Page:Ossendowski - The Fire of Desert Folk.djvu/17



CHAPTER I

STORMS OF THE SEA—AND OF HATE

N the little Spanish port of Almeria we climbed the gang-plank to the deck of the uninviting shell of a thousand tons that flaunted the name of Balcar across the Mediterranean waves and was to carry us behind its tossing letters to French Oran over the first stage of our journey to the north of the Dark Continent Though it was still summer, the chill of an evening wind that lashed the sea beyond the breakwater kept us moving on the deck as the sailors slipped the lines that held us to the pier. With a sigh my wife remarked:

"That one tiny cable is our only link with Europe."

Then, as this final hawser splashed, Zofiette took one last look at the breakers beyond the harbor, sighed and sought refuge In a steamer-chair, resigned to paying the price of travel by sea. The moment we passed outside the protecting wall, the gloating waves seized the old Spanish hull and tossed It back and forth like a shuttlecock the whole night through. Zofiette was ill, tragically ill, little comforted by the thought that practically all