Only two or three _gendarmes_ were still
about, and a few French and Spaniards at the Port, where, moored against
the wharf, lay the steamer _Le General Bertrand_, in which Domini had
arrived that evening from Marseilles.
In the hotel the fair and plump Italian waiter, who had drifted to North
Africa from Pisa, had swept up the crumbs from the two long tables
in the _salle-a-manger_, smoked a thin, dark cigar over a copy of the
_Depeche Algerienne_, put the paper down, scratched his blonde head, on
which the hair stood up in bristles, stared for a while at nothing in
the firm manner of weary men who are at the same time thoughtless and
depressed, and thrown himself on his narrow bed in the dusty corner of
the little room on the stairs near the front door. Madame, the landlady,
had laid aside her front and said her prayer to the Virgin. Monsieur,
the landlord, had muttered his last curse against the Jews and drunk
his last glass of rum. They snored like honest people recruiting their
strength for the morrow. In number two Suzanne Charpot, Domini's maid,
was dreaming of the Rue de Rivoli.
But Domini with wide-open eyes, was staring from her big, square pillow
at the red brick floor of her bedroom, on which stood various trunks
marked by the officials of the Douane.
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