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.