I shrugged my shoulders. After all, it was not my fault that we were there.
Morhange understood my gesture and thought it necessary to make excuses.
"I should be curious," he went on with rather forced gaiety, "to meet these spirits and substantiate the facts of Pomponius Mela who knew them and locates them, in fact, in the mountain of the Tuareg. He calls them _Egipans, Blemyens, Gamphasantes, Satyrs.... 'The Gamphasantes_, he says, 'are naked. The _Blemyens_ have no head: their faces are placed on their chests; the _Satyrs_ have nothing like men except faces. The _Egipans_ are made as is commonly described.' ... _Satyrs, Egipans_ ... isn't it very strange to find Greek names given to the barbarian spirits of this region? Believe me, we are on a curious trail; I am sure that Antinea will be our key to remarkable discoveries."
"Listen," I said, laying a finger on my lips.
Strange sounds rose from about us as the evening advanced with great strides. A kind of crackling, followed by long rending shrieks, echoed and reechoed to infinity in the neighboring ravines. It seemed to me that the whole black mountain suddenly had begun to moan.
We looked at Eg-Anteouen. He was smoking on, without twitching a muscle.
"The _ilhinen_ are waking up," he said simply.
Morhange listened without saying a word. Doubtless he understood as I did: the overheated rocks, the crackling of the stone, a whole series of physical phenomena, the example of the singing statue of Memnon.... But, for all that, this unexpected concert reacted no less painfully on our overstrained nerves.
The last words of poor Bou-Djema came to my mind.
"The country of fear," I murmured in a low voice.
The strange concert ceased as the first stars appeared in the sky. With deep emotion we watched the tiny bluish flames appear, one after another. At that portentous moment they seemed to span the distance between us, isolated, condemned, lost, and our brothers of higher latitudes, who at that hour were rushing about their poor pleasures with delirious frenzy in cities where the whiteness of electric lamps came on in a burst.
_Chêt-Ahadh essa hetîsenet Mâteredjrê d'Erredjaot, Mâtesekek d-Essekâot, Mâtelahrlahr d'Ellerhâot, Ettâs djenen, barâd tît-ennit abâtet._
