L'As de Pique was the especial estaminet of the chasses-marais. He
was in the house; she knew it; had she not seen him drinking with some
others, or rather paying for all, but taking little himself, just as she
entered? He was in the house, this mysterious Bel-a-faire-peur--and was
not here to see her dance! Not here to see the darling of the Douars;
the pride of every Chacal, Zephyr, and Chasseur in Africa; the Amie
du Drapeau, who was adored by everyone, from Chefs de Bataillons to
fantassins, and toasted by every drinker, from Algiers to Oran, in the
Champagne of Messieurs les Generaux as in the Cric of the Loustics round
a camp-fire!
He was not there; he was leaning over the little wooden ledge of a
narrow window in an inner room, from which, one by one, some Spahis and
some troopers of his own tribu, with whom he had just been drinking such
burgundies and brandies as the place could give, had sloped away, one by
one, under the irresistible attraction of the vivandiere. An attraction,
however, that had not seduced them till all the bottles were emptied;
bottles more in number and higher in cost than was prudent in a corporal
who had but his pay, and that scant enough to keep himself, and who had
known what it was to find a roll of white bread and a cup of coffee a
luxury beyond all reach, and to have to sell his whole effects up to the
last thing in his haversack to buy a toss of thin wine when he was dying
of thirst, or a slice of melon when he was parching with African fever.
Pages:
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331