Chapter X: Together Again

That night after dinner and a cigarette, he strode into the streets to distract his mind with the sight of the oriental city and to fill his ears with the eager cries of the crowd. The lamps flickered. The sky overhead was as blue nearly as in daytime. He walked leisurely toward the native quarter, jostled, as he passed, by men in their brilliant costumes and by a veiled woman or two.

He stopped indifferently before a little café, his eyes on a Turkish bazaar where velvets and scarfs were being sold at double their worth under the light of a flaming yellow lamp. As he stood so, his back to the café where a number of the ship's crew were drinking, he heard a short sharp sound that had a sweet familiarity about it and whose individuality made him start with surprise. He could not believe his ears. He heard the bark again and then he was sprung upon by a little body that ran out from between the legs of a sailor who sat drinking his coffee and liquor.

"Gracious heavens!" exclaimed Sabron, thinking that he must be the victim of a hashish dream. "Pitchouné!"

The dog fawned on him and whined, crouched at his feet whining--like a child. Sabron bent and fondled him. The sailor from the table called the dog imperatively, but Pitchouné would have died at his master's feet rather than return. If his throat could have uttered words he would have spoken, but his eyes spoke. They looked as though they were tearful.

"Pitchouné, _mon vieux_! No, it can't be Pitchouné. But it _is_ Pitchouné!" And Sabron took him up in his arms. The dog tried to lick his face.

"_Voyons,_" said the officer to the marine, who came rolling over to them, "where did you get this dog?"

The young man's voice was imperative and he fixed stern eyes on the sailor, who pulled his forelock and explained.

"He was following me," said Sabron, not without a slight catch in his voice. The body of Pitchouné quivered under his arm. "He is my dog. I think his manner proves it. If you have grown fond of him I am sorry for you, but I think you will have to give him up."

Sabron put his hand in his pocket and turned a little away to be free of the native crowd that, chattering and grinning, amused and curious and eager to participate in any distribution of coin, was gathering around him. He found two gold pieces which he put into the hand of the sailor.

"Thank you for taking care of him. I am at the Royal Hotel." He nodded, and with Pitchouné under his arm pushed his way through the crowd and out of the bazaar.

He could not interview the dog himself, although he listened, amused, to Pitchouné's own manner of speech. He spent the latter part of the evening composing a letter to the minister of war, and although it was short, it must have possessed certain evident and telling qualities, for before he left Algiers proper for the desert, Sabron received a telegram much to the point:

"You may keep your dog. I congratulate you on such a faithful companion."