e 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 Morh