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24 was highly offensive to the prejudiced insular eye of the Englishman, stood a typical Apache—a horrible-looking creature whose appalling face showed the cunning of the fox, the ferocity of the panther, the cruelty of the wolf, the treachery of the bear, the hate of the serpent, and the rage of the boar. Monsieur l'Apache had evidently chosen the Legion as a preferable alternative to the hulks and the chain-gang—Algeria rather than Noumea. He lived to doubt the wisdom of his choice.

Beside him, and evidently eyeing him askance, stood two youths as extraordinarily similar as were ever twins in this world. Dark, slightly "rat-faced," slender, but decidedly athletic looking.

"Cheer up, golubtchik! If one cannot get vodka one must drink kvass," whispered one.

"All right, Fedia," replied the other. "But I am so hungry and tired. What wouldn't I give for some good hot tea and blinni!"

"We're bound to get something of some sort before long—though it won't be zakuska. Don't give way on the very threshold now. It is our one chance, or I would not have brought you here, Olichka."

"Ssh!" whispered back the other. "Don't call me that here, Feodor."

"Of course not, Mikhail, stout fellow," replied Feodor, and smote his companion on the back.

Regarding them, sharp-eyed, stood the Cockney, an undersized, narrow-chested, but wiry-looking person—a typical East End sparrow; impudent, assertive, thoroughly self-reliant, tenacious, and courageous; of the class that produces admirable specimens of the genus "Tommy."