ny headlong charges under the desert
suns, and looked at it as though a friend's eye gazed at him in
the gleam of the trusty steel. And his soldier-like philosophy, his
campaigner's carelessness, his habitual, easy negligence that had
sometimes been weak as water and sometimes heroic as martyrdom, came
back to him with a deeper shadow on it, that was grave with a calm,
resolute, silent courage.

"So best after all, perhaps," he said half aloud, in the solitude of the
ruined and abandoned mosque. "He cannot well come to shipwreck with such
a fair wind and such a smooth sea. And I--I am just as well here. To
ride with the Chasseurs is more exciting than to ride with the Pytchley;
and the rules of the Chambree are scarce more tedious than the rules of
a Court. Nature turned me out for a soldier, though Fashion spoiled
me for one. I can make a good campaigner--I should never make anything
else."

And he let his sword drop back again into the scabbard, and quarreled no
more with fate.

His hand touched the thirty gold pieces in his sash.

He started, as the recollection of the forgotten insult came back on
him. He stood a while in thought; then he took his resolve.

A half hour of quick movement, for he had become used to the heat as an
Arab and heeded it as little, brought him before the entrance-gates
of the Villa Aioussa. A native of Soudan, in a rich dress, who had the
office of porter, asked him politely his errand. Every indigene learns
by hard experience to be courteous to a French soldier. Cecil simply
asked, in answer, if Mme. La Princesse were visible. The negro returned
cautiously that she was at home, but doubted her being accessible. "You
come from M. le Marquis?" he inquired.

"No; on my own errand."

"You!" Not all the native African awe of a Roumi could restrain the
contemptuous amaze in the word.

"I. Ask if Corporal Victor, of the Chasseurs, can be permitted a
moment's interview with your mistress. I come by permission," he added,
as the native hesitated between his fear of a Roumi and his sense of
the appalling unfittingness of a private soldier seeking audience of a
Spanish princesse. The message was passed about between several of the
household; at last a servant of higher authority appeared:

"Madame permitted Corporal Victor to be taken to her presence. Would he
follow?"

He uncovered his head and entered, passing through several passages
and chambers, richly hung and furnished; for the vi