Her rapid and unerring instinct made her feel that keenly and instantly;
she had seen too much passion not to know when it was absent. The warmth
passed off her face, her teeth clinched; she shook the bridle out of his
hold.
"Take gratitude to the silver pheasant there! She will value fine words;
I set no count on them. I did no more for you than I have done scores of
times for my Spahis. Ask them how many I have shot with my own hand!"
In another instant she was away like a sirocco; a whirlwind of dust,
that rose in the moonlight, marking her flight as she rode full gallop
to Algiers.
"A kitten with the tigress in her," thought Cecil, as he seated himself
on a broken pile of stone to keep his vigil over the dead Arab. It was
not that he was callous to the generous nature of the little Friend of
the Flag, or that he was insensible either to the courage that beat so
dauntlessly in her pulses, or to the piquant, picturesque grace that
accompanied even her wildest actions; but she had nothing of her sex's
charm for him. He thought of her rather as a young soldier than as a
young girl. She amused him as a wayward, bright, mischievous, audacious
boy might have done; but she had no other interest for him. He had given
her little attention; a waltz, a cigar, a passing jest, were all he
had bestowed on the little lionne of the Spahis corps; and the deepest
sentiment she had ever awakened in him was an involuntary pity--pity for
this flower which blossomed on the polluted field of war, and under the
poison-dropping branches of lawless crime.
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