Waterbury Democrat., 1901-05-27


 sufficef1 to banish her dream, to arouse her to contemptuous, impatient bitter ness with that new weakness that had for the hour broken her down to the level of this feverish folly. He was beautiful-yesi She could not bring herself to hate him; she could not help the brimming tears blindinE her eyes when she looked at hun stretched Senseless thus. But he was welded to his past; that toy in his breast, whatever 1t might be, whatever tale might cling to 1t, was sweeter to htEo than her lips would ever be. Bah! l There wera better man than he. Why had she not let him lio and die as he might under the pile of dead?
 ''You deserve to be shot-your' snid 1 Cigarette, fiercely abusing herself as she put his head off her lap, and rose abruptly and shouted to Tringlo who was at some distance searching for the wounded. Here is chasseur with some breath in him. she said, curtly, as the man with his mule cart and its sad burden of half dead, moan ing, writhing frames drew near at her summons Put him in. Soldiers cost too much training to waste them on l jackals and kites, if one can help it. Lift him up! Quick"
 ''He is badly hurt" said the TringEo. She shrugged her shoulders.
 "Oh. mol I have had worse scratches myself. The horse fell on him; that was the mischief. Most of them here have swallowed the leaden pill once and for all. I never saw a prettier thing lascar has killed his own 1 little knot of Arbicos. Look how nice and neat they look"
 She was not going to have him inn agine she cared for that chasseur whom he lifted up on his little wagon with so kindly a care-not she! Cigarette was as proud in her way as was ever the Princess Venetia Corona.
 Nevertheless she kept pace with the | mules, carrying little Flick-Flack, and never paused on. her way, though she passed scores of dead Arabs, whose sill | yer ornaments and silk broideries, commonly after such a fantasia, re- plenished the knapsack and adorned in i profusion the uniform of the young l filibuster, being gleaned by her right and left as her lawful harvest after the l fray.
 'Leave him there. I will have look lat him. she said at the first empty tent they reached Cigarette, left alone l with the wounded man, lying insensi- i ble still on heap of forage, ceased her l song and grew very quiet. She had a certain surgical skill, and she dressed his wounds with the cold, clear water and washed away the dust and the blood that covered his. breast.
 'sHe is too good soldier to die. One must do it for France" she said to her self in a kind of self apology. And as she did it and bound the lance gash close and bathed his breast, his fore head, his hair, his beard, free from the sand and the powder and the gore a thousand changes swept over her mo bile face It was one moment soft and flushed and tender as passion; it was the next jealous, fiery, scornful, pale and full of impatient self disdain.
 He was nothing to heri He was an aristocrat, and she was a child of the people. She had been besieged by | dukes and had fouted princes. She had borne herself in such gay liberty, such viyacious freedom, such proud and careless sovereignty = bah, what was it to her whether this man lived or died? If she saved him, he would give her a low bow as he thanked her, thinking all the while of miladi And yet there she staid and watched him. She took sonae food, for she had been fasting all day. Then she dropped down before the fire she had lighted and in one of those soft, curled, kitten like attitudes that were characteristic of her kept her vigil over him.
 She was bruised, stiff, tired, longing like a tired child to fall asleep. Her eyes felt hot as flame, her rounded, supple limbs were aching, her throat was sore with long thirst and the sand l that she seemed to have swallowed till no draft of water or wine would take the scorched, dry pain out of it. But, as she had given up her fete day in the hospital, so she sat now-as patient in the self sacrifice as she was impatient when the yivacious agility of her young frame was longing for the frenzied de- l lights of the dance or the battle. Ev- | cry now and then, four or five times in an hour, she gave him whom she tend | ed the soup or the wine that she kept warm for him over the embersA He took it without knowledge, sunk half in Iethargy, half in sleep, but it kept the life. glowing in him which, without l it, might have perished of cold and ex- haustion as the chill and northerly wind of the evening succeeded to the heat of the day and pierced. through 1 the canyns walls of the tent It was very bitter, more keenly felt because of the previous burning of the sun. There was no cloak or covering to fling over him. She took off her blue cloth tunic and threw it across his chest and, shivering despite herself, curled closer to the little fire.
 She did not know why she did it-he was nothing to her-and yet she kept herself wide awake through the dark autumn night lest he should sigh and stir and she not hear him.
 q have saved his life twice." she thought looking at him. Beware of the third time, they sayr'
 He moved restlessly, and she went to him. His face was flushed now; his breath came rapidly and shortly; there was some fever on him. The linen waS