It was a passion with him; a passion that not even the
iron of his temper and the dignity of his austere calm could abate or
conceal; and the rumor of it and of the beauty of its object reached
the French camp, till an impatient curiosity was roused about her, and a
raid that should bear her off became the favorite speculation round
the picket fires at night, and in the scorching noons, when the men lay
stripped to their waist--panting like tired dogs under the hot withering
breath that stole to them, sweeping over the yellow seas of sands.
Their heated fancies had pictured this treasure of the great Djied as
something beyond all that her sex had ever given them, and to snare her
in some unwary moment was the chief thought of Zephyr and Spahi when
they went out on a scouting or foraging party. But it was easier said
than done; the eyes of no Frank ever fell on her, and when he was most
closely driven the Khalifa Ilderim abandoned his cattle and sheep, but,
with the females of the tribe still safely guarded, fell more and
more backward and southward; drawing the French on and on, farther and
farther across the plains, in the sickliest times of hottest drought.
Re-enforcements could swell the Imperial ranks as swiftly as they were
thinned, but with the Arabs a man once fallen was a man the less to
their numbers forever, and the lightning-like pursuit began to tell
terribly on them; their herds had fallen into their pursuers' hands, and
famine menaced them.
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