I obeyed without saying a word. Tanit-Zerga, seated behind me, put her little arms around me. Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh was still holding the bridle. "One word more," he said, pointing to a black spot against the violet sky of the southern horizon. "You see the _gour_ there; that is your way. It is eighteen miles from here. You should reach it by sunrise. Then consult your map. The next point is marked. If you do not stray from the line, you should be at the springs of Telemsi in eight days." The camel's neck was stretched toward the dark wind coming from the south. The Targa released the bridle with a sweep of his hand. "Now go." "Thank you," I called to him, turning back in the saddle. "Thank you, Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh, and farewell." I heard his voice replying in the distance: "_Au revoir_, Lieutenant de Saint Avit." XIX THE TANEZRUFT During the first hour of our flight, the great mehari of Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh carried us at a mad pace. We covered at least five leagues. With fixed eyes, I guided the beast toward the _gour_ which the Targa had pointed out, its ridge becoming higher and higher against the paling sky. The speed caused a little breeze to whistle in our ears. Great tufts of _retem_, like fleshless skeletons, were tossed to right and left. I heard the voice of Tanit-Zerga whispering: "Stop the camel." At first I did not understand. "Stop him," she repeated. Her hand pulled sharply at my right arm. I obeyed. The camel slackened his pace with very bad grace. "Listen," she said. At first I heard nothing. Then a very slight noise, a dry rustling behind us. "Stop the camel," Tanit-Zerga commanded. "It is not worth while to make him kneel." A little gray creature bounded on the camel. The mehari set out again at his best speed. "Let him go," said Tanit-Zerga. "Galé has jumped on." I felt a tuft of bristly hair under my arm. The mongoose had followed our footsteps and rejoined us. I heard the quick panting of the brave little creature becoming gradually slower and slower. "I am happy," murmured Tanit-Zerga. Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh had not been mistaken. We reached the _gour_ as the sun rose. I looked back. The Atakor was nothing more than a monstrous chaos amid the night mists which trailed the dawn. It was no longer possible to pick out from among the nameless peaks, the one on which Antinea was still weaving her passionate plots. You know what the Tanezruft is, the "plain of plains," abandoned, uninhabitable, the country of hunger and thirst. We were then starting on the part of the desert which Duveyrier calls the Tassili of the south, and which figures on the maps of the Minister of Public Works under this attractive title: "Rocky plateau, without water, without vegetation, inhospitable for man and beast." Nothing, unless parts of the Kalahari, is more frightful than this rocky desert. Oh, Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh did not exaggerate in saying that no one would dream of following us into that country.