e has willed it so. One word only in
stipulation."

"Chanrellon assented courteously.

"As many as you choose."

"I have a companion who must be brigaded with me, and I must go on
active service at once."

"With infinite pleasure. That doubtless can be arranged. You shall
present yourself to-morrow morning; and for to-night, this is not the
season here yet; and we are triste a faire fremir; still I can show you
a little fun, though it is not Paris!"

But he rose and bowed again.

"I thank you, not to-night. You shall see me at your barracks with the
morning."

"Ah, ah! monsieur!" cried the Chasseur eagerly, and a little annoyed.
"What warrant have we that you will not dispute the decree of the dice,
and go off to your favorites, the Arabs?"

He turned back and looked full in Chanrellon's face his own eyes a
little surprised, and infinitely weary.

"What warrant? My promise."

Then, without another syllable, he lounged slowly out through the
soldiers and the idlers, and disappeared in the confused din and
chiar-oscuro of the gas-lit street without, through the press
of troopers, grisettes, merchants, beggars, sweetmeat-sellers,
lemonade-sellers, curacoa sellers, gaunt Bedouins, negro boys, shrieking
muleteers, laughing lorettes, and glittering staff officers.

"That is done!" he murmured to his own thoughts. "Now for life under
another flag!"

Claude de Chanrellon sat mute and amazed a while, gazing at the open
door; then he drank a fourth beaker of champagne and flung the emptied
glass down with a mighty crash.

"Ventre bleu! Whoever he is, that man will eat fire, bons garcons!"

CHAPTER XIV.

"DE PROFUNDIS" BEFORE "PLUNGING."

Three months later it was guest-night in the messroom of a certain
famous light cavalry regiment, who bear the reputation of being the
fastest corps in the English service. Of a truth, they do "plunge" a
little too wildly; and stories are told of bets over ecarte in their
anteroom that have been prompt extinction forever and aye to the losers,
for they rarely play money down, their stakes are too high, and moderate
fortunes may go in a night with the other convenient but fatal system.
But, this one indiscretion apart, they are a model corps for blood,
for dash, for perfect social accord, for the finest horseflesh in the
kingdom, and the best president at a mess-table that ever drilled the
cook to matchlessness, and made the ice dry, and the old burgundies, the
admired o