l8o DAHLAK 



were taking a serious turn. Finally, one sad day, the besieged 

 reacted against the local Sioux tribe. Their quarters were 

 razed to the ground, their holes were devastated and many 

 of them paid the penalty of their audacity with their lives. 



Our drastic offensive was provoked by events having to 

 do with a fountain pen and my right ear. Some weeks had 

 passed since our landing, and Folco was with us. Every 

 evening, scrupulously and without fail, he wrote dozens of 

 pages of letters, diary notes and memoranda. He typed 

 everything and in that deserted island the tapping of his 

 typewriter sounded like a machine gun. But on that fatal 

 day Destiny had cast its net with care. The threadbare 

 ribbon of his typewriter refused to imprint even a comma on 

 the paper. Folco did not give in. He took up his pen and 

 continued unperturbed. At a certain point he felt thirsty 

 (Destiny was at work) . He got up and went to find a bottle 

 with a drop of water in it. It did not take him more than five 

 minutes to find one among the empties but when he got 

 back his pen had vanished. He had left it there, on the note- 

 book, he was certain. He asked everybody, cursed the 

 practical joker, was polite, felt our pockets, but finally gave 

 way and began to rant and fume. 'It's all very well if it 

 doesn't go on too long.' An hour had passed and the evening 

 drew on. He had to finish that page. He ate apart, in silence, 

 watching us. The mystery was then unveiled by the faithful 

 Tesfankièl who had been going round the Sioux tents with 

 a lantern. He suddenly shouted for us to come to one of the 

 holes. The pen had been drawn inside and was just visible 

 at the entrance. 



But Destiny had not yet finished its work that evening. I 

 was sitting on the ground at the tent entrance under the 

 acetylene lamp which was hanging from the branch of a 

 tree, smoking and quietly writing an article for a newspaper. 



