Atlantida

Morhange kept on smiling.

"Dear friend, don't wither me. Deign to recall that your mission was

confided to you by the Ministry of War, while I hold mine on behalf of

the Ministry of Public Instruction. A different origin justifies our

different aims. It certainly explains, I readily concede that to you,

why what I am in search of has no practical value."

"You are also authorized by the Ministry of Commerce," I replied,

playing my next card. "By this chief you are instructed to study the

possibility of restoring the old trade route of the ninth century. But

on this point don't attempt to mislead me; with your knowledge of the

history and geography of the Sahara, your mind must have been made up

before you left Paris. The road from Djerid to the Niger is dead,

stone dead. You knew that no important traffic would pass by this

route before you undertook to study the possibility of restoring it."

Morhange looked me full in the face.

"And if that should be so," he said with the most charming attitude,

"if I had before leaving the conviction you say, what do you conclude

from that?"

"I should prefer to have you tell me."

"Simply, my dear boy, that I had less skill than you in finding the

pretext for my voyage, that I furnished less good reasons for the true

motives that brought me here."

"A pretext? I don't see...."

"Be sincere in your turn, if you please. I am sure that you have the

greatest desire to inform the Arabian Office about the practices of

the Senoussis. But admit that the information that you will obtain is

not the sole and innermost aim of your excursion. You are a geologist,

my friend. You have found a chance to gratify your taste in this trip.

No one would think of blaming you because you have known how to

reconcile what is useful to your country and agreeable to yourself.

But, for the love of God, don't deny it; I need no other proof than

your presence here on this side of the Tidifest, a very curious place

from a mineralogical point of view, but some hundred and fifty

kilometers south of your official route."

It was not possible to have countered me with a better grace. I

parried by attacking.

"Am I to conclude from all this that I do not know the real aims of

your trip, and that they have nothing to do with the official

motives?"

I had gone a bit too far. I felt it from the seriousness with which

Morhange's reply was delivered.