Yet it was a relief to get away from that doomed city, with its flood of fiendish exultation; to escape from the revolting ebullition of barbarism, and the fiendish glee of my treacherous friends, who were no doubt overwhelming their Daughter of the Sun with attentions that she loathed, like caresses from the ghouls of hell. Even the dead silence of the wilderness was preferable to the din of the hard-fought conflict, with its sickening sequel.
The camel I rode I had found straying at some distance from Agadez, when on the eventful dawn I fled from the city on foot. It was handsomely caparisoned, and, to my delight, I had found that its provision-bags, ornamented in a manner that showed its owner to be a cadi, were packed with necessaries for a long march. In all probability its hapless owner had prepared to fly at the approach of the bandits, but had been murdered when on the point of starting. After a hurried inspection of the bags, satisfying myself that there was a supply of comparatively fresh water in the skin, I concealed the Crescent of Glorious Wonders within a bag of fodder, and, mounting, had started off, without map or plan, upon what, from various appearances, I judged was the caravan route to the well of Tin-dâouen. This surmise fortunately proved correct, for in three days I reached it; then, after halting the night, I discovered a valley full of luxuriant vegetation, with high doum and talha trees and great patches of camomile flowers growing in rich profusion. Continuing through this verdant glen, where antelopes and giraffes disported themselves, I ascended over the rough, rocky ground to a high, barren plateau, and, with my face always to the east, plunged, with a reckless disregard for the consequences, into the great unexplored desert which forms an effectual barrier between the country of the Ahír and that of the Kanouri.
I pushed on with all haste, so that if it proved, as I feared, a fool’s errand, I might, by almost ceaseless travel, be enabled to return again to Agadez before the moon had run her course. Armed with a rifle, powder-horn, and crooked dagger that I had taken from the body of an unfortunate janissary, I sped onward through the great lone country. From sundown until dawn I journeyed, resting through the day in what little shade I could devise, then setting forth again, always leaving the setting sun behind, always remembering that each stride of the faithful animal beneath me took me further and further from the woman whose life lay in my hands.
Gradually and irresistibly had I been drawn into a vortex of mystery and treachery, from which I was struggling to extricate myself. Zoraida’s piteous appeal rang in my ears; the very thought of her as the wife of that villainous archrebel caused me to grind my teeth. Feeling convinced that the errand I had undertaken must be futile, I was, in my more gloomy moments, sorely tempted to disobey Mohammed ben Ishak’s injunctions, and try the effect produced by placing the Crescent of Glorious Wonders upon my brow. Each time, however, the intensely earnest, agonised face of the aged prayer-reciter, as he implored me not to try to fathom the Great Mystery before arrival at the spot indicated, came vividly before me, causing me to stay my impatient hand.
The fatigue of those long anxious nights and blazing days was so terrible, that, on more than one occasion, faintness seized me, and I had a recurrence of those strange hallucinations from which I suffered after Labakan had dealt me the cowardly blow. I seemed at times light-headed, eager and jubilant one hour, despondent and contemplative of suicide the next. But the recollection of the deadly peril of Zoraida, whom I loved with a true and fervent devotion, spurred me onward over shifting sands and treacherous rocks, onward to the place where the dead man had promised the Great Secret should be revealed.
On the seventh day after leaving Agadez, I slept under the palms of the Agram Oasis, filled my water-skin at the well, and, representing myself as a straggler from a trading caravan, begged some food from the camp of the Bedouins of the peaceful Kanouri. It has always struck me as curious how rapidly news travels in the Desert. Already these men had heard rumours of desperate fighting in the city of the Ahír, although it must have been conveyed by way of Tin-Telloust and Bir-ed-Doum, the circuitous route by which caravans travel on account of the wells, and fully one hundred miles further than the straight journey I had accomplished. For several reasons I had deemed it best to feign ignorance, therefore to all my anxious inquirers I represented I had travelled direct from Akoukou without touching Agadez.
Spending one day only with these tent-dwellers, tall, bronzed, handsome, good-natured fellows, I gave them peace, and, with the brilliant sunset once more behind me, rode away through great patches of a poisonous plant my friends called “karugu,” and out again upon the plain towards the remote little Arab town of Dibbela, where I arrived two days later, after a somewhat perilous journey across some almost inaccessible rocks which the Arabs call the Tefraska. At dawn on the second day after leaving this place, having travelled due south under the direction of the leader of a caravan conveying ivory and rose oil from the Tsâd to exchange for cotton goods, razors, sword-blades, and pieces of paper with the sign of the three moons, I came upon the Oasis of Tjigrin, rich in herbage, date palms, and clusters of tangled bushes, among which ostriches and gazelles were moving. Here, wearied out, I tethered my méheri to a palm tree, and, reflecting that in two days I should know the truth, flung myself down and slept soundly in a dream of quiet ecstasy.
My awakening, however, was sudden, for, feeling myself grasped roughly by the shoulder, my hand instinctively sought my knife, but a loud, hearty laugh caused me to rub my eyes and look up into the sun-tanned, bearded face which shadowed the glare from my eyes.
“Que diabe!” cried a voice in surprise. “Then I’m not mistaken. It is you!”
“Eh bien! eh bien! old fellow!” I cried, amazed, jumping to my feet and grasping the rough brown hand that shot from between the folds of the burnouse. “This is indeed a pleasant meeting!”