“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 he yawned; his dark red jaws, beautiful gleaming white fangs, opened and closed lazily.

At the same moment I heard a burst of laughter.

It was little Tanit-Zerga.  She was crouching on a cushion near the divan where I was stretched out, curiously watching my close interview with the leopard.

“King Hiram was bored,” she felt obliged to explain to me.  “I brought him.”

“How nice,” I growled.  “Only tell me, could he not have gone somewhere else to be amused?”

“He is all alone now,” said the girl. “They have sent him away.  He made too much noise when he played.”