Chateauroy looked after him, as he and his horse passed from the French
camp in the full burning tide of noon.
"If the Arabs kill him," he thought, "I will forgive Ilderim five
seasons of rebellion."
The Chasseur, as he had been bidden, never drew rein across the
scorching plateau. He rode to what he knew was like enough to be death,
and death by many a torment, as though he rode to a midnight love-tryst.
His horse was of Arab breed--young, fleet, and able to endure
extraordinary pressure, both of spur and of heat. He swept on, far and
fast, through the sickly, lurid glitter of the day, over the loose sand,
that flew in puffs around him as the hoofs struck it flying right and
left. At last, ere he reached the Bedouin tents, that were still but
slender black points against the horizon, he saw the Sheik and a party
of horsemen returning from a foraging quest, and in ignorance as yet of
the abduction of Djelma. He galloped straight to them, and halted across
their line of march, with the folds of the little white flag fluttering
in the sun. The Bedouins drew bridle, and Ilderim advanced alone. He
was a magnificent man, of middle age, with the noblest type of the
eagle-eyed, aquiline desert beauty. He was a superb specimen of his
race, without the lean, withered, rapacious, vulture look which often
mars it. His white haik floated round limbs fit for a Colossus: and
under the snowy folds of his turban the olive-bronze of his bold
forehead, the sweep of his jet-black beard, and the piercing luminance
of his eyes had a grand and kingly majesty.
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