Part 62 (2/2)

”He said once that he would take my hand before all the world always, come what would,” he thought. ”Would he take it now, I wonder? Yes; he never believed against me.”

And, as he thought, the same anguish of desire that had before smitten him to stand once more guiltless in the presence of men, and once more bear, untarnished, the name of his race and the honor of his fathers, shook him now as strong winds shake a tree that yet is fast rooted at its base, though it sway a while beneath the storm.

”How weak I am!” he thought bitterly. ”What does it matter? Life is so short, one is a coward indeed to fret over it. I cannot undo what I did.

I cannot, if I could. To betray him now! G.o.d! not for a kingdom, if I had the chance! Besides, she may live still; and, even were she dead, to tarnish her name to clear my own would be a scoundrel's baseness--baseness that would fail as it merited; for who could be brought to believe me now?”

The thoughts unformed drifted through his mind, half dulled, half sharpened by the deadly pain, and the rush of old brotherly love that had arisen in him as he had seen the face of his friend beside the watch-fire of the French bivouac. It was hard; it was cruelly hard; he had, after a long and severe conflict, brought himself into contentment with his lot, and taught himself oblivion of the past, and interest in the present, by active duties and firm resolve; he had vanquished all the habits, controlled most of the weaknesses, and banished nearly all the frailties and indulgences of his temperament in the long ordeal of African warfare. It was cruelly hard that now when he had obtained serenity, and more than half attained forgetfulness, these two--her face and his--must come before him; one to recall the past, the other to embitter the future!

As he sat with his head bent down and his forehead leaning on his arm, while the hard biscuit that served for a plate stood unnoticed beside him, with the food that the soldiers had placed on it, he did not hear Cigarette's step till she touched him on the arm. Then he looked up; her eyes were looking on him with a tender, earnest pity.

”Hark! I have done it,” she said gently. ”But it will be an errand very close to death that you must go on--”

He raised himself erect, eagerly.

”No matter that! Ah, mademoiselle, how I thank you!”

”Chut! I am no Paris demoiselle!” said Cigarette, with a dash of her old acrimony. ”Ceremony in a camp--pouf! You must have been a court chamberlain once, weren't you? Well, I have done it. Your officers were talking yonder of a delicate business; they were uncertain who best to employ. I put in my speech--it was dead against military etiquette, but I did it. I said to M. le General: 'You want the best rider, the most silent tongue, and the surest steel in the squadrons? Take Bel-a-faire-peur, then.' 'Who is that?' asked the general; he would have sent out of camp anybody but Cigarette for the interruption.

'Mon General,' said I, 'the Arabs asked that, too, the other day, at Zaraila.' 'What!' he cried, 'the man Victor--who held the ground with his Cha.s.seurs? I know--a fine soldier. M. le Colonel, shall we send him?' The Black Hawk had scowled thunder on you; he hates you more still since that affair of Zaraila, especially because the general has reported your conduct with such praise that they cannot help but promote you. Well, he had looked thunder, but now he laughed. 'Yes, mon General,' he answered him, 'take him, if you like. It is fifty to one whoever goes on that business will not come back alive, and you will rid me of the most insolent fine gentleman in my squadrons.' The general hardly heard him; he was deep in thought; but he asked a good deal about you from the Hawk, and Chateauroy spoke for your fitness for the errand they are going to send you on, very truthfully, for a wonder. I don't know why; but he wants you to be sent, I think; most likely that you may be cut to pieces. And so they will send for you in a minute. I have done it as you wished.”

There was something of her old brusquerie and recklessness in the closing sentences; but it had not her customary debonair lightness. She knew too well that the chances were as a hundred to one that he would never return alive from this service on which he had entreated to be dispatched. Cecil grasped both her hands in his with warm grat.i.tude, that was still, like the touch of his hands, the grat.i.tude of comrade to comrade, not of man to woman.

”G.o.d bless you, Cigarette! You are a true friend, my child. You have done me immeasurable benefits--”

”Oh! I am a true friend,” said the Little One, somewhat pettishly. She would have preferred another epithet. ”If a man wants to get shot as a very great favor, I always let him pleasure himself. Give a man his own way, if you wish to be kind to him. You are children, all of you, nothing but children, and if the toy that pleases you best is death, why--you must have it. Nothing else would content you. I know you. You always want what flies from you, and are tired of what lies to your hand. That is always a man.”

”And a woman, too, is it not?”

Cigarette shrugged her shoulders.

”Oh, I dare say! We love what is new--what is strange. We are humming-tops; we will only spin when we are fresh wound up with a string to our liking.”

”Make an exception of yourself, my child. You are always ready to do a good action, and never tire of that. From my heart I thank you. I wish to Heaven I could prove it better.”

She drew her hands away from him.

”A great thing I have done, certainly! Got you permission to go and throw a cartel at old King Death; that is all! There! That is your summons.”

The orderly approached, and brought the bidding of the general in command of the Cavalry for Cecil to render himself at once to his presence. These things brook no second's delay in obedience; he went with a quick adieu to Cigarette, and the little Friend of the Flag was left in his vacant place beside the fire.

And there was a pang at her heart.

”Ten to one he goes to his death,” she thought. But Cigarette, little mischief-maker though she was, could reach very high in one thing; she could reach a love that was unselfish, and one that was heroic.

A few moments, and Cecil returned.

”Rake,” he said rapidly, in the French he habitually used, ”saddle my horse and your own. I am allowed to choose one of you to accompany me.”

Rake, in paradise, and the envied of every man in the squadron, turned to his work--with him a task of scarce more than a second; and Cecil approached his little Friend of the Flag.

<script>