"To-day Luciola will be my bride," he gently said.
"Why do you wish to leave us?" exclaimed Luciola, sobbing.
"Because others need me. Come, Haydee, Mercedes is waiting."
CHAPTER XXXIV
SERGEANT COUCOU
Ten years had passed since Mercedes had bade her only son good-by. She lived in the small house in the Allee de Meillan at Marseilles, which formerly belonged to old Dantes, and though her face was pale and her eyes no longer sparkled as of yore, the widow of General de Morcerf was still a wonderfully handsome woman. Mercedes was standing at the window, gazing out upon the sea. Behind her stood a man in the uniform of a Zouave. Small, brown and thin, he looked like the type of what a Zouave is generally thought to be.
What the Zouave's name was no one exactly knew. He had many sobriquets, the most popular of which was "Sergeant Coucou," so that after a while he was never called otherwise.
The sergeant's cradle, in spite of his brown skin, had not stood in Africa, but in the Faubourg Merceau in Paris.