X
THE RED MARBLE HALL
We passed through an interminable series of stairs and corridorsfollowing M. Le Mesge.
"You lose all sense of direction in this labyrinth," I muttered toMorhange.
"Worse still, you will lose your head," answered my companion _sottovoce_. "This old fool is certainly very learned; but God knows what heis driving at. However, he has promised that we are soon to know."
M. Le Mesge had stopped before a heavy dark door, all incrusted withstrange symbols. Turning the lock with difficulty, he opened it.
"Enter, gentlemen, I beg you," he said.
A gust of cold air struck us full in the face. The room we wereentering was chill as a vault.
At first, the darkness allowed me to form no idea of its proportions.The lighting, purposely subdued, consisted of twelve enormous copperlamps, placed column-like upon the ground and burning with brilliantred flames. As we entered, the wind from the corridor made the flamesflicker, momentarily casting about us our own enlarged and misshapenshadows. Then the gust died down, and the flames, no longer flurried,again licked up the darkness with their motionless red tongues.
These twelve giant lamps (each one about ten feet high) were arrangedin a kind of crown, the diameter of which must have been about fiftyfeet. In the center of this circle was a dark mass, all streaked withtrembling red reflections. When I drew nearer, I saw it was a bubblingfountain. It was the freshness of this water which had maintained thetemperature of which I have spoken.
Huge seats were cut in the central rock from which gushed themurmuring, shadowy fountain. They were heaped with silky cushions.Twelve incense burners, within the circle of red lamps, formed asecond crown, half as large in diameter. Their smoke mounted towardthe vault, invisible in the darkness, but their perfume, combined withthe coolness and sound of the water, banished from the soul all otherdesire than to remain there forever.
M. Le Mesge made us sit down in the center of the hall, on theCyclopean seats. He seated himself between us.
"In a few minutes," he said, "your eyes will grow accustomed to theobscurity."
I noticed that he spoke in a hushed voice, as if he were in church.
Little by little, our eyes did indeed grow used to the red light. Onlythe lower part of the great hall was illuminated. The whole vault wasdrowned in shadow and its height was impossible to estimate. Vaguely,I could perceive overhead a great smooth gold chandelier, flecked,like everything else, with sombre red reflections. But there was nomeans of judging the length of the chain by which it hung from thedark ceiling.
The marble of the pavement was of so high a polish, that the greattorches were reflected even there.
This room, I repeat, was round a perfect circle of which the fountainat our backs was the center.
We sat facing the curving walls. Before long, we began to be able tosee them. They were of peculiar construction, divided into a seriesof niches, broken, ahead of us, by the door which had just opened togive us passage, behind us, by a second door, a still darker holewhich I divined in the darkness when I turned around. From one door tothe other, I counted sixty niches, making, in all, one hundred andtwenty. Each was about ten feet high. Each contained a kind of case,larger above than below, closed only at the lower end. In all thesecases, except two just opposite me, I thought I could discern abrilliant shape, a human shape certainly, something like a statue ofvery pale bronze. In the arc of the circle before me, I countedclearly thirty of these strange statues.
What were these statues? I wanted to see. I rose.
M. Le Mesge put his hand on my arm.
"In good time," he murmured in the same low voice, "all in good time."
The Professor was watching the door by which we had entered the hall,and from behind which we could hear the sound of footsteps becomingmore and more distinct.
It opened quietly to admit three Tuareg slaves. Two of them werecarrying a long package on their shoulders; the third seemed to betheir chief.
At a sign from him, they placed the package on the ground and drew outfrom one of the niches the case which it contained.
"You may approach, gentlemen," said M. Le Mesge.
He motioned the three Tuareg to withdraw several paces.
"You asked me, not long since, for some proof of the Egyptianinfluence on this country," said M. Le Mesge. "What do you say to thatcase, to begin with?"
As he spoke, he pointed to the case that the servants had depositedupon the ground after they took it from its niche.
Morhange uttered a thick cry.
We had before us one of those cases designed for the preservation ofmummies. The same shiny wood, the same bright decorations, the onlydifference being that here Tifinar writing replaced the hieroglyphics.The form, narrow at the base, broader above, ought to have been enoughto enlighten us.
I have already said that the lower half of this large case wasclosed, giving the whole structure the appearance of a rectangularwooden shoe.
M. Le Mesge knelt and fastened on the lower part of the case, a squareof white cardboard, a large label, that he had picked up from hisdesk, a few minutes before, on leaving the library.
"You may read," he said simply, but still in the same low tone.
I knelt also, for the light of the great candelabra was scarcelysufficient to read the label where, none the less, I recognized theProfessor'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 loudhere."
"The Major Russell," I repeated, obeying his injunction as if in spiteof 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 thefresh splashing of the fountain.
The three Negroes were occupied in undoing the package that they hadput 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 overit. We had before us, stretched out upon the ground, a statue of palebronze, wrapped in a kind of white veil, a statue like those allaround us, upright in their niches. It seemed to fix us with animpenetrable gaze.
"Sir Archibald Russell," murmured M. Le Mesge slowly.
Morhange approached, speechless, but strong enough to lift up thewhite veil. For a long, long time he gazed at the sad bronze statue.
"A mummy, a mummy?" he said finally. "You deceive yourself, sir, thisis 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 ArchibaldRussell. I must point out to you, here, my dear sir, that theprocesses of embalming used by Antinea differ from the processesemployed in ancient Egypt. Here, there is no natron, nor bands, norspices. The industry of Ahaggar, in a single effort, has achieved aresult obtained by European science only after long experiments.Imagine my surprise, when I arrived here and found that they wereemploying a method I supposed known only to the civilized world."
M. Le Mesge struck a light tap with his finger on the forehead of SirArchibald 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. Bronzeis darker, sir. This is the great unknown metal of which Plato speaksin the Critias, and which is something between gold and silver: it isthe special metal of the mountains of the Atlantides. It is_orichalch_."
Bending again, I satisfied mysel
f that this metal was the same as thatwith which the walls of the library were overcast.
"It is orichalch," continued M. Le Mesge. "You look as if you had noidea how a human body can look like a statue of orichalch. Come,Captain Morhange, you whom I gave credit for a certain amount ofknowledge, have you never heard of the method of Dr. Variot, by whicha human body can be preserved without embalming? Have you never readthe book of that practitioner?[11] He explains a method calledelectro-plating. The skin is coated with a very thin layer of silversalts, 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 ofthis 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 thestatue of a poor slave, a copper statue, you have before you a statueof metal more precious than silver or gold, in a word, a statue worthyof the granddaughter of Neptune."
[Footnote 11: Variot: _L'anthropologie galvanique_. Paris, 1890. (Noteby M. Leroux.)]
M. Le Mesge waved his arm. The black slaves seized the body. In a fewseconds, they slid the orichalch ghost into its painted wooden sheath.That was set on end and slid into its niche, beside the niche where anexactly similar sheath was labelled "Number 52."
Upon finishing their task, they retired without a word. A draught ofcold air from the door again made the flames of the copper torchesflicker and threw great shadows about us.
Morhange and I remained as motionless as the pale metal specters whichsurrounded us. Suddenly I pulled myself together and staggered forwardto the niche beside that in which they just had laid the remains ofthe 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-Bechar in 1895for 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 vonWittman, born at Jena in 1855. Died at Ahaggar, May 1, 1896....Colonel Wittman, the explorer of Kanem, who disappeared off Agades."
"Exactly," said M. Le Mesge again.
"Number 50," I read in my turn, steadying myself against the wall, soas not to fall. "Marquis Alonzo d'Oliveira, born at Cadiz, February21, 1868. Died at Ahaggar, February 1, 1896. Oliveira, who was goingto Araouan."
"Exactly," said M. Le Mesge again. "That Spaniard was one of the besteducated. I used to have interesting discussions with him on the exactgeographical position of the kingdom of Antee."
"Number 49," said Morhange in a tone scarcely more than a whisper."Lieutenant Woodhouse, born at Liverpool, September 16, 1870. Died atAhaggar, 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 ofSaint-Cyr.... I looked at him and recognized him under the metalliccoating. 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 LieutenantWoodhouse, like Captain Deligne, like Major Russell, like Colonel vonWittman, like the forty-seven of yesterday and all those ofto-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, Morhangeand I found ourselves again seated, or rather sunk among the cushionsin the center of the room. The invisible fountain murmured its plaintat our feet.
Le Mesge sat between us.
"Now you know," he repeated. "You know, but you do not yetunderstand."
Then, very slowly, he said:
"You are, as they have been, the prisoners of Antinea. And vengeanceis due Antinea."
"Vengeance?" said Morhange, who had regained his self-possession. "Forwhat, 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 repliedgravely. "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 anextent the beautiful queens of antiquity had just cause to complain ofthe strangers whom fortune brought to their borders? The poet, VictorHugo, pictured their detestable acts well enough in his colonial poemcalled _la Fille d'O-Taiti_. Wherever we look, we see similar examplesof fraud and ingratitude. These gentlemen made free use of the beautyand the riches of the lady. Then, one fine morning, they disappeared.She was indeed lucky if her lover, having observed the positioncarefully, 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 cavalierfashion in which Ulysses treated Calypso, Diomedes Callirhoe. Whatshould I say of Theseus and Ariadne? Jason treated Medea withinconceivable lightness. The Romans continued the tradition with stillgreater brutality. Aenaeus, who has many characteristics in commonwith the Reverend Spardek, treated Dido in a most undeserved fashion.Caesar was a laurel-crowned blackguard in his relations with thedivine Cleopatra. Titus, that hypocrite Titus, after having lived awhole year in Idummea at the expense of the plaintive Berenice, tookher back to Rome only to make game of her. It is time that the sons ofJaphet paid this formidable reckoning of injuries to the daughters ofShem.
"A woman has taken it upon herself to re-establish the great Hegelianlaw of equilibrium for the benefit of her sex. Separated from theAryan world by the formidable precautions of Neptune, she draws theyoungest and bravest to her. Her body is condescending, while herspirit is inexorable. She takes what these bold young men can giveher. She lends them her body, while her soul dominates them. She isthe first sovereign who has never been made the slave of passion, evenfor 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 todisassociate 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 emptyniche where the next victim soon will sleep his eternal sleep in acold case of orichalch, she returns nonchalantly where he is waitingfor her."
The Professor stopped speaking. The fountain again made itself heardin the midst of the shadow. My pulses beat, my head seemed on fire. Afever was consuming me.
"And all of them," I cried, regardless of the place, "all of themcomplied! They submitted! Well, she has only to come and she will seewhat will happen."
Morhange was silent.
"My dear sir," said M. Le Mesge in a very gentle voice, "you arespeaking like a child. You do not know. You have not seen Antinea. Letme tell you one
thing: that among those"--and with a sweeping gesturehe indicated the silent circle of statues--"there were men ascourageous as you and perhaps less excitable. I remember one of themespecially well, a phlegmatic Englishman who now is resting underNumber 32. When he first appeared before Antinea, he was smoking acigar. And, like all the rest, he bent before the gaze of hissovereign.
"Do not speak until you have seen her. A university training hardlyfits one to discourse upon matters of passion, and I feel scarcelyqualified, 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 inthis 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.