Waterbury Democrat., 1901-05-25
UNDER TWO FLAGS
By "OUIDA."

| 0 0y o0IDAa S s-os0<,ss<,::s,...0-ssCsGsS | Cecil looked back once more on the I fragment of his troop and raised the eagle higher aloft where the wings should glisten in the fuller day. Half naked, Scorched blinded with an open gash in his shoulder where the lances had struck and with his brow wet with the great dews of the noon heat and the breathleSs toll, his eyes were clear as they flashed with the light of the sun in them. His mouth smiled as he answered.:
 Have we shown ourselves towards that you think we shall yieldY'
 A yell of wild delight from the chas- seurs he led greeted and ratified the choice .'To the death! We. will not surrenderv' they shouted. Then, with their swords above their heads, they waited for the collision of the terrible attack which would fall on them upon | every side and strike all the sentient l life out of them before the sun should be one point higher in the heavens. It came. With yell as of wild beasts in | their famine the Arabs threw them selves forward, the chief himself sin | gling out the flair Frank" with a vio- | lence of a lion finging himself on a leopard. One instant longer, one flash | of time, and the tribes pressing on them would have massacred them like cattle driven into the pens of slaughter. l Ere 1t could be dene voice like the ring of a silver trumpet echoed over l the field:
 'Charge! Charge! Tue, tue, tueY'
 Above the din, the shouts, the tumult, the echoing of the distant musketry. that silvery cadence rang. Down into the midst, with the tricolor waving above her head, the bridle of her fiery mare between her teeth, the raven of the dead zouave flying above her head and her pistol leveled in deadly aim, rode Cigarette.
 The lightning fire of the crossing swords played round her, the glitter of lances dazzled her eyes, the reek of smoke and of carnage was round her, but she dashed down into the heart of the conflict as gayly as though she rode at a review, laughing, shouting, waving her torn colors that she grasp ed, with her curls blowing back in the breeze and her bright young face set in the warriors lust. Behind her by scarcely a length galloped three squad rons of chasSeurs and spahis, trampling | headlong over the corpse strewn field and breaking through the masses of the Arabs as though they were seas of corn.
 l. She wheeled her mare round by Ce- cips side at the moment when with six 1,s, Fl Jo I,< 1,n S7 ed off the chiefs blows and sent his own sword down through the chest bones of the Bedouin's mighty form.
 "Well struck! The day is turned! LCkarger'
 T She gave the order as though she were marshal of the empire. The sun blaze fell on her where she sat on the 1 rearing, fretting, half bred gray, with the tffcolor folds above her head and her teeth tight gripped on the chain bridleI and her face all glowing and warm5and full of the fierce fire of war, | little amazon in scarlet and blue and gold, young Jeanne dArc, with the crimson fez in lieu of the silvered casque and the gay broideries of her fantastic dress instead of the breast plate of steel. And with the flag of her idolatry, the flag that was as her religion, floating back as she went she spurred her mare straight against the Arabs, straight over the lifeless forms of the hundreds slain, and after her poured the fresh squadrons of caval- ry, the ruby burnoose of the spahis streaming on the wind as their darling led them on to retrieve the day for France.
 Not bullet struck or saber grazed her; but there, in the heat and the press of the worst of the slaughter, Cigarette rode hither and thither, to and fro, her voice ringing like birds song over the field in command, in ap- plause, in encouragement, in delight; bearing her standard aloft and un- touched: dashing needless through a storm of blows; cheering on her "chil- dren" to the charge again and again, and all the while with the sunlight full on her radiant, spirited head, and with the grim, gray raven flying above her, shrieking shrilly it's 'tTue, tue, tuet The army believed with super stitious faith in the potent spell of that veteran bird, and the story ran that whenever he flew above a combat France was victor before the sun set. The echo of the ravens cry, and the presence of the child who, they knew, would have thousand musket balls fired in her fair young breast rather than live to see them defeated, made the fresh squadrons sweep in like a whirlwind, bearing down all before them.
 Cigarette saved the day.
 CuApTER yITJ