The World's Greatest Books - Volume 6 Part 54

"You belonged to the majority, then!" said Cigarette. "But why did you come into the service? You were born in the n.o.blesse--bah, I know an aristocrat at a glance! What ruined you, Monsieur l'Aristocrat?"

"Aristocrat? I am none. I am Louis Victor, a corporal of the cha.s.seurs."

"You are dull, _mon brave_."

Cigarette left him, and made her way to the officers' quarters. High or low, they were all the same to Cigarette, and she would have talked to the emperor himself as coolly as she did to any private.

She praised the good looks of the corporal of cha.s.seurs, and his colonel, M. le Marquis de Chateauroy, answered, with a curse, "I wish my corporal were shot! One can never hear the last of him!"

Meanwhile, the corporal of cha.s.seurs sat alone among the stones of a ruined mosque. He was a dashing cavalry soldier, who had a dozen wounds cut over his body by the Bedouin swords in many and hot skirmishes; who had waited through sultry African nights for the lion's tread; and who had served well in fierce, arduous work in trying campaigns and in close discipline.

From the extremes of luxury and indolence Cecil came to the extremes of hardship and toil. He had borne the change mutely, and without a murmur, though the first years were years of intense misery. His comrades had grown to love him, seeing his courage and his willingness to help them, with a rough, dog-like love.

Twelve years ago in England it was accepted that Bertie Cecil and his servant Rake had been killed in a railway accident in France.

And the solitary corporal of cha.s.seurs read in the "Galignani" of the death of his father, Viscount Royallieu, and of his elder brother. The t.i.tle and estate that should have been his had gone to his younger brother.

_IV.--From Death to Life_

The Seraph, now Duke of Lyonesse, and his sister Venetia, Princess Corona, came on a visit to the French camp, and with them Berkeley, Viscount Royallieu. Corporal Louis Victor saw them, and, safe from recognition himself, knew them. But Cecil was not to go down to the grave unreleased. First, his brother Berkeley coming upon him alone in the solitude of a desert camp, made concealment impossible.

"Have you lived stainlessly _since_?" were Cecil's only words, stern as the demand of a judge.

"G.o.d is my witness, yes! But you--they said you were dead. That was my first disgrace, and my last; you bore the weight of my shame. What can I say? Such n.o.bility, such sacrifice--"

It was for himself that Berkeley trembled.

"I have kept your secret twelve years; I will keep it still," said Cecil gravely. "Only leave Algeria at once."

A slight incident revealed the corporal's ident.i.ty to the Princess Corona. By his bearing he had attracted the attention of the visitors to the camp, and on being admitted to the villa of the princess to restore a gold chain dropped carelessly in the road, he disclosed the little enamelled box, marked "Venetia," the gift of the child in the garden at Baden.

"That box is mine!" cried the princess. "I gave it! And you? You are my brother's friend? You are Bertie Cecil?"

"_Pet.i.te reine_!" he murmured.

Then he acknowledged who he was, not even for his brother's sake could he have lied to _her_; but he implored her to say nothing to the Seraph.

"I was innocent, but in honour I can never give you or any living thing _proof_ that this crime was not mine."

"He is either a madman or a martyr," she mused, when Cecil had left her.

That he loved her was plain, and the time was not far distant when she should love him, and be willing to share any sacrifice love and honour might demand.

The hatred of Colonel Chateauroy for his corporal brought matters to a climax. Meeting Cecil returning from his visit to Venetia, Chateauroy could not refrain from saying insulting things concerning the princess.

"_You lie_!" cried Cecil; "and you know that you lie! Breathe her name once more, and, as we are both living men, I will have your life for your outrage!"

And as he spoke Cecil smote him on the lips.

Chateauroy summoned the guard, the corporal was placed under arrest, and brought to court-martial.

In three days' time Corporal Louis Victor would be shot by order of the court-martial.

Cigarette, and Cigarette alone, prevented the sentence being carried out, and that at the cost of her life.

She was away from the camp at the time in a Moorish town when the news came to her; and she stumbled on Berkeley Cecil, and, knowing him for an Englishman, worked on his feelings, and gave him no rest till he had acknowledged the condemned man for his elder brother and the lawful Viscount Royallieu, peer of England.

With this doc.u.ment, signed and sealed by Berkeley, Cigarette galloped off to the fortress where the marshal of France, who was Viceroy of Africa, had arrived. The marshal knew Cigarette; he had decorated her with the cross for her valour in battle, and with the whole army of Africa he loved and admired her.

Cigarette gave him the doc.u.ment, and told him all she knew of the corporal's heroism. And the marshal promised the sentence should be deferred until he had found out the whole truth of the matter.

With the order of release in her bosom Cigarette once more vaulted into the saddle, to ride hard through the day and night--for at sunrise on the morrow will the sentence be executed.

And now it is sunrise, and the prisoner has been brought out to the slope of earth out of sight of the camp.

At the last the Seraph appeared, and found in the condemned man the friend of his youth. It was only with great difficulty that Rockingham was overpowered, for he swore Cecil should not be killed, and a dozen soldiers were required to get him away.

Then Cecil raised his hand, and gave the signal for his own death-shot.

The levelled carbines covered him; ere they could fire a shrill cry pierced the air: "Wait! In the name of France!"

Dismounted and breathless, Cigarette was by the side of Cecil, and had flung herself on his breast.

Her cry came too late; the volley was fired, and while the prisoner stood erect, grazed only by some of the b.a.l.l.s, Cigarette fell, pierced and broken by the fire. She died in Cecil's arms, with the comrades she had loved around her.

It is spring. Cecil is Lord of Royallieu, the Lady Venetia is his bride.

"It was worth banishment to return," he murmured to her. "It was worth the trials that I bore to learn the love that I have known."

And the memories of both went back to a place in a desert land where the folds of the tricolour drooped over one little grave--a grave where the troops saluted as they pa.s.sed it, because on the white stone there was carved a name that spoke to every heart:

CIGARETTE ENFANT DE L'ARMeE, SOLDAT DE LA FRANCE.

JAMES PAYN

Lost Sir Ma.s.singberd

James Payn, one of the most prolific literary workers of the second half of the nineteenth century, was born at Cheltenham, England, Feb. 28, 1830, and died March 23, 1898. After a false start in education for the army, he went to Cambridge University, where he was president of the Union, and published some poems. The acceptance of his contributions by "Household Words" turned him to his true vocation. After writing some years for "Chambers's Journal" he became its editor from 1850 till 1874. His first work of fiction, "The Foster Brothers," a story founded on his college life, appeared in 1859, but it was not until five years later that Payn's name was established as a novelist. This was on the publication of "Lost Sir Ma.s.singberd, a Romance of Real Life." The story first appeared in "Chambers's Journal," and is marked by all his good qualities--ingenious construction, dramatic situations, and a skilful arrangement of incidents.

Altogether, Payn wrote about sixty volumes of novels and short stories.