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The irregular and contingent cavalry and infantry can never be depended upon, even under such a chief as Abd-el-Kader was. They must always be fed, but they will not, at any summons, leave the cultivation of their fields, or their wives and children defenceless.
This sounded for a second or two, and ceased. Again all was still as death. A sudden burst of hellish noise, such as I have never heard before or since, now startled every soldier to his feet, and without orders, every man armed and fell into position! Colonel Abd-el-Kader, with his sword belted on and a rifle in his hand, came to me for orders on the instant.
Abd-el-Kader then swept in a razzia to the south of Miliana, and soon appeared in full force in the Sahara as the bewildered French pursuers returned to their cantonments in despair of reaching him. This is a sample of the evolutions by which genius made amends for inferiority of force.
Abd-el-Kader is a marabout warrior, greatly revered and idolized by all enthusiastic Mussulmen throughout North Africa, more especially in Morocco, the terre classique of holy-fighting men; but though the Maroquines were disaffected, groaning under the avarice of their Shereefian Lord, and occasionally do revolt, nevertheless they would not deliberately set aside the dynasty of the Shereefs, the veritable root and branch of the Prophet of God, for an adventurer of other blood, however powerful in arms and in sanctity.
"Why, Madame," replied Maria, gravely, "he will be a soldier." At that moment the engraver, who had left his bench to stretch his legs a little and to light his Abd-el-Kader for the third time, came and stood at the threshold of his room. Madame Gerard, reassured as to the state of her stew, which was slowly cooking and oh, how good it smelled in the kitchen! entered the dining-room.
He was exceedingly polite, and smiled and bowed, beseeching me to accept the cider, as plenty of corn would be sent on the following day, when better arrangements would be made for future supplies. I could no longer refuse the cider, therefore I sent for Abd-el-Kader, and gave him five jars for the officers and troops.
The war in Algeria was also continued with great vigor by the government of Guizot. It required sixty thousand troops to carry on the war, bring the Arabs to terms, and capture their cunning and heroic chieftain Abd-el-Kader, which was done at last, after a vast expenditure of money and men.
"I love you for your own sake, that is all and I can reason. Well! why do you stand there like a wax image of Abd-el-Kader? There is nothing to meditate over. Marriage is heads or tails well, you have tossed heads up." "You shall have my reply to-morrow," said Lousteau. "I would sooner have it at once; Malaga will write you up to-night." "Well, then, yes."
He had been a prisoner of Abd-el-Kader, bearing the scar of a yataghan stroke on his neck, of one ball in his shoulder and another in his chest; and notwithstanding absinthe, duels, debts of play, and almond-eyed Jewesses, he fairly won, with the point of the bayonet and sabre, his grade of captain in the First Regiment of Sharp-shooters.
Abd-el-Kader retreated on Miliana, while the conqueror, entering Medea, found it abandoned and half burned. The Sultan had made his last attempt to fight the French on the principles of European warfare.
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