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On such occasions everything is of the best, even for a simple lieutenant. At Sfax an officer on a visit meant one extra course, vintage wine and old liqueurs. "But this time I imagined from the looks the officers exchanged that perhaps the old stock would stay undisturbed in its cupboard. "'You have all, I think, heard of Captain de Saint-Avit, gentlemen, and the rumors about him.
"But afterwards you must not blame me for having told you things about a superior which should not be told and come only from the talk I overheard at mess." "Tell away." "It was in 1899. I was then Mess Sergeant at Sfax, with the 4th Spahis. I had a good record, and besides, as I did not drink, the Adjutant had assigned me to the officers' mess. It was a soft berth.
The company pays yearly half a million francs to the Government; it contributes another yearly sum of 600,000 francs towards the harbour enlargement scheme of Sfax; indeed, it may be said to have created the modern town of Sfax, its hotels, banks, restaurants, theatres. And what brought the railway? The phosphates.
"You will probably perish on the road to Tozeur, in a sandstorm." "Ah, those sandstorms: they interest me. Have you ever been to Tozeur?" "God forbid! Gafsa is quite bad enough for me. Or you may be strangled by the Arabs; such things occur every day. You smile? Read the papers! At some places, like Sfax, there are regular organized bands of assassins, the police being doubtless in their pay.
The water gushes out, tepid and unpleasant to the taste but health-giving, they say, like so many unpleasant things from under steep banks of clay through which the railway to Sfax has been cut. It is a sleepy hollow of palms, a place to dream away one's cares. The picturesque but old-fashioned well at this spot has just been replaced by a modern trough of cement.
They were not listless, like the Arabs of Algeria, who have nothing to show for themselves but the haughty and aloof bearing of the proud but beaten. Having discovered that the enemy was vulnerable though strong, the men of Sfax go through the day now with the directed activity of those who once had got the worst of it, but have a hope of doing better next time.
"Gafsa ... Gafsa," he began, in dreamy fashion, as though I had proposed a trip to Lake Tchad. And then, emphatically: "Gafsa? Why on earth didn't you go over Sfax?" "Ah, everybody has been suggesting that route." "I can well believe it, Monsieur." In short, my plan was out of the question; utterly out of the question.
With such skill and address did the corsair manage his suit that he prevailed upon the Sultan to address a letter to Charles demanding the immediate return of the towns of Susa, Sfax, Monastir, and "Africa."
One must reach Gafsa by way of Sfax.... But a fine spirit of northern independence prompted me to try an alternative route. The time-table marked a newly opened line of railway which runs directly inland from the port of Sousse; the distance to Gafsa seemed shorter; the country was no doubt new and interesting.
They even watched him draw his finger across his throat in serious and energetic pantomime, and saw me nod in grave appreciation, when he was trying to make me understand what was his sympathy for the Christian conquerors of Sfax. I went outside the landward gate of the city, and looked out over the level of brilliant sand which stretched out from there to Lake Tchad. What a voyage! What a lure!
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