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Updated: June 14, 2025
Koukou dealt and laid down a nine. "My country and my honor!" raged Bielowsky. "I had an eight." I had two kings, and so showed no ill temper. Rosita took the cards out of my hands. I watched Sydya at my right. Her heavy black hair covered her shoulders. She was really very beautiful, though a bit tipsy, as were all that fantastic company.
She looked at me, too, but with lowered eyelids, like a timid little wild animal. "Oh," I thought. "She may well be afraid. I am labelled 'No trespassing." I touched her foot. She drew it back in fright. "Who wants cards?" Koukou demanded. "Not I," said the Hetman. "Served," said Sydya. The cook drew a four. "Nine," he said. "That card was meant for me," cursed the count. "And five, I had a five.
I recognized acquaintances among those present; my masseur, the manicure, the barber, and two or three Tuareg who had lowered their veils and were gravely smoking long pipes. While waiting for something better, all were plunged in the delights of a card game that looked like "rams." Two of Antinea's beautiful ladies in waiting, Aguida and Sydya, were among the number.
At the right, Sydya, myself, the old manicure, Rosita, Barouf, the barber, another woman and two white Tuareg, grave and attentive, exactly opposite those on the left. "Give me one," said the Hetman. Sydya made a negative gesture. Koukou drew, passed a four-spot to the Hetman, gave himself a five. "Eight," announced Bielowsky. "Six," said pretty Sydya. "Seven," broke in Koukou.
"Wait, you beast," called Bielowsky. "Don't you see that the glasses are empty? Here, Cacambo." The goblets were filled immediately by the jolly masseur. "Cut," said Koukou, addressing Sydya, the beautiful Targa who sat at his right. The girl cut, like one who knows superstitions, with her left hand. But it must be said that her right was busy lifting a cup to her lips.
"Thirteen," said Sydya with a slow smile, as she seated herself on the count's knee and began to arrange her chips lovingly in little piles. "Fourteen," I said. "Fifteen," said the sharp voice of Rosita, the old manicure. "Seventeen," proclaimed the Hetman. "Twenty thousand," the cook broke in. He hammered on the table and, casting a defiant look at us, repeated: "I take it at twenty thousand."
"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."
I heard, it is true, from Sydya and Aguida, that my companion liked pomegranates or that he could not endure kouskous of bananas. But if I asked for a different kind of information, they fled, in fright, down the long corridors. With Tanit-Zerga, it was different. This child seemed to have a distaste for mentioning before me anything bearing in any way upon Antinea.
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