“What of that? Why, you were going to be turned into the First Battalion,[*] disgraced for the affair, because you would not tell of him; if Vireflau had not found out the right of the matter in time!”
[*] The Battalion of the criminal outcasts of all corps,
whether horse or foot.
“What has that to do with it?”
“This, M. Victor, that you are a fool.”
“I dare say I am. But that does not make Zackrist less hungry.”
He took the bowl from her hands and, emptying a little of it into the wooden bidon that hung to her belt, kept that for himself and, stretching his arm across the straw, gave the bowl to Zackrist, who had watched it with the longing, ravenous eyes of a starving wolf, and seized it with rabid avidity.
A smile passed over Cecil's face, amused despite the pain he suffered.
“That is one of my 'sensational tricks,' as M. de Chateauroy calls them. Poor Zackrist! Did you see his eyes?”
“A jackal's eyes, yes!” said Cigarette, who, between her admiration for the action and her impatience at the waste of her good bread and wine, hardly knew whether to applaud or to deride him. “What recompense do you think you will get? He will steal your things again, first chance.”
“May be. I don't think he will. But he is very hungry, all the same; that is about the only question just now,” he answered her as he drank and ate his portion, with a need of it that could willingly have made him take thrice as much, though for the sake of Zackrist, he had denied his want of it.