Part 27 (1/2)

The rain soon stopped again. And now the moon began to s.h.i.+ne fitfully through the gaps in the clouds, even this faint light being much more than I cared about. A terrible fear of being seen by a police patrol came over me. All at once the country became hilly. On either side of the rails there lay mighty rocks, great jagged boulders of sandstone, and I rejoiced in the shelter they gave me. I had been running for some minutes between the rocks when I heard a strange noise. At first I thought it was another train. But as the sound grew nearer and grew clearer I knew what it was: galloping horses!

Through a gap in the rocks I could see the fine white line which marked the road. It was scarcely a hundred yards away from the railway. On this road a patrol was coming along at a gallop....

Had the police already seen me? Just before, where the country was flat, my silhouette must have stood out sharply defined against the sky in the moonlight.

In a paroxysm of fear I crawled in between two rocks and held my breath to listen. The horses drew nearer and nearer, the beat of their hoofs on the roadway ringing out loud and clear. Peeping out of my hiding-place I could see the dark forms of horses and their riders. Now they were up with me. I heard a sharp exclamation in Arabic. The three men pulled up their horses and came to a halt.

I pulled out my pistol. The barrel shone in the moonlight. I hastily covered up the weapon with my coat, for fear it should betray my hiding-place. Then I carefully c.o.c.ked the pistol and felt whether the cartridge-frame was in order. A feeling of icy calmness came upon me. I made up my mind not to stir from my hiding-place and not to fire until the gendarmes were quite close to me in their search. I considered the matter carefully. Two full cartridge-frames I took in my left hand, ready to refill the chamber. My idea was to empty the magazine in quick shooting in order to get in as many shots as possible before they recovered from their surprise.

Down below some one lit a match. It burned for a moment only. I heard one of the gendarmes laugh. Then the three men galloped forward again.

One of them must have asked his comrades for a match....

The noise of the galloping horses was soon lost in the distance, but for a long time I sat trembling from head to foot between the two rocks. The tears of over-excitement were running down my face as I put up the pistol. I could have yelled for joy that this awful danger was over. When I stood up again, I fell back against the rocks. My trembling knees could not support my body....

Les Imberts was the name of the station. It was forty-two kilometres distant from Sidi-bel-Abbes; in seven hours I had covered a distance of about thirty English miles. When at four o'clock in the morning I reached the station and deciphered its name and its distance from Sidi-bel-Abbes in the darkness, there was not a human being to be seen.

The stillness of night still lay upon everything. A few hundred yards from the station a number of freight cars stood. I jumped into one of them and studied, lighting one match after another, the Algerian time-table which my careful mother had sent me. The first train to Oran went at a few minutes past five.

The first thing to be done was to care for my outer man a little. I climbed out of the car again and found, after a long search, a barrel half full of water standing under a shed. Day was just breaking. After a very hurried wash I hid again in one of the cars, brus.h.i.+ng my clothes and cleaning my boots with my handkerchief. I was very glad of the extra collar which my friend of the Ghetto had purchased. Finally I had a look at myself in my tiny looking-gla.s.s. It would do! Indeed, the effect was not half bad. It would do very well; decently dressed people were scarce in Algeria....

At five o'clock I started on a roundabout route for the station. A dozen people stood waiting on the platform, amongst them an Arab policeman leaning lazily against the wall. I went straight up to the ticket office.

”Oran--premiere cla.s.se!”

”Sept-soixante,” said the official. ”Seven francs and sixty centimes.”

I jumped into the nearest first-cla.s.s compartment, and found to my joy that it was empty. The train started off. During the two hours' journey from Les Imberts to Oran I brought my dress into decent order and smoked innumerable cigarettes to drive away my sleepiness. At the barrier in Oran a sergeant of Zouaves and a corporal of the Legion were watching for deserters, but they didn't take the slightest notice of me.

Until ten o'clock I wandered about the town. Then I went to the office of the French Mediterranean line and took a second-cla.s.s ticket for Ma.r.s.eilles. The pa.s.senger boat _St. Augustine_ was due to start at five in the afternoon.

All at once I became very sleepy. I could hardly keep my eyes open, but I had not the courage to go to an hotel and rest there for a few hours.

So I went into a restaurant and enjoyed a long-drawn-out French dinner and a bottle of heavy Burgundy. Suddenly I remembered that it would look suspicious if I started on a sea voyage without any luggage. For a few francs I procured a big valise whose paste-board sides looked really ”the same as leather,” and bought newspapers at every corner to stuff my ”luggage” with.

At a few minutes to five I went on board the steamer. With a cigarette between my lips and a bundle of newspapers under my arm I walked up and down the deck, read _Le Rire_, and did all I could to a.s.sume a careless mien. In reality I was in a very serious situation. The question was: Had a telegram from the regiment with my description reached Oran already or not?

The half-hour struck, but the _St. Augustine_ was still in dock.

Police came and went. All at once I felt myself go pale as death; a patrol of four Zouave sergeants was coming up the gangway. They went over the whole s.h.i.+p, looking carefully about them. Then they interchanged a few words with the captain and went on again....

I was just beginning to breathe again, when a gendarme came up to me and asked, saluting courteously:

”Monsieur is a Frenchman?”

”Non, monsieur, an Englishman,” I answered quietly, and smiled at the gendarme in spite of the icy fear gripping at my heart.

If he should chance on the idea of asking for my papers I was lost!

”Your name, please?”