SERGEANT COUCOU
Ten years had passed since Mercedes had bade her only son good-by. She
lived in the small house in the Allee de Meillan at Marseilles, which
formerly belonged to old Dantes, and though her face was pale and her
eyes no longer sparkled as of yore, the widow of General de Morcerf was
still a wonderfully handsome woman. Mercedes was standing at the window,
gazing out upon the sea. Behind her stood a man in the uniform of a
Zouave. Small, brown and thin, he looked like the type of what a Zouave
is generally thought to be.
What the Zouave's name was no one exactly knew. He had many sobriquets,
the most popular of which was "Sergeant Coucou," so that after a while
he was never called otherwise.
The sergeant's cradle, in spite of his brown skin, had not stood in
Africa, but in the Faubourg Merceau in Paris.
Coucou was the son of a poor washerwoman. His first studies were made on
the curbstone and in the gutter, and pretty soon he became the toughest
boy in the neighborhood. His mother decided the time had come for her
son to enter the army. Coucou did not hesitate long; only he made it a
condition that he be allowed to enter an African regiment. The mother
was satisfied. A regiment which bore the trusting name, the "Jackals,"
was just on the point of sailing to Algiers, and so Coucou became a
Jackal.
When the time for saying good-by came, the mother began to weep, but
Coucou consoled her.
"You see, mamma," he said, confidently, "I will make a name for myself,
and when you read about my heroic deeds in the papers, you will be proud
of me."
The mother laughed between her sobs. The few pennies she had saved she
used to buy a pair of spectacles to read the forthcoming chronicles; for
she was one of that class of innocent people who believe that the
faculty of reading rests in spectacles.
About the year 1843 the Zouave regiment, to which Coucou belonged, made
a sortie under General Cavaignac against the Kabyles in Beni Djaad.
Among the few who escaped was the Sheik Sidi ben Abed. No one knew where
he had disappeared to, and when the call to retreat had been sounded,
Coucou declared he would remain behind to find out where the Kabyles
were.
"They will kill you," his comrades warned him.
"Bah! a Parisian child does not fear the devil!" said Coucou, laughing.
In a few minutes he had disappeared. The soldiers feared the worst; but,
to their astonishment, Coucou came back in a few hours, dragging the
sheik by his long beard behind him. The Kabyle was armed to the teeth,
but nevertheless Coucou had forced him to succumb without a struggle.
Six months later Coucou was struck over the head by a yataghan, and,
but for the timely interference of a comrade, would have been killed.
How the sergeant came to the little house in the Allee de Meillan we
will relate further on. One thing was certain, Mercedes' silence made
him feel uncomfortable; but his eye lighted up when the door opened, and
a small white hand was laid on Mercedes' shoulder, and a clear, bright
voice said:
"Good-day, my dear little woman."