"Could not fetch...enter your GitHub credentials..."

[t4251736]

Greetings --

During "php composer.phar install", I hit a failed dependency (php5-mcrypt). I backed out and corrected that, then re-ran composer and got a roadblock:

$ php composer.phar install
Loading composer repositories with package information

Could not fetch https://api.github.com/repos/dcarrith/cifirephp, enter your GitHub credentials to go over the API rate limit
A token will be created and stored in "/var/www/.composer/auth.json", your password will never be stored
To revoke access to this token you can visit https://github.com/settings/applications
Username: ^C

I've tried wiping away the directory and starting over, and checking for the existence of ~/.composer (there is none). Now I get that error every time. Not sure where to go from here.

Thank you!