And he cried out, in a voice which drew a burst of laughter from every table:
“Mawnin’, Lieutenant.”
One of the officers was a battalion-commander, the other a colonel. The former said:
“I don’t know you, sir. I am quite unable to imagine what you want of me.”
The Negro replied:
“Me like you much, Lieutenant Védié, siege of Bézi, we hunt much grapes.”
The officer, quite at a loss, stared fixedly at the fellow, groping in the depths of his memory; and exclaimed abruptly:
“Timbuktu!”
The Negro, radiant, smacked his thigh, uttered a laugh of unbelievable violence, and roared:
“Ya, ya, my lieutenant, remember Timbuktu, ya, mawnin’!”
The major gave him his hand, laughing heartily himself. Then Timbuktu became serious again. He took the officer’s hand and, so swiftly that the other could not prevent him, he kissed it, according to the custom of the Negroes and the Arabs. The embarrassed officer said to him in a severe voice:
“Come, Timbuktu, we are not in Africa. Sit down there and tell me how it is that I find you here.”
Timbuktu stretched his paunch, and, speaking so fast that he stammered, announced:
“Make much money, very much, big rest’rant, good eat, Prussians, me, steal much, very much, F’ench cooking, me get hund’ed thousand f’ancs. Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!”
And he writhed with laughter, bellowing with a gleam of mad merriment in his eyes.
When the officer, who understood his strange language, had questioned him for some time, he said to him:
“Well, goodbye, Timbuktu; see you again soon.”
The Negro promptly rose, shook, this time, the outstretched hand, and, still laughing, exclaimed:
“Mawnin’, mawnin’, Lieutenant!”
And he departed, so happy that he gesticulated as he walked, and the crowd took him for a lunatic.
“Who was that brute?” inquired the colonel.
“A good lad and a good soldier,” replied the major. “I will tell you what I know about him; it is funny enough.
“You know that at the beginning of the war of 1870 I was shut up in Bézières, the place the Negro calls Bézi. We were not besieged, but blockaded. The Prussian lines surrounded us on every side, out of range of cannon-shot, and not firing on us, but gradually starving us out.
“I was a lieutenant at the time. Our garrison was composed of troops of every sort, the remnants of decimated regiments, fugitives and marauders separated from their army corps. We even had eleven Turcos, who arrived one evening, no one knows how or whence. They had turned up at the gates of the town, worn out, ragged, starving, and drunk. They were entrusted to me.
“I very soon realised that they detested every form of discipline; they were always getting out of the town, and were always drunk. I tried the police station, even a dose of prison; nothing did any good. My men would disappear for whole days, as though they had burrowed underground, and then would reappear so tipsy that they could not stand. They had no money. Where did they drink? And how, and by what means?
“The problem began to fascinate me, especially as these savages interested me, with their perpetual laugh and their natures of overgrown, naughty boys.
“I noticed at last that they obeyed blindly the biggest of the lot; the one you have just seen. He ruled them absolutely as he chose, and prepared their mysterious enterprises with the undisputed authority of an omnipotent chief. I made him come and see me, and questioned him. Our conversation lasted a good three hours, so much trouble it took me to comprehend his surprising rigmarole. As for him, poor devil, he made the most extraordinary efforts to be understood, invented words, gesticulated, perspired with the effort, wiped his brow, panted, stopped, and abruptly began again when he fancied he had discovered a new means of explaining himself.
“Eventually I gathered that he was the son of a great chief, a sort of Negro king in the neighbourhood of Timbuktu. I asked him his name. He answered something like ‘Chavaharibouhalikhranafotapolara.’ I thought it simpler to give him the name of his country: ‘Timbuktu.’ And a week later the entire garrison knew him by no other name.
“But we were consumed by a frantic desire to know how this African ex-prince managed to get hold of drink. I discovered it in strange fashion.
“I was on the ramparts one morning, scanning the horizon, when I saw something moving in a vineyard. It was getting near the vintage season, and the grapes were ripe, but I never thought of that. I imagined that a spy was approaching the town, and I organised an entire expedition to seize the prowler. I took command myself, after getting permission from the general.
“I had sent out, through three different gates, three little bands which were to meet near the suspected vineyard and surround it. In order to cut off the spy’s retreat, one of the detachments had to march for a good hour. A man who remained on the watch upon the walls indicated to me by signs that the fellow I had noticed had not left the field. We went on our way in complete silence, crawling, almost lying flat in the ruts. At last we reached the appointed spot; swiftly I deployed my men, who dashed into the vineyard and found … Timbuktu, going on all fours through the middle of vines, and eating the grapes, or rather lapping them up like a dog lapping soup, taking them straight off the plants in large mouthfuls, tearing down the bunches with his teeth.
“I tried to make him stand up; it was not to be dreamed of, and I realised then why he was crawling thus on his hands and knees. Set on his legs, he tottered for a few seconds, threw out his arms, and fell flat on his nose. I have never seen a man so drunk as he was.
“He was carried home on two vine-poles. He never stopped laughing all the way
