ncing 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.

When I had made him swallow a quart of rum he opened his eyes, looked
at the two of us with surprise, then, closing them again, murmured
almost unintelligibly a phrase, the sense of which we did not get
until some days later:

"Can it be that I have reached the end of my mission?"

"What mission is he talking about?" I said.

"Let him recover himself completely," responded Morhange. "You had
better open some preserved food. With fellows of this build you don't
have to observe the precautions prescribed for drowned Europeans."

It was indeed a species of giant, whose life we had just saved. His
face, although very thin, was regular, almost beautiful. He had a
clear skin and little beard. His hair, already white, showed him to be
a man of sixty years.

When I placed a tin of corned-beef before him a light of voracious joy
came into his eyes. The tin contained an allowance for four persons.
It was empty in a flash.

"Behold," said Morhange, "a robust appetite. Now we can put our
questions without scruple."

Already the Targa had placed over his forehead and face the blue veil
prescribed by the ritual. He must have been completely famished not to
have performed this indispensable formality sooner. There was nothing
visible now but the eyes, watching us with a light that grew steadily
more sombre.

"French officers," he murmured at last.

And he took Morhange's hand, and having placed it against his breast,
carried it to his lips.

Suddenly an expression of anxiety passed over his face.

"And my mehari?" he asked.

I explained that our guide was then employed in trying to save his
beast. He in turn told us how it had stumbled, and falle