and vigour.

The crew at last became habituated to his
mysterious ways, and the officers could not help
remarking in this singular sailor an extraordinary