"That it was I who--who held the hammer." "He might not have known it, indeed," Antinea said. "But he did know." "How?" "He did know ... because I told him," she said, staring at me with magnificent audacity. "And," I murmured, "he--he believed it?" "With the help of my explanation, he recognized your shriek. If he had not realized that you were his murderer, the affair would not have interested me," she finished with a scornful little smile. Four steps, I said, separated me from Antinea. I sprang forward. But, before I reached her, I was struck to the floor. King Hiram had leapt at my throat. At the same moment I heard the calm, haughty voice of Antinea: "Call the men," she commanded. A second later I was released from the leopard's clutch. The six white Tuareg had surrounded me and were trying to bind me. I am fairly strong and quick. I was on my feet in a second. One of my enemies lay on the floor, ten feet away, felled by a well-placed blow on the jaw. Another was gasping under my knee. That was the last time I saw Antinea. She stood erect, both hands resting on her ebony scepter, watching the struggle with a smile of contemptuous interest. Suddenly I gave a loud cry and loosed the hold I had on my victim. A cracking in my left arm: one of the Tuareg had seized it and twisted until my shoulder was dislocated. When I completely lost consciousness, I was being carried down the corridor by two white phantoms, so bound that I could not move a muscle. XVIII THE FIRE-FLIES Through the great open window, waves of pale moonlight surged into my room. A slender white figure was standing beside the bed where I lay. "You, Tanit-Zerga!" I murmured. She laid a finger on her lips. "Sh! Yes, it is I." I tried to raise myself up on the bed. A terrible pain seized my shoulder. The events of the afternoon came back to my poor harassed mind. "Oh, little one, if you knew!" "I know," she said. I was weaker than a baby. After the overstrain of the day had come a fit of utter nervous depression. A lump rose in my throat, choking me. "If you knew, if you only knew!... Take me away, little one. Get me away from here." "Not so loud," she whispered. "There is a white Targa on guard at the door." "Take me away; save me," I repeated. "That is what I came for," she said simply. I looked at her. She no longer was wearing her beautiful red silk tunic. A plain white _haik_ was wrapped about her; and she had drawn one corner of it over her head. "I want to go away, too," she said in a smothered voice. "For a long time, I have wanted to go away. I want to see Gâo, the village on the bank of the river, and the blue gum trees, and the green water. "Ever since I came here, I have wanted to get away," she repeated, "but I am too little to go alone into the great Sahara. I never dared speak to the others who came here before you. They all thought only of _her_.... But you, you wanted to kill her." I gave a low moan.