oad that I have chosen, I think of the prisoners of
Berroughia, and then I am glad to continue on my way.

"But what a reward, when I am in one of those places where the poor
animals never think of fleeing because they have never seen man, where
the desert stretches out around me so widely that the old world could
crumble, and never a single ripple on the dune, a single cloud in the
white sky come to warn me.

"'It is true,' I murmured. 'I, too, once, in the middle of the desert,
at Tidi-Kelt, I felt that way.'"

Up to that time I had let him enjoy his exaltations without
interruption. I understood too late the error that I had made in
pronouncing that unfortunate sentence.

His mocking nervous laughter began anew.

"Ah! Indeed, at Tidi-Kelt? I beg you, old man, in your own interest,
if you don't want to make an ass of yourself, avoid that species of
reminiscence. Honestly, you make me think of Fromentin, or that poor
Maupassant, who talked of the desert because he had been to Djelfa,
two days' journey from the street of Bab-Azound and the Government
buildings, four days from the Avenue de l'Opera;--and who, because he
saw a poor devil of a camel dying near Bou-Saada, believed himself in
the heart of the desert, on the old route of the caravans....
Tidi-Kelt, the desert!"

"It seems to me, however, that In-Salah--" I said, a little vexed.

"In-Salah? Tidi-Kelt! But, my poor friend, the last time that I passed
that way there were as many old newspapers and empty sardine boxes as
if it had been Sunday in the Wood of Vincennes."

Such a determined, such an evident desire to annoy me made me forget
my reserve.

"Evidently," I replied resentfully, "I have never been to--"

I stopped myself, but it was already too late.

He looked at me, squarely in the face.

"To where?" he said with good humor.

I did not answer.

"To where?" he repeated.

And, as I remained strangled in my muteness:

"To Wadi Tarhit, do you mean?"

It was on the east bank of Wadi Tarhit, a hundred and twenty
kilometers from Timissao, at 25.5 degrees north latitude, according to
the official report, that Captain Morhange was buried.

"Andre," I cried stupidly, "I swear to you--"

"What do you swear to me?"

"That I never meant--"

"To speak of Wadi Tarhit? Why? Why should you not speak to me of Wadi
Tarhit?"

In answer to my supplicating silence, he merely shrugged his
shoulders.

"Idiot," was all he said.

And he left me b