avanserai,
her brother and his friends lounged with her and the two ladies of their
touring and sketching party, while they drank their sherbet, and
talked of the Gerome colors of the place, and watched the flame of the
afterglow burn out, and threw millet to the doves and pigeons straying
at their feet.

"My dear Venetia!" cried the Seraph, carelessly tossing handfuls of
grain to the eager birds, "I inquired for your Sculptor-Chasseur--that
fellow Victor--but I failed to see him, for he had been sent on an
expedition shortly after I reached the camp. They tell me he is a fine
soldier; but by what the Marquis said, I fear he is but a handsome
blackguard, and Africa, after all, may be his fittest place."

She gave a bend of her head to show she heard him, stroking the soft
throat of a little dove that had settled on the bench beside her.

"There is a charming little creature there, a little
fire-eater--Cigarette, they call her--who is in love with him, I fancy.
Such a picturesque child!--swears like a trooper, too," continued he who
was now Duke of Lyonnesse. "By the way, is Berkeley gone?"

"Left yesterday."

"What for?--where to?"

"I was not interested to inquire."

"Ah! you never liked him! Odd enough to leave without reason or
apology?"

"He had his reasons, doubtless."

"And made his apology to you?"

"Oh, yes!"

Her brother looked at her earnestly; there was a care upon her face new
to him.

"Are you well, my darling?" he asked her. "Has the sun been too hot, or
la bise too cold for you?"

She rose, and gathered her cashmeres about her, and smiled somewhat
wearily her adieu to him.

"Both, perhaps. I am tired. Good-night."

CHAPTER XXXIII.

THE GIFT OF THE CROSS.

One of the most brilliant of Algerian autumnal days shone over the great
camp in the south. The war was almost at an end for a time; the Arabs
were defeated and driven desertwards; hostilities irksome, harassing,
and annoying, like all guerrilla warfare, would long continue; but peace
was virtually established, and Zaraila had been the chief glory that had
been added by the campaign to the flag of Imperial France. The kites
and the vultures had left the bare bones by thousands to bleach upon the
sands, and the hillocks of brown earth rose in crowds where those, more
cared for in death, had been hastily thrust beneath the brown crust
of the earth. The dead had received their portion of reward--in the
jackal's teeth, in the cro