V
THE INSCRIPTION
With a blow of the tip of his cane Morhange knocked a fragment of rockfrom the black flank of the mountain.
"What is it?" he asked, holding it out to me.
"A basaltic peridot," I said.
"It can't be very interesting, you barely glanced at it."
"It is very interesting, on the contrary. But, for the moment, I admitthat I am otherwise preoccupied."
"How?"
"Look this way a bit," I said, showing towards the west, on thehorizon, a black spot across the white plain.
It was six o'clock in the morning. The sun had risen. But it could notbe found in the surprisingly polished air. And not a breath of air,not a breath. Suddenly one of the camels called. An enormous antelopehad just come in sight, and had stopped in its flight, terrified,racing the wall of rock. It stayed there at a little distance from us,dazed, trembling on its slender legs.
Bou-Djema had rejoined us.
"When the legs of the mohor tremble it is because the firmament isshaken," he muttered.
"A storm?"
"Yes, a storm."
"And you find that alarming?"
I did not answer immediately. I was exchanging several brief wordswith Bou-Djema, who was occupied in soothing the camels which weregiving signs of being restive.
Morhange repeated his question. I shrugged my shoulders.
"Alarming? I don't know. I have never seen a storm on the Hoggar. ButI distrust it. And the signs are that this is going to be a big one.See there already."
A slight dust had risen before the cliff. In the still air a fewgrains of sand had begun to whirl round and round, with a speed whichincreased to dizziness, giving us in advance the spectacle inminiature of what would soon be breaking upon us.
With harsh cries a flock of wild geese appeared, flying low. They cameout of the west.
"They are fleeing towards the Sebkha d'Amanghor," said Bou-Djema.
There could be no greater mistake, I thought.
Morhange looked at me curiously.
"What must we do?" he asked.
"Mount our camels immediately, before they are completelydemoralized, and hurry to find shelter in some high places. Takeaccount of our situation. It is easy to follow the bed of a stream.But within a quarter of an hour perhaps the storm will have burst.Within a half hour a perfect torrent will be rushing here. On thissoil, which is almost impermeable, rain will roll like a pail of waterthrown on a bituminous pavement. No depth, all height. Look at this."
And I showed him, a dozen meters high, long hollow gouges, marks offormer erosions on the rocky wall.
"In an hour the waters will reach that height. Those are the marks ofthe last inundation. Let us get started. There is not an instant tolose."
"All right," Morhange replied tranquilly.
We had the greatest difficulty to make the camels kneel. When we hadthrown ourselves into the saddle they started off at a pace whichtheir terror rendered more and more disorderly.
Of a sudden the wind began, a formidable wind, and, almost at the sametime the light was eclipsed in the ravine. Above our heads the sky hadbecome, in the flash of an eye, darker than the walls of the canyonwhich we were descending at a breathless pace.
"A path, a stairway in the wall," I screamed against the wind to mycompanions. "If we don't find one in a minute we are lost."
They did not hear me, but, turning in my saddle, I saw that they hadlost no distance, Morhange following me, and Bou-Djema in the reardriving the two baggage camels masterfully before him.
A blinding streak of lightning rent the obscurity. A peal of thunder,re-echoed to infinity by the rocky wall, rang out, and immediatelygreat tepid drops began to fall. In an instant, our burnouses, whichhad been blown out behind by the speed with which we were traveling,were stuck tight to our streaming bodies.
"Saved!" I exclaimed suddenly.
Abruptly on our right a crevice opened in the midst of the wall. Itwas the almost perpendicular bed of a stream, an affluent of the onewe had had the unfortunate idea of following that morning. Already averitable torrent was gushing over it with a fine uproar.
I have never better appreciated the incomparable sure-footedness ofcamels in the most precipitate places. Bracing themselves, stretchingout their great legs, balancing themselves among the rocks that werebeginning to be swept loose, our camels accomplished at that momentwhat the mules of the Pyrannees might have failed in.
After several moments of superhuman effort we found ourselves at lastout of danger, on a kind of basaltic terrace, elevated some fiftymeters above the channel of the stream we had just left. Luck was withus; a little grotto opened out behind. Bou-Djema succeeded insheltering the camels there. From its threshold we had leisure tocontemplate in silence the prodigious spectacle spread out before us.
You have, I believe, been at the Camp of Chalons for artillery drills.You have seen when the shell bursts how the chalky soil of the Marneeffervesces like the inkwells at school, when we used to throw a pieceof calcium carbonate into them. Well, it was almost like that, but inthe midst of the desert, in the midst of obscurity. The white watersrushed into the depths of the black hole, and rose and rose towardsthe pedestal on which we stood. And there was the uninterrupted noiseof thunder, and still louder, the sound of whole walls of rock,undermined by the flood, collapsing in a heap and dissolving in a fewseconds of time in the midst of the rising water.
All the time that this deluge lasted, one hour, perhaps two, Morhangeand I stayed bending over this fantastic foaming vat; anxious to see,to see everything, to see in spite of everything; rejoicing with akind of ineffable horror when we felt the shelf of basalt on which wehad taken refuge swaying beneath us from the battering impact of thewater. I believe that never for an instant did we think, so beautifulit was, of wishing for the end of that gigantic nightmare.
Finally a ray of the sun shone through. Only then did we look at eachother.
Morhange held out his hand.
"Thank you," he said simply.
And he added with a smile:
"To be drowned in the very middle of the Sahara would have beenpretentious and ridiculous. You have saved us, thanks to your power ofdecision, from this very paradoxical end."
Ah, that he had been thrown by a misstep of his camel and rolled tohis death in the midst of the flood! Then what followed would neverhave happened. That is the thought that comes to me in hours ofweakness. But I have told you that I pull myself out of it quickly.No, no, I do not regret it, I cannot regret it, that what happened didhappen.
* * * * *
Morhange left me to go into the little grotto, where Bou-Djema'scamels were now resting comfortably. I stayed alone, watching thetorrent which was continuously rising with the impetuous inrush of itsunbridled tributaries. It had stopped raining. The sun shone from asky that had renewed its blueness. I could feel the clothes that had amoment before been drenching, drying upon me incredibly fast.
A hand was placed on my shoulder. Morhange was again beside me.
"Come here," he said.
Somewhat surprised, I followed him. We went into the grotto.
The opening, which was big enough to admit the camels, made it fairlylight. Morhange led me up to the smooth face of rock opposite. "Look,"he said, with unconcealed joy.
"What of it?"
"Don't you see?"
"I see that there are several Tuareg inscriptions," I answered, withsome disappointment. "But I thought I had told you that I read Tifinarwriting very badly. Are these writings more interesting than theothers we have come upon before?"
"Look at this one," said Morhange. There was such an accent of triumphin his tone that this time I concentrated my attention.
I looked again.
The characters of the inscription were arranged in the form of across. It plays such an important part in this adventure that I cannotforego retracing it for you.
|
| +o o o o -- W + -- - | | |
[Transcriber's Note: This is but a crude ASCII representation of theinscription. The center 'W' is rotated 90 degrees counter-clockwise inthe book.]
It was designed with great regularity, and the characters were cutdeep into the rock. Although I knew so little of rock inscriptions atthat time I had no difficulty in recognizing the antiquity of thisone.
Morhange became more and more radiant as he regarded it.
I looked at him questioningly.
"Well, what have you to say now?" he asked.
"What do you want me to say? I tell you that I can barely readTifinar."
"Shall I help you?" he suggested.
This course in Berber writing, after the emotions through which we hadjust passed, seemed to me a little inopportune. But Morhange was sovisibly delighted that I could not dash his joy.
"Very well then," began my companion, as much at his, ease as if he hadbeen before a blackboard, "what will strike you first about thisinscription is its repetition in the form of a cross. That is to saythat 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 naturallyin the middle. This arrangement which is unique in Tifinar writing, isalready remarkable enough. But there is better still. Now we will readit."
Getting it wrong three times out of seven I finally succeeded, withMorhange'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 withoutbounds.
"You have said it. That is why the discovery is unique."
"Why?"
"There is really nothing, either in Berber or in Arabian, analogous tothis 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 Tifinaralphabet. It has here been replaced by the phonetic sign which isnearest to it,--h. Restore _e_ to the place which belongs to it in theword, and you have--"
"Antinea."
"'Antinea,' precisely. We find ourselves before a Greek vocablereproduced in Tifinar. And I think that now you will agree with methat 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 wasstill foaming and no one could predict when it would fall. Inmid-stream, struggling desperately in the current, was anextraordinary mass, gray and soft and swaying.
But what at the first glance overwhelmed us with astonishment was tosee Bou-Djema, usually so calm, at this moment apparently besidehimself with frenzy, bounding through the gullies and over the rocksof 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 abeast in despair.
"The fool," I cried, "he has let one of our beasts get loose, and thestream 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 anguishwe just heard, that was not Bou-Djema either. Bou-Djema is a braveChaamb who has at this moment only one idea, to appropriate theintestate 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 isdescending at such a rate."
And without waiting for my answer he had already set out through therecently washed gullies of the rocky bank.
At that moment it can be truly said that Morhange went to meet hisdestiny.
I followed him. We had the greatest difficulty in proceeding two orthree hundred meters. Finally we saw at our feet a little rushingbrook 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 longdark blue robes of the Tuareg.
"Give me your hand," said Morhange, "and brace yourself against arock, 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 aquestion of getting him to the grotto. This is no place to resuscitatea 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 cottonclothes were almost dry. But the dye had run plentifully, and it wasan indigo man that Morhange was trying to recall to life.
When I had made him swallow a quart of rum he opened his eyes, lookedat the two of us with surprise, then, closing them again, murmuredalmost unintelligibly a phrase, the sense of which we did not getuntil 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 hadbetter open some preserved food. With fellows of this build you don'thave to observe the precautions prescribed for drowned Europeans."
It was indeed a species of giant, whose life we had just saved. Hisface, although very thin, was regular, almost beautiful. He had aclear skin and little beard. His hair, already white, showed him to bea man of sixty years.
When I placed a tin of corned-beef before him a light of voracious joycame 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 ourquestions without scruple."
Already the Targa had placed over his forehead and face the blue veilprescribed by the ritual. He must have been completely famished not tohave performed this indispensable formality sooner. There was nothingvisible now but the eyes, watching us with a light that grew steadilymore 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 hisbeast. He in turn told us how it had stumbled, and fallen into thecurrent, and he himself, in trying to save it, had been knocked over.His forehead had struck a rock. He had cried out. After that heremembered 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-Rhela, the greatnobles of Hoggar?"
"Yes," he answered, casting a side glance in my direction. It seemedthat such precise questions on the affairs of Ahygar were not to hisliking.
"The Kel-Tahats, if I am not mistaken, are established on thesouthwest flank of Atakor.[5] What were you doing, so far from yourhome territory when we saved your life?"
[Footnote 5: Another name, in the Temahaq language, for Ahaggar. (Noteby 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 werefixed on a point of the cavern. We looked to see what it was. He hadjust seen the rock inscription which had so d
elighted Morhange an hourbefore.
"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 strangefeeling of rage sweeping over me.
The Targui looked at me. I thought that he was going to speak. But hiseyes became suddenly hard. Under the lustrous veil I saw his featuresstiffening.
Morhange and I turned around.
On the threshold of the cavern, breathless, discomfited, harassed byan hour of vain pursuit, Bou-Djema had returned to us.