noon
It was a pleasure to him to know that ; though he knew also that every added moment spent under the sweet sovereignty of her glance was so much added pain , so much added folly , to the dream-like and baseless passion with which she had inspired him . The trifling incident of the goat 's rescue and the chain 's trouvaille , slight as they were , still were of service to him . They called him back from the past to the present ; they broke the stupor of suffering that had fastened on him ; they recalled him to the actual world about him in which he had to fulfill his duties as a trooper of France . It was almost noon when , under the sun-scorched branches of the pine that stretched its somber fans up against the glittering azure of the morning skies , he approached the gates of the Algerine house-of-call -- a study for the color of Gerome , with the pearly gray of its stone tints , and the pigeons wheeling above its corner towers , while under the arch of its entrance a string of mules , maize-laden , were guided ; and on its bench sat a French soldier , singing gayly songs of Paris while he cut open a yellow gourd . Cecil went within , and bathed , and dressed , and drank some of the thin , cool wine that found its way thither in the wake of the French army . Then he sat down for a while at one of the square , cabin-like holes which served for casements in the tower he occupied , and , looking out into the court , tried to shape his thoughts and plan his course . As a soldier he had no freedom , no will of his own , save for this extra twelve or twenty-four hours which they had allowed him for leisure in his return journey .