hi just now just
by way of a lark, and only 'cause he come where he'd no business to poke
his turbaned old pate; 'taint likely as I should stop at giving the Hawk
two inches of steel if he comes such a insult over us both as to offer a
blackguard like me the epaulettes as you ought to be a-wearing!"

And Cecil knew that it was hopeless either to persuade him to his own
advantage or to convince him of his disobedience in speaking thus of his
supreme, before his con-commissioned, officer. He was himself, moreover,
deeply moved by the man's fidelity.

He stretched his hand out.

"I wish there were more blackguards with hearts like yours. I cannot
repay your love, Rake, but I can value it."

Rake put his own hands behind his back.

"God bless you, sir; you've repaid it ten dozen times over. But you
shan't do that, sir. I told you long ago, I'm too much of a scamp! Some
day, perhaps, as I said, when I've settled scores with myself, and wiped
off all the bad 'uns with a clear sweep, tolerably clean. Not afore,
sir!"

And Rake was too sturdily obstinate not to always carry his point.

The love that he bore to Cecil was very much such a wild, chivalric,
romantic fidelity as the Cavaliers or the Gentlemen of the North bore to
their Stuart idols. That his benefactor had become a soldier of Africa
in no way lessened the reverent love of his loyalty, any more than
theirs was lessened by the adversities of their royal masters. Like
theirs, also, it had beauty in its blindness--the beauty that lies in
every pure unselfishness.

Meanwhile, Picpon's news was correct.

The regiments were ordered out on the march. There was fresh war in the
interior; and wherever there was the hottest slaughter, there the
Black Hawk always flew down with his falcon-flock. When Cecil left his
incorrigible zig, the trumpets were sounding an assembly; there were
noise, tumult, eagerness, excitement, delighted zest on every side; a
general order was read to the enraptured squadrons; they were to leave
the town at the first streak of dawn.

There were before them death, deprivation, long days of famine, long
days of drought and thirst; parching, sun-baked roads; bitter, chilly
nights; fiery furnace-blasts of sirocco; killing, pitiless, northern
winds; hunger, only sharpened by a snatch of raw meat or a handful of
maize; and the probabilities, ten to one, of being thrust under the sand
to rot, or left to have their skeletons picked clean by the vul