Atlantida - Page 39/145

Although the sky had cleared again, the torrent of yellow water was

still foaming and no one could predict when it would fall. In

mid-stream, struggling desperately in the current, was an

extraordinary mass, gray and soft and swaying.

But what at the first glance overwhelmed us with astonishment was to

see Bou-Djema, usually so calm, at this moment apparently beside

himself with frenzy, bounding through the gullies and over the rocks

of the ledge, in full pursuit of the shipwreck.

Of a sudden I seized Morhange by the arm. The grayish thing was alive.

A pitiful long neck emerged from it with the heartrending cry of a

beast in despair.

"The fool," I cried, "he has let one of our beasts get loose, and the

stream is carrying it away!"

"You are mistaken," said Morhange. "Our camels are all in the cave.

The one Bou-Djema is running after is not ours. And the cry of anguish

we just heard, that was not Bou-Djema either. Bou-Djema is a brave

Chaamb who has at this moment only one idea, to appropriate the

intestate capital represented by this camel in the stream."

"Who gave that cry, then?"

"Let us try, if you like, to explore up this stream that our guide is

descending at such a rate."

And without waiting for my answer he had already set out through the

recently washed gullies of the rocky bank.

At that moment it can be truly said that Morhange went to meet his

destiny.

I followed him. We had the greatest difficulty in proceeding two or

three hundred meters. Finally we saw at our feet a little rushing

brook where the water was falling a trifle.

"See there?" said Morhange.

A blackish bundle was balancing on the waves of the creek.

When we had come up even with it we saw that it was a man in the long

dark blue robes of the Tuareg.

"Give me your hand," said Morhange, "and brace yourself against a

rock, hard."

He was very, very strong. In an instant, as if it were child's play,

he had brought the body ashore.

"He is still alive," he pronounced with satisfaction. "Now it is a

question of getting him to the grotto. This is no place to resuscitate

a drowned man."

He raised the body in his powerful arms.

"It is astonishing how little he weighs for a man of his height."

By the time we had retraced the way to the grotto the man's cotton

clothes were almost dry. But the dye had run plentifully, and it was

an indigo man that Morhange was trying to recall to life.