oman 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.