"Mort de Dieu! it is a droll gambling," murmured Chanrellon. "But--if you win, do you think we shall let you go off to our enemies? Pas si bete, monsieur!"
"Yes, you will," said the other quietly. "Men who knew what honor meant enough to redeem Rire-pour-tout's pledge of safety to the Bedouins, will not take advantage of an openly confessed and unarmed adversary."
A murmur of ratification ran through his listeners.
"Pardieu, no. You are right. If you want to go, you shall go. Hola there! bring the dice. Champagne, monsieur? Vermouth? Cognac?"
He leaned back with an apathetic indolence and indifference oddly at contrast with the injudicious daring of his war-provoking words and the rough campaigning that he sought. The assembled Chasseurs eyed him curiously; they liked his manner and they resented his first speeches; they noted every particular about him--his delicate white hands, his weather-worn and travel-stained dress, his fair, aristocratic features, his sweeping, abundant beard, his careless, cool, tired, reckless way; and they were uncertain what to make of him.
"What stakes, monsieur?" asked Chanrellon.
He set ten napoleons down on the table; they were the only coins he had in the world; it was very characteristic that he risked them.
"You see," he murmured, with a half smile, "the dice know it is a drawn duel between you and the Arabs."
"C'est un drole, c'est un brave!" muttered Chanrellon; and they threw again.
The Chasseur cast a five; his was a five again.
"The dice cannot make up their minds," said the other listlessly, "they know you are Might and the Arabs are Right."
The Frenchmen laughed; they could take a jest good-humoredly, and alone amid so many of them, he was made sacred at once by the very length of odds against him.
They rattled the boxes and threw again--Chanrellon's was three; his two.
"Ah!" he murmured. "Right kicks the beam and loses; it always does, poor devil!"
The Chasseur leaned across the table, with his brown, fearless sunny eyes full of pleasure.
"Monsieur! never lament such good fortune for France. You belong to us now; let me claim you!"
He bowed more gravely than he had borne himself hitherto.
"You do me much honor; fortune has willed it so. One word only in stipulation."