by Anthology
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.
"It was a gunboat, turning the point, sending out a wake that shook the overhanging bushes on each side of the river. One could see that the red, white and blue flag on the stern had drooped till it was dragging in the water, so heavy was the evening.
"She stopped at the little point of land. A small boat was let down, manned by two native soldiers who rowed, and three chiefs who soon leapt ashore.
"The oldest, a French marabout, with a great white burnous, who knew our language marvelously, asked to speak to Sheik Sonni-Azkia. When my father advanced and told him that it was he, the marabout told him that the commandant of the Club at Timbuctoo was very angry, that a mile from there the gunboat had run on an invisible pile of logs, that she had sprung a leak and that she could not so continue her voyage towards Ansango.
"My father replied that the French who protected the poor natives against the Tuareg were welcome: that it was not from evil design, but for fish that they had built the barrage, and that he put all the resources of Gâo, including the forge, at the disposition of the French chief, for repairing the gunboat.
"While they were talking, the French chief looked at me and I looked at him. He was already middle-aged, tall, with shoulders a little bent, and blue eyes as clear as the stream whose name I bear.
"'Come here, little one,' he said in his gentle voice.
"'I am the daughter of Sheik Sonni-Azkia, and I do only what I wish,' I replied, vexed at his informality.
"'You are right,' he answered smiling, 'for you are pretty. Will you give me the flowers that you have around your neck?'
"It was a great necklace of purple hibiscus. I held it out to him. He kissed me. The peace was made.
"Meantime, under the direction of my father, the native soldiers and strong men of the tribe had hauled the gunboat into a pocket of the river.
"'There is work there for all day to-morrow, Colonel,' said the chief mechanic, after inspecting the leaks. 'We won't be able to get away before the day after to-morrow. And, if we're to do that, these lazy soldiers mustn't loaf on the job.'
"'What an awful bore,' groaned my new friend.
"But his ill-humor did not last long, so ardently did my little companions and I seek to distract him. He listened to our most beautiful songs; and, to thank us, made us taste the good things that had been brought from the boat for his dinner. He slept in our great cabin, which my father gave up to him; and for a long time, before I went to sleep, I looked through the cracks of the cabin where I lay with my mother, at the lights of the gunboat trembling in red ripples on the surface of the dark waves.
"That night, I had a frightful dream. I saw my friend, the French officer, sleeping in peace, while a great crow hung croaking above his head: 'Caw,—caw—the shade of the gum trees of Gâo—caw, caw—will avail nothing tomorrow night—caw, caw—to the white chief nor to his escort.'
"Dawn had scarcely begun, when I went to find the native soldiers. They were stretched out on the bridge of the gunboat, taking advantage of the fact that the whites were still sleeping, to do nothing.
"I approached the oldest one and spoke to him with authority:
'Listen, I saw the black crow in a dream last night. He told me that the shade of the gum trees of Gâo would be fatal to your chief in the coming night!…'
"And, as they all remained motionless, stretched out, gazing at the sky, without even seeming to have heard, I added:
"'And to his escort!'
"It was the hour when the sun was highest, and the Colonel was eating in the cabin with the other Frenchmen, when the chief mechanic entered.
"'I don't know what has come over the natives. They are working like angels. If they keep on this way, Colonel, we shall be able to leave this evening.'
"'Very good,' said the Colonel, 'but don't let them spoil the job by too much haste. We don't have to be at Ansango before the end of the week. It will be better to start in the morning.'
"I trembled. Suppliantly I approached and told him the story of my dream. He listened with a smile of astonishment; then, at the last, he said gravely:
"'It is agreed, little Tanit-Zerga. We will leave this evening if you wish it.'
"And he kissed me.
"The darkness had already fallen when the gunboat, now repa
ired, left the harbor. My friend stood in the midst of the group of Frenchmen who waved their caps as long as we could see them. Standing alone on the rickety jetty, I waited, watching the water flow by, until the last sound of the steam-driven vessel, boum-baraboum, had died away into the night."[16]
[Footnote 16: Cf. the records and the Bulletin de la Société de Géographie de Paris (1897) for the cruises on the Niger, made by the Commandant of the Timbuctoo region, Colonel Joffre, Lieutenants Baudry and Bluset, and by Father Hacquart of the White Fathers. (Note by M. Leroux.)]
Tanit-Zerga paused.
"That was the last night of Gâo. While I was sleeping and the moon was still high above the forest, a dog yelped, but only for an instant. Then came the cry of men, then of women, the kind of cry that you can never forget if you have once heard it. When the sun rose, it found me, quite naked, running and stumbling towards the north with my little companions, beside the swiftly moving camels of the Tuareg who escorted us. Behind, followed the women of the tribe, my mother among them, two by two, the yoke upon their necks. There were not many men. Almost all lay with their throats cut under the ruins of the thatch of Gâo beside my father, brave Sonni-Azkia. Once again Gâo had been razed by a band of Awellimiden, who had come to massacre the French on their gunboat.
"The Tuareg hurried us, hurried us, for they were afraid of being pursued. We traveled thus for ten days; and, as the millet and hemp disappeared, the march became more frightful. Finally, near Isakeryen, in the country of Kidal, the Tuareg sold us to a caravan of Trarzan Moors who were going from Bamrouk to Rhât. At first, because they went more slowly, it seemed good fortune. But, before long, the desert was an expanse of rough pebbles, and the women began to fall. As for the men, the last of them had died far back under the blows of the stick for having refused to go farther.
"I still had the strength to keep going, and even as far in the lead as possible, so as not to hear the cries of my little playmates. Each time one of them fell by the way, unable to rise again, they saw one of the drivers descend from his camel and drag her into the bushes a little way to cut her throat. But one day, I heard a cry that made me turn around. It was my mother. She was kneeling, holding out her poor arms to me. In an instant I was beside her. But a great Moor, dressed in white, separated us. A red moroccan case hung around his neck from a black chaplet. He drew a cutlass from it. I can still see the blue steel on the brown skin. Another horrible cry. An instant later, driven by a club, I was trotting ahead, swallowing my little tears, trying to regain my place in the caravan.
"Near the wells of Asiou, the Moors were attacked by a party of Tuareg of Kel-Tazeholet, serfs of the great tribe of Kel-Rhelâ, which rules over Ahaggar. They, in their turn, were massacred to the last man. That is how I was brought here, and offered as homage to Antinea, who was pleased with me and ever since has been kind to me. That is why it is no slave who soothes your fever to-day with stories that you do not even listen to, but the last descendant of the great Sonrhaï Emperors, of Sonni-Ali, the destroyer of men and of countries, of Mohammed Azkia, who made the pilgrimage to Mecca, taking with him fifteen hundred cavaliers and three hundred thousand mithkal of gold in the days when our power stretched without rival from Chad to Touat and to the western sea, and when Gâo raised her cupola, sister of the sky, above the other cities, higher above her rival cupolas than is the tamarisk above the humble plants of sorghum."
XVI
THE SILVER HAMMER
Je ne m'en défends plus et je ne veux qu' aller Reconnaître la place où je dois l'immoler. (Andromaque.)
It was this sort of a night when what I am going to tell you now happened. Toward five o'clock the sky clouded over and a sense of the coming storm trembled in the stifling air.
I shall always remember it. It was the fifth of January, 1897.
King Hiram and Galé lay heavily on the matting of my room. Leaning on my elbows beside Tanit-Zerga in the rock-hewn window, I spied the advance tremors of lightning.
One by one they rose, streaking the now total darkness with their bluish stripes. But no burst of thunder followed. The storm did not attain the peaks of Ahaggar. It passed without breaking, leaving us in our gloomy bath of sweat.
"I am going to bed," said Tanit-Zerga.
I have said that her room was above mine. Its bay window was some thirty feet above that before which I lay.
She took Galé in her arms. But King Hiram would have none of it. Digging his four paws into the matting, he whined in anger and uneasiness.
"Leave him," I finally said to Tanit-Zerga. "For once he may sleep here."
So it was that this little beast incurred his large share of responsibility in the events which followed.
Left alone, I became lost in my reflections. The night was black. The whole mountain was shrouded in silence.
It took the louder and louder growls of the leopard to rouse me from my meditation.
King Hiram was braced against the door, digging at it with his drawn claws. He, who had refused to follow Tanit-Zerga a while ago, now wanted to go out. He was determined to go out.
"Be still," I said to him. "Enough of that. Lie down!"
I tried to pull him away from the door.
I succeeded only in getting a staggering blow from his paw.
Then I sat down on the divan.
My quiet was short. "Be honest with yourself," I said. "Since Morhange abandoned you, since the day when you saw Antinea, you have had only one idea. What good is it to beguile yourself with the stories of Tanit-Zerga, charming as they are? This leopard is a pretext, perhaps a guide. Oh, you know that mysterious things are going to happen tonight. How have you been able to keep from doing anything as long as this?"
Immediately I made a resolve.
"If I open the door," I thought, "King Hiram will leap down the corridor and I shall have great difficulty in following him. I must find some other way."
The shade of the window was worked by means of a small cord. I pulled it down. Then I tied it into a firm leash which I fastened to the metal collar of the leopard.
I half opened the door.
"There, now you can go. But quietly, quietly."
I had all the trouble in the world to curb the ardor of King Hiram who dragged me along the shadowy labyrinth of corridors. It was shortly before nine o'clock, and the rose-colored night lights were almost burned out in the niches. Now and then, we passed one which was casting its last flickers. What a labyrinth! I realized that from here on I would not recognize the way to her room. I could only follow the leopard.
At first furious, he gradually became used to towing me. He strained ahead, belly to the ground, with snuffs of joy.
Nothing is more like one black corridor than another black corridor. Doubt seized me. Suppose I should suddenly find myself in the baccarat room! But that was unjust to King Hiram. Barred too long from the dear presence, the good beast was taking me exactly where I wanted him to take me.
Suddenly, at a turn, the darkness ahead lifted. A rose window, faintly glimmering red and green, appeared before us.
The leopard stopped with a low growl before the door in which the rose window was cut.
I recognized it as the door through which the white Targa had led me the day after my arrival, when I had been set upon by King Hiram, when I had found myself in the presence of Antinea.
"We are much better friends to-day," I said, flattering him so that he would not give a dangerously loud growl.
I tried to open the door. The light, coming through the window, fell upon the floor, green and red.
A simple latch, which I turned. I shortened the leash to have better control of King Hiram who was getting nervous.
The great room where I had seen Antinea for the first time was completely dark. But the garden on which it gave shone under a clouded moon, in a sky weighted down with the storm which did not break. Not a breath of air. The lake gleamed like a sheet of pewter.
I seated myself on a cushion, holding the
leopard firmly between my knees. He was purring with impatience. I was thinking. Not about my goal. For a long time that had been fixed. But about the means.
Then, I seemed to hear a distant murmur, a faint sound of voices.
King Hiram growled louder, struggled. I gave him a little more leash. He began to rub along the dark walls on the sides whence the voices seemed to come. I followed him, stumbling as quietly as I could among the scattered cushions.
My eyes, become accustomed to the darkness, could see the pyramid of cushions on which Antinea had first appeared to me.
Suddenly I stumbled. The leopard had stopped. I realized that I had stepped on his tail. Brave beast, he did not make a sound.
Groping along the wall, I felt a second door. Quietly, very quietly, I opened it as I had opened the preceding one. The leopard whimpered feebly.
"King Hiram," I murmured, "be quiet."
And I put my arms about his powerful neck.
I felt his warm wet tongue on my hands. His flanks quivered. He shook with happiness.
In front of us, lighted in the center, another room opened up. In the middle six men were squatting on the matting, playing dice and drinking coffee from tiny copper coffee cups with long stems.
They were the white Tuareg.
A lamp, hung from the ceiling, threw a circle of light over them. Everything outside that circle was in deep shadow.
The black faces, the copper cups, the white robes, the moving light and shadow, made a strange etching.
They played with a reserved dignity, announcing the throws in raucous voices.
Then, slowly, very slowly, I slipped the leash from the collar of the impatient little beast.
"Go, boy."
He leapt with a sharp yelp.
And what I had foreseen happened.
The first bound of King Hiram carried him into the midst of the white Tuareg, sowing confusion in the bodyguard. Another leap carried him into the shadow again. I made out vaguely the shaded opening of another corridor on the side of the room opposite where I was standing.
