IN THE FOREIGN LEGION
BY
ERWIN ROSEN
LONDON
DUCKWORTH & CO.
HENRIETTA ST. COVENT GARDEN
1910
All rights reserved
Printed by Ballantyne & Co. Limited
Tavistock Street, Covent Garden, London
PROLOGUE
Once upon a time there was a young student at a German University whofound life too fresh, too joyous, to care very much for professors andcollege halls. Parental objections he disregarded. Things came to aclimax. And the very next "Schnelldampfer" had amongst its passengers aboy in disgrace, bound for the country of unlimited possibilities insearch of a fortune….
The boy did not see very much of fortune, but met with a great deal ofhard work. His father did not consider New York a suitable place forbad boys, and booked him a through passage to Galveston. There theex-student contracted hotel-bills, feeling very much out of place,until a man who took a fancy to him gave him a job on a farm in Texas.There the boy learnt a good deal about riding and shooting, but ratherless about cotton-raising. This was the beginning. In the course oftime he became translator of Associated Press Despatches for a bigGerman paper in St. Louis and started in newspaper life.
From vast New York to the Golden Gate his new profession carried him:he was sent as a war correspondent to Cuba, he learned wisdom from thekings of journalism, he paid flying visits to small Central Americanrepublics whenever a new little revolution was in sight. Incidentallyhe acquired a taste for adventure. Then the boy, a man now, was calledback to the Fatherland, to be a journalist, editor and novelist. He wasfairly successful. And a woman's love came into his life….
But he lost the jewel happiness. The continual fight for existence andbattling for daily bread of his American career, so full of ups anddowns, was hardly a good preparation for quiet respectability. Wise mencalled him a fool, a fool unspeakable, who squandered his talents inlight-heartedness. And finally a time came when even his wife to becould no more believe in him. The jewel happiness was lost….
The man at any rate recognised his loss; he recognised that life was nolonger worth living. A dull feeling of hopelessness came over him. Andin his hour of despair he remembered the blood of adventure in hisveins. A wild life he would have: he would forget.
He enlisted as a soldier in the French Foreign Legion.
That man was I. I had burned my boats behind me. Not a soul knew whereI was. Those who loved me should think that I was dead. I lived thehard life of a légionnaire; I had no hopes, no aspirations, no thoughtfor the future; I worked and marched, slept, ate, and did what I wasordered; suffered the most awful hardships and bore all kinds ofshameful treatment. And during sleepless nights I dreamed of love—lovelost for ever….
Some five hundred years I wore the uniform of the Legion. So at leastit seemed to me.
Then—the great change came. One day there was a letter for me.
Love had found me out across a continent. I read and read and readagain.
That was the turning-point of my life. I broke my fetters, and I foughta hard fight for a new care