ely. Perhaps her natural feminine vanity was
roused within her, and she wanted to show off at her best before the
handsome soldier. Her eyes sparkled; a flush spread from time to time
over her face; with her sweet voice she animated the little bear,
crying, "Mariska, Mariska, jump!" But after a while she seemed to
forget the growling little creature altogether, and went on dancing a
kind of graceful fandango of her own invention. As she swayed, it
seemed as if the motion and excitement caused every fiber of her body
to flash out a sort of electric glow. By the time the girl flung
herself, quite exhausted, in the dust at his feet, Captain Winter was
absolutely beside himself. Such a morsel of heavenly daintiness did
not often drop in his path now that he was fasting in this purgatory
of a village. His stay there had been one long Lent, during which joys
and pleasures had been rare indeed.

It began to grow dark. At the other end of the market-place several
officers were on their way to supper at the village inn where they
always messed. The Captain turned to the man and woman in possession
of the bears and ordered them in no friendly tone to go with him to
the inn as his guests. Joco bowed humbly like a culprit, and gloomily
led on his comrade Ibrahim. Zorka, on the contrary, looked gay as she
walked along beside the light-colored bear.

The Captain looked again and again at the bear-leader walking in front
of him. "Where have I seen this fellow before?" he kept asking
himself. His uncertainty did not last long. His face brightened. "Oh,
yes; I remember!" he inwardly exclaimed. Now he felt sure that this
black cherry of Bosnia, this girl with the waist of a dragonfly, was
his.

The inn, once a gentleman's country-house, was built of stone. The
bears were lodged in a little room which used to serve the former
owner of the house as pantry, and were chained to the strong iron
lattice of the window. In one corner of this little room the landlord
ordered one of his servants to make a good bed of straw. "The Captain
will pay for it," he said.

When everything was ready in the little room, the Captain called Joco
and took him there. He knew that what he was going to do was not
chivalrous; but he had already worked himself up to a blaze of
excitement over the game he meant to play, and this fellow was too
stupid to understand what a hazardous piece of play it was. When they
were alone he stood erect before the bear-leader a