to cover him, Zackrist had reared himself up
and leaned slightly forward over against his comrade. The shirt that
protected Cecil was his; and on his own bare shoulders and mighty chest
the tiny armies of the flies and gnats were fastened, doing their will,
uninterrupted.

As he caught her glance a sullen, ruddy glow of shame shown through the
black, hard skin of his sun-burned visage--shame to which he had been
never touched when discovered in any one of his guilty and barbarous
actions.

"Dame!" he growled savagely--"he gave me his wine; one must do something
in return. Not that I feel the insects--not I; my skin is leather, see
you! they can't get through it; but his is white and soft--bah! like
tissue-paper!"

"I see, Zackrist; you are right. A French soldier can never take a
kindness from an English fellow without outrunning him in generosity.
Look--here is some drink for you."

She knew too well the strange nature with which she had to deal to say
a syllable of praise to him for his self-devotion, or to appear to see
that, despite his boast of his leather skin, the stings of the cruel,
winged tribes were drawing his blood and causing him alike pain and
irritation which, under that sun, and added to the torment of his
gunshot-wound, were a martyrdom as great as the noblest saint ever
endured.

"Tiens--tiens! I did him wrong," murmured Cigarette. "That is what they
are--the children of France--even when they are at their worst, like
that devil, Zackrist. Who dare say they are not the heroes of the
world?"

And all through the march she gave Zackrist a double portion of her
water dashed with red wine, that was so welcome and so precious to the
parched and aching throats; and all through the march Cecil lay asleep,
and the man who had thieved from him, the man whose soul was stained
with murder, and pillage, and rapine, sat erect beside him, letting the
insects suck his veins and pierce his flesh.

It was only when they drew near the camp of the main army that Zackrist
beat off the swarm and drew his old shirt over his head. "You do
not want to say anything to him," he muttered to Cigarette. "I am of
leather, you know; I have not felt it."

She nodded; she understood him. Yet his shoulders and his chest were
well-nigh flayed, despite the tough and horny skin of which he made his
boast.

"Dieu! we are droll!" mused Cigarette. "If we do a good thing, we hide
it as if it were a bit of stolen meat, we are so