A few days sufficed to convince us that Chatelain's fears as to our
official relations with the new chief were vain. Often I have thought
that by the severity he showed at our first encounter Saint-Avit
wished to create a formal barrier, to show us that he knew how to keep
his head high in spite of the weight of his heavy past. Certain it is
that the day after his arrival, he showed himself in a very different
light, even complimenting the Sergeant on the upkeep of the post and
the instruction of the men. To me he was charming.
"We are of the same class, aren't we?" he said to me. "I don't have
to ask you to dispense with formalities, it is your right."
Vain marks of confidence, alas! False witnesses to a freedom of
spirit, one in face of the other. What more accessible in appearance
than the immense Sahara, open to all those who are willing to be
engulfed by it? Yet what is more secret? After six months of
companionship, of communion of life such as only a Post in the South
offers, I ask myself if the most extraordinary of my adventures is not
to be leaving to-morrow, toward unsounded solitudes, with a man whose
real thoughts are as unknown to me as these same solitudes, for which
he has succeeded in making me long.
The first surprise which was given me by this singular companion was
occasioned by the baggage that followed him.
On his inopportune arrival, alone, from Wargla, he had trusted to the
Mehari he rode only what can be carried without harm by such a
delicate beast,--his arms, sabre and revolver, a heavy carbine, and a
very reduced pack. The rest did not arrive till fifteen days later,
with the convoy which supplied the post.
Three cases of respectable dimensions were carried one after another
to the Captain's room, and the grimaces of the porters said enough as
to their weight.
I discreetly left Saint-Avit to his unpacking and began opening the
mail which the convoy had sent me.
He returned to the office a little later and glanced at the several
reviews which I had just recieved.
"So," he said. "You take these."
He skimmed through, as he spoke, the last number of the Zeitschrift
der Gesellschaft fur Erdkunde in Berlin.
"Yes," I answered. "These gentlemen are kind enough to interest
themselves in my works on the geology of the Wadi Mia and the high
Igharghar."
"That may be useful to me," he murmured, continuing to turn over the
leaves.
"It's at your service."
"Thanks. I am afraid I have nothing to offer you in exchange, except
Pliny, perhaps. And still--you know what he said of Igharghar,
according to King Juba. However, come help me put my traps in place
and you will see if anything appeals to you."