Atlantida

My eyes, become accustomed to the darkness, could see the pyramid of

cushions on which Antinea had first appeared to me.

Suddenly I stumbled. The leopard had stopped. I realized that I had

stepped on his tail. Brave beast, he did not make a sound.

Groping along the wall, I felt a second door. Quietly, very quietly, I

opened it as I had opened the preceding one. The leopard whimpered

feebly.

"King Hiram," I murmured, "be quiet."

And I put my arms about his powerful neck.

I felt his warm wet tongue on my hands. His flanks quivered. He shook

with happiness.

In front of us, lighted in the center, another room opened up. In the

middle six men were squatting on the matting, playing dice and

drinking coffee from tiny copper coffee cups with long stems.

They were the white Tuareg.

A lamp, hung from the ceiling, threw a circle of light over them.

Everything outside that circle was in deep shadow.

The black faces, the copper cups, the white robes, the moving light

and shadow, made a strange etching.

They played with a reserved dignity, announcing the throws in raucous

voices.

Then, slowly, very slowly, I slipped the leash from the collar of the

impatient little beast.

"Go, boy."

He leapt with a sharp yelp.

And what I had foreseen happened.

The first bound of King Hiram carried him into the midst of the white

Tuareg, sowing confusion in the bodyguard. Another leap carried him

into the shadow again. I made out vaguely the shaded opening of

another corridor on the side of the room opposite where I was

standing.

"There!" I thought.

The confusion in the room was indescribable, but noiseless. One

realized the restraint which nearness to a great presence imposed upon

the exasperated guards. The stakes and the dice-boxes had rolled in

one direction, the copper cups, in the other.

Two of the Tuareg, doubled up with pain, were rubbing their ribs with

low oaths.

I need not say that I profited by this silent confusion to glide into

the room. I was now flattened against the wall of the second corridor,

down which King Hiram had just disappeared.

At that moment a clear gong echoed in the silence. The trembling which

seized the Tuareg assured me that I had chosen the right way.

One of the six men got up. He passed me and I fell in behind him. I

was perfectly calm. My least movement was perfectly calculated.

"All that I risk here now," I said to myself, "is being led back

politely to my room."

The Targa lifted a curtain. I followed on his heels into the chamber

of Antinea.