; tears sprang to her eyes:

"I couldn't--I couldn't!" she stammered in a choking voice. "I've
never before seen death--never seen how it came--how men die!
This--this killing is horrible, revolting!" She had laid one trembling
little hand on Ilse Dumont's bare shoulder. "I don't want to have you
killed; the idea of death makes me ill! I'm going home--that is all I
ask for--to go home----"

She dropped her pretty head and began to sob hysterically, standing
there under the growing daylight of the Boulevard, in her tattered
evening gown.

Suddenly Ilse Dumont threw both arms around her and kissed the
feverish, tear-wet face:

"You weren't meant for this!" she whispered. "You do it for money. Go
home. Do anything else for wages--anything except this!--_Anything_, I
tell you----"

Neeland's hand touched her arm:

"I have a cab. Are you going home with her?"

"I dare not," she said.

"Then will you take this Russian girl to her home, Sengoun?" he asked.
And added in a low voice: "She is one of your own people, you know."

"All right," said Sengoun blissfully. "I'd take the devil home if you
asked me! Besides, I can talk to her about my regiment on the way.
That will be wonderful, Neeland! That will be quite wonderful! I can
talk to her in Russian about my regiment all the way home!"

He laughed and looked at his friend, at Ilse Dumont, at the drooping
figure he was to take under his escort. He glanced down at his own
ragged attire where he stood hatless, collarless, one sleeve of his
evening coat ripped open to the shoulder.

"Isn't it wonderful!" he cried, bursting out into uncontrollable
laughter. "Neeland, my dear comrade, this has been the most
delightfully wonderful night of my entire life! But the great miracle
is still to come! Hurrah for a thousand lances! Hurrah! Town taken by
Prince Erlik! Hurrah!"

And he seized the young girl whom he was to escort to her
home--wherever that hazy locality might be--and carried her in his
arms to the taxicab, amid encouraging shouts of laughter from the line
of cavalrymen who had been watching the proceedings from the corner of
the rue Vilna.

That shout of Gallic appreciation inflamed Sengoun: he reached for his
hat, to lift and wave it, but found no hat on his head. So he waved
his tattered sleeve instead:

"Hurrah for France!" he shouted. "Hurrah for Russia! I'm Sengoun, of
the Terek!--And I am to have a thousand lances with which to explain
to the Germans m