midnight
He did not want his life , but his friendship . We lived very happy and peaceful after that , only we were called renegades by the other tribes , and especially the Khouans , that murderous class which believes that it pleases Allah if they shed their fellow beings ' blood . `` Five years had elapsed , and I was then twelve years old , when my father gave a great feast in honor of a celebrated French commander who visited our settlement . Suddenly , at midnight , when the festivities were over , and we were all lying in a deep sleep , the Khouans made an attack on our village . My father was assassinated and my mother and I taken prisoners . We were carried into the desert with other prisoners of my tribe . Reaching an oasis , the captives were tied to the trunks of trees , and their limbs hacked off by the murderous Khouans with their yataghans .