Chapter III: A Fellow Traveler

Somewhere in the night, a gong sounded the hour of the second watch.

In the silence the ringing notes swelled out and vibrated. From other spots nearby, fading away into the distance, the sound of three other gongs rose into the still air, taking up the signal and prolonging it.

The night was vast, motionless and cold. Leaning on the rail in front of the hut which served him as a hotel, Pierre watched a wan moon rise slowly above the river. In front of his hut, built on piles in the Moï fashion, the footpath which represented the main street of Khône-Sud stretched away to the north, cutting through the neighboring forest whose solid mass stretched like a vast gulf of blackness under the moonlit sky dappled with moving clouds.

Towards the south, the handful of five or six huts which composed the village lay silent and dark. On board the _Vien-Thian_, made fast to the landing stage opposite, a single light kept watch.

Pierre, unable to sleep, thought of his departure. He called to mind the visit that he had made late in the afternoon to the civil service clerk who occupied the position of Chief of the Post at Khône. His caravan prepared in advance for him was waiting: it was that which he had seen from the deck of the boat on his arrival some hours before: four ox-carts with their bamboo-thatched tops and enormous wooden wheels, and six elephants whose pack saddles were ready to receive their loads: as escort a dozen Lao-ese riflemen and a guide.

His baggage had been parcelled out as soon as it came off the boat. The large packages--two great chests of clothes and three cases of books and instruments solidly packed--were destined for the elephants. One of the ox-carts was to serve him by turns as carriage by day and sleeping apartment at night, and on its rough planking protected by the rounded top they had stretched a Cambodian mattress. The smaller parcels--suitcases, arms, munitions and provisions for the journey--had been distributed between two more of the ox-carts. The fourth remained empty, and Pierre had remarked concerning it to the clerk who accompanied him:

"No good taking this one, too. I'll leave you that ... it might...."

But the other, laughing, had interrupted him.

"No nonsense, old man!... They ordered me to provide you with four vehicles. The requisitions have been made and the accounts passed; your escort have been paid in advance. If you leave one of your carts on my hands I shall have official letters and all sorts of troubles for the next three months. They told me 'four carts.' You will then start with four carts! As for the empty one, do what you like with it: make a smoking room of it, a dining-room, library--but for the love of the government, take it away from here."

Remembrance of the incident made Lursac smile.

Now, the moon was fully risen. It could be seen, reddish and dull, floating between two strips of cloud.

Across the sky a flight of birds passed in a triangular line, and the breeze, blowing from nowhere, scattered the cloudlets banked in the northern sky. Over the river a sheet of fog began to rise, climbing the bank, overtopped it and then suddenly pouring down flooded the countryside. Pierre shuddered, and re-entering his cabin pulled-to the shutter which served as a door.

Stretched out on his camp bed he still remained for a few minutes unable to sleep. On the chest which served as a table the flame of the lamp was on the point of dying. Out in the night a buffalo bellowed. The hoarse cry, carried by the wind, floated through the cabin; and as his lamp with a final flicker of light died out, Pierre fell asleep.

* * * * *

The vague impression that there was a light in the room woke him. He opened his eyes and turned his head instinctively to the door. Immediately he was on his feet. In the doorway, now wide open, outlined against the milky sky illuminated by the moonlight, a shadow was standing.

Without giving him time to speak it made some steps towards him. The shutter which it no longer held back slammed heavily and the room was again in black darkness. At the same time a feminine voice spoke:

"Do please light your lamp, Monsieur de Lursac."

Pierre trembled: he recognized the sound of this voice, its precision, its metallic timbre and even its slight foreign accent. He immediately knew it was his "Unknown," she of the _Vien-Thian_.

The lamp relighted, he saw her actually standing there, motionless, in the middle of the cabin. She had put off the large felt hat that she had been wearing on the boat. Now a fur toque imprisoned her pale blonde hair, allowing only a few stray wisps of it to show on the forehead and temples, and at the sides two little curls that shone like gold. She was dressed in a gray tailored suit of which the coat was clasped to her figure by a wide belt of red leather. Heavy brown boots, very high cut, protected her legs: in her slim gray-gloved hands she nervously twisted a riding-whip. Her cold glance, and even her attitude, showed a curious desire to provoke him, a sort of cavalier haughtiness at once brusque and determined.

Pierre, saying nothing, watched her. With easy grace she flung the whip on the bed, seated herself and said:

"I imagine, sir, that you know who I am."

The ambiguity of the phrase made Lursac hesitate. Was he to see in it a deliberate rudeness or simply an allusion to their meeting on board the boat? Although it struck him as lacking in tact, Pierre chose the second hypothesis. Forcing himself to remain passive, he replied:

"I think, as a matter of fact, I saw you on board the _Vien-Thian_."

He bowed politely: "And what can I do for you?"

He had set the lamp on the bench by her and, standing in front of the young woman, he awaited her answer.

With methodical quick movements she undid her gloves, took them off and rolled them up. Her hands were visible, long and pale, without a jewel. There was silence for a minute, then she said:

"M. de Lursac, would you kindly allow me a few minutes' talk with you?"

In spite of himself, Pierre smiled ironically.

"The question seems to me...."

She interrupted him brusquely.

"I know, sir. My sudden intrusion into your room has hardly left you any choice."

And with her eyes suddenly grown hard, she added:

"I beg you to believe that I have not acted with this lack of courtesy without having the most important reasons."

Pierre, in all sincerity, agreed:

"I have no doubt of it."

She let her cold glance fall on him. Her voice softened.

"The exceptional situation in which I find myself must excuse anything in my behavior which seems extraordinary. For the rest you must think of me as you will: that doesn't matter."

The young man bit his lips. Once more her words seemed to him to possess a tinge of combined haughtiness and aggressiveness which irritated him. But immediately she continued:

"M. de Lursac, you start tomorrow morning at dawn, do you not?"

Pierre assented:

"Four o'clock in the morning exactly, for Post 32."

"I know," said she, "I found out about it."

Pierre's annoyance increased: sarcastically, he thanked her.

"I am indeed overcome with the interest which you show in my movements."

She seemed not to hear him, but an involuntary tightening of her lips showed that his answer had not escaped her. And this slight motion had in it something so sad that Pierre could not help regretting his having given way to irony.

"It is on the very subject of this journey that I have a request to make to you," she continued.

Then looking him full in the face she said slowly:

"I wish to join Lieutenant Redeski at Post 32; you would lay me under a great obligation if you would take me there with you."

As he made a sudden gesture of refusal, she hastened to explain:

"You are going to tell me that I ought to have addressed myself to the chief of the government service at Khône. I have not failed to do so. But he, not content with refusing me the aid on which I had counted, told me that he would, on the contrary, put as many difficulties in my way as possible. He had received formal instructions on this point: no women are to go into the region which you are about to enter, or at least no women with the consent of the government. You see, sir, that I am putting the case before you with as much clearness and frankness as possible; and nevertheless, having told you all that, I renew my request: will you take me with you?"

Pierre looked at her reflectively. With her figure leaning lightly forward, her pale hands lying listless on the bench, and her glance focussed in the far distance, she sat waiting for an answer. He made a few steps back and forth, thinking, then he sat himself down next to her.

"No," he declared coldly. "No, I will not take you."

She remained motionless, her glance still lost in the distance. Only a slight wrinkling of her forehead betrayed her disappointment. A long silence fell, filled only by the low rumble of the rapids of Hou-Sadan.

Getting up, she said quietly:

"I shall have to arrange in some way to go by myself."

He too had risen: he looked at her. All her pride seemed gone; she lowered her head. Instead of the expression she had worn up to that moment, a different face--the true one, perhaps--appeared: a young and tender face; and it seemed suddenly to Pierre that it was another woman that stood before him. She looked up, and he could see tears in the depths of her brown eyes.

She shrugged her shoulders wearily.

"Oh!" she said, "that would have made things so much easier. I should have seen him again sooner.... This journey has been so long ... so long and so horrible! And I have no one else in the world but him, no one at all since we lost our mother."

Astonished, Lursac ejaculated:

"Your mother?"

She gave a little half-smile.

"Yea, I have only forgotten one thing; to introduce myself! I am Wanda Redeski, and it is my brother who commands Post 32."

"Ah!" said he.

And without being able to explain why, he felt a strange happiness spread throughout his being.

In a low voice she continued:

"Yes, he is my brother, and I have come all this way from the furthest part of Poland to rejoin him and to say to him: Our mother is dead, and I have no one left but you; let me live beside you!..."

Suddenly raising her suppliant face to him, she renewed her request:

"Take me! ... take me!..."

Two tears glittered down her cheeks and she caught him by the arm. Pierre for a moment looked down at the slim, beautiful hand whose long thin pale fingers trembled on his wrist, and suddenly walking towards the door, he said:

"Come, then, since you wish it!"

* * * * *

The dawn was breaking. Along the horizon across the flooded river an amber light began to spread, rising almost imperceptibly towards the heavens where the stars were still twinkling. The rain had stopped. On the threshold of the forest, among the trees whose branches were still dripping with the damp of the night, the great black forms of six elephants, laden with cases and trunks, showed. Half seen in the growing light, heavy and formidable, they moved their trunks aloft, plucking young twigs from the trees on either side of them. Behind them the four ox-carts, each furnished with its span of draft oxen, showed the brown of their thatched tops in line.

Pierre threw a final look over his caravan. Crouched on the poles of their wagons the drivers, whip in hand, awaited his orders, while in their places on the necks of the elephants, the mahouts, waiting, spoke endearments to their beasts. In front, the guide, his machete in hand, was listening attentively to the sounds of the forest.

Coming up to the last but one of the ox-carts, Lursac drew aside the canvas that closed the rounded ends of the top and asked:

"Are you absolutely decided?"

The voice of Wanda Redeski came to him concise and clear, with a strange sweetness in it, as she said:

"Absolutely, M. de Lursac."

Pierre, turning to the escort, raised his hand.

"_Paï, vaï, vaï!_"[4] he cried.

[Footnote 4: Start forward, quickly.]

And going to the head of the procession, he swiftly entered the bluish penumbra of the heavy Lao-ese forest, while gradually the shadows of the night faded from the sky.