Part 15

"That way," she said, pointing to the window. A dark perpendicular line halved its blue opening.

Tanit-Zerga went to the window. I saw her standing erect on the sill. A knife shone in her hands. She cut the rope at the top of the opening. It slipped down to the stone with a dry sound.

She came back to me.

"How can we escape?" I asked.

"That way," she repeated, and she pointed again at the window.

I leaned out. My feverish gaze fell upon the shadowy depths, searching for those invisible rocks, the rocks upon which little Kaine had dashed himself.

"That way!" I exclaimed, shuddering. "Why, it is two hundred feet from here to the ground."

"The rope is two hundred and fifty," she replied. "It is a good strong rope which I stole in the oasis; they used it in felling trees. It is quite new."

"Climb down that way, Tanit-Zerga! With my shoulder!"

"I will let you down," she said firmly. "Feel how strong my arms are. Not that I shall rest your weight on them. But see, on each side of the window is a marble column. By twisting the rope around one of them, I can let you slip down and scarcely feel your weight.

"And look," she continued, "I have made a big knot every ten feet. I can stop the rope with them, every now and then, if I want to rest."

"And you?" I asked.

"When you are down, I shall tie the rope to one of the columns and follow. There are the knots on which to rest if the rope cuts my hands too much. But don't be afraid: I am very agile. At Gâo, when I was just a child, I used to climb almost as high as this in the gum trees to take the little toucans out of their nests. It is even easier to climb down."

"And when we are down, how will we get out? Do you know the way through the barriers?"

"No one knows the way through the barriers," she said, "except Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh, and perhaps Antinea."

"Then?"

"There are the camels of Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh, those which he uses on his forays. I untethered the strongest one and led him out, just below us, and gave him lots of hay so that he will not make a sound and will be well fed when we start."

"But...." I still protested.

She stamped her foot.

"But what? Stay if you wish, if you are afraid. I am going. I want to see Gâo once again, Gâo with its blue gum-trees and its green water."

I felt myself blushing.

"I will go, Tanit-Zerga. I would rather die of thirst in the midst of the desert than stay here. Let us start."

"Tut!" she said. "Not yet."

She showed me that the dizzy descent was in brilliant moonlight.

"Not yet. We must wait. They would see us. In an hour, the moon will have circled behind the mountain. That will be the time."

She sat silent, her _haik_ wrapped completely about her dark little figure. Was she praying? Perhaps.

Suddenly I no longer saw her. Darkness had crept in the window. The moon had turned.

Tanit-Zerga's hand was on my arm. She drew me toward the abyss. I tried not to tremble.

Everything below us was in shadow. In a low, firm voice, Tanit-Zerga began to speak:

"Everything is ready. I have twisted the rope about the pillar. Here is the slip-knot. Put it under your arms. Take this cushion. Keep it pressed against your hurt shoulder.... A leather cushion.... It is tightly stuffed. Keep face to the wall. It will protect you against the bumping and scraping."

I was now master of myself, very calm. I sat down on the sill of the window, my feet in the void. A breath of cool air from the peaks refreshed me.

I felt little Tanit-Zerga's hand in my vest pocket.

"Here is a box. I must know when you are down, so I can follow. You will open the box. There are fire-flies in it; I shall see them and follow you."

She held my hand a moment.

"Now go," she murmured.

I went.

I remember only one thing about that descent: I was overcome with vexation when the rope stopped and I found myself, feet dangling, against the perfectly smooth wall.

"What is the little fool waiting for?" I said to myself. "I have been hung here for a quarter of an hour. Ah ... at last! Oh, here I am stopped again." Once or twice I thought I was reaching the ground, but it was only a projection from the rock. I had to give a quick shove with my foot.... Then, suddenly, I found myself seated on the ground. I stretched out my hands. Bushes.... A thorn pricked my finger. I was down.

Immediately I began to get nervous again.

I pulled out the cushion and slipped off the noose. With my good hand, I pulled the rope, holding it out five or six feet from the face of the mountain, and put my foot on it.

Then I took the little cardboard box from my pocket and opened it.

One after the other, three little luminous circles rose in the inky night. I saw them rise higher and higher against the rocky wall. Their pale rose aureols gleamed faintly. Then, one by one, they turned, disappeared.

"You are tired, Sidi Lieutenant. Let me hold the rope."

Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh rose up at my side.

I looked at his tall black silhouette. I shuddered, but I did not let go of the rope on which I began to feel distant jerks.

"Give it to me," he repeated with authority.

And he took it from my hands.

I don't know what possessed me then. I was standing beside that great dark phantom. And I ask you, what could I, with a dislocated shoulder, do against that man whose agile strength I already knew? What was there to do? I saw him buttressed against the wall, holding the rope with both hands, with both feet, with all his body, much better than I had been able to do.

A rustling above our heads. A little shadowy form.

"There," said Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh, seizing the little shadow in his powerful arms and placing her on the ground, while the rope, let slack, slapped back against the rock.

Tanit-Zerga recognized the Targa and groaned.

He put his hand roughly over her mouth.

"Shut up, camel thief, wretched little fly."

He seized her arm. Then he turned to me.

"Come," he said in an imperious tone.

I obeyed. During our short walk, I heard Tanit-Zerga's teeth chattering with terror.

We reached a little cave.

"Go in," said the Targa.

He lighted a torch. The red light showed a superb mehari peacefully chewing his cud.

"The little one is not stupid," said Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh, pointing to the animal. "She knows enough to pick out the best and the strongest. But she is rattle-brained."

He held the torch nearer the camel.

"She is rattle-brained," he continued. "She only saddled him. No water, no food. At this hour, three days from now, all three of you would have been dead on the road, and on what a road!"

Tanit-Zerga's teeth no longer chattered. She was looking at the Targa with a mixture of terror and hope.

"Come here, Sidi Lieutenant," said Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh, "so that I can explain to you."

When I was beside him, he said:

"On each side there is a skin of water. Make that water last as long as possible, for you are going to cross a terrible country. It may be that you will not find a well for three hundred miles.

"There," he went on, "in the saddle bags, are cans of preserved meat. Not many, for water is much more precious. Here also is a carbine, your carbine, sidi. Try not to use it except to shoot antelopes. And there is this."

He spread out a roll of paper. I saw his inscrutible face bent over it; his eyes were smiling; he looked at me.

"Once out of the enclosures, what way did you plan to go?" he asked.

"Toward Idelès, to retake the route where you met the Captain and me," I said.

Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh shook his head.

"I thought as much," he murmured.

Then he added coldly:

"Before sunset to-morrow, you and the little one would have been caught and massacred."

"Toward the north is Ahaggar," he continued, "and all Ahaggar is under the control of Antinea. You must go south."

"Then we shall go south."

"By what route?"

"Why, by Silet and Timissao."

The Targa again shook his head.

"They will look for you on that road also," he said. "It is a good road, the road with the wells. They know that you are familiar with it. The Tuareg would not fail to wait at the wells."

"Well, then?"

"Well," said Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh, "you must not rejoin the road from Timissao to Timbuctoo until you are four hundred miles from here toward Iferouane, or better still, at the spring of Telemsi. That is the boundary between the Tuareg of Ahaggar and the Awellimiden Tuareg."

The little voice of Tanit-Zerga broke in:

"It was the Awellimiden Tuareg who massacred my people and carried me into slavery. I do not want to pass through the country of the Awellimiden."

"Be still, miserable little fly," said Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh.

Then addressing me, he continued:

"I have said what I have said. The little one is not wrong. The Awellimiden are a savage people. But they are afraid of the French. Many of them trade with the stations north of the Niger. On the other hand, they are at war with the people of Ahaggar, who will not follow you into their country. What I have said, is said. You must rejoin the Timbuctoo road near where it enters the borders of the Awellimiden. Their country is wooded and rich in springs. If you reach the springs at Telemsi, you will finish your journey beneath a canopy of blossoming mimosa. On the other hand, the road from here to Telemsi is shorter than by way of Timissao. It is quite straight."

"Yes, it is direct," I said, "but, in following it, you have to cross the Tanezruft."

Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh waved his hand impatiently.

"Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh knows that," he said. "He knows what the Tanezruft is. He who has traveled over all the Sahara knows that he would shudder at crossing the Tanezruft and the Tassili from the south. He knows that the camels that wander into that country either die or become wild, for no one will risk his life to go look for them. It is the terror that hangs over that region that may save you. For you have to choose: you must run the risk of dying of thirst on the tracks of the Tanezruft or have your throat cut along some other route.

"You can stay here," he added.

"My choice is made, Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh," I announced.

"Good!" he replied, again opening out the roll of paper. "This trail begins at the second barrier of earth, to which I will lead you. It ends at Iferouane. I have marked the wells, but do not trust to them too much, for many of them are dry. Be careful not to stray from the route. If you lose it, it is death.... Now mount the camel with the little one. Two make less noise than four."

We went a long way in silence. Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh walked ahead and his camel followed meekly. We crossed, first, a dark passage, then, a deep gorge, then another passage.... The entrance to each was hidden by a thick tangle of rocks and briars.

Suddenly a burning breath touched our faces. A dull reddish light filtered in through the end of the passage. The desert lay before us.

Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh had stopped.

"Get down," he said.

A spring gurgled out of the rock. The Targa went to it and filled a copper cup with the water.

"Drink," he said, holding it out to each of us in turn. We obeyed.

"Drink again," he ordered. "You will save just so much of the contents of your water skins. Now try not to be thirsty before sunset."

He looked over the saddle girths.

"That's all right," he murmured. "Now go. In two hours the dawn will be here. You must be out of sight."

I was filled with emotion at this last moment; I went to the Targa and took his hand.

"Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh," I asked in a low voice, "why are you doing this?"

He stepped back and I saw his dark eyes gleam.

"Why?" he said.

"Yes, why?"

He replied with dignity:

"The Prophet permits every just man, once in his lifetime, to let pity take the place of duty. Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh is turning this permission to the advantage of one who saved his life."

"And you are not afraid," I asked, "that I will disclose the secret of Antinea if I return among Frenchmen?" He shook his head.

"I am not afraid of that," he said, and his voice was full of irony. "It is not to your interest that Frenchmen should know how the Captain met his death."

I was horrified at this logical reply.

"Perhaps I am doing wrong," the Targa went on, "in not killing the little one.... But she loves you. She will not talk. Now go. Day is coming."

I tried to press the hand of this strange rescuer, but he again drew back.

"Do not thank me. What I am doing, I do to acquire merit in the eyes of God. You may be sure that I shall never do it again neither for you nor for anyone else."

And, as I made a gesture to reassure him on that point, "Do not protest," he said in a tone the mockery of which still sounds in my ears. "Do not protest. What I am doing is of value to me, but not to you."

I looked at him uncomprehendingly.

"Not to you, Sidi Lieutenant, not to you," his grave voice continued. "For you will come back; and when that day comes, do not count on the help of Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh."

"I will come back?" I asked, shuddering.

"You will come back," the Targa replied.

He was standing erect, a black statue against the wall of gray rock.

"You will come back," he repeated with emphasis. "You are fleeing now, but you are mistaken if you think that you will look at the world with the same eyes as before. Henceforth, one idea, will follow you everywhere you go; and in one year, five, perhaps ten years, you will pass again through the corridor through which you have just come."

"Be still, Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh," said the trembling voice of Tanit-Zerga.

"Be still yourself, miserable little fly," said Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh.

He sneered.

"The little one is afraid because she knows that I tell the truth. She knows the story of Lieutenant Ghiberti."

"Lieutenant Ghiberti?" I said, the sweat standing out on my forehead.

"He was an Italian officer whom I met between Rhât and Rhadamès eight years ago. He did not believe that love of Antinea could make him forget all else that life contained. He tried to escape, and he succeeded. I do not know how, for I did not help him. He went back to his country. But hear what happened: two years later, to the very day, when I was leaving the look-out, I discovered a miserable tattered creature, half dead from hunger and fatigue, searching in vain for the entrance to the northern barrier. It was Lieutenant Ghiberti, come back. He fills niche Number 39 in the red marble hall."

The Targa smiled slightly.

"That is the story of Lieutenant Ghiberti which you wished to hear. But enough of this. Mount your camel."

I obeyed without saying a word. Tanit-Zerga, seated behind me, put her little arms around me. Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh was still holding the bridle.

"One word more," he said, pointing to a black spot against the violet sky of the southern horizon. "You see the _gour_ there; that is your way. It is eighteen miles from here. You should reach it by sunrise. Then consult your map. The next point is marked. If you do not stray from the line, you should be at the springs of Telemsi in eight days."

The camel's neck was stretched toward the dark wind coming from the south.

The Targa released the bridle with a sweep of his hand.

"Now go."

"Thank you," I called to him, turning back in the saddle. "Thank you, Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh, and farewell."

I heard his voice replying in the distance:

"_Au revoir_, Lieutenant de Saint Avit."

XIX

THE TANEZRUFT

During the first hour of our flight, the great mehari of Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh carried us at a mad pace. We covered at least five leagues. With fixed eyes, I guided the beast toward the _gour_ which the Targa had pointed out, its ridge becoming higher and higher against the paling sky.

The speed caused a little breeze to whistle in our ears. Great tufts of _retem_, like fleshless skeletons, were tossed to right and left.

I heard the voice of Tanit-Zerga whispering:

"Stop the camel."

At first I did not understand.

"Stop him," she repeated.

Her hand pulled sharply at my right arm.

I obeyed. The camel slackened his pace with very bad grace.

"Listen," she said.

At first I heard nothing. Then a very slight noise, a dry rustling behind us.

"Stop the camel," Tanit-Zerga commanded. "It is not worth while to make him kneel."

A little gray creature bounded on the camel. The mehari set out again at his best speed.

"Let him go," said Tanit-Zerga. "Galé has jumped on."

I felt a tuft of bristly hair under my arm. The mongoose had followed our footsteps and rejoined us. I heard the quick panting of the brave little creature becoming gradually slower and slower.

"I am happy," murmured Tanit-Zerga.

Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh had not been mistaken. We reached the _gour_ as the sun rose. I looked back. The Atakor was nothing more than a monstrous chaos amid the night mists which trailed the dawn. It was no longer possible to pick out from among the nameless peaks, the one on which Antinea was still weaving her passionate plots.

You know what the Tanezruft is, the "plain of plains," abandoned, uninhabitable, the country of hunger and thirst. We were then starting on the part of the desert which Duveyrier calls the Tassili of the south, and which figures on the maps of the Minister of Public Works under this attractive title: "Rocky plateau, without water, without vegetation, inhospitable for man and beast."

Nothing, unless parts of the Kalahari, is more frightful than this rocky desert. Oh, Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh did not exaggerate in saying that no one would dream of following us into that country.

Great patches of oblivion still refused to clear away. Memories chased each other incoherently about my head. A sentence came back to me textually: "It seemed to Dick that he had never, since the beginning of original darkness, done anything at all save jolt through the air." I gave a little laugh. "In the last few hours," I thought, "I have been heaping up literary situations. A while ago, a hundred feet above the ground, I was Fabrice of _La Chartreuse de Parme_ beside his Italian dungeon. Now, here on my camel, I am Dick of _The Light That Failed_, crossing the desert to meet his companions in arms." I chuckled again; then shuddered. I thought of the preceding night, of the Orestes of _Andromaque_ who agreed to sacrifice Pyrrhus. A literary situation indeed....

Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh had reckoned eight days to get to the wooded country of the Awellimiden, forerunners of the grassy steppes of the Soudan. He knew well the worth of his beast. Tanit-Zerga had suddenly given him a name, _El Mellen_, the white one, for the magnificent mehari had an almost spotless coat. Once he went two days without eating, merely picking up here and there a branch of an acacia tree whose hideous white spines, four inches long, filled me with fear for our friend's oesophagus. The wells marked out by Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh were indeed at the indicated spots, but we found nothing in them but a burning yellow mud. It was enough for the camel, enough so that at the end of the fifth day, thanks to prodigious self-control, we had used up only one of our two water skins. Then we believed ourselves safe.

Near one of these muddy puddles, I succeeded that day in shooting down a little straight-horned desert gazelle. Tanit-Zerga skinned the beast and we regaled ourselves with a delicious haunch. Meantime, little Galé, who never ceased prying about the cracks in the rocks during our mid-day halts in the heat, discovered an _ourane_, a sand crocodile, five feet long, and made short work of breaking his neck. She ate so much she could not budge. It cost us a pint of water to help her digestion. We gave it with good grace, for we were happy. Tanit-Zerga did not say so, but her joy at knowing that I was thinking no more of the woman in the gold diadem and the emeralds was apparent. And really, during those days, I hardly thought of her. I thought only of the torrid heat to be avoided, of the water skins which, if you wished to drink fresh water, had to be left for an hour in a cleft in the rocks; of the intense joy which seized you when you raised to your lips a leather goblet brimming with that life-saving water.... I can say this with authority, with good authority, indeed; passion, spiritual or physical, is a thing for those who have eaten and drunk and rested.

It was five o'clock in the afternoon. The frightful heat was slackening. We had left a kind of rocky crevice where we had had a little nap. Seated on a huge rock, we were watching the reddening west.

I spread out the roll of paper on which Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh had marked the stages of our journey as far as the road from the Soudan. I realized again with joy that his itinerary was exact and that I had followed it scrupulously.

"The evening of the day after to-morrow," I said, "we shall be setting out on the stage which will take us, by the next dawn, to the waters at Telemsi. Once there, we shall not have to worry any more about water."

Tanit-Zerga's eyes danced in her thin face.

"And Gâo?" she asked.

"We will be only a week from the Niger. And Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh said that at Telemsi, one reached a road overhung with mimosa."

"I know the mimosa," she said. "They are the little yellow balls that melt in your hand. But I like the caper flowers better. You will come with me to Gâo. My father, Sonni-Azkia, was killed, as I told you, by the Awellimiden. But my people must have rebuilt the villages. They are used to that. You will see how you will be received."

"I will go, Tanit-Zerga, I promise you. But you also, you must promise me...."

"What? Oh, I guess. You must take me for a little fool if you believe me capable of speaking of things which might make trouble for my friend."

She looked at me as she spoke. Privation and great fatigue had chiselled the brown face where her great eyes shone.... Since then, I have had time to assemble the maps and compasses, and to fix forever the spot where, for the first time, I understood the beauty of Tanit-Zerga's eyes.

There was a deep silence between us. It was she who broke it.