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Colonel Claparede, on my right, with whom this meeting was my first, was asking me if I had ever been fool enough to fall in love; Colonel Baville, of the Chasseurs d'Afrique, on my left, whose face was also a new one to me, was inquiring whether I did not agree with him that children were born with extraordinary rapidity in the African climate, while Bourbaki, the secretary of the Arab office, was performing the wildest fantasia in front of us at the head of the Hadjout Goum.
Out in the open, Victoria in her bassour, he on the horse which he would take from his father's goum, travelling would be pure joy. And Maïeddine had been saving up many surprises for that time, things he meant to do for the girl, which must turn her heart towards him.
He would have killed the pair with his own hand, while the men of his goum put the Arabs to death, and all could have been buried under the sand save the camels, which would have been led back to Djazerta. But France was mighty and far reaching, and he and his tribe would have to pay too high for such indulgence.
Each goum, drawn up in companies, was introduced separately, and led in perfect order to the places chosen for it in advance. Then came the turn of the chiefs, who seated themselves with all the gravity becoming their character. Brigade of native soldiers under French command.
I hardly dared to hope for more than just seeing him; but he remembered that my old nurse had a grandson in my father's goum, a fine rider, who first taught him Manöel to sit on a horse. Through my nurse and Ali ben Sliman I got letters from Manöel.
He does me enough honour in sending out the pick of his goum, which is among the finest of the Sahara." Victoria had picked up a great deal of desert lore by this time, and knew that the "pick of the goum" would mean the best horses in the Agha's stables, the crack riders among his trained men fighting men, such as he would give to the Government, if Arab soldiers were needed.
The Arab girl proposed to Sanda that she should pretend to have a letter from Colonel DeLisle calling her back at once to Sidi-bel-Abbés, not giving her even time to wait for the wedding. Ben Râana would reluctantly consent to her going: he would give her an escort not Tahar, because Tahar must stay for his marriage but some trustworthy men of his goum, and good camels.
He had sent a fine caravan to fetch the girl to Djazerta, and according to the ideas of desert travellers, no luxury was lacking for her comfort. His half-sister's son, Sidi Tahar Ben Hadj, had under him some of the best men of the Agha's goum, and there were a pair of giant, ink-black eunuchs to guard the guest and her two negresses.
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