He gave a silent, satisfied laugh as he spoke.  The dying flame lit up his face.  We saw the gleaming black stem of his pipe.  He held it in his left hand.  One finger, no, two fingers only on that hand.  Hello!  I had not noticed that before.

Morhange also noticed it, for he finished with a loud laugh.

“Then, after splitting his skull, you robbed him.  You took his pipe from him.  Bravo, Cegheir-ben-Cheikh!”

Cegheir-ben-Cheikh does not reply, but I can see how satisfied with himself he is.  He keeps on smoking.  I can hardly see his features now.  The firelight pales, dies.  I have never laughed so much as this evening.  I am sure Morhange never has, either.  Perhaps he will forget the cloister.  And all because Cegheir-ben-Cheikh stole Captain Masson’s pipe....

Again that accursed song.  “The seventh is a boy, one of whose eyes has flown away.”  One cannot imagine more senseless words.  It is very strange, really:  there seem to be four of us in this cave now.  Four, I say, five, six, seven, eight....  Make yourselves at home, my friends.  What! there are no more of you?...  I am going to find out at last how the spirits of this region are made, the Gamphasantes, the Blemyens....  Morhange says that the Blemyens have their faces on the middle of their chests.  Surely this one who is seizing me in his arms is not a Blemyen!  Now he is carrying me outside.  And Morhange ...  I do not want them to forget Morhange....

They did not forget him; I see him perched on a camel in front of that one to which I am fastened.  They did well to fasten me, for otherwise I surely would tumble off.  These spirits certainly are not bad fellows.  But what a long way it is!  I want to stretch out.  To sleep.  A while ago we surely were following a long passage, then we were in the open air.  Now we are again in an endless stifling corridor.  Here are the stars again....  Is this ridiculous course going to keep on?...

Hello, lights!  Stars, perhaps.  No, lights, I say.  A stairway, on my word; of rocks, to be sure, but still, a stairway.  How can the camels...?  But it is no longer a camel; this is a man carrying me.  A man dressed in white, not a Gamphasante nor a Blemyen.  Morhange must be giving himself airs with his historical reasoning, all false, I repeat, all false.  Good Morhange.  Provided that his Gamphasante does not let him fall on this unending stairway.  Something glitters on the ceiling.  Yes, it is a lamp, a copper lamp, as at Tunis, at Barbouchy’s.  Good, here again you cannot see anything.  But I am making a fool of myself; I am lying down; now I can go to sleep.  What a silly day!...  Gentlemen, I assure you that it is unnecessary to bind me:  I do not want to go down on the boulevards.

Darkness again.  Steps of someone going away.  Silence.

But only for a moment.  Someone is talking beside me.  What are they saying?...  No, it is impossible.  That metallic ring, that voice.  Do you know what it is calling, that voice, do you know what it is calling in the tones of someone used to the phrase?  Well, it is calling: