She turned to me, and her hands fell to her side.

"Are you contented?" she asked.

"Yes," I answered.

"I, too," she said, sweetly, and offered her hands.

I held them very tightly. "You say," I whispered, "that it is
not--love. But you do not speak for me. I love you."

A bright blush spread over brow and neck.

"So--it was love--after all," she said, under her breath. "God be
with us to-day--I love you."

"March!" cried Mornac, as two soldiers took station beside me.

"I beg you will be gentle with this lady," I said, angrily, as two
more soldiers pushed up beside the young Countess and laid their hands
on her shoulders.

"Who the devil are you giving orders to?" shouted Mornac, savagely.
"March!"

Speed passed out first; I followed; the Countess came behind me.

"Courage," I stammered, looking back at her as we stumbled out into
the torch-lit garden.

She smiled adorably. Her forefathers had mounted the guillotine
smiling.

Mornac pointed to the garden wall near the bench where we had sat
together. A soldier dressed like a Turco lifted a torch and set it in
the flower-bed under the wall, illuminating the spot where we were to
stand. As this soldier turned to come back I saw his face.

"Salah Ben-Ahmed!" I cried, hoarsely. "Do Marabouts do this
butcher's work?"

The Turco stared at me as though stunned.

"Salah Ben-Ahmed is a disgraced soldier!" I said, in a ringing
voice.

"It's a lie!" he shouted, in Arabic--"it's a lie, O my inspector!
Speak! Have these men tricked me? Are you not Prussians?"

"Silence! Silence!" bawled Mornac. "Turco, fall in! Fall in, I say!
What! You menace me?" he snarled, cocking his revolver.

Then a man darted out of the red shadows of the torch-light and fell
upon Mornac with a knife, and dragged him down and rolled on him,
stabbing him through and through, while the mutilated wretch screamed
and screamed until his soul struggled out through the flame-shot
darkness and fled to its last dreadful abode.

The Lizard rose, shaking his fagot knife; they fell upon him, clubbing
and stabbing with stock and bayonet, but he swung his smeared and
sticky blade, clearing a circle around him. And I think he could have
cut his way free had not Tric-Trac shot him in the back of the head.

Then a frightful tumult broke loose. Three of the torches were knocked
to the ground and trampled out as the insurgents, doubly drunken with
wine and the taste of blood, seized me and tried