"Well, what have you to say now?" he asked.
"What do you want me to say? I tell you that I can barely read
Tifinar."
"Shall I help you?" he suggested.
This course in Berber writing, after the emotions through which we had
just passed, seemed to me a little inopportune. But Morhange was so
visibly delighted that I could not dash his joy.
"Very well then," began my companion, as much at his, ease as if he had
been before a blackboard, "what will strike you first about this
inscription is its repetition in the form of a cross. That is to say
that it contains the same word twice, top to bottom, and right to left.
The word which it composes has seven letters so the fourth letter, W
[Transcriber's Note: Rotated 90 deg. counter-clockwise], comes naturally
in the middle. This arrangement which is unique in Tifinar writing, is
already remarkable enough. But there is better still. Now we will read
it."
Getting it wrong three times out of seven I finally succeeded, with
Morhange's help, in spelling the word.
"Have you got it?" asked Morhange when I had finished my task.
"Less than ever," I answered, a little put out;
"a,n,t,i,n,h,a,--Antinha, I don't know that word, or anything like it,
in all the Saharan dialects I am familiar with."
Morhange rubbed his hands together. His satisfaction was without
bounds.
"You have said it. That is why the discovery is unique."
"Why?"
"There is really nothing, either in Berber or in Arabian, analogous to
this word."
"Then?"
"Then, my dear friend, we are in the presence of a foreign word,
translated into Tifinar."
"And this word belongs, according to your theory, to what language?"
"You must realize that the letter _e_ does not exist in the Tifinar
alphabet. It has here been replaced by the phonetic sign which is
nearest to it,--h. Restore _e_ to the place which belongs to it in the
word, and you have--"
"Antinea."
"'Antinea,' precisely. We find ourselves before a Greek vocable
reproduced in Tifinar. And I think that now you will agree with me
that my find has a certain interest."
That day we had no more conferences upon texts. A loud cry, anguished,
terrifying, rang out.
We rushed out to find a strange spectacle awaiting us.
Although the sky had cleared again, the torrent of yellow water was
still foaming and no one could predict when it would fall. In
mid-stream, struggling desperately in the current, was an
extraordinary mass, gray and soft and swaying.
But what at the first glance overwhelmed us with astonishment was to
see Bou-Djema, usually so calm, at this moment apparently beside
himself with frenzy, bounding through the gullies and over the rocks
of the ledge, in full pursuit of the shipwreck.
Of a sudden I seized Morhange by the arm. The grayish thing was alive.
A pitiful long neck emerged from it with the heartrending cry of a
beast in despair.
"The fool," I cried, "he has let one of our beasts get loose, and the
stream is carrying it away!"
"You are mistaken," said Morhange. "Our camels are all in the cave.
The one Bou-Djema is running after is not ours. And the cry of anguish
we just heard, that was not Bou-Djema either. Bou-Djema is a brave
Chaamb who has at this moment only one idea, to appropriate the
intestate capital represented by this camel in the stream."
"Who gave that cry, then?"
"Let us try, if you like, to explore up this stream that our guide is
descending at such a rate."
And without waiting for my answer he had already set out through the
recently washed gullies of the rocky bank.
At that moment it can be truly said that Morhange went to meet his
destiny.
I followed him. We had the greatest difficulty in proceeding two or
three hundred meters. Finally we saw at our feet a little rushing
brook where the water was falling a trifle.
"See there?" said Morhange.
A blackish bundle was balancing on the waves of the creek.
When we had come up even with it we saw that it was a man in the long
dark blue robes of the Tuareg.
"Give me your hand," said Morhange, "and brace yourself against a
rock, hard."
He was very, very strong. In an instant, as if it were child's play,
he had brought the body ashore.
"He is still alive," he pronounced with satisfaction. "Now it is a
question of getting him to the grotto. This is no place to resuscitate
a drowned man."
He raised the body in his powerful arms.
"It is astonishing how little he weighs for a man of his height."
By the time we had retraced the way to the grotto the man's cotton
clothes were almost dry. But the dye had run plentifully, and it was
an indigo man that Morhange was trying to recall to life.
When I had made him swallow a quart of rum he opened his eyes, looked
at the two of us with surprise, then, closing them again, murmured
almost unintelligibly a phrase, the sense of which we did not get
until some days later:
"Can it be that I have reached the end of my mission?"
"What mission is he talking about?" I said.
"Let him recover himself completely," responded Morhange. "You had
better open some preserved food. With fellows of this build you don't
have to observe the precautions prescribed for drowned Europeans."
It was indeed a species of giant, whose life we had just saved. His
face, although very thin, was regular, almost beautiful. He had a
clear skin and little beard. His hair, already white, showed him to be
a man of sixty years.
When I placed a tin of corned-beef before him a light of voracious joy
came into his eyes. The tin contained an allowance for four persons.
It was empty in a flash.
"Behold," said Morhange, "a robust appetite. Now we can put our
questions without scruple."
Already the Targa had placed over his forehead and face the blue veil
prescribed by the ritual. He must have been completely famished not to
have performed this indispensable formality sooner. There was nothing
visible now but the eyes, watching us with a light that grew steadily
more sombre.
"French officers," he murmured at last.
And he took Morhange's hand, and having placed it against his breast,
carried it to his lips.
Suddenly an expression of anxiety passed over his face.
"And my mehari?" he asked.
I explained that our guide was then employed in trying to save his
beast. He in turn told us how it had stumbled, and fallen into the
current, and he himself, in trying to save it, had been knocked over.
His forehead had struck a rock. He had cried out. After that he
remembered nothing more.
"What is your name?" I asked.
"Eg-Anteouen."
"What tribe do you belong to?"
"The tribe of Kel-Tahat."
"The Kel-Tahats are the serfs of the tribe of Kel-Rhelâ, the great
nobles of Hoggar?"
"Yes," he answered, casting a side glance in my direction. It seemed
that such precise questions on the affairs of Ahygar were not to his
liking.
"The Kel-Tahats, if I am not mistaken, are established on the
southwest flank of Atakor.[5] What were you doing, so far from your
home territory when we saved your life?"
[Footnote 5: Another name, in the Temahaq language, for Ahaggar. (Note
by M. Leroux.)]
"I was going, by way of Tit, to In-Salah," he said.
"What were you going to do at In-Salah?"
He was about to reply. But suddenly we saw him tremble. His eyes were
fixed on a point of the cavern. We looked to see what it was. He had
just seen the rock inscription which had so delighted Morhange an hour
before.
"Do you know that?" Morhange asked him with keen curiosity.
The Targa did not speak a word but his eyes had a strange light.
"Do you know that?" insisted Morhange.
And he added:
"Antinea?"
"Antinea," repeated the man.
And he was silent.
"Why don't you answer the Captain?" I called out, with a strange
feeling of rage sweeping over me.
The Targui looked at me. I thought that he was going to speak. But his
eyes became suddenly hard. Under the lustrous veil I saw his features
stiffening.
Morhange and I turned around.
On the threshold of the cavern, breathless, discomfited, harassed by
an hour of vain pursuit, Bou-Djema had returned to us.