Atlantida

These two days he had passed in conversation with the old Negro

guardian of the turbet, which preserves, under its plaster dome, the

remains of the venerated Sidi-Moussa. The confidences they exchanged,

I am sorry to say that I have forgotten. But from the Negro's amazed

admiration, I realized the ignorance in which I stood to the mysteries

of the desert, and how familiar they were to my companion.

And if you want to get any idea of the extraordinary originality which

Morhange introduced into such surroundings, you who, after all, have a

certain familiarity with the tropics, listen to this. It was exactly

two hundred kilometers from here, in the vicinity of the Great Dune,

in that horrible stretch of six days without water. We had just enough

for two days before reaching the next well, and you know these wells;

as Flatters wrote to his wife, "you have to work for hours before you

can clean them out and succeed in watering beasts and men." By chance

we met a caravan there, which was going east towards Rhadamès, and had

come too far north. The camels' humps, shrunken and shaking, bespoke

the sufferings of the troop. Behind came a little gray ass, a pitiful

burrow, interfering at every step, and lightened of its pack because

the merchants knew that it was going to die. Instinctively, with its

last strength, it followed, knowing that when it could stagger no

longer, the end would come and the flutter of the bald vultures'

wings. I love animals, which I have solid reasons for preferring to

men. But never should I have thought of doing what Morhange did then.

I tell you that our water skins were almost dry, and that our own

camels, without which one is lost in the empty desert, had not been

watered for many hours. Morhange made his kneel, uncocked a skin, and

made the little ass drink. I certainly felt gratification at seeing

the poor bare flanks of the miserable beast pant with satisfaction. But

the responsibility was mine. Also I had seen Bou-Djema's aghast

expression, and the disapproval of the thirsty members of the caravan.

I remarked on it. How it was received! "What have I given," replied

Morhange, "was my own. We will reach El-Biodh to-morrow evening, about

six o'clock. Between here and there I know that I shall not be

thirsty." And that in a tone, in which for the first time he allowed

the authority of a Captain to speak. "That is easy to say," I thought,

ill-humoredly. "He knows that when he wants them, my water-skin, and

Bou-Djema's, are at his service." But I did not yet know Morhange very

well, and it is true that until the evening of the next day when we

reached El-Biodh, refusing our offers with smiling determination, he

drank nothing.