CHAPTER XIII.
A BRIDAL PARTY.—HORRIBLE STORIES.—A LONG DAY.—THE CAID AND THE DRIVER.—A NEW ATMOSPHERE.—TCLEMCEN.
E had originally intended to take tickets for Oran, but finding that the Spahis, if weather permitting, stopped at a little town called Nemours, we resolved to stop there. By this plan we saved ourselves a day and a night at sea, and alighted at a point on the African coast much nearer Tclemcen than Oran. The weather favoured us. When we awoke next morning the sun shone bright and warm in a cloudless sky, and the steamer was gliding gently as a swan over the still, lake-like waters.
This sea-passage between Gibraltar and Oran is a dull one, and in our case it was especially so, as we were the only first-class passengers, excepting an old French gentleman, an employé of the Imperial Messagerie Company, who, with his son and daughter-in-law—a bride of a few days—was bound also to Nemours.
One great resource was a bundle of English newspapers kindly supplied to us at Gibraltar, and we pored over them from morning till the early twilight, when there was a ringing of bells and a smell of dinner, and an air of liveliness among the little company on board.
I joined the table d’hôte, and found it very amusing. The captain had travelled all over the world, and had evidently made use of his eyes and ears everywhere, and the bridal party were by no means dull. After dinner the father-in-law ordered champagne, and the officers were invited in to drink the health of the little bride. She, poor child, was a little overcome, what with her new honour as Madame, sea-sickness, and the prospect of exile at Nemours; but all the rest were merry enough, and when we retired to our cabin we heard their talk and laughter till late in the night. There was not much time to sleep, for about three o’clock we were told to dress ourselves in readiness for the boat, and an hour later we went on deck. It was cold and fine. The sea was perfectly calm, but we heard it breaking on the shore with an angry, threatening sound, and we saw in the dim, grey light, what a rocky coast it was, and what a barrier there was, against which the smoothest sea could not break silently. Nemours is, indeed, no harbour, but a mere rade, and only approachable in the calmest weather, and by small boats. A hard pull our good boatmen had of it ere we could reach the landing-place, and the poor bride shivered in her thin summer dress.
“I was married in such a hurry,” she had said to me, “that mamma had no time to prepare anything, and all my clothes are to be sent after me;” but it seemed to me that a good warm shawl for the sea-journey would not have required much preparation. However, we wrapped her up in spare rugs and great-coats, and I think she took no harm.
We had to be carried ashore one at a time, and I thought of Gilliat, and of the sea-faring life Victor Hugo has portrayed so fantastically, when savage-looking men, their bare limbs shining like bronze in the pearly light, dashed into the water, and bore us to the strand as easily as if we were babies.
Much as we had enjoyed Spain, how glad we were to find ourselves in France again, especially in African France!—to find ourselves speaking, as it were, our native language, and not having to try at the stately Spanish phrase, to hear the friendly French voice, and see the friendly French faces around us, to know that wherever we went, we were really and truly welcome, and that we might do exactly as we liked without being thought extraordinary!