flee, as far as the
places where there are no more men who think and reason.

Morhange, appeared, his arm resting on the Major's, who was beaming
over this new acquaintanceship.

He presented him enthusiastically:

"Captain Morhange, gentlemen. An officer of the old school, and a man
after our own hearts, I give you my word. He wants to leave tomorrow,
but we must give him such a reception that he will forget that idea
before two days are up. Come, Captain, you have at least eight days to
give us."

"I am at the disposition of Lieutenant de Saint-Avit," replied
Morhange, with a quiet smile.

The conversation became general. The sound of glasses and laughter
rang out. I heard my comrades in ecstasies over the stories that the
newcomer poured out with never-failing humor. And I, never, never have
I felt so sad.

The time came to pass into the dining-room.

"At my right, Captain," cried the Major, more and more beaming. "And I
hope you will keep on giving us these new lines on Paris. We are not
up with the times here, you know."

"Yours to command, Major," said Morhange.

"Be seated, gentlemen."

The officers obeyed, with a joyous clatter of moving chairs. I had not
taken my eyes off Morhange, who was still standing.

"Major, gentlemen, you will allow me," he said.

And before sitting down at that table, where every moment he was the
life of the party, in a low voice, with his eyes closed, Captain
Morhange recited the Benedicite.

IV

TOWARDS LATITUDE 25

"You see," said Captain Morhange to me fifteen days later, "you are
much better informed about the ancient routes through the Sahara than
you have been willing to let me suppose, since you know of the
existence of the two Tadekkas. But the one of which you have just
spoken is the Tadekka of Ibn-Batoutah, located by this historian
seventy days from Touat, and placed by Schirmer, very plausibly, in
the unexplored territory of the Aouelimmiden. This is the Tadekka by
which the Sonrhai caravans passed every year, travelling by Egypt.

"My Tadekka is different, the capital of the veiled people, placed by
Ibn-Khaldoun twenty days south of Wargla, which he calls Tadmekka. It
is towards this Tadmekka that I am headed. I must establish Tadmekka
in the ruins of Es-Souk. The commercial trade route, which in the
ninth century bound the Tunisian Djerid to the bend the Niger makes at
Bourroum, passed by Es-Souk. It is to study the possibility of
reestabl