A DISTA.NT EPISODE
41
relief and the hope that this was not a trick, the hope that the
caouadji would really leave him alone and tum back without him.
He stepped back a little from the edge, and fumbled in his
pocket for a loose note, because he did not want to show his wallet.
Fortunately there was a fifty franc bill there, which he took out and
handed to the man. He knew the caouadji was pleased, and so he
paid no attention when he heard
him
saying: "It is not enough.
I have to walk a long way home and there are dogs.... "
"Thank you and good night," said the Professor, sitting down
with his legs drawn up under him, and lighting a cigarette. He felt
almost happy.
"Give me only one cigarette," pleaded the man.
"Of course," he said, a bit curtly, and he held up the pack.
The caouadji squatted close beside him. His face was not
pleasant to see. "What is it?" thought the Professor, terrified again,
as he held out his lighted cigarette toward him.
The man's eyes were almost closed. It was the most obvious
registering of concentrated scheming the Professor had ever seen.
When the second cigarette was burning, he ventured to say to the
still squatting Arab: "What are you thinking about?"
The other drew on his cigarette deliberately, and seemed about
to speak. Then his expression changed to one of satisfaction, but
he did not speak. A cool wind had risen in the air, and the Professor
shivered. The sound of the flute came up from the depths below at
intervals, sometimes mingled with the scraping of nearby palm fronds
one against the other. "These people are not primitives," the Professor
found himself saying in his mind.
"Good," said the caouadji, rising slowly. "Keep your money.
Fifty francs is enough. It
is
an honor." Then he went back into
French:
((Ti n'as qu'a discendre, to' droit."
He spat, chuckled (or
was the Professor hysterical?), and strode away quickly.
The Professor was in a state of nerves. He lit another cigarette,
and found his lips moving automatically. They were saying: "Is this
a situation or a predicament? This is ridiculous." He sat very still for
several minutes, waiting for a sense of reality to come to him. He
stretched out on the hard, cold ground and looked up at the moon. It
was almost like looking straight at the sun.
If
he shifted his gaze a
little at a time, he could make a string of weaker moons across the
sky. "Incredible," he whispered. Then he sat up quickly and looked
about. There was no guarantee that the caouadji really had gone back
