She was angered by him; she was in the mood to make herself seem all the rougher, fiercer, naughtier, and more callous.  She had shot the man—­pouf!  What of that?  She had shot men before, as all Africa knew.  She would defend a half-fledged bird, a terrified sheep, a worn-out old cur; but a man!  Men were the normal and natural food for pistols and rifles, she considered.  A state of society in which firearms had been unknown was a thing Cigarette had never heard of, and in which she would have contumeliously disbelieved if she had been told of it.

Cecil looked up from his musing.  He thought what a pity it was this pretty, graceful French kitten was such a bloodthirsty young panther at heart.

“I scarcely know what to do,” he answered her doubtfully.  “Put him across my saddle, poor wretch, I suppose; the fray must be reported.”

“Leave that to me,” said Cigarette decidedly, and with a certain haughty patronage.  “I shot him—­I will see the thing gets told right.  It might be awkward for you; they are growing so squeamish about the Roumis killing the natives.  Draw him to one side there, and leave him.  The crows will finish his affair.”

The coolness with which this handsome child disposed of the fate of what, a moment or two before, had been a sentient, breathing, vigorous frame, sent a chill through her hearer, though he had been seasoned by a decade of slaughter.

“No,” he said briefly.  “Suspicion might fall on some innocent passer-by.  Besides—­he shall have a decent burial.”

“Burial for an Arab—­pouf!” cried Cigarette in derision.  “Parbleu, M. Bel-a-faire-peau, I have seen hundreds of our best soldiers lie rotting on the plains with the birds’ beaks at their eyes and the jackals’ fangs in their flesh.  What was good enough for them is surely good enough for him.  You are an eccentric fellow—­you—­”

He laughed a little.

“Time was when I should have begged you not to call me any such ’bad form’!  Eccentric!  I have not genius enough for that.”

“Eh?” She did not understand him.  “Well, you want that carrion poked into the earth, instead of lying atop of it.  I don’t see much difference myself.  I would like to be in the sun as long as I could, I think, dead or alive.  Ah! how odd it is to think one will be dead some day—­never wake for the reveille—­never hear the cannon or the caissons roll by—­never stir when the trumpets sound the charge, but lie there dead—­dead—­dead—­while the squadrons thunder above one’s grave!  Droll, eh?”

A momentary pathos softened her voice, where she stood in the glistening moonlight.  That the time would ever come when her glad laughter would be hushed, when her young heart would beat no more, when the bright, abundant, passionate blood would bound no longer through her veins, when all the vivacious, vivid, sensuous charms of living would be ended for her forever, was a thing that she could no better bring home to her than a bird that sings in the light of the sun could be made to know that the time would come when its little, melodious throat would be frozen in death, and give song never more.