Marquise was not to blame, but they thought he was; and an adjutant struck him--flick, flack, like that--across the face with a riding switch.

Marquise had his bayonet fixed and before we knew what was up, crash the blade went through--through the breast-bone, and out at the spine--and the adjutant fell as dead as a cat, with the blood spouting out like a fountain.

'I come of a great race, that never took insult without giving back death,' was all that Marquise said when they seized him and brought him to judgment; and he would never say of what race that was.

They shot him--ah, bah! discipline must be kept--and I saw him with five great wounds in his chest, and his beautiful golden hair all soiled with the sand and the powder, lying there by the open grave, that they threw him into as if he were offal; and we never knew more of him than that." Cigarette's radiant laugh had died, and her careless voice had sunk, over the latter words.

As the little vivacious brunette told the tale of a nameless life, it took its eloquence from her, simple and brief as her speech was; and it owned a deeper pathos because the reckless young Bacchante of the As de Pique grew grave one moment while she told it.
Then, grave still, she leaned her brown, bright face nearer down from her oval hole in the wall.
"Now," she whispered very low, "if you mutiny once, they will shoot you just like Marquise, and you will die just as silent, like him." "Well," he answered her slowly, "why not?
Death is no great terror; I risk it every day for the sake of a common soldier's rations; why should I not chance it for the sake and in the defense of my honor ?" "Bah! men sell their honor for their daily bread all the world over!" said Cigarette, with the satire that had treble raciness from the slang in which she clothed it.