City in the Sahara - Barsac Mission 02

  "Which is quite inadequate considering the facts behind them," Barsac continued; he was beginning to get annoyed. "But first let me explain who we are."

  Camaret having assented by a gesture of polite indifference which was hardly encouraging, he performed the introductions. Leaving Jane Blazon the pseudonym she had chosen, he indicated in turn his companions and himself, adding after each name the quality of the person in question.

  "And finally," he concluded, "this is Tongane, whom I needn't stress; it seems you know him already."

  "Yes . . . yes . . ." said Camaret mildly, once more looking down.

  "Instructed by the French Government. . .. But surely you are a Frenchman, Monsieur Camaret?"

  "Yes . . . yes," murmured the engineer, again in tones devoid of emotion.

  "Instructed, as I said, by the French Government to carry out in the Niger Bend a mission in which my companions here were taking part," Barsac continued, "we have had unending struggles against the obstacles which it pleased Harry Killer to place in our way."

  "Why should he do that?" Camaret objected, at last showing signs of attention.

  "So as to keep us from reaching the Niger, for Harry Killer means his lair to stay unknown. That's why he endeavoured to bar us out from the region, for fear that we should hear about Blackland, there's nobody in Europe who so much as suspects that it exists."

  "What's that you say?" cried Camaret, with an un^ usual show of interest. "But they can't help knowing it exists! Not in Europe, where so many workmen have gone after they left here."

  "It is so, none the less," Barsac replied.

  "You mean to tell me," Camaret insisted: he was getting more and more anxious, "that nobody, I say nobody, knows about us?"

  "Nobody whatever."

  "And they still think that this part of the desert is quite umnhabited?"

  "Yes, Monsieur, I do say so."

  Camaret had risen. Gripped by a powerful emotion, he walked up and down the room. "Unthinkablel . . .Unthinkable! ..." he murmured. His agitation lasted only a few minutes. Soon, having regained his calm by an effort of the will, he again seated himself. "Go on, Monsieur, I implore you," he said; he had turned paler than usual.

  "I won't weary you," Barsac continued, in response to this invitation, "by telling you all the troubles we have had to face. It's quite enough to say that, after he had succeeded in robbing us of our escort, Harry Killer grew furious at seeing that we kept on in the direction he had forbidden. So at last he had us pounced on by his men in the depths of night, and brought us here. And now he's kept us prisoner for fourteen days, and threatens us with the rope."

  A little blood had risen to the face of Marcel Camaret, which had begun to put on a menacing look.

  "What you say is unthinkablel" he cried, when M. Barsac had finished. "What! . . . Harry Killer to have acted like that!"

  "That isn't everything" and Barsac went on to describe the odious violence to which Jane Blazon had been subjected and the slaughter of the two Negroes, one wiped out by an aerial torpedo and the other pounded on by heliplane and dropped on to the tower platform, on which he had been hideously smashed.

  Marcel Camaret was in consternation. For the first time, perhaps, he left the realm of pure abstract thought to come to grips with reality. His innate honesty was suffering badly from the contact. What he who would not have crushed an insect he had, without suspecting anything, lived for long years in association with a being capable of such atrocities!

  "It's horrible! ... frightful! ..." he said.

  The horror with which this narration had inspired him was obviously as sincere as it was deep. How could he reconcile his conscience, his deep moral rectitude, with his presence in a town rendered suspicious by the character of its chief?

  "But now, Monsieur," Barsac suggested, putting the general thought into words, "a man who can commit such acts in cold blood is no amateur. Harry Killer must certainly have other crimes on his conscience. You don't know of any?"

  "You...you dare to ask me such a question?" Camaret protested in disgust. "Yes, certainly, I didn't know of them, just as I didn't know about the ones you've now told me, as well as others, more terrible still, that I'm beginning to suspect. Hardly ever coming out of this factory where so much depends upon me, busy thinking out new schemes, I can certainly say that I've never seen anything, never known anything...never, never."

  "If you understand us well enough, said Barsac, "you will be able to give the answer, partly at any rate, to a question which we asked ourselves as soon as we got here. We are amazed that this town and the adjoining countryside can be the work of a Harry Killer. When we remember that ten years ago it was nothing but a sea of sand! Whatever its purpose, the change is amazing. And even if Harry Killer used to be endowed with real intelligence, that intelligence has long been drowned in alcohol. We don't at all see how such a degenerate can have achieved such wonders."

  "Him! . . ." exclaimed Marcel Camaret, gripped by a sudden anger. "Him! . . . That nobody, that nonentityl What are you thinking of! . . . The work is good, and to carry it out needed someone very different from Harry Killer."

  "Then who's responsible for it," asked Barsac.

  "I am!" came the superb words of Camaret, his face shining with pride. "It was I who created everything that exists round here. It was I who showered the life-giving rain on the scorched arid surface of the desert. It was I who transformed it into a flourishing and fertile countryside. It was I who made this town out of nothing just as God created the Universe out of the voidl"

  Barsac and his companions exchanged uneasy glances. While, trembling with a sickly enthusiasm, he had sung that hymn to his own glory, Marcel Camaret had raised his rolling eyes heavenwards, as if he were looking for someone to compare himself with. Mightn't they have gone from one madman to another?

  "Well," asked Dr. Chatonnay after a moment's silence, "as it was you who originated everything we have seen here, how could you hand over your work to Harry Killer without troubling what use he was making of it?"

  "When He launched the stars into infinity," replied Camaret proudly, "did it trouble the Eternal Power what would become of them?"

  "He has been known to punish," the doctor murmured.

  "And I will punish as He does, if need be," declared Marcel Camaret, whose eyes were again gleaming with that disquieting light.

  The fugitives were at a loss. How could they rely on this man, maybe a genius but certainly unbalanced, capable at once of so total a blindness and so unmeasured a pride?

  "Would it be indiscreet, Monsieur Camaret," said Amedee Florence, who wanted to bring the conversation back to more immediate ends, "if I were to ask you bow you got to know Harry Killer, and how the plan for creating Blackland came into your head?"

  "Not at all," replied Marcel Camaret gently; he was gradually regaining his usual calm. "The idea came from Harry Killer, but its execution was left to me. I knew him when I took part in an expedition organized by an English Company and led by a captain seconded from military duty, a captain called George Blazon."

  At that name all eyes were directed on Jane. But she remained unmoved.

  Tongane took part in that expedition in the rank of a sergeant," Camaret went on, "and that's why I recognized him just now in spite of the years which have elapsed. As to myself, I had been engaged as an engineer, my task being to study the orography, the hydrography, and especially the mineralogy of the regions we crossed. Setting out from Acera, in AshantiIand, we had travelled northwards for two months when one day Harry Killer turned up among us. Heartily welcomed by our leader, he joined our column and never left it."

  "Wouldn't it be right to say," Jane asked, "that at last he assumed Captain Blazon's place so gradually that nobody noticed it?"

  Camaret turned towards the young girl. "I couldn't tell you," he said, hesitating a little but showing no signs of surprise at the question. "I was so busy with my own work, you will understand, that I couldn't notice any details,
and I saw Harry Killer little more than I saw George Blazon. However, that may be, when I got back one day from a personal expedition of forty-eight hours I couldn't find the column where I had left it. No men, no equipment, nothing! Much annoyed, I must admit, I was wondering what direction to follow when I met Harry Killer.

  "He told me that Captain Blazon had gone back to the coast with most of the personnel and that it was left to him, with about twenty men and myself, to complete the itinerary. What did it matter to me, he or Captain Blazon, especially as I did not know where to find him? So I followed Harry Killer without hesitation. He had heard rumours about some fairly interesting inventions which I then had in mind. He brought me here and suggested that I should implement them. I agreed. That was the beginning of my relations with Harry Killer."

  "Monsieur Camaret, you must allow me to complete your information about Harry Killer, and to tell you what you don't seem to know," said Jane Blazon in serious tones. "From the day when he joined Captain Blazon's expedition, the column which he commanded became a horde of bandits. It burned the villages, massacred very many men, ripped up the women, and hacked the children to pieces."

  "Impossible! . . . Camaret protested. "Devil take it, I was there! And I didn't see anything."

  "Just as you haven't seen anything recently although it was in front of you, just as for the last ten years you've known nothing about the acts of Harry Killer. Alas, the events I've described cannot be denied; they are historic facts which all the world knows."

  "And I knew nothing of it! . . ." babbled Marcel Camaret thunderstruck.

  "However that may be," Jane Blazon continued, "the rumour of these atrocities reached Europe. The troops were sent against Captain Blazon's rebel column and it was destroyed. On that day when you failed to find anyone at the camp you had left, George Blazon had not moved away from it. He was dead."

  "Dead!" repeated Camaret, astonished.

  "Yes, but he hadn't been struck, as everyone thought until recently, by the bullets of the troops sent after him. George Blazon had been assassinated."

  "Assassinated. ..."

  "You were misinformed just now. My name is not Mornas. I am Jane Blazon, and I was the sister of your former leader. That's why I recognized your name as soon as Tongane uttered it. The only reason I came into Africa was to find a proof of my poor brother's innocence, accused of crimes which were undoubtedly committed by someone else."

  "Assassinated! . . ." repeated Camaret, borne clown by the weight of this series of revelations.

  "And murdered from behind," Jane added, producing the weapon by which George Blazon had been killed. "Along with these gentlemen, I went to my brother's grave, and there, in their presence, I exhumed his remains. We found this dagger which had pierced through the shoulderblade that still held it firmly and which had reached his heart. The murderer's name had been engraved on the hilt, but unfortunately time has effaced it. But there are still two letters showing, and from what you have told us, I don't think I'm mistaken in saying that this name must be 'Harry Killer.' "

  While listening to this tragic history, Marcel Camaret had shown a growing agitation. He was writhing his fingers restlessly together and passing his hands over his face, on which drops of sweat were glistening.

  "It's terrible! . . . Terriblel That I should have done this! ... I! . . ." he kept repeating, while a troubled light gleamed anew in his dilated eyes.

  "You'll let us hide here?" asked Barsac by way of summing things up.

  "Will I let you hidel . . ." replied Camaret with unaccustomed heat. "Need you ask? Can you imagine that I'm a part to these abominable crimes which on the contrary you can be sure I mean to punish!"

  "Before talking about punishing, we have to think about protecting ourselves," remarked the ever practical Am6dee Florence. "Won't we have to fear that Harry Killer will try to recapture us?"

  Marcel Camaret smiled. "He doesn't know you're here," he said, "and even if he did . . ." a gesture showed how little he cared about that. "For the time being," he continued, "you can set your minds at ease. You're quite safe here, you can be sure of that."

  He pressed a button and a bell rang. A black servant appeared. "Jacko," Camaret said, as though it were the simplest thing in the world, while the Negro rolled his startled eyes. "Show these gentlemen and this lady to their rooms."

  He rose, crossed the room, and opened a door. "Good evening, gentlemen," he said politely. Then he vanished, leaving his guests as astonished as the Negro, upon whom had devolved the difficult task of finding them beds.

  Where, indeed, could poor Jacko have found them. There were none free in the Factory, and no provision had been made for unexpected arrivals. Would he have to go from door to door and arouse the workmen one after another?

  Realizing the difficulty, Barsac assured him that he and his companions could do without beds. They would stay where they were, and they merely asked Jacko to get them all he could in the way of armchairs and wraps. They would manage quite well, especially as the night was so far advanced.

  At last came daybreak. At exactly six o'clock Marcel 'Camaret opened the door by which he had gone out. He did not seem at all surprised to find his room converted into a dormitory.

  "Good morning, gentlemen," he said to his guests, as calmly as he had previously wished them good night.

  "Good morning, Monsieur Camaret," they replied with one voice.

  "Gentlemen," Camaret continued, "I have thought over what you told me last night. This situation cannot continue. We must act at once."

  He touched a button. At once a noisy clanging resounded from all sides.

  "Kindly.follow me, gentlemen," he said.

  After traversing several corridors, they reached a huge workshop equipped with a number of machines, now motionless. Around them assembled a crowd of men and women.

  "Everybody here?" asked Camaret. "Rigaud, please call the roll."

  Having ascertained that the personnel of the Factory were all present, he addressed them. He first introduced the strangers who had come to claim his protection. Then he made clear what he had learned during the night

  Atrocities committed by George Blazon's men after for some reason or other they had come under the control of Harry Killer; the murder plainly attributable to the latter; the kidnapping and internment of the Barsac Mission; the violence offered to Jane Blazon; and finally the slaughter, as cruel as it was unjustified, of the two Negroes, he forgot nothing which could impress the minds of his audience.

  This made it clear that they were all of them unwittingly in the service of an out-and-out bandit and gave them reason to fear that the work of the Factory would* serve for promoting further crimes. Such a .situation could not be allowed to continue, and honour forbade them to surrender the prisoners whom Harry Killer was illegally detaining. Thence it followed that they must break off all negotiations with the Palace and, one and all, demand to be repatriated.

  Heard in complete silence, the narration of Camaret first aroused a very natural amazement among these honest workmen. When they had regained their calm, they fully agreed with his conclusions. Which of them, indeed, would have thought of expressing an opinion contrary to that of the Director whom they all admired and respected?

  He had finally struck the imagination of his auditors in explaining the conclusion he had reached: "What has most surprised me," he said, "of all the incredible things which I learned that night, is that nobody in Europe has heard of the existence of this town which Harry Killer seems to call Blackland. I am not ignorant that it was founded, far from any caravan route, in the heart of the desert where nobody ever comes, and for a very good reason.

  "But it is no less certain that a number of our comrades, after having been here some time, have been smitten with home-sickness and wanted to go back. I counted them up last night. Since we began, a hundred and thirty-seven have left us. Now if only a few of these had arrived in Europe, the existence of this town could no longer be unknown. As nobody has h
eard of it, we can only infer that none of the hundred and tlurty-seven have ever reached their destination."

  Not a sound was heard from the assembled workmen, who seemed thunderstruck by this irrefutable argument.

  "And the result of that," Camaret ended, "is that not one of you can ever hope to see his homeland again, so long as the power of Harry Killer exists, and that we must not expect any mercy if we fall into his hands. In our own interests, as well as in that of justice, we must revolt."

  "Yes! . . . yes! . . . You can rely on us!" came the shouts from every side.

  Such was their confidence in Marcel Camaret that these workmen, at first dispirited at finding themselves cut off from the rest of the world, had already regained their courage on remembering that he was with them. All arms were stretched towards him as a sign of unshakable fidelity.

  "Let the work go on as usual and rely on me," he said, going out to the accompaniment of a storm of cheers.

  As soon as he left the workshop he spent a few moments with his foreman, whom he had addressed as Rigaud. Then, while the latter went off to carry out his orders, Camaret returned to his study, his proteges following him.

  Scarcely had they entered when the telephone-bell rang. He grasped the receiver, and the others heard him replying in his gentle voice: "yes" or "no", "good" or "As you wish", to the messages he received. Finally he began laughing and replaced the receiver, shutting it off by means of a cut-out in the circuit.

  "That was Harry Killer telephoning me," he said, in that remarkable voice whose gentle mildness was scarcely affected by any emotion. "He knows you are here."

  "Already!" exclaimed Barsac.

  "Yes. He seems to have found someone called Tchoumouki. They have also found a boat abandoned in the river and an official tied up like Tchoumouki. As to leave the town at night is impossible withoul his knowing it, he has inferred that you must be here. I did not deny it. He then asked me to hand you over. I refused. He insisted, and I reiterated my refusal. This aroused his wrath. He threatcned to come, and take you by force.