Atlantida

"The evening of the day after to-morrow," I said, "we shall be setting

out on the stage which will take us, by the next dawn, to the waters

at Telemsi. Once there, we shall not have to worry any more about

water."

Tanit-Zerga's eyes danced in her thin face.

"And Gâo?" she asked.

"We will be only a week from the Niger. And Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh said

that at Telemsi, one reached a road overhung with mimosa."

"I know the mimosa," she said. "They are the little yellow balls that

melt in your hand. But I like the caper flowers better. You will come

with me to Gâo. My father, Sonni-Azkia, was killed, as I told you, by

the Awellimiden. But my people must have rebuilt the villages. They

are used to that. You will see how you will be received."

"I will go, Tanit-Zerga, I promise you. But you also, you must promise

me...."

"What? Oh, I guess. You must take me for a little fool if you believe

me capable of speaking of things which might make trouble for my

friend."

She looked at me as she spoke. Privation and great fatigue had

chiselled the brown face where her great eyes shone.... Since then, I

have had time to assemble the maps and compasses, and to fix forever

the spot where, for the first time, I understood the beauty of

Tanit-Zerga's eyes.

There was a deep silence between us. It was she who broke it.

"Night is coming. We must eat so as to leave as soon as possible."

She stood up and went toward the rocks.

Almost immediately, I heard her calling in an anguished voice that

sent a chill through me.

"Come! Oh, come see!"

With a bound, I was at her side.

"The camel," she murmured. "The camel!"

I looked, and a deadly shudder seized me.

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.