orders have got so strict about petting
the natives I thought I wouldn't have any violence, if the thing would
go nice and smoothly. So I just walked behind him, and tripped him up
before he knew where he was--it was a picture! He was down with his face
in the sand before you could sing Tra-la-la! Then I just sat upon him;
but gently--very gently; and what with the sand and the heat, and the
surprise, and, in truth, perhaps, a little too, my own weight, he was
half suffocated. He had never seen me; he did not know what it was that
was sitting on him; and I sent my voice out with a roar--'I am a demon,
and the fiend hath bidden me take him thy soul to-night!' Ah! how he
began to tremble, and to kick, and to quiver. He thought it was the
devil a-top of him; and he began to moan, as well as the sand would let
him, that he was a poor man, and an innocent, and the geese were the
only things he ever stole in all his life. Then I went through a little
pantomime with him, and I was very terrible in my threats, and he was
choking and choking with the sand, though he never let go of the geese.
At last I relented a little, and told him I would spare him that once,
if he gave up the stolen goods, and never lifted his head for an
hour. Sapristi! How glad he was of the terms! I dare say my weight was
unpleasant; so the geese made us a divine stew that night, and the last
thing I saw of my man was his lying flat as I left him, with his face
still down in the sand-hole."

Cigarette nodded and laughed.

"Pretty fair, Tata; but I have heard better. Bah! a grand thing
certainly, to fright a peasant, and scamper off with a goose!"

"Sacre bleu!" grumbled Tata, who was himself of opinion that his exploit
had been worthy of the feats of Harlequin; "thy heart is all gone to the
Englishman."

Cigarette laughed saucily and heartily, tickled at the joke. Sentiment
has an exquisitely ludicrous side when one is a black-eyed wine-seller
perched astride on a wall, and dispensing bandy-dashed wine to half a
dozen sun-baked Spahis.

"My heart is a reveil matin, Tata; it wakes fresh every day. An
Englishman! Why dost thou think him that?"

"Because he is a giant," said Tata.

Cigarette snapped her fingers:

"I have danced with grenadiers and cuirassiers quite as tall, and twice
as heavy. Apres?"

"Because he bathes--splash! Like any water-dog."

"Because he is silent."

"Because he rises in his stirrups."

"Because he likes the sea."