Her spectators were
renowned croc-mitaines; men whose names rang like trumpets in the ear
of Kabyle and Marabout; men who had fought under the noble colors of the
day of Mazagran, or had cherished or emulated its traditions; men who
had the salient features of all the varied species that make up the
soldiers of Africa.
There was Ben Arslan, with his crimson burnous wrapped round
his towering stature, from whom Moor and Jew fled, as before a
pestilence--the fiercest, deadliest, most voluptuous of all the Spahis;
brutalized in his drink, merciless in his loves; all an Arab when once
back in the desert; with a blow of a scabbard his only payment for
forage, and a thrust of his saber his only apology to husbands; but to
the service a slave, and in the combat a lion.
There was Beau-Bruno, a dandy of Turcos, whose snowy turban and olive
beauty bewitched half the women of Algeria; who himself affected to
neglect his conquests, with a supreme contempt for those indulgences,
but who would have been led out and shot rather than forego the personal
adornings for which his adjutant and his capitaine du bureau growled
unceasing wrath at him with every day that shone.
There was Pouffer-de-Rire, a little Tringlo, the wittiest, gayest,
happiest, sunniest-tempered droll in all the army; who would sing the
camp-songs so joyously through a burning march that the whole of the
battalions would break into one refrain as with one throat, and press on
laughing, shouting, running, heedless of thirst, or heat, or famine, and
as full of monkey-like jests as any gamins.
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