But poor Claude looked quite chop-fallen, for he had never intended to push the joke so far, and the moment we rose from table he came up to me and held out his hand.
"For Heaven's sake, Henri," said he, "don't go and get yourself killed just for that foolish joke of mine, which I ought to have bitten my tongue off sooner than utter. I never dreamed you'd take it so seriously, and I'm heartily sorry to have vexed you."
I answered not a word, but just looked him straight in the eyes for a moment, and then turned my back and walked off. Many a time have I been sorry for it since then, for the poor fellow was killed by those rascally Kabyles (Arabs) a few months later; but one always repents of these things too late.
Well, night came at last, and every officer who wasn't on duty turned out to see me start. It had been arranged that I was to set off a little after midnight, and that my comrades were to see me into the jungle at a point close to the sea, and then come to meet me about sunrise at another point farther inland. The whole length of my circuit through the reeds would be only a little over two miles, but this, in a tract where one step was generally supposed to be certain death, was thought quite sufficient.
I took my double-barrelled rifle and hunting knife (not that they could be much good against a whole jungle of lions), and the moment our watches pointed to half past twelve, off we started. I couldn't help thinking as we went along that there could hardly have been a worse night for the purpose, so far as I was concerned. The night was so still that you might have heard a step hundreds of yards away, and the full moon gave light enough to make out the smallest print of a newspaper, let alone the figure of a man. But, as we say, "when you've broken the shell, you must eat the egg"; so I kept my thoughts to myself, and tramped on.
It was a pretty long march, and a difficult too, down to the place for which we were bound. By the time we got there it was two o'clock, leaving less than two hours before sunrise. At last the great reed forest began to rise before us, shadowy and spectral in the moonlight. My comrades shook me by the hand, and wished me good-speed. In another moment the reeds had closed behind me.
Just at first I didn't feel it so much, for the excitement of the adventure kept me up; and, besides, I had quite enough to do in picking my way along, the reeds being a good deal higher than my head, and very nearly as thick as a man's wrist. But when the first excitement began to wear off, then it all came upon me at once, just like the shock of a shower-bath. Every time a reed rustled I seemed to feel the sharp teeth in my flesh already; and indeed it's a wonder how I ever escaped, for I could hear them moving on every side of me; but somehow or other none of them offered to touch me.
On I went—on, on, on—until I seemed to have done ten miles instead of two. In fact, I afterward found that I had gone far beyond the prescribed distance; but what could I do, with the reed-tops shutting out the very sky, until sometimes I had hardly any moon to steer by? At last the reeds began to grow thinner, and presently, just as I was getting fairly tired out, forth I came on to the open plain, with the first gleam of daybreak just dawning in the eastern sky.
Then I discovered, to my very great disgust, that instead of striking the point where my comrades were to meet me, I had gone ever so far beyond it.
"Well," thought I, "there's time enough yet, at all events, before sunrise. I'll just sit down and rest for five minutes, and then walk back to the meeting-place."