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 Cegheir-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."

XV

THE LAMENT OF TANIT-ZERGA

"_Arraou, arraou_."

I roused myself vaguely from the half sleep to which I had finally
succumbed. I half opened my eyes. Immediately I flattened back.

"_Arraou_."

Two feet from my face was the muzzle of King Hiram, yellow with a
tracery of black. The leopard was helping me to wake up; otherwise he
took little interest, for