The Project Gutenberg EBook of "Fin Tireur", by Robert Hichens

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Title: "Fin Tireur"
1905

Author: Robert Hichens

Release Date: November 8, 2007 [EBook #23416]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK "FIN TIREUR" ***

Produced by David Widger

"FIN TIREUR"

By Robert Hichens

Frederick A. Stokes Company Publishers

Copyright, 1905

Two years ago I was travelling by diligence in the Sahara Desert on the
great caravan route, which starts from Beni-Mora and ends, they say, at
Tombouctou. For fourteen hours each day we were on the road, and each
evening about nine o'clock we stopped at a Bordj, or Travellers' House,
ate a hasty meal, threw ourselves down on our gaudy Arab rugs, and slept
heavily till the hour before dawn, drugged by fatigue, and by the
strong air of the desert. In the late afternoon of the third day of our
journeying we drove into a sandstorm. A great wind arose, carrying
with it innumerable multitudes of sand grains, which whirled about
the diligence and the struggling horses, blotting out the desert as
completely as a London fog blots out the street on a November day.
The cold became intense, and very soon I began to long for the next
halting-place.

"Where do we stop to-night?" I shouted to the French driver, who, with
his yellow toque pulled down over his ears, was chirping encouragement
to his horses.

"Sidi-Hamdane," he answered, without turning his head. "At the inn of
'Fin Tireur.'"

Three hours later we drew up before a low building, from which a
light shone kindly, and I scrambled down stiffly, and lurched into the
longed-for shelter.

There was a man in the doorway, a short, sturdy, middle-aged Frenchman,
with strong features, a tuft of grey beard, heavy eyebrows, and dark,
prominent eyes, with a hot, shining look in them.

"_Bon soir, m'sieu_," he said.

"_Bon soir!_," I answered.

This was my host, the innkeeper whom the driver had called "Fin Tireur."

I found out afterwards that he was not only landlord of the desolate
inn, but cook, garcon; in fact, the whole personnel. He lived there
absolutely alone, and was the only European in this Ar