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Updated: June 8, 2025
In the Chambers of Zephyrs, among the Douars of Spahis, on sandy soil under African stars, above the heaped plunder brought in from a razzia, in the yellow light of candles fastened to bayonets stuck in the earth at a bivouac, on the broad deal table of a barrack-room full of black-browed conscrits indigenes, amid the thundering echoes of the Marseillaise des Bataillons shouted from the brawny chests of Zouaves, Cigarette had danced, danced, danced; till her whole vivacious life seemed pressed into one hour, and all the mirth and mischief of her little brigand's soul seemed to have found their utterance in those tiny, slender, spurred, and restless feet, that never looked to touch the earth which they lit on lightly as a bird alights, only to leave it afresh, with wider, swifter bound, with ceaseless, airy flight.
When I lay awake in my barrack-room at night I could hear the stamp and snort of the old black troopers, and it did me good. I don't know the reason, but it did me good. You will think I was very unhappy so I was." "But why?" asked Maud, shrewdly guessing, and at the same time dreading the answer. "Because I was a fool, my lady," replied her husband "a fool of the very highest calibre.
The Infant dropped into the true barrack-room twang: "Theebaw, the Burma king, did a very foolish thing, When 'e mustered 'ostile forces in ar-rai, 'E little thought that we, from far across the sea, Would send our armies up to Mandalai!" "0 gorgeous !" said Cleever. "And how magnificently direct! The notion of a regimental bard is new to me, but of course it must be so."
Joseph rose, and stretched out his arms with a freedom from restraint learnt in the barrack-room. "There you're asking me more than I can tell you. I suppose it's the old story I suppose he thinks that she is his sort." The pride that prompts the bitter jest.
The barrack-room proverb which declares that ill-luck follows the volunteer must assuredly have germinated in a commonplace brain. It is characteristic of men who have cut their way to fame that they have never allowed the opportunity to escape them. The successful man pushes to the front and seeks his chance; those of a temper less ardent wait till duty calls and the call may never come.
The more part, as I have said, were peasants; somewhat bettered perhaps by the drill-sergeant, but for all that ungainly, loutish fellows, with no more than a mere barrack-room smartness of address: indeed, you could have seen our army nowhere more discreditably represented than in this Castle of Edinburgh. And I used to see myself in fancy, and blush.
The Sergeant walked like a man astounded and said no more, and Polson likewise held his peace. They were both quietly businesslike whilst Polson got his kit served out to him, and by the time this work was over, the dinner hour had arrived. He was told off to a mess in a long barrack-room, in which his brother recruits were quartered, under the charge of an old soldier.
Ordinarily speaking, the men would have taken no notice; but their nerves were fretted to fiddle-strings. They jumped up, and three or four clattered into the barrack-room only to find Simmons kneeling by his box. 'Ow! It's you, is it? they said and laughed foolishly. 'We thought 'twas Simmons rose slowly. If the accident had so shaken his fellows, what would not the reality do?
Nay, they are neither; but, nevertheless, their errand is a nefarious one. Watch at the gate for an hour and you will see them come back again each man laden with the spoils of the shrubberies holly, mistletoe, and evergreens ruthlessly plundered under cover of the darkness. A couple of days before "the day," the sergeant-major enters the barrack-room, a smile playing upon his rubicund features.
These burnt briskly, throwing a dismal glare over the barracks and picturesque town of San Josef, and overpowering the light of the full moon, which illumined a cloudless sky. The mutineers made a rush at the barrack-room, and seized on the muskets and fusees in the racks.
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