"You did it? That is well. Now, see here--one word of me, now or
ever after, and there is a little present that will come to you from
Cigarette," said the little Friend of the Flag with a sententious
sternness. The unhappy Jew shuddered and shut his eyes as she held a
bullet close to his sight, then dropped it with an ominous thud in her
pistol barrel.
"Not a syllable, never a syllable," he stammered; "and if I had known
you were in love with him--"
A box on the ears sent him across his own counter.
"In love? Parbleu! I detest the fellow!" said Cigarette, with fiery
scorn and as hot an oath.
"Truly? Then why give your Napoleons----" began the bruised and
stammering Israelite.
Cigarette tossed back her pretty head that was curly and spirited and
shapely as any thoroughbred spaniel's; a superb glance flashed from her
eyes, a superb disdain sat on her lips.
"You are a Jew trader; you know nothing of our code under the tricolor.
We are too proud not to aid even an enemy when he is in the right, and
France always arms for justice!"
With which magnificent peroration she swept all the carvings--they were
rightfully hers--off the table.
"They will light my cooking fire!" she said contemptuously, as she
vaulted lightly over the counter into the street, and pirouetted along
the slope of the crowded Babazoum. All made way for her, even the mighty
Spahis and the trudging Bedouin mules, for all knew that if they did
not she would make it for herself, over their heads or above their
prostrated bodies.
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