olonel, 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]

[Footnote 16: Cf. the records and the _Bulletin de la Societe de
Geographie de Paris_ (1897) for the cruises on the Niger, made by the
_Commandant_ of the Timbuctoo region, Colonel Joffre, Lieutenants
Baudry and Bluset, and by Father Hacquart of the White Fathers. (Note
by M. Leroux.)]

Tanit-Zerga paused.

"That was the last night of Gao. 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
Gao beside my father, brave Sonni-Azkia. Once again Gao 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 Rhat. 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