. He wrenched
his wrists free and with his left arm felled the detective to earth with
a crushing blow. The German---a powerful and firmly-built man--was on
him at once, but Cecil's science was the finer. For a second the two
rocked in close embrace, and then the German fell heavily.

The cries of Baroni drew a crowd at once, but Cecil dashed, with the
swiftness of the deer, forward into the gathering night.

Flight! The craven's refuge--the criminal's resource! Flight! He wished
in the moment's agony that they would send a bullet through his brain.

Soon the pursuers were far behind. But Cecil knew that he had but the
few remaining hours of night left to save those for whom he had elected
to sacrifice his life.

_III.--Under Another Flag_

Cigarette was the pet of the army of Africa, and was as lawless as most
of her patrons. She was the Friend of the Flag. Soldiers had been about
her from her cradle. They had been her books, her teachers, her
guardians, and, later on, her lovers, all the days of her life. She had
no sense of duty taught her, except to face fire boldly, never to betray
a comrade, and to worship but two deities--"_la Gloire_" and "_la
France_." Her own sex would have seen no good in her, but her
comrades-in-arms could, and did. A certain chasseur d'Afrique in this
army at Algiers puzzled her. He treated her with a grave courtesy, that
made her wish, with impatient scorn for the wish, that she knew how to
read, and had not her hair cut short like a boy's--a weakness the little
vivandiere had never been visited with before.

"You are too fine for us, _mon brave_," she said pettishly once to this
chasseur. "They say you are English, but I don't believe it. Say what
you are, then?"

"A soldier of France. Can you wish me more?"

"True," she said simply. "But you were not always a soldier of France?
You joined, they say, twelve years ago. What were you before then?"

"Before?" he answered slowly. "Well--a fool"

"You belonged to the majority, then!" said Cigarette. "But why did you
come into the service? You were born in the noblesse--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 chasseurs."

"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 s