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diff --git a/23416-0.txt b/23416-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d40a343 --- /dev/null +++ b/23416-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,773 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of “Fin Tireur”, by Robert Hichens + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: “Fin Tireur” + 1905 + +Author: Robert Hichens + +Release Date: November 8, 2007 [EBook #23416] +Last Updated: December 17, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK “FIN TIREUR” *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + + +“FIN TIREUR” + +By Robert Hichens + +Frederick A. Stokes Company Publishers + +Copyright, 1905 + + +Two years ago I was travelling by diligence in the Sahara Desert on the +great caravan route, which starts from Beni-Mora and ends, they say, at +Tombouctou. For fourteen hours each day we were on the road, and each +evening about nine o’clock we stopped at a Bordj, or Travellers’ House, +ate a hasty meal, threw ourselves down on our gaudy Arab rugs, and slept +heavily till the hour before dawn, drugged by fatigue, and by the +strong air of the desert. In the late afternoon of the third day of our +journeying we drove into a sandstorm. A great wind arose, carrying +with it innumerable multitudes of sand grains, which whirled about +the diligence and the struggling horses, blotting out the desert as +completely as a London fog blots out the street on a November day. +The cold became intense, and very soon I began to long for the next +halting-place. + +“Where do we stop to-night?” I shouted to the French driver, who, with +his yellow toque pulled down over his ears, was chirping encouragement +to his horses. + +“Sidi-Hamdane,” he answered, without turning his head. “At the inn of +‘Fin Tireur.’” + +Three hours later we drew up before a low building, from which a +light shone kindly, and I scrambled down stiffly, and lurched into the +longed-for shelter. + +There was a man in the doorway, a short, sturdy, middle-aged Frenchman, +with strong features, a tuft of grey beard, heavy eyebrows, and dark, +prominent eyes, with a hot, shining look in them. + +“_Bon soir, m’sieu_,” he said. + +“_Bon soir!_,” I answered. + +This was my host, the innkeeper whom the driver had called “Fin Tireur.” + +I found out afterwards that he was not only landlord of the desolate +inn, but cook, garçon; in fact, the whole personnel. He lived there +absolutely alone, and was the only European in this Arab village lost in +the great spaces of the Sahara. This information I drew from him while +he waited upon me at dinner, which I ate in solitude. My companions +of the diligence were Arabs, who had melted away like ghosts into the +desolation so soon as the diligence had rolled into the paved courtyard +round which the one-storied house was built. + +When I had finished dinner I lit a cigar. I was now quite alone in the +bare _salle-à-manger_. The storm was at its height; the sand was driven +like hail against the wooden shutters of the windows, and I felt dreary +enough. The French driver was no doubt supping in the kitchen with +the landlord, perhaps beside a fire, I began to long for company, for +warmth, and I resolved to join them. I opened the door, therefore, and +peered out into the passage. There was no sound of voices; but I saw a +light at a little distance, went towards it, and found myself in a small +kitchen, where the landlord was sitting alone by a red wood fire in the +midst of his pots and pans, smoking a thin black cigar, and reading +a dirty number of the _Journal Anti-Juif_ of Algiers. He put it down +politely as I came in. + +“You’re alone, monsieur,” I said. + +“Yes, m’sieu. The driver has gone to see to the horses.” + +I offered him one of my Havanas, which he accepted with alacrity, and +drew up with him before the fire. + +“You have been living here long, monsieur?” + +“Twenty years, m’sieu.” + +“Twenty years alone in this desert place!” + +“Nineteen years alone, m’sieu. Before that I had my little Marie.” + +“Marie?” + +“My child, m’sieu. She is buried in the sand behind the inn.” + +I looked at him in silence. His brown, wrinkled face was calm, but in +his prominent eyes there was still the hot shining look I had observed +in them when I arrived. + +“The palms begin there,” he added. “Year by year I have saved what I +could, and now I have bought all the palm-trees near where she lies.” + +He puffed away at his Havana. + +“You come from France?” I asked presently. + +“From the Midi--I was born at Cassis, near Marseille.” + +“Don’t you ever intend to go back there?” + +“Never, m’sieu. Would you have me desert my child?” + +“But,” I said gently, “she is dead.” + +“Yes; but I have promised her that her _bon papa_ will lie with her +presently for company. Leave her alone with the Arabs!” + +A sudden look of horror came into his face. + +“You don’t like the Arabs?” + +“Like the dirty dogs! You haven’t been told about me, m’sieu?” + +“Only that your name was Fin Tireur.’” + +“‘Fin Tireur.’ Yes; that’s what they call me in the desert.” + +“You’re a sportsman? A ‘capital shot’?” + +He laughed suddenly, and his laugh made me feel cold. + +“Oh! they don’t call me ‘Fin Tireur’ because I can hit gazelle, and +bring them home for supper. No, no! Shall I tell you why?” + +He looked at me half defiantly, half wistfully, I thought. + +“But if I do, perhaps your stomach will turn against the food I cooked +with these hands,” he added suddenly, stretching out his hands towards +me, “You are English, m’sieu?” + +“Yes.” + +“Then I daresay you won’t understand.” “I think I shall,” I answered, +looking full at him. + +The way he had spoken of his child had drawn me to him. Whatever he had +done, I felt that chivalry and tenderness were in this man. + +“Why do they call you ‘Fin Tireur’?” “The men of the Midi, m’sieu, are +not like the men of the rest of France,” said Fin Tireur--“at least +so they say. We are boasters, perhaps; but we’ve got more love of +adventure, more wish to see the world, and do something big in it. +They’re talkers, you know, in the Midi, and they tell of what they’ve +done. I heard them at Cassis when I was a boy, and one day I saw a +Zouave in front of the inn balcony, where folks come on fête days to eat +the bouillabaisse. The talk I had heard made me wish to rove; but when I +saw the Zouave, in his big red trousers and blue and red jacket, I +said to myself: ‘As soon as my three years’ service is over I’ll go to +Africa, and make my fortune.’ I did my three years at Grenoble, m’sieu, +and when it was done I carried out my resolve. I came to Africa; but I +didn’t come alone.” + +He puffed at his cigar for a minute or two, and the hot look in his eyes +became more definite, like a fanned flame. + +“You took a comrade?” + +“I took a wife, a girl of Cassis. A good girl she was then.” + +He paused again, then continued, in rather a loud voice: “She was good, +m’sieu, because she had seen nothing. That’s often the way. It was I +who put it into her head that there were things to be seen better than +rocks, and dead white dusty roads, and fishing boats against the quay. +I’ve thought of that since I--since I got my name of Fin Tireur. Her +name was Marie, and she was eighteen when we stood before the priest. +Next day we went to Marseille, and took the boat for Algiers. Our heads +were full of I don’t know what. We thought we were clever ones, and +should do well in a country like Africa. And so we did at first. We +got into a hotel at Algiers. She was housemaid, and I was porter in the +hall, and what with the goings and comings--strangers giving us a little +when we’d done our best for them--we made some money, and we saved it. +And I wish to God we’d spent it, every sou!” + +His voice became fierce for a moment. Then he continued, with an obvious +effort to be calm: “You see, m’sieu, at Algiers we had nothing to say to +the Arabs. With the money we’d saved we left Algiers, and came into the +desert to take a café which was to let near the station at Beni-Mora.” + +“I’ve just come from there.” + +“They call it ‘Au Retour du Sahara.’” + +“I’ve had coffee there.” + +“That was ours, and there little Marie was born. In those days there +weren’t many strangers in Beni-Mora. The railway had only just come +there, and it was wild enough. Very few, except the Arabs. Well, they +were often our customers. We learned to talk a bit of their language, +and they a bit of ours; and, having no friends out there, I might say we +made sort of friends with some of them. The dirty dogs! The camels!” + +He struck his clenched hand down on the table. As he talked he had lost +his former consciousness of my close observation. + +“But they know how to please women, m’sieu. + +“They are often very handsome,” I said. + +“It isn’t only that. They can stare a woman down as a wild beast +can, and that’s what women like. I never so much as looked on them as +men--not in that way, for a Cassis woman, m’sieu. But Marie----” + +He choked, ground his teeth on his cigar stump, let it drop, and stamped +out the glowing end on the brick floor with his heel. + +“She served them, m’sieu,” he resumed, after clearing his throat. “But +I was mostly there, and I don’t see how--but women can always find the +way. Well, one day she went to what they call a sand-diviner. She didn’t +pretend anything. She told me she wanted to go, and I was ready. I was +always ready that she should have any little pleasure. I couldn’t leave +the café, so she went off alone to a room he had by the Garden of the +Gazelles, at the end of the dancing-street.” + +“I know--over the place where they smoke the kief.” + +“She didn’t answer, but went and sat down under the arbour, opposite to +where they wash the clothes. I followed her, for she looked ill. + +“‘Did he read in the sand for you?’ I said. + +“‘Yes,’ she said; ‘he did.’ + +“‘What things did he read?’ + +“She turned, and looked right at me. ‘That my fate lies in the sand,’ +she said--‘and yours, and hers.’ + +“And she pointed at little Marie, who was playing with a yellow kid we +had then just by the door. + +“‘What’s that to be afraid of?’ I asked her. ‘Haven’t we come to the +desert to make our fortune, and isn’t there sand in the desert?’ + +“‘Not much by here,’ she said. + +“And that’s true, m’sieu. It’s hard ground, you know, at Beni-Mora.” + +“Yes,” I said, offering him another cigar. + +He refused it with a quick gesture. + +“She never would say another word as to what the sand-diviner had told +her; but she was never the same from that day. She was as uneasy as a +lost bitch, m’sieu; and she made me uneasy too. Sometimes she wouldn’t +speak to our little one when the child ran to her, and sometimes she’d +catch her up, and kiss her till the little one’s cheek was as red as if +you’d been striking it. And then one day, after dark, she went.” + +“Went!” + +“I’d been ill with fever, and gone to spend the night at the sulphur +baths; you know, m’sieu, Hammam-Salahkin, under the mountains. I came +back just at dawn to open the café. When I got off my mule at the door +I heard”--his face twitched convulsively--“the most horrible crying of +a child. It was so horrible that I just stood there, holding on to the +bridle of the mule, and listening, and didn’t dare go in. I’d heard +children cry often enough before; but--_mon Dieu!_--never like that. At +last I dropped the bridle, and went in, with my legs shaking under me. +I found the little one alone in the house, and like a mad thing. She’d +been alone all night.” + +His face set rigidly. + +“And her mother knew I should be all night at the Hammam,” he said. “Fin +Tireur--yes, it was coming back, and finding my little one left like +that in such a place, made me earn the name.” + +He fell suddenly into a moody silence. I broke it by saying: “It was the +sand-diviner?” + +He looked at me sharply. “I don’t know.” + +“You never found out?” + +“At Beni-Mora the women go veiled,” he said harshly. + +Suddenly I realised the horror of the situation: the deserted husband +living on with his child in the midst of the ordained and close secrecy +of Beni-Mora, where many of the women never set foot out of doors, and +those who do, unless they are the public dancers, are so heavily veiled +that their features cannot be recognised. + +“What did you do?” I asked. + +“I searched, as far as one can search in an Arab town, and found out +nothing. I wanted to tear the veil from every woman in the place; and +then I was sent away from Beni-Mora.” + +“By whom?” + +“The French authorities, my own countrymen,” he laughed bitterly. “To +save me from getting myself murdered, m’sieu.” + +“You would have been.” + +“Why not? Then I came here to keep the inn for the diligence that +carries the mails to the south, for I wouldn’t leave the country +till----” + +He paused. + +“And the sand-diviner?” + +“I left him at Beni-Mora. He smiled, and said he knew no more than I; +and perhaps he didn’t. How was I to tell?” + +“But your name of Fin Tireur?” + +“Ah!”--the thing in his eyes glowed like a thing red-hot--“I’d been here +eleven months when, one afternoon of summer, just near sunset, I heard +a noise of drums beating and African pipes screaming, and the snarl of +camels on the road you came to-night. I was in the house, in this room +where we are sitting now, and little Marie was playing just outside by +the well, so that I could see her through the window. By the sounds, I +knew a great caravan was coming up, and passing towards the south. They +always water at the well, and I stood by the window to see them. Little +Marie stood too, shading her eyes with her bit of a hand. The drums and +pipes got louder, and round the corner of the inn came as big a caravan +as I’ve ever seen; near a hundred camels, horsemen, and led mules and +donkeys, Kabyle dogs and goats, the music playing all the time, and a +Caïd’s flag flying in the front. They made for the well, as I knew they +would, and little Marie stood all the while watching them. M’sieu, there +were square packs on some of the camels, and veiled women on the packs.” + +He looked across at me hard. + +“Veiled women?” I repeated. + +“When they got to the well they made the camels kneel for the women to +get down; and one of the women, when she was down, caught sight of Marie +standing there, with her little hand shading her eyes. That woman gave a +great cry behind her veil. I heard it, m’sieu, as I stood by the window +there, and I saw the woman run at the little one.” + +He got up from his seat slowly, and stood by the wooden shutter, against +which the sand was driven by the wind. + +“In a place like this, m’sieu, one keeps a revolver here.” + +He put his hand to a pocket at the back of his breeches, brought out a +revolver, and pointed it at the shutter. + +“When I heard the woman cry I took my revolver out. When I saw the woman +run I fired, and the bullet struck the veil.” + +He put the revolver back into his pocket, and sat down again quietly. + +“And that’s why they call me Fin Tireur.” + +I said nothing, and sat staring at him. + +“When the camels had been watered the caravan went on.” + +“But--but the Arabs------” + +“The Caïd had the body tied across a donkey--they told me.” + +“You didn’t see?” + +“No. I took the little one in. She was screaming, and I had to see +to her. It was two days afterwards, when I was at the market, that a +scorpion stung her. She was dead when I came back. Well, m’sieu, are you +sorry you ate your supper?” + +Before I could reply, the door opening into the courtyard gaped, and the +driver entered, followed by a cloud of whirling sand grains. + +“_Nom d’un chien!_” he exclaimed. “Get me a tumbler of wine, for the +love of God, Fin Tireur. My throat’s full of the sand. _Sacré nom d’un +nom d’un nom!_” + +He pulled off his coat, turned it upside down, and shook the sand out +of the pockets, while Fin Tireur went over to the corner of the kitchen +where the bottles stood in a row against the earthen wall. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of “Fin Tireur”, by Robert Hichens + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK “FIN TIREUR” *** + +***** This file should be named 23416-0.txt or 23416-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/4/1/23416/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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