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The sun in the west was no larger than a red brand. We saw Eg-Anteouen approach the fountain, spread his blue burnous on the ground and kneel upon it. "I did not suppose that the Tuareg were so observant of Mussulman tradition," said Morhange. "Nor I," I replied thoughtfully. But I had something to do at that moment besides making such speculations. "Bou-Djema," I called.
She advanced toward my companion and, no longer mistress of herself, struck him in the face. He smiled and caught hold of her, drawing her little wrists together with a strange mixture of force and gentleness. King Hiram growled. I thought he was about to leap. But the cold eyes of Morhange held him fascinated. "I will have your comrade killed before your eyes," gasped Antinea.
Just look around you." I rubbed my eyes and stared. Then I seized my friend's hand. "Morhange," I begged, "tell me if we are still dreaming." We were in a round room, perhaps fifty feet in diameter, and of about the same height, lighted by a great window opening on a sky of intense blue. Swallows flew back and forth, outside, giving quick, joyous cries.
I felt that I never had understood what manner of man Morhange was, never. He stood erect before Antinea without seeming to notice her gesture inviting him to be seated. She smiled at him. "You are surprised, perhaps," she said finally, "that I should send for you at so late an hour." Morhange did not move an eyelash. "Have you considered it well?" she demanded.
"As for Pastor Spardek, I would cheerfully have killed the old skinflint. And the hideous little man with the decorations, the placid printer of labels for the red marble hall, how could I meet him without wanting to cry out in his face: 'Eh! eh! Apocope of kappa, of lamba, of epsilon and of mu. If Morhange were with us, he would tell you many charming erudite things about it. But, alas!
It remains understood that Captain Morhange died from a sunstroke and that I buried him on the border of the Tarhit watercourse, three marches from Timissao. Everybody can detect that there are things missing in my story. Doubtless they guess at some mysterious drama. But proofs are another matter.
Morhange was in the library, intently reading a manuscript. "A lost treatise of Saint Optat," he said. "Oh, if only Dom Granger were here. See, it is written in semi-uncial characters." I did not reply. My eyes were fixed on an object which lay on the table beside the manuscript.
"All this is beginning to seem very strange," said Morhange, coming over to me. "You can say that without exaggeration," I replied. "You remember as well as I the passage in which Barth tells of his expedition to the Idinen, the Mountain of the Evil Spirits of the Azdjer Tuareg. The region had so evil a reputation that no Targa would go with him. But he got back."
"I am coming, I am coming. Say, Ferradji, that we will be there in a moment. Why, sir, if I had foreseen ... It is extraordinary ... to find an officer who knows Procles of Carthage and Arbois de Jubainville. Again ... But I must introduce myself. I am Etienne Le Mesge, Fellow of the University." "Captain Morhange," said my companion. I stepped forward in my turn. "Lieutenant de Saint-Avit.
While I proceeded to make piles of as similar dimensions as possible I kept saying to myself: "To think that I have been believing all this time that in his mission with Morhange, Saint-Avit was particularly concerned in scientific observations. Either my memory deceives me strangely or he is riding a horse of another color.
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