His present and his future were neither much brighter than the gloomy, walled-in den on which he gazed.
Twelve years before, when he had been ordered into the exercise-ground for the first time, to see of what mettle he was made, the instructor had watched him with amazed eyes, muttering to himself, "This is no raw recruit,--this fellow! What a rider! Dieu de Dieu! he knows more than we can teach.

He has served before now--served in some emperor's picked guard!" And when he had passed from the exercising-ground to the campaign, the Army had found him one of the most splendid of its many splendid soldiers; and in the daily folios there was no page of achievements, of exploits, of services, of dangers, that showed a more brilliant array of military deserts than his.

Yet, for many years, he had been passed by unnoticed.

He had now not even the cross on his chest, and he had only slowly and with infinite difficulty been promoted so far as he stood now--a Corporal in the Chasseurs d'Afrique--a step only just accorded him because wounds innumerable and distinctions without number in countless skirmishes had made it impossible to cast him wholly aside any longer.
The cause lay in the implacable enmity of one man--his Chief.
Far-sundered as they were by position, and rarely as they could come into actual contact, that merciless weight of animosity, from the great man to his soldier had lain on the other like iron, and clogged him from all advancement.

His thoughts were of it now.