CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE LEATHERN ZACKRIST.
With the reveille and the break of morning Cigarette woke, herselfagain; she gave a little petulant shake to her fairy form when shethought of what folly she had been guilty. "Ah, bah! you deserve to beshot," she said to herself afresh. "One would think you were a SilverPheasant--you grow such a little fool!"
Love was all very well, so Cigarette's philosophy had always reckoned;a chocolate bonbon, a firework, a bagatelle, a draught of champagne, toflavor an idle moment. "Vin et Venus" she had always been accustomed tosee worshiped together, as became their alliterative; it was a bit offun--that was all. A passion that had pain in it had never touched theLittle One; she had disdained it with the lightest, airiest contumely."If your sweetmeat has a bitter almond in it, eat the sugar and throwthe almond away, you goose! That is simple enough, isn't it? Bah? Idon't pity the people who eat the bitter almond; not I!" she had saidonce, when arguing with an officer on the absurdity of a melancholy lovethat possessed him, and whose sadness she rallied most unmercifully.Now, for once in her young life, the Child of France found that it wasremotely possible to meet with almonds so bitter that the taste willremain and taint all things, do what philosophy may to throw itsacridity aside.
With the reveille she awoke, herself again, though she had not had morethan an hour's slumber, it is true, with a dull ache at her heartthat was very new and bitterly unwelcome to her, but with the buoyantvivacity and the proud carelessness of her nature in arms against it,and with that gayety of childhood inherent to her repelling, and verynearly successfully, the foreign depression that weighted on it.
Her first thought was to take care that he should never learn what shehad done for him. The Princesse Corona would not have been more utterlydisdained to solicit regard through making a claim upon gratitude thanthe fiery little warrior of France would have done. She went straight tothe Tringlo who had known her at her mission of mercy.
"Georges, mon brave," said the Little One, with that accent of authoritywhich was as haughty as any General's, "do you know how that Chasseur isthat we brought in last night?"
"Not heard, ma belle," said the cheery little Tringlo, who was hardpressed; for there was much to be done, and he was very busy.
"What is to be done with the wounded?"
Georges lifted his eyebrows.
"Ma belle! There are very few. There are hundreds of dead. The few thereare we shall take with an escort of Spahis to headquarters."
"Good. I will go with you. Have a heed, Georges, never to whisper that Ihad anything to do with saving that man I called to you about."
"And why, my Little One?"
"Because I desire it!" said Cigarette, with her most imperious emphasis."They say he is English, and a ruined Milord, pardieu! Now, I would nothave an Englishman think I thought his six feet of carcass worth saving,for a ransom."
The Tringlo chuckled; he was an Anglophobist. In the Chinese expeditionhis share of "loot" had been robbed from him by a trick of which twoEnglish soldiers had been the concocters, and a vehement animosityagainst the whole British race had been the fruit of it in him.
"Non, non, non!" he answered her heartily. "I understand. Thou art verybright, Cigarette. If we have ever obliged an Englishman, he thinks hisobligation to us opens him a neat little door through which to cheat us.It is very dangerous to oblige the English; they always hate you for it.That is their way. They may have virtues; they may," he added dubiously,but with an impressive air of strictest impartiality, "but among themis not written gratitude. Ask that man, Rac, how they treat theirsoldiers!" and M. Georges hurried away to this mules and his duties;thinking with loving regret of the delicious Chinese plunder of whichthe dogs of Albion had deprived him.
"He is safe!" thought Cigarette; of the patrol who had seen her, she wasnot afraid--he had never noticed with whom she was when he had put hishead into the scullion's tent; and she made her way toward the placewhere she had left him, to see how it went with this man who she as socareful should never know that which he had owed to her.
It went well with him, thanks to her; care, and strengtheningnourishment, and the skill of her tendance had warded off all dangerfrom his wound. The bruise and pressure from the weight of the horsehad been more ominous, and he could not raise himself or even breathewithout severe pain; but his fever had left him, and he had just beenlifted into a mule-drawn ambulance-wagon as Cigarette reached the spot.
"How goes the day, M. Victor? So you got sharp scratches, I hear? Ah!that was a splendid thing we had yesterday! When did you go down?We charged together!" she cried gayly to him; then her voice droppedsuddenly, with an indescribable sweetness and change of tone. "So!--yousuffer still?" she asked softly.
Coming close up to where he lay on the straw, she saw the exhaustedlanguor of his regard, the heavy darkness under his eyelids, the effortwith which his lips moved as the faint words came broken through them.
"Not very much, ma belle, I thank you. I shall be fit for harness ina day or two. Do not let them send me into hospital. I shall beperfectly--well--soon."
Cigarette swayed herself upon the wheel and leaned toward him, touchingand changing his bandages with clever hands.
"They have dressed your wound ill; whose doing is that?"
"It is nothing. I have been half cut to pieces before now; this is amere bagatelle. It is only--"
"That it hurts you to breathe? I know! Have they given you anything toeat this morning?"
"No. Everything is in confusion. We----"
She did not stay for the conclusion of his sentence; she had darted off,quick as a swallow. She knew what she had left in her dead scullion'stent. Everything was in confusion, as he had said. Of the few hundredsthat had been left after the terrific onslaught of the past day, somewere employed far out, thrusting their own dead into the soil; otherswere removing the tents and all the equipage of the camp; others werebusied with the wounded, of whom the greatest sufferers were to be borneto the nearest hospital (that nearest many leagues away over the wildand barren country); while those who were likely to be again soon readyfor service were to be escorted to the headquarters of the main army.Among the latter Cecil had passionately entreated to be numbered; hisprayer was granted to the man who had kept at the head of his Chasseursand borne aloft the Tricolor through the whole of the war-tempest onwhich the dawn had risen, and which had barely lulled and sunk by thesetting of the sun. Chateauroy was away with the other five of hissquadrons; and the Zouave chef-de-bataillon, the only officer of anyrank who had come alive through the conflict, had himself visitedBertie, and given him warm words of eulogy, and even of gratitude, thathad soldierly sincerity and cordiality in them.
"Your conduct was magnificent," he had said, as he had turned away. "Itshall be my care that it is duly reported and rewarded."
Cigarette was but a few seconds absent; she soon bounded back like theswift little chamois she was, bringing with her a huge bowlful of redwine with bread broken in it.
"This is the best I could get," she said; "it is better than nothing. Itwill strengthen you."
"What have you had yourself, petite?"
"Ah, bah! Leave off thinking for others; I have breakfasted long ago,"she answered him. (She had only eaten a biscuit well-nigh as hard as aflint.) "Take it--here, I will hold it for you."
She perched herself on the wheel like a bird on a twig; she had a bird'spower of alighting and sustaining herself on the most difficult and mostairy elevation; but Cecil turned his eyes on the only soldier in thecart besides himself, one of the worst men in his regiment--a murderous,sullen, black-browed, evil wretch, fitter for the bench of theconvict-galley than for the ranks of the cavalry.
"Give half to Zackrist," he said. "I know no hunger; and he has moreneed of it."
"Zackrist! That is the man who stole your lance and accouterments, andgot you into trouble by taking them to pawn in your name, a year or moreago."
"Well, what of that? He is not the less hungry."
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"What of that? Why, you were going to be turned into the FirstBattalion,[*] disgraced for the affair, because you would not tell ofhim; if Vireflau had not found out the right of the matter in time!"
[*] The Battalion of the criminal outcasts of all corps, whether horse or foot.
"What has that to do with it?"
"This, M. Victor, that you are a fool."
"I dare say I am. But that does not make Zackrist less hungry."
He took the bowl from her hands and, emptying a little of it intothe wooden bidon that hung to her belt, kept that for himself and,stretching his arm across the straw, gave the bowl to Zackrist, whohad watched it with the longing, ravenous eyes of a starving wolf, andseized it with rabid avidity.
A smile passed over Cecil's face, amused despite the pain he suffered.
"That is one of my 'sensational tricks,' as M. de Chateauroy calls them.Poor Zackrist! Did you see his eyes?"
"A jackal's eyes, yes!" said Cigarette, who, between her admiration forthe action and her impatience at the waste of her good bread and wine,hardly knew whether to applaud or to deride him. "What recompense do youthink you will get? He will steal your things again, first chance."
"May be. I don't think he will. But he is very hungry, all the same;that is about the only question just now," he answered her as he drankand ate his portion, with a need of it that could willingly have madehim take thrice as much, though for the sake of Zackrist, he had deniedhis want of it.
Zackrist himself, who could hear perfectly what was said, uttered noword; but when he had finished the contents of the bowl, lay looking athis corporal with an odd gleam in the dark, sullen savage depths of hishollow eyes. He was not going to say a word of thanks; no! none had everheard a grateful or a decent word from him in his life; he was proud ofthat. He was the most foul-mouthed brute in the army, and, like Snakein the School for Scandal, thought a good action would have ruinedhis character forever. Nevertheless, there came into his cunning andferocious eyes a glisten of the same light which had been in the littlegamin's when, first by the bivouac fire, he had murmured, "Picpon s'ensouviendra."
"When anybody stole from me," muttered Cigarette, "I shot him."
"You would have fed him, had he been starving. Do not belie yourself,Cigarette; you are too generous ever to be vindictive."
"Pooh! Revenge is one's right."
"I doubt that. We are none of us good enough to claim it, at any rate."
Cigarette shrugged her shoulders in silence; then, posing herself on thewheel, she sprang from thence on to the back of her little mare,which she had brought up; having the reins in one of her hands andthe wine-bowl in the other, and was fresh and bright after the night'srepose.
"I will ride with you, with my Spahis," she said, as a young queen mighthave promised protection for her escort. He thanked her, and sank backamong the straw, exhausted and worn out with pain and with languor; theweight that seemed to oppress his chest was almost as hard to bear aswhen the actual pressure of his dead charger's body had been on him.
Yet, as he had said, it was but a bagatelle, beside the all but mortalwounds, the agonizing neuralgia, the prostrating fever, the torture ofbullet-torn nerves, and the scorching fire of inflamed sword-woundsthat had in their turn been borne by him in his twelve years of Africanservice--things which, to men who have never suffered them, sound likethe romanced horrors of an exaggerated imagination; yet things which aredaily and quietly borne, by such soldiers of the Algerian Army, as thenatural accompaniments of a military life--borne, too, in brave, simple,unconscious heroism by men who know well that the only reward for itwill be their own self-contentment at having been true to the traditionsof their regiment.
Four other troopers were placed on the straw beside him, and themule-carts with their mournful loads rolled slowly out of camp, eastwardtoward the quarters of the main army; the Spahis, glowing red againstthe sun, escorting them, with their darling in their midst; while fromtheir deep chests they shouted war songs in Sabir, with all the wild andriotous delight that the triumph of victory and the glow of bloodshedroused in those who combined in them the fire of France and thefanaticism of Islamism--an irresistible union.
Though the nights were now cold, and before long even the advent ofsnow might be looked for, the days were hot and even scorching still.Cigarette and her Spahis took no heed of it; they were desert bornand bred; and she was well-nigh invulnerable to heat as any littlesalamander. But, although they were screened as well as they could beunder an improvised awning, the wounded men suffered terribly. Gnats andmosquitoes and all the winged things of the African air tormented them,and tossing on the dry, hot straw they grew delirious; some fallingasleep and murmuring incoherently, others lying with wide-open eyes ofhalf-senseless, straining misery. Cigarette had known well how it wouldbe with them; she had accompanied such escorts many a time; and ever andagain when they halted she dismounted and came to them, and mixed winewith some water that she had slung a barrel of to her saddle, and gaveit to them, and moved their bandages, and spoke to them with a soft,caressing consolation that pacified them as if by some magic. She hadled them like a young lion on to the slaughter in the past day; shesoothed them now with a gentleness that the gentlest daughter of theChurch could not have surpassed.
The way was long; the road ill formed, leading for the most part acrossa sear and desolate country, with nothing to relieve its barrennessexcept long stretches of the great spear-headed reeds. At noon the heatwas intense; the little cavalcade halted for half an hour under theshade of some black, towering rocks which broke the monotony of thedistrict, and commenced a more hilly and more picturesque portion of thecountry. Cigarette came to the side of the temporary ambulance in whichCecil was placed. He was asleep--sleeping for once peacefully, withlittle trace of pain upon his features, as he had slept the previousnight. She saw that his face and chest had not been touched by thestinging insect-swarm; he was doubly screened by a shirt hung above himdexterously on some bent sticks.
"Who has done that?" thought Cigarette. As she glanced round shesaw--without any linen to cover him, Zackrist had reared himself upand leaned slightly forward over against his comrade. The shirt thatprotected Cecil was his; and on his own bare shoulders and mighty chestthe 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 theblack, hard skin of his sun-burned visage--shame to which he had beennever touched when discovered in any one of his guilty and barbarousactions.
"Dame!" he growled savagely--"he gave me his wine; one must do somethingin return. Not that I feel the insects--not I; my skin is leather, seeyou! they can't get through it; but his is white and soft--bah! liketissue-paper!"
"I see, Zackrist; you are right. A French soldier can never take akindness 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 saya syllable of praise to him for his self-devotion, or to appear to seethat, despite his boast of his leather skin, the stings of the cruel,winged tribes were drawing his blood and causing him alike pain andirritation which, under that sun, and added to the torment of hisgunshot-wound, were a martyrdom as great as the noblest saint everendured.
"Tiens--tiens! I did him wrong," murmured Cigarette. "That is what theyare--the children of France--even when they are at their worst, likethat devil, Zackrist. Who dare say they are not the heroes of theworld?"
And all through the march she gave Zackrist a double portion of herwater dashed with red wine, that was so welcome and so precious to theparched and aching throats; and all through the march Cecil lay asleep,and the man who had thieved from him, the man whose soul was stainedwith murder, and pillage, and rapine, sat erect beside him, letting theinsects suck his veins and pierce his flesh.
It was only when they drew near the camp of the main army that Zackristbeat off the swarm and drew his old
shirt over his head. "You donot want to say anything to him," he muttered to Cigarette. "I am ofleather, you know; I have not felt it."
She nodded; she understood him. Yet his shoulders and his chest werewell-nigh flayed, despite the tough and horny skin of which he made hisboast.
"Dieu! we are droll!" mused Cigarette. "If we do a good thing, we hideit as if it were a bit of stolen meat, we are so afraid it should befound out; but, if they do one in the world there, they bray it atthe tops of their voices from the houses' roofs, and run all down thestreets screaming about it, for fear it should be lost. Dieu! we aredroll!"
And she dashed the spurs into her mare and galloped off at the heightof her speed into camp--a very city of canvas, buzzing with the humof life, regulated with the marvelous skill and precision of Frenchwarfare, yet with the carelessness and the picturesqueness of thedesert-life pervading it.
"C'est la Cigarette!" ran from mouth to mouth, as the bay mare with herlittle Amazon rider, followed by the scarlet cloud of the Spahis, allablaze like poppies in the sun, rose in sight, thrown out against theazure of the skies.
What she had done had been told long before by an orderly, riding hardin the early night to take the news of the battle; and the whole hostwas on watch for its darling--the savior of the honor of France. Likewave rushing on wave of some tempestuous ocean, the men swept out tomeet her in one great, surging tide of life, impetuous, passionate,idolatrous, exultant; with all the vivid ardor, all the uncontrolledemotion, of natures south-born, sun-nurtured. They broke away from theirmidday rest as from their military toil, moved as by one swift breathof fire, and flung themselves out to meet her, the chorus of a thousandvoices ringing in deafening vivas to the skies. She was envelopedin that vast sea of eager, furious lives; in that dizzy tumult ofvociferous cries and stretching hands and upturned faces. As hersoldiers had done the night before, so these did now--kissing her hands,her dress, her feet; sending her name in thunder through the sunlit air;lifting her from off her horse, and bearing her, in a score of stalwartarms, triumphant in their midst.
She was theirs--their own--the Child of the Army, the Little One whosevoice above their dying brethren had the sweetness of an angel's song,and whose feet, in their hours of revelry, flew like the swift anddazzling flight of gold-winged orioles. And she had saved the honor oftheir Eagles; she had given to them and to France their god ofVictory. They loved her--O God, how they loved her!--with that intense,breathless, intoxicating love of a multitude which, though it may stoneto-morrow what it adores to-day, has yet for those on whom it has oncebeen given thus a power no other love can know--a passion unutterablysad, deliriously strong.
That passion moved her strangely.
As she looked down upon them, she knew that not one man breathed amongthat tumultuous mass but would have died that moment at her word; notone mouth moved among that countless host but breathed her name inpride, and love, and honor.
She might be a careless young coquette, a lawless little brigand, achild of sunny caprices, an elf of dauntless mischief; but she was morethan these. The divine fire of genius had touched her, and Cigarettewould have perished for her country not less surely than Jeanned'Arc. The holiness of an impersonal love, the glow of an imperishablepatriotism, the melancholy of a passionate pity for the concrete andunnumbered sufferings of the people were in her, instinctive and inborn,as fragrance in the heart of flowers. And all these together movedher now, and made her young face beautiful as she looked down upon thecrowding soldiery.
"It was nothing," she answered them--"it was nothing. It was forFrance."
For France! They shouted back the beloved word with tenfold joy; and thegreat sea of life beneath her tossed to and fro in stormy triumph, infrantic paradise of victory, ringing her name with that of France uponthe air, in thunder-shouts like spears of steel smiting on shields ofbronze.
But she stretched her hand out, and swept it backward to thedesert-border of the south with a gesture that had awe for them.
"Hush!" she said softly, with an accent in her voice that hushed theriot of their rejoicing homage till it lulled like the lull in a storm."Give me no honor while they sleep yonder. With the dead lies theglory!"