Hawk."

Which title she gave with a saucy laugh, hitting with a chocolate bonbon
the black African-burnt visage of the omnipotent chief she had the
audacity to attack. High or low, they were all the same to Cigarette.
She would have "slanged" the Emperor himself with the self-same
coolness, and the Army had given her a passport of immunity so wide that
it would have fared ill with anyone who had ever attempted to bring the
vivandiere to book for her uttermost mischief.

"By the way!" she went on, quick as thought, with her reckless,
devil-may-care gayety. "One thing! Your Corporal will demoralize the
army of Africa, monsieur!"

"He shall have an ounce of cold lead before he does. What in?"

"He will demoralize it," said Cigarette, with a sagacious shake of her
head. "If they follow his example we shan't have a Chasseur, or a Spahi,
or a Piou-piou, or a Sapeur worth anything--"

"Sacre! What does he do?" The Colonel's strong teeth bit savagely
through his cigar; he would have given much to have been able to find
a single thing of insubordination or laxity of duty in a soldier who
irritated and annoyed him, but who obeyed him implicitly, and was one of
the most brilliant "fire-eaters" of his regiment.

"He won't only demoralize the army," pursued the Cigarette, with
vivacious eloquence, "but if his example is followed, he'll ruin the
Prefets, close the Bureaux, destroy the Exchequer, beggar all the
officials, make African life as tame as milk and water, and rob you, M.
le Colonel, of your very highest and dearest privilege!"

"Sacre bleu!" cried her hearers, as their hands instinctively sought
their swords; "what does he do?"

Cigarette looked at them out of her arch black lashes.

"Why, he never thieves from the Arabs! If the fashion comes in, adieu to
our occupation. Court-martial him, Colonel!"

With which sally Cigarette thrust her pretty soft curls back of her
temples, and launched herself into lansquenet with all the ardor of
a gambler and the vivacity of a child; her eyes flashing, her cheeks
flushing, her little teeth set, her whole soul in a whirl of the game,
made all the more riotous by the peals of laughter from her comrades
and the wines that were washed down like water. Cigarette was a terrible
little gamester, and had gaming made very easy to her, for it was the
creed of the Army that her losses never counted, but her gains were paid
to her often double or treble. Indeed, so well did she play, a