II
CAPTAIN DE SAINT-AVIT
A few days sufficed to convince us that Chatelain's fears as to ourofficial relations with the new chief were vain. Often I have thoughtthat by the severity he showed at our first encounter Saint-Avitwished to create a formal barrier, to show us that he knew how to keephis head high in spite of the weight of his heavy past. Certain it isthat the day after his arrival, he showed himself in a very differentlight, even complimenting the Sergeant on the upkeep of the post andthe instruction of the men. To me he was charming.
"We are of the same class, aren't we?" he said to me. "I don't haveto ask you to dispense with formalities, it is your right."
Vain marks of confidence, alas! False witnesses to a freedom ofspirit, one in face of the other. What more accessible in appearancethan the immense Sahara, open to all those who are willing to beengulfed by it? Yet what is more secret? After six months ofcompanionship, of communion of life such as only a Post in the Southoffers, I ask myself if the most extraordinary of my adventures is notto be leaving to-morrow, toward unsounded solitudes, with a man whosereal thoughts are as unknown to me as these same solitudes, for whichhe has succeeded in making me long.
The first surprise which was given me by this singular companion wasoccasioned by the baggage that followed him.
On his inopportune arrival, alone, from Wargla, he had trusted to theMehari he rode only what can be carried without harm by such adelicate beast,--his arms, sabre and revolver, a heavy carbine, and avery reduced pack. The rest did not arrive till fifteen days later,with the convoy which supplied the post.
Three cases of respectable dimensions were carried one after anotherto the Captain's room, and the grimaces of the porters said enough asto their weight.
I discreetly left Saint-Avit to his unpacking and began opening themail which the convoy had sent me.
He returned to the office a little later and glanced at the severalreviews which I had just recieved.
"So," he said. "You take these."
He skimmed through, as he spoke, the last number of the _Zeitschriftder Gesellschaft fur Erdkunde in Berlin_.
"Yes," I answered. "These gentlemen are kind enough to interestthemselves in my works on the geology of the Wadi Mia and the highIgharghar."
"That may be useful to me," he murmured, continuing to turn over theleaves.
"It's at your service."
"Thanks. I am afraid I have nothing to offer you in exchange, exceptPliny, perhaps. And still--you know what he said of Igharghar,according to King Juba. However, come help me put my traps in placeand you will see if anything appeals to you."
I accepted without further urging.
We commenced by unearthing various meteorological and astronomicalinstruments--the thermometers of Baudin, Salleron, Fastre, an aneroid,a Fortin barometer, chronometers, a sextant, an astronomical spyglass,a compass glass.... In short, what Duveyrier calls the material thatis simplest and easiest to transport on a camel.
As Saint-Avit handed them to me I arranged them on the only table inthe room.
"Now," he announced to me, "there is nothing more but books. I willpass them to you. Pile them up in a corner until I can have abook-shelf made."
For two hours altogether I helped him to heap up a real library. Andwhat a library! Such as never before a post in the South had seen. Allthe texts consecrated, under whatever titles, by antiquity to theregions of the Sahara were reunited between the four rough-cast wallsof that little room of the bordj. Herodotus and Pliny, naturally, andlikewise Strabo and Ptolemy, Pomponius Mela, and Ammien Marcellin. Butbesides these names which reassured my ignorance a little, I perceivedthose of Corippus, of Paul Orose, of Eratosthenes, of Photius, ofDiodorus of Sicily, of Solon, of Dion Cassius, of Isidor of Seville,of Martin de Tyre, of Ethicus, of Athenee, the _Scriptores HistoriaeAugustae_, the _Itinerarium Antonini Augusti_, the _Geographi LatiniMinores_ of Riese, the _Geographi Graeci Minores_ of Karl Muller....Since I have had the occasion to familiarize myself with Agatarchidesof Cos and Artemidorus of Ephesus, but I admit that in this instancethe presence of their dissertations in the saddle bags of a captain ofcavalry caused me some amazement.
I mention further the _Descrittione dell' Africa_ by Leon l'African,the _Arabian Histories_ of Ibn-Khaldoun, of Al-Iaquob, of El-Bekri, ofIbn-Batoutah, of Mahommed El-Tounsi.... In the midst of this Babel, Iremember the names of only two volumes of contemporary Frenchscholars. There were also the laborious theses of Berlioux[3] and ofSchirmer.[4]
[Footnote 3: Doctrina Ptolemaei ab injuria recentiorum vindicata, siveNilus Superior et Niger verus, hodiernus Eghiren, ab anitiquisexplorati. Paris, 8vo, 1874, with two maps. (Note by M. Leroux.)]
[Footnote 4: De nomine et genere popularum qui berberi vulgo dicuntur.Paris, 8vo, 1892. (Note by M. Leroux.)]
While I proceeded to make piles of as similar dimensions as possible Ikept saying to myself:
"To think that I have been believing all this time that in his missionwith Morhange, Saint-Avit was particularly concerned in scientificobservations. Either my memory deceives me strangely or he is riding ahorse of another color. What is sure is that there is nothing for mein the midst of all this chaos."
He must have read on my face the signs of too apparently expressedsurprise, for he said in a tone in which I divined a tinge ofdefiance:
"The choice of these books surprises you a bit?"
"I can't say it surprises me," I replied, "since I don't know thenature of the work for which you have collected them. In any case Idare say, without fear of being contradicted, that never before hasofficer of the Arabian Office possessed a library in which thehumanities were so, well represented."
He smiled evasively, and that day we pursued the subject no further.
Among Saint-Avit's books I had noticed a voluminous notebook securedby a strong lock. Several times I surprised him in the act of makingnotations in it. When for any reason he was called out of the room heplaced his album carefully in a small cabinet of white wood, providedby the munificence of the Administration. When he was not writing andthe office did not require his presence, he had the mehari which hehad brought with him saddled, and a few minutes later, from theterrace of the fortifications, I could see the double silhouettedisappearing with great strides behind a hummock of red earth on thehorizon.
Each time these trips lasted longer. From each he returned in a kindof exaltation which made me watch him with daily increasingdisquietude during meal hours, the only time we passed quite alonetogether.
"Well," I said to myself one day when his remarks had been morelacking in sequence than usual, "it's no fun being aboard a submarinewhen the captain takes opium. What drug can this fellow be taking,anyway?"
Next day I looked hurriedly through my comrade's drawers. Thisinspection, which I believed to be my duty, reassured me momentarily."All very good," I thought, "provided he does not carry with him hiscapsules and his Pravaz syringe."
I was still in that stage where I could suppose that Andre'simagination needed artificial stimulants.
Meticulous observation undeceived me. There was nothing suspicious inthis respect. Moreover, he rarely drank and almost never smoked.
And nevertheless, there was no means of denying the increase of hisdisquieting feverishness. He returned from his expeditions each timewith his eyes more brilliant. He was paler, more animated, moreirritable.
One evening he left the post about six o'clock, at the end of thegreatest heat of the day. We waited for him all night. My anxiety wasall the stronger because quite recently caravans had brought tidingsof bands of robbers in the neighborhood of the post.
At dawn he had not returned. He did not come before midday. His camelcollapsed under him, rather than knelt.
He realized that he must excuse himself, but he waited till we werealone at lunch.
"I am so sorry to have caused you any anxiety. But the dunes were sobeautiful under the moon! I let myself be carried farther andfarther...."
"I ha
ve no reproaches to make, dear fellow, you are free, and thechief here. Only allow me to recall to you certain warnings concerningthe Chaamba brigands, and the misfortunes that might arise from aCommandant of a post absenting himself too long."
He smiled.
"I don't dislike such evidence of a good memory," he said simply.
He was in excellent, too excellent spirits.
"Don't blame me. I set out for a short ride as usual. Then, the moonrose. And then, I recognized the country. It is just where, twentyyears ago next November, Flatters followed the way to his destiny inan exaltation which the certainty of not returning made keener andmore intense."
"Strange state of mind for a chief of an expedition," I murmured.
"Say nothing against Flatters. No man ever loved the desert as hedid ... even to dying of it."
"Palat and Douls, among many others, have loved it as much," Ianswered. "But they were alone when they exposed themselves to it.Responsible only for their own lives, they were free. Flatters, on theother hand, was responsible for sixty lives. And you cannot deny thathe allowed his whole party to be massacred."
The words were hardly out of my lips before I regretted them, Ithought of Chatelain's story, of the officers' club at Sfax, wherethey avoided like the plague any kind of conversation which might leadtheir thoughts toward a certain Morhange-Saint-Avit mission.
Happily I observed that my companion was not listening. His brillianteyes were far away.
"What was your first garrison?" he asked suddenly.
"Auxonne."
He gave an unnatural laugh.
"Auxonne. Province of the Cote d'Or. District of Dijon. Six thousandinhabitants. P.L.M. Railway. Drill school and review. The Colonel'swife receives Thursdays, and the Major's on Saturdays. Leaves everySunday,--the first of the month to Paris, the three others to Dijon.That explains your Judgment of Flatters.
"For my part, my dear fellow, my first garrison was at Boghar. Iarrived there one morning in October, a second lieutenant, agedtwenty, of the First African Batallion, the white chevron on my blacksleeve.... Sun stripe, as the _bagnards_ say in speaking of theirgrades. Boghar! Two days before, from the bridge of the steamer, I hadbegun to see the shores of Africa. I pity all those who, when they seethose pale cliffs for the first time, do not feel a great leap attheir hearts, at the thought that this land prolongs itself thousandsand thousands of leagues.... I was little more than a child, I hadplenty of money. I was ahead of schedule. I could have stopped threeor four days at Algiers to amuse myself. Instead I took the train thatsame evening for Berroughia.
"There, scarcely a hundred kilometers from Algiers, the railwaystopped. Going in a straight line you won't find another until you getto the Cape. The diligence travels at night on account of the heat.When we came to the hills I got out and walked beside the carriage,straining for the sensation, in this new atmosphere, of the kiss ofthe outlying desert.
"About midnight, at the Camp of the Zouaves, a humble post on the roadembankment, overlooking a dry valley whence rose the feverish perfumeof oleander, we changed horses. They had there a troop of convicts andimpressed laborers, under escort of riflemen and convoys to thequarries in the South. In part, rogues in uniform, from the jails ofAlgiers and Douara,--without arms, of course; the otherscivilians--such civilians! this year's recruits, the young bullies ofthe Chapelle and the Goutte-d'Or.
"They left before we did. Then the diligence caught up with them. Froma distance I saw in a pool of moonlight on the yellow road the blackirregular mass of the convoy. Then I heard a weary dirge; the wretcheswere singing. One, in a sad and gutteral voice, gave the couplet,which trailed dismally through the depths of the blue ravines:
"'_Maintenant qu'elle est grande, Elle fait le trottoir, Avec ceux de la bande A Richard-Lenoir_.'
"And the others took up in chorus the horrible refrain:
"'_A la Bastille, a la Bastille, On aime bien, on aime bien Nini Peau d'Chien; Elle est si belle et si gentille A la Bastille_'
"I saw them all in contrast to myself when the diligence passed them.They were terrible. Under the hideous searchlight their eyes shonewith a sombre fire in their pale and shaven faces. The burning duststrangled their raucous voices in their throats. A frightful sadnesstook possession of me.
"When the diligence had left this fearful nightmare behind, I regainedmy self-control.
"'Further, much further South,' I exclaimed to myself, 'to the placesuntouched by this miserable bilgewater of civilization.'
"When I am weary, when I have a moment of anguish and longing to turnback on the road that I have chosen, I think of the prisoners ofBerroughia, and then I am glad to continue on my way.
"But what a reward, when I am in one of those places where the pooranimals never think of fleeing because they have never seen man, wherethe desert stretches out around me so widely that the old world couldcrumble, and never a single ripple on the dune, a single cloud in thewhite sky come to warn me.
"'It is true,' I murmured. 'I, too, once, in the middle of the desert,at Tidi-Kelt, I felt that way.'"
Up to that time I had let him enjoy his exaltations withoutinterruption. I understood too late the error that I had made inpronouncing that unfortunate sentence.
His mocking nervous laughter began anew.
"Ah! Indeed, at Tidi-Kelt? I beg you, old man, in your own interest,if you don't want to make an ass of yourself, avoid that species ofreminiscence. Honestly, you make me think of Fromentin, or that poorMaupassant, who talked of the desert because he had been to Djelfa,two days' journey from the street of Bab-Azound and the Governmentbuildings, four days from the Avenue de l'Opera;--and who, because hesaw a poor devil of a camel dying near Bou-Saada, believed himself inthe heart of the desert, on the old route of the caravans....Tidi-Kelt, the desert!"
"It seems to me, however, that In-Salah--" I said, a little vexed.
"In-Salah? Tidi-Kelt! But, my poor friend, the last time that I passedthat way there were as many old newspapers and empty sardine boxes asif it had been Sunday in the Wood of Vincennes."
Such a determined, such an evident desire to annoy me made me forgetmy reserve.
"Evidently," I replied resentfully, "I have never been to--"
I stopped myself, but it was already too late.
He looked at me, squarely in the face.
"To where?" he said with good humor.
I did not answer.
"To where?" he repeated.
And, as I remained strangled in my muteness:
"To Wadi Tarhit, do you mean?"
It was on the east bank of Wadi Tarhit, a hundred and twentykilometers from Timissao, at 25.5 degrees north latitude, according tothe official report, that Captain Morhange was buried.
"Andre," I cried stupidly, "I swear to you--"
"What do you swear to me?"
"That I never meant--"
"To speak of Wadi Tarhit? Why? Why should you not speak to me of WadiTarhit?"
In answer to my supplicating silence, he merely shrugged hisshoulders.
"Idiot," was all he said.
And he left me before I could think of even one word to say.
So much humility on my part had, however, not disarmed him. I had theproof of it the next day, and the way he showed his humor was evenmarked by an exhibition of wretchedly poor taste.
I was just out of bed when he came into my room.
"Can you tell me what is the meaning of this?" he demanded.
He had in his hand one of the official registers. In his nervouscrises he always began sorting them over, in the hope of finding somepretext for making himself militarily insupportable.
This time chance had favored him.
He opened the register. I blushed violently at seeing the poor proofof a photograph that I knew well.
"What is that?" he repeated disdainfully.
Too often I had surprised him in the act of regarding, none tookindly, the portrait of Mlle. de C. which hung in my room no
t to beconvinced at that moment that he was trying to pick a quarrel with me.
I controlled myself, however, and placed the poor little print in thedrawer.
But my calmness did not pacify him.
"Henceforth," he said, "take care, I beg you, not to mix mementoes ofyour gallantry with the official papers."
He added, with a smile that spoke insult:
"It isn't necessary to furnish objects of excitation to Gourrut."
"Andre," I said, and I was white, "I demand--"
He stood up to the full height of his stature.
"Well what is it? A gallantry, nothing more. I have authorized you tospeak of Wadi Halfa, haven't I? Then I have the right, I shouldthink--"
"Andre!"
Now he was looking maliciously at the wall, at the little portrait thereplica of which I had just subjected to this painful scene.
"There, there, I say, you aren't angry, are you? But between ourselvesyou will admit, will you not, that she is a little thin?"
And before I could find time to answer him, he had removed himself,humming the shameful refrain of the previous night:
"_A la Bastille, a la Bastille, On aime bien, on aime bien, Nini, Peau de Chien_."
For three days neither of us spoke to the other. My exasperation wastoo deep for words. Was I, then, to be held responsible for hisavatars! Was it my fault if, between two phrases, one seemed alwayssome allusion--
"The situation is intolerable," I said to myself. "It cannot lastlonger."
It was to cease very soon.
One week after the scene of the photograph the courier arrived. I hadscarcely glanced at the index of the _Zeitschrift_, the German reviewof which I have already spoken, when I started with uncontrollableamazement. I had just read: _"Reise und Entdeckungen zweifronzosischer offiziere, Rittmeisters Morhange und Oberleutnants deSaint-Avit, in westlichen Sahara."_
At the same time I heard my comrade's voice.
"Anything interesting in this number?"
"No," I answered carelessly.
"Let's see."
I obeyed; what else was there to do?
It seemed to me that he grew paler as he ran over the index. However,his tone was altogether natural when he said:
"You will let me borrow it, of course?"
And he went out, casting me one defiant glance.
* * * * *
The day passed slowly. I did not see him again until evening. He wasgay, very gay, and his gaiety hurt me.
When we had finished dinner, we went out and leaned on the balustradeof the terrace. From there out swept the desert, which the darknesswas already encroaching upon from the east.
Andre broke the silence.
"By the way, I have returned your review to you. You were right, it isnot interesting."
His expression was one of supreme amusement.
"What is it, what is the matter with you, anyway?"
"Nothing," I answered, my throat aching.
"Nothing? Shall I tell you what is the matter with you?"
I looked at him with an expression of supplication.
"Idiot," he found it necessary to repeat once more.
Night fell quickly. Only the southern slope of Wadi Mia was stillyellow. Among the boulders a little jackal was running about, yappingsharply.
"The _dib_ is making a fuss about nothing, bad business," saidSaint-Avit.
He continued pitilessly:
"Then you aren't willing to say anything?"
I made a great effort, to produce the following pitiful phrase:
"What an exhausting day. What a night, heavy, heavy--You don't feellike yourself, you don't know any more--"
"Yes," said the voice of Saint-Avit, as from a distance, "A heavy,heavy night: as heavy, do you know, as when I killed CaptainMorhange."