However, the newcomers, though dark as Negro Bela slaves, wore Tuareg dress, loose baggy trousers of dark indigo-blue cotton cloth, a loose, nightgownlike white cotton shirt, and over this a gandoura outer garment. Above all, they wore the teguelmoust, though they were shockingly lax in keeping it properly up about the mouth.

Moussa-ag-Amastan knew that he was backed by ten or more of his clansmen, half of whom bore rifles, the rest Tuareg broadswords, Crusader-like with their two edges, round points and flat rectangular cross-members. Only two of the strangers seemed armed and they negligently bore their smallish guns in the crooks of their arms. The clan leader spoke at length, then, but he said the traditional, “La bas.”

“There is no evil,” repeated the foremost of the newcomers. His Tamaheq, the Berber language of the Tuareg confederations, seemed perfect.

Moussa-ag-Amastan said, “What do you do in the lands of the Taitoq Tuareg?”

The stranger, a tall, handsome man with a dominating though pleasant personality, indicated the vehicles with a sweep of his hand. “We are Enaden, itinerent smiths. As has ever been our wont, we travel from encampment to encampment to sell our products and to make repair upon your metal possessions.”

Enaden! The traveling smiths of the Ahaggar, and indeed of the whole Sahara, were a despised and ragged lot at best. Few there were that ever possessed more than a small number of camels, a sprinkling of goats, perhaps a sheep or two. But these seemed as rich as Roumas, as Europeans or Americans.

Moussa-ag-Amastan muttered, “You jest with us at your peril, stranger.” He pointed an aged but still strong hand at the vehicles. “Enaden do not own such as these.”