midnight
Beneath its light , which fell full on him , flung down upon another pile of cushions facing the open front of the tent , was a guest whom the Khalifa delighted to honor . Only a Corporal of Chasseurs , and once a foe , yet one with whom the Arab found the brotherhood of brave men , and on whom he lavished , in all he could , the hospitalities and honors of the desert . The story of their friendship ran thus : The tribe was now allied with France , or , at least , had accepted French sovereignty , and pledged itself to neutrality in the hostilities still rife ; but a few years before , far in the interior and leagued with the Kabailes , it had been one of the fiercest and most dangerous among the enemies of France . At that time the Khalifa and the Chasseur met in many a skirmish ; hot , desperate struggles , where men fought horse to horse , hand to hand ; midnight frays , when , in the heart of lonely ravines , Arab ambuscades fell on squadrons of French cavalry ; terrible chases through the heat of torrid suns , when the glittering ranks of the charging troops swept down after the Bedouins ' flight ; fiery combats , when the desert sand and the smoke of musketry circled in clouds above the close-locked struggle , and the Leopard of France and the Lion of Sahara wrestled in a death-grip . 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 .