ameless life forever.

She drew a deep, long, sighing breath; she knew that he was safe. Her
hands unconsciously locked on the great chief's arms; her eyes looked
up, senselessly in their rapture and their dread, to his.

"Quick, quick!" she gasped. "The hours go so fast; while we speak here
he----"

The words died in her throat. The Marshal swung around with a rapid sign
to a staff officer.

"Pens and ink! Instantly! My brave child, what can we say to you? I will
send an aid to arrest the execution of the sentence. It must be deferred
till we know the whole truth of this. If it be as it looks now, he shall
be saved if the Empire can save him!"

She looked up in his eyes with a look that froze his very heart.

"His honor!" she muttered; "his honor--if not his life!"

He understood her; he bowed his haughty head low down to hers.

"True. We will cleanse that, if all other justice be too late."

The answer was infinitely gentle, infinitely solemn. Then he turned and
wrote his hurried order, and bade his aid go with it without a second's
loss. But Cigarette caught it from his hand.

"To me! to me! No other will go so fast!"

"But, my child, you are worn out already."

She turned on him her beautiful, wild eyes, in which the blinding,
passionate tears were floating.

"Do you think I would tarry for that? Ah! I wish that I had let them
tell me of God, that I might ask Him now to bless you! Quick, quick!
Lend me your swiftest horse! One that will not tire. And send a second
order by your aid-de-camp; the Arabs may kill me as I go, and then, they
will not know!"

He stooped and touched her little, brown, scorched, feverish hand with
reverence.

"My child, Africa has shown me much heroism, but none like yours. If you
fall, he shall be safe, and France will know how to avenge its darling's
loss."

She turned and gave him one look, infinitely sweet, infinitely eloquent.

"Ah, France!" she said, so softly that the last word was but a sign
of unutterable tenderness. The old, imperishable early love was not
dethroned; it was there, still before all else. France was without rival
with her.

Then, without another second's pause, she flew from them, and vaulting
into the saddle of a young horse which stood without in the court-yard,
rode once more, at full speed out into the pitiless blaze of the sun,
out to the wasted desolation of the plains.

The order of release, indeed, was in her bosom; but the chances wer