"She is rattle-brained," he continued. "She only saddled him. No water, no food. At this hour, three days from now, all three of you would have been dead on the road, and on what a road!"
Tanit-Zerga's teeth no longer chattered. She was looking at the Targa with a mixture of terror and hope.
"Come here, Sidi Lieutenant," said Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh, "so that I can explain to you."
When I was beside him, he said:
"On each side there is a skin of water. Make that water last as long as possible, for you are going to cross a terrible country. It may be that you will not find a well for three hundred miles.
"There," he went on, "in the saddle bags, are cans of preserved meat. Not many, for water is much more precious.
Here also is a carbine, your carbine, sidi. Try not to use it except to shoot antelopes. And there is this."
He spread out a roll of paper. I saw his inscrutible face bent over it; his eyes were smiling; he looked at me.
"Once out of the enclosures, what way did you plan to go?" he asked.
"Toward Idelès, to retake the route where you met the Captain and me," I said.