It was three o’clock in the morning when I went out to start on
the return under the stars. The streets were dark and silent as
we drove out; but the heavens were brilliant, and the twin lights
of Tougourt shone behind us like lighthouses as we made out into
the sandy plain. A few miles on we passed a company of soldiers
convoying a baggage-train—strong, fine faces above their heavy
cloaks, marching along in the night. The stars faded and day broke
quietly—a faint green, a dash of pink, a low, black band of cloud,
and the great luminary rolled up over the horizontal waste. The
morning hours found us soon in the heavy sands of the upland, with
the old gray mosque and stretches of the _bois_, the desert drin, and
we descended into the country of the marine views, the land of the
mirage, mirror-like waters shoaling on banks of palm, dreaming their
dream; and now it was Ourlana and the school, fresh horses and an
early arrival at Mraïer, and sleep in the caravanserai amid horses
and camels and passing soldiers, a busy yard. The chotts looked less
melancholy as we passed over the lowland in the bright forenoon, and
again there shimmered the far salt—the ocean look where there was
no sea, close marine views, and there was much mirage; and we climbed
the ascent and glided on over the colored quartz, and the range of
the Aurès rose once more above the horizon, beautiful and calling,
and Aïn Chegga seemed a familiar way-station. Fresh horses, and the
last start, and Bordj Saada seemed a suburb; and as we drove into
Biskra, with its road well filled with pedestrians and carriages,
it seemed like a return to Europe—so soon does the traveller’s
eye become accustomed to what at first was “rich and strange.”
And Hamet went to his baby boy.