him, straight
agin his nature."

Rake stopped, breathless in his rhetoric, which contained more truth in
it, as also more roughness, than most rhetoric does.

"You are right. But you wander from my question," said Cecil gently. "Do
you avoid promotion?"

"Yes, sir; I do," said Rake, something sulkily; for he felt he was being
driven "up a corner." "I do. I ain't not one bit fitter for an officer
than that rioting pup I talk on is fit to lead them crack packs at home.
I should be in a strait-waistcoat if I was promoted; and as for the
cross--Lord, sir, that would get me into a world o' trouble! I should
pawn it for a toss of wine the first day out, or give it to the first
moukiera that winked her black eye for it! The star put on my buttons
suits me a deal better; if you'll believe me, sir, it do."[*]

[*] The star on the metal buttons of the insubordinates, or Zephyrs.

Cecil's eyes rested on him with a look that said far more than his
answer.

"Rake, I know you better than you would let me do, if you had your way.
My noble fellow! You reject advancement, and earn yourself an unjust
reputation for mutinous conduct, because you are too generous to be
given a step above mine in the regiment."

"Who's been a-telling you that trash, sir?" retorted Rake, with
ferocity.

"No matter who. It is no trash. It is a splendid loyalty of which I
am utterly unworthy, and it shall be my care that it is known at the
Bureaus, so that henceforth your great merits may be--"

"Stop that, sir!" cried Rake vehemently. "Stow that, if you please!
Promoted I won't be--no, not if the Emperor hisself was to order it, and
come across here to see it done! A pretty thing, surely! Me a officer,
and you never a one--me a-commanding of you, and you a-saluting of me!
By the Lord, sir! we might as well see the camp-scullions a-riding in
state, and the Marshals a-scouring out the soup-pots!"

"Not at all. This Army has not a finer soldier than yourself; you have a
right to the reward of your services in it. And I assure you you do me a
great injustice if you think I would not as willingly go out under your
orders as under those of all the Marshals of the Empire."

The tears rushed into the hardy eyes of the redoubtable
"Crache-au-nez-d'la-Mort," though he dashed them away in a fury of
eloquence.

"Sir, if you don't understand as how you've given me a power more than
all the crosses in the world in saying of them there words, why, you
don't