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 occu