midnight
Ferragut gradually became acquainted with many old men of the village who in their youth had been slaves in Algiers . On winter evenings the oldest of them were still singing romances of captivity and speaking with terror of the Berber brigantines . These thieves of the sea must have had a pact with the devil , who notified them of opportune occasions . If in a convent some beautiful novices had just made their profession , the doors would give away at midnight under the hatchet-blows of the bearded demons who were advancing inland from the galleys prepared to receive their cargo of feminine freight . If a girl of the coast , celebrated for her beauty , was going to be married , the infidels , lying in wait , would surround the door of the church , shooting their blunderbusses and knifing the unarmed men as they came out , in order to carry away the women in their festal robes . On all the coast , the pirates stood in awe only of the navigators from the _ Marina _ , so fearless and warlike were they . If their villages were ever attacked , it was because their seafaring defenders were on the Mediterranean and , in their turn , had gone to sack and burn some village on the coast of Africa .