THE FORTUNES OF WAR
Sabron's departure had been delayed on account of a strike at the
dockyards of Marseilles. He left Tarascon one lovely day toward the
end of January and the old town with its sweetness and its sorrow,
fell behind, as he rolled away to brighter suns. A friend from Paris
took him to the port in his motor and there Sabron waited some
forty-eight hours before he set sail. His boat lay out on the azure
water, the brown rocks of the coast behind it. There was not a
ripple on the sea. There was not a breeze to stir as he took the tug
which was to convey him. He was inclined to dip his fingers in the
indigo ocean, sure that he would find them blue. He climbed up the
ladder alongside of the vessel, was welcomed by the captain, who knew
him, and turned to go below, for he had been suffering from an attack
of fever which now and then laid hold of him, ever since his campaign
in Morocco.
Therefore, as he went into his cabin, which he did not leave until
the steamer touched Algiers, he failed to see the baggage tender pull
up and failed to see a sailor climb to the deck with a wet bedraggled
thing in his hand that looked like an old fur cap except that it
wriggled and was alive.
"This, _mon commandant_," said the sailor to the captain, "is the
pluckiest little beast I ever saw."
He dropped a small terrier on the deck, who proceeded to shake
himself vigorously and bark with apparent delight.
"No sooner had we pushed out from the quay than this little beggar
sprang from the pier and began to swim after us. He was so funny
that we let him swim for a bit and then we hauled him in. It is
evidently a mascot, mon commandant, evidently a sailor dog who has
run away to sea."
The captain looked with interest at Pitchouné, who engaged himself in
making his toilet and biting after a flea or two which had not been
drowned.
"We sailors," said the man saluting, "would like to keep him for
luck, _mon commandant_."
"Take him down then," his superior officer ordered, "and don't let
him up among the passengers."
* * * * * * *
It was a rough voyage. Sabron passed his time saying good-by to
France and trying to keep his mind away from the Château d'Esclignac,
which persisted in haunting his uneasy slumber. In a blaze of
sunlight, Algiers, the white city, shone upon them on the morning of
the third day and Sabron tried to take a more cheerful view of a
soldier's life and fortunes.
He was a soldierly figure and a handsome one as he walked down the
gangplank to the shore to be welcomed by fellow officers who were
eager to see him, and presently was lost in the little crowd that
streamed away from the docks into the white city.