"Mon Dieu!" said Jacques. "Casmir!"
Then he burst into a laugh. Only such a short time ago he had been warning Casmir on the parade ground of the Legion against running away!
They walked along the street together and Casmir explained matters.
He had run away, it seemed, on the same night that Jacques had made his evasion, had boldly taken the train for Oran, and with the good luck that comes with daring had found the matter perfectly easy.
"I was never stopped or questioned once," said he. "But here it is different. I cannot get across. It seems that they are watching the boats. I went down to the steamboat quay yesterday and there was an official at the gangway of the boat for Marseilles. He was demanding the papers of all the passengers—the men. To leave this place one must be either a fish or a sea bird, it seems, and I am neither."
"Come into this café and let us talk," said Jacques.
They entered a shabby café that was close by and Jacques called for coffee and food for them both.
"How much money have you?" said he.
"A hundred francs," replied Casmir. "I had a hundred and twenty to start with. I had received a money order from a relation for two hundred francs the morning I was talking to you. It cost me eighty francs to get this rig-out. It was that money order that fixed me in my idea of bolting, and I am beginning to wish now that I had never received it."
"Courage," said Jacques.