yet!"

Miss Harper's keen eyes glittered. "You northerners hardly realize our
feelings concerning the imprisonment of women, I think."

"My dear madam, you don't realize ours. We don't want to imprison
women."

So there came a silence, and then a gay laugh as three of us at once
asked if he had ever heard of Lieutenant Durand. "Durand!" he cried, and
looked squarely around at me. I lifted the cocked revolver, but he kept
his fine eyes on mine and I rubbed my ear with my wrist. "What?" he
said, "an elegant, Creole-seeming young fellow, very handsome? Why, that
fellow saved my life this very afternoon."

The young ladies were in rapture. Miss Harper asked how he had done it.

"If I tell you that," said the Captain, "you won't like me the least
bit."

Whereat Cecile replied, "Ah--well! we cou'n' like you the leaz bit
any-'ow."

"I suppose that's so," laughed the officer. "I'll tell you how it was.
My guard were just about to hang me for saying I thought we had a right
to make soldiers of the darkies, when your friend came galloping along,
saw the thing, and rushed in and cut the halter with his sword. And when
they demanded to know who and what he was, he told them Durand, and that
they'd hear it again, for he should report them."