He laughed a little.
“Time was when I should have begged you not to call me any such 'bad form'! Eccentric! I have not genius enough for that.”
“Eh?” She did not understand him. “Well, you want that carrion poked into the earth, instead of lying atop of it. I don't see much difference myself. I would like to be in the sun as long as I could, I think, dead or alive. Ah! how odd it is to think one will be dead some day—never wake for the reveille—never hear the cannon or the caissons roll by—never stir when the trumpets sound the charge, but lie there dead—dead—dead—while the squadrons thunder above one's grave! Droll, eh?”
A momentary pathos softened her voice, where she stood in the glistening moonlight. That the time would ever come when her glad laughter would be hushed, when her young heart would beat no more, when the bright, abundant, passionate blood would bound no longer through her veins, when all the vivacious, vivid, sensuous charms of living would be ended for her forever, was a thing that she could no better bring home to her than a bird that sings in the light of the sun could be made to know that the time would come when its little, melodious throat would be frozen in death, and give song never more.
The tone touched him—made him think less and less of her as a dare-devil boy, as a reckless child-soldier, and more of her as what she was, than he had done before; he touched her almost caressingly.
“Pauvre enfant! I hope that day will be very distant from you. And yet—how bravely you risked death for me just now!”
Cigarette, though accustomed to the lawless loves of the camp, flushed ever so slightly at the mere caress of his hand.
“I risked nothing!” she said rapidly. “As for death—when it comes, it comes. Every soldier carries it in his wallet, and it may jump out on him any minute. I would rather die young than grow old. Age is nothing else but death that is conscious.”
“Where do you get your wisdom, little one?”
“Wisdom? Bah! living is learning. Some people go through life with their eyes shut, and then grumble there is nothing to see in it! Well—you want that Arab buried? What a fancy! Look you, then; stay by him, since you are so fond of him, and I will go and send some men to you with a stretcher to carry him down to the town. As for reporting, leave that to me. I shall tell them I left you on guard. That will square things if you are late at the barrack.”