officers of the 'Triomphante.' It is all settled. Profound bows--they
put on my boots again at the door. My djin, profiting by the interpreter
kind fortune has placed in his way, begs to be recommended to me for
future custom; his stand is on the quay; his number is 415, inscribed in
French characters on the lantern of his vehicle (we have a number 415 on
board, one Le Goelec, gunner, who serves the left of one of my guns;
happy thought! I shall remember this); his price is sixpence the
journey, or five-pence an hour, for his customers. Capital! he shall
have my custom, that is promised. And now, let us be off. The waiting-
maids, who have escorted me to the door, fall on all fours as a final
salute, and remain prostrate on the threshold as long as I am still in
sight down the dark pathway, where the rain trickles off the great
overarching bracken upon my head.




CHAPTER IV

CHOOSING A BRIDE

Three days have passed. Night is closing, in an apartment which has been
mine since yesterday. Yves and I, on the first floor, move restlessly
over the white mats, striding to and fro in the great bare room, of which
the thin, dry flooring cracks beneath our footsteps; we are both rather
irritated by prolonged expectation. Yves, whose impatience shows itself
more freely, from time to time looks out of the window. As for myself, a
chill suddenly seizes me, at the idea that I have chosen to inhabit this
lonely house, lost in the midst of the suburb of a totally strange town,
perched high on the mountain and almost opening upon the woods.