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He was thankful that the enmity of his relentless chief had placed such shadow of evil report between his name and the rewards due to his service, that even the promised recognition of his brilliant actions at Zaraila and elsewhere was postponed a while on the plea of investigation.
She alone knew what neglect, what indifference, what unintentional, but none the less piercing, insults she had to avenge; she alone knew of that pain with which she had heard the name of his patrician rival murmured in delirious slumber after Zaraila; she alone knew of that negligent caress of farewell with which her lips had been touched as lightly as his hand caressed a horse's neck or a bird's wing.
"You have sworn to take my body, sawn in two, to Ben-Ihreddin?" she pursued, naming the Arab leader whom her Spahis had driven off the field of Zaraila. "Well, here it is; you can take it to him; and you will receive the piasters, and the horses, and the arms that he has promised to whoever shall slay me. I have surrendered; I am yours.
Cigarette was never yet ungrateful; it is the sin of the coward. But I say I will not take what is unjustly mine, and this preference to me is unjust. I saved the day at Zaraila? Oh, ha! And how? by scampering fast on my mare, and asking for a squadron or two of my Spahis that was all.
That he had been absent on a far-away foraging raid on the day of Zaraila had been nothing short of agony to Rake, and the choice made of him for this duty was to him a gift of paradise. He loved fighting for fighting's sake; and to be beside Cecil was the greatest happiness life held for him.
But the Black Hawk hates him, and so France never hears the truth of all that he does. I tell you, if the Emperor had seen him as I saw him on the field of Zaraila, his would have been the Cross, and not mine." "You are generous, my Little One." "No; I am just." Her brave eyes glowed in the sun, her voice rang as clear as a bell. She raised her head proudly and glanced down the line of her army.
"A fine fellow," continued the Chef d'Escadron to whom he had appealed. "He behaved magnificently the other day at Zaraila; he must be distinguished for it. He is just sent on a perilous errand, but though so quiet he is a croc-mitaine, and woe to the Arabs who slay him! Are you acquainted with him?" "Not in the least. But I wished to hear all I could of him.
She had liked the frank, fearless, ardent brunette face of the Little Friend of the Flag; she had liked her fiery and indomitable defense of the soldier of Zaraila; she felt an interest in her as deep as her pity, and she was above the scruples which many women of her rank might have had as to the fitness of entering into conversation with this child of the army.
Or, if I have, it is not a pair of epaulettes that will content it." She understood him; she comprehended the bitter mockery that the tawdry, meretricious rewards of regimental decoration seemed to the man who had waited to die at Zaraila as patiently and as grandly as the Old Guard at Waterloo. "I understand! The rewards are pitifully disproportionate to the services in the army.
Meantime, in another part of the camp, the heroine of Zaraila was feasted, not less distinctively, if more noisily and more familiarly, by the younger officers of the various regiments. La Cigarette, many a time before the reigning spirit of suppers and carouses, was banqueted with all the eclat that befitted that cross which sparkled on her blue and scarlet vest.
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