tment
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 Chasseurs? 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 Haw