unsullied brow.
The red jacket was admirably becoming to his well-moulded figure, and his whole build was a compound of litheness and muscular strength.
As a rule he was serious and thoughtful, but his smile had a seductive charm, and gave a glimpse of teeth of remarkable whiteness.
V
One evening, the man in the red jacket could be seen climbing Samba-Hamet’s wooden staircase with more than his customary air of abstraction.
He entered the lofty chamber, his own, and seemed surprised at finding no one in it.
It was a curious place, this lodging of the spahi’s. It was a bare room, furnished with mat-covered benches. Strips of parchment, written upon by the priests of Maghreb, and talismans of various kinds hung from the ceiling.
He went to a large casket, raised on feet, ornamented with strips of copper and variegated with brilliant colours, a box such as is used by the Yolofs for locking up their valuables. He tried it and found it locked.
Thereupon he lay down on a tara, a kind of sofa made of light laths, the work of negroes of the Gambia shore. Then he took from his pocket a letter, and began to read it, first kissing the corner with the signature.
VI
It was without doubt a love-letter, written by some fair one—an elegant Parisienne, perhaps, or possibly a romantic senora—to this handsome spahi d’Afrique, who seems of the very mould for playing leading rôles as the lover in melodrama.
This letter will perchance furnish us with the clue to some highly dramatic adventure, which will serve as prelude to our tale.
VII
The letter, which the spahi had touched with his lips, bore the postmark of a village hidden away in the Cevennes. It was written by a poor old hand, trembling and unpractised. Its lines overlapped, and it was not free from mistakes.
The letter said:—
My dear son—The present is to give you news of our health, which is pretty good just now; we thank the good God for it. But your father says he feels himself growing old, and as his eyes are failing a good deal, it is your old mother who is taking up the pen to talk to you about ourselves. You will forgive me, knowing that I cannot write any better.
My dear son, I have to tell you that we have been in great trouble for some time. Since you left us three years ago, nothing has gone well with us. Good fortune, as well as happiness, left us when you did. It has been a bad year on account of a heavy hailstorm which fell on the field and destroyed nearly everything except at the side of the road. Our cow went sick, and it cost us a lot of money to have her attended to. Your father’s wages are sometimes short, since he came back to this country of young men, who work faster than he. Besides this we have had to have part of our roof repaired, as it threatened to fall in with the heavy rains. I know that soldiers haven’t much to spare, but your father says that if you can send us what you promised without stinting yourself, it will be very useful to us.
The Mérys, who have plenty of money, could easily lend us some, but we don’t like asking them, especially as we do not want them to think us poor people. We often see your cousin, Jeanne Méry; she grows prettier every day. Her chief joy is to come and see us, and to talk about you. She says she would ask nothing better than to be your wife, my dear Jean. But her father will not hear of the marriage, because he says we are poor, and also that you have been a bit of a scapegrace in your day. I think, however, that if you were to get your quartermaster’s stripes, and if we could see you coming home in your fine uniform, he would perhaps end by consenting after all. I could die happy if I saw you married to her. You would build a house near ours, which would no longer be fine enough for you. We often make plans about it together with Peyral in the evenings.
My dear son, send us a little money without fail, for I assure you that we are in great trouble. We have not been able to manage this year, as I told you, because of that hailstorm and the cow. I see your father worrying himself terribly, and at night I often see him, instead of sleeping, thinking about it and turning from side to side. If you cannot send us the whole amount, send what you can.
Good-bye, my dear son; the village folk often ask after you, and want to know when you are coming back. The neighbours send hearty greetings. As for me, you know that I have had no joy in life since you went away.
I enclose my letter, embracing you, and Peyral does likewise.
Your loving old mother,
Françoise Peyral.
VIII
… Jean leaning on his elbow at the window fell into a reverie, looking absently at the wide prospect of African scenery stretched out before him—the pointed outlines of the Yolof huts, grouped by hundreds at his feet—in the distance the troubled sea and the ceaseless onset of the African breakers; the yellow sun about to set, still shedding upon the desert, further than the eye could see, its wan radiance; sand interminable; a distant caravan of Moors; flights of birds of prey swooping through the air; and yonder, a point on which he fixed his eyes, the cemetery of Sorr, whither he had already escorted some of his comrades, mountain-bred like himself, who had died of fever in that accursed climate.
O to return home to his aged parents, to live in a little house with Jeanne Méry, quite close to the humble paternal roof. Why had he been exiled to this land of Africa? What had he in common with this country? As for this uniform and this Arab fez in which they had dressed him up, and which, for all that, gave him so grand an air, what a burlesque disguise for him, the humble little peasant from the Cevennes.
He remained there a long time lost in thought, dreaming of his village, this poor soldier on the banks of the Senegal. With sunset and nightfall, his thoughts plunged themselves in unrelieved gloom.
From the direction of N’dar-toute came the hurried drumming of the tom-tom, summoning the negroes to the bamboula, and fires were lighted in the Yolof huts. It was an evening in December; a vexatious winter wind sprang up, whirling the sand in eddies here and there, and the great, parched land shuddered with an unwonted sensation of chill.
The door opened, and a yellow dog with straight ears and a look suggesting the jackal, a dog of the country, of the Laobé breed, bounded into the room and gambolled about his master.
At the same time, a young negro girl, with a merry smile, appeared at the door of the lodging. She made a little jerky bow, brusque and comic, the negresses’ salutation, and said Kéou! (Good-day).
IX
