“‘Of love,’ she continued.  “They all die of love when they see that their time is ended, and that Cegheir-ben-Cheikh has gone to find others.  Several have died quietly with tears in their great eyes.  They neither ate nor slept any more.  A French naval officer went mad.  All night, he sang a sad song of his native country, a song which echoed through the whole mountain.  Another, a Spaniard, was as if maddened:  he tried to bite.  It was necessary to kill him.  Many have died of kif, a kif that is more violent than opium.  When they no longer have Antinea, they smoke, smoke.  Most have died that way ... the happiest.  Little Kaine died differently.’

“‘How did little Kaine die?’

“’In a way that pained us all very much.  I told you that he stayed longer among us than anyone else.  We had become used to him.  In Antinea’s room, on a little Kairouan table, painted in blue and gold, there is a gong with a long silver hammer with an ebony handle, very heavy.  Aguida told me about it.  When Antinea gave little Kaine his dismissal, smiling as she always does, he stopped in front of her, mute, very pale.  She struck the gong for someone to take him away.  A Targa slave came.  But little Kaine had leapt for the hammer, and the Targa lay on the ground with his skull smashed.  Antinea smiled all the time.  They led little Kaine to his room.  The same night, eluding guards, he jumped out of his window at a height of two hundred feet.  The workmen in the embalming room told me that they had the greatest difficulty with his body.  But they succeeded very well.  You have only to go see for yourself.  He occupies niche number 26 in the red marble hall.’

“The old woman drowned her emotion in her glass.

“‘Two days before,’ she continued, ’I had done his nails, here, for this was his room.  On the wall, near the window, he had written something in the stone with his knife.  See, it is still here.’

“‘Was it not Fate, that on this July midnight....’

“At any other moment, that verse, traced in the stone of the window through which the English officer had hurled himself, would have killed me with overpowering emotion.  But just then, another thought was in my heart.

“‘Tell me,’ I said, controlling my voice as well as I could, ’when Antinea holds one of us in her power, she shuts him up near her, does she not?  Nobody sees him any more?’

The old woman shook her head.

“’She is not afraid that he will escape.  The mountain is well guarded.  Antinea has only to strike her silver gong; he will be brought back to her immediately.’

“‘But my companion.  I have not see him since she sent for him....’

“The Negress smiled comprehendingly.

“’If you have not seen him, it is because he prefers to remain near her.  Antinea does not force him to.  Neither does she prevent him.’

“I struck my fist violently upon the table.