“Thanks, Popof, I will take your advice, and sleep like a marmot.”
Popof wished me good night and went into his cabin.
I saw no use in going back into the car, and remained on the platform. It was impossible to see anything either to the left or right of the line. The oasis of Samarkand had already been passed, and the rails were now laid across a long horizontal plain. Many hours would elapse before the train reached the Syr Daria, over which the line passes by a bridge like that over the Amou-Daria, but of less importance.
It was about half-past eleven when I decided to open the door of the van, which I shut behind me.
I knew that the young Romanian was not always shut up in his box, and the fancy might just have taken him to stretch his limbs by walking from one end to the other of the van.
The darkness is complete. No jet of light filters through the holes of the case. That seems all the better for me. It is as well that my No. 11 should not be surprised by too sudden an apparition. He is doubtless asleep. I will give two little knocks on the panel, I will awake him, and we will explain matters before he can move.
I feel as I go. My hand touches the case; I place my ear against the panel and I listen.
There is not a stir, not a breath! Is my man not here? Has he got away? Has he slipped out at one of the stations without my seeing him? Has my news gone with him? Really, I am most uneasy; I listen attentively.
No! He has not gone. He is in the case. I hear distinctly his regular and prolonged respiration. He sleeps. He sleeps the sleep of the innocent, to which he has no right, for he ought to sleep the sleep of the swindler of the Grand Transasiatic.
I am just going to knock when the locomotive’s whistle emits its strident crow, as we pass through a station. But the train is not going to stop, I know, and I wait until the whistling has ceased.
I then give a gentle knock on the panel.
There is no reply.
However, the sound of breathing is not so marked as before.
I knock more loudly.
This time it is followed by an involuntary movement of surprise and fright.
“Open, open!” I say in Russian.
There is no reply.
“Open!” I say again. “It is a friend who speaks. You have nothing to fear!”
If the panel is not lowered, as I had hoped, there is the crack of a match being lighted and a feeble light appears in the case.
I look at the prisoner through the holes in the side.
There is a look of alarm on his face; his eyes are haggard. He does not know whether he is asleep or awake.
“Open, my friend, I say, open and have confidence. I have discovered your secret. I shall say nothing about it. On the other hand, I may be of use to you.”
The poor man looks more at ease, although he does not move.
“You are a Romanian, I think,” I add, “and I am a Frenchman.”
“Frenchman? You are a Frenchman?”
And this reply was given in my own language, with a foreign accent.
One more bond between us.
The panel slips along its groove, and by the light of a little lamp I can examine my No. 11, to whom I shall be able to give a less arithmetical designation.
“No one can see us, nor hear us?” he asked in a half-stifled voice.
“No one.”
“The guard?”
“Asleep.”
My new friend takes my hands, he clasps them. I feel that he seeks a support. He understands he can depend on me. And he murmurs:
“Do not betray me—do not betray me.”
“Betray you, my boy? Did not the French newspapers sympathize with that little Austrian tailor, with those two Spanish sweethearts, who sent themselves by train in the way you are doing? Were not subscriptions opened in their favor? And can you believe that I, a journalist—”
“You are a journalist?”
“Claudius Bombarnac, special correspondent of the Twentieth Century.”
“A French journal—”
“Yes, I tell you.”
“And you are going to Peking?”
“Through to Peking.”
“Ah! Monsieur Bombarnac, Providence has sent you onto my road.”
“No, it was the managers of my journal, and they delegated to me the powers they hold from Providence, courage and confidence. Anything I can do for you I will.”
“Thanks, thanks.”
“What is your name?”
“Kinko.”
“Kinko? Excellent name!”
“Excellent?”
“For my articles! You are a Romanian, are you not?”
“Romanian of Bucharest.”
“But you have lived in France?”
“Four years in Paris, where I was apprentice to an upholsterer in the Faubourg Saint Antoine.”
“And you went back to Bucharest?”
“Yes, to work at my trade there until the day came when it was impossible for me to resist the desire to leave—”
“To leave? Why?”
“To marry!”
“To marry—Mademoiselle Zinca—”
“Zinca?”
“Yes, Mademoiselle Zinca Klork, Avenue Cha-Coua, Peking, China!”
“You know?”
“Certainly. The address is on the box.”
“True.”
“As to Mademoiselle Zinca Klork—”
“She is a young Romanian. I knew her in Paris, where she was learning the trade of a milliner. Oh, charming—”
“I am sure upon it. You need not dwell on that.”
“She also returned to Bucharest, until she was invited to take the management of a dressmaker’s at Peking. We loved, Monsieur; she went—and we were separated for a year. Three weeks ago she wrote to me. She was getting on over there. If I could go out to her, I would do well. We should get married without delay. She had saved something. I would soon earn as much as she had. And here I am on the road—in my turn—for China.”
“In this box?”
“What would you have, Monsieur Bombarnac?” asked Kinko, reddening. “I had only money enough to buy a packing case, a few provisions, and get myself sent off by an obliging friend. It costs a thousand francs to go from Tiflis to Peking. But as soon as I have gained
