she
had saved, and borne aloft in victory at Zaraila. There was not one in
all those hosts whose eyes did not turn on her with gratitude, and
reverence, and delight in her as their own.

But she had scarce time even for that flash of pain to quiver in
impotent impatience through her. The trumpets sounded, the salvoes of
artillery pealed out, the lances and the swords were carried up in
salute; on to the ground rode the Marshal of France, who represented the
imperial will and presence, surrounded by his staff, by generals of
division and brigade, by officers of rank, and by some few civilian
riders. An _aide_ galloped up to her where she stood with the corps of
her Spahis, and gave her his orders. The Little One nodded carelessly,
and touched Etoile-Filante with the prick of the spur. Like lightning
the animal bounded forth from the ranks, rearing and plunging, and
swerving from side to side, while his rider, with exquisite grace and
address, kept her seat like the little semi-Arab that she was, and with
a thousand curves and bounds cantered down the line of the gathered
troops, with the west wind blowing from the far-distant sea, and fanning
her bright cheeks till they wore the soft scarlet flush of the glowing
japonica flower. And all down the ranks a low, hoarse, strange, longing
murmur went--the buzz of the voices which, but that discipline
suppressed them, would have broken out in worshipping acclamations.

As carelessly as though she reined up before the _cafe_ door of the _As
de Pique_, she arrested her horse before the great Marshal who was the
impersonation of authority, and put her hand up in the salute, with her
saucy wayward laugh. He was the impersonation of that vast, silent,
awful, irresponsible power which, under the name of the Second Empire,
stretched its hand of iron across the sea, and forced the soldiers of
France down into nameless graves, with the desert sand choking their
mouths; but he was no more to Cigarette than any drummer-boy that might
be present. She had all the contempt for the laws of rank of your
thorough inborn democrat, all the gay _insouciant_ indifference to
station of the really free and untrammelled nature; and, in her sight, a
dying soldier, lying quietly in a ditch to perish of shot-wounds without
a word or a moan, was greater than all Messieurs les Marechaux
glittering in their stars and orders. As for impressing her, or hoping
to impress her, with rank--pooh! You might as we