The
points of their weapons were piercing his harness when, sharp and
swift, one on another, three shots hissed past him; the nearest of his
assailants fell stone dead, and the others, wounded and startled, loosed
their hold, shook their reins, and tore off down the lonely road, while
the dead man's horse, shaking his burden from him out of the stirrups,
followed them at a headlong gallop through a cloud of dust.
"That was a pretty cut through the arm; better had it been through
the throat. Never do things by halves, ami Victor," said Cigarette
carelessly, as she thrust her pistols back into her sash, and looked,
with the tranquil appreciation of a connoisseur, on the brown, brawny,
naked limb, where it lay severed on the sand, with the hilt of the
weapon still hanging in the sinewy fingers. Cecil threw himself from his
saddle and gazed at her in bewildered amazement; he had thought those
sure, cool, death-dealing shots had come from some Spahi or Chasseur.
"I owe you my life!" he said rapidly. "But--good God!--you have shot the
fellow dead----"
Cigarette shrugged her shoulders with a contemptuous glance at the
Bedouin's corpse.
"To be sure--I am not a bungler."
"Happily for me, or I had been where he lies now. But wait--let me look;
there may be breath in him yet."
Cigarette laughed, offended and scornful, as with the offense and scorn
of one whose first science was impeached.
"Look and welcome; but if you find any life in that Arab, make a laugh
of it before all the army to-morrow.
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