It is a sudden affair, this despatch of a draft of soldiers.
The next evening, with all his kit hurriedly put together, all his papers in order, Jean is leaning on his elbow against the railing of a ship sailing down the river. He smokes his cigarette, while he watches St Louis fading away in the distance.
Fatou-gaye is crouching on the deck by his side.
With all her pagnes and talismans hastily packed into four great calabashes, she was ready at the appointed time. Jean had to pay her passage to Dakar with the last khâliss of his pay.
He did this willingly, glad to humour this last fancy of hers, and to keep her with him a little longer.
The tears she shed, the “widow’s complaints” she uttered, after the custom of her country, were sincere and heart-rending. Jean, touched to the heart by her despair, has forgotten that she is ill-natured, untruthful, and black.
The wider his heart expands with the joy of his home-coming the greater is the pity he feels for Fatou, a pity, moreover, not unmixed with tenderness.
At all events he is taking her to Dakar with him; it will give him time to think over the question of her disposal.
XVIII
Dakar is a kind of colonial town roughly constructed on a foundation of sand and red rock, an improvised port of call for the mailboats bound for that western point of Africa called Cape Verde.