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—première classe!"
"Sept-soixante," said the official. "Seven francs and sixty centimes."
I jumped into the nearest first-class 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-class ticket for Marseilles. The passenger 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 assume 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 ship, 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?"