The Central Nevadan. [volume] (Battle Mountain, Nev.) 1885-1907, 1903-03-05

were Sorely pressed by the rreheb
troops and had to fee southwark to
the desert and, incumbered by their
flocks and their women, were hardly
driven and greatly decimated. Now,
among those women was N whom
the sheik held above all earthly things
except his honor in war, a beautiful,
antelope eyed creature. 1.-THE and grace
full as a palm and the daughter Of q
pure Arab race on whom he could not
endure for any other sight than his
own to look and whom he guarded
In his tent as the chief pearl of all his
treasures; all, save the honor of his
tribe, he would have surrendered
rather than surrender Djelma. 1t was
a passion with him-a passion that
not even the iron of his temper and
the dignity of his austere calm could
abate or conceal-and the rumor of 1t
and of the beauty of Its object reached
the French camp till an impatient Curl
osity was reused about her, and 4 raid
that should bear her off became the
~fayorite speculation round the picket
fires at night and the %scorching moons.
The heat was intense; the water was
bad and very rare; dysentery came
with the scorch and the toll Of this
endless charge. The chief in command,
M. lie Marquis de Chateauroy, swore
heavily as he saw many of his best
men dropping off like sheep in a muir
rain, and he offered 200 napoleons to
%whosoever should bring either the
dead sheik's head or the living beauty
of Djemla.
One day the chasseurs had pitched
their camp where a few barren, with
cred trees gave a semblance of shelter
and a little thread of brackish water
oozed through the yellow earth. Sud
denly the noon lethargy of the camp
was broken. A trumpet call rang
through the stiffness. Against the am
Der transparency of the horizon line
the outlines of half a dozen horsemen
were seen coming nearer and nearer
with every moment. They were some
spahls who had been out sweeping the
country for food. The mighty frame
of ~Chateauroy, almost as unclothed as
ar athlete, started from its slumberous
painting rest. His eyes lightened hum
grily. "Hah, they have the woman!'
he cried.
They had the woman. She had been
netted near a water spring. to which
she had wandered too loosely guarded,
and the ~colonel's face flushed darkly
with an eager, lustful warmth as he
Il $500, IL .,.ffxn 1870 hn6
not ~outboasted the Arab girls beauty.
Only Djemla was as innocent as the
gazelle, whose grace she resembled,
and loved her lord with a great love.
or her suffering her captor took no
more heed than IL she were a young
bird dying of shot wounds: but, with
one triumphant admiring glance at her,
he wrote a message In Arabic to send
to the khalifa ere her loss was dlscov-
ered-a message more cruel than iron.
He hesitated a second where he lay at
the opening of his tent whom he should
send with Il. His men were almost all
half dead with the sun blaze. His
glance Glanced to light in the distance
on a soldier to whom he bore no love.
causelessly. but bitterly all the same.
He had him summoned and eyed him
with a curious amusement. Chateau
roy treated his squadrons with much
the same familiarity and brutality that
a chief of filibusters uses to his.
$50, you heed the heat so little you
give up -FOUR urn of water to a drum
mer. they say"
The chasseur gave the salute with a
calm Difference. A faint flush passed
over the sun bronze of his forehead.
He had thought the sacrifice had been
u~nobserved.
"The drummer was but a child, colo
NEIL"
"Be so good as to give us no more CT
those melodramatic acts" said the mar
quis contemptuously. you are too
fond Of t~rafficking in those snowy fool
cries. You bride your comrades for
their favoritism too openly. l forbid
1t. Do you hearT
81 hear. colonel"
The assent was perfectly tranquil
and. respectful. He was too good n sol
der not to render perfect obedience
and keep perfect silence under any
goad of %provocation to break both.
"Obey. thenw said Chateauroy say
agely. "Well. since you love heat so
well, you shall take a flag of truce and
my scroll to the Sidi Ilderim. But tell
me first. what do you think of this
c%aptureT"
"It is not my place to give opinions,
colonel"
"Parbleu! 1t is your place when l
bid you. Speak, or | will have the stick
cut the words out of you!"
81 may speak frankly?"
"Ten thousand curses. yes"
'Then l think that those who make
war on women are no longer fit to
fight with men,"
For a moment the long, sinewy, mas
sive form of Chateauroy started from
the skins on which he lay at full length
like a lion starting from its lair. His
veins swelled like black cords. Under
the mighty muscle of his bare chest his
heart beat visibly in the fury Of his
wrath.
"By heaven. l have a mind to have
you shot like a dogi"
" lo1I-oI 90 I;.. - ~ ,olora