“A mile or two at most, as the crow flies,” he said to himself. “Why not go there? We’ll soon see.”
A faint light filtered through the keyhole of a door on the second floor. It was Ya-Bon’s room; and the matron had told him that Ya-Bon was playing cards with his sweetheart. He walked in.
Ya-Bon was no longer playing. He had fallen asleep in an armchair, in front of the outspread cards, and on the pinned-back sleeve hanging from his left shoulder lay the head of a woman, an appallingly common head, with lips as thick as Ya-Bon’s, revealing a set of black teeth, and with a yellow, greasy skin that seemed soaked in oil. It was Angèle, the kitchen-maid, Ya-Bon’s sweetheart. She snored aloud.
Patrice looked at them contentedly. The sight confirmed the truth of his theories. If Ya-Bon could find someone to care for him, might not the most sadly mutilated heroes aspire likewise to all the joys of love?
He touched the Senegalese on the shoulder. Ya-Bon woke up and smiled, or rather, divining the presence of his captain, smiled even before he woke.
“I want you, Ya-Bon.”
Ya-Bon uttered a grunt of pleasure and gave a push to Angèle, who fell over on the table and went on snoring.
Coming out of the house, Patrice saw no more sparks. They were hidden behind the trees. He walked along the boulevard and, to save time, went by the Ceinture railway to the Avenue Henri-Martin. Here he turned down the Rue de la Tour, which runs to Passy.
On the way he kept talking to Ya-Bon about what he had in his mind, though he well knew that the negro did not understand much of what he said. But this was a habit with him. Ya-Bon, first his comrade-in-arms and then his orderly, was as devoted to him as a dog. He had lost a limb on the same day as his officer and was wounded in the head on the same day; he believed himself destined to undergo the same experiences throughout; and he rejoiced at having been twice wounded just as he would have rejoiced at dying at the same time as Captain Belval. On his side, the captain rewarded this humble, dumb devotion by unbending genially to his companion; he treated him with an ironical and sometimes impatient humor which heightened the negro’s love for him. Ya-Bon played the part of the passive confidant who is consulted without being regarded and who is made to bear the brunt of his interlocutor’s hasty temper.
“What do you think of all this, Master Ya-Bon?” asked the captain, walking arm-in-arm with him. “I have an idea that it’s all part of the same business. Do you think so too?”
Ya-Bon had two grunts, one of which meant yes, the other no. He grunted out:
“Yes.”
“So there’s no doubt about it,” the officer declared, “and we must admit that Little Mother Coralie is threatened with a fresh danger. Is that so?”
“Yes,” grunted Ya-Bon, who always approved, on principle.
“Very well. It now remains to be seen what that shower of sparks means. I thought for a moment that, as we had our first visit from the Zeppelins a week ago … are you listening to me?”
“Yes.”
“I thought that it was a treacherous signal with a view to a second Zeppelin visit …”
“Yes.”
“No, you idiot, it’s not yes. How could it be a Zeppelin signal when, according to the conversation which I overheard, the signal had already been given twice before the war. Besides, is it really a signal?”
“No.”
“How do you mean, no? What else could it be, you silly ass? You’d do better to hold your tongue and listen to me, all the more as you don’t even know what it’s all about. … No more do I, for that matter, and I confess that I’m at an utter loss. Lord, it’s a complicated business, and I’m not much of a hand at solving these problems.”
Patrice Belval was even more perplexed when he came to the bottom of the Rue de la Tour. There were several roads in front of him, and he did not know which to take. Moreover, though he was in the middle of Passy, not a spark shone in the dark sky.
“It’s finished, I expect,” he said, “and we’ve had our trouble for nothing. It’s your fault, Ya-Bon. If you hadn’t made me lose precious moments in snatching you from the arms of your beloved we should have arrived in time. I admit Angèle’s charms, but, after all …”
He took his bearings, feeling more and more undecided. The expedition undertaken on chance and with insufficient information was certainly yielding no results; and he was thinking of abandoning it when a closed private car came out of the Rue Franklin, from the direction of the Trocadéro, and someone inside shouted through the speaking-tube:
“Bear to the left … and then straight on, till I stop you.”
Now it appeared to Captain Belval that this voice had the same foreign inflection as one of those which he had heard that morning at the restaurant.
“Can it be the beggar in the gray hat,” he muttered, “one of those who tried to carry off Little Mother Coralie?”
“Yes,” grunted Ya-Bon.
“Yes. The signal of the sparks explains his presence in these parts. We mustn’t lose sight of this track. Off with you, Ya-Bon.”
But there was no need for Ya-Bon to hurry. The car had gone down the Rue Raynouard, and Belval himself arrived just as it was stopping three or four hundred yards from the turning, in front of a large carriage-entrance on the left-hand side.
Five men alighted. One of them rang. Thirty or forty seconds passed. Then Patrice heard the bell tinkle a second time. The five men waited, standing packed close together on the pavement.
