She
unloosed it, and looked at it without being able to tell its meaning;
she could not read a word, printed or written. Military habits were too
strong with her for the arrival not to change her reverie into action;
whoever it was for, it must be seen. She gave the pigeon water and
grain, then wound her way down the dark, narrow stairs, through the
height of the tower, out into the passage below.
She found an old French cobbler sitting at a stall in a casement,
stitching leather; he was her customary reader and scribe in this
quarter. She touched him with the paper. "Bon Mathieu! Wilt thou read
this to me?"
"It is for thee, Little One, and signed 'Petit Pot-de-terre.'"
Cigarette nodded listlessly.
"'Tis a good lad, and a scholar," she answered absently. "Read on!"
And he read aloud:
"'There is ill news. I send the bird on a chance to find thee.
Bel-a-faire-peau struck the Black Hawk--a slight blow, but with threat
to kill following it. He has been tried, and is to be shot. There is
no appeal. The case is clear; the Colonel could have cut him down, were
that all. I thought you should know. We are all sorry. It was done on
the night of the great fete. I am thy humble lover and slave.'"
So the boy-Zouave's scrawl, crushed, and blotted, and written with great
difficulty, ran in its brief phrases that the slow muttering of the old
shoemaker drew out in tedious length.
Cigarette heard; she never made a movement or gave a sound, but all
the blood fled out of her brilliant face, leaving it horribly blanched
beneath its brown sun-scorch; and her eyes--distended, senseless,
sightless--were fastened on the old man's slowly moving mouth.
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