“From Algiers!” He and his officers echoed the name of the city in incredulous amaze; they knew how far from them down along the sea-line the white town lay.
“Since noon, to rescue a life—the life of a great soldier, of a guiltless man. He who saved the honor of France at Zaraila is to die the death of a mutineer at dawn!”
“What!—your Chasseur!”
A dusky, scarlet fire burned through the pallor of her face; but her eyes never quailed, and the torrent of her eloquence returned under the pangs of shame that were beaten back under the noble instincts of her love.
“Mine!—since he is a soldier of France; yours, too, by that title. I am come here, from Algiers, to speak the truth in his name, and to save him for his own honor and the honor of my Empire. See here! At noon, I have this paper, sent by a swift pigeon. Read it! You see how he is to die, and why. Well, by my Cross, by my Flag, by my France, I swear that not a hair of his head shall be touched, and not a drop of blood in his veins shall be shed!”
He looked at her, astonished at the grandeur and the courage which could come on this child of razzias and revelries, and give to her all the splendor of a fearless command of some young empress. But his face darkened and set sternly as he read the paper; it was the greatest crime in the sight of a proud soldier, this crime against discipline, of the man for whom she pleaded.
“You speak madly,” he said, with cold brevity. “The offense merits the chastisement. I shall not attempt to interfere.”
“Wait! You will hear, at least, Monsieur?”
“I will hear you—yes, but I tell you, once for all, I never change sentences that are pronounced by councils of war; and this crime is the last for which you should attempt to plead for mercy with me.”
“Hear me, at least!” she cried, with passionate ferocity—the ferocity of a dumb animal wounded by a shot. “You do not know what this man is—how he has had to endure; I do. I have watched him; I have seen the brutal tyranny of his chief, who hated him because the soldiers loved him. I have seen his patience, his obedience, his long-suffering beneath insults that would have driven any other to revolt and murder. I have seen him—I have told you how—at Zaraila, thinking never of death or life, only of our Flag, that he has made his own, and under which he has been forced to lead the life of a galley slave—”