Atlantida
Page 55It was broad daylight when I opened my eyes. I thought at once of
Morhange. I could not see him, but I heard him, close by, giving
little grunts of surprise.
I called to him. He ran to me.
"Then they didn't tie you up?" I asked.
"I beg your pardon. They did. But they did it badly; I managed to get
free."
"You might have untied me, too," I remarked crossly.
"What good would it have done? I should only have waked you up. And I
thought that your first word would be to call me. There, that's done."
I reeled as I tried to stand on my feet.
Morhange smiled.
"We might have spent the whole night smoking and drinking and not been
hasheesh is a fine rascal."
"Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh," I corrected.
I rubbed my hand over my forehead.
"Where are we?"
"My dear boy," Morhange replied, "since I awakened from the
extraordinary nightmare which is mixed up with the smoky cave and the
lamp-lit stairway of the Arabian Nights, I have been going from
surprise to surprise, from confusion to confusion. Just look around
you."
I rubbed my eyes and stared. Then I seized my friend's hand.
"Morhange," I begged, "tell me if we are still dreaming."
We were in a round room, perhaps fifty feet in diameter, and of about
blue.
Swallows flew back and forth, outside, giving quick, joyous cries.
The floor, the incurving walls and the ceiling were of a kind of
veined marble like porphyry, panelled with a strange metal, paler than
gold, darker than silver, clouded just then by the early morning mist
that came in through the window in great puffs.
I staggered toward this window, drawn by the freshness of the breeze
and the sunlight which was chasing away my dreams, and I leaned my
elbows on the balustrade.
I could not restrain a cry of delight.
I was standing on a kind of balcony, cut into the flank of a mountain,
overhanging an abyss. Above me, blue sky; below appeared a veritable
continuous and impassable wall about it. A garden lay spread out down
there. The palm trees gently swayed their great fronds. At their feet
was a tangle of the smaller trees which grow in an oasis under their
protection: almonds, lemons, oranges, and many others which I could
not distinguish from that height. A broad blue stream, fed by a
waterfall, emptied into a charming lake, the waters of which had the
marvellous transparency which comes in high altitudes. Great birds
flew in circles over this green hollow; I could see in the lake the
red flash of a flamingo.