Day was dawning when finally I saw the two trees, two gum trees.  Hardly a league separated us from them.  I gave a cry of joy.

“Courage, Tanit-Zerga, there is the well.”

She drew her veil aside and I saw the poor anguished little face.

“So much the better,” she murmured, “because otherwise....”

She could not even finish the sentence.

We finished the last half mile almost at a run.  We already saw the hole, the opening of the well.

Finally we reached it.

It was empty.

It is a strange sensation to be dying of thirst.  At first the suffering is terrible.  Then, gradually, it becomes less.  You become partly unconscious.  Ridiculous little things about your life occur to you, fly about you like mosquitoes.  I began to remember my history composition for the entrance examination of Saint-Cyr, “The Campaign of Marengo.”  Obstinately I repeated to myself, “I have already said that the battery unmasked by Marmont at the moment of Kellerman’s charge included eighteen pieces....  No, I remember now, it was only twelve pieces.  I am sure it was twelve pieces.”

I kept on repeating: 

“Twelve pieces.”

Then I fell into a sort of coma.

I was recalled from it by feeling a red-hot iron on my forehead.  I opened my eyes.  Tanit-Zerga was bending over me.  It was her hand which burnt so.

“Get up,” she said.  “We must go on.”

“Go on, Tanit-Zerga!  The desert is on fire.  The sun is at the zenith.  It is noon.”

“We must go on,” she repeated.

Then I saw that she was delirious.

She was standing erect.  Her haik had fallen to the ground and little
Gale, rolled up in a ball, was asleep on it.

Bareheaded, indifferent to the frightful sunlight, she kept repeating: 

“We must go on.”

A little sense came back to me.

“Cover your head, Tanit-Zerga, cover your head.”

“Come,” she repeated.  “Let’s go.  Gao is over there, not far away.  I can feel it.  I want to see Gao again.”

I made her sit down beside me in the shadow of a rock.  I realized that all strength had left her.  The wave of pity that swept over me, brought back my senses.

“Gao is just over there, isn’t it?” she asked.

Her gleaming eyes became imploring.

“Yes, dear little girl.  Gao is there.  But for God’s sake lie down.  The sun is fearful.”

“Oh, Gao, Gao!” she repeated.  “I know very well that I shall see Gao again.”

She sat up.  Her fiery little hands gripped mine.

“Listen.  I must tell you so you can understand how I know I shall see Gao again.”

“Tanit-Zerga, be quiet, my little girl, be quiet.”