Then he took a thick, long, pale green leaf from Bou-Djema’s bowl and held it beside another leaf he had just taken from our bowl.

“Afahlehle," was all he said.

I shuddered, and so did Morhange.  It was the afahlehla, the falestez, of the Arabs of the Sahara, the terrible plant which had killed a part of the Flatters mission more quickly and surely than Tuareg arms.

Eg-Anteouen stood up.  His tall silhouette was outlined blackly against the sky which suddenly had turned pale lilac.  He was watching us.

We bent again over the unfortunate guide.

“Afahlehle," the Targa repeated, and shook his head.

* * * * *

Bou-Djema died in the middle of the night without having regained consciousness.

VII

THE COUNTRY OF FEAR

“It is curious,” said Morhange, “to see how our expedition, uneventful since we left Ouargla, is now becoming exciting.”

He said this after kneeling for a moment in prayer before the painfully dug grave in which we had lain the guide.

I do not believe in God.  But if anything can influence whatever powers there may be, whether of good or of evil, of light or of darkness, it is the prayer of such a man.

For two days we picked our way through a gigantic chaos of black rock in what might have been the country of the moon, so barren was it.  No sound but that of stones rolling under the feet of the camels and striking like gunshots at the foot of the precipices.

A strange march indeed.  For the first few hours, I tried to pick out, by compass, the route we were following.  But my calculations were soon upset; doubtless a mistake due to the swaying motion of the camel.  I put the compass back in one of my saddle-bags.  From that time on, Eg-Anteouen was our master.  We could only trust ourselves to him.

He went first; Morhange followed him, and I brought up the rear.  We passed at every step most curious specimens of volcanic rock.  But I did not examine them.  I was no longer interested in such things.  Another kind of curiosity had taken possession of me.  I had come to share Morhange’s madness.  If my companion had said to me:  “We are doing a very rash thing.  Let us go back to the known trails,” I should have replied, “You are free to do as you please.  But I am going on.”

Toward evening of the second day, we found ourselves at the foot of a black mountain whose jagged ramparts towered in profile seven thousand feet above our heads.  It was an enormous shadowy fortress, like the outline of a feudal stronghold silhouetted with incredible sharpness against the orange sky.

There was a well, with several trees, the first we had seen since cutting into Ahaggar.

A group of men were standing about it.  Their camels, tethered close by, were cropping a mouthful here and there.