Stretched out at full length, on the other side of the rocks, his pale
flanks knotted up by convulsive spasms, _El Mellen_ lay in anguish.
I need not say that we rushed to him in feverish haste. Of what _El
Mellen_ was dying, I did not know, I never have known. All the mehara
are that way. They are at once the most enduring and the most delicate
of beasts. They will travel for six months across the most frightful
deserts, with little food, without water, and seem only the better for
it. Then, one day when nothing is the matter, they stretch out and
give you the slip with disconcerting ease.
When Tanit-Zerga and I saw that there was nothing more to do, we stood
there without a word, watching his slackening spasms. When he breathed
his last, we felt that our life, as well as his, had gone.
It was Tanit-Zerga who spoke first.
"How far are we from the Soudan road?" she asked.
"We are a hundred and twenty miles from the springs of Telemsi," I
replied. "We could make thirty miles by going toward Iferouane; but
the wells are not marked on that route."
"Then we must walk toward the springs of Telemsi," she said. "A
hundred and twenty miles, that makes seven days?"
"Seven days at the least, Tanit-Zerga."
"How far is it to the first well?"
"Thirty-five miles."
The little girl's face contracted somewhat. But she braced up quickly.
"We must set out at once."
"Set out on foot, Tanit-Zerga!"
She stamped her foot. I marveled to see her so strong.
"We must go," she repeated. "We are going to eat and drink and make
Galé eat and drink, for we cannot carry all the tins, and the water
skin is so heavy that we should not get three miles if we tried to
carry it. We will put a little water in one of the tins after emptying
it through a little hole. That will be enough for to-night's stage,
which will be eighteen miles without water. To-morrow we will set out
for another eighteen miles and we will reach the wells marked on the
paper by Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh."
"Oh," I murmured sadly, "if my shoulder were only not this way, I
could carry the water skin."
"It is as it is," said Tanit-Zerga.
"You will take your carbine and two tins of meat. I shall take two
more and the one filled with water. Come. We must leave in an hour if
we wish to cover the eighteen miles. You know that when the sun is up,
the rocks are so hot we cannot walk."
I leave you to imagine in what sad silence we passed that hour which
we had begun so happily and confidently. Without the little girl, I
believe I should have seated myself upon a rock and waited. Galé only
was happy.
"We must not let her eat too much," said Tanit-Zerga. "She would not
be able to follow us. And to-morrow she must work. If she catches
another _ourane_, it will be for us."
You have walked in the desert. You know how terrible the first hours
of the night are. When the moon comes up, huge and yellow, a sharp
dust seems to rise in suffocating clouds. You move your jaws
mechanically as if to crush the dust that finds its way into your
throat like fire. Then usually a kind of lassitude, of drowsiness,
follows. You walk without thinking. You forget where you are walking.
You remember only when you stumble. Of course you stumble often. But
anyway it is bearable. "The night is ending," you say, "and with it
the march. All in all, I am less tired than at the beginning." The
night ends, but then comes the most terrible hour of all. You are
perishing of thirst and shaking with cold. All the fatigue comes back
at once. The horrible breeze which precedes the dawn is no comfort.
Quite the contrary. Every time you stumble, you say, "The next misstep
will be the last."
That is what people feel and say even when they know that in a few
hours they will have a good rest with food and water.
I was suffering terribly. Every step jolted my poor shoulder. At one
time, I wanted to stop, to sit down. Then I looked at Tanit-Zerga. She
was walking ahead with her eyes almost closed. Her expression was an
indefinable one of mingled suffering and determination. I closed my
own eyes and went on.
Such was the first stage. At dawn we stopped in a hollow in the rocks.
Soon the heat forced us to rise to seek a deeper one. Tanit-Zerga did
not eat. Instead, she swallowed a little of her half can of water. She
lay drowsy all day. Galé ran about our rock giving plaintive little
cries.
I am not going to tell you about the second march. It was more
horrible than anything you can imagine. I suffered all that it is
humanly possible to suffer in the desert. But already I began to
observe with infinite pity that my man's strength was outlasting the
nervous force of my little companion. The poor child walked on without
saying a word, chewing feebly one corner of her _haik_ which she had
drawn over her face. Galé followed.
The well toward which we were dragging ourselves was indicated on
Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh's paper by the one word _Tissaririn. Tissaririn_ is
the plural of _Tissarirt_ and means "two isolated trees."
Day was dawning when finally I saw the two trees, two gum trees.
Hardly a league separated us from them. I gave a cry of joy.
"Courage, Tanit-Zerga, there is the well."
She drew her veil aside and I saw the poor anguished little face.
"So much the better," she murmured, "because otherwise...."
She could not even finish the sentence.
We finished the last half mile almost at a run. We already saw the
hole, the opening of the well.
Finally we reached it.
It was empty.
It is a strange sensation to be dying of thirst. At first the
suffering is terrible. Then, gradually, it becomes less. You become
partly unconscious. Ridiculous little things about your life occur to
you, fly about you like mosquitoes. I began to remember my history
composition for the entrance examination of Saint-Cyr, "The Campaign
of Marengo." Obstinately I repeated to myself, "I have already said
that the battery unmasked by Marmont at the moment of Kellerman's
charge included eighteen pieces.... No, I remember now, it was only
twelve pieces. I am sure it was twelve pieces."