noon
Faded , shrunk , and withered , I have got it still . My home was now no place for me . I arranged my few affairs with small difficulty , pensioned the two old servants my poor father had committed to my charge ; set my house in order , packed up my things , and in less than a week I was many hundred miles from Alton Grange and Constance Beverley . It is high noon , and not a sound , save the occasional snort of an impatient steed , is to be heard throughout the lines . Picketed in rows , the gallant little chargers of the Turkish cavalry are dozing away the hours between morning and evening feed . The troopers themselves are smoking and sleeping in their tents ; here and there may be seen a devout Mussulman prostrate on his prayer-carpet , his face turned towards Mecca , and his thoughts wholly abstracted from all worldly considerations . Ill-fed and worse paid , they are nevertheless a brawny , powerful race , their broad rounded shoulders , bull necks , and bowed legs denoting strength rather than activity ; whilst their high features and marked swarthy countenances betray at once their origin , sprung from generations of warriors who once threatened to overwhelm the whole Western world in a tide that has now been long since at the ebb .