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"Everything?" asked Morhange in a calm voice. "Everything," Le Mesge insisted emphatically. "You will forget all, you will renounce all." From outside, a faint sound came to us. Le Mesge consulted his watch. "In any case, you will see." The door opened. A tall white Targa, the tallest we had yet seen in this remarkable abode, entered and came toward us.
He collected the papers which Morhange had dropped in his amazement, counted them, arranged them; then, casting a peevish glance at us, he struck a copper gong. The portiére was raised again. A huge white Targa entered. I seemed to recognize him as one of the genii of the cave. While the nobles are clad in blue cotton robes, the serfs wear white robes, hence their name of "white Tuareg."
From time to time, a white Targa, mute and expressionless as a phantom, would pass us and we would hear the clatter of his slippers die away behind us. M. Le Mesge stopped before a heavy door covered with the same pale metal which I had noticed on the walls of the library. He opened it and stood aside to let us pass.
During our short walk, I heard Tanit-Zerga's teeth chattering with terror. We reached a little cave. "Go in," said the Targa. He lighted a torch. The red light showed a superb mehari peacefully chewing his cud. "The little one is not stupid," said Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh, pointing to the animal. "She knows enough to pick out the best and the strongest. But she is rattle-brained."
Low steps sounded in the corridor. Antinea immediately fell back into the nonchalant pose in which I had first seen her. One had to see such a transformation to believe it possible. Morhange entered the room, preceded by a white Targa. He, too, seemed rather pale. But I was most struck by the expression of serene peace on that face which I thought I knew so well.
The fairest conclusion is, that they are the descendants of the ancient Numidian tribes. The Arabic terms employed here to name the Touaricks are توارق plural and توارقي singular. Indeed, Targhee is the more correct name, and Touarghee is an enlarged Arabic form. So Leo Africanus speaks of these tribes of The Desert as "Targa Popolo."
"All that I risk here now," I said to myself, "is being led back politely to my room." The Targa lifted a curtain. I followed on his heels into the chamber of Antinea. The room was huge and at once well lighted and very dark. While the right half, where Antinea was, gleamed under shaded lamps, the left was dim.
He had said nothing about returning to the islet, but she had felt sure he would return, if only in the hope of being given some more cigarettes. Boys in his position, she knew well, do not get a present of Khali Targa cigarettes every day of the week. How happy he had looked when he was smoking them!
I was filled with emotion at this last moment; I went to the Targa and took his hand. "Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh," I asked in a low voice, "why are you doing this?" He stepped back and I saw his dark eyes gleam. "Why?" he said. "Yes, why?" He replied with dignity: "The Prophet permits every just man, once in his lifetime, to let pity take the place of duty.
But his eyes became suddenly hard. Under the lustrous veil I saw his features stiffening. Morhange and I turned around. On the threshold of the cavern, breathless, discomfited, harassed by an hour of vain pursuit, Bou-Djema had returned to us. As Eg-Anteouen and Bou-Djema came face to face, I fancied that both the Targa and the Chaamba gave a sudden start which each immediately repressed.
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