noon
To leave his place was to incur the heaviest punishment ; yet he could almost have risked that sentence rather than wait there . Only seven days had gone by since he had been with her under the roof of the caravanserai ; but it seemed to him as if these days had aged him more than all the twelve years that he had passed upon the Algerian soil . He was thankful that the enmity of his relentless chief had placed such shadow of evil report between his name and the rewards due to his service , that even the promised recognition of his brilliant actions at Zaraila and elsewhere was postponed a while on the plea of investigation . He was thankful that the honors which the whole Army expected for him , and which the antagonism of Chateauroy would soon be powerless to avert any longer from their meet bestowal , did not force him to go up there in the scorching light of the noon , and take those honors as a soldier of France , under the eyes of the man he loved , of the woman he adored . As it was , he sat motionless as a statue in his saddle , and never looked westward to where the tricolors of the flagstaff drooped above the head of Venetia Corona . Thus , he never heard the gallant words spoken in his behalf by the loyal lips that he had not cared to caress . As she passed down the ranks , indeed , he saw and smiled on his little champion ; but the smile had only a weary kindness of recognition in it and it wounded Cigarette more than though he had struck her through the breast with his lance .