So common is short-sightedness nowadays that military officers, and sometimes private soldiers, are allowed to wear spectacles. Formerly this was not the case. Where, by special permission of the authorities, exceptions had been made, the unfortunate wearers of glasses in the army came in for the ridicule of their comrades.

At the time when the French were fighting the Algerian chief, Abd-el-Kader, there was in a battalion of foot-chasseurs a spectacled adjutant named Duterbre. His companions made great fun of him. A man who wore glasses could not, in their opinion, be much of a hero. One day Duterbre, engaged in a reconnoitring expedition, was slightly wounded, and taken prisoner by the enemy. He was brought before the Arab chief. The remainder of the French force had, in the meantime, taken refuge in a walled enclosure close by.

'Go to your companions,' said Abd-el-Kader to Duterbre, 'and tell them that their lives shall be spared if they will surrender. Yours, in that case, shall be spared also. But if they refuse to surrender, I will utterly exterminate them, and I will have you beheaded. And understand this clearly: I send you to your people on one condition—that whether or not they accept my terms, you are in any case to return to me. Do you accept my conditions?'

'I do,' replied Duterbre.

Duterbre left the Arab camp, well aware that his only chance of life lay in the surrender of his battalion. If the French soldiers resolved to fight on, he was bound in honour to go back to death.

Duterbre returned to his companions. He had always been a man of few words, and he said very little on this occasion. But what he said was to the point. It was this: 'Chasseurs! If you do not surrender, the Arabs are going to cut off my head. Now die rather than yield, every one of you!'

Then the brave fellow turned his back, and went straight to the Arab camp, with the message that the French refused to surrender.

The chief carried out his threat. The adjutant was beheaded, and his head—spectacles and all—was carried round the camp upon a pole for public exhibition. None could say that it was not the head of a brave man.

E. D.