ce pails."

"The best growths?" asked Cigarette, with the dubious air and caution of
a connoisseur.

"Yes!" said M. le Marquis, amused with the precautions taken with his
cellar, one of the finest in Algiers. "Come in and have some breakfast,
ma belle. Only pay the toll."

Where he sat between the window and the table he caught her in his arms
and drew her pretty face down; Cigarette, with the laugh of a saucy
child, whisked her cigar out of her mouth and blew a great cloud of
smoke in his eyes. She had no particular fancy for him, though she had
for his wines; shouts of mirth from the other men completed the Marquis'
discomfiture, as she swayed away from him, and went over to the other
side of the table, emptying some bottles unceremoniously into her
wine-keg; iced, ruby, perfumy claret that she could not have bought
anywhere for the barracks.

"Hola!" cried the Marquis, "thou art not generally so coy with thy
kisses, petite."

Cigarette tossed her head.

"I don't like bad clarets after good! I've just been with your Corporal,
'Bel-a-faire-peur'; you are no beauty after him, M. le Colonel."

Chateauroy's face darkened; he was a colossal-limbed man, whose bone was
iron, and whose muscles were like oak-fibers; he had a dark, keen head
like an eagle's; the brow narrow, but very high, looking higher because
the close-cut hair was worn off the temples; thin lips hidden by heavy
curling mustaches, and a skin burned black by long African service.
Still he was fairly handsome enough not to have muttered so heavy an
oath as he did at the vivandiere's jest.

"Sacre bleu! I wish my corporal were shot! One can never hear the last
of him."

Cigarette darted a quick glance at him. "Oh, ho; jealous, mon brave!"
thought her quick wits. "And why, I wonder?"

"You haven't a finer soldier in your Chasseurs, mon cher; don't wish him
shot, for the good of the service," said the Viscount de Chanrellon, who
had now a command of his own in the Light Cavalry of Algiers. "Pardieu!
If I had to choose whether I'd be backed by 'Bel-a-faire-peur,' or by
six other men in a skirmish, I'd choose him, and risk the odds."

Chateauroy tossed off his burgundy with a contemptuous impatience.

"Diable! That is the exaggerated nonsense one always hears about this
fellow--as if he were a second Roland, or a revivified Bayard! I see
nothing particular in him, except that he's too fine a gentleman for the
ranks."

"Fine? ah!" laughed Cigarette.