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 Roumanian 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.