Chapter 8: Awakening 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.”

“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. “Anyhow, that Eg-Anteouen with his hasheesh is a fine rascal.”

“Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh,” I corrected.

I rubbed my hand over my forehead.

“Where are we?”

“My dear boy,” Morhange replied, “since I awakened from the extraordinary nightmare which is mixed up with the smoky cave and the lamp-lit stairway of the Arabian Nights, I have been going from surprise to surprise, from confusion to confusion. Just look around you.”

I rubbed my eyes and stared. Then I seized my friend’s hand.

“Morhange,” I begged, “tell me if we are still dreaming.”

We were in a round room, perhaps fifty feet in diameter, and of about the same height, lighted by a great window opening on a sky of intense blue.

Swallows flew back and forth, outside, giving quick, joyous cries.

The floor, the incurving walls and the ceiling were of a kind of veined marble like porphyry, panelled with a strange metal, paler than gold, darker than silver, clouded just then by the early morning mist that came in through the window in great puffs.

I staggered toward this window, drawn by the freshness of the breeze and the sunlight which was chasing away my dreams, and I leaned my elbows on the balustrade.

I could not restrain a cry of delight.

I was standing on a kind of balcony, cut into the flank of a mountain, overhanging an abyss. Above me, blue sky; below appeared a veritable earthly paradise hemmed in on all sides by mountains that formed a continuous and impassable wall about it. A garden lay spread out down there. The palm trees gently swayed their great fronds. At their feet was a tangle of the smaller trees which grow in an oasis under their protection: almonds, lemons, oranges, and many others which I could not distinguish from that height. A broad blue stream, fed by a waterfall, emptied into a charming lake, the waters of which had the marvellous transparency which comes in high altitudes. Great birds flew in circles over this green hollow; I could see in the lake the red flash of a flamingo.

The peaks of the mountains which towered on all sides were completely covered with snow.

The blue stream, the green palms, the golden fruit, and above it all, the miraculous snow, all this bathed in that limpid air, gave such an impression of beauty, of purity, that my poor human strength could no longer stand the sight of it. I laid my forehead on the balustrade, which, too, was covered with that heavenly snow, and began to cry like a baby.

Morhange was behaving like another child. But he had awakened before I had, and doubtless had had time to grasp, one by one, all these details whose fantastic ensemble staggered me.

He laid his hand on my shoulder and gently pulled me back into the room.

“You haven’t seen anything yet,” he said. “Look! Look!”

“Morhange!”

“Well, old man, what do you want me to do about it? Look!”

I had just realized that the strange room was furnished--God forgive me--in the European fashion. There were indeed, here and there, round leather Tuareg cushions, brightly colored blankets from Gafsa, rugs from Kairouan, and Caramani hangings which, at that moment, I should have dreaded to draw aside. But a half-open panel in the wall showed a bookcase crowded with books. A whole row of photographs of masterpieces of ancient art were hung on the walls. Finally there was a table almost hidden under its heap of papers, pamphlets, books. I thought I should collapse at seeing a recent number of the Archaeological Review.

I looked at Morhange. He was looking at me, and suddenly a mad laugh seized us and doubled us up for a good minute.

“I do not know,” Morhange finally managed to say, “whether or not we shall regret some day our little excursion into Ahaggar. But admit, in the meantime, that it promises to be rich in unexpected adventures. That unforgettable guide who puts us to sleep just to distract us from the unpleasantness of caravan life and who lets me experience, in the best of good faith, the far-famed delights of hasheesh: that fantastic night ride, and, to cap the climax, this cave of a Nureddin who must have received the education of the Athenian Bersot at the French Ecole Normale--all this is enough, on my word, to upset the wits of the best balanced.”

“What do I think, my poor friend? Why, just what you yourself think. I don’t understand it at all, not at all. What you politely call my learning is not worth a cent. And why shouldn’t I be all mixed up? This living in caves amazes me. Pliny speaks of the natives living in caves, seven days’ march southwest of the country of the Amantes, and twelve days to the westward of the great Syrte. Herodotus says also that the Garamentes used to go out in their chariots to hunt the cave-dwelling Ethopians. But here we are in Ahaggar, in the midst of the Targa country, and the best authorities tell us that the Tuareg never have been willing to live in caves. Duveyrier is precise on that point. And what is this, I ask you, but a cave turned into a workroom, with pictures of the Venus de Medici and the Apollo Sauroctone on the walls? I tell you that it is enough to drive you mad.”

And Morhange threw himself on a couch and began to roar with laughter again.

“See,” I said, “this is Latin.”

I had picked up several scattered papers from the work-table in the middle of the room. Morhange took them from my hands and devoured them greedily. His face expressed unbounded stupefaction.

“Stranger and stranger, my boy. Someone here is composing, with much citation of texts, a dissertation on the Gorgon Islands: de Gorgonum insulis. Medusa, according to him, was a Libyan savage who lived near Lake Triton, our present Chott Melhrir, and it is there that Perseus ... Ah!”

Morhange’s words choked in his throat. A sharp, shrill voice pierced the immense room.

“Gentlemen, I beg you, let my papers alone.”

I turned toward the newcomer.

One of the Caramani curtains was drawn aside, and the most unexpected of persons came in. Resigned as we were to unexpected events, the improbability of this sight exceeded anything our imaginations could have devised.

On the threshold stood a little bald-headed man with a pointed sallow face half hidden by an enormous pair of green spectacles and a pepper and salt beard. No shirt was visible, but an impressive broad red cravat. He wore white trousers. Red leather slippers furnished the only Oriental suggestion of his costume.

He wore, not without pride, the rosette of an officer of the Department of Education.

He collected the papers which Morhange had dropped in his amazement, counted them, arranged them; then, casting a peevish glance at us, he struck a copper gong.

The portiére was raised again. A huge white Targa entered. I seemed to recognize him as one of the genii of the cave.[8]

[Footnote 8: The Negro serfs among the Tuareg are generally called “white Tuareg.” While the nobles are clad in blue cotton robes, the serfs wear white robes, hence their name of “white Tuareg.” See, in this connection, Duveyrier: les Tuareg du Nord, page 292. (Note by M. Leroux.)]

“Ferradji,” angrily demanded the little officer of the Department of Education, “why were these gentlemen brought into the library?”

The Targa bowed respectfully.

“Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh came back sooner than we expected,” he replied, “and last night the embalmers had not yet finished. They brought them here in the meantime,” and he pointed to us.

“Very well, you may go,” snapped the little man.

Ferradji backed toward the door. On the threshold, he stopped and spoke again:

“I was to remind you, sir, that dinner is served.”

“All right. Go along.”

And the little man seated himself at the desk and began to finger the papers feverishly.

I do not know why, but a mad feeling of exasperation seized me. I walked toward him.

“Sir,” I said, “my friend and I do not know where we are nor who you are. We can see only that you are French, since you are wearing one of the highest honorary decorations of our country. You may have made the same observation on your part,” I added, indicating the slender red ribbon which I wore on my vest.

He looked at me in contemptuous surprise.

“Well, sir?”

“Well, sir, the Negro who just went out pronounced the name of Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh, the name of a brigand, a bandit, one of the assassins of Colonel Flatters. Are you acquainted with that detail, sir?”

The little man surveyed me coldly and shrugged his shoulders.

“Certainly. But what difference do you suppose that makes to me?”

“What!” I cried, beside myself with rage. “Who are you, anyway?”

“Sir,” said the little old man with comical dignity, turning to Morhange, “I call you to witness the strange manners of your companion. I am here in my own house and I do not allow...”

“You must excuse my comrade, sir,” said Morhange, stepping forward. “He is not a man of letters, as you are. These young lieutenants are hot-headed, you know. And besides, you can understand why both of us are not as calm as might be desired.”

I was furious and on the point of disavowing these strangely humble words of Morhange. But a glance showed me that there was as much irony as surprise in his expression.

“I know indeed that most officers are brutes,” grumbled the little old man. “But that is no reason...”

“I am only an officer myself,” Morhange went on, in an even humbler tone, “and if ever I have been sensible to the intellectual inferiority of that class, I assure you that it was now in glancing--I beg your pardon for having taken the liberty to do so--in glancing over the learned pages which you devote to the passionate story of Medusa, according to Procles of Carthage, cited by Pausanias.”

A laughable surprise spread over the features of the little old man. He hastily wiped his spectacles.