City in the Sahara - Barsac Mission 02 Read online

  As I've just stated, it was the day before yesterday, a little before noon, when we were imprisoned. I was gripped by three mulattos who, not without a certain brutality, forced me up some stairs and then along a dark corridor leading out into a long gallery with some cells opening from it. This gallery is easy to guard, and sentinels are placed at both ends. I doubt whether we shall be able to escape that way.

  I'm thrust into a room lighted by a window reinforced with an iron grille twelve feet above my head, and the door is closed upon me and triply locked. I remain alone with my thoughts, which are not exactly rose coloured.

  The cell is large and well ventilated. It contains a table with writing materials, a chair, a bed which looks clean, and some toilet utensils. An electric light bulb is fixed to the ceiling. The "damp straw" of this dungeon is certainly comfortable, and I should think this study quite ample—if I were free.

  I sit down and light a cigarette. I wait-for what? For something to happen. Meanwhile I reflect on the charms of travel.

  Two hours later I am aroused from my meditations by the sound of my door opening. The bolts jar, the lock creaks, the door gapes open, and I see. ... I could give you a thousand guesses.

  I can see Tchoumouki, yes Tchoumouki, who vanished on the day when, for the third time, I heard the mysterious roaring whose cause I now understand. He doesn't want for impudence. To dare to come in my presence after the way he treated my articles!

  He is expecting rather a cool welcome himself. Before entering my cell, he glances in to see how the land lies. Much good may it do him.

  "Oh, there you are, you double-dyed villain!" I exclaim as I dash towards him, with the idea of giving him the punishment he deserves.

  But I come up against the door, which the traitor has hurriedly slammed. All the better, after all. When I promise myself the pleasure of pulling his ears, what good will that do me, except to complicate my position, which isn't too cheerful as it is?

  Does he guess these more conciliatory thoughts? It seems like it, for the door opens a second time, so as to let the rascal shove his crinkly hair in. Oh, he can come in now. I've regained my chair . . . and my calm.

  I repeat, but in a tone which doesn't convey a threat, "Oh, there you are, you double-dyed villain! What are you doing here?"

  "Me have servant here," replied Tchoumouki, looking down shamefacedly as he opens the door wider.

  In the corridor are two other Negroes carrying some food; Tchoumouki sets it out on my table. The sight makes my mouth water, and I realize that I'm dying of hunger. That's not surprising. I'm still fasting, and it's now two in the afternoon.

  Casting all care aside, I do justice to the meal, which Tchoumouki serves respectfully; I question him, and he makes no bones about replying. According to him I'm the guest, (quite involuntary!)-of a mighty king, Harry Killer (rather a nasty name, between ourselves) and he's had me brought to this extraordinary town, where "there are many big houses" and "many toubab things" which means it's full of European contrivances. I don't find this hard to believe, after my experiences in those prodigious flymg machines, which still amaze me.

  I go on with my enquiry. It must be the king in question who put him, Tchoumouki, in the path of Mlle Mornas, who engaged him as guide, much as one chooses, in spite of himself, a conjurer's forced card. Tchoumouki says no, that he was engaged without any mental reservations. He even maintains that he never broke his engagement and that he regards himself as in the service of Mademoiselle Mornas and St. Berain so long as they stay in Africa. Is he mocking me? I look at him. No, he speaks seriously, which has something rather comical about it.

  He says he was seduced by Morilire who himself was certainly in the pay of the monarch who's keeping us prisoner. Not content widi lavishing gold upon him, it seems that Morilire had described in the most poetic terms the power and generosity of this Harry Killer, whom Tchoumouki had never seen, and had promised him a free and easy life. Such were the reasons which made Tchoumouki turn his coat.

  When I ask him if he knows what's become of his old friend Tongane, his ugly face takes on a fierce look, he passes his hand across his throat, and goes "Kwik!"

  Then I've guessed right. Poor Tongane is stone dead.

  Tchoumouki finishes his confidences. The roaring which I'd heard on the day he vanished came from a flying machine which brought Lieutenant Lacour, or rather Captain Edward Rufus. His men had come to meet us by the terrestrial route under the command of the two N.C.O.'s, meanwhile amusing themselves by plundering the villages they found in their way. It was the skates of that flying machine which when it landed had carved in the bush tire grooves I'd seen next day while out for my ride with Tongane.

  This explains the unkempt appearance of the soldiers and the impeccable elegance of the officer. It explains, too, the terror of the Negro wounded by the explosive bullet when he recognized one of the men who'd attacked his village, in spite of his indifference towards the so-called lieutenant, whom he'd never before seen. As for him, Tchoumouki, he'd been brought by the same machine when it returned to its port of departure, here, that is....

  He pronounces a name which he mangles terribly. By dint of much attention, I at last realize that he's trying to say "Blackland," a composite English word. This is quite plausible. So here we are at Blackland, a marvellous town according to Tchoumouki, although unknown to the best-informed geographers.

  While the Negro gives me this news, I ponder. As he has betrayed us for gain, why shouldn't he betray his new masters for the same reason? I approach him accordingly, and I mention a sum which would enable him to pass his whole life in delicious idleness. The rascal seems to find the proposal quite natural, but he shakes his head, like a man who doesn't see any chance of getting the prize.

  "There no way of going," he tells me. "Here there many soldiers, many 'toubab things,' many big walls."

  He adds that the town is surrounded by the desert, which we couldn't possibly cross. That's true, as I'd seen for myself when I traversed it by air. So are we condemned to remain here for the rest of our days?

  The meal over, Tchoumouki goes, and I finish my day alone.

  In the evening he serves my dinner (the cooking is quite good, in fact) then, just as my watch shows a few minutes past nine, the electric bulb suddenly goes out. I feel my way to bed.

  After an excellent night, as I said, I get up on the 25th March and revise the notes describing the vicissitudes of our kidnapping and our aerial voyage. The day is spent peacefully. I do not see anybody except Tchoumouki, who serves my meals regularly. In the evening, taught by experience, I go to bed earlier. I can congratulate myself. At the same hour as before, the light goes out. It's evidently a rule of the house.

  Another good night, and here I am once more, this morning, the 26th of March, fresh and cheerful, but alas! still a prisoner. The position is absurd, for what do they want with us? When shall I see someone I can ask?

  In the evening. My wishes have been fulfilled. We have seen His Majesty Harry Killer, and our situation has undergone important alterations since that interview, which has left me still moved, still trembling.

  It might be three in the afternoon when the door opened. This time it was not Tchoumouki, who hid behind it but another of our old friends, Morilire. He is accompanied by a score of Negroes whom he seems to command.

  In the midst of that troop I can see my companions, including Miss Blazon-Mornas, but not including St. Berain, who still can't be moved, so his young aunt says. I go and join them, thinking my last hour has come, and we're being taken off to the execution shed.

  Nothing of the sort. We follow a series of corridors, and at last arrive at a fairly large room. We enter, while our escort waits on the threshold.

  The room is furnished only with an arm-chair in palm fibre and a table bearing a glass and a bottle half filled, which emits the smell of alcohol. The armchair is behind the table and in it sits a man. Our eyes converge on that man. He's worth it.

  His Ma
jesty Harry Killer must be about forty-five years old, though there are some signs that he's older. As far as we can tell, he is tall, and his sturdy build, his enormous hands, his stout muscular limbs, show an uncommon, not to say an Herculean, strength.

  But it is his head which especially attracts attention. His face is hairless, and indicates a complex character, at once powerful and villainous. He is crowned by disheveled graying hair, a veritable rnane which from time immemorial seems to have had a quarrel with the comb. His forehead, whence the hair has retreated, is broad and suggests intelligence, but his protruding jaw and heavy square chin indicate coarse and violent passions. His cheeks, deeply bronzed, and with prominent bones, cave inwards, then hang down in two heavy lobes; they bear scattered pimples so red they almost resemble blood. His mouth is thick-lipped and his lower lip, slightly hanging down, discloses strong teeth, healthy but yellow and badly cleaned. His eyes, deeply sunk in their orbits and surmounted by bristling eyebrows, have an extraordinary and sometimes, indeed, almost an unbearable brilliance.

  This personage is certainly not at all commonplace. Every appetite, every vice, every audacity, are surely his. Hideous, yes, but formidable.

  His Majesty is clad in a sort of hunting outfit of grey cloth, breeches, leggings and tunic, all filthy and covered with stains. On the table he has placed a large woollen hat; near this is his right hand, which is in a continual tremble.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Dr. Chatonnay indicates that shaking hand. I understand what he would like to say: it's an alcoholic, almost a drunkard, whom we have before us.

  For some time that individual considers us in silence. His eyes go from one to the other, and pass us successively in review. We await his good pleasure patiently.

  "They told me there are six of you," he says at last, in French but with a strong English accent, speaking in a stem but raucous voice. "I can only see five. Why?"

  "One of us is ill," replied Dr. Chatonnay, "ill from the sufferings your men inflicted on him."

  There is a fresh interval of silence, then our interlocutor gets up suddenly and asks ex abrupto: "What did you come to my country for?"

  The question is so unexpected that in spite of the gravity of the situation we all want to laugh. Well If we are in his country, it is in spite of ourselves.

  He goes on, with a menacing look. "To spy, no doubt."

  "Excuse me, Sir," ... says M. Barsac.

  But the other interrupts him. Seized by a sudden anger, he crashes his fist on the table and roars in a voice of thunder: "They call me Master."

  M. Barsac then becomes superb. An orator always and even now, he draws himself up, places his left hand on his heart, and sweeps the air with a wide movement of his right ann: "Since seventeen hundred and eighty-nine," he declares emphatically, "the French have never had a master."

  Anywhere else it would evoke laughter, I admit, this somewhat melodramatic declaration of M. Barsac, but in the present circumstances, in the teeth of tins sort of wild beast, I assure you it is not without nobility. It shows that we shall never consent to humble ourselves before this drunken adventurer. We all applaud the speaker, down to M. Poncin; earned away with his enthusiasm, he cries: "Take away a man's independence, and you take his freedom!"

  Gallant M. Poncin! Certainly he means well.

  On hearing this indisputable statement, Harry Killer shrugs his shoulders. Then he again starts staring at us in turn, as though he had never seen us before. His eyes pass from one to another with amazing speed. He stops at last with M. Barsac, at whom he darts a most terrible look. M. Barsac does not flinch. My congratulations. That son of the Midi, he's not only voluble, he has courage and dignity too. The chief of our Mission is rising in my esteem by leaps and bounds.

  Harry Killer succeeds in controlling himself, which cannot happen every day, then with a calmness as unexpected as his anger was sudden, he says: "Do you speak English?"

  "Yes," M. Barsac replies.

  "And your companions."

  "Just as well."

  "Good," Harry Killer agrees; then in the same half drunken voice he repeats his previous question in English: "What have you come here for?"

  The answer is obvious.

  "Its for us to ask you that question," M. Barsac replies, "and to demand what right you've got to keep us here by force."

  "Because I've got you," snaps Harrv Killer his fury suddenly going beyond all bounds. "While I'm alive, nobody comes near my empire!"

  His empire? ... I don't follow this.

  Harry Killer jumps up. Especially addressing M. Barsac, who still looks very firm, he continues in furious tones and hammering the table with his gigantic fist: "Yes, yes, I know well enough that your countrymen have reached Timbuctoo and keep working their way up the Niger, but they'd better stop. If they don't. . . . And now they've got the impudence, to send spies to the river by land! . . . I'll smash them, your spies, just as I smash this glass!"

  And, adding gesture to speech, Harry Killer does in fact smash his glass, which shatters to pieces on the floor.

  "Another glass!" he howls, turning towards the door.

  Carried away by incredible fury, literally maddened with rage, for a little foam oozes from the comers of his lips, he is not good to look at now. His projecting lower jaw makes him resemble a wild beast with his purple face and his bloodshot eyes.

  One of the Black Guard has hastened to obey him. Without troubling about him, the man, as though he were possessed, leaning on the table which his hands are beating violently, turns towards the unmoved M. Barsac, fixes him with his eyes and shouts:

  "And didn't I give you enough warning? . . . That yarn about the doung-kono, which I'd thought up for your benefit, that was the first hint It was I who placed in your path that fortune teller and it's your own fault his warning's been fulfilled. It was I who sent you your guide, my slave Morilire, to make a last effort to stop you at Sikasso. But it was all in vain. In vain I took away your escort, in vain I starved you out, nothing would suit you but to push on the Niger . . . Well, you've reached the Niger, you've even crossed the Niger, and you've found out what you wanted to know. . . . And much you've got for it! Now how are you going to tell this to your paymasters?"

  In the grip of this boundless fury, Harry Killer is parading up and down. To my mind there's no doubt about it, he's mad. Suddenly he stops, his mind seized by an unexpected idea: "But, as a matter of fact," he asks M. Barsac, with surprising calm, "weren't you really aiming for Saye?"

  "Yes," M. Barsac replies.

  "Then why did you go off in quite a different direction? What were you going to do at Koubo?"

  Harry Killer accompanies this question with a piercing look, while we exchange embarrassed glances. The question is certainly troublesome, as we have agreed not to mention Miss Blazon's real name. Fortunately M. Barsac finds a plausible reply, "As our escort deserted us," he says, "we were making for Timbuctoo."

  "Why not for Sikasso? That's not so far."

  "We simply thought it best to make for Timbuctoo."

  "H'm," grunts Harry Killer doubtfully, then after a brief silence he continues: "Then you didn't mean to go eastwards to the Niger?"

  "No," M. Barsac assures him.

  "If I could have guessed that," Harry Killer informs us, "you wouldn't be here now."

  What a joke! As if he'd taken the trouble to ask us!

  Profiting by the silence following this preposterous remark, I take up the conversation. I (I who write this) am a very logical person. Anything which isn't reasonable shocks me, like an untidy cupboard. And in this record there's one point which intrigues me. So I put in my spoke:

  "Excuse me, dear Sir," I say, with exquisite courtesy, "I'd like to know why you took the trouble to fetch us here, instead of simply wiping us out. Your Captain Edward Rufus and his men had the whip hand of us for we'd no reason to mistrust them. Surely it would have been the best way of getting rid of us."

  Hany Killer knitted his brows and looked at
me disdainfully. Who was this pigmy who dared address him? All the same, he deigns to reply: "So as to avoid an investigation by the French authorities. They would certainly have been perturbed if one of their Missions had been wiped out."

  I'm partly satisfied. Not quite, however. I raise an objection: "I should think it would have the same effect if we vanished."

  "Of course," admits Harry Killer, who for once is showing sound common sense. "So I'd have preferred to see you abandon your journey. It's only your obstinacy which made me bring you here."

  He's offered me a chance, which I seize at once. "Then we can arrange everything," I suggest. "You understand now that we don't at all want to go to the Niger, so you've only got to put us back where you found us, and then there won't be any question. ..."

  "So that you can go and spread abroad what you've found out? So that you can reveal the existence of this town that nobody has ever heard of?" Harry Killer breaks in violently. "No, it's too late. Nobody who enters Blackland will ever leave it."

  But he can wear his throat out as much as he likes. I'm getting used to his storming. I pay no attention to that, and I insist: "But an enquiry will be held?"

  "Very likely," Harry Killer replies, his barometer needle now having returned to set fair. "But my position will be better. If I am found out, and if I have to fight, at any rate I shall have something better than your dead bodies."

  "What's that?"

  "Hostages."

  He's in a strong position, this potentate. He's quite right. But I was right, too, to interview him, because his replies show he's no intention of putting us to death on the spot. That's always good to know.

  Harry Killer has resumed his seat in his armchair behind the table. He's a disconcerting fellow. Here he is now, perfectly calm and fully in control of himself.

  "Let's make ourselves clear," he says, in icy tones which are new to us. "You are in Blackland, and you're not going out again, not one of you. As to the sort of life you lead, that will be what you make it. I'm not responsible to anyone. I can keep you in prison or wipe you out, if I want to, just as I can let you have the same freedom I enjoy myself, within the limits of my empire."