He laughed and showed me a long reed.
"It's the silliest trick you ever saw," he said, "but it's very useful for
breathing and singing in the water. I learned it from the Tonkin pirates,
who are able to remain hidden for hours in the beds of the rivers."[8]
----
[8] An official report from Tonkin, received in Paris at the end
of July, 1909, relates how the famous pirate chief De Tham
was tracked, together with his men, by our soldiers; and how
all of them succeeded in escaping, thanks to this trick of the reeds.
I spoke to him severely.
"It's a trick that nearly killed me!" I said. "And it may have
been fatal to others! You know what you promised me, Erik?
No more murders!"
"Have I really committed murders?" he asked, putting on his most
amiable air.
"Wretched man!" I cried. "Have you forgotten the rosy hours
of Mazenderan?"
"Yes," he replied, in a sadder tone, "I prefer to forget them.
I used to make the little sultana laugh, though!"
"All that belongs to the past," I declared; "but there is the present
... and you are responsible to me for the present, because,
if I had wished, there would have been none at all for you.
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