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."