"Why do you ask that?"

"Because, if you promise me that,--provided, of course, that my
company is not unwelcome to you--I will go with you. Either way, I
shall have two hundred kilometers to go. I shall strike for
Shikh-Salah from the south, instead of from the west--that is the only
difference."

Morhange looked at me with emotion.

"Why do you do this?" he murmured.

"My dear fellow," I said (it was the first time that I had addressed
Morhange in this familiar way), "my dear fellow, I have a sense which
becomes marvellously acute in the desert, the sense of danger. I gave
you a slight proof of it yesterday morning, at the coming of the
storm. With all your knowledge of rock inscriptions, you seem to me to
have no very exact idea of what kind of place Ahaggar is, nor what may
be in store for you there. On that account, I should be just as well
pleased not to let you run sure risks alone."

"I have a guide," he said with his adorable naivete.

Eg-Anteouen, in the same squatting position, kept on patching his old
slipper.

I took a step toward him.

"You heard what I said to the Captain?"

"Yes," the Targa answered calmly.

"I am going with him. We leave you at Tit, to which place you must
bring us. Where is the place you proposed to show the Captain?"

"I did not propose to show it to him; it was his own idea," said the
Targa coldly. "The grottos with the inscriptions are three-days' march
southward in the mountains. At first, the road is rather rough. But
farther on, it turns, and you gain Timissao very easily. There are
good wells where the Tuareg Taitoqs, who are friendly to the French,
come to water their camels."

"And you know the road well?"

He shrugged his shoulders. His eyes had a scornful smile.

"I have taken it twenty times," he said.

"In that case, let's get started."

We rode for two hours. I did not exchange a word with Morhange. I had
a clear intuition of the folly we were committing in risking ourselves
so unconcernedly in that least known and most dangerous part of the
Sahara. Every blow which had been struck in the last twenty years to
undermine the French advance had come from this redoubtable Ahaggar.
But what of it? It was of my own will that I had joined in this mad
scheme. No need of going over it again. What was the use of spoiling
my action by a continual exhibition of disapproval? And, furthermore,
I may as well admit that I rather liked the turn that our trip was
be