Part 14

"You are surprised, perhaps," she said finally, "that I should send for you at so late an hour."

Morhange did not move an eyelash.

"Have you considered it well?" she demanded.

Morhange smiled gravely, but did not reply.

I could read in Antinea's face the effort it cost her to continue smiling; I admired the self-control of these two beings.

"I sent for you," she continued. "You do not guess why?... Well, it is to tell you something that you do not expect. It will be no surprise to you if I say that I never met a man like you. During your captivity, you have expressed only one wish. Do you recall it?"

"I asked your permission to see my friend before I died," said Morhange simply.

I do not know what stirred me more on hearing these words: delight at Morhange's formal tone in speaking to Antinea, or emotion at hearing the one wish he had expressed.

But Antinea continued calmly:

"That is why I sent for you--to tell you that you are going to see him again. And I am going to do something else. You will perhaps scorn me even more when you realize that you had only to oppose me to bend me to your will--I, who have bent all other wills to mine. But, however that may be, it is decided: I give you both your liberty. Tomorrow Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh will lead you past the fifth enclosure. Are you satisfied?"

"I am," said Morhange with a mocking smile.

"That will give me a chance," he continued, "to make better plans for the next trip I intend to make this way. For you need not doubt that I shall feel bound to return to express my gratitude. Only, next time, to render so great a queen the honors due her, I shall ask my government to furnish me with two or three hundred European soldiers and several cannon."

Antinea was standing up, very pale.

"What are you saying?"

"I am saying," said Morhange coldly, "that I foresaw this. First threats, then promises."

Antinea stepped toward him. He had folded his arms. He looked at her with a sort of grave pity.

"I will make you die in the most atrocious agonies," she said finally.

"I am your prisoner," Morhange replied.

"You shall suffer things that you cannot even imagine."

"I am your prisoner," repeated Morhange in the same sad calm.

Antinea paced the room like a beast in a cage. She advanced toward my companion and, no longer mistress of herself, struck him in the face.

He smiled and caught hold of her, drawing her little wrists together with a strange mixture of force and gentleness.

King Hiram growled. I thought he was about to leap. But the cold eyes of Morhange held him fascinated.

"I will have your comrade killed before your eyes," gasped Antinea.

It seemed to me that Morhange paled, but only for a second. I was overcome by the nobility and insight of his reply.

"My companion is brave. He does not fear death. And, in any case, he would prefer death to life purchased at the price you name."

So saying, he let go Antinea's wrists. Her pallor was terrible. From the expression of her mouth I felt that this would be her last word to him.

"Listen," she said.

How beautiful she was, in her scorned majesty, her beauty powerless for the first time!

"Listen," she continued. "Listen. For the last time. Remember that I hold the gates of this palace, that I have supreme power over your life. Remember that you breathe only at my pleasure. Remember...."

"I have remembered all that," said Morhange.

"A last time," she repeated.

The serenity of Morhange's face was so powerful that I scarcely noticed his opponent. In that transfigured countenance, no trace of worldliness remained.

"A last time," came Antinea's voice, almost breaking.

Morhange was not even looking at her.

"As you will," she said.

Her gong resounded. She had struck the silver disc. The white Targa appeared.

"Leave the room!"

Morhange, his head held high, went out.

Now Antinea is in my arms. This is no haughty, voluptuous woman whom I am pressing to my heart. It is only an unhappy, scorned little girl.

So great was her trouble that she showed no surprise when I stepped out beside her. Her head is on my shoulder. Like the crescent moon in the black clouds, I see her clear little bird-like profile amid her mass of hair. Her warm arms hold me convulsively.... _O tremblant coeur humain_....

Who could resist such an embrace, amid the soft perfumes, in the langorous night? I feel myself a being without will. Is this my voice, the voice which is murmuring:

"Ask me what you will, and I will do it, I will do it."

My senses are sharpened, tenfold keen. My head rests against a soft, nervous little knee. Clouds of odors whirl about me. Suddenly it seems as if the golden lanterns are waving from the ceiling like giant censers. Is this my voice, the voice repeating in a dream:

"Ask me what you will, and I will do it. I will do it."

Antinea's face is almost touching mine. A strange light flickers in her great eyes.

Beyond, I see the gleaming eyes of King Hiram. Beside him, there is a little table of Kairouan, blue and gold. On that table I see the gong with which Antinea summons the slaves. I see the hammer with which she struck it just now, a hammer with a long ebony handle, a heavy silver head ... the hammer with which little Lieutenant Kaine dealt death....

I see nothing more....

XVII

THE MAIDENS OF THE ROCKS

I awakened in my room. The sun, already at its zenith, filled the place with unbearable light and heat.

The first thing I saw, on opening my eyes, was the shade, ripped down, lying in the middle of the floor. Then, confusedly, the night's events began to come back to me.

My head felt stupid and heavy. My mind wandered. My memory seemed blocked. "I went out with the leopard, that is certain. That red mark on my forefinger shows how he strained at the leash. My knees are still dusty. I remember creeping along the wall in the room where the white Tuareg were playing at dice. That was the minute after King Hiram had leapt past them. After that ... oh, Morhange and Antinea.... And then?"

I recalled nothing more. I recalled nothing more. But something must have happened, something which I could not remember.

I was uneasy. I wanted to go back, yet it seemed as if I were afraid to go. I have never felt anything more painful than those conflicting emotions.

"It is a long way from here to Antinea's apartments. I must have been very sound asleep not to have noticed when they brought me back--for they have brought me back."

I stopped trying to think it out. My head ached too much.

"I must have air," I murmured. "I am roasting here; it will drive me mad."

I had to see someone, no matter whom. Mechanically, I walked toward the library.

I found M. Le Mesge in a transport of delirious joy. The Professor was engaged in opening an enormous bale, carefully sewed in a brown blanket.

"You come at a good time, sir," he cried, on seeing me enter. "The magazines have just arrived."

He dashed about in feverish haste. Presently a stream of pamphlets and magazines, blue, green, yellow and salmon, was bursting from an opening in the bale.

"Splendid, splendid!" he cried, dancing with joy. "Not too late, either; here are the numbers for October fifteenth. We must give a vote of thanks to good Ameur."

His good spirits were contagious.

"There is a good Turkish merchant who subscribes to all the interesting magazines of the two continents. He sends them on by Rhadamès to a destination which he little suspects. Ah, here are the French ones."

M. Le Mesge ran feverishly over, the tables of contents.

"Internal politics: articles by Francis Charmes, Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu, d'Haussonville on the Czar's trip to Paris. Look, a study by Avenel of wages in the Middle Ages. And verse, verses of the young poets, Fernand Gregh, Edmond Haraucourt. Ah, the resumé of a book by Henry de Castries on Islam. That may be interesting.... Take what you please."

Joy makes people amiable and M. Le Mesge was really delirious with it.

A puff of breeze came from the window. I went to the balustrade and, resting my elbows on it, began to run through a number of the _Revue des Deux Mondes_.

I did not read, but flipped over the pages, my eyes now on the lines of swarming little black characters, now on the rocky basin which lay shivering, pale pink, under the declining sun.

Suddenly my attention became fixed. There was a strange coincidence between the text and the landscape.

"In the sky overhead were only light shreds of cloud, like bits of white ash floating up from burnt-out logs. The sun fell over a circle of rocky peaks, silhouetting their severe lines against the azure sky. From on high, a great sadness and gentleness poured down into the lonely enclosure, like a magic drink into a deep cup...."[17]

[Footnote 17: Gabrielle d'Annunzio: _Les Vierges aux Rochers_. Cf. The _Revue des Deux Mondes_ of October 15, 1896; page 867.]

I turned the pages feverishly. My mind seemed to be clearing.

Behind me, M. Le Mesge, deep in an article, voiced his opinions in indignant growls.

I continued reading:

"On all sides a magnificent view spread out before us in the raw light. The chain of rocks, clearly visible in their barren desolation which stretched to the very summit, lay stretched out like some great heap of gigantic, unformed things left by some primordial race of Titans to stupefy human beings. Overturned towers...."

"It is shameful, downright shameful," the Professor was repeating.

"Overturned towers, crumbling citadels, cupolas fallen in, broken pillars, mutilated colossi, prows of vessels, thighs of monsters, bones of titans,--this mass, impassable with its ridges and gullies, seemed the embodiment of everything huge and tragic. So clear were the distances...."

"Downright shameful," M. Le Mesge kept on saying in exasperation, thumping his fist on the table.

"So clear were the distances that I could see, as if I had it under my eyes, infinitely enlarged, every contour of the rock which Violante had shown me through the window with the gesture of a creator...."

Trembling, I closed the magazine. At my feet, now red, I saw the rock which Antinea had pointed out to me the day of our first interview, huge, steep, overhanging the reddish brown garden.

"That is my horizon," she had said.

M. Le Mesge's excitement had passed all bounds.

"It is worse than shameful; it is infamous."

I almost wanted to strangle him into silence. He seized my arm.

"Read that, sir; and, although you don't know a great deal about the subject, you will see that this article on Roman Africa is a miracle of misinformation, a monument of ignorance. And it is signed ... do you know by whom it is signed?"

"Leave me alone," I said brutally.

"Well, it is signed Gaston Boissier. Yes, sir! Gaston Boissier, grand officer of the Legion of Honor, lecturer at the _Ecole Normale Supérieure_, permanent secretary of the French Academy, member of the Academy of Inscriptions and Literature, one of those who once ruled out the subject of my thesis ... one of those ... ah, poor university, ah, poor France!"

I was no longer listening. I had begun to read again. My forehead was covered with sweat. But it seemed as if my head had been cleared like a room when a window is opened; memories were beginning to come back like doves winging their way home to the dovecote.

"At that moment, an irrepressible tremor shook her whole body; her eyes dilated as if some terrible sight had filled them with horror.

"'Antonello,' she murmured.

"And for seconds, she was unable to say another word.

"I looked at her in mute anguish and the suffering which drew her dear lips together seemed also to clutch at my heart. The vision which was in her eyes passed into mine, and I saw again the thin white face of Antonello, and the quick quivering of his eyelids, the waves of agony which seized his long worn body and shook it like a reed."

I threw the magazine upon the table.

"That is it," I said.

To cut the pages, I had used the knife with which M. Le Mesge had cut the cords of the bale, a short ebony-handled dagger, one of those daggers that the Tuareg wear in a bracelet sheath against the upper left arm.

I slipped it into the big pocket of my flannel dolman and walked toward the door.

I was about to cross the threshold when I heard M. Le Mesge call me.

"Monsieur de Saint Avit! Monsieur de Saint Avit!

"I want to ask you something, please."

"What is it?"

"Nothing important. You know that I have to mark the labels for the red marble hall...."

I walked toward the table.

"Well, I forgot to ask M. Morhange, at the beginning, the date and place of his birth. After that, I had no chance. I did not see him again. So I am forced to turn to you. Perhaps you can tell me?"

"I can," I said very calmly.

He took a large white card from a box which contained several and dipped his pen.

"Number 54 ... Captain?"

"Captain Jean-Marie-François Morhange."

While I dictated, one hand resting on the table, I noticed on my cuff a stain, a little stain, reddish brown.

"Morhange," repeated M. Le Mesge, finishing the lettering of my friend's name. "Born at...?"

"Villefranche."

"Villefranche, Rhône. What date?"

"The fourteenth of October, 1859."

"The fourteenth of October, 1859. Good. Died at Ahaggar, the fifth of January, 1897.... There, that is done. A thousand thanks, sir, for your kindness."

"You are welcome."

I left M. Le Mesge.

My mind, thenceforth, was well made up; and, as I said, I was perfectly calm. Nevertheless, when I had taken leave of M. Le Mesge, I felt the need of waiting a few minutes before executing my decision.

First I wandered through the corridors; then, finding myself near my room, I went to it. It was still intolerably hot. I sat down on my divan and began to think.

The dagger in my pocket bothered me. I took it out and laid it on the floor.

It was a good dagger, with a diamond-shaped blade, and with a collar of orange leather between the blade and the handle.

The sight of it recalled the silver hammer. I remembered how easily it fitted into my hand when I struck....

Every detail of the scene came back to me with incomparable vividness. But I did not even shiver. It seemed as if my determination to kill the instigator of the murder permitted me peacefully to evoke its brutal details.

If I reflected over my deed, it was to be surprised at it, not to condemn myself.

"Well," I said to myself, "I have killed this Morhange, who was once a baby, who, like all the others, cost his mother so much trouble with his baby sicknesses. I have put an end to his life, I have reduced to nothingness the monument of love, of tears, of trials overcome and pitfalls escaped, which constitutes a human existence. What an extraordinary adventure!"

That was all. No fear, no remorse, none of that Shakespearean horror after the murder, which, today, sceptic though I am and blasé and utterly, utterly disillusioned, sets me shuddering whenever I am alone in a dark room.

"Come," I thought. "It's time. Time to finish it up."

I picked up the dagger. Before putting it in my pocket, I went through the motion of striking. All was well. The dagger fitted into my hand.

I had been through Antinea's apartment only when guided, the first time by the white Targa, the second time, by the leopard. Yet I found the way again without trouble. Just before coming to the door with the rose window, I met a Targa.

"Let me pass," I ordered. "Your mistress has sent for me." The man obeyed, stepping back.

Soon a dim melody came to my ears. I recognized the sound of a _rebaza_, the violin with a single string, played by the Tuareg women. It was Aguida playing, squatting as usual at the feet of her mistress. The three other women were also squatted about her. Tanit-Zerga was not there.

Oh! Since that was the last time I saw her, let, oh, let me tell you of Antinea, how she looked in that supreme moment.

Did she feel the danger hovering over her and did she wish to brave it by her surest artifices? I had in mind the slender; unadorned body, without rings, without jewels, which I had pressed to my heart the night before. And now I started in surprise at seeing before me, adorned like an idol, not a woman, but a queen!

The heavy splendor of the Pharaohs weighted down her slender body. On her head was the great gold _pschent_ of Egyptian gods and kings; emeralds, the national stone of the Tuareg, were set in it, tracing and retracing her name in Tifinar characters. A red satin _schenti_, embroidered in golden lotus, enveloped her like the casket of a jewel. At her feet, lay an ebony scepter, headed with a trident. Her bare arms were encircled by two serpents whose fangs touched her armpits as if to bury themselves there. From the ear pieces of the _pschent_ streamed a necklace of emeralds; its first strand passed under her determined chin; the others lay in circles against her bare throat.

She smiled as I entered.

"I was expecting you," she said simply.

I advanced till I was four steps from the throne, then stopped before her.

She looked at me ironically.

"What is that?" she asked with perfect calm.

I followed her gesture. The handle of the dagger protruded from my pocket.

I drew it out and held it firmly in my hand, ready to strike.

"The first of you who moves will be sent naked six leagues into the red desert and left there to die," said Antinea coldly to her women, whom my gesture had thrown into a frightened murmuring.

She turned to me.

"That dagger is very ugly and you hold it badly. Shall I send Sydya to my room to get the silver hammer? You are more adroit with it than with the dagger."

"Antinea," I said in a low voice, "I am going to kill you."

"Do not speak so formally. You were more affectionate last night. Are you embarrassed by them?" she said, pointing to the women, whose eyes were wide with terror.

"Kill me?" she went on. "You are hardly reasonable. Kill me at the moment when you can reap the fruits of the murder of...."

"Did--did he suffer?" I asked suddenly, trembling.

"Very little. I told you that you used the hammer as if you had done nothing else all your life."

"Like little Kaine," I murmured.

She smiled in surprise.

"Oh, you know that story.... Yes, like little Kaine. But at least Kaine was sensible. You ... I do not understand."

"I do not understand myself, very well."

She looked at me with amused curiosity.

"Antinea," I said.

"What is it?"

"I did what you told me to. May I in turn ask one favor, ask you one question?"

"What is it?"

"It was dark, was it not, in the room where _he_ was?"

"Very dark. I had to lead you to the bed where he lay asleep."

"He _was_ asleep, you are sure?"

"I said so."

"He--did not die instantly, did he?"

"No. I know exactly when he died; two minutes after you struck him and fled with a shriek."

"Then surely _he_ could not have known?"

"Known what?"

"That it was I who--who held the hammer."

"He might not have known it, indeed," Antinea said. "But he did know."

"How?"

"He did know ... because I told him," she said, staring at me with magnificent audacity.

"And," I murmured, "he--he believed it?"

"With the help of my explanation, he recognized your shriek. If he had not realized that you were his murderer, the affair would not have interested me," she finished with a scornful little smile.

Four steps, I said, separated me from Antinea. I sprang forward. But, before I reached her, I was struck to the floor.

King Hiram had leapt at my throat.

At the same moment I heard the calm, haughty voice of Antinea:

"Call the men," she commanded.

A second later I was released from the leopard's clutch. The six white Tuareg had surrounded me and were trying to bind me.

I am fairly strong and quick. I was on my feet in a second. One of my enemies lay on the floor, ten feet away, felled by a well-placed blow on the jaw. Another was gasping under my knee. That was the last time I saw Antinea. She stood erect, both hands resting on her ebony scepter, watching the struggle with a smile of contemptuous interest.

Suddenly I gave a loud cry and loosed the hold I had on my victim. A cracking in my left arm: one of the Tuareg had seized it and twisted until my shoulder was dislocated.

When I completely lost consciousness, I was being carried down the corridor by two white phantoms, so bound that I could not move a muscle.

XVIII

THE FIRE-FLIES

Through the great open window, waves of pale moonlight surged into my room.

A slender white figure was standing beside the bed where I lay.

"You, Tanit-Zerga!" I murmured. She laid a finger on her lips.

"Sh! Yes, it is I."

I tried to raise myself up on the bed. A terrible pain seized my shoulder. The events of the afternoon came back to my poor harassed mind.

"Oh, little one, if you knew!"

"I know," she said.

I was weaker than a baby. After the overstrain of the day had come a fit of utter nervous depression. A lump rose in my throat, choking me.

"If you knew, if you only knew!... Take me away, little one. Get me away from here."

"Not so loud," she whispered. "There is a white Targa on guard at the door."

"Take me away; save me," I repeated.

"That is what I came for," she said simply.

I looked at her. She no longer was wearing her beautiful red silk tunic. A plain white _haik_ was wrapped about her; and she had drawn one corner of it over her head.

"I want to go away, too," she said in a smothered voice.

"For a long time, I have wanted to go away. I want to see Gâo, the village on the bank of the river, and the blue gum trees, and the green water.

"Ever since I came here, I have wanted to get away," she repeated, "but I am too little to go alone into the great Sahara. I never dared speak to the others who came here before you. They all thought only of _her_.... But you, you wanted to kill her."

I gave a low moan.

"You are suffering," she said. "They broke your arm."

"Dislocated it anyhow."

"Let me see."

With infinite gentleness, she passed her smooth little hands over my shoulder.

"You tell me that there is a white Targa on guard before my door, Tanit-Zerga," I said. "Then how did you get in?"