ng all she met with right and left, till she rode
straight up to the barracks of the Chasseurs d'Afrique. At the entrance,
as she reined up, she saw the very person she wanted, and signed him
to her as carelessly as if he were a conscript instead of that powerful
officer, Francois Vireflau, captain and adjutant.

"Hola!" she cried, as she signaled him; Cigarette was privileged all
through the army. "Adjutant Vireflau, I come to tell you a good story
for your folios. There is your Corporal there--le beau Victor--has been
attacked by four drunken dogs of Arbicos, dead-drunk, and four against
one. He fought them superbly, but he would only parry, not thrust,
because he knows how strict the rules are about dealing with the
scoundrels--even when they are murdering you, parbleu! He has behaved
splendidly. I tell you so. And he was so patient with those dogs that he
would not have killed one of them. But I did; shot one straight through
the brain--a beautiful thing--and he lies on the Oran road now. Victor
would not leave him, for fear some passer-by should be thought guilty of
a murder. So I came on to tell you, and ask you to send some men up for
the jackal's body. Ah! he is a fine soldier, that Bel-a-faire-peur of
yours. Why don't you give him a step--two steps--three steps? Diantre!
It is not like France to leave him a Corporal!"

Vireflau listened attentively--a short, lean, black-visaged campaigner,
who yet relaxed into a grim half-smile as the vivandiere addressed him
with that air, as of a generalissimo addressing a subordinate, which
always characterized Cigarette the more strongly the higher the grade of
her companion or opponent.

"Always eloquent, pretty one!" he growled. "Are you sure he did not
begin the fray?"

"Don't I tell you the four Arabs were like four devils! They knocked
down an old colon, and Bel-a-faire-peur tried to prevent their doing
more mischief, and they set on him like so many wild-cats. He kept his
temper wonderfully; he always tries to preserve order; you can't say so
much of your riff-raff, Captain Vireflau, commonly! Here! this is his
horse. Send some men to him; and mind the thing is reported fairly, and
to his credit, to-morrow."

With which command, given as with the air of a commander-in-chief, in
its hauteur and its nonchalance, Cigarette vaulted off the charger,
flung the bridle to a soldier, and was away and out of sight before
Francois Vireflau had time to consider whether he sh