The obliging clerk at the counter gave me abundant, almost unending, information.
"To the East? Why, surely, there are several opportunities. The P. and O. has half a dozen steamers for the East, pointing first for Port Said and Suez Canal, and bound to India, Ceylon, China, and the Antipodes; the same line for Gibraltar and the West. The Messagéries Maritime, for all Mediterranean ports, the General Navigation of Italy for Genoa and Naples, the Transatlantique for various Algerian ports, Tunis, Bône, Philippeville, and Algiers, other companies serving the coast of Morocco and especially Tangier."
Truly an embarrassing choice! I took a note of all that suited, and promised to return after I had made a round of the shipping offices,—another jaunt for Tiler, and a pretty plain indication of what was in my mind.
After full inquiry I decided in favour of Tripoli, and for several reasons. A steamer offered in a couple of days, Sunday, just when I wanted it, although it was by no means my intention to go to Tripoli myself. That it was somewhat out of the way, neither easy to reach nor to leave, as the steamers came and went rarely, served my purpose well. If I could only inveigle my tormentors into the trap, they might be caught there longer than they liked.
Accordingly, I secured a good cabin on board the S.S. Oasis of the Transatlantique, leaving Marseilles for Tripoli at 8 a.m. the following Sunday, and paid the necessary deposit on the passage ticket.
It was a satisfaction to me to see my "shadow's" fiacre draw up at the door soon after I left, and Mr. Ludovic Tiler enter the office. I made no doubt he would contrive, very cleverly as he thought, to find out exactly what I had been doing with regard to the Oasis.
Later in the day, out of mere curiosity, I walked down to the offices to ask a trivial question about my baggage. It was easy to turn the talk to other matters connected with the voyage and my fellow passengers.
Several other cabins had been engaged, two of them in the name of Ludovic Tiler.
There was nothing left for me but to bide my time. I telegraphed that evening to Colonel Annesley, reporting myself, so to speak, and counted upon hearing his whereabouts in reply next day.