Atlantida

"'I don't know what has come over the natives. They are working like

angels. If they keep on this way, Colonel, we shall be able to leave

this evening.' "'Very good,' said the Colonel, 'but don't let them spoil the job by

too much haste. We don't have to be at Ansango before the end of the

week. It will be better to start in the morning.' "I trembled. Suppliantly I approached and told him the story of my

dream. He listened with a smile of astonishment; then, at the last, he

said gravely: "'It is agreed, little Tanit-Zerga. We will leave this evening if you

wish it.' "And he kissed me.

"The darkness had already fallen when the gunboat, now repaired, left

the harbor. My friend stood in the midst of the group of Frenchmen who

waved their caps as long as we could see them. Standing alone on the

rickety jetty, I waited, watching the water flow by, until the last

sound of the steam-driven vessel, boum-baraboum, had died away into

the night."[16] [Footnote 16: Cf. the records and the Bulletin de la Société de

Géographie de Paris (1897) for the cruises on the Niger, made by the

Commandant of the Timbuctoo region, Colonel Joffre, Lieutenants

Baudry and Bluset, and by Father Hacquart of the White Fathers. (Note

by M. Leroux.)] Tanit-Zerga paused.

"That was the last night of Gâo. While I was sleeping and the moon was

still high above the forest, a dog yelped, but only for an instant.

Then came the cry of men, then of women, the kind of cry that you can

never forget if you have once heard it. When the sun rose, it found

me, quite naked, running and stumbling towards the north with my

little companions, beside the swiftly moving camels of the Tuareg who

escorted us. Behind, followed the women of the tribe, my mother among

them, two by two, the yoke upon their necks. There were not many men.

Almost all lay with their throats cut under the ruins of the thatch of

Gâo beside my father, brave Sonni-Azkia. Once again Gâo had been razed

by a band of Awellimiden, who had come to massacre the French on their

gunboat.

"The Tuareg hurried us, hurried us, for they were afraid of being

pursued. We traveled thus for ten days; and, as the millet and hemp

disappeared, the march became more frightful. Finally, near Isakeryen,

in the country of Kidal, the Tuareg sold us to a caravan of Trarzan

Moors who were going from Bamrouk to Rhât. At first, because they went

more slowly, it seemed good fortune. But, before long, the desert was

an expanse of rough pebbles, and the women began to fall. As for the

men, the last of them had died far back under the blows of the stick

for having refused to go farther.