noons
In these , through four or five seasons of warfare , the Sheik and the Chasseur had encountered each other , till each had grown to look for the other 's face as soon as the standards of the Bedouins flashed in the sunshine opposite the guidons of the Imperial forces ; till each had watched and noted the other 's unmatched prowess , and borne away the wounds of the other 's home-strokes , with the admiration of a bold soldier for a bold rival 's dauntlessness and skill ; till each had learned to long for an hour , hitherto always prevented by waves of battle that had swept them too soon asunder , when they should meet in a duello once for all , and try their strength together till one bore off victory and one succumbed to death . At last it came to pass that , after a lengthened term of this chivalrous antagonism , the tribe were sorely pressed by the French troops , and could no longer mass its fearless front to face them , but had to flee southward to the desert , and encumbered by its flocks and its women , was hardly driven and greatly decimated . Now among those women was one whom the Sheik held above all earthly things except his honor in war ; a beautiful antelope-eyed creature , lithe and graceful as a palm , and the daughter of a pure Arab race , on whom he could not endure for any other sight than his to look , and whom he guarded in his tent as the chief pearl of all his treasures ; herds , flocks , arms , even his horses , all save the honor of his tribe , he would have surrendered rather than surrender Djelma . 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 .