He was ruthless, inflexible, a tyrant to
the core, and sharp and swift as steel in his rigor, but he was a fine
soldier, and never spared himself any of the hardships that his regiment
had to endure under him.
Suddenly the noon lethargy of the camp was broken; a trumpet-call rang
through the stillness; against the amber transparency of the horizon
line the outlines of half a dozen horsemen were seen looming nearer
and nearer with every moment; they were some Spahis who had been out
sweeping the country for food. The mighty frame of Chateauroy, almost
as unclothed as an athlete's, started from its slumberous, panting
rest; his eyes lightened hungrily; he muttered a fiery oath; "Mort de
Dieu!--they have the woman!"
They had the woman. She had been netted near a water-spring, to which
she had wandered too loosely guarded, and too far from the Bedouin
encampment. The delight of the haughty Sidi's eyes was borne off to the
tents of his foe, and the Colonel's face flushed darkly with an eager,
lustful warmth, as he looked upon his captive. Rumor had not outboasted
the Arab girl's beauty; it was lustrous as ever was that when, far
yonder to the eastward, under the curled palms of Nile, the sorceress of
the Caesars swept through her rose-strewn palace chambers. Only Djelma
was as innocent as the gazelle, whose grace she resembled, and loved her
lord with a great love.
Of her suffering her captor took no more heed than if she were a young
bird dying of shot-wounds; but, with one triumphant, admiring glance at
her, he wrote a message in Arabic, to send to the Khalifa, ere her loss
was discovered--a message more cruel than iron.
Pages:
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350