Getting it wrong three times out of seven I finally succeeded, with Morhange’s help, in spelling the word.

“Have you got it?” asked Morhange when I had finished my task.

“Less than ever,” I answered, a little put out; “a,n,t,i,n,h,a,—­Antinha, I don’t know that word, or anything like it, in all the Saharan dialects I am familiar with.”

Morhange rubbed his hands together.  His satisfaction was without bounds.

“You have said it.  That is why the discovery is unique.”

“Why?”

“There is really nothing, either in Berber or in Arabian, analogous to this word.”

“Then?”

“Then, my dear friend, we are in the presence of a foreign word, translated into Tifinar.”

“And this word belongs, according to your theory, to what language?”

“You must realize that the letter e does not exist in the Tifinar alphabet.  It has here been replaced by the phonetic sign which is nearest to it,—­h.  Restore e to the place which belongs to it in the word, and you have—­”

“Antinea.”

“‘Antinea,’ precisely.  We find ourselves before a Greek vocable reproduced in Tifinar.  And I think that now you will agree with me that my find has a certain interest.”

That day we had no more conferences upon texts.  A loud cry, anguished, terrifying, rang out.

We rushed out to find a strange spectacle awaiting us.

Although the sky had cleared again, the torrent of yellow water was still foaming and no one could predict when it would fall.  In mid-stream, struggling desperately in the current, was an extraordinary mass, gray and soft and swaying.

But what at the first glance overwhelmed us with astonishment was to see Bou-Djema, usually so calm, at this moment apparently beside himself with frenzy, bounding through the gullies and over the rocks of the ledge, in full pursuit of the shipwreck.

Of a sudden I seized Morhange by the arm.  The grayish thing was alive.  A pitiful long neck emerged from it with the heartrending cry of a beast in despair.

“The fool,” I cried, “he has let one of our beasts get loose, and the stream is carrying it away!”

“You are mistaken,” said Morhange.  “Our camels are all in the cave.  The one Bou-Djema is running after is not ours.  And the cry of anguish we just heard, that was not Bou-Djema either.  Bou-Djema is a brave Chaamb who has at this moment only one idea, to appropriate the intestate capital represented by this camel in the stream.”

“Who gave that cry, then?”

“Let us try, if you like, to explore up this stream that our guide is descending at such a rate.”

And without waiting for my answer he had already set out through the recently washed gullies of the rocky bank.

At that moment it can be truly said that Morhange went to meet his destiny.

I followed him.  We had the greatest difficulty in proceeding two or three hundred meters.  Finally we saw at our feet a little rushing brook where the water was falling a trifle.