tures.
But what of that! There were also the wild delight of combat, the
freedom of lawless warfare, the joy of deep strokes thrust home, the
chance of plunder, of wine-skins, of cattle, of women; above all, that
lust for slaughter which burns so deep down in the hidden souls of men
and gives them such brotherhood with wolf and vulture and tiger, when
once its flame bursts forth.

That evening, at the Villa Aioussa, there gathered a courtly assembly,
of much higher rank than Algiers can commonly afford, because many of
station as lofty as her own had been drawn thither to follow her to
what the Princesse Corona called her banishment--an endurable banishment
enough under those azure skies, in that clear, elastic air, and with
that charming "bonbonniere" in which to dwell, yet still a banishment to
the reigning beauty of Paris, to one who had the habits and the
commands of a wholly undisputed sovereignty in the royal splendor of her
womanhood.

There was a variety of distractions to prevent ennui; there were half
a dozen clever Paris actors playing the airiest of vaudevilles in the
Bijou theater beyond the drawing-rooms; there were some celebrated
Italian singers whom an Imperial Prince had brought over in his yacht;
there was the best music; there was wit as well as homage whispered in
her ear. Yet she was not altogether amused; she was a little touched
with ennui.

"Those men are very stupid. They have not half the talent of that
soldier!" she thought once, turning from a Peer of France, an Austrian
Archduke, and a Russian diplomatist. And she smiled a little, furling
her fan and musing on the horror that the triad of fashionable
conquerors near her would feel if they knew that she thought them duller
than an African lascar!

But they only told her things of which she had been long weary,
specially of her own beauty; he had told her of things totally unknown
to her--things real, terrible, vivid, strong, sorrowful--strong as life,
sorrowful as death.

"Chateauroy and his Chasseurs have an order de route," a voice was
saying, that moment, behind her chair.

"Indeed?" said another. "The Black Hawk is never so happy as when
unhooded. When do they go?"

"To-morrow. At dawn."

"There is always fighting here, I suppose?"

"Oh, yes! The losses in men are immense; only the journals would get
a communique, or worse, if they ventured to say so in France. How
delicious La Doche is! She comes in again with the next