“That was a pretty cut through the arm; better had it been through the throat. Never do things by halves, ami Victor,” said Cigarette carelessly, as she thrust her pistols back into her sash, and looked, with the tranquil appreciation of a connoisseur, on the brown, brawny, naked limb, where it lay severed on the sand, with the hilt of the weapon still hanging in the sinewy fingers. Cecil threw himself from his saddle and gazed at her in bewildered amazement; he had thought those sure, cool, death-dealing shots had come from some Spahi or Chasseur. “I owe you my life!” he said rapidly. “But--good God!--you have shot the fellow dead----” Cigarette shrugged her shoulders with a contemptuous glance at the Bedouin's corpse. “To be sure--I am not a bungler.” “Happily for me, or I had been where he lies now. But wait--let me look; there may be breath in him yet.” Cigarette laughed, offended and scornful, as with the offense and scorn of one whose first science was impeached. “Look and welcome; but if you find any life in that Arab, make a laugh of it before all the army to-morrow.” She was at her fiercest. A thousand new emotions had been roused in her that night, bringing pain with them, that she bitterly resented; and, moreover, this child of the Army of Africa caught fire at the flame of battle with instant contagion, and had seen slaughter around her from her first infancy. Cecil, disregarding her protest, stooped and raised the fallen Bedouin. He saw at a glance that she was right; the lean, dark, lustful face was set in the rigidity of death; the bullet had passed straight through the temples. “Did you never see a dead man before?” demanded Cigarette impatiently, as he lingered--even in this moment he had more thought of this Arab than he had of her! He laid the Arab's body gently down, and looked at her with a glance that, rightly or wrongly, she thought had a rebuke in it. “Very many. But--it is never a pleasant sight. And they were in drink; they did not know what they did.” “Pardieu! What divine pity! Good powder and ball were sore wasted, it seems; you would have preferred to lie there yourself, it appears. I beg your pardon for interfering with the preference.” Her eyes were flashing, her lips very scornful and wrathful. This was his gratitude! “Wait, wait,” said Cecil rapidly, laying his hand on her shoulder, as she flung herself away. “My dear child, do not think me ungrateful. I know well enough I should be a dead man myself had it not been for your gallant assistance. Believe me, I thank you from my heart.” “But you think me 'unsexed' all the same! I see, beau lion!” The word had rankled in her; she could launch it now with telling reprisal. He smiled; but he saw that this phrase, which she had overheard, had not alone incensed, but had wounded her.