Whatever happened, he would have to serve out far from home this term of years that had been carved out of his life. So why not complete it here, on the banks of this great, gloomy river, whose very melancholy was now familiar to him? Alas! unhappy man, he loved his Senegal! Consciousness of this fact now dawned upon him; he was bound to it by a number of private and mysterious ties. Wild with joy at the thought of returning home, he yet clung to the country of sand, to Samba-Hamet’s house, even to that atmosphere of infinitely dreary melancholy, even to that excess of heat and light. He was not prepared for so sudden a departure. * * * * * The influences of his environment have filtered little by little into the blood running through his veins; he feels himself restrained and held a prisoner by all kinds of invisible ties, shadowy fetters, amulets of dark significance. In the end, the ideas in his troubled head grow confused; the unlooked-for deliverance fills him with apprehension. In this hot, oppressive night, heavy with thunderous emanations, strange, mysterious influences contend around him; one might imagine the powers of sleep and death striving with those of dawn and life. XVII 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. Great baobabs grow here and there on the desolate dunes; flights of fish-eagles and vultures swoop through the air overhead.