Atlantida by Pierre Benoît (early readers txt) 📕

at me and I looked at him. He was already middle-aged, tall, with shoulders a little bent, and blue eyes as clear as the stream whose name I bear.

"'Come here, little one,' he said in his gentle voice.

"'I am the daughter of Sheik Sonni-Azkia, and I do only what I wish,' I replied, vexed at his informality.

"'You are right,' he answered smiling, 'for you are pretty. Will you give me the flowers that you have around your neck?'

"It was a great necklace of purple hibiscus. I held it out to him. He kissed me. The peace was made.

"Meantime, under the direction of my father, the native soldiers and strong men of the tribe had hauled the gunboat into a pocket of the river.

"'There is work there for all day to-morrow, Colonel,' said the chief mechanic, after inspecting the leaks. 'We won't be able to get away before the day after to-morrow. And, if we're to do that, these lazy soldiers mustn't loaf on the job.'

"'What an awful bore,' groaned my new friend.

"But his ill-humor did not last long, so ardently did my little companions and I seek to distract him. He listened to our most beautiful songs; and, to thank us, made us taste the good things that had been brought from the boat for his dinner. He slept in our great cabin, which my father gave up to him; and for a long time, before I went to sleep, I looked through the cracks of the cabin where I lay with my mother, at the lights of the gunboat trembling in red ripples on the surface of the dark waves.

"That night, I had a frightful dream. I saw my friend, the French officer, sleeping in peace, while a great crow hung croaking above his head: 'Caw,—caw—the shade of the gum trees of Gâo—caw, caw—will avail nothing tomorrow night—caw, caw—to the white chief nor to his escort.'

"Dawn had scarcely begun, when I went to find the native soldiers. They were stretched out on the bridge of the gunboat, taking advantage of the fact that the whites were still sleeping, to do nothing.

"I approached the oldest one and spoke to him with authority:

'Listen, I saw the black crow in a dream last night. He told me that the shade of the gum trees of Gâo would be fatal to your chief in the coming night!...'

"And, as they all remained motionless, stretched out, gazing at the sky, without even seeming to have heard, I added:

"'And to his escort!'

"It was the hour when the sun was highest, and the Colonel was eating in the cabin with the other Frenchmen, when the chief mechanic entered.

"'I don't know what has come over the natives. They are working like angels. If they keep on this way, Colonel, we shall be able to leave this evening.'

"'Very good,' said the Colonel, 'but don't let them spoil the job by too much haste. We don't have to be at Ansango before the end of the week. It will be better to start in the morning.'

"I trembled. Suppliantly I approached and told him the story of my dream. He listened with a smile of astonishment; then, at the last, he said gravely:

"'It is agreed, little Tanit-Zerga. We will leave this evening if you wish it.'

"And he kissed me.

"The darkness had already fallen when the gunboat, now repaired, left the harbor. My friend stood in the midst of the group of Frenchmen who waved their caps as long as we could see them. Standing alone on the rickety jetty, I waited, watching the water flow by, until the last sound of the steam-driven vessel, boum-baraboum, had died away into the night."[16]

Tanit-Zerga paused.

"That was the last night of Gâo. While I was sleeping and the moon was still high above the forest, a dog yelped, but only for an instant. Then came the cry of men, then of women, the kind of cry that you can never forget if you have once heard it. When the sun rose, it found me, quite naked, running and stumbling towards the north with my little companions, beside the swiftly moving camels of the Tuareg who escorted us. Behind, followed the women of the tribe, my mother among them, two by two, the yoke upon their necks. There were not many men. Almost all lay with their throats cut under the ruins of the thatch of Gâo beside my father, brave Sonni-Azkia. Once again Gâo had been razed by a band of Awellimiden, who had come to massacre the French on their gunboat.

"The Tuareg hurried us, hurried us, for they were afraid of being pursued. We traveled thus for ten days; and, as the millet and hemp disappeared, the march became more frightful. Finally, near Isakeryen, in the country of Kidal, the Tuareg sold us to a caravan of Trarzan Moors who were going from Bamrouk to Rhât. At first, because they went more slowly, it seemed good fortune. But, before long, the desert was an expanse of rough pebbles, and the women began to fall. As for the men, the last of them had died far back under the blows of the stick for having refused to go farther.

"I still had the strength to keep going, and even as far in the lead as possible, so as not to hear the cries of my little playmates. Each time one of them fell by the way, unable to rise again, they saw one of the drivers descend from his camel and drag her into the bushes a little way to cut her throat. But one day, I heard a cry that made me turn around. It was my mother. She was kneeling, holding out her poor arms to me. In an instant I was beside her. But a great Moor, dressed in white, separated us. A red moroccan case hung around his neck from a black chaplet. He drew a cutlass from it. I can still see the blue steel on the brown skin. Another horrible cry. An instant later, driven by a club, I was trotting ahead, swallowing my little tears, trying to regain my place in the caravan.

"Near the wells of Asiou, the Moors were attacked by a party of Tuareg of Kel-Tazeholet, serfs of the great tribe of Kel-Rhelâ, which rules over Ahaggar. They, in their turn, were massacred to the last man. That is how I was brought here, and offered as homage to Antinea, who was pleased with me and ever since has been kind to me. That is why it is no slave who soothes your fever to-day with stories that you do not even listen to, but the last descendant of the great Sonrhaï Emperors, of Sonni-Ali, the destroyer of men and of countries, of Mohammed Azkia, who made the pilgrimage to Mecca, taking with him fifteen hundred cavaliers and three hundred thousand mithkal of gold in the days when our power stretched without rival from Chad to Touat and to the western sea, and when Gâo raised her cupola, sister of the sky, above the other cities, higher above her rival cupolas than is the tamarisk above the humble plants of sorghum."

 

 

XVI THE SILVER HAMMER