* * * * * The spahi Boyer clasped him in his arms and embraced him. Fatou, still grovelling on the ground, uttered a cry of triumph, then hid her face against Jean’s knees, with a kind of wild animal’s roar, ending in a burst of hysterical laughter, followed by sobs. * * * * * XIX Time was short. Pierre Boyer departed with the same mad haste with which he had come, carrying with him to Goree the precious document to which poor Jean had affixed a true soldier’s signature, large, correct, and legible. When the last moment arrived, all the papers were in order, countersigned and initialled, the baggage had been transhipped, and the exchange effected. The whole affair had been patched up in such haste that the two spahis had scarcely had time to think. At three o’clock precisely the mail boat sailed with Pierre Boyer on board. And Jean remained behind. XX But when the thing was done and past recall, when Jean found himself standing there on the sea-shore watching the ship’s departure, a frantic despair seized his heart—a terrible agony, mingled with terror at this thing that he had done; rage against Fatou, a horror of the black girl’s proximity, and a need, as it were, of chasing her from him—together with a newly kindled, immense, and profound love for his cherished home, and the dear ones who were waiting for him there, and whom now he was not to see.... It seemed to him that he had signed a compact to the death with this sombre land, and that this was the end of him. And he rushed away across the dunes, hardly conscious of where he was going—urged on by a longing to breathe the air, to be alone, and especially to follow with his eyes as long as possible this ship that was speeding away.... * * * * * When he set out, the sun was still high and scorchingly hot; in the full light, these desert plains had an impressive majesty. He walked for a long time by the desolate shore, over the ridge of the sandhills, or along the top of the red cliffs, so that he might command a more distant view. A high wind blew upon him, and ruffled the immense stretch of sea that lay at his feet, and still he saw the ship speeding onwards. He was so distraught that he no longer felt the sun burning him. Riveted for two more years to this country, when at this very moment he might have been on yonder ship, sailing over the sea, on his way to his beloved village.... Good God! What were these sinister influences, spells, and amulets that had held him back? Two years! Would the time ever be fulfilled? Would there indeed be an end of it, a deliverance from this exile?... And he ran towards the north in the direction the ship had taken, that he might not lose sight of her yet. Thorny plants tore him; a swarm of large, wild crickets, disturbed among the grasses that flourish in the winter season, flew against his breast like hail....