Atlantida by Pierre Benoît (whitelam books txt) 📗

"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. 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.

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.

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. He had just seen the poor embossed bowl which the Arab had held an instant before between his knees, and which now lay overturned upon the ground.

He picked it up, looked quickly at one after another of the leaves of lettuce remaining in it, and then gave a hoarse exclamation.

"So," said Morhange, "it's his turn now; he is going to go mad."

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.

"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. But if anything can influence whatever powers there may be, whether of good or of evil, of light or of darkness, it is the prayer of such a man.

For two days we picked our way through a gigantic chaos of black rock in what might have been the country of the moon, so barren was it. No sound but that of stones rolling under the feet of the camels and striking like gunshots at the foot of the precipices.

A strange march indeed. For the first few hours, I tried to pick out, by compass, the route we were following. But my calculations were soon upset; doubtless a mistake due to the swaying motion of the camel. I put the compass back in one of my saddle-bags. 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. If my companion had said to me: "We are doing a very rash thing. Let us go back to the known trails," I should have replied, "You are free to do as you please. But I am going on."

Toward evening of the second day, we found ourselves at the foot of a black mountain whose jagged ramparts towered in profile seven thousand feet above our heads. It was an enormous shadowy fortress, like the outline of a feudal stronghold silhouetted with incredible sharpness against the orange sky.

There was a well, with several trees, the first we had seen since cutting into Ahaggar.

A group of men were standing about it. Their camels, tethered close by, were cropping a mouthful here and there.

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. They looked at Morhange and me with a curiosity bordering on fear, but at any rate, with respect.

I drew several little presents from my saddlebags and was astonished at the reserve of the chief, who refused them. He seemed afraid even of my glance.

When they had gone, I expressed my astonishment at this shyness for which my previous experiences with the tribes of the Sahara had not prepared me.

"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."

With a gesture, he indicated the black mountain.

"They are afraid. All the Tuareg of Ahaggar are afraid of the Mountain of the Evil Spirits. You saw how they were up and off at the very mention of its name."

"It is to the Mountain of the Evil Spirits that you are taking us?" queried Morhange.

"Yes," replied the Targa, "that is where the inscriptions are that I told you about."

"You did not mention that detail to us."

"Why should I? The Tuareg are afraid of the ilhinen, spirits with horns and tails, covered with hair, who make the cattle sicken and die and cast spells over men. But I know well that the Christians are not afraid and even laugh at the fears of the Tuareg."

"And you?" I asked. "You are a Targa and you are not afraid of the ilhinen?"

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.

"All this is beginning to seem very strange," said Morhange, coming over to me.

"You can say that without exaggeration," I replied. "You remember as well as I the passage in which Barth tells of his expedition to the Idinen, the Mountain of the Evil Spirits of the Azdjer Tuareg. The region had so evil a reputation that no Targa would go with him. But he got back."

"Yes, he got back," replied my comrade, "but only after he had been lost. Without water or food, he came so near dying of hunger and thirst that he had to open a vein and drink his own blood. The prospect is not particularly attractive."

I shrugged my shoulders. After all, it was not my fault that we were there.

Morhange understood my gesture and thought it necessary to make excuses.

"I should be curious," he went on with rather forced gaiety, "to meet these spirits and substantiate the facts of Pomponius Mela who knew them and locates them, in fact, in the mountain of the Tuareg. He calls them Egipans, Blemyens, Gamphasantes, Satyrs.... 'The Gamphasantes, he says, 'are naked. The Blemyens have no head: their faces are placed on their chests; the Satyrs have nothing like men except faces. The Egipans are made as is commonly described.' ... Satyrs, Egipans ... isn't it very strange to find Greek names given to the barbarian spirits of this region? Believe me, we are on a curious trail; I am sure that Antinea will be our key to remarkable discoveries."

"Listen," I said, laying a finger on my lips.

Strange sounds rose from about us as the evening advanced with great strides. A kind of crackling, followed by long rending shrieks, echoed and reechoed to infinity in the neighboring ravines. It seemed to me that the whole black mountain suddenly had begun to moan.

We looked at Eg-Anteouen. He was smoking on, without twitching a muscle.

"The ilhinen are waking up," he said simply.

Morhange listened without saying a word. Doubtless he understood as I did: the overheated rocks, the crackling of the stone, a whole series of physical phenomena, the example of the singing statue of Memnon.... But, for all that, this unexpected concert reacted no less painfully on our overstrained nerves.

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. At that portentous moment they seemed to span the distance between us, isolated, condemned, lost, and our brothers of higher latitudes, who at that hour were rushing about their poor pleasures with delirious frenzy in cities where the whiteness of electric lamps came on in a burst.