ed silent approval.

"'Your term of inactive service expires in fifteen days. You will
return to Paris, and apply at the Ministry to be reinstated. With what
you have learned here, and the relationships we have been able to
maintain at Headquarters, you will have no difficulty in being
attached to the Geographical Staff of the army. When you reach the rue
de Grenelle you will receive our instructions.'

"I was astonished at their confidence in my knowledge. When I was
reestablished as Captain again in the Geographical Service I
understood. At the monastery, the daily association with Dom Granger
and his pupils had kept me constantly convinced of the inferiority of
my knowledge. When I came in contact with my military brethren I
realized the superiority of the instruction I had received. I did not
have to concern myself with the details of my mission. The Ministries
invited me to undertake it. My initiative asserted itself on only one
occasion. When I learned that you were going to leave Wargla on the
present expedition, having reason to distrust my practical
qualifications as an explorer, I did my best to retard your departure,
so that I might join you. I hope that you have forgiven me by now."

* * * * *

The light in the west was fading, where the sun had already sunk into
a matchless luxury of violet draperies. We were alone in this
immensity, at the feet of the rigid black rocks. Nothing but
ourselves. Nothing, nothing but ourselves.

I held out my hand to Morhange, and he pressed it. Then he said:

"If they still seem infinitely long to me, the several thousand
kilometers which separate me from the instant when, my task
accomplished, I shall at last find oblivion in the cloister for the
things for which I was not made, let me tell you this;--the several
hundred kilometers which still separate us from Shikh-Salah seem to me
infinitely short to traverse in your company."

On the pale water of the little pool, motionless and fixed like a
silver nail, a star had just been born.

"Shikh-Salah," I murmured, my heart full of an indefinable sadness.
"Patience, we are not there yet."

In truth, we never were to be there.

V

THE INSCRIPTION

With a blow of the tip of his cane Morhange knocked a fragment of rock
from the black flank of the mountain.

"What is it?" he asked, holding it out to me.

"A basaltic peridot," I said.

"It can't be very interesting, you barel