The Golden Age of Science Fiction Novels Vol 04 Read online

  "He, too, followed this corridor. And now he is down there, in the red marble hall."

  I had no time to linger over this reminiscence. I was suddenly bowled over, thrown to the ground, as if by a sort of meteor. The corridor was dark; I could see nothing. I heard only a mocking growl.

  The white Targa had flattened himself back against the wall.

  "Good," I mumbled, picking myself up, "the deviltries are beginning."

  We continued on our way. A glow different from that of the rose night lights soon began to light up the corridor.

  We reached a high bronze door, in which a strange lacy design had been cut in filigree. A clear gong sounded, and the double doors opened part way. The Targa remained in the corridor, closing the doors after me.

  I took a few steps forward mechanically, then paused, rooted to the spot, and rubbed my eyes.

  I was dazzled by the sight of the sky.

  Several hours of shaded light had unaccustomed me to daylight. It poured in through one whole side of the huge room.

  The room was in the lower part of this mountain, which was more honeycombed with corridors and passages than an Egyptian pyramid. It was on a level with the garden which I had seen in the morning from the balcony, and seemed to be a continuation of it; the carpet extended out under the great palm trees and the birds flew about the forest of pillars in the room.

  By contrast, the half of the room untouched by direct light from the oasis seemed dark. The sun, setting behind the mountain, painted the garden paths with rose and flamed with red upon the traditional flamingo which stood with one foot raised at the edge of the sapphire lake.

  Suddenly I was bowled over a second time.

  I felt a warm, silky touch, a burning breath on my neck. Again the mocking growl which had so disturbed me in the corridor.

  With a wrench, I pulled myself free and sent a chance blow at my assailant. The cry, this time of pain and rage, broke out again.

  It was echoed by a long peal of laughter. Furious, I turned to look for the insolent onlooker, thinking to speak my mind. And then my glance stood still.

  Antinea was before me.

  In the dimmest part of the room, under a kind of arch lit by the mauve rays from a dozen incense-lamps, four women lay on a heap of many-colored cushions and rare white Persian rugs.

  I recognized the first three as Tuareg women, of a splendid regular beauty, dressed in magnificent robes of white silk embroidered in gold. The fourth, very dark skinned, almost negroid, seemed younger. A tunic of red silk enhanced the dusk of her face, her arms and her bare feet. The four were grouped about a sort of throne of white rugs, covered with a gigantic lion's skin, on which, half raised on one elbow, lay Antinea.

  Antinea! Whenever I saw her after that, I wondered if I had really looked at her before, so much more beautiful did I find her. More beautiful? Inadequate word. Inadequate language! But is it really the fault of the language or of those who abuse the word?

  One could not stand before her without recalling the woman for whom Ephractoeus overcame Atlas, of her for whom Sapor usurped the scepter of Ozymandias, for whom Mamylos subjugated Susa and Tentyris, for whom Antony fled….

  O tremblant coeur humain, si jamais tu vibras C'est dans l'étreinte altière et chaude de ses bras.

  An Egyptian klaft fell over her abundant blue-black curls. Its two points of heavy, gold-embroidered cloth extended to her slim hips. The golden serpent, emerald-eyed, was clasped about her little round, determined forehead, darting its double tongue of rubies over her head.

  She wore a tunic of black chiffon shot with gold, very light, very full, slightly gathered in by a white muslin scarf embroidered with iris in black pearls.

  That was Antinea's costume. But what was she beneath all this? A slim young girl, with long green eyes and the slender profile of a hawk. A more intense Adonis. A child queen of Sheba, but with a look, a smile, such as no Oriental ever had. A miracle of irony and freedom.

  I did not see her body. Indeed I should not have thought of looking at it, had I had the strength. And that, perhaps, was the most extraordinary thing about that first impression. In that unforgettable moment nothing would have seemed to me more horribly sacrilegious than to think of the fifty victims in the red marble hall, of the fifty young men who had held that slender body in their arms.

  She was still laughing at me.

  "King Hiram," she called.

  I turned and saw my enemy.

  On the capital of one of the columns, twenty feet above the floor, a splendid leopard was crouched. He still looked surly from the blow I had dealt him.

  "King Hiram," Antinea repeated. "Come here."

  The beast relaxed like a spring released. He fawned at his mistress's feet. I saw his red tongue licking her bare little ankles.

  "Ask the gentleman's pardon," she said.

  The leopard looked at me spitefully. The yellow skin of his muzzle puckered about his black moustache.

  "Fftt," he grumbled like a great cat.

  "Go," Antinea ordered imperiously.

  The beast crawled reluctantly toward me. He laid his head humbly between his paws and waited.

  I stroked his beautiful spotted forehead.

  "You must not be vexed," said Antinea. "He is always that way with strangers."

  "Then he must often be in bad humor," I said simply.

  Those were my first words. They brought a smile to Antinea's lips.

  She gave me a long, quiet look.

  "Aguida," she said to one of the Targa women, "you will give twenty-five pounds in gold to Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh."

  "You are a lieutenant?" she asked, after a pause.

  "Yes."

  "Where do you come from?"

  "From France."

  "I might have guessed that," she said ironically, "but from what part of France?"

  "From what we call the Lot-et-Garonne."

  "From what town?"

  "From Duras."

  She reflected a moment.

  "Duras! There is a little river there, the Dropt, and a fine old château."

  "You know Duras?" I murmured, amazed.

  "You go there from Bordeaux by a little branch railway," she went on. "It is a shut-in road, with vine-covered hills crowned by the feudal ruins. The villages have beautiful names: Monségur, Sauve-terre-de-Guyenne, la Tresne, Créon, … Créon, as in Antigone."

  "You have been there?"

  She looked at me.

  "Don't speak so coldly," she said. "Sooner or later we will be intimate, and you may as well lay aside formality now."

  This threatening promise suddenly filled me with great happiness. I thought of Le Mesge's words: "Don't talk until you have seen her. When you have seen her, you will renounce everything for her."

  "Have I been in Duras?" she went on with a burst of laughter. "You are joking. Imagine Neptune's granddaughter in the first-class compartment of a local train!"

  She pointed to an enormous white rock which towered above the palm trees of the garden.

  "That is my horizon," she said gravely.

  She picked up one of several books which lay scattered about her on the lion's skin.

  "The time table of the Chemin de Fer de l'Ouest," she said. "Admirable reading for one who never budges! Here it is half-past five in the afternoon. A train, a local, arrived three minutes ago at Surgères in the Charente-Inférieure. It will start on in six minutes. In two hours it will reach La Rochelle. How strange it seems to think of such things here. So far away! So much commotion there! Here, nothing changes."

  "You speak French well," I said.

  She gave a little nervous laugh.

  "I have to. And German, too, and Italian, and English and Spanish. My way of living has made me a great polygot. But I prefer French, even to Tuareg and Arabian. It seems as if I had always known it. And I am not saying that to please you."

  There was a pause. I thought of her grandmother, of whom Plutarch said: "There were few races with which
she needed an interpreter. Cleopatra spoke their own language to the Ethiopians, to the Troglodytes, the Hebrews, the Arabs, the Medes and the Persians."

  "Do not stand rooted in the middle of the room. You worry me. Come sit here, beside me. Move over, King Hiram."

  The leopard obeyed with good temper.

  Beside her was an onyx bowl. She took from it a perfectly plain ring of orichalch and slipped it on my left ring-finger. I saw that she wore one like it.

  "Tanit-Zerga, give Monsieur de Saint-Avit a rose sherbet."

  The dark girl in red silk obeyed.

  "My private secretary," said Antinea, introducing her. "Mademoiselle Tanit-Zerga, of Gâo, on the Niger. Her family is almost as ancient as mine."

  As she spoke, she looked at me. Her green eyes seemed to be appraising me.

  "And your comrade, the Captain?" she asked in a dreamy tone. "I have not yet seen him. What is he like? Does he resemble you?"

  For the first time since I had entered, I thought of Morhange. I did not answer.

  Antinea smiled.

  She stretched herself out full length on the lion skin. Her bare right knee slipped out from under her tunic.

  "It is time to go find him," she said languidly. "You will soon receive my orders. Tanit-Zerga, show him the way. First take him to his room. He cannot have seen it."

  I rose and lifted her hand to my lips. She struck me with it so sharply as to make my lips bleed, as if to brand me as her possession.

  * * * * *

  I was in the dark corridor again. The young girl in the red silk tunic walked ahead of me.

  "Here is your room," she said. "If you wish, I will take you to the dining-room. The others are about to meet there for dinner."

  She spoke an adorable lisping French.

  "No, Tanit-Zerga, I would rather stay here this evening. I am not hungry. I am tired."

  "You remember my name?" she said.

  She seemed proud of it. I felt that in her I had an ally in case of need.

  "I remember your name, Tanit-Zerga, because it is beautiful."[12]

  [Footnote 12: In Berber, Tanit means a spring; zerga is the feminine of the adjective azreg, blue. (Note by M. Leroux.)]

  Then I added:

  "Now, leave me, little one. I want to be alone."

  It seemed as if she would never go. I was touched, but at the same time vexed. I felt a great need of withdrawing into myself.

  "My room is above yours," she said. "There is a copper gong on the table here. You have only to strike if you want anything. A white Targa will answer."

  For a second, these instructions amused me. I was in a hotel in the midst of the Sahara. I had only to ring for service.

  I looked about my room. My room! For how long?

  It was fairly large. Cushions, a couch, an alcove cut into the rock, all lighted by a great window covered by a matting shade.

  I went to the window and raised the shade. The light of the setting sun entered.

  I leaned my elbows on the rocky sill. Inexpressible emotion filled my heart. The window faced south. It was about two hundred feet above the ground. The black, polished volcanic wall yawned dizzily below me.

  In front of me, perhaps a mile and a half away, was another wall, the first enclosure mentioned in the Critias. And beyond it in the distance, I saw the limitless red desert.

  XII

  MORHANGE DISAPPEARS

  My fatigue was so great that I lay as if unconscious until the next day. I awoke about three o'clock in the afternoon.

  I thought at once of the events of the previous day; they seemed amazing.

  "Let me see," I said to myself. "Let us work this out. I must begin by consulting Morhange."

  I was ravenously hungry.

  The gong which Tanit-Zerga had pointed out lay within arm's reach. I struck it. A white Targa appeared.

  "Show me the way to the library," I ordered.

  He obeyed. As we wound our way through the labyrinth of stairs and corridors I realized that I could never have found my way without his help.

  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. It was an orichalch ring, exactly like that which Antinea had given me the previous day and the one which she herself wore.

  Morhange smiled.

  "Well?" I said.

  "Well?"

  "You have seen her?"

  "I have indeed," Morhange replied.

  "She is beautiful, is she not?"

  "It would be difficult to dispute that," my comrade answered. "I even believe that I can say that she is as intelligent as she is beautiful."

  There was a pause. Morhange was calmly fingering the orichalch ring.

  "You know what our fate is to be?"

  "I know. Le Mesge explained it to us yesterday in polite mythological terms. This evidently is an extraordinary adventure."

  He was silent, then said, looking at me:

  "I am very sorry to have dragged you here. The only mitigating feature is that since last evening you seem to have been bearing your lot very easily."

  Where had Morhange learned this insight into the human heart? I did not reply, thus giving him the best of proofs that he had judged correctly.

  "What do you think of doing?" I finally murmured.

  He rolled up the manuscript, leaned back comfortably in his armchair and lit a cigar.

  "I have thought it over carefully. With the aid of my conscience I have marked out a line of conduct. The matter is clear and admits no discussion.

  "The question is not quite the same for me as for you, because of my semi-religious character, which, I admit, has set out on a rather doubtful adventure. To be sure, I have not taken holy orders, but, even aside from the fact that the ninth commandment itself forbids my having relations with a woman not my wife, I admit that I have no taste for the kind of forced servitude for which the excellent Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh has so kindly recruited us.

  "That granted, the fact remains that my life is not my own with the right to dispose of it as might a private explorer travelling at his own expenses and for his own ends. I have a mission to accomplish, results to obtain. If I could regain my liberty by paying the singular ransom which this country exacts, I should consent to give satisfaction to Antinea according to my ability. I know the tolerance of the Church, and especially that of the order to which I aspire: such a procedure would be ratified immediately and, who knows, perhaps even approved? Saint Mary the Egyptian, gave her body to boatmen under similar circumstances. She received only glorification for it. In so doing she had the certainty of attaining her goal, which was holy. The end justified the means.

  "But my case is quite different. If I give in to the absurd caprices of this woman, that will not keep me from being catalogued down in the red marble hall, as Number 54, or as Number 55, if she prefers to take you first. Under those conditions…."

  "Under those conditions?"

  "Under those conditions, it would be unpardonable for me to acquiesce."

  "Then what do you intend to do?"

  "What do I intend to do?" Morhange leaned back in the armchair and smilingly launched a puff of smoke toward the ceiling.

  "Nothing," he said. "And that is all that is necessary. Man has this superiority over woman. He is so constructed that he can refuse advances."

  Then he added with an ironical smile:

  "A man cannot be forced to accept unless he wishes to."

  I nodded.

  "I tried the most subtle reasoning on Antinea," he continued. "It was breath wasted. 'But,' I said at the end of my arguments, 'why not Le Mesge?' She began to laugh. 'Why not the Reverend Spardek?' she replied. 'Le Mesge and Spardek are savants whom I respect. But

  Maudit soit à jamais rêveur inutile, Qui voulut, le prem
ier, dans sa stupidité, S'éprenant d'un problème insoluble et stérile, Aux choses de l'amour mêler l'honnêteté.

  "'Besides,' she added with that really very charming smile of hers, 'probably you have not looked carefully at either of them.' There followed several compliments on my figure, to which I found nothing to reply, so completely had she disarmed me by those four lines from Baudelaire.

  "She condescended to explain further: 'Le Mesge is a learned gentleman whom I find useful. He knows Spanish and Italian, keeps my papers in order, and is busy working out my genealogy. The Reverend Spardek knows English and German. Count Bielowsky is thoroughly conversant with the Slavic languages. Besides, I love him like a father. He knew me as a child when I had not dreamed such stupid things as you know of me. They are indispensable to me in my relations with visitors of different races, although I am beginning to get along well enough in the languages which I need…. But I am talking a great deal, and this is the first time that I have ever explained my conduct. Your friend is not so curious.' With that, she dismissed me. A strange woman indeed. I think there is a bit of Renan in her but she is cleverer than that master of sensualism."

  "Gentlemen," said Le Mesge, suddenly entering the room, "why are you so late? They are waiting dinner for you."

  The little Professor was in a particularly good humor that evening. He wore a new violet rosette.

  "Well?" he said, in a mocking tone, "you have seen her?"

  Neither Morhange nor I replied.

  The Reverend Spardek and the Hetmari of Jitomir already had begun eating when we arrived. The setting sun threw raspberry lights on the cream-colored mat.

  "Be seated, gentlemen," said Le Mesge noisily. "Lieutenant de Saint-Avit, you were not with us last evening. You are about to taste the cooking of Koukou, our Bambara chef, for the first time. You must give me your opinion of it."

  A Negro waiter set before me a superb fish covered with a pimento sauce as red as tomatoes.

  I have explained that I was ravenously hungry. The dish was exquisite. The sauce immediately made me thirsty.

  "White Ahaggar, 1879," the Herman of Jitomir breathed in my ear as he filled my goblet with a clear topaz liquid. "I developed it myself: rien pour la tête, tout pour les jambes."