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Updated: June 10, 2025
The time came to pass into the dining-room. "At my right, Captain," cried the Major, more and more beaming. "And I hope you will keep on giving us these new lines on Paris. We are not up with the times here, you know." "Yours to command, Major," said Morhange. "Be seated, gentlemen." The officers obeyed, with a joyous clatter of moving chairs.
A draught of cold air from the door again made the flames of the copper torches flicker and threw great shadows about us. Morhange and I remained as motionless as the pale metal specters which surrounded us. Suddenly I pulled myself together and staggered forward to the niche beside that in which they just had laid the remains of the English major. I looked for the label.
"Afahlehle," the Targa repeated, and shook his head. Bou-Djema died in the middle of the night without having regained consciousness. "It is curious," said Morhange, "to see how our expedition, uneventful since we left Ouargla, is now becoming exciting." He said this after kneeling for a moment in prayer before the painfully dug grave in which we had lain the guide. I do not believe in God.
This is no place to resuscitate a drowned man." He raised the body in his powerful arms. "It is astonishing how little he weighs for a man of his height." By the time we had retraced the way to the grotto the man's cotton clothes were almost dry. But the dye had run plentifully, and it was an indigo man that Morhange was trying to recall to life.
When we had come up even with it we saw that it was a man in the long dark blue robes of the Tuareg. "Give me your hand," said Morhange, "and brace yourself against a rock, hard." He was very, very strong. In an instant, as if it were child's play, he had brought the body ashore. "He is still alive," he pronounced with satisfaction. "Now it is a question of getting him to the grotto.
The last words of poor Bou-Djema came to my mind. "The country of fear," I murmured in a low voice. And Morhange repeated: "The country of fear." The strange concert ceased as the first stars appeared in the sky. With deep emotion we watched the tiny bluish flames appear, one after another.
"You lose all sense of direction in this labyrinth," I muttered to Morhange. "Worse still, you will lose your head," answered my companion sotto voce. "This old fool is certainly very learned; but God knows what he is driving at. However, he has promised that we are soon to know." M. Le Mesge had stopped before a heavy dark door, all incrusted with strange symbols.
Although I knew so little of rock inscriptions at that time I had no difficulty in recognizing the antiquity of this one. Morhange became more and more radiant as he regarded it. I looked at him questioningly. "Well, what have you to say now?" he asked. "What do you want me to say? I tell you that I can barely read Tifinar." "Shall I help you?" he suggested.
"You might have untied me, too," I remarked crossly. "What good would it have done? I should only have waked you up. And I thought that your first word would be to call me. There, that's done." I reeled as I tried to stand on my feet. Morhange smiled. "We might have spent the whole night smoking and drinking and not been in a worse state," he said.
In the name of God, am I or am I not at Ahaggar? It was broad daylight when I opened my eyes. I thought at once of Morhange. I could not see him, but I heard him, close by, giving little grunts of surprise. I called to him. He ran to me. "Then they didn't tie you up?" I asked. "I beg your pardon. They did. But they did it badly; I managed to get free."
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