But there would be no spoil for them--no slaves with swelling
breasts and lips of honey; no straight-limbed servants of their pleasure
to wait on them with caressing fingers; no rich spoils carried back from
the fields of war to the mud hut, the earth oven, and the thatched roof;
no rings of soft gold and necklaces of amber snatched from the fingers
and bosoms of the captive and the dead. Those days were no more. No
vision of loot or luxury allured these. They saw only the yellow sand,
the ever-receding oasis, the brackish, undrinkable water, the withered
and fruitless date-tree, handfuls of dourha for their food by day, and
the keen, sharp night to chill their half-dead bodies in a half-waking
sleep. And then the savage struggle for life--with all the gain to the
pashas and the beys, and those who ruled over them; while their own
wounds grew foul, and, in the torturing noon-day heat of the white waste,
Death reached out and dragged them from the drooping lines to die.
Fighting because they must fight--not patriot love, nor understanding,
nor sacrifice in their hearts.
Pages:
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259