"Those mountains are in Morocco," said Stretton. "That's my way--over them. My only way. We are on the very edge of Morocco here."
"But, once over the border," Warrisden objected, "are you safe in Morocco?"
"Safe from recapture."
"But safe in no other sense?"
Stretton shrugged his shoulders.
"It is a bad road, I know--dangerous and difficult. The ordinary traveller cannot pass along it. But it has been traversed. Prisoners have escaped that way to Fez--Escoffier, for instance. Deserters have reached their homes by following it--some of them, at all events. One must take one's risks."
It was the old lesson learned upon the ketch Perseverance which Stretton now repeated; and not vainly learned. Far away to the south, in the afternoon sunlight, there shone that yellow streak of sand, beyond which its value had been surely proved. Warrisden's thoughts were carried back on a sudden to that morning of storm and foam and roaring waves, when Stretton had stood easily upon the deck of the fish-cutter, with the great seas swinging up behind him, and had, for the first time, uttered it in Warrisden's hearing. Much the same feeling came over Warrisden as that which had then affected him--a feeling almost of inferiority. Stretton was a man of no more than average ability, neither a deep thinker, nor a person of ingenuity and resource; but the mere stubbornness of his character gave to him at times a certain grandeur. In Warrisden's eyes he had that grandeur now. He had come quickly to his determination to desert, but he had come calmly to it. There had been no excitement in his manner, no suggestion of hysteria. He had counted up the cost, he had read his letter, he had held the balance between his sacrifice and Millie's necessity; and he had decided. He had decided, knowing not merely the disgrace, but the difficulties of his journey, and the danger of his road amongst the wild, lawless tribes in that unsettled quarter of Morocco. Again Warrisden was carried away. He forgot even Pamela at Roquebrune waiting for the telegram he was to send from Oran on his return. He cried--
"I will send back my outfit and come with you. If we travel together there will be more safety."
Stretton shook his head.
"Less," said he. "You cannot speak Mogrhebbin. I have a few sentences--not many, but enough. I know something of these tribes, too. For I once marched to the Figuig oasis. Your company would be no protection; rather it would be an extra danger."