Just then the girth of one of the baggage camels, evidently not well fastened, came loose.  Part of the load slipped and fell to the ground.

Eg-Anteouen descended instantly from his beast and helped Bou-Djema repair the damage.

When they had finished, I made my mehari walk beside Bou-Djema’s.

“It will be better to resaddle the camels at the next stop.  They will have to climb the mountain.”

The guide looked at me with amazement.  Up to that time I had thought it unnecessary to acquaint him with our new projects.  But I supposed Eg-Anteouen would have told him.

“Lieutenant, the road across the white plain to Shikh-Salah is not mountainous,” said the Chaamba.

“We are not keeping to the road across the white plain.  We are going south, by Ahaggar.”

“By Ahaggar,” he murmured.  “But....”

“But what?”

“I do not know the road.”

“Eg-Anteouen is going to guide us.”

“Eg-Anteouen!”

I watched Bou-Djema as he made this suppressed ejaculation.  His eyes were fixed on the Targa with a mixture of stupor and fright.

Eg-Anteouen’s camel was a dozen yards ahead of us, side by side with Morhange’s.  The two men were talking.  I realized that Morhange must be conversing with Eg-Anteouen about the famous inscriptions.  But we were not so far behind that they could not have overheard our words.

Again I looked at my guide.  I saw that he was pale.

“What is it, Bou-Djema?” I asked in a low voice.

“Not here, Lieutenant, not here,” he muttered.

His teeth chattered.  He added in a whisper: 

“Not here.  This evening, when we stop, when he turns to the East to pray, when the sun goes down.  Then, call me to you.  I will tell you....  But not here.  He is talking, but he is listening.  Go ahead.  Join the Captain.”

“What next?” I murmured, pressing my camel’s neck with my foot so as to make him overtake Morhange.

* * * * *

It was about five o’clock when Eg-Anteouen who was leading the way, came to a stop.

“Here it is,” he said, getting down from his camel.

It was a beautiful and sinister place.  To our left a fantastic wall of granite outlined its gray ribs against the sky.  This wall was pierced, from top to bottom, by a winding corridor about a thousand feet high and scarcely wide enough in places to allow three camels to walk abreast.

“Here it is,” repeated the Targa.

To the west, straight behind us, the track that we were leaving unrolled like a pale ribbon.  The white plain, the road to Shikh-Salah, the established halts, the well-known wells....  And, on the other side, this black wall against the mauve sky, this dark passage.

I looked at Morhange.

“We had better stop here,” he said simply.  “Eg-Anteouen advises us to take as much water here as we can carry.”