So great was her trouble that she showed no surprise when I stepped out beside her.  Her head is on my shoulder.  Like the crescent moon in the black clouds, I see her clear little bird-like profile amid her mass of hair.  Her warm arms hold me convulsively.... O tremblant coeur humain....

Who could resist such an embrace, amid the soft perfumes, in the langorous night?  I feel myself a being without will.  Is this my voice, the voice which is murmuring: 

“Ask me what you will, and I will do it, I will do it.”

My senses are sharpened, tenfold keen.  My head rests against a soft, nervous little knee.  Clouds of odors whirl about me.  Suddenly it seems as if the golden lanterns are waving from the ceiling like giant censers.  Is this my voice, the voice repeating in a dream: 

“Ask me what you will, and I will do it.  I will do it.”

Antinea’s face is almost touching mine.  A strange light flickers in her great eyes.

Beyond, I see the gleaming eyes of King Hiram.  Beside him, there is a little table of Kairouan, blue and gold.  On that table I see the gong with which Antinea summons the slaves.  I see the hammer with which she struck it just now, a hammer with a long ebony handle, a heavy silver head ... the hammer with which little Lieutenant Kaine dealt death....

I see nothing more....

XVII

THE MAIDENS OF THE ROCKS

I awakened in my room.  The sun, already at its zenith, filled the place with unbearable light and heat.

The first thing I saw, on opening my eyes, was the shade, ripped down, lying in the middle of the floor.  Then, confusedly, the night’s events began to come back to me.

My head felt stupid and heavy.  My mind wandered.  My memory seemed blocked.  “I went out with the leopard, that is certain.  That red mark on my forefinger shows how he strained at the leash.  My knees are still dusty.  I remember creeping along the wall in the room where the white Tuareg were playing at dice.  That was the minute after King Hiram had leapt past them.  After that ... oh, Morhange and Antinea....  And then?”

I recalled nothing more.  I recalled nothing more.  But something must have happened, something which I could not remember.

I was uneasy.  I wanted to go back, yet it seemed as if I were afraid to go.  I have never felt anything more painful than those conflicting emotions.

“It is a long way from here to Antinea’s apartments.  I must have been very sound asleep not to have noticed when they brought me back—­for they have brought me back.”

I stopped trying to think it out.  My head ached too much.

“I must have air,” I murmured.  “I am roasting here; it will drive me mad.”

I had to see someone, no matter whom.  Mechanically, I walked toward the library.

I found M. Le Mesge in a transport of delirious joy.  The Professor was engaged in opening an enormous bale, carefully sewed in a brown blanket.