“Ma foi!” she said coolly. “He would be more likely to spit than be spitted if it came to a duel. I should like to see him in a duel; there is not a prettier sight in the world when both men have science. As for fighting for me! Morbleau! I will thank nobody to have the impudence to do it, unless I order them out. Coqueline got shot for me, you remember; he was a pretty fellow, Coqueline, and they killed him so clumsily, that they disfigured him terribly--it was quite a pity. I said then I would have no more handsome men fight about me. You may, if you like, M. le Black Hawk.” Which title she gave with a saucy laugh, hitting with a chocolate bonbon the black African-burnt visage of the omnipotent chief she had the audacity to attack. High or low, they were all the same to Cigarette. She would have “slanged” the Emperor himself with the self-same coolness, and the Army had given her a passport of immunity so wide that it would have fared ill with anyone who had ever attempted to bring the vivandiere to book for her uttermost mischief. “By the way!” she went on, quick as thought, with her reckless, devil-may-care gayety. “One thing! Your Corporal will demoralize the army of Africa, monsieur!” “He shall have an ounce of cold lead before he does. What in?” “He will demoralize it,” said Cigarette, with a sagacious shake of her head. “If they follow his example we shan't have a Chasseur, or a Spahi, or a Piou-piou, or a Sapeur worth anything--” “Sacre! What does he do?” The Colonel's strong teeth bit savagely through his cigar; he would have given much to have been able to find a single thing of insubordination or laxity of duty in a soldier who irritated and annoyed him, but who obeyed him implicitly, and was one of the most brilliant “fire-eaters” of his regiment. “He won't only demoralize the army,” pursued the Cigarette, with vivacious eloquence, “but if his example is followed, he'll ruin the Prefets, close the Bureaux, destroy the Exchequer, beggar all the officials, make African life as tame as milk and water, and rob you, M. le Colonel, of your very highest and dearest privilege!” “Sacre bleu!” cried her hearers, as their hands instinctively sought their swords; “what does he do?” Cigarette looked at them out of her arch black lashes. “Why, he never thieves from the Arabs! If the fashion comes in, adieu to our occupation. Court-martial him, Colonel!”