XV
One evening Jean returned to quarters when retreat was sounded.
The old barracks no longer wore their habitual air of dejection. Men were standing in groups in the courtyard, talking excitedly. Spahis were running up and downstairs four steps at a time, as if possessed with wild joy. It was obvious that there was something in the air—something new.
“Great news for you, Peyral,” cried Muller the Alsatian, “you are off to-morrow, off to Algiers, lucky fellow.”
Twelve new spahis had arrived from France by the steamer from Dakar; twelve of the senior spahis (of whom Jean was one) were to have the privilege of completing their term of service in Algiers.
To-morrow evening they were to leave for Dakar.
At Dakar they would embark on the French mailboat for Bordeaux, thence they would proceed by the southern route to Marseilles, with halts on the way, affording those among them, who were possessed of hearth and home, an opportunity of dispersing and of paying them a visit. At Marseilles they would embark on the mailboat bound for Algiers—a land of Cockayne for spahis, where the last years of their service would pass like a dream.
XVI
Jean returned home along the dreary banks of the river. The starry night descended upon Senegal, a night hot, heavy, amazing in its tranquillity and luminous transparency.
The current flowed with soft, whispering sounds. The tambour, the anamalis fobil of spring, which he was hearing in this same place for the fourth time, and which mingled with the memories of his first enervating pleasures in this dark country, came to him, faint, from a great distance. Now these sounds were to herald his departure....