The laughter, the work, and the clatter of conflicting tongues were at
their height; Cecil sat, now listening, now losing himself in thought,
while he gave the last touch to the carvings before him. They were a set
of chessmen which it had taken him years to find materials for and to
perfect; the white men were in ivory, the black in walnut, and were two
opposing squadrons of French troops and of mounted Arabs. Beautifully
carved, with every detail of costume rigid to truth, they were his
masterpiece, though they had only been taken up at any odd ten minutes
that had happened to be unoccupied during the last three or four years.
The chessmen had been about with him in so many places and under canvas
so long, from the time that he chipped out their first Zouave pawn, as
he lay in the broiling heat of Oran prostrate by a dry brook's stony
channel, that he scarcely cared to part with them, and had refused
to let Rake offer them for sale, with all the rest of the carvings.
Stooping over them, he did not notice the doors open at the end of the
barracks until a sudden silence that fell on the babble and uproar round
him made him look up; then he rose and gave the salute with the rest of
his discomfited and awestricken troopers. Chateauroy with a brilliant
party had entered.

The Colonel flashed an eagle glance round.

"Fine discipline! You shall go and do this pretty work at Beylick!"

The soldiers stood like hounds that see the lash; they knew that he was
like enough to carry out his threat; though they were doing no more than
they had always tacit, if not open, permission to do. Cecil advanced,
and fronted him.

"Mine is the blame, mon Commandant!"

He spoke simply, gently, boldly; standing with the ceremony that he
never forgot to show to their chief, where the glow of African sunlight
through the casement of the barracks fell full across his face, and his
eyes met the dark glance of the "Black Hawk" unflinchingly. He never
heeded that there was a gay, varied, numerous group behind Chateauroy;
visitors who were looking over the barrack; he only heeded that his
soldiers were unjustly attacked and menaced.

The Marquis gave a grim, significant smile, that cut like so much cord
of the scourge.

"Wherever there is insubordination in the regiment, the blame is very
certain to be yours! Corporal Victor, if you allow your Chambre to
be turned into the riot of a public fair, you will soon find yourself
degraded from the ra