Draw him to one side there, and leave him. The
crows will finish his affair."
The coolness with which this handsome child disposed of the fate of
what, a moment or two before, had been a sentient, breathing, vigorous
frame, sent a chill through her hearer, though he had been seasoned by a
decade of slaughter.
"No," he said briefly. "Suspicion might fall on some innocent passer-by.
Besides--he shall have a decent burial."
"Burial for an Arab--pouf!" cried Cigarette in derision. "Parbleu, M.
Bel-a-faire-peau, I have seen hundreds of our best soldiers lie rotting
on the plains with the birds' beaks at their eyes and the jackals' fangs
in their flesh. What was good enough for them is surely good enough for
him. You are an eccentric fellow--you--"
He laughed a little.
"Time was when I should have begged you not to call me any such 'bad
form'! Eccentric! I have not genius enough for that."
"Eh?" She did not understand him. "Well, you want that carrion poked
into the earth, instead of lying atop of it. I don't see much difference
myself. I would like to be in the sun as long as I could, I think, dead
or alive. Ah! how odd it is to think one will be dead some day--never
wake for the reveille--never hear the cannon or the caissons roll
by--never stir when the trumpets sound the charge, but lie there
dead--dead--dead--while the squadrons thunder above one's grave! Droll,
eh?"
A momentary pathos softened her voice, where she stood in the glistening
moonlight.
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