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Updated: June 26, 2025
His only response was a deep moan. Morhange and I leaped to our feet and ran to the guide. Eg-Anteouen reached him as soon as we did. With his eyes closed and his limbs already cold, the Chaamba breathed a death rattle in Morhange's arms. I had seized one of his hands. Eg-Anteouen took the other. Each, in his own way, was trying to divine, to understand.... Suddenly Eg-Anteouen leapt to his feet.
"It is here," Eg-Anteouen replied slowly, rising to his feet. "Take us to it." "Morhange," I said, suddenly anxious, "night is falling. We will see nothing. And perhaps it is still some way off." "It is hardly five hundred paces," Eg-Anteouen replied. "The cave is full of dead underbrush. We will set it on fire and the Captain will see as in full daylight." "Come," my comrade repeated.
"The devil," I thought, finding it more and more difficult to co-ordinate my thoughts, "he seems to be as unstrung as I." I heard him call out to Eg-Anteouen in what seemed to me a loud voice: "Stand to one side. Let the air in. What a smoke!" He kept on working at the signs. Suddenly I heard him again, but with difficulty. It seemed as if even sounds were confused in the smoke.
At seeing us, the men drew together, alert, on the defensive. Eg-Anteouen turned to us and said: "Eggali Tuareg." We went toward them. They were handsome men, those Eggali, the largest Tuareg whom I ever have seen. With unexpected swiftness they drew aside from the well, leaving it to us. Eg-Anteouen spoke a few words to them.
At the same time, I looked at Eg-Anteouen. Absorbed in his prayer, bowed toward the west, apparently he was paying no attention to me. As he prostrated himself, I called again. "Bou-Djema, come with me to my mehari; I want to get something out of the saddle bags." Still kneeling, Eg-Anteouen was mumbling his prayer slowly, composedly. But Bou-Djema had not budged.
"Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh had hold of Colonel Flatters' bridle," put in Eg-Anteouen. "The Colonel puts his foot in the stirrup and receives a cut from Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh's saber," I said. "Captain Masson draws his revolver and fires on Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh, shooting off three fingers of his left hand," said Morhange.
To the west, straight behind us, the track that we were leaving unrolled like a pale ribbon. The white plain, the road to Shikh-Salah, the established halts, the well-known wells.... And, on the other side, this black wall against the mauve sky, this dark passage. I looked at Morhange. "We had better stop here," he said simply. "Eg-Anteouen advises us to take as much water here as we can carry."
"By Ahaggar," he murmured. "But...." "But what?" "I do not know the road." "Eg-Anteouen is going to guide us." "Eg-Anteouen!" I watched Bou-Djema as he made this suppressed ejaculation. His eyes were fixed on the Targa with a mixture of stupor and fright. Eg-Anteouen's camel was a dozen yards ahead of us, side by side with Morhange's. The two men were talking.
Eg-Anteouen showed a little red leather bag hung about his neck on a chain of white seeds. "I have my amulet," he replied gravely, "blessed by the venerable Sidi-Moussa himself. And then I am with you. You saved my life. You have desired to see the inscriptions. The will of Allah be done!" As he finished speaking, he squatted on his heels, drew out his long reed pipe and began to smoke gravely.
I realized that Morhange must be conversing with Eg-Anteouen about the famous inscriptions. But we were not so far behind that they could not have overheard our words. Again I looked at my guide. I saw that he was pale. "What is it, Bou-Djema?" I asked in a low voice. "Not here, Lieutenant, not here," he muttered. His teeth chattered. He added in a whisper: "Not here.
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