The Golden Age of Science Fiction Novels Vol 04 Read online

  "You may read," he said simply, but still in the same low tone.

  I knelt also, for the light of the great candelabra was scarcely sufficient to read the label where, none the less, I recognized the Professor's handwriting.

  It bore these few words, in a large round hand:

  "Number 53. Major Sir Archibald Russell. Born at Richmond, July 5, 1860. Died at Ahaggar, December 3, 1896."

  I leapt to my feet.

  "Major Russell!" I exclaimed.

  "Not so loud, not so loud," said M. Le Mesge. "No one speaks out loud here."

  "The Major Russell," I repeated, obeying his injunction as if in spite of myself, "who left Khartoum last year, to explore Sokoto?"

  "The same," replied the Professor.

  "And … where is Major Russell?"

  "He is there," replied M. Le Mesge.

  The Professor made a gesture. The Tuareg approached.

  A poignant silence reigned in the mysterious hall, broken only by the fresh splashing of the fountain.

  The three Negroes were occupied in undoing the package that they had put down near the painted case. Weighed down with wordless horror, Morhange and I stood watching.

  Soon, a rigid form, a human form, appeared. A red gleam played over it. We had before us, stretched out upon the ground, a statue of pale bronze, wrapped in a kind of white veil, a statue like those all around us, upright in their niches. It seemed to fix us with an impenetrable gaze.

  "Sir Archibald Russell," murmured M. Le Mesge slowly.

  Morhange approached, speechless, but strong enough to lift up the white veil. For a long, long time he gazed at the sad bronze statue.

  "A mummy, a mummy?" he said finally. "You deceive yourself, sir, this is no mummy."

  "Accurately speaking, no," replied M. Le Mesge. "This is not a mummy. None the less, you have before you the mortal remains of Sir Archibald Russell. I must point out to you, here, my dear sir, that the processes of embalming used by Antinea differ from the processes employed in ancient Egypt. Here, there is no natron, nor bands, nor spices. The industry of Ahaggar, in a single effort, has achieved a result obtained by European science only after long experiments. Imagine my surprise, when I arrived here and found that they were employing a method I supposed known only to the civilized world."

  M. Le Mesge struck a light tap with his finger on the forehead of Sir Archibald Russell. It rang like metal.

  "It is bronze," I said. "That is not a human forehead: it is bronze."

  M. Le Mesge shrugged his shoulders.

  "It is a human forehead," he affirmed curtly, "and not bronze. Bronze is darker, sir. This is the great unknown metal of which Plato speaks in the Critias, and which is something between gold and silver: it is the special metal of the mountains of the Atlantides. It is orichalch."

  Bending again, I satisfied myself that this metal was the same as that with which the walls of the library were overcast.

  "It is orichalch," continued M. Le Mesge. "You look as if you had no idea how a human body can look like a statue of orichalch. Come, Captain Morhange, you whom I gave credit for a certain amount of knowledge, have you never heard of the method of Dr. Variot, by which a human body can be preserved without embalming? Have you never read the book of that practitioner?[11] He explains a method called electro-plating. The skin is coated with a very thin layer of silver salts, to make it a conductor. The body then is placed in a solution, of copper sulphate, and the polar currents do their work. The body of this estimable English major has been metalized in the same manner, except that a solution of orichalch sulphate, a very rare substance, has been substituted for that of copper sulphate. Thus, instead of the statue of a poor slave, a copper statue, you have before you a statue of metal more precious than silver or gold, in a word, a statue worthy of the granddaughter of Neptune."

  [Footnote 11: Variot: L'anthropologie galvanique. Paris, 1890. (Note by M. Leroux.)]

  M. Le Mesge waved his arm. The black slaves seized the body. In a few seconds, they slid the orichalch ghost into its painted wooden sheath. That was set on end and slid into its niche, beside the niche where an exactly similar sheath was labelled "Number 52."

  Upon finishing their task, they retired without a word. A draught of cold air from the door again made the flames of the copper torches flicker and threw great shadows about us.

  Morhange and I remained as motionless as the pale metal specters which surrounded us. Suddenly I pulled myself together and staggered forward to the niche beside that in which they just had laid the remains of the English major. I looked for the label.

  Supporting myself against the red marble wall, I read:

  "Number 52. Captain Laurent Deligne. Born at Paris, July 22, 1861. Died at Ahaggar, October 30, 1896."

  "Captain Deligne!" murmured Morhange. "He left Colomb-Béchar in 1895 for Timmimoun and no more has been heard of him since then."

  "Exactly," said M. Le Mesge, with a little nod of approval.

  "Number 51," read Morhange with chattering teeth. "Colonel von Wittman, born at Jena in 1855. Died at Ahaggar, May 1, 1896…. Colonel Wittman, the explorer of Kanem, who disappeared off Agadès."

  "Exactly," said M. Le Mesge again.

  "Number 50," I read in my turn, steadying myself against the wall, so as not to fall. "Marquis Alonzo d'Oliveira, born at Cadiz, February 21, 1868. Died at Ahaggar, February 1, 1896. Oliveira, who was going to Araouan."

  "Exactly," said M. Le Mesge again. "That Spaniard was one of the best educated. I used to have interesting discussions with him on the exact geographical position of the kingdom of Antée."

  "Number 49," said Morhange in a tone scarcely more than a whisper. "Lieutenant Woodhouse, born at Liverpool, September 16, 1870. Died at Ahaggar, October 4, 1895."

  "Hardly more than a child," said M. Le Mesge.

  "Number 48," I said. "Lieutenant Louis de Maillefeu, born at Provins, the…."

  I did not finish. My voice choked.

  Louis de Maillefeu, my best friend, the friend of my childhood and of Saint-Cyr…. I looked at him and recognized him under the metallic coating. Louis de Maillefeu!

  I laid my forehead against the cold wall and, with shaking shoulders, began to sob.

  I heard the muffled voice of Morhange speaking to the Professor:

  "Sir, this has lasted long enough. Let us make an end of it."

  "He wanted to know," said M. Le Mesge. "What am I to do?"

  I went up to him and seized his shoulders.

  "What happened to him? What did he die of?"

  "Just like the others," the Professor replied, "just like Lieutenant Woodhouse, like Captain Deligne, like Major Russell, like Colonel von Wittman, like the forty-seven of yesterday and all those of to-morrow."

  "Of what did they die?" Morhange demanded imperatively in his turn.

  The Professor looked at Morhange. I saw my comrade grow pale.

  "Of what did they die, sir? They died of love."

  And he added in a very low, very grave voice:

  "Now you know."

  Gently and with a tact which we should hardly have suspected in him, M. Le Mesge drew us away from the statues. A moment later, Morhange and I found ourselves again seated, or rather sunk among the cushions in the center of the room. The invisible fountain murmured its plaint at our feet.

  Le Mesge sat between us.

  "Now you know," he repeated. "You know, but you do not yet understand."

  Then, very slowly, he said:

  "You are, as they have been, the prisoners of Antinea. And vengeance is due Antinea."

  "Vengeance?" said Morhange, who had regained his self-possession. "For what, I beg to ask? What have the lieutenant and I done to Atlantis? How have we incurred her hatred?"

  "It is an old quarrel, a very old quarrel," the Professor replied gravely. "A quarrel which long antedates you, M. Morhange."

  "Explain yourself, I beg of you, Professor."

  "You are Man. She is a Woman," said the dreamy voice
of M. Le Mesge. "The whole matter lies there."

  "Really, sir, I do not see … we do not see."

  "You are going to understand. Have you really forgotten to what an extent the beautiful queens of antiquity had just cause to complain of the strangers whom fortune brought to their borders? The poet, Victor Hugo, pictured their detestable acts well enough in his colonial poem called la Fille d'O-Taiti. Wherever we look, we see similar examples of fraud and ingratitude. These gentlemen made free use of the beauty and the riches of the lady. Then, one fine morning, they disappeared. She was indeed lucky if her lover, having observed the position carefully, did not return with ships and troops of occupation."

  "Your learning charms me," said Morhange. "Continue."

  "Do you need examples? Alas! they abound. Think of the cavalier fashion in which Ulysses treated Calypso, Diomedes Callirhoë. What should I say of Theseus and Ariadne? Jason treated Medea with inconceivable lightness. The Romans continued the tradition with still greater brutality. Aenaeus, who has many characteristics in common with the Reverend Spardek, treated Dido in a most undeserved fashion. Caesar was a laurel-crowned blackguard in his relations with the divine Cleopatra. Titus, that hypocrite Titus, after having lived a whole year in Idummea at the expense of the plaintive Berenice, took her back to Rome only to make game of her. It is time that the sons of Japhet paid this formidable reckoning of injuries to the daughters of Shem.

  "A woman has taken it upon herself to re-establish the great Hegelian law of equilibrium for the benefit of her sex. Separated from the Aryan world by the formidable precautions of Neptune, she draws the youngest and bravest to her. Her body is condescending, while her spirit is inexorable. She takes what these bold young men can give her. She lends them her body, while her soul dominates them. She is the first sovereign who has never been made the slave of passion, even for a moment. She has never been obliged to regain her self-mastery, for she never has lost it. She is the only woman who has been able to disassociate those two inextricable things, love and voluptuousness."

  M. Le Mesge paused a moment and then went on.

  "Once every day, she comes to this vault. She stops before the niches; she meditates before the rigid statues; she touches the cold bosoms, so burning when she knew them. Then, after dreaming before the empty niche where the next victim soon will sleep his eternal sleep in a cold case of orichalch, she returns nonchalantly where he is waiting for her."

  The Professor stopped speaking. The fountain again made itself heard in the midst of the shadow. My pulses beat, my head seemed on fire. A fever was consuming me.

  "And all of them," I cried, regardless of the place, "all of them complied! They submitted! Well, she has only to come and she will see what will happen."

  Morhange was silent.

  "My dear sir," said M. Le Mesge in a very gentle voice, "you are speaking like a child. You do not know. You have not seen Antinea. Let me tell you one thing: that among those"—and with a sweeping gesture he indicated the silent circle of statues—"there were men as courageous as you and perhaps less excitable. I remember one of them especially well, a phlegmatic Englishman who now is resting under Number 32. When he first appeared before Antinea, he was smoking a cigar. And, like all the rest, he bent before the gaze of his sovereign.

  "Do not speak until you have seen her. A university training hardly fits one to discourse upon matters of passion, and I feel scarcely qualified, myself, to tell you what Antinea is. I only affirm this, that when you have seen her, you will remember nothing else. Family, country, honor, you will renounce everything for her."

  "Everything?" asked Morhange in a calm voice.

  "Everything," Le Mesge insisted emphatically. "You will forget all, you will renounce all."

  From outside, a faint sound came to us.

  Le Mesge consulted his watch.

  "In any case, you will see."

  The door opened. A tall white Targa, the tallest we had yet seen in this remarkable abode, entered and came toward us.

  He bowed and touched me lightly on the shoulder.

  "Follow him," said M. Le Mesge.

  Without a word, I obeyed.

  XI

  ANTINEA

  My guide and I passed along another long corridor. My excitement increased. I was impatient for one thing only, to come face to face with that woman, to tell her…. So far as anything else was concerned, I already was done for.

  I was mistaken in hoping that the adventure would take an heroic turn at once. In real life, these contrasts never are definitely marked out. I should have remembered from many past incidents that the burlesque was regularly mixed with the tragic in my life.

  We reached a little transparent door. My guide stood aside to let me pass.

  I found myself in the most luxurious of dressing-rooms. A ground glass ceiling diffused a gay rosy light over the marble floor. The first thing I noticed was a clock, fastened to the wall. In place of the figures for the hours, were the signs of the Zodiac. The small hand had not yet reached the sign of Capricorn.

  Only three o'clock!

  The day seemed to have lasted a century already…. And only a little more than half of it was gone.

  Another idea came to me, and a convulsive laugh bent me double.

  "Antinea wants me to be at my best when I meet her."

  A mirror of orichalch formed one whole side of the room. Glancing into it, I realized that in all decency there was nothing exaggerated in the demand.

  My untrimmed beard, the frightful layer of dirt which lay about my eyes and furrowed my cheeks, my clothing, spotted by all the clay of the Sahara and torn by all the thorns of Ahaggar—all this made me appear a pitiable enough suitor.

  I lost no time in undressing and plunging into the porphry bath in the center of the room. A delicious drowsiness came over me in that perfumed water. A thousand little jars, spread on a costly carved wood dressing-table, danced before my eyes. They were of all sizes and colors, carved in a very transparent kind of jade. The warm humidity of the atmosphere hastened my relaxation.

  I still had strength to think, "The devil take Atlantis and the vault and Le Mesge."

  Then I fell asleep in the bath.

  When I opened my eyes again, the little hand of the clock had almost reached the sign of Taurus. Before me, his black hands braced on the edge of the bath, stood a huge Negro, bare-faced and bare-armed, his forehead bound with an immense orange turban.

  He looked at me and showed his white teeth in a silent laugh.

  "Who is this fellow?"

  The Negro laughed harder. Without saying a word, he lifted me like a feather out of the perfumed water, now of a color on which I shall not dwell.

  In no time at all, I was stretched out on an inclined marble table.

  The Negro began to massage me vigorously.

  "More gently there, fellow!"

  My masseur did not reply, but laughed and rubbed still harder.

  "Where do you come from? Kanem? Torkou? You laugh too much for a Targa."

  Unbroken silence. The Negro was as speechless as he was hilarious.

  "After all, I am making a fool of myself," I said, giving up the case. "Such as he is, he is more agreeable than Le Mesge with his nightmarish erudition. But, on my word, what a recruit he would be for Hamman on the rue des Mathurins!"

  "Cigarette, sidi?"

  Without awaiting my reply, he placed a cigarette between my lips and lighted it, and resumed his task of polishing every inch of me.

  "He doesn't talk much, but he is obliging," I thought.

  And I sent a puff of smoke into his face.

  This pleasantry seemed to delight him immensely. He showed his pleasure by giving me great slaps.

  When he had dressed me down sufficiently, he took a little jar from the dressing-table and began to rub me with a rose-colored ointment. Weariness seemed to fly away from my rejuvenated muscles.

  A stroke on a copper gong. My masseur disappeared. A stunted old Negress entere
d, dressed in the most tawdry tinsel. She was talkative as a magpie, but at first I did not understand a word in the interminable string she unwound, while she took first my hands, then my feet, and polished the nails with determined grimaces.

  Another stroke on the gong. The old woman gave place to another Negro, grave, this time, and dressed all in white with a knitted skull cap on his oblong head. It was the barber, and a remarkably dexterous one. He quickly trimmed my hair, and, on my word, it was well done. Then, without asking me what style I preferred, he shaved me clean.

  I looked with pleasure at my face, once more visible.

  "Antinea must like the American type," I thought. "What an affront to the memory of her worthy grandfather, Neptune!"

  The gay Negro entered and placed a package on the divan. The barber disappeared. I was somewhat astonished to observe that the package, which my new valet opened carefully, contained a suit of white flannels exactly like those French officers wear in Algeria in summer.

  The wide trousers seemed made to my measure. The tunic fitted without a wrinkle, and my astonishment was unbounded at observing that it even had two gilt galons, the insignia of my rank, braided on the cuffs. For shoes, there were slippers of red Morocco leather, with gold ornaments. The underwear, all of silk, seemed to have come straight from the rue de la Paix.

  "Dinner was excellent," I murmured, looking at myself in the mirror with satisfaction. "The apartment is perfectly arranged. Yes, but…."

  I could not repress a shudder when I suddenly recalled that room of red marble.

  The clock struck half past four.

  Someone rapped gently on the door. The tall white Targa, who had brought me, appeared in the doorway.

  He stepped forward, touched me on the arm and signed for me to follow.

  Again I followed him.

  We passed through interminable corridors. I was disturbed, but the warm water had given me a certain feeling of detachment. And above all, more than I wished to admit, I had a growing sense of lively curiosity. If, at that moment, someone had offered to lead me back to the route across the white plain near Shikh-Salah, would I have accepted? Hardly.

  I tried to feel ashamed of my curiosity. I thought of Maillefeu.