“He is a rebellious soldier; it is sufficient.”

“He is not!  He is a man who vindicated a woman’s honor; he is a man who suffers in a brother’s place; he is an aristocrat exiled to a martyrdom; he is a hero who has never been greater than he will be great in his last hour.  Read that!  What you refuse to justice, and mercy, and courage, and guiltlessness, you will grant, maybe, to your Order.”

She forced into his hand the written statement of Cecil’s name and station.  All the hot blood was back in her cheek, all the fiery passion back in her eyes.  She lashed this potent ruler with the scourge of her scorn as she had lashed a drunken horde of plunderers with her whip.  She was reckless of what she said; she was conscious only of one thing—­the despair that consumed her.

The French Marshal glanced his eye on the fragment, carelessly and coldly.  As he saw the words, he started, and read on with wondering eagerness.

“Royallieu!” he muttered—­“Royallieu!”

The name was familiar to him; he it was who, when he had murmured, “That man has the seat of the English Guards,” as a Chasseur d’Afrique had passed him, had been ignorant that in that Chasseur he saw one whom he had known in many a scene of court splendor and Parisian pleasure.  The years had been many since Cecil and he had met, but not so many but that the name brought memories of friendship with it, and moved him with a strange emotion.

He turned with grave anxiety to Cigarette.

“You speak strangely.  How came this in your hands?”

“Thus:  the day that you gave me the Cross, I saw Mme. la Princesse Corona.  I hated her, and I went—­no matter!  From her I learned that he whom we call Louis Victor was of her rank, was of old friendship with her house, was exiled and nameless, but for some reason unknown to her.  She needed to see him; to bid him farewell, so she said.  I took the message for her; I sent him to her.”  Her voice grew husky and savage, but she forced her words on with the reckless sacrifice of self that moved her.  “He went to her tent, alone, at night; that was, of course, whence he came when Chateauroy met him.  I doubt not the Black Hawk had some foul thing to hint of his visit, and that blow was struck for her—­for her!  Well; in the streets of Algiers I saw a man with a face like his own, different, but the same race, look you.  I spoke to him; I taxed him.  When he found that the one whom I spoke of was under sentence of death, he grew mad; he cried out that he was his brother and had murdered him—­that it was for his sake that the cruelty of this exile had been borne—­that, if his brother perished, he would be his destroyer.  Then I bade him write down that paper, since these English names were unknown to me, and I brought it hither to you that you might see, under his hand and with your own eyes, that I have uttered the truth.  And now, is that man to be killed like a mad beast whom you fear?  Is that death the reward France will give for Zaraila?”