"I think that is all I have to tell you. No, there is still one thing
more. I told you a while ago about the red marble hall. South of
Cherchell, to the west of the Mazafran river, on a hill which in the
early morning, emerges from the mists of the Mitidja, there is a
mysterious stone pyramid. The natives call it, 'The Tomb of the
Christian.' That is where the body of Antinea's ancestress, that
Cleopatra Selene, daughter of Mark Antony and Cleopatra, was laid to
rest. Though it is placed in the path of invasions, this tomb has kept
its treasure. No one has ever been able to discover the painted room
where the beautiful body reposes in a glass casket. All that the
ancestress has been able to do, the descendant will be able to surpass
in grim magnificence. In the center of the red marble hall, on the
rock whence comes the plaint of the gloomy fountain, a platform is
reserved. It is there, on an orichalch throne, with the Egyptian
head-dress and the golden serpent on her brow and the trident of
Neptune in her hand, that the marvelous woman I have told you about
will be ensconced on that day when the hundred and twenty niches,
hollowed out in a circle around her throne, shall each have received
its willing prey.
"When I left Ahaggar, you remember that it was niche number 55 that
was to be mine. Since then, I have never stopped calculating and I
conclude that it is in number 80 or 85 that I shall repose. But any
calculations based upon so fragile a foundation as a woman's whim may
be erroneous. That is why I am getting more and more nervous. 'I must
hurry,' I tell myself. 'I must hurry.' "I must hurry," I repeated, as if I were in a dream.
He raised his head with an indefinable expression of joy. His hand
trembled with happiness when he shook mine.
"You will see," he repeated excitedly, "you will see."
Ecstatically, he took me in his arms and held me there a long moment.
An extraordinary happiness swept over both of us, while, alternately
laughing and crying like children, we kept repeating: "We must hurry. We must hurry."
Suddenly there sprang up a slight breeze that made the tufts of thatch
in the roof rustle. The sky, pale lilac, grew paler still, and,
suddenly, a great yellow rent tore it in the east. Dawn broke over the
empty desert. From within the stockade came dull noises, a bugle call,
the rattle of chains. The post was waking up.