y opinion of them and of their Emperor!"

The troopers cheered him from their stirrups, in spite of their
officers, who pretended to check their men.

"_Vive la France! Vive la Russie!_" they roared. "Forward the Terek
Cossacks!"

Sengoun turned to Ilse Dumont:

"Madame," he said, "in gratitude and admiration!"--and he gracefully
saluted her hand. Then, to his comrade: "Neeland!"--seizing both the
American's hands. "Such a night and such a comrade I shall never
forget! I adore our night together; I love you as a brother. I shall
see you before I go?"

"Surely, Sengoun, my dear comrade!"

"_Alors--au revoir!_" He sprang into the taxicab. "To the Russian
Embassy!" he called out; and turned to the half fainting girl on the
seat beside him.

"Where do you live, my dear?" he asked very gently, taking her icy
hand in his.

CHAPTER XXXIV

SUNRISE

When the taxicab carrying Captain Sengoun and the unknown Russian girl
had finally disappeared far away down the Boulevard in the thin grey
haze of early morning, Neeland looked around him; and it was a scene
unfamiliar, unreal, that met his anxious eyes.

The sun had not yet gilded the chimney tops; east and west, as far as
he could see, the Boulevard stretched away under its double line of
trees between ranks of closed and silent houses, lying still and
mysterious in the misty, bluish-grey light.

Except for police and municipal guards, and two ambulances moving
slowly away from the ruined cafe, across the street, the vast
Boulevard was deserted; no taxicabs remained; no omnibuses moved; no
early workmen passed, no slow-moving farm wagons and milk wains from
the suburbs; no _chiffoniers_ with scrap-filled sacks on their curved
backs, and steel-hooked staves, furtively sorting and picking among
the night's debris on sidewalk and in gutter.

Here and there in front of half a dozen wrecked cafes little knots of
policemen stood on the glass-littered sidewalk, in low-voiced
consultation; far down the Boulevard, helmets gleamed dully through
the haze where municipal cavalry were quietly riding off the mobs and
gradually pushing them back toward the Montmartre and Villette
quarters, whence they had arrived.

Mounted Municipals still sat their beautiful horses in double line
across the corner of the rue Vilna and parallel streets, closing that
entire quarter where, to judge from a few fitful and far-away pistol
shots, the methodical apache hunt was still in prog