Chapter 15: The Lament Of Tanit-Zerga

“Arraôu, arraôu.”

I roused myself vaguely from the half sleep to which I had finally succumbed. I half opened my eyes. Immediately I flattened back.

“Arraôu.”

Two feet from my face was the muzzle of King Hiram, yellow with a tracery of black. The leopard was helping me to wake up; otherwise he took little interest, for he yawned; his dark red jaws, beautiful gleaming white fangs, opened and closed lazily.

At the same moment I heard a burst of laughter.

It was little Tanit-Zerga. She was crouching on a cushion near the divan where I was stretched out, curiously watching my close interview with the leopard.

“King Hiram was bored,” she felt obliged to explain to me. “I brought him.”

“How nice,” I growled. “Only tell me, could he not have gone somewhere else to be amused?”

“He is all alone now,” said the girl. “They have sent him away. He made too much noise when he played.”

These words recalled me to the events of the previous evening.

“If you like, I will make him go away,” said Tanit-Zerga.

“No, let him alone.”

I looked at the leopard with sympathy. Our common misfortune brought us together.

I even caressed his rounded forehead. King Hiram showed his contentment by stretching out at full length and uncurling his great amber claws. The mat on the floor had much to suffer.

“Galé is here, too,” said the little girl.

“Galé! Who may he be?”

At the same time, I saw on Tanit-Zerga’s knees a strange animal, about the size of a big cat, with flat ears, and a long muzzle. Its pale gray fur was rough.

It was watching me with queer little pink eyes.

“It is my mongoose,” explained Tanit-Zerga.

“Come now,” I said sharply, “is that all?”

I must have looked so crabbed and ridiculous that Tanit-Zerga began to laugh. I laughed, too.

“Galé is my friend,” she said when she was serious again. “I saved her life. It was when she was quite little. I will tell you about it some day. See how good-natured she is.”

So saying, she dropped the mongoose on my knees.

“It is very nice of you, Tanit-Zerga,” I said, “to come and pay me a visit.” I passed my hand slowly over the animal’s back. “What time is it now?”

“A little after nine. See, the sun is already high. Let me draw the shade.”

The room was in darkness. Galé’s eyes grew redder. King Hiram’s became green.

“It is very nice of you,” I repeated, pursuing my idea. “I see that you are free to-day. You never came so early before.”

A shade passed over the girl’s forehead.

“Yes, I am free,” she said, almost bitterly.

I looked at Tanit-Zerga more closely. For the first time I realized that she was beautiful. Her hair, which she wore falling over her shoulders, was not so much curly as it was gently waving. Her features were of remarkable fineness: the nose very straight, a small mouth with delicate lips, a strong chin. She was not black, but copper colored. Her slender graceful body had nothing in common with the disgusting thick sausages which the carefully cared for bodies of the blacks become.

A large circle of copper made a heavy decoration around her forehead and hair. She had four bracelets, still heavier, on her wrists and anklets, and, for clothing, a green silk tunic, slashed in points, braided with gold. Green, bronze, gold.

“You are a Sonrhaï, Tanit-Zerga?” I asked gently.

She replied with almost ferocious pride:

“I am a Sonrhaï.”

“Strange little thing,” I thought.

Evidently this was a subject on which Tanit-Zerga did not intend the conversation to turn. I recalled how, almost painfully, she had pronounced that “they,” when she had told me how they had driven away King Hiram.

“I am a Sonrhaï,” she repeated. “I was born at Gâo, on the Niger, the ancient Sonrhaï capital. My fathers reigned over the great Mandingue Empire. You need not scorn me because I am here as a slave.”

In a ray of sunlight, Galé, seated on his little haunches, washed his shining mustaches with his forepaws; and King Hiram, stretched out on the mat, groaned plaintively in his sleep.

“He is dreaming,” said Tanit-Zerga, a finger on her lips.

There was a moment of silence. Then she said:

“You must be hungry. And I do not think that you will want to eat with the others.”

I did not answer.

“You must eat,” she continued. “If you like, I will go get something to eat for you and me. I will bring King Hiram’s and Galé’s dinner here, too. When you are sad, you should not stay alone.”

And the little green and gold fairy vanished, without waiting for my answer.

That was how my friendship with Tanit-Zerga began. Each morning she came to my room with the two beasts. She rarely spoke to me of Antinea, and when she did, it was always indirectly. The question that she saw ceaselessly hovering on my lips seemed to be unbearable to her, and I felt her avoiding all the subjects towards which I, myself, dared not direct the conversation.

To make sure of avoiding them, she prattled, prattled, prattled, like a nervous little parokeet.

I was sick and this Sister of Charity in green and bronze silk tended me with such care as never was before. The two wild beasts, the big and the little, were there, each side of my couch, and, during my delirium, I saw their mysterious, sad eyes fixed on me.

In her melodious voice, Tanit-Zerga told me wonderful stories, and among them, the one she thought most wonderful, the story of her life.

It was not till much later, very suddenly, that I realized how far this little barbarian had penetrated into my own life. Wherever thou art at this hour, dear little girl, from whatever peaceful shores thou watchest my tragedy, cast a look at thy friend, pardon him for not having accorded thee, from the very first, the gratitude that thou deservedest so richly.

“I remember from my childhood,” she said, “the vision of a yellow and rose-colored sun rising through the morning mists over the smooth waves of a great river, ‘the river where there is water, ‘ the Niger, it was ... But you are not listening to me.”

“I am listening to you, I swear it, little Tanit-Zerga.”

“You are sure I am not wearying you? You want me to go on?”

“Go on, little Tanit-Zerga, go on.”

“Well, with my little companions, of whom I was very fond, I played at the edge of the river where there is water, under the jujube trees, brothers of the zeg-zeg, the spines of which pierced the head of your prophet and which we call ‘the tree of Paradise’ because our prophet told us that under it would live those chosen of Paradise;[15] and which is sometimes so big, so big, that a horseman cannot traverse its shade in a century.

[Footnote 15: The Koran, Chapter 66, verse 17. (Note by M. Leroux.)]

“There we wove beautiful garlands with mimosa, the pink flowers of the caper bush and white cockles. Then we threw them in the green water to ward off evil spirits; and we laughed like mad things when a great snorting hippopotamus raised his swollen head and we bombarded him in glee until he had to plunge back again with a tremendous splash.

“That was in the mornings. Then there fell on Gâo the deathlike lull of the red siesta. When that was finished, we came back to the edge of the river to see the enormous crocodiles with bronze goggle-eyes creep along little by little, among the clouds of mosquitoes and day-flies on the banks, and work their way traitorously into the yellow ooze of the mud flats.

“Then we bombarded them, as we had done the hippopotamus in the morning; and to fête the sun setting behind the black branches of the douldouls, we made a circle, stamping our feet, then clapping our hands, as we sang the Sonrhaï hymn.

“Such were the ordinary occupations of free little girls. But you must not think that we were only frivolous; and I will tell you, if you like, how I, who am talking to you, I saved a French chieftain who must be vastly greater than yourself, to judge by the number of gold ribbons he had on his white sleeves.”

“Tell me, little Tanit-Zerga,” I said, my eyes elsewhere.

“You have no right to smile,” she said a little aggrieved, “and to pay no attention to me. But never mind! It is for myself that I tell these things, for the sake of recollection. Above Gâo, the Niger makes a bend. There is a little promontory in the river, thickly covered with large gum trees. It was an evening in August and the sun was sinking. Not a bird in the forest but had gone to rest, motionless until the morning. Suddenly we heard an unfamiliar noise in the west, boum-boum, boum-boum, boum-baraboum, boum-boum, growing louder--boum-boum, boum-baraboum--and, suddenly, there was a great flight of water birds, aigrettes, pelicans, wild ducks and teal, which scattered over the gum trees, followed by a column of black smoke, which was scarcely flurried by the breeze that was springing up.