XXIX
Then she seized her baby with the intention of strangling him.
Dreading to hear his cries, she first filled his mouth with sand.
Nor could she bear to see his little face in the paroxysms of suffocation. Frenziedly she dug a hole in the ground, buried his head in it, and heaped more sand upon it.
Then she gripped his neck with her two hands and squeezed it—squeezed it hard, until his active little limbs, which were stiffening under the influence of pain, were relaxed in death.
When the child was dead, she laid him on his father’s bosom.
So died the son of Jean Peyral.... A mystery! What god had thrust him into life, the spahi’s child? What had he come to seek on this earth, and whither did he return?
Then Fatou-gaye wept tears of blood—her piercing lamentations echoed over the plains of Dialakar. And last of all, she took the Marabout’s leather wallet and swallowed a bitter paste contained therein. Her death throes began, a lingering and cruel agony. For a long time she lay in the sunlight shaken by death rattle and death sob; she tore her throat with her nails, and plucked out handfuls of hair mingled with amber.
Round her were the vultures, awaiting her last moment.