“Let me pass,” I ordered.  “Your mistress has sent for me.”  The man obeyed, stepping back.

Soon a dim melody came to my ears.  I recognized the sound of a rebaza, the violin with a single string, played by the Tuareg women.  It was Aguida playing, squatting as usual at the feet of her mistress.  The three other women were also squatted about her.  Tanit-Zerga was not there.

Oh!  Since that was the last time I saw her, let, oh, let me tell you of Antinea, how she looked in that supreme moment.

Did she feel the danger hovering over her and did she wish to brave it by her surest artifices?  I had in mind the slender; unadorned body, without rings, without jewels, which I had pressed to my heart the night before.  And now I started in surprise at seeing before me, adorned like an idol, not a woman, but a queen!

The heavy splendor of the Pharaohs weighted down her slender body.  On her head was the great gold pschent of Egyptian gods and kings; emeralds, the national stone of the Tuareg, were set in it, tracing and retracing her name in Tifinar characters.  A red satin schenti, embroidered in golden lotus, enveloped her like the casket of a jewel.  At her feet, lay an ebony scepter, headed with a trident.  Her bare arms were encircled by two serpents whose fangs touched her armpits as if to bury themselves there.  From the ear pieces of the pschent streamed a necklace of emeralds; its first strand passed under her determined chin; the others lay in circles against her bare throat.

She smiled as I entered.

“I was expecting you,” she said simply.

I advanced till I was four steps from the throne, then stopped before her.

She looked at me ironically.

“What is that?” she asked with perfect calm.

I followed her gesture.  The handle of the dagger protruded from my pocket.

I drew it out and held it firmly in my hand, ready to strike.

“The first of you who moves will be sent naked six leagues into the red desert and left there to die,” said Antinea coldly to her women, whom my gesture had thrown into a frightened murmuring.

She turned to me.

“That dagger is very ugly and you hold it badly.  Shall I send Sydya to my room to get the silver hammer?  You are more adroit with it than with the dagger.”

“Antinea,” I said in a low voice, “I am going to kill you.”

“Do not speak so formally.  You were more affectionate last night.  Are you embarrassed by them?” she said, pointing to the women, whose eyes were wide with terror.

“Kill me?” she went on.  “You are hardly reasonable.  Kill me at the moment when you can reap the fruits of the murder of....”

“Did—­did he suffer?” I asked suddenly, trembling.

“Very little.  I told you that you used the hammer as if you had done nothing else all your life.”

“Like little Kaine,” I murmured.