e exclaimed, wonderingly.

For all that his opponent's sword, ominously red from the fierce first
assault at the wall, was at his breast, he made no effort to oppose
its threatening point, when a grape-shot, swifter than the blade,
fairly struck the gunner. With blood streaming from his shoulder, he
swayed from side to side, passing his hand before his eyes as one who
questions oracular evidence, and then sank to the earth with an arm
thrown over the tube of copper. Above his bronzed face the light curls
waved like those of a Viking; though his clothes were dyed with the
sanguinary hue and his chest rose and fell with labored breathing, it
was with an almost quizzical glance he regarded the other who stood as
if turned to stone.

"That was not so easily done, Ernest," he said, not unkindly, "but
surprise broke down my guard."

"Before God, it was not I!" cried the soldier, starting from a
trance.

"And if it were!" With his free arm he felt his shoulder. "I believe
you are right," he observed, coolly. "Swords break no bones."

"I will get a surgeon," said the other, as he turned.

"What for? To shake his head? Get no one, or if--for boyish days!--you
want to serve me, lend me your canteen."

Saint-Prosper held it to his lips, and he drank thirstily.

"That was a draught in an oasis. I had the desert in my throat--the
desert, the wild desert! What a place to meet! But they caught
Abd-el-Kader, and there was nothing for it but to flee! Besides, I am
a rolling stone."

To hear him who had betrayed his country and shed the blood of his
comrades, characterize himself by no harsher term was an amazing
revelation of the man's character.

The space around them had become almost deserted; here and there lay
figures on the ground among which might be distinguished a
sub-lieutenant and other students of the military college, the castle
having been both academy and garrison. Their tuition barely over, so
early had they given up their lives beneath the classic walls of their
_alma mater_! The exhilarating cheering and shouting had subsided; the
sad after-flavor succeeded the lust of conquest.

"Yes," continued the gunner, though the words came with an effort.
"First, it was the desert. What a place to roll and rove! I couldn't
help it for the life of me! When I was a boy I ran away from school; a
lad, I ran away from college! If I had been a sailor I would have
deserted the ship. After they captured the prophet, I dese