It was at night that Saint-Avit liked to tell me a little of his
enthralling history. He gave it to me in short installments, exact and
chronological, never anticipating the episodes of a drama whose tragic
outcome I knew already. Not that he wished to obtain more effect that
way--I felt that he was far removed from any calculation of that sort!
Simply from the extraordinary nervousness into which he was thrown by
recalling such memories.
One evening, the mail from France had just arrived. The letters that
Chatelain had handed us lay upon the little table, not yet opened. By
the light of the lamp, a pale halo in the midst of the great black
desert, we were able to recognize the writing of the addresses. Oh!
the victorious smile of Saint-Avit when, pushing aside all those
letters, I said to him in a trembling voice:
"Go on."
He acquiesced without further words.
"Nothing can give you any idea of the fever I was in from the day when
the Hetman of Jitomir told me of his adventures to the day when I
found myself in the presence of Antinea. The strangest part was that
the thought that I was, in a way, condemned to death, did not enter
into this fever. On the contrary, it was stimulated by my desire for
the event which would be the signal of my downfall, the summons from
Antinea. But this summons was not speedy in coming. And from this
delay, arose my unhealthy exasperation.
"Did I have any lucid moments in the course of these hours? I do not
think so. I do not recall having even said to myself, 'What, aren't
you ashamed? Captive in an unheard of situation, you not only are not
trying to escape, but you even bless your servitude and look forward
to your ruin.' I did not even color my desire to remain there, to
enjoy the next step in the adventure, by the pretext I might have
given--unwillingness to escape without Morhange. If I felt a vague
uneasiness at not seeing him again, it was not because of a desire to
know that he was well and safe.
"Well and safe, I knew him to be, moreover. The Tuareg slaves of
Antinea's household were certainly not very communicative. The women
were hardly more loquacious. I heard, it is true, from Sydya and
Aguida, that my companion liked pomegranates or that he could not
endure _kouskous_ of bananas. But if I asked for a different kind of
information, they fled, in fright, down the long corridors. With
Tanit-Zerga, it was different. This child seemed to have a distaste
for mentioning before me anything bearing in any way upon Antinea.
Nevertheless, I knew that she was devoted to her mistress with a
doglike fidelity. But she maintained an obstinate silence if I
pronounced her name or, persisting, the name of Morhange.
"As for the Europeans, I did not care to question these sinister
puppets. Besides, all three were difficult of approach. The Hetman of
Jitomir was sinking deeper and deeper into alcohol. What intelligence
remained to him, he seemed to have dissolved the evening when he had
invoked his youth for me. I met him from time to time in the corridors
that had become all at once too narrow for him, humming in a thick
voice a couplet from the music of _La Reine Hortense_.
_De ma fille Isabelle
Sois l'époux à l'instant,
Car elle est la plus belle
Et toi, le plus vaillant_.
"As for Pastor Spardek, I would cheerfully have killed the old
skinflint. And the hideous little man with the decorations, the placid
printer of labels for the red marble hall,--how could I meet him
without wanting to cry out in his face: 'Eh! eh! Sir Professor, a very
curious case of apocope: [Greek: Atlantinea]. Suppression of _alpha_,
of _tau_ and of _lambda_! I would like to direct your attention to
another case as curious: [Greek: klêmêntinea], Clémentine. Apocope of
_kappa_, of _lamba_, of _epsilon_ and of _mu_. If Morhange were with
us, he would tell you many charming erudite things about it. But,
alas! Morhange does not deign to come among us any more. We never see
Morhange.'
"My fever for information found a little more favorable reception from
Rosita, the old Negress manicure. Never have I had my nails polished
so often as during those days of waiting! Now--after six years--she
must be dead. I shall not wrong her memory by recording that she was
very partial to the bottle. The poor old soul was defenseless against
those that I brought her and that I emptied with her, through
politeness.
"Unlike the other slaves, who are brought from the South toward Turkey
by the merchants of Rhât, she was born in Constantinople and had been
brought into Africa by her master when he became _kaïmakam_ of
Rhadamès.... But don't let me complicate this already wandering
history by the incantations of this manicure.
"'Antinea,' she said to me, 'is the daughter of
El-Hadj-Ahmed-ben-Guemâma, Sultan of Ahaggar, and Sheik of the great
and noble tribe of Kel-Rhelâ. She was born in the year twelve hundred
and eighty-one of the Hegira. She has never wished to marry any one.
Her wish has been respected for the will of women is sovereign in this
Ahaggar where she rules to-day. She is a cousin of Sidi-el-Senoussi,
and, if she speaks the word, Christian blood will flow from Djerid to
Touat, and from Tchad to Senegal. If she had wished it, she might have
lived beautiful and respected in the land of the Christians. But she
prefers to have them come to her.'
"'Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh,' I said, 'do you know him? He is entirely
devoted to her?'
"'Nobody here knows Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh very well, because he is
continually traveling. It is true that he is entirely devoted to
Antinea. Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh is a Senoussi, and Antinea is the cousin
of the chief of the Senoussi. Besides, he owes his life to her. He is
one of the men who assassinated the great Kébir Flatters. On account
of that, Ikenoukhen, _amenokol_ of the Adzjer Tuareg, fearing French
reprisals, wanted to deliver Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh to them. When the
whole Sahara turned against him, he found asylum with Antinea.
Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh will never forget it, for he is brave and observes
the law of the Prophet. To thank her, he led to Antinea, who was then
twenty years old, three French officers of the first troops of
occupation in Tunis. They are the ones who are numbered, in the red
marble hall, 1, 2, and 3.'
"'And Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh has always fulfilled his duties
successfully?'
"'Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh is well trained, and he knows the vast Sahara as
I know my little room at the top of the mountain. At first, he made
mistakes. That is how, on his first trips, he brought back old Le
Mesge and marabout Spardek.'
"'What did Antinea say when she saw them?'
"'Antinea? She laughed so hard that she spared them.
Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh was vexed to see her laugh so. Since then, he has
never made a mistake.'
"'He has never made a mistake?'
"'No. I have cared for the hands and feet of all that he has brought
here. All were young and handsome. But I think that your comrade, whom
they brought to me the other day, after you were here, is the
handsomest of all.'
"'Why,' I asked, turning the conversation, 'why, since she spared them
their lives, did she not free the pastor and M. Le Mesge?'
"'She has found them useful, it seems,' said the old woman. 'And then,
whoever once enters here, can never leave. Otherwise, the French would
soon be here and, when they saw the hall of red marble, they would
massacre everybody. Besides, of all those whom Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh has
brought here, no one, save one, has wished to escape after seeing
Antinea.'
"'She keeps them a long time?'
"'That depends upon them and the pleasure that she takes in them. Two
months, three months, on the average. It depends. A big Belgian
officer, formed like a colossus, didn't last a week. On the other
hand, everyone here remembers little Douglas Kaine, an English
officer: she kept him almost a year.'
"'And then?'
"'And then, he died,' said the old woman as if astonished at my
question.
"'Of what did he die?'
"She used the same phrase as M. Le Mesge:
"'Like all the others: of love.
"'Of love,' she continued. "They all die of love when they see that
their time is ended, and that Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh has gone to find
others. Several have died quietly with tears in their great eyes. They
neither ate nor slept any more. A French naval officer went mad. All
night, he sang a sad song of his native country, a song which echoed
through the whole mountain. Another, a Spaniard, was as if maddened:
he tried to bite. It was necessary to kill him. Many have died of
_kif_, a _kif_ that is more violent than opium. When they no longer
have Antinea, they smoke, smoke. Most have died that way ... the
happiest. Little Kaine died differently.'
"'How did little Kaine die?'
"'In a way that pained us all very much. I told you that he stayed
longer among us than anyone else. We had become used to him. In
Antinea's room, on a little Kairouan table, painted in blue and gold,
there is a gong with a long silver hammer with an ebony handle, very
heavy. Aguida told me about it. When Antinea gave little Kaine his
dismissal, smiling as she always does, he stopped in front of her,
mute, very pale. She struck the gong for someone to take him away. A
Targa slave came. But little Kaine had leapt for the hammer, and the
Targa lay on the ground with his skull smashed. Antinea smiled all the
time. They led little Kaine to his room. The same night, eluding
guards, he jumped out of his window at a height of two hundred feet.
The workmen in the embalming room told me that they had the greatest
difficulty with his body. But they succeeded very well. You have only
to go see for yourself. He occupies niche number 26 in the red marble
hall.'
"The old woman drowned her emotion in her glass.
"'Two days before,' she continued, 'I had done his nails, here, for
this was his room. On the wall, near the window, he had written
something in the stone with his knife. See, it is still here.'
"'Was it not Fate, that on this July midnight....'
"At any other moment, that verse, traced in the stone of the window
through which the English officer had hurled himself, would have
killed me with overpowering emotion. But just then, another thought
was in my heart.
"'Tell me,' I said, controlling my voice as well as I could, 'when
Antinea holds one of us in her power, she shuts him up near her, does
she not? Nobody sees him any more?'
The old woman shook her head.
"'She is not afraid that he will escape. The mountain is well guarded.
Antinea has only to strike her silver gong; he will be brought back to
her immediately.'
"'But my companion. I have not see him since she sent for him....'
"The Negress smiled comprehendingly.
"'If you have not seen him, it is because he prefers to remain near
her. Antinea does not force him to. Neither does she prevent him.'
"I struck my fist violently upon the table.
"'Get along with you, old fool. And be quick about it!'
"Rosita fled frightened, hardly taking time to collect her little
instruments.
"'Was it not Fate, that on this July midnight....'
"I obeyed the Negress's suggestion. Following the corridors, losing my
way, set on the right road again by the Reverend Spardek, I pushed
open the door of the red marble hall. I entered.
"The freshness of the perfumed crypt did me good. No place can be so
sinister that it is not, as it were, purified by the murmur of running
water. The cascade, gurgling in the middle hall, comforted me. One day
before an attack I was lying with my section in deep grass, waiting
for the moment, the blast of the bugle, which would demand that we
leap forward into the hail of bullets. A stream was at my feet. I
listened to its fresh rippling. I admired the play of light and shade
in the transparent water, the little beasts, the little black fish,
the green grass, the yellow wrinkled sand.... The mystery of water
always has carried me out of myself.
"Here, in this magic hall, my thoughts were held by the dark
cascade. It felt friendly. It kept me from faltering in the midst of
these rigid evidences of so many monstrous sacrifices.... Number 26.
It was he all right. Lieutenant Douglas Kaine, born at Edinburgh,
September 21, 1862. Died at Ahaggar, July 16, 1890. Twenty-eight.
He wasn't even twenty-eight! His face was thin under the coat of
orichalch. His mouth sad and passionate. It was certainly he. Poor
youngster.--Edinburgh,--I knew Edinburgh, without ever having been
there. From the wall of the castle you can see the Pentland hills.
"Look a little lower down," said Stevenson's sweet Miss Flora to Anne
of Saint-Yves, "look a little lower down and you will see, in the fold
of the hill, a clump of trees and a curl of smoke that rises from
among them. That is Swanston Cottage, where my brother and I live with
my aunt. If it really pleases you to see it, I shall be glad." When he
left for Darfour, Douglas Kaine must surely have left in Edinburgh a
Miss Flora, as blonde as Saint-Yves' Flora. But what are these slips
of girls beside Antinea! Kaine, however sensible a mortal, however
made for this kind of love, had loved otherwise. He was dead. And here
was number 27, on account of whom Kaine dashed himself on the rocks of
the Sahara, and who, in his turn, is dead also.
"To die, to love. How naturally the word resounded in the red marble
hall. How Antinea seemed to tower above that circle of pale statues!
Does love, then, need so much death in order that it may be
multiplied? Other women, in other parts of the world, are doubtless as
beautiful as Antinea, more beautiful perhaps. I hold you to witness
that I have not said much about her beauty. Why then, this obsession,
this fever, this consumption of all my being? Why am I ready, for the
sake of pressing this quivering form within my arms for one instant,
to face things that I dare not think of for fear I should tremble
before them?
"Here is number 53, the last. Morhange will be 54. I shall be 55. In
six months, eight, perhaps,--what difference anyway?--I shall be
hoisted into this niche, an image without eyes, a dead soul, a
finished body.
"I touched the heights of bliss, of exaltation that can be felt. What
a child I was, just now! I lost my temper with a Negro manicure. I was
jealous of Morhange, on my word! Why not, since I was at it, be
jealous of those here present; then of the others, the absent, who
will come, one by one, to fill the black circle of the still empty
niches.... Morhange, I know, is at this moment with Antinea, and it is
to me a bitter and splendid joy to think of his joy. But some evening,
in three months, four perhaps, the embalmers will come here. Niche 54
will receive its prey. Then a Targa slave will advance toward me. I
shall shiver with superb ecstasy. He will touch my arm. And it will be
my turn to penetrate into eternity by the bleeding door of love.
"When I emerged from my meditation, I found myself back in the
library, where the falling night obscured the shadows of the people
who were assembled there.
"I recognized M. Le Mesge, the Pastor, the Hetman, Aguida, two Tuareg
slaves, still more, all joining in the most animated conference.
"I drew nearer, astonished, even alarmed to see together so many
people who ordinarily felt no kind of sympathy for each other.
"An unheard of occurrence had thrown all the people of the mountain
into uproar.
"Two Spanish explorers, come from Rio de Oro, had been seen to the
West, in Adhar Ahnet.
"As soon as Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh was informed, he had prepared to go to
meet them.
"At that instant he had received the order to do nothing.
"Henceforth it was impossible to doubt.
"For the first time, Antinea was in love."