"I like the blue," said the chatelaine
laconically, "and the pigeons fly close by my window." And through it,
too, she might have added; for, though no human thing might invade her
chateau, the pigeons, circling in the sunrise light, always knew well
there were rice and crumbs spread for them in that eyelet-hole of a
casement.
Cigarette threaded her agile way up the dark, ladder-like shaft, and
opened her door. There was a dim oil wick burning; the garret was large,
and as clean as a palace could be; its occupants were various, and
all sound asleep except one, who, rough, and hard, and small, and
three-legged, limped up to her and rubbed a little bullet head against
her lovingly.
"Bouffarick--petite Bouffarick!" returned Cigarette caressingly, in a
whisper, and Bouffarick, content, limped back to a nest of hay; being a
little wiry dog that had lost a leg in one of the most famous battles of
Oran, and lain in its dead master's breast through three days and nights
on the field. Cigarette, shading the lamp with one hand, glanced round
on her family.
They had all histories--histories in the French Army, which was the only
history she considered of any import to the universe. There was a raven
perched high, by name Vole-qui-Vent; he was a noted character among the
Zouaves, and had made many a campaign riding on his owner's bayonet; he
loved a combat, and was specially famed for screaming "Tue! Tue! Tue!"
all over a battlefield; he was very gray now, and the Zouave's bones had
long bleached on the edge of the desert.
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