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?”
Her eyes were fixed with a fearful intensity of appeal upon the stern face bent over her; her last arrow was sped; if this failed, all was over. As he heard, he was visibly moved; he remembered the felon's shame that in years gone by had fallen across the banished name of Bertie Cecil; the history seemed clear as crystal to him, seen beneath the light shed on it from other days.
His hand fell heavily on the gun-carriage.
“Mort de Dieu! it was his brother's sin, not his!”
There was a long silence; those present, who knew nothing of all that was in his memory, felt instinctively that some dead weight of alien guilt was lifted off a blameless life forever.
She drew a deep, long, sighing breath; she knew that he was safe. Her hands unconsciously locked on the great chief's arms; her eyes looked up, senselessly in their rapture and their dread, to his.
“Quick, quick!” she gasped. “The hours go so fast; while we speak here he——”