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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14301 ***
+
+ "First, I must warn you,
+before beginning this work,
+not to be surprised to hear
+me calling barbarians by
+Grecian 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 André Suarès
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+HASSI-INIFEL, NOVEMBER 8, 1903.
+
+
+If the following pages are ever to see the light of day it will be
+because they have been stolen from me. The delay that I exact before
+they shall be disclosed assures me of that.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: This letter, together with the manuscript which
+accompanies it, the latter in a separate sealed envelope, was
+entrusted by Lieutenant Ferrières, of the 3rd Spahis, the day of the
+departure of that officer for the Tassili of the Tuareg (Central
+Sahara), to Sergeant Chatelain. The sergeant was instructed to deliver
+it, on his next leave, to M. Leroux, Honorary Counsel at the Court of
+Appeals at Riom, and Lieutenant Ferrières' nearest relative. As this
+magistrate died suddenly before the expiration of the term of ten
+years set for the publication of the manuscript here presented,
+difficulties arose which have delayed its publication up to the
+present date.]
+
+As to this disclosure, let no one distrust my aim when I prepare for
+it, when I insist upon it. You may believe me when I maintain that no
+pride of authorship binds me to these pages. Already I am too far
+removed from all such things. Only it is useless that others should
+enter upon the path from which I shall not return.
+
+Four o'clock in the morning. Soon the sun will kindle the hamada with
+its pink fire. All about me the bordj is asleep. Through the half-open
+door of his room I hear André de Saint-Avit breathing quietly, very
+quietly.
+
+In two days we shall start, he and I. We shall leave the bordj. We
+shall penetrate far down there to the South. The official orders came
+this morning.
+
+Now, even if I wished to withdraw, it is too late. André and I asked
+for 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 the
+Gurara, when I found two of my sentinels slaughtered, with the
+shameful cross cut of the Berbers slashed across their stomachs--then
+I was afraid. I know what fear is. Just so now, when I gazed into the
+black 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 within
+me 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 I
+shall reread these pages with an indulgent smile, as a man of fifty is
+accustomed 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 Ferrières,"
+reads the official dispatch, "will proceed to Tassili to determine the
+statigraphic relation of Albien sandstone and carboniferous limestone.
+They will, in addition, profit by any opportunities of determining the
+possible change of attitude of the Axdjers towards our penetration,
+etc." If the journey should indeed have to do only with such poor
+things I think that I should never undertake it.
+
+So I am longing for what I dread. I shall be dejected if I do not
+find myself in the presence of what makes me strangely fearful.
+
+In the depths of the valley of Wadi Mia a jackal is barking. Now and
+again, when a beam of moonlight breaks in a silver patch through the
+hollows of the heat-swollen clouds, making him think he sees the young
+sun, a turtle dove moans among the palm trees.
+
+I hear a step outside. I lean out of the window. A shade clad in
+luminous black stuff glides over the hard-packed earth of the terrace
+of the fortification. A light shines in the electric blackness. A man
+has just lighted a cigarette. He crouches, facing southwards. He is
+smoking.
+
+It is Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh, our Targa guide, the man who in three days
+is to lead us across the unknown plateaus of the mysterious
+Imoschaoch, across the hamadas of black stones, the great dried oases,
+the stretches of silver salt, the tawny hillocks, the flat gold dunes
+that are crested over, when the "alizé" blows, with a shimmering haze
+of pale sand.
+
+Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh! He is the man. There recurs to my mind Duveyrier's
+tragic phrase, "At the very moment the Colonel was putting his foot in
+the stirrup he was felled by a sabre blow."[2] Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh!
+There he is, peacefully smoking his cigarette, a cigarette from the
+package 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, I
+never knew exactly why, decided one day when I was a lad of sixteen
+that I should prepare myself for Saint Cyr, and gave me there André de
+Saint-Avit as classmate. I might have studied law or medicine. Then I
+should be today a respectable inhabitant of a town with a church and
+running water, instead of this cotton-clad phantom, brooding with an
+unspeakable anxiety over this desert which is about to swallow me.
+
+A great insect has flown in through the window. It buzzes, strikes
+against the rough cast, rebounds against the globe of the lamp, and
+then, helpless, its wings singed by the still burning candle, drops on
+the 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 like
+little particles of the soil of my native countryside. It was there
+that as a child I spent my vacations, and later on, my leaves. On my
+last leave, through those same meadows, there wandered beside me a
+slight form, wearing a thin scarf, because of the evening air, so cool
+back there. But now this memory stirs me so slightly that I scarcely
+raise my eyes to that dark corner of my room where the light is dimly
+reflected by the glass of an indistinct portrait. I realize of how
+little consequence has become what had seemed at one time capable of
+filling all my life. This plaintive mystery is of no more interest to
+me. If the strolling singers of Rolla came to murmur their famous
+nostalgic airs under the window of this bordj I know that I should not
+listen to them, and if they became insistent I should send them on
+their way.
+
+What has been capable of causing this metamorphosis in me? A story, a
+legend, perhaps, told, at any rate by one on whom rests the direst of
+suspicions.
+
+Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh has finished his cigarette. I hear him returning
+with slow steps to his mat, in barrack B, to the left of the guard
+post.
+
+Our departure being scheduled for the tenth of November, the
+manuscript attached to this letter was begun on Sunday, the first, and
+finished on Thursday, the fifth of November, 1903.
+
+OLIVIER FERRIÈRES, Lt. 3rd Spahis.
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+A SOUTHERN ASSIGNMENT
+
+
+Sunday, the sixth of June, 1903, broke the monotony of the life that
+we were leading at the Post of Hassi-Inifel by two events of unequal
+importance, the arrival of a letter from Mlle. de C----, and the
+latest numbers of the Official Journal of the French Republic.
+
+"I have the Lieutenant's permission?" said Sergeant Chatelain,
+beginning to glance through the magazines he had just removed from
+their wrappings.
+
+I acquiesced with a nod, already completely absorbed in reading Mlle.
+de C----'s letter.
+
+"When this reaches you," was the gist of this charming being's letter,
+"mama and I will doubtless have left Paris for the country. If, in
+your distant parts, it might be a consolation to imagine me as bored
+here as you possibly can be, make the most of it. The Grand Prix is
+over. I played the horse you pointed out to me, and naturally, I lost.
+Last night we dined with the Martials de la Touche. Elias Chatrian was
+there, always amazingly young. I am sending you his last book, which
+has made quite a sensation. It seems that the Martials de la Touche
+are depicted there without disguise. I will add to it Bourget's last,
+and Loti's, and France's, and two or three of the latest music hall
+hits. In the political word, they say the law about congregations will
+meet with strenuous opposition. Nothing much in the theatres. I have
+taken out a summer subscription for _l'Illustration_. Would you care
+for it? In the country no one knows what to do. Always the same lot of
+idiots ready for tennis. I shall deserve no credit for writing to you
+often. Spare me your reflections concerning young Combemale. I am less
+than nothing of a feminist, having too much faith in those who tell me
+that I am pretty, in yourself in particular. But indeed, I grow wild
+at the idea that if I permitted myself half the familiarities with one
+of our lads that you have surely with your Ouled-Nails.... Enough of
+that, it is too unpleasant an idea."
+
+I had reached this point in the prose of this advanced young woman
+when a scandalized exclamation of the Sergeant made me look up.
+
+"Lieutenant!"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"They are up to something at the Ministry. See for yourself."
+
+He handed me the Official. I read:
+
+"By a decision of the first of May, 1903, Captain de Saint-Avit
+(André), unattached, is assigned to the Third Spahis, and appointed
+Commandant of the Post of Hassi-Inifel."
+
+Chatelain's displeasure became fairly exuberant.
+
+"Captain de Saint-Avit, Commandant of the Post. A post which has never
+had a slur upon it. They must take us for a dumping ground."
+
+My surprise was as great as the Sergeant's. But just then I saw the
+evil, weasel-like face of Gourrut, the convict we used as clerk. He
+had stopped his scrawling and was listening with a sly interest.
+
+"Sergeant, Captain de Saint-Avit is my ranking classmate," I answered
+dryly.
+
+Chatelain saluted, and left the room. I followed.
+
+"There, there," I said, clapping him on the back, "no hard feelings.
+Remember that in an hour we are starting for the oasis. Have the
+cartridges ready. It is of the utmost importance to restock the
+larder."
+
+I went back to the office and motioned Gourrut to go. Left alone, I
+finished Mlle. de C----'s letter very quickly, and then reread the
+decision of the Ministry giving the post a new chief.
+
+It was now five months that I had enjoyed that distinction, and on my
+word, I had accepted the responsibility well enough, and been very
+well pleased with the independence. I can even affirm, without taking
+too much credit for myself, that under my command discipline had been
+better maintained than under Captain Dieulivol, Saint-Avit's
+predecessor. A brave man, this Captain Dieulivol, a non-commissioned
+officer under Dodds and Duchesne, but subject to a terrible propensity
+for strong liquors, and too much inclined, when he had drunk, to
+confuse his dialects, and to talk to a Houassa in Sakalave. No one was
+ever more sparing of the post water supply. One morning when he was
+preparing his absinthe in the presence of the Sergeant, Chatelain,
+noticing the Captain's glass, saw with amazement that the green liquor
+was blanched by a far stronger admixture of water than usual. He
+looked up, aware that something abnormal had just occurred. Rigid, the
+carafe inverted in his hand, Captain Dieulivol was spilling the water
+which was running over on the sugar. He was dead.
+
+For six months, since the disappearance of this sympathetic old
+tippler, the Powers had not seemed to interest themselves in finding
+his successor. I had even hoped at times that a decision might be
+reached investing me with the rights that I was in fact exercising....
+And today this surprising appointment.
+
+Captain de Saint-Avit. He was of my class at St. Cyr. I had lost track
+of him. Then my attention had been attracted to him by his rapid
+advancement, his decoration, the well-deserved recognition of three
+particularly daring expeditions of exploration to Tebesti and the Air;
+and suddenly, the mysterious drama of his fourth expedition, that
+famous mission undertaken with Captain Morhange, from which only one
+of the explorers came back. Everything is forgotten quickly in France.
+That was at least six years ago. I had not heard Saint-Avit mentioned
+since. I had even supposed that he had left the army. And now, I was
+to have him as my chief.
+
+"After all, what's the difference," I mused, "he or another! At school
+he was charming, and we have had only the most pleasant relationships.
+Besides, I haven't enough yearly income to afford the rank of
+Captain."
+
+And I left the office, whistling as I went.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We were now, Chatelain and I, our guns resting on the already cooling
+earth, beside the pool that forms the center of the meager oasis,
+hidden behind a kind of hedge of alfa. The setting sun was reddening
+the stagnant ditches which irrigate the poor garden plots of the
+sedentary blacks.
+
+Not a word during the approach. Not a word during the shoot. Chatelain
+was obviously sulking.
+
+In silence we knocked down, one after the other, several of the
+miserable doves which came on dragging wings, heavy with the heat of
+the day, to quench their thirst at the thick green water. When a
+half-dozen slaughtered little bodies were lined up at our feet I put
+my hand on the Sergeant's shoulder.
+
+"Chatelain!"
+
+He trembled.
+
+"Chatelain, I was rude to you a little while ago. Don't be angry. It
+was the bad time before the siesta. The bad time of midday."
+
+"The Lieutenant is master here," he answered in a tone that was meant
+to be gruff, but which was only strained.
+
+"Chatelain, don't be angry. You have something to say to me. You know
+what I mean."
+
+"I don't know really. No, I don't know."
+
+"Chatelain, Chatelain, why not be sensible? Tell me something about
+Captain de Saint-Avit."
+
+"I know nothing." He spoke sharply.
+
+"Nothing? Then what were you saying a little while ago?"
+
+"Captain de Saint-Avit is a brave man." He muttered the words with his
+head still obstinately bent. "He went alone to Bilma, to the Air,
+quite alone to those places where no one had ever been. He is a brave
+man."
+
+"He is a brave man, undoubtedly," I answered with great restraint.
+"But he murdered his companion, Captain Morhange, did he not?"
+
+The old Sergeant trembled.
+
+"He is a brave man," he persisted.
+
+"Chatelain, you are a child. Are you afraid that I am going to repeat
+what you say to your new Captain?"
+
+I had touched him to the quick. He drew himself up.
+
+"Sergeant Chatelain is afraid of no one, Lieutenant. He has been at
+Abomey, against the Amazons, in a country where a black arm started
+out from every bush to seize your leg, while another cut it off for
+you with one blow of a cutlass."
+
+"Then what they say, what you yourself--"
+
+"That is talk."
+
+"Talk which is repeated in France, Chatelain, everywhere."
+
+He bent his head still lower without replying.
+
+"Ass," I burst out, "will you speak?"
+
+"Lieutenant, Lieutenant," he fairly pled, "I swear that what I know,
+or nothing--"
+
+"What you know you are going to tell me, and right away. If not, I
+give you my word of honor that, for a month, I shall not speak to you
+except on official business."
+
+Hassi-Inifel: thirty native Arabs and four Europeans--myself, the
+Sergeant, a Corporal, and Gourrut. The threat was terrible. It had its
+effect.
+
+"All right, then, Lieutenant," he said with a great sigh. "But
+afterwards you must not blame me for having told you things about a
+superior which should not be told and come only from the talk I
+overheard at mess."
+
+"Tell away."
+
+"It was in 1899. I was then Mess Sergeant at Sfax, with the 4th
+Spahis. I had a good record, and besides, as I did not drink, the
+Adjutant had assigned me to the officers' mess. It was a soft berth.
+The marketing, the accounts, recording the library books which were
+borrowed (there weren't many), and the key of the wine cupboard,--for
+with that you can't trust orderlies. The Colonel was young and dined
+at mess. One evening he came in late, looking perturbed, and, as soon
+as he was seated, called for silence:
+
+"'Gentlemen,' he said, 'I have a communication to make to you, and I
+shall ask for your advice. Here is the question. Tomorrow morning the
+_City of Naples_ lands at Sfax. Aboard her is Captain de Saint-Avit,
+recently assigned to Feriana, en route to his post.'
+
+"The Colonel paused. 'Good,' thought I, 'tomorrow's menu is about to
+be considered.' For you know the custom, Lieutenant, which has existed
+ever since there have been any officers' clubs in Africa. When an
+officer is passing by, his comrades go to meet him at the boat and
+invite him to remain with them for the length of his stay in port. He
+pays his score in news from home. On such occasions everything is of
+the best, even for a simple lieutenant. At Sfax an officer on a visit
+meant--one extra course, vintage wine and old liqueurs.
+
+"But this time I imagined from the looks the officers exchanged that
+perhaps the old stock would stay undisturbed in its cupboard.
+
+"'You have all, I think, heard of Captain de Saint-Avit, gentlemen,
+and the rumors about him. It is not for us to inquire into them, and
+the promotion he has had, his decoration if you will, permits us to
+hope that they are without foundation. But between not suspecting an
+officer of being a criminal, and receiving him at our table as a
+comrade, there is a gulf that we are not obliged to bridge. That is
+the matter on which I ask your advice.'
+
+"There was silence. The officers looked at each other, all of them
+suddenly quite grave, even to the merriest of the second lieutenants.
+In the corner, where I realized that they had forgotten me, I tried
+not to make the least sound that might recall my presence.
+
+"'We thank you, Colonel,' one of the majors finally replied, 'for your
+courtesy in consulting us. All my comrades, I imagine, know to what
+terrible rumors you refer. If I may venture to say so, in Paris at the
+Army Geographical Service, where I was before coming here, most of the
+officers of the highest standing had an opinion on this unfortunate
+matter which they avoided stating, but which cast no glory upon
+Captain de Saint-Avit.'
+
+"'I was at Bammako, at the time of the Morhange-Saint-Avit mission,'
+said a Captain. 'The opinion of the officers there, I am sorry to say,
+differed very little from what the Major describes. But I must add
+that they all admitted that they had nothing but suspicions to go on.
+And suspicions are certainly not enough considering the atrocity of
+the affair.'
+
+"'They are quite enough, gentlemen,' replied the Colonel, 'to account
+for our hesitation. It is not a question of passing judgment; but no
+man can sit at our table as a matter of right. It is a privilege based
+on fraternal esteem. The only question is whether it is your decision
+to accord it to Saint-Avit.'
+
+"So saying, he looked at the officers, as if he were taking a roll
+call. One after another they shook their heads.
+
+"'I see that we agree,' he said. 'But our task is unfortunately not
+yet over. The _City of Naples_ will be in port tomorrow morning. The
+launch which meets the passengers leaves at eight o'clock. It will be
+necessary, gentlemen, for one of you to go aboard. Captain de
+Saint-Avit might be expecting to come to us. We certainly have no
+intention of inflicting upon him the humiliation of refusing him, if
+he presented himself in expectation of the customary reception. He
+must be prevented from coming. It will be wisest to make him
+understand that it is best for him to stay aboard.'
+
+"The Colonel looked at the officers again. They could not but agree.
+But how uncomfortable each one looked!
+
+"'I cannot hope to find a volunteer among you for this kind of
+mission, so I am compelled to appoint some one. Captain Grandjean,
+Captain de Saint-Avit is also a Captain. It is fitting that it be an
+officer of his own rank who carries him our message. Besides, you are
+the latest comer here. Therefore it is to you that I entrust this
+painful interview. I do not need to suggest that you conduct it as
+diplomatically as possible.'
+
+"Captain Grandjean bowed, while a sigh of relief escaped from all the
+others. As long as the Colonel stayed in the room Grandjean remained
+apart, without speaking. It was only after the chief had departed that
+he let fall the words: "'There are some things that ought to count a
+good deal for promotion.'
+
+"The next day at luncheon everyone was impatient for his return.
+
+"'Well?' demanded the Colonel, briefly.
+
+"Captain Grandjean did not reply immediately. He sat down at the table
+where his comrades were mixing their drinks, and he, a man notorious
+for sobriety, drank almost at a gulp, without waiting for the sugar to
+melt, a full glass of absinthe.
+
+"'Well, Captain?' repeated the Colonel.
+
+"'Well, Colonel, it's done. You can be at ease. He will not set foot on
+shore. But, ye gods, what an ordeal!'
+
+"The officers did not dare speak. Only their looks expressed their
+anxious curiosity.
+
+"Captain Grandjean poured himself a swallow of water.
+
+"'You see, I had gotten my speech all ready, in the launch. But as I
+went up the ladder I knew that I had forgotten it. Saint-Avit was in
+the smoking-room, with the Captain of the boat. It seemed to me that I
+could never find the strength to tell him, when I saw him all ready to
+go ashore. He was in full dress uniform, his sabre lay on the bench
+and he was wearing spurs. No one wears spurs on shipboard. I presented
+myself and we exchanged several remarks, but I must have seemed
+somewhat strained for from the first moment I knew that he sensed
+something. Under some pretext he left the Captain, and led me aft near
+the great rudder wheel. There, I dared speak. Colonel, what did I say?
+How I must have stammered! He did not look at me. Leaning his elbows
+on the railing he let his eyes wander far off, smiling slightly. Then,
+of a sudden, when I was well tangled up in explanations, he looked at
+me coolly and said:
+
+"'I must thank you, my dear fellow, for having given yourself so much
+trouble. But it is quite unnecessary. I am out of sorts and have no
+intention of going ashore. At least, I have the pleasure of having
+made your acquaintance. Since I cannot profit by your hospitality, you
+must do me the favor of accepting mine as long as the launch stays by
+the vessel.'
+
+"Then we went back to the smoking-room. He himself mixed the
+cocktails. He talked to me. We discovered that we had mutual
+acquaintances. Never shall I forget that face, that ironic and distant
+look, that sad and melodious voice. Ah! Colonel, gentlemen, I don't
+know what they may say at the Geographic Office, or in the posts of
+the Soudan.... There can be nothing in it but a horrible suspicion.
+Such a man, capable of such a crime,--believe me, it is not possible.
+
+"That is all, Lieutenant," finished Chatelain, after a silence. "I
+have never seen a sadder meal than that one. The officers hurried
+through lunch without a word being spoken, in an atmosphere of
+depression against which no one tried to struggle. And in this
+complete silence, you could see them always furtively watching the
+_City of Naples_, where she was dancing merrily in the breeze, a
+league from shore.
+
+"She was still there in the evening when they assembled for dinner,
+and it was not until a blast of the whistle, followed by curls of
+smoke escaping from the red and black smokestack had announced the
+departure of the vessel for Gabes, that conversation was resumed; and
+even then, less gaily than usual.
+
+"After that, Lieutenant, at the Officers' Club at Sfax, they avoided
+like the plague any subject which risked leading the conversation back
+to Captain de Saint-Avit."
+
+Chatelain had spoken almost in a whisper, and the little people of the
+desert had not heard this singular history. It was an hour since we
+had fired our last cartridge. Around the pool the turtle doves, once
+more reassured, were bathing their feathers. Mysterious great birds
+were flying under the darkening palm trees. A less warm wind rocked
+the trembling black palm branches. We had laid aside our helmets so
+that our temples could welcome the touch of the feeble breeze.
+
+"Chatelain," I said, "it is time to go back to the bordj."
+
+Slowly we picked up the dead doves. I felt the Sergeant looking at me
+reproachfully, as if regretting that he had spoken. Yet during all the
+time that our return trip lasted, I could not find the strength to
+break our desolate silence with a single word.
+
+The night had almost fallen when we arrived. The flag which
+surmounted the post was still visible, drooping on its standard, but
+already its colors were indistinguishable. To the west the sun had
+disappeared behind the dunes gashed against the black violet of the
+sky.
+
+When we had crossed the gate of the fortifications, Chatelain left me.
+
+"I am going to the stables," he said.
+
+I returned alone to that part of the fort where the billets for the
+Europeans and the stores of ammunition were located. An inexpressible
+sadness weighed upon me.
+
+I thought of my comrades in French garrisons. At this hour they must
+be returning home to find awaiting them, spread out upon the bed,
+their dress uniform, their braided tunic, their sparkling epaulettes.
+
+"Tomorrow," I said to myself, "I shall request a change of station."
+
+The stairway of hard-packed earth was already black. But a few gleams
+of light still seemed palely prowling in the office when I entered.
+
+A man was sitting at my desk, bending over the files of orders. His
+back was toward me. He did not hear me enter.
+
+"Really, Gourrut, my lad, I beg you not to disturb yourself. Make
+yourself completely at home."
+
+The man had risen, and I saw him to be quite tall, slender and very
+pale.
+
+"Lieutenant Ferrières, is it not?"
+
+He advanced, holding out his hand.
+
+"Captain de Saint-Avit. Delighted, my dear fellow."
+
+At the same time Chatelain appeared on the threshold.
+
+"Sergeant," said the newcomer, "I cannot congratulate you on the
+little I have seen. There is not a camel saddle which is not in want
+of buckles, and they are rusty enough to suggest that it rains at
+Hassi-Inifel three hundred days in the year. Furthermore, where were
+you this afternoon? Among the four Frenchmen who compose the post, I
+found only on my arrival one convict, opposite a quart of eau-de-vie.
+We will change all that, I hope. At ease."
+
+"Captain," I said, and my voice was colorless, while Chatelain
+remained frozen at attention, "I must tell you that the Sergeant was
+with me, that it is I who am responsible for his absence from the
+post, that he is an irreproachable non-commissioned officer from every
+point of view, and that if we had been warned of your arrival--"
+
+"Evidently," he said, with a coldly ironical smile. "Also, Lieutenant,
+I have no intention of holding him responsible for the negligences
+which attach to your office. He is not obliged to know that the
+officer who abandons a post like Hassi-Inifel, if it is only for two
+hours, risks not finding much left on his return. The Chaamba
+brigands, my dear sir, love firearms, and for the sake of the sixty
+muskets in your racks, I am sure they would not scruple to make an
+officer, whose otherwise excellent record is well known to me, account
+for his absence to a court-martial. Come with me, if you please. We
+will finish the little inspection I began too rapidly a little while
+ago."
+
+He was already on the stairs. I followed in his footsteps. Chatelain
+closed the order of march. I heard him murmuring, in a tone which you
+can imagine:
+
+"Well, we are in for it now!"
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+CAPTAIN DE SAINT-AVIT
+
+
+A few days sufficed to convince us that Chatelain's fears as to our
+official relations with the new chief were vain. Often I have thought
+that by the severity he showed at our first encounter Saint-Avit
+wished to create a formal barrier, to show us that he knew how to keep
+his head high in spite of the weight of his heavy past. Certain it is
+that the day after his arrival, he showed himself in a very different
+light, even complimenting the Sergeant on the upkeep of the post and
+the instruction of the men. To me he was charming.
+
+"We are of the same class, aren't we?" he said to me. "I don't have
+to ask you to dispense with formalities, it is your right."
+
+Vain marks of confidence, alas! False witnesses to a freedom of
+spirit, one in face of the other. What more accessible in appearance
+than the immense Sahara, open to all those who are willing to be
+engulfed by it? Yet what is more secret? After six months of
+companionship, of communion of life such as only a Post in the South
+offers, I ask myself if the most extraordinary of my adventures is not
+to be leaving to-morrow, toward unsounded solitudes, with a man whose
+real thoughts are as unknown to me as these same solitudes, for which
+he has succeeded in making me long.
+
+The first surprise which was given me by this singular companion was
+occasioned by the baggage that followed him.
+
+On his inopportune arrival, alone, from Wargla, he had trusted to the
+Mehari he rode only what can be carried without harm by such a
+delicate beast,--his arms, sabre and revolver, a heavy carbine, and a
+very reduced pack. The rest did not arrive till fifteen days later,
+with the convoy which supplied the post.
+
+Three cases of respectable dimensions were carried one after another
+to the Captain's room, and the grimaces of the porters said enough as
+to their weight.
+
+I discreetly left Saint-Avit to his unpacking and began opening the
+mail which the convoy had sent me.
+
+He returned to the office a little later and glanced at the several
+reviews which I had just recieved.
+
+"So," he said. "You take these."
+
+He skimmed through, as he spoke, the last number of the _Zeitschrift
+der Gesellschaft fur Erdkunde in Berlin_.
+
+"Yes," I answered. "These gentlemen are kind enough to interest
+themselves in my works on the geology of the Wadi Mia and the high
+Igharghar."
+
+"That may be useful to me," he murmured, continuing to turn over the
+leaves.
+
+"It's at your service."
+
+"Thanks. I am afraid I have nothing to offer you in exchange, except
+Pliny, perhaps. And still--you know what he said of Igharghar,
+according to King Juba. However, come help me put my traps in place
+and you will see if anything appeals to you."
+
+I accepted without further urging.
+
+We commenced by unearthing various meteorological and astronomical
+instruments--the thermometers of Baudin, Salleron, Fastre, an aneroid,
+a Fortin barometer, chronometers, a sextant, an astronomical spyglass,
+a compass glass.... In short, what Duveyrier calls the material that
+is simplest and easiest to transport on a camel.
+
+As Saint-Avit handed them to me I arranged them on the only table in
+the room.
+
+"Now," he announced to me, "there is nothing more but books. I will
+pass them to you. Pile them up in a corner until I can have a
+book-shelf made."
+
+For two hours altogether I helped him to heap up a real library. And
+what a library! Such as never before a post in the South had seen. All
+the texts consecrated, under whatever titles, by antiquity to the
+regions of the Sahara were reunited between the four rough-cast walls
+of that little room of the bordj. Herodotus and Pliny, naturally, and
+likewise Strabo and Ptolemy, Pomponius Mela, and Ammien Marcellin. But
+besides these names which reassured my ignorance a little, I perceived
+those of Corippus, of Paul Orose, of Eratosthenes, of Photius, of
+Diodorus of Sicily, of Solon, of Dion Cassius, of Isidor of Seville,
+of Martin de Tyre, of Ethicus, of Athenée, the _Scriptores Historiae
+Augustae_, the _Itinerarium Antonini Augusti_, the _Geographi Latini
+Minores_ of Riese, the _Geographi Graeci Minores_ of Karl Muller....
+Since I have had the occasion to familiarize myself with Agatarchides
+of Cos and Artemidorus of Ephesus, but I admit that in this instance
+the presence of their dissertations in the saddle bags of a captain of
+cavalry caused me some amazement.
+
+I mention further the _Descrittione dell' Africa_ by Leon l'African,
+the _Arabian Histories_ of Ibn-Khaldoun, of Al-Iaquob, of El-Bekri, of
+Ibn-Batoutah, of Mahommed El-Tounsi.... In the midst of this Babel, I
+remember the names of only two volumes of contemporary French
+scholars. There were also the laborious theses of Berlioux[3] and of
+Schirmer.[4]
+
+[Footnote 3: Doctrina Ptolemaei ab injuria recentiorum vindicata, sive
+Nilus Superior et Niger verus, hodiernus Eghiren, ab anitiquis
+explorati. Paris, 8vo, 1874, with two maps. (Note by M. Leroux.)]
+
+[Footnote 4: De nomine et genere popularum qui berberi vulgo dicuntur.
+Paris, 8vo, 1892. (Note by M. Leroux.)]
+
+While I proceeded to make piles of as similar dimensions as possible I
+kept saying to myself:
+
+"To think that I have been believing all this time that in his mission
+with Morhange, Saint-Avit was particularly concerned in scientific
+observations. Either my memory deceives me strangely or he is riding a
+horse of another color. What is sure is that there is nothing for me
+in the midst of all this chaos."
+
+He must have read on my face the signs of too apparently expressed
+surprise, for he said in a tone in which I divined a tinge of
+defiance:
+
+"The choice of these books surprises you a bit?"
+
+"I can't say it surprises me," I replied, "since I don't know the
+nature of the work for which you have collected them. In any case I
+dare say, without fear of being contradicted, that never before has
+officer of the Arabian Office possessed a library in which the
+humanities were so, well represented."
+
+He smiled evasively, and that day we pursued the subject no further.
+
+Among Saint-Avit's books I had noticed a voluminous notebook secured
+by a strong lock. Several times I surprised him in the act of making
+notations in it. When for any reason he was called out of the room he
+placed his album carefully in a small cabinet of white wood, provided
+by the munificence of the Administration. When he was not writing and
+the office did not require his presence, he had the mehari which he
+had brought with him saddled, and a few minutes later, from the
+terrace of the fortifications, I could see the double silhouette
+disappearing with great strides behind a hummock of red earth on the
+horizon.
+
+Each time these trips lasted longer. From each he returned in a kind
+of exaltation which made me watch him with daily increasing
+disquietude during meal hours, the only time we passed quite alone
+together.
+
+"Well," I said to myself one day when his remarks had been more
+lacking in sequence than usual, "it's no fun being aboard a submarine
+when the captain takes opium. What drug can this fellow be taking,
+anyway?"
+
+Next day I looked hurriedly through my comrade's drawers. This
+inspection, which I believed to be my duty, reassured me momentarily.
+"All very good," I thought, "provided he does not carry with him his
+capsules and his Pravaz syringe."
+
+I was still in that stage where I could suppose that André's
+imagination needed artificial stimulants.
+
+Meticulous observation undeceived me. There was nothing suspicious in
+this respect. Moreover, he rarely drank and almost never smoked.
+
+And nevertheless, there was no means of denying the increase of his
+disquieting feverishness. He returned from his expeditions each time
+with his eyes more brilliant. He was paler, more animated, more
+irritable.
+
+One evening he left the post about six o'clock, at the end of the
+greatest heat of the day. We waited for him all night. My anxiety was
+all the stronger because quite recently caravans had brought tidings
+of bands of robbers in the neighborhood of the post.
+
+At dawn he had not returned. He did not come before midday. His camel
+collapsed under him, rather than knelt.
+
+He realized that he must excuse himself, but he waited till we were
+alone at lunch.
+
+"I am so sorry to have caused you any anxiety. But the dunes were so
+beautiful under the moon! I let myself be carried farther and
+farther...."
+
+"I have no reproaches to make, dear fellow, you are free, and the
+chief here. Only allow me to recall to you certain warnings concerning
+the Chaamba brigands, and the misfortunes that might arise from a
+Commandant of a post absenting himself too long."
+
+He smiled.
+
+"I don't dislike such evidence of a good memory," he said simply.
+
+He was in excellent, too excellent spirits.
+
+"Don't blame me. I set out for a short ride as usual. Then, the moon
+rose. And then, I recognized the country. It is just where, twenty
+years ago next November, Flatters followed the way to his destiny in
+an exaltation which the certainty of not returning made keener and
+more intense."
+
+"Strange state of mind for a chief of an expedition," I murmured.
+
+"Say nothing against Flatters. No man ever loved the desert as he
+did ... even to dying of it."
+
+"Palat and Douls, among many others, have loved it as much," I
+answered. "But they were alone when they exposed themselves to it.
+Responsible only for their own lives, they were free. Flatters, on the
+other hand, was responsible for sixty lives. And you cannot deny that
+he allowed his whole party to be massacred."
+
+The words were hardly out of my lips before I regretted them, I
+thought of Chatelain's story, of the officers' club at Sfax, where
+they avoided like the plague any kind of conversation which might lead
+their thoughts toward a certain Morhange-Saint-Avit mission.
+
+Happily I observed that my companion was not listening. His brilliant
+eyes were far away.
+
+"What was your first garrison?" he asked suddenly.
+
+"Auxonne."
+
+He gave an unnatural laugh.
+
+"Auxonne. Province of the Cote d'Or. District of Dijon. Six thousand
+inhabitants. P.L.M. Railway. Drill school and review. The Colonel's
+wife receives Thursdays, and the Major's on Saturdays. Leaves every
+Sunday,--the first of the month to Paris, the three others to Dijon.
+That explains your Judgment of Flatters.
+
+"For my part, my dear fellow, my first garrison was at Boghar. I
+arrived there one morning in October, a second lieutenant, aged
+twenty, of the First African Batallion, the white chevron on my black
+sleeve.... Sun stripe, as the _bagnards_ say in speaking of their
+grades. Boghar! Two days before, from the bridge of the steamer, I had
+begun to see the shores of Africa. I pity all those who, when they see
+those pale cliffs for the first time, do not feel a great leap at
+their hearts, at the thought that this land prolongs itself thousands
+and thousands of leagues.... I was little more than a child, I had
+plenty of money. I was ahead of schedule. I could have stopped three
+or four days at Algiers to amuse myself. Instead I took the train that
+same evening for Berroughia.
+
+"There, scarcely a hundred kilometers from Algiers, the railway
+stopped. Going in a straight line you won't find another until you get
+to the Cape. The diligence travels at night on account of the heat.
+When we came to the hills I got out and walked beside the carriage,
+straining for the sensation, in this new atmosphere, of the kiss of
+the outlying desert.
+
+"About midnight, at the Camp of the Zouaves, a humble post on the road
+embankment, overlooking a dry valley whence rose the feverish perfume
+of oleander, we changed horses. They had there a troop of convicts and
+impressed laborers, under escort of riflemen and convoys to the
+quarries in the South. In part, rogues in uniform, from the jails of
+Algiers and Douara,--without arms, of course; the others
+civilians--such civilians! this year's recruits, the young bullies of
+the Chapelle and the Goutte-d'Or.
+
+"They left before we did. Then the diligence caught up with them. From
+a distance I saw in a pool of moonlight on the yellow road the black
+irregular mass of the convoy. Then I heard a weary dirge; the wretches
+were singing. One, in a sad and gutteral voice, gave the couplet,
+which trailed dismally through the depths of the blue ravines:
+
+"'_Maintenant qu'elle est grande,
+  Elle fait le trottoir,
+  Avec ceux de la bande
+        A Richard-Lenoir_.'
+
+"And the others took up in chorus the horrible refrain:
+
+"'_A la Bastille, a la Bastille,
+  On aime bien, on aime bien
+        Nini Peau d'Chien;
+  Elle est si belle et si gentille
+          A la Bastille_'
+
+"I saw them all in contrast to myself when the diligence passed them.
+They were terrible. Under the hideous searchlight their eyes shone
+with a sombre fire in their pale and shaven faces. The burning dust
+strangled their raucous voices in their throats. A frightful sadness
+took possession of me.
+
+"When the diligence had left this fearful nightmare behind, I regained
+my self-control.
+
+"'Further, much further South,' I exclaimed to myself, 'to the places
+untouched by this miserable bilgewater of civilization.'
+
+"When I am weary, when I have a moment of anguish and longing to turn
+back on the road that I have chosen, I think of the prisoners of
+Berroughia, and then I am glad to continue on my way.
+
+"But what a reward, when I am in one of those places where the poor
+animals never think of fleeing because they have never seen man, where
+the desert stretches out around me so widely that the old world could
+crumble, and never a single ripple on the dune, a single cloud in the
+white sky come to warn me.
+
+"'It is true,' I murmured. 'I, too, once, in the middle of the desert,
+at Tidi-Kelt, I felt that way.'"
+
+Up to that time I had let him enjoy his exaltations without
+interruption. I understood too late the error that I had made in
+pronouncing that unfortunate sentence.
+
+His mocking nervous laughter began anew.
+
+"Ah! Indeed, at Tidi-Kelt? I beg you, old man, in your own interest,
+if you don't want to make an ass of yourself, avoid that species of
+reminiscence. Honestly, you make me think of Fromentin, or that poor
+Maupassant, who talked of the desert because he had been to Djelfa,
+two days' journey from the street of Bab-Azound and the Government
+buildings, four days from the Avenue de l'Opera;--and who, because he
+saw a poor devil of a camel dying near Bou-Saada, believed himself in
+the heart of the desert, on the old route of the caravans....
+Tidi-Kelt, the desert!"
+
+"It seems to me, however, that In-Salah--" I said, a little vexed.
+
+"In-Salah? Tidi-Kelt! But, my poor friend, the last time that I passed
+that way there were as many old newspapers and empty sardine boxes as
+if it had been Sunday in the Wood of Vincennes."
+
+Such a determined, such an evident desire to annoy me made me forget
+my reserve.
+
+"Evidently," I replied resentfully, "I have never been to--"
+
+I stopped myself, but it was already too late.
+
+He looked at me, squarely in the face.
+
+"To where?" he said with good humor.
+
+I did not answer.
+
+"To where?" he repeated.
+
+And, as I remained strangled in my muteness:
+
+"To Wadi Tarhit, do you mean?"
+
+It was on the east bank of Wadi Tarhit, a hundred and twenty
+kilometers from Timissao, at 25.5 degrees north latitude, according to
+the official report, that Captain Morhange was buried.
+
+"André," I cried stupidly, "I swear to you--"
+
+"What do you swear to me?"
+
+"That I never meant--"
+
+"To speak of Wadi Tarhit? Why? Why should you not speak to me of Wadi
+Tarhit?"
+
+In answer to my supplicating silence, he merely shrugged his
+shoulders.
+
+"Idiot," was all he said.
+
+And he left me before I could think of even one word to say.
+
+So much humility on my part had, however, not disarmed him. I had the
+proof of it the next day, and the way he showed his humor was even
+marked by an exhibition of wretchedly poor taste.
+
+I was just out of bed when he came into my room.
+
+"Can you tell me what is the meaning of this?" he demanded.
+
+He had in his hand one of the official registers. In his nervous
+crises he always began sorting them over, in the hope of finding some
+pretext for making himself militarily insupportable.
+
+This time chance had favored him.
+
+He opened the register. I blushed violently at seeing the poor proof
+of a photograph that I knew well.
+
+"What is that?" he repeated disdainfully.
+
+Too often I had surprised him in the act of regarding, none too
+kindly, the portrait of Mlle. de C. which hung in my room not to be
+convinced at that moment that he was trying to pick a quarrel with me.
+
+I controlled myself, however, and placed the poor little print in the
+drawer.
+
+But my calmness did not pacify him.
+
+"Henceforth," he said, "take care, I beg you, not to mix mementoes of
+your gallantry with the official papers."
+
+He added, with a smile that spoke insult:
+
+"It isn't necessary to furnish objects of excitation to Gourrut."
+
+"André," I said, and I was white, "I demand--"
+
+He stood up to the full height of his stature.
+
+"Well what is it? A gallantry, nothing more. I have authorized you to
+speak of Wadi Halfa, haven't I? Then I have the right, I should
+think--"
+
+"André!"
+
+Now he was looking maliciously at the wall, at the little portrait the
+replica of which I had just subjected to this painful scene.
+
+"There, there, I say, you aren't angry, are you? But between ourselves
+you will admit, will you not, that she is a little thin?"
+
+And before I could find time to answer him, he had removed himself,
+humming the shameful refrain of the previous night:
+
+"_A la Bastille, a la Bastille,
+ On aime bien, on aime bien,
+       Nini, Peau de Chien_."
+
+For three days neither of us spoke to the other. My exasperation was
+too deep for words. Was I, then, to be held responsible for his
+avatars! Was it my fault if, between two phrases, one seemed always
+some allusion--
+
+"The situation is intolerable," I said to myself. "It cannot last
+longer."
+
+It was to cease very soon.
+
+One week after the scene of the photograph the courier arrived. I had
+scarcely glanced at the index of the _Zeitschrift_, the German review
+of which I have already spoken, when I started with uncontrollable
+amazement. I had just read: _"Reise und Entdeckungen zwei
+fronzosischer offiziere, Rittmeisters Morhange und Oberleutnants de
+Saint-Avit, in westlichen Sahara."_
+
+At the same time I heard my comrade's voice.
+
+"Anything interesting in this number?"
+
+"No," I answered carelessly.
+
+"Let's see."
+
+I obeyed; what else was there to do?
+
+It seemed to me that he grew paler as he ran over the index. However,
+his tone was altogether natural when he said:
+
+"You will let me borrow it, of course?"
+
+And he went out, casting me one defiant glance.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The day passed slowly. I did not see him again until evening. He was
+gay, very gay, and his gaiety hurt me.
+
+When we had finished dinner, we went out and leaned on the balustrade
+of the terrace. From there out swept the desert, which the darkness
+was already encroaching upon from the east.
+
+André broke the silence.
+
+"By the way, I have returned your review to you. You were right, it is
+not interesting."
+
+His expression was one of supreme amusement.
+
+"What is it, what is the matter with you, anyway?"
+
+"Nothing," I answered, my throat aching.
+
+"Nothing? Shall I tell you what is the matter with you?"
+
+I looked at him with an expression of supplication.
+
+"Idiot," he found it necessary to repeat once more.
+
+Night fell quickly. Only the southern slope of Wadi Mia was still
+yellow. Among the boulders a little jackal was running about, yapping
+sharply.
+
+"The _dib_ is making a fuss about nothing, bad business," said
+Saint-Avit.
+
+He continued pitilessly:
+
+"Then you aren't willing to say anything?"
+
+I made a great effort, to produce the following pitiful phrase:
+
+"What an exhausting day. What a night, heavy, heavy--You don't feel
+like yourself, you don't know any more--"
+
+"Yes," said the voice of Saint-Avit, as from a distance, "A heavy,
+heavy night: as heavy, do you know, as when I killed Captain
+Morhange."
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+THE MORHANGE-SAINT-AVIT MISSION
+
+
+"So I killed Captain Morhange," André de Saint-Avit said to me the
+next day, at the same time, in the same place, with a calm that took
+no account of the night, the frightful night I had just been through.
+"Why do I tell you this? I don't know in the least. Because of the
+desert, perhaps. Are you a man capable of enduring the weight of that
+confidence, and further, if necessary, of assuming the consequences it
+may bring? I don't know that, either. The future will decide. For the
+present there is only one thing certain, the fact, I tell you again,
+that I killed Captain Morhange.
+
+"I killed him. And, since you want me to specify the reason, you
+understand that I am not going to torture my brain to turn it into a
+romance for you, or commence by recounting in the naturalistic manner
+of what stuff my first trousers were made, or, as the neo-Catholics
+would have it, how often I went as a child to confession, and how much
+I liked doing it. I have no taste for useless exhibitions. You will
+find that this recital begins strictly at the time when I met
+Morhange.
+
+"And first of all, I tell you, however much it has cost my peace of
+mind and my reputation, I do not regret having known him. In a word,
+apart from all question of false friendship, I am convicted of a black
+ingratitude in having killed him. It is to him, it is to his knowledge
+of rock inscriptions, that I owe the only thing that has raised my
+life in interest above the miserable little lives dragged out by my
+companions at Auxonne, and elsewhere.
+
+"This being understood, here are the facts:"
+
+[NOTE: From this point on begins an extended narrative;
+indeed it may be most of the remaining book.
+I was changing the quoting, until I reached the end
+of the chapter and found that it continued on from there.]
+
+It was in the Arabian Office at Wargla, when I was a lieutenant, that
+I first heard the name, Morhange. And I must add that it was for me
+the occasion of an attack of bad humor. We were having difficult
+times. The hostility of the Sultan of Morocco was latent. At Touat,
+where the assassination of Flatters and of Frescaly had already been
+concocted, connivance was being given to the plots of our enemies.
+Touat was the center of conspiracies, of razzias, of defections, and
+at the same time, the depot of supply for the insatiable nomads. The
+Governors of Algeria, Tirman, Cambon, Laferriere, demanded its
+occupation. The Ministers of War tacitly agreed.... But there was
+Parliament, which did nothing at all, because of England, because of
+Germany, and above all because of a certain _Declaration of the Rights
+of Man and of the Citizen_, which prescribed that insurrection is the
+most sacred of duties, even when the insurgents are savages who cut
+your head off. In short, the military authority could only, at its own
+discretion, increase the southern garrisons, and establish new posts;
+this one, Berresof, Hassi-el-Mia, Fort MacMahon, Fort Lallemand, Fort
+Miribel.... But as Castries puts it, you don't hold the nomads with
+bordjs, you hold them by the belt. The middle was the oasis of Touat.
+Their honors, the lawyers of Paris, had to be convinced of the
+necessity of taking possession of the oasis of Touat. The best way
+would be to present them with a faithful picture of the plots that
+were being woven there against us.
+
+The principal authors were, and still are, the Senoussis, whose able
+chief has been forced by our arms to transfer the seat of his
+confederation several thousand leagues from there, to Schimmedrou, in
+the Tibesti. They had, I say _they_ through modesty, the idea of
+ascertaining the traces left by these agitators on their favorite
+places of concourse; Rhât, Temassinin, the plain of Adejamor, and
+In-Salah. It was, you see, at least after leaving Temassinin,
+practically the same itinerary as that followed in 1864 by General
+Rohlfs.
+
+I had already attracted some attention by two excursions, one to
+Agadès, and the other to Bilma, and was considered by the staff
+officers to be one of the best informed on the Senoussis question. I
+was therefore selected to assume this new task.
+
+I then suggested that it would be of interest to kill two birds with
+one stone, and to get, in passing, an idea of the northern Ahaggar, so
+as to make sure whether the Tuaregs of Ahitarhen had continued to have
+as cordial relations with the Senoussis as they had had when they
+combined to massacre the Flatters' mission. I was immediately accorded
+the permission. The change in my first plan was as follows: After
+reaching Ighelaschem, six hundred kilometers south of Temassinin,
+instead of taking the direct road to Touat via Rhât, I would,
+penetrating between the high land of Mouydir and Ahaggar, strike off
+to the southwest as far as Shikh-Salah. Here I would turn again
+northwards, towards In-Salah, by the road to the Soudan and Agadès. In
+all hardly eight kilometers additional in a trip of about seven
+hundred leagues, with the certainty of making as complete an
+examination as possible of the roads which our enemies, the Senoussis
+of Tibesti and the Tuareg of the Ahaggar, must follow to arrive at
+Touat. On the way, for every explorer has his pet fancy, I was not at
+all displeased to think that I would have a chance to examine the
+geological formation of the plateau of Egere, about which Duveyrier
+and the others are so disappointingly indefinite.
+
+Everything was ready for my departure from Wargla. Everything, which
+is to say, very little. Three mehara: mine, my companion Bou-Djema's
+(a faithful Chaamba, whom I had had with me in my wanderings through
+the Air, less of a guide in the country I was familiar with than a
+machine for saddling and unsaddling camels), then a third to carry
+provisions and skins of drinking water, very little, since I had taken
+pains to locate the stops with reference to the wells.
+
+Some people go equipped for this kind of expedition with a hundred
+regulars, and even cannon. I am for the tradition of Douls and René
+Callie, I go alone.
+
+I was at that perfect moment when only one thin thread still held me
+to the civilized world when an official cable arrived at Wargla.
+
+"Lieutenant de Saint-Avit," it said briefly, "will delay his departure
+until the arrival of Captain Morhange, who will accompany him on his
+expedition of exploration."
+
+I was more than disappointed. I alone had had the idea of this
+expedition. I had had all the difficulty that you can imagine to make
+the authorities agree to it. And now when I was rejoicing at the idea
+of the long hours I would spend alone with myself in the heart of the
+desert, they sent me a stranger, and, to make matters worse, a
+superior.
+
+The condolences of my comrades aggravated my bad humor.
+
+The Yearly Report, consulted on the spot, had given them the following
+information:
+
+"Morhange (Jean-Marie-François), class of 1881. Breveted. Captain,
+unassigned. (Topographical Service of the Army.)"
+
+"There is the explanation for you," said one. "They are sending one of
+their creatures to pull the chestnuts out of the fire, after you have
+had all the trouble of making it. Breveted! That's a great way. The
+theories of Ardant du Picq or else nothing about here."
+
+"I don't altogether agree with you," said the Major. "They knew in
+Parliament, for some one is always indiscreet, the real aim of
+Saint-Avit's mission: to force their hand for the occupation of Touat.
+And this Morhange must be a man serving the interests of the Army
+Commission. All these people, secretaries, members of Parliament,
+governors, keep a close watch on each other. Some one will write an
+amusing paradoxical history some day, of the French Colonial
+Expansion, which is made without the knowledge of the powers in
+office, when it is not actually in spite of them."
+
+"Whatever the reason, the result will be the same," I said bitterly;
+"we will be two Frenchmen to spy on each other night and day, along
+the roads to the south. An amiable prospect when one has none too much
+time to foil all the tricks of the natives. When does he arrive?"
+
+"Day after tomorrow, probably. I have news of a convoy coming from
+Ghardaia. It is likely that he will avail himself of it. The
+indications are that he doesn't know very much about traveling alone."
+
+Captain Morhange did arrive in fact two days later by means of the
+convoy from Ghardaia. I was the first person for whom he asked.
+
+When he came to my room, whither I had withdrawn in dignity as soon as
+the convoy was sighted, I was disagreeably surprised to foresee that I
+would have great difficulty in preserving my prejudice against him.
+
+He was tall, his face full and ruddy, with laughing blue eyes, a small
+black moustache, and hair that was already white.
+
+"I have a thousand apologies to make to you, my dear fellow," he said
+immediately, with a frankness that I have never seen in any other man.
+"You must be furious with my importunity in upsetting your plans and
+delaying your departure."
+
+"By no means, Captain," I replied coolly.
+
+"You really have only yourself to blame. It is on account of your
+knowledge of the southern, routes, so highly esteemed at Paris, that I
+wished to have you to initiate me when the Ministries of Instruction
+and of Commerce, and the Geographical Society combined to charge me
+with the mission which brings me here. These three honorable
+institutions have in fact entrusted me with the attempt to
+re-establish the ancient track of the caravans, which, from the ninth
+century, trafficked between Tunis and the Soudan, by Toweur, Wargla,
+Es-Souk and the bend of the Bourroum; and to study the possibility of
+restoring this route to its ancient splendor. At the same time, at the
+Geographic Bureau, I heard of the journey that you are undertaking.
+From Wargla to Shikh-Salah our two itineraries are the same. Only I
+must admit to you that it is the first voyage of this kind that I have
+ever undertaken. I would not be afraid to hold forth for an hour on
+Arabian literature in the amphitheatre of the School of Oriental
+Languages, but I know well enough that in the desert I should have to
+ask for directions whether to turn right or left. This is the only
+chance which could give me such an opportunity, and at the same time
+put me under obligation for this introduction to so charming a
+companion. You must not blame me if I seized it, if I used all my
+influence to retard your departure from Wargla until the instant when
+I could join you. I have only one more word to add to what I have
+said. I am entrusted with a mission which by its origin is rendered
+essentially civilian. You are sent out by the Ministry of War. Up to
+the moment when, arrived at Shikh-Salah we turn our backs on each
+other to attain, you Touat, and I the Niger, all your recommendations,
+all your orders, will be followed by a subaltern, and, I hope, by a
+friend as well."
+
+All the time he was talking so openly I felt delightedly my worst
+recent fears melting away. Nevertheless, I still experienced a mean
+desire to show him some marks of reserve, for having thus disposed of
+my company at a distance, without consulting me.
+
+"I am very grateful to you, Captain, for your extremely flattering
+words. When do you wish to leave Wargla?"
+
+He made a gesture of complete detachment.
+
+"Whenever you like. Tomorrow, this evening. I have already delayed
+you. Your preparations must have already been made for some time."
+
+My little maneuver had turned against myself. I had not been counting
+on leaving before the next week.
+
+"Tomorrow, Captain, but your luggage?"
+
+He smiled delightfully.
+
+"I thought it best to bring as little as possible. A light pack, some
+papers. My brave camel had no difficulty in bringing it along. For the
+rest I depend on your advice, and the resources of Owargla."
+
+I was well caught. I had nothing further to say. And moreover, such
+freedom of spirit and manner had already captivated me.
+
+"It seems," said my comrades, when the time for aperitives had brought
+us all together again, "that this Captain of yours is a remarkably
+charming fellow."
+
+"Remarkably."
+
+"You surely can't have any trouble with him. It is only up to you to
+see that later on he doesn't get all the glory."
+
+"We aren't working with the same end in view," I answered evasively.
+
+I was thoughtful, only thoughtful I give you my word. From that moment
+I harbored no further grudge against Morhange. Yet my silence
+persuaded him that I was unforgiving. And everyone, do you hear me,
+everyone said later on, when suspicions became rife:
+
+"He is surely guilty. We saw them go off together. We can affirm it."
+
+I am guilty.... But for a low motive of jealousy.... How sickening....
+
+After that, there was nothing to do but to flee, flee, as far as the
+places where there are no more men who think and reason.
+
+Morhange, appeared, his arm resting on the Major's, who was beaming
+over this new acquaintanceship.
+
+He presented him enthusiastically:
+
+"Captain Morhange, gentlemen. An officer of the old school, and a man
+after our own hearts, I give you my word. He wants to leave tomorrow,
+but we must give him such a reception that he will forget that idea
+before two days are up. Come, Captain, you have at least eight days to
+give us."
+
+"I am at the disposition of Lieutenant de Saint-Avit," replied
+Morhange, with a quiet smile.
+
+The conversation became general. The sound of glasses and laughter
+rang out. I heard my comrades in ecstasies over the stories that the
+newcomer poured out with never-failing humor. And I, never, never have
+I felt so sad.
+
+The time came to pass into the dining-room.
+
+"At my right, Captain," cried the Major, more and more beaming. "And I
+hope you will keep on giving us these new lines on Paris. We are not
+up with the times here, you know."
+
+"Yours to command, Major," said Morhange.
+
+"Be seated, gentlemen."
+
+The officers obeyed, with a joyous clatter of moving chairs. I had not
+taken my eyes off Morhange, who was still standing.
+
+"Major, gentlemen, you will allow me," he said.
+
+And before sitting down at that table, where every moment he was the
+life of the party, in a low voice, with his eyes closed, Captain
+Morhange recited the Benedicite.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+TOWARDS LATITUDE 25
+
+
+"You see," said Captain Morhange to me fifteen days later, "you are
+much better informed about the ancient routes through the Sahara than
+you have been willing to let me suppose, since you know of the
+existence of the two Tadekkas. But the one of which you have just
+spoken is the Tadekka of Ibn-Batoutah, located by this historian
+seventy days from Touat, and placed by Schirmer, very plausibly, in
+the unexplored territory of the Aouelimmiden. This is the Tadekka by
+which the Sonrhaï caravans passed every year, travelling by Egypt.
+
+"My Tadekka is different, the capital of the veiled people, placed by
+Ibn-Khaldoun twenty days south of Wargla, which he calls Tadmekka. It
+is towards this Tadmekka that I am headed. I must establish Tadmekka
+in the ruins of Es-Souk. The commercial trade route, which in the
+ninth century bound the Tunisian Djerid to the bend the Niger makes at
+Bourroum, passed by Es-Souk. It is to study the possibility of
+reestablishing this ancient thoroughfare that the Ministries gave me
+this mission, which has given me the pleasure of your companionship."
+
+"You are probably in for a disappointment," I said. "Everything
+indicates that the commerce there is very slight."
+
+"Well, I shall see," he answered composedly.
+
+This was while we were following the unicolored banks of a salt lake.
+The great saline stretch shone pale-blue, under the rising sun. The
+legs of our five mehara cast on it their moving shadows of a darker
+blue. For a moment the only inhabitant of these solitudes, a bird, a
+kind of indeterminate heron, rose and hung in the air, as if
+suspended from a thread, only to sink back to rest as soon as we had
+passed.
+
+I led the way, selecting the route, Morhange followed. Enveloped in a
+bernous, his head covered with the straight _chechia_ of the Spahis, a
+great chaplet of alternate red and white beads, ending in a cross,
+around his neck, he realized perfectly the ideal of Father Lavigerie's
+White Fathers.
+
+After a two-days' halt at Temassinin we had just left the road
+followed by Flatters, and taken an oblique course to the south. I have
+the honor of having antedated Fourcau in demonstrating the importance
+of Temassinin as a geometrical point for the passage of caravans, and
+of selecting the place where Captain Pein has just now constructed a
+fort. The junction for the roads that lead to Touat from Fezzan and
+Tibesti, Temassinin is the future seat of a marvellous Intelligence
+Department. What I had collected there in two days about the
+disposition of our Senoussis enemies was of importance. I noticed that
+Morhange let me proceed with my inquiries with complete indifference.
+
+These two days he had passed in conversation with the old Negro
+guardian of the turbet, which preserves, under its plaster dome, the
+remains of the venerated Sidi-Moussa. The confidences they exchanged,
+I am sorry to say that I have forgotten. But from the Negro's amazed
+admiration, I realized the ignorance in which I stood to the mysteries
+of the desert, and how familiar they were to my companion.
+
+And if you want to get any idea of the extraordinary originality which
+Morhange introduced into such surroundings, you who, after all, have a
+certain familiarity with the tropics, listen to this. It was exactly
+two hundred kilometers from here, in the vicinity of the Great Dune,
+in that horrible stretch of six days without water. We had just enough
+for two days before reaching the next well, and you know these wells;
+as Flatters wrote to his wife, "you have to work for hours before you
+can clean them out and succeed in watering beasts and men." By chance
+we met a caravan there, which was going east towards Rhadamès, and had
+come too far north. The camels' humps, shrunken and shaking, bespoke
+the sufferings of the troop. Behind came a little gray ass, a pitiful
+burrow, interfering at every step, and lightened of its pack because
+the merchants knew that it was going to die. Instinctively, with its
+last strength, it followed, knowing that when it could stagger no
+longer, the end would come and the flutter of the bald vultures'
+wings. I love animals, which I have solid reasons for preferring to
+men. But never should I have thought of doing what Morhange did then.
+I tell you that our water skins were almost dry, and that our own
+camels, without which one is lost in the empty desert, had not been
+watered for many hours. Morhange made his kneel, uncocked a skin, and
+made the little ass drink. I certainly felt gratification at seeing
+the poor bare flanks of the miserable beast pant with satisfaction. But
+the responsibility was mine. Also I had seen Bou-Djema's aghast
+expression, and the disapproval of the thirsty members of the caravan.
+I remarked on it. How it was received! "What have I given," replied
+Morhange, "was my own. We will reach El-Biodh to-morrow evening, about
+six o'clock. Between here and there I know that I shall not be
+thirsty." And that in a tone, in which for the first time he allowed
+the authority of a Captain to speak. "That is easy to say," I thought,
+ill-humoredly. "He knows that when he wants them, my water-skin, and
+Bou-Djema's, are at his service." But I did not yet know Morhange very
+well, and it is true that until the evening of the next day when we
+reached El-Biodh, refusing our offers with smiling determination, he
+drank nothing.
+
+Shades of St. Francis of Assisi! Umbrian hills, so pure under the
+rising sun! It was in the light of a like sunrise, by the border of a
+pale stream leaping in full cascades from a crescent-shaped niche of
+the gray rocks of Egere, that Morhange stopped. The unlooked for
+waters rolled upon the sand, and we saw, in the light which mirrored
+them, little black fish. Fish in the middle of the Sahara! All three
+of us were mute before this paradox of Nature. One of them had strayed
+into a little channel of sand. He had to stay there, struggling in
+vain, his little white belly exposed to the air.... Morhange picked
+him up, looked at him for a moment, and put him back into the little
+stream. Shades of St. Francis. Umbrian hills.... But I have sworn not
+to break the thread of the story by these untimely digressions.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"You see," Captain Morhange said to me a week later, "that I was right
+in advising you to go farther south before making for Shikh-Salah.
+Something told me that this highland of Egere was not interesting from
+your point of view. While here you have only to stoop to pick up
+pebbles which will allow you to establish the volcanic origin of this
+region much more certainly than Bou-Derba, des Cloizeaux, and Doctor
+Marrés have done."
+
+This was while we were following the western pass of the Tidifest
+Mountains, about the 25th degree of northern latitude.
+
+"I should indeed be ungrateful not to thank you," I said.
+
+I shall always remember that instant. We had left our camels and were
+collecting fragments of the most characteristic rocks. Morhange
+employed himself with a discernment which spoke worlds for his
+knowledge of geology, a science he had often professed complete
+ignorance of.
+
+Then I asked him the following question:
+
+"May I prove my gratitude by making you a confession?"
+
+He raised his head and looked at me.
+
+"Well then, I don't see the practical value of this trip you have
+undertaken."
+
+He smiled.
+
+"Why not? To explore the old caravan route, to demonstrate that a
+connection has existed from the most ancient times between the
+Mediterranean world, and the country of the Blacks, that seems nothing
+in your eyes? The hope of settling once for all the secular disputes
+which have divided so many keen minds; d'Anville, Heeren, Berlioux,
+Quatremere on the one hand,--on the other Gosselin, Walckenaer,
+Tissit, Vivien, de saint-Martin; you think that that is devoid of
+interest? A plague upon you for being hard to please."
+
+"I spoke of practical value," I said. "You won't deny that this
+controversy is only the affair of cabinet geographers and office
+explorers."
+
+Morhange kept on smiling.
+
+"Dear friend, don't wither me. Deign to recall that your mission was
+confided to you by the Ministry of War, while I hold mine on behalf of
+the Ministry of Public Instruction. A different origin justifies our
+different aims. It certainly explains, I readily concede that to you,
+why what I am in search of has no practical value."
+
+"You are also authorized by the Ministry of Commerce," I replied,
+playing my next card. "By this chief you are instructed to study the
+possibility of restoring the old trade route of the ninth century. But
+on this point don't attempt to mislead me; with your knowledge of the
+history and geography of the Sahara, your mind must have been made up
+before you left Paris. The road from Djerid to the Niger is dead,
+stone dead. You knew that no important traffic would pass by this
+route before you undertook to study the possibility of restoring it."
+
+Morhange looked me full in the face.
+
+"And if that should be so," he said with the most charming attitude,
+"if I had before leaving the conviction you say, what do you conclude
+from that?"
+
+"I should prefer to have you tell me."
+
+"Simply, my dear boy, that I had less skill than you in finding the
+pretext for my voyage, that I furnished less good reasons for the true
+motives that brought me here."
+
+"A pretext? I don't see...."
+
+"Be sincere in your turn, if you please. I am sure that you have the
+greatest desire to inform the Arabian Office about the practices of
+the Senoussis. But admit that the information that you will obtain is
+not the sole and innermost aim of your excursion. You are a geologist,
+my friend. You have found a chance to gratify your taste in this trip.
+No one would think of blaming you because you have known how to
+reconcile what is useful to your country and agreeable to yourself.
+But, for the love of God, don't deny it; I need no other proof than
+your presence here on this side of the Tidifest, a very curious place
+from a mineralogical point of view, but some hundred and fifty
+kilometers south of your official route."
+
+It was not possible to have countered me with a better grace. I
+parried by attacking.
+
+"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.
+
+Not a sound, not a breath. The smoke mounted straight, straight and
+slowly up the pale steps of the firmament.
+
+"Have you ever heard of the _Atlas of Christianity_?" asked Morhange.
+
+"I think so. Isn't it a geographical work published by the
+Benedictines under the direction of a certain Dom Granger?"
+
+"Your memory is correct," said Morhange. "Even so let me explain a
+little more fully some of the things you have not had as much reason
+as I to interest yourself in. The _Atlas of Christianity_ proposes to
+establish the boundaries of that great tide of Christianity through
+all the ages, and for all parts of the globe. An undertaking worthy of
+the Benedictine learning, worthy of such a prodigy of erudition as
+Dom Granger himself."
+
+"And it is these boundaries that you have come to determine here, no
+doubt," I murmured.
+
+"Just so," replied my companion.
+
+He was silent, and I respected his silence, prepared by now to be
+astonished at nothing.
+
+"It is not possible to give confidences by halves, without being
+ridiculous," he continued after several minutes of meditation,
+speaking gravely, in a voice which held no suggestion of that flashing
+humor which had a month before enchanted the young officers at Wargla.
+"I have begun on mine. I will tell you everything. Trust my
+discretion, however, and do not insist upon certain events of my
+private life. If, four years ago, at the close of these events, I
+resolve to enter a monastery, it does not concern you to know my
+reasons. I can marvel at it myself, that the passage in my life of a
+being absolutely devoid of interest should have sufficed to change the
+current of that life. I can marvel that a creature whose sole merit
+was her beauty should have been permitted by the Creator to swing my
+destiny to such an unforeseen direction. The monastery at whose doors
+I knocked had the most valid reasons for doubting the stability of my
+vocation. What the world loses in such fashion it often calls back as
+readily. In short, I cannot blame the Father Abbot for having
+forbidden me to apply for my army discharge. By his instructions, I
+asked for, and obtained, permission to be placed on the inactive list
+for three years. At the end of those three years of consecration it
+would be seen whether the world was definitely dead to your servant.
+
+"The first day of my arrival at the cloister I was assigned to Dom
+Granger, and placed by him at work on the _Atlas of Christianity_. A
+brief examination decided him as to what kind of service I was best
+fitted to render. This is how I came to enter the studio devoted to
+the cartography of Northern Africa. I did not know one word of Arabic,
+but it happened that in garrison at Lyon I had taken at the _Faculté
+des Lettres,_ a course with Berlioux,--a very erudite geographer no
+doubt, but obsessed by one idea, the influence the Greek and Roman
+civilizations had exercised on Africa. This detail of my life was
+enough for Dom Granger. He provided me straightway with Berber
+vocabularies by Venture, by Delaporte, by Brosselard; with the
+_Grammatical Sketch of the Temahaq_ by Stanley Fleeman, and the _Essai
+de Grammaire de la langue Temachek_ by Major Hanoteau. At the end of
+three months I was able to decipher any inscriptions in Tifinar. You
+know that Tifinar is the national writing of the Tuareg, the
+expression of this Temachek language which seems to us the most
+curious protest of the Targui race against its Mohammedan enemies.
+
+"Dom Granger, in fact, believed that the Tuareg are Christians, dating
+from a period which it was necessary to ascertain, but which coincided
+no doubt with the splendor of the church of Hippon. Even better than
+I, you know that the cross is with them the symbol of fate in
+decoration. Duveyrier has claimed that it figures in their alphabet,
+on their arms, among the designs of their clothes. The only tattooing
+that they wear on the forehead, on the back of the hand, is a cross
+with four equal branches; the pummels of their saddles, the handles of
+their sabres, of their poignards, are cross-shaped. And is it
+necessary to remind you that, although Islam forbids bells as a sign
+of Christianity, the harness of Tuareg camels are trimmed with bells?
+
+"Neither Dom Granger nor I attach an exaggerated importance to such
+proofs, which resemble too much those which make such a display in the
+_Genius of Christianity._ But it is indeed impossible to refuse all
+credence to certain theological arguments. Amanai, the God of the
+Tuareg, unquestionably the Adonai of the Bible, is unique. They have a
+hell, 'Timsi-tan-elekhaft,' the last fire, where reigns Iblis, our
+Lucifer. Their Paradise, where they are rewarded for good deeds, is
+inhabited by 'andjelousen,' our angels. And do not urge the
+resemblance of this theology to the Koran, for I will meet you with
+historic arguments and remind you that the Tuareg have struggled all
+through the ages at the cost of partial extermination, to maintain
+their faith against the encroachments of Mohammedan fanaticism.
+
+"Many times I have studied with Dom Granger that formidable epoch when
+the aborigines opposed the conquering Arabs. With him I have seen how
+the army of Sidi-Okba, one of the companions of the Prophet, invaded
+this desert to reduce the Tuareg tribes and impose on them Mussulman
+rules. These tribes were then rich and prosperous. They were the
+Ihbggaren, the Imededren, the Ouadelen, the Kel-Gueress, the Kel-Air.
+But internal quarrels sapped their strength. Still, it was not until
+after a long and cruel war that the Arabians succeeded in getting
+possession of the capital of the Berbers, which had proved such a
+redoubtable stronghold. They destroyed it after they had massacred the
+inhabitants. On the ruins Okba constructed a new city. This city is
+Es-Souk. The one that Sidi-Okba destroyed was the Berber Tadmekka.
+What Dom Granger asked of me was precisely that I should try to exhume
+from the ruins of the Mussulman Es-Souk the ruins of Tadmekka, which
+was Berber, and perhaps Christian."
+
+"I understand," I murmured.
+
+"So far, so good," said Morhange. "But what you must grasp now is the
+practical sense of these religious men, my masters. You remember that,
+even after three years of monastic life, they preserved their doubts
+as to the stability of my vocation. They found at the same time means
+of testing it once for all, and of adapting official facilities to
+their particular purposes. One morning I was called before the Father
+Abbot, and this is what he said to me, in the presence of Dom Granger,
+who expressed silent approval.
+
+"'Your term of inactive service expires in fifteen days. You will
+return to Paris, and apply at the Ministry to be reinstated. With what
+you have learned here, and the relationships we have been able to
+maintain at Headquarters, you will have no difficulty in being
+attached to the Geographical Staff of the army. When you reach the rue
+de Grenelle you will receive our instructions.'
+
+"I was astonished at their confidence in my knowledge. When I was
+reestablished as Captain again in the Geographical Service I
+understood. At the monastery, the daily association with Dom Granger
+and his pupils had kept me constantly convinced of the inferiority of
+my knowledge. When I came in contact with my military brethren I
+realized the superiority of the instruction I had received. I did not
+have to concern myself with the details of my mission. The Ministries
+invited me to undertake it. My initiative asserted itself on only one
+occasion. When I learned that you were going to leave Wargla on the
+present expedition, having reason to distrust my practical
+qualifications as an explorer, I did my best to retard your departure,
+so that I might join you. I hope that you have forgiven me by now."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The light in the west was fading, where the sun had already sunk into
+a matchless luxury of violet draperies. We were alone in this
+immensity, at the feet of the rigid black rocks. Nothing but
+ourselves. Nothing, nothing but ourselves.
+
+I held out my hand to Morhange, and he pressed it. Then he said:
+
+"If they still seem infinitely long to me, the several thousand
+kilometers which separate me from the instant when, my task
+accomplished, I shall at last find oblivion in the cloister for the
+things for which I was not made, let me tell you this;--the several
+hundred kilometers which still separate us from Shikh-Salah seem to me
+infinitely short to traverse in your company."
+
+On the pale water of the little pool, motionless and fixed like a
+silver nail, a star had just been born.
+
+"Shikh-Salah," I murmured, my heart full of an indefinable sadness.
+"Patience, we are not there yet."
+
+In truth, we never were to be there.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+THE INSCRIPTION
+
+
+With a blow of the tip of his cane Morhange knocked a fragment of rock
+from the black flank of the mountain.
+
+"What is it?" he asked, holding it out to me.
+
+"A basaltic peridot," I said.
+
+"It can't be very interesting, you barely glanced at it."
+
+"It is very interesting, on the contrary. But, for the moment, I admit
+that I am otherwise preoccupied."
+
+"How?"
+
+"Look this way a bit," I said, showing towards the west, on the
+horizon, a black spot across the white plain.
+
+It was six o'clock in the morning. The sun had risen. But it could not
+be found in the surprisingly polished air. And not a breath of air,
+not a breath. Suddenly one of the camels called. An enormous antelope
+had just come in sight, and had stopped in its flight, terrified,
+racing the wall of rock. It stayed there at a little distance from us,
+dazed, trembling on its slender legs.
+
+Bou-Djema had rejoined us.
+
+"When the legs of the mohor tremble it is because the firmament is
+shaken," he muttered.
+
+"A storm?"
+
+"Yes, a storm."
+
+"And you find that alarming?"
+
+I did not answer immediately. I was exchanging several brief words
+with Bou-Djema, who was occupied in soothing the camels which were
+giving signs of being restive.
+
+Morhange repeated his question. I shrugged my shoulders.
+
+"Alarming? I don't know. I have never seen a storm on the Hoggar. But
+I distrust it. And the signs are that this is going to be a big one.
+See there already."
+
+A slight dust had risen before the cliff. In the still air a few
+grains of sand had begun to whirl round and round, with a speed which
+increased to dizziness, giving us in advance the spectacle in
+miniature of what would soon be breaking upon us.
+
+With harsh cries a flock of wild geese appeared, flying low. They came
+out of the west.
+
+"They are fleeing towards the Sebkha d'Amanghor," said Bou-Djema.
+
+There could be no greater mistake, I thought.
+
+Morhange looked at me curiously.
+
+"What must we do?" he asked.
+
+"Mount our camels immediately, before they are completely
+demoralized, and hurry to find shelter in some high places. Take
+account of our situation. It is easy to follow the bed of a stream.
+But within a quarter of an hour perhaps the storm will have burst.
+Within a half hour a perfect torrent will be rushing here. On this
+soil, which is almost impermeable, rain will roll like a pail of water
+thrown on a bituminous pavement. No depth, all height. Look at this."
+
+And I showed him, a dozen meters high, long hollow gouges, marks of
+former erosions on the rocky wall.
+
+"In an hour the waters will reach that height. Those are the marks of
+the last inundation. Let us get started. There is not an instant to
+lose."
+
+"All right," Morhange replied tranquilly.
+
+We had the greatest difficulty to make the camels kneel. When we had
+thrown ourselves into the saddle they started off at a pace which
+their terror rendered more and more disorderly.
+
+Of a sudden the wind began, a formidable wind, and, almost at the same
+time the light was eclipsed in the ravine. Above our heads the sky had
+become, in the flash of an eye, darker than the walls of the canyon
+which we were descending at a breathless pace.
+
+"A path, a stairway in the wall," I screamed against the wind to my
+companions. "If we don't find one in a minute we are lost."
+
+They did not hear me, but, turning in my saddle, I saw that they had
+lost no distance, Morhange following me, and Bou-Djema in the rear
+driving the two baggage camels masterfully before him.
+
+A blinding streak of lightning rent the obscurity. A peal of thunder,
+re-echoed to infinity by the rocky wall, rang out, and immediately
+great tepid drops began to fall. In an instant, our burnouses, which
+had been blown out behind by the speed with which we were traveling,
+were stuck tight to our streaming bodies.
+
+"Saved!" I exclaimed suddenly.
+
+Abruptly on our right a crevice opened in the midst of the wall. It
+was the almost perpendicular bed of a stream, an affluent of the one
+we had had the unfortunate idea of following that morning. Already a
+veritable torrent was gushing over it with a fine uproar.
+
+I have never better appreciated the incomparable sure-footedness of
+camels in the most precipitate places. Bracing themselves, stretching
+out their great legs, balancing themselves among the rocks that were
+beginning to be swept loose, our camels accomplished at that moment
+what the mules of the Pyrannees might have failed in.
+
+After several moments of superhuman effort we found ourselves at last
+out of danger, on a kind of basaltic terrace, elevated some fifty
+meters above the channel of the stream we had just left. Luck was with
+us; a little grotto opened out behind. Bou-Djema succeeded in
+sheltering the camels there. From its threshold we had leisure to
+contemplate in silence the prodigious spectacle spread out before us.
+
+You have, I believe, been at the Camp of Chalons for artillery drills.
+You have seen when the shell bursts how the chalky soil of the Marne
+effervesces like the inkwells at school, when we used to throw a piece
+of calcium carbonate into them. Well, it was almost like that, but in
+the midst of the desert, in the midst of obscurity. The white waters
+rushed into the depths of the black hole, and rose and rose towards
+the pedestal on which we stood. And there was the uninterrupted noise
+of thunder, and still louder, the sound of whole walls of rock,
+undermined by the flood, collapsing in a heap and dissolving in a few
+seconds of time in the midst of the rising water.
+
+All the time that this deluge lasted, one hour, perhaps two, Morhange
+and I stayed bending over this fantastic foaming vat; anxious to see,
+to see everything, to see in spite of everything; rejoicing with a
+kind of ineffable horror when we felt the shelf of basalt on which we
+had taken refuge swaying beneath us from the battering impact of the
+water. I believe that never for an instant did we think, so beautiful
+it was, of wishing for the end of that gigantic nightmare.
+
+Finally a ray of the sun shone through. Only then did we look at each
+other.
+
+Morhange held out his hand.
+
+"Thank you," he said simply.
+
+And he added with a smile:
+
+"To be drowned in the very middle of the Sahara would have been
+pretentious and ridiculous. You have saved us, thanks to your power of
+decision, from this very paradoxical end."
+
+Ah, that he had been thrown by a misstep of his camel and rolled to
+his death in the midst of the flood! Then what followed would never
+have happened. That is the thought that comes to me in hours of
+weakness. But I have told you that I pull myself out of it quickly.
+No, no, I do not regret it, I cannot regret it, that what happened did
+happen.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Morhange left me to go into the little grotto, where Bou-Djema's
+camels were now resting comfortably. I stayed alone, watching the
+torrent which was continuously rising with the impetuous inrush of its
+unbridled tributaries. It had stopped raining. The sun shone from a
+sky that had renewed its blueness. I could feel the clothes that had a
+moment before been drenching, drying upon me incredibly fast.
+
+A hand was placed on my shoulder. Morhange was again beside me.
+
+"Come here," he said.
+
+Somewhat surprised, I followed him. We went into the grotto.
+
+The opening, which was big enough to admit the camels, made it fairly
+light. Morhange led me up to the smooth face of rock opposite. "Look,"
+he said, with unconcealed joy.
+
+"What of it?"
+
+"Don't you see?"
+
+"I see that there are several Tuareg inscriptions," I answered, with
+some disappointment. "But I thought I had told you that I read Tifinar
+writing very badly. Are these writings more interesting than the
+others we have come upon before?"
+
+"Look at this one," said Morhange. There was such an accent of triumph
+in his tone that this time I concentrated my attention.
+
+I looked again.
+
+The characters of the inscription were arranged in the form of a
+cross. It plays such an important part in this adventure that I cannot
+forego retracing it for you.
+
+               |
+               |
+               +
+o  o  o  o  -- W + -- -
+               |
+               |
+               |
+
+[Transcriber's Note: This is but a crude ASCII representation of the
+inscription. The center 'W' is rotated 90 degrees counter-clockwise in
+the book.]
+
+It was designed with great regularity, and the characters were cut
+deep into the rock. Although I knew so little of rock inscriptions at
+that time I had no difficulty in recognizing the antiquity of this
+one.
+
+Morhange became more and more radiant as he regarded it.
+
+I looked at him questioningly.
+
+"Well, what have you to say now?" he asked.
+
+"What do you want me to say? I tell you that I can barely read
+Tifinar."
+
+"Shall I help you?" he suggested.
+
+This course in Berber writing, after the emotions through which we had
+just passed, seemed to me a little inopportune. But Morhange was so
+visibly delighted that I could not dash his joy.
+
+"Very well then," began my companion, as much at his, ease as if he had
+been before a blackboard, "what will strike you first about this
+inscription is its repetition in the form of a cross. That is to say
+that it contains the same word twice, top to bottom, and right to left.
+The word which it composes has seven letters so the fourth letter, W
+[Transcriber's Note: Rotated 90 deg. counter-clockwise], comes naturally
+in the middle. This arrangement which is unique in Tifinar writing, is
+already remarkable enough. But there is better still. Now we will read
+it."
+
+Getting it wrong three times out of seven I finally succeeded, with
+Morhange's help, in spelling the word.
+
+"Have you got it?" asked Morhange when I had finished my task.
+
+"Less than ever," I answered, a little put out;
+"a,n,t,i,n,h,a,--Antinha, I don't know that word, or anything like it,
+in all the Saharan dialects I am familiar with."
+
+Morhange rubbed his hands together. His satisfaction was without
+bounds.
+
+"You have said it. That is why the discovery is unique."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"There is really nothing, either in Berber or in Arabian, analogous to
+this word."
+
+"Then?"
+
+"Then, my dear friend, we are in the presence of a foreign word,
+translated into Tifinar."
+
+"And this word belongs, according to your theory, to what language?"
+
+"You must realize that the letter _e_ does not exist in the Tifinar
+alphabet. It has here been replaced by the phonetic sign which is
+nearest to it,--h. Restore _e_ to the place which belongs to it in the
+word, and you have--"
+
+"Antinea."
+
+"'Antinea,' precisely. We find ourselves before a Greek vocable
+reproduced in Tifinar. And I think that now you will agree with me
+that my find has a certain interest."
+
+That day we had no more conferences upon texts. A loud cry, anguished,
+terrifying, rang out.
+
+We rushed out to find a strange spectacle awaiting us.
+
+Although the sky had cleared again, the torrent of yellow water was
+still foaming and no one could predict when it would fall. In
+mid-stream, struggling desperately in the current, was an
+extraordinary mass, gray and soft and swaying.
+
+But what at the first glance overwhelmed us with astonishment was to
+see Bou-Djema, usually so calm, at this moment apparently beside
+himself with frenzy, bounding through the gullies and over the rocks
+of the ledge, in full pursuit of the shipwreck.
+
+Of a sudden I seized Morhange by the arm. The grayish thing was alive.
+A pitiful long neck emerged from it with the heartrending cry of a
+beast in despair.
+
+"The fool," I cried, "he has let one of our beasts get loose, and the
+stream is carrying it away!"
+
+"You are mistaken," said Morhange. "Our camels are all in the cave.
+The one Bou-Djema is running after is not ours. And the cry of anguish
+we just heard, that was not Bou-Djema either. Bou-Djema is a brave
+Chaamb who has at this moment only one idea, to appropriate the
+intestate capital represented by this camel in the stream."
+
+"Who gave that cry, then?"
+
+"Let us try, if you like, to explore up this stream that our guide is
+descending at such a rate."
+
+And without waiting for my answer he had already set out through the
+recently washed gullies of the rocky bank.
+
+At that moment it can be truly said that Morhange went to meet his
+destiny.
+
+I followed him. We had the greatest difficulty in proceeding two or
+three hundred meters. Finally we saw at our feet a little rushing
+brook where the water was falling a trifle.
+
+"See there?" said Morhange.
+
+A blackish bundle was balancing on the waves of the creek.
+
+When we had come up even with it we saw that it was a man in the long
+dark blue robes of the Tuareg.
+
+"Give me your hand," said Morhange, "and brace yourself against a
+rock, hard."
+
+He was very, very strong. In an instant, as if it were child's play,
+he had brought the body ashore.
+
+"He is still alive," he pronounced with satisfaction. "Now it is a
+question of getting him to the grotto. This is no place to resuscitate
+a drowned man."
+
+He raised the body in his powerful arms.
+
+"It is astonishing how little he weighs for a man of his height."
+
+By the time we had retraced the way to the grotto the man's cotton
+clothes were almost dry. But the dye had run plentifully, and it was
+an indigo man that Morhange was trying to recall to life.
+
+When I had made him swallow a quart of rum he opened his eyes, looked
+at the two of us with surprise, then, closing them again, murmured
+almost unintelligibly a phrase, the sense of which we did not get
+until some days later:
+
+"Can it be that I have reached the end of my mission?"
+
+"What mission is he talking about?" I said.
+
+"Let him recover himself completely," responded Morhange. "You had
+better open some preserved food. With fellows of this build you don't
+have to observe the precautions prescribed for drowned Europeans."
+
+It was indeed a species of giant, whose life we had just saved. His
+face, although very thin, was regular, almost beautiful. He had a
+clear skin and little beard. His hair, already white, showed him to be
+a man of sixty years.
+
+When I placed a tin of corned-beef before him a light of voracious joy
+came into his eyes. The tin contained an allowance for four persons.
+It was empty in a flash.
+
+"Behold," said Morhange, "a robust appetite. Now we can put our
+questions without scruple."
+
+Already the Targa had placed over his forehead and face the blue veil
+prescribed by the ritual. He must have been completely famished not to
+have performed this indispensable formality sooner. There was nothing
+visible now but the eyes, watching us with a light that grew steadily
+more sombre.
+
+"French officers," he murmured at last.
+
+And he took Morhange's hand, and having placed it against his breast,
+carried it to his lips.
+
+Suddenly an expression of anxiety passed over his face.
+
+"And my mehari?" he asked.
+
+I explained that our guide was then employed in trying to save his
+beast. He in turn told us how it had stumbled, and fallen into the
+current, and he himself, in trying to save it, had been knocked over.
+His forehead had struck a rock. He had cried out. After that he
+remembered nothing more.
+
+"What is your name?" I asked.
+
+"Eg-Anteouen."
+
+"What tribe do you belong to?"
+
+"The tribe of Kel-Tahat."
+
+"The Kel-Tahats are the serfs of the tribe of Kel-Rhelâ, the great
+nobles of Hoggar?"
+
+"Yes," he answered, casting a side glance in my direction. It seemed
+that such precise questions on the affairs of Ahygar were not to his
+liking.
+
+"The Kel-Tahats, if I am not mistaken, are established on the
+southwest flank of Atakor.[5] What were you doing, so far from your
+home territory when we saved your life?"
+
+[Footnote 5: Another name, in the Temahaq language, for Ahaggar. (Note
+by M. Leroux.)]
+
+"I was going, by way of Tit, to In-Salah," he said.
+
+"What were you going to do at In-Salah?"
+
+He was about to reply. But suddenly we saw him tremble. His eyes were
+fixed on a point of the cavern. We looked to see what it was. He had
+just seen the rock inscription which had so delighted Morhange an hour
+before.
+
+"Do you know that?" Morhange asked him with keen curiosity.
+
+The Targa did not speak a word but his eyes had a strange light.
+
+"Do you know that?" insisted Morhange.
+
+And he added:
+
+"Antinea?"
+
+"Antinea," repeated the man.
+
+And he was silent.
+
+"Why don't you answer the Captain?" I called out, with a strange
+feeling of rage sweeping over me.
+
+The Targui looked at me. I thought that he was going to speak. But his
+eyes became suddenly hard. Under the lustrous veil I saw his features
+stiffening.
+
+Morhange and I turned around.
+
+On the threshold of the cavern, breathless, discomfited, harassed by
+an hour of vain pursuit, Bou-Djema had returned to us.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+THE DISASTER OF THE LETTUCE
+
+
+As Eg-Anteouen and Bou-Djema came face to face, I fancied that both
+the Targa and the Chaamba gave a sudden start which each immediately
+repressed. It was nothing more than a fleeting impression.
+Nevertheless, it was enough to make me resolve that as soon as I was
+alone with our guide, I would question him closely concerning our new
+companion.
+
+The beginning of the day had been wearisome enough. We decided,
+therefore, to spend the rest of it there, and even to pass the night
+in the cave, waiting till the flood had completely subsided.
+
+In the morning, when I was marking our day's march upon the map,
+Morhange came toward me. I noticed that his manner was somewhat
+restrained.
+
+"In three days, we shall be at Shikh-Salah," I said to him. "Perhaps
+by the evening of the second day, badly as the camels go."
+
+"Perhaps we shall separate before then," he muttered.
+
+"How so?"
+
+"You see, I have changed my itinerary a little. I have given up the
+idea of going straight to Timissao. First I should like to make a
+little excursion into the interior of the Ahaggar range."
+
+I frowned:
+
+"What is this new idea?"
+
+As I spoke I looked about for Eg-Anteouen, whom I had seen in
+conversation with Morhange the previous evening and several minutes
+before. He was quietly mending one of his sandals with a waxed thread
+supplied by Bou-Djema. He did not raise his head.
+
+"It is simply," explained Morhange, less and less at his ease, "that
+this man tells me there are similar inscriptions in several caverns in
+western Ahaggar. These caves are near the road that he has to take
+returning home. He must pass by Tit. Now, from Tit, by way of Silet,
+is hardly two hundred kilometers. It is a quasi-classic route[6] as
+short again as the one that I shall have to take alone, after I leave
+you, from Shikh-Salah to Timissao. That is in part, you see, the
+reason which has made me decide to...."
+
+[Footnote 6: The route and the stages from Tit to Timissao were
+actually plotted out, as early as 1888, by Captain Bissuel. _Les
+Tuarge de l'Ouest,_ itineraries 1 and 10. (Note by M. Leroux.)]
+
+"In part? In very small part," I replied. "But is your mind absolutely
+made up?"
+
+"It is," he answered me.
+
+"When do you expect to leave me?"
+
+"To-day. The road which Eg-Anteouen proposes to take into Ahaggar
+crosses this one about four leagues from here. I have a favor to ask
+of you in this connection."
+
+"Please tell me."
+
+"It is to let me take one of the two baggage camels, since my Targa
+has lost his."
+
+"The camel which carries your baggage belongs to you as much as does
+your own mehari," I answered coldly.
+
+We stood there several minutes without speaking. Morhange maintained
+an uneasy silence; I was examining my map. All over it in greater or
+less degree, but particularly towards the south, the unexplored
+portions of Ahaggar stood out as far too numerous white patches in the
+tan area of supposed mountains.
+
+I finally said:
+
+"You give me your word that when you have seen these famous grottos,
+you will make straight for Timissao by Tit and Silet?"
+
+He looked at me uncomprehendingly.
+
+"Why do you ask that?"
+
+"Because, if you promise me that,--provided, of course, that my
+company is not unwelcome to you--I will go with you. Either way, I
+shall have two hundred kilometers to go. I shall strike for
+Shikh-Salah from the south, instead of from the west--that is the only
+difference."
+
+Morhange looked at me with emotion.
+
+"Why do you do this?" he murmured.
+
+"My dear fellow," I said (it was the first time that I had addressed
+Morhange in this familiar way), "my dear fellow, I have a sense which
+becomes marvellously acute in the desert, the sense of danger. I gave
+you a slight proof of it yesterday morning, at the coming of the
+storm. With all your knowledge of rock inscriptions, you seem to me to
+have no very exact idea of what kind of place Ahaggar is, nor what may
+be in store for you there. On that account, I should be just as well
+pleased not to let you run sure risks alone."
+
+"I have a guide," he said with his adorable naiveté.
+
+Eg-Anteouen, in the same squatting position, kept on patching his old
+slipper.
+
+I took a step toward him.
+
+"You heard what I said to the Captain?"
+
+"Yes," the Targa answered calmly.
+
+"I am going with him. We leave you at Tit, to which place you must
+bring us. Where is the place you proposed to show the Captain?"
+
+"I did not propose to show it to him; it was his own idea," said the
+Targa coldly. "The grottos with the inscriptions are three-days' march
+southward in the mountains. At first, the road is rather rough. But
+farther on, it turns, and you gain Timissao very easily. There are
+good wells where the Tuareg Taitoqs, who are friendly to the French,
+come to water their camels."
+
+"And you know the road well?"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders. His eyes had a scornful smile.
+
+"I have taken it twenty times," he said.
+
+"In that case, let's get started."
+
+We rode for two hours. I did not exchange a word with Morhange. I had
+a clear intuition of the folly we were committing in risking ourselves
+so unconcernedly in that least known and most dangerous part of the
+Sahara. Every blow which had been struck in the last twenty years to
+undermine the French advance had come from this redoubtable Ahaggar.
+But what of it? It was of my own will that I had joined in this mad
+scheme. No need of going over it again. What was the use of spoiling
+my action by a continual exhibition of disapproval? And, furthermore,
+I may as well admit that I rather liked the turn that our trip was
+beginning to take. I had, at that instant, the sensation of journeying
+toward something incredible, toward some tremendous adventure. You do
+not live with impunity for months and years as the guest of the
+desert. Sooner or later, it has its way with you, annihilates the good
+officer, the timid executive, overthrows his solicitude for his
+responsibilities. What is there behind those mysterious rocks, those
+dim solitudes, which have held at bay the most illustrious pursuers of
+mystery? You follow, I tell you, you follow.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Are you sure at least that this inscription is interesting enough to
+justify us in our undertaking?" I asked Morhange.
+
+My companion started with pleasure. Ever since we began our journey I
+had realized his fear that I was coming along half-heartedly. As soon
+as I offered him a chance to convince me, his scruples vanished, and
+his triumph seemed assured to him.
+
+"Never," he answered, in a voice that he tried to control, but through
+which the enthusiasm rang out, "never has a Greek inscription been
+found so far south. The farthest points where they have been reported
+are in the south of Algeria and Cyrene. But in Ahaggar! Think of it!
+It is true that this one is translated into Tifinar. But this
+peculiarity does not diminish the interest of the coincidence: it
+increases it."
+
+"What do you take to be the meaning of this word?"
+
+"_Antinea_ can only be a proper name," said Morhange. "To whom does it
+refer? I admit I don't know, and if at this very moment I am marching
+toward the south, dragging you along with me, it is because I count on
+learning more about it. Its etymology? It hasn't one definitely, but
+there are thirty possibilities. Bear in mind that the Tifinar alphabet
+is far from tallying with the Greek alphabet, which increases the
+number of hypotheses. Shall I suggest several?"
+
+"I was just about to ask you to."
+
+"To begin with, there is [Greek: agti] and [Greek: neos], _the woman
+who is placed opposite a vessel_, an explanation which would have been
+pleasing to Gaffarel and to my venerated master Berlioux. That would
+apply well enough to the figure-heads of ships. There is a technical
+term that I cannot recall at this moment, not if you beat me a hundred
+times over.[7]
+
+[Footnote 7: It is perhaps worth noting here that _Figures de Proues_
+is the exact title of a very remarkable collection of poems by Mme.
+Delarus-Mardrus. (Note by M. Leroux.)]
+
+"Then there is [Greek: agtinêa], that you must relate to [Greek: agti]
+and [Greek: naos], _she who holds herself before the_ [Greek: naos],
+the [Greek: naos] of the temple, _she who is opposite the sanctuary,_
+therefore priestess. An interpretation which would enchant Girard and
+Renan.
+
+"Next we have [Greek: agtine], from [Greek: agti] and [Greek: neos],
+new, which can mean two things: either _she who is the contrary of
+young_, which is to say old; or _she who is the enemy of novelty_ or
+_the enemy of youth_.
+
+"There is still another sense of [Greek: gati], _in exchange for,_
+which is capable of complicating all the others I have mentioned;
+likewise there are four meanings for the verb [Greek: neô], which
+means in turn _to go, to flow, to thread_ or _weave, to heap_. There
+is more still.... And notice, please, that I have not at my
+disposition on the otherwise commodious hump of this mehari, either
+the great dictionary of Estienne or the lexicons of Passow, of Pape,
+or of Liddel-Scott. This is only to show you, my dear friend, that
+epigraphy is but a relative science, always dependent on the discovery
+of a new text which contradicts the previous findings, when it is not
+merely at the mercy of the humors of the epigraphists and their pet
+conceptions of the universe.
+
+"That was rather my view of it," I said, "But I must admit my
+astonishment to find that, with such a sceptical opinion of the goal,
+you still do not hesitate to take risks which may be quite
+considerable."
+
+Morhange smiled wanly.
+
+"I do not interpret, my friend; I collect. From what I will take back
+to him, Dom Granger has the ability to draw conclusions which are
+beyond my slight knowledge. I was amusing myself a little. Pardon me."
+
+Just then the girth of one of the baggage camels, evidently not well
+fastened, came loose. Part of the load slipped and fell to the ground.
+
+Eg-Anteouen descended instantly from his beast and helped Bou-Djema
+repair the damage.
+
+When they had finished, I made my mehari walk beside Bou-Djema's.
+
+"It will be better to resaddle the camels at the next stop. They will
+have to climb the mountain."
+
+The guide looked at me with amazement. Up to that time I had thought
+it unnecessary to acquaint him with our new projects. But I supposed
+Eg-Anteouen would have told him.
+
+"Lieutenant, the road across the white plain to Shikh-Salah is not
+mountainous," said the Chaamba.
+
+"We are not keeping to the road across the white plain. We are going
+south, by Ahaggar."
+
+"By Ahaggar," he murmured. "But...."
+
+"But what?"
+
+"I do not know the road."
+
+"Eg-Anteouen is going to guide us."
+
+"Eg-Anteouen!"
+
+I watched Bou-Djema as he made this suppressed ejaculation. His eyes
+were fixed on the Targa with a mixture of stupor and fright.
+
+Eg-Anteouen's camel was a dozen yards ahead of us, side by side with
+Morhange's. The two men were talking. I realized that Morhange must be
+conversing with Eg-Anteouen about the famous inscriptions. But we were
+not so far behind that they could not have overheard our words.
+
+Again I looked at my guide. I saw that he was pale.
+
+"What is it, Bou-Djema?" I asked in a low voice.
+
+"Not here, Lieutenant, not here," he muttered.
+
+His teeth chattered. He added in a whisper:
+
+"Not here. This evening, when we stop, when he turns to the East to
+pray, when the sun goes down. Then, call me to you. I will tell
+you.... But not here. He is talking, but he is listening. Go ahead.
+Join the Captain."
+
+"What next?" I murmured, pressing my camel's neck with my foot so as
+to make him overtake Morhange.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was about five o'clock when Eg-Anteouen who was leading the way,
+came to a stop.
+
+"Here it is," he said, getting down from his camel.
+
+It was a beautiful and sinister place. To our left a fantastic wall of
+granite outlined its gray ribs against the sky. This wall was pierced,
+from top to bottom, by a winding corridor about a thousand feet high
+and scarcely wide enough in places to allow three camels to walk
+abreast.
+
+"Here it is," repeated the Targa.
+
+To the west, straight behind us, the track that we were leaving
+unrolled like a pale ribbon. The white plain, the road to Shikh-Salah,
+the established halts, the well-known wells.... And, on the other
+side, this black wall against the mauve sky, this dark passage.
+
+I looked at Morhange.
+
+"We had better stop here," he said simply. "Eg-Anteouen advises us to
+take as much water here as we can carry."
+
+With one accord we decided to spend the night there, before
+undertaking the mountain.
+
+There was a spring, in a dark basin, from which fell a little cascade;
+there were a few shrubs, a few plants.
+
+Already the camels were browsing at the length of their tethers.
+
+Bou-Djema arranged our camp dinner service of tin cups and plates on a
+great flat stone. An opened tin of meat lay beside a plate of lettuce
+which he had just gathered from the moist earth around the spring. I
+could tell from the distracted manner in which he placed these objects
+upon the rock how deep was his anxiety.
+
+As he was bending toward me to hand me a plate, he pointed to the
+gloomy black corridor which we were about to enter.
+
+"_Blad-el-Khouf!"_ he murmured.
+
+"What did he say?" asked Morhange, who had seen the gesture.
+
+"_Blad-el-Khouf. This is the country of fear._ That is what the Arabs
+call Ahaggar."
+
+Bou-Djema went a little distance off and sat down, leaving us to our
+dinner. Squatting on his heels, he began to eat a few lettuce leaves
+that he had kept for his own meal.
+
+Eg-Anteouen was still motionless.
+
+Suddenly the Targa rose. The sun in the west was no larger than a red
+brand. We saw Eg-Anteouen approach the fountain, spread his blue
+burnous on the ground and kneel upon it.
+
+"I did not suppose that the Tuareg were so observant of Mussulman
+tradition," said Morhange.
+
+"Nor I," I replied thoughtfully.
+
+But I had something to do at that moment besides making such
+speculations.
+
+"Bou-Djema," I called.
+
+At the same time, I looked at Eg-Anteouen. Absorbed in his prayer,
+bowed toward the west, apparently he was paying no attention to me. As
+he prostrated himself, I called again.
+
+"Bou-Djema, come with me to my mehari; I want to get something out of
+the saddle bags."
+
+Still kneeling, Eg-Anteouen was mumbling his prayer slowly,
+composedly.
+
+But Bou-Djema had not budged.
+
+His only response was a deep moan.
+
+Morhange and I leaped to our feet and ran to the guide. Eg-Anteouen
+reached him as soon as we did.
+
+With his eyes closed and his limbs already cold, the Chaamba breathed
+a death rattle in Morhange's arms. I had seized one of his hands.
+Eg-Anteouen took the other. Each, in his own way, was trying to
+divine, to understand....
+
+Suddenly Eg-Anteouen leapt to his feet. He had just seen the poor
+embossed bowl which the Arab had held an instant before between his
+knees, and which now lay overturned upon the ground.
+
+He picked it up, looked quickly at one after another of the leaves of
+lettuce remaining in it, and then gave a hoarse exclamation.
+
+"So," said Morhange, "it's his turn now; he is going to go mad."
+
+Watching Eg-Anteouen closely, I saw him hasten without a word to the
+rock where our dinner was set, a second later, he was again beside us,
+holding out the bowl of lettuce which he had not yet touched.
+
+Then he took a thick, long, pale green leaf from Bou-Djema's bowl and
+held it beside another leaf he had just taken from our bowl.
+
+"_Afahlehle,"_ was all he said.
+
+I shuddered, and so did Morhange. It was the _afahlehla,_ the
+_falestez_, of the Arabs of the Sahara, the terrible plant which had
+killed a part of the Flatters mission more quickly and surely than
+Tuareg arms.
+
+Eg-Anteouen stood up. His tall silhouette was outlined blackly against
+the sky which suddenly had turned pale lilac. He was watching us.
+
+We bent again over the unfortunate guide.
+
+"_Afahlehle,"_ the Targa repeated, and shook his head.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Bou-Djema died in the middle of the night without having regained
+consciousness.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+THE COUNTRY OF FEAR
+
+
+"It is curious," said Morhange, "to see how our expedition, uneventful
+since we left Ouargla, is now becoming exciting."
+
+He said this after kneeling for a moment in prayer before the
+painfully dug grave in which we had lain the guide.
+
+I do not believe in God. But if anything can influence whatever powers
+there may be, whether of good or of evil, of light or of darkness, it
+is the prayer of such a man.
+
+For two days we picked our way through a gigantic chaos of black rock
+in what might have been the country of the moon, so barren was it. No
+sound but that of stones rolling under the feet of the camels and
+striking like gunshots at the foot of the precipices.
+
+A strange march indeed. For the first few hours, I tried to pick out,
+by compass, the route we were following. But my calculations were soon
+upset; doubtless a mistake due to the swaying motion of the camel. I
+put the compass back in one of my saddle-bags. From that time on,
+Eg-Anteouen was our master. We could only trust ourselves to him.
+
+He went first; Morhange followed him, and I brought up the rear. We
+passed at every step most curious specimens of volcanic rock. But I
+did not examine them. I was no longer interested in such things.
+Another kind of curiosity had taken possession of me. I had come to
+share Morhange's madness. If my companion had said to me: "We are
+doing a very rash thing. Let us go back to the known trails," I should
+have replied, "You are free to do as you please. But I am going on."
+
+Toward evening of the second day, we found ourselves at the foot of a
+black mountain whose jagged ramparts towered in profile seven thousand
+feet above our heads. It was an enormous shadowy fortress, like the
+outline of a feudal stronghold silhouetted with incredible sharpness
+against the orange sky.
+
+There was a well, with several trees, the first we had seen since
+cutting into Ahaggar.
+
+A group of men were standing about it. Their camels, tethered close
+by, were cropping a mouthful here and there.
+
+At seeing us, the men drew together, alert, on the defensive.
+
+Eg-Anteouen turned to us and said:
+
+"Eggali Tuareg."
+
+We went toward them.
+
+They were handsome men, those Eggali, the largest Tuareg whom I ever
+have seen. With unexpected swiftness they drew aside from the well,
+leaving it to us. Eg-Anteouen spoke a few words to them. They looked
+at Morhange and me with a curiosity bordering on fear, but at any
+rate, with respect.
+
+I drew several little presents from my saddlebags and was astonished
+at the reserve of the chief, who refused them. He seemed afraid even
+of my glance.
+
+When they had gone, I expressed my astonishment at this shyness for
+which my previous experiences with the tribes of the Sahara had not
+prepared me.
+
+"They spoke with respect, even with fear," I said to Eg-Anteouen. "And
+yet the tribe of the Eggali is noble. And that of the Kel-Tahats, to
+which you tell me you belong, is a slave tribe."
+
+A smile lighted the dark eyes of Eg-Anteouen.
+
+"It is true," he said.
+
+"Well then?"
+
+"I told them that we three, the Captain, you and I, were bound for the
+Mountain of the Evil Spirits."
+
+With a gesture, he indicated the black mountain.
+
+"They are afraid. All the Tuareg of Ahaggar are afraid of the Mountain
+of the Evil Spirits. You saw how they were up and off at the very
+mention of its name."
+
+"It is to the Mountain of the Evil Spirits that you are taking us?"
+queried Morhange.
+
+"Yes," replied the Targa, "that is where the inscriptions are that I
+told you about."
+
+"You did not mention that detail to us."
+
+"Why should I? The Tuareg are afraid of the _ilhinen,_ spirits with
+horns and tails, covered with hair, who make the cattle sicken and die
+and cast spells over men. But I know well that the Christians are not
+afraid and even laugh at the fears of the Tuareg."
+
+"And you?" I asked. "You are a Targa and you are not afraid of the
+_ilhinen_?"
+
+Eg-Anteouen showed a little red leather bag hung about his neck on a
+chain of white seeds.
+
+"I have my amulet," he replied gravely, "blessed by the venerable
+Sidi-Moussa himself. And then I am with you. You saved my life. You
+have desired to see the inscriptions. The will of Allah be done!"
+
+As he finished speaking, he squatted on his heels, drew out his long
+reed pipe and began to smoke gravely.
+
+"All this is beginning to seem very strange," said Morhange, coming
+over to me.
+
+"You can say that without exaggeration," I replied. "You remember as
+well as I the passage in which Barth tells of his expedition to the
+Idinen, the Mountain of the Evil Spirits of the Azdjer Tuareg. The
+region had so evil a reputation that no Targa would go with him. But
+he got back."
+
+"Yes, he got back," replied my comrade, "but only after he had been
+lost. Without water or food, he came so near dying of hunger and
+thirst that he had to open a vein and drink his own blood. The
+prospect is not particularly attractive."
+
+I shrugged my shoulders. After all, it was not my fault that we were
+there.
+
+Morhange understood my gesture and thought it necessary to make
+excuses.
+
+"I should be curious," he went on with rather forced gaiety, "to meet
+these spirits and substantiate the facts of Pomponius Mela who knew
+them and locates them, in fact, in the mountain of the Tuareg. He
+calls them _Egipans, Blemyens, Gamphasantes, Satyrs.... 'The
+Gamphasantes_, he says, 'are naked. The _Blemyens_ have no head: their
+faces are placed on their chests; the _Satyrs_ have nothing like men
+except faces. The _Egipans_ are made as is commonly described.' ...
+_Satyrs, Egipans_ ... isn't it very strange to find Greek names given
+to the barbarian spirits of this region? Believe me, we are on a
+curious trail; I am sure that Antinea will be our key to remarkable
+discoveries."
+
+"Listen," I said, laying a finger on my lips.
+
+Strange sounds rose from about us as the evening advanced with great
+strides. A kind of crackling, followed by long rending shrieks, echoed
+and reechoed to infinity in the neighboring ravines. It seemed to me
+that the whole black mountain suddenly had begun to moan.
+
+We looked at Eg-Anteouen. He was smoking on, without twitching a
+muscle.
+
+"The _ilhinen_ are waking up," he said simply.
+
+Morhange listened without saying a word. Doubtless he understood as I
+did: the overheated rocks, the crackling of the stone, a whole series
+of physical phenomena, the example of the singing statue of Memnon....
+But, for all that, this unexpected concert reacted no less painfully
+on our overstrained nerves.
+
+The last words of poor Bou-Djema came to my mind.
+
+"The country of fear," I murmured in a low voice.
+
+And Morhange repeated:
+
+"The country of fear."
+
+The strange concert ceased as the first stars appeared in the sky.
+With deep emotion we watched the tiny bluish flames appear, one after
+another. At that portentous moment they seemed to span the distance
+between us, isolated, condemned, lost, and our brothers of higher
+latitudes, who at that hour were rushing about their poor pleasures
+with delirious frenzy in cities where the whiteness of electric lamps
+came on in a burst.
+
+_Chêt-Ahadh essa hetîsenet
+Mâteredjrê d'Erredjaot,
+Mâtesekek d-Essekâot,
+Mâtelahrlahr d'Ellerhâot,
+Ettâs djenen, barâd tît-ennit abâtet._
+
+Eg-Anteouen's voice raised itself in slow guttural tones. It resounded
+with sad, grave majesty in the silence now complete.
+
+I touched the Targa's arm. With a movement of his head, he pointed to
+a constellation glittering in the firmament.
+
+"The Pleiades," I murmured to Morhange, showing him the seven pale
+stars, while Eg-Anteouen took up his mournful song in the same
+monotone:
+
+"The Daughters of the Night are seven:
+  Mâteredjrê and Erredjeâot,
+  Mâtesekek and Essekâot,
+  Mâtelahrlahr and Ellerhâot,
+  The seventh is a boy, one of whose eyes has flown away."
+
+A sudden sickness came over me. I seized the Targa's arm as he was
+starting to intone his refrain for the third time.
+
+"When will we reach this cave with the inscriptions?" I asked
+brusquely.
+
+He looked at me and replied with his usual calm:
+
+"We are there."
+
+"We are there? Then why don't you show it to us?"
+
+"You did not ask me," he replied, not without a touch of insolence.
+
+Morhange had jumped to his feet.
+
+"The cave is here?"
+
+"It is here," Eg-Anteouen replied slowly, rising to his feet.
+
+"Take us to it."
+
+"Morhange," I said, suddenly anxious, "night is falling. We will see
+nothing. And perhaps it is still some way off."
+
+"It is hardly five hundred paces," Eg-Anteouen replied. "The cave is
+full of dead underbrush. We will set it on fire and the Captain will
+see as in full daylight."
+
+"Come," my comrade repeated.
+
+"And the camels?" I hazarded.
+
+"They are tethered," said Eg-Anteouen, "and we shall not be gone
+long."
+
+He had started toward the black mountain. Morhange, trembling with
+excitement, followed. I followed, too, the victim of profound
+uneasiness. My pulses throbbed. "I am not afraid," I kept repeating to
+myself. "I swear that this is not fear."
+
+And really it was not fear. Yet, what a strange dizziness! There was a
+mist over my eyes. My ears buzzed. Again I heard Eg-Anteouen's voice,
+but multiplied, immense, and at the same time, very low.
+
+"The Daughters of the Night are seven...."
+
+It seemed to me that the voice of the mountain, re-echoing, repeated
+that sinister last line to infinity:
+
+"And the seventh is a boy, one of whose eyes has flown
+away."
+
+"Here it is," said the Targa.
+
+A black hole in the wall opened up. Bending over, Eg-Anteouen entered.
+We followed him. The darkness closed around us.
+
+A yellow flame. Eg-Anteouen had struck his flint. He set fire to a
+pile of brush near the surface. At first we could see nothing. The
+smoke blinded us.
+
+Eg-Anteouen stayed at one side of the opening of the cave. He was
+seated and, more inscrutible than ever, had begun again to blow great
+puffs of gray smoke from his pipe.
+
+The burning brush cast a flickering light. I caught a glimpse of
+Morhange. He seemed very pale. With both hands braced against the
+wall, he was working to decipher a mass of signs which I could
+scarcely distinguish.
+
+Nevertheless, I thought I could see his hands trembling.
+
+"The devil," I thought, finding it more and more difficult to
+co-ordinate my thoughts, "he seems to be as unstrung as I."
+
+I heard him call out to Eg-Anteouen in what seemed to me a loud voice:
+
+"Stand to one side. Let the air in. What a smoke!"
+
+He kept on working at the signs.
+
+Suddenly I heard him again, but with difficulty. It seemed as if even
+sounds were confused in the smoke.
+
+"Antinea ... At last ... Antinea. But not cut in the rock ... the
+marks traced in ochre ... not ten years old, perhaps not five....
+Oh!...."
+
+He pressed his hands to his head. Again he cried out:
+
+"It is a mystery. A tragic mystery."
+
+I laughed teasingly.
+
+"Come on, come on. Don't get excited over it."
+
+He took me by the arm and shook me. I saw his eyes big with terror and
+astonishment.
+
+"Are you mad?" he yelled in my face.
+
+"Not so loud," I replied with the same little laugh.
+
+He looked at me again, and sank down, overcome, on a rock opposite me.
+Eg-Anteouen was still smoking placidly at the mouth of the cave. We
+could see the red circle of his pipe glowing in the darkness.
+
+"Madman! Madman!" repeated Morhange. His voice seemed to stick in his
+throat.
+
+Suddenly he bent over the brush which was giving its last darts of
+flame, high and clear. He picked out a branch which had not yet
+caught. I saw him examine it carefully, then throw it back in the fire
+with a loud laugh.
+
+"Ha! Ha! That's good, all right!"
+
+He staggered toward Eg-Anteouen, pointing to the fire.
+
+"It's hemp. Hasheesh, hasheesh. Oh, that's a good one, all right."
+
+"Yes, it's a good one," I repeated, bursting into laughter.
+
+Eg-Anteouen quietly smiled approval. The dying fire lit his
+inscrutable face and flickered in his terrible dark eyes.
+
+A moment passed. Suddenly Morhange seized the Targa's arm.
+
+"I want to smoke, too," he said. "Give me a pipe." The specter gave
+him one.
+
+"What! A European pipe?"
+
+"A European pipe," I repeated, feeling gayer and gayer.
+
+"With an initial, 'M.' As if made on purpose. M.... Captain Morhange."
+
+"Masson," corrected Eg-Anteouen quietly.
+
+"Captain Masson," I repeated in concert with Morhange.
+
+We laughed again.
+
+"Ha! Ha! Ha! Captain Masson.... Colonel Flatters.... The well of
+Garama. They killed him to take his pipe ... that pipe. It was
+Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh who killed Captain Masson."
+
+"It was Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh," repeated the Targa with imperturbable
+calm.
+
+"Captain Masson and Colonel Flatters had left the convoy to look for
+the well," said Morhange, laughing.
+
+"It was then that the Tuareg attacked them," I finished, laughing as
+hard as I could.
+
+"A Targa of Ahagga seized the bridle of Captain Masson's horse," said
+Morhange.
+
+"Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh had hold of Colonel Flatters' bridle," put in
+Eg-Anteouen.
+
+"The Colonel puts his foot in the stirrup and receives a cut from
+Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh's saber," I said.
+
+"Captain Masson draws his revolver and fires on Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh,
+shooting off three fingers of his left hand," said Morhange.
+
+"But," finished Eg-Anteouen imperturbably, "but Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh,
+with one blow of his saber, splits Captain Masson's skull."..
+
+He gave a silent, satisfied laugh as he spoke. The dying flame lit up
+his face. We saw the gleaming black stem of his pipe. He held it in
+his left hand. One finger, no, two fingers only on that hand. Hello! I
+had not noticed that before.
+
+Morhange also noticed it, for he finished with a loud laugh.
+
+"Then, after splitting his skull, you robbed him. You took his pipe
+from him. Bravo, Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh!"
+
+Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh does not reply, but I can see how satisfied with
+himself he is. He keeps on smoking. I can hardly see his features now.
+The firelight pales, dies. I have never laughed so much as this
+evening. I am sure Morhange never has, either. Perhaps he will forget
+the cloister. And all because Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh stole Captain
+Masson's pipe....
+
+Again that accursed song. "The seventh is a boy, one of whose eyes has
+flown away." One cannot imagine more senseless words. It is very
+strange, really: there seem to be four of us in this cave now. Four, I
+say, five, six, seven, eight.... Make yourselves at home, my friends.
+What! there are no more of you?... I am going to find out at last how
+the spirits of this region are made, the _Gamphasantes_, the
+_Blemyens_.... Morhange says that the _Blemyens_ have their faces on
+the middle of their chests. Surely this one who is seizing me in his
+arms is not a _Blemyen_! Now he is carrying me outside. And Morhange
+... I do not want them to forget Morhange....
+
+They did not forget him; I see him perched on a camel in front of that
+one to which I am fastened. They did well to fasten me, for otherwise
+I surely would tumble off. These spirits certainly are not bad
+fellows. But what a long way it is! I want to stretch out. To sleep. A
+while ago we surely were following a long passage, then we were in the
+open air. Now we are again in an endless stifling corridor. Here are
+the stars again.... Is this ridiculous course going to keep on?...
+
+Hello, lights! Stars, perhaps. No, lights, I say. A stairway, on my
+word; of rocks, to be sure, but still, a stairway. How can the
+camels...? But it is no longer a camel; this is a man carrying me. A
+man dressed in white, not a _Gamphasante_ nor a _Blemyen_. Morhange
+must be giving himself airs with his historical reasoning, all false,
+I repeat, all false. Good Morhange. Provided that his _Gamphasante_
+does not let him fall on this unending stairway. Something glitters on
+the ceiling. Yes, it is a lamp, a copper lamp, as at Tunis, at
+Barbouchy's. Good, here again you cannot see anything. But I am making
+a fool of myself; I am lying down; now I can go to sleep. What a silly
+day!... Gentlemen, I assure you that it is unnecessary to bind me: I
+do not want to go down on the boulevards.
+
+Darkness again. Steps of someone going away. Silence.
+
+But only for a moment. Someone is talking beside me. What are they
+saying?... No, it is impossible. That metallic ring, that voice. Do
+you know what it is calling, that voice, do you know what it is
+calling in the tones of someone used to the phrase? Well, it is
+calling:
+
+"Play your cards, gentlemen, play your cards. There are ten thousand
+_louis_ in the bank. Play your cards, gentlemen."
+
+In the name of God, am I or am I not at Ahaggar?
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+AWAKENING AT AHAGGAR
+
+
+It was broad daylight when I opened my eyes. I thought at once of
+Morhange. I could not see him, but I heard him, close by, giving
+little grunts of surprise.
+
+I called to him. He ran to me.
+
+"Then they didn't tie you up?" I asked.
+
+"I beg your pardon. They did. But they did it badly; I managed to get
+free."
+
+"You might have untied me, too," I remarked crossly.
+
+"What good would it have done? I should only have waked you up. And I
+thought that your first word would be to call me. There, that's done."
+
+I reeled as I tried to stand on my feet.
+
+Morhange smiled.
+
+"We might have spent the whole night smoking and drinking and not been
+in a worse state," he said. "Anyhow, that Eg-Anteouen with his
+hasheesh is a fine rascal."
+
+"Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh," I corrected.
+
+I rubbed my hand over my forehead.
+
+"Where are we?"
+
+"My dear boy," Morhange replied, "since I awakened from the
+extraordinary nightmare which is mixed up with the smoky cave and the
+lamp-lit stairway of the Arabian Nights, I have been going from
+surprise to surprise, from confusion to confusion. Just look around
+you."
+
+I rubbed my eyes and stared. Then I seized my friend's hand.
+
+"Morhange," I begged, "tell me if we are still dreaming."
+
+We were in a round room, perhaps fifty feet in diameter, and of about
+the same height, lighted by a great window opening on a sky of intense
+blue.
+
+Swallows flew back and forth, outside, giving quick, joyous cries.
+
+The floor, the incurving walls and the ceiling were of a kind of
+veined marble like porphyry, panelled with a strange metal, paler than
+gold, darker than silver, clouded just then by the early morning mist
+that came in through the window in great puffs.
+
+I staggered toward this window, drawn by the freshness of the breeze
+and the sunlight which was chasing away my dreams, and I leaned my
+elbows on the balustrade.
+
+I could not restrain a cry of delight.
+
+I was standing on a kind of balcony, cut into the flank of a mountain,
+overhanging an abyss. Above me, blue sky; below appeared a veritable
+earthly paradise hemmed in on all sides by mountains that formed a
+continuous and impassable wall about it. A garden lay spread out down
+there. The palm trees gently swayed their great fronds. At their feet
+was a tangle of the smaller trees which grow in an oasis under their
+protection: almonds, lemons, oranges, and many others which I could
+not distinguish from that height. A broad blue stream, fed by a
+waterfall, emptied into a charming lake, the waters of which had the
+marvellous transparency which comes in high altitudes. Great birds
+flew in circles over this green hollow; I could see in the lake the
+red flash of a flamingo.
+
+The peaks of the mountains which towered on all sides were completely
+covered with snow.
+
+The blue stream, the green palms, the golden fruit, and above it all,
+the miraculous snow, all this bathed in that limpid air, gave such an
+impression of beauty, of purity, that my poor human strength could no
+longer stand the sight of it. I laid my forehead on the balustrade,
+which, too, was covered with that heavenly snow, and began to cry like
+a baby.
+
+Morhange was behaving like another child. But he had awakened before I
+had, and doubtless had had time to grasp, one by one, all these
+details whose fantastic _ensemble_ staggered me.
+
+He laid his hand on my shoulder and gently pulled me back into the
+room.
+
+"You haven't seen anything yet," he said. "Look! Look!"
+
+"Morhange!"
+
+"Well, old man, what do you want me to do about it? Look!"
+
+I had just realized that the strange room was furnished--God forgive
+me--in the European fashion. There were indeed, here and there, round
+leather Tuareg cushions, brightly colored blankets from Gafsa, rugs
+from Kairouan, and Caramani hangings which, at that moment, I should
+have dreaded to draw aside. But a half-open panel in the wall showed a
+bookcase crowded with books. A whole row of photographs of
+masterpieces of ancient art were hung on the walls. Finally there was
+a table almost hidden under its heap of papers, pamphlets, books. I
+thought I should collapse at seeing a recent number of the
+_Archaeological Review_.
+
+I looked at Morhange. He was looking at me, and suddenly a mad laugh
+seized us and doubled us up for a good minute.
+
+"I do not know," Morhange finally managed to say, "whether or not we
+shall regret some day our little excursion into Ahaggar. But admit, in
+the meantime, that it promises to be rich in unexpected adventures.
+That unforgettable guide who puts us to sleep just to distract us
+from the unpleasantness of caravan life and who lets me experience, in
+the best of good faith, the far-famed delights of hasheesh: that
+fantastic night ride, and, to cap the climax, this cave of a Nureddin
+who must have received the education of the Athenian Bersot at the
+French _Ecole Normale_--all this is enough, on my word, to upset the
+wits of the best balanced."
+
+"What do I think, my poor friend? Why, just what you yourself think. I
+don't understand it at all, not at all. What you politely call my
+learning is not worth a cent. And why shouldn't I be all mixed up?
+This living in caves amazes me. Pliny speaks of the natives living in
+caves, seven days' march southwest of the country of the Amantes, and
+twelve days to the westward of the great Syrte. Herodotus says also
+that the Garamentes used to go out in their chariots to hunt the
+cave-dwelling Ethopians. But here we are in Ahaggar, in the midst of
+the Targa country, and the best authorities tell us that the Tuareg
+never have been willing to live in caves. Duveyrier is precise on that
+point. And what is this, I ask you, but a cave turned into a workroom,
+with pictures of the Venus de Medici and the Apollo Sauroctone on the
+walls? I tell you that it is enough to drive you mad."
+
+And Morhange threw himself on a couch and began to roar with laughter
+again.
+
+"See," I said, "this is Latin."
+
+I had picked up several scattered papers from the work-table in the
+middle of the room. Morhange took them from my hands and devoured them
+greedily. His face expressed unbounded stupefaction.
+
+"Stranger and stranger, my boy. Someone here is composing, with much
+citation of texts, a dissertation on the Gorgon Islands: _de Gorgonum
+insulis_. Medusa, according to him, was a Libyan savage who lived near
+Lake Triton, our present Chott Melhrir, and it is there that Perseus
+... Ah!"
+
+Morhange's words choked in his throat. A sharp, shrill voice pierced
+the immense room.
+
+"Gentlemen, I beg you, let my papers alone."
+
+I turned toward the newcomer.
+
+One of the Caramani curtains was drawn aside, and the most unexpected
+of persons came in. Resigned as we were to unexpected events, the
+improbability of this sight exceeded anything our imaginations could
+have devised.
+
+On the threshold stood a little bald-headed man with a pointed sallow
+face half hidden by an enormous pair of green spectacles and a pepper
+and salt beard. No shirt was visible, but an impressive broad red
+cravat. He wore white trousers. Red leather slippers furnished the
+only Oriental suggestion of his costume.
+
+He wore, not without pride, the rosette of an officer of the
+Department of Education.
+
+He collected the papers which Morhange had dropped in his amazement,
+counted them, arranged them; then, casting a peevish glance at us, he
+struck a copper gong.
+
+The portiére was raised again. A huge white Targa entered. I seemed to
+recognize him as one of the genii of the cave.[8]
+
+[Footnote 8: The Negro serfs among the Tuareg are generally called
+"white Tuareg." While the nobles are clad in blue cotton robes, the
+serfs wear white robes, hence their name of "white Tuareg." See, in
+this connection, Duveyrier: _les Tuareg du Nord_, page 292. (Note by
+M. Leroux.)]
+
+"Ferradji," angrily demanded the little officer of the Department of
+Education, "why were these gentlemen brought into the library?"
+
+The Targa bowed respectfully.
+
+"Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh came back sooner than we expected," he replied,
+"and last night the embalmers had not yet finished. They brought them
+here in the meantime," and he pointed to us.
+
+"Very well, you may go," snapped the little man.
+
+Ferradji backed toward the door. On the threshold, he stopped and
+spoke again:
+
+"I was to remind you, sir, that dinner is served."
+
+"All right. Go along."
+
+And the little man seated himself at the desk and began to finger the
+papers feverishly.
+
+I do not know why, but a mad feeling of exasperation seized me. I
+walked toward him.
+
+"Sir," I said, "my friend and I do not know where we are nor who you
+are. We can see only that you are French, since you are wearing one of
+the highest honorary decorations of our country. You may have made the
+same observation on your part," I added, indicating the slender red
+ribbon which I wore on my vest.
+
+He looked at me in contemptuous surprise.
+
+"Well, sir?"
+
+"Well, sir, the Negro who just went out pronounced the name of
+Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh, the name of a brigand, a bandit, one of the
+assassins of Colonel Flatters. Are you acquainted with that detail,
+sir?"
+
+The little man surveyed me coldly and shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Certainly. But what difference do you suppose that makes to me?"
+
+"What!" I cried, beside myself with rage. "Who are you, anyway?"
+
+"Sir," said the little old man with comical dignity, turning to
+Morhange, "I call you to witness the strange manners of your
+companion. I am here in my own house and I do not allow...."
+
+"You must excuse my comrade, sir," said Morhange, stepping forward.
+"He is not a man of letters, as you are. These young lieutenants are
+hot-headed, you know. And besides, you can understand why both of us
+are not as calm as might be desired."
+
+I was furious and on the point of disavowing these strangely humble
+words of Morhange. But a glance showed me that there was as much irony
+as surprise in his expression.
+
+"I know indeed that most officers are brutes," grumbled the little old
+man. "But that is no reason...."
+
+"I am only an officer myself," Morhange went on, in an even humbler
+tone, "and if ever I have been sensible to the intellectual
+inferiority of that class, I assure you that it was now in glancing--I
+beg your pardon for having taken the liberty to do so--in glancing
+over the learned pages which you devote to the passionate story of
+Medusa, according to Procles of Carthage, cited by Pausanias."
+
+A laughable surprise spread over the features of the little old man.
+He hastily wiped his spectacles.
+
+"What!" he finally cried.
+
+"It is indeed unfortunate, in this matter," Morhange continued
+imperturbably, "that we are not in possession of the curious
+dissertation devoted to this burning question by Statius Sebosus, a
+work which we know only through Pliny and which...."
+
+"You know Statius Sebosus?"
+
+"And which, my master, the geographer Berlioux...."
+
+"You knew Berlioux--you were his pupil?" stammered the little man with
+the decoration.
+
+"I have had that honor," replied Morhange, very coldly.
+
+"But, but, sir, then you have heard mentioned, you are familiar with
+the question, the problem of Atlantis?"
+
+"Indeed I am not unacquainted with the works of Lagneau, Ploix, Arbois
+de Jubainville," said Morhange frigidly.
+
+"My God!" The little man was going through extraordinary contortions.
+"Sir--Captain, how happy I am, how many excuses...."
+
+Just then, the portiére was raised. Ferradji appeared again.
+
+"Sir, they want me to tell you that unless you come, they will begin
+without you."
+
+"I am coming, I am coming. Say, Ferradji, that we will be there in a
+moment. Why, sir, if I had foreseen ... It is extraordinary ... to
+find an officer who knows Procles of Carthage and Arbois de
+Jubainville. Again ... But I must introduce myself. I am Etienne Le
+Mesge, Fellow of the University."
+
+"Captain Morhange," said my companion.
+
+I stepped forward in my turn.
+
+"Lieutenant de Saint-Avit. It is a fact, sir, that I am very likely to
+confuse Arbois of Carthage with Procles de Jubainville. Later, I shall
+have to see about filling up those gaps. But just now, I should like
+to know where we are, if we are free, and if not, what occult power
+holds us. You have the appearance, sir, of being sufficiently at home
+in this house to be able to enlighten us upon this point, which I must
+confess, I weakly consider of the first importance."
+
+M. Le Mesge looked at me. A rather malevolent smile twitched the
+corners of his mouth. He opened his lips....
+
+A gong sounded impatiently.
+
+"In good time, gentlemen, I will tell you. I will explain
+everything.... But now you see that we must hurry. It is time for
+lunch and our fellow diners will get tired of waiting."
+
+"Our fellow diners?"
+
+"There are two of them," M. Le Mesge explained. "We three constitute
+the European personnel of the house, that is, the fixed personnel," he
+seemed to feel obliged to add, with his disquieting smile. "Two
+strange fellows, gentlemen, with whom, doubtless, you will care to
+have as little to do as possible. One is a churchman, narrow-minded,
+though a Protestant. The other is a man of the world gone astray, an
+old fool."
+
+"Pardon," I said, "but it must have been he whom I heard last night.
+He was gambling: with you and the minister, doubtless?"
+
+M. Le Mesge made a gesture of offended dignity.
+
+"The idea! With me, sir? It is with the Tuareg that he plays. He
+teaches them every game imaginable. There, that is he who is striking
+the gong to hurry us up. It is half past nine, and the _Salle de
+Trente et Quarante_ opens at ten o'clock. Let us hurry. I suppose that
+anyway you will not be averse to a little refreshment."
+
+"Indeed we shall not refuse," Morhange replied.
+
+We followed M. Le Mesge along a long winding corridor with frequent
+steps. The passage was dark. But at intervals rose-colored night
+lights and incense burners were placed in niches cut into the solid
+rock. The passionate Oriental scents perfumed the darkness and
+contrasted strangely with the cold air of the snowy peaks.
+
+From time to time, a white Targa, mute and expressionless as a
+phantom, would pass us and we would hear the clatter of his slippers
+die away behind us.
+
+M. Le Mesge stopped before a heavy door covered with the same pale
+metal which I had noticed on the walls of the library. He opened it
+and stood aside to let us pass.
+
+Although the dining room which we entered had little in common with
+European dining rooms, I have known many which might have envied its
+comfort. Like the library, it was lighted by a great window. But I
+noticed that it had an outside exposure, while that of the library
+overlooked the garden in the center of the crown of mountains.
+
+No center table and none of those barbaric pieces of furniture that we
+call chairs. But a great number of buffet tables of gilded wood, like
+those of Venice, heavy hangings of dull and subdued colors, and
+cushions, Tuareg or Tunisian. In the center was a huge mat on which a
+feast was placed in finely woven baskets among silver pitchers and
+copper basins filled with perfumed water. The sight of it filled me
+with childish satisfaction.
+
+M. Le Mesge stepped forward and introduced us to the two persons who
+already had taken their places on the mat.
+
+"Mr. Spardek," he said; and by that simple phrase I understood how far
+our host placed himself above vain human titles.
+
+The Reverend Mr. Spardek, of Manchester, bowed reservedly and asked
+our permission to keep on his tall, wide-brimmed hat. He was a dry,
+cold man, tall and thin. He ate in pious sadness, enormously.
+
+"Monsieur Bielowsky," said M. Le Mesge, introducing us to the second
+guest.
+
+"Count Casimir Bielowsky, Hetman of Jitomir," the latter corrected
+with perfect good humor as he stood up to shake hands.
+
+I felt at once a certain liking for the Hetman of Jitomir who was a
+perfect example of an old beau. His chocolate-colored hair was parted
+in the center (later I found out that the Hetman dyed it with a
+concoction of _khol_). He had magnificent whiskers, also
+chocolate-colored, in the style of the Emperor Francis Joseph. His
+nose was undeniably a little red, but so fine, so aristocratic. His
+hands were marvelous. It took some thought to place the date of the
+style of the count's costume, bottle green with yellow facings,
+ornamented with a huge seal of silver and enamel. The recollection of
+a portrait of the Duke de Morny made me decide on 1860 or 1862; and
+the further chapters of this story will show that I was not far wrong.
+
+The count made me sit down beside him. One of his first questions was
+to demand if I ever cut fives.[9]
+
+[Footnote 9: _Tirer à cinq_, a card game played only for very high
+stakes.]
+
+"That depends on how I feel," I replied.
+
+"Well said. I have not done so since 1866. I swore off. A row. The
+devil of a party. One day at Walewski's. I cut fives. Naturally I
+wasn't worrying any. The other had a four. 'Idiot!' cried the little
+Baron de Chaux Gisseux who was laying staggering sums on my table. I
+hurled a bottle of champagne at his head. He ducked. It was Marshal
+Baillant who got the bottle. A scene! The matter was fixed up because
+we were both Free Masons. The Emperor made me promise not to cut fives
+again. I have kept my promise not to cut fives again. I have kept my
+promise. But there are moments when it is hard...."
+
+He added in a voice steeped in melancholy:
+
+"Try a little of this Ahaggar 1880. Excellent vintage. It is I,
+Lieutenant, who instructed these people in the uses of the juice of
+the vine. The vine of the palm trees is very good when it is properly
+fermented, but it gets insipid in the long run."
+
+It was powerful, that Ahaggar 1880. We sipped it from large silver
+goblets. It was fresh as Rhine wine, dry as the wine of the Hermitage.
+And then, suddenly, it brought back recollections of the burning wines
+of Portugal; it seemed sweet, fruity, an admirable wine, I tell you.
+
+That wine crowned the most perfect of luncheons. There were few meats,
+to be sure; but those few were remarkably seasoned. Profusion of
+cakes, pancakes served with honey, fragrant fritters, cheese-cakes of
+sour milk and dates. And everywhere, in great enamel platters or
+wicker jars, fruit, masses of fruit, figs, dates, pistachios, jujubes,
+pomegranates, apricots, huge bunches of grapes, larger than those
+which bent the shoulders of the Hebrews in the land of Canaan, heavy
+watermelons cut in two, showing their moist, red pulp and their rows
+of black seeds.
+
+I had scarcely finished one of these beautiful iced fruits, when M. Le
+Mesge rose.
+
+"Gentlemen, if you are ready," he said to Morhange and me.
+
+"Get away from that old dotard as soon as you can," whispered the
+Hetman of Jitomir to me. "The party of _Trente et Quarante_ will begin
+soon. You shall see. You shall see. We go it even harder than at Cora
+Pearl's."
+
+"Gentlemen," repeated M. Le Mesge in his dry tone.
+
+We followed him. When the three of us were back again in the library,
+he said, addressing me:
+
+"You, sir, asked a little while ago what occult power holds you here.
+Your manner was threatening, and I should have refused to comply had
+it not been for your friend, whose knowledge enables him to appreciate
+better than you the value of the revelations I am about to make to
+you."
+
+He touched a spring in the side of the wall. A cupboard appeared,
+stuffed with books. He took one.
+
+"You are both of you," continued M. Le Mesge, "in the power of a
+woman. This woman, the sultaness, the queen, the absolute sovereign of
+Ahaggar, is called Antinea. Don't start, M. Morhange, you will soon
+understand."
+
+He opened the book and read this sentence:
+
+"'I must warn you before I take up the subject matter: do not be
+surprised to hear me call the barbarians by Greek names.'"
+
+"What is that book?" stammered Morhange, whose pallor terrified me.
+
+"This book," M. Le Mesge replied very slowly, weighing his words, with
+an extraordinary expression of triumph, "is the greatest, the most
+beautiful, the most secret, of the dialogues of Plato; it is the
+Critias of Atlantis."
+
+"The Critias? But it is unfinished," murmured Morhange.
+
+"It is unfinished in France, in Europe, everywhere else," said M. Le
+Mesge, "but it is finished here. Look for yourself at this copy."
+
+"But what connection," repeated Morhange, while his eyes traveled
+avidly over the pages, "what connection can there be between this
+dialogue, complete,--yes, it seems to me complete--what connection
+with this woman, Antinea? Why should it be in her possession?"
+
+"Because," replied the little man imperturbably, "this book is her
+patent of nobility, her _Almanach de Gotha_, in a sense, do you
+understand? Because it established her prodigious genealogy: because
+she is...."
+
+"Because she is?" repeated Morhange.
+
+"Because she is the grand daughter of Neptune, the last descendant of
+the Atlantides."
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+ATLANTIS
+
+
+M. Le Mesge looked at Morhange triumphantly. It was evident that he
+addressed himself exclusively to Morhange, considering him alone
+worthy of his confidences.
+
+"There have been many, sir," he said, "both French and foreign
+officers who have been brought here at the caprice of our sovereign,
+Antinea. You are the first to be honored by my disclosures. But you
+were the pupil of Berlioux, and I owe so much to the memory of that
+great man that it seems to me I may do him homage by imparting to one
+of his disciples the unique results of my private research."
+
+He struck the bell. Ferradji appeared.
+
+"Coffee for these gentlemen," ordered M. Le Mesge.
+
+He handed us a box, gorgeously decorated in the most flaming colors,
+full of Egyptian cigarettes.
+
+"I never smoke," he explained. "But Antinea sometimes comes here.
+These are her cigarettes. Help yourselves, gentlemen."
+
+I have always had a horror of that pale tobacco which gives a barber
+of the Rue de la Michodière the illusion of oriental voluptuousness.
+But, in their way, these musk-scented cigarettes were not bad, and it
+was a long time since I had used up my stock of Caporal.
+
+"Here are the back numbers of _Le Vie Parisienne_" said M. Le Mesge
+to me. "Amuse yourself with them, if you like, while I talk to your
+friend."
+
+"Sir," I replied brusquely, "it is true that I never studied with
+Berlioux. Nevertheless, you must allow me to listen to your
+conversation: I shall hope to find something in it to amuse me."
+
+"As you wish," said the little old man.
+
+We settled ourselves comfortably. M. Le Mesge sat down before the
+desk, shot his cuffs, and commenced as follows:
+
+"However much, gentlemen, I prize complete objectivity in matters of
+erudition, I cannot utterly detach my own history from that of the
+last descendant of Clito and Neptune.
+
+"I am the creation of my own efforts. From my childhood, the
+prodigious impulse given to the science of history by the nineteenth
+century has affected me. I saw where my way led. I have followed it,
+in spite of everything.
+
+"In spite of everything, everything--I mean it literally. With no
+other resources than my own work and merit, I was received as Fellow
+of History and Geography at the examination of 1880. A great
+examination! Among the thirteen who were accepted there were names
+which have since become illustrious: Julian, Bourgeois, Auerbach.... I
+do not envy my colleagues on the summits of their official honors; I
+read their works with commiseration; and the pitiful errors to which
+they are condemned by the insufficiency of their documents would amply
+counterbalance my chagrin and fill me with ironic joy, had I not been
+raised long since above the satisfaction of self-love.
+
+"When I was Professor at the Lycée du Parc at Lyons. I knew Berlioux
+and followed eagerly his works on African History. I had, at that
+time, a very original idea for my doctor's thesis. I was going to
+establish a parallel between the Berber heroine of the seventh
+century, who struggled against the Arab invader, Kahena, and the
+French heroine, Joan of Arc, who struggled against the English
+invader. I proposed to the _Faculté des Lettres_ at Paris this title
+for my thesis: _Joan of Arc and the Tuareg_. This simple announcement
+gave rise to a perfect outcry in learned circles, a furor of
+ridicule. My friends warned me discreetly. I refused to believe them.
+Finally I was forced to believe when my rector summoned me before him
+and, after manifesting an astonishing interest in my health, asked
+whether I should object to taking two years' leave on half pay. I
+refused indignantly. The rector did not insist; but fifteen days
+later, a ministerial decree, with no other legal procedure, assigned
+me to one of the most insignificant and remote Lycées of France, at
+Mont-de-Marsan.
+
+"Realize my exasperation and you will excuse the excesses to which I
+delivered myself in that strange country. What is there to do in
+Landes, if you neither eat nor drink? I did both violently. My pay
+melted away in _fois gras_, in woodcocks, in fine wines. The result
+came quickly enough: in less than a year my joints began to crack like
+the over-oiled axle of a bicycle that has gone a long way upon a dusty
+track. A sharp attack of gout nailed me to my bed. Fortunately, in
+that blessed country, the cure is in reach of the suffering. So I
+departed to Dax, at vacation time, to try the waters.
+
+"I rented a room on the bank of the Adour, overlooking the _Promenade
+des Baignots_. A charwoman took care of it for me. She worked also for
+an old gentleman, a retired Examining Magistrate, President of the
+Roger-Ducos Society, which was a vague scientific backwater, in which
+the scholars of the neighborhood applied themselves with prodigious
+incompetence to the most whimsical subjects. One afternoon I stayed in
+my room on account of a very heavy rain. The good woman was
+energetically polishing the copper latch of my door. She used a paste
+called Tripoli, which she spread upon a paper and rubbed and
+rubbed.... The peculiar appearance of the paper made me curious. I
+glanced at it. 'Great heavens! Where did you get this paper?' She was
+perturbed. 'At my master's; he has lots of it. I tore this out of a
+notebook.' 'Here are ten francs. Go and get me the notebook.'
+
+"A quarter of an hour later, she was back with it. By good luck it
+lacked only one page, the one with which she had been polishing my
+door. This manuscript, this notebook, have you any idea what it was?
+Merely the _Voyage to Atlantis_ of the mythologist Denis de Milet,
+which is mentioned by Diodorus and the loss of which I had so often
+heard Berlioux deplore.[10]
+
+[Footnote 10: How did the _Voyage to Atlantis_ arrive at Dax? I have
+found, so far, only one credible hypothesis: it might have been
+discovered in Africa by the traveller, de Behagle, a member of the
+Roger-Ducos Society, who studied at the college of Dax, and later, on
+several occasions, visited the town. (Note by M. Leroux.)]
+
+"This inestimable document contained numerous quotations from the
+Critias. It gave an abstract of the illustrious dialogue, the sole
+existing copy of which you held in your hands a little while ago. It
+established past controversy the location of the stronghold of the
+Atlantides, and demonstrated that this site, which is denied by
+science, was not submerged by the waves, as is supposed by the rare
+and timorous defenders of the Atlantide hypothesis. He called it the
+'central Mazycian range,' You know there is no longer any doubt as to
+the identification of the Mazyces of Herodotus with the people of
+Imoschaoch, the Tuareg. But the manuscript of Denys unquestionably
+identifies the historical Mazyces with the Atlantides of the supposed
+legend.
+
+"I learned, therefore, from Denys, not only that the central part of
+Atlantis, the cradle and home of the dynasty of Neptune, had not sunk
+in the disaster described by Plato as engulfing the rest of the
+Atlantide isle, but also that it corresponded to the Tuareg Ahaggar,
+and that, in this Ahaggar, at least in his time, the noble dynasty of
+Neptune was supposed to be still existent.
+
+"The historians of Atlantis put the date of the cataclysm which
+destroyed all or part of that famous country at nine thousand years
+before Christ. If Denis de Milet, who wrote scarcely three thousand
+years ago, believed that in his time, the dynastic issue of Neptune
+was still ruling its dominion, you will understand that I thought
+immediately--what has lasted nine thousand years may last eleven
+thousand. From that instant I had only one aim: to find the possible
+descendants of the Atlantides, and, since I had many reasons for
+supposing them to be debased and ignorant of their original splendor,
+to inform them of their illustrious descent.
+
+"You will easily understand that I imparted none of my intentions to
+my superiors at the University. To solicit their approval or even
+their permission, considering the attitude they had taken toward me,
+would have been almost certainly to invite confinement in a cell. So I
+raised what I could on my own account, and departed without trumpet or
+drum for Oran. On the first of October I reached In-Salah. Stretched
+at my ease beneath a palm tree, at the oasis, I took infinite pleasure
+in considering how, that very day, the principal of Mont-de-Marsan,
+beside himself, struggling to control twenty horrible urchins howling
+before the door of an empty class room, would be telegraphing wildly
+in all directions in search of his lost history professor."
+
+M. Le Mesge stopped and looked at us to mark his satisfaction.
+
+I admit that I forgot my dignity and I forgot the affectation he had
+steadily assumed of talking only to Morhange.
+
+"You will pardon me, sir, if your discourse interests me more than I
+had anticipated. But you know very well that I lack the fundamental
+instruction necessary to understand you. You speak of the dynasty of
+Neptune. What is this dynasty, from which, I believe, you trace the
+descent of Antinea? What is her rôle in the story of Atlantis?"
+
+M. Le Mesge smiled with condescension, meantime winking at Morhange
+with the eye nearest to him. Morhange was listening without
+expression, without a word, chin in hand, elbow on knee.
+
+"Plato will answer for me, sir," said the Professor.
+
+And he added, with an accent of inexpressible pity:
+
+"Is it really possible that you have never made the acquaintance of
+the introduction to the Critias?"
+
+He placed on the table the book by which Morhange had been so
+strangely moved. He adjusted his spectacles and began to read. It
+seemed as if the magic of Plato vibrated through and transfigured this
+ridiculous little old man.
+
+"'Having drawn by lot the different parts of the earth, the gods
+obtained, some a larger, and some, a smaller share. It was thus that
+Neptune, having received in the division the isle of Atlantis, came to
+place the children he had had by a mortal in one part of that isle.
+It was not far from the sea, a plain situated in the midst of the
+isle, the most beautiful, and, they say, the most fertile of plains.
+About fifty stades from that plain, in the middle of the isle, was a
+mountain. There dwelt one of those men who, in the very beginning, was
+born of the Earth, Evenor, with his wife, Leucippe. They had only one
+daughter, Clito. She was marriageable when her mother and father died,
+and Neptune, being enamored of her, married her. Neptune fortified the
+mountain where she dwelt by isolating it. He made alternate girdles of
+sea and land, the one smaller, the others greater, two of earth and
+three of water, and centered them round the isle in such a manner that
+they were at all parts equally distant!..."
+
+M. Le Mesge broke off his reading.
+
+"Does this arrangement recall nothing to you?" he queried.
+
+"Morhange, Morhange!" I stammered. "You remember--our route yesterday,
+our abduction, the two corridors that we had to cross before arriving
+at this mountain?... The girdles of earth and of water?... Two
+tunnels, two enclosures of earth?"
+
+"Ha! Ha!" chuckled M. Le Mesge.
+
+He smiled as he looked at me. I understood that this smile meant: "Can
+he be less obtuse than I had supposed?"
+
+As if with a mighty effort, Morhange broke the silence.
+
+"I understand well enough, I understand.... The three girdles of
+water.... But then, you are supposing, sir,--an explanation the
+ingeniousness of which I do not contest--you are supposing the exact
+hypothesis of the Saharan sea!"
+
+"I suppose it, and I can prove it," replied the irascible little old
+chap, banging his fist on the table. "I know well enough what Schirmer
+and the rest have advanced against it. I know it better than you do. I
+know all about it, sir. I can present all the proofs for your
+consideration. And in the meantime, this evening at dinner, you will
+no doubt enjoy some excellent fish. And you will tell me if these
+fish, caught in the lake that you can see from this window, seem to
+you fresh water fish.
+
+"You must realize," he continued, "the mistake of those who, believing
+in Atlantis, have sought to explain the cataclysm in which they
+suppose the island to have sunk. Without exception, they have thought
+that it was swallowed up. Actually, there has not been an immersion.
+There has been an emersion. New lands have emerged from the Atlantic
+wave. The desert has replaced the sea, the _sebkhas_, the salt lakes,
+the Triton lakes, the sandy Syrtes are the desolate vestiges of the
+free sea water over which, in former days, the fleets swept with a
+fair wind towards the conquest of Attica. Sand swallows up
+civilization better than water. To-day there remains nothing of the
+beautiful isle that the sea and winds kept gay and verdant but this
+chalky mass. Nothing has endured in this rocky basin, cut off forever
+from the living world, but the marvelous oasis that you have at your
+feet, these red fruits, this cascade, this blue lake, sacred witnesses
+to the golden age that is gone. Last evening, in coming here, you had
+to cross the five enclosures: the three belts of water, dry forever;
+the two girdles of earth through which are hollowed the passages you
+traversed on camel back, where, formerly, the triremes floated. The
+only thing that, in this immense catastrophe, has preserved its
+likeness to its former state, is this mountain, the mountain where
+Neptune shut up his well-beloved Clito, the daughter of Evenor and
+Leucippe, the mother of Atlas, and the ancestress of Antinea, the
+sovereign under whose dominion you are about to enter forever."
+
+"Sir," Morhange with the most exquisite courtesy, "it would be only a
+natural anxiety which would urge us to inquire the reasons and the end
+of this dominion. But behold to what extent your revelation interests
+me; I defer this question of private interest. Of late, in two
+caverns, it has been my fortune to discover Tifinar inscriptions of
+this name, Antinea. My comrade is witness that I took it for a Greek
+name. I understand now, thanks to you and the divine Plato, that I
+need no longer feel surprised to hear a barbarian called by a Greek
+name. But I am no less perplexed as to the etymology of the word. Can
+you enlighten me?"
+
+"I shall certainly not fail you there, sir," said M. Le Mesge. "I may
+tell you, too, that you are not the first to put to me that question.
+Most of the explorers that I have seen enter here in the past ten
+years have been attracted in the same way, intrigued by this Greek
+work reproduced in Tifinar. I have even arranged a fairly exact
+catalogue of these inscriptions and the caverns where they are to be
+met with. All, or almost all, are accompanied by this legend:
+_Antinea. Here commences her domain_. I myself have had repainted with
+ochre such as were beginning to be effaced. But, to return to what I
+was telling you before, none of the Europeans who have followed this
+epigraphic mystery here, have kept their anxiety to solve this
+etymology once they found themselves in Antinea's palace. They all
+become otherwise preoccupied. I might make many disclosures as to the
+little real importance which purely scientific interests possess even
+for scholars, and the quickness with which they sacrifice them to the
+most mundane considerations--their own lives, for instance."
+
+"Let us take that up another time, sir, if it is satisfactory to you,"
+said Morhange, always admirably polite.
+
+"This digression had only one point, sir: to show you that I do not
+count you among these unworthy scholars. You are really eager to know
+the origin of this name, _Antinea_, and that before knowing what kind
+of woman it belongs to and her motives for holding you and this
+gentleman as her prisoners."
+
+I stared hard at the little old man. But he spoke with profound
+seriousness.
+
+"So much the better for you, my boy," I thought. "Otherwise it
+wouldn't have taken me long to send you through the window to air your
+ironies at your ease. The law of gravity ought not to be topsy-turvy
+here at Ahaggar."
+
+"You, no doubt, formulated several hypotheses when you first
+encountered the name, Antinea," continued M. Le Mesge, imperturbable
+under my fixed gaze, addressing himself to Morhange. "Would you object
+to repeating them to me?"
+
+"Not at all, sir," said Morhange.
+
+And, very composedly, he enumerated the etymological suggestions I
+have given previously.
+
+The little man with the cherry-colored shirt front rubbed his hands.
+
+"Very good," he admitted with an accent of intense jubilation.
+"Amazingly good, at least for one with only the modicum of Greek that
+you possess. But it is all none the less false, super-false."
+
+"It is because I suspected as much that I put my question to you,"
+said Morhange blandly.
+
+"I will not keep you longer in suspense," said M. Le Mesge. "The word,
+Antinea, is composed as follows: _ti_ is nothing but a Tifinar
+addition to an essentially Greek name. _Ti_ is the Berber feminine
+article. We have several examples of this combination. Take _Tipasa_,
+the North African town. The name means the whole, from _ti_ and from
+[Greek: nap]. So, _tinea_ signifies the new, from _ti_ and from
+[Greek: ea]."
+
+"And the prefix, _an_?" queried Morhang.
+
+"Is it possible, sir, that I have put myself to the trouble of talking
+to you for a solid hour about the Critias with such trifling effect?
+It is certain that the prefix _an_, alone, has no meaning. You will
+understand that it has one, when I tell you that we have here a very
+curious case of apocope. You must not read _an_; you must read _atlan_.
+_Atl_ has been lost, by apocope; _an_ has survived. To sum up, Antinea
+is composed in the following manner: [Greek: ti-nea--atl'An]. And its
+meaning, _the new Atlantis_, is dazzlingly apparent from this
+demonstration."
+
+I looked at Morhange. His astonishment was without bounds. The Berber
+prefix _ti_ had literally stunned him.
+
+"Have you had occasion, sir, to verify this very ingenious etymology?"
+he was finally able to gasp out.
+
+"You have only to glance over these few books," said M. Le Mesge
+disdainfully.
+
+He opened successively five, ten, twenty cupboards. An enormous
+library was spread out to our view.
+
+"Everything, everything--it is all here," murmured Morhange, with an
+astonishing inflection of terror and admiration.
+
+"Everything that is worth consulting, at any rate," said M. Le Mesge.
+"All the great books, whose loss the so-called learned world deplores
+to-day."
+
+"And how has it happened?"
+
+"Sir, you distress me. I thought you familiar with certain events. You
+are forgetting, then, the passage where Pliny the Elder speaks of the
+library of Carthage and the treasures which were accumulated there? In
+146, when that city fell under the blows of the knave, Scipio, the
+incredible collection of illiterates who bore the name of the Roman
+Senate had only the profoundest contempt for these riches. They
+presented them to the native kings. This is how Mantabal received this
+priceless heritage; it was transmitted to his son and grandson,
+Hiempsal, Juba I, Juba II, the husband of the admirable Cleopatra
+Selene, the daughter of the great Cleopatra and Mark Antony. Cleopatra
+Selene had a daughter who married an Atlantide king. This is how
+Antinea, the daughter of Neptune, counts among her ancestors the
+immortal queen of Egypt. That is how, by following the laws of
+inheritance, the remains of the library of Carthage, enriched by the
+remnants of the library of Alexandria, are actually before your eyes.
+
+"Science fled from man. While he was building those monstrous Babels
+of pseudo-science in Berlin, London, Paris, Science was taking refuge
+in this desert corner of Ahaggar. They may well forge their hypotheses
+back there, based on the loss of the mysterious works of antiquity:
+these works are not lost. They are here. They are here: the Hebrew,
+the Chaldean, the Assyrian books. Here, the great Egyptian traditions
+which inspired Solon, Herodotus and Plato. Here, the Greek
+mythologists, the magicians of Roman Africa, the Indian mystics, all
+the treasures, in a word, for the lack of which contemporary
+dissertations are poor laughable things. Believe me, he is well
+avenged, the little universitarian whom they took for a madman, whom
+they defied. I have lived, I live, I shall live in a perpetual burst
+of laughter at their false and garbled erudition. And when I shall be
+dead, Error,--thanks to the jealous precaution of Neptune taken to
+isolate his well-beloved Clito from the rest of the world,--Error, I
+say, will continue to reign as sovereign mistress over their pitiful
+compositions."
+
+"Sir," said Morhange in grave voice, "you have just affirmed the
+influence of Egypt on the civilizations of the people here. For
+reasons which some day, perhaps, I shall have occasion to explain to
+you, I would like to have proof of that relationship."
+
+"We need not wait for that, sir," said M. Le Mesge. Then, in my turn,
+I advanced.
+
+"Two words, if you please, sir," I said brutally. "I will not hide
+from you that these historical discussions seem to me absolutely out
+of place. It is not my fault if you have had trouble with the
+University, and if you are not to-day at the College of France or
+elsewhere. For the moment, just one thing concerns me: to know just
+what this lady, Antinea, wants with us. My comrade would like to know
+her relation with ancient Egypt: very well. For my part, I desire
+above everything to know her relations with the government of Algeria
+and the Arabian Bureau."
+
+M. Le Mesge gave a strident laugh.
+
+"I am going to give you an answer that will satisfy you both," he
+replied.
+
+And he added:
+
+"Follow me. It is time that you should learn."
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+THE RED MARBLE HALL
+
+
+We passed through an interminable series of stairs and corridors
+following M. Le Mesge.
+
+"You lose all sense of direction in this labyrinth," I muttered to
+Morhange.
+
+"Worse still, you will lose your head," answered my companion _sotto
+voce_. "This old fool is certainly very learned; but God knows what he
+is driving at. However, he has promised that we are soon to know."
+
+M. Le Mesge had stopped before a heavy dark door, all incrusted with
+strange symbols. Turning the lock with difficulty, he opened it.
+
+"Enter, gentlemen, I beg you," he said.
+
+A gust of cold air struck us full in the face. The room we were
+entering was chill as a vault.
+
+At first, the darkness allowed me to form no idea of its proportions.
+The lighting, purposely subdued, consisted of twelve enormous copper
+lamps, placed column-like upon the ground and burning with brilliant
+red flames. As we entered, the wind from the corridor made the flames
+flicker, momentarily casting about us our own enlarged and misshapen
+shadows. Then the gust died down, and the flames, no longer flurried,
+again licked up the darkness with their motionless red tongues.
+
+These twelve giant lamps (each one about ten feet high) were arranged
+in a kind of crown, the diameter of which must have been about fifty
+feet. In the center of this circle was a dark mass, all streaked with
+trembling red reflections. When I drew nearer, I saw it was a bubbling
+fountain. It was the freshness of this water which had maintained the
+temperature of which I have spoken.
+
+Huge seats were cut in the central rock from which gushed the
+murmuring, shadowy fountain. They were heaped with silky cushions.
+Twelve incense burners, within the circle of red lamps, formed a
+second crown, half as large in diameter. Their smoke mounted toward
+the vault, invisible in the darkness, but their perfume, combined with
+the coolness and sound of the water, banished from the soul all other
+desire than to remain there forever.
+
+M. Le Mesge made us sit down in the center of the hall, on the
+Cyclopean seats. He seated himself between us.
+
+"In a few minutes," he said, "your eyes will grow accustomed to the
+obscurity."
+
+I noticed that he spoke in a hushed voice, as if he were in church.
+
+Little by little, our eyes did indeed grow used to the red light. Only
+the lower part of the great hall was illuminated. The whole vault was
+drowned in shadow and its height was impossible to estimate. Vaguely,
+I could perceive overhead a great smooth gold chandelier, flecked,
+like everything else, with sombre red reflections. But there was no
+means of judging the length of the chain by which it hung from the
+dark ceiling.
+
+The marble of the pavement was of so high a polish, that the great
+torches were reflected even there.
+
+This room, I repeat, was round a perfect circle of which the fountain
+at our backs was the center.
+
+We sat facing the curving walls. Before long, we began to be able to
+see them. They were of peculiar construction, divided into a series
+of niches, broken, ahead of us, by the door which had just opened to
+give us passage, behind us, by a second door, a still darker hole
+which I divined in the darkness when I turned around. From one door to
+the other, I counted sixty niches, making, in all, one hundred and
+twenty. Each was about ten feet high. Each contained a kind of case,
+larger above than below, closed only at the lower end. In all these
+cases, except two just opposite me, I thought I could discern a
+brilliant shape, a human shape certainly, something like a statue of
+very pale bronze. In the arc of the circle before me, I counted
+clearly thirty of these strange statues.
+
+What were these statues? I wanted to see. I rose.
+
+M. Le Mesge put his hand on my arm.
+
+"In good time," he murmured in the same low voice, "all in good time."
+
+The Professor was watching the door by which we had entered the hall,
+and from behind which we could hear the sound of footsteps becoming
+more and more distinct.
+
+It opened quietly to admit three Tuareg slaves. Two of them were
+carrying a long package on their shoulders; the third seemed to be
+their chief.
+
+At a sign from him, they placed the package on the ground and drew out
+from one of the niches the case which it contained.
+
+"You may approach, gentlemen," said M. Le Mesge.
+
+He motioned the three Tuareg to withdraw several paces.
+
+"You asked me, not long since, for some proof of the Egyptian
+influence on this country," said M. Le Mesge. "What do you say to that
+case, to begin with?"
+
+As he spoke, he pointed to the case that the servants had deposited
+upon the ground after they took it from its niche.
+
+Morhange uttered a thick cry.
+
+We had before us one of those cases designed for the preservation of
+mummies. The same shiny wood, the same bright decorations, the only
+difference being that here Tifinar writing replaced the hieroglyphics.
+The form, narrow at the base, broader above, ought to have been enough
+to enlighten us.
+
+I have already said that the lower half of this large case was
+closed, giving the whole structure the appearance of a rectangular
+wooden shoe.
+
+M. Le Mesge knelt and fastened on the lower part of the case, a square
+of white cardboard, a large label, that he had picked up from his
+desk, a few minutes before, on leaving the library.
+
+"You may read," he said simply, but still in the same low tone.
+
+I knelt also, for the light of the great candelabra was scarcely
+sufficient to read the label where, none the less, I recognized the
+Professor's handwriting.
+
+It bore these few words, in a large round hand:
+
+"Number 53. Major Sir Archibald Russell. Born at Richmond, July 5,
+1860. Died at Ahaggar, December 3, 1896."
+
+I leapt to my feet.
+
+"Major Russell!" I exclaimed.
+
+"Not so loud, not so loud," said M. Le Mesge. "No one speaks out loud
+here."
+
+"The Major Russell," I repeated, obeying his injunction as if in spite
+of myself, "who left Khartoum last year, to explore Sokoto?"
+
+"The same," replied the Professor.
+
+"And ... where is Major Russell?"
+
+"He is there," replied M. Le Mesge.
+
+The Professor made a gesture. The Tuareg approached.
+
+A poignant silence reigned in the mysterious hall, broken only by the
+fresh splashing of the fountain.
+
+The three Negroes were occupied in undoing the package that they had
+put down near the painted case. Weighed down with wordless horror,
+Morhange and I stood watching.
+
+Soon, a rigid form, a human form, appeared. A red gleam played over
+it. We had before us, stretched out upon the ground, a statue of pale
+bronze, wrapped in a kind of white veil, a statue like those all
+around us, upright in their niches. It seemed to fix us with an
+impenetrable gaze.
+
+"Sir Archibald Russell," murmured M. Le Mesge slowly.
+
+Morhange approached, speechless, but strong enough to lift up the
+white veil. For a long, long time he gazed at the sad bronze statue.
+
+"A mummy, a mummy?" he said finally. "You deceive yourself, sir, this
+is no mummy."
+
+"Accurately speaking, no," replied M. Le Mesge. "This is not a mummy.
+None the less, you have before you the mortal remains of Sir Archibald
+Russell. I must point out to you, here, my dear sir, that the
+processes of embalming used by Antinea differ from the processes
+employed in ancient Egypt. Here, there is no natron, nor bands, nor
+spices. The industry of Ahaggar, in a single effort, has achieved a
+result obtained by European science only after long experiments.
+Imagine my surprise, when I arrived here and found that they were
+employing a method I supposed known only to the civilized world."
+
+M. Le Mesge struck a light tap with his finger on the forehead of Sir
+Archibald Russell. It rang like metal.
+
+"It is bronze," I said. "That is not a human forehead: it is bronze."
+
+M. Le Mesge shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"It is a human forehead," he affirmed curtly, "and not bronze. Bronze
+is darker, sir. This is the great unknown metal of which Plato speaks
+in the Critias, and which is something between gold and silver: it is
+the special metal of the mountains of the Atlantides. It is
+_orichalch_."
+
+Bending again, I satisfied myself that this metal was the same as that
+with which the walls of the library were overcast.
+
+"It is orichalch," continued M. Le Mesge. "You look as if you had no
+idea how a human body can look like a statue of orichalch. Come,
+Captain Morhange, you whom I gave credit for a certain amount of
+knowledge, have you never heard of the method of Dr. Variot, by which
+a human body can be preserved without embalming? Have you never read
+the book of that practitioner?[11] He explains a method called
+electro-plating. The skin is coated with a very thin layer of silver
+salts, to make it a conductor. The body then is placed in a solution,
+of copper sulphate, and the polar currents do their work. The body of
+this estimable English major has been metalized in the same manner,
+except that a solution of orichalch sulphate, a very rare substance,
+has been substituted for that of copper sulphate. Thus, instead of the
+statue of a poor slave, a copper statue, you have before you a statue
+of metal more precious than silver or gold, in a word, a statue worthy
+of the granddaughter of Neptune."
+
+[Footnote 11: Variot: _L'anthropologie galvanique_. Paris, 1890. (Note
+by M. Leroux.)]
+
+M. Le Mesge waved his arm. The black slaves seized the body. In a few
+seconds, they slid the orichalch ghost into its painted wooden sheath.
+That was set on end and slid into its niche, beside the niche where an
+exactly similar sheath was labelled "Number 52."
+
+Upon finishing their task, they retired without a word. A draught of
+cold air from the door again made the flames of the copper torches
+flicker and threw great shadows about us.
+
+Morhange and I remained as motionless as the pale metal specters which
+surrounded us. Suddenly I pulled myself together and staggered forward
+to the niche beside that in which they just had laid the remains of
+the English major. I looked for the label.
+
+Supporting myself against the red marble wall, I read:
+
+"Number 52. Captain Laurent Deligne. Born at Paris, July 22, 1861.
+Died at Ahaggar, October 30, 1896."
+
+"Captain Deligne!" murmured Morhange. "He left Colomb-Béchar in 1895
+for Timmimoun and no more has been heard of him since then."
+
+"Exactly," said M. Le Mesge, with a little nod of approval.
+
+"Number 51," read Morhange with chattering teeth. "Colonel von
+Wittman, born at Jena in 1855. Died at Ahaggar, May 1, 1896....
+Colonel Wittman, the explorer of Kanem, who disappeared off Agadès."
+
+"Exactly," said M. Le Mesge again.
+
+"Number 50," I read in my turn, steadying myself against the wall, so
+as not to fall. "Marquis Alonzo d'Oliveira, born at Cadiz, February
+21, 1868. Died at Ahaggar, February 1, 1896. Oliveira, who was going
+to Araouan."
+
+"Exactly," said M. Le Mesge again. "That Spaniard was one of the best
+educated. I used to have interesting discussions with him on the exact
+geographical position of the kingdom of Antée."
+
+"Number 49," said Morhange in a tone scarcely more than a whisper.
+"Lieutenant Woodhouse, born at Liverpool, September 16, 1870. Died at
+Ahaggar, October 4, 1895."
+
+"Hardly more than a child," said M. Le Mesge.
+
+"Number 48," I said. "Lieutenant Louis de Maillefeu, born at Provins,
+the...."
+
+I did not finish. My voice choked.
+
+Louis de Maillefeu, my best friend, the friend of my childhood and of
+Saint-Cyr.... I looked at him and recognized him under the metallic
+coating. Louis de Maillefeu!
+
+I laid my forehead against the cold wall and, with shaking shoulders,
+began to sob.
+
+I heard the muffled voice of Morhange speaking to the Professor:
+
+"Sir, this has lasted long enough. Let us make an end of it."
+
+"He wanted to know," said M. Le Mesge. "What am I to do?"
+
+I went up to him and seized his shoulders.
+
+"What happened to him? What did he die of?"
+
+"Just like the others," the Professor replied, "just like Lieutenant
+Woodhouse, like Captain Deligne, like Major Russell, like Colonel von
+Wittman, like the forty-seven of yesterday and all those of
+to-morrow."
+
+"Of what did they die?" Morhange demanded imperatively in his turn.
+
+The Professor looked at Morhange. I saw my comrade grow pale.
+
+"Of what did they die, sir? _They died of love_."
+
+And he added in a very low, very grave voice:
+
+"Now you know."
+
+Gently and with a tact which we should hardly have suspected in him,
+M. Le Mesge drew us away from the statues. A moment later, Morhange
+and I found ourselves again seated, or rather sunk among the cushions
+in the center of the room. The invisible fountain murmured its plaint
+at our feet.
+
+Le Mesge sat between us.
+
+"Now you know," he repeated. "You know, but you do not yet
+understand."
+
+Then, very slowly, he said:
+
+"You are, as they have been, the prisoners of Antinea. And vengeance
+is due Antinea."
+
+"Vengeance?" said Morhange, who had regained his self-possession. "For
+what, I beg to ask? What have the lieutenant and I done to Atlantis?
+How have we incurred her hatred?"
+
+"It is an old quarrel, a very old quarrel," the Professor replied
+gravely. "A quarrel which long antedates you, M. Morhange."
+
+"Explain yourself, I beg of you, Professor."
+
+"You are Man. She is a Woman," said the dreamy voice of M. Le Mesge.
+"The whole matter lies there."
+
+"Really, sir, I do not see ... we do not see."
+
+"You are going to understand. Have you really forgotten to what an
+extent the beautiful queens of antiquity had just cause to complain of
+the strangers whom fortune brought to their borders? The poet, Victor
+Hugo, pictured their detestable acts well enough in his colonial poem
+called _la Fille d'O-Taiti_. Wherever we look, we see similar examples
+of fraud and ingratitude. These gentlemen made free use of the beauty
+and the riches of the lady. Then, one fine morning, they disappeared.
+She was indeed lucky if her lover, having observed the position
+carefully, did not return with ships and troops of occupation."
+
+"Your learning charms me," said Morhange. "Continue."
+
+"Do you need examples? Alas! they abound. Think of the cavalier
+fashion in which Ulysses treated Calypso, Diomedes Callirhoë. What
+should I say of Theseus and Ariadne? Jason treated Medea with
+inconceivable lightness. The Romans continued the tradition with still
+greater brutality. Aenaeus, who has many characteristics in common
+with the Reverend Spardek, treated Dido in a most undeserved fashion.
+Caesar was a laurel-crowned blackguard in his relations with the
+divine Cleopatra. Titus, that hypocrite Titus, after having lived a
+whole year in Idummea at the expense of the plaintive Berenice, took
+her back to Rome only to make game of her. It is time that the sons of
+Japhet paid this formidable reckoning of injuries to the daughters of
+Shem.
+
+"A woman has taken it upon herself to re-establish the great Hegelian
+law of equilibrium for the benefit of her sex. Separated from the
+Aryan world by the formidable precautions of Neptune, she draws the
+youngest and bravest to her. Her body is condescending, while her
+spirit is inexorable. She takes what these bold young men can give
+her. She lends them her body, while her soul dominates them. She is
+the first sovereign who has never been made the slave of passion, even
+for a moment. She has never been obliged to regain her self-mastery,
+for she never has lost it. She is the only woman who has been able to
+disassociate those two inextricable things, love and voluptuousness."
+
+M. Le Mesge paused a moment and then went on.
+
+"Once every day, she comes to this vault. She stops before the niches;
+she meditates before the rigid statues; she touches the cold bosoms,
+so burning when she knew them. Then, after dreaming before the empty
+niche where the next victim soon will sleep his eternal sleep in a
+cold case of orichalch, she returns nonchalantly where he is waiting
+for her."
+
+The Professor stopped speaking. The fountain again made itself heard
+in the midst of the shadow. My pulses beat, my head seemed on fire. A
+fever was consuming me.
+
+"And all of them," I cried, regardless of the place, "all of them
+complied! They submitted! Well, she has only to come and she will see
+what will happen."
+
+Morhange was silent.
+
+"My dear sir," said M. Le Mesge in a very gentle voice, "you are
+speaking like a child. You do not know. You have not seen Antinea. Let
+me tell you one thing: that among those"--and with a sweeping gesture
+he indicated the silent circle of statues--"there were men as
+courageous as you and perhaps less excitable. I remember one of them
+especially well, a phlegmatic Englishman who now is resting under
+Number 32. When he first appeared before Antinea, he was smoking a
+cigar. And, like all the rest, he bent before the gaze of his
+sovereign.
+
+"Do not speak until you have seen her. A university training hardly
+fits one to discourse upon matters of passion, and I feel scarcely
+qualified, myself, to tell you what Antinea is. I only affirm this,
+that when you have seen her, you will remember nothing else. Family,
+country, honor, you will renounce everything for her."
+
+"Everything?" asked Morhange in a calm voice.
+
+"Everything," Le Mesge insisted emphatically. "You will forget all,
+you will renounce all."
+
+From outside, a faint sound came to us.
+
+Le Mesge consulted his watch.
+
+"In any case, you will see."
+
+The door opened. A tall white Targa, the tallest we had yet seen in
+this remarkable abode, entered and came toward us.
+
+He bowed and touched me lightly on the shoulder.
+
+"Follow him," said M. Le Mesge.
+
+Without a word, I obeyed.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+ANTINEA
+
+
+My guide and I passed along another long corridor. My excitement
+increased. I was impatient for one thing only, to come face to face
+with that woman, to tell her.... So far as anything else was
+concerned, I already was done for.
+
+I was mistaken in hoping that the adventure would take an heroic turn
+at once. In real life, these contrasts never are definitely marked
+out. I should have remembered from many past incidents that the
+burlesque was regularly mixed with the tragic in my life.
+
+We reached a little transparent door. My guide stood aside to let me
+pass.
+
+I found myself in the most luxurious of dressing-rooms. A ground glass
+ceiling diffused a gay rosy light over the marble floor. The first
+thing I noticed was a clock, fastened to the wall. In place of the
+figures for the hours, were the signs of the Zodiac. The small hand
+had not yet reached the sign of Capricorn.
+
+Only three o'clock!
+
+The day seemed to have lasted a century already.... And only a little
+more than half of it was gone.
+
+Another idea came to me, and a convulsive laugh bent me double.
+
+"Antinea wants me to be at my best when I meet her."
+
+A mirror of orichalch formed one whole side of the room. Glancing into
+it, I realized that in all decency there was nothing exaggerated in
+the demand.
+
+My untrimmed beard, the frightful layer of dirt which lay about my
+eyes and furrowed my cheeks, my clothing, spotted by all the clay of
+the Sahara and torn by all the thorns of Ahaggar--all this made me
+appear a pitiable enough suitor.
+
+I lost no time in undressing and plunging into the porphry bath in the
+center of the room. A delicious drowsiness came over me in that
+perfumed water. A thousand little jars, spread on a costly carved wood
+dressing-table, danced before my eyes. They were of all sizes and
+colors, carved in a very transparent kind of jade. The warm humidity
+of the atmosphere hastened my relaxation.
+
+I still had strength to think, "The devil take Atlantis and the vault
+and Le Mesge."
+
+Then I fell asleep in the bath.
+
+When I opened my eyes again, the little hand of the clock had almost
+reached the sign of Taurus. Before me, his black hands braced on the
+edge of the bath, stood a huge Negro, bare-faced and bare-armed, his
+forehead bound with an immense orange turban.
+
+He looked at me and showed his white teeth in a silent laugh.
+
+"Who is this fellow?"
+
+The Negro laughed harder. Without saying a word, he lifted me like a
+feather out of the perfumed water, now of a color on which I shall not
+dwell.
+
+In no time at all, I was stretched out on an inclined marble table.
+
+The Negro began to massage me vigorously.
+
+"More gently there, fellow!"
+
+My masseur did not reply, but laughed and rubbed still harder.
+
+"Where do you come from? Kanem? Torkou? You laugh too much for a
+Targa."
+
+Unbroken silence. The Negro was as speechless as he was hilarious.
+
+"After all, I am making a fool of myself," I said, giving up the case.
+"Such as he is, he is more agreeable than Le Mesge with his
+nightmarish erudition. But, on my word, what a recruit he would be for
+Hamman on the rue des Mathurins!"
+
+"Cigarette, sidi?"
+
+Without awaiting my reply, he placed a cigarette between my lips and
+lighted it, and resumed his task of polishing every inch of me.
+
+"He doesn't talk much, but he is obliging," I thought.
+
+And I sent a puff of smoke into his face.
+
+This pleasantry seemed to delight him immensely. He showed his
+pleasure by giving me great slaps.
+
+When he had dressed me down sufficiently, he took a little jar from
+the dressing-table and began to rub me with a rose-colored ointment.
+Weariness seemed to fly away from my rejuvenated muscles.
+
+A stroke on a copper gong. My masseur disappeared. A stunted old
+Negress entered, dressed in the most tawdry tinsel. She was talkative
+as a magpie, but at first I did not understand a word in the
+interminable string she unwound, while she took first my hands, then
+my feet, and polished the nails with determined grimaces.
+
+Another stroke on the gong. The old woman gave place to another Negro,
+grave, this time, and dressed all in white with a knitted skull cap on
+his oblong head. It was the barber, and a remarkably dexterous one. He
+quickly trimmed my hair, and, on my word, it was well done. Then,
+without asking me what style I preferred, he shaved me clean.
+
+I looked with pleasure at my face, once more visible.
+
+"Antinea must like the American type," I thought. "What an affront to
+the memory of her worthy grandfather, Neptune!"
+
+The gay Negro entered and placed a package on the divan. The barber
+disappeared. I was somewhat astonished to observe that the package,
+which my new valet opened carefully, contained a suit of white
+flannels exactly like those French officers wear in Algeria in summer.
+
+The wide trousers seemed made to my measure. The tunic fitted without
+a wrinkle, and my astonishment was unbounded at observing that it even
+had two gilt _galons_, the insignia of my rank, braided on the cuffs.
+For shoes, there were slippers of red Morocco leather, with gold
+ornaments. The underwear, all of silk, seemed to have come straight
+from the rue de la Paix.
+
+"Dinner was excellent," I murmured, looking at myself in the mirror
+with satisfaction. "The apartment is perfectly arranged. Yes, but...."
+
+I could not repress a shudder when I suddenly recalled that room of
+red marble.
+
+The clock struck half past four.
+
+Someone rapped gently on the door. The tall white Targa, who had
+brought me, appeared in the doorway.
+
+He stepped forward, touched me on the arm and signed for me to follow.
+
+Again I followed him.
+
+We passed through interminable corridors. I was disturbed, but the
+warm water had given me a certain feeling of detachment. And above
+all, more than I wished to admit, I had a growing sense of lively
+curiosity. If, at that moment, someone had offered to lead me back to
+the route across the white plain near Shikh-Salah, would I have
+accepted? Hardly.
+
+I tried to feel ashamed of my curiosity. I thought of Maillefeu.
+
+"He, too, followed this corridor. And now he is down there, in the red
+marble hall."
+
+I had no time to linger over this reminiscence. I was suddenly bowled
+over, thrown to the ground, as if by a sort of meteor. The corridor
+was dark; I could see nothing. I heard only a mocking growl.
+
+The white Targa had flattened himself back against the wall.
+
+"Good," I mumbled, picking myself up, "the deviltries are beginning."
+
+We continued on our way. A glow different from that of the rose night
+lights soon began to light up the corridor.
+
+We reached a high bronze door, in which a strange lacy design had
+been cut in filigree. A clear gong sounded, and the double doors
+opened part way. The Targa remained in the corridor, closing the doors
+after me.
+
+I took a few steps forward mechanically, then paused, rooted to the
+spot, and rubbed my eyes.
+
+I was dazzled by the sight of the sky.
+
+Several hours of shaded light had unaccustomed me to daylight. It
+poured in through one whole side of the huge room.
+
+The room was in the lower part of this mountain, which was more
+honeycombed with corridors and passages than an Egyptian pyramid. It
+was on a level with the garden which I had seen in the morning from
+the balcony, and seemed to be a continuation of it; the carpet
+extended out under the great palm trees and the birds flew about the
+forest of pillars in the room.
+
+By contrast, the half of the room untouched by direct light from the
+oasis seemed dark. The sun, setting behind the mountain, painted the
+garden paths with rose and flamed with red upon the traditional
+flamingo which stood with one foot raised at the edge of the sapphire
+lake.
+
+Suddenly I was bowled over a second time.
+
+I felt a warm, silky touch, a burning breath on my neck. Again the
+mocking growl which had so disturbed me in the corridor.
+
+With a wrench, I pulled myself free and sent a chance blow at my
+assailant. The cry, this time of pain and rage, broke out again.
+
+It was echoed by a long peal of laughter. Furious, I turned to look
+for the insolent onlooker, thinking to speak my mind. And then my
+glance stood still.
+
+Antinea was before me.
+
+
+In the dimmest part of the room, under a kind of arch lit by the mauve
+rays from a dozen incense-lamps, four women lay on a heap of
+many-colored cushions and rare white Persian rugs.
+
+I recognized the first three as Tuareg women, of a splendid regular
+beauty, dressed in magnificent robes of white silk embroidered in
+gold. The fourth, very dark skinned, almost negroid, seemed younger.
+A tunic of red silk enhanced the dusk of her face, her arms and her
+bare feet. The four were grouped about a sort of throne of white rugs,
+covered with a gigantic lion's skin, on which, half raised on one
+elbow, lay Antinea.
+
+Antinea! Whenever I saw her after that, I wondered if I had really
+looked at her before, so much more beautiful did I find her. More
+beautiful? Inadequate word. Inadequate language! But is it really the
+fault of the language or of those who abuse the word?
+
+One could not stand before her without recalling the woman for whom
+Ephractoeus overcame Atlas, of her for whom Sapor usurped the scepter
+of Ozymandias, for whom Mamylos subjugated Susa and Tentyris, for whom
+Antony fled....
+
+    _O tremblant coeur humain, si jamais tu vibras
+    C'est dans l'étreinte altière et chaude de ses bras_.
+
+An Egyptian _klaft_ fell over her abundant blue-black curls. Its two
+points of heavy, gold-embroidered cloth extended to her slim hips. The
+golden serpent, emerald-eyed, was clasped about her little round,
+determined forehead, darting its double tongue of rubies over her
+head.
+
+She wore a tunic of black chiffon shot with gold, very light, very
+full, slightly gathered in by a white muslin scarf embroidered with
+iris in black pearls.
+
+That was Antinea's costume. But what was she beneath all this? A slim
+young girl, with long green eyes and the slender profile of a hawk. A
+more intense Adonis. A child queen of Sheba, but with a look, a smile,
+such as no Oriental ever had. A miracle of irony and freedom.
+
+I did not see her body. Indeed I should not have thought of looking at
+it, had I had the strength. And that, perhaps, was the most
+extraordinary thing about that first impression. In that unforgettable
+moment nothing would have seemed to me more horribly sacrilegious than
+to think of the fifty victims in the red marble hall, of the fifty
+young men who had held that slender body in their arms.
+
+She was still laughing at me.
+
+"King Hiram," she called.
+
+I turned and saw my enemy.
+
+On the capital of one of the columns, twenty feet above the floor, a
+splendid leopard was crouched. He still looked surly from the blow I
+had dealt him.
+
+"King Hiram," Antinea repeated. "Come here."
+
+The beast relaxed like a spring released. He fawned at his mistress's
+feet. I saw his red tongue licking her bare little ankles.
+
+"Ask the gentleman's pardon," she said.
+
+The leopard looked at me spitefully. The yellow skin of his muzzle
+puckered about his black moustache.
+
+"Fftt," he grumbled like a great cat.
+
+"Go," Antinea ordered imperiously.
+
+The beast crawled reluctantly toward me. He laid his head humbly
+between his paws and waited.
+
+I stroked his beautiful spotted forehead.
+
+"You must not be vexed," said Antinea. "He is always that way with
+strangers."
+
+"Then he must often be in bad humor," I said simply.
+
+Those were my first words. They brought a smile to Antinea's lips.
+
+She gave me a long, quiet look.
+
+"Aguida," she said to one of the Targa women, "you will give
+twenty-five pounds in gold to Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh."
+
+"You are a lieutenant?" she asked, after a pause.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Where do you come from?"
+
+"From France."
+
+"I might have guessed that," she said ironically, "but from what part
+of France?"
+
+"From what we call the Lot-et-Garonne."
+
+"From what town?"
+
+"From Duras."
+
+She reflected a moment.
+
+"Duras! There is a little river there, the Dropt, and a fine old
+château."
+
+"You know Duras?" I murmured, amazed.
+
+"You go there from Bordeaux by a little branch railway," she went
+on. "It is a shut-in road, with vine-covered hills crowned by
+the feudal ruins. The villages have beautiful names: Monségur,
+Sauve-terre-de-Guyenne, la Tresne, Créon, ... Créon, as in Antigone."
+
+"You have been there?"
+
+She looked at me.
+
+"Don't speak so coldly," she said. "Sooner or later we will be
+intimate, and you may as well lay aside formality now."
+
+This threatening promise suddenly filled me with great happiness. I
+thought of Le Mesge's words: "Don't talk until you have seen her. When
+you have seen her, you will renounce everything for her."
+
+"Have I been in Duras?" she went on with a burst of laughter. "You are
+joking. Imagine Neptune's granddaughter in the first-class compartment
+of a local train!"
+
+She pointed to an enormous white rock which towered above the palm
+trees of the garden.
+
+"That is my horizon," she said gravely.
+
+She picked up one of several books which lay scattered about her on
+the lion's skin.
+
+"The time table of the _Chemin de Fer de l'Ouest_," she said.
+"Admirable reading for one who never budges! Here it is half-past five
+in the afternoon. A train, a local, arrived three minutes ago at
+Surgères in the Charente-Inférieure. It will start on in six minutes.
+In two hours it will reach La Rochelle. How strange it seems to think
+of such things here. So far away! So much commotion there! Here,
+nothing changes."
+
+"You speak French well," I said.
+
+She gave a little nervous laugh.
+
+"I have to. And German, too, and Italian, and English and Spanish. My
+way of living has made me a great polygot. But I prefer French, even
+to Tuareg and Arabian. It seems as if I had always known it. And I am
+not saying that to please you."
+
+There was a pause. I thought of her grandmother, of whom Plutarch
+said: "There were few races with which she needed an interpreter.
+Cleopatra spoke their own language to the Ethiopians, to the
+Troglodytes, the Hebrews, the Arabs, the Medes and the Persians."
+
+"Do not stand rooted in the middle of the room. You worry me. Come
+sit here, beside me. Move over, King Hiram."
+
+The leopard obeyed with good temper.
+
+Beside her was an onyx bowl. She took from it a perfectly plain ring
+of orichalch and slipped it on my left ring-finger. I saw that she
+wore one like it.
+
+"Tanit-Zerga, give Monsieur de Saint-Avit a rose sherbet."
+
+The dark girl in red silk obeyed.
+
+"My private secretary," said Antinea, introducing her. "Mademoiselle
+Tanit-Zerga, of Gâo, on the Niger. Her family is almost as ancient as
+mine."
+
+As she spoke, she looked at me. Her green eyes seemed to be appraising
+me.
+
+"And your comrade, the Captain?" she asked in a dreamy tone. "I have
+not yet seen him. What is he like? Does he resemble you?"
+
+For the first time since I had entered, I thought of Morhange. I did
+not answer.
+
+Antinea smiled.
+
+She stretched herself out full length on the lion skin. Her bare right
+knee slipped out from under her tunic.
+
+"It is time to go find him," she said languidly. "You will soon
+receive my orders. Tanit-Zerga, show him the way. First take him to
+his room. He cannot have seen it."
+
+I rose and lifted her hand to my lips. She struck me with it so
+sharply as to make my lips bleed, as if to brand me as her possession.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I was in the dark corridor again. The young girl in the red silk tunic
+walked ahead of me.
+
+"Here is your room," she said. "If you wish, I will take you to the
+dining-room. The others are about to meet there for dinner."
+
+She spoke an adorable lisping French.
+
+"No, Tanit-Zerga, I would rather stay here this evening. I am not
+hungry. I am tired."
+
+"You remember my name?" she said.
+
+She seemed proud of it. I felt that in her I had an ally in case of
+need.
+
+"I remember your name, Tanit-Zerga, because it is beautiful."[12]
+
+[Footnote 12: In Berber, Tanit means a spring; zerga is the feminine of
+the adjective azreg, blue. (Note by M. Leroux.)]
+
+Then I added:
+
+"Now, leave me, little one. I want to be alone."
+
+It seemed as if she would never go. I was touched, but at the same
+time vexed. I felt a great need of withdrawing into myself.
+
+"My room is above yours," she said. "There is a copper gong on the
+table here. You have only to strike if you want anything. A white
+Targa will answer."
+
+For a second, these instructions amused me. I was in a hotel in the
+midst of the Sahara. I had only to ring for service.
+
+I looked about my room. My room! For how long?
+
+It was fairly large. Cushions, a couch, an alcove cut into the rock,
+all lighted by a great window covered by a matting shade.
+
+I went to the window and raised the shade. The light of the setting
+sun entered.
+
+I leaned my elbows on the rocky sill. Inexpressible emotion filled my
+heart. The window faced south. It was about two hundred feet above the
+ground. The black, polished volcanic wall yawned dizzily below me.
+
+In front of me, perhaps a mile and a half away, was another wall, the
+first enclosure mentioned in the Critias. And beyond it in the
+distance, I saw the limitless red desert.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+MORHANGE DISAPPEARS
+
+
+My fatigue was so great that I lay as if unconscious until the next
+day. I awoke about three o'clock in the afternoon.
+
+I thought at once of the events of the previous day; they seemed
+amazing.
+
+"Let me see," I said to myself. "Let us work this out. I must begin by
+consulting Morhange."
+
+I was ravenously hungry.
+
+The gong which Tanit-Zerga had pointed out lay within arm's reach. I
+struck it. A white Targa appeared.
+
+"Show me the way to the library," I ordered.
+
+He obeyed. As we wound our way through the labyrinth of stairs and
+corridors I realized that I could never have found my way without his
+help.
+
+Morhange was in the library, intently reading a manuscript.
+
+"A lost treatise of Saint Optat," he said. "Oh, if only Dom Granger
+were here. See, it is written in semi-uncial characters."
+
+I did not reply. My eyes were fixed on an object which lay on the
+table beside the manuscript. It was an orichalch ring, exactly like
+that which Antinea had given me the previous day and the one which she
+herself wore.
+
+Morhange smiled.
+
+"Well?" I said.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"You have seen her?"
+
+"I have indeed," Morhange replied.
+
+"She is beautiful, is she not?"
+
+"It would be difficult to dispute that," my comrade answered. "I even
+believe that I can say that she is as intelligent as she is
+beautiful."
+
+There was a pause. Morhange was calmly fingering the orichalch ring.
+
+"You know what our fate is to be?"
+
+"I know. Le Mesge explained it to us yesterday in polite mythological
+terms. This evidently is an extraordinary adventure."
+
+He was silent, then said, looking at me:
+
+"I am very sorry to have dragged you here. The only mitigating feature
+is that since last evening you seem to have been bearing your lot very
+easily."
+
+Where had Morhange learned this insight into the human heart? I did
+not reply, thus giving him the best of proofs that he had judged
+correctly.
+
+"What do you think of doing?" I finally murmured.
+
+He rolled up the manuscript, leaned back comfortably in his armchair
+and lit a cigar.
+
+"I have thought it over carefully. With the aid of my conscience I
+have marked out a line of conduct. The matter is clear and admits no
+discussion.
+
+"The question is not quite the same for me as for you, because of my
+semi-religious character, which, I admit, has set out on a rather
+doubtful adventure. To be sure, I have not taken holy orders, but,
+even aside from the fact that the ninth commandment itself forbids my
+having relations with a woman not my wife, I admit that I have no
+taste for the kind of forced servitude for which the excellent
+Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh has so kindly recruited us.
+
+"That granted, the fact remains that my life is not my own with the
+right to dispose of it as might a private explorer travelling at his
+own expenses and for his own ends. I have a mission to accomplish,
+results to obtain. If I could regain my liberty by paying the singular
+ransom which this country exacts, I should consent to give
+satisfaction to Antinea according to my ability. I know the tolerance
+of the Church, and especially that of the order to which I aspire:
+such a procedure would be ratified immediately and, who knows, perhaps
+even approved? Saint Mary the Egyptian, gave her body to boatmen under
+similar circumstances. She received only glorification for it. In so
+doing she had the certainty of attaining her goal, which was holy. The
+end justified the means.
+
+"But my case is quite different. If I give in to the absurd caprices
+of this woman, that will not keep me from being catalogued down in the
+red marble hall, as Number 54, or as Number 55, if she prefers to take
+you first. Under those conditions...."
+
+"Under those conditions?"
+
+"Under those conditions, it would be unpardonable for me to
+acquiesce."
+
+"Then what do you intend to do?"
+
+"What do I intend to do?" Morhange leaned back in the armchair and
+smilingly launched a puff of smoke toward the ceiling.
+
+"Nothing," he said. "And that is all that is necessary. Man has this
+superiority over woman. He is so constructed that he can refuse
+advances."
+
+Then he added with an ironical smile:
+
+"A man cannot be forced to accept unless he wishes to."
+
+I nodded.
+
+"I tried the most subtle reasoning on Antinea," he continued. "It was
+breath wasted. 'But,' I said at the end of my arguments, 'why not Le
+Mesge?' She began to laugh. 'Why not the Reverend Spardek?' she
+replied. 'Le Mesge and Spardek are savants whom I respect. But
+
+    _Maudit soit à jamais rêveur inutile,
+    Qui voulut, le premier, dans sa stupidité,
+    S'éprenant d'un problème insoluble et stérile,
+    Aux choses de l'amour mêler l'honnêteté._
+
+"'Besides,' she added with that really very charming smile of hers,
+'probably you have not looked carefully at either of them.' There
+followed several compliments on my figure, to which I found nothing to
+reply, so completely had she disarmed me by those four lines from
+Baudelaire.
+
+"She condescended to explain further: 'Le Mesge is a learned gentleman
+whom I find useful. He knows Spanish and Italian, keeps my papers in
+order, and is busy working out my genealogy. The Reverend Spardek
+knows English and German. Count Bielowsky is thoroughly conversant
+with the Slavic languages. Besides, I love him like a father. He knew
+me as a child when I had not dreamed such stupid things as you know
+of me. They are indispensable to me in my relations with visitors of
+different races, although I am beginning to get along well enough in
+the languages which I need.... But I am talking a great deal, and this
+is the first time that I have ever explained my conduct. Your friend
+is not so curious.' With that, she dismissed me. A strange woman
+indeed. I think there is a bit of Renan in her but she is cleverer
+than that master of sensualism."
+
+"Gentlemen," said Le Mesge, suddenly entering the room, "why are you
+so late? They are waiting dinner for you."
+
+The little Professor was in a particularly good humor that evening. He
+wore a new violet rosette.
+
+"Well?" he said, in a mocking tone, "you have seen her?"
+
+Neither Morhange nor I replied.
+
+The Reverend Spardek and the Hetmari of Jitomir already had begun
+eating when we arrived. The setting sun threw raspberry lights on the
+cream-colored mat.
+
+"Be seated, gentlemen," said Le Mesge noisily. "Lieutenant de
+Saint-Avit, you were not with us last evening. You are about to taste
+the cooking of Koukou, our Bambara chef, for the first time. You must
+give me your opinion of it."
+
+A Negro waiter set before me a superb fish covered with a pimento
+sauce as red as tomatoes.
+
+I have explained that I was ravenously hungry. The dish was exquisite.
+The sauce immediately made me thirsty.
+
+"White Ahaggar, 1879," the Herman of Jitomir breathed in my ear as he
+filled my goblet with a clear topaz liquid. "I developed it myself:
+_rien pour la tête, tout pour les jambes_."
+
+I emptied the goblet at a gulp. The company began to seem charming.
+
+"Well, Captain Morhange," Le Mesge called out to my comrade who had
+taken a mouthful of fish, "what do you say to this acanthopterygian?
+It was caught to-day in the lake in the oasis. Do you begin to admit
+the hypothesis of the Saharan sea?"
+
+"The fish is an argument," my companion replied.
+
+Suddenly he became silent. The door had opened. A white Targa entered.
+The diners stopped talking.
+
+The veiled man walked slowly toward Morhange and touched his right
+arm.
+
+"Very well," said Morhange.
+
+He got up and followed the messenger.
+
+The pitcher of Ahaggar, 1879, stood between me and Count Bielowsky. I
+filled my goblet--a goblet which held a pint, and gulped it down.
+
+The Hetman looked at me sympathetically.
+
+"Ha, ha!" laughed Le Mesge, nudging me with his elbow. "Antinea has
+respect for the hierarchic order."
+
+The Reverend Spardek smiled modestly.
+
+"Ha, ha!" laughed Le Mesge again.
+
+My glass was empty. For a moment I was tempted to hurl it at the head
+of the Fellow in History. But what of it? I filled it and emptied it
+again.
+
+"Morhange will miss this delicious roast of mutton," said the
+Professor, more and more hilarious, as he awarded himself a thick
+slice of meat.
+
+"He won't regret it," said the Hetman crossly. "This is not roast; it
+is ram's horn. Really Koukou is beginning to make fun of us."
+
+"Blame it on the Reverend," the shrill voice of Le Mesge cut in. "I
+have told him often enough to hunt other proselytes and leave our cook
+alone."
+
+"Professor," Spardek began with dignity.
+
+"I maintain my contention," cried Le Mesge, who seemed to me to be
+getting a bit overloaded. "I call the gentleman to witness," he went
+on, turning to me. "He has just come. He is unbiased. Therefore I ask
+him: has one the right to spoil a Bambara cook by addling his head
+with theological discussions for which he has no predisposition?"
+
+"Alas!" the pastor replied sadly. "You are mistaken. He has only too
+strong a propensity to controversy."
+
+"Koukou is a good-for-nothing who uses Colas' cow as an excuse for
+doing nothing and letting our scallops burn," declared the Hetman.
+"Long live the Pope!" he cried, filling the glasses all around.
+
+"I assure you that this Bambara worries me," Spardek went on with
+great dignity. "Do you know what he has come to? He denies
+transubstantiation. He is within an inch of the heresy of Zwingli and
+Oecolampades. Koukou denies transubstantiation."
+
+"Sir," said Le Mesge, very much excited, "cooks should be left in
+peace. Jesus, whom I consider as good a theologian as you, understood
+that, and it never occurred to him to call Martha away from her oven
+to talk nonsense to her."
+
+"Exactly so," said the Hetman approvingly.
+
+He was holding a jar between his knees and trying to draw its cork.
+
+"Oh, Côtes Rôties, wines from the Côte-Rôtie!" he murmured to me as he
+finally succeeded. "Touch glasses."
+
+"Koukou denies transubstantiation," the pastor continued, sadly
+emptying his glass.
+
+"Eh!" said the Hetman of Jitomir in my ear, "let them talk on. Don't
+you see that they are quite drunk?"
+
+His own voice was thick. He had the greatest difficulty in the world
+in filling my goblet to the brim.
+
+I wanted to push the pitcher away. Then an idea came to me:
+
+"At this very moment, Morhange.... Whatever he may say.... She is so
+beautiful."
+
+I reached out for the glass and emptied it once more.
+
+Le Mesge and the pastor were now engaged in the most extraordinary
+religious controversy, throwing at each other's heads the Book of
+Common Prayer, The Declaration of the Rights of Man, and the
+Unigenitus. Little by little, the Hetman began to show that ascendancy
+over them, which is the characteristic of a man of the world even when
+he is thoroughly drunk; the superiority of education over instruction.
+
+Count Bielowsky had drunk five times as much as the Professor or the
+pastor. But he carried his wine ten times better.
+
+"Let us leave these drunken fellows," he said with disgust. "Come on,
+old man. Our partners are waiting in the gaming room."
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen," said the Hetman as we entered. "Permit me to
+present a new player to you, my friend, Lieutenant de Saint-Avit."
+
+"Let it go at that," he murmured in my ear. "They are the servants.
+But I like to fool myself, you see."
+
+I saw that he was very drunk indeed.
+
+The gaming room was very long and narrow. A huge table, almost level
+with the floor and surrounded with cushions on which a dozen natives
+were lying, was the chief article of furniture. Two engravings on the
+wall gave evidence of the happiest broadmindedness in taste; one of da
+Vinci's St. John the Baptist, and the _Maison des Dernières
+Cartouches_ of Alphonse de Neuville.
+
+On the table were earthenware goblets. A heavy jar held palm liqueur.
+
+I recognized acquaintances among those present; my masseur, the
+manicure, the barber, and two or three Tuareg who had lowered their
+veils and were gravely smoking long pipes. While waiting for something
+better, all were plunged in the delights of a card game that looked
+like "rams." Two of Antinea's beautiful ladies in waiting, Aguida and
+Sydya, were among the number. Their smooth bistre skins gleamed
+beneath veils shot with silver. I was sorry not to see the red silk
+tunic of Tanit-Zerga. Again, I thought of Morhange, but only for an
+instant.
+
+"The chips, Koukou," demanded the Hetman, "We are not here to amuse
+ourselves."
+
+The Zwinglian cook placed a box of many-colored chips in front of him.
+Count Bielowsky set about counting them and arranging them in little
+piles with infinite care.
+
+"The white are worth a _louis_," he explained to me. "The red, a
+hundred francs. The yellow, five hundred. The green, a thousand. Oh,
+it's the devil of a game that we play here. You will see."
+
+"I open with ten thousand," said the Zwinglian cook.
+
+"Twelve thousand," said the Hetman.
+
+"Thirteen," said Sydya with a slow smile, as she seated herself on the
+count's knee and began to arrange her chips lovingly in little piles.
+
+"Fourteen," I said.
+
+"Fifteen," said the sharp voice of Rosita, the old manicure.
+
+"Seventeen," proclaimed the Hetman.
+
+"Twenty thousand," the cook broke in.
+
+He hammered on the table and, casting a defiant look at us, repeated:
+
+"I take it at twenty thousand."
+
+The Hetman made an impatient gesture.
+
+"That devil, Koukou! You can't do anything against the beast. You will
+have to play carefully, Lieutenant."
+
+Koukou had taken his place at the end of the table. He threw down the
+cards with an air which abashed me.
+
+"I told you so; the way it was at Anna Deslions'," the Hetman murmured
+proudly.
+
+"Make your bets, gentlemen," yelped the Negro. "Make your bets."
+
+"Wait, you beast," called Bielowsky. "Don't you see that the glasses
+are empty? Here, Cacambo."
+
+The goblets were filled immediately by the jolly masseur.
+
+"Cut," said Koukou, addressing Sydya, the beautiful Targa who sat at
+his right.
+
+The girl cut, like one who knows superstitions, with her left hand.
+But it must be said that her right was busy lifting a cup to her lips.
+I watched the curve of her beautiful throat.
+
+"My deal," said Koukou.
+
+We were thus arranged: at the left, the Hetman, Aguida, whose waist he
+had encircled with the most aristocratic freedom, Cacambo, a Tuareg
+woman, then two veiled Negroes who were watching the game intently. At
+the right, Sydya, myself, the old manicure, Rosita, Barouf, the
+barber, another woman and two white Tuareg, grave and attentive,
+exactly opposite those on the left.
+
+"Give me one," said the Hetman.
+
+Sydya made a negative gesture.
+
+Koukou drew, passed a four-spot to the Hetman, gave himself a five.
+
+"Eight," announced Bielowsky.
+
+"Six," said pretty Sydya.
+
+"Seven," broke in Koukou. "One card makes up for another," he added
+coldly.
+
+"I double," said the Hetman.
+
+Cacambo and Aguida followed his example. On our side, we were more
+careful. The manicure especially would not risk more than twenty
+francs at a time.
+
+"I demand that the cards be evened up," said Koukou imperturbably.
+
+"This fellow is unbearable," grumbled the count. "There, are you
+satisfied?"
+
+Koukou dealt and laid down a nine.
+
+"My country and my honor!" raged Bielowsky. "I had an eight."
+
+I had two kings, and so showed no ill temper. Rosita took the cards
+out of my hands.
+
+I watched Sydya at my right. Her heavy black hair covered her
+shoulders. She was really very beautiful, though a bit tipsy, as were
+all that fantastic company. She looked at me, too, but with lowered
+eyelids, like a timid little wild animal.
+
+"Oh," I thought. "She may well be afraid. I am labelled 'No
+trespassing.'"
+
+I touched her foot. She drew it back in fright.
+
+"Who wants cards?" Koukou demanded.
+
+"Not I," said the Hetman.
+
+"Served," said Sydya.
+
+The cook drew a four.
+
+"Nine," he said.
+
+"That card was meant for me," cursed the count. "And five, I had a
+five. If only I had never promised his Majesty the Emperor Napoleon II
+never to cut fives! There are times when it is hard, very hard. And
+look at that beast of a Negro who plays Charlemagne."
+
+It was true. Koukou swept in three-quarters of the chips, rose with
+dignity, and bowed to the company.
+
+"Till to-morrow, gentlemen."
+
+"Get along, the whole pack of you," howled the Hetman of Jitomir.
+"Stay with me, Lieutenant de Saint-Avit."
+
+When we were alone, he poured out another huge cupfull of liqueur. The
+ceiling of the room was lost in the gray smoke.
+
+"What time is it?" I asked.
+
+"After midnight. But you are not going to leave me like this, my dear
+boy? I am heavy-hearted."
+
+He wept bitterly. The tail of his coat spread out on the divan behind
+him like the apple-green wings of a beetle.
+
+"Isn't Aguida a beauty?" he went on, still weeping. "She makes me
+think of the Countess de Teruel, though she is a little darker. You
+know the Countess de Teruel, Mercedes, who went in bathing nude at
+Biarritz, in front of the rock of the Virgin, one day when Prince
+Bismarck was standing on the foot-bridge. You do not remember her?
+Mercedes de Teruel."
+
+I shrugged my shoulders.
+
+"I forget; you must have been too young. Two, perhaps three years old.
+A child. Yes, a child. Oh, my child, to have been of that generation
+and to be reduced to playing cards with savages ... I must tell
+you...."
+
+I stood up and pushed him off.
+
+"Stay, stay," he implored. "I will tell you everything you want to
+know, how I came here, things I have never told anyone. Stay, I must
+unbosom myself to a true friend. I will tell you everything, I repeat.
+I trust you. You are a Frenchman, a gentleman. I know that you will
+repeat nothing to her."
+
+"That I will repeat nothing to her?... To whom?"
+
+His voice stuck in his throat. I thought I saw a shudder of fear pass
+over him.
+
+"To her ... to Antinea," he murmured.
+
+I sat down again.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+THE HETMAN OF JITOMIR'S STORY
+
+
+Count Casimir had reached that stage where drunkenness takes on a kind
+of gravity, of regretfulness.
+
+He thought a little, then began his story. I regret that I cannot
+reproduce more perfectly its archaic flavor.
+
+"When the grapes begin to color in Antinea's garden, I shall be
+sixty-eight. It is very sad, my dear boy, to have sowed all your wild
+oats. It isn't true that life is always beginning over again. How
+bitter, to have known the Tuileries in 1860, and to have reached the
+point where I am now!
+
+"One evening, just before the war (I remember that Victor Black was
+still living), some charming women whose names I need not disclose (I
+read the names of their sons from time to time in the society news of
+the _Gaulois_) expressed to me their desire to rub elbows with some
+real _demi-mondaines_ of the artist quarter. I took them to a ball at
+the _Grande Chaumière_. There was a crowd of young painters, models,
+students. In the midst of the uproar, several couples danced the
+_cancan_ till the chandeliers shook with it. We noticed especially a
+little, dark man, dressed in a miserable top-coat and checked trousers
+which assuredly knew the support of no suspenders. He was cross-eyed,
+with a wretched beard and hair as greasy as could be. He bounded and
+kicked extravagantly. The ladies called him Léon Gambetta.
+
+"What an annoyance, when I realize that I need only have felled this
+wretched lawyer with one pistol shot to have guaranteed perfect
+happiness to myself and to my adopted country, for, my dear fellow, I
+am French at heart, if not by birth.
+
+"I was born in 1829, at Warsaw, of a Polish father and a Russian
+mother. It is from her that I hold my title of Hetman of Jitomir. It
+was restored to me by Czar Alexander II on a request made to him on
+his visit to Paris, by my august master, the Emperor Napoleon III.
+
+"For political reasons, which I cannot describe without retelling the
+history of unfortunate Poland, my father, Count Bielowsky, left Warsaw
+in 1830, and went to live in London. After the death of my mother, he
+began to squander his immense fortune--from sorrow, he said. When, in
+his time, he died at the period of the Prichard affair, he left me
+barely a thousand pounds sterling of income, plus two or three systems
+of gaming, the impracticability of which I learned later.
+
+"I will never be able to think of my nineteenth and twentieth years
+without emotion, for I then completely liquidated this small
+inheritance. London was indeed an adorable spot in those days. I had a
+jolly bachelor's apartment in Piccadilly.
+
+    "'Picadilly! Shops, palaces, bustle and breeze,
+      The whirling of wheels and the murmur of trees.'
+
+"Fox hunting in a _briska_, driving a buggy in Hyde Park, the rout,
+not to mention the delightful little parties with the light Venuses of
+Drury Lane, this took all my time. All? I am unjust. There was also
+gaming, and a sentiment of filial piety forced me to verify the
+systems of the late Count, my father. It was gaming which was the
+cause of the event I must describe to you, by which my life was to be
+so strangely changed.
+
+"My friend, Lord Malmesbury, had said to me a hundred times, 'I must
+take you to see an exquisite creature who lives in Oxford Street,
+number 277, Miss Howard.' One evening I went with him. It was the
+twenty-second of February, 1848. The mistress of the house was really
+marvelously beautiful, and the guests were charming. Besides
+Malmesbury, I observed several acquaintances: Lord Clebden, Lord
+Chesterfield, Sir Francis Mountjoye, Major in the Second Life Guards,
+and Count d'Orsay. They played cards and then began to talk politics.
+Events in France played the main part in the conversation and they
+discussed endlessly the consequences of the revolt that had broken out
+in Paris that same morning, in consequence of the interdiction of the
+banquet in the 12th arrondissement, of which word had just been
+received by telegram. Up to that time, I had never bothered myself
+with public affairs. So I don't know what moved me to affirm with the
+impetuosity of my nineteen years that the news from France meant the
+Republic next day and the Empire the day after....
+
+"The company received my sally with a discreet laugh, and their looks
+were centered on a guest who made the fifth at a _bouillotte_ table
+where they had just stopped playing.
+
+"The guest smiled, too. He rose and came towards me. I observed that
+he was of middle height, perhaps even shorter, buttoned tightly into a
+blue frock coat, and that his eye had a far-off, dreamy look.
+
+"All the players watched this scene with delighted amusement.
+
+"'Whom have I the honor of addressing?' he asked in a very gentle
+voice.
+
+"'Count Bielowsky,' I answered coolly to show him that the difference
+in our ages was not sufficient to justify the interrogation.
+
+"Well, my dear Count, may your prediction indeed be realized; and I
+hope that you will not neglect the Tuileries,' said the guest in the
+blue coat, with a smile.
+
+"And he added, finally consenting to present himself:
+
+"'Prince Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte.'
+
+"I played no active rôle in the _coup d'état_, and I do not regret it.
+It is a principle with me that a stranger should not meddle with the
+internal affairs of a country. The prince understood this discretion,
+and did not forget the young man who had been of such good omen to
+him.
+
+"I was one of the first whom he called to the Elysée. My fortune was
+definitely established by a defamatory note on 'Napoleon the little.'
+The next year, when Mgr. Sibour was out of the way, I was made
+Gentleman of the Chamber, and the Emperor was even so kind as to have
+me marry the daughter of the Marshal Repeto, Duke of Mondovi.
+
+"I have no scruple in announcing that this union was not what it
+should have been. The Countess, who was ten years older than I, was
+crabbed and not particularly pretty. Moreover, her family had insisted
+resolutely on a marriage portion. Now I had nothing at this time
+except the twenty-five thousand pounds for my appointment as Gentleman
+of the Chamber. A sad lot for anyone on intimate terms with the Count
+d'Orsay and the Duke of Gramont-Caderousse! Without the kindness of
+the Emperor, where would I have been?
+
+"One morning in the spring of 1852, I was in my study opening my mail.
+There was a letter from His Majesty, calling me to the Tuileries at
+four o'clock; a letter from Clémentine, informing me that she expected
+me at five o'clock at her house. Clémentine was the beautiful one for
+whom, just then, I was ready to commit any folly. I was so proud of
+her that, one evening at the _Maison Dorée_, I flaunted her before
+Prince Metternich, who was tremendously taken with her. All the court
+envied me that conquest; and I was morally obliged to continue to
+assume its expenses. And then Clémentine was so pretty! The Emperor
+himself.... The other letters, good lord, the other letters were the
+bills of the dressmakers of that young person, who, in spite of my
+discreet remonstrances, insisted on having them sent to my conjugal
+dwelling.
+
+"There were bills for something over forty thousand francs: gowns and
+ball dresses from Gagelin-Opigez, 23 Rue de Richelieu; hats and
+bonnets from Madame Alexandrine, 14 Rue d'Antin; lingerie and many
+petticoats from Madame Pauline, 100 Rue de Clery; dress trimmings and
+gloves from the _Ville de Lyon_, 6 Rue de la Chaussée d'Antin;
+foulards from the _Malle des Indes_; handkerchiefs from the _Compagnie
+Irlandaise_; laces from Ferguson; cosmetics from _Candès_.... This
+whitening cream of _Candès_, in particular, overwhelmed me with
+stupefaction. The bill showed fifty-one flasks. Six hundred and
+twenty-seven francs and fifty centimes' worth of whitening cream from
+_Candès_.... Enough to soften the skin of a squadron of a hundred
+guards!
+
+"'This can't keep on,' I said, putting the bills in my pocket.
+
+"At ten minutes to four, I crossed the wicket by the Carrousel.
+
+"In the Salon of the _aides de camp_ I happened on Bacciochi.
+
+"'The Emperor has the grippe,' he said to me. 'He is keeping to his
+room. He has given orders to have you admitted as soon as you arrive.
+Come.'
+
+"His Majesty, dressed in a braided vest and Cossack trousers, was
+meditating before a window. The pale green of the Tuileries showed
+luminously under a gentle warm shower.
+
+"'Ah! Here he is,' said Napoleon. 'Here, have a cigarette. It seems
+that you had great doings, you and Gramont-Caderousse, last evening,
+at the _Château de Fleurs_.'
+
+"I smiled with satisfaction.
+
+"'So Your Majesty knows already....'
+
+"'I know, I know vaguely.'
+
+"'Do you know Gramont-Caderousse's last "mot"?'
+
+"'No, but you are going to tell it to me.'
+
+"'Here goes, then. We were five or six: myself, Viel-Castel, Gramont,
+Persigny....'
+
+"'Persigny!' said the Emperor. 'He has no right to associate with
+Gramont, after all that Paris says about his wife.'
+
+"'Just so Sire. Well, Persigny was excited, no doubt about it. He
+began telling us how troubled he was because of the Duchess's
+conduct.'
+
+"'This Fialin isn't over tactful,' muttered the Emperor.
+
+"'Just so, Sire. Then, does Your Majesty know what Gramont hurled at
+him?'
+
+"'What?'
+
+"'He said to him, "_Monsieur le Duc_, I forbid you to speak ill of my
+mistress before me."
+
+"'Gramont goes too far,' said Napoleon with a dreamy smile.
+
+"'That is what we all thought, including Viel-Castel, who was
+nevertheless delighted.'
+
+"'Apropos of this,' said Napoleon after a silence, 'I have forgotten
+to ask you for news of the Countess Bielowsky.'
+
+"'She is very well, Sire, I thank Your Majesty,'
+
+"'And Clémentine? Still the same dear child?'
+
+"'Always, Sire. But....'
+
+"'It seems that M. Baroche is madly in love with her.'
+
+"'I am very much honored, Sire. But this honor becomes too
+burdensome.'
+
+"I had drawn from my pocket that morning's bills and I spread them out
+under the eyes of the Emperor.
+
+"He looked at them with his distant smile.
+
+"'Come, come. If that is all, I can fix that, since I have a favor to
+ask of you.'
+
+"'I am entirely at Your Majesty's service.'
+
+"He struck a gong.
+
+"'Send for M. Mocquard.'
+
+"'I have the grippe,' he said. 'Mocquard will explain the affair to
+you.'
+
+"The Emperor's private secretary entered.
+
+"'Here is Bielowsky, Mocquard,' said Napoleon. 'You know what I want
+him to do. Explain it to him.'
+
+"And he began to tap on the window-panes against which the rain was
+beating furiously.
+
+"'My dear Count,' said Mocquard, taking a chair, 'it is very simple.
+You have doubtless heard of a young explorer of promise, M. Henry
+Duveyrier.'
+
+"I shook my head as a sign of negation, very much surprised at this
+beginning.
+
+"'M. Duveyrier,' continued Mocquard, 'has returned to Paris after a
+particularly daring trip to South Africa and the Sahara. M. Vivien de
+Saint Martin, whom I have seen recently has assured me that the
+Geographical Society intends to confer its great gold medal upon him,
+in recognition of these exploits. In the course of his trip, M.
+Duveyrier has entered into negotiations with the chief of the people
+who always have been so rebellious to His Majesty's armies, the
+Tuareg.'
+
+"I looked at the Emperor. My bewilderment was such that he began to
+laugh.
+
+"'Listen,' he said.
+
+"'M. Duveyrier,' continued Mocquard, 'was able to arrange to have a
+delegation of these chiefs come to Paris to present their respects to
+His Majesty. Very important results may arise from this visit, and His
+Excellency the Colonial Minister, does not despair of obtaining the
+signature of a treaty of commerce, reserving special advantages to our
+fellow countrymen. These chiefs, five of them, among them Sheik Otham,
+_Amenokol_ or Sultan of the Confederation of Adzjer, arrive to-morrow
+morning at the _Gare de Lyon_. M. Duveyrier will meet them. But the
+Emperor has thought that besides....'
+
+"'I thought,' said Napoleon III, delighted by my bewilderment, 'I
+thought that it was correct to have some one of the Gentlemen of my
+Chamber wait upon the arrival of these Mussulman dignitaries. That is
+why you are here, my poor Bielowsky. Don't be frightened,' he added,
+laughing harder. 'You will have M. Duveyrier with you. You are charged
+only with the special part of the reception: to accompany these
+princes to the lunch that I am giving them to-morrow at the Tuileries;
+then, in the evening, discreetly on account of their religious
+scruples, to succeed in giving them a very high idea of Parisian
+civilization, with nothing exaggerated: do not forget that in the
+Sahara they are very high religious dignitaries. In that respect, I
+have confidence in your tact and give you _carte blanche_....
+Mocquard!'
+
+"'Sire?'
+
+"'You will apportion on the budget, half to Foreign Affairs, half to
+the Colonies, the funds Count Bielowsky will need for the reception of
+the Tuareg delegation. It seems to me that a hundred thousand francs,
+to begin.... The Count has only to tell you if he is forced to exceed
+that figure.'
+
+"Clémentine lived on the Rue Boccador, in a little Moorish pavilion
+that I had bought for her from M. de Lesseps. I found her in bed. When
+she saw me, she burst into tears.
+
+"'Great fools that we are!' she murmured amidst her sobs, 'what have
+we done!'
+
+"'Clémentine, tell me!'
+
+"'What have we done, what have we done!' she repeated, and I felt
+against me, her floods of black hair, her warm cheek which was
+fragrant with _eau de Nanon_.
+
+"'What is it? What can it be?'
+
+"'It is....' and she murmured something in my ear.
+
+"'No!' I said, stupefied. 'Are you quite sure?'
+
+"'Am I quite sure!'
+
+"I was thunderstruck.
+
+"'You don't seem much pleased,' she said sharply.
+
+"'I did not say that.... Though, really, I am very much pleased, I
+assure you.'
+
+"'Prove it to me: let us spend the day together tomorrow.'
+
+"'To-morrow!' I stammered. 'Impossible!'
+
+"'Why?' she demanded suspiciously.
+
+"'Because to-morrow, I have to pilot the Tuareg mission about Paris.
+The Emperor's orders.'
+
+"'What bluff is this?' asked Clémentine.
+
+"'I admit that nothing so much resembles a lie as the truth.'
+
+"I retold Mocquard's story to Clémentine, as well as I could. She
+listened to me with an expression that said: 'you can't fool me that
+way.'
+
+"Finally, furious, I burst out:
+
+"'You can see for yourself. I am dining with them, tomorrow; and I
+invite you.'
+
+"'I shall be very pleased to come,' said Clémentine with great
+dignity.
+
+"I admit that I lacked self-control at that minute. But think what a
+day it had been! Forty thousand francs of bills as soon as I woke up.
+The ordeal of escorting the savages around Paris all the next day.
+And, quite unexpectedly, the announcement of an approaching irregular
+paternity....
+
+"'After all,' I thought, as I returned to my house, 'these are the
+Emperor's orders. He has commanded me to give the Tuareg an idea of
+Parisian civilization. Clémentine comports herself very well in
+society and just now it would not do to aggravate her. I will engage a
+room for to-morrow at the _Café de Paris_, and tell Gramont-Caderousse
+and Viel-Castel to bring their silly mistresses. It will be very
+French to enjoy the attitude of these children of the desert in the
+midst of this little party.'
+
+"The train from Marseilles arrived at 10:20. On the platform I found
+M. Duveyrier, a young man of twenty-three with blue eyes and a little
+blond beard. The Tuareg fell into his arms as they descended from the
+train. He had lived with them for two years, in their tents, the devil
+knows where. He presented me to their chief, Sheik Otham, and to four
+others, splendid fellows in their blue cotton draperies and their
+amulets of red leather. Fortunately, they all spoke a kind of
+_sabir_[13] which helped things along.
+
+[Footnote 13: Dialect spoken in Algeria and the Levant--a mixture of
+Arabian, French, Italian and Spanish.]
+
+"I only mention in passing the lunch at the Tuileries, the visits in
+the evening to the Museum, to the _Hotel de Ville_, to the Imperial
+Printing Press. Each time, the Tuareg inscribed their names in the
+registry of the place they were visiting. It was interminable. To give
+you an idea, here is the complete name of Sheik Otham alone:
+Otham-ben-el-Hadj-el-Bekri-ben-el-Hadj-el-Faqqi-ben-Mohammad-Bouya-
+ben-si-Ahmed-es-Souki-ben-Mahmoud.[14]
+
+[Footnote 14: I have succeeded in finding on the registry of the
+Imperial Printing Press the names of the Tuareg chiefs and those who
+accompanied them on their visit, M. Henry Duveyrier and the Count
+Bielowsky. (Note by M. Leroux.)]
+
+"And there were five of them like that!
+
+"I maintained my good humor, however, because on the boulevards,
+everywhere, our success was colossal. At the _Café de Paris_, at
+six-thirty, it amounted to frenzy. The delegation, a little drunk,
+embraced me: '_Bono, Napoléon, bono, Eugénie; bono, Casimir; bono,
+Christians_.' Gramont-Caderousse and Viel-Castel were already in booth
+number eight, with Anna Grimaldi, of the _Folies Dramatiques_, and
+Hortense Schneider, both beautiful enough to strike terror to the
+heart. But the palm was for my dear Clémentine, when she entered. I
+must tell you how she was dressed: a gown of white tulle, over China
+blue tarletan, with pleatings, and ruffles of tulle over the
+pleatings. The tulle skirt was caught up on each side by garlands of
+green leaves mingled with rose clusters. Thus it formed a valence
+which allowed the tarletan skirt to show in front and on the sides.
+The garlands were caught up to the belt and, in the space between
+their branches, were knots of rose satin with long ends. The pointed
+bodice was draped with tulle, the billowy bertha of tulle was edged
+with lace. By way of head-dress, she had placed upon her black locks a
+diadem crown of the same flowers. Two long leafy tendrils were twined
+in her hair and fell on her neck. As cloak, she had a kind of scarf of
+blue cashmere embroidered in gold and lined with blue satin.
+
+"So much beauty and splendor immediately moved the Tuareg and,
+especially, Clémentine's right-hand neighbor, El-Hadj-ben-Guemâma,
+brother of Sheik Otham and Sultan of Ahaggar. By the time the soup
+arrived, a bouillon of wild game, seasoned with Tokay, he was already
+much smitten. When they served the compote of fruits Martinique _à la
+liqueur de Mme. Amphoux_, he showed every indication of illimitable
+passion. The Cyprian wine _de la Commanderie_ made him quite sure of
+his sentiments. Hortense kicked my foot under the table. Gramont,
+intending to do the same to Anna, made a mistake and aroused the
+indignant protests of one of the Tuareg. I can safely say that when
+the time came to go to Mabille, we were enlightened as to the manner
+in which our visitors respected the prohibition decreed by the Prophet
+in respect to wine.
+
+"At Mabille, while Clémentine, Hortense, Anna, Ludovic and the three
+Tuareg gave themselves over to the wildest gallops, Sheik Otham took
+me aside and confided to me, with visible emotion, a certain
+commission with which he had just been charged by his brother, Sheik
+Ahmed.
+
+"The next day, very early, I reached Clémentine's house.
+
+"'My dear,' I began, after having waked her, not without difficulty,
+'listen to me. I want to talk to you seriously.'
+
+"She rubbed her eyes a bit crossly.
+
+"'How did you like that young Arabian gentleman who was so taken with
+you last night?'
+
+"'Why, well enough,' she said, blushing.
+
+"'Do you know that in his country, he is the sovereign prince and
+reigns over territories five or six times greater than those of our
+august master, the Emperor Napoleon III?'
+
+"'He murmured something of that kind to me,' she said, becoming
+interested.
+
+"'Well, would it please you to mount on a throne, like our august
+sovereign, the Empress Eugénie?'
+
+"Clémentine, looked startled.
+
+"'His own brother, Sheik Otham, has charged me in his name to make
+this offer.'
+
+"Clémentine, dumb with amazement, did not reply.
+
+"'I, Empress!' she finally stammered.
+
+"'The decision rests with you. They must have your answer before
+midday. If it is 'yes,' we lunch together at Voisin's, and the bargain
+is made.'
+
+"I saw that she had already made up her mind, but she thought it well
+to display a little sentiment.
+
+"'And you, you!' she groaned. 'To leave you thus.... Never!'
+
+"'No foolishness, dear child,' I said gently. 'You don't know perhaps
+that I am ruined. Yes, completely: I don't even know how I am going to
+pay for your complexion cream!'
+
+"'Ah!' she sighed.
+
+"She added, however, 'And ... the child?'
+
+"'What child?'
+
+"'Our child ... our child.'
+
+"'Ah! That is so. Why, you will have to put it down to profit and
+loss. I am even convinced that Sheik Ahmed will find that it resembles
+him.'
+
+"'You can turn everything into a joke,' she said between laughing and
+crying.
+
+
+"The next morning, at the same hour, the Marseilles express carried
+away the five Tuareg and Clémentine. The young woman, radiant, was
+leaning on the arm of Sheik Ahmed, who was beside himself with joy.
+
+"'Have you many shops in your capital?' she asked him languidly.
+
+"And he, smiling broadly under his veil, replied:
+
+"'_Besef, besef, bono, roumis, bono_.'
+
+"At the last moment, Clémentine had a pang of emotion.
+
+"'Listen, Casimir, you have always been kind to me. I am going to be a
+queen. If you weary of it here, promise me, swear to me....'
+
+"The Sheik had understood. He took a ring from his finger and slipped
+it onto mine.
+
+"'Sidi Casimir, comrade,' he affirmed. 'You come--find us. Take Sidi
+Ahmed's ring and show it. Everybody at Ahaggar comrades. _Bono_
+Ahaggar, _bono_.'
+
+"When I came out of the _Gare de Lyon_, I had the feeling of having
+perpetrated an excellent joke."
+
+The Hetman of Jitomir was completely drunk. I had had the utmost
+difficulty in understanding the end of his story, because he
+interjected, every other moment, couplets from Jacques Offenbach's
+best score.
+
+    _Dans un bois passait un jeune homme,
+    Un jeune homme frais et beau,
+    Sa main tenait une pomme,
+    Vous voyez d'ici le tableau_.
+
+"Who was disagreeably surprised by the fall of Sedan? It was Casimir,
+poor old Casimir! Five thousand _louis_ to pay by the fifth of
+September, and not the first sou, no, not the first sou. I take my hat
+and my courage and go to the Tuileries. No more Emperor there, no! But
+the Empress was so kind. I found her alone--ah, people scatter quickly
+under such circumstances!--alone, with a senator, M. Mérimée, the only
+literary man I have ever known who was at the same time a man of the
+world. 'Madame,' he was saying to her, 'you must give up all hope. M.
+Thiers, whom I just met on the _Pont Royal_, would listen to nothing.'
+
+"'Madame,' I said in my turn, 'Your Majesty always will know where her
+true friends are.'
+
+"And I kissed her hand.
+
+        "_Evohé, que les déesses
+        Out de drôles de façons
+    Pour enjôler, pour enjôler, pour enjôler les gaâarçons_!
+
+"I returned to my home in the Rue de Lille. On the way I encountered
+the rabble going from the _Corps Législatif_ to the Hotel de Ville. My
+mind was made up.
+
+"'Madame,' I said to my wife, 'my pistols.'
+
+"'What is the matter?' she asked, frightened.
+
+"'All is lost. But there is still a chance to preserve my honor. I am
+going to be killed on the barricades.'
+
+"'Ah! Casimir,' she sobbed, falling into my arms. 'I have misjudged
+you. Will you forgive me?'
+
+"'I forgive you, Aurelie,' I said with dignified emotion. 'I have not
+always been right myself.'
+
+"I tore myself away from this mad scene. It was six o'clock. On the
+Rue de Bac, I hailed a cab on its mad career.
+
+"'Twenty francs tip,' I said to the coachman, 'if you get to the _Gare
+de Lyon_ in time for the Marseilles train, six thirty-seven.'"
+
+The Hetman of Jitomir could say no more. He had rolled over on the
+cushions and slept with clenched fists.
+
+I walked unsteadily to the great window.
+
+The sun was rising, pale yellow, behind the sharp blue mountains.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+HOURS OF WAITING
+
+
+It was at night that Saint-Avit liked to tell me a little of his
+enthralling history. He gave it to me in short installments, exact and
+chronological, never anticipating the episodes of a drama whose tragic
+outcome I knew already. Not that he wished to obtain more effect that
+way--I felt that he was far removed from any calculation of that sort!
+Simply from the extraordinary nervousness into which he was thrown by
+recalling such memories.
+
+One evening, the mail from France had just arrived. The letters that
+Chatelain had handed us lay upon the little table, not yet opened. By
+the light of the lamp, a pale halo in the midst of the great black
+desert, we were able to recognize the writing of the addresses. Oh!
+the victorious smile of Saint-Avit when, pushing aside all those
+letters, I said to him in a trembling voice:
+
+"Go on."
+
+He acquiesced without further words.
+
+"Nothing can give you any idea of the fever I was in from the day when
+the Hetman of Jitomir told me of his adventures to the day when I
+found myself in the presence of Antinea. The strangest part was that
+the thought that I was, in a way, condemned to death, did not enter
+into this fever. On the contrary, it was stimulated by my desire for
+the event which would be the signal of my downfall, the summons from
+Antinea. But this summons was not speedy in coming. And from this
+delay, arose my unhealthy exasperation.
+
+"Did I have any lucid moments in the course of these hours? I do not
+think so. I do not recall having even said to myself, 'What, aren't
+you ashamed? Captive in an unheard of situation, you not only are not
+trying to escape, but you even bless your servitude and look forward
+to your ruin.' I did not even color my desire to remain there, to
+enjoy the next step in the adventure, by the pretext I might have
+given--unwillingness to escape without Morhange. If I felt a vague
+uneasiness at not seeing him again, it was not because of a desire to
+know that he was well and safe.
+
+"Well and safe, I knew him to be, moreover. The Tuareg slaves of
+Antinea's household were certainly not very communicative. The women
+were hardly more loquacious. I heard, it is true, from Sydya and
+Aguida, that my companion liked pomegranates or that he could not
+endure _kouskous_ of bananas. But if I asked for a different kind of
+information, they fled, in fright, down the long corridors. With
+Tanit-Zerga, it was different. This child seemed to have a distaste
+for mentioning before me anything bearing in any way upon Antinea.
+Nevertheless, I knew that she was devoted to her mistress with a
+doglike fidelity. But she maintained an obstinate silence if I
+pronounced her name or, persisting, the name of Morhange.
+
+"As for the Europeans, I did not care to question these sinister
+puppets. Besides, all three were difficult of approach. The Hetman of
+Jitomir was sinking deeper and deeper into alcohol. What intelligence
+remained to him, he seemed to have dissolved the evening when he had
+invoked his youth for me. I met him from time to time in the corridors
+that had become all at once too narrow for him, humming in a thick
+voice a couplet from the music of _La Reine Hortense_.
+
+_De ma fille Isabelle
+Sois l'époux à l'instant,
+Car elle est la plus belle
+Et toi, le plus vaillant_.
+
+"As for Pastor Spardek, I would cheerfully have killed the old
+skinflint. And the hideous little man with the decorations, the placid
+printer of labels for the red marble hall,--how could I meet him
+without wanting to cry out in his face: 'Eh! eh! Sir Professor, a very
+curious case of apocope: [Greek: Atlantinea]. Suppression of _alpha_,
+of _tau_ and of _lambda_! I would like to direct your attention to
+another case as curious: [Greek: klêmêntinea], Clémentine. Apocope of
+_kappa_, of _lamba_, of _epsilon_ and of _mu_. If Morhange were with
+us, he would tell you many charming erudite things about it. But,
+alas! Morhange does not deign to come among us any more. We never see
+Morhange.'
+
+"My fever for information found a little more favorable reception from
+Rosita, the old Negress manicure. Never have I had my nails polished
+so often as during those days of waiting! Now--after six years--she
+must be dead. I shall not wrong her memory by recording that she was
+very partial to the bottle. The poor old soul was defenseless against
+those that I brought her and that I emptied with her, through
+politeness.
+
+"Unlike the other slaves, who are brought from the South toward Turkey
+by the merchants of Rhât, she was born in Constantinople and had been
+brought into Africa by her master when he became _kaïmakam_ of
+Rhadamès.... But don't let me complicate this already wandering
+history by the incantations of this manicure.
+
+"'Antinea,' she said to me, 'is the daughter of
+El-Hadj-Ahmed-ben-Guemâma, Sultan of Ahaggar, and Sheik of the great
+and noble tribe of Kel-Rhelâ. She was born in the year twelve hundred
+and eighty-one of the Hegira. She has never wished to marry any one.
+Her wish has been respected for the will of women is sovereign in this
+Ahaggar where she rules to-day. She is a cousin of Sidi-el-Senoussi,
+and, if she speaks the word, Christian blood will flow from Djerid to
+Touat, and from Tchad to Senegal. If she had wished it, she might have
+lived beautiful and respected in the land of the Christians. But she
+prefers to have them come to her.'
+
+"'Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh,' I said, 'do you know him? He is entirely
+devoted to her?'
+
+"'Nobody here knows Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh very well, because he is
+continually traveling. It is true that he is entirely devoted to
+Antinea. Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh is a Senoussi, and Antinea is the cousin
+of the chief of the Senoussi. Besides, he owes his life to her. He is
+one of the men who assassinated the great Kébir Flatters. On account
+of that, Ikenoukhen, _amenokol_ of the Adzjer Tuareg, fearing French
+reprisals, wanted to deliver Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh to them. When the
+whole Sahara turned against him, he found asylum with Antinea.
+Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh will never forget it, for he is brave and observes
+the law of the Prophet. To thank her, he led to Antinea, who was then
+twenty years old, three French officers of the first troops of
+occupation in Tunis. They are the ones who are numbered, in the red
+marble hall, 1, 2, and 3.'
+
+"'And Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh has always fulfilled his duties
+successfully?'
+
+"'Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh is well trained, and he knows the vast Sahara as
+I know my little room at the top of the mountain. At first, he made
+mistakes. That is how, on his first trips, he brought back old Le
+Mesge and marabout Spardek.'
+
+"'What did Antinea say when she saw them?'
+
+"'Antinea? She laughed so hard that she spared them.
+Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh was vexed to see her laugh so. Since then, he has
+never made a mistake.'
+
+"'He has never made a mistake?'
+
+"'No. I have cared for the hands and feet of all that he has brought
+here. All were young and handsome. But I think that your comrade, whom
+they brought to me the other day, after you were here, is the
+handsomest of all.'
+
+"'Why,' I asked, turning the conversation, 'why, since she spared them
+their lives, did she not free the pastor and M. Le Mesge?'
+
+"'She has found them useful, it seems,' said the old woman. 'And then,
+whoever once enters here, can never leave. Otherwise, the French would
+soon be here and, when they saw the hall of red marble, they would
+massacre everybody. Besides, of all those whom Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh has
+brought here, no one, save one, has wished to escape after seeing
+Antinea.'
+
+"'She keeps them a long time?'
+
+"'That depends upon them and the pleasure that she takes in them. Two
+months, three months, on the average. It depends. A big Belgian
+officer, formed like a colossus, didn't last a week. On the other
+hand, everyone here remembers little Douglas Kaine, an English
+officer: she kept him almost a year.'
+
+"'And then?'
+
+"'And then, he died,' said the old woman as if astonished at my
+question.
+
+"'Of what did he die?'
+
+"She used the same phrase as M. Le Mesge:
+
+"'Like all the others: of love.
+
+"'Of love,' she continued. "They all die of love when they see that
+their time is ended, and that Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh has gone to find
+others. Several have died quietly with tears in their great eyes. They
+neither ate nor slept any more. A French naval officer went mad. All
+night, he sang a sad song of his native country, a song which echoed
+through the whole mountain. Another, a Spaniard, was as if maddened:
+he tried to bite. It was necessary to kill him. Many have died of
+_kif_, a _kif_ that is more violent than opium. When they no longer
+have Antinea, they smoke, smoke. Most have died that way ... the
+happiest. Little Kaine died differently.'
+
+"'How did little Kaine die?'
+
+"'In a way that pained us all very much. I told you that he stayed
+longer among us than anyone else. We had become used to him. In
+Antinea's room, on a little Kairouan table, painted in blue and gold,
+there is a gong with a long silver hammer with an ebony handle, very
+heavy. Aguida told me about it. When Antinea gave little Kaine his
+dismissal, smiling as she always does, he stopped in front of her,
+mute, very pale. She struck the gong for someone to take him away. A
+Targa slave came. But little Kaine had leapt for the hammer, and the
+Targa lay on the ground with his skull smashed. Antinea smiled all the
+time. They led little Kaine to his room. The same night, eluding
+guards, he jumped out of his window at a height of two hundred feet.
+The workmen in the embalming room told me that they had the greatest
+difficulty with his body. But they succeeded very well. You have only
+to go see for yourself. He occupies niche number 26 in the red marble
+hall.'
+
+"The old woman drowned her emotion in her glass.
+
+"'Two days before,' she continued, 'I had done his nails, here, for
+this was his room. On the wall, near the window, he had written
+something in the stone with his knife. See, it is still here.'
+
+"'Was it not Fate, that on this July midnight....'
+
+"At any other moment, that verse, traced in the stone of the window
+through which the English officer had hurled himself, would have
+killed me with overpowering emotion. But just then, another thought
+was in my heart.
+
+"'Tell me,' I said, controlling my voice as well as I could, 'when
+Antinea holds one of us in her power, she shuts him up near her, does
+she not? Nobody sees him any more?'
+
+The old woman shook her head.
+
+"'She is not afraid that he will escape. The mountain is well guarded.
+Antinea has only to strike her silver gong; he will be brought back to
+her immediately.'
+
+"'But my companion. I have not see him since she sent for him....'
+
+"The Negress smiled comprehendingly.
+
+"'If you have not seen him, it is because he prefers to remain near
+her. Antinea does not force him to. Neither does she prevent him.'
+
+"I struck my fist violently upon the table.
+
+"'Get along with you, old fool. And be quick about it!'
+
+"Rosita fled frightened, hardly taking time to collect her little
+instruments.
+
+"'Was it not Fate, that on this July midnight....'
+
+"I obeyed the Negress's suggestion. Following the corridors, losing my
+way, set on the right road again by the Reverend Spardek, I pushed
+open the door of the red marble hall. I entered.
+
+"The freshness of the perfumed crypt did me good. No place can be so
+sinister that it is not, as it were, purified by the murmur of running
+water. The cascade, gurgling in the middle hall, comforted me. One day
+before an attack I was lying with my section in deep grass, waiting
+for the moment, the blast of the bugle, which would demand that we
+leap forward into the hail of bullets. A stream was at my feet. I
+listened to its fresh rippling. I admired the play of light and shade
+in the transparent water, the little beasts, the little black fish,
+the green grass, the yellow wrinkled sand.... The mystery of water
+always has carried me out of myself.
+
+"Here, in this magic hall, my thoughts were held by the dark
+cascade. It felt friendly. It kept me from faltering in the midst of
+these rigid evidences of so many monstrous sacrifices.... Number 26.
+It was he all right. Lieutenant Douglas Kaine, born at Edinburgh,
+September 21, 1862. Died at Ahaggar, July 16, 1890. Twenty-eight.
+He wasn't even twenty-eight! His face was thin under the coat of
+orichalch. His mouth sad and passionate. It was certainly he. Poor
+youngster.--Edinburgh,--I knew Edinburgh, without ever having been
+there. From the wall of the castle you can see the Pentland hills.
+"Look a little lower down," said Stevenson's sweet Miss Flora to Anne
+of Saint-Yves, "look a little lower down and you will see, in the fold
+of the hill, a clump of trees and a curl of smoke that rises from
+among them. That is Swanston Cottage, where my brother and I live with
+my aunt. If it really pleases you to see it, I shall be glad." When he
+left for Darfour, Douglas Kaine must surely have left in Edinburgh a
+Miss Flora, as blonde as Saint-Yves' Flora. But what are these slips
+of girls beside Antinea! Kaine, however sensible a mortal, however
+made for this kind of love, had loved otherwise. He was dead. And here
+was number 27, on account of whom Kaine dashed himself on the rocks of
+the Sahara, and who, in his turn, is dead also.
+
+"To die, to love. How naturally the word resounded in the red marble
+hall. How Antinea seemed to tower above that circle of pale statues!
+Does love, then, need so much death in order that it may be
+multiplied? Other women, in other parts of the world, are doubtless as
+beautiful as Antinea, more beautiful perhaps. I hold you to witness
+that I have not said much about her beauty. Why then, this obsession,
+this fever, this consumption of all my being? Why am I ready, for the
+sake of pressing this quivering form within my arms for one instant,
+to face things that I dare not think of for fear I should tremble
+before them?
+
+"Here is number 53, the last. Morhange will be 54. I shall be 55. In
+six months, eight, perhaps,--what difference anyway?--I shall be
+hoisted into this niche, an image without eyes, a dead soul, a
+finished body.
+
+"I touched the heights of bliss, of exaltation that can be felt. What
+a child I was, just now! I lost my temper with a Negro manicure. I was
+jealous of Morhange, on my word! Why not, since I was at it, be
+jealous of those here present; then of the others, the absent, who
+will come, one by one, to fill the black circle of the still empty
+niches.... Morhange, I know, is at this moment with Antinea, and it is
+to me a bitter and splendid joy to think of his joy. But some evening,
+in three months, four perhaps, the embalmers will come here. Niche 54
+will receive its prey. Then a Targa slave will advance toward me. I
+shall shiver with superb ecstasy. He will touch my arm. And it will be
+my turn to penetrate into eternity by the bleeding door of love.
+
+"When I emerged from my meditation, I found myself back in the
+library, where the falling night obscured the shadows of the people
+who were assembled there.
+
+"I recognized M. Le Mesge, the Pastor, the Hetman, Aguida, two Tuareg
+slaves, still more, all joining in the most animated conference.
+
+"I drew nearer, astonished, even alarmed to see together so many
+people who ordinarily felt no kind of sympathy for each other.
+
+"An unheard of occurrence had thrown all the people of the mountain
+into uproar.
+
+"Two Spanish explorers, come from Rio de Oro, had been seen to the
+West, in Adhar Ahnet.
+
+"As soon as Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh was informed, he had prepared to go to
+meet them.
+
+"At that instant he had received the order to do nothing.
+
+"Henceforth it was impossible to doubt.
+
+"For the first time, Antinea was in love."
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+THE LAMENT OF TANIT-ZERGA
+
+
+"_Arraôu, arraôu_."
+
+I roused myself vaguely from the half sleep to which I had finally
+succumbed. I half opened my eyes. Immediately I flattened back.
+
+"_Arraôu_."
+
+Two feet from my face was the muzzle of King Hiram, yellow with a
+tracery of black. The leopard was helping me to wake up; otherwise he
+took little interest, for he yawned; his dark red jaws, beautiful
+gleaming white fangs, opened and closed lazily.
+
+At the same moment I heard a burst of laughter.
+
+It was little Tanit-Zerga. She was crouching on a cushion near the
+divan where I was stretched out, curiously watching my close interview
+with the leopard.
+
+"King Hiram was bored," she felt obliged to explain to me. "I brought
+him."
+
+"How nice," I growled. "Only tell me, could he not have gone somewhere
+else to be amused?"
+
+"He is all alone now," said the girl. "_They_ have sent him away. He
+made too much noise when he played."
+
+These words recalled me to the events of the previous evening.
+
+"If you like, I will make him go away," said Tanit-Zerga.
+
+"No, let him alone."
+
+I looked at the leopard with sympathy. Our common misfortune brought
+us together.
+
+I even caressed his rounded forehead. King Hiram showed his
+contentment by stretching out at full length and uncurling his great
+amber claws. The mat on the floor had much to suffer.
+
+"Galé is here, too," said the little girl.
+
+"Galé! Who may he be?"
+
+At the same time, I saw on Tanit-Zerga's knees a strange animal,
+about the size of a big cat, with flat ears, and a long muzzle. Its
+pale gray fur was rough.
+
+It was watching me with queer little pink eyes.
+
+"It is my mongoose," explained Tanit-Zerga.
+
+"Come now," I said sharply, "is that all?"
+
+I must have looked so crabbed and ridiculous that Tanit-Zerga began to
+laugh. I laughed, too.
+
+"Galé is my friend," she said when she was serious again. "I saved her
+life. It was when she was quite little. I will tell you about it some
+day. See how good-natured she is."
+
+So saying, she dropped the mongoose on my knees.
+
+"It is very nice of you, Tanit-Zerga," I said, "to come and pay me a
+visit." I passed my hand slowly over the animal's back. "What time is
+it now?"
+
+"A little after nine. See, the sun is already high. Let me draw the
+shade."
+
+The room was in darkness. Galé's eyes grew redder. King Hiram's became
+green.
+
+"It is very nice of you," I repeated, pursuing my idea. "I see that
+you are free to-day. You never came so early before."
+
+A shade passed over the girl's forehead.
+
+"Yes, I am free," she said, almost bitterly.
+
+I looked at Tanit-Zerga more closely. For the first time I realized
+that she was beautiful. Her hair, which she wore falling over her
+shoulders, was not so much curly as it was gently waving. Her features
+were of remarkable fineness: the nose very straight, a small mouth
+with delicate lips, a strong chin. She was not black, but copper
+colored. Her slender graceful body had nothing in common with the
+disgusting thick sausages which the carefully cared for bodies of the
+blacks become.
+
+A large circle of copper made a heavy decoration around her forehead
+and hair. She had four bracelets, still heavier, on her wrists and
+anklets, and, for clothing, a green silk tunic, slashed in points,
+braided with gold. Green, bronze, gold.
+
+"You are a Sonrhaï, Tanit-Zerga?" I asked gently.
+
+She replied with almost ferocious pride:
+
+"I am a Sonrhaï."
+
+"Strange little thing," I thought.
+
+Evidently this was a subject on which Tanit-Zerga did not intend the
+conversation to turn. I recalled how, almost painfully, she had
+pronounced that "they," when she had told me how they had driven away
+King Hiram.
+
+"I am a Sonrhaï," she repeated. "I was born at Gâo, on the Niger, the
+ancient Sonrhaï capital. My fathers reigned over the great Mandingue
+Empire. You need not scorn me because I am here as a slave."
+
+In a ray of sunlight, Galé, seated on his little haunches, washed his
+shining mustaches with his forepaws; and King Hiram, stretched out on
+the mat, groaned plaintively in his sleep.
+
+"He is dreaming," said Tanit-Zerga, a finger on her lips.
+
+There was a moment of silence. Then she said:
+
+"You must be hungry. And I do not think that you will want to eat with
+the others."
+
+I did not answer.
+
+"You must eat," she continued. "If you like, I will go get something
+to eat for you and me. I will bring King Hiram's and Galé's dinner
+here, too. When you are sad, you should not stay alone."
+
+And the little green and gold fairy vanished, without waiting for my
+answer.
+
+That was how my friendship with Tanit-Zerga began. Each morning she
+came to my room with the two beasts. She rarely spoke to me of
+Antinea, and when she did, it was always indirectly. The question that
+she saw ceaselessly hovering on my lips seemed to be unbearable to
+her, and I felt her avoiding all the subjects towards which I, myself,
+dared not direct the conversation.
+
+To make sure of avoiding them, she prattled, prattled, prattled, like
+a nervous little parokeet.
+
+I was sick and this Sister of Charity in green and bronze silk tended
+me with such care as never was before. The two wild beasts, the big
+and the little, were there, each side of my couch, and, during my
+delirium, I saw their mysterious, sad eyes fixed on me.
+
+In her melodious voice, Tanit-Zerga told me wonderful stories, and
+among them, the one she thought most wonderful, the story of her life.
+
+It was not till much later, very suddenly, that I realized how far
+this little barbarian had penetrated into my own life. Wherever thou
+art at this hour, dear little girl, from whatever peaceful shores thou
+watchest my tragedy, cast a look at thy friend, pardon him for not
+having accorded thee, from the very first, the gratitude that thou
+deservedest so richly.
+
+"I remember from my childhood," she said, "the vision of a yellow and
+rose-colored sun rising through the morning mists over the smooth
+waves of a great river, 'the river where there is water,' the Niger,
+it was.... But you are not listening to me."
+
+"I am listening to you, I swear it, little Tanit-Zerga."
+
+"You are sure I am not wearying you? You want me to go on?"
+
+"Go on, little Tanit-Zerga, go on."
+
+"Well, with my little companions, of whom I was very fond, I played at
+the edge of the river where there is water, under the jujube trees,
+brothers of the _zeg-zeg_, the spines of which pierced the head of
+your prophet and which we call 'the tree of Paradise' because our
+prophet told us that under it would live those chosen of Paradise;[15]
+and which is sometimes so big, so big, that a horseman cannot traverse
+its shade in a century.
+
+[Footnote 15: The Koran, Chapter 66, verse 17. (Note by M. Leroux.)]
+
+"There we wove beautiful garlands with mimosa, the pink flowers of the
+caper bush and white cockles. Then we threw them in the green water to
+ward off evil spirits; and we laughed like mad things when a great
+snorting hippopotamus raised his swollen head and we bombarded him in
+glee until he had to plunge back again with a tremendous splash.
+
+"That was in the mornings. Then there fell on Gâo the deathlike lull
+of the red siesta. When that was finished, we came back to the edge of
+the river to see the enormous crocodiles with bronze goggle-eyes creep
+along little by little, among the clouds of mosquitoes and day-flies
+on the banks, and work their way traitorously into the yellow ooze of
+the mud flats.
+
+"Then we bombarded them, as we had done the hippopotamus in the
+morning; and to fête the sun setting behind the black branches of the
+_douldouls_, we made a circle, stamping our feet, then clapping our
+hands, as we sang the Sonrhaï hymn.
+
+"Such were the ordinary occupations of free little girls. But you must
+not think that we were only frivolous; and I will tell you, if you
+like, how I, who am talking to you, I saved a French chieftain who
+must be vastly greater than yourself, to judge by the number of gold
+ribbons he had on his white sleeves."
+
+"Tell me, little Tanit-Zerga," I said, my eyes elsewhere.
+
+"You have no right to smile," she said a little aggrieved, "and to pay
+no attention to me. But never mind! It is for myself that I tell these
+things, for the sake of recollection. Above Gâo, the Niger makes a
+bend. There is a little promontory in the river, thickly covered with
+large gum trees. It was an evening in August and the sun was sinking.
+Not a bird in the forest but had gone to rest, motionless until the
+morning. Suddenly we heard an unfamiliar noise in the west, boum-boum,
+boum-boum, boum-baraboum, boum-boum, growing louder--boum-boum,
+boum-baraboum--and, suddenly, there was a great flight of water birds,
+aigrettes, pelicans, wild ducks and teal, which scattered over the gum
+trees, followed by a column of black smoke, which was scarcely
+flurried by the breeze that was springing up.
+
+"It was a gunboat, turning the point, sending out a wake that shook
+the overhanging bushes on each side of the river. One could see that
+the red, white and blue flag on the stern had drooped till it was
+dragging in the water, so heavy was the evening.
+
+"She stopped at the little point of land. A small boat was let down,
+manned by two native soldiers who rowed, and three chiefs who soon
+leapt ashore.
+
+"The oldest, a French _marabout_, with a great white burnous, who knew
+our language marvelously, asked to speak to Sheik Sonni-Azkia. When my
+father advanced and told him that it was he, the _marabout_ told him
+that the commandant of the Club at Timbuctoo was very angry, that a
+mile from there the gunboat had run on an invisible pile of logs, that
+she had sprung a leak and that she could not so continue her voyage
+towards Ansango.
+
+"My father replied that the French who protected the poor natives
+against the Tuareg were welcome: that it was not from evil design, but
+for fish that they had built the barrage, and that he put all the
+resources of Gâo, including the forge, at the disposition of the
+French chief, for repairing the gunboat.
+
+"While they were talking, the French chief looked at me and I looked
+at him. He was already middle-aged, tall, with shoulders a little
+bent, and blue eyes as clear as the stream whose name I bear.
+
+"'Come here, little one,' he said in his gentle voice.
+
+"'I am the daughter of Sheik Sonni-Azkia, and I do only what I wish,'
+I replied, vexed at his informality.
+
+"'You are right,' he answered smiling, 'for you are pretty. Will you
+give me the flowers that you have around your neck?'
+
+"It was a great necklace of purple hibiscus. I held it out to him. He
+kissed me. The peace was made.
+
+"Meantime, under the direction of my father, the native soldiers and
+strong men of the tribe had hauled the gunboat into a pocket of the
+river.
+
+"'There is work there for all day to-morrow, Colonel,' said the chief
+mechanic, after inspecting the leaks. 'We won't be able to get away
+before the day after to-morrow. And, if we're to do that, these lazy
+soldiers mustn't loaf on the job.'
+
+"'What an awful bore,' groaned my new friend.
+
+"But his ill-humor did not last long, so ardently did my little
+companions and I seek to distract him. He listened to our most
+beautiful songs; and, to thank us, made us taste the good things that
+had been brought from the boat for his dinner. He slept in our great
+cabin, which my father gave up to him; and for a long time, before I
+went to sleep, I looked through the cracks of the cabin where I lay
+with my mother, at the lights of the gunboat trembling in red ripples
+on the surface of the dark waves.
+
+"That night, I had a frightful dream. I saw my friend, the French
+officer, sleeping in peace, while a great crow hung croaking above his
+head: 'Caw,--caw--the shade of the gum trees of Gâo--caw, caw--will
+avail nothing tomorrow night--caw, caw--to the white chief nor to his
+escort.'
+
+"Dawn had scarcely begun, when I went to find the native soldiers.
+They were stretched out on the bridge of the gunboat, taking advantage
+of the fact that the whites were still sleeping, to do nothing.
+
+"I approached the oldest one and spoke to him with authority:
+
+'Listen, I saw the black crow in a dream last night. He told me that
+the shade of the gum trees of Gâo would be fatal to your chief in the
+coming night!...'
+
+"And, as they all remained motionless, stretched out, gazing at the
+sky, without even seeming to have heard, I added:
+
+"'And to his escort!'
+
+"It was the hour when the sun was highest, and the Colonel was eating
+in the cabin with the other Frenchmen, when the chief mechanic
+entered.
+
+"'I don't know what has come over the natives. They are working like
+angels. If they keep on this way, Colonel, we shall be able to leave
+this evening.'
+
+"'Very good,' said the Colonel, 'but don't let them spoil the job by
+too much haste. We don't have to be at Ansango before the end of the
+week. It will be better to start in the morning.'
+
+"I trembled. Suppliantly I approached and told him the story of my
+dream. He listened with a smile of astonishment; then, at the last, he
+said gravely:
+
+"'It is agreed, little Tanit-Zerga. We will leave this evening if you
+wish it.'
+
+"And he kissed me.
+
+"The darkness had already fallen when the gunboat, now repaired, left
+the harbor. My friend stood in the midst of the group of Frenchmen who
+waved their caps as long as we could see them. Standing alone on the
+rickety jetty, I waited, watching the water flow by, until the last
+sound of the steam-driven vessel, boum-baraboum, had died away into
+the night."[16]
+
+[Footnote 16: Cf. the records and the _Bulletin de la Société de
+Géographie de Paris_ (1897) for the cruises on the Niger, made by the
+_Commandant_ of the Timbuctoo region, Colonel Joffre, Lieutenants
+Baudry and Bluset, and by Father Hacquart of the White Fathers. (Note
+by M. Leroux.)]
+
+Tanit-Zerga paused.
+
+"That was the last night of Gâo. While I was sleeping and the moon was
+still high above the forest, a dog yelped, but only for an instant.
+Then came the cry of men, then of women, the kind of cry that you can
+never forget if you have once heard it. When the sun rose, it found
+me, quite naked, running and stumbling towards the north with my
+little companions, beside the swiftly moving camels of the Tuareg who
+escorted us. Behind, followed the women of the tribe, my mother among
+them, two by two, the yoke upon their necks. There were not many men.
+Almost all lay with their throats cut under the ruins of the thatch of
+Gâo beside my father, brave Sonni-Azkia. Once again Gâo had been razed
+by a band of Awellimiden, who had come to massacre the French on their
+gunboat.
+
+"The Tuareg hurried us, hurried us, for they were afraid of being
+pursued. We traveled thus for ten days; and, as the millet and hemp
+disappeared, the march became more frightful. Finally, near Isakeryen,
+in the country of Kidal, the Tuareg sold us to a caravan of Trarzan
+Moors who were going from Bamrouk to Rhât. At first, because they went
+more slowly, it seemed good fortune. But, before long, the desert was
+an expanse of rough pebbles, and the women began to fall. As for the
+men, the last of them had died far back under the blows of the stick
+for having refused to go farther.
+
+"I still had the strength to keep going, and even as far in the lead
+as possible, so as not to hear the cries of my little playmates. Each
+time one of them fell by the way, unable to rise again, they saw one
+of the drivers descend from his camel and drag her into the bushes a
+little way to cut her throat. But one day, I heard a cry that made me
+turn around. It was my mother. She was kneeling, holding out her poor
+arms to me. In an instant I was beside her. But a great Moor, dressed
+in white, separated us. A red moroccan case hung around his neck from
+a black chaplet. He drew a cutlass from it. I can still see the blue
+steel on the brown skin. Another horrible cry. An instant later,
+driven by a club, I was trotting ahead, swallowing my little tears,
+trying to regain my place in the caravan.
+
+"Near the wells of Asiou, the Moors were attacked by a party of Tuareg
+of Kel-Tazeholet, serfs of the great tribe of Kel-Rhelâ, which rules
+over Ahaggar. They, in their turn, were massacred to the last man.
+That is how I was brought here, and offered as homage to Antinea, who
+was pleased with me and ever since has been kind to me. That is why it
+is no slave who soothes your fever to-day with stories that you do not
+even listen to, but the last descendant of the great Sonrhaï Emperors,
+of Sonni-Ali, the destroyer of men and of countries, of Mohammed
+Azkia, who made the pilgrimage to Mecca, taking with him fifteen
+hundred cavaliers and three hundred thousand _mithkal_ of gold in the
+days when our power stretched without rival from Chad to Touat and to
+the western sea, and when Gâo raised her cupola, sister of the sky,
+above the other cities, higher above her rival cupolas than is the
+tamarisk above the humble plants of sorghum."
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+THE SILVER HAMMER
+
+    _Je ne m'en défends plus et je ne veux qu' aller
+    Reconnaître la place où je dois l'immoler_.
+                                      (Andromaque.)
+
+
+It was this sort of a night when what I am going to tell you now
+happened. Toward five o'clock the sky clouded over and a sense of the
+coming storm trembled in the stifling air.
+
+I shall always remember it. It was the fifth of January, 1897.
+
+King Hiram and Galé lay heavily on the matting of my room. Leaning on
+my elbows beside Tanit-Zerga in the rock-hewn window, I spied the
+advance tremors of lightning.
+
+One by one they rose, streaking the now total darkness with their
+bluish stripes. But no burst of thunder followed. The storm did not
+attain the peaks of Ahaggar. It passed without breaking, leaving us in
+our gloomy bath of sweat.
+
+"I am going to bed," said Tanit-Zerga.
+
+I have said that her room was above mine. Its bay window was some
+thirty feet above that before which I lay.
+
+She took Galé in her arms. But King Hiram would have none of it.
+Digging his four paws into the matting, he whined in anger and
+uneasiness.
+
+"Leave him," I finally said to Tanit-Zerga. "For once he may sleep
+here."
+
+So it was that this little beast incurred his large share of
+responsibility in the events which followed.
+
+Left alone, I became lost in my reflections. The night was black. The
+whole mountain was shrouded in silence.
+
+It took the louder and louder growls of the leopard to rouse me from
+my meditation.
+
+King Hiram was braced against the door, digging at it with his drawn
+claws. He, who had refused to follow Tanit-Zerga a while ago, now
+wanted to go out. He was determined to go out.
+
+"Be still," I said to him. "Enough of that. Lie down!"
+
+I tried to pull him away from the door.
+
+I succeeded only in getting a staggering blow from his paw.
+
+Then I sat down on the divan.
+
+My quiet was short. "Be honest with yourself," I said. "Since Morhange
+abandoned you, since the day when you saw Antinea, you have had only
+one idea. What good is it to beguile yourself with the stories of
+Tanit-Zerga, charming as they are? This leopard is a pretext, perhaps
+a guide. Oh, you know that mysterious things are going to happen
+tonight. How have you been able to keep from doing anything as long as
+this?"
+
+Immediately I made a resolve.
+
+"If I open the door," I thought, "King Hiram will leap down the
+corridor and I shall have great difficulty in following him. I must
+find some other way."
+
+The shade of the window was worked by means of a small cord. I pulled
+it down. Then I tied it into a firm leash which I fastened to the
+metal collar of the leopard.
+
+I half opened the door.
+
+"There, now you can go. But quietly, quietly."
+
+I had all the trouble in the world to curb the ardor of King Hiram who
+dragged me along the shadowy labyrinth of corridors. It was shortly
+before nine o'clock, and the rose-colored night lights were almost
+burned out in the niches. Now and then, we passed one which was
+casting its last flickers. What a labyrinth! I realized that from here
+on I would not recognize the way to her room. I could only follow the
+leopard.
+
+At first furious, he gradually became used to towing me. He strained
+ahead, belly to the ground, with snuffs of joy.
+
+Nothing is more like one black corridor than another black corridor.
+Doubt seized me. Suppose I should suddenly find myself in the baccarat
+room! But that was unjust to King Hiram. Barred too long from the dear
+presence, the good beast was taking me exactly where I wanted him to
+take me.
+
+Suddenly, at a turn, the darkness ahead lifted. A rose window, faintly
+glimmering red and green, appeared before us.
+
+The leopard stopped with a low growl before the door in which the rose
+window was cut.
+
+I recognized it as the door through which the white Targa had led me
+the day after my arrival, when I had been set upon by King Hiram, when
+I had found myself in the presence of Antinea.
+
+"We are much better friends to-day," I said, flattering him so that he
+would not give a dangerously loud growl.
+
+I tried to open the door. The light, coming through the window, fell
+upon the floor, green and red.
+
+A simple latch, which I turned. I shortened the leash to have better
+control of King Hiram who was getting nervous.
+
+The great room where I had seen Antinea for the first time was
+completely dark. But the garden on which it gave shone under a
+clouded moon, in a sky weighted down with the storm which did not
+break. Not a breath of air. The lake gleamed like a sheet of pewter.
+
+I seated myself on a cushion, holding the leopard firmly between my
+knees. He was purring with impatience. I was thinking. Not about my
+goal. For a long time that had been fixed. But about the means.
+
+Then, I seemed to hear a distant murmur, a faint sound of voices.
+
+King Hiram growled louder, struggled. I gave him a little more leash.
+He began to rub along the dark walls on the sides whence the voices
+seemed to come. I followed him, stumbling as quietly as I could among
+the scattered cushions.
+
+My eyes, become accustomed to the darkness, could see the pyramid of
+cushions on which Antinea had first appeared to me.
+
+Suddenly I stumbled. The leopard had stopped. I realized that I had
+stepped on his tail. Brave beast, he did not make a sound.
+
+Groping along the wall, I felt a second door. Quietly, very quietly, I
+opened it as I had opened the preceding one. The leopard whimpered
+feebly.
+
+"King Hiram," I murmured, "be quiet."
+
+And I put my arms about his powerful neck.
+
+I felt his warm wet tongue on my hands. His flanks quivered. He shook
+with happiness.
+
+In front of us, lighted in the center, another room opened up. In the
+middle six men were squatting on the matting, playing dice and
+drinking coffee from tiny copper coffee cups with long stems.
+
+They were the white Tuareg.
+
+A lamp, hung from the ceiling, threw a circle of light over them.
+Everything outside that circle was in deep shadow.
+
+The black faces, the copper cups, the white robes, the moving light
+and shadow, made a strange etching.
+
+They played with a reserved dignity, announcing the throws in raucous
+voices.
+
+Then, slowly, very slowly, I slipped the leash from the collar of the
+impatient little beast.
+
+"Go, boy."
+
+He leapt with a sharp yelp.
+
+And what I had foreseen happened.
+
+The first bound of King Hiram carried him into the midst of the white
+Tuareg, sowing confusion in the bodyguard. Another leap carried him
+into the shadow again. I made out vaguely the shaded opening of
+another corridor on the side of the room opposite where I was
+standing.
+
+"There!" I thought.
+
+The confusion in the room was indescribable, but noiseless. One
+realized the restraint which nearness to a great presence imposed upon
+the exasperated guards. The stakes and the dice-boxes had rolled in
+one direction, the copper cups, in the other.
+
+Two of the Tuareg, doubled up with pain, were rubbing their ribs with
+low oaths.
+
+I need not say that I profited by this silent confusion to glide into
+the room. I was now flattened against the wall of the second corridor,
+down which King Hiram had just disappeared.
+
+At that moment a clear gong echoed in the silence. The trembling which
+seized the Tuareg assured me that I had chosen the right way.
+
+One of the six men got up. He passed me and I fell in behind him. I
+was perfectly calm. My least movement was perfectly calculated.
+
+"All that I risk here now," I said to myself, "is being led back
+politely to my room."
+
+The Targa lifted a curtain. I followed on his heels into the chamber
+of Antinea.
+
+The room was huge and at once well lighted and very dark. While the
+right half, where Antinea was, gleamed under shaded lamps, the left
+was dim.
+
+Those who have penetrated into a Mussulman home know what a _guignol_
+is, a kind of square niche in the wall, four feet from the floor, its
+opening covered by a curtain. One mounts to it by wooden steps. I
+noticed such a _guignol_ at my left. I crept into it. My pulses beat
+in the shadow. But I was calm, quite calm.
+
+There I could see and hear everything.
+
+I was in Antinea's chamber. There was nothing singular about the room,
+except the great luxury of the hangings. The ceiling was in shadow,
+but multicolored lanterns cast a vague and gentle light over gleaming
+stuffs and furs.
+
+Antinea was stretched out on a lion's skin, smoking. A little silver
+tray and pitcher lay beside her. King Hiram was flattened out at her
+feet, licking them madly.
+
+The Targa slave stood rigid before her, one hand on his heart, the
+other on his forehead, saluting.
+
+Antinea spoke in a hard voice, without looking at the man.
+
+"Why did you let the leopard pass? I told you that I wanted to be
+alone."
+
+"He knocked us over, mistress," said the Targa humbly.
+
+"The doors were not closed, then?"
+
+The slave did not answer.
+
+"Shall I take him away?" he asked.
+
+And his eyes, fastened upon King Hiram who stared at him maliciously,
+expressed well enough his desire for a negative reply.
+
+"Let him stay since he is here," said Antinea.
+
+She tapped nervously on the little silver tray.
+
+"What is the captain doing?" she asked.
+
+"He dined a while ago and seemed to enjoy his food," the Targa
+answered.
+
+"Has he said nothing?"
+
+"Yes, he asked to see his companion, the other officer."
+
+Antinea tapped the little tray still more rapidly.
+
+"Did he say nothing else?"
+
+"No, mistress," said the man.
+
+A pallor overspread the Atlantide's little forehead.
+
+"Go get him," she said brusquely.
+
+Bowing, the Targa left the room.
+
+I listened to this dialogue with great anxiety. Was this Morhange? Had
+he been faithful to me, after all? Had I suspected him unjustly? He
+had wanted to see me and been unable to!
+
+My eyes never left Antinea's.
+
+She was no longer the haughty, mocking princess of our first
+interview. She no longer wore the golden circlet on her forehead. Not
+a bracelet, not a ring. She was dressed only in a full flowing tunic.
+Her black hair, unbound, lay in masses of ebony over her slight
+shoulders and her bare arms.
+
+Her beautiful eyes were deep circled. Her divine mouth drooped. I did
+not know whether I was glad or sorry to see this new quivering
+Cleopatra.
+
+Flattened at her feet, King Hiram gazed submissively at her.
+
+An immense orichalch mirror with golden reflections was set into the
+wall at the right. Suddenly she raised herself erect before it. I saw
+her nude.
+
+A splendid and bitter sight!--A woman who thinks herself alone,
+standing before her mirror in expectation of the man she wishes to
+subdue!
+
+The six incense-burners scattered about the room sent up invisible
+columns of perfume. The balsam spices of Arabia wore floating webs in
+which my shameless senses were entangled.... And, back toward me,
+standing straight as a lily, Antinea smiled into her mirror.
+
+Low steps sounded in the corridor. Antinea immediately fell back into
+the nonchalant pose in which I had first seen her. One had to see such
+a transformation to believe it possible.
+
+Morhange entered the room, preceded by a white Targa.
+
+He, too, seemed rather pale. But I was most struck by the expression
+of serene peace on that face which I thought I knew so well. I felt
+that I never had understood what manner of man Morhange was, never.
+
+He stood erect before Antinea without seeming to notice her gesture
+inviting him to be seated.
+
+She smiled at him.
+
+"You are surprised, perhaps," she said finally, "that I should send
+for you at so late an hour."
+
+Morhange did not move an eyelash.
+
+"Have you considered it well?" she demanded.
+
+Morhange smiled gravely, but did not reply.
+
+I could read in Antinea's face the effort it cost her to continue
+smiling; I admired the self-control of these two beings.
+
+"I sent for you," she continued. "You do not guess why?... Well, it is
+to tell you something that you do not expect. It will be no surprise
+to you if I say that I never met a man like you. During your
+captivity, you have expressed only one wish. Do you recall it?"
+
+"I asked your permission to see my friend before I died," said
+Morhange simply.
+
+I do not know what stirred me more on hearing these words: delight at
+Morhange's formal tone in speaking to Antinea, or emotion at hearing
+the one wish he had expressed.
+
+But Antinea continued calmly:
+
+"That is why I sent for you--to tell you that you are going to see him
+again. And I am going to do something else. You will perhaps scorn me
+even more when you realize that you had only to oppose me to bend me
+to your will--I, who have bent all other wills to mine. But, however
+that may be, it is decided: I give you both your liberty. Tomorrow
+Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh will lead you past the fifth enclosure. Are you
+satisfied?"
+
+"I am," said Morhange with a mocking smile.
+
+"That will give me a chance," he continued, "to make better plans for
+the next trip I intend to make this way. For you need not doubt that I
+shall feel bound to return to express my gratitude. Only, next time,
+to render so great a queen the honors due her, I shall ask my
+government to furnish me with two or three hundred European soldiers
+and several cannon."
+
+Antinea was standing up, very pale.
+
+"What are you saying?"
+
+"I am saying," said Morhange coldly, "that I foresaw this. First
+threats, then promises."
+
+Antinea stepped toward him. He had folded his arms. He looked at her
+with a sort of grave pity.
+
+"I will make you die in the most atrocious agonies," she said finally.
+
+"I am your prisoner," Morhange replied.
+
+"You shall suffer things that you cannot even imagine."
+
+"I am your prisoner," repeated Morhange in the same sad calm.
+
+Antinea paced the room like a beast in a cage. She advanced toward my
+companion and, no longer mistress of herself, struck him in the face.
+
+He smiled and caught hold of her, drawing her little wrists together
+with a strange mixture of force and gentleness.
+
+King Hiram growled. I thought he was about to leap. But the cold eyes
+of Morhange held him fascinated.
+
+"I will have your comrade killed before your eyes," gasped Antinea.
+
+It seemed to me that Morhange paled, but only for a second. I was
+overcome by the nobility and insight of his reply.
+
+"My companion is brave. He does not fear death. And, in any case, he
+would prefer death to life purchased at the price you name."
+
+So saying, he let go Antinea's wrists. Her pallor was terrible. From
+the expression of her mouth I felt that this would be her last word to
+him.
+
+"Listen," she said.
+
+How beautiful she was, in her scorned majesty, her beauty powerless
+for the first time!
+
+"Listen," she continued. "Listen. For the last time. Remember that I
+hold the gates of this palace, that I have supreme power over your
+life. Remember that you breathe only at my pleasure. Remember...."
+
+"I have remembered all that," said Morhange.
+
+"A last time," she repeated.
+
+The serenity of Morhange's face was so powerful that I scarcely
+noticed his opponent. In that transfigured countenance, no trace of
+worldliness remained.
+
+"A last time," came Antinea's voice, almost breaking.
+
+Morhange was not even looking at her.
+
+"As you will," she said.
+
+Her gong resounded. She had struck the silver disc. The white Targa
+appeared.
+
+"Leave the room!"
+
+Morhange, his head held high, went out.
+
+Now Antinea is in my arms. This is no haughty, voluptuous woman whom
+I am pressing to my heart. It is only an unhappy, scorned little girl.
+
+So great was her trouble that she showed no surprise when I stepped
+out beside her. Her head is on my shoulder. Like the crescent moon in
+the black clouds, I see her clear little bird-like profile amid her
+mass of hair. Her warm arms hold me convulsively.... _O tremblant
+coeur humain_....
+
+Who could resist such an embrace, amid the soft perfumes, in the
+langorous night? I feel myself a being without will. Is this my voice,
+the voice which is murmuring:
+
+"Ask me what you will, and I will do it, I will do it."
+
+My senses are sharpened, tenfold keen. My head rests against a soft,
+nervous little knee. Clouds of odors whirl about me. Suddenly it seems
+as if the golden lanterns are waving from the ceiling like giant
+censers. Is this my voice, the voice repeating in a dream:
+
+"Ask me what you will, and I will do it. I will do it."
+
+Antinea's face is almost touching mine. A strange light flickers in
+her great eyes.
+
+Beyond, I see the gleaming eyes of King Hiram. Beside him, there is a
+little table of Kairouan, blue and gold. On that table I see the gong
+with which Antinea summons the slaves. I see the hammer with which she
+struck it just now, a hammer with a long ebony handle, a heavy silver
+head ... the hammer with which little Lieutenant Kaine dealt death....
+
+I see nothing more....
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+THE MAIDENS OF THE ROCKS
+
+
+I awakened in my room. The sun, already at its zenith, filled the
+place with unbearable light and heat.
+
+The first thing I saw, on opening my eyes, was the shade, ripped down,
+lying in the middle of the floor. Then, confusedly, the night's events
+began to come back to me.
+
+My head felt stupid and heavy. My mind wandered. My memory seemed
+blocked. "I went out with the leopard, that is certain. That red mark
+on my forefinger shows how he strained at the leash. My knees are
+still dusty. I remember creeping along the wall in the room where the
+white Tuareg were playing at dice. That was the minute after King
+Hiram had leapt past them. After that ... oh, Morhange and Antinea....
+And then?"
+
+I recalled nothing more. I recalled nothing more. But something must
+have happened, something which I could not remember.
+
+I was uneasy. I wanted to go back, yet it seemed as if I were afraid
+to go. I have never felt anything more painful than those conflicting
+emotions.
+
+"It is a long way from here to Antinea's apartments. I must have been
+very sound asleep not to have noticed when they brought me back--for
+they have brought me back."
+
+I stopped trying to think it out. My head ached too much.
+
+"I must have air," I murmured. "I am roasting here; it will drive me
+mad."
+
+I had to see someone, no matter whom. Mechanically, I walked toward
+the library.
+
+I found M. Le Mesge in a transport of delirious joy. The Professor was
+engaged in opening an enormous bale, carefully sewed in a brown
+blanket.
+
+"You come at a good time, sir," he cried, on seeing me enter. "The
+magazines have just arrived."
+
+He dashed about in feverish haste. Presently a stream of pamphlets and
+magazines, blue, green, yellow and salmon, was bursting from an
+opening in the bale.
+
+"Splendid, splendid!" he cried, dancing with joy. "Not too late,
+either; here are the numbers for October fifteenth. We must give a
+vote of thanks to good Ameur."
+
+His good spirits were contagious.
+
+"There is a good Turkish merchant who subscribes to all the
+interesting magazines of the two continents. He sends them on by
+Rhadamès to a destination which he little suspects. Ah, here are the
+French ones."
+
+M. Le Mesge ran feverishly over, the tables of contents.
+
+"Internal politics: articles by Francis Charmes, Anatole
+Leroy-Beaulieu, d'Haussonville on the Czar's trip to Paris. Look, a
+study by Avenel of wages in the Middle Ages. And verse, verses of the
+young poets, Fernand Gregh, Edmond Haraucourt. Ah, the resumé of a
+book by Henry de Castries on Islam. That may be interesting.... Take
+what you please."
+
+Joy makes people amiable and M. Le Mesge was really delirious with it.
+
+A puff of breeze came from the window. I went to the balustrade and,
+resting my elbows on it, began to run through a number of the _Revue
+des Deux Mondes_.
+
+I did not read, but flipped over the pages, my eyes now on the lines
+of swarming little black characters, now on the rocky basin which lay
+shivering, pale pink, under the declining sun.
+
+Suddenly my attention became fixed. There was a strange coincidence
+between the text and the landscape.
+
+"In the sky overhead were only light shreds of cloud, like bits of
+white ash floating up from burnt-out logs. The sun fell over a circle
+of rocky peaks, silhouetting their severe lines against the azure sky.
+From on high, a great sadness and gentleness poured down into the
+lonely enclosure, like a magic drink into a deep cup...."[17]
+
+[Footnote 17: Gabrielle d'Annunzio: _Les Vierges aux Rochers_. Cf. The
+_Revue des Deux Mondes_ of October 15, 1896; page 867.]
+
+I turned the pages feverishly. My mind seemed to be clearing.
+
+Behind me, M. Le Mesge, deep in an article, voiced his opinions in
+indignant growls.
+
+I continued reading:
+
+"On all sides a magnificent view spread out before us in the raw
+light. The chain of rocks, clearly visible in their barren desolation
+which stretched to the very summit, lay stretched out like some great
+heap of gigantic, unformed things left by some primordial race of
+Titans to stupefy human beings. Overturned towers...."
+
+"It is shameful, downright shameful," the Professor was repeating.
+
+"Overturned towers, crumbling citadels, cupolas fallen in, broken
+pillars, mutilated colossi, prows of vessels, thighs of monsters,
+bones of titans,--this mass, impassable with its ridges and gullies,
+seemed the embodiment of everything huge and tragic. So clear were the
+distances...."
+
+"Downright shameful," M. Le Mesge kept on saying in exasperation,
+thumping his fist on the table.
+
+"So clear were the distances that I could see, as if I had it under my
+eyes, infinitely enlarged, every contour of the rock which Violante
+had shown me through the window with the gesture of a creator...."
+
+Trembling, I closed the magazine. At my feet, now red, I saw the rock
+which Antinea had pointed out to me the day of our first interview,
+huge, steep, overhanging the reddish brown garden.
+
+"That is my horizon," she had said.
+
+M. Le Mesge's excitement had passed all bounds.
+
+"It is worse than shameful; it is infamous."
+
+I almost wanted to strangle him into silence. He seized my arm.
+
+"Read that, sir; and, although you don't know a great deal about the
+subject, you will see that this article on Roman Africa is a miracle
+of misinformation, a monument of ignorance. And it is signed ... do
+you know by whom it is signed?"
+
+"Leave me alone," I said brutally.
+
+"Well, it is signed Gaston Boissier. Yes, sir! Gaston Boissier, grand
+officer of the Legion of Honor, lecturer at the _Ecole Normale
+Supérieure_, permanent secretary of the French Academy, member of the
+Academy of Inscriptions and Literature, one of those who once ruled
+out the subject of my thesis ... one of those ... ah, poor university,
+ah, poor France!"
+
+I was no longer listening. I had begun to read again. My forehead was
+covered with sweat. But it seemed as if my head had been cleared like
+a room when a window is opened; memories were beginning to come back
+like doves winging their way home to the dovecote.
+
+"At that moment, an irrepressible tremor shook her whole body; her
+eyes dilated as if some terrible sight had filled them with horror.
+
+"'Antonello,' she murmured.
+
+"And for seconds, she was unable to say another word.
+
+"I looked at her in mute anguish and the suffering which drew her dear
+lips together seemed also to clutch at my heart. The vision which was
+in her eyes passed into mine, and I saw again the thin white face of
+Antonello, and the quick quivering of his eyelids, the waves of agony
+which seized his long worn body and shook it like a reed."
+
+I threw the magazine upon the table.
+
+"That is it," I said.
+
+To cut the pages, I had used the knife with which M. Le Mesge had cut
+the cords of the bale, a short ebony-handled dagger, one of those
+daggers that the Tuareg wear in a bracelet sheath against the upper
+left arm.
+
+I slipped it into the big pocket of my flannel dolman and walked
+toward the door.
+
+I was about to cross the threshold when I heard M. Le Mesge call me.
+
+"Monsieur de Saint Avit! Monsieur de Saint Avit!
+
+"I want to ask you something, please."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Nothing important. You know that I have to mark the labels for the
+red marble hall...."
+
+I walked toward the table.
+
+"Well, I forgot to ask M. Morhange, at the beginning, the date and
+place of his birth. After that, I had no chance. I did not see him
+again. So I am forced to turn to you. Perhaps you can tell me?"
+
+"I can," I said very calmly.
+
+He took a large white card from a box which contained several and
+dipped his pen.
+
+"Number 54 ... Captain?"
+
+"Captain Jean-Marie-François Morhange."
+
+While I dictated, one hand resting on the table, I noticed on my cuff
+a stain, a little stain, reddish brown.
+
+"Morhange," repeated M. Le Mesge, finishing the lettering of my
+friend's name. "Born at...?"
+
+"Villefranche."
+
+"Villefranche, Rhône. What date?"
+
+"The fourteenth of October, 1859."
+
+"The fourteenth of October, 1859. Good. Died at Ahaggar, the fifth of
+January, 1897.... There, that is done. A thousand thanks, sir, for
+your kindness."
+
+"You are welcome."
+
+I left M. Le Mesge.
+
+My mind, thenceforth, was well made up; and, as I said, I was
+perfectly calm. Nevertheless, when I had taken leave of M. Le Mesge, I
+felt the need of waiting a few minutes before executing my decision.
+
+First I wandered through the corridors; then, finding myself near my
+room, I went to it. It was still intolerably hot. I sat down on my
+divan and began to think.
+
+The dagger in my pocket bothered me. I took it out and laid it on the
+floor.
+
+It was a good dagger, with a diamond-shaped blade, and with a collar
+of orange leather between the blade and the handle.
+
+The sight of it recalled the silver hammer. I remembered how easily it
+fitted into my hand when I struck....
+
+Every detail of the scene came back to me with incomparable vividness.
+But I did not even shiver. It seemed as if my determination to kill
+the instigator of the murder permitted me peacefully to evoke its
+brutal details.
+
+If I reflected over my deed, it was to be surprised at it, not to
+condemn myself.
+
+"Well," I said to myself, "I have killed this Morhange, who was once a
+baby, who, like all the others, cost his mother so much trouble with
+his baby sicknesses. I have put an end to his life, I have reduced to
+nothingness the monument of love, of tears, of trials overcome and
+pitfalls escaped, which constitutes a human existence. What an
+extraordinary adventure!"
+
+That was all. No fear, no remorse, none of that Shakespearean horror
+after the murder, which, today, sceptic though I am and blasé and
+utterly, utterly disillusioned, sets me shuddering whenever I am alone
+in a dark room.
+
+"Come," I thought. "It's time. Time to finish it up."
+
+I picked up the dagger. Before putting it in my pocket, I went through
+the motion of striking. All was well. The dagger fitted into my hand.
+
+I had been through Antinea's apartment only when guided, the first
+time by the white Targa, the second time, by the leopard. Yet I found
+the way again without trouble. Just before coming to the door with the
+rose window, I met a Targa.
+
+"Let me pass," I ordered. "Your mistress has sent for me." The man
+obeyed, stepping back.
+
+Soon a dim melody came to my ears. I recognized the sound of a
+_rebaza_, the violin with a single string, played by the Tuareg women.
+It was Aguida playing, squatting as usual at the feet of her mistress.
+The three other women were also squatted about her. Tanit-Zerga was
+not there.
+
+Oh! Since that was the last time I saw her, let, oh, let me tell you
+of Antinea, how she looked in that supreme moment.
+
+Did she feel the danger hovering over her and did she wish to brave it
+by her surest artifices? I had in mind the slender; unadorned body,
+without rings, without jewels, which I had pressed to my heart the
+night before. And now I started in surprise at seeing before me,
+adorned like an idol, not a woman, but a queen!
+
+The heavy splendor of the Pharaohs weighted down her slender body. On
+her head was the great gold _pschent_ of Egyptian gods and kings;
+emeralds, the national stone of the Tuareg, were set in it, tracing
+and retracing her name in Tifinar characters. A red satin _schenti_,
+embroidered in golden lotus, enveloped her like the casket of a jewel.
+At her feet, lay an ebony scepter, headed with a trident. Her bare
+arms were encircled by two serpents whose fangs touched her armpits as
+if to bury themselves there. From the ear pieces of the _pschent_
+streamed a necklace of emeralds; its first strand passed under her
+determined chin; the others lay in circles against her bare throat.
+
+She smiled as I entered.
+
+"I was expecting you," she said simply.
+
+I advanced till I was four steps from the throne, then stopped before
+her.
+
+She looked at me ironically.
+
+"What is that?" she asked with perfect calm.
+
+I followed her gesture. The handle of the dagger protruded from my
+pocket.
+
+I drew it out and held it firmly in my hand, ready to strike.
+
+"The first of you who moves will be sent naked six leagues into the
+red desert and left there to die," said Antinea coldly to her women,
+whom my gesture had thrown into a frightened murmuring.
+
+She turned to me.
+
+"That dagger is very ugly and you hold it badly. Shall I send Sydya to
+my room to get the silver hammer? You are more adroit with it than
+with the dagger."
+
+"Antinea," I said in a low voice, "I am going to kill you."
+
+"Do not speak so formally. You were more affectionate last night. Are
+you embarrassed by them?" she said, pointing to the women, whose eyes
+were wide with terror.
+
+"Kill me?" she went on. "You are hardly reasonable. Kill me at the
+moment when you can reap the fruits of the murder of...."
+
+"Did--did he suffer?" I asked suddenly, trembling.
+
+"Very little. I told you that you used the hammer as if you had done
+nothing else all your life."
+
+"Like little Kaine," I murmured.
+
+She smiled in surprise.
+
+"Oh, you know that story.... Yes, like little Kaine. But at least
+Kaine was sensible. You ... I do not understand."
+
+"I do not understand myself, very well."
+
+She looked at me with amused curiosity.
+
+"Antinea," I said.
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"I did what you told me to. May I in turn ask one favor, ask you one
+question?"
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"It was dark, was it not, in the room where _he_ was?"
+
+"Very dark. I had to lead you to the bed where he lay asleep."
+
+"He _was_ asleep, you are sure?"
+
+"I said so."
+
+"He--did not die instantly, did he?"
+
+"No. I know exactly when he died; two minutes after you struck him and
+fled with a shriek."
+
+"Then surely _he_ could not have known?"
+
+"Known what?"
+
+"That it was I who--who held the hammer."
+
+"He might not have known it, indeed," Antinea said. "But he did know."
+
+"How?"
+
+"He did know ... because I told him," she said, staring at me with
+magnificent audacity.
+
+"And," I murmured, "he--he believed it?"
+
+"With the help of my explanation, he recognized your shriek. If he had
+not realized that you were his murderer, the affair would not have
+interested me," she finished with a scornful little smile.
+
+Four steps, I said, separated me from Antinea. I sprang forward. But,
+before I reached her, I was struck to the floor.
+
+King Hiram had leapt at my throat.
+
+At the same moment I heard the calm, haughty voice of Antinea:
+
+"Call the men," she commanded.
+
+A second later I was released from the leopard's clutch. The six white
+Tuareg had surrounded me and were trying to bind me.
+
+I am fairly strong and quick. I was on my feet in a second. One of my
+enemies lay on the floor, ten feet away, felled by a well-placed blow
+on the jaw. Another was gasping under my knee. That was the last time
+I saw Antinea. She stood erect, both hands resting on her ebony
+scepter, watching the struggle with a smile of contemptuous interest.
+
+Suddenly I gave a loud cry and loosed the hold I had on my victim. A
+cracking in my left arm: one of the Tuareg had seized it and twisted
+until my shoulder was dislocated.
+
+When I completely lost consciousness, I was being carried down the
+corridor by two white phantoms, so bound that I could not move a
+muscle.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+THE FIRE-FLIES
+
+
+Through the great open window, waves of pale moonlight surged into my
+room.
+
+A slender white figure was standing beside the bed where I lay.
+
+"You, Tanit-Zerga!" I murmured. She laid a finger on her lips.
+
+"Sh! Yes, it is I."
+
+I tried to raise myself up on the bed. A terrible pain seized my
+shoulder. The events of the afternoon came back to my poor harassed
+mind.
+
+"Oh, little one, if you knew!"
+
+"I know," she said.
+
+I was weaker than a baby. After the overstrain of the day had come a
+fit of utter nervous depression. A lump rose in my throat, choking me.
+
+"If you knew, if you only knew!... Take me away, little one. Get me
+away from here."
+
+"Not so loud," she whispered. "There is a white Targa on guard at the
+door."
+
+"Take me away; save me," I repeated.
+
+"That is what I came for," she said simply.
+
+I looked at her. She no longer was wearing her beautiful red silk
+tunic. A plain white _haik_ was wrapped about her; and she had drawn
+one corner of it over her head.
+
+"I want to go away, too," she said in a smothered voice.
+
+"For a long time, I have wanted to go away. I want to see Gâo, the
+village on the bank of the river, and the blue gum trees, and the
+green water.
+
+"Ever since I came here, I have wanted to get away," she repeated,
+"but I am too little to go alone into the great Sahara. I never dared
+speak to the others who came here before you. They all thought only of
+_her_.... But you, you wanted to kill her."
+
+I gave a low moan.
+
+"You are suffering," she said. "They broke your arm."
+
+"Dislocated it anyhow."
+
+"Let me see."
+
+With infinite gentleness, she passed her smooth little hands over my
+shoulder.
+
+"You tell me that there is a white Targa on guard before my door,
+Tanit-Zerga," I said. "Then how did you get in?"
+
+"That way," she said, pointing to the window. A dark perpendicular
+line halved its blue opening.
+
+Tanit-Zerga went to the window. I saw her standing erect on the sill.
+A knife shone in her hands. She cut the rope at the top of the
+opening. It slipped down to the stone with a dry sound.
+
+She came back to me.
+
+"How can we escape?" I asked.
+
+"That way," she repeated, and she pointed again at the window.
+
+I leaned out. My feverish gaze fell upon the shadowy depths, searching
+for those invisible rocks, the rocks upon which little Kaine had
+dashed himself.
+
+"That way!" I exclaimed, shuddering. "Why, it is two hundred feet from
+here to the ground."
+
+"The rope is two hundred and fifty," she replied. "It is a good strong
+rope which I stole in the oasis; they used it in felling trees. It is
+quite new."
+
+"Climb down that way, Tanit-Zerga! With my shoulder!"
+
+"I will let you down," she said firmly. "Feel how strong my arms are.
+Not that I shall rest your weight on them. But see, on each side of
+the window is a marble column. By twisting the rope around one of
+them, I can let you slip down and scarcely feel your weight.
+
+"And look," she continued, "I have made a big knot every ten feet. I
+can stop the rope with them, every now and then, if I want to rest."
+
+"And you?" I asked.
+
+"When you are down, I shall tie the rope to one of the columns and
+follow. There are the knots on which to rest if the rope cuts my hands
+too much. But don't be afraid: I am very agile. At Gâo, when I was
+just a child, I used to climb almost as high as this in the gum trees
+to take the little toucans out of their nests. It is even easier to
+climb down."
+
+"And when we are down, how will we get out? Do you know the way
+through the barriers?"
+
+"No one knows the way through the barriers," she said, "except
+Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh, and perhaps Antinea."
+
+"Then?"
+
+"There are the camels of Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh, those which he uses on
+his forays. I untethered the strongest one and led him out, just below
+us, and gave him lots of hay so that he will not make a sound and will
+be well fed when we start."
+
+"But...." I still protested.
+
+She stamped her foot.
+
+"But what? Stay if you wish, if you are afraid. I am going. I want to
+see Gâo once again, Gâo with its blue gum-trees and its green water."
+
+I felt myself blushing.
+
+"I will go, Tanit-Zerga. I would rather die of thirst in the midst of
+the desert than stay here. Let us start."
+
+"Tut!" she said. "Not yet."
+
+She showed me that the dizzy descent was in brilliant moonlight.
+
+"Not yet. We must wait. They would see us. In an hour, the moon will
+have circled behind the mountain. That will be the time."
+
+She sat silent, her _haik_ wrapped completely about her dark little
+figure. Was she praying? Perhaps.
+
+Suddenly I no longer saw her. Darkness had crept in the window. The
+moon had turned.
+
+Tanit-Zerga's hand was on my arm. She drew me toward the abyss. I
+tried not to tremble.
+
+Everything below us was in shadow. In a low, firm voice, Tanit-Zerga
+began to speak:
+
+"Everything is ready. I have twisted the rope about the pillar. Here
+is the slip-knot. Put it under your arms. Take this cushion. Keep it
+pressed against your hurt shoulder.... A leather cushion.... It is
+tightly stuffed. Keep face to the wall. It will protect you against
+the bumping and scraping."
+
+I was now master of myself, very calm. I sat down on the sill of the
+window, my feet in the void. A breath of cool air from the peaks
+refreshed me.
+
+I felt little Tanit-Zerga's hand in my vest pocket.
+
+"Here is a box. I must know when you are down, so I can follow. You
+will open the box. There are fire-flies in it; I shall see them and
+follow you."
+
+She held my hand a moment.
+
+"Now go," she murmured.
+
+I went.
+
+I remember only one thing about that descent: I was overcome with
+vexation when the rope stopped and I found myself, feet dangling,
+against the perfectly smooth wall.
+
+"What is the little fool waiting for?" I said to myself. "I have been
+hung here for a quarter of an hour. Ah ... at last! Oh, here I am
+stopped again." Once or twice I thought I was reaching the ground, but
+it was only a projection from the rock. I had to give a quick shove
+with my foot.... Then, suddenly, I found myself seated on the ground.
+I stretched out my hands. Bushes.... A thorn pricked my finger. I was
+down.
+
+Immediately I began to get nervous again.
+
+I pulled out the cushion and slipped off the noose. With my good hand,
+I pulled the rope, holding it out five or six feet from the face of
+the mountain, and put my foot on it.
+
+Then I took the little cardboard box from my pocket and opened it.
+
+One after the other, three little luminous circles rose in the inky
+night. I saw them rise higher and higher against the rocky wall. Their
+pale rose aureols gleamed faintly. Then, one by one, they turned,
+disappeared.
+
+"You are tired, Sidi Lieutenant. Let me hold the rope."
+
+Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh rose up at my side.
+
+I looked at his tall black silhouette. I shuddered, but I did not let
+go of the rope on which I began to feel distant jerks.
+
+"Give it to me," he repeated with authority.
+
+And he took it from my hands.
+
+I don't know what possessed me then. I was standing beside that great
+dark phantom. And I ask you, what could I, with a dislocated
+shoulder, do against that man whose agile strength I already knew?
+What was there to do? I saw him buttressed against the wall, holding
+the rope with both hands, with both feet, with all his body, much
+better than I had been able to do.
+
+A rustling above our heads. A little shadowy form.
+
+"There," said Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh, seizing the little shadow in his
+powerful arms and placing her on the ground, while the rope, let
+slack, slapped back against the rock.
+
+Tanit-Zerga recognized the Targa and groaned.
+
+He put his hand roughly over her mouth.
+
+"Shut up, camel thief, wretched little fly."
+
+He seized her arm. Then he turned to me.
+
+"Come," he said in an imperious tone.
+
+I obeyed. During our short walk, I heard Tanit-Zerga's teeth
+chattering with terror.
+
+We reached a little cave.
+
+"Go in," said the Targa.
+
+He lighted a torch. The red light showed a superb mehari peacefully
+chewing his cud.
+
+"The little one is not stupid," said Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh, pointing to
+the animal. "She knows enough to pick out the best and the strongest.
+But she is rattle-brained."
+
+He held the torch nearer the camel.
+
+"She is rattle-brained," he continued. "She only saddled him. No
+water, no food. At this hour, three days from now, all three of you
+would have been dead on the road, and on what a road!"
+
+Tanit-Zerga's teeth no longer chattered. She was looking at the Targa
+with a mixture of terror and hope.
+
+"Come here, Sidi Lieutenant," said Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh, "so that I can
+explain to you."
+
+When I was beside him, he said:
+
+"On each side there is a skin of water. Make that water last as long
+as possible, for you are going to cross a terrible country. It may be
+that you will not find a well for three hundred miles.
+
+"There," he went on, "in the saddle bags, are cans of preserved meat.
+Not many, for water is much more precious. Here also is a carbine,
+your carbine, sidi. Try not to use it except to shoot antelopes. And
+there is this."
+
+He spread out a roll of paper. I saw his inscrutible face bent over
+it; his eyes were smiling; he looked at me.
+
+"Once out of the enclosures, what way did you plan to go?" he asked.
+
+"Toward Idelès, to retake the route where you met the Captain and me,"
+I said.
+
+Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh shook his head.
+
+"I thought as much," he murmured.
+
+Then he added coldly:
+
+"Before sunset to-morrow, you and the little one would have been
+caught and massacred."
+
+"Toward the north is Ahaggar," he continued, "and all Ahaggar is under
+the control of Antinea. You must go south."
+
+"Then we shall go south."
+
+"By what route?"
+
+"Why, by Silet and Timissao."
+
+The Targa again shook his head.
+
+"They will look for you on that road also," he said. "It is a good
+road, the road with the wells. They know that you are familiar with
+it. The Tuareg would not fail to wait at the wells."
+
+"Well, then?"
+
+"Well," said Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh, "you must not rejoin the road from
+Timissao to Timbuctoo until you are four hundred miles from here
+toward Iferouane, or better still, at the spring of Telemsi. That is
+the boundary between the Tuareg of Ahaggar and the Awellimiden
+Tuareg."
+
+The little voice of Tanit-Zerga broke in:
+
+"It was the Awellimiden Tuareg who massacred my people and carried me
+into slavery. I do not want to pass through the country of the
+Awellimiden."
+
+"Be still, miserable little fly," said Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh.
+
+Then addressing me, he continued:
+
+"I have said what I have said. The little one is not wrong. The
+Awellimiden are a savage people. But they are afraid of the French.
+Many of them trade with the stations north of the Niger. On the other
+hand, they are at war with the people of Ahaggar, who will not follow
+you into their country. What I have said, is said. You must rejoin
+the Timbuctoo road near where it enters the borders of the
+Awellimiden. Their country is wooded and rich in springs. If you reach
+the springs at Telemsi, you will finish your journey beneath a canopy
+of blossoming mimosa. On the other hand, the road from here to Telemsi
+is shorter than by way of Timissao. It is quite straight."
+
+"Yes, it is direct," I said, "but, in following it, you have to cross
+the Tanezruft."
+
+Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh waved his hand impatiently.
+
+"Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh knows that," he said. "He knows what the Tanezruft
+is. He who has traveled over all the Sahara knows that he would
+shudder at crossing the Tanezruft and the Tassili from the south. He
+knows that the camels that wander into that country either die or
+become wild, for no one will risk his life to go look for them. It is
+the terror that hangs over that region that may save you. For you have
+to choose: you must run the risk of dying of thirst on the tracks of
+the Tanezruft or have your throat cut along some other route.
+
+"You can stay here," he added.
+
+"My choice is made, Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh," I announced.
+
+"Good!" he replied, again opening out the roll of paper. "This trail
+begins at the second barrier of earth, to which I will lead you. It
+ends at Iferouane. I have marked the wells, but do not trust to them
+too much, for many of them are dry. Be careful not to stray from the
+route. If you lose it, it is death.... Now mount the camel with the
+little one. Two make less noise than four."
+
+We went a long way in silence. Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh walked ahead and his
+camel followed meekly. We crossed, first, a dark passage, then, a deep
+gorge, then another passage.... The entrance to each was hidden by a
+thick tangle of rocks and briars.
+
+Suddenly a burning breath touched our faces. A dull reddish light
+filtered in through the end of the passage. The desert lay before us.
+
+Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh had stopped.
+
+"Get down," he said.
+
+A spring gurgled out of the rock. The Targa went to it and filled a
+copper cup with the water.
+
+"Drink," he said, holding it out to each of us in turn. We obeyed.
+
+"Drink again," he ordered. "You will save just so much of the contents
+of your water skins. Now try not to be thirsty before sunset."
+
+He looked over the saddle girths.
+
+"That's all right," he murmured. "Now go. In two hours the dawn will
+be here. You must be out of sight."
+
+I was filled with emotion at this last moment; I went to the Targa and
+took his hand.
+
+"Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh," I asked in a low voice, "why are you doing
+this?"
+
+He stepped back and I saw his dark eyes gleam.
+
+"Why?" he said.
+
+"Yes, why?"
+
+He replied with dignity:
+
+"The Prophet permits every just man, once in his lifetime, to let pity
+take the place of duty. Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh is turning this permission
+to the advantage of one who saved his life."
+
+"And you are not afraid," I asked, "that I will disclose the secret of
+Antinea if I return among Frenchmen?" He shook his head.
+
+"I am not afraid of that," he said, and his voice was full of irony.
+"It is not to your interest that Frenchmen should know how the Captain
+met his death."
+
+I was horrified at this logical reply.
+
+"Perhaps I am doing wrong," the Targa went on, "in not killing the
+little one.... But she loves you. She will not talk. Now go. Day is
+coming."
+
+I tried to press the hand of this strange rescuer, but he again drew
+back.
+
+"Do not thank me. What I am doing, I do to acquire merit in the eyes
+of God. You may be sure that I shall never do it again neither for you
+nor for anyone else."
+
+And, as I made a gesture to reassure him on that point, "Do not
+protest," he said in a tone the mockery of which still sounds in my
+ears. "Do not protest. What I am doing is of value to me, but not to
+you."
+
+I looked at him uncomprehendingly.
+
+"Not to you, Sidi Lieutenant, not to you," his grave voice continued.
+"For you will come back; and when that day comes, do not count on the
+help of Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh."
+
+"I will come back?" I asked, shuddering.
+
+"You will come back," the Targa replied.
+
+He was standing erect, a black statue against the wall of gray rock.
+
+"You will come back," he repeated with emphasis. "You are fleeing now,
+but you are mistaken if you think that you will look at the world with
+the same eyes as before. Henceforth, one idea, will follow you
+everywhere you go; and in one year, five, perhaps ten years, you will
+pass again through the corridor through which you have just come."
+
+"Be still, Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh," said the trembling voice of
+Tanit-Zerga.
+
+"Be still yourself, miserable little fly," said Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh.
+
+He sneered.
+
+"The little one is afraid because she knows that I tell the truth. She
+knows the story of Lieutenant Ghiberti."
+
+"Lieutenant Ghiberti?" I said, the sweat standing out on my forehead.
+
+"He was an Italian officer whom I met between Rhât and Rhadamès eight
+years ago. He did not believe that love of Antinea could make him
+forget all else that life contained. He tried to escape, and he
+succeeded. I do not know how, for I did not help him. He went back to
+his country. But hear what happened: two years later, to the very day,
+when I was leaving the look-out, I discovered a miserable tattered
+creature, half dead from hunger and fatigue, searching in vain for the
+entrance to the northern barrier. It was Lieutenant Ghiberti, come
+back. He fills niche Number 39 in the red marble hall."
+
+The Targa smiled slightly.
+
+"That is the story of Lieutenant Ghiberti which you wished to hear.
+But enough of this. Mount your camel."
+
+I obeyed without saying a word. Tanit-Zerga, seated behind me, put
+her little arms around me. Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh was still holding the
+bridle.
+
+"One word more," he said, pointing to a black spot against the violet
+sky of the southern horizon. "You see the _gour_ there; that is your
+way. It is eighteen miles from here. You should reach it by sunrise.
+Then consult your map. The next point is marked. If you do not stray
+from the line, you should be at the springs of Telemsi in eight days."
+
+The camel's neck was stretched toward the dark wind coming from the
+south.
+
+The Targa released the bridle with a sweep of his hand.
+
+"Now go."
+
+"Thank you," I called to him, turning back in the saddle. "Thank you,
+Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh, and farewell."
+
+I heard his voice replying in the distance:
+
+"_Au revoir_, Lieutenant de Saint Avit."
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+THE TANEZRUFT
+
+
+During the first hour of our flight, the great mehari of
+Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh carried us at a mad pace. We covered at least five
+leagues. With fixed eyes, I guided the beast toward the _gour_ which
+the Targa had pointed out, its ridge becoming higher and higher
+against the paling sky.
+
+The speed caused a little breeze to whistle in our ears. Great tufts
+of _retem_, like fleshless skeletons, were tossed to right and left.
+
+I heard the voice of Tanit-Zerga whispering:
+
+"Stop the camel."
+
+At first I did not understand.
+
+"Stop him," she repeated.
+
+Her hand pulled sharply at my right arm.
+
+I obeyed. The camel slackened his pace with very bad grace.
+
+"Listen," she said.
+
+At first I heard nothing. Then a very slight noise, a dry rustling
+behind us.
+
+"Stop the camel," Tanit-Zerga commanded. "It is not worth while to
+make him kneel."
+
+A little gray creature bounded on the camel. The mehari set out again
+at his best speed.
+
+"Let him go," said Tanit-Zerga. "Galé has jumped on."
+
+I felt a tuft of bristly hair under my arm. The mongoose had followed
+our footsteps and rejoined us. I heard the quick panting of the brave
+little creature becoming gradually slower and slower.
+
+"I am happy," murmured Tanit-Zerga.
+
+Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh had not been mistaken. We reached the _gour_ as the
+sun rose. I looked back. The Atakor was nothing more than a monstrous
+chaos amid the night mists which trailed the dawn. It was no longer
+possible to pick out from among the nameless peaks, the one on which
+Antinea was still weaving her passionate plots.
+
+You know what the Tanezruft is, the "plain of plains," abandoned,
+uninhabitable, the country of hunger and thirst. We were then starting
+on the part of the desert which Duveyrier calls the Tassili of the
+south, and which figures on the maps of the Minister of Public Works
+under this attractive title: "Rocky plateau, without water, without
+vegetation, inhospitable for man and beast."
+
+Nothing, unless parts of the Kalahari, is more frightful than this
+rocky desert. Oh, Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh did not exaggerate in saying that
+no one would dream of following us into that country.
+
+Great patches of oblivion still refused to clear away. Memories chased
+each other incoherently about my head. A sentence came back to me
+textually: "It seemed to Dick that he had never, since the beginning
+of original darkness, done anything at all save jolt through the air."
+I gave a little laugh. "In the last few hours," I thought, "I have
+been heaping up literary situations. A while ago, a hundred feet above
+the ground, I was Fabrice of _La Chartreuse de Parme_ beside his
+Italian dungeon. Now, here on my camel, I am Dick of _The Light That
+Failed_, crossing the desert to meet his companions in arms." I
+chuckled again; then shuddered. I thought of the preceding night, of
+the Orestes of _Andromaque_ who agreed to sacrifice Pyrrhus. A
+literary situation indeed....
+
+Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh had reckoned eight days to get to the wooded
+country of the Awellimiden, forerunners of the grassy steppes of the
+Soudan. He knew well the worth of his beast. Tanit-Zerga had suddenly
+given him a name, _El Mellen_, the white one, for the magnificent
+mehari had an almost spotless coat. Once he went two days without
+eating, merely picking up here and there a branch of an acacia tree
+whose hideous white spines, four inches long, filled me with fear for
+our friend's oesophagus. The wells marked out by Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh
+were indeed at the indicated spots, but we found nothing in them but a
+burning yellow mud. It was enough for the camel, enough so that at the
+end of the fifth day, thanks to prodigious self-control, we had used
+up only one of our two water skins. Then we believed ourselves safe.
+
+Near one of these muddy puddles, I succeeded that day in shooting down
+a little straight-horned desert gazelle. Tanit-Zerga skinned the beast
+and we regaled ourselves with a delicious haunch. Meantime, little
+Galé, who never ceased prying about the cracks in the rocks during our
+mid-day halts in the heat, discovered an _ourane_, a sand crocodile,
+five feet long, and made short work of breaking his neck. She ate so
+much she could not budge. It cost us a pint of water to help her
+digestion. We gave it with good grace, for we were happy. Tanit-Zerga
+did not say so, but her joy at knowing that I was thinking no more of
+the woman in the gold diadem and the emeralds was apparent. And
+really, during those days, I hardly thought of her. I thought only of
+the torrid heat to be avoided, of the water skins which, if you wished
+to drink fresh water, had to be left for an hour in a cleft in the
+rocks; of the intense joy which seized you when you raised to your
+lips a leather goblet brimming with that life-saving water.... I can
+say this with authority, with good authority, indeed; passion,
+spiritual or physical, is a thing for those who have eaten and drunk
+and rested.
+
+It was five o'clock in the afternoon. The frightful heat was
+slackening. We had left a kind of rocky crevice where we had had a
+little nap. Seated on a huge rock, we were watching the reddening
+west.
+
+I spread out the roll of paper on which Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh had marked
+the stages of our journey as far as the road from the Soudan. I
+realized again with joy that his itinerary was exact and that I had
+followed it scrupulously.
+
+"The evening of the day after to-morrow," I said, "we shall be setting
+out on the stage which will take us, by the next dawn, to the waters
+at Telemsi. Once there, we shall not have to worry any more about
+water."
+
+Tanit-Zerga's eyes danced in her thin face.
+
+"And Gâo?" she asked.
+
+"We will be only a week from the Niger. And Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh said
+that at Telemsi, one reached a road overhung with mimosa."
+
+"I know the mimosa," she said. "They are the little yellow balls that
+melt in your hand. But I like the caper flowers better. You will come
+with me to Gâo. My father, Sonni-Azkia, was killed, as I told you, by
+the Awellimiden. But my people must have rebuilt the villages. They
+are used to that. You will see how you will be received."
+
+"I will go, Tanit-Zerga, I promise you. But you also, you must promise
+me...."
+
+"What? Oh, I guess. You must take me for a little fool if you believe
+me capable of speaking of things which might make trouble for my
+friend."
+
+She looked at me as she spoke. Privation and great fatigue had
+chiselled the brown face where her great eyes shone.... Since then, I
+have had time to assemble the maps and compasses, and to fix forever
+the spot where, for the first time, I understood the beauty of
+Tanit-Zerga's eyes.
+
+There was a deep silence between us. It was she who broke it.
+
+"Night is coming. We must eat so as to leave as soon as possible."
+
+She stood up and went toward the rocks.
+
+Almost immediately, I heard her calling in an anguished voice that
+sent a chill through me.
+
+"Come! Oh, come see!"
+
+With a bound, I was at her side.
+
+"The camel," she murmured. "The camel!"
+
+I looked, and a deadly shudder seized me.
+
+Stretched out at full length, on the other side of the rocks, his pale
+flanks knotted up by convulsive spasms, _El Mellen_ lay in anguish.
+
+I need not say that we rushed to him in feverish haste. Of what _El
+Mellen_ was dying, I did not know, I never have known. All the mehara
+are that way. They are at once the most enduring and the most delicate
+of beasts. They will travel for six months across the most frightful
+deserts, with little food, without water, and seem only the better for
+it. Then, one day when nothing is the matter, they stretch out and
+give you the slip with disconcerting ease.
+
+When Tanit-Zerga and I saw that there was nothing more to do, we stood
+there without a word, watching his slackening spasms. When he breathed
+his last, we felt that our life, as well as his, had gone.
+
+It was Tanit-Zerga who spoke first.
+
+"How far are we from the Soudan road?" she asked.
+
+"We are a hundred and twenty miles from the springs of Telemsi," I
+replied. "We could make thirty miles by going toward Iferouane; but
+the wells are not marked on that route."
+
+"Then we must walk toward the springs of Telemsi," she said. "A
+hundred and twenty miles, that makes seven days?"
+
+"Seven days at the least, Tanit-Zerga."
+
+"How far is it to the first well?"
+
+"Thirty-five miles."
+
+The little girl's face contracted somewhat. But she braced up quickly.
+
+"We must set out at once."
+
+"Set out on foot, Tanit-Zerga!"
+
+She stamped her foot. I marveled to see her so strong.
+
+"We must go," she repeated. "We are going to eat and drink and make
+Galé eat and drink, for we cannot carry all the tins, and the water
+skin is so heavy that we should not get three miles if we tried to
+carry it. We will put a little water in one of the tins after emptying
+it through a little hole. That will be enough for to-night's stage,
+which will be eighteen miles without water. To-morrow we will set out
+for another eighteen miles and we will reach the wells marked on the
+paper by Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh."
+
+"Oh," I murmured sadly, "if my shoulder were only not this way, I
+could carry the water skin."
+
+"It is as it is," said Tanit-Zerga.
+
+"You will take your carbine and two tins of meat. I shall take two
+more and the one filled with water. Come. We must leave in an hour if
+we wish to cover the eighteen miles. You know that when the sun is up,
+the rocks are so hot we cannot walk."
+
+I leave you to imagine in what sad silence we passed that hour which
+we had begun so happily and confidently. Without the little girl, I
+believe I should have seated myself upon a rock and waited. Galé only
+was happy.
+
+"We must not let her eat too much," said Tanit-Zerga. "She would not
+be able to follow us. And to-morrow she must work. If she catches
+another _ourane_, it will be for us."
+
+
+You have walked in the desert. You know how terrible the first hours
+of the night are. When the moon comes up, huge and yellow, a sharp
+dust seems to rise in suffocating clouds. You move your jaws
+mechanically as if to crush the dust that finds its way into your
+throat like fire. Then usually a kind of lassitude, of drowsiness,
+follows. You walk without thinking. You forget where you are walking.
+You remember only when you stumble. Of course you stumble often. But
+anyway it is bearable. "The night is ending," you say, "and with it
+the march. All in all, I am less tired than at the beginning." The
+night ends, but then comes the most terrible hour of all. You are
+perishing of thirst and shaking with cold. All the fatigue comes back
+at once. The horrible breeze which precedes the dawn is no comfort.
+Quite the contrary. Every time you stumble, you say, "The next misstep
+will be the last."
+
+That is what people feel and say even when they know that in a few
+hours they will have a good rest with food and water.
+
+I was suffering terribly. Every step jolted my poor shoulder. At one
+time, I wanted to stop, to sit down. Then I looked at Tanit-Zerga. She
+was walking ahead with her eyes almost closed. Her expression was an
+indefinable one of mingled suffering and determination. I closed my
+own eyes and went on.
+
+Such was the first stage. At dawn we stopped in a hollow in the rocks.
+Soon the heat forced us to rise to seek a deeper one. Tanit-Zerga did
+not eat. Instead, she swallowed a little of her half can of water. She
+lay drowsy all day. Galé ran about our rock giving plaintive little
+cries.
+
+I am not going to tell you about the second march. It was more
+horrible than anything you can imagine. I suffered all that it is
+humanly possible to suffer in the desert. But already I began to
+observe with infinite pity that my man's strength was outlasting the
+nervous force of my little companion. The poor child walked on without
+saying a word, chewing feebly one corner of her _haik_ which she had
+drawn over her face. Galé followed.
+
+The well toward which we were dragging ourselves was indicated on
+Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh's paper by the one word _Tissaririn. Tissaririn_ is
+the plural of _Tissarirt_ and means "two isolated trees."
+
+Day was dawning when finally I saw the two trees, two gum trees.
+Hardly a league separated us from them. I gave a cry of joy.
+
+"Courage, Tanit-Zerga, there is the well."
+
+She drew her veil aside and I saw the poor anguished little face.
+
+"So much the better," she murmured, "because otherwise...."
+
+She could not even finish the sentence.
+
+We finished the last half mile almost at a run. We already saw the
+hole, the opening of the well.
+
+Finally we reached it.
+
+It was empty.
+
+It is a strange sensation to be dying of thirst. At first the
+suffering is terrible. Then, gradually, it becomes less. You become
+partly unconscious. Ridiculous little things about your life occur to
+you, fly about you like mosquitoes. I began to remember my history
+composition for the entrance examination of Saint-Cyr, "The Campaign
+of Marengo." Obstinately I repeated to myself, "I have already said
+that the battery unmasked by Marmont at the moment of Kellerman's
+charge included eighteen pieces.... No, I remember now, it was only
+twelve pieces. I am sure it was twelve pieces."
+
+I kept on repeating:
+
+"Twelve pieces."
+
+Then I fell into a sort of coma.
+
+I was recalled from it by feeling a red-hot iron on my forehead. I
+opened my eyes. Tanit-Zerga was bending over me. It was her hand which
+burnt so.
+
+"Get up," she said. "We must go on."
+
+"Go on, Tanit-Zerga! The desert is on fire. The sun is at the zenith.
+It is noon."
+
+"We must go on," she repeated.
+
+Then I saw that she was delirious.
+
+She was standing erect. Her _haik_ had fallen to the ground and little
+Galé, rolled up in a ball, was asleep on it.
+
+Bareheaded, indifferent to the frightful sunlight, she kept repeating:
+
+"We must go on."
+
+A little sense came back to me.
+
+"Cover your head, Tanit-Zerga, cover your head."
+
+"Come," she repeated. "Let's go. Gâo is over there, not far away. I
+can feel it. I want to see Gâo again."
+
+I made her sit down beside me in the shadow of a rock. I realized that
+all strength had left her. The wave of pity that swept over me,
+brought back my senses.
+
+"Gâo is just over there, isn't it?" she asked.
+
+Her gleaming eyes became imploring.
+
+"Yes, dear little girl. Gâo is there. But for God's sake lie down. The
+sun is fearful."
+
+"Oh, Gâo, Gâo!" she repeated. "I know very well that I shall see Gâo
+again."
+
+She sat up. Her fiery little hands gripped mine.
+
+"Listen. I must tell you so you can understand how I know I shall see
+Gâo again."
+
+"Tanit-Zerga, be quiet, my little girl, be quiet."
+
+"No, I must tell you. A long time ago, on the bank of the river where
+there is water, at Gâo, where my father was a prince, there was....
+Well, one day, one feast day, there came from the interior of the
+country an old magician, dressed in skins and feathers, with a mask
+and a pointed head-dress, with castanets, and two serpents in a bag.
+On the village square, where all our people formed in a circle, he
+danced the _boussadilla_. I was in the first row, and because I had a
+necklace of pink tourmaline, he quickly saw that I was the daughter of
+a chief. So he spoke to me of the past, of the great Mandingue Empire
+over which my grandfathers had ruled, of our enemies, the fierce
+Kountas, of everything, and finally he said:
+
+"'Have no fear, little girl.'
+
+"Then he said again, 'Do not be afraid. Evil days may be in store for
+you, but what does that matter? For one day you will see Gâo gleaming
+on the horizon, no longer a servile Gâo reduced to the rank of a
+little Negro town, but the splendid Gâo of other days, the great
+capital of the country of the blacks, Gâo reborn, with its mosque of
+seven towers and fourteen cupolas of turquoise, with its houses with
+cool courts, its fountains, its watered gardens, all blooming with
+great red and white flowers.... That will be for you the hour of
+deliverance and of royalty.'"
+
+Tanit-Zerga was standing up. All about us, on our heads, the sun
+blazed on the _hamada_, burning it white.
+
+Suddenly the child stretched out her arms. She gave a terrible cry.
+
+"Gâo! There is Gâo!"
+
+I looked at her.
+
+"Gâo," she repeated. "Oh, I know it well! There are the trees and the
+fountains, the cupolas and the towers, the palm trees, the great red
+and white flowers. Gâo...."
+
+Indeed, along the shimmering horizon rose a fantastic city with mighty
+buildings that towered, tier on tier, until they formed a rainbow.
+Wide-eyed, we stood and watched the terrible mirage quiver feverishly
+before us.
+
+"Gâo!" I cried. "Gâo!"
+
+And almost immediately I uttered another cry, of sorrow and of horror.
+Tanit-Zerga's little hand relaxed in mine. I had just time to catch
+the child in my arms and hear her murmur as in a whisper:
+
+"And then that will be the day of deliverance. The day of deliverance
+and of royalty."
+
+Several hours later I took the knife with which we had skinned the
+desert gazelle and, in the sand at the foot of the rock where
+Tanit-Zerga had given up her spirit, I made a little hollow where she
+was to rest.
+
+When everything was ready, I wanted to look once more at that dear
+little face. Courage failed me for a moment.... Then I quickly drew
+the _haik_ over the brown face and laid the body of the child in the
+hollow.
+
+I had reckoned without Galé.
+
+The eyes of the mongoose had not left me during the whole time that I
+was about my sad duty. When she heard the first handfuls of sand fall
+on the _haik_, she gave a sharp cry. I looked at her and saw her ready
+to spring, her eyes daring fire.
+
+"Galé!" I implored; and I tried to stroke her.
+
+She bit my hand and then leapt into the grave and began to dig,
+throwing the sand furiously aside.
+
+I tried three times to chase her away. I felt that I should never
+finish my task and that, even if I did, Galé would stay there and
+disinter the body.
+
+My carbine lay at my feet. A shot drew echoes from the immense empty
+desert. A moment later, Galé also slept her last sleep, curled up, as
+I so often had seen her, against the neck of her mistress.
+
+When the surface showed nothing more than a little mound of trampled
+sand, I rose staggering and started off aimlessly into the desert,
+toward the south.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+THE CIRCLE IS COMPLETE
+
+
+At the foot of the valley of the Mia, at the place where the jackal
+had cried the night Saint-Avit told me he had killed Morhange, another
+jackal, or perhaps the same one, howled again.
+
+Immediately I had a feeling that this night would see the
+irremediable fulfilled.
+
+We were seated that evening, as before, on the poor veranda improvised
+outside our dining-room. The floor was of plaster, the balustrade of
+twisted branches; four posts supported a thatched roof.
+
+I have already said that from the veranda one could look far out over
+the desert. As he finished speaking, Saint-Avit rose and stood leaning
+his elbows on the railing. I followed him.
+
+"And then...." I said.
+
+He looked at me.
+
+"And then what? Surely you know what all the newspapers told--how, in
+the country of the Awellimiden, I was found dying of hunger and thirst
+by an expedition under the command of Captain Aymard, and taken to
+Timbuctoo. I was delirious for a month afterward. I have never known
+what I may have said during those spells of burning fever. You may be
+sure the officers of the Timbuctoo Club did not feel it incumbent upon
+them to tell me. When I told them of my adventures, as they are
+related in the report of the Morhange--Saint-Avit Expedition, I could
+see well enough from the cold politeness with which they received my
+explanations, that the official version which I gave them differed at
+certain points from the fragments which had escaped me in my delirium.
+
+"They did not press the matter. It remains understood that Captain
+Morhange died from a sunstroke and that I buried him on the border of
+the Tarhit watercourse, three marches from Timissao. Everybody can
+detect that there are things missing in my story. Doubtless they guess
+at some mysterious drama. But proofs are another matter. Because of
+the impossibility of collecting them, they prefer to smother what
+could only become a silly scandal. But now you know all the details as
+well as I."
+
+"And--she?" I asked timidly.
+
+He smiled triumphantly. It was triumph at having led me to think no
+longer of Morhange, or of his crime, the triumph of feeling that he
+had succeeded in imbuing me with his own madness.
+
+"Yes," he said. "She! For six years I have learned nothing more about
+her. But I see her, I talk with her. I am thinking now how I shall
+reenter her presence. I shall throw myself at her feet and say simply,
+'Forgive me. I rebelled against your law. I did not know. But now I
+know; and you see that, like Lieutenant Ghiberti, I have come back.'
+
+"'Family, honor, country,' said old Le Mesge, 'you will forget all for
+her.' Old Le Mesge is a stupid man, but he speaks from experience. He
+knows, he who has seen broken before Antinea the wills of the fifty
+ghosts in the red marble hall.
+
+"And now, will you, in your turn, ask me 'What is this woman?' Do I
+know myself? And besides, what difference does it make? What does her
+past and the mystery of her origin matter to me; what does it matter
+whether she is the true descendant of the god of the sea and the
+sublime Lagides or the bastard of a Polish drunkard and a harlot of
+the Marbeuf quarter?
+
+"At the time when I was foolish enough to be jealous of Morhange,
+these questions might have made some difference to the ridiculous
+self-esteem that civilized people mix up with passion. But I have held
+Antinea's body in my arms. I no longer wish to know any other, nor if
+the fields are in blossom, nor what will become of the human
+spirit....
+
+"I do not wish to know. Or, rather, it is because I have too exact a
+vision of that future, that I pretend to destroy myself in the only
+destiny that is worth while: a nature unfathomed and virgin, a
+mysterious love.
+
+"_A nature unfathomed and virgin_. I must explain myself. One winter
+day, in a large city all streaked with the soot that falls from black
+chimneys of factories and of those horrible houses in the suburbs, I
+attended a funeral.
+
+"We followed the hearse in the mud. The church was new, damp and poor.
+Aside from two or three people, relatives struck down by a dull
+sorrow, everyone had just one idea: to find some pretext to get away.
+Those who went as far as the cemetery were those who did not find an
+excuse. I see the gray walls and the cypresses, those trees of sun and
+shade, so beautiful in the country of southern France against the low
+purple hills. I see the horrible undertaker's men in greasy jackets
+and shiny top hats. I see.... No, I'll stop; it's too horrible.
+
+"Near the wall, in a remote plot, a grave had been dug in frightful
+yellow pebbly clay. It was there that they left the dead man whose
+name I no longer remember.
+
+"While they were lowering the casket, I looked at my hands, those
+hands which in that strangely lighted country had pressed the hands of
+Antinea. A great pity for my body seized me, a great fear of what
+threatened it in these cities of mud. 'So,' I said to myself, 'it may
+be that this body, this dear body, will come to such an end! No, no,
+my body, precious above all other treasures, I swear to you that I
+will spare you that ignominy; you shall not rot under a registered
+number in the filth of a suburban cemetery. Your brothers in love, the
+fifty knights of orichalch, await you, mute and grave, in the red
+marble hall. I shall take you back to them.'
+
+"A _mysterious love_. Shame to him who retails the secrets of his
+loves. The Sahara lays its impassable barrier about Antinea; that is
+why the most unreasonable requirements of this woman are, in reality,
+more modest and chaste than your marriage will be, with its vulgar
+public show, the bans, the invitations, the announcements telling an
+evil-minded and joking people that after such and such an hour, on
+such and such a day, you will have the right to violate your little
+tupenny virgin.
+
+"I think that is all I have to tell you. No, there is still one thing
+more. I told you a while ago about the red marble hall. South of
+Cherchell, to the west of the Mazafran river, on a hill which in the
+early morning, emerges from the mists of the Mitidja, there is a
+mysterious stone pyramid. The natives call it, 'The Tomb of the
+Christian.' That is where the body of Antinea's ancestress, that
+Cleopatra Selene, daughter of Mark Antony and Cleopatra, was laid to
+rest. Though it is placed in the path of invasions, this tomb has kept
+its treasure. No one has ever been able to discover the painted room
+where the beautiful body reposes in a glass casket. All that the
+ancestress has been able to do, the descendant will be able to surpass
+in grim magnificence. In the center of the red marble hall, on the
+rock whence comes the plaint of the gloomy fountain, a platform is
+reserved. It is there, on an orichalch throne, with the Egyptian
+head-dress and the golden serpent on her brow and the trident of
+Neptune in her hand, that the marvelous woman I have told you about
+will be ensconced on that day when the hundred and twenty niches,
+hollowed out in a circle around her throne, shall each have received
+its willing prey.
+
+"When I left Ahaggar, you remember that it was niche number 55 that
+was to be mine. Since then, I have never stopped calculating and I
+conclude that it is in number 80 or 85 that I shall repose. But any
+calculations based upon so fragile a foundation as a woman's whim may
+be erroneous. That is why I am getting more and more nervous. 'I must
+hurry,' I tell myself. 'I must hurry.'
+
+"I must hurry," I repeated, as if I were in a dream.
+
+He raised his head with an indefinable expression of joy. His hand
+trembled with happiness when he shook mine.
+
+"You will see," he repeated excitedly, "you will see."
+
+Ecstatically, he took me in his arms and held me there a long moment.
+
+An extraordinary happiness swept over both of us, while, alternately
+laughing and crying like children, we kept repeating:
+
+"We must hurry. We must hurry."
+
+Suddenly there sprang up a slight breeze that made the tufts of thatch
+in the roof rustle. The sky, pale lilac, grew paler still, and,
+suddenly, a great yellow rent tore it in the east. Dawn broke over the
+empty desert. From within the stockade came dull noises, a bugle call,
+the rattle of chains. The post was waking up.
+
+For several seconds we stood there silent, our eyes fixed on the
+southern route by which one reaches Temassinin, Eguéré and Ahaggar.
+
+A rap on the dining-room door behind us made us start.
+
+"Come in," said André de Saint-Avit in a voice which had become
+suddenly hard.
+
+The Quartermaster, Chatelain, stood before us.
+
+"What do you want of me at this hour?" Saint-Avit asked brusquely.
+
+The non-com stood at attention.
+
+"Excuse me, Captain. But a native was discovered near the post, last
+night, by the patrol. He was not trying to hide. As soon as he had
+been brought here, he asked to be led before the commanding officer.
+It was midnight and I didn't want to disturb you."
+
+"Who is this native?"
+
+"A Targa, Captain."
+
+"A Targa? Go get him."
+
+Chatelain stepped aside. Escorted by one of our native soldiers, the
+man stood behind him.
+
+They came out on the terrace.
+
+The new arrival, six feet tall, was indeed a Targa. The light of dawn
+fell upon his blue-black cotton robes. One could see his great dark
+eyes flashing.
+
+When he was opposite my companion, I saw a tremor, immediately
+suppressed, run through both men.
+
+They looked at each other for an instant in silence.
+
+Then, bowing, and in a very calm voice, the Targa spoke:
+
+"Peace be with you, Lieutenant de Saint-Avit."
+
+In the same calm voice, André answered him:
+
+"Peace be with you, Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh."
+
+[Transcriber's Notes:
+1.In the original books, there were handwritten characters for the
+Greek words used in the discussion of the Tifinar engravings; the
+approximate Greek transliterations have been substituted.
+2. Another inscription was hand-drawn in the book, and the center
+symbol looks like a capital W, rotated 90 degrees counter-clockwise. I
+placed notes to that effect where the symbol appears.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Atlantida, by Pierre Benoit
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14301 ***
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+  The Project Gutenberg eBook of Atlantida, by Pierre Benoit.
+  </title>
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+<body>
+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14301 ***</div>
+
+<!-- Page 1 -->
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span style="margin-left: 8em;">&quot;First, I must warn you,<br /></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 8em;">before beginning this work,<br /></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 8em;">not to be surprised to hear<br /></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 8em;">me calling barbarians by<br /></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 8em;">Grecian names.&quot;<br /></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 12em;">&mdash;PLATO<br /></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 13em;"><i>Critias</i></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<!-- Page 2 -->
+<div class="ctr">
+<img src="images/title.gif" id="title" style="width: 100%;" alt="Title Page" />
+</div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+<h1>ATLANTIDA</h1>
+
+<h2><i>Pierre Benoit</i></h2>
+
+<h3> Translated by Mary C. Tongue and Mary Ross</h3>
+
+<h3>     ACE BOOKS, INC. 1120 Avenue of the Americas New York, N.Y. 10036</h3>
+
+<!-- Page 3 -->
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h4>To Andr&eacute; Suar&egrave;s</h4>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#I">I. A SOUTHERN ASSIGNMENT</a><br />
+<a href="#II">II. CAPTAIN DE SAINT-AVIT</a><br />
+<a href="#III">III. THE MORHANGE-SAINT-AVIT MISSION</a><br />
+<a href="#IV">IV. TOWARDS LATITUDE 25</a><br />
+<a href="#V">V. THE INSCRIPTION</a><br />
+<a href="#VI">VI. THE DISASTER OF THE LETTUCE</a><br />
+<a href="#VII">VII. THE COUNTRY OF FEAR</a><br />
+<a href="#VIII">VIII. AWAKENING AT AHAGGAR</a><br />
+<a href="#IX">IX. ATLANTIS</a><br />
+<a href="#X">X. THE RED MARBLE HALL</a><br />
+<a href="#XI">XI. ANTINEA</a><br />
+<a href="#XII">XII. MORHANGE DISAPPEARS</a><br />
+<a href="#XIII">XIII. THE HETMAN OF JITOMIR'S STORY</a><br />
+<a href="#XIV">XIV. HOURS OF WAITING</a><br />
+<a href="#XV">XV. THE LAMENT OF TANIT-ZERGA</a><br />
+<a href="#XVI">XVI. THE SILVER HAMMER</a><br />
+<a href="#XVII">XVII. THE MAIDENS OF THE ROCKS</a><br />
+<a href="#XVIII">XVIII. THE FIRE-FLIES</a><br />
+<a href="#XIX">XIX. THE TANEZRUFT</a><br />
+<a href="#XX">XX. THE CIRCLE IS COMPLETE</a><br /></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<!-- Page 4 -->
+
+
+<div class="ctr">
+<img src="images/illus004.gif" id="p4" style="width: 100%;" alt="Illustration" />
+</div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>HASSI-INIFEL, NOVEMBER 8, 1903.</h3>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>If the following pages are ever to see the light of day it will be
+because they have been stolen from me. The delay that I exact before
+they shall be disclosed assures me of that.
+<a name="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1"><sup>[1]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>As to this disclosure, let no one distrust my aim when I prepare for
+it, when I insist upon it. You may believe me when I maintain that no
+pride of authorship binds me to these pages. Already I am too far<!-- Page 5 -->
+removed from all such things. Only it is useless that others should
+enter upon the path from which I shall not return.</p>
+
+<p>Four o'clock in the morning. Soon the sun will kindle the hamada with
+its pink fire. All about me the bordj is asleep. Through the half-open
+door of his room I hear Andr&eacute; de Saint-Avit breathing quietly, very
+quietly.</p>
+
+<p>In two days we shall start, he and I. We shall leave the bordj. We
+shall penetrate far down there to the South. The official orders came
+this morning.</p>
+
+<p>Now, even if I wished to withdraw, it is too late. Andr&eacute; and I asked
+for 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;&mdash;and then to be afraid,
+to recoil before this adventure!...</p>
+
+<p>To be afraid, I said. I know that I am not afraid! One night in the
+Gurara, when I found two of my sentinels slaughtered, with the
+shameful cross cut of the Berbers slashed across their stomachs&mdash;then
+I was afraid. I know what fear is. Just so now, when I gazed into the
+black 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 within
+me the sacred horror of this mystery, and its irresistible attraction.</p>
+
+<p>Delirious dreams, perhaps. The mad imaginings of a brain surcharged,
+and an eye distraught by mirages. The day will come, doubtless, when I
+shall reread these pages with an indulgent smile, as a man of fifty is
+accustomed to smile when he rereads old letters.</p>
+
+<p>Delirious dreams. Mad imaginings. But these dreams, these imaginings,
+are dear to me. &quot;Captain de Saint-Avit and Lieutenant Ferri&egrave;res,&quot;
+reads the official dispatch, &quot;will proceed to Tassili to determine the
+statigraphic relation of Albien sandstone and carboniferous limestone.
+They will, in addition, profit by any opportunities of determining the
+possible change of attitude of the Axdjers towards our penetration,
+etc.&quot; If the journey should indeed have to do only with such poor
+things I think that I should never undertake it.</p>
+
+<p>So I am longing for what I dread. I shall be dejected if I do not<!-- Page 6 -->
+find myself in the presence of what makes me strangely fearful.</p>
+
+<p>In the depths of the valley of Wadi Mia a jackal is barking. Now and
+again, when a beam of moonlight breaks in a silver patch through the
+hollows of the heat-swollen clouds, making him think he sees the young
+sun, a turtle dove moans among the palm trees.</p>
+
+<p>I hear a step outside. I lean out of the window. A shade clad in
+luminous black stuff glides over the hard-packed earth of the terrace
+of the fortification. A light shines in the electric blackness. A man
+has just lighted a cigarette. He crouches, facing southwards. He is
+smoking.</p>
+
+<p>It is Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh, our Targa guide, the man who in three days
+is to lead us across the unknown plateaus of the mysterious
+Imoschaoch, across the hamadas of black stones, the great dried oases,
+the stretches of silver salt, the tawny hillocks, the flat gold dunes
+that are crested over, when the &quot;aliz&eacute;&quot; blows, with a shimmering haze
+of pale sand.</p>
+
+<p>Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh! He is the man. There recurs to my mind Duveyrier's
+tragic phrase, &quot;At the very moment the Colonel was putting his foot in
+the stirrup he was felled by a sabre blow.&quot;
+<a name="FNanchor_B_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_B_2"><sup>[2]</sup></a>
+ Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh!
+There he is, peacefully smoking his cigarette, a cigarette from the
+package that I gave him.... May the Lord forgive me for it.</p>
+
+<p>The lamp casts a yellow light on the paper. Strange fate, which, I
+never knew exactly why, decided one day when I was a lad of sixteen
+that I should prepare myself for Saint Cyr, and gave me there Andr&eacute; de
+Saint-Avit as classmate. I might have studied law or medicine. Then I
+should be today a respectable inhabitant of a town with a church and
+running water, instead of this cotton-clad phantom, brooding with an
+unspeakable anxiety over this desert which is about to swallow me.</p>
+
+<p>A great insect has flown in through the window. It buzzes, strikes
+against the rough cast, rebounds against the globe of the lamp, and
+then, helpless, its wings singed by the still burning candle, drops on
+the white paper.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 7 -->It is an African May bug, big, black, with spots of livid gray.</p>
+
+<p>I think of others, its brothers in France, the golden-brown May bugs,
+which I have seen on stormy summer evenings projecting themselves like
+little particles of the soil of my native countryside. It was there
+that as a child I spent my vacations, and later on, my leaves. On my
+last leave, through those same meadows, there wandered beside me a
+slight form, wearing a thin scarf, because of the evening air, so cool
+back there. But now this memory stirs me so slightly that I scarcely
+raise my eyes to that dark corner of my room where the light is dimly
+reflected by the glass of an indistinct portrait. I realize of how
+little consequence has become what had seemed at one time capable of
+filling all my life. This plaintive mystery is of no more interest to
+me. If the strolling singers of Rolla came to murmur their famous
+nostalgic airs under the window of this bordj I know that I should not
+listen to them, and if they became insistent I should send them on
+their way.</p>
+
+<p>What has been capable of causing this metamorphosis in me? A story, a
+legend, perhaps, told, at any rate by one on whom rests the direst of
+suspicions.</p>
+
+<p>Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh has finished his cigarette. I hear him returning
+with slow steps to his mat, in barrack B, to the left of the guard
+post.</p>
+
+<p>Our departure being scheduled for the tenth of November, the
+manuscript attached to this letter was begun on Sunday, the first, and
+finished on Thursday, the fifth of November, 1903.</p>
+
+<p>OLIVIER FERRI&Egrave;RES, Lt. 3rd Spahis.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<!-- Page 8 -->
+<h2><a name="I"><!-- Chapter 1 --></a>I</h2>
+
+<h3>A SOUTHERN ASSIGNMENT</h3>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Sunday, the sixth of June, 1903, broke the monotony of the life that
+we were leading at the Post of Hassi-Inifel by two events of unequal
+importance, the arrival of a letter from Mlle. de C&mdash;&mdash;, and the
+latest numbers of the Official Journal of the French Republic.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have the Lieutenant's permission?&quot; said Sergeant Chatelain,
+beginning to glance through the magazines he had just removed from
+their wrappings.</p>
+
+<p>I acquiesced with a nod, already completely absorbed in reading Mlle.
+de C&mdash;&mdash;'s letter.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When this reaches you,&quot; was the gist of this charming being's letter,
+&quot;mama and I will doubtless have left Paris for the country. If, in
+your distant parts, it might be a consolation to imagine me as bored
+here as you possibly can be, <!-- Page 9 -->make the most of it. The Grand Prix is
+over. I played the horse you pointed out to me, and naturally, I lost.
+Last night we dined with the Martials de la Touche. Elias Chatrian was
+there, always amazingly young. I am sending you his last book, which
+has made quite a sensation. It seems that the Martials de la Touche
+are depicted there without disguise. I will add to it Bourget's last,
+and Loti's, and France's, and two or three of the latest music hall
+hits. In the political word, they say the law about congregations will
+meet with strenuous opposition. Nothing much in the theatres. I have
+taken out a summer subscription for <i>l'Illustration</i>. Would you care
+for it? In the country no one knows what to do. Always the same lot of
+idiots ready for tennis. I shall deserve no credit for writing to you
+often. Spare me your reflections concerning young Combemale. I am less
+than nothing of a feminist, having too much faith in those who tell me
+that I am pretty, in yourself in particular. But indeed, I grow wild
+at the idea that if I permitted myself half the familiarities with one
+of our lads that you have surely with your Ouled-Nails.... Enough of
+that, it is too unpleasant an idea.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I had reached this point in the prose of this advanced young woman
+when a scandalized exclamation of the Sergeant made me look up.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Lieutenant!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They are up to something at the Ministry. See for yourself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He handed me the Official. I read:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;By a decision of the first of May, 1903, Captain de Saint-Avit
+(Andr&eacute;), unattached, is assigned to the Third Spahis, and appointed
+Commandant of the Post of Hassi-Inifel.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Chatelain's displeasure became fairly exuberant.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Captain de Saint-Avit, Commandant of the Post. A post which has never
+had a slur upon it. They must take us for a dumping ground.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>My surprise was as great as the Sergeant's. But just then I saw the
+evil, weasel-like face of Gourrut, the convict we <!-- Page 10 -->used as clerk. He
+had stopped his scrawling and was listening with a sly interest.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sergeant, Captain de Saint-Avit is my ranking classmate,&quot; I answered
+dryly.</p>
+
+<p>Chatelain saluted, and left the room. I followed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There, there,&quot; I said, clapping him on the back, &quot;no hard feelings.
+Remember that in an hour we are starting for the oasis. Have the
+cartridges ready. It is of the utmost importance to restock the
+larder.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I went back to the office and motioned Gourrut to go. Left alone, I
+finished Mlle. de C&mdash;&mdash;'s letter very quickly, and then reread the
+decision of the Ministry giving the post a new chief.</p>
+
+<p>It was now five months that I had enjoyed that distinction, and on my
+word, I had accepted the responsibility well enough, and been very
+well pleased with the independence. I can even affirm, without taking
+too much credit for myself, that under my command discipline had been
+better maintained than under Captain Dieulivol, Saint-Avit's
+predecessor. A brave man, this Captain Dieulivol, a non-commissioned
+officer under Dodds and Duchesne, but subject to a terrible propensity
+for strong liquors, and too much inclined, when he had drunk, to
+confuse his dialects, and to talk to a Houassa in Sakalave. No one was
+ever more sparing of the post water supply. One morning when he was
+preparing his absinthe in the presence of the Sergeant, Chatelain,
+noticing the Captain's glass, saw with amazement that the green liquor
+was blanched by a far stronger admixture of water than usual. He
+looked up, aware that something abnormal had just occurred. Rigid, the
+carafe inverted in his hand, Captain Dieulivol was spilling the water
+which was running over on the sugar. He was dead.</p>
+
+<p>For six months, since the disappearance of this sympathetic old
+tippler, the Powers had not seemed to interest themselves in finding
+his successor. I had even hoped at times that a decision might be
+reached investing me with the rights that I was in fact exercising....
+And today this surprising appointment.</p>
+
+<p>Captain de Saint-Avit. He was of my class at St. Cyr. I had lost track
+of him. Then my attention had been attracted to <!-- Page 11 -->him by his rapid
+advancement, his decoration, the well-deserved recognition of three
+particularly daring expeditions of exploration to Tebesti and the Air;
+and suddenly, the mysterious drama of his fourth expedition, that
+famous mission undertaken with Captain Morhange, from which only one
+of the explorers came back. Everything is forgotten quickly in France.
+That was at least six years ago. I had not heard Saint-Avit mentioned
+since. I had even supposed that he had left the army. And now, I was
+to have him as my chief.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;After all, what's the difference,&quot; I mused, &quot;he or another! At school
+he was charming, and we have had only the most pleasant relationships.
+Besides, I haven't enough yearly income to afford the rank of
+Captain.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And I left the office, whistling as I went.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>We were now, Chatelain and I, our guns resting on the already cooling
+earth, beside the pool that forms the center of the meager oasis,
+hidden behind a kind of hedge of alfa. The setting sun was reddening
+the stagnant ditches which irrigate the poor garden plots of the
+sedentary blacks.</p>
+
+<p>Not a word during the approach. Not a word during the shoot. Chatelain
+was obviously sulking.</p>
+
+<p>In silence we knocked down, one after the other, several of the
+miserable doves which came on dragging wings, heavy with the heat of
+the day, to quench their thirst at the thick green water. When a
+half-dozen slaughtered little bodies were lined up at our feet I put
+my hand on the Sergeant's shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Chatelain!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He trembled.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Chatelain, I was rude to you a little while ago. Don't be angry. It
+was the bad time before the siesta. The bad time of midday.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Lieutenant is master here,&quot; he answered in a tone that was meant
+to be gruff, but which was only strained.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Chatelain, don't be angry. You have something to say to me. You know
+what I mean.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't know really. No, I don't know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Chatelain, Chatelain, why not be sensible? Tell me something about
+Captain de Saint-Avit.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 12 -->I know nothing.&quot; He spoke sharply.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nothing? Then what were you saying a little while ago?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Captain de Saint-Avit is a brave man.&quot; He muttered the words with his
+head still obstinately bent. &quot;He went alone to Bilma, to the Air,
+quite alone to those places where no one had ever been. He is a brave
+man.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He is a brave man, undoubtedly,&quot; I answered with great restraint.
+&quot;But he murdered his companion, Captain Morhange, did he not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The old Sergeant trembled.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He is a brave man,&quot; he persisted.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Chatelain, you are a child. Are you afraid that I am going to repeat
+what you say to your new Captain?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I had touched him to the quick. He drew himself up.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sergeant Chatelain is afraid of no one, Lieutenant. He has been at
+Abomey, against the Amazons, in a country where a black arm started
+out from every bush to seize your leg, while another cut it off for
+you with one blow of a cutlass.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then what they say, what you yourself&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is talk.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Talk which is repeated in France, Chatelain, everywhere.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He bent his head still lower without replying.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ass,&quot; I burst out, &quot;will you speak?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Lieutenant, Lieutenant,&quot; he fairly pled, &quot;I swear that what I know,
+or nothing&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What you know you are going to tell me, and right away. If not, I
+give you my word of honor that, for a month, I shall not speak to you
+except on official business.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Hassi-Inifel: thirty native Arabs and four Europeans&mdash;myself, the
+Sergeant, a Corporal, and Gourrut. The threat was terrible. It had its
+effect.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All right, then, Lieutenant,&quot; he said with a great sigh. &quot;But
+afterwards you must not blame me for having told you things about a
+superior which should not be told and come only from the talk I
+overheard at mess.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Tell away.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It was in 1899. I was then Mess Sergeant at Sfax, with the 4th
+Spahis. I had a good record, and besides, as I did not drink, the
+Adjutant had assigned me to the officers' mess. It was a soft berth.
+The marketing, the accounts, recording <!-- Page 13 -->the library books which were
+borrowed (there weren't many), and the key of the wine cupboard,&mdash;for
+with that you can't trust orderlies. The Colonel was young and dined
+at mess. One evening he came in late, looking perturbed, and, as soon
+as he was seated, called for silence:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Gentlemen,' he said, 'I have a communication to make to you, and I
+shall ask for your advice. Here is the question. Tomorrow morning the
+<i>City of Naples</i> lands at Sfax. Aboard her is Captain de Saint-Avit,
+recently assigned to Feriana, en route to his post.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Colonel paused. 'Good,' thought I, 'tomorrow's menu is about to
+be considered.' For you know the custom, Lieutenant, which has existed
+ever since there have been any officers' clubs in Africa. When an
+officer is passing by, his comrades go to meet him at the boat and
+invite him to remain with them for the length of his stay in port. He
+pays his score in news from home. On such occasions everything is of
+the best, even for a simple lieutenant. At Sfax an officer on a visit
+meant&mdash;one extra course, vintage wine and old liqueurs.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But this time I imagined from the looks the officers exchanged that
+perhaps the old stock would stay undisturbed in its cupboard.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'You have all, I think, heard of Captain de Saint-Avit, gentlemen,
+and the rumors about him. It is not for us to inquire into them, and
+the promotion he has had, his decoration if you will, permits us to
+hope that they are without foundation. But between not suspecting an
+officer of being a criminal, and receiving him at our table as a
+comrade, there is a gulf that we are not obliged to bridge. That is
+the matter on which I ask your advice.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There was silence. The officers looked at each other, all of them
+suddenly quite grave, even to the merriest of the second lieutenants.
+In the corner, where I realized that they had forgotten me, I tried
+not to make the least sound that might recall my presence.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'We thank you, Colonel,' one of the majors finally replied, 'for your
+courtesy in consulting us. All my comrades, I imagine, know to what
+terrible rumors you refer. If I may venture to say so, in Paris at the
+Army Geographical Service, where I was before coming here, most of the
+officers of the <!-- Page 14 -->highest standing had an opinion on this unfortunate
+matter which they avoided stating, but which cast no glory upon
+Captain de Saint-Avit.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'I was at Bammako, at the time of the Morhange-Saint-Avit mission,'
+said a Captain. 'The opinion of the officers there, I am sorry to say,
+differed very little from what the Major describes. But I must add
+that they all admitted that they had nothing but suspicions to go on.
+And suspicions are certainly not enough considering the atrocity of
+the affair.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'They are quite enough, gentlemen,' replied the Colonel, 'to account
+for our hesitation. It is not a question of passing judgment; but no
+man can sit at our table as a matter of right. It is a privilege based
+on fraternal esteem. The only question is whether it is your decision
+to accord it to Saint-Avit.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So saying, he looked at the officers, as if he were taking a roll
+call. One after another they shook their heads.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'I see that we agree,' he said. 'But our task is unfortunately not
+yet over. The <i>City of Naples</i> will be in port tomorrow morning. The
+launch which meets the passengers leaves at eight o'clock. It will be
+necessary, gentlemen, for one of you to go aboard. Captain de
+Saint-Avit might be expecting to come to us. We certainly have no
+intention of inflicting upon him the humiliation of refusing him, if
+he presented himself in expectation of the customary reception. He
+must be prevented from coming. It will be wisest to make him
+understand that it is best for him to stay aboard.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Colonel looked at the officers again. They could not but agree.
+But how uncomfortable each one looked!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'I cannot hope to find a volunteer among you for this kind of
+mission, so I am compelled to appoint some one. Captain Grandjean,
+Captain de Saint-Avit is also a Captain. It is fitting that it be an
+officer of his own rank who carries him our message. Besides, you are
+the latest comer here. Therefore it is to you that I entrust this
+painful interview. I do not need to suggest that you conduct it as
+diplomatically as possible.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Captain Grandjean bowed, while a sigh of relief escaped from all the
+others. As long as the Colonel stayed in the room Grandjean remained
+apart, without speaking. It was only after the chief had departed that
+he let fall the words: &quot;<!-- Page 15 -->'There are some things that ought to count a
+good deal for promotion.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The next day at luncheon everyone was impatient for his return.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Well?' demanded the Colonel, briefly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Captain Grandjean did not reply immediately. He sat down at the table
+where his comrades were mixing their drinks, and he, a man notorious
+for sobriety, drank almost at a gulp, without waiting for the sugar to
+melt, a full glass of absinthe.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Well, Captain?' repeated the Colonel.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Well, Colonel, it's done. You can be at ease. He will not set foot on
+shore. But, ye gods, what an ordeal!'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The officers did not dare speak. Only their looks expressed their
+anxious curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Captain Grandjean poured himself a swallow of water.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'You see, I had gotten my speech all ready, in the launch. But as I
+went up the ladder I knew that I had forgotten it. Saint-Avit was in
+the smoking-room, with the Captain of the boat. It seemed to me that I
+could never find the strength to tell him, when I saw him all ready to
+go ashore. He was in full dress uniform, his sabre lay on the bench
+and he was wearing spurs. No one wears spurs on shipboard. I presented
+myself and we exchanged several remarks, but I must have seemed
+somewhat strained for from the first moment I knew that he sensed
+something. Under some pretext he left the Captain, and led me aft near
+the great rudder wheel. There, I dared speak. Colonel, what did I say?
+How I must have stammered! He did not look at me. Leaning his elbows
+on the railing he let his eyes wander far off, smiling slightly. Then,
+of a sudden, when I was well tangled up in explanations, he looked at
+me coolly and said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'I must thank you, my dear fellow, for having given yourself so much
+trouble. But it is quite unnecessary. I am out of sorts and have no
+intention of going ashore. At least, I have the pleasure of having
+made your acquaintance. Since I cannot profit by your hospitality, you
+must do me the favor of accepting mine as long as the launch stays by
+the vessel.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then we went back to the smoking-room. He himself mixed the
+cocktails. He talked to me. We discovered that <!-- Page 16 -->we had mutual
+acquaintances. Never shall I forget that face, that ironic and distant
+look, that sad and melodious voice. Ah! Colonel, gentlemen, I don't
+know what they may say at the Geographic Office, or in the posts of
+the Soudan.... There can be nothing in it but a horrible suspicion.
+Such a man, capable of such a crime,&mdash;believe me, it is not possible.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is all, Lieutenant,&quot; finished Chatelain, after a silence. &quot;I
+have never seen a sadder meal than that one. The officers hurried
+through lunch without a word being spoken, in an atmosphere of
+depression against which no one tried to struggle. And in this
+complete silence, you could see them always furtively watching the
+<i>City of Naples</i>, where she was dancing merrily in the breeze, a
+league from shore.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She was still there in the evening when they assembled for dinner,
+and it was not until a blast of the whistle, followed by curls of
+smoke escaping from the red and black smokestack had announced the
+departure of the vessel for Gabes, that conversation was resumed; and
+even then, less gaily than usual.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;After that, Lieutenant, at the Officers' Club at Sfax, they avoided
+like the plague any subject which risked leading the conversation back
+to Captain de Saint-Avit.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Chatelain had spoken almost in a whisper, and the little people of the
+desert had not heard this singular history. It was an hour since we
+had fired our last cartridge. Around the pool the turtle doves, once
+more reassured, were bathing their feathers. Mysterious great birds
+were flying under the darkening palm trees. A less warm wind rocked
+the trembling black palm branches. We had laid aside our helmets so
+that our temples could welcome the touch of the feeble breeze.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Chatelain,&quot; I said, &quot;it is time to go back to the bordj.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Slowly we picked up the dead doves. I felt the Sergeant looking at me
+reproachfully, as if regretting that he had spoken. Yet during all the
+time that our return trip lasted, I could not find the strength to
+break our desolate silence with a single word.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 17 -->The night had almost fallen when we arrived. The flag which
+surmounted the post was still visible, drooping on its standard, but
+already its colors were indistinguishable. To the west the sun had
+disappeared behind the dunes gashed against the black violet of the
+sky.</p>
+
+<p>When we had crossed the gate of the fortifications, Chatelain left me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am going to the stables,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p>I returned alone to that part of the fort where the billets for the
+Europeans and the stores of ammunition were located. An inexpressible
+sadness weighed upon me.</p>
+
+<p>I thought of my comrades in French garrisons. At this hour they must
+be returning home to find awaiting them, spread out upon the bed,
+their dress uniform, their braided tunic, their sparkling epaulettes.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Tomorrow,&quot; I said to myself, &quot;I shall request a change of station.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The stairway of hard-packed earth was already black. But a few gleams
+of light still seemed palely prowling in the office when I entered.</p>
+
+<p>A man was sitting at my desk, bending over the files of orders. His
+back was toward me. He did not hear me enter.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Really, Gourrut, my lad, I beg you not to disturb yourself. Make
+yourself completely at home.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The man had risen, and I saw him to be quite tall, slender and very
+pale.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Lieutenant Ferri&egrave;res, is it not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He advanced, holding out his hand.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Captain de Saint-Avit. Delighted, my dear fellow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>At the same time Chatelain appeared on the threshold.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sergeant,&quot; said the newcomer, &quot;I cannot congratulate you on the
+little I have seen. There is not a camel saddle which is not in want
+of buckles, and they are rusty enough to suggest that it rains at
+Hassi-Inifel three hundred days in the year. Furthermore, where were
+you this afternoon? Among the four Frenchmen who compose the post, I
+found only on my arrival one convict, opposite a quart of eau-de-vie.
+We will change all that, I hope. At ease.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Captain,&quot; I said, and my voice was colorless, while <!-- Page 18 -->Chatelain
+remained frozen at attention, &quot;I must tell you that the Sergeant was
+with me, that it is I who am responsible for his absence from the
+post, that he is an irreproachable non-commissioned officer from every
+point of view, and that if we had been warned of your arrival&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Evidently,&quot; he said, with a coldly ironical smile. &quot;Also, Lieutenant,
+I have no intention of holding him responsible for the negligences
+which attach to your office. He is not obliged to know that the
+officer who abandons a post like Hassi-Inifel, if it is only for two
+hours, risks not finding much left on his return. The Chaamba
+brigands, my dear sir, love firearms, and for the sake of the sixty
+muskets in your racks, I am sure they would not scruple to make an
+officer, whose otherwise excellent record is well known to me, account
+for his absence to a court-martial. Come with me, if you please. We
+will finish the little inspection I began too rapidly a little while
+ago.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He was already on the stairs. I followed in his footsteps. Chatelain
+closed the order of march. I heard him murmuring, in a tone which you
+can imagine:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, we are in for it now!&quot;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h2><a name="II"><!-- Chapter 2 --></a>II</h2>
+
+<h3>CAPTAIN DE SAINT-AVIT</h3>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>A few days sufficed to convince us that Chatelain's fears as to our
+official relations with the new chief were vain. Often I have thought
+that by the severity he showed at our first encounter Saint-Avit
+wished to create a formal barrier, to show us that he knew how to keep
+his head high in spite of the weight of his heavy past. Certain it is
+that the day after his arrival, he showed himself in a very different
+light, even complimenting the Sergeant on the upkeep of the post and
+the instruction of the men. To me he was charming.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We are of the same class, aren't we?&quot; he said to me. &quot;I <!-- Page 19 -->don't have
+to ask you to dispense with formalities, it is your right.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Vain marks of confidence, alas! False witnesses to a freedom of
+spirit, one in face of the other. What more accessible in appearance
+than the immense Sahara, open to all those who are willing to be
+engulfed by it? Yet what is more secret? After six months of
+companionship, of communion of life such as only a Post in the South
+offers, I ask myself if the most extraordinary of my adventures is not
+to be leaving to-morrow, toward unsounded solitudes, with a man whose
+real thoughts are as unknown to me as these same solitudes, for which
+he has succeeded in making me long.</p>
+
+<p>The first surprise which was given me by this singular companion was
+occasioned by the baggage that followed him.</p>
+
+<p>On his inopportune arrival, alone, from Wargla, he had trusted to the
+Mehari he rode only what can be carried without harm by such a
+delicate beast,&mdash;his arms, sabre and revolver, a heavy carbine, and a
+very reduced pack. The rest did not arrive till fifteen days later,
+with the convoy which supplied the post.</p>
+
+<p>Three cases of respectable dimensions were carried one after another
+to the Captain's room, and the grimaces of the porters said enough as
+to their weight.</p>
+
+<p>I discreetly left Saint-Avit to his unpacking and began opening the
+mail which the convoy had sent me.</p>
+
+<p>He returned to the office a little later and glanced at the several
+reviews which I had just recieved.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So,&quot; he said. &quot;You take these.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He skimmed through, as he spoke, the last number of the <i>Zeitschrift
+der Gesellschaft fur Erdkunde in Berlin</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; I answered. &quot;These gentlemen are kind enough to interest
+themselves in my works on the geology of the Wadi Mia and the high
+Igharghar.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That may be useful to me,&quot; he murmured, continuing to turn over the
+leaves.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's at your service.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Thanks. I am afraid I have nothing to offer you in ex<!-- Page 20 -->change, except
+Pliny, perhaps. And still&mdash;you know what he said of Igharghar,
+according to King Juba. However, come help me put my traps in place
+and you will see if anything appeals to you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I accepted without further urging.</p>
+
+<p>We commenced by unearthing various meteorological and astronomical
+instruments&mdash;the thermometers of Baudin, Salleron, Fastre, an aneroid,
+a Fortin barometer, chronometers, a sextant, an astronomical spyglass,
+a compass glass.... In short, what Duveyrier calls the material that
+is simplest and easiest to transport on a camel.</p>
+
+<p>As Saint-Avit handed them to me I arranged them on the only table in
+the room.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now,&quot; he announced to me, &quot;there is nothing more but books. I will
+pass them to you. Pile them up in a corner until I can have a
+book-shelf made.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>For two hours altogether I helped him to heap up a real library. And
+what a library! Such as never before a post in the South had seen. All
+the texts consecrated, under whatever titles, by antiquity to the
+regions of the Sahara were reunited between the four rough-cast walls
+of that little room of the bordj. Herodotus and Pliny, naturally, and
+likewise Strabo and Ptolemy, Pomponius Mela, and Ammien Marcellin. But
+besides these names which reassured my ignorance a little, I perceived
+those of Corippus, of Paul Orose, of Eratosthenes, of Photius, of
+Diodorus of Sicily, of Solon, of Dion Cassius, of Isidor of Seville,
+of Martin de Tyre, of Ethicus, of Athen&eacute;e, the <i>Scriptores Historiae
+Augustae</i>, the <i>Itinerarium Antonini Augusti</i>, the <i>Geographi Latini
+Minores</i> of Riese, the <i>Geographi Graeci Minores</i> of Karl Muller....
+Since I have had the occasion to familiarize myself with Agatarchides
+of Cos and Artemidorus of Ephesus, but I admit that in this instance
+the presence of their dissertations in the saddle bags of a captain of
+cavalry caused me some amazement.</p>
+
+<p>I mention further the <i>Descrittione dell' Africa</i> by Leon l'African,
+the <i>Arabian Histories</i> of Ibn-Khaldoun, of Al-Iaquob, of El-Bekri, of
+Ibn-Batoutah, of Mahommed El-Tounsi.... In the midst of this Babel, I
+remember the names <!-- Page 21 -->of only two volumes of contemporary French
+scholars. There were also the laborious theses of
+Berlioux<a name="FNanchor_C_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_C_3"><sup>[3]</sup></a> and of
+Schirmer.<a name="FNanchor_D_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_D_4"><sup>[4]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>While I proceeded to make piles of as similar dimensions as possible I
+kept saying to myself:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To think that I have been believing all this time that in his mission
+with Morhange, Saint-Avit was particularly concerned in scientific
+observations. Either my memory deceives me strangely or he is riding a
+horse of another color. What is sure is that there is nothing for me
+in the midst of all this chaos.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He must have read on my face the signs of too apparently expressed
+surprise, for he said in a tone in which I divined a tinge of
+defiance:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The choice of these books surprises you a bit?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I can't say it surprises me,&quot; I replied, &quot;since I don't know the
+nature of the work for which you have collected them. In any case I
+dare say, without fear of being contradicted, that never before has
+officer of the Arabian Office possessed a library in which the
+humanities were so, well represented.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He smiled evasively, and that day we pursued the subject no further.</p>
+
+<p>Among Saint-Avit's books I had noticed a voluminous notebook secured
+by a strong lock. Several times I surprised him in the act of making
+notations in it. When for any reason he was called out of the room he
+placed his album carefully in a small cabinet of white wood, provided
+by the munificence of the Administration. When he was not writing and
+the office did not require his presence, he had the mehari which he
+had brought with him saddled, and a few minutes later, from the
+terrace of the fortifications, I could see the double silhouette
+disappearing with great strides behind a hummock of red earth on the
+horizon.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 22 -->Each time these trips lasted longer. From each he returned in a kind
+of exaltation which made me watch him with daily increasing
+disquietude during meal hours, the only time we passed quite alone
+together.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; I said to myself one day when his remarks had been more
+lacking in sequence than usual, &quot;it's no fun being aboard a submarine
+when the captain takes opium. What drug can this fellow be taking,
+anyway?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Next day I looked hurriedly through my comrade's drawers. This
+inspection, which I believed to be my duty, reassured me momentarily.
+&quot;All very good,&quot; I thought, &quot;provided he does not carry with him his
+capsules and his Pravaz syringe.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I was still in that stage where I could suppose that Andr&eacute;'s
+imagination needed artificial stimulants.</p>
+
+<p>Meticulous observation undeceived me. There was nothing suspicious in
+this respect. Moreover, he rarely drank and almost never smoked.</p>
+
+<p>And nevertheless, there was no means of denying the increase of his
+disquieting feverishness. He returned from his expeditions each time
+with his eyes more brilliant. He was paler, more animated, more
+irritable.</p>
+
+<p>One evening he left the post about six o'clock, at the end of the
+greatest heat of the day. We waited for him all night. My anxiety was
+all the stronger because quite recently caravans had brought tidings
+of bands of robbers in the neighborhood of the post.</p>
+
+<p>At dawn he had not returned. He did not come before midday. His camel
+collapsed under him, rather than knelt.</p>
+
+<p>He realized that he must excuse himself, but he waited till we were
+alone at lunch.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am so sorry to have caused you any anxiety. But the dunes were so
+beautiful under the moon! I let myself be carried farther and
+farther....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have no reproaches to make, dear fellow, you are free, and the
+chief here. Only allow me to recall to you certain warnings concerning
+the Chaamba brigands, and the misfortunes that might arise from a
+Commandant of a post absenting himself too long.&quot;</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 23 -->He smiled.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't dislike such evidence of a good memory,&quot; he said simply.</p>
+
+<p>He was in excellent, too excellent spirits.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Don't blame me. I set out for a short ride as usual. Then, the moon
+rose. And then, I recognized the country. It is just where, twenty
+years ago next November, Flatters followed the way to his destiny in
+an exaltation which the certainty of not returning made keener and
+more intense.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Strange state of mind for a chief of an expedition,&quot; I murmured.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Say nothing against Flatters. No man ever loved the desert as he
+did ... even to dying of it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Palat and Douls, among many others, have loved it as much,&quot; I
+answered. &quot;But they were alone when they exposed themselves to it.
+Responsible only for their own lives, they were free. Flatters, on the
+other hand, was responsible for sixty lives. And you cannot deny that
+he allowed his whole party to be massacred.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The words were hardly out of my lips before I regretted them, I
+thought of Chatelain's story, of the officers' club at Sfax, where
+they avoided like the plague any kind of conversation which might lead
+their thoughts toward a certain Morhange-Saint-Avit mission.</p>
+
+<p>Happily I observed that my companion was not listening. His brilliant
+eyes were far away.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What was your first garrison?&quot; he asked suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Auxonne.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He gave an unnatural laugh.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Auxonne. Province of the Cote d'Or. District of Dijon. Six thousand
+inhabitants. P.L.M. Railway. Drill school and review. The Colonel's
+wife receives Thursdays, and the Major's on Saturdays. Leaves every
+Sunday,&mdash;the first of the month to Paris, the three others to Dijon.
+That explains your Judgment of Flatters.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;For my part, my dear fellow, my first garrison was at Boghar. I
+arrived there one morning in October, a second lieutenant, aged
+twenty, of the First African Batallion, the white chevron on my black
+sleeve.... Sun stripe, as the <!-- Page 24 --><i>bagnards</i> say in speaking of their
+grades. Boghar! Two days before, from the bridge of the steamer, I had
+begun to see the shores of Africa. I pity all those who, when they see
+those pale cliffs for the first time, do not feel a great leap at
+their hearts, at the thought that this land prolongs itself thousands
+and thousands of leagues.... I was little more than a child, I had
+plenty of money. I was ahead of schedule. I could have stopped three
+or four days at Algiers to amuse myself. Instead I took the train that
+same evening for Berroughia.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There, scarcely a hundred kilometers from Algiers, the railway
+stopped. Going in a straight line you won't find another until you get
+to the Cape. The diligence travels at night on account of the heat.
+When we came to the hills I got out and walked beside the carriage,
+straining for the sensation, in this new atmosphere, of the kiss of
+the outlying desert.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;About midnight, at the Camp of the Zouaves, a humble post on the road
+embankment, overlooking a dry valley whence rose the feverish perfume
+of oleander, we changed horses. They had there a troop of convicts and
+impressed laborers, under escort of riflemen and convoys to the
+quarries in the South. In part, rogues in uniform, from the jails of
+Algiers and Douara,&mdash;without arms, of course; the others
+civilians&mdash;such civilians! this year's recruits, the young bullies of
+the Chapelle and the Goutte-d'Or.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They left before we did. Then the diligence caught up with them. From
+a distance I saw in a pool of moonlight on the yellow road the black
+irregular mass of the convoy. Then I heard a weary dirge; the wretches
+were singing. One, in a sad and gutteral voice, gave the couplet,
+which trailed dismally through the depths of the blue ravines:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span>&quot;'<i>Maintenant qu'elle est grande</i>,<br /></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Elle fait le trottoir</i>,<br /></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Avec ceux de la bande</i><br /></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>A Richard-Lenoir</i>.'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>&quot;And the others took up in chorus the horrible refrain:</p>
+<!-- Page 25 -->
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span>&quot;'<i>A la Bastille, a la Bastille</i>,<br /></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>On aime bien, on aime bien</i><br /></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>Nini Peau d'Chien</i>;<br /></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Elle est si belle et si gentille</i><br /></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>A la Bastille</i>'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>&quot;I saw them all in contrast to myself when the diligence passed them.
+They were terrible. Under the hideous searchlight their eyes shone
+with a sombre fire in their pale and shaven faces. The burning dust
+strangled their raucous voices in their throats. A frightful sadness
+took possession of me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When the diligence had left this fearful nightmare behind, I regained
+my self-control.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Further, much further South,' I exclaimed to myself, 'to the places
+untouched by this miserable bilgewater of civilization.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When I am weary, when I have a moment of anguish and longing to turn
+back on the road that I have chosen, I think of the prisoners of
+Berroughia, and then I am glad to continue on my way.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But what a reward, when I am in one of those places where the poor
+animals never think of fleeing because they have never seen man, where
+the desert stretches out around me so widely that the old world could
+crumble, and never a single ripple on the dune, a single cloud in the
+white sky come to warn me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'It is true,' I murmured. 'I, too, once, in the middle of the desert,
+at Tidi-Kelt, I felt that way.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Up to that time I had let him enjoy his exaltations without
+interruption. I understood too late the error that I had made in
+pronouncing that unfortunate sentence.</p>
+
+<p>His mocking nervous laughter began anew.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah! Indeed, at Tidi-Kelt? I beg you, old man, in your own interest,
+if you don't want to make an ass of yourself, avoid that species of
+reminiscence. Honestly, you make me think of Fromentin, or that poor
+Maupassant, who talked of the desert because he had been to Djelfa,
+two days' journey from the street of Bab-Azound and the Government
+buildings, four days from the Avenue de l'Opera;&mdash;and who, because he
+saw a poor devil of a camel dying near Bou-Saada, be<!-- Page 26 -->lieved himself in
+the heart of the desert, on the old route of the caravans....
+Tidi-Kelt, the desert!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It seems to me, however, that In-Salah&mdash;&quot; I said, a little vexed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In-Salah? Tidi-Kelt! But, my poor friend, the last time that I passed
+that way there were as many old newspapers and empty sardine boxes as
+if it had been Sunday in the Wood of Vincennes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Such a determined, such an evident desire to annoy me made me forget
+my reserve.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Evidently,&quot; I replied resentfully, &quot;I have never been to&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I stopped myself, but it was already too late.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at me, squarely in the face.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To where?&quot; he said with good humor.</p>
+
+<p>I did not answer.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To where?&quot; he repeated.</p>
+
+<p>And, as I remained strangled in my muteness:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To Wadi Tarhit, do you mean?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was on the east bank of Wadi Tarhit, a hundred and twenty
+kilometers from Timissao, at 25.5 degrees north latitude, according to
+the official report, that Captain Morhange was buried.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Andr&eacute;,&quot; I cried stupidly, &quot;I swear to you&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What do you swear to me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That I never meant&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To speak of Wadi Tarhit? Why? Why should you not speak to me of Wadi
+Tarhit?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In answer to my supplicating silence, he merely shrugged his
+shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Idiot,&quot; was all he said.</p>
+
+<p>And he left me before I could think of even one word to say.</p>
+
+<p>So much humility on my part had, however, not disarmed him. I had the
+proof of it the next day, and the way he showed his humor was even
+marked by an exhibition of wretchedly poor taste.</p>
+
+<p>I was just out of bed when he came into my room.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Can you tell me what is the meaning of this?&quot; he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>He had in his hand one of the official registers. In his <!-- Page 27 -->nervous
+crises he always began sorting them over, in the hope of finding some
+pretext for making himself militarily insupportable.</p>
+
+<p>This time chance had favored him.</p>
+
+<p>He opened the register. I blushed violently at seeing the poor proof
+of a photograph that I knew well.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is that?&quot; he repeated disdainfully.</p>
+
+<p>Too often I had surprised him in the act of regarding, none too
+kindly, the portrait of Mlle. de C. which hung in my room not to be
+convinced at that moment that he was trying to pick a quarrel with me.</p>
+
+<p>I controlled myself, however, and placed the poor little print in the
+drawer.</p>
+
+<p>But my calmness did not pacify him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Henceforth,&quot; he said, &quot;take care, I beg you, not to mix mementoes of
+your gallantry with the official papers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He added, with a smile that spoke insult:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It isn't necessary to furnish objects of excitation to Gourrut.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Andr&eacute;,&quot; I said, and I was white, &quot;I demand&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He stood up to the full height of his stature.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well what is it? A gallantry, nothing more. I have authorized you to
+speak of Wadi Halfa, haven't I? Then I have the right, I should
+think&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Andr&eacute;!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Now he was looking maliciously at the wall, at the little portrait the
+replica of which I had just subjected to this painful scene.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There, there, I say, you aren't angry, are you? But between ourselves
+you will admit, will you not, that she is a little thin?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And before I could find time to answer him, he had removed himself,
+humming the shameful refrain of the previous night:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span>&quot;<i>A la Bastille, a la Bastille</i>,<br /></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>On aime bien, on aime bien</i>,<br /></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;"><i>Nini, Peau de Chien</i>.&quot;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>For three days neither of us spoke to the other. My ex<!-- Page 28 -->asperation was
+too deep for words. Was I, then, to be held responsible for his
+avatars! Was it my fault if, between two phrases, one seemed always
+some allusion&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The situation is intolerable,&quot; I said to myself. &quot;It cannot last
+longer.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was to cease very soon.</p>
+
+<p>One week after the scene of the photograph the courier arrived. I had
+scarcely glanced at the index of the <i>Zeitschrift</i>, the German review
+of which I have already spoken, when I started with uncontrollable
+amazement. I had just read: <i>&quot;Reise und Entdeckungen zwei
+fronzosischer offiziere, Rittmeisters Morhange und Oberleutnants de
+Saint-Avit, in westlichen Sahara.&quot;</i></p>
+
+<p>At the same time I heard my comrade's voice.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Anything interesting in this number?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No,&quot; I answered carelessly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let's see.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I obeyed; what else was there to do?</p>
+
+<p>It seemed to me that he grew paler as he ran over the index. However,
+his tone was altogether natural when he said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You will let me borrow it, of course?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And he went out, casting me one defiant glance.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>The day passed slowly. I did not see him again until evening. He was
+gay, very gay, and his gaiety hurt me.</p>
+
+<p>When we had finished dinner, we went out and leaned on the balustrade
+of the terrace. From there out swept the desert, which the darkness
+was already encroaching upon from the east.</p>
+
+<p>Andr&eacute; broke the silence.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;By the way, I have returned your review to you. You were right, it is
+not interesting.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>His expression was one of supreme amusement.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is it, what is the matter with you, anyway?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nothing,&quot; I answered, my throat aching.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nothing? Shall I tell you what is the matter with you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I looked at him with an expression of supplication.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Idiot,&quot; he found it necessary to repeat once more.</p>
+
+<p>Night fell quickly. Only the southern slope of Wadi Mia <!-- Page 29 -->was still
+yellow. Among the boulders a little jackal was running about, yapping
+sharply.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The <i>dib</i> is making a fuss about nothing, bad business,&quot; said
+Saint-Avit.</p>
+
+<p>He continued pitilessly:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then you aren't willing to say anything?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I made a great effort, to produce the following pitiful phrase:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What an exhausting day. What a night, heavy, heavy&mdash;You don't feel
+like yourself, you don't know any more&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; said the voice of Saint-Avit, as from a distance, &quot;A heavy,
+heavy night: as heavy, do you know, as when I killed Captain
+Morhange.&quot;</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h2><a name="III"><!-- Chapter 3 --></a>III</h2>
+
+<h3>THE MORHANGE-SAINT-AVIT MISSION</h3>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So I killed Captain Morhange,&quot; Andr&eacute; de Saint-Avit said to me the
+next day, at the same time, in the same place, with a calm that took
+no account of the night, the frightful night I had just been through.
+&quot;Why do I tell you this? I don't know in the least. Because of the
+desert, perhaps. Are you a man capable of enduring the weight of that
+confidence, and further, if necessary, of assuming the consequences it
+may bring? I don't know that, either. The future will decide. For the
+present there is only one thing certain, the fact, I tell you again,
+that I killed Captain Morhange.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I killed him. And, since you want me to specify the reason, you
+understand that I am not going to torture my brain to turn it into a
+romance for you, or commence by recounting in the naturalistic manner
+of what stuff my first trousers were made, or, as the neo-Catholics
+would have it, how often I went as a child to confession, and how much
+I liked doing it. I have no taste for useless exhibitions. You will
+find that this recital begins strictly at the time when I met
+Morhange.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And first of all, I tell you, however much it has cost my <!-- Page 30 -->peace of
+mind and my reputation, I do not regret having known him. In a word,
+apart from all question of false friendship, I am convicted of a black
+ingratitude in having killed him. It is to him, it is to his knowledge
+of rock inscriptions, that I owe the only thing that has raised my
+life in interest above the miserable little lives dragged out by my
+companions at Auxonne, and elsewhere.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This being understood, here are the facts:</p>
+
+<p>It was in the Arabian Office at Wargla, when I was a lieutenant, that
+I first heard the name, Morhange. And I must add that it was for me
+the occasion of an attack of bad humor. We were having difficult
+times. The hostility of the Sultan of Morocco was latent. At Touat,
+where the assassination of Flatters and of Frescaly had already been
+concocted, connivance was being given to the plots of our enemies.
+Touat was the center of conspiracies, of razzias, of defections, and
+at the same time, the depot of supply for the insatiable nomads. The
+Governors of Algeria, Tirman, Cambon, Laferriere, demanded its
+occupation. The Ministers of War tacitly agreed.... But there was
+Parliament, which did nothing at all, because of England, because of
+Germany, and above all because of a certain <i>Declaration of the Rights
+of Man and of the Citizen</i>, which prescribed that insurrection is the
+most sacred of duties, even when the insurgents are savages who cut
+your head off. In short, the military authority could only, at its own
+discretion, increase the southern garrisons, and establish new posts;
+this one, Berresof, Hassi-el-Mia, Fort MacMahon, Fort Lallemand, Fort
+Miribel.... But as Castries puts it, you don't hold the nomads with
+bordjs, you hold them by the belt. The middle was the oasis of Touat.
+Their honors, the lawyers of Paris, had to be convinced of the
+necessity of taking possession of the oasis of Touat. The best way
+would be to present them with a faithful picture of the plots that
+were being woven there against us.</p>
+
+<p>The principal authors were, and still are, the Senoussis, whose able
+chief has been forced by our arms to transfer the seat of his
+confederation several thousand leagues from there, to Schimmedrou, in
+the Tibesti. They had, I say <i>they</i> through modesty, the idea of
+ascertaining the traces left <!-- Page 31 -->by these agitators on their favorite
+places of concourse; Rh&acirc;t, Temassinin, the plain of Adejamor, and
+In-Salah. It was, you see, at least after leaving Temassinin,
+practically the same itinerary as that followed in 1864 by General
+Rohlfs.</p>
+
+<p>I had already attracted some attention by two excursions, one to
+Agad&egrave;s, and the other to Bilma, and was considered by the staff
+officers to be one of the best informed on the Senoussis question. I
+was therefore selected to assume this new task.</p>
+
+<p>I then suggested that it would be of interest to kill two birds with
+one stone, and to get, in passing, an idea of the northern Ahaggar, so
+as to make sure whether the Tuaregs of Ahitarhen had continued to have
+as cordial relations with the Senoussis as they had had when they
+combined to massacre the Flatters' mission. I was immediately accorded
+the permission. The change in my first plan was as follows: After
+reaching Ighelaschem, six hundred kilometers south of Temassinin,
+instead of taking the direct road to Touat via Rh&acirc;t, I would,
+penetrating between the high land of Mouydir and Ahaggar, strike off
+to the southwest as far as Shikh-Salah. Here I would turn again
+northwards, towards In-Salah, by the road to the Soudan and Agad&egrave;s. In
+all hardly eight kilometers additional in a trip of about seven
+hundred leagues, with the certainty of making as complete an
+examination as possible of the roads which our enemies, the Senoussis
+of Tibesti and the Tuareg of the Ahaggar, must follow to arrive at
+Touat. On the way, for every explorer has his pet fancy, I was not at
+all displeased to think that I would have a chance to examine the
+geological formation of the plateau of Egere, about which Duveyrier
+and the others are so disappointingly indefinite.</p>
+
+<p>Everything was ready for my departure from Wargla. Everything, which
+is to say, very little. Three mehara: mine, my companion Bou-Djema's
+(a faithful Chaamba, whom I had had with me in my wanderings through
+the Air, less of a guide in the country I was familiar with than a
+machine for saddling and unsaddling camels), then a third to carry
+provisions and skins of drinking water, very little, since I had taken
+pains to locate the stops with reference to the wells.</p>
+
+<p>Some people go equipped for this kind of expedition with <!-- Page 32 -->a hundred
+regulars, and even cannon. I am for the tradition of Douls and Ren&eacute;
+Callie, I go alone.</p>
+
+<p>I was at that perfect moment when only one thin thread still held me
+to the civilized world when an official cable arrived at Wargla.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Lieutenant de Saint-Avit,&quot; it said briefly, &quot;will delay his departure
+until the arrival of Captain Morhange, who will accompany him on his
+expedition of exploration.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I was more than disappointed. I alone had had the idea of this
+expedition. I had had all the difficulty that you can imagine to make
+the authorities agree to it. And now when I was rejoicing at the idea
+of the long hours I would spend alone with myself in the heart of the
+desert, they sent me a stranger, and, to make matters worse, a
+superior.</p>
+
+<p>The condolences of my comrades aggravated my bad humor.</p>
+
+<p>The Yearly Report, consulted on the spot, had given them the following
+information:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Morhange (Jean-Marie-Fran&ccedil;ois), class of 1881. Breveted. Captain,
+unassigned. (Topographical Service of the Army.)&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is the explanation for you,&quot; said one. &quot;They are sending one of
+their creatures to pull the chestnuts out of the fire, after you have
+had all the trouble of making it. Breveted! That's a great way. The
+theories of Ardant du Picq or else nothing about here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't altogether agree with you,&quot; said the Major. &quot;They knew in
+Parliament, for some one is always indiscreet, the real aim of
+Saint-Avit's mission: to force their hand for the occupation of Touat.
+And this Morhange must be a man serving the interests of the Army
+Commission. All these people, secretaries, members of Parliament,
+governors, keep a close watch on each other. Some one will write an
+amusing paradoxical history some day, of the French Colonial
+Expansion, which is made without the knowledge of the powers in
+office, when it is not actually in spite of them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Whatever the reason, the result will be the same,&quot; I said bitterly;
+&quot;we will be two Frenchmen to spy on each other night and day, along
+the roads to the south. An amiable prospect when one has none too much
+time to foil all the tricks of the natives. When does he arrive?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 33 -->Day after tomorrow, probably. I have news of a convoy coming from
+Ghardaia. It is likely that he will avail himself of it. The
+indications are that he doesn't know very much about traveling alone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Captain Morhange did arrive in fact two days later by means of the
+convoy from Ghardaia. I was the first person for whom he asked.</p>
+
+<p>When he came to my room, whither I had withdrawn in dignity as soon as
+the convoy was sighted, I was disagreeably surprised to foresee that I
+would have great difficulty in preserving my prejudice against him.</p>
+
+<p>He was tall, his face full and ruddy, with laughing blue eyes, a small
+black moustache, and hair that was already white.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have a thousand apologies to make to you, my dear fellow,&quot; he said
+immediately, with a frankness that I have never seen in any other man.
+&quot;You must be furious with my importunity in upsetting your plans and
+delaying your departure.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;By no means, Captain,&quot; I replied coolly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You really have only yourself to blame. It is on account of your
+knowledge of the southern, routes, so highly esteemed at Paris, that I
+wished to have you to initiate me when the Ministries of Instruction
+and of Commerce, and the Geographical Society combined to charge me
+with the mission which brings me here. These three honorable
+institutions have in fact entrusted me with the attempt to
+re-establish the ancient track of the caravans, which, from the ninth
+century, trafficked between Tunis and the Soudan, by Toweur, Wargla,
+Es-Souk and the bend of the Bourroum; and to study the possibility of
+restoring this route to its ancient splendor. At the same time, at the
+Geographic Bureau, I heard of the journey that you are undertaking.
+From Wargla to Shikh-Salah our two itineraries are the same. Only I
+must admit to you that it is the first voyage of this kind that I have
+ever undertaken. I would not be afraid to hold forth for an hour on
+Arabian literature in the amphitheatre of the School of Oriental
+Languages, but I know well enough that in the desert I should have to
+ask for directions whether to <!-- Page 34 -->turn right or left. This is the only
+chance which could give me such an opportunity, and at the same time
+put me under obligation for this introduction to so charming a
+companion. You must not blame me if I seized it, if I used all my
+influence to retard your departure from Wargla until the instant when
+I could join you. I have only one more word to add to what I have
+said. I am entrusted with a mission which by its origin is rendered
+essentially civilian. You are sent out by the Ministry of War. Up to
+the moment when, arrived at Shikh-Salah we turn our backs on each
+other to attain, you Touat, and I the Niger, all your recommendations,
+all your orders, will be followed by a subaltern, and, I hope, by a
+friend as well.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>All the time he was talking so openly I felt delightedly my worst
+recent fears melting away. Nevertheless, I still experienced a mean
+desire to show him some marks of reserve, for having thus disposed of
+my company at a distance, without consulting me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am very grateful to you, Captain, for your extremely flattering
+words. When do you wish to leave Wargla?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He made a gesture of complete detachment.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Whenever you like. Tomorrow, this evening. I have already delayed
+you. Your preparations must have already been made for some time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>My little maneuver had turned against myself. I had not been counting
+on leaving before the next week.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Tomorrow, Captain, but your luggage?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He smiled delightfully.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I thought it best to bring as little as possible. A light pack, some
+papers. My brave camel had no difficulty in bringing it along. For the
+rest I depend on your advice, and the resources of Owargla.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I was well caught. I had nothing further to say. And moreover, such
+freedom of spirit and manner had already captivated me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It seems,&quot; said my comrades, when the time for aperitives had brought
+us all together again, &quot;that this Captain of yours is a remarkably
+charming fellow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Remarkably.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 35 -->You surely can't have any trouble with him. It is only up to you to
+see that later on he doesn't get all the glory.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We aren't working with the same end in view,&quot; I answered evasively.</p>
+
+<p>I was thoughtful, only thoughtful I give you my word. From that moment
+I harbored no further grudge against Morhange. Yet my silence
+persuaded him that I was unforgiving. And everyone, do you hear me,
+everyone said later on, when suspicions became rife:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He is surely guilty. We saw them go off together. We can affirm it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I am guilty.... But for a low motive of jealousy.... How sickening....</p>
+
+<p>After that, there was nothing to do but to flee, flee, as far as the
+places where there are no more men who think and reason.</p>
+
+<p>Morhange, appeared, his arm resting on the Major's, who was beaming
+over this new acquaintanceship.</p>
+
+<p>He presented him enthusiastically:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Captain Morhange, gentlemen. An officer of the old school, and a man
+after our own hearts, I give you my word. He wants to leave tomorrow,
+but we must give him such a reception that he will forget that idea
+before two days are up. Come, Captain, you have at least eight days to
+give us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am at the disposition of Lieutenant de Saint-Avit,&quot; replied
+Morhange, with a quiet smile.</p>
+
+<p>The conversation became general. The sound of glasses and laughter
+rang out. I heard my comrades in ecstasies over the stories that the
+newcomer poured out with never-failing humor. And I, never, never have
+I felt so sad.</p>
+
+<p>The time came to pass into the dining-room.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;At my right, Captain,&quot; cried the Major, more and more beaming. &quot;And I
+hope you will keep on giving us these new lines on Paris. We are not
+up with the times here, you know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yours to command, Major,&quot; said Morhange.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Be seated, gentlemen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The officers obeyed, with a joyous clatter of moving chairs. I had not
+taken my eyes off Morhange, who was still standing.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 36 -->Major, gentlemen, you will allow me,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p>And before sitting down at that table, where every moment he was the
+life of the party, in a low voice, with his eyes closed, Captain
+Morhange recited the Benedicite.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h2><a name="IV"><!-- Chapter 4 --></a>IV</h2>
+
+<h3>TOWARDS LATITUDE 25</h3>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You see,&quot; said Captain Morhange to me fifteen days later, &quot;you are
+much better informed about the ancient routes through the Sahara than
+you have been willing to let me suppose, since you know of the
+existence of the two Tadekkas. But the one of which you have just
+spoken is the Tadekka of Ibn-Batoutah, located by this historian
+seventy days from Touat, and placed by Schirmer, very plausibly, in
+the unexplored territory of the Aouelimmiden. This is the Tadekka by
+which the Sonrha&iuml; caravans passed every year, travelling by Egypt.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My Tadekka is different, the capital of the veiled people, placed by
+Ibn-Khaldoun twenty days south of Wargla, which he calls Tadmekka. It
+is towards this Tadmekka that I am headed. I must establish Tadmekka
+in the ruins of Es-Souk. The commercial trade route, which in the
+ninth century bound the Tunisian Djerid to the bend the Niger makes at
+Bourroum, passed by Es-Souk. It is to study the possibility of
+reestablishing this ancient thoroughfare that the Ministries gave me
+this mission, which has given me the pleasure of your companionship.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are probably in for a disappointment,&quot; I said. &quot;Everything
+indicates that the commerce there is very slight.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I shall see,&quot; he answered composedly.</p>
+
+<p>This was while we were following the unicolored banks of a salt lake.
+The great saline stretch shone pale-blue, under the rising sun. The
+legs of our five mehara cast on it their moving shadows of a darker
+blue. For a moment the only inhabitant of these solitudes, a bird, a
+kind of indeterminate <!-- Page 37 -->heron, rose and hung in the air, as if
+suspended from a thread, only to sink back to rest as soon as we had
+passed.</p>
+
+<p>I led the way, selecting the route, Morhange followed. Enveloped in a
+bernous, his head covered with the straight <i>chechia</i> of the Spahis, a
+great chaplet of alternate red and white beads, ending in a cross,
+around his neck, he realized perfectly the ideal of Father Lavigerie's
+White Fathers.</p>
+
+<p>After a two-days' halt at Temassinin we had just left the road
+followed by Flatters, and taken an oblique course to the south. I have
+the honor of having antedated Fourcau in demonstrating the importance
+of Temassinin as a geometrical point for the passage of caravans, and
+of selecting the place where Captain Pein has just now constructed a
+fort. The junction for the roads that lead to Touat from Fezzan and
+Tibesti, Temassinin is the future seat of a marvellous Intelligence
+Department. What I had collected there in two days about the
+disposition of our Senoussis enemies was of importance. I noticed that
+Morhange let me proceed with my inquiries with complete indifference.</p>
+
+<p>These two days he had passed in conversation with the old Negro
+guardian of the turbet, which preserves, under its plaster dome, the
+remains of the venerated Sidi-Moussa. The confidences they exchanged,
+I am sorry to say that I have forgotten. But from the Negro's amazed
+admiration, I realized the ignorance in which I stood to the mysteries
+of the desert, and how familiar they were to my companion.</p>
+
+<p>And if you want to get any idea of the extraordinary originality which
+Morhange introduced into such surroundings, you who, after all, have a
+certain familiarity with the tropics, listen to this. It was exactly
+two hundred kilometers from here, in the vicinity of the Great Dune,
+in that horrible stretch of six days without water. We had just enough
+for two days before reaching the next well, and you know these wells;
+as Flatters wrote to his wife, &quot;you have to work for hours before you
+can clean them out and succeed in watering beasts and men.&quot; By chance
+we met a caravan there, which was going east towards Rhadam&egrave;s, and had
+come too far north. The camels' humps, shrunken and shaking, bespoke
+the sufferings of the troop. Behind came a little gray ass, a pitiful
+burrow, interfering at every step, and lightened <!-- Page 38 -->of its pack because
+the merchants knew that it was going to die. Instinctively, with its
+last strength, it followed, knowing that when it could stagger no
+longer, the end would come and the flutter of the bald vultures'
+wings. I love animals, which I have solid reasons for preferring to
+men. But never should I have thought of doing what Morhange did then.
+I tell you that our water skins were almost dry, and that our own
+camels, without which one is lost in the empty desert, had not been
+watered for many hours. Morhange made his kneel, uncocked a skin, and
+made the little ass drink. I certainly felt gratification at seeing
+the poor bare flanks of the miserable beast pant with satisfaction. But
+the responsibility was mine. Also I had seen Bou-Djema's aghast
+expression, and the disapproval of the thirsty members of the caravan.
+I remarked on it. How it was received! &quot;What have I given,&quot; replied
+Morhange, &quot;was my own. We will reach El-Biodh to-morrow evening, about
+six o'clock. Between here and there I know that I shall not be
+thirsty.&quot; And that in a tone, in which for the first time he allowed
+the authority of a Captain to speak. &quot;That is easy to say,&quot; I thought,
+ill-humoredly. &quot;He knows that when he wants them, my water-skin, and
+Bou-Djema's, are at his service.&quot; But I did not yet know Morhange very
+well, and it is true that until the evening of the next day when we
+reached El-Biodh, refusing our offers with smiling determination, he
+drank nothing.</p>
+
+<p>Shades of St. Francis of Assisi! Umbrian hills, so pure under the
+rising sun! It was in the light of a like sunrise, by the border of a
+pale stream leaping in full cascades from a crescent-shaped niche of
+the gray rocks of Egere, that Morhange stopped. The unlooked for
+waters rolled upon the sand, and we saw, in the light which mirrored
+them, little black fish. Fish in the middle of the Sahara! All three
+of us were mute before this paradox of Nature. One of them had strayed
+into a little channel of sand. He had to stay there, struggling in
+vain, his little white belly exposed to the air.... Morhange picked
+him up, looked at him for a moment, and put him back into the little
+stream. Shades of St. Francis. Umbrian hills.... But I have sworn not
+<!-- Page 39 -->to break the thread of the story by these untimely digressions.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>&quot;You see,&quot; Captain Morhange said to me a week later, &quot;that I was right
+in advising you to go farther south before making for Shikh-Salah.
+Something told me that this highland of Egere was not interesting from
+your point of view. While here you have only to stoop to pick up
+pebbles which will allow you to establish the volcanic origin of this
+region much more certainly than Bou-Derba, des Cloizeaux, and Doctor
+Marr&eacute;s have done.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>This was while we were following the western pass of the Tidifest
+Mountains, about the 25th degree of northern latitude.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I should indeed be ungrateful not to thank you,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>I shall always remember that instant. We had left our camels and were
+collecting fragments of the most characteristic rocks. Morhange
+employed himself with a discernment which spoke worlds for his
+knowledge of geology, a science he had often professed complete
+ignorance of.</p>
+
+<p>Then I asked him the following question:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;May I prove my gratitude by making you a confession?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He raised his head and looked at me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well then, I don't see the practical value of this trip you have
+undertaken.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He smiled.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why not? To explore the old caravan route, to demonstrate that a
+connection has existed from the most ancient times between the
+Mediterranean world, and the country of the Blacks, that seems nothing
+in your eyes? The hope of settling once for all the secular disputes
+which have divided so many keen minds; d'Anville, Heeren, Berlioux,
+Quatremere on the one hand,&mdash;on the other Gosselin, Walckenaer,
+Tissit, Vivien, de saint-Martin; you think that that is devoid of
+interest? A plague upon you for being hard to please.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I spoke of practical value,&quot; I said. &quot;You won't deny that this
+controversy is only the affair of cabinet geographers and office
+explorers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Morhange kept on smiling.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dear friend, don't wither me. Deign to recall that your <!-- Page 40 -->mission was
+confided to you by the Ministry of War, while I hold mine on behalf of
+the Ministry of Public Instruction. A different origin justifies our
+different aims. It certainly explains, I readily concede that to you,
+why what I am in search of has no practical value.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are also authorized by the Ministry of Commerce,&quot; I replied,
+playing my next card. &quot;By this chief you are instructed to study the
+possibility of restoring the old trade route of the ninth century. But
+on this point don't attempt to mislead me; with your knowledge of the
+history and geography of the Sahara, your mind must have been made up
+before you left Paris. The road from Djerid to the Niger is dead,
+stone dead. You knew that no important traffic would pass by this
+route before you undertook to study the possibility of restoring it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Morhange looked me full in the face.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And if that should be so,&quot; he said with the most charming attitude,
+&quot;if I had before leaving the conviction you say, what do you conclude
+from that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I should prefer to have you tell me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Simply, my dear boy, that I had less skill than you in finding the
+pretext for my voyage, that I furnished less good reasons for the true
+motives that brought me here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A pretext? I don't see....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Be sincere in your turn, if you please. I am sure that you have the
+greatest desire to inform the Arabian Office about the practices of
+the Senoussis. But admit that the information that you will obtain is
+not the sole and innermost aim of your excursion. You are a geologist,
+my friend. You have found a chance to gratify your taste in this trip.
+No one would think of blaming you because you have known how to
+reconcile what is useful to your country and agreeable to yourself.
+But, for the love of God, don't deny it; I need no other proof than
+your presence here on this side of the Tidifest, a very curious place
+from a mineralogical point of view, but some hundred and fifty
+kilometers south of your official route.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was not possible to have countered me with a better grace. I
+parried by attacking.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Am I to conclude from all this that I do not know the <!-- Page 41 -->real aims of
+your trip, and that they have nothing to do with the official
+motives?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I had gone a bit too far. I felt it from the seriousness with which
+Morhange's reply was delivered.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;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.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Would there be any indiscretion?....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;None,&quot; replied my companion. &quot;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.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>had</i>. 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.</p>
+
+<p>Not a sound, not a breath. The smoke mounted straight, straight and
+slowly up the pale steps of the firmament.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Have you ever heard of the <i>Atlas of Christianity</i>?&quot; asked Morhange.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I think so. Isn't it a geographical work published by the
+Benedictines under the direction of a certain Dom Granger?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Your memory is correct,&quot; said Morhange. &quot;Even so let me explain a
+little more fully some of the things you have not had as much reason
+as I to interest yourself in. The <i>Atlas of Christianity</i> proposes to
+establish the boundaries of that great tide of Christianity through
+all the ages, and for all parts of the globe. An undertaking worthy of
+the Benedictine <!-- Page 42 -->learning, worthy of such a prodigy of erudition as
+Dom Granger himself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And it is these boundaries that you have come to determine here, no
+doubt,&quot; I murmured.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Just so,&quot; replied my companion.</p>
+
+<p>He was silent, and I respected his silence, prepared by now to be
+astonished at nothing.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is not possible to give confidences by halves, without being
+ridiculous,&quot; he continued after several minutes of meditation,
+speaking gravely, in a voice which held no suggestion of that flashing
+humor which had a month before enchanted the young officers at Wargla.
+&quot;I have begun on mine. I will tell you everything. Trust my
+discretion, however, and do not insist upon certain events of my
+private life. If, four years ago, at the close of these events, I
+resolve to enter a monastery, it does not concern you to know my
+reasons. I can marvel at it myself, that the passage in my life of a
+being absolutely devoid of interest should have sufficed to change the
+current of that life. I can marvel that a creature whose sole merit
+was her beauty should have been permitted by the Creator to swing my
+destiny to such an unforeseen direction. The monastery at whose doors
+I knocked had the most valid reasons for doubting the stability of my
+vocation. What the world loses in such fashion it often calls back as
+readily. In short, I cannot blame the Father Abbot for having
+forbidden me to apply for my army discharge. By his instructions, I
+asked for, and obtained, permission to be placed on the inactive list
+for three years. At the end of those three years of consecration it
+would be seen whether the world was definitely dead to your servant.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The first day of my arrival at the cloister I was assigned to Dom
+Granger, and placed by him at work on the <i>Atlas of Christianity</i>. A
+brief examination decided him as to what kind of service I was best
+fitted to render. This is how I came to enter the studio devoted to
+the cartography of Northern Africa. I did not know one word of Arabic,
+but it happened that in garrison at Lyon I had taken at the <i>Facult&eacute;
+des Lettres,</i> a course with Berlioux,&mdash;a very erudite geographer no
+doubt, but obsessed by one idea, the influence the Greek and Roman
+civilizations had exercised on Africa. This detail <!-- Page 43 -->of my life was
+enough for Dom Granger. He provided me straightway with Berber
+vocabularies by Venture, by Delaporte, by Brosselard; with the
+<i>Grammatical Sketch of the Temahaq</i> by Stanley Fleeman, and the <i>Essai
+de Grammaire de la langue Temachek</i> by Major Hanoteau. At the end of
+three months I was able to decipher any inscriptions in Tifinar. You
+know that Tifinar is the national writing of the Tuareg, the
+expression of this Temachek language which seems to us the most
+curious protest of the Targui race against its Mohammedan enemies.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dom Granger, in fact, believed that the Tuareg are Christians, dating
+from a period which it was necessary to ascertain, but which coincided
+no doubt with the splendor of the church of Hippon. Even better than
+I, you know that the cross is with them the symbol of fate in
+decoration. Duveyrier has claimed that it figures in their alphabet,
+on their arms, among the designs of their clothes. The only tattooing
+that they wear on the forehead, on the back of the hand, is a cross
+with four equal branches; the pummels of their saddles, the handles of
+their sabres, of their poignards, are cross-shaped. And is it
+necessary to remind you that, although Islam forbids bells as a sign
+of Christianity, the harness of Tuareg camels are trimmed with bells?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Neither Dom Granger nor I attach an exaggerated importance to such
+proofs, which resemble too much those which make such a display in the
+<i>Genius of Christianity.</i> But it is indeed impossible to refuse all
+credence to certain theological arguments. Amanai, the God of the
+Tuareg, unquestionably the Adonai of the Bible, is unique. They have a
+hell, 'Timsi-tan-elekhaft,' the last fire, where reigns Iblis, our
+Lucifer. Their Paradise, where they are rewarded for good deeds, is
+inhabited by 'andjelousen,' our angels. And do not urge the
+resemblance of this theology to the Koran, for I will meet you with
+historic arguments and remind you that the Tuareg have struggled all
+through the ages at the cost of partial extermination, to maintain
+their faith against the encroachments of Mohammedan fanaticism.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Many times I have studied with Dom Granger that formidable epoch when
+the aborigines opposed the conquering Arabs. With him I have seen how
+the army of Sidi-<!-- Page 44 -->Okba, one of the companions of the Prophet, invaded
+this desert to reduce the Tuareg tribes and impose on them Mussulman
+rules. These tribes were then rich and prosperous. They were the
+Ihbggaren, the Imededren, the Ouadelen, the Kel-Gueress, the Kel-Air.
+But internal quarrels sapped their strength. Still, it was not until
+after a long and cruel war that the Arabians succeeded in getting
+possession of the capital of the Berbers, which had proved such a
+redoubtable stronghold. They destroyed it after they had massacred the
+inhabitants. On the ruins Okba constructed a new city. This city is
+Es-Souk. The one that Sidi-Okba destroyed was the Berber Tadmekka.
+What Dom Granger asked of me was precisely that I should try to exhume
+from the ruins of the Mussulman Es-Souk the ruins of Tadmekka, which
+was Berber, and perhaps Christian.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I understand,&quot; I murmured.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So far, so good,&quot; said Morhange. &quot;But what you must grasp now is the
+practical sense of these religious men, my masters. You remember that,
+even after three years of monastic life, they preserved their doubts
+as to the stability of my vocation. They found at the same time means
+of testing it once for all, and of adapting official facilities to
+their particular purposes. One morning I was called before the Father
+Abbot, and this is what he said to me, in the presence of Dom Granger,
+who expressed silent approval.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Your term of inactive service expires in fifteen days. You will
+return to Paris, and apply at the Ministry to be reinstated. With what
+you have learned here, and the relationships we have been able to
+maintain at Headquarters, you will have no difficulty in being
+attached to the Geographical Staff of the army. When you reach the rue
+de Grenelle you will receive our instructions.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I was astonished at their confidence in my knowledge. When I was
+reestablished as Captain again in the Geographical Service I
+understood. At the monastery, the daily association with Dom Granger
+and his pupils had kept me constantly convinced of the inferiority of
+my knowledge. When I came in contact with my military brethren I
+realized the superiority of the instruction I had received. I did not
+have to concern myself with the details of my mission. The <!-- Page 45 -->Ministries
+invited me to undertake it. My initiative asserted itself on only one
+occasion. When I learned that you were going to leave Wargla on the
+present expedition, having reason to distrust my practical
+qualifications as an explorer, I did my best to retard your departure,
+so that I might join you. I hope that you have forgiven me by now.&quot;</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>The light in the west was fading, where the sun had already sunk into
+a matchless luxury of violet draperies. We were alone in this
+immensity, at the feet of the rigid black rocks. Nothing but
+ourselves. Nothing, nothing but ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>I held out my hand to Morhange, and he pressed it. Then he said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If they still seem infinitely long to me, the several thousand
+kilometers which separate me from the instant when, my task
+accomplished, I shall at last find oblivion in the cloister for the
+things for which I was not made, let me tell you this;&mdash;the several
+hundred kilometers which still separate us from Shikh-Salah seem to me
+infinitely short to traverse in your company.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>On the pale water of the little pool, motionless and fixed like a
+silver nail, a star had just been born.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Shikh-Salah,&quot; I murmured, my heart full of an indefinable sadness.
+&quot;Patience, we are not there yet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In truth, we never were to be there.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h2><a name="V"><!-- Chapter 5 --></a>V</h2>
+
+<h3>THE INSCRIPTION</h3>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>With a blow of the tip of his cane Morhange knocked a fragment of rock
+from the black flank of the mountain.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is it?&quot; he asked, holding it out to me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A basaltic peridot,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 46 -->It can't be very interesting, you barely glanced at it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is very interesting, on the contrary. But, for the moment, I admit
+that I am otherwise preoccupied.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Look this way a bit,&quot; I said, showing towards the west, on the
+horizon, a black spot across the white plain.</p>
+
+<p>It was six o'clock in the morning. The sun had risen. But it could not
+be found in the surprisingly polished air. And not a breath of air,
+not a breath. Suddenly one of the camels called. An enormous antelope
+had just come in sight, and had stopped in its flight, terrified,
+racing the wall of rock. It stayed there at a little distance from us,
+dazed, trembling on its slender legs.</p>
+
+<p>Bou-Djema had rejoined us.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When the legs of the mohor tremble it is because the firmament is
+shaken,&quot; he muttered.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A storm?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, a storm.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And you find that alarming?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I did not answer immediately. I was exchanging several brief words
+with Bou-Djema, who was occupied in soothing the camels which were
+giving signs of being restive.</p>
+
+<p>Morhange repeated his question. I shrugged my shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Alarming? I don't know. I have never seen a storm on the Hoggar. But
+I distrust it. And the signs are that this is going to be a big one.
+See there already.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A slight dust had risen before the cliff. In the still air a few
+grains of sand had begun to whirl round and round, with a speed which
+increased to dizziness, giving us in advance the spectacle in
+miniature of what would soon be breaking upon us.</p>
+
+<p>With harsh cries a flock of wild geese appeared, flying low. They came
+out of the west.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They are fleeing towards the Sebkha d'Amanghor,&quot; said Bou-Djema.</p>
+
+<p>There could be no greater mistake, I thought.</p>
+
+<p>Morhange looked at me curiously.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What must we do?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mount our camels immediately, before they are com<!-- Page 47 -->pletely
+demoralized, and hurry to find shelter in some high places. Take
+account of our situation. It is easy to follow the bed of a stream.
+But within a quarter of an hour perhaps the storm will have burst.
+Within a half hour a perfect torrent will be rushing here. On this
+soil, which is almost impermeable, rain will roll like a pail of water
+thrown on a bituminous pavement. No depth, all height. Look at this.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And I showed him, a dozen meters high, long hollow gouges, marks of
+former erosions on the rocky wall.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In an hour the waters will reach that height. Those are the marks of
+the last inundation. Let us get started. There is not an instant to
+lose.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All right,&quot; Morhange replied tranquilly.</p>
+
+<p>We had the greatest difficulty to make the camels kneel. When we had
+thrown ourselves into the saddle they started off at a pace which
+their terror rendered more and more disorderly.</p>
+
+<p>Of a sudden the wind began, a formidable wind, and, almost at the same
+time the light was eclipsed in the ravine. Above our heads the sky had
+become, in the flash of an eye, darker than the walls of the canyon
+which we were descending at a breathless pace.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A path, a stairway in the wall,&quot; I screamed against the wind to my
+companions. &quot;If we don't find one in a minute we are lost.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They did not hear me, but, turning in my saddle, I saw that they had
+lost no distance, Morhange following me, and Bou-Djema in the rear
+driving the two baggage camels masterfully before him.</p>
+
+<p>A blinding streak of lightning rent the obscurity. A peal of thunder,
+re-echoed to infinity by the rocky wall, rang out, and immediately
+great tepid drops began to fall. In an instant, our burnouses, which
+had been blown out behind by the speed with which we were traveling,
+were stuck tight to our streaming bodies.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Saved!&quot; I exclaimed suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>Abruptly on our right a crevice opened in the midst of the wall. It
+was the almost perpendicular bed of a stream, an affluent of the one
+we had had the unfortunate idea of <!-- Page 48 -->following that morning. Already a
+veritable torrent was gushing over it with a fine uproar.</p>
+
+<p>I have never better appreciated the incomparable sure-footedness of
+camels in the most precipitate places. Bracing themselves, stretching
+out their great legs, balancing themselves among the rocks that were
+beginning to be swept loose, our camels accomplished at that moment
+what the mules of the Pyrannees might have failed in.</p>
+
+<p>After several moments of superhuman effort we found ourselves at last
+out of danger, on a kind of basaltic terrace, elevated some fifty
+meters above the channel of the stream we had just left. Luck was with
+us; a little grotto opened out behind. Bou-Djema succeeded in
+sheltering the camels there. From its threshold we had leisure to
+contemplate in silence the prodigious spectacle spread out before us.</p>
+
+<p>You have, I believe, been at the Camp of Chalons for artillery drills.
+You have seen when the shell bursts how the chalky soil of the Marne
+effervesces like the inkwells at school, when we used to throw a piece
+of calcium carbonate into them. Well, it was almost like that, but in
+the midst of the desert, in the midst of obscurity. The white waters
+rushed into the depths of the black hole, and rose and rose towards
+the pedestal on which we stood. And there was the uninterrupted noise
+of thunder, and still louder, the sound of whole walls of rock,
+undermined by the flood, collapsing in a heap and dissolving in a few
+seconds of time in the midst of the rising water.</p>
+
+<p>All the time that this deluge lasted, one hour, perhaps two, Morhange
+and I stayed bending over this fantastic foaming vat; anxious to see,
+to see everything, to see in spite of everything; rejoicing with a
+kind of ineffable horror when we felt the shelf of basalt on which we
+had taken refuge swaying beneath us from the battering impact of the
+water. I believe that never for an instant did we think, so beautiful
+it was, of wishing for the end of that gigantic nightmare.</p>
+
+<p>Finally a ray of the sun shone through. Only then did we look at each
+other.</p>
+
+<p>Morhange held out his hand.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Thank you,&quot; he said simply.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 49 -->And he added with a smile:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To be drowned in the very middle of the Sahara would have been
+pretentious and ridiculous. You have saved us, thanks to your power of
+decision, from this very paradoxical end.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Ah, that he had been thrown by a misstep of his camel and rolled to
+his death in the midst of the flood! Then what followed would never
+have happened. That is the thought that comes to me in hours of
+weakness. But I have told you that I pull myself out of it quickly.
+No, no, I do not regret it, I cannot regret it, that what happened did
+happen.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Morhange left me to go into the little grotto, where Bou-Djema's
+camels were now resting comfortably. I stayed alone, watching the
+torrent which was continuously rising with the impetuous inrush of its
+unbridled tributaries. It had stopped raining. The sun shone from a
+sky that had renewed its blueness. I could feel the clothes that had a
+moment before been drenching, drying upon me incredibly fast.</p>
+
+<p>A hand was placed on my shoulder. Morhange was again beside me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come here,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p>Somewhat surprised, I followed him. We went into the grotto.</p>
+
+<p>The opening, which was big enough to admit the camels, made it fairly
+light. Morhange led me up to the smooth face of rock opposite. &quot;Look,&quot;
+he said, with unconcealed joy.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What of it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Don't you see?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I see that there are several Tuareg inscriptions,&quot; I answered, with
+some disappointment. &quot;But I thought I had told you that I read Tifinar
+writing very badly. Are these writings more interesting than the
+others we have come upon before?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Look at this one,&quot; said Morhange. There was such an accent of triumph
+in his tone that this time I concentrated my attention.</p>
+
+<p>I looked again.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 50 -->The characters of the inscription were arranged in the form of a
+cross. It plays such an important part in this adventure that I cannot
+forego retracing it for you.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr">
+<img src="images/illus050.gif" id="p50" width="500" height="297" alt="Inscription on the stone" />
+</p>
+
+<p>It was designed with great regularity, and the characters were cut
+deep into the rock. Although I knew so little of rock inscriptions at
+that time I had no difficulty in recognizing the antiquity of this
+one.</p>
+
+<p>Morhange became more and more radiant as he regarded it.</p>
+
+<p>I looked at him questioningly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, what have you to say now?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What do you want me to say? I tell you that I can barely read
+Tifinar.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Shall I help you?&quot; he suggested.</p>
+
+<p>This course in Berber writing, after the emotions through which we had
+just passed, seemed to me a little inopportune. But Morhange was so
+visibly delighted that I could not dash his joy.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very well then,&quot; began my companion, as much at his, ease
+as if he had been before a blackboard, &quot;what will strike you first
+about this inscription is its repetition in the form of a cross. That is
+to say that it contains the same word twice, top to bottom, and right to
+left. The word which it composes has seven letters so the fourth letter,
+W [Transcriber's Note: Rotated 90 degrees counter-clockwise], comes
+naturally in the middle. This arrangement which is unique in Tifinar
+writing, is already remarkable enough. But there is better still. Now we
+will read it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Getting it wrong three times out of seven I finally succeeded, with
+Morhange's help, in spelling the word.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Have you got it?&quot; asked Morhange when I had finished my task.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 51 -->Less than ever,&quot; I answered, a little put out;
+&quot;a,n,t,i,n,h,a,&mdash;Antinha, I don't know that word, or anything like it,
+in all the Saharan dialects I am familiar with.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Morhange rubbed his hands together. His satisfaction was without
+bounds.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You have said it. That is why the discovery is unique.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is really nothing, either in Berber or in Arabian, analogous to
+this word.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then, my dear friend, we are in the presence of a foreign word,
+translated into Tifinar.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And this word belongs, according to your theory, to what language?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You must realize that the letter <i>e</i> does not exist in the Tifinar
+alphabet. It has here been replaced by the phonetic sign which is
+nearest to it,&mdash;h. Restore <i>e</i> to the place which belongs to it in the
+word, and you have&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Antinea.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Antinea,' precisely. We find ourselves before a Greek vocable
+reproduced in Tifinar. And I think that now you will agree with me
+that my find has a certain interest.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>That day we had no more conferences upon texts. A loud cry, anguished,
+terrifying, rang out.</p>
+
+<p>We rushed out to find a strange spectacle awaiting us.</p>
+
+<p>Although the sky had cleared again, the torrent of yellow water was
+still foaming and no one could predict when it would fall. In
+mid-stream, struggling desperately in the current, was an
+extraordinary mass, gray and soft and swaying.</p>
+
+<p>But what at the first glance overwhelmed us with astonishment was to
+see Bou-Djema, usually so calm, at this moment apparently beside
+himself with frenzy, bounding through the gullies and over the rocks
+of the ledge, in full pursuit of the shipwreck.</p>
+
+<p>Of a sudden I seized Morhange by the arm. The grayish thing was alive.
+A pitiful long neck emerged from it with the heartrending cry of a
+beast in despair.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The fool,&quot; I cried, &quot;he has let one of our beasts get loose, and the
+stream is carrying it away!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 52 -->You are mistaken,&quot; said Morhange. &quot;Our camels are all in the cave.
+The one Bou-Djema is running after is not ours. And the cry of anguish
+we just heard, that was not Bou-Djema either. Bou-Djema is a brave
+Chaamb who has at this moment only one idea, to appropriate the
+intestate capital represented by this camel in the stream.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Who gave that cry, then?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let us try, if you like, to explore up this stream that our guide is
+descending at such a rate.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And without waiting for my answer he had already set out through the
+recently washed gullies of the rocky bank.</p>
+
+<p>At that moment it can be truly said that Morhange went to meet his
+destiny.</p>
+
+<p>I followed him. We had the greatest difficulty in proceeding two or
+three hundred meters. Finally we saw at our feet a little rushing
+brook where the water was falling a trifle.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;See there?&quot; said Morhange.</p>
+
+<p>A blackish bundle was balancing on the waves of the creek.</p>
+
+<p>When we had come up even with it we saw that it was a man in the long
+dark blue robes of the Tuareg.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Give me your hand,&quot; said Morhange, &quot;and brace yourself against a
+rock, hard.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He was very, very strong. In an instant, as if it were child's play,
+he had brought the body ashore.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He is still alive,&quot; he pronounced with satisfaction. &quot;Now it is a
+question of getting him to the grotto. This is no place to resuscitate
+a drowned man.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He raised the body in his powerful arms.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is astonishing how little he weighs for a man of his height.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>By the time we had retraced the way to the grotto the man's cotton
+clothes were almost dry. But the dye had run plentifully, and it was
+an indigo man that Morhange was trying to recall to life.</p>
+
+<p>When I had made him swallow a quart of rum he opened his eyes, looked
+at the two of us with surprise, then, closing them again, murmured
+almost unintelligibly a phrase, the sense of which we did not get
+until some days later:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Can it be that I have reached the end of my mission?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 53 -->What mission is he talking about?&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let him recover himself completely,&quot; responded Morhange. &quot;You had
+better open some preserved food. With fellows of this build you don't
+have to observe the precautions prescribed for drowned Europeans.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was indeed a species of giant, whose life we had just saved. His
+face, although very thin, was regular, almost beautiful. He had a
+clear skin and little beard. His hair, already white, showed him to be
+a man of sixty years.</p>
+
+<p>When I placed a tin of corned-beef before him a light of voracious joy
+came into his eyes. The tin contained an allowance for four persons.
+It was empty in a flash.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Behold,&quot; said Morhange, &quot;a robust appetite. Now we can put our
+questions without scruple.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Already the Targa had placed over his forehead and face the blue veil
+prescribed by the ritual. He must have been completely famished not to
+have performed this indispensable formality sooner. There was nothing
+visible now but the eyes, watching us with a light that grew steadily
+more sombre.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;French officers,&quot; he murmured at last.</p>
+
+<p>And he took Morhange's hand, and having placed it against his breast,
+carried it to his lips.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly an expression of anxiety passed over his face.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And my mehari?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p>I explained that our guide was then employed in trying to save his
+beast. He in turn told us how it had stumbled, and fallen into the
+current, and he himself, in trying to save it, had been knocked over.
+His forehead had struck a rock. He had cried out. After that he
+remembered nothing more.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is your name?&quot; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Eg-Anteouen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What tribe do you belong to?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The tribe of Kel-Tahat.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Kel-Tahats are the serfs of the tribe of Kel-Rhel&acirc;, the great
+nobles of Hoggar?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; he answered, casting a side glance in my direction. It seemed
+that such precise questions on the affairs of Ahygar were not to his liking.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 54 -->The Kel-Tahats, if I am not mistaken, are established on the
+southwest flank of Atakor.<a name="FNanchor_E_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_E_5"><sup>[5]</sup></a>
+What were you doing, so far from your home territory when we saved your life?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I was going, by way of Tit, to In-Salah,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What were you going to do at In-Salah?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He was about to reply. But suddenly we saw him tremble. His eyes were
+fixed on a point of the cavern. We looked to see what it was. He had
+just seen the rock inscription which had so delighted Morhange an hour before.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you know that?&quot; Morhange asked him with keen curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>The Targa did not speak a word but his eyes had a strange light.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you know that?&quot; insisted Morhange.</p>
+
+<p>And he added:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Antinea?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Antinea,&quot; repeated the man.</p>
+
+<p>And he was silent.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why don't you answer the Captain?&quot; I called out, with a strange
+feeling of rage sweeping over me.</p>
+
+<p>The Targui looked at me. I thought that he was going to speak. But his
+eyes became suddenly hard. Under the lustrous veil I saw his features stiffening.</p>
+
+<p>Morhange and I turned around.</p>
+
+<p>On the threshold of the cavern, breathless, discomfited, harassed by
+an hour of vain pursuit, Bou-Djema had returned to us.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<!-- Page 55 -->
+<h2><a name="VI"><!-- Chapter 6 --></a>VI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE DISASTER OF THE LETTUCE</h3>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>As Eg-Anteouen and Bou-Djema came face to face, I fancied that both
+the Targa and the Chaamba gave a sudden start which each immediately
+repressed. It was nothing more than a fleeting impression.
+Nevertheless, it was enough to make me resolve that as soon as I was
+alone with our guide, I would question him closely concerning our new companion.</p>
+
+<p>The beginning of the day had been wearisome enough. We decided,
+therefore, to spend the rest of it there, and even to pass the night
+in the cave, waiting till the flood had completely subsided.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning, when I was marking our day's march upon the map,
+Morhange came toward me. I noticed that his manner was somewhat restrained.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In three days, we shall be at Shikh-Salah,&quot; I said to him. &quot;Perhaps
+by the evening of the second day, badly as the camels go.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Perhaps we shall separate before then,&quot; he muttered.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How so?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You see, I have changed my itinerary a little. I have given up the
+idea of going straight to Timissao. First I should like to make a
+little excursion into the interior of the Ahaggar range.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I frowned:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is this new idea?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As I spoke I looked about for Eg-Anteouen, whom I had seen in
+conversation with Morhange the previous evening and several minutes
+before. He was quietly mending one of his sandals with a waxed thread
+supplied by Bou-Djema. He did not raise his head.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is simply,&quot; explained Morhange, less and less at his ease, &quot;that
+this man tells me there are similar inscriptions in several caverns in
+western Ahaggar. These caves are near the road that he has to take
+returning home. He must pass by Tit. Now, from Tit, by way of Silet,
+is hardly two hundred <!-- Page 56 -->kilometers. It is a quasi-classic
+route<a name="FNanchor_F_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_F_6"><sup>[6]</sup></a> as
+short again as the one that I shall have to take alone, after I leave
+you, from Shikh-Salah to Timissao. That is in part, you see, the
+reason which has made me decide to....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In part? In very small part,&quot; I replied. &quot;But is your mind absolutely
+made up?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is,&quot; he answered me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When do you expect to leave me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To-day. The road which Eg-Anteouen proposes to take into Ahaggar
+crosses this one about four leagues from here. I have a favor to ask
+of you in this connection.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Please tell me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is to let me take one of the two baggage camels, since my Targa
+has lost his.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The camel which carries your baggage belongs to you as much as does
+your own mehari,&quot; I answered coldly.</p>
+
+<p>We stood there several minutes without speaking. Morhange maintained
+an uneasy silence; I was examining my map. All over it in greater or
+less degree, but particularly towards the south, the unexplored
+portions of Ahaggar stood out as far too numerous white patches in the
+tan area of supposed mountains.</p>
+
+<p>I finally said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You give me your word that when you have seen these famous grottos,
+you will make straight for Timissao by Tit and Silet?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He looked at me uncomprehendingly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why do you ask that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Because, if you promise me that,&mdash;provided, of course, that my
+company is not unwelcome to you&mdash;I will go with you. Either way, I
+shall have two hundred kilometers to go. I shall strike for Shikh-Salah from the south,
+instead of from the west&mdash;that is the only difference.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Morhange looked at me with emotion.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why do you do this?&quot; he murmured.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 57 -->My dear fellow,&quot; I said (it was the first time that I had addressed
+Morhange in this familiar way), &quot;my dear fellow, I have a sense which
+becomes marvellously acute in the desert, the sense of danger. I gave
+you a slight proof of it yesterday morning, at the coming of the
+storm. With all your knowledge of rock inscriptions, you seem to me to
+have no very exact idea of what kind of place Ahaggar is, nor what may
+be in store for you there. On that account, I should be just as well
+pleased not to let you run sure risks alone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have a guide,&quot; he said with his adorable naivet&eacute;.</p>
+
+<p>Eg-Anteouen, in the same squatting position, kept on patching his old slipper.</p>
+
+<p>I took a step toward him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You heard what I said to the Captain?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; the Targa answered calmly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am going with him. We leave you at Tit, to which place you must
+bring us. Where is the place you proposed to show the Captain?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I did not propose to show it to him; it was his own idea,&quot; said the
+Targa coldly. &quot;The grottos with the inscriptions are three-days' march
+southward in the mountains. At first, the road is rather rough. But
+farther on, it turns, and you gain Timissao very easily. There are
+good wells where the Tuareg Taitoqs, who are friendly to the French,
+come to water their camels.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And you know the road well?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He shrugged his shoulders. His eyes had a scornful smile.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have taken it twenty times,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In that case, let's get started.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>We rode for two hours. I did not exchange a word with Morhange. I had
+a clear intuition of the folly we were committing in risking ourselves
+so unconcernedly in that least known and most dangerous part of the
+Sahara. Every blow which had been struck in the last twenty years to
+undermine the French advance had come from this redoubtable Ahaggar.
+But what of it? It was of my own will that I had joined in this mad
+scheme. No need of going over it again. What was the use of spoiling
+my action by a continual exhibition of disapproval? And, furthermore,
+I may as well admit that <!-- Page 58 -->I rather liked the turn that our trip was
+beginning to take. I had, at that instant, the sensation of journeying
+toward something incredible, toward some tremendous adventure. You do
+not live with impunity for months and years as the guest of the
+desert. Sooner or later, it has its way with you, annihilates the good
+officer, the timid executive, overthrows his solicitude for his
+responsibilities. What is there behind those mysterious rocks, those
+dim solitudes, which have held at bay the most illustrious pursuers of
+mystery? You follow, I tell you, you follow.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>&quot;Are you sure at least that this inscription is interesting enough to
+justify us in our undertaking?&quot; I asked Morhange.</p>
+
+<p>My companion started with pleasure. Ever since we began our journey I
+had realized his fear that I was coming along half-heartedly. As soon
+as I offered him a chance to convince me, his scruples vanished, and
+his triumph seemed assured to him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Never,&quot; he answered, in a voice that he tried to control, but through
+which the enthusiasm rang out, &quot;never has a Greek inscription been
+found so far south. The farthest points where they have been reported
+are in the south of Algeria and Cyrene. But in Ahaggar! Think of it!
+It is true that this one is translated into Tifinar. But this
+peculiarity does not diminish the interest of the coincidence: it
+increases it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What do you take to be the meaning of this word?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>Antinea</i> can only be a proper name,&quot; said Morhange. &quot;To whom does it
+refer? I admit I don't know, and if at this very moment I am marching
+toward the south, dragging you along with me, it is because I count on
+learning more about it. Its etymology? It hasn't one definitely, but
+there are thirty possibilities. Bear in mind that the Tifinar alphabet
+is far from tallying with the Greek alphabet, which increases the
+number of hypotheses. Shall I suggest several?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 59 -->I was just about to ask you to.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To begin with, there is
+<img src="images/tfnr59_1.gif" width="95" height="43" alt="Tifinar word" title="Tifinar word" />
+and
+<img src="images/tfnr59_2.gif" width="86" height="46" alt="Tifinar word" title="Tifinar word" />
+<i>the woman who is placed opposite a vessel</i>, an explanation which would have been pleasing to
+Gaffarel and to my venerated master Berlioux. That would apply well
+enough to the figure-heads of ships. There is a technical term that I
+cannot recall at this moment, not if you beat me a hundred times
+over.<a name="FNanchor_G_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_G_7"><sup>[7]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then there is
+<img src="images/tfnr59_3.gif" width="144" height="45" alt="Tifinar word" title="Tifinar word" />
+, that you must relate to
+<img src="images/tfnr59_4.gif" width="98" height="39" alt="Tifinar word" title="Tifinar word" />
+ and
+<img src="images/tfnr59_5.gif" width="95" height="44" alt="Tifinar word" title="Tifinar word" />
+, <i>she who holds herself before the</i>
+<img src="images/tfnr59_5.gif" width="95" height="44" alt="Tifinar word" title="Tifinar word" />
+,  the
+<img src="images/tfnr59_5.gif" width="95" height="44" alt="Tifinar word" title="Tifinar word" />
+of the temple, <i>she who is opposite the sanctuary,</i> therefore priestess. An interpretation
+which would enchant Girard and Renan.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Next we have
+<img src="images/tfnr59_6.gif" width="134" height="44" alt="Tifinar word" title="Tifinar word" />
+, from
+<img src="images/tfnr59_7.gif" width="90" height="41" alt="Tifinar word" title="Tifinar word" />
+and
+<img src="images/tfnr59_8.gif" width="90" height="43" alt="Tifinar word" title="Tifinar word" />
+, new, which can mean two things: either <i>she who is the contrary of young</i>, which is to say
+old; or <i>she who is the enemy of novelty</i> or <i>the enemy of youth</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is still another sense of
+<img src="images/tfnr59_9.gif" width="108" height="42" alt="Tifinar word" title="Tifinar word" />
+, <i>in exchange for,</i> which is capable of complicating all the others I have mentioned;
+likewise there are four meanings for the verb
+<img src="images/tfnr59_10.gif" width="73" height="43" alt="Tifinar word" title="Tifinar word" />
+, which means in turn <i>to go, to flow, to thread</i> or <i>weave, to heap</i>.
+There is more still.... And notice, please, that I have not at my disposition on the
+otherwise commodious hump of this mehari, either the great dictionary of
+Estienne or the lexicons of Passow, of Pape, or of Liddel-Scott. This
+is only to show you, my dear friend, that epigraphy is but a relative
+science, always dependent on the discovery of a new text which
+contradicts the previous findings, when it is not merely at the mercy
+of the humors of the epigraphists and their pet conceptions of the universe.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That was rather my view of it,&quot; I said, &quot;But I must admit my
+astonishment to find that, with such a sceptical opinion of the goal,
+you still do not hesitate to take risks which may be quite considerable.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Morhange smiled wanly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 60 -->I do not interpret, my friend; I collect. From what I will take back
+to him, Dom Granger has the ability to draw conclusions which are
+beyond my slight knowledge. I was amusing myself a little. Pardon me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Just then the girth of one of the baggage camels, evidently not well
+fastened, came loose. Part of the load slipped and fell to the ground.</p>
+
+<p>Eg-Anteouen descended instantly from his beast and helped Bou-Djema
+repair the damage.</p>
+
+<p>When they had finished, I made my mehari walk beside Bou-Djema's.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It will be better to resaddle the camels at the next stop. They will
+have to climb the mountain.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The guide looked at me with amazement. Up to that time I had thought
+it unnecessary to acquaint him with our new projects. But I supposed
+Eg-Anteouen would have told him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Lieutenant, the road across the white plain to Shikh-Salah is not
+mountainous,&quot; said the Chaamba.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We are not keeping to the road across the white plain. We are going
+south, by Ahaggar.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;By Ahaggar,&quot; he murmured. &quot;But....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But what?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I do not know the road.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Eg-Anteouen is going to guide us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Eg-Anteouen!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I watched Bou-Djema as he made this suppressed ejaculation. His eyes
+were fixed on the Targa with a mixture of stupor and fright.</p>
+
+<p>Eg-Anteouen's camel was a dozen yards ahead of us, side by side with
+Morhange's. The two men were talking. I realized that Morhange must be
+conversing with Eg-Anteouen about the famous inscriptions. But we were
+not so far behind that they could not have overheard our words.</p>
+
+<p>Again I looked at my guide. I saw that he was pale.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is it, Bou-Djema?&quot; I asked in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not here, Lieutenant, not here,&quot; he muttered.</p>
+
+<p>His teeth chattered. He added in a whisper:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 61 -->Not here. This evening, when we stop, when he turns to the East to
+pray, when the sun goes down. Then, call me to you. I will tell
+you.... But not here. He is talking, but he is listening. Go ahead.
+Join the Captain.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What next?&quot; I murmured, pressing my camel's neck with my foot so as
+to make him overtake Morhange.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>It was about five o'clock when Eg-Anteouen who was leading the way,
+came to a stop.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Here it is,&quot; he said, getting down from his camel.</p>
+
+<p>It was a beautiful and sinister place. To our left a fantastic wall of
+granite outlined its gray ribs against the sky. This wall was pierced,
+from top to bottom, by a winding corridor about a thousand feet high
+and scarcely wide enough in places to allow three camels to walk
+abreast.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Here it is,&quot; repeated the Targa.</p>
+
+<p>To the west, straight behind us, the track that we were leaving
+unrolled like a pale ribbon. The white plain, the road to Shikh-Salah,
+the established halts, the well-known wells.... And, on the other
+side, this black wall against the mauve sky, this dark passage.</p>
+
+<p>I looked at Morhange.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We had better stop here,&quot; he said simply. &quot;Eg-Anteouen advises us to
+take as much water here as we can carry.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>With one accord we decided to spend the night there, before
+undertaking the mountain.</p>
+
+<p>There was a spring, in a dark basin, from which fell a little cascade;
+there were a few shrubs, a few plants.</p>
+
+<p>Already the camels were browsing at the length of their tethers.</p>
+
+<p>Bou-Djema arranged our camp dinner service of tin cups and plates on a
+great flat stone. An opened tin of meat lay beside a plate of lettuce
+which he had just gathered from the moist earth around the spring. I
+could tell from the distracted manner in which he placed these objects
+upon the rock how deep was his anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>As he was bending toward me to hand me a plate, he pointed to the
+gloomy black corridor which we were about to enter.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>Blad-el-Khouf!&quot;</i> he murmured.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 62 -->What did he say?&quot; asked Morhange, who had seen the gesture.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>Blad-el-Khouf. This is the country of fear.</i> That is what the Arabs
+call Ahaggar.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Bou-Djema went a little distance off and sat down, leaving us to our
+dinner. Squatting on his heels, he began to eat a few lettuce leaves
+that he had kept for his own meal.</p>
+
+<p>Eg-Anteouen was still motionless.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the Targa rose. The sun in the west was no larger than a red
+brand. We saw Eg-Anteouen approach the fountain, spread his blue
+burnous on the ground and kneel upon it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I did not suppose that the Tuareg were so observant of Mussulman
+tradition,&quot; said Morhange.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nor I,&quot; I replied thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>But I had something to do at that moment besides making such
+speculations.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Bou-Djema,&quot; I called.</p>
+
+<p>At the same time, I looked at Eg-Anteouen. Absorbed in his prayer,
+bowed toward the west, apparently he was paying no attention to me. As
+he prostrated himself, I called again.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Bou-Djema, come with me to my mehari; I want to get something out of
+the saddle bags.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Still kneeling, Eg-Anteouen was mumbling his prayer slowly,
+composedly.</p>
+
+<p>But Bou-Djema had not budged.</p>
+
+<p>His only response was a deep moan.</p>
+
+<p>Morhange and I leaped to our feet and ran to the guide. Eg-Anteouen
+reached him as soon as we did.</p>
+
+<p>With his eyes closed and his limbs already cold, the Chaamba breathed
+a death rattle in Morhange's arms. I had seized one of his hands.
+Eg-Anteouen took the other. Each, in his own way, was trying to
+divine, to understand....</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Eg-Anteouen leapt to his feet. He had just seen the poor
+embossed bowl which the Arab had held an instant before between his
+knees, and which now lay overturned upon the ground.</p>
+
+<p>He picked it up, looked quickly at one after another of <!-- Page 63 -->the leaves of
+lettuce remaining in it, and then gave a hoarse exclamation.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So,&quot; said Morhange, &quot;it's his turn now; he is going to go mad.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Watching Eg-Anteouen closely, I saw him hasten without a word to the
+rock where our dinner was set, a second later, he was again beside us,
+holding out the bowl of lettuce which he had not yet touched.</p>
+
+<p>Then he took a thick, long, pale green leaf from Bou-Djema's bowl and
+held it beside another leaf he had just taken from our bowl.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>Afahlehle,&quot;</i> was all he said.</p>
+
+<p>I shuddered, and so did Morhange. It was the <i>afahlehla,</i> the
+<i>falestez</i>, of the Arabs of the Sahara, the terrible plant which had
+killed a part of the Flatters mission more quickly and surely than
+Tuareg arms.</p>
+
+<p>Eg-Anteouen stood up. His tall silhouette was outlined blackly against
+the sky which suddenly had turned pale lilac. He was watching us.</p>
+
+<p>We bent again over the unfortunate guide.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>Afahlehle,&quot;</i> the Targa repeated, and shook his head.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Bou-Djema died in the middle of the night without having regained
+consciousness.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h2><a name="VII"><!-- Chapter 8 --></a>VII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE COUNTRY OF FEAR</h3>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is curious,&quot; said Morhange, &quot;to see how our expedition, uneventful
+since we left Ouargla, is now becoming exciting.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He said this after kneeling for a moment in prayer before the
+painfully dug grave in which we had lain the guide.</p>
+
+<p>I do not believe in God. But if anything can influence whatever powers
+there may be, whether of good or of evil, of light or of darkness, it
+is the prayer of such a man.</p>
+
+<p>For two days we picked our way through a gigantic chaos of black rock
+in what might have been the country <!-- Page 64 -->of the moon, so barren was it. No
+sound but that of stones rolling under the feet of the camels and
+striking like gunshots at the foot of the precipices.</p>
+
+<p>A strange march indeed. For the first few hours, I tried to pick out,
+by compass, the route we were following. But my calculations were soon
+upset; doubtless a mistake due to the swaying motion of the camel. I
+put the compass back in one of my saddle-bags. From that time on,
+Eg-Anteouen was our master. We could only trust ourselves to him.</p>
+
+<p>He went first; Morhange followed him, and I brought up the rear. We
+passed at every step most curious specimens of volcanic rock. But I
+did not examine them. I was no longer interested in such things.
+Another kind of curiosity had taken possession of me. I had come to
+share Morhange's madness. If my companion had said to me: &quot;We are
+doing a very rash thing. Let us go back to the known trails,&quot; I should
+have replied, &quot;You are free to do as you please. But I am going on.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Toward evening of the second day, we found ourselves at the foot of a
+black mountain whose jagged ramparts towered in profile seven thousand
+feet above our heads. It was an enormous shadowy fortress, like the
+outline of a feudal stronghold silhouetted with incredible sharpness
+against the orange sky.</p>
+
+<p>There was a well, with several trees, the first we had seen since
+cutting into Ahaggar.</p>
+
+<p>A group of men were standing about it. Their camels, tethered close
+by, were cropping a mouthful here and there.</p>
+
+<p>At seeing us, the men drew together, alert, on the defensive.</p>
+
+<p>Eg-Anteouen turned to us and said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Eggali Tuareg.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>We went toward them.</p>
+
+<p>They were handsome men, those Eggali, the largest Tuareg whom I ever
+have seen. With unexpected swiftness they drew aside from the well,
+leaving it to us. Eg-Anteouen spoke a few words to them. They looked
+at Morhange and me with a curiosity bordering on fear, but at any
+rate, with respect.</p>
+
+<p>I drew several little presents from my saddlebags and <!-- Page 65 -->was astonished
+at the reserve of the chief, who refused them. He seemed afraid even
+of my glance.</p>
+
+<p>When they had gone, I expressed my astonishment at this shyness for
+which my previous experiences with the tribes of the Sahara had not
+prepared me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They spoke with respect, even with fear,&quot; I said to Eg-Anteouen. &quot;And
+yet the tribe of the Eggali is noble. And that of the Kel-Tahats, to
+which you tell me you belong, is a slave tribe.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A smile lighted the dark eyes of Eg-Anteouen.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is true,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well then?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I told them that we three, the Captain, you and I, were bound for the
+Mountain of the Evil Spirits.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>With a gesture, he indicated the black mountain.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They are afraid. All the Tuareg of Ahaggar are afraid of the Mountain
+of the Evil Spirits. You saw how they were up and off at the very
+mention of its name.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is to the Mountain of the Evil Spirits that you are taking us?&quot;
+queried Morhange.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; replied the Targa, &quot;that is where the inscriptions are that I
+told you about.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You did not mention that detail to us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why should I? The Tuareg are afraid of the <i>ilhinen,</i> spirits with
+horns and tails, covered with hair, who make the cattle sicken and die
+and cast spells over men. But I know well that the Christians are not
+afraid and even laugh at the fears of the Tuareg.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And you?&quot; I asked. &quot;You are a Targa and you are not afraid of the
+<i>ilhinen</i>?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Eg-Anteouen showed a little red leather bag hung about his neck on a
+chain of white seeds.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have my amulet,&quot; he replied gravely, &quot;blessed by the venerable
+Sidi-Moussa himself. And then I am with you. You saved my life. You
+have desired to see the inscriptions. The will of Allah be done!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As he finished speaking, he squatted on his heels, drew out his long
+reed pipe and began to smoke gravely.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All this is beginning to seem very strange,&quot; said Morhange, coming
+over to me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 66 -->You can say that without exaggeration,&quot; I replied. &quot;You remember as
+well as I the passage in which Barth tells of his expedition to the
+Idinen, the Mountain of the Evil Spirits of the Azdjer Tuareg. The
+region had so evil a reputation that no Targa would go with him. But
+he got back.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, he got back,&quot; replied my comrade, &quot;but only after he had been
+lost. Without water or food, he came so near dying of hunger and
+thirst that he had to open a vein and drink his own blood. The
+prospect is not particularly attractive.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I shrugged my shoulders. After all, it was not my fault that we were
+there.</p>
+
+<p>Morhange understood my gesture and thought it necessary to make
+excuses.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I should be curious,&quot; he went on with rather forced gaiety, &quot;to meet
+these spirits and substantiate the facts of Pomponius Mela who knew
+them and locates them, in fact, in the mountain of the Tuareg. He
+calls them <i>Egipans, Blemyens, Gamphasantes, Satyrs.... 'The
+Gamphasantes</i>, he says, 'are naked. The <i>Blemyens</i> have no head: their
+faces are placed on their chests; the <i>Satyrs</i> have nothing like men
+except faces. The <i>Egipans</i> are made as is commonly described.' ...
+<i>Satyrs, Egipans</i> ... isn't it very strange to find Greek names given
+to the barbarian spirits of this region? Believe me, we are on a
+curious trail; I am sure that Antinea will be our key to remarkable
+discoveries.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Listen,&quot; I said, laying a finger on my lips.</p>
+
+<p>Strange sounds rose from about us as the evening advanced with great
+strides. A kind of crackling, followed by long rending shrieks, echoed
+and reechoed to infinity in the neighboring ravines. It seemed to me
+that the whole black mountain suddenly had begun to moan.</p>
+
+<p>We looked at Eg-Anteouen. He was smoking on, without twitching a
+muscle.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The <i>ilhinen</i> are waking up,&quot; he said simply.</p>
+
+<p>Morhange listened without saying a word. Doubtless he understood as I
+did: the overheated rocks, the crackling of the stone, a whole series
+of physical phenomena, the example of the singing statue of Memnon....
+But, for all <!-- Page 67 -->that, this unexpected concert reacted no less painfully
+on our overstrained nerves.</p>
+
+<p>The last words of poor Bou-Djema came to my mind.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The country of fear,&quot; I murmured in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>And Morhange repeated:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The country of fear.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The strange concert ceased as the first stars appeared in the sky.
+With deep emotion we watched the tiny bluish flames appear, one after
+another. At that portentous moment they seemed to span the distance
+between us, isolated, condemned, lost, and our brothers of higher
+latitudes, who at that hour were rushing about their poor pleasures
+with delirious frenzy in cities where the whiteness of electric lamps
+came on in a burst.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;"><i>Ch&ecirc;t-Ahadh essa het&icirc;senet</i><br /></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;"><i>M&acirc;teredjr&ecirc; d'Erredjaot,</i><br /></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;"><i>M&acirc;tesekek d-Essek&acirc;ot,</i><br /></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;"><i>M&acirc;telahrlahr d'Ellerh&acirc;ot,</i><br /></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;"><i>Ett&acirc;s djenen, bar&acirc;d t&icirc;t-ennit ab&acirc;tet.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Eg-Anteouen's voice raised itself in slow guttural tones. It resounded
+with sad, grave majesty in the silence now complete.</p>
+
+<p>I touched the Targa's arm. With a movement of his head, he pointed to
+a constellation glittering in the firmament.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Pleiades,&quot; I murmured to Morhange, showing him the seven pale
+stars, while Eg-Anteouen took up his mournful song in the same
+monotone:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span>&quot;The Daughters of the Night are seven:<br /></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">M&acirc;teredjr&ecirc; and Erredje&acirc;ot,<br /></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">M&acirc;tesekek and Essek&acirc;ot,<br /></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">M&acirc;telahrlahr and Ellerh&acirc;ot,<br /></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The seventh is a boy, one of whose eyes has flown away.&quot;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>A sudden sickness came over me. I seized the Targa's arm as he was
+starting to intone his refrain for the third time.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When will we reach this cave with the inscriptions?&quot; I asked
+brusquely.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 68 -->He looked at me and replied with his usual calm:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We are there.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We are there? Then why don't you show it to us?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You did not ask me,&quot; he replied, not without a touch of insolence.</p>
+
+<p>Morhange had jumped to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The cave is here?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is here,&quot; Eg-Anteouen replied slowly, rising to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Take us to it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Morhange,&quot; I said, suddenly anxious, &quot;night is falling. We will see
+nothing. And perhaps it is still some way off.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is hardly five hundred paces,&quot; Eg-Anteouen replied. &quot;The cave is
+full of dead underbrush. We will set it on fire and the Captain will
+see as in full daylight.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come,&quot; my comrade repeated.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And the camels?&quot; I hazarded.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They are tethered,&quot; said Eg-Anteouen, &quot;and we shall not be gone
+long.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He had started toward the black mountain. Morhange, trembling with
+excitement, followed. I followed, too, the victim of profound
+uneasiness. My pulses throbbed. &quot;I am not afraid,&quot; I kept repeating to
+myself. &quot;I swear that this is not fear.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And really it was not fear. Yet, what a strange dizziness! There was a
+mist over my eyes. My ears buzzed. Again I heard Eg-Anteouen's voice,
+but multiplied, immense, and at the same time, very low.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span>&quot;The Daughters of the Night are seven....&quot;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>It seemed to me that the voice of the mountain, re-echoing, repeated
+that sinister last line to infinity:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span>&quot;And the seventh is a boy, one of whose eyes has flown away.&quot;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>&quot;Here it is,&quot; said the Targa.</p>
+
+<p>A black hole in the wall opened up. Bending over, Eg-Anteouen entered.
+We followed him. The darkness closed around us.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 69 -->A yellow flame. Eg-Anteouen had struck his flint. He set fire to a
+pile of brush near the surface. At first we could see nothing. The
+smoke blinded us.</p>
+
+<p>Eg-Anteouen stayed at one side of the opening of the cave. He was
+seated and, more inscrutible than ever, had begun again to blow great
+puffs of gray smoke from his pipe.</p>
+
+<p>The burning brush cast a flickering light. I caught a glimpse of
+Morhange. He seemed very pale. With both hands braced against the
+wall, he was working to decipher a mass of signs which I could
+scarcely distinguish.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, I thought I could see his hands trembling.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The devil,&quot; I thought, finding it more and more difficult to
+co-ordinate my thoughts, &quot;he seems to be as unstrung as I.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I heard him call out to Eg-Anteouen in what seemed to me a loud voice:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Stand to one side. Let the air in. What a smoke!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He kept on working at the signs.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly I heard him again, but with difficulty. It seemed as if even
+sounds were confused in the smoke.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Antinea ... At last ... Antinea. But not cut in the rock ... the
+marks traced in ochre ... not ten years old, perhaps not five....
+Oh!....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He pressed his hands to his head. Again he cried out:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is a mystery. A tragic mystery.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I laughed teasingly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come on, come on. Don't get excited over it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He took me by the arm and shook me. I saw his eyes big with terror and
+astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Are you mad?&quot; he yelled in my face.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not so loud,&quot; I replied with the same little laugh.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at me again, and sank down, overcome, on a rock opposite me.
+Eg-Anteouen was still smoking placidly at the mouth of the cave. We
+could see the red circle of his pipe glowing in the darkness.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Madman! Madman!&quot; repeated Morhange. His voice seemed to stick in his
+throat.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly he bent over the brush which was giving its last darts of
+flame, high and clear. He picked out a branch <!-- Page 70 -->which had not yet
+caught. I saw him examine it carefully, then throw it back in the fire
+with a loud laugh.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ha! Ha! That's good, all right!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He staggered toward Eg-Anteouen, pointing to the fire.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's hemp. Hasheesh, hasheesh. Oh, that's a good one, all right.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, it's a good one,&quot; I repeated, bursting into laughter.</p>
+
+<p>Eg-Anteouen quietly smiled approval. The dying fire lit his
+inscrutable face and flickered in his terrible dark eyes.</p>
+
+<p>A moment passed. Suddenly Morhange seized the Targa's arm.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I want to smoke, too,&quot; he said. &quot;Give me a pipe.&quot; The specter gave
+him one.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What! A European pipe?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A European pipe,&quot; I repeated, feeling gayer and gayer.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;With an initial, 'M.' As if made on purpose. M.... Captain Morhange.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Masson,&quot; corrected Eg-Anteouen quietly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Captain Masson,&quot; I repeated in concert with Morhange.</p>
+
+<p>We laughed again.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ha! Ha! Ha! Captain Masson.... Colonel Flatters.... The well of
+Garama. They killed him to take his pipe ... that pipe. It was
+Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh who killed Captain Masson.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It was Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh,&quot; repeated the Targa with imperturbable
+calm.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Captain Masson and Colonel Flatters had left the convoy to look for
+the well,&quot; said Morhange, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It was then that the Tuareg attacked them,&quot; I finished, laughing as
+hard as I could.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A Targa of Ahagga seized the bridle of Captain Masson's horse,&quot; said
+Morhange.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh had hold of Colonel Flatters' bridle,&quot; put in
+Eg-Anteouen.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Colonel puts his foot in the stirrup and receives a cut from
+Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh's saber,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Captain Masson draws his revolver and fires on Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh,
+shooting off three fingers of his left hand,&quot; said Morhange.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But,&quot; finished Eg-Anteouen imperturbably, &quot;but
+<!-- Page 71 -->Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh,
+with one blow of his saber, splits Captain Masson's skull.&quot;..</p>
+
+<p>He gave a silent, satisfied laugh as he spoke. The dying flame lit up
+his face. We saw the gleaming black stem of his pipe. He held it in
+his left hand. One finger, no, two fingers only on that hand. Hello! I
+had not noticed that before.</p>
+
+<p>Morhange also noticed it, for he finished with a loud laugh.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then, after splitting his skull, you robbed him. You took his pipe
+from him. Bravo, Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh does not reply, but I can see how satisfied with
+himself he is. He keeps on smoking. I can hardly see his features now.
+The firelight pales, dies. I have never laughed so much as this
+evening. I am sure Morhange never has, either. Perhaps he will forget
+the cloister. And all because Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh stole Captain
+Masson's pipe....</p>
+
+<p>Again that accursed song. &quot;The seventh is a boy, one of whose eyes has
+flown away.&quot; One cannot imagine more senseless words. It is very
+strange, really: there seem to be four of us in this cave now. Four, I
+say, five, six, seven, eight.... Make yourselves at home, my friends.
+What! there are no more of you?... I am going to find out at last how
+the spirits of this region are made, the <i>Gamphasantes</i>, the
+<i>Blemyens</i>.... Morhange says that the <i>Blemyens</i> have their faces on
+the middle of their chests. Surely this one who is seizing me in his
+arms is not a <i>Blemyen</i>! Now he is carrying me outside. And Morhange
+... I do not want them to forget Morhange....</p>
+
+<p>They did not forget him; I see him perched on a camel in front of that
+one to which I am fastened. They did well to fasten me, for otherwise
+I surely would tumble off. These spirits certainly are not bad
+fellows. But what a long way it is! I want to stretch out. To sleep. A
+while ago we surely were following a long passage, then we were in the
+open air. Now we are again in an endless stifling corridor. Here are
+the stars again.... Is this ridiculous course going to keep on?...</p>
+
+<p>Hello, lights! Stars, perhaps. No, lights, I say. A stairway, on my
+word; of rocks, to be sure, but still, a stairway. How <!-- Page 72 -->can the
+camels...? But it is no longer a camel; this is a man carrying me. A
+man dressed in white, not a <i>Gamphasante</i> nor a <i>Blemyen</i>. Morhange
+must be giving himself airs with his historical reasoning, all false,
+I repeat, all false. Good Morhange. Provided that his <i>Gamphasante</i>
+does not let him fall on this unending stairway. Something glitters on
+the ceiling. Yes, it is a lamp, a copper lamp, as at Tunis, at
+Barbouchy's. Good, here again you cannot see anything. But I am making
+a fool of myself; I am lying down; now I can go to sleep. What a silly
+day!... Gentlemen, I assure you that it is unnecessary to bind me: I
+do not want to go down on the boulevards.</p>
+
+<p>Darkness again. Steps of someone going away. Silence.</p>
+
+<p>But only for a moment. Someone is talking beside me. What are they
+saying?... No, it is impossible. That metallic ring, that voice. Do
+you know what it is calling, that voice, do you know what it is
+calling in the tones of someone used to the phrase? Well, it is
+calling:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Play your cards, gentlemen, play your cards. There are ten thousand
+<i>louis</i> in the bank. Play your cards, gentlemen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In the name of God, am I or am I not at Ahaggar?</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h2><a name="VIII"><!-- Chapter 9 --></a>VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>AWAKENING AT AHAGGAR</h3>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>It was broad daylight when I opened my eyes. I thought at once of
+Morhange. I could not see him, but I heard him, close by, giving
+little grunts of surprise.</p>
+
+<p>I called to him. He ran to me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then they didn't tie you up?&quot; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I beg your pardon. They did. But they did it badly; I managed to get
+free.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You might have untied me, too,&quot; I remarked crossly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What good would it have done? I should only have waked you up. And I
+thought that your first word would be to call me. There, that's done.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I reeled as I tried to stand on my feet.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 73 -->Morhange smiled.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We might have spent the whole night smoking and drinking and not been
+in a worse state,&quot; he said. &quot;Anyhow, that Eg-Anteouen with his
+hasheesh is a fine rascal.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh,&quot; I corrected.</p>
+
+<p>I rubbed my hand over my forehead.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Where are we?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My dear boy,&quot; Morhange replied, &quot;since I awakened from the
+extraordinary nightmare which is mixed up with the smoky cave and the
+lamp-lit stairway of the Arabian Nights, I have been going from
+surprise to surprise, from confusion to confusion. Just look around
+you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I rubbed my eyes and stared. Then I seized my friend's hand.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Morhange,&quot; I begged, &quot;tell me if we are still dreaming.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>We were in a round room, perhaps fifty feet in diameter, and of about
+the same height, lighted by a great window opening on a sky of intense
+blue.</p>
+
+<p>Swallows flew back and forth, outside, giving quick, joyous cries.</p>
+
+<p>The floor, the incurving walls and the ceiling were of a kind of
+veined marble like porphyry, panelled with a strange metal, paler than
+gold, darker than silver, clouded just then by the early morning mist
+that came in through the window in great puffs.</p>
+
+<p>I staggered toward this window, drawn by the freshness of the breeze
+and the sunlight which was chasing away my dreams, and I leaned my
+elbows on the balustrade.</p>
+
+<p>I could not restrain a cry of delight.</p>
+
+<p>I was standing on a kind of balcony, cut into the flank of a mountain,
+overhanging an abyss. Above me, blue sky; below appeared a veritable
+earthly paradise hemmed in on all sides by mountains that formed a
+continuous and impassable wall about it. A garden lay spread out down
+there. The palm trees gently swayed their great fronds. At their feet
+was a tangle of the smaller trees which grow in an oasis under their
+protection: almonds, lemons, oranges, and many others which I could
+not distinguish from that height. A broad blue stream, fed by a
+waterfall, emptied into a charming lake, the waters of which had the
+marvellous trans<!-- Page 74 -->parency which comes in high altitudes. Great birds
+flew in circles over this green hollow; I could see in the lake the
+red flash of a flamingo.</p>
+
+<p>The peaks of the mountains which towered on all sides were completely
+covered with snow.</p>
+
+<p>The blue stream, the green palms, the golden fruit, and above it all,
+the miraculous snow, all this bathed in that limpid air, gave such an
+impression of beauty, of purity, that my poor human strength could no
+longer stand the sight of it. I laid my forehead on the balustrade,
+which, too, was covered with that heavenly snow, and began to cry like
+a baby.</p>
+
+<p>Morhange was behaving like another child. But he had awakened before I
+had, and doubtless had had time to grasp, one by one, all these
+details whose fantastic <i>ensemble</i> staggered me.</p>
+
+<p>He laid his hand on my shoulder and gently pulled me back into the
+room.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You haven't seen anything yet,&quot; he said. &quot;Look! Look!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Morhange!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, old man, what do you want me to do about it? Look!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I had just realized that the strange room was furnished&mdash;God forgive
+me&mdash;in the European fashion. There were indeed, here and there, round
+leather Tuareg cushions, brightly colored blankets from Gafsa, rugs
+from Kairouan, and Caramani hangings which, at that moment, I should
+have dreaded to draw aside. But a half-open panel in the wall showed a
+bookcase crowded with books. A whole row of photographs of
+masterpieces of ancient art were hung on the walls. Finally there was
+a table almost hidden under its heap of papers, pamphlets, books. I
+thought I should collapse at seeing a recent number of the
+<i>Archaeological Review</i>.</p>
+
+<p>I looked at Morhange. He was looking at me, and suddenly a mad laugh
+seized us and doubled us up for a good minute.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I do not know,&quot; Morhange finally managed to say, &quot;whether or not we
+shall regret some day our little excursion into Ahaggar. But admit, in
+the meantime, that it promises to be rich in unexpected adventures.
+That unforgettable <!-- Page 75 -->guide who puts us to sleep just to distract us
+from the unpleasantness of caravan life and who lets me experience, in
+the best of good faith, the far-famed delights of hasheesh: that
+fantastic night ride, and, to cap the climax, this cave of a Nureddin
+who must have received the education of the Athenian Bersot at the
+French <i>Ecole Normale</i>&mdash;all this is enough, on my word, to upset the
+wits of the best balanced.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What do I think, my poor friend? Why, just what you yourself think. I
+don't understand it at all, not at all. What you politely call my
+learning is not worth a cent. And why shouldn't I be all mixed up?
+This living in caves amazes me. Pliny speaks of the natives living in
+caves, seven days' march southwest of the country of the Amantes, and
+twelve days to the westward of the great Syrte. Herodotus says also
+that the Garamentes used to go out in their chariots to hunt the
+cave-dwelling Ethopians. But here we are in Ahaggar, in the midst of
+the Targa country, and the best authorities tell us that the Tuareg
+never have been willing to live in caves. Duveyrier is precise on that
+point. And what is this, I ask you, but a cave turned into a workroom,
+with pictures of the Venus de Medici and the Apollo Sauroctone on the
+walls? I tell you that it is enough to drive you mad.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And Morhange threw himself on a couch and began to roar with laughter
+again.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;See,&quot; I said, &quot;this is Latin.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I had picked up several scattered papers from the work-table in the
+middle of the room. Morhange took them from my hands and devoured them
+greedily. His face expressed unbounded stupefaction.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Stranger and stranger, my boy. Someone here is composing, with much
+citation of texts, a dissertation on the Gorgon Islands: <i>de Gorgonum
+insulis</i>. Medusa, according to him, was a Libyan savage who lived near
+Lake Triton, our present Chott Melhrir, and it is there that Perseus
+... Ah!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Morhange's words choked in his throat. A sharp, shrill voice pierced
+the immense room.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Gentlemen, I beg you, let my papers alone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I turned toward the newcomer.</p>
+
+<p>One of the Caramani curtains was drawn aside, and the <!-- Page 76 -->most unexpected
+of persons came in. Resigned as we were to unexpected events, the
+improbability of this sight exceeded anything our imaginations could
+have devised.</p>
+
+<p>On the threshold stood a little bald-headed man with a pointed sallow
+face half hidden by an enormous pair of green spectacles and a pepper
+and salt beard. No shirt was visible, but an impressive broad red
+cravat. He wore white trousers. Red leather slippers furnished the
+only Oriental suggestion of his costume.</p>
+
+<p>He wore, not without pride, the rosette of an officer of the
+Department of Education.</p>
+
+<p>He collected the papers which Morhange had dropped in his amazement,
+counted them, arranged them; then, casting a peevish glance at us, he
+struck a copper gong.</p>
+
+<p>The porti&eacute;re was raised again. A huge white Targa entered. I seemed to
+recognize him as one of the genii of
+the cave.<a name="FNanchor_H_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_H_8"><sup>[8]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ferradji,&quot; angrily demanded the little officer of the Department of
+Education, &quot;why were these gentlemen brought into the library?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Targa bowed respectfully.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh came back sooner than we expected,&quot; he replied,
+&quot;and last night the embalmers had not yet finished. They brought them
+here in the meantime,&quot; and he pointed to us.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very well, you may go,&quot; snapped the little man.</p>
+
+<p>Ferradji backed toward the door. On the threshold, he stopped and
+spoke again:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I was to remind you, sir, that dinner is served.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All right. Go along.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And the little man seated himself at the desk and began to finger the papers feverishly.</p>
+
+<p>I do not know why, but a mad feeling of exasperation seized me. I
+walked toward him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 77 -->Sir,&quot; I said, &quot;my friend and I do not know where we are nor who you
+are. We can see only that you are French, since you are wearing one of
+the highest honorary decorations of our country. You may have made the
+same observation on your part,&quot; I added, indicating the slender red
+ribbon which I wore on my vest.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at me in contemptuous surprise.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, sir?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, sir, the Negro who just went out pronounced the name of
+Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh, the name of a brigand, a bandit, one of the
+assassins of Colonel Flatters. Are you acquainted with that detail, sir?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The little man surveyed me coldly and shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Certainly. But what difference do you suppose that makes to me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What!&quot; I cried, beside myself with rage. &quot;Who are you, anyway?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sir,&quot; said the little old man with comical dignity, turning to
+Morhange, &quot;I call you to witness the strange manners of your
+companion. I am here in my own house and I do not allow....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You must excuse my comrade, sir,&quot; said Morhange, stepping forward.
+&quot;He is not a man of letters, as you are. These young lieutenants are
+hot-headed, you know. And besides, you can understand why both of us
+are not as calm as might be desired.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I was furious and on the point of disavowing these strangely humble
+words of Morhange. But a glance showed me that there was as much irony
+as surprise in his expression.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I know indeed that most officers are brutes,&quot; grumbled the little old
+man. &quot;But that is no reason....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am only an officer myself,&quot; Morhange went on, in an even humbler
+tone, &quot;and if ever I have been sensible to the intellectual
+inferiority of that class, I assure you that it was now in glancing&mdash;I
+beg your pardon for having taken the liberty to do so&mdash;in glancing
+over the learned pages which you devote to the passionate story of
+Medusa, according to Procles of Carthage, cited by Pausanias.&quot;</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 78 -->A laughable surprise spread over the features of the little old man.
+He hastily wiped his spectacles.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What!&quot; he finally cried.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is indeed unfortunate, in this matter,&quot; Morhange continued
+imperturbably, &quot;that we are not in possession of the curious
+dissertation devoted to this burning question by Statius Sebosus, a
+work which we know only through Pliny and which....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You know Statius Sebosus?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And which, my master, the geographer Berlioux....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You knew Berlioux&mdash;you were his pupil?&quot; stammered the little man with
+the decoration.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have had that honor,&quot; replied Morhange, very coldly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But, but, sir, then you have heard mentioned, you are familiar with
+the question, the problem of Atlantis?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Indeed I am not unacquainted with the works of Lagneau, Ploix, Arbois
+de Jubainville,&quot; said Morhange frigidly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My God!&quot; The little man was going through extraordinary contortions.
+&quot;Sir&mdash;Captain, how happy I am, how many excuses....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Just then, the porti&eacute;re was raised. Ferradji appeared again.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sir, they want me to tell you that unless you come, they will begin without you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am coming, I am coming. Say, Ferradji, that we will be there in a
+moment. Why, sir, if I had foreseen ... It is extraordinary ... to
+find an officer who knows Procles of Carthage and Arbois de
+Jubainville. Again ... But I must introduce myself. I am Etienne Le
+Mesge, Fellow of the University.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Captain Morhange,&quot; said my companion.</p>
+
+<p>I stepped forward in my turn.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Lieutenant de Saint-Avit. It is a fact, sir, that I am very likely to
+confuse Arbois of Carthage with Procles de Jubainville. Later, I shall
+have to see about filling up those gaps. But just now, I should like
+to know where we are, if we are free, and if not, what occult power
+holds us. You have the appearance, sir, of being sufficiently at home
+in this house to be able to enlighten us upon this point, which I must
+confess, I weakly consider of the first importance.&quot;</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 79 -->M. Le Mesge looked at me. A rather malevolent smile twitched the
+corners of his mouth. He opened his lips....</p>
+
+<p>A gong sounded impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In good time, gentlemen, I will tell you. I will explain
+everything.... But now you see that we must hurry. It is time for
+lunch and our fellow diners will get tired of waiting.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Our fellow diners?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There are two of them,&quot; M. Le Mesge explained. &quot;We three constitute
+the European personnel of the house, that is, the fixed personnel,&quot; he
+seemed to feel obliged to add, with his disquieting smile. &quot;Two
+strange fellows, gentlemen, with whom, doubtless, you will care to
+have as little to do as possible. One is a churchman, narrow-minded,
+though a Protestant. The other is a man of the world gone astray, an old fool.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Pardon,&quot; I said, &quot;but it must have been he whom I heard last night.
+He was gambling: with you and the minister, doubtless?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>M. Le Mesge made a gesture of offended dignity.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The idea! With me, sir? It is with the Tuareg that he plays. He
+teaches them every game imaginable. There, that is he who is striking
+the gong to hurry us up. It is half past nine, and the <i>Salle de
+Trente et Quarante</i> opens at ten o'clock. Let us hurry. I suppose that
+anyway you will not be averse to a little refreshment.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Indeed we shall not refuse,&quot; Morhange replied.</p>
+
+<p>We followed M. Le Mesge along a long winding corridor with frequent
+steps. The passage was dark. But at intervals rose-colored night
+lights and incense burners were placed in niches cut into the solid
+rock. The passionate Oriental scents perfumed the darkness and
+contrasted strangely with the cold air of the snowy peaks.</p>
+
+<p>From time to time, a white Targa, mute and expressionless as a
+phantom, would pass us and we would hear the clatter of his slippers
+die away behind us.</p>
+
+<p>M. Le Mesge stopped before a heavy door covered with the same pale
+metal which I had noticed on the walls of the library. He opened it
+and stood aside to let us pass.</p>
+
+<p>Although the dining room which we entered had little in <!-- Page 80 -->common with
+European dining rooms, I have known many which might have envied its
+comfort. Like the library, it was lighted by a great window. But I
+noticed that it had an outside exposure, while that of the library
+overlooked the garden in the center of the crown of mountains.</p>
+
+<p>No center table and none of those barbaric pieces of furniture that we
+call chairs. But a great number of buffet tables of gilded wood, like
+those of Venice, heavy hangings of dull and subdued colors, and
+cushions, Tuareg or Tunisian. In the center was a huge mat on which a
+feast was placed in finely woven baskets among silver pitchers and
+copper basins filled with perfumed water. The sight of it filled me
+with childish satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>M. Le Mesge stepped forward and introduced us to the two persons who
+already had taken their places on the mat.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mr. Spardek,&quot; he said; and by that simple phrase I understood how far
+our host placed himself above vain human titles.</p>
+
+<p>The Reverend Mr. Spardek, of Manchester, bowed reservedly and asked
+our permission to keep on his tall, wide-brimmed hat. He was a dry,
+cold man, tall and thin. He ate in pious sadness, enormously.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Monsieur Bielowsky,&quot; said M. Le Mesge, introducing us to the second guest.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Count Casimir Bielowsky, Hetman of Jitomir,&quot; the latter corrected
+with perfect good humor as he stood up to shake hands.</p>
+
+<p>I felt at once a certain liking for the Hetman of Jitomir who was a
+perfect example of an old beau. His chocolate-colored hair was parted
+in the center (later I found out that the Hetman dyed it with a
+concoction of <i>khol</i>). He had magnificent whiskers, also
+chocolate-colored, in the style of the Emperor Francis Joseph. His
+nose was undeniably a little red, but so fine, so aristocratic. His
+hands were marvelous. It took some thought to place the date of the
+style of the count's costume, bottle green with yellow facings,
+ornamented with a huge seal of silver and enamel. The recollection of
+a portrait of the Duke de Morny made me decide on 1860 or 1862; and
+the further chapters of this story will show that I was not far wrong.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 81 -->The count made me sit down beside him. One of his first questions was
+to demand if I ever cut fives.<a name="FNanchor_J_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_J_9"><sup>[9]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>&quot;That depends on how I feel,&quot; I replied.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well said. I have not done so since 1866. I swore off. A row. The
+devil of a party. One day at Walewski's. I cut fives. Naturally I
+wasn't worrying any. The other had a four. 'Idiot!' cried the little
+Baron de Chaux Gisseux who was laying staggering sums on my table. I
+hurled a bottle of champagne at his head. He ducked. It was Marshal
+Baillant who got the bottle. A scene! The matter was fixed up because
+we were both Free Masons. The Emperor made me promise not to cut fives
+again. I have kept my promise not to cut fives again. I have kept my
+promise. But there are moments when it is hard....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He added in a voice steeped in melancholy:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Try a little of this Ahaggar 1880. Excellent vintage. It is I,
+Lieutenant, who instructed these people in the uses of the juice of
+the vine. The vine of the palm trees is very good when it is properly
+fermented, but it gets insipid in the long run.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was powerful, that Ahaggar 1880. We sipped it from large silver
+goblets. It was fresh as Rhine wine, dry as the wine of the Hermitage.
+And then, suddenly, it brought back recollections of the burning wines
+of Portugal; it seemed sweet, fruity, an admirable wine, I tell you.</p>
+
+<p>That wine crowned the most perfect of luncheons. There were few meats,
+to be sure; but those few were remarkably seasoned. Profusion of
+cakes, pancakes served with honey, fragrant fritters, cheese-cakes of
+sour milk and dates. And everywhere, in great enamel platters or
+wicker jars, fruit, masses of fruit, figs, dates, pistachios, jujubes,
+pomegranates, apricots, huge bunches of grapes, larger than those
+which bent the shoulders of the Hebrews in the land of Canaan, heavy
+watermelons cut in two, showing their moist, red pulp and their rows
+of black seeds.</p>
+
+<p>I had scarcely finished one of these beautiful iced fruits, when M. Le
+Mesge rose.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 82 -->Gentlemen, if you are ready,&quot; he said to Morhange and me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Get away from that old dotard as soon as you can,&quot; whispered the
+Hetman of Jitomir to me. &quot;The party of <i>Trente et Quarante</i> will begin
+soon. You shall see. You shall see. We go it even harder than at Cora
+Pearl's.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Gentlemen,&quot; repeated M. Le Mesge in his dry tone.</p>
+
+<p>We followed him. When the three of us were back again in the library,
+he said, addressing me:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You, sir, asked a little while ago what occult power holds you here.
+Your manner was threatening, and I should have refused to comply had
+it not been for your friend, whose knowledge enables him to appreciate
+better than you the value of the revelations I am about to make to you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He touched a spring in the side of the wall. A cupboard appeared,
+stuffed with books. He took one.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are both of you,&quot; continued M. Le Mesge, &quot;in the power of a
+woman. This woman, the sultaness, the queen, the absolute sovereign of
+Ahaggar, is called Antinea. Don't start, M. Morhange, you will soon understand.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He opened the book and read this sentence:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'I must warn you before I take up the subject matter: do not be
+surprised to hear me call the barbarians by Greek names.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is that book?&quot; stammered Morhange, whose pallor terrified me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This book,&quot; M. Le Mesge replied very slowly, weighing his words, with
+an extraordinary expression of triumph, &quot;is the greatest, the most
+beautiful, the most secret, of the dialogues of Plato; it is the
+Critias of Atlantis.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Critias? But it is unfinished,&quot; murmured Morhange.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is unfinished in France, in Europe, everywhere else,&quot; said M. Le
+Mesge, &quot;but it is finished here. Look for yourself at this copy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But what connection,&quot; repeated Morhange, while his eyes traveled
+avidly over the pages, &quot;what connection can there be between this
+dialogue, complete,&mdash;yes, it seems to me complete&mdash;what connection
+with this woman, Antinea? Why should it be in her possession?&quot;</p>
+
+<!-- Page 83 -->
+<p>&quot;Because,&quot; replied the little man imperturbably, &quot;this book is her
+patent of nobility, her <i>Almanach de Gotha</i>, in a sense, do you
+understand? Because it established her prodigious genealogy: because she is....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Because she is?&quot; repeated Morhange.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Because she is the grand daughter of Neptune, the last descendant of
+the Atlantides.&quot;</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h2><a name="IX"><!-- Chapter 9 --></a>IX</h2>
+
+<h3>ATLANTIS</h3>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>M. Le Mesge looked at Morhange triumphantly. It was evident that he
+addressed himself exclusively to Morhange, considering him alone
+worthy of his confidences.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There have been many, sir,&quot; he said, &quot;both French and foreign
+officers who have been brought here at the caprice of our sovereign,
+Antinea. You are the first to be honored by my disclosures. But you
+were the pupil of Berlioux, and I owe so much to the memory of that
+great man that it seems to me I may do him homage by imparting to one
+of his disciples the unique results of my private research.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He struck the bell. Ferradji appeared.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Coffee for these gentlemen,&quot; ordered M. Le Mesge.</p>
+
+<p>He handed us a box, gorgeously decorated in the most flaming colors,
+full of Egyptian cigarettes.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I never smoke,&quot; he explained. &quot;But Antinea sometimes comes here.
+These are her cigarettes. Help yourselves, gentlemen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I have always had a horror of that pale tobacco which gives a barber
+of the Rue de la Michodi&egrave;re the illusion of oriental voluptuousness.
+But, in their way, these musk-scented cigarettes were not bad, and it
+was a long time since I had used up my stock of Caporal.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 84 -->Here are the back numbers of <i>Le Vie Parisienne</i>&quot; said M. Le Mesge
+to me. &quot;Amuse yourself with them, if you like, while I talk to your friend.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sir,&quot; I replied brusquely, &quot;it is true that I never studied with
+Berlioux. Nevertheless, you must allow me to listen to your
+conversation: I shall hope to find something in it to amuse me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;As you wish,&quot; said the little old man.</p>
+
+<p>We settled ourselves comfortably. M. Le Mesge sat down before the
+desk, shot his cuffs, and commenced as follows:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;However much, gentlemen, I prize complete objectivity in matters of
+erudition, I cannot utterly detach my own history from that of the
+last descendant of Clito and Neptune.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am the creation of my own efforts. From my childhood, the
+prodigious impulse given to the science of history by the nineteenth
+century has affected me. I saw where my way led. I have followed it,
+in spite of everything.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In spite of everything, everything&mdash;I mean it literally. With no
+other resources than my own work and merit, I was received as Fellow
+of History and Geography at the examination of 1880. A great
+examination! Among the thirteen who were accepted there were names
+which have since become illustrious: Julian, Bourgeois, Auerbach.... I
+do not envy my colleagues on the summits of their official honors; I
+read their works with commiseration; and the pitiful errors to which
+they are condemned by the insufficiency of their documents would amply
+counterbalance my chagrin and fill me with ironic joy, had I not been
+raised long since above the satisfaction of self-love.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When I was Professor at the Lyc&eacute;e du Parc at Lyons. I knew Berlioux
+and followed eagerly his works on African History. I had, at that
+time, a very original idea for my doctor's thesis. I was going to
+establish a parallel between the Berber heroine of the seventh
+century, who struggled against the Arab invader, Kahena, and the
+French heroine, Joan of Arc, who struggled against the English
+invader. I proposed to the <i>Facult&eacute; des Lettres</i> at Paris this title
+for my thesis: <i>Joan of Arc and the Tuareg</i>. This simple announcement
+gave rise to a perfect outcry in learned circles, a furor of
+<!-- Page 85 -->ridicule. My friends warned me discreetly. I refused to believe them.
+Finally I was forced to believe when my rector summoned me before him
+and, after manifesting an astonishing interest in my health, asked
+whether I should object to taking two years' leave on half pay. I
+refused indignantly. The rector did not insist; but fifteen days
+later, a ministerial decree, with no other legal procedure, assigned
+me to one of the most insignificant and remote Lyc&eacute;es of France, at
+Mont-de-Marsan.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Realize my exasperation and you will excuse the excesses to which I
+delivered myself in that strange country. What is there to do in
+Landes, if you neither eat nor drink? I did both violently. My pay
+melted away in <i>fois gras</i>, in woodcocks, in fine wines. The result
+came quickly enough: in less than a year my joints began to crack like
+the over-oiled axle of a bicycle that has gone a long way upon a dusty
+track. A sharp attack of gout nailed me to my bed. Fortunately, in
+that blessed country, the cure is in reach of the suffering. So I
+departed to Dax, at vacation time, to try the waters.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I rented a room on the bank of the Adour, overlooking the <i>Promenade
+des Baignots</i>. A charwoman took care of it for me. She worked also for
+an old gentleman, a retired Examining Magistrate, President of the
+Roger-Ducos Society, which was a vague scientific backwater, in which
+the scholars of the neighborhood applied themselves with prodigious
+incompetence to the most whimsical subjects. One afternoon I stayed in
+my room on account of a very heavy rain. The good woman was
+energetically polishing the copper latch of my door. She used a paste
+called Tripoli, which she spread upon a paper and rubbed and
+rubbed.... The peculiar appearance of the paper made me curious. I
+glanced at it. 'Great heavens! Where did you get this paper?' She was
+perturbed. 'At my master's; he has lots of it. I tore this out of a
+notebook.' 'Here are ten francs. Go and get me the notebook.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A quarter of an hour later, she was back with it. By good luck it
+lacked only one page, the one with which she had been polishing my
+door. This manuscript, this notebook, have you any idea what it was?
+Merely the <i>Voyage to Atlantis</i> <!-- Page 86 -->of the mythologist Denis de Milet,
+which is mentioned by Diodorus and the loss of which I had so often
+heard Berlioux deplore.<a name="FNanchor_K_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_K_10"><sup>[10]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>&quot;This inestimable document contained numerous quotations from the
+Critias. It gave an abstract of the illustrious dialogue, the sole
+existing copy of which you held in your hands a little while ago. It
+established past controversy the location of the stronghold of the
+Atlantides, and demonstrated that this site, which is denied by
+science, was not submerged by the waves, as is supposed by the rare
+and timorous defenders of the Atlantide hypothesis. He called it the
+'central Mazycian range,' You know there is no longer any doubt as to
+the identification of the Mazyces of Herodotus with the people of
+Imoschaoch, the Tuareg. But the manuscript of Denys unquestionably
+identifies the historical Mazyces with the Atlantides of the supposed legend.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I learned, therefore, from Denys, not only that the central part of
+Atlantis, the cradle and home of the dynasty of Neptune, had not sunk
+in the disaster described by Plato as engulfing the rest of the
+Atlantide isle, but also that it corresponded to the Tuareg Ahaggar,
+and that, in this Ahaggar, at least in his time, the noble dynasty of
+Neptune was supposed to be still existent.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The historians of Atlantis put the date of the cataclysm which
+destroyed all or part of that famous country at nine thousand years
+before Christ. If Denis de Milet, who wrote scarcely three thousand
+years ago, believed that in his time, the dynastic issue of Neptune
+was still ruling its dominion, you will understand that I thought
+immediately&mdash;what has lasted nine thousand years may last eleven
+thousand. From that instant I had only one aim: to find the possible
+descendants of the Atlantides, and, since I had many reasons for
+supposing them to be debased and ignorant of their original splendor,
+to inform them of their illustrious descent.</p>
+<!-- Page 87 -->
+
+<p>&quot;You will easily understand that I imparted none of my intentions to
+my superiors at the University. To solicit their approval or even
+their permission, considering the attitude they had taken toward me,
+would have been almost certainly to invite confinement in a cell. So I
+raised what I could on my own account, and departed without trumpet or
+drum for Oran. On the first of October I reached In-Salah. Stretched
+at my ease beneath a palm tree, at the oasis, I took infinite pleasure
+in considering how, that very day, the principal of Mont-de-Marsan,
+beside himself, struggling to control twenty horrible urchins howling
+before the door of an empty class room, would be telegraphing wildly
+in all directions in search of his lost history professor.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>M. Le Mesge stopped and looked at us to mark his satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>I admit that I forgot my dignity and I forgot the affectation he had
+steadily assumed of talking only to Morhange.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You will pardon me, sir, if your discourse interests me more than I
+had anticipated. But you know very well that I lack the fundamental
+instruction necessary to understand you. You speak of the dynasty of
+Neptune. What is this dynasty, from which, I believe, you trace the
+descent of Antinea? What is her r&ocirc;le in the story of Atlantis?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>M. Le Mesge smiled with condescension, meantime winking at Morhange
+with the eye nearest to him. Morhange was listening without
+expression, without a word, chin in hand, elbow on knee.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Plato will answer for me, sir,&quot; said the Professor.</p>
+
+<p>And he added, with an accent of inexpressible pity:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is it really possible that you have never made the acquaintance of
+the introduction to the Critias?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He placed on the table the book by which Morhange had been so
+strangely moved. He adjusted his spectacles and began to read. It
+seemed as if the magic of Plato vibrated through and transfigured this
+ridiculous little old man.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Having drawn by lot the different parts of the earth, the gods
+obtained, some a larger, and some, a smaller share. It was thus that
+Neptune, having received in the division the isle of Atlantis, came to
+place the children he had had <!-- Page 88 -->by a mortal in one part of that isle.
+It was not far from the sea, a plain situated in the midst of the
+isle, the most beautiful, and, they say, the most fertile of plains.
+About fifty stades from that plain, in the middle of the isle, was a
+mountain. There dwelt one of those men who, in the very beginning, was
+born of the Earth, Evenor, with his wife, Leucippe. They had only one
+daughter, Clito. She was marriageable when her mother and father died,
+and Neptune, being enamored of her, married her. Neptune fortified the
+mountain where she dwelt by isolating it. He made alternate girdles of
+sea and land, the one smaller, the others greater, two of earth and
+three of water, and centered them round the isle in such a manner that
+they were at all parts equally distant!...&quot;</p>
+
+<p>M. Le Mesge broke off his reading.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Does this arrangement recall nothing to you?&quot; he queried.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Morhange, Morhange!&quot; I stammered. &quot;You remember&mdash;our route yesterday,
+our abduction, the two corridors that we had to cross before arriving
+at this mountain?... The girdles of earth and of water?... Two
+tunnels, two enclosures of earth?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ha! Ha!&quot; chuckled M. Le Mesge.</p>
+
+<p>He smiled as he looked at me. I understood that this smile meant: &quot;Can
+he be less obtuse than I had supposed?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As if with a mighty effort, Morhange broke the silence.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I understand well enough, I understand.... The three girdles of
+water.... But then, you are supposing, sir,&mdash;an explanation the
+ingeniousness of which I do not contest&mdash;you are supposing the exact
+hypothesis of the Saharan sea!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I suppose it, and I can prove it,&quot; replied the irascible little old
+chap, banging his fist on the table. &quot;I know well enough what Schirmer
+and the rest have advanced against it. I know it better than you do. I
+know all about it, sir. I can present all the proofs for your
+consideration. And in the meantime, this evening at dinner, you will
+no doubt enjoy some excellent fish. And you will tell me if these
+fish, caught in the lake that you can see from this window, seem to
+you fresh water fish.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You must realize,&quot; he continued, &quot;the mistake of those who, believing
+in Atlantis, have sought to explain the cata<!-- Page 89 -->clysm in which they
+suppose the island to have sunk. Without exception, they have thought
+that it was swallowed up. Actually, there has not been an immersion.
+There has been an emersion. New lands have emerged from the Atlantic
+wave. The desert has replaced the sea, the <i>sebkhas</i>, the salt lakes,
+the Triton lakes, the sandy Syrtes are the desolate vestiges of the
+free sea water over which, in former days, the fleets swept with a
+fair wind towards the conquest of Attica. Sand swallows up
+civilization better than water. To-day there remains nothing of the
+beautiful isle that the sea and winds kept gay and verdant but this
+chalky mass. Nothing has endured in this rocky basin, cut off forever
+from the living world, but the marvelous oasis that you have at your
+feet, these red fruits, this cascade, this blue lake, sacred witnesses
+to the golden age that is gone. Last evening, in coming here, you had
+to cross the five enclosures: the three belts of water, dry forever;
+the two girdles of earth through which are hollowed the passages you
+traversed on camel back, where, formerly, the triremes floated. The
+only thing that, in this immense catastrophe, has preserved its
+likeness to its former state, is this mountain, the mountain where
+Neptune shut up his well-beloved Clito, the daughter of Evenor and
+Leucippe, the mother of Atlas, and the ancestress of Antinea, the
+sovereign under whose dominion you are about to enter forever.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sir,&quot; Morhange with the most exquisite courtesy, &quot;it would be only a
+natural anxiety which would urge us to inquire the reasons and the end
+of this dominion. But behold to what extent your revelation interests
+me; I defer this question of private interest. Of late, in two
+caverns, it has been my fortune to discover Tifinar inscriptions of
+this name, Antinea. My comrade is witness that I took it for a Greek
+name. I understand now, thanks to you and the divine Plato, that I
+need no longer feel surprised to hear a barbarian called by a Greek
+name. But I am no less perplexed as to the etymology of the word. Can
+you enlighten me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I shall certainly not fail you there, sir,&quot; said M. Le Mesge. &quot;I may
+tell you, too, that you are not the first to put to me that question.
+Most of the explorers that I have seen enter here in the past ten
+years have been attracted in the <!-- Page 90 -->same way, intrigued by this Greek
+work reproduced in Tifinar. I have even arranged a fairly exact
+catalogue of these inscriptions and the caverns where they are to be
+met with. All, or almost all, are accompanied by this legend:
+<i>Antinea. Here commences her domain</i>. I myself have had repainted with
+ochre such as were beginning to be effaced. But, to return to what I
+was telling you before, none of the Europeans who have followed this
+epigraphic mystery here, have kept their anxiety to solve this
+etymology once they found themselves in Antinea's palace. They all
+become otherwise preoccupied. I might make many disclosures as to the
+little real importance which purely scientific interests possess even
+for scholars, and the quickness with which they sacrifice them to the
+most mundane considerations&mdash;their own lives, for instance.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let us take that up another time, sir, if it is satisfactory to you,&quot;
+said Morhange, always admirably polite.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This digression had only one point, sir: to show you that I do not
+count you among these unworthy scholars. You are really eager to know
+the origin of this name, <i>Antinea</i>, and that before knowing what kind
+of woman it belongs to and her motives for holding you and this
+gentleman as her prisoners.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I stared hard at the little old man. But he spoke with profound
+seriousness.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So much the better for you, my boy,&quot; I thought. &quot;Otherwise it
+wouldn't have taken me long to send you through the window to air your
+ironies at your ease. The law of gravity ought not to be topsy-turvy
+here at Ahaggar.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You, no doubt, formulated several hypotheses when you first
+encountered the name, Antinea,&quot; continued M. Le Mesge, imperturbable
+under my fixed gaze, addressing himself to Morhange. &quot;Would you object
+to repeating them to me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not at all, sir,&quot; said Morhange.</p>
+
+<p>And, very composedly, he enumerated the etymological suggestions I
+have given previously.</p>
+
+<p>The little man with the cherry-colored shirt front rubbed his hands.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very good,&quot; he admitted with an accent of intense jubilation.
+&quot;Amazingly good, at least for one with only the <!-- Page 91 -->modicum of Greek that
+you possess. But it is all none the less false, super-false.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is because I suspected as much that I put my question to you,&quot;
+said Morhange blandly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I will not keep you longer in suspense,&quot; said M. Le Mesge. &quot;The word,
+Antinea, is composed as follows: <i>ti</i> is nothing but a Tifinar
+addition to an essentially Greek name. <i>Ti</i> is the Berber feminine
+article. We have several examples of this combination. Take <i>Tipasa</i>,
+the North African town. The name means the whole, from <i>ti</i> and from
+<img src="images/tfnr91_1.gif" width="83" height="29" alt="Tifinar word" title="Tifinar word" />
+. So, <i>tinea</i> signifies the new, from <i>ti</i> and from
+<img src="images/tfnr91_2.gif" width="49" height="25" alt="Tifinar word" title="Tifinar word" />
+.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And the prefix, <i>an</i>?&quot; queried Morhang.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is it possible, sir, that I have put myself to the trouble of talking
+to you for a solid hour about the Critias with such trifling effect?
+It is certain that the prefix <i>an</i>, alone, has no meaning. You will
+understand that it has one, when I tell you that we have here a very
+curious case of apocope. You must not read <i>an</i>; you must read
+<i>atlan</i>. <i>Atl</i> has been lost, by apocope; <i>an</i> has survived. To sum
+up, Antinea is composed in the following manner:
+<img src="images/tfnr91_3.gif" width="135" height="28" alt="Tifinar word" title="Tifinar word" />
+&mdash;
+<img src="images/tfnr91_4.gif" width="126" height="36" alt="Tifinar word" title="Tifinar word" />
+. And its meaning, <i>the new Atlantis</i>, is dazzlingly apparent from this demonstration.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I looked at Morhange. His astonishment was without bounds. The Berber
+prefix <i>ti</i> had literally stunned him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Have you had occasion, sir, to verify this very ingenious etymology?&quot;
+he was finally able to gasp out.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You have only to glance over these few books,&quot; said M. Le Mesge
+disdainfully.</p>
+
+<p>He opened successively five, ten, twenty cupboards. An enormous
+library was spread out to our view.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Everything, everything&mdash;it is all here,&quot; murmured Morhange, with an
+astonishing inflection of terror and admiration.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Everything that is worth consulting, at any rate,&quot; said M. Le Mesge.
+&quot;All the great books, whose loss the so-called learned world deplores
+to-day.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And how has it happened?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sir, you distress me. I thought you familiar with certain events. You
+are forgetting, then, the passage where Pliny the Elder speaks of the
+library of Carthage and the treasures which were accumulated there? In
+146, when that city fell <!-- Page 92 -->under the blows of the knave, Scipio, the
+incredible collection of illiterates who bore the name of the Roman
+Senate had only the profoundest contempt for these riches. They
+presented them to the native kings. This is how Mantabal received this
+priceless heritage; it was transmitted to his son and grandson,
+Hiempsal, Juba I, Juba II, the husband of the admirable Cleopatra
+Selene, the daughter of the great Cleopatra and Mark Antony. Cleopatra
+Selene had a daughter who married an Atlantide king. This is how
+Antinea, the daughter of Neptune, counts among her ancestors the
+immortal queen of Egypt. That is how, by following the laws of
+inheritance, the remains of the library of Carthage, enriched by the
+remnants of the library of Alexandria, are actually before your eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Science fled from man. While he was building those monstrous Babels
+of pseudo-science in Berlin, London, Paris, Science was taking refuge
+in this desert corner of Ahaggar. They may well forge their hypotheses
+back there, based on the loss of the mysterious works of antiquity:
+these works are not lost. They are here. They are here: the Hebrew,
+the Chaldean, the Assyrian books. Here, the great Egyptian traditions
+which inspired Solon, Herodotus and Plato. Here, the Greek
+mythologists, the magicians of Roman Africa, the Indian mystics, all
+the treasures, in a word, for the lack of which contemporary
+dissertations are poor laughable things. Believe me, he is well
+avenged, the little universitarian whom they took for a madman, whom
+they defied. I have lived, I live, I shall live in a perpetual burst
+of laughter at their false and garbled erudition. And when I shall be
+dead, Error,&mdash;thanks to the jealous precaution of Neptune taken to
+isolate his well-beloved Clito from the rest of the world,&mdash;Error, I
+say, will continue to reign as sovereign mistress over their pitiful
+compositions.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sir,&quot; said Morhange in grave voice, &quot;you have just affirmed the
+influence of Egypt on the civilizations of the people here. For
+reasons which some day, perhaps, I shall have occasion to explain to
+you, I would like to have proof of that relationship.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We need not wait for that, sir,&quot; said M. Le Mesge. Then, in my turn,
+I advanced.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 93 -->Two words, if you please, sir,&quot; I said brutally. &quot;I will not hide
+from you that these historical discussions seem to me absolutely out
+of place. It is not my fault if you have had trouble with the
+University, and if you are not to-day at the College of France or
+elsewhere. For the moment, just one thing concerns me: to know just
+what this lady, Antinea, wants with us. My comrade would like to know
+her relation with ancient Egypt: very well. For my part, I desire
+above everything to know her relations with the government of Algeria
+and the Arabian Bureau.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>M. Le Mesge gave a strident laugh.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am going to give you an answer that will satisfy you both,&quot; he
+replied.</p>
+
+<p>And he added:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Follow me. It is time that you should learn.&quot;</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h2><a name="X"><!-- Chapter 10 --></a>X</h2>
+
+<h3>THE RED MARBLE HALL</h3>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>We passed through an interminable series of stairs and corridors
+following M. Le Mesge.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You lose all sense of direction in this labyrinth,&quot; I muttered to
+Morhange.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Worse still, you will lose your head,&quot; answered my companion <i>sotto
+voce</i>. &quot;This old fool is certainly very learned; but God knows what he
+is driving at. However, he has promised that we are soon to know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>M. Le Mesge had stopped before a heavy dark door, all incrusted with
+strange symbols. Turning the lock with difficulty, he opened it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Enter, gentlemen, I beg you,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p>A gust of cold air struck us full in the face. The room we were
+entering was chill as a vault.</p>
+
+<p>At first, the darkness allowed me to form no idea of its proportions.
+The lighting, purposely subdued, consisted of twelve enormous copper
+lamps, placed column-like upon the ground and burning with brilliant
+red flames. As we entered, <!-- Page 94 -->the wind from the corridor made the flames
+flicker, momentarily casting about us our own enlarged and misshapen
+shadows. Then the gust died down, and the flames, no longer flurried,
+again licked up the darkness with their motionless red tongues.</p>
+
+<p>These twelve giant lamps (each one about ten feet high) were arranged
+in a kind of crown, the diameter of which must have been about fifty
+feet. In the center of this circle was a dark mass, all streaked with
+trembling red reflections. When I drew nearer, I saw it was a bubbling
+fountain. It was the freshness of this water which had maintained the
+temperature of which I have spoken.</p>
+
+<p>Huge seats were cut in the central rock from which gushed the
+murmuring, shadowy fountain. They were heaped with silky cushions.
+Twelve incense burners, within the circle of red lamps, formed a
+second crown, half as large in diameter. Their smoke mounted toward
+the vault, invisible in the darkness, but their perfume, combined with
+the coolness and sound of the water, banished from the soul all other
+desire than to remain there forever.</p>
+
+<p>M. Le Mesge made us sit down in the center of the hall, on the
+Cyclopean seats. He seated himself between us.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In a few minutes,&quot; he said, &quot;your eyes will grow accustomed to the
+obscurity.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I noticed that he spoke in a hushed voice, as if he were in church.</p>
+
+<p>Little by little, our eyes did indeed grow used to the red light. Only
+the lower part of the great hall was illuminated. The whole vault was
+drowned in shadow and its height was impossible to estimate. Vaguely,
+I could perceive overhead a great smooth gold chandelier, flecked,
+like everything else, with sombre red reflections. But there was no
+means of judging the length of the chain by which it hung from the
+dark ceiling.</p>
+
+<p>The marble of the pavement was of so high a polish, that the great
+torches were reflected even there.</p>
+
+<p>This room, I repeat, was round a perfect circle of which the fountain
+at our backs was the center.</p>
+
+<p>We sat facing the curving walls. Before long, we began to be able to
+see them. They were of peculiar construction, <!-- Page 95 -->divided into a series
+of niches, broken, ahead of us, by the door which had just opened to
+give us passage, behind us, by a second door, a still darker hole
+which I divined in the darkness when I turned around. From one door to
+the other, I counted sixty niches, making, in all, one hundred and
+twenty. Each was about ten feet high. Each contained a kind of case,
+larger above than below, closed only at the lower end. In all these
+cases, except two just opposite me, I thought I could discern a
+brilliant shape, a human shape certainly, something like a statue of
+very pale bronze. In the arc of the circle before me, I counted
+clearly thirty of these strange statues.</p>
+
+<p>What were these statues? I wanted to see. I rose.</p>
+
+<p>M. Le Mesge put his hand on my arm.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In good time,&quot; he murmured in the same low voice, &quot;all in good time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Professor was watching the door by which we had entered the hall,
+and from behind which we could hear the sound of footsteps becoming
+more and more distinct.</p>
+
+<p>It opened quietly to admit three Tuareg slaves. Two of them were
+carrying a long package on their shoulders; the third seemed to be
+their chief.</p>
+
+<p>At a sign from him, they placed the package on the ground and drew out
+from one of the niches the case which it contained.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You may approach, gentlemen,&quot; said M. Le Mesge.</p>
+
+<p>He motioned the three Tuareg to withdraw several paces.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You asked me, not long since, for some proof of the Egyptian
+influence on this country,&quot; said M. Le Mesge. &quot;What do you say to that
+case, to begin with?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As he spoke, he pointed to the case that the servants had deposited
+upon the ground after they took it from its niche.</p>
+
+<p>Morhange uttered a thick cry.</p>
+
+<p>We had before us one of those cases designed for the preservation of
+mummies. The same shiny wood, the same bright decorations, the only
+difference being that here Tifinar writing replaced the hieroglyphics.
+The form, narrow at the base, broader above, ought to have been enough
+to enlighten us.</p>
+
+<p>I have already said that the lower half of this large case <!-- Page 96 -->was
+closed, giving the whole structure the appearance of a rectangular
+wooden shoe.</p>
+
+<p>M. Le Mesge knelt and fastened on the lower part of the case, a square
+of white cardboard, a large label, that he had picked up from his
+desk, a few minutes before, on leaving the library.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You may read,&quot; he said simply, but still in the same low tone.</p>
+
+<p>I knelt also, for the light of the great candelabra was scarcely
+sufficient to read the label where, none the less, I recognized the
+Professor's handwriting.</p>
+
+<p>It bore these few words, in a large round hand:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Number 53. Major Sir Archibald Russell. Born at Richmond, July 5,
+1860. Died at Ahaggar, December 3, 1896.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I leapt to my feet.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Major Russell!&quot; I exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not so loud, not so loud,&quot; said M. Le Mesge. &quot;No one speaks out loud
+here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Major Russell,&quot; I repeated, obeying his injunction as if in spite
+of myself, &quot;who left Khartoum last year, to explore Sokoto?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The same,&quot; replied the Professor.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And ... where is Major Russell?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He is there,&quot; replied M. Le Mesge.</p>
+
+<p>The Professor made a gesture. The Tuareg approached.</p>
+
+<p>A poignant silence reigned in the mysterious hall, broken only by the
+fresh splashing of the fountain.</p>
+
+<p>The three Negroes were occupied in undoing the package that they had
+put down near the painted case. Weighed down with wordless horror,
+Morhange and I stood watching.</p>
+
+<p>Soon, a rigid form, a human form, appeared. A red gleam played over
+it. We had before us, stretched out upon the ground, a statue of pale
+bronze, wrapped in a kind of white veil, a statue like those all
+around us, upright in their niches. It seemed to fix us with an
+impenetrable gaze.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sir Archibald Russell,&quot; murmured M. Le Mesge slowly.</p>
+
+<p>Morhange approached, speechless, but strong enough to lift up the
+white veil. For a long, long time he gazed at the sad bronze statue.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 97 -->A mummy, a mummy?&quot; he said finally. &quot;You deceive yourself, sir, this
+is no mummy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Accurately speaking, no,&quot; replied M. Le Mesge. &quot;This is not a mummy.
+None the less, you have before you the mortal remains of Sir Archibald
+Russell. I must point out to you, here, my dear sir, that the
+processes of embalming used by Antinea differ from the processes
+employed in ancient Egypt. Here, there is no natron, nor bands, nor
+spices. The industry of Ahaggar, in a single effort, has achieved a
+result obtained by European science only after long experiments.
+Imagine my surprise, when I arrived here and found that they were
+employing a method I supposed known only to the civilized world.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>M. Le Mesge struck a light tap with his finger on the forehead of Sir
+Archibald Russell. It rang like metal.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is bronze,&quot; I said. &quot;That is not a human forehead: it is bronze.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>M. Le Mesge shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is a human forehead,&quot; he affirmed curtly, &quot;and not bronze. Bronze
+is darker, sir. This is the great unknown metal of which Plato speaks
+in the Critias, and which is something between gold and silver: it is
+the special metal of the mountains of the Atlantides. It is
+<i>orichalch</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Bending again, I satisfied myself that this metal was the same as that
+with which the walls of the library were overcast.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is orichalch,&quot; continued M. Le Mesge. &quot;You look as if you had no
+idea how a human body can look like a statue of orichalch. Come,
+Captain Morhange, you whom I gave credit for a certain amount of
+knowledge, have you never heard of the method of Dr. Variot, by which
+a human body can be preserved without embalming? Have you never read
+the book of that practitioner?<a name="FNanchor_L_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_L_11"><sup>[11]</sup></a>
+He explains a method called electro-plating. The skin is coated with a very thin layer of silver
+salts, to make it a conductor. The body then is placed in a solution,
+of copper sulphate, and the polar currents do their work. The body of
+this estimable English major has been <!-- Page 98 -->metalized in the same manner,
+except that a solution of orichalch sulphate, a very rare substance,
+has been substituted for that of copper sulphate. Thus, instead of the
+statue of a poor slave, a copper statue, you have before you a statue
+of metal more precious than silver or gold, in a word, a statue worthy
+of the granddaughter of Neptune.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>M. Le Mesge waved his arm. The black slaves seized the body. In a few
+seconds, they slid the orichalch ghost into its painted wooden sheath.
+That was set on end and slid into its niche, beside the niche where an
+exactly similar sheath was labelled &quot;Number 52.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Upon finishing their task, they retired without a word. A draught of
+cold air from the door again made the flames of the copper torches
+flicker and threw great shadows about us.</p>
+
+<p>Morhange and I remained as motionless as the pale metal specters which
+surrounded us. Suddenly I pulled myself together and staggered forward
+to the niche beside that in which they just had laid the remains of
+the English major. I looked for the label.</p>
+
+<p>Supporting myself against the red marble wall, I read:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Number 52. Captain Laurent Deligne. Born at Paris, July 22, 1861.
+Died at Ahaggar, October 30, 1896.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Captain Deligne!&quot; murmured Morhange. &quot;He left Colomb-B&eacute;char in 1895
+for Timmimoun and no more has been heard of him since then.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Exactly,&quot; said M. Le Mesge, with a little nod of approval.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Number 51,&quot; read Morhange with chattering teeth. &quot;Colonel von
+Wittman, born at Jena in 1855. Died at Ahaggar, May 1, 1896....
+Colonel Wittman, the explorer of Kanem, who disappeared off Agad&egrave;s.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Exactly,&quot; said M. Le Mesge again.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Number 50,&quot; I read in my turn, steadying myself against the wall, so
+as not to fall. &quot;Marquis Alonzo d'Oliveira, born at Cadiz, February
+21, 1868. Died at Ahaggar, February 1, 1896. Oliveira, who was going
+to Araouan.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Exactly,&quot; said M. Le Mesge again. &quot;That Spaniard was one of the best
+educated. I used to have interesting discussions with him on the exact
+geographical position of the kingdom of Ant&eacute;e.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Number 49,&quot; said Morhange in a tone scarcely more than <!-- Page 99 -->a whisper.
+&quot;Lieutenant Woodhouse, born at Liverpool, September 16, 1870. Died at
+Ahaggar, October 4, 1895.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hardly more than a child,&quot; said M. Le Mesge.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Number 48,&quot; I said. &quot;Lieutenant Louis de Maillefeu, born at Provins,
+the....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I did not finish. My voice choked.</p>
+
+<p>Louis de Maillefeu, my best friend, the friend of my childhood and of
+Saint-Cyr.... I looked at him and recognized him under the metallic
+coating. Louis de Maillefeu!</p>
+
+<p>I laid my forehead against the cold wall and, with shaking shoulders,
+began to sob.</p>
+
+<p>I heard the muffled voice of Morhange speaking to the Professor:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sir, this has lasted long enough. Let us make an end of it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He wanted to know,&quot; said M. Le Mesge. &quot;What am I to do?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I went up to him and seized his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What happened to him? What did he die of?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Just like the others,&quot; the Professor replied, &quot;just like Lieutenant
+Woodhouse, like Captain Deligne, like Major Russell, like Colonel von
+Wittman, like the forty-seven of yesterday and all those of
+to-morrow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of what did they die?&quot; Morhange demanded imperatively in his turn.</p>
+
+<p>The Professor looked at Morhange. I saw my comrade grow pale.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of what did they die, sir? <i>They died of love</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And he added in a very low, very grave voice:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now you know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Gently and with a tact which we should hardly have suspected in him,
+M. Le Mesge drew us away from the statues. A moment later, Morhange
+and I found ourselves again seated, or rather sunk among the cushions
+in the center of the room. The invisible fountain murmured its plaint
+at our feet.</p>
+
+<p>Le Mesge sat between us.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now you know,&quot; he repeated. &quot;You know, but you do not yet
+understand.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Then, very slowly, he said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 100 -->You are, as they have been, the prisoners of Antinea. And vengeance
+is due Antinea.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Vengeance?&quot; said Morhange, who had regained his self-possession. &quot;For
+what, I beg to ask? What have the lieutenant and I done to Atlantis?
+How have we incurred her hatred?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is an old quarrel, a very old quarrel,&quot; the Professor replied
+gravely. &quot;A quarrel which long antedates you, M. Morhange.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Explain yourself, I beg of you, Professor.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are Man. She is a Woman,&quot; said the dreamy voice of M. Le Mesge.
+&quot;The whole matter lies there.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Really, sir, I do not see ... we do not see.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are going to understand. Have you really forgotten to what an
+extent the beautiful queens of antiquity had just cause to complain of
+the strangers whom fortune brought to their borders? The poet, Victor
+Hugo, pictured their detestable acts well enough in his colonial poem
+called <i>la Fille d'O-Taiti</i>. Wherever we look, we see similar examples
+of fraud and ingratitude. These gentlemen made free use of the beauty
+and the riches of the lady. Then, one fine morning, they disappeared.
+She was indeed lucky if her lover, having observed the position
+carefully, did not return with ships and troops of occupation.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Your learning charms me,&quot; said Morhange. &quot;Continue.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you need examples? Alas! they abound. Think of the cavalier
+fashion in which Ulysses treated Calypso, Diomedes Callirho&euml;. What
+should I say of Theseus and Ariadne? Jason treated Medea with
+inconceivable lightness. The Romans continued the tradition with still
+greater brutality. Aenaeus, who has many characteristics in common
+with the Reverend Spardek, treated Dido in a most undeserved fashion.
+Caesar was a laurel-crowned blackguard in his relations with the
+divine Cleopatra. Titus, that hypocrite Titus, after having lived a
+whole year in Idummea at the expense of the plaintive Berenice, took
+her back to Rome only to make game of her. It is time that the sons of
+Japhet paid this formidable reckoning of injuries to the daughters of
+Shem.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A woman has taken it upon herself to re-establish the great Hegelian
+law of equilibrium for the benefit of her sex. <!-- Page 101 -->Separated from the
+Aryan world by the formidable precautions of Neptune, she draws the
+youngest and bravest to her. Her body is condescending, while her
+spirit is inexorable. She takes what these bold young men can give
+her. She lends them her body, while her soul dominates them. She is
+the first sovereign who has never been made the slave of passion, even
+for a moment. She has never been obliged to regain her self-mastery,
+for she never has lost it. She is the only woman who has been able to
+disassociate those two inextricable things, love and voluptuousness.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>M. Le Mesge paused a moment and then went on.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Once every day, she comes to this vault. She stops before the niches;
+she meditates before the rigid statues; she touches the cold bosoms,
+so burning when she knew them. Then, after dreaming before the empty
+niche where the next victim soon will sleep his eternal sleep in a
+cold case of orichalch, she returns nonchalantly where he is waiting
+for her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Professor stopped speaking. The fountain again made itself heard
+in the midst of the shadow. My pulses beat, my head seemed on fire. A
+fever was consuming me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And all of them,&quot; I cried, regardless of the place, &quot;all of them
+complied! They submitted! Well, she has only to come and she will see
+what will happen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Morhange was silent.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My dear sir,&quot; said M. Le Mesge in a very gentle voice, &quot;you are
+speaking like a child. You do not know. You have not seen Antinea. Let
+me tell you one thing: that among those&quot;&mdash;and with a sweeping gesture
+he indicated the silent circle of statues&mdash;&quot;there were men as
+courageous as you and perhaps less excitable. I remember one of them
+especially well, a phlegmatic Englishman who now is resting under
+Number 32. When he first appeared before Antinea, he was smoking a
+cigar. And, like all the rest, he bent before the gaze of his
+sovereign.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do not speak until you have seen her. A university training hardly
+fits one to discourse upon matters of passion, and I feel scarcely
+qualified, myself, to tell you what Antinea is. I only affirm this,
+that when you have seen her, you will remember nothing else. Family,
+country, honor, you will renounce everything for her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 102 -->Everything?&quot; asked Morhange in a calm voice.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Everything,&quot; Le Mesge insisted emphatically. &quot;You will forget all,
+you will renounce all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>From outside, a faint sound came to us.</p>
+
+<p>Le Mesge consulted his watch.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In any case, you will see.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The door opened. A tall white Targa, the tallest we had yet seen in
+this remarkable abode, entered and came toward us.</p>
+
+<p>He bowed and touched me lightly on the shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Follow him,&quot; said M. Le Mesge.</p>
+
+<p>Without a word, I obeyed.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h2><a name="XI"><!-- Chapter 11 --></a>XI</h2>
+
+<h3>ANTINEA</h3>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>My guide and I passed along another long corridor. My excitement
+increased. I was impatient for one thing only, to come face to face
+with that woman, to tell her.... So far as anything else was
+concerned, I already was done for.</p>
+
+<p>I was mistaken in hoping that the adventure would take an heroic turn
+at once. In real life, these contrasts never are definitely marked
+out. I should have remembered from many past incidents that the
+burlesque was regularly mixed with the tragic in my life.</p>
+
+<p>We reached a little transparent door. My guide stood aside to let me
+pass.</p>
+
+<p>I found myself in the most luxurious of dressing-rooms. A ground glass
+ceiling diffused a gay rosy light over the marble floor. The first
+thing I noticed was a clock, fastened to the wall. In place of the
+figures for the hours, were the signs of the Zodiac. The small hand
+had not yet reached the sign of Capricorn.</p>
+
+<p>Only three o'clock!</p>
+
+<p>The day seemed to have lasted a century already.... And only a little
+more than half of it was gone.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 103 -->Another idea came to me, and a convulsive laugh bent me double.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Antinea wants me to be at my best when I meet her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A mirror of orichalch formed one whole side of the room. Glancing into
+it, I realized that in all decency there was nothing exaggerated in
+the demand.</p>
+
+<p>My untrimmed beard, the frightful layer of dirt which lay about my
+eyes and furrowed my cheeks, my clothing, spotted by all the clay of
+the Sahara and torn by all the thorns of Ahaggar&mdash;all this made me
+appear a pitiable enough suitor.</p>
+
+<p>I lost no time in undressing and plunging into the porphry bath in the
+center of the room. A delicious drowsiness came over me in that
+perfumed water. A thousand little jars, spread on a costly carved wood
+dressing-table, danced before my eyes. They were of all sizes and
+colors, carved in a very transparent kind of jade. The warm humidity
+of the atmosphere hastened my relaxation.</p>
+
+<p>I still had strength to think, &quot;The devil take Atlantis and the vault
+and Le Mesge.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Then I fell asleep in the bath.</p>
+
+<p>When I opened my eyes again, the little hand of the clock had almost
+reached the sign of Taurus. Before me, his black hands braced on the
+edge of the bath, stood a huge Negro, bare-faced and bare-armed, his
+forehead bound with an immense orange turban.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at me and showed his white teeth in a silent laugh.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Who is this fellow?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Negro laughed harder. Without saying a word, he lifted me like a
+feather out of the perfumed water, now of a color on which I shall not
+dwell.</p>
+
+<p>In no time at all, I was stretched out on an inclined marble table.</p>
+
+<p>The Negro began to massage me vigorously.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;More gently there, fellow!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>My masseur did not reply, but laughed and rubbed still harder.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Where do you come from? Kanem? Torkou? You laugh too much for a
+Targa.&quot;</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 104 -->Unbroken silence. The Negro was as speechless as he was hilarious.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;After all, I am making a fool of myself,&quot; I said, giving up the case.
+&quot;Such as he is, he is more agreeable than Le Mesge with his
+nightmarish erudition. But, on my word, what a recruit he would be for
+Hamman on the rue des Mathurins!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Cigarette, sidi?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Without awaiting my reply, he placed a cigarette between my lips and
+lighted it, and resumed his task of polishing every inch of me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He doesn't talk much, but he is obliging,&quot; I thought.</p>
+
+<p>And I sent a puff of smoke into his face.</p>
+
+<p>This pleasantry seemed to delight him immensely. He showed his
+pleasure by giving me great slaps.</p>
+
+<p>When he had dressed me down sufficiently, he took a little jar from
+the dressing-table and began to rub me with a rose-colored ointment.
+Weariness seemed to fly away from my rejuvenated muscles.</p>
+
+<p>A stroke on a copper gong. My masseur disappeared. A stunted old
+Negress entered, dressed in the most tawdry tinsel. She was talkative
+as a magpie, but at first I did not understand a word in the
+interminable string she unwound, while she took first my hands, then
+my feet, and polished the nails with determined grimaces.</p>
+
+<p>Another stroke on the gong. The old woman gave place to another Negro,
+grave, this time, and dressed all in white with a knitted skull cap on
+his oblong head. It was the barber, and a remarkably dexterous one. He
+quickly trimmed my hair, and, on my word, it was well done. Then,
+without asking me what style I preferred, he shaved me clean.</p>
+
+<p>I looked with pleasure at my face, once more visible.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Antinea must like the American type,&quot; I thought. &quot;What an affront to
+the memory of her worthy grandfather, Neptune!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The gay Negro entered and placed a package on the divan. The barber
+disappeared. I was somewhat astonished to observe that the package,
+which my new valet opened carefully, contained a suit of white
+flannels exactly like those French officers wear in Algeria in summer.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 105 -->The wide trousers seemed made to my measure. The tunic fitted without
+a wrinkle, and my astonishment was unbounded at observing that it even
+had two gilt <i>galons</i>, the insignia of my rank, braided on the cuffs.
+For shoes, there were slippers of red Morocco leather, with gold
+ornaments. The underwear, all of silk, seemed to have come straight
+from the rue de la Paix.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dinner was excellent,&quot; I murmured, looking at myself in the mirror
+with satisfaction. &quot;The apartment is perfectly arranged. Yes, but....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I could not repress a shudder when I suddenly recalled that room of
+red marble.</p>
+
+<p>The clock struck half past four.</p>
+
+<p>Someone rapped gently on the door. The tall white Targa, who had
+brought me, appeared in the doorway.</p>
+
+<p>He stepped forward, touched me on the arm and signed for me to follow.</p>
+
+<p>Again I followed him.</p>
+
+<p>We passed through interminable corridors. I was disturbed, but the
+warm water had given me a certain feeling of detachment. And above
+all, more than I wished to admit, I had a growing sense of lively
+curiosity. If, at that moment, someone had offered to lead me back to
+the route across the white plain near Shikh-Salah, would I have
+accepted? Hardly.</p>
+
+<p>I tried to feel ashamed of my curiosity. I thought of Maillefeu.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He, too, followed this corridor. And now he is down there, in the red
+marble hall.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I had no time to linger over this reminiscence. I was suddenly bowled
+over, thrown to the ground, as if by a sort of meteor. The corridor
+was dark; I could see nothing. I heard only a mocking growl.</p>
+
+<p>The white Targa had flattened himself back against the wall.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Good,&quot; I mumbled, picking myself up, &quot;the deviltries are beginning.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>We continued on our way. A glow different from that of the rose night
+lights soon began to light up the corridor.</p>
+
+<p>We reached a high bronze door, in which a strange lacy <!-- Page 106 -->design had
+been cut in filigree. A clear gong sounded, and the double doors
+opened part way. The Targa remained in the corridor, closing the doors
+after me.</p>
+
+<p>I took a few steps forward mechanically, then paused, rooted to the
+spot, and rubbed my eyes.</p>
+
+<p>I was dazzled by the sight of the sky.</p>
+
+<p>Several hours of shaded light had unaccustomed me to daylight. It
+poured in through one whole side of the huge room.</p>
+
+<p>The room was in the lower part of this mountain, which was more
+honeycombed with corridors and passages than an Egyptian pyramid. It
+was on a level with the garden which I had seen in the morning from
+the balcony, and seemed to be a continuation of it; the carpet
+extended out under the great palm trees and the birds flew about the
+forest of pillars in the room.</p>
+
+<p>By contrast, the half of the room untouched by direct light from the
+oasis seemed dark. The sun, setting behind the mountain, painted the
+garden paths with rose and flamed with red upon the traditional
+flamingo which stood with one foot raised at the edge of the sapphire
+lake.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly I was bowled over a second time.</p>
+
+<p>I felt a warm, silky touch, a burning breath on my neck. Again the
+mocking growl which had so disturbed me in the corridor.</p>
+
+<p>With a wrench, I pulled myself free and sent a chance blow at my
+assailant. The cry, this time of pain and rage, broke out again.</p>
+
+<p>It was echoed by a long peal of laughter. Furious, I turned to look
+for the insolent onlooker, thinking to speak my mind. And then my
+glance stood still.</p>
+
+<p>Antinea was before me.
+<br /></p>
+
+<p>In the dimmest part of the room, under a kind of arch lit by the mauve
+rays from a dozen incense-lamps, four women lay on a heap of
+many-colored cushions and rare white Persian rugs.</p>
+
+<p>I recognized the first three as Tuareg women, of a splendid regular
+beauty, dressed in magnificent robes of white silk embroidered in
+gold. The fourth, very dark skinned, almost <!-- Page 107 -->negroid, seemed younger.
+A tunic of red silk enhanced the dusk of her face, her arms and her
+bare feet. The four were grouped about a sort of throne of white rugs,
+covered with a gigantic lion's skin, on which, half raised on one
+elbow, lay Antinea.</p>
+
+<p>Antinea! Whenever I saw her after that, I wondered if I had really
+looked at her before, so much more beautiful did I find her. More
+beautiful? Inadequate word. Inadequate language! But is it really the
+fault of the language or of those who abuse the word?</p>
+
+<p>One could not stand before her without recalling the woman for whom
+Ephractoeus overcame Atlas, of her for whom Sapor usurped the scepter
+of Ozymandias, for whom Mamylos subjugated Susa and Tentyris, for whom
+Antony fled....</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span><i>O tremblant coeur humain, si jamais tu vibras</i><br /></span>
+<span><i>C'est dans l'&eacute;treinte alti&egrave;re et chaude de ses bras</i>.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>An Egyptian <i>klaft</i> fell over her abundant blue-black curls. Its two
+points of heavy, gold-embroidered cloth extended to her slim hips. The
+golden serpent, emerald-eyed, was clasped about her little round,
+determined forehead, darting its double tongue of rubies over her
+head.</p>
+
+<p>She wore a tunic of black chiffon shot with gold, very light, very
+full, slightly gathered in by a white muslin scarf embroidered with
+iris in black pearls.</p>
+
+<p>That was Antinea's costume. But what was she beneath all this? A slim
+young girl, with long green eyes and the slender profile of a hawk. A
+more intense Adonis. A child queen of Sheba, but with a look, a smile,
+such as no Oriental ever had. A miracle of irony and freedom.</p>
+
+<p>I did not see her body. Indeed I should not have thought of looking at
+it, had I had the strength. And that, perhaps, was the most
+extraordinary thing about that first impression. In that unforgettable
+moment nothing would have seemed to me more horribly sacrilegious than
+to think of the fifty victims in the red marble hall, of the fifty
+young men who had held that slender body in their arms.</p>
+
+<p>She was still laughing at me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 108 -->King Hiram,&quot; she called.</p>
+
+<p>I turned and saw my enemy.</p>
+
+<p>On the capital of one of the columns, twenty feet above the floor, a
+splendid leopard was crouched. He still looked surly from the blow I
+had dealt him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;King Hiram,&quot; Antinea repeated. &quot;Come here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The beast relaxed like a spring released. He fawned at his mistress's
+feet. I saw his red tongue licking her bare little ankles.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ask the gentleman's pardon,&quot; she said.</p>
+
+<p>The leopard looked at me spitefully. The yellow skin of his muzzle
+puckered about his black moustache.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Fftt,&quot; he grumbled like a great cat.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Go,&quot; Antinea ordered imperiously.</p>
+
+<p>The beast crawled reluctantly toward me. He laid his head humbly
+between his paws and waited.</p>
+
+<p>I stroked his beautiful spotted forehead.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You must not be vexed,&quot; said Antinea. &quot;He is always that way with
+strangers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then he must often be in bad humor,&quot; I said simply.</p>
+
+<p>Those were my first words. They brought a smile to Antinea's lips.</p>
+
+<p>She gave me a long, quiet look.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Aguida,&quot; she said to one of the Targa women, &quot;you will give
+twenty-five pounds in gold to Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are a lieutenant?&quot; she asked, after a pause.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Where do you come from?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;From France.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I might have guessed that,&quot; she said ironically, &quot;but from what part
+of France?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;From what we call the Lot-et-Garonne.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;From what town?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;From Duras.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She reflected a moment.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Duras! There is a little river there, the Dropt, and a fine old
+ch&acirc;teau.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You know Duras?&quot; I murmured, amazed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You go there from Bordeaux by a little branch railway,&quot; she went on.
+&quot;It is a shut-in road, with vine-covered hills <!-- Page 109 -->crowned by the feudal
+ruins. The villages have beautiful names: Mons&eacute;gur,
+Sauve-terre-de-Guyenne, la Tresne, Cr&eacute;on, ... Cr&eacute;on, as in Antigone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You have been there?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She looked at me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Don't speak so coldly,&quot; she said. &quot;Sooner or later we will be
+intimate, and you may as well lay aside formality now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>This threatening promise suddenly filled me with great happiness. I
+thought of Le Mesge's words: &quot;Don't talk until you have seen her. When
+you have seen her, you will renounce everything for her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Have I been in Duras?&quot; she went on with a burst of laughter. &quot;You are
+joking. Imagine Neptune's granddaughter in the first-class compartment
+of a local train!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She pointed to an enormous white rock which towered above the palm
+trees of the garden.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is my horizon,&quot; she said gravely.</p>
+
+<p>She picked up one of several books which lay scattered about her on
+the lion's skin.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The time table of the <i>Chemin de Fer de l'Ouest</i>,&quot; she said.
+&quot;Admirable reading for one who never budges! Here it is half-past five
+in the afternoon. A train, a local, arrived three minutes ago at
+Surg&egrave;res in the Charente-Inf&eacute;rieure. It will start on in six minutes.
+In two hours it will reach La Rochelle. How strange it seems to think
+of such things here. So far away! So much commotion there! Here,
+nothing changes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You speak French well,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>She gave a little nervous laugh.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have to. And German, too, and Italian, and English and Spanish. My
+way of living has made me a great polygot. But I prefer French, even
+to Tuareg and Arabian. It seems as if I had always known it. And I am
+not saying that to please you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>There was a pause. I thought of her grandmother, of whom Plutarch
+said: &quot;There were few races with which she needed an interpreter.
+Cleopatra spoke their own language to the Ethiopians, to the
+Troglodytes, the Hebrews, the Arabs, the Medes and the Persians.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 110 -->Do not stand rooted in the middle of the room. You worry me. Come
+sit here, beside me. Move over, King Hiram.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The leopard obeyed with good temper.</p>
+
+<p>Beside her was an onyx bowl. She took from it a perfectly plain ring
+of orichalch and slipped it on my left ring-finger. I saw that she
+wore one like it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Tanit-Zerga, give Monsieur de Saint-Avit a rose sherbet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The dark girl in red silk obeyed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My private secretary,&quot; said Antinea, introducing her. &quot;Mademoiselle
+Tanit-Zerga, of G&acirc;o, on the Niger. Her family is almost as ancient as
+mine.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As she spoke, she looked at me. Her green eyes seemed to be appraising
+me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And your comrade, the Captain?&quot; she asked in a dreamy tone. &quot;I have
+not yet seen him. What is he like? Does he resemble you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>For the first time since I had entered, I thought of Morhange. I did
+not answer.</p>
+
+<p>Antinea smiled.</p>
+
+<p>She stretched herself out full length on the lion skin. Her bare right
+knee slipped out from under her tunic.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is time to go find him,&quot; she said languidly. &quot;You will soon
+receive my orders. Tanit-Zerga, show him the way. First take him to
+his room. He cannot have seen it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I rose and lifted her hand to my lips. She struck me with it so
+sharply as to make my lips bleed, as if to brand me as her possession.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>I was in the dark corridor again. The young girl in the red silk tunic
+walked ahead of me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Here is your room,&quot; she said. &quot;If you wish, I will take you to the
+dining-room. The others are about to meet there for dinner.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She spoke an adorable lisping French.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, Tanit-Zerga, I would rather stay here this evening. I am not
+hungry. I am tired.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You remember my name?&quot; she said.</p>
+
+<p>She seemed proud of it. I felt that in her I had an ally in case of
+need.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 111 -->I remember your name, Tanit-Zerga, because it is
+beautiful.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_M_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_M_12"><sup>[12]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>Then I added:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now, leave me, little one. I want to be alone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It seemed as if she would never go. I was touched, but at the same
+time vexed. I felt a great need of withdrawing into myself.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My room is above yours,&quot; she said. &quot;There is a copper gong on the
+table here. You have only to strike if you want anything. A white
+Targa will answer.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>For a second, these instructions amused me. I was in a hotel in the
+midst of the Sahara. I had only to ring for service.</p>
+
+<p>I looked about my room. My room! For how long?</p>
+
+<p>It was fairly large. Cushions, a couch, an alcove cut into the rock,
+all lighted by a great window covered by a matting shade.</p>
+
+<p>I went to the window and raised the shade. The light of the setting
+sun entered.</p>
+
+<p>I leaned my elbows on the rocky sill. Inexpressible emotion filled my
+heart. The window faced south. It was about two hundred feet above the
+ground. The black, polished volcanic wall yawned dizzily below me.</p>
+
+<p>In front of me, perhaps a mile and a half away, was another wall, the
+first enclosure mentioned in the Critias. And beyond it in the
+distance, I saw the limitless red desert.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<!-- Page 112 -->
+<h2><a name="XII"><!-- Chapter 12 --></a>XII</h2>
+
+<h3>MORHANGE DISAPPEARS</h3>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>My fatigue was so great that I lay as if unconscious until the next
+day. I awoke about three o'clock in the afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>I thought at once of the events of the previous day; they seemed
+amazing.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let me see,&quot; I said to myself. &quot;Let us work this out. I must begin by
+consulting Morhange.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I was ravenously hungry.</p>
+
+<p>The gong which Tanit-Zerga had pointed out lay within arm's reach. I
+struck it. A white Targa appeared.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Show me the way to the library,&quot; I ordered.</p>
+
+<p>He obeyed. As we wound our way through the labyrinth of stairs and
+corridors I realized that I could never have found my way without his
+help.</p>
+
+<p>Morhange was in the library, intently reading a manuscript.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A lost treatise of Saint Optat,&quot; he said. &quot;Oh, if only Dom Granger
+were here. See, it is written in semi-uncial characters.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I did not reply. My eyes were fixed on an object which lay on the
+table beside the manuscript. It was an orichalch ring, exactly like
+that which Antinea had given me the previous day and the one which she
+herself wore.</p>
+
+<p>Morhange smiled.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well?&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You have seen her?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have indeed,&quot; Morhange replied.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She is beautiful, is she not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It would be difficult to dispute that,&quot; my comrade answered. &quot;I even
+believe that I can say that she is as intelligent as she is
+beautiful.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>There was a pause. Morhange was calmly fingering the orichalch ring.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 113 -->You know what our fate is to be?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I know. Le Mesge explained it to us yesterday in polite mythological
+terms. This evidently is an extraordinary adventure.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He was silent, then said, looking at me:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am very sorry to have dragged you here. The only mitigating feature
+is that since last evening you seem to have been bearing your lot very
+easily.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Where had Morhange learned this insight into the human heart? I did
+not reply, thus giving him the best of proofs that he had judged
+correctly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What do you think of doing?&quot; I finally murmured.</p>
+
+<p>He rolled up the manuscript, leaned back comfortably in his armchair
+and lit a cigar.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have thought it over carefully. With the aid of my conscience I
+have marked out a line of conduct. The matter is clear and admits no
+discussion.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The question is not quite the same for me as for you, because of my
+semi-religious character, which, I admit, has set out on a rather
+doubtful adventure. To be sure, I have not taken holy orders, but,
+even aside from the fact that the ninth commandment itself forbids my
+having relations with a woman not my wife, I admit that I have no
+taste for the kind of forced servitude for which the excellent
+Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh has so kindly recruited us.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That granted, the fact remains that my life is not my own with the
+right to dispose of it as might a private explorer travelling at his
+own expenses and for his own ends. I have a mission to accomplish,
+results to obtain. If I could regain my liberty by paying the singular
+ransom which this country exacts, I should consent to give
+satisfaction to Antinea according to my ability. I know the tolerance
+of the Church, and especially that of the order to which I aspire:
+such a procedure would be ratified immediately and, who knows, perhaps
+even approved? Saint Mary the Egyptian, gave her body to boatmen under
+similar circumstances. She received only glorification for it. In so
+doing she had the certainty of attaining her goal, which was holy. The
+end justified the means.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But my case is quite different. If I give in to the absurd <!-- Page 114 -->caprices
+of this woman, that will not keep me from being catalogued down in the
+red marble hall, as Number 54, or as Number 55, if she prefers to take
+you first. Under those conditions....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Under those conditions?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Under those conditions, it would be unpardonable for me to
+acquiesce.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then what do you intend to do?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What do I intend to do?&quot; Morhange leaned back in the armchair and
+smilingly launched a puff of smoke toward the ceiling.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nothing,&quot; he said. &quot;And that is all that is necessary. Man has this
+superiority over woman. He is so constructed that he can refuse
+advances.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Then he added with an ironical smile:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A man cannot be forced to accept unless he wishes to.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I nodded.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I tried the most subtle reasoning on Antinea,&quot; he continued. &quot;It was
+breath wasted. 'But,' I said at the end of my arguments, 'why not Le
+Mesge?' She began to laugh. 'Why not the Reverend Spardek?' she
+replied. 'Le Mesge and Spardek are savants whom I respect. But</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span><i>Maudit soit &agrave; jamais r&ecirc;veur inutile</i>,<br /></span>
+<span><i>Qui voulut, le premier, dans sa stupidit&eacute;</i>,<br /></span>
+<span><i>S'&eacute;prenant d'un probl&egrave;me insoluble et st&eacute;rile</i>,<br /></span>
+<span><i>Aux choses de l'amour m&ecirc;ler l'honn&ecirc;tet&eacute;</i>.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>&quot;'Besides,' she added with that really very charming smile of hers,
+'probably you have not looked carefully at either of them.' There
+followed several compliments on my figure, to which I found nothing to
+reply, so completely had she disarmed me by those four lines from
+Baudelaire.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She condescended to explain further: 'Le Mesge is a learned gentleman
+whom I find useful. He knows Spanish and Italian, keeps my papers in
+order, and is busy working out my genealogy. The Reverend Spardek
+knows English and German. Count Bielowsky is thoroughly conversant
+with the Slavic languages. Besides, I love him like a father. He knew
+me as a child when I had not dreamed such stupid <!-- Page 115 -->things as you know
+of me. They are indispensable to me in my relations with visitors of
+different races, although I am beginning to get along well enough in
+the languages which I need.... But I am talking a great deal, and this
+is the first time that I have ever explained my conduct. Your friend
+is not so curious.' With that, she dismissed me. A strange woman
+indeed. I think there is a bit of Renan in her but she is cleverer
+than that master of sensualism.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Gentlemen,&quot; said Le Mesge, suddenly entering the room, &quot;why are you
+so late? They are waiting dinner for you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The little Professor was in a particularly good humor that evening. He
+wore a new violet rosette.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well?&quot; he said, in a mocking tone, &quot;you have seen her?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Neither Morhange nor I replied.</p>
+
+<p>The Reverend Spardek and the Hetmari of Jitomir already had begun
+eating when we arrived. The setting sun threw raspberry lights on the
+cream-colored mat.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Be seated, gentlemen,&quot; said Le Mesge noisily. &quot;Lieutenant de
+Saint-Avit, you were not with us last evening. You are about to taste
+the cooking of Koukou, our Bambara chef, for the first time. You must
+give me your opinion of it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A Negro waiter set before me a superb fish covered with a pimento
+sauce as red as tomatoes.</p>
+
+<p>I have explained that I was ravenously hungry. The dish was exquisite.
+The sauce immediately made me thirsty.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;White Ahaggar, 1879,&quot; the Herman of Jitomir breathed in my ear as he
+filled my goblet with a clear topaz liquid. &quot;I developed it myself:
+<i>rien pour la t&ecirc;te, tout pour les jambes</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I emptied the goblet at a gulp. The company began to seem charming.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, Captain Morhange,&quot; Le Mesge called out to my comrade who had
+taken a mouthful of fish, &quot;what do you say to this acanthopterygian?
+It was caught to-day in the lake in the oasis. Do you begin to admit
+the hypothesis of the Saharan sea?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The fish is an argument,&quot; my companion replied.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly he became silent. The door had opened. A white Targa entered.
+The diners stopped talking.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 116 -->The veiled man walked slowly toward Morhange and touched his right
+arm.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very well,&quot; said Morhange.</p>
+
+<p>He got up and followed the messenger.</p>
+
+<p>The pitcher of Ahaggar, 1879, stood between me and Count Bielowsky. I
+filled my goblet&mdash;a goblet which held a pint, and gulped it down.</p>
+
+<p>The Hetman looked at me sympathetically.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ha, ha!&quot; laughed Le Mesge, nudging me with his elbow. &quot;Antinea has
+respect for the hierarchic order.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Reverend Spardek smiled modestly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ha, ha!&quot; laughed Le Mesge again.</p>
+
+<p>My glass was empty. For a moment I was tempted to hurl it at the head
+of the Fellow in History. But what of it? I filled it and emptied it
+again.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Morhange will miss this delicious roast of mutton,&quot; said the
+Professor, more and more hilarious, as he awarded himself a thick
+slice of meat.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He won't regret it,&quot; said the Hetman crossly. &quot;This is not roast; it
+is ram's horn. Really Koukou is beginning to make fun of us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Blame it on the Reverend,&quot; the shrill voice of Le Mesge cut in. &quot;I
+have told him often enough to hunt other proselytes and leave our cook
+alone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Professor,&quot; Spardek began with dignity.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I maintain my contention,&quot; cried Le Mesge, who seemed to me to be
+getting a bit overloaded. &quot;I call the gentleman to witness,&quot; he went
+on, turning to me. &quot;He has just come. He is unbiased. Therefore I ask
+him: has one the right to spoil a Bambara cook by addling his head
+with theological discussions for which he has no predisposition?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Alas!&quot; the pastor replied sadly. &quot;You are mistaken. He has only too
+strong a propensity to controversy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Koukou is a good-for-nothing who uses Colas' cow as an excuse for
+doing nothing and letting our scallops burn,&quot; declared the Hetman.
+&quot;Long live the Pope!&quot; he cried, filling the glasses all around.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I assure you that this Bambara worries me,&quot; Spardek went on with
+great dignity. &quot;Do you know what he has come to? He denies
+transubstantiation. He is within an inch of the <!-- Page 117 -->heresy of Zwingli and
+Oecolampades. Koukou denies transubstantiation.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sir,&quot; said Le Mesge, very much excited, &quot;cooks should be left in
+peace. Jesus, whom I consider as good a theologian as you, understood
+that, and it never occurred to him to call Martha away from her oven
+to talk nonsense to her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Exactly so,&quot; said the Hetman approvingly.</p>
+
+<p>He was holding a jar between his knees and trying to draw its cork.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, C&ocirc;tes R&ocirc;ties, wines from the C&ocirc;te-R&ocirc;tie!&quot; he murmured
+to me as he finally succeeded. &quot;Touch glasses.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Koukou denies transubstantiation,&quot; the pastor continued, sadly
+emptying his glass.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Eh!&quot; said the Hetman of Jitomir in my ear, &quot;let them talk on. Don't
+you see that they are quite drunk?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>His own voice was thick. He had the greatest difficulty in the world
+in filling my goblet to the brim.</p>
+
+<p>I wanted to push the pitcher away. Then an idea came to me:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;At this very moment, Morhange.... Whatever he may say.... She is so
+beautiful.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I reached out for the glass and emptied it once more.</p>
+
+<p>Le Mesge and the pastor were now engaged in the most extraordinary
+religious controversy, throwing at each other's heads the Book of
+Common Prayer, The Declaration of the Rights of Man, and the
+Unigenitus. Little by little, the Hetman began to show that ascendancy
+over them, which is the characteristic of a man of the world even when
+he is thoroughly drunk; the superiority of education over instruction.</p>
+
+<p>Count Bielowsky had drunk five times as much as the Professor or the
+pastor. But he carried his wine ten times better.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let us leave these drunken fellows,&quot; he said with disgust. &quot;Come on,
+old man. Our partners are waiting in the gaming room.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ladies and gentlemen,&quot; said the Hetman as we entered. &quot;Permit me to
+present a new player to you, my friend, Lieutenant de Saint-Avit.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 118 -->Let it go at that,&quot; he murmured in my ear. &quot;They are the servants.
+But I like to fool myself, you see.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I saw that he was very drunk indeed.</p>
+
+<p>The gaming room was very long and narrow. A huge table, almost level
+with the floor and surrounded with cushions on which a dozen natives
+were lying, was the chief article of furniture. Two engravings on the
+wall gave evidence of the happiest broadmindedness in taste; one of da
+Vinci's St. John the Baptist, and the <i>Maison des Derni&egrave;res
+Cartouches</i> of Alphonse de Neuville.</p>
+
+<p>On the table were earthenware goblets. A heavy jar held palm liqueur.</p>
+
+<p>I recognized acquaintances among those present; my masseur, the
+manicure, the barber, and two or three Tuareg who had lowered their
+veils and were gravely smoking long pipes. While waiting for something
+better, all were plunged in the delights of a card game that looked
+like &quot;rams.&quot; Two of Antinea's beautiful ladies in waiting, Aguida and
+Sydya, were among the number. Their smooth bistre skins gleamed
+beneath veils shot with silver. I was sorry not to see the red silk
+tunic of Tanit-Zerga. Again, I thought of Morhange, but only for an
+instant.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The chips, Koukou,&quot; demanded the Hetman, &quot;We are not here to amuse
+ourselves.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Zwinglian cook placed a box of many-colored chips in front of him.
+Count Bielowsky set about counting them and arranging them in little
+piles with infinite care.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The white are worth a <i>louis</i>,&quot; he explained to me. &quot;The red, a
+hundred francs. The yellow, five hundred. The green, a thousand. Oh,
+it's the devil of a game that we play here. You will see.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I open with ten thousand,&quot; said the Zwinglian cook.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Twelve thousand,&quot; said the Hetman.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Thirteen,&quot; said Sydya with a slow smile, as she seated herself on the
+count's knee and began to arrange her chips lovingly in little piles.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Fourteen,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Fifteen,&quot; said the sharp voice of Rosita, the old manicure.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Seventeen,&quot; proclaimed the Hetman.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Twenty thousand,&quot; the cook broke in.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 119 -->He hammered on the table and, casting a defiant look at us, repeated:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I take it at twenty thousand.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Hetman made an impatient gesture.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That devil, Koukou! You can't do anything against the beast. You will
+have to play carefully, Lieutenant.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Koukou had taken his place at the end of the table. He threw down the
+cards with an air which abashed me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I told you so; the way it was at Anna Deslions',&quot; the Hetman murmured
+proudly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Make your bets, gentlemen,&quot; yelped the Negro. &quot;Make your bets.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Wait, you beast,&quot; called Bielowsky. &quot;Don't you see that the glasses
+are empty? Here, Cacambo.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The goblets were filled immediately by the jolly masseur.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Cut,&quot; said Koukou, addressing Sydya, the beautiful Targa who sat at
+his right.</p>
+
+<p>The girl cut, like one who knows superstitions, with her left hand.
+But it must be said that her right was busy lifting a cup to her lips.
+I watched the curve of her beautiful throat.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My deal,&quot; said Koukou.</p>
+
+<p>We were thus arranged: at the left, the Hetman, Aguida, whose waist he
+had encircled with the most aristocratic freedom, Cacambo, a Tuareg
+woman, then two veiled Negroes who were watching the game intently. At
+the right, Sydya, myself, the old manicure, Rosita, Barouf, the
+barber, another woman and two white Tuareg, grave and attentive,
+exactly opposite those on the left.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Give me one,&quot; said the Hetman.</p>
+
+<p>Sydya made a negative gesture.</p>
+
+<p>Koukou drew, passed a four-spot to the Hetman, gave himself a five.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Eight,&quot; announced Bielowsky.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Six,&quot; said pretty Sydya.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Seven,&quot; broke in Koukou. &quot;One card makes up for another,&quot; he added
+coldly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I double,&quot; said the Hetman.</p>
+
+<p>Cacambo and Aguida followed his example. On our side, we were more
+careful. The manicure especially would not risk more than twenty
+francs at a time.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 120 -->I demand that the cards be evened up,&quot; said Koukou imperturbably.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This fellow is unbearable,&quot; grumbled the count. &quot;There, are you
+satisfied?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Koukou dealt and laid down a nine.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My country and my honor!&quot; raged Bielowsky. &quot;I had an eight.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I had two kings, and so showed no ill temper. Rosita took the cards
+out of my hands.</p>
+
+<p>I watched Sydya at my right. Her heavy black hair covered her
+shoulders. She was really very beautiful, though a bit tipsy, as were
+all that fantastic company. She looked at me, too, but with lowered
+eyelids, like a timid little wild animal.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh,&quot; I thought. &quot;She may well be afraid. I am labelled 'No
+trespassing.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I touched her foot. She drew it back in fright.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Who wants cards?&quot; Koukou demanded.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not I,&quot; said the Hetman.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Served,&quot; said Sydya.</p>
+
+<p>The cook drew a four.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nine,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That card was meant for me,&quot; cursed the count. &quot;And five, I had a
+five. If only I had never promised his Majesty the Emperor Napoleon II
+never to cut fives! There are times when it is hard, very hard. And
+look at that beast of a Negro who plays Charlemagne.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was true. Koukou swept in three-quarters of the chips, rose with
+dignity, and bowed to the company.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Till to-morrow, gentlemen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Get along, the whole pack of you,&quot; howled the Hetman of Jitomir.
+&quot;Stay with me, Lieutenant de Saint-Avit.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>When we were alone, he poured out another huge cupfull of liqueur. The
+ceiling of the room was lost in the gray smoke.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What time is it?&quot; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;After midnight. But you are not going to leave me like this, my dear
+boy? I am heavy-hearted.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He wept bitterly. The tail of his coat spread out on the divan behind
+him like the apple-green wings of a beetle.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 121 -->Isn't Aguida a beauty?&quot; he went on, still weeping. &quot;She makes me
+think of the Countess de Teruel, though she is a little darker. You
+know the Countess de Teruel, Mercedes, who went in bathing nude at
+Biarritz, in front of the rock of the Virgin, one day when Prince
+Bismarck was standing on the foot-bridge. You do not remember her?
+Mercedes de Teruel.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I shrugged my shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I forget; you must have been too young. Two, perhaps three years old.
+A child. Yes, a child. Oh, my child, to have been of that generation
+and to be reduced to playing cards with savages ... I must tell
+you....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I stood up and pushed him off.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Stay, stay,&quot; he implored. &quot;I will tell you everything you want to
+know, how I came here, things I have never told anyone. Stay, I must
+unbosom myself to a true friend. I will tell you everything, I repeat.
+I trust you. You are a Frenchman, a gentleman. I know that you will
+repeat nothing to her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That I will repeat nothing to her?... To whom?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>His voice stuck in his throat. I thought I saw a shudder of fear pass
+over him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To her ... to Antinea,&quot; he murmured.</p>
+
+<p>I sat down again.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h2><a name="XIII"><!-- Chapter 13 --></a>XIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE HETMAN OF JITOMIR'S STORY</h3>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Count Casimir had reached that stage where drunkenness takes on a kind
+of gravity, of regretfulness.</p>
+
+<p>He thought a little, then began his story. I regret that I cannot
+reproduce more perfectly its archaic flavor.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When the grapes begin to color in Antinea's garden, I shall be
+sixty-eight. It is very sad, my dear boy, to have sowed all your wild
+oats. It isn't true that life is always beginning over again. How
+bitter, to have known the Tuileries in 1860, and to have reached the
+point where I am now!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 122 -->One evening, just before the war (I remember that Victor Black was
+still living), some charming women whose names I need not disclose (I
+read the names of their sons from time to time in the society news of
+the <i>Gaulois</i>) expressed to me their desire to rub elbows with some
+real <i>demi-mondaines</i> of the artist quarter. I took them to a ball at
+the <i>Grande Chaumi&egrave;re</i>. There was a crowd of young painters, models,
+students. In the midst of the uproar, several couples danced the
+<i>cancan</i> till the chandeliers shook with it. We noticed especially a
+little, dark man, dressed in a miserable top-coat and checked trousers
+which assuredly knew the support of no suspenders. He was cross-eyed,
+with a wretched beard and hair as greasy as could be. He bounded and
+kicked extravagantly. The ladies called him L&eacute;on Gambetta.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What an annoyance, when I realize that I need only have felled this
+wretched lawyer with one pistol shot to have guaranteed perfect
+happiness to myself and to my adopted country, for, my dear fellow, I
+am French at heart, if not by birth.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I was born in 1829, at Warsaw, of a Polish father and a Russian
+mother. It is from her that I hold my title of Hetman of Jitomir. It
+was restored to me by Czar Alexander II on a request made to him on
+his visit to Paris, by my august master, the Emperor Napoleon III.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;For political reasons, which I cannot describe without retelling the
+history of unfortunate Poland, my father, Count Bielowsky, left Warsaw
+in 1830, and went to live in London. After the death of my mother, he
+began to squander his immense fortune&mdash;from sorrow, he said. When, in
+his time, he died at the period of the Prichard affair, he left me
+barely a thousand pounds sterling of income, plus two or three systems
+of gaming, the impracticability of which I learned later.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I will never be able to think of my nineteenth and twentieth years
+without emotion, for I then completely liquidated this small
+inheritance. London was indeed an adorable spot in those days. I had a
+jolly bachelor's apartment in Piccadilly.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span>&quot;'Picadilly! Shops, palaces, bustle and breeze,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The whirling of wheels and the murmur of trees.'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 123 -->Fox hunting in a <i>briska</i>, driving a buggy in Hyde Park, the rout,
+not to mention the delightful little parties with the light Venuses of
+Drury Lane, this took all my time. All? I am unjust. There was also
+gaming, and a sentiment of filial piety forced me to verify the
+systems of the late Count, my father. It was gaming which was the
+cause of the event I must describe to you, by which my life was to be
+so strangely changed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My friend, Lord Malmesbury, had said to me a hundred times, 'I must
+take you to see an exquisite creature who lives in Oxford Street,
+number 277, Miss Howard.' One evening I went with him. It was the
+twenty-second of February, 1848. The mistress of the house was really
+marvelously beautiful, and the guests were charming. Besides
+Malmesbury, I observed several acquaintances: Lord Clebden, Lord
+Chesterfield, Sir Francis Mountjoye, Major in the Second Life Guards,
+and Count d'Orsay. They played cards and then began to talk politics.
+Events in France played the main part in the conversation and they
+discussed endlessly the consequences of the revolt that had broken out
+in Paris that same morning, in consequence of the interdiction of the
+banquet in the 12th arrondissement, of which word had just been
+received by telegram. Up to that time, I had never bothered myself
+with public affairs. So I don't know what moved me to affirm with the
+impetuosity of my nineteen years that the news from France meant the
+Republic next day and the Empire the day after....</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The company received my sally with a discreet laugh, and their looks
+were centered on a guest who made the fifth at a <i>bouillotte</i> table
+where they had just stopped playing.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The guest smiled, too. He rose and came towards me. I observed that
+he was of middle height, perhaps even shorter, buttoned tightly into a
+blue frock coat, and that his eye had a far-off, dreamy look.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All the players watched this scene with delighted amusement.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Whom have I the honor of addressing?' he asked in a very gentle
+voice.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Count Bielowsky,' I answered coolly to show him that <!-- Page 124 -->the difference
+in our ages was not sufficient to justify the interrogation.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, my dear Count, may your prediction indeed be realized; and I
+hope that you will not neglect the Tuileries,' said the guest in the
+blue coat, with a smile.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And he added, finally consenting to present himself:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Prince Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I played no active r&ocirc;le in the <i>coup d'&eacute;tat</i>, and I do not regret it.
+It is a principle with me that a stranger should not meddle with the
+internal affairs of a country. The prince understood this discretion,
+and did not forget the young man who had been of such good omen to
+him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I was one of the first whom he called to the Elys&eacute;e. My fortune was
+definitely established by a defamatory note on 'Napoleon the little.'
+The next year, when Mgr. Sibour was out of the way, I was made
+Gentleman of the Chamber, and the Emperor was even so kind as to have
+me marry the daughter of the Marshal Repeto, Duke of Mondovi.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have no scruple in announcing that this union was not what it
+should have been. The Countess, who was ten years older than I, was
+crabbed and not particularly pretty. Moreover, her family had insisted
+resolutely on a marriage portion. Now I had nothing at this time
+except the twenty-five thousand pounds for my appointment as Gentleman
+of the Chamber. A sad lot for anyone on intimate terms with the Count
+d'Orsay and the Duke of Gramont-Caderousse! Without the kindness of
+the Emperor, where would I have been?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;One morning in the spring of 1852, I was in my study opening my mail.
+There was a letter from His Majesty, calling me to the Tuileries at
+four o'clock; a letter from Cl&eacute;mentine, informing me that she expected
+me at five o'clock at her house. Cl&eacute;mentine was the beautiful one for
+whom, just then, I was ready to commit any folly. I was so proud of
+her that, one evening at the <i>Maison Dor&eacute;e</i>, I flaunted her before
+Prince Metternich, who was tremendously taken with her. All the court
+envied me that conquest; and I was morally obliged to continue to
+assume its expenses. And <!-- Page 125 -->then Cl&eacute;mentine was so pretty! The Emperor
+himself.... The other letters, good lord, the other letters were the
+bills of the dressmakers of that young person, who, in spite of my
+discreet remonstrances, insisted on having them sent to my conjugal
+dwelling.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There were bills for something over forty thousand francs: gowns and
+ball dresses from Gagelin-Opigez, 23 Rue de Richelieu; hats and
+bonnets from Madame Alexandrine, 14 Rue d'Antin; lingerie and many
+petticoats from Madame Pauline, 100 Rue de Clery; dress trimmings and
+gloves from the <i>Ville de Lyon</i>, 6 Rue de la Chauss&eacute;e d'Antin;
+foulards from the <i>Malle des Indes</i>; handkerchiefs from the <i>Compagnie
+Irlandaise</i>; laces from Ferguson; cosmetics from <i>Cand&egrave;s</i>.... This
+whitening cream of <i>Cand&egrave;s</i>, in particular, overwhelmed me with
+stupefaction. The bill showed fifty-one flasks. Six hundred and
+twenty-seven francs and fifty centimes' worth of whitening cream from
+<i>Cand&egrave;s</i>.... Enough to soften the skin of a squadron of a hundred
+guards!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'This can't keep on,' I said, putting the bills in my pocket.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;At ten minutes to four, I crossed the wicket by the Carrousel.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In the Salon of the <i>aides de camp</i> I happened on Bacciochi.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'The Emperor has the grippe,' he said to me. 'He is keeping to his
+room. He has given orders to have you admitted as soon as you arrive.
+Come.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;His Majesty, dressed in a braided vest and Cossack trousers, was
+meditating before a window. The pale green of the Tuileries showed
+luminously under a gentle warm shower.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Ah! Here he is,' said Napoleon. 'Here, have a cigarette. It seems
+that you had great doings, you and Gramont-Caderousse, last evening,
+at the <i>Ch&acirc;teau de Fleurs</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I smiled with satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'So Your Majesty knows already....'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'I know, I know vaguely.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Do you know Gramont-Caderousse's last &quot;mot&quot;?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'No, but you are going to tell it to me.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Here goes, then. We were five or six: myself, Viel-Castel, Gramont,
+Persigny....'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 126 -->'Persigny!' said the Emperor. 'He has no right to associate with
+Gramont, after all that Paris says about his wife.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Just so Sire. Well, Persigny was excited, no doubt about it. He
+began telling us how troubled he was because of the Duchess's
+conduct.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'This Fialin isn't over tactful,' muttered the Emperor.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Just so, Sire. Then, does Your Majesty know what Gramont hurled at
+him?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'What?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'He said to him, &quot;<i>Monsieur le Duc</i>, I forbid you to speak ill of my
+mistress before me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Gramont goes too far,' said Napoleon with a dreamy smile.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'That is what we all thought, including Viel-Castel, who was
+nevertheless delighted.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Apropos of this,' said Napoleon after a silence, 'I have forgotten
+to ask you for news of the Countess Bielowsky.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'She is very well, Sire, I thank Your Majesty,'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'And Cl&eacute;mentine? Still the same dear child?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Always, Sire. But....'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'It seems that M. Baroche is madly in love with her.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'I am very much honored, Sire. But this honor becomes too
+burdensome.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I had drawn from my pocket that morning's bills and I spread them out
+under the eyes of the Emperor.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He looked at them with his distant smile.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Come, come. If that is all, I can fix that, since I have a favor to
+ask of you.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'I am entirely at Your Majesty's service.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He struck a gong.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Send for M. Mocquard.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'I have the grippe,' he said. 'Mocquard will explain the affair to
+you.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Emperor's private secretary entered.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Here is Bielowsky, Mocquard,' said Napoleon. 'You know what I want
+him to do. Explain it to him.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And he began to tap on the window-panes against which the rain was
+beating furiously.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 127 -->'My dear Count,' said Mocquard, taking a chair, 'it is very simple.
+You have doubtless heard of a young explorer of promise, M. Henry
+Duveyrier.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I shook my head as a sign of negation, very much surprised at this
+beginning.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'M. Duveyrier,' continued Mocquard, 'has returned to Paris after a
+particularly daring trip to South Africa and the Sahara. M. Vivien de
+Saint Martin, whom I have seen recently has assured me that the
+Geographical Society intends to confer its great gold medal upon him,
+in recognition of these exploits. In the course of his trip, M.
+Duveyrier has entered into negotiations with the chief of the people
+who always have been so rebellious to His Majesty's armies, the
+Tuareg.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I looked at the Emperor. My bewilderment was such that he began to
+laugh.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Listen,' he said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'M. Duveyrier,' continued Mocquard, 'was able to arrange to have a
+delegation of these chiefs come to Paris to present their respects to
+His Majesty. Very important results may arise from this visit, and His
+Excellency the Colonial Minister, does not despair of obtaining the
+signature of a treaty of commerce, reserving special advantages to our
+fellow countrymen. These chiefs, five of them, among them Sheik Otham,
+<i>Amenokol</i> or Sultan of the Confederation of Adzjer, arrive to-morrow
+morning at the <i>Gare de Lyon</i>. M. Duveyrier will meet them. But the
+Emperor has thought that besides....'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'I thought,' said Napoleon III, delighted by my bewilderment, 'I
+thought that it was correct to have some one of the Gentlemen of my
+Chamber wait upon the arrival of these Mussulman dignitaries. That is
+why you are here, my poor Bielowsky. Don't be frightened,' he added,
+laughing harder. 'You will have M. Duveyrier with you. You are charged
+only with the special part of the reception: to accompany these
+princes to the lunch that I am giving them to-morrow at the Tuileries;
+then, in the evening, discreetly on account of their religious
+scruples, to succeed in giving them a very high idea of Parisian
+civilization, with nothing exaggerated: do not <!-- Page 128 -->forget that in the
+Sahara they are very high religious dignitaries. In that respect, I
+have confidence in your tact and give you <i>carte blanche</i>....
+Mocquard!'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Sire?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'You will apportion on the budget, half to Foreign Affairs, half to
+the Colonies, the funds Count Bielowsky will need for the reception of
+the Tuareg delegation. It seems to me that a hundred thousand francs,
+to begin.... The Count has only to tell you if he is forced to exceed
+that figure.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Cl&eacute;mentine lived on the Rue Boccador, in a little Moorish pavilion
+that I had bought for her from M. de Lesseps. I found her in bed. When
+she saw me, she burst into tears.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Great fools that we are!' she murmured amidst her sobs, 'what have
+we done!'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Cl&eacute;mentine, tell me!'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'What have we done, what have we done!' she repeated, and I felt
+against me, her floods of black hair, her warm cheek which was
+fragrant with <i>eau de Nanon</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'What is it? What can it be?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'It is....' and she murmured something in my ear.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'No!' I said, stupefied. 'Are you quite sure?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Am I quite sure!'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I was thunderstruck.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'You don't seem much pleased,' she said sharply.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'I did not say that.... Though, really, I am very much pleased, I
+assure you.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Prove it to me: let us spend the day together tomorrow.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'To-morrow!' I stammered. 'Impossible!'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Why?' she demanded suspiciously.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Because to-morrow, I have to pilot the Tuareg mission about Paris.
+The Emperor's orders.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'What bluff is this?' asked Cl&eacute;mentine.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'I admit that nothing so much resembles a lie as the truth.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I retold Mocquard's story to Cl&eacute;mentine, as well as I could. She
+listened to me with an expression that said: 'you can't fool me that
+way.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 129 -->Finally, furious, I burst out:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'You can see for yourself. I am dining with them, tomorrow; and I
+invite you.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'I shall be very pleased to come,' said Cl&eacute;mentine with great
+dignity.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I admit that I lacked self-control at that minute. But think what a
+day it had been! Forty thousand francs of bills as soon as I woke up.
+The ordeal of escorting the savages around Paris all the next day.
+And, quite unexpectedly, the announcement of an approaching irregular
+paternity....</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'After all,' I thought, as I returned to my house, 'these are the
+Emperor's orders. He has commanded me to give the Tuareg an idea of
+Parisian civilization. Cl&eacute;mentine comports herself very well in
+society and just now it would not do to aggravate her. I will engage a
+room for to-morrow at the <i>Caf&eacute; de Paris</i>, and tell Gramont-Caderousse
+and Viel-Castel to bring their silly mistresses. It will be very
+French to enjoy the attitude of these children of the desert in the
+midst of this little party.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The train from Marseilles arrived at 10:20. On the platform I found
+M. Duveyrier, a young man of twenty-three with blue eyes and a little
+blond beard. The Tuareg fell into his arms as they descended from the
+train. He had lived with them for two years, in their tents, the devil
+knows where. He presented me to their chief, Sheik Otham, and to four
+others, splendid fellows in their blue cotton draperies and their
+amulets of red leather. Fortunately, they all spoke a kind of
+<i>sabir</i><a name="FNanchor_N_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_N_13"><sup>[13]</sup></a>
+ which helped things along.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I only mention in passing the lunch at the Tuileries, the visits in
+the evening to the Museum, to the <i>Hotel de Ville</i>, to the Imperial
+Printing Press. Each time, the Tuareg inscribed their names in the
+registry of the place they were visiting. It was interminable. To give
+you an idea, here is the complete name of Sheik Otham alone:
+Otham-ben-el-Hadj-el-Bekri-<!-- Page 130 -->ben-el-Hadj-el-Faqqi-ben-Mohammad-Bouya-
+ben-si-Ahmed-es-Souki-ben-Mahmoud.
+<a name="FNanchor_P_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_P_14"><sup>[14]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>&quot;And there were five of them like that!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I maintained my good humor, however, because on the boulevards,
+everywhere, our success was colossal. At the <i>Caf&eacute; de Paris</i>, at
+six-thirty, it amounted to frenzy. The delegation, a little drunk,
+embraced me: '<i>Bono, Napol&eacute;on, bono, Eug&eacute;nie; bono, Casimir; bono,
+Christians</i>.' Gramont-Caderousse and Viel-Castel were already in booth
+number eight, with Anna Grimaldi, of the <i>Folies Dramatiques</i>, and
+Hortense Schneider, both beautiful enough to strike terror to the
+heart. But the palm was for my dear Cl&eacute;mentine, when she entered. I
+must tell you how she was dressed: a gown of white tulle, over China
+blue tarletan, with pleatings, and ruffles of tulle over the
+pleatings. The tulle skirt was caught up on each side by garlands of
+green leaves mingled with rose clusters. Thus it formed a valence
+which allowed the tarletan skirt to show in front and on the sides.
+The garlands were caught up to the belt and, in the space between
+their branches, were knots of rose satin with long ends. The pointed
+bodice was draped with tulle, the billowy bertha of tulle was edged
+with lace. By way of head-dress, she had placed upon her black locks a
+diadem crown of the same flowers. Two long leafy tendrils were twined
+in her hair and fell on her neck. As cloak, she had a kind of scarf of
+blue cashmere embroidered in gold and lined with blue satin.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So much beauty and splendor immediately moved the Tuareg and,
+especially, Cl&eacute;mentine's right-hand neighbor, El-Hadj-ben-Guem&acirc;ma,
+brother of Sheik Otham and Sultan of Ahaggar. By the time the soup
+arrived, a bouillon of wild game, seasoned with Tokay, he was already
+much smitten. When they served the compote of fruits Martinique <i>&agrave; la
+liqueur de Mme. Amphoux</i>, he showed every indication of illimitable
+passion. The Cyprian wine <i>de la Commanderie</i> <!-- Page 131 -->made him quite sure of
+his sentiments. Hortense kicked my foot under the table. Gramont,
+intending to do the same to Anna, made a mistake and aroused the
+indignant protests of one of the Tuareg. I can safely say that when
+the time came to go to Mabille, we were enlightened as to the manner
+in which our visitors respected the prohibition decreed by the Prophet
+in respect to wine.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;At Mabille, while Cl&eacute;mentine, Hortense, Anna, Ludovic and the three
+Tuareg gave themselves over to the wildest gallops, Sheik Otham took
+me aside and confided to me, with visible emotion, a certain
+commission with which he had just been charged by his brother, Sheik
+Ahmed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The next day, very early, I reached Cl&eacute;mentine's house.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'My dear,' I began, after having waked her, not without difficulty,
+'listen to me. I want to talk to you seriously.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She rubbed her eyes a bit crossly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'How did you like that young Arabian gentleman who was so taken with
+you last night?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Why, well enough,' she said, blushing.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Do you know that in his country, he is the sovereign prince and
+reigns over territories five or six times greater than those of our
+august master, the Emperor Napoleon III?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'He murmured something of that kind to me,' she said, becoming
+interested.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Well, would it please you to mount on a throne, like our august
+sovereign, the Empress Eug&eacute;nie?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Cl&eacute;mentine, looked startled.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'His own brother, Sheik Otham, has charged me in his name to make
+this offer.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Cl&eacute;mentine, dumb with amazement, did not reply.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'I, Empress!' she finally stammered.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'The decision rests with you. They must have your answer before
+midday. If it is 'yes,' we lunch together at Voisin's, and the bargain
+is made.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I saw that she had already made up her mind, but she thought it well
+to display a little sentiment.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'And you, you!' she groaned. 'To leave you thus.... Never!'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 132 -->'No foolishness, dear child,' I said gently. 'You don't know perhaps
+that I am ruined. Yes, completely: I don't even know how I am going to
+pay for your complexion cream!'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Ah!' she sighed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She added, however, 'And ... the child?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'What child?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Our child ... our child.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Ah! That is so. Why, you will have to put it down to profit and
+loss. I am even convinced that Sheik Ahmed will find that it resembles
+him.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'You can turn everything into a joke,' she said between laughing and
+crying.
+<br /></p>
+
+<p>&quot;The next morning, at the same hour, the Marseilles express carried
+away the five Tuareg and Cl&eacute;mentine. The young woman, radiant, was
+leaning on the arm of Sheik Ahmed, who was beside himself with joy.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Have you many shops in your capital?' she asked him languidly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And he, smiling broadly under his veil, replied:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'<i>Besef, besef, bono, roumis, bono</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;At the last moment, Cl&eacute;mentine had a pang of emotion.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Listen, Casimir, you have always been kind to me. I am going to be a
+queen. If you weary of it here, promise me, swear to me....'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Sheik had understood. He took a ring from his finger and slipped
+it onto mine.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Sidi Casimir, comrade,' he affirmed. 'You come&mdash;find us. Take Sidi
+Ahmed's ring and show it. Everybody at Ahaggar comrades. <i>Bono</i>
+Ahaggar, <i>bono</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When I came out of the <i>Gare de Lyon</i>, I had the feeling of having
+perpetrated an excellent joke.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Hetman of Jitomir was completely drunk. I had had the utmost
+difficulty in understanding the end of his story, because he
+interjected, every other moment, couplets from Jacques Offenbach's
+best score.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><!-- Page 133 -->
+<span><i>Dans un bois passait un jeune homme</i>,<br /></span>
+<span><i>Un jeune homme frais et beau</i>,<br /></span>
+<span><i>Sa main tenait une pomme</i>,<br /></span>
+<span><i>Vous voyez d'ici le tableau</i>.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>&quot;Who was disagreeably surprised by the fall of Sedan? It was Casimir,
+poor old Casimir! Five thousand <i>louis</i> to pay by the fifth of
+September, and not the first sou, no, not the first sou. I take my hat
+and my courage and go to the Tuileries. No more Emperor there, no! But
+the Empress was so kind. I found her alone&mdash;ah, people scatter quickly
+under such circumstances!&mdash;alone, with a senator, M. M&eacute;rim&eacute;e, the only
+literary man I have ever known who was at the same time a man of the
+world. 'Madame,' he was saying to her, 'you must give up all hope. M.
+Thiers, whom I just met on the <i>Pont Royal</i>, would listen to nothing.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Madame,' I said in my turn, 'Your Majesty always will know where her
+true friends are.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And I kissed her hand.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">&quot;<i>Evoh&eacute;, que les d&eacute;esses</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i4"><i>Out de dr&ocirc;les de fa&ccedil;ons</i><br /></span>
+<span><i>Pour enj&ocirc;ler, pour enj&ocirc;ler, pour enj&ocirc;ler les ga&acirc;ar&ccedil;ons</i>!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>&quot;I returned to my home in the Rue de Lille. On the way I encountered
+the rabble going from the <i>Corps L&eacute;gislatif</i> to the Hotel de Ville. My
+mind was made up.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Madame,' I said to my wife, 'my pistols.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'What is the matter?' she asked, frightened.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'All is lost. But there is still a chance to preserve my honor. I am
+going to be killed on the barricades.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Ah! Casimir,' she sobbed, falling into my arms. 'I have misjudged
+you. Will you forgive me?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'I forgive you, Aurelie,' I said with dignified emotion. 'I have not
+always been right myself.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I tore myself away from this mad scene. It was six o'clock. On the
+Rue de Bac, I hailed a cab on its mad career.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Twenty francs tip,' I said to the coachman, 'if you get to the <i>Gare
+de Lyon</i> in time for the Marseilles train, six thirty-seven.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 134 -->The Hetman of Jitomir could say no more. He had rolled over on the
+cushions and slept with clenched fists.</p>
+
+<p>I walked unsteadily to the great window.</p>
+
+<p>The sun was rising, pale yellow, behind the sharp blue mountains.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h2><a name="XIV"><!-- Chapter 14 --></a>XIV</h2>
+
+<h3>HOURS OF WAITING</h3>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>It was at night that Saint-Avit liked to tell me a little of his
+enthralling history. He gave it to me in short installments, exact and
+chronological, never anticipating the episodes of a drama whose tragic
+outcome I knew already. Not that he wished to obtain more effect that
+way&mdash;I felt that he was far removed from any calculation of that sort!
+Simply from the extraordinary nervousness into which he was thrown by
+recalling such memories.</p>
+
+<p>One evening, the mail from France had just arrived. The letters that
+Chatelain had handed us lay upon the little table, not yet opened. By
+the light of the lamp, a pale halo in the midst of the great black
+desert, we were able to recognize the writing of the addresses. Oh!
+the victorious smile of Saint-Avit when, pushing aside all those
+letters, I said to him in a trembling voice:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Go on.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He acquiesced without further words.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nothing can give you any idea of the fever I was in from the day when
+the Hetman of Jitomir told me of his adventures to the day when I
+found myself in the presence of Antinea. The strangest part was that
+the thought that I was, in a way, condemned to death, did not enter
+into this fever. On the contrary, it was stimulated by my desire for
+the event which would be the signal of my downfall, the summons from
+Antinea. But this summons was not speedy in coming. And from this
+delay, arose my unhealthy exasperation.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 135 -->Did I have any lucid moments in the course of these hours? I do not
+think so. I do not recall having even said to myself, 'What, aren't
+you ashamed? Captive in an unheard of situation, you not only are not
+trying to escape, but you even bless your servitude and look forward
+to your ruin.' I did not even color my desire to remain there, to
+enjoy the next step in the adventure, by the pretext I might have
+given&mdash;unwillingness to escape without Morhange. If I felt a vague
+uneasiness at not seeing him again, it was not because of a desire to
+know that he was well and safe.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well and safe, I knew him to be, moreover. The Tuareg slaves of
+Antinea's household were certainly not very communicative. The women
+were hardly more loquacious. I heard, it is true, from Sydya and
+Aguida, that my companion liked pomegranates or that he could not
+endure <i>kouskous</i> of bananas. But if I asked for a different kind of
+information, they fled, in fright, down the long corridors. With
+Tanit-Zerga, it was different. This child seemed to have a distaste
+for mentioning before me anything bearing in any way upon Antinea.
+Nevertheless, I knew that she was devoted to her mistress with a
+doglike fidelity. But she maintained an obstinate silence if I
+pronounced her name or, persisting, the name of Morhange.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;As for the Europeans, I did not care to question these sinister
+puppets. Besides, all three were difficult of approach. The Hetman of
+Jitomir was sinking deeper and deeper into alcohol. What intelligence
+remained to him, he seemed to have dissolved the evening when he had
+invoked his youth for me. I met him from time to time in the corridors
+that had become all at once too narrow for him, humming in a thick
+voice a couplet from the music of <i>La Reine Hortense</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span><i>De ma fille Isabelle</i><br /></span>
+<span><i>Sois l'&eacute;poux &agrave; l'instant</i>,<br /></span>
+<span><i>Car elle est la plus belle</i><br /></span>
+<span><i>Et toi, le plus vaillant</i>.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>&quot;As for Pastor Spardek, I would cheerfully have killed the old
+skinflint. And the hideous little man with the decorations, the placid
+printer of labels for the red marble hall,&mdash;how <!-- Page 136 -->could I meet him
+without wanting to cry out in his face: 'Eh! eh! Sir Professor, a very
+curious case of apocope:
+<img src="images/tfnr136_1.gif" width="220" height="43" alt="Tifinar word" title="Tifinar word" />
+.  Suppression of <i>alpha</i>, of <i>tau</i> and of <i>lambda</i>!
+I would like to direct your attention to another case as curious:
+<img src="images/tfnr136_2.gif" width="228" height="48" alt="Tifinar word" title="Tifinar word" />
+, Cl&eacute;mentine. Apocope of <i>kappa</i>, of <i>lamba</i>,
+of <i>epsilon</i> and of <i>mu</i>. If Morhange were with us, he would tell you
+many charming erudite things about it. But, alas! Morhange does not
+deign to come among us any more. We never see Morhange.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My fever for information found a little more favorable reception from
+Rosita, the old Negress manicure. Never have I had my nails polished
+so often as during those days of waiting! Now&mdash;after six years&mdash;she
+must be dead. I shall not wrong her memory by recording that she was
+very partial to the bottle. The poor old soul was defenseless against
+those that I brought her and that I emptied with her, through
+politeness.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Unlike the other slaves, who are brought from the South toward Turkey
+by the merchants of Rh&acirc;t, she was born in Constantinople and had been
+brought into Africa by her master when he became <i>ka&iuml;makam</i> of
+Rhadam&egrave;s.... But don't let me complicate this already wandering
+history by the incantations of this manicure.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Antinea,' she said to me, 'is the daughter of
+El-Hadj-Ahmed-ben-Guem&acirc;ma, Sultan of Ahaggar, and Sheik of the great
+and noble tribe of Kel-Rhel&acirc;. She was born in the year twelve hundred
+and eighty-one of the Hegira. She has never wished to marry any one.
+Her wish has been respected for the will of women is sovereign in this
+Ahaggar where she rules to-day. She is a cousin of Sidi-el-Senoussi,
+and, if she speaks the word, Christian blood will flow from Djerid to
+Touat, and from Tchad to Senegal. If she had wished it, she might have
+lived beautiful and respected in the land of the Christians. But she
+prefers to have them come to her.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh,' I said, 'do you know him? He is entirely
+devoted to her?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Nobody here knows Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh very well, because he is
+continually traveling. It is true that he is entirely devoted to
+Antinea. Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh is a Senoussi, and Antinea is the cousin
+of the chief of the Senoussi. Besides, <!-- Page 137 -->he owes his life to her. He is
+one of the men who assassinated the great K&eacute;bir Flatters. On account
+of that, Ikenoukhen, <i>amenokol</i> of the Adzjer Tuareg, fearing French
+reprisals, wanted to deliver Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh to them. When the
+whole Sahara turned against him, he found asylum with Antinea.
+Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh will never forget it, for he is brave and observes
+the law of the Prophet. To thank her, he led to Antinea, who was then
+twenty years old, three French officers of the first troops of
+occupation in Tunis. They are the ones who are numbered, in the red
+marble hall, 1, 2, and 3.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'And Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh has always fulfilled his duties
+successfully?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh is well trained, and he knows the vast Sahara as
+I know my little room at the top of the mountain. At first, he made
+mistakes. That is how, on his first trips, he brought back old Le
+Mesge and marabout Spardek.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'What did Antinea say when she saw them?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Antinea? She laughed so hard that she spared them.
+Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh was vexed to see her laugh so. Since then, he has
+never made a mistake.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'He has never made a mistake?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'No. I have cared for the hands and feet of all that he has brought
+here. All were young and handsome. But I think that your comrade, whom
+they brought to me the other day, after you were here, is the
+handsomest of all.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Why,' I asked, turning the conversation, 'why, since she spared them
+their lives, did she not free the pastor and M. Le Mesge?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'She has found them useful, it seems,' said the old woman. 'And then,
+whoever once enters here, can never leave. Otherwise, the French would
+soon be here and, when they saw the hall of red marble, they would
+massacre everybody. Besides, of all those whom Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh has
+brought here, no one, save one, has wished to escape after seeing
+Antinea.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'She keeps them a long time?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'That depends upon them and the pleasure that she takes in them. Two
+months, three months, on the average. <!-- Page 138 -->It depends. A big Belgian
+officer, formed like a colossus, didn't last a week. On the other
+hand, everyone here remembers little Douglas Kaine, an English
+officer: she kept him almost a year.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'And then?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'And then, he died,' said the old woman as if astonished at my
+question.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Of what did he die?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She used the same phrase as M. Le Mesge:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Like all the others: of love.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Of love,' she continued. &quot;They all die of love when they see that
+their time is ended, and that Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh has gone to find
+others. Several have died quietly with tears in their great eyes. They
+neither ate nor slept any more. A French naval officer went mad. All
+night, he sang a sad song of his native country, a song which echoed
+through the whole mountain. Another, a Spaniard, was as if maddened:
+he tried to bite. It was necessary to kill him. Many have died of
+<i>kif</i>, a <i>kif</i> that is more violent than opium. When they no longer
+have Antinea, they smoke, smoke. Most have died that way ... the
+happiest. Little Kaine died differently.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'How did little Kaine die?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'In a way that pained us all very much. I told you that he stayed
+longer among us than anyone else. We had become used to him. In
+Antinea's room, on a little Kairouan table, painted in blue and gold,
+there is a gong with a long silver hammer with an ebony handle, very
+heavy. Aguida told me about it. When Antinea gave little Kaine his
+dismissal, smiling as she always does, he stopped in front of her,
+mute, very pale. She struck the gong for someone to take him away. A
+Targa slave came. But little Kaine had leapt for the hammer, and the
+Targa lay on the ground with his skull smashed. Antinea smiled all the
+time. They led little Kaine to his room. The same night, eluding
+guards, he jumped out of his window at a height of two hundred feet.
+The workmen in the embalming room told me that they had the greatest
+difficulty with his body. But they succeeded very well. You have only
+to go see for yourself. He occupies niche number 26 in the red marble
+hall.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The old woman drowned her emotion in her glass.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 139 -->'Two days before,' she continued, 'I had done his nails, here, for
+this was his room. On the wall, near the window, he had written
+something in the stone with his knife. See, it is still here.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Was it not Fate, that on this July midnight....'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;At any other moment, that verse, traced in the stone of the window
+through which the English officer had hurled himself, would have
+killed me with overpowering emotion. But just then, another thought
+was in my heart.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Tell me,' I said, controlling my voice as well as I could, 'when
+Antinea holds one of us in her power, she shuts him up near her, does
+she not? Nobody sees him any more?'</p>
+
+<p>The old woman shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'She is not afraid that he will escape. The mountain is well guarded.
+Antinea has only to strike her silver gong; he will be brought back to
+her immediately.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'But my companion. I have not see him since she sent for him....'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Negress smiled comprehendingly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'If you have not seen him, it is because he prefers to remain near
+her. Antinea does not force him to. Neither does she prevent him.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I struck my fist violently upon the table.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Get along with you, old fool. And be quick about it!'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Rosita fled frightened, hardly taking time to collect her little
+instruments.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Was it not Fate, that on this July midnight....'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I obeyed the Negress's suggestion. Following the corridors, losing my
+way, set on the right road again by the Reverend Spardek, I pushed
+open the door of the red marble hall. I entered.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The freshness of the perfumed crypt did me good. No place can be so
+sinister that it is not, as it were, purified by the murmur of running
+water. The cascade, gurgling in the middle hall, comforted me. One day
+before an attack I was lying with my section in deep grass, waiting
+for the moment, the blast of the bugle, which would demand that we
+leap forward into the hail of bullets. A stream was at my feet. I
+listened to its fresh rippling. I admired the play of light and shade
+in the transparent water, the little <!-- Page 140 -->beasts, the little black fish,
+the green grass, the yellow wrinkled sand.... The mystery of water
+always has carried me out of myself.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Here, in this magic hall, my thoughts were held by the dark cascade.
+It felt friendly. It kept me from faltering in the midst of these
+rigid evidences of so many monstrous sacrifices.... Number 26. It was
+he all right. Lieutenant Douglas Kaine, born at Edinburgh, September
+21, 1862. Died at Ahaggar, July 16, 1890. Twenty-eight. He wasn't even
+twenty-eight! His face was thin under the coat of orichalch. His mouth
+sad and passionate. It was certainly he. Poor
+youngster.&mdash;Edinburgh,&mdash;I knew Edinburgh, without ever having been
+there. From the wall of the castle you can see the Pentland hills.
+&quot;Look a little lower down,&quot; said Stevenson's sweet Miss Flora to Anne
+of Saint-Yves, &quot;look a little lower down and you will see, in the fold
+of the hill, a clump of trees and a curl of smoke that rises from
+among them. That is Swanston Cottage, where my brother and I live with
+my aunt. If it really pleases you to see it, I shall be glad.&quot; When he
+left for Darfour, Douglas Kaine must surely have left in Edinburgh a
+Miss Flora, as blonde as Saint-Yves' Flora. But what are these slips
+of girls beside Antinea! Kaine, however sensible a mortal, however
+made for this kind of love, had loved otherwise. He was dead. And here
+was number 27, on account of whom Kaine dashed himself on the rocks of
+the Sahara, and who, in his turn, is dead also.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To die, to love. How naturally the word resounded in the red marble
+hall. How Antinea seemed to tower above that circle of pale statues!
+Does love, then, need so much death in order that it may be
+multiplied? Other women, in other parts of the world, are doubtless as
+beautiful as Antinea, more beautiful perhaps. I hold you to witness
+that I have not said much about her beauty. Why then, this obsession,
+this fever, this consumption of all my being? Why am I ready, for the
+sake of pressing this quivering form within my arms for one instant,
+to face things that I dare not think of for fear I should tremble
+before them?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Here is number 53, the last. Morhange will be 54. I shall be 55. In
+six months, eight, perhaps,&mdash;what difference any<!-- Page 141 -->way?&mdash;I shall be
+hoisted into this niche, an image without eyes, a dead soul, a
+finished body.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I touched the heights of bliss, of exaltation that can be felt. What
+a child I was, just now! I lost my temper with a Negro manicure. I was
+jealous of Morhange, on my word! Why not, since I was at it, be
+jealous of those here present; then of the others, the absent, who
+will come, one by one, to fill the black circle of the still empty
+niches.... Morhange, I know, is at this moment with Antinea, and it is
+to me a bitter and splendid joy to think of his joy. But some evening,
+in three months, four perhaps, the embalmers will come here. Niche 54
+will receive its prey. Then a Targa slave will advance toward me. I
+shall shiver with superb ecstasy. He will touch my arm. And it will be
+my turn to penetrate into eternity by the bleeding door of love.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When I emerged from my meditation, I found myself back in the
+library, where the falling night obscured the shadows of the people
+who were assembled there.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I recognized M. Le Mesge, the Pastor, the Hetman, Aguida, two Tuareg
+slaves, still more, all joining in the most animated conference.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I drew nearer, astonished, even alarmed to see together so many
+people who ordinarily felt no kind of sympathy for each other.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;An unheard of occurrence had thrown all the people of the mountain
+into uproar.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Two Spanish explorers, come from Rio de Oro, had been seen to the
+West, in Adhar Ahnet.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;As soon as Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh was informed, he had prepared to go to
+meet them.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;At that instant he had received the order to do nothing.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Henceforth it was impossible to doubt.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;For the first time, Antinea was in love.&quot;</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<!-- Page 142 -->
+<h2><a name="XV"><!-- Chapter 15 --></a>XV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE LAMENT OF TANIT-ZERGA</h3>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>Arra&ocirc;u, arra&ocirc;u</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I roused myself vaguely from the half sleep to which I had finally
+succumbed. I half opened my eyes. Immediately I flattened back.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>Arra&ocirc;u</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Two feet from my face was the muzzle of King Hiram, yellow with a
+tracery of black. The leopard was helping me to wake up; otherwise he
+took little interest, for he yawned; his dark red jaws, beautiful
+gleaming white fangs, opened and closed lazily.</p>
+
+<p>At the same moment I heard a burst of laughter.</p>
+
+<p>It was little Tanit-Zerga. She was crouching on a cushion near the
+divan where I was stretched out, curiously watching my close interview
+with the leopard.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;King Hiram was bored,&quot; she felt obliged to explain to me. &quot;I brought
+him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How nice,&quot; I growled. &quot;Only tell me, could he not have gone somewhere
+else to be amused?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He is all alone now,&quot; said the girl. &quot;<i>They</i> have sent him away. He
+made too much noise when he played.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>These words recalled me to the events of the previous evening.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If you like, I will make him go away,&quot; said Tanit-Zerga.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, let him alone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I looked at the leopard with sympathy. Our common misfortune brought
+us together.</p>
+
+<p>I even caressed his rounded forehead. King Hiram showed his
+contentment by stretching out at full length and uncurling his great
+amber claws. The mat on the floor had much to suffer.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Gal&eacute; is here, too,&quot; said the little girl.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Gal&eacute;! Who may he be?&quot;</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 143 -->At the same time, I saw on Tanit-Zerga's knees a strange animal,
+about the size of a big cat, with flat ears, and a long muzzle. Its
+pale gray fur was rough.</p>
+
+<p>It was watching me with queer little pink eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is my mongoose,&quot; explained Tanit-Zerga.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come now,&quot; I said sharply, &quot;is that all?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I must have looked so crabbed and ridiculous that Tanit-Zerga began to
+laugh. I laughed, too.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Gal&eacute; is my friend,&quot; she said when she was serious again. &quot;I saved her
+life. It was when she was quite little. I will tell you about it some
+day. See how good-natured she is.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So saying, she dropped the mongoose on my knees.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is very nice of you, Tanit-Zerga,&quot; I said, &quot;to come and pay me a
+visit.&quot; I passed my hand slowly over the animal's back. &quot;What time is
+it now?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A little after nine. See, the sun is already high. Let me draw the
+shade.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The room was in darkness. Gal&eacute;'s eyes grew redder. King Hiram's became
+green.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is very nice of you,&quot; I repeated, pursuing my idea. &quot;I see that
+you are free to-day. You never came so early before.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A shade passed over the girl's forehead.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I am free,&quot; she said, almost bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>I looked at Tanit-Zerga more closely. For the first time I realized
+that she was beautiful. Her hair, which she wore falling over her
+shoulders, was not so much curly as it was gently waving. Her features
+were of remarkable fineness: the nose very straight, a small mouth
+with delicate lips, a strong chin. She was not black, but copper
+colored. Her slender graceful body had nothing in common with the
+disgusting thick sausages which the carefully cared for bodies of the
+blacks become.</p>
+
+<p>A large circle of copper made a heavy decoration around her forehead
+and hair. She had four bracelets, still heavier, on her wrists and
+anklets, and, for clothing, a green silk tunic, slashed in points,
+braided with gold. Green, bronze, gold.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are a Sonrha&iuml;, Tanit-Zerga?&quot; I asked gently.</p>
+
+<p>She replied with almost ferocious pride:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 144 -->I am a Sonrha&iuml;.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Strange little thing,&quot; I thought.</p>
+
+<p>Evidently this was a subject on which Tanit-Zerga did not intend the
+conversation to turn. I recalled how, almost painfully, she had
+pronounced that &quot;they,&quot; when she had told me how they had driven away
+King Hiram.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am a Sonrha&iuml;,&quot; she repeated. &quot;I was born at G&acirc;o, on the Niger, the
+ancient Sonrha&iuml; capital. My fathers reigned over the great Mandingue
+Empire. You need not scorn me because I am here as a slave.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In a ray of sunlight, Gal&eacute;, seated on his little haunches, washed his
+shining mustaches with his forepaws; and King Hiram, stretched out on
+the mat, groaned plaintively in his sleep.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He is dreaming,&quot; said Tanit-Zerga, a finger on her lips.</p>
+
+<p>There was a moment of silence. Then she said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You must be hungry. And I do not think that you will want to eat with
+the others.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I did not answer.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You must eat,&quot; she continued. &quot;If you like, I will go get something
+to eat for you and me. I will bring King Hiram's and Gal&eacute;'s dinner
+here, too. When you are sad, you should not stay alone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And the little green and gold fairy vanished, without waiting for my
+answer.</p>
+
+<p>That was how my friendship with Tanit-Zerga began. Each morning she
+came to my room with the two beasts. She rarely spoke to me of
+Antinea, and when she did, it was always indirectly. The question that
+she saw ceaselessly hovering on my lips seemed to be unbearable to
+her, and I felt her avoiding all the subjects towards which I, myself,
+dared not direct the conversation.</p>
+
+<p>To make sure of avoiding them, she prattled, prattled, prattled, like
+a nervous little parokeet.</p>
+
+<p>I was sick and this Sister of Charity in green and bronze silk tended
+me with such care as never was before. The two wild beasts, the big
+and the little, were there, each side of my couch, and, during my
+delirium, I saw their mysterious, sad eyes fixed on me.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 145 -->In her melodious voice, Tanit-Zerga told me wonderful stories, and
+among them, the one she thought most wonderful, the story of her life.</p>
+
+<p>It was not till much later, very suddenly, that I realized how far
+this little barbarian had penetrated into my own life. Wherever thou
+art at this hour, dear little girl, from whatever peaceful shores thou
+watchest my tragedy, cast a look at thy friend, pardon him for not
+having accorded thee, from the very first, the gratitude that thou
+deservedest so richly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I remember from my childhood,&quot; she said, &quot;the vision of a yellow and
+rose-colored sun rising through the morning mists over the smooth
+waves of a great river, 'the river where there is water,' the Niger,
+it was.... But you are not listening to me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am listening to you, I swear it, little Tanit-Zerga.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are sure I am not wearying you? You want me to go on?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Go on, little Tanit-Zerga, go on.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, with my little companions, of whom I was very fond, I played at
+the edge of the river where there is water, under the jujube trees,
+brothers of the <i>zeg-zeg</i>, the spines of which pierced the head of
+your prophet and which we call 'the tree of Paradise' because our
+prophet told us that under it would live those chosen of
+Paradise;<a name="FNanchor_Q_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_Q_15"><sup>[15]</sup></a>
+and which is sometimes so big, so big, that a horseman cannot traverse
+its shade in a century.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There we wove beautiful garlands with mimosa, the pink flowers of the
+caper bush and white cockles. Then we threw them in the green water to
+ward off evil spirits; and we laughed like mad things when a great
+snorting hippopotamus raised his swollen head and we bombarded him in
+glee until he had to plunge back again with a tremendous splash.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That was in the mornings. Then there fell on G&acirc;o the deathlike lull
+of the red siesta. When that was finished, we came back to the edge of
+the river to see the enormous crocodiles with bronze goggle-eyes creep
+along little by little, among the clouds of mosquitoes and day-flies
+on the banks, <!-- Page 146 -->and work their way traitorously into the yellow ooze of
+the mud flats.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then we bombarded them, as we had done the hippopotamus in the
+morning; and to f&ecirc;te the sun setting behind the black branches of the
+<i>douldouls</i>, we made a circle, stamping our feet, then clapping our
+hands, as we sang the Sonrha&iuml; hymn.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Such were the ordinary occupations of free little girls. But you must
+not think that we were only frivolous; and I will tell you, if you
+like, how I, who am talking to you, I saved a French chieftain who
+must be vastly greater than yourself, to judge by the number of gold
+ribbons he had on his white sleeves.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Tell me, little Tanit-Zerga,&quot; I said, my eyes elsewhere.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You have no right to smile,&quot; she said a little aggrieved, &quot;and to pay
+no attention to me. But never mind! It is for myself that I tell these
+things, for the sake of recollection. Above G&acirc;o, the Niger makes a
+bend. There is a little promontory in the river, thickly covered with
+large gum trees. It was an evening in August and the sun was sinking.
+Not a bird in the forest but had gone to rest, motionless until the
+morning. Suddenly we heard an unfamiliar noise in the west, boum-boum,
+boum-boum, boum-baraboum, boum-boum, growing louder&mdash;boum-boum,
+boum-baraboum&mdash;and, suddenly, there was a great flight of water birds,
+aigrettes, pelicans, wild ducks and teal, which scattered over the gum
+trees, followed by a column of black smoke, which was scarcely
+flurried by the breeze that was springing up.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It was a gunboat, turning the point, sending out a wake that shook
+the overhanging bushes on each side of the river. One could see that
+the red, white and blue flag on the stern had drooped till it was
+dragging in the water, so heavy was the evening.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She stopped at the little point of land. A small boat was let down,
+manned by two native soldiers who rowed, and three chiefs who soon
+leapt ashore.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The oldest, a French <i>marabout</i>, with a great white burnous, who knew
+our language marvelously, asked to speak to Sheik Sonni-Azkia. When my
+father advanced and told him that it was he, the <i>marabout</i> told him
+that the commandant <!-- Page 147 -->of the Club at Timbuctoo was very angry, that a
+mile from there the gunboat had run on an invisible pile of logs, that
+she had sprung a leak and that she could not so continue her voyage
+towards Ansango.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My father replied that the French who protected the poor natives
+against the Tuareg were welcome: that it was not from evil design, but
+for fish that they had built the barrage, and that he put all the
+resources of G&acirc;o, including the forge, at the disposition of the
+French chief, for repairing the gunboat.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;While they were talking, the French chief looked at me and I looked
+at him. He was already middle-aged, tall, with shoulders a little
+bent, and blue eyes as clear as the stream whose name I bear.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Come here, little one,' he said in his gentle voice.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'I am the daughter of Sheik Sonni-Azkia, and I do only what I wish,'
+I replied, vexed at his informality.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'You are right,' he answered smiling, 'for you are pretty. Will you
+give me the flowers that you have around your neck?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It was a great necklace of purple hibiscus. I held it out to him. He
+kissed me. The peace was made.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Meantime, under the direction of my father, the native soldiers and
+strong men of the tribe had hauled the gunboat into a pocket of the
+river.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'There is work there for all day to-morrow, Colonel,' said the chief
+mechanic, after inspecting the leaks. 'We won't be able to get away
+before the day after to-morrow. And, if we're to do that, these lazy
+soldiers mustn't loaf on the job.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'What an awful bore,' groaned my new friend.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But his ill-humor did not last long, so ardently did my little
+companions and I seek to distract him. He listened to our most
+beautiful songs; and, to thank us, made us taste the good things that
+had been brought from the boat for his dinner. He slept in our great
+cabin, which my father gave up to him; and for a long time, before I
+went to sleep, I looked through the cracks of the cabin where I lay
+with my mother, at the lights of the gunboat trembling in red ripples
+on the surface of the dark waves.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 148 -->That night, I had a frightful dream. I saw my friend, the French
+officer, sleeping in peace, while a great crow hung croaking above his
+head: 'Caw,&mdash;caw&mdash;the shade of the gum trees of G&acirc;o&mdash;caw, caw&mdash;will
+avail nothing tomorrow night&mdash;caw, caw&mdash;to the white chief nor to his
+escort.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dawn had scarcely begun, when I went to find the native soldiers.
+They were stretched out on the bridge of the gunboat, taking advantage
+of the fact that the whites were still sleeping, to do nothing.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I approached the oldest one and spoke to him with authority:</p>
+
+<p>'Listen, I saw the black crow in a dream last night. He told me that
+the shade of the gum trees of G&acirc;o would be fatal to your chief in the
+coming night!...'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And, as they all remained motionless, stretched out, gazing at the
+sky, without even seeming to have heard, I added:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'And to his escort!'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It was the hour when the sun was highest, and the Colonel was eating
+in the cabin with the other Frenchmen, when the chief mechanic
+entered.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'I don't know what has come over the natives. They are working like
+angels. If they keep on this way, Colonel, we shall be able to leave
+this evening.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Very good,' said the Colonel, 'but don't let them spoil the job by
+too much haste. We don't have to be at Ansango before the end of the
+week. It will be better to start in the morning.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I trembled. Suppliantly I approached and told him the story of my
+dream. He listened with a smile of astonishment; then, at the last, he
+said gravely:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'It is agreed, little Tanit-Zerga. We will leave this evening if you
+wish it.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And he kissed me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The darkness had already fallen when the gunboat, now repaired, left
+the harbor. My friend stood in the midst of the group of Frenchmen who
+waved their caps as long as we could see them. Standing alone on the
+rickety jetty, I <!-- Page 149 -->waited, watching the water flow by, until the last
+sound of the steam-driven vessel, boum-baraboum, had died away into
+the night.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_R_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_R_16"><sup>[16]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>Tanit-Zerga paused.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That was the last night of G&acirc;o. While I was sleeping and the moon was
+still high above the forest, a dog yelped, but only for an instant.
+Then came the cry of men, then of women, the kind of cry that you can
+never forget if you have once heard it. When the sun rose, it found
+me, quite naked, running and stumbling towards the north with my
+little companions, beside the swiftly moving camels of the Tuareg who
+escorted us. Behind, followed the women of the tribe, my mother among
+them, two by two, the yoke upon their necks. There were not many men.
+Almost all lay with their throats cut under the ruins of the thatch of
+G&acirc;o beside my father, brave Sonni-Azkia. Once again G&acirc;o had been razed
+by a band of Awellimiden, who had come to massacre the French on their gunboat.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Tuareg hurried us, hurried us, for they were afraid of being
+pursued. We traveled thus for ten days; and, as the millet and hemp
+disappeared, the march became more frightful. Finally, near Isakeryen,
+in the country of Kidal, the Tuareg sold us to a caravan of Trarzan
+Moors who were going from Bamrouk to Rh&acirc;t. At first, because they went
+more slowly, it seemed good fortune. But, before long, the desert was
+an expanse of rough pebbles, and the women began to fall. As for the
+men, the last of them had died far back under the blows of the stick
+for having refused to go farther.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I still had the strength to keep going, and even as far in the lead
+as possible, so as not to hear the cries of my little playmates. Each
+time one of them fell by the way, unable to rise again, they saw one
+of the drivers descend from his camel and drag her into the bushes a
+little way to cut her throat. But one day, I heard a cry that made me
+turn <!-- Page 150 -->around. It was my mother. She was kneeling, holding out her poor
+arms to me. In an instant I was beside her. But a great Moor, dressed
+in white, separated us. A red moroccan case hung around his neck from
+a black chaplet. He drew a cutlass from it. I can still see the blue
+steel on the brown skin. Another horrible cry. An instant later,
+driven by a club, I was trotting ahead, swallowing my little tears,
+trying to regain my place in the caravan.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Near the wells of Asiou, the Moors were attacked by a party of Tuareg
+of Kel-Tazeholet, serfs of the great tribe of Kel-Rhel&acirc;, which rules
+over Ahaggar. They, in their turn, were massacred to the last man.
+That is how I was brought here, and offered as homage to Antinea, who
+was pleased with me and ever since has been kind to me. That is why it
+is no slave who soothes your fever to-day with stories that you do not
+even listen to, but the last descendant of the great Sonrha&iuml; Emperors,
+of Sonni-Ali, the destroyer of men and of countries, of Mohammed
+Azkia, who made the pilgrimage to Mecca, taking with him fifteen
+hundred cavaliers and three hundred thousand <i>mithkal</i> of gold in the
+days when our power stretched without rival from Chad to Touat and to
+the western sea, and when G&acirc;o raised her cupola, sister of the sky,
+above the other cities, higher above her rival cupolas than is the
+tamarisk above the humble plants of sorghum.&quot;</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h2><a name="XVI"><!-- Chapter 16--></a>XVI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE SILVER HAMMER</h3>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span><i>Je ne m'en d&eacute;fends plus et je ne veux qu' aller</i><br /></span>
+<span><i>Reconna&icirc;tre la place o&ugrave; je dois l'immoler</i>.<br /></span>
+<span class="i16">(Andromaque.)</span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>It was this sort of a night when what I am going to tell you now
+happened. Toward five o'clock the sky clouded over and a sense of the
+coming storm trembled in the stifling air.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 151 -->I shall always remember it. It was the fifth of January, 1897.</p>
+
+<p>King Hiram and Gal&eacute; lay heavily on the matting of my room. Leaning on
+my elbows beside Tanit-Zerga in the rock-hewn window, I spied the
+advance tremors of lightning.</p>
+
+<p>One by one they rose, streaking the now total darkness with their
+bluish stripes. But no burst of thunder followed. The storm did not
+attain the peaks of Ahaggar. It passed without breaking, leaving us in
+our gloomy bath of sweat.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am going to bed,&quot; said Tanit-Zerga.</p>
+
+<p>I have said that her room was above mine. Its bay window was some
+thirty feet above that before which I lay.</p>
+
+<p>She took Gal&eacute; in her arms. But King Hiram would have none of it.
+Digging his four paws into the matting, he whined in anger and
+uneasiness.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Leave him,&quot; I finally said to Tanit-Zerga. &quot;For once he may sleep
+here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So it was that this little beast incurred his large share of
+responsibility in the events which followed.</p>
+
+<p>Left alone, I became lost in my reflections. The night was black. The
+whole mountain was shrouded in silence.</p>
+
+<p>It took the louder and louder growls of the leopard to rouse me from
+my meditation.</p>
+
+<p>King Hiram was braced against the door, digging at it with his drawn
+claws. He, who had refused to follow Tanit-Zerga a while ago, now
+wanted to go out. He was determined to go out.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Be still,&quot; I said to him. &quot;Enough of that. Lie down!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I tried to pull him away from the door.</p>
+
+<p>I succeeded only in getting a staggering blow from his paw.</p>
+
+<p>Then I sat down on the divan.</p>
+
+<p>My quiet was short. &quot;Be honest with yourself,&quot; I said. &quot;Since Morhange
+abandoned you, since the day when you saw Antinea, you have had only
+one idea. What good is it to beguile yourself with the stories of
+Tanit-Zerga, charming as they are? This leopard is a pretext, perhaps
+a guide. Oh, you know that mysterious things are going to happen
+tonight. How have you been able to keep from doing anything as long as
+this?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Immediately I made a resolve.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 152 -->If I open the door,&quot; I thought, &quot;King Hiram will leap down the
+corridor and I shall have great difficulty in following him. I must
+find some other way.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The shade of the window was worked by means of a small cord. I pulled
+it down. Then I tied it into a firm leash which I fastened to the
+metal collar of the leopard.</p>
+
+<p>I half opened the door.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There, now you can go. But quietly, quietly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I had all the trouble in the world to curb the ardor of King Hiram who
+dragged me along the shadowy labyrinth of corridors. It was shortly
+before nine o'clock, and the rose-colored night lights were almost
+burned out in the niches. Now and then, we passed one which was
+casting its last flickers. What a labyrinth! I realized that from here
+on I would not recognize the way to her room. I could only follow the
+leopard.</p>
+
+<p>At first furious, he gradually became used to towing me. He strained
+ahead, belly to the ground, with snuffs of joy.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing is more like one black corridor than another black corridor.
+Doubt seized me. Suppose I should suddenly find myself in the baccarat
+room! But that was unjust to King Hiram. Barred too long from the dear
+presence, the good beast was taking me exactly where I wanted him to
+take me.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, at a turn, the darkness ahead lifted. A rose window, faintly
+glimmering red and green, appeared before us.</p>
+
+<p>The leopard stopped with a low growl before the door in which the rose
+window was cut.</p>
+
+<p>I recognized it as the door through which the white Targa had led me
+the day after my arrival, when I had been set upon by King Hiram, when
+I had found myself in the presence of Antinea.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We are much better friends to-day,&quot; I said, flattering him so that he
+would not give a dangerously loud growl.</p>
+
+<p>I tried to open the door. The light, coming through the window, fell
+upon the floor, green and red.</p>
+
+<p>A simple latch, which I turned. I shortened the leash to have better
+control of King Hiram who was getting nervous.</p>
+
+<p>The great room where I had seen Antinea for the first time was
+completely dark. But the garden on which it gave <!-- Page 153 -->shone under a
+clouded moon, in a sky weighted down with the storm which did not
+break. Not a breath of air. The lake gleamed like a sheet of pewter.</p>
+
+<p>I seated myself on a cushion, holding the leopard firmly between my
+knees. He was purring with impatience. I was thinking. Not about my
+goal. For a long time that had been fixed. But about the means.</p>
+
+<p>Then, I seemed to hear a distant murmur, a faint sound of voices.</p>
+
+<p>King Hiram growled louder, struggled. I gave him a little more leash.
+He began to rub along the dark walls on the sides whence the voices
+seemed to come. I followed him, stumbling as quietly as I could among
+the scattered cushions.</p>
+
+<p>My eyes, become accustomed to the darkness, could see the pyramid of
+cushions on which Antinea had first appeared to me.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly I stumbled. The leopard had stopped. I realized that I had
+stepped on his tail. Brave beast, he did not make a sound.</p>
+
+<p>Groping along the wall, I felt a second door. Quietly, very quietly, I
+opened it as I had opened the preceding one. The leopard whimpered
+feebly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;King Hiram,&quot; I murmured, &quot;be quiet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And I put my arms about his powerful neck.</p>
+
+<p>I felt his warm wet tongue on my hands. His flanks quivered. He shook
+with happiness.</p>
+
+<p>In front of us, lighted in the center, another room opened up. In the
+middle six men were squatting on the matting, playing dice and
+drinking coffee from tiny copper coffee cups with long stems.</p>
+
+<p>They were the white Tuareg.</p>
+
+<p>A lamp, hung from the ceiling, threw a circle of light over them.
+Everything outside that circle was in deep shadow.</p>
+
+<p>The black faces, the copper cups, the white robes, the moving light
+and shadow, made a strange etching.</p>
+
+<p>They played with a reserved dignity, announcing the throws in raucous
+voices.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 154 -->Then, slowly, very slowly, I slipped the leash from the collar of the
+impatient little beast.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Go, boy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He leapt with a sharp yelp.</p>
+
+<p>And what I had foreseen happened.</p>
+
+<p>The first bound of King Hiram carried him into the midst of the white
+Tuareg, sowing confusion in the bodyguard. Another leap carried him
+into the shadow again. I made out vaguely the shaded opening of
+another corridor on the side of the room opposite where I was
+standing.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There!&quot; I thought.</p>
+
+<p>The confusion in the room was indescribable, but noiseless. One
+realized the restraint which nearness to a great presence imposed upon
+the exasperated guards. The stakes and the dice-boxes had rolled in
+one direction, the copper cups, in the other.</p>
+
+<p>Two of the Tuareg, doubled up with pain, were rubbing their ribs with
+low oaths.</p>
+
+<p>I need not say that I profited by this silent confusion to glide into
+the room. I was now flattened against the wall of the second corridor,
+down which King Hiram had just disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>At that moment a clear gong echoed in the silence. The trembling which
+seized the Tuareg assured me that I had chosen the right way.</p>
+
+<p>One of the six men got up. He passed me and I fell in behind him. I
+was perfectly calm. My least movement was perfectly calculated.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All that I risk here now,&quot; I said to myself, &quot;is being led back
+politely to my room.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Targa lifted a curtain. I followed on his heels into the chamber
+of Antinea.</p>
+
+<p>The room was huge and at once well lighted and very dark. While the
+right half, where Antinea was, gleamed under shaded lamps, the left
+was dim.</p>
+
+<p>Those who have penetrated into a Mussulman home know what a <i>guignol</i>
+is, a kind of square niche in the wall, four feet from the floor, its
+opening covered by a curtain. One mounts to it by wooden steps. I
+noticed such a <i>guignol</i> <!-- Page 155 -->at my left. I crept into it. My pulses beat
+in the shadow. But I was calm, quite calm.</p>
+
+<p>There I could see and hear everything.</p>
+
+<p>I was in Antinea's chamber. There was nothing singular about the room,
+except the great luxury of the hangings. The ceiling was in shadow,
+but multicolored lanterns cast a vague and gentle light over gleaming
+stuffs and furs.</p>
+
+<p>Antinea was stretched out on a lion's skin, smoking. A little silver
+tray and pitcher lay beside her. King Hiram was flattened out at her
+feet, licking them madly.</p>
+
+<p>The Targa slave stood rigid before her, one hand on his heart, the
+other on his forehead, saluting.</p>
+
+<p>Antinea spoke in a hard voice, without looking at the man.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why did you let the leopard pass? I told you that I wanted to be
+alone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He knocked us over, mistress,&quot; said the Targa humbly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The doors were not closed, then?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The slave did not answer.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Shall I take him away?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p>And his eyes, fastened upon King Hiram who stared at him maliciously,
+expressed well enough his desire for a negative reply.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let him stay since he is here,&quot; said Antinea.</p>
+
+<p>She tapped nervously on the little silver tray.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is the captain doing?&quot; she asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He dined a while ago and seemed to enjoy his food,&quot; the Targa
+answered.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Has he said nothing?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, he asked to see his companion, the other officer.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Antinea tapped the little tray still more rapidly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Did he say nothing else?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, mistress,&quot; said the man.</p>
+
+<p>A pallor overspread the Atlantide's little forehead.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Go get him,&quot; she said brusquely.</p>
+
+<p>Bowing, the Targa left the room.</p>
+
+<p>I listened to this dialogue with great anxiety. Was this Morhange? Had
+he been faithful to me, after all? Had I suspected him unjustly? He
+had wanted to see me and been unable to!</p>
+
+<p>My eyes never left Antinea's.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 156 -->She was no longer the haughty, mocking princess of our first
+interview. She no longer wore the golden circlet on her forehead. Not
+a bracelet, not a ring. She was dressed only in a full flowing tunic.
+Her black hair, unbound, lay in masses of ebony over her slight
+shoulders and her bare arms.</p>
+
+<p>Her beautiful eyes were deep circled. Her divine mouth drooped. I did
+not know whether I was glad or sorry to see this new quivering
+Cleopatra.</p>
+
+<p>Flattened at her feet, King Hiram gazed submissively at her.</p>
+
+<p>An immense orichalch mirror with golden reflections was set into the
+wall at the right. Suddenly she raised herself erect before it. I saw
+her nude.</p>
+
+<p>A splendid and bitter sight!&mdash;A woman who thinks herself alone,
+standing before her mirror in expectation of the man she wishes to
+subdue!</p>
+
+<p>The six incense-burners scattered about the room sent up invisible
+columns of perfume. The balsam spices of Arabia wore floating webs in
+which my shameless senses were entangled.... And, back toward me,
+standing straight as a lily, Antinea smiled into her mirror.</p>
+
+<p>Low steps sounded in the corridor. Antinea immediately fell back into
+the nonchalant pose in which I had first seen her. One had to see such
+a transformation to believe it possible.</p>
+
+<p>Morhange entered the room, preceded by a white Targa.</p>
+
+<p>He, too, seemed rather pale. But I was most struck by the expression
+of serene peace on that face which I thought I knew so well. I felt
+that I never had understood what manner of man Morhange was, never.</p>
+
+<p>He stood erect before Antinea without seeming to notice her gesture
+inviting him to be seated.</p>
+
+<p>She smiled at him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are surprised, perhaps,&quot; she said finally, &quot;that I should send
+for you at so late an hour.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Morhange did not move an eyelash.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Have you considered it well?&quot; she demanded.</p>
+
+<p>Morhange smiled gravely, but did not reply.</p>
+
+<p>I could read in Antinea's face the effort it cost her to <!-- Page 157 -->continue
+smiling; I admired the self-control of these two beings.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I sent for you,&quot; she continued. &quot;You do not guess why?... Well, it is
+to tell you something that you do not expect. It will be no surprise
+to you if I say that I never met a man like you. During your
+captivity, you have expressed only one wish. Do you recall it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I asked your permission to see my friend before I died,&quot; said
+Morhange simply.</p>
+
+<p>I do not know what stirred me more on hearing these words: delight at
+Morhange's formal tone in speaking to Antinea, or emotion at hearing
+the one wish he had expressed.</p>
+
+<p>But Antinea continued calmly:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is why I sent for you&mdash;to tell you that you are going to see him
+again. And I am going to do something else. You will perhaps scorn me
+even more when you realize that you had only to oppose me to bend me
+to your will&mdash;I, who have bent all other wills to mine. But, however
+that may be, it is decided: I give you both your liberty. Tomorrow
+Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh will lead you past the fifth enclosure. Are you
+satisfied?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am,&quot; said Morhange with a mocking smile.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That will give me a chance,&quot; he continued, &quot;to make better plans for
+the next trip I intend to make this way. For you need not doubt that I
+shall feel bound to return to express my gratitude. Only, next time,
+to render so great a queen the honors due her, I shall ask my
+government to furnish me with two or three hundred European soldiers
+and several cannon.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Antinea was standing up, very pale.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What are you saying?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am saying,&quot; said Morhange coldly, &quot;that I foresaw this. First
+threats, then promises.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Antinea stepped toward him. He had folded his arms. He looked at her
+with a sort of grave pity.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I will make you die in the most atrocious agonies,&quot; she said finally.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am your prisoner,&quot; Morhange replied.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You shall suffer things that you cannot even imagine.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 158 -->I am your prisoner,&quot; repeated Morhange in the same sad calm.</p>
+
+<p>Antinea paced the room like a beast in a cage. She advanced toward my
+companion and, no longer mistress of herself, struck him in the face.</p>
+
+<p>He smiled and caught hold of her, drawing her little wrists together
+with a strange mixture of force and gentleness.</p>
+
+<p>King Hiram growled. I thought he was about to leap. But the cold eyes
+of Morhange held him fascinated.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I will have your comrade killed before your eyes,&quot; gasped Antinea.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed to me that Morhange paled, but only for a second. I was
+overcome by the nobility and insight of his reply.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My companion is brave. He does not fear death. And, in any case, he
+would prefer death to life purchased at the price you name.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So saying, he let go Antinea's wrists. Her pallor was terrible. From
+the expression of her mouth I felt that this would be her last word to
+him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Listen,&quot; she said.</p>
+
+<p>How beautiful she was, in her scorned majesty, her beauty powerless
+for the first time!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Listen,&quot; she continued. &quot;Listen. For the last time. Remember that I
+hold the gates of this palace, that I have supreme power over your
+life. Remember that you breathe only at my pleasure. Remember....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have remembered all that,&quot; said Morhange.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A last time,&quot; she repeated.</p>
+
+<p>The serenity of Morhange's face was so powerful that I scarcely
+noticed his opponent. In that transfigured countenance, no trace of
+worldliness remained.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A last time,&quot; came Antinea's voice, almost breaking.</p>
+
+<p>Morhange was not even looking at her.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;As you will,&quot; she said.</p>
+
+<p>Her gong resounded. She had struck the silver disc. The white Targa
+appeared.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Leave the room!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Morhange, his head held high, went out.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 159 -->Now Antinea is in my arms. This is no haughty, voluptuous woman whom
+I am pressing to my heart. It is only an unhappy, scorned little girl.</p>
+
+<p>So great was her trouble that she showed no surprise when I stepped
+out beside her. Her head is on my shoulder. Like the crescent moon in
+the black clouds, I see her clear little bird-like profile amid her
+mass of hair. Her warm arms hold me convulsively.... <i>O tremblant
+coeur humain</i>....</p>
+
+<p>Who could resist such an embrace, amid the soft perfumes, in the
+langorous night? I feel myself a being without will. Is this my voice,
+the voice which is murmuring:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ask me what you will, and I will do it, I will do it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>My senses are sharpened, tenfold keen. My head rests against a soft,
+nervous little knee. Clouds of odors whirl about me. Suddenly it seems
+as if the golden lanterns are waving from the ceiling like giant
+censers. Is this my voice, the voice repeating in a dream:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ask me what you will, and I will do it. I will do it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Antinea's face is almost touching mine. A strange light flickers in
+her great eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond, I see the gleaming eyes of King Hiram. Beside him, there is a
+little table of Kairouan, blue and gold. On that table I see the gong
+with which Antinea summons the slaves. I see the hammer with which she
+struck it just now, a hammer with a long ebony handle, a heavy silver
+head ... the hammer with which little Lieutenant Kaine dealt death....</p>
+
+<p>I see nothing more....</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h2><a name="XVII"><!-- Chapter 17--></a>XVII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE MAIDENS OF THE ROCKS</h3>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>I awakened in my room. The sun, already at its zenith, filled the
+place with unbearable light and heat.</p>
+
+<p>The first thing I saw, on opening my eyes, was the shade, ripped down,
+lying in the middle of the floor. Then, confusedly, the night's events
+began to come back to me.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 160 -->My head felt stupid and heavy. My mind wandered. My memory seemed
+blocked. &quot;I went out with the leopard, that is certain. That red mark
+on my forefinger shows how he strained at the leash. My knees are
+still dusty. I remember creeping along the wall in the room where the
+white Tuareg were playing at dice. That was the minute after King
+Hiram had leapt past them. After that ... oh, Morhange and Antinea....
+And then?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I recalled nothing more. I recalled nothing more. But something must
+have happened, something which I could not remember.</p>
+
+<p>I was uneasy. I wanted to go back, yet it seemed as if I were afraid
+to go. I have never felt anything more painful than those conflicting
+emotions.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is a long way from here to Antinea's apartments. I must have been
+very sound asleep not to have noticed when they brought me back&mdash;for
+they have brought me back.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I stopped trying to think it out. My head ached too much.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I must have air,&quot; I murmured. &quot;I am roasting here; it will drive me
+mad.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I had to see someone, no matter whom. Mechanically, I walked toward
+the library.</p>
+
+<p>I found M. Le Mesge in a transport of delirious joy. The Professor was
+engaged in opening an enormous bale, carefully sewed in a brown
+blanket.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You come at a good time, sir,&quot; he cried, on seeing me enter. &quot;The
+magazines have just arrived.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He dashed about in feverish haste. Presently a stream of pamphlets and
+magazines, blue, green, yellow and salmon, was bursting from an
+opening in the bale.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Splendid, splendid!&quot; he cried, dancing with joy. &quot;Not too late,
+either; here are the numbers for October fifteenth. We must give a
+vote of thanks to good Ameur.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>His good spirits were contagious.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is a good Turkish merchant who subscribes to all the
+interesting magazines of the two continents. He sends them on by
+Rhadam&egrave;s to a destination which he little suspects. Ah, here are the
+French ones.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>M. Le Mesge ran feverishly over, the tables of contents.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Internal politics: articles by Francis Charmes, Anatole
+<!-- Page 161 -->Leroy-Beaulieu, d'Haussonville on the Czar's trip to Paris. Look, a
+study by Avenel of wages in the Middle Ages. And verse, verses of the
+young poets, Fernand Gregh, Edmond Haraucourt. Ah, the resum&eacute; of a
+book by Henry de Castries on Islam. That may be interesting.... Take
+what you please.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Joy makes people amiable and M. Le Mesge was really delirious with it.</p>
+
+<p>A puff of breeze came from the window. I went to the balustrade and,
+resting my elbows on it, began to run through a number of the <i>Revue
+des Deux Mondes</i>.</p>
+
+<p>I did not read, but flipped over the pages, my eyes now on the lines
+of swarming little black characters, now on the rocky basin which lay
+shivering, pale pink, under the declining sun.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly my attention became fixed. There was a strange coincidence
+between the text and the landscape.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In the sky overhead were only light shreds of cloud, like bits of
+white ash floating up from burnt-out logs. The sun fell over a circle
+of rocky peaks, silhouetting their severe lines against the azure sky.
+From on high, a great sadness and gentleness poured down into the
+lonely enclosure, like a magic drink into a
+deep cup....&quot;<a name="FNanchor_S_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_S_17"><sup>[17]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>I turned the pages feverishly. My mind seemed to be clearing.</p>
+
+<p>Behind me, M. Le Mesge, deep in an article, voiced his opinions in
+indignant growls.</p>
+
+<p>I continued reading:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;On all sides a magnificent view spread out before us in the raw
+light. The chain of rocks, clearly visible in their barren desolation
+which stretched to the very summit, lay stretched out like some great
+heap of gigantic, unformed things left by some primordial race of
+Titans to stupefy human beings. Overturned towers....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is shameful, downright shameful,&quot; the Professor was repeating.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Overturned towers, crumbling citadels, cupolas fallen in, broken
+pillars, mutilated colossi, prows of vessels, thighs of <!-- Page 162 -->monsters,
+bones of titans,&mdash;this mass, impassable with its ridges and gullies,
+seemed the embodiment of everything huge and tragic. So clear were the
+distances....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Downright shameful,&quot; M. Le Mesge kept on saying in exasperation,
+thumping his fist on the table.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So clear were the distances that I could see, as if I had it under my
+eyes, infinitely enlarged, every contour of the rock which Violante
+had shown me through the window with the gesture of a creator....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Trembling, I closed the magazine. At my feet, now red, I saw the rock
+which Antinea had pointed out to me the day of our first interview,
+huge, steep, overhanging the reddish brown garden.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is my horizon,&quot; she had said.</p>
+
+<p>M. Le Mesge's excitement had passed all bounds.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is worse than shameful; it is infamous.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I almost wanted to strangle him into silence. He seized my arm.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Read that, sir; and, although you don't know a great deal about the
+subject, you will see that this article on Roman Africa is a miracle
+of misinformation, a monument of ignorance. And it is signed ... do
+you know by whom it is signed?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Leave me alone,&quot; I said brutally.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, it is signed Gaston Boissier. Yes, sir! Gaston Boissier, grand
+officer of the Legion of Honor, lecturer at the <i>Ecole Normale
+Sup&eacute;rieure</i>, permanent secretary of the French Academy, member of the
+Academy of Inscriptions and Literature, one of those who once ruled
+out the subject of my thesis ... one of those ... ah, poor university,
+ah, poor France!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I was no longer listening. I had begun to read again. My forehead was
+covered with sweat. But it seemed as if my head had been cleared like
+a room when a window is opened; memories were beginning to come back
+like doves winging their way home to the dovecote.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;At that moment, an irrepressible tremor shook her whole body; her
+eyes dilated as if some terrible sight had filled them with horror.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Antonello,' she murmured.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 163 -->And for seconds, she was unable to say another word.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I looked at her in mute anguish and the suffering which drew her dear
+lips together seemed also to clutch at my heart. The vision which was
+in her eyes passed into mine, and I saw again the thin white face of
+Antonello, and the quick quivering of his eyelids, the waves of agony
+which seized his long worn body and shook it like a reed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I threw the magazine upon the table.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is it,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>To cut the pages, I had used the knife with which M. Le Mesge had cut
+the cords of the bale, a short ebony-handled dagger, one of those
+daggers that the Tuareg wear in a bracelet sheath against the upper
+left arm.</p>
+
+<p>I slipped it into the big pocket of my flannel dolman and walked
+toward the door.</p>
+
+<p>I was about to cross the threshold when I heard M. Le Mesge call me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Monsieur de Saint Avit! Monsieur de Saint Avit!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I want to ask you something, please.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nothing important. You know that I have to mark the labels for the
+red marble hall....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I walked toward the table.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I forgot to ask M. Morhange, at the beginning, the date and
+place of his birth. After that, I had no chance. I did not see him
+again. So I am forced to turn to you. Perhaps you can tell me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I can,&quot; I said very calmly.</p>
+
+<p>He took a large white card from a box which contained several and
+dipped his pen.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Number 54 ... Captain?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Captain Jean-Marie-Fran&ccedil;ois Morhange.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>While I dictated, one hand resting on the table, I noticed on my cuff
+a stain, a little stain, reddish brown.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Morhange,&quot; repeated M. Le Mesge, finishing the lettering of my
+friend's name. &quot;Born at...?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Villefranche.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Villefranche, Rh&ocirc;ne. What date?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The fourteenth of October, 1859.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The fourteenth of October, 1859. Good. Died at Ahaggar, <!-- Page 164 -->the fifth of
+January, 1897.... There, that is done. A thousand thanks, sir, for
+your kindness.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are welcome.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I left M. Le Mesge.</p>
+
+<p>My mind, thenceforth, was well made up; and, as I said, I was
+perfectly calm. Nevertheless, when I had taken leave of M. Le Mesge, I
+felt the need of waiting a few minutes before executing my decision.</p>
+
+<p>First I wandered through the corridors; then, finding myself near my
+room, I went to it. It was still intolerably hot. I sat down on my
+divan and began to think.</p>
+
+<p>The dagger in my pocket bothered me. I took it out and laid it on the
+floor.</p>
+
+<p>It was a good dagger, with a diamond-shaped blade, and with a collar
+of orange leather between the blade and the handle.</p>
+
+<p>The sight of it recalled the silver hammer. I remembered how easily it
+fitted into my hand when I struck....</p>
+
+<p>Every detail of the scene came back to me with incomparable vividness.
+But I did not even shiver. It seemed as if my determination to kill
+the instigator of the murder permitted me peacefully to evoke its
+brutal details.</p>
+
+<p>If I reflected over my deed, it was to be surprised at it, not to
+condemn myself.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; I said to myself, &quot;I have killed this Morhange, who was once a
+baby, who, like all the others, cost his mother so much trouble with
+his baby sicknesses. I have put an end to his life, I have reduced to
+nothingness the monument of love, of tears, of trials overcome and
+pitfalls escaped, which constitutes a human existence. What an
+extraordinary adventure!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>That was all. No fear, no remorse, none of that Shakespearean horror
+after the murder, which, today, sceptic though I am and blas&eacute; and
+utterly, utterly disillusioned, sets me shuddering whenever I am alone
+in a dark room.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come,&quot; I thought. &quot;It's time. Time to finish it up.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I picked up the dagger. Before putting it in my pocket, I went through
+the motion of striking. All was well. The dagger fitted into my hand.</p>
+
+<p>I had been through Antinea's apartment only when <!-- Page 165 -->guided, the first
+time by the white Targa, the second time, by the leopard. Yet I found
+the way again without trouble. Just before coming to the door with the
+rose window, I met a Targa.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let me pass,&quot; I ordered. &quot;Your mistress has sent for me.&quot; The man
+obeyed, stepping back.</p>
+
+<p>Soon a dim melody came to my ears. I recognized the sound of a
+<i>rebaza</i>, the violin with a single string, played by the Tuareg women.
+It was Aguida playing, squatting as usual at the feet of her mistress.
+The three other women were also squatted about her. Tanit-Zerga was
+not there.</p>
+
+<p>Oh! Since that was the last time I saw her, let, oh, let me tell you
+of Antinea, how she looked in that supreme moment.</p>
+
+<p>Did she feel the danger hovering over her and did she wish to brave it
+by her surest artifices? I had in mind the slender; unadorned body,
+without rings, without jewels, which I had pressed to my heart the
+night before. And now I started in surprise at seeing before me,
+adorned like an idol, not a woman, but a queen!</p>
+
+<p>The heavy splendor of the Pharaohs weighted down her slender body. On
+her head was the great gold <i>pschent</i> of Egyptian gods and kings;
+emeralds, the national stone of the Tuareg, were set in it, tracing
+and retracing her name in Tifinar characters. A red satin <i>schenti</i>,
+embroidered in golden lotus, enveloped her like the casket of a jewel.
+At her feet, lay an ebony scepter, headed with a trident. Her bare
+arms were encircled by two serpents whose fangs touched her armpits as
+if to bury themselves there. From the ear pieces of the <i>pschent</i>
+streamed a necklace of emeralds; its first strand passed under her
+determined chin; the others lay in circles against her bare throat.</p>
+
+<p>She smiled as I entered.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I was expecting you,&quot; she said simply.</p>
+
+<p>I advanced till I was four steps from the throne, then stopped before
+her.</p>
+
+<p>She looked at me ironically.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is that?&quot; she asked with perfect calm.</p>
+
+<p>I followed her gesture. The handle of the dagger protruded from my
+pocket.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 166 -->I drew it out and held it firmly in my hand, ready to strike.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The first of you who moves will be sent naked six leagues into the
+red desert and left there to die,&quot; said Antinea coldly to her women,
+whom my gesture had thrown into a frightened murmuring.</p>
+
+<p>She turned to me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That dagger is very ugly and you hold it badly. Shall I send Sydya to
+my room to get the silver hammer? You are more adroit with it than
+with the dagger.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Antinea,&quot; I said in a low voice, &quot;I am going to kill you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do not speak so formally. You were more affectionate last night. Are
+you embarrassed by them?&quot; she said, pointing to the women, whose eyes
+were wide with terror.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Kill me?&quot; she went on. &quot;You are hardly reasonable. Kill me at the
+moment when you can reap the fruits of the murder of....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Did&mdash;did he suffer?&quot; I asked suddenly, trembling.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very little. I told you that you used the hammer as if you had done
+nothing else all your life.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Like little Kaine,&quot; I murmured.</p>
+
+<p>She smiled in surprise.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, you know that story.... Yes, like little Kaine. But at least
+Kaine was sensible. You ... I do not understand.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I do not understand myself, very well.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She looked at me with amused curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Antinea,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I did what you told me to. May I in turn ask one favor, ask you one
+question?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It was dark, was it not, in the room where <i>he</i> was?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very dark. I had to lead you to the bed where he lay asleep.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He <i>was</i> asleep, you are sure?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I said so.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He&mdash;did not die instantly, did he?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No. I know exactly when he died; two minutes after you struck him and
+fled with a shriek.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then surely <i>he</i> could not have known?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Known what?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 167 -->That it was I who&mdash;who held the hammer.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He might not have known it, indeed,&quot; Antinea said. &quot;But he did know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He did know ... because I told him,&quot; she said, staring at me with
+magnificent audacity.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And,&quot; I murmured, &quot;he&mdash;he believed it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;With the help of my explanation, he recognized your shriek. If he had
+not realized that you were his murderer, the affair would not have
+interested me,&quot; she finished with a scornful little smile.</p>
+
+<p>Four steps, I said, separated me from Antinea. I sprang forward. But,
+before I reached her, I was struck to the floor.</p>
+
+<p>King Hiram had leapt at my throat.</p>
+
+<p>At the same moment I heard the calm, haughty voice of Antinea:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Call the men,&quot; she commanded.</p>
+
+<p>A second later I was released from the leopard's clutch. The six white
+Tuareg had surrounded me and were trying to bind me.</p>
+
+<p>I am fairly strong and quick. I was on my feet in a second. One of my
+enemies lay on the floor, ten feet away, felled by a well-placed blow
+on the jaw. Another was gasping under my knee. That was the last time
+I saw Antinea. She stood erect, both hands resting on her ebony
+scepter, watching the struggle with a smile of contemptuous interest.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly I gave a loud cry and loosed the hold I had on my victim. A
+cracking in my left arm: one of the Tuareg had seized it and twisted
+until my shoulder was dislocated.</p>
+
+<p>When I completely lost consciousness, I was being carried down the
+corridor by two white phantoms, so bound that I could not move a
+muscle.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<!-- Page 168 -->
+<h2><a name="XVIII"><!-- Chapter 18--></a>XVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE FIRE-FLIES</h3>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Through the great open window, waves of pale moonlight surged into my
+room.</p>
+
+<p>A slender white figure was standing beside the bed where I lay.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You, Tanit-Zerga!&quot; I murmured. She laid a finger on her lips.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sh! Yes, it is I.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I tried to raise myself up on the bed. A terrible pain seized my
+shoulder. The events of the afternoon came back to my poor harassed
+mind.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, little one, if you knew!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I know,&quot; she said.</p>
+
+<p>I was weaker than a baby. After the overstrain of the day had come a
+fit of utter nervous depression. A lump rose in my throat, choking me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If you knew, if you only knew!... Take me away, little one. Get me
+away from here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not so loud,&quot; she whispered. &quot;There is a white Targa on guard at the
+door.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Take me away; save me,&quot; I repeated.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is what I came for,&quot; she said simply.</p>
+
+<p>I looked at her. She no longer was wearing her beautiful red silk
+tunic. A plain white <i>haik</i> was wrapped about her; and she had drawn
+one corner of it over her head.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I want to go away, too,&quot; she said in a smothered voice.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;For a long time, I have wanted to go away. I want to see G&acirc;o, the
+village on the bank of the river, and the blue gum trees, and the
+green water.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ever since I came here, I have wanted to get away,&quot; she repeated,
+&quot;but I am too little to go alone into the great Sahara. I never dared
+speak to the others who came here before you. They all thought only of
+<i>her</i>.... But you, you wanted to kill her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 169 -->I gave a low moan.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are suffering,&quot; she said. &quot;They broke your arm.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dislocated it anyhow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let me see.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>With infinite gentleness, she passed her smooth little hands over my
+shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You tell me that there is a white Targa on guard before my door,
+Tanit-Zerga,&quot; I said. &quot;Then how did you get in?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That way,&quot; she said, pointing to the window. A dark perpendicular
+line halved its blue opening.</p>
+
+<p>Tanit-Zerga went to the window. I saw her standing erect on the sill.
+A knife shone in her hands. She cut the rope at the top of the
+opening. It slipped down to the stone with a dry sound.</p>
+
+<p>She came back to me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How can we escape?&quot; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That way,&quot; she repeated, and she pointed again at the window.</p>
+
+<p>I leaned out. My feverish gaze fell upon the shadowy depths, searching
+for those invisible rocks, the rocks upon which little Kaine had
+dashed himself.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That way!&quot; I exclaimed, shuddering. &quot;Why, it is two hundred feet from
+here to the ground.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The rope is two hundred and fifty,&quot; she replied. &quot;It is a good strong
+rope which I stole in the oasis; they used it in felling trees. It is
+quite new.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Climb down that way, Tanit-Zerga! With my shoulder!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I will let you down,&quot; she said firmly. &quot;Feel how strong my arms are.
+Not that I shall rest your weight on them. But see, on each side of
+the window is a marble column. By twisting the rope around one of
+them, I can let you slip down and scarcely feel your weight.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And look,&quot; she continued, &quot;I have made a big knot every ten feet. I
+can stop the rope with them, every now and then, if I want to rest.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And you?&quot; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When you are down, I shall tie the rope to one of the columns and
+follow. There are the knots on which to rest if the rope cuts my hands
+too much. But don't be afraid: I am very agile. At G&acirc;o, when I was
+just a child, I used to <!-- Page 170 -->climb almost as high as this in the gum trees
+to take the little toucans out of their nests. It is even easier to
+climb down.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And when we are down, how will we get out? Do you know the way
+through the barriers?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No one knows the way through the barriers,&quot; she said, &quot;except
+Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh, and perhaps Antinea.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There are the camels of Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh, those which he uses on
+his forays. I untethered the strongest one and led him out, just below
+us, and gave him lots of hay so that he will not make a sound and will
+be well fed when we start.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But....&quot; I still protested.</p>
+
+<p>She stamped her foot.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But what? Stay if you wish, if you are afraid. I am going. I want to
+see G&acirc;o once again, G&acirc;o with its blue gum-trees and its green water.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I felt myself blushing.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I will go, Tanit-Zerga. I would rather die of thirst in the midst of
+the desert than stay here. Let us start.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Tut!&quot; she said. &quot;Not yet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She showed me that the dizzy descent was in brilliant moonlight.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not yet. We must wait. They would see us. In an hour, the moon will
+have circled behind the mountain. That will be the time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She sat silent, her <i>haik</i> wrapped completely about her dark little
+figure. Was she praying? Perhaps.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly I no longer saw her. Darkness had crept in the window. The
+moon had turned.</p>
+
+<p>Tanit-Zerga's hand was on my arm. She drew me toward the abyss. I
+tried not to tremble.</p>
+
+<p>Everything below us was in shadow. In a low, firm voice, Tanit-Zerga
+began to speak:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Everything is ready. I have twisted the rope about the pillar. Here
+is the slip-knot. Put it under your arms. Take this cushion. Keep it
+pressed against your hurt shoulder.... A leather cushion.... It is
+tightly stuffed. Keep face to the wall. It will protect you against
+the bumping and scraping.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I was now master of myself, very calm. I sat down on the <!-- Page 171 -->sill of the
+window, my feet in the void. A breath of cool air from the peaks
+refreshed me.</p>
+
+<p>I felt little Tanit-Zerga's hand in my vest pocket.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Here is a box. I must know when you are down, so I can follow. You
+will open the box. There are fire-flies in it; I shall see them and
+follow you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She held my hand a moment.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now go,&quot; she murmured.</p>
+
+<p>I went.</p>
+
+<p>I remember only one thing about that descent: I was overcome with
+vexation when the rope stopped and I found myself, feet dangling,
+against the perfectly smooth wall.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is the little fool waiting for?&quot; I said to myself. &quot;I have been
+hung here for a quarter of an hour. Ah ... at last! Oh, here I am
+stopped again.&quot; Once or twice I thought I was reaching the ground, but
+it was only a projection from the rock. I had to give a quick shove
+with my foot.... Then, suddenly, I found myself seated on the ground.
+I stretched out my hands. Bushes.... A thorn pricked my finger. I was
+down.</p>
+
+<p>Immediately I began to get nervous again.</p>
+
+<p>I pulled out the cushion and slipped off the noose. With my good hand,
+I pulled the rope, holding it out five or six feet from the face of
+the mountain, and put my foot on it.</p>
+
+<p>Then I took the little cardboard box from my pocket and opened it.</p>
+
+<p>One after the other, three little luminous circles rose in the inky
+night. I saw them rise higher and higher against the rocky wall. Their
+pale rose aureols gleamed faintly. Then, one by one, they turned,
+disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are tired, Sidi Lieutenant. Let me hold the rope.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh rose up at my side.</p>
+
+<p>I looked at his tall black silhouette. I shuddered, but I did not let
+go of the rope on which I began to feel distant jerks.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Give it to me,&quot; he repeated with authority.</p>
+
+<p>And he took it from my hands.</p>
+
+<p>I don't know what possessed me then. I was standing beside that great
+dark phantom. And I ask you, what could I, <!-- Page 172 -->with a dislocated
+shoulder, do against that man whose agile strength I already knew?
+What was there to do? I saw him buttressed against the wall, holding
+the rope with both hands, with both feet, with all his body, much
+better than I had been able to do.</p>
+
+<p>A rustling above our heads. A little shadowy form.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There,&quot; said Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh, seizing the little shadow in his
+powerful arms and placing her on the ground, while the rope, let
+slack, slapped back against the rock.</p>
+
+<p>Tanit-Zerga recognized the Targa and groaned.</p>
+
+<p>He put his hand roughly over her mouth.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Shut up, camel thief, wretched little fly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He seized her arm. Then he turned to me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come,&quot; he said in an imperious tone.</p>
+
+<p>I obeyed. During our short walk, I heard Tanit-Zerga's teeth
+chattering with terror.</p>
+
+<p>We reached a little cave.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Go in,&quot; said the Targa.</p>
+
+<p>He lighted a torch. The red light showed a superb mehari peacefully
+chewing his cud.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The little one is not stupid,&quot; said Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh, pointing to
+the animal. &quot;She knows enough to pick out the best and the strongest.
+But she is rattle-brained.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He held the torch nearer the camel.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She is rattle-brained,&quot; he continued. &quot;She only saddled him. No
+water, no food. At this hour, three days from now, all three of you
+would have been dead on the road, and on what a road!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Tanit-Zerga's teeth no longer chattered. She was looking at the Targa
+with a mixture of terror and hope.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come here, Sidi Lieutenant,&quot; said Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh, &quot;so that I can
+explain to you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>When I was beside him, he said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;On each side there is a skin of water. Make that water last as long
+as possible, for you are going to cross a terrible country. It may be
+that you will not find a well for three hundred miles.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There,&quot; he went on, &quot;in the saddle bags, are cans of preserved meat.
+Not many, for water is much more precious. <!-- Page 173 -->Here also is a carbine,
+your carbine, sidi. Try not to use it except to shoot antelopes. And
+there is this.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He spread out a roll of paper. I saw his inscrutible face bent over
+it; his eyes were smiling; he looked at me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Once out of the enclosures, what way did you plan to go?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Toward Idel&egrave;s, to retake the route where you met the Captain and me,&quot;
+I said.</p>
+
+<p>Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I thought as much,&quot; he murmured.</p>
+
+<p>Then he added coldly:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Before sunset to-morrow, you and the little one would have been
+caught and massacred.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Toward the north is Ahaggar,&quot; he continued, &quot;and all Ahaggar is under
+the control of Antinea. You must go south.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then we shall go south.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;By what route?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, by Silet and Timissao.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Targa again shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They will look for you on that road also,&quot; he said. &quot;It is a good
+road, the road with the wells. They know that you are familiar with
+it. The Tuareg would not fail to wait at the wells.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, then?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; said Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh, &quot;you must not rejoin the road from
+Timissao to Timbuctoo until you are four hundred miles from here
+toward Iferouane, or better still, at the spring of Telemsi. That is
+the boundary between the Tuareg of Ahaggar and the Awellimiden
+Tuareg.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The little voice of Tanit-Zerga broke in:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It was the Awellimiden Tuareg who massacred my people and carried me
+into slavery. I do not want to pass through the country of the
+Awellimiden.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Be still, miserable little fly,&quot; said Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh.</p>
+
+<p>Then addressing me, he continued:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have said what I have said. The little one is not wrong. The
+Awellimiden are a savage people. But they are afraid of the French.
+Many of them trade with the stations north of the Niger. On the other
+hand, they are at war with the people of Ahaggar, who will not follow
+you into their country. What <!-- Page 174 -->I have said, is said. You must rejoin
+the Timbuctoo road near where it enters the borders of the
+Awellimiden. Their country is wooded and rich in springs. If you reach
+the springs at Telemsi, you will finish your journey beneath a canopy
+of blossoming mimosa. On the other hand, the road from here to Telemsi
+is shorter than by way of Timissao. It is quite straight.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, it is direct,&quot; I said, &quot;but, in following it, you have to cross
+the Tanezruft.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh waved his hand impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh knows that,&quot; he said. &quot;He knows what the Tanezruft
+is. He who has traveled over all the Sahara knows that he would
+shudder at crossing the Tanezruft and the Tassili from the south. He
+knows that the camels that wander into that country either die or
+become wild, for no one will risk his life to go look for them. It is
+the terror that hangs over that region that may save you. For you have
+to choose: you must run the risk of dying of thirst on the tracks of
+the Tanezruft or have your throat cut along some other route.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You can stay here,&quot; he added.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My choice is made, Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh,&quot; I announced.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Good!&quot; he replied, again opening out the roll of paper. &quot;This trail
+begins at the second barrier of earth, to which I will lead you. It
+ends at Iferouane. I have marked the wells, but do not trust to them
+too much, for many of them are dry. Be careful not to stray from the
+route. If you lose it, it is death.... Now mount the camel with the
+little one. Two make less noise than four.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>We went a long way in silence. Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh walked ahead and his
+camel followed meekly. We crossed, first, a dark passage, then, a deep
+gorge, then another passage.... The entrance to each was hidden by a
+thick tangle of rocks and briars.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a burning breath touched our faces. A dull reddish light
+filtered in through the end of the passage. The desert lay before us.</p>
+
+<p>Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh had stopped.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Get down,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 175 -->A spring gurgled out of the rock. The Targa went to it and filled a
+copper cup with the water.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Drink,&quot; he said, holding it out to each of us in turn. We obeyed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Drink again,&quot; he ordered. &quot;You will save just so much of the contents
+of your water skins. Now try not to be thirsty before sunset.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He looked over the saddle girths.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's all right,&quot; he murmured. &quot;Now go. In two hours the dawn will
+be here. You must be out of sight.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I was filled with emotion at this last moment; I went to the Targa and
+took his hand.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh,&quot; I asked in a low voice, &quot;why are you doing
+this?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He stepped back and I saw his dark eyes gleam.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why?&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, why?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He replied with dignity:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Prophet permits every just man, once in his lifetime, to let pity
+take the place of duty. Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh is turning this permission
+to the advantage of one who saved his life.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And you are not afraid,&quot; I asked, &quot;that I will disclose the secret of
+Antinea if I return among Frenchmen?&quot; He shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am not afraid of that,&quot; he said, and his voice was full of irony.
+&quot;It is not to your interest that Frenchmen should know how the Captain
+met his death.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I was horrified at this logical reply.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Perhaps I am doing wrong,&quot; the Targa went on, &quot;in not killing the
+little one.... But she loves you. She will not talk. Now go. Day is
+coming.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I tried to press the hand of this strange rescuer, but he again drew
+back.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do not thank me. What I am doing, I do to acquire merit in the eyes
+of God. You may be sure that I shall never do it again neither for you
+nor for anyone else.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And, as I made a gesture to reassure him on that point, &quot;Do not
+protest,&quot; he said in a tone the mockery of which <!-- Page 176 -->still sounds in my
+ears. &quot;Do not protest. What I am doing is of value to me, but not to
+you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I looked at him uncomprehendingly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not to you, Sidi Lieutenant, not to you,&quot; his grave voice continued.
+&quot;For you will come back; and when that day comes, do not count on the
+help of Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I will come back?&quot; I asked, shuddering.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You will come back,&quot; the Targa replied.</p>
+
+<p>He was standing erect, a black statue against the wall of gray rock.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You will come back,&quot; he repeated with emphasis. &quot;You are fleeing now,
+but you are mistaken if you think that you will look at the world with
+the same eyes as before. Henceforth, one idea, will follow you
+everywhere you go; and in one year, five, perhaps ten years, you will
+pass again through the corridor through which you have just come.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Be still, Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh,&quot; said the trembling voice of
+Tanit-Zerga.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Be still yourself, miserable little fly,&quot; said Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh.</p>
+
+<p>He sneered.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The little one is afraid because she knows that I tell the truth. She
+knows the story of Lieutenant Ghiberti.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Lieutenant Ghiberti?&quot; I said, the sweat standing out on my forehead.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He was an Italian officer whom I met between Rh&acirc;t and Rhadam&egrave;s eight
+years ago. He did not believe that love of Antinea could make him
+forget all else that life contained. He tried to escape, and he
+succeeded. I do not know how, for I did not help him. He went back to
+his country. But hear what happened: two years later, to the very day,
+when I was leaving the look-out, I discovered a miserable tattered
+creature, half dead from hunger and fatigue, searching in vain for the
+entrance to the northern barrier. It was Lieutenant Ghiberti, come
+back. He fills niche Number 39 in the red marble hall.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Targa smiled slightly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is the story of Lieutenant Ghiberti which you wished to hear.
+But enough of this. Mount your camel.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I obeyed without saying a word. Tanit-Zerga, seated be<!-- Page 177 -->hind me, put
+her little arms around me. Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh was still holding the
+bridle.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;One word more,&quot; he said, pointing to a black spot against the violet
+sky of the southern horizon. &quot;You see the <i>gour</i> there; that is your
+way. It is eighteen miles from here. You should reach it by sunrise.
+Then consult your map. The next point is marked. If you do not stray
+from the line, you should be at the springs of Telemsi in eight days.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The camel's neck was stretched toward the dark wind coming from the
+south.</p>
+
+<p>The Targa released the bridle with a sweep of his hand.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now go.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Thank you,&quot; I called to him, turning back in the saddle. &quot;Thank you,
+Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh, and farewell.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I heard his voice replying in the distance:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>Au revoir</i>, Lieutenant de Saint Avit.&quot;</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h2><a name="XIX"><!-- Chapter 19--></a>XIX</h2>
+
+<h3>THE TANEZRUFT</h3>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>During the first hour of our flight, the great mehari of
+Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh carried us at a mad pace. We covered at least five
+leagues. With fixed eyes, I guided the beast toward the <i>gour</i> which
+the Targa had pointed out, its ridge becoming higher and higher
+against the paling sky.</p>
+
+<p>The speed caused a little breeze to whistle in our ears. Great tufts
+of <i>retem</i>, like fleshless skeletons, were tossed to right and left.</p>
+
+<p>I heard the voice of Tanit-Zerga whispering:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Stop the camel.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>At first I did not understand.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Stop him,&quot; she repeated.</p>
+
+<p>Her hand pulled sharply at my right arm.</p>
+
+<p>I obeyed. The camel slackened his pace with very bad grace.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Listen,&quot; she said.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 178 -->At first I heard nothing. Then a very slight noise, a dry rustling
+behind us.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Stop the camel,&quot; Tanit-Zerga commanded. &quot;It is not worth while to
+make him kneel.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A little gray creature bounded on the camel. The mehari set out again
+at his best speed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let him go,&quot; said Tanit-Zerga. &quot;Gal&eacute; has jumped on.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I felt a tuft of bristly hair under my arm. The mongoose had followed
+our footsteps and rejoined us. I heard the quick panting of the brave
+little creature becoming gradually slower and slower.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am happy,&quot; murmured Tanit-Zerga.</p>
+
+<p>Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh had not been mistaken. We reached the <i>gour</i> as the
+sun rose. I looked back. The Atakor was nothing more than a monstrous
+chaos amid the night mists which trailed the dawn. It was no longer
+possible to pick out from among the nameless peaks, the one on which
+Antinea was still weaving her passionate plots.</p>
+
+<p>You know what the Tanezruft is, the &quot;plain of plains,&quot; abandoned,
+uninhabitable, the country of hunger and thirst. We were then starting
+on the part of the desert which Duveyrier calls the Tassili of the
+south, and which figures on the maps of the Minister of Public Works
+under this attractive title: &quot;Rocky plateau, without water, without
+vegetation, inhospitable for man and beast.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Nothing, unless parts of the Kalahari, is more frightful than this
+rocky desert. Oh, Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh did not exaggerate in saying that
+no one would dream of following us into that country.</p>
+
+<p>Great patches of oblivion still refused to clear away. Memories chased
+each other incoherently about my head. A sentence came back to me
+textually: &quot;It seemed to Dick that he had never, since the beginning
+of original darkness, done anything at all save jolt through the air.&quot;
+I gave a little laugh. &quot;In the last few hours,&quot; I thought, &quot;I have
+been heaping up literary situations. A while ago, a hundred feet above
+the ground, I was Fabrice of <i>La Chartreuse de Parme</i> beside his
+Italian dungeon. Now, here on my camel, I am Dick of <i>The Light That
+Failed</i>, crossing the desert to meet his com<!-- Page 179 -->panions in arms.&quot; I
+chuckled again; then shuddered. I thought of the preceding night, of
+the Orestes of <i>Andromaque</i> who agreed to sacrifice Pyrrhus. A
+literary situation indeed....</p>
+
+<p>Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh had reckoned eight days to get to the wooded
+country of the Awellimiden, forerunners of the grassy steppes of the
+Soudan. He knew well the worth of his beast. Tanit-Zerga had suddenly
+given him a name, <i>El Mellen</i>, the white one, for the magnificent
+mehari had an almost spotless coat. Once he went two days without
+eating, merely picking up here and there a branch of an acacia tree
+whose hideous white spines, four inches long, filled me with fear for
+our friend's oesophagus. The wells marked out by Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh
+were indeed at the indicated spots, but we found nothing in them but a
+burning yellow mud. It was enough for the camel, enough so that at the
+end of the fifth day, thanks to prodigious self-control, we had used
+up only one of our two water skins. Then we believed ourselves safe.</p>
+
+<p>Near one of these muddy puddles, I succeeded that day in shooting down
+a little straight-horned desert gazelle. Tanit-Zerga skinned the beast
+and we regaled ourselves with a delicious haunch. Meantime, little
+Gal&eacute;, who never ceased prying about the cracks in the rocks during our
+mid-day halts in the heat, discovered an <i>ourane</i>, a sand crocodile,
+five feet long, and made short work of breaking his neck. She ate so
+much she could not budge. It cost us a pint of water to help her
+digestion. We gave it with good grace, for we were happy. Tanit-Zerga
+did not say so, but her joy at knowing that I was thinking no more of
+the woman in the gold diadem and the emeralds was apparent. And
+really, during those days, I hardly thought of her. I thought only of
+the torrid heat to be avoided, of the water skins which, if you wished
+to drink fresh water, had to be left for an hour in a cleft in the
+rocks; of the intense joy which seized you when you raised to your
+lips a leather goblet brimming with that life-saving water.... I can
+say this with authority, with good authority, indeed; passion,
+spiritual or physical, is a thing for those who have eaten and drunk
+and rested.</p>
+
+<p>It was five o'clock in the afternoon. The frightful heat was
+slackening. We had left a kind of rocky crevice where we <!-- Page 180 -->had had a
+little nap. Seated on a huge rock, we were watching the reddening
+west.</p>
+
+<p>I spread out the roll of paper on which Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh had marked
+the stages of our journey as far as the road from the Soudan. I
+realized again with joy that his itinerary was exact and that I had
+followed it scrupulously.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The evening of the day after to-morrow,&quot; I said, &quot;we shall be setting
+out on the stage which will take us, by the next dawn, to the waters
+at Telemsi. Once there, we shall not have to worry any more about
+water.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Tanit-Zerga's eyes danced in her thin face.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And G&acirc;o?&quot; she asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We will be only a week from the Niger. And Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh said
+that at Telemsi, one reached a road overhung with mimosa.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I know the mimosa,&quot; she said. &quot;They are the little yellow balls that
+melt in your hand. But I like the caper flowers better. You will come
+with me to G&acirc;o. My father, Sonni-Azkia, was killed, as I told you, by
+the Awellimiden. But my people must have rebuilt the villages. They
+are used to that. You will see how you will be received.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I will go, Tanit-Zerga, I promise you. But you also, you must promise
+me....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What? Oh, I guess. You must take me for a little fool if you believe
+me capable of speaking of things which might make trouble for my
+friend.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She looked at me as she spoke. Privation and great fatigue had
+chiselled the brown face where her great eyes shone.... Since then, I
+have had time to assemble the maps and compasses, and to fix forever
+the spot where, for the first time, I understood the beauty of
+Tanit-Zerga's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>There was a deep silence between us. It was she who broke it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Night is coming. We must eat so as to leave as soon as possible.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She stood up and went toward the rocks.</p>
+
+<p>Almost immediately, I heard her calling in an anguished voice that
+sent a chill through me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come! Oh, come see!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>With a bound, I was at her side.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 181 -->The camel,&quot; she murmured. &quot;The camel!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I looked, and a deadly shudder seized me.</p>
+
+<p>Stretched out at full length, on the other side of the rocks, his pale
+flanks knotted up by convulsive spasms, <i>El Mellen</i> lay in anguish.</p>
+
+<p>I need not say that we rushed to him in feverish haste. Of what <i>El
+Mellen</i> was dying, I did not know, I never have known. All the mehara
+are that way. They are at once the most enduring and the most delicate
+of beasts. They will travel for six months across the most frightful
+deserts, with little food, without water, and seem only the better for
+it. Then, one day when nothing is the matter, they stretch out and
+give you the slip with disconcerting ease.</p>
+
+<p>When Tanit-Zerga and I saw that there was nothing more to do, we stood
+there without a word, watching his slackening spasms. When he breathed
+his last, we felt that our life, as well as his, had gone.</p>
+
+<p>It was Tanit-Zerga who spoke first.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How far are we from the Soudan road?&quot; she asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We are a hundred and twenty miles from the springs of Telemsi,&quot; I
+replied. &quot;We could make thirty miles by going toward Iferouane; but
+the wells are not marked on that route.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then we must walk toward the springs of Telemsi,&quot; she said. &quot;A
+hundred and twenty miles, that makes seven days?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Seven days at the least, Tanit-Zerga.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How far is it to the first well?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Thirty-five miles.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The little girl's face contracted somewhat. But she braced up quickly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We must set out at once.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Set out on foot, Tanit-Zerga!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She stamped her foot. I marveled to see her so strong.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We must go,&quot; she repeated. &quot;We are going to eat and drink and make
+Gal&eacute; eat and drink, for we cannot carry all the tins, and the water
+skin is so heavy that we should not get three miles if we tried to
+carry it. We will put a little water in one of the tins after emptying
+it through a little hole. That will be enough for to-night's stage,
+which will be eighteen miles without water. To-morrow we will set out
+for <!-- Page 182 -->another eighteen miles and we will reach the wells marked on the
+paper by Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh,&quot; I murmured sadly, &quot;if my shoulder were only not this way, I
+could carry the water skin.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is as it is,&quot; said Tanit-Zerga.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You will take your carbine and two tins of meat. I shall take two
+more and the one filled with water. Come. We must leave in an hour if
+we wish to cover the eighteen miles. You know that when the sun is up,
+the rocks are so hot we cannot walk.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I leave you to imagine in what sad silence we passed that hour which
+we had begun so happily and confidently. Without the little girl, I
+believe I should have seated myself upon a rock and waited. Gal&eacute; only
+was happy.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We must not let her eat too much,&quot; said Tanit-Zerga. &quot;She would not
+be able to follow us. And to-morrow she must work. If she catches
+another <i>ourane</i>, it will be for us.&quot;
+<br /></p>
+
+<p>You have walked in the desert. You know how terrible the first hours
+of the night are. When the moon comes up, huge and yellow, a sharp
+dust seems to rise in suffocating clouds. You move your jaws
+mechanically as if to crush the dust that finds its way into your
+throat like fire. Then usually a kind of lassitude, of drowsiness,
+follows. You walk without thinking. You forget where you are walking.
+You remember only when you stumble. Of course you stumble often. But
+anyway it is bearable. &quot;The night is ending,&quot; you say, &quot;and with it
+the march. All in all, I am less tired than at the beginning.&quot; The
+night ends, but then comes the most terrible hour of all. You are
+perishing of thirst and shaking with cold. All the fatigue comes back
+at once. The horrible breeze which precedes the dawn is no comfort.
+Quite the contrary. Every time you stumble, you say, &quot;The next misstep
+will be the last.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>That is what people feel and say even when they know that in a few
+hours they will have a good rest with food and water.</p>
+
+<p>I was suffering terribly. Every step jolted my poor shoulder. At one
+time, I wanted to stop, to sit down. Then I looked at Tanit-Zerga. She
+was walking ahead with her eyes almost <!-- Page 183 -->closed. Her expression was an
+indefinable one of mingled suffering and determination. I closed my
+own eyes and went on.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the first stage. At dawn we stopped in a hollow in the rocks.
+Soon the heat forced us to rise to seek a deeper one. Tanit-Zerga did
+not eat. Instead, she swallowed a little of her half can of water. She
+lay drowsy all day. Gal&eacute; ran about our rock giving plaintive little
+cries.</p>
+
+<p>I am not going to tell you about the second march. It was more
+horrible than anything you can imagine. I suffered all that it is
+humanly possible to suffer in the desert. But already I began to
+observe with infinite pity that my man's strength was outlasting the
+nervous force of my little companion. The poor child walked on without
+saying a word, chewing feebly one corner of her <i>haik</i> which she had
+drawn over her face. Gal&eacute; followed.</p>
+
+<p>The well toward which we were dragging ourselves was indicated on
+Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh's paper by the one word <i>Tissaririn. Tissaririn</i> is
+the plural of <i>Tissarirt</i> and means &quot;two isolated trees.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Day was dawning when finally I saw the two trees, two gum trees.
+Hardly a league separated us from them. I gave a cry of joy.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Courage, Tanit-Zerga, there is the well.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She drew her veil aside and I saw the poor anguished little face.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So much the better,&quot; she murmured, &quot;because otherwise....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She could not even finish the sentence.</p>
+
+<p>We finished the last half mile almost at a run. We already saw the
+hole, the opening of the well.</p>
+
+<p>Finally we reached it.</p>
+
+<p>It was empty.</p>
+
+<p>It is a strange sensation to be dying of thirst. At first the
+suffering is terrible. Then, gradually, it becomes less. You become
+partly unconscious. Ridiculous little things about your life occur to
+you, fly about you like mosquitoes. I began to remember my history
+composition for the entrance examination of Saint-Cyr, &quot;The Campaign
+of Marengo.&quot; Obstin<!-- Page 184 -->ately I repeated to myself, &quot;I have already said
+that the battery unmasked by Marmont at the moment of Kellerman's
+charge included eighteen pieces.... No, I remember now, it was only
+twelve pieces. I am sure it was twelve pieces.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I kept on repeating:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Twelve pieces.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Then I fell into a sort of coma.</p>
+
+<p>I was recalled from it by feeling a red-hot iron on my forehead. I
+opened my eyes. Tanit-Zerga was bending over me. It was her hand which
+burnt so.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Get up,&quot; she said. &quot;We must go on.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Go on, Tanit-Zerga! The desert is on fire. The sun is at the zenith.
+It is noon.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We must go on,&quot; she repeated.</p>
+
+<p>Then I saw that she was delirious.</p>
+
+<p>She was standing erect. Her <i>haik</i> had fallen to the ground and little
+Gal&eacute;, rolled up in a ball, was asleep on it.</p>
+
+<p>Bareheaded, indifferent to the frightful sunlight, she kept repeating:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We must go on.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A little sense came back to me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Cover your head, Tanit-Zerga, cover your head.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come,&quot; she repeated. &quot;Let's go. G&acirc;o is over there, not far away. I
+can feel it. I want to see G&acirc;o again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I made her sit down beside me in the shadow of a rock. I realized that
+all strength had left her. The wave of pity that swept over me,
+brought back my senses.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;G&acirc;o is just over there, isn't it?&quot; she asked.</p>
+
+<p>Her gleaming eyes became imploring.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, dear little girl. G&acirc;o is there. But for God's sake lie down. The
+sun is fearful.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, G&acirc;o, G&acirc;o!&quot; she repeated. &quot;I know very well that I shall see G&acirc;o
+again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She sat up. Her fiery little hands gripped mine.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Listen. I must tell you so you can understand how I know I shall see
+G&acirc;o again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Tanit-Zerga, be quiet, my little girl, be quiet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, I must tell you. A long time ago, on the bank of the river where
+there is water, at G&acirc;o, where my father was a prince, there was....
+Well, one day, one feast day, there <!-- Page 185 -->came from the interior of the
+country an old magician, dressed in skins and feathers, with a mask
+and a pointed head-dress, with castanets, and two serpents in a bag.
+On the village square, where all our people formed in a circle, he
+danced the <i>boussadilla</i>. I was in the first row, and because I had a
+necklace of pink tourmaline, he quickly saw that I was the daughter of
+a chief. So he spoke to me of the past, of the great Mandingue Empire
+over which my grandfathers had ruled, of our enemies, the fierce
+Kountas, of everything, and finally he said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Have no fear, little girl.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then he said again, 'Do not be afraid. Evil days may be in store for
+you, but what does that matter? For one day you will see G&acirc;o gleaming
+on the horizon, no longer a servile G&acirc;o reduced to the rank of a
+little Negro town, but the splendid G&acirc;o of other days, the great
+capital of the country of the blacks, G&acirc;o reborn, with its mosque of
+seven towers and fourteen cupolas of turquoise, with its houses with
+cool courts, its fountains, its watered gardens, all blooming with
+great red and white flowers.... That will be for you the hour of
+deliverance and of royalty.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Tanit-Zerga was standing up. All about us, on our heads, the sun
+blazed on the <i>hamada</i>, burning it white.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the child stretched out her arms. She gave a terrible cry.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;G&acirc;o! There is G&acirc;o!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I looked at her.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;G&acirc;o,&quot; she repeated. &quot;Oh, I know it well! There are the trees and the
+fountains, the cupolas and the towers, the palm trees, the great red
+and white flowers. G&acirc;o....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, along the shimmering horizon rose a fantastic city with mighty
+buildings that towered, tier on tier, until they formed a rainbow.
+Wide-eyed, we stood and watched the terrible mirage quiver feverishly
+before us.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;G&acirc;o!&quot; I cried. &quot;G&acirc;o!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And almost immediately I uttered another cry, of sorrow and of horror.
+Tanit-Zerga's little hand relaxed in mine. I had just time to catch
+the child in my arms and hear her murmur as in a whisper:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 186 -->And then that will be the day of deliverance. The day of deliverance
+and of royalty.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Several hours later I took the knife with which we had skinned the
+desert gazelle and, in the sand at the foot of the rock where
+Tanit-Zerga had given up her spirit, I made a little hollow where she
+was to rest.</p>
+
+<p>When everything was ready, I wanted to look once more at that dear
+little face. Courage failed me for a moment.... Then I quickly drew
+the <i>haik</i> over the brown face and laid the body of the child in the
+hollow.</p>
+
+<p>I had reckoned without Gal&eacute;.</p>
+
+<p>The eyes of the mongoose had not left me during the whole time that I
+was about my sad duty. When she heard the first handfuls of sand fall
+on the <i>haik</i>, she gave a sharp cry. I looked at her and saw her ready
+to spring, her eyes daring fire.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Gal&eacute;!&quot; I implored; and I tried to stroke her.</p>
+
+<p>She bit my hand and then leapt into the grave and began to dig,
+throwing the sand furiously aside.</p>
+
+<p>I tried three times to chase her away. I felt that I should never
+finish my task and that, even if I did, Gal&eacute; would stay there and
+disinter the body.</p>
+
+<p>My carbine lay at my feet. A shot drew echoes from the immense empty
+desert. A moment later, Gal&eacute; also slept her last sleep, curled up, as
+I so often had seen her, against the neck of her mistress.</p>
+
+<p>When the surface showed nothing more than a little mound of trampled
+sand, I rose staggering and started off aimlessly into the desert,
+toward the south.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h2><a name="XX"><!-- Chapter 20--></a>XX</h2>
+
+<h3>THE CIRCLE IS COMPLETE</h3>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>At the foot of the valley of the Mia, at the place where the jackal
+had cried the night Saint-Avit told me he had killed Morhange, another
+jackal, or perhaps the same one, howled again.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 187 -->Immediately I had a feeling that this night would see the
+irremediable fulfilled.</p>
+
+<p>We were seated that evening, as before, on the poor veranda improvised
+outside our dining-room. The floor was of plaster, the balustrade of
+twisted branches; four posts supported a thatched roof.</p>
+
+<p>I have already said that from the veranda one could look far out over
+the desert. As he finished speaking, Saint-Avit rose and stood leaning
+his elbows on the railing. I followed him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And then....&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And then what? Surely you know what all the newspapers told&mdash;how, in
+the country of the Awellimiden, I was found dying of hunger and thirst
+by an expedition under the command of Captain Aymard, and taken to
+Timbuctoo. I was delirious for a month afterward. I have never known
+what I may have said during those spells of burning fever. You may be
+sure the officers of the Timbuctoo Club did not feel it incumbent upon
+them to tell me. When I told them of my adventures, as they are
+related in the report of the Morhange&mdash;Saint-Avit Expedition, I could
+see well enough from the cold politeness with which they received my
+explanations, that the official version which I gave them differed at
+certain points from the fragments which had escaped me in my delirium.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They did not press the matter. It remains understood that Captain
+Morhange died from a sunstroke and that I buried him on the border of
+the Tarhit watercourse, three marches from Timissao. Everybody can
+detect that there are things missing in my story. Doubtless they guess
+at some mysterious drama. But proofs are another matter. Because of
+the impossibility of collecting them, they prefer to smother what
+could only become a silly scandal. But now you know all the details as
+well as I.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And&mdash;she?&quot; I asked timidly.</p>
+
+<p>He smiled triumphantly. It was triumph at having led me to think no
+longer of Morhange, or of his crime, the triumph of feeling that he
+had succeeded in imbuing me with his own madness.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 188 -->Yes,&quot; he said. &quot;She! For six years I have learned nothing more about
+her. But I see her, I talk with her. I am thinking now how I shall
+reenter her presence. I shall throw myself at her feet and say simply,
+'Forgive me. I rebelled against your law. I did not know. But now I
+know; and you see that, like Lieutenant Ghiberti, I have come back.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Family, honor, country,' said old Le Mesge, 'you will forget all for
+her.' Old Le Mesge is a stupid man, but he speaks from experience. He
+knows, he who has seen broken before Antinea the wills of the fifty
+ghosts in the red marble hall.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And now, will you, in your turn, ask me 'What is this woman?' Do I
+know myself? And besides, what difference does it make? What does her
+past and the mystery of her origin matter to me; what does it matter
+whether she is the true descendant of the god of the sea and the
+sublime Lagides or the bastard of a Polish drunkard and a harlot of
+the Marbeuf quarter?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;At the time when I was foolish enough to be jealous of Morhange,
+these questions might have made some difference to the ridiculous
+self-esteem that civilized people mix up with passion. But I have held
+Antinea's body in my arms. I no longer wish to know any other, nor if
+the fields are in blossom, nor what will become of the human
+spirit....</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I do not wish to know. Or, rather, it is because I have too exact a
+vision of that future, that I pretend to destroy myself in the only
+destiny that is worth while: a nature unfathomed and virgin, a
+mysterious love.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>A nature unfathomed and virgin</i>. I must explain myself. One winter
+day, in a large city all streaked with the soot that falls from black
+chimneys of factories and of those horrible houses in the suburbs, I
+attended a funeral.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We followed the hearse in the mud. The church was new, damp and poor.
+Aside from two or three people, relatives struck down by a dull
+sorrow, everyone had just one idea: to find some pretext to get away.
+Those who went as far as the cemetery were those who did not find an
+excuse. I see the gray walls and the cypresses, those trees of sun and
+shade, so beautiful in the country of southern France against the low
+purple hills. I see the horrible undertaker's <!-- Page 189 -->men in greasy jackets
+and shiny top hats. I see.... No, I'll stop; it's too horrible.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Near the wall, in a remote plot, a grave had been dug in frightful
+yellow pebbly clay. It was there that they left the dead man whose
+name I no longer remember.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;While they were lowering the casket, I looked at my hands, those
+hands which in that strangely lighted country had pressed the hands of
+Antinea. A great pity for my body seized me, a great fear of what
+threatened it in these cities of mud. 'So,' I said to myself, 'it may
+be that this body, this dear body, will come to such an end! No, no,
+my body, precious above all other treasures, I swear to you that I
+will spare you that ignominy; you shall not rot under a registered
+number in the filth of a suburban cemetery. Your brothers in love, the
+fifty knights of orichalch, await you, mute and grave, in the red
+marble hall. I shall take you back to them.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A <i>mysterious love</i>. Shame to him who retails the secrets of his
+loves. The Sahara lays its impassable barrier about Antinea; that is
+why the most unreasonable requirements of this woman are, in reality,
+more modest and chaste than your marriage will be, with its vulgar
+public show, the bans, the invitations, the announcements telling an
+evil-minded and joking people that after such and such an hour, on
+such and such a day, you will have the right to violate your little
+tupenny virgin.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I think that is all I have to tell you. No, there is still one thing
+more. I told you a while ago about the red marble hall. South of
+Cherchell, to the west of the Mazafran river, on a hill which in the
+early morning, emerges from the mists of the Mitidja, there is a
+mysterious stone pyramid. The natives call it, 'The Tomb of the
+Christian.' That is where the body of Antinea's ancestress, that
+Cleopatra Selene, daughter of Mark Antony and Cleopatra, was laid to
+rest. Though it is placed in the path of invasions, this tomb has kept
+its treasure. No one has ever been able to discover the painted room
+where the beautiful body reposes in a glass casket. All that the
+ancestress has been able to do, the descendant will be able to surpass
+in grim magnificence. In the center of the red marble hall, on the
+rock whence comes the plaint of the <!-- Page 190 -->gloomy fountain, a platform is
+reserved. It is there, on an orichalch throne, with the Egyptian
+head-dress and the golden serpent on her brow and the trident of
+Neptune in her hand, that the marvelous woman I have told you about
+will be ensconced on that day when the hundred and twenty niches,
+hollowed out in a circle around her throne, shall each have received
+its willing prey.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When I left Ahaggar, you remember that it was niche number 55 that
+was to be mine. Since then, I have never stopped calculating and I
+conclude that it is in number 80 or 85 that I shall repose. But any
+calculations based upon so fragile a foundation as a woman's whim may
+be erroneous. That is why I am getting more and more nervous. 'I must
+hurry,' I tell myself. 'I must hurry.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I must hurry,&quot; I repeated, as if I were in a dream.</p>
+
+<p>He raised his head with an indefinable expression of joy. His hand
+trembled with happiness when he shook mine.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You will see,&quot; he repeated excitedly, &quot;you will see.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Ecstatically, he took me in his arms and held me there a long moment.</p>
+
+<p>An extraordinary happiness swept over both of us, while, alternately
+laughing and crying like children, we kept repeating:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We must hurry. We must hurry.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly there sprang up a slight breeze that made the tufts of thatch
+in the roof rustle. The sky, pale lilac, grew paler still, and,
+suddenly, a great yellow rent tore it in the east. Dawn broke over the
+empty desert. From within the stockade came dull noises, a bugle call,
+the rattle of chains. The post was waking up.</p>
+
+<p>For several seconds we stood there silent, our eyes fixed on the
+southern route by which one reaches Temassinin, Egu&eacute;r&eacute; and Ahaggar.</p>
+
+<p>A rap on the dining-room door behind us made us start.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come in,&quot; said Andr&eacute; de Saint-Avit in a voice which had become
+suddenly hard.</p>
+
+<p>The Quartermaster, Chatelain, stood before us.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What do you want of me at this hour?&quot; Saint-Avit asked brusquely.</p>
+
+<p>The non-com stood at attention.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 191 -->Excuse me, Captain. But a native was discovered near the post, last
+night, by the patrol. He was not trying to hide. As soon as he had
+been brought here, he asked to be led before the commanding officer.
+It was midnight and I didn't want to disturb you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Who is this native?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A Targa, Captain.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A Targa? Go get him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Chatelain stepped aside. Escorted by one of our native soldiers, the
+man stood behind him.</p>
+
+<p>They came out on the terrace.</p>
+
+<p>The new arrival, six feet tall, was indeed a Targa. The light of dawn
+fell upon his blue-black cotton robes. One could see his great dark
+eyes flashing.</p>
+
+<p>When he was opposite my companion, I saw a tremor, immediately
+suppressed, run through both men.</p>
+
+<p>They looked at each other for an instant in silence.</p>
+
+<p>Then, bowing, and in a very calm voice, the Targa spoke:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Peace be with you, Lieutenant de Saint-Avit.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In the same calm voice, Andr&eacute; answered him:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Peace be with you, Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh.&quot;</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2> Footnotes </h2>
+
+<div class="note">
+<a name="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1">[1]</a>
+<p>This letter, together with the manuscript which
+accompanies it, the latter in a separate sealed envelope, was
+entrusted by Lieutenant Ferri&egrave;res, of the 3rd Spahis, the day of the
+departure of that officer for the Tassili of the Tuareg (Central
+Sahara), to Sergeant Chatelain. The sergeant was instructed to deliver
+it, on his next leave, to M. Leroux, Honorary Counsel at the Court of
+Appeals at Riom, and Lieutenant Ferri&egrave;res' nearest relative. As this
+magistrate died suddenly before the expiration of the term of ten
+years set for the publication of the manuscript here presented,
+difficulties arose which have delayed its publication up to the
+present date.</p></div>
+
+<div class="note">
+<a name="Footnote_B_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_B_2">[2]</a>
+<p> H. Duveyrier, &quot;The Disaster of the Flatters Mission.&quot;
+Bull. Geol. Soc., 1881.</p></div>
+
+<div class="note"><a name="Footnote_C_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_C_3">[3]</a>
+<p> Doctrina Ptolemaei ab injuria recentiorum vindicata, sive
+Nilus Superior et Niger verus, hodiernus Eghiren, ab anitiquis
+explorati. Paris, 8vo, 1874, with two maps. (Note by M. Leroux.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="note"><a name="Footnote_D_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_D_4">[4]</a>
+<p> De nomine et genere popularum qui berberi vulgo dicuntur.
+Paris, 8vo, 1892. (Note by M. Leroux.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="note"><a name="Footnote_E_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_E_5">[5]</a>
+<p> Another name, in the Temahaq language, for Ahaggar. (Note by M. Leroux.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="note"><a name="Footnote_F_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_F_6">[6]</a>
+<p> The route and the stages from Tit to Timissao were
+actually plotted out, as early as 1888, by Captain Bissuel. <i>Les
+Tuarge de l'Ouest,</i> itineraries 1 and 10. (Note by M. Leroux.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="note"><a name="Footnote_G_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_G_7">[7]</a>
+<p> It is perhaps worth noting here that <i>Figures de Proues</i>
+is the exact title of a very remarkable collection of poems by Mme.
+Delarus-Mardrus. (Note by M. Leroux.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="note"><a name="Footnote_H_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_H_8">[8]</a>
+<p> The Negro serfs among the Tuareg are generally called
+&quot;white Tuareg.&quot; While the nobles are clad in blue cotton robes, the
+serfs wear white robes, hence their name of &quot;white Tuareg.&quot; See, in
+this connection, Duveyrier: <i>les Tuareg du Nord</i>, page 292. (Note by M. Leroux.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="note"><a name="Footnote_J_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_J_9">[9]</a>
+<p> <i>Tirer &agrave; cinq</i>, a card game played only for very high stakes.</p></div>
+
+<div class="note"><a name="Footnote_K_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_K_10">[10]</a>
+<p> How did the <i>Voyage to Atlantis</i> arrive at Dax? I have
+found, so far, only one credible hypothesis: it might have been
+discovered in Africa by the traveller, de Behagle, a member of the
+Roger-Ducos Society, who studied at the college of Dax, and later, on
+several occasions, visited the town. (Note by M. Leroux.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="note"><a name="Footnote_L_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_L_11">[11]</a>
+<p> Variot: <i>L'anthropologie galvanique</i>. Paris, 1890. (Note
+by M. Leroux.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="note"><a name="Footnote_M_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_M_12">[12]</a>
+<p> In Berber, Tanit means a spring; zerga is the feminine of
+the adjective azreg, blue. (Note by M. Leroux.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="note"><a name="Footnote_N_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_N_13">[13]</a>
+<p> Dialect spoken in Algeria and the Levant&mdash;a mixture of
+Arabian, French, Italian and Spanish.</p></div>
+
+<div class="note"><a name="Footnote_P_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_P_14">[14]</a>
+<p> I have succeeded in finding on the registry of the
+Imperial Printing Press the names of the Tuareg chiefs and those who
+accompanied them on their visit, M. Henry Duveyrier and the Count
+Bielowsky. (Note by M. Leroux.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="note"><a name="Footnote_Q_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_Q_15">[15]</a>
+<p> The Koran, Chapter 66, verse 17. (Note by M. Leroux.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="note"><a name="Footnote_R_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_R_16">[16]</a>
+<p> Cf. the records and the <i>Bulletin de la Soci&eacute;t&eacute; de
+G&eacute;ographie de Paris</i> (1897) for the cruises on the Niger, made by the
+<i>Commandant</i> of the Timbuctoo region, Colonel Joffre, Lieutenants
+Baudry and Bluset, and by Father Hacquart of the White Fathers. (Note
+by M. Leroux.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="note"><a name="Footnote_S_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_S_17">[17]</a>
+<p> Gabrielle d'Annunzio: <i>Les Vierges aux Rochers</i>. Cf. The
+<i>Revue des Deux Mondes</i> of October 15, 1896; page 867.</p></div>
+
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14301 ***</div>
+</body>
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+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
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+status under the laws that apply to them.
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #14301 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14301)
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Atlantida, by Pierre Benoit
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Atlantida
+
+Author: Pierre Benoit
+
+Release Date: December 8, 2004 [EBook #14301]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIDA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Elaine Walker, Ronald Holder and the PG Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ "First, I must warn you,
+before beginning this work,
+not to be surprised to hear
+me calling barbarians by
+Grecian 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 André Suarès
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+HASSI-INIFEL, NOVEMBER 8, 1903.
+
+
+If the following pages are ever to see the light of day it will be
+because they have been stolen from me. The delay that I exact before
+they shall be disclosed assures me of that.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: This letter, together with the manuscript which
+accompanies it, the latter in a separate sealed envelope, was
+entrusted by Lieutenant Ferrières, of the 3rd Spahis, the day of the
+departure of that officer for the Tassili of the Tuareg (Central
+Sahara), to Sergeant Chatelain. The sergeant was instructed to deliver
+it, on his next leave, to M. Leroux, Honorary Counsel at the Court of
+Appeals at Riom, and Lieutenant Ferrières' nearest relative. As this
+magistrate died suddenly before the expiration of the term of ten
+years set for the publication of the manuscript here presented,
+difficulties arose which have delayed its publication up to the
+present date.]
+
+As to this disclosure, let no one distrust my aim when I prepare for
+it, when I insist upon it. You may believe me when I maintain that no
+pride of authorship binds me to these pages. Already I am too far
+removed from all such things. Only it is useless that others should
+enter upon the path from which I shall not return.
+
+Four o'clock in the morning. Soon the sun will kindle the hamada with
+its pink fire. All about me the bordj is asleep. Through the half-open
+door of his room I hear André de Saint-Avit breathing quietly, very
+quietly.
+
+In two days we shall start, he and I. We shall leave the bordj. We
+shall penetrate far down there to the South. The official orders came
+this morning.
+
+Now, even if I wished to withdraw, it is too late. André and I asked
+for 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 the
+Gurara, when I found two of my sentinels slaughtered, with the
+shameful cross cut of the Berbers slashed across their stomachs--then
+I was afraid. I know what fear is. Just so now, when I gazed into the
+black 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 within
+me 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 I
+shall reread these pages with an indulgent smile, as a man of fifty is
+accustomed 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 Ferrières,"
+reads the official dispatch, "will proceed to Tassili to determine the
+statigraphic relation of Albien sandstone and carboniferous limestone.
+They will, in addition, profit by any opportunities of determining the
+possible change of attitude of the Axdjers towards our penetration,
+etc." If the journey should indeed have to do only with such poor
+things I think that I should never undertake it.
+
+So I am longing for what I dread. I shall be dejected if I do not
+find myself in the presence of what makes me strangely fearful.
+
+In the depths of the valley of Wadi Mia a jackal is barking. Now and
+again, when a beam of moonlight breaks in a silver patch through the
+hollows of the heat-swollen clouds, making him think he sees the young
+sun, a turtle dove moans among the palm trees.
+
+I hear a step outside. I lean out of the window. A shade clad in
+luminous black stuff glides over the hard-packed earth of the terrace
+of the fortification. A light shines in the electric blackness. A man
+has just lighted a cigarette. He crouches, facing southwards. He is
+smoking.
+
+It is Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh, our Targa guide, the man who in three days
+is to lead us across the unknown plateaus of the mysterious
+Imoschaoch, across the hamadas of black stones, the great dried oases,
+the stretches of silver salt, the tawny hillocks, the flat gold dunes
+that are crested over, when the "alizé" blows, with a shimmering haze
+of pale sand.
+
+Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh! He is the man. There recurs to my mind Duveyrier's
+tragic phrase, "At the very moment the Colonel was putting his foot in
+the stirrup he was felled by a sabre blow."[2] Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh!
+There he is, peacefully smoking his cigarette, a cigarette from the
+package 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, I
+never knew exactly why, decided one day when I was a lad of sixteen
+that I should prepare myself for Saint Cyr, and gave me there André de
+Saint-Avit as classmate. I might have studied law or medicine. Then I
+should be today a respectable inhabitant of a town with a church and
+running water, instead of this cotton-clad phantom, brooding with an
+unspeakable anxiety over this desert which is about to swallow me.
+
+A great insect has flown in through the window. It buzzes, strikes
+against the rough cast, rebounds against the globe of the lamp, and
+then, helpless, its wings singed by the still burning candle, drops on
+the 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 like
+little particles of the soil of my native countryside. It was there
+that as a child I spent my vacations, and later on, my leaves. On my
+last leave, through those same meadows, there wandered beside me a
+slight form, wearing a thin scarf, because of the evening air, so cool
+back there. But now this memory stirs me so slightly that I scarcely
+raise my eyes to that dark corner of my room where the light is dimly
+reflected by the glass of an indistinct portrait. I realize of how
+little consequence has become what had seemed at one time capable of
+filling all my life. This plaintive mystery is of no more interest to
+me. If the strolling singers of Rolla came to murmur their famous
+nostalgic airs under the window of this bordj I know that I should not
+listen to them, and if they became insistent I should send them on
+their way.
+
+What has been capable of causing this metamorphosis in me? A story, a
+legend, perhaps, told, at any rate by one on whom rests the direst of
+suspicions.
+
+Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh has finished his cigarette. I hear him returning
+with slow steps to his mat, in barrack B, to the left of the guard
+post.
+
+Our departure being scheduled for the tenth of November, the
+manuscript attached to this letter was begun on Sunday, the first, and
+finished on Thursday, the fifth of November, 1903.
+
+OLIVIER FERRIÈRES, Lt. 3rd Spahis.
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+A SOUTHERN ASSIGNMENT
+
+
+Sunday, the sixth of June, 1903, broke the monotony of the life that
+we were leading at the Post of Hassi-Inifel by two events of unequal
+importance, the arrival of a letter from Mlle. de C----, and the
+latest numbers of the Official Journal of the French Republic.
+
+"I have the Lieutenant's permission?" said Sergeant Chatelain,
+beginning to glance through the magazines he had just removed from
+their wrappings.
+
+I acquiesced with a nod, already completely absorbed in reading Mlle.
+de C----'s letter.
+
+"When this reaches you," was the gist of this charming being's letter,
+"mama and I will doubtless have left Paris for the country. If, in
+your distant parts, it might be a consolation to imagine me as bored
+here as you possibly can be, make the most of it. The Grand Prix is
+over. I played the horse you pointed out to me, and naturally, I lost.
+Last night we dined with the Martials de la Touche. Elias Chatrian was
+there, always amazingly young. I am sending you his last book, which
+has made quite a sensation. It seems that the Martials de la Touche
+are depicted there without disguise. I will add to it Bourget's last,
+and Loti's, and France's, and two or three of the latest music hall
+hits. In the political word, they say the law about congregations will
+meet with strenuous opposition. Nothing much in the theatres. I have
+taken out a summer subscription for _l'Illustration_. Would you care
+for it? In the country no one knows what to do. Always the same lot of
+idiots ready for tennis. I shall deserve no credit for writing to you
+often. Spare me your reflections concerning young Combemale. I am less
+than nothing of a feminist, having too much faith in those who tell me
+that I am pretty, in yourself in particular. But indeed, I grow wild
+at the idea that if I permitted myself half the familiarities with one
+of our lads that you have surely with your Ouled-Nails.... Enough of
+that, it is too unpleasant an idea."
+
+I had reached this point in the prose of this advanced young woman
+when a scandalized exclamation of the Sergeant made me look up.
+
+"Lieutenant!"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"They are up to something at the Ministry. See for yourself."
+
+He handed me the Official. I read:
+
+"By a decision of the first of May, 1903, Captain de Saint-Avit
+(André), unattached, is assigned to the Third Spahis, and appointed
+Commandant of the Post of Hassi-Inifel."
+
+Chatelain's displeasure became fairly exuberant.
+
+"Captain de Saint-Avit, Commandant of the Post. A post which has never
+had a slur upon it. They must take us for a dumping ground."
+
+My surprise was as great as the Sergeant's. But just then I saw the
+evil, weasel-like face of Gourrut, the convict we used as clerk. He
+had stopped his scrawling and was listening with a sly interest.
+
+"Sergeant, Captain de Saint-Avit is my ranking classmate," I answered
+dryly.
+
+Chatelain saluted, and left the room. I followed.
+
+"There, there," I said, clapping him on the back, "no hard feelings.
+Remember that in an hour we are starting for the oasis. Have the
+cartridges ready. It is of the utmost importance to restock the
+larder."
+
+I went back to the office and motioned Gourrut to go. Left alone, I
+finished Mlle. de C----'s letter very quickly, and then reread the
+decision of the Ministry giving the post a new chief.
+
+It was now five months that I had enjoyed that distinction, and on my
+word, I had accepted the responsibility well enough, and been very
+well pleased with the independence. I can even affirm, without taking
+too much credit for myself, that under my command discipline had been
+better maintained than under Captain Dieulivol, Saint-Avit's
+predecessor. A brave man, this Captain Dieulivol, a non-commissioned
+officer under Dodds and Duchesne, but subject to a terrible propensity
+for strong liquors, and too much inclined, when he had drunk, to
+confuse his dialects, and to talk to a Houassa in Sakalave. No one was
+ever more sparing of the post water supply. One morning when he was
+preparing his absinthe in the presence of the Sergeant, Chatelain,
+noticing the Captain's glass, saw with amazement that the green liquor
+was blanched by a far stronger admixture of water than usual. He
+looked up, aware that something abnormal had just occurred. Rigid, the
+carafe inverted in his hand, Captain Dieulivol was spilling the water
+which was running over on the sugar. He was dead.
+
+For six months, since the disappearance of this sympathetic old
+tippler, the Powers had not seemed to interest themselves in finding
+his successor. I had even hoped at times that a decision might be
+reached investing me with the rights that I was in fact exercising....
+And today this surprising appointment.
+
+Captain de Saint-Avit. He was of my class at St. Cyr. I had lost track
+of him. Then my attention had been attracted to him by his rapid
+advancement, his decoration, the well-deserved recognition of three
+particularly daring expeditions of exploration to Tebesti and the Air;
+and suddenly, the mysterious drama of his fourth expedition, that
+famous mission undertaken with Captain Morhange, from which only one
+of the explorers came back. Everything is forgotten quickly in France.
+That was at least six years ago. I had not heard Saint-Avit mentioned
+since. I had even supposed that he had left the army. And now, I was
+to have him as my chief.
+
+"After all, what's the difference," I mused, "he or another! At school
+he was charming, and we have had only the most pleasant relationships.
+Besides, I haven't enough yearly income to afford the rank of
+Captain."
+
+And I left the office, whistling as I went.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We were now, Chatelain and I, our guns resting on the already cooling
+earth, beside the pool that forms the center of the meager oasis,
+hidden behind a kind of hedge of alfa. The setting sun was reddening
+the stagnant ditches which irrigate the poor garden plots of the
+sedentary blacks.
+
+Not a word during the approach. Not a word during the shoot. Chatelain
+was obviously sulking.
+
+In silence we knocked down, one after the other, several of the
+miserable doves which came on dragging wings, heavy with the heat of
+the day, to quench their thirst at the thick green water. When a
+half-dozen slaughtered little bodies were lined up at our feet I put
+my hand on the Sergeant's shoulder.
+
+"Chatelain!"
+
+He trembled.
+
+"Chatelain, I was rude to you a little while ago. Don't be angry. It
+was the bad time before the siesta. The bad time of midday."
+
+"The Lieutenant is master here," he answered in a tone that was meant
+to be gruff, but which was only strained.
+
+"Chatelain, don't be angry. You have something to say to me. You know
+what I mean."
+
+"I don't know really. No, I don't know."
+
+"Chatelain, Chatelain, why not be sensible? Tell me something about
+Captain de Saint-Avit."
+
+"I know nothing." He spoke sharply.
+
+"Nothing? Then what were you saying a little while ago?"
+
+"Captain de Saint-Avit is a brave man." He muttered the words with his
+head still obstinately bent. "He went alone to Bilma, to the Air,
+quite alone to those places where no one had ever been. He is a brave
+man."
+
+"He is a brave man, undoubtedly," I answered with great restraint.
+"But he murdered his companion, Captain Morhange, did he not?"
+
+The old Sergeant trembled.
+
+"He is a brave man," he persisted.
+
+"Chatelain, you are a child. Are you afraid that I am going to repeat
+what you say to your new Captain?"
+
+I had touched him to the quick. He drew himself up.
+
+"Sergeant Chatelain is afraid of no one, Lieutenant. He has been at
+Abomey, against the Amazons, in a country where a black arm started
+out from every bush to seize your leg, while another cut it off for
+you with one blow of a cutlass."
+
+"Then what they say, what you yourself--"
+
+"That is talk."
+
+"Talk which is repeated in France, Chatelain, everywhere."
+
+He bent his head still lower without replying.
+
+"Ass," I burst out, "will you speak?"
+
+"Lieutenant, Lieutenant," he fairly pled, "I swear that what I know,
+or nothing--"
+
+"What you know you are going to tell me, and right away. If not, I
+give you my word of honor that, for a month, I shall not speak to you
+except on official business."
+
+Hassi-Inifel: thirty native Arabs and four Europeans--myself, the
+Sergeant, a Corporal, and Gourrut. The threat was terrible. It had its
+effect.
+
+"All right, then, Lieutenant," he said with a great sigh. "But
+afterwards you must not blame me for having told you things about a
+superior which should not be told and come only from the talk I
+overheard at mess."
+
+"Tell away."
+
+"It was in 1899. I was then Mess Sergeant at Sfax, with the 4th
+Spahis. I had a good record, and besides, as I did not drink, the
+Adjutant had assigned me to the officers' mess. It was a soft berth.
+The marketing, the accounts, recording the library books which were
+borrowed (there weren't many), and the key of the wine cupboard,--for
+with that you can't trust orderlies. The Colonel was young and dined
+at mess. One evening he came in late, looking perturbed, and, as soon
+as he was seated, called for silence:
+
+"'Gentlemen,' he said, 'I have a communication to make to you, and I
+shall ask for your advice. Here is the question. Tomorrow morning the
+_City of Naples_ lands at Sfax. Aboard her is Captain de Saint-Avit,
+recently assigned to Feriana, en route to his post.'
+
+"The Colonel paused. 'Good,' thought I, 'tomorrow's menu is about to
+be considered.' For you know the custom, Lieutenant, which has existed
+ever since there have been any officers' clubs in Africa. When an
+officer is passing by, his comrades go to meet him at the boat and
+invite him to remain with them for the length of his stay in port. He
+pays his score in news from home. On such occasions everything is of
+the best, even for a simple lieutenant. At Sfax an officer on a visit
+meant--one extra course, vintage wine and old liqueurs.
+
+"But this time I imagined from the looks the officers exchanged that
+perhaps the old stock would stay undisturbed in its cupboard.
+
+"'You have all, I think, heard of Captain de Saint-Avit, gentlemen,
+and the rumors about him. It is not for us to inquire into them, and
+the promotion he has had, his decoration if you will, permits us to
+hope that they are without foundation. But between not suspecting an
+officer of being a criminal, and receiving him at our table as a
+comrade, there is a gulf that we are not obliged to bridge. That is
+the matter on which I ask your advice.'
+
+"There was silence. The officers looked at each other, all of them
+suddenly quite grave, even to the merriest of the second lieutenants.
+In the corner, where I realized that they had forgotten me, I tried
+not to make the least sound that might recall my presence.
+
+"'We thank you, Colonel,' one of the majors finally replied, 'for your
+courtesy in consulting us. All my comrades, I imagine, know to what
+terrible rumors you refer. If I may venture to say so, in Paris at the
+Army Geographical Service, where I was before coming here, most of the
+officers of the highest standing had an opinion on this unfortunate
+matter which they avoided stating, but which cast no glory upon
+Captain de Saint-Avit.'
+
+"'I was at Bammako, at the time of the Morhange-Saint-Avit mission,'
+said a Captain. 'The opinion of the officers there, I am sorry to say,
+differed very little from what the Major describes. But I must add
+that they all admitted that they had nothing but suspicions to go on.
+And suspicions are certainly not enough considering the atrocity of
+the affair.'
+
+"'They are quite enough, gentlemen,' replied the Colonel, 'to account
+for our hesitation. It is not a question of passing judgment; but no
+man can sit at our table as a matter of right. It is a privilege based
+on fraternal esteem. The only question is whether it is your decision
+to accord it to Saint-Avit.'
+
+"So saying, he looked at the officers, as if he were taking a roll
+call. One after another they shook their heads.
+
+"'I see that we agree,' he said. 'But our task is unfortunately not
+yet over. The _City of Naples_ will be in port tomorrow morning. The
+launch which meets the passengers leaves at eight o'clock. It will be
+necessary, gentlemen, for one of you to go aboard. Captain de
+Saint-Avit might be expecting to come to us. We certainly have no
+intention of inflicting upon him the humiliation of refusing him, if
+he presented himself in expectation of the customary reception. He
+must be prevented from coming. It will be wisest to make him
+understand that it is best for him to stay aboard.'
+
+"The Colonel looked at the officers again. They could not but agree.
+But how uncomfortable each one looked!
+
+"'I cannot hope to find a volunteer among you for this kind of
+mission, so I am compelled to appoint some one. Captain Grandjean,
+Captain de Saint-Avit is also a Captain. It is fitting that it be an
+officer of his own rank who carries him our message. Besides, you are
+the latest comer here. Therefore it is to you that I entrust this
+painful interview. I do not need to suggest that you conduct it as
+diplomatically as possible.'
+
+"Captain Grandjean bowed, while a sigh of relief escaped from all the
+others. As long as the Colonel stayed in the room Grandjean remained
+apart, without speaking. It was only after the chief had departed that
+he let fall the words: "'There are some things that ought to count a
+good deal for promotion.'
+
+"The next day at luncheon everyone was impatient for his return.
+
+"'Well?' demanded the Colonel, briefly.
+
+"Captain Grandjean did not reply immediately. He sat down at the table
+where his comrades were mixing their drinks, and he, a man notorious
+for sobriety, drank almost at a gulp, without waiting for the sugar to
+melt, a full glass of absinthe.
+
+"'Well, Captain?' repeated the Colonel.
+
+"'Well, Colonel, it's done. You can be at ease. He will not set foot on
+shore. But, ye gods, what an ordeal!'
+
+"The officers did not dare speak. Only their looks expressed their
+anxious curiosity.
+
+"Captain Grandjean poured himself a swallow of water.
+
+"'You see, I had gotten my speech all ready, in the launch. But as I
+went up the ladder I knew that I had forgotten it. Saint-Avit was in
+the smoking-room, with the Captain of the boat. It seemed to me that I
+could never find the strength to tell him, when I saw him all ready to
+go ashore. He was in full dress uniform, his sabre lay on the bench
+and he was wearing spurs. No one wears spurs on shipboard. I presented
+myself and we exchanged several remarks, but I must have seemed
+somewhat strained for from the first moment I knew that he sensed
+something. Under some pretext he left the Captain, and led me aft near
+the great rudder wheel. There, I dared speak. Colonel, what did I say?
+How I must have stammered! He did not look at me. Leaning his elbows
+on the railing he let his eyes wander far off, smiling slightly. Then,
+of a sudden, when I was well tangled up in explanations, he looked at
+me coolly and said:
+
+"'I must thank you, my dear fellow, for having given yourself so much
+trouble. But it is quite unnecessary. I am out of sorts and have no
+intention of going ashore. At least, I have the pleasure of having
+made your acquaintance. Since I cannot profit by your hospitality, you
+must do me the favor of accepting mine as long as the launch stays by
+the vessel.'
+
+"Then we went back to the smoking-room. He himself mixed the
+cocktails. He talked to me. We discovered that we had mutual
+acquaintances. Never shall I forget that face, that ironic and distant
+look, that sad and melodious voice. Ah! Colonel, gentlemen, I don't
+know what they may say at the Geographic Office, or in the posts of
+the Soudan.... There can be nothing in it but a horrible suspicion.
+Such a man, capable of such a crime,--believe me, it is not possible.
+
+"That is all, Lieutenant," finished Chatelain, after a silence. "I
+have never seen a sadder meal than that one. The officers hurried
+through lunch without a word being spoken, in an atmosphere of
+depression against which no one tried to struggle. And in this
+complete silence, you could see them always furtively watching the
+_City of Naples_, where she was dancing merrily in the breeze, a
+league from shore.
+
+"She was still there in the evening when they assembled for dinner,
+and it was not until a blast of the whistle, followed by curls of
+smoke escaping from the red and black smokestack had announced the
+departure of the vessel for Gabes, that conversation was resumed; and
+even then, less gaily than usual.
+
+"After that, Lieutenant, at the Officers' Club at Sfax, they avoided
+like the plague any subject which risked leading the conversation back
+to Captain de Saint-Avit."
+
+Chatelain had spoken almost in a whisper, and the little people of the
+desert had not heard this singular history. It was an hour since we
+had fired our last cartridge. Around the pool the turtle doves, once
+more reassured, were bathing their feathers. Mysterious great birds
+were flying under the darkening palm trees. A less warm wind rocked
+the trembling black palm branches. We had laid aside our helmets so
+that our temples could welcome the touch of the feeble breeze.
+
+"Chatelain," I said, "it is time to go back to the bordj."
+
+Slowly we picked up the dead doves. I felt the Sergeant looking at me
+reproachfully, as if regretting that he had spoken. Yet during all the
+time that our return trip lasted, I could not find the strength to
+break our desolate silence with a single word.
+
+The night had almost fallen when we arrived. The flag which
+surmounted the post was still visible, drooping on its standard, but
+already its colors were indistinguishable. To the west the sun had
+disappeared behind the dunes gashed against the black violet of the
+sky.
+
+When we had crossed the gate of the fortifications, Chatelain left me.
+
+"I am going to the stables," he said.
+
+I returned alone to that part of the fort where the billets for the
+Europeans and the stores of ammunition were located. An inexpressible
+sadness weighed upon me.
+
+I thought of my comrades in French garrisons. At this hour they must
+be returning home to find awaiting them, spread out upon the bed,
+their dress uniform, their braided tunic, their sparkling epaulettes.
+
+"Tomorrow," I said to myself, "I shall request a change of station."
+
+The stairway of hard-packed earth was already black. But a few gleams
+of light still seemed palely prowling in the office when I entered.
+
+A man was sitting at my desk, bending over the files of orders. His
+back was toward me. He did not hear me enter.
+
+"Really, Gourrut, my lad, I beg you not to disturb yourself. Make
+yourself completely at home."
+
+The man had risen, and I saw him to be quite tall, slender and very
+pale.
+
+"Lieutenant Ferrières, is it not?"
+
+He advanced, holding out his hand.
+
+"Captain de Saint-Avit. Delighted, my dear fellow."
+
+At the same time Chatelain appeared on the threshold.
+
+"Sergeant," said the newcomer, "I cannot congratulate you on the
+little I have seen. There is not a camel saddle which is not in want
+of buckles, and they are rusty enough to suggest that it rains at
+Hassi-Inifel three hundred days in the year. Furthermore, where were
+you this afternoon? Among the four Frenchmen who compose the post, I
+found only on my arrival one convict, opposite a quart of eau-de-vie.
+We will change all that, I hope. At ease."
+
+"Captain," I said, and my voice was colorless, while Chatelain
+remained frozen at attention, "I must tell you that the Sergeant was
+with me, that it is I who am responsible for his absence from the
+post, that he is an irreproachable non-commissioned officer from every
+point of view, and that if we had been warned of your arrival--"
+
+"Evidently," he said, with a coldly ironical smile. "Also, Lieutenant,
+I have no intention of holding him responsible for the negligences
+which attach to your office. He is not obliged to know that the
+officer who abandons a post like Hassi-Inifel, if it is only for two
+hours, risks not finding much left on his return. The Chaamba
+brigands, my dear sir, love firearms, and for the sake of the sixty
+muskets in your racks, I am sure they would not scruple to make an
+officer, whose otherwise excellent record is well known to me, account
+for his absence to a court-martial. Come with me, if you please. We
+will finish the little inspection I began too rapidly a little while
+ago."
+
+He was already on the stairs. I followed in his footsteps. Chatelain
+closed the order of march. I heard him murmuring, in a tone which you
+can imagine:
+
+"Well, we are in for it now!"
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+CAPTAIN DE SAINT-AVIT
+
+
+A few days sufficed to convince us that Chatelain's fears as to our
+official relations with the new chief were vain. Often I have thought
+that by the severity he showed at our first encounter Saint-Avit
+wished to create a formal barrier, to show us that he knew how to keep
+his head high in spite of the weight of his heavy past. Certain it is
+that the day after his arrival, he showed himself in a very different
+light, even complimenting the Sergeant on the upkeep of the post and
+the instruction of the men. To me he was charming.
+
+"We are of the same class, aren't we?" he said to me. "I don't have
+to ask you to dispense with formalities, it is your right."
+
+Vain marks of confidence, alas! False witnesses to a freedom of
+spirit, one in face of the other. What more accessible in appearance
+than the immense Sahara, open to all those who are willing to be
+engulfed by it? Yet what is more secret? After six months of
+companionship, of communion of life such as only a Post in the South
+offers, I ask myself if the most extraordinary of my adventures is not
+to be leaving to-morrow, toward unsounded solitudes, with a man whose
+real thoughts are as unknown to me as these same solitudes, for which
+he has succeeded in making me long.
+
+The first surprise which was given me by this singular companion was
+occasioned by the baggage that followed him.
+
+On his inopportune arrival, alone, from Wargla, he had trusted to the
+Mehari he rode only what can be carried without harm by such a
+delicate beast,--his arms, sabre and revolver, a heavy carbine, and a
+very reduced pack. The rest did not arrive till fifteen days later,
+with the convoy which supplied the post.
+
+Three cases of respectable dimensions were carried one after another
+to the Captain's room, and the grimaces of the porters said enough as
+to their weight.
+
+I discreetly left Saint-Avit to his unpacking and began opening the
+mail which the convoy had sent me.
+
+He returned to the office a little later and glanced at the several
+reviews which I had just recieved.
+
+"So," he said. "You take these."
+
+He skimmed through, as he spoke, the last number of the _Zeitschrift
+der Gesellschaft fur Erdkunde in Berlin_.
+
+"Yes," I answered. "These gentlemen are kind enough to interest
+themselves in my works on the geology of the Wadi Mia and the high
+Igharghar."
+
+"That may be useful to me," he murmured, continuing to turn over the
+leaves.
+
+"It's at your service."
+
+"Thanks. I am afraid I have nothing to offer you in exchange, except
+Pliny, perhaps. And still--you know what he said of Igharghar,
+according to King Juba. However, come help me put my traps in place
+and you will see if anything appeals to you."
+
+I accepted without further urging.
+
+We commenced by unearthing various meteorological and astronomical
+instruments--the thermometers of Baudin, Salleron, Fastre, an aneroid,
+a Fortin barometer, chronometers, a sextant, an astronomical spyglass,
+a compass glass.... In short, what Duveyrier calls the material that
+is simplest and easiest to transport on a camel.
+
+As Saint-Avit handed them to me I arranged them on the only table in
+the room.
+
+"Now," he announced to me, "there is nothing more but books. I will
+pass them to you. Pile them up in a corner until I can have a
+book-shelf made."
+
+For two hours altogether I helped him to heap up a real library. And
+what a library! Such as never before a post in the South had seen. All
+the texts consecrated, under whatever titles, by antiquity to the
+regions of the Sahara were reunited between the four rough-cast walls
+of that little room of the bordj. Herodotus and Pliny, naturally, and
+likewise Strabo and Ptolemy, Pomponius Mela, and Ammien Marcellin. But
+besides these names which reassured my ignorance a little, I perceived
+those of Corippus, of Paul Orose, of Eratosthenes, of Photius, of
+Diodorus of Sicily, of Solon, of Dion Cassius, of Isidor of Seville,
+of Martin de Tyre, of Ethicus, of Athenée, the _Scriptores Historiae
+Augustae_, the _Itinerarium Antonini Augusti_, the _Geographi Latini
+Minores_ of Riese, the _Geographi Graeci Minores_ of Karl Muller....
+Since I have had the occasion to familiarize myself with Agatarchides
+of Cos and Artemidorus of Ephesus, but I admit that in this instance
+the presence of their dissertations in the saddle bags of a captain of
+cavalry caused me some amazement.
+
+I mention further the _Descrittione dell' Africa_ by Leon l'African,
+the _Arabian Histories_ of Ibn-Khaldoun, of Al-Iaquob, of El-Bekri, of
+Ibn-Batoutah, of Mahommed El-Tounsi.... In the midst of this Babel, I
+remember the names of only two volumes of contemporary French
+scholars. There were also the laborious theses of Berlioux[3] and of
+Schirmer.[4]
+
+[Footnote 3: Doctrina Ptolemaei ab injuria recentiorum vindicata, sive
+Nilus Superior et Niger verus, hodiernus Eghiren, ab anitiquis
+explorati. Paris, 8vo, 1874, with two maps. (Note by M. Leroux.)]
+
+[Footnote 4: De nomine et genere popularum qui berberi vulgo dicuntur.
+Paris, 8vo, 1892. (Note by M. Leroux.)]
+
+While I proceeded to make piles of as similar dimensions as possible I
+kept saying to myself:
+
+"To think that I have been believing all this time that in his mission
+with Morhange, Saint-Avit was particularly concerned in scientific
+observations. Either my memory deceives me strangely or he is riding a
+horse of another color. What is sure is that there is nothing for me
+in the midst of all this chaos."
+
+He must have read on my face the signs of too apparently expressed
+surprise, for he said in a tone in which I divined a tinge of
+defiance:
+
+"The choice of these books surprises you a bit?"
+
+"I can't say it surprises me," I replied, "since I don't know the
+nature of the work for which you have collected them. In any case I
+dare say, without fear of being contradicted, that never before has
+officer of the Arabian Office possessed a library in which the
+humanities were so, well represented."
+
+He smiled evasively, and that day we pursued the subject no further.
+
+Among Saint-Avit's books I had noticed a voluminous notebook secured
+by a strong lock. Several times I surprised him in the act of making
+notations in it. When for any reason he was called out of the room he
+placed his album carefully in a small cabinet of white wood, provided
+by the munificence of the Administration. When he was not writing and
+the office did not require his presence, he had the mehari which he
+had brought with him saddled, and a few minutes later, from the
+terrace of the fortifications, I could see the double silhouette
+disappearing with great strides behind a hummock of red earth on the
+horizon.
+
+Each time these trips lasted longer. From each he returned in a kind
+of exaltation which made me watch him with daily increasing
+disquietude during meal hours, the only time we passed quite alone
+together.
+
+"Well," I said to myself one day when his remarks had been more
+lacking in sequence than usual, "it's no fun being aboard a submarine
+when the captain takes opium. What drug can this fellow be taking,
+anyway?"
+
+Next day I looked hurriedly through my comrade's drawers. This
+inspection, which I believed to be my duty, reassured me momentarily.
+"All very good," I thought, "provided he does not carry with him his
+capsules and his Pravaz syringe."
+
+I was still in that stage where I could suppose that André's
+imagination needed artificial stimulants.
+
+Meticulous observation undeceived me. There was nothing suspicious in
+this respect. Moreover, he rarely drank and almost never smoked.
+
+And nevertheless, there was no means of denying the increase of his
+disquieting feverishness. He returned from his expeditions each time
+with his eyes more brilliant. He was paler, more animated, more
+irritable.
+
+One evening he left the post about six o'clock, at the end of the
+greatest heat of the day. We waited for him all night. My anxiety was
+all the stronger because quite recently caravans had brought tidings
+of bands of robbers in the neighborhood of the post.
+
+At dawn he had not returned. He did not come before midday. His camel
+collapsed under him, rather than knelt.
+
+He realized that he must excuse himself, but he waited till we were
+alone at lunch.
+
+"I am so sorry to have caused you any anxiety. But the dunes were so
+beautiful under the moon! I let myself be carried farther and
+farther...."
+
+"I have no reproaches to make, dear fellow, you are free, and the
+chief here. Only allow me to recall to you certain warnings concerning
+the Chaamba brigands, and the misfortunes that might arise from a
+Commandant of a post absenting himself too long."
+
+He smiled.
+
+"I don't dislike such evidence of a good memory," he said simply.
+
+He was in excellent, too excellent spirits.
+
+"Don't blame me. I set out for a short ride as usual. Then, the moon
+rose. And then, I recognized the country. It is just where, twenty
+years ago next November, Flatters followed the way to his destiny in
+an exaltation which the certainty of not returning made keener and
+more intense."
+
+"Strange state of mind for a chief of an expedition," I murmured.
+
+"Say nothing against Flatters. No man ever loved the desert as he
+did ... even to dying of it."
+
+"Palat and Douls, among many others, have loved it as much," I
+answered. "But they were alone when they exposed themselves to it.
+Responsible only for their own lives, they were free. Flatters, on the
+other hand, was responsible for sixty lives. And you cannot deny that
+he allowed his whole party to be massacred."
+
+The words were hardly out of my lips before I regretted them, I
+thought of Chatelain's story, of the officers' club at Sfax, where
+they avoided like the plague any kind of conversation which might lead
+their thoughts toward a certain Morhange-Saint-Avit mission.
+
+Happily I observed that my companion was not listening. His brilliant
+eyes were far away.
+
+"What was your first garrison?" he asked suddenly.
+
+"Auxonne."
+
+He gave an unnatural laugh.
+
+"Auxonne. Province of the Cote d'Or. District of Dijon. Six thousand
+inhabitants. P.L.M. Railway. Drill school and review. The Colonel's
+wife receives Thursdays, and the Major's on Saturdays. Leaves every
+Sunday,--the first of the month to Paris, the three others to Dijon.
+That explains your Judgment of Flatters.
+
+"For my part, my dear fellow, my first garrison was at Boghar. I
+arrived there one morning in October, a second lieutenant, aged
+twenty, of the First African Batallion, the white chevron on my black
+sleeve.... Sun stripe, as the _bagnards_ say in speaking of their
+grades. Boghar! Two days before, from the bridge of the steamer, I had
+begun to see the shores of Africa. I pity all those who, when they see
+those pale cliffs for the first time, do not feel a great leap at
+their hearts, at the thought that this land prolongs itself thousands
+and thousands of leagues.... I was little more than a child, I had
+plenty of money. I was ahead of schedule. I could have stopped three
+or four days at Algiers to amuse myself. Instead I took the train that
+same evening for Berroughia.
+
+"There, scarcely a hundred kilometers from Algiers, the railway
+stopped. Going in a straight line you won't find another until you get
+to the Cape. The diligence travels at night on account of the heat.
+When we came to the hills I got out and walked beside the carriage,
+straining for the sensation, in this new atmosphere, of the kiss of
+the outlying desert.
+
+"About midnight, at the Camp of the Zouaves, a humble post on the road
+embankment, overlooking a dry valley whence rose the feverish perfume
+of oleander, we changed horses. They had there a troop of convicts and
+impressed laborers, under escort of riflemen and convoys to the
+quarries in the South. In part, rogues in uniform, from the jails of
+Algiers and Douara,--without arms, of course; the others
+civilians--such civilians! this year's recruits, the young bullies of
+the Chapelle and the Goutte-d'Or.
+
+"They left before we did. Then the diligence caught up with them. From
+a distance I saw in a pool of moonlight on the yellow road the black
+irregular mass of the convoy. Then I heard a weary dirge; the wretches
+were singing. One, in a sad and gutteral voice, gave the couplet,
+which trailed dismally through the depths of the blue ravines:
+
+"'_Maintenant qu'elle est grande,
+  Elle fait le trottoir,
+  Avec ceux de la bande
+        A Richard-Lenoir_.'
+
+"And the others took up in chorus the horrible refrain:
+
+"'_A la Bastille, a la Bastille,
+  On aime bien, on aime bien
+        Nini Peau d'Chien;
+  Elle est si belle et si gentille
+          A la Bastille_'
+
+"I saw them all in contrast to myself when the diligence passed them.
+They were terrible. Under the hideous searchlight their eyes shone
+with a sombre fire in their pale and shaven faces. The burning dust
+strangled their raucous voices in their throats. A frightful sadness
+took possession of me.
+
+"When the diligence had left this fearful nightmare behind, I regained
+my self-control.
+
+"'Further, much further South,' I exclaimed to myself, 'to the places
+untouched by this miserable bilgewater of civilization.'
+
+"When I am weary, when I have a moment of anguish and longing to turn
+back on the road that I have chosen, I think of the prisoners of
+Berroughia, and then I am glad to continue on my way.
+
+"But what a reward, when I am in one of those places where the poor
+animals never think of fleeing because they have never seen man, where
+the desert stretches out around me so widely that the old world could
+crumble, and never a single ripple on the dune, a single cloud in the
+white sky come to warn me.
+
+"'It is true,' I murmured. 'I, too, once, in the middle of the desert,
+at Tidi-Kelt, I felt that way.'"
+
+Up to that time I had let him enjoy his exaltations without
+interruption. I understood too late the error that I had made in
+pronouncing that unfortunate sentence.
+
+His mocking nervous laughter began anew.
+
+"Ah! Indeed, at Tidi-Kelt? I beg you, old man, in your own interest,
+if you don't want to make an ass of yourself, avoid that species of
+reminiscence. Honestly, you make me think of Fromentin, or that poor
+Maupassant, who talked of the desert because he had been to Djelfa,
+two days' journey from the street of Bab-Azound and the Government
+buildings, four days from the Avenue de l'Opera;--and who, because he
+saw a poor devil of a camel dying near Bou-Saada, believed himself in
+the heart of the desert, on the old route of the caravans....
+Tidi-Kelt, the desert!"
+
+"It seems to me, however, that In-Salah--" I said, a little vexed.
+
+"In-Salah? Tidi-Kelt! But, my poor friend, the last time that I passed
+that way there were as many old newspapers and empty sardine boxes as
+if it had been Sunday in the Wood of Vincennes."
+
+Such a determined, such an evident desire to annoy me made me forget
+my reserve.
+
+"Evidently," I replied resentfully, "I have never been to--"
+
+I stopped myself, but it was already too late.
+
+He looked at me, squarely in the face.
+
+"To where?" he said with good humor.
+
+I did not answer.
+
+"To where?" he repeated.
+
+And, as I remained strangled in my muteness:
+
+"To Wadi Tarhit, do you mean?"
+
+It was on the east bank of Wadi Tarhit, a hundred and twenty
+kilometers from Timissao, at 25.5 degrees north latitude, according to
+the official report, that Captain Morhange was buried.
+
+"André," I cried stupidly, "I swear to you--"
+
+"What do you swear to me?"
+
+"That I never meant--"
+
+"To speak of Wadi Tarhit? Why? Why should you not speak to me of Wadi
+Tarhit?"
+
+In answer to my supplicating silence, he merely shrugged his
+shoulders.
+
+"Idiot," was all he said.
+
+And he left me before I could think of even one word to say.
+
+So much humility on my part had, however, not disarmed him. I had the
+proof of it the next day, and the way he showed his humor was even
+marked by an exhibition of wretchedly poor taste.
+
+I was just out of bed when he came into my room.
+
+"Can you tell me what is the meaning of this?" he demanded.
+
+He had in his hand one of the official registers. In his nervous
+crises he always began sorting them over, in the hope of finding some
+pretext for making himself militarily insupportable.
+
+This time chance had favored him.
+
+He opened the register. I blushed violently at seeing the poor proof
+of a photograph that I knew well.
+
+"What is that?" he repeated disdainfully.
+
+Too often I had surprised him in the act of regarding, none too
+kindly, the portrait of Mlle. de C. which hung in my room not to be
+convinced at that moment that he was trying to pick a quarrel with me.
+
+I controlled myself, however, and placed the poor little print in the
+drawer.
+
+But my calmness did not pacify him.
+
+"Henceforth," he said, "take care, I beg you, not to mix mementoes of
+your gallantry with the official papers."
+
+He added, with a smile that spoke insult:
+
+"It isn't necessary to furnish objects of excitation to Gourrut."
+
+"André," I said, and I was white, "I demand--"
+
+He stood up to the full height of his stature.
+
+"Well what is it? A gallantry, nothing more. I have authorized you to
+speak of Wadi Halfa, haven't I? Then I have the right, I should
+think--"
+
+"André!"
+
+Now he was looking maliciously at the wall, at the little portrait the
+replica of which I had just subjected to this painful scene.
+
+"There, there, I say, you aren't angry, are you? But between ourselves
+you will admit, will you not, that she is a little thin?"
+
+And before I could find time to answer him, he had removed himself,
+humming the shameful refrain of the previous night:
+
+"_A la Bastille, a la Bastille,
+ On aime bien, on aime bien,
+       Nini, Peau de Chien_."
+
+For three days neither of us spoke to the other. My exasperation was
+too deep for words. Was I, then, to be held responsible for his
+avatars! Was it my fault if, between two phrases, one seemed always
+some allusion--
+
+"The situation is intolerable," I said to myself. "It cannot last
+longer."
+
+It was to cease very soon.
+
+One week after the scene of the photograph the courier arrived. I had
+scarcely glanced at the index of the _Zeitschrift_, the German review
+of which I have already spoken, when I started with uncontrollable
+amazement. I had just read: _"Reise und Entdeckungen zwei
+fronzosischer offiziere, Rittmeisters Morhange und Oberleutnants de
+Saint-Avit, in westlichen Sahara."_
+
+At the same time I heard my comrade's voice.
+
+"Anything interesting in this number?"
+
+"No," I answered carelessly.
+
+"Let's see."
+
+I obeyed; what else was there to do?
+
+It seemed to me that he grew paler as he ran over the index. However,
+his tone was altogether natural when he said:
+
+"You will let me borrow it, of course?"
+
+And he went out, casting me one defiant glance.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The day passed slowly. I did not see him again until evening. He was
+gay, very gay, and his gaiety hurt me.
+
+When we had finished dinner, we went out and leaned on the balustrade
+of the terrace. From there out swept the desert, which the darkness
+was already encroaching upon from the east.
+
+André broke the silence.
+
+"By the way, I have returned your review to you. You were right, it is
+not interesting."
+
+His expression was one of supreme amusement.
+
+"What is it, what is the matter with you, anyway?"
+
+"Nothing," I answered, my throat aching.
+
+"Nothing? Shall I tell you what is the matter with you?"
+
+I looked at him with an expression of supplication.
+
+"Idiot," he found it necessary to repeat once more.
+
+Night fell quickly. Only the southern slope of Wadi Mia was still
+yellow. Among the boulders a little jackal was running about, yapping
+sharply.
+
+"The _dib_ is making a fuss about nothing, bad business," said
+Saint-Avit.
+
+He continued pitilessly:
+
+"Then you aren't willing to say anything?"
+
+I made a great effort, to produce the following pitiful phrase:
+
+"What an exhausting day. What a night, heavy, heavy--You don't feel
+like yourself, you don't know any more--"
+
+"Yes," said the voice of Saint-Avit, as from a distance, "A heavy,
+heavy night: as heavy, do you know, as when I killed Captain
+Morhange."
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+THE MORHANGE-SAINT-AVIT MISSION
+
+
+"So I killed Captain Morhange," André de Saint-Avit said to me the
+next day, at the same time, in the same place, with a calm that took
+no account of the night, the frightful night I had just been through.
+"Why do I tell you this? I don't know in the least. Because of the
+desert, perhaps. Are you a man capable of enduring the weight of that
+confidence, and further, if necessary, of assuming the consequences it
+may bring? I don't know that, either. The future will decide. For the
+present there is only one thing certain, the fact, I tell you again,
+that I killed Captain Morhange.
+
+"I killed him. And, since you want me to specify the reason, you
+understand that I am not going to torture my brain to turn it into a
+romance for you, or commence by recounting in the naturalistic manner
+of what stuff my first trousers were made, or, as the neo-Catholics
+would have it, how often I went as a child to confession, and how much
+I liked doing it. I have no taste for useless exhibitions. You will
+find that this recital begins strictly at the time when I met
+Morhange.
+
+"And first of all, I tell you, however much it has cost my peace of
+mind and my reputation, I do not regret having known him. In a word,
+apart from all question of false friendship, I am convicted of a black
+ingratitude in having killed him. It is to him, it is to his knowledge
+of rock inscriptions, that I owe the only thing that has raised my
+life in interest above the miserable little lives dragged out by my
+companions at Auxonne, and elsewhere.
+
+"This being understood, here are the facts:"
+
+[NOTE: From this point on begins an extended narrative;
+indeed it may be most of the remaining book.
+I was changing the quoting, until I reached the end
+of the chapter and found that it continued on from there.]
+
+It was in the Arabian Office at Wargla, when I was a lieutenant, that
+I first heard the name, Morhange. And I must add that it was for me
+the occasion of an attack of bad humor. We were having difficult
+times. The hostility of the Sultan of Morocco was latent. At Touat,
+where the assassination of Flatters and of Frescaly had already been
+concocted, connivance was being given to the plots of our enemies.
+Touat was the center of conspiracies, of razzias, of defections, and
+at the same time, the depot of supply for the insatiable nomads. The
+Governors of Algeria, Tirman, Cambon, Laferriere, demanded its
+occupation. The Ministers of War tacitly agreed.... But there was
+Parliament, which did nothing at all, because of England, because of
+Germany, and above all because of a certain _Declaration of the Rights
+of Man and of the Citizen_, which prescribed that insurrection is the
+most sacred of duties, even when the insurgents are savages who cut
+your head off. In short, the military authority could only, at its own
+discretion, increase the southern garrisons, and establish new posts;
+this one, Berresof, Hassi-el-Mia, Fort MacMahon, Fort Lallemand, Fort
+Miribel.... But as Castries puts it, you don't hold the nomads with
+bordjs, you hold them by the belt. The middle was the oasis of Touat.
+Their honors, the lawyers of Paris, had to be convinced of the
+necessity of taking possession of the oasis of Touat. The best way
+would be to present them with a faithful picture of the plots that
+were being woven there against us.
+
+The principal authors were, and still are, the Senoussis, whose able
+chief has been forced by our arms to transfer the seat of his
+confederation several thousand leagues from there, to Schimmedrou, in
+the Tibesti. They had, I say _they_ through modesty, the idea of
+ascertaining the traces left by these agitators on their favorite
+places of concourse; Rhât, Temassinin, the plain of Adejamor, and
+In-Salah. It was, you see, at least after leaving Temassinin,
+practically the same itinerary as that followed in 1864 by General
+Rohlfs.
+
+I had already attracted some attention by two excursions, one to
+Agadès, and the other to Bilma, and was considered by the staff
+officers to be one of the best informed on the Senoussis question. I
+was therefore selected to assume this new task.
+
+I then suggested that it would be of interest to kill two birds with
+one stone, and to get, in passing, an idea of the northern Ahaggar, so
+as to make sure whether the Tuaregs of Ahitarhen had continued to have
+as cordial relations with the Senoussis as they had had when they
+combined to massacre the Flatters' mission. I was immediately accorded
+the permission. The change in my first plan was as follows: After
+reaching Ighelaschem, six hundred kilometers south of Temassinin,
+instead of taking the direct road to Touat via Rhât, I would,
+penetrating between the high land of Mouydir and Ahaggar, strike off
+to the southwest as far as Shikh-Salah. Here I would turn again
+northwards, towards In-Salah, by the road to the Soudan and Agadès. In
+all hardly eight kilometers additional in a trip of about seven
+hundred leagues, with the certainty of making as complete an
+examination as possible of the roads which our enemies, the Senoussis
+of Tibesti and the Tuareg of the Ahaggar, must follow to arrive at
+Touat. On the way, for every explorer has his pet fancy, I was not at
+all displeased to think that I would have a chance to examine the
+geological formation of the plateau of Egere, about which Duveyrier
+and the others are so disappointingly indefinite.
+
+Everything was ready for my departure from Wargla. Everything, which
+is to say, very little. Three mehara: mine, my companion Bou-Djema's
+(a faithful Chaamba, whom I had had with me in my wanderings through
+the Air, less of a guide in the country I was familiar with than a
+machine for saddling and unsaddling camels), then a third to carry
+provisions and skins of drinking water, very little, since I had taken
+pains to locate the stops with reference to the wells.
+
+Some people go equipped for this kind of expedition with a hundred
+regulars, and even cannon. I am for the tradition of Douls and René
+Callie, I go alone.
+
+I was at that perfect moment when only one thin thread still held me
+to the civilized world when an official cable arrived at Wargla.
+
+"Lieutenant de Saint-Avit," it said briefly, "will delay his departure
+until the arrival of Captain Morhange, who will accompany him on his
+expedition of exploration."
+
+I was more than disappointed. I alone had had the idea of this
+expedition. I had had all the difficulty that you can imagine to make
+the authorities agree to it. And now when I was rejoicing at the idea
+of the long hours I would spend alone with myself in the heart of the
+desert, they sent me a stranger, and, to make matters worse, a
+superior.
+
+The condolences of my comrades aggravated my bad humor.
+
+The Yearly Report, consulted on the spot, had given them the following
+information:
+
+"Morhange (Jean-Marie-François), class of 1881. Breveted. Captain,
+unassigned. (Topographical Service of the Army.)"
+
+"There is the explanation for you," said one. "They are sending one of
+their creatures to pull the chestnuts out of the fire, after you have
+had all the trouble of making it. Breveted! That's a great way. The
+theories of Ardant du Picq or else nothing about here."
+
+"I don't altogether agree with you," said the Major. "They knew in
+Parliament, for some one is always indiscreet, the real aim of
+Saint-Avit's mission: to force their hand for the occupation of Touat.
+And this Morhange must be a man serving the interests of the Army
+Commission. All these people, secretaries, members of Parliament,
+governors, keep a close watch on each other. Some one will write an
+amusing paradoxical history some day, of the French Colonial
+Expansion, which is made without the knowledge of the powers in
+office, when it is not actually in spite of them."
+
+"Whatever the reason, the result will be the same," I said bitterly;
+"we will be two Frenchmen to spy on each other night and day, along
+the roads to the south. An amiable prospect when one has none too much
+time to foil all the tricks of the natives. When does he arrive?"
+
+"Day after tomorrow, probably. I have news of a convoy coming from
+Ghardaia. It is likely that he will avail himself of it. The
+indications are that he doesn't know very much about traveling alone."
+
+Captain Morhange did arrive in fact two days later by means of the
+convoy from Ghardaia. I was the first person for whom he asked.
+
+When he came to my room, whither I had withdrawn in dignity as soon as
+the convoy was sighted, I was disagreeably surprised to foresee that I
+would have great difficulty in preserving my prejudice against him.
+
+He was tall, his face full and ruddy, with laughing blue eyes, a small
+black moustache, and hair that was already white.
+
+"I have a thousand apologies to make to you, my dear fellow," he said
+immediately, with a frankness that I have never seen in any other man.
+"You must be furious with my importunity in upsetting your plans and
+delaying your departure."
+
+"By no means, Captain," I replied coolly.
+
+"You really have only yourself to blame. It is on account of your
+knowledge of the southern, routes, so highly esteemed at Paris, that I
+wished to have you to initiate me when the Ministries of Instruction
+and of Commerce, and the Geographical Society combined to charge me
+with the mission which brings me here. These three honorable
+institutions have in fact entrusted me with the attempt to
+re-establish the ancient track of the caravans, which, from the ninth
+century, trafficked between Tunis and the Soudan, by Toweur, Wargla,
+Es-Souk and the bend of the Bourroum; and to study the possibility of
+restoring this route to its ancient splendor. At the same time, at the
+Geographic Bureau, I heard of the journey that you are undertaking.
+From Wargla to Shikh-Salah our two itineraries are the same. Only I
+must admit to you that it is the first voyage of this kind that I have
+ever undertaken. I would not be afraid to hold forth for an hour on
+Arabian literature in the amphitheatre of the School of Oriental
+Languages, but I know well enough that in the desert I should have to
+ask for directions whether to turn right or left. This is the only
+chance which could give me such an opportunity, and at the same time
+put me under obligation for this introduction to so charming a
+companion. You must not blame me if I seized it, if I used all my
+influence to retard your departure from Wargla until the instant when
+I could join you. I have only one more word to add to what I have
+said. I am entrusted with a mission which by its origin is rendered
+essentially civilian. You are sent out by the Ministry of War. Up to
+the moment when, arrived at Shikh-Salah we turn our backs on each
+other to attain, you Touat, and I the Niger, all your recommendations,
+all your orders, will be followed by a subaltern, and, I hope, by a
+friend as well."
+
+All the time he was talking so openly I felt delightedly my worst
+recent fears melting away. Nevertheless, I still experienced a mean
+desire to show him some marks of reserve, for having thus disposed of
+my company at a distance, without consulting me.
+
+"I am very grateful to you, Captain, for your extremely flattering
+words. When do you wish to leave Wargla?"
+
+He made a gesture of complete detachment.
+
+"Whenever you like. Tomorrow, this evening. I have already delayed
+you. Your preparations must have already been made for some time."
+
+My little maneuver had turned against myself. I had not been counting
+on leaving before the next week.
+
+"Tomorrow, Captain, but your luggage?"
+
+He smiled delightfully.
+
+"I thought it best to bring as little as possible. A light pack, some
+papers. My brave camel had no difficulty in bringing it along. For the
+rest I depend on your advice, and the resources of Owargla."
+
+I was well caught. I had nothing further to say. And moreover, such
+freedom of spirit and manner had already captivated me.
+
+"It seems," said my comrades, when the time for aperitives had brought
+us all together again, "that this Captain of yours is a remarkably
+charming fellow."
+
+"Remarkably."
+
+"You surely can't have any trouble with him. It is only up to you to
+see that later on he doesn't get all the glory."
+
+"We aren't working with the same end in view," I answered evasively.
+
+I was thoughtful, only thoughtful I give you my word. From that moment
+I harbored no further grudge against Morhange. Yet my silence
+persuaded him that I was unforgiving. And everyone, do you hear me,
+everyone said later on, when suspicions became rife:
+
+"He is surely guilty. We saw them go off together. We can affirm it."
+
+I am guilty.... But for a low motive of jealousy.... How sickening....
+
+After that, there was nothing to do but to flee, flee, as far as the
+places where there are no more men who think and reason.
+
+Morhange, appeared, his arm resting on the Major's, who was beaming
+over this new acquaintanceship.
+
+He presented him enthusiastically:
+
+"Captain Morhange, gentlemen. An officer of the old school, and a man
+after our own hearts, I give you my word. He wants to leave tomorrow,
+but we must give him such a reception that he will forget that idea
+before two days are up. Come, Captain, you have at least eight days to
+give us."
+
+"I am at the disposition of Lieutenant de Saint-Avit," replied
+Morhange, with a quiet smile.
+
+The conversation became general. The sound of glasses and laughter
+rang out. I heard my comrades in ecstasies over the stories that the
+newcomer poured out with never-failing humor. And I, never, never have
+I felt so sad.
+
+The time came to pass into the dining-room.
+
+"At my right, Captain," cried the Major, more and more beaming. "And I
+hope you will keep on giving us these new lines on Paris. We are not
+up with the times here, you know."
+
+"Yours to command, Major," said Morhange.
+
+"Be seated, gentlemen."
+
+The officers obeyed, with a joyous clatter of moving chairs. I had not
+taken my eyes off Morhange, who was still standing.
+
+"Major, gentlemen, you will allow me," he said.
+
+And before sitting down at that table, where every moment he was the
+life of the party, in a low voice, with his eyes closed, Captain
+Morhange recited the Benedicite.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+TOWARDS LATITUDE 25
+
+
+"You see," said Captain Morhange to me fifteen days later, "you are
+much better informed about the ancient routes through the Sahara than
+you have been willing to let me suppose, since you know of the
+existence of the two Tadekkas. But the one of which you have just
+spoken is the Tadekka of Ibn-Batoutah, located by this historian
+seventy days from Touat, and placed by Schirmer, very plausibly, in
+the unexplored territory of the Aouelimmiden. This is the Tadekka by
+which the Sonrhaï caravans passed every year, travelling by Egypt.
+
+"My Tadekka is different, the capital of the veiled people, placed by
+Ibn-Khaldoun twenty days south of Wargla, which he calls Tadmekka. It
+is towards this Tadmekka that I am headed. I must establish Tadmekka
+in the ruins of Es-Souk. The commercial trade route, which in the
+ninth century bound the Tunisian Djerid to the bend the Niger makes at
+Bourroum, passed by Es-Souk. It is to study the possibility of
+reestablishing this ancient thoroughfare that the Ministries gave me
+this mission, which has given me the pleasure of your companionship."
+
+"You are probably in for a disappointment," I said. "Everything
+indicates that the commerce there is very slight."
+
+"Well, I shall see," he answered composedly.
+
+This was while we were following the unicolored banks of a salt lake.
+The great saline stretch shone pale-blue, under the rising sun. The
+legs of our five mehara cast on it their moving shadows of a darker
+blue. For a moment the only inhabitant of these solitudes, a bird, a
+kind of indeterminate heron, rose and hung in the air, as if
+suspended from a thread, only to sink back to rest as soon as we had
+passed.
+
+I led the way, selecting the route, Morhange followed. Enveloped in a
+bernous, his head covered with the straight _chechia_ of the Spahis, a
+great chaplet of alternate red and white beads, ending in a cross,
+around his neck, he realized perfectly the ideal of Father Lavigerie's
+White Fathers.
+
+After a two-days' halt at Temassinin we had just left the road
+followed by Flatters, and taken an oblique course to the south. I have
+the honor of having antedated Fourcau in demonstrating the importance
+of Temassinin as a geometrical point for the passage of caravans, and
+of selecting the place where Captain Pein has just now constructed a
+fort. The junction for the roads that lead to Touat from Fezzan and
+Tibesti, Temassinin is the future seat of a marvellous Intelligence
+Department. What I had collected there in two days about the
+disposition of our Senoussis enemies was of importance. I noticed that
+Morhange let me proceed with my inquiries with complete indifference.
+
+These two days he had passed in conversation with the old Negro
+guardian of the turbet, which preserves, under its plaster dome, the
+remains of the venerated Sidi-Moussa. The confidences they exchanged,
+I am sorry to say that I have forgotten. But from the Negro's amazed
+admiration, I realized the ignorance in which I stood to the mysteries
+of the desert, and how familiar they were to my companion.
+
+And if you want to get any idea of the extraordinary originality which
+Morhange introduced into such surroundings, you who, after all, have a
+certain familiarity with the tropics, listen to this. It was exactly
+two hundred kilometers from here, in the vicinity of the Great Dune,
+in that horrible stretch of six days without water. We had just enough
+for two days before reaching the next well, and you know these wells;
+as Flatters wrote to his wife, "you have to work for hours before you
+can clean them out and succeed in watering beasts and men." By chance
+we met a caravan there, which was going east towards Rhadamès, and had
+come too far north. The camels' humps, shrunken and shaking, bespoke
+the sufferings of the troop. Behind came a little gray ass, a pitiful
+burrow, interfering at every step, and lightened of its pack because
+the merchants knew that it was going to die. Instinctively, with its
+last strength, it followed, knowing that when it could stagger no
+longer, the end would come and the flutter of the bald vultures'
+wings. I love animals, which I have solid reasons for preferring to
+men. But never should I have thought of doing what Morhange did then.
+I tell you that our water skins were almost dry, and that our own
+camels, without which one is lost in the empty desert, had not been
+watered for many hours. Morhange made his kneel, uncocked a skin, and
+made the little ass drink. I certainly felt gratification at seeing
+the poor bare flanks of the miserable beast pant with satisfaction. But
+the responsibility was mine. Also I had seen Bou-Djema's aghast
+expression, and the disapproval of the thirsty members of the caravan.
+I remarked on it. How it was received! "What have I given," replied
+Morhange, "was my own. We will reach El-Biodh to-morrow evening, about
+six o'clock. Between here and there I know that I shall not be
+thirsty." And that in a tone, in which for the first time he allowed
+the authority of a Captain to speak. "That is easy to say," I thought,
+ill-humoredly. "He knows that when he wants them, my water-skin, and
+Bou-Djema's, are at his service." But I did not yet know Morhange very
+well, and it is true that until the evening of the next day when we
+reached El-Biodh, refusing our offers with smiling determination, he
+drank nothing.
+
+Shades of St. Francis of Assisi! Umbrian hills, so pure under the
+rising sun! It was in the light of a like sunrise, by the border of a
+pale stream leaping in full cascades from a crescent-shaped niche of
+the gray rocks of Egere, that Morhange stopped. The unlooked for
+waters rolled upon the sand, and we saw, in the light which mirrored
+them, little black fish. Fish in the middle of the Sahara! All three
+of us were mute before this paradox of Nature. One of them had strayed
+into a little channel of sand. He had to stay there, struggling in
+vain, his little white belly exposed to the air.... Morhange picked
+him up, looked at him for a moment, and put him back into the little
+stream. Shades of St. Francis. Umbrian hills.... But I have sworn not
+to break the thread of the story by these untimely digressions.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"You see," Captain Morhange said to me a week later, "that I was right
+in advising you to go farther south before making for Shikh-Salah.
+Something told me that this highland of Egere was not interesting from
+your point of view. While here you have only to stoop to pick up
+pebbles which will allow you to establish the volcanic origin of this
+region much more certainly than Bou-Derba, des Cloizeaux, and Doctor
+Marrés have done."
+
+This was while we were following the western pass of the Tidifest
+Mountains, about the 25th degree of northern latitude.
+
+"I should indeed be ungrateful not to thank you," I said.
+
+I shall always remember that instant. We had left our camels and were
+collecting fragments of the most characteristic rocks. Morhange
+employed himself with a discernment which spoke worlds for his
+knowledge of geology, a science he had often professed complete
+ignorance of.
+
+Then I asked him the following question:
+
+"May I prove my gratitude by making you a confession?"
+
+He raised his head and looked at me.
+
+"Well then, I don't see the practical value of this trip you have
+undertaken."
+
+He smiled.
+
+"Why not? To explore the old caravan route, to demonstrate that a
+connection has existed from the most ancient times between the
+Mediterranean world, and the country of the Blacks, that seems nothing
+in your eyes? The hope of settling once for all the secular disputes
+which have divided so many keen minds; d'Anville, Heeren, Berlioux,
+Quatremere on the one hand,--on the other Gosselin, Walckenaer,
+Tissit, Vivien, de saint-Martin; you think that that is devoid of
+interest? A plague upon you for being hard to please."
+
+"I spoke of practical value," I said. "You won't deny that this
+controversy is only the affair of cabinet geographers and office
+explorers."
+
+Morhange kept on smiling.
+
+"Dear friend, don't wither me. Deign to recall that your mission was
+confided to you by the Ministry of War, while I hold mine on behalf of
+the Ministry of Public Instruction. A different origin justifies our
+different aims. It certainly explains, I readily concede that to you,
+why what I am in search of has no practical value."
+
+"You are also authorized by the Ministry of Commerce," I replied,
+playing my next card. "By this chief you are instructed to study the
+possibility of restoring the old trade route of the ninth century. But
+on this point don't attempt to mislead me; with your knowledge of the
+history and geography of the Sahara, your mind must have been made up
+before you left Paris. The road from Djerid to the Niger is dead,
+stone dead. You knew that no important traffic would pass by this
+route before you undertook to study the possibility of restoring it."
+
+Morhange looked me full in the face.
+
+"And if that should be so," he said with the most charming attitude,
+"if I had before leaving the conviction you say, what do you conclude
+from that?"
+
+"I should prefer to have you tell me."
+
+"Simply, my dear boy, that I had less skill than you in finding the
+pretext for my voyage, that I furnished less good reasons for the true
+motives that brought me here."
+
+"A pretext? I don't see...."
+
+"Be sincere in your turn, if you please. I am sure that you have the
+greatest desire to inform the Arabian Office about the practices of
+the Senoussis. But admit that the information that you will obtain is
+not the sole and innermost aim of your excursion. You are a geologist,
+my friend. You have found a chance to gratify your taste in this trip.
+No one would think of blaming you because you have known how to
+reconcile what is useful to your country and agreeable to yourself.
+But, for the love of God, don't deny it; I need no other proof than
+your presence here on this side of the Tidifest, a very curious place
+from a mineralogical point of view, but some hundred and fifty
+kilometers south of your official route."
+
+It was not possible to have countered me with a better grace. I
+parried by attacking.
+
+"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.
+
+Not a sound, not a breath. The smoke mounted straight, straight and
+slowly up the pale steps of the firmament.
+
+"Have you ever heard of the _Atlas of Christianity_?" asked Morhange.
+
+"I think so. Isn't it a geographical work published by the
+Benedictines under the direction of a certain Dom Granger?"
+
+"Your memory is correct," said Morhange. "Even so let me explain a
+little more fully some of the things you have not had as much reason
+as I to interest yourself in. The _Atlas of Christianity_ proposes to
+establish the boundaries of that great tide of Christianity through
+all the ages, and for all parts of the globe. An undertaking worthy of
+the Benedictine learning, worthy of such a prodigy of erudition as
+Dom Granger himself."
+
+"And it is these boundaries that you have come to determine here, no
+doubt," I murmured.
+
+"Just so," replied my companion.
+
+He was silent, and I respected his silence, prepared by now to be
+astonished at nothing.
+
+"It is not possible to give confidences by halves, without being
+ridiculous," he continued after several minutes of meditation,
+speaking gravely, in a voice which held no suggestion of that flashing
+humor which had a month before enchanted the young officers at Wargla.
+"I have begun on mine. I will tell you everything. Trust my
+discretion, however, and do not insist upon certain events of my
+private life. If, four years ago, at the close of these events, I
+resolve to enter a monastery, it does not concern you to know my
+reasons. I can marvel at it myself, that the passage in my life of a
+being absolutely devoid of interest should have sufficed to change the
+current of that life. I can marvel that a creature whose sole merit
+was her beauty should have been permitted by the Creator to swing my
+destiny to such an unforeseen direction. The monastery at whose doors
+I knocked had the most valid reasons for doubting the stability of my
+vocation. What the world loses in such fashion it often calls back as
+readily. In short, I cannot blame the Father Abbot for having
+forbidden me to apply for my army discharge. By his instructions, I
+asked for, and obtained, permission to be placed on the inactive list
+for three years. At the end of those three years of consecration it
+would be seen whether the world was definitely dead to your servant.
+
+"The first day of my arrival at the cloister I was assigned to Dom
+Granger, and placed by him at work on the _Atlas of Christianity_. A
+brief examination decided him as to what kind of service I was best
+fitted to render. This is how I came to enter the studio devoted to
+the cartography of Northern Africa. I did not know one word of Arabic,
+but it happened that in garrison at Lyon I had taken at the _Faculté
+des Lettres,_ a course with Berlioux,--a very erudite geographer no
+doubt, but obsessed by one idea, the influence the Greek and Roman
+civilizations had exercised on Africa. This detail of my life was
+enough for Dom Granger. He provided me straightway with Berber
+vocabularies by Venture, by Delaporte, by Brosselard; with the
+_Grammatical Sketch of the Temahaq_ by Stanley Fleeman, and the _Essai
+de Grammaire de la langue Temachek_ by Major Hanoteau. At the end of
+three months I was able to decipher any inscriptions in Tifinar. You
+know that Tifinar is the national writing of the Tuareg, the
+expression of this Temachek language which seems to us the most
+curious protest of the Targui race against its Mohammedan enemies.
+
+"Dom Granger, in fact, believed that the Tuareg are Christians, dating
+from a period which it was necessary to ascertain, but which coincided
+no doubt with the splendor of the church of Hippon. Even better than
+I, you know that the cross is with them the symbol of fate in
+decoration. Duveyrier has claimed that it figures in their alphabet,
+on their arms, among the designs of their clothes. The only tattooing
+that they wear on the forehead, on the back of the hand, is a cross
+with four equal branches; the pummels of their saddles, the handles of
+their sabres, of their poignards, are cross-shaped. And is it
+necessary to remind you that, although Islam forbids bells as a sign
+of Christianity, the harness of Tuareg camels are trimmed with bells?
+
+"Neither Dom Granger nor I attach an exaggerated importance to such
+proofs, which resemble too much those which make such a display in the
+_Genius of Christianity._ But it is indeed impossible to refuse all
+credence to certain theological arguments. Amanai, the God of the
+Tuareg, unquestionably the Adonai of the Bible, is unique. They have a
+hell, 'Timsi-tan-elekhaft,' the last fire, where reigns Iblis, our
+Lucifer. Their Paradise, where they are rewarded for good deeds, is
+inhabited by 'andjelousen,' our angels. And do not urge the
+resemblance of this theology to the Koran, for I will meet you with
+historic arguments and remind you that the Tuareg have struggled all
+through the ages at the cost of partial extermination, to maintain
+their faith against the encroachments of Mohammedan fanaticism.
+
+"Many times I have studied with Dom Granger that formidable epoch when
+the aborigines opposed the conquering Arabs. With him I have seen how
+the army of Sidi-Okba, one of the companions of the Prophet, invaded
+this desert to reduce the Tuareg tribes and impose on them Mussulman
+rules. These tribes were then rich and prosperous. They were the
+Ihbggaren, the Imededren, the Ouadelen, the Kel-Gueress, the Kel-Air.
+But internal quarrels sapped their strength. Still, it was not until
+after a long and cruel war that the Arabians succeeded in getting
+possession of the capital of the Berbers, which had proved such a
+redoubtable stronghold. They destroyed it after they had massacred the
+inhabitants. On the ruins Okba constructed a new city. This city is
+Es-Souk. The one that Sidi-Okba destroyed was the Berber Tadmekka.
+What Dom Granger asked of me was precisely that I should try to exhume
+from the ruins of the Mussulman Es-Souk the ruins of Tadmekka, which
+was Berber, and perhaps Christian."
+
+"I understand," I murmured.
+
+"So far, so good," said Morhange. "But what you must grasp now is the
+practical sense of these religious men, my masters. You remember that,
+even after three years of monastic life, they preserved their doubts
+as to the stability of my vocation. They found at the same time means
+of testing it once for all, and of adapting official facilities to
+their particular purposes. One morning I was called before the Father
+Abbot, and this is what he said to me, in the presence of Dom Granger,
+who expressed silent approval.
+
+"'Your term of inactive service expires in fifteen days. You will
+return to Paris, and apply at the Ministry to be reinstated. With what
+you have learned here, and the relationships we have been able to
+maintain at Headquarters, you will have no difficulty in being
+attached to the Geographical Staff of the army. When you reach the rue
+de Grenelle you will receive our instructions.'
+
+"I was astonished at their confidence in my knowledge. When I was
+reestablished as Captain again in the Geographical Service I
+understood. At the monastery, the daily association with Dom Granger
+and his pupils had kept me constantly convinced of the inferiority of
+my knowledge. When I came in contact with my military brethren I
+realized the superiority of the instruction I had received. I did not
+have to concern myself with the details of my mission. The Ministries
+invited me to undertake it. My initiative asserted itself on only one
+occasion. When I learned that you were going to leave Wargla on the
+present expedition, having reason to distrust my practical
+qualifications as an explorer, I did my best to retard your departure,
+so that I might join you. I hope that you have forgiven me by now."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The light in the west was fading, where the sun had already sunk into
+a matchless luxury of violet draperies. We were alone in this
+immensity, at the feet of the rigid black rocks. Nothing but
+ourselves. Nothing, nothing but ourselves.
+
+I held out my hand to Morhange, and he pressed it. Then he said:
+
+"If they still seem infinitely long to me, the several thousand
+kilometers which separate me from the instant when, my task
+accomplished, I shall at last find oblivion in the cloister for the
+things for which I was not made, let me tell you this;--the several
+hundred kilometers which still separate us from Shikh-Salah seem to me
+infinitely short to traverse in your company."
+
+On the pale water of the little pool, motionless and fixed like a
+silver nail, a star had just been born.
+
+"Shikh-Salah," I murmured, my heart full of an indefinable sadness.
+"Patience, we are not there yet."
+
+In truth, we never were to be there.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+THE INSCRIPTION
+
+
+With a blow of the tip of his cane Morhange knocked a fragment of rock
+from the black flank of the mountain.
+
+"What is it?" he asked, holding it out to me.
+
+"A basaltic peridot," I said.
+
+"It can't be very interesting, you barely glanced at it."
+
+"It is very interesting, on the contrary. But, for the moment, I admit
+that I am otherwise preoccupied."
+
+"How?"
+
+"Look this way a bit," I said, showing towards the west, on the
+horizon, a black spot across the white plain.
+
+It was six o'clock in the morning. The sun had risen. But it could not
+be found in the surprisingly polished air. And not a breath of air,
+not a breath. Suddenly one of the camels called. An enormous antelope
+had just come in sight, and had stopped in its flight, terrified,
+racing the wall of rock. It stayed there at a little distance from us,
+dazed, trembling on its slender legs.
+
+Bou-Djema had rejoined us.
+
+"When the legs of the mohor tremble it is because the firmament is
+shaken," he muttered.
+
+"A storm?"
+
+"Yes, a storm."
+
+"And you find that alarming?"
+
+I did not answer immediately. I was exchanging several brief words
+with Bou-Djema, who was occupied in soothing the camels which were
+giving signs of being restive.
+
+Morhange repeated his question. I shrugged my shoulders.
+
+"Alarming? I don't know. I have never seen a storm on the Hoggar. But
+I distrust it. And the signs are that this is going to be a big one.
+See there already."
+
+A slight dust had risen before the cliff. In the still air a few
+grains of sand had begun to whirl round and round, with a speed which
+increased to dizziness, giving us in advance the spectacle in
+miniature of what would soon be breaking upon us.
+
+With harsh cries a flock of wild geese appeared, flying low. They came
+out of the west.
+
+"They are fleeing towards the Sebkha d'Amanghor," said Bou-Djema.
+
+There could be no greater mistake, I thought.
+
+Morhange looked at me curiously.
+
+"What must we do?" he asked.
+
+"Mount our camels immediately, before they are completely
+demoralized, and hurry to find shelter in some high places. Take
+account of our situation. It is easy to follow the bed of a stream.
+But within a quarter of an hour perhaps the storm will have burst.
+Within a half hour a perfect torrent will be rushing here. On this
+soil, which is almost impermeable, rain will roll like a pail of water
+thrown on a bituminous pavement. No depth, all height. Look at this."
+
+And I showed him, a dozen meters high, long hollow gouges, marks of
+former erosions on the rocky wall.
+
+"In an hour the waters will reach that height. Those are the marks of
+the last inundation. Let us get started. There is not an instant to
+lose."
+
+"All right," Morhange replied tranquilly.
+
+We had the greatest difficulty to make the camels kneel. When we had
+thrown ourselves into the saddle they started off at a pace which
+their terror rendered more and more disorderly.
+
+Of a sudden the wind began, a formidable wind, and, almost at the same
+time the light was eclipsed in the ravine. Above our heads the sky had
+become, in the flash of an eye, darker than the walls of the canyon
+which we were descending at a breathless pace.
+
+"A path, a stairway in the wall," I screamed against the wind to my
+companions. "If we don't find one in a minute we are lost."
+
+They did not hear me, but, turning in my saddle, I saw that they had
+lost no distance, Morhange following me, and Bou-Djema in the rear
+driving the two baggage camels masterfully before him.
+
+A blinding streak of lightning rent the obscurity. A peal of thunder,
+re-echoed to infinity by the rocky wall, rang out, and immediately
+great tepid drops began to fall. In an instant, our burnouses, which
+had been blown out behind by the speed with which we were traveling,
+were stuck tight to our streaming bodies.
+
+"Saved!" I exclaimed suddenly.
+
+Abruptly on our right a crevice opened in the midst of the wall. It
+was the almost perpendicular bed of a stream, an affluent of the one
+we had had the unfortunate idea of following that morning. Already a
+veritable torrent was gushing over it with a fine uproar.
+
+I have never better appreciated the incomparable sure-footedness of
+camels in the most precipitate places. Bracing themselves, stretching
+out their great legs, balancing themselves among the rocks that were
+beginning to be swept loose, our camels accomplished at that moment
+what the mules of the Pyrannees might have failed in.
+
+After several moments of superhuman effort we found ourselves at last
+out of danger, on a kind of basaltic terrace, elevated some fifty
+meters above the channel of the stream we had just left. Luck was with
+us; a little grotto opened out behind. Bou-Djema succeeded in
+sheltering the camels there. From its threshold we had leisure to
+contemplate in silence the prodigious spectacle spread out before us.
+
+You have, I believe, been at the Camp of Chalons for artillery drills.
+You have seen when the shell bursts how the chalky soil of the Marne
+effervesces like the inkwells at school, when we used to throw a piece
+of calcium carbonate into them. Well, it was almost like that, but in
+the midst of the desert, in the midst of obscurity. The white waters
+rushed into the depths of the black hole, and rose and rose towards
+the pedestal on which we stood. And there was the uninterrupted noise
+of thunder, and still louder, the sound of whole walls of rock,
+undermined by the flood, collapsing in a heap and dissolving in a few
+seconds of time in the midst of the rising water.
+
+All the time that this deluge lasted, one hour, perhaps two, Morhange
+and I stayed bending over this fantastic foaming vat; anxious to see,
+to see everything, to see in spite of everything; rejoicing with a
+kind of ineffable horror when we felt the shelf of basalt on which we
+had taken refuge swaying beneath us from the battering impact of the
+water. I believe that never for an instant did we think, so beautiful
+it was, of wishing for the end of that gigantic nightmare.
+
+Finally a ray of the sun shone through. Only then did we look at each
+other.
+
+Morhange held out his hand.
+
+"Thank you," he said simply.
+
+And he added with a smile:
+
+"To be drowned in the very middle of the Sahara would have been
+pretentious and ridiculous. You have saved us, thanks to your power of
+decision, from this very paradoxical end."
+
+Ah, that he had been thrown by a misstep of his camel and rolled to
+his death in the midst of the flood! Then what followed would never
+have happened. That is the thought that comes to me in hours of
+weakness. But I have told you that I pull myself out of it quickly.
+No, no, I do not regret it, I cannot regret it, that what happened did
+happen.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Morhange left me to go into the little grotto, where Bou-Djema's
+camels were now resting comfortably. I stayed alone, watching the
+torrent which was continuously rising with the impetuous inrush of its
+unbridled tributaries. It had stopped raining. The sun shone from a
+sky that had renewed its blueness. I could feel the clothes that had a
+moment before been drenching, drying upon me incredibly fast.
+
+A hand was placed on my shoulder. Morhange was again beside me.
+
+"Come here," he said.
+
+Somewhat surprised, I followed him. We went into the grotto.
+
+The opening, which was big enough to admit the camels, made it fairly
+light. Morhange led me up to the smooth face of rock opposite. "Look,"
+he said, with unconcealed joy.
+
+"What of it?"
+
+"Don't you see?"
+
+"I see that there are several Tuareg inscriptions," I answered, with
+some disappointment. "But I thought I had told you that I read Tifinar
+writing very badly. Are these writings more interesting than the
+others we have come upon before?"
+
+"Look at this one," said Morhange. There was such an accent of triumph
+in his tone that this time I concentrated my attention.
+
+I looked again.
+
+The characters of the inscription were arranged in the form of a
+cross. It plays such an important part in this adventure that I cannot
+forego retracing it for you.
+
+               |
+               |
+               +
+o  o  o  o  -- W + -- -
+               |
+               |
+               |
+
+[Transcriber's Note: This is but a crude ASCII representation of the
+inscription. The center 'W' is rotated 90 degrees counter-clockwise in
+the book.]
+
+It was designed with great regularity, and the characters were cut
+deep into the rock. Although I knew so little of rock inscriptions at
+that time I had no difficulty in recognizing the antiquity of this
+one.
+
+Morhange became more and more radiant as he regarded it.
+
+I looked at him questioningly.
+
+"Well, what have you to say now?" he asked.
+
+"What do you want me to say? I tell you that I can barely read
+Tifinar."
+
+"Shall I help you?" he suggested.
+
+This course in Berber writing, after the emotions through which we had
+just passed, seemed to me a little inopportune. But Morhange was so
+visibly delighted that I could not dash his joy.
+
+"Very well then," began my companion, as much at his, ease as if he had
+been before a blackboard, "what will strike you first about this
+inscription is its repetition in the form of a cross. That is to say
+that it contains the same word twice, top to bottom, and right to left.
+The word which it composes has seven letters so the fourth letter, W
+[Transcriber's Note: Rotated 90 deg. counter-clockwise], comes naturally
+in the middle. This arrangement which is unique in Tifinar writing, is
+already remarkable enough. But there is better still. Now we will read
+it."
+
+Getting it wrong three times out of seven I finally succeeded, with
+Morhange's help, in spelling the word.
+
+"Have you got it?" asked Morhange when I had finished my task.
+
+"Less than ever," I answered, a little put out;
+"a,n,t,i,n,h,a,--Antinha, I don't know that word, or anything like it,
+in all the Saharan dialects I am familiar with."
+
+Morhange rubbed his hands together. His satisfaction was without
+bounds.
+
+"You have said it. That is why the discovery is unique."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"There is really nothing, either in Berber or in Arabian, analogous to
+this word."
+
+"Then?"
+
+"Then, my dear friend, we are in the presence of a foreign word,
+translated into Tifinar."
+
+"And this word belongs, according to your theory, to what language?"
+
+"You must realize that the letter _e_ does not exist in the Tifinar
+alphabet. It has here been replaced by the phonetic sign which is
+nearest to it,--h. Restore _e_ to the place which belongs to it in the
+word, and you have--"
+
+"Antinea."
+
+"'Antinea,' precisely. We find ourselves before a Greek vocable
+reproduced in Tifinar. And I think that now you will agree with me
+that my find has a certain interest."
+
+That day we had no more conferences upon texts. A loud cry, anguished,
+terrifying, rang out.
+
+We rushed out to find a strange spectacle awaiting us.
+
+Although the sky had cleared again, the torrent of yellow water was
+still foaming and no one could predict when it would fall. In
+mid-stream, struggling desperately in the current, was an
+extraordinary mass, gray and soft and swaying.
+
+But what at the first glance overwhelmed us with astonishment was to
+see Bou-Djema, usually so calm, at this moment apparently beside
+himself with frenzy, bounding through the gullies and over the rocks
+of the ledge, in full pursuit of the shipwreck.
+
+Of a sudden I seized Morhange by the arm. The grayish thing was alive.
+A pitiful long neck emerged from it with the heartrending cry of a
+beast in despair.
+
+"The fool," I cried, "he has let one of our beasts get loose, and the
+stream is carrying it away!"
+
+"You are mistaken," said Morhange. "Our camels are all in the cave.
+The one Bou-Djema is running after is not ours. And the cry of anguish
+we just heard, that was not Bou-Djema either. Bou-Djema is a brave
+Chaamb who has at this moment only one idea, to appropriate the
+intestate capital represented by this camel in the stream."
+
+"Who gave that cry, then?"
+
+"Let us try, if you like, to explore up this stream that our guide is
+descending at such a rate."
+
+And without waiting for my answer he had already set out through the
+recently washed gullies of the rocky bank.
+
+At that moment it can be truly said that Morhange went to meet his
+destiny.
+
+I followed him. We had the greatest difficulty in proceeding two or
+three hundred meters. Finally we saw at our feet a little rushing
+brook where the water was falling a trifle.
+
+"See there?" said Morhange.
+
+A blackish bundle was balancing on the waves of the creek.
+
+When we had come up even with it we saw that it was a man in the long
+dark blue robes of the Tuareg.
+
+"Give me your hand," said Morhange, "and brace yourself against a
+rock, hard."
+
+He was very, very strong. In an instant, as if it were child's play,
+he had brought the body ashore.
+
+"He is still alive," he pronounced with satisfaction. "Now it is a
+question of getting him to the grotto. This is no place to resuscitate
+a drowned man."
+
+He raised the body in his powerful arms.
+
+"It is astonishing how little he weighs for a man of his height."
+
+By the time we had retraced the way to the grotto the man's cotton
+clothes were almost dry. But the dye had run plentifully, and it was
+an indigo man that Morhange was trying to recall to life.
+
+When I had made him swallow a quart of rum he opened his eyes, looked
+at the two of us with surprise, then, closing them again, murmured
+almost unintelligibly a phrase, the sense of which we did not get
+until some days later:
+
+"Can it be that I have reached the end of my mission?"
+
+"What mission is he talking about?" I said.
+
+"Let him recover himself completely," responded Morhange. "You had
+better open some preserved food. With fellows of this build you don't
+have to observe the precautions prescribed for drowned Europeans."
+
+It was indeed a species of giant, whose life we had just saved. His
+face, although very thin, was regular, almost beautiful. He had a
+clear skin and little beard. His hair, already white, showed him to be
+a man of sixty years.
+
+When I placed a tin of corned-beef before him a light of voracious joy
+came into his eyes. The tin contained an allowance for four persons.
+It was empty in a flash.
+
+"Behold," said Morhange, "a robust appetite. Now we can put our
+questions without scruple."
+
+Already the Targa had placed over his forehead and face the blue veil
+prescribed by the ritual. He must have been completely famished not to
+have performed this indispensable formality sooner. There was nothing
+visible now but the eyes, watching us with a light that grew steadily
+more sombre.
+
+"French officers," he murmured at last.
+
+And he took Morhange's hand, and having placed it against his breast,
+carried it to his lips.
+
+Suddenly an expression of anxiety passed over his face.
+
+"And my mehari?" he asked.
+
+I explained that our guide was then employed in trying to save his
+beast. He in turn told us how it had stumbled, and fallen into the
+current, and he himself, in trying to save it, had been knocked over.
+His forehead had struck a rock. He had cried out. After that he
+remembered nothing more.
+
+"What is your name?" I asked.
+
+"Eg-Anteouen."
+
+"What tribe do you belong to?"
+
+"The tribe of Kel-Tahat."
+
+"The Kel-Tahats are the serfs of the tribe of Kel-Rhelâ, the great
+nobles of Hoggar?"
+
+"Yes," he answered, casting a side glance in my direction. It seemed
+that such precise questions on the affairs of Ahygar were not to his
+liking.
+
+"The Kel-Tahats, if I am not mistaken, are established on the
+southwest flank of Atakor.[5] What were you doing, so far from your
+home territory when we saved your life?"
+
+[Footnote 5: Another name, in the Temahaq language, for Ahaggar. (Note
+by M. Leroux.)]
+
+"I was going, by way of Tit, to In-Salah," he said.
+
+"What were you going to do at In-Salah?"
+
+He was about to reply. But suddenly we saw him tremble. His eyes were
+fixed on a point of the cavern. We looked to see what it was. He had
+just seen the rock inscription which had so delighted Morhange an hour
+before.
+
+"Do you know that?" Morhange asked him with keen curiosity.
+
+The Targa did not speak a word but his eyes had a strange light.
+
+"Do you know that?" insisted Morhange.
+
+And he added:
+
+"Antinea?"
+
+"Antinea," repeated the man.
+
+And he was silent.
+
+"Why don't you answer the Captain?" I called out, with a strange
+feeling of rage sweeping over me.
+
+The Targui looked at me. I thought that he was going to speak. But his
+eyes became suddenly hard. Under the lustrous veil I saw his features
+stiffening.
+
+Morhange and I turned around.
+
+On the threshold of the cavern, breathless, discomfited, harassed by
+an hour of vain pursuit, Bou-Djema had returned to us.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+THE DISASTER OF THE LETTUCE
+
+
+As Eg-Anteouen and Bou-Djema came face to face, I fancied that both
+the Targa and the Chaamba gave a sudden start which each immediately
+repressed. It was nothing more than a fleeting impression.
+Nevertheless, it was enough to make me resolve that as soon as I was
+alone with our guide, I would question him closely concerning our new
+companion.
+
+The beginning of the day had been wearisome enough. We decided,
+therefore, to spend the rest of it there, and even to pass the night
+in the cave, waiting till the flood had completely subsided.
+
+In the morning, when I was marking our day's march upon the map,
+Morhange came toward me. I noticed that his manner was somewhat
+restrained.
+
+"In three days, we shall be at Shikh-Salah," I said to him. "Perhaps
+by the evening of the second day, badly as the camels go."
+
+"Perhaps we shall separate before then," he muttered.
+
+"How so?"
+
+"You see, I have changed my itinerary a little. I have given up the
+idea of going straight to Timissao. First I should like to make a
+little excursion into the interior of the Ahaggar range."
+
+I frowned:
+
+"What is this new idea?"
+
+As I spoke I looked about for Eg-Anteouen, whom I had seen in
+conversation with Morhange the previous evening and several minutes
+before. He was quietly mending one of his sandals with a waxed thread
+supplied by Bou-Djema. He did not raise his head.
+
+"It is simply," explained Morhange, less and less at his ease, "that
+this man tells me there are similar inscriptions in several caverns in
+western Ahaggar. These caves are near the road that he has to take
+returning home. He must pass by Tit. Now, from Tit, by way of Silet,
+is hardly two hundred kilometers. It is a quasi-classic route[6] as
+short again as the one that I shall have to take alone, after I leave
+you, from Shikh-Salah to Timissao. That is in part, you see, the
+reason which has made me decide to...."
+
+[Footnote 6: The route and the stages from Tit to Timissao were
+actually plotted out, as early as 1888, by Captain Bissuel. _Les
+Tuarge de l'Ouest,_ itineraries 1 and 10. (Note by M. Leroux.)]
+
+"In part? In very small part," I replied. "But is your mind absolutely
+made up?"
+
+"It is," he answered me.
+
+"When do you expect to leave me?"
+
+"To-day. The road which Eg-Anteouen proposes to take into Ahaggar
+crosses this one about four leagues from here. I have a favor to ask
+of you in this connection."
+
+"Please tell me."
+
+"It is to let me take one of the two baggage camels, since my Targa
+has lost his."
+
+"The camel which carries your baggage belongs to you as much as does
+your own mehari," I answered coldly.
+
+We stood there several minutes without speaking. Morhange maintained
+an uneasy silence; I was examining my map. All over it in greater or
+less degree, but particularly towards the south, the unexplored
+portions of Ahaggar stood out as far too numerous white patches in the
+tan area of supposed mountains.
+
+I finally said:
+
+"You give me your word that when you have seen these famous grottos,
+you will make straight for Timissao by Tit and Silet?"
+
+He looked at me uncomprehendingly.
+
+"Why do you ask that?"
+
+"Because, if you promise me that,--provided, of course, that my
+company is not unwelcome to you--I will go with you. Either way, I
+shall have two hundred kilometers to go. I shall strike for
+Shikh-Salah from the south, instead of from the west--that is the only
+difference."
+
+Morhange looked at me with emotion.
+
+"Why do you do this?" he murmured.
+
+"My dear fellow," I said (it was the first time that I had addressed
+Morhange in this familiar way), "my dear fellow, I have a sense which
+becomes marvellously acute in the desert, the sense of danger. I gave
+you a slight proof of it yesterday morning, at the coming of the
+storm. With all your knowledge of rock inscriptions, you seem to me to
+have no very exact idea of what kind of place Ahaggar is, nor what may
+be in store for you there. On that account, I should be just as well
+pleased not to let you run sure risks alone."
+
+"I have a guide," he said with his adorable naiveté.
+
+Eg-Anteouen, in the same squatting position, kept on patching his old
+slipper.
+
+I took a step toward him.
+
+"You heard what I said to the Captain?"
+
+"Yes," the Targa answered calmly.
+
+"I am going with him. We leave you at Tit, to which place you must
+bring us. Where is the place you proposed to show the Captain?"
+
+"I did not propose to show it to him; it was his own idea," said the
+Targa coldly. "The grottos with the inscriptions are three-days' march
+southward in the mountains. At first, the road is rather rough. But
+farther on, it turns, and you gain Timissao very easily. There are
+good wells where the Tuareg Taitoqs, who are friendly to the French,
+come to water their camels."
+
+"And you know the road well?"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders. His eyes had a scornful smile.
+
+"I have taken it twenty times," he said.
+
+"In that case, let's get started."
+
+We rode for two hours. I did not exchange a word with Morhange. I had
+a clear intuition of the folly we were committing in risking ourselves
+so unconcernedly in that least known and most dangerous part of the
+Sahara. Every blow which had been struck in the last twenty years to
+undermine the French advance had come from this redoubtable Ahaggar.
+But what of it? It was of my own will that I had joined in this mad
+scheme. No need of going over it again. What was the use of spoiling
+my action by a continual exhibition of disapproval? And, furthermore,
+I may as well admit that I rather liked the turn that our trip was
+beginning to take. I had, at that instant, the sensation of journeying
+toward something incredible, toward some tremendous adventure. You do
+not live with impunity for months and years as the guest of the
+desert. Sooner or later, it has its way with you, annihilates the good
+officer, the timid executive, overthrows his solicitude for his
+responsibilities. What is there behind those mysterious rocks, those
+dim solitudes, which have held at bay the most illustrious pursuers of
+mystery? You follow, I tell you, you follow.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Are you sure at least that this inscription is interesting enough to
+justify us in our undertaking?" I asked Morhange.
+
+My companion started with pleasure. Ever since we began our journey I
+had realized his fear that I was coming along half-heartedly. As soon
+as I offered him a chance to convince me, his scruples vanished, and
+his triumph seemed assured to him.
+
+"Never," he answered, in a voice that he tried to control, but through
+which the enthusiasm rang out, "never has a Greek inscription been
+found so far south. The farthest points where they have been reported
+are in the south of Algeria and Cyrene. But in Ahaggar! Think of it!
+It is true that this one is translated into Tifinar. But this
+peculiarity does not diminish the interest of the coincidence: it
+increases it."
+
+"What do you take to be the meaning of this word?"
+
+"_Antinea_ can only be a proper name," said Morhange. "To whom does it
+refer? I admit I don't know, and if at this very moment I am marching
+toward the south, dragging you along with me, it is because I count on
+learning more about it. Its etymology? It hasn't one definitely, but
+there are thirty possibilities. Bear in mind that the Tifinar alphabet
+is far from tallying with the Greek alphabet, which increases the
+number of hypotheses. Shall I suggest several?"
+
+"I was just about to ask you to."
+
+"To begin with, there is [Greek: agti] and [Greek: neos], _the woman
+who is placed opposite a vessel_, an explanation which would have been
+pleasing to Gaffarel and to my venerated master Berlioux. That would
+apply well enough to the figure-heads of ships. There is a technical
+term that I cannot recall at this moment, not if you beat me a hundred
+times over.[7]
+
+[Footnote 7: It is perhaps worth noting here that _Figures de Proues_
+is the exact title of a very remarkable collection of poems by Mme.
+Delarus-Mardrus. (Note by M. Leroux.)]
+
+"Then there is [Greek: agtinêa], that you must relate to [Greek: agti]
+and [Greek: naos], _she who holds herself before the_ [Greek: naos],
+the [Greek: naos] of the temple, _she who is opposite the sanctuary,_
+therefore priestess. An interpretation which would enchant Girard and
+Renan.
+
+"Next we have [Greek: agtine], from [Greek: agti] and [Greek: neos],
+new, which can mean two things: either _she who is the contrary of
+young_, which is to say old; or _she who is the enemy of novelty_ or
+_the enemy of youth_.
+
+"There is still another sense of [Greek: gati], _in exchange for,_
+which is capable of complicating all the others I have mentioned;
+likewise there are four meanings for the verb [Greek: neô], which
+means in turn _to go, to flow, to thread_ or _weave, to heap_. There
+is more still.... And notice, please, that I have not at my
+disposition on the otherwise commodious hump of this mehari, either
+the great dictionary of Estienne or the lexicons of Passow, of Pape,
+or of Liddel-Scott. This is only to show you, my dear friend, that
+epigraphy is but a relative science, always dependent on the discovery
+of a new text which contradicts the previous findings, when it is not
+merely at the mercy of the humors of the epigraphists and their pet
+conceptions of the universe.
+
+"That was rather my view of it," I said, "But I must admit my
+astonishment to find that, with such a sceptical opinion of the goal,
+you still do not hesitate to take risks which may be quite
+considerable."
+
+Morhange smiled wanly.
+
+"I do not interpret, my friend; I collect. From what I will take back
+to him, Dom Granger has the ability to draw conclusions which are
+beyond my slight knowledge. I was amusing myself a little. Pardon me."
+
+Just then the girth of one of the baggage camels, evidently not well
+fastened, came loose. Part of the load slipped and fell to the ground.
+
+Eg-Anteouen descended instantly from his beast and helped Bou-Djema
+repair the damage.
+
+When they had finished, I made my mehari walk beside Bou-Djema's.
+
+"It will be better to resaddle the camels at the next stop. They will
+have to climb the mountain."
+
+The guide looked at me with amazement. Up to that time I had thought
+it unnecessary to acquaint him with our new projects. But I supposed
+Eg-Anteouen would have told him.
+
+"Lieutenant, the road across the white plain to Shikh-Salah is not
+mountainous," said the Chaamba.
+
+"We are not keeping to the road across the white plain. We are going
+south, by Ahaggar."
+
+"By Ahaggar," he murmured. "But...."
+
+"But what?"
+
+"I do not know the road."
+
+"Eg-Anteouen is going to guide us."
+
+"Eg-Anteouen!"
+
+I watched Bou-Djema as he made this suppressed ejaculation. His eyes
+were fixed on the Targa with a mixture of stupor and fright.
+
+Eg-Anteouen's camel was a dozen yards ahead of us, side by side with
+Morhange's. The two men were talking. I realized that Morhange must be
+conversing with Eg-Anteouen about the famous inscriptions. But we were
+not so far behind that they could not have overheard our words.
+
+Again I looked at my guide. I saw that he was pale.
+
+"What is it, Bou-Djema?" I asked in a low voice.
+
+"Not here, Lieutenant, not here," he muttered.
+
+His teeth chattered. He added in a whisper:
+
+"Not here. This evening, when we stop, when he turns to the East to
+pray, when the sun goes down. Then, call me to you. I will tell
+you.... But not here. He is talking, but he is listening. Go ahead.
+Join the Captain."
+
+"What next?" I murmured, pressing my camel's neck with my foot so as
+to make him overtake Morhange.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was about five o'clock when Eg-Anteouen who was leading the way,
+came to a stop.
+
+"Here it is," he said, getting down from his camel.
+
+It was a beautiful and sinister place. To our left a fantastic wall of
+granite outlined its gray ribs against the sky. This wall was pierced,
+from top to bottom, by a winding corridor about a thousand feet high
+and scarcely wide enough in places to allow three camels to walk
+abreast.
+
+"Here it is," repeated the Targa.
+
+To the west, straight behind us, the track that we were leaving
+unrolled like a pale ribbon. The white plain, the road to Shikh-Salah,
+the established halts, the well-known wells.... And, on the other
+side, this black wall against the mauve sky, this dark passage.
+
+I looked at Morhange.
+
+"We had better stop here," he said simply. "Eg-Anteouen advises us to
+take as much water here as we can carry."
+
+With one accord we decided to spend the night there, before
+undertaking the mountain.
+
+There was a spring, in a dark basin, from which fell a little cascade;
+there were a few shrubs, a few plants.
+
+Already the camels were browsing at the length of their tethers.
+
+Bou-Djema arranged our camp dinner service of tin cups and plates on a
+great flat stone. An opened tin of meat lay beside a plate of lettuce
+which he had just gathered from the moist earth around the spring. I
+could tell from the distracted manner in which he placed these objects
+upon the rock how deep was his anxiety.
+
+As he was bending toward me to hand me a plate, he pointed to the
+gloomy black corridor which we were about to enter.
+
+"_Blad-el-Khouf!"_ he murmured.
+
+"What did he say?" asked Morhange, who had seen the gesture.
+
+"_Blad-el-Khouf. This is the country of fear._ That is what the Arabs
+call Ahaggar."
+
+Bou-Djema went a little distance off and sat down, leaving us to our
+dinner. Squatting on his heels, he began to eat a few lettuce leaves
+that he had kept for his own meal.
+
+Eg-Anteouen was still motionless.
+
+Suddenly the Targa rose. The sun in the west was no larger than a red
+brand. We saw Eg-Anteouen approach the fountain, spread his blue
+burnous on the ground and kneel upon it.
+
+"I did not suppose that the Tuareg were so observant of Mussulman
+tradition," said Morhange.
+
+"Nor I," I replied thoughtfully.
+
+But I had something to do at that moment besides making such
+speculations.
+
+"Bou-Djema," I called.
+
+At the same time, I looked at Eg-Anteouen. Absorbed in his prayer,
+bowed toward the west, apparently he was paying no attention to me. As
+he prostrated himself, I called again.
+
+"Bou-Djema, come with me to my mehari; I want to get something out of
+the saddle bags."
+
+Still kneeling, Eg-Anteouen was mumbling his prayer slowly,
+composedly.
+
+But Bou-Djema had not budged.
+
+His only response was a deep moan.
+
+Morhange and I leaped to our feet and ran to the guide. Eg-Anteouen
+reached him as soon as we did.
+
+With his eyes closed and his limbs already cold, the Chaamba breathed
+a death rattle in Morhange's arms. I had seized one of his hands.
+Eg-Anteouen took the other. Each, in his own way, was trying to
+divine, to understand....
+
+Suddenly Eg-Anteouen leapt to his feet. He had just seen the poor
+embossed bowl which the Arab had held an instant before between his
+knees, and which now lay overturned upon the ground.
+
+He picked it up, looked quickly at one after another of the leaves of
+lettuce remaining in it, and then gave a hoarse exclamation.
+
+"So," said Morhange, "it's his turn now; he is going to go mad."
+
+Watching Eg-Anteouen closely, I saw him hasten without a word to the
+rock where our dinner was set, a second later, he was again beside us,
+holding out the bowl of lettuce which he had not yet touched.
+
+Then he took a thick, long, pale green leaf from Bou-Djema's bowl and
+held it beside another leaf he had just taken from our bowl.
+
+"_Afahlehle,"_ was all he said.
+
+I shuddered, and so did Morhange. It was the _afahlehla,_ the
+_falestez_, of the Arabs of the Sahara, the terrible plant which had
+killed a part of the Flatters mission more quickly and surely than
+Tuareg arms.
+
+Eg-Anteouen stood up. His tall silhouette was outlined blackly against
+the sky which suddenly had turned pale lilac. He was watching us.
+
+We bent again over the unfortunate guide.
+
+"_Afahlehle,"_ the Targa repeated, and shook his head.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Bou-Djema died in the middle of the night without having regained
+consciousness.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+THE COUNTRY OF FEAR
+
+
+"It is curious," said Morhange, "to see how our expedition, uneventful
+since we left Ouargla, is now becoming exciting."
+
+He said this after kneeling for a moment in prayer before the
+painfully dug grave in which we had lain the guide.
+
+I do not believe in God. But if anything can influence whatever powers
+there may be, whether of good or of evil, of light or of darkness, it
+is the prayer of such a man.
+
+For two days we picked our way through a gigantic chaos of black rock
+in what might have been the country of the moon, so barren was it. No
+sound but that of stones rolling under the feet of the camels and
+striking like gunshots at the foot of the precipices.
+
+A strange march indeed. For the first few hours, I tried to pick out,
+by compass, the route we were following. But my calculations were soon
+upset; doubtless a mistake due to the swaying motion of the camel. I
+put the compass back in one of my saddle-bags. From that time on,
+Eg-Anteouen was our master. We could only trust ourselves to him.
+
+He went first; Morhange followed him, and I brought up the rear. We
+passed at every step most curious specimens of volcanic rock. But I
+did not examine them. I was no longer interested in such things.
+Another kind of curiosity had taken possession of me. I had come to
+share Morhange's madness. If my companion had said to me: "We are
+doing a very rash thing. Let us go back to the known trails," I should
+have replied, "You are free to do as you please. But I am going on."
+
+Toward evening of the second day, we found ourselves at the foot of a
+black mountain whose jagged ramparts towered in profile seven thousand
+feet above our heads. It was an enormous shadowy fortress, like the
+outline of a feudal stronghold silhouetted with incredible sharpness
+against the orange sky.
+
+There was a well, with several trees, the first we had seen since
+cutting into Ahaggar.
+
+A group of men were standing about it. Their camels, tethered close
+by, were cropping a mouthful here and there.
+
+At seeing us, the men drew together, alert, on the defensive.
+
+Eg-Anteouen turned to us and said:
+
+"Eggali Tuareg."
+
+We went toward them.
+
+They were handsome men, those Eggali, the largest Tuareg whom I ever
+have seen. With unexpected swiftness they drew aside from the well,
+leaving it to us. Eg-Anteouen spoke a few words to them. They looked
+at Morhange and me with a curiosity bordering on fear, but at any
+rate, with respect.
+
+I drew several little presents from my saddlebags and was astonished
+at the reserve of the chief, who refused them. He seemed afraid even
+of my glance.
+
+When they had gone, I expressed my astonishment at this shyness for
+which my previous experiences with the tribes of the Sahara had not
+prepared me.
+
+"They spoke with respect, even with fear," I said to Eg-Anteouen. "And
+yet the tribe of the Eggali is noble. And that of the Kel-Tahats, to
+which you tell me you belong, is a slave tribe."
+
+A smile lighted the dark eyes of Eg-Anteouen.
+
+"It is true," he said.
+
+"Well then?"
+
+"I told them that we three, the Captain, you and I, were bound for the
+Mountain of the Evil Spirits."
+
+With a gesture, he indicated the black mountain.
+
+"They are afraid. All the Tuareg of Ahaggar are afraid of the Mountain
+of the Evil Spirits. You saw how they were up and off at the very
+mention of its name."
+
+"It is to the Mountain of the Evil Spirits that you are taking us?"
+queried Morhange.
+
+"Yes," replied the Targa, "that is where the inscriptions are that I
+told you about."
+
+"You did not mention that detail to us."
+
+"Why should I? The Tuareg are afraid of the _ilhinen,_ spirits with
+horns and tails, covered with hair, who make the cattle sicken and die
+and cast spells over men. But I know well that the Christians are not
+afraid and even laugh at the fears of the Tuareg."
+
+"And you?" I asked. "You are a Targa and you are not afraid of the
+_ilhinen_?"
+
+Eg-Anteouen showed a little red leather bag hung about his neck on a
+chain of white seeds.
+
+"I have my amulet," he replied gravely, "blessed by the venerable
+Sidi-Moussa himself. And then I am with you. You saved my life. You
+have desired to see the inscriptions. The will of Allah be done!"
+
+As he finished speaking, he squatted on his heels, drew out his long
+reed pipe and began to smoke gravely.
+
+"All this is beginning to seem very strange," said Morhange, coming
+over to me.
+
+"You can say that without exaggeration," I replied. "You remember as
+well as I the passage in which Barth tells of his expedition to the
+Idinen, the Mountain of the Evil Spirits of the Azdjer Tuareg. The
+region had so evil a reputation that no Targa would go with him. But
+he got back."
+
+"Yes, he got back," replied my comrade, "but only after he had been
+lost. Without water or food, he came so near dying of hunger and
+thirst that he had to open a vein and drink his own blood. The
+prospect is not particularly attractive."
+
+I shrugged my shoulders. After all, it was not my fault that we were
+there.
+
+Morhange understood my gesture and thought it necessary to make
+excuses.
+
+"I should be curious," he went on with rather forced gaiety, "to meet
+these spirits and substantiate the facts of Pomponius Mela who knew
+them and locates them, in fact, in the mountain of the Tuareg. He
+calls them _Egipans, Blemyens, Gamphasantes, Satyrs.... 'The
+Gamphasantes_, he says, 'are naked. The _Blemyens_ have no head: their
+faces are placed on their chests; the _Satyrs_ have nothing like men
+except faces. The _Egipans_ are made as is commonly described.' ...
+_Satyrs, Egipans_ ... isn't it very strange to find Greek names given
+to the barbarian spirits of this region? Believe me, we are on a
+curious trail; I am sure that Antinea will be our key to remarkable
+discoveries."
+
+"Listen," I said, laying a finger on my lips.
+
+Strange sounds rose from about us as the evening advanced with great
+strides. A kind of crackling, followed by long rending shrieks, echoed
+and reechoed to infinity in the neighboring ravines. It seemed to me
+that the whole black mountain suddenly had begun to moan.
+
+We looked at Eg-Anteouen. He was smoking on, without twitching a
+muscle.
+
+"The _ilhinen_ are waking up," he said simply.
+
+Morhange listened without saying a word. Doubtless he understood as I
+did: the overheated rocks, the crackling of the stone, a whole series
+of physical phenomena, the example of the singing statue of Memnon....
+But, for all that, this unexpected concert reacted no less painfully
+on our overstrained nerves.
+
+The last words of poor Bou-Djema came to my mind.
+
+"The country of fear," I murmured in a low voice.
+
+And Morhange repeated:
+
+"The country of fear."
+
+The strange concert ceased as the first stars appeared in the sky.
+With deep emotion we watched the tiny bluish flames appear, one after
+another. At that portentous moment they seemed to span the distance
+between us, isolated, condemned, lost, and our brothers of higher
+latitudes, who at that hour were rushing about their poor pleasures
+with delirious frenzy in cities where the whiteness of electric lamps
+came on in a burst.
+
+_Chêt-Ahadh essa hetîsenet
+Mâteredjrê d'Erredjaot,
+Mâtesekek d-Essekâot,
+Mâtelahrlahr d'Ellerhâot,
+Ettâs djenen, barâd tît-ennit abâtet._
+
+Eg-Anteouen's voice raised itself in slow guttural tones. It resounded
+with sad, grave majesty in the silence now complete.
+
+I touched the Targa's arm. With a movement of his head, he pointed to
+a constellation glittering in the firmament.
+
+"The Pleiades," I murmured to Morhange, showing him the seven pale
+stars, while Eg-Anteouen took up his mournful song in the same
+monotone:
+
+"The Daughters of the Night are seven:
+  Mâteredjrê and Erredjeâot,
+  Mâtesekek and Essekâot,
+  Mâtelahrlahr and Ellerhâot,
+  The seventh is a boy, one of whose eyes has flown away."
+
+A sudden sickness came over me. I seized the Targa's arm as he was
+starting to intone his refrain for the third time.
+
+"When will we reach this cave with the inscriptions?" I asked
+brusquely.
+
+He looked at me and replied with his usual calm:
+
+"We are there."
+
+"We are there? Then why don't you show it to us?"
+
+"You did not ask me," he replied, not without a touch of insolence.
+
+Morhange had jumped to his feet.
+
+"The cave is here?"
+
+"It is here," Eg-Anteouen replied slowly, rising to his feet.
+
+"Take us to it."
+
+"Morhange," I said, suddenly anxious, "night is falling. We will see
+nothing. And perhaps it is still some way off."
+
+"It is hardly five hundred paces," Eg-Anteouen replied. "The cave is
+full of dead underbrush. We will set it on fire and the Captain will
+see as in full daylight."
+
+"Come," my comrade repeated.
+
+"And the camels?" I hazarded.
+
+"They are tethered," said Eg-Anteouen, "and we shall not be gone
+long."
+
+He had started toward the black mountain. Morhange, trembling with
+excitement, followed. I followed, too, the victim of profound
+uneasiness. My pulses throbbed. "I am not afraid," I kept repeating to
+myself. "I swear that this is not fear."
+
+And really it was not fear. Yet, what a strange dizziness! There was a
+mist over my eyes. My ears buzzed. Again I heard Eg-Anteouen's voice,
+but multiplied, immense, and at the same time, very low.
+
+"The Daughters of the Night are seven...."
+
+It seemed to me that the voice of the mountain, re-echoing, repeated
+that sinister last line to infinity:
+
+"And the seventh is a boy, one of whose eyes has flown
+away."
+
+"Here it is," said the Targa.
+
+A black hole in the wall opened up. Bending over, Eg-Anteouen entered.
+We followed him. The darkness closed around us.
+
+A yellow flame. Eg-Anteouen had struck his flint. He set fire to a
+pile of brush near the surface. At first we could see nothing. The
+smoke blinded us.
+
+Eg-Anteouen stayed at one side of the opening of the cave. He was
+seated and, more inscrutible than ever, had begun again to blow great
+puffs of gray smoke from his pipe.
+
+The burning brush cast a flickering light. I caught a glimpse of
+Morhange. He seemed very pale. With both hands braced against the
+wall, he was working to decipher a mass of signs which I could
+scarcely distinguish.
+
+Nevertheless, I thought I could see his hands trembling.
+
+"The devil," I thought, finding it more and more difficult to
+co-ordinate my thoughts, "he seems to be as unstrung as I."
+
+I heard him call out to Eg-Anteouen in what seemed to me a loud voice:
+
+"Stand to one side. Let the air in. What a smoke!"
+
+He kept on working at the signs.
+
+Suddenly I heard him again, but with difficulty. It seemed as if even
+sounds were confused in the smoke.
+
+"Antinea ... At last ... Antinea. But not cut in the rock ... the
+marks traced in ochre ... not ten years old, perhaps not five....
+Oh!...."
+
+He pressed his hands to his head. Again he cried out:
+
+"It is a mystery. A tragic mystery."
+
+I laughed teasingly.
+
+"Come on, come on. Don't get excited over it."
+
+He took me by the arm and shook me. I saw his eyes big with terror and
+astonishment.
+
+"Are you mad?" he yelled in my face.
+
+"Not so loud," I replied with the same little laugh.
+
+He looked at me again, and sank down, overcome, on a rock opposite me.
+Eg-Anteouen was still smoking placidly at the mouth of the cave. We
+could see the red circle of his pipe glowing in the darkness.
+
+"Madman! Madman!" repeated Morhange. His voice seemed to stick in his
+throat.
+
+Suddenly he bent over the brush which was giving its last darts of
+flame, high and clear. He picked out a branch which had not yet
+caught. I saw him examine it carefully, then throw it back in the fire
+with a loud laugh.
+
+"Ha! Ha! That's good, all right!"
+
+He staggered toward Eg-Anteouen, pointing to the fire.
+
+"It's hemp. Hasheesh, hasheesh. Oh, that's a good one, all right."
+
+"Yes, it's a good one," I repeated, bursting into laughter.
+
+Eg-Anteouen quietly smiled approval. The dying fire lit his
+inscrutable face and flickered in his terrible dark eyes.
+
+A moment passed. Suddenly Morhange seized the Targa's arm.
+
+"I want to smoke, too," he said. "Give me a pipe." The specter gave
+him one.
+
+"What! A European pipe?"
+
+"A European pipe," I repeated, feeling gayer and gayer.
+
+"With an initial, 'M.' As if made on purpose. M.... Captain Morhange."
+
+"Masson," corrected Eg-Anteouen quietly.
+
+"Captain Masson," I repeated in concert with Morhange.
+
+We laughed again.
+
+"Ha! Ha! Ha! Captain Masson.... Colonel Flatters.... The well of
+Garama. They killed him to take his pipe ... that pipe. It was
+Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh who killed Captain Masson."
+
+"It was Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh," repeated the Targa with imperturbable
+calm.
+
+"Captain Masson and Colonel Flatters had left the convoy to look for
+the well," said Morhange, laughing.
+
+"It was then that the Tuareg attacked them," I finished, laughing as
+hard as I could.
+
+"A Targa of Ahagga seized the bridle of Captain Masson's horse," said
+Morhange.
+
+"Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh had hold of Colonel Flatters' bridle," put in
+Eg-Anteouen.
+
+"The Colonel puts his foot in the stirrup and receives a cut from
+Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh's saber," I said.
+
+"Captain Masson draws his revolver and fires on Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh,
+shooting off three fingers of his left hand," said Morhange.
+
+"But," finished Eg-Anteouen imperturbably, "but Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh,
+with one blow of his saber, splits Captain Masson's skull."..
+
+He gave a silent, satisfied laugh as he spoke. The dying flame lit up
+his face. We saw the gleaming black stem of his pipe. He held it in
+his left hand. One finger, no, two fingers only on that hand. Hello! I
+had not noticed that before.
+
+Morhange also noticed it, for he finished with a loud laugh.
+
+"Then, after splitting his skull, you robbed him. You took his pipe
+from him. Bravo, Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh!"
+
+Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh does not reply, but I can see how satisfied with
+himself he is. He keeps on smoking. I can hardly see his features now.
+The firelight pales, dies. I have never laughed so much as this
+evening. I am sure Morhange never has, either. Perhaps he will forget
+the cloister. And all because Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh stole Captain
+Masson's pipe....
+
+Again that accursed song. "The seventh is a boy, one of whose eyes has
+flown away." One cannot imagine more senseless words. It is very
+strange, really: there seem to be four of us in this cave now. Four, I
+say, five, six, seven, eight.... Make yourselves at home, my friends.
+What! there are no more of you?... I am going to find out at last how
+the spirits of this region are made, the _Gamphasantes_, the
+_Blemyens_.... Morhange says that the _Blemyens_ have their faces on
+the middle of their chests. Surely this one who is seizing me in his
+arms is not a _Blemyen_! Now he is carrying me outside. And Morhange
+... I do not want them to forget Morhange....
+
+They did not forget him; I see him perched on a camel in front of that
+one to which I am fastened. They did well to fasten me, for otherwise
+I surely would tumble off. These spirits certainly are not bad
+fellows. But what a long way it is! I want to stretch out. To sleep. A
+while ago we surely were following a long passage, then we were in the
+open air. Now we are again in an endless stifling corridor. Here are
+the stars again.... Is this ridiculous course going to keep on?...
+
+Hello, lights! Stars, perhaps. No, lights, I say. A stairway, on my
+word; of rocks, to be sure, but still, a stairway. How can the
+camels...? But it is no longer a camel; this is a man carrying me. A
+man dressed in white, not a _Gamphasante_ nor a _Blemyen_. Morhange
+must be giving himself airs with his historical reasoning, all false,
+I repeat, all false. Good Morhange. Provided that his _Gamphasante_
+does not let him fall on this unending stairway. Something glitters on
+the ceiling. Yes, it is a lamp, a copper lamp, as at Tunis, at
+Barbouchy's. Good, here again you cannot see anything. But I am making
+a fool of myself; I am lying down; now I can go to sleep. What a silly
+day!... Gentlemen, I assure you that it is unnecessary to bind me: I
+do not want to go down on the boulevards.
+
+Darkness again. Steps of someone going away. Silence.
+
+But only for a moment. Someone is talking beside me. What are they
+saying?... No, it is impossible. That metallic ring, that voice. Do
+you know what it is calling, that voice, do you know what it is
+calling in the tones of someone used to the phrase? Well, it is
+calling:
+
+"Play your cards, gentlemen, play your cards. There are ten thousand
+_louis_ in the bank. Play your cards, gentlemen."
+
+In the name of God, am I or am I not at Ahaggar?
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+AWAKENING AT AHAGGAR
+
+
+It was broad daylight when I opened my eyes. I thought at once of
+Morhange. I could not see him, but I heard him, close by, giving
+little grunts of surprise.
+
+I called to him. He ran to me.
+
+"Then they didn't tie you up?" I asked.
+
+"I beg your pardon. They did. But they did it badly; I managed to get
+free."
+
+"You might have untied me, too," I remarked crossly.
+
+"What good would it have done? I should only have waked you up. And I
+thought that your first word would be to call me. There, that's done."
+
+I reeled as I tried to stand on my feet.
+
+Morhange smiled.
+
+"We might have spent the whole night smoking and drinking and not been
+in a worse state," he said. "Anyhow, that Eg-Anteouen with his
+hasheesh is a fine rascal."
+
+"Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh," I corrected.
+
+I rubbed my hand over my forehead.
+
+"Where are we?"
+
+"My dear boy," Morhange replied, "since I awakened from the
+extraordinary nightmare which is mixed up with the smoky cave and the
+lamp-lit stairway of the Arabian Nights, I have been going from
+surprise to surprise, from confusion to confusion. Just look around
+you."
+
+I rubbed my eyes and stared. Then I seized my friend's hand.
+
+"Morhange," I begged, "tell me if we are still dreaming."
+
+We were in a round room, perhaps fifty feet in diameter, and of about
+the same height, lighted by a great window opening on a sky of intense
+blue.
+
+Swallows flew back and forth, outside, giving quick, joyous cries.
+
+The floor, the incurving walls and the ceiling were of a kind of
+veined marble like porphyry, panelled with a strange metal, paler than
+gold, darker than silver, clouded just then by the early morning mist
+that came in through the window in great puffs.
+
+I staggered toward this window, drawn by the freshness of the breeze
+and the sunlight which was chasing away my dreams, and I leaned my
+elbows on the balustrade.
+
+I could not restrain a cry of delight.
+
+I was standing on a kind of balcony, cut into the flank of a mountain,
+overhanging an abyss. Above me, blue sky; below appeared a veritable
+earthly paradise hemmed in on all sides by mountains that formed a
+continuous and impassable wall about it. A garden lay spread out down
+there. The palm trees gently swayed their great fronds. At their feet
+was a tangle of the smaller trees which grow in an oasis under their
+protection: almonds, lemons, oranges, and many others which I could
+not distinguish from that height. A broad blue stream, fed by a
+waterfall, emptied into a charming lake, the waters of which had the
+marvellous transparency which comes in high altitudes. Great birds
+flew in circles over this green hollow; I could see in the lake the
+red flash of a flamingo.
+
+The peaks of the mountains which towered on all sides were completely
+covered with snow.
+
+The blue stream, the green palms, the golden fruit, and above it all,
+the miraculous snow, all this bathed in that limpid air, gave such an
+impression of beauty, of purity, that my poor human strength could no
+longer stand the sight of it. I laid my forehead on the balustrade,
+which, too, was covered with that heavenly snow, and began to cry like
+a baby.
+
+Morhange was behaving like another child. But he had awakened before I
+had, and doubtless had had time to grasp, one by one, all these
+details whose fantastic _ensemble_ staggered me.
+
+He laid his hand on my shoulder and gently pulled me back into the
+room.
+
+"You haven't seen anything yet," he said. "Look! Look!"
+
+"Morhange!"
+
+"Well, old man, what do you want me to do about it? Look!"
+
+I had just realized that the strange room was furnished--God forgive
+me--in the European fashion. There were indeed, here and there, round
+leather Tuareg cushions, brightly colored blankets from Gafsa, rugs
+from Kairouan, and Caramani hangings which, at that moment, I should
+have dreaded to draw aside. But a half-open panel in the wall showed a
+bookcase crowded with books. A whole row of photographs of
+masterpieces of ancient art were hung on the walls. Finally there was
+a table almost hidden under its heap of papers, pamphlets, books. I
+thought I should collapse at seeing a recent number of the
+_Archaeological Review_.
+
+I looked at Morhange. He was looking at me, and suddenly a mad laugh
+seized us and doubled us up for a good minute.
+
+"I do not know," Morhange finally managed to say, "whether or not we
+shall regret some day our little excursion into Ahaggar. But admit, in
+the meantime, that it promises to be rich in unexpected adventures.
+That unforgettable guide who puts us to sleep just to distract us
+from the unpleasantness of caravan life and who lets me experience, in
+the best of good faith, the far-famed delights of hasheesh: that
+fantastic night ride, and, to cap the climax, this cave of a Nureddin
+who must have received the education of the Athenian Bersot at the
+French _Ecole Normale_--all this is enough, on my word, to upset the
+wits of the best balanced."
+
+"What do I think, my poor friend? Why, just what you yourself think. I
+don't understand it at all, not at all. What you politely call my
+learning is not worth a cent. And why shouldn't I be all mixed up?
+This living in caves amazes me. Pliny speaks of the natives living in
+caves, seven days' march southwest of the country of the Amantes, and
+twelve days to the westward of the great Syrte. Herodotus says also
+that the Garamentes used to go out in their chariots to hunt the
+cave-dwelling Ethopians. But here we are in Ahaggar, in the midst of
+the Targa country, and the best authorities tell us that the Tuareg
+never have been willing to live in caves. Duveyrier is precise on that
+point. And what is this, I ask you, but a cave turned into a workroom,
+with pictures of the Venus de Medici and the Apollo Sauroctone on the
+walls? I tell you that it is enough to drive you mad."
+
+And Morhange threw himself on a couch and began to roar with laughter
+again.
+
+"See," I said, "this is Latin."
+
+I had picked up several scattered papers from the work-table in the
+middle of the room. Morhange took them from my hands and devoured them
+greedily. His face expressed unbounded stupefaction.
+
+"Stranger and stranger, my boy. Someone here is composing, with much
+citation of texts, a dissertation on the Gorgon Islands: _de Gorgonum
+insulis_. Medusa, according to him, was a Libyan savage who lived near
+Lake Triton, our present Chott Melhrir, and it is there that Perseus
+... Ah!"
+
+Morhange's words choked in his throat. A sharp, shrill voice pierced
+the immense room.
+
+"Gentlemen, I beg you, let my papers alone."
+
+I turned toward the newcomer.
+
+One of the Caramani curtains was drawn aside, and the most unexpected
+of persons came in. Resigned as we were to unexpected events, the
+improbability of this sight exceeded anything our imaginations could
+have devised.
+
+On the threshold stood a little bald-headed man with a pointed sallow
+face half hidden by an enormous pair of green spectacles and a pepper
+and salt beard. No shirt was visible, but an impressive broad red
+cravat. He wore white trousers. Red leather slippers furnished the
+only Oriental suggestion of his costume.
+
+He wore, not without pride, the rosette of an officer of the
+Department of Education.
+
+He collected the papers which Morhange had dropped in his amazement,
+counted them, arranged them; then, casting a peevish glance at us, he
+struck a copper gong.
+
+The portiére was raised again. A huge white Targa entered. I seemed to
+recognize him as one of the genii of the cave.[8]
+
+[Footnote 8: The Negro serfs among the Tuareg are generally called
+"white Tuareg." While the nobles are clad in blue cotton robes, the
+serfs wear white robes, hence their name of "white Tuareg." See, in
+this connection, Duveyrier: _les Tuareg du Nord_, page 292. (Note by
+M. Leroux.)]
+
+"Ferradji," angrily demanded the little officer of the Department of
+Education, "why were these gentlemen brought into the library?"
+
+The Targa bowed respectfully.
+
+"Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh came back sooner than we expected," he replied,
+"and last night the embalmers had not yet finished. They brought them
+here in the meantime," and he pointed to us.
+
+"Very well, you may go," snapped the little man.
+
+Ferradji backed toward the door. On the threshold, he stopped and
+spoke again:
+
+"I was to remind you, sir, that dinner is served."
+
+"All right. Go along."
+
+And the little man seated himself at the desk and began to finger the
+papers feverishly.
+
+I do not know why, but a mad feeling of exasperation seized me. I
+walked toward him.
+
+"Sir," I said, "my friend and I do not know where we are nor who you
+are. We can see only that you are French, since you are wearing one of
+the highest honorary decorations of our country. You may have made the
+same observation on your part," I added, indicating the slender red
+ribbon which I wore on my vest.
+
+He looked at me in contemptuous surprise.
+
+"Well, sir?"
+
+"Well, sir, the Negro who just went out pronounced the name of
+Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh, the name of a brigand, a bandit, one of the
+assassins of Colonel Flatters. Are you acquainted with that detail,
+sir?"
+
+The little man surveyed me coldly and shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Certainly. But what difference do you suppose that makes to me?"
+
+"What!" I cried, beside myself with rage. "Who are you, anyway?"
+
+"Sir," said the little old man with comical dignity, turning to
+Morhange, "I call you to witness the strange manners of your
+companion. I am here in my own house and I do not allow...."
+
+"You must excuse my comrade, sir," said Morhange, stepping forward.
+"He is not a man of letters, as you are. These young lieutenants are
+hot-headed, you know. And besides, you can understand why both of us
+are not as calm as might be desired."
+
+I was furious and on the point of disavowing these strangely humble
+words of Morhange. But a glance showed me that there was as much irony
+as surprise in his expression.
+
+"I know indeed that most officers are brutes," grumbled the little old
+man. "But that is no reason...."
+
+"I am only an officer myself," Morhange went on, in an even humbler
+tone, "and if ever I have been sensible to the intellectual
+inferiority of that class, I assure you that it was now in glancing--I
+beg your pardon for having taken the liberty to do so--in glancing
+over the learned pages which you devote to the passionate story of
+Medusa, according to Procles of Carthage, cited by Pausanias."
+
+A laughable surprise spread over the features of the little old man.
+He hastily wiped his spectacles.
+
+"What!" he finally cried.
+
+"It is indeed unfortunate, in this matter," Morhange continued
+imperturbably, "that we are not in possession of the curious
+dissertation devoted to this burning question by Statius Sebosus, a
+work which we know only through Pliny and which...."
+
+"You know Statius Sebosus?"
+
+"And which, my master, the geographer Berlioux...."
+
+"You knew Berlioux--you were his pupil?" stammered the little man with
+the decoration.
+
+"I have had that honor," replied Morhange, very coldly.
+
+"But, but, sir, then you have heard mentioned, you are familiar with
+the question, the problem of Atlantis?"
+
+"Indeed I am not unacquainted with the works of Lagneau, Ploix, Arbois
+de Jubainville," said Morhange frigidly.
+
+"My God!" The little man was going through extraordinary contortions.
+"Sir--Captain, how happy I am, how many excuses...."
+
+Just then, the portiére was raised. Ferradji appeared again.
+
+"Sir, they want me to tell you that unless you come, they will begin
+without you."
+
+"I am coming, I am coming. Say, Ferradji, that we will be there in a
+moment. Why, sir, if I had foreseen ... It is extraordinary ... to
+find an officer who knows Procles of Carthage and Arbois de
+Jubainville. Again ... But I must introduce myself. I am Etienne Le
+Mesge, Fellow of the University."
+
+"Captain Morhange," said my companion.
+
+I stepped forward in my turn.
+
+"Lieutenant de Saint-Avit. It is a fact, sir, that I am very likely to
+confuse Arbois of Carthage with Procles de Jubainville. Later, I shall
+have to see about filling up those gaps. But just now, I should like
+to know where we are, if we are free, and if not, what occult power
+holds us. You have the appearance, sir, of being sufficiently at home
+in this house to be able to enlighten us upon this point, which I must
+confess, I weakly consider of the first importance."
+
+M. Le Mesge looked at me. A rather malevolent smile twitched the
+corners of his mouth. He opened his lips....
+
+A gong sounded impatiently.
+
+"In good time, gentlemen, I will tell you. I will explain
+everything.... But now you see that we must hurry. It is time for
+lunch and our fellow diners will get tired of waiting."
+
+"Our fellow diners?"
+
+"There are two of them," M. Le Mesge explained. "We three constitute
+the European personnel of the house, that is, the fixed personnel," he
+seemed to feel obliged to add, with his disquieting smile. "Two
+strange fellows, gentlemen, with whom, doubtless, you will care to
+have as little to do as possible. One is a churchman, narrow-minded,
+though a Protestant. The other is a man of the world gone astray, an
+old fool."
+
+"Pardon," I said, "but it must have been he whom I heard last night.
+He was gambling: with you and the minister, doubtless?"
+
+M. Le Mesge made a gesture of offended dignity.
+
+"The idea! With me, sir? It is with the Tuareg that he plays. He
+teaches them every game imaginable. There, that is he who is striking
+the gong to hurry us up. It is half past nine, and the _Salle de
+Trente et Quarante_ opens at ten o'clock. Let us hurry. I suppose that
+anyway you will not be averse to a little refreshment."
+
+"Indeed we shall not refuse," Morhange replied.
+
+We followed M. Le Mesge along a long winding corridor with frequent
+steps. The passage was dark. But at intervals rose-colored night
+lights and incense burners were placed in niches cut into the solid
+rock. The passionate Oriental scents perfumed the darkness and
+contrasted strangely with the cold air of the snowy peaks.
+
+From time to time, a white Targa, mute and expressionless as a
+phantom, would pass us and we would hear the clatter of his slippers
+die away behind us.
+
+M. Le Mesge stopped before a heavy door covered with the same pale
+metal which I had noticed on the walls of the library. He opened it
+and stood aside to let us pass.
+
+Although the dining room which we entered had little in common with
+European dining rooms, I have known many which might have envied its
+comfort. Like the library, it was lighted by a great window. But I
+noticed that it had an outside exposure, while that of the library
+overlooked the garden in the center of the crown of mountains.
+
+No center table and none of those barbaric pieces of furniture that we
+call chairs. But a great number of buffet tables of gilded wood, like
+those of Venice, heavy hangings of dull and subdued colors, and
+cushions, Tuareg or Tunisian. In the center was a huge mat on which a
+feast was placed in finely woven baskets among silver pitchers and
+copper basins filled with perfumed water. The sight of it filled me
+with childish satisfaction.
+
+M. Le Mesge stepped forward and introduced us to the two persons who
+already had taken their places on the mat.
+
+"Mr. Spardek," he said; and by that simple phrase I understood how far
+our host placed himself above vain human titles.
+
+The Reverend Mr. Spardek, of Manchester, bowed reservedly and asked
+our permission to keep on his tall, wide-brimmed hat. He was a dry,
+cold man, tall and thin. He ate in pious sadness, enormously.
+
+"Monsieur Bielowsky," said M. Le Mesge, introducing us to the second
+guest.
+
+"Count Casimir Bielowsky, Hetman of Jitomir," the latter corrected
+with perfect good humor as he stood up to shake hands.
+
+I felt at once a certain liking for the Hetman of Jitomir who was a
+perfect example of an old beau. His chocolate-colored hair was parted
+in the center (later I found out that the Hetman dyed it with a
+concoction of _khol_). He had magnificent whiskers, also
+chocolate-colored, in the style of the Emperor Francis Joseph. His
+nose was undeniably a little red, but so fine, so aristocratic. His
+hands were marvelous. It took some thought to place the date of the
+style of the count's costume, bottle green with yellow facings,
+ornamented with a huge seal of silver and enamel. The recollection of
+a portrait of the Duke de Morny made me decide on 1860 or 1862; and
+the further chapters of this story will show that I was not far wrong.
+
+The count made me sit down beside him. One of his first questions was
+to demand if I ever cut fives.[9]
+
+[Footnote 9: _Tirer à cinq_, a card game played only for very high
+stakes.]
+
+"That depends on how I feel," I replied.
+
+"Well said. I have not done so since 1866. I swore off. A row. The
+devil of a party. One day at Walewski's. I cut fives. Naturally I
+wasn't worrying any. The other had a four. 'Idiot!' cried the little
+Baron de Chaux Gisseux who was laying staggering sums on my table. I
+hurled a bottle of champagne at his head. He ducked. It was Marshal
+Baillant who got the bottle. A scene! The matter was fixed up because
+we were both Free Masons. The Emperor made me promise not to cut fives
+again. I have kept my promise not to cut fives again. I have kept my
+promise. But there are moments when it is hard...."
+
+He added in a voice steeped in melancholy:
+
+"Try a little of this Ahaggar 1880. Excellent vintage. It is I,
+Lieutenant, who instructed these people in the uses of the juice of
+the vine. The vine of the palm trees is very good when it is properly
+fermented, but it gets insipid in the long run."
+
+It was powerful, that Ahaggar 1880. We sipped it from large silver
+goblets. It was fresh as Rhine wine, dry as the wine of the Hermitage.
+And then, suddenly, it brought back recollections of the burning wines
+of Portugal; it seemed sweet, fruity, an admirable wine, I tell you.
+
+That wine crowned the most perfect of luncheons. There were few meats,
+to be sure; but those few were remarkably seasoned. Profusion of
+cakes, pancakes served with honey, fragrant fritters, cheese-cakes of
+sour milk and dates. And everywhere, in great enamel platters or
+wicker jars, fruit, masses of fruit, figs, dates, pistachios, jujubes,
+pomegranates, apricots, huge bunches of grapes, larger than those
+which bent the shoulders of the Hebrews in the land of Canaan, heavy
+watermelons cut in two, showing their moist, red pulp and their rows
+of black seeds.
+
+I had scarcely finished one of these beautiful iced fruits, when M. Le
+Mesge rose.
+
+"Gentlemen, if you are ready," he said to Morhange and me.
+
+"Get away from that old dotard as soon as you can," whispered the
+Hetman of Jitomir to me. "The party of _Trente et Quarante_ will begin
+soon. You shall see. You shall see. We go it even harder than at Cora
+Pearl's."
+
+"Gentlemen," repeated M. Le Mesge in his dry tone.
+
+We followed him. When the three of us were back again in the library,
+he said, addressing me:
+
+"You, sir, asked a little while ago what occult power holds you here.
+Your manner was threatening, and I should have refused to comply had
+it not been for your friend, whose knowledge enables him to appreciate
+better than you the value of the revelations I am about to make to
+you."
+
+He touched a spring in the side of the wall. A cupboard appeared,
+stuffed with books. He took one.
+
+"You are both of you," continued M. Le Mesge, "in the power of a
+woman. This woman, the sultaness, the queen, the absolute sovereign of
+Ahaggar, is called Antinea. Don't start, M. Morhange, you will soon
+understand."
+
+He opened the book and read this sentence:
+
+"'I must warn you before I take up the subject matter: do not be
+surprised to hear me call the barbarians by Greek names.'"
+
+"What is that book?" stammered Morhange, whose pallor terrified me.
+
+"This book," M. Le Mesge replied very slowly, weighing his words, with
+an extraordinary expression of triumph, "is the greatest, the most
+beautiful, the most secret, of the dialogues of Plato; it is the
+Critias of Atlantis."
+
+"The Critias? But it is unfinished," murmured Morhange.
+
+"It is unfinished in France, in Europe, everywhere else," said M. Le
+Mesge, "but it is finished here. Look for yourself at this copy."
+
+"But what connection," repeated Morhange, while his eyes traveled
+avidly over the pages, "what connection can there be between this
+dialogue, complete,--yes, it seems to me complete--what connection
+with this woman, Antinea? Why should it be in her possession?"
+
+"Because," replied the little man imperturbably, "this book is her
+patent of nobility, her _Almanach de Gotha_, in a sense, do you
+understand? Because it established her prodigious genealogy: because
+she is...."
+
+"Because she is?" repeated Morhange.
+
+"Because she is the grand daughter of Neptune, the last descendant of
+the Atlantides."
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+ATLANTIS
+
+
+M. Le Mesge looked at Morhange triumphantly. It was evident that he
+addressed himself exclusively to Morhange, considering him alone
+worthy of his confidences.
+
+"There have been many, sir," he said, "both French and foreign
+officers who have been brought here at the caprice of our sovereign,
+Antinea. You are the first to be honored by my disclosures. But you
+were the pupil of Berlioux, and I owe so much to the memory of that
+great man that it seems to me I may do him homage by imparting to one
+of his disciples the unique results of my private research."
+
+He struck the bell. Ferradji appeared.
+
+"Coffee for these gentlemen," ordered M. Le Mesge.
+
+He handed us a box, gorgeously decorated in the most flaming colors,
+full of Egyptian cigarettes.
+
+"I never smoke," he explained. "But Antinea sometimes comes here.
+These are her cigarettes. Help yourselves, gentlemen."
+
+I have always had a horror of that pale tobacco which gives a barber
+of the Rue de la Michodière the illusion of oriental voluptuousness.
+But, in their way, these musk-scented cigarettes were not bad, and it
+was a long time since I had used up my stock of Caporal.
+
+"Here are the back numbers of _Le Vie Parisienne_" said M. Le Mesge
+to me. "Amuse yourself with them, if you like, while I talk to your
+friend."
+
+"Sir," I replied brusquely, "it is true that I never studied with
+Berlioux. Nevertheless, you must allow me to listen to your
+conversation: I shall hope to find something in it to amuse me."
+
+"As you wish," said the little old man.
+
+We settled ourselves comfortably. M. Le Mesge sat down before the
+desk, shot his cuffs, and commenced as follows:
+
+"However much, gentlemen, I prize complete objectivity in matters of
+erudition, I cannot utterly detach my own history from that of the
+last descendant of Clito and Neptune.
+
+"I am the creation of my own efforts. From my childhood, the
+prodigious impulse given to the science of history by the nineteenth
+century has affected me. I saw where my way led. I have followed it,
+in spite of everything.
+
+"In spite of everything, everything--I mean it literally. With no
+other resources than my own work and merit, I was received as Fellow
+of History and Geography at the examination of 1880. A great
+examination! Among the thirteen who were accepted there were names
+which have since become illustrious: Julian, Bourgeois, Auerbach.... I
+do not envy my colleagues on the summits of their official honors; I
+read their works with commiseration; and the pitiful errors to which
+they are condemned by the insufficiency of their documents would amply
+counterbalance my chagrin and fill me with ironic joy, had I not been
+raised long since above the satisfaction of self-love.
+
+"When I was Professor at the Lycée du Parc at Lyons. I knew Berlioux
+and followed eagerly his works on African History. I had, at that
+time, a very original idea for my doctor's thesis. I was going to
+establish a parallel between the Berber heroine of the seventh
+century, who struggled against the Arab invader, Kahena, and the
+French heroine, Joan of Arc, who struggled against the English
+invader. I proposed to the _Faculté des Lettres_ at Paris this title
+for my thesis: _Joan of Arc and the Tuareg_. This simple announcement
+gave rise to a perfect outcry in learned circles, a furor of
+ridicule. My friends warned me discreetly. I refused to believe them.
+Finally I was forced to believe when my rector summoned me before him
+and, after manifesting an astonishing interest in my health, asked
+whether I should object to taking two years' leave on half pay. I
+refused indignantly. The rector did not insist; but fifteen days
+later, a ministerial decree, with no other legal procedure, assigned
+me to one of the most insignificant and remote Lycées of France, at
+Mont-de-Marsan.
+
+"Realize my exasperation and you will excuse the excesses to which I
+delivered myself in that strange country. What is there to do in
+Landes, if you neither eat nor drink? I did both violently. My pay
+melted away in _fois gras_, in woodcocks, in fine wines. The result
+came quickly enough: in less than a year my joints began to crack like
+the over-oiled axle of a bicycle that has gone a long way upon a dusty
+track. A sharp attack of gout nailed me to my bed. Fortunately, in
+that blessed country, the cure is in reach of the suffering. So I
+departed to Dax, at vacation time, to try the waters.
+
+"I rented a room on the bank of the Adour, overlooking the _Promenade
+des Baignots_. A charwoman took care of it for me. She worked also for
+an old gentleman, a retired Examining Magistrate, President of the
+Roger-Ducos Society, which was a vague scientific backwater, in which
+the scholars of the neighborhood applied themselves with prodigious
+incompetence to the most whimsical subjects. One afternoon I stayed in
+my room on account of a very heavy rain. The good woman was
+energetically polishing the copper latch of my door. She used a paste
+called Tripoli, which she spread upon a paper and rubbed and
+rubbed.... The peculiar appearance of the paper made me curious. I
+glanced at it. 'Great heavens! Where did you get this paper?' She was
+perturbed. 'At my master's; he has lots of it. I tore this out of a
+notebook.' 'Here are ten francs. Go and get me the notebook.'
+
+"A quarter of an hour later, she was back with it. By good luck it
+lacked only one page, the one with which she had been polishing my
+door. This manuscript, this notebook, have you any idea what it was?
+Merely the _Voyage to Atlantis_ of the mythologist Denis de Milet,
+which is mentioned by Diodorus and the loss of which I had so often
+heard Berlioux deplore.[10]
+
+[Footnote 10: How did the _Voyage to Atlantis_ arrive at Dax? I have
+found, so far, only one credible hypothesis: it might have been
+discovered in Africa by the traveller, de Behagle, a member of the
+Roger-Ducos Society, who studied at the college of Dax, and later, on
+several occasions, visited the town. (Note by M. Leroux.)]
+
+"This inestimable document contained numerous quotations from the
+Critias. It gave an abstract of the illustrious dialogue, the sole
+existing copy of which you held in your hands a little while ago. It
+established past controversy the location of the stronghold of the
+Atlantides, and demonstrated that this site, which is denied by
+science, was not submerged by the waves, as is supposed by the rare
+and timorous defenders of the Atlantide hypothesis. He called it the
+'central Mazycian range,' You know there is no longer any doubt as to
+the identification of the Mazyces of Herodotus with the people of
+Imoschaoch, the Tuareg. But the manuscript of Denys unquestionably
+identifies the historical Mazyces with the Atlantides of the supposed
+legend.
+
+"I learned, therefore, from Denys, not only that the central part of
+Atlantis, the cradle and home of the dynasty of Neptune, had not sunk
+in the disaster described by Plato as engulfing the rest of the
+Atlantide isle, but also that it corresponded to the Tuareg Ahaggar,
+and that, in this Ahaggar, at least in his time, the noble dynasty of
+Neptune was supposed to be still existent.
+
+"The historians of Atlantis put the date of the cataclysm which
+destroyed all or part of that famous country at nine thousand years
+before Christ. If Denis de Milet, who wrote scarcely three thousand
+years ago, believed that in his time, the dynastic issue of Neptune
+was still ruling its dominion, you will understand that I thought
+immediately--what has lasted nine thousand years may last eleven
+thousand. From that instant I had only one aim: to find the possible
+descendants of the Atlantides, and, since I had many reasons for
+supposing them to be debased and ignorant of their original splendor,
+to inform them of their illustrious descent.
+
+"You will easily understand that I imparted none of my intentions to
+my superiors at the University. To solicit their approval or even
+their permission, considering the attitude they had taken toward me,
+would have been almost certainly to invite confinement in a cell. So I
+raised what I could on my own account, and departed without trumpet or
+drum for Oran. On the first of October I reached In-Salah. Stretched
+at my ease beneath a palm tree, at the oasis, I took infinite pleasure
+in considering how, that very day, the principal of Mont-de-Marsan,
+beside himself, struggling to control twenty horrible urchins howling
+before the door of an empty class room, would be telegraphing wildly
+in all directions in search of his lost history professor."
+
+M. Le Mesge stopped and looked at us to mark his satisfaction.
+
+I admit that I forgot my dignity and I forgot the affectation he had
+steadily assumed of talking only to Morhange.
+
+"You will pardon me, sir, if your discourse interests me more than I
+had anticipated. But you know very well that I lack the fundamental
+instruction necessary to understand you. You speak of the dynasty of
+Neptune. What is this dynasty, from which, I believe, you trace the
+descent of Antinea? What is her rôle in the story of Atlantis?"
+
+M. Le Mesge smiled with condescension, meantime winking at Morhange
+with the eye nearest to him. Morhange was listening without
+expression, without a word, chin in hand, elbow on knee.
+
+"Plato will answer for me, sir," said the Professor.
+
+And he added, with an accent of inexpressible pity:
+
+"Is it really possible that you have never made the acquaintance of
+the introduction to the Critias?"
+
+He placed on the table the book by which Morhange had been so
+strangely moved. He adjusted his spectacles and began to read. It
+seemed as if the magic of Plato vibrated through and transfigured this
+ridiculous little old man.
+
+"'Having drawn by lot the different parts of the earth, the gods
+obtained, some a larger, and some, a smaller share. It was thus that
+Neptune, having received in the division the isle of Atlantis, came to
+place the children he had had by a mortal in one part of that isle.
+It was not far from the sea, a plain situated in the midst of the
+isle, the most beautiful, and, they say, the most fertile of plains.
+About fifty stades from that plain, in the middle of the isle, was a
+mountain. There dwelt one of those men who, in the very beginning, was
+born of the Earth, Evenor, with his wife, Leucippe. They had only one
+daughter, Clito. She was marriageable when her mother and father died,
+and Neptune, being enamored of her, married her. Neptune fortified the
+mountain where she dwelt by isolating it. He made alternate girdles of
+sea and land, the one smaller, the others greater, two of earth and
+three of water, and centered them round the isle in such a manner that
+they were at all parts equally distant!..."
+
+M. Le Mesge broke off his reading.
+
+"Does this arrangement recall nothing to you?" he queried.
+
+"Morhange, Morhange!" I stammered. "You remember--our route yesterday,
+our abduction, the two corridors that we had to cross before arriving
+at this mountain?... The girdles of earth and of water?... Two
+tunnels, two enclosures of earth?"
+
+"Ha! Ha!" chuckled M. Le Mesge.
+
+He smiled as he looked at me. I understood that this smile meant: "Can
+he be less obtuse than I had supposed?"
+
+As if with a mighty effort, Morhange broke the silence.
+
+"I understand well enough, I understand.... The three girdles of
+water.... But then, you are supposing, sir,--an explanation the
+ingeniousness of which I do not contest--you are supposing the exact
+hypothesis of the Saharan sea!"
+
+"I suppose it, and I can prove it," replied the irascible little old
+chap, banging his fist on the table. "I know well enough what Schirmer
+and the rest have advanced against it. I know it better than you do. I
+know all about it, sir. I can present all the proofs for your
+consideration. And in the meantime, this evening at dinner, you will
+no doubt enjoy some excellent fish. And you will tell me if these
+fish, caught in the lake that you can see from this window, seem to
+you fresh water fish.
+
+"You must realize," he continued, "the mistake of those who, believing
+in Atlantis, have sought to explain the cataclysm in which they
+suppose the island to have sunk. Without exception, they have thought
+that it was swallowed up. Actually, there has not been an immersion.
+There has been an emersion. New lands have emerged from the Atlantic
+wave. The desert has replaced the sea, the _sebkhas_, the salt lakes,
+the Triton lakes, the sandy Syrtes are the desolate vestiges of the
+free sea water over which, in former days, the fleets swept with a
+fair wind towards the conquest of Attica. Sand swallows up
+civilization better than water. To-day there remains nothing of the
+beautiful isle that the sea and winds kept gay and verdant but this
+chalky mass. Nothing has endured in this rocky basin, cut off forever
+from the living world, but the marvelous oasis that you have at your
+feet, these red fruits, this cascade, this blue lake, sacred witnesses
+to the golden age that is gone. Last evening, in coming here, you had
+to cross the five enclosures: the three belts of water, dry forever;
+the two girdles of earth through which are hollowed the passages you
+traversed on camel back, where, formerly, the triremes floated. The
+only thing that, in this immense catastrophe, has preserved its
+likeness to its former state, is this mountain, the mountain where
+Neptune shut up his well-beloved Clito, the daughter of Evenor and
+Leucippe, the mother of Atlas, and the ancestress of Antinea, the
+sovereign under whose dominion you are about to enter forever."
+
+"Sir," Morhange with the most exquisite courtesy, "it would be only a
+natural anxiety which would urge us to inquire the reasons and the end
+of this dominion. But behold to what extent your revelation interests
+me; I defer this question of private interest. Of late, in two
+caverns, it has been my fortune to discover Tifinar inscriptions of
+this name, Antinea. My comrade is witness that I took it for a Greek
+name. I understand now, thanks to you and the divine Plato, that I
+need no longer feel surprised to hear a barbarian called by a Greek
+name. But I am no less perplexed as to the etymology of the word. Can
+you enlighten me?"
+
+"I shall certainly not fail you there, sir," said M. Le Mesge. "I may
+tell you, too, that you are not the first to put to me that question.
+Most of the explorers that I have seen enter here in the past ten
+years have been attracted in the same way, intrigued by this Greek
+work reproduced in Tifinar. I have even arranged a fairly exact
+catalogue of these inscriptions and the caverns where they are to be
+met with. All, or almost all, are accompanied by this legend:
+_Antinea. Here commences her domain_. I myself have had repainted with
+ochre such as were beginning to be effaced. But, to return to what I
+was telling you before, none of the Europeans who have followed this
+epigraphic mystery here, have kept their anxiety to solve this
+etymology once they found themselves in Antinea's palace. They all
+become otherwise preoccupied. I might make many disclosures as to the
+little real importance which purely scientific interests possess even
+for scholars, and the quickness with which they sacrifice them to the
+most mundane considerations--their own lives, for instance."
+
+"Let us take that up another time, sir, if it is satisfactory to you,"
+said Morhange, always admirably polite.
+
+"This digression had only one point, sir: to show you that I do not
+count you among these unworthy scholars. You are really eager to know
+the origin of this name, _Antinea_, and that before knowing what kind
+of woman it belongs to and her motives for holding you and this
+gentleman as her prisoners."
+
+I stared hard at the little old man. But he spoke with profound
+seriousness.
+
+"So much the better for you, my boy," I thought. "Otherwise it
+wouldn't have taken me long to send you through the window to air your
+ironies at your ease. The law of gravity ought not to be topsy-turvy
+here at Ahaggar."
+
+"You, no doubt, formulated several hypotheses when you first
+encountered the name, Antinea," continued M. Le Mesge, imperturbable
+under my fixed gaze, addressing himself to Morhange. "Would you object
+to repeating them to me?"
+
+"Not at all, sir," said Morhange.
+
+And, very composedly, he enumerated the etymological suggestions I
+have given previously.
+
+The little man with the cherry-colored shirt front rubbed his hands.
+
+"Very good," he admitted with an accent of intense jubilation.
+"Amazingly good, at least for one with only the modicum of Greek that
+you possess. But it is all none the less false, super-false."
+
+"It is because I suspected as much that I put my question to you,"
+said Morhange blandly.
+
+"I will not keep you longer in suspense," said M. Le Mesge. "The word,
+Antinea, is composed as follows: _ti_ is nothing but a Tifinar
+addition to an essentially Greek name. _Ti_ is the Berber feminine
+article. We have several examples of this combination. Take _Tipasa_,
+the North African town. The name means the whole, from _ti_ and from
+[Greek: nap]. So, _tinea_ signifies the new, from _ti_ and from
+[Greek: ea]."
+
+"And the prefix, _an_?" queried Morhang.
+
+"Is it possible, sir, that I have put myself to the trouble of talking
+to you for a solid hour about the Critias with such trifling effect?
+It is certain that the prefix _an_, alone, has no meaning. You will
+understand that it has one, when I tell you that we have here a very
+curious case of apocope. You must not read _an_; you must read _atlan_.
+_Atl_ has been lost, by apocope; _an_ has survived. To sum up, Antinea
+is composed in the following manner: [Greek: ti-nea--atl'An]. And its
+meaning, _the new Atlantis_, is dazzlingly apparent from this
+demonstration."
+
+I looked at Morhange. His astonishment was without bounds. The Berber
+prefix _ti_ had literally stunned him.
+
+"Have you had occasion, sir, to verify this very ingenious etymology?"
+he was finally able to gasp out.
+
+"You have only to glance over these few books," said M. Le Mesge
+disdainfully.
+
+He opened successively five, ten, twenty cupboards. An enormous
+library was spread out to our view.
+
+"Everything, everything--it is all here," murmured Morhange, with an
+astonishing inflection of terror and admiration.
+
+"Everything that is worth consulting, at any rate," said M. Le Mesge.
+"All the great books, whose loss the so-called learned world deplores
+to-day."
+
+"And how has it happened?"
+
+"Sir, you distress me. I thought you familiar with certain events. You
+are forgetting, then, the passage where Pliny the Elder speaks of the
+library of Carthage and the treasures which were accumulated there? In
+146, when that city fell under the blows of the knave, Scipio, the
+incredible collection of illiterates who bore the name of the Roman
+Senate had only the profoundest contempt for these riches. They
+presented them to the native kings. This is how Mantabal received this
+priceless heritage; it was transmitted to his son and grandson,
+Hiempsal, Juba I, Juba II, the husband of the admirable Cleopatra
+Selene, the daughter of the great Cleopatra and Mark Antony. Cleopatra
+Selene had a daughter who married an Atlantide king. This is how
+Antinea, the daughter of Neptune, counts among her ancestors the
+immortal queen of Egypt. That is how, by following the laws of
+inheritance, the remains of the library of Carthage, enriched by the
+remnants of the library of Alexandria, are actually before your eyes.
+
+"Science fled from man. While he was building those monstrous Babels
+of pseudo-science in Berlin, London, Paris, Science was taking refuge
+in this desert corner of Ahaggar. They may well forge their hypotheses
+back there, based on the loss of the mysterious works of antiquity:
+these works are not lost. They are here. They are here: the Hebrew,
+the Chaldean, the Assyrian books. Here, the great Egyptian traditions
+which inspired Solon, Herodotus and Plato. Here, the Greek
+mythologists, the magicians of Roman Africa, the Indian mystics, all
+the treasures, in a word, for the lack of which contemporary
+dissertations are poor laughable things. Believe me, he is well
+avenged, the little universitarian whom they took for a madman, whom
+they defied. I have lived, I live, I shall live in a perpetual burst
+of laughter at their false and garbled erudition. And when I shall be
+dead, Error,--thanks to the jealous precaution of Neptune taken to
+isolate his well-beloved Clito from the rest of the world,--Error, I
+say, will continue to reign as sovereign mistress over their pitiful
+compositions."
+
+"Sir," said Morhange in grave voice, "you have just affirmed the
+influence of Egypt on the civilizations of the people here. For
+reasons which some day, perhaps, I shall have occasion to explain to
+you, I would like to have proof of that relationship."
+
+"We need not wait for that, sir," said M. Le Mesge. Then, in my turn,
+I advanced.
+
+"Two words, if you please, sir," I said brutally. "I will not hide
+from you that these historical discussions seem to me absolutely out
+of place. It is not my fault if you have had trouble with the
+University, and if you are not to-day at the College of France or
+elsewhere. For the moment, just one thing concerns me: to know just
+what this lady, Antinea, wants with us. My comrade would like to know
+her relation with ancient Egypt: very well. For my part, I desire
+above everything to know her relations with the government of Algeria
+and the Arabian Bureau."
+
+M. Le Mesge gave a strident laugh.
+
+"I am going to give you an answer that will satisfy you both," he
+replied.
+
+And he added:
+
+"Follow me. It is time that you should learn."
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+THE RED MARBLE HALL
+
+
+We passed through an interminable series of stairs and corridors
+following M. Le Mesge.
+
+"You lose all sense of direction in this labyrinth," I muttered to
+Morhange.
+
+"Worse still, you will lose your head," answered my companion _sotto
+voce_. "This old fool is certainly very learned; but God knows what he
+is driving at. However, he has promised that we are soon to know."
+
+M. Le Mesge had stopped before a heavy dark door, all incrusted with
+strange symbols. Turning the lock with difficulty, he opened it.
+
+"Enter, gentlemen, I beg you," he said.
+
+A gust of cold air struck us full in the face. The room we were
+entering was chill as a vault.
+
+At first, the darkness allowed me to form no idea of its proportions.
+The lighting, purposely subdued, consisted of twelve enormous copper
+lamps, placed column-like upon the ground and burning with brilliant
+red flames. As we entered, the wind from the corridor made the flames
+flicker, momentarily casting about us our own enlarged and misshapen
+shadows. Then the gust died down, and the flames, no longer flurried,
+again licked up the darkness with their motionless red tongues.
+
+These twelve giant lamps (each one about ten feet high) were arranged
+in a kind of crown, the diameter of which must have been about fifty
+feet. In the center of this circle was a dark mass, all streaked with
+trembling red reflections. When I drew nearer, I saw it was a bubbling
+fountain. It was the freshness of this water which had maintained the
+temperature of which I have spoken.
+
+Huge seats were cut in the central rock from which gushed the
+murmuring, shadowy fountain. They were heaped with silky cushions.
+Twelve incense burners, within the circle of red lamps, formed a
+second crown, half as large in diameter. Their smoke mounted toward
+the vault, invisible in the darkness, but their perfume, combined with
+the coolness and sound of the water, banished from the soul all other
+desire than to remain there forever.
+
+M. Le Mesge made us sit down in the center of the hall, on the
+Cyclopean seats. He seated himself between us.
+
+"In a few minutes," he said, "your eyes will grow accustomed to the
+obscurity."
+
+I noticed that he spoke in a hushed voice, as if he were in church.
+
+Little by little, our eyes did indeed grow used to the red light. Only
+the lower part of the great hall was illuminated. The whole vault was
+drowned in shadow and its height was impossible to estimate. Vaguely,
+I could perceive overhead a great smooth gold chandelier, flecked,
+like everything else, with sombre red reflections. But there was no
+means of judging the length of the chain by which it hung from the
+dark ceiling.
+
+The marble of the pavement was of so high a polish, that the great
+torches were reflected even there.
+
+This room, I repeat, was round a perfect circle of which the fountain
+at our backs was the center.
+
+We sat facing the curving walls. Before long, we began to be able to
+see them. They were of peculiar construction, divided into a series
+of niches, broken, ahead of us, by the door which had just opened to
+give us passage, behind us, by a second door, a still darker hole
+which I divined in the darkness when I turned around. From one door to
+the other, I counted sixty niches, making, in all, one hundred and
+twenty. Each was about ten feet high. Each contained a kind of case,
+larger above than below, closed only at the lower end. In all these
+cases, except two just opposite me, I thought I could discern a
+brilliant shape, a human shape certainly, something like a statue of
+very pale bronze. In the arc of the circle before me, I counted
+clearly thirty of these strange statues.
+
+What were these statues? I wanted to see. I rose.
+
+M. Le Mesge put his hand on my arm.
+
+"In good time," he murmured in the same low voice, "all in good time."
+
+The Professor was watching the door by which we had entered the hall,
+and from behind which we could hear the sound of footsteps becoming
+more and more distinct.
+
+It opened quietly to admit three Tuareg slaves. Two of them were
+carrying a long package on their shoulders; the third seemed to be
+their chief.
+
+At a sign from him, they placed the package on the ground and drew out
+from one of the niches the case which it contained.
+
+"You may approach, gentlemen," said M. Le Mesge.
+
+He motioned the three Tuareg to withdraw several paces.
+
+"You asked me, not long since, for some proof of the Egyptian
+influence on this country," said M. Le Mesge. "What do you say to that
+case, to begin with?"
+
+As he spoke, he pointed to the case that the servants had deposited
+upon the ground after they took it from its niche.
+
+Morhange uttered a thick cry.
+
+We had before us one of those cases designed for the preservation of
+mummies. The same shiny wood, the same bright decorations, the only
+difference being that here Tifinar writing replaced the hieroglyphics.
+The form, narrow at the base, broader above, ought to have been enough
+to enlighten us.
+
+I have already said that the lower half of this large case was
+closed, giving the whole structure the appearance of a rectangular
+wooden shoe.
+
+M. Le Mesge knelt and fastened on the lower part of the case, a square
+of white cardboard, a large label, that he had picked up from his
+desk, a few minutes before, on leaving the library.
+
+"You may read," he said simply, but still in the same low tone.
+
+I knelt also, for the light of the great candelabra was scarcely
+sufficient to read the label where, none the less, I recognized the
+Professor's handwriting.
+
+It bore these few words, in a large round hand:
+
+"Number 53. Major Sir Archibald Russell. Born at Richmond, July 5,
+1860. Died at Ahaggar, December 3, 1896."
+
+I leapt to my feet.
+
+"Major Russell!" I exclaimed.
+
+"Not so loud, not so loud," said M. Le Mesge. "No one speaks out loud
+here."
+
+"The Major Russell," I repeated, obeying his injunction as if in spite
+of myself, "who left Khartoum last year, to explore Sokoto?"
+
+"The same," replied the Professor.
+
+"And ... where is Major Russell?"
+
+"He is there," replied M. Le Mesge.
+
+The Professor made a gesture. The Tuareg approached.
+
+A poignant silence reigned in the mysterious hall, broken only by the
+fresh splashing of the fountain.
+
+The three Negroes were occupied in undoing the package that they had
+put down near the painted case. Weighed down with wordless horror,
+Morhange and I stood watching.
+
+Soon, a rigid form, a human form, appeared. A red gleam played over
+it. We had before us, stretched out upon the ground, a statue of pale
+bronze, wrapped in a kind of white veil, a statue like those all
+around us, upright in their niches. It seemed to fix us with an
+impenetrable gaze.
+
+"Sir Archibald Russell," murmured M. Le Mesge slowly.
+
+Morhange approached, speechless, but strong enough to lift up the
+white veil. For a long, long time he gazed at the sad bronze statue.
+
+"A mummy, a mummy?" he said finally. "You deceive yourself, sir, this
+is no mummy."
+
+"Accurately speaking, no," replied M. Le Mesge. "This is not a mummy.
+None the less, you have before you the mortal remains of Sir Archibald
+Russell. I must point out to you, here, my dear sir, that the
+processes of embalming used by Antinea differ from the processes
+employed in ancient Egypt. Here, there is no natron, nor bands, nor
+spices. The industry of Ahaggar, in a single effort, has achieved a
+result obtained by European science only after long experiments.
+Imagine my surprise, when I arrived here and found that they were
+employing a method I supposed known only to the civilized world."
+
+M. Le Mesge struck a light tap with his finger on the forehead of Sir
+Archibald Russell. It rang like metal.
+
+"It is bronze," I said. "That is not a human forehead: it is bronze."
+
+M. Le Mesge shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"It is a human forehead," he affirmed curtly, "and not bronze. Bronze
+is darker, sir. This is the great unknown metal of which Plato speaks
+in the Critias, and which is something between gold and silver: it is
+the special metal of the mountains of the Atlantides. It is
+_orichalch_."
+
+Bending again, I satisfied myself that this metal was the same as that
+with which the walls of the library were overcast.
+
+"It is orichalch," continued M. Le Mesge. "You look as if you had no
+idea how a human body can look like a statue of orichalch. Come,
+Captain Morhange, you whom I gave credit for a certain amount of
+knowledge, have you never heard of the method of Dr. Variot, by which
+a human body can be preserved without embalming? Have you never read
+the book of that practitioner?[11] He explains a method called
+electro-plating. The skin is coated with a very thin layer of silver
+salts, to make it a conductor. The body then is placed in a solution,
+of copper sulphate, and the polar currents do their work. The body of
+this estimable English major has been metalized in the same manner,
+except that a solution of orichalch sulphate, a very rare substance,
+has been substituted for that of copper sulphate. Thus, instead of the
+statue of a poor slave, a copper statue, you have before you a statue
+of metal more precious than silver or gold, in a word, a statue worthy
+of the granddaughter of Neptune."
+
+[Footnote 11: Variot: _L'anthropologie galvanique_. Paris, 1890. (Note
+by M. Leroux.)]
+
+M. Le Mesge waved his arm. The black slaves seized the body. In a few
+seconds, they slid the orichalch ghost into its painted wooden sheath.
+That was set on end and slid into its niche, beside the niche where an
+exactly similar sheath was labelled "Number 52."
+
+Upon finishing their task, they retired without a word. A draught of
+cold air from the door again made the flames of the copper torches
+flicker and threw great shadows about us.
+
+Morhange and I remained as motionless as the pale metal specters which
+surrounded us. Suddenly I pulled myself together and staggered forward
+to the niche beside that in which they just had laid the remains of
+the English major. I looked for the label.
+
+Supporting myself against the red marble wall, I read:
+
+"Number 52. Captain Laurent Deligne. Born at Paris, July 22, 1861.
+Died at Ahaggar, October 30, 1896."
+
+"Captain Deligne!" murmured Morhange. "He left Colomb-Béchar in 1895
+for Timmimoun and no more has been heard of him since then."
+
+"Exactly," said M. Le Mesge, with a little nod of approval.
+
+"Number 51," read Morhange with chattering teeth. "Colonel von
+Wittman, born at Jena in 1855. Died at Ahaggar, May 1, 1896....
+Colonel Wittman, the explorer of Kanem, who disappeared off Agadès."
+
+"Exactly," said M. Le Mesge again.
+
+"Number 50," I read in my turn, steadying myself against the wall, so
+as not to fall. "Marquis Alonzo d'Oliveira, born at Cadiz, February
+21, 1868. Died at Ahaggar, February 1, 1896. Oliveira, who was going
+to Araouan."
+
+"Exactly," said M. Le Mesge again. "That Spaniard was one of the best
+educated. I used to have interesting discussions with him on the exact
+geographical position of the kingdom of Antée."
+
+"Number 49," said Morhange in a tone scarcely more than a whisper.
+"Lieutenant Woodhouse, born at Liverpool, September 16, 1870. Died at
+Ahaggar, October 4, 1895."
+
+"Hardly more than a child," said M. Le Mesge.
+
+"Number 48," I said. "Lieutenant Louis de Maillefeu, born at Provins,
+the...."
+
+I did not finish. My voice choked.
+
+Louis de Maillefeu, my best friend, the friend of my childhood and of
+Saint-Cyr.... I looked at him and recognized him under the metallic
+coating. Louis de Maillefeu!
+
+I laid my forehead against the cold wall and, with shaking shoulders,
+began to sob.
+
+I heard the muffled voice of Morhange speaking to the Professor:
+
+"Sir, this has lasted long enough. Let us make an end of it."
+
+"He wanted to know," said M. Le Mesge. "What am I to do?"
+
+I went up to him and seized his shoulders.
+
+"What happened to him? What did he die of?"
+
+"Just like the others," the Professor replied, "just like Lieutenant
+Woodhouse, like Captain Deligne, like Major Russell, like Colonel von
+Wittman, like the forty-seven of yesterday and all those of
+to-morrow."
+
+"Of what did they die?" Morhange demanded imperatively in his turn.
+
+The Professor looked at Morhange. I saw my comrade grow pale.
+
+"Of what did they die, sir? _They died of love_."
+
+And he added in a very low, very grave voice:
+
+"Now you know."
+
+Gently and with a tact which we should hardly have suspected in him,
+M. Le Mesge drew us away from the statues. A moment later, Morhange
+and I found ourselves again seated, or rather sunk among the cushions
+in the center of the room. The invisible fountain murmured its plaint
+at our feet.
+
+Le Mesge sat between us.
+
+"Now you know," he repeated. "You know, but you do not yet
+understand."
+
+Then, very slowly, he said:
+
+"You are, as they have been, the prisoners of Antinea. And vengeance
+is due Antinea."
+
+"Vengeance?" said Morhange, who had regained his self-possession. "For
+what, I beg to ask? What have the lieutenant and I done to Atlantis?
+How have we incurred her hatred?"
+
+"It is an old quarrel, a very old quarrel," the Professor replied
+gravely. "A quarrel which long antedates you, M. Morhange."
+
+"Explain yourself, I beg of you, Professor."
+
+"You are Man. She is a Woman," said the dreamy voice of M. Le Mesge.
+"The whole matter lies there."
+
+"Really, sir, I do not see ... we do not see."
+
+"You are going to understand. Have you really forgotten to what an
+extent the beautiful queens of antiquity had just cause to complain of
+the strangers whom fortune brought to their borders? The poet, Victor
+Hugo, pictured their detestable acts well enough in his colonial poem
+called _la Fille d'O-Taiti_. Wherever we look, we see similar examples
+of fraud and ingratitude. These gentlemen made free use of the beauty
+and the riches of the lady. Then, one fine morning, they disappeared.
+She was indeed lucky if her lover, having observed the position
+carefully, did not return with ships and troops of occupation."
+
+"Your learning charms me," said Morhange. "Continue."
+
+"Do you need examples? Alas! they abound. Think of the cavalier
+fashion in which Ulysses treated Calypso, Diomedes Callirhoë. What
+should I say of Theseus and Ariadne? Jason treated Medea with
+inconceivable lightness. The Romans continued the tradition with still
+greater brutality. Aenaeus, who has many characteristics in common
+with the Reverend Spardek, treated Dido in a most undeserved fashion.
+Caesar was a laurel-crowned blackguard in his relations with the
+divine Cleopatra. Titus, that hypocrite Titus, after having lived a
+whole year in Idummea at the expense of the plaintive Berenice, took
+her back to Rome only to make game of her. It is time that the sons of
+Japhet paid this formidable reckoning of injuries to the daughters of
+Shem.
+
+"A woman has taken it upon herself to re-establish the great Hegelian
+law of equilibrium for the benefit of her sex. Separated from the
+Aryan world by the formidable precautions of Neptune, she draws the
+youngest and bravest to her. Her body is condescending, while her
+spirit is inexorable. She takes what these bold young men can give
+her. She lends them her body, while her soul dominates them. She is
+the first sovereign who has never been made the slave of passion, even
+for a moment. She has never been obliged to regain her self-mastery,
+for she never has lost it. She is the only woman who has been able to
+disassociate those two inextricable things, love and voluptuousness."
+
+M. Le Mesge paused a moment and then went on.
+
+"Once every day, she comes to this vault. She stops before the niches;
+she meditates before the rigid statues; she touches the cold bosoms,
+so burning when she knew them. Then, after dreaming before the empty
+niche where the next victim soon will sleep his eternal sleep in a
+cold case of orichalch, she returns nonchalantly where he is waiting
+for her."
+
+The Professor stopped speaking. The fountain again made itself heard
+in the midst of the shadow. My pulses beat, my head seemed on fire. A
+fever was consuming me.
+
+"And all of them," I cried, regardless of the place, "all of them
+complied! They submitted! Well, she has only to come and she will see
+what will happen."
+
+Morhange was silent.
+
+"My dear sir," said M. Le Mesge in a very gentle voice, "you are
+speaking like a child. You do not know. You have not seen Antinea. Let
+me tell you one thing: that among those"--and with a sweeping gesture
+he indicated the silent circle of statues--"there were men as
+courageous as you and perhaps less excitable. I remember one of them
+especially well, a phlegmatic Englishman who now is resting under
+Number 32. When he first appeared before Antinea, he was smoking a
+cigar. And, like all the rest, he bent before the gaze of his
+sovereign.
+
+"Do not speak until you have seen her. A university training hardly
+fits one to discourse upon matters of passion, and I feel scarcely
+qualified, myself, to tell you what Antinea is. I only affirm this,
+that when you have seen her, you will remember nothing else. Family,
+country, honor, you will renounce everything for her."
+
+"Everything?" asked Morhange in a calm voice.
+
+"Everything," Le Mesge insisted emphatically. "You will forget all,
+you will renounce all."
+
+From outside, a faint sound came to us.
+
+Le Mesge consulted his watch.
+
+"In any case, you will see."
+
+The door opened. A tall white Targa, the tallest we had yet seen in
+this remarkable abode, entered and came toward us.
+
+He bowed and touched me lightly on the shoulder.
+
+"Follow him," said M. Le Mesge.
+
+Without a word, I obeyed.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+ANTINEA
+
+
+My guide and I passed along another long corridor. My excitement
+increased. I was impatient for one thing only, to come face to face
+with that woman, to tell her.... So far as anything else was
+concerned, I already was done for.
+
+I was mistaken in hoping that the adventure would take an heroic turn
+at once. In real life, these contrasts never are definitely marked
+out. I should have remembered from many past incidents that the
+burlesque was regularly mixed with the tragic in my life.
+
+We reached a little transparent door. My guide stood aside to let me
+pass.
+
+I found myself in the most luxurious of dressing-rooms. A ground glass
+ceiling diffused a gay rosy light over the marble floor. The first
+thing I noticed was a clock, fastened to the wall. In place of the
+figures for the hours, were the signs of the Zodiac. The small hand
+had not yet reached the sign of Capricorn.
+
+Only three o'clock!
+
+The day seemed to have lasted a century already.... And only a little
+more than half of it was gone.
+
+Another idea came to me, and a convulsive laugh bent me double.
+
+"Antinea wants me to be at my best when I meet her."
+
+A mirror of orichalch formed one whole side of the room. Glancing into
+it, I realized that in all decency there was nothing exaggerated in
+the demand.
+
+My untrimmed beard, the frightful layer of dirt which lay about my
+eyes and furrowed my cheeks, my clothing, spotted by all the clay of
+the Sahara and torn by all the thorns of Ahaggar--all this made me
+appear a pitiable enough suitor.
+
+I lost no time in undressing and plunging into the porphry bath in the
+center of the room. A delicious drowsiness came over me in that
+perfumed water. A thousand little jars, spread on a costly carved wood
+dressing-table, danced before my eyes. They were of all sizes and
+colors, carved in a very transparent kind of jade. The warm humidity
+of the atmosphere hastened my relaxation.
+
+I still had strength to think, "The devil take Atlantis and the vault
+and Le Mesge."
+
+Then I fell asleep in the bath.
+
+When I opened my eyes again, the little hand of the clock had almost
+reached the sign of Taurus. Before me, his black hands braced on the
+edge of the bath, stood a huge Negro, bare-faced and bare-armed, his
+forehead bound with an immense orange turban.
+
+He looked at me and showed his white teeth in a silent laugh.
+
+"Who is this fellow?"
+
+The Negro laughed harder. Without saying a word, he lifted me like a
+feather out of the perfumed water, now of a color on which I shall not
+dwell.
+
+In no time at all, I was stretched out on an inclined marble table.
+
+The Negro began to massage me vigorously.
+
+"More gently there, fellow!"
+
+My masseur did not reply, but laughed and rubbed still harder.
+
+"Where do you come from? Kanem? Torkou? You laugh too much for a
+Targa."
+
+Unbroken silence. The Negro was as speechless as he was hilarious.
+
+"After all, I am making a fool of myself," I said, giving up the case.
+"Such as he is, he is more agreeable than Le Mesge with his
+nightmarish erudition. But, on my word, what a recruit he would be for
+Hamman on the rue des Mathurins!"
+
+"Cigarette, sidi?"
+
+Without awaiting my reply, he placed a cigarette between my lips and
+lighted it, and resumed his task of polishing every inch of me.
+
+"He doesn't talk much, but he is obliging," I thought.
+
+And I sent a puff of smoke into his face.
+
+This pleasantry seemed to delight him immensely. He showed his
+pleasure by giving me great slaps.
+
+When he had dressed me down sufficiently, he took a little jar from
+the dressing-table and began to rub me with a rose-colored ointment.
+Weariness seemed to fly away from my rejuvenated muscles.
+
+A stroke on a copper gong. My masseur disappeared. A stunted old
+Negress entered, dressed in the most tawdry tinsel. She was talkative
+as a magpie, but at first I did not understand a word in the
+interminable string she unwound, while she took first my hands, then
+my feet, and polished the nails with determined grimaces.
+
+Another stroke on the gong. The old woman gave place to another Negro,
+grave, this time, and dressed all in white with a knitted skull cap on
+his oblong head. It was the barber, and a remarkably dexterous one. He
+quickly trimmed my hair, and, on my word, it was well done. Then,
+without asking me what style I preferred, he shaved me clean.
+
+I looked with pleasure at my face, once more visible.
+
+"Antinea must like the American type," I thought. "What an affront to
+the memory of her worthy grandfather, Neptune!"
+
+The gay Negro entered and placed a package on the divan. The barber
+disappeared. I was somewhat astonished to observe that the package,
+which my new valet opened carefully, contained a suit of white
+flannels exactly like those French officers wear in Algeria in summer.
+
+The wide trousers seemed made to my measure. The tunic fitted without
+a wrinkle, and my astonishment was unbounded at observing that it even
+had two gilt _galons_, the insignia of my rank, braided on the cuffs.
+For shoes, there were slippers of red Morocco leather, with gold
+ornaments. The underwear, all of silk, seemed to have come straight
+from the rue de la Paix.
+
+"Dinner was excellent," I murmured, looking at myself in the mirror
+with satisfaction. "The apartment is perfectly arranged. Yes, but...."
+
+I could not repress a shudder when I suddenly recalled that room of
+red marble.
+
+The clock struck half past four.
+
+Someone rapped gently on the door. The tall white Targa, who had
+brought me, appeared in the doorway.
+
+He stepped forward, touched me on the arm and signed for me to follow.
+
+Again I followed him.
+
+We passed through interminable corridors. I was disturbed, but the
+warm water had given me a certain feeling of detachment. And above
+all, more than I wished to admit, I had a growing sense of lively
+curiosity. If, at that moment, someone had offered to lead me back to
+the route across the white plain near Shikh-Salah, would I have
+accepted? Hardly.
+
+I tried to feel ashamed of my curiosity. I thought of Maillefeu.
+
+"He, too, followed this corridor. And now he is down there, in the red
+marble hall."
+
+I had no time to linger over this reminiscence. I was suddenly bowled
+over, thrown to the ground, as if by a sort of meteor. The corridor
+was dark; I could see nothing. I heard only a mocking growl.
+
+The white Targa had flattened himself back against the wall.
+
+"Good," I mumbled, picking myself up, "the deviltries are beginning."
+
+We continued on our way. A glow different from that of the rose night
+lights soon began to light up the corridor.
+
+We reached a high bronze door, in which a strange lacy design had
+been cut in filigree. A clear gong sounded, and the double doors
+opened part way. The Targa remained in the corridor, closing the doors
+after me.
+
+I took a few steps forward mechanically, then paused, rooted to the
+spot, and rubbed my eyes.
+
+I was dazzled by the sight of the sky.
+
+Several hours of shaded light had unaccustomed me to daylight. It
+poured in through one whole side of the huge room.
+
+The room was in the lower part of this mountain, which was more
+honeycombed with corridors and passages than an Egyptian pyramid. It
+was on a level with the garden which I had seen in the morning from
+the balcony, and seemed to be a continuation of it; the carpet
+extended out under the great palm trees and the birds flew about the
+forest of pillars in the room.
+
+By contrast, the half of the room untouched by direct light from the
+oasis seemed dark. The sun, setting behind the mountain, painted the
+garden paths with rose and flamed with red upon the traditional
+flamingo which stood with one foot raised at the edge of the sapphire
+lake.
+
+Suddenly I was bowled over a second time.
+
+I felt a warm, silky touch, a burning breath on my neck. Again the
+mocking growl which had so disturbed me in the corridor.
+
+With a wrench, I pulled myself free and sent a chance blow at my
+assailant. The cry, this time of pain and rage, broke out again.
+
+It was echoed by a long peal of laughter. Furious, I turned to look
+for the insolent onlooker, thinking to speak my mind. And then my
+glance stood still.
+
+Antinea was before me.
+
+
+In the dimmest part of the room, under a kind of arch lit by the mauve
+rays from a dozen incense-lamps, four women lay on a heap of
+many-colored cushions and rare white Persian rugs.
+
+I recognized the first three as Tuareg women, of a splendid regular
+beauty, dressed in magnificent robes of white silk embroidered in
+gold. The fourth, very dark skinned, almost negroid, seemed younger.
+A tunic of red silk enhanced the dusk of her face, her arms and her
+bare feet. The four were grouped about a sort of throne of white rugs,
+covered with a gigantic lion's skin, on which, half raised on one
+elbow, lay Antinea.
+
+Antinea! Whenever I saw her after that, I wondered if I had really
+looked at her before, so much more beautiful did I find her. More
+beautiful? Inadequate word. Inadequate language! But is it really the
+fault of the language or of those who abuse the word?
+
+One could not stand before her without recalling the woman for whom
+Ephractoeus overcame Atlas, of her for whom Sapor usurped the scepter
+of Ozymandias, for whom Mamylos subjugated Susa and Tentyris, for whom
+Antony fled....
+
+    _O tremblant coeur humain, si jamais tu vibras
+    C'est dans l'étreinte altière et chaude de ses bras_.
+
+An Egyptian _klaft_ fell over her abundant blue-black curls. Its two
+points of heavy, gold-embroidered cloth extended to her slim hips. The
+golden serpent, emerald-eyed, was clasped about her little round,
+determined forehead, darting its double tongue of rubies over her
+head.
+
+She wore a tunic of black chiffon shot with gold, very light, very
+full, slightly gathered in by a white muslin scarf embroidered with
+iris in black pearls.
+
+That was Antinea's costume. But what was she beneath all this? A slim
+young girl, with long green eyes and the slender profile of a hawk. A
+more intense Adonis. A child queen of Sheba, but with a look, a smile,
+such as no Oriental ever had. A miracle of irony and freedom.
+
+I did not see her body. Indeed I should not have thought of looking at
+it, had I had the strength. And that, perhaps, was the most
+extraordinary thing about that first impression. In that unforgettable
+moment nothing would have seemed to me more horribly sacrilegious than
+to think of the fifty victims in the red marble hall, of the fifty
+young men who had held that slender body in their arms.
+
+She was still laughing at me.
+
+"King Hiram," she called.
+
+I turned and saw my enemy.
+
+On the capital of one of the columns, twenty feet above the floor, a
+splendid leopard was crouched. He still looked surly from the blow I
+had dealt him.
+
+"King Hiram," Antinea repeated. "Come here."
+
+The beast relaxed like a spring released. He fawned at his mistress's
+feet. I saw his red tongue licking her bare little ankles.
+
+"Ask the gentleman's pardon," she said.
+
+The leopard looked at me spitefully. The yellow skin of his muzzle
+puckered about his black moustache.
+
+"Fftt," he grumbled like a great cat.
+
+"Go," Antinea ordered imperiously.
+
+The beast crawled reluctantly toward me. He laid his head humbly
+between his paws and waited.
+
+I stroked his beautiful spotted forehead.
+
+"You must not be vexed," said Antinea. "He is always that way with
+strangers."
+
+"Then he must often be in bad humor," I said simply.
+
+Those were my first words. They brought a smile to Antinea's lips.
+
+She gave me a long, quiet look.
+
+"Aguida," she said to one of the Targa women, "you will give
+twenty-five pounds in gold to Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh."
+
+"You are a lieutenant?" she asked, after a pause.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Where do you come from?"
+
+"From France."
+
+"I might have guessed that," she said ironically, "but from what part
+of France?"
+
+"From what we call the Lot-et-Garonne."
+
+"From what town?"
+
+"From Duras."
+
+She reflected a moment.
+
+"Duras! There is a little river there, the Dropt, and a fine old
+château."
+
+"You know Duras?" I murmured, amazed.
+
+"You go there from Bordeaux by a little branch railway," she went
+on. "It is a shut-in road, with vine-covered hills crowned by
+the feudal ruins. The villages have beautiful names: Monségur,
+Sauve-terre-de-Guyenne, la Tresne, Créon, ... Créon, as in Antigone."
+
+"You have been there?"
+
+She looked at me.
+
+"Don't speak so coldly," she said. "Sooner or later we will be
+intimate, and you may as well lay aside formality now."
+
+This threatening promise suddenly filled me with great happiness. I
+thought of Le Mesge's words: "Don't talk until you have seen her. When
+you have seen her, you will renounce everything for her."
+
+"Have I been in Duras?" she went on with a burst of laughter. "You are
+joking. Imagine Neptune's granddaughter in the first-class compartment
+of a local train!"
+
+She pointed to an enormous white rock which towered above the palm
+trees of the garden.
+
+"That is my horizon," she said gravely.
+
+She picked up one of several books which lay scattered about her on
+the lion's skin.
+
+"The time table of the _Chemin de Fer de l'Ouest_," she said.
+"Admirable reading for one who never budges! Here it is half-past five
+in the afternoon. A train, a local, arrived three minutes ago at
+Surgères in the Charente-Inférieure. It will start on in six minutes.
+In two hours it will reach La Rochelle. How strange it seems to think
+of such things here. So far away! So much commotion there! Here,
+nothing changes."
+
+"You speak French well," I said.
+
+She gave a little nervous laugh.
+
+"I have to. And German, too, and Italian, and English and Spanish. My
+way of living has made me a great polygot. But I prefer French, even
+to Tuareg and Arabian. It seems as if I had always known it. And I am
+not saying that to please you."
+
+There was a pause. I thought of her grandmother, of whom Plutarch
+said: "There were few races with which she needed an interpreter.
+Cleopatra spoke their own language to the Ethiopians, to the
+Troglodytes, the Hebrews, the Arabs, the Medes and the Persians."
+
+"Do not stand rooted in the middle of the room. You worry me. Come
+sit here, beside me. Move over, King Hiram."
+
+The leopard obeyed with good temper.
+
+Beside her was an onyx bowl. She took from it a perfectly plain ring
+of orichalch and slipped it on my left ring-finger. I saw that she
+wore one like it.
+
+"Tanit-Zerga, give Monsieur de Saint-Avit a rose sherbet."
+
+The dark girl in red silk obeyed.
+
+"My private secretary," said Antinea, introducing her. "Mademoiselle
+Tanit-Zerga, of Gâo, on the Niger. Her family is almost as ancient as
+mine."
+
+As she spoke, she looked at me. Her green eyes seemed to be appraising
+me.
+
+"And your comrade, the Captain?" she asked in a dreamy tone. "I have
+not yet seen him. What is he like? Does he resemble you?"
+
+For the first time since I had entered, I thought of Morhange. I did
+not answer.
+
+Antinea smiled.
+
+She stretched herself out full length on the lion skin. Her bare right
+knee slipped out from under her tunic.
+
+"It is time to go find him," she said languidly. "You will soon
+receive my orders. Tanit-Zerga, show him the way. First take him to
+his room. He cannot have seen it."
+
+I rose and lifted her hand to my lips. She struck me with it so
+sharply as to make my lips bleed, as if to brand me as her possession.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I was in the dark corridor again. The young girl in the red silk tunic
+walked ahead of me.
+
+"Here is your room," she said. "If you wish, I will take you to the
+dining-room. The others are about to meet there for dinner."
+
+She spoke an adorable lisping French.
+
+"No, Tanit-Zerga, I would rather stay here this evening. I am not
+hungry. I am tired."
+
+"You remember my name?" she said.
+
+She seemed proud of it. I felt that in her I had an ally in case of
+need.
+
+"I remember your name, Tanit-Zerga, because it is beautiful."[12]
+
+[Footnote 12: In Berber, Tanit means a spring; zerga is the feminine of
+the adjective azreg, blue. (Note by M. Leroux.)]
+
+Then I added:
+
+"Now, leave me, little one. I want to be alone."
+
+It seemed as if she would never go. I was touched, but at the same
+time vexed. I felt a great need of withdrawing into myself.
+
+"My room is above yours," she said. "There is a copper gong on the
+table here. You have only to strike if you want anything. A white
+Targa will answer."
+
+For a second, these instructions amused me. I was in a hotel in the
+midst of the Sahara. I had only to ring for service.
+
+I looked about my room. My room! For how long?
+
+It was fairly large. Cushions, a couch, an alcove cut into the rock,
+all lighted by a great window covered by a matting shade.
+
+I went to the window and raised the shade. The light of the setting
+sun entered.
+
+I leaned my elbows on the rocky sill. Inexpressible emotion filled my
+heart. The window faced south. It was about two hundred feet above the
+ground. The black, polished volcanic wall yawned dizzily below me.
+
+In front of me, perhaps a mile and a half away, was another wall, the
+first enclosure mentioned in the Critias. And beyond it in the
+distance, I saw the limitless red desert.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+MORHANGE DISAPPEARS
+
+
+My fatigue was so great that I lay as if unconscious until the next
+day. I awoke about three o'clock in the afternoon.
+
+I thought at once of the events of the previous day; they seemed
+amazing.
+
+"Let me see," I said to myself. "Let us work this out. I must begin by
+consulting Morhange."
+
+I was ravenously hungry.
+
+The gong which Tanit-Zerga had pointed out lay within arm's reach. I
+struck it. A white Targa appeared.
+
+"Show me the way to the library," I ordered.
+
+He obeyed. As we wound our way through the labyrinth of stairs and
+corridors I realized that I could never have found my way without his
+help.
+
+Morhange was in the library, intently reading a manuscript.
+
+"A lost treatise of Saint Optat," he said. "Oh, if only Dom Granger
+were here. See, it is written in semi-uncial characters."
+
+I did not reply. My eyes were fixed on an object which lay on the
+table beside the manuscript. It was an orichalch ring, exactly like
+that which Antinea had given me the previous day and the one which she
+herself wore.
+
+Morhange smiled.
+
+"Well?" I said.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"You have seen her?"
+
+"I have indeed," Morhange replied.
+
+"She is beautiful, is she not?"
+
+"It would be difficult to dispute that," my comrade answered. "I even
+believe that I can say that she is as intelligent as she is
+beautiful."
+
+There was a pause. Morhange was calmly fingering the orichalch ring.
+
+"You know what our fate is to be?"
+
+"I know. Le Mesge explained it to us yesterday in polite mythological
+terms. This evidently is an extraordinary adventure."
+
+He was silent, then said, looking at me:
+
+"I am very sorry to have dragged you here. The only mitigating feature
+is that since last evening you seem to have been bearing your lot very
+easily."
+
+Where had Morhange learned this insight into the human heart? I did
+not reply, thus giving him the best of proofs that he had judged
+correctly.
+
+"What do you think of doing?" I finally murmured.
+
+He rolled up the manuscript, leaned back comfortably in his armchair
+and lit a cigar.
+
+"I have thought it over carefully. With the aid of my conscience I
+have marked out a line of conduct. The matter is clear and admits no
+discussion.
+
+"The question is not quite the same for me as for you, because of my
+semi-religious character, which, I admit, has set out on a rather
+doubtful adventure. To be sure, I have not taken holy orders, but,
+even aside from the fact that the ninth commandment itself forbids my
+having relations with a woman not my wife, I admit that I have no
+taste for the kind of forced servitude for which the excellent
+Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh has so kindly recruited us.
+
+"That granted, the fact remains that my life is not my own with the
+right to dispose of it as might a private explorer travelling at his
+own expenses and for his own ends. I have a mission to accomplish,
+results to obtain. If I could regain my liberty by paying the singular
+ransom which this country exacts, I should consent to give
+satisfaction to Antinea according to my ability. I know the tolerance
+of the Church, and especially that of the order to which I aspire:
+such a procedure would be ratified immediately and, who knows, perhaps
+even approved? Saint Mary the Egyptian, gave her body to boatmen under
+similar circumstances. She received only glorification for it. In so
+doing she had the certainty of attaining her goal, which was holy. The
+end justified the means.
+
+"But my case is quite different. If I give in to the absurd caprices
+of this woman, that will not keep me from being catalogued down in the
+red marble hall, as Number 54, or as Number 55, if she prefers to take
+you first. Under those conditions...."
+
+"Under those conditions?"
+
+"Under those conditions, it would be unpardonable for me to
+acquiesce."
+
+"Then what do you intend to do?"
+
+"What do I intend to do?" Morhange leaned back in the armchair and
+smilingly launched a puff of smoke toward the ceiling.
+
+"Nothing," he said. "And that is all that is necessary. Man has this
+superiority over woman. He is so constructed that he can refuse
+advances."
+
+Then he added with an ironical smile:
+
+"A man cannot be forced to accept unless he wishes to."
+
+I nodded.
+
+"I tried the most subtle reasoning on Antinea," he continued. "It was
+breath wasted. 'But,' I said at the end of my arguments, 'why not Le
+Mesge?' She began to laugh. 'Why not the Reverend Spardek?' she
+replied. 'Le Mesge and Spardek are savants whom I respect. But
+
+    _Maudit soit à jamais rêveur inutile,
+    Qui voulut, le premier, dans sa stupidité,
+    S'éprenant d'un problème insoluble et stérile,
+    Aux choses de l'amour mêler l'honnêteté._
+
+"'Besides,' she added with that really very charming smile of hers,
+'probably you have not looked carefully at either of them.' There
+followed several compliments on my figure, to which I found nothing to
+reply, so completely had she disarmed me by those four lines from
+Baudelaire.
+
+"She condescended to explain further: 'Le Mesge is a learned gentleman
+whom I find useful. He knows Spanish and Italian, keeps my papers in
+order, and is busy working out my genealogy. The Reverend Spardek
+knows English and German. Count Bielowsky is thoroughly conversant
+with the Slavic languages. Besides, I love him like a father. He knew
+me as a child when I had not dreamed such stupid things as you know
+of me. They are indispensable to me in my relations with visitors of
+different races, although I am beginning to get along well enough in
+the languages which I need.... But I am talking a great deal, and this
+is the first time that I have ever explained my conduct. Your friend
+is not so curious.' With that, she dismissed me. A strange woman
+indeed. I think there is a bit of Renan in her but she is cleverer
+than that master of sensualism."
+
+"Gentlemen," said Le Mesge, suddenly entering the room, "why are you
+so late? They are waiting dinner for you."
+
+The little Professor was in a particularly good humor that evening. He
+wore a new violet rosette.
+
+"Well?" he said, in a mocking tone, "you have seen her?"
+
+Neither Morhange nor I replied.
+
+The Reverend Spardek and the Hetmari of Jitomir already had begun
+eating when we arrived. The setting sun threw raspberry lights on the
+cream-colored mat.
+
+"Be seated, gentlemen," said Le Mesge noisily. "Lieutenant de
+Saint-Avit, you were not with us last evening. You are about to taste
+the cooking of Koukou, our Bambara chef, for the first time. You must
+give me your opinion of it."
+
+A Negro waiter set before me a superb fish covered with a pimento
+sauce as red as tomatoes.
+
+I have explained that I was ravenously hungry. The dish was exquisite.
+The sauce immediately made me thirsty.
+
+"White Ahaggar, 1879," the Herman of Jitomir breathed in my ear as he
+filled my goblet with a clear topaz liquid. "I developed it myself:
+_rien pour la tête, tout pour les jambes_."
+
+I emptied the goblet at a gulp. The company began to seem charming.
+
+"Well, Captain Morhange," Le Mesge called out to my comrade who had
+taken a mouthful of fish, "what do you say to this acanthopterygian?
+It was caught to-day in the lake in the oasis. Do you begin to admit
+the hypothesis of the Saharan sea?"
+
+"The fish is an argument," my companion replied.
+
+Suddenly he became silent. The door had opened. A white Targa entered.
+The diners stopped talking.
+
+The veiled man walked slowly toward Morhange and touched his right
+arm.
+
+"Very well," said Morhange.
+
+He got up and followed the messenger.
+
+The pitcher of Ahaggar, 1879, stood between me and Count Bielowsky. I
+filled my goblet--a goblet which held a pint, and gulped it down.
+
+The Hetman looked at me sympathetically.
+
+"Ha, ha!" laughed Le Mesge, nudging me with his elbow. "Antinea has
+respect for the hierarchic order."
+
+The Reverend Spardek smiled modestly.
+
+"Ha, ha!" laughed Le Mesge again.
+
+My glass was empty. For a moment I was tempted to hurl it at the head
+of the Fellow in History. But what of it? I filled it and emptied it
+again.
+
+"Morhange will miss this delicious roast of mutton," said the
+Professor, more and more hilarious, as he awarded himself a thick
+slice of meat.
+
+"He won't regret it," said the Hetman crossly. "This is not roast; it
+is ram's horn. Really Koukou is beginning to make fun of us."
+
+"Blame it on the Reverend," the shrill voice of Le Mesge cut in. "I
+have told him often enough to hunt other proselytes and leave our cook
+alone."
+
+"Professor," Spardek began with dignity.
+
+"I maintain my contention," cried Le Mesge, who seemed to me to be
+getting a bit overloaded. "I call the gentleman to witness," he went
+on, turning to me. "He has just come. He is unbiased. Therefore I ask
+him: has one the right to spoil a Bambara cook by addling his head
+with theological discussions for which he has no predisposition?"
+
+"Alas!" the pastor replied sadly. "You are mistaken. He has only too
+strong a propensity to controversy."
+
+"Koukou is a good-for-nothing who uses Colas' cow as an excuse for
+doing nothing and letting our scallops burn," declared the Hetman.
+"Long live the Pope!" he cried, filling the glasses all around.
+
+"I assure you that this Bambara worries me," Spardek went on with
+great dignity. "Do you know what he has come to? He denies
+transubstantiation. He is within an inch of the heresy of Zwingli and
+Oecolampades. Koukou denies transubstantiation."
+
+"Sir," said Le Mesge, very much excited, "cooks should be left in
+peace. Jesus, whom I consider as good a theologian as you, understood
+that, and it never occurred to him to call Martha away from her oven
+to talk nonsense to her."
+
+"Exactly so," said the Hetman approvingly.
+
+He was holding a jar between his knees and trying to draw its cork.
+
+"Oh, Côtes Rôties, wines from the Côte-Rôtie!" he murmured to me as he
+finally succeeded. "Touch glasses."
+
+"Koukou denies transubstantiation," the pastor continued, sadly
+emptying his glass.
+
+"Eh!" said the Hetman of Jitomir in my ear, "let them talk on. Don't
+you see that they are quite drunk?"
+
+His own voice was thick. He had the greatest difficulty in the world
+in filling my goblet to the brim.
+
+I wanted to push the pitcher away. Then an idea came to me:
+
+"At this very moment, Morhange.... Whatever he may say.... She is so
+beautiful."
+
+I reached out for the glass and emptied it once more.
+
+Le Mesge and the pastor were now engaged in the most extraordinary
+religious controversy, throwing at each other's heads the Book of
+Common Prayer, The Declaration of the Rights of Man, and the
+Unigenitus. Little by little, the Hetman began to show that ascendancy
+over them, which is the characteristic of a man of the world even when
+he is thoroughly drunk; the superiority of education over instruction.
+
+Count Bielowsky had drunk five times as much as the Professor or the
+pastor. But he carried his wine ten times better.
+
+"Let us leave these drunken fellows," he said with disgust. "Come on,
+old man. Our partners are waiting in the gaming room."
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen," said the Hetman as we entered. "Permit me to
+present a new player to you, my friend, Lieutenant de Saint-Avit."
+
+"Let it go at that," he murmured in my ear. "They are the servants.
+But I like to fool myself, you see."
+
+I saw that he was very drunk indeed.
+
+The gaming room was very long and narrow. A huge table, almost level
+with the floor and surrounded with cushions on which a dozen natives
+were lying, was the chief article of furniture. Two engravings on the
+wall gave evidence of the happiest broadmindedness in taste; one of da
+Vinci's St. John the Baptist, and the _Maison des Dernières
+Cartouches_ of Alphonse de Neuville.
+
+On the table were earthenware goblets. A heavy jar held palm liqueur.
+
+I recognized acquaintances among those present; my masseur, the
+manicure, the barber, and two or three Tuareg who had lowered their
+veils and were gravely smoking long pipes. While waiting for something
+better, all were plunged in the delights of a card game that looked
+like "rams." Two of Antinea's beautiful ladies in waiting, Aguida and
+Sydya, were among the number. Their smooth bistre skins gleamed
+beneath veils shot with silver. I was sorry not to see the red silk
+tunic of Tanit-Zerga. Again, I thought of Morhange, but only for an
+instant.
+
+"The chips, Koukou," demanded the Hetman, "We are not here to amuse
+ourselves."
+
+The Zwinglian cook placed a box of many-colored chips in front of him.
+Count Bielowsky set about counting them and arranging them in little
+piles with infinite care.
+
+"The white are worth a _louis_," he explained to me. "The red, a
+hundred francs. The yellow, five hundred. The green, a thousand. Oh,
+it's the devil of a game that we play here. You will see."
+
+"I open with ten thousand," said the Zwinglian cook.
+
+"Twelve thousand," said the Hetman.
+
+"Thirteen," said Sydya with a slow smile, as she seated herself on the
+count's knee and began to arrange her chips lovingly in little piles.
+
+"Fourteen," I said.
+
+"Fifteen," said the sharp voice of Rosita, the old manicure.
+
+"Seventeen," proclaimed the Hetman.
+
+"Twenty thousand," the cook broke in.
+
+He hammered on the table and, casting a defiant look at us, repeated:
+
+"I take it at twenty thousand."
+
+The Hetman made an impatient gesture.
+
+"That devil, Koukou! You can't do anything against the beast. You will
+have to play carefully, Lieutenant."
+
+Koukou had taken his place at the end of the table. He threw down the
+cards with an air which abashed me.
+
+"I told you so; the way it was at Anna Deslions'," the Hetman murmured
+proudly.
+
+"Make your bets, gentlemen," yelped the Negro. "Make your bets."
+
+"Wait, you beast," called Bielowsky. "Don't you see that the glasses
+are empty? Here, Cacambo."
+
+The goblets were filled immediately by the jolly masseur.
+
+"Cut," said Koukou, addressing Sydya, the beautiful Targa who sat at
+his right.
+
+The girl cut, like one who knows superstitions, with her left hand.
+But it must be said that her right was busy lifting a cup to her lips.
+I watched the curve of her beautiful throat.
+
+"My deal," said Koukou.
+
+We were thus arranged: at the left, the Hetman, Aguida, whose waist he
+had encircled with the most aristocratic freedom, Cacambo, a Tuareg
+woman, then two veiled Negroes who were watching the game intently. At
+the right, Sydya, myself, the old manicure, Rosita, Barouf, the
+barber, another woman and two white Tuareg, grave and attentive,
+exactly opposite those on the left.
+
+"Give me one," said the Hetman.
+
+Sydya made a negative gesture.
+
+Koukou drew, passed a four-spot to the Hetman, gave himself a five.
+
+"Eight," announced Bielowsky.
+
+"Six," said pretty Sydya.
+
+"Seven," broke in Koukou. "One card makes up for another," he added
+coldly.
+
+"I double," said the Hetman.
+
+Cacambo and Aguida followed his example. On our side, we were more
+careful. The manicure especially would not risk more than twenty
+francs at a time.
+
+"I demand that the cards be evened up," said Koukou imperturbably.
+
+"This fellow is unbearable," grumbled the count. "There, are you
+satisfied?"
+
+Koukou dealt and laid down a nine.
+
+"My country and my honor!" raged Bielowsky. "I had an eight."
+
+I had two kings, and so showed no ill temper. Rosita took the cards
+out of my hands.
+
+I watched Sydya at my right. Her heavy black hair covered her
+shoulders. She was really very beautiful, though a bit tipsy, as were
+all that fantastic company. She looked at me, too, but with lowered
+eyelids, like a timid little wild animal.
+
+"Oh," I thought. "She may well be afraid. I am labelled 'No
+trespassing.'"
+
+I touched her foot. She drew it back in fright.
+
+"Who wants cards?" Koukou demanded.
+
+"Not I," said the Hetman.
+
+"Served," said Sydya.
+
+The cook drew a four.
+
+"Nine," he said.
+
+"That card was meant for me," cursed the count. "And five, I had a
+five. If only I had never promised his Majesty the Emperor Napoleon II
+never to cut fives! There are times when it is hard, very hard. And
+look at that beast of a Negro who plays Charlemagne."
+
+It was true. Koukou swept in three-quarters of the chips, rose with
+dignity, and bowed to the company.
+
+"Till to-morrow, gentlemen."
+
+"Get along, the whole pack of you," howled the Hetman of Jitomir.
+"Stay with me, Lieutenant de Saint-Avit."
+
+When we were alone, he poured out another huge cupfull of liqueur. The
+ceiling of the room was lost in the gray smoke.
+
+"What time is it?" I asked.
+
+"After midnight. But you are not going to leave me like this, my dear
+boy? I am heavy-hearted."
+
+He wept bitterly. The tail of his coat spread out on the divan behind
+him like the apple-green wings of a beetle.
+
+"Isn't Aguida a beauty?" he went on, still weeping. "She makes me
+think of the Countess de Teruel, though she is a little darker. You
+know the Countess de Teruel, Mercedes, who went in bathing nude at
+Biarritz, in front of the rock of the Virgin, one day when Prince
+Bismarck was standing on the foot-bridge. You do not remember her?
+Mercedes de Teruel."
+
+I shrugged my shoulders.
+
+"I forget; you must have been too young. Two, perhaps three years old.
+A child. Yes, a child. Oh, my child, to have been of that generation
+and to be reduced to playing cards with savages ... I must tell
+you...."
+
+I stood up and pushed him off.
+
+"Stay, stay," he implored. "I will tell you everything you want to
+know, how I came here, things I have never told anyone. Stay, I must
+unbosom myself to a true friend. I will tell you everything, I repeat.
+I trust you. You are a Frenchman, a gentleman. I know that you will
+repeat nothing to her."
+
+"That I will repeat nothing to her?... To whom?"
+
+His voice stuck in his throat. I thought I saw a shudder of fear pass
+over him.
+
+"To her ... to Antinea," he murmured.
+
+I sat down again.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+THE HETMAN OF JITOMIR'S STORY
+
+
+Count Casimir had reached that stage where drunkenness takes on a kind
+of gravity, of regretfulness.
+
+He thought a little, then began his story. I regret that I cannot
+reproduce more perfectly its archaic flavor.
+
+"When the grapes begin to color in Antinea's garden, I shall be
+sixty-eight. It is very sad, my dear boy, to have sowed all your wild
+oats. It isn't true that life is always beginning over again. How
+bitter, to have known the Tuileries in 1860, and to have reached the
+point where I am now!
+
+"One evening, just before the war (I remember that Victor Black was
+still living), some charming women whose names I need not disclose (I
+read the names of their sons from time to time in the society news of
+the _Gaulois_) expressed to me their desire to rub elbows with some
+real _demi-mondaines_ of the artist quarter. I took them to a ball at
+the _Grande Chaumière_. There was a crowd of young painters, models,
+students. In the midst of the uproar, several couples danced the
+_cancan_ till the chandeliers shook with it. We noticed especially a
+little, dark man, dressed in a miserable top-coat and checked trousers
+which assuredly knew the support of no suspenders. He was cross-eyed,
+with a wretched beard and hair as greasy as could be. He bounded and
+kicked extravagantly. The ladies called him Léon Gambetta.
+
+"What an annoyance, when I realize that I need only have felled this
+wretched lawyer with one pistol shot to have guaranteed perfect
+happiness to myself and to my adopted country, for, my dear fellow, I
+am French at heart, if not by birth.
+
+"I was born in 1829, at Warsaw, of a Polish father and a Russian
+mother. It is from her that I hold my title of Hetman of Jitomir. It
+was restored to me by Czar Alexander II on a request made to him on
+his visit to Paris, by my august master, the Emperor Napoleon III.
+
+"For political reasons, which I cannot describe without retelling the
+history of unfortunate Poland, my father, Count Bielowsky, left Warsaw
+in 1830, and went to live in London. After the death of my mother, he
+began to squander his immense fortune--from sorrow, he said. When, in
+his time, he died at the period of the Prichard affair, he left me
+barely a thousand pounds sterling of income, plus two or three systems
+of gaming, the impracticability of which I learned later.
+
+"I will never be able to think of my nineteenth and twentieth years
+without emotion, for I then completely liquidated this small
+inheritance. London was indeed an adorable spot in those days. I had a
+jolly bachelor's apartment in Piccadilly.
+
+    "'Picadilly! Shops, palaces, bustle and breeze,
+      The whirling of wheels and the murmur of trees.'
+
+"Fox hunting in a _briska_, driving a buggy in Hyde Park, the rout,
+not to mention the delightful little parties with the light Venuses of
+Drury Lane, this took all my time. All? I am unjust. There was also
+gaming, and a sentiment of filial piety forced me to verify the
+systems of the late Count, my father. It was gaming which was the
+cause of the event I must describe to you, by which my life was to be
+so strangely changed.
+
+"My friend, Lord Malmesbury, had said to me a hundred times, 'I must
+take you to see an exquisite creature who lives in Oxford Street,
+number 277, Miss Howard.' One evening I went with him. It was the
+twenty-second of February, 1848. The mistress of the house was really
+marvelously beautiful, and the guests were charming. Besides
+Malmesbury, I observed several acquaintances: Lord Clebden, Lord
+Chesterfield, Sir Francis Mountjoye, Major in the Second Life Guards,
+and Count d'Orsay. They played cards and then began to talk politics.
+Events in France played the main part in the conversation and they
+discussed endlessly the consequences of the revolt that had broken out
+in Paris that same morning, in consequence of the interdiction of the
+banquet in the 12th arrondissement, of which word had just been
+received by telegram. Up to that time, I had never bothered myself
+with public affairs. So I don't know what moved me to affirm with the
+impetuosity of my nineteen years that the news from France meant the
+Republic next day and the Empire the day after....
+
+"The company received my sally with a discreet laugh, and their looks
+were centered on a guest who made the fifth at a _bouillotte_ table
+where they had just stopped playing.
+
+"The guest smiled, too. He rose and came towards me. I observed that
+he was of middle height, perhaps even shorter, buttoned tightly into a
+blue frock coat, and that his eye had a far-off, dreamy look.
+
+"All the players watched this scene with delighted amusement.
+
+"'Whom have I the honor of addressing?' he asked in a very gentle
+voice.
+
+"'Count Bielowsky,' I answered coolly to show him that the difference
+in our ages was not sufficient to justify the interrogation.
+
+"Well, my dear Count, may your prediction indeed be realized; and I
+hope that you will not neglect the Tuileries,' said the guest in the
+blue coat, with a smile.
+
+"And he added, finally consenting to present himself:
+
+"'Prince Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte.'
+
+"I played no active rôle in the _coup d'état_, and I do not regret it.
+It is a principle with me that a stranger should not meddle with the
+internal affairs of a country. The prince understood this discretion,
+and did not forget the young man who had been of such good omen to
+him.
+
+"I was one of the first whom he called to the Elysée. My fortune was
+definitely established by a defamatory note on 'Napoleon the little.'
+The next year, when Mgr. Sibour was out of the way, I was made
+Gentleman of the Chamber, and the Emperor was even so kind as to have
+me marry the daughter of the Marshal Repeto, Duke of Mondovi.
+
+"I have no scruple in announcing that this union was not what it
+should have been. The Countess, who was ten years older than I, was
+crabbed and not particularly pretty. Moreover, her family had insisted
+resolutely on a marriage portion. Now I had nothing at this time
+except the twenty-five thousand pounds for my appointment as Gentleman
+of the Chamber. A sad lot for anyone on intimate terms with the Count
+d'Orsay and the Duke of Gramont-Caderousse! Without the kindness of
+the Emperor, where would I have been?
+
+"One morning in the spring of 1852, I was in my study opening my mail.
+There was a letter from His Majesty, calling me to the Tuileries at
+four o'clock; a letter from Clémentine, informing me that she expected
+me at five o'clock at her house. Clémentine was the beautiful one for
+whom, just then, I was ready to commit any folly. I was so proud of
+her that, one evening at the _Maison Dorée_, I flaunted her before
+Prince Metternich, who was tremendously taken with her. All the court
+envied me that conquest; and I was morally obliged to continue to
+assume its expenses. And then Clémentine was so pretty! The Emperor
+himself.... The other letters, good lord, the other letters were the
+bills of the dressmakers of that young person, who, in spite of my
+discreet remonstrances, insisted on having them sent to my conjugal
+dwelling.
+
+"There were bills for something over forty thousand francs: gowns and
+ball dresses from Gagelin-Opigez, 23 Rue de Richelieu; hats and
+bonnets from Madame Alexandrine, 14 Rue d'Antin; lingerie and many
+petticoats from Madame Pauline, 100 Rue de Clery; dress trimmings and
+gloves from the _Ville de Lyon_, 6 Rue de la Chaussée d'Antin;
+foulards from the _Malle des Indes_; handkerchiefs from the _Compagnie
+Irlandaise_; laces from Ferguson; cosmetics from _Candès_.... This
+whitening cream of _Candès_, in particular, overwhelmed me with
+stupefaction. The bill showed fifty-one flasks. Six hundred and
+twenty-seven francs and fifty centimes' worth of whitening cream from
+_Candès_.... Enough to soften the skin of a squadron of a hundred
+guards!
+
+"'This can't keep on,' I said, putting the bills in my pocket.
+
+"At ten minutes to four, I crossed the wicket by the Carrousel.
+
+"In the Salon of the _aides de camp_ I happened on Bacciochi.
+
+"'The Emperor has the grippe,' he said to me. 'He is keeping to his
+room. He has given orders to have you admitted as soon as you arrive.
+Come.'
+
+"His Majesty, dressed in a braided vest and Cossack trousers, was
+meditating before a window. The pale green of the Tuileries showed
+luminously under a gentle warm shower.
+
+"'Ah! Here he is,' said Napoleon. 'Here, have a cigarette. It seems
+that you had great doings, you and Gramont-Caderousse, last evening,
+at the _Château de Fleurs_.'
+
+"I smiled with satisfaction.
+
+"'So Your Majesty knows already....'
+
+"'I know, I know vaguely.'
+
+"'Do you know Gramont-Caderousse's last "mot"?'
+
+"'No, but you are going to tell it to me.'
+
+"'Here goes, then. We were five or six: myself, Viel-Castel, Gramont,
+Persigny....'
+
+"'Persigny!' said the Emperor. 'He has no right to associate with
+Gramont, after all that Paris says about his wife.'
+
+"'Just so Sire. Well, Persigny was excited, no doubt about it. He
+began telling us how troubled he was because of the Duchess's
+conduct.'
+
+"'This Fialin isn't over tactful,' muttered the Emperor.
+
+"'Just so, Sire. Then, does Your Majesty know what Gramont hurled at
+him?'
+
+"'What?'
+
+"'He said to him, "_Monsieur le Duc_, I forbid you to speak ill of my
+mistress before me."
+
+"'Gramont goes too far,' said Napoleon with a dreamy smile.
+
+"'That is what we all thought, including Viel-Castel, who was
+nevertheless delighted.'
+
+"'Apropos of this,' said Napoleon after a silence, 'I have forgotten
+to ask you for news of the Countess Bielowsky.'
+
+"'She is very well, Sire, I thank Your Majesty,'
+
+"'And Clémentine? Still the same dear child?'
+
+"'Always, Sire. But....'
+
+"'It seems that M. Baroche is madly in love with her.'
+
+"'I am very much honored, Sire. But this honor becomes too
+burdensome.'
+
+"I had drawn from my pocket that morning's bills and I spread them out
+under the eyes of the Emperor.
+
+"He looked at them with his distant smile.
+
+"'Come, come. If that is all, I can fix that, since I have a favor to
+ask of you.'
+
+"'I am entirely at Your Majesty's service.'
+
+"He struck a gong.
+
+"'Send for M. Mocquard.'
+
+"'I have the grippe,' he said. 'Mocquard will explain the affair to
+you.'
+
+"The Emperor's private secretary entered.
+
+"'Here is Bielowsky, Mocquard,' said Napoleon. 'You know what I want
+him to do. Explain it to him.'
+
+"And he began to tap on the window-panes against which the rain was
+beating furiously.
+
+"'My dear Count,' said Mocquard, taking a chair, 'it is very simple.
+You have doubtless heard of a young explorer of promise, M. Henry
+Duveyrier.'
+
+"I shook my head as a sign of negation, very much surprised at this
+beginning.
+
+"'M. Duveyrier,' continued Mocquard, 'has returned to Paris after a
+particularly daring trip to South Africa and the Sahara. M. Vivien de
+Saint Martin, whom I have seen recently has assured me that the
+Geographical Society intends to confer its great gold medal upon him,
+in recognition of these exploits. In the course of his trip, M.
+Duveyrier has entered into negotiations with the chief of the people
+who always have been so rebellious to His Majesty's armies, the
+Tuareg.'
+
+"I looked at the Emperor. My bewilderment was such that he began to
+laugh.
+
+"'Listen,' he said.
+
+"'M. Duveyrier,' continued Mocquard, 'was able to arrange to have a
+delegation of these chiefs come to Paris to present their respects to
+His Majesty. Very important results may arise from this visit, and His
+Excellency the Colonial Minister, does not despair of obtaining the
+signature of a treaty of commerce, reserving special advantages to our
+fellow countrymen. These chiefs, five of them, among them Sheik Otham,
+_Amenokol_ or Sultan of the Confederation of Adzjer, arrive to-morrow
+morning at the _Gare de Lyon_. M. Duveyrier will meet them. But the
+Emperor has thought that besides....'
+
+"'I thought,' said Napoleon III, delighted by my bewilderment, 'I
+thought that it was correct to have some one of the Gentlemen of my
+Chamber wait upon the arrival of these Mussulman dignitaries. That is
+why you are here, my poor Bielowsky. Don't be frightened,' he added,
+laughing harder. 'You will have M. Duveyrier with you. You are charged
+only with the special part of the reception: to accompany these
+princes to the lunch that I am giving them to-morrow at the Tuileries;
+then, in the evening, discreetly on account of their religious
+scruples, to succeed in giving them a very high idea of Parisian
+civilization, with nothing exaggerated: do not forget that in the
+Sahara they are very high religious dignitaries. In that respect, I
+have confidence in your tact and give you _carte blanche_....
+Mocquard!'
+
+"'Sire?'
+
+"'You will apportion on the budget, half to Foreign Affairs, half to
+the Colonies, the funds Count Bielowsky will need for the reception of
+the Tuareg delegation. It seems to me that a hundred thousand francs,
+to begin.... The Count has only to tell you if he is forced to exceed
+that figure.'
+
+"Clémentine lived on the Rue Boccador, in a little Moorish pavilion
+that I had bought for her from M. de Lesseps. I found her in bed. When
+she saw me, she burst into tears.
+
+"'Great fools that we are!' she murmured amidst her sobs, 'what have
+we done!'
+
+"'Clémentine, tell me!'
+
+"'What have we done, what have we done!' she repeated, and I felt
+against me, her floods of black hair, her warm cheek which was
+fragrant with _eau de Nanon_.
+
+"'What is it? What can it be?'
+
+"'It is....' and she murmured something in my ear.
+
+"'No!' I said, stupefied. 'Are you quite sure?'
+
+"'Am I quite sure!'
+
+"I was thunderstruck.
+
+"'You don't seem much pleased,' she said sharply.
+
+"'I did not say that.... Though, really, I am very much pleased, I
+assure you.'
+
+"'Prove it to me: let us spend the day together tomorrow.'
+
+"'To-morrow!' I stammered. 'Impossible!'
+
+"'Why?' she demanded suspiciously.
+
+"'Because to-morrow, I have to pilot the Tuareg mission about Paris.
+The Emperor's orders.'
+
+"'What bluff is this?' asked Clémentine.
+
+"'I admit that nothing so much resembles a lie as the truth.'
+
+"I retold Mocquard's story to Clémentine, as well as I could. She
+listened to me with an expression that said: 'you can't fool me that
+way.'
+
+"Finally, furious, I burst out:
+
+"'You can see for yourself. I am dining with them, tomorrow; and I
+invite you.'
+
+"'I shall be very pleased to come,' said Clémentine with great
+dignity.
+
+"I admit that I lacked self-control at that minute. But think what a
+day it had been! Forty thousand francs of bills as soon as I woke up.
+The ordeal of escorting the savages around Paris all the next day.
+And, quite unexpectedly, the announcement of an approaching irregular
+paternity....
+
+"'After all,' I thought, as I returned to my house, 'these are the
+Emperor's orders. He has commanded me to give the Tuareg an idea of
+Parisian civilization. Clémentine comports herself very well in
+society and just now it would not do to aggravate her. I will engage a
+room for to-morrow at the _Café de Paris_, and tell Gramont-Caderousse
+and Viel-Castel to bring their silly mistresses. It will be very
+French to enjoy the attitude of these children of the desert in the
+midst of this little party.'
+
+"The train from Marseilles arrived at 10:20. On the platform I found
+M. Duveyrier, a young man of twenty-three with blue eyes and a little
+blond beard. The Tuareg fell into his arms as they descended from the
+train. He had lived with them for two years, in their tents, the devil
+knows where. He presented me to their chief, Sheik Otham, and to four
+others, splendid fellows in their blue cotton draperies and their
+amulets of red leather. Fortunately, they all spoke a kind of
+_sabir_[13] which helped things along.
+
+[Footnote 13: Dialect spoken in Algeria and the Levant--a mixture of
+Arabian, French, Italian and Spanish.]
+
+"I only mention in passing the lunch at the Tuileries, the visits in
+the evening to the Museum, to the _Hotel de Ville_, to the Imperial
+Printing Press. Each time, the Tuareg inscribed their names in the
+registry of the place they were visiting. It was interminable. To give
+you an idea, here is the complete name of Sheik Otham alone:
+Otham-ben-el-Hadj-el-Bekri-ben-el-Hadj-el-Faqqi-ben-Mohammad-Bouya-
+ben-si-Ahmed-es-Souki-ben-Mahmoud.[14]
+
+[Footnote 14: I have succeeded in finding on the registry of the
+Imperial Printing Press the names of the Tuareg chiefs and those who
+accompanied them on their visit, M. Henry Duveyrier and the Count
+Bielowsky. (Note by M. Leroux.)]
+
+"And there were five of them like that!
+
+"I maintained my good humor, however, because on the boulevards,
+everywhere, our success was colossal. At the _Café de Paris_, at
+six-thirty, it amounted to frenzy. The delegation, a little drunk,
+embraced me: '_Bono, Napoléon, bono, Eugénie; bono, Casimir; bono,
+Christians_.' Gramont-Caderousse and Viel-Castel were already in booth
+number eight, with Anna Grimaldi, of the _Folies Dramatiques_, and
+Hortense Schneider, both beautiful enough to strike terror to the
+heart. But the palm was for my dear Clémentine, when she entered. I
+must tell you how she was dressed: a gown of white tulle, over China
+blue tarletan, with pleatings, and ruffles of tulle over the
+pleatings. The tulle skirt was caught up on each side by garlands of
+green leaves mingled with rose clusters. Thus it formed a valence
+which allowed the tarletan skirt to show in front and on the sides.
+The garlands were caught up to the belt and, in the space between
+their branches, were knots of rose satin with long ends. The pointed
+bodice was draped with tulle, the billowy bertha of tulle was edged
+with lace. By way of head-dress, she had placed upon her black locks a
+diadem crown of the same flowers. Two long leafy tendrils were twined
+in her hair and fell on her neck. As cloak, she had a kind of scarf of
+blue cashmere embroidered in gold and lined with blue satin.
+
+"So much beauty and splendor immediately moved the Tuareg and,
+especially, Clémentine's right-hand neighbor, El-Hadj-ben-Guemâma,
+brother of Sheik Otham and Sultan of Ahaggar. By the time the soup
+arrived, a bouillon of wild game, seasoned with Tokay, he was already
+much smitten. When they served the compote of fruits Martinique _à la
+liqueur de Mme. Amphoux_, he showed every indication of illimitable
+passion. The Cyprian wine _de la Commanderie_ made him quite sure of
+his sentiments. Hortense kicked my foot under the table. Gramont,
+intending to do the same to Anna, made a mistake and aroused the
+indignant protests of one of the Tuareg. I can safely say that when
+the time came to go to Mabille, we were enlightened as to the manner
+in which our visitors respected the prohibition decreed by the Prophet
+in respect to wine.
+
+"At Mabille, while Clémentine, Hortense, Anna, Ludovic and the three
+Tuareg gave themselves over to the wildest gallops, Sheik Otham took
+me aside and confided to me, with visible emotion, a certain
+commission with which he had just been charged by his brother, Sheik
+Ahmed.
+
+"The next day, very early, I reached Clémentine's house.
+
+"'My dear,' I began, after having waked her, not without difficulty,
+'listen to me. I want to talk to you seriously.'
+
+"She rubbed her eyes a bit crossly.
+
+"'How did you like that young Arabian gentleman who was so taken with
+you last night?'
+
+"'Why, well enough,' she said, blushing.
+
+"'Do you know that in his country, he is the sovereign prince and
+reigns over territories five or six times greater than those of our
+august master, the Emperor Napoleon III?'
+
+"'He murmured something of that kind to me,' she said, becoming
+interested.
+
+"'Well, would it please you to mount on a throne, like our august
+sovereign, the Empress Eugénie?'
+
+"Clémentine, looked startled.
+
+"'His own brother, Sheik Otham, has charged me in his name to make
+this offer.'
+
+"Clémentine, dumb with amazement, did not reply.
+
+"'I, Empress!' she finally stammered.
+
+"'The decision rests with you. They must have your answer before
+midday. If it is 'yes,' we lunch together at Voisin's, and the bargain
+is made.'
+
+"I saw that she had already made up her mind, but she thought it well
+to display a little sentiment.
+
+"'And you, you!' she groaned. 'To leave you thus.... Never!'
+
+"'No foolishness, dear child,' I said gently. 'You don't know perhaps
+that I am ruined. Yes, completely: I don't even know how I am going to
+pay for your complexion cream!'
+
+"'Ah!' she sighed.
+
+"She added, however, 'And ... the child?'
+
+"'What child?'
+
+"'Our child ... our child.'
+
+"'Ah! That is so. Why, you will have to put it down to profit and
+loss. I am even convinced that Sheik Ahmed will find that it resembles
+him.'
+
+"'You can turn everything into a joke,' she said between laughing and
+crying.
+
+
+"The next morning, at the same hour, the Marseilles express carried
+away the five Tuareg and Clémentine. The young woman, radiant, was
+leaning on the arm of Sheik Ahmed, who was beside himself with joy.
+
+"'Have you many shops in your capital?' she asked him languidly.
+
+"And he, smiling broadly under his veil, replied:
+
+"'_Besef, besef, bono, roumis, bono_.'
+
+"At the last moment, Clémentine had a pang of emotion.
+
+"'Listen, Casimir, you have always been kind to me. I am going to be a
+queen. If you weary of it here, promise me, swear to me....'
+
+"The Sheik had understood. He took a ring from his finger and slipped
+it onto mine.
+
+"'Sidi Casimir, comrade,' he affirmed. 'You come--find us. Take Sidi
+Ahmed's ring and show it. Everybody at Ahaggar comrades. _Bono_
+Ahaggar, _bono_.'
+
+"When I came out of the _Gare de Lyon_, I had the feeling of having
+perpetrated an excellent joke."
+
+The Hetman of Jitomir was completely drunk. I had had the utmost
+difficulty in understanding the end of his story, because he
+interjected, every other moment, couplets from Jacques Offenbach's
+best score.
+
+    _Dans un bois passait un jeune homme,
+    Un jeune homme frais et beau,
+    Sa main tenait une pomme,
+    Vous voyez d'ici le tableau_.
+
+"Who was disagreeably surprised by the fall of Sedan? It was Casimir,
+poor old Casimir! Five thousand _louis_ to pay by the fifth of
+September, and not the first sou, no, not the first sou. I take my hat
+and my courage and go to the Tuileries. No more Emperor there, no! But
+the Empress was so kind. I found her alone--ah, people scatter quickly
+under such circumstances!--alone, with a senator, M. Mérimée, the only
+literary man I have ever known who was at the same time a man of the
+world. 'Madame,' he was saying to her, 'you must give up all hope. M.
+Thiers, whom I just met on the _Pont Royal_, would listen to nothing.'
+
+"'Madame,' I said in my turn, 'Your Majesty always will know where her
+true friends are.'
+
+"And I kissed her hand.
+
+        "_Evohé, que les déesses
+        Out de drôles de façons
+    Pour enjôler, pour enjôler, pour enjôler les gaâarçons_!
+
+"I returned to my home in the Rue de Lille. On the way I encountered
+the rabble going from the _Corps Législatif_ to the Hotel de Ville. My
+mind was made up.
+
+"'Madame,' I said to my wife, 'my pistols.'
+
+"'What is the matter?' she asked, frightened.
+
+"'All is lost. But there is still a chance to preserve my honor. I am
+going to be killed on the barricades.'
+
+"'Ah! Casimir,' she sobbed, falling into my arms. 'I have misjudged
+you. Will you forgive me?'
+
+"'I forgive you, Aurelie,' I said with dignified emotion. 'I have not
+always been right myself.'
+
+"I tore myself away from this mad scene. It was six o'clock. On the
+Rue de Bac, I hailed a cab on its mad career.
+
+"'Twenty francs tip,' I said to the coachman, 'if you get to the _Gare
+de Lyon_ in time for the Marseilles train, six thirty-seven.'"
+
+The Hetman of Jitomir could say no more. He had rolled over on the
+cushions and slept with clenched fists.
+
+I walked unsteadily to the great window.
+
+The sun was rising, pale yellow, behind the sharp blue mountains.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+HOURS OF WAITING
+
+
+It was at night that Saint-Avit liked to tell me a little of his
+enthralling history. He gave it to me in short installments, exact and
+chronological, never anticipating the episodes of a drama whose tragic
+outcome I knew already. Not that he wished to obtain more effect that
+way--I felt that he was far removed from any calculation of that sort!
+Simply from the extraordinary nervousness into which he was thrown by
+recalling such memories.
+
+One evening, the mail from France had just arrived. The letters that
+Chatelain had handed us lay upon the little table, not yet opened. By
+the light of the lamp, a pale halo in the midst of the great black
+desert, we were able to recognize the writing of the addresses. Oh!
+the victorious smile of Saint-Avit when, pushing aside all those
+letters, I said to him in a trembling voice:
+
+"Go on."
+
+He acquiesced without further words.
+
+"Nothing can give you any idea of the fever I was in from the day when
+the Hetman of Jitomir told me of his adventures to the day when I
+found myself in the presence of Antinea. The strangest part was that
+the thought that I was, in a way, condemned to death, did not enter
+into this fever. On the contrary, it was stimulated by my desire for
+the event which would be the signal of my downfall, the summons from
+Antinea. But this summons was not speedy in coming. And from this
+delay, arose my unhealthy exasperation.
+
+"Did I have any lucid moments in the course of these hours? I do not
+think so. I do not recall having even said to myself, 'What, aren't
+you ashamed? Captive in an unheard of situation, you not only are not
+trying to escape, but you even bless your servitude and look forward
+to your ruin.' I did not even color my desire to remain there, to
+enjoy the next step in the adventure, by the pretext I might have
+given--unwillingness to escape without Morhange. If I felt a vague
+uneasiness at not seeing him again, it was not because of a desire to
+know that he was well and safe.
+
+"Well and safe, I knew him to be, moreover. The Tuareg slaves of
+Antinea's household were certainly not very communicative. The women
+were hardly more loquacious. I heard, it is true, from Sydya and
+Aguida, that my companion liked pomegranates or that he could not
+endure _kouskous_ of bananas. But if I asked for a different kind of
+information, they fled, in fright, down the long corridors. With
+Tanit-Zerga, it was different. This child seemed to have a distaste
+for mentioning before me anything bearing in any way upon Antinea.
+Nevertheless, I knew that she was devoted to her mistress with a
+doglike fidelity. But she maintained an obstinate silence if I
+pronounced her name or, persisting, the name of Morhange.
+
+"As for the Europeans, I did not care to question these sinister
+puppets. Besides, all three were difficult of approach. The Hetman of
+Jitomir was sinking deeper and deeper into alcohol. What intelligence
+remained to him, he seemed to have dissolved the evening when he had
+invoked his youth for me. I met him from time to time in the corridors
+that had become all at once too narrow for him, humming in a thick
+voice a couplet from the music of _La Reine Hortense_.
+
+_De ma fille Isabelle
+Sois l'époux à l'instant,
+Car elle est la plus belle
+Et toi, le plus vaillant_.
+
+"As for Pastor Spardek, I would cheerfully have killed the old
+skinflint. And the hideous little man with the decorations, the placid
+printer of labels for the red marble hall,--how could I meet him
+without wanting to cry out in his face: 'Eh! eh! Sir Professor, a very
+curious case of apocope: [Greek: Atlantinea]. Suppression of _alpha_,
+of _tau_ and of _lambda_! I would like to direct your attention to
+another case as curious: [Greek: klêmêntinea], Clémentine. Apocope of
+_kappa_, of _lamba_, of _epsilon_ and of _mu_. If Morhange were with
+us, he would tell you many charming erudite things about it. But,
+alas! Morhange does not deign to come among us any more. We never see
+Morhange.'
+
+"My fever for information found a little more favorable reception from
+Rosita, the old Negress manicure. Never have I had my nails polished
+so often as during those days of waiting! Now--after six years--she
+must be dead. I shall not wrong her memory by recording that she was
+very partial to the bottle. The poor old soul was defenseless against
+those that I brought her and that I emptied with her, through
+politeness.
+
+"Unlike the other slaves, who are brought from the South toward Turkey
+by the merchants of Rhât, she was born in Constantinople and had been
+brought into Africa by her master when he became _kaïmakam_ of
+Rhadamès.... But don't let me complicate this already wandering
+history by the incantations of this manicure.
+
+"'Antinea,' she said to me, 'is the daughter of
+El-Hadj-Ahmed-ben-Guemâma, Sultan of Ahaggar, and Sheik of the great
+and noble tribe of Kel-Rhelâ. She was born in the year twelve hundred
+and eighty-one of the Hegira. She has never wished to marry any one.
+Her wish has been respected for the will of women is sovereign in this
+Ahaggar where she rules to-day. She is a cousin of Sidi-el-Senoussi,
+and, if she speaks the word, Christian blood will flow from Djerid to
+Touat, and from Tchad to Senegal. If she had wished it, she might have
+lived beautiful and respected in the land of the Christians. But she
+prefers to have them come to her.'
+
+"'Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh,' I said, 'do you know him? He is entirely
+devoted to her?'
+
+"'Nobody here knows Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh very well, because he is
+continually traveling. It is true that he is entirely devoted to
+Antinea. Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh is a Senoussi, and Antinea is the cousin
+of the chief of the Senoussi. Besides, he owes his life to her. He is
+one of the men who assassinated the great Kébir Flatters. On account
+of that, Ikenoukhen, _amenokol_ of the Adzjer Tuareg, fearing French
+reprisals, wanted to deliver Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh to them. When the
+whole Sahara turned against him, he found asylum with Antinea.
+Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh will never forget it, for he is brave and observes
+the law of the Prophet. To thank her, he led to Antinea, who was then
+twenty years old, three French officers of the first troops of
+occupation in Tunis. They are the ones who are numbered, in the red
+marble hall, 1, 2, and 3.'
+
+"'And Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh has always fulfilled his duties
+successfully?'
+
+"'Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh is well trained, and he knows the vast Sahara as
+I know my little room at the top of the mountain. At first, he made
+mistakes. That is how, on his first trips, he brought back old Le
+Mesge and marabout Spardek.'
+
+"'What did Antinea say when she saw them?'
+
+"'Antinea? She laughed so hard that she spared them.
+Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh was vexed to see her laugh so. Since then, he has
+never made a mistake.'
+
+"'He has never made a mistake?'
+
+"'No. I have cared for the hands and feet of all that he has brought
+here. All were young and handsome. But I think that your comrade, whom
+they brought to me the other day, after you were here, is the
+handsomest of all.'
+
+"'Why,' I asked, turning the conversation, 'why, since she spared them
+their lives, did she not free the pastor and M. Le Mesge?'
+
+"'She has found them useful, it seems,' said the old woman. 'And then,
+whoever once enters here, can never leave. Otherwise, the French would
+soon be here and, when they saw the hall of red marble, they would
+massacre everybody. Besides, of all those whom Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh has
+brought here, no one, save one, has wished to escape after seeing
+Antinea.'
+
+"'She keeps them a long time?'
+
+"'That depends upon them and the pleasure that she takes in them. Two
+months, three months, on the average. It depends. A big Belgian
+officer, formed like a colossus, didn't last a week. On the other
+hand, everyone here remembers little Douglas Kaine, an English
+officer: she kept him almost a year.'
+
+"'And then?'
+
+"'And then, he died,' said the old woman as if astonished at my
+question.
+
+"'Of what did he die?'
+
+"She used the same phrase as M. Le Mesge:
+
+"'Like all the others: of love.
+
+"'Of love,' she continued. "They all die of love when they see that
+their time is ended, and that Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh has gone to find
+others. Several have died quietly with tears in their great eyes. They
+neither ate nor slept any more. A French naval officer went mad. All
+night, he sang a sad song of his native country, a song which echoed
+through the whole mountain. Another, a Spaniard, was as if maddened:
+he tried to bite. It was necessary to kill him. Many have died of
+_kif_, a _kif_ that is more violent than opium. When they no longer
+have Antinea, they smoke, smoke. Most have died that way ... the
+happiest. Little Kaine died differently.'
+
+"'How did little Kaine die?'
+
+"'In a way that pained us all very much. I told you that he stayed
+longer among us than anyone else. We had become used to him. In
+Antinea's room, on a little Kairouan table, painted in blue and gold,
+there is a gong with a long silver hammer with an ebony handle, very
+heavy. Aguida told me about it. When Antinea gave little Kaine his
+dismissal, smiling as she always does, he stopped in front of her,
+mute, very pale. She struck the gong for someone to take him away. A
+Targa slave came. But little Kaine had leapt for the hammer, and the
+Targa lay on the ground with his skull smashed. Antinea smiled all the
+time. They led little Kaine to his room. The same night, eluding
+guards, he jumped out of his window at a height of two hundred feet.
+The workmen in the embalming room told me that they had the greatest
+difficulty with his body. But they succeeded very well. You have only
+to go see for yourself. He occupies niche number 26 in the red marble
+hall.'
+
+"The old woman drowned her emotion in her glass.
+
+"'Two days before,' she continued, 'I had done his nails, here, for
+this was his room. On the wall, near the window, he had written
+something in the stone with his knife. See, it is still here.'
+
+"'Was it not Fate, that on this July midnight....'
+
+"At any other moment, that verse, traced in the stone of the window
+through which the English officer had hurled himself, would have
+killed me with overpowering emotion. But just then, another thought
+was in my heart.
+
+"'Tell me,' I said, controlling my voice as well as I could, 'when
+Antinea holds one of us in her power, she shuts him up near her, does
+she not? Nobody sees him any more?'
+
+The old woman shook her head.
+
+"'She is not afraid that he will escape. The mountain is well guarded.
+Antinea has only to strike her silver gong; he will be brought back to
+her immediately.'
+
+"'But my companion. I have not see him since she sent for him....'
+
+"The Negress smiled comprehendingly.
+
+"'If you have not seen him, it is because he prefers to remain near
+her. Antinea does not force him to. Neither does she prevent him.'
+
+"I struck my fist violently upon the table.
+
+"'Get along with you, old fool. And be quick about it!'
+
+"Rosita fled frightened, hardly taking time to collect her little
+instruments.
+
+"'Was it not Fate, that on this July midnight....'
+
+"I obeyed the Negress's suggestion. Following the corridors, losing my
+way, set on the right road again by the Reverend Spardek, I pushed
+open the door of the red marble hall. I entered.
+
+"The freshness of the perfumed crypt did me good. No place can be so
+sinister that it is not, as it were, purified by the murmur of running
+water. The cascade, gurgling in the middle hall, comforted me. One day
+before an attack I was lying with my section in deep grass, waiting
+for the moment, the blast of the bugle, which would demand that we
+leap forward into the hail of bullets. A stream was at my feet. I
+listened to its fresh rippling. I admired the play of light and shade
+in the transparent water, the little beasts, the little black fish,
+the green grass, the yellow wrinkled sand.... The mystery of water
+always has carried me out of myself.
+
+"Here, in this magic hall, my thoughts were held by the dark
+cascade. It felt friendly. It kept me from faltering in the midst of
+these rigid evidences of so many monstrous sacrifices.... Number 26.
+It was he all right. Lieutenant Douglas Kaine, born at Edinburgh,
+September 21, 1862. Died at Ahaggar, July 16, 1890. Twenty-eight.
+He wasn't even twenty-eight! His face was thin under the coat of
+orichalch. His mouth sad and passionate. It was certainly he. Poor
+youngster.--Edinburgh,--I knew Edinburgh, without ever having been
+there. From the wall of the castle you can see the Pentland hills.
+"Look a little lower down," said Stevenson's sweet Miss Flora to Anne
+of Saint-Yves, "look a little lower down and you will see, in the fold
+of the hill, a clump of trees and a curl of smoke that rises from
+among them. That is Swanston Cottage, where my brother and I live with
+my aunt. If it really pleases you to see it, I shall be glad." When he
+left for Darfour, Douglas Kaine must surely have left in Edinburgh a
+Miss Flora, as blonde as Saint-Yves' Flora. But what are these slips
+of girls beside Antinea! Kaine, however sensible a mortal, however
+made for this kind of love, had loved otherwise. He was dead. And here
+was number 27, on account of whom Kaine dashed himself on the rocks of
+the Sahara, and who, in his turn, is dead also.
+
+"To die, to love. How naturally the word resounded in the red marble
+hall. How Antinea seemed to tower above that circle of pale statues!
+Does love, then, need so much death in order that it may be
+multiplied? Other women, in other parts of the world, are doubtless as
+beautiful as Antinea, more beautiful perhaps. I hold you to witness
+that I have not said much about her beauty. Why then, this obsession,
+this fever, this consumption of all my being? Why am I ready, for the
+sake of pressing this quivering form within my arms for one instant,
+to face things that I dare not think of for fear I should tremble
+before them?
+
+"Here is number 53, the last. Morhange will be 54. I shall be 55. In
+six months, eight, perhaps,--what difference anyway?--I shall be
+hoisted into this niche, an image without eyes, a dead soul, a
+finished body.
+
+"I touched the heights of bliss, of exaltation that can be felt. What
+a child I was, just now! I lost my temper with a Negro manicure. I was
+jealous of Morhange, on my word! Why not, since I was at it, be
+jealous of those here present; then of the others, the absent, who
+will come, one by one, to fill the black circle of the still empty
+niches.... Morhange, I know, is at this moment with Antinea, and it is
+to me a bitter and splendid joy to think of his joy. But some evening,
+in three months, four perhaps, the embalmers will come here. Niche 54
+will receive its prey. Then a Targa slave will advance toward me. I
+shall shiver with superb ecstasy. He will touch my arm. And it will be
+my turn to penetrate into eternity by the bleeding door of love.
+
+"When I emerged from my meditation, I found myself back in the
+library, where the falling night obscured the shadows of the people
+who were assembled there.
+
+"I recognized M. Le Mesge, the Pastor, the Hetman, Aguida, two Tuareg
+slaves, still more, all joining in the most animated conference.
+
+"I drew nearer, astonished, even alarmed to see together so many
+people who ordinarily felt no kind of sympathy for each other.
+
+"An unheard of occurrence had thrown all the people of the mountain
+into uproar.
+
+"Two Spanish explorers, come from Rio de Oro, had been seen to the
+West, in Adhar Ahnet.
+
+"As soon as Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh was informed, he had prepared to go to
+meet them.
+
+"At that instant he had received the order to do nothing.
+
+"Henceforth it was impossible to doubt.
+
+"For the first time, Antinea was in love."
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+THE LAMENT OF TANIT-ZERGA
+
+
+"_Arraôu, arraôu_."
+
+I roused myself vaguely from the half sleep to which I had finally
+succumbed. I half opened my eyes. Immediately I flattened back.
+
+"_Arraôu_."
+
+Two feet from my face was the muzzle of King Hiram, yellow with a
+tracery of black. The leopard was helping me to wake up; otherwise he
+took little interest, for he yawned; his dark red jaws, beautiful
+gleaming white fangs, opened and closed lazily.
+
+At the same moment I heard a burst of laughter.
+
+It was little Tanit-Zerga. She was crouching on a cushion near the
+divan where I was stretched out, curiously watching my close interview
+with the leopard.
+
+"King Hiram was bored," she felt obliged to explain to me. "I brought
+him."
+
+"How nice," I growled. "Only tell me, could he not have gone somewhere
+else to be amused?"
+
+"He is all alone now," said the girl. "_They_ have sent him away. He
+made too much noise when he played."
+
+These words recalled me to the events of the previous evening.
+
+"If you like, I will make him go away," said Tanit-Zerga.
+
+"No, let him alone."
+
+I looked at the leopard with sympathy. Our common misfortune brought
+us together.
+
+I even caressed his rounded forehead. King Hiram showed his
+contentment by stretching out at full length and uncurling his great
+amber claws. The mat on the floor had much to suffer.
+
+"Galé is here, too," said the little girl.
+
+"Galé! Who may he be?"
+
+At the same time, I saw on Tanit-Zerga's knees a strange animal,
+about the size of a big cat, with flat ears, and a long muzzle. Its
+pale gray fur was rough.
+
+It was watching me with queer little pink eyes.
+
+"It is my mongoose," explained Tanit-Zerga.
+
+"Come now," I said sharply, "is that all?"
+
+I must have looked so crabbed and ridiculous that Tanit-Zerga began to
+laugh. I laughed, too.
+
+"Galé is my friend," she said when she was serious again. "I saved her
+life. It was when she was quite little. I will tell you about it some
+day. See how good-natured she is."
+
+So saying, she dropped the mongoose on my knees.
+
+"It is very nice of you, Tanit-Zerga," I said, "to come and pay me a
+visit." I passed my hand slowly over the animal's back. "What time is
+it now?"
+
+"A little after nine. See, the sun is already high. Let me draw the
+shade."
+
+The room was in darkness. Galé's eyes grew redder. King Hiram's became
+green.
+
+"It is very nice of you," I repeated, pursuing my idea. "I see that
+you are free to-day. You never came so early before."
+
+A shade passed over the girl's forehead.
+
+"Yes, I am free," she said, almost bitterly.
+
+I looked at Tanit-Zerga more closely. For the first time I realized
+that she was beautiful. Her hair, which she wore falling over her
+shoulders, was not so much curly as it was gently waving. Her features
+were of remarkable fineness: the nose very straight, a small mouth
+with delicate lips, a strong chin. She was not black, but copper
+colored. Her slender graceful body had nothing in common with the
+disgusting thick sausages which the carefully cared for bodies of the
+blacks become.
+
+A large circle of copper made a heavy decoration around her forehead
+and hair. She had four bracelets, still heavier, on her wrists and
+anklets, and, for clothing, a green silk tunic, slashed in points,
+braided with gold. Green, bronze, gold.
+
+"You are a Sonrhaï, Tanit-Zerga?" I asked gently.
+
+She replied with almost ferocious pride:
+
+"I am a Sonrhaï."
+
+"Strange little thing," I thought.
+
+Evidently this was a subject on which Tanit-Zerga did not intend the
+conversation to turn. I recalled how, almost painfully, she had
+pronounced that "they," when she had told me how they had driven away
+King Hiram.
+
+"I am a Sonrhaï," she repeated. "I was born at Gâo, on the Niger, the
+ancient Sonrhaï capital. My fathers reigned over the great Mandingue
+Empire. You need not scorn me because I am here as a slave."
+
+In a ray of sunlight, Galé, seated on his little haunches, washed his
+shining mustaches with his forepaws; and King Hiram, stretched out on
+the mat, groaned plaintively in his sleep.
+
+"He is dreaming," said Tanit-Zerga, a finger on her lips.
+
+There was a moment of silence. Then she said:
+
+"You must be hungry. And I do not think that you will want to eat with
+the others."
+
+I did not answer.
+
+"You must eat," she continued. "If you like, I will go get something
+to eat for you and me. I will bring King Hiram's and Galé's dinner
+here, too. When you are sad, you should not stay alone."
+
+And the little green and gold fairy vanished, without waiting for my
+answer.
+
+That was how my friendship with Tanit-Zerga began. Each morning she
+came to my room with the two beasts. She rarely spoke to me of
+Antinea, and when she did, it was always indirectly. The question that
+she saw ceaselessly hovering on my lips seemed to be unbearable to
+her, and I felt her avoiding all the subjects towards which I, myself,
+dared not direct the conversation.
+
+To make sure of avoiding them, she prattled, prattled, prattled, like
+a nervous little parokeet.
+
+I was sick and this Sister of Charity in green and bronze silk tended
+me with such care as never was before. The two wild beasts, the big
+and the little, were there, each side of my couch, and, during my
+delirium, I saw their mysterious, sad eyes fixed on me.
+
+In her melodious voice, Tanit-Zerga told me wonderful stories, and
+among them, the one she thought most wonderful, the story of her life.
+
+It was not till much later, very suddenly, that I realized how far
+this little barbarian had penetrated into my own life. Wherever thou
+art at this hour, dear little girl, from whatever peaceful shores thou
+watchest my tragedy, cast a look at thy friend, pardon him for not
+having accorded thee, from the very first, the gratitude that thou
+deservedest so richly.
+
+"I remember from my childhood," she said, "the vision of a yellow and
+rose-colored sun rising through the morning mists over the smooth
+waves of a great river, 'the river where there is water,' the Niger,
+it was.... But you are not listening to me."
+
+"I am listening to you, I swear it, little Tanit-Zerga."
+
+"You are sure I am not wearying you? You want me to go on?"
+
+"Go on, little Tanit-Zerga, go on."
+
+"Well, with my little companions, of whom I was very fond, I played at
+the edge of the river where there is water, under the jujube trees,
+brothers of the _zeg-zeg_, the spines of which pierced the head of
+your prophet and which we call 'the tree of Paradise' because our
+prophet told us that under it would live those chosen of Paradise;[15]
+and which is sometimes so big, so big, that a horseman cannot traverse
+its shade in a century.
+
+[Footnote 15: The Koran, Chapter 66, verse 17. (Note by M. Leroux.)]
+
+"There we wove beautiful garlands with mimosa, the pink flowers of the
+caper bush and white cockles. Then we threw them in the green water to
+ward off evil spirits; and we laughed like mad things when a great
+snorting hippopotamus raised his swollen head and we bombarded him in
+glee until he had to plunge back again with a tremendous splash.
+
+"That was in the mornings. Then there fell on Gâo the deathlike lull
+of the red siesta. When that was finished, we came back to the edge of
+the river to see the enormous crocodiles with bronze goggle-eyes creep
+along little by little, among the clouds of mosquitoes and day-flies
+on the banks, and work their way traitorously into the yellow ooze of
+the mud flats.
+
+"Then we bombarded them, as we had done the hippopotamus in the
+morning; and to fête the sun setting behind the black branches of the
+_douldouls_, we made a circle, stamping our feet, then clapping our
+hands, as we sang the Sonrhaï hymn.
+
+"Such were the ordinary occupations of free little girls. But you must
+not think that we were only frivolous; and I will tell you, if you
+like, how I, who am talking to you, I saved a French chieftain who
+must be vastly greater than yourself, to judge by the number of gold
+ribbons he had on his white sleeves."
+
+"Tell me, little Tanit-Zerga," I said, my eyes elsewhere.
+
+"You have no right to smile," she said a little aggrieved, "and to pay
+no attention to me. But never mind! It is for myself that I tell these
+things, for the sake of recollection. Above Gâo, the Niger makes a
+bend. There is a little promontory in the river, thickly covered with
+large gum trees. It was an evening in August and the sun was sinking.
+Not a bird in the forest but had gone to rest, motionless until the
+morning. Suddenly we heard an unfamiliar noise in the west, boum-boum,
+boum-boum, boum-baraboum, boum-boum, growing louder--boum-boum,
+boum-baraboum--and, suddenly, there was a great flight of water birds,
+aigrettes, pelicans, wild ducks and teal, which scattered over the gum
+trees, followed by a column of black smoke, which was scarcely
+flurried by the breeze that was springing up.
+
+"It was a gunboat, turning the point, sending out a wake that shook
+the overhanging bushes on each side of the river. One could see that
+the red, white and blue flag on the stern had drooped till it was
+dragging in the water, so heavy was the evening.
+
+"She stopped at the little point of land. A small boat was let down,
+manned by two native soldiers who rowed, and three chiefs who soon
+leapt ashore.
+
+"The oldest, a French _marabout_, with a great white burnous, who knew
+our language marvelously, asked to speak to Sheik Sonni-Azkia. When my
+father advanced and told him that it was he, the _marabout_ told him
+that the commandant of the Club at Timbuctoo was very angry, that a
+mile from there the gunboat had run on an invisible pile of logs, that
+she had sprung a leak and that she could not so continue her voyage
+towards Ansango.
+
+"My father replied that the French who protected the poor natives
+against the Tuareg were welcome: that it was not from evil design, but
+for fish that they had built the barrage, and that he put all the
+resources of Gâo, including the forge, at the disposition of the
+French chief, for repairing the gunboat.
+
+"While they were talking, the French chief looked at me and I looked
+at him. He was already middle-aged, tall, with shoulders a little
+bent, and blue eyes as clear as the stream whose name I bear.
+
+"'Come here, little one,' he said in his gentle voice.
+
+"'I am the daughter of Sheik Sonni-Azkia, and I do only what I wish,'
+I replied, vexed at his informality.
+
+"'You are right,' he answered smiling, 'for you are pretty. Will you
+give me the flowers that you have around your neck?'
+
+"It was a great necklace of purple hibiscus. I held it out to him. He
+kissed me. The peace was made.
+
+"Meantime, under the direction of my father, the native soldiers and
+strong men of the tribe had hauled the gunboat into a pocket of the
+river.
+
+"'There is work there for all day to-morrow, Colonel,' said the chief
+mechanic, after inspecting the leaks. 'We won't be able to get away
+before the day after to-morrow. And, if we're to do that, these lazy
+soldiers mustn't loaf on the job.'
+
+"'What an awful bore,' groaned my new friend.
+
+"But his ill-humor did not last long, so ardently did my little
+companions and I seek to distract him. He listened to our most
+beautiful songs; and, to thank us, made us taste the good things that
+had been brought from the boat for his dinner. He slept in our great
+cabin, which my father gave up to him; and for a long time, before I
+went to sleep, I looked through the cracks of the cabin where I lay
+with my mother, at the lights of the gunboat trembling in red ripples
+on the surface of the dark waves.
+
+"That night, I had a frightful dream. I saw my friend, the French
+officer, sleeping in peace, while a great crow hung croaking above his
+head: 'Caw,--caw--the shade of the gum trees of Gâo--caw, caw--will
+avail nothing tomorrow night--caw, caw--to the white chief nor to his
+escort.'
+
+"Dawn had scarcely begun, when I went to find the native soldiers.
+They were stretched out on the bridge of the gunboat, taking advantage
+of the fact that the whites were still sleeping, to do nothing.
+
+"I approached the oldest one and spoke to him with authority:
+
+'Listen, I saw the black crow in a dream last night. He told me that
+the shade of the gum trees of Gâo would be fatal to your chief in the
+coming night!...'
+
+"And, as they all remained motionless, stretched out, gazing at the
+sky, without even seeming to have heard, I added:
+
+"'And to his escort!'
+
+"It was the hour when the sun was highest, and the Colonel was eating
+in the cabin with the other Frenchmen, when the chief mechanic
+entered.
+
+"'I don't know what has come over the natives. They are working like
+angels. If they keep on this way, Colonel, we shall be able to leave
+this evening.'
+
+"'Very good,' said the Colonel, 'but don't let them spoil the job by
+too much haste. We don't have to be at Ansango before the end of the
+week. It will be better to start in the morning.'
+
+"I trembled. Suppliantly I approached and told him the story of my
+dream. He listened with a smile of astonishment; then, at the last, he
+said gravely:
+
+"'It is agreed, little Tanit-Zerga. We will leave this evening if you
+wish it.'
+
+"And he kissed me.
+
+"The darkness had already fallen when the gunboat, now repaired, left
+the harbor. My friend stood in the midst of the group of Frenchmen who
+waved their caps as long as we could see them. Standing alone on the
+rickety jetty, I waited, watching the water flow by, until the last
+sound of the steam-driven vessel, boum-baraboum, had died away into
+the night."[16]
+
+[Footnote 16: Cf. the records and the _Bulletin de la Société de
+Géographie de Paris_ (1897) for the cruises on the Niger, made by the
+_Commandant_ of the Timbuctoo region, Colonel Joffre, Lieutenants
+Baudry and Bluset, and by Father Hacquart of the White Fathers. (Note
+by M. Leroux.)]
+
+Tanit-Zerga paused.
+
+"That was the last night of Gâo. While I was sleeping and the moon was
+still high above the forest, a dog yelped, but only for an instant.
+Then came the cry of men, then of women, the kind of cry that you can
+never forget if you have once heard it. When the sun rose, it found
+me, quite naked, running and stumbling towards the north with my
+little companions, beside the swiftly moving camels of the Tuareg who
+escorted us. Behind, followed the women of the tribe, my mother among
+them, two by two, the yoke upon their necks. There were not many men.
+Almost all lay with their throats cut under the ruins of the thatch of
+Gâo beside my father, brave Sonni-Azkia. Once again Gâo had been razed
+by a band of Awellimiden, who had come to massacre the French on their
+gunboat.
+
+"The Tuareg hurried us, hurried us, for they were afraid of being
+pursued. We traveled thus for ten days; and, as the millet and hemp
+disappeared, the march became more frightful. Finally, near Isakeryen,
+in the country of Kidal, the Tuareg sold us to a caravan of Trarzan
+Moors who were going from Bamrouk to Rhât. At first, because they went
+more slowly, it seemed good fortune. But, before long, the desert was
+an expanse of rough pebbles, and the women began to fall. As for the
+men, the last of them had died far back under the blows of the stick
+for having refused to go farther.
+
+"I still had the strength to keep going, and even as far in the lead
+as possible, so as not to hear the cries of my little playmates. Each
+time one of them fell by the way, unable to rise again, they saw one
+of the drivers descend from his camel and drag her into the bushes a
+little way to cut her throat. But one day, I heard a cry that made me
+turn around. It was my mother. She was kneeling, holding out her poor
+arms to me. In an instant I was beside her. But a great Moor, dressed
+in white, separated us. A red moroccan case hung around his neck from
+a black chaplet. He drew a cutlass from it. I can still see the blue
+steel on the brown skin. Another horrible cry. An instant later,
+driven by a club, I was trotting ahead, swallowing my little tears,
+trying to regain my place in the caravan.
+
+"Near the wells of Asiou, the Moors were attacked by a party of Tuareg
+of Kel-Tazeholet, serfs of the great tribe of Kel-Rhelâ, which rules
+over Ahaggar. They, in their turn, were massacred to the last man.
+That is how I was brought here, and offered as homage to Antinea, who
+was pleased with me and ever since has been kind to me. That is why it
+is no slave who soothes your fever to-day with stories that you do not
+even listen to, but the last descendant of the great Sonrhaï Emperors,
+of Sonni-Ali, the destroyer of men and of countries, of Mohammed
+Azkia, who made the pilgrimage to Mecca, taking with him fifteen
+hundred cavaliers and three hundred thousand _mithkal_ of gold in the
+days when our power stretched without rival from Chad to Touat and to
+the western sea, and when Gâo raised her cupola, sister of the sky,
+above the other cities, higher above her rival cupolas than is the
+tamarisk above the humble plants of sorghum."
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+THE SILVER HAMMER
+
+    _Je ne m'en défends plus et je ne veux qu' aller
+    Reconnaître la place où je dois l'immoler_.
+                                      (Andromaque.)
+
+
+It was this sort of a night when what I am going to tell you now
+happened. Toward five o'clock the sky clouded over and a sense of the
+coming storm trembled in the stifling air.
+
+I shall always remember it. It was the fifth of January, 1897.
+
+King Hiram and Galé lay heavily on the matting of my room. Leaning on
+my elbows beside Tanit-Zerga in the rock-hewn window, I spied the
+advance tremors of lightning.
+
+One by one they rose, streaking the now total darkness with their
+bluish stripes. But no burst of thunder followed. The storm did not
+attain the peaks of Ahaggar. It passed without breaking, leaving us in
+our gloomy bath of sweat.
+
+"I am going to bed," said Tanit-Zerga.
+
+I have said that her room was above mine. Its bay window was some
+thirty feet above that before which I lay.
+
+She took Galé in her arms. But King Hiram would have none of it.
+Digging his four paws into the matting, he whined in anger and
+uneasiness.
+
+"Leave him," I finally said to Tanit-Zerga. "For once he may sleep
+here."
+
+So it was that this little beast incurred his large share of
+responsibility in the events which followed.
+
+Left alone, I became lost in my reflections. The night was black. The
+whole mountain was shrouded in silence.
+
+It took the louder and louder growls of the leopard to rouse me from
+my meditation.
+
+King Hiram was braced against the door, digging at it with his drawn
+claws. He, who had refused to follow Tanit-Zerga a while ago, now
+wanted to go out. He was determined to go out.
+
+"Be still," I said to him. "Enough of that. Lie down!"
+
+I tried to pull him away from the door.
+
+I succeeded only in getting a staggering blow from his paw.
+
+Then I sat down on the divan.
+
+My quiet was short. "Be honest with yourself," I said. "Since Morhange
+abandoned you, since the day when you saw Antinea, you have had only
+one idea. What good is it to beguile yourself with the stories of
+Tanit-Zerga, charming as they are? This leopard is a pretext, perhaps
+a guide. Oh, you know that mysterious things are going to happen
+tonight. How have you been able to keep from doing anything as long as
+this?"
+
+Immediately I made a resolve.
+
+"If I open the door," I thought, "King Hiram will leap down the
+corridor and I shall have great difficulty in following him. I must
+find some other way."
+
+The shade of the window was worked by means of a small cord. I pulled
+it down. Then I tied it into a firm leash which I fastened to the
+metal collar of the leopard.
+
+I half opened the door.
+
+"There, now you can go. But quietly, quietly."
+
+I had all the trouble in the world to curb the ardor of King Hiram who
+dragged me along the shadowy labyrinth of corridors. It was shortly
+before nine o'clock, and the rose-colored night lights were almost
+burned out in the niches. Now and then, we passed one which was
+casting its last flickers. What a labyrinth! I realized that from here
+on I would not recognize the way to her room. I could only follow the
+leopard.
+
+At first furious, he gradually became used to towing me. He strained
+ahead, belly to the ground, with snuffs of joy.
+
+Nothing is more like one black corridor than another black corridor.
+Doubt seized me. Suppose I should suddenly find myself in the baccarat
+room! But that was unjust to King Hiram. Barred too long from the dear
+presence, the good beast was taking me exactly where I wanted him to
+take me.
+
+Suddenly, at a turn, the darkness ahead lifted. A rose window, faintly
+glimmering red and green, appeared before us.
+
+The leopard stopped with a low growl before the door in which the rose
+window was cut.
+
+I recognized it as the door through which the white Targa had led me
+the day after my arrival, when I had been set upon by King Hiram, when
+I had found myself in the presence of Antinea.
+
+"We are much better friends to-day," I said, flattering him so that he
+would not give a dangerously loud growl.
+
+I tried to open the door. The light, coming through the window, fell
+upon the floor, green and red.
+
+A simple latch, which I turned. I shortened the leash to have better
+control of King Hiram who was getting nervous.
+
+The great room where I had seen Antinea for the first time was
+completely dark. But the garden on which it gave shone under a
+clouded moon, in a sky weighted down with the storm which did not
+break. Not a breath of air. The lake gleamed like a sheet of pewter.
+
+I seated myself on a cushion, holding the leopard firmly between my
+knees. He was purring with impatience. I was thinking. Not about my
+goal. For a long time that had been fixed. But about the means.
+
+Then, I seemed to hear a distant murmur, a faint sound of voices.
+
+King Hiram growled louder, struggled. I gave him a little more leash.
+He began to rub along the dark walls on the sides whence the voices
+seemed to come. I followed him, stumbling as quietly as I could among
+the scattered cushions.
+
+My eyes, become accustomed to the darkness, could see the pyramid of
+cushions on which Antinea had first appeared to me.
+
+Suddenly I stumbled. The leopard had stopped. I realized that I had
+stepped on his tail. Brave beast, he did not make a sound.
+
+Groping along the wall, I felt a second door. Quietly, very quietly, I
+opened it as I had opened the preceding one. The leopard whimpered
+feebly.
+
+"King Hiram," I murmured, "be quiet."
+
+And I put my arms about his powerful neck.
+
+I felt his warm wet tongue on my hands. His flanks quivered. He shook
+with happiness.
+
+In front of us, lighted in the center, another room opened up. In the
+middle six men were squatting on the matting, playing dice and
+drinking coffee from tiny copper coffee cups with long stems.
+
+They were the white Tuareg.
+
+A lamp, hung from the ceiling, threw a circle of light over them.
+Everything outside that circle was in deep shadow.
+
+The black faces, the copper cups, the white robes, the moving light
+and shadow, made a strange etching.
+
+They played with a reserved dignity, announcing the throws in raucous
+voices.
+
+Then, slowly, very slowly, I slipped the leash from the collar of the
+impatient little beast.
+
+"Go, boy."
+
+He leapt with a sharp yelp.
+
+And what I had foreseen happened.
+
+The first bound of King Hiram carried him into the midst of the white
+Tuareg, sowing confusion in the bodyguard. Another leap carried him
+into the shadow again. I made out vaguely the shaded opening of
+another corridor on the side of the room opposite where I was
+standing.
+
+"There!" I thought.
+
+The confusion in the room was indescribable, but noiseless. One
+realized the restraint which nearness to a great presence imposed upon
+the exasperated guards. The stakes and the dice-boxes had rolled in
+one direction, the copper cups, in the other.
+
+Two of the Tuareg, doubled up with pain, were rubbing their ribs with
+low oaths.
+
+I need not say that I profited by this silent confusion to glide into
+the room. I was now flattened against the wall of the second corridor,
+down which King Hiram had just disappeared.
+
+At that moment a clear gong echoed in the silence. The trembling which
+seized the Tuareg assured me that I had chosen the right way.
+
+One of the six men got up. He passed me and I fell in behind him. I
+was perfectly calm. My least movement was perfectly calculated.
+
+"All that I risk here now," I said to myself, "is being led back
+politely to my room."
+
+The Targa lifted a curtain. I followed on his heels into the chamber
+of Antinea.
+
+The room was huge and at once well lighted and very dark. While the
+right half, where Antinea was, gleamed under shaded lamps, the left
+was dim.
+
+Those who have penetrated into a Mussulman home know what a _guignol_
+is, a kind of square niche in the wall, four feet from the floor, its
+opening covered by a curtain. One mounts to it by wooden steps. I
+noticed such a _guignol_ at my left. I crept into it. My pulses beat
+in the shadow. But I was calm, quite calm.
+
+There I could see and hear everything.
+
+I was in Antinea's chamber. There was nothing singular about the room,
+except the great luxury of the hangings. The ceiling was in shadow,
+but multicolored lanterns cast a vague and gentle light over gleaming
+stuffs and furs.
+
+Antinea was stretched out on a lion's skin, smoking. A little silver
+tray and pitcher lay beside her. King Hiram was flattened out at her
+feet, licking them madly.
+
+The Targa slave stood rigid before her, one hand on his heart, the
+other on his forehead, saluting.
+
+Antinea spoke in a hard voice, without looking at the man.
+
+"Why did you let the leopard pass? I told you that I wanted to be
+alone."
+
+"He knocked us over, mistress," said the Targa humbly.
+
+"The doors were not closed, then?"
+
+The slave did not answer.
+
+"Shall I take him away?" he asked.
+
+And his eyes, fastened upon King Hiram who stared at him maliciously,
+expressed well enough his desire for a negative reply.
+
+"Let him stay since he is here," said Antinea.
+
+She tapped nervously on the little silver tray.
+
+"What is the captain doing?" she asked.
+
+"He dined a while ago and seemed to enjoy his food," the Targa
+answered.
+
+"Has he said nothing?"
+
+"Yes, he asked to see his companion, the other officer."
+
+Antinea tapped the little tray still more rapidly.
+
+"Did he say nothing else?"
+
+"No, mistress," said the man.
+
+A pallor overspread the Atlantide's little forehead.
+
+"Go get him," she said brusquely.
+
+Bowing, the Targa left the room.
+
+I listened to this dialogue with great anxiety. Was this Morhange? Had
+he been faithful to me, after all? Had I suspected him unjustly? He
+had wanted to see me and been unable to!
+
+My eyes never left Antinea's.
+
+She was no longer the haughty, mocking princess of our first
+interview. She no longer wore the golden circlet on her forehead. Not
+a bracelet, not a ring. She was dressed only in a full flowing tunic.
+Her black hair, unbound, lay in masses of ebony over her slight
+shoulders and her bare arms.
+
+Her beautiful eyes were deep circled. Her divine mouth drooped. I did
+not know whether I was glad or sorry to see this new quivering
+Cleopatra.
+
+Flattened at her feet, King Hiram gazed submissively at her.
+
+An immense orichalch mirror with golden reflections was set into the
+wall at the right. Suddenly she raised herself erect before it. I saw
+her nude.
+
+A splendid and bitter sight!--A woman who thinks herself alone,
+standing before her mirror in expectation of the man she wishes to
+subdue!
+
+The six incense-burners scattered about the room sent up invisible
+columns of perfume. The balsam spices of Arabia wore floating webs in
+which my shameless senses were entangled.... And, back toward me,
+standing straight as a lily, Antinea smiled into her mirror.
+
+Low steps sounded in the corridor. Antinea immediately fell back into
+the nonchalant pose in which I had first seen her. One had to see such
+a transformation to believe it possible.
+
+Morhange entered the room, preceded by a white Targa.
+
+He, too, seemed rather pale. But I was most struck by the expression
+of serene peace on that face which I thought I knew so well. I felt
+that I never had understood what manner of man Morhange was, never.
+
+He stood erect before Antinea without seeming to notice her gesture
+inviting him to be seated.
+
+She smiled at him.
+
+"You are surprised, perhaps," she said finally, "that I should send
+for you at so late an hour."
+
+Morhange did not move an eyelash.
+
+"Have you considered it well?" she demanded.
+
+Morhange smiled gravely, but did not reply.
+
+I could read in Antinea's face the effort it cost her to continue
+smiling; I admired the self-control of these two beings.
+
+"I sent for you," she continued. "You do not guess why?... Well, it is
+to tell you something that you do not expect. It will be no surprise
+to you if I say that I never met a man like you. During your
+captivity, you have expressed only one wish. Do you recall it?"
+
+"I asked your permission to see my friend before I died," said
+Morhange simply.
+
+I do not know what stirred me more on hearing these words: delight at
+Morhange's formal tone in speaking to Antinea, or emotion at hearing
+the one wish he had expressed.
+
+But Antinea continued calmly:
+
+"That is why I sent for you--to tell you that you are going to see him
+again. And I am going to do something else. You will perhaps scorn me
+even more when you realize that you had only to oppose me to bend me
+to your will--I, who have bent all other wills to mine. But, however
+that may be, it is decided: I give you both your liberty. Tomorrow
+Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh will lead you past the fifth enclosure. Are you
+satisfied?"
+
+"I am," said Morhange with a mocking smile.
+
+"That will give me a chance," he continued, "to make better plans for
+the next trip I intend to make this way. For you need not doubt that I
+shall feel bound to return to express my gratitude. Only, next time,
+to render so great a queen the honors due her, I shall ask my
+government to furnish me with two or three hundred European soldiers
+and several cannon."
+
+Antinea was standing up, very pale.
+
+"What are you saying?"
+
+"I am saying," said Morhange coldly, "that I foresaw this. First
+threats, then promises."
+
+Antinea stepped toward him. He had folded his arms. He looked at her
+with a sort of grave pity.
+
+"I will make you die in the most atrocious agonies," she said finally.
+
+"I am your prisoner," Morhange replied.
+
+"You shall suffer things that you cannot even imagine."
+
+"I am your prisoner," repeated Morhange in the same sad calm.
+
+Antinea paced the room like a beast in a cage. She advanced toward my
+companion and, no longer mistress of herself, struck him in the face.
+
+He smiled and caught hold of her, drawing her little wrists together
+with a strange mixture of force and gentleness.
+
+King Hiram growled. I thought he was about to leap. But the cold eyes
+of Morhange held him fascinated.
+
+"I will have your comrade killed before your eyes," gasped Antinea.
+
+It seemed to me that Morhange paled, but only for a second. I was
+overcome by the nobility and insight of his reply.
+
+"My companion is brave. He does not fear death. And, in any case, he
+would prefer death to life purchased at the price you name."
+
+So saying, he let go Antinea's wrists. Her pallor was terrible. From
+the expression of her mouth I felt that this would be her last word to
+him.
+
+"Listen," she said.
+
+How beautiful she was, in her scorned majesty, her beauty powerless
+for the first time!
+
+"Listen," she continued. "Listen. For the last time. Remember that I
+hold the gates of this palace, that I have supreme power over your
+life. Remember that you breathe only at my pleasure. Remember...."
+
+"I have remembered all that," said Morhange.
+
+"A last time," she repeated.
+
+The serenity of Morhange's face was so powerful that I scarcely
+noticed his opponent. In that transfigured countenance, no trace of
+worldliness remained.
+
+"A last time," came Antinea's voice, almost breaking.
+
+Morhange was not even looking at her.
+
+"As you will," she said.
+
+Her gong resounded. She had struck the silver disc. The white Targa
+appeared.
+
+"Leave the room!"
+
+Morhange, his head held high, went out.
+
+Now Antinea is in my arms. This is no haughty, voluptuous woman whom
+I am pressing to my heart. It is only an unhappy, scorned little girl.
+
+So great was her trouble that she showed no surprise when I stepped
+out beside her. Her head is on my shoulder. Like the crescent moon in
+the black clouds, I see her clear little bird-like profile amid her
+mass of hair. Her warm arms hold me convulsively.... _O tremblant
+coeur humain_....
+
+Who could resist such an embrace, amid the soft perfumes, in the
+langorous night? I feel myself a being without will. Is this my voice,
+the voice which is murmuring:
+
+"Ask me what you will, and I will do it, I will do it."
+
+My senses are sharpened, tenfold keen. My head rests against a soft,
+nervous little knee. Clouds of odors whirl about me. Suddenly it seems
+as if the golden lanterns are waving from the ceiling like giant
+censers. Is this my voice, the voice repeating in a dream:
+
+"Ask me what you will, and I will do it. I will do it."
+
+Antinea's face is almost touching mine. A strange light flickers in
+her great eyes.
+
+Beyond, I see the gleaming eyes of King Hiram. Beside him, there is a
+little table of Kairouan, blue and gold. On that table I see the gong
+with which Antinea summons the slaves. I see the hammer with which she
+struck it just now, a hammer with a long ebony handle, a heavy silver
+head ... the hammer with which little Lieutenant Kaine dealt death....
+
+I see nothing more....
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+THE MAIDENS OF THE ROCKS
+
+
+I awakened in my room. The sun, already at its zenith, filled the
+place with unbearable light and heat.
+
+The first thing I saw, on opening my eyes, was the shade, ripped down,
+lying in the middle of the floor. Then, confusedly, the night's events
+began to come back to me.
+
+My head felt stupid and heavy. My mind wandered. My memory seemed
+blocked. "I went out with the leopard, that is certain. That red mark
+on my forefinger shows how he strained at the leash. My knees are
+still dusty. I remember creeping along the wall in the room where the
+white Tuareg were playing at dice. That was the minute after King
+Hiram had leapt past them. After that ... oh, Morhange and Antinea....
+And then?"
+
+I recalled nothing more. I recalled nothing more. But something must
+have happened, something which I could not remember.
+
+I was uneasy. I wanted to go back, yet it seemed as if I were afraid
+to go. I have never felt anything more painful than those conflicting
+emotions.
+
+"It is a long way from here to Antinea's apartments. I must have been
+very sound asleep not to have noticed when they brought me back--for
+they have brought me back."
+
+I stopped trying to think it out. My head ached too much.
+
+"I must have air," I murmured. "I am roasting here; it will drive me
+mad."
+
+I had to see someone, no matter whom. Mechanically, I walked toward
+the library.
+
+I found M. Le Mesge in a transport of delirious joy. The Professor was
+engaged in opening an enormous bale, carefully sewed in a brown
+blanket.
+
+"You come at a good time, sir," he cried, on seeing me enter. "The
+magazines have just arrived."
+
+He dashed about in feverish haste. Presently a stream of pamphlets and
+magazines, blue, green, yellow and salmon, was bursting from an
+opening in the bale.
+
+"Splendid, splendid!" he cried, dancing with joy. "Not too late,
+either; here are the numbers for October fifteenth. We must give a
+vote of thanks to good Ameur."
+
+His good spirits were contagious.
+
+"There is a good Turkish merchant who subscribes to all the
+interesting magazines of the two continents. He sends them on by
+Rhadamès to a destination which he little suspects. Ah, here are the
+French ones."
+
+M. Le Mesge ran feverishly over, the tables of contents.
+
+"Internal politics: articles by Francis Charmes, Anatole
+Leroy-Beaulieu, d'Haussonville on the Czar's trip to Paris. Look, a
+study by Avenel of wages in the Middle Ages. And verse, verses of the
+young poets, Fernand Gregh, Edmond Haraucourt. Ah, the resumé of a
+book by Henry de Castries on Islam. That may be interesting.... Take
+what you please."
+
+Joy makes people amiable and M. Le Mesge was really delirious with it.
+
+A puff of breeze came from the window. I went to the balustrade and,
+resting my elbows on it, began to run through a number of the _Revue
+des Deux Mondes_.
+
+I did not read, but flipped over the pages, my eyes now on the lines
+of swarming little black characters, now on the rocky basin which lay
+shivering, pale pink, under the declining sun.
+
+Suddenly my attention became fixed. There was a strange coincidence
+between the text and the landscape.
+
+"In the sky overhead were only light shreds of cloud, like bits of
+white ash floating up from burnt-out logs. The sun fell over a circle
+of rocky peaks, silhouetting their severe lines against the azure sky.
+From on high, a great sadness and gentleness poured down into the
+lonely enclosure, like a magic drink into a deep cup...."[17]
+
+[Footnote 17: Gabrielle d'Annunzio: _Les Vierges aux Rochers_. Cf. The
+_Revue des Deux Mondes_ of October 15, 1896; page 867.]
+
+I turned the pages feverishly. My mind seemed to be clearing.
+
+Behind me, M. Le Mesge, deep in an article, voiced his opinions in
+indignant growls.
+
+I continued reading:
+
+"On all sides a magnificent view spread out before us in the raw
+light. The chain of rocks, clearly visible in their barren desolation
+which stretched to the very summit, lay stretched out like some great
+heap of gigantic, unformed things left by some primordial race of
+Titans to stupefy human beings. Overturned towers...."
+
+"It is shameful, downright shameful," the Professor was repeating.
+
+"Overturned towers, crumbling citadels, cupolas fallen in, broken
+pillars, mutilated colossi, prows of vessels, thighs of monsters,
+bones of titans,--this mass, impassable with its ridges and gullies,
+seemed the embodiment of everything huge and tragic. So clear were the
+distances...."
+
+"Downright shameful," M. Le Mesge kept on saying in exasperation,
+thumping his fist on the table.
+
+"So clear were the distances that I could see, as if I had it under my
+eyes, infinitely enlarged, every contour of the rock which Violante
+had shown me through the window with the gesture of a creator...."
+
+Trembling, I closed the magazine. At my feet, now red, I saw the rock
+which Antinea had pointed out to me the day of our first interview,
+huge, steep, overhanging the reddish brown garden.
+
+"That is my horizon," she had said.
+
+M. Le Mesge's excitement had passed all bounds.
+
+"It is worse than shameful; it is infamous."
+
+I almost wanted to strangle him into silence. He seized my arm.
+
+"Read that, sir; and, although you don't know a great deal about the
+subject, you will see that this article on Roman Africa is a miracle
+of misinformation, a monument of ignorance. And it is signed ... do
+you know by whom it is signed?"
+
+"Leave me alone," I said brutally.
+
+"Well, it is signed Gaston Boissier. Yes, sir! Gaston Boissier, grand
+officer of the Legion of Honor, lecturer at the _Ecole Normale
+Supérieure_, permanent secretary of the French Academy, member of the
+Academy of Inscriptions and Literature, one of those who once ruled
+out the subject of my thesis ... one of those ... ah, poor university,
+ah, poor France!"
+
+I was no longer listening. I had begun to read again. My forehead was
+covered with sweat. But it seemed as if my head had been cleared like
+a room when a window is opened; memories were beginning to come back
+like doves winging their way home to the dovecote.
+
+"At that moment, an irrepressible tremor shook her whole body; her
+eyes dilated as if some terrible sight had filled them with horror.
+
+"'Antonello,' she murmured.
+
+"And for seconds, she was unable to say another word.
+
+"I looked at her in mute anguish and the suffering which drew her dear
+lips together seemed also to clutch at my heart. The vision which was
+in her eyes passed into mine, and I saw again the thin white face of
+Antonello, and the quick quivering of his eyelids, the waves of agony
+which seized his long worn body and shook it like a reed."
+
+I threw the magazine upon the table.
+
+"That is it," I said.
+
+To cut the pages, I had used the knife with which M. Le Mesge had cut
+the cords of the bale, a short ebony-handled dagger, one of those
+daggers that the Tuareg wear in a bracelet sheath against the upper
+left arm.
+
+I slipped it into the big pocket of my flannel dolman and walked
+toward the door.
+
+I was about to cross the threshold when I heard M. Le Mesge call me.
+
+"Monsieur de Saint Avit! Monsieur de Saint Avit!
+
+"I want to ask you something, please."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Nothing important. You know that I have to mark the labels for the
+red marble hall...."
+
+I walked toward the table.
+
+"Well, I forgot to ask M. Morhange, at the beginning, the date and
+place of his birth. After that, I had no chance. I did not see him
+again. So I am forced to turn to you. Perhaps you can tell me?"
+
+"I can," I said very calmly.
+
+He took a large white card from a box which contained several and
+dipped his pen.
+
+"Number 54 ... Captain?"
+
+"Captain Jean-Marie-François Morhange."
+
+While I dictated, one hand resting on the table, I noticed on my cuff
+a stain, a little stain, reddish brown.
+
+"Morhange," repeated M. Le Mesge, finishing the lettering of my
+friend's name. "Born at...?"
+
+"Villefranche."
+
+"Villefranche, Rhône. What date?"
+
+"The fourteenth of October, 1859."
+
+"The fourteenth of October, 1859. Good. Died at Ahaggar, the fifth of
+January, 1897.... There, that is done. A thousand thanks, sir, for
+your kindness."
+
+"You are welcome."
+
+I left M. Le Mesge.
+
+My mind, thenceforth, was well made up; and, as I said, I was
+perfectly calm. Nevertheless, when I had taken leave of M. Le Mesge, I
+felt the need of waiting a few minutes before executing my decision.
+
+First I wandered through the corridors; then, finding myself near my
+room, I went to it. It was still intolerably hot. I sat down on my
+divan and began to think.
+
+The dagger in my pocket bothered me. I took it out and laid it on the
+floor.
+
+It was a good dagger, with a diamond-shaped blade, and with a collar
+of orange leather between the blade and the handle.
+
+The sight of it recalled the silver hammer. I remembered how easily it
+fitted into my hand when I struck....
+
+Every detail of the scene came back to me with incomparable vividness.
+But I did not even shiver. It seemed as if my determination to kill
+the instigator of the murder permitted me peacefully to evoke its
+brutal details.
+
+If I reflected over my deed, it was to be surprised at it, not to
+condemn myself.
+
+"Well," I said to myself, "I have killed this Morhange, who was once a
+baby, who, like all the others, cost his mother so much trouble with
+his baby sicknesses. I have put an end to his life, I have reduced to
+nothingness the monument of love, of tears, of trials overcome and
+pitfalls escaped, which constitutes a human existence. What an
+extraordinary adventure!"
+
+That was all. No fear, no remorse, none of that Shakespearean horror
+after the murder, which, today, sceptic though I am and blasé and
+utterly, utterly disillusioned, sets me shuddering whenever I am alone
+in a dark room.
+
+"Come," I thought. "It's time. Time to finish it up."
+
+I picked up the dagger. Before putting it in my pocket, I went through
+the motion of striking. All was well. The dagger fitted into my hand.
+
+I had been through Antinea's apartment only when guided, the first
+time by the white Targa, the second time, by the leopard. Yet I found
+the way again without trouble. Just before coming to the door with the
+rose window, I met a Targa.
+
+"Let me pass," I ordered. "Your mistress has sent for me." The man
+obeyed, stepping back.
+
+Soon a dim melody came to my ears. I recognized the sound of a
+_rebaza_, the violin with a single string, played by the Tuareg women.
+It was Aguida playing, squatting as usual at the feet of her mistress.
+The three other women were also squatted about her. Tanit-Zerga was
+not there.
+
+Oh! Since that was the last time I saw her, let, oh, let me tell you
+of Antinea, how she looked in that supreme moment.
+
+Did she feel the danger hovering over her and did she wish to brave it
+by her surest artifices? I had in mind the slender; unadorned body,
+without rings, without jewels, which I had pressed to my heart the
+night before. And now I started in surprise at seeing before me,
+adorned like an idol, not a woman, but a queen!
+
+The heavy splendor of the Pharaohs weighted down her slender body. On
+her head was the great gold _pschent_ of Egyptian gods and kings;
+emeralds, the national stone of the Tuareg, were set in it, tracing
+and retracing her name in Tifinar characters. A red satin _schenti_,
+embroidered in golden lotus, enveloped her like the casket of a jewel.
+At her feet, lay an ebony scepter, headed with a trident. Her bare
+arms were encircled by two serpents whose fangs touched her armpits as
+if to bury themselves there. From the ear pieces of the _pschent_
+streamed a necklace of emeralds; its first strand passed under her
+determined chin; the others lay in circles against her bare throat.
+
+She smiled as I entered.
+
+"I was expecting you," she said simply.
+
+I advanced till I was four steps from the throne, then stopped before
+her.
+
+She looked at me ironically.
+
+"What is that?" she asked with perfect calm.
+
+I followed her gesture. The handle of the dagger protruded from my
+pocket.
+
+I drew it out and held it firmly in my hand, ready to strike.
+
+"The first of you who moves will be sent naked six leagues into the
+red desert and left there to die," said Antinea coldly to her women,
+whom my gesture had thrown into a frightened murmuring.
+
+She turned to me.
+
+"That dagger is very ugly and you hold it badly. Shall I send Sydya to
+my room to get the silver hammer? You are more adroit with it than
+with the dagger."
+
+"Antinea," I said in a low voice, "I am going to kill you."
+
+"Do not speak so formally. You were more affectionate last night. Are
+you embarrassed by them?" she said, pointing to the women, whose eyes
+were wide with terror.
+
+"Kill me?" she went on. "You are hardly reasonable. Kill me at the
+moment when you can reap the fruits of the murder of...."
+
+"Did--did he suffer?" I asked suddenly, trembling.
+
+"Very little. I told you that you used the hammer as if you had done
+nothing else all your life."
+
+"Like little Kaine," I murmured.
+
+She smiled in surprise.
+
+"Oh, you know that story.... Yes, like little Kaine. But at least
+Kaine was sensible. You ... I do not understand."
+
+"I do not understand myself, very well."
+
+She looked at me with amused curiosity.
+
+"Antinea," I said.
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"I did what you told me to. May I in turn ask one favor, ask you one
+question?"
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"It was dark, was it not, in the room where _he_ was?"
+
+"Very dark. I had to lead you to the bed where he lay asleep."
+
+"He _was_ asleep, you are sure?"
+
+"I said so."
+
+"He--did not die instantly, did he?"
+
+"No. I know exactly when he died; two minutes after you struck him and
+fled with a shriek."
+
+"Then surely _he_ could not have known?"
+
+"Known what?"
+
+"That it was I who--who held the hammer."
+
+"He might not have known it, indeed," Antinea said. "But he did know."
+
+"How?"
+
+"He did know ... because I told him," she said, staring at me with
+magnificent audacity.
+
+"And," I murmured, "he--he believed it?"
+
+"With the help of my explanation, he recognized your shriek. If he had
+not realized that you were his murderer, the affair would not have
+interested me," she finished with a scornful little smile.
+
+Four steps, I said, separated me from Antinea. I sprang forward. But,
+before I reached her, I was struck to the floor.
+
+King Hiram had leapt at my throat.
+
+At the same moment I heard the calm, haughty voice of Antinea:
+
+"Call the men," she commanded.
+
+A second later I was released from the leopard's clutch. The six white
+Tuareg had surrounded me and were trying to bind me.
+
+I am fairly strong and quick. I was on my feet in a second. One of my
+enemies lay on the floor, ten feet away, felled by a well-placed blow
+on the jaw. Another was gasping under my knee. That was the last time
+I saw Antinea. She stood erect, both hands resting on her ebony
+scepter, watching the struggle with a smile of contemptuous interest.
+
+Suddenly I gave a loud cry and loosed the hold I had on my victim. A
+cracking in my left arm: one of the Tuareg had seized it and twisted
+until my shoulder was dislocated.
+
+When I completely lost consciousness, I was being carried down the
+corridor by two white phantoms, so bound that I could not move a
+muscle.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+THE FIRE-FLIES
+
+
+Through the great open window, waves of pale moonlight surged into my
+room.
+
+A slender white figure was standing beside the bed where I lay.
+
+"You, Tanit-Zerga!" I murmured. She laid a finger on her lips.
+
+"Sh! Yes, it is I."
+
+I tried to raise myself up on the bed. A terrible pain seized my
+shoulder. The events of the afternoon came back to my poor harassed
+mind.
+
+"Oh, little one, if you knew!"
+
+"I know," she said.
+
+I was weaker than a baby. After the overstrain of the day had come a
+fit of utter nervous depression. A lump rose in my throat, choking me.
+
+"If you knew, if you only knew!... Take me away, little one. Get me
+away from here."
+
+"Not so loud," she whispered. "There is a white Targa on guard at the
+door."
+
+"Take me away; save me," I repeated.
+
+"That is what I came for," she said simply.
+
+I looked at her. She no longer was wearing her beautiful red silk
+tunic. A plain white _haik_ was wrapped about her; and she had drawn
+one corner of it over her head.
+
+"I want to go away, too," she said in a smothered voice.
+
+"For a long time, I have wanted to go away. I want to see Gâo, the
+village on the bank of the river, and the blue gum trees, and the
+green water.
+
+"Ever since I came here, I have wanted to get away," she repeated,
+"but I am too little to go alone into the great Sahara. I never dared
+speak to the others who came here before you. They all thought only of
+_her_.... But you, you wanted to kill her."
+
+I gave a low moan.
+
+"You are suffering," she said. "They broke your arm."
+
+"Dislocated it anyhow."
+
+"Let me see."
+
+With infinite gentleness, she passed her smooth little hands over my
+shoulder.
+
+"You tell me that there is a white Targa on guard before my door,
+Tanit-Zerga," I said. "Then how did you get in?"
+
+"That way," she said, pointing to the window. A dark perpendicular
+line halved its blue opening.
+
+Tanit-Zerga went to the window. I saw her standing erect on the sill.
+A knife shone in her hands. She cut the rope at the top of the
+opening. It slipped down to the stone with a dry sound.
+
+She came back to me.
+
+"How can we escape?" I asked.
+
+"That way," she repeated, and she pointed again at the window.
+
+I leaned out. My feverish gaze fell upon the shadowy depths, searching
+for those invisible rocks, the rocks upon which little Kaine had
+dashed himself.
+
+"That way!" I exclaimed, shuddering. "Why, it is two hundred feet from
+here to the ground."
+
+"The rope is two hundred and fifty," she replied. "It is a good strong
+rope which I stole in the oasis; they used it in felling trees. It is
+quite new."
+
+"Climb down that way, Tanit-Zerga! With my shoulder!"
+
+"I will let you down," she said firmly. "Feel how strong my arms are.
+Not that I shall rest your weight on them. But see, on each side of
+the window is a marble column. By twisting the rope around one of
+them, I can let you slip down and scarcely feel your weight.
+
+"And look," she continued, "I have made a big knot every ten feet. I
+can stop the rope with them, every now and then, if I want to rest."
+
+"And you?" I asked.
+
+"When you are down, I shall tie the rope to one of the columns and
+follow. There are the knots on which to rest if the rope cuts my hands
+too much. But don't be afraid: I am very agile. At Gâo, when I was
+just a child, I used to climb almost as high as this in the gum trees
+to take the little toucans out of their nests. It is even easier to
+climb down."
+
+"And when we are down, how will we get out? Do you know the way
+through the barriers?"
+
+"No one knows the way through the barriers," she said, "except
+Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh, and perhaps Antinea."
+
+"Then?"
+
+"There are the camels of Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh, those which he uses on
+his forays. I untethered the strongest one and led him out, just below
+us, and gave him lots of hay so that he will not make a sound and will
+be well fed when we start."
+
+"But...." I still protested.
+
+She stamped her foot.
+
+"But what? Stay if you wish, if you are afraid. I am going. I want to
+see Gâo once again, Gâo with its blue gum-trees and its green water."
+
+I felt myself blushing.
+
+"I will go, Tanit-Zerga. I would rather die of thirst in the midst of
+the desert than stay here. Let us start."
+
+"Tut!" she said. "Not yet."
+
+She showed me that the dizzy descent was in brilliant moonlight.
+
+"Not yet. We must wait. They would see us. In an hour, the moon will
+have circled behind the mountain. That will be the time."
+
+She sat silent, her _haik_ wrapped completely about her dark little
+figure. Was she praying? Perhaps.
+
+Suddenly I no longer saw her. Darkness had crept in the window. The
+moon had turned.
+
+Tanit-Zerga's hand was on my arm. She drew me toward the abyss. I
+tried not to tremble.
+
+Everything below us was in shadow. In a low, firm voice, Tanit-Zerga
+began to speak:
+
+"Everything is ready. I have twisted the rope about the pillar. Here
+is the slip-knot. Put it under your arms. Take this cushion. Keep it
+pressed against your hurt shoulder.... A leather cushion.... It is
+tightly stuffed. Keep face to the wall. It will protect you against
+the bumping and scraping."
+
+I was now master of myself, very calm. I sat down on the sill of the
+window, my feet in the void. A breath of cool air from the peaks
+refreshed me.
+
+I felt little Tanit-Zerga's hand in my vest pocket.
+
+"Here is a box. I must know when you are down, so I can follow. You
+will open the box. There are fire-flies in it; I shall see them and
+follow you."
+
+She held my hand a moment.
+
+"Now go," she murmured.
+
+I went.
+
+I remember only one thing about that descent: I was overcome with
+vexation when the rope stopped and I found myself, feet dangling,
+against the perfectly smooth wall.
+
+"What is the little fool waiting for?" I said to myself. "I have been
+hung here for a quarter of an hour. Ah ... at last! Oh, here I am
+stopped again." Once or twice I thought I was reaching the ground, but
+it was only a projection from the rock. I had to give a quick shove
+with my foot.... Then, suddenly, I found myself seated on the ground.
+I stretched out my hands. Bushes.... A thorn pricked my finger. I was
+down.
+
+Immediately I began to get nervous again.
+
+I pulled out the cushion and slipped off the noose. With my good hand,
+I pulled the rope, holding it out five or six feet from the face of
+the mountain, and put my foot on it.
+
+Then I took the little cardboard box from my pocket and opened it.
+
+One after the other, three little luminous circles rose in the inky
+night. I saw them rise higher and higher against the rocky wall. Their
+pale rose aureols gleamed faintly. Then, one by one, they turned,
+disappeared.
+
+"You are tired, Sidi Lieutenant. Let me hold the rope."
+
+Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh rose up at my side.
+
+I looked at his tall black silhouette. I shuddered, but I did not let
+go of the rope on which I began to feel distant jerks.
+
+"Give it to me," he repeated with authority.
+
+And he took it from my hands.
+
+I don't know what possessed me then. I was standing beside that great
+dark phantom. And I ask you, what could I, with a dislocated
+shoulder, do against that man whose agile strength I already knew?
+What was there to do? I saw him buttressed against the wall, holding
+the rope with both hands, with both feet, with all his body, much
+better than I had been able to do.
+
+A rustling above our heads. A little shadowy form.
+
+"There," said Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh, seizing the little shadow in his
+powerful arms and placing her on the ground, while the rope, let
+slack, slapped back against the rock.
+
+Tanit-Zerga recognized the Targa and groaned.
+
+He put his hand roughly over her mouth.
+
+"Shut up, camel thief, wretched little fly."
+
+He seized her arm. Then he turned to me.
+
+"Come," he said in an imperious tone.
+
+I obeyed. During our short walk, I heard Tanit-Zerga's teeth
+chattering with terror.
+
+We reached a little cave.
+
+"Go in," said the Targa.
+
+He lighted a torch. The red light showed a superb mehari peacefully
+chewing his cud.
+
+"The little one is not stupid," said Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh, pointing to
+the animal. "She knows enough to pick out the best and the strongest.
+But she is rattle-brained."
+
+He held the torch nearer the camel.
+
+"She is rattle-brained," he continued. "She only saddled him. No
+water, no food. At this hour, three days from now, all three of you
+would have been dead on the road, and on what a road!"
+
+Tanit-Zerga's teeth no longer chattered. She was looking at the Targa
+with a mixture of terror and hope.
+
+"Come here, Sidi Lieutenant," said Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh, "so that I can
+explain to you."
+
+When I was beside him, he said:
+
+"On each side there is a skin of water. Make that water last as long
+as possible, for you are going to cross a terrible country. It may be
+that you will not find a well for three hundred miles.
+
+"There," he went on, "in the saddle bags, are cans of preserved meat.
+Not many, for water is much more precious. Here also is a carbine,
+your carbine, sidi. Try not to use it except to shoot antelopes. And
+there is this."
+
+He spread out a roll of paper. I saw his inscrutible face bent over
+it; his eyes were smiling; he looked at me.
+
+"Once out of the enclosures, what way did you plan to go?" he asked.
+
+"Toward Idelès, to retake the route where you met the Captain and me,"
+I said.
+
+Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh shook his head.
+
+"I thought as much," he murmured.
+
+Then he added coldly:
+
+"Before sunset to-morrow, you and the little one would have been
+caught and massacred."
+
+"Toward the north is Ahaggar," he continued, "and all Ahaggar is under
+the control of Antinea. You must go south."
+
+"Then we shall go south."
+
+"By what route?"
+
+"Why, by Silet and Timissao."
+
+The Targa again shook his head.
+
+"They will look for you on that road also," he said. "It is a good
+road, the road with the wells. They know that you are familiar with
+it. The Tuareg would not fail to wait at the wells."
+
+"Well, then?"
+
+"Well," said Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh, "you must not rejoin the road from
+Timissao to Timbuctoo until you are four hundred miles from here
+toward Iferouane, or better still, at the spring of Telemsi. That is
+the boundary between the Tuareg of Ahaggar and the Awellimiden
+Tuareg."
+
+The little voice of Tanit-Zerga broke in:
+
+"It was the Awellimiden Tuareg who massacred my people and carried me
+into slavery. I do not want to pass through the country of the
+Awellimiden."
+
+"Be still, miserable little fly," said Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh.
+
+Then addressing me, he continued:
+
+"I have said what I have said. The little one is not wrong. The
+Awellimiden are a savage people. But they are afraid of the French.
+Many of them trade with the stations north of the Niger. On the other
+hand, they are at war with the people of Ahaggar, who will not follow
+you into their country. What I have said, is said. You must rejoin
+the Timbuctoo road near where it enters the borders of the
+Awellimiden. Their country is wooded and rich in springs. If you reach
+the springs at Telemsi, you will finish your journey beneath a canopy
+of blossoming mimosa. On the other hand, the road from here to Telemsi
+is shorter than by way of Timissao. It is quite straight."
+
+"Yes, it is direct," I said, "but, in following it, you have to cross
+the Tanezruft."
+
+Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh waved his hand impatiently.
+
+"Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh knows that," he said. "He knows what the Tanezruft
+is. He who has traveled over all the Sahara knows that he would
+shudder at crossing the Tanezruft and the Tassili from the south. He
+knows that the camels that wander into that country either die or
+become wild, for no one will risk his life to go look for them. It is
+the terror that hangs over that region that may save you. For you have
+to choose: you must run the risk of dying of thirst on the tracks of
+the Tanezruft or have your throat cut along some other route.
+
+"You can stay here," he added.
+
+"My choice is made, Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh," I announced.
+
+"Good!" he replied, again opening out the roll of paper. "This trail
+begins at the second barrier of earth, to which I will lead you. It
+ends at Iferouane. I have marked the wells, but do not trust to them
+too much, for many of them are dry. Be careful not to stray from the
+route. If you lose it, it is death.... Now mount the camel with the
+little one. Two make less noise than four."
+
+We went a long way in silence. Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh walked ahead and his
+camel followed meekly. We crossed, first, a dark passage, then, a deep
+gorge, then another passage.... The entrance to each was hidden by a
+thick tangle of rocks and briars.
+
+Suddenly a burning breath touched our faces. A dull reddish light
+filtered in through the end of the passage. The desert lay before us.
+
+Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh had stopped.
+
+"Get down," he said.
+
+A spring gurgled out of the rock. The Targa went to it and filled a
+copper cup with the water.
+
+"Drink," he said, holding it out to each of us in turn. We obeyed.
+
+"Drink again," he ordered. "You will save just so much of the contents
+of your water skins. Now try not to be thirsty before sunset."
+
+He looked over the saddle girths.
+
+"That's all right," he murmured. "Now go. In two hours the dawn will
+be here. You must be out of sight."
+
+I was filled with emotion at this last moment; I went to the Targa and
+took his hand.
+
+"Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh," I asked in a low voice, "why are you doing
+this?"
+
+He stepped back and I saw his dark eyes gleam.
+
+"Why?" he said.
+
+"Yes, why?"
+
+He replied with dignity:
+
+"The Prophet permits every just man, once in his lifetime, to let pity
+take the place of duty. Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh is turning this permission
+to the advantage of one who saved his life."
+
+"And you are not afraid," I asked, "that I will disclose the secret of
+Antinea if I return among Frenchmen?" He shook his head.
+
+"I am not afraid of that," he said, and his voice was full of irony.
+"It is not to your interest that Frenchmen should know how the Captain
+met his death."
+
+I was horrified at this logical reply.
+
+"Perhaps I am doing wrong," the Targa went on, "in not killing the
+little one.... But she loves you. She will not talk. Now go. Day is
+coming."
+
+I tried to press the hand of this strange rescuer, but he again drew
+back.
+
+"Do not thank me. What I am doing, I do to acquire merit in the eyes
+of God. You may be sure that I shall never do it again neither for you
+nor for anyone else."
+
+And, as I made a gesture to reassure him on that point, "Do not
+protest," he said in a tone the mockery of which still sounds in my
+ears. "Do not protest. What I am doing is of value to me, but not to
+you."
+
+I looked at him uncomprehendingly.
+
+"Not to you, Sidi Lieutenant, not to you," his grave voice continued.
+"For you will come back; and when that day comes, do not count on the
+help of Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh."
+
+"I will come back?" I asked, shuddering.
+
+"You will come back," the Targa replied.
+
+He was standing erect, a black statue against the wall of gray rock.
+
+"You will come back," he repeated with emphasis. "You are fleeing now,
+but you are mistaken if you think that you will look at the world with
+the same eyes as before. Henceforth, one idea, will follow you
+everywhere you go; and in one year, five, perhaps ten years, you will
+pass again through the corridor through which you have just come."
+
+"Be still, Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh," said the trembling voice of
+Tanit-Zerga.
+
+"Be still yourself, miserable little fly," said Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh.
+
+He sneered.
+
+"The little one is afraid because she knows that I tell the truth. She
+knows the story of Lieutenant Ghiberti."
+
+"Lieutenant Ghiberti?" I said, the sweat standing out on my forehead.
+
+"He was an Italian officer whom I met between Rhât and Rhadamès eight
+years ago. He did not believe that love of Antinea could make him
+forget all else that life contained. He tried to escape, and he
+succeeded. I do not know how, for I did not help him. He went back to
+his country. But hear what happened: two years later, to the very day,
+when I was leaving the look-out, I discovered a miserable tattered
+creature, half dead from hunger and fatigue, searching in vain for the
+entrance to the northern barrier. It was Lieutenant Ghiberti, come
+back. He fills niche Number 39 in the red marble hall."
+
+The Targa smiled slightly.
+
+"That is the story of Lieutenant Ghiberti which you wished to hear.
+But enough of this. Mount your camel."
+
+I obeyed without saying a word. Tanit-Zerga, seated behind me, put
+her little arms around me. Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh was still holding the
+bridle.
+
+"One word more," he said, pointing to a black spot against the violet
+sky of the southern horizon. "You see the _gour_ there; that is your
+way. It is eighteen miles from here. You should reach it by sunrise.
+Then consult your map. The next point is marked. If you do not stray
+from the line, you should be at the springs of Telemsi in eight days."
+
+The camel's neck was stretched toward the dark wind coming from the
+south.
+
+The Targa released the bridle with a sweep of his hand.
+
+"Now go."
+
+"Thank you," I called to him, turning back in the saddle. "Thank you,
+Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh, and farewell."
+
+I heard his voice replying in the distance:
+
+"_Au revoir_, Lieutenant de Saint Avit."
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+THE TANEZRUFT
+
+
+During the first hour of our flight, the great mehari of
+Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh carried us at a mad pace. We covered at least five
+leagues. With fixed eyes, I guided the beast toward the _gour_ which
+the Targa had pointed out, its ridge becoming higher and higher
+against the paling sky.
+
+The speed caused a little breeze to whistle in our ears. Great tufts
+of _retem_, like fleshless skeletons, were tossed to right and left.
+
+I heard the voice of Tanit-Zerga whispering:
+
+"Stop the camel."
+
+At first I did not understand.
+
+"Stop him," she repeated.
+
+Her hand pulled sharply at my right arm.
+
+I obeyed. The camel slackened his pace with very bad grace.
+
+"Listen," she said.
+
+At first I heard nothing. Then a very slight noise, a dry rustling
+behind us.
+
+"Stop the camel," Tanit-Zerga commanded. "It is not worth while to
+make him kneel."
+
+A little gray creature bounded on the camel. The mehari set out again
+at his best speed.
+
+"Let him go," said Tanit-Zerga. "Galé has jumped on."
+
+I felt a tuft of bristly hair under my arm. The mongoose had followed
+our footsteps and rejoined us. I heard the quick panting of the brave
+little creature becoming gradually slower and slower.
+
+"I am happy," murmured Tanit-Zerga.
+
+Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh had not been mistaken. We reached the _gour_ as the
+sun rose. I looked back. The Atakor was nothing more than a monstrous
+chaos amid the night mists which trailed the dawn. It was no longer
+possible to pick out from among the nameless peaks, the one on which
+Antinea was still weaving her passionate plots.
+
+You know what the Tanezruft is, the "plain of plains," abandoned,
+uninhabitable, the country of hunger and thirst. We were then starting
+on the part of the desert which Duveyrier calls the Tassili of the
+south, and which figures on the maps of the Minister of Public Works
+under this attractive title: "Rocky plateau, without water, without
+vegetation, inhospitable for man and beast."
+
+Nothing, unless parts of the Kalahari, is more frightful than this
+rocky desert. Oh, Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh did not exaggerate in saying that
+no one would dream of following us into that country.
+
+Great patches of oblivion still refused to clear away. Memories chased
+each other incoherently about my head. A sentence came back to me
+textually: "It seemed to Dick that he had never, since the beginning
+of original darkness, done anything at all save jolt through the air."
+I gave a little laugh. "In the last few hours," I thought, "I have
+been heaping up literary situations. A while ago, a hundred feet above
+the ground, I was Fabrice of _La Chartreuse de Parme_ beside his
+Italian dungeon. Now, here on my camel, I am Dick of _The Light That
+Failed_, crossing the desert to meet his companions in arms." I
+chuckled again; then shuddered. I thought of the preceding night, of
+the Orestes of _Andromaque_ who agreed to sacrifice Pyrrhus. A
+literary situation indeed....
+
+Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh had reckoned eight days to get to the wooded
+country of the Awellimiden, forerunners of the grassy steppes of the
+Soudan. He knew well the worth of his beast. Tanit-Zerga had suddenly
+given him a name, _El Mellen_, the white one, for the magnificent
+mehari had an almost spotless coat. Once he went two days without
+eating, merely picking up here and there a branch of an acacia tree
+whose hideous white spines, four inches long, filled me with fear for
+our friend's oesophagus. The wells marked out by Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh
+were indeed at the indicated spots, but we found nothing in them but a
+burning yellow mud. It was enough for the camel, enough so that at the
+end of the fifth day, thanks to prodigious self-control, we had used
+up only one of our two water skins. Then we believed ourselves safe.
+
+Near one of these muddy puddles, I succeeded that day in shooting down
+a little straight-horned desert gazelle. Tanit-Zerga skinned the beast
+and we regaled ourselves with a delicious haunch. Meantime, little
+Galé, who never ceased prying about the cracks in the rocks during our
+mid-day halts in the heat, discovered an _ourane_, a sand crocodile,
+five feet long, and made short work of breaking his neck. She ate so
+much she could not budge. It cost us a pint of water to help her
+digestion. We gave it with good grace, for we were happy. Tanit-Zerga
+did not say so, but her joy at knowing that I was thinking no more of
+the woman in the gold diadem and the emeralds was apparent. And
+really, during those days, I hardly thought of her. I thought only of
+the torrid heat to be avoided, of the water skins which, if you wished
+to drink fresh water, had to be left for an hour in a cleft in the
+rocks; of the intense joy which seized you when you raised to your
+lips a leather goblet brimming with that life-saving water.... I can
+say this with authority, with good authority, indeed; passion,
+spiritual or physical, is a thing for those who have eaten and drunk
+and rested.
+
+It was five o'clock in the afternoon. The frightful heat was
+slackening. We had left a kind of rocky crevice where we had had a
+little nap. Seated on a huge rock, we were watching the reddening
+west.
+
+I spread out the roll of paper on which Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh had marked
+the stages of our journey as far as the road from the Soudan. I
+realized again with joy that his itinerary was exact and that I had
+followed it scrupulously.
+
+"The evening of the day after to-morrow," I said, "we shall be setting
+out on the stage which will take us, by the next dawn, to the waters
+at Telemsi. Once there, we shall not have to worry any more about
+water."
+
+Tanit-Zerga's eyes danced in her thin face.
+
+"And Gâo?" she asked.
+
+"We will be only a week from the Niger. And Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh said
+that at Telemsi, one reached a road overhung with mimosa."
+
+"I know the mimosa," she said. "They are the little yellow balls that
+melt in your hand. But I like the caper flowers better. You will come
+with me to Gâo. My father, Sonni-Azkia, was killed, as I told you, by
+the Awellimiden. But my people must have rebuilt the villages. They
+are used to that. You will see how you will be received."
+
+"I will go, Tanit-Zerga, I promise you. But you also, you must promise
+me...."
+
+"What? Oh, I guess. You must take me for a little fool if you believe
+me capable of speaking of things which might make trouble for my
+friend."
+
+She looked at me as she spoke. Privation and great fatigue had
+chiselled the brown face where her great eyes shone.... Since then, I
+have had time to assemble the maps and compasses, and to fix forever
+the spot where, for the first time, I understood the beauty of
+Tanit-Zerga's eyes.
+
+There was a deep silence between us. It was she who broke it.
+
+"Night is coming. We must eat so as to leave as soon as possible."
+
+She stood up and went toward the rocks.
+
+Almost immediately, I heard her calling in an anguished voice that
+sent a chill through me.
+
+"Come! Oh, come see!"
+
+With a bound, I was at her side.
+
+"The camel," she murmured. "The camel!"
+
+I looked, and a deadly shudder seized me.
+
+Stretched out at full length, on the other side of the rocks, his pale
+flanks knotted up by convulsive spasms, _El Mellen_ lay in anguish.
+
+I need not say that we rushed to him in feverish haste. Of what _El
+Mellen_ was dying, I did not know, I never have known. All the mehara
+are that way. They are at once the most enduring and the most delicate
+of beasts. They will travel for six months across the most frightful
+deserts, with little food, without water, and seem only the better for
+it. Then, one day when nothing is the matter, they stretch out and
+give you the slip with disconcerting ease.
+
+When Tanit-Zerga and I saw that there was nothing more to do, we stood
+there without a word, watching his slackening spasms. When he breathed
+his last, we felt that our life, as well as his, had gone.
+
+It was Tanit-Zerga who spoke first.
+
+"How far are we from the Soudan road?" she asked.
+
+"We are a hundred and twenty miles from the springs of Telemsi," I
+replied. "We could make thirty miles by going toward Iferouane; but
+the wells are not marked on that route."
+
+"Then we must walk toward the springs of Telemsi," she said. "A
+hundred and twenty miles, that makes seven days?"
+
+"Seven days at the least, Tanit-Zerga."
+
+"How far is it to the first well?"
+
+"Thirty-five miles."
+
+The little girl's face contracted somewhat. But she braced up quickly.
+
+"We must set out at once."
+
+"Set out on foot, Tanit-Zerga!"
+
+She stamped her foot. I marveled to see her so strong.
+
+"We must go," she repeated. "We are going to eat and drink and make
+Galé eat and drink, for we cannot carry all the tins, and the water
+skin is so heavy that we should not get three miles if we tried to
+carry it. We will put a little water in one of the tins after emptying
+it through a little hole. That will be enough for to-night's stage,
+which will be eighteen miles without water. To-morrow we will set out
+for another eighteen miles and we will reach the wells marked on the
+paper by Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh."
+
+"Oh," I murmured sadly, "if my shoulder were only not this way, I
+could carry the water skin."
+
+"It is as it is," said Tanit-Zerga.
+
+"You will take your carbine and two tins of meat. I shall take two
+more and the one filled with water. Come. We must leave in an hour if
+we wish to cover the eighteen miles. You know that when the sun is up,
+the rocks are so hot we cannot walk."
+
+I leave you to imagine in what sad silence we passed that hour which
+we had begun so happily and confidently. Without the little girl, I
+believe I should have seated myself upon a rock and waited. Galé only
+was happy.
+
+"We must not let her eat too much," said Tanit-Zerga. "She would not
+be able to follow us. And to-morrow she must work. If she catches
+another _ourane_, it will be for us."
+
+
+You have walked in the desert. You know how terrible the first hours
+of the night are. When the moon comes up, huge and yellow, a sharp
+dust seems to rise in suffocating clouds. You move your jaws
+mechanically as if to crush the dust that finds its way into your
+throat like fire. Then usually a kind of lassitude, of drowsiness,
+follows. You walk without thinking. You forget where you are walking.
+You remember only when you stumble. Of course you stumble often. But
+anyway it is bearable. "The night is ending," you say, "and with it
+the march. All in all, I am less tired than at the beginning." The
+night ends, but then comes the most terrible hour of all. You are
+perishing of thirst and shaking with cold. All the fatigue comes back
+at once. The horrible breeze which precedes the dawn is no comfort.
+Quite the contrary. Every time you stumble, you say, "The next misstep
+will be the last."
+
+That is what people feel and say even when they know that in a few
+hours they will have a good rest with food and water.
+
+I was suffering terribly. Every step jolted my poor shoulder. At one
+time, I wanted to stop, to sit down. Then I looked at Tanit-Zerga. She
+was walking ahead with her eyes almost closed. Her expression was an
+indefinable one of mingled suffering and determination. I closed my
+own eyes and went on.
+
+Such was the first stage. At dawn we stopped in a hollow in the rocks.
+Soon the heat forced us to rise to seek a deeper one. Tanit-Zerga did
+not eat. Instead, she swallowed a little of her half can of water. She
+lay drowsy all day. Galé ran about our rock giving plaintive little
+cries.
+
+I am not going to tell you about the second march. It was more
+horrible than anything you can imagine. I suffered all that it is
+humanly possible to suffer in the desert. But already I began to
+observe with infinite pity that my man's strength was outlasting the
+nervous force of my little companion. The poor child walked on without
+saying a word, chewing feebly one corner of her _haik_ which she had
+drawn over her face. Galé followed.
+
+The well toward which we were dragging ourselves was indicated on
+Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh's paper by the one word _Tissaririn. Tissaririn_ is
+the plural of _Tissarirt_ and means "two isolated trees."
+
+Day was dawning when finally I saw the two trees, two gum trees.
+Hardly a league separated us from them. I gave a cry of joy.
+
+"Courage, Tanit-Zerga, there is the well."
+
+She drew her veil aside and I saw the poor anguished little face.
+
+"So much the better," she murmured, "because otherwise...."
+
+She could not even finish the sentence.
+
+We finished the last half mile almost at a run. We already saw the
+hole, the opening of the well.
+
+Finally we reached it.
+
+It was empty.
+
+It is a strange sensation to be dying of thirst. At first the
+suffering is terrible. Then, gradually, it becomes less. You become
+partly unconscious. Ridiculous little things about your life occur to
+you, fly about you like mosquitoes. I began to remember my history
+composition for the entrance examination of Saint-Cyr, "The Campaign
+of Marengo." Obstinately I repeated to myself, "I have already said
+that the battery unmasked by Marmont at the moment of Kellerman's
+charge included eighteen pieces.... No, I remember now, it was only
+twelve pieces. I am sure it was twelve pieces."
+
+I kept on repeating:
+
+"Twelve pieces."
+
+Then I fell into a sort of coma.
+
+I was recalled from it by feeling a red-hot iron on my forehead. I
+opened my eyes. Tanit-Zerga was bending over me. It was her hand which
+burnt so.
+
+"Get up," she said. "We must go on."
+
+"Go on, Tanit-Zerga! The desert is on fire. The sun is at the zenith.
+It is noon."
+
+"We must go on," she repeated.
+
+Then I saw that she was delirious.
+
+She was standing erect. Her _haik_ had fallen to the ground and little
+Galé, rolled up in a ball, was asleep on it.
+
+Bareheaded, indifferent to the frightful sunlight, she kept repeating:
+
+"We must go on."
+
+A little sense came back to me.
+
+"Cover your head, Tanit-Zerga, cover your head."
+
+"Come," she repeated. "Let's go. Gâo is over there, not far away. I
+can feel it. I want to see Gâo again."
+
+I made her sit down beside me in the shadow of a rock. I realized that
+all strength had left her. The wave of pity that swept over me,
+brought back my senses.
+
+"Gâo is just over there, isn't it?" she asked.
+
+Her gleaming eyes became imploring.
+
+"Yes, dear little girl. Gâo is there. But for God's sake lie down. The
+sun is fearful."
+
+"Oh, Gâo, Gâo!" she repeated. "I know very well that I shall see Gâo
+again."
+
+She sat up. Her fiery little hands gripped mine.
+
+"Listen. I must tell you so you can understand how I know I shall see
+Gâo again."
+
+"Tanit-Zerga, be quiet, my little girl, be quiet."
+
+"No, I must tell you. A long time ago, on the bank of the river where
+there is water, at Gâo, where my father was a prince, there was....
+Well, one day, one feast day, there came from the interior of the
+country an old magician, dressed in skins and feathers, with a mask
+and a pointed head-dress, with castanets, and two serpents in a bag.
+On the village square, where all our people formed in a circle, he
+danced the _boussadilla_. I was in the first row, and because I had a
+necklace of pink tourmaline, he quickly saw that I was the daughter of
+a chief. So he spoke to me of the past, of the great Mandingue Empire
+over which my grandfathers had ruled, of our enemies, the fierce
+Kountas, of everything, and finally he said:
+
+"'Have no fear, little girl.'
+
+"Then he said again, 'Do not be afraid. Evil days may be in store for
+you, but what does that matter? For one day you will see Gâo gleaming
+on the horizon, no longer a servile Gâo reduced to the rank of a
+little Negro town, but the splendid Gâo of other days, the great
+capital of the country of the blacks, Gâo reborn, with its mosque of
+seven towers and fourteen cupolas of turquoise, with its houses with
+cool courts, its fountains, its watered gardens, all blooming with
+great red and white flowers.... That will be for you the hour of
+deliverance and of royalty.'"
+
+Tanit-Zerga was standing up. All about us, on our heads, the sun
+blazed on the _hamada_, burning it white.
+
+Suddenly the child stretched out her arms. She gave a terrible cry.
+
+"Gâo! There is Gâo!"
+
+I looked at her.
+
+"Gâo," she repeated. "Oh, I know it well! There are the trees and the
+fountains, the cupolas and the towers, the palm trees, the great red
+and white flowers. Gâo...."
+
+Indeed, along the shimmering horizon rose a fantastic city with mighty
+buildings that towered, tier on tier, until they formed a rainbow.
+Wide-eyed, we stood and watched the terrible mirage quiver feverishly
+before us.
+
+"Gâo!" I cried. "Gâo!"
+
+And almost immediately I uttered another cry, of sorrow and of horror.
+Tanit-Zerga's little hand relaxed in mine. I had just time to catch
+the child in my arms and hear her murmur as in a whisper:
+
+"And then that will be the day of deliverance. The day of deliverance
+and of royalty."
+
+Several hours later I took the knife with which we had skinned the
+desert gazelle and, in the sand at the foot of the rock where
+Tanit-Zerga had given up her spirit, I made a little hollow where she
+was to rest.
+
+When everything was ready, I wanted to look once more at that dear
+little face. Courage failed me for a moment.... Then I quickly drew
+the _haik_ over the brown face and laid the body of the child in the
+hollow.
+
+I had reckoned without Galé.
+
+The eyes of the mongoose had not left me during the whole time that I
+was about my sad duty. When she heard the first handfuls of sand fall
+on the _haik_, she gave a sharp cry. I looked at her and saw her ready
+to spring, her eyes daring fire.
+
+"Galé!" I implored; and I tried to stroke her.
+
+She bit my hand and then leapt into the grave and began to dig,
+throwing the sand furiously aside.
+
+I tried three times to chase her away. I felt that I should never
+finish my task and that, even if I did, Galé would stay there and
+disinter the body.
+
+My carbine lay at my feet. A shot drew echoes from the immense empty
+desert. A moment later, Galé also slept her last sleep, curled up, as
+I so often had seen her, against the neck of her mistress.
+
+When the surface showed nothing more than a little mound of trampled
+sand, I rose staggering and started off aimlessly into the desert,
+toward the south.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+THE CIRCLE IS COMPLETE
+
+
+At the foot of the valley of the Mia, at the place where the jackal
+had cried the night Saint-Avit told me he had killed Morhange, another
+jackal, or perhaps the same one, howled again.
+
+Immediately I had a feeling that this night would see the
+irremediable fulfilled.
+
+We were seated that evening, as before, on the poor veranda improvised
+outside our dining-room. The floor was of plaster, the balustrade of
+twisted branches; four posts supported a thatched roof.
+
+I have already said that from the veranda one could look far out over
+the desert. As he finished speaking, Saint-Avit rose and stood leaning
+his elbows on the railing. I followed him.
+
+"And then...." I said.
+
+He looked at me.
+
+"And then what? Surely you know what all the newspapers told--how, in
+the country of the Awellimiden, I was found dying of hunger and thirst
+by an expedition under the command of Captain Aymard, and taken to
+Timbuctoo. I was delirious for a month afterward. I have never known
+what I may have said during those spells of burning fever. You may be
+sure the officers of the Timbuctoo Club did not feel it incumbent upon
+them to tell me. When I told them of my adventures, as they are
+related in the report of the Morhange--Saint-Avit Expedition, I could
+see well enough from the cold politeness with which they received my
+explanations, that the official version which I gave them differed at
+certain points from the fragments which had escaped me in my delirium.
+
+"They did not press the matter. It remains understood that Captain
+Morhange died from a sunstroke and that I buried him on the border of
+the Tarhit watercourse, three marches from Timissao. Everybody can
+detect that there are things missing in my story. Doubtless they guess
+at some mysterious drama. But proofs are another matter. Because of
+the impossibility of collecting them, they prefer to smother what
+could only become a silly scandal. But now you know all the details as
+well as I."
+
+"And--she?" I asked timidly.
+
+He smiled triumphantly. It was triumph at having led me to think no
+longer of Morhange, or of his crime, the triumph of feeling that he
+had succeeded in imbuing me with his own madness.
+
+"Yes," he said. "She! For six years I have learned nothing more about
+her. But I see her, I talk with her. I am thinking now how I shall
+reenter her presence. I shall throw myself at her feet and say simply,
+'Forgive me. I rebelled against your law. I did not know. But now I
+know; and you see that, like Lieutenant Ghiberti, I have come back.'
+
+"'Family, honor, country,' said old Le Mesge, 'you will forget all for
+her.' Old Le Mesge is a stupid man, but he speaks from experience. He
+knows, he who has seen broken before Antinea the wills of the fifty
+ghosts in the red marble hall.
+
+"And now, will you, in your turn, ask me 'What is this woman?' Do I
+know myself? And besides, what difference does it make? What does her
+past and the mystery of her origin matter to me; what does it matter
+whether she is the true descendant of the god of the sea and the
+sublime Lagides or the bastard of a Polish drunkard and a harlot of
+the Marbeuf quarter?
+
+"At the time when I was foolish enough to be jealous of Morhange,
+these questions might have made some difference to the ridiculous
+self-esteem that civilized people mix up with passion. But I have held
+Antinea's body in my arms. I no longer wish to know any other, nor if
+the fields are in blossom, nor what will become of the human
+spirit....
+
+"I do not wish to know. Or, rather, it is because I have too exact a
+vision of that future, that I pretend to destroy myself in the only
+destiny that is worth while: a nature unfathomed and virgin, a
+mysterious love.
+
+"_A nature unfathomed and virgin_. I must explain myself. One winter
+day, in a large city all streaked with the soot that falls from black
+chimneys of factories and of those horrible houses in the suburbs, I
+attended a funeral.
+
+"We followed the hearse in the mud. The church was new, damp and poor.
+Aside from two or three people, relatives struck down by a dull
+sorrow, everyone had just one idea: to find some pretext to get away.
+Those who went as far as the cemetery were those who did not find an
+excuse. I see the gray walls and the cypresses, those trees of sun and
+shade, so beautiful in the country of southern France against the low
+purple hills. I see the horrible undertaker's men in greasy jackets
+and shiny top hats. I see.... No, I'll stop; it's too horrible.
+
+"Near the wall, in a remote plot, a grave had been dug in frightful
+yellow pebbly clay. It was there that they left the dead man whose
+name I no longer remember.
+
+"While they were lowering the casket, I looked at my hands, those
+hands which in that strangely lighted country had pressed the hands of
+Antinea. A great pity for my body seized me, a great fear of what
+threatened it in these cities of mud. 'So,' I said to myself, 'it may
+be that this body, this dear body, will come to such an end! No, no,
+my body, precious above all other treasures, I swear to you that I
+will spare you that ignominy; you shall not rot under a registered
+number in the filth of a suburban cemetery. Your brothers in love, the
+fifty knights of orichalch, await you, mute and grave, in the red
+marble hall. I shall take you back to them.'
+
+"A _mysterious love_. Shame to him who retails the secrets of his
+loves. The Sahara lays its impassable barrier about Antinea; that is
+why the most unreasonable requirements of this woman are, in reality,
+more modest and chaste than your marriage will be, with its vulgar
+public show, the bans, the invitations, the announcements telling an
+evil-minded and joking people that after such and such an hour, on
+such and such a day, you will have the right to violate your little
+tupenny virgin.
+
+"I think that is all I have to tell you. No, there is still one thing
+more. I told you a while ago about the red marble hall. South of
+Cherchell, to the west of the Mazafran river, on a hill which in the
+early morning, emerges from the mists of the Mitidja, there is a
+mysterious stone pyramid. The natives call it, 'The Tomb of the
+Christian.' That is where the body of Antinea's ancestress, that
+Cleopatra Selene, daughter of Mark Antony and Cleopatra, was laid to
+rest. Though it is placed in the path of invasions, this tomb has kept
+its treasure. No one has ever been able to discover the painted room
+where the beautiful body reposes in a glass casket. All that the
+ancestress has been able to do, the descendant will be able to surpass
+in grim magnificence. In the center of the red marble hall, on the
+rock whence comes the plaint of the gloomy fountain, a platform is
+reserved. It is there, on an orichalch throne, with the Egyptian
+head-dress and the golden serpent on her brow and the trident of
+Neptune in her hand, that the marvelous woman I have told you about
+will be ensconced on that day when the hundred and twenty niches,
+hollowed out in a circle around her throne, shall each have received
+its willing prey.
+
+"When I left Ahaggar, you remember that it was niche number 55 that
+was to be mine. Since then, I have never stopped calculating and I
+conclude that it is in number 80 or 85 that I shall repose. But any
+calculations based upon so fragile a foundation as a woman's whim may
+be erroneous. That is why I am getting more and more nervous. 'I must
+hurry,' I tell myself. 'I must hurry.'
+
+"I must hurry," I repeated, as if I were in a dream.
+
+He raised his head with an indefinable expression of joy. His hand
+trembled with happiness when he shook mine.
+
+"You will see," he repeated excitedly, "you will see."
+
+Ecstatically, he took me in his arms and held me there a long moment.
+
+An extraordinary happiness swept over both of us, while, alternately
+laughing and crying like children, we kept repeating:
+
+"We must hurry. We must hurry."
+
+Suddenly there sprang up a slight breeze that made the tufts of thatch
+in the roof rustle. The sky, pale lilac, grew paler still, and,
+suddenly, a great yellow rent tore it in the east. Dawn broke over the
+empty desert. From within the stockade came dull noises, a bugle call,
+the rattle of chains. The post was waking up.
+
+For several seconds we stood there silent, our eyes fixed on the
+southern route by which one reaches Temassinin, Eguéré and Ahaggar.
+
+A rap on the dining-room door behind us made us start.
+
+"Come in," said André de Saint-Avit in a voice which had become
+suddenly hard.
+
+The Quartermaster, Chatelain, stood before us.
+
+"What do you want of me at this hour?" Saint-Avit asked brusquely.
+
+The non-com stood at attention.
+
+"Excuse me, Captain. But a native was discovered near the post, last
+night, by the patrol. He was not trying to hide. As soon as he had
+been brought here, he asked to be led before the commanding officer.
+It was midnight and I didn't want to disturb you."
+
+"Who is this native?"
+
+"A Targa, Captain."
+
+"A Targa? Go get him."
+
+Chatelain stepped aside. Escorted by one of our native soldiers, the
+man stood behind him.
+
+They came out on the terrace.
+
+The new arrival, six feet tall, was indeed a Targa. The light of dawn
+fell upon his blue-black cotton robes. One could see his great dark
+eyes flashing.
+
+When he was opposite my companion, I saw a tremor, immediately
+suppressed, run through both men.
+
+They looked at each other for an instant in silence.
+
+Then, bowing, and in a very calm voice, the Targa spoke:
+
+"Peace be with you, Lieutenant de Saint-Avit."
+
+In the same calm voice, André answered him:
+
+"Peace be with you, Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh."
+
+[Transcriber's Notes:
+1.In the original books, there were handwritten characters for the
+Greek words used in the discussion of the Tifinar engravings; the
+approximate Greek transliterations have been substituted.
+2. Another inscription was hand-drawn in the book, and the center
+symbol looks like a capital W, rotated 90 degrees counter-clockwise. I
+placed notes to that effect where the symbol appears.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Atlantida, by Pierre Benoit
+
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+  <title>
+  The Project Gutenberg eBook of Atlantida, by Pierre Benoit.
+  </title>
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Atlantida, by Pierre Benoit
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Atlantida
+
+Author: Pierre Benoit
+
+Release Date: December 8, 2004 [EBook #14301]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIDA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Elaine Walker, Ronald Holder and the PG Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<!-- Page 1 -->
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span style="margin-left: 8em;">&quot;First, I must warn you,<br /></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 8em;">before beginning this work,<br /></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 8em;">not to be surprised to hear<br /></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 8em;">me calling barbarians by<br /></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 8em;">Grecian names.&quot;<br /></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 12em;">&mdash;PLATO<br /></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 13em;"><i>Critias</i></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<!-- Page 2 -->
+<div class="ctr">
+<img src="images/title.gif" id="title" style="width: 100%;" alt="Title Page" />
+</div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+<h1>ATLANTIDA</h1>
+
+<h2><i>Pierre Benoit</i></h2>
+
+<h3> Translated by Mary C. Tongue and Mary Ross</h3>
+
+<h3>     ACE BOOKS, INC. 1120 Avenue of the Americas New York, N.Y. 10036</h3>
+
+<!-- Page 3 -->
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h4>To Andr&eacute; Suar&egrave;s</h4>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="toc">
+<a href="#I">I. A SOUTHERN ASSIGNMENT</a><br />
+<a href="#II">II. CAPTAIN DE SAINT-AVIT</a><br />
+<a href="#III">III. THE MORHANGE-SAINT-AVIT MISSION</a><br />
+<a href="#IV">IV. TOWARDS LATITUDE 25</a><br />
+<a href="#V">V. THE INSCRIPTION</a><br />
+<a href="#VI">VI. THE DISASTER OF THE LETTUCE</a><br />
+<a href="#VII">VII. THE COUNTRY OF FEAR</a><br />
+<a href="#VIII">VIII. AWAKENING AT AHAGGAR</a><br />
+<a href="#IX">IX. ATLANTIS</a><br />
+<a href="#X">X. THE RED MARBLE HALL</a><br />
+<a href="#XI">XI. ANTINEA</a><br />
+<a href="#XII">XII. MORHANGE DISAPPEARS</a><br />
+<a href="#XIII">XIII. THE HETMAN OF JITOMIR'S STORY</a><br />
+<a href="#XIV">XIV. HOURS OF WAITING</a><br />
+<a href="#XV">XV. THE LAMENT OF TANIT-ZERGA</a><br />
+<a href="#XVI">XVI. THE SILVER HAMMER</a><br />
+<a href="#XVII">XVII. THE MAIDENS OF THE ROCKS</a><br />
+<a href="#XVIII">XVIII. THE FIRE-FLIES</a><br />
+<a href="#XIX">XIX. THE TANEZRUFT</a><br />
+<a href="#XX">XX. THE CIRCLE IS COMPLETE</a><br /></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<!-- Page 4 -->
+
+
+<div class="ctr">
+<img src="images/illus004.gif" id="p4" style="width: 100%;" alt="Illustration" />
+</div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>HASSI-INIFEL, NOVEMBER 8, 1903.</h3>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>If the following pages are ever to see the light of day it will be
+because they have been stolen from me. The delay that I exact before
+they shall be disclosed assures me of that.
+<a name="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1"><sup>[1]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>As to this disclosure, let no one distrust my aim when I prepare for
+it, when I insist upon it. You may believe me when I maintain that no
+pride of authorship binds me to these pages. Already I am too far<!-- Page 5 -->
+removed from all such things. Only it is useless that others should
+enter upon the path from which I shall not return.</p>
+
+<p>Four o'clock in the morning. Soon the sun will kindle the hamada with
+its pink fire. All about me the bordj is asleep. Through the half-open
+door of his room I hear Andr&eacute; de Saint-Avit breathing quietly, very
+quietly.</p>
+
+<p>In two days we shall start, he and I. We shall leave the bordj. We
+shall penetrate far down there to the South. The official orders came
+this morning.</p>
+
+<p>Now, even if I wished to withdraw, it is too late. Andr&eacute; and I asked
+for 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;&mdash;and then to be afraid,
+to recoil before this adventure!...</p>
+
+<p>To be afraid, I said. I know that I am not afraid! One night in the
+Gurara, when I found two of my sentinels slaughtered, with the
+shameful cross cut of the Berbers slashed across their stomachs&mdash;then
+I was afraid. I know what fear is. Just so now, when I gazed into the
+black 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 within
+me the sacred horror of this mystery, and its irresistible attraction.</p>
+
+<p>Delirious dreams, perhaps. The mad imaginings of a brain surcharged,
+and an eye distraught by mirages. The day will come, doubtless, when I
+shall reread these pages with an indulgent smile, as a man of fifty is
+accustomed to smile when he rereads old letters.</p>
+
+<p>Delirious dreams. Mad imaginings. But these dreams, these imaginings,
+are dear to me. &quot;Captain de Saint-Avit and Lieutenant Ferri&egrave;res,&quot;
+reads the official dispatch, &quot;will proceed to Tassili to determine the
+statigraphic relation of Albien sandstone and carboniferous limestone.
+They will, in addition, profit by any opportunities of determining the
+possible change of attitude of the Axdjers towards our penetration,
+etc.&quot; If the journey should indeed have to do only with such poor
+things I think that I should never undertake it.</p>
+
+<p>So I am longing for what I dread. I shall be dejected if I do not<!-- Page 6 -->
+find myself in the presence of what makes me strangely fearful.</p>
+
+<p>In the depths of the valley of Wadi Mia a jackal is barking. Now and
+again, when a beam of moonlight breaks in a silver patch through the
+hollows of the heat-swollen clouds, making him think he sees the young
+sun, a turtle dove moans among the palm trees.</p>
+
+<p>I hear a step outside. I lean out of the window. A shade clad in
+luminous black stuff glides over the hard-packed earth of the terrace
+of the fortification. A light shines in the electric blackness. A man
+has just lighted a cigarette. He crouches, facing southwards. He is
+smoking.</p>
+
+<p>It is Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh, our Targa guide, the man who in three days
+is to lead us across the unknown plateaus of the mysterious
+Imoschaoch, across the hamadas of black stones, the great dried oases,
+the stretches of silver salt, the tawny hillocks, the flat gold dunes
+that are crested over, when the &quot;aliz&eacute;&quot; blows, with a shimmering haze
+of pale sand.</p>
+
+<p>Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh! He is the man. There recurs to my mind Duveyrier's
+tragic phrase, &quot;At the very moment the Colonel was putting his foot in
+the stirrup he was felled by a sabre blow.&quot;
+<a name="FNanchor_B_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_B_2"><sup>[2]</sup></a>
+ Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh!
+There he is, peacefully smoking his cigarette, a cigarette from the
+package that I gave him.... May the Lord forgive me for it.</p>
+
+<p>The lamp casts a yellow light on the paper. Strange fate, which, I
+never knew exactly why, decided one day when I was a lad of sixteen
+that I should prepare myself for Saint Cyr, and gave me there Andr&eacute; de
+Saint-Avit as classmate. I might have studied law or medicine. Then I
+should be today a respectable inhabitant of a town with a church and
+running water, instead of this cotton-clad phantom, brooding with an
+unspeakable anxiety over this desert which is about to swallow me.</p>
+
+<p>A great insect has flown in through the window. It buzzes, strikes
+against the rough cast, rebounds against the globe of the lamp, and
+then, helpless, its wings singed by the still burning candle, drops on
+the white paper.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 7 -->It is an African May bug, big, black, with spots of livid gray.</p>
+
+<p>I think of others, its brothers in France, the golden-brown May bugs,
+which I have seen on stormy summer evenings projecting themselves like
+little particles of the soil of my native countryside. It was there
+that as a child I spent my vacations, and later on, my leaves. On my
+last leave, through those same meadows, there wandered beside me a
+slight form, wearing a thin scarf, because of the evening air, so cool
+back there. But now this memory stirs me so slightly that I scarcely
+raise my eyes to that dark corner of my room where the light is dimly
+reflected by the glass of an indistinct portrait. I realize of how
+little consequence has become what had seemed at one time capable of
+filling all my life. This plaintive mystery is of no more interest to
+me. If the strolling singers of Rolla came to murmur their famous
+nostalgic airs under the window of this bordj I know that I should not
+listen to them, and if they became insistent I should send them on
+their way.</p>
+
+<p>What has been capable of causing this metamorphosis in me? A story, a
+legend, perhaps, told, at any rate by one on whom rests the direst of
+suspicions.</p>
+
+<p>Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh has finished his cigarette. I hear him returning
+with slow steps to his mat, in barrack B, to the left of the guard
+post.</p>
+
+<p>Our departure being scheduled for the tenth of November, the
+manuscript attached to this letter was begun on Sunday, the first, and
+finished on Thursday, the fifth of November, 1903.</p>
+
+<p>OLIVIER FERRI&Egrave;RES, Lt. 3rd Spahis.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<!-- Page 8 -->
+<h2><a name="I"><!-- Chapter 1 --></a>I</h2>
+
+<h3>A SOUTHERN ASSIGNMENT</h3>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Sunday, the sixth of June, 1903, broke the monotony of the life that
+we were leading at the Post of Hassi-Inifel by two events of unequal
+importance, the arrival of a letter from Mlle. de C&mdash;&mdash;, and the
+latest numbers of the Official Journal of the French Republic.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have the Lieutenant's permission?&quot; said Sergeant Chatelain,
+beginning to glance through the magazines he had just removed from
+their wrappings.</p>
+
+<p>I acquiesced with a nod, already completely absorbed in reading Mlle.
+de C&mdash;&mdash;'s letter.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When this reaches you,&quot; was the gist of this charming being's letter,
+&quot;mama and I will doubtless have left Paris for the country. If, in
+your distant parts, it might be a consolation to imagine me as bored
+here as you possibly can be, <!-- Page 9 -->make the most of it. The Grand Prix is
+over. I played the horse you pointed out to me, and naturally, I lost.
+Last night we dined with the Martials de la Touche. Elias Chatrian was
+there, always amazingly young. I am sending you his last book, which
+has made quite a sensation. It seems that the Martials de la Touche
+are depicted there without disguise. I will add to it Bourget's last,
+and Loti's, and France's, and two or three of the latest music hall
+hits. In the political word, they say the law about congregations will
+meet with strenuous opposition. Nothing much in the theatres. I have
+taken out a summer subscription for <i>l'Illustration</i>. Would you care
+for it? In the country no one knows what to do. Always the same lot of
+idiots ready for tennis. I shall deserve no credit for writing to you
+often. Spare me your reflections concerning young Combemale. I am less
+than nothing of a feminist, having too much faith in those who tell me
+that I am pretty, in yourself in particular. But indeed, I grow wild
+at the idea that if I permitted myself half the familiarities with one
+of our lads that you have surely with your Ouled-Nails.... Enough of
+that, it is too unpleasant an idea.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I had reached this point in the prose of this advanced young woman
+when a scandalized exclamation of the Sergeant made me look up.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Lieutenant!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They are up to something at the Ministry. See for yourself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He handed me the Official. I read:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;By a decision of the first of May, 1903, Captain de Saint-Avit
+(Andr&eacute;), unattached, is assigned to the Third Spahis, and appointed
+Commandant of the Post of Hassi-Inifel.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Chatelain's displeasure became fairly exuberant.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Captain de Saint-Avit, Commandant of the Post. A post which has never
+had a slur upon it. They must take us for a dumping ground.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>My surprise was as great as the Sergeant's. But just then I saw the
+evil, weasel-like face of Gourrut, the convict we <!-- Page 10 -->used as clerk. He
+had stopped his scrawling and was listening with a sly interest.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sergeant, Captain de Saint-Avit is my ranking classmate,&quot; I answered
+dryly.</p>
+
+<p>Chatelain saluted, and left the room. I followed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There, there,&quot; I said, clapping him on the back, &quot;no hard feelings.
+Remember that in an hour we are starting for the oasis. Have the
+cartridges ready. It is of the utmost importance to restock the
+larder.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I went back to the office and motioned Gourrut to go. Left alone, I
+finished Mlle. de C&mdash;&mdash;'s letter very quickly, and then reread the
+decision of the Ministry giving the post a new chief.</p>
+
+<p>It was now five months that I had enjoyed that distinction, and on my
+word, I had accepted the responsibility well enough, and been very
+well pleased with the independence. I can even affirm, without taking
+too much credit for myself, that under my command discipline had been
+better maintained than under Captain Dieulivol, Saint-Avit's
+predecessor. A brave man, this Captain Dieulivol, a non-commissioned
+officer under Dodds and Duchesne, but subject to a terrible propensity
+for strong liquors, and too much inclined, when he had drunk, to
+confuse his dialects, and to talk to a Houassa in Sakalave. No one was
+ever more sparing of the post water supply. One morning when he was
+preparing his absinthe in the presence of the Sergeant, Chatelain,
+noticing the Captain's glass, saw with amazement that the green liquor
+was blanched by a far stronger admixture of water than usual. He
+looked up, aware that something abnormal had just occurred. Rigid, the
+carafe inverted in his hand, Captain Dieulivol was spilling the water
+which was running over on the sugar. He was dead.</p>
+
+<p>For six months, since the disappearance of this sympathetic old
+tippler, the Powers had not seemed to interest themselves in finding
+his successor. I had even hoped at times that a decision might be
+reached investing me with the rights that I was in fact exercising....
+And today this surprising appointment.</p>
+
+<p>Captain de Saint-Avit. He was of my class at St. Cyr. I had lost track
+of him. Then my attention had been attracted to <!-- Page 11 -->him by his rapid
+advancement, his decoration, the well-deserved recognition of three
+particularly daring expeditions of exploration to Tebesti and the Air;
+and suddenly, the mysterious drama of his fourth expedition, that
+famous mission undertaken with Captain Morhange, from which only one
+of the explorers came back. Everything is forgotten quickly in France.
+That was at least six years ago. I had not heard Saint-Avit mentioned
+since. I had even supposed that he had left the army. And now, I was
+to have him as my chief.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;After all, what's the difference,&quot; I mused, &quot;he or another! At school
+he was charming, and we have had only the most pleasant relationships.
+Besides, I haven't enough yearly income to afford the rank of
+Captain.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And I left the office, whistling as I went.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>We were now, Chatelain and I, our guns resting on the already cooling
+earth, beside the pool that forms the center of the meager oasis,
+hidden behind a kind of hedge of alfa. The setting sun was reddening
+the stagnant ditches which irrigate the poor garden plots of the
+sedentary blacks.</p>
+
+<p>Not a word during the approach. Not a word during the shoot. Chatelain
+was obviously sulking.</p>
+
+<p>In silence we knocked down, one after the other, several of the
+miserable doves which came on dragging wings, heavy with the heat of
+the day, to quench their thirst at the thick green water. When a
+half-dozen slaughtered little bodies were lined up at our feet I put
+my hand on the Sergeant's shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Chatelain!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He trembled.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Chatelain, I was rude to you a little while ago. Don't be angry. It
+was the bad time before the siesta. The bad time of midday.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Lieutenant is master here,&quot; he answered in a tone that was meant
+to be gruff, but which was only strained.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Chatelain, don't be angry. You have something to say to me. You know
+what I mean.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't know really. No, I don't know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Chatelain, Chatelain, why not be sensible? Tell me something about
+Captain de Saint-Avit.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 12 -->I know nothing.&quot; He spoke sharply.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nothing? Then what were you saying a little while ago?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Captain de Saint-Avit is a brave man.&quot; He muttered the words with his
+head still obstinately bent. &quot;He went alone to Bilma, to the Air,
+quite alone to those places where no one had ever been. He is a brave
+man.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He is a brave man, undoubtedly,&quot; I answered with great restraint.
+&quot;But he murdered his companion, Captain Morhange, did he not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The old Sergeant trembled.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He is a brave man,&quot; he persisted.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Chatelain, you are a child. Are you afraid that I am going to repeat
+what you say to your new Captain?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I had touched him to the quick. He drew himself up.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sergeant Chatelain is afraid of no one, Lieutenant. He has been at
+Abomey, against the Amazons, in a country where a black arm started
+out from every bush to seize your leg, while another cut it off for
+you with one blow of a cutlass.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then what they say, what you yourself&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is talk.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Talk which is repeated in France, Chatelain, everywhere.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He bent his head still lower without replying.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ass,&quot; I burst out, &quot;will you speak?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Lieutenant, Lieutenant,&quot; he fairly pled, &quot;I swear that what I know,
+or nothing&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What you know you are going to tell me, and right away. If not, I
+give you my word of honor that, for a month, I shall not speak to you
+except on official business.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Hassi-Inifel: thirty native Arabs and four Europeans&mdash;myself, the
+Sergeant, a Corporal, and Gourrut. The threat was terrible. It had its
+effect.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All right, then, Lieutenant,&quot; he said with a great sigh. &quot;But
+afterwards you must not blame me for having told you things about a
+superior which should not be told and come only from the talk I
+overheard at mess.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Tell away.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It was in 1899. I was then Mess Sergeant at Sfax, with the 4th
+Spahis. I had a good record, and besides, as I did not drink, the
+Adjutant had assigned me to the officers' mess. It was a soft berth.
+The marketing, the accounts, recording <!-- Page 13 -->the library books which were
+borrowed (there weren't many), and the key of the wine cupboard,&mdash;for
+with that you can't trust orderlies. The Colonel was young and dined
+at mess. One evening he came in late, looking perturbed, and, as soon
+as he was seated, called for silence:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Gentlemen,' he said, 'I have a communication to make to you, and I
+shall ask for your advice. Here is the question. Tomorrow morning the
+<i>City of Naples</i> lands at Sfax. Aboard her is Captain de Saint-Avit,
+recently assigned to Feriana, en route to his post.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Colonel paused. 'Good,' thought I, 'tomorrow's menu is about to
+be considered.' For you know the custom, Lieutenant, which has existed
+ever since there have been any officers' clubs in Africa. When an
+officer is passing by, his comrades go to meet him at the boat and
+invite him to remain with them for the length of his stay in port. He
+pays his score in news from home. On such occasions everything is of
+the best, even for a simple lieutenant. At Sfax an officer on a visit
+meant&mdash;one extra course, vintage wine and old liqueurs.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But this time I imagined from the looks the officers exchanged that
+perhaps the old stock would stay undisturbed in its cupboard.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'You have all, I think, heard of Captain de Saint-Avit, gentlemen,
+and the rumors about him. It is not for us to inquire into them, and
+the promotion he has had, his decoration if you will, permits us to
+hope that they are without foundation. But between not suspecting an
+officer of being a criminal, and receiving him at our table as a
+comrade, there is a gulf that we are not obliged to bridge. That is
+the matter on which I ask your advice.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There was silence. The officers looked at each other, all of them
+suddenly quite grave, even to the merriest of the second lieutenants.
+In the corner, where I realized that they had forgotten me, I tried
+not to make the least sound that might recall my presence.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'We thank you, Colonel,' one of the majors finally replied, 'for your
+courtesy in consulting us. All my comrades, I imagine, know to what
+terrible rumors you refer. If I may venture to say so, in Paris at the
+Army Geographical Service, where I was before coming here, most of the
+officers of the <!-- Page 14 -->highest standing had an opinion on this unfortunate
+matter which they avoided stating, but which cast no glory upon
+Captain de Saint-Avit.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'I was at Bammako, at the time of the Morhange-Saint-Avit mission,'
+said a Captain. 'The opinion of the officers there, I am sorry to say,
+differed very little from what the Major describes. But I must add
+that they all admitted that they had nothing but suspicions to go on.
+And suspicions are certainly not enough considering the atrocity of
+the affair.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'They are quite enough, gentlemen,' replied the Colonel, 'to account
+for our hesitation. It is not a question of passing judgment; but no
+man can sit at our table as a matter of right. It is a privilege based
+on fraternal esteem. The only question is whether it is your decision
+to accord it to Saint-Avit.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So saying, he looked at the officers, as if he were taking a roll
+call. One after another they shook their heads.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'I see that we agree,' he said. 'But our task is unfortunately not
+yet over. The <i>City of Naples</i> will be in port tomorrow morning. The
+launch which meets the passengers leaves at eight o'clock. It will be
+necessary, gentlemen, for one of you to go aboard. Captain de
+Saint-Avit might be expecting to come to us. We certainly have no
+intention of inflicting upon him the humiliation of refusing him, if
+he presented himself in expectation of the customary reception. He
+must be prevented from coming. It will be wisest to make him
+understand that it is best for him to stay aboard.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Colonel looked at the officers again. They could not but agree.
+But how uncomfortable each one looked!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'I cannot hope to find a volunteer among you for this kind of
+mission, so I am compelled to appoint some one. Captain Grandjean,
+Captain de Saint-Avit is also a Captain. It is fitting that it be an
+officer of his own rank who carries him our message. Besides, you are
+the latest comer here. Therefore it is to you that I entrust this
+painful interview. I do not need to suggest that you conduct it as
+diplomatically as possible.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Captain Grandjean bowed, while a sigh of relief escaped from all the
+others. As long as the Colonel stayed in the room Grandjean remained
+apart, without speaking. It was only after the chief had departed that
+he let fall the words: &quot;<!-- Page 15 -->'There are some things that ought to count a
+good deal for promotion.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The next day at luncheon everyone was impatient for his return.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Well?' demanded the Colonel, briefly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Captain Grandjean did not reply immediately. He sat down at the table
+where his comrades were mixing their drinks, and he, a man notorious
+for sobriety, drank almost at a gulp, without waiting for the sugar to
+melt, a full glass of absinthe.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Well, Captain?' repeated the Colonel.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Well, Colonel, it's done. You can be at ease. He will not set foot on
+shore. But, ye gods, what an ordeal!'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The officers did not dare speak. Only their looks expressed their
+anxious curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Captain Grandjean poured himself a swallow of water.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'You see, I had gotten my speech all ready, in the launch. But as I
+went up the ladder I knew that I had forgotten it. Saint-Avit was in
+the smoking-room, with the Captain of the boat. It seemed to me that I
+could never find the strength to tell him, when I saw him all ready to
+go ashore. He was in full dress uniform, his sabre lay on the bench
+and he was wearing spurs. No one wears spurs on shipboard. I presented
+myself and we exchanged several remarks, but I must have seemed
+somewhat strained for from the first moment I knew that he sensed
+something. Under some pretext he left the Captain, and led me aft near
+the great rudder wheel. There, I dared speak. Colonel, what did I say?
+How I must have stammered! He did not look at me. Leaning his elbows
+on the railing he let his eyes wander far off, smiling slightly. Then,
+of a sudden, when I was well tangled up in explanations, he looked at
+me coolly and said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'I must thank you, my dear fellow, for having given yourself so much
+trouble. But it is quite unnecessary. I am out of sorts and have no
+intention of going ashore. At least, I have the pleasure of having
+made your acquaintance. Since I cannot profit by your hospitality, you
+must do me the favor of accepting mine as long as the launch stays by
+the vessel.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then we went back to the smoking-room. He himself mixed the
+cocktails. He talked to me. We discovered that <!-- Page 16 -->we had mutual
+acquaintances. Never shall I forget that face, that ironic and distant
+look, that sad and melodious voice. Ah! Colonel, gentlemen, I don't
+know what they may say at the Geographic Office, or in the posts of
+the Soudan.... There can be nothing in it but a horrible suspicion.
+Such a man, capable of such a crime,&mdash;believe me, it is not possible.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is all, Lieutenant,&quot; finished Chatelain, after a silence. &quot;I
+have never seen a sadder meal than that one. The officers hurried
+through lunch without a word being spoken, in an atmosphere of
+depression against which no one tried to struggle. And in this
+complete silence, you could see them always furtively watching the
+<i>City of Naples</i>, where she was dancing merrily in the breeze, a
+league from shore.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She was still there in the evening when they assembled for dinner,
+and it was not until a blast of the whistle, followed by curls of
+smoke escaping from the red and black smokestack had announced the
+departure of the vessel for Gabes, that conversation was resumed; and
+even then, less gaily than usual.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;After that, Lieutenant, at the Officers' Club at Sfax, they avoided
+like the plague any subject which risked leading the conversation back
+to Captain de Saint-Avit.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Chatelain had spoken almost in a whisper, and the little people of the
+desert had not heard this singular history. It was an hour since we
+had fired our last cartridge. Around the pool the turtle doves, once
+more reassured, were bathing their feathers. Mysterious great birds
+were flying under the darkening palm trees. A less warm wind rocked
+the trembling black palm branches. We had laid aside our helmets so
+that our temples could welcome the touch of the feeble breeze.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Chatelain,&quot; I said, &quot;it is time to go back to the bordj.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Slowly we picked up the dead doves. I felt the Sergeant looking at me
+reproachfully, as if regretting that he had spoken. Yet during all the
+time that our return trip lasted, I could not find the strength to
+break our desolate silence with a single word.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 17 -->The night had almost fallen when we arrived. The flag which
+surmounted the post was still visible, drooping on its standard, but
+already its colors were indistinguishable. To the west the sun had
+disappeared behind the dunes gashed against the black violet of the
+sky.</p>
+
+<p>When we had crossed the gate of the fortifications, Chatelain left me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am going to the stables,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p>I returned alone to that part of the fort where the billets for the
+Europeans and the stores of ammunition were located. An inexpressible
+sadness weighed upon me.</p>
+
+<p>I thought of my comrades in French garrisons. At this hour they must
+be returning home to find awaiting them, spread out upon the bed,
+their dress uniform, their braided tunic, their sparkling epaulettes.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Tomorrow,&quot; I said to myself, &quot;I shall request a change of station.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The stairway of hard-packed earth was already black. But a few gleams
+of light still seemed palely prowling in the office when I entered.</p>
+
+<p>A man was sitting at my desk, bending over the files of orders. His
+back was toward me. He did not hear me enter.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Really, Gourrut, my lad, I beg you not to disturb yourself. Make
+yourself completely at home.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The man had risen, and I saw him to be quite tall, slender and very
+pale.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Lieutenant Ferri&egrave;res, is it not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He advanced, holding out his hand.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Captain de Saint-Avit. Delighted, my dear fellow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>At the same time Chatelain appeared on the threshold.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sergeant,&quot; said the newcomer, &quot;I cannot congratulate you on the
+little I have seen. There is not a camel saddle which is not in want
+of buckles, and they are rusty enough to suggest that it rains at
+Hassi-Inifel three hundred days in the year. Furthermore, where were
+you this afternoon? Among the four Frenchmen who compose the post, I
+found only on my arrival one convict, opposite a quart of eau-de-vie.
+We will change all that, I hope. At ease.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Captain,&quot; I said, and my voice was colorless, while <!-- Page 18 -->Chatelain
+remained frozen at attention, &quot;I must tell you that the Sergeant was
+with me, that it is I who am responsible for his absence from the
+post, that he is an irreproachable non-commissioned officer from every
+point of view, and that if we had been warned of your arrival&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Evidently,&quot; he said, with a coldly ironical smile. &quot;Also, Lieutenant,
+I have no intention of holding him responsible for the negligences
+which attach to your office. He is not obliged to know that the
+officer who abandons a post like Hassi-Inifel, if it is only for two
+hours, risks not finding much left on his return. The Chaamba
+brigands, my dear sir, love firearms, and for the sake of the sixty
+muskets in your racks, I am sure they would not scruple to make an
+officer, whose otherwise excellent record is well known to me, account
+for his absence to a court-martial. Come with me, if you please. We
+will finish the little inspection I began too rapidly a little while
+ago.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He was already on the stairs. I followed in his footsteps. Chatelain
+closed the order of march. I heard him murmuring, in a tone which you
+can imagine:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, we are in for it now!&quot;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h2><a name="II"><!-- Chapter 2 --></a>II</h2>
+
+<h3>CAPTAIN DE SAINT-AVIT</h3>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>A few days sufficed to convince us that Chatelain's fears as to our
+official relations with the new chief were vain. Often I have thought
+that by the severity he showed at our first encounter Saint-Avit
+wished to create a formal barrier, to show us that he knew how to keep
+his head high in spite of the weight of his heavy past. Certain it is
+that the day after his arrival, he showed himself in a very different
+light, even complimenting the Sergeant on the upkeep of the post and
+the instruction of the men. To me he was charming.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We are of the same class, aren't we?&quot; he said to me. &quot;I <!-- Page 19 -->don't have
+to ask you to dispense with formalities, it is your right.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Vain marks of confidence, alas! False witnesses to a freedom of
+spirit, one in face of the other. What more accessible in appearance
+than the immense Sahara, open to all those who are willing to be
+engulfed by it? Yet what is more secret? After six months of
+companionship, of communion of life such as only a Post in the South
+offers, I ask myself if the most extraordinary of my adventures is not
+to be leaving to-morrow, toward unsounded solitudes, with a man whose
+real thoughts are as unknown to me as these same solitudes, for which
+he has succeeded in making me long.</p>
+
+<p>The first surprise which was given me by this singular companion was
+occasioned by the baggage that followed him.</p>
+
+<p>On his inopportune arrival, alone, from Wargla, he had trusted to the
+Mehari he rode only what can be carried without harm by such a
+delicate beast,&mdash;his arms, sabre and revolver, a heavy carbine, and a
+very reduced pack. The rest did not arrive till fifteen days later,
+with the convoy which supplied the post.</p>
+
+<p>Three cases of respectable dimensions were carried one after another
+to the Captain's room, and the grimaces of the porters said enough as
+to their weight.</p>
+
+<p>I discreetly left Saint-Avit to his unpacking and began opening the
+mail which the convoy had sent me.</p>
+
+<p>He returned to the office a little later and glanced at the several
+reviews which I had just recieved.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So,&quot; he said. &quot;You take these.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He skimmed through, as he spoke, the last number of the <i>Zeitschrift
+der Gesellschaft fur Erdkunde in Berlin</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; I answered. &quot;These gentlemen are kind enough to interest
+themselves in my works on the geology of the Wadi Mia and the high
+Igharghar.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That may be useful to me,&quot; he murmured, continuing to turn over the
+leaves.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's at your service.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Thanks. I am afraid I have nothing to offer you in ex<!-- Page 20 -->change, except
+Pliny, perhaps. And still&mdash;you know what he said of Igharghar,
+according to King Juba. However, come help me put my traps in place
+and you will see if anything appeals to you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I accepted without further urging.</p>
+
+<p>We commenced by unearthing various meteorological and astronomical
+instruments&mdash;the thermometers of Baudin, Salleron, Fastre, an aneroid,
+a Fortin barometer, chronometers, a sextant, an astronomical spyglass,
+a compass glass.... In short, what Duveyrier calls the material that
+is simplest and easiest to transport on a camel.</p>
+
+<p>As Saint-Avit handed them to me I arranged them on the only table in
+the room.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now,&quot; he announced to me, &quot;there is nothing more but books. I will
+pass them to you. Pile them up in a corner until I can have a
+book-shelf made.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>For two hours altogether I helped him to heap up a real library. And
+what a library! Such as never before a post in the South had seen. All
+the texts consecrated, under whatever titles, by antiquity to the
+regions of the Sahara were reunited between the four rough-cast walls
+of that little room of the bordj. Herodotus and Pliny, naturally, and
+likewise Strabo and Ptolemy, Pomponius Mela, and Ammien Marcellin. But
+besides these names which reassured my ignorance a little, I perceived
+those of Corippus, of Paul Orose, of Eratosthenes, of Photius, of
+Diodorus of Sicily, of Solon, of Dion Cassius, of Isidor of Seville,
+of Martin de Tyre, of Ethicus, of Athen&eacute;e, the <i>Scriptores Historiae
+Augustae</i>, the <i>Itinerarium Antonini Augusti</i>, the <i>Geographi Latini
+Minores</i> of Riese, the <i>Geographi Graeci Minores</i> of Karl Muller....
+Since I have had the occasion to familiarize myself with Agatarchides
+of Cos and Artemidorus of Ephesus, but I admit that in this instance
+the presence of their dissertations in the saddle bags of a captain of
+cavalry caused me some amazement.</p>
+
+<p>I mention further the <i>Descrittione dell' Africa</i> by Leon l'African,
+the <i>Arabian Histories</i> of Ibn-Khaldoun, of Al-Iaquob, of El-Bekri, of
+Ibn-Batoutah, of Mahommed El-Tounsi.... In the midst of this Babel, I
+remember the names <!-- Page 21 -->of only two volumes of contemporary French
+scholars. There were also the laborious theses of
+Berlioux<a name="FNanchor_C_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_C_3"><sup>[3]</sup></a> and of
+Schirmer.<a name="FNanchor_D_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_D_4"><sup>[4]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>While I proceeded to make piles of as similar dimensions as possible I
+kept saying to myself:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To think that I have been believing all this time that in his mission
+with Morhange, Saint-Avit was particularly concerned in scientific
+observations. Either my memory deceives me strangely or he is riding a
+horse of another color. What is sure is that there is nothing for me
+in the midst of all this chaos.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He must have read on my face the signs of too apparently expressed
+surprise, for he said in a tone in which I divined a tinge of
+defiance:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The choice of these books surprises you a bit?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I can't say it surprises me,&quot; I replied, &quot;since I don't know the
+nature of the work for which you have collected them. In any case I
+dare say, without fear of being contradicted, that never before has
+officer of the Arabian Office possessed a library in which the
+humanities were so, well represented.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He smiled evasively, and that day we pursued the subject no further.</p>
+
+<p>Among Saint-Avit's books I had noticed a voluminous notebook secured
+by a strong lock. Several times I surprised him in the act of making
+notations in it. When for any reason he was called out of the room he
+placed his album carefully in a small cabinet of white wood, provided
+by the munificence of the Administration. When he was not writing and
+the office did not require his presence, he had the mehari which he
+had brought with him saddled, and a few minutes later, from the
+terrace of the fortifications, I could see the double silhouette
+disappearing with great strides behind a hummock of red earth on the
+horizon.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 22 -->Each time these trips lasted longer. From each he returned in a kind
+of exaltation which made me watch him with daily increasing
+disquietude during meal hours, the only time we passed quite alone
+together.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; I said to myself one day when his remarks had been more
+lacking in sequence than usual, &quot;it's no fun being aboard a submarine
+when the captain takes opium. What drug can this fellow be taking,
+anyway?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Next day I looked hurriedly through my comrade's drawers. This
+inspection, which I believed to be my duty, reassured me momentarily.
+&quot;All very good,&quot; I thought, &quot;provided he does not carry with him his
+capsules and his Pravaz syringe.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I was still in that stage where I could suppose that Andr&eacute;'s
+imagination needed artificial stimulants.</p>
+
+<p>Meticulous observation undeceived me. There was nothing suspicious in
+this respect. Moreover, he rarely drank and almost never smoked.</p>
+
+<p>And nevertheless, there was no means of denying the increase of his
+disquieting feverishness. He returned from his expeditions each time
+with his eyes more brilliant. He was paler, more animated, more
+irritable.</p>
+
+<p>One evening he left the post about six o'clock, at the end of the
+greatest heat of the day. We waited for him all night. My anxiety was
+all the stronger because quite recently caravans had brought tidings
+of bands of robbers in the neighborhood of the post.</p>
+
+<p>At dawn he had not returned. He did not come before midday. His camel
+collapsed under him, rather than knelt.</p>
+
+<p>He realized that he must excuse himself, but he waited till we were
+alone at lunch.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am so sorry to have caused you any anxiety. But the dunes were so
+beautiful under the moon! I let myself be carried farther and
+farther....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have no reproaches to make, dear fellow, you are free, and the
+chief here. Only allow me to recall to you certain warnings concerning
+the Chaamba brigands, and the misfortunes that might arise from a
+Commandant of a post absenting himself too long.&quot;</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 23 -->He smiled.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't dislike such evidence of a good memory,&quot; he said simply.</p>
+
+<p>He was in excellent, too excellent spirits.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Don't blame me. I set out for a short ride as usual. Then, the moon
+rose. And then, I recognized the country. It is just where, twenty
+years ago next November, Flatters followed the way to his destiny in
+an exaltation which the certainty of not returning made keener and
+more intense.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Strange state of mind for a chief of an expedition,&quot; I murmured.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Say nothing against Flatters. No man ever loved the desert as he
+did ... even to dying of it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Palat and Douls, among many others, have loved it as much,&quot; I
+answered. &quot;But they were alone when they exposed themselves to it.
+Responsible only for their own lives, they were free. Flatters, on the
+other hand, was responsible for sixty lives. And you cannot deny that
+he allowed his whole party to be massacred.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The words were hardly out of my lips before I regretted them, I
+thought of Chatelain's story, of the officers' club at Sfax, where
+they avoided like the plague any kind of conversation which might lead
+their thoughts toward a certain Morhange-Saint-Avit mission.</p>
+
+<p>Happily I observed that my companion was not listening. His brilliant
+eyes were far away.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What was your first garrison?&quot; he asked suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Auxonne.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He gave an unnatural laugh.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Auxonne. Province of the Cote d'Or. District of Dijon. Six thousand
+inhabitants. P.L.M. Railway. Drill school and review. The Colonel's
+wife receives Thursdays, and the Major's on Saturdays. Leaves every
+Sunday,&mdash;the first of the month to Paris, the three others to Dijon.
+That explains your Judgment of Flatters.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;For my part, my dear fellow, my first garrison was at Boghar. I
+arrived there one morning in October, a second lieutenant, aged
+twenty, of the First African Batallion, the white chevron on my black
+sleeve.... Sun stripe, as the <!-- Page 24 --><i>bagnards</i> say in speaking of their
+grades. Boghar! Two days before, from the bridge of the steamer, I had
+begun to see the shores of Africa. I pity all those who, when they see
+those pale cliffs for the first time, do not feel a great leap at
+their hearts, at the thought that this land prolongs itself thousands
+and thousands of leagues.... I was little more than a child, I had
+plenty of money. I was ahead of schedule. I could have stopped three
+or four days at Algiers to amuse myself. Instead I took the train that
+same evening for Berroughia.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There, scarcely a hundred kilometers from Algiers, the railway
+stopped. Going in a straight line you won't find another until you get
+to the Cape. The diligence travels at night on account of the heat.
+When we came to the hills I got out and walked beside the carriage,
+straining for the sensation, in this new atmosphere, of the kiss of
+the outlying desert.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;About midnight, at the Camp of the Zouaves, a humble post on the road
+embankment, overlooking a dry valley whence rose the feverish perfume
+of oleander, we changed horses. They had there a troop of convicts and
+impressed laborers, under escort of riflemen and convoys to the
+quarries in the South. In part, rogues in uniform, from the jails of
+Algiers and Douara,&mdash;without arms, of course; the others
+civilians&mdash;such civilians! this year's recruits, the young bullies of
+the Chapelle and the Goutte-d'Or.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They left before we did. Then the diligence caught up with them. From
+a distance I saw in a pool of moonlight on the yellow road the black
+irregular mass of the convoy. Then I heard a weary dirge; the wretches
+were singing. One, in a sad and gutteral voice, gave the couplet,
+which trailed dismally through the depths of the blue ravines:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span>&quot;'<i>Maintenant qu'elle est grande</i>,<br /></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Elle fait le trottoir</i>,<br /></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Avec ceux de la bande</i><br /></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>A Richard-Lenoir</i>.'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>&quot;And the others took up in chorus the horrible refrain:</p>
+<!-- Page 25 -->
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span>&quot;'<i>A la Bastille, a la Bastille</i>,<br /></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>On aime bien, on aime bien</i><br /></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>Nini Peau d'Chien</i>;<br /></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Elle est si belle et si gentille</i><br /></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>A la Bastille</i>'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>&quot;I saw them all in contrast to myself when the diligence passed them.
+They were terrible. Under the hideous searchlight their eyes shone
+with a sombre fire in their pale and shaven faces. The burning dust
+strangled their raucous voices in their throats. A frightful sadness
+took possession of me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When the diligence had left this fearful nightmare behind, I regained
+my self-control.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Further, much further South,' I exclaimed to myself, 'to the places
+untouched by this miserable bilgewater of civilization.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When I am weary, when I have a moment of anguish and longing to turn
+back on the road that I have chosen, I think of the prisoners of
+Berroughia, and then I am glad to continue on my way.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But what a reward, when I am in one of those places where the poor
+animals never think of fleeing because they have never seen man, where
+the desert stretches out around me so widely that the old world could
+crumble, and never a single ripple on the dune, a single cloud in the
+white sky come to warn me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'It is true,' I murmured. 'I, too, once, in the middle of the desert,
+at Tidi-Kelt, I felt that way.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Up to that time I had let him enjoy his exaltations without
+interruption. I understood too late the error that I had made in
+pronouncing that unfortunate sentence.</p>
+
+<p>His mocking nervous laughter began anew.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah! Indeed, at Tidi-Kelt? I beg you, old man, in your own interest,
+if you don't want to make an ass of yourself, avoid that species of
+reminiscence. Honestly, you make me think of Fromentin, or that poor
+Maupassant, who talked of the desert because he had been to Djelfa,
+two days' journey from the street of Bab-Azound and the Government
+buildings, four days from the Avenue de l'Opera;&mdash;and who, because he
+saw a poor devil of a camel dying near Bou-Saada, be<!-- Page 26 -->lieved himself in
+the heart of the desert, on the old route of the caravans....
+Tidi-Kelt, the desert!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It seems to me, however, that In-Salah&mdash;&quot; I said, a little vexed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In-Salah? Tidi-Kelt! But, my poor friend, the last time that I passed
+that way there were as many old newspapers and empty sardine boxes as
+if it had been Sunday in the Wood of Vincennes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Such a determined, such an evident desire to annoy me made me forget
+my reserve.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Evidently,&quot; I replied resentfully, &quot;I have never been to&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I stopped myself, but it was already too late.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at me, squarely in the face.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To where?&quot; he said with good humor.</p>
+
+<p>I did not answer.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To where?&quot; he repeated.</p>
+
+<p>And, as I remained strangled in my muteness:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To Wadi Tarhit, do you mean?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was on the east bank of Wadi Tarhit, a hundred and twenty
+kilometers from Timissao, at 25.5 degrees north latitude, according to
+the official report, that Captain Morhange was buried.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Andr&eacute;,&quot; I cried stupidly, &quot;I swear to you&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What do you swear to me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That I never meant&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To speak of Wadi Tarhit? Why? Why should you not speak to me of Wadi
+Tarhit?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In answer to my supplicating silence, he merely shrugged his
+shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Idiot,&quot; was all he said.</p>
+
+<p>And he left me before I could think of even one word to say.</p>
+
+<p>So much humility on my part had, however, not disarmed him. I had the
+proof of it the next day, and the way he showed his humor was even
+marked by an exhibition of wretchedly poor taste.</p>
+
+<p>I was just out of bed when he came into my room.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Can you tell me what is the meaning of this?&quot; he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>He had in his hand one of the official registers. In his <!-- Page 27 -->nervous
+crises he always began sorting them over, in the hope of finding some
+pretext for making himself militarily insupportable.</p>
+
+<p>This time chance had favored him.</p>
+
+<p>He opened the register. I blushed violently at seeing the poor proof
+of a photograph that I knew well.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is that?&quot; he repeated disdainfully.</p>
+
+<p>Too often I had surprised him in the act of regarding, none too
+kindly, the portrait of Mlle. de C. which hung in my room not to be
+convinced at that moment that he was trying to pick a quarrel with me.</p>
+
+<p>I controlled myself, however, and placed the poor little print in the
+drawer.</p>
+
+<p>But my calmness did not pacify him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Henceforth,&quot; he said, &quot;take care, I beg you, not to mix mementoes of
+your gallantry with the official papers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He added, with a smile that spoke insult:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It isn't necessary to furnish objects of excitation to Gourrut.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Andr&eacute;,&quot; I said, and I was white, &quot;I demand&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He stood up to the full height of his stature.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well what is it? A gallantry, nothing more. I have authorized you to
+speak of Wadi Halfa, haven't I? Then I have the right, I should
+think&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Andr&eacute;!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Now he was looking maliciously at the wall, at the little portrait the
+replica of which I had just subjected to this painful scene.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There, there, I say, you aren't angry, are you? But between ourselves
+you will admit, will you not, that she is a little thin?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And before I could find time to answer him, he had removed himself,
+humming the shameful refrain of the previous night:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span>&quot;<i>A la Bastille, a la Bastille</i>,<br /></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>On aime bien, on aime bien</i>,<br /></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;"><i>Nini, Peau de Chien</i>.&quot;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>For three days neither of us spoke to the other. My ex<!-- Page 28 -->asperation was
+too deep for words. Was I, then, to be held responsible for his
+avatars! Was it my fault if, between two phrases, one seemed always
+some allusion&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The situation is intolerable,&quot; I said to myself. &quot;It cannot last
+longer.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was to cease very soon.</p>
+
+<p>One week after the scene of the photograph the courier arrived. I had
+scarcely glanced at the index of the <i>Zeitschrift</i>, the German review
+of which I have already spoken, when I started with uncontrollable
+amazement. I had just read: <i>&quot;Reise und Entdeckungen zwei
+fronzosischer offiziere, Rittmeisters Morhange und Oberleutnants de
+Saint-Avit, in westlichen Sahara.&quot;</i></p>
+
+<p>At the same time I heard my comrade's voice.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Anything interesting in this number?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No,&quot; I answered carelessly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let's see.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I obeyed; what else was there to do?</p>
+
+<p>It seemed to me that he grew paler as he ran over the index. However,
+his tone was altogether natural when he said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You will let me borrow it, of course?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And he went out, casting me one defiant glance.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>The day passed slowly. I did not see him again until evening. He was
+gay, very gay, and his gaiety hurt me.</p>
+
+<p>When we had finished dinner, we went out and leaned on the balustrade
+of the terrace. From there out swept the desert, which the darkness
+was already encroaching upon from the east.</p>
+
+<p>Andr&eacute; broke the silence.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;By the way, I have returned your review to you. You were right, it is
+not interesting.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>His expression was one of supreme amusement.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is it, what is the matter with you, anyway?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nothing,&quot; I answered, my throat aching.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nothing? Shall I tell you what is the matter with you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I looked at him with an expression of supplication.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Idiot,&quot; he found it necessary to repeat once more.</p>
+
+<p>Night fell quickly. Only the southern slope of Wadi Mia <!-- Page 29 -->was still
+yellow. Among the boulders a little jackal was running about, yapping
+sharply.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The <i>dib</i> is making a fuss about nothing, bad business,&quot; said
+Saint-Avit.</p>
+
+<p>He continued pitilessly:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then you aren't willing to say anything?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I made a great effort, to produce the following pitiful phrase:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What an exhausting day. What a night, heavy, heavy&mdash;You don't feel
+like yourself, you don't know any more&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; said the voice of Saint-Avit, as from a distance, &quot;A heavy,
+heavy night: as heavy, do you know, as when I killed Captain
+Morhange.&quot;</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h2><a name="III"><!-- Chapter 3 --></a>III</h2>
+
+<h3>THE MORHANGE-SAINT-AVIT MISSION</h3>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So I killed Captain Morhange,&quot; Andr&eacute; de Saint-Avit said to me the
+next day, at the same time, in the same place, with a calm that took
+no account of the night, the frightful night I had just been through.
+&quot;Why do I tell you this? I don't know in the least. Because of the
+desert, perhaps. Are you a man capable of enduring the weight of that
+confidence, and further, if necessary, of assuming the consequences it
+may bring? I don't know that, either. The future will decide. For the
+present there is only one thing certain, the fact, I tell you again,
+that I killed Captain Morhange.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I killed him. And, since you want me to specify the reason, you
+understand that I am not going to torture my brain to turn it into a
+romance for you, or commence by recounting in the naturalistic manner
+of what stuff my first trousers were made, or, as the neo-Catholics
+would have it, how often I went as a child to confession, and how much
+I liked doing it. I have no taste for useless exhibitions. You will
+find that this recital begins strictly at the time when I met
+Morhange.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And first of all, I tell you, however much it has cost my <!-- Page 30 -->peace of
+mind and my reputation, I do not regret having known him. In a word,
+apart from all question of false friendship, I am convicted of a black
+ingratitude in having killed him. It is to him, it is to his knowledge
+of rock inscriptions, that I owe the only thing that has raised my
+life in interest above the miserable little lives dragged out by my
+companions at Auxonne, and elsewhere.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This being understood, here are the facts:</p>
+
+<p>It was in the Arabian Office at Wargla, when I was a lieutenant, that
+I first heard the name, Morhange. And I must add that it was for me
+the occasion of an attack of bad humor. We were having difficult
+times. The hostility of the Sultan of Morocco was latent. At Touat,
+where the assassination of Flatters and of Frescaly had already been
+concocted, connivance was being given to the plots of our enemies.
+Touat was the center of conspiracies, of razzias, of defections, and
+at the same time, the depot of supply for the insatiable nomads. The
+Governors of Algeria, Tirman, Cambon, Laferriere, demanded its
+occupation. The Ministers of War tacitly agreed.... But there was
+Parliament, which did nothing at all, because of England, because of
+Germany, and above all because of a certain <i>Declaration of the Rights
+of Man and of the Citizen</i>, which prescribed that insurrection is the
+most sacred of duties, even when the insurgents are savages who cut
+your head off. In short, the military authority could only, at its own
+discretion, increase the southern garrisons, and establish new posts;
+this one, Berresof, Hassi-el-Mia, Fort MacMahon, Fort Lallemand, Fort
+Miribel.... But as Castries puts it, you don't hold the nomads with
+bordjs, you hold them by the belt. The middle was the oasis of Touat.
+Their honors, the lawyers of Paris, had to be convinced of the
+necessity of taking possession of the oasis of Touat. The best way
+would be to present them with a faithful picture of the plots that
+were being woven there against us.</p>
+
+<p>The principal authors were, and still are, the Senoussis, whose able
+chief has been forced by our arms to transfer the seat of his
+confederation several thousand leagues from there, to Schimmedrou, in
+the Tibesti. They had, I say <i>they</i> through modesty, the idea of
+ascertaining the traces left <!-- Page 31 -->by these agitators on their favorite
+places of concourse; Rh&acirc;t, Temassinin, the plain of Adejamor, and
+In-Salah. It was, you see, at least after leaving Temassinin,
+practically the same itinerary as that followed in 1864 by General
+Rohlfs.</p>
+
+<p>I had already attracted some attention by two excursions, one to
+Agad&egrave;s, and the other to Bilma, and was considered by the staff
+officers to be one of the best informed on the Senoussis question. I
+was therefore selected to assume this new task.</p>
+
+<p>I then suggested that it would be of interest to kill two birds with
+one stone, and to get, in passing, an idea of the northern Ahaggar, so
+as to make sure whether the Tuaregs of Ahitarhen had continued to have
+as cordial relations with the Senoussis as they had had when they
+combined to massacre the Flatters' mission. I was immediately accorded
+the permission. The change in my first plan was as follows: After
+reaching Ighelaschem, six hundred kilometers south of Temassinin,
+instead of taking the direct road to Touat via Rh&acirc;t, I would,
+penetrating between the high land of Mouydir and Ahaggar, strike off
+to the southwest as far as Shikh-Salah. Here I would turn again
+northwards, towards In-Salah, by the road to the Soudan and Agad&egrave;s. In
+all hardly eight kilometers additional in a trip of about seven
+hundred leagues, with the certainty of making as complete an
+examination as possible of the roads which our enemies, the Senoussis
+of Tibesti and the Tuareg of the Ahaggar, must follow to arrive at
+Touat. On the way, for every explorer has his pet fancy, I was not at
+all displeased to think that I would have a chance to examine the
+geological formation of the plateau of Egere, about which Duveyrier
+and the others are so disappointingly indefinite.</p>
+
+<p>Everything was ready for my departure from Wargla. Everything, which
+is to say, very little. Three mehara: mine, my companion Bou-Djema's
+(a faithful Chaamba, whom I had had with me in my wanderings through
+the Air, less of a guide in the country I was familiar with than a
+machine for saddling and unsaddling camels), then a third to carry
+provisions and skins of drinking water, very little, since I had taken
+pains to locate the stops with reference to the wells.</p>
+
+<p>Some people go equipped for this kind of expedition with <!-- Page 32 -->a hundred
+regulars, and even cannon. I am for the tradition of Douls and Ren&eacute;
+Callie, I go alone.</p>
+
+<p>I was at that perfect moment when only one thin thread still held me
+to the civilized world when an official cable arrived at Wargla.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Lieutenant de Saint-Avit,&quot; it said briefly, &quot;will delay his departure
+until the arrival of Captain Morhange, who will accompany him on his
+expedition of exploration.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I was more than disappointed. I alone had had the idea of this
+expedition. I had had all the difficulty that you can imagine to make
+the authorities agree to it. And now when I was rejoicing at the idea
+of the long hours I would spend alone with myself in the heart of the
+desert, they sent me a stranger, and, to make matters worse, a
+superior.</p>
+
+<p>The condolences of my comrades aggravated my bad humor.</p>
+
+<p>The Yearly Report, consulted on the spot, had given them the following
+information:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Morhange (Jean-Marie-Fran&ccedil;ois), class of 1881. Breveted. Captain,
+unassigned. (Topographical Service of the Army.)&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is the explanation for you,&quot; said one. &quot;They are sending one of
+their creatures to pull the chestnuts out of the fire, after you have
+had all the trouble of making it. Breveted! That's a great way. The
+theories of Ardant du Picq or else nothing about here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't altogether agree with you,&quot; said the Major. &quot;They knew in
+Parliament, for some one is always indiscreet, the real aim of
+Saint-Avit's mission: to force their hand for the occupation of Touat.
+And this Morhange must be a man serving the interests of the Army
+Commission. All these people, secretaries, members of Parliament,
+governors, keep a close watch on each other. Some one will write an
+amusing paradoxical history some day, of the French Colonial
+Expansion, which is made without the knowledge of the powers in
+office, when it is not actually in spite of them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Whatever the reason, the result will be the same,&quot; I said bitterly;
+&quot;we will be two Frenchmen to spy on each other night and day, along
+the roads to the south. An amiable prospect when one has none too much
+time to foil all the tricks of the natives. When does he arrive?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 33 -->Day after tomorrow, probably. I have news of a convoy coming from
+Ghardaia. It is likely that he will avail himself of it. The
+indications are that he doesn't know very much about traveling alone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Captain Morhange did arrive in fact two days later by means of the
+convoy from Ghardaia. I was the first person for whom he asked.</p>
+
+<p>When he came to my room, whither I had withdrawn in dignity as soon as
+the convoy was sighted, I was disagreeably surprised to foresee that I
+would have great difficulty in preserving my prejudice against him.</p>
+
+<p>He was tall, his face full and ruddy, with laughing blue eyes, a small
+black moustache, and hair that was already white.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have a thousand apologies to make to you, my dear fellow,&quot; he said
+immediately, with a frankness that I have never seen in any other man.
+&quot;You must be furious with my importunity in upsetting your plans and
+delaying your departure.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;By no means, Captain,&quot; I replied coolly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You really have only yourself to blame. It is on account of your
+knowledge of the southern, routes, so highly esteemed at Paris, that I
+wished to have you to initiate me when the Ministries of Instruction
+and of Commerce, and the Geographical Society combined to charge me
+with the mission which brings me here. These three honorable
+institutions have in fact entrusted me with the attempt to
+re-establish the ancient track of the caravans, which, from the ninth
+century, trafficked between Tunis and the Soudan, by Toweur, Wargla,
+Es-Souk and the bend of the Bourroum; and to study the possibility of
+restoring this route to its ancient splendor. At the same time, at the
+Geographic Bureau, I heard of the journey that you are undertaking.
+From Wargla to Shikh-Salah our two itineraries are the same. Only I
+must admit to you that it is the first voyage of this kind that I have
+ever undertaken. I would not be afraid to hold forth for an hour on
+Arabian literature in the amphitheatre of the School of Oriental
+Languages, but I know well enough that in the desert I should have to
+ask for directions whether to <!-- Page 34 -->turn right or left. This is the only
+chance which could give me such an opportunity, and at the same time
+put me under obligation for this introduction to so charming a
+companion. You must not blame me if I seized it, if I used all my
+influence to retard your departure from Wargla until the instant when
+I could join you. I have only one more word to add to what I have
+said. I am entrusted with a mission which by its origin is rendered
+essentially civilian. You are sent out by the Ministry of War. Up to
+the moment when, arrived at Shikh-Salah we turn our backs on each
+other to attain, you Touat, and I the Niger, all your recommendations,
+all your orders, will be followed by a subaltern, and, I hope, by a
+friend as well.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>All the time he was talking so openly I felt delightedly my worst
+recent fears melting away. Nevertheless, I still experienced a mean
+desire to show him some marks of reserve, for having thus disposed of
+my company at a distance, without consulting me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am very grateful to you, Captain, for your extremely flattering
+words. When do you wish to leave Wargla?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He made a gesture of complete detachment.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Whenever you like. Tomorrow, this evening. I have already delayed
+you. Your preparations must have already been made for some time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>My little maneuver had turned against myself. I had not been counting
+on leaving before the next week.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Tomorrow, Captain, but your luggage?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He smiled delightfully.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I thought it best to bring as little as possible. A light pack, some
+papers. My brave camel had no difficulty in bringing it along. For the
+rest I depend on your advice, and the resources of Owargla.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I was well caught. I had nothing further to say. And moreover, such
+freedom of spirit and manner had already captivated me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It seems,&quot; said my comrades, when the time for aperitives had brought
+us all together again, &quot;that this Captain of yours is a remarkably
+charming fellow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Remarkably.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 35 -->You surely can't have any trouble with him. It is only up to you to
+see that later on he doesn't get all the glory.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We aren't working with the same end in view,&quot; I answered evasively.</p>
+
+<p>I was thoughtful, only thoughtful I give you my word. From that moment
+I harbored no further grudge against Morhange. Yet my silence
+persuaded him that I was unforgiving. And everyone, do you hear me,
+everyone said later on, when suspicions became rife:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He is surely guilty. We saw them go off together. We can affirm it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I am guilty.... But for a low motive of jealousy.... How sickening....</p>
+
+<p>After that, there was nothing to do but to flee, flee, as far as the
+places where there are no more men who think and reason.</p>
+
+<p>Morhange, appeared, his arm resting on the Major's, who was beaming
+over this new acquaintanceship.</p>
+
+<p>He presented him enthusiastically:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Captain Morhange, gentlemen. An officer of the old school, and a man
+after our own hearts, I give you my word. He wants to leave tomorrow,
+but we must give him such a reception that he will forget that idea
+before two days are up. Come, Captain, you have at least eight days to
+give us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am at the disposition of Lieutenant de Saint-Avit,&quot; replied
+Morhange, with a quiet smile.</p>
+
+<p>The conversation became general. The sound of glasses and laughter
+rang out. I heard my comrades in ecstasies over the stories that the
+newcomer poured out with never-failing humor. And I, never, never have
+I felt so sad.</p>
+
+<p>The time came to pass into the dining-room.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;At my right, Captain,&quot; cried the Major, more and more beaming. &quot;And I
+hope you will keep on giving us these new lines on Paris. We are not
+up with the times here, you know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yours to command, Major,&quot; said Morhange.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Be seated, gentlemen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The officers obeyed, with a joyous clatter of moving chairs. I had not
+taken my eyes off Morhange, who was still standing.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 36 -->Major, gentlemen, you will allow me,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p>And before sitting down at that table, where every moment he was the
+life of the party, in a low voice, with his eyes closed, Captain
+Morhange recited the Benedicite.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h2><a name="IV"><!-- Chapter 4 --></a>IV</h2>
+
+<h3>TOWARDS LATITUDE 25</h3>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You see,&quot; said Captain Morhange to me fifteen days later, &quot;you are
+much better informed about the ancient routes through the Sahara than
+you have been willing to let me suppose, since you know of the
+existence of the two Tadekkas. But the one of which you have just
+spoken is the Tadekka of Ibn-Batoutah, located by this historian
+seventy days from Touat, and placed by Schirmer, very plausibly, in
+the unexplored territory of the Aouelimmiden. This is the Tadekka by
+which the Sonrha&iuml; caravans passed every year, travelling by Egypt.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My Tadekka is different, the capital of the veiled people, placed by
+Ibn-Khaldoun twenty days south of Wargla, which he calls Tadmekka. It
+is towards this Tadmekka that I am headed. I must establish Tadmekka
+in the ruins of Es-Souk. The commercial trade route, which in the
+ninth century bound the Tunisian Djerid to the bend the Niger makes at
+Bourroum, passed by Es-Souk. It is to study the possibility of
+reestablishing this ancient thoroughfare that the Ministries gave me
+this mission, which has given me the pleasure of your companionship.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are probably in for a disappointment,&quot; I said. &quot;Everything
+indicates that the commerce there is very slight.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I shall see,&quot; he answered composedly.</p>
+
+<p>This was while we were following the unicolored banks of a salt lake.
+The great saline stretch shone pale-blue, under the rising sun. The
+legs of our five mehara cast on it their moving shadows of a darker
+blue. For a moment the only inhabitant of these solitudes, a bird, a
+kind of indeterminate <!-- Page 37 -->heron, rose and hung in the air, as if
+suspended from a thread, only to sink back to rest as soon as we had
+passed.</p>
+
+<p>I led the way, selecting the route, Morhange followed. Enveloped in a
+bernous, his head covered with the straight <i>chechia</i> of the Spahis, a
+great chaplet of alternate red and white beads, ending in a cross,
+around his neck, he realized perfectly the ideal of Father Lavigerie's
+White Fathers.</p>
+
+<p>After a two-days' halt at Temassinin we had just left the road
+followed by Flatters, and taken an oblique course to the south. I have
+the honor of having antedated Fourcau in demonstrating the importance
+of Temassinin as a geometrical point for the passage of caravans, and
+of selecting the place where Captain Pein has just now constructed a
+fort. The junction for the roads that lead to Touat from Fezzan and
+Tibesti, Temassinin is the future seat of a marvellous Intelligence
+Department. What I had collected there in two days about the
+disposition of our Senoussis enemies was of importance. I noticed that
+Morhange let me proceed with my inquiries with complete indifference.</p>
+
+<p>These two days he had passed in conversation with the old Negro
+guardian of the turbet, which preserves, under its plaster dome, the
+remains of the venerated Sidi-Moussa. The confidences they exchanged,
+I am sorry to say that I have forgotten. But from the Negro's amazed
+admiration, I realized the ignorance in which I stood to the mysteries
+of the desert, and how familiar they were to my companion.</p>
+
+<p>And if you want to get any idea of the extraordinary originality which
+Morhange introduced into such surroundings, you who, after all, have a
+certain familiarity with the tropics, listen to this. It was exactly
+two hundred kilometers from here, in the vicinity of the Great Dune,
+in that horrible stretch of six days without water. We had just enough
+for two days before reaching the next well, and you know these wells;
+as Flatters wrote to his wife, &quot;you have to work for hours before you
+can clean them out and succeed in watering beasts and men.&quot; By chance
+we met a caravan there, which was going east towards Rhadam&egrave;s, and had
+come too far north. The camels' humps, shrunken and shaking, bespoke
+the sufferings of the troop. Behind came a little gray ass, a pitiful
+burrow, interfering at every step, and lightened <!-- Page 38 -->of its pack because
+the merchants knew that it was going to die. Instinctively, with its
+last strength, it followed, knowing that when it could stagger no
+longer, the end would come and the flutter of the bald vultures'
+wings. I love animals, which I have solid reasons for preferring to
+men. But never should I have thought of doing what Morhange did then.
+I tell you that our water skins were almost dry, and that our own
+camels, without which one is lost in the empty desert, had not been
+watered for many hours. Morhange made his kneel, uncocked a skin, and
+made the little ass drink. I certainly felt gratification at seeing
+the poor bare flanks of the miserable beast pant with satisfaction. But
+the responsibility was mine. Also I had seen Bou-Djema's aghast
+expression, and the disapproval of the thirsty members of the caravan.
+I remarked on it. How it was received! &quot;What have I given,&quot; replied
+Morhange, &quot;was my own. We will reach El-Biodh to-morrow evening, about
+six o'clock. Between here and there I know that I shall not be
+thirsty.&quot; And that in a tone, in which for the first time he allowed
+the authority of a Captain to speak. &quot;That is easy to say,&quot; I thought,
+ill-humoredly. &quot;He knows that when he wants them, my water-skin, and
+Bou-Djema's, are at his service.&quot; But I did not yet know Morhange very
+well, and it is true that until the evening of the next day when we
+reached El-Biodh, refusing our offers with smiling determination, he
+drank nothing.</p>
+
+<p>Shades of St. Francis of Assisi! Umbrian hills, so pure under the
+rising sun! It was in the light of a like sunrise, by the border of a
+pale stream leaping in full cascades from a crescent-shaped niche of
+the gray rocks of Egere, that Morhange stopped. The unlooked for
+waters rolled upon the sand, and we saw, in the light which mirrored
+them, little black fish. Fish in the middle of the Sahara! All three
+of us were mute before this paradox of Nature. One of them had strayed
+into a little channel of sand. He had to stay there, struggling in
+vain, his little white belly exposed to the air.... Morhange picked
+him up, looked at him for a moment, and put him back into the little
+stream. Shades of St. Francis. Umbrian hills.... But I have sworn not
+<!-- Page 39 -->to break the thread of the story by these untimely digressions.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>&quot;You see,&quot; Captain Morhange said to me a week later, &quot;that I was right
+in advising you to go farther south before making for Shikh-Salah.
+Something told me that this highland of Egere was not interesting from
+your point of view. While here you have only to stoop to pick up
+pebbles which will allow you to establish the volcanic origin of this
+region much more certainly than Bou-Derba, des Cloizeaux, and Doctor
+Marr&eacute;s have done.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>This was while we were following the western pass of the Tidifest
+Mountains, about the 25th degree of northern latitude.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I should indeed be ungrateful not to thank you,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>I shall always remember that instant. We had left our camels and were
+collecting fragments of the most characteristic rocks. Morhange
+employed himself with a discernment which spoke worlds for his
+knowledge of geology, a science he had often professed complete
+ignorance of.</p>
+
+<p>Then I asked him the following question:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;May I prove my gratitude by making you a confession?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He raised his head and looked at me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well then, I don't see the practical value of this trip you have
+undertaken.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He smiled.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why not? To explore the old caravan route, to demonstrate that a
+connection has existed from the most ancient times between the
+Mediterranean world, and the country of the Blacks, that seems nothing
+in your eyes? The hope of settling once for all the secular disputes
+which have divided so many keen minds; d'Anville, Heeren, Berlioux,
+Quatremere on the one hand,&mdash;on the other Gosselin, Walckenaer,
+Tissit, Vivien, de saint-Martin; you think that that is devoid of
+interest? A plague upon you for being hard to please.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I spoke of practical value,&quot; I said. &quot;You won't deny that this
+controversy is only the affair of cabinet geographers and office
+explorers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Morhange kept on smiling.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dear friend, don't wither me. Deign to recall that your <!-- Page 40 -->mission was
+confided to you by the Ministry of War, while I hold mine on behalf of
+the Ministry of Public Instruction. A different origin justifies our
+different aims. It certainly explains, I readily concede that to you,
+why what I am in search of has no practical value.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are also authorized by the Ministry of Commerce,&quot; I replied,
+playing my next card. &quot;By this chief you are instructed to study the
+possibility of restoring the old trade route of the ninth century. But
+on this point don't attempt to mislead me; with your knowledge of the
+history and geography of the Sahara, your mind must have been made up
+before you left Paris. The road from Djerid to the Niger is dead,
+stone dead. You knew that no important traffic would pass by this
+route before you undertook to study the possibility of restoring it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Morhange looked me full in the face.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And if that should be so,&quot; he said with the most charming attitude,
+&quot;if I had before leaving the conviction you say, what do you conclude
+from that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I should prefer to have you tell me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Simply, my dear boy, that I had less skill than you in finding the
+pretext for my voyage, that I furnished less good reasons for the true
+motives that brought me here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A pretext? I don't see....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Be sincere in your turn, if you please. I am sure that you have the
+greatest desire to inform the Arabian Office about the practices of
+the Senoussis. But admit that the information that you will obtain is
+not the sole and innermost aim of your excursion. You are a geologist,
+my friend. You have found a chance to gratify your taste in this trip.
+No one would think of blaming you because you have known how to
+reconcile what is useful to your country and agreeable to yourself.
+But, for the love of God, don't deny it; I need no other proof than
+your presence here on this side of the Tidifest, a very curious place
+from a mineralogical point of view, but some hundred and fifty
+kilometers south of your official route.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was not possible to have countered me with a better grace. I
+parried by attacking.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Am I to conclude from all this that I do not know the <!-- Page 41 -->real aims of
+your trip, and that they have nothing to do with the official
+motives?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I had gone a bit too far. I felt it from the seriousness with which
+Morhange's reply was delivered.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;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.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Would there be any indiscretion?....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;None,&quot; replied my companion. &quot;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.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>had</i>. 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.</p>
+
+<p>Not a sound, not a breath. The smoke mounted straight, straight and
+slowly up the pale steps of the firmament.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Have you ever heard of the <i>Atlas of Christianity</i>?&quot; asked Morhange.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I think so. Isn't it a geographical work published by the
+Benedictines under the direction of a certain Dom Granger?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Your memory is correct,&quot; said Morhange. &quot;Even so let me explain a
+little more fully some of the things you have not had as much reason
+as I to interest yourself in. The <i>Atlas of Christianity</i> proposes to
+establish the boundaries of that great tide of Christianity through
+all the ages, and for all parts of the globe. An undertaking worthy of
+the Benedictine <!-- Page 42 -->learning, worthy of such a prodigy of erudition as
+Dom Granger himself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And it is these boundaries that you have come to determine here, no
+doubt,&quot; I murmured.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Just so,&quot; replied my companion.</p>
+
+<p>He was silent, and I respected his silence, prepared by now to be
+astonished at nothing.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is not possible to give confidences by halves, without being
+ridiculous,&quot; he continued after several minutes of meditation,
+speaking gravely, in a voice which held no suggestion of that flashing
+humor which had a month before enchanted the young officers at Wargla.
+&quot;I have begun on mine. I will tell you everything. Trust my
+discretion, however, and do not insist upon certain events of my
+private life. If, four years ago, at the close of these events, I
+resolve to enter a monastery, it does not concern you to know my
+reasons. I can marvel at it myself, that the passage in my life of a
+being absolutely devoid of interest should have sufficed to change the
+current of that life. I can marvel that a creature whose sole merit
+was her beauty should have been permitted by the Creator to swing my
+destiny to such an unforeseen direction. The monastery at whose doors
+I knocked had the most valid reasons for doubting the stability of my
+vocation. What the world loses in such fashion it often calls back as
+readily. In short, I cannot blame the Father Abbot for having
+forbidden me to apply for my army discharge. By his instructions, I
+asked for, and obtained, permission to be placed on the inactive list
+for three years. At the end of those three years of consecration it
+would be seen whether the world was definitely dead to your servant.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The first day of my arrival at the cloister I was assigned to Dom
+Granger, and placed by him at work on the <i>Atlas of Christianity</i>. A
+brief examination decided him as to what kind of service I was best
+fitted to render. This is how I came to enter the studio devoted to
+the cartography of Northern Africa. I did not know one word of Arabic,
+but it happened that in garrison at Lyon I had taken at the <i>Facult&eacute;
+des Lettres,</i> a course with Berlioux,&mdash;a very erudite geographer no
+doubt, but obsessed by one idea, the influence the Greek and Roman
+civilizations had exercised on Africa. This detail <!-- Page 43 -->of my life was
+enough for Dom Granger. He provided me straightway with Berber
+vocabularies by Venture, by Delaporte, by Brosselard; with the
+<i>Grammatical Sketch of the Temahaq</i> by Stanley Fleeman, and the <i>Essai
+de Grammaire de la langue Temachek</i> by Major Hanoteau. At the end of
+three months I was able to decipher any inscriptions in Tifinar. You
+know that Tifinar is the national writing of the Tuareg, the
+expression of this Temachek language which seems to us the most
+curious protest of the Targui race against its Mohammedan enemies.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dom Granger, in fact, believed that the Tuareg are Christians, dating
+from a period which it was necessary to ascertain, but which coincided
+no doubt with the splendor of the church of Hippon. Even better than
+I, you know that the cross is with them the symbol of fate in
+decoration. Duveyrier has claimed that it figures in their alphabet,
+on their arms, among the designs of their clothes. The only tattooing
+that they wear on the forehead, on the back of the hand, is a cross
+with four equal branches; the pummels of their saddles, the handles of
+their sabres, of their poignards, are cross-shaped. And is it
+necessary to remind you that, although Islam forbids bells as a sign
+of Christianity, the harness of Tuareg camels are trimmed with bells?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Neither Dom Granger nor I attach an exaggerated importance to such
+proofs, which resemble too much those which make such a display in the
+<i>Genius of Christianity.</i> But it is indeed impossible to refuse all
+credence to certain theological arguments. Amanai, the God of the
+Tuareg, unquestionably the Adonai of the Bible, is unique. They have a
+hell, 'Timsi-tan-elekhaft,' the last fire, where reigns Iblis, our
+Lucifer. Their Paradise, where they are rewarded for good deeds, is
+inhabited by 'andjelousen,' our angels. And do not urge the
+resemblance of this theology to the Koran, for I will meet you with
+historic arguments and remind you that the Tuareg have struggled all
+through the ages at the cost of partial extermination, to maintain
+their faith against the encroachments of Mohammedan fanaticism.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Many times I have studied with Dom Granger that formidable epoch when
+the aborigines opposed the conquering Arabs. With him I have seen how
+the army of Sidi-<!-- Page 44 -->Okba, one of the companions of the Prophet, invaded
+this desert to reduce the Tuareg tribes and impose on them Mussulman
+rules. These tribes were then rich and prosperous. They were the
+Ihbggaren, the Imededren, the Ouadelen, the Kel-Gueress, the Kel-Air.
+But internal quarrels sapped their strength. Still, it was not until
+after a long and cruel war that the Arabians succeeded in getting
+possession of the capital of the Berbers, which had proved such a
+redoubtable stronghold. They destroyed it after they had massacred the
+inhabitants. On the ruins Okba constructed a new city. This city is
+Es-Souk. The one that Sidi-Okba destroyed was the Berber Tadmekka.
+What Dom Granger asked of me was precisely that I should try to exhume
+from the ruins of the Mussulman Es-Souk the ruins of Tadmekka, which
+was Berber, and perhaps Christian.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I understand,&quot; I murmured.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So far, so good,&quot; said Morhange. &quot;But what you must grasp now is the
+practical sense of these religious men, my masters. You remember that,
+even after three years of monastic life, they preserved their doubts
+as to the stability of my vocation. They found at the same time means
+of testing it once for all, and of adapting official facilities to
+their particular purposes. One morning I was called before the Father
+Abbot, and this is what he said to me, in the presence of Dom Granger,
+who expressed silent approval.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Your term of inactive service expires in fifteen days. You will
+return to Paris, and apply at the Ministry to be reinstated. With what
+you have learned here, and the relationships we have been able to
+maintain at Headquarters, you will have no difficulty in being
+attached to the Geographical Staff of the army. When you reach the rue
+de Grenelle you will receive our instructions.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I was astonished at their confidence in my knowledge. When I was
+reestablished as Captain again in the Geographical Service I
+understood. At the monastery, the daily association with Dom Granger
+and his pupils had kept me constantly convinced of the inferiority of
+my knowledge. When I came in contact with my military brethren I
+realized the superiority of the instruction I had received. I did not
+have to concern myself with the details of my mission. The <!-- Page 45 -->Ministries
+invited me to undertake it. My initiative asserted itself on only one
+occasion. When I learned that you were going to leave Wargla on the
+present expedition, having reason to distrust my practical
+qualifications as an explorer, I did my best to retard your departure,
+so that I might join you. I hope that you have forgiven me by now.&quot;</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>The light in the west was fading, where the sun had already sunk into
+a matchless luxury of violet draperies. We were alone in this
+immensity, at the feet of the rigid black rocks. Nothing but
+ourselves. Nothing, nothing but ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>I held out my hand to Morhange, and he pressed it. Then he said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If they still seem infinitely long to me, the several thousand
+kilometers which separate me from the instant when, my task
+accomplished, I shall at last find oblivion in the cloister for the
+things for which I was not made, let me tell you this;&mdash;the several
+hundred kilometers which still separate us from Shikh-Salah seem to me
+infinitely short to traverse in your company.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>On the pale water of the little pool, motionless and fixed like a
+silver nail, a star had just been born.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Shikh-Salah,&quot; I murmured, my heart full of an indefinable sadness.
+&quot;Patience, we are not there yet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In truth, we never were to be there.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h2><a name="V"><!-- Chapter 5 --></a>V</h2>
+
+<h3>THE INSCRIPTION</h3>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>With a blow of the tip of his cane Morhange knocked a fragment of rock
+from the black flank of the mountain.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is it?&quot; he asked, holding it out to me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A basaltic peridot,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 46 -->It can't be very interesting, you barely glanced at it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is very interesting, on the contrary. But, for the moment, I admit
+that I am otherwise preoccupied.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Look this way a bit,&quot; I said, showing towards the west, on the
+horizon, a black spot across the white plain.</p>
+
+<p>It was six o'clock in the morning. The sun had risen. But it could not
+be found in the surprisingly polished air. And not a breath of air,
+not a breath. Suddenly one of the camels called. An enormous antelope
+had just come in sight, and had stopped in its flight, terrified,
+racing the wall of rock. It stayed there at a little distance from us,
+dazed, trembling on its slender legs.</p>
+
+<p>Bou-Djema had rejoined us.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When the legs of the mohor tremble it is because the firmament is
+shaken,&quot; he muttered.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A storm?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, a storm.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And you find that alarming?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I did not answer immediately. I was exchanging several brief words
+with Bou-Djema, who was occupied in soothing the camels which were
+giving signs of being restive.</p>
+
+<p>Morhange repeated his question. I shrugged my shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Alarming? I don't know. I have never seen a storm on the Hoggar. But
+I distrust it. And the signs are that this is going to be a big one.
+See there already.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A slight dust had risen before the cliff. In the still air a few
+grains of sand had begun to whirl round and round, with a speed which
+increased to dizziness, giving us in advance the spectacle in
+miniature of what would soon be breaking upon us.</p>
+
+<p>With harsh cries a flock of wild geese appeared, flying low. They came
+out of the west.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They are fleeing towards the Sebkha d'Amanghor,&quot; said Bou-Djema.</p>
+
+<p>There could be no greater mistake, I thought.</p>
+
+<p>Morhange looked at me curiously.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What must we do?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mount our camels immediately, before they are com<!-- Page 47 -->pletely
+demoralized, and hurry to find shelter in some high places. Take
+account of our situation. It is easy to follow the bed of a stream.
+But within a quarter of an hour perhaps the storm will have burst.
+Within a half hour a perfect torrent will be rushing here. On this
+soil, which is almost impermeable, rain will roll like a pail of water
+thrown on a bituminous pavement. No depth, all height. Look at this.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And I showed him, a dozen meters high, long hollow gouges, marks of
+former erosions on the rocky wall.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In an hour the waters will reach that height. Those are the marks of
+the last inundation. Let us get started. There is not an instant to
+lose.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All right,&quot; Morhange replied tranquilly.</p>
+
+<p>We had the greatest difficulty to make the camels kneel. When we had
+thrown ourselves into the saddle they started off at a pace which
+their terror rendered more and more disorderly.</p>
+
+<p>Of a sudden the wind began, a formidable wind, and, almost at the same
+time the light was eclipsed in the ravine. Above our heads the sky had
+become, in the flash of an eye, darker than the walls of the canyon
+which we were descending at a breathless pace.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A path, a stairway in the wall,&quot; I screamed against the wind to my
+companions. &quot;If we don't find one in a minute we are lost.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They did not hear me, but, turning in my saddle, I saw that they had
+lost no distance, Morhange following me, and Bou-Djema in the rear
+driving the two baggage camels masterfully before him.</p>
+
+<p>A blinding streak of lightning rent the obscurity. A peal of thunder,
+re-echoed to infinity by the rocky wall, rang out, and immediately
+great tepid drops began to fall. In an instant, our burnouses, which
+had been blown out behind by the speed with which we were traveling,
+were stuck tight to our streaming bodies.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Saved!&quot; I exclaimed suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>Abruptly on our right a crevice opened in the midst of the wall. It
+was the almost perpendicular bed of a stream, an affluent of the one
+we had had the unfortunate idea of <!-- Page 48 -->following that morning. Already a
+veritable torrent was gushing over it with a fine uproar.</p>
+
+<p>I have never better appreciated the incomparable sure-footedness of
+camels in the most precipitate places. Bracing themselves, stretching
+out their great legs, balancing themselves among the rocks that were
+beginning to be swept loose, our camels accomplished at that moment
+what the mules of the Pyrannees might have failed in.</p>
+
+<p>After several moments of superhuman effort we found ourselves at last
+out of danger, on a kind of basaltic terrace, elevated some fifty
+meters above the channel of the stream we had just left. Luck was with
+us; a little grotto opened out behind. Bou-Djema succeeded in
+sheltering the camels there. From its threshold we had leisure to
+contemplate in silence the prodigious spectacle spread out before us.</p>
+
+<p>You have, I believe, been at the Camp of Chalons for artillery drills.
+You have seen when the shell bursts how the chalky soil of the Marne
+effervesces like the inkwells at school, when we used to throw a piece
+of calcium carbonate into them. Well, it was almost like that, but in
+the midst of the desert, in the midst of obscurity. The white waters
+rushed into the depths of the black hole, and rose and rose towards
+the pedestal on which we stood. And there was the uninterrupted noise
+of thunder, and still louder, the sound of whole walls of rock,
+undermined by the flood, collapsing in a heap and dissolving in a few
+seconds of time in the midst of the rising water.</p>
+
+<p>All the time that this deluge lasted, one hour, perhaps two, Morhange
+and I stayed bending over this fantastic foaming vat; anxious to see,
+to see everything, to see in spite of everything; rejoicing with a
+kind of ineffable horror when we felt the shelf of basalt on which we
+had taken refuge swaying beneath us from the battering impact of the
+water. I believe that never for an instant did we think, so beautiful
+it was, of wishing for the end of that gigantic nightmare.</p>
+
+<p>Finally a ray of the sun shone through. Only then did we look at each
+other.</p>
+
+<p>Morhange held out his hand.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Thank you,&quot; he said simply.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 49 -->And he added with a smile:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To be drowned in the very middle of the Sahara would have been
+pretentious and ridiculous. You have saved us, thanks to your power of
+decision, from this very paradoxical end.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Ah, that he had been thrown by a misstep of his camel and rolled to
+his death in the midst of the flood! Then what followed would never
+have happened. That is the thought that comes to me in hours of
+weakness. But I have told you that I pull myself out of it quickly.
+No, no, I do not regret it, I cannot regret it, that what happened did
+happen.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Morhange left me to go into the little grotto, where Bou-Djema's
+camels were now resting comfortably. I stayed alone, watching the
+torrent which was continuously rising with the impetuous inrush of its
+unbridled tributaries. It had stopped raining. The sun shone from a
+sky that had renewed its blueness. I could feel the clothes that had a
+moment before been drenching, drying upon me incredibly fast.</p>
+
+<p>A hand was placed on my shoulder. Morhange was again beside me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come here,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p>Somewhat surprised, I followed him. We went into the grotto.</p>
+
+<p>The opening, which was big enough to admit the camels, made it fairly
+light. Morhange led me up to the smooth face of rock opposite. &quot;Look,&quot;
+he said, with unconcealed joy.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What of it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Don't you see?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I see that there are several Tuareg inscriptions,&quot; I answered, with
+some disappointment. &quot;But I thought I had told you that I read Tifinar
+writing very badly. Are these writings more interesting than the
+others we have come upon before?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Look at this one,&quot; said Morhange. There was such an accent of triumph
+in his tone that this time I concentrated my attention.</p>
+
+<p>I looked again.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 50 -->The characters of the inscription were arranged in the form of a
+cross. It plays such an important part in this adventure that I cannot
+forego retracing it for you.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr">
+<img src="images/illus050.gif" id="p50" width="500" height="297" alt="Inscription on the stone" />
+</p>
+
+<p>It was designed with great regularity, and the characters were cut
+deep into the rock. Although I knew so little of rock inscriptions at
+that time I had no difficulty in recognizing the antiquity of this
+one.</p>
+
+<p>Morhange became more and more radiant as he regarded it.</p>
+
+<p>I looked at him questioningly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, what have you to say now?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What do you want me to say? I tell you that I can barely read
+Tifinar.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Shall I help you?&quot; he suggested.</p>
+
+<p>This course in Berber writing, after the emotions through which we had
+just passed, seemed to me a little inopportune. But Morhange was so
+visibly delighted that I could not dash his joy.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very well then,&quot; began my companion, as much at his, ease
+as if he had been before a blackboard, &quot;what will strike you first
+about this inscription is its repetition in the form of a cross. That is
+to say that it contains the same word twice, top to bottom, and right to
+left. The word which it composes has seven letters so the fourth letter,
+W [Transcriber's Note: Rotated 90 degrees counter-clockwise], comes
+naturally in the middle. This arrangement which is unique in Tifinar
+writing, is already remarkable enough. But there is better still. Now we
+will read it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Getting it wrong three times out of seven I finally succeeded, with
+Morhange's help, in spelling the word.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Have you got it?&quot; asked Morhange when I had finished my task.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 51 -->Less than ever,&quot; I answered, a little put out;
+&quot;a,n,t,i,n,h,a,&mdash;Antinha, I don't know that word, or anything like it,
+in all the Saharan dialects I am familiar with.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Morhange rubbed his hands together. His satisfaction was without
+bounds.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You have said it. That is why the discovery is unique.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is really nothing, either in Berber or in Arabian, analogous to
+this word.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then, my dear friend, we are in the presence of a foreign word,
+translated into Tifinar.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And this word belongs, according to your theory, to what language?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You must realize that the letter <i>e</i> does not exist in the Tifinar
+alphabet. It has here been replaced by the phonetic sign which is
+nearest to it,&mdash;h. Restore <i>e</i> to the place which belongs to it in the
+word, and you have&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Antinea.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Antinea,' precisely. We find ourselves before a Greek vocable
+reproduced in Tifinar. And I think that now you will agree with me
+that my find has a certain interest.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>That day we had no more conferences upon texts. A loud cry, anguished,
+terrifying, rang out.</p>
+
+<p>We rushed out to find a strange spectacle awaiting us.</p>
+
+<p>Although the sky had cleared again, the torrent of yellow water was
+still foaming and no one could predict when it would fall. In
+mid-stream, struggling desperately in the current, was an
+extraordinary mass, gray and soft and swaying.</p>
+
+<p>But what at the first glance overwhelmed us with astonishment was to
+see Bou-Djema, usually so calm, at this moment apparently beside
+himself with frenzy, bounding through the gullies and over the rocks
+of the ledge, in full pursuit of the shipwreck.</p>
+
+<p>Of a sudden I seized Morhange by the arm. The grayish thing was alive.
+A pitiful long neck emerged from it with the heartrending cry of a
+beast in despair.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The fool,&quot; I cried, &quot;he has let one of our beasts get loose, and the
+stream is carrying it away!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 52 -->You are mistaken,&quot; said Morhange. &quot;Our camels are all in the cave.
+The one Bou-Djema is running after is not ours. And the cry of anguish
+we just heard, that was not Bou-Djema either. Bou-Djema is a brave
+Chaamb who has at this moment only one idea, to appropriate the
+intestate capital represented by this camel in the stream.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Who gave that cry, then?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let us try, if you like, to explore up this stream that our guide is
+descending at such a rate.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And without waiting for my answer he had already set out through the
+recently washed gullies of the rocky bank.</p>
+
+<p>At that moment it can be truly said that Morhange went to meet his
+destiny.</p>
+
+<p>I followed him. We had the greatest difficulty in proceeding two or
+three hundred meters. Finally we saw at our feet a little rushing
+brook where the water was falling a trifle.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;See there?&quot; said Morhange.</p>
+
+<p>A blackish bundle was balancing on the waves of the creek.</p>
+
+<p>When we had come up even with it we saw that it was a man in the long
+dark blue robes of the Tuareg.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Give me your hand,&quot; said Morhange, &quot;and brace yourself against a
+rock, hard.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He was very, very strong. In an instant, as if it were child's play,
+he had brought the body ashore.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He is still alive,&quot; he pronounced with satisfaction. &quot;Now it is a
+question of getting him to the grotto. This is no place to resuscitate
+a drowned man.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He raised the body in his powerful arms.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is astonishing how little he weighs for a man of his height.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>By the time we had retraced the way to the grotto the man's cotton
+clothes were almost dry. But the dye had run plentifully, and it was
+an indigo man that Morhange was trying to recall to life.</p>
+
+<p>When I had made him swallow a quart of rum he opened his eyes, looked
+at the two of us with surprise, then, closing them again, murmured
+almost unintelligibly a phrase, the sense of which we did not get
+until some days later:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Can it be that I have reached the end of my mission?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 53 -->What mission is he talking about?&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let him recover himself completely,&quot; responded Morhange. &quot;You had
+better open some preserved food. With fellows of this build you don't
+have to observe the precautions prescribed for drowned Europeans.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was indeed a species of giant, whose life we had just saved. His
+face, although very thin, was regular, almost beautiful. He had a
+clear skin and little beard. His hair, already white, showed him to be
+a man of sixty years.</p>
+
+<p>When I placed a tin of corned-beef before him a light of voracious joy
+came into his eyes. The tin contained an allowance for four persons.
+It was empty in a flash.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Behold,&quot; said Morhange, &quot;a robust appetite. Now we can put our
+questions without scruple.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Already the Targa had placed over his forehead and face the blue veil
+prescribed by the ritual. He must have been completely famished not to
+have performed this indispensable formality sooner. There was nothing
+visible now but the eyes, watching us with a light that grew steadily
+more sombre.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;French officers,&quot; he murmured at last.</p>
+
+<p>And he took Morhange's hand, and having placed it against his breast,
+carried it to his lips.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly an expression of anxiety passed over his face.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And my mehari?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p>I explained that our guide was then employed in trying to save his
+beast. He in turn told us how it had stumbled, and fallen into the
+current, and he himself, in trying to save it, had been knocked over.
+His forehead had struck a rock. He had cried out. After that he
+remembered nothing more.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is your name?&quot; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Eg-Anteouen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What tribe do you belong to?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The tribe of Kel-Tahat.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Kel-Tahats are the serfs of the tribe of Kel-Rhel&acirc;, the great
+nobles of Hoggar?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; he answered, casting a side glance in my direction. It seemed
+that such precise questions on the affairs of Ahygar were not to his liking.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 54 -->The Kel-Tahats, if I am not mistaken, are established on the
+southwest flank of Atakor.<a name="FNanchor_E_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_E_5"><sup>[5]</sup></a>
+What were you doing, so far from your home territory when we saved your life?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I was going, by way of Tit, to In-Salah,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What were you going to do at In-Salah?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He was about to reply. But suddenly we saw him tremble. His eyes were
+fixed on a point of the cavern. We looked to see what it was. He had
+just seen the rock inscription which had so delighted Morhange an hour before.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you know that?&quot; Morhange asked him with keen curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>The Targa did not speak a word but his eyes had a strange light.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you know that?&quot; insisted Morhange.</p>
+
+<p>And he added:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Antinea?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Antinea,&quot; repeated the man.</p>
+
+<p>And he was silent.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why don't you answer the Captain?&quot; I called out, with a strange
+feeling of rage sweeping over me.</p>
+
+<p>The Targui looked at me. I thought that he was going to speak. But his
+eyes became suddenly hard. Under the lustrous veil I saw his features stiffening.</p>
+
+<p>Morhange and I turned around.</p>
+
+<p>On the threshold of the cavern, breathless, discomfited, harassed by
+an hour of vain pursuit, Bou-Djema had returned to us.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<!-- Page 55 -->
+<h2><a name="VI"><!-- Chapter 6 --></a>VI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE DISASTER OF THE LETTUCE</h3>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>As Eg-Anteouen and Bou-Djema came face to face, I fancied that both
+the Targa and the Chaamba gave a sudden start which each immediately
+repressed. It was nothing more than a fleeting impression.
+Nevertheless, it was enough to make me resolve that as soon as I was
+alone with our guide, I would question him closely concerning our new companion.</p>
+
+<p>The beginning of the day had been wearisome enough. We decided,
+therefore, to spend the rest of it there, and even to pass the night
+in the cave, waiting till the flood had completely subsided.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning, when I was marking our day's march upon the map,
+Morhange came toward me. I noticed that his manner was somewhat restrained.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In three days, we shall be at Shikh-Salah,&quot; I said to him. &quot;Perhaps
+by the evening of the second day, badly as the camels go.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Perhaps we shall separate before then,&quot; he muttered.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How so?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You see, I have changed my itinerary a little. I have given up the
+idea of going straight to Timissao. First I should like to make a
+little excursion into the interior of the Ahaggar range.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I frowned:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is this new idea?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As I spoke I looked about for Eg-Anteouen, whom I had seen in
+conversation with Morhange the previous evening and several minutes
+before. He was quietly mending one of his sandals with a waxed thread
+supplied by Bou-Djema. He did not raise his head.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is simply,&quot; explained Morhange, less and less at his ease, &quot;that
+this man tells me there are similar inscriptions in several caverns in
+western Ahaggar. These caves are near the road that he has to take
+returning home. He must pass by Tit. Now, from Tit, by way of Silet,
+is hardly two hundred <!-- Page 56 -->kilometers. It is a quasi-classic
+route<a name="FNanchor_F_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_F_6"><sup>[6]</sup></a> as
+short again as the one that I shall have to take alone, after I leave
+you, from Shikh-Salah to Timissao. That is in part, you see, the
+reason which has made me decide to....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In part? In very small part,&quot; I replied. &quot;But is your mind absolutely
+made up?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is,&quot; he answered me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When do you expect to leave me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To-day. The road which Eg-Anteouen proposes to take into Ahaggar
+crosses this one about four leagues from here. I have a favor to ask
+of you in this connection.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Please tell me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is to let me take one of the two baggage camels, since my Targa
+has lost his.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The camel which carries your baggage belongs to you as much as does
+your own mehari,&quot; I answered coldly.</p>
+
+<p>We stood there several minutes without speaking. Morhange maintained
+an uneasy silence; I was examining my map. All over it in greater or
+less degree, but particularly towards the south, the unexplored
+portions of Ahaggar stood out as far too numerous white patches in the
+tan area of supposed mountains.</p>
+
+<p>I finally said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You give me your word that when you have seen these famous grottos,
+you will make straight for Timissao by Tit and Silet?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He looked at me uncomprehendingly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why do you ask that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Because, if you promise me that,&mdash;provided, of course, that my
+company is not unwelcome to you&mdash;I will go with you. Either way, I
+shall have two hundred kilometers to go. I shall strike for Shikh-Salah from the south,
+instead of from the west&mdash;that is the only difference.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Morhange looked at me with emotion.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why do you do this?&quot; he murmured.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 57 -->My dear fellow,&quot; I said (it was the first time that I had addressed
+Morhange in this familiar way), &quot;my dear fellow, I have a sense which
+becomes marvellously acute in the desert, the sense of danger. I gave
+you a slight proof of it yesterday morning, at the coming of the
+storm. With all your knowledge of rock inscriptions, you seem to me to
+have no very exact idea of what kind of place Ahaggar is, nor what may
+be in store for you there. On that account, I should be just as well
+pleased not to let you run sure risks alone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have a guide,&quot; he said with his adorable naivet&eacute;.</p>
+
+<p>Eg-Anteouen, in the same squatting position, kept on patching his old slipper.</p>
+
+<p>I took a step toward him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You heard what I said to the Captain?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; the Targa answered calmly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am going with him. We leave you at Tit, to which place you must
+bring us. Where is the place you proposed to show the Captain?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I did not propose to show it to him; it was his own idea,&quot; said the
+Targa coldly. &quot;The grottos with the inscriptions are three-days' march
+southward in the mountains. At first, the road is rather rough. But
+farther on, it turns, and you gain Timissao very easily. There are
+good wells where the Tuareg Taitoqs, who are friendly to the French,
+come to water their camels.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And you know the road well?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He shrugged his shoulders. His eyes had a scornful smile.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have taken it twenty times,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In that case, let's get started.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>We rode for two hours. I did not exchange a word with Morhange. I had
+a clear intuition of the folly we were committing in risking ourselves
+so unconcernedly in that least known and most dangerous part of the
+Sahara. Every blow which had been struck in the last twenty years to
+undermine the French advance had come from this redoubtable Ahaggar.
+But what of it? It was of my own will that I had joined in this mad
+scheme. No need of going over it again. What was the use of spoiling
+my action by a continual exhibition of disapproval? And, furthermore,
+I may as well admit that <!-- Page 58 -->I rather liked the turn that our trip was
+beginning to take. I had, at that instant, the sensation of journeying
+toward something incredible, toward some tremendous adventure. You do
+not live with impunity for months and years as the guest of the
+desert. Sooner or later, it has its way with you, annihilates the good
+officer, the timid executive, overthrows his solicitude for his
+responsibilities. What is there behind those mysterious rocks, those
+dim solitudes, which have held at bay the most illustrious pursuers of
+mystery? You follow, I tell you, you follow.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>&quot;Are you sure at least that this inscription is interesting enough to
+justify us in our undertaking?&quot; I asked Morhange.</p>
+
+<p>My companion started with pleasure. Ever since we began our journey I
+had realized his fear that I was coming along half-heartedly. As soon
+as I offered him a chance to convince me, his scruples vanished, and
+his triumph seemed assured to him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Never,&quot; he answered, in a voice that he tried to control, but through
+which the enthusiasm rang out, &quot;never has a Greek inscription been
+found so far south. The farthest points where they have been reported
+are in the south of Algeria and Cyrene. But in Ahaggar! Think of it!
+It is true that this one is translated into Tifinar. But this
+peculiarity does not diminish the interest of the coincidence: it
+increases it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What do you take to be the meaning of this word?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>Antinea</i> can only be a proper name,&quot; said Morhange. &quot;To whom does it
+refer? I admit I don't know, and if at this very moment I am marching
+toward the south, dragging you along with me, it is because I count on
+learning more about it. Its etymology? It hasn't one definitely, but
+there are thirty possibilities. Bear in mind that the Tifinar alphabet
+is far from tallying with the Greek alphabet, which increases the
+number of hypotheses. Shall I suggest several?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 59 -->I was just about to ask you to.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To begin with, there is
+<img src="images/tfnr59_1.gif" width="95" height="43" alt="Tifinar word" title="Tifinar word" />
+and
+<img src="images/tfnr59_2.gif" width="86" height="46" alt="Tifinar word" title="Tifinar word" />
+<i>the woman who is placed opposite a vessel</i>, an explanation which would have been pleasing to
+Gaffarel and to my venerated master Berlioux. That would apply well
+enough to the figure-heads of ships. There is a technical term that I
+cannot recall at this moment, not if you beat me a hundred times
+over.<a name="FNanchor_G_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_G_7"><sup>[7]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then there is
+<img src="images/tfnr59_3.gif" width="144" height="45" alt="Tifinar word" title="Tifinar word" />
+, that you must relate to
+<img src="images/tfnr59_4.gif" width="98" height="39" alt="Tifinar word" title="Tifinar word" />
+ and
+<img src="images/tfnr59_5.gif" width="95" height="44" alt="Tifinar word" title="Tifinar word" />
+, <i>she who holds herself before the</i>
+<img src="images/tfnr59_5.gif" width="95" height="44" alt="Tifinar word" title="Tifinar word" />
+,  the
+<img src="images/tfnr59_5.gif" width="95" height="44" alt="Tifinar word" title="Tifinar word" />
+of the temple, <i>she who is opposite the sanctuary,</i> therefore priestess. An interpretation
+which would enchant Girard and Renan.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Next we have
+<img src="images/tfnr59_6.gif" width="134" height="44" alt="Tifinar word" title="Tifinar word" />
+, from
+<img src="images/tfnr59_7.gif" width="90" height="41" alt="Tifinar word" title="Tifinar word" />
+and
+<img src="images/tfnr59_8.gif" width="90" height="43" alt="Tifinar word" title="Tifinar word" />
+, new, which can mean two things: either <i>she who is the contrary of young</i>, which is to say
+old; or <i>she who is the enemy of novelty</i> or <i>the enemy of youth</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is still another sense of
+<img src="images/tfnr59_9.gif" width="108" height="42" alt="Tifinar word" title="Tifinar word" />
+, <i>in exchange for,</i> which is capable of complicating all the others I have mentioned;
+likewise there are four meanings for the verb
+<img src="images/tfnr59_10.gif" width="73" height="43" alt="Tifinar word" title="Tifinar word" />
+, which means in turn <i>to go, to flow, to thread</i> or <i>weave, to heap</i>.
+There is more still.... And notice, please, that I have not at my disposition on the
+otherwise commodious hump of this mehari, either the great dictionary of
+Estienne or the lexicons of Passow, of Pape, or of Liddel-Scott. This
+is only to show you, my dear friend, that epigraphy is but a relative
+science, always dependent on the discovery of a new text which
+contradicts the previous findings, when it is not merely at the mercy
+of the humors of the epigraphists and their pet conceptions of the universe.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That was rather my view of it,&quot; I said, &quot;But I must admit my
+astonishment to find that, with such a sceptical opinion of the goal,
+you still do not hesitate to take risks which may be quite considerable.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Morhange smiled wanly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 60 -->I do not interpret, my friend; I collect. From what I will take back
+to him, Dom Granger has the ability to draw conclusions which are
+beyond my slight knowledge. I was amusing myself a little. Pardon me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Just then the girth of one of the baggage camels, evidently not well
+fastened, came loose. Part of the load slipped and fell to the ground.</p>
+
+<p>Eg-Anteouen descended instantly from his beast and helped Bou-Djema
+repair the damage.</p>
+
+<p>When they had finished, I made my mehari walk beside Bou-Djema's.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It will be better to resaddle the camels at the next stop. They will
+have to climb the mountain.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The guide looked at me with amazement. Up to that time I had thought
+it unnecessary to acquaint him with our new projects. But I supposed
+Eg-Anteouen would have told him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Lieutenant, the road across the white plain to Shikh-Salah is not
+mountainous,&quot; said the Chaamba.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We are not keeping to the road across the white plain. We are going
+south, by Ahaggar.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;By Ahaggar,&quot; he murmured. &quot;But....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But what?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I do not know the road.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Eg-Anteouen is going to guide us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Eg-Anteouen!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I watched Bou-Djema as he made this suppressed ejaculation. His eyes
+were fixed on the Targa with a mixture of stupor and fright.</p>
+
+<p>Eg-Anteouen's camel was a dozen yards ahead of us, side by side with
+Morhange's. The two men were talking. I realized that Morhange must be
+conversing with Eg-Anteouen about the famous inscriptions. But we were
+not so far behind that they could not have overheard our words.</p>
+
+<p>Again I looked at my guide. I saw that he was pale.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is it, Bou-Djema?&quot; I asked in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not here, Lieutenant, not here,&quot; he muttered.</p>
+
+<p>His teeth chattered. He added in a whisper:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 61 -->Not here. This evening, when we stop, when he turns to the East to
+pray, when the sun goes down. Then, call me to you. I will tell
+you.... But not here. He is talking, but he is listening. Go ahead.
+Join the Captain.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What next?&quot; I murmured, pressing my camel's neck with my foot so as
+to make him overtake Morhange.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>It was about five o'clock when Eg-Anteouen who was leading the way,
+came to a stop.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Here it is,&quot; he said, getting down from his camel.</p>
+
+<p>It was a beautiful and sinister place. To our left a fantastic wall of
+granite outlined its gray ribs against the sky. This wall was pierced,
+from top to bottom, by a winding corridor about a thousand feet high
+and scarcely wide enough in places to allow three camels to walk
+abreast.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Here it is,&quot; repeated the Targa.</p>
+
+<p>To the west, straight behind us, the track that we were leaving
+unrolled like a pale ribbon. The white plain, the road to Shikh-Salah,
+the established halts, the well-known wells.... And, on the other
+side, this black wall against the mauve sky, this dark passage.</p>
+
+<p>I looked at Morhange.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We had better stop here,&quot; he said simply. &quot;Eg-Anteouen advises us to
+take as much water here as we can carry.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>With one accord we decided to spend the night there, before
+undertaking the mountain.</p>
+
+<p>There was a spring, in a dark basin, from which fell a little cascade;
+there were a few shrubs, a few plants.</p>
+
+<p>Already the camels were browsing at the length of their tethers.</p>
+
+<p>Bou-Djema arranged our camp dinner service of tin cups and plates on a
+great flat stone. An opened tin of meat lay beside a plate of lettuce
+which he had just gathered from the moist earth around the spring. I
+could tell from the distracted manner in which he placed these objects
+upon the rock how deep was his anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>As he was bending toward me to hand me a plate, he pointed to the
+gloomy black corridor which we were about to enter.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>Blad-el-Khouf!&quot;</i> he murmured.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 62 -->What did he say?&quot; asked Morhange, who had seen the gesture.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>Blad-el-Khouf. This is the country of fear.</i> That is what the Arabs
+call Ahaggar.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Bou-Djema went a little distance off and sat down, leaving us to our
+dinner. Squatting on his heels, he began to eat a few lettuce leaves
+that he had kept for his own meal.</p>
+
+<p>Eg-Anteouen was still motionless.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the Targa rose. The sun in the west was no larger than a red
+brand. We saw Eg-Anteouen approach the fountain, spread his blue
+burnous on the ground and kneel upon it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I did not suppose that the Tuareg were so observant of Mussulman
+tradition,&quot; said Morhange.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nor I,&quot; I replied thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>But I had something to do at that moment besides making such
+speculations.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Bou-Djema,&quot; I called.</p>
+
+<p>At the same time, I looked at Eg-Anteouen. Absorbed in his prayer,
+bowed toward the west, apparently he was paying no attention to me. As
+he prostrated himself, I called again.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Bou-Djema, come with me to my mehari; I want to get something out of
+the saddle bags.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Still kneeling, Eg-Anteouen was mumbling his prayer slowly,
+composedly.</p>
+
+<p>But Bou-Djema had not budged.</p>
+
+<p>His only response was a deep moan.</p>
+
+<p>Morhange and I leaped to our feet and ran to the guide. Eg-Anteouen
+reached him as soon as we did.</p>
+
+<p>With his eyes closed and his limbs already cold, the Chaamba breathed
+a death rattle in Morhange's arms. I had seized one of his hands.
+Eg-Anteouen took the other. Each, in his own way, was trying to
+divine, to understand....</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Eg-Anteouen leapt to his feet. He had just seen the poor
+embossed bowl which the Arab had held an instant before between his
+knees, and which now lay overturned upon the ground.</p>
+
+<p>He picked it up, looked quickly at one after another of <!-- Page 63 -->the leaves of
+lettuce remaining in it, and then gave a hoarse exclamation.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So,&quot; said Morhange, &quot;it's his turn now; he is going to go mad.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Watching Eg-Anteouen closely, I saw him hasten without a word to the
+rock where our dinner was set, a second later, he was again beside us,
+holding out the bowl of lettuce which he had not yet touched.</p>
+
+<p>Then he took a thick, long, pale green leaf from Bou-Djema's bowl and
+held it beside another leaf he had just taken from our bowl.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>Afahlehle,&quot;</i> was all he said.</p>
+
+<p>I shuddered, and so did Morhange. It was the <i>afahlehla,</i> the
+<i>falestez</i>, of the Arabs of the Sahara, the terrible plant which had
+killed a part of the Flatters mission more quickly and surely than
+Tuareg arms.</p>
+
+<p>Eg-Anteouen stood up. His tall silhouette was outlined blackly against
+the sky which suddenly had turned pale lilac. He was watching us.</p>
+
+<p>We bent again over the unfortunate guide.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>Afahlehle,&quot;</i> the Targa repeated, and shook his head.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Bou-Djema died in the middle of the night without having regained
+consciousness.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h2><a name="VII"><!-- Chapter 8 --></a>VII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE COUNTRY OF FEAR</h3>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is curious,&quot; said Morhange, &quot;to see how our expedition, uneventful
+since we left Ouargla, is now becoming exciting.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He said this after kneeling for a moment in prayer before the
+painfully dug grave in which we had lain the guide.</p>
+
+<p>I do not believe in God. But if anything can influence whatever powers
+there may be, whether of good or of evil, of light or of darkness, it
+is the prayer of such a man.</p>
+
+<p>For two days we picked our way through a gigantic chaos of black rock
+in what might have been the country <!-- Page 64 -->of the moon, so barren was it. No
+sound but that of stones rolling under the feet of the camels and
+striking like gunshots at the foot of the precipices.</p>
+
+<p>A strange march indeed. For the first few hours, I tried to pick out,
+by compass, the route we were following. But my calculations were soon
+upset; doubtless a mistake due to the swaying motion of the camel. I
+put the compass back in one of my saddle-bags. From that time on,
+Eg-Anteouen was our master. We could only trust ourselves to him.</p>
+
+<p>He went first; Morhange followed him, and I brought up the rear. We
+passed at every step most curious specimens of volcanic rock. But I
+did not examine them. I was no longer interested in such things.
+Another kind of curiosity had taken possession of me. I had come to
+share Morhange's madness. If my companion had said to me: &quot;We are
+doing a very rash thing. Let us go back to the known trails,&quot; I should
+have replied, &quot;You are free to do as you please. But I am going on.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Toward evening of the second day, we found ourselves at the foot of a
+black mountain whose jagged ramparts towered in profile seven thousand
+feet above our heads. It was an enormous shadowy fortress, like the
+outline of a feudal stronghold silhouetted with incredible sharpness
+against the orange sky.</p>
+
+<p>There was a well, with several trees, the first we had seen since
+cutting into Ahaggar.</p>
+
+<p>A group of men were standing about it. Their camels, tethered close
+by, were cropping a mouthful here and there.</p>
+
+<p>At seeing us, the men drew together, alert, on the defensive.</p>
+
+<p>Eg-Anteouen turned to us and said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Eggali Tuareg.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>We went toward them.</p>
+
+<p>They were handsome men, those Eggali, the largest Tuareg whom I ever
+have seen. With unexpected swiftness they drew aside from the well,
+leaving it to us. Eg-Anteouen spoke a few words to them. They looked
+at Morhange and me with a curiosity bordering on fear, but at any
+rate, with respect.</p>
+
+<p>I drew several little presents from my saddlebags and <!-- Page 65 -->was astonished
+at the reserve of the chief, who refused them. He seemed afraid even
+of my glance.</p>
+
+<p>When they had gone, I expressed my astonishment at this shyness for
+which my previous experiences with the tribes of the Sahara had not
+prepared me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They spoke with respect, even with fear,&quot; I said to Eg-Anteouen. &quot;And
+yet the tribe of the Eggali is noble. And that of the Kel-Tahats, to
+which you tell me you belong, is a slave tribe.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A smile lighted the dark eyes of Eg-Anteouen.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is true,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well then?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I told them that we three, the Captain, you and I, were bound for the
+Mountain of the Evil Spirits.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>With a gesture, he indicated the black mountain.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They are afraid. All the Tuareg of Ahaggar are afraid of the Mountain
+of the Evil Spirits. You saw how they were up and off at the very
+mention of its name.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is to the Mountain of the Evil Spirits that you are taking us?&quot;
+queried Morhange.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; replied the Targa, &quot;that is where the inscriptions are that I
+told you about.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You did not mention that detail to us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why should I? The Tuareg are afraid of the <i>ilhinen,</i> spirits with
+horns and tails, covered with hair, who make the cattle sicken and die
+and cast spells over men. But I know well that the Christians are not
+afraid and even laugh at the fears of the Tuareg.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And you?&quot; I asked. &quot;You are a Targa and you are not afraid of the
+<i>ilhinen</i>?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Eg-Anteouen showed a little red leather bag hung about his neck on a
+chain of white seeds.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have my amulet,&quot; he replied gravely, &quot;blessed by the venerable
+Sidi-Moussa himself. And then I am with you. You saved my life. You
+have desired to see the inscriptions. The will of Allah be done!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As he finished speaking, he squatted on his heels, drew out his long
+reed pipe and began to smoke gravely.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All this is beginning to seem very strange,&quot; said Morhange, coming
+over to me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 66 -->You can say that without exaggeration,&quot; I replied. &quot;You remember as
+well as I the passage in which Barth tells of his expedition to the
+Idinen, the Mountain of the Evil Spirits of the Azdjer Tuareg. The
+region had so evil a reputation that no Targa would go with him. But
+he got back.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, he got back,&quot; replied my comrade, &quot;but only after he had been
+lost. Without water or food, he came so near dying of hunger and
+thirst that he had to open a vein and drink his own blood. The
+prospect is not particularly attractive.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I shrugged my shoulders. After all, it was not my fault that we were
+there.</p>
+
+<p>Morhange understood my gesture and thought it necessary to make
+excuses.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I should be curious,&quot; he went on with rather forced gaiety, &quot;to meet
+these spirits and substantiate the facts of Pomponius Mela who knew
+them and locates them, in fact, in the mountain of the Tuareg. He
+calls them <i>Egipans, Blemyens, Gamphasantes, Satyrs.... 'The
+Gamphasantes</i>, he says, 'are naked. The <i>Blemyens</i> have no head: their
+faces are placed on their chests; the <i>Satyrs</i> have nothing like men
+except faces. The <i>Egipans</i> are made as is commonly described.' ...
+<i>Satyrs, Egipans</i> ... isn't it very strange to find Greek names given
+to the barbarian spirits of this region? Believe me, we are on a
+curious trail; I am sure that Antinea will be our key to remarkable
+discoveries.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Listen,&quot; I said, laying a finger on my lips.</p>
+
+<p>Strange sounds rose from about us as the evening advanced with great
+strides. A kind of crackling, followed by long rending shrieks, echoed
+and reechoed to infinity in the neighboring ravines. It seemed to me
+that the whole black mountain suddenly had begun to moan.</p>
+
+<p>We looked at Eg-Anteouen. He was smoking on, without twitching a
+muscle.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The <i>ilhinen</i> are waking up,&quot; he said simply.</p>
+
+<p>Morhange listened without saying a word. Doubtless he understood as I
+did: the overheated rocks, the crackling of the stone, a whole series
+of physical phenomena, the example of the singing statue of Memnon....
+But, for all <!-- Page 67 -->that, this unexpected concert reacted no less painfully
+on our overstrained nerves.</p>
+
+<p>The last words of poor Bou-Djema came to my mind.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The country of fear,&quot; I murmured in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>And Morhange repeated:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The country of fear.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The strange concert ceased as the first stars appeared in the sky.
+With deep emotion we watched the tiny bluish flames appear, one after
+another. At that portentous moment they seemed to span the distance
+between us, isolated, condemned, lost, and our brothers of higher
+latitudes, who at that hour were rushing about their poor pleasures
+with delirious frenzy in cities where the whiteness of electric lamps
+came on in a burst.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;"><i>Ch&ecirc;t-Ahadh essa het&icirc;senet</i><br /></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;"><i>M&acirc;teredjr&ecirc; d'Erredjaot,</i><br /></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;"><i>M&acirc;tesekek d-Essek&acirc;ot,</i><br /></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;"><i>M&acirc;telahrlahr d'Ellerh&acirc;ot,</i><br /></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;"><i>Ett&acirc;s djenen, bar&acirc;d t&icirc;t-ennit ab&acirc;tet.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Eg-Anteouen's voice raised itself in slow guttural tones. It resounded
+with sad, grave majesty in the silence now complete.</p>
+
+<p>I touched the Targa's arm. With a movement of his head, he pointed to
+a constellation glittering in the firmament.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Pleiades,&quot; I murmured to Morhange, showing him the seven pale
+stars, while Eg-Anteouen took up his mournful song in the same
+monotone:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span>&quot;The Daughters of the Night are seven:<br /></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">M&acirc;teredjr&ecirc; and Erredje&acirc;ot,<br /></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">M&acirc;tesekek and Essek&acirc;ot,<br /></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">M&acirc;telahrlahr and Ellerh&acirc;ot,<br /></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The seventh is a boy, one of whose eyes has flown away.&quot;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>A sudden sickness came over me. I seized the Targa's arm as he was
+starting to intone his refrain for the third time.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When will we reach this cave with the inscriptions?&quot; I asked
+brusquely.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 68 -->He looked at me and replied with his usual calm:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We are there.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We are there? Then why don't you show it to us?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You did not ask me,&quot; he replied, not without a touch of insolence.</p>
+
+<p>Morhange had jumped to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The cave is here?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is here,&quot; Eg-Anteouen replied slowly, rising to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Take us to it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Morhange,&quot; I said, suddenly anxious, &quot;night is falling. We will see
+nothing. And perhaps it is still some way off.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is hardly five hundred paces,&quot; Eg-Anteouen replied. &quot;The cave is
+full of dead underbrush. We will set it on fire and the Captain will
+see as in full daylight.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come,&quot; my comrade repeated.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And the camels?&quot; I hazarded.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They are tethered,&quot; said Eg-Anteouen, &quot;and we shall not be gone
+long.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He had started toward the black mountain. Morhange, trembling with
+excitement, followed. I followed, too, the victim of profound
+uneasiness. My pulses throbbed. &quot;I am not afraid,&quot; I kept repeating to
+myself. &quot;I swear that this is not fear.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And really it was not fear. Yet, what a strange dizziness! There was a
+mist over my eyes. My ears buzzed. Again I heard Eg-Anteouen's voice,
+but multiplied, immense, and at the same time, very low.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span>&quot;The Daughters of the Night are seven....&quot;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>It seemed to me that the voice of the mountain, re-echoing, repeated
+that sinister last line to infinity:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span>&quot;And the seventh is a boy, one of whose eyes has flown away.&quot;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>&quot;Here it is,&quot; said the Targa.</p>
+
+<p>A black hole in the wall opened up. Bending over, Eg-Anteouen entered.
+We followed him. The darkness closed around us.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 69 -->A yellow flame. Eg-Anteouen had struck his flint. He set fire to a
+pile of brush near the surface. At first we could see nothing. The
+smoke blinded us.</p>
+
+<p>Eg-Anteouen stayed at one side of the opening of the cave. He was
+seated and, more inscrutible than ever, had begun again to blow great
+puffs of gray smoke from his pipe.</p>
+
+<p>The burning brush cast a flickering light. I caught a glimpse of
+Morhange. He seemed very pale. With both hands braced against the
+wall, he was working to decipher a mass of signs which I could
+scarcely distinguish.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, I thought I could see his hands trembling.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The devil,&quot; I thought, finding it more and more difficult to
+co-ordinate my thoughts, &quot;he seems to be as unstrung as I.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I heard him call out to Eg-Anteouen in what seemed to me a loud voice:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Stand to one side. Let the air in. What a smoke!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He kept on working at the signs.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly I heard him again, but with difficulty. It seemed as if even
+sounds were confused in the smoke.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Antinea ... At last ... Antinea. But not cut in the rock ... the
+marks traced in ochre ... not ten years old, perhaps not five....
+Oh!....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He pressed his hands to his head. Again he cried out:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is a mystery. A tragic mystery.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I laughed teasingly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come on, come on. Don't get excited over it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He took me by the arm and shook me. I saw his eyes big with terror and
+astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Are you mad?&quot; he yelled in my face.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not so loud,&quot; I replied with the same little laugh.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at me again, and sank down, overcome, on a rock opposite me.
+Eg-Anteouen was still smoking placidly at the mouth of the cave. We
+could see the red circle of his pipe glowing in the darkness.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Madman! Madman!&quot; repeated Morhange. His voice seemed to stick in his
+throat.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly he bent over the brush which was giving its last darts of
+flame, high and clear. He picked out a branch <!-- Page 70 -->which had not yet
+caught. I saw him examine it carefully, then throw it back in the fire
+with a loud laugh.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ha! Ha! That's good, all right!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He staggered toward Eg-Anteouen, pointing to the fire.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's hemp. Hasheesh, hasheesh. Oh, that's a good one, all right.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, it's a good one,&quot; I repeated, bursting into laughter.</p>
+
+<p>Eg-Anteouen quietly smiled approval. The dying fire lit his
+inscrutable face and flickered in his terrible dark eyes.</p>
+
+<p>A moment passed. Suddenly Morhange seized the Targa's arm.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I want to smoke, too,&quot; he said. &quot;Give me a pipe.&quot; The specter gave
+him one.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What! A European pipe?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A European pipe,&quot; I repeated, feeling gayer and gayer.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;With an initial, 'M.' As if made on purpose. M.... Captain Morhange.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Masson,&quot; corrected Eg-Anteouen quietly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Captain Masson,&quot; I repeated in concert with Morhange.</p>
+
+<p>We laughed again.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ha! Ha! Ha! Captain Masson.... Colonel Flatters.... The well of
+Garama. They killed him to take his pipe ... that pipe. It was
+Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh who killed Captain Masson.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It was Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh,&quot; repeated the Targa with imperturbable
+calm.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Captain Masson and Colonel Flatters had left the convoy to look for
+the well,&quot; said Morhange, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It was then that the Tuareg attacked them,&quot; I finished, laughing as
+hard as I could.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A Targa of Ahagga seized the bridle of Captain Masson's horse,&quot; said
+Morhange.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh had hold of Colonel Flatters' bridle,&quot; put in
+Eg-Anteouen.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Colonel puts his foot in the stirrup and receives a cut from
+Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh's saber,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Captain Masson draws his revolver and fires on Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh,
+shooting off three fingers of his left hand,&quot; said Morhange.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But,&quot; finished Eg-Anteouen imperturbably, &quot;but
+<!-- Page 71 -->Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh,
+with one blow of his saber, splits Captain Masson's skull.&quot;..</p>
+
+<p>He gave a silent, satisfied laugh as he spoke. The dying flame lit up
+his face. We saw the gleaming black stem of his pipe. He held it in
+his left hand. One finger, no, two fingers only on that hand. Hello! I
+had not noticed that before.</p>
+
+<p>Morhange also noticed it, for he finished with a loud laugh.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then, after splitting his skull, you robbed him. You took his pipe
+from him. Bravo, Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh does not reply, but I can see how satisfied with
+himself he is. He keeps on smoking. I can hardly see his features now.
+The firelight pales, dies. I have never laughed so much as this
+evening. I am sure Morhange never has, either. Perhaps he will forget
+the cloister. And all because Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh stole Captain
+Masson's pipe....</p>
+
+<p>Again that accursed song. &quot;The seventh is a boy, one of whose eyes has
+flown away.&quot; One cannot imagine more senseless words. It is very
+strange, really: there seem to be four of us in this cave now. Four, I
+say, five, six, seven, eight.... Make yourselves at home, my friends.
+What! there are no more of you?... I am going to find out at last how
+the spirits of this region are made, the <i>Gamphasantes</i>, the
+<i>Blemyens</i>.... Morhange says that the <i>Blemyens</i> have their faces on
+the middle of their chests. Surely this one who is seizing me in his
+arms is not a <i>Blemyen</i>! Now he is carrying me outside. And Morhange
+... I do not want them to forget Morhange....</p>
+
+<p>They did not forget him; I see him perched on a camel in front of that
+one to which I am fastened. They did well to fasten me, for otherwise
+I surely would tumble off. These spirits certainly are not bad
+fellows. But what a long way it is! I want to stretch out. To sleep. A
+while ago we surely were following a long passage, then we were in the
+open air. Now we are again in an endless stifling corridor. Here are
+the stars again.... Is this ridiculous course going to keep on?...</p>
+
+<p>Hello, lights! Stars, perhaps. No, lights, I say. A stairway, on my
+word; of rocks, to be sure, but still, a stairway. How <!-- Page 72 -->can the
+camels...? But it is no longer a camel; this is a man carrying me. A
+man dressed in white, not a <i>Gamphasante</i> nor a <i>Blemyen</i>. Morhange
+must be giving himself airs with his historical reasoning, all false,
+I repeat, all false. Good Morhange. Provided that his <i>Gamphasante</i>
+does not let him fall on this unending stairway. Something glitters on
+the ceiling. Yes, it is a lamp, a copper lamp, as at Tunis, at
+Barbouchy's. Good, here again you cannot see anything. But I am making
+a fool of myself; I am lying down; now I can go to sleep. What a silly
+day!... Gentlemen, I assure you that it is unnecessary to bind me: I
+do not want to go down on the boulevards.</p>
+
+<p>Darkness again. Steps of someone going away. Silence.</p>
+
+<p>But only for a moment. Someone is talking beside me. What are they
+saying?... No, it is impossible. That metallic ring, that voice. Do
+you know what it is calling, that voice, do you know what it is
+calling in the tones of someone used to the phrase? Well, it is
+calling:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Play your cards, gentlemen, play your cards. There are ten thousand
+<i>louis</i> in the bank. Play your cards, gentlemen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In the name of God, am I or am I not at Ahaggar?</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h2><a name="VIII"><!-- Chapter 9 --></a>VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>AWAKENING AT AHAGGAR</h3>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>It was broad daylight when I opened my eyes. I thought at once of
+Morhange. I could not see him, but I heard him, close by, giving
+little grunts of surprise.</p>
+
+<p>I called to him. He ran to me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then they didn't tie you up?&quot; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I beg your pardon. They did. But they did it badly; I managed to get
+free.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You might have untied me, too,&quot; I remarked crossly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What good would it have done? I should only have waked you up. And I
+thought that your first word would be to call me. There, that's done.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I reeled as I tried to stand on my feet.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 73 -->Morhange smiled.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We might have spent the whole night smoking and drinking and not been
+in a worse state,&quot; he said. &quot;Anyhow, that Eg-Anteouen with his
+hasheesh is a fine rascal.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh,&quot; I corrected.</p>
+
+<p>I rubbed my hand over my forehead.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Where are we?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My dear boy,&quot; Morhange replied, &quot;since I awakened from the
+extraordinary nightmare which is mixed up with the smoky cave and the
+lamp-lit stairway of the Arabian Nights, I have been going from
+surprise to surprise, from confusion to confusion. Just look around
+you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I rubbed my eyes and stared. Then I seized my friend's hand.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Morhange,&quot; I begged, &quot;tell me if we are still dreaming.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>We were in a round room, perhaps fifty feet in diameter, and of about
+the same height, lighted by a great window opening on a sky of intense
+blue.</p>
+
+<p>Swallows flew back and forth, outside, giving quick, joyous cries.</p>
+
+<p>The floor, the incurving walls and the ceiling were of a kind of
+veined marble like porphyry, panelled with a strange metal, paler than
+gold, darker than silver, clouded just then by the early morning mist
+that came in through the window in great puffs.</p>
+
+<p>I staggered toward this window, drawn by the freshness of the breeze
+and the sunlight which was chasing away my dreams, and I leaned my
+elbows on the balustrade.</p>
+
+<p>I could not restrain a cry of delight.</p>
+
+<p>I was standing on a kind of balcony, cut into the flank of a mountain,
+overhanging an abyss. Above me, blue sky; below appeared a veritable
+earthly paradise hemmed in on all sides by mountains that formed a
+continuous and impassable wall about it. A garden lay spread out down
+there. The palm trees gently swayed their great fronds. At their feet
+was a tangle of the smaller trees which grow in an oasis under their
+protection: almonds, lemons, oranges, and many others which I could
+not distinguish from that height. A broad blue stream, fed by a
+waterfall, emptied into a charming lake, the waters of which had the
+marvellous trans<!-- Page 74 -->parency which comes in high altitudes. Great birds
+flew in circles over this green hollow; I could see in the lake the
+red flash of a flamingo.</p>
+
+<p>The peaks of the mountains which towered on all sides were completely
+covered with snow.</p>
+
+<p>The blue stream, the green palms, the golden fruit, and above it all,
+the miraculous snow, all this bathed in that limpid air, gave such an
+impression of beauty, of purity, that my poor human strength could no
+longer stand the sight of it. I laid my forehead on the balustrade,
+which, too, was covered with that heavenly snow, and began to cry like
+a baby.</p>
+
+<p>Morhange was behaving like another child. But he had awakened before I
+had, and doubtless had had time to grasp, one by one, all these
+details whose fantastic <i>ensemble</i> staggered me.</p>
+
+<p>He laid his hand on my shoulder and gently pulled me back into the
+room.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You haven't seen anything yet,&quot; he said. &quot;Look! Look!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Morhange!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, old man, what do you want me to do about it? Look!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I had just realized that the strange room was furnished&mdash;God forgive
+me&mdash;in the European fashion. There were indeed, here and there, round
+leather Tuareg cushions, brightly colored blankets from Gafsa, rugs
+from Kairouan, and Caramani hangings which, at that moment, I should
+have dreaded to draw aside. But a half-open panel in the wall showed a
+bookcase crowded with books. A whole row of photographs of
+masterpieces of ancient art were hung on the walls. Finally there was
+a table almost hidden under its heap of papers, pamphlets, books. I
+thought I should collapse at seeing a recent number of the
+<i>Archaeological Review</i>.</p>
+
+<p>I looked at Morhange. He was looking at me, and suddenly a mad laugh
+seized us and doubled us up for a good minute.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I do not know,&quot; Morhange finally managed to say, &quot;whether or not we
+shall regret some day our little excursion into Ahaggar. But admit, in
+the meantime, that it promises to be rich in unexpected adventures.
+That unforgettable <!-- Page 75 -->guide who puts us to sleep just to distract us
+from the unpleasantness of caravan life and who lets me experience, in
+the best of good faith, the far-famed delights of hasheesh: that
+fantastic night ride, and, to cap the climax, this cave of a Nureddin
+who must have received the education of the Athenian Bersot at the
+French <i>Ecole Normale</i>&mdash;all this is enough, on my word, to upset the
+wits of the best balanced.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What do I think, my poor friend? Why, just what you yourself think. I
+don't understand it at all, not at all. What you politely call my
+learning is not worth a cent. And why shouldn't I be all mixed up?
+This living in caves amazes me. Pliny speaks of the natives living in
+caves, seven days' march southwest of the country of the Amantes, and
+twelve days to the westward of the great Syrte. Herodotus says also
+that the Garamentes used to go out in their chariots to hunt the
+cave-dwelling Ethopians. But here we are in Ahaggar, in the midst of
+the Targa country, and the best authorities tell us that the Tuareg
+never have been willing to live in caves. Duveyrier is precise on that
+point. And what is this, I ask you, but a cave turned into a workroom,
+with pictures of the Venus de Medici and the Apollo Sauroctone on the
+walls? I tell you that it is enough to drive you mad.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And Morhange threw himself on a couch and began to roar with laughter
+again.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;See,&quot; I said, &quot;this is Latin.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I had picked up several scattered papers from the work-table in the
+middle of the room. Morhange took them from my hands and devoured them
+greedily. His face expressed unbounded stupefaction.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Stranger and stranger, my boy. Someone here is composing, with much
+citation of texts, a dissertation on the Gorgon Islands: <i>de Gorgonum
+insulis</i>. Medusa, according to him, was a Libyan savage who lived near
+Lake Triton, our present Chott Melhrir, and it is there that Perseus
+... Ah!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Morhange's words choked in his throat. A sharp, shrill voice pierced
+the immense room.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Gentlemen, I beg you, let my papers alone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I turned toward the newcomer.</p>
+
+<p>One of the Caramani curtains was drawn aside, and the <!-- Page 76 -->most unexpected
+of persons came in. Resigned as we were to unexpected events, the
+improbability of this sight exceeded anything our imaginations could
+have devised.</p>
+
+<p>On the threshold stood a little bald-headed man with a pointed sallow
+face half hidden by an enormous pair of green spectacles and a pepper
+and salt beard. No shirt was visible, but an impressive broad red
+cravat. He wore white trousers. Red leather slippers furnished the
+only Oriental suggestion of his costume.</p>
+
+<p>He wore, not without pride, the rosette of an officer of the
+Department of Education.</p>
+
+<p>He collected the papers which Morhange had dropped in his amazement,
+counted them, arranged them; then, casting a peevish glance at us, he
+struck a copper gong.</p>
+
+<p>The porti&eacute;re was raised again. A huge white Targa entered. I seemed to
+recognize him as one of the genii of
+the cave.<a name="FNanchor_H_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_H_8"><sup>[8]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ferradji,&quot; angrily demanded the little officer of the Department of
+Education, &quot;why were these gentlemen brought into the library?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Targa bowed respectfully.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh came back sooner than we expected,&quot; he replied,
+&quot;and last night the embalmers had not yet finished. They brought them
+here in the meantime,&quot; and he pointed to us.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very well, you may go,&quot; snapped the little man.</p>
+
+<p>Ferradji backed toward the door. On the threshold, he stopped and
+spoke again:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I was to remind you, sir, that dinner is served.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All right. Go along.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And the little man seated himself at the desk and began to finger the papers feverishly.</p>
+
+<p>I do not know why, but a mad feeling of exasperation seized me. I
+walked toward him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 77 -->Sir,&quot; I said, &quot;my friend and I do not know where we are nor who you
+are. We can see only that you are French, since you are wearing one of
+the highest honorary decorations of our country. You may have made the
+same observation on your part,&quot; I added, indicating the slender red
+ribbon which I wore on my vest.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at me in contemptuous surprise.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, sir?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, sir, the Negro who just went out pronounced the name of
+Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh, the name of a brigand, a bandit, one of the
+assassins of Colonel Flatters. Are you acquainted with that detail, sir?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The little man surveyed me coldly and shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Certainly. But what difference do you suppose that makes to me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What!&quot; I cried, beside myself with rage. &quot;Who are you, anyway?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sir,&quot; said the little old man with comical dignity, turning to
+Morhange, &quot;I call you to witness the strange manners of your
+companion. I am here in my own house and I do not allow....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You must excuse my comrade, sir,&quot; said Morhange, stepping forward.
+&quot;He is not a man of letters, as you are. These young lieutenants are
+hot-headed, you know. And besides, you can understand why both of us
+are not as calm as might be desired.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I was furious and on the point of disavowing these strangely humble
+words of Morhange. But a glance showed me that there was as much irony
+as surprise in his expression.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I know indeed that most officers are brutes,&quot; grumbled the little old
+man. &quot;But that is no reason....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am only an officer myself,&quot; Morhange went on, in an even humbler
+tone, &quot;and if ever I have been sensible to the intellectual
+inferiority of that class, I assure you that it was now in glancing&mdash;I
+beg your pardon for having taken the liberty to do so&mdash;in glancing
+over the learned pages which you devote to the passionate story of
+Medusa, according to Procles of Carthage, cited by Pausanias.&quot;</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 78 -->A laughable surprise spread over the features of the little old man.
+He hastily wiped his spectacles.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What!&quot; he finally cried.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is indeed unfortunate, in this matter,&quot; Morhange continued
+imperturbably, &quot;that we are not in possession of the curious
+dissertation devoted to this burning question by Statius Sebosus, a
+work which we know only through Pliny and which....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You know Statius Sebosus?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And which, my master, the geographer Berlioux....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You knew Berlioux&mdash;you were his pupil?&quot; stammered the little man with
+the decoration.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have had that honor,&quot; replied Morhange, very coldly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But, but, sir, then you have heard mentioned, you are familiar with
+the question, the problem of Atlantis?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Indeed I am not unacquainted with the works of Lagneau, Ploix, Arbois
+de Jubainville,&quot; said Morhange frigidly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My God!&quot; The little man was going through extraordinary contortions.
+&quot;Sir&mdash;Captain, how happy I am, how many excuses....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Just then, the porti&eacute;re was raised. Ferradji appeared again.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sir, they want me to tell you that unless you come, they will begin without you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am coming, I am coming. Say, Ferradji, that we will be there in a
+moment. Why, sir, if I had foreseen ... It is extraordinary ... to
+find an officer who knows Procles of Carthage and Arbois de
+Jubainville. Again ... But I must introduce myself. I am Etienne Le
+Mesge, Fellow of the University.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Captain Morhange,&quot; said my companion.</p>
+
+<p>I stepped forward in my turn.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Lieutenant de Saint-Avit. It is a fact, sir, that I am very likely to
+confuse Arbois of Carthage with Procles de Jubainville. Later, I shall
+have to see about filling up those gaps. But just now, I should like
+to know where we are, if we are free, and if not, what occult power
+holds us. You have the appearance, sir, of being sufficiently at home
+in this house to be able to enlighten us upon this point, which I must
+confess, I weakly consider of the first importance.&quot;</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 79 -->M. Le Mesge looked at me. A rather malevolent smile twitched the
+corners of his mouth. He opened his lips....</p>
+
+<p>A gong sounded impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In good time, gentlemen, I will tell you. I will explain
+everything.... But now you see that we must hurry. It is time for
+lunch and our fellow diners will get tired of waiting.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Our fellow diners?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There are two of them,&quot; M. Le Mesge explained. &quot;We three constitute
+the European personnel of the house, that is, the fixed personnel,&quot; he
+seemed to feel obliged to add, with his disquieting smile. &quot;Two
+strange fellows, gentlemen, with whom, doubtless, you will care to
+have as little to do as possible. One is a churchman, narrow-minded,
+though a Protestant. The other is a man of the world gone astray, an old fool.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Pardon,&quot; I said, &quot;but it must have been he whom I heard last night.
+He was gambling: with you and the minister, doubtless?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>M. Le Mesge made a gesture of offended dignity.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The idea! With me, sir? It is with the Tuareg that he plays. He
+teaches them every game imaginable. There, that is he who is striking
+the gong to hurry us up. It is half past nine, and the <i>Salle de
+Trente et Quarante</i> opens at ten o'clock. Let us hurry. I suppose that
+anyway you will not be averse to a little refreshment.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Indeed we shall not refuse,&quot; Morhange replied.</p>
+
+<p>We followed M. Le Mesge along a long winding corridor with frequent
+steps. The passage was dark. But at intervals rose-colored night
+lights and incense burners were placed in niches cut into the solid
+rock. The passionate Oriental scents perfumed the darkness and
+contrasted strangely with the cold air of the snowy peaks.</p>
+
+<p>From time to time, a white Targa, mute and expressionless as a
+phantom, would pass us and we would hear the clatter of his slippers
+die away behind us.</p>
+
+<p>M. Le Mesge stopped before a heavy door covered with the same pale
+metal which I had noticed on the walls of the library. He opened it
+and stood aside to let us pass.</p>
+
+<p>Although the dining room which we entered had little in <!-- Page 80 -->common with
+European dining rooms, I have known many which might have envied its
+comfort. Like the library, it was lighted by a great window. But I
+noticed that it had an outside exposure, while that of the library
+overlooked the garden in the center of the crown of mountains.</p>
+
+<p>No center table and none of those barbaric pieces of furniture that we
+call chairs. But a great number of buffet tables of gilded wood, like
+those of Venice, heavy hangings of dull and subdued colors, and
+cushions, Tuareg or Tunisian. In the center was a huge mat on which a
+feast was placed in finely woven baskets among silver pitchers and
+copper basins filled with perfumed water. The sight of it filled me
+with childish satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>M. Le Mesge stepped forward and introduced us to the two persons who
+already had taken their places on the mat.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mr. Spardek,&quot; he said; and by that simple phrase I understood how far
+our host placed himself above vain human titles.</p>
+
+<p>The Reverend Mr. Spardek, of Manchester, bowed reservedly and asked
+our permission to keep on his tall, wide-brimmed hat. He was a dry,
+cold man, tall and thin. He ate in pious sadness, enormously.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Monsieur Bielowsky,&quot; said M. Le Mesge, introducing us to the second guest.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Count Casimir Bielowsky, Hetman of Jitomir,&quot; the latter corrected
+with perfect good humor as he stood up to shake hands.</p>
+
+<p>I felt at once a certain liking for the Hetman of Jitomir who was a
+perfect example of an old beau. His chocolate-colored hair was parted
+in the center (later I found out that the Hetman dyed it with a
+concoction of <i>khol</i>). He had magnificent whiskers, also
+chocolate-colored, in the style of the Emperor Francis Joseph. His
+nose was undeniably a little red, but so fine, so aristocratic. His
+hands were marvelous. It took some thought to place the date of the
+style of the count's costume, bottle green with yellow facings,
+ornamented with a huge seal of silver and enamel. The recollection of
+a portrait of the Duke de Morny made me decide on 1860 or 1862; and
+the further chapters of this story will show that I was not far wrong.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 81 -->The count made me sit down beside him. One of his first questions was
+to demand if I ever cut fives.<a name="FNanchor_J_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_J_9"><sup>[9]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>&quot;That depends on how I feel,&quot; I replied.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well said. I have not done so since 1866. I swore off. A row. The
+devil of a party. One day at Walewski's. I cut fives. Naturally I
+wasn't worrying any. The other had a four. 'Idiot!' cried the little
+Baron de Chaux Gisseux who was laying staggering sums on my table. I
+hurled a bottle of champagne at his head. He ducked. It was Marshal
+Baillant who got the bottle. A scene! The matter was fixed up because
+we were both Free Masons. The Emperor made me promise not to cut fives
+again. I have kept my promise not to cut fives again. I have kept my
+promise. But there are moments when it is hard....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He added in a voice steeped in melancholy:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Try a little of this Ahaggar 1880. Excellent vintage. It is I,
+Lieutenant, who instructed these people in the uses of the juice of
+the vine. The vine of the palm trees is very good when it is properly
+fermented, but it gets insipid in the long run.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was powerful, that Ahaggar 1880. We sipped it from large silver
+goblets. It was fresh as Rhine wine, dry as the wine of the Hermitage.
+And then, suddenly, it brought back recollections of the burning wines
+of Portugal; it seemed sweet, fruity, an admirable wine, I tell you.</p>
+
+<p>That wine crowned the most perfect of luncheons. There were few meats,
+to be sure; but those few were remarkably seasoned. Profusion of
+cakes, pancakes served with honey, fragrant fritters, cheese-cakes of
+sour milk and dates. And everywhere, in great enamel platters or
+wicker jars, fruit, masses of fruit, figs, dates, pistachios, jujubes,
+pomegranates, apricots, huge bunches of grapes, larger than those
+which bent the shoulders of the Hebrews in the land of Canaan, heavy
+watermelons cut in two, showing their moist, red pulp and their rows
+of black seeds.</p>
+
+<p>I had scarcely finished one of these beautiful iced fruits, when M. Le
+Mesge rose.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 82 -->Gentlemen, if you are ready,&quot; he said to Morhange and me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Get away from that old dotard as soon as you can,&quot; whispered the
+Hetman of Jitomir to me. &quot;The party of <i>Trente et Quarante</i> will begin
+soon. You shall see. You shall see. We go it even harder than at Cora
+Pearl's.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Gentlemen,&quot; repeated M. Le Mesge in his dry tone.</p>
+
+<p>We followed him. When the three of us were back again in the library,
+he said, addressing me:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You, sir, asked a little while ago what occult power holds you here.
+Your manner was threatening, and I should have refused to comply had
+it not been for your friend, whose knowledge enables him to appreciate
+better than you the value of the revelations I am about to make to you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He touched a spring in the side of the wall. A cupboard appeared,
+stuffed with books. He took one.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are both of you,&quot; continued M. Le Mesge, &quot;in the power of a
+woman. This woman, the sultaness, the queen, the absolute sovereign of
+Ahaggar, is called Antinea. Don't start, M. Morhange, you will soon understand.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He opened the book and read this sentence:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'I must warn you before I take up the subject matter: do not be
+surprised to hear me call the barbarians by Greek names.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is that book?&quot; stammered Morhange, whose pallor terrified me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This book,&quot; M. Le Mesge replied very slowly, weighing his words, with
+an extraordinary expression of triumph, &quot;is the greatest, the most
+beautiful, the most secret, of the dialogues of Plato; it is the
+Critias of Atlantis.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Critias? But it is unfinished,&quot; murmured Morhange.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is unfinished in France, in Europe, everywhere else,&quot; said M. Le
+Mesge, &quot;but it is finished here. Look for yourself at this copy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But what connection,&quot; repeated Morhange, while his eyes traveled
+avidly over the pages, &quot;what connection can there be between this
+dialogue, complete,&mdash;yes, it seems to me complete&mdash;what connection
+with this woman, Antinea? Why should it be in her possession?&quot;</p>
+
+<!-- Page 83 -->
+<p>&quot;Because,&quot; replied the little man imperturbably, &quot;this book is her
+patent of nobility, her <i>Almanach de Gotha</i>, in a sense, do you
+understand? Because it established her prodigious genealogy: because she is....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Because she is?&quot; repeated Morhange.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Because she is the grand daughter of Neptune, the last descendant of
+the Atlantides.&quot;</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h2><a name="IX"><!-- Chapter 9 --></a>IX</h2>
+
+<h3>ATLANTIS</h3>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>M. Le Mesge looked at Morhange triumphantly. It was evident that he
+addressed himself exclusively to Morhange, considering him alone
+worthy of his confidences.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There have been many, sir,&quot; he said, &quot;both French and foreign
+officers who have been brought here at the caprice of our sovereign,
+Antinea. You are the first to be honored by my disclosures. But you
+were the pupil of Berlioux, and I owe so much to the memory of that
+great man that it seems to me I may do him homage by imparting to one
+of his disciples the unique results of my private research.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He struck the bell. Ferradji appeared.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Coffee for these gentlemen,&quot; ordered M. Le Mesge.</p>
+
+<p>He handed us a box, gorgeously decorated in the most flaming colors,
+full of Egyptian cigarettes.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I never smoke,&quot; he explained. &quot;But Antinea sometimes comes here.
+These are her cigarettes. Help yourselves, gentlemen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I have always had a horror of that pale tobacco which gives a barber
+of the Rue de la Michodi&egrave;re the illusion of oriental voluptuousness.
+But, in their way, these musk-scented cigarettes were not bad, and it
+was a long time since I had used up my stock of Caporal.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 84 -->Here are the back numbers of <i>Le Vie Parisienne</i>&quot; said M. Le Mesge
+to me. &quot;Amuse yourself with them, if you like, while I talk to your friend.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sir,&quot; I replied brusquely, &quot;it is true that I never studied with
+Berlioux. Nevertheless, you must allow me to listen to your
+conversation: I shall hope to find something in it to amuse me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;As you wish,&quot; said the little old man.</p>
+
+<p>We settled ourselves comfortably. M. Le Mesge sat down before the
+desk, shot his cuffs, and commenced as follows:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;However much, gentlemen, I prize complete objectivity in matters of
+erudition, I cannot utterly detach my own history from that of the
+last descendant of Clito and Neptune.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am the creation of my own efforts. From my childhood, the
+prodigious impulse given to the science of history by the nineteenth
+century has affected me. I saw where my way led. I have followed it,
+in spite of everything.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In spite of everything, everything&mdash;I mean it literally. With no
+other resources than my own work and merit, I was received as Fellow
+of History and Geography at the examination of 1880. A great
+examination! Among the thirteen who were accepted there were names
+which have since become illustrious: Julian, Bourgeois, Auerbach.... I
+do not envy my colleagues on the summits of their official honors; I
+read their works with commiseration; and the pitiful errors to which
+they are condemned by the insufficiency of their documents would amply
+counterbalance my chagrin and fill me with ironic joy, had I not been
+raised long since above the satisfaction of self-love.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When I was Professor at the Lyc&eacute;e du Parc at Lyons. I knew Berlioux
+and followed eagerly his works on African History. I had, at that
+time, a very original idea for my doctor's thesis. I was going to
+establish a parallel between the Berber heroine of the seventh
+century, who struggled against the Arab invader, Kahena, and the
+French heroine, Joan of Arc, who struggled against the English
+invader. I proposed to the <i>Facult&eacute; des Lettres</i> at Paris this title
+for my thesis: <i>Joan of Arc and the Tuareg</i>. This simple announcement
+gave rise to a perfect outcry in learned circles, a furor of
+<!-- Page 85 -->ridicule. My friends warned me discreetly. I refused to believe them.
+Finally I was forced to believe when my rector summoned me before him
+and, after manifesting an astonishing interest in my health, asked
+whether I should object to taking two years' leave on half pay. I
+refused indignantly. The rector did not insist; but fifteen days
+later, a ministerial decree, with no other legal procedure, assigned
+me to one of the most insignificant and remote Lyc&eacute;es of France, at
+Mont-de-Marsan.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Realize my exasperation and you will excuse the excesses to which I
+delivered myself in that strange country. What is there to do in
+Landes, if you neither eat nor drink? I did both violently. My pay
+melted away in <i>fois gras</i>, in woodcocks, in fine wines. The result
+came quickly enough: in less than a year my joints began to crack like
+the over-oiled axle of a bicycle that has gone a long way upon a dusty
+track. A sharp attack of gout nailed me to my bed. Fortunately, in
+that blessed country, the cure is in reach of the suffering. So I
+departed to Dax, at vacation time, to try the waters.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I rented a room on the bank of the Adour, overlooking the <i>Promenade
+des Baignots</i>. A charwoman took care of it for me. She worked also for
+an old gentleman, a retired Examining Magistrate, President of the
+Roger-Ducos Society, which was a vague scientific backwater, in which
+the scholars of the neighborhood applied themselves with prodigious
+incompetence to the most whimsical subjects. One afternoon I stayed in
+my room on account of a very heavy rain. The good woman was
+energetically polishing the copper latch of my door. She used a paste
+called Tripoli, which she spread upon a paper and rubbed and
+rubbed.... The peculiar appearance of the paper made me curious. I
+glanced at it. 'Great heavens! Where did you get this paper?' She was
+perturbed. 'At my master's; he has lots of it. I tore this out of a
+notebook.' 'Here are ten francs. Go and get me the notebook.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A quarter of an hour later, she was back with it. By good luck it
+lacked only one page, the one with which she had been polishing my
+door. This manuscript, this notebook, have you any idea what it was?
+Merely the <i>Voyage to Atlantis</i> <!-- Page 86 -->of the mythologist Denis de Milet,
+which is mentioned by Diodorus and the loss of which I had so often
+heard Berlioux deplore.<a name="FNanchor_K_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_K_10"><sup>[10]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>&quot;This inestimable document contained numerous quotations from the
+Critias. It gave an abstract of the illustrious dialogue, the sole
+existing copy of which you held in your hands a little while ago. It
+established past controversy the location of the stronghold of the
+Atlantides, and demonstrated that this site, which is denied by
+science, was not submerged by the waves, as is supposed by the rare
+and timorous defenders of the Atlantide hypothesis. He called it the
+'central Mazycian range,' You know there is no longer any doubt as to
+the identification of the Mazyces of Herodotus with the people of
+Imoschaoch, the Tuareg. But the manuscript of Denys unquestionably
+identifies the historical Mazyces with the Atlantides of the supposed legend.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I learned, therefore, from Denys, not only that the central part of
+Atlantis, the cradle and home of the dynasty of Neptune, had not sunk
+in the disaster described by Plato as engulfing the rest of the
+Atlantide isle, but also that it corresponded to the Tuareg Ahaggar,
+and that, in this Ahaggar, at least in his time, the noble dynasty of
+Neptune was supposed to be still existent.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The historians of Atlantis put the date of the cataclysm which
+destroyed all or part of that famous country at nine thousand years
+before Christ. If Denis de Milet, who wrote scarcely three thousand
+years ago, believed that in his time, the dynastic issue of Neptune
+was still ruling its dominion, you will understand that I thought
+immediately&mdash;what has lasted nine thousand years may last eleven
+thousand. From that instant I had only one aim: to find the possible
+descendants of the Atlantides, and, since I had many reasons for
+supposing them to be debased and ignorant of their original splendor,
+to inform them of their illustrious descent.</p>
+<!-- Page 87 -->
+
+<p>&quot;You will easily understand that I imparted none of my intentions to
+my superiors at the University. To solicit their approval or even
+their permission, considering the attitude they had taken toward me,
+would have been almost certainly to invite confinement in a cell. So I
+raised what I could on my own account, and departed without trumpet or
+drum for Oran. On the first of October I reached In-Salah. Stretched
+at my ease beneath a palm tree, at the oasis, I took infinite pleasure
+in considering how, that very day, the principal of Mont-de-Marsan,
+beside himself, struggling to control twenty horrible urchins howling
+before the door of an empty class room, would be telegraphing wildly
+in all directions in search of his lost history professor.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>M. Le Mesge stopped and looked at us to mark his satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>I admit that I forgot my dignity and I forgot the affectation he had
+steadily assumed of talking only to Morhange.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You will pardon me, sir, if your discourse interests me more than I
+had anticipated. But you know very well that I lack the fundamental
+instruction necessary to understand you. You speak of the dynasty of
+Neptune. What is this dynasty, from which, I believe, you trace the
+descent of Antinea? What is her r&ocirc;le in the story of Atlantis?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>M. Le Mesge smiled with condescension, meantime winking at Morhange
+with the eye nearest to him. Morhange was listening without
+expression, without a word, chin in hand, elbow on knee.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Plato will answer for me, sir,&quot; said the Professor.</p>
+
+<p>And he added, with an accent of inexpressible pity:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is it really possible that you have never made the acquaintance of
+the introduction to the Critias?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He placed on the table the book by which Morhange had been so
+strangely moved. He adjusted his spectacles and began to read. It
+seemed as if the magic of Plato vibrated through and transfigured this
+ridiculous little old man.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Having drawn by lot the different parts of the earth, the gods
+obtained, some a larger, and some, a smaller share. It was thus that
+Neptune, having received in the division the isle of Atlantis, came to
+place the children he had had <!-- Page 88 -->by a mortal in one part of that isle.
+It was not far from the sea, a plain situated in the midst of the
+isle, the most beautiful, and, they say, the most fertile of plains.
+About fifty stades from that plain, in the middle of the isle, was a
+mountain. There dwelt one of those men who, in the very beginning, was
+born of the Earth, Evenor, with his wife, Leucippe. They had only one
+daughter, Clito. She was marriageable when her mother and father died,
+and Neptune, being enamored of her, married her. Neptune fortified the
+mountain where she dwelt by isolating it. He made alternate girdles of
+sea and land, the one smaller, the others greater, two of earth and
+three of water, and centered them round the isle in such a manner that
+they were at all parts equally distant!...&quot;</p>
+
+<p>M. Le Mesge broke off his reading.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Does this arrangement recall nothing to you?&quot; he queried.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Morhange, Morhange!&quot; I stammered. &quot;You remember&mdash;our route yesterday,
+our abduction, the two corridors that we had to cross before arriving
+at this mountain?... The girdles of earth and of water?... Two
+tunnels, two enclosures of earth?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ha! Ha!&quot; chuckled M. Le Mesge.</p>
+
+<p>He smiled as he looked at me. I understood that this smile meant: &quot;Can
+he be less obtuse than I had supposed?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As if with a mighty effort, Morhange broke the silence.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I understand well enough, I understand.... The three girdles of
+water.... But then, you are supposing, sir,&mdash;an explanation the
+ingeniousness of which I do not contest&mdash;you are supposing the exact
+hypothesis of the Saharan sea!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I suppose it, and I can prove it,&quot; replied the irascible little old
+chap, banging his fist on the table. &quot;I know well enough what Schirmer
+and the rest have advanced against it. I know it better than you do. I
+know all about it, sir. I can present all the proofs for your
+consideration. And in the meantime, this evening at dinner, you will
+no doubt enjoy some excellent fish. And you will tell me if these
+fish, caught in the lake that you can see from this window, seem to
+you fresh water fish.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You must realize,&quot; he continued, &quot;the mistake of those who, believing
+in Atlantis, have sought to explain the cata<!-- Page 89 -->clysm in which they
+suppose the island to have sunk. Without exception, they have thought
+that it was swallowed up. Actually, there has not been an immersion.
+There has been an emersion. New lands have emerged from the Atlantic
+wave. The desert has replaced the sea, the <i>sebkhas</i>, the salt lakes,
+the Triton lakes, the sandy Syrtes are the desolate vestiges of the
+free sea water over which, in former days, the fleets swept with a
+fair wind towards the conquest of Attica. Sand swallows up
+civilization better than water. To-day there remains nothing of the
+beautiful isle that the sea and winds kept gay and verdant but this
+chalky mass. Nothing has endured in this rocky basin, cut off forever
+from the living world, but the marvelous oasis that you have at your
+feet, these red fruits, this cascade, this blue lake, sacred witnesses
+to the golden age that is gone. Last evening, in coming here, you had
+to cross the five enclosures: the three belts of water, dry forever;
+the two girdles of earth through which are hollowed the passages you
+traversed on camel back, where, formerly, the triremes floated. The
+only thing that, in this immense catastrophe, has preserved its
+likeness to its former state, is this mountain, the mountain where
+Neptune shut up his well-beloved Clito, the daughter of Evenor and
+Leucippe, the mother of Atlas, and the ancestress of Antinea, the
+sovereign under whose dominion you are about to enter forever.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sir,&quot; Morhange with the most exquisite courtesy, &quot;it would be only a
+natural anxiety which would urge us to inquire the reasons and the end
+of this dominion. But behold to what extent your revelation interests
+me; I defer this question of private interest. Of late, in two
+caverns, it has been my fortune to discover Tifinar inscriptions of
+this name, Antinea. My comrade is witness that I took it for a Greek
+name. I understand now, thanks to you and the divine Plato, that I
+need no longer feel surprised to hear a barbarian called by a Greek
+name. But I am no less perplexed as to the etymology of the word. Can
+you enlighten me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I shall certainly not fail you there, sir,&quot; said M. Le Mesge. &quot;I may
+tell you, too, that you are not the first to put to me that question.
+Most of the explorers that I have seen enter here in the past ten
+years have been attracted in the <!-- Page 90 -->same way, intrigued by this Greek
+work reproduced in Tifinar. I have even arranged a fairly exact
+catalogue of these inscriptions and the caverns where they are to be
+met with. All, or almost all, are accompanied by this legend:
+<i>Antinea. Here commences her domain</i>. I myself have had repainted with
+ochre such as were beginning to be effaced. But, to return to what I
+was telling you before, none of the Europeans who have followed this
+epigraphic mystery here, have kept their anxiety to solve this
+etymology once they found themselves in Antinea's palace. They all
+become otherwise preoccupied. I might make many disclosures as to the
+little real importance which purely scientific interests possess even
+for scholars, and the quickness with which they sacrifice them to the
+most mundane considerations&mdash;their own lives, for instance.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let us take that up another time, sir, if it is satisfactory to you,&quot;
+said Morhange, always admirably polite.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This digression had only one point, sir: to show you that I do not
+count you among these unworthy scholars. You are really eager to know
+the origin of this name, <i>Antinea</i>, and that before knowing what kind
+of woman it belongs to and her motives for holding you and this
+gentleman as her prisoners.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I stared hard at the little old man. But he spoke with profound
+seriousness.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So much the better for you, my boy,&quot; I thought. &quot;Otherwise it
+wouldn't have taken me long to send you through the window to air your
+ironies at your ease. The law of gravity ought not to be topsy-turvy
+here at Ahaggar.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You, no doubt, formulated several hypotheses when you first
+encountered the name, Antinea,&quot; continued M. Le Mesge, imperturbable
+under my fixed gaze, addressing himself to Morhange. &quot;Would you object
+to repeating them to me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not at all, sir,&quot; said Morhange.</p>
+
+<p>And, very composedly, he enumerated the etymological suggestions I
+have given previously.</p>
+
+<p>The little man with the cherry-colored shirt front rubbed his hands.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very good,&quot; he admitted with an accent of intense jubilation.
+&quot;Amazingly good, at least for one with only the <!-- Page 91 -->modicum of Greek that
+you possess. But it is all none the less false, super-false.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is because I suspected as much that I put my question to you,&quot;
+said Morhange blandly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I will not keep you longer in suspense,&quot; said M. Le Mesge. &quot;The word,
+Antinea, is composed as follows: <i>ti</i> is nothing but a Tifinar
+addition to an essentially Greek name. <i>Ti</i> is the Berber feminine
+article. We have several examples of this combination. Take <i>Tipasa</i>,
+the North African town. The name means the whole, from <i>ti</i> and from
+<img src="images/tfnr91_1.gif" width="83" height="29" alt="Tifinar word" title="Tifinar word" />
+. So, <i>tinea</i> signifies the new, from <i>ti</i> and from
+<img src="images/tfnr91_2.gif" width="49" height="25" alt="Tifinar word" title="Tifinar word" />
+.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And the prefix, <i>an</i>?&quot; queried Morhang.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is it possible, sir, that I have put myself to the trouble of talking
+to you for a solid hour about the Critias with such trifling effect?
+It is certain that the prefix <i>an</i>, alone, has no meaning. You will
+understand that it has one, when I tell you that we have here a very
+curious case of apocope. You must not read <i>an</i>; you must read
+<i>atlan</i>. <i>Atl</i> has been lost, by apocope; <i>an</i> has survived. To sum
+up, Antinea is composed in the following manner:
+<img src="images/tfnr91_3.gif" width="135" height="28" alt="Tifinar word" title="Tifinar word" />
+&mdash;
+<img src="images/tfnr91_4.gif" width="126" height="36" alt="Tifinar word" title="Tifinar word" />
+. And its meaning, <i>the new Atlantis</i>, is dazzlingly apparent from this demonstration.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I looked at Morhange. His astonishment was without bounds. The Berber
+prefix <i>ti</i> had literally stunned him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Have you had occasion, sir, to verify this very ingenious etymology?&quot;
+he was finally able to gasp out.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You have only to glance over these few books,&quot; said M. Le Mesge
+disdainfully.</p>
+
+<p>He opened successively five, ten, twenty cupboards. An enormous
+library was spread out to our view.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Everything, everything&mdash;it is all here,&quot; murmured Morhange, with an
+astonishing inflection of terror and admiration.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Everything that is worth consulting, at any rate,&quot; said M. Le Mesge.
+&quot;All the great books, whose loss the so-called learned world deplores
+to-day.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And how has it happened?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sir, you distress me. I thought you familiar with certain events. You
+are forgetting, then, the passage where Pliny the Elder speaks of the
+library of Carthage and the treasures which were accumulated there? In
+146, when that city fell <!-- Page 92 -->under the blows of the knave, Scipio, the
+incredible collection of illiterates who bore the name of the Roman
+Senate had only the profoundest contempt for these riches. They
+presented them to the native kings. This is how Mantabal received this
+priceless heritage; it was transmitted to his son and grandson,
+Hiempsal, Juba I, Juba II, the husband of the admirable Cleopatra
+Selene, the daughter of the great Cleopatra and Mark Antony. Cleopatra
+Selene had a daughter who married an Atlantide king. This is how
+Antinea, the daughter of Neptune, counts among her ancestors the
+immortal queen of Egypt. That is how, by following the laws of
+inheritance, the remains of the library of Carthage, enriched by the
+remnants of the library of Alexandria, are actually before your eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Science fled from man. While he was building those monstrous Babels
+of pseudo-science in Berlin, London, Paris, Science was taking refuge
+in this desert corner of Ahaggar. They may well forge their hypotheses
+back there, based on the loss of the mysterious works of antiquity:
+these works are not lost. They are here. They are here: the Hebrew,
+the Chaldean, the Assyrian books. Here, the great Egyptian traditions
+which inspired Solon, Herodotus and Plato. Here, the Greek
+mythologists, the magicians of Roman Africa, the Indian mystics, all
+the treasures, in a word, for the lack of which contemporary
+dissertations are poor laughable things. Believe me, he is well
+avenged, the little universitarian whom they took for a madman, whom
+they defied. I have lived, I live, I shall live in a perpetual burst
+of laughter at their false and garbled erudition. And when I shall be
+dead, Error,&mdash;thanks to the jealous precaution of Neptune taken to
+isolate his well-beloved Clito from the rest of the world,&mdash;Error, I
+say, will continue to reign as sovereign mistress over their pitiful
+compositions.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sir,&quot; said Morhange in grave voice, &quot;you have just affirmed the
+influence of Egypt on the civilizations of the people here. For
+reasons which some day, perhaps, I shall have occasion to explain to
+you, I would like to have proof of that relationship.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We need not wait for that, sir,&quot; said M. Le Mesge. Then, in my turn,
+I advanced.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 93 -->Two words, if you please, sir,&quot; I said brutally. &quot;I will not hide
+from you that these historical discussions seem to me absolutely out
+of place. It is not my fault if you have had trouble with the
+University, and if you are not to-day at the College of France or
+elsewhere. For the moment, just one thing concerns me: to know just
+what this lady, Antinea, wants with us. My comrade would like to know
+her relation with ancient Egypt: very well. For my part, I desire
+above everything to know her relations with the government of Algeria
+and the Arabian Bureau.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>M. Le Mesge gave a strident laugh.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am going to give you an answer that will satisfy you both,&quot; he
+replied.</p>
+
+<p>And he added:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Follow me. It is time that you should learn.&quot;</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h2><a name="X"><!-- Chapter 10 --></a>X</h2>
+
+<h3>THE RED MARBLE HALL</h3>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>We passed through an interminable series of stairs and corridors
+following M. Le Mesge.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You lose all sense of direction in this labyrinth,&quot; I muttered to
+Morhange.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Worse still, you will lose your head,&quot; answered my companion <i>sotto
+voce</i>. &quot;This old fool is certainly very learned; but God knows what he
+is driving at. However, he has promised that we are soon to know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>M. Le Mesge had stopped before a heavy dark door, all incrusted with
+strange symbols. Turning the lock with difficulty, he opened it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Enter, gentlemen, I beg you,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p>A gust of cold air struck us full in the face. The room we were
+entering was chill as a vault.</p>
+
+<p>At first, the darkness allowed me to form no idea of its proportions.
+The lighting, purposely subdued, consisted of twelve enormous copper
+lamps, placed column-like upon the ground and burning with brilliant
+red flames. As we entered, <!-- Page 94 -->the wind from the corridor made the flames
+flicker, momentarily casting about us our own enlarged and misshapen
+shadows. Then the gust died down, and the flames, no longer flurried,
+again licked up the darkness with their motionless red tongues.</p>
+
+<p>These twelve giant lamps (each one about ten feet high) were arranged
+in a kind of crown, the diameter of which must have been about fifty
+feet. In the center of this circle was a dark mass, all streaked with
+trembling red reflections. When I drew nearer, I saw it was a bubbling
+fountain. It was the freshness of this water which had maintained the
+temperature of which I have spoken.</p>
+
+<p>Huge seats were cut in the central rock from which gushed the
+murmuring, shadowy fountain. They were heaped with silky cushions.
+Twelve incense burners, within the circle of red lamps, formed a
+second crown, half as large in diameter. Their smoke mounted toward
+the vault, invisible in the darkness, but their perfume, combined with
+the coolness and sound of the water, banished from the soul all other
+desire than to remain there forever.</p>
+
+<p>M. Le Mesge made us sit down in the center of the hall, on the
+Cyclopean seats. He seated himself between us.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In a few minutes,&quot; he said, &quot;your eyes will grow accustomed to the
+obscurity.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I noticed that he spoke in a hushed voice, as if he were in church.</p>
+
+<p>Little by little, our eyes did indeed grow used to the red light. Only
+the lower part of the great hall was illuminated. The whole vault was
+drowned in shadow and its height was impossible to estimate. Vaguely,
+I could perceive overhead a great smooth gold chandelier, flecked,
+like everything else, with sombre red reflections. But there was no
+means of judging the length of the chain by which it hung from the
+dark ceiling.</p>
+
+<p>The marble of the pavement was of so high a polish, that the great
+torches were reflected even there.</p>
+
+<p>This room, I repeat, was round a perfect circle of which the fountain
+at our backs was the center.</p>
+
+<p>We sat facing the curving walls. Before long, we began to be able to
+see them. They were of peculiar construction, <!-- Page 95 -->divided into a series
+of niches, broken, ahead of us, by the door which had just opened to
+give us passage, behind us, by a second door, a still darker hole
+which I divined in the darkness when I turned around. From one door to
+the other, I counted sixty niches, making, in all, one hundred and
+twenty. Each was about ten feet high. Each contained a kind of case,
+larger above than below, closed only at the lower end. In all these
+cases, except two just opposite me, I thought I could discern a
+brilliant shape, a human shape certainly, something like a statue of
+very pale bronze. In the arc of the circle before me, I counted
+clearly thirty of these strange statues.</p>
+
+<p>What were these statues? I wanted to see. I rose.</p>
+
+<p>M. Le Mesge put his hand on my arm.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In good time,&quot; he murmured in the same low voice, &quot;all in good time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Professor was watching the door by which we had entered the hall,
+and from behind which we could hear the sound of footsteps becoming
+more and more distinct.</p>
+
+<p>It opened quietly to admit three Tuareg slaves. Two of them were
+carrying a long package on their shoulders; the third seemed to be
+their chief.</p>
+
+<p>At a sign from him, they placed the package on the ground and drew out
+from one of the niches the case which it contained.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You may approach, gentlemen,&quot; said M. Le Mesge.</p>
+
+<p>He motioned the three Tuareg to withdraw several paces.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You asked me, not long since, for some proof of the Egyptian
+influence on this country,&quot; said M. Le Mesge. &quot;What do you say to that
+case, to begin with?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As he spoke, he pointed to the case that the servants had deposited
+upon the ground after they took it from its niche.</p>
+
+<p>Morhange uttered a thick cry.</p>
+
+<p>We had before us one of those cases designed for the preservation of
+mummies. The same shiny wood, the same bright decorations, the only
+difference being that here Tifinar writing replaced the hieroglyphics.
+The form, narrow at the base, broader above, ought to have been enough
+to enlighten us.</p>
+
+<p>I have already said that the lower half of this large case <!-- Page 96 -->was
+closed, giving the whole structure the appearance of a rectangular
+wooden shoe.</p>
+
+<p>M. Le Mesge knelt and fastened on the lower part of the case, a square
+of white cardboard, a large label, that he had picked up from his
+desk, a few minutes before, on leaving the library.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You may read,&quot; he said simply, but still in the same low tone.</p>
+
+<p>I knelt also, for the light of the great candelabra was scarcely
+sufficient to read the label where, none the less, I recognized the
+Professor's handwriting.</p>
+
+<p>It bore these few words, in a large round hand:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Number 53. Major Sir Archibald Russell. Born at Richmond, July 5,
+1860. Died at Ahaggar, December 3, 1896.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I leapt to my feet.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Major Russell!&quot; I exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not so loud, not so loud,&quot; said M. Le Mesge. &quot;No one speaks out loud
+here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Major Russell,&quot; I repeated, obeying his injunction as if in spite
+of myself, &quot;who left Khartoum last year, to explore Sokoto?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The same,&quot; replied the Professor.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And ... where is Major Russell?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He is there,&quot; replied M. Le Mesge.</p>
+
+<p>The Professor made a gesture. The Tuareg approached.</p>
+
+<p>A poignant silence reigned in the mysterious hall, broken only by the
+fresh splashing of the fountain.</p>
+
+<p>The three Negroes were occupied in undoing the package that they had
+put down near the painted case. Weighed down with wordless horror,
+Morhange and I stood watching.</p>
+
+<p>Soon, a rigid form, a human form, appeared. A red gleam played over
+it. We had before us, stretched out upon the ground, a statue of pale
+bronze, wrapped in a kind of white veil, a statue like those all
+around us, upright in their niches. It seemed to fix us with an
+impenetrable gaze.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sir Archibald Russell,&quot; murmured M. Le Mesge slowly.</p>
+
+<p>Morhange approached, speechless, but strong enough to lift up the
+white veil. For a long, long time he gazed at the sad bronze statue.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 97 -->A mummy, a mummy?&quot; he said finally. &quot;You deceive yourself, sir, this
+is no mummy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Accurately speaking, no,&quot; replied M. Le Mesge. &quot;This is not a mummy.
+None the less, you have before you the mortal remains of Sir Archibald
+Russell. I must point out to you, here, my dear sir, that the
+processes of embalming used by Antinea differ from the processes
+employed in ancient Egypt. Here, there is no natron, nor bands, nor
+spices. The industry of Ahaggar, in a single effort, has achieved a
+result obtained by European science only after long experiments.
+Imagine my surprise, when I arrived here and found that they were
+employing a method I supposed known only to the civilized world.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>M. Le Mesge struck a light tap with his finger on the forehead of Sir
+Archibald Russell. It rang like metal.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is bronze,&quot; I said. &quot;That is not a human forehead: it is bronze.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>M. Le Mesge shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is a human forehead,&quot; he affirmed curtly, &quot;and not bronze. Bronze
+is darker, sir. This is the great unknown metal of which Plato speaks
+in the Critias, and which is something between gold and silver: it is
+the special metal of the mountains of the Atlantides. It is
+<i>orichalch</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Bending again, I satisfied myself that this metal was the same as that
+with which the walls of the library were overcast.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is orichalch,&quot; continued M. Le Mesge. &quot;You look as if you had no
+idea how a human body can look like a statue of orichalch. Come,
+Captain Morhange, you whom I gave credit for a certain amount of
+knowledge, have you never heard of the method of Dr. Variot, by which
+a human body can be preserved without embalming? Have you never read
+the book of that practitioner?<a name="FNanchor_L_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_L_11"><sup>[11]</sup></a>
+He explains a method called electro-plating. The skin is coated with a very thin layer of silver
+salts, to make it a conductor. The body then is placed in a solution,
+of copper sulphate, and the polar currents do their work. The body of
+this estimable English major has been <!-- Page 98 -->metalized in the same manner,
+except that a solution of orichalch sulphate, a very rare substance,
+has been substituted for that of copper sulphate. Thus, instead of the
+statue of a poor slave, a copper statue, you have before you a statue
+of metal more precious than silver or gold, in a word, a statue worthy
+of the granddaughter of Neptune.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>M. Le Mesge waved his arm. The black slaves seized the body. In a few
+seconds, they slid the orichalch ghost into its painted wooden sheath.
+That was set on end and slid into its niche, beside the niche where an
+exactly similar sheath was labelled &quot;Number 52.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Upon finishing their task, they retired without a word. A draught of
+cold air from the door again made the flames of the copper torches
+flicker and threw great shadows about us.</p>
+
+<p>Morhange and I remained as motionless as the pale metal specters which
+surrounded us. Suddenly I pulled myself together and staggered forward
+to the niche beside that in which they just had laid the remains of
+the English major. I looked for the label.</p>
+
+<p>Supporting myself against the red marble wall, I read:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Number 52. Captain Laurent Deligne. Born at Paris, July 22, 1861.
+Died at Ahaggar, October 30, 1896.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Captain Deligne!&quot; murmured Morhange. &quot;He left Colomb-B&eacute;char in 1895
+for Timmimoun and no more has been heard of him since then.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Exactly,&quot; said M. Le Mesge, with a little nod of approval.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Number 51,&quot; read Morhange with chattering teeth. &quot;Colonel von
+Wittman, born at Jena in 1855. Died at Ahaggar, May 1, 1896....
+Colonel Wittman, the explorer of Kanem, who disappeared off Agad&egrave;s.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Exactly,&quot; said M. Le Mesge again.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Number 50,&quot; I read in my turn, steadying myself against the wall, so
+as not to fall. &quot;Marquis Alonzo d'Oliveira, born at Cadiz, February
+21, 1868. Died at Ahaggar, February 1, 1896. Oliveira, who was going
+to Araouan.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Exactly,&quot; said M. Le Mesge again. &quot;That Spaniard was one of the best
+educated. I used to have interesting discussions with him on the exact
+geographical position of the kingdom of Ant&eacute;e.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Number 49,&quot; said Morhange in a tone scarcely more than <!-- Page 99 -->a whisper.
+&quot;Lieutenant Woodhouse, born at Liverpool, September 16, 1870. Died at
+Ahaggar, October 4, 1895.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hardly more than a child,&quot; said M. Le Mesge.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Number 48,&quot; I said. &quot;Lieutenant Louis de Maillefeu, born at Provins,
+the....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I did not finish. My voice choked.</p>
+
+<p>Louis de Maillefeu, my best friend, the friend of my childhood and of
+Saint-Cyr.... I looked at him and recognized him under the metallic
+coating. Louis de Maillefeu!</p>
+
+<p>I laid my forehead against the cold wall and, with shaking shoulders,
+began to sob.</p>
+
+<p>I heard the muffled voice of Morhange speaking to the Professor:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sir, this has lasted long enough. Let us make an end of it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He wanted to know,&quot; said M. Le Mesge. &quot;What am I to do?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I went up to him and seized his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What happened to him? What did he die of?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Just like the others,&quot; the Professor replied, &quot;just like Lieutenant
+Woodhouse, like Captain Deligne, like Major Russell, like Colonel von
+Wittman, like the forty-seven of yesterday and all those of
+to-morrow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of what did they die?&quot; Morhange demanded imperatively in his turn.</p>
+
+<p>The Professor looked at Morhange. I saw my comrade grow pale.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of what did they die, sir? <i>They died of love</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And he added in a very low, very grave voice:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now you know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Gently and with a tact which we should hardly have suspected in him,
+M. Le Mesge drew us away from the statues. A moment later, Morhange
+and I found ourselves again seated, or rather sunk among the cushions
+in the center of the room. The invisible fountain murmured its plaint
+at our feet.</p>
+
+<p>Le Mesge sat between us.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now you know,&quot; he repeated. &quot;You know, but you do not yet
+understand.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Then, very slowly, he said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 100 -->You are, as they have been, the prisoners of Antinea. And vengeance
+is due Antinea.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Vengeance?&quot; said Morhange, who had regained his self-possession. &quot;For
+what, I beg to ask? What have the lieutenant and I done to Atlantis?
+How have we incurred her hatred?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is an old quarrel, a very old quarrel,&quot; the Professor replied
+gravely. &quot;A quarrel which long antedates you, M. Morhange.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Explain yourself, I beg of you, Professor.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are Man. She is a Woman,&quot; said the dreamy voice of M. Le Mesge.
+&quot;The whole matter lies there.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Really, sir, I do not see ... we do not see.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are going to understand. Have you really forgotten to what an
+extent the beautiful queens of antiquity had just cause to complain of
+the strangers whom fortune brought to their borders? The poet, Victor
+Hugo, pictured their detestable acts well enough in his colonial poem
+called <i>la Fille d'O-Taiti</i>. Wherever we look, we see similar examples
+of fraud and ingratitude. These gentlemen made free use of the beauty
+and the riches of the lady. Then, one fine morning, they disappeared.
+She was indeed lucky if her lover, having observed the position
+carefully, did not return with ships and troops of occupation.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Your learning charms me,&quot; said Morhange. &quot;Continue.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you need examples? Alas! they abound. Think of the cavalier
+fashion in which Ulysses treated Calypso, Diomedes Callirho&euml;. What
+should I say of Theseus and Ariadne? Jason treated Medea with
+inconceivable lightness. The Romans continued the tradition with still
+greater brutality. Aenaeus, who has many characteristics in common
+with the Reverend Spardek, treated Dido in a most undeserved fashion.
+Caesar was a laurel-crowned blackguard in his relations with the
+divine Cleopatra. Titus, that hypocrite Titus, after having lived a
+whole year in Idummea at the expense of the plaintive Berenice, took
+her back to Rome only to make game of her. It is time that the sons of
+Japhet paid this formidable reckoning of injuries to the daughters of
+Shem.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A woman has taken it upon herself to re-establish the great Hegelian
+law of equilibrium for the benefit of her sex. <!-- Page 101 -->Separated from the
+Aryan world by the formidable precautions of Neptune, she draws the
+youngest and bravest to her. Her body is condescending, while her
+spirit is inexorable. She takes what these bold young men can give
+her. She lends them her body, while her soul dominates them. She is
+the first sovereign who has never been made the slave of passion, even
+for a moment. She has never been obliged to regain her self-mastery,
+for she never has lost it. She is the only woman who has been able to
+disassociate those two inextricable things, love and voluptuousness.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>M. Le Mesge paused a moment and then went on.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Once every day, she comes to this vault. She stops before the niches;
+she meditates before the rigid statues; she touches the cold bosoms,
+so burning when she knew them. Then, after dreaming before the empty
+niche where the next victim soon will sleep his eternal sleep in a
+cold case of orichalch, she returns nonchalantly where he is waiting
+for her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Professor stopped speaking. The fountain again made itself heard
+in the midst of the shadow. My pulses beat, my head seemed on fire. A
+fever was consuming me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And all of them,&quot; I cried, regardless of the place, &quot;all of them
+complied! They submitted! Well, she has only to come and she will see
+what will happen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Morhange was silent.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My dear sir,&quot; said M. Le Mesge in a very gentle voice, &quot;you are
+speaking like a child. You do not know. You have not seen Antinea. Let
+me tell you one thing: that among those&quot;&mdash;and with a sweeping gesture
+he indicated the silent circle of statues&mdash;&quot;there were men as
+courageous as you and perhaps less excitable. I remember one of them
+especially well, a phlegmatic Englishman who now is resting under
+Number 32. When he first appeared before Antinea, he was smoking a
+cigar. And, like all the rest, he bent before the gaze of his
+sovereign.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do not speak until you have seen her. A university training hardly
+fits one to discourse upon matters of passion, and I feel scarcely
+qualified, myself, to tell you what Antinea is. I only affirm this,
+that when you have seen her, you will remember nothing else. Family,
+country, honor, you will renounce everything for her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 102 -->Everything?&quot; asked Morhange in a calm voice.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Everything,&quot; Le Mesge insisted emphatically. &quot;You will forget all,
+you will renounce all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>From outside, a faint sound came to us.</p>
+
+<p>Le Mesge consulted his watch.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In any case, you will see.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The door opened. A tall white Targa, the tallest we had yet seen in
+this remarkable abode, entered and came toward us.</p>
+
+<p>He bowed and touched me lightly on the shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Follow him,&quot; said M. Le Mesge.</p>
+
+<p>Without a word, I obeyed.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h2><a name="XI"><!-- Chapter 11 --></a>XI</h2>
+
+<h3>ANTINEA</h3>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>My guide and I passed along another long corridor. My excitement
+increased. I was impatient for one thing only, to come face to face
+with that woman, to tell her.... So far as anything else was
+concerned, I already was done for.</p>
+
+<p>I was mistaken in hoping that the adventure would take an heroic turn
+at once. In real life, these contrasts never are definitely marked
+out. I should have remembered from many past incidents that the
+burlesque was regularly mixed with the tragic in my life.</p>
+
+<p>We reached a little transparent door. My guide stood aside to let me
+pass.</p>
+
+<p>I found myself in the most luxurious of dressing-rooms. A ground glass
+ceiling diffused a gay rosy light over the marble floor. The first
+thing I noticed was a clock, fastened to the wall. In place of the
+figures for the hours, were the signs of the Zodiac. The small hand
+had not yet reached the sign of Capricorn.</p>
+
+<p>Only three o'clock!</p>
+
+<p>The day seemed to have lasted a century already.... And only a little
+more than half of it was gone.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 103 -->Another idea came to me, and a convulsive laugh bent me double.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Antinea wants me to be at my best when I meet her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A mirror of orichalch formed one whole side of the room. Glancing into
+it, I realized that in all decency there was nothing exaggerated in
+the demand.</p>
+
+<p>My untrimmed beard, the frightful layer of dirt which lay about my
+eyes and furrowed my cheeks, my clothing, spotted by all the clay of
+the Sahara and torn by all the thorns of Ahaggar&mdash;all this made me
+appear a pitiable enough suitor.</p>
+
+<p>I lost no time in undressing and plunging into the porphry bath in the
+center of the room. A delicious drowsiness came over me in that
+perfumed water. A thousand little jars, spread on a costly carved wood
+dressing-table, danced before my eyes. They were of all sizes and
+colors, carved in a very transparent kind of jade. The warm humidity
+of the atmosphere hastened my relaxation.</p>
+
+<p>I still had strength to think, &quot;The devil take Atlantis and the vault
+and Le Mesge.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Then I fell asleep in the bath.</p>
+
+<p>When I opened my eyes again, the little hand of the clock had almost
+reached the sign of Taurus. Before me, his black hands braced on the
+edge of the bath, stood a huge Negro, bare-faced and bare-armed, his
+forehead bound with an immense orange turban.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at me and showed his white teeth in a silent laugh.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Who is this fellow?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Negro laughed harder. Without saying a word, he lifted me like a
+feather out of the perfumed water, now of a color on which I shall not
+dwell.</p>
+
+<p>In no time at all, I was stretched out on an inclined marble table.</p>
+
+<p>The Negro began to massage me vigorously.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;More gently there, fellow!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>My masseur did not reply, but laughed and rubbed still harder.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Where do you come from? Kanem? Torkou? You laugh too much for a
+Targa.&quot;</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 104 -->Unbroken silence. The Negro was as speechless as he was hilarious.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;After all, I am making a fool of myself,&quot; I said, giving up the case.
+&quot;Such as he is, he is more agreeable than Le Mesge with his
+nightmarish erudition. But, on my word, what a recruit he would be for
+Hamman on the rue des Mathurins!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Cigarette, sidi?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Without awaiting my reply, he placed a cigarette between my lips and
+lighted it, and resumed his task of polishing every inch of me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He doesn't talk much, but he is obliging,&quot; I thought.</p>
+
+<p>And I sent a puff of smoke into his face.</p>
+
+<p>This pleasantry seemed to delight him immensely. He showed his
+pleasure by giving me great slaps.</p>
+
+<p>When he had dressed me down sufficiently, he took a little jar from
+the dressing-table and began to rub me with a rose-colored ointment.
+Weariness seemed to fly away from my rejuvenated muscles.</p>
+
+<p>A stroke on a copper gong. My masseur disappeared. A stunted old
+Negress entered, dressed in the most tawdry tinsel. She was talkative
+as a magpie, but at first I did not understand a word in the
+interminable string she unwound, while she took first my hands, then
+my feet, and polished the nails with determined grimaces.</p>
+
+<p>Another stroke on the gong. The old woman gave place to another Negro,
+grave, this time, and dressed all in white with a knitted skull cap on
+his oblong head. It was the barber, and a remarkably dexterous one. He
+quickly trimmed my hair, and, on my word, it was well done. Then,
+without asking me what style I preferred, he shaved me clean.</p>
+
+<p>I looked with pleasure at my face, once more visible.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Antinea must like the American type,&quot; I thought. &quot;What an affront to
+the memory of her worthy grandfather, Neptune!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The gay Negro entered and placed a package on the divan. The barber
+disappeared. I was somewhat astonished to observe that the package,
+which my new valet opened carefully, contained a suit of white
+flannels exactly like those French officers wear in Algeria in summer.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 105 -->The wide trousers seemed made to my measure. The tunic fitted without
+a wrinkle, and my astonishment was unbounded at observing that it even
+had two gilt <i>galons</i>, the insignia of my rank, braided on the cuffs.
+For shoes, there were slippers of red Morocco leather, with gold
+ornaments. The underwear, all of silk, seemed to have come straight
+from the rue de la Paix.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dinner was excellent,&quot; I murmured, looking at myself in the mirror
+with satisfaction. &quot;The apartment is perfectly arranged. Yes, but....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I could not repress a shudder when I suddenly recalled that room of
+red marble.</p>
+
+<p>The clock struck half past four.</p>
+
+<p>Someone rapped gently on the door. The tall white Targa, who had
+brought me, appeared in the doorway.</p>
+
+<p>He stepped forward, touched me on the arm and signed for me to follow.</p>
+
+<p>Again I followed him.</p>
+
+<p>We passed through interminable corridors. I was disturbed, but the
+warm water had given me a certain feeling of detachment. And above
+all, more than I wished to admit, I had a growing sense of lively
+curiosity. If, at that moment, someone had offered to lead me back to
+the route across the white plain near Shikh-Salah, would I have
+accepted? Hardly.</p>
+
+<p>I tried to feel ashamed of my curiosity. I thought of Maillefeu.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He, too, followed this corridor. And now he is down there, in the red
+marble hall.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I had no time to linger over this reminiscence. I was suddenly bowled
+over, thrown to the ground, as if by a sort of meteor. The corridor
+was dark; I could see nothing. I heard only a mocking growl.</p>
+
+<p>The white Targa had flattened himself back against the wall.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Good,&quot; I mumbled, picking myself up, &quot;the deviltries are beginning.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>We continued on our way. A glow different from that of the rose night
+lights soon began to light up the corridor.</p>
+
+<p>We reached a high bronze door, in which a strange lacy <!-- Page 106 -->design had
+been cut in filigree. A clear gong sounded, and the double doors
+opened part way. The Targa remained in the corridor, closing the doors
+after me.</p>
+
+<p>I took a few steps forward mechanically, then paused, rooted to the
+spot, and rubbed my eyes.</p>
+
+<p>I was dazzled by the sight of the sky.</p>
+
+<p>Several hours of shaded light had unaccustomed me to daylight. It
+poured in through one whole side of the huge room.</p>
+
+<p>The room was in the lower part of this mountain, which was more
+honeycombed with corridors and passages than an Egyptian pyramid. It
+was on a level with the garden which I had seen in the morning from
+the balcony, and seemed to be a continuation of it; the carpet
+extended out under the great palm trees and the birds flew about the
+forest of pillars in the room.</p>
+
+<p>By contrast, the half of the room untouched by direct light from the
+oasis seemed dark. The sun, setting behind the mountain, painted the
+garden paths with rose and flamed with red upon the traditional
+flamingo which stood with one foot raised at the edge of the sapphire
+lake.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly I was bowled over a second time.</p>
+
+<p>I felt a warm, silky touch, a burning breath on my neck. Again the
+mocking growl which had so disturbed me in the corridor.</p>
+
+<p>With a wrench, I pulled myself free and sent a chance blow at my
+assailant. The cry, this time of pain and rage, broke out again.</p>
+
+<p>It was echoed by a long peal of laughter. Furious, I turned to look
+for the insolent onlooker, thinking to speak my mind. And then my
+glance stood still.</p>
+
+<p>Antinea was before me.
+<br /></p>
+
+<p>In the dimmest part of the room, under a kind of arch lit by the mauve
+rays from a dozen incense-lamps, four women lay on a heap of
+many-colored cushions and rare white Persian rugs.</p>
+
+<p>I recognized the first three as Tuareg women, of a splendid regular
+beauty, dressed in magnificent robes of white silk embroidered in
+gold. The fourth, very dark skinned, almost <!-- Page 107 -->negroid, seemed younger.
+A tunic of red silk enhanced the dusk of her face, her arms and her
+bare feet. The four were grouped about a sort of throne of white rugs,
+covered with a gigantic lion's skin, on which, half raised on one
+elbow, lay Antinea.</p>
+
+<p>Antinea! Whenever I saw her after that, I wondered if I had really
+looked at her before, so much more beautiful did I find her. More
+beautiful? Inadequate word. Inadequate language! But is it really the
+fault of the language or of those who abuse the word?</p>
+
+<p>One could not stand before her without recalling the woman for whom
+Ephractoeus overcame Atlas, of her for whom Sapor usurped the scepter
+of Ozymandias, for whom Mamylos subjugated Susa and Tentyris, for whom
+Antony fled....</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span><i>O tremblant coeur humain, si jamais tu vibras</i><br /></span>
+<span><i>C'est dans l'&eacute;treinte alti&egrave;re et chaude de ses bras</i>.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>An Egyptian <i>klaft</i> fell over her abundant blue-black curls. Its two
+points of heavy, gold-embroidered cloth extended to her slim hips. The
+golden serpent, emerald-eyed, was clasped about her little round,
+determined forehead, darting its double tongue of rubies over her
+head.</p>
+
+<p>She wore a tunic of black chiffon shot with gold, very light, very
+full, slightly gathered in by a white muslin scarf embroidered with
+iris in black pearls.</p>
+
+<p>That was Antinea's costume. But what was she beneath all this? A slim
+young girl, with long green eyes and the slender profile of a hawk. A
+more intense Adonis. A child queen of Sheba, but with a look, a smile,
+such as no Oriental ever had. A miracle of irony and freedom.</p>
+
+<p>I did not see her body. Indeed I should not have thought of looking at
+it, had I had the strength. And that, perhaps, was the most
+extraordinary thing about that first impression. In that unforgettable
+moment nothing would have seemed to me more horribly sacrilegious than
+to think of the fifty victims in the red marble hall, of the fifty
+young men who had held that slender body in their arms.</p>
+
+<p>She was still laughing at me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 108 -->King Hiram,&quot; she called.</p>
+
+<p>I turned and saw my enemy.</p>
+
+<p>On the capital of one of the columns, twenty feet above the floor, a
+splendid leopard was crouched. He still looked surly from the blow I
+had dealt him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;King Hiram,&quot; Antinea repeated. &quot;Come here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The beast relaxed like a spring released. He fawned at his mistress's
+feet. I saw his red tongue licking her bare little ankles.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ask the gentleman's pardon,&quot; she said.</p>
+
+<p>The leopard looked at me spitefully. The yellow skin of his muzzle
+puckered about his black moustache.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Fftt,&quot; he grumbled like a great cat.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Go,&quot; Antinea ordered imperiously.</p>
+
+<p>The beast crawled reluctantly toward me. He laid his head humbly
+between his paws and waited.</p>
+
+<p>I stroked his beautiful spotted forehead.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You must not be vexed,&quot; said Antinea. &quot;He is always that way with
+strangers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then he must often be in bad humor,&quot; I said simply.</p>
+
+<p>Those were my first words. They brought a smile to Antinea's lips.</p>
+
+<p>She gave me a long, quiet look.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Aguida,&quot; she said to one of the Targa women, &quot;you will give
+twenty-five pounds in gold to Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are a lieutenant?&quot; she asked, after a pause.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Where do you come from?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;From France.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I might have guessed that,&quot; she said ironically, &quot;but from what part
+of France?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;From what we call the Lot-et-Garonne.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;From what town?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;From Duras.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She reflected a moment.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Duras! There is a little river there, the Dropt, and a fine old
+ch&acirc;teau.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You know Duras?&quot; I murmured, amazed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You go there from Bordeaux by a little branch railway,&quot; she went on.
+&quot;It is a shut-in road, with vine-covered hills <!-- Page 109 -->crowned by the feudal
+ruins. The villages have beautiful names: Mons&eacute;gur,
+Sauve-terre-de-Guyenne, la Tresne, Cr&eacute;on, ... Cr&eacute;on, as in Antigone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You have been there?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She looked at me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Don't speak so coldly,&quot; she said. &quot;Sooner or later we will be
+intimate, and you may as well lay aside formality now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>This threatening promise suddenly filled me with great happiness. I
+thought of Le Mesge's words: &quot;Don't talk until you have seen her. When
+you have seen her, you will renounce everything for her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Have I been in Duras?&quot; she went on with a burst of laughter. &quot;You are
+joking. Imagine Neptune's granddaughter in the first-class compartment
+of a local train!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She pointed to an enormous white rock which towered above the palm
+trees of the garden.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is my horizon,&quot; she said gravely.</p>
+
+<p>She picked up one of several books which lay scattered about her on
+the lion's skin.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The time table of the <i>Chemin de Fer de l'Ouest</i>,&quot; she said.
+&quot;Admirable reading for one who never budges! Here it is half-past five
+in the afternoon. A train, a local, arrived three minutes ago at
+Surg&egrave;res in the Charente-Inf&eacute;rieure. It will start on in six minutes.
+In two hours it will reach La Rochelle. How strange it seems to think
+of such things here. So far away! So much commotion there! Here,
+nothing changes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You speak French well,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>She gave a little nervous laugh.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have to. And German, too, and Italian, and English and Spanish. My
+way of living has made me a great polygot. But I prefer French, even
+to Tuareg and Arabian. It seems as if I had always known it. And I am
+not saying that to please you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>There was a pause. I thought of her grandmother, of whom Plutarch
+said: &quot;There were few races with which she needed an interpreter.
+Cleopatra spoke their own language to the Ethiopians, to the
+Troglodytes, the Hebrews, the Arabs, the Medes and the Persians.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 110 -->Do not stand rooted in the middle of the room. You worry me. Come
+sit here, beside me. Move over, King Hiram.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The leopard obeyed with good temper.</p>
+
+<p>Beside her was an onyx bowl. She took from it a perfectly plain ring
+of orichalch and slipped it on my left ring-finger. I saw that she
+wore one like it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Tanit-Zerga, give Monsieur de Saint-Avit a rose sherbet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The dark girl in red silk obeyed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My private secretary,&quot; said Antinea, introducing her. &quot;Mademoiselle
+Tanit-Zerga, of G&acirc;o, on the Niger. Her family is almost as ancient as
+mine.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As she spoke, she looked at me. Her green eyes seemed to be appraising
+me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And your comrade, the Captain?&quot; she asked in a dreamy tone. &quot;I have
+not yet seen him. What is he like? Does he resemble you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>For the first time since I had entered, I thought of Morhange. I did
+not answer.</p>
+
+<p>Antinea smiled.</p>
+
+<p>She stretched herself out full length on the lion skin. Her bare right
+knee slipped out from under her tunic.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is time to go find him,&quot; she said languidly. &quot;You will soon
+receive my orders. Tanit-Zerga, show him the way. First take him to
+his room. He cannot have seen it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I rose and lifted her hand to my lips. She struck me with it so
+sharply as to make my lips bleed, as if to brand me as her possession.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>I was in the dark corridor again. The young girl in the red silk tunic
+walked ahead of me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Here is your room,&quot; she said. &quot;If you wish, I will take you to the
+dining-room. The others are about to meet there for dinner.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She spoke an adorable lisping French.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, Tanit-Zerga, I would rather stay here this evening. I am not
+hungry. I am tired.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You remember my name?&quot; she said.</p>
+
+<p>She seemed proud of it. I felt that in her I had an ally in case of
+need.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 111 -->I remember your name, Tanit-Zerga, because it is
+beautiful.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_M_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_M_12"><sup>[12]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>Then I added:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now, leave me, little one. I want to be alone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It seemed as if she would never go. I was touched, but at the same
+time vexed. I felt a great need of withdrawing into myself.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My room is above yours,&quot; she said. &quot;There is a copper gong on the
+table here. You have only to strike if you want anything. A white
+Targa will answer.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>For a second, these instructions amused me. I was in a hotel in the
+midst of the Sahara. I had only to ring for service.</p>
+
+<p>I looked about my room. My room! For how long?</p>
+
+<p>It was fairly large. Cushions, a couch, an alcove cut into the rock,
+all lighted by a great window covered by a matting shade.</p>
+
+<p>I went to the window and raised the shade. The light of the setting
+sun entered.</p>
+
+<p>I leaned my elbows on the rocky sill. Inexpressible emotion filled my
+heart. The window faced south. It was about two hundred feet above the
+ground. The black, polished volcanic wall yawned dizzily below me.</p>
+
+<p>In front of me, perhaps a mile and a half away, was another wall, the
+first enclosure mentioned in the Critias. And beyond it in the
+distance, I saw the limitless red desert.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<!-- Page 112 -->
+<h2><a name="XII"><!-- Chapter 12 --></a>XII</h2>
+
+<h3>MORHANGE DISAPPEARS</h3>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>My fatigue was so great that I lay as if unconscious until the next
+day. I awoke about three o'clock in the afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>I thought at once of the events of the previous day; they seemed
+amazing.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let me see,&quot; I said to myself. &quot;Let us work this out. I must begin by
+consulting Morhange.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I was ravenously hungry.</p>
+
+<p>The gong which Tanit-Zerga had pointed out lay within arm's reach. I
+struck it. A white Targa appeared.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Show me the way to the library,&quot; I ordered.</p>
+
+<p>He obeyed. As we wound our way through the labyrinth of stairs and
+corridors I realized that I could never have found my way without his
+help.</p>
+
+<p>Morhange was in the library, intently reading a manuscript.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A lost treatise of Saint Optat,&quot; he said. &quot;Oh, if only Dom Granger
+were here. See, it is written in semi-uncial characters.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I did not reply. My eyes were fixed on an object which lay on the
+table beside the manuscript. It was an orichalch ring, exactly like
+that which Antinea had given me the previous day and the one which she
+herself wore.</p>
+
+<p>Morhange smiled.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well?&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You have seen her?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have indeed,&quot; Morhange replied.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She is beautiful, is she not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It would be difficult to dispute that,&quot; my comrade answered. &quot;I even
+believe that I can say that she is as intelligent as she is
+beautiful.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>There was a pause. Morhange was calmly fingering the orichalch ring.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 113 -->You know what our fate is to be?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I know. Le Mesge explained it to us yesterday in polite mythological
+terms. This evidently is an extraordinary adventure.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He was silent, then said, looking at me:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am very sorry to have dragged you here. The only mitigating feature
+is that since last evening you seem to have been bearing your lot very
+easily.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Where had Morhange learned this insight into the human heart? I did
+not reply, thus giving him the best of proofs that he had judged
+correctly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What do you think of doing?&quot; I finally murmured.</p>
+
+<p>He rolled up the manuscript, leaned back comfortably in his armchair
+and lit a cigar.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have thought it over carefully. With the aid of my conscience I
+have marked out a line of conduct. The matter is clear and admits no
+discussion.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The question is not quite the same for me as for you, because of my
+semi-religious character, which, I admit, has set out on a rather
+doubtful adventure. To be sure, I have not taken holy orders, but,
+even aside from the fact that the ninth commandment itself forbids my
+having relations with a woman not my wife, I admit that I have no
+taste for the kind of forced servitude for which the excellent
+Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh has so kindly recruited us.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That granted, the fact remains that my life is not my own with the
+right to dispose of it as might a private explorer travelling at his
+own expenses and for his own ends. I have a mission to accomplish,
+results to obtain. If I could regain my liberty by paying the singular
+ransom which this country exacts, I should consent to give
+satisfaction to Antinea according to my ability. I know the tolerance
+of the Church, and especially that of the order to which I aspire:
+such a procedure would be ratified immediately and, who knows, perhaps
+even approved? Saint Mary the Egyptian, gave her body to boatmen under
+similar circumstances. She received only glorification for it. In so
+doing she had the certainty of attaining her goal, which was holy. The
+end justified the means.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But my case is quite different. If I give in to the absurd <!-- Page 114 -->caprices
+of this woman, that will not keep me from being catalogued down in the
+red marble hall, as Number 54, or as Number 55, if she prefers to take
+you first. Under those conditions....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Under those conditions?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Under those conditions, it would be unpardonable for me to
+acquiesce.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then what do you intend to do?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What do I intend to do?&quot; Morhange leaned back in the armchair and
+smilingly launched a puff of smoke toward the ceiling.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nothing,&quot; he said. &quot;And that is all that is necessary. Man has this
+superiority over woman. He is so constructed that he can refuse
+advances.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Then he added with an ironical smile:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A man cannot be forced to accept unless he wishes to.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I nodded.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I tried the most subtle reasoning on Antinea,&quot; he continued. &quot;It was
+breath wasted. 'But,' I said at the end of my arguments, 'why not Le
+Mesge?' She began to laugh. 'Why not the Reverend Spardek?' she
+replied. 'Le Mesge and Spardek are savants whom I respect. But</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span><i>Maudit soit &agrave; jamais r&ecirc;veur inutile</i>,<br /></span>
+<span><i>Qui voulut, le premier, dans sa stupidit&eacute;</i>,<br /></span>
+<span><i>S'&eacute;prenant d'un probl&egrave;me insoluble et st&eacute;rile</i>,<br /></span>
+<span><i>Aux choses de l'amour m&ecirc;ler l'honn&ecirc;tet&eacute;</i>.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>&quot;'Besides,' she added with that really very charming smile of hers,
+'probably you have not looked carefully at either of them.' There
+followed several compliments on my figure, to which I found nothing to
+reply, so completely had she disarmed me by those four lines from
+Baudelaire.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She condescended to explain further: 'Le Mesge is a learned gentleman
+whom I find useful. He knows Spanish and Italian, keeps my papers in
+order, and is busy working out my genealogy. The Reverend Spardek
+knows English and German. Count Bielowsky is thoroughly conversant
+with the Slavic languages. Besides, I love him like a father. He knew
+me as a child when I had not dreamed such stupid <!-- Page 115 -->things as you know
+of me. They are indispensable to me in my relations with visitors of
+different races, although I am beginning to get along well enough in
+the languages which I need.... But I am talking a great deal, and this
+is the first time that I have ever explained my conduct. Your friend
+is not so curious.' With that, she dismissed me. A strange woman
+indeed. I think there is a bit of Renan in her but she is cleverer
+than that master of sensualism.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Gentlemen,&quot; said Le Mesge, suddenly entering the room, &quot;why are you
+so late? They are waiting dinner for you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The little Professor was in a particularly good humor that evening. He
+wore a new violet rosette.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well?&quot; he said, in a mocking tone, &quot;you have seen her?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Neither Morhange nor I replied.</p>
+
+<p>The Reverend Spardek and the Hetmari of Jitomir already had begun
+eating when we arrived. The setting sun threw raspberry lights on the
+cream-colored mat.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Be seated, gentlemen,&quot; said Le Mesge noisily. &quot;Lieutenant de
+Saint-Avit, you were not with us last evening. You are about to taste
+the cooking of Koukou, our Bambara chef, for the first time. You must
+give me your opinion of it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A Negro waiter set before me a superb fish covered with a pimento
+sauce as red as tomatoes.</p>
+
+<p>I have explained that I was ravenously hungry. The dish was exquisite.
+The sauce immediately made me thirsty.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;White Ahaggar, 1879,&quot; the Herman of Jitomir breathed in my ear as he
+filled my goblet with a clear topaz liquid. &quot;I developed it myself:
+<i>rien pour la t&ecirc;te, tout pour les jambes</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I emptied the goblet at a gulp. The company began to seem charming.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, Captain Morhange,&quot; Le Mesge called out to my comrade who had
+taken a mouthful of fish, &quot;what do you say to this acanthopterygian?
+It was caught to-day in the lake in the oasis. Do you begin to admit
+the hypothesis of the Saharan sea?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The fish is an argument,&quot; my companion replied.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly he became silent. The door had opened. A white Targa entered.
+The diners stopped talking.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 116 -->The veiled man walked slowly toward Morhange and touched his right
+arm.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very well,&quot; said Morhange.</p>
+
+<p>He got up and followed the messenger.</p>
+
+<p>The pitcher of Ahaggar, 1879, stood between me and Count Bielowsky. I
+filled my goblet&mdash;a goblet which held a pint, and gulped it down.</p>
+
+<p>The Hetman looked at me sympathetically.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ha, ha!&quot; laughed Le Mesge, nudging me with his elbow. &quot;Antinea has
+respect for the hierarchic order.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Reverend Spardek smiled modestly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ha, ha!&quot; laughed Le Mesge again.</p>
+
+<p>My glass was empty. For a moment I was tempted to hurl it at the head
+of the Fellow in History. But what of it? I filled it and emptied it
+again.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Morhange will miss this delicious roast of mutton,&quot; said the
+Professor, more and more hilarious, as he awarded himself a thick
+slice of meat.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He won't regret it,&quot; said the Hetman crossly. &quot;This is not roast; it
+is ram's horn. Really Koukou is beginning to make fun of us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Blame it on the Reverend,&quot; the shrill voice of Le Mesge cut in. &quot;I
+have told him often enough to hunt other proselytes and leave our cook
+alone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Professor,&quot; Spardek began with dignity.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I maintain my contention,&quot; cried Le Mesge, who seemed to me to be
+getting a bit overloaded. &quot;I call the gentleman to witness,&quot; he went
+on, turning to me. &quot;He has just come. He is unbiased. Therefore I ask
+him: has one the right to spoil a Bambara cook by addling his head
+with theological discussions for which he has no predisposition?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Alas!&quot; the pastor replied sadly. &quot;You are mistaken. He has only too
+strong a propensity to controversy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Koukou is a good-for-nothing who uses Colas' cow as an excuse for
+doing nothing and letting our scallops burn,&quot; declared the Hetman.
+&quot;Long live the Pope!&quot; he cried, filling the glasses all around.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I assure you that this Bambara worries me,&quot; Spardek went on with
+great dignity. &quot;Do you know what he has come to? He denies
+transubstantiation. He is within an inch of the <!-- Page 117 -->heresy of Zwingli and
+Oecolampades. Koukou denies transubstantiation.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sir,&quot; said Le Mesge, very much excited, &quot;cooks should be left in
+peace. Jesus, whom I consider as good a theologian as you, understood
+that, and it never occurred to him to call Martha away from her oven
+to talk nonsense to her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Exactly so,&quot; said the Hetman approvingly.</p>
+
+<p>He was holding a jar between his knees and trying to draw its cork.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, C&ocirc;tes R&ocirc;ties, wines from the C&ocirc;te-R&ocirc;tie!&quot; he murmured
+to me as he finally succeeded. &quot;Touch glasses.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Koukou denies transubstantiation,&quot; the pastor continued, sadly
+emptying his glass.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Eh!&quot; said the Hetman of Jitomir in my ear, &quot;let them talk on. Don't
+you see that they are quite drunk?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>His own voice was thick. He had the greatest difficulty in the world
+in filling my goblet to the brim.</p>
+
+<p>I wanted to push the pitcher away. Then an idea came to me:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;At this very moment, Morhange.... Whatever he may say.... She is so
+beautiful.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I reached out for the glass and emptied it once more.</p>
+
+<p>Le Mesge and the pastor were now engaged in the most extraordinary
+religious controversy, throwing at each other's heads the Book of
+Common Prayer, The Declaration of the Rights of Man, and the
+Unigenitus. Little by little, the Hetman began to show that ascendancy
+over them, which is the characteristic of a man of the world even when
+he is thoroughly drunk; the superiority of education over instruction.</p>
+
+<p>Count Bielowsky had drunk five times as much as the Professor or the
+pastor. But he carried his wine ten times better.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let us leave these drunken fellows,&quot; he said with disgust. &quot;Come on,
+old man. Our partners are waiting in the gaming room.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ladies and gentlemen,&quot; said the Hetman as we entered. &quot;Permit me to
+present a new player to you, my friend, Lieutenant de Saint-Avit.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 118 -->Let it go at that,&quot; he murmured in my ear. &quot;They are the servants.
+But I like to fool myself, you see.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I saw that he was very drunk indeed.</p>
+
+<p>The gaming room was very long and narrow. A huge table, almost level
+with the floor and surrounded with cushions on which a dozen natives
+were lying, was the chief article of furniture. Two engravings on the
+wall gave evidence of the happiest broadmindedness in taste; one of da
+Vinci's St. John the Baptist, and the <i>Maison des Derni&egrave;res
+Cartouches</i> of Alphonse de Neuville.</p>
+
+<p>On the table were earthenware goblets. A heavy jar held palm liqueur.</p>
+
+<p>I recognized acquaintances among those present; my masseur, the
+manicure, the barber, and two or three Tuareg who had lowered their
+veils and were gravely smoking long pipes. While waiting for something
+better, all were plunged in the delights of a card game that looked
+like &quot;rams.&quot; Two of Antinea's beautiful ladies in waiting, Aguida and
+Sydya, were among the number. Their smooth bistre skins gleamed
+beneath veils shot with silver. I was sorry not to see the red silk
+tunic of Tanit-Zerga. Again, I thought of Morhange, but only for an
+instant.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The chips, Koukou,&quot; demanded the Hetman, &quot;We are not here to amuse
+ourselves.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Zwinglian cook placed a box of many-colored chips in front of him.
+Count Bielowsky set about counting them and arranging them in little
+piles with infinite care.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The white are worth a <i>louis</i>,&quot; he explained to me. &quot;The red, a
+hundred francs. The yellow, five hundred. The green, a thousand. Oh,
+it's the devil of a game that we play here. You will see.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I open with ten thousand,&quot; said the Zwinglian cook.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Twelve thousand,&quot; said the Hetman.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Thirteen,&quot; said Sydya with a slow smile, as she seated herself on the
+count's knee and began to arrange her chips lovingly in little piles.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Fourteen,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Fifteen,&quot; said the sharp voice of Rosita, the old manicure.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Seventeen,&quot; proclaimed the Hetman.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Twenty thousand,&quot; the cook broke in.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 119 -->He hammered on the table and, casting a defiant look at us, repeated:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I take it at twenty thousand.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Hetman made an impatient gesture.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That devil, Koukou! You can't do anything against the beast. You will
+have to play carefully, Lieutenant.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Koukou had taken his place at the end of the table. He threw down the
+cards with an air which abashed me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I told you so; the way it was at Anna Deslions',&quot; the Hetman murmured
+proudly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Make your bets, gentlemen,&quot; yelped the Negro. &quot;Make your bets.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Wait, you beast,&quot; called Bielowsky. &quot;Don't you see that the glasses
+are empty? Here, Cacambo.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The goblets were filled immediately by the jolly masseur.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Cut,&quot; said Koukou, addressing Sydya, the beautiful Targa who sat at
+his right.</p>
+
+<p>The girl cut, like one who knows superstitions, with her left hand.
+But it must be said that her right was busy lifting a cup to her lips.
+I watched the curve of her beautiful throat.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My deal,&quot; said Koukou.</p>
+
+<p>We were thus arranged: at the left, the Hetman, Aguida, whose waist he
+had encircled with the most aristocratic freedom, Cacambo, a Tuareg
+woman, then two veiled Negroes who were watching the game intently. At
+the right, Sydya, myself, the old manicure, Rosita, Barouf, the
+barber, another woman and two white Tuareg, grave and attentive,
+exactly opposite those on the left.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Give me one,&quot; said the Hetman.</p>
+
+<p>Sydya made a negative gesture.</p>
+
+<p>Koukou drew, passed a four-spot to the Hetman, gave himself a five.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Eight,&quot; announced Bielowsky.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Six,&quot; said pretty Sydya.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Seven,&quot; broke in Koukou. &quot;One card makes up for another,&quot; he added
+coldly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I double,&quot; said the Hetman.</p>
+
+<p>Cacambo and Aguida followed his example. On our side, we were more
+careful. The manicure especially would not risk more than twenty
+francs at a time.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 120 -->I demand that the cards be evened up,&quot; said Koukou imperturbably.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This fellow is unbearable,&quot; grumbled the count. &quot;There, are you
+satisfied?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Koukou dealt and laid down a nine.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My country and my honor!&quot; raged Bielowsky. &quot;I had an eight.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I had two kings, and so showed no ill temper. Rosita took the cards
+out of my hands.</p>
+
+<p>I watched Sydya at my right. Her heavy black hair covered her
+shoulders. She was really very beautiful, though a bit tipsy, as were
+all that fantastic company. She looked at me, too, but with lowered
+eyelids, like a timid little wild animal.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh,&quot; I thought. &quot;She may well be afraid. I am labelled 'No
+trespassing.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I touched her foot. She drew it back in fright.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Who wants cards?&quot; Koukou demanded.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not I,&quot; said the Hetman.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Served,&quot; said Sydya.</p>
+
+<p>The cook drew a four.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nine,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That card was meant for me,&quot; cursed the count. &quot;And five, I had a
+five. If only I had never promised his Majesty the Emperor Napoleon II
+never to cut fives! There are times when it is hard, very hard. And
+look at that beast of a Negro who plays Charlemagne.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was true. Koukou swept in three-quarters of the chips, rose with
+dignity, and bowed to the company.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Till to-morrow, gentlemen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Get along, the whole pack of you,&quot; howled the Hetman of Jitomir.
+&quot;Stay with me, Lieutenant de Saint-Avit.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>When we were alone, he poured out another huge cupfull of liqueur. The
+ceiling of the room was lost in the gray smoke.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What time is it?&quot; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;After midnight. But you are not going to leave me like this, my dear
+boy? I am heavy-hearted.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He wept bitterly. The tail of his coat spread out on the divan behind
+him like the apple-green wings of a beetle.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 121 -->Isn't Aguida a beauty?&quot; he went on, still weeping. &quot;She makes me
+think of the Countess de Teruel, though she is a little darker. You
+know the Countess de Teruel, Mercedes, who went in bathing nude at
+Biarritz, in front of the rock of the Virgin, one day when Prince
+Bismarck was standing on the foot-bridge. You do not remember her?
+Mercedes de Teruel.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I shrugged my shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I forget; you must have been too young. Two, perhaps three years old.
+A child. Yes, a child. Oh, my child, to have been of that generation
+and to be reduced to playing cards with savages ... I must tell
+you....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I stood up and pushed him off.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Stay, stay,&quot; he implored. &quot;I will tell you everything you want to
+know, how I came here, things I have never told anyone. Stay, I must
+unbosom myself to a true friend. I will tell you everything, I repeat.
+I trust you. You are a Frenchman, a gentleman. I know that you will
+repeat nothing to her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That I will repeat nothing to her?... To whom?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>His voice stuck in his throat. I thought I saw a shudder of fear pass
+over him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To her ... to Antinea,&quot; he murmured.</p>
+
+<p>I sat down again.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h2><a name="XIII"><!-- Chapter 13 --></a>XIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE HETMAN OF JITOMIR'S STORY</h3>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Count Casimir had reached that stage where drunkenness takes on a kind
+of gravity, of regretfulness.</p>
+
+<p>He thought a little, then began his story. I regret that I cannot
+reproduce more perfectly its archaic flavor.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When the grapes begin to color in Antinea's garden, I shall be
+sixty-eight. It is very sad, my dear boy, to have sowed all your wild
+oats. It isn't true that life is always beginning over again. How
+bitter, to have known the Tuileries in 1860, and to have reached the
+point where I am now!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 122 -->One evening, just before the war (I remember that Victor Black was
+still living), some charming women whose names I need not disclose (I
+read the names of their sons from time to time in the society news of
+the <i>Gaulois</i>) expressed to me their desire to rub elbows with some
+real <i>demi-mondaines</i> of the artist quarter. I took them to a ball at
+the <i>Grande Chaumi&egrave;re</i>. There was a crowd of young painters, models,
+students. In the midst of the uproar, several couples danced the
+<i>cancan</i> till the chandeliers shook with it. We noticed especially a
+little, dark man, dressed in a miserable top-coat and checked trousers
+which assuredly knew the support of no suspenders. He was cross-eyed,
+with a wretched beard and hair as greasy as could be. He bounded and
+kicked extravagantly. The ladies called him L&eacute;on Gambetta.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What an annoyance, when I realize that I need only have felled this
+wretched lawyer with one pistol shot to have guaranteed perfect
+happiness to myself and to my adopted country, for, my dear fellow, I
+am French at heart, if not by birth.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I was born in 1829, at Warsaw, of a Polish father and a Russian
+mother. It is from her that I hold my title of Hetman of Jitomir. It
+was restored to me by Czar Alexander II on a request made to him on
+his visit to Paris, by my august master, the Emperor Napoleon III.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;For political reasons, which I cannot describe without retelling the
+history of unfortunate Poland, my father, Count Bielowsky, left Warsaw
+in 1830, and went to live in London. After the death of my mother, he
+began to squander his immense fortune&mdash;from sorrow, he said. When, in
+his time, he died at the period of the Prichard affair, he left me
+barely a thousand pounds sterling of income, plus two or three systems
+of gaming, the impracticability of which I learned later.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I will never be able to think of my nineteenth and twentieth years
+without emotion, for I then completely liquidated this small
+inheritance. London was indeed an adorable spot in those days. I had a
+jolly bachelor's apartment in Piccadilly.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span>&quot;'Picadilly! Shops, palaces, bustle and breeze,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The whirling of wheels and the murmur of trees.'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 123 -->Fox hunting in a <i>briska</i>, driving a buggy in Hyde Park, the rout,
+not to mention the delightful little parties with the light Venuses of
+Drury Lane, this took all my time. All? I am unjust. There was also
+gaming, and a sentiment of filial piety forced me to verify the
+systems of the late Count, my father. It was gaming which was the
+cause of the event I must describe to you, by which my life was to be
+so strangely changed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My friend, Lord Malmesbury, had said to me a hundred times, 'I must
+take you to see an exquisite creature who lives in Oxford Street,
+number 277, Miss Howard.' One evening I went with him. It was the
+twenty-second of February, 1848. The mistress of the house was really
+marvelously beautiful, and the guests were charming. Besides
+Malmesbury, I observed several acquaintances: Lord Clebden, Lord
+Chesterfield, Sir Francis Mountjoye, Major in the Second Life Guards,
+and Count d'Orsay. They played cards and then began to talk politics.
+Events in France played the main part in the conversation and they
+discussed endlessly the consequences of the revolt that had broken out
+in Paris that same morning, in consequence of the interdiction of the
+banquet in the 12th arrondissement, of which word had just been
+received by telegram. Up to that time, I had never bothered myself
+with public affairs. So I don't know what moved me to affirm with the
+impetuosity of my nineteen years that the news from France meant the
+Republic next day and the Empire the day after....</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The company received my sally with a discreet laugh, and their looks
+were centered on a guest who made the fifth at a <i>bouillotte</i> table
+where they had just stopped playing.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The guest smiled, too. He rose and came towards me. I observed that
+he was of middle height, perhaps even shorter, buttoned tightly into a
+blue frock coat, and that his eye had a far-off, dreamy look.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All the players watched this scene with delighted amusement.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Whom have I the honor of addressing?' he asked in a very gentle
+voice.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Count Bielowsky,' I answered coolly to show him that <!-- Page 124 -->the difference
+in our ages was not sufficient to justify the interrogation.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, my dear Count, may your prediction indeed be realized; and I
+hope that you will not neglect the Tuileries,' said the guest in the
+blue coat, with a smile.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And he added, finally consenting to present himself:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Prince Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I played no active r&ocirc;le in the <i>coup d'&eacute;tat</i>, and I do not regret it.
+It is a principle with me that a stranger should not meddle with the
+internal affairs of a country. The prince understood this discretion,
+and did not forget the young man who had been of such good omen to
+him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I was one of the first whom he called to the Elys&eacute;e. My fortune was
+definitely established by a defamatory note on 'Napoleon the little.'
+The next year, when Mgr. Sibour was out of the way, I was made
+Gentleman of the Chamber, and the Emperor was even so kind as to have
+me marry the daughter of the Marshal Repeto, Duke of Mondovi.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have no scruple in announcing that this union was not what it
+should have been. The Countess, who was ten years older than I, was
+crabbed and not particularly pretty. Moreover, her family had insisted
+resolutely on a marriage portion. Now I had nothing at this time
+except the twenty-five thousand pounds for my appointment as Gentleman
+of the Chamber. A sad lot for anyone on intimate terms with the Count
+d'Orsay and the Duke of Gramont-Caderousse! Without the kindness of
+the Emperor, where would I have been?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;One morning in the spring of 1852, I was in my study opening my mail.
+There was a letter from His Majesty, calling me to the Tuileries at
+four o'clock; a letter from Cl&eacute;mentine, informing me that she expected
+me at five o'clock at her house. Cl&eacute;mentine was the beautiful one for
+whom, just then, I was ready to commit any folly. I was so proud of
+her that, one evening at the <i>Maison Dor&eacute;e</i>, I flaunted her before
+Prince Metternich, who was tremendously taken with her. All the court
+envied me that conquest; and I was morally obliged to continue to
+assume its expenses. And <!-- Page 125 -->then Cl&eacute;mentine was so pretty! The Emperor
+himself.... The other letters, good lord, the other letters were the
+bills of the dressmakers of that young person, who, in spite of my
+discreet remonstrances, insisted on having them sent to my conjugal
+dwelling.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There were bills for something over forty thousand francs: gowns and
+ball dresses from Gagelin-Opigez, 23 Rue de Richelieu; hats and
+bonnets from Madame Alexandrine, 14 Rue d'Antin; lingerie and many
+petticoats from Madame Pauline, 100 Rue de Clery; dress trimmings and
+gloves from the <i>Ville de Lyon</i>, 6 Rue de la Chauss&eacute;e d'Antin;
+foulards from the <i>Malle des Indes</i>; handkerchiefs from the <i>Compagnie
+Irlandaise</i>; laces from Ferguson; cosmetics from <i>Cand&egrave;s</i>.... This
+whitening cream of <i>Cand&egrave;s</i>, in particular, overwhelmed me with
+stupefaction. The bill showed fifty-one flasks. Six hundred and
+twenty-seven francs and fifty centimes' worth of whitening cream from
+<i>Cand&egrave;s</i>.... Enough to soften the skin of a squadron of a hundred
+guards!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'This can't keep on,' I said, putting the bills in my pocket.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;At ten minutes to four, I crossed the wicket by the Carrousel.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In the Salon of the <i>aides de camp</i> I happened on Bacciochi.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'The Emperor has the grippe,' he said to me. 'He is keeping to his
+room. He has given orders to have you admitted as soon as you arrive.
+Come.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;His Majesty, dressed in a braided vest and Cossack trousers, was
+meditating before a window. The pale green of the Tuileries showed
+luminously under a gentle warm shower.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Ah! Here he is,' said Napoleon. 'Here, have a cigarette. It seems
+that you had great doings, you and Gramont-Caderousse, last evening,
+at the <i>Ch&acirc;teau de Fleurs</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I smiled with satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'So Your Majesty knows already....'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'I know, I know vaguely.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Do you know Gramont-Caderousse's last &quot;mot&quot;?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'No, but you are going to tell it to me.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Here goes, then. We were five or six: myself, Viel-Castel, Gramont,
+Persigny....'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 126 -->'Persigny!' said the Emperor. 'He has no right to associate with
+Gramont, after all that Paris says about his wife.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Just so Sire. Well, Persigny was excited, no doubt about it. He
+began telling us how troubled he was because of the Duchess's
+conduct.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'This Fialin isn't over tactful,' muttered the Emperor.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Just so, Sire. Then, does Your Majesty know what Gramont hurled at
+him?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'What?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'He said to him, &quot;<i>Monsieur le Duc</i>, I forbid you to speak ill of my
+mistress before me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Gramont goes too far,' said Napoleon with a dreamy smile.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'That is what we all thought, including Viel-Castel, who was
+nevertheless delighted.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Apropos of this,' said Napoleon after a silence, 'I have forgotten
+to ask you for news of the Countess Bielowsky.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'She is very well, Sire, I thank Your Majesty,'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'And Cl&eacute;mentine? Still the same dear child?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Always, Sire. But....'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'It seems that M. Baroche is madly in love with her.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'I am very much honored, Sire. But this honor becomes too
+burdensome.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I had drawn from my pocket that morning's bills and I spread them out
+under the eyes of the Emperor.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He looked at them with his distant smile.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Come, come. If that is all, I can fix that, since I have a favor to
+ask of you.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'I am entirely at Your Majesty's service.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He struck a gong.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Send for M. Mocquard.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'I have the grippe,' he said. 'Mocquard will explain the affair to
+you.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Emperor's private secretary entered.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Here is Bielowsky, Mocquard,' said Napoleon. 'You know what I want
+him to do. Explain it to him.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And he began to tap on the window-panes against which the rain was
+beating furiously.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 127 -->'My dear Count,' said Mocquard, taking a chair, 'it is very simple.
+You have doubtless heard of a young explorer of promise, M. Henry
+Duveyrier.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I shook my head as a sign of negation, very much surprised at this
+beginning.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'M. Duveyrier,' continued Mocquard, 'has returned to Paris after a
+particularly daring trip to South Africa and the Sahara. M. Vivien de
+Saint Martin, whom I have seen recently has assured me that the
+Geographical Society intends to confer its great gold medal upon him,
+in recognition of these exploits. In the course of his trip, M.
+Duveyrier has entered into negotiations with the chief of the people
+who always have been so rebellious to His Majesty's armies, the
+Tuareg.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I looked at the Emperor. My bewilderment was such that he began to
+laugh.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Listen,' he said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'M. Duveyrier,' continued Mocquard, 'was able to arrange to have a
+delegation of these chiefs come to Paris to present their respects to
+His Majesty. Very important results may arise from this visit, and His
+Excellency the Colonial Minister, does not despair of obtaining the
+signature of a treaty of commerce, reserving special advantages to our
+fellow countrymen. These chiefs, five of them, among them Sheik Otham,
+<i>Amenokol</i> or Sultan of the Confederation of Adzjer, arrive to-morrow
+morning at the <i>Gare de Lyon</i>. M. Duveyrier will meet them. But the
+Emperor has thought that besides....'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'I thought,' said Napoleon III, delighted by my bewilderment, 'I
+thought that it was correct to have some one of the Gentlemen of my
+Chamber wait upon the arrival of these Mussulman dignitaries. That is
+why you are here, my poor Bielowsky. Don't be frightened,' he added,
+laughing harder. 'You will have M. Duveyrier with you. You are charged
+only with the special part of the reception: to accompany these
+princes to the lunch that I am giving them to-morrow at the Tuileries;
+then, in the evening, discreetly on account of their religious
+scruples, to succeed in giving them a very high idea of Parisian
+civilization, with nothing exaggerated: do not <!-- Page 128 -->forget that in the
+Sahara they are very high religious dignitaries. In that respect, I
+have confidence in your tact and give you <i>carte blanche</i>....
+Mocquard!'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Sire?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'You will apportion on the budget, half to Foreign Affairs, half to
+the Colonies, the funds Count Bielowsky will need for the reception of
+the Tuareg delegation. It seems to me that a hundred thousand francs,
+to begin.... The Count has only to tell you if he is forced to exceed
+that figure.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Cl&eacute;mentine lived on the Rue Boccador, in a little Moorish pavilion
+that I had bought for her from M. de Lesseps. I found her in bed. When
+she saw me, she burst into tears.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Great fools that we are!' she murmured amidst her sobs, 'what have
+we done!'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Cl&eacute;mentine, tell me!'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'What have we done, what have we done!' she repeated, and I felt
+against me, her floods of black hair, her warm cheek which was
+fragrant with <i>eau de Nanon</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'What is it? What can it be?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'It is....' and she murmured something in my ear.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'No!' I said, stupefied. 'Are you quite sure?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Am I quite sure!'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I was thunderstruck.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'You don't seem much pleased,' she said sharply.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'I did not say that.... Though, really, I am very much pleased, I
+assure you.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Prove it to me: let us spend the day together tomorrow.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'To-morrow!' I stammered. 'Impossible!'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Why?' she demanded suspiciously.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Because to-morrow, I have to pilot the Tuareg mission about Paris.
+The Emperor's orders.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'What bluff is this?' asked Cl&eacute;mentine.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'I admit that nothing so much resembles a lie as the truth.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I retold Mocquard's story to Cl&eacute;mentine, as well as I could. She
+listened to me with an expression that said: 'you can't fool me that
+way.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 129 -->Finally, furious, I burst out:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'You can see for yourself. I am dining with them, tomorrow; and I
+invite you.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'I shall be very pleased to come,' said Cl&eacute;mentine with great
+dignity.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I admit that I lacked self-control at that minute. But think what a
+day it had been! Forty thousand francs of bills as soon as I woke up.
+The ordeal of escorting the savages around Paris all the next day.
+And, quite unexpectedly, the announcement of an approaching irregular
+paternity....</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'After all,' I thought, as I returned to my house, 'these are the
+Emperor's orders. He has commanded me to give the Tuareg an idea of
+Parisian civilization. Cl&eacute;mentine comports herself very well in
+society and just now it would not do to aggravate her. I will engage a
+room for to-morrow at the <i>Caf&eacute; de Paris</i>, and tell Gramont-Caderousse
+and Viel-Castel to bring their silly mistresses. It will be very
+French to enjoy the attitude of these children of the desert in the
+midst of this little party.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The train from Marseilles arrived at 10:20. On the platform I found
+M. Duveyrier, a young man of twenty-three with blue eyes and a little
+blond beard. The Tuareg fell into his arms as they descended from the
+train. He had lived with them for two years, in their tents, the devil
+knows where. He presented me to their chief, Sheik Otham, and to four
+others, splendid fellows in their blue cotton draperies and their
+amulets of red leather. Fortunately, they all spoke a kind of
+<i>sabir</i><a name="FNanchor_N_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_N_13"><sup>[13]</sup></a>
+ which helped things along.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I only mention in passing the lunch at the Tuileries, the visits in
+the evening to the Museum, to the <i>Hotel de Ville</i>, to the Imperial
+Printing Press. Each time, the Tuareg inscribed their names in the
+registry of the place they were visiting. It was interminable. To give
+you an idea, here is the complete name of Sheik Otham alone:
+Otham-ben-el-Hadj-el-Bekri-<!-- Page 130 -->ben-el-Hadj-el-Faqqi-ben-Mohammad-Bouya-
+ben-si-Ahmed-es-Souki-ben-Mahmoud.
+<a name="FNanchor_P_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_P_14"><sup>[14]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>&quot;And there were five of them like that!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I maintained my good humor, however, because on the boulevards,
+everywhere, our success was colossal. At the <i>Caf&eacute; de Paris</i>, at
+six-thirty, it amounted to frenzy. The delegation, a little drunk,
+embraced me: '<i>Bono, Napol&eacute;on, bono, Eug&eacute;nie; bono, Casimir; bono,
+Christians</i>.' Gramont-Caderousse and Viel-Castel were already in booth
+number eight, with Anna Grimaldi, of the <i>Folies Dramatiques</i>, and
+Hortense Schneider, both beautiful enough to strike terror to the
+heart. But the palm was for my dear Cl&eacute;mentine, when she entered. I
+must tell you how she was dressed: a gown of white tulle, over China
+blue tarletan, with pleatings, and ruffles of tulle over the
+pleatings. The tulle skirt was caught up on each side by garlands of
+green leaves mingled with rose clusters. Thus it formed a valence
+which allowed the tarletan skirt to show in front and on the sides.
+The garlands were caught up to the belt and, in the space between
+their branches, were knots of rose satin with long ends. The pointed
+bodice was draped with tulle, the billowy bertha of tulle was edged
+with lace. By way of head-dress, she had placed upon her black locks a
+diadem crown of the same flowers. Two long leafy tendrils were twined
+in her hair and fell on her neck. As cloak, she had a kind of scarf of
+blue cashmere embroidered in gold and lined with blue satin.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So much beauty and splendor immediately moved the Tuareg and,
+especially, Cl&eacute;mentine's right-hand neighbor, El-Hadj-ben-Guem&acirc;ma,
+brother of Sheik Otham and Sultan of Ahaggar. By the time the soup
+arrived, a bouillon of wild game, seasoned with Tokay, he was already
+much smitten. When they served the compote of fruits Martinique <i>&agrave; la
+liqueur de Mme. Amphoux</i>, he showed every indication of illimitable
+passion. The Cyprian wine <i>de la Commanderie</i> <!-- Page 131 -->made him quite sure of
+his sentiments. Hortense kicked my foot under the table. Gramont,
+intending to do the same to Anna, made a mistake and aroused the
+indignant protests of one of the Tuareg. I can safely say that when
+the time came to go to Mabille, we were enlightened as to the manner
+in which our visitors respected the prohibition decreed by the Prophet
+in respect to wine.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;At Mabille, while Cl&eacute;mentine, Hortense, Anna, Ludovic and the three
+Tuareg gave themselves over to the wildest gallops, Sheik Otham took
+me aside and confided to me, with visible emotion, a certain
+commission with which he had just been charged by his brother, Sheik
+Ahmed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The next day, very early, I reached Cl&eacute;mentine's house.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'My dear,' I began, after having waked her, not without difficulty,
+'listen to me. I want to talk to you seriously.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She rubbed her eyes a bit crossly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'How did you like that young Arabian gentleman who was so taken with
+you last night?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Why, well enough,' she said, blushing.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Do you know that in his country, he is the sovereign prince and
+reigns over territories five or six times greater than those of our
+august master, the Emperor Napoleon III?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'He murmured something of that kind to me,' she said, becoming
+interested.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Well, would it please you to mount on a throne, like our august
+sovereign, the Empress Eug&eacute;nie?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Cl&eacute;mentine, looked startled.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'His own brother, Sheik Otham, has charged me in his name to make
+this offer.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Cl&eacute;mentine, dumb with amazement, did not reply.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'I, Empress!' she finally stammered.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'The decision rests with you. They must have your answer before
+midday. If it is 'yes,' we lunch together at Voisin's, and the bargain
+is made.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I saw that she had already made up her mind, but she thought it well
+to display a little sentiment.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'And you, you!' she groaned. 'To leave you thus.... Never!'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 132 -->'No foolishness, dear child,' I said gently. 'You don't know perhaps
+that I am ruined. Yes, completely: I don't even know how I am going to
+pay for your complexion cream!'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Ah!' she sighed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She added, however, 'And ... the child?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'What child?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Our child ... our child.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Ah! That is so. Why, you will have to put it down to profit and
+loss. I am even convinced that Sheik Ahmed will find that it resembles
+him.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'You can turn everything into a joke,' she said between laughing and
+crying.
+<br /></p>
+
+<p>&quot;The next morning, at the same hour, the Marseilles express carried
+away the five Tuareg and Cl&eacute;mentine. The young woman, radiant, was
+leaning on the arm of Sheik Ahmed, who was beside himself with joy.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Have you many shops in your capital?' she asked him languidly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And he, smiling broadly under his veil, replied:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'<i>Besef, besef, bono, roumis, bono</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;At the last moment, Cl&eacute;mentine had a pang of emotion.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Listen, Casimir, you have always been kind to me. I am going to be a
+queen. If you weary of it here, promise me, swear to me....'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Sheik had understood. He took a ring from his finger and slipped
+it onto mine.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Sidi Casimir, comrade,' he affirmed. 'You come&mdash;find us. Take Sidi
+Ahmed's ring and show it. Everybody at Ahaggar comrades. <i>Bono</i>
+Ahaggar, <i>bono</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When I came out of the <i>Gare de Lyon</i>, I had the feeling of having
+perpetrated an excellent joke.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Hetman of Jitomir was completely drunk. I had had the utmost
+difficulty in understanding the end of his story, because he
+interjected, every other moment, couplets from Jacques Offenbach's
+best score.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><!-- Page 133 -->
+<span><i>Dans un bois passait un jeune homme</i>,<br /></span>
+<span><i>Un jeune homme frais et beau</i>,<br /></span>
+<span><i>Sa main tenait une pomme</i>,<br /></span>
+<span><i>Vous voyez d'ici le tableau</i>.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>&quot;Who was disagreeably surprised by the fall of Sedan? It was Casimir,
+poor old Casimir! Five thousand <i>louis</i> to pay by the fifth of
+September, and not the first sou, no, not the first sou. I take my hat
+and my courage and go to the Tuileries. No more Emperor there, no! But
+the Empress was so kind. I found her alone&mdash;ah, people scatter quickly
+under such circumstances!&mdash;alone, with a senator, M. M&eacute;rim&eacute;e, the only
+literary man I have ever known who was at the same time a man of the
+world. 'Madame,' he was saying to her, 'you must give up all hope. M.
+Thiers, whom I just met on the <i>Pont Royal</i>, would listen to nothing.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Madame,' I said in my turn, 'Your Majesty always will know where her
+true friends are.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And I kissed her hand.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">&quot;<i>Evoh&eacute;, que les d&eacute;esses</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i4"><i>Out de dr&ocirc;les de fa&ccedil;ons</i><br /></span>
+<span><i>Pour enj&ocirc;ler, pour enj&ocirc;ler, pour enj&ocirc;ler les ga&acirc;ar&ccedil;ons</i>!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>&quot;I returned to my home in the Rue de Lille. On the way I encountered
+the rabble going from the <i>Corps L&eacute;gislatif</i> to the Hotel de Ville. My
+mind was made up.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Madame,' I said to my wife, 'my pistols.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'What is the matter?' she asked, frightened.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'All is lost. But there is still a chance to preserve my honor. I am
+going to be killed on the barricades.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Ah! Casimir,' she sobbed, falling into my arms. 'I have misjudged
+you. Will you forgive me?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'I forgive you, Aurelie,' I said with dignified emotion. 'I have not
+always been right myself.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I tore myself away from this mad scene. It was six o'clock. On the
+Rue de Bac, I hailed a cab on its mad career.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Twenty francs tip,' I said to the coachman, 'if you get to the <i>Gare
+de Lyon</i> in time for the Marseilles train, six thirty-seven.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 134 -->The Hetman of Jitomir could say no more. He had rolled over on the
+cushions and slept with clenched fists.</p>
+
+<p>I walked unsteadily to the great window.</p>
+
+<p>The sun was rising, pale yellow, behind the sharp blue mountains.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h2><a name="XIV"><!-- Chapter 14 --></a>XIV</h2>
+
+<h3>HOURS OF WAITING</h3>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>It was at night that Saint-Avit liked to tell me a little of his
+enthralling history. He gave it to me in short installments, exact and
+chronological, never anticipating the episodes of a drama whose tragic
+outcome I knew already. Not that he wished to obtain more effect that
+way&mdash;I felt that he was far removed from any calculation of that sort!
+Simply from the extraordinary nervousness into which he was thrown by
+recalling such memories.</p>
+
+<p>One evening, the mail from France had just arrived. The letters that
+Chatelain had handed us lay upon the little table, not yet opened. By
+the light of the lamp, a pale halo in the midst of the great black
+desert, we were able to recognize the writing of the addresses. Oh!
+the victorious smile of Saint-Avit when, pushing aside all those
+letters, I said to him in a trembling voice:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Go on.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He acquiesced without further words.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nothing can give you any idea of the fever I was in from the day when
+the Hetman of Jitomir told me of his adventures to the day when I
+found myself in the presence of Antinea. The strangest part was that
+the thought that I was, in a way, condemned to death, did not enter
+into this fever. On the contrary, it was stimulated by my desire for
+the event which would be the signal of my downfall, the summons from
+Antinea. But this summons was not speedy in coming. And from this
+delay, arose my unhealthy exasperation.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 135 -->Did I have any lucid moments in the course of these hours? I do not
+think so. I do not recall having even said to myself, 'What, aren't
+you ashamed? Captive in an unheard of situation, you not only are not
+trying to escape, but you even bless your servitude and look forward
+to your ruin.' I did not even color my desire to remain there, to
+enjoy the next step in the adventure, by the pretext I might have
+given&mdash;unwillingness to escape without Morhange. If I felt a vague
+uneasiness at not seeing him again, it was not because of a desire to
+know that he was well and safe.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well and safe, I knew him to be, moreover. The Tuareg slaves of
+Antinea's household were certainly not very communicative. The women
+were hardly more loquacious. I heard, it is true, from Sydya and
+Aguida, that my companion liked pomegranates or that he could not
+endure <i>kouskous</i> of bananas. But if I asked for a different kind of
+information, they fled, in fright, down the long corridors. With
+Tanit-Zerga, it was different. This child seemed to have a distaste
+for mentioning before me anything bearing in any way upon Antinea.
+Nevertheless, I knew that she was devoted to her mistress with a
+doglike fidelity. But she maintained an obstinate silence if I
+pronounced her name or, persisting, the name of Morhange.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;As for the Europeans, I did not care to question these sinister
+puppets. Besides, all three were difficult of approach. The Hetman of
+Jitomir was sinking deeper and deeper into alcohol. What intelligence
+remained to him, he seemed to have dissolved the evening when he had
+invoked his youth for me. I met him from time to time in the corridors
+that had become all at once too narrow for him, humming in a thick
+voice a couplet from the music of <i>La Reine Hortense</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span><i>De ma fille Isabelle</i><br /></span>
+<span><i>Sois l'&eacute;poux &agrave; l'instant</i>,<br /></span>
+<span><i>Car elle est la plus belle</i><br /></span>
+<span><i>Et toi, le plus vaillant</i>.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>&quot;As for Pastor Spardek, I would cheerfully have killed the old
+skinflint. And the hideous little man with the decorations, the placid
+printer of labels for the red marble hall,&mdash;how <!-- Page 136 -->could I meet him
+without wanting to cry out in his face: 'Eh! eh! Sir Professor, a very
+curious case of apocope:
+<img src="images/tfnr136_1.gif" width="220" height="43" alt="Tifinar word" title="Tifinar word" />
+.  Suppression of <i>alpha</i>, of <i>tau</i> and of <i>lambda</i>!
+I would like to direct your attention to another case as curious:
+<img src="images/tfnr136_2.gif" width="228" height="48" alt="Tifinar word" title="Tifinar word" />
+, Cl&eacute;mentine. Apocope of <i>kappa</i>, of <i>lamba</i>,
+of <i>epsilon</i> and of <i>mu</i>. If Morhange were with us, he would tell you
+many charming erudite things about it. But, alas! Morhange does not
+deign to come among us any more. We never see Morhange.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My fever for information found a little more favorable reception from
+Rosita, the old Negress manicure. Never have I had my nails polished
+so often as during those days of waiting! Now&mdash;after six years&mdash;she
+must be dead. I shall not wrong her memory by recording that she was
+very partial to the bottle. The poor old soul was defenseless against
+those that I brought her and that I emptied with her, through
+politeness.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Unlike the other slaves, who are brought from the South toward Turkey
+by the merchants of Rh&acirc;t, she was born in Constantinople and had been
+brought into Africa by her master when he became <i>ka&iuml;makam</i> of
+Rhadam&egrave;s.... But don't let me complicate this already wandering
+history by the incantations of this manicure.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Antinea,' she said to me, 'is the daughter of
+El-Hadj-Ahmed-ben-Guem&acirc;ma, Sultan of Ahaggar, and Sheik of the great
+and noble tribe of Kel-Rhel&acirc;. She was born in the year twelve hundred
+and eighty-one of the Hegira. She has never wished to marry any one.
+Her wish has been respected for the will of women is sovereign in this
+Ahaggar where she rules to-day. She is a cousin of Sidi-el-Senoussi,
+and, if she speaks the word, Christian blood will flow from Djerid to
+Touat, and from Tchad to Senegal. If she had wished it, she might have
+lived beautiful and respected in the land of the Christians. But she
+prefers to have them come to her.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh,' I said, 'do you know him? He is entirely
+devoted to her?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Nobody here knows Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh very well, because he is
+continually traveling. It is true that he is entirely devoted to
+Antinea. Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh is a Senoussi, and Antinea is the cousin
+of the chief of the Senoussi. Besides, <!-- Page 137 -->he owes his life to her. He is
+one of the men who assassinated the great K&eacute;bir Flatters. On account
+of that, Ikenoukhen, <i>amenokol</i> of the Adzjer Tuareg, fearing French
+reprisals, wanted to deliver Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh to them. When the
+whole Sahara turned against him, he found asylum with Antinea.
+Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh will never forget it, for he is brave and observes
+the law of the Prophet. To thank her, he led to Antinea, who was then
+twenty years old, three French officers of the first troops of
+occupation in Tunis. They are the ones who are numbered, in the red
+marble hall, 1, 2, and 3.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'And Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh has always fulfilled his duties
+successfully?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh is well trained, and he knows the vast Sahara as
+I know my little room at the top of the mountain. At first, he made
+mistakes. That is how, on his first trips, he brought back old Le
+Mesge and marabout Spardek.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'What did Antinea say when she saw them?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Antinea? She laughed so hard that she spared them.
+Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh was vexed to see her laugh so. Since then, he has
+never made a mistake.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'He has never made a mistake?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'No. I have cared for the hands and feet of all that he has brought
+here. All were young and handsome. But I think that your comrade, whom
+they brought to me the other day, after you were here, is the
+handsomest of all.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Why,' I asked, turning the conversation, 'why, since she spared them
+their lives, did she not free the pastor and M. Le Mesge?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'She has found them useful, it seems,' said the old woman. 'And then,
+whoever once enters here, can never leave. Otherwise, the French would
+soon be here and, when they saw the hall of red marble, they would
+massacre everybody. Besides, of all those whom Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh has
+brought here, no one, save one, has wished to escape after seeing
+Antinea.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'She keeps them a long time?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'That depends upon them and the pleasure that she takes in them. Two
+months, three months, on the average. <!-- Page 138 -->It depends. A big Belgian
+officer, formed like a colossus, didn't last a week. On the other
+hand, everyone here remembers little Douglas Kaine, an English
+officer: she kept him almost a year.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'And then?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'And then, he died,' said the old woman as if astonished at my
+question.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Of what did he die?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She used the same phrase as M. Le Mesge:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Like all the others: of love.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Of love,' she continued. &quot;They all die of love when they see that
+their time is ended, and that Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh has gone to find
+others. Several have died quietly with tears in their great eyes. They
+neither ate nor slept any more. A French naval officer went mad. All
+night, he sang a sad song of his native country, a song which echoed
+through the whole mountain. Another, a Spaniard, was as if maddened:
+he tried to bite. It was necessary to kill him. Many have died of
+<i>kif</i>, a <i>kif</i> that is more violent than opium. When they no longer
+have Antinea, they smoke, smoke. Most have died that way ... the
+happiest. Little Kaine died differently.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'How did little Kaine die?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'In a way that pained us all very much. I told you that he stayed
+longer among us than anyone else. We had become used to him. In
+Antinea's room, on a little Kairouan table, painted in blue and gold,
+there is a gong with a long silver hammer with an ebony handle, very
+heavy. Aguida told me about it. When Antinea gave little Kaine his
+dismissal, smiling as she always does, he stopped in front of her,
+mute, very pale. She struck the gong for someone to take him away. A
+Targa slave came. But little Kaine had leapt for the hammer, and the
+Targa lay on the ground with his skull smashed. Antinea smiled all the
+time. They led little Kaine to his room. The same night, eluding
+guards, he jumped out of his window at a height of two hundred feet.
+The workmen in the embalming room told me that they had the greatest
+difficulty with his body. But they succeeded very well. You have only
+to go see for yourself. He occupies niche number 26 in the red marble
+hall.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The old woman drowned her emotion in her glass.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 139 -->'Two days before,' she continued, 'I had done his nails, here, for
+this was his room. On the wall, near the window, he had written
+something in the stone with his knife. See, it is still here.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Was it not Fate, that on this July midnight....'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;At any other moment, that verse, traced in the stone of the window
+through which the English officer had hurled himself, would have
+killed me with overpowering emotion. But just then, another thought
+was in my heart.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Tell me,' I said, controlling my voice as well as I could, 'when
+Antinea holds one of us in her power, she shuts him up near her, does
+she not? Nobody sees him any more?'</p>
+
+<p>The old woman shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'She is not afraid that he will escape. The mountain is well guarded.
+Antinea has only to strike her silver gong; he will be brought back to
+her immediately.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'But my companion. I have not see him since she sent for him....'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Negress smiled comprehendingly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'If you have not seen him, it is because he prefers to remain near
+her. Antinea does not force him to. Neither does she prevent him.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I struck my fist violently upon the table.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Get along with you, old fool. And be quick about it!'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Rosita fled frightened, hardly taking time to collect her little
+instruments.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Was it not Fate, that on this July midnight....'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I obeyed the Negress's suggestion. Following the corridors, losing my
+way, set on the right road again by the Reverend Spardek, I pushed
+open the door of the red marble hall. I entered.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The freshness of the perfumed crypt did me good. No place can be so
+sinister that it is not, as it were, purified by the murmur of running
+water. The cascade, gurgling in the middle hall, comforted me. One day
+before an attack I was lying with my section in deep grass, waiting
+for the moment, the blast of the bugle, which would demand that we
+leap forward into the hail of bullets. A stream was at my feet. I
+listened to its fresh rippling. I admired the play of light and shade
+in the transparent water, the little <!-- Page 140 -->beasts, the little black fish,
+the green grass, the yellow wrinkled sand.... The mystery of water
+always has carried me out of myself.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Here, in this magic hall, my thoughts were held by the dark cascade.
+It felt friendly. It kept me from faltering in the midst of these
+rigid evidences of so many monstrous sacrifices.... Number 26. It was
+he all right. Lieutenant Douglas Kaine, born at Edinburgh, September
+21, 1862. Died at Ahaggar, July 16, 1890. Twenty-eight. He wasn't even
+twenty-eight! His face was thin under the coat of orichalch. His mouth
+sad and passionate. It was certainly he. Poor
+youngster.&mdash;Edinburgh,&mdash;I knew Edinburgh, without ever having been
+there. From the wall of the castle you can see the Pentland hills.
+&quot;Look a little lower down,&quot; said Stevenson's sweet Miss Flora to Anne
+of Saint-Yves, &quot;look a little lower down and you will see, in the fold
+of the hill, a clump of trees and a curl of smoke that rises from
+among them. That is Swanston Cottage, where my brother and I live with
+my aunt. If it really pleases you to see it, I shall be glad.&quot; When he
+left for Darfour, Douglas Kaine must surely have left in Edinburgh a
+Miss Flora, as blonde as Saint-Yves' Flora. But what are these slips
+of girls beside Antinea! Kaine, however sensible a mortal, however
+made for this kind of love, had loved otherwise. He was dead. And here
+was number 27, on account of whom Kaine dashed himself on the rocks of
+the Sahara, and who, in his turn, is dead also.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To die, to love. How naturally the word resounded in the red marble
+hall. How Antinea seemed to tower above that circle of pale statues!
+Does love, then, need so much death in order that it may be
+multiplied? Other women, in other parts of the world, are doubtless as
+beautiful as Antinea, more beautiful perhaps. I hold you to witness
+that I have not said much about her beauty. Why then, this obsession,
+this fever, this consumption of all my being? Why am I ready, for the
+sake of pressing this quivering form within my arms for one instant,
+to face things that I dare not think of for fear I should tremble
+before them?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Here is number 53, the last. Morhange will be 54. I shall be 55. In
+six months, eight, perhaps,&mdash;what difference any<!-- Page 141 -->way?&mdash;I shall be
+hoisted into this niche, an image without eyes, a dead soul, a
+finished body.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I touched the heights of bliss, of exaltation that can be felt. What
+a child I was, just now! I lost my temper with a Negro manicure. I was
+jealous of Morhange, on my word! Why not, since I was at it, be
+jealous of those here present; then of the others, the absent, who
+will come, one by one, to fill the black circle of the still empty
+niches.... Morhange, I know, is at this moment with Antinea, and it is
+to me a bitter and splendid joy to think of his joy. But some evening,
+in three months, four perhaps, the embalmers will come here. Niche 54
+will receive its prey. Then a Targa slave will advance toward me. I
+shall shiver with superb ecstasy. He will touch my arm. And it will be
+my turn to penetrate into eternity by the bleeding door of love.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When I emerged from my meditation, I found myself back in the
+library, where the falling night obscured the shadows of the people
+who were assembled there.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I recognized M. Le Mesge, the Pastor, the Hetman, Aguida, two Tuareg
+slaves, still more, all joining in the most animated conference.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I drew nearer, astonished, even alarmed to see together so many
+people who ordinarily felt no kind of sympathy for each other.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;An unheard of occurrence had thrown all the people of the mountain
+into uproar.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Two Spanish explorers, come from Rio de Oro, had been seen to the
+West, in Adhar Ahnet.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;As soon as Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh was informed, he had prepared to go to
+meet them.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;At that instant he had received the order to do nothing.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Henceforth it was impossible to doubt.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;For the first time, Antinea was in love.&quot;</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<!-- Page 142 -->
+<h2><a name="XV"><!-- Chapter 15 --></a>XV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE LAMENT OF TANIT-ZERGA</h3>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>Arra&ocirc;u, arra&ocirc;u</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I roused myself vaguely from the half sleep to which I had finally
+succumbed. I half opened my eyes. Immediately I flattened back.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>Arra&ocirc;u</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Two feet from my face was the muzzle of King Hiram, yellow with a
+tracery of black. The leopard was helping me to wake up; otherwise he
+took little interest, for he yawned; his dark red jaws, beautiful
+gleaming white fangs, opened and closed lazily.</p>
+
+<p>At the same moment I heard a burst of laughter.</p>
+
+<p>It was little Tanit-Zerga. She was crouching on a cushion near the
+divan where I was stretched out, curiously watching my close interview
+with the leopard.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;King Hiram was bored,&quot; she felt obliged to explain to me. &quot;I brought
+him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How nice,&quot; I growled. &quot;Only tell me, could he not have gone somewhere
+else to be amused?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He is all alone now,&quot; said the girl. &quot;<i>They</i> have sent him away. He
+made too much noise when he played.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>These words recalled me to the events of the previous evening.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If you like, I will make him go away,&quot; said Tanit-Zerga.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, let him alone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I looked at the leopard with sympathy. Our common misfortune brought
+us together.</p>
+
+<p>I even caressed his rounded forehead. King Hiram showed his
+contentment by stretching out at full length and uncurling his great
+amber claws. The mat on the floor had much to suffer.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Gal&eacute; is here, too,&quot; said the little girl.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Gal&eacute;! Who may he be?&quot;</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 143 -->At the same time, I saw on Tanit-Zerga's knees a strange animal,
+about the size of a big cat, with flat ears, and a long muzzle. Its
+pale gray fur was rough.</p>
+
+<p>It was watching me with queer little pink eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is my mongoose,&quot; explained Tanit-Zerga.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come now,&quot; I said sharply, &quot;is that all?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I must have looked so crabbed and ridiculous that Tanit-Zerga began to
+laugh. I laughed, too.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Gal&eacute; is my friend,&quot; she said when she was serious again. &quot;I saved her
+life. It was when she was quite little. I will tell you about it some
+day. See how good-natured she is.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So saying, she dropped the mongoose on my knees.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is very nice of you, Tanit-Zerga,&quot; I said, &quot;to come and pay me a
+visit.&quot; I passed my hand slowly over the animal's back. &quot;What time is
+it now?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A little after nine. See, the sun is already high. Let me draw the
+shade.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The room was in darkness. Gal&eacute;'s eyes grew redder. King Hiram's became
+green.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is very nice of you,&quot; I repeated, pursuing my idea. &quot;I see that
+you are free to-day. You never came so early before.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A shade passed over the girl's forehead.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I am free,&quot; she said, almost bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>I looked at Tanit-Zerga more closely. For the first time I realized
+that she was beautiful. Her hair, which she wore falling over her
+shoulders, was not so much curly as it was gently waving. Her features
+were of remarkable fineness: the nose very straight, a small mouth
+with delicate lips, a strong chin. She was not black, but copper
+colored. Her slender graceful body had nothing in common with the
+disgusting thick sausages which the carefully cared for bodies of the
+blacks become.</p>
+
+<p>A large circle of copper made a heavy decoration around her forehead
+and hair. She had four bracelets, still heavier, on her wrists and
+anklets, and, for clothing, a green silk tunic, slashed in points,
+braided with gold. Green, bronze, gold.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are a Sonrha&iuml;, Tanit-Zerga?&quot; I asked gently.</p>
+
+<p>She replied with almost ferocious pride:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 144 -->I am a Sonrha&iuml;.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Strange little thing,&quot; I thought.</p>
+
+<p>Evidently this was a subject on which Tanit-Zerga did not intend the
+conversation to turn. I recalled how, almost painfully, she had
+pronounced that &quot;they,&quot; when she had told me how they had driven away
+King Hiram.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am a Sonrha&iuml;,&quot; she repeated. &quot;I was born at G&acirc;o, on the Niger, the
+ancient Sonrha&iuml; capital. My fathers reigned over the great Mandingue
+Empire. You need not scorn me because I am here as a slave.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In a ray of sunlight, Gal&eacute;, seated on his little haunches, washed his
+shining mustaches with his forepaws; and King Hiram, stretched out on
+the mat, groaned plaintively in his sleep.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He is dreaming,&quot; said Tanit-Zerga, a finger on her lips.</p>
+
+<p>There was a moment of silence. Then she said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You must be hungry. And I do not think that you will want to eat with
+the others.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I did not answer.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You must eat,&quot; she continued. &quot;If you like, I will go get something
+to eat for you and me. I will bring King Hiram's and Gal&eacute;'s dinner
+here, too. When you are sad, you should not stay alone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And the little green and gold fairy vanished, without waiting for my
+answer.</p>
+
+<p>That was how my friendship with Tanit-Zerga began. Each morning she
+came to my room with the two beasts. She rarely spoke to me of
+Antinea, and when she did, it was always indirectly. The question that
+she saw ceaselessly hovering on my lips seemed to be unbearable to
+her, and I felt her avoiding all the subjects towards which I, myself,
+dared not direct the conversation.</p>
+
+<p>To make sure of avoiding them, she prattled, prattled, prattled, like
+a nervous little parokeet.</p>
+
+<p>I was sick and this Sister of Charity in green and bronze silk tended
+me with such care as never was before. The two wild beasts, the big
+and the little, were there, each side of my couch, and, during my
+delirium, I saw their mysterious, sad eyes fixed on me.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 145 -->In her melodious voice, Tanit-Zerga told me wonderful stories, and
+among them, the one she thought most wonderful, the story of her life.</p>
+
+<p>It was not till much later, very suddenly, that I realized how far
+this little barbarian had penetrated into my own life. Wherever thou
+art at this hour, dear little girl, from whatever peaceful shores thou
+watchest my tragedy, cast a look at thy friend, pardon him for not
+having accorded thee, from the very first, the gratitude that thou
+deservedest so richly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I remember from my childhood,&quot; she said, &quot;the vision of a yellow and
+rose-colored sun rising through the morning mists over the smooth
+waves of a great river, 'the river where there is water,' the Niger,
+it was.... But you are not listening to me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am listening to you, I swear it, little Tanit-Zerga.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are sure I am not wearying you? You want me to go on?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Go on, little Tanit-Zerga, go on.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, with my little companions, of whom I was very fond, I played at
+the edge of the river where there is water, under the jujube trees,
+brothers of the <i>zeg-zeg</i>, the spines of which pierced the head of
+your prophet and which we call 'the tree of Paradise' because our
+prophet told us that under it would live those chosen of
+Paradise;<a name="FNanchor_Q_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_Q_15"><sup>[15]</sup></a>
+and which is sometimes so big, so big, that a horseman cannot traverse
+its shade in a century.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There we wove beautiful garlands with mimosa, the pink flowers of the
+caper bush and white cockles. Then we threw them in the green water to
+ward off evil spirits; and we laughed like mad things when a great
+snorting hippopotamus raised his swollen head and we bombarded him in
+glee until he had to plunge back again with a tremendous splash.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That was in the mornings. Then there fell on G&acirc;o the deathlike lull
+of the red siesta. When that was finished, we came back to the edge of
+the river to see the enormous crocodiles with bronze goggle-eyes creep
+along little by little, among the clouds of mosquitoes and day-flies
+on the banks, <!-- Page 146 -->and work their way traitorously into the yellow ooze of
+the mud flats.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then we bombarded them, as we had done the hippopotamus in the
+morning; and to f&ecirc;te the sun setting behind the black branches of the
+<i>douldouls</i>, we made a circle, stamping our feet, then clapping our
+hands, as we sang the Sonrha&iuml; hymn.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Such were the ordinary occupations of free little girls. But you must
+not think that we were only frivolous; and I will tell you, if you
+like, how I, who am talking to you, I saved a French chieftain who
+must be vastly greater than yourself, to judge by the number of gold
+ribbons he had on his white sleeves.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Tell me, little Tanit-Zerga,&quot; I said, my eyes elsewhere.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You have no right to smile,&quot; she said a little aggrieved, &quot;and to pay
+no attention to me. But never mind! It is for myself that I tell these
+things, for the sake of recollection. Above G&acirc;o, the Niger makes a
+bend. There is a little promontory in the river, thickly covered with
+large gum trees. It was an evening in August and the sun was sinking.
+Not a bird in the forest but had gone to rest, motionless until the
+morning. Suddenly we heard an unfamiliar noise in the west, boum-boum,
+boum-boum, boum-baraboum, boum-boum, growing louder&mdash;boum-boum,
+boum-baraboum&mdash;and, suddenly, there was a great flight of water birds,
+aigrettes, pelicans, wild ducks and teal, which scattered over the gum
+trees, followed by a column of black smoke, which was scarcely
+flurried by the breeze that was springing up.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It was a gunboat, turning the point, sending out a wake that shook
+the overhanging bushes on each side of the river. One could see that
+the red, white and blue flag on the stern had drooped till it was
+dragging in the water, so heavy was the evening.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She stopped at the little point of land. A small boat was let down,
+manned by two native soldiers who rowed, and three chiefs who soon
+leapt ashore.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The oldest, a French <i>marabout</i>, with a great white burnous, who knew
+our language marvelously, asked to speak to Sheik Sonni-Azkia. When my
+father advanced and told him that it was he, the <i>marabout</i> told him
+that the commandant <!-- Page 147 -->of the Club at Timbuctoo was very angry, that a
+mile from there the gunboat had run on an invisible pile of logs, that
+she had sprung a leak and that she could not so continue her voyage
+towards Ansango.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My father replied that the French who protected the poor natives
+against the Tuareg were welcome: that it was not from evil design, but
+for fish that they had built the barrage, and that he put all the
+resources of G&acirc;o, including the forge, at the disposition of the
+French chief, for repairing the gunboat.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;While they were talking, the French chief looked at me and I looked
+at him. He was already middle-aged, tall, with shoulders a little
+bent, and blue eyes as clear as the stream whose name I bear.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Come here, little one,' he said in his gentle voice.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'I am the daughter of Sheik Sonni-Azkia, and I do only what I wish,'
+I replied, vexed at his informality.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'You are right,' he answered smiling, 'for you are pretty. Will you
+give me the flowers that you have around your neck?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It was a great necklace of purple hibiscus. I held it out to him. He
+kissed me. The peace was made.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Meantime, under the direction of my father, the native soldiers and
+strong men of the tribe had hauled the gunboat into a pocket of the
+river.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'There is work there for all day to-morrow, Colonel,' said the chief
+mechanic, after inspecting the leaks. 'We won't be able to get away
+before the day after to-morrow. And, if we're to do that, these lazy
+soldiers mustn't loaf on the job.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'What an awful bore,' groaned my new friend.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But his ill-humor did not last long, so ardently did my little
+companions and I seek to distract him. He listened to our most
+beautiful songs; and, to thank us, made us taste the good things that
+had been brought from the boat for his dinner. He slept in our great
+cabin, which my father gave up to him; and for a long time, before I
+went to sleep, I looked through the cracks of the cabin where I lay
+with my mother, at the lights of the gunboat trembling in red ripples
+on the surface of the dark waves.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 148 -->That night, I had a frightful dream. I saw my friend, the French
+officer, sleeping in peace, while a great crow hung croaking above his
+head: 'Caw,&mdash;caw&mdash;the shade of the gum trees of G&acirc;o&mdash;caw, caw&mdash;will
+avail nothing tomorrow night&mdash;caw, caw&mdash;to the white chief nor to his
+escort.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dawn had scarcely begun, when I went to find the native soldiers.
+They were stretched out on the bridge of the gunboat, taking advantage
+of the fact that the whites were still sleeping, to do nothing.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I approached the oldest one and spoke to him with authority:</p>
+
+<p>'Listen, I saw the black crow in a dream last night. He told me that
+the shade of the gum trees of G&acirc;o would be fatal to your chief in the
+coming night!...'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And, as they all remained motionless, stretched out, gazing at the
+sky, without even seeming to have heard, I added:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'And to his escort!'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It was the hour when the sun was highest, and the Colonel was eating
+in the cabin with the other Frenchmen, when the chief mechanic
+entered.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'I don't know what has come over the natives. They are working like
+angels. If they keep on this way, Colonel, we shall be able to leave
+this evening.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Very good,' said the Colonel, 'but don't let them spoil the job by
+too much haste. We don't have to be at Ansango before the end of the
+week. It will be better to start in the morning.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I trembled. Suppliantly I approached and told him the story of my
+dream. He listened with a smile of astonishment; then, at the last, he
+said gravely:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'It is agreed, little Tanit-Zerga. We will leave this evening if you
+wish it.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And he kissed me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The darkness had already fallen when the gunboat, now repaired, left
+the harbor. My friend stood in the midst of the group of Frenchmen who
+waved their caps as long as we could see them. Standing alone on the
+rickety jetty, I <!-- Page 149 -->waited, watching the water flow by, until the last
+sound of the steam-driven vessel, boum-baraboum, had died away into
+the night.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_R_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_R_16"><sup>[16]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>Tanit-Zerga paused.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That was the last night of G&acirc;o. While I was sleeping and the moon was
+still high above the forest, a dog yelped, but only for an instant.
+Then came the cry of men, then of women, the kind of cry that you can
+never forget if you have once heard it. When the sun rose, it found
+me, quite naked, running and stumbling towards the north with my
+little companions, beside the swiftly moving camels of the Tuareg who
+escorted us. Behind, followed the women of the tribe, my mother among
+them, two by two, the yoke upon their necks. There were not many men.
+Almost all lay with their throats cut under the ruins of the thatch of
+G&acirc;o beside my father, brave Sonni-Azkia. Once again G&acirc;o had been razed
+by a band of Awellimiden, who had come to massacre the French on their gunboat.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Tuareg hurried us, hurried us, for they were afraid of being
+pursued. We traveled thus for ten days; and, as the millet and hemp
+disappeared, the march became more frightful. Finally, near Isakeryen,
+in the country of Kidal, the Tuareg sold us to a caravan of Trarzan
+Moors who were going from Bamrouk to Rh&acirc;t. At first, because they went
+more slowly, it seemed good fortune. But, before long, the desert was
+an expanse of rough pebbles, and the women began to fall. As for the
+men, the last of them had died far back under the blows of the stick
+for having refused to go farther.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I still had the strength to keep going, and even as far in the lead
+as possible, so as not to hear the cries of my little playmates. Each
+time one of them fell by the way, unable to rise again, they saw one
+of the drivers descend from his camel and drag her into the bushes a
+little way to cut her throat. But one day, I heard a cry that made me
+turn <!-- Page 150 -->around. It was my mother. She was kneeling, holding out her poor
+arms to me. In an instant I was beside her. But a great Moor, dressed
+in white, separated us. A red moroccan case hung around his neck from
+a black chaplet. He drew a cutlass from it. I can still see the blue
+steel on the brown skin. Another horrible cry. An instant later,
+driven by a club, I was trotting ahead, swallowing my little tears,
+trying to regain my place in the caravan.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Near the wells of Asiou, the Moors were attacked by a party of Tuareg
+of Kel-Tazeholet, serfs of the great tribe of Kel-Rhel&acirc;, which rules
+over Ahaggar. They, in their turn, were massacred to the last man.
+That is how I was brought here, and offered as homage to Antinea, who
+was pleased with me and ever since has been kind to me. That is why it
+is no slave who soothes your fever to-day with stories that you do not
+even listen to, but the last descendant of the great Sonrha&iuml; Emperors,
+of Sonni-Ali, the destroyer of men and of countries, of Mohammed
+Azkia, who made the pilgrimage to Mecca, taking with him fifteen
+hundred cavaliers and three hundred thousand <i>mithkal</i> of gold in the
+days when our power stretched without rival from Chad to Touat and to
+the western sea, and when G&acirc;o raised her cupola, sister of the sky,
+above the other cities, higher above her rival cupolas than is the
+tamarisk above the humble plants of sorghum.&quot;</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h2><a name="XVI"><!-- Chapter 16--></a>XVI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE SILVER HAMMER</h3>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span><i>Je ne m'en d&eacute;fends plus et je ne veux qu' aller</i><br /></span>
+<span><i>Reconna&icirc;tre la place o&ugrave; je dois l'immoler</i>.<br /></span>
+<span class="i16">(Andromaque.)</span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>It was this sort of a night when what I am going to tell you now
+happened. Toward five o'clock the sky clouded over and a sense of the
+coming storm trembled in the stifling air.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 151 -->I shall always remember it. It was the fifth of January, 1897.</p>
+
+<p>King Hiram and Gal&eacute; lay heavily on the matting of my room. Leaning on
+my elbows beside Tanit-Zerga in the rock-hewn window, I spied the
+advance tremors of lightning.</p>
+
+<p>One by one they rose, streaking the now total darkness with their
+bluish stripes. But no burst of thunder followed. The storm did not
+attain the peaks of Ahaggar. It passed without breaking, leaving us in
+our gloomy bath of sweat.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am going to bed,&quot; said Tanit-Zerga.</p>
+
+<p>I have said that her room was above mine. Its bay window was some
+thirty feet above that before which I lay.</p>
+
+<p>She took Gal&eacute; in her arms. But King Hiram would have none of it.
+Digging his four paws into the matting, he whined in anger and
+uneasiness.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Leave him,&quot; I finally said to Tanit-Zerga. &quot;For once he may sleep
+here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So it was that this little beast incurred his large share of
+responsibility in the events which followed.</p>
+
+<p>Left alone, I became lost in my reflections. The night was black. The
+whole mountain was shrouded in silence.</p>
+
+<p>It took the louder and louder growls of the leopard to rouse me from
+my meditation.</p>
+
+<p>King Hiram was braced against the door, digging at it with his drawn
+claws. He, who had refused to follow Tanit-Zerga a while ago, now
+wanted to go out. He was determined to go out.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Be still,&quot; I said to him. &quot;Enough of that. Lie down!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I tried to pull him away from the door.</p>
+
+<p>I succeeded only in getting a staggering blow from his paw.</p>
+
+<p>Then I sat down on the divan.</p>
+
+<p>My quiet was short. &quot;Be honest with yourself,&quot; I said. &quot;Since Morhange
+abandoned you, since the day when you saw Antinea, you have had only
+one idea. What good is it to beguile yourself with the stories of
+Tanit-Zerga, charming as they are? This leopard is a pretext, perhaps
+a guide. Oh, you know that mysterious things are going to happen
+tonight. How have you been able to keep from doing anything as long as
+this?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Immediately I made a resolve.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 152 -->If I open the door,&quot; I thought, &quot;King Hiram will leap down the
+corridor and I shall have great difficulty in following him. I must
+find some other way.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The shade of the window was worked by means of a small cord. I pulled
+it down. Then I tied it into a firm leash which I fastened to the
+metal collar of the leopard.</p>
+
+<p>I half opened the door.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There, now you can go. But quietly, quietly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I had all the trouble in the world to curb the ardor of King Hiram who
+dragged me along the shadowy labyrinth of corridors. It was shortly
+before nine o'clock, and the rose-colored night lights were almost
+burned out in the niches. Now and then, we passed one which was
+casting its last flickers. What a labyrinth! I realized that from here
+on I would not recognize the way to her room. I could only follow the
+leopard.</p>
+
+<p>At first furious, he gradually became used to towing me. He strained
+ahead, belly to the ground, with snuffs of joy.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing is more like one black corridor than another black corridor.
+Doubt seized me. Suppose I should suddenly find myself in the baccarat
+room! But that was unjust to King Hiram. Barred too long from the dear
+presence, the good beast was taking me exactly where I wanted him to
+take me.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, at a turn, the darkness ahead lifted. A rose window, faintly
+glimmering red and green, appeared before us.</p>
+
+<p>The leopard stopped with a low growl before the door in which the rose
+window was cut.</p>
+
+<p>I recognized it as the door through which the white Targa had led me
+the day after my arrival, when I had been set upon by King Hiram, when
+I had found myself in the presence of Antinea.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We are much better friends to-day,&quot; I said, flattering him so that he
+would not give a dangerously loud growl.</p>
+
+<p>I tried to open the door. The light, coming through the window, fell
+upon the floor, green and red.</p>
+
+<p>A simple latch, which I turned. I shortened the leash to have better
+control of King Hiram who was getting nervous.</p>
+
+<p>The great room where I had seen Antinea for the first time was
+completely dark. But the garden on which it gave <!-- Page 153 -->shone under a
+clouded moon, in a sky weighted down with the storm which did not
+break. Not a breath of air. The lake gleamed like a sheet of pewter.</p>
+
+<p>I seated myself on a cushion, holding the leopard firmly between my
+knees. He was purring with impatience. I was thinking. Not about my
+goal. For a long time that had been fixed. But about the means.</p>
+
+<p>Then, I seemed to hear a distant murmur, a faint sound of voices.</p>
+
+<p>King Hiram growled louder, struggled. I gave him a little more leash.
+He began to rub along the dark walls on the sides whence the voices
+seemed to come. I followed him, stumbling as quietly as I could among
+the scattered cushions.</p>
+
+<p>My eyes, become accustomed to the darkness, could see the pyramid of
+cushions on which Antinea had first appeared to me.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly I stumbled. The leopard had stopped. I realized that I had
+stepped on his tail. Brave beast, he did not make a sound.</p>
+
+<p>Groping along the wall, I felt a second door. Quietly, very quietly, I
+opened it as I had opened the preceding one. The leopard whimpered
+feebly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;King Hiram,&quot; I murmured, &quot;be quiet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And I put my arms about his powerful neck.</p>
+
+<p>I felt his warm wet tongue on my hands. His flanks quivered. He shook
+with happiness.</p>
+
+<p>In front of us, lighted in the center, another room opened up. In the
+middle six men were squatting on the matting, playing dice and
+drinking coffee from tiny copper coffee cups with long stems.</p>
+
+<p>They were the white Tuareg.</p>
+
+<p>A lamp, hung from the ceiling, threw a circle of light over them.
+Everything outside that circle was in deep shadow.</p>
+
+<p>The black faces, the copper cups, the white robes, the moving light
+and shadow, made a strange etching.</p>
+
+<p>They played with a reserved dignity, announcing the throws in raucous
+voices.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 154 -->Then, slowly, very slowly, I slipped the leash from the collar of the
+impatient little beast.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Go, boy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He leapt with a sharp yelp.</p>
+
+<p>And what I had foreseen happened.</p>
+
+<p>The first bound of King Hiram carried him into the midst of the white
+Tuareg, sowing confusion in the bodyguard. Another leap carried him
+into the shadow again. I made out vaguely the shaded opening of
+another corridor on the side of the room opposite where I was
+standing.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There!&quot; I thought.</p>
+
+<p>The confusion in the room was indescribable, but noiseless. One
+realized the restraint which nearness to a great presence imposed upon
+the exasperated guards. The stakes and the dice-boxes had rolled in
+one direction, the copper cups, in the other.</p>
+
+<p>Two of the Tuareg, doubled up with pain, were rubbing their ribs with
+low oaths.</p>
+
+<p>I need not say that I profited by this silent confusion to glide into
+the room. I was now flattened against the wall of the second corridor,
+down which King Hiram had just disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>At that moment a clear gong echoed in the silence. The trembling which
+seized the Tuareg assured me that I had chosen the right way.</p>
+
+<p>One of the six men got up. He passed me and I fell in behind him. I
+was perfectly calm. My least movement was perfectly calculated.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All that I risk here now,&quot; I said to myself, &quot;is being led back
+politely to my room.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Targa lifted a curtain. I followed on his heels into the chamber
+of Antinea.</p>
+
+<p>The room was huge and at once well lighted and very dark. While the
+right half, where Antinea was, gleamed under shaded lamps, the left
+was dim.</p>
+
+<p>Those who have penetrated into a Mussulman home know what a <i>guignol</i>
+is, a kind of square niche in the wall, four feet from the floor, its
+opening covered by a curtain. One mounts to it by wooden steps. I
+noticed such a <i>guignol</i> <!-- Page 155 -->at my left. I crept into it. My pulses beat
+in the shadow. But I was calm, quite calm.</p>
+
+<p>There I could see and hear everything.</p>
+
+<p>I was in Antinea's chamber. There was nothing singular about the room,
+except the great luxury of the hangings. The ceiling was in shadow,
+but multicolored lanterns cast a vague and gentle light over gleaming
+stuffs and furs.</p>
+
+<p>Antinea was stretched out on a lion's skin, smoking. A little silver
+tray and pitcher lay beside her. King Hiram was flattened out at her
+feet, licking them madly.</p>
+
+<p>The Targa slave stood rigid before her, one hand on his heart, the
+other on his forehead, saluting.</p>
+
+<p>Antinea spoke in a hard voice, without looking at the man.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why did you let the leopard pass? I told you that I wanted to be
+alone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He knocked us over, mistress,&quot; said the Targa humbly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The doors were not closed, then?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The slave did not answer.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Shall I take him away?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p>And his eyes, fastened upon King Hiram who stared at him maliciously,
+expressed well enough his desire for a negative reply.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let him stay since he is here,&quot; said Antinea.</p>
+
+<p>She tapped nervously on the little silver tray.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is the captain doing?&quot; she asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He dined a while ago and seemed to enjoy his food,&quot; the Targa
+answered.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Has he said nothing?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, he asked to see his companion, the other officer.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Antinea tapped the little tray still more rapidly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Did he say nothing else?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, mistress,&quot; said the man.</p>
+
+<p>A pallor overspread the Atlantide's little forehead.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Go get him,&quot; she said brusquely.</p>
+
+<p>Bowing, the Targa left the room.</p>
+
+<p>I listened to this dialogue with great anxiety. Was this Morhange? Had
+he been faithful to me, after all? Had I suspected him unjustly? He
+had wanted to see me and been unable to!</p>
+
+<p>My eyes never left Antinea's.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 156 -->She was no longer the haughty, mocking princess of our first
+interview. She no longer wore the golden circlet on her forehead. Not
+a bracelet, not a ring. She was dressed only in a full flowing tunic.
+Her black hair, unbound, lay in masses of ebony over her slight
+shoulders and her bare arms.</p>
+
+<p>Her beautiful eyes were deep circled. Her divine mouth drooped. I did
+not know whether I was glad or sorry to see this new quivering
+Cleopatra.</p>
+
+<p>Flattened at her feet, King Hiram gazed submissively at her.</p>
+
+<p>An immense orichalch mirror with golden reflections was set into the
+wall at the right. Suddenly she raised herself erect before it. I saw
+her nude.</p>
+
+<p>A splendid and bitter sight!&mdash;A woman who thinks herself alone,
+standing before her mirror in expectation of the man she wishes to
+subdue!</p>
+
+<p>The six incense-burners scattered about the room sent up invisible
+columns of perfume. The balsam spices of Arabia wore floating webs in
+which my shameless senses were entangled.... And, back toward me,
+standing straight as a lily, Antinea smiled into her mirror.</p>
+
+<p>Low steps sounded in the corridor. Antinea immediately fell back into
+the nonchalant pose in which I had first seen her. One had to see such
+a transformation to believe it possible.</p>
+
+<p>Morhange entered the room, preceded by a white Targa.</p>
+
+<p>He, too, seemed rather pale. But I was most struck by the expression
+of serene peace on that face which I thought I knew so well. I felt
+that I never had understood what manner of man Morhange was, never.</p>
+
+<p>He stood erect before Antinea without seeming to notice her gesture
+inviting him to be seated.</p>
+
+<p>She smiled at him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are surprised, perhaps,&quot; she said finally, &quot;that I should send
+for you at so late an hour.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Morhange did not move an eyelash.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Have you considered it well?&quot; she demanded.</p>
+
+<p>Morhange smiled gravely, but did not reply.</p>
+
+<p>I could read in Antinea's face the effort it cost her to <!-- Page 157 -->continue
+smiling; I admired the self-control of these two beings.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I sent for you,&quot; she continued. &quot;You do not guess why?... Well, it is
+to tell you something that you do not expect. It will be no surprise
+to you if I say that I never met a man like you. During your
+captivity, you have expressed only one wish. Do you recall it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I asked your permission to see my friend before I died,&quot; said
+Morhange simply.</p>
+
+<p>I do not know what stirred me more on hearing these words: delight at
+Morhange's formal tone in speaking to Antinea, or emotion at hearing
+the one wish he had expressed.</p>
+
+<p>But Antinea continued calmly:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is why I sent for you&mdash;to tell you that you are going to see him
+again. And I am going to do something else. You will perhaps scorn me
+even more when you realize that you had only to oppose me to bend me
+to your will&mdash;I, who have bent all other wills to mine. But, however
+that may be, it is decided: I give you both your liberty. Tomorrow
+Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh will lead you past the fifth enclosure. Are you
+satisfied?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am,&quot; said Morhange with a mocking smile.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That will give me a chance,&quot; he continued, &quot;to make better plans for
+the next trip I intend to make this way. For you need not doubt that I
+shall feel bound to return to express my gratitude. Only, next time,
+to render so great a queen the honors due her, I shall ask my
+government to furnish me with two or three hundred European soldiers
+and several cannon.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Antinea was standing up, very pale.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What are you saying?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am saying,&quot; said Morhange coldly, &quot;that I foresaw this. First
+threats, then promises.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Antinea stepped toward him. He had folded his arms. He looked at her
+with a sort of grave pity.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I will make you die in the most atrocious agonies,&quot; she said finally.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am your prisoner,&quot; Morhange replied.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You shall suffer things that you cannot even imagine.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 158 -->I am your prisoner,&quot; repeated Morhange in the same sad calm.</p>
+
+<p>Antinea paced the room like a beast in a cage. She advanced toward my
+companion and, no longer mistress of herself, struck him in the face.</p>
+
+<p>He smiled and caught hold of her, drawing her little wrists together
+with a strange mixture of force and gentleness.</p>
+
+<p>King Hiram growled. I thought he was about to leap. But the cold eyes
+of Morhange held him fascinated.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I will have your comrade killed before your eyes,&quot; gasped Antinea.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed to me that Morhange paled, but only for a second. I was
+overcome by the nobility and insight of his reply.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My companion is brave. He does not fear death. And, in any case, he
+would prefer death to life purchased at the price you name.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So saying, he let go Antinea's wrists. Her pallor was terrible. From
+the expression of her mouth I felt that this would be her last word to
+him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Listen,&quot; she said.</p>
+
+<p>How beautiful she was, in her scorned majesty, her beauty powerless
+for the first time!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Listen,&quot; she continued. &quot;Listen. For the last time. Remember that I
+hold the gates of this palace, that I have supreme power over your
+life. Remember that you breathe only at my pleasure. Remember....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have remembered all that,&quot; said Morhange.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A last time,&quot; she repeated.</p>
+
+<p>The serenity of Morhange's face was so powerful that I scarcely
+noticed his opponent. In that transfigured countenance, no trace of
+worldliness remained.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A last time,&quot; came Antinea's voice, almost breaking.</p>
+
+<p>Morhange was not even looking at her.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;As you will,&quot; she said.</p>
+
+<p>Her gong resounded. She had struck the silver disc. The white Targa
+appeared.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Leave the room!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Morhange, his head held high, went out.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 159 -->Now Antinea is in my arms. This is no haughty, voluptuous woman whom
+I am pressing to my heart. It is only an unhappy, scorned little girl.</p>
+
+<p>So great was her trouble that she showed no surprise when I stepped
+out beside her. Her head is on my shoulder. Like the crescent moon in
+the black clouds, I see her clear little bird-like profile amid her
+mass of hair. Her warm arms hold me convulsively.... <i>O tremblant
+coeur humain</i>....</p>
+
+<p>Who could resist such an embrace, amid the soft perfumes, in the
+langorous night? I feel myself a being without will. Is this my voice,
+the voice which is murmuring:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ask me what you will, and I will do it, I will do it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>My senses are sharpened, tenfold keen. My head rests against a soft,
+nervous little knee. Clouds of odors whirl about me. Suddenly it seems
+as if the golden lanterns are waving from the ceiling like giant
+censers. Is this my voice, the voice repeating in a dream:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ask me what you will, and I will do it. I will do it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Antinea's face is almost touching mine. A strange light flickers in
+her great eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond, I see the gleaming eyes of King Hiram. Beside him, there is a
+little table of Kairouan, blue and gold. On that table I see the gong
+with which Antinea summons the slaves. I see the hammer with which she
+struck it just now, a hammer with a long ebony handle, a heavy silver
+head ... the hammer with which little Lieutenant Kaine dealt death....</p>
+
+<p>I see nothing more....</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h2><a name="XVII"><!-- Chapter 17--></a>XVII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE MAIDENS OF THE ROCKS</h3>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>I awakened in my room. The sun, already at its zenith, filled the
+place with unbearable light and heat.</p>
+
+<p>The first thing I saw, on opening my eyes, was the shade, ripped down,
+lying in the middle of the floor. Then, confusedly, the night's events
+began to come back to me.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 160 -->My head felt stupid and heavy. My mind wandered. My memory seemed
+blocked. &quot;I went out with the leopard, that is certain. That red mark
+on my forefinger shows how he strained at the leash. My knees are
+still dusty. I remember creeping along the wall in the room where the
+white Tuareg were playing at dice. That was the minute after King
+Hiram had leapt past them. After that ... oh, Morhange and Antinea....
+And then?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I recalled nothing more. I recalled nothing more. But something must
+have happened, something which I could not remember.</p>
+
+<p>I was uneasy. I wanted to go back, yet it seemed as if I were afraid
+to go. I have never felt anything more painful than those conflicting
+emotions.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is a long way from here to Antinea's apartments. I must have been
+very sound asleep not to have noticed when they brought me back&mdash;for
+they have brought me back.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I stopped trying to think it out. My head ached too much.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I must have air,&quot; I murmured. &quot;I am roasting here; it will drive me
+mad.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I had to see someone, no matter whom. Mechanically, I walked toward
+the library.</p>
+
+<p>I found M. Le Mesge in a transport of delirious joy. The Professor was
+engaged in opening an enormous bale, carefully sewed in a brown
+blanket.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You come at a good time, sir,&quot; he cried, on seeing me enter. &quot;The
+magazines have just arrived.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He dashed about in feverish haste. Presently a stream of pamphlets and
+magazines, blue, green, yellow and salmon, was bursting from an
+opening in the bale.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Splendid, splendid!&quot; he cried, dancing with joy. &quot;Not too late,
+either; here are the numbers for October fifteenth. We must give a
+vote of thanks to good Ameur.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>His good spirits were contagious.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is a good Turkish merchant who subscribes to all the
+interesting magazines of the two continents. He sends them on by
+Rhadam&egrave;s to a destination which he little suspects. Ah, here are the
+French ones.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>M. Le Mesge ran feverishly over, the tables of contents.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Internal politics: articles by Francis Charmes, Anatole
+<!-- Page 161 -->Leroy-Beaulieu, d'Haussonville on the Czar's trip to Paris. Look, a
+study by Avenel of wages in the Middle Ages. And verse, verses of the
+young poets, Fernand Gregh, Edmond Haraucourt. Ah, the resum&eacute; of a
+book by Henry de Castries on Islam. That may be interesting.... Take
+what you please.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Joy makes people amiable and M. Le Mesge was really delirious with it.</p>
+
+<p>A puff of breeze came from the window. I went to the balustrade and,
+resting my elbows on it, began to run through a number of the <i>Revue
+des Deux Mondes</i>.</p>
+
+<p>I did not read, but flipped over the pages, my eyes now on the lines
+of swarming little black characters, now on the rocky basin which lay
+shivering, pale pink, under the declining sun.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly my attention became fixed. There was a strange coincidence
+between the text and the landscape.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In the sky overhead were only light shreds of cloud, like bits of
+white ash floating up from burnt-out logs. The sun fell over a circle
+of rocky peaks, silhouetting their severe lines against the azure sky.
+From on high, a great sadness and gentleness poured down into the
+lonely enclosure, like a magic drink into a
+deep cup....&quot;<a name="FNanchor_S_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_S_17"><sup>[17]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>I turned the pages feverishly. My mind seemed to be clearing.</p>
+
+<p>Behind me, M. Le Mesge, deep in an article, voiced his opinions in
+indignant growls.</p>
+
+<p>I continued reading:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;On all sides a magnificent view spread out before us in the raw
+light. The chain of rocks, clearly visible in their barren desolation
+which stretched to the very summit, lay stretched out like some great
+heap of gigantic, unformed things left by some primordial race of
+Titans to stupefy human beings. Overturned towers....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is shameful, downright shameful,&quot; the Professor was repeating.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Overturned towers, crumbling citadels, cupolas fallen in, broken
+pillars, mutilated colossi, prows of vessels, thighs of <!-- Page 162 -->monsters,
+bones of titans,&mdash;this mass, impassable with its ridges and gullies,
+seemed the embodiment of everything huge and tragic. So clear were the
+distances....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Downright shameful,&quot; M. Le Mesge kept on saying in exasperation,
+thumping his fist on the table.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So clear were the distances that I could see, as if I had it under my
+eyes, infinitely enlarged, every contour of the rock which Violante
+had shown me through the window with the gesture of a creator....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Trembling, I closed the magazine. At my feet, now red, I saw the rock
+which Antinea had pointed out to me the day of our first interview,
+huge, steep, overhanging the reddish brown garden.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is my horizon,&quot; she had said.</p>
+
+<p>M. Le Mesge's excitement had passed all bounds.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is worse than shameful; it is infamous.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I almost wanted to strangle him into silence. He seized my arm.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Read that, sir; and, although you don't know a great deal about the
+subject, you will see that this article on Roman Africa is a miracle
+of misinformation, a monument of ignorance. And it is signed ... do
+you know by whom it is signed?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Leave me alone,&quot; I said brutally.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, it is signed Gaston Boissier. Yes, sir! Gaston Boissier, grand
+officer of the Legion of Honor, lecturer at the <i>Ecole Normale
+Sup&eacute;rieure</i>, permanent secretary of the French Academy, member of the
+Academy of Inscriptions and Literature, one of those who once ruled
+out the subject of my thesis ... one of those ... ah, poor university,
+ah, poor France!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I was no longer listening. I had begun to read again. My forehead was
+covered with sweat. But it seemed as if my head had been cleared like
+a room when a window is opened; memories were beginning to come back
+like doves winging their way home to the dovecote.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;At that moment, an irrepressible tremor shook her whole body; her
+eyes dilated as if some terrible sight had filled them with horror.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Antonello,' she murmured.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 163 -->And for seconds, she was unable to say another word.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I looked at her in mute anguish and the suffering which drew her dear
+lips together seemed also to clutch at my heart. The vision which was
+in her eyes passed into mine, and I saw again the thin white face of
+Antonello, and the quick quivering of his eyelids, the waves of agony
+which seized his long worn body and shook it like a reed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I threw the magazine upon the table.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is it,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>To cut the pages, I had used the knife with which M. Le Mesge had cut
+the cords of the bale, a short ebony-handled dagger, one of those
+daggers that the Tuareg wear in a bracelet sheath against the upper
+left arm.</p>
+
+<p>I slipped it into the big pocket of my flannel dolman and walked
+toward the door.</p>
+
+<p>I was about to cross the threshold when I heard M. Le Mesge call me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Monsieur de Saint Avit! Monsieur de Saint Avit!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I want to ask you something, please.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nothing important. You know that I have to mark the labels for the
+red marble hall....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I walked toward the table.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I forgot to ask M. Morhange, at the beginning, the date and
+place of his birth. After that, I had no chance. I did not see him
+again. So I am forced to turn to you. Perhaps you can tell me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I can,&quot; I said very calmly.</p>
+
+<p>He took a large white card from a box which contained several and
+dipped his pen.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Number 54 ... Captain?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Captain Jean-Marie-Fran&ccedil;ois Morhange.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>While I dictated, one hand resting on the table, I noticed on my cuff
+a stain, a little stain, reddish brown.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Morhange,&quot; repeated M. Le Mesge, finishing the lettering of my
+friend's name. &quot;Born at...?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Villefranche.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Villefranche, Rh&ocirc;ne. What date?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The fourteenth of October, 1859.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The fourteenth of October, 1859. Good. Died at Ahaggar, <!-- Page 164 -->the fifth of
+January, 1897.... There, that is done. A thousand thanks, sir, for
+your kindness.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are welcome.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I left M. Le Mesge.</p>
+
+<p>My mind, thenceforth, was well made up; and, as I said, I was
+perfectly calm. Nevertheless, when I had taken leave of M. Le Mesge, I
+felt the need of waiting a few minutes before executing my decision.</p>
+
+<p>First I wandered through the corridors; then, finding myself near my
+room, I went to it. It was still intolerably hot. I sat down on my
+divan and began to think.</p>
+
+<p>The dagger in my pocket bothered me. I took it out and laid it on the
+floor.</p>
+
+<p>It was a good dagger, with a diamond-shaped blade, and with a collar
+of orange leather between the blade and the handle.</p>
+
+<p>The sight of it recalled the silver hammer. I remembered how easily it
+fitted into my hand when I struck....</p>
+
+<p>Every detail of the scene came back to me with incomparable vividness.
+But I did not even shiver. It seemed as if my determination to kill
+the instigator of the murder permitted me peacefully to evoke its
+brutal details.</p>
+
+<p>If I reflected over my deed, it was to be surprised at it, not to
+condemn myself.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; I said to myself, &quot;I have killed this Morhange, who was once a
+baby, who, like all the others, cost his mother so much trouble with
+his baby sicknesses. I have put an end to his life, I have reduced to
+nothingness the monument of love, of tears, of trials overcome and
+pitfalls escaped, which constitutes a human existence. What an
+extraordinary adventure!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>That was all. No fear, no remorse, none of that Shakespearean horror
+after the murder, which, today, sceptic though I am and blas&eacute; and
+utterly, utterly disillusioned, sets me shuddering whenever I am alone
+in a dark room.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come,&quot; I thought. &quot;It's time. Time to finish it up.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I picked up the dagger. Before putting it in my pocket, I went through
+the motion of striking. All was well. The dagger fitted into my hand.</p>
+
+<p>I had been through Antinea's apartment only when <!-- Page 165 -->guided, the first
+time by the white Targa, the second time, by the leopard. Yet I found
+the way again without trouble. Just before coming to the door with the
+rose window, I met a Targa.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let me pass,&quot; I ordered. &quot;Your mistress has sent for me.&quot; The man
+obeyed, stepping back.</p>
+
+<p>Soon a dim melody came to my ears. I recognized the sound of a
+<i>rebaza</i>, the violin with a single string, played by the Tuareg women.
+It was Aguida playing, squatting as usual at the feet of her mistress.
+The three other women were also squatted about her. Tanit-Zerga was
+not there.</p>
+
+<p>Oh! Since that was the last time I saw her, let, oh, let me tell you
+of Antinea, how she looked in that supreme moment.</p>
+
+<p>Did she feel the danger hovering over her and did she wish to brave it
+by her surest artifices? I had in mind the slender; unadorned body,
+without rings, without jewels, which I had pressed to my heart the
+night before. And now I started in surprise at seeing before me,
+adorned like an idol, not a woman, but a queen!</p>
+
+<p>The heavy splendor of the Pharaohs weighted down her slender body. On
+her head was the great gold <i>pschent</i> of Egyptian gods and kings;
+emeralds, the national stone of the Tuareg, were set in it, tracing
+and retracing her name in Tifinar characters. A red satin <i>schenti</i>,
+embroidered in golden lotus, enveloped her like the casket of a jewel.
+At her feet, lay an ebony scepter, headed with a trident. Her bare
+arms were encircled by two serpents whose fangs touched her armpits as
+if to bury themselves there. From the ear pieces of the <i>pschent</i>
+streamed a necklace of emeralds; its first strand passed under her
+determined chin; the others lay in circles against her bare throat.</p>
+
+<p>She smiled as I entered.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I was expecting you,&quot; she said simply.</p>
+
+<p>I advanced till I was four steps from the throne, then stopped before
+her.</p>
+
+<p>She looked at me ironically.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is that?&quot; she asked with perfect calm.</p>
+
+<p>I followed her gesture. The handle of the dagger protruded from my
+pocket.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 166 -->I drew it out and held it firmly in my hand, ready to strike.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The first of you who moves will be sent naked six leagues into the
+red desert and left there to die,&quot; said Antinea coldly to her women,
+whom my gesture had thrown into a frightened murmuring.</p>
+
+<p>She turned to me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That dagger is very ugly and you hold it badly. Shall I send Sydya to
+my room to get the silver hammer? You are more adroit with it than
+with the dagger.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Antinea,&quot; I said in a low voice, &quot;I am going to kill you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do not speak so formally. You were more affectionate last night. Are
+you embarrassed by them?&quot; she said, pointing to the women, whose eyes
+were wide with terror.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Kill me?&quot; she went on. &quot;You are hardly reasonable. Kill me at the
+moment when you can reap the fruits of the murder of....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Did&mdash;did he suffer?&quot; I asked suddenly, trembling.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very little. I told you that you used the hammer as if you had done
+nothing else all your life.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Like little Kaine,&quot; I murmured.</p>
+
+<p>She smiled in surprise.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, you know that story.... Yes, like little Kaine. But at least
+Kaine was sensible. You ... I do not understand.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I do not understand myself, very well.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She looked at me with amused curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Antinea,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I did what you told me to. May I in turn ask one favor, ask you one
+question?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It was dark, was it not, in the room where <i>he</i> was?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very dark. I had to lead you to the bed where he lay asleep.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He <i>was</i> asleep, you are sure?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I said so.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He&mdash;did not die instantly, did he?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No. I know exactly when he died; two minutes after you struck him and
+fled with a shriek.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then surely <i>he</i> could not have known?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Known what?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 167 -->That it was I who&mdash;who held the hammer.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He might not have known it, indeed,&quot; Antinea said. &quot;But he did know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He did know ... because I told him,&quot; she said, staring at me with
+magnificent audacity.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And,&quot; I murmured, &quot;he&mdash;he believed it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;With the help of my explanation, he recognized your shriek. If he had
+not realized that you were his murderer, the affair would not have
+interested me,&quot; she finished with a scornful little smile.</p>
+
+<p>Four steps, I said, separated me from Antinea. I sprang forward. But,
+before I reached her, I was struck to the floor.</p>
+
+<p>King Hiram had leapt at my throat.</p>
+
+<p>At the same moment I heard the calm, haughty voice of Antinea:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Call the men,&quot; she commanded.</p>
+
+<p>A second later I was released from the leopard's clutch. The six white
+Tuareg had surrounded me and were trying to bind me.</p>
+
+<p>I am fairly strong and quick. I was on my feet in a second. One of my
+enemies lay on the floor, ten feet away, felled by a well-placed blow
+on the jaw. Another was gasping under my knee. That was the last time
+I saw Antinea. She stood erect, both hands resting on her ebony
+scepter, watching the struggle with a smile of contemptuous interest.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly I gave a loud cry and loosed the hold I had on my victim. A
+cracking in my left arm: one of the Tuareg had seized it and twisted
+until my shoulder was dislocated.</p>
+
+<p>When I completely lost consciousness, I was being carried down the
+corridor by two white phantoms, so bound that I could not move a
+muscle.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<!-- Page 168 -->
+<h2><a name="XVIII"><!-- Chapter 18--></a>XVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE FIRE-FLIES</h3>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Through the great open window, waves of pale moonlight surged into my
+room.</p>
+
+<p>A slender white figure was standing beside the bed where I lay.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You, Tanit-Zerga!&quot; I murmured. She laid a finger on her lips.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sh! Yes, it is I.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I tried to raise myself up on the bed. A terrible pain seized my
+shoulder. The events of the afternoon came back to my poor harassed
+mind.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, little one, if you knew!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I know,&quot; she said.</p>
+
+<p>I was weaker than a baby. After the overstrain of the day had come a
+fit of utter nervous depression. A lump rose in my throat, choking me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If you knew, if you only knew!... Take me away, little one. Get me
+away from here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not so loud,&quot; she whispered. &quot;There is a white Targa on guard at the
+door.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Take me away; save me,&quot; I repeated.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is what I came for,&quot; she said simply.</p>
+
+<p>I looked at her. She no longer was wearing her beautiful red silk
+tunic. A plain white <i>haik</i> was wrapped about her; and she had drawn
+one corner of it over her head.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I want to go away, too,&quot; she said in a smothered voice.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;For a long time, I have wanted to go away. I want to see G&acirc;o, the
+village on the bank of the river, and the blue gum trees, and the
+green water.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ever since I came here, I have wanted to get away,&quot; she repeated,
+&quot;but I am too little to go alone into the great Sahara. I never dared
+speak to the others who came here before you. They all thought only of
+<i>her</i>.... But you, you wanted to kill her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 169 -->I gave a low moan.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are suffering,&quot; she said. &quot;They broke your arm.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dislocated it anyhow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let me see.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>With infinite gentleness, she passed her smooth little hands over my
+shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You tell me that there is a white Targa on guard before my door,
+Tanit-Zerga,&quot; I said. &quot;Then how did you get in?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That way,&quot; she said, pointing to the window. A dark perpendicular
+line halved its blue opening.</p>
+
+<p>Tanit-Zerga went to the window. I saw her standing erect on the sill.
+A knife shone in her hands. She cut the rope at the top of the
+opening. It slipped down to the stone with a dry sound.</p>
+
+<p>She came back to me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How can we escape?&quot; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That way,&quot; she repeated, and she pointed again at the window.</p>
+
+<p>I leaned out. My feverish gaze fell upon the shadowy depths, searching
+for those invisible rocks, the rocks upon which little Kaine had
+dashed himself.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That way!&quot; I exclaimed, shuddering. &quot;Why, it is two hundred feet from
+here to the ground.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The rope is two hundred and fifty,&quot; she replied. &quot;It is a good strong
+rope which I stole in the oasis; they used it in felling trees. It is
+quite new.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Climb down that way, Tanit-Zerga! With my shoulder!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I will let you down,&quot; she said firmly. &quot;Feel how strong my arms are.
+Not that I shall rest your weight on them. But see, on each side of
+the window is a marble column. By twisting the rope around one of
+them, I can let you slip down and scarcely feel your weight.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And look,&quot; she continued, &quot;I have made a big knot every ten feet. I
+can stop the rope with them, every now and then, if I want to rest.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And you?&quot; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When you are down, I shall tie the rope to one of the columns and
+follow. There are the knots on which to rest if the rope cuts my hands
+too much. But don't be afraid: I am very agile. At G&acirc;o, when I was
+just a child, I used to <!-- Page 170 -->climb almost as high as this in the gum trees
+to take the little toucans out of their nests. It is even easier to
+climb down.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And when we are down, how will we get out? Do you know the way
+through the barriers?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No one knows the way through the barriers,&quot; she said, &quot;except
+Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh, and perhaps Antinea.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There are the camels of Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh, those which he uses on
+his forays. I untethered the strongest one and led him out, just below
+us, and gave him lots of hay so that he will not make a sound and will
+be well fed when we start.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But....&quot; I still protested.</p>
+
+<p>She stamped her foot.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But what? Stay if you wish, if you are afraid. I am going. I want to
+see G&acirc;o once again, G&acirc;o with its blue gum-trees and its green water.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I felt myself blushing.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I will go, Tanit-Zerga. I would rather die of thirst in the midst of
+the desert than stay here. Let us start.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Tut!&quot; she said. &quot;Not yet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She showed me that the dizzy descent was in brilliant moonlight.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not yet. We must wait. They would see us. In an hour, the moon will
+have circled behind the mountain. That will be the time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She sat silent, her <i>haik</i> wrapped completely about her dark little
+figure. Was she praying? Perhaps.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly I no longer saw her. Darkness had crept in the window. The
+moon had turned.</p>
+
+<p>Tanit-Zerga's hand was on my arm. She drew me toward the abyss. I
+tried not to tremble.</p>
+
+<p>Everything below us was in shadow. In a low, firm voice, Tanit-Zerga
+began to speak:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Everything is ready. I have twisted the rope about the pillar. Here
+is the slip-knot. Put it under your arms. Take this cushion. Keep it
+pressed against your hurt shoulder.... A leather cushion.... It is
+tightly stuffed. Keep face to the wall. It will protect you against
+the bumping and scraping.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I was now master of myself, very calm. I sat down on the <!-- Page 171 -->sill of the
+window, my feet in the void. A breath of cool air from the peaks
+refreshed me.</p>
+
+<p>I felt little Tanit-Zerga's hand in my vest pocket.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Here is a box. I must know when you are down, so I can follow. You
+will open the box. There are fire-flies in it; I shall see them and
+follow you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She held my hand a moment.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now go,&quot; she murmured.</p>
+
+<p>I went.</p>
+
+<p>I remember only one thing about that descent: I was overcome with
+vexation when the rope stopped and I found myself, feet dangling,
+against the perfectly smooth wall.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is the little fool waiting for?&quot; I said to myself. &quot;I have been
+hung here for a quarter of an hour. Ah ... at last! Oh, here I am
+stopped again.&quot; Once or twice I thought I was reaching the ground, but
+it was only a projection from the rock. I had to give a quick shove
+with my foot.... Then, suddenly, I found myself seated on the ground.
+I stretched out my hands. Bushes.... A thorn pricked my finger. I was
+down.</p>
+
+<p>Immediately I began to get nervous again.</p>
+
+<p>I pulled out the cushion and slipped off the noose. With my good hand,
+I pulled the rope, holding it out five or six feet from the face of
+the mountain, and put my foot on it.</p>
+
+<p>Then I took the little cardboard box from my pocket and opened it.</p>
+
+<p>One after the other, three little luminous circles rose in the inky
+night. I saw them rise higher and higher against the rocky wall. Their
+pale rose aureols gleamed faintly. Then, one by one, they turned,
+disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are tired, Sidi Lieutenant. Let me hold the rope.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh rose up at my side.</p>
+
+<p>I looked at his tall black silhouette. I shuddered, but I did not let
+go of the rope on which I began to feel distant jerks.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Give it to me,&quot; he repeated with authority.</p>
+
+<p>And he took it from my hands.</p>
+
+<p>I don't know what possessed me then. I was standing beside that great
+dark phantom. And I ask you, what could I, <!-- Page 172 -->with a dislocated
+shoulder, do against that man whose agile strength I already knew?
+What was there to do? I saw him buttressed against the wall, holding
+the rope with both hands, with both feet, with all his body, much
+better than I had been able to do.</p>
+
+<p>A rustling above our heads. A little shadowy form.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There,&quot; said Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh, seizing the little shadow in his
+powerful arms and placing her on the ground, while the rope, let
+slack, slapped back against the rock.</p>
+
+<p>Tanit-Zerga recognized the Targa and groaned.</p>
+
+<p>He put his hand roughly over her mouth.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Shut up, camel thief, wretched little fly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He seized her arm. Then he turned to me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come,&quot; he said in an imperious tone.</p>
+
+<p>I obeyed. During our short walk, I heard Tanit-Zerga's teeth
+chattering with terror.</p>
+
+<p>We reached a little cave.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Go in,&quot; said the Targa.</p>
+
+<p>He lighted a torch. The red light showed a superb mehari peacefully
+chewing his cud.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The little one is not stupid,&quot; said Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh, pointing to
+the animal. &quot;She knows enough to pick out the best and the strongest.
+But she is rattle-brained.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He held the torch nearer the camel.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She is rattle-brained,&quot; he continued. &quot;She only saddled him. No
+water, no food. At this hour, three days from now, all three of you
+would have been dead on the road, and on what a road!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Tanit-Zerga's teeth no longer chattered. She was looking at the Targa
+with a mixture of terror and hope.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come here, Sidi Lieutenant,&quot; said Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh, &quot;so that I can
+explain to you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>When I was beside him, he said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;On each side there is a skin of water. Make that water last as long
+as possible, for you are going to cross a terrible country. It may be
+that you will not find a well for three hundred miles.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There,&quot; he went on, &quot;in the saddle bags, are cans of preserved meat.
+Not many, for water is much more precious. <!-- Page 173 -->Here also is a carbine,
+your carbine, sidi. Try not to use it except to shoot antelopes. And
+there is this.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He spread out a roll of paper. I saw his inscrutible face bent over
+it; his eyes were smiling; he looked at me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Once out of the enclosures, what way did you plan to go?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Toward Idel&egrave;s, to retake the route where you met the Captain and me,&quot;
+I said.</p>
+
+<p>Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I thought as much,&quot; he murmured.</p>
+
+<p>Then he added coldly:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Before sunset to-morrow, you and the little one would have been
+caught and massacred.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Toward the north is Ahaggar,&quot; he continued, &quot;and all Ahaggar is under
+the control of Antinea. You must go south.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then we shall go south.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;By what route?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, by Silet and Timissao.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Targa again shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They will look for you on that road also,&quot; he said. &quot;It is a good
+road, the road with the wells. They know that you are familiar with
+it. The Tuareg would not fail to wait at the wells.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, then?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; said Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh, &quot;you must not rejoin the road from
+Timissao to Timbuctoo until you are four hundred miles from here
+toward Iferouane, or better still, at the spring of Telemsi. That is
+the boundary between the Tuareg of Ahaggar and the Awellimiden
+Tuareg.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The little voice of Tanit-Zerga broke in:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It was the Awellimiden Tuareg who massacred my people and carried me
+into slavery. I do not want to pass through the country of the
+Awellimiden.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Be still, miserable little fly,&quot; said Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh.</p>
+
+<p>Then addressing me, he continued:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have said what I have said. The little one is not wrong. The
+Awellimiden are a savage people. But they are afraid of the French.
+Many of them trade with the stations north of the Niger. On the other
+hand, they are at war with the people of Ahaggar, who will not follow
+you into their country. What <!-- Page 174 -->I have said, is said. You must rejoin
+the Timbuctoo road near where it enters the borders of the
+Awellimiden. Their country is wooded and rich in springs. If you reach
+the springs at Telemsi, you will finish your journey beneath a canopy
+of blossoming mimosa. On the other hand, the road from here to Telemsi
+is shorter than by way of Timissao. It is quite straight.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, it is direct,&quot; I said, &quot;but, in following it, you have to cross
+the Tanezruft.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh waved his hand impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh knows that,&quot; he said. &quot;He knows what the Tanezruft
+is. He who has traveled over all the Sahara knows that he would
+shudder at crossing the Tanezruft and the Tassili from the south. He
+knows that the camels that wander into that country either die or
+become wild, for no one will risk his life to go look for them. It is
+the terror that hangs over that region that may save you. For you have
+to choose: you must run the risk of dying of thirst on the tracks of
+the Tanezruft or have your throat cut along some other route.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You can stay here,&quot; he added.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My choice is made, Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh,&quot; I announced.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Good!&quot; he replied, again opening out the roll of paper. &quot;This trail
+begins at the second barrier of earth, to which I will lead you. It
+ends at Iferouane. I have marked the wells, but do not trust to them
+too much, for many of them are dry. Be careful not to stray from the
+route. If you lose it, it is death.... Now mount the camel with the
+little one. Two make less noise than four.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>We went a long way in silence. Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh walked ahead and his
+camel followed meekly. We crossed, first, a dark passage, then, a deep
+gorge, then another passage.... The entrance to each was hidden by a
+thick tangle of rocks and briars.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a burning breath touched our faces. A dull reddish light
+filtered in through the end of the passage. The desert lay before us.</p>
+
+<p>Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh had stopped.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Get down,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 175 -->A spring gurgled out of the rock. The Targa went to it and filled a
+copper cup with the water.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Drink,&quot; he said, holding it out to each of us in turn. We obeyed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Drink again,&quot; he ordered. &quot;You will save just so much of the contents
+of your water skins. Now try not to be thirsty before sunset.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He looked over the saddle girths.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's all right,&quot; he murmured. &quot;Now go. In two hours the dawn will
+be here. You must be out of sight.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I was filled with emotion at this last moment; I went to the Targa and
+took his hand.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh,&quot; I asked in a low voice, &quot;why are you doing
+this?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He stepped back and I saw his dark eyes gleam.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why?&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, why?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He replied with dignity:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Prophet permits every just man, once in his lifetime, to let pity
+take the place of duty. Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh is turning this permission
+to the advantage of one who saved his life.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And you are not afraid,&quot; I asked, &quot;that I will disclose the secret of
+Antinea if I return among Frenchmen?&quot; He shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am not afraid of that,&quot; he said, and his voice was full of irony.
+&quot;It is not to your interest that Frenchmen should know how the Captain
+met his death.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I was horrified at this logical reply.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Perhaps I am doing wrong,&quot; the Targa went on, &quot;in not killing the
+little one.... But she loves you. She will not talk. Now go. Day is
+coming.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I tried to press the hand of this strange rescuer, but he again drew
+back.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do not thank me. What I am doing, I do to acquire merit in the eyes
+of God. You may be sure that I shall never do it again neither for you
+nor for anyone else.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And, as I made a gesture to reassure him on that point, &quot;Do not
+protest,&quot; he said in a tone the mockery of which <!-- Page 176 -->still sounds in my
+ears. &quot;Do not protest. What I am doing is of value to me, but not to
+you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I looked at him uncomprehendingly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not to you, Sidi Lieutenant, not to you,&quot; his grave voice continued.
+&quot;For you will come back; and when that day comes, do not count on the
+help of Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I will come back?&quot; I asked, shuddering.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You will come back,&quot; the Targa replied.</p>
+
+<p>He was standing erect, a black statue against the wall of gray rock.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You will come back,&quot; he repeated with emphasis. &quot;You are fleeing now,
+but you are mistaken if you think that you will look at the world with
+the same eyes as before. Henceforth, one idea, will follow you
+everywhere you go; and in one year, five, perhaps ten years, you will
+pass again through the corridor through which you have just come.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Be still, Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh,&quot; said the trembling voice of
+Tanit-Zerga.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Be still yourself, miserable little fly,&quot; said Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh.</p>
+
+<p>He sneered.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The little one is afraid because she knows that I tell the truth. She
+knows the story of Lieutenant Ghiberti.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Lieutenant Ghiberti?&quot; I said, the sweat standing out on my forehead.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He was an Italian officer whom I met between Rh&acirc;t and Rhadam&egrave;s eight
+years ago. He did not believe that love of Antinea could make him
+forget all else that life contained. He tried to escape, and he
+succeeded. I do not know how, for I did not help him. He went back to
+his country. But hear what happened: two years later, to the very day,
+when I was leaving the look-out, I discovered a miserable tattered
+creature, half dead from hunger and fatigue, searching in vain for the
+entrance to the northern barrier. It was Lieutenant Ghiberti, come
+back. He fills niche Number 39 in the red marble hall.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Targa smiled slightly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is the story of Lieutenant Ghiberti which you wished to hear.
+But enough of this. Mount your camel.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I obeyed without saying a word. Tanit-Zerga, seated be<!-- Page 177 -->hind me, put
+her little arms around me. Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh was still holding the
+bridle.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;One word more,&quot; he said, pointing to a black spot against the violet
+sky of the southern horizon. &quot;You see the <i>gour</i> there; that is your
+way. It is eighteen miles from here. You should reach it by sunrise.
+Then consult your map. The next point is marked. If you do not stray
+from the line, you should be at the springs of Telemsi in eight days.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The camel's neck was stretched toward the dark wind coming from the
+south.</p>
+
+<p>The Targa released the bridle with a sweep of his hand.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now go.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Thank you,&quot; I called to him, turning back in the saddle. &quot;Thank you,
+Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh, and farewell.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I heard his voice replying in the distance:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>Au revoir</i>, Lieutenant de Saint Avit.&quot;</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h2><a name="XIX"><!-- Chapter 19--></a>XIX</h2>
+
+<h3>THE TANEZRUFT</h3>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>During the first hour of our flight, the great mehari of
+Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh carried us at a mad pace. We covered at least five
+leagues. With fixed eyes, I guided the beast toward the <i>gour</i> which
+the Targa had pointed out, its ridge becoming higher and higher
+against the paling sky.</p>
+
+<p>The speed caused a little breeze to whistle in our ears. Great tufts
+of <i>retem</i>, like fleshless skeletons, were tossed to right and left.</p>
+
+<p>I heard the voice of Tanit-Zerga whispering:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Stop the camel.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>At first I did not understand.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Stop him,&quot; she repeated.</p>
+
+<p>Her hand pulled sharply at my right arm.</p>
+
+<p>I obeyed. The camel slackened his pace with very bad grace.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Listen,&quot; she said.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 178 -->At first I heard nothing. Then a very slight noise, a dry rustling
+behind us.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Stop the camel,&quot; Tanit-Zerga commanded. &quot;It is not worth while to
+make him kneel.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A little gray creature bounded on the camel. The mehari set out again
+at his best speed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let him go,&quot; said Tanit-Zerga. &quot;Gal&eacute; has jumped on.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I felt a tuft of bristly hair under my arm. The mongoose had followed
+our footsteps and rejoined us. I heard the quick panting of the brave
+little creature becoming gradually slower and slower.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am happy,&quot; murmured Tanit-Zerga.</p>
+
+<p>Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh had not been mistaken. We reached the <i>gour</i> as the
+sun rose. I looked back. The Atakor was nothing more than a monstrous
+chaos amid the night mists which trailed the dawn. It was no longer
+possible to pick out from among the nameless peaks, the one on which
+Antinea was still weaving her passionate plots.</p>
+
+<p>You know what the Tanezruft is, the &quot;plain of plains,&quot; abandoned,
+uninhabitable, the country of hunger and thirst. We were then starting
+on the part of the desert which Duveyrier calls the Tassili of the
+south, and which figures on the maps of the Minister of Public Works
+under this attractive title: &quot;Rocky plateau, without water, without
+vegetation, inhospitable for man and beast.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Nothing, unless parts of the Kalahari, is more frightful than this
+rocky desert. Oh, Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh did not exaggerate in saying that
+no one would dream of following us into that country.</p>
+
+<p>Great patches of oblivion still refused to clear away. Memories chased
+each other incoherently about my head. A sentence came back to me
+textually: &quot;It seemed to Dick that he had never, since the beginning
+of original darkness, done anything at all save jolt through the air.&quot;
+I gave a little laugh. &quot;In the last few hours,&quot; I thought, &quot;I have
+been heaping up literary situations. A while ago, a hundred feet above
+the ground, I was Fabrice of <i>La Chartreuse de Parme</i> beside his
+Italian dungeon. Now, here on my camel, I am Dick of <i>The Light That
+Failed</i>, crossing the desert to meet his com<!-- Page 179 -->panions in arms.&quot; I
+chuckled again; then shuddered. I thought of the preceding night, of
+the Orestes of <i>Andromaque</i> who agreed to sacrifice Pyrrhus. A
+literary situation indeed....</p>
+
+<p>Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh had reckoned eight days to get to the wooded
+country of the Awellimiden, forerunners of the grassy steppes of the
+Soudan. He knew well the worth of his beast. Tanit-Zerga had suddenly
+given him a name, <i>El Mellen</i>, the white one, for the magnificent
+mehari had an almost spotless coat. Once he went two days without
+eating, merely picking up here and there a branch of an acacia tree
+whose hideous white spines, four inches long, filled me with fear for
+our friend's oesophagus. The wells marked out by Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh
+were indeed at the indicated spots, but we found nothing in them but a
+burning yellow mud. It was enough for the camel, enough so that at the
+end of the fifth day, thanks to prodigious self-control, we had used
+up only one of our two water skins. Then we believed ourselves safe.</p>
+
+<p>Near one of these muddy puddles, I succeeded that day in shooting down
+a little straight-horned desert gazelle. Tanit-Zerga skinned the beast
+and we regaled ourselves with a delicious haunch. Meantime, little
+Gal&eacute;, who never ceased prying about the cracks in the rocks during our
+mid-day halts in the heat, discovered an <i>ourane</i>, a sand crocodile,
+five feet long, and made short work of breaking his neck. She ate so
+much she could not budge. It cost us a pint of water to help her
+digestion. We gave it with good grace, for we were happy. Tanit-Zerga
+did not say so, but her joy at knowing that I was thinking no more of
+the woman in the gold diadem and the emeralds was apparent. And
+really, during those days, I hardly thought of her. I thought only of
+the torrid heat to be avoided, of the water skins which, if you wished
+to drink fresh water, had to be left for an hour in a cleft in the
+rocks; of the intense joy which seized you when you raised to your
+lips a leather goblet brimming with that life-saving water.... I can
+say this with authority, with good authority, indeed; passion,
+spiritual or physical, is a thing for those who have eaten and drunk
+and rested.</p>
+
+<p>It was five o'clock in the afternoon. The frightful heat was
+slackening. We had left a kind of rocky crevice where we <!-- Page 180 -->had had a
+little nap. Seated on a huge rock, we were watching the reddening
+west.</p>
+
+<p>I spread out the roll of paper on which Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh had marked
+the stages of our journey as far as the road from the Soudan. I
+realized again with joy that his itinerary was exact and that I had
+followed it scrupulously.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The evening of the day after to-morrow,&quot; I said, &quot;we shall be setting
+out on the stage which will take us, by the next dawn, to the waters
+at Telemsi. Once there, we shall not have to worry any more about
+water.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Tanit-Zerga's eyes danced in her thin face.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And G&acirc;o?&quot; she asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We will be only a week from the Niger. And Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh said
+that at Telemsi, one reached a road overhung with mimosa.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I know the mimosa,&quot; she said. &quot;They are the little yellow balls that
+melt in your hand. But I like the caper flowers better. You will come
+with me to G&acirc;o. My father, Sonni-Azkia, was killed, as I told you, by
+the Awellimiden. But my people must have rebuilt the villages. They
+are used to that. You will see how you will be received.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I will go, Tanit-Zerga, I promise you. But you also, you must promise
+me....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What? Oh, I guess. You must take me for a little fool if you believe
+me capable of speaking of things which might make trouble for my
+friend.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She looked at me as she spoke. Privation and great fatigue had
+chiselled the brown face where her great eyes shone.... Since then, I
+have had time to assemble the maps and compasses, and to fix forever
+the spot where, for the first time, I understood the beauty of
+Tanit-Zerga's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>There was a deep silence between us. It was she who broke it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Night is coming. We must eat so as to leave as soon as possible.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She stood up and went toward the rocks.</p>
+
+<p>Almost immediately, I heard her calling in an anguished voice that
+sent a chill through me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come! Oh, come see!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>With a bound, I was at her side.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 181 -->The camel,&quot; she murmured. &quot;The camel!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I looked, and a deadly shudder seized me.</p>
+
+<p>Stretched out at full length, on the other side of the rocks, his pale
+flanks knotted up by convulsive spasms, <i>El Mellen</i> lay in anguish.</p>
+
+<p>I need not say that we rushed to him in feverish haste. Of what <i>El
+Mellen</i> was dying, I did not know, I never have known. All the mehara
+are that way. They are at once the most enduring and the most delicate
+of beasts. They will travel for six months across the most frightful
+deserts, with little food, without water, and seem only the better for
+it. Then, one day when nothing is the matter, they stretch out and
+give you the slip with disconcerting ease.</p>
+
+<p>When Tanit-Zerga and I saw that there was nothing more to do, we stood
+there without a word, watching his slackening spasms. When he breathed
+his last, we felt that our life, as well as his, had gone.</p>
+
+<p>It was Tanit-Zerga who spoke first.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How far are we from the Soudan road?&quot; she asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We are a hundred and twenty miles from the springs of Telemsi,&quot; I
+replied. &quot;We could make thirty miles by going toward Iferouane; but
+the wells are not marked on that route.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then we must walk toward the springs of Telemsi,&quot; she said. &quot;A
+hundred and twenty miles, that makes seven days?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Seven days at the least, Tanit-Zerga.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How far is it to the first well?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Thirty-five miles.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The little girl's face contracted somewhat. But she braced up quickly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We must set out at once.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Set out on foot, Tanit-Zerga!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She stamped her foot. I marveled to see her so strong.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We must go,&quot; she repeated. &quot;We are going to eat and drink and make
+Gal&eacute; eat and drink, for we cannot carry all the tins, and the water
+skin is so heavy that we should not get three miles if we tried to
+carry it. We will put a little water in one of the tins after emptying
+it through a little hole. That will be enough for to-night's stage,
+which will be eighteen miles without water. To-morrow we will set out
+for <!-- Page 182 -->another eighteen miles and we will reach the wells marked on the
+paper by Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh,&quot; I murmured sadly, &quot;if my shoulder were only not this way, I
+could carry the water skin.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is as it is,&quot; said Tanit-Zerga.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You will take your carbine and two tins of meat. I shall take two
+more and the one filled with water. Come. We must leave in an hour if
+we wish to cover the eighteen miles. You know that when the sun is up,
+the rocks are so hot we cannot walk.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I leave you to imagine in what sad silence we passed that hour which
+we had begun so happily and confidently. Without the little girl, I
+believe I should have seated myself upon a rock and waited. Gal&eacute; only
+was happy.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We must not let her eat too much,&quot; said Tanit-Zerga. &quot;She would not
+be able to follow us. And to-morrow she must work. If she catches
+another <i>ourane</i>, it will be for us.&quot;
+<br /></p>
+
+<p>You have walked in the desert. You know how terrible the first hours
+of the night are. When the moon comes up, huge and yellow, a sharp
+dust seems to rise in suffocating clouds. You move your jaws
+mechanically as if to crush the dust that finds its way into your
+throat like fire. Then usually a kind of lassitude, of drowsiness,
+follows. You walk without thinking. You forget where you are walking.
+You remember only when you stumble. Of course you stumble often. But
+anyway it is bearable. &quot;The night is ending,&quot; you say, &quot;and with it
+the march. All in all, I am less tired than at the beginning.&quot; The
+night ends, but then comes the most terrible hour of all. You are
+perishing of thirst and shaking with cold. All the fatigue comes back
+at once. The horrible breeze which precedes the dawn is no comfort.
+Quite the contrary. Every time you stumble, you say, &quot;The next misstep
+will be the last.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>That is what people feel and say even when they know that in a few
+hours they will have a good rest with food and water.</p>
+
+<p>I was suffering terribly. Every step jolted my poor shoulder. At one
+time, I wanted to stop, to sit down. Then I looked at Tanit-Zerga. She
+was walking ahead with her eyes almost <!-- Page 183 -->closed. Her expression was an
+indefinable one of mingled suffering and determination. I closed my
+own eyes and went on.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the first stage. At dawn we stopped in a hollow in the rocks.
+Soon the heat forced us to rise to seek a deeper one. Tanit-Zerga did
+not eat. Instead, she swallowed a little of her half can of water. She
+lay drowsy all day. Gal&eacute; ran about our rock giving plaintive little
+cries.</p>
+
+<p>I am not going to tell you about the second march. It was more
+horrible than anything you can imagine. I suffered all that it is
+humanly possible to suffer in the desert. But already I began to
+observe with infinite pity that my man's strength was outlasting the
+nervous force of my little companion. The poor child walked on without
+saying a word, chewing feebly one corner of her <i>haik</i> which she had
+drawn over her face. Gal&eacute; followed.</p>
+
+<p>The well toward which we were dragging ourselves was indicated on
+Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh's paper by the one word <i>Tissaririn. Tissaririn</i> is
+the plural of <i>Tissarirt</i> and means &quot;two isolated trees.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Day was dawning when finally I saw the two trees, two gum trees.
+Hardly a league separated us from them. I gave a cry of joy.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Courage, Tanit-Zerga, there is the well.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She drew her veil aside and I saw the poor anguished little face.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So much the better,&quot; she murmured, &quot;because otherwise....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She could not even finish the sentence.</p>
+
+<p>We finished the last half mile almost at a run. We already saw the
+hole, the opening of the well.</p>
+
+<p>Finally we reached it.</p>
+
+<p>It was empty.</p>
+
+<p>It is a strange sensation to be dying of thirst. At first the
+suffering is terrible. Then, gradually, it becomes less. You become
+partly unconscious. Ridiculous little things about your life occur to
+you, fly about you like mosquitoes. I began to remember my history
+composition for the entrance examination of Saint-Cyr, &quot;The Campaign
+of Marengo.&quot; Obstin<!-- Page 184 -->ately I repeated to myself, &quot;I have already said
+that the battery unmasked by Marmont at the moment of Kellerman's
+charge included eighteen pieces.... No, I remember now, it was only
+twelve pieces. I am sure it was twelve pieces.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I kept on repeating:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Twelve pieces.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Then I fell into a sort of coma.</p>
+
+<p>I was recalled from it by feeling a red-hot iron on my forehead. I
+opened my eyes. Tanit-Zerga was bending over me. It was her hand which
+burnt so.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Get up,&quot; she said. &quot;We must go on.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Go on, Tanit-Zerga! The desert is on fire. The sun is at the zenith.
+It is noon.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We must go on,&quot; she repeated.</p>
+
+<p>Then I saw that she was delirious.</p>
+
+<p>She was standing erect. Her <i>haik</i> had fallen to the ground and little
+Gal&eacute;, rolled up in a ball, was asleep on it.</p>
+
+<p>Bareheaded, indifferent to the frightful sunlight, she kept repeating:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We must go on.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A little sense came back to me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Cover your head, Tanit-Zerga, cover your head.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come,&quot; she repeated. &quot;Let's go. G&acirc;o is over there, not far away. I
+can feel it. I want to see G&acirc;o again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I made her sit down beside me in the shadow of a rock. I realized that
+all strength had left her. The wave of pity that swept over me,
+brought back my senses.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;G&acirc;o is just over there, isn't it?&quot; she asked.</p>
+
+<p>Her gleaming eyes became imploring.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, dear little girl. G&acirc;o is there. But for God's sake lie down. The
+sun is fearful.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, G&acirc;o, G&acirc;o!&quot; she repeated. &quot;I know very well that I shall see G&acirc;o
+again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She sat up. Her fiery little hands gripped mine.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Listen. I must tell you so you can understand how I know I shall see
+G&acirc;o again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Tanit-Zerga, be quiet, my little girl, be quiet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, I must tell you. A long time ago, on the bank of the river where
+there is water, at G&acirc;o, where my father was a prince, there was....
+Well, one day, one feast day, there <!-- Page 185 -->came from the interior of the
+country an old magician, dressed in skins and feathers, with a mask
+and a pointed head-dress, with castanets, and two serpents in a bag.
+On the village square, where all our people formed in a circle, he
+danced the <i>boussadilla</i>. I was in the first row, and because I had a
+necklace of pink tourmaline, he quickly saw that I was the daughter of
+a chief. So he spoke to me of the past, of the great Mandingue Empire
+over which my grandfathers had ruled, of our enemies, the fierce
+Kountas, of everything, and finally he said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Have no fear, little girl.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then he said again, 'Do not be afraid. Evil days may be in store for
+you, but what does that matter? For one day you will see G&acirc;o gleaming
+on the horizon, no longer a servile G&acirc;o reduced to the rank of a
+little Negro town, but the splendid G&acirc;o of other days, the great
+capital of the country of the blacks, G&acirc;o reborn, with its mosque of
+seven towers and fourteen cupolas of turquoise, with its houses with
+cool courts, its fountains, its watered gardens, all blooming with
+great red and white flowers.... That will be for you the hour of
+deliverance and of royalty.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Tanit-Zerga was standing up. All about us, on our heads, the sun
+blazed on the <i>hamada</i>, burning it white.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the child stretched out her arms. She gave a terrible cry.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;G&acirc;o! There is G&acirc;o!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I looked at her.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;G&acirc;o,&quot; she repeated. &quot;Oh, I know it well! There are the trees and the
+fountains, the cupolas and the towers, the palm trees, the great red
+and white flowers. G&acirc;o....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, along the shimmering horizon rose a fantastic city with mighty
+buildings that towered, tier on tier, until they formed a rainbow.
+Wide-eyed, we stood and watched the terrible mirage quiver feverishly
+before us.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;G&acirc;o!&quot; I cried. &quot;G&acirc;o!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And almost immediately I uttered another cry, of sorrow and of horror.
+Tanit-Zerga's little hand relaxed in mine. I had just time to catch
+the child in my arms and hear her murmur as in a whisper:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 186 -->And then that will be the day of deliverance. The day of deliverance
+and of royalty.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Several hours later I took the knife with which we had skinned the
+desert gazelle and, in the sand at the foot of the rock where
+Tanit-Zerga had given up her spirit, I made a little hollow where she
+was to rest.</p>
+
+<p>When everything was ready, I wanted to look once more at that dear
+little face. Courage failed me for a moment.... Then I quickly drew
+the <i>haik</i> over the brown face and laid the body of the child in the
+hollow.</p>
+
+<p>I had reckoned without Gal&eacute;.</p>
+
+<p>The eyes of the mongoose had not left me during the whole time that I
+was about my sad duty. When she heard the first handfuls of sand fall
+on the <i>haik</i>, she gave a sharp cry. I looked at her and saw her ready
+to spring, her eyes daring fire.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Gal&eacute;!&quot; I implored; and I tried to stroke her.</p>
+
+<p>She bit my hand and then leapt into the grave and began to dig,
+throwing the sand furiously aside.</p>
+
+<p>I tried three times to chase her away. I felt that I should never
+finish my task and that, even if I did, Gal&eacute; would stay there and
+disinter the body.</p>
+
+<p>My carbine lay at my feet. A shot drew echoes from the immense empty
+desert. A moment later, Gal&eacute; also slept her last sleep, curled up, as
+I so often had seen her, against the neck of her mistress.</p>
+
+<p>When the surface showed nothing more than a little mound of trampled
+sand, I rose staggering and started off aimlessly into the desert,
+toward the south.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h2><a name="XX"><!-- Chapter 20--></a>XX</h2>
+
+<h3>THE CIRCLE IS COMPLETE</h3>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>At the foot of the valley of the Mia, at the place where the jackal
+had cried the night Saint-Avit told me he had killed Morhange, another
+jackal, or perhaps the same one, howled again.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 187 -->Immediately I had a feeling that this night would see the
+irremediable fulfilled.</p>
+
+<p>We were seated that evening, as before, on the poor veranda improvised
+outside our dining-room. The floor was of plaster, the balustrade of
+twisted branches; four posts supported a thatched roof.</p>
+
+<p>I have already said that from the veranda one could look far out over
+the desert. As he finished speaking, Saint-Avit rose and stood leaning
+his elbows on the railing. I followed him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And then....&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And then what? Surely you know what all the newspapers told&mdash;how, in
+the country of the Awellimiden, I was found dying of hunger and thirst
+by an expedition under the command of Captain Aymard, and taken to
+Timbuctoo. I was delirious for a month afterward. I have never known
+what I may have said during those spells of burning fever. You may be
+sure the officers of the Timbuctoo Club did not feel it incumbent upon
+them to tell me. When I told them of my adventures, as they are
+related in the report of the Morhange&mdash;Saint-Avit Expedition, I could
+see well enough from the cold politeness with which they received my
+explanations, that the official version which I gave them differed at
+certain points from the fragments which had escaped me in my delirium.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They did not press the matter. It remains understood that Captain
+Morhange died from a sunstroke and that I buried him on the border of
+the Tarhit watercourse, three marches from Timissao. Everybody can
+detect that there are things missing in my story. Doubtless they guess
+at some mysterious drama. But proofs are another matter. Because of
+the impossibility of collecting them, they prefer to smother what
+could only become a silly scandal. But now you know all the details as
+well as I.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And&mdash;she?&quot; I asked timidly.</p>
+
+<p>He smiled triumphantly. It was triumph at having led me to think no
+longer of Morhange, or of his crime, the triumph of feeling that he
+had succeeded in imbuing me with his own madness.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 188 -->Yes,&quot; he said. &quot;She! For six years I have learned nothing more about
+her. But I see her, I talk with her. I am thinking now how I shall
+reenter her presence. I shall throw myself at her feet and say simply,
+'Forgive me. I rebelled against your law. I did not know. But now I
+know; and you see that, like Lieutenant Ghiberti, I have come back.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Family, honor, country,' said old Le Mesge, 'you will forget all for
+her.' Old Le Mesge is a stupid man, but he speaks from experience. He
+knows, he who has seen broken before Antinea the wills of the fifty
+ghosts in the red marble hall.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And now, will you, in your turn, ask me 'What is this woman?' Do I
+know myself? And besides, what difference does it make? What does her
+past and the mystery of her origin matter to me; what does it matter
+whether she is the true descendant of the god of the sea and the
+sublime Lagides or the bastard of a Polish drunkard and a harlot of
+the Marbeuf quarter?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;At the time when I was foolish enough to be jealous of Morhange,
+these questions might have made some difference to the ridiculous
+self-esteem that civilized people mix up with passion. But I have held
+Antinea's body in my arms. I no longer wish to know any other, nor if
+the fields are in blossom, nor what will become of the human
+spirit....</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I do not wish to know. Or, rather, it is because I have too exact a
+vision of that future, that I pretend to destroy myself in the only
+destiny that is worth while: a nature unfathomed and virgin, a
+mysterious love.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>A nature unfathomed and virgin</i>. I must explain myself. One winter
+day, in a large city all streaked with the soot that falls from black
+chimneys of factories and of those horrible houses in the suburbs, I
+attended a funeral.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We followed the hearse in the mud. The church was new, damp and poor.
+Aside from two or three people, relatives struck down by a dull
+sorrow, everyone had just one idea: to find some pretext to get away.
+Those who went as far as the cemetery were those who did not find an
+excuse. I see the gray walls and the cypresses, those trees of sun and
+shade, so beautiful in the country of southern France against the low
+purple hills. I see the horrible undertaker's <!-- Page 189 -->men in greasy jackets
+and shiny top hats. I see.... No, I'll stop; it's too horrible.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Near the wall, in a remote plot, a grave had been dug in frightful
+yellow pebbly clay. It was there that they left the dead man whose
+name I no longer remember.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;While they were lowering the casket, I looked at my hands, those
+hands which in that strangely lighted country had pressed the hands of
+Antinea. A great pity for my body seized me, a great fear of what
+threatened it in these cities of mud. 'So,' I said to myself, 'it may
+be that this body, this dear body, will come to such an end! No, no,
+my body, precious above all other treasures, I swear to you that I
+will spare you that ignominy; you shall not rot under a registered
+number in the filth of a suburban cemetery. Your brothers in love, the
+fifty knights of orichalch, await you, mute and grave, in the red
+marble hall. I shall take you back to them.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A <i>mysterious love</i>. Shame to him who retails the secrets of his
+loves. The Sahara lays its impassable barrier about Antinea; that is
+why the most unreasonable requirements of this woman are, in reality,
+more modest and chaste than your marriage will be, with its vulgar
+public show, the bans, the invitations, the announcements telling an
+evil-minded and joking people that after such and such an hour, on
+such and such a day, you will have the right to violate your little
+tupenny virgin.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I think that is all I have to tell you. No, there is still one thing
+more. I told you a while ago about the red marble hall. South of
+Cherchell, to the west of the Mazafran river, on a hill which in the
+early morning, emerges from the mists of the Mitidja, there is a
+mysterious stone pyramid. The natives call it, 'The Tomb of the
+Christian.' That is where the body of Antinea's ancestress, that
+Cleopatra Selene, daughter of Mark Antony and Cleopatra, was laid to
+rest. Though it is placed in the path of invasions, this tomb has kept
+its treasure. No one has ever been able to discover the painted room
+where the beautiful body reposes in a glass casket. All that the
+ancestress has been able to do, the descendant will be able to surpass
+in grim magnificence. In the center of the red marble hall, on the
+rock whence comes the plaint of the <!-- Page 190 -->gloomy fountain, a platform is
+reserved. It is there, on an orichalch throne, with the Egyptian
+head-dress and the golden serpent on her brow and the trident of
+Neptune in her hand, that the marvelous woman I have told you about
+will be ensconced on that day when the hundred and twenty niches,
+hollowed out in a circle around her throne, shall each have received
+its willing prey.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When I left Ahaggar, you remember that it was niche number 55 that
+was to be mine. Since then, I have never stopped calculating and I
+conclude that it is in number 80 or 85 that I shall repose. But any
+calculations based upon so fragile a foundation as a woman's whim may
+be erroneous. That is why I am getting more and more nervous. 'I must
+hurry,' I tell myself. 'I must hurry.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I must hurry,&quot; I repeated, as if I were in a dream.</p>
+
+<p>He raised his head with an indefinable expression of joy. His hand
+trembled with happiness when he shook mine.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You will see,&quot; he repeated excitedly, &quot;you will see.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Ecstatically, he took me in his arms and held me there a long moment.</p>
+
+<p>An extraordinary happiness swept over both of us, while, alternately
+laughing and crying like children, we kept repeating:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We must hurry. We must hurry.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly there sprang up a slight breeze that made the tufts of thatch
+in the roof rustle. The sky, pale lilac, grew paler still, and,
+suddenly, a great yellow rent tore it in the east. Dawn broke over the
+empty desert. From within the stockade came dull noises, a bugle call,
+the rattle of chains. The post was waking up.</p>
+
+<p>For several seconds we stood there silent, our eyes fixed on the
+southern route by which one reaches Temassinin, Egu&eacute;r&eacute; and Ahaggar.</p>
+
+<p>A rap on the dining-room door behind us made us start.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come in,&quot; said Andr&eacute; de Saint-Avit in a voice which had become
+suddenly hard.</p>
+
+<p>The Quartermaster, Chatelain, stood before us.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What do you want of me at this hour?&quot; Saint-Avit asked brusquely.</p>
+
+<p>The non-com stood at attention.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<!-- Page 191 -->Excuse me, Captain. But a native was discovered near the post, last
+night, by the patrol. He was not trying to hide. As soon as he had
+been brought here, he asked to be led before the commanding officer.
+It was midnight and I didn't want to disturb you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Who is this native?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A Targa, Captain.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A Targa? Go get him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Chatelain stepped aside. Escorted by one of our native soldiers, the
+man stood behind him.</p>
+
+<p>They came out on the terrace.</p>
+
+<p>The new arrival, six feet tall, was indeed a Targa. The light of dawn
+fell upon his blue-black cotton robes. One could see his great dark
+eyes flashing.</p>
+
+<p>When he was opposite my companion, I saw a tremor, immediately
+suppressed, run through both men.</p>
+
+<p>They looked at each other for an instant in silence.</p>
+
+<p>Then, bowing, and in a very calm voice, the Targa spoke:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Peace be with you, Lieutenant de Saint-Avit.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In the same calm voice, Andr&eacute; answered him:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Peace be with you, Cegh&eacute;ir-ben-Cheikh.&quot;</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2> Footnotes </h2>
+
+<div class="note">
+<a name="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1">[1]</a>
+<p>This letter, together with the manuscript which
+accompanies it, the latter in a separate sealed envelope, was
+entrusted by Lieutenant Ferri&egrave;res, of the 3rd Spahis, the day of the
+departure of that officer for the Tassili of the Tuareg (Central
+Sahara), to Sergeant Chatelain. The sergeant was instructed to deliver
+it, on his next leave, to M. Leroux, Honorary Counsel at the Court of
+Appeals at Riom, and Lieutenant Ferri&egrave;res' nearest relative. As this
+magistrate died suddenly before the expiration of the term of ten
+years set for the publication of the manuscript here presented,
+difficulties arose which have delayed its publication up to the
+present date.</p></div>
+
+<div class="note">
+<a name="Footnote_B_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_B_2">[2]</a>
+<p> H. Duveyrier, &quot;The Disaster of the Flatters Mission.&quot;
+Bull. Geol. Soc., 1881.</p></div>
+
+<div class="note"><a name="Footnote_C_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_C_3">[3]</a>
+<p> Doctrina Ptolemaei ab injuria recentiorum vindicata, sive
+Nilus Superior et Niger verus, hodiernus Eghiren, ab anitiquis
+explorati. Paris, 8vo, 1874, with two maps. (Note by M. Leroux.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="note"><a name="Footnote_D_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_D_4">[4]</a>
+<p> De nomine et genere popularum qui berberi vulgo dicuntur.
+Paris, 8vo, 1892. (Note by M. Leroux.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="note"><a name="Footnote_E_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_E_5">[5]</a>
+<p> Another name, in the Temahaq language, for Ahaggar. (Note by M. Leroux.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="note"><a name="Footnote_F_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_F_6">[6]</a>
+<p> The route and the stages from Tit to Timissao were
+actually plotted out, as early as 1888, by Captain Bissuel. <i>Les
+Tuarge de l'Ouest,</i> itineraries 1 and 10. (Note by M. Leroux.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="note"><a name="Footnote_G_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_G_7">[7]</a>
+<p> It is perhaps worth noting here that <i>Figures de Proues</i>
+is the exact title of a very remarkable collection of poems by Mme.
+Delarus-Mardrus. (Note by M. Leroux.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="note"><a name="Footnote_H_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_H_8">[8]</a>
+<p> The Negro serfs among the Tuareg are generally called
+&quot;white Tuareg.&quot; While the nobles are clad in blue cotton robes, the
+serfs wear white robes, hence their name of &quot;white Tuareg.&quot; See, in
+this connection, Duveyrier: <i>les Tuareg du Nord</i>, page 292. (Note by M. Leroux.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="note"><a name="Footnote_J_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_J_9">[9]</a>
+<p> <i>Tirer &agrave; cinq</i>, a card game played only for very high stakes.</p></div>
+
+<div class="note"><a name="Footnote_K_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_K_10">[10]</a>
+<p> How did the <i>Voyage to Atlantis</i> arrive at Dax? I have
+found, so far, only one credible hypothesis: it might have been
+discovered in Africa by the traveller, de Behagle, a member of the
+Roger-Ducos Society, who studied at the college of Dax, and later, on
+several occasions, visited the town. (Note by M. Leroux.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="note"><a name="Footnote_L_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_L_11">[11]</a>
+<p> Variot: <i>L'anthropologie galvanique</i>. Paris, 1890. (Note
+by M. Leroux.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="note"><a name="Footnote_M_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_M_12">[12]</a>
+<p> In Berber, Tanit means a spring; zerga is the feminine of
+the adjective azreg, blue. (Note by M. Leroux.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="note"><a name="Footnote_N_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_N_13">[13]</a>
+<p> Dialect spoken in Algeria and the Levant&mdash;a mixture of
+Arabian, French, Italian and Spanish.</p></div>
+
+<div class="note"><a name="Footnote_P_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_P_14">[14]</a>
+<p> I have succeeded in finding on the registry of the
+Imperial Printing Press the names of the Tuareg chiefs and those who
+accompanied them on their visit, M. Henry Duveyrier and the Count
+Bielowsky. (Note by M. Leroux.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="note"><a name="Footnote_Q_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_Q_15">[15]</a>
+<p> The Koran, Chapter 66, verse 17. (Note by M. Leroux.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="note"><a name="Footnote_R_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_R_16">[16]</a>
+<p> Cf. the records and the <i>Bulletin de la Soci&eacute;t&eacute; de
+G&eacute;ographie de Paris</i> (1897) for the cruises on the Niger, made by the
+<i>Commandant</i> of the Timbuctoo region, Colonel Joffre, Lieutenants
+Baudry and Bluset, and by Father Hacquart of the White Fathers. (Note
+by M. Leroux.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="note"><a name="Footnote_S_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_S_17">[17]</a>
+<p> Gabrielle d'Annunzio: <i>Les Vierges aux Rochers</i>. Cf. The
+<i>Revue des Deux Mondes</i> of October 15, 1896; page 867.</p></div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Atlantida, by Pierre Benoit
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Atlantida
+
+Author: Pierre Benoit
+
+Release Date: December 8, 2004 [EBook #14301]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIDA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Elaine Walker, Ronald Holder and the PG Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ "First, I must warn you,
+before beginning this work,
+not to be surprised to hear
+me calling barbarians by
+Grecian 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
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+HASSI-INIFEL, NOVEMBER 8, 1903.
+
+
+If the following pages are ever to see the light of day it will be
+because they have been stolen from me. The delay that I exact before
+they shall be disclosed assures me of that.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: This letter, together with the manuscript which
+accompanies it, the latter in a separate sealed envelope, was
+entrusted by Lieutenant Ferrieres, of the 3rd Spahis, the day of the
+departure of that officer for the Tassili of the Tuareg (Central
+Sahara), to Sergeant Chatelain. The sergeant was instructed to deliver
+it, on his next leave, to M. Leroux, Honorary Counsel at the Court of
+Appeals at Riom, and Lieutenant Ferrieres' nearest relative. As this
+magistrate died suddenly before the expiration of the term of ten
+years set for the publication of the manuscript here presented,
+difficulties arose which have delayed its publication up to the
+present date.]
+
+As to this disclosure, let no one distrust my aim when I prepare for
+it, when I insist upon it. You may believe me when I maintain that no
+pride of authorship binds me to these pages. Already I am too far
+removed from all such things. Only it is useless that others should
+enter upon the path from which I shall not return.
+
+Four o'clock in the morning. Soon the sun will kindle the hamada with
+its pink fire. All about me the bordj is asleep. Through the half-open
+door of his room I hear Andre de Saint-Avit breathing quietly, very
+quietly.
+
+In two days we shall start, he and I. We shall leave the bordj. We
+shall penetrate far down there to the South. The official orders came
+this morning.
+
+Now, even if I wished to withdraw, it is too late. Andre and I asked
+for 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 the
+Gurara, when I found two of my sentinels slaughtered, with the
+shameful cross cut of the Berbers slashed across their stomachs--then
+I was afraid. I know what fear is. Just so now, when I gazed into the
+black 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 within
+me 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 I
+shall reread these pages with an indulgent smile, as a man of fifty is
+accustomed 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 the
+statigraphic relation of Albien sandstone and carboniferous limestone.
+They will, in addition, profit by any opportunities of determining the
+possible change of attitude of the Axdjers towards our penetration,
+etc." If the journey should indeed have to do only with such poor
+things I think that I should never undertake it.
+
+So I am longing for what I dread. I shall be dejected if I do not
+find myself in the presence of what makes me strangely fearful.
+
+In the depths of the valley of Wadi Mia a jackal is barking. Now and
+again, when a beam of moonlight breaks in a silver patch through the
+hollows of the heat-swollen clouds, making him think he sees the young
+sun, a turtle dove moans among the palm trees.
+
+I hear a step outside. I lean out of the window. A shade clad in
+luminous black stuff glides over the hard-packed earth of the terrace
+of the fortification. A light shines in the electric blackness. A man
+has just lighted a cigarette. He crouches, facing southwards. He is
+smoking.
+
+It is Cegheir-ben-Cheikh, our Targa guide, the man who in three days
+is to lead us across the unknown plateaus of the mysterious
+Imoschaoch, across the hamadas of black stones, the great dried oases,
+the stretches of silver salt, the tawny hillocks, the flat gold dunes
+that are crested over, when the "alize" blows, with a shimmering haze
+of pale sand.
+
+Cegheir-ben-Cheikh! He is the man. There recurs to my mind Duveyrier's
+tragic phrase, "At the very moment the Colonel was putting his foot in
+the stirrup he was felled by a sabre blow."[2] Cegheir-ben-Cheikh!
+There he is, peacefully smoking his cigarette, a cigarette from the
+package 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, I
+never knew exactly why, decided one day when I was a lad of sixteen
+that I should prepare myself for Saint Cyr, and gave me there Andre de
+Saint-Avit as classmate. I might have studied law or medicine. Then I
+should be today a respectable inhabitant of a town with a church and
+running water, instead of this cotton-clad phantom, brooding with an
+unspeakable anxiety over this desert which is about to swallow me.
+
+A great insect has flown in through the window. It buzzes, strikes
+against the rough cast, rebounds against the globe of the lamp, and
+then, helpless, its wings singed by the still burning candle, drops on
+the 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 like
+little particles of the soil of my native countryside. It was there
+that as a child I spent my vacations, and later on, my leaves. On my
+last leave, through those same meadows, there wandered beside me a
+slight form, wearing a thin scarf, because of the evening air, so cool
+back there. But now this memory stirs me so slightly that I scarcely
+raise my eyes to that dark corner of my room where the light is dimly
+reflected by the glass of an indistinct portrait. I realize of how
+little consequence has become what had seemed at one time capable of
+filling all my life. This plaintive mystery is of no more interest to
+me. If the strolling singers of Rolla came to murmur their famous
+nostalgic airs under the window of this bordj I know that I should not
+listen to them, and if they became insistent I should send them on
+their way.
+
+What has been capable of causing this metamorphosis in me? A story, a
+legend, perhaps, told, at any rate by one on whom rests the direst of
+suspicions.
+
+Cegheir-ben-Cheikh has finished his cigarette. I hear him returning
+with slow steps to his mat, in barrack B, to the left of the guard
+post.
+
+Our departure being scheduled for the tenth of November, the
+manuscript attached to this letter was begun on Sunday, the first, and
+finished on Thursday, the fifth of November, 1903.
+
+OLIVIER FERRIERES, Lt. 3rd Spahis.
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+A SOUTHERN ASSIGNMENT
+
+
+Sunday, the sixth of June, 1903, broke the monotony of the life that
+we were leading at the Post of Hassi-Inifel by two events of unequal
+importance, the arrival of a letter from Mlle. de C----, and the
+latest numbers of the Official Journal of the French Republic.
+
+"I have the Lieutenant's permission?" said Sergeant Chatelain,
+beginning to glance through the magazines he had just removed from
+their wrappings.
+
+I acquiesced with a nod, already completely absorbed in reading Mlle.
+de C----'s letter.
+
+"When this reaches you," was the gist of this charming being's letter,
+"mama and I will doubtless have left Paris for the country. If, in
+your distant parts, it might be a consolation to imagine me as bored
+here as you possibly can be, make the most of it. The Grand Prix is
+over. I played the horse you pointed out to me, and naturally, I lost.
+Last night we dined with the Martials de la Touche. Elias Chatrian was
+there, always amazingly young. I am sending you his last book, which
+has made quite a sensation. It seems that the Martials de la Touche
+are depicted there without disguise. I will add to it Bourget's last,
+and Loti's, and France's, and two or three of the latest music hall
+hits. In the political word, they say the law about congregations will
+meet with strenuous opposition. Nothing much in the theatres. I have
+taken out a summer subscription for _l'Illustration_. Would you care
+for it? In the country no one knows what to do. Always the same lot of
+idiots ready for tennis. I shall deserve no credit for writing to you
+often. Spare me your reflections concerning young Combemale. I am less
+than nothing of a feminist, having too much faith in those who tell me
+that I am pretty, in yourself in particular. But indeed, I grow wild
+at the idea that if I permitted myself half the familiarities with one
+of our lads that you have surely with your Ouled-Nails.... Enough of
+that, it is too unpleasant an idea."
+
+I had reached this point in the prose of this advanced young woman
+when a scandalized exclamation of the Sergeant made me look up.
+
+"Lieutenant!"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"They are up to something at the Ministry. See for yourself."
+
+He handed me the Official. I read:
+
+"By a decision of the first of May, 1903, Captain de Saint-Avit
+(Andre), unattached, is assigned to the Third Spahis, and appointed
+Commandant of the Post of Hassi-Inifel."
+
+Chatelain's displeasure became fairly exuberant.
+
+"Captain de Saint-Avit, Commandant of the Post. A post which has never
+had a slur upon it. They must take us for a dumping ground."
+
+My surprise was as great as the Sergeant's. But just then I saw the
+evil, weasel-like face of Gourrut, the convict we used as clerk. He
+had stopped his scrawling and was listening with a sly interest.
+
+"Sergeant, Captain de Saint-Avit is my ranking classmate," I answered
+dryly.
+
+Chatelain saluted, and left the room. I followed.
+
+"There, there," I said, clapping him on the back, "no hard feelings.
+Remember that in an hour we are starting for the oasis. Have the
+cartridges ready. It is of the utmost importance to restock the
+larder."
+
+I went back to the office and motioned Gourrut to go. Left alone, I
+finished Mlle. de C----'s letter very quickly, and then reread the
+decision of the Ministry giving the post a new chief.
+
+It was now five months that I had enjoyed that distinction, and on my
+word, I had accepted the responsibility well enough, and been very
+well pleased with the independence. I can even affirm, without taking
+too much credit for myself, that under my command discipline had been
+better maintained than under Captain Dieulivol, Saint-Avit's
+predecessor. A brave man, this Captain Dieulivol, a non-commissioned
+officer under Dodds and Duchesne, but subject to a terrible propensity
+for strong liquors, and too much inclined, when he had drunk, to
+confuse his dialects, and to talk to a Houassa in Sakalave. No one was
+ever more sparing of the post water supply. One morning when he was
+preparing his absinthe in the presence of the Sergeant, Chatelain,
+noticing the Captain's glass, saw with amazement that the green liquor
+was blanched by a far stronger admixture of water than usual. He
+looked up, aware that something abnormal had just occurred. Rigid, the
+carafe inverted in his hand, Captain Dieulivol was spilling the water
+which was running over on the sugar. He was dead.
+
+For six months, since the disappearance of this sympathetic old
+tippler, the Powers had not seemed to interest themselves in finding
+his successor. I had even hoped at times that a decision might be
+reached investing me with the rights that I was in fact exercising....
+And today this surprising appointment.
+
+Captain de Saint-Avit. He was of my class at St. Cyr. I had lost track
+of him. Then my attention had been attracted to him by his rapid
+advancement, his decoration, the well-deserved recognition of three
+particularly daring expeditions of exploration to Tebesti and the Air;
+and suddenly, the mysterious drama of his fourth expedition, that
+famous mission undertaken with Captain Morhange, from which only one
+of the explorers came back. Everything is forgotten quickly in France.
+That was at least six years ago. I had not heard Saint-Avit mentioned
+since. I had even supposed that he had left the army. And now, I was
+to have him as my chief.
+
+"After all, what's the difference," I mused, "he or another! At school
+he was charming, and we have had only the most pleasant relationships.
+Besides, I haven't enough yearly income to afford the rank of
+Captain."
+
+And I left the office, whistling as I went.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We were now, Chatelain and I, our guns resting on the already cooling
+earth, beside the pool that forms the center of the meager oasis,
+hidden behind a kind of hedge of alfa. The setting sun was reddening
+the stagnant ditches which irrigate the poor garden plots of the
+sedentary blacks.
+
+Not a word during the approach. Not a word during the shoot. Chatelain
+was obviously sulking.
+
+In silence we knocked down, one after the other, several of the
+miserable doves which came on dragging wings, heavy with the heat of
+the day, to quench their thirst at the thick green water. When a
+half-dozen slaughtered little bodies were lined up at our feet I put
+my hand on the Sergeant's shoulder.
+
+"Chatelain!"
+
+He trembled.
+
+"Chatelain, I was rude to you a little while ago. Don't be angry. It
+was the bad time before the siesta. The bad time of midday."
+
+"The Lieutenant is master here," he answered in a tone that was meant
+to be gruff, but which was only strained.
+
+"Chatelain, don't be angry. You have something to say to me. You know
+what I mean."
+
+"I don't know really. No, I don't know."
+
+"Chatelain, Chatelain, why not be sensible? Tell me something about
+Captain de Saint-Avit."
+
+"I know nothing." He spoke sharply.
+
+"Nothing? Then what were you saying a little while ago?"
+
+"Captain de Saint-Avit is a brave man." He muttered the words with his
+head still obstinately bent. "He went alone to Bilma, to the Air,
+quite alone to those places where no one had ever been. He is a brave
+man."
+
+"He is a brave man, undoubtedly," I answered with great restraint.
+"But he murdered his companion, Captain Morhange, did he not?"
+
+The old Sergeant trembled.
+
+"He is a brave man," he persisted.
+
+"Chatelain, you are a child. Are you afraid that I am going to repeat
+what you say to your new Captain?"
+
+I had touched him to the quick. He drew himself up.
+
+"Sergeant Chatelain is afraid of no one, Lieutenant. He has been at
+Abomey, against the Amazons, in a country where a black arm started
+out from every bush to seize your leg, while another cut it off for
+you with one blow of a cutlass."
+
+"Then what they say, what you yourself--"
+
+"That is talk."
+
+"Talk which is repeated in France, Chatelain, everywhere."
+
+He bent his head still lower without replying.
+
+"Ass," I burst out, "will you speak?"
+
+"Lieutenant, Lieutenant," he fairly pled, "I swear that what I know,
+or nothing--"
+
+"What you know you are going to tell me, and right away. If not, I
+give you my word of honor that, for a month, I shall not speak to you
+except on official business."
+
+Hassi-Inifel: thirty native Arabs and four Europeans--myself, the
+Sergeant, a Corporal, and Gourrut. The threat was terrible. It had its
+effect.
+
+"All right, then, Lieutenant," he said with a great sigh. "But
+afterwards you must not blame me for having told you things about a
+superior which should not be told and come only from the talk I
+overheard at mess."
+
+"Tell away."
+
+"It was in 1899. I was then Mess Sergeant at Sfax, with the 4th
+Spahis. I had a good record, and besides, as I did not drink, the
+Adjutant had assigned me to the officers' mess. It was a soft berth.
+The marketing, the accounts, recording the library books which were
+borrowed (there weren't many), and the key of the wine cupboard,--for
+with that you can't trust orderlies. The Colonel was young and dined
+at mess. One evening he came in late, looking perturbed, and, as soon
+as he was seated, called for silence:
+
+"'Gentlemen,' he said, 'I have a communication to make to you, and I
+shall ask for your advice. Here is the question. Tomorrow morning the
+_City of Naples_ lands at Sfax. Aboard her is Captain de Saint-Avit,
+recently assigned to Feriana, en route to his post.'
+
+"The Colonel paused. 'Good,' thought I, 'tomorrow's menu is about to
+be considered.' For you know the custom, Lieutenant, which has existed
+ever since there have been any officers' clubs in Africa. When an
+officer is passing by, his comrades go to meet him at the boat and
+invite him to remain with them for the length of his stay in port. He
+pays his score in news from home. On such occasions everything is of
+the best, even for a simple lieutenant. At Sfax an officer on a visit
+meant--one extra course, vintage wine and old liqueurs.
+
+"But this time I imagined from the looks the officers exchanged that
+perhaps the old stock would stay undisturbed in its cupboard.
+
+"'You have all, I think, heard of Captain de Saint-Avit, gentlemen,
+and the rumors about him. It is not for us to inquire into them, and
+the promotion he has had, his decoration if you will, permits us to
+hope that they are without foundation. But between not suspecting an
+officer of being a criminal, and receiving him at our table as a
+comrade, there is a gulf that we are not obliged to bridge. That is
+the matter on which I ask your advice.'
+
+"There was silence. The officers looked at each other, all of them
+suddenly quite grave, even to the merriest of the second lieutenants.
+In the corner, where I realized that they had forgotten me, I tried
+not to make the least sound that might recall my presence.
+
+"'We thank you, Colonel,' one of the majors finally replied, 'for your
+courtesy in consulting us. All my comrades, I imagine, know to what
+terrible rumors you refer. If I may venture to say so, in Paris at the
+Army Geographical Service, where I was before coming here, most of the
+officers of the highest standing had an opinion on this unfortunate
+matter which they avoided stating, but which cast no glory upon
+Captain de Saint-Avit.'
+
+"'I was at Bammako, at the time of the Morhange-Saint-Avit mission,'
+said a Captain. 'The opinion of the officers there, I am sorry to say,
+differed very little from what the Major describes. But I must add
+that they all admitted that they had nothing but suspicions to go on.
+And suspicions are certainly not enough considering the atrocity of
+the affair.'
+
+"'They are quite enough, gentlemen,' replied the Colonel, 'to account
+for our hesitation. It is not a question of passing judgment; but no
+man can sit at our table as a matter of right. It is a privilege based
+on fraternal esteem. The only question is whether it is your decision
+to accord it to Saint-Avit.'
+
+"So saying, he looked at the officers, as if he were taking a roll
+call. One after another they shook their heads.
+
+"'I see that we agree,' he said. 'But our task is unfortunately not
+yet over. The _City of Naples_ will be in port tomorrow morning. The
+launch which meets the passengers leaves at eight o'clock. It will be
+necessary, gentlemen, for one of you to go aboard. Captain de
+Saint-Avit might be expecting to come to us. We certainly have no
+intention of inflicting upon him the humiliation of refusing him, if
+he presented himself in expectation of the customary reception. He
+must be prevented from coming. It will be wisest to make him
+understand that it is best for him to stay aboard.'
+
+"The Colonel looked at the officers again. They could not but agree.
+But how uncomfortable each one looked!
+
+"'I cannot hope to find a volunteer among you for this kind of
+mission, so I am compelled to appoint some one. Captain Grandjean,
+Captain de Saint-Avit is also a Captain. It is fitting that it be an
+officer of his own rank who carries him our message. Besides, you are
+the latest comer here. Therefore it is to you that I entrust this
+painful interview. I do not need to suggest that you conduct it as
+diplomatically as possible.'
+
+"Captain Grandjean bowed, while a sigh of relief escaped from all the
+others. As long as the Colonel stayed in the room Grandjean remained
+apart, without speaking. It was only after the chief had departed that
+he let fall the words: "'There are some things that ought to count a
+good deal for promotion.'
+
+"The next day at luncheon everyone was impatient for his return.
+
+"'Well?' demanded the Colonel, briefly.
+
+"Captain Grandjean did not reply immediately. He sat down at the table
+where his comrades were mixing their drinks, and he, a man notorious
+for sobriety, drank almost at a gulp, without waiting for the sugar to
+melt, a full glass of absinthe.
+
+"'Well, Captain?' repeated the Colonel.
+
+"'Well, Colonel, it's done. You can be at ease. He will not set foot on
+shore. But, ye gods, what an ordeal!'
+
+"The officers did not dare speak. Only their looks expressed their
+anxious curiosity.
+
+"Captain Grandjean poured himself a swallow of water.
+
+"'You see, I had gotten my speech all ready, in the launch. But as I
+went up the ladder I knew that I had forgotten it. Saint-Avit was in
+the smoking-room, with the Captain of the boat. It seemed to me that I
+could never find the strength to tell him, when I saw him all ready to
+go ashore. He was in full dress uniform, his sabre lay on the bench
+and he was wearing spurs. No one wears spurs on shipboard. I presented
+myself and we exchanged several remarks, but I must have seemed
+somewhat strained for from the first moment I knew that he sensed
+something. Under some pretext he left the Captain, and led me aft near
+the great rudder wheel. There, I dared speak. Colonel, what did I say?
+How I must have stammered! He did not look at me. Leaning his elbows
+on the railing he let his eyes wander far off, smiling slightly. Then,
+of a sudden, when I was well tangled up in explanations, he looked at
+me coolly and said:
+
+"'I must thank you, my dear fellow, for having given yourself so much
+trouble. But it is quite unnecessary. I am out of sorts and have no
+intention of going ashore. At least, I have the pleasure of having
+made your acquaintance. Since I cannot profit by your hospitality, you
+must do me the favor of accepting mine as long as the launch stays by
+the vessel.'
+
+"Then we went back to the smoking-room. He himself mixed the
+cocktails. He talked to me. We discovered that we had mutual
+acquaintances. Never shall I forget that face, that ironic and distant
+look, that sad and melodious voice. Ah! Colonel, gentlemen, I don't
+know what they may say at the Geographic Office, or in the posts of
+the Soudan.... There can be nothing in it but a horrible suspicion.
+Such a man, capable of such a crime,--believe me, it is not possible.
+
+"That is all, Lieutenant," finished Chatelain, after a silence. "I
+have never seen a sadder meal than that one. The officers hurried
+through lunch without a word being spoken, in an atmosphere of
+depression against which no one tried to struggle. And in this
+complete silence, you could see them always furtively watching the
+_City of Naples_, where she was dancing merrily in the breeze, a
+league from shore.
+
+"She was still there in the evening when they assembled for dinner,
+and it was not until a blast of the whistle, followed by curls of
+smoke escaping from the red and black smokestack had announced the
+departure of the vessel for Gabes, that conversation was resumed; and
+even then, less gaily than usual.
+
+"After that, Lieutenant, at the Officers' Club at Sfax, they avoided
+like the plague any subject which risked leading the conversation back
+to Captain de Saint-Avit."
+
+Chatelain had spoken almost in a whisper, and the little people of the
+desert had not heard this singular history. It was an hour since we
+had fired our last cartridge. Around the pool the turtle doves, once
+more reassured, were bathing their feathers. Mysterious great birds
+were flying under the darkening palm trees. A less warm wind rocked
+the trembling black palm branches. We had laid aside our helmets so
+that our temples could welcome the touch of the feeble breeze.
+
+"Chatelain," I said, "it is time to go back to the bordj."
+
+Slowly we picked up the dead doves. I felt the Sergeant looking at me
+reproachfully, as if regretting that he had spoken. Yet during all the
+time that our return trip lasted, I could not find the strength to
+break our desolate silence with a single word.
+
+The night had almost fallen when we arrived. The flag which
+surmounted the post was still visible, drooping on its standard, but
+already its colors were indistinguishable. To the west the sun had
+disappeared behind the dunes gashed against the black violet of the
+sky.
+
+When we had crossed the gate of the fortifications, Chatelain left me.
+
+"I am going to the stables," he said.
+
+I returned alone to that part of the fort where the billets for the
+Europeans and the stores of ammunition were located. An inexpressible
+sadness weighed upon me.
+
+I thought of my comrades in French garrisons. At this hour they must
+be returning home to find awaiting them, spread out upon the bed,
+their dress uniform, their braided tunic, their sparkling epaulettes.
+
+"Tomorrow," I said to myself, "I shall request a change of station."
+
+The stairway of hard-packed earth was already black. But a few gleams
+of light still seemed palely prowling in the office when I entered.
+
+A man was sitting at my desk, bending over the files of orders. His
+back was toward me. He did not hear me enter.
+
+"Really, Gourrut, my lad, I beg you not to disturb yourself. Make
+yourself completely at home."
+
+The man had risen, and I saw him to be quite tall, slender and very
+pale.
+
+"Lieutenant Ferrieres, is it not?"
+
+He advanced, holding out his hand.
+
+"Captain de Saint-Avit. Delighted, my dear fellow."
+
+At the same time Chatelain appeared on the threshold.
+
+"Sergeant," said the newcomer, "I cannot congratulate you on the
+little I have seen. There is not a camel saddle which is not in want
+of buckles, and they are rusty enough to suggest that it rains at
+Hassi-Inifel three hundred days in the year. Furthermore, where were
+you this afternoon? Among the four Frenchmen who compose the post, I
+found only on my arrival one convict, opposite a quart of eau-de-vie.
+We will change all that, I hope. At ease."
+
+"Captain," I said, and my voice was colorless, while Chatelain
+remained frozen at attention, "I must tell you that the Sergeant was
+with me, that it is I who am responsible for his absence from the
+post, that he is an irreproachable non-commissioned officer from every
+point of view, and that if we had been warned of your arrival--"
+
+"Evidently," he said, with a coldly ironical smile. "Also, Lieutenant,
+I have no intention of holding him responsible for the negligences
+which attach to your office. He is not obliged to know that the
+officer who abandons a post like Hassi-Inifel, if it is only for two
+hours, risks not finding much left on his return. The Chaamba
+brigands, my dear sir, love firearms, and for the sake of the sixty
+muskets in your racks, I am sure they would not scruple to make an
+officer, whose otherwise excellent record is well known to me, account
+for his absence to a court-martial. Come with me, if you please. We
+will finish the little inspection I began too rapidly a little while
+ago."
+
+He was already on the stairs. I followed in his footsteps. Chatelain
+closed the order of march. I heard him murmuring, in a tone which you
+can imagine:
+
+"Well, we are in for it now!"
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+CAPTAIN DE SAINT-AVIT
+
+
+A few days sufficed to convince us that Chatelain's fears as to our
+official relations with the new chief were vain. Often I have thought
+that by the severity he showed at our first encounter Saint-Avit
+wished to create a formal barrier, to show us that he knew how to keep
+his head high in spite of the weight of his heavy past. Certain it is
+that the day after his arrival, he showed himself in a very different
+light, even complimenting the Sergeant on the upkeep of the post and
+the instruction of the men. To me he was charming.
+
+"We are of the same class, aren't we?" he said to me. "I don't have
+to ask you to dispense with formalities, it is your right."
+
+Vain marks of confidence, alas! False witnesses to a freedom of
+spirit, one in face of the other. What more accessible in appearance
+than the immense Sahara, open to all those who are willing to be
+engulfed by it? Yet what is more secret? After six months of
+companionship, of communion of life such as only a Post in the South
+offers, I ask myself if the most extraordinary of my adventures is not
+to be leaving to-morrow, toward unsounded solitudes, with a man whose
+real thoughts are as unknown to me as these same solitudes, for which
+he has succeeded in making me long.
+
+The first surprise which was given me by this singular companion was
+occasioned by the baggage that followed him.
+
+On his inopportune arrival, alone, from Wargla, he had trusted to the
+Mehari he rode only what can be carried without harm by such a
+delicate beast,--his arms, sabre and revolver, a heavy carbine, and a
+very reduced pack. The rest did not arrive till fifteen days later,
+with the convoy which supplied the post.
+
+Three cases of respectable dimensions were carried one after another
+to the Captain's room, and the grimaces of the porters said enough as
+to their weight.
+
+I discreetly left Saint-Avit to his unpacking and began opening the
+mail which the convoy had sent me.
+
+He returned to the office a little later and glanced at the several
+reviews which I had just recieved.
+
+"So," he said. "You take these."
+
+He skimmed through, as he spoke, the last number of the _Zeitschrift
+der Gesellschaft fur Erdkunde in Berlin_.
+
+"Yes," I answered. "These gentlemen are kind enough to interest
+themselves in my works on the geology of the Wadi Mia and the high
+Igharghar."
+
+"That may be useful to me," he murmured, continuing to turn over the
+leaves.
+
+"It's at your service."
+
+"Thanks. I am afraid I have nothing to offer you in exchange, except
+Pliny, perhaps. And still--you know what he said of Igharghar,
+according to King Juba. However, come help me put my traps in place
+and you will see if anything appeals to you."
+
+I accepted without further urging.
+
+We commenced by unearthing various meteorological and astronomical
+instruments--the thermometers of Baudin, Salleron, Fastre, an aneroid,
+a Fortin barometer, chronometers, a sextant, an astronomical spyglass,
+a compass glass.... In short, what Duveyrier calls the material that
+is simplest and easiest to transport on a camel.
+
+As Saint-Avit handed them to me I arranged them on the only table in
+the room.
+
+"Now," he announced to me, "there is nothing more but books. I will
+pass them to you. Pile them up in a corner until I can have a
+book-shelf made."
+
+For two hours altogether I helped him to heap up a real library. And
+what a library! Such as never before a post in the South had seen. All
+the texts consecrated, under whatever titles, by antiquity to the
+regions of the Sahara were reunited between the four rough-cast walls
+of that little room of the bordj. Herodotus and Pliny, naturally, and
+likewise Strabo and Ptolemy, Pomponius Mela, and Ammien Marcellin. But
+besides these names which reassured my ignorance a little, I perceived
+those of Corippus, of Paul Orose, of Eratosthenes, of Photius, of
+Diodorus of Sicily, of Solon, of Dion Cassius, of Isidor of Seville,
+of Martin de Tyre, of Ethicus, of Athenee, the _Scriptores Historiae
+Augustae_, the _Itinerarium Antonini Augusti_, the _Geographi Latini
+Minores_ of Riese, the _Geographi Graeci Minores_ of Karl Muller....
+Since I have had the occasion to familiarize myself with Agatarchides
+of Cos and Artemidorus of Ephesus, but I admit that in this instance
+the presence of their dissertations in the saddle bags of a captain of
+cavalry caused me some amazement.
+
+I mention further the _Descrittione dell' Africa_ by Leon l'African,
+the _Arabian Histories_ of Ibn-Khaldoun, of Al-Iaquob, of El-Bekri, of
+Ibn-Batoutah, of Mahommed El-Tounsi.... In the midst of this Babel, I
+remember the names of only two volumes of contemporary French
+scholars. There were also the laborious theses of Berlioux[3] and of
+Schirmer.[4]
+
+[Footnote 3: Doctrina Ptolemaei ab injuria recentiorum vindicata, sive
+Nilus Superior et Niger verus, hodiernus Eghiren, ab anitiquis
+explorati. Paris, 8vo, 1874, with two maps. (Note by M. Leroux.)]
+
+[Footnote 4: De nomine et genere popularum qui berberi vulgo dicuntur.
+Paris, 8vo, 1892. (Note by M. Leroux.)]
+
+While I proceeded to make piles of as similar dimensions as possible I
+kept saying to myself:
+
+"To think that I have been believing all this time that in his mission
+with Morhange, Saint-Avit was particularly concerned in scientific
+observations. Either my memory deceives me strangely or he is riding a
+horse of another color. What is sure is that there is nothing for me
+in the midst of all this chaos."
+
+He must have read on my face the signs of too apparently expressed
+surprise, for he said in a tone in which I divined a tinge of
+defiance:
+
+"The choice of these books surprises you a bit?"
+
+"I can't say it surprises me," I replied, "since I don't know the
+nature of the work for which you have collected them. In any case I
+dare say, without fear of being contradicted, that never before has
+officer of the Arabian Office possessed a library in which the
+humanities were so, well represented."
+
+He smiled evasively, and that day we pursued the subject no further.
+
+Among Saint-Avit's books I had noticed a voluminous notebook secured
+by a strong lock. Several times I surprised him in the act of making
+notations in it. When for any reason he was called out of the room he
+placed his album carefully in a small cabinet of white wood, provided
+by the munificence of the Administration. When he was not writing and
+the office did not require his presence, he had the mehari which he
+had brought with him saddled, and a few minutes later, from the
+terrace of the fortifications, I could see the double silhouette
+disappearing with great strides behind a hummock of red earth on the
+horizon.
+
+Each time these trips lasted longer. From each he returned in a kind
+of exaltation which made me watch him with daily increasing
+disquietude during meal hours, the only time we passed quite alone
+together.
+
+"Well," I said to myself one day when his remarks had been more
+lacking in sequence than usual, "it's no fun being aboard a submarine
+when the captain takes opium. What drug can this fellow be taking,
+anyway?"
+
+Next day I looked hurriedly through my comrade's drawers. This
+inspection, which I believed to be my duty, reassured me momentarily.
+"All very good," I thought, "provided he does not carry with him his
+capsules and his Pravaz syringe."
+
+I was still in that stage where I could suppose that Andre's
+imagination needed artificial stimulants.
+
+Meticulous observation undeceived me. There was nothing suspicious in
+this respect. Moreover, he rarely drank and almost never smoked.
+
+And nevertheless, there was no means of denying the increase of his
+disquieting feverishness. He returned from his expeditions each time
+with his eyes more brilliant. He was paler, more animated, more
+irritable.
+
+One evening he left the post about six o'clock, at the end of the
+greatest heat of the day. We waited for him all night. My anxiety was
+all the stronger because quite recently caravans had brought tidings
+of bands of robbers in the neighborhood of the post.
+
+At dawn he had not returned. He did not come before midday. His camel
+collapsed under him, rather than knelt.
+
+He realized that he must excuse himself, but he waited till we were
+alone at lunch.
+
+"I am so sorry to have caused you any anxiety. But the dunes were so
+beautiful under the moon! I let myself be carried farther and
+farther...."
+
+"I have no reproaches to make, dear fellow, you are free, and the
+chief here. Only allow me to recall to you certain warnings concerning
+the Chaamba brigands, and the misfortunes that might arise from a
+Commandant of a post absenting himself too long."
+
+He smiled.
+
+"I don't dislike such evidence of a good memory," he said simply.
+
+He was in excellent, too excellent spirits.
+
+"Don't blame me. I set out for a short ride as usual. Then, the moon
+rose. And then, I recognized the country. It is just where, twenty
+years ago next November, Flatters followed the way to his destiny in
+an exaltation which the certainty of not returning made keener and
+more intense."
+
+"Strange state of mind for a chief of an expedition," I murmured.
+
+"Say nothing against Flatters. No man ever loved the desert as he
+did ... even to dying of it."
+
+"Palat and Douls, among many others, have loved it as much," I
+answered. "But they were alone when they exposed themselves to it.
+Responsible only for their own lives, they were free. Flatters, on the
+other hand, was responsible for sixty lives. And you cannot deny that
+he allowed his whole party to be massacred."
+
+The words were hardly out of my lips before I regretted them, I
+thought of Chatelain's story, of the officers' club at Sfax, where
+they avoided like the plague any kind of conversation which might lead
+their thoughts toward a certain Morhange-Saint-Avit mission.
+
+Happily I observed that my companion was not listening. His brilliant
+eyes were far away.
+
+"What was your first garrison?" he asked suddenly.
+
+"Auxonne."
+
+He gave an unnatural laugh.
+
+"Auxonne. Province of the Cote d'Or. District of Dijon. Six thousand
+inhabitants. P.L.M. Railway. Drill school and review. The Colonel's
+wife receives Thursdays, and the Major's on Saturdays. Leaves every
+Sunday,--the first of the month to Paris, the three others to Dijon.
+That explains your Judgment of Flatters.
+
+"For my part, my dear fellow, my first garrison was at Boghar. I
+arrived there one morning in October, a second lieutenant, aged
+twenty, of the First African Batallion, the white chevron on my black
+sleeve.... Sun stripe, as the _bagnards_ say in speaking of their
+grades. Boghar! Two days before, from the bridge of the steamer, I had
+begun to see the shores of Africa. I pity all those who, when they see
+those pale cliffs for the first time, do not feel a great leap at
+their hearts, at the thought that this land prolongs itself thousands
+and thousands of leagues.... I was little more than a child, I had
+plenty of money. I was ahead of schedule. I could have stopped three
+or four days at Algiers to amuse myself. Instead I took the train that
+same evening for Berroughia.
+
+"There, scarcely a hundred kilometers from Algiers, the railway
+stopped. Going in a straight line you won't find another until you get
+to the Cape. The diligence travels at night on account of the heat.
+When we came to the hills I got out and walked beside the carriage,
+straining for the sensation, in this new atmosphere, of the kiss of
+the outlying desert.
+
+"About midnight, at the Camp of the Zouaves, a humble post on the road
+embankment, overlooking a dry valley whence rose the feverish perfume
+of oleander, we changed horses. They had there a troop of convicts and
+impressed laborers, under escort of riflemen and convoys to the
+quarries in the South. In part, rogues in uniform, from the jails of
+Algiers and Douara,--without arms, of course; the others
+civilians--such civilians! this year's recruits, the young bullies of
+the Chapelle and the Goutte-d'Or.
+
+"They left before we did. Then the diligence caught up with them. From
+a distance I saw in a pool of moonlight on the yellow road the black
+irregular mass of the convoy. Then I heard a weary dirge; the wretches
+were singing. One, in a sad and gutteral voice, gave the couplet,
+which trailed dismally through the depths of the blue ravines:
+
+"'_Maintenant qu'elle est grande,
+  Elle fait le trottoir,
+  Avec ceux de la bande
+        A Richard-Lenoir_.'
+
+"And the others took up in chorus the horrible refrain:
+
+"'_A la Bastille, a la Bastille,
+  On aime bien, on aime bien
+        Nini Peau d'Chien;
+  Elle est si belle et si gentille
+          A la Bastille_'
+
+"I saw them all in contrast to myself when the diligence passed them.
+They were terrible. Under the hideous searchlight their eyes shone
+with a sombre fire in their pale and shaven faces. The burning dust
+strangled their raucous voices in their throats. A frightful sadness
+took possession of me.
+
+"When the diligence had left this fearful nightmare behind, I regained
+my self-control.
+
+"'Further, much further South,' I exclaimed to myself, 'to the places
+untouched by this miserable bilgewater of civilization.'
+
+"When I am weary, when I have a moment of anguish and longing to turn
+back on the road that I have chosen, I think of the prisoners of
+Berroughia, and then I am glad to continue on my way.
+
+"But what a reward, when I am in one of those places where the poor
+animals never think of fleeing because they have never seen man, where
+the desert stretches out around me so widely that the old world could
+crumble, and never a single ripple on the dune, a single cloud in the
+white sky come to warn me.
+
+"'It is true,' I murmured. 'I, too, once, in the middle of the desert,
+at Tidi-Kelt, I felt that way.'"
+
+Up to that time I had let him enjoy his exaltations without
+interruption. I understood too late the error that I had made in
+pronouncing that unfortunate sentence.
+
+His mocking nervous laughter began anew.
+
+"Ah! Indeed, at Tidi-Kelt? I beg you, old man, in your own interest,
+if you don't want to make an ass of yourself, avoid that species of
+reminiscence. Honestly, you make me think of Fromentin, or that poor
+Maupassant, who talked of the desert because he had been to Djelfa,
+two days' journey from the street of Bab-Azound and the Government
+buildings, four days from the Avenue de l'Opera;--and who, because he
+saw a poor devil of a camel dying near Bou-Saada, believed himself in
+the heart of the desert, on the old route of the caravans....
+Tidi-Kelt, the desert!"
+
+"It seems to me, however, that In-Salah--" I said, a little vexed.
+
+"In-Salah? Tidi-Kelt! But, my poor friend, the last time that I passed
+that way there were as many old newspapers and empty sardine boxes as
+if it had been Sunday in the Wood of Vincennes."
+
+Such a determined, such an evident desire to annoy me made me forget
+my reserve.
+
+"Evidently," I replied resentfully, "I have never been to--"
+
+I stopped myself, but it was already too late.
+
+He looked at me, squarely in the face.
+
+"To where?" he said with good humor.
+
+I did not answer.
+
+"To where?" he repeated.
+
+And, as I remained strangled in my muteness:
+
+"To Wadi Tarhit, do you mean?"
+
+It was on the east bank of Wadi Tarhit, a hundred and twenty
+kilometers from Timissao, at 25.5 degrees north latitude, according to
+the official report, that Captain Morhange was buried.
+
+"Andre," I cried stupidly, "I swear to you--"
+
+"What do you swear to me?"
+
+"That I never meant--"
+
+"To speak of Wadi Tarhit? Why? Why should you not speak to me of Wadi
+Tarhit?"
+
+In answer to my supplicating silence, he merely shrugged his
+shoulders.
+
+"Idiot," was all he said.
+
+And he left me before I could think of even one word to say.
+
+So much humility on my part had, however, not disarmed him. I had the
+proof of it the next day, and the way he showed his humor was even
+marked by an exhibition of wretchedly poor taste.
+
+I was just out of bed when he came into my room.
+
+"Can you tell me what is the meaning of this?" he demanded.
+
+He had in his hand one of the official registers. In his nervous
+crises he always began sorting them over, in the hope of finding some
+pretext for making himself militarily insupportable.
+
+This time chance had favored him.
+
+He opened the register. I blushed violently at seeing the poor proof
+of a photograph that I knew well.
+
+"What is that?" he repeated disdainfully.
+
+Too often I had surprised him in the act of regarding, none too
+kindly, the portrait of Mlle. de C. which hung in my room not to be
+convinced at that moment that he was trying to pick a quarrel with me.
+
+I controlled myself, however, and placed the poor little print in the
+drawer.
+
+But my calmness did not pacify him.
+
+"Henceforth," he said, "take care, I beg you, not to mix mementoes of
+your gallantry with the official papers."
+
+He added, with a smile that spoke insult:
+
+"It isn't necessary to furnish objects of excitation to Gourrut."
+
+"Andre," I said, and I was white, "I demand--"
+
+He stood up to the full height of his stature.
+
+"Well what is it? A gallantry, nothing more. I have authorized you to
+speak of Wadi Halfa, haven't I? Then I have the right, I should
+think--"
+
+"Andre!"
+
+Now he was looking maliciously at the wall, at the little portrait the
+replica of which I had just subjected to this painful scene.
+
+"There, there, I say, you aren't angry, are you? But between ourselves
+you will admit, will you not, that she is a little thin?"
+
+And before I could find time to answer him, he had removed himself,
+humming the shameful refrain of the previous night:
+
+"_A la Bastille, a la Bastille,
+ On aime bien, on aime bien,
+       Nini, Peau de Chien_."
+
+For three days neither of us spoke to the other. My exasperation was
+too deep for words. Was I, then, to be held responsible for his
+avatars! Was it my fault if, between two phrases, one seemed always
+some allusion--
+
+"The situation is intolerable," I said to myself. "It cannot last
+longer."
+
+It was to cease very soon.
+
+One week after the scene of the photograph the courier arrived. I had
+scarcely glanced at the index of the _Zeitschrift_, the German review
+of which I have already spoken, when I started with uncontrollable
+amazement. I had just read: _"Reise und Entdeckungen zwei
+fronzosischer offiziere, Rittmeisters Morhange und Oberleutnants de
+Saint-Avit, in westlichen Sahara."_
+
+At the same time I heard my comrade's voice.
+
+"Anything interesting in this number?"
+
+"No," I answered carelessly.
+
+"Let's see."
+
+I obeyed; what else was there to do?
+
+It seemed to me that he grew paler as he ran over the index. However,
+his tone was altogether natural when he said:
+
+"You will let me borrow it, of course?"
+
+And he went out, casting me one defiant glance.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The day passed slowly. I did not see him again until evening. He was
+gay, very gay, and his gaiety hurt me.
+
+When we had finished dinner, we went out and leaned on the balustrade
+of the terrace. From there out swept the desert, which the darkness
+was already encroaching upon from the east.
+
+Andre broke the silence.
+
+"By the way, I have returned your review to you. You were right, it is
+not interesting."
+
+His expression was one of supreme amusement.
+
+"What is it, what is the matter with you, anyway?"
+
+"Nothing," I answered, my throat aching.
+
+"Nothing? Shall I tell you what is the matter with you?"
+
+I looked at him with an expression of supplication.
+
+"Idiot," he found it necessary to repeat once more.
+
+Night fell quickly. Only the southern slope of Wadi Mia was still
+yellow. Among the boulders a little jackal was running about, yapping
+sharply.
+
+"The _dib_ is making a fuss about nothing, bad business," said
+Saint-Avit.
+
+He continued pitilessly:
+
+"Then you aren't willing to say anything?"
+
+I made a great effort, to produce the following pitiful phrase:
+
+"What an exhausting day. What a night, heavy, heavy--You don't feel
+like yourself, you don't know any more--"
+
+"Yes," said the voice of Saint-Avit, as from a distance, "A heavy,
+heavy night: as heavy, do you know, as when I killed Captain
+Morhange."
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+THE MORHANGE-SAINT-AVIT MISSION
+
+
+"So I killed Captain Morhange," Andre de Saint-Avit said to me the
+next day, at the same time, in the same place, with a calm that took
+no account of the night, the frightful night I had just been through.
+"Why do I tell you this? I don't know in the least. Because of the
+desert, perhaps. Are you a man capable of enduring the weight of that
+confidence, and further, if necessary, of assuming the consequences it
+may bring? I don't know that, either. The future will decide. For the
+present there is only one thing certain, the fact, I tell you again,
+that I killed Captain Morhange.
+
+"I killed him. And, since you want me to specify the reason, you
+understand that I am not going to torture my brain to turn it into a
+romance for you, or commence by recounting in the naturalistic manner
+of what stuff my first trousers were made, or, as the neo-Catholics
+would have it, how often I went as a child to confession, and how much
+I liked doing it. I have no taste for useless exhibitions. You will
+find that this recital begins strictly at the time when I met
+Morhange.
+
+"And first of all, I tell you, however much it has cost my peace of
+mind and my reputation, I do not regret having known him. In a word,
+apart from all question of false friendship, I am convicted of a black
+ingratitude in having killed him. It is to him, it is to his knowledge
+of rock inscriptions, that I owe the only thing that has raised my
+life in interest above the miserable little lives dragged out by my
+companions at Auxonne, and elsewhere.
+
+"This being understood, here are the facts:"
+
+[NOTE: From this point on begins an extended narrative;
+indeed it may be most of the remaining book.
+I was changing the quoting, until I reached the end
+of the chapter and found that it continued on from there.]
+
+It was in the Arabian Office at Wargla, when I was a lieutenant, that
+I first heard the name, Morhange. And I must add that it was for me
+the occasion of an attack of bad humor. We were having difficult
+times. The hostility of the Sultan of Morocco was latent. At Touat,
+where the assassination of Flatters and of Frescaly had already been
+concocted, connivance was being given to the plots of our enemies.
+Touat was the center of conspiracies, of razzias, of defections, and
+at the same time, the depot of supply for the insatiable nomads. The
+Governors of Algeria, Tirman, Cambon, Laferriere, demanded its
+occupation. The Ministers of War tacitly agreed.... But there was
+Parliament, which did nothing at all, because of England, because of
+Germany, and above all because of a certain _Declaration of the Rights
+of Man and of the Citizen_, which prescribed that insurrection is the
+most sacred of duties, even when the insurgents are savages who cut
+your head off. In short, the military authority could only, at its own
+discretion, increase the southern garrisons, and establish new posts;
+this one, Berresof, Hassi-el-Mia, Fort MacMahon, Fort Lallemand, Fort
+Miribel.... But as Castries puts it, you don't hold the nomads with
+bordjs, you hold them by the belt. The middle was the oasis of Touat.
+Their honors, the lawyers of Paris, had to be convinced of the
+necessity of taking possession of the oasis of Touat. The best way
+would be to present them with a faithful picture of the plots that
+were being woven there against us.
+
+The principal authors were, and still are, the Senoussis, whose able
+chief has been forced by our arms to transfer the seat of his
+confederation several thousand leagues from there, to Schimmedrou, in
+the Tibesti. They had, I say _they_ through modesty, the idea of
+ascertaining the traces left by these agitators on their favorite
+places of concourse; Rhat, Temassinin, the plain of Adejamor, and
+In-Salah. It was, you see, at least after leaving Temassinin,
+practically the same itinerary as that followed in 1864 by General
+Rohlfs.
+
+I had already attracted some attention by two excursions, one to
+Agades, and the other to Bilma, and was considered by the staff
+officers to be one of the best informed on the Senoussis question. I
+was therefore selected to assume this new task.
+
+I then suggested that it would be of interest to kill two birds with
+one stone, and to get, in passing, an idea of the northern Ahaggar, so
+as to make sure whether the Tuaregs of Ahitarhen had continued to have
+as cordial relations with the Senoussis as they had had when they
+combined to massacre the Flatters' mission. I was immediately accorded
+the permission. The change in my first plan was as follows: After
+reaching Ighelaschem, six hundred kilometers south of Temassinin,
+instead of taking the direct road to Touat via Rhat, I would,
+penetrating between the high land of Mouydir and Ahaggar, strike off
+to the southwest as far as Shikh-Salah. Here I would turn again
+northwards, towards In-Salah, by the road to the Soudan and Agades. In
+all hardly eight kilometers additional in a trip of about seven
+hundred leagues, with the certainty of making as complete an
+examination as possible of the roads which our enemies, the Senoussis
+of Tibesti and the Tuareg of the Ahaggar, must follow to arrive at
+Touat. On the way, for every explorer has his pet fancy, I was not at
+all displeased to think that I would have a chance to examine the
+geological formation of the plateau of Egere, about which Duveyrier
+and the others are so disappointingly indefinite.
+
+Everything was ready for my departure from Wargla. Everything, which
+is to say, very little. Three mehara: mine, my companion Bou-Djema's
+(a faithful Chaamba, whom I had had with me in my wanderings through
+the Air, less of a guide in the country I was familiar with than a
+machine for saddling and unsaddling camels), then a third to carry
+provisions and skins of drinking water, very little, since I had taken
+pains to locate the stops with reference to the wells.
+
+Some people go equipped for this kind of expedition with a hundred
+regulars, and even cannon. I am for the tradition of Douls and Rene
+Callie, I go alone.
+
+I was at that perfect moment when only one thin thread still held me
+to the civilized world when an official cable arrived at Wargla.
+
+"Lieutenant de Saint-Avit," it said briefly, "will delay his departure
+until the arrival of Captain Morhange, who will accompany him on his
+expedition of exploration."
+
+I was more than disappointed. I alone had had the idea of this
+expedition. I had had all the difficulty that you can imagine to make
+the authorities agree to it. And now when I was rejoicing at the idea
+of the long hours I would spend alone with myself in the heart of the
+desert, they sent me a stranger, and, to make matters worse, a
+superior.
+
+The condolences of my comrades aggravated my bad humor.
+
+The Yearly Report, consulted on the spot, had given them the following
+information:
+
+"Morhange (Jean-Marie-Francois), class of 1881. Breveted. Captain,
+unassigned. (Topographical Service of the Army.)"
+
+"There is the explanation for you," said one. "They are sending one of
+their creatures to pull the chestnuts out of the fire, after you have
+had all the trouble of making it. Breveted! That's a great way. The
+theories of Ardant du Picq or else nothing about here."
+
+"I don't altogether agree with you," said the Major. "They knew in
+Parliament, for some one is always indiscreet, the real aim of
+Saint-Avit's mission: to force their hand for the occupation of Touat.
+And this Morhange must be a man serving the interests of the Army
+Commission. All these people, secretaries, members of Parliament,
+governors, keep a close watch on each other. Some one will write an
+amusing paradoxical history some day, of the French Colonial
+Expansion, which is made without the knowledge of the powers in
+office, when it is not actually in spite of them."
+
+"Whatever the reason, the result will be the same," I said bitterly;
+"we will be two Frenchmen to spy on each other night and day, along
+the roads to the south. An amiable prospect when one has none too much
+time to foil all the tricks of the natives. When does he arrive?"
+
+"Day after tomorrow, probably. I have news of a convoy coming from
+Ghardaia. It is likely that he will avail himself of it. The
+indications are that he doesn't know very much about traveling alone."
+
+Captain Morhange did arrive in fact two days later by means of the
+convoy from Ghardaia. I was the first person for whom he asked.
+
+When he came to my room, whither I had withdrawn in dignity as soon as
+the convoy was sighted, I was disagreeably surprised to foresee that I
+would have great difficulty in preserving my prejudice against him.
+
+He was tall, his face full and ruddy, with laughing blue eyes, a small
+black moustache, and hair that was already white.
+
+"I have a thousand apologies to make to you, my dear fellow," he said
+immediately, with a frankness that I have never seen in any other man.
+"You must be furious with my importunity in upsetting your plans and
+delaying your departure."
+
+"By no means, Captain," I replied coolly.
+
+"You really have only yourself to blame. It is on account of your
+knowledge of the southern, routes, so highly esteemed at Paris, that I
+wished to have you to initiate me when the Ministries of Instruction
+and of Commerce, and the Geographical Society combined to charge me
+with the mission which brings me here. These three honorable
+institutions have in fact entrusted me with the attempt to
+re-establish the ancient track of the caravans, which, from the ninth
+century, trafficked between Tunis and the Soudan, by Toweur, Wargla,
+Es-Souk and the bend of the Bourroum; and to study the possibility of
+restoring this route to its ancient splendor. At the same time, at the
+Geographic Bureau, I heard of the journey that you are undertaking.
+From Wargla to Shikh-Salah our two itineraries are the same. Only I
+must admit to you that it is the first voyage of this kind that I have
+ever undertaken. I would not be afraid to hold forth for an hour on
+Arabian literature in the amphitheatre of the School of Oriental
+Languages, but I know well enough that in the desert I should have to
+ask for directions whether to turn right or left. This is the only
+chance which could give me such an opportunity, and at the same time
+put me under obligation for this introduction to so charming a
+companion. You must not blame me if I seized it, if I used all my
+influence to retard your departure from Wargla until the instant when
+I could join you. I have only one more word to add to what I have
+said. I am entrusted with a mission which by its origin is rendered
+essentially civilian. You are sent out by the Ministry of War. Up to
+the moment when, arrived at Shikh-Salah we turn our backs on each
+other to attain, you Touat, and I the Niger, all your recommendations,
+all your orders, will be followed by a subaltern, and, I hope, by a
+friend as well."
+
+All the time he was talking so openly I felt delightedly my worst
+recent fears melting away. Nevertheless, I still experienced a mean
+desire to show him some marks of reserve, for having thus disposed of
+my company at a distance, without consulting me.
+
+"I am very grateful to you, Captain, for your extremely flattering
+words. When do you wish to leave Wargla?"
+
+He made a gesture of complete detachment.
+
+"Whenever you like. Tomorrow, this evening. I have already delayed
+you. Your preparations must have already been made for some time."
+
+My little maneuver had turned against myself. I had not been counting
+on leaving before the next week.
+
+"Tomorrow, Captain, but your luggage?"
+
+He smiled delightfully.
+
+"I thought it best to bring as little as possible. A light pack, some
+papers. My brave camel had no difficulty in bringing it along. For the
+rest I depend on your advice, and the resources of Owargla."
+
+I was well caught. I had nothing further to say. And moreover, such
+freedom of spirit and manner had already captivated me.
+
+"It seems," said my comrades, when the time for aperitives had brought
+us all together again, "that this Captain of yours is a remarkably
+charming fellow."
+
+"Remarkably."
+
+"You surely can't have any trouble with him. It is only up to you to
+see that later on he doesn't get all the glory."
+
+"We aren't working with the same end in view," I answered evasively.
+
+I was thoughtful, only thoughtful I give you my word. From that moment
+I harbored no further grudge against Morhange. Yet my silence
+persuaded him that I was unforgiving. And everyone, do you hear me,
+everyone said later on, when suspicions became rife:
+
+"He is surely guilty. We saw them go off together. We can affirm it."
+
+I am guilty.... But for a low motive of jealousy.... How sickening....
+
+After that, there was nothing to do but to flee, flee, as far as the
+places where there are no more men who think and reason.
+
+Morhange, appeared, his arm resting on the Major's, who was beaming
+over this new acquaintanceship.
+
+He presented him enthusiastically:
+
+"Captain Morhange, gentlemen. An officer of the old school, and a man
+after our own hearts, I give you my word. He wants to leave tomorrow,
+but we must give him such a reception that he will forget that idea
+before two days are up. Come, Captain, you have at least eight days to
+give us."
+
+"I am at the disposition of Lieutenant de Saint-Avit," replied
+Morhange, with a quiet smile.
+
+The conversation became general. The sound of glasses and laughter
+rang out. I heard my comrades in ecstasies over the stories that the
+newcomer poured out with never-failing humor. And I, never, never have
+I felt so sad.
+
+The time came to pass into the dining-room.
+
+"At my right, Captain," cried the Major, more and more beaming. "And I
+hope you will keep on giving us these new lines on Paris. We are not
+up with the times here, you know."
+
+"Yours to command, Major," said Morhange.
+
+"Be seated, gentlemen."
+
+The officers obeyed, with a joyous clatter of moving chairs. I had not
+taken my eyes off Morhange, who was still standing.
+
+"Major, gentlemen, you will allow me," he said.
+
+And before sitting down at that table, where every moment he was the
+life of the party, in a low voice, with his eyes closed, Captain
+Morhange recited the Benedicite.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+TOWARDS LATITUDE 25
+
+
+"You see," said Captain Morhange to me fifteen days later, "you are
+much better informed about the ancient routes through the Sahara than
+you have been willing to let me suppose, since you know of the
+existence of the two Tadekkas. But the one of which you have just
+spoken is the Tadekka of Ibn-Batoutah, located by this historian
+seventy days from Touat, and placed by Schirmer, very plausibly, in
+the unexplored territory of the Aouelimmiden. This is the Tadekka by
+which the Sonrhai caravans passed every year, travelling by Egypt.
+
+"My Tadekka is different, the capital of the veiled people, placed by
+Ibn-Khaldoun twenty days south of Wargla, which he calls Tadmekka. It
+is towards this Tadmekka that I am headed. I must establish Tadmekka
+in the ruins of Es-Souk. The commercial trade route, which in the
+ninth century bound the Tunisian Djerid to the bend the Niger makes at
+Bourroum, passed by Es-Souk. It is to study the possibility of
+reestablishing this ancient thoroughfare that the Ministries gave me
+this mission, which has given me the pleasure of your companionship."
+
+"You are probably in for a disappointment," I said. "Everything
+indicates that the commerce there is very slight."
+
+"Well, I shall see," he answered composedly.
+
+This was while we were following the unicolored banks of a salt lake.
+The great saline stretch shone pale-blue, under the rising sun. The
+legs of our five mehara cast on it their moving shadows of a darker
+blue. For a moment the only inhabitant of these solitudes, a bird, a
+kind of indeterminate heron, rose and hung in the air, as if
+suspended from a thread, only to sink back to rest as soon as we had
+passed.
+
+I led the way, selecting the route, Morhange followed. Enveloped in a
+bernous, his head covered with the straight _chechia_ of the Spahis, a
+great chaplet of alternate red and white beads, ending in a cross,
+around his neck, he realized perfectly the ideal of Father Lavigerie's
+White Fathers.
+
+After a two-days' halt at Temassinin we had just left the road
+followed by Flatters, and taken an oblique course to the south. I have
+the honor of having antedated Fourcau in demonstrating the importance
+of Temassinin as a geometrical point for the passage of caravans, and
+of selecting the place where Captain Pein has just now constructed a
+fort. The junction for the roads that lead to Touat from Fezzan and
+Tibesti, Temassinin is the future seat of a marvellous Intelligence
+Department. What I had collected there in two days about the
+disposition of our Senoussis enemies was of importance. I noticed that
+Morhange let me proceed with my inquiries with complete indifference.
+
+These two days he had passed in conversation with the old Negro
+guardian of the turbet, which preserves, under its plaster dome, the
+remains of the venerated Sidi-Moussa. The confidences they exchanged,
+I am sorry to say that I have forgotten. But from the Negro's amazed
+admiration, I realized the ignorance in which I stood to the mysteries
+of the desert, and how familiar they were to my companion.
+
+And if you want to get any idea of the extraordinary originality which
+Morhange introduced into such surroundings, you who, after all, have a
+certain familiarity with the tropics, listen to this. It was exactly
+two hundred kilometers from here, in the vicinity of the Great Dune,
+in that horrible stretch of six days without water. We had just enough
+for two days before reaching the next well, and you know these wells;
+as Flatters wrote to his wife, "you have to work for hours before you
+can clean them out and succeed in watering beasts and men." By chance
+we met a caravan there, which was going east towards Rhadames, and had
+come too far north. The camels' humps, shrunken and shaking, bespoke
+the sufferings of the troop. Behind came a little gray ass, a pitiful
+burrow, interfering at every step, and lightened of its pack because
+the merchants knew that it was going to die. Instinctively, with its
+last strength, it followed, knowing that when it could stagger no
+longer, the end would come and the flutter of the bald vultures'
+wings. I love animals, which I have solid reasons for preferring to
+men. But never should I have thought of doing what Morhange did then.
+I tell you that our water skins were almost dry, and that our own
+camels, without which one is lost in the empty desert, had not been
+watered for many hours. Morhange made his kneel, uncocked a skin, and
+made the little ass drink. I certainly felt gratification at seeing
+the poor bare flanks of the miserable beast pant with satisfaction. But
+the responsibility was mine. Also I had seen Bou-Djema's aghast
+expression, and the disapproval of the thirsty members of the caravan.
+I remarked on it. How it was received! "What have I given," replied
+Morhange, "was my own. We will reach El-Biodh to-morrow evening, about
+six o'clock. Between here and there I know that I shall not be
+thirsty." And that in a tone, in which for the first time he allowed
+the authority of a Captain to speak. "That is easy to say," I thought,
+ill-humoredly. "He knows that when he wants them, my water-skin, and
+Bou-Djema's, are at his service." But I did not yet know Morhange very
+well, and it is true that until the evening of the next day when we
+reached El-Biodh, refusing our offers with smiling determination, he
+drank nothing.
+
+Shades of St. Francis of Assisi! Umbrian hills, so pure under the
+rising sun! It was in the light of a like sunrise, by the border of a
+pale stream leaping in full cascades from a crescent-shaped niche of
+the gray rocks of Egere, that Morhange stopped. The unlooked for
+waters rolled upon the sand, and we saw, in the light which mirrored
+them, little black fish. Fish in the middle of the Sahara! All three
+of us were mute before this paradox of Nature. One of them had strayed
+into a little channel of sand. He had to stay there, struggling in
+vain, his little white belly exposed to the air.... Morhange picked
+him up, looked at him for a moment, and put him back into the little
+stream. Shades of St. Francis. Umbrian hills.... But I have sworn not
+to break the thread of the story by these untimely digressions.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"You see," Captain Morhange said to me a week later, "that I was right
+in advising you to go farther south before making for Shikh-Salah.
+Something told me that this highland of Egere was not interesting from
+your point of view. While here you have only to stoop to pick up
+pebbles which will allow you to establish the volcanic origin of this
+region much more certainly than Bou-Derba, des Cloizeaux, and Doctor
+Marres have done."
+
+This was while we were following the western pass of the Tidifest
+Mountains, about the 25th degree of northern latitude.
+
+"I should indeed be ungrateful not to thank you," I said.
+
+I shall always remember that instant. We had left our camels and were
+collecting fragments of the most characteristic rocks. Morhange
+employed himself with a discernment which spoke worlds for his
+knowledge of geology, a science he had often professed complete
+ignorance of.
+
+Then I asked him the following question:
+
+"May I prove my gratitude by making you a confession?"
+
+He raised his head and looked at me.
+
+"Well then, I don't see the practical value of this trip you have
+undertaken."
+
+He smiled.
+
+"Why not? To explore the old caravan route, to demonstrate that a
+connection has existed from the most ancient times between the
+Mediterranean world, and the country of the Blacks, that seems nothing
+in your eyes? The hope of settling once for all the secular disputes
+which have divided so many keen minds; d'Anville, Heeren, Berlioux,
+Quatremere on the one hand,--on the other Gosselin, Walckenaer,
+Tissit, Vivien, de saint-Martin; you think that that is devoid of
+interest? A plague upon you for being hard to please."
+
+"I spoke of practical value," I said. "You won't deny that this
+controversy is only the affair of cabinet geographers and office
+explorers."
+
+Morhange kept on smiling.
+
+"Dear friend, don't wither me. Deign to recall that your mission was
+confided to you by the Ministry of War, while I hold mine on behalf of
+the Ministry of Public Instruction. A different origin justifies our
+different aims. It certainly explains, I readily concede that to you,
+why what I am in search of has no practical value."
+
+"You are also authorized by the Ministry of Commerce," I replied,
+playing my next card. "By this chief you are instructed to study the
+possibility of restoring the old trade route of the ninth century. But
+on this point don't attempt to mislead me; with your knowledge of the
+history and geography of the Sahara, your mind must have been made up
+before you left Paris. The road from Djerid to the Niger is dead,
+stone dead. You knew that no important traffic would pass by this
+route before you undertook to study the possibility of restoring it."
+
+Morhange looked me full in the face.
+
+"And if that should be so," he said with the most charming attitude,
+"if I had before leaving the conviction you say, what do you conclude
+from that?"
+
+"I should prefer to have you tell me."
+
+"Simply, my dear boy, that I had less skill than you in finding the
+pretext for my voyage, that I furnished less good reasons for the true
+motives that brought me here."
+
+"A pretext? I don't see...."
+
+"Be sincere in your turn, if you please. I am sure that you have the
+greatest desire to inform the Arabian Office about the practices of
+the Senoussis. But admit that the information that you will obtain is
+not the sole and innermost aim of your excursion. You are a geologist,
+my friend. You have found a chance to gratify your taste in this trip.
+No one would think of blaming you because you have known how to
+reconcile what is useful to your country and agreeable to yourself.
+But, for the love of God, don't deny it; I need no other proof than
+your presence here on this side of the Tidifest, a very curious place
+from a mineralogical point of view, but some hundred and fifty
+kilometers south of your official route."
+
+It was not possible to have countered me with a better grace. I
+parried by attacking.
+
+"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.
+
+Not a sound, not a breath. The smoke mounted straight, straight and
+slowly up the pale steps of the firmament.
+
+"Have you ever heard of the _Atlas of Christianity_?" asked Morhange.
+
+"I think so. Isn't it a geographical work published by the
+Benedictines under the direction of a certain Dom Granger?"
+
+"Your memory is correct," said Morhange. "Even so let me explain a
+little more fully some of the things you have not had as much reason
+as I to interest yourself in. The _Atlas of Christianity_ proposes to
+establish the boundaries of that great tide of Christianity through
+all the ages, and for all parts of the globe. An undertaking worthy of
+the Benedictine learning, worthy of such a prodigy of erudition as
+Dom Granger himself."
+
+"And it is these boundaries that you have come to determine here, no
+doubt," I murmured.
+
+"Just so," replied my companion.
+
+He was silent, and I respected his silence, prepared by now to be
+astonished at nothing.
+
+"It is not possible to give confidences by halves, without being
+ridiculous," he continued after several minutes of meditation,
+speaking gravely, in a voice which held no suggestion of that flashing
+humor which had a month before enchanted the young officers at Wargla.
+"I have begun on mine. I will tell you everything. Trust my
+discretion, however, and do not insist upon certain events of my
+private life. If, four years ago, at the close of these events, I
+resolve to enter a monastery, it does not concern you to know my
+reasons. I can marvel at it myself, that the passage in my life of a
+being absolutely devoid of interest should have sufficed to change the
+current of that life. I can marvel that a creature whose sole merit
+was her beauty should have been permitted by the Creator to swing my
+destiny to such an unforeseen direction. The monastery at whose doors
+I knocked had the most valid reasons for doubting the stability of my
+vocation. What the world loses in such fashion it often calls back as
+readily. In short, I cannot blame the Father Abbot for having
+forbidden me to apply for my army discharge. By his instructions, I
+asked for, and obtained, permission to be placed on the inactive list
+for three years. At the end of those three years of consecration it
+would be seen whether the world was definitely dead to your servant.
+
+"The first day of my arrival at the cloister I was assigned to Dom
+Granger, and placed by him at work on the _Atlas of Christianity_. A
+brief examination decided him as to what kind of service I was best
+fitted to render. This is how I came to enter the studio devoted to
+the cartography of Northern Africa. I did not know one word of Arabic,
+but it happened that in garrison at Lyon I had taken at the _Faculte
+des Lettres,_ a course with Berlioux,--a very erudite geographer no
+doubt, but obsessed by one idea, the influence the Greek and Roman
+civilizations had exercised on Africa. This detail of my life was
+enough for Dom Granger. He provided me straightway with Berber
+vocabularies by Venture, by Delaporte, by Brosselard; with the
+_Grammatical Sketch of the Temahaq_ by Stanley Fleeman, and the _Essai
+de Grammaire de la langue Temachek_ by Major Hanoteau. At the end of
+three months I was able to decipher any inscriptions in Tifinar. You
+know that Tifinar is the national writing of the Tuareg, the
+expression of this Temachek language which seems to us the most
+curious protest of the Targui race against its Mohammedan enemies.
+
+"Dom Granger, in fact, believed that the Tuareg are Christians, dating
+from a period which it was necessary to ascertain, but which coincided
+no doubt with the splendor of the church of Hippon. Even better than
+I, you know that the cross is with them the symbol of fate in
+decoration. Duveyrier has claimed that it figures in their alphabet,
+on their arms, among the designs of their clothes. The only tattooing
+that they wear on the forehead, on the back of the hand, is a cross
+with four equal branches; the pummels of their saddles, the handles of
+their sabres, of their poignards, are cross-shaped. And is it
+necessary to remind you that, although Islam forbids bells as a sign
+of Christianity, the harness of Tuareg camels are trimmed with bells?
+
+"Neither Dom Granger nor I attach an exaggerated importance to such
+proofs, which resemble too much those which make such a display in the
+_Genius of Christianity._ But it is indeed impossible to refuse all
+credence to certain theological arguments. Amanai, the God of the
+Tuareg, unquestionably the Adonai of the Bible, is unique. They have a
+hell, 'Timsi-tan-elekhaft,' the last fire, where reigns Iblis, our
+Lucifer. Their Paradise, where they are rewarded for good deeds, is
+inhabited by 'andjelousen,' our angels. And do not urge the
+resemblance of this theology to the Koran, for I will meet you with
+historic arguments and remind you that the Tuareg have struggled all
+through the ages at the cost of partial extermination, to maintain
+their faith against the encroachments of Mohammedan fanaticism.
+
+"Many times I have studied with Dom Granger that formidable epoch when
+the aborigines opposed the conquering Arabs. With him I have seen how
+the army of Sidi-Okba, one of the companions of the Prophet, invaded
+this desert to reduce the Tuareg tribes and impose on them Mussulman
+rules. These tribes were then rich and prosperous. They were the
+Ihbggaren, the Imededren, the Ouadelen, the Kel-Gueress, the Kel-Air.
+But internal quarrels sapped their strength. Still, it was not until
+after a long and cruel war that the Arabians succeeded in getting
+possession of the capital of the Berbers, which had proved such a
+redoubtable stronghold. They destroyed it after they had massacred the
+inhabitants. On the ruins Okba constructed a new city. This city is
+Es-Souk. The one that Sidi-Okba destroyed was the Berber Tadmekka.
+What Dom Granger asked of me was precisely that I should try to exhume
+from the ruins of the Mussulman Es-Souk the ruins of Tadmekka, which
+was Berber, and perhaps Christian."
+
+"I understand," I murmured.
+
+"So far, so good," said Morhange. "But what you must grasp now is the
+practical sense of these religious men, my masters. You remember that,
+even after three years of monastic life, they preserved their doubts
+as to the stability of my vocation. They found at the same time means
+of testing it once for all, and of adapting official facilities to
+their particular purposes. One morning I was called before the Father
+Abbot, and this is what he said to me, in the presence of Dom Granger,
+who expressed silent approval.
+
+"'Your term of inactive service expires in fifteen days. You will
+return to Paris, and apply at the Ministry to be reinstated. With what
+you have learned here, and the relationships we have been able to
+maintain at Headquarters, you will have no difficulty in being
+attached to the Geographical Staff of the army. When you reach the rue
+de Grenelle you will receive our instructions.'
+
+"I was astonished at their confidence in my knowledge. When I was
+reestablished as Captain again in the Geographical Service I
+understood. At the monastery, the daily association with Dom Granger
+and his pupils had kept me constantly convinced of the inferiority of
+my knowledge. When I came in contact with my military brethren I
+realized the superiority of the instruction I had received. I did not
+have to concern myself with the details of my mission. The Ministries
+invited me to undertake it. My initiative asserted itself on only one
+occasion. When I learned that you were going to leave Wargla on the
+present expedition, having reason to distrust my practical
+qualifications as an explorer, I did my best to retard your departure,
+so that I might join you. I hope that you have forgiven me by now."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The light in the west was fading, where the sun had already sunk into
+a matchless luxury of violet draperies. We were alone in this
+immensity, at the feet of the rigid black rocks. Nothing but
+ourselves. Nothing, nothing but ourselves.
+
+I held out my hand to Morhange, and he pressed it. Then he said:
+
+"If they still seem infinitely long to me, the several thousand
+kilometers which separate me from the instant when, my task
+accomplished, I shall at last find oblivion in the cloister for the
+things for which I was not made, let me tell you this;--the several
+hundred kilometers which still separate us from Shikh-Salah seem to me
+infinitely short to traverse in your company."
+
+On the pale water of the little pool, motionless and fixed like a
+silver nail, a star had just been born.
+
+"Shikh-Salah," I murmured, my heart full of an indefinable sadness.
+"Patience, we are not there yet."
+
+In truth, we never were to be there.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+THE INSCRIPTION
+
+
+With a blow of the tip of his cane Morhange knocked a fragment of rock
+from the black flank of the mountain.
+
+"What is it?" he asked, holding it out to me.
+
+"A basaltic peridot," I said.
+
+"It can't be very interesting, you barely glanced at it."
+
+"It is very interesting, on the contrary. But, for the moment, I admit
+that I am otherwise preoccupied."
+
+"How?"
+
+"Look this way a bit," I said, showing towards the west, on the
+horizon, a black spot across the white plain.
+
+It was six o'clock in the morning. The sun had risen. But it could not
+be found in the surprisingly polished air. And not a breath of air,
+not a breath. Suddenly one of the camels called. An enormous antelope
+had just come in sight, and had stopped in its flight, terrified,
+racing the wall of rock. It stayed there at a little distance from us,
+dazed, trembling on its slender legs.
+
+Bou-Djema had rejoined us.
+
+"When the legs of the mohor tremble it is because the firmament is
+shaken," he muttered.
+
+"A storm?"
+
+"Yes, a storm."
+
+"And you find that alarming?"
+
+I did not answer immediately. I was exchanging several brief words
+with Bou-Djema, who was occupied in soothing the camels which were
+giving signs of being restive.
+
+Morhange repeated his question. I shrugged my shoulders.
+
+"Alarming? I don't know. I have never seen a storm on the Hoggar. But
+I distrust it. And the signs are that this is going to be a big one.
+See there already."
+
+A slight dust had risen before the cliff. In the still air a few
+grains of sand had begun to whirl round and round, with a speed which
+increased to dizziness, giving us in advance the spectacle in
+miniature of what would soon be breaking upon us.
+
+With harsh cries a flock of wild geese appeared, flying low. They came
+out of the west.
+
+"They are fleeing towards the Sebkha d'Amanghor," said Bou-Djema.
+
+There could be no greater mistake, I thought.
+
+Morhange looked at me curiously.
+
+"What must we do?" he asked.
+
+"Mount our camels immediately, before they are completely
+demoralized, and hurry to find shelter in some high places. Take
+account of our situation. It is easy to follow the bed of a stream.
+But within a quarter of an hour perhaps the storm will have burst.
+Within a half hour a perfect torrent will be rushing here. On this
+soil, which is almost impermeable, rain will roll like a pail of water
+thrown on a bituminous pavement. No depth, all height. Look at this."
+
+And I showed him, a dozen meters high, long hollow gouges, marks of
+former erosions on the rocky wall.
+
+"In an hour the waters will reach that height. Those are the marks of
+the last inundation. Let us get started. There is not an instant to
+lose."
+
+"All right," Morhange replied tranquilly.
+
+We had the greatest difficulty to make the camels kneel. When we had
+thrown ourselves into the saddle they started off at a pace which
+their terror rendered more and more disorderly.
+
+Of a sudden the wind began, a formidable wind, and, almost at the same
+time the light was eclipsed in the ravine. Above our heads the sky had
+become, in the flash of an eye, darker than the walls of the canyon
+which we were descending at a breathless pace.
+
+"A path, a stairway in the wall," I screamed against the wind to my
+companions. "If we don't find one in a minute we are lost."
+
+They did not hear me, but, turning in my saddle, I saw that they had
+lost no distance, Morhange following me, and Bou-Djema in the rear
+driving the two baggage camels masterfully before him.
+
+A blinding streak of lightning rent the obscurity. A peal of thunder,
+re-echoed to infinity by the rocky wall, rang out, and immediately
+great tepid drops began to fall. In an instant, our burnouses, which
+had been blown out behind by the speed with which we were traveling,
+were stuck tight to our streaming bodies.
+
+"Saved!" I exclaimed suddenly.
+
+Abruptly on our right a crevice opened in the midst of the wall. It
+was the almost perpendicular bed of a stream, an affluent of the one
+we had had the unfortunate idea of following that morning. Already a
+veritable torrent was gushing over it with a fine uproar.
+
+I have never better appreciated the incomparable sure-footedness of
+camels in the most precipitate places. Bracing themselves, stretching
+out their great legs, balancing themselves among the rocks that were
+beginning to be swept loose, our camels accomplished at that moment
+what the mules of the Pyrannees might have failed in.
+
+After several moments of superhuman effort we found ourselves at last
+out of danger, on a kind of basaltic terrace, elevated some fifty
+meters above the channel of the stream we had just left. Luck was with
+us; a little grotto opened out behind. Bou-Djema succeeded in
+sheltering the camels there. From its threshold we had leisure to
+contemplate in silence the prodigious spectacle spread out before us.
+
+You have, I believe, been at the Camp of Chalons for artillery drills.
+You have seen when the shell bursts how the chalky soil of the Marne
+effervesces like the inkwells at school, when we used to throw a piece
+of calcium carbonate into them. Well, it was almost like that, but in
+the midst of the desert, in the midst of obscurity. The white waters
+rushed into the depths of the black hole, and rose and rose towards
+the pedestal on which we stood. And there was the uninterrupted noise
+of thunder, and still louder, the sound of whole walls of rock,
+undermined by the flood, collapsing in a heap and dissolving in a few
+seconds of time in the midst of the rising water.
+
+All the time that this deluge lasted, one hour, perhaps two, Morhange
+and I stayed bending over this fantastic foaming vat; anxious to see,
+to see everything, to see in spite of everything; rejoicing with a
+kind of ineffable horror when we felt the shelf of basalt on which we
+had taken refuge swaying beneath us from the battering impact of the
+water. I believe that never for an instant did we think, so beautiful
+it was, of wishing for the end of that gigantic nightmare.
+
+Finally a ray of the sun shone through. Only then did we look at each
+other.
+
+Morhange held out his hand.
+
+"Thank you," he said simply.
+
+And he added with a smile:
+
+"To be drowned in the very middle of the Sahara would have been
+pretentious and ridiculous. You have saved us, thanks to your power of
+decision, from this very paradoxical end."
+
+Ah, that he had been thrown by a misstep of his camel and rolled to
+his death in the midst of the flood! Then what followed would never
+have happened. That is the thought that comes to me in hours of
+weakness. But I have told you that I pull myself out of it quickly.
+No, no, I do not regret it, I cannot regret it, that what happened did
+happen.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Morhange left me to go into the little grotto, where Bou-Djema's
+camels were now resting comfortably. I stayed alone, watching the
+torrent which was continuously rising with the impetuous inrush of its
+unbridled tributaries. It had stopped raining. The sun shone from a
+sky that had renewed its blueness. I could feel the clothes that had a
+moment before been drenching, drying upon me incredibly fast.
+
+A hand was placed on my shoulder. Morhange was again beside me.
+
+"Come here," he said.
+
+Somewhat surprised, I followed him. We went into the grotto.
+
+The opening, which was big enough to admit the camels, made it fairly
+light. Morhange led me up to the smooth face of rock opposite. "Look,"
+he said, with unconcealed joy.
+
+"What of it?"
+
+"Don't you see?"
+
+"I see that there are several Tuareg inscriptions," I answered, with
+some disappointment. "But I thought I had told you that I read Tifinar
+writing very badly. Are these writings more interesting than the
+others we have come upon before?"
+
+"Look at this one," said Morhange. There was such an accent of triumph
+in his tone that this time I concentrated my attention.
+
+I looked again.
+
+The characters of the inscription were arranged in the form of a
+cross. It plays such an important part in this adventure that I cannot
+forego retracing it for you.
+
+               |
+               |
+               +
+o  o  o  o  -- W + -- -
+               |
+               |
+               |
+
+[Transcriber's Note: This is but a crude ASCII representation of the
+inscription. The center 'W' is rotated 90 degrees counter-clockwise in
+the book.]
+
+It was designed with great regularity, and the characters were cut
+deep into the rock. Although I knew so little of rock inscriptions at
+that time I had no difficulty in recognizing the antiquity of this
+one.
+
+Morhange became more and more radiant as he regarded it.
+
+I looked at him questioningly.
+
+"Well, what have you to say now?" he asked.
+
+"What do you want me to say? I tell you that I can barely read
+Tifinar."
+
+"Shall I help you?" he suggested.
+
+This course in Berber writing, after the emotions through which we had
+just passed, seemed to me a little inopportune. But Morhange was so
+visibly delighted that I could not dash his joy.
+
+"Very well then," began my companion, as much at his, ease as if he had
+been before a blackboard, "what will strike you first about this
+inscription is its repetition in the form of a cross. That is to say
+that it contains the same word twice, top to bottom, and right to left.
+The word which it composes has seven letters so the fourth letter, W
+[Transcriber's Note: Rotated 90 deg. counter-clockwise], comes naturally
+in the middle. This arrangement which is unique in Tifinar writing, is
+already remarkable enough. But there is better still. Now we will read
+it."
+
+Getting it wrong three times out of seven I finally succeeded, with
+Morhange's help, in spelling the word.
+
+"Have you got it?" asked Morhange when I had finished my task.
+
+"Less than ever," I answered, a little put out;
+"a,n,t,i,n,h,a,--Antinha, I don't know that word, or anything like it,
+in all the Saharan dialects I am familiar with."
+
+Morhange rubbed his hands together. His satisfaction was without
+bounds.
+
+"You have said it. That is why the discovery is unique."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"There is really nothing, either in Berber or in Arabian, analogous to
+this word."
+
+"Then?"
+
+"Then, my dear friend, we are in the presence of a foreign word,
+translated into Tifinar."
+
+"And this word belongs, according to your theory, to what language?"
+
+"You must realize that the letter _e_ does not exist in the Tifinar
+alphabet. It has here been replaced by the phonetic sign which is
+nearest to it,--h. Restore _e_ to the place which belongs to it in the
+word, and you have--"
+
+"Antinea."
+
+"'Antinea,' precisely. We find ourselves before a Greek vocable
+reproduced in Tifinar. And I think that now you will agree with me
+that my find has a certain interest."
+
+That day we had no more conferences upon texts. A loud cry, anguished,
+terrifying, rang out.
+
+We rushed out to find a strange spectacle awaiting us.
+
+Although the sky had cleared again, the torrent of yellow water was
+still foaming and no one could predict when it would fall. In
+mid-stream, struggling desperately in the current, was an
+extraordinary mass, gray and soft and swaying.
+
+But what at the first glance overwhelmed us with astonishment was to
+see Bou-Djema, usually so calm, at this moment apparently beside
+himself with frenzy, bounding through the gullies and over the rocks
+of the ledge, in full pursuit of the shipwreck.
+
+Of a sudden I seized Morhange by the arm. The grayish thing was alive.
+A pitiful long neck emerged from it with the heartrending cry of a
+beast in despair.
+
+"The fool," I cried, "he has let one of our beasts get loose, and the
+stream is carrying it away!"
+
+"You are mistaken," said Morhange. "Our camels are all in the cave.
+The one Bou-Djema is running after is not ours. And the cry of anguish
+we just heard, that was not Bou-Djema either. Bou-Djema is a brave
+Chaamb who has at this moment only one idea, to appropriate the
+intestate capital represented by this camel in the stream."
+
+"Who gave that cry, then?"
+
+"Let us try, if you like, to explore up this stream that our guide is
+descending at such a rate."
+
+And without waiting for my answer he had already set out through the
+recently washed gullies of the rocky bank.
+
+At that moment it can be truly said that Morhange went to meet his
+destiny.
+
+I followed him. We had the greatest difficulty in proceeding two or
+three hundred meters. Finally we saw at our feet a little rushing
+brook where the water was falling a trifle.
+
+"See there?" said Morhange.
+
+A blackish bundle was balancing on the waves of the creek.
+
+When we had come up even with it we saw that it was a man in the long
+dark blue robes of the Tuareg.
+
+"Give me your hand," said Morhange, "and brace yourself against a
+rock, hard."
+
+He was very, very strong. In an instant, as if it were child's play,
+he had brought the body ashore.
+
+"He is still alive," he pronounced with satisfaction. "Now it is a
+question of getting him to the grotto. This is no place to resuscitate
+a drowned man."
+
+He raised the body in his powerful arms.
+
+"It is astonishing how little he weighs for a man of his height."
+
+By the time we had retraced the way to the grotto the man's cotton
+clothes were almost dry. But the dye had run plentifully, and it was
+an indigo man that Morhange was trying to recall to life.
+
+When I had made him swallow a quart of rum he opened his eyes, looked
+at the two of us with surprise, then, closing them again, murmured
+almost unintelligibly a phrase, the sense of which we did not get
+until some days later:
+
+"Can it be that I have reached the end of my mission?"
+
+"What mission is he talking about?" I said.
+
+"Let him recover himself completely," responded Morhange. "You had
+better open some preserved food. With fellows of this build you don't
+have to observe the precautions prescribed for drowned Europeans."
+
+It was indeed a species of giant, whose life we had just saved. His
+face, although very thin, was regular, almost beautiful. He had a
+clear skin and little beard. His hair, already white, showed him to be
+a man of sixty years.
+
+When I placed a tin of corned-beef before him a light of voracious joy
+came into his eyes. The tin contained an allowance for four persons.
+It was empty in a flash.
+
+"Behold," said Morhange, "a robust appetite. Now we can put our
+questions without scruple."
+
+Already the Targa had placed over his forehead and face the blue veil
+prescribed by the ritual. He must have been completely famished not to
+have performed this indispensable formality sooner. There was nothing
+visible now but the eyes, watching us with a light that grew steadily
+more sombre.
+
+"French officers," he murmured at last.
+
+And he took Morhange's hand, and having placed it against his breast,
+carried it to his lips.
+
+Suddenly an expression of anxiety passed over his face.
+
+"And my mehari?" he asked.
+
+I explained that our guide was then employed in trying to save his
+beast. He in turn told us how it had stumbled, and fallen into the
+current, and he himself, in trying to save it, had been knocked over.
+His forehead had struck a rock. He had cried out. After that he
+remembered nothing more.
+
+"What is your name?" I asked.
+
+"Eg-Anteouen."
+
+"What tribe do you belong to?"
+
+"The tribe of Kel-Tahat."
+
+"The Kel-Tahats are the serfs of the tribe of Kel-Rhela, the great
+nobles of Hoggar?"
+
+"Yes," he answered, casting a side glance in my direction. It seemed
+that such precise questions on the affairs of Ahygar were not to his
+liking.
+
+"The Kel-Tahats, if I am not mistaken, are established on the
+southwest flank of Atakor.[5] What were you doing, so far from your
+home territory when we saved your life?"
+
+[Footnote 5: Another name, in the Temahaq language, for Ahaggar. (Note
+by M. Leroux.)]
+
+"I was going, by way of Tit, to In-Salah," he said.
+
+"What were you going to do at In-Salah?"
+
+He was about to reply. But suddenly we saw him tremble. His eyes were
+fixed on a point of the cavern. We looked to see what it was. He had
+just seen the rock inscription which had so delighted Morhange an hour
+before.
+
+"Do you know that?" Morhange asked him with keen curiosity.
+
+The Targa did not speak a word but his eyes had a strange light.
+
+"Do you know that?" insisted Morhange.
+
+And he added:
+
+"Antinea?"
+
+"Antinea," repeated the man.
+
+And he was silent.
+
+"Why don't you answer the Captain?" I called out, with a strange
+feeling of rage sweeping over me.
+
+The Targui looked at me. I thought that he was going to speak. But his
+eyes became suddenly hard. Under the lustrous veil I saw his features
+stiffening.
+
+Morhange and I turned around.
+
+On the threshold of the cavern, breathless, discomfited, harassed by
+an hour of vain pursuit, Bou-Djema had returned to us.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+THE DISASTER OF THE LETTUCE
+
+
+As Eg-Anteouen and Bou-Djema came face to face, I fancied that both
+the Targa and the Chaamba gave a sudden start which each immediately
+repressed. It was nothing more than a fleeting impression.
+Nevertheless, it was enough to make me resolve that as soon as I was
+alone with our guide, I would question him closely concerning our new
+companion.
+
+The beginning of the day had been wearisome enough. We decided,
+therefore, to spend the rest of it there, and even to pass the night
+in the cave, waiting till the flood had completely subsided.
+
+In the morning, when I was marking our day's march upon the map,
+Morhange came toward me. I noticed that his manner was somewhat
+restrained.
+
+"In three days, we shall be at Shikh-Salah," I said to him. "Perhaps
+by the evening of the second day, badly as the camels go."
+
+"Perhaps we shall separate before then," he muttered.
+
+"How so?"
+
+"You see, I have changed my itinerary a little. I have given up the
+idea of going straight to Timissao. First I should like to make a
+little excursion into the interior of the Ahaggar range."
+
+I frowned:
+
+"What is this new idea?"
+
+As I spoke I looked about for Eg-Anteouen, whom I had seen in
+conversation with Morhange the previous evening and several minutes
+before. He was quietly mending one of his sandals with a waxed thread
+supplied by Bou-Djema. He did not raise his head.
+
+"It is simply," explained Morhange, less and less at his ease, "that
+this man tells me there are similar inscriptions in several caverns in
+western Ahaggar. These caves are near the road that he has to take
+returning home. He must pass by Tit. Now, from Tit, by way of Silet,
+is hardly two hundred kilometers. It is a quasi-classic route[6] as
+short again as the one that I shall have to take alone, after I leave
+you, from Shikh-Salah to Timissao. That is in part, you see, the
+reason which has made me decide to...."
+
+[Footnote 6: The route and the stages from Tit to Timissao were
+actually plotted out, as early as 1888, by Captain Bissuel. _Les
+Tuarge de l'Ouest,_ itineraries 1 and 10. (Note by M. Leroux.)]
+
+"In part? In very small part," I replied. "But is your mind absolutely
+made up?"
+
+"It is," he answered me.
+
+"When do you expect to leave me?"
+
+"To-day. The road which Eg-Anteouen proposes to take into Ahaggar
+crosses this one about four leagues from here. I have a favor to ask
+of you in this connection."
+
+"Please tell me."
+
+"It is to let me take one of the two baggage camels, since my Targa
+has lost his."
+
+"The camel which carries your baggage belongs to you as much as does
+your own mehari," I answered coldly.
+
+We stood there several minutes without speaking. Morhange maintained
+an uneasy silence; I was examining my map. All over it in greater or
+less degree, but particularly towards the south, the unexplored
+portions of Ahaggar stood out as far too numerous white patches in the
+tan area of supposed mountains.
+
+I finally said:
+
+"You give me your word that when you have seen these famous grottos,
+you will make straight for Timissao by Tit and Silet?"
+
+He looked at me uncomprehendingly.
+
+"Why do you ask that?"
+
+"Because, if you promise me that,--provided, of course, that my
+company is not unwelcome to you--I will go with you. Either way, I
+shall have two hundred kilometers to go. I shall strike for
+Shikh-Salah from the south, instead of from the west--that is the only
+difference."
+
+Morhange looked at me with emotion.
+
+"Why do you do this?" he murmured.
+
+"My dear fellow," I said (it was the first time that I had addressed
+Morhange in this familiar way), "my dear fellow, I have a sense which
+becomes marvellously acute in the desert, the sense of danger. I gave
+you a slight proof of it yesterday morning, at the coming of the
+storm. With all your knowledge of rock inscriptions, you seem to me to
+have no very exact idea of what kind of place Ahaggar is, nor what may
+be in store for you there. On that account, I should be just as well
+pleased not to let you run sure risks alone."
+
+"I have a guide," he said with his adorable naivete.
+
+Eg-Anteouen, in the same squatting position, kept on patching his old
+slipper.
+
+I took a step toward him.
+
+"You heard what I said to the Captain?"
+
+"Yes," the Targa answered calmly.
+
+"I am going with him. We leave you at Tit, to which place you must
+bring us. Where is the place you proposed to show the Captain?"
+
+"I did not propose to show it to him; it was his own idea," said the
+Targa coldly. "The grottos with the inscriptions are three-days' march
+southward in the mountains. At first, the road is rather rough. But
+farther on, it turns, and you gain Timissao very easily. There are
+good wells where the Tuareg Taitoqs, who are friendly to the French,
+come to water their camels."
+
+"And you know the road well?"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders. His eyes had a scornful smile.
+
+"I have taken it twenty times," he said.
+
+"In that case, let's get started."
+
+We rode for two hours. I did not exchange a word with Morhange. I had
+a clear intuition of the folly we were committing in risking ourselves
+so unconcernedly in that least known and most dangerous part of the
+Sahara. Every blow which had been struck in the last twenty years to
+undermine the French advance had come from this redoubtable Ahaggar.
+But what of it? It was of my own will that I had joined in this mad
+scheme. No need of going over it again. What was the use of spoiling
+my action by a continual exhibition of disapproval? And, furthermore,
+I may as well admit that I rather liked the turn that our trip was
+beginning to take. I had, at that instant, the sensation of journeying
+toward something incredible, toward some tremendous adventure. You do
+not live with impunity for months and years as the guest of the
+desert. Sooner or later, it has its way with you, annihilates the good
+officer, the timid executive, overthrows his solicitude for his
+responsibilities. What is there behind those mysterious rocks, those
+dim solitudes, which have held at bay the most illustrious pursuers of
+mystery? You follow, I tell you, you follow.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Are you sure at least that this inscription is interesting enough to
+justify us in our undertaking?" I asked Morhange.
+
+My companion started with pleasure. Ever since we began our journey I
+had realized his fear that I was coming along half-heartedly. As soon
+as I offered him a chance to convince me, his scruples vanished, and
+his triumph seemed assured to him.
+
+"Never," he answered, in a voice that he tried to control, but through
+which the enthusiasm rang out, "never has a Greek inscription been
+found so far south. The farthest points where they have been reported
+are in the south of Algeria and Cyrene. But in Ahaggar! Think of it!
+It is true that this one is translated into Tifinar. But this
+peculiarity does not diminish the interest of the coincidence: it
+increases it."
+
+"What do you take to be the meaning of this word?"
+
+"_Antinea_ can only be a proper name," said Morhange. "To whom does it
+refer? I admit I don't know, and if at this very moment I am marching
+toward the south, dragging you along with me, it is because I count on
+learning more about it. Its etymology? It hasn't one definitely, but
+there are thirty possibilities. Bear in mind that the Tifinar alphabet
+is far from tallying with the Greek alphabet, which increases the
+number of hypotheses. Shall I suggest several?"
+
+"I was just about to ask you to."
+
+"To begin with, there is [Greek: agti] and [Greek: neos], _the woman
+who is placed opposite a vessel_, an explanation which would have been
+pleasing to Gaffarel and to my venerated master Berlioux. That would
+apply well enough to the figure-heads of ships. There is a technical
+term that I cannot recall at this moment, not if you beat me a hundred
+times over.[7]
+
+[Footnote 7: It is perhaps worth noting here that _Figures de Proues_
+is the exact title of a very remarkable collection of poems by Mme.
+Delarus-Mardrus. (Note by M. Leroux.)]
+
+"Then there is [Greek: agtinea], that you must relate to [Greek: agti]
+and [Greek: naos], _she who holds herself before the_ [Greek: naos],
+the [Greek: naos] of the temple, _she who is opposite the sanctuary,_
+therefore priestess. An interpretation which would enchant Girard and
+Renan.
+
+"Next we have [Greek: agtine], from [Greek: agti] and [Greek: neos],
+new, which can mean two things: either _she who is the contrary of
+young_, which is to say old; or _she who is the enemy of novelty_ or
+_the enemy of youth_.
+
+"There is still another sense of [Greek: gati], _in exchange for,_
+which is capable of complicating all the others I have mentioned;
+likewise there are four meanings for the verb [Greek: neo], which
+means in turn _to go, to flow, to thread_ or _weave, to heap_. There
+is more still.... And notice, please, that I have not at my
+disposition on the otherwise commodious hump of this mehari, either
+the great dictionary of Estienne or the lexicons of Passow, of Pape,
+or of Liddel-Scott. This is only to show you, my dear friend, that
+epigraphy is but a relative science, always dependent on the discovery
+of a new text which contradicts the previous findings, when it is not
+merely at the mercy of the humors of the epigraphists and their pet
+conceptions of the universe.
+
+"That was rather my view of it," I said, "But I must admit my
+astonishment to find that, with such a sceptical opinion of the goal,
+you still do not hesitate to take risks which may be quite
+considerable."
+
+Morhange smiled wanly.
+
+"I do not interpret, my friend; I collect. From what I will take back
+to him, Dom Granger has the ability to draw conclusions which are
+beyond my slight knowledge. I was amusing myself a little. Pardon me."
+
+Just then the girth of one of the baggage camels, evidently not well
+fastened, came loose. Part of the load slipped and fell to the ground.
+
+Eg-Anteouen descended instantly from his beast and helped Bou-Djema
+repair the damage.
+
+When they had finished, I made my mehari walk beside Bou-Djema's.
+
+"It will be better to resaddle the camels at the next stop. They will
+have to climb the mountain."
+
+The guide looked at me with amazement. Up to that time I had thought
+it unnecessary to acquaint him with our new projects. But I supposed
+Eg-Anteouen would have told him.
+
+"Lieutenant, the road across the white plain to Shikh-Salah is not
+mountainous," said the Chaamba.
+
+"We are not keeping to the road across the white plain. We are going
+south, by Ahaggar."
+
+"By Ahaggar," he murmured. "But...."
+
+"But what?"
+
+"I do not know the road."
+
+"Eg-Anteouen is going to guide us."
+
+"Eg-Anteouen!"
+
+I watched Bou-Djema as he made this suppressed ejaculation. His eyes
+were fixed on the Targa with a mixture of stupor and fright.
+
+Eg-Anteouen's camel was a dozen yards ahead of us, side by side with
+Morhange's. The two men were talking. I realized that Morhange must be
+conversing with Eg-Anteouen about the famous inscriptions. But we were
+not so far behind that they could not have overheard our words.
+
+Again I looked at my guide. I saw that he was pale.
+
+"What is it, Bou-Djema?" I asked in a low voice.
+
+"Not here, Lieutenant, not here," he muttered.
+
+His teeth chattered. He added in a whisper:
+
+"Not here. This evening, when we stop, when he turns to the East to
+pray, when the sun goes down. Then, call me to you. I will tell
+you.... But not here. He is talking, but he is listening. Go ahead.
+Join the Captain."
+
+"What next?" I murmured, pressing my camel's neck with my foot so as
+to make him overtake Morhange.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was about five o'clock when Eg-Anteouen who was leading the way,
+came to a stop.
+
+"Here it is," he said, getting down from his camel.
+
+It was a beautiful and sinister place. To our left a fantastic wall of
+granite outlined its gray ribs against the sky. This wall was pierced,
+from top to bottom, by a winding corridor about a thousand feet high
+and scarcely wide enough in places to allow three camels to walk
+abreast.
+
+"Here it is," repeated the Targa.
+
+To the west, straight behind us, the track that we were leaving
+unrolled like a pale ribbon. The white plain, the road to Shikh-Salah,
+the established halts, the well-known wells.... And, on the other
+side, this black wall against the mauve sky, this dark passage.
+
+I looked at Morhange.
+
+"We had better stop here," he said simply. "Eg-Anteouen advises us to
+take as much water here as we can carry."
+
+With one accord we decided to spend the night there, before
+undertaking the mountain.
+
+There was a spring, in a dark basin, from which fell a little cascade;
+there were a few shrubs, a few plants.
+
+Already the camels were browsing at the length of their tethers.
+
+Bou-Djema arranged our camp dinner service of tin cups and plates on a
+great flat stone. An opened tin of meat lay beside a plate of lettuce
+which he had just gathered from the moist earth around the spring. I
+could tell from the distracted manner in which he placed these objects
+upon the rock how deep was his anxiety.
+
+As he was bending toward me to hand me a plate, he pointed to the
+gloomy black corridor which we were about to enter.
+
+"_Blad-el-Khouf!"_ he murmured.
+
+"What did he say?" asked Morhange, who had seen the gesture.
+
+"_Blad-el-Khouf. This is the country of fear._ That is what the Arabs
+call Ahaggar."
+
+Bou-Djema went a little distance off and sat down, leaving us to our
+dinner. Squatting on his heels, he began to eat a few lettuce leaves
+that he had kept for his own meal.
+
+Eg-Anteouen was still motionless.
+
+Suddenly the Targa rose. The sun in the west was no larger than a red
+brand. We saw Eg-Anteouen approach the fountain, spread his blue
+burnous on the ground and kneel upon it.
+
+"I did not suppose that the Tuareg were so observant of Mussulman
+tradition," said Morhange.
+
+"Nor I," I replied thoughtfully.
+
+But I had something to do at that moment besides making such
+speculations.
+
+"Bou-Djema," I called.
+
+At the same time, I looked at Eg-Anteouen. Absorbed in his prayer,
+bowed toward the west, apparently he was paying no attention to me. As
+he prostrated himself, I called again.
+
+"Bou-Djema, come with me to my mehari; I want to get something out of
+the saddle bags."
+
+Still kneeling, Eg-Anteouen was mumbling his prayer slowly,
+composedly.
+
+But Bou-Djema had not budged.
+
+His only response was a deep moan.
+
+Morhange and I leaped to our feet and ran to the guide. Eg-Anteouen
+reached him as soon as we did.
+
+With his eyes closed and his limbs already cold, the Chaamba breathed
+a death rattle in Morhange's arms. I had seized one of his hands.
+Eg-Anteouen took the other. Each, in his own way, was trying to
+divine, to understand....
+
+Suddenly Eg-Anteouen leapt to his feet. He had just seen the poor
+embossed bowl which the Arab had held an instant before between his
+knees, and which now lay overturned upon the ground.
+
+He picked it up, looked quickly at one after another of the leaves of
+lettuce remaining in it, and then gave a hoarse exclamation.
+
+"So," said Morhange, "it's his turn now; he is going to go mad."
+
+Watching Eg-Anteouen closely, I saw him hasten without a word to the
+rock where our dinner was set, a second later, he was again beside us,
+holding out the bowl of lettuce which he had not yet touched.
+
+Then he took a thick, long, pale green leaf from Bou-Djema's bowl and
+held it beside another leaf he had just taken from our bowl.
+
+"_Afahlehle,"_ was all he said.
+
+I shuddered, and so did Morhange. It was the _afahlehla,_ the
+_falestez_, of the Arabs of the Sahara, the terrible plant which had
+killed a part of the Flatters mission more quickly and surely than
+Tuareg arms.
+
+Eg-Anteouen stood up. His tall silhouette was outlined blackly against
+the sky which suddenly had turned pale lilac. He was watching us.
+
+We bent again over the unfortunate guide.
+
+"_Afahlehle,"_ the Targa repeated, and shook his head.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Bou-Djema died in the middle of the night without having regained
+consciousness.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+THE COUNTRY OF FEAR
+
+
+"It is curious," said Morhange, "to see how our expedition, uneventful
+since we left Ouargla, is now becoming exciting."
+
+He said this after kneeling for a moment in prayer before the
+painfully dug grave in which we had lain the guide.
+
+I do not believe in God. But if anything can influence whatever powers
+there may be, whether of good or of evil, of light or of darkness, it
+is the prayer of such a man.
+
+For two days we picked our way through a gigantic chaos of black rock
+in what might have been the country of the moon, so barren was it. No
+sound but that of stones rolling under the feet of the camels and
+striking like gunshots at the foot of the precipices.
+
+A strange march indeed. For the first few hours, I tried to pick out,
+by compass, the route we were following. But my calculations were soon
+upset; doubtless a mistake due to the swaying motion of the camel. I
+put the compass back in one of my saddle-bags. From that time on,
+Eg-Anteouen was our master. We could only trust ourselves to him.
+
+He went first; Morhange followed him, and I brought up the rear. We
+passed at every step most curious specimens of volcanic rock. But I
+did not examine them. I was no longer interested in such things.
+Another kind of curiosity had taken possession of me. I had come to
+share Morhange's madness. If my companion had said to me: "We are
+doing a very rash thing. Let us go back to the known trails," I should
+have replied, "You are free to do as you please. But I am going on."
+
+Toward evening of the second day, we found ourselves at the foot of a
+black mountain whose jagged ramparts towered in profile seven thousand
+feet above our heads. It was an enormous shadowy fortress, like the
+outline of a feudal stronghold silhouetted with incredible sharpness
+against the orange sky.
+
+There was a well, with several trees, the first we had seen since
+cutting into Ahaggar.
+
+A group of men were standing about it. Their camels, tethered close
+by, were cropping a mouthful here and there.
+
+At seeing us, the men drew together, alert, on the defensive.
+
+Eg-Anteouen turned to us and said:
+
+"Eggali Tuareg."
+
+We went toward them.
+
+They were handsome men, those Eggali, the largest Tuareg whom I ever
+have seen. With unexpected swiftness they drew aside from the well,
+leaving it to us. Eg-Anteouen spoke a few words to them. They looked
+at Morhange and me with a curiosity bordering on fear, but at any
+rate, with respect.
+
+I drew several little presents from my saddlebags and was astonished
+at the reserve of the chief, who refused them. He seemed afraid even
+of my glance.
+
+When they had gone, I expressed my astonishment at this shyness for
+which my previous experiences with the tribes of the Sahara had not
+prepared me.
+
+"They spoke with respect, even with fear," I said to Eg-Anteouen. "And
+yet the tribe of the Eggali is noble. And that of the Kel-Tahats, to
+which you tell me you belong, is a slave tribe."
+
+A smile lighted the dark eyes of Eg-Anteouen.
+
+"It is true," he said.
+
+"Well then?"
+
+"I told them that we three, the Captain, you and I, were bound for the
+Mountain of the Evil Spirits."
+
+With a gesture, he indicated the black mountain.
+
+"They are afraid. All the Tuareg of Ahaggar are afraid of the Mountain
+of the Evil Spirits. You saw how they were up and off at the very
+mention of its name."
+
+"It is to the Mountain of the Evil Spirits that you are taking us?"
+queried Morhange.
+
+"Yes," replied the Targa, "that is where the inscriptions are that I
+told you about."
+
+"You did not mention that detail to us."
+
+"Why should I? The Tuareg are afraid of the _ilhinen,_ spirits with
+horns and tails, covered with hair, who make the cattle sicken and die
+and cast spells over men. But I know well that the Christians are not
+afraid and even laugh at the fears of the Tuareg."
+
+"And you?" I asked. "You are a Targa and you are not afraid of the
+_ilhinen_?"
+
+Eg-Anteouen showed a little red leather bag hung about his neck on a
+chain of white seeds.
+
+"I have my amulet," he replied gravely, "blessed by the venerable
+Sidi-Moussa himself. And then I am with you. You saved my life. You
+have desired to see the inscriptions. The will of Allah be done!"
+
+As he finished speaking, he squatted on his heels, drew out his long
+reed pipe and began to smoke gravely.
+
+"All this is beginning to seem very strange," said Morhange, coming
+over to me.
+
+"You can say that without exaggeration," I replied. "You remember as
+well as I the passage in which Barth tells of his expedition to the
+Idinen, the Mountain of the Evil Spirits of the Azdjer Tuareg. The
+region had so evil a reputation that no Targa would go with him. But
+he got back."
+
+"Yes, he got back," replied my comrade, "but only after he had been
+lost. Without water or food, he came so near dying of hunger and
+thirst that he had to open a vein and drink his own blood. The
+prospect is not particularly attractive."
+
+I shrugged my shoulders. After all, it was not my fault that we were
+there.
+
+Morhange understood my gesture and thought it necessary to make
+excuses.
+
+"I should be curious," he went on with rather forced gaiety, "to meet
+these spirits and substantiate the facts of Pomponius Mela who knew
+them and locates them, in fact, in the mountain of the Tuareg. He
+calls them _Egipans, Blemyens, Gamphasantes, Satyrs.... 'The
+Gamphasantes_, he says, 'are naked. The _Blemyens_ have no head: their
+faces are placed on their chests; the _Satyrs_ have nothing like men
+except faces. The _Egipans_ are made as is commonly described.' ...
+_Satyrs, Egipans_ ... isn't it very strange to find Greek names given
+to the barbarian spirits of this region? Believe me, we are on a
+curious trail; I am sure that Antinea will be our key to remarkable
+discoveries."
+
+"Listen," I said, laying a finger on my lips.
+
+Strange sounds rose from about us as the evening advanced with great
+strides. A kind of crackling, followed by long rending shrieks, echoed
+and reechoed to infinity in the neighboring ravines. It seemed to me
+that the whole black mountain suddenly had begun to moan.
+
+We looked at Eg-Anteouen. He was smoking on, without twitching a
+muscle.
+
+"The _ilhinen_ are waking up," he said simply.
+
+Morhange listened without saying a word. Doubtless he understood as I
+did: the overheated rocks, the crackling of the stone, a whole series
+of physical phenomena, the example of the singing statue of Memnon....
+But, for all that, this unexpected concert reacted no less painfully
+on our overstrained nerves.
+
+The last words of poor Bou-Djema came to my mind.
+
+"The country of fear," I murmured in a low voice.
+
+And Morhange repeated:
+
+"The country of fear."
+
+The strange concert ceased as the first stars appeared in the sky.
+With deep emotion we watched the tiny bluish flames appear, one after
+another. At that portentous moment they seemed to span the distance
+between us, isolated, condemned, lost, and our brothers of higher
+latitudes, who at that hour were rushing about their poor pleasures
+with delirious frenzy in cities where the whiteness of electric lamps
+came on in a burst.
+
+_Chet-Ahadh essa hetisenet
+Materedjre d'Erredjaot,
+Matesekek d-Essekaot,
+Matelahrlahr d'Ellerhaot,
+Ettas djenen, barad tit-ennit abatet._
+
+Eg-Anteouen's voice raised itself in slow guttural tones. It resounded
+with sad, grave majesty in the silence now complete.
+
+I touched the Targa's arm. With a movement of his head, he pointed to
+a constellation glittering in the firmament.
+
+"The Pleiades," I murmured to Morhange, showing him the seven pale
+stars, while Eg-Anteouen took up his mournful song in the same
+monotone:
+
+"The Daughters of the Night are seven:
+  Materedjre and Erredjeaot,
+  Matesekek and Essekaot,
+  Matelahrlahr and Ellerhaot,
+  The seventh is a boy, one of whose eyes has flown away."
+
+A sudden sickness came over me. I seized the Targa's arm as he was
+starting to intone his refrain for the third time.
+
+"When will we reach this cave with the inscriptions?" I asked
+brusquely.
+
+He looked at me and replied with his usual calm:
+
+"We are there."
+
+"We are there? Then why don't you show it to us?"
+
+"You did not ask me," he replied, not without a touch of insolence.
+
+Morhange had jumped to his feet.
+
+"The cave is here?"
+
+"It is here," Eg-Anteouen replied slowly, rising to his feet.
+
+"Take us to it."
+
+"Morhange," I said, suddenly anxious, "night is falling. We will see
+nothing. And perhaps it is still some way off."
+
+"It is hardly five hundred paces," Eg-Anteouen replied. "The cave is
+full of dead underbrush. We will set it on fire and the Captain will
+see as in full daylight."
+
+"Come," my comrade repeated.
+
+"And the camels?" I hazarded.
+
+"They are tethered," said Eg-Anteouen, "and we shall not be gone
+long."
+
+He had started toward the black mountain. Morhange, trembling with
+excitement, followed. I followed, too, the victim of profound
+uneasiness. My pulses throbbed. "I am not afraid," I kept repeating to
+myself. "I swear that this is not fear."
+
+And really it was not fear. Yet, what a strange dizziness! There was a
+mist over my eyes. My ears buzzed. Again I heard Eg-Anteouen's voice,
+but multiplied, immense, and at the same time, very low.
+
+"The Daughters of the Night are seven...."
+
+It seemed to me that the voice of the mountain, re-echoing, repeated
+that sinister last line to infinity:
+
+"And the seventh is a boy, one of whose eyes has flown
+away."
+
+"Here it is," said the Targa.
+
+A black hole in the wall opened up. Bending over, Eg-Anteouen entered.
+We followed him. The darkness closed around us.
+
+A yellow flame. Eg-Anteouen had struck his flint. He set fire to a
+pile of brush near the surface. At first we could see nothing. The
+smoke blinded us.
+
+Eg-Anteouen stayed at one side of the opening of the cave. He was
+seated and, more inscrutible than ever, had begun again to blow great
+puffs of gray smoke from his pipe.
+
+The burning brush cast a flickering light. I caught a glimpse of
+Morhange. He seemed very pale. With both hands braced against the
+wall, he was working to decipher a mass of signs which I could
+scarcely distinguish.
+
+Nevertheless, I thought I could see his hands trembling.
+
+"The devil," I thought, finding it more and more difficult to
+co-ordinate my thoughts, "he seems to be as unstrung as I."
+
+I heard him call out to Eg-Anteouen in what seemed to me a loud voice:
+
+"Stand to one side. Let the air in. What a smoke!"
+
+He kept on working at the signs.
+
+Suddenly I heard him again, but with difficulty. It seemed as if even
+sounds were confused in the smoke.
+
+"Antinea ... At last ... Antinea. But not cut in the rock ... the
+marks traced in ochre ... not ten years old, perhaps not five....
+Oh!...."
+
+He pressed his hands to his head. Again he cried out:
+
+"It is a mystery. A tragic mystery."
+
+I laughed teasingly.
+
+"Come on, come on. Don't get excited over it."
+
+He took me by the arm and shook me. I saw his eyes big with terror and
+astonishment.
+
+"Are you mad?" he yelled in my face.
+
+"Not so loud," I replied with the same little laugh.
+
+He looked at me again, and sank down, overcome, on a rock opposite me.
+Eg-Anteouen was still smoking placidly at the mouth of the cave. We
+could see the red circle of his pipe glowing in the darkness.
+
+"Madman! Madman!" repeated Morhange. His voice seemed to stick in his
+throat.
+
+Suddenly he bent over the brush which was giving its last darts of
+flame, high and clear. He picked out a branch which had not yet
+caught. I saw him examine it carefully, then throw it back in the fire
+with a loud laugh.
+
+"Ha! Ha! That's good, all right!"
+
+He staggered toward Eg-Anteouen, pointing to the fire.
+
+"It's hemp. Hasheesh, hasheesh. Oh, that's a good one, all right."
+
+"Yes, it's a good one," I repeated, bursting into laughter.
+
+Eg-Anteouen quietly smiled approval. The dying fire lit his
+inscrutable face and flickered in his terrible dark eyes.
+
+A moment passed. Suddenly Morhange seized the Targa's arm.
+
+"I want to smoke, too," he said. "Give me a pipe." The specter gave
+him one.
+
+"What! A European pipe?"
+
+"A European pipe," I repeated, feeling gayer and gayer.
+
+"With an initial, 'M.' As if made on purpose. M.... Captain Morhange."
+
+"Masson," corrected Eg-Anteouen quietly.
+
+"Captain Masson," I repeated in concert with Morhange.
+
+We laughed again.
+
+"Ha! Ha! Ha! Captain Masson.... Colonel Flatters.... The well of
+Garama. They killed him to take his pipe ... that pipe. It was
+Cegheir-ben-Cheikh who killed Captain Masson."
+
+"It was Cegheir-ben-Cheikh," repeated the Targa with imperturbable
+calm.
+
+"Captain Masson and Colonel Flatters had left the convoy to look for
+the well," said Morhange, laughing.
+
+"It was then that the Tuareg attacked them," I finished, laughing as
+hard as I could.
+
+"A Targa of Ahagga seized the bridle of Captain Masson's horse," said
+Morhange.
+
+"Cegheir-ben-Cheikh had hold of Colonel Flatters' bridle," put in
+Eg-Anteouen.
+
+"The Colonel puts his foot in the stirrup and receives a cut from
+Cegheir-ben-Cheikh's saber," I said.
+
+"Captain Masson draws his revolver and fires on Cegheir-ben-Cheikh,
+shooting off three fingers of his left hand," said Morhange.
+
+"But," finished Eg-Anteouen imperturbably, "but Cegheir-ben-Cheikh,
+with one blow of his saber, splits Captain Masson's skull."..
+
+He gave a silent, satisfied laugh as he spoke. The dying flame lit up
+his face. We saw the gleaming black stem of his pipe. He held it in
+his left hand. One finger, no, two fingers only on that hand. Hello! I
+had not noticed that before.
+
+Morhange also noticed it, for he finished with a loud laugh.
+
+"Then, after splitting his skull, you robbed him. You took his pipe
+from him. Bravo, Cegheir-ben-Cheikh!"
+
+Cegheir-ben-Cheikh does not reply, but I can see how satisfied with
+himself he is. He keeps on smoking. I can hardly see his features now.
+The firelight pales, dies. I have never laughed so much as this
+evening. I am sure Morhange never has, either. Perhaps he will forget
+the cloister. And all because Cegheir-ben-Cheikh stole Captain
+Masson's pipe....
+
+Again that accursed song. "The seventh is a boy, one of whose eyes has
+flown away." One cannot imagine more senseless words. It is very
+strange, really: there seem to be four of us in this cave now. Four, I
+say, five, six, seven, eight.... Make yourselves at home, my friends.
+What! there are no more of you?... I am going to find out at last how
+the spirits of this region are made, the _Gamphasantes_, the
+_Blemyens_.... Morhange says that the _Blemyens_ have their faces on
+the middle of their chests. Surely this one who is seizing me in his
+arms is not a _Blemyen_! Now he is carrying me outside. And Morhange
+... I do not want them to forget Morhange....
+
+They did not forget him; I see him perched on a camel in front of that
+one to which I am fastened. They did well to fasten me, for otherwise
+I surely would tumble off. These spirits certainly are not bad
+fellows. But what a long way it is! I want to stretch out. To sleep. A
+while ago we surely were following a long passage, then we were in the
+open air. Now we are again in an endless stifling corridor. Here are
+the stars again.... Is this ridiculous course going to keep on?...
+
+Hello, lights! Stars, perhaps. No, lights, I say. A stairway, on my
+word; of rocks, to be sure, but still, a stairway. How can the
+camels...? But it is no longer a camel; this is a man carrying me. A
+man dressed in white, not a _Gamphasante_ nor a _Blemyen_. Morhange
+must be giving himself airs with his historical reasoning, all false,
+I repeat, all false. Good Morhange. Provided that his _Gamphasante_
+does not let him fall on this unending stairway. Something glitters on
+the ceiling. Yes, it is a lamp, a copper lamp, as at Tunis, at
+Barbouchy's. Good, here again you cannot see anything. But I am making
+a fool of myself; I am lying down; now I can go to sleep. What a silly
+day!... Gentlemen, I assure you that it is unnecessary to bind me: I
+do not want to go down on the boulevards.
+
+Darkness again. Steps of someone going away. Silence.
+
+But only for a moment. Someone is talking beside me. What are they
+saying?... No, it is impossible. That metallic ring, that voice. Do
+you know what it is calling, that voice, do you know what it is
+calling in the tones of someone used to the phrase? Well, it is
+calling:
+
+"Play your cards, gentlemen, play your cards. There are ten thousand
+_louis_ in the bank. Play your cards, gentlemen."
+
+In the name of God, am I or am I not at Ahaggar?
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+AWAKENING AT AHAGGAR
+
+
+It was broad daylight when I opened my eyes. I thought at once of
+Morhange. I could not see him, but I heard him, close by, giving
+little grunts of surprise.
+
+I called to him. He ran to me.
+
+"Then they didn't tie you up?" I asked.
+
+"I beg your pardon. They did. But they did it badly; I managed to get
+free."
+
+"You might have untied me, too," I remarked crossly.
+
+"What good would it have done? I should only have waked you up. And I
+thought that your first word would be to call me. There, that's done."
+
+I reeled as I tried to stand on my feet.
+
+Morhange smiled.
+
+"We might have spent the whole night smoking and drinking and not been
+in a worse state," he said. "Anyhow, that Eg-Anteouen with his
+hasheesh is a fine rascal."
+
+"Cegheir-ben-Cheikh," I corrected.
+
+I rubbed my hand over my forehead.
+
+"Where are we?"
+
+"My dear boy," Morhange replied, "since I awakened from the
+extraordinary nightmare which is mixed up with the smoky cave and the
+lamp-lit stairway of the Arabian Nights, I have been going from
+surprise to surprise, from confusion to confusion. Just look around
+you."
+
+I rubbed my eyes and stared. Then I seized my friend's hand.
+
+"Morhange," I begged, "tell me if we are still dreaming."
+
+We were in a round room, perhaps fifty feet in diameter, and of about
+the same height, lighted by a great window opening on a sky of intense
+blue.
+
+Swallows flew back and forth, outside, giving quick, joyous cries.
+
+The floor, the incurving walls and the ceiling were of a kind of
+veined marble like porphyry, panelled with a strange metal, paler than
+gold, darker than silver, clouded just then by the early morning mist
+that came in through the window in great puffs.
+
+I staggered toward this window, drawn by the freshness of the breeze
+and the sunlight which was chasing away my dreams, and I leaned my
+elbows on the balustrade.
+
+I could not restrain a cry of delight.
+
+I was standing on a kind of balcony, cut into the flank of a mountain,
+overhanging an abyss. Above me, blue sky; below appeared a veritable
+earthly paradise hemmed in on all sides by mountains that formed a
+continuous and impassable wall about it. A garden lay spread out down
+there. The palm trees gently swayed their great fronds. At their feet
+was a tangle of the smaller trees which grow in an oasis under their
+protection: almonds, lemons, oranges, and many others which I could
+not distinguish from that height. A broad blue stream, fed by a
+waterfall, emptied into a charming lake, the waters of which had the
+marvellous transparency which comes in high altitudes. Great birds
+flew in circles over this green hollow; I could see in the lake the
+red flash of a flamingo.
+
+The peaks of the mountains which towered on all sides were completely
+covered with snow.
+
+The blue stream, the green palms, the golden fruit, and above it all,
+the miraculous snow, all this bathed in that limpid air, gave such an
+impression of beauty, of purity, that my poor human strength could no
+longer stand the sight of it. I laid my forehead on the balustrade,
+which, too, was covered with that heavenly snow, and began to cry like
+a baby.
+
+Morhange was behaving like another child. But he had awakened before I
+had, and doubtless had had time to grasp, one by one, all these
+details whose fantastic _ensemble_ staggered me.
+
+He laid his hand on my shoulder and gently pulled me back into the
+room.
+
+"You haven't seen anything yet," he said. "Look! Look!"
+
+"Morhange!"
+
+"Well, old man, what do you want me to do about it? Look!"
+
+I had just realized that the strange room was furnished--God forgive
+me--in the European fashion. There were indeed, here and there, round
+leather Tuareg cushions, brightly colored blankets from Gafsa, rugs
+from Kairouan, and Caramani hangings which, at that moment, I should
+have dreaded to draw aside. But a half-open panel in the wall showed a
+bookcase crowded with books. A whole row of photographs of
+masterpieces of ancient art were hung on the walls. Finally there was
+a table almost hidden under its heap of papers, pamphlets, books. I
+thought I should collapse at seeing a recent number of the
+_Archaeological Review_.
+
+I looked at Morhange. He was looking at me, and suddenly a mad laugh
+seized us and doubled us up for a good minute.
+
+"I do not know," Morhange finally managed to say, "whether or not we
+shall regret some day our little excursion into Ahaggar. But admit, in
+the meantime, that it promises to be rich in unexpected adventures.
+That unforgettable guide who puts us to sleep just to distract us
+from the unpleasantness of caravan life and who lets me experience, in
+the best of good faith, the far-famed delights of hasheesh: that
+fantastic night ride, and, to cap the climax, this cave of a Nureddin
+who must have received the education of the Athenian Bersot at the
+French _Ecole Normale_--all this is enough, on my word, to upset the
+wits of the best balanced."
+
+"What do I think, my poor friend? Why, just what you yourself think. I
+don't understand it at all, not at all. What you politely call my
+learning is not worth a cent. And why shouldn't I be all mixed up?
+This living in caves amazes me. Pliny speaks of the natives living in
+caves, seven days' march southwest of the country of the Amantes, and
+twelve days to the westward of the great Syrte. Herodotus says also
+that the Garamentes used to go out in their chariots to hunt the
+cave-dwelling Ethopians. But here we are in Ahaggar, in the midst of
+the Targa country, and the best authorities tell us that the Tuareg
+never have been willing to live in caves. Duveyrier is precise on that
+point. And what is this, I ask you, but a cave turned into a workroom,
+with pictures of the Venus de Medici and the Apollo Sauroctone on the
+walls? I tell you that it is enough to drive you mad."
+
+And Morhange threw himself on a couch and began to roar with laughter
+again.
+
+"See," I said, "this is Latin."
+
+I had picked up several scattered papers from the work-table in the
+middle of the room. Morhange took them from my hands and devoured them
+greedily. His face expressed unbounded stupefaction.
+
+"Stranger and stranger, my boy. Someone here is composing, with much
+citation of texts, a dissertation on the Gorgon Islands: _de Gorgonum
+insulis_. Medusa, according to him, was a Libyan savage who lived near
+Lake Triton, our present Chott Melhrir, and it is there that Perseus
+... Ah!"
+
+Morhange's words choked in his throat. A sharp, shrill voice pierced
+the immense room.
+
+"Gentlemen, I beg you, let my papers alone."
+
+I turned toward the newcomer.
+
+One of the Caramani curtains was drawn aside, and the most unexpected
+of persons came in. Resigned as we were to unexpected events, the
+improbability of this sight exceeded anything our imaginations could
+have devised.
+
+On the threshold stood a little bald-headed man with a pointed sallow
+face half hidden by an enormous pair of green spectacles and a pepper
+and salt beard. No shirt was visible, but an impressive broad red
+cravat. He wore white trousers. Red leather slippers furnished the
+only Oriental suggestion of his costume.
+
+He wore, not without pride, the rosette of an officer of the
+Department of Education.
+
+He collected the papers which Morhange had dropped in his amazement,
+counted them, arranged them; then, casting a peevish glance at us, he
+struck a copper gong.
+
+The portiere was raised again. A huge white Targa entered. I seemed to
+recognize him as one of the genii of the cave.[8]
+
+[Footnote 8: The Negro serfs among the Tuareg are generally called
+"white Tuareg." While the nobles are clad in blue cotton robes, the
+serfs wear white robes, hence their name of "white Tuareg." See, in
+this connection, Duveyrier: _les Tuareg du Nord_, page 292. (Note by
+M. Leroux.)]
+
+"Ferradji," angrily demanded the little officer of the Department of
+Education, "why were these gentlemen brought into the library?"
+
+The Targa bowed respectfully.
+
+"Cegheir-ben-Cheikh came back sooner than we expected," he replied,
+"and last night the embalmers had not yet finished. They brought them
+here in the meantime," and he pointed to us.
+
+"Very well, you may go," snapped the little man.
+
+Ferradji backed toward the door. On the threshold, he stopped and
+spoke again:
+
+"I was to remind you, sir, that dinner is served."
+
+"All right. Go along."
+
+And the little man seated himself at the desk and began to finger the
+papers feverishly.
+
+I do not know why, but a mad feeling of exasperation seized me. I
+walked toward him.
+
+"Sir," I said, "my friend and I do not know where we are nor who you
+are. We can see only that you are French, since you are wearing one of
+the highest honorary decorations of our country. You may have made the
+same observation on your part," I added, indicating the slender red
+ribbon which I wore on my vest.
+
+He looked at me in contemptuous surprise.
+
+"Well, sir?"
+
+"Well, sir, the Negro who just went out pronounced the name of
+Cegheir-ben-Cheikh, the name of a brigand, a bandit, one of the
+assassins of Colonel Flatters. Are you acquainted with that detail,
+sir?"
+
+The little man surveyed me coldly and shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Certainly. But what difference do you suppose that makes to me?"
+
+"What!" I cried, beside myself with rage. "Who are you, anyway?"
+
+"Sir," said the little old man with comical dignity, turning to
+Morhange, "I call you to witness the strange manners of your
+companion. I am here in my own house and I do not allow...."
+
+"You must excuse my comrade, sir," said Morhange, stepping forward.
+"He is not a man of letters, as you are. These young lieutenants are
+hot-headed, you know. And besides, you can understand why both of us
+are not as calm as might be desired."
+
+I was furious and on the point of disavowing these strangely humble
+words of Morhange. But a glance showed me that there was as much irony
+as surprise in his expression.
+
+"I know indeed that most officers are brutes," grumbled the little old
+man. "But that is no reason...."
+
+"I am only an officer myself," Morhange went on, in an even humbler
+tone, "and if ever I have been sensible to the intellectual
+inferiority of that class, I assure you that it was now in glancing--I
+beg your pardon for having taken the liberty to do so--in glancing
+over the learned pages which you devote to the passionate story of
+Medusa, according to Procles of Carthage, cited by Pausanias."
+
+A laughable surprise spread over the features of the little old man.
+He hastily wiped his spectacles.
+
+"What!" he finally cried.
+
+"It is indeed unfortunate, in this matter," Morhange continued
+imperturbably, "that we are not in possession of the curious
+dissertation devoted to this burning question by Statius Sebosus, a
+work which we know only through Pliny and which...."
+
+"You know Statius Sebosus?"
+
+"And which, my master, the geographer Berlioux...."
+
+"You knew Berlioux--you were his pupil?" stammered the little man with
+the decoration.
+
+"I have had that honor," replied Morhange, very coldly.
+
+"But, but, sir, then you have heard mentioned, you are familiar with
+the question, the problem of Atlantis?"
+
+"Indeed I am not unacquainted with the works of Lagneau, Ploix, Arbois
+de Jubainville," said Morhange frigidly.
+
+"My God!" The little man was going through extraordinary contortions.
+"Sir--Captain, how happy I am, how many excuses...."
+
+Just then, the portiere was raised. Ferradji appeared again.
+
+"Sir, they want me to tell you that unless you come, they will begin
+without you."
+
+"I am coming, I am coming. Say, Ferradji, that we will be there in a
+moment. Why, sir, if I had foreseen ... It is extraordinary ... to
+find an officer who knows Procles of Carthage and Arbois de
+Jubainville. Again ... But I must introduce myself. I am Etienne Le
+Mesge, Fellow of the University."
+
+"Captain Morhange," said my companion.
+
+I stepped forward in my turn.
+
+"Lieutenant de Saint-Avit. It is a fact, sir, that I am very likely to
+confuse Arbois of Carthage with Procles de Jubainville. Later, I shall
+have to see about filling up those gaps. But just now, I should like
+to know where we are, if we are free, and if not, what occult power
+holds us. You have the appearance, sir, of being sufficiently at home
+in this house to be able to enlighten us upon this point, which I must
+confess, I weakly consider of the first importance."
+
+M. Le Mesge looked at me. A rather malevolent smile twitched the
+corners of his mouth. He opened his lips....
+
+A gong sounded impatiently.
+
+"In good time, gentlemen, I will tell you. I will explain
+everything.... But now you see that we must hurry. It is time for
+lunch and our fellow diners will get tired of waiting."
+
+"Our fellow diners?"
+
+"There are two of them," M. Le Mesge explained. "We three constitute
+the European personnel of the house, that is, the fixed personnel," he
+seemed to feel obliged to add, with his disquieting smile. "Two
+strange fellows, gentlemen, with whom, doubtless, you will care to
+have as little to do as possible. One is a churchman, narrow-minded,
+though a Protestant. The other is a man of the world gone astray, an
+old fool."
+
+"Pardon," I said, "but it must have been he whom I heard last night.
+He was gambling: with you and the minister, doubtless?"
+
+M. Le Mesge made a gesture of offended dignity.
+
+"The idea! With me, sir? It is with the Tuareg that he plays. He
+teaches them every game imaginable. There, that is he who is striking
+the gong to hurry us up. It is half past nine, and the _Salle de
+Trente et Quarante_ opens at ten o'clock. Let us hurry. I suppose that
+anyway you will not be averse to a little refreshment."
+
+"Indeed we shall not refuse," Morhange replied.
+
+We followed M. Le Mesge along a long winding corridor with frequent
+steps. The passage was dark. But at intervals rose-colored night
+lights and incense burners were placed in niches cut into the solid
+rock. The passionate Oriental scents perfumed the darkness and
+contrasted strangely with the cold air of the snowy peaks.
+
+From time to time, a white Targa, mute and expressionless as a
+phantom, would pass us and we would hear the clatter of his slippers
+die away behind us.
+
+M. Le Mesge stopped before a heavy door covered with the same pale
+metal which I had noticed on the walls of the library. He opened it
+and stood aside to let us pass.
+
+Although the dining room which we entered had little in common with
+European dining rooms, I have known many which might have envied its
+comfort. Like the library, it was lighted by a great window. But I
+noticed that it had an outside exposure, while that of the library
+overlooked the garden in the center of the crown of mountains.
+
+No center table and none of those barbaric pieces of furniture that we
+call chairs. But a great number of buffet tables of gilded wood, like
+those of Venice, heavy hangings of dull and subdued colors, and
+cushions, Tuareg or Tunisian. In the center was a huge mat on which a
+feast was placed in finely woven baskets among silver pitchers and
+copper basins filled with perfumed water. The sight of it filled me
+with childish satisfaction.
+
+M. Le Mesge stepped forward and introduced us to the two persons who
+already had taken their places on the mat.
+
+"Mr. Spardek," he said; and by that simple phrase I understood how far
+our host placed himself above vain human titles.
+
+The Reverend Mr. Spardek, of Manchester, bowed reservedly and asked
+our permission to keep on his tall, wide-brimmed hat. He was a dry,
+cold man, tall and thin. He ate in pious sadness, enormously.
+
+"Monsieur Bielowsky," said M. Le Mesge, introducing us to the second
+guest.
+
+"Count Casimir Bielowsky, Hetman of Jitomir," the latter corrected
+with perfect good humor as he stood up to shake hands.
+
+I felt at once a certain liking for the Hetman of Jitomir who was a
+perfect example of an old beau. His chocolate-colored hair was parted
+in the center (later I found out that the Hetman dyed it with a
+concoction of _khol_). He had magnificent whiskers, also
+chocolate-colored, in the style of the Emperor Francis Joseph. His
+nose was undeniably a little red, but so fine, so aristocratic. His
+hands were marvelous. It took some thought to place the date of the
+style of the count's costume, bottle green with yellow facings,
+ornamented with a huge seal of silver and enamel. The recollection of
+a portrait of the Duke de Morny made me decide on 1860 or 1862; and
+the further chapters of this story will show that I was not far wrong.
+
+The count made me sit down beside him. One of his first questions was
+to demand if I ever cut fives.[9]
+
+[Footnote 9: _Tirer a cinq_, a card game played only for very high
+stakes.]
+
+"That depends on how I feel," I replied.
+
+"Well said. I have not done so since 1866. I swore off. A row. The
+devil of a party. One day at Walewski's. I cut fives. Naturally I
+wasn't worrying any. The other had a four. 'Idiot!' cried the little
+Baron de Chaux Gisseux who was laying staggering sums on my table. I
+hurled a bottle of champagne at his head. He ducked. It was Marshal
+Baillant who got the bottle. A scene! The matter was fixed up because
+we were both Free Masons. The Emperor made me promise not to cut fives
+again. I have kept my promise not to cut fives again. I have kept my
+promise. But there are moments when it is hard...."
+
+He added in a voice steeped in melancholy:
+
+"Try a little of this Ahaggar 1880. Excellent vintage. It is I,
+Lieutenant, who instructed these people in the uses of the juice of
+the vine. The vine of the palm trees is very good when it is properly
+fermented, but it gets insipid in the long run."
+
+It was powerful, that Ahaggar 1880. We sipped it from large silver
+goblets. It was fresh as Rhine wine, dry as the wine of the Hermitage.
+And then, suddenly, it brought back recollections of the burning wines
+of Portugal; it seemed sweet, fruity, an admirable wine, I tell you.
+
+That wine crowned the most perfect of luncheons. There were few meats,
+to be sure; but those few were remarkably seasoned. Profusion of
+cakes, pancakes served with honey, fragrant fritters, cheese-cakes of
+sour milk and dates. And everywhere, in great enamel platters or
+wicker jars, fruit, masses of fruit, figs, dates, pistachios, jujubes,
+pomegranates, apricots, huge bunches of grapes, larger than those
+which bent the shoulders of the Hebrews in the land of Canaan, heavy
+watermelons cut in two, showing their moist, red pulp and their rows
+of black seeds.
+
+I had scarcely finished one of these beautiful iced fruits, when M. Le
+Mesge rose.
+
+"Gentlemen, if you are ready," he said to Morhange and me.
+
+"Get away from that old dotard as soon as you can," whispered the
+Hetman of Jitomir to me. "The party of _Trente et Quarante_ will begin
+soon. You shall see. You shall see. We go it even harder than at Cora
+Pearl's."
+
+"Gentlemen," repeated M. Le Mesge in his dry tone.
+
+We followed him. When the three of us were back again in the library,
+he said, addressing me:
+
+"You, sir, asked a little while ago what occult power holds you here.
+Your manner was threatening, and I should have refused to comply had
+it not been for your friend, whose knowledge enables him to appreciate
+better than you the value of the revelations I am about to make to
+you."
+
+He touched a spring in the side of the wall. A cupboard appeared,
+stuffed with books. He took one.
+
+"You are both of you," continued M. Le Mesge, "in the power of a
+woman. This woman, the sultaness, the queen, the absolute sovereign of
+Ahaggar, is called Antinea. Don't start, M. Morhange, you will soon
+understand."
+
+He opened the book and read this sentence:
+
+"'I must warn you before I take up the subject matter: do not be
+surprised to hear me call the barbarians by Greek names.'"
+
+"What is that book?" stammered Morhange, whose pallor terrified me.
+
+"This book," M. Le Mesge replied very slowly, weighing his words, with
+an extraordinary expression of triumph, "is the greatest, the most
+beautiful, the most secret, of the dialogues of Plato; it is the
+Critias of Atlantis."
+
+"The Critias? But it is unfinished," murmured Morhange.
+
+"It is unfinished in France, in Europe, everywhere else," said M. Le
+Mesge, "but it is finished here. Look for yourself at this copy."
+
+"But what connection," repeated Morhange, while his eyes traveled
+avidly over the pages, "what connection can there be between this
+dialogue, complete,--yes, it seems to me complete--what connection
+with this woman, Antinea? Why should it be in her possession?"
+
+"Because," replied the little man imperturbably, "this book is her
+patent of nobility, her _Almanach de Gotha_, in a sense, do you
+understand? Because it established her prodigious genealogy: because
+she is...."
+
+"Because she is?" repeated Morhange.
+
+"Because she is the grand daughter of Neptune, the last descendant of
+the Atlantides."
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+ATLANTIS
+
+
+M. Le Mesge looked at Morhange triumphantly. It was evident that he
+addressed himself exclusively to Morhange, considering him alone
+worthy of his confidences.
+
+"There have been many, sir," he said, "both French and foreign
+officers who have been brought here at the caprice of our sovereign,
+Antinea. You are the first to be honored by my disclosures. But you
+were the pupil of Berlioux, and I owe so much to the memory of that
+great man that it seems to me I may do him homage by imparting to one
+of his disciples the unique results of my private research."
+
+He struck the bell. Ferradji appeared.
+
+"Coffee for these gentlemen," ordered M. Le Mesge.
+
+He handed us a box, gorgeously decorated in the most flaming colors,
+full of Egyptian cigarettes.
+
+"I never smoke," he explained. "But Antinea sometimes comes here.
+These are her cigarettes. Help yourselves, gentlemen."
+
+I have always had a horror of that pale tobacco which gives a barber
+of the Rue de la Michodiere the illusion of oriental voluptuousness.
+But, in their way, these musk-scented cigarettes were not bad, and it
+was a long time since I had used up my stock of Caporal.
+
+"Here are the back numbers of _Le Vie Parisienne_" said M. Le Mesge
+to me. "Amuse yourself with them, if you like, while I talk to your
+friend."
+
+"Sir," I replied brusquely, "it is true that I never studied with
+Berlioux. Nevertheless, you must allow me to listen to your
+conversation: I shall hope to find something in it to amuse me."
+
+"As you wish," said the little old man.
+
+We settled ourselves comfortably. M. Le Mesge sat down before the
+desk, shot his cuffs, and commenced as follows:
+
+"However much, gentlemen, I prize complete objectivity in matters of
+erudition, I cannot utterly detach my own history from that of the
+last descendant of Clito and Neptune.
+
+"I am the creation of my own efforts. From my childhood, the
+prodigious impulse given to the science of history by the nineteenth
+century has affected me. I saw where my way led. I have followed it,
+in spite of everything.
+
+"In spite of everything, everything--I mean it literally. With no
+other resources than my own work and merit, I was received as Fellow
+of History and Geography at the examination of 1880. A great
+examination! Among the thirteen who were accepted there were names
+which have since become illustrious: Julian, Bourgeois, Auerbach.... I
+do not envy my colleagues on the summits of their official honors; I
+read their works with commiseration; and the pitiful errors to which
+they are condemned by the insufficiency of their documents would amply
+counterbalance my chagrin and fill me with ironic joy, had I not been
+raised long since above the satisfaction of self-love.
+
+"When I was Professor at the Lycee du Parc at Lyons. I knew Berlioux
+and followed eagerly his works on African History. I had, at that
+time, a very original idea for my doctor's thesis. I was going to
+establish a parallel between the Berber heroine of the seventh
+century, who struggled against the Arab invader, Kahena, and the
+French heroine, Joan of Arc, who struggled against the English
+invader. I proposed to the _Faculte des Lettres_ at Paris this title
+for my thesis: _Joan of Arc and the Tuareg_. This simple announcement
+gave rise to a perfect outcry in learned circles, a furor of
+ridicule. My friends warned me discreetly. I refused to believe them.
+Finally I was forced to believe when my rector summoned me before him
+and, after manifesting an astonishing interest in my health, asked
+whether I should object to taking two years' leave on half pay. I
+refused indignantly. The rector did not insist; but fifteen days
+later, a ministerial decree, with no other legal procedure, assigned
+me to one of the most insignificant and remote Lycees of France, at
+Mont-de-Marsan.
+
+"Realize my exasperation and you will excuse the excesses to which I
+delivered myself in that strange country. What is there to do in
+Landes, if you neither eat nor drink? I did both violently. My pay
+melted away in _fois gras_, in woodcocks, in fine wines. The result
+came quickly enough: in less than a year my joints began to crack like
+the over-oiled axle of a bicycle that has gone a long way upon a dusty
+track. A sharp attack of gout nailed me to my bed. Fortunately, in
+that blessed country, the cure is in reach of the suffering. So I
+departed to Dax, at vacation time, to try the waters.
+
+"I rented a room on the bank of the Adour, overlooking the _Promenade
+des Baignots_. A charwoman took care of it for me. She worked also for
+an old gentleman, a retired Examining Magistrate, President of the
+Roger-Ducos Society, which was a vague scientific backwater, in which
+the scholars of the neighborhood applied themselves with prodigious
+incompetence to the most whimsical subjects. One afternoon I stayed in
+my room on account of a very heavy rain. The good woman was
+energetically polishing the copper latch of my door. She used a paste
+called Tripoli, which she spread upon a paper and rubbed and
+rubbed.... The peculiar appearance of the paper made me curious. I
+glanced at it. 'Great heavens! Where did you get this paper?' She was
+perturbed. 'At my master's; he has lots of it. I tore this out of a
+notebook.' 'Here are ten francs. Go and get me the notebook.'
+
+"A quarter of an hour later, she was back with it. By good luck it
+lacked only one page, the one with which she had been polishing my
+door. This manuscript, this notebook, have you any idea what it was?
+Merely the _Voyage to Atlantis_ of the mythologist Denis de Milet,
+which is mentioned by Diodorus and the loss of which I had so often
+heard Berlioux deplore.[10]
+
+[Footnote 10: How did the _Voyage to Atlantis_ arrive at Dax? I have
+found, so far, only one credible hypothesis: it might have been
+discovered in Africa by the traveller, de Behagle, a member of the
+Roger-Ducos Society, who studied at the college of Dax, and later, on
+several occasions, visited the town. (Note by M. Leroux.)]
+
+"This inestimable document contained numerous quotations from the
+Critias. It gave an abstract of the illustrious dialogue, the sole
+existing copy of which you held in your hands a little while ago. It
+established past controversy the location of the stronghold of the
+Atlantides, and demonstrated that this site, which is denied by
+science, was not submerged by the waves, as is supposed by the rare
+and timorous defenders of the Atlantide hypothesis. He called it the
+'central Mazycian range,' You know there is no longer any doubt as to
+the identification of the Mazyces of Herodotus with the people of
+Imoschaoch, the Tuareg. But the manuscript of Denys unquestionably
+identifies the historical Mazyces with the Atlantides of the supposed
+legend.
+
+"I learned, therefore, from Denys, not only that the central part of
+Atlantis, the cradle and home of the dynasty of Neptune, had not sunk
+in the disaster described by Plato as engulfing the rest of the
+Atlantide isle, but also that it corresponded to the Tuareg Ahaggar,
+and that, in this Ahaggar, at least in his time, the noble dynasty of
+Neptune was supposed to be still existent.
+
+"The historians of Atlantis put the date of the cataclysm which
+destroyed all or part of that famous country at nine thousand years
+before Christ. If Denis de Milet, who wrote scarcely three thousand
+years ago, believed that in his time, the dynastic issue of Neptune
+was still ruling its dominion, you will understand that I thought
+immediately--what has lasted nine thousand years may last eleven
+thousand. From that instant I had only one aim: to find the possible
+descendants of the Atlantides, and, since I had many reasons for
+supposing them to be debased and ignorant of their original splendor,
+to inform them of their illustrious descent.
+
+"You will easily understand that I imparted none of my intentions to
+my superiors at the University. To solicit their approval or even
+their permission, considering the attitude they had taken toward me,
+would have been almost certainly to invite confinement in a cell. So I
+raised what I could on my own account, and departed without trumpet or
+drum for Oran. On the first of October I reached In-Salah. Stretched
+at my ease beneath a palm tree, at the oasis, I took infinite pleasure
+in considering how, that very day, the principal of Mont-de-Marsan,
+beside himself, struggling to control twenty horrible urchins howling
+before the door of an empty class room, would be telegraphing wildly
+in all directions in search of his lost history professor."
+
+M. Le Mesge stopped and looked at us to mark his satisfaction.
+
+I admit that I forgot my dignity and I forgot the affectation he had
+steadily assumed of talking only to Morhange.
+
+"You will pardon me, sir, if your discourse interests me more than I
+had anticipated. But you know very well that I lack the fundamental
+instruction necessary to understand you. You speak of the dynasty of
+Neptune. What is this dynasty, from which, I believe, you trace the
+descent of Antinea? What is her role in the story of Atlantis?"
+
+M. Le Mesge smiled with condescension, meantime winking at Morhange
+with the eye nearest to him. Morhange was listening without
+expression, without a word, chin in hand, elbow on knee.
+
+"Plato will answer for me, sir," said the Professor.
+
+And he added, with an accent of inexpressible pity:
+
+"Is it really possible that you have never made the acquaintance of
+the introduction to the Critias?"
+
+He placed on the table the book by which Morhange had been so
+strangely moved. He adjusted his spectacles and began to read. It
+seemed as if the magic of Plato vibrated through and transfigured this
+ridiculous little old man.
+
+"'Having drawn by lot the different parts of the earth, the gods
+obtained, some a larger, and some, a smaller share. It was thus that
+Neptune, having received in the division the isle of Atlantis, came to
+place the children he had had by a mortal in one part of that isle.
+It was not far from the sea, a plain situated in the midst of the
+isle, the most beautiful, and, they say, the most fertile of plains.
+About fifty stades from that plain, in the middle of the isle, was a
+mountain. There dwelt one of those men who, in the very beginning, was
+born of the Earth, Evenor, with his wife, Leucippe. They had only one
+daughter, Clito. She was marriageable when her mother and father died,
+and Neptune, being enamored of her, married her. Neptune fortified the
+mountain where she dwelt by isolating it. He made alternate girdles of
+sea and land, the one smaller, the others greater, two of earth and
+three of water, and centered them round the isle in such a manner that
+they were at all parts equally distant!..."
+
+M. Le Mesge broke off his reading.
+
+"Does this arrangement recall nothing to you?" he queried.
+
+"Morhange, Morhange!" I stammered. "You remember--our route yesterday,
+our abduction, the two corridors that we had to cross before arriving
+at this mountain?... The girdles of earth and of water?... Two
+tunnels, two enclosures of earth?"
+
+"Ha! Ha!" chuckled M. Le Mesge.
+
+He smiled as he looked at me. I understood that this smile meant: "Can
+he be less obtuse than I had supposed?"
+
+As if with a mighty effort, Morhange broke the silence.
+
+"I understand well enough, I understand.... The three girdles of
+water.... But then, you are supposing, sir,--an explanation the
+ingeniousness of which I do not contest--you are supposing the exact
+hypothesis of the Saharan sea!"
+
+"I suppose it, and I can prove it," replied the irascible little old
+chap, banging his fist on the table. "I know well enough what Schirmer
+and the rest have advanced against it. I know it better than you do. I
+know all about it, sir. I can present all the proofs for your
+consideration. And in the meantime, this evening at dinner, you will
+no doubt enjoy some excellent fish. And you will tell me if these
+fish, caught in the lake that you can see from this window, seem to
+you fresh water fish.
+
+"You must realize," he continued, "the mistake of those who, believing
+in Atlantis, have sought to explain the cataclysm in which they
+suppose the island to have sunk. Without exception, they have thought
+that it was swallowed up. Actually, there has not been an immersion.
+There has been an emersion. New lands have emerged from the Atlantic
+wave. The desert has replaced the sea, the _sebkhas_, the salt lakes,
+the Triton lakes, the sandy Syrtes are the desolate vestiges of the
+free sea water over which, in former days, the fleets swept with a
+fair wind towards the conquest of Attica. Sand swallows up
+civilization better than water. To-day there remains nothing of the
+beautiful isle that the sea and winds kept gay and verdant but this
+chalky mass. Nothing has endured in this rocky basin, cut off forever
+from the living world, but the marvelous oasis that you have at your
+feet, these red fruits, this cascade, this blue lake, sacred witnesses
+to the golden age that is gone. Last evening, in coming here, you had
+to cross the five enclosures: the three belts of water, dry forever;
+the two girdles of earth through which are hollowed the passages you
+traversed on camel back, where, formerly, the triremes floated. The
+only thing that, in this immense catastrophe, has preserved its
+likeness to its former state, is this mountain, the mountain where
+Neptune shut up his well-beloved Clito, the daughter of Evenor and
+Leucippe, the mother of Atlas, and the ancestress of Antinea, the
+sovereign under whose dominion you are about to enter forever."
+
+"Sir," Morhange with the most exquisite courtesy, "it would be only a
+natural anxiety which would urge us to inquire the reasons and the end
+of this dominion. But behold to what extent your revelation interests
+me; I defer this question of private interest. Of late, in two
+caverns, it has been my fortune to discover Tifinar inscriptions of
+this name, Antinea. My comrade is witness that I took it for a Greek
+name. I understand now, thanks to you and the divine Plato, that I
+need no longer feel surprised to hear a barbarian called by a Greek
+name. But I am no less perplexed as to the etymology of the word. Can
+you enlighten me?"
+
+"I shall certainly not fail you there, sir," said M. Le Mesge. "I may
+tell you, too, that you are not the first to put to me that question.
+Most of the explorers that I have seen enter here in the past ten
+years have been attracted in the same way, intrigued by this Greek
+work reproduced in Tifinar. I have even arranged a fairly exact
+catalogue of these inscriptions and the caverns where they are to be
+met with. All, or almost all, are accompanied by this legend:
+_Antinea. Here commences her domain_. I myself have had repainted with
+ochre such as were beginning to be effaced. But, to return to what I
+was telling you before, none of the Europeans who have followed this
+epigraphic mystery here, have kept their anxiety to solve this
+etymology once they found themselves in Antinea's palace. They all
+become otherwise preoccupied. I might make many disclosures as to the
+little real importance which purely scientific interests possess even
+for scholars, and the quickness with which they sacrifice them to the
+most mundane considerations--their own lives, for instance."
+
+"Let us take that up another time, sir, if it is satisfactory to you,"
+said Morhange, always admirably polite.
+
+"This digression had only one point, sir: to show you that I do not
+count you among these unworthy scholars. You are really eager to know
+the origin of this name, _Antinea_, and that before knowing what kind
+of woman it belongs to and her motives for holding you and this
+gentleman as her prisoners."
+
+I stared hard at the little old man. But he spoke with profound
+seriousness.
+
+"So much the better for you, my boy," I thought. "Otherwise it
+wouldn't have taken me long to send you through the window to air your
+ironies at your ease. The law of gravity ought not to be topsy-turvy
+here at Ahaggar."
+
+"You, no doubt, formulated several hypotheses when you first
+encountered the name, Antinea," continued M. Le Mesge, imperturbable
+under my fixed gaze, addressing himself to Morhange. "Would you object
+to repeating them to me?"
+
+"Not at all, sir," said Morhange.
+
+And, very composedly, he enumerated the etymological suggestions I
+have given previously.
+
+The little man with the cherry-colored shirt front rubbed his hands.
+
+"Very good," he admitted with an accent of intense jubilation.
+"Amazingly good, at least for one with only the modicum of Greek that
+you possess. But it is all none the less false, super-false."
+
+"It is because I suspected as much that I put my question to you,"
+said Morhange blandly.
+
+"I will not keep you longer in suspense," said M. Le Mesge. "The word,
+Antinea, is composed as follows: _ti_ is nothing but a Tifinar
+addition to an essentially Greek name. _Ti_ is the Berber feminine
+article. We have several examples of this combination. Take _Tipasa_,
+the North African town. The name means the whole, from _ti_ and from
+[Greek: nap]. So, _tinea_ signifies the new, from _ti_ and from
+[Greek: ea]."
+
+"And the prefix, _an_?" queried Morhang.
+
+"Is it possible, sir, that I have put myself to the trouble of talking
+to you for a solid hour about the Critias with such trifling effect?
+It is certain that the prefix _an_, alone, has no meaning. You will
+understand that it has one, when I tell you that we have here a very
+curious case of apocope. You must not read _an_; you must read _atlan_.
+_Atl_ has been lost, by apocope; _an_ has survived. To sum up, Antinea
+is composed in the following manner: [Greek: ti-nea--atl'An]. And its
+meaning, _the new Atlantis_, is dazzlingly apparent from this
+demonstration."
+
+I looked at Morhange. His astonishment was without bounds. The Berber
+prefix _ti_ had literally stunned him.
+
+"Have you had occasion, sir, to verify this very ingenious etymology?"
+he was finally able to gasp out.
+
+"You have only to glance over these few books," said M. Le Mesge
+disdainfully.
+
+He opened successively five, ten, twenty cupboards. An enormous
+library was spread out to our view.
+
+"Everything, everything--it is all here," murmured Morhange, with an
+astonishing inflection of terror and admiration.
+
+"Everything that is worth consulting, at any rate," said M. Le Mesge.
+"All the great books, whose loss the so-called learned world deplores
+to-day."
+
+"And how has it happened?"
+
+"Sir, you distress me. I thought you familiar with certain events. You
+are forgetting, then, the passage where Pliny the Elder speaks of the
+library of Carthage and the treasures which were accumulated there? In
+146, when that city fell under the blows of the knave, Scipio, the
+incredible collection of illiterates who bore the name of the Roman
+Senate had only the profoundest contempt for these riches. They
+presented them to the native kings. This is how Mantabal received this
+priceless heritage; it was transmitted to his son and grandson,
+Hiempsal, Juba I, Juba II, the husband of the admirable Cleopatra
+Selene, the daughter of the great Cleopatra and Mark Antony. Cleopatra
+Selene had a daughter who married an Atlantide king. This is how
+Antinea, the daughter of Neptune, counts among her ancestors the
+immortal queen of Egypt. That is how, by following the laws of
+inheritance, the remains of the library of Carthage, enriched by the
+remnants of the library of Alexandria, are actually before your eyes.
+
+"Science fled from man. While he was building those monstrous Babels
+of pseudo-science in Berlin, London, Paris, Science was taking refuge
+in this desert corner of Ahaggar. They may well forge their hypotheses
+back there, based on the loss of the mysterious works of antiquity:
+these works are not lost. They are here. They are here: the Hebrew,
+the Chaldean, the Assyrian books. Here, the great Egyptian traditions
+which inspired Solon, Herodotus and Plato. Here, the Greek
+mythologists, the magicians of Roman Africa, the Indian mystics, all
+the treasures, in a word, for the lack of which contemporary
+dissertations are poor laughable things. Believe me, he is well
+avenged, the little universitarian whom they took for a madman, whom
+they defied. I have lived, I live, I shall live in a perpetual burst
+of laughter at their false and garbled erudition. And when I shall be
+dead, Error,--thanks to the jealous precaution of Neptune taken to
+isolate his well-beloved Clito from the rest of the world,--Error, I
+say, will continue to reign as sovereign mistress over their pitiful
+compositions."
+
+"Sir," said Morhange in grave voice, "you have just affirmed the
+influence of Egypt on the civilizations of the people here. For
+reasons which some day, perhaps, I shall have occasion to explain to
+you, I would like to have proof of that relationship."
+
+"We need not wait for that, sir," said M. Le Mesge. Then, in my turn,
+I advanced.
+
+"Two words, if you please, sir," I said brutally. "I will not hide
+from you that these historical discussions seem to me absolutely out
+of place. It is not my fault if you have had trouble with the
+University, and if you are not to-day at the College of France or
+elsewhere. For the moment, just one thing concerns me: to know just
+what this lady, Antinea, wants with us. My comrade would like to know
+her relation with ancient Egypt: very well. For my part, I desire
+above everything to know her relations with the government of Algeria
+and the Arabian Bureau."
+
+M. Le Mesge gave a strident laugh.
+
+"I am going to give you an answer that will satisfy you both," he
+replied.
+
+And he added:
+
+"Follow me. It is time that you should learn."
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+THE RED MARBLE HALL
+
+
+We passed through an interminable series of stairs and corridors
+following M. Le Mesge.
+
+"You lose all sense of direction in this labyrinth," I muttered to
+Morhange.
+
+"Worse still, you will lose your head," answered my companion _sotto
+voce_. "This old fool is certainly very learned; but God knows what he
+is driving at. However, he has promised that we are soon to know."
+
+M. Le Mesge had stopped before a heavy dark door, all incrusted with
+strange symbols. Turning the lock with difficulty, he opened it.
+
+"Enter, gentlemen, I beg you," he said.
+
+A gust of cold air struck us full in the face. The room we were
+entering was chill as a vault.
+
+At first, the darkness allowed me to form no idea of its proportions.
+The lighting, purposely subdued, consisted of twelve enormous copper
+lamps, placed column-like upon the ground and burning with brilliant
+red flames. As we entered, the wind from the corridor made the flames
+flicker, momentarily casting about us our own enlarged and misshapen
+shadows. Then the gust died down, and the flames, no longer flurried,
+again licked up the darkness with their motionless red tongues.
+
+These twelve giant lamps (each one about ten feet high) were arranged
+in a kind of crown, the diameter of which must have been about fifty
+feet. In the center of this circle was a dark mass, all streaked with
+trembling red reflections. When I drew nearer, I saw it was a bubbling
+fountain. It was the freshness of this water which had maintained the
+temperature of which I have spoken.
+
+Huge seats were cut in the central rock from which gushed the
+murmuring, shadowy fountain. They were heaped with silky cushions.
+Twelve incense burners, within the circle of red lamps, formed a
+second crown, half as large in diameter. Their smoke mounted toward
+the vault, invisible in the darkness, but their perfume, combined with
+the coolness and sound of the water, banished from the soul all other
+desire than to remain there forever.
+
+M. Le Mesge made us sit down in the center of the hall, on the
+Cyclopean seats. He seated himself between us.
+
+"In a few minutes," he said, "your eyes will grow accustomed to the
+obscurity."
+
+I noticed that he spoke in a hushed voice, as if he were in church.
+
+Little by little, our eyes did indeed grow used to the red light. Only
+the lower part of the great hall was illuminated. The whole vault was
+drowned in shadow and its height was impossible to estimate. Vaguely,
+I could perceive overhead a great smooth gold chandelier, flecked,
+like everything else, with sombre red reflections. But there was no
+means of judging the length of the chain by which it hung from the
+dark ceiling.
+
+The marble of the pavement was of so high a polish, that the great
+torches were reflected even there.
+
+This room, I repeat, was round a perfect circle of which the fountain
+at our backs was the center.
+
+We sat facing the curving walls. Before long, we began to be able to
+see them. They were of peculiar construction, divided into a series
+of niches, broken, ahead of us, by the door which had just opened to
+give us passage, behind us, by a second door, a still darker hole
+which I divined in the darkness when I turned around. From one door to
+the other, I counted sixty niches, making, in all, one hundred and
+twenty. Each was about ten feet high. Each contained a kind of case,
+larger above than below, closed only at the lower end. In all these
+cases, except two just opposite me, I thought I could discern a
+brilliant shape, a human shape certainly, something like a statue of
+very pale bronze. In the arc of the circle before me, I counted
+clearly thirty of these strange statues.
+
+What were these statues? I wanted to see. I rose.
+
+M. Le Mesge put his hand on my arm.
+
+"In good time," he murmured in the same low voice, "all in good time."
+
+The Professor was watching the door by which we had entered the hall,
+and from behind which we could hear the sound of footsteps becoming
+more and more distinct.
+
+It opened quietly to admit three Tuareg slaves. Two of them were
+carrying a long package on their shoulders; the third seemed to be
+their chief.
+
+At a sign from him, they placed the package on the ground and drew out
+from one of the niches the case which it contained.
+
+"You may approach, gentlemen," said M. Le Mesge.
+
+He motioned the three Tuareg to withdraw several paces.
+
+"You asked me, not long since, for some proof of the Egyptian
+influence on this country," said M. Le Mesge. "What do you say to that
+case, to begin with?"
+
+As he spoke, he pointed to the case that the servants had deposited
+upon the ground after they took it from its niche.
+
+Morhange uttered a thick cry.
+
+We had before us one of those cases designed for the preservation of
+mummies. The same shiny wood, the same bright decorations, the only
+difference being that here Tifinar writing replaced the hieroglyphics.
+The form, narrow at the base, broader above, ought to have been enough
+to enlighten us.
+
+I have already said that the lower half of this large case was
+closed, giving the whole structure the appearance of a rectangular
+wooden shoe.
+
+M. Le Mesge knelt and fastened on the lower part of the case, a square
+of white cardboard, a large label, that he had picked up from his
+desk, a few minutes before, on leaving the library.
+
+"You may read," he said simply, but still in the same low tone.
+
+I knelt also, for the light of the great candelabra was scarcely
+sufficient to read the label where, none the less, I recognized the
+Professor's handwriting.
+
+It bore these few words, in a large round hand:
+
+"Number 53. Major Sir Archibald Russell. Born at Richmond, July 5,
+1860. Died at Ahaggar, December 3, 1896."
+
+I leapt to my feet.
+
+"Major Russell!" I exclaimed.
+
+"Not so loud, not so loud," said M. Le Mesge. "No one speaks out loud
+here."
+
+"The Major Russell," I repeated, obeying his injunction as if in spite
+of myself, "who left Khartoum last year, to explore Sokoto?"
+
+"The same," replied the Professor.
+
+"And ... where is Major Russell?"
+
+"He is there," replied M. Le Mesge.
+
+The Professor made a gesture. The Tuareg approached.
+
+A poignant silence reigned in the mysterious hall, broken only by the
+fresh splashing of the fountain.
+
+The three Negroes were occupied in undoing the package that they had
+put down near the painted case. Weighed down with wordless horror,
+Morhange and I stood watching.
+
+Soon, a rigid form, a human form, appeared. A red gleam played over
+it. We had before us, stretched out upon the ground, a statue of pale
+bronze, wrapped in a kind of white veil, a statue like those all
+around us, upright in their niches. It seemed to fix us with an
+impenetrable gaze.
+
+"Sir Archibald Russell," murmured M. Le Mesge slowly.
+
+Morhange approached, speechless, but strong enough to lift up the
+white veil. For a long, long time he gazed at the sad bronze statue.
+
+"A mummy, a mummy?" he said finally. "You deceive yourself, sir, this
+is no mummy."
+
+"Accurately speaking, no," replied M. Le Mesge. "This is not a mummy.
+None the less, you have before you the mortal remains of Sir Archibald
+Russell. I must point out to you, here, my dear sir, that the
+processes of embalming used by Antinea differ from the processes
+employed in ancient Egypt. Here, there is no natron, nor bands, nor
+spices. The industry of Ahaggar, in a single effort, has achieved a
+result obtained by European science only after long experiments.
+Imagine my surprise, when I arrived here and found that they were
+employing a method I supposed known only to the civilized world."
+
+M. Le Mesge struck a light tap with his finger on the forehead of Sir
+Archibald Russell. It rang like metal.
+
+"It is bronze," I said. "That is not a human forehead: it is bronze."
+
+M. Le Mesge shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"It is a human forehead," he affirmed curtly, "and not bronze. Bronze
+is darker, sir. This is the great unknown metal of which Plato speaks
+in the Critias, and which is something between gold and silver: it is
+the special metal of the mountains of the Atlantides. It is
+_orichalch_."
+
+Bending again, I satisfied myself that this metal was the same as that
+with which the walls of the library were overcast.
+
+"It is orichalch," continued M. Le Mesge. "You look as if you had no
+idea how a human body can look like a statue of orichalch. Come,
+Captain Morhange, you whom I gave credit for a certain amount of
+knowledge, have you never heard of the method of Dr. Variot, by which
+a human body can be preserved without embalming? Have you never read
+the book of that practitioner?[11] He explains a method called
+electro-plating. The skin is coated with a very thin layer of silver
+salts, to make it a conductor. The body then is placed in a solution,
+of copper sulphate, and the polar currents do their work. The body of
+this estimable English major has been metalized in the same manner,
+except that a solution of orichalch sulphate, a very rare substance,
+has been substituted for that of copper sulphate. Thus, instead of the
+statue of a poor slave, a copper statue, you have before you a statue
+of metal more precious than silver or gold, in a word, a statue worthy
+of the granddaughter of Neptune."
+
+[Footnote 11: Variot: _L'anthropologie galvanique_. Paris, 1890. (Note
+by M. Leroux.)]
+
+M. Le Mesge waved his arm. The black slaves seized the body. In a few
+seconds, they slid the orichalch ghost into its painted wooden sheath.
+That was set on end and slid into its niche, beside the niche where an
+exactly similar sheath was labelled "Number 52."
+
+Upon finishing their task, they retired without a word. A draught of
+cold air from the door again made the flames of the copper torches
+flicker and threw great shadows about us.
+
+Morhange and I remained as motionless as the pale metal specters which
+surrounded us. Suddenly I pulled myself together and staggered forward
+to the niche beside that in which they just had laid the remains of
+the English major. I looked for the label.
+
+Supporting myself against the red marble wall, I read:
+
+"Number 52. Captain Laurent Deligne. Born at Paris, July 22, 1861.
+Died at Ahaggar, October 30, 1896."
+
+"Captain Deligne!" murmured Morhange. "He left Colomb-Bechar in 1895
+for Timmimoun and no more has been heard of him since then."
+
+"Exactly," said M. Le Mesge, with a little nod of approval.
+
+"Number 51," read Morhange with chattering teeth. "Colonel von
+Wittman, born at Jena in 1855. Died at Ahaggar, May 1, 1896....
+Colonel Wittman, the explorer of Kanem, who disappeared off Agades."
+
+"Exactly," said M. Le Mesge again.
+
+"Number 50," I read in my turn, steadying myself against the wall, so
+as not to fall. "Marquis Alonzo d'Oliveira, born at Cadiz, February
+21, 1868. Died at Ahaggar, February 1, 1896. Oliveira, who was going
+to Araouan."
+
+"Exactly," said M. Le Mesge again. "That Spaniard was one of the best
+educated. I used to have interesting discussions with him on the exact
+geographical position of the kingdom of Antee."
+
+"Number 49," said Morhange in a tone scarcely more than a whisper.
+"Lieutenant Woodhouse, born at Liverpool, September 16, 1870. Died at
+Ahaggar, October 4, 1895."
+
+"Hardly more than a child," said M. Le Mesge.
+
+"Number 48," I said. "Lieutenant Louis de Maillefeu, born at Provins,
+the...."
+
+I did not finish. My voice choked.
+
+Louis de Maillefeu, my best friend, the friend of my childhood and of
+Saint-Cyr.... I looked at him and recognized him under the metallic
+coating. Louis de Maillefeu!
+
+I laid my forehead against the cold wall and, with shaking shoulders,
+began to sob.
+
+I heard the muffled voice of Morhange speaking to the Professor:
+
+"Sir, this has lasted long enough. Let us make an end of it."
+
+"He wanted to know," said M. Le Mesge. "What am I to do?"
+
+I went up to him and seized his shoulders.
+
+"What happened to him? What did he die of?"
+
+"Just like the others," the Professor replied, "just like Lieutenant
+Woodhouse, like Captain Deligne, like Major Russell, like Colonel von
+Wittman, like the forty-seven of yesterday and all those of
+to-morrow."
+
+"Of what did they die?" Morhange demanded imperatively in his turn.
+
+The Professor looked at Morhange. I saw my comrade grow pale.
+
+"Of what did they die, sir? _They died of love_."
+
+And he added in a very low, very grave voice:
+
+"Now you know."
+
+Gently and with a tact which we should hardly have suspected in him,
+M. Le Mesge drew us away from the statues. A moment later, Morhange
+and I found ourselves again seated, or rather sunk among the cushions
+in the center of the room. The invisible fountain murmured its plaint
+at our feet.
+
+Le Mesge sat between us.
+
+"Now you know," he repeated. "You know, but you do not yet
+understand."
+
+Then, very slowly, he said:
+
+"You are, as they have been, the prisoners of Antinea. And vengeance
+is due Antinea."
+
+"Vengeance?" said Morhange, who had regained his self-possession. "For
+what, I beg to ask? What have the lieutenant and I done to Atlantis?
+How have we incurred her hatred?"
+
+"It is an old quarrel, a very old quarrel," the Professor replied
+gravely. "A quarrel which long antedates you, M. Morhange."
+
+"Explain yourself, I beg of you, Professor."
+
+"You are Man. She is a Woman," said the dreamy voice of M. Le Mesge.
+"The whole matter lies there."
+
+"Really, sir, I do not see ... we do not see."
+
+"You are going to understand. Have you really forgotten to what an
+extent the beautiful queens of antiquity had just cause to complain of
+the strangers whom fortune brought to their borders? The poet, Victor
+Hugo, pictured their detestable acts well enough in his colonial poem
+called _la Fille d'O-Taiti_. Wherever we look, we see similar examples
+of fraud and ingratitude. These gentlemen made free use of the beauty
+and the riches of the lady. Then, one fine morning, they disappeared.
+She was indeed lucky if her lover, having observed the position
+carefully, did not return with ships and troops of occupation."
+
+"Your learning charms me," said Morhange. "Continue."
+
+"Do you need examples? Alas! they abound. Think of the cavalier
+fashion in which Ulysses treated Calypso, Diomedes Callirhoe. What
+should I say of Theseus and Ariadne? Jason treated Medea with
+inconceivable lightness. The Romans continued the tradition with still
+greater brutality. Aenaeus, who has many characteristics in common
+with the Reverend Spardek, treated Dido in a most undeserved fashion.
+Caesar was a laurel-crowned blackguard in his relations with the
+divine Cleopatra. Titus, that hypocrite Titus, after having lived a
+whole year in Idummea at the expense of the plaintive Berenice, took
+her back to Rome only to make game of her. It is time that the sons of
+Japhet paid this formidable reckoning of injuries to the daughters of
+Shem.
+
+"A woman has taken it upon herself to re-establish the great Hegelian
+law of equilibrium for the benefit of her sex. Separated from the
+Aryan world by the formidable precautions of Neptune, she draws the
+youngest and bravest to her. Her body is condescending, while her
+spirit is inexorable. She takes what these bold young men can give
+her. She lends them her body, while her soul dominates them. She is
+the first sovereign who has never been made the slave of passion, even
+for a moment. She has never been obliged to regain her self-mastery,
+for she never has lost it. She is the only woman who has been able to
+disassociate those two inextricable things, love and voluptuousness."
+
+M. Le Mesge paused a moment and then went on.
+
+"Once every day, she comes to this vault. She stops before the niches;
+she meditates before the rigid statues; she touches the cold bosoms,
+so burning when she knew them. Then, after dreaming before the empty
+niche where the next victim soon will sleep his eternal sleep in a
+cold case of orichalch, she returns nonchalantly where he is waiting
+for her."
+
+The Professor stopped speaking. The fountain again made itself heard
+in the midst of the shadow. My pulses beat, my head seemed on fire. A
+fever was consuming me.
+
+"And all of them," I cried, regardless of the place, "all of them
+complied! They submitted! Well, she has only to come and she will see
+what will happen."
+
+Morhange was silent.
+
+"My dear sir," said M. Le Mesge in a very gentle voice, "you are
+speaking like a child. You do not know. You have not seen Antinea. Let
+me tell you one thing: that among those"--and with a sweeping gesture
+he indicated the silent circle of statues--"there were men as
+courageous as you and perhaps less excitable. I remember one of them
+especially well, a phlegmatic Englishman who now is resting under
+Number 32. When he first appeared before Antinea, he was smoking a
+cigar. And, like all the rest, he bent before the gaze of his
+sovereign.
+
+"Do not speak until you have seen her. A university training hardly
+fits one to discourse upon matters of passion, and I feel scarcely
+qualified, myself, to tell you what Antinea is. I only affirm this,
+that when you have seen her, you will remember nothing else. Family,
+country, honor, you will renounce everything for her."
+
+"Everything?" asked Morhange in a calm voice.
+
+"Everything," Le Mesge insisted emphatically. "You will forget all,
+you will renounce all."
+
+From outside, a faint sound came to us.
+
+Le Mesge consulted his watch.
+
+"In any case, you will see."
+
+The door opened. A tall white Targa, the tallest we had yet seen in
+this remarkable abode, entered and came toward us.
+
+He bowed and touched me lightly on the shoulder.
+
+"Follow him," said M. Le Mesge.
+
+Without a word, I obeyed.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+ANTINEA
+
+
+My guide and I passed along another long corridor. My excitement
+increased. I was impatient for one thing only, to come face to face
+with that woman, to tell her.... So far as anything else was
+concerned, I already was done for.
+
+I was mistaken in hoping that the adventure would take an heroic turn
+at once. In real life, these contrasts never are definitely marked
+out. I should have remembered from many past incidents that the
+burlesque was regularly mixed with the tragic in my life.
+
+We reached a little transparent door. My guide stood aside to let me
+pass.
+
+I found myself in the most luxurious of dressing-rooms. A ground glass
+ceiling diffused a gay rosy light over the marble floor. The first
+thing I noticed was a clock, fastened to the wall. In place of the
+figures for the hours, were the signs of the Zodiac. The small hand
+had not yet reached the sign of Capricorn.
+
+Only three o'clock!
+
+The day seemed to have lasted a century already.... And only a little
+more than half of it was gone.
+
+Another idea came to me, and a convulsive laugh bent me double.
+
+"Antinea wants me to be at my best when I meet her."
+
+A mirror of orichalch formed one whole side of the room. Glancing into
+it, I realized that in all decency there was nothing exaggerated in
+the demand.
+
+My untrimmed beard, the frightful layer of dirt which lay about my
+eyes and furrowed my cheeks, my clothing, spotted by all the clay of
+the Sahara and torn by all the thorns of Ahaggar--all this made me
+appear a pitiable enough suitor.
+
+I lost no time in undressing and plunging into the porphry bath in the
+center of the room. A delicious drowsiness came over me in that
+perfumed water. A thousand little jars, spread on a costly carved wood
+dressing-table, danced before my eyes. They were of all sizes and
+colors, carved in a very transparent kind of jade. The warm humidity
+of the atmosphere hastened my relaxation.
+
+I still had strength to think, "The devil take Atlantis and the vault
+and Le Mesge."
+
+Then I fell asleep in the bath.
+
+When I opened my eyes again, the little hand of the clock had almost
+reached the sign of Taurus. Before me, his black hands braced on the
+edge of the bath, stood a huge Negro, bare-faced and bare-armed, his
+forehead bound with an immense orange turban.
+
+He looked at me and showed his white teeth in a silent laugh.
+
+"Who is this fellow?"
+
+The Negro laughed harder. Without saying a word, he lifted me like a
+feather out of the perfumed water, now of a color on which I shall not
+dwell.
+
+In no time at all, I was stretched out on an inclined marble table.
+
+The Negro began to massage me vigorously.
+
+"More gently there, fellow!"
+
+My masseur did not reply, but laughed and rubbed still harder.
+
+"Where do you come from? Kanem? Torkou? You laugh too much for a
+Targa."
+
+Unbroken silence. The Negro was as speechless as he was hilarious.
+
+"After all, I am making a fool of myself," I said, giving up the case.
+"Such as he is, he is more agreeable than Le Mesge with his
+nightmarish erudition. But, on my word, what a recruit he would be for
+Hamman on the rue des Mathurins!"
+
+"Cigarette, sidi?"
+
+Without awaiting my reply, he placed a cigarette between my lips and
+lighted it, and resumed his task of polishing every inch of me.
+
+"He doesn't talk much, but he is obliging," I thought.
+
+And I sent a puff of smoke into his face.
+
+This pleasantry seemed to delight him immensely. He showed his
+pleasure by giving me great slaps.
+
+When he had dressed me down sufficiently, he took a little jar from
+the dressing-table and began to rub me with a rose-colored ointment.
+Weariness seemed to fly away from my rejuvenated muscles.
+
+A stroke on a copper gong. My masseur disappeared. A stunted old
+Negress entered, dressed in the most tawdry tinsel. She was talkative
+as a magpie, but at first I did not understand a word in the
+interminable string she unwound, while she took first my hands, then
+my feet, and polished the nails with determined grimaces.
+
+Another stroke on the gong. The old woman gave place to another Negro,
+grave, this time, and dressed all in white with a knitted skull cap on
+his oblong head. It was the barber, and a remarkably dexterous one. He
+quickly trimmed my hair, and, on my word, it was well done. Then,
+without asking me what style I preferred, he shaved me clean.
+
+I looked with pleasure at my face, once more visible.
+
+"Antinea must like the American type," I thought. "What an affront to
+the memory of her worthy grandfather, Neptune!"
+
+The gay Negro entered and placed a package on the divan. The barber
+disappeared. I was somewhat astonished to observe that the package,
+which my new valet opened carefully, contained a suit of white
+flannels exactly like those French officers wear in Algeria in summer.
+
+The wide trousers seemed made to my measure. The tunic fitted without
+a wrinkle, and my astonishment was unbounded at observing that it even
+had two gilt _galons_, the insignia of my rank, braided on the cuffs.
+For shoes, there were slippers of red Morocco leather, with gold
+ornaments. The underwear, all of silk, seemed to have come straight
+from the rue de la Paix.
+
+"Dinner was excellent," I murmured, looking at myself in the mirror
+with satisfaction. "The apartment is perfectly arranged. Yes, but...."
+
+I could not repress a shudder when I suddenly recalled that room of
+red marble.
+
+The clock struck half past four.
+
+Someone rapped gently on the door. The tall white Targa, who had
+brought me, appeared in the doorway.
+
+He stepped forward, touched me on the arm and signed for me to follow.
+
+Again I followed him.
+
+We passed through interminable corridors. I was disturbed, but the
+warm water had given me a certain feeling of detachment. And above
+all, more than I wished to admit, I had a growing sense of lively
+curiosity. If, at that moment, someone had offered to lead me back to
+the route across the white plain near Shikh-Salah, would I have
+accepted? Hardly.
+
+I tried to feel ashamed of my curiosity. I thought of Maillefeu.
+
+"He, too, followed this corridor. And now he is down there, in the red
+marble hall."
+
+I had no time to linger over this reminiscence. I was suddenly bowled
+over, thrown to the ground, as if by a sort of meteor. The corridor
+was dark; I could see nothing. I heard only a mocking growl.
+
+The white Targa had flattened himself back against the wall.
+
+"Good," I mumbled, picking myself up, "the deviltries are beginning."
+
+We continued on our way. A glow different from that of the rose night
+lights soon began to light up the corridor.
+
+We reached a high bronze door, in which a strange lacy design had
+been cut in filigree. A clear gong sounded, and the double doors
+opened part way. The Targa remained in the corridor, closing the doors
+after me.
+
+I took a few steps forward mechanically, then paused, rooted to the
+spot, and rubbed my eyes.
+
+I was dazzled by the sight of the sky.
+
+Several hours of shaded light had unaccustomed me to daylight. It
+poured in through one whole side of the huge room.
+
+The room was in the lower part of this mountain, which was more
+honeycombed with corridors and passages than an Egyptian pyramid. It
+was on a level with the garden which I had seen in the morning from
+the balcony, and seemed to be a continuation of it; the carpet
+extended out under the great palm trees and the birds flew about the
+forest of pillars in the room.
+
+By contrast, the half of the room untouched by direct light from the
+oasis seemed dark. The sun, setting behind the mountain, painted the
+garden paths with rose and flamed with red upon the traditional
+flamingo which stood with one foot raised at the edge of the sapphire
+lake.
+
+Suddenly I was bowled over a second time.
+
+I felt a warm, silky touch, a burning breath on my neck. Again the
+mocking growl which had so disturbed me in the corridor.
+
+With a wrench, I pulled myself free and sent a chance blow at my
+assailant. The cry, this time of pain and rage, broke out again.
+
+It was echoed by a long peal of laughter. Furious, I turned to look
+for the insolent onlooker, thinking to speak my mind. And then my
+glance stood still.
+
+Antinea was before me.
+
+
+In the dimmest part of the room, under a kind of arch lit by the mauve
+rays from a dozen incense-lamps, four women lay on a heap of
+many-colored cushions and rare white Persian rugs.
+
+I recognized the first three as Tuareg women, of a splendid regular
+beauty, dressed in magnificent robes of white silk embroidered in
+gold. The fourth, very dark skinned, almost negroid, seemed younger.
+A tunic of red silk enhanced the dusk of her face, her arms and her
+bare feet. The four were grouped about a sort of throne of white rugs,
+covered with a gigantic lion's skin, on which, half raised on one
+elbow, lay Antinea.
+
+Antinea! Whenever I saw her after that, I wondered if I had really
+looked at her before, so much more beautiful did I find her. More
+beautiful? Inadequate word. Inadequate language! But is it really the
+fault of the language or of those who abuse the word?
+
+One could not stand before her without recalling the woman for whom
+Ephractoeus overcame Atlas, of her for whom Sapor usurped the scepter
+of Ozymandias, for whom Mamylos subjugated Susa and Tentyris, for whom
+Antony fled....
+
+    _O tremblant coeur humain, si jamais tu vibras
+    C'est dans l'etreinte altiere et chaude de ses bras_.
+
+An Egyptian _klaft_ fell over her abundant blue-black curls. Its two
+points of heavy, gold-embroidered cloth extended to her slim hips. The
+golden serpent, emerald-eyed, was clasped about her little round,
+determined forehead, darting its double tongue of rubies over her
+head.
+
+She wore a tunic of black chiffon shot with gold, very light, very
+full, slightly gathered in by a white muslin scarf embroidered with
+iris in black pearls.
+
+That was Antinea's costume. But what was she beneath all this? A slim
+young girl, with long green eyes and the slender profile of a hawk. A
+more intense Adonis. A child queen of Sheba, but with a look, a smile,
+such as no Oriental ever had. A miracle of irony and freedom.
+
+I did not see her body. Indeed I should not have thought of looking at
+it, had I had the strength. And that, perhaps, was the most
+extraordinary thing about that first impression. In that unforgettable
+moment nothing would have seemed to me more horribly sacrilegious than
+to think of the fifty victims in the red marble hall, of the fifty
+young men who had held that slender body in their arms.
+
+She was still laughing at me.
+
+"King Hiram," she called.
+
+I turned and saw my enemy.
+
+On the capital of one of the columns, twenty feet above the floor, a
+splendid leopard was crouched. He still looked surly from the blow I
+had dealt him.
+
+"King Hiram," Antinea repeated. "Come here."
+
+The beast relaxed like a spring released. He fawned at his mistress's
+feet. I saw his red tongue licking her bare little ankles.
+
+"Ask the gentleman's pardon," she said.
+
+The leopard looked at me spitefully. The yellow skin of his muzzle
+puckered about his black moustache.
+
+"Fftt," he grumbled like a great cat.
+
+"Go," Antinea ordered imperiously.
+
+The beast crawled reluctantly toward me. He laid his head humbly
+between his paws and waited.
+
+I stroked his beautiful spotted forehead.
+
+"You must not be vexed," said Antinea. "He is always that way with
+strangers."
+
+"Then he must often be in bad humor," I said simply.
+
+Those were my first words. They brought a smile to Antinea's lips.
+
+She gave me a long, quiet look.
+
+"Aguida," she said to one of the Targa women, "you will give
+twenty-five pounds in gold to Cegheir-ben-Cheikh."
+
+"You are a lieutenant?" she asked, after a pause.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Where do you come from?"
+
+"From France."
+
+"I might have guessed that," she said ironically, "but from what part
+of France?"
+
+"From what we call the Lot-et-Garonne."
+
+"From what town?"
+
+"From Duras."
+
+She reflected a moment.
+
+"Duras! There is a little river there, the Dropt, and a fine old
+chateau."
+
+"You know Duras?" I murmured, amazed.
+
+"You go there from Bordeaux by a little branch railway," she went
+on. "It is a shut-in road, with vine-covered hills crowned by
+the feudal ruins. The villages have beautiful names: Monsegur,
+Sauve-terre-de-Guyenne, la Tresne, Creon, ... Creon, as in Antigone."
+
+"You have been there?"
+
+She looked at me.
+
+"Don't speak so coldly," she said. "Sooner or later we will be
+intimate, and you may as well lay aside formality now."
+
+This threatening promise suddenly filled me with great happiness. I
+thought of Le Mesge's words: "Don't talk until you have seen her. When
+you have seen her, you will renounce everything for her."
+
+"Have I been in Duras?" she went on with a burst of laughter. "You are
+joking. Imagine Neptune's granddaughter in the first-class compartment
+of a local train!"
+
+She pointed to an enormous white rock which towered above the palm
+trees of the garden.
+
+"That is my horizon," she said gravely.
+
+She picked up one of several books which lay scattered about her on
+the lion's skin.
+
+"The time table of the _Chemin de Fer de l'Ouest_," she said.
+"Admirable reading for one who never budges! Here it is half-past five
+in the afternoon. A train, a local, arrived three minutes ago at
+Surgeres in the Charente-Inferieure. It will start on in six minutes.
+In two hours it will reach La Rochelle. How strange it seems to think
+of such things here. So far away! So much commotion there! Here,
+nothing changes."
+
+"You speak French well," I said.
+
+She gave a little nervous laugh.
+
+"I have to. And German, too, and Italian, and English and Spanish. My
+way of living has made me a great polygot. But I prefer French, even
+to Tuareg and Arabian. It seems as if I had always known it. And I am
+not saying that to please you."
+
+There was a pause. I thought of her grandmother, of whom Plutarch
+said: "There were few races with which she needed an interpreter.
+Cleopatra spoke their own language to the Ethiopians, to the
+Troglodytes, the Hebrews, the Arabs, the Medes and the Persians."
+
+"Do not stand rooted in the middle of the room. You worry me. Come
+sit here, beside me. Move over, King Hiram."
+
+The leopard obeyed with good temper.
+
+Beside her was an onyx bowl. She took from it a perfectly plain ring
+of orichalch and slipped it on my left ring-finger. I saw that she
+wore one like it.
+
+"Tanit-Zerga, give Monsieur de Saint-Avit a rose sherbet."
+
+The dark girl in red silk obeyed.
+
+"My private secretary," said Antinea, introducing her. "Mademoiselle
+Tanit-Zerga, of Gao, on the Niger. Her family is almost as ancient as
+mine."
+
+As she spoke, she looked at me. Her green eyes seemed to be appraising
+me.
+
+"And your comrade, the Captain?" she asked in a dreamy tone. "I have
+not yet seen him. What is he like? Does he resemble you?"
+
+For the first time since I had entered, I thought of Morhange. I did
+not answer.
+
+Antinea smiled.
+
+She stretched herself out full length on the lion skin. Her bare right
+knee slipped out from under her tunic.
+
+"It is time to go find him," she said languidly. "You will soon
+receive my orders. Tanit-Zerga, show him the way. First take him to
+his room. He cannot have seen it."
+
+I rose and lifted her hand to my lips. She struck me with it so
+sharply as to make my lips bleed, as if to brand me as her possession.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I was in the dark corridor again. The young girl in the red silk tunic
+walked ahead of me.
+
+"Here is your room," she said. "If you wish, I will take you to the
+dining-room. The others are about to meet there for dinner."
+
+She spoke an adorable lisping French.
+
+"No, Tanit-Zerga, I would rather stay here this evening. I am not
+hungry. I am tired."
+
+"You remember my name?" she said.
+
+She seemed proud of it. I felt that in her I had an ally in case of
+need.
+
+"I remember your name, Tanit-Zerga, because it is beautiful."[12]
+
+[Footnote 12: In Berber, Tanit means a spring; zerga is the feminine of
+the adjective azreg, blue. (Note by M. Leroux.)]
+
+Then I added:
+
+"Now, leave me, little one. I want to be alone."
+
+It seemed as if she would never go. I was touched, but at the same
+time vexed. I felt a great need of withdrawing into myself.
+
+"My room is above yours," she said. "There is a copper gong on the
+table here. You have only to strike if you want anything. A white
+Targa will answer."
+
+For a second, these instructions amused me. I was in a hotel in the
+midst of the Sahara. I had only to ring for service.
+
+I looked about my room. My room! For how long?
+
+It was fairly large. Cushions, a couch, an alcove cut into the rock,
+all lighted by a great window covered by a matting shade.
+
+I went to the window and raised the shade. The light of the setting
+sun entered.
+
+I leaned my elbows on the rocky sill. Inexpressible emotion filled my
+heart. The window faced south. It was about two hundred feet above the
+ground. The black, polished volcanic wall yawned dizzily below me.
+
+In front of me, perhaps a mile and a half away, was another wall, the
+first enclosure mentioned in the Critias. And beyond it in the
+distance, I saw the limitless red desert.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+MORHANGE DISAPPEARS
+
+
+My fatigue was so great that I lay as if unconscious until the next
+day. I awoke about three o'clock in the afternoon.
+
+I thought at once of the events of the previous day; they seemed
+amazing.
+
+"Let me see," I said to myself. "Let us work this out. I must begin by
+consulting Morhange."
+
+I was ravenously hungry.
+
+The gong which Tanit-Zerga had pointed out lay within arm's reach. I
+struck it. A white Targa appeared.
+
+"Show me the way to the library," I ordered.
+
+He obeyed. As we wound our way through the labyrinth of stairs and
+corridors I realized that I could never have found my way without his
+help.
+
+Morhange was in the library, intently reading a manuscript.
+
+"A lost treatise of Saint Optat," he said. "Oh, if only Dom Granger
+were here. See, it is written in semi-uncial characters."
+
+I did not reply. My eyes were fixed on an object which lay on the
+table beside the manuscript. It was an orichalch ring, exactly like
+that which Antinea had given me the previous day and the one which she
+herself wore.
+
+Morhange smiled.
+
+"Well?" I said.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"You have seen her?"
+
+"I have indeed," Morhange replied.
+
+"She is beautiful, is she not?"
+
+"It would be difficult to dispute that," my comrade answered. "I even
+believe that I can say that she is as intelligent as she is
+beautiful."
+
+There was a pause. Morhange was calmly fingering the orichalch ring.
+
+"You know what our fate is to be?"
+
+"I know. Le Mesge explained it to us yesterday in polite mythological
+terms. This evidently is an extraordinary adventure."
+
+He was silent, then said, looking at me:
+
+"I am very sorry to have dragged you here. The only mitigating feature
+is that since last evening you seem to have been bearing your lot very
+easily."
+
+Where had Morhange learned this insight into the human heart? I did
+not reply, thus giving him the best of proofs that he had judged
+correctly.
+
+"What do you think of doing?" I finally murmured.
+
+He rolled up the manuscript, leaned back comfortably in his armchair
+and lit a cigar.
+
+"I have thought it over carefully. With the aid of my conscience I
+have marked out a line of conduct. The matter is clear and admits no
+discussion.
+
+"The question is not quite the same for me as for you, because of my
+semi-religious character, which, I admit, has set out on a rather
+doubtful adventure. To be sure, I have not taken holy orders, but,
+even aside from the fact that the ninth commandment itself forbids my
+having relations with a woman not my wife, I admit that I have no
+taste for the kind of forced servitude for which the excellent
+Cegheir-ben-Cheikh has so kindly recruited us.
+
+"That granted, the fact remains that my life is not my own with the
+right to dispose of it as might a private explorer travelling at his
+own expenses and for his own ends. I have a mission to accomplish,
+results to obtain. If I could regain my liberty by paying the singular
+ransom which this country exacts, I should consent to give
+satisfaction to Antinea according to my ability. I know the tolerance
+of the Church, and especially that of the order to which I aspire:
+such a procedure would be ratified immediately and, who knows, perhaps
+even approved? Saint Mary the Egyptian, gave her body to boatmen under
+similar circumstances. She received only glorification for it. In so
+doing she had the certainty of attaining her goal, which was holy. The
+end justified the means.
+
+"But my case is quite different. If I give in to the absurd caprices
+of this woman, that will not keep me from being catalogued down in the
+red marble hall, as Number 54, or as Number 55, if she prefers to take
+you first. Under those conditions...."
+
+"Under those conditions?"
+
+"Under those conditions, it would be unpardonable for me to
+acquiesce."
+
+"Then what do you intend to do?"
+
+"What do I intend to do?" Morhange leaned back in the armchair and
+smilingly launched a puff of smoke toward the ceiling.
+
+"Nothing," he said. "And that is all that is necessary. Man has this
+superiority over woman. He is so constructed that he can refuse
+advances."
+
+Then he added with an ironical smile:
+
+"A man cannot be forced to accept unless he wishes to."
+
+I nodded.
+
+"I tried the most subtle reasoning on Antinea," he continued. "It was
+breath wasted. 'But,' I said at the end of my arguments, 'why not Le
+Mesge?' She began to laugh. 'Why not the Reverend Spardek?' she
+replied. 'Le Mesge and Spardek are savants whom I respect. But
+
+    _Maudit soit a jamais reveur inutile,
+    Qui voulut, le premier, dans sa stupidite,
+    S'eprenant d'un probleme insoluble et sterile,
+    Aux choses de l'amour meler l'honnetete._
+
+"'Besides,' she added with that really very charming smile of hers,
+'probably you have not looked carefully at either of them.' There
+followed several compliments on my figure, to which I found nothing to
+reply, so completely had she disarmed me by those four lines from
+Baudelaire.
+
+"She condescended to explain further: 'Le Mesge is a learned gentleman
+whom I find useful. He knows Spanish and Italian, keeps my papers in
+order, and is busy working out my genealogy. The Reverend Spardek
+knows English and German. Count Bielowsky is thoroughly conversant
+with the Slavic languages. Besides, I love him like a father. He knew
+me as a child when I had not dreamed such stupid things as you know
+of me. They are indispensable to me in my relations with visitors of
+different races, although I am beginning to get along well enough in
+the languages which I need.... But I am talking a great deal, and this
+is the first time that I have ever explained my conduct. Your friend
+is not so curious.' With that, she dismissed me. A strange woman
+indeed. I think there is a bit of Renan in her but she is cleverer
+than that master of sensualism."
+
+"Gentlemen," said Le Mesge, suddenly entering the room, "why are you
+so late? They are waiting dinner for you."
+
+The little Professor was in a particularly good humor that evening. He
+wore a new violet rosette.
+
+"Well?" he said, in a mocking tone, "you have seen her?"
+
+Neither Morhange nor I replied.
+
+The Reverend Spardek and the Hetmari of Jitomir already had begun
+eating when we arrived. The setting sun threw raspberry lights on the
+cream-colored mat.
+
+"Be seated, gentlemen," said Le Mesge noisily. "Lieutenant de
+Saint-Avit, you were not with us last evening. You are about to taste
+the cooking of Koukou, our Bambara chef, for the first time. You must
+give me your opinion of it."
+
+A Negro waiter set before me a superb fish covered with a pimento
+sauce as red as tomatoes.
+
+I have explained that I was ravenously hungry. The dish was exquisite.
+The sauce immediately made me thirsty.
+
+"White Ahaggar, 1879," the Herman of Jitomir breathed in my ear as he
+filled my goblet with a clear topaz liquid. "I developed it myself:
+_rien pour la tete, tout pour les jambes_."
+
+I emptied the goblet at a gulp. The company began to seem charming.
+
+"Well, Captain Morhange," Le Mesge called out to my comrade who had
+taken a mouthful of fish, "what do you say to this acanthopterygian?
+It was caught to-day in the lake in the oasis. Do you begin to admit
+the hypothesis of the Saharan sea?"
+
+"The fish is an argument," my companion replied.
+
+Suddenly he became silent. The door had opened. A white Targa entered.
+The diners stopped talking.
+
+The veiled man walked slowly toward Morhange and touched his right
+arm.
+
+"Very well," said Morhange.
+
+He got up and followed the messenger.
+
+The pitcher of Ahaggar, 1879, stood between me and Count Bielowsky. I
+filled my goblet--a goblet which held a pint, and gulped it down.
+
+The Hetman looked at me sympathetically.
+
+"Ha, ha!" laughed Le Mesge, nudging me with his elbow. "Antinea has
+respect for the hierarchic order."
+
+The Reverend Spardek smiled modestly.
+
+"Ha, ha!" laughed Le Mesge again.
+
+My glass was empty. For a moment I was tempted to hurl it at the head
+of the Fellow in History. But what of it? I filled it and emptied it
+again.
+
+"Morhange will miss this delicious roast of mutton," said the
+Professor, more and more hilarious, as he awarded himself a thick
+slice of meat.
+
+"He won't regret it," said the Hetman crossly. "This is not roast; it
+is ram's horn. Really Koukou is beginning to make fun of us."
+
+"Blame it on the Reverend," the shrill voice of Le Mesge cut in. "I
+have told him often enough to hunt other proselytes and leave our cook
+alone."
+
+"Professor," Spardek began with dignity.
+
+"I maintain my contention," cried Le Mesge, who seemed to me to be
+getting a bit overloaded. "I call the gentleman to witness," he went
+on, turning to me. "He has just come. He is unbiased. Therefore I ask
+him: has one the right to spoil a Bambara cook by addling his head
+with theological discussions for which he has no predisposition?"
+
+"Alas!" the pastor replied sadly. "You are mistaken. He has only too
+strong a propensity to controversy."
+
+"Koukou is a good-for-nothing who uses Colas' cow as an excuse for
+doing nothing and letting our scallops burn," declared the Hetman.
+"Long live the Pope!" he cried, filling the glasses all around.
+
+"I assure you that this Bambara worries me," Spardek went on with
+great dignity. "Do you know what he has come to? He denies
+transubstantiation. He is within an inch of the heresy of Zwingli and
+Oecolampades. Koukou denies transubstantiation."
+
+"Sir," said Le Mesge, very much excited, "cooks should be left in
+peace. Jesus, whom I consider as good a theologian as you, understood
+that, and it never occurred to him to call Martha away from her oven
+to talk nonsense to her."
+
+"Exactly so," said the Hetman approvingly.
+
+He was holding a jar between his knees and trying to draw its cork.
+
+"Oh, Cotes Roties, wines from the Cote-Rotie!" he murmured to me as he
+finally succeeded. "Touch glasses."
+
+"Koukou denies transubstantiation," the pastor continued, sadly
+emptying his glass.
+
+"Eh!" said the Hetman of Jitomir in my ear, "let them talk on. Don't
+you see that they are quite drunk?"
+
+His own voice was thick. He had the greatest difficulty in the world
+in filling my goblet to the brim.
+
+I wanted to push the pitcher away. Then an idea came to me:
+
+"At this very moment, Morhange.... Whatever he may say.... She is so
+beautiful."
+
+I reached out for the glass and emptied it once more.
+
+Le Mesge and the pastor were now engaged in the most extraordinary
+religious controversy, throwing at each other's heads the Book of
+Common Prayer, The Declaration of the Rights of Man, and the
+Unigenitus. Little by little, the Hetman began to show that ascendancy
+over them, which is the characteristic of a man of the world even when
+he is thoroughly drunk; the superiority of education over instruction.
+
+Count Bielowsky had drunk five times as much as the Professor or the
+pastor. But he carried his wine ten times better.
+
+"Let us leave these drunken fellows," he said with disgust. "Come on,
+old man. Our partners are waiting in the gaming room."
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen," said the Hetman as we entered. "Permit me to
+present a new player to you, my friend, Lieutenant de Saint-Avit."
+
+"Let it go at that," he murmured in my ear. "They are the servants.
+But I like to fool myself, you see."
+
+I saw that he was very drunk indeed.
+
+The gaming room was very long and narrow. A huge table, almost level
+with the floor and surrounded with cushions on which a dozen natives
+were lying, was the chief article of furniture. Two engravings on the
+wall gave evidence of the happiest broadmindedness in taste; one of da
+Vinci's St. John the Baptist, and the _Maison des Dernieres
+Cartouches_ of Alphonse de Neuville.
+
+On the table were earthenware goblets. A heavy jar held palm liqueur.
+
+I recognized acquaintances among those present; my masseur, the
+manicure, the barber, and two or three Tuareg who had lowered their
+veils and were gravely smoking long pipes. While waiting for something
+better, all were plunged in the delights of a card game that looked
+like "rams." Two of Antinea's beautiful ladies in waiting, Aguida and
+Sydya, were among the number. Their smooth bistre skins gleamed
+beneath veils shot with silver. I was sorry not to see the red silk
+tunic of Tanit-Zerga. Again, I thought of Morhange, but only for an
+instant.
+
+"The chips, Koukou," demanded the Hetman, "We are not here to amuse
+ourselves."
+
+The Zwinglian cook placed a box of many-colored chips in front of him.
+Count Bielowsky set about counting them and arranging them in little
+piles with infinite care.
+
+"The white are worth a _louis_," he explained to me. "The red, a
+hundred francs. The yellow, five hundred. The green, a thousand. Oh,
+it's the devil of a game that we play here. You will see."
+
+"I open with ten thousand," said the Zwinglian cook.
+
+"Twelve thousand," said the Hetman.
+
+"Thirteen," said Sydya with a slow smile, as she seated herself on the
+count's knee and began to arrange her chips lovingly in little piles.
+
+"Fourteen," I said.
+
+"Fifteen," said the sharp voice of Rosita, the old manicure.
+
+"Seventeen," proclaimed the Hetman.
+
+"Twenty thousand," the cook broke in.
+
+He hammered on the table and, casting a defiant look at us, repeated:
+
+"I take it at twenty thousand."
+
+The Hetman made an impatient gesture.
+
+"That devil, Koukou! You can't do anything against the beast. You will
+have to play carefully, Lieutenant."
+
+Koukou had taken his place at the end of the table. He threw down the
+cards with an air which abashed me.
+
+"I told you so; the way it was at Anna Deslions'," the Hetman murmured
+proudly.
+
+"Make your bets, gentlemen," yelped the Negro. "Make your bets."
+
+"Wait, you beast," called Bielowsky. "Don't you see that the glasses
+are empty? Here, Cacambo."
+
+The goblets were filled immediately by the jolly masseur.
+
+"Cut," said Koukou, addressing Sydya, the beautiful Targa who sat at
+his right.
+
+The girl cut, like one who knows superstitions, with her left hand.
+But it must be said that her right was busy lifting a cup to her lips.
+I watched the curve of her beautiful throat.
+
+"My deal," said Koukou.
+
+We were thus arranged: at the left, the Hetman, Aguida, whose waist he
+had encircled with the most aristocratic freedom, Cacambo, a Tuareg
+woman, then two veiled Negroes who were watching the game intently. At
+the right, Sydya, myself, the old manicure, Rosita, Barouf, the
+barber, another woman and two white Tuareg, grave and attentive,
+exactly opposite those on the left.
+
+"Give me one," said the Hetman.
+
+Sydya made a negative gesture.
+
+Koukou drew, passed a four-spot to the Hetman, gave himself a five.
+
+"Eight," announced Bielowsky.
+
+"Six," said pretty Sydya.
+
+"Seven," broke in Koukou. "One card makes up for another," he added
+coldly.
+
+"I double," said the Hetman.
+
+Cacambo and Aguida followed his example. On our side, we were more
+careful. The manicure especially would not risk more than twenty
+francs at a time.
+
+"I demand that the cards be evened up," said Koukou imperturbably.
+
+"This fellow is unbearable," grumbled the count. "There, are you
+satisfied?"
+
+Koukou dealt and laid down a nine.
+
+"My country and my honor!" raged Bielowsky. "I had an eight."
+
+I had two kings, and so showed no ill temper. Rosita took the cards
+out of my hands.
+
+I watched Sydya at my right. Her heavy black hair covered her
+shoulders. She was really very beautiful, though a bit tipsy, as were
+all that fantastic company. She looked at me, too, but with lowered
+eyelids, like a timid little wild animal.
+
+"Oh," I thought. "She may well be afraid. I am labelled 'No
+trespassing.'"
+
+I touched her foot. She drew it back in fright.
+
+"Who wants cards?" Koukou demanded.
+
+"Not I," said the Hetman.
+
+"Served," said Sydya.
+
+The cook drew a four.
+
+"Nine," he said.
+
+"That card was meant for me," cursed the count. "And five, I had a
+five. If only I had never promised his Majesty the Emperor Napoleon II
+never to cut fives! There are times when it is hard, very hard. And
+look at that beast of a Negro who plays Charlemagne."
+
+It was true. Koukou swept in three-quarters of the chips, rose with
+dignity, and bowed to the company.
+
+"Till to-morrow, gentlemen."
+
+"Get along, the whole pack of you," howled the Hetman of Jitomir.
+"Stay with me, Lieutenant de Saint-Avit."
+
+When we were alone, he poured out another huge cupfull of liqueur. The
+ceiling of the room was lost in the gray smoke.
+
+"What time is it?" I asked.
+
+"After midnight. But you are not going to leave me like this, my dear
+boy? I am heavy-hearted."
+
+He wept bitterly. The tail of his coat spread out on the divan behind
+him like the apple-green wings of a beetle.
+
+"Isn't Aguida a beauty?" he went on, still weeping. "She makes me
+think of the Countess de Teruel, though she is a little darker. You
+know the Countess de Teruel, Mercedes, who went in bathing nude at
+Biarritz, in front of the rock of the Virgin, one day when Prince
+Bismarck was standing on the foot-bridge. You do not remember her?
+Mercedes de Teruel."
+
+I shrugged my shoulders.
+
+"I forget; you must have been too young. Two, perhaps three years old.
+A child. Yes, a child. Oh, my child, to have been of that generation
+and to be reduced to playing cards with savages ... I must tell
+you...."
+
+I stood up and pushed him off.
+
+"Stay, stay," he implored. "I will tell you everything you want to
+know, how I came here, things I have never told anyone. Stay, I must
+unbosom myself to a true friend. I will tell you everything, I repeat.
+I trust you. You are a Frenchman, a gentleman. I know that you will
+repeat nothing to her."
+
+"That I will repeat nothing to her?... To whom?"
+
+His voice stuck in his throat. I thought I saw a shudder of fear pass
+over him.
+
+"To her ... to Antinea," he murmured.
+
+I sat down again.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+THE HETMAN OF JITOMIR'S STORY
+
+
+Count Casimir had reached that stage where drunkenness takes on a kind
+of gravity, of regretfulness.
+
+He thought a little, then began his story. I regret that I cannot
+reproduce more perfectly its archaic flavor.
+
+"When the grapes begin to color in Antinea's garden, I shall be
+sixty-eight. It is very sad, my dear boy, to have sowed all your wild
+oats. It isn't true that life is always beginning over again. How
+bitter, to have known the Tuileries in 1860, and to have reached the
+point where I am now!
+
+"One evening, just before the war (I remember that Victor Black was
+still living), some charming women whose names I need not disclose (I
+read the names of their sons from time to time in the society news of
+the _Gaulois_) expressed to me their desire to rub elbows with some
+real _demi-mondaines_ of the artist quarter. I took them to a ball at
+the _Grande Chaumiere_. There was a crowd of young painters, models,
+students. In the midst of the uproar, several couples danced the
+_cancan_ till the chandeliers shook with it. We noticed especially a
+little, dark man, dressed in a miserable top-coat and checked trousers
+which assuredly knew the support of no suspenders. He was cross-eyed,
+with a wretched beard and hair as greasy as could be. He bounded and
+kicked extravagantly. The ladies called him Leon Gambetta.
+
+"What an annoyance, when I realize that I need only have felled this
+wretched lawyer with one pistol shot to have guaranteed perfect
+happiness to myself and to my adopted country, for, my dear fellow, I
+am French at heart, if not by birth.
+
+"I was born in 1829, at Warsaw, of a Polish father and a Russian
+mother. It is from her that I hold my title of Hetman of Jitomir. It
+was restored to me by Czar Alexander II on a request made to him on
+his visit to Paris, by my august master, the Emperor Napoleon III.
+
+"For political reasons, which I cannot describe without retelling the
+history of unfortunate Poland, my father, Count Bielowsky, left Warsaw
+in 1830, and went to live in London. After the death of my mother, he
+began to squander his immense fortune--from sorrow, he said. When, in
+his time, he died at the period of the Prichard affair, he left me
+barely a thousand pounds sterling of income, plus two or three systems
+of gaming, the impracticability of which I learned later.
+
+"I will never be able to think of my nineteenth and twentieth years
+without emotion, for I then completely liquidated this small
+inheritance. London was indeed an adorable spot in those days. I had a
+jolly bachelor's apartment in Piccadilly.
+
+    "'Picadilly! Shops, palaces, bustle and breeze,
+      The whirling of wheels and the murmur of trees.'
+
+"Fox hunting in a _briska_, driving a buggy in Hyde Park, the rout,
+not to mention the delightful little parties with the light Venuses of
+Drury Lane, this took all my time. All? I am unjust. There was also
+gaming, and a sentiment of filial piety forced me to verify the
+systems of the late Count, my father. It was gaming which was the
+cause of the event I must describe to you, by which my life was to be
+so strangely changed.
+
+"My friend, Lord Malmesbury, had said to me a hundred times, 'I must
+take you to see an exquisite creature who lives in Oxford Street,
+number 277, Miss Howard.' One evening I went with him. It was the
+twenty-second of February, 1848. The mistress of the house was really
+marvelously beautiful, and the guests were charming. Besides
+Malmesbury, I observed several acquaintances: Lord Clebden, Lord
+Chesterfield, Sir Francis Mountjoye, Major in the Second Life Guards,
+and Count d'Orsay. They played cards and then began to talk politics.
+Events in France played the main part in the conversation and they
+discussed endlessly the consequences of the revolt that had broken out
+in Paris that same morning, in consequence of the interdiction of the
+banquet in the 12th arrondissement, of which word had just been
+received by telegram. Up to that time, I had never bothered myself
+with public affairs. So I don't know what moved me to affirm with the
+impetuosity of my nineteen years that the news from France meant the
+Republic next day and the Empire the day after....
+
+"The company received my sally with a discreet laugh, and their looks
+were centered on a guest who made the fifth at a _bouillotte_ table
+where they had just stopped playing.
+
+"The guest smiled, too. He rose and came towards me. I observed that
+he was of middle height, perhaps even shorter, buttoned tightly into a
+blue frock coat, and that his eye had a far-off, dreamy look.
+
+"All the players watched this scene with delighted amusement.
+
+"'Whom have I the honor of addressing?' he asked in a very gentle
+voice.
+
+"'Count Bielowsky,' I answered coolly to show him that the difference
+in our ages was not sufficient to justify the interrogation.
+
+"Well, my dear Count, may your prediction indeed be realized; and I
+hope that you will not neglect the Tuileries,' said the guest in the
+blue coat, with a smile.
+
+"And he added, finally consenting to present himself:
+
+"'Prince Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte.'
+
+"I played no active role in the _coup d'etat_, and I do not regret it.
+It is a principle with me that a stranger should not meddle with the
+internal affairs of a country. The prince understood this discretion,
+and did not forget the young man who had been of such good omen to
+him.
+
+"I was one of the first whom he called to the Elysee. My fortune was
+definitely established by a defamatory note on 'Napoleon the little.'
+The next year, when Mgr. Sibour was out of the way, I was made
+Gentleman of the Chamber, and the Emperor was even so kind as to have
+me marry the daughter of the Marshal Repeto, Duke of Mondovi.
+
+"I have no scruple in announcing that this union was not what it
+should have been. The Countess, who was ten years older than I, was
+crabbed and not particularly pretty. Moreover, her family had insisted
+resolutely on a marriage portion. Now I had nothing at this time
+except the twenty-five thousand pounds for my appointment as Gentleman
+of the Chamber. A sad lot for anyone on intimate terms with the Count
+d'Orsay and the Duke of Gramont-Caderousse! Without the kindness of
+the Emperor, where would I have been?
+
+"One morning in the spring of 1852, I was in my study opening my mail.
+There was a letter from His Majesty, calling me to the Tuileries at
+four o'clock; a letter from Clementine, informing me that she expected
+me at five o'clock at her house. Clementine was the beautiful one for
+whom, just then, I was ready to commit any folly. I was so proud of
+her that, one evening at the _Maison Doree_, I flaunted her before
+Prince Metternich, who was tremendously taken with her. All the court
+envied me that conquest; and I was morally obliged to continue to
+assume its expenses. And then Clementine was so pretty! The Emperor
+himself.... The other letters, good lord, the other letters were the
+bills of the dressmakers of that young person, who, in spite of my
+discreet remonstrances, insisted on having them sent to my conjugal
+dwelling.
+
+"There were bills for something over forty thousand francs: gowns and
+ball dresses from Gagelin-Opigez, 23 Rue de Richelieu; hats and
+bonnets from Madame Alexandrine, 14 Rue d'Antin; lingerie and many
+petticoats from Madame Pauline, 100 Rue de Clery; dress trimmings and
+gloves from the _Ville de Lyon_, 6 Rue de la Chaussee d'Antin;
+foulards from the _Malle des Indes_; handkerchiefs from the _Compagnie
+Irlandaise_; laces from Ferguson; cosmetics from _Candes_.... This
+whitening cream of _Candes_, in particular, overwhelmed me with
+stupefaction. The bill showed fifty-one flasks. Six hundred and
+twenty-seven francs and fifty centimes' worth of whitening cream from
+_Candes_.... Enough to soften the skin of a squadron of a hundred
+guards!
+
+"'This can't keep on,' I said, putting the bills in my pocket.
+
+"At ten minutes to four, I crossed the wicket by the Carrousel.
+
+"In the Salon of the _aides de camp_ I happened on Bacciochi.
+
+"'The Emperor has the grippe,' he said to me. 'He is keeping to his
+room. He has given orders to have you admitted as soon as you arrive.
+Come.'
+
+"His Majesty, dressed in a braided vest and Cossack trousers, was
+meditating before a window. The pale green of the Tuileries showed
+luminously under a gentle warm shower.
+
+"'Ah! Here he is,' said Napoleon. 'Here, have a cigarette. It seems
+that you had great doings, you and Gramont-Caderousse, last evening,
+at the _Chateau de Fleurs_.'
+
+"I smiled with satisfaction.
+
+"'So Your Majesty knows already....'
+
+"'I know, I know vaguely.'
+
+"'Do you know Gramont-Caderousse's last "mot"?'
+
+"'No, but you are going to tell it to me.'
+
+"'Here goes, then. We were five or six: myself, Viel-Castel, Gramont,
+Persigny....'
+
+"'Persigny!' said the Emperor. 'He has no right to associate with
+Gramont, after all that Paris says about his wife.'
+
+"'Just so Sire. Well, Persigny was excited, no doubt about it. He
+began telling us how troubled he was because of the Duchess's
+conduct.'
+
+"'This Fialin isn't over tactful,' muttered the Emperor.
+
+"'Just so, Sire. Then, does Your Majesty know what Gramont hurled at
+him?'
+
+"'What?'
+
+"'He said to him, "_Monsieur le Duc_, I forbid you to speak ill of my
+mistress before me."
+
+"'Gramont goes too far,' said Napoleon with a dreamy smile.
+
+"'That is what we all thought, including Viel-Castel, who was
+nevertheless delighted.'
+
+"'Apropos of this,' said Napoleon after a silence, 'I have forgotten
+to ask you for news of the Countess Bielowsky.'
+
+"'She is very well, Sire, I thank Your Majesty,'
+
+"'And Clementine? Still the same dear child?'
+
+"'Always, Sire. But....'
+
+"'It seems that M. Baroche is madly in love with her.'
+
+"'I am very much honored, Sire. But this honor becomes too
+burdensome.'
+
+"I had drawn from my pocket that morning's bills and I spread them out
+under the eyes of the Emperor.
+
+"He looked at them with his distant smile.
+
+"'Come, come. If that is all, I can fix that, since I have a favor to
+ask of you.'
+
+"'I am entirely at Your Majesty's service.'
+
+"He struck a gong.
+
+"'Send for M. Mocquard.'
+
+"'I have the grippe,' he said. 'Mocquard will explain the affair to
+you.'
+
+"The Emperor's private secretary entered.
+
+"'Here is Bielowsky, Mocquard,' said Napoleon. 'You know what I want
+him to do. Explain it to him.'
+
+"And he began to tap on the window-panes against which the rain was
+beating furiously.
+
+"'My dear Count,' said Mocquard, taking a chair, 'it is very simple.
+You have doubtless heard of a young explorer of promise, M. Henry
+Duveyrier.'
+
+"I shook my head as a sign of negation, very much surprised at this
+beginning.
+
+"'M. Duveyrier,' continued Mocquard, 'has returned to Paris after a
+particularly daring trip to South Africa and the Sahara. M. Vivien de
+Saint Martin, whom I have seen recently has assured me that the
+Geographical Society intends to confer its great gold medal upon him,
+in recognition of these exploits. In the course of his trip, M.
+Duveyrier has entered into negotiations with the chief of the people
+who always have been so rebellious to His Majesty's armies, the
+Tuareg.'
+
+"I looked at the Emperor. My bewilderment was such that he began to
+laugh.
+
+"'Listen,' he said.
+
+"'M. Duveyrier,' continued Mocquard, 'was able to arrange to have a
+delegation of these chiefs come to Paris to present their respects to
+His Majesty. Very important results may arise from this visit, and His
+Excellency the Colonial Minister, does not despair of obtaining the
+signature of a treaty of commerce, reserving special advantages to our
+fellow countrymen. These chiefs, five of them, among them Sheik Otham,
+_Amenokol_ or Sultan of the Confederation of Adzjer, arrive to-morrow
+morning at the _Gare de Lyon_. M. Duveyrier will meet them. But the
+Emperor has thought that besides....'
+
+"'I thought,' said Napoleon III, delighted by my bewilderment, 'I
+thought that it was correct to have some one of the Gentlemen of my
+Chamber wait upon the arrival of these Mussulman dignitaries. That is
+why you are here, my poor Bielowsky. Don't be frightened,' he added,
+laughing harder. 'You will have M. Duveyrier with you. You are charged
+only with the special part of the reception: to accompany these
+princes to the lunch that I am giving them to-morrow at the Tuileries;
+then, in the evening, discreetly on account of their religious
+scruples, to succeed in giving them a very high idea of Parisian
+civilization, with nothing exaggerated: do not forget that in the
+Sahara they are very high religious dignitaries. In that respect, I
+have confidence in your tact and give you _carte blanche_....
+Mocquard!'
+
+"'Sire?'
+
+"'You will apportion on the budget, half to Foreign Affairs, half to
+the Colonies, the funds Count Bielowsky will need for the reception of
+the Tuareg delegation. It seems to me that a hundred thousand francs,
+to begin.... The Count has only to tell you if he is forced to exceed
+that figure.'
+
+"Clementine lived on the Rue Boccador, in a little Moorish pavilion
+that I had bought for her from M. de Lesseps. I found her in bed. When
+she saw me, she burst into tears.
+
+"'Great fools that we are!' she murmured amidst her sobs, 'what have
+we done!'
+
+"'Clementine, tell me!'
+
+"'What have we done, what have we done!' she repeated, and I felt
+against me, her floods of black hair, her warm cheek which was
+fragrant with _eau de Nanon_.
+
+"'What is it? What can it be?'
+
+"'It is....' and she murmured something in my ear.
+
+"'No!' I said, stupefied. 'Are you quite sure?'
+
+"'Am I quite sure!'
+
+"I was thunderstruck.
+
+"'You don't seem much pleased,' she said sharply.
+
+"'I did not say that.... Though, really, I am very much pleased, I
+assure you.'
+
+"'Prove it to me: let us spend the day together tomorrow.'
+
+"'To-morrow!' I stammered. 'Impossible!'
+
+"'Why?' she demanded suspiciously.
+
+"'Because to-morrow, I have to pilot the Tuareg mission about Paris.
+The Emperor's orders.'
+
+"'What bluff is this?' asked Clementine.
+
+"'I admit that nothing so much resembles a lie as the truth.'
+
+"I retold Mocquard's story to Clementine, as well as I could. She
+listened to me with an expression that said: 'you can't fool me that
+way.'
+
+"Finally, furious, I burst out:
+
+"'You can see for yourself. I am dining with them, tomorrow; and I
+invite you.'
+
+"'I shall be very pleased to come,' said Clementine with great
+dignity.
+
+"I admit that I lacked self-control at that minute. But think what a
+day it had been! Forty thousand francs of bills as soon as I woke up.
+The ordeal of escorting the savages around Paris all the next day.
+And, quite unexpectedly, the announcement of an approaching irregular
+paternity....
+
+"'After all,' I thought, as I returned to my house, 'these are the
+Emperor's orders. He has commanded me to give the Tuareg an idea of
+Parisian civilization. Clementine comports herself very well in
+society and just now it would not do to aggravate her. I will engage a
+room for to-morrow at the _Cafe de Paris_, and tell Gramont-Caderousse
+and Viel-Castel to bring their silly mistresses. It will be very
+French to enjoy the attitude of these children of the desert in the
+midst of this little party.'
+
+"The train from Marseilles arrived at 10:20. On the platform I found
+M. Duveyrier, a young man of twenty-three with blue eyes and a little
+blond beard. The Tuareg fell into his arms as they descended from the
+train. He had lived with them for two years, in their tents, the devil
+knows where. He presented me to their chief, Sheik Otham, and to four
+others, splendid fellows in their blue cotton draperies and their
+amulets of red leather. Fortunately, they all spoke a kind of
+_sabir_[13] which helped things along.
+
+[Footnote 13: Dialect spoken in Algeria and the Levant--a mixture of
+Arabian, French, Italian and Spanish.]
+
+"I only mention in passing the lunch at the Tuileries, the visits in
+the evening to the Museum, to the _Hotel de Ville_, to the Imperial
+Printing Press. Each time, the Tuareg inscribed their names in the
+registry of the place they were visiting. It was interminable. To give
+you an idea, here is the complete name of Sheik Otham alone:
+Otham-ben-el-Hadj-el-Bekri-ben-el-Hadj-el-Faqqi-ben-Mohammad-Bouya-
+ben-si-Ahmed-es-Souki-ben-Mahmoud.[14]
+
+[Footnote 14: I have succeeded in finding on the registry of the
+Imperial Printing Press the names of the Tuareg chiefs and those who
+accompanied them on their visit, M. Henry Duveyrier and the Count
+Bielowsky. (Note by M. Leroux.)]
+
+"And there were five of them like that!
+
+"I maintained my good humor, however, because on the boulevards,
+everywhere, our success was colossal. At the _Cafe de Paris_, at
+six-thirty, it amounted to frenzy. The delegation, a little drunk,
+embraced me: '_Bono, Napoleon, bono, Eugenie; bono, Casimir; bono,
+Christians_.' Gramont-Caderousse and Viel-Castel were already in booth
+number eight, with Anna Grimaldi, of the _Folies Dramatiques_, and
+Hortense Schneider, both beautiful enough to strike terror to the
+heart. But the palm was for my dear Clementine, when she entered. I
+must tell you how she was dressed: a gown of white tulle, over China
+blue tarletan, with pleatings, and ruffles of tulle over the
+pleatings. The tulle skirt was caught up on each side by garlands of
+green leaves mingled with rose clusters. Thus it formed a valence
+which allowed the tarletan skirt to show in front and on the sides.
+The garlands were caught up to the belt and, in the space between
+their branches, were knots of rose satin with long ends. The pointed
+bodice was draped with tulle, the billowy bertha of tulle was edged
+with lace. By way of head-dress, she had placed upon her black locks a
+diadem crown of the same flowers. Two long leafy tendrils were twined
+in her hair and fell on her neck. As cloak, she had a kind of scarf of
+blue cashmere embroidered in gold and lined with blue satin.
+
+"So much beauty and splendor immediately moved the Tuareg and,
+especially, Clementine's right-hand neighbor, El-Hadj-ben-Guemama,
+brother of Sheik Otham and Sultan of Ahaggar. By the time the soup
+arrived, a bouillon of wild game, seasoned with Tokay, he was already
+much smitten. When they served the compote of fruits Martinique _a la
+liqueur de Mme. Amphoux_, he showed every indication of illimitable
+passion. The Cyprian wine _de la Commanderie_ made him quite sure of
+his sentiments. Hortense kicked my foot under the table. Gramont,
+intending to do the same to Anna, made a mistake and aroused the
+indignant protests of one of the Tuareg. I can safely say that when
+the time came to go to Mabille, we were enlightened as to the manner
+in which our visitors respected the prohibition decreed by the Prophet
+in respect to wine.
+
+"At Mabille, while Clementine, Hortense, Anna, Ludovic and the three
+Tuareg gave themselves over to the wildest gallops, Sheik Otham took
+me aside and confided to me, with visible emotion, a certain
+commission with which he had just been charged by his brother, Sheik
+Ahmed.
+
+"The next day, very early, I reached Clementine's house.
+
+"'My dear,' I began, after having waked her, not without difficulty,
+'listen to me. I want to talk to you seriously.'
+
+"She rubbed her eyes a bit crossly.
+
+"'How did you like that young Arabian gentleman who was so taken with
+you last night?'
+
+"'Why, well enough,' she said, blushing.
+
+"'Do you know that in his country, he is the sovereign prince and
+reigns over territories five or six times greater than those of our
+august master, the Emperor Napoleon III?'
+
+"'He murmured something of that kind to me,' she said, becoming
+interested.
+
+"'Well, would it please you to mount on a throne, like our august
+sovereign, the Empress Eugenie?'
+
+"Clementine, looked startled.
+
+"'His own brother, Sheik Otham, has charged me in his name to make
+this offer.'
+
+"Clementine, dumb with amazement, did not reply.
+
+"'I, Empress!' she finally stammered.
+
+"'The decision rests with you. They must have your answer before
+midday. If it is 'yes,' we lunch together at Voisin's, and the bargain
+is made.'
+
+"I saw that she had already made up her mind, but she thought it well
+to display a little sentiment.
+
+"'And you, you!' she groaned. 'To leave you thus.... Never!'
+
+"'No foolishness, dear child,' I said gently. 'You don't know perhaps
+that I am ruined. Yes, completely: I don't even know how I am going to
+pay for your complexion cream!'
+
+"'Ah!' she sighed.
+
+"She added, however, 'And ... the child?'
+
+"'What child?'
+
+"'Our child ... our child.'
+
+"'Ah! That is so. Why, you will have to put it down to profit and
+loss. I am even convinced that Sheik Ahmed will find that it resembles
+him.'
+
+"'You can turn everything into a joke,' she said between laughing and
+crying.
+
+
+"The next morning, at the same hour, the Marseilles express carried
+away the five Tuareg and Clementine. The young woman, radiant, was
+leaning on the arm of Sheik Ahmed, who was beside himself with joy.
+
+"'Have you many shops in your capital?' she asked him languidly.
+
+"And he, smiling broadly under his veil, replied:
+
+"'_Besef, besef, bono, roumis, bono_.'
+
+"At the last moment, Clementine had a pang of emotion.
+
+"'Listen, Casimir, you have always been kind to me. I am going to be a
+queen. If you weary of it here, promise me, swear to me....'
+
+"The Sheik had understood. He took a ring from his finger and slipped
+it onto mine.
+
+"'Sidi Casimir, comrade,' he affirmed. 'You come--find us. Take Sidi
+Ahmed's ring and show it. Everybody at Ahaggar comrades. _Bono_
+Ahaggar, _bono_.'
+
+"When I came out of the _Gare de Lyon_, I had the feeling of having
+perpetrated an excellent joke."
+
+The Hetman of Jitomir was completely drunk. I had had the utmost
+difficulty in understanding the end of his story, because he
+interjected, every other moment, couplets from Jacques Offenbach's
+best score.
+
+    _Dans un bois passait un jeune homme,
+    Un jeune homme frais et beau,
+    Sa main tenait une pomme,
+    Vous voyez d'ici le tableau_.
+
+"Who was disagreeably surprised by the fall of Sedan? It was Casimir,
+poor old Casimir! Five thousand _louis_ to pay by the fifth of
+September, and not the first sou, no, not the first sou. I take my hat
+and my courage and go to the Tuileries. No more Emperor there, no! But
+the Empress was so kind. I found her alone--ah, people scatter quickly
+under such circumstances!--alone, with a senator, M. Merimee, the only
+literary man I have ever known who was at the same time a man of the
+world. 'Madame,' he was saying to her, 'you must give up all hope. M.
+Thiers, whom I just met on the _Pont Royal_, would listen to nothing.'
+
+"'Madame,' I said in my turn, 'Your Majesty always will know where her
+true friends are.'
+
+"And I kissed her hand.
+
+        "_Evohe, que les deesses
+        Out de droles de facons
+    Pour enjoler, pour enjoler, pour enjoler les gaaarcons_!
+
+"I returned to my home in the Rue de Lille. On the way I encountered
+the rabble going from the _Corps Legislatif_ to the Hotel de Ville. My
+mind was made up.
+
+"'Madame,' I said to my wife, 'my pistols.'
+
+"'What is the matter?' she asked, frightened.
+
+"'All is lost. But there is still a chance to preserve my honor. I am
+going to be killed on the barricades.'
+
+"'Ah! Casimir,' she sobbed, falling into my arms. 'I have misjudged
+you. Will you forgive me?'
+
+"'I forgive you, Aurelie,' I said with dignified emotion. 'I have not
+always been right myself.'
+
+"I tore myself away from this mad scene. It was six o'clock. On the
+Rue de Bac, I hailed a cab on its mad career.
+
+"'Twenty francs tip,' I said to the coachman, 'if you get to the _Gare
+de Lyon_ in time for the Marseilles train, six thirty-seven.'"
+
+The Hetman of Jitomir could say no more. He had rolled over on the
+cushions and slept with clenched fists.
+
+I walked unsteadily to the great window.
+
+The sun was rising, pale yellow, behind the sharp blue mountains.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+HOURS OF WAITING
+
+
+It was at night that Saint-Avit liked to tell me a little of his
+enthralling history. He gave it to me in short installments, exact and
+chronological, never anticipating the episodes of a drama whose tragic
+outcome I knew already. Not that he wished to obtain more effect that
+way--I felt that he was far removed from any calculation of that sort!
+Simply from the extraordinary nervousness into which he was thrown by
+recalling such memories.
+
+One evening, the mail from France had just arrived. The letters that
+Chatelain had handed us lay upon the little table, not yet opened. By
+the light of the lamp, a pale halo in the midst of the great black
+desert, we were able to recognize the writing of the addresses. Oh!
+the victorious smile of Saint-Avit when, pushing aside all those
+letters, I said to him in a trembling voice:
+
+"Go on."
+
+He acquiesced without further words.
+
+"Nothing can give you any idea of the fever I was in from the day when
+the Hetman of Jitomir told me of his adventures to the day when I
+found myself in the presence of Antinea. The strangest part was that
+the thought that I was, in a way, condemned to death, did not enter
+into this fever. On the contrary, it was stimulated by my desire for
+the event which would be the signal of my downfall, the summons from
+Antinea. But this summons was not speedy in coming. And from this
+delay, arose my unhealthy exasperation.
+
+"Did I have any lucid moments in the course of these hours? I do not
+think so. I do not recall having even said to myself, 'What, aren't
+you ashamed? Captive in an unheard of situation, you not only are not
+trying to escape, but you even bless your servitude and look forward
+to your ruin.' I did not even color my desire to remain there, to
+enjoy the next step in the adventure, by the pretext I might have
+given--unwillingness to escape without Morhange. If I felt a vague
+uneasiness at not seeing him again, it was not because of a desire to
+know that he was well and safe.
+
+"Well and safe, I knew him to be, moreover. The Tuareg slaves of
+Antinea's household were certainly not very communicative. The women
+were hardly more loquacious. I heard, it is true, from Sydya and
+Aguida, that my companion liked pomegranates or that he could not
+endure _kouskous_ of bananas. But if I asked for a different kind of
+information, they fled, in fright, down the long corridors. With
+Tanit-Zerga, it was different. This child seemed to have a distaste
+for mentioning before me anything bearing in any way upon Antinea.
+Nevertheless, I knew that she was devoted to her mistress with a
+doglike fidelity. But she maintained an obstinate silence if I
+pronounced her name or, persisting, the name of Morhange.
+
+"As for the Europeans, I did not care to question these sinister
+puppets. Besides, all three were difficult of approach. The Hetman of
+Jitomir was sinking deeper and deeper into alcohol. What intelligence
+remained to him, he seemed to have dissolved the evening when he had
+invoked his youth for me. I met him from time to time in the corridors
+that had become all at once too narrow for him, humming in a thick
+voice a couplet from the music of _La Reine Hortense_.
+
+_De ma fille Isabelle
+Sois l'epoux a l'instant,
+Car elle est la plus belle
+Et toi, le plus vaillant_.
+
+"As for Pastor Spardek, I would cheerfully have killed the old
+skinflint. And the hideous little man with the decorations, the placid
+printer of labels for the red marble hall,--how could I meet him
+without wanting to cry out in his face: 'Eh! eh! Sir Professor, a very
+curious case of apocope: [Greek: Atlantinea]. Suppression of _alpha_,
+of _tau_ and of _lambda_! I would like to direct your attention to
+another case as curious: [Greek: klementinea], Clementine. Apocope of
+_kappa_, of _lamba_, of _epsilon_ and of _mu_. If Morhange were with
+us, he would tell you many charming erudite things about it. But,
+alas! Morhange does not deign to come among us any more. We never see
+Morhange.'
+
+"My fever for information found a little more favorable reception from
+Rosita, the old Negress manicure. Never have I had my nails polished
+so often as during those days of waiting! Now--after six years--she
+must be dead. I shall not wrong her memory by recording that she was
+very partial to the bottle. The poor old soul was defenseless against
+those that I brought her and that I emptied with her, through
+politeness.
+
+"Unlike the other slaves, who are brought from the South toward Turkey
+by the merchants of Rhat, she was born in Constantinople and had been
+brought into Africa by her master when he became _kaimakam_ of
+Rhadames.... But don't let me complicate this already wandering
+history by the incantations of this manicure.
+
+"'Antinea,' she said to me, 'is the daughter of
+El-Hadj-Ahmed-ben-Guemama, Sultan of Ahaggar, and Sheik of the great
+and noble tribe of Kel-Rhela. She was born in the year twelve hundred
+and eighty-one of the Hegira. She has never wished to marry any one.
+Her wish has been respected for the will of women is sovereign in this
+Ahaggar where she rules to-day. She is a cousin of Sidi-el-Senoussi,
+and, if she speaks the word, Christian blood will flow from Djerid to
+Touat, and from Tchad to Senegal. If she had wished it, she might have
+lived beautiful and respected in the land of the Christians. But she
+prefers to have them come to her.'
+
+"'Cegheir-ben-Cheikh,' I said, 'do you know him? He is entirely
+devoted to her?'
+
+"'Nobody here knows Cegheir-ben-Cheikh very well, because he is
+continually traveling. It is true that he is entirely devoted to
+Antinea. Cegheir-ben-Cheikh is a Senoussi, and Antinea is the cousin
+of the chief of the Senoussi. Besides, he owes his life to her. He is
+one of the men who assassinated the great Kebir Flatters. On account
+of that, Ikenoukhen, _amenokol_ of the Adzjer Tuareg, fearing French
+reprisals, wanted to deliver Cegheir-ben-Cheikh to them. When the
+whole Sahara turned against him, he found asylum with Antinea.
+Cegheir-ben-Cheikh will never forget it, for he is brave and observes
+the law of the Prophet. To thank her, he led to Antinea, who was then
+twenty years old, three French officers of the first troops of
+occupation in Tunis. They are the ones who are numbered, in the red
+marble hall, 1, 2, and 3.'
+
+"'And Cegheir-ben-Cheikh has always fulfilled his duties
+successfully?'
+
+"'Cegheir-ben-Cheikh is well trained, and he knows the vast Sahara as
+I know my little room at the top of the mountain. At first, he made
+mistakes. That is how, on his first trips, he brought back old Le
+Mesge and marabout Spardek.'
+
+"'What did Antinea say when she saw them?'
+
+"'Antinea? She laughed so hard that she spared them.
+Cegheir-ben-Cheikh was vexed to see her laugh so. Since then, he has
+never made a mistake.'
+
+"'He has never made a mistake?'
+
+"'No. I have cared for the hands and feet of all that he has brought
+here. All were young and handsome. But I think that your comrade, whom
+they brought to me the other day, after you were here, is the
+handsomest of all.'
+
+"'Why,' I asked, turning the conversation, 'why, since she spared them
+their lives, did she not free the pastor and M. Le Mesge?'
+
+"'She has found them useful, it seems,' said the old woman. 'And then,
+whoever once enters here, can never leave. Otherwise, the French would
+soon be here and, when they saw the hall of red marble, they would
+massacre everybody. Besides, of all those whom Cegheir-ben-Cheikh has
+brought here, no one, save one, has wished to escape after seeing
+Antinea.'
+
+"'She keeps them a long time?'
+
+"'That depends upon them and the pleasure that she takes in them. Two
+months, three months, on the average. It depends. A big Belgian
+officer, formed like a colossus, didn't last a week. On the other
+hand, everyone here remembers little Douglas Kaine, an English
+officer: she kept him almost a year.'
+
+"'And then?'
+
+"'And then, he died,' said the old woman as if astonished at my
+question.
+
+"'Of what did he die?'
+
+"She used the same phrase as M. Le Mesge:
+
+"'Like all the others: of love.
+
+"'Of love,' she continued. "They all die of love when they see that
+their time is ended, and that Cegheir-ben-Cheikh has gone to find
+others. Several have died quietly with tears in their great eyes. They
+neither ate nor slept any more. A French naval officer went mad. All
+night, he sang a sad song of his native country, a song which echoed
+through the whole mountain. Another, a Spaniard, was as if maddened:
+he tried to bite. It was necessary to kill him. Many have died of
+_kif_, a _kif_ that is more violent than opium. When they no longer
+have Antinea, they smoke, smoke. Most have died that way ... the
+happiest. Little Kaine died differently.'
+
+"'How did little Kaine die?'
+
+"'In a way that pained us all very much. I told you that he stayed
+longer among us than anyone else. We had become used to him. In
+Antinea's room, on a little Kairouan table, painted in blue and gold,
+there is a gong with a long silver hammer with an ebony handle, very
+heavy. Aguida told me about it. When Antinea gave little Kaine his
+dismissal, smiling as she always does, he stopped in front of her,
+mute, very pale. She struck the gong for someone to take him away. A
+Targa slave came. But little Kaine had leapt for the hammer, and the
+Targa lay on the ground with his skull smashed. Antinea smiled all the
+time. They led little Kaine to his room. The same night, eluding
+guards, he jumped out of his window at a height of two hundred feet.
+The workmen in the embalming room told me that they had the greatest
+difficulty with his body. But they succeeded very well. You have only
+to go see for yourself. He occupies niche number 26 in the red marble
+hall.'
+
+"The old woman drowned her emotion in her glass.
+
+"'Two days before,' she continued, 'I had done his nails, here, for
+this was his room. On the wall, near the window, he had written
+something in the stone with his knife. See, it is still here.'
+
+"'Was it not Fate, that on this July midnight....'
+
+"At any other moment, that verse, traced in the stone of the window
+through which the English officer had hurled himself, would have
+killed me with overpowering emotion. But just then, another thought
+was in my heart.
+
+"'Tell me,' I said, controlling my voice as well as I could, 'when
+Antinea holds one of us in her power, she shuts him up near her, does
+she not? Nobody sees him any more?'
+
+The old woman shook her head.
+
+"'She is not afraid that he will escape. The mountain is well guarded.
+Antinea has only to strike her silver gong; he will be brought back to
+her immediately.'
+
+"'But my companion. I have not see him since she sent for him....'
+
+"The Negress smiled comprehendingly.
+
+"'If you have not seen him, it is because he prefers to remain near
+her. Antinea does not force him to. Neither does she prevent him.'
+
+"I struck my fist violently upon the table.
+
+"'Get along with you, old fool. And be quick about it!'
+
+"Rosita fled frightened, hardly taking time to collect her little
+instruments.
+
+"'Was it not Fate, that on this July midnight....'
+
+"I obeyed the Negress's suggestion. Following the corridors, losing my
+way, set on the right road again by the Reverend Spardek, I pushed
+open the door of the red marble hall. I entered.
+
+"The freshness of the perfumed crypt did me good. No place can be so
+sinister that it is not, as it were, purified by the murmur of running
+water. The cascade, gurgling in the middle hall, comforted me. One day
+before an attack I was lying with my section in deep grass, waiting
+for the moment, the blast of the bugle, which would demand that we
+leap forward into the hail of bullets. A stream was at my feet. I
+listened to its fresh rippling. I admired the play of light and shade
+in the transparent water, the little beasts, the little black fish,
+the green grass, the yellow wrinkled sand.... The mystery of water
+always has carried me out of myself.
+
+"Here, in this magic hall, my thoughts were held by the dark
+cascade. It felt friendly. It kept me from faltering in the midst of
+these rigid evidences of so many monstrous sacrifices.... Number 26.
+It was he all right. Lieutenant Douglas Kaine, born at Edinburgh,
+September 21, 1862. Died at Ahaggar, July 16, 1890. Twenty-eight.
+He wasn't even twenty-eight! His face was thin under the coat of
+orichalch. His mouth sad and passionate. It was certainly he. Poor
+youngster.--Edinburgh,--I knew Edinburgh, without ever having been
+there. From the wall of the castle you can see the Pentland hills.
+"Look a little lower down," said Stevenson's sweet Miss Flora to Anne
+of Saint-Yves, "look a little lower down and you will see, in the fold
+of the hill, a clump of trees and a curl of smoke that rises from
+among them. That is Swanston Cottage, where my brother and I live with
+my aunt. If it really pleases you to see it, I shall be glad." When he
+left for Darfour, Douglas Kaine must surely have left in Edinburgh a
+Miss Flora, as blonde as Saint-Yves' Flora. But what are these slips
+of girls beside Antinea! Kaine, however sensible a mortal, however
+made for this kind of love, had loved otherwise. He was dead. And here
+was number 27, on account of whom Kaine dashed himself on the rocks of
+the Sahara, and who, in his turn, is dead also.
+
+"To die, to love. How naturally the word resounded in the red marble
+hall. How Antinea seemed to tower above that circle of pale statues!
+Does love, then, need so much death in order that it may be
+multiplied? Other women, in other parts of the world, are doubtless as
+beautiful as Antinea, more beautiful perhaps. I hold you to witness
+that I have not said much about her beauty. Why then, this obsession,
+this fever, this consumption of all my being? Why am I ready, for the
+sake of pressing this quivering form within my arms for one instant,
+to face things that I dare not think of for fear I should tremble
+before them?
+
+"Here is number 53, the last. Morhange will be 54. I shall be 55. In
+six months, eight, perhaps,--what difference anyway?--I shall be
+hoisted into this niche, an image without eyes, a dead soul, a
+finished body.
+
+"I touched the heights of bliss, of exaltation that can be felt. What
+a child I was, just now! I lost my temper with a Negro manicure. I was
+jealous of Morhange, on my word! Why not, since I was at it, be
+jealous of those here present; then of the others, the absent, who
+will come, one by one, to fill the black circle of the still empty
+niches.... Morhange, I know, is at this moment with Antinea, and it is
+to me a bitter and splendid joy to think of his joy. But some evening,
+in three months, four perhaps, the embalmers will come here. Niche 54
+will receive its prey. Then a Targa slave will advance toward me. I
+shall shiver with superb ecstasy. He will touch my arm. And it will be
+my turn to penetrate into eternity by the bleeding door of love.
+
+"When I emerged from my meditation, I found myself back in the
+library, where the falling night obscured the shadows of the people
+who were assembled there.
+
+"I recognized M. Le Mesge, the Pastor, the Hetman, Aguida, two Tuareg
+slaves, still more, all joining in the most animated conference.
+
+"I drew nearer, astonished, even alarmed to see together so many
+people who ordinarily felt no kind of sympathy for each other.
+
+"An unheard of occurrence had thrown all the people of the mountain
+into uproar.
+
+"Two Spanish explorers, come from Rio de Oro, had been seen to the
+West, in Adhar Ahnet.
+
+"As soon as Cegheir-ben-Cheikh was informed, he had prepared to go to
+meet them.
+
+"At that instant he had received the order to do nothing.
+
+"Henceforth it was impossible to doubt.
+
+"For the first time, Antinea was in love."
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+THE LAMENT OF TANIT-ZERGA
+
+
+"_Arraou, arraou_."
+
+I roused myself vaguely from the half sleep to which I had finally
+succumbed. I half opened my eyes. Immediately I flattened back.
+
+"_Arraou_."
+
+Two feet from my face was the muzzle of King Hiram, yellow with a
+tracery of black. The leopard was helping me to wake up; otherwise he
+took little interest, for he yawned; his dark red jaws, beautiful
+gleaming white fangs, opened and closed lazily.
+
+At the same moment I heard a burst of laughter.
+
+It was little Tanit-Zerga. She was crouching on a cushion near the
+divan where I was stretched out, curiously watching my close interview
+with the leopard.
+
+"King Hiram was bored," she felt obliged to explain to me. "I brought
+him."
+
+"How nice," I growled. "Only tell me, could he not have gone somewhere
+else to be amused?"
+
+"He is all alone now," said the girl. "_They_ have sent him away. He
+made too much noise when he played."
+
+These words recalled me to the events of the previous evening.
+
+"If you like, I will make him go away," said Tanit-Zerga.
+
+"No, let him alone."
+
+I looked at the leopard with sympathy. Our common misfortune brought
+us together.
+
+I even caressed his rounded forehead. King Hiram showed his
+contentment by stretching out at full length and uncurling his great
+amber claws. The mat on the floor had much to suffer.
+
+"Gale is here, too," said the little girl.
+
+"Gale! Who may he be?"
+
+At the same time, I saw on Tanit-Zerga's knees a strange animal,
+about the size of a big cat, with flat ears, and a long muzzle. Its
+pale gray fur was rough.
+
+It was watching me with queer little pink eyes.
+
+"It is my mongoose," explained Tanit-Zerga.
+
+"Come now," I said sharply, "is that all?"
+
+I must have looked so crabbed and ridiculous that Tanit-Zerga began to
+laugh. I laughed, too.
+
+"Gale is my friend," she said when she was serious again. "I saved her
+life. It was when she was quite little. I will tell you about it some
+day. See how good-natured she is."
+
+So saying, she dropped the mongoose on my knees.
+
+"It is very nice of you, Tanit-Zerga," I said, "to come and pay me a
+visit." I passed my hand slowly over the animal's back. "What time is
+it now?"
+
+"A little after nine. See, the sun is already high. Let me draw the
+shade."
+
+The room was in darkness. Gale's eyes grew redder. King Hiram's became
+green.
+
+"It is very nice of you," I repeated, pursuing my idea. "I see that
+you are free to-day. You never came so early before."
+
+A shade passed over the girl's forehead.
+
+"Yes, I am free," she said, almost bitterly.
+
+I looked at Tanit-Zerga more closely. For the first time I realized
+that she was beautiful. Her hair, which she wore falling over her
+shoulders, was not so much curly as it was gently waving. Her features
+were of remarkable fineness: the nose very straight, a small mouth
+with delicate lips, a strong chin. She was not black, but copper
+colored. Her slender graceful body had nothing in common with the
+disgusting thick sausages which the carefully cared for bodies of the
+blacks become.
+
+A large circle of copper made a heavy decoration around her forehead
+and hair. She had four bracelets, still heavier, on her wrists and
+anklets, and, for clothing, a green silk tunic, slashed in points,
+braided with gold. Green, bronze, gold.
+
+"You are a Sonrhai, Tanit-Zerga?" I asked gently.
+
+She replied with almost ferocious pride:
+
+"I am a Sonrhai."
+
+"Strange little thing," I thought.
+
+Evidently this was a subject on which Tanit-Zerga did not intend the
+conversation to turn. I recalled how, almost painfully, she had
+pronounced that "they," when she had told me how they had driven away
+King Hiram.
+
+"I am a Sonrhai," she repeated. "I was born at Gao, on the Niger, the
+ancient Sonrhai capital. My fathers reigned over the great Mandingue
+Empire. You need not scorn me because I am here as a slave."
+
+In a ray of sunlight, Gale, seated on his little haunches, washed his
+shining mustaches with his forepaws; and King Hiram, stretched out on
+the mat, groaned plaintively in his sleep.
+
+"He is dreaming," said Tanit-Zerga, a finger on her lips.
+
+There was a moment of silence. Then she said:
+
+"You must be hungry. And I do not think that you will want to eat with
+the others."
+
+I did not answer.
+
+"You must eat," she continued. "If you like, I will go get something
+to eat for you and me. I will bring King Hiram's and Gale's dinner
+here, too. When you are sad, you should not stay alone."
+
+And the little green and gold fairy vanished, without waiting for my
+answer.
+
+That was how my friendship with Tanit-Zerga began. Each morning she
+came to my room with the two beasts. She rarely spoke to me of
+Antinea, and when she did, it was always indirectly. The question that
+she saw ceaselessly hovering on my lips seemed to be unbearable to
+her, and I felt her avoiding all the subjects towards which I, myself,
+dared not direct the conversation.
+
+To make sure of avoiding them, she prattled, prattled, prattled, like
+a nervous little parokeet.
+
+I was sick and this Sister of Charity in green and bronze silk tended
+me with such care as never was before. The two wild beasts, the big
+and the little, were there, each side of my couch, and, during my
+delirium, I saw their mysterious, sad eyes fixed on me.
+
+In her melodious voice, Tanit-Zerga told me wonderful stories, and
+among them, the one she thought most wonderful, the story of her life.
+
+It was not till much later, very suddenly, that I realized how far
+this little barbarian had penetrated into my own life. Wherever thou
+art at this hour, dear little girl, from whatever peaceful shores thou
+watchest my tragedy, cast a look at thy friend, pardon him for not
+having accorded thee, from the very first, the gratitude that thou
+deservedest so richly.
+
+"I remember from my childhood," she said, "the vision of a yellow and
+rose-colored sun rising through the morning mists over the smooth
+waves of a great river, 'the river where there is water,' the Niger,
+it was.... But you are not listening to me."
+
+"I am listening to you, I swear it, little Tanit-Zerga."
+
+"You are sure I am not wearying you? You want me to go on?"
+
+"Go on, little Tanit-Zerga, go on."
+
+"Well, with my little companions, of whom I was very fond, I played at
+the edge of the river where there is water, under the jujube trees,
+brothers of the _zeg-zeg_, the spines of which pierced the head of
+your prophet and which we call 'the tree of Paradise' because our
+prophet told us that under it would live those chosen of Paradise;[15]
+and which is sometimes so big, so big, that a horseman cannot traverse
+its shade in a century.
+
+[Footnote 15: The Koran, Chapter 66, verse 17. (Note by M. Leroux.)]
+
+"There we wove beautiful garlands with mimosa, the pink flowers of the
+caper bush and white cockles. Then we threw them in the green water to
+ward off evil spirits; and we laughed like mad things when a great
+snorting hippopotamus raised his swollen head and we bombarded him in
+glee until he had to plunge back again with a tremendous splash.
+
+"That was in the mornings. Then there fell on Gao the deathlike lull
+of the red siesta. When that was finished, we came back to the edge of
+the river to see the enormous crocodiles with bronze goggle-eyes creep
+along little by little, among the clouds of mosquitoes and day-flies
+on the banks, and work their way traitorously into the yellow ooze of
+the mud flats.
+
+"Then we bombarded them, as we had done the hippopotamus in the
+morning; and to fete the sun setting behind the black branches of the
+_douldouls_, we made a circle, stamping our feet, then clapping our
+hands, as we sang the Sonrhai hymn.
+
+"Such were the ordinary occupations of free little girls. But you must
+not think that we were only frivolous; and I will tell you, if you
+like, how I, who am talking to you, I saved a French chieftain who
+must be vastly greater than yourself, to judge by the number of gold
+ribbons he had on his white sleeves."
+
+"Tell me, little Tanit-Zerga," I said, my eyes elsewhere.
+
+"You have no right to smile," she said a little aggrieved, "and to pay
+no attention to me. But never mind! It is for myself that I tell these
+things, for the sake of recollection. Above Gao, the Niger makes a
+bend. There is a little promontory in the river, thickly covered with
+large gum trees. It was an evening in August and the sun was sinking.
+Not a bird in the forest but had gone to rest, motionless until the
+morning. Suddenly we heard an unfamiliar noise in the west, boum-boum,
+boum-boum, boum-baraboum, boum-boum, growing louder--boum-boum,
+boum-baraboum--and, suddenly, there was a great flight of water birds,
+aigrettes, pelicans, wild ducks and teal, which scattered over the gum
+trees, followed by a column of black smoke, which was scarcely
+flurried by the breeze that was springing up.
+
+"It was a gunboat, turning the point, sending out a wake that shook
+the overhanging bushes on each side of the river. One could see that
+the red, white and blue flag on the stern had drooped till it was
+dragging in the water, so heavy was the evening.
+
+"She stopped at the little point of land. A small boat was let down,
+manned by two native soldiers who rowed, and three chiefs who soon
+leapt ashore.
+
+"The oldest, a French _marabout_, with a great white burnous, who knew
+our language marvelously, asked to speak to Sheik Sonni-Azkia. When my
+father advanced and told him that it was he, the _marabout_ told him
+that the commandant of the Club at Timbuctoo was very angry, that a
+mile from there the gunboat had run on an invisible pile of logs, that
+she had sprung a leak and that she could not so continue her voyage
+towards Ansango.
+
+"My father replied that the French who protected the poor natives
+against the Tuareg were welcome: that it was not from evil design, but
+for fish that they had built the barrage, and that he put all the
+resources of Gao, including the forge, at the disposition of the
+French chief, for repairing the gunboat.
+
+"While they were talking, the French chief looked at me and I looked
+at him. He was already middle-aged, tall, with shoulders a little
+bent, and blue eyes as clear as the stream whose name I bear.
+
+"'Come here, little one,' he said in his gentle voice.
+
+"'I am the daughter of Sheik Sonni-Azkia, and I do only what I wish,'
+I replied, vexed at his informality.
+
+"'You are right,' he answered smiling, 'for you are pretty. Will you
+give me the flowers that you have around your neck?'
+
+"It was a great necklace of purple hibiscus. I held it out to him. He
+kissed me. The peace was made.
+
+"Meantime, under the direction of my father, the native soldiers and
+strong men of the tribe had hauled the gunboat into a pocket of the
+river.
+
+"'There is work there for all day to-morrow, Colonel,' said the chief
+mechanic, after inspecting the leaks. 'We won't be able to get away
+before the day after to-morrow. And, if we're to do that, these lazy
+soldiers mustn't loaf on the job.'
+
+"'What an awful bore,' groaned my new friend.
+
+"But his ill-humor did not last long, so ardently did my little
+companions and I seek to distract him. He listened to our most
+beautiful songs; and, to thank us, made us taste the good things that
+had been brought from the boat for his dinner. He slept in our great
+cabin, which my father gave up to him; and for a long time, before I
+went to sleep, I looked through the cracks of the cabin where I lay
+with my mother, at the lights of the gunboat trembling in red ripples
+on the surface of the dark waves.
+
+"That night, I had a frightful dream. I saw my friend, the French
+officer, sleeping in peace, while a great crow hung croaking above his
+head: 'Caw,--caw--the shade of the gum trees of Gao--caw, caw--will
+avail nothing tomorrow night--caw, caw--to the white chief nor to his
+escort.'
+
+"Dawn had scarcely begun, when I went to find the native soldiers.
+They were stretched out on the bridge of the gunboat, taking advantage
+of the fact that the whites were still sleeping, to do nothing.
+
+"I approached the oldest one and spoke to him with authority:
+
+'Listen, I saw the black crow in a dream last night. He told me that
+the shade of the gum trees of Gao would be fatal to your chief in the
+coming night!...'
+
+"And, as they all remained motionless, stretched out, gazing at the
+sky, without even seeming to have heard, I added:
+
+"'And to his escort!'
+
+"It was the hour when the sun was highest, and the Colonel was eating
+in the cabin with the other Frenchmen, when the chief mechanic
+entered.
+
+"'I don't know what has come over the natives. They are working like
+angels. If they keep on this way, Colonel, we shall be able to leave
+this evening.'
+
+"'Very good,' said the Colonel, 'but don't let them spoil the job by
+too much haste. We don't have to be at Ansango before the end of the
+week. It will be better to start in the morning.'
+
+"I trembled. Suppliantly I approached and told him the story of my
+dream. He listened with a smile of astonishment; then, at the last, he
+said gravely:
+
+"'It is agreed, little Tanit-Zerga. We will leave this evening if you
+wish it.'
+
+"And he kissed me.
+
+"The darkness had already fallen when the gunboat, now repaired, left
+the harbor. My friend stood in the midst of the group of Frenchmen who
+waved their caps as long as we could see them. Standing alone on the
+rickety jetty, I waited, watching the water flow by, until the last
+sound of the steam-driven vessel, boum-baraboum, had died away into
+the night."[16]
+
+[Footnote 16: Cf. the records and the _Bulletin de la Societe de
+Geographie de Paris_ (1897) for the cruises on the Niger, made by the
+_Commandant_ of the Timbuctoo region, Colonel Joffre, Lieutenants
+Baudry and Bluset, and by Father Hacquart of the White Fathers. (Note
+by M. Leroux.)]
+
+Tanit-Zerga paused.
+
+"That was the last night of Gao. While I was sleeping and the moon was
+still high above the forest, a dog yelped, but only for an instant.
+Then came the cry of men, then of women, the kind of cry that you can
+never forget if you have once heard it. When the sun rose, it found
+me, quite naked, running and stumbling towards the north with my
+little companions, beside the swiftly moving camels of the Tuareg who
+escorted us. Behind, followed the women of the tribe, my mother among
+them, two by two, the yoke upon their necks. There were not many men.
+Almost all lay with their throats cut under the ruins of the thatch of
+Gao beside my father, brave Sonni-Azkia. Once again Gao had been razed
+by a band of Awellimiden, who had come to massacre the French on their
+gunboat.
+
+"The Tuareg hurried us, hurried us, for they were afraid of being
+pursued. We traveled thus for ten days; and, as the millet and hemp
+disappeared, the march became more frightful. Finally, near Isakeryen,
+in the country of Kidal, the Tuareg sold us to a caravan of Trarzan
+Moors who were going from Bamrouk to Rhat. At first, because they went
+more slowly, it seemed good fortune. But, before long, the desert was
+an expanse of rough pebbles, and the women began to fall. As for the
+men, the last of them had died far back under the blows of the stick
+for having refused to go farther.
+
+"I still had the strength to keep going, and even as far in the lead
+as possible, so as not to hear the cries of my little playmates. Each
+time one of them fell by the way, unable to rise again, they saw one
+of the drivers descend from his camel and drag her into the bushes a
+little way to cut her throat. But one day, I heard a cry that made me
+turn around. It was my mother. She was kneeling, holding out her poor
+arms to me. In an instant I was beside her. But a great Moor, dressed
+in white, separated us. A red moroccan case hung around his neck from
+a black chaplet. He drew a cutlass from it. I can still see the blue
+steel on the brown skin. Another horrible cry. An instant later,
+driven by a club, I was trotting ahead, swallowing my little tears,
+trying to regain my place in the caravan.
+
+"Near the wells of Asiou, the Moors were attacked by a party of Tuareg
+of Kel-Tazeholet, serfs of the great tribe of Kel-Rhela, which rules
+over Ahaggar. They, in their turn, were massacred to the last man.
+That is how I was brought here, and offered as homage to Antinea, who
+was pleased with me and ever since has been kind to me. That is why it
+is no slave who soothes your fever to-day with stories that you do not
+even listen to, but the last descendant of the great Sonrhai Emperors,
+of Sonni-Ali, the destroyer of men and of countries, of Mohammed
+Azkia, who made the pilgrimage to Mecca, taking with him fifteen
+hundred cavaliers and three hundred thousand _mithkal_ of gold in the
+days when our power stretched without rival from Chad to Touat and to
+the western sea, and when Gao raised her cupola, sister of the sky,
+above the other cities, higher above her rival cupolas than is the
+tamarisk above the humble plants of sorghum."
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+THE SILVER HAMMER
+
+    _Je ne m'en defends plus et je ne veux qu' aller
+    Reconnaitre la place ou je dois l'immoler_.
+                                      (Andromaque.)
+
+
+It was this sort of a night when what I am going to tell you now
+happened. Toward five o'clock the sky clouded over and a sense of the
+coming storm trembled in the stifling air.
+
+I shall always remember it. It was the fifth of January, 1897.
+
+King Hiram and Gale lay heavily on the matting of my room. Leaning on
+my elbows beside Tanit-Zerga in the rock-hewn window, I spied the
+advance tremors of lightning.
+
+One by one they rose, streaking the now total darkness with their
+bluish stripes. But no burst of thunder followed. The storm did not
+attain the peaks of Ahaggar. It passed without breaking, leaving us in
+our gloomy bath of sweat.
+
+"I am going to bed," said Tanit-Zerga.
+
+I have said that her room was above mine. Its bay window was some
+thirty feet above that before which I lay.
+
+She took Gale in her arms. But King Hiram would have none of it.
+Digging his four paws into the matting, he whined in anger and
+uneasiness.
+
+"Leave him," I finally said to Tanit-Zerga. "For once he may sleep
+here."
+
+So it was that this little beast incurred his large share of
+responsibility in the events which followed.
+
+Left alone, I became lost in my reflections. The night was black. The
+whole mountain was shrouded in silence.
+
+It took the louder and louder growls of the leopard to rouse me from
+my meditation.
+
+King Hiram was braced against the door, digging at it with his drawn
+claws. He, who had refused to follow Tanit-Zerga a while ago, now
+wanted to go out. He was determined to go out.
+
+"Be still," I said to him. "Enough of that. Lie down!"
+
+I tried to pull him away from the door.
+
+I succeeded only in getting a staggering blow from his paw.
+
+Then I sat down on the divan.
+
+My quiet was short. "Be honest with yourself," I said. "Since Morhange
+abandoned you, since the day when you saw Antinea, you have had only
+one idea. What good is it to beguile yourself with the stories of
+Tanit-Zerga, charming as they are? This leopard is a pretext, perhaps
+a guide. Oh, you know that mysterious things are going to happen
+tonight. How have you been able to keep from doing anything as long as
+this?"
+
+Immediately I made a resolve.
+
+"If I open the door," I thought, "King Hiram will leap down the
+corridor and I shall have great difficulty in following him. I must
+find some other way."
+
+The shade of the window was worked by means of a small cord. I pulled
+it down. Then I tied it into a firm leash which I fastened to the
+metal collar of the leopard.
+
+I half opened the door.
+
+"There, now you can go. But quietly, quietly."
+
+I had all the trouble in the world to curb the ardor of King Hiram who
+dragged me along the shadowy labyrinth of corridors. It was shortly
+before nine o'clock, and the rose-colored night lights were almost
+burned out in the niches. Now and then, we passed one which was
+casting its last flickers. What a labyrinth! I realized that from here
+on I would not recognize the way to her room. I could only follow the
+leopard.
+
+At first furious, he gradually became used to towing me. He strained
+ahead, belly to the ground, with snuffs of joy.
+
+Nothing is more like one black corridor than another black corridor.
+Doubt seized me. Suppose I should suddenly find myself in the baccarat
+room! But that was unjust to King Hiram. Barred too long from the dear
+presence, the good beast was taking me exactly where I wanted him to
+take me.
+
+Suddenly, at a turn, the darkness ahead lifted. A rose window, faintly
+glimmering red and green, appeared before us.
+
+The leopard stopped with a low growl before the door in which the rose
+window was cut.
+
+I recognized it as the door through which the white Targa had led me
+the day after my arrival, when I had been set upon by King Hiram, when
+I had found myself in the presence of Antinea.
+
+"We are much better friends to-day," I said, flattering him so that he
+would not give a dangerously loud growl.
+
+I tried to open the door. The light, coming through the window, fell
+upon the floor, green and red.
+
+A simple latch, which I turned. I shortened the leash to have better
+control of King Hiram who was getting nervous.
+
+The great room where I had seen Antinea for the first time was
+completely dark. But the garden on which it gave shone under a
+clouded moon, in a sky weighted down with the storm which did not
+break. Not a breath of air. The lake gleamed like a sheet of pewter.
+
+I seated myself on a cushion, holding the leopard firmly between my
+knees. He was purring with impatience. I was thinking. Not about my
+goal. For a long time that had been fixed. But about the means.
+
+Then, I seemed to hear a distant murmur, a faint sound of voices.
+
+King Hiram growled louder, struggled. I gave him a little more leash.
+He began to rub along the dark walls on the sides whence the voices
+seemed to come. I followed him, stumbling as quietly as I could among
+the scattered cushions.
+
+My eyes, become accustomed to the darkness, could see the pyramid of
+cushions on which Antinea had first appeared to me.
+
+Suddenly I stumbled. The leopard had stopped. I realized that I had
+stepped on his tail. Brave beast, he did not make a sound.
+
+Groping along the wall, I felt a second door. Quietly, very quietly, I
+opened it as I had opened the preceding one. The leopard whimpered
+feebly.
+
+"King Hiram," I murmured, "be quiet."
+
+And I put my arms about his powerful neck.
+
+I felt his warm wet tongue on my hands. His flanks quivered. He shook
+with happiness.
+
+In front of us, lighted in the center, another room opened up. In the
+middle six men were squatting on the matting, playing dice and
+drinking coffee from tiny copper coffee cups with long stems.
+
+They were the white Tuareg.
+
+A lamp, hung from the ceiling, threw a circle of light over them.
+Everything outside that circle was in deep shadow.
+
+The black faces, the copper cups, the white robes, the moving light
+and shadow, made a strange etching.
+
+They played with a reserved dignity, announcing the throws in raucous
+voices.
+
+Then, slowly, very slowly, I slipped the leash from the collar of the
+impatient little beast.
+
+"Go, boy."
+
+He leapt with a sharp yelp.
+
+And what I had foreseen happened.
+
+The first bound of King Hiram carried him into the midst of the white
+Tuareg, sowing confusion in the bodyguard. Another leap carried him
+into the shadow again. I made out vaguely the shaded opening of
+another corridor on the side of the room opposite where I was
+standing.
+
+"There!" I thought.
+
+The confusion in the room was indescribable, but noiseless. One
+realized the restraint which nearness to a great presence imposed upon
+the exasperated guards. The stakes and the dice-boxes had rolled in
+one direction, the copper cups, in the other.
+
+Two of the Tuareg, doubled up with pain, were rubbing their ribs with
+low oaths.
+
+I need not say that I profited by this silent confusion to glide into
+the room. I was now flattened against the wall of the second corridor,
+down which King Hiram had just disappeared.
+
+At that moment a clear gong echoed in the silence. The trembling which
+seized the Tuareg assured me that I had chosen the right way.
+
+One of the six men got up. He passed me and I fell in behind him. I
+was perfectly calm. My least movement was perfectly calculated.
+
+"All that I risk here now," I said to myself, "is being led back
+politely to my room."
+
+The Targa lifted a curtain. I followed on his heels into the chamber
+of Antinea.
+
+The room was huge and at once well lighted and very dark. While the
+right half, where Antinea was, gleamed under shaded lamps, the left
+was dim.
+
+Those who have penetrated into a Mussulman home know what a _guignol_
+is, a kind of square niche in the wall, four feet from the floor, its
+opening covered by a curtain. One mounts to it by wooden steps. I
+noticed such a _guignol_ at my left. I crept into it. My pulses beat
+in the shadow. But I was calm, quite calm.
+
+There I could see and hear everything.
+
+I was in Antinea's chamber. There was nothing singular about the room,
+except the great luxury of the hangings. The ceiling was in shadow,
+but multicolored lanterns cast a vague and gentle light over gleaming
+stuffs and furs.
+
+Antinea was stretched out on a lion's skin, smoking. A little silver
+tray and pitcher lay beside her. King Hiram was flattened out at her
+feet, licking them madly.
+
+The Targa slave stood rigid before her, one hand on his heart, the
+other on his forehead, saluting.
+
+Antinea spoke in a hard voice, without looking at the man.
+
+"Why did you let the leopard pass? I told you that I wanted to be
+alone."
+
+"He knocked us over, mistress," said the Targa humbly.
+
+"The doors were not closed, then?"
+
+The slave did not answer.
+
+"Shall I take him away?" he asked.
+
+And his eyes, fastened upon King Hiram who stared at him maliciously,
+expressed well enough his desire for a negative reply.
+
+"Let him stay since he is here," said Antinea.
+
+She tapped nervously on the little silver tray.
+
+"What is the captain doing?" she asked.
+
+"He dined a while ago and seemed to enjoy his food," the Targa
+answered.
+
+"Has he said nothing?"
+
+"Yes, he asked to see his companion, the other officer."
+
+Antinea tapped the little tray still more rapidly.
+
+"Did he say nothing else?"
+
+"No, mistress," said the man.
+
+A pallor overspread the Atlantide's little forehead.
+
+"Go get him," she said brusquely.
+
+Bowing, the Targa left the room.
+
+I listened to this dialogue with great anxiety. Was this Morhange? Had
+he been faithful to me, after all? Had I suspected him unjustly? He
+had wanted to see me and been unable to!
+
+My eyes never left Antinea's.
+
+She was no longer the haughty, mocking princess of our first
+interview. She no longer wore the golden circlet on her forehead. Not
+a bracelet, not a ring. She was dressed only in a full flowing tunic.
+Her black hair, unbound, lay in masses of ebony over her slight
+shoulders and her bare arms.
+
+Her beautiful eyes were deep circled. Her divine mouth drooped. I did
+not know whether I was glad or sorry to see this new quivering
+Cleopatra.
+
+Flattened at her feet, King Hiram gazed submissively at her.
+
+An immense orichalch mirror with golden reflections was set into the
+wall at the right. Suddenly she raised herself erect before it. I saw
+her nude.
+
+A splendid and bitter sight!--A woman who thinks herself alone,
+standing before her mirror in expectation of the man she wishes to
+subdue!
+
+The six incense-burners scattered about the room sent up invisible
+columns of perfume. The balsam spices of Arabia wore floating webs in
+which my shameless senses were entangled.... And, back toward me,
+standing straight as a lily, Antinea smiled into her mirror.
+
+Low steps sounded in the corridor. Antinea immediately fell back into
+the nonchalant pose in which I had first seen her. One had to see such
+a transformation to believe it possible.
+
+Morhange entered the room, preceded by a white Targa.
+
+He, too, seemed rather pale. But I was most struck by the expression
+of serene peace on that face which I thought I knew so well. I felt
+that I never had understood what manner of man Morhange was, never.
+
+He stood erect before Antinea without seeming to notice her gesture
+inviting him to be seated.
+
+She smiled at him.
+
+"You are surprised, perhaps," she said finally, "that I should send
+for you at so late an hour."
+
+Morhange did not move an eyelash.
+
+"Have you considered it well?" she demanded.
+
+Morhange smiled gravely, but did not reply.
+
+I could read in Antinea's face the effort it cost her to continue
+smiling; I admired the self-control of these two beings.
+
+"I sent for you," she continued. "You do not guess why?... Well, it is
+to tell you something that you do not expect. It will be no surprise
+to you if I say that I never met a man like you. During your
+captivity, you have expressed only one wish. Do you recall it?"
+
+"I asked your permission to see my friend before I died," said
+Morhange simply.
+
+I do not know what stirred me more on hearing these words: delight at
+Morhange's formal tone in speaking to Antinea, or emotion at hearing
+the one wish he had expressed.
+
+But Antinea continued calmly:
+
+"That is why I sent for you--to tell you that you are going to see him
+again. And I am going to do something else. You will perhaps scorn me
+even more when you realize that you had only to oppose me to bend me
+to your will--I, who have bent all other wills to mine. But, however
+that may be, it is decided: I give you both your liberty. Tomorrow
+Cegheir-ben-Cheikh will lead you past the fifth enclosure. Are you
+satisfied?"
+
+"I am," said Morhange with a mocking smile.
+
+"That will give me a chance," he continued, "to make better plans for
+the next trip I intend to make this way. For you need not doubt that I
+shall feel bound to return to express my gratitude. Only, next time,
+to render so great a queen the honors due her, I shall ask my
+government to furnish me with two or three hundred European soldiers
+and several cannon."
+
+Antinea was standing up, very pale.
+
+"What are you saying?"
+
+"I am saying," said Morhange coldly, "that I foresaw this. First
+threats, then promises."
+
+Antinea stepped toward him. He had folded his arms. He looked at her
+with a sort of grave pity.
+
+"I will make you die in the most atrocious agonies," she said finally.
+
+"I am your prisoner," Morhange replied.
+
+"You shall suffer things that you cannot even imagine."
+
+"I am your prisoner," repeated Morhange in the same sad calm.
+
+Antinea paced the room like a beast in a cage. She advanced toward my
+companion and, no longer mistress of herself, struck him in the face.
+
+He smiled and caught hold of her, drawing her little wrists together
+with a strange mixture of force and gentleness.
+
+King Hiram growled. I thought he was about to leap. But the cold eyes
+of Morhange held him fascinated.
+
+"I will have your comrade killed before your eyes," gasped Antinea.
+
+It seemed to me that Morhange paled, but only for a second. I was
+overcome by the nobility and insight of his reply.
+
+"My companion is brave. He does not fear death. And, in any case, he
+would prefer death to life purchased at the price you name."
+
+So saying, he let go Antinea's wrists. Her pallor was terrible. From
+the expression of her mouth I felt that this would be her last word to
+him.
+
+"Listen," she said.
+
+How beautiful she was, in her scorned majesty, her beauty powerless
+for the first time!
+
+"Listen," she continued. "Listen. For the last time. Remember that I
+hold the gates of this palace, that I have supreme power over your
+life. Remember that you breathe only at my pleasure. Remember...."
+
+"I have remembered all that," said Morhange.
+
+"A last time," she repeated.
+
+The serenity of Morhange's face was so powerful that I scarcely
+noticed his opponent. In that transfigured countenance, no trace of
+worldliness remained.
+
+"A last time," came Antinea's voice, almost breaking.
+
+Morhange was not even looking at her.
+
+"As you will," she said.
+
+Her gong resounded. She had struck the silver disc. The white Targa
+appeared.
+
+"Leave the room!"
+
+Morhange, his head held high, went out.
+
+Now Antinea is in my arms. This is no haughty, voluptuous woman whom
+I am pressing to my heart. It is only an unhappy, scorned little girl.
+
+So great was her trouble that she showed no surprise when I stepped
+out beside her. Her head is on my shoulder. Like the crescent moon in
+the black clouds, I see her clear little bird-like profile amid her
+mass of hair. Her warm arms hold me convulsively.... _O tremblant
+coeur humain_....
+
+Who could resist such an embrace, amid the soft perfumes, in the
+langorous night? I feel myself a being without will. Is this my voice,
+the voice which is murmuring:
+
+"Ask me what you will, and I will do it, I will do it."
+
+My senses are sharpened, tenfold keen. My head rests against a soft,
+nervous little knee. Clouds of odors whirl about me. Suddenly it seems
+as if the golden lanterns are waving from the ceiling like giant
+censers. Is this my voice, the voice repeating in a dream:
+
+"Ask me what you will, and I will do it. I will do it."
+
+Antinea's face is almost touching mine. A strange light flickers in
+her great eyes.
+
+Beyond, I see the gleaming eyes of King Hiram. Beside him, there is a
+little table of Kairouan, blue and gold. On that table I see the gong
+with which Antinea summons the slaves. I see the hammer with which she
+struck it just now, a hammer with a long ebony handle, a heavy silver
+head ... the hammer with which little Lieutenant Kaine dealt death....
+
+I see nothing more....
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+THE MAIDENS OF THE ROCKS
+
+
+I awakened in my room. The sun, already at its zenith, filled the
+place with unbearable light and heat.
+
+The first thing I saw, on opening my eyes, was the shade, ripped down,
+lying in the middle of the floor. Then, confusedly, the night's events
+began to come back to me.
+
+My head felt stupid and heavy. My mind wandered. My memory seemed
+blocked. "I went out with the leopard, that is certain. That red mark
+on my forefinger shows how he strained at the leash. My knees are
+still dusty. I remember creeping along the wall in the room where the
+white Tuareg were playing at dice. That was the minute after King
+Hiram had leapt past them. After that ... oh, Morhange and Antinea....
+And then?"
+
+I recalled nothing more. I recalled nothing more. But something must
+have happened, something which I could not remember.
+
+I was uneasy. I wanted to go back, yet it seemed as if I were afraid
+to go. I have never felt anything more painful than those conflicting
+emotions.
+
+"It is a long way from here to Antinea's apartments. I must have been
+very sound asleep not to have noticed when they brought me back--for
+they have brought me back."
+
+I stopped trying to think it out. My head ached too much.
+
+"I must have air," I murmured. "I am roasting here; it will drive me
+mad."
+
+I had to see someone, no matter whom. Mechanically, I walked toward
+the library.
+
+I found M. Le Mesge in a transport of delirious joy. The Professor was
+engaged in opening an enormous bale, carefully sewed in a brown
+blanket.
+
+"You come at a good time, sir," he cried, on seeing me enter. "The
+magazines have just arrived."
+
+He dashed about in feverish haste. Presently a stream of pamphlets and
+magazines, blue, green, yellow and salmon, was bursting from an
+opening in the bale.
+
+"Splendid, splendid!" he cried, dancing with joy. "Not too late,
+either; here are the numbers for October fifteenth. We must give a
+vote of thanks to good Ameur."
+
+His good spirits were contagious.
+
+"There is a good Turkish merchant who subscribes to all the
+interesting magazines of the two continents. He sends them on by
+Rhadames to a destination which he little suspects. Ah, here are the
+French ones."
+
+M. Le Mesge ran feverishly over, the tables of contents.
+
+"Internal politics: articles by Francis Charmes, Anatole
+Leroy-Beaulieu, d'Haussonville on the Czar's trip to Paris. Look, a
+study by Avenel of wages in the Middle Ages. And verse, verses of the
+young poets, Fernand Gregh, Edmond Haraucourt. Ah, the resume of a
+book by Henry de Castries on Islam. That may be interesting.... Take
+what you please."
+
+Joy makes people amiable and M. Le Mesge was really delirious with it.
+
+A puff of breeze came from the window. I went to the balustrade and,
+resting my elbows on it, began to run through a number of the _Revue
+des Deux Mondes_.
+
+I did not read, but flipped over the pages, my eyes now on the lines
+of swarming little black characters, now on the rocky basin which lay
+shivering, pale pink, under the declining sun.
+
+Suddenly my attention became fixed. There was a strange coincidence
+between the text and the landscape.
+
+"In the sky overhead were only light shreds of cloud, like bits of
+white ash floating up from burnt-out logs. The sun fell over a circle
+of rocky peaks, silhouetting their severe lines against the azure sky.
+From on high, a great sadness and gentleness poured down into the
+lonely enclosure, like a magic drink into a deep cup...."[17]
+
+[Footnote 17: Gabrielle d'Annunzio: _Les Vierges aux Rochers_. Cf. The
+_Revue des Deux Mondes_ of October 15, 1896; page 867.]
+
+I turned the pages feverishly. My mind seemed to be clearing.
+
+Behind me, M. Le Mesge, deep in an article, voiced his opinions in
+indignant growls.
+
+I continued reading:
+
+"On all sides a magnificent view spread out before us in the raw
+light. The chain of rocks, clearly visible in their barren desolation
+which stretched to the very summit, lay stretched out like some great
+heap of gigantic, unformed things left by some primordial race of
+Titans to stupefy human beings. Overturned towers...."
+
+"It is shameful, downright shameful," the Professor was repeating.
+
+"Overturned towers, crumbling citadels, cupolas fallen in, broken
+pillars, mutilated colossi, prows of vessels, thighs of monsters,
+bones of titans,--this mass, impassable with its ridges and gullies,
+seemed the embodiment of everything huge and tragic. So clear were the
+distances...."
+
+"Downright shameful," M. Le Mesge kept on saying in exasperation,
+thumping his fist on the table.
+
+"So clear were the distances that I could see, as if I had it under my
+eyes, infinitely enlarged, every contour of the rock which Violante
+had shown me through the window with the gesture of a creator...."
+
+Trembling, I closed the magazine. At my feet, now red, I saw the rock
+which Antinea had pointed out to me the day of our first interview,
+huge, steep, overhanging the reddish brown garden.
+
+"That is my horizon," she had said.
+
+M. Le Mesge's excitement had passed all bounds.
+
+"It is worse than shameful; it is infamous."
+
+I almost wanted to strangle him into silence. He seized my arm.
+
+"Read that, sir; and, although you don't know a great deal about the
+subject, you will see that this article on Roman Africa is a miracle
+of misinformation, a monument of ignorance. And it is signed ... do
+you know by whom it is signed?"
+
+"Leave me alone," I said brutally.
+
+"Well, it is signed Gaston Boissier. Yes, sir! Gaston Boissier, grand
+officer of the Legion of Honor, lecturer at the _Ecole Normale
+Superieure_, permanent secretary of the French Academy, member of the
+Academy of Inscriptions and Literature, one of those who once ruled
+out the subject of my thesis ... one of those ... ah, poor university,
+ah, poor France!"
+
+I was no longer listening. I had begun to read again. My forehead was
+covered with sweat. But it seemed as if my head had been cleared like
+a room when a window is opened; memories were beginning to come back
+like doves winging their way home to the dovecote.
+
+"At that moment, an irrepressible tremor shook her whole body; her
+eyes dilated as if some terrible sight had filled them with horror.
+
+"'Antonello,' she murmured.
+
+"And for seconds, she was unable to say another word.
+
+"I looked at her in mute anguish and the suffering which drew her dear
+lips together seemed also to clutch at my heart. The vision which was
+in her eyes passed into mine, and I saw again the thin white face of
+Antonello, and the quick quivering of his eyelids, the waves of agony
+which seized his long worn body and shook it like a reed."
+
+I threw the magazine upon the table.
+
+"That is it," I said.
+
+To cut the pages, I had used the knife with which M. Le Mesge had cut
+the cords of the bale, a short ebony-handled dagger, one of those
+daggers that the Tuareg wear in a bracelet sheath against the upper
+left arm.
+
+I slipped it into the big pocket of my flannel dolman and walked
+toward the door.
+
+I was about to cross the threshold when I heard M. Le Mesge call me.
+
+"Monsieur de Saint Avit! Monsieur de Saint Avit!
+
+"I want to ask you something, please."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Nothing important. You know that I have to mark the labels for the
+red marble hall...."
+
+I walked toward the table.
+
+"Well, I forgot to ask M. Morhange, at the beginning, the date and
+place of his birth. After that, I had no chance. I did not see him
+again. So I am forced to turn to you. Perhaps you can tell me?"
+
+"I can," I said very calmly.
+
+He took a large white card from a box which contained several and
+dipped his pen.
+
+"Number 54 ... Captain?"
+
+"Captain Jean-Marie-Francois Morhange."
+
+While I dictated, one hand resting on the table, I noticed on my cuff
+a stain, a little stain, reddish brown.
+
+"Morhange," repeated M. Le Mesge, finishing the lettering of my
+friend's name. "Born at...?"
+
+"Villefranche."
+
+"Villefranche, Rhone. What date?"
+
+"The fourteenth of October, 1859."
+
+"The fourteenth of October, 1859. Good. Died at Ahaggar, the fifth of
+January, 1897.... There, that is done. A thousand thanks, sir, for
+your kindness."
+
+"You are welcome."
+
+I left M. Le Mesge.
+
+My mind, thenceforth, was well made up; and, as I said, I was
+perfectly calm. Nevertheless, when I had taken leave of M. Le Mesge, I
+felt the need of waiting a few minutes before executing my decision.
+
+First I wandered through the corridors; then, finding myself near my
+room, I went to it. It was still intolerably hot. I sat down on my
+divan and began to think.
+
+The dagger in my pocket bothered me. I took it out and laid it on the
+floor.
+
+It was a good dagger, with a diamond-shaped blade, and with a collar
+of orange leather between the blade and the handle.
+
+The sight of it recalled the silver hammer. I remembered how easily it
+fitted into my hand when I struck....
+
+Every detail of the scene came back to me with incomparable vividness.
+But I did not even shiver. It seemed as if my determination to kill
+the instigator of the murder permitted me peacefully to evoke its
+brutal details.
+
+If I reflected over my deed, it was to be surprised at it, not to
+condemn myself.
+
+"Well," I said to myself, "I have killed this Morhange, who was once a
+baby, who, like all the others, cost his mother so much trouble with
+his baby sicknesses. I have put an end to his life, I have reduced to
+nothingness the monument of love, of tears, of trials overcome and
+pitfalls escaped, which constitutes a human existence. What an
+extraordinary adventure!"
+
+That was all. No fear, no remorse, none of that Shakespearean horror
+after the murder, which, today, sceptic though I am and blase and
+utterly, utterly disillusioned, sets me shuddering whenever I am alone
+in a dark room.
+
+"Come," I thought. "It's time. Time to finish it up."
+
+I picked up the dagger. Before putting it in my pocket, I went through
+the motion of striking. All was well. The dagger fitted into my hand.
+
+I had been through Antinea's apartment only when guided, the first
+time by the white Targa, the second time, by the leopard. Yet I found
+the way again without trouble. Just before coming to the door with the
+rose window, I met a Targa.
+
+"Let me pass," I ordered. "Your mistress has sent for me." The man
+obeyed, stepping back.
+
+Soon a dim melody came to my ears. I recognized the sound of a
+_rebaza_, the violin with a single string, played by the Tuareg women.
+It was Aguida playing, squatting as usual at the feet of her mistress.
+The three other women were also squatted about her. Tanit-Zerga was
+not there.
+
+Oh! Since that was the last time I saw her, let, oh, let me tell you
+of Antinea, how she looked in that supreme moment.
+
+Did she feel the danger hovering over her and did she wish to brave it
+by her surest artifices? I had in mind the slender; unadorned body,
+without rings, without jewels, which I had pressed to my heart the
+night before. And now I started in surprise at seeing before me,
+adorned like an idol, not a woman, but a queen!
+
+The heavy splendor of the Pharaohs weighted down her slender body. On
+her head was the great gold _pschent_ of Egyptian gods and kings;
+emeralds, the national stone of the Tuareg, were set in it, tracing
+and retracing her name in Tifinar characters. A red satin _schenti_,
+embroidered in golden lotus, enveloped her like the casket of a jewel.
+At her feet, lay an ebony scepter, headed with a trident. Her bare
+arms were encircled by two serpents whose fangs touched her armpits as
+if to bury themselves there. From the ear pieces of the _pschent_
+streamed a necklace of emeralds; its first strand passed under her
+determined chin; the others lay in circles against her bare throat.
+
+She smiled as I entered.
+
+"I was expecting you," she said simply.
+
+I advanced till I was four steps from the throne, then stopped before
+her.
+
+She looked at me ironically.
+
+"What is that?" she asked with perfect calm.
+
+I followed her gesture. The handle of the dagger protruded from my
+pocket.
+
+I drew it out and held it firmly in my hand, ready to strike.
+
+"The first of you who moves will be sent naked six leagues into the
+red desert and left there to die," said Antinea coldly to her women,
+whom my gesture had thrown into a frightened murmuring.
+
+She turned to me.
+
+"That dagger is very ugly and you hold it badly. Shall I send Sydya to
+my room to get the silver hammer? You are more adroit with it than
+with the dagger."
+
+"Antinea," I said in a low voice, "I am going to kill you."
+
+"Do not speak so formally. You were more affectionate last night. Are
+you embarrassed by them?" she said, pointing to the women, whose eyes
+were wide with terror.
+
+"Kill me?" she went on. "You are hardly reasonable. Kill me at the
+moment when you can reap the fruits of the murder of...."
+
+"Did--did he suffer?" I asked suddenly, trembling.
+
+"Very little. I told you that you used the hammer as if you had done
+nothing else all your life."
+
+"Like little Kaine," I murmured.
+
+She smiled in surprise.
+
+"Oh, you know that story.... Yes, like little Kaine. But at least
+Kaine was sensible. You ... I do not understand."
+
+"I do not understand myself, very well."
+
+She looked at me with amused curiosity.
+
+"Antinea," I said.
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"I did what you told me to. May I in turn ask one favor, ask you one
+question?"
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"It was dark, was it not, in the room where _he_ was?"
+
+"Very dark. I had to lead you to the bed where he lay asleep."
+
+"He _was_ asleep, you are sure?"
+
+"I said so."
+
+"He--did not die instantly, did he?"
+
+"No. I know exactly when he died; two minutes after you struck him and
+fled with a shriek."
+
+"Then surely _he_ could not have known?"
+
+"Known what?"
+
+"That it was I who--who held the hammer."
+
+"He might not have known it, indeed," Antinea said. "But he did know."
+
+"How?"
+
+"He did know ... because I told him," she said, staring at me with
+magnificent audacity.
+
+"And," I murmured, "he--he believed it?"
+
+"With the help of my explanation, he recognized your shriek. If he had
+not realized that you were his murderer, the affair would not have
+interested me," she finished with a scornful little smile.
+
+Four steps, I said, separated me from Antinea. I sprang forward. But,
+before I reached her, I was struck to the floor.
+
+King Hiram had leapt at my throat.
+
+At the same moment I heard the calm, haughty voice of Antinea:
+
+"Call the men," she commanded.
+
+A second later I was released from the leopard's clutch. The six white
+Tuareg had surrounded me and were trying to bind me.
+
+I am fairly strong and quick. I was on my feet in a second. One of my
+enemies lay on the floor, ten feet away, felled by a well-placed blow
+on the jaw. Another was gasping under my knee. That was the last time
+I saw Antinea. She stood erect, both hands resting on her ebony
+scepter, watching the struggle with a smile of contemptuous interest.
+
+Suddenly I gave a loud cry and loosed the hold I had on my victim. A
+cracking in my left arm: one of the Tuareg had seized it and twisted
+until my shoulder was dislocated.
+
+When I completely lost consciousness, I was being carried down the
+corridor by two white phantoms, so bound that I could not move a
+muscle.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+THE FIRE-FLIES
+
+
+Through the great open window, waves of pale moonlight surged into my
+room.
+
+A slender white figure was standing beside the bed where I lay.
+
+"You, Tanit-Zerga!" I murmured. She laid a finger on her lips.
+
+"Sh! Yes, it is I."
+
+I tried to raise myself up on the bed. A terrible pain seized my
+shoulder. The events of the afternoon came back to my poor harassed
+mind.
+
+"Oh, little one, if you knew!"
+
+"I know," she said.
+
+I was weaker than a baby. After the overstrain of the day had come a
+fit of utter nervous depression. A lump rose in my throat, choking me.
+
+"If you knew, if you only knew!... Take me away, little one. Get me
+away from here."
+
+"Not so loud," she whispered. "There is a white Targa on guard at the
+door."
+
+"Take me away; save me," I repeated.
+
+"That is what I came for," she said simply.
+
+I looked at her. She no longer was wearing her beautiful red silk
+tunic. A plain white _haik_ was wrapped about her; and she had drawn
+one corner of it over her head.
+
+"I want to go away, too," she said in a smothered voice.
+
+"For a long time, I have wanted to go away. I want to see Gao, the
+village on the bank of the river, and the blue gum trees, and the
+green water.
+
+"Ever since I came here, I have wanted to get away," she repeated,
+"but I am too little to go alone into the great Sahara. I never dared
+speak to the others who came here before you. They all thought only of
+_her_.... But you, you wanted to kill her."
+
+I gave a low moan.
+
+"You are suffering," she said. "They broke your arm."
+
+"Dislocated it anyhow."
+
+"Let me see."
+
+With infinite gentleness, she passed her smooth little hands over my
+shoulder.
+
+"You tell me that there is a white Targa on guard before my door,
+Tanit-Zerga," I said. "Then how did you get in?"
+
+"That way," she said, pointing to the window. A dark perpendicular
+line halved its blue opening.
+
+Tanit-Zerga went to the window. I saw her standing erect on the sill.
+A knife shone in her hands. She cut the rope at the top of the
+opening. It slipped down to the stone with a dry sound.
+
+She came back to me.
+
+"How can we escape?" I asked.
+
+"That way," she repeated, and she pointed again at the window.
+
+I leaned out. My feverish gaze fell upon the shadowy depths, searching
+for those invisible rocks, the rocks upon which little Kaine had
+dashed himself.
+
+"That way!" I exclaimed, shuddering. "Why, it is two hundred feet from
+here to the ground."
+
+"The rope is two hundred and fifty," she replied. "It is a good strong
+rope which I stole in the oasis; they used it in felling trees. It is
+quite new."
+
+"Climb down that way, Tanit-Zerga! With my shoulder!"
+
+"I will let you down," she said firmly. "Feel how strong my arms are.
+Not that I shall rest your weight on them. But see, on each side of
+the window is a marble column. By twisting the rope around one of
+them, I can let you slip down and scarcely feel your weight.
+
+"And look," she continued, "I have made a big knot every ten feet. I
+can stop the rope with them, every now and then, if I want to rest."
+
+"And you?" I asked.
+
+"When you are down, I shall tie the rope to one of the columns and
+follow. There are the knots on which to rest if the rope cuts my hands
+too much. But don't be afraid: I am very agile. At Gao, when I was
+just a child, I used to climb almost as high as this in the gum trees
+to take the little toucans out of their nests. It is even easier to
+climb down."
+
+"And when we are down, how will we get out? Do you know the way
+through the barriers?"
+
+"No one knows the way through the barriers," she said, "except
+Cegheir-ben-Cheikh, and perhaps Antinea."
+
+"Then?"
+
+"There are the camels of Cegheir-ben-Cheikh, those which he uses on
+his forays. I untethered the strongest one and led him out, just below
+us, and gave him lots of hay so that he will not make a sound and will
+be well fed when we start."
+
+"But...." I still protested.
+
+She stamped her foot.
+
+"But what? Stay if you wish, if you are afraid. I am going. I want to
+see Gao once again, Gao with its blue gum-trees and its green water."
+
+I felt myself blushing.
+
+"I will go, Tanit-Zerga. I would rather die of thirst in the midst of
+the desert than stay here. Let us start."
+
+"Tut!" she said. "Not yet."
+
+She showed me that the dizzy descent was in brilliant moonlight.
+
+"Not yet. We must wait. They would see us. In an hour, the moon will
+have circled behind the mountain. That will be the time."
+
+She sat silent, her _haik_ wrapped completely about her dark little
+figure. Was she praying? Perhaps.
+
+Suddenly I no longer saw her. Darkness had crept in the window. The
+moon had turned.
+
+Tanit-Zerga's hand was on my arm. She drew me toward the abyss. I
+tried not to tremble.
+
+Everything below us was in shadow. In a low, firm voice, Tanit-Zerga
+began to speak:
+
+"Everything is ready. I have twisted the rope about the pillar. Here
+is the slip-knot. Put it under your arms. Take this cushion. Keep it
+pressed against your hurt shoulder.... A leather cushion.... It is
+tightly stuffed. Keep face to the wall. It will protect you against
+the bumping and scraping."
+
+I was now master of myself, very calm. I sat down on the sill of the
+window, my feet in the void. A breath of cool air from the peaks
+refreshed me.
+
+I felt little Tanit-Zerga's hand in my vest pocket.
+
+"Here is a box. I must know when you are down, so I can follow. You
+will open the box. There are fire-flies in it; I shall see them and
+follow you."
+
+She held my hand a moment.
+
+"Now go," she murmured.
+
+I went.
+
+I remember only one thing about that descent: I was overcome with
+vexation when the rope stopped and I found myself, feet dangling,
+against the perfectly smooth wall.
+
+"What is the little fool waiting for?" I said to myself. "I have been
+hung here for a quarter of an hour. Ah ... at last! Oh, here I am
+stopped again." Once or twice I thought I was reaching the ground, but
+it was only a projection from the rock. I had to give a quick shove
+with my foot.... Then, suddenly, I found myself seated on the ground.
+I stretched out my hands. Bushes.... A thorn pricked my finger. I was
+down.
+
+Immediately I began to get nervous again.
+
+I pulled out the cushion and slipped off the noose. With my good hand,
+I pulled the rope, holding it out five or six feet from the face of
+the mountain, and put my foot on it.
+
+Then I took the little cardboard box from my pocket and opened it.
+
+One after the other, three little luminous circles rose in the inky
+night. I saw them rise higher and higher against the rocky wall. Their
+pale rose aureols gleamed faintly. Then, one by one, they turned,
+disappeared.
+
+"You are tired, Sidi Lieutenant. Let me hold the rope."
+
+Cegheir-ben-Cheikh rose up at my side.
+
+I looked at his tall black silhouette. I shuddered, but I did not let
+go of the rope on which I began to feel distant jerks.
+
+"Give it to me," he repeated with authority.
+
+And he took it from my hands.
+
+I don't know what possessed me then. I was standing beside that great
+dark phantom. And I ask you, what could I, with a dislocated
+shoulder, do against that man whose agile strength I already knew?
+What was there to do? I saw him buttressed against the wall, holding
+the rope with both hands, with both feet, with all his body, much
+better than I had been able to do.
+
+A rustling above our heads. A little shadowy form.
+
+"There," said Cegheir-ben-Cheikh, seizing the little shadow in his
+powerful arms and placing her on the ground, while the rope, let
+slack, slapped back against the rock.
+
+Tanit-Zerga recognized the Targa and groaned.
+
+He put his hand roughly over her mouth.
+
+"Shut up, camel thief, wretched little fly."
+
+He seized her arm. Then he turned to me.
+
+"Come," he said in an imperious tone.
+
+I obeyed. During our short walk, I heard Tanit-Zerga's teeth
+chattering with terror.
+
+We reached a little cave.
+
+"Go in," said the Targa.
+
+He lighted a torch. The red light showed a superb mehari peacefully
+chewing his cud.
+
+"The little one is not stupid," said Cegheir-ben-Cheikh, pointing to
+the animal. "She knows enough to pick out the best and the strongest.
+But she is rattle-brained."
+
+He held the torch nearer the camel.
+
+"She is rattle-brained," he continued. "She only saddled him. No
+water, no food. At this hour, three days from now, all three of you
+would have been dead on the road, and on what a road!"
+
+Tanit-Zerga's teeth no longer chattered. She was looking at the Targa
+with a mixture of terror and hope.
+
+"Come here, Sidi Lieutenant," said Cegheir-ben-Cheikh, "so that I can
+explain to you."
+
+When I was beside him, he said:
+
+"On each side there is a skin of water. Make that water last as long
+as possible, for you are going to cross a terrible country. It may be
+that you will not find a well for three hundred miles.
+
+"There," he went on, "in the saddle bags, are cans of preserved meat.
+Not many, for water is much more precious. Here also is a carbine,
+your carbine, sidi. Try not to use it except to shoot antelopes. And
+there is this."
+
+He spread out a roll of paper. I saw his inscrutible face bent over
+it; his eyes were smiling; he looked at me.
+
+"Once out of the enclosures, what way did you plan to go?" he asked.
+
+"Toward Ideles, to retake the route where you met the Captain and me,"
+I said.
+
+Cegheir-ben-Cheikh shook his head.
+
+"I thought as much," he murmured.
+
+Then he added coldly:
+
+"Before sunset to-morrow, you and the little one would have been
+caught and massacred."
+
+"Toward the north is Ahaggar," he continued, "and all Ahaggar is under
+the control of Antinea. You must go south."
+
+"Then we shall go south."
+
+"By what route?"
+
+"Why, by Silet and Timissao."
+
+The Targa again shook his head.
+
+"They will look for you on that road also," he said. "It is a good
+road, the road with the wells. They know that you are familiar with
+it. The Tuareg would not fail to wait at the wells."
+
+"Well, then?"
+
+"Well," said Cegheir-ben-Cheikh, "you must not rejoin the road from
+Timissao to Timbuctoo until you are four hundred miles from here
+toward Iferouane, or better still, at the spring of Telemsi. That is
+the boundary between the Tuareg of Ahaggar and the Awellimiden
+Tuareg."
+
+The little voice of Tanit-Zerga broke in:
+
+"It was the Awellimiden Tuareg who massacred my people and carried me
+into slavery. I do not want to pass through the country of the
+Awellimiden."
+
+"Be still, miserable little fly," said Cegheir-ben-Cheikh.
+
+Then addressing me, he continued:
+
+"I have said what I have said. The little one is not wrong. The
+Awellimiden are a savage people. But they are afraid of the French.
+Many of them trade with the stations north of the Niger. On the other
+hand, they are at war with the people of Ahaggar, who will not follow
+you into their country. What I have said, is said. You must rejoin
+the Timbuctoo road near where it enters the borders of the
+Awellimiden. Their country is wooded and rich in springs. If you reach
+the springs at Telemsi, you will finish your journey beneath a canopy
+of blossoming mimosa. On the other hand, the road from here to Telemsi
+is shorter than by way of Timissao. It is quite straight."
+
+"Yes, it is direct," I said, "but, in following it, you have to cross
+the Tanezruft."
+
+Cegheir-ben-Cheikh waved his hand impatiently.
+
+"Cegheir-ben-Cheikh knows that," he said. "He knows what the Tanezruft
+is. He who has traveled over all the Sahara knows that he would
+shudder at crossing the Tanezruft and the Tassili from the south. He
+knows that the camels that wander into that country either die or
+become wild, for no one will risk his life to go look for them. It is
+the terror that hangs over that region that may save you. For you have
+to choose: you must run the risk of dying of thirst on the tracks of
+the Tanezruft or have your throat cut along some other route.
+
+"You can stay here," he added.
+
+"My choice is made, Cegheir-ben-Cheikh," I announced.
+
+"Good!" he replied, again opening out the roll of paper. "This trail
+begins at the second barrier of earth, to which I will lead you. It
+ends at Iferouane. I have marked the wells, but do not trust to them
+too much, for many of them are dry. Be careful not to stray from the
+route. If you lose it, it is death.... Now mount the camel with the
+little one. Two make less noise than four."
+
+We went a long way in silence. Cegheir-ben-Cheikh walked ahead and his
+camel followed meekly. We crossed, first, a dark passage, then, a deep
+gorge, then another passage.... The entrance to each was hidden by a
+thick tangle of rocks and briars.
+
+Suddenly a burning breath touched our faces. A dull reddish light
+filtered in through the end of the passage. The desert lay before us.
+
+Cegheir-ben-Cheikh had stopped.
+
+"Get down," he said.
+
+A spring gurgled out of the rock. The Targa went to it and filled a
+copper cup with the water.
+
+"Drink," he said, holding it out to each of us in turn. We obeyed.
+
+"Drink again," he ordered. "You will save just so much of the contents
+of your water skins. Now try not to be thirsty before sunset."
+
+He looked over the saddle girths.
+
+"That's all right," he murmured. "Now go. In two hours the dawn will
+be here. You must be out of sight."
+
+I was filled with emotion at this last moment; I went to the Targa and
+took his hand.
+
+"Cegheir-ben-Cheikh," I asked in a low voice, "why are you doing
+this?"
+
+He stepped back and I saw his dark eyes gleam.
+
+"Why?" he said.
+
+"Yes, why?"
+
+He replied with dignity:
+
+"The Prophet permits every just man, once in his lifetime, to let pity
+take the place of duty. Cegheir-ben-Cheikh is turning this permission
+to the advantage of one who saved his life."
+
+"And you are not afraid," I asked, "that I will disclose the secret of
+Antinea if I return among Frenchmen?" He shook his head.
+
+"I am not afraid of that," he said, and his voice was full of irony.
+"It is not to your interest that Frenchmen should know how the Captain
+met his death."
+
+I was horrified at this logical reply.
+
+"Perhaps I am doing wrong," the Targa went on, "in not killing the
+little one.... But she loves you. She will not talk. Now go. Day is
+coming."
+
+I tried to press the hand of this strange rescuer, but he again drew
+back.
+
+"Do not thank me. What I am doing, I do to acquire merit in the eyes
+of God. You may be sure that I shall never do it again neither for you
+nor for anyone else."
+
+And, as I made a gesture to reassure him on that point, "Do not
+protest," he said in a tone the mockery of which still sounds in my
+ears. "Do not protest. What I am doing is of value to me, but not to
+you."
+
+I looked at him uncomprehendingly.
+
+"Not to you, Sidi Lieutenant, not to you," his grave voice continued.
+"For you will come back; and when that day comes, do not count on the
+help of Cegheir-ben-Cheikh."
+
+"I will come back?" I asked, shuddering.
+
+"You will come back," the Targa replied.
+
+He was standing erect, a black statue against the wall of gray rock.
+
+"You will come back," he repeated with emphasis. "You are fleeing now,
+but you are mistaken if you think that you will look at the world with
+the same eyes as before. Henceforth, one idea, will follow you
+everywhere you go; and in one year, five, perhaps ten years, you will
+pass again through the corridor through which you have just come."
+
+"Be still, Cegheir-ben-Cheikh," said the trembling voice of
+Tanit-Zerga.
+
+"Be still yourself, miserable little fly," said Cegheir-ben-Cheikh.
+
+He sneered.
+
+"The little one is afraid because she knows that I tell the truth. She
+knows the story of Lieutenant Ghiberti."
+
+"Lieutenant Ghiberti?" I said, the sweat standing out on my forehead.
+
+"He was an Italian officer whom I met between Rhat and Rhadames eight
+years ago. He did not believe that love of Antinea could make him
+forget all else that life contained. He tried to escape, and he
+succeeded. I do not know how, for I did not help him. He went back to
+his country. But hear what happened: two years later, to the very day,
+when I was leaving the look-out, I discovered a miserable tattered
+creature, half dead from hunger and fatigue, searching in vain for the
+entrance to the northern barrier. It was Lieutenant Ghiberti, come
+back. He fills niche Number 39 in the red marble hall."
+
+The Targa smiled slightly.
+
+"That is the story of Lieutenant Ghiberti which you wished to hear.
+But enough of this. Mount your camel."
+
+I obeyed without saying a word. Tanit-Zerga, seated behind me, put
+her little arms around me. Cegheir-ben-Cheikh was still holding the
+bridle.
+
+"One word more," he said, pointing to a black spot against the violet
+sky of the southern horizon. "You see the _gour_ there; that is your
+way. It is eighteen miles from here. You should reach it by sunrise.
+Then consult your map. The next point is marked. If you do not stray
+from the line, you should be at the springs of Telemsi in eight days."
+
+The camel's neck was stretched toward the dark wind coming from the
+south.
+
+The Targa released the bridle with a sweep of his hand.
+
+"Now go."
+
+"Thank you," I called to him, turning back in the saddle. "Thank you,
+Cegheir-ben-Cheikh, and farewell."
+
+I heard his voice replying in the distance:
+
+"_Au revoir_, Lieutenant de Saint Avit."
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+THE TANEZRUFT
+
+
+During the first hour of our flight, the great mehari of
+Cegheir-ben-Cheikh carried us at a mad pace. We covered at least five
+leagues. With fixed eyes, I guided the beast toward the _gour_ which
+the Targa had pointed out, its ridge becoming higher and higher
+against the paling sky.
+
+The speed caused a little breeze to whistle in our ears. Great tufts
+of _retem_, like fleshless skeletons, were tossed to right and left.
+
+I heard the voice of Tanit-Zerga whispering:
+
+"Stop the camel."
+
+At first I did not understand.
+
+"Stop him," she repeated.
+
+Her hand pulled sharply at my right arm.
+
+I obeyed. The camel slackened his pace with very bad grace.
+
+"Listen," she said.
+
+At first I heard nothing. Then a very slight noise, a dry rustling
+behind us.
+
+"Stop the camel," Tanit-Zerga commanded. "It is not worth while to
+make him kneel."
+
+A little gray creature bounded on the camel. The mehari set out again
+at his best speed.
+
+"Let him go," said Tanit-Zerga. "Gale has jumped on."
+
+I felt a tuft of bristly hair under my arm. The mongoose had followed
+our footsteps and rejoined us. I heard the quick panting of the brave
+little creature becoming gradually slower and slower.
+
+"I am happy," murmured Tanit-Zerga.
+
+Cegheir-ben-Cheikh had not been mistaken. We reached the _gour_ as the
+sun rose. I looked back. The Atakor was nothing more than a monstrous
+chaos amid the night mists which trailed the dawn. It was no longer
+possible to pick out from among the nameless peaks, the one on which
+Antinea was still weaving her passionate plots.
+
+You know what the Tanezruft is, the "plain of plains," abandoned,
+uninhabitable, the country of hunger and thirst. We were then starting
+on the part of the desert which Duveyrier calls the Tassili of the
+south, and which figures on the maps of the Minister of Public Works
+under this attractive title: "Rocky plateau, without water, without
+vegetation, inhospitable for man and beast."
+
+Nothing, unless parts of the Kalahari, is more frightful than this
+rocky desert. Oh, Cegheir-ben-Cheikh did not exaggerate in saying that
+no one would dream of following us into that country.
+
+Great patches of oblivion still refused to clear away. Memories chased
+each other incoherently about my head. A sentence came back to me
+textually: "It seemed to Dick that he had never, since the beginning
+of original darkness, done anything at all save jolt through the air."
+I gave a little laugh. "In the last few hours," I thought, "I have
+been heaping up literary situations. A while ago, a hundred feet above
+the ground, I was Fabrice of _La Chartreuse de Parme_ beside his
+Italian dungeon. Now, here on my camel, I am Dick of _The Light That
+Failed_, crossing the desert to meet his companions in arms." I
+chuckled again; then shuddered. I thought of the preceding night, of
+the Orestes of _Andromaque_ who agreed to sacrifice Pyrrhus. A
+literary situation indeed....
+
+Cegheir-ben-Cheikh had reckoned eight days to get to the wooded
+country of the Awellimiden, forerunners of the grassy steppes of the
+Soudan. He knew well the worth of his beast. Tanit-Zerga had suddenly
+given him a name, _El Mellen_, the white one, for the magnificent
+mehari had an almost spotless coat. Once he went two days without
+eating, merely picking up here and there a branch of an acacia tree
+whose hideous white spines, four inches long, filled me with fear for
+our friend's oesophagus. The wells marked out by Cegheir-ben-Cheikh
+were indeed at the indicated spots, but we found nothing in them but a
+burning yellow mud. It was enough for the camel, enough so that at the
+end of the fifth day, thanks to prodigious self-control, we had used
+up only one of our two water skins. Then we believed ourselves safe.
+
+Near one of these muddy puddles, I succeeded that day in shooting down
+a little straight-horned desert gazelle. Tanit-Zerga skinned the beast
+and we regaled ourselves with a delicious haunch. Meantime, little
+Gale, who never ceased prying about the cracks in the rocks during our
+mid-day halts in the heat, discovered an _ourane_, a sand crocodile,
+five feet long, and made short work of breaking his neck. She ate so
+much she could not budge. It cost us a pint of water to help her
+digestion. We gave it with good grace, for we were happy. Tanit-Zerga
+did not say so, but her joy at knowing that I was thinking no more of
+the woman in the gold diadem and the emeralds was apparent. And
+really, during those days, I hardly thought of her. I thought only of
+the torrid heat to be avoided, of the water skins which, if you wished
+to drink fresh water, had to be left for an hour in a cleft in the
+rocks; of the intense joy which seized you when you raised to your
+lips a leather goblet brimming with that life-saving water.... I can
+say this with authority, with good authority, indeed; passion,
+spiritual or physical, is a thing for those who have eaten and drunk
+and rested.
+
+It was five o'clock in the afternoon. The frightful heat was
+slackening. We had left a kind of rocky crevice where we had had a
+little nap. Seated on a huge rock, we were watching the reddening
+west.
+
+I spread out the roll of paper on which Cegheir-ben-Cheikh had marked
+the stages of our journey as far as the road from the Soudan. I
+realized again with joy that his itinerary was exact and that I had
+followed it scrupulously.
+
+"The evening of the day after to-morrow," I said, "we shall be setting
+out on the stage which will take us, by the next dawn, to the waters
+at Telemsi. Once there, we shall not have to worry any more about
+water."
+
+Tanit-Zerga's eyes danced in her thin face.
+
+"And Gao?" she asked.
+
+"We will be only a week from the Niger. And Cegheir-ben-Cheikh said
+that at Telemsi, one reached a road overhung with mimosa."
+
+"I know the mimosa," she said. "They are the little yellow balls that
+melt in your hand. But I like the caper flowers better. You will come
+with me to Gao. My father, Sonni-Azkia, was killed, as I told you, by
+the Awellimiden. But my people must have rebuilt the villages. They
+are used to that. You will see how you will be received."
+
+"I will go, Tanit-Zerga, I promise you. But you also, you must promise
+me...."
+
+"What? Oh, I guess. You must take me for a little fool if you believe
+me capable of speaking of things which might make trouble for my
+friend."
+
+She looked at me as she spoke. Privation and great fatigue had
+chiselled the brown face where her great eyes shone.... Since then, I
+have had time to assemble the maps and compasses, and to fix forever
+the spot where, for the first time, I understood the beauty of
+Tanit-Zerga's eyes.
+
+There was a deep silence between us. It was she who broke it.
+
+"Night is coming. We must eat so as to leave as soon as possible."
+
+She stood up and went toward the rocks.
+
+Almost immediately, I heard her calling in an anguished voice that
+sent a chill through me.
+
+"Come! Oh, come see!"
+
+With a bound, I was at her side.
+
+"The camel," she murmured. "The camel!"
+
+I looked, and a deadly shudder seized me.
+
+Stretched out at full length, on the other side of the rocks, his pale
+flanks knotted up by convulsive spasms, _El Mellen_ lay in anguish.
+
+I need not say that we rushed to him in feverish haste. Of what _El
+Mellen_ was dying, I did not know, I never have known. All the mehara
+are that way. They are at once the most enduring and the most delicate
+of beasts. They will travel for six months across the most frightful
+deserts, with little food, without water, and seem only the better for
+it. Then, one day when nothing is the matter, they stretch out and
+give you the slip with disconcerting ease.
+
+When Tanit-Zerga and I saw that there was nothing more to do, we stood
+there without a word, watching his slackening spasms. When he breathed
+his last, we felt that our life, as well as his, had gone.
+
+It was Tanit-Zerga who spoke first.
+
+"How far are we from the Soudan road?" she asked.
+
+"We are a hundred and twenty miles from the springs of Telemsi," I
+replied. "We could make thirty miles by going toward Iferouane; but
+the wells are not marked on that route."
+
+"Then we must walk toward the springs of Telemsi," she said. "A
+hundred and twenty miles, that makes seven days?"
+
+"Seven days at the least, Tanit-Zerga."
+
+"How far is it to the first well?"
+
+"Thirty-five miles."
+
+The little girl's face contracted somewhat. But she braced up quickly.
+
+"We must set out at once."
+
+"Set out on foot, Tanit-Zerga!"
+
+She stamped her foot. I marveled to see her so strong.
+
+"We must go," she repeated. "We are going to eat and drink and make
+Gale eat and drink, for we cannot carry all the tins, and the water
+skin is so heavy that we should not get three miles if we tried to
+carry it. We will put a little water in one of the tins after emptying
+it through a little hole. That will be enough for to-night's stage,
+which will be eighteen miles without water. To-morrow we will set out
+for another eighteen miles and we will reach the wells marked on the
+paper by Cegheir-ben-Cheikh."
+
+"Oh," I murmured sadly, "if my shoulder were only not this way, I
+could carry the water skin."
+
+"It is as it is," said Tanit-Zerga.
+
+"You will take your carbine and two tins of meat. I shall take two
+more and the one filled with water. Come. We must leave in an hour if
+we wish to cover the eighteen miles. You know that when the sun is up,
+the rocks are so hot we cannot walk."
+
+I leave you to imagine in what sad silence we passed that hour which
+we had begun so happily and confidently. Without the little girl, I
+believe I should have seated myself upon a rock and waited. Gale only
+was happy.
+
+"We must not let her eat too much," said Tanit-Zerga. "She would not
+be able to follow us. And to-morrow she must work. If she catches
+another _ourane_, it will be for us."
+
+
+You have walked in the desert. You know how terrible the first hours
+of the night are. When the moon comes up, huge and yellow, a sharp
+dust seems to rise in suffocating clouds. You move your jaws
+mechanically as if to crush the dust that finds its way into your
+throat like fire. Then usually a kind of lassitude, of drowsiness,
+follows. You walk without thinking. You forget where you are walking.
+You remember only when you stumble. Of course you stumble often. But
+anyway it is bearable. "The night is ending," you say, "and with it
+the march. All in all, I am less tired than at the beginning." The
+night ends, but then comes the most terrible hour of all. You are
+perishing of thirst and shaking with cold. All the fatigue comes back
+at once. The horrible breeze which precedes the dawn is no comfort.
+Quite the contrary. Every time you stumble, you say, "The next misstep
+will be the last."
+
+That is what people feel and say even when they know that in a few
+hours they will have a good rest with food and water.
+
+I was suffering terribly. Every step jolted my poor shoulder. At one
+time, I wanted to stop, to sit down. Then I looked at Tanit-Zerga. She
+was walking ahead with her eyes almost closed. Her expression was an
+indefinable one of mingled suffering and determination. I closed my
+own eyes and went on.
+
+Such was the first stage. At dawn we stopped in a hollow in the rocks.
+Soon the heat forced us to rise to seek a deeper one. Tanit-Zerga did
+not eat. Instead, she swallowed a little of her half can of water. She
+lay drowsy all day. Gale ran about our rock giving plaintive little
+cries.
+
+I am not going to tell you about the second march. It was more
+horrible than anything you can imagine. I suffered all that it is
+humanly possible to suffer in the desert. But already I began to
+observe with infinite pity that my man's strength was outlasting the
+nervous force of my little companion. The poor child walked on without
+saying a word, chewing feebly one corner of her _haik_ which she had
+drawn over her face. Gale followed.
+
+The well toward which we were dragging ourselves was indicated on
+Cegheir-ben-Cheikh's paper by the one word _Tissaririn. Tissaririn_ is
+the plural of _Tissarirt_ and means "two isolated trees."
+
+Day was dawning when finally I saw the two trees, two gum trees.
+Hardly a league separated us from them. I gave a cry of joy.
+
+"Courage, Tanit-Zerga, there is the well."
+
+She drew her veil aside and I saw the poor anguished little face.
+
+"So much the better," she murmured, "because otherwise...."
+
+She could not even finish the sentence.
+
+We finished the last half mile almost at a run. We already saw the
+hole, the opening of the well.
+
+Finally we reached it.
+
+It was empty.
+
+It is a strange sensation to be dying of thirst. At first the
+suffering is terrible. Then, gradually, it becomes less. You become
+partly unconscious. Ridiculous little things about your life occur to
+you, fly about you like mosquitoes. I began to remember my history
+composition for the entrance examination of Saint-Cyr, "The Campaign
+of Marengo." Obstinately I repeated to myself, "I have already said
+that the battery unmasked by Marmont at the moment of Kellerman's
+charge included eighteen pieces.... No, I remember now, it was only
+twelve pieces. I am sure it was twelve pieces."
+
+I kept on repeating:
+
+"Twelve pieces."
+
+Then I fell into a sort of coma.
+
+I was recalled from it by feeling a red-hot iron on my forehead. I
+opened my eyes. Tanit-Zerga was bending over me. It was her hand which
+burnt so.
+
+"Get up," she said. "We must go on."
+
+"Go on, Tanit-Zerga! The desert is on fire. The sun is at the zenith.
+It is noon."
+
+"We must go on," she repeated.
+
+Then I saw that she was delirious.
+
+She was standing erect. Her _haik_ had fallen to the ground and little
+Gale, rolled up in a ball, was asleep on it.
+
+Bareheaded, indifferent to the frightful sunlight, she kept repeating:
+
+"We must go on."
+
+A little sense came back to me.
+
+"Cover your head, Tanit-Zerga, cover your head."
+
+"Come," she repeated. "Let's go. Gao is over there, not far away. I
+can feel it. I want to see Gao again."
+
+I made her sit down beside me in the shadow of a rock. I realized that
+all strength had left her. The wave of pity that swept over me,
+brought back my senses.
+
+"Gao is just over there, isn't it?" she asked.
+
+Her gleaming eyes became imploring.
+
+"Yes, dear little girl. Gao is there. But for God's sake lie down. The
+sun is fearful."
+
+"Oh, Gao, Gao!" she repeated. "I know very well that I shall see Gao
+again."
+
+She sat up. Her fiery little hands gripped mine.
+
+"Listen. I must tell you so you can understand how I know I shall see
+Gao again."
+
+"Tanit-Zerga, be quiet, my little girl, be quiet."
+
+"No, I must tell you. A long time ago, on the bank of the river where
+there is water, at Gao, where my father was a prince, there was....
+Well, one day, one feast day, there came from the interior of the
+country an old magician, dressed in skins and feathers, with a mask
+and a pointed head-dress, with castanets, and two serpents in a bag.
+On the village square, where all our people formed in a circle, he
+danced the _boussadilla_. I was in the first row, and because I had a
+necklace of pink tourmaline, he quickly saw that I was the daughter of
+a chief. So he spoke to me of the past, of the great Mandingue Empire
+over which my grandfathers had ruled, of our enemies, the fierce
+Kountas, of everything, and finally he said:
+
+"'Have no fear, little girl.'
+
+"Then he said again, 'Do not be afraid. Evil days may be in store for
+you, but what does that matter? For one day you will see Gao gleaming
+on the horizon, no longer a servile Gao reduced to the rank of a
+little Negro town, but the splendid Gao of other days, the great
+capital of the country of the blacks, Gao reborn, with its mosque of
+seven towers and fourteen cupolas of turquoise, with its houses with
+cool courts, its fountains, its watered gardens, all blooming with
+great red and white flowers.... That will be for you the hour of
+deliverance and of royalty.'"
+
+Tanit-Zerga was standing up. All about us, on our heads, the sun
+blazed on the _hamada_, burning it white.
+
+Suddenly the child stretched out her arms. She gave a terrible cry.
+
+"Gao! There is Gao!"
+
+I looked at her.
+
+"Gao," she repeated. "Oh, I know it well! There are the trees and the
+fountains, the cupolas and the towers, the palm trees, the great red
+and white flowers. Gao...."
+
+Indeed, along the shimmering horizon rose a fantastic city with mighty
+buildings that towered, tier on tier, until they formed a rainbow.
+Wide-eyed, we stood and watched the terrible mirage quiver feverishly
+before us.
+
+"Gao!" I cried. "Gao!"
+
+And almost immediately I uttered another cry, of sorrow and of horror.
+Tanit-Zerga's little hand relaxed in mine. I had just time to catch
+the child in my arms and hear her murmur as in a whisper:
+
+"And then that will be the day of deliverance. The day of deliverance
+and of royalty."
+
+Several hours later I took the knife with which we had skinned the
+desert gazelle and, in the sand at the foot of the rock where
+Tanit-Zerga had given up her spirit, I made a little hollow where she
+was to rest.
+
+When everything was ready, I wanted to look once more at that dear
+little face. Courage failed me for a moment.... Then I quickly drew
+the _haik_ over the brown face and laid the body of the child in the
+hollow.
+
+I had reckoned without Gale.
+
+The eyes of the mongoose had not left me during the whole time that I
+was about my sad duty. When she heard the first handfuls of sand fall
+on the _haik_, she gave a sharp cry. I looked at her and saw her ready
+to spring, her eyes daring fire.
+
+"Gale!" I implored; and I tried to stroke her.
+
+She bit my hand and then leapt into the grave and began to dig,
+throwing the sand furiously aside.
+
+I tried three times to chase her away. I felt that I should never
+finish my task and that, even if I did, Gale would stay there and
+disinter the body.
+
+My carbine lay at my feet. A shot drew echoes from the immense empty
+desert. A moment later, Gale also slept her last sleep, curled up, as
+I so often had seen her, against the neck of her mistress.
+
+When the surface showed nothing more than a little mound of trampled
+sand, I rose staggering and started off aimlessly into the desert,
+toward the south.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+THE CIRCLE IS COMPLETE
+
+
+At the foot of the valley of the Mia, at the place where the jackal
+had cried the night Saint-Avit told me he had killed Morhange, another
+jackal, or perhaps the same one, howled again.
+
+Immediately I had a feeling that this night would see the
+irremediable fulfilled.
+
+We were seated that evening, as before, on the poor veranda improvised
+outside our dining-room. The floor was of plaster, the balustrade of
+twisted branches; four posts supported a thatched roof.
+
+I have already said that from the veranda one could look far out over
+the desert. As he finished speaking, Saint-Avit rose and stood leaning
+his elbows on the railing. I followed him.
+
+"And then...." I said.
+
+He looked at me.
+
+"And then what? Surely you know what all the newspapers told--how, in
+the country of the Awellimiden, I was found dying of hunger and thirst
+by an expedition under the command of Captain Aymard, and taken to
+Timbuctoo. I was delirious for a month afterward. I have never known
+what I may have said during those spells of burning fever. You may be
+sure the officers of the Timbuctoo Club did not feel it incumbent upon
+them to tell me. When I told them of my adventures, as they are
+related in the report of the Morhange--Saint-Avit Expedition, I could
+see well enough from the cold politeness with which they received my
+explanations, that the official version which I gave them differed at
+certain points from the fragments which had escaped me in my delirium.
+
+"They did not press the matter. It remains understood that Captain
+Morhange died from a sunstroke and that I buried him on the border of
+the Tarhit watercourse, three marches from Timissao. Everybody can
+detect that there are things missing in my story. Doubtless they guess
+at some mysterious drama. But proofs are another matter. Because of
+the impossibility of collecting them, they prefer to smother what
+could only become a silly scandal. But now you know all the details as
+well as I."
+
+"And--she?" I asked timidly.
+
+He smiled triumphantly. It was triumph at having led me to think no
+longer of Morhange, or of his crime, the triumph of feeling that he
+had succeeded in imbuing me with his own madness.
+
+"Yes," he said. "She! For six years I have learned nothing more about
+her. But I see her, I talk with her. I am thinking now how I shall
+reenter her presence. I shall throw myself at her feet and say simply,
+'Forgive me. I rebelled against your law. I did not know. But now I
+know; and you see that, like Lieutenant Ghiberti, I have come back.'
+
+"'Family, honor, country,' said old Le Mesge, 'you will forget all for
+her.' Old Le Mesge is a stupid man, but he speaks from experience. He
+knows, he who has seen broken before Antinea the wills of the fifty
+ghosts in the red marble hall.
+
+"And now, will you, in your turn, ask me 'What is this woman?' Do I
+know myself? And besides, what difference does it make? What does her
+past and the mystery of her origin matter to me; what does it matter
+whether she is the true descendant of the god of the sea and the
+sublime Lagides or the bastard of a Polish drunkard and a harlot of
+the Marbeuf quarter?
+
+"At the time when I was foolish enough to be jealous of Morhange,
+these questions might have made some difference to the ridiculous
+self-esteem that civilized people mix up with passion. But I have held
+Antinea's body in my arms. I no longer wish to know any other, nor if
+the fields are in blossom, nor what will become of the human
+spirit....
+
+"I do not wish to know. Or, rather, it is because I have too exact a
+vision of that future, that I pretend to destroy myself in the only
+destiny that is worth while: a nature unfathomed and virgin, a
+mysterious love.
+
+"_A nature unfathomed and virgin_. I must explain myself. One winter
+day, in a large city all streaked with the soot that falls from black
+chimneys of factories and of those horrible houses in the suburbs, I
+attended a funeral.
+
+"We followed the hearse in the mud. The church was new, damp and poor.
+Aside from two or three people, relatives struck down by a dull
+sorrow, everyone had just one idea: to find some pretext to get away.
+Those who went as far as the cemetery were those who did not find an
+excuse. I see the gray walls and the cypresses, those trees of sun and
+shade, so beautiful in the country of southern France against the low
+purple hills. I see the horrible undertaker's men in greasy jackets
+and shiny top hats. I see.... No, I'll stop; it's too horrible.
+
+"Near the wall, in a remote plot, a grave had been dug in frightful
+yellow pebbly clay. It was there that they left the dead man whose
+name I no longer remember.
+
+"While they were lowering the casket, I looked at my hands, those
+hands which in that strangely lighted country had pressed the hands of
+Antinea. A great pity for my body seized me, a great fear of what
+threatened it in these cities of mud. 'So,' I said to myself, 'it may
+be that this body, this dear body, will come to such an end! No, no,
+my body, precious above all other treasures, I swear to you that I
+will spare you that ignominy; you shall not rot under a registered
+number in the filth of a suburban cemetery. Your brothers in love, the
+fifty knights of orichalch, await you, mute and grave, in the red
+marble hall. I shall take you back to them.'
+
+"A _mysterious love_. Shame to him who retails the secrets of his
+loves. The Sahara lays its impassable barrier about Antinea; that is
+why the most unreasonable requirements of this woman are, in reality,
+more modest and chaste than your marriage will be, with its vulgar
+public show, the bans, the invitations, the announcements telling an
+evil-minded and joking people that after such and such an hour, on
+such and such a day, you will have the right to violate your little
+tupenny virgin.
+
+"I think that is all I have to tell you. No, there is still one thing
+more. I told you a while ago about the red marble hall. South of
+Cherchell, to the west of the Mazafran river, on a hill which in the
+early morning, emerges from the mists of the Mitidja, there is a
+mysterious stone pyramid. The natives call it, 'The Tomb of the
+Christian.' That is where the body of Antinea's ancestress, that
+Cleopatra Selene, daughter of Mark Antony and Cleopatra, was laid to
+rest. Though it is placed in the path of invasions, this tomb has kept
+its treasure. No one has ever been able to discover the painted room
+where the beautiful body reposes in a glass casket. All that the
+ancestress has been able to do, the descendant will be able to surpass
+in grim magnificence. In the center of the red marble hall, on the
+rock whence comes the plaint of the gloomy fountain, a platform is
+reserved. It is there, on an orichalch throne, with the Egyptian
+head-dress and the golden serpent on her brow and the trident of
+Neptune in her hand, that the marvelous woman I have told you about
+will be ensconced on that day when the hundred and twenty niches,
+hollowed out in a circle around her throne, shall each have received
+its willing prey.
+
+"When I left Ahaggar, you remember that it was niche number 55 that
+was to be mine. Since then, I have never stopped calculating and I
+conclude that it is in number 80 or 85 that I shall repose. But any
+calculations based upon so fragile a foundation as a woman's whim may
+be erroneous. That is why I am getting more and more nervous. 'I must
+hurry,' I tell myself. 'I must hurry.'
+
+"I must hurry," I repeated, as if I were in a dream.
+
+He raised his head with an indefinable expression of joy. His hand
+trembled with happiness when he shook mine.
+
+"You will see," he repeated excitedly, "you will see."
+
+Ecstatically, he took me in his arms and held me there a long moment.
+
+An extraordinary happiness swept over both of us, while, alternately
+laughing and crying like children, we kept repeating:
+
+"We must hurry. We must hurry."
+
+Suddenly there sprang up a slight breeze that made the tufts of thatch
+in the roof rustle. The sky, pale lilac, grew paler still, and,
+suddenly, a great yellow rent tore it in the east. Dawn broke over the
+empty desert. From within the stockade came dull noises, a bugle call,
+the rattle of chains. The post was waking up.
+
+For several seconds we stood there silent, our eyes fixed on the
+southern route by which one reaches Temassinin, Eguere and Ahaggar.
+
+A rap on the dining-room door behind us made us start.
+
+"Come in," said Andre de Saint-Avit in a voice which had become
+suddenly hard.
+
+The Quartermaster, Chatelain, stood before us.
+
+"What do you want of me at this hour?" Saint-Avit asked brusquely.
+
+The non-com stood at attention.
+
+"Excuse me, Captain. But a native was discovered near the post, last
+night, by the patrol. He was not trying to hide. As soon as he had
+been brought here, he asked to be led before the commanding officer.
+It was midnight and I didn't want to disturb you."
+
+"Who is this native?"
+
+"A Targa, Captain."
+
+"A Targa? Go get him."
+
+Chatelain stepped aside. Escorted by one of our native soldiers, the
+man stood behind him.
+
+They came out on the terrace.
+
+The new arrival, six feet tall, was indeed a Targa. The light of dawn
+fell upon his blue-black cotton robes. One could see his great dark
+eyes flashing.
+
+When he was opposite my companion, I saw a tremor, immediately
+suppressed, run through both men.
+
+They looked at each other for an instant in silence.
+
+Then, bowing, and in a very calm voice, the Targa spoke:
+
+"Peace be with you, Lieutenant de Saint-Avit."
+
+In the same calm voice, Andre answered him:
+
+"Peace be with you, Cegheir-ben-Cheikh."
+
+[Transcriber's Notes:
+1.In the original books, there were handwritten characters for the
+Greek words used in the discussion of the Tifinar engravings; the
+approximate Greek transliterations have been substituted.
+2. Another inscription was hand-drawn in the book, and the center
+symbol looks like a capital W, rotated 90 degrees counter-clockwise. I
+placed notes to that effect where the symbol appears.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Atlantida, by Pierre Benoit
+
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+
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