XXVII
When Fatou-gaye returned from the village of the great Marabout, bringing with her a mysterious article in a leather wallet, the women of the friendly tribe informed her that the battle was over.
Anxious, panting, exhausted, she made her way back to camp, hastening with feverish step over the hot sand, and carrying on her back her still-sleeping baby, wrapped in a piece of blue cloth.
The first person she met was the Mussulman, Nyaor-fall, the black spahi, who, as she approached, looked at her gravely, telling the beads of his long Maghreb rosary.
In the language of the country, she jerked out the words,
“Where is he?”
With a restrained gesture, Nyaor stretched his arm towards the south of Diambour, the open plains of Dialakar.
“Yonder!”... said he. “He has gained Paradise.”...