L'Atlantide. English Read online

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  "First, I must warn you,before beginning this work,not to be surprised to hearme calling barbarians byGrecian names." --PLATO _Critias_

  ATLANTIDA

  _Pierre Benoit_

  Translated by Mary C. Tongue and Mary Ross

  ACE BOOKS, INC. 1120 Avenue of the Americas New York, N.Y. 10036

  To Andre Suares

  HASSI-INIFEL, NOVEMBER 8, 1903.

  If the following pages are ever to see the light of day it will bebecause they have been stolen from me. The delay that I exact beforethey shall be disclosed assures me of that.[1]

  [Footnote 1: This letter, together with the manuscript whichaccompanies it, the latter in a separate sealed envelope, wasentrusted by Lieutenant Ferrieres, of the 3rd Spahis, the day of thedeparture of that officer for the Tassili of the Tuareg (CentralSahara), to Sergeant Chatelain. The sergeant was instructed to deliverit, on his next leave, to M. Leroux, Honorary Counsel at the Court ofAppeals at Riom, and Lieutenant Ferrieres' nearest relative. As thismagistrate died suddenly before the expiration of the term of tenyears set for the publication of the manuscript here presented,difficulties arose which have delayed its publication up to thepresent date.]

  As to this disclosure, let no one distrust my aim when I prepare forit, when I insist upon it. You may believe me when I maintain that nopride of authorship binds me to these pages. Already I am too farremoved from all such things. Only it is useless that others shouldenter upon the path from which I shall not return.

  Four o'clock in the morning. Soon the sun will kindle the hamada withits pink fire. All about me the bordj is asleep. Through the half-opendoor of his room I hear Andre de Saint-Avit breathing quietly, veryquietly.

  In two days we shall start, he and I. We shall leave the bordj. Weshall penetrate far down there to the South. The official orders camethis morning.

  Now, even if I wished to withdraw, it is too late. Andre and I askedfor this mission. The authorization that I sought, together with him,has at this moment become an order. The hierarchic channels cleared,the pressure brought to bear at the Ministry;--and then to be afraid,to recoil before this adventure!...

  To be afraid, I said. I know that I am not afraid! One night in theGurara, when I found two of my sentinels slaughtered, with theshameful cross cut of the Berbers slashed across their stomachs--thenI was afraid. I know what fear is. Just so now, when I gazed into theblack depths, whence suddenly all at once the great red sun will rise,I know that it is not with fear that I tremble. I feel surging withinme the sacred horror of this mystery, and its irresistible attraction.

  Delirious dreams, perhaps. The mad imaginings of a brain surcharged,and an eye distraught by mirages. The day will come, doubtless, when Ishall reread these pages with an indulgent smile, as a man of fifty isaccustomed to smile when he rereads old letters.

  Delirious dreams. Mad imaginings. But these dreams, these imaginings,are dear to me. "Captain de Saint-Avit and Lieutenant Ferrieres,"reads the official dispatch, "will proceed to Tassili to determine thestatigraphic relation of Albien sandstone and carboniferous limestone.They will, in addition, profit by any opportunities of determining thepossible change of attitude of the Axdjers towards our penetration,etc." If the journey should indeed have to do only with such poorthings I think that I should never undertake it.

  So I am longing for what I dread. I shall be dejected if I do notfind myself in the presence of what makes me strangely fearful.

  In the depths of the valley of Wadi Mia a jackal is barking. Now andagain, when a beam of moonlight breaks in a silver patch through thehollows of the heat-swollen clouds, making him think he sees the youngsun, a turtle dove moans among the palm trees.

  I hear a step outside. I lean out of the window. A shade clad inluminous black stuff glides over the hard-packed earth of the terraceof the fortification. A light shines in the electric blackness. A manhas just lighted a cigarette. He crouches, facing southwards. He issmoking.

  It is Cegheir-ben-Cheikh, our Targa guide, the man who in three daysis to lead us across the unknown plateaus of the mysteriousImoschaoch, across the hamadas of black stones, the great dried oases,the stretches of silver salt, the tawny hillocks, the flat gold dunesthat are crested over, when the "alize" blows, with a shimmering hazeof pale sand.

  Cegheir-ben-Cheikh! He is the man. There recurs to my mind Duveyrier'stragic phrase, "At the very moment the Colonel was putting his foot inthe stirrup he was felled by a sabre blow."[2] Cegheir-ben-Cheikh!There he is, peacefully smoking his cigarette, a cigarette from thepackage that I gave him.... May the Lord forgive me for it.

  [Footnote 2: H. Duveyrier, "The Disaster of the Flatters Mission."Bull. Geol. Soc., 1881.]

  The lamp casts a yellow light on the paper. Strange fate, which, Inever knew exactly why, decided one day when I was a lad of sixteenthat I should prepare myself for Saint Cyr, and gave me there Andre deSaint-Avit as classmate. I might have studied law or medicine. Then Ishould be today a respectable inhabitant of a town with a church andrunning water, instead of this cotton-clad phantom, brooding with anunspeakable anxiety over this desert which is about to swallow me.

  A great insect has flown in through the window. It buzzes, strikesagainst the rough cast, rebounds against the globe of the lamp, andthen, helpless, its wings singed by the still burning candle, drops onthe white paper.

  It is an African May bug, big, black, with spots of livid gray.

  I think of others, its brothers in France, the golden-brown May bugs,which I have seen on stormy summer evenings projecting themselves likelittle particles of the soil of my native countryside. It was therethat as a child I spent my vacations, and later on, my leaves. On mylast leave, through those same meadows, there wandered beside me aslight form, wearing a thin scarf, because of the evening air, so coolback there. But now this memory stirs me so slightly that I scarcelyraise my eyes to that dark corner of my room where the light is dimlyreflected by the glass of an indistinct portrait. I realize of howlittle consequence has become what had seemed at one time capable offilling all my life. This plaintive mystery is of no more interest tome. If the strolling singers of Rolla came to murmur their famousnostalgic airs under the window of this bordj I know that I should notlisten to them, and if they became insistent I should send them ontheir way.

  What has been capable of causing this metamorphosis in me? A story, alegend, perhaps, told, at any rate by one on whom rests the direst ofsuspicions.

  Cegheir-ben-Cheikh has finished his cigarette. I hear him returningwith slow steps to his mat, in barrack B, to the left of the guardpost.

  Our departure being scheduled for the tenth of November, themanuscript attached to this letter was begun on Sunday, the first, andfinished on Thursday, the fifth of November, 1903.

  OLIVIER FERRIERES, Lt. 3rd Spahis.