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Updated: June 26, 2025
This evening, when we stop, when he turns to the East to pray, when the sun goes down. Then, call me to you. I will tell you.... But not here. He is talking, but he is listening. Go ahead. Join the Captain." "What next?" I murmured, pressing my camel's neck with my foot so as to make him overtake Morhange. It was about five o'clock when Eg-Anteouen who was leading the way, came to a stop.
The sun in the west was no larger than a red brand. We saw Eg-Anteouen approach the fountain, spread his blue burnous on the ground and kneel upon it. "I did not suppose that the Tuareg were so observant of Mussulman tradition," said Morhange. "Nor I," I replied thoughtfully. But I had something to do at that moment besides making such speculations. "Bou-Djema," I called.
I have given up the idea of going straight to Timissao. First I should like to make a little excursion into the interior of the Ahaggar range." I frowned: "What is this new idea?" As I spoke I looked about for Eg-Anteouen, whom I had seen in conversation with Morhange the previous evening and several minutes before.
"Are you mad?" he yelled in my face. "Not so loud," I replied with the same little laugh. He looked at me again, and sank down, overcome, on a rock opposite me. Eg-Anteouen was still smoking placidly at the mouth of the cave. We could see the red circle of his pipe glowing in the darkness. "Madman! Madman!" repeated Morhange. His voice seemed to stick in his throat.
"What did he say?" asked Morhange, who had seen the gesture. "Blad-el-Khouf. This is the country of fear. That is what the Arabs call Ahaggar." Bou-Djema went a little distance off and sat down, leaving us to our dinner. Squatting on his heels, he began to eat a few lettuce leaves that he had kept for his own meal. Eg-Anteouen was still motionless. Suddenly the Targa rose.
"They spoke with respect, even with fear," I said to Eg-Anteouen. "And yet the tribe of the Eggali is noble. And that of the Kel-Tahats, to which you tell me you belong, is a slave tribe." A smile lighted the dark eyes of Eg-Anteouen. "It is true," he said. "Well then?" "I told them that we three, the Captain, you and I, were bound for the Mountain of the Evil Spirits."
Eg-Anteouen, in the same squatting position, kept on patching his old slipper. I took a step toward him. "You heard what I said to the Captain?" "Yes," the Targa answered calmly. "I am going with him. We leave you at Tit, to which place you must bring us. Where is the place you proposed to show the Captain?" "I did not propose to show it to him; it was his own idea," said the Targa coldly.
From that time on, Eg-Anteouen was our master. We could only trust ourselves to him. He went first; Morhange followed him, and I brought up the rear. We passed at every step most curious specimens of volcanic rock. But I did not examine them. I was no longer interested in such things. Another kind of curiosity had taken possession of me. I had come to share Morhange's madness.
Watching Eg-Anteouen closely, I saw him hasten without a word to the rock where our dinner was set, a second later, he was again beside us, holding out the bowl of lettuce which he had not yet touched. Then he took a thick, long, pale green leaf from Bou-Djema's bowl and held it beside another leaf he had just taken from our bowl. "Afahlehle," was all he said. I shuddered, and so did Morhange.
It was the afahlehla, the falestez, of the Arabs of the Sahara, the terrible plant which had killed a part of the Flatters mission more quickly and surely than Tuareg arms. Eg-Anteouen stood up. His tall silhouette was outlined blackly against the sky which suddenly had turned pale lilac. He was watching us. We bent again over the unfortunate guide.
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