United States or Netherlands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"I can," I said very calmly. He took a large white card from a box which contained several and dipped his pen. "Number 54 ... Captain?" "Captain Jean-Marie-François Morhange." While I dictated, one hand resting on the table, I noticed on my cuff a stain, a little stain, reddish brown. "Morhange," repeated M. Le Mesge, finishing the lettering of my friend's name. "Born at...?" "Villefranche."
On the pale water of the little pool, motionless and fixed like a silver nail, a star had just been born. "Shikh-Salah," I murmured, my heart full of an indefinable sadness. "Patience, we are not there yet." In truth, we never were to be there. With a blow of the tip of his cane Morhange knocked a fragment of rock from the black flank of the mountain. "What is it?" he asked, holding it out to me.
There was a pause. Morhange was calmly fingering the orichalch ring. "You know what our fate is to be?" "I know. Le Mesge explained it to us yesterday in polite mythological terms. This evidently is an extraordinary adventure." He was silent, then said, looking at me: "I am very sorry to have dragged you here.
"The camel which carries your baggage belongs to you as much as does your own mehari," I answered coldly. We stood there several minutes without speaking. Morhange maintained an uneasy silence; I was examining my map.
A laughable surprise spread over the features of the little old man. He hastily wiped his spectacles. "What!" he finally cried. "It is indeed unfortunate, in this matter," Morhange continued imperturbably, "that we are not in possession of the curious dissertation devoted to this burning question by Statius Sebosus, a work which we know only through Pliny and which...."
I had not taken my eyes off Morhange, who was still standing. "Major, gentlemen, you will allow me," he said. And before sitting down at that table, where every moment he was the life of the party, in a low voice, with his eyes closed, Captain Morhange recited the Benedicite.
"Lieutenant de Saint-Avit," it said briefly, "will delay his departure until the arrival of Captain Morhange, who will accompany him on his expedition of exploration." I was more than disappointed. I alone had had the idea of this expedition. I had had all the difficulty that you can imagine to make the authorities agree to it.
"The idea! With me, sir? It is with the Tuareg that he plays. He teaches them every game imaginable. There, that is he who is striking the gong to hurry us up. It is half past nine, and the Salle de Trente et Quarante opens at ten o'clock. Let us hurry. I suppose that anyway you will not be averse to a little refreshment." "Indeed we shall not refuse," Morhange replied.
For a moment the only inhabitant of these solitudes, a bird, a kind of indeterminate heron, rose and hung in the air, as if suspended from a thread, only to sink back to rest as soon as we had passed. I led the way, selecting the route, Morhange followed.
I believe that never for an instant did we think, so beautiful it was, of wishing for the end of that gigantic nightmare. Finally a ray of the sun shone through. Only then did we look at each other. Morhange held out his hand. "Thank you," he said simply. And he added with a smile: "To be drowned in the very middle of the Sahara would have been pretentious and ridiculous.
Word Of The Day