"Am I to conclude from all this that I do not know the real aims of
your trip, and that they have nothing to do with the official
motives?"

I had gone a bit too far. I felt it from the seriousness with which
Morhange's reply was delivered.

"No, my dear friend, you must not conclude just that. I should have no
taste for a lie which was based on fraud towards the estimable
constitutional bodies which have judged me worthy of their confidence
and their support. The ends that they have assigned to me I shall do
my best to attain. But I have no reason for hiding from you that there
is another, quite personal, which is far nearer to my heart. Let us
say, if you will, to use a terminology that is otherwise deplorable,
that this is the end while the others are the means."

"Would there be any indiscretion?...."

"None," replied my companion. "Shikh-Salah is only a few days distant.
He whose first steps you have guided with such solicitude in the
desert should have nothing hidden from you."

We had halted in the valley of a little dry well where a few sickly
plants were growing. A spring near by was circled by a crown of gray
verdure. The camels had been unsaddled for the night, and were seeking
vainly, at every stride, to nibble the spiny tufts of _had_. The black
and polished sides of the Tidifest Mountains rose, almost vertically,
above our heads. Already the blue smoke of the fire on which Bou-Djema
was cooking dinner rose through the motionless air.