Furthermore,
on leaving the cafe (a desolate place if I ever saw one, with a fearful
_patronne_) I was instructed sharply to keep close to them but on no
account to place myself between them, there being sundry villagers to be
encountered before we struck the highroad for Marseilles. Thanks to their
forethought and my obedience the rescue did not take place, nor did our
party excite even the curiosity of the scarce and soggy inhabitants of
the unlovely town of Briouse.
The highroad won, all of us relaxed considerably. The _sac_ full of
suspicious letters which I bore on my shoulder was not so light as I had
thought, but the kick of the Briouse _pinard_ thrust me forward at a good
clip. The road was absolutely deserted; the night hung loosely around it,
here and there tattered by attempting moonbeams. I was somewhat sorry to
find the way hilly, and in places bad underfoot; yet the unknown
adventure lying before me, and the delicious silence of the night (in
which our words rattled queerly like tin soldiers in a plush-lined box)
boosted me into a condition of mysterious happiness. We talked, the older
and I, of strange subjects. As I suspected, he had been not always a
_gendarme_. He had seen service among the Arabs.
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