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+Project Gutenberg Etext, Lost Continent by C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
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+The Lost Continent
+
+by C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
+
+June, 1995  [Etext #285]
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+
+
+
+
+THE LOST
+CONTINENT
+
+C. J. Cutliffe Hyne
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+PREFATORY: THE LEGATEES OF DEUCALION
+ 1  MY RECALL
+ 2  BACK TO ATLANTIS
+ 3  A RIVAL NAVY
+ 4  THE WELCOME OF PHORENICE
+ 5  ZAEMON'S CURSE
+ 6  THE BITERS OF THE CITY WALLS
+ 7  THE BITERS OF THE WALLS
+    (FURTHER ACCOUNT)
+ 8  THE PREACHER FROM THE MOUNTAINS
+ 9  PHORENICE, GODDESS
+10  A WOOING
+11  AN AFFAIR WITH THE BARBAROUS FISHERS
+12  THE DRUG OF OUR LADY THE MOON
+13  THE BURYING ALIVE OF NAIS
+14  AGAIN THE GODS MAKE CHANGE
+15  ZAEMON'S SUMMONS
+16  SIEGE OF THE SACRED MOUNTAIN
+17  NAIS THE REGAINED
+18  STORM OF THE SACRED MOUNTAIN
+19  DESTRUCTION OF THE ATLANTIS
+20  ON THE BOSOM OF THE DEEP
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PREFATORY:
+
+THE LEGATEES OF DEUCALION
+
+
+We were both of us not a little stiff as the result of
+sleeping out in the open all that night, for even in Grand Canary
+the dew-fall and the comparative chill of darkness are not to be
+trifled with.  For myself on these occasions I like a bit of a run
+as an early refresher.  But here on this rough ground in the middle
+of the island there were not three yards of level to be found, and
+so as Coppinger proceeded to go through some sort of dumb-bell
+exercises with a couple of lumps of bristly lava, I followed his
+example.  Coppinger has done a good deal of roughing it in his
+time, but being a doctor of medicine amongst other things--he takes
+out a new degree of some sort on an average every other year--he is
+great on health theories, and practises them like a religion.
+
+There had been rain two days before, and as there was still a
+bit of stream trickling along at the bottom of the barranca, we
+went down there and had a wash, and brushed our teeth.  Greatest
+luxury imaginable, a toothbrush, on this sort of expedition.
+
+"Now," said Coppinger when we had emptied our pockets,
+"there's precious little grub left, and it's none the better for
+being carried in a local Spanish newspaper."
+
+"Yours is mostly tobacco ashes."
+
+"It'll get worse if we leave it.  We've a lot more bad
+scrambling ahead of us."
+
+That was obvious.  So we sat down beside the stream there at
+the bottom of the barranca, and ate up all of what was left.  It
+was a ten-mile tramp to the fonda at Santa Brigida, where we had
+set down our traps; and as Coppinger wanted to take a lot more
+photographs and measurements before we left this particular group
+of caves, it was likely we should be pretty sharp set before we got
+our next meal, and our next taste of the PATRON'S splendid
+old country wine.  My faith!  If only they knew down in the English
+hotels in Las Palmas what magnificent wines one could get--with
+diplomacy--up in some of the mountain villages, the old vintage
+would become a thing of the past in a week.
+
+Now to tell the truth, the two mummies he had gathered already
+quite satisfied my small ambition.  The goatskins in which they
+were sewn up were as brittle as paper, and the poor old things
+themselves gave out dust like a puffball whenever they were
+touched.  But you know what Coppinger is.  He thought he'd come
+upon traces of an old Guanche university, or sacred college, or
+something of that kind, like the one there is on the other side of
+the island, and he wouldn't be satisfied till he'd ransacked every
+cave in the whole face of the cliff.  He'd plenty of stuff left for
+the flashlight thing, and twenty-eight more films in his kodak, and
+said we might as well get through with the job then as make a
+return journey all on purpose.  So he took the crowbar, and I
+shouldered the rope, and away we went up to the ridge of the cliff,
+where we had got such a baking from the sun the day before.
+
+Of course these caves were not easy to come at, or else they
+would have been raided years before.  Coppinger, who on principle
+makes out he knows all about these things, says that in the old
+Guanche days they had ladders of goatskin rope which they could
+pull up when they were at home, and so keep out undesirable
+callers; and as no other plan occurs to me, perhaps he may be
+right.  Anyway the mouths of the caves were in a more or less level
+row thirty feet below the ridge of the cliff, and fifty feet above
+the bottom; and Spanish curiosity doesn't go in much where it
+cannot walk.
+
+Now laddering such caves from below would have been cumbersome,
+but a light knotted rope is easily carried, and though it would
+have been hard to climb up this, our plan was to descend on
+each cave mouth from above, and then slip down to the foot of
+the cliffs, and start again AB INITIO for the next.
+
+Coppinger is plucky enough, and he has a good head on a height,
+but there is no getting over the fact that he is portly and
+nearer fifty than forty-five.  So you can see he must have been
+pretty keen.  Of course I went first each time, and got into the
+cave mouth, and did what I could to help him in; but when you have
+to walk down a vertical cliff face fly-fashion, with only a thin
+bootlace of a rope for support, it is not much real help the man
+below can give, except offer you his best wishes.
+
+I wanted to save him as much as I could, and as the first three
+caves I climbed to were small and empty, seeming to be merely
+store-places, I asked him to take them for granted, and save
+himself the rest.  But he insisted on clambering down to each one
+in person, and as he decided that one of my granaries was a prison,
+and another a pot-making factory, and another a schoolroom for
+young priests, he naturally said he hadn't much reliance on my
+judgment, and would have to go through the whole lot himself.  You
+know what these thorough-going archaeologists are for imagination.
+
+But as the day went on, and the sun rose higher, Coppinger began
+clearly to have had enough of it, though he was very game, and
+insisted on going on much longer than was safe.  I must say I
+didn't like it.  You see the drop was seldom less than eighty feet
+from the top of the cliffs.  However, at last he was forced to give
+it up.  I suggested marching off to Santa Brigida forthwith, but he
+wouldn't do that.  There were three more cave-openings to be looked
+into, and if I wouldn't do them for him, he would have to make
+another effort to get there himself.  He tried to make out he was
+conferring a very great favour on me by offering to take a report
+solely from my untrained observation, but I flatly refused to look
+at it in that light.  I was pretty tired also; I was soaked with
+perspiration from the heat; my head ached from the violence of the
+sun; and my hands were cut raw with the rope.
+
+Coppinger might be tired, but he was still enthusiastic.  He
+tried to make me enthusiastic also.  "Look here," he said, "there's
+no knowing what you may find up there, and if you do lay hands on
+anything, remember it's your own.  I shall have no claim whatever."
+
+"Very kind of you, but I've got no use for any more mummies done
+up in goatskin bags."
+
+"Bah!  That's not a burial cave up there.  Don't you know the
+difference yet in the openings?  Now, be a good fellow.  It doesn't
+follow that because we have drawn all the rest blank, you won't
+stumble across a good find for yourself up there."
+
+"Oh, very well," I said, as he seemed so set on it; and away I
+stumbled over the fallen rocks, and along the ledge, and then
+scrambled up by that fissure in the cliff which saved us the
+two-mile round which we had had to take at first.  I wrenched out
+the crowbar, and jammed it down in a new place, and then away I
+went over the side, with hands smarting worse at every new grip of
+the rope.  It was an awkward job swinging into the cave mouth
+because the rock above overhung, or else (what came to the same
+thing) it had broken away below; but I managed it somehow, although
+I landed with an awkward thump on my back, and at the same time I
+didn't let go the rope.  It wouldn't do to have lost the rope then:
+Coppinger couldn't have flicked it into me from where he was below.
+
+Now from the first glance I could see that this cave was of
+different structure to the others.  They were for the most part
+mere dens, rounded out anyhow; this had been faced up with cutting
+tools, so that all the angles were clean, and the sides smooth and
+flat.  The walls inclined inwards to the roof, reminding me of an
+architecture I had seen before but could not recollect where, and
+moreover there were several rooms connected up with passages.  I
+was pleased to find that the other cave-openings which Coppinger
+wanted me to explore were merely the windows or the doorways of two
+of these other rooms.
+
+Of inscriptions or markings on the walls there was not a trace,
+though I looked carefully, and except for bats the place was
+entirely bare.  I lit a cigarette and smoked it through--Coppinger
+always thinks one is slurring over work if it is got through too
+quickly--and then I went to the entrance where the rope was, and
+leaned out, and shouted down my news.
+
+He turned up a very anxious face.  "Have you searched it
+thoroughly?" he bawled back.
+
+"Of course I have.  What do you think I've been doing all this
+time?"
+
+"No, don't come down yet.  Wait a minute.  I say, old man, do
+wait a minute.  I'm making fast the kodak and the flashlight
+apparatus on the end of the rope.  Pull them up, and just make me
+half a dozen exposures, there's a good fellow."
+
+"Oh, all right," I said, and hauled the things up, and got them
+inside.  The photographs would be absolutely dull and
+uninteresting, but that wouldn't matter to Coppinger.  He rather
+preferred them that way.  One has to be careful about halation in
+photographing these dark interiors, but there was a sort of ledge
+like a seat by the side of each doorway, and so I lodged the camera
+on that to get a steady stand, and snapped off the flashlight from
+behind and above.
+
+I got pictures of four of the chambers this way, and then came
+to one where the ledge was higher and wider.  I put down the
+camera, wedged it level with scraps of stone, and then sat down
+myself to recharge the flashlight machine.  But the moment my
+weight got on that ledge, there was a sharp crackle, and down I
+went half a dozen inches.
+
+Of course I was up again pretty sharply, and snapped up the
+kodak just as it was going to slide off to the ground.  I will
+confess, too, I was feeling pleased.  Here at any rate was a
+Guanche cupboard of sorts, and as they had taken the trouble to
+hermetically seal it with cement, the odds were that it had
+something inside worth hiding.  At first there was nothing to be
+seen but a lot of dust and rubble, so I lit a bit of candle and
+cleared this away.  Presently, however, I began to find that I was
+shelling out something that was not cement.  It chipped away, in
+regular layers, and when I took it to the daylight I found that
+each layer was made up of two parts.  One side was shiny staff that
+looked like talc, and on this was smeared a coating of dark toffee-
+coloured material, that might have been wax.  The toffee-coloured
+surface was worked over with some kind of pattern.
+
+Now I do not profess to any knowledge on these matters, and as
+a consequence took what Coppinger had told me about Guanche habits
+and acquirements as more or less true.  For instance, he had
+repeatedly impressed upon me that this old people could not write,
+and having this in my memory, I did not guess that the patterns
+scribed through the wax were letters in some obsolete character,
+which, if left to myself, probably I should have done.  But still
+at the same time I came to the conclusion that the stuff was worth
+looting, and so set to work quarrying it out with the heel of my
+boot and a pocket-knife.
+
+The sheets were all more or less stuck together, and so I did not
+go in for separating them farther.  They fitted exactly to the
+cavity in which they were stored, but by smashing down its front I
+was able to get at the foot of them, and then I hacked away through
+the bottom layers with the knife till I got the bulk out in one
+solid piece.  It measured some twenty inches by fifteen, by
+fifteen, but it was not so heavy as it looked, and when I had taken
+the remaining photographs, I lowered it down to Coppinger on the
+end of the rope.
+
+There was nothing more to do in the caves then, so I went down
+myself next.  The lump of sheets was on the ground, and Coppinger
+was on all fours beside it.  He was pretty nearly mad with
+excitement.
+
+
+"What is it?" I asked him.
+
+"I don't know yet.  But it is the most valuable find ever made
+in the Canary Islands, and it's yours, you unappreciative beggar;
+at least what there is left of it.  Oh, man, man, you've smashed up
+the beginning, and you've smashed up the end of some history that
+is probably priceless.  It's my own fault.  I ought to have known
+better than set an untrained man to do important exploring work."
+
+"I should say it's your fault if anything's gone wrong.  You
+said there was no such thing as writing known to these ancient
+Canarios, and I took your word for it.  For anything I knew the
+stuff might have been something to eat."
+
+"It isn't Guanche work at all," said he testily.  "You ought to
+have known that from the talc.  Great heavens, man, have you no
+eyes?  Haven't you seen the general formation of the island?  Don't
+you know there's no talc here?"
+
+"I'm no geologist.  Is this imported literature then?"
+
+"Of course.  It's Egyptian: that's obvious at a glance. Though
+how it's got here I can't tell yet.  It isn't stuff you can read
+off like a newspaper.  The character's a variant on any of those
+that have been discovered so far.  And as for this waxy stuff
+spread over the talc, it's unique.  It's some sort of a mineral, I
+think: perhaps asphalt.  It doesn't scratch up like animal wax. 
+I'll analyse that later.  Why they once invented it, and then let
+such a splendid notion drop out of use, is just a marvel.  I could
+stay gloating over this all day."
+
+"Well," I said, "if it's all the same for you, I'd rather gloat
+over a meal.  It's a good ten miles hard going to the fonda,
+and I'm as hungry as a hawk already.  Look here, do you know it is
+four o'clock already?  It takes longer than you think climbing down
+to each of these caves, and then getting up again for the next."
+
+Coppinger spread his coat on the ground, and wrapped the lump
+of sheets with tender care, but would not allow it to be tied with
+a rope for fear of breaking more of the edges.  He insisted on
+carrying it himself too, and did so for the larger part of the way
+to Santa Brigida, and it was only when he was within an ace of
+dropping himself with sheer tiredness that he condescended to let
+me take my turn.  He was tolerably ungracious about it too.  "I
+suppose you may as well carry the stuff," he snapped, "seeing that
+after all it's your own."
+
+Personally, when we got to the fonda, I had as good a dinner
+as was procurable, and a bottle of that old Canary wine, and turned
+into bed after a final pipe.  Coppinger dined also, but I have
+reason to believe he did not sleep much.  At any rate I found him
+still poring over the find next morning, and looking very heavy-
+eyed, but brimming with enthusiasm.
+
+"Do you know," he said, "that you've blundered upon the most
+valuable historical manuscript that the modern world has ever yet
+seen?  Of course, with your clumsy way of getting it out, you've
+done an infinity of damage.  For instance, those top sheets you
+shelled away and spoiled, contained probably an absolutely unique
+account of the ancient civilisation of Yucatan."
+
+"Where's that, anyway?"
+
+"In the middle of the Gulf of Mexico.  It's all ruins to-day,
+but once it was a very prosperous colony of the Atlanteans."
+
+"Never heard of them.  Oh yes, I have though.  They were the
+people Herodotus wrote about, didn't he?  But I thought they were
+mythical."
+
+"They were very real, and so was Atlantis, the continent where
+they lived, which lay just north of the Canaries here."
+
+"What's that crocodile sort of thing with wings drawn in the
+margin?"
+
+"Some sort of beast that lived in those bygone days.  The pages
+are full of them.  That's a cave-tiger.  And that's some sort
+of colossal bat.  Thank goodness he had the sense to illustrate
+fully, the man who wrote this, or we should never have been able to
+reconstruct the tale, or at any rate we could not have understood
+half of it.  Whole species have died out since this was written,
+just as a whole continent has been swept away and three
+civilisations quenched.  The worst of it is, it was written by a
+highly-educated man who somewhat naturally writes a very bad fist. 
+I've hammered at it all the night through, and have only managed to
+make out a few sentences here and there"--he rubbed his hands
+appreciatively.  "It will take me a year's hard work to translate
+this properly."
+
+"Every man to his taste.  I'm afraid my interest in the thing
+wouldn't last as long as that.  But how did it get there?  Did your
+ancient Egyptian come to Grand Canary for the good of his lungs,
+and write it because he felt dull up in that cave?"
+
+"I made a mistake there.  The author was not an Egyptian.  It
+was the similarity of the inscribed character which misled me.  The
+book was written by one Deucalion, who seems to have been a priest
+or general--or perhaps both--and he was an Atlantean.  How it got
+there, I don't know yet.  Probably that was told in the last few
+pages, which a certain vandal smashed up with his pocketknife, in
+getting them away from the place where they were stowed."
+
+"That's right, abuse me.  Deucalion you say?  There was a
+Deucalion in the Greek mythology.  He was one of the two who
+escaped from the Flood: their Noah, in fact."
+
+"The swamping of the continent of Atlantis might very well
+correspond to the Flood."
+
+"Is there a Pyrrha then?  She was Deucalion's wife."
+
+"I haven't come across her yet.  But there's a Phorenice, who
+may be the same.  She seems to have been the reigning Empress, as
+far as I can make out at present."
+
+I looked with interest at illustrations in the margin.  They
+were quite understandable, although the perspective was all wrong. 
+"Weird beasts they seem to have had knocking about the country in
+those days.  Whacking big size too, if one may judge.  By Jove,
+that'll be a cave-tiger trying to puff down a mammoth.  I shouldn't
+care to have lived in those days."
+
+"Probably they had some way of fighting the creatures. 
+However, that will show itself as I get along with the
+translation."  He looked at his watch--"I suppose I ought to be
+ashamed of myself, but I haven't been to bed.  Are you going out?"
+
+"I shall drive back to Las Palmas.  I promised a man to have a
+round at golf this afternoon."
+
+"Very well, see you at dinner.  I hope they've sent back my dress
+shirts from the wash.  O, lord!  I am sleepy."
+
+I left him going up to bed, and went outside and ordered a
+carriage to take me down, and there I may say we parted for a
+considerable time.  A cable was waiting for me in the hotel at Las
+Palmas to go home for business forthwith, and there was a Liverpool
+boat in the harbour which I just managed to catch as she was
+steaming out.  It was a close thing, and the boatmen made a small
+fortune out of my hurry.
+
+Now Coppinger was only an hotel acquaintance, and as I was up to
+the eyes in work when I got back to England, I'm afraid I didn't
+think very much more about him at the time.  One doesn't with
+people one just meets casually abroad like that.  And it must have
+been at least a year later that I saw by a paragraph in one of the
+papers, that he had given the lump of sheets to the British Museum,
+and that the estimated worth of them was ten thousand pounds at the
+lowest valuation.
+
+Well, this was a bit of revelation, and as he had so repeatedly
+impressed on me that the things were mine by right of discovery,
+I wrote rather a pointed note to him mentioning that he seemed to
+have been making rather free with my property.  Promptly came
+back a stilted letter beginning, "Doctor Coppinger regrets" and so
+on, and with it the English translation of the wax-upon-talc
+MSS.  He "quite admitted" my claim, and "trusted that the profits
+of publication would be a sufficient reimbursement for any damage
+received."
+
+Now I had no idea that he would take me unpleasantly like this,
+and wrote back a pretty warm reply to that effect; but the only
+answer I got to this was through a firm of solicitors, who stated
+that all further communications with Dr. Coppinger must be made
+through them.
+
+I will say here publicly that I regret the line he has taken
+over the matter; but as the affair has gone so far, I am disposed
+to follow out his proposition.  Accordingly the old history is here
+printed; the credit (and the responsibility) of the translation
+rests with Dr. Coppinger; and whatever revenue accrues from
+readers, goes to the finder of the original talc-upon-wax sheets,
+myself.
+
+If there is a further alteration in this arrangement, it will
+be announced publicly at a later date.  But at present this appears
+to be most unlikely.
+
+
+
+1.  MY RECALL
+
+
+The public official reception was over.  The sentence had been
+read, the name of Phorenice, the Empress, adored, and the new
+Viceroy installed with all that vast and ponderous ceremonial which
+had gained its pomp and majesty from the ages.  Formally, I had
+delivered up the reins of my government; formally, Tatho had seated
+himself on the snake-throne, and had put over his neck the chain of
+gems which symbolised the supreme office; and then, whilst the
+drums and the trumpets made their proclamation of clamour, he had
+risen to his feet, for his first state progress round that gilded
+council chamber as Viceroy of the Province of Yucatan.
+
+With folded arms and bended head, I followed him between the
+glittering lines of soldiers, and the brilliant throng of
+courtiers, and chiefs, and statesmen.  The roof-beams quivered to
+the cries of "Long Live Tatho!"  "Flourish the Empress!" which came
+forth as in duty bound, and the new ruler acknowledged the welcome
+with stately inclinations of the head.  In turn he went to the
+three lesser thrones of the lesser governors--in the East, the
+North, and the South, and received homage from each as the ritual
+was; and I, the man whom his coming had deposed, followed with the
+prescribed meekness in his train.
+
+It was a hard task, but we who hold the higher offices learn
+to carry before the people a passionless face.  Once, twenty years
+before, these same fine obeisances had been made to me; now the
+Gods had seen fit to make fortune change.  But as I walked bent and
+humbly on behind the heels of Tatho, though etiquette forbade noisy
+salutations to myself, it could not inhibit kindly glances, and
+these came from every soldier, every courtier, and every chief who
+stood there in that gilded hall, and they fell upon me very
+gratefully.  It is not often the fallen meet such tender looks.
+
+The form goes, handed down from immemorial custom, that on
+these great ceremonial days of changing a ruler, those of the
+people being present may bring forward petitions and requests; may
+make accusations against their retiring head with sure immunity
+from his vengeance; or may state their own private theories for the
+better government of the State in the future.  I think it may be
+pardoned to my vanity if I record that not a voice was raised
+against me, or against any of the items of my twenty years of rule. 
+Nor did any speak out for alterations in the future.  Yes, even
+though we made the circuit for the three prescribed times, all
+present showed their approval in generous silence.
+
+Then, one behind the other, the new Viceroy and the old, we
+marched with formal step over golden tiles of that council hall
+beneath the pyramid, and the great officers of state left their
+stations and joined in our train; and at the farther wall we came
+to the door of those private chambers which an hour ago had been
+mine own.
+
+Ah, well!  I had no home now in any of those wondrous cities
+of Yucatan, and I could not help feeling a bitterness, though in
+sooth I should have been thankful enough to return to the Continent
+of Atlantis with my head still in its proper station.
+
+Tatho gave his formal summons of "Open ye to the Viceroy,"
+which the ritual commands, and the slaves within sent the massive
+stone valves of the door gaping wide.  Tatho entered, I at his
+heels; the others halted, sending valedictions from the threshold;
+and the valves of the door clanged on the lock behind us.  We
+passed on to the chamber beyond, and then, when for the first time
+we were alone together, and the forced etiquette of courts was
+behind us, the new Viceroy turned with meekly folded arms, and
+bowed low before me.
+
+"Deucalion," he said, "believe me that I have not sought this
+office.  It was thrust upon me.  Had I not accepted, my head would
+have paid forfeit, and another man--your enemy--would have been
+sent out as viceroy in your place.  The Empress does not permit
+that her will shall ever be questioned."
+
+"My friend," I made answer, "my brother in all but blood,
+there is no man living in all Atlantis or her territories to whom
+I had liefer hand over my government.  For twenty years now have I
+ruled this country of Yucatan, and Mexico beyond, first under the
+old King, and then as minister to this new Empress.  I know my
+colony like a book.  I am intimate with all her wonderful cities,
+with their palaces, their pyramids, and their people.  I have
+hunted the beasts and the savages in the forests.  I have built
+roads, and made the rivers so that they will carry shipping.  I
+have fostered the arts and crafts like a merchant; I have
+discoursed, three times each day, the cult of the Gods with mine
+own lips.  Through evil years and through good have I ruled here,
+striving only for the prosperity of the land and the strengthening
+of Atlantis, and I have grown to love the peoples like a father. 
+To you I bequeath them, Tatho, with tender supplications for their
+interests."
+
+"It is not I that can carry on Deucalion's work with Deucalion's
+power, but rest content, my friend, that I shall do my humble
+best to follow exactly on in your footsteps.  Believe me, I came
+out to this government with a thousand regrets, but I would have
+died sooner than take your place had I known how vigorously the
+supplanting would trouble you."
+
+"We are alone here," I said, "away from the formalities of formal
+assemblies, and a man may give vent to his natural self without
+fear of tarnishing a ceremony.  Your coming was something of the
+suddenest.  Till an hour ago, when you demanded audience, I had
+thought to rule on longer; and even now I do not know for what
+cause I am deposed."
+
+"The proclamation said: 'We relieve our well-beloved Deucalion
+of his present service, because we have great need of his powers at
+home in our kingdom of Atlantis.'"
+
+"A mere formality."
+
+Tatho looked uneasily round the hangings of the chamber, and
+drew me with him to its centre, and lowered his voice.
+
+"I do not think so," he whispered.  "I believe she has need of
+you.  There are troublous times on hand, and Phorenice wants the
+ablest men in the kingdom ready to her call."
+
+"You may speak openly," I said, "and without fear of
+eavesdroppers.  We are in the heart of the pyramid here, built in
+every way by a man's length of solid stone.  Myself, I oversaw the
+laying of every course.  And besides, here in Yucatan, we have not
+the niceties of your old world diplomacy, and do not listen,
+because we count it shame to do so."
+
+Tatho shrugged his shoulders.  "I acted only according to mine
+education.  At home, a loose tongue makes a loose head, and there
+are those whose trade it is to carry tales.  Still, what I say is
+this: The throne shakes, and Phorenice sees the need of sturdy
+props.  So she has sent this proclamation."
+
+"But why come to me?  It is twenty years since I sailed to
+this colony, and from that day I have not returned to Atlantis
+once.  I know little of the old country's politics.  What small
+parcel of news drifts out to us across the ocean, reads with
+slender interest here.  Yucatan is another world, my dear Tatho, as
+you in the course of your government will learn, with new
+interests, new people, new everything.  To us here, Atlantis is
+only a figment, a shadow, far away across the waters.  It is for
+this new world of Yucatan that I have striven through all these
+years."
+
+"If Deucalion has small time to spare from his government for
+brooding over his fatherland, Atlantis, at least, has found leisure
+to admire the deeds of her brilliant son.  Why, sir, over yonder at
+home, your name carries magic with it.  When you and I were lads
+together, it was the custom in the colleges to teach that the men
+of the past were the greatest this world has ever seen; but to-day
+this teaching is changed.  It is Deucalion who is held up as the
+model and example.  Mothers name their sons Deucalion, as the most
+valuable birth-gift they can make.  Deucalion is a household word. 
+Indeed, there is only one name that is near to it in familiarity."
+
+"You trouble me," I said, frowning.  "I have tried to do my
+duty for its own sake, and for the country's sake, not for the
+pattings and fondlings of the vulgar.  And besides, if there are
+names to be in every one's mouth, they should be the names of the
+Gods."
+
+Tatho shrugged his shoulders.  "The Gods?  They occupy us very
+little these latter years.  With our modern science, we have grown
+past the tether of the older Gods, and no new one has appeared. 
+No, my Lord Deucalion, if it were merely the Gods who were your
+competitors on men's lips, your name would be a thousand times the
+better known."
+
+"Of mere human names," I said, "the name of this new Empress
+should come first in Atlantis, our lord the old King being now
+dead."
+
+"She certainly would have it so," replied Tatho, and there was
+something in his tone which made me see that more was meant behind
+the words.  I drew him to one of the marble seats, and bent myself
+familiarly towards him.  "I am speaking," I said, "not to the new
+Viceroy of Yucatan, but to my old friend Tatho, a member of the
+Priests' Clan, like myself, with whom I worked side by side in a
+score of the smaller home governments, in hamlets, in villages, in
+smaller towns, in greater towns, as we gained experience in war and
+knowledge in the art of ruling people, and so tediously won our
+promotion.  I am speaking in Tatho's private abode, that was mine
+own not two hours since, and I would have an answer with that
+plainness which we always then used to one another."
+
+The new Viceroy sighed whimsically.  "I almost forget how to
+speak in plain words now," he said.  "We have grown so polished in
+these latter days, that mere bald truth would be hissed as
+indelicate.  But for the memory of those early years, when we
+expended as much law and thought over the ownership of a hay-byre
+as we should now over the fate of a rebellious city, I will try and
+speak plain to you even now, Deucalion.  Tell me, old friend, what
+is it?"
+
+"What of this new Empress?"
+
+He frowned.  "I might have guessed your subject," he said.
+
+
+"Then speak upon it.  Tell me of all the changes that have
+been made.  What has this Phorenice done to make her throne
+unstable in Atlantis?"
+
+Tatho frowned still.  "If I did not know you to be as honest
+as our Lord the Sun, your questions would carry mischief with them. 
+Phorenice has a short way with those who are daring enough to
+discuss her policies for other purpose than politely to praise
+them."
+
+"You can leave me ignorant if you wish," I said with a touch
+of chill.  This Tatho seemed to be different from the Tatho I had
+known at home, Tatho my workmate, Tatho who had read with me in the
+College of Priests, who had run with me in many a furious charge,
+who had laboured with me so heavily that the peoples under us might
+prosper.  But he was quick enough to see my change of tone.
+
+"You force me back to my old self," he said with a half smile,
+"though it is hard enough to forget the caution one has learned
+during the last twenty years, even when speaking with you.  Still,
+whatever may have happened to the rest of us, it is clear to see
+that you at least have not changed, and, old friend, I am ready to
+trust you with my life if you ask it.  In fact, you do ask me that
+very thing when you tell me to speak all I know of Phorenice."
+
+I nodded.  This was more like the old times, when there was
+full confidence between us.  "The Gods will it now that I return to
+Atlantis," I said, "and what happens after that the Gods alone
+know.  But it would be of service to me if I could land on her
+shores with some knowledge of this Phorenice, for at present I am
+as ignorant concerning her as some savage from Europe or
+mid-Africa."
+
+"What would you have me tell?"
+
+"Tell all.  I know only that she, a woman, reigns, whereby the
+ancient law of the land, a man should rule; that she is not even of
+the Priestly Clan from which the law says all rulers must be drawn;
+and that, from what you say, she has caused the throne to totter. 
+The throne was as firm as the everlasting hills in the old King's
+day, Tatho."
+
+"History has moved with pace since then, and Phorenice has
+spurred it.  You know her origin?"
+
+"I know only the exact little I have told you."
+
+"She was a swineherd's daughter from the mountains, though
+this is never even whispered now, as she has declared herself to be
+a daughter of the Gods, with a miraculous birth and upbringing.  As
+she has decreed it a sacrilege to question this parentage, and has
+ordered to be burnt all those that seem to recollect her more
+earthly origin, the fable passes current for truth.  You see the
+faith I put in you, Deucalion, by telling you what you wish to
+learn."
+
+"There has always been trust between us."
+
+"I know; but this habit of suspicion is hard to cast off, even
+with you.  However, let me put your good faith between me and the
+torture further.  Zaemon, you remember, was governor of the
+swineherd's province, and Zaemon's wife saw Phorenice and took her
+away to adopt and bring up as her own.  It is said that the
+swineherd and his woman objected; perhaps they did; anyway, I know
+they died; and Phorenice was taught the arts and graces, and
+brought up as a daughter of the Priestly Clan."
+
+"But still she was an adopted daughter only," I objected.
+
+"The omission of the 'adopted' was her will at an early age,"
+said Tatho dryly, "and she learnt early to have her wishes carried
+into fact.  It was notorious that before she had grown to fifteen
+years she ruled not only the women of the household, but Zaemon
+also, and the province that was beyond Zaemon."
+
+"Zaemon was learned," I said, "and a devout follower of the
+Gods, and searcher into the higher mysteries; but, as a ruler, he
+was always a flabby fellow."
+
+"I do not say that opportunities have not come usefully in
+Phorenice's way, but she has genius as well.  For her to have
+raised herself at all from what she was, was remarkable.  Not one
+woman out of a thousand, placed as she was, would have grown to be
+aught higher than a mere wife of some sturdy countryman, who was
+sufficiently simple to care nothing for pedigree.  But look at
+Phorenice: it was her whim to take exercise as a man-at-arms and
+practise with all the utensils of war; and then, before any one
+quite knows how or why it happened, a rebellion had broken out in
+the province, and here was she, a slip of a girl, leading Zaemon's
+troops."
+
+"Zaemon, when I knew him, was a mere derision in the field."
+
+"Hear me on.  Phorenice put down the rebellion in masterly
+fashion, and gave the conquered a choice between sword and service. 
+They fell into her ranks at once, and were faithful to her from
+that moment.  I tell you, Deucalion, there is a marvellous
+fascination about the woman."
+
+"Her present historian seems to have felt it."
+
+"Of course I have.  Every one who sees her comes under her
+spell.  And frankly, I am in love with her also, and look upon my
+coming here as detestable exile.  Every one near to Phorenice, high
+and low, loves her just the same, even though they know it may be
+her whim to send them to execution next minute."
+
+Perhaps I let my scorn of this appear.
+
+"You feel contempt for our weakness?  You were always a strong
+man, Deucalion."
+
+"At any rate you see me still unmarried.  I have found no time
+to palter with the fripperies of women."
+
+"Ah, but these colonists here are crude and unfascinating. 
+Wait till you see the ladies of the court, my ascetic."
+
+"It comes to my mind," I said dryly, "that I lived in Atlantis
+before I came out here, and at that time I used to see as much of
+court life as most men.  Yet then, also, I felt no inducement to
+marry."
+
+Tatho chuckled.  "Atlantis has changed so that you would hardly
+know the country to-day.  A new era has come over everything,
+especially over the other sex.  Well do I remember the women of
+the old King's time, how monstrous uncomely they were, how
+little they knew how to walk or carry themselves, how painfully
+barbaric was their notion of dress.  I dare swear that your ladies
+here in Yucatan are not so provincial to-day as ours were then. 
+But you should see them now at home.  They are delicious.  And
+above all in charm is the Empress.  Oh, Deucalion, you shall see
+Phorenice in all her glorious beauty and her magnificence one of
+these fine days soon, and believe me you will go down on your knees
+and repent."
+
+"I may see, and (because you say so) I may alter my life's
+ways.  The Gods make all things possible.  But for the present I
+remain as I am, celibate, and not wishful to be otherwise; and so
+in the meantime I would hear the continuance of your history."
+
+"It is one long story of success.  She deposed Zaemon from his
+government in name as well as in fact, and the news was spread, and
+the Priestly Clan rose in its wrath.  The two neighbouring
+governors were bidden join forces, take her captive, and bring her
+for execution.  Poor men!  They tried to obey their orders; they
+attacked her surely enough, but in battle she could laugh at them. 
+She killed both, and made some slaughter amongst their troops; and
+to those that remained alive and became her prisoners, she made her
+usual offer--the sword or service.  Naturally they were not long
+over making their choice: to these common people one ruler is much
+the same as another: and so again her army was reinforced.
+
+"Three times were bodies of soldiery sent against her, and three
+times was she victorious.  The last was a final effort.  Before,
+it had been customary to despise this adventuress who had sprung
+up so suddenly.  But then the priests began to realise their
+peril; to see that the throne itself was in danger; and to know
+that if she were to be crushed, they would have to put forth their
+utmost.  Every man who could carry arms was pressed into the
+service.  Every known art of war was ordered to be put into
+employment.  It was the largest army, and the best equipped army
+that Atlantis then had ever raised, and the Priestly Clan saw fit
+to put in supreme command their general, Tatho."
+
+"You!" I cried.
+
+"Even myself, Deucalion.  And mark you, I fought my utmost. 
+I was not her creature then; and when I set out (because they
+wanted to spur me to the uttermost) the High Council of the priests
+pointed out my prospects.  The King we had known so long, was
+ailing and wearily old; he was so wrapped up in the study of the
+mysteries, and the joy of closely knowing them, that earthly
+matters had grown nauseous to him; and at any time he might decide
+to die.  The Priestly Clan uses its own discretion in the election
+of a new king, but it takes note of popular sentiment; and a
+general who at the critical time could come home victorious from a
+great campaign, which moreover would release a harassed people from
+the constant application of arms, would be the idol of the moment. 
+These things were pointed out to me solemnly and in the full
+council."
+
+"What!  They promised you the throne?"
+
+"Even that.  So you see I set out with a high stake before me. 
+Phorenice I had never seen, and I swore to take her alive, and give
+her to be the sport of my soldiery.  I had a fine confidence in my
+own strategy then, Deucalion.  But the old Gods, in whom I trusted
+then, remained old, taught me no new thing.  I drilled and
+exercised my army according to the forms you and I learnt together,
+old comrade, and in many a tough fight found to serve well; I armed
+them with the choicest weapons we knew of then, with sling and
+mace, with bow and spear, with axe and knife, with sword and the
+throwing fire; their bodies I covered with metal plates; even their
+bellies I cared for, with droves of cattle driven in the rear of
+the fighting troops.
+
+"But when the encounter came, they might have been men of
+straw for all the harm they did.  Out of her own brain Phorenice
+had made fire-tubes that cast a dart which would kill beyond two
+bowshots, and the fashion in which she handled her troops dazzled
+me.  They threatened us on one flank, they harassed us on the
+other.  It was not war as we had been accustomed to.  It was a
+newer and more deadly game, and I had to watch my splendid army
+eaten away as waves eat a sandhill.  Never once did I get a chance
+of forcing close action.  These new tactics that had come from
+Phorenice's invention, were beyond my art to meet or understand. 
+We were eight to her one, and our close-packed numbers only made us
+so much the more easy for slaughter.  A panic came, and those who
+could fled.  Myself, I had no wish to go back and earn the axe that
+waits for the unsuccessful general.  I tried to die there fighting
+where I stood.  But death would not come.  It was a fine melee,
+Deucalion, that last one."
+
+"And so she took you?"
+
+"I stood with three others back to back, with a ring of dead round
+us, and a ring of the enemy hemming us in. We taunted them to
+come on.  But at hand-to-hand courtesies we had shown we could hold
+our own, and so they were calling for fire-tubes with which they
+could strike us down in safety from a distance.  Then up came
+Phorenice.  'What is this to-do?' says she.  'We seek to kill Lord
+Tatho, who led against you,' say they.  'So that is Tatho?' says
+she.  'A fine figure of a man indeed, and a pretty fighter
+seemingly, after the old manner.  Doubtless he is one who would
+acquire the newer method.  See now Tatho,' says she, 'it is my
+custom to offer those I vanquish either the sword (which, believe
+me, was never nearer your neck than now) or service under my
+banner.  Will you make a choice?'
+
+"'Woman,' I said, 'fairest that ever I saw, finest general the
+world has ever borne, you tempt me sorely by your qualities, but
+there is a tradition in our Clan, that we should be true to the
+salt we eat.  I am the King's man still, and so I can take no
+service from you.'
+
+"'The King is dead,' says she.  'A runner has just brought the
+tidings, meaning them to have fallen into your hands.  And I am the
+Empress.'
+
+"'Who made you Empress?' I asked.
+
+"'The same most capable hand that has given me this battle,'
+says she.  'It is a capable hand, as you have seen: it can be a
+kind hand also, as you may learn if you choose.  With the King
+dead, Tatho is a masterless man now.  Is Tatho in want of a
+mistress?'
+
+"'Such a glorious mistress as you,' I said, 'Yes.'  And from
+that moment, Deucalion, I have been her slave.  Oh, you may frown;
+you may get up from this seat and walk away if you will.  But I ask
+you this: keep back your worst judgment of me, old friend, till
+after you have seen Phorenice herself in the warm and lovely flesh. 
+Then your own ears and your own senses will be my advocates, to win
+me back your old esteem."
+
+
+
+2. BACK TO ATLANTIS
+
+
+The words of Tatho were no sleeping draught for me that night. 
+I began to think that I had made somewhat a mistake in wrapping
+myself up so entirely in my government of Yucatan, and not
+contriving to keep more in touch with events that were passing at
+home in Atlantis.  For many years past it had been easy to see that
+the mariner folk who did traffic across the seas spoke with
+restraint, and that only what news the Empress pleased was allowed
+to ooze out beyond her borders.  But, as I say, I was fully
+occupied with my work in the colony, and had no curiosity to pull
+away a veil intentionally placed.  Besides, it has always been
+against my principles to put to the torture men who had received
+orders for silence from their superiors, merely that they shall
+break these orders for my private convenience.
+
+However, the iron discipline of our Priestly Clan left me no
+choice of procedure.  As was customary, I had been deprived of my
+office at a moment's notice.  From that time on, all papers and
+authority belonged to my successor, and, although by courtesy I
+might be permitted to remain as a guest in the pyramid that had so
+recently been mine, to see another sunrise, it was clearly enjoined
+that I must leave the territory then at the topmost of my speed and
+hasten to report in Atlantis.
+
+Tatho, to give him credit, was anxious to further my interests
+to the utmost in his power.  He was by my side again before the
+dawn, putting all his resources at my disposal.
+
+I had little enough to ask him.  "A ship to take me home," I
+said, "and I shall be your debtor."
+
+The request seemed to surprise him.  "That you may certainly
+have if you wish it.  But my ships are foul with the long passage,
+and are in need of a careen.  If you take them, you will make a
+slow voyage of it to Atlantis.  Why do you not take your own navy? 
+The ships are in harbour now, for I saw them there when we came in. 
+Brave ships they are too."
+
+"But not mine.  That navy belongs to Yucatan."
+
+"Well, Deucalion, you are Yucatan; or, rather, you were
+yesterday, and have been these twenty years."
+
+I saw what he meant, and the idea did not please me. I answered
+stiffly enough that the ships were owned by private merchants,
+or belonged to the State, and I could not claim so much as a
+ten-slave galley.
+
+Tatho shrugged his shoulders.  "I suppose you know your own
+policies best," he said, "though to me it seems but risky for a man
+who has attained to a position like yours and mine not to have
+provided himself with a stout navy of his own.  One never knows
+when a recall may be sent, and, through lack of these precautions,
+a life's earnings may very well be lost in a dozen hours."
+
+"I have no fear for mine," I said coldly.
+
+"Of course not, because you know me to be your friend.  But
+had another man been appointed to this vice-royalty, you might have
+been sadly shorn, Deucalion.  It is not many fellows who can resist
+a snug hoard ready and waiting in the very coffers they have come
+to line."
+
+"My Lord Tatho," I said, "it is clear to me that you and I
+have grown to be of different tastes.  All of the hoard that I have
+made for myself in this colony, few men would covet.  I have the
+poor clothes you see me in this moment, and a box of drugs such as
+I have found useful to the stomach.  I possess also three slaves,
+two of them scribes and the third a sturdy savage from Europe, who
+cooks my victual and fills for me the bath.  For my maintenance
+during my years of service, here, I have bled the State of a
+soldier's ration and nothing beyond; and if in my name any man has
+mulcted a creature in Yucatan of so much as an ounce of bronze, I
+request you as a last service to have that man hanged for me as a
+liar and a thief."
+
+Tatho looked at me curiously.  "I do not know whether I admire
+you most or whether I pity.  I do not know whether to be astonished
+or to despise.  We had heard of much of your uprightness over
+yonder in Atlantis, of your sternness and your justice, but I swear
+by the old Gods that no soul guessed you carried your fancy so far
+as this.  Why, man, money is power.  With money and the resources
+money can buy, nothing could stop a fellow like you; whilst without
+it you may be tripped up and trodden down irrevocably at the first
+puny reverse."
+
+"The Gods will choose my fate."
+
+"Possibly; but for mine, I prefer to nourish it myself.  I
+tell you with frankness that I have not come here to follow in the
+pattern you have made for a vice-royalty.  I shall govern Yucatan
+wisely and well to the best of my ability; but I shall govern it
+also for the good of Tatho, the viceroy.  I have brought with me
+here my navy of eight ships and a personal bodyguard.  There is my
+wife also, and her women and her slaves.  All these must be
+provided for.  And why indeed should it be otherwise?  If a people
+is to be governed, it should be their privilege to pay handsomely
+for their prince."
+
+"We shall not agree on this.  You have the power now, and can
+employ it as you choose.  If I thought it would be of any use, I
+should like to supplicate you most humbly to deal with lenience
+when you come to tax these people who are under you.  They have
+grown very dear to me."
+
+"I have disgusted you with me, and I am grieved for it. But
+even to retain your good opinion, Deucalion--which I value more
+than that of any man living--I cannot do here as you have done.  It
+would be impossible, even if I wished it.  You must not judge all
+other men by your own strong standard: a Tatho is by no means a
+colossus like a Deucalion.  And besides, I have a wife and
+children, and they must be provided for, even if I neglect myself."
+
+"Ah, there," I said, "it does seem that I possess the
+advantage.  I have no wife, to clog me."
+
+He caught up my word quickly.  "It seems to me you have
+nothing that makes life worth living.  You have neither wife,
+children, riches, cooks, retinue, dresses, nor anything else in
+proportion to your station.  You will pardon my saying it, old
+comrade, but you are plaguey ignorant about some matters.  For
+example, you do not know how to dine.  During every day of a very
+weary voyage, I have promised myself when sitting before the meagre
+sea victual, that presently the abstinence would be more than
+repaid by Deucalion's welcoming feast.  Oh, I tell you that feast
+was one of the vividest things that ever came before my eyes.  And
+then when we get to the actuality, what was it?  Why, a country
+farmer every day sits down to more delicate fare.  You told me how
+it was prepared.  Well, your savage from Europe may be lusty, and
+perchance is faithful, but be is a devil-possessed cook.  Gods!  I
+have lived better on a campaign.
+
+"I know this is a colony here, without any of the home
+refinements; but if in the days to come, the deer of the forest,
+the fish of the stream, and the other resources of the place are
+not put to better use than heretofore, I shall see it my duty as
+ruler to fry some of the kitchen staff alive in grease so as to
+encourage better cookery.  Gods!  Deucalion, have you forgotten
+what it is to have a palate?  And have you no esteem for your own
+dignity?  Man, look at your clothes.  You are garbed like a
+herdsman, and you have not a gaud or a jewel to brighten you."
+
+"I eat," I said coldly, "when my hunger bids me, and I carry
+this one robe upon my person till it is worn out and needs
+replacement.  The grossness of excessive banqueting, and the
+effeminacy of many clothes are attainments that never met my fancy. 
+But I think we have talked here over long, and there seems little
+chance of our finding agreement.  You have changed, Tatho, with the
+years, and perhaps I have changed also.  These alterations creep
+imperceptibly into one's being as time advances.  Let us part now,
+and, forgetting these present differences, remember only our
+friendship of twenty years agone.  That for me, at any rate, has
+always had a pleasant savour when called up into the memory."
+
+Tatho bowed his head.  "So be it," he said.
+
+"And I would still charge myself upon your bounty for that
+ship.  Dawn cannot be far off now, and it is not decent that the
+man who has ruled here so long, should walk in daylight through the
+streets on the morning after his dismissal."
+
+"So be it," said Tatho.  "You shall have my poor navy.  I
+could have wished that you had asked me something greater."
+
+"Not the navy, Tatho; one small ship.  Believe me, more is
+wasted."
+
+"Now, there," said Tatho, "I shall act the tyrant.  I am
+viceroy here now, and will have my way in this.  You may go naked
+of all possessions: that I cannot help.  But depart for Atlantis
+unattended, that you shall not."
+
+And so, in fine, as the choice was set beyond me, it was in
+the "Bear," Tatho's own private ship, with all the rest of his navy
+sailing in escort, that I did finally make my transit.
+
+But the start was not immediate.  The vessels lay moored
+against the stone quays of the inner harbour, gutted of their
+stores, and with crews exhausted, and it would have been suicide to
+have forced them out then and there to again take the seas.
+
+So the courtesies were fulfilled by the craft whereon I abode
+hauling out into the entrance basin, and anchoring there in the
+swells of the fairway; and forthwith she and her consorts took in
+wood and water, cured meat and fish ashore, and refitted in all
+needful ways, with all speed attainable.
+
+For myself there came then, as the first time during twenty
+busy years, a breathing space from work.  I had no further
+connection with the country of my labours; indeed, officially, I
+had left it already.  Into the working of the ship it was contrary
+to rule that I should make any inspection or interest, since all
+sea matters were the exclusive property of the Mariners' Guild,
+secured to them by royal patent, and most jealously guarded.
+
+So there remained to me in my day, hours to gaze (if I would)
+upon the quays, the harbours, the palaces, and the pyramids of the
+splendid city before me which I had seen grow stone by stone from
+its foundations; or to roam my eye over the pastures and the grain
+lands beyond the walls, and to look longingly at the dense forests
+behind, from which field by field we had so tediously ripped our
+territory.
+
+Would Tatho continue the work so healthily begun?  I trusted
+so, even in spite of his selfish words.  And at all hours, during
+the radiance of our Lord the Sun, or under the stars of night, I
+was free to pursue that study of the higher mysteries, on which we
+of the Priests' Clan are trained to set our minds, without aid of
+book or instrument, of image or temple.
+
+The refitting of the navy was gone about with speed.  Never,
+it is said, had ships been reprovisioned and caulked, and remanned
+with greater speed for the over-ocean voyage.  Indeed, it was
+barely over a month from the day that they brought up in the
+harbour, they put out beyond the walls, and began their voyage
+eastward over the hills and dale of the ocean.
+
+Rowing-slaves from Europe for this long passage of sea are not
+taken now, owing to the difficulty in provisioning them, for modern
+humanity forbids the practice of letting them eat one another
+according to the home custom of their continent; sails alone are
+but an indifferent stand by; but modern science has shown how to
+extract force from the Sun, when He is free from cloud, and this
+(in a manner kept secret by mariners) is made to draw sea-water at
+the forepart of the vessel, and eject it with such force at the
+stern that she is appreciably driven forward, even with the wind
+adverse.
+
+In another matter also has navigation vastly improved.  It is
+not necessary now, as formerly, to trust wholly to a starry night
+(when beyond sight of land) to find direction.  A little image has
+been made, and is stood balanced in the forepart of every vessel,
+with an arm outstretched, pointing constantly to the direction
+where the Southern Cross lies in the Heavens.  So, by setting an
+angle, can a just course be correctly steered.  Other instruments
+have they also for finding a true position on the ocean wastes, for
+the newer mariner, when he is at sea, puts little trust in the
+Gods, and confides mightily in his own thews and wits.
+
+Still, it is amusing to see these tarry fellows, even in this
+modern day, take their last farewell of the harbour town.  The ship
+is stowed, and all ready for sea, and they wash and put on all
+their bravery of attire.  Ashore they go, their faces long with
+piety, and seek some obscure temple whose God has little flavour
+with shore folk, and here they make sacrifice with clamour and
+lavish outlay.  And, finally, there follows a feast in honour of
+the God, and they arrive back on board, and put to sea for the most
+part drunken, and all heavy and evil-humoured with gluttony and
+their other excesses.
+
+The voyage was very different to my previous sea-going.  There
+was no creeping timorously along in touch with the coasts.  We
+stood straight across the open gulf in the direction of home, came
+up with the band of the Carib Islands, and worked confidently
+through them, as though they had been signposts to mark the sea
+highway; and stopped only twice to replenish with wood, water, and
+fruit.  These commodities, too, the savages brought us freely, so
+great was their subjection, and in neither place did we have even
+the semblance of a fight.  It was a great certificate of the
+growing power of Atlantis and her finest over-sea colony.
+
+Then boldly on we went across the vast ocean beyond, with
+never a sacrifice to implore the Gods that they should help our
+direction.  One might feel censure towards these rugged mariners
+for their impiety, but one could not help an admiration for their
+lusty skill and confidence.
+
+The dangers of the desolate sea are dealt out as the Gods will,
+and man can only take them as they come.  Storms we encountered,
+and the mariners fought them with stubborn endurance; twice a
+blazing stone from Heaven hissed into the sea beside us, though
+without injuring any of our ships; and, as was unavoidable, the
+great beasts of the sea hunted us with their accustomed
+savagery.  But only once did we suffer material loss from these
+last, and that was when three of the greater sea lizards attacked
+the "Bear," the ship whereon I travelled, at one and the same time.
+
+The hour of their onset was during the blazing midday heat,
+and the Sun being at the full of His power, our machines were
+getting full force from Him.  The vessel was travelling forward
+faster than a man on dry land could walk.  But for the power escape
+she might as well have been standing still when the beasts sighted
+her.  There were three of them, as I have said, and we saw them
+come up over the curve of the horizon, beating the sea into foam
+with their flappers, and waving their great necks like masts as
+they swam.  Our navy was spread out in a long line of ships, and in
+olden days each of the beasts would have selected a separate prey,
+and proceeded for it; but, like man, these beasts have learned the
+necessities of warfare, and they hunt in pack now and do not
+separate their forces.
+
+It was plain they were making for our ship, and Tob, the
+captain, would have had me go into the after-castle, and there be
+secure from their marauding.  He was responsible to the Lord Tatho,
+he said, for my safe conduct; it was certain that the beasts would
+contrive to seize some of the ship's company before they were
+satiated; and if the hap came to the Lord Deucalion, he (the
+captain) would have to give himself voluntarily to the beasts then,
+to escape a very painful death at Tatho's hands later on.
+
+However, my mind was set.  A man can never have too much
+experience in fighting enemies, whether human or bestial, and the
+attack of these creatures was new to me, and I was fain to learn
+its method.  So I gave the captain a letter to Tatho, saying how
+the matter lay (and for which, it may be mentioned, the rude fellow
+seemed little enough grateful), and stayed in my chair under the
+awning.
+
+The beasts surged up to us with champing jaws, and all the
+shipmen stood armed on their defence.  They came up alongside, two
+females (the smaller) on the flank of the ship, the giant male by
+himself on the other.  Their great heads swooped about, as high as
+the yards that held the sails, and the reek from them gave one
+physical sickness.
+
+The shipmen faced the monsters with a sturdy courage.  Arrows
+were useless against the smooth, bull-like hides.  Even the
+throwing fire could not so much as singe them; nothing but twenty
+axe blows delivered on an attacking head together could beat it
+back, and even these succeeded only through sheer weight of metal,
+and did not make so much as the scratch of a wound.
+
+During all time beasts have disputed with man the mastery of
+the earth, and it is only in Atlantis and Egypt and Yucatan that
+man has dared to hold his own, and fight them with a mind made
+strong by many previous victories.  In Europe and mid-Africa the
+greater beasts hold full dominion, and man admits his puny number
+and force, and lives in earth crannies and the higher tree-tops, as
+a fugitive confessed.  And upon the great oceans, the beasts are
+lords, unchecked.
+
+Still here, upon this desolate sea, although the giant lizards
+were new to me, it was a pleasure to pit my knowledge of war
+against their brute strength and courage.  Ever since the first men
+did their business upon the great waters, they fulfilled their
+instincts in fighting the beasts with desperation.  Hiding
+coward-like in a hold was useless, for if this enemy could not find
+men above decks to glut them, they would break a ship with their
+paddles, and so all would be slain.  And so it was recognised that
+the fight should go forward as desperately as might be, and that it
+could only end when the beasts had got their prey and had gone away
+satisfied.
+
+It was in a one-sided conflict after this fashion then, that
+I found myself, and felt the joy once more to have my thews in
+action.  But after my axe had got in some dozen lusty blows, which,
+for all the harm they did, might have been delivered against some
+city wall, or, indeed, against the ark of the Mysteries itself, I
+sought about me till I found a lance, and with that made very
+different play.
+
+The eyes of these lizards are small, and set deep in a bony
+socket, but I judged them to be vulnerable, and it was upon the
+eyes of the beast that I made my attack.  The decks were slippery
+with the horrid slime of them.  The crew surged about in their
+battling, and, moreover, constantly offered themselves as a rampart
+before me by reason of Tob, the captain's threats.  But I gave a
+few shrewd progues with the lance to show that I did not choose my
+will to be overridden, and presently was given room for manoeuvre.
+
+Deliberately I placed myself in the sight of one of the
+lizards, and offered my body to its attack.  The challenge was
+accepted.  It swooped like a dropping stone, and I swerved and
+drove in the lance at its oozy eye.
+
+I thanked the Gods then that I had been trained with the lance
+till certain aim was a matter of instinct with me. The blade went
+true to its mark and stuck there, and the shaft broke in my hand. 
+The beast drew off, blinded and bellowing, and beating the sea with
+its paddles.  In a great cataract of foam I saw it bend its great
+long neck, and rub its head (with the spear still fixed) against
+its back, thereby enduring new agonies, but without dislodging the
+weapon.  And then presently, finding this of no avail, it set off
+for the place from which it came with extraordinary quickness, and
+rapidly grew smaller against the horizon.
+
+The male and the other female lizard had also left us, but not
+in similar plight.  Tob, the captain, seeing my resolve to take
+hazards, deliberately thrust a shipman into the jaws of each of the
+others, so that they might be sated and get them gone.  It was
+clear that Tob dreaded very much for his own skin if I came by
+harm, and I thought with a warming heart of the threats that Tatho
+must have used in his kind anxiety for my safety.  It is pleasant
+when one's old friends do not omit to pay these little attentions.
+
+
+
+3. A RIVAL NAVY
+
+
+Now, when we came up with the coasts of Atlantis, though Tob,
+with the aid of his modern instruments, had made his landfall with
+most marvellous skill and nearness, there still remained some ten
+days' more journey in which we had to retrace our course, till we
+came to that arm of the sea up which lies the great city of
+Atlantis, the capital.
+
+The sight of the land, and the breath of earth and herbage
+which came off from it with the breezes, were, I believe, under the
+Gods, the means of saving the lives of all of us.  For, as is
+necessary with long cross-ocean voyages, many of our ships'
+companies had died, and still more were sick with scurvy through
+the unnatural tossing, or (as some have it) through the salt,
+unnatural food inseparable from shipboard.  But these last, the
+sight and the smells of land heartened up in extraordinary fashion,
+and from being helpless logs, unable to move even under blows of
+the scourge, they became active again, able to help in the
+shipwork, and lusty (when the time came) to fight for their lives
+and their vessels.
+
+From the moment that I was deposed in Yucatan, despite Tatho's
+assurances, there had been doubts in my mind as to what nature
+would be my reception in Atlantis.  But I had faced this event of
+the future without concern: it was in the hands of the Gods.  The
+Empress Phorenice might be supreme on earth; she might cause my
+head to be lopped from its proper shoulders the moment I set foot
+ashore; but my Lord the Sun was above Phorenice, and if my head
+fell, it would be because He saw best that it should be so.  On
+which account, therefore, I had not troubled myself about the
+matter during the voyage, but had followed out my calm study of the
+higher mysteries with an unloaded mind.
+
+But when our navy had retraced sufficiently the course that
+had been overrun, and came up with the two vast headlands which
+marked the entrance to the inland waters, there, a bare two days
+from the Atlantis capital, we met with another navy which was,
+beyond doubt, waiting to give us a reception.  The ships were
+riding at anchor in a bay which lent them shelter, but they had
+scouts on the high land above, who cried the alarm of our approach,
+and when we rounded the headland, they were standing out to dispute
+our passage.
+
+Of us there were now but five ships, the rest having been lost
+in storms, or fallen behind because all their crews were dead from
+the scurvy; and of the strangers there were three fine ships, and
+three galleys of many oars apiece.  They were clean and bright and
+black; our ships were storm-ragged and weather-worn, and had
+bottoms that were foul with trailing ocean weed.  Our ships hung
+out the colours and signs of Tatho and Deucalion openly and without
+shame, so that all who looked might know their origin and errand;
+but the other navy came on without banner or antient, as though
+they were some low creatures feeling shame for their birth.
+
+Clear it seemed also that they would not let us pass without
+a fight, and in this there was nothing uncommon; for no law carries
+out over the seas, and a brother in one ship feels quite free to
+harry his brother in another vessel if he meets him out of earshot
+of the beach--more especially if that other brother be coming home
+laden from foray or trading tour.  So Tob, with system and method,
+got our vessel into fighting trim, and the other four captains did
+the like with theirs, and drew close in to us to form a compact
+squadron.  They had no wish to smell slavery, now that the voyage
+had come so near to its end.
+
+Our Lord the Sun shone brilliantly, giving full speed to the
+machines, as though He was fully willing for the affair to proceed,
+and the two navies approached one another with quickness, the three
+galleys holding back to stay in line with their consorts.  But when
+some bare hundred ship-lengths separated us, the other navy halted,
+and one of the galleys, drawing ahead, flew green branches from her
+masts, seeking for a parley.
+
+The course was unusual, but we, in our sea-battered state,
+were no navy to invite a fight unnecessarily.  So in hoarse
+sea-bawls word was passed, and we too halted, and Tob hoisted a
+withered stick (which had to do duty for greenery), to show that we
+were ready for talk, and would respect the person of an ambassador.
+
+The galley drew on, swung round, and backed till its stern
+rasped on our shield rail, and one of her people clambered up and
+jumped down upon our decks.  He was a dandily rigged-out fellow,
+young and lusty, and all healthy from the land and land victual,
+and he looked round him with a sneer at our sea-tatteredness, and
+with a fine self-confidence.  Then, seeing Tob, he nodded as one
+meets an acquaintance.  "Old pot-mate," he said, "your woman waits
+for you up by the quay-side in Atlantis yonder, with four
+youngsters at her heels.  I saw her not half a month ago."
+
+"You didn't come out here to tell me home news," said Tob;
+"that I'll be sworn.  I've drunk enough pots with you, Dason, to
+know your pleasantries thoroughly."
+
+"I wanted to point out to you that your home is still there,
+with your wife and children ready to welcome you."
+
+"I am not a man that ever forgets it," said Tob grimly; "and
+because I've got them always at the back of my mind, I've sailed
+this ship over the top of more than one pirate, when, if I'd been
+a single man, I might have been e'en content to take the hap of
+slavery."
+
+"Oh, I know you're a desperate enough fellow," said Dason,
+"and I'm free to confess that if it does come to blows we are like
+to lose a few men before we get you and your cripples here, and
+your crazy ships comfortably sunk.  Our navy has its orders to
+carry out, and the cause of my embassage is this: we wish to see if
+you will act the sensible part and give us what we want, and so be
+permitted to go on your way home, with a skin that is unslit and
+dry?"
+
+"You have come to the wrong bird here for a plucking," said
+Tob with a heavy laugh.  "We took no treasure or merchandise on
+board in Yucatan.  We stayed in harbour long enough to cure our sea
+victual and fill with food and water, and no longer.  We sail back
+as we sailed out, barren ships.  You will not believe me, of
+course; I would not have believed you had our places been changed;
+but you may go into the holds and search if you choose.  You will
+find there nothing but a few poor sailormen half in pieces with the
+scurvy.  No, you can steal nothing here but blows, Dason, and we
+will give you those with but little asking."
+
+"I am glad to see that you state your cargo at such slender
+value," said the envoy, "for it is the cargo I must take back with
+me on the galley, if you are to earn your safe conduct to home."
+
+Tob knit his brows.  "You had better speak more plain," he
+said.  "I am a common sailor, and do not understand fancy talk."
+
+"It is clear to see," said Dason, "that you have been set to
+bring Deucalion back to Atlantis as a prop for Phorenice.  Well, we
+others find Phorenice hard enough to fight against without further
+reinforcements, and so we want Deucalion in our own custody to deal
+with after our own fashion." 
+
+"And if I do the miser, and deny you this piece of my freight?"
+
+The spruce envoy looked round at the splintered ship, and the
+battered navy beside her.  "Why, then, Tob, we shall send you all
+to the fishes in very short time, and instead of Deucalion standing
+before the Gods alone, he will go down with a fine ragged company
+limping at his heels."
+
+"I doubt it," said Tob, "but we shall see.  As for letting you
+have my Lord Deucalion, that is out of the question.  For see here,
+pot-mate Dason; in the first place, if I went to Atlantis without
+Deucalion, my other lord, Tatho, would come back one of these days,
+and in his hands I should die by the slowest of slow inches; in the
+second, I have seen my Lord Deucalion kill a great sea lizard, and
+he showed himself such a proper man that day that I would not give
+him up against his will, even to Tatho himself; and in the third
+place, you owe me for your share in our last wine-bout ashore, and
+I'll see you with the nether Gods before I give you aught till
+you've settled that score."
+
+"Well, Tob, I hope you'll drown easy.  As for that wife of yours,
+I've always had a fancy for her myself, and I shall know how to
+find a use for the woman."
+
+"I'll draw your neck for that, you son of a European," said
+Tob; "and if you do not clear off this deck I'll draw it here. 
+Go," he cried, "you father of monkey children!  Get away, and let
+me fight you fairly, or by my honour I'll stamp the inwards out of
+you, and make your silly crew wear them as necklaces."
+
+Upon which Dason went to his galley.
+
+Promptly Tob set going the machine on our own "Bear," and
+bawled his orders right and left to the other ships.  The crew
+might be weak with scurvy, but they were quick to obey.  Instantly
+the five vessels were all started, and because our Lord the Sun was
+shining brightly, got soon to the full of their pace.  The whole of
+our small navy converged, singling out one ship of their opponents,
+and she, not being ready for so swift an attack, got flurried, and
+endeavoured to turn and run for room, instead of trying to meet us
+bows on.  As a consequence, the whole of our five ships hit her
+together on the broadside, tearing her planking with their
+underwater beaks, and sinking her before we had backed clear from
+the engage.
+
+But if we thus brought the enemy's number down to five, and so
+equal to our own, the advantage did not remain with us for long. 
+The three nimble galleys formed into line: their boatswains' whips
+cracked as the slaves bent to their oars, and presently one of our
+own ships was gored and sunk, the men on her being killed in the
+water without hope of rescue.
+
+And then commenced a tight-locked melee that would have warmed
+the heart of the greatest warrior alive.  The ships and the galleys
+were forced together and lay savagely grinding one another upon the
+swells, as though they had been sentient animals.  The men on board
+them shot their arrows, slashed with axes, thrust and hacked with
+swords, and hurled the throwing fire.  But in every way the fight
+converged upon the "Bear."  It was on her that the enemy spent the
+fiercest of their spite; it was to the "Bear," that the other crews
+of Tatho's navy rallied as their own vessels caught fire, or were
+sunk or taken.
+
+Battle is an old acquaintance with us of the Priestly Clan,
+and for those of us who have had to carve out territories for the
+new colonies, it comes with enough frequency to cloy even the most
+chivalrous appetite.  So I can speak here as a man of experience. 
+Up till that time, for half a life-span, I had heard men shout
+"Deucalion" as a battlecry, and in my day had seen some lusty
+encounters.  But this sea-fight surprised even me in its savage
+fierceness.  The bleak, unstable element which surrounded us; the
+swaying decks on which we fought; the throwing fire, which burnt
+flesh and wood alike with its horrid flame; the great gluttonous
+man-eating birds that hovered in the sky overhead; the man-eating
+fish that swarmed up from the seas around, gnawing and quarrelling
+over those that fell into the waters, all went to make up a
+circumstance fit to daunt the bravest men-at-arms ever gathered for
+an army.
+
+But these tarry shipmen faced it all with an indomitable
+courage, and never a cry of quailing.  Life on the seas is so hard,
+and (from the beasts that haunt the great waters) so full of savage
+dangers, that Death has lost half his terrors to them through sheer
+familiarity.  They were fellows who from pure lust for a fray would
+fight to a finish amongst themselves in the taverns ashore; and so
+here, in this desperate sea-battle, the passion for killing burned
+in them, as a fire stone from Heaven rages in a forest; and they
+took even their death-wounds laughing.
+
+On our side the battle-cry was "Tob!" and the name of this
+obscure ship-captain seemed to carry a confidence with it for our
+own crews that many a well-known commander might have envied.  The
+enemy had a dozen rallying cries, and these confused them.  But as
+their other ship-commanders one by one were killed, and Dason
+remained, active with mischief, "Dason!" became the shout which was
+thrown back at us in response to our "Tob!"
+
+However, I will not load my page with farther long account of
+this obscure sea-fight, whose only glory was its ferocity.  One by
+one all the ships of either side were sunk or lay with all their
+people killed, till finally only Dason's galley and our own "Bear"
+were left.  For the moment we were being mastered.  We had a score
+of men remaining out of all those that manned the navy when it
+sailed from Yucatan, and the enemy had boarded us and made the
+decks of the "Bear" the field of battle.  But they had been over
+busy with the throwing fire, and presently, as we raged at one
+another, the smoke and the flame from the sturdy vessel herself let
+us very plainly know that she was past salvation.
+
+But Tob was nothing daunted.  "They may stay here and fry if they
+choose," he shouted with his great boisterous laugh, "but for
+ourselves the galley is good enough now.  Keep a guard on
+Deucalion, and come with me, shipmates!"
+
+"Tob!" our fellows shouted in their ecstasy of fighting
+madness, and I too could not forbear sending out a "Tob!" for my
+battle-cry.  It was a change for me not to be leader, but it was a
+luxury for once to fight in the wake of this Tob, despite his
+uncouthness of mien and plan.  There was no stopping this new rush,
+though progress still was slow.  Tob with his bloody axe cut the
+road in front, and we others, with the lust of battle filling us to
+the chin, raged like furies in his wake.  Gods! but it was a fight.
+
+Ten of us won to the galley, with the flames and the smoke from
+the poor "Bear" spurting at our heels.  We turned and stabbed
+madly at all who tried to follow, and hacked through the grapples
+that held the vessels to their embrace.  The sea-swells spurned the
+"Bear" away.
+
+The slaves chained to the rowing-galley's benches had interest
+neither one way nor the other, and looked on the contest with dull
+concern, save when some stray missile found a billet amongst them. 
+But a handful of the fighting men had scrambled desperately on
+board the galley after us, preferring any fate to a fiery death on
+the "Bear," and these had to be dealt with promptly.  Three, with
+their fighting fury still red-hot in them, had most wastefully to
+be killed out of mischief's way; five, who had pitched their
+weapons into the sea, were chained to oar looms, in place of slaves
+who were dead; and there remained only Dason to have a fate
+apportioned.
+
+The fight had cooled out of him, and he had thrown his arms to
+the sea, and stood sullenly ready for what might befall; and to him
+Tob went up with an exulting face.
+
+"Ho, pot-mate Dason," cried he, "you made a lot of talk an
+hour ago about that woman of mine, who lives with her brats on the
+quay-side in Atlantis yonder.  Now, I'll give you a pleasant
+choice; either I'll take you along home, and tell her what you said
+before the whole ship's company (that are for the most part dead
+now, poor souls!), and I'll leave her to perform on your carcase as
+she sees fit by way of payment; or, as the other choice, I'll deal
+with you here now myself."
+
+"I thank you for the chance," said Dason, and knelt and offered
+his neck to the axe.  So Tob cut off his head, sticking it
+on the galley's beak as an advertisement of what had been done. 
+The body he threw over the side, and one of the great man-eating
+birds that hovered near, picked it up and flew away with it to its
+nest amongst the crags.  And so we were free to get a meal of the
+fruits and the fresh meats which the galley offered, whilst the
+oar-slaves sent the galley rushing onwards towards the capital.
+
+There was a wine-skin in the after-castle, and I filled a horn
+and poured some out at Tob's feet in salutation.  "My man," I said,
+"you have shown me a fight."
+
+"Thanks," said he, "and I know you are a judge.  'Twas pretty
+whilst it lasted; and, seeing that my lads were, for the most,
+scurvy-rotten, I will say they fought with credit.  I have lost my
+Lord Tatho's navy, but I think Phorenice will see me righted there. 
+If those that are against her took so much trouble to kill my Lord
+Deucalion before he could come to her aid, I can fancy she will not
+be niggard in her joy when I put Deucalion safe, if somewhat dented
+and blood-bespattered, on the quay."
+
+"The Gods know," I said, for it is never my custom to discuss
+policies with my inferiors, even though etiquette be for the moment
+loosened, as ours was then by the thrill of battle.  "The Gods will
+decide what is best for you, Tob, even as they have decided that it
+is best that I should go on to Atlantis."
+
+The sailor held a horn filled from the wine-skin in his hand,
+and I think was minded to pour a libation at my feet, even as I had
+done at his.  But he changed his mind, and emptied it down his
+throat instead.  "It is thirsty work, this fighting," he said, "and
+that drink comes very useful."
+
+I put my hand on his blood-smeared arm.  "Tob," I said,
+"whether I step into power again, or whether I go to the block
+to-morrow, is another matter which the Gods alone know, but hear me
+tell you now, that if a chance is given me of showing my gratitude,
+I shall not forget the way you have served me in this voyage, and
+the way you have fought this day."
+
+Tob filled another brimming horn from the wine-skin and
+splashed it at my feet.  "That's good enough surety for me," he
+said, "that my woman and brats never want from this day onward. 
+The Lord Deucalion for the block, indeed!"
+
+
+
+4. THE WELCOME OF PHORENICE
+
+
+Now I can say it with all truth that, till the rival navy met
+us in the mouth of the gulf, I had thought little enough of my
+importance as a recruit for the Empress.  But the laying in wait
+for us of those ships, and the wild ferocity with which they fought
+so that I might fall into their hands, were omens which the
+blindest could not fail to read.  It was clear that I was expected
+to play a lusty part in the fortunes of the nation.
+
+But if our coming had been watched for by enemies it seemed
+that Phorenice also had her scouts; and these saw us from the
+mountains, and carried news to the capital.  The arm of the sea at
+the head of which the vast city of Atlantis stands, varies greatly
+in width.  In places where the mountains have over-boiled, and sent
+their liquid contents down to form hard stone below, the channel
+has barely a river's wideness, and then beyond, for the next
+half-day's sail it will widen out into a lake, with the sides
+barely visible.  Moreover, its course is winding, and so a runner
+who knows his way across the flats, and the swamps, and between the
+smoking hills which lie along the shore, and did not get overcome
+by fire-streams, or water, or wandering beasts, could carry news
+overland from seacoast to capital far speedier than even the most
+shrewdly whipped of galleys could ferry it along the water.
+
+Of course there were heavy risks that a lone traveller would
+not make a safe passage by this land route, if he were bidden to
+sacrifice all precautions to speed.  But Phorenice was no niggard
+with her couriers.  She sent a corps of twenty to the headland that
+overlooks the sea-entrance to the straits; they started with the
+news, each on his own route; and it says much for their speed and
+cleverness, that no fewer than seven of these agile fellows came
+through scathless with their tidings, and of the others it was said
+that quite three were known to have survived.
+
+Still, about this we had no means of knowing at the time, and
+pushed on in fancy that our coming was quite unheralded.  The
+slaves on the galley's row-banks were for the most part savages
+from Europe, and the smell of them was so offensive that the voyage
+lost all its pleasures; and as, moreover, the wind carried with it
+an infinite abundance of small grit from some erupting fire
+mountain, we were anxious to linger as little as possible. 
+Besides, if I may confess to such a thing without being unduly
+degraded, although by my priestly training I had been taught
+stoicism, and knew that all the future was in the hands of the
+Gods, I was frailly human still to have a very vast curiosity as to
+what would be the form of my own reception at Atlantis.  I could
+imagine myself taken a formal prisoner on landing, and set on a
+formal trial to answer for my cure of the colony of Yucatan; I
+could imagine myself stepping ashore unknown and unnoticed, and
+after a due lapse, being sent for by the Empress to take up new
+duties; but the manner of my real welcome was a thing I did not
+even guess at.
+
+We came in sight of the peak of the sacred mountain, with its
+glare of eternal fires which stand behind the city, one morning
+with the day's break, and the whips of the boatswains cracked more
+vehemently, so that those offensive slaves should give the galley
+a final spurt.  The wind was adverse, and no sail could be spread,
+but under oars alone we made a pretty pace, and the sides of the
+sacred mountain grew longer, and presently the peaks of the
+pyramids in the city, the towers of the higher buildings, began to
+show themselves as though they floated upon the gleaming water.  It
+was twenty years since I had seen Atlantis last, and my heart
+glowed with the thought of treading again upon her paving-stones.
+
+The splendid city grew out of the sea as we approached, and to
+every throb of the oars, the shores leaped nearer.  I saw the
+temple where I had been admitted first to manhood; I saw the
+pyramid in whose heart I had been initiated to the small mysteries;
+and then (as the lesser objects became discernible) I made out the
+house where a father and a mother had reared me, and my eyes became
+dim as the memories rose.
+
+We drew up outside the white walls of the harbour, as the law
+was, and the slaves panted and sobbed in quietude over the
+oar-looms.  For vessels thus stationed there is, generally, a
+sufficiency of waiting, for a port-captain is apt to be so
+uncertain of his own dignity, that he must e'en keep folks waiting
+to prove it to them.  But here for us it might have been that the
+port-captain's boat was waiting.  The signal was sounded from the
+two castles at the harbour's entrance, the chain which hung between
+them was dropped, and a ten-oared boat shot out from behind the
+walls as fast as oars could drive her.  She raced up alongside and
+the questions were put:
+
+"That should be Dason's galley?"
+
+"It was," said Tob.
+
+"Oh, I saw Dason's head on your beak," said the port-captain. 
+"You were Tatho's captain?"
+
+"And am still.  Tatho's fleet was sent by Dason and his friends
+to the sea-floor, and so we took this stinking galley to finish
+the voyage in, seeing that it was the only craft left afloat."
+
+The port-captain was roving his eye over the group of us who
+stood on the after-deck.  "I fear me, captain, that you'll have but
+a dangerous reception.  I do not see my Lord Deucalion.  Or does he
+come with some other navy?  Gods, captain, if you have let him get
+killed whilst under your charge, the Empress will have the skin
+torn slowly off you living."
+
+"What with Phorenice and Tatho both so curious for his
+welfare," said Tob, "my Lord Deucalion seems but a dangerous
+passenger.  But I shall save my hide this voyage."  He jerked at me
+with his thumb.  "He's there to put in a word for me himself."
+
+The port-captain stared for a moment, as if unbelieving, and
+then, as though satisfied, made obeisance like a fellow well used
+to ceremonial.  "I trust my lord, in his infinite strength, will
+pardon my sin in not knowing him by his nobleness before.  But
+truth to tell, I had looked to see my lord more suitably
+apparelled."
+
+"Pish," I said; "if I choose to dress simply, I cannot object
+to being mistaken for a simple man.  It is not my pleasure to
+advertise my quality by the gauds on my garb.  If you think amends
+are due to me, I pray of your charity that this inquisition may
+end."
+
+The fellow was all bows and obsequiousness.  "I am the humblest
+of my lord's servants," he said.  "It will be my exceeding
+honour to pilot my lord's galley into the berth appointed in
+harbour."
+
+The boat shot ahead, and our galley-slaves swung into stroke
+again.  Tob watched me with a dry smile as he stood directing the
+men at the helms.
+
+"Well," I said, humouring his whim, "what is it?"
+
+"I'm thinking," said Tob, "that my Lord Deucalion will remember
+me only as a very rude fellow when he steps ashore amongst all
+this fine gentility."
+
+"You don't think," said I, "anything of the kind."
+
+"Then I must prove my refinement," said Tob, "and not
+contradict."  He picked up my hand in his huge, hard fist, and
+pressed it.  "By the Gods, Deucalion, you may be a great prince,
+but I've only known you as a man.  You're the finest fighter of
+beasts and men that walks this world to-day, and I love you for it. 
+That spear-stroke of yours on the lizard is a thing the singers in
+the taverns shall make chaunts about."
+
+We drew rapidly into the harbour, the soldiers in the entrance
+castle blowing their trumpets in welcome as we passed between them. 
+The captain of the port had run up my banner to the masthead of his
+boat, having been provided with one apparently for this purpose of
+announcement, and from the quays, across the vast basin of the
+harbour, there presently came to us the noises of musicians, and
+the pale glow of welcoming fires, dancing under the sunlight.  I
+was almost awed to think that an Empress of Atlantis had come to
+such straits as to feel an interest like this in any mere returning
+subject.
+
+It was clear that nothing was to be done by halves.  The
+port-captain's boat led, and we had no choice but to follow.  Our
+galley was run up alongside the royal quay and moored to its posts
+and rings of gold, all of which are sacred to the reigning house.
+
+"If Dason could only have foreseen this honour," said Tob, with
+grisly jest, "I'm sure he'd have laid in a silken warp to make
+fast on the bollards instead of mere plebeian hemp.  I'm sure
+there'd be a frown on Dason's head this minute, if the sun
+hadn't scorched it stiff.  My Lord Deucalion, will you pick your
+way with niceness over this common ship and tread on the genteel
+carpet they've spread for you on the quay yonder?"
+
+The port-captain heard Tob's rude banter and looked up with a
+face of horror, and I remembered, with a small sigh, that colonial
+freedom would have no place here in Atlantis.  Once more I must
+prepare myself for all the dignity of rank, and make ready to tread
+the formalities of vast and gorgeous ceremonial.
+
+But, be these things how they may, a self-respecting man must
+preserve his individuality also, and though I consented to enter a
+pavilion of crimson cloth, specially erected to shelter me till the
+Empress should deign to arrive, there my complaisance ended.  Again
+the matter of clothes was harped upon.  The three gorgeously
+caparisoned chamberlains, who had inducted me to the shelter, laid
+before me changes of raiment bedecked with every imaginable kind of
+frippery, and would have me transform myself into a popinjay in
+fashion like their own.
+
+Curtly enough, I refused to alter my garb, and when one of
+them stammeringly referred to the Empress's tastes I asked him with
+plainness if he had got any definite commands on this paltry matter
+from her mightiness.
+
+Of course, he had to confess that there were none.
+
+Upon which I retorted that Phorenice had commanded Deucalion,
+the man, to attend before her, and had sent no word of her pleasure
+as to his outer casing.
+
+"This dress," I said, "suits my temper well.  It shields my
+poor body from the heat and the wind, and, moreover, it is clean. 
+It seems to me, sirs," I added, "that your interfering savours
+somewhat of an impertinence."
+
+With one accord the chamberlains drew their swords and pushed
+the hilts towards me.
+
+"It would be a favour," said their spokesman, "if the great
+Lord Deucalion would take his vengeance now, instead of delivering
+us to the tormentors hereafter."
+
+"Poof," I said, "the matter is forgotten.  You make too much
+of a little."
+
+Nevertheless, their action gave me some enlightenment.  They
+were perfectly in earnest in offering me the swords, and I
+recognised that this was a different Atlantis that I had come home
+to, where a man had dread of the torture for a mere difference
+concerning the cut of a coat.
+
+There was a bath in the pavilion, and in that I regaled myself
+gladly, though there was some paltry scent added to the water that
+took away half its refreshing power; and then I set myself to wait
+with all outward composure and placidity.  The chamberlains were
+too well-bred to break into my calm, and I did not condescend to
+small talk.  So there we remained, the four of us, I sitting, they
+standing, with our Lord the Sun smiting heavily on the scarlet roof
+of the pavilion, whilst the music blared, and the welcoming fires
+dispersed their odours from the great paved square without, which
+faced upon the quay.
+
+It has been said that the great should always collect dignity
+by keeping those of lesser degree waiting their pleasure, though
+for myself I must say I have always thought the stratagem paltry
+and beneath me.  Phorenice also seemed of this opinion, for (as she
+herself told me later) at the moment that Tob's galley was reported
+as having its flank against the marble of the royal quay, at that
+precise moment did she start out from the palace.  The gorgeous
+procession was already marshalled, bedecked, and waiting only for
+its chiefest ornament, and as soon as she had mounted to her steed,
+trumpets gave the order, and the advance began.
+
+Sitting in the doorway of the pavilion, I saw the soldiery who
+formed the head of this vast concourse emerge from the great broad
+street where it left the houses.  They marched straight across to
+give me the salute, and then ranged themselves on the farther side
+of the square.  Then came the Mariners' Guild, then more soldiers,
+all making obeisance in their turn, and passing on to make room for
+others.  Following were the merchants, the tanners, the
+spear-makers and all the other acknowledged Guilds, deliberately
+attired (so it seemed to me) that they might make a pageant; and
+whilst most walked on foot, there were some who proudly rode on
+beasts which they had tamed into rendering them this menial
+service.
+
+But presently came the two wonders of all that dazzling
+spectacle.  From out of the eclipse of the houses there swung into
+the open no less a beast than a huge bull mammoth.  The sight had
+sufficient surprise in it almost to make me start.  Many a time
+during my life had I led hunts to kill the mammoth, when a herd of
+them had raided some village or cornland under my charge.  I had
+seen the huge brutes in the wild ground, shaggy, horrid, monstrous;
+more fierce than even the cave-tiger or the cave-bear; most
+dangerous beast of all that fight with man for dominion of the
+earth, save only for a few of the greater lizards.  And here was
+this creature, a giant even amongst mammoths, yet tame as any
+well-whipped slave, and bearing upon its back a great half-castle
+of gold, stamped with the outstretched hand, and bedecked with
+silver snakes.  Its murderous tusks were gilded, its hairy neck was
+garlanded with flowers, and it trod on in the procession as though
+assisting at such pageantry was the beginning and end of its
+existence.  Its tameness seemed a fitting symbol of the masterful
+strength of this new ruler of Atlantis.
+
+Simultaneously with the mammoth, there came into sight that
+other and greater wonder, the mammoth's mistress, the Empress
+Phorenice.  The beast took my eye at the first, from its very
+uncouth hugeness, from its show of savage power restrained; but the
+lady who sat in the golden half-castle on its lofty back quickly
+drew away my gaze, and held it immovable from then onwards with an
+infinite attraction.
+
+I stood to my feet when the people first shouted at Phorenice's
+approach, and remained in the porchway of my scarlet pavilion
+till her vast steed had halted in the centre of the square,
+and then I advanced across the pavement towards her.
+
+"On your knees, my lord," said one of the chamberlains behind
+me, in a scared whisper.
+
+"At least with bent head," urged another.
+
+But I had my own notions of what is due to one's own
+self-respect in these matters, and I marched across the bare open
+space with head erect, giving the Empress gaze for gaze.  She was
+clearly summing me up. I was frankly doing the like by her.  Gods!
+but those few short seconds made me see a woman such as I never
+imagined could have lived.
+
+I know I have placed it on record earlier in this writing
+that, during all the days of a long official life, women have had
+no influence over me.  But I have been quick to see that they often
+had a strong swaying power over the policies of others, and as a
+consequence I have made it my business to study them even as I have
+studied men.  But this woman who sat under the sacred snakes in her
+golden half-castle on the mammoth's back, fairly baffled me.  Of
+her thoughts I could read no single syllable.  I could see a body
+slight, supple, and beautifully moulded; in figure rather small. 
+Her face was a most perfect book of cleverness, yet she was fair,
+too, beyond belief, with hair of a lovely ruddiness, cut short in
+the new fashion, and bunching on her shoulders.  And eyes!  Gods!
+who could plumb the depths of Phorenice's eyes, or find in mere
+tint a trace of their heaven-made colour?
+
+It was plain, also, that she in her turn was searching me down
+to my very soul, and it seemed that her scrutiny was not without
+its satisfaction.  She moved her head in little nods as I drew
+near, and when I did the requisite obeisance permitted to my rank,
+she bade me in a voice loud and clear enough for all at hand to
+hear, never to put forehead on the ground again on her behalf so
+long as she ruled in Atlantis.
+
+"For others," she said, "it is fitting that they should do so,
+once, twice, or several times, according to their rank and station,
+for I am Empress, and they are all so far beneath me; but you are
+Deucalion, my lord, and though till to-day I knew you only from
+pictures drawn with tongues, I have seen you now, and have judged
+for myself.  And so I make this decree: Deucalion is above all
+other men in Atlantis, and if there is one who does not render him
+obedience, that man is enemy also of Phorenice, and shall feel her
+anger."
+
+She made a sign, and a stair was brought, and then she called
+to me, and I mounted and sat beside her in the golden half-castle
+under the canopy of royal snakes.  The girl who stood behind in
+attendance fanned us both with perfumed feathers, and at a word
+from Phorenice the mammoth was turned, bearing us back towards the
+royal pyramid by the way through which it had come.  At the same
+time also all the other machinery of splendour was put in motion. 
+The soldiers and the gaudily bedecked civil traders fell into
+procession before and behind, and I noted that a body of troops,
+heavily armed, marched on each of the mammoth's flanks.
+
+Phorenice turned to me with a smile.  "You piqued me," she
+said, "at first."
+
+"Your Majesty overwhelms me with so much notice."
+
+"You looked at my steed before you looked at me.  A woman finds
+it hard to forgive a slight like that."
+
+"I envied you the greatest of your conquests, and do still. 
+I have fought mammoths myself, and at times have killed, but I
+never dared even to think of taking one alive and bringing it into
+tameness."
+
+"You speak boldly," she said, still smiling, "and yet you can
+turn a pretty compliment.  Faugh!  Deucalion, the way these people
+fawn on me gives me a nausea.  I am not of the same clay as they
+are, I know; but just because I am the daughter of Gods they must
+needs feed me on the pap of insincerity."
+
+So Tatho was right, and the swineherd was forgotten.  Well, if
+she chose to keep up the fiction she had made, it was not my part
+to contradict her.  Rightly or wrongly I was her servant.
+
+"I have been pining this long enough for a stronger meat than
+they can give," she went on, "and at last I have sent for you.  I
+have been at some pains to procure my tongue-pictures of you,
+Deucalion, and though you do not know me yet, I may say I knew you
+with all thoroughness even before we met.  I can admire a man with
+a mind great enough to forego the silly gauds of clothes, or the
+excesses of feasts, or the pamperings of women."  She looked down
+at her own silks and her glittering jewels.  "We women like to
+carry colours upon our persons, but that is a different matter. 
+And so I sent for you here to be my minister, and bear with me
+the burden of ruling."
+
+"There should be better men in broad Atlantis."
+
+"There are not, my lord, and I who know them all by heart tell
+you so.  They are all enamoured of my poor person; they weary me
+with their empty phrases and their importunities; and, though they
+are always brimming with their cries of service, their own
+advancement and the filling of their own treasuries ever comes
+first with them.  So I have sent for you, Deucalion, the one strong
+man in all the world.  You at least will not sigh to be my lover?"
+
+I saw her watching for my answer from the corner of her eyes. 
+"The Empress," I said, "is my mistress, and I will be an honest
+minister to her.  With Phorenice, the woman, it is likely that I
+shall have little enough to do.  Besides, I am not the sort that
+sports with this toy they call love."
+
+"And yet you are a personable man enough," she said rather
+thoughtfully.  "But that still further proves your strength,
+Deucalion.  You at least will not lose your head through weak
+infatuation for my poor looks and graces."--She turned to the girl
+who stood behind us.--"Ylga, fan not so violently."
+
+Our talk broke off then for the moment, and I had time to look
+about me.  We were passing through the chief street in the fairest,
+the most wonderful city this world has ever seen.  I had left it a
+score of years before, and was curious to note its increase.
+
+In public buildings the city had certainly made growth; there
+were new temples, new pyramids, new palaces, and statuary
+everywhere.  Its greatness and magnificence impressed me more
+strongly even than usual, returning to it as I did from such a
+distance of time and space, for, though the many cities of Yucatan
+might each of them be princely, this great capital was a place not
+to be compared with any of them.  It was imperial and gorgeous
+beyond descriptive words.
+
+Yet most of all was I struck by the poverty and squalor which
+stood in such close touch with all this magnificence.  In the
+throngs that lined the streets there were gaunt bodies and hungry
+faces everywhere.  Here and there stood one, a man or a woman, as
+naked as a savage in Europe, and yet dull to shame.  Even the
+trader, with trumpery gauds on his coat, aping the prevailing
+fashion for display, had a scared, uneasy look to his face, as
+though he had forgotten the mere name of safety, and hid a frantic
+heart with his tawdry outward vauntings of prosperity.
+
+Phorenice read the direction of my looks.
+
+"The season," she said, "has been unhealthy of recent months. 
+These lower people will not build fine houses to adorn my city, and
+because they choose to live on in their squalid, unsightly kennels,
+there have been calentures and other sicknesses amongst them, which
+make them disinclined for work.  And then, too, for the moment,
+earning is not easy.  Indeed, you may say trade is nearly stopped
+this last half-year, since the rebels have been hammering so
+lustily at my city gates."
+
+I was fairly startled out of my decorum.
+
+"Rebels!" I cried.  "Who are hammering at the gates of
+Atlantis?  Is the city in a state of siege?"
+
+"Of their condescension," said Phorenice lightly, "they are
+giving us holiday to-day, and so, happily, my welcome to you comes
+undisturbed.  If they were fighting, your ears would have told you
+of it.  To give them their due, they are noisy enough in all their
+efforts.  My spies say they are making ready new engines for use
+against the walls, which you may sally out to-morrow and break if
+it gives you amusement.  But for to-day, Deucalion, I have you, and
+you have me, and there is peace round us, and some prettiness of
+display.  If you ask for more I will give it you."
+
+"I did not know of this rebellion," I said, "but as Your Majesty
+has made me your minister, it is well that I should know all about
+its scope at once.  This is a matter we should be serious upon."
+
+"And do you think I cannot take it seriously also?" she
+retorted.  "Ylga," she said to the girl that stood behind, "set
+loose my dress at the shoulder."
+
+And when the attendant had unlinked the jewelled clasp (as it
+seemed to me with a very ill grace), she herself stripped down the
+fabric, baring the pure skin beneath, and showing me just below the
+curve of the left breast a bandage of bloodstained linen.
+
+"There is a guarantee of my seriousness yesterday, at any
+rate," she said, looking at me sidelong.  "The arrow struck on a
+rib and that saved me.  If it had struck between, Deucalion would
+have been standing beside my funeral pyre to-day instead of riding
+on this pretty steed of mine which he admires so much.  Your eye
+seems to feast itself most on the mammoth, Deucalion.  Ah, poor me. 
+I am not one of your shaggy creatures, and so it seems I shall
+never be able to catch your regard.  Ylga," she said to the girl
+behind, "you may link my dress up again with its clasp.  My Lord
+Deucalion has seen wounds before, and there is nothing else here to
+interest him."
+
+
+
+5.  ZAEMON'S CURSE
+
+
+It appeared that for the present at any rate I was to have my
+residence in the royal pyramid.  The glittering cavalcade drew up
+in the great paved square which lies before the building, and
+massed itself in groups.  The mammoth was halted before the
+doorway, and when a stair had been brought, the trumpets sounded,
+and we three who had ridden in the golden half-castle under the
+canopy of snakes, descended to the ground.
+
+It was plain that we were going from beneath the open sky to
+the apartments which lay inside the vast stone mazes of the
+pyramid, and without thinking, the instinct of custom and reverence
+that had become part of my nature caused me to turn to where the
+towering rocks of the Sacred Mountain frowned above the city, and
+make the usual obeisance, and offer up in silence the prescribed
+prayer.  I say I did this thing unthinking, and as a matter of
+common custom, but when I rose to my feet, I could have sworn I
+heard a titter of laughter from somewhere in that fancifully
+bedecked crowd of onlookers.
+
+I glanced in the direction of the scoffers, frowningly enough,
+and then I turned to Phorenice to demand their prompt punishment
+for the disrespect.  But here was a strange thing.  I had looked to
+see her in the act and article of rising from an obeisance; but
+there she was, standing erect, and had clearly never touched her
+forehead to the ground.  Moreover, she was regarding me with a
+queer look which I could not fathom.
+
+But whatever was in her mind, she had no plan to bawl about it
+then before the people collected in the square.  She said to me,
+"Come," and, turning to the doorway, cried for entrance, giving the
+secret word appointed for the day.  The ponderous stone blocks,
+which barred the porch, swung back on their hinges, and with
+stately tread she passed out of the hot sunshine into the cool
+gloom beyond, with the fan-girl following decorously at her heels. 
+With a heaviness beginning to grow at my heart, I too went inside
+the pyramid, and the stone doors, with a sullen thud, closed behind
+us.
+
+We did not go far just then.  Phorenice halted in the hall of
+waiting.  How well I remembered the place, with the pictures of
+kings on its red walls, and the burning fountain of earth-breath
+which blazed from a jet of bronze in the middle of the flooring and
+gave it light.  The old King that was gone had come this far of his
+complaisance when he bade me farewell as I set out twenty years
+before for my vice-royalty in Yucatan.  But the air of the hall was
+different to what it had been in those old days.  Then it was pure
+and sweet.  Now it was heavy with some scent, and I found it
+languid and oppressive.
+
+"My minister," said the Empress, "I acquit you of intentional
+insult; but I think the colonial air has made you a very simple
+man.  Such an obeisance as you showed to that mountain not a minute
+since has not been made since I was sent to reign over this
+kingdom."
+
+"Your Majesty," I said, "I am a member of the Priests' Clan
+and was brought up in their tenets.  I have been taught, before
+entering a house, to thank the Gods, and more especially our Lord
+the Sun, for the good air that He and They have provided.  It has
+been my fate more than once to be chased by streams of fire and
+stinking air amongst the mountains during one of their sudden
+boils, and so I can say the prescribed prayer upon this matter
+straight from my heart."
+
+"Circumstances have changed since you left Atlantis," said
+Phorenice, "and when thanks are given now, they are not thrown at
+those old Gods."
+
+I saw her meaning, and almost started at the impiety of it. 
+If this was to be the new rule of things, I would have no hand in
+it.  Fate might deal with me as it chose.  To serve truly a
+reigning monarch, that I was prepared for; but to palter with
+sacrilege, and accept a swineherd's daughter as a God, who should
+receive prayers and obeisances, revolted my manhood.  So I invited
+a crisis.
+
+"Phorenice," I said, "I have been a priest from my childhood
+up, revering the Gods, and growing intimate with their mysteries. 
+Till I find for myself that those old things are false, I must
+stand by that allegiance, and if there is a cost for this
+faithfulness I must pay it."
+
+She looked at me with a slow smile.  "You are a strong man,
+Deucalion," she said.
+
+I bowed.
+
+"I have heard others as stubborn," she said, "but they were
+converted."  She shook out the ruddy bunches of her hair, and stood
+so that the light of the burning earth-breath might fall on the
+loveliness of her face and form.  "I have found it as easy to
+convert the stubborn as to burn them.  Indeed, there has been
+little talk of burning.  They have all rushed to conversion,
+whether I would or no.  But it seems that my poor looks and tongue
+are wanting in charm to-day."
+
+"Phorenice is Empress," I said stolidly, "and I am her
+servant.  To-morrow, if she gives me leave, I will clear away this
+rabble which clamours outside the walls.  I must begin to prove my
+uses."
+
+"I am told you are a pretty fighter," said she.  "Well, I hold
+some small skill in arms myself, and have a conceit that I am
+something of a judge.  To-morrow we will take a taste of battle
+together.  But to-day I must carry through the honourable reception
+I have planned for you, Deucalion.  The feast will be set ready
+soon, and you will wish to make ready for the feast.  There are
+chambers here selected for your use, and stored with what is
+needful.  Ylga will show you their places."
+
+We waited, the fan-girl and I, till Phorenice had passed out
+of the glow of the light-jet, and had left the hall of waiting
+through a doorway amongst the shadows of its farther angle, and
+then (the girl taking a lamp and leading) we also threaded our way
+through the narrow mazes of the pyramid.
+
+Everywhere the air was full of perfumes, and everywhere the
+passages turned and twisted and doubled through the solid stone of
+the pyramid, so that strangers might have spent hours--yes, or
+days--in search before they came to the chamber they desired. 
+There was a fine cunningness about those forgotten builders who set
+up this royal pyramid.  They had no mind that kings should fall by
+the hand of vulgar assassins who might come in suddenly from
+outside.  And it is said also that the king of the time, to make
+doubly sure, killed all that had built the pyramid, or seen even
+the lay of its inner stones.
+
+But the fan-girl led the way with the lamp swinging in her
+hand, as one accustomed to the mazes.  Here she doubled, there she
+turned, and here she stopped in the middle of a blank wall to push
+a stone, which swung to let us pass.  And once she pressed at the
+corner of a flagstone on the floor, which reared up to the thrust
+of her foot, and showed us a stair steep and narrow.  That we
+descended, coming to the foot of an inclined way which led us
+upward again; and so by degrees we came unto the chamber which had
+been given for my use.
+
+"There is raiment in all these chests which stand by the walls,"
+said the girl, "and jewels and gauds in that bronze coffer. 
+They are Phorenice's first presents, she bid me say, and but a
+small earnest of what is to come.  My Lord Deucalion can drop his
+simplicity now, and fig himself out in finery to suit the fashion."
+
+"Girl," I said sharply, "be more decorous with your tongue, and
+spare me such small advice."
+
+"If my Lord Deucalion thinks this a rudeness, he can give a word
+to Phorenice, and I shall be whipped.  If he asks it, I can be
+stripped and scourged before him.  The Empress will do much for
+Deucalion just now."
+
+"Girl," I said, "you are nearer to that whipping than you think
+for."
+
+"I have got a name," she retorted, looking at me sullenly from
+under her black brows.  "They call me Ylga.  You might have heard
+that as we rode here on the mammoth, had you not been so wrapped up
+in Phorenice."
+
+I gazed at her curiously.  "You have never seen me before," I
+said, "and the first words you utter are those that might well
+bring trouble to yourself.  There is some object in all this."
+
+She went and pushed to the massive stone that swung in the
+doorway of the chamber.  Then she put her little jewelled fingers
+on my garment and drew me carefully away from the airshaft into the
+farther corner.  "I am the daughter of Zaemon," she said, "whom you
+knew."
+
+"You bring me some message from him?"
+
+"How could I?  He lives in the priests' dwellings on the
+Mountain you did obeisance to.  I have not put eyes on him these
+two years.  But when I saw you first step out from that red
+pavilion they had pitched at the harbour side, I--I felt a pity for
+you, Deucalion.  I remembered you were my father's, Zaemon's,
+friend, and I knew what Phorenice had in store.  She has been
+plotting it all these two months."
+
+"I cannot hear words against the Empress."
+
+"And yet--"
+
+"What?"
+
+She stamped her sandal upon the stone of the floor.  "You must
+be a very blind man, Deucalion, or a very daring one.  But I shall
+not interfere further; at least not now.  Still, I shall watch, and
+if at any time you seem to want a friend I will try and serve you."
+
+"I thank you for your friendship."
+
+"You seem to take it lightly enough.  Why, sir, even now I do
+not believe you know my power, any more than you guess my motive. 
+You may be first man in this kingdom, but let me tell you I rank as
+second lady.  And remember, women stand high in Atlantis now. 
+Believe me, my friendship is a commodity that has been sought with
+frequence and industry."
+
+"And as I say, I am grateful for it.  You seem to think little
+enough of my gratitude, Ylga; but, credit me, I never have bestowed
+it on a woman before, and so you should treasure it for its
+rarity."
+
+"Well," she said, "my lord, there is an education before you." 
+She left me then, showing me how to call slaves when I wished for
+their help, and for a full minute I stood wondering at the words I
+had spoken to her.  Who was the daughter of Zaemon that she should
+induce me to change the habit of a lifetime?
+
+The slaves came at my bidding, and showed themselves anxious
+to deck me with a thousand foolishnesses in the matter of robes and
+gauds, and (what seemed to be the modern fashion of their class)
+holding out the virtues of a score of perfumes and unguents.  Their
+manner irritated me.  Clean I was already, and shaved; my hair was
+trim, and my robe was unsoiled; and, considering these pressing
+attentions of theirs something of an impertinence, I set them to
+beat one another as a punishment, promising that if they did not do
+it with thoroughness, I would hand them on to the brander to be
+marked with stripes which would endure.  It is strange, but a
+common menial can often surpass even a rebellious general in power
+of ruffling one.
+
+I had seen many strange sights that day, and undergone many
+new sensations; but of all the things which came to my notice,
+Phorenice's manner of summoning the guests to her feast surprised
+me most.  Nay, it did more; it shocked me profoundly; and I cannot
+say whether amazement at her profanity, or wonder at her power, was
+for the moment strongest in my breast.  I sat in my chamber
+awaiting the summons, when gradually, growing out of nothing, a
+sound fell upon my ear which increased in volume with infinitely
+small graduations, till at last it became a clanging din which hurt
+the ear with its fierceness; and then (I guessed what was coming)
+the whole massive fabric of the pyramid trembled and groaned and
+shook, as though it had been merely a child's wooden toy brushed
+about by a strong man's sandal.
+
+It was the portent served out yearly by the chiefs of the
+Priests' Clan on the Sacred Mountain, when they bade all the world
+take count of their sins.  It was the sacred reminder that from
+roaring, raging fire, and from the agony of monstrous
+earth-tremors, man had been born, and that by these same agencies
+he would eventually be swallowed up--he and the sins within his
+breast.  And here the Empress was prostituting its solemnities into
+a mere call to gluttony, and sign for ribald laughter and sensuous
+display.
+
+But how had she acquired the authority to do this thing?  Who
+was she that she should tamper with those dimly understood powers,
+the forces that dwell within the liquid heart of our mother earth? 
+Had there been treachery?  Had some member of the Priests' Clan
+forgotten his sacred vows, and babbled to this woman matters
+concerning the holy mysteries?  Or had Phorenice discovered a key
+to these mysteries with her own agile brain?
+
+If that last was the case, I could continue to serve her with
+silent conscience.  Though she might be none of my making, at least
+she was Empress, and it was my duty to give her obedience.  But if
+she had suborned some weaker member of the Clan on the Sacred
+Mount, that would be a different matter.  For be it remembered that
+it was one of the elements of our constitution to preserve our
+secrets and mysteries inviolate, and to pursue with undying hatred
+both the man who had dared to betray them, and the unhappy
+recipient of his confidence.
+
+It was with very undecided feelings, then, that I obeyed the
+summons of the earth-shaking, and bade the slaves lead me through
+the windings of the pyramid to the great banqueting-hall.  The
+scene there was dazzling.  The majestic chamber with its marvellous
+carvings was filled with a company decked out with all the gauds
+and colours that fancy could conceive.  Little recked they of the
+solemn portent which had summoned them to the meal, of the death
+and misery that stalked openly through the city wards without, of
+the rebels which lay in leaguer beyond the, walls, of the neglected
+Gods and their clan of priests on the Sacred Mountain.  They were
+all gluttonous for the passions of the moment; it was their fashion
+and conceit to look at nothing beyond.
+
+Flaming jets of earth-breath lit the great hall to the
+brightness of midday; and when I stepped out upon the pavement,
+trumpets blared, so that all might know of my coming.  But there
+was no roar of welcome.  "Deucalion," they lisped with mincing
+voices, bowing themselves ridiculously to the ground so that all
+their ornaments and silks might jangle and swish.  Indeed, when
+Phorenice herself appeared, and all sent up their cries and made
+lawful obeisance, there was the same artificiality in the welcome. 
+They meant well enough, it is true; but this was the new fashion. 
+Heartiness had come to be accounted a barbarism by this new
+culture.
+
+A pair of posturing, smirking chamberlains took me in charge,
+and ushered me with their flimsy golden wands to the dais at the
+farther end.  It appeared that I was to sit on Phorenice's divan,
+and eat my meat out of her dish.
+
+"There is no stint to the honour the Empress puts upon me," I
+said, as I knelt down and took my seat.
+
+She gave me one of her queer, sidelong looks.  "Deucalion may
+have more beside, if he asks for it prettily.  He may have what all
+the other men in the known world have sighed for, and what none of
+them will ever get.  But I have given enough of my own accord; he
+must ask me warmly for those further favours."
+
+"I ask," I said, "first, that I may sweep the boundaries clear
+of this rabble which is clamouring against the city walls."
+
+"Pah," she said, and frowned.  "Have you appetite only for the
+sterner pleasures of life?  My good Deucalion, they must have been
+rustic folk in that colony of yours.  Well, you shall give me news
+now of the toothsomeness of this feast."
+
+Dishes and goblets were placed before us, and we began to eat,
+though I had little enough appetite for victual so broken and so
+highly spiced.  But if this finicking cookery and these luscious
+wines did not appeal to me, the other diners in that gorgeous hall
+appreciated it all to the full.  They sat about in groups on the
+pavement beneath the light-jets like a tangle of rainbows for
+colour, and according to the new custom they went into raptures and
+ecstasies over their enjoyment.  Women and men both, they lingered
+over each titillation of the palate as though it were a caress of
+the Gods.
+
+Phorenice, with her quick, bright eyes, looked on, and
+occasionally flung one or another a few words between her talk with
+me, and now and again called some favoured creature up to receive
+a scrap of viand from the royal dish.  This the honoured one would
+eat with extravagant gesture, or (as happened twice) would put it
+away in the folds of his clothes as a treasure too dear to be
+profaned by human lips.
+
+To me, this flattery appeared gross and disgustful, but
+Phorenice, through use, perhaps, seemed to take it as merely her
+due.  There was, one had to suppose, a weakness in her somewhere,
+though truly to the outward seeing none was apparent.  Her face was
+strong enough, and it was subtle also, and, moreover, it was
+wondrous comely.  All the courtiers in the banqueting-hall raved
+about Phorenice's face and the other beauties of her body and
+limbs, and though not given to appreciation in these matters, I
+could not but see that here at least they had a groundwork for
+their admiration, for surely the Gods have never favoured mortal
+woman more highly.  Yet lovely though she might be, for myself I
+preferred to look upon Ylga, the girl, who, because of her rank,
+was privileged to sit on the divan behind us as immediate
+attendant.  There was an honesty in Ylga's face which Phorenice's
+lacked.
+
+They did not eat to nutrify their bodies, these feasters in
+the banqueting-hall of the royal pyramid, but they all ate to cloy
+themselves, and they strutted forth new usages with every platter
+and bowl that the slaves brought.  To me some of their manners were
+closely touching on disrespect.  At the halfway of the meal, a
+gorgeous popinjay--he was a governor of an out-province driven into
+the capital by a rebellion in his own lands--this gorgeous fop, I
+say, walked up between the groups of feasters with flushed face and
+unsteady gait, and did obeisance before the divan.  "Most
+astounding Empress," cried he, "fairest among the Goddesses, Queen
+regnant of my adoring heart, hail!"
+
+Phorenice with a smile stretched him out her cup.  I looked to
+see him pour respectful libation, but no such thing.  He set the
+drink to his lips and drained it to the final drop.  "May all your
+troubles," he cried, "pass from you as easily, and leave as
+pleasant a flavour."
+
+The Empress turned to me with one of her quick looks.  "You do
+not like this new habit?"
+
+To which I replied bluntly enough that to pour out liquor at
+a person's feet had grown through custom to be a mark of respect,
+but that drinking it seemed to me mere self-indulgence, which might
+be practised anywhere.
+
+"You still keep to the old austere teachings," she said.  "Our
+newer code bids us enjoy life first, and order other things so as
+not to meddle with our more immediate pleasure."
+
+And so the feast went on, the guests practising their
+gluttonies and their absurdities, and the guards standing to their
+arms round the circuit of the walls as motionless and as stern as
+the statues carven in the white stone beyond them.  But a term was
+put to the orgy with something of suddenness.  There was a stir at
+the farther doorway of the banqueting-hall, and a clash, as two of
+the guards joined their spears across the entrance.  But the man
+they tried to stop--or perhaps it was to pin--passed them unharmed,
+and walked up over the pavement between the lights, and the groups
+of feasters.  All looked round at him; a few threw him ribald
+words; but none ventured to stop his progress.  A few, women
+chiefly, I could see, shuddered as he passed them by, as though a
+wintry chill had come over them; and in the end he walked up and
+stood in front of Phorenice's divan, and gazed fixedly on her, but
+without making obeisance.
+
+He was a frail old man, with white hair tumbling on his
+shoulders, and ragged white beard.  The mud of wayfaring hung in
+clots on his feet and legs.  His wizened body was bare save for a
+single cloth wound about his shoulders and his loins, and he
+carried in his hand a wand with the symbol of our Lord the Sun
+glowing at its tip.  That wand went to show his caste, but in no
+other way could I recognize him.
+
+I took him for one of those ascetics of the Priests' Clan, who
+had forsworn the steady nurtured life of the Sacred Mountain, and
+who lived out in the dangerous lands amongst the burning hills,
+where there is daily peril from falling rocks, from fire streams,
+from evil vapours, from sudden fissuring of the ground, and from
+other movements of those unstable territories, and from the greater
+lizards and other monstrous beasts which haunt them.  These keep
+constant in the memory the might of the Holy Gods, and the
+insecurity of this frail earth on which we have our resting-place,
+and so the sojourners there become chastened in the spirit, and
+gain power over mysteries which even the most studious and learned
+of other men can never hope to attain.
+
+A silence filled the room when the old man came to his halt,
+and Phorenice was the first to break it.  "Those two guards," she
+said, in her clear, carrying voice, "who held the door, are not
+equal to their work.  I cannot have imperfect servants; remove
+them."
+
+The soldiers next in the rank lifted their spears and drove
+them home, and the two fellows who had admitted the old man fell to
+the ground.  One shrieked once, the other gave no sound: they were
+clever thrusts both.
+
+The old man found his voice, thin, and high, and broken. 
+"Another crime added to your tally, Phorenice.  Not half your army
+could have hindered my entrance had I wished to come, and let me
+tell you that I am here to bring you your last warning.  The Gods
+have shown you much favour; they gave you merit by which you could
+rise above your fellows, till at last only the throne stood above
+you.  It was seen good by those on the Sacred Mountain to let you
+have this last ambition, and sit on this throne that has as long
+and honourably been filled by the ancient kings of Atlantis."
+
+The Empress sat back on the divan smiling.  "I seemed to get
+these things as I chose, and in spite of your friends' teeth.  I
+may owe to you, old man, a small parcel of thanks, though that I
+offered to repay; but for my lords the priests, their permission
+was of small enough value when it came.  I would have you remember
+that I was as firm on the throne of Atlantis as this pyramid stands
+upon its base when your worn-out priests came up to give their
+tottering benediction."
+
+The old man waved aside her interruption.  "Hear me out," he
+said.  "I am here with no trivial message.  There is nothing paltry
+about the threat I can throw at you, Phorenice.  With your
+fire-tubes, your handling of troops, and your other fiendish
+clevernesses, you may not be easy to overthrow by mere human means,
+though, forsooth, these poor rebels who yap against your city walls
+have contrived to hold their ground for long enough now.  It may be
+that you are becoming enervated; I do not know.  It may be that you
+are too wrapped up in your feastings, your dressings, your pomps,
+and your debaucheries, to find leisure to turn to the art of war. 
+It may be that the man's spirit has gone out from your arm and
+brain, and you are a woman once more--weak, and pleasure-loving;
+again I do not know.
+
+"But this must happen: You must undo the evil you have done;
+you must give bread to the people who are starving, even if you
+take it from these gluttons in this hall; you must restore Atlantis
+to the state in which it was entrusted to you: or else you must be
+removed.  It cannot be permitted that the country should sink back
+into the lawlessness and barbarism from which its ancient kings
+have digged it.  You hear, Phorenice.  Now give me true answer."
+
+"Speak him fair.  Oh!  For the sake of your fortune, speak him
+fair," came Ylga's voice in a hurried whisper from behind us.  But
+the Empress took no notice of it.  She leaned forward on the
+cushions of the divan with a knit brow.
+
+"Do you dare to threaten me, old man, knowing what I am?"
+
+"I know your origin," he said gravely, "as well as you know it
+yourself.  As for my daring, that is a small matter.  He need be
+but a timid man who dares to say words that the High Gods put on
+his lips."
+
+"I shall rule this kingdom as I choose.  I shall brook
+interference from no creature on this earth, or beneath it, or in
+the sky above.  The Gods have chosen me to be Their regent in
+Atlantis, and They do not depose me through such creatures as you. 
+Go away, old man, and play the fanatic in another court.  It is
+well that I have an ancient kindliness for you, or you would not
+leave this place unharmed." 
+
+"Now, indeed, you are lost," I heard Ylga murmur from behind,
+and the old man in front of us did not move a step.  Instead, he
+lifted up the Symbol of our Lord the Sun, and launched his curse. 
+"Your blasphemy gives the reply I asked for.  Hear me now make
+declaration of war on behalf of Those against whom you have thrown
+your insults.  You shall be overthrown and sent to the nether Gods. 
+At whatever cost the land shall be purged of you and yours, and all
+the evil that has been done to it whilst you have sullied the
+throne of its ancient kings.  You will not amend, neither will you
+yield tamely.  You vaunt that you sit as firm on your throne as
+this pyramid reposes on its base.  See how little you know of what
+the future carries.  I say to you that, whilst you are yet Empress,
+you shall see this royal pyramid which you have polluted with your
+debaucheries torn tier from tier, and stone from stone, and
+scattered as feathers spread before a wind."
+
+"You may wreck the pyramid," said Phorenice contemptuously. 
+"I myself have some knowledge of the earth forces, as I have shown
+this night.  But though you crumble every stone above us now and
+grind it into grit and dust, I shall still be Empress.  What force
+can you crazy priests bring against me that I cannot throw back and
+destroy?"
+
+"We have a weapon that was forged in no mortal smithy,"
+shrilled the old man, "whereof the key is now lodged in the Ark of
+the Mysteries.  But that weapon can be used only as a last
+resource.  The nature of it even is too awful to be told in words. 
+Our other powers will be launched against you first, and for this
+poor country's sake I pray that they may cause you to wince.  Yet
+rest assured, Phorenice, that we shall not step aside once we have
+put a hand to this matter.  We shall carry it through, even though
+the cost be a universal burning and destruction.  For know this,
+daughter of the swineherd, it is agreed amongst the most High Gods
+that you are too full of sin to continue unchecked."
+
+"Speak him fairly," Ylga urged from behind.  "He has a power
+at which you cannot even guess."
+
+The Empress made to rise, but Ylga clung to her skirt.  "For
+the sake of your fame," she urged, "for the sake of your life, do
+not defy him."  But Phorenice struck her fiercely aside, and faced
+the old man in a tumult of passion.  "You dare call me a
+blasphemer, who blaspheme yourself?  You dare cast slurs upon my
+birth, who am come direct from the most high Heaven?  Old man, your
+craziness protects you in part, but not in all.  You shall be
+whipped.  Do you hear me?  I say, whipped.  The lean flesh shall be
+scourged from your scraggy bones, and you shall totter away from
+this place as a red and bleeding example for those who would dare
+traduce their Empress.  Here, some of you, I say, take that man,
+and let him be whipped where he stands."
+
+Her cry went out clearly enough.  But not a soul amongst those
+glittering feasters stirred in his place.  Not a soldier amongst
+the guards stepped from his rank.  The place was hung in a terrible
+silence.  It seemed as though no one within the hall dared so much
+as to draw a breath.  All felt that the very air was big with fate.
+
+Phorenice, with her head crouched forward, looked from one
+group to another.  Her face was working.  "Have I no true
+servants," she asked, "amongst all you pretty lip-servers?"
+
+Still no one moved.  They stood, or sat, or crouched like
+people fascinated.  For myself, with the first words he had
+uttered, I had recognized the old man by his voice.  It was Zaemon,
+the weak governor who had given the Empress her first step towards
+power; that earnest searcher into the mysteries, who knew more of
+their powers, and more about the hidden forces, than any other
+dweller on the Sacred Mountain, even at that time when I left for
+my colony.  And now, during his strange hermit life, how much more
+might he not have learned?  I was torn by warring duties.  I owed
+much to the Priests' Clan, by reason of my oath and membership; it
+seemed I owed no less to Phorenice.  And, again, was Zaemon the
+truly accredited envoy of the high council of the priests of the
+Sacred Mountain?  And was the Empress of a truth deposed by the
+High Gods above, or was she still Empress, and still the commander
+of my duty?  I could not tell, and so I sat in my seat awaiting
+what the event would sow.
+
+Phorenice's fury was growing.  "Do I stand alone here?" she
+cried.  "Have I pampered you creatures out of all touch with
+gratitude?  It seems that at last I want a new chief to my guards. 
+Ho!  Who will be chief of the guards of the Empress?"
+
+There was a shifting of eyes, a hesitation.  Then a great
+burly form strode up from the farther end of the hall, and a
+perceptible shudder went up from all the others as they watched
+him.
+
+"So, Tarca, you prefer to take the risks, and remain chief of
+the guard yourself?" she said with an angry scoff.  "Truly there
+did not seem to be many thrusting forward to strip you of the
+office.  I shall have a fine sorting up of places in payment for
+this night's work.  But for the present, Tarca, do your duty."
+
+The man came up, obviously timorous.  He was a solidly made
+fellow, but not altogether unmartial, and though but little of his
+cheek showed above his decorated beard, I could see that he paled
+as he came near to the priest.  "My lord," he said quietly, "I must
+ask you to come with me."
+
+"Stand aside," said the old man, thrusting out the Symbol in
+front of him.  I could see his eyes gather on the soldier and his
+brows knit with a strain of will.
+
+Tarca saw this too, and I thought he would have fallen, but
+with an effort he kept his manhood, and doggedly repeated his
+summons.  "I must obey the command of my mistress, and I would have
+you remember, my lord, that I am but a servant.  You must come with
+me to the whip."
+
+"I warn you!" cried the old man.  "Stand from out of my path,
+you!"
+
+It must have been with the courage of desperation that the
+soldier dared to use force.  But the hand he stretched out dropped
+limply back to his side the moment it touched the old man's bare
+shoulder, as though it had been struck by some shock.  He seemed
+almost to have expected some such repulse; yet when he picked up
+that hand with the other, and looked at it, and saw its whiteness,
+he let out of him a yell like a wounded beast.  "Oh, Gods!" he
+cried.  "Not that.  Spare me!"
+
+But Zaemon was glowering at him still.  A twitching seized the
+man's face, and he put up his sound hand to it and plucked at his
+beard, which was curled and plaited after the new fashion of the
+day.  A woman standing near screamed as the half of the beard came
+off in his fingers.  Beneath was silver whiteness over half his
+face.  Zaemon had smitten him with a sudden leprosy that was past
+cure.
+
+Yet the punishment was not ended even then.  Other twitchings
+took him on other parts of the body, and he tore off his armour and
+his foppish clothes, and always where the bare flesh showed, there
+had the horrid plague written its white mark; and in the end, being
+able to endure no more, the man fell to the pavement and lay there
+writhing.
+
+Zaemon said no further word.  He lifted the Symbol before him,
+set his eyes on the farther door of the banqueting-hall and walked
+for it directly, all those in his path shrinking away from him with
+open shudders.  And through the valves of the door he passed out of
+our sight, still wordless, still unchecked. 
+
+I glanced up at Phorenice.  The loveliness of her face was
+drawn and haggard.  It was the first great reverse, this, she had
+met with in all her life, and the shock of it, and the vision of
+what might follow after, dazed her.  Alas, if she could only have
+guessed at a tenth of the terrors which the future had in its womb,
+Atlantis might have been saved even then.
+
+
+
+6.  THE BITERS OF THE CITY WALLS
+
+
+Here then was the manner of my reception back in the capital
+of Atlantis, and some first glimpse at her new policies.  I freely
+confess to my own inaction and limpness; but it was all deliberate. 
+The old ties of duty seemed lost, or at least merged in one
+another.  Beforetime, to serve the king was to serve the Clan of
+the Priests, from which he had been chosen, and whose head he
+constituted.  But Phorenice was self-made, and appeared to be a
+rule unto herself; if Zaemon was to be trusted, he was the
+mouthpiece of the Priests, and their Clan had set her at defiance;
+and how was a mere honest man to choose on the instant between the
+two?
+
+But cold argument told me that governments were set up for the
+good of the country at large, and I said to myself that there would
+be my choice.  I must find out which rule promised best of
+Atlantis, and do my poor best to prop it into full power.  And here
+at once there opened up another path in the maze: I had heard some
+considerable talk of rebels; of another faction of Atlanteans who,
+whatever their faults might be, were at any rate strong enough to
+beleaguer the capital; and before coming to any final decision, it
+would be as well to take their claims in balance with the rest.  So
+on the night of that very same day on which I had just re-planted
+my foot on the old country's shores, I set out to glean for myself
+tidings on the matter.
+
+No one inside the royal pyramid gainsaid me.  The banquet had
+ended abruptly with the terrible scene that I have set down above
+on these tablets, for with Tarca writhing on the floor, and
+thrusting out the gruesome scars of his leprosy, even the most
+gluttonous had little enough appetite for further gorging. 
+Phorenice glowered on the feasters for a while longer in silent
+fury, but saying no further word; and then her eyes turned on me,
+though softened somewhat.
+
+"You may be an honest man, Deucalion," she said, at length,
+"but you are a monstrous cold one.  I wonder when you will thaw?" 
+And here she smiled.  "I think it will be soon.  But for now I bid
+you farewell.  In the morning we will take this country by the
+shoulders, and see it in some new order."
+
+She left the banqueting-hall then, Ylga following; and taking
+precedence of my rank, I went out next, whilst all others stood and
+made salutation.  But I halted by Tarca first, and put my hand on
+his unclean flesh. "You are an unfortunate man," I said, "but I can
+admire a brave soldier.  If relief can be gained for your plague,
+I will use interest to procure it for you."
+
+The man's thanks came in a mumble from his wrecked mouth, and
+some of those near shuddered in affected disgust. I turned on them
+with a black brow: "Your charity, my lords, seems of as small
+account as your courage.  You affected a fine disbelief of Zaemon's
+sayings, and a simpering contempt for his priesthood, but when it
+comes to laying a hand on him, you show a discretion which, in the
+old days, we should have called by an ugly name.  I had rather be
+Tarca, with all his uncleanness, than any of you now as you stand."
+
+With which leave-taking I waited coldly till they gave me my
+due salutation, and then walked out of the banqueting-hall without
+offering a soul another glance.  I took my way to the grand gate of
+the pyramid, called for the officer of the guard, and demanded
+exit.  The man was obsequious enough, but he opened with some
+demur.
+
+"My lord's attendants have not yet come up?"
+
+"I have none."
+
+"My lord knows the state of the streets?"
+
+"I did twenty years back.  I shall be able to pick my way."
+
+"My lord must remember that the city is beleaguered," the
+fellow persisted.  "The people are hungry.  They prowl in bands
+after nightfall, and--I make no question that my lord would conquer
+in a fight against whatever odds, but--"
+
+"Quite right.  I covet no street scuffle to-night.  Lend me,
+I pray you, a sufficiency of men.  You will know best what are
+needed.  For me, I am accustomed to a city with quiet streets."
+
+A score of sturdy fellows were detailed off for my escort, and
+with them in a double file on either hand, I marched out from the
+close perfumed air of the pyramid into the cool moonlight of the
+city.  It was my purpose to make a tour of the walls and to find
+out somewhat of the disposition of these rebels.
+
+But the Gods saw fit to give me another education first.  The
+city, as I saw it during that night walk, was no longer the old
+capital that I had known, the just accretion of the ages, the due
+admixture of comfort and splendour.  The splendour was there,
+vastly increased.  Whole wards had been swept away to make space
+for new palaces, and new pyramids of the wealthy, and I could not
+but have an admiration for the skill and the brain which made
+possible such splendid monuments.
+
+And, indeed, gazing at them there under the silver of the
+moonlight, I could almost understand the emotions of the Europeans
+and other barbarous savages which cause them to worship all such
+great buildings as Gods, since they deem them too wonderful and
+majestic to be set up by human hands unaided.
+
+Still, if it was easy to admire, it was simple also to see
+plain advertisement of the cost at which these great works had been
+reared.  From each grant of ground, where one of these stately
+piles earned silver under the moon, a hundred families had been
+evicted and left to harbour as they pleased in the open; and, as a
+consequence, now every niche had its quota of sleepers, and every
+shadow its squad of fierce wild creatures, ready to rush out and
+rob or slay all wayfarers of less force than their own.
+
+Myself, I am no pamperer of the common people.  I say that, if
+a man be left to hunger and shiver, he will work to gain him food
+and raiment; and if not, why then he can die, and the State is well
+rid of a worthless fellow.  But here beside us, as we marched
+through many wards, were marks of blind oppression; starved dead
+bodies, with the bones starting through the lean skin, sprawled in
+the gutter; and indeed it was plain that, save for the favoured
+few, the people of the great capital were under a most heavy
+oppression.
+
+But at this, though I might regret it abominably, I could make
+no strong complaint.  By the ancient law of the land all the
+people, great and small, were the servants of the king, to be put
+without question to what purposes he chose; and Phorenice stood in
+the place of the king.  So I tried to think no treason, but with a
+sigh passed on, keeping my eyes above the miseries and the squalors
+of the roadway, and sending out my thoughts to the stars which hung
+in the purple night above, and to the High Gods which dwelt amongst
+them, seeking, if it might be, for guidance for my future policies. 
+And so in time the windings of the streets brought us to the walls,
+and, coursing beside these and giving fitting answer to the
+sentries who beat their drums as we passed, we came in time to that
+great gate which was a charge to the captain of the garrison.
+
+Here it was plain there was some special commotion.  A noise
+of laughter went up into the still night air, and with it now and
+again the snarl and roar of a great beast, and now and again the
+shriek of a hurt man.  But whatever might be afoot, it was not a
+scene to come upon suddenly.  The entrance gates of our great
+capital were designed by their ancient builders to be no less
+strong than the walls themselves.  Four pairs of valves were there,
+each a monstrous block of stone two man-heights square, and a
+man-height thick, and the wall was doubled to receive them,
+enclosing an open circus between its two parts.  The four gates
+themselves were set one at the inner, one at the outer side of each
+of these walls, and a hidden machinery so connected them, that of
+each set one could not open till the other was closed; and as for
+forcing them without war engines, one might as foolishly try to
+push down the royal pyramid with the bare hand.
+
+My escort made outcry with the horn which hung from the wall
+inviting such a summons, and a warder came to an arrow-slit, and
+did inspection of our persons and business.  His survey was
+according to the ancient form of words, which is long, and this was
+made still more tedious by the noise from within, which ever and
+again drowned all speech between us entirely.
+
+But at last the formalities had been duly complied with, and
+he shot back the massive bars and bolts of stone, and threw ajar
+one monstrous stone valve of the door.  Into the chamber within--a
+chamber made from the thickness of the wall between the two
+doors--I and my fellows crowded, and then the warder with his
+machines pulled to the valve which had been opened, and came to me
+again through the press of my escort, bowing low to the ground.
+
+"I have no vail to give you," I said abruptly.  "Get on with
+your duty.  Open me that other door."
+
+"With respect, my lord, it would be better that I should first
+announce my lord's presence.  There is a baiting going forward in
+the circus, and the tigers are as yet mere savages, and no
+respecters of persons."
+
+"The what?"
+
+"The tigers, if my lord will permit them the name.  They are
+baiting a batch of prisoners with the two great beasts which the
+Empress (whose name be adored) has sent here to aid us keep the
+gate.  But if my lord will, there are the ward rooms leading off
+this passage, and the galleries which run out from them commanding
+the circus, and from there my lord can see the sport undisturbed."
+
+Now, the mere lust for killing excites only disgust in me, but
+I suspected the orders of the Empress in this matter, and had a
+curiosity to see her scheme.  So I stepped into the warder's lodge,
+and on into the galleries which commanded the circus with their
+arrow-slits.  The old builders of the place had intended these for
+a second line of defence, for, supposing the outer doors all
+forced, an enemy could be speedily shot down in the circus, without
+being able to give a blow in return, and so would only march into
+a death-trap.  But as a gazing-place on a spectacle they were no
+less useful.
+
+The circus was bright lit by the moonlight, and the air which
+came in to me from it was acrid with the reek of blood.  There was
+no sport in what was going forward: as I said, it was mere killing,
+and the sight disgusted me.  I am no prude about this matter.  Give
+a prisoner his weapons, put him in a pit with beasts of reasonable
+strength, and let him fight to a finish if you choose, and I can
+look on there and applaud the strokes.  The war prisoner, being a
+prisoner, has earned death by natural law, and prefers to get his
+last stroke in hot blood than to be knocked down by the headsman's
+axe.  And it is any brave man's luxury either to help or watch a
+lusty fight.  But this baiting in the circus between the gates was
+no fair battle like that.
+
+To begin with, the beasts were no fair antagonists for single
+men.  In fact, twenty men armed might well have fled from them. 
+When the warder said tigers, I supposed he meant the great cats of
+the woods.  But here, in the circus, I saw a pair of the most
+terrific of all the fur-bearing land beasts, the great tigers of
+the caves--huge monsters, of such ponderous strength that in hunger
+they will oftentimes drag down a mammoth, if they can find him away
+from his herd.
+
+How they had been brought captive I could not tell.  Hunter of
+beasts though I had been for all my days, I take no shame in saying
+that I always  approached the slaying of a cave-tiger with
+stratagem  and infinite caution.  To entrap it alive and bring it
+to a city on a chain was beyond my most daring schemes, and I have
+been accredited with more new things than one.  But here it was in
+fact, and I saw in these captive beasts a new certificate for
+Phorenice's genius.
+
+The purpose of these two cave-tigers was plain: whilst they
+were in the circus, and loose, no living being could cross from one
+gate to the other.  They were a new and sturdy addition to the
+defences of the capital.  A collar of bronze was round the throat
+of each, and on the collar was a massive chain which led to the
+wall, where it could be payed out or hauled in by means of a
+windlass in one of the hidden galleries.  So that at ordinary
+moments the two huge beasts could be tethered, one close to either
+end of the circus, as the litter of bones and other messes showed,
+leaving free passage-way between the two sets of doors.
+
+But when I stood there by the arrow-slit, looking down into
+the moonlight of the circus, these chains were slackened (though
+men stood by the windlass of each), and the great striped brutes
+were prowling about the circus with the links clanking and chinking
+in their wake.  Lying stark on the pavement were the bodies of some
+eight men, dead and uneaten; and though the cave-tigers stopped
+their prowlings now and again to nuzzle these, and beat them about
+with playful paw-blows, they made no pretence at commencing a meal. 
+It was clear that this cruel sport had grown common to them, and
+they knew there were other victims yet to be added to the tally.
+
+Presently, sure enough, as I watched, a valve of the farther
+gate swung back an arm's length, and a prisoner, furiously
+resisting, was thrust out into the circus.  He fell on his face,
+and after one look around him he lay resolutely still, with eyes on
+the ground passively awaiting his fate.  The ponderous stone of the
+gate clapped to in its place; the cave-tigers turned in their
+prowlings; and a chatter of wagers ran to and fro amongst the
+watchers behind the arrow-slits.
+
+It seemed there were niceties of cruelty in this wretched
+game.  There was a sharp clank as the windlasses were manned, and
+the tethering chains were drawn in by perhaps a score of links. 
+One of the cave-tigers crouched, lashed its tail, and launched
+forth on a terrific spring.  The chain tautened, the massive links
+sang to the strain, and the great beast gave a roar which shook the
+walls.  It had missed the prone man by a hand's breadth, and the
+watchers behind the arrow-slits shrieked forth their delight.  The
+other tiger sprang also and missed, and again there were shouts of
+pleasure, which mingled with the bellowing voices of the beasts. 
+The man lay motionless in his form.  One more cowardly, or one more
+brave, might have run from death, or faced it; but this poor
+prisoner chose the middle course--he permitted death to come to
+him, and had enough of doggedness to wait for it without stir.
+
+The great cave-tigers were used, it appeared, to this disgusting
+sport.  There were no more wild springs, no more stubbings at
+the end of the massive chains.  They lay down on the pavement,
+and presently began to purr, rolling on to their sides and
+rubbing themselves luxuriously.  The prisoner still lay
+motionless in his form.
+
+By slow degrees the monstrous brutes each drew to the end of
+its chain and began to reach at the man with out-stretched forepaw. 
+The male could not touch him; the female could just reach him with
+the far tip of a claw; and I saw a red scratch start up in the bare
+skin of his side at every stroke.  But still the prisoner would not
+stir.  It seemed to me that they must slack out more links of one
+of the tigers' chains, or let the vile play linger into mere
+tediousness.
+
+But I had more to learn yet.  The male tiger, either taught by
+his own devilishness, or by those brutes that were his keepers, had
+still another ruse in store.  He rose to his feet and turned round,
+backing against the chain.  A yell of applause from the hidden men
+behind the arrow-slits told that they knew what was in store; and
+then the monstrous beast, stretched to the utmost of its vast
+length, kicked sharply with one hind paw.
+
+I heard the crunch of the prisoner's ribs as the pads struck
+him, and at that same moment the poor wretch's body was spurned
+away by the blow, as one might throw a fruit with the hand.  But it
+did not travel far.  It was clear that the she-tiger knew this
+manoeuvre of her mate's.  She caught the man on his bound, nuzzling
+over him for a minute, and then tossing him high into the air, and
+leaping up to the full of her splendid height after him.
+
+Those other onlookers thought it magnificent; their gleeful
+shouts said as much.  But for me, my gorge rose at the sight.  Once
+the tigers had reached him, the man had been killed, it is true,
+without any unnecessary lingering.  Even a light blow from those
+terrific paws would slay the strongest man living.  But to see the
+two cave-tigers toying with the poor body was an insult to the
+pride of our race.
+
+However, I was not there to preach the superiority of man to
+the beasts, and the indecency and degradation of permitting man to
+be unduly insulted.  I had come to learn for myself the new balance
+of things in the kingdom of Atlantis, and so I stood at my place
+behind the arrow-slit with a still face.  And presently another
+scene in this ghastly play was enacted.
+
+The cave-tigers tired of their sport, and first one and then
+the other fell once more to prowling over the littered pavements,
+with the heavy chains scraping and chinking in their wake.  They
+made no beginning to feast on the bodies provided for them.  That
+would be for afterwards.  In the present, the fascination of
+slaughter was big in them, and they had thought that it would be
+indulged further.  It seemed that they knew their entertainers.
+
+Again the windlass clanked, and the tethering chains drew the
+great beasts clear of the doorway; and again a valve of the farther
+door swung ajar, and another prisoner was thrust struggling into
+the circus.  A sickness seized me when I saw that this was a woman,
+but still, in view of the object I had in hand, I made no
+interruption.
+
+It was not that I had never seen women sent to death before. 
+A general, who has done his fighting, must in his day have killed
+women equally with men; yes, and seen them earn their death-blow by
+lusty battling.  Yet there seemed something so wanton in this cruel
+helpless sacrifice of a woman prisoner, that I had a struggle with
+myself to avoid interference.  Still it is ever the case that the
+individual must be sacrificed to a policy, and so as I say, I
+watched on, outwardly cold and impassive.
+
+I watched too (I confess it freely) with a quickening heart. 
+Here was no sullen submissive victim like the last.  She may have
+been more cowardly (as some women are), she may have been braver
+(as many women have shown themselves); but, at any rate, it was
+clear that she was going to make a struggle for her life, and to do
+vicious damage, it might be, before she yielded it up.  The
+watchers behind the arrow-slits recognized this.  Their wagers, and
+the hum of their appreciation, swept loudly round the ring of the
+circus.
+
+They stripped their prisoners, before they thrust them out to
+this death, of all the clothes they might carry, for clothes have
+a value; and so the woman stood there bare-limbed in the moonlight.
+
+She clapped her back to the great stone door by which she had
+entered, and faced fate with glowing eye.  Gods! there have been
+times in early years when I could have plucked out sword and jumped
+down, and fought for her there for the sheer delight of such a
+battle.  But now policy restrained me.  The individual might want
+a helping hand, but it was becoming more and more clear that
+Atlantis wanted a minister also; and before these great needs, the
+lesser ones perforce must perish.  Still, be it noted that, if I
+did not jump down, no other man there that night had sufficient
+manhood remaining to venture the opportunity.
+
+My heart glowed as I watched her.  She picked a bone from the
+litter on the pavement and beat off its head by blows against the
+wall.  Then with her teeth she fashioned the point to still further
+sharpness.  I could see her teeth glisten white in the moonrays as
+she bit with them.
+
+The huge cave-tigers, which stood as high as her head as they
+walked, came nearer to her in their prowlings, yet obviously
+neglected her.  This was part of their accustomed scheme of
+torment, and the woman knew it well.  There was something
+intolerable in their noiseless, ceaseless paddings over the
+pavement.  I could see the prisoner's breast heave as she watched
+them.  A terror such as that would have made many a victim sick and
+helpless.
+
+But this one was bolder than I had thought.  She did not wait
+for a spring: she made the first attack herself.  When the
+she-tiger made its stroll towards her, and was in the act of
+turning, she flung herself into a sudden leap, striking viciously
+at its eye with her sharpened bone.  A roar from the onlookers
+acknowledged the stroke.  The cave-tiger's eye remained undarkened,
+but the puny weapon had dealt it a smart flesh wound, and with a
+great bellow of surprise and pain it scampered away to gain space
+for a rush and a spring.
+
+But the woman did not await its charge.  With a shrill scream
+she sped forward, running at the full of her speed across the
+moonlight directly towards that shadowed part of the encircling
+wall within whose thickness I had my gazing place; and then,
+throwing every tendon of her body into the spring, made the
+greatest leap that surely any human being ever accomplished, even
+when spurred on by the utmost of terror and desperation.  In an
+after day I measured it, and though of a certainty she must have
+added much to the tally by the sheer force of her run, which drove
+her clinging up the rough surface of the wall, it is a sure thing
+that in that splendid leap her feet must have dangled a man-height
+and a half above the pavement.
+
+I say it was prodigious, but then the spur was more than the
+ordinary, and the woman herself was far out of the common both in
+thews and intelligence; and the end of the leap left her with five
+fingers lodged in the sill of the arrow-slit from which I watched. 
+Even then she must have slipped back if she had been left to
+herself, for the sill sloped, and the stone was finely smooth; but
+I shot out my hand and gripped hers by the wrist, and instantly she
+clambered up with both knees on the sills, and her fingers twined
+round to grip my wrist in her turn.
+
+And now you will suppose she gushed out prayers and promises,
+thinking only of safety and enlargement.  There was nothing of
+this.  With savage panting wordlessness she took fresh grip on the
+sharpened bone with her spare hand, and lunged with it desperately
+through the arrow-slit.  With the hand that clutched mine she drew
+me towards her, so as to give the blows the surer chance, and so
+unprepared was I for such an attack, and with such fierce
+suddenness did she deliver it, that the first blow was near giving
+me my quietus.  But I grappled with the poor frantic creature as
+gently as might be--the stone of the wall separating us always--and
+stripped her of her weapon, and held her firmly captive till she
+might calm herself.
+
+"That was an ungrateful blow," I said.  "But for my hand you'd
+have slipped and be the sport of a tiger's paw this minute."
+
+"Oh, I must kill some one," she panted, "before I am killed
+myself."
+
+"There will be time enough to think upon that some other day;
+but for now you are far enough off meeting further harm."
+
+"You are lying to me.  You will throw me to the beasts as soon
+as I loose my grip.  I know your kind: you will not be robbed of
+your sport."
+
+"I will go so far as to prove myself to you," said I, and
+called out for the warder who had tended the doors below.  "Bid
+those tigers be tethered on a shorter chain," I ordered, "and then
+go yourself outside into the circus, and help this lady delicately
+to the ground."
+
+The word was passed and these things were done; and I too came
+out into the circus and joined the woman, who stood waiting under
+the moonlight.  But the others who had seen these doings were by no
+means suited at the change of plan.  One of the great stone valves
+of the farther door opened hurriedly, and a man strode out, armed
+and flushed.  "By all the Gods!" he shouted.  "Who comes between me
+and my pastime?"
+
+I stepped quietly to the advance.  "I fear, sir," I said,
+"that you must launch your anger against me.  By accident I gave
+that woman sanctuary, and I had not heart to toss her back to your
+beasts."
+
+His fingers began to snap against his hilt.
+
+"You have come to the wrong market here with your qualms.  I
+am captain here, and my word carries, subject only to Phorenice's
+nod.  Do you hear that?  Do you know too that I can have you tossed
+to those striped gate-keepers of mine for meddling in here without
+an invitation?"  He looked at me sharp enough, but saw plainly that
+I was a stranger.  "But perhaps you carry a name, my man, which
+warrants your impertinence?"
+
+"Deucalion is my poor name," I said, "but I cannot expect you
+will know it.  I am but newly landed here, sir, and when I left
+Atlantis some score of years back, a very different man to you held
+guard over these gates."  He had his forehead on my feet by this
+time.  "I had it from the Empress this night that she will
+to-morrow make a new sorting of this kingdom's dignities.  Perhaps
+there is some recommendation you would wish me to lay before her in
+return for your courtesies?"
+
+"My lord," said the man, "if you wish it, I can have a turn
+with those cave-tigers myself now, and you can look on from behind
+the walls and see them tear me."
+
+"Why tell me what is no news?"
+
+"I wish to remind my lord of his power; I wish to beg of his
+clemency."
+
+"You showed your power to these poor prisoners; but from what
+remains here to be seen, few of them have tasted much of your
+clemency."
+
+"The orders were," said the captain of the gate, as though he
+thought a word might be said here for his defence, "the orders
+were, my lord, that the tigers should be kept fierce and accustomed
+to killing."
+
+"Then, if you have obeyed orders, let me be the last to chide
+you.  But it is my pleasure that this woman be respited, and I wish
+now to question her."
+
+The man got to his feet again with obvious relief, though
+still bowing low.
+
+"Then if my lord will honour me by sitting in my room that
+overlooks the outer gate, the favour will never be forgotten."
+
+"Show the way," I said, and took the woman by the fingers,
+leading her gently.  At the two ends of the circus the tigers
+prowled about on short chains, growling and muttering.
+
+We passed through the door into the thickness of the outer
+wall, and the captain of the gate led us into his private chamber,
+a snug enough box overlooking the plain beyond the city.  He lit a
+torch from his lamp and thrust it into a bracket on the wall, and
+bowing deeply and walking backwards, left us alone, closing the
+door in place behind him.  He was an industrious fellow, this
+captain, to judge from the spoil with which his chamber was packed.
+There could have come very few traders in through that gate below 
+without his levying a private tribute; and so, judging that most of
+his goods had been unlawfully come by, I had little qualm at making
+a selection.  It was not decent that the woman, being an Atlantean,
+should go bereft of the dignity of clothes, as though she were a
+mere savage from Europe; and so I sought about amongst the
+captain's spoil for garments that would be befitting.
+
+But, as I busied myself in this search for raiment, rummaging
+amongst the heaps and bales, with a hand and eye little skilled in
+such business, I heard a sound behind which caused me to turn my
+head, and there was the woman with a dagger she had picked from the
+floor, in the act of drawing it from the sheath.
+
+She caught my eye and drew the weapon clear, but seeing that
+I made no advance towards her, or move to protect myself, waited
+where she was, and presently was took with a shuddering.
+
+"Your designs seem somewhat of a riddle," I said.  "At first
+you wished to kill me from motives which you explained, and which
+I quite understood.  It lay in my power next to confer some small
+benefit upon you, in consequence of which you are here, and
+not--shall we say?--yonder in the circus.  Why you should desire
+now to kill the only man here who can set you completely free, and
+beyond these walls, is a thing it would gratify me much to learn. 
+I say nothing of the trifle of ingratitude.  Gratitude and
+ingratitude are of little weight here.  There is some far greater
+in your mind."
+
+She pressed a hand hard against her breasts.  "You are
+Deucalion," she gasped; "I heard you say it."
+
+"I am Deucalion.  So far, I have known no reason to feel shame
+for my name."
+
+"And I come of those," she cried, with a rising voice, "who
+bite against this city, because they have found their fate too
+intolerable with the land as it is ordered now.  We heard of your
+coming from Yucatan.  It was we who sent the fleet to take you at
+the entrance to the Gulf."
+
+"Your fleet gave us a pretty fight."
+
+"Oh, I know, I know.  We had our watchers on the high land who
+brought us the tidings.  We had an omen even before that.  Where we
+lay with our army before the walls here, we saw great birds
+carrying off the slain to the mountains.  But where the fleet
+failed, I saw a chance where I, a woman, might--"
+
+"Where you might succeed?"  I sat me down on a pile of the
+captain's stuffs.  It seemed as if here at last that I should find
+a solution for many things.  "You carry a name?"  I asked.
+
+"They call me Nais."
+
+"Ah," I said, and signed to her to take the clothes that I had
+sought out.  She was curiously like, so both my eyes and hearing
+said, to Ylga, the fan-girl of Phorenice, but as she had told me of
+no parentage I asked for none then.  Still her talk alone let me
+know that she was bred of none of the common people, and I made up
+my mind towards definite understanding.  "Nais," I said, "you wish
+to kill me.  At the same time I have no doubt you wish to live on
+yourself, if only to get credit from your people for what you have
+done.  So here I will make a contract with you.  Prove to me that
+my death is for Atlantis' good, and I swear by our Lord the Sun to
+go out with you beyond the walls, where you can stab me and then
+get you gone.  Or the--"
+
+"I will not be your slave."
+
+"I do not ask you for service.  Or else, I wished to say, I
+shall live so long as the High Gods wish, and do my poor best for
+this country.  And for you--I shall set you free to do your best
+also.  So now, I pray you, speak."
+
+
+
+7.  THE BITERS OF THE WALLS
+(FURTHER ACCOUNT)
+
+
+"You will set me free," she said, regarding me from under her
+brows, "without any further exactions or treaty?"
+
+"I will set you free exactly on those terms," I answered,
+"unless indeed we here decide that it is better for Atlantis that
+I should die, in which case the freedom will be of your own
+taking."
+
+"My lord plays a bold game."
+
+"Tut, tut," I said.
+
+"But I shall not hesitate to take the full of my bond, unless
+my theories are most clearly disproved to me."
+
+"Tut," I said, "you women, how you can play out the time
+needlessly.  Show me sufficient cause, and you shall kill me where
+and how you please.  Come, begin the accusation."
+
+"You are a tyrant."
+
+"At least I have not paraded my tyrannies in Atlantis these
+twenty years.  Why, Nais, I did but land yesterday."
+
+"You will not deny you came back from Yucatan for a purpose."
+
+"I came back because I was sent for.  The Empress gives no
+reasons for her recalls.  She states her will; and we who serve her
+obey without question."
+
+"Pah, I know that old dogma."
+
+"If you discredit my poor honesty at the outset like this, I
+fear we shall not get far with our unravelling."
+
+"My lord must be indeed simple," said this strange woman
+scornfully, "if he is ignorant of what all Atlantis knows."
+
+"Then simple you must write me down.  Over yonder in Yucatan
+we were too well wrapped up in our own parochial needs and policies
+to have leisure to ponder much over the slim news which drifted out
+to us from Atlantis--and, in truth, little enough came.  By
+example, Phorenice (whose office be adored) is a great personage
+here at home; but over there in the colony we barely knew so much
+as her name.  Here, since I have been ashore, I have seen many new
+wonders; I have been carried by a riding mammoth; I have sat at a
+banquet; but in what new policies there are afoot, I have yet to be
+schooled."
+
+"Then, if truly you do not know it, let me repeat to you the
+common tale.  Phorenice has tired of her unmated life."
+
+"Stay there.  I will hear no word against the Empress."
+
+"Pah, my lord, your scruples are most decorous.  But I did no
+more than repeat what the Empress had made public by proclamation. 
+She is minded to take to herself a husband, and nothing short of
+the best is good enough for Phorenice.  One after another has been
+put up in turn as favourite--and been found wanting.  Oh, I tell
+you, we here in Atlantis have watched her courtship with jumping
+hearts.  First it was this one here, then it was that one there;
+now it was this general just returned from a victory, and a day
+later he had been packed back to his camp, to give place to some
+dashing governor who had squeezed increased revenues from his
+province.  But every ship that came from the West said that there
+was a stronger man than any of these in Yucatan, and at last the
+Empress changed the wording of her vow.  'I'll have Deucalion for
+my husband,' said she, 'and then we will see who can stand against
+my wishes.'"
+
+"The Empress (whose name be adored) can do as she pleases in
+such matters," I said guardedly; "but that is beside the argument. 
+I am here to know how it would be better for Atlantis that I should
+die?"
+
+"You know you are the strongest man in the kingdom."
+
+"It pleases you to say so."
+
+"And Phorenice is the strongest woman."
+
+"That is beyond doubt."
+
+"Why, then, if the Empress takes you in marriage, we shall be
+under a double tyranny.  And her rule alone is more cruelly heavy
+than we can bear already."
+
+"I pass no criticism on Phorenice's rule.  I have not seen it. 
+But I crave your mercy, Nais, on the newcomer into this kingdom. 
+I am strong, say you, and therefore I am a tyrant, say you.  Now to
+me this sequence is faulty."
+
+"Who should a strong man use strength for, if not for himself? 
+And if for himself, why that spells tyranny.  You will get all your
+heart's desires, my lord, and you will forget that many a thousand
+of the common people will have to pay for them."
+
+"And this is all your accusation?"
+
+"It seems to be black enough.  I am one that has a compassion
+for my fellow-men, my lord, and because of that compassion you see
+me what I am to-day.  There was a time, not long passed, when I
+slept as soft and ate as dainty as any in Atlantis."
+
+I smiled.  "Your speech told me that much from the first."
+
+"Then I would I had cast the speech off, too, if that is also
+a livery of the tyrant's class.  But I tell you I saw all the
+oppression myself from the oppressor's side.  I was high in
+Phorenice's favour then."
+
+"That, too, is easy of credence.  Ylga is the fan-girl to the
+Empress now, and second lady in the kingdom, and those who have
+seen Ylga could make an easy guess at the parentage of Nais."
+
+"We were the daughters of one birth; but I do not count with
+either Zaemon or Ylga now.  Ylga is the creature of Phorenice, and
+Phorenice would have all the people of Atlantis slaves and in
+chains, so that she might crush them the easier.  And as for
+Zaemon, he is no friend of Phorenice's; he fights with brain and
+soul to drag the old authority to those on the Sacred Mountain; and
+that, if it come down on us again, would only be the exchange of
+one form of slavery for another."
+
+"It seems to me you bite at all authority."
+
+"In fact," she said simply, "I do.  I have seen too much of it."
+
+"And so you think a rule of no-rule would be best for the
+country?"
+
+"You have put it plainly in words for me.  That is my creed
+to-day.  That is the creed of all those yonder, who sit in the camp
+and besiege this city.  And we number on our side, now, all in
+Atlantis save those in the city and a handful on the priests'
+Mountain."
+
+I shook my head.  "A creed of desperation, if you like, Nais,
+but, believe me, a silly creed.  Since man was born out of the
+quakings and the fevers of this earth, and picked his way amongst
+the cooler-places, he has been dependent always on his fellow-men. 
+And where two are congregated together, one must be chief, and
+order how matters are to be governed--at least, I speak of men who
+have a wish to be higher than the beasts.  Have you ever set foot
+in Europe?"
+
+"No."
+
+"I have.  Years back I sailed there, gathering slaves.  What
+did I see?  A country without rule or order.  Tyrants they were, to
+be sure, but they were the beasts.  The men and the women were the
+rudest savages, knowing nothing of the arts, dressing in skins and
+uncleanness, harbouring in caves and the tree-tops.  The beasts
+roamed about where they would, and hunted them unchecked."
+
+"Still, they fought you for their liberty?"
+
+"Never once.  They knew how disastrous was their masterless
+freedom.  Even to their dull, savage brains it was a sure thing
+that no slavery could be worse; and to that state you, and your
+friends, and your theories, will reduce Atlantis, if you get the
+upper hand.  But, then, to argue in a circle, you will never get
+it.  For to conquer, you must set up leaders, and once you have set
+them up, you will never pull them down again."
+
+"Aye," she said with a sigh, "there is truth in that last."
+
+The torch had filled the captain's room with a resinous smoke,
+but the flame was growing pale.  Dawn was coming in greyly through
+a slender arrow-slit, and with it ever and again the glow from some
+mountain out of sight, which was shooting forth spasmodic bursts of
+fire.  With it also were mutterings of distant falling rocks, and
+sullen tremblings, which had endured all the night through, and I
+judged that earth was in one of her quaking moods, and would
+probably during the forthcoming day offer us some chastening
+discomforts.
+
+On this account, perhaps, my senses were stilled to certain
+evidences which would otherwise have given me a suspicion; and
+also, there is no denying that my general wakefulness was sapped by
+another matter.  This woman, Nais, interested me vastly out of the
+common; the mere presence of her seemed to warm the organs of my
+interior; and whilst she was there, all my thoughts and senses were
+present in the room of the captain of the gate in which we sat.
+
+But of a sudden the floor of the chamber rocked and fell away
+beneath me, and in a tumult of dust, and litter, and bales of the
+captain's plunder, I fell down (still seated on the flagstone) into
+a pit which had been digged beneath it.  With the violence of the
+descent, and the flutter of all these articles about my head, I was
+in no condition for immediate action; and whilst I was still
+half-stunned by the shock, and long before I could get my eyes into
+service again, I had been seized, and bound, and half-strangled
+with a noose of hide.  Voices were raised that I should be
+despatched at once out of the way; but one in authority cried out
+that, killing me at leisure, and as a prisoner, promised more
+genteel sport; and so I was thrust down on the floor, whilst a
+whole army of men trod in over me to the attack.
+
+What had happened was clear to me now, though I was powerless
+to do anything in hindrance.  The rebels with more craft than any
+one had credited to them, had driven a galley from their camp under
+the ground, intending so to make an entrance into the heart of the
+city.  In their clumsy ignorance, and having no one of sufficient
+talent in mensuration, they had bungled sadly both in direction and
+length, and so had ended their burrow under this chamber of the
+captain of the gate.  The great flagstone in its fall had, it
+appeared, crushed four of them to death, but these were little
+noticed or lamented.  Life was to them a bauble of the slenderest
+price, and a horde of others pressed through the opening, lusting
+for the fight, and recking nothing of their risks and perils.
+
+Half-choked by the foul air of the galley, and trodden on by
+this great procession of feet, it was little enough I could do to
+help my immediate self much less the more distant city.  But when
+the chief mass of the attackers had passed through, and there came
+only here and there one eager to take his share at storming the
+gate, a couple of fellows plucked me up out of the mud on the
+floor, and began dragging me down through the stinking darkness of
+the galley towards the pit that gave it entrance.
+
+Twenty times we were jostled by others hastening to the
+attack, either from hunger for fight, or from appetite for what
+they could steal.  But we came to the open at last, and
+half-suffocated though I was, I contrived to do obeisance, and say
+aloud the prescribed prayer to the most High Gods in gratitude for
+the fresh, sweet air which They had provided.
+
+Our Lord the Sun was on the verge of rising for His day, and
+all things were plainly shown.  Before me were the monstrous walls
+of the capital, with the heads of its pyramids and higher buildings
+showing above them.  And on the walls, the sentries walked calmly
+their appointed paces, or took shelter against arrows in the
+casemates provided for them.
+
+The din of fighting within the gate rose high into the air,
+and the heavy roaring of the cave-tigers told that they too were
+taking their share of the melee.  But the massive stonework of the
+walls hid all the actual engagement from our view, and which party
+was getting the upper hand we could not even guess.  But the sounds
+told how tight a fight was being hammered out in those narrow
+boundaries, and my veins tingled to be once more back at the old
+trade, and to be doing my share.
+
+But there was no chivalry about the fellows who held me by my
+bonds.  They thrust me into a small temple near  by, which once had
+been a fane in much favour with travellers, who wished to show
+gratitude for the safe journey to the capital, but which now was
+robbed and ruined, and they swung to the stone entrance gate and
+barred it, leaving me to commune with myself.  Presently, they told
+me, I should be put to death by torments.  Well, this seemed to be
+the new custom of Atlantis, and I should have to endure it as best
+I could.  The High Gods, it appeared, had no further use for my
+services in Atlantis, and I was not in the mood then to bite very
+much at their decision.  What I had seen of the country since my
+return had not enamoured me very much with its new conditions.
+
+The little temple in which I was gaoled had been robbed and
+despoiled of all its furnishments.  But the light-slits, where at
+certain hours of the day the rays of our Lord the Sun had fallen
+upon the image of the God, before this had been taken away, gave me
+vantage places from which I could see over the camp of these rebel
+besiegers, and a dreary prospect it was.  The people seemed to have
+shucked off the culture of centuries in as many months, and to have
+gone back for the most part to sheer brutishness.  The majority
+harboured on the bare ground.  Few owned shelter, and these were
+merely bowers of mud and branches.
+
+They fought and quarrelled amongst themselves for food, eating
+their meat raw, and their grain (when they had it) unground.  Many
+who passed my vision I saw were even gnawing the soft inside of
+tree bark.
+
+The dead lay where they fell.  The sick and the wounded found
+no hand to tend them.  Great man-eating birds hovered about the
+camp or skulked about, heavy with gorging, amongst the hovels, and
+no one had public spirit enough to give them battle.  The stink of
+the place rose up to heaven as a foul incense inviting a
+pestilence.  There was no order, no trace of strong command
+anywhere.  With three hundred well-disciplined troops it seemed to
+me that I could have sent those poor desperate hordes flying in
+panic to the forest.
+
+However, there was no very lengthy space of time granted me
+for thinking out the policy of this matter to any great depth.  The
+attack on the gate had been delivered with suddenness; the repulse
+was not slow.  Of what desperate fighting took place in the
+galleries, and in the circus between the two sets of gates, the
+detail will never be told in full.
+
+At the first alarm the great cave-tigers were set loose, and
+these raged impartially against keeper and foe.  Of those that went
+in through the tunnel, not one in ten returned, and there were few
+of these but what carried a bloody wound.  Some, with the ruling
+passion still strong in them, bore back plunder; one trailed along
+with him the head of the captain of the gate; and amongst them they
+dragged out two of the warders who were wounded, and whom revenge
+had urged them to take as prisoners.
+
+Over these two last a hubbub now arose, that seemed likely to
+boil over into blows.  Every voice shouted out for them what he
+thought the most repulsive fate.  Some were for burning, some for
+skinning, some for impaling, some for other things: my flesh crept
+as I heard their ravenous yells.  Those that had been to the
+trouble of making them captive were still breathless from the
+fight, and were readily thrust aside; and it seemed to me that the
+poor wretches would be hustled into death before any definite fate
+was agreed upon, which all would pass as sufficiently terrific. 
+Never had I seen such a disorderly tumult, never such a leaderless
+mob.  But, as always has happened, and always will, the stronger
+men by dint of louder voices and more vigorous shoulders got their
+plans agreed to at last, and the others perforce had to give way.
+
+A band of them set off running, and presently returned at
+snails' pace, dragging with them (with many squeals from ungreased
+wheels) one of those huge war engines with which besiegers are wont
+to throw great stones and other missiles into the cities they sit
+down against.  They ran it up just beyond bowshot of the walls, and
+clamped it firmly down with stakes and ropes to the earth.  Then
+setting their lean arms to the windlasses, they drew back the great
+tree which formed the spring till its tethering place reached the
+ground, and in the cradle at its head they placed one of the
+prisoners, bound helplessly, so that he could not throw himself
+over the side.
+
+Then the rude, savage, skin-clad mob stood back, and one who
+had appointed himself engineer knocked back the catch that held the
+great spring in place.
+
+With a whir and a twang the elastic wood flung upwards, and
+the bound man was shot away from its tip with the speed of a
+lightning flash.  He sang through the air, spinning over and over
+with inconceivable rapidity, and the great crowd of rebels held
+their breath in silence as they watched.  He passed high above the
+city wall, a tiny mannikin in the distance now, and then the
+trajectory of his flight began to lower.  The spike of a new-built
+pyramid lay in the path of his terrific flight, and he struck it
+with a thud whose sound floated out to us afterwards, and then he
+toppled down out of our sight, leaving a red stain on the whiteness
+of the stone as he fell.
+
+With a roar the crowd acknowledged the success of their
+device, and bellowed out insults to Phorenice, and insults to the
+Gods: a poor frantic crowd they showed themselves.  And then with
+ravening shouts, they fell upon the other captive warder, binding
+him also into a compact helpless missile, and meanwhile getting the
+engine in gear again for another shot.
+
+But for my part I saw nothing of this disgusting scene.  I
+heard the bolt grate stealthily against the door of the little
+temple in which I was imprisoned, and was minded to give these
+brutish rebels somewhat of a surprise.  I had rid myself of my
+bonds handily enough; I had rubbed my limbs to that perfect
+suppleness which is always desirable before a fight; and I had
+planned to rush out so soon as the door was swung, and kill those
+that came first with fist blows on the brow and chin.
+
+They had not suspected my name, it was clear, for my stature
+and garb were nothing out of the ordinary; but if my bodily
+strength and fighting power had been sufficient to raise me to a
+vice-royalty like that of Yucatan, and let me endure alive in that
+government throughout twenty hard-battling years, why, it was
+likely that this rabble of savages would see something that was new
+and admirable in the practice of arms before the crude weight of
+their numbers could drag me down.  Nay, I did not even despair of
+winning free altogether.  I must find me a weapon from those that
+came up to battle, with which I could write worthy signatures, and
+I must attempt no standing fights.  Gods! but what a glow the
+prospect did send through me as I stood there waiting.
+
+A vainer man, writing history, might have said that always,
+before everything else, he held in mind the greater interests
+before the less.  But for me--I prefer to be honest, and own myself
+human.  In my glee at that forthcoming fight--which promised to be
+the greatest and most furious I had known in all a long life of
+battling--I will confess that Atlantis and her differing policies
+were clean forgot.  I should go out an unknown man from the little
+cell of a temple, I should do my work, and then, whether I took
+freedom with me, or whether I came down at last myself on a pile of
+slain, these people would guess without being told the name, that
+here was Deucalion.  Gods! what a fight we would have made!
+
+But the door did not open wide to give me space for my first
+rush.  It creaked gratingly outwards on its pivots, and a slim hand
+and a white arm slipped inside, beckoning me to quietude.  Here was
+some woman.  The door creaked wider, and she came inside.
+
+"Nais," I said.
+
+"Silence, or they will hear you, and remember.  At present
+those who brought you here are killed, and unless by chance some
+one blunders into this robbed shrine, you will not be found."
+
+"Then, if that is so, let me go out and walk amongst these
+people as one of themselves."
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"But, Nais, I am not known here.  I am merely a man in very
+plain and mud-stained robe.  I should be in no ways remarkable."
+
+A smile twitched her face.  "My lord," she said, "wears no
+beard; and his is the only clean chin in the camp."
+
+I joined in her laugh.  "A pest on my want of foppishness
+then.  But I am forgetting somewhat.  It comes to my mind that we
+still have unfinished that small discussion of ours concerning the
+length of my poor life.  Have you decided to cut it off from risk
+of further mischief, or do you propose to give me further span?"
+
+She turned to me with a look of sharp distress.  "My lord,"
+she said, "I would have you forget that silly talk of mine.  This
+last two hours I thought you were dead in real truth."
+
+"And you were not relieved?"
+
+"I felt that the only man was gone out of the world--I mean,
+my lord, the only man who can save Atlantis."
+
+"Your words give me a confidence.  Then you would have me go
+back and become husband to Phorenice?"
+
+"If there is no other way."
+
+"I warn you I shall do that, if she still so desires it, and
+if it seems to me that that course will be best.  This is no hour
+for private likings or dislikings."
+
+"I know it," she said, "I feel it.  I have no heart now, save
+only for Atlantis.  I have schooled myself once more to that."
+
+"And at present I am in this lone little box of a temple.  A
+minute ago, before you came, I had promised myself a pretty enough
+fight to signalise my changing of abode."
+
+"There must be nothing of that.  I will not have these poor
+people slaughtered unnecessarily.  Nor do I wish to see my lord
+exposed to a hopeless risk.  This poor place, such as it is, has
+been given to me as an abode, and, if my lord can remain decorously
+till nightfall in a maiden's chamber, he may at least be sure of
+quietude.  I am a person," she added simply, "that in this camp has
+some respect.  When darkness comes, I will take my lord down to the
+sea and a boat, and so he may come with ease to the harbour and the
+watergate."
+
+
+
+8.  THE PREACHER FROM THE MOUNTAINS
+
+
+It was long enough since I had found leisure for a parcel of
+sleep, and so during the larger part of that day I am free to
+confess that I slumbered soundly, Nais watching me.  Night fell,
+and still we remained within the privacy of the temple.  It was our
+plan that I should stay there till the camp slept, and so I should
+have more chance of reaching the sea without disturbance.
+
+The night came down wet, with a drizzle of rain, and through
+the slits in the temple walls we could see the many fires in the
+camp well cared for, the men and women in skins and rags toasting
+before them, with steam rising as the heat fought with their
+wetness.  Folk seated in discomfort like this are proverbially
+alert and cruel in the temper, and Nais frowned as she looked on
+the inclemency of the weather.
+
+"A fine night," she said, "and I would have sent my lord back
+to the city without a soul here being the wiser; but in this chill,
+people sleep sourly.  We must wait till the hour drugs them
+sounder."
+
+And so we waited, sitting there together on that pavement so
+long unkissed by worshippers, and it was little enough we said
+aloud.  But there can be good companionship without sentences of
+talk.
+
+But as the hours drew on, the night began to grow less quiet. 
+From the distance some one began to blow on a horn or a shell,
+sending forth a harsh raucous note incessantly.  The sound came
+nearer, as we could tell from its growing loudness, and the voices
+of those by the fires made themselves heard, railing at the blower
+for his disturbance.  And presently it became stationary, and
+standing up we could see through the slits in the walls the people
+of the camp rousing up from their uneasy rest, and clustering
+together round one who stood and talked to them from the pedestal
+of a war engine.
+
+What he was declaiming upon we could not hear, and our curiosity
+on the matter was not keen.  Given that all who did not sleep
+went to weary themselves with this fellow, as Nais whispered,
+it would be simple for me to make an exit in the opposite
+direction.
+
+But here we were reckoning without the inevitable busybody. 
+A dozen pairs of feet splashing through the wet came up to the side
+of the little temple, and cried loudly that Nais should join the
+audience.  She had eloquence of tongue, it appeared, and they
+feared lest this speaker who had taken his stand on the war engine
+should make schisms amongst their ranks unless some skilled person
+stood up also to refute his arguments.
+
+Here, then, it seemed to me that I must be elbowed into my
+skirmish by the most unexpected of chances, but Nais was firmly
+minded that there should be no fight, if courage on her part could
+turn it.  "Come out with me," she whispered, "and keep distant from
+the light of the fires."
+
+"But how explain my being here?"
+
+"There is no reason to explain anything," she said bitterly. 
+"They will take you for my lover.  There is nothing remarkable in
+that: it is the mode here.  But oh, why did not the Gods make you
+wear a beard, and curl it, even as other men?  Then you could have
+been gone and safe these two hours."
+
+"A smooth chin pleases me better."
+
+"So it does me," I heard her murmur as she leaned her weight
+on the stone which hung in the doorway, and pushed it ajar; "your
+chin."  The ragged men outside--there were women with them
+also--did not wait to watch me very closely.  A coarse jest or two
+flew (which I could have found good heart to have repaid with a
+sword-thrust) and they stepped off into the darkness, just turning
+from time to time to make sure we followed.  On all sides others
+were pressing in the same direction--black shadows against the
+night; the rain spat noisily on the camp fires as we passed them;
+and from behind us came up others.  There were no sleepers in the
+camp now; all were pressing on to hear this preacher who stood on
+the pedestal of the war engine; and if we had tried to swerve from
+the straight course, we should have been marked at once.
+
+So we held on through the darkness, and presently came within
+earshot.
+
+Still it was little enough of the preacher's words we could
+make out at first.  "Who are your chiefs?" came the question at the
+end of a fervid harangue, and immediately all further rational talk
+was drowned in uproar.  "We have no chiefs," the people shouted,
+"we are done with chiefs; we are all equal here.  Take away your
+silly magic.  You may kill us with magic if you choose, but rule us
+you shall not.  Nor shall the other priests rule.  Nor Phorenice. 
+Nor anybody.  We are done with rulers."
+
+The press had brought us closer and closer to the man who
+stood on the war engine.  We saw him to be old, with white hair
+that tumbled on his shoulders, and a long white beard, untrimmed
+and uncurled.  Save for a wisp of rag about the loins, his body was
+unclothed, and glistened in the wet.
+
+But in his hand he held that which marked his caste.  With it
+he pointed his sentences, and at times he whirled it about bathing
+his wet, naked body in a halo of light.  It was a wand whose tip
+burned with an unconsuming fire, which glowed and twinkled and
+blazed like some star sent down by the Gods from their own place in
+the high heaven.  It was the Symbol of our Lord the Sun, a
+credential no one could forge, and one on which no civilised man
+would cast a doubt.
+
+Indeed, the ragged frantic crew did not question for one moment
+that he was a member of the Clan of Priests, the Clan which
+from time out of numbering had given rulers for the land, and even
+in their loudest clamours they freely acknowledged his powers. 
+"You may kill us with your magic, if you choose," they screamed at
+him.  But stubbornly they refused to come back to their old
+allegiance.  "We have suffered too many things these later years,"
+they cried.  "We are done with rulers now for always."
+
+But for myself I saw the old man with a different emotion. 
+Here was Zaemon that was father to Nais, Zaemon that had seen me
+yesterday seated on the divan at Phorenice's elbow, and who to-day
+could denounce me as Deucalion if so he chose.  These rebels had
+expended a navy in their wish to kill me four days earlier, and if
+they knew of my nearness, even though Nais were my advocate, her
+cold reasoning would have had little chance of an audience now. 
+The High Gods who keep the tether of our lives hide Their secrets
+well, but I did not think it impious to be sure that mine was very
+near the cutting then.
+
+The beautiful woman saw this too.  She even went so far as to
+twine her fingers in mine and press them as a farewell, and I
+pressed hers in return, for I was sorry enough not to see her more. 
+Still I could not help letting my thoughts travel with a grim
+gloating over the fine mound of dead I should build before these
+ragged, unskilled rebels pulled me down.  And it was inevitable
+this should be so.  For of all the emotions that can ferment in the
+human heart, the joy of strife is keenest, and none but an old
+fighter, face to face with what must necessarily be his final
+battle, can tell how deep this lust is embroidered into the very
+foundations of his being.
+
+But for the time Zaemon did not see me, being too much wrapped
+in his outcry, and so I was free to listen to the burning words
+which he spread around him, and to determine their effect on the
+hearers.
+
+The theme he preached was no new one.  He told that ever since
+the beginning of history, the Gods had set apart one Clan of the
+people to rule over the rest and be their Priests, and until the
+coming of Phorenice these had done their duties with exactitude and
+justice.  They had fought invaders, carried war against the beasts,
+and studied earth-movements so that they were able to foretell
+earthquakes and eruptions, and could spread warnings that the
+people might be able to escape their devastations.  They are no
+self-seekers; their aim was always to further the interest of
+Atlantis, and so do honour to the kingdom on which the High Gods
+had set their special favour.  Under the Priestly Clan, Atlantis
+had reached the pinnacle of human prosperity and happiness.
+
+"But," cried the old man, waving the Symbol till his wet body
+glistened in a halo of light, "the people grew fat and careless
+with their easy life.  They began to have a conceit that their good
+fortune was earned by their own puny brains and thews, and was no
+gift from the Gods above; and presently the cult of these Gods
+became neglected, and Their temples were barren of gifts and
+worshippers.  Followed a punishment.  The Gods in Their inscrutable
+way decreed that a wife of one of the Priests (that was a governor
+of no inconsiderable province) should see a woman child by the
+wayside, and take it for adoption.  That child the Gods in their
+infinite wisdom fashioned into a scourge for Atlantis, and you who
+have felt the weight of Phorenice's hand, know with what
+completeness the High Gods can fashion their instruments.
+
+"Yet, even as they set up, so can they throw down, and those
+that shall debase Phorenice are even now appointed.  The old rule
+is to be re-established; but not till you who have sinned are
+sufficiently chastened to cry to it for relief."  He waved the
+mysterious glowing Symbol before him.  "See," he cried in his high
+old quavering voice, "you know the unspeakable Power of which that
+is the sign, and for which I am the mouthpiece.  It is for you to
+make decision now.  Are the Gods to throw down this woman who has
+scorned Them and so cruelly trodden on you?  Or are you to be still
+further purged of your pride before you are ripe for deliverance?"
+
+The old priest broke off with a gesture, and his ragged white
+beard sank on to his chest.  Promptly a young man, skin clad and
+carrying his weapon, elbowed up through the press of listeners, and
+jumped on to the platform beside him.  "Hear me, brethren!" he
+bellowed, in his strong young voice.  "We are done with tyrants. 
+Death may come, and we all of us here have shown how little we fear
+it.  But own rulers again we will not, and that is our final say. 
+My lord," he said, turning to the old man with a brave face, "I
+know it is in your power to kill me by magic if you choose, but I
+have said my say, and can stand the cost if needs be."
+
+"I can kill you, but I will not," said Zaemon.  "You have said
+your silliness.  Now go you to the ground again."
+
+"We have free speech here.  I will not go till I choose."
+
+"Aye, but you will," said the old man, and turned on him with
+a sudden tightening of the brows.  There was no blow passed; even
+the Symbol, which glowed like a star against the night, was not so
+much as lifted in warning; but the young man tried to retort, and,
+finding himself smitten with a sudden dumbness, turned with a spasm
+of fear, and jumped back whence he had come.  The crowd of them
+thrilled expectantly, and when no further portent was given, they
+began to shout that a miracle should be shown them, and then
+perchance they would be persuaded back to the old allegiance.
+
+The old man stooped and glowered at them in fury.  "You dogs,"
+he cried, "you empty-witted dogs!  Do you ask that I should degrade
+the powers of the Higher Mysteries by dancing them out before you
+as though they were a mummers' show?  Do you tickle yourselves that
+you are to be tempted back to your allegiance?  It is for you to
+woo the Gods who are so offended.  Come in humility, and I take it
+upon myself to declare that you will receive fitting pardon and
+relief.  Remain stubborn, and the scourge, Phorenice, may torment
+you into annihilation before she in turn is made to answer for the
+evil she has put upon the land.  There is the choice for you to
+pick at."
+
+The turmoil of voices rose again into the wetness of the
+night, and weapons were upraised menacingly.  It was clear that the
+party for independence had by far the greater weight, both in
+numbers and lustiness; and those who might, from sheer weariness of
+strife, have been willing for surrender, withheld their word
+through terror of the consequence.  It was a fine comment on the
+freedom of speech, about which these unruly fools had made their
+boast, and, with a sly malice, I could not help whispering a word
+on this to Nais as she stood at my elbow.  But Nais clutched at my
+hand, and implored me for caution.  "Oh, be silent, my lord," she
+whispered back, "or they will tear you in pieces.  They are on fire
+for mischief now."
+
+"Yet a few hours back you were for killing me yourself," I
+could not help reminding her.
+
+She turned on me with a hot look.  "A woman can change her
+mind, my lord.  But it becomes you little to remind her of her
+fickleness."
+
+A man in the press beside me wrenched round with an effort,
+and stared at me searchingly through the darkness.  "Oh!" he said. 
+"A shaved chin.  Who are you, friend, that you should cut a beard
+instead of curling it?  I can see no wound on your face."
+
+I answered him civilly enough that, with "freedom" for a
+watchword, the fashion of my chin was a matter of mere private
+concern.  But as that did not satisfy him, and as he seemed to be
+one of those quarrelsome fellows that are the bane of every
+community, I took him suddenly by the throat and the shoulder, and
+bent his neck with the old, quick turn till I heard it crack,
+and had unhanded him before any of his neighbours had seen what had
+befallen.  The fierce press of the crowd held him from slipping to
+the ground, and so he stood on there where he was, with his head
+nodded forward, as though he had fallen asleep through heaviness,
+or had fainted through the crushing of his fellows.  I had no
+desire to begin that last fight of mine in a place like this, where
+there was no room to swing a weapon, nor chance to clear a battle
+ring.
+
+But all this time the lean preacher from the mountains was
+sending forth his angry anathemas, and still holding the strained
+attention of the people.  And next he set forth before them the
+cult of the Gods in the ancient form as is prescribed, and they
+(with old habit coming back to them) made response in the words and
+in the places where the old ritual enjoins.  It was weird enough
+sight, that time-honoured service of adoration, forced upon these
+wild people after so long a period of irreligion.
+
+They warmed to the old words as the high shrill voice of the
+priest cried them forth, and as they listened, and as they realised
+how intimate was the care of the Gods for the travails and sorrows
+of their daily lives, so much warmer grew their responses.
+
+". . . WHO STILLED THE BURNING OF THE MOUNTAINS, AND MADE
+COOL PLACES ON THE EARTH FOR US TO LIVE!--PRAISE TO THE MOST
+HIGH GODS.
+
+"WHO GAVE US MASTERY OVER THE LESSER BEASTS AND SKILL OF
+TEN TIMES TO PREVAIL!--PRAISE TO THE MOST HIGH GODS. . . ."
+
+"WHO GAVE US MASTERY OVER THE LESSER BEASTS AND SKILL OF
+TEN TIMES TO PREVAIL!--PRAISE TO THE MOST HIGH GODS . . . ."
+
+It thrilled one to hear their earnestness; it sorrowed one to
+know that they would yet be obdurate and not return to their old
+allegiance.  For this is the way with these common people; they
+will work up an enthusiasm one minute, and an hour later it will
+have fled away and left them cold and empty.
+
+But Zaemon made no further calls upon their loyalty.  He
+finished the prescribed form of sentences, and stepped down off the
+platform of the war engine with the Symbol of our Lord the Sun
+thrust out resolutely before him.  To all ordinary seeming the
+crowd had been packed so that no further compression was possible,
+but before the advance of the Symbol the people crushed back,
+leaving a wide lane for his passage.
+
+And here came the turning point of my life.  At first, like,
+I take it, every one else in that crowd, I imagined that the old
+man, having finished his mission, was making a way to return to the
+place from which he had come.  But he held steadily to one
+direction, and as that was towards myself, it naturally came to my
+mind that, having dealt with greater things, he would now settle
+with the less; or, in plainer words, that having put his policy
+before the swarming people, he would now smite down the man he had
+seen but yesterday seated as Phorenice's minister.  Well, I should
+lose that final fight I had promised myself, and that mound of
+slain for my funeral bed.  It was clear that Zaemon was the
+mouthpiece of the Priests' Clan, duly appointed; and I also was a
+priest.  If the word had been given on the Sacred Mountain to those
+who sat before the Ark of the Mysteries that Atlantis would prosper
+more with Deucalion sent to the Gods, I was ready to bow to the
+sentence with submissiveness.  That I had regret for this mode of
+cutting off, I will not deny.  No man who has practised the game of
+arms could abandon the promise of such a gorgeous final battle
+without a qualm of longing.
+
+But I had been trained enough to show none of these emotions
+on my face, and when the old man came up to me, I stood my ground
+and gave him the salutation prescribed between our ranks, which he
+returned to me with circumstance and accuracy.  The crowd fell
+back, being driven away by the ineffable force of the Symbol,
+leaving us alone in the middle of a ring.  Even Nais, though she
+was a priest's daughter, was ignorant of the Mysteries, and could
+not withstand its force.  And so we two men stood there alone
+together, with the glow of the Symbol bathing us, and lighting
+up the sea of ravenous faces that watched.
+
+The people were quick to put their natural explanation on the
+scene.  "A spy!" they began to roar out.  "A spy!  Zaemon salutes
+him as a Priest!"
+
+Zaemon faced round on them with a queer look on his grim old
+face.  "Aye," he said, "this is a Priest.  If I give you his name,
+you might have further interest.  This is the Lord Deucalion."
+
+The word was picked up and yelled amongst them with a thousand
+emotions.  But at least they were loyal to their policy; they had
+decided that Deucalion was their enemy; they had already expended
+a navy for his destruction; and now that he was ringed in by their
+masses, they lusted to tear him into rags with their fingers.  But
+rave and rave though they might against me, the glare from the
+Symbol drove them shuddering back as though it had been a
+lava-stream; and Zaemon was not the man to hand me over to their
+fury until he had delivered formal sentence as the emissary of our
+Clan on the Sacred Mount.  So the end was not to be yet.
+
+The old man faced me and spoke in the sacred tongue, which the
+common people do not know.  "My brother," he said, "which have you
+come to serve, Deucalion or Atlantis?"
+
+"Words are a poor thing to answer a question like that.  You
+will know all of my record.  According to the Law of the Priests,
+each ship from Yucatan will have carried home its sworn report to
+lay at the feet of their council, and before I went to that
+vice-royalty, what I did was written plain here on the face of
+Atlantis."
+
+"We know your doings in the past, brother, and they have found
+approval.  You have governed well, and you have lived austerely. 
+You set up Atlantis for a mistress, and served her well; but then,
+you have had no Phorenice to tempt you into change and fickleness."
+
+"You can send me where I shall see her no more, if you think
+me frail."
+
+"Yes, and lose your usefulness.  No, brother, you are the last
+hope which this poor land has remaining.  All other human means
+that have been tried against Phorenice have failed.  You have
+returned from overseas for the final duel.  You are the strongest
+man we have, and you are our final champion.  If you fail, then
+only those terrible Powers which are locked within the Ark of the
+Mysteries remains to us, and though it is not lawful to speak even
+in this hidden tongue of their scope, you at least have full
+assurance of their potency."
+
+I shrugged my shoulders.  "It seems that you would save time
+and pains if you threw me to these wolves of rebels, and let them
+end me here and now."
+
+The old man frowned on me angrily.  "I am bidding you do your
+duty.  What reason have you for wishing to evade it?"
+
+"I have in my memory the words you spoke in the pyramid, when
+you came in amongst the banqueters.  'PHORENICE,' was your
+cry, 'WHILST YOU ARE YET EMPRESS, YOU SHALL SEE THIS ROYAL
+PYRAMID, WHICH YOU HAVE POLLUTED WITH YOUR DEBAUCHERIES, TORN TIER
+FROM TIER, AND STONE FROM STONE, AND SCATTERED AS FEATHERS BEFORE
+A WIND.'  It seems that you foresee my defeat."
+
+The old man shuddered.  "I cannot tell what she may force us
+to do.  I spoke then only what it was revealed to me must happen. 
+Perhaps when matters have reached that pass, she will repent and
+submit.  But in the meanwhile, before we use the more desperate
+weapons of the Gods, it is fitting that we should expend all human
+power remaining to us.  And so you must go, my brother, and play
+your part to the utmost."
+
+"It is an order.  So I obey."
+
+"You shall be at Phorenice's side again by the next dawn.  She
+has sent for you from Yucatan as a husband, and as one who (so she
+thinks, poor human conqueror) has the weight of arm necessary to
+prolong her tyrannies.  You are a Priest, brother, and you are a
+man of convincing tongue.  It will be your part to make her
+stubborn mind see the invincible power that can be loosed against
+her, to point out to her the utter hopelessness of prevailing
+against it."
+
+"If it is ordered, I will do these things.  But there is
+little enough chance of success.  I have seen Phorenice, and can
+gauge her will.  There will be no turning her once she has made a
+decision.  Others have tried; you have tried yourself; all have
+failed."
+
+"Words that were wasted on a maiden may go home to a wife. 
+You have been brought here to be her husband.  Well, take your
+place."
+
+The order came to me with a pang.  I had given little enough
+heed to women through all of a busy life, though when I landed, the
+taking of Phorenice to wife would not have been very repugnant to
+me if policy had demanded it.  But the matters of the last two days
+had put things in a different shape.  I had seen two other women
+who had strangely attracted me, and one of these had stirred within
+me a tumult such as I had never felt before amongst my economies.
+
+To lead Phorenice in marriage would mean a severance from this
+other woman eternally, and I ached as I thought of it.  But though
+these thoughts floated through my system and gave me harsh wrenches
+of pain, I did not thrust my puny likings before the command of the
+council of the Priests.  I bowed before Zaemon, and put his hand to
+my forehead.  "It is an order," I said.  "If our Lord the Sun gives
+me life, I will obey."
+
+"Then let us begone from this place," said Zaemon, and took me
+by the arm and waved a way for us with the Symbol.  No further word
+did I have with Nais, fearing to embroil her with these rebels who
+clustered round, but I caught one hot glance from her eyes, and
+that had to suffice for farewell.  The dense ranks of the crowd
+opened, and we walked away between them scathless.  Fiercely though
+they lusted for my life, brimming with hate though they made their
+cries, no man dared to rush in and raise a hand against me. 
+Neither did they follow.  When we reached the outskirts of the
+crowd, and the ranks thinned, they had a mind, many of them, to
+surge along in our wake; but Zaemon whirled the Symbol back before
+their faces with a blaze of lurid light, and they fell to their
+knees, grovelling, and pressed on us no more.
+
+The rain still fell, and in the light of the camp fires as we
+passed them, the wet gleamed on the old man's wasted body.  And far
+before us through the darkness loomed the vast bulk of the Sacred
+Mountain, with the ring of eternal fires encincturing its crest. 
+I sighed as I thought of the old peaceful days I had spent in its
+temple and groves.
+
+But there was to be no more of that studious leisure now. 
+There was work to be done, work for Atlantis which did not brook
+delay.  And so when we had progressed far out into the waste, and
+there was none near to view (save only the most High Gods), we
+found the place where the passage was, whose entrance is known only
+to the Seven amongst the Priests; and there we parted, Zaemon to
+his hermitage in the dangerous lands, and I by this secret way back
+into the capital.
+
+
+
+9.  PHORENICE, GODDESS
+
+
+Now the passage, though its entrance had been cunningly hidden
+by man's artifice, was one of those veins in which the fiery blood
+of our mother, the Earth, had aforetime coursed.  Long years had
+passed since it carried lava streams, but the air in it was still
+warm and sulphurous, and there was no inducement to linger in
+transit.  I lit me a lamp which I found in an appointed niche, and
+walked briskly along my ways, coughing, and wishing heartily I had
+some of those simples which ease a throat that has a tendency to
+catarrh.  But, alas! all that packet of drugs which were my sole
+spoil from the vice-royalty of Yucatan were lost in the sea-fight
+with Dason's navy, and since landing in Atlantis there had been
+little enough time to think for the refinements of medicine.
+
+The network of earth-veins branched prodigiously, and if any
+but one of us Seven Priests had found a way into its recesses by
+chance, he would have perished hopelessly in the windings, or have
+fallen into one of those pits which lead to the boil below.  But I
+carried the chart of the true course clearly in my head,
+remembering it from that old initiation of twenty years back, when,
+as an appointed viceroy, I was raised to the highest degree but one
+known to our Clan, and was given its secrets and working
+implements.
+
+The way was long, the floor was monstrous uneven, and the air,
+as I have said, bad; and I knew that day would be far advanced
+before the signs told me that I had passed beneath the walls, and
+was well within the precincts of the city.  And here the vow of the
+Seven hampered my progress; for it is ordained that under no
+circumstances, whatever the stress, shall egress be made from this
+passage before mortal eye.  One branch after another did I try, but
+always found loiterers near the exits.  I had hoped to make my
+emergence by that path which came inside the royal pyramid.  But
+there was no chance of coming up unobserved here; the place was
+humming like a hive.  And so, too, with each of the five next
+outlets that I visited.  The city was agog with some strange
+excitement.
+
+But I came at last to a temple of one of the lesser Gods, and
+stood behind the image for a while making observation.  The place
+was empty; nay, from the dust which robed all the floors and the
+seats of the worshippers, it had been empty long enough; so I moved
+all that was needful, stepped out, and closed all entry behind me. 
+A broom lay unnoticed on one of the pews, and with this I soon
+disguised all route of footmark, and took my way to the temple
+door.  It was shut, and priest though I was, the secret of its
+opening was beyond me.
+
+Here was a pretty pass.  No one but the attendant priests of
+the temple could move the mechanism which closed and opened the
+massive stone which filled the doorway; and if all had gone out to
+attend this spectacle, whatever it might be, that was stirring the
+city, why there I should be no nearer enlargement than before.
+
+There was no sound of life within the temple precincts; there
+were evidences of decay and disuse spread broadcast on every hand;
+but according to the ancient law there should be eternally one at
+least on watch in the priests' dwellings, so down the passages
+which led to them I made my way.  It would have surprised me little
+to have found even these deserted.  That the old order was changed
+I knew, but I was only then beginning to realise the ruthlessness
+with which it had been swept away, and how much it had given place
+to the new.
+
+However, there can be some faithful men remaining even in an
+age of general apostasy, and on making my way to the door of the
+dwelling (which lay in the roof of the temple) I gave the call, and
+presently it was opened to me.  The man who stood before me,
+peering dully through the gloom, had at least remained constant to
+his vows, and I made the salutation before him with a feeling of
+respect.
+
+His name was Ro, and I remembered him well.  We had passed
+through the sacred college together, and always he had been known
+as the dullard.  He had capacity for learning little of the cult of
+the Gods, less of the arts of ruling, less still of the handling of
+arms; and he had been appointed to some lowly office in this
+obscure temple, and had risen to being its second priest and one of
+its two custodians merely through the desertion of all his
+colleagues.  But it was not pleasant to think that a fool should
+remain true where cleverer men abandoned the old beliefs.
+
+Ro did before me the greater obeisance.  He wore his beard
+curled in the prevailing fashion, but it was badly done.  His
+clothing was ill-fitting and unbrushed.  He always had been a
+slovenly fellow.  "The temple door is shut," he said, "and I only
+have the secret of its opening.  My lord comes here, therefore, by
+the secret way, and as one of the Seven.  I am my lord's servant."
+
+"Then I ask this small service of you.  Tell me, what stirs
+the city?"
+
+"That impious Phorenice has declared herself Goddess, and
+declares that she will light the sacrifice with her own divine
+fire.  She will do it, too.  She does everything.  But I wish the
+flames may burn her when she calls them down.  This new Empress is
+the bane of our Clan, Deucalion, these latter days.  The people
+neglect us; they bring no offerings; and now, since these rebels
+have been hammering at the walls, I might have gone hungry if I had
+not some small store of my own.  Oh, I tell you, the cult of the
+true Gods is well-nigh oozed quite out  of the land."
+
+"My brother, it comes to my mind that the Priests of our Clan
+have been limp in their service to let these things come to pass."
+
+"I suppose we have done our best.  At least, we did as we were
+taught.  But if the people will not come to hear your exhortations,
+and neglect to adore the God, what hold have you over their
+religion?  But I tell you, Deucalion, that the High Gods try our
+own faith hard.  Come into the dwelling here.  Look there on my
+bed."
+
+I saw the shape of a man, untidily swathed in reddened
+bandages.
+
+"This is all that is left of the poor priest that was my
+immediate superior in this cure.  It was his turn yesterday to
+celebrate the weekly sacrifice to our Lord the Sun with the circle
+of His great stones.  Faugh!  Deucalion, you should have seen how
+he was mangled when they brought him back to me here."
+
+"Did the people rise on him?  Has it come to that?"
+
+"The people stayed passive," said Ro bitterly, "what few of
+them had interest to attend; but our Lord the Sun saw fit to try
+His minister somewhat harshly.  The wood was laid; the sacrifice
+was disposed upon it according to the prescribed rites; the
+procession had been formed round the altar, and the drums and the
+trumpets were speaking forth, to let all men know that presently
+the smoke of their prayer would be wafted up towards Those that sit
+in the great places in the heavens.  But then, above the noise of
+the ceremonial, there came the rushing sound of wings, and from out
+of the sky there flew one of those great featherless man-eating
+birds, of a bigness such as seldom before has been seen."
+
+"An arrow shot in the eye, or a long-shafted spear receives
+them best."
+
+"Oh, all men know what they were taught as children,
+Deucalion; but these priests were unarmed, according to the rubric,
+which ordains that they shall intrust themselves completely to the
+guardianship of the High Gods during the hours of sacrifice.  The
+great bird swooped down, settling on the wood pyre, and attacked
+the sacrifice with beak and talon.  My poor superior here, still
+strong in his faith, called loudly on our Lord the Sun to lend
+power to his arm, and sprang up on the altar with naught but his
+teeth and his bare arms for weapons.  It may be that he expected a
+miracle--he has not spoke since, poor soul, in explanation--but all
+he met were blows from leathery wings, and rakings from talons
+which went near to disembowelling him.  The bird brushed him away
+as easily as we could sweep aside a fly, and there he lay bleeding
+on the pavement beside the altar, whilst the sacrifice was torn and
+eaten in the presence of all the people.  And then, when the bird
+was glutted, it flew away again to the mountains."
+
+"And the people gave no help?"
+
+"They cried out that the thing was a portent, that our Lord
+the Sun was a God no longer if He had not power or thought to guard
+His own sacrifice; and some cried that there was no God remaining
+now, and others would have it that there was a new God come to
+weigh on the country, which had chosen to take the form of a common
+man-eating bird.  But a few began to shout that Phorenice stood for
+all the Gods now in Atlantis, and that cry was taken up till the
+stones of the great circle rang with it.  Some may have made
+proclamations because they were convinced; many because the cry was
+new, and pleased them; but I am sure there were not a few who
+joined in because it was dangerous to leave such an outburst
+unwelcomed.  The Empress can be hard enough to those who neglect to
+give her adulation."
+
+"The Empress is Empress," I said formally, "and her name
+carries respect.  It is not for us to question her doings."
+
+"I am a priest," said Ro, "and I speak as I have been taught,
+and defend the Faith as I have been commanded.  Whether there is a
+Faith any longer, I am beginning to doubt.  But, anyway, it yields
+a poor enough livelihood nowadays.  There have been no offerings at
+this temple this five months past, and if I had not a few jars of
+corn put by, I might have starved for anything the pious of this
+city cared.  And I do not think that the affair of that sacrifice
+is likely to put new enthusiasm into our cold votaries."
+
+"When did it happen?"
+
+"Twenty hours ago.  To-day Phorenice conducts the sacrifice
+herself.  That has caused the stir you spoke about.  The city is in
+the throes of getting ready one of her pageants."
+
+"Then I must ask you to open the temple doors and give me
+passage.  I must go and see this thing for myself."
+
+"It is not for me to offer advice to one of the Seven," said
+Ro doubtfully.
+
+"It is not."
+
+"But they say that the Empress is not overpleased at your
+absence," he mumbled.  "I should not like harm to come in your way,
+Deucalion," he said aloud.
+
+"The future is in the hands of the most High Gods, Ro, and I
+at least believe that They will deal out our fates to each of us as
+They in Their infinite wisdom see best, though you seem to have
+lost your faith.  And now I must be your debtor for a passage out
+through the doors.  Plagues! man, it is no use your holding out
+your hand to me.  I do not own a coin in all the world."
+
+He mumbled something about "force of habit" as he led the way
+down towards the door, and I responded tartly enough about the
+unpleasantness of his begging customs.  "If it were not for your
+sort and your customs, the Priests' Clan would not be facing this
+crisis to-day."
+
+"One must live," he grumbled, as he pressed his levers, and
+the massive stone in the doorway swung ajar.
+
+"If you had been a more capable man, I might have seen the
+necessity," said I, and passed into the open and left him.  I could
+never bring myself to like Ro.
+
+A motley crowd filled the street which ran past the front of
+this obscure temple, and all were hurrying one way.  With what I
+had been told, it did not take much art to guess that the great
+stone circle of our Lord the Sun was their mark, and it grieved me
+to think of how many venerable centuries that great fane had
+upreared before the weather and the earth tremors, without such
+profanation as it would witness to-day.  And also the thought
+occurred to me, "Was our Great Lord above drawing this woman on to
+her destruction?  Would He take some vast and final act of
+vengeance when she consummated her final sacrilege?"
+
+But the crowd pressed on, thrilled and excited, and thinking
+little (as is a crowd's wont) on the deeper matters which lay
+beneath the bare spectacle.  From one quarter of the city walls the
+din of an attack from the besiegers made itself clearly heard from
+over the house, and the temples and the palaces intervening, but no
+one heeded it.  They had grown callous, these townsfolk, to the
+battering of rams, and the flight of fire-darts, and the other
+emotions of a bombardment.  Their nerves, their hunger, their
+desperation, were strung to such a pitch that little short of an
+actual storm could stir them into new excitement over the siege.
+
+All were weaponed.  The naked carried arms in the hopes of
+meeting some one whom they could overcome and rob; those that had
+a possession walked ready to do a battle for its ownership.  There
+was no security, no trust; the lesson of civilisation had dropped
+away from these common people as mud is washed from the feet by
+rain, and in their new habits and their thoughts they had gone back
+to the grade from which savages like those of Europe have never yet
+emerged.  It was a grim commentary on the success of Phorenice's
+rule.
+
+The crowd merged me into their ranks without question, and
+with them I pressed forward down the winding streets, once so clean
+and trim, now so foul and mud-strewn.  Men and women had died of
+hunger in these streets these latter years, and rotted where they
+lay, and we trod their bones underfoot as we walked.  Yet rising
+out of this squalor and this misery were great pyramids and
+palaces, the like of which for splendour and magnificence had never
+been seen before.  It was a jarring admixture.
+
+In time we came to the open space in the centre of the city,
+which even Phorenice had not dared to encroach upon with her
+ambitious building schemes, and stood on the secular ground which
+surrounds the most ancient, the most grand, and the breast of all
+this world's temples.
+
+Since the beginning of time, when man first emerged amongst
+the beasts, our Lord the Sun has always been his chiefest God, and
+legend says that He raised this circle of stones Himself to be a
+place where votaries should offer Him worship.  It is the fashion
+amongst us moderns not to take these old tales in a too literal
+sense, but for myself, this one satisfies me.  By our wits we can
+lift blocks weighing six hundred men, and set them as the capstones
+of our pyramids.  But to uprear the stones of that great circle
+would be beyond all our art, and much more would it be impossible
+to-day, to transport them from their distant quarries across the
+rugged mountains.
+
+There were nine-and-forty of the stones, alternating with
+spaces, and set in an accurate circle, and across the tops of them
+other stones were set, equally huge.  The stones were undressed and
+rugged; but the huge massiveness of them impressed the eye more
+than all the temples and daintily tooled pyramids of our wondrous
+city.  And in the centre of the circle was that still greater stone
+which formed the altar, and round which was carved, in the rude
+chiselling of the ancients, the snake and the outstretched hand.
+
+The crowd which bore me on came to a standstill before the
+circle of stones.  To trespass beyond this is death for the common
+people; and for myself, although I had the right of entrance, I
+chose to stay where I was for the present, unnoticed amongst the
+mob, and wait upon events.
+
+For long enough we stood there, our Lord the Sun burning high
+and fiercely from the clear blue sky above our heads.  The din of
+the rebels' attack upon the walls came to us clearly, even above
+the gabble of the multitude, but no one gave attention to it. 
+Excitement about what was to befall in the circle mastered every
+other emotion.
+
+I learned afterways that so pressing was the rebels' attack,
+and so destructive the battering of their new war engines, that
+Phorenice had gone off to the walls first to lend awhile her
+brilliant skill for its repulse, and to put heart into the
+defenders.  But as it was, the day had burned out to its middle and
+scorched us intolerably, before the noise of the drums and horns
+gave advertisement that the pageant had formed in procession; and
+of those who waited in the crowd, many had fainted with exhaustion
+and the heat, and not a few had died.  But life was cheap in the
+city of Atlantis now, and no one heeded the fallen.
+
+Nearer and nearer drew the drums and the braying of the other
+music, and presently the head of a glittering procession began to
+arrive and dispose itself in the space which had been set apart. 
+Many a thousand poor starving wretches sighed when they saw the
+wanton splendour of it.  But these lords and these courtiers of
+this new Atlantis had no concern beyond their own bellies and their
+own backs, except for their one alien regard--their simpering
+affection for Phorenice.
+
+I think, though, their loyalty for the Empress was real
+enough, and it was not to be wondered at, since everything they had
+came from her lavish hands.  Indeed, the woman had a charm that
+cannot be denied, for when she appeared, riding in the golden
+castle (where I also had ridden) on the back of her monstrous
+shaggy mammoth, the starved sullen faces of the crowd brightened as
+though a meal and sudden prosperity had been bestowed upon them;
+and without a word of command, without a trace of compulsion, they
+burst into spontaneous shouts of welcome.
+
+She acknowledged it with a smile of thanks.  Her cheeks were
+a little flushed, her movements quick, her manner high-strung, as
+all well might be, seeing the horrible sacrilege she had in mind. 
+But she was undeniably lovely; yes, more adorably beautiful than
+ever with her present thrill of excitement; and when the stair was
+brought, and she walked down from the mammoth's back to the ground,
+those near fell to their knees and gave her worship, out of sheer
+fascination for her beauty and charm.
+
+Ylga, the fan-girl, alone of all that vast multitude round the
+Sun temple contained herself with her formal paces and duties.  She
+looked pained and troubled.  It was plain to see, even from the
+distance where I stood, that she carried a heavy heart under the
+jewels of her robe.  It was fitting, too, that this should be so. 
+Though she had been long enough divorced from his care and fostered
+by the Empress, Ylga was a daughter of Zaemon, and he was the
+chiefest of our Lord the Sun's ministers here on earth.  She could
+not forget her upbringing now at this supreme moment when the
+highest of the old Gods was to be formally defied.  And perhaps
+also (having a kindness for Phorenice) she was not a little
+dreadful of the consequences.
+
+But the Empress had no eye for one sad look amongst all that
+sea of glowing faces.  Boldly and proudly she strode out into the
+circle, as though she had been the duly appointed priest for the
+sacrifice.  And after her came a knot of men, dressed as priests,
+and bearing the victim.  Some of these were creatures of her own,
+and it was easy to forgive mere ignorant laymen, won over by the
+glamour of Phorenice's presence.  But some, to their shame, were
+men born in the Priests' Clan, and brought up in the groves and
+colleges of the Sacred Mountain, and for their apostasy there could
+be no palliation.
+
+The wood had already been stacked on the altar-stone in the
+due form required by the ancient symbolism, and the Empress stood
+aside whilst those who followed did what was needful.  As they
+opened out, I saw that the victim was one of the small,
+cloven-hoofed horses that roam the plains--a most acceptable
+sacrifice.  They bound its feet with metal gyves, and put it on the
+pyre, where, for a while, it lay neighing.  Then they stepped
+aside, and left it living.  Here was an innovation.
+
+The false priests went back to the farther side of the circle,
+and Phorenice stood alone before the altar.  She lifted up her
+voice, sweet, tuneful, and carrying, and though the din of the
+siege still came from over the city, no ear there lost a word of
+what was spoken.
+
+She raised her glance aloft, and all other eyes followed it. 
+The heaven was clear as the deep sea, a gorgeous blue.  But as the
+words came from her, so a small mist was born in the sky, wheeling
+and circling like a ball, although the day was windless, and
+rapidly growing darker and more compact.  So dense had it become,
+that presently it threw a shadow on part of the sacred circle and
+soothed it into twilight, though all without where the people stood
+was still garish day.  And in the ball of mist were little quick
+stabs and splashes of noiseless flame.
+
+She spoke, not in the priests' sacred tongue--though such was
+her wicked cleverness, that she may very well have learned it--but
+in the common speech of the people, so that all who heard might
+understand; and she told of her wondrous birth (as she chose to
+name it), and of the direct aid of the most High Gods, which had
+enabled her to work so many marvels.  And in the end she lifted
+both of her fair white arms towards the blackness above, and with
+her lovely face set with the strain of will, she uttered her final
+cry:
+
+"O my high Father, the Sun, I pray You now to acknowledge me
+as Your very daughter.  Give this people a sign that I am indeed a
+child of the Gods and no frail mortal.  Here is sacrifice unlit,
+where mortal priests with their puny fires had weekly, since the
+foundation of this land, sent savoury smoke towards the sky.  I
+pray You send down the heavenly fire to burn this beast here
+offered, in token that though You still rule on high, You have
+given me Atlantis to be my kingdom, and the people of the Earth to
+be my worshippers."
+
+She broke off and strained towards the sky.  Her face was
+contorted.  Her limbs shook.  "O mighty Father," she cried, "who
+hast made me a God and an equal, hear me!  Hear me!"
+
+Out of the black cloud overhead there came a blinding flash of
+light, which spat downwards on to the altar.  The cloven-hoofed
+horse gave one shrill neigh, and one convulsion, and fell back
+dead.  Flames crackled out from the wood pile, and the air became
+rich with the smell of burning flesh.  And lo! in another moment
+the cloud above had melted into nothingness, and the flames burnt
+pale, and the smoke went up in a thin blue spiral towards the
+deeper blueness of the sky.
+
+Phorenice, the Empress, stood there before the great stone,
+and before the snake and the outstretched hand of life which were
+inscribed upon it, flushed, exultant, and once more radiantly
+lovely; and the knot of priests within the circle, and the great
+mob of people without, fell to the ground adoring.
+
+"Phorenice, Goddess!" they cried.  "Phorenice, Goddess of all
+Atlantis!"
+
+But for myself I did not kneel.  I would have no part in this
+apostasy, so I stood there awaiting fate.
+
+
+
+
+10.  A WOOING
+
+
+A murmur quickly sprang up round me, which grew into shouts. 
+"Kneel," one whispered, "kneel, sir, or you will be seen."  And
+another cried: "Kneel, you without beard, and do obeisance to the
+only Goddess, or by the old Gods I will make myself her priest and
+butcher you!"  And so the shouts arose into a roar.
+
+But presently the word "Deucalion" began to be bandied about,
+and there came a moderation in the zeal of these enthusiasts. 
+Deucalion, the man who had left Atlantis twenty years before to
+rule Yucatan, they might know little enough about, but Deucalion,
+who rode not many days back beside the Empress in the golden castle
+beneath the canopy of snakes, was a person they remembered; and
+when they weighed up his possible ability for vengeance, the shouts
+died away from them limply.
+
+So when the silence had grown again, and Phorenice turned and
+saw me standing alone amongst all the prostrate worshippers, I
+stepped out from the crowd and passed between two of the great
+stones, and went across the circle to where she stood beside the
+altar.  I did not prostrate myself.  At the prescribed distance I
+made the salutation which she herself had ordered when she made me
+her chief minister, and then hailed her with formal decorum as
+Empress.
+
+"Deucalion, man of ice," she retorted.
+
+"I still adhere to the old Gods!"
+
+"I was not referring to that," said she, and looked at me with
+a sidelong smile.
+
+But here Ylga came up to us with a face that was white, and a
+hand that shook, and made supplication for my life.  "If he will
+not leave the old Gods yet," she pleaded, "surely you will pardon
+him?  He is a strong man, and does not become a convert easily. 
+You may change him later.  But think, Phorenice, he is Deucalion;
+and if you slay him here for this one thing, there is no other man
+within all the marches of Atlantis who would so worthily serve--"
+
+The Empress took the words from her.  "You slut," she cried
+out.  "I have you near me to appoint my wardrobe, and carry my fan,
+and do you dare to put a meddling finger on my policies?  Back with
+you, outside this circle, or I'll have you whipped.  Ay, and I'll
+do more.  I'll serve you as Zaemon served my captain, Tarca.  Shall
+I point a finger at you, and smite your pretty skin with a sudden
+leprosy?"
+
+The girl bowed her shoulders, and went away cowed, and
+Phorenice turned to me.  "My lord," she said, "I am like a young
+bird in the nest that has suddenly found its wings.  Wings have so
+many uses that I am curious to try them all."
+
+"May each new flight they take be for the good of Atlantis."
+
+"Oh," she said, with an eye-flash, "I know what you have most
+at heart.  But we will go back to the pyramid, and talk this out at
+more leisure.  I pray you now, my lord, conduct me back to my
+riding beast."
+
+It appeared then that I was to be condoned for not offering
+her worship, and so putting public question on her deification.  It
+appeared also that Ylga's interference was looked upon as untimely,
+and, though I could not understand the exact reasons for either of
+these things, I accepted them as they were, seeing that they
+forwarded the scheme that Zaemon had bidden me carry out.
+
+So when the Empress lent me her fingers--warm, delicate
+fingers they were, though so skilful to grasp the weapons of war--I
+took them gravely, and led her out of the great circle, which she
+had polluted with her trickeries.  I had expected to see our Lord
+the Sun take vengeance on the profanation whilst it was still in
+act; but none had come: and I knew that He would choose his own
+good time for retribution, and appoint what instrument He thought
+best, without my raising a puny arm to guard His mighty honour.
+
+So I led this lovely sinful woman back to the huge red mammoth
+which stood there tamely in waiting, and the smell of the sacrifice
+came after us as we walked.  She mounted the stair to the golden
+castle on the shaggy beast's back, and bade me mount also and take
+seat beside her.  But the place of the fan-girl behind was empty,
+and what we said as we rode back through the streets there was none
+to overhear.
+
+She was eager to know what had befallen me after the attack on
+the gate, and I told her the tale, laying stress on the worthiness
+of Nais, and uttering an opinion that with care the girl might be
+won back to allegiance again.  Only the commands that Zaemon laid
+upon me when he and I spoke together in the sacred tongue, did I
+withhold, as it is not lawful to repeat these matters save only in
+the High Council of the Priests itself as they sit before the Ark
+of the Mysteries.
+
+"You seem to have an unusual kindliness for this rebel Nais,"
+said Phorenice.
+
+"She showed herself to me as more clever and thoughtful than
+the common herd."
+
+"Ay," she answered, with a sigh that I think was real enough
+in its way, "an Empress loses much that meaner woman gets as her
+common due."
+
+"In what particular?"
+
+"She misses the honest wooing of her equals."
+
+"If you set up for a Goddess--" I said.
+
+"Pah!  I wish to be no Goddess to you, Deucalion.  That was
+for the common people; it gives me more power with them; it helps
+my schemes.  All you Seven higher priests know that trick of
+calling down the fire, and it pleased me to filch it.  Can you not
+be generous, and admit that a woman may be as clever in finding out
+these natural laws as your musty elder priests?"
+
+"Remains that you are Empress."
+
+"Nor Empress either.  Just think that there is a woman seated
+beside you on this cushion, Deucalion, and look upon her, and say
+what words come first to your lips.  Have done with ceremonies, and
+have done with statecraft.  Do you wish to wait on as you are till
+all your manhood withers?  It is well not to hurry unduly in these
+matters: I am with you there.  Yet, who but a fool watches a fruit
+grow ripe, and then leaves it till it is past its prime?"
+
+I looked on her glorious beauty, but as I live it left me
+cold.  But I remembered the command that had been laid upon me, and
+forced a smile.  "I may have been fastidious," I said, "but I do
+not regret waiting this long."
+
+"Nor I. But I have played my life as a maid, time enough.  I
+am a woman, ripe, and full-blooded, and the day has come when I
+should be more than what I have been."
+
+I let my hand clench on hers.  "Take me to husband then, and
+I will be a good man to you.  But, as I am bidden speak to
+Phorenice the woman now, and not to the Empress, I offer fair
+warning that I will be no puppet."
+
+She looked at me sidelong.  "I have been master so long that
+I think it will come as enjoyment to be mastered sometimes.  No,
+Deucalion, I promise that--you shall be no puppet.  Indeed, it
+would take a lusty lung to do the piping if you were to dance
+against your will."
+
+"Then, as man and wife we will live together in the royal
+pyramid, and we will rule this country with all the wit that it has
+pleased the High Gods to bestow on us.  These miserable differences
+shall be swept aside; the rebels shall go back to their homes, and
+hunt, and fight the beasts in the provinces, and the Priests' Clan
+shall be pacified.  Phorenice, you and I will throw ourselves brain
+and soul into the government, and we will make Atlantis rise as a
+nation that shall once more surpass all the world for peace and
+prosperity."
+
+Petulantly she drew her hand away from mine.  "oh, your
+conditions, and your Atlantis!  You carry a crudeness in these
+colonial manners of yours, Deucalion, that palls on one after the
+first blunt flavour has worn away.  Am I to do all the wooing?  Is
+there no thrill of love under all your ice?"
+
+"In truth, I do not know what love may be.  I have had little
+enough speech with women all these busy years."
+
+"We were a pair, then, when you landed, though I have heard
+sighs and protestations from every man that carries a beard in all
+Atlantis.  Some of them tickled my fancy for the day, but none of
+them have moved me deeper.  No, I also have not learned what this
+love may be from my own personal feelings.  But, sir, I think that
+you will teach me soon, if you go on with your coldness."
+
+"From what I have seen, love is for the poor, and the weak,
+and for those of flighty emotions."
+
+"Then I would that another woman were Empress, and that I were
+some ill-dressed creature of the gutter that a strong man could
+pick up by force, and carry away to his home for sheer passion. 
+Ah!  How I could revel in it!  How I could respond if he caught my
+whim!"  She laughed.  "But I should lead him a sad life of it if my
+liking were not so strong as his."
+
+"We are as we are made, and we cannot change our inwards which
+move us."
+
+She looked at me with a sullen glance.  "If I do not change
+yours, my Deucalion, there will be more trouble brewed for this
+poor Atlantis that you set such store upon.  There will be ill
+doings in this coming household of ours if my love grows for you,
+and yours remains still unborn."
+
+I believe she would have had me fondle her there in the golden
+castle on the mammoth's shabby back, before the city streets packed
+with curious people.  She had little enough appetite for privacy at
+any time.  But for the life of me I could not do it.  The Gods know
+I was earnest enough about my task, and They know also how it
+repelled me.  But I was a true priest that day, and I had put away
+all personal liking to carry out the commands which the Council had
+laid upon me.  If I had known how to set about it, I would have
+fallen in with her mood.  But where any of those shallow bedizened
+triflers about the court would have been glibly in his element, I
+stuck for lack of a dozen words.
+
+There was no help for it but to leave all, save what I actually
+felt, unsaid.  Diplomacy I was trained in, and on most matters
+I had a glib enough tongue.  But to palter with women was a
+lightness I had always neglected, and if I had invented would-be
+pretty speeches out of my clumsy inexperience, Phorenice would have
+seen through the fraud on the instant.  She had been nurtured
+during these years of her rule on a pap of these silly
+protestations, and could weigh their value with an expert's
+exactness.
+
+Nor was it a case where honest confession would have served my
+purpose better.  If I had put my position to her in plain words, it
+would have made relations worse.  And so perforce I had to hold my
+tongue, and submit to be considered a clown.
+
+"I had always heard," she said, "that you colonists in Yucatan
+were far ahead of those in Egypt in all the arts and graces.  But
+you, sir, do small credit to your vice-royalty.  Why, I have had
+gentry from the Nile come here, and you might almost think they had
+never left their native shores."
+
+"They must have made great strides this last twenty years,
+then.  When last I was sent to Egypt to report, the blacks were
+clearly masters of the land, and our people lived there only on
+sufferance.  Their pyramids were puny, and their cities nothing
+more than forts."
+
+"Oh," she said mockingly, "they are mere exiles still, but
+they remember their manners.  My poor face seemed to please them,
+at least they all went into raptures over it.  And for ten pleasant
+words, one of them cut off his own right hand.  We made the
+bargain, my Egyptian gallant and I, and the hand lies dried on some
+shelf in my apartment to-day as a pleasant memento."
+
+But here, by a lucky chance for me, an incident occurred which
+saved me from further baiting.  The rebels outside the walls were
+conducting their day's attack with vigour and some intelligence. 
+More than once during our procession the lighter missiles from
+their war engines had sung up through the air, and split against a
+building, and thrown splinters which wounded those who thronged the
+streets.  Still there had been nothing to ruffle the nerves of any
+one at all used to the haps of warfare, or in any way to hinder our
+courtship.  But presently, it seems, they stopped hurling stones
+from their war engines, and took to loading them with carcases of
+wood lined with the throwing fire.
+
+Now, against stone buildings these did little harm, save only
+that they scorched horribly any poor wretch that was within splash
+of them when they burst; but when they fell upon the rude wooden
+booths and rush shelters of the poorer folk, they set them ablaze
+instantly.  There was no putting out these fires.
+
+These things also would have given to either Phorenice or
+myself little enough of concern, as they are the trivial and common
+incidents of every siege; but the mammoth on which we rode had not
+been so properly schooled.  When the first blue whiff of smoke came
+to us down the windings of the street, the huge red beast hoisted
+its trunk, and began to sway its head uneasily.  When the smoke
+drifts grew more dense, and here and there a tongue of flame showed
+pale beneath the sunshine, it stopped abruptly and began to
+trumpet.
+
+The guards who led it, tugged manfully at the chains which
+hung from the jagged metal collar round its neck, so that the
+spikes ran deep into its flesh, and reminded it keenly of its
+bondage.  But the beast's terror at the fire, which was native to
+its constitution, mastered all its new-bought habits of obedience. 
+From time unknown men have hunted the mammoth in the savage ground,
+and the mammoth has hunted men; and the men have always used fire
+as a shield, and mammoths have learned to dread fire as the most
+dangerous of all enemies.
+
+Phorenice's brow began to darken as the great beast grew more
+restive, and she shook her red curls viciously.  "Some one shall
+lose a head for this blundering," said she.  "I ordered to have
+this beast trained to stand indifferent to drums, shouting, arrows,
+stones, and fire, and the trainers assured me that all was done,
+and brought examples."
+
+I slipped my girdle.  "Here," I said, "quick.  Let me lower
+you to the ground."
+
+She turned on me with a gleam.  "Are you afraid for my neck,
+then, Deucalion?"
+
+"I have no mind to be bereaved before I have tasted my wedded
+life."
+
+"Pish!  There is little enough of danger.  I will stay and ride
+it out.  I am not one of your nervous women, sir.  But go you,
+if you please."
+
+"There is little enough chance of that now."
+
+Blood flowed from the mammoth's neck where the spikes of the
+collar tore it, and with each drop, so did the tameness seem to
+ooze out from it also.  With wild squeals and trumpetings it turned
+and charged viciously down the way it had come, scattering like
+straws the spearmen who tried to stop it, and mowing a great swath
+through the crowd with its monstrous progress.  Many must have been
+trodden under foot, many killed by its murderous trunk, but only
+their cries came to us.  The golden castle, with its canopy of
+royal snakes, was swayed and tossed, so that we two occupants had
+much ado not to be shot off like stones from a catapult.  But I
+took a brace with my feet against the front, and one arm around a
+pillar, and clapped the spare arm round Phorenice, so as to offer
+myself to her as a cushion.
+
+She lay there contentedly enough, with her lovely face just
+beneath my chin, and the faint scent of her hair coming in to me
+with every breath I took; and the mammoth charged madly on through
+the narrow streets.  We had outstripped the taint of smoke, and the
+original cause of fear, but the beast seemed to have forgotten
+everything in its mad panic.  It held furiously on with enormous
+strides, carrying its trunk aloft, and deafening us with its
+screams and trumpetings.  We left behind us quickly all those who
+had trod in that glittering pageant, and we were carried helplessly
+on through the wards of the city.
+
+The beast was utterly beyond all control.  So great was its
+pace that there was no alternative but to try and cling on to the
+castle.  Up there we were beyond its reach.  To have leapt off,
+even if we had avoided having brains dashed out or limbs smashed by
+the fall, would have been to put ourselves at once at a frightful
+disadvantage.  The mammoth would have scented us immediately, and
+turned (as is the custom of these beasts), and we should have been
+trampled into a pulp in a dozen seconds.
+
+The thought came to me that here was the High God's answer to
+Phorenice's sacrilege.  The mammoth was appointed to carry out
+Their vengeance by dashing her to pieces, and I, their priest, was
+to be human witness that justice had been done.  But no direct
+revelation had been given me on this matter, and so I took no
+initiative, but hung on to the swaying castle, and held the Empress
+against bruises in my arms.
+
+There was no guiding the brute: in its insanity of madness it
+doubled many times upon its course, the windings of the streets
+confusing it.  But by degrees we left the large palaces and
+pyramids behind, and got amongst the quarters of artisans, where
+weavers and smiths gaped at us from their doors as we thundered
+past.  And then we came upon the merchants' quarters where men live
+over their storehouses that do traffic with the people over seas,
+and then down an open space there glittered before us a mirror of
+water.
+
+"Now here," thought I, "this mad beast will come to sudden
+stop, and as like as not will swerve round sharply and charge back
+again towards the heart of the city."  And I braced myself to
+withstand the shock, and took fresh grip upon the woman who lay
+against my breast.  But with louder screams and wilder trumpetings
+the mammoth held straight on, and presently came to the harbour's
+edge, and sent the spray sparkling in sheets amongst the sunshine
+as it went with its clumsy gait into the water.
+
+But at this point the pace was very quickly slackened.  The
+great sewers, which science devised for the health of the city in
+the old King's time, vomit their drainings into this part of the
+harbour, and the solid matter which they carry is quickly deposited
+as an impalpable sludge.  Into this the huge beast began to sink
+deeper and deeper before it could halt in its rush, and when with
+frightened bellowings it had come to a stop, it was bogged
+irretrievably.  Madly it struggled, wildly it screamed and
+trumpeted.  The harbour-water and the slime were churned into one
+stinking compost, and the golden castle in which we clung lurched
+so wildly that we were torn from it and shot far away into the
+water.
+
+Still there, of course, we were safe, and I was pleased enough
+to be rid of the bumpings.
+
+Phorenice laughed as she swam.  "You handle yourself like a
+sore man, Deucalion.  I owe you something for lending me the
+cushion of your body.  By my face!  There's more of the gallant
+about you when it comes to the test than one would guess to hear
+you talk.  How did you like the ride, sir?  I warrant it came to
+you as a new experience."
+
+"I'd liefer have walked."
+
+"Pish, man!  You'll never be a courtier.  You should have
+sworn that with me in your arms you could have wished the bumping
+had gone on for ever.  Ho, the boat there!  Hold your arrows. 
+Deucalion, hail me those fools in that boat.  Tell them that, if
+they hurt so much as a hair of my mammoth, I'll kill them all by
+torture.  He'll exhaust himself directly, and when his flurry's
+done we'll leave him where he is to consider his evil ways for a
+day or so, and then haul him out with windlasses, and tame him
+afresh.  Pho!  I could not feel myself to be Phorenice, if I had no
+fine, red, shaggy mammoth to take me out for my rides."
+
+The boat was a ten-slave galley which was churning up from the
+farther side of the harbour as hard as well-plied whips could make
+oars drive her, but at the sound of my shouts the soldiers on her
+foredeck stopped their arrowshots, and the steersman swerved her
+off on a new course to pick us up.  Till then we had been swimming
+leisurely across an angle of the harbour, so as to avoid landing
+where the sewers outpoured; but we stopped now, treading the water,
+and were helped over the side by most respectful hands.
+
+The galley belonged to the captain of the port, a mincing
+figure of a mariner, whose highest appetite in life was to lick the
+feet of the great, and he began to fawn and prostrate himself at
+once, and to wish that his eyes had been blinded before he saw the
+Empress in such deadly peril.
+
+"The peril may pass," said she.  "It's nothing mortal that
+will ever kill me.  But I have spoiled my pretty clothes, and shed
+a jewel or two, and that's annoying enough as you say, good man."
+
+The silly fellow repeated a wish that he might be blinded
+before the Empress was ever put to such discomfort again.
+
+But it seemed she could be cloyed with flattery.  "If you are
+tired of your eyes," said she, "let me tell you that you have gone
+the way to have them plucked out from their sockets.  Kill my
+mammoth, would you, because he has shown himself a trifle
+frolicsome?  You and your sort want more education, my man.  I
+shall have to teach you that port-captains and such small creatures
+are very easy to come by, and very small value when got, but that
+my mammoth is mine--mine, do you understand?--the property of
+Goddess Phorenice, and as such is sacred."
+
+The port-captain abased himself before her.  "I am an ignorant
+fellow," said he, "and heaven was robbed of its brightest ornament
+when Phorenice came down to Atlantis.  But if reparation is
+permitted me, I have two prisoners in the cabin of the boat here
+who shall be sacrificed to the mammoth forthwith.  Doubtless it
+would please him to make sport with them, and spill out the last
+lees of his rage upon their bodies."
+
+"Prisoners you've got, have you?  How taken?"
+
+"Under cover of last night they were trying to pass in between
+the two forts which guard the harbour mouth.  But their boat fouled
+the chain, and by the light of the torches the sentries spied them. 
+They were caught with ropes, and put in a dungeon.  There is an
+order not to abuse prisoners before they have been brought before
+a judgment?"
+
+"It was my order.  Did these prisoners offer to buy their
+lives with news?"
+
+"The man has not spoken.  Indeed, I think he got his death-wound
+in being taken.  The woman fought like a cat also, so they said
+in the fort, but she was caught without hurt.  She says she has
+got nothing that would be of use to tell.  She says she has
+tired of living like a savage outside the city, and moreover that,
+inside, there is a man for whose nearness she craves most
+mightily."
+
+"Tut!" said Phorenice.  "Is this a romance we have swum to? 
+You see what affectionate creatures we women are, Deucalion."--The
+galley was brought up against the royal quay and made fast to its
+golden rings.  I handed the Empress ashore, but she turned again
+and faced the boat, her garments still yielding up a slender drip
+of water.--"Produce your woman prisoner, master captain, and let us
+see whether she is a runaway wife, or a lovesick girl mad after her
+sweetheart.  Then I will deliver judgment on her, and as like as
+not will surprise you all with my clemency.  I am in a mood for
+tender romance to-day."
+
+The port-captain went into the little hutch of a cabin with a
+white face.  It was plain that Phorenice's pleasantries scared him. 
+"The man appears to be dead, Your Majesty.  I see that his
+wounds--"
+
+"Bring out the woman, you fool.  I asked for her.  Keep your
+carrion where it is."
+
+I saw the fellow stoop for his knife to cut a lashing, and
+presently who should he bring out to the daylight but the girl I
+had saved from the cave-tigers in the circus, and who had so
+strangely drawn me to her during the hours that we had spent
+afterwards in companionship.  It was clear, too, that the Empress
+recognised her also.  Indeed, she made no secret about the matter,
+addressing her by name, and mockingly making inquiries about the
+menage of the rebels, and the success of the prisoner's amours.
+
+"This good port-captain tells me that you made a most valiant
+attempt to return, Nais, and for an excuse you told that it was
+your love for some man in the city here which drew you.  Come, now,
+we are willing to overlook much of your faults, if you will give us
+a reasonable chance.  Point me out your man, and if he is a proper
+fellow, I will see that he weds you honestly.  Yes, and I will do
+more for you, Nais, since this day brings me to a husband.  Seeing
+that all your estate is confiscate as a penalty for your late
+rebellion, I will charge myself with your dowry, and give it back
+to you.  So come, name me the man."
+
+The girl looked at her with a sullen brow.  "I spoke a lie,"
+she said; "there is no man."
+
+I tried myself to give her advocacy.  "The lady doubtless
+spoke what came to her lips.  When a woman is in the grip of a rude
+soldiery, any excuse which can save her for the moment must serve. 
+For myself, I should think it like enough that she would confess to
+having come back to her old allegiance, if she were asked."
+
+"Sir," said the Empress, "keep your peace.  Any interest you
+may show in this matter will go far to offend me. You have spoken
+of Nais in your narrative before, and although your tongue was
+shrewd and you did not say much, I am a woman and I could read
+between the lines.  Now regard, my rebel, I have no wish to be
+unduly hard upon you, though once you were my fan-girl, and so your
+running away to these ill-kempt malcontents, who beat their heads
+against my city walls, is all the more naughty.  But you must meet
+me halfway.  You must give an excuse for leniency.  Point me out
+the man you would wed, and he shall be your husband to-morrow."
+
+"There is no man."
+
+"Then name me one at random.  Why, my pretty Nais, not ten
+months ago there were a score who would have leaped at the chance
+of having you for a wife.  Drop your coyness, girl, and name me one
+of those.  I warrant you that I will be your ambassadress and will
+put the matter to him with such delicacy that he will not make you
+blush by refusal."
+
+The prisoner moistened her lips.  "I am a maiden, and I have a
+maiden's modesty.  I will die as you choose, but I will not do
+this indecency."
+
+"Well, I am a maiden too, and though because I am Empress
+also, questions of State have to stand before questions of my
+private modesty, I can have a sympathy for yours--although in truth
+it did not obtrude unduly when you were my fan-girl, Nais.  No,
+come to think of it, you liked a tender glance and a pretty phrase
+as well as any when you were fan-girl.  You have grown wild and
+shy, amongst these savage rebels, but I will not punish you for
+that.
+
+"Let me call your favourites to memory now.  There was Tarca,
+of course, but Tarca had a difference with that ill-dressed father
+of yours, and wears a leprosy on half his face instead of that
+beard he used to trim so finely.  And then there is Tatho, but
+Tatho is away overseas.  Eron, too, you liked once, but be lost an
+arm in fighting t'other day, and I would not marry you to less than
+a whole man.  Ah, by my face!  I have it, the dainty exquisite,
+Rota!  He is the husband!  How well I remember the way he used to
+dress in a change of garb each day to catch your proud fancy, girl. 
+Well, you shall have Rota.  He shall lead you to wife before this
+hour to-morrow."
+
+Again the prisoner moistened her lips.  "I will not have Rota,
+and spare me the others.  I know why you mock me, Phorenice."
+
+"Then there are three of us here who share one
+knowledge."--She turned her eyes upon me.  Gods! who ever saw the
+like of Phorenice's eyes, and who ever saw them lit with such fire
+as burned within them then?--"My lord, you are marrying me for
+policy; I am marrying you for policy, and for another reason which
+has grown stronger of late, and which you may guess at.  Do you
+wish still to carry out the match?"
+
+I looked once at Nais, and then I looked steadily back to
+Phorenice.  The command given by the mouth of Zaemon from the High
+Council of the Sacred Mountain had to outweigh all else, and I
+answered that such was my desire.
+
+"Then," said she, glowering at me with her eyes, "you shall
+build me up the pretty body of Nais beneath a throne of granite as
+a wedding gift.  And you shall do it too with your own proper
+hands, my Deucalion, whilst I watch your devotion."
+
+And to Nais she turned with a cruel smile.  "You lied to me,
+my girl, and you spoke truth to the soldiers in the harbour forts. 
+There is a man here in the city you came after, and he is the one
+man you may not have.  Because you know me well, and my methods
+very thoroughly, your love for him must be very deep, or you would
+not have come.  And so, being here, you shall be put beyond
+mischief's reach.  I am not one of those who see luxury in
+fostering rivals.
+
+"You came for attention at the hands of Deucalion.  By my face!
+you shall have it.  I will watch myself whilst he builds you up
+living."
+
+
+
+11.  AN AFFAIR WITH THE
+BARBAROUS FISHERS
+
+
+So this mighty Empress chose to be jealous of a mere woman
+prisoner!
+
+Now my mind has been trained to work with a soldierly
+quickness in these moments of stress, and I decided on my proper
+course on the instant the words had left her lips.  I was
+sacrificing myself for Atlantis by order of the High Council of the
+Priests, and, if needful, Nais must be sacrificed also, although in
+the same flash a scheme came to me for saving her.
+
+So I bowed gravely before the Empress, and said I, "In this,
+and in all other things where a mere human hand is potent, I will
+carry out your wishes, Phorenice."  And she on her part patted my
+arm, and fresh waves of feeling welled up from the depths of her
+wondrous eyes.  Surely the Gods won for her half her schemes and
+half her battles when they gave Phorenice her shape, and her voice,
+and the matters which lay within the outlines of her face.
+
+By this time the merchants, and the other dwellers adjacent to
+this part of the harbour, where the royal quay stands, had come
+down, offering changes of raiment, and houses to retire into. 
+Phorenice was all graciousness, and though it was little enough I
+cared for mere wetness of my coat, still that part of the harbour
+into which we had been thrown by the mammoth was not over savoury,
+and I was glad enough to follow her example.  For myself, I said no
+further word to Nais, and refrained even from giving her a glance
+of farewell.  But a small sop like this was no meal for Phorenice,
+and she gave the port-captain strict orders for the guarding of his
+prisoner before she left him.
+
+At the house into which I was ushered they gave me a bath, and
+I eased my host of the plainest garment in his store, and he was
+pleased enough at getting off so cheaply.  But I had an hour to
+spend outside on the pavement listening to the distant din of
+bombardment before Phorenice came out to me again, and I could not
+help feeling some grim amusement at the face of the merchant who
+followed.  The fellow was clearly ruined.  He had a store of jewels
+and gauds of the most costly kind, which were only in fraction his
+own, seeing that he had bought them (as the custom is) in
+partnership with other merchants.  These had pleased Phorenice's
+eye, and so she had taken all and disposed them on her person.
+
+"Are they not pretty?" said she, showing them to me.  "See how
+they flash under the sun.  I am quite glad now, Deucalion, that the
+mammoth gave us that furious ride and that spill, since it has
+brought me such a bonny present.  You may tell the fellow here that
+some day when he has earned some more, I will come and be his guest
+again.  Ah!  They have brought us litters, I see.  Well, send one
+away and do you share mine with me, sir.  We must play at being
+lovers to-day, even if love is a matter which will come to us both
+with more certainty to-morrow.  No; do not order more bearers.  My
+own slaves will carry us handily enough.  I am glad you are not one
+of your gross, overfed men, Deucalion.  I am small and slim myself,
+and I do not want to be husbanded by a man who will overshadow me."
+
+"Back to the royal pyramid?" I asked.
+
+"No, nor to the walls.  I neither wish to fight nor to sit as
+Empress to-day, sir.  As I have told you before, it is my whim to
+be Phorenice, the maiden, for a few hours, and if some one I wot of
+would woo me now, as other maidens are wooed, I should esteem it a
+luxury.  Bid the slaves carry us round the harbour's rim, and give
+word to these starers that, if they follow, I will call down fire
+upon them as I did upon the sacrifice."
+
+Now, I had seen something of the unruliness of the streets
+myself, and I had gathered a hint also from the officer at the gate
+of the royal pyramid that night of Phorenice's welcoming banquet. 
+But as whatever there was in the matter must be common knowledge to
+the Empress, I did not bring it to her memory then.  So I dismissed
+the guard which had come up, and drove away with a few sharp words
+the throng of gaping sightseers who always, silly creatures, must
+needs come to stare at their betters; and then I sat in the litter
+in the place where I was invited, and the bearers put their heads
+to the pole.
+
+They swung away with us along the wide pavement which runs
+between the houses of the merchants and the mariner folk and the
+dimpling waters of the harbour, and I thought somewhat sadly of the
+few ships that floated on that splendid basin now, and of the few
+evidences of business that showed themselves on the quays.  Time
+was when the ships were berthed so close that many had to wait in
+the estuary outside the walls, and memorials had been sent to the
+King that the port should be doubled in size to hold the glut of
+trade.  And that, too, in the old days of oar and sail, when
+machines drawing power from our Lord the Sun were but rarely used
+to help a vessel speedily along her course.
+
+The Egypt voyage and a return was a matter of a year then, as
+against a brace of months now, and of three ships that set out, one
+at least could be reckoned upon succumbing to the dangers of the
+wide waters and the terrible beasts that haunt them.  But in those
+old days trade roared with lusty life, and was ever growing wider
+and more heavy.  Your merchant then was a portly man and gave
+generously to the Gods.  But now all the world seemed to be in
+arms, and moreover trade was vulgar.  Your merchant, if he was a
+man of substance, forgot his merchandise, swore that chaffering was
+more indelicate than blasphemy and curled his beard after the new
+fashion, and became a courtier.  Where his father had spent anxious
+days with cargo tally and ship-master, the son wasted hours in
+directing sewing men as they adorned a coat, and nights in
+vapouring at a banquet.
+
+Of the smaller merchants who had no substance laid by, taxes
+and the constant bickerings of war had wellnigh ground them into
+starvation.  Besides, with the country in constant uproar, there
+were few markets left for most merchandise, nor was there aught
+made now which could be carried abroad.  If your weaver is pressed
+as a fire-tube man he does not make cloth, and if your farmer is
+playing at rebellion, he does not buy slaves to till his fields. 
+Indeed, they told me that a month before my return, as fine a cargo
+of slaves had been brought into harbour as ever came out of Europe,
+and there was nothing for it but to set them ashore across the
+estuary, and leave them free to starve or live in the wild ground
+there as they chose.  There was no man in all Atlantis who would
+hold so much as one more slave as a gift.
+
+But though I was grieved at this falling away, all schemes for
+remedy would be for afterwards.  It would only make ill worse to
+speak of it as we rode together in the litter.  I was growing to
+know Phorenice's moods enough for that.  Still, I think that she
+too had studied mine, and did her best to interest me between her
+bursts of trifling.  We went out to where the westernmost harbour
+wall joins the land, and there the panting bearers set us down. 
+She led me into a little house of stone which stood by itself,
+built out on a promontory where there is a constant run of tide,
+and when we had been given admittance, after much unbarring, she
+showed me her new gold collectors.
+
+In the dry knowledge taught in the colleges and groves of the
+Sacred Mountain it had been a common fact to us that the metal gold
+was present in a dissolved state in all sea water, but of plans for
+dragging it forth into yellow hardness, none had ever been
+discussed. But here this field-reared upstart of an Empress had
+stumbled upon the trick as though it had been written in a book.
+
+She patted my arm laughingly as I stared curiously round the
+place.  "I tell all others in Atlantis that only the Gods have this
+secret," said she, "and that They gave it to me as one of
+themselves.  But I am no Goddess to you, am I, Deucalion?  And, by
+my face!  I have no other explanation of how this plan was
+invented.  We'll suppose I must have dreamed it.  Look!  The
+sea-water sluices in through that culvert, and passes over these
+rough metal plates set in the floor, and then flows out again
+yonder in its natural course.  You see the yellow metal caught in
+the ridges of the plates?  That is gold.  And my fellows here melt
+it with fire into bars, and take it to my smith's in the city.  The
+tides vary constantly, as you priests know well, as the quiet moon
+draws them, and it does not take much figuring to know how much of
+the sea passes through these culverts in a month and how much gold
+to a grain should be caught in the plates.  My fellows here at
+first thought to cheat me, but I towed two of them in the water
+once behind a galley till the cannibal fish ate them, and since
+then the others have given me credit for--for what do you think?"
+
+"More divinity."
+
+"I suppose it is that.  But I am letting you see how it is
+done.  Just have the head to work out a little sum, and see what an
+effect can be gained.  You will be a God yet yourself, Deucalion,
+with these silly Atlanteans, if only you will use your wit and
+cleverness."
+
+Was she laughing at me?  Was she in earnest?  I could not
+tell.  Sometimes she pointed out that her success and triumphs were
+merely the reward of thought and brilliancy, and next moment she
+gave me some impossible explanation and left me to deduce that she
+must be more than mortal or the thing could never have been found. 
+In good truth, this little woman with her supple mind and her
+supple body mystified me more and more the longer I stayed by her
+side; and more and more despairing did I grow that Atlantis could
+ever be restored by my agency to peace and the ancient Gods, even
+after I had carried out the commands of the High Council, and taken
+her to wife.
+
+Only one plan seemed humanly possible, and that was to curb
+her further mischievousness by death and then leave the wretched
+country naturally to recover.  It was just a dagger-stroke, and the
+thing was done.  Yet the very idea of this revolted me, and when
+the desperate thought came to my mind (which it did ever and anon),
+I hugged to myself the answer that if it were fitting to do this
+thing, the High Gods in Their infinite wisdom would surely have put
+definite commands upon me for its carrying out.
+
+Yet, such was the fascination of Phorenice, that when
+presently we left her gold collectors, and stumbled into such
+peril, that a little withholding of my hand would have gained her
+a passage to the nether Gods, I found myself fighting when she
+called upon me, as seldom I have fought before.  And though, of
+course, some blame for this must be laid upon that lust of battle
+which thrills even the coldest of us when blows begin to whistle
+and war-cries start to ring, there is no doubt also that the
+pleasure of protecting Phorenice, and the distaste for seeing her
+pulled down by those rude, uncouth fishers put special nerve and
+vehemence into my blows.
+
+The cause of the matter was the unrest and the prevalency to
+street violence which I have spoken of above, and the desperate
+poverty of the common people, which led them to take any risk if it
+showed them a chance of winning the wherewithal to purchase a meal. 
+We had once more mounted the litter, and once more the bearers,
+with their heads beneath the pole, bore us on at their accustomed
+swinging trot.  Phorenice was telling me about her new supplies of
+gold.  She had made fresh sumptuary laws, it appeared.
+
+"In the old days," said she, "when yellow gold was tediously
+dredged up grain by grain from river gravels in the dangerous
+lands, a quill full would cost a rich man's savings, and so none
+but those whose high station fitted them to be so adorned could
+wear golden ornaments.  But when the sea-water gave me gold here by
+the double handful a day, I found that the price of these river
+hoards decreased, and one day--could you credit it?--a common
+fellow, who was one of my smiths, came to me wearing a collar of
+yellow gold on his own common neck.  Well, I had that neck divided,
+as payment for his presumption; and as I promised to repeat the
+division promptly on all other offenders, that special species of
+forwardness seems to be checked for the time.  There are many
+exasperations, Deucalion, in governing these common people."
+
+She had other things to say upon the matter, but at this point
+I saw two clumsy boats of fishers paddling to us from over the
+ripples, and at the same time amongst the narrow lanes which led
+between the houses on the other side of us, savage-faced men were
+beginning to run after the litter in threatening clusters.
+
+"With permission," I said, "I will step out of the conveyance
+and scatter this rabble."
+
+"Oh, the people always cluster round me.  Poor ugly souls, they
+seem to take a strange delight in coming to stare at my pretty
+looks.  But scatter them.  I have said I did not wish to be
+followed.  I am taking holiday now, Deucalion, am I not, whilst
+you learn to woo me?"
+
+I stepped to the ground.  The rough fishers in the boats were
+beginning to shout to those who dodged amongst the houses to see to
+it that we did not escape, and the numbers who hemmed us in on the
+shore side were increasing every moment.  The prospect was
+unpleasant enough.  We had come out beyond the merchants' quarters,
+and were level with those small huts of mud and grass which the
+fishing population deem sufficient for shelter, and which has
+always been a spot where turbulence might be expected.  Indeed,
+even in those days of peace and good government in the old King's
+time, this part of the city had rarely been without its weekly
+riot.
+
+The life of the fisherman is the most hard that any human
+toilers have to endure.  Violence from the wind and waves, and
+pelting from firestones out of the sky are their daily portion; the
+great beasts that dwell in the seas hunt them with savage
+persistence, and it is a rare day when at least some one of the
+fishers' guild fails to come home to answer the tally.
+
+Moreover, the manner which prevails of catching fish is not
+without its risks.
+
+To each man there is a large sea-fowl taken as a nestling, and
+trained to the work.  A ring of bronze is round its neck to prevent
+its swallowing the spoil for which it dives, and for each fish it
+takes and flies back with to the boat, the head and tail and
+inwards are given to it for a reward, the ring being removed whilst
+it makes the meal.
+
+The birds are faithful, once they have got a training, and are
+seldom known to desert their owners; but, although the fishers
+treat them more kindly than they do their wives, or children of
+their own begetting, the life of the birds is precarious like that
+of their masters.  The larger beasts and fish of the sea prey on
+them as they prey on the smaller fish, and so whatever care may be
+lavished upon them, they are most liable to sudden cutting off.
+
+And here is another thing that makes the life of the fisher
+most precarious: if his fishing bird be slain, and the second which
+he has in training also come by ill fortune, he is left suddenly
+bereft of all utensils of livelihood, and (for aught his
+guild-fellows care) he may  go starve.  For these fishers hold that
+the Gods of the sea regulate their craft, and that if one is not
+pleasing to Them They rob him of his birds; after which it would be
+impious to have any truck or dealing with such a fellow; and
+accordingly he is left to starve or rob as he chooses.
+
+All of which circumstances tend to make the fishers rude,
+desperate men, who have been forced into the trade because all
+other callings have rejected them.  They are fellows, moreover, who
+will spend the gains of a month on a night's debauch, for fear that
+the morrow will rob them of life and the chance of spending; and,
+moreover, it is their one point of honour to be curbed in no desire
+by an ordinary fear of consequences.  As will appear.
+
+I went quickly towards the largest knot of these people, who
+were skulking behind the houses, leaving the litter halted in the
+path behind me, and I bade them sharply enough to disperse.  "For
+an employment," I added, "put your houses in order, and clean the
+fish offal from the lanes between them.  To-morrow I will come
+round here to inspect, and put this quarter into a better order. 
+But for to-day the Empress (whose name be adored) wishes for a
+privacy, so cease your staring."
+
+"Then give us money," said a shrill voice from amongst the
+huts.
+
+"I will send you a torch in an hour's time," I said grimly,
+"and rig you a gallows, if you give me more annoyance.  To your
+kennels, you!"
+
+I think they would have obeyed the voice of authority if they
+had been left to themselves.  There was a quick stir amongst them. 
+Those that stood in the sunlight instinctively slipped into the
+shadow, and many dodged into the houses and cowered in dark corners
+out of sight.  But the men in the two hide-covered fisher-boats
+that were paddling up, called them back with boisterous cries.
+
+I signed to the litter-bearers to move on quickly along their
+road.  There was need of discipline here, and I was minded to deal
+it out myself with a firm hand.  I judged that I could prevent them
+following the Empress, but if she still remained as a glittering
+bait for them to rob, and I had to protect her also, it might be
+that my work would not be done so effectively.
+
+But it seems I was presumptuous in giving an order which dealt
+with the person of Phorenice.  She bade the bearers stand where
+they were, and stepped out, and drew her weapons from beneath the
+cushions.  She came towards me strapping a sword on to her hip, and
+carrying a well-dinted target of gold on her left forearm.  "An
+unfair trick," cries she, laughing.  "If you will keep a fight to
+yourself now, Deucalion, where will your greediness carry you when
+I am your shrinking, wistful little wife?  Are these fools truly
+going to stand up against us?"
+
+I was not coveting a fight, but it seemed as if there would be
+no avoidance of it now.  The robe and the glittering gauds of which
+Phorenice had recently despoiled the merchant, drew the eyes of
+these people with keen attraction.  The fishers in the boats
+paddled into the surf which edged the beach, and leaped overside
+and left the frail basket-work structures to be spewed up sound or
+smashed, as chance ordered.  And from the houses, and from the
+filthy lanes between them, poured out hordes of others, women mixed
+with the men, gathering round us threateningly.
+
+"Have a care," shouted one on the outskirts of the crowd. 
+"She called down fire for the sacrifice once to-day, and she can
+burn up others here if she chooses."
+
+"So much the more for those that are left," retorted another. 
+"She cannot burn all."
+
+"Nay, I will not burn any," said Phorenice, "but you shall
+look upon my sword-play till you are tired."
+
+I heard her say that with some malicious amusement, knowing
+(as one of the Seven) how she had called down the fires of the sky
+to burn that cloven-hoofed horse offered in sacrifice, and knowing
+too, full well, that she could bring down no fire here.  But they
+gave us little enough time for wordy courtesies.  Their Empress
+never went far unattended, and, for aught the wretches knew, an
+escort might be close behind.  So what pilfering they did, it
+behoved them to get done quickly.
+
+They closed in, jostling one another to be first, and the reek
+of their filthy bodies made us cough.  A grimy hand launched out to
+seize some of the jewels which flashed on Phorenice's breast, and
+I lopped it off at the elbow, so that it fell at her feet, and a
+second later we were engaged.
+
+"Your back to mine, comrade," cried she, with a laugh, and
+then drew and laid about her with fine dexterity.  Bah! but it was
+mere slaughter, that first bout.
+
+The crowd hustled inwards with such greediness to seize what
+they could, that none had space to draw back elbow for a thrust,
+and we two kept a circle round us by sheer whirling of steel.  It
+is necessary to do one's work cleanly in these bouts, as wounded
+left on the ground unnoticed before one are as dangerous as so many
+snakes.  But as we circled round in our battling I noted that all
+of Phorenice's quarry lay peaceful and still.  By the Gods! but she
+could play a fine sword, this dainty Empress.  She touched life
+with every thrust.
+
+Yes, it was plain to see, now an example was given, that the
+throne of Atlantis had been won, not by a lovely face and a subtle
+tongue alone; and (as a fighter myself) I did not like Phorenice
+the less for the knowledge.  I could but see her out of the corner
+of my eye, and that only now and again, for the fishers, despite
+their ill-knowledge of fence, and the clumsiness of their weapons,
+had heavy numbers, and most savage ferocity; and as they made so
+confident of being able to pull us down, it required more than a
+little hard battling to keep them from doing it.  Ay, by the Gods!
+it was at times a fight my heart warmed to, and if I had not
+contrived to pluck a shield from one fool who came too
+vain-gloriously near me with one, I could not swear they would not
+have dragged me down by sheer ravening savageness.
+
+And always above the burly uproar of the fight came very
+pleasantly to my ears Phorenice's cry of "Deucalion!" which she
+chose as her battle shout.  I knew her, of course, to be a
+past-mistress of the art of compliment, and it was no new thing for
+me to hear the name roared out above a battle din, but it was given
+there under circumstances which were peculiar, and for the life of
+me I could not help being tickled by the flattery.
+
+Condemn my weakness how you will, but I came very near then to
+liking the Empress of Atlantis in the way she wished.  And as for
+that other woman who should have filled my mind, I will confess
+that the stress of the moment, and the fury of the engagement, had
+driven both her and her strait completely out beyond the marches of
+my memory.  Of such frail stuff are we made, even those of us who
+esteem ourselves the strongest.
+
+Now it is a temptation few men born to the sword can resist,
+to throw themselves heart and soul into a fight for a fight's sake,
+and it seems that women can be bitten with the same fierce
+infection.  The attack slackened and halted.  We stood in the
+middle of a ring of twisted dead, and the rest of the fishers and
+their women who hemmed us in shrank back out of reach of our
+weapons.
+
+It was the moment for a truce, and the moment when a few
+strong words would have sent them back cowering to their huts, and
+given us free passage to go where we chose.  But no, this Phorenice
+must needs sing a hymn to her sword and mine, gloating over our
+feats and invulnerability; and then she must needs ask payment for
+the bearers of her litter whom they had killed, and then speak
+balefully of the burnings, and the skinnings, and the sawings
+asunder with which this fishers' quarter would be treated in the
+near future, till they learned the virtues of deportment and
+genteel manners.
+
+"It makes your backs creep, does it?" said Phorenice.  "I do
+not wonder.  This severity must have its unpleasant side.  But why
+do you not put it beyond my power to give the order?  Either you
+must think yourselves Gods or me no Goddess, or you would not have
+gone on so far.  Come now, you nasty-smelling people, follow out
+your theory, and if you make a good fight of it, I swear by my face
+I will be lenient with those who do not fall."
+
+But there was no pressing up to meet our swords.  They still
+ringed us in, savage and sullen, beyond the ring of their own dead,
+and would neither run back to the houses, nor give us the game of
+further fight.  There was a certain stubborn bravery about them
+that one could not but admire, and for myself I determined that
+next time it became my duty to raise troops, I would catch a
+handful of these men, and teach them handiness with the utensils of
+war, and train them to loyalty and faithfulness.  But presently
+from behind their ranks a stone flew, and though it whizzed between
+the Empress and myself, and struck down a fisher, it showed that
+they had brought a new method into their attack, and it behoved us
+to take thought and meet it.
+
+I looked round me up and down the beach.  There was no sign of
+a rescue.  "Phorenice," I said in the court tongue, which these
+barbarous fishers would know little enough of, "I take it that a
+whiff of the sea-breeze would come very pleasant after all this
+warm play.  As you can show such pretty sword work, will you cut me
+a way down to the beach, and I will do my poor best to keep these
+creatures from snapping at our heels?"
+
+"Oh!" cried she.  "Then I am to have a courtier for a husband
+after all.  Why have you kept back your flattering speeches till
+now?  Is that your trick to make me love you?"
+
+"I will think out the reason for it another time."
+
+"Ah, these stern, commanding husbands," said she, "how they do
+press upon their little wives!" and with that leaped over the ring
+of dead before her, and cut and stabbed a way through those that
+stood between her and the waters which creamed and crashed upon the
+beach.  Gods! what a charge she made.  It made me tingle with
+admiration as I followed sideways behind her, guarding the rear. 
+And I am a man that has spent so many years in battling, that it
+takes something far out of the common to move me to any enthusiasm
+in this matter.
+
+There were two boats creaking and washing about in the edge of
+the surf, but in one, happily, the wicker-work which made its frame
+was crushed by the weight of the waves into a shapeless bundle of
+sticks, and would take half a day to replace.  So that, let us but
+get the other craft afloat, and we should be free from further
+embroiling.  But the fishers were quick to see the object of this
+new manoeuvre.  "Guard the boat," they shouted.  "Smash her; slit
+her skin with your knives!  Tear her with your fingers!  Swim her
+out to sea!  Oh, at least take the paddles!"
+
+But, if these clumsy fishers could run, Phorenice was like a
+legged snake for speed.  She was down beside the boat before any
+could reach it, laughing and shouting out that she could beat them
+at every point.  Myself, I was slower of foot; and, besides, there
+was some that offered me a fight on the road, and I was not wishful
+to baulk them; and moreover, the fewer we left clamouring behind,
+the fewer there would be to speed our going with their stones. 
+Still I came to the beach in good order, and laid hands on the
+flimsy boat and tipped her dry.
+
+"Fighting is no trade for, me," I cried, "whilst you are here,
+Phorenice.  Guard me my back and walk out into the water."
+
+I took the boat, thrusting it afloat, and wading with it till
+two lines of the surf were past.  The fishers swarmed round us,
+active as fish in their native element, and strove mightily to get
+hands on the boat and slit the hides which covered it with their
+eager fingers.  But I had a spare hand, and a short stabbing-knife
+for such close-quarter work, and here, there, and everywhere was
+Phorenice the Empress, with her thirsty dripping sword.  By the
+Gods!  I laughed with sheer delight at seeing her art of fence.
+
+But the swirl of a great fish into the shallows, and the
+squeal of a fisher as he was dragged down and home away into the
+deep, made me mindful of foes that no skill can conquer, and no
+bravery avoid.  Without taking time to give the Empress a word of
+warning, I stooped, and flung an arm round her, and threw her up
+out of the water into the boat, and then thrust on with all my
+might, driving the flimsy craft out to sea, whilst my legs crept
+under me for fear of the beasts which swam invisible beneath the
+muddied waters.
+
+To the fishers, inured to these horrid perils by daily
+association, the seizing of one of their number meant little, and
+they pressed on, careless of their dull lives, eager only to snatch
+the jewels which still flaunted on Phorenice's breast.  Of the
+vengeance that might come after they recked nothing; let them but
+get the wherewithal for one night's good debauch, and they would
+forget that such a thing as the morning of a morrow could have
+existence.
+
+Two fellows I caught and killed that, diving down beneath,
+tried to slit the skin of the boat out of sight under the water;
+and Phorenice cared for all those that tried to put a hand on the
+gunwales.  Yes, and she did more than that.  A huge long-necked
+turtle that was stirred out of the mud by the turmoil, came up to
+daylight, and swung its great horn-lipped mouth to this side and
+that, seeking for a prey.  The fishers near it dodged and dived. 
+I, thrusting at the stern of the boat, could only hope it would
+pass me by and so offered an easy mark.  It scurried towards me,
+champing its noisy lips, and beating the water into spray with its
+flippers.
+
+But Phorenice was quick with a remedy and a rescue.  She
+passed her sword through one of the fishers that pressed her, and
+then thrust the body towards the turtle.  The great neck swooped
+towards it; the long slimy feelers which protruded from its head
+quivered and snuffled; and then the horny green jaws crunched on
+it, and drew it down out of sight.
+
+The boat was in deep water now, and Phorenice called upon me
+to come in over the side, she the while balancing nicely so that
+the flimsy thing should not be overset.  The fishers had given up
+their pursuit, finding that they earned nothing but lopped-off arms
+and split faces by coming within swing of this terrible sword of
+their Empress, and so contented themselves with volleying jagged
+stones in the hopes of stunning us or splitting the boat.  However,
+Phorenice crouched in the stern, holding the two shields--her own
+golden target, and the rough hide buckler I had won--and so
+protected both of us whilst I paddled, and though many stones
+clattered against the shields, and hit the hide covering of the
+boat, so that it resounded like a drum, none of them did damage,
+and we drew quickly out of their range.
+
+
+
+12.  THE DRUG OF OUR LADY THE
+MOON
+
+
+Our Lord the Sun was riding towards the end of His day, and
+the smoke from a burning mountain fanned black and forbidding
+before His face.  Phorenice wrung the water from her clothes and
+shivered.  "Work hard with those paddles, Deucalion, and take me in
+through the water-gate and let me be restored to my comforts again. 
+That merchant would rue if he saw how his pretty garments were
+spoiled, and I rue, too, being a woman, and remembering that he at
+least has no others I can take in place of these."  She looked at
+me sidelong, tossing back the short red hair from her eyes.  "What
+think you of my wisdom in coming where we have come without an
+escort?"
+
+"The Empress can do no wrong," I quoted the old formula with
+a smile.
+
+"At least I have shown you that I can fight.  I caught you
+looking your approval of me quite pleasantly once or twice.  You
+were a difficult man to thaw, Deucalion, but you warm perceptibly
+as you keep on being near me.  La, sir, we shall be a pair of
+rustic sweethearts yet, if this goes on.  I am glad I thought of
+the device of going near those smelly fishers."
+
+So she had taken me out in the litter unattended for the plain
+purpose of inviting a fight, and showing me her skill at arms, and
+perhaps, too, of seeing in person how I also carried myself in a
+moment of stress.  Well, if we were to live on together as husband
+and wife, it was good that each should know to a nicety the other's
+powers; and also, I am too much of an old battler and too much
+enamoured with the glorious handling of arms to quarrel very deeply
+with any one who offers me a tough upstanding fight.  Still for the
+life of me, I could not help comparing Phorenice with another
+woman.  With a similar chance open before us, Nais had robbed me of
+the struggle through a sheer pity for those squalid rebels who did
+not even call her chieftain; whilst here was this Empress
+frittering away two score of the hardiest of her subjects merely to
+gratify a whim.
+
+Yet, loyal to my vow as a priest, and to the commands set upon
+me by the high council on the Sacred Mountain, I tried to put away
+these wayward thoughts and comparisons.  As I rowed over the
+swingings of the waves towards the forts which guard the harbour's
+mouth, I sent prayers to the High Gods to give my tongue dexterity,
+and They through Their love for the country of Atlantis, and the
+harassed people, whom it was my deep wish to serve, granted me that
+power of speech which Phorenice loved.  Her eyes glowed upon me as
+I talked.
+
+This beach of the fishers where we had had our passage at arms
+is safe from ship attack from without, by reason of a chain of
+jagged rocks which spring up from the deep, and run from the
+harbour side to the end of the city wall.  The fishers know the
+passes, and can oftentimes get through to the open water beyond
+without touching a stone; or if they do see a danger of hitting on
+the reef, leap out and carry their light boats in their hands till
+the water floats them again.  But here I had neither the knowledge
+nor the dexterity, and, thought I, now the High Gods will show
+finally if They wish this woman who has defiled them to reign on in
+Atlantis, and if also They wish me to serve as her husband.
+
+I cried these things in my heart, and waited to receive the
+omen.  There was no half-answer.  A great wave rose in the lagoon
+behind us, a wave such as could have only been caused by an earth
+tremor, and on its sleek back we were hurled forward and thrown
+clear of the reefs with their seaweeds licking round us, without so
+much as seeing a stone of the barrier.  I bowed my head as I rowed
+on towards the harbour forts.  It was plain that not yet would the
+High Gods take vengeance for the insults which this lovely woman
+had offered Them.
+
+The sentries in the two forts beat drums at one another in
+their accustomed rotation, and in the growing dusk were going to
+pay little enough attention to the fishingboat which lay against
+the great chain clamouring to have it lowered.  But luckily a pair
+of officers were taking the air of the evening in a stone-dropping
+turret of the roof of the nearer fort, and these recognised the
+tone of our shouts.  They silenced the drums, torches were lowered
+to make sure of our faces, and then with a splash the great chain
+was dropped into the water to give us passage.
+
+A galley lay inside, nuzzling the harbour wall, and presently
+the ladder of ropes was let down from the top of the nearest fort,
+and a crew came down to man the oars.  There were the customary
+changes of raiment too, given as presents by the officers of the
+fort, and these we put on in the cabin of the galley in place of
+the sodden clothes we wore.  There are fevers to be gained by
+carrying wet clothes after sunset, and though from personal
+experience I have learned that these may be warded off with drugs,
+I noticed with some grim amusement that the Empress had
+sufficiently little of the Goddess about her to fear very much the
+ailments which are due to frail humanity.
+
+The galley rowed swiftly across the calm waters of the
+harbour, and made fast to the rings of gold on the royal quay, and
+whilst we were waiting for litters to be brought, I watched a
+lantern lit in the boat which stood guard over Phorenice's mammoth. 
+The huge red beast stood shoulder-deep in the harbour water, with
+trunk up-turned.  It was tamed now, and the light of the boat's
+lantern fell on the little ripples sent out by its tremblings.  But
+I did not choose to intercede or ask mercy for it.  If the mammoth
+sank deeper in the harbour mud, and was swallowed, I could have
+borne the loss with equanimity.
+
+To tell the truth, that ride on the great beast's back had
+impressed me unfavourably.  In fact, it put into me a sense of
+helplessness that was wellnigh intolerable.  Perhaps circumstances
+have made me unduly self-reliant: on that others must judge.  But
+I will own to having a preference for walking on my own proper
+feet, as the Gods in fashioning our shapes most certainly intended. 
+On my own feet I am able to guard my own head and neck, and have
+done on four continents, throughout a long and active life, and on
+many a thousand occasions.  But on the back of that detestable
+mammoth, pah! I grew as nervous as a child or a dastard.
+
+However, I had little enough leisure for personal megrims just
+then.  Whilst we waited, Phorenice asked the port-captain (who must
+needs come up officiously to make his salutations) after the
+disposal of Nais, and was told that she had been clapped into a
+dungeon beneath the royal pyramid, and the officer of the guard
+there had given his bond for her safe-keeping.
+
+"It is to be hoped he understands his work," said the Empress. 
+"That pretty Nais knows the pyramid better than most, and it may be
+he will be sent to the tormentors for putting her in a cell which
+had a secret outlet.  You would feel pleasure if the girl escaped,
+Deucalion?"
+
+"Assuredly," said I, knowing how useless it would be to make
+a secret of the matter.  "I have no enmity against Nais."
+
+"But I have," said she viciously, "and I am still minded to
+lock your faith to me by that wedding gift you know of."
+
+"The thing shall be done," I said.  "Before all, the Empress
+of Atlantis."
+
+"Poof!  Deucalion, you are too stiff and formal.  You ought to
+be mightily honoured that I condescend to be jealous of your
+favours.  Your hand, sir, please, to help me into the litter.  And
+now come in beside me, and keep me warm against the night air.  Ho!
+you guards there with the torches!  Keep farther back against the
+street walls.  The perfume you are burning stifles me."
+
+Again there was a feast that night in the royal
+banqueting-hall; again I sat beside Phorenice on the raised dais
+which stands beneath the symbols of the snake and the out-stretched
+hand.  What had been taken for granted before about our forthcoming
+relationship was this time proclaimed openly; the Empress herself
+acknowledged me as her husband that was to be; and all that curled
+and jewelled throng of courtiers hailed me as greater than
+themselves, by reason of this woman's choice.  There was method,
+too, in their salutation.  Some rumour must have got about of my
+preference for the older and simpler habits, and there was no
+drinking wine to my health after the new and (as  I considered)
+impertinent manner.  Decorously, each lord and lady there came
+forward, and each in turn spilt a goblet at my feet; and when I
+called any up, whether man or woman, to receive tit-bits from my
+platter, it was eaten simply and thankfully, and not kissed or
+pocketed with any extravagant gesture.
+
+The flaring jets of earth-breath showed me, too, so I thought,
+a plainer habit of dress, and a more sober mien amongst this
+thoughtless mob of banqueters.  And, indeed, it must have been
+plain to notice, for Phorenice, leaning over till the ruddy curls
+on her shoulder brushed my face, chided me in a playful whisper as
+having usurped her high authority already.
+
+"Oh, sir," she pleaded mockingly, "do not make your rule over
+us too ascetic.  I have given no orders for this change, but
+to-night there are no perfumes in the air; the food is so plain and
+I have half a mind to burn the cook; and as for the clothes and
+gauds of these diners, by my face! they might have come straight
+from the old King's reign before I stepped in here to show how
+tasteful could be colours on a robe, or how pretty the glint of a
+jewel.  It's done by no orders of mine, Deucalion.  They have swung
+round to this change by sheer courtier instinct.  Why, look at the
+beards of the men!  There is not half the curl about many of them
+to-day that they showed with such exquisiteness yesterday.  By my
+face!  I believe they'd reap their chins to-morrow as smooth as
+yours, if you go on setting the fashions at this prodigious rate
+and I do not interfere."
+
+"Why hinder them if they feel more cleanly shaven?"
+
+"No, sir.  There shall be only one clean chin where a beard
+can grow in all Atlantis, and that shall be carried by the man who
+is husband to the Empress.  Why, my Deucalion, would you have no
+sumptuary laws?  Would you have these good folk here and the common
+people outside imitate us in every cut of the hair and every fold
+of a garment which it pleases us to discover?  Come, sir, if you
+and I chose to say that our sovereignty was marked only by our
+superior strength of arm and wit, they would hate us at once for
+our arrogance; whereas, if we keep apart to ourselves a few mere
+personal decorations, these become just objects to admire and
+pleasantly envy."
+
+"You show me that there is more in the office of a ruler than
+meets the eye."
+
+"And yet they tell me, and indeed show me, that you have ruled
+with some success."
+
+"I employed the older method.  It requires a Phorenice to
+invent these nicer flights."
+
+"Flatterer!" said she, and smote me playfully with the back of
+her little fingers on my arm.  "You are becoming as great a
+courtier as any of them.  You make me blush with your fine
+pleasantries, Deucalion, and there is no fan-girl here to-night to
+cool my cheek.  I must choose me another fan-girl.  But it shall
+not be Ylga.  Ylga seems to have more of a kindness for you than I
+like, and if she is wise she will go live in her palace at the
+other side of the city, and there occupy herself with the ordering
+of her slaves, and the makings of embroideries.  I shall not be
+hard on Ylga unless she forces me, but I will have no woman in this
+kingdom treat you with undue civility."
+
+"And how am I to act," said I, falling in with her mood, "when
+I see and hear all the men of Atlantis making their protestations
+before you?  By your own confession they all love you as ardently
+as they seem to have loved you hopelessly."
+
+"Ah, now," she said, "you must not ask me to do
+impossibilities.  I am powerful if you will.  But I have no force
+which will govern the hearts of these poor fellows on matters such
+as that.  But if you choose, you make proclamation that I am given
+now body and inwards to you, and if they continue to offend your
+pride in this matter, you may take your culprits, and give them
+over to the tormentors.  Indeed, Deucalion, I think it would be a
+pretty attention to me if you did arrange some such ceremony.  It
+seems to me a present," she added with a frown, "that the jealousy
+is too much on one side."
+
+"You must not expect that a man who has been divorced from
+love for all of a busy life can learn all its niceties in an
+instant.  Myself, I was feeling proud of my progress.  With any
+other schoolmistress than you, Phorenice, I should not be near so
+forward.  In fact (if one may judge by my past record), I should
+not have begun to learn at all."
+
+"I suppose you think I should be satisfied with that?  Well,
+I am not.  I can be finely greedy over some matters."
+
+The banquet this night did not extend to inordinate length. 
+Phorenice had gone through much since last she slept, and though
+she had declared herself Goddess in the meantime, it seemed that
+her body remained mortal as heretofore.  The black rings of
+weariness had grown under her wondrous eyes, and she lay back
+amongst the cushions of the divan with her limbs slackened and
+listless.  When the dancers came and postured before us, she threw
+them a jewel and bade them begone before they had given a half of
+their performance, and the poet, a silly swelling fellow who came
+to sing the deeds of the day, she would not hear at all.
+
+"To-morrow," she said wearily, "but for now grant me peace. 
+My Lord Deucalion has given me much food for thought this day, and
+presently I go to my chamber to muse over the future policies of
+this State throughout the night.  To-morrow come to me again, and
+if your poetry is good and short, I will pay you surprisingly. But
+see to it that you are not long-winded.  If there are superfluous
+words, I will pay you for those with the stick."
+
+She rose to her feet then, and when the banqueters had made
+their salutation to us, I led her away from the banqueting-hall and
+down the passages with their secret doors which led to her private
+chambers.  She clung on my arm, and once when we halted whilst a
+great stone block swung slowly ajar to let us pass, she drooped her
+head against my shoulder.  Her breath came warm against my cheek,
+and the loveliness of her face so close at hand surpasses the
+description of words.  I think it was in her mind that I should
+kiss the red lips which were held so near to mine, but willing
+though I was to play the part appointed, I could not bring myself
+to that.  So when the stone block had swung, she drew away with a
+sigh, and we went on without further speech.
+
+"May the High Gods treat you tenderly," I said, when we came
+to the door of her bed-chamber.
+
+"I am my own God," said she, "in all things but one.  By my
+face! you are a tardy wooer, Deucalion.  Where do you go now?"
+
+"To my own chamber."
+
+"Oh, go then, go."
+
+"Is there anything more I could do?"
+
+"Nothing that your wit or your will would prompt you to.  Yes,
+indeed, you are finely decorous, Deucalion, in your old-fashioned
+way, but you are a mighty poor wooer.  Don't you know, my man, that
+a woman esteems some things the more highly if they are taken from
+her by rude force?"
+
+"It seems I know little enough about women."
+
+"You never said a truer word.  Bah!  And I believe your
+coldness brings you more benefit in a certain matter than any show
+of passion could earn.  There, get you gone, if the atmosphere of
+a maiden's bed-chamber hurts your rustic modesty, and your Gods
+keep you, Deucalion, if that's the phrase, and if you think They
+can do it.  Get you gone, man, and leave me solitary."
+
+I had taken the plan of the pyramid out of the archives before
+the banquet and learned it thoroughly, and so was able to thread my
+way through its angular mazes without pause or blunder.  I, too,
+was heavily wearied with what I had gone through since my last
+snatch of sleep, but I dare set apart no time for rest just then. 
+Nais must be sacrificed in part for the needs of Atlantis; but a
+plan had come to me by which it seemed that she need not be
+sacrificed wholly; and to carry this through there was need for
+quick thought and action.
+
+Help came to me also from a quarter I did not expect.  As I
+passed along the tortuous way between the ponderous stones of the
+pyramid, which led to the apartments that had been given me by
+Phorenice, a woman glided up out of the shadows of one of the side
+passages, and when I lifted my hand lamp, there was Ylga.
+
+She regarded me half-sullenly.  "I have lost my place," she
+said, "and it seems I need never have spoken.  She intended to have
+you all along, and it was not a thing like that which could put her
+off.  And you--you just think me officious, if, indeed, you have
+ever given me another thought till now."
+
+"I never forget a kindness."
+
+"Oh, you will learn that trick soon now.  And you are going to
+marry her, you!  The city is ringing with it. I thought at least
+you were honest, but when there is a high place to be got by merely
+taking a woman with it, you are like the rest.  I thought, too,
+that you would be one of those men who have a distrust for ruddy
+hair.  And, besides she is little."
+
+"Ylga," I said, "you have taught me that these walls are full
+of crannies and ears.  I will listen to no word against Phorenice. 
+But I would have further converse with you soon.  If you still have
+a kindness for me, go to the chamber that is mine and wait for me
+there.  I will join you shortly."
+
+She drooped her eyes.  "What do you want of me, Deucalion?"
+
+"I want to say something to you.  You will learn who it
+concerns later."
+
+"But is it--is it fitting for a maiden to come to a man's room
+at this hour?"
+
+"I know little of your conventions here in this new Atlantis. 
+I am Deucalion, girl, and if you still have qualms, remembering
+that, do not come."
+
+She looked up at me with a sneer.  "I was foolish," she said. 
+"My lord's coldness has grown into a proverb, and I should have
+remembered it.  Yes; I will come."
+
+"Go now, then," said I, and waited till she had passed on ahead
+and was out of sight and hearing.  With Ylga to help me, my tasks
+were somewhat lightened, and their sequence changed.  In the
+first instance, now, I had got to make my way with as little delay
+and show as possible into a certain sanctuary which lay within the
+temple of our Lady the Moon.  And here my knowledge as one of the
+Seven stood me in high favour.
+
+All the temples of the city of Atlantis are in immediate and
+secret connection with the royal pyramid, but the passages are
+little used, seeing that they are known only to the Seven and to
+the Three above them, supposing that there are three men living at
+one time sufficiently learned in the highest of the highest
+mysteries to be installed in that sublime degree of the Three. 
+And, even by these, the secret ways may only be used on occasions
+of the greatest stress, so that a generation well may pass without
+their being trodden by a human foot.
+
+It was with some trouble, and after no little experiment that
+I groped my way into this secret alley; but once there, the rest
+was easy.  I had never trodden it before certainly, but the plan of
+it had been taught me at my initiation as one of the Seven, and the
+course of the windings came back to me now with easy accuracy. I
+walked quickly, not only because the air in those deep crannies is
+always full of lurking evils, but also because the hours were
+fleeting, and much must be done before our Lord the Sun again rose
+to make another day.
+
+I came to the spy-place which commands the temple, and found
+the holy place empty, and, alas! dust-covered, and showing little
+trace that worshippers ever frequented it these latter years.  A
+vast stone of the wall swung outwards and gave me entrance, and
+presently (after the solemn prayer which is needful before
+attempting these matters), I took the metal stair from the place
+where it is kept, and climbed to the lap of the Goddess, and then,
+pulling the stair after me, climbed again upwards till my length
+lay against her calm mysterious face.
+
+A shivering seized me as I thought of what was intended, for
+even a warrior hardened to horrid sights and deeds may well have
+qualms when he is called upon to juggle with life and death, and
+years and history, with the welfare of his country in one hand, and
+the future of a woman who is as life to him in the other.  But
+again I told myself that the hours flew, and laid hold of the jewel
+which is studded into the forehead of the image with one hand, and
+then stretching out, thrust at a corner of the eyebrow with the
+other.  With a faint creak the massive eyeball below, a stone that
+I could barely have covered with my back, swung inwards.  I stepped
+off the stair, and climbed into the gap.  Inside was the chamber
+which is hollowed from the head of the Goddess.
+
+It was the first time I had seen this most secret place, but
+the aspect of it was familiar to me from my teaching, and I knew
+where to find the thing which would fill my need.  Yet, occupied
+though I might be with the stress of what was to befall, I could
+not help having a wonder and an admiration for the cleverness with
+which it was hidden.
+
+High as I was in the learning and mysteries of the Priestly
+Clan, the structure of what I had come to fetch was hidden from me. 
+Beforetime I had known only of their power and effect; and now that
+I came to handle them, I saw only some roughly rounded balls, like
+nut kernels, grass green in colour, and in hardness like the wax of
+bees.  There were three of these balls in the hidden place, and I
+took the one that was needful, concealing the others as I had found
+them.  It may have been a drug, it may have been something more;
+what exactly it was I did not know; only of its power and effect I
+was sure, as that was set forth plainly in the teaching I had
+learned; and so I put it in a pouch of my garment, returning by the
+way I had come, and replacing all things in due order behind me.
+
+One look I took at the image of the Goddess before I left the
+temple.  The jet of earth-breath which burns eternally from the
+central altar lit her from head to toe, and threw sparkles from the
+great jewel in her forehead.  Vast she was, and calm and peaceful
+beyond all human imaginings, a perfect symbolism of that rest and
+quietness which many sigh for so vainly on this rude earth, but
+which they will never attain unless by their piety they earn a
+place in the hereafter, where our Lady the Moon and the rest of the
+High Ones reign in Their eternal glorious majesty.
+
+It was with tired dragging limbs that I made my way back again
+to the royal pyramid, and at last came to my own private chamber. 
+Ylga awaited me there, though at first I did not see her.  The
+suspicions of these modern days had taken a deep hold of the girl,
+and she must needs crouch in hiding till she made sure it was I who
+came to the chamber, and, moreover, that I came alone.
+
+"Oh, frown at me if you choose," said she sullenly, "I am past
+caring now for your good opinion.  I had heard so much of
+Deucalion, and I thought I read honesty in you when first you came
+ashore; but now I know that you are no better than the rest. 
+Phorenice offers you a high place, and you marry her blithely to
+get it.  And why, indeed, should you not marry her?  People say she
+is pretty, and I know she can be warm.  I have seen her warm and
+languishing to scores of men.  She is clever, too, with her eyes,
+is our great Empress; I grant her that.  And as for you, it tickles
+you to be courted."
+
+"I think you are a very silly woman," I said.
+
+"If you flatter yourself it matters a rap to me whom you
+marry, you are letting conceit run away with you."
+
+"Listen," I said.  "I did not ask you here to make foolish
+speeches which seem largely beyond my comprehension.  I asked you
+to help me do a service to one of your own blood-kin."
+
+She stared at me wonderingly.  "I do not understand."
+
+"It rests largely with you as to whether Nais dies to-morrow,
+or whether she is thrown into a sleep from which she may waken on
+some later and more happy day."
+
+"Nais!" she gasped.  "My twin, Nais?  She is not here.  She is
+out in the camp with those nasty rebels who bite against the city
+walls, if, indeed, still she lives."
+
+"Nais, your sister is near us in the royal pyramid this
+minute, and under guard, though where I do not know."  And with
+that I told her all that had passed since the girl was brought up
+a prisoner in the galley of that foolish, fawning captain of the
+port.  "The Empress has decreed that Nais shall be buried alive
+under a throne of granite which I am to build for her to-morrow,
+and buried she will assuredly be.  Yet I have a kindness for Nais,
+which you may guess at if you choose, and I am minded to send her
+into a sleep such as only we higher priests know of, from which at
+some future day she may possibly awaken."
+
+"So it is Nais; and not Phorenice, and not--not any other?"
+
+"Yes; it is Nais.  I marry the Empress because Zaemon, who is
+mouthpiece to the High Council of the Priests, has ordered it, for
+the good of Atlantis.  But my inwards remain still cold towards
+her."
+
+"Almost I hate poor Nais already."
+
+"Your vengeance would be easy.  Do not tell me where she is
+gaoled, and I shall not dare to ask.  Even to give Nais a further
+span of life I cannot risk making inquiries for her cell, when
+there is a chance that those who tell me might carry news to the
+Empress, and so cause more trouble for this poor Atlantis."
+
+"And why should I not carry the news, and so bring myself into
+favour again?  I tell you that being fan-girl to Phorenice and
+second woman in the kingdom is a thing that not many would cast
+lightly aside."
+
+I looked her between eyes and smiled.  "I have no fear there. 
+You will not betray me, Ylga.  Neither will you sell Nais."
+
+"I seem to remember very small love for this same Nais just
+now," she said bitterly.  "But you are right about that other
+matter.  I shall not buy myself back at your expense.  Oh, I am a
+fool, I know, and you can give me no thanks that I care about, but
+there is no other way I can act."
+
+"Then let us fritter no more time.  Go you out now and find
+where Nais is gaoled, and bring me news how I can say ten words to
+her, and press a certain matter into her clasp."
+
+She bowed her head and left the chamber, and for long enough
+I was alone.  I sat down on the couch, and rested wearily against
+the wall.  My bones ached, my eyes ached, and most of all, my
+inwards ached.  I had thought to myself that a man who makes his
+life sufficiently busy will find no leisure for these pains which
+assault frailer folk; but a philosophy like this, which carried one
+well in Yucatan, showed poorly enough when one tried it here at
+home.  But that there was duty ahead, and the order of the High
+Council to be carried into effect, the bleakness of the prospect
+would have daunted me, and I would have prayed the Gods then to
+spare me further life, and take me unto Themselves.
+
+Ylga came back at last, and I got up and went quickly after
+her as she led down a maze of passages and alleyways.  "There has
+been no care spared over her guarding," she whispered, as we halted
+once to move a stone.  "The officer of the guard is an old lover of
+mine, and I raised his hopes to the burning point again by a dozen
+words.  But when I wanted to see his prisoner, there he was as firm
+as brass.  I told him she was my sister, but that did not move him. 
+I offered him--oh, Deucalion, it makes me blush to think of the
+things I did offer to that man, but there was no stirring him.  He
+has watched the tormentors so many times, that there is no tempting
+him into touch of their instruments."
+
+"If you have failed, why bring me out here?"
+
+"Oh, I am not inveigling you into a lover's walk with myself,
+sir.  You tickle yourself when you think your society is so
+pleasant as that."
+
+"Come, girl, tell me then what it is.  If my temper is short,
+credit it against my weariness."
+
+"I have carried out my lord's commands in part.  I know the
+cell where Nais lives, and I have had speech with her, though not
+through the door.  And moreover, I have not seen her or touched her
+hand."
+
+"Your riddles are beyond me, Ylga, but if there is a chance,
+let us get on and have this business done."
+
+"We are at the place now," said she, with a hard little laugh,
+"and if you kneel on the floor, you will find an airshaft, and Nais
+will answer you from the lower end.  For myself, I will leave you. 
+I have a delicacy in hearing what you want to say to my sister,
+Deucalion."
+
+"I thank you," I said.  "I will not forget what you have done
+for me this night."
+
+"You may keep your thanks," she said bitterly, and walked away
+into the shadows.
+
+I knelt on the floor of the gallery, and found the air passage
+with my hand, and then, putting my lips to it, whispered for Nais.
+
+The answer came on the instant, muffled and quiet.  "I knew my
+lord would come for a farewell."
+
+"What the Empress said, has to be.  You understand, my dear? 
+It is for Atlantis."
+
+"Have I reproached my lord, by word or glance?"
+
+"I myself am bidden to place you in the hollow between the
+stones, and I must do it."
+
+"Then my last sleep will be a sweet one.  I could not ask to
+be touched by pleasanter hands."
+
+"But it mayhap that a day will come when she whom you know of
+will be suffered by the High Gods to live on this land of Atlantis
+no longer."
+
+"If my lord will cherish my poor memory when he is free again,
+I shall be grateful.  He might, if he chose, write them on the
+stones: Here was buried a maid who died gladly for the good of
+Atlantis, even though she knew that the man she so dearly loved was
+husband to her murderess."
+
+"You must not die," I whispered.  "My breast is near broken at
+the very thought of it.  And for respite, we must trust to the
+ancient knowledge, which in its day has been sent out from the Ark
+of the Mysteries."--I took the green waxy ball in my fingers, and
+stretched them down the crooked air-shaft to the full of my
+span.--"I have somewhat for you here.  Reach up and try to catch it
+from me."
+
+I heard the faint rustle of her arm as it swept against the
+masonry, and then the ball was taken over into her grasp.  Gods!
+what a thrill went through me when the fingers of Nais touched
+mine!  I could not see her, because of the crookedness of the
+shaft, but that faint touch of her was exquisite.
+
+"I have it," she whispered.  "And what now, dear?"
+
+"You will hide the thing in your garment, and when to-morrow
+the upper stone closes down upon you and the light is gone, then
+you will take it between your lips and let it dissolve as it will. 
+Sleep will take you, my darling, then, and the High Gods will watch
+over you, even though centuries pass before you are roused."
+
+"If Deucalion does not wake me, I shall pray never again to
+open an eye.  And now go, my lord and my dear.  They watch me
+here constantly, and I would not have you harmed by being
+brought to notice."
+
+"Yes, I must go, my sweetheart.  It will not do to have our
+scheme spoiled by a foolish loitering.  May the most High Gods
+attend your rest, and if the sacrifice we make finds favour, may
+They grant us meeting here again on earth before we meet--as we
+must--when our time is done, and They take us up to Their own
+place."
+
+"Amen," she whispered back, and then: "Kiss your fingers,
+dear, and thrust them down to me."
+
+I did that, and for an instant felt her fondle them down the
+crook of the airshaft out of sight, and then heard her withdraw her
+little hand and kiss it fondly.  Then again she kissed her own
+fingers and stretched them up, and I took up the virtue of that
+parting kiss on my finger-tips and pressed it sacredly to my lips.
+
+"Living, sleeping, or dead, always my darling," she whispered. 
+And then, before I could answer, she whispered again: "Go, they are
+coming for me."  And so I went, knowing that I could do no more to
+help her then, and knowing that all our schemes would be spilt if
+any eye spied upon me as I lay there beside the air shaft.  But my
+chest was like to have split with the dull, helpless anguish that
+was in it, as I made my way back to my chamber through the mazy
+alleys of the pyramid.
+
+"Do not look upon mine eyes, dear, when the time comes," had
+been her last command, "or they will tell a tale which Phorenice,
+being a woman, would read.  Remember, we make these small denials,
+not for our own likings, but for Atlantis, which is mother to us
+all."
+
+
+
+13.  THE BURYING ALIVE OF NAIS
+
+
+There is no denying that the wishes of Phorenice were carried
+into quick effect in the city of Atlantis.   Her modern theory was
+that the country and all therein existed only for the good of the
+Empress, and when she had a desire, no cost could possibly be too
+great in its carrying out.
+
+She had given forth her edict concerning the burying alive of
+Nais, and though the words were that I was to build the throne of
+stone, it was an understood thing that the manual labour was to be
+done for me by others.  Heralds made the proclamation in every ward
+of the city, and masons, labourers, stonecutters, sculptors,
+engineers, and architects took hands from whatever was occupying
+them for the moment, and hastened to the rendezvous.  The
+architects chose a chief who gave directions, and the lesser
+architects and the engineers saw these carried into effect.  Any
+material within the walls of the city on which they set their seal,
+was taken at once without payment or compensation; and as the
+blocks of stone they chose were the most monstrous that could be
+got, they were forced to demolish no few buildings to give them
+passage.
+
+I have before spoken of the modern rage for erecting new
+palaces and pyramids, and even though at the moment an army of
+rebels was battering with war engines at the city walls, the
+building guilds were steadily at work, and their skill (with
+Phorenice's marvellous invention to aid them) was constantly on the
+increase.  True, they could not move such massive blocks of stone
+as those which the early Gods planted for the sacred circle of our
+Lord the Sun, but they had got rams and trucks and cranes which
+could handle amazing bulks.
+
+The throne was to be erected in the open square before the
+royal pyramid.  Seven tiers of stone were there for a groundwork,
+each a knee-height deep, and each cut in the front with three
+steps.  In the uppermost layer was a cavity made to hold the body
+of Nais, and above this was poised the vast block which formed the
+seat of the throne itself.
+
+Throughout the night, to the light of torches, relay after
+relay of the stonecutters, and the masons, and the sweating
+labourers had toiled over bringing up the stone and dressing it
+into fit shape, and laying it in due position; and the engineers
+had built machines for lifting, and the architects had proved that
+each stone lay in its just and perfect place.  Whips cracked, and
+men fainted with the labour, but so soon as one was incapable
+another pressed forward into his place.  No delay was brooked when
+Phorenice had said her wish.
+
+And finally, as the square began to fill with people come to
+gape at the pageant of to-day, the chippings and the scaffolding
+were cleared away, and with it the bodies of some half-score of
+workmen who had died from accidents or their exertions during the
+building, and there stood the throne, splendid in its carvings, and
+all ready for completion.  The lower part stood more than two
+man-heights above the ground, and no stone of its courses weighed
+less than twenty men; the upper part was double the weight of any
+of these, and was carved so that the royal snake encircled the
+chair, and the great hooded head overshadowed it.  But at present
+the upper part was not on its bed, being held up high by lifting
+rams, for what purposes all men knew.
+
+It was to face this scene, then, that I came out from the royal
+pyramid at the summons of the chamberlains in the cool of next
+morning.  Each great man who had come there before me had banner-
+bearers and trumpeters to proclaim his presence; the middle classes
+were in all their bravery of apparel; and even poor squalid
+creatures, with ribs of hunger showing through their dusty skins,
+had turbans and wisps of colour wrapped about their heads to mark
+the gaiety of the day.
+
+The trumpets proclaimed my coming, and the people shouted
+welcome, and with the gorgeous chamberlains walking backwards in
+advance, I went across to a scarlet awning that had been prepared,
+and took my seat upon the cushions beneath it.
+
+And then came Phorenice, my bride that was to be that day,
+fresh from sleep, and glorious in her splendid beauty.  She was
+borne out from the pyramid in an open litter of gold and ivory by
+fantastic savages from Europe, her own refinement of feature being
+thrown up into all the higher relief by contrast with their brutish
+ugliness.  One could hear the people draw a deep breath of delight
+as their eyes first fell upon her; and it is easy to believe there
+was not a man in that crowd which thronged the square who did not
+envy me her choice, nor was there a soul present (unless Ylga was
+there somewhere veiled) who could by any stretch imagine that I was
+not overjoyed in winning so lovely a wife.
+
+For myself, I summoned up all the iron of my training to guard
+the expression of my face.  We were here on ceremonial to-day; a
+ghastly enough affair throughout all its acts, if you choose, but
+still ceremonial; and I was minded to show Phorenice a grand manner
+that would leave her nothing to cavil at.  After all that had been
+gone through and endured, I did not intend a great scheme to be
+shattered by letting my agony and pain show themselves, in either
+a shaking hand or a twitching cheek.  When it came to the point, I
+told myself, I would lay the living body of my love in the hollow
+beneath the stone as calmly, and with as little outward emotion, as
+though I had been a mere priest carrying out the burial of some
+dead stranger.  And she, on her part, would not, I knew, betray our
+secret.  With her, too, it was truly "Before all Atlantis."
+
+I think it spared a pang to find that there was to be no
+mockery or flippancy in what went forward.  All was solemn and
+impressive; and, though a certain grandeur and sombreness which bit
+deep into my breast was lost to the vulgar crowd, I fancy that the
+outward shape of the double sacrifice they witnessed that day would
+not be forgotten by any of them, although the inner meaning of it
+all was completely hidden from their minds.  When it suited her
+fancy, none could be more strict on the ritual of a ceremony than
+this many-mooded Empress, and it appeared that on this occasion she
+had given command that all things were to be carried out with the
+rigid exactness and pomp of the older manner.
+
+So she was borne up by her Europeans to the scarlet awning,
+and I handed her to the ground.  She seated herself on the
+cushions, and beckoned me to her side, entwining her fingers with
+mine as has always been the custom with rulers of Atlantis and
+their consorts.  And there before us as we sat, a body of soldiery
+marched up, and opening out showed Nais in their midst.  She had a
+collar of metal round her neck, with chains depending from it
+firmly held by a brace of guards, so that she should not run in
+upon the spears of the escort, and thus get a quick and easy death,
+which is often the custom of those condemned to the more lingering
+punishments.
+
+But it was pleasant to see that she still wore her clothing. 
+Raiment, whether of fabric or skin, has its value, and custom has
+always given the garments of the condemned to the soldiers guarding
+them.  So as Nais was not stripped, I could not but see that some
+one had given moneys to the guards as a recompense, and in this I
+thought I saw the hand of Ylga, and felt a gratitude towards her.
+
+The soldiers brought her forward to the edge of the pavilion's
+shade, and she was bidden prostrate herself before the Empress, and
+this she wisely did and so avoided rough handling and force.  Her
+face was pale, but showed neither fear nor defiance, and her eyes
+were calm and natural.  She was remembering what was due to
+Atlantis, and I was thrilled with love and pride as I watched her.
+
+But outwardly I, too, was impassive as a man of stone, and
+though I knew that Phorenice's eye was on my face, there was never
+anything on it from first to last that I would not have had her
+see.
+
+"Nais," said the Empress, "you have eaten from my platter when
+you were fan-girl, and drunk from my cup, and what was yours I gave
+you.  You should have had more than gratitude, you should have had
+knowledge also that the arm of the Empress was long and her hand
+consummately heavy.  But it seems that you have neither of these
+things.  And, moreover, you have tried to take a certain matter
+that the Empress has set apart for herself.  You were offered
+pardon, on terms, and you rejected it.  You were foolish.  But it
+is a day now when I am inclined to clemency.  Presently, seated on
+that carved throne of granite which he has built me yonder, I shall
+take my Lord Deucalion to husband.  Give me a plain word that you
+are sorry, girl, and name a man whom you would choose, and I will
+remember the brightness of the occasion, you shall be pardoned and
+wed before we rise from these cushions."
+
+"I will not wed," she said quietly.
+
+"Think for the last time, Nais, of what is the other choice. 
+You will be taken, warm, and quick, and beautiful as you stand
+there this minute, and laid in the hollow place that is made
+beneath the throne-stone.  Deucalion, that is to be my husband,
+will lay you in that awful bed, as a symbol that so shall perish
+all Phorenice's enemies, and then he will release the rams and
+lower the upper stone into place, and the world shall see your face
+no more.  Look at the bright sky, Nais, fill your chest with the
+sweet warm air, and then think of what this death will mean. 
+Believe me, girl, I do not want to make you an example unless you
+force me."
+
+"I will not wed," said the prisoner quietly.  
+
+The Empress loosed her fingers from my arm, and lay back
+against the cushions.  "If the girl presumes on our old
+familiarity, or thinks that I jest, show her now, Deucalion, that
+I do not."
+
+"The Empress is far from jesting," I said.  "I will do this
+thing because it is the wish of the Empress that it should be done,
+and because it is the command of the Empress that a symbol of it
+shall remain for ever as an example for others.  Lead your prisoner
+to the place."
+
+The soldiers wheeled, and the two guards with the chains of
+the collar which was on the neck of Nais prepared to put out force
+to drag her up the steps.  But she walked with them willingly, and
+with a colour unchanged, and I rose from my seat, and made
+obeisance to the Empress and followed them.
+
+Before all those ten thousand eyes, we two made no display of
+emotion then, not only for Atlantis' sake, but also because both
+Nais and I had a nicety and a pride in our natures.  We were not as
+Phorenice to flaunt endearments before others.
+
+Yet, when I had bidden the guards unhasp the collar which held
+the prisoner's neck, and clapped my arms around her, showing all
+the roughness of one who has no mind that his captive shall escape
+or even unduly struggle, a thrill gushed through me so potent that
+I was like to have fainted, and it was only by supreme strain of
+will that I held unbrokenly on with the ceremonial.  I, who had
+never embraced a woman with aught but the arm of roughness before,
+now held pressed to me one whom I loved with an infinite
+tenderness, and the revelation of how love can come out and link
+with love was almost my undoing.  Yet, outwardly, Nais made so
+sign, but lay half-strangled in my arms, as any woman does that is
+being borne away by a spoiler.
+
+I trod with her to the uppermost step, the vast throne-stone
+overhanging us, and then so that all of those who were gazing from
+the sides of the pyramids and the roofs of the buildings round
+might see, though we were beyond Phorenice's view, I used a force
+that was brutal in dragging her across the level, and putting her
+down into the hollow.  And yet the girl resisted me with no one
+effort whatever.
+
+So that the victim might not struggle out and be crushed, and
+so gain an easy death when the stone descended, there were brazen
+clamps to fit into grooves of the stones above the hollow where she
+lay, and these I fitted in place above her, and fastened one by
+one, doing this butcher's work with one hand, and still fiercely
+holding her down by the other.  Gods! and the sweat of agony
+dripped from me on to the thirsty stone as I worked.  I could not
+keep that in.
+
+I clamped and locked the last two bars in place, and took my
+brute's hand away from her throat.
+
+The hateful fingermarks showed as bloodless furrows in the
+whiteness of her skin.  For the life of me, yes, even for the fate
+of Atlantis, I could not help dropping my glance upon her face. 
+But she was stronger than I.  She gave me no last look.  She kept
+her eyes steadfastly fixed on the cruel stone above, and so I left
+her, knowing that it was best not to tarry longer.
+
+I came out from under the stone, and gave the sign to the
+engineers who stood by the rams.  The fires were taken away from
+their sides, and the metal in them began to contract, and slowly
+the vast bulk of the throne-stone began to creep down towards its
+bed.
+
+But ah, so slowly!  Gods! how my soul was torn as I watched
+and waited.
+
+Yet I kept my face impassive, overlooking as any officer might
+a piece of work which others were carrying out under his direction,
+and on which his credit rested; and I stood gravely in my place
+till the rams had let the stone come down on its final resting
+place, and had been carried away by the engineers; and then I went
+round with the master architect with his plumbline and level,
+whilst he tested this last piece of the building and declared it
+perfect.
+
+It was a useless form, this last, seeing that by calculation
+they knew exactly how the stone must rest; but the guilds have
+their forms and customs, and on these occasions of high ceremonial,
+they are punctiliously carried out, because these middle-class
+people wish always to appear mysterious and impressive to the poor
+vulgar folk who are their inferiors.  But perhaps I am hard there
+on them.  A man who is needlessly taken round to plumb and duly
+level the tomb where his love lies buried living, may perhaps be
+excused by the assessors on high a little spirit of bitterness.
+
+I had gone up the steps to do my hateful work a man full of
+grief, though outwardly unmoved.  As I came down again I had a
+feeling of incompleteness; it seemed as though half my inwards had
+been left behind with Nais in the hollow of the stone, and their
+place was taken by a void which ached wearily; but still I carried
+a passive face, and memory that before all these private matters
+stood the command of the High Council, which sat before the Ark of
+the Mysteries.
+
+So I went and stood before Phorenice, and said the words which
+the ancient forms prescribed concerning the carrying out of her
+wish.
+
+"Then, now," she said, "I will give myself to you as wife.  We
+are not as others, you and I, Deucalion.  There is a law and a form
+set down for the marrying of these other people, but that would be
+useless for our purposes.  We will have neither priest nor scribe
+to join us and set down the union.  I am the law here in Atlantis,
+and you soon will be part of me.  We will not be demeaned by
+profaner hands.  We will make the ceremony for ourselves, and for
+witnesses, there are sufficient in waiting.  Afterwards, the record
+shall be cut deep in the granite throne you have built for me, and
+the lettering filled in with gold, so that it shall endure and
+remain bright for always."
+
+"The Empress can do no wrong," I said formally, and took the
+hand she offered me, and helped her to rise.  We walked out from
+the scarlet awning into the glare of the sunshine, she leaning on
+me, flushing, and so radiantly lovely that the people began to hail
+her with rapturous shouts of "A Goddess; our Goddess Phorenice." 
+But for me they had no welcoming word.   I think the set grimness
+of my face both scared and repelled them.
+
+We went up the steps which led to the throne, the people still
+shouting, and I sat her in the royal seat beneath the snake's
+outstretched head, and she drew me down to sit beside her.
+
+She raised her jewelled hand, and a silence fell on that great
+throng, as though the breath had been suddenly cut short for all of
+them.
+
+Then Phorenice made proclamation:
+
+"Hear me, O my people, and hear me, O High Gods from whom I am
+come.  I take this man Deucalion, to be my husband, to share with
+me the prosperity of Atlantis, and join me in guarding our great
+possession.  May all our enemies perish as she is now perishing
+above whom we sit."  And then she put her arms around my neck, and
+kissed me hotly on the mouth.
+
+In turn I also spoke: "Hear me, O most High Gods, whose
+servant I am, and hear me also, O ye people.  I take this Empress,
+Phorenice, to wife, to help with her the prosperity of Atlantis,
+and join with her in guarding the welfare of that great possession. 
+May all the enemies of this country perish as they have perished in
+the past."
+
+And then, I too, who had not been permitted by the fate to
+touch the lips of my love, bestowed the first kiss I had ever given
+woman to Phorenice, that was now being made my wife.
+
+But we were not completely linked yet.
+
+"A woman is one, and man is one," she proclaimed, following
+for the first time the old form of words, "but in marriage they
+merge, so that wife and husband are no more separate, but one
+conjointly.  In token of this we will now make the symbolic joining
+together, so that all may see and remember."  She took her dagger,
+and pricking the brawn on my forearm till a head of blood appeared,
+set her red lips to it, and took it into herself.
+
+"Ah," she said, with her eyes sparkling, "now you are part of
+me indeed, Deucalion, and I feel you have strengthened me already." 
+She pulled down the neck of her robe.  "Let me make you my return."
+
+I pricked the rounded whiteness of her shoulder.  Gods! when
+I remembered who was beneath us as we sat on that throne, I could
+have driven the blade through to her heart!  And then I, too, put
+down my lips, and took the drop of her blood that was yielded to
+me.
+
+My tongue was dry, my throat was parched, and my face
+suffused, and I thought I should have choked.
+
+But the Empress, who was ordinarily so acute, was misled then. 
+"It thrills you?" she cried.  "It burns within you like living
+fire?  I have just felt it.  By my face!  Deucalion, if I had known
+the pleasure it gives to be made a wife, I do not think I should
+have waited this long for you.  Ah, yes; but with another man I
+should have had no thrill.  I might have gone through the ceremony
+with another, but it would have left me cold.  Well, they say this
+feeling comes to a woman but once in her time, and I would not
+change it for the glory of all my conquests and the whirl of all my
+power."  She leaned in close to me so that the red curls of her hair
+swept my cheek, and her breath came hot against my mouth.  "Tasted
+you ever any sweet so delicious as this knowledge that we are made
+one now, Deucalion, past all possible dissolving?"
+
+I could not lie to her any more just then.  The Gods know how
+honestly I had striven to play the part commanded me for Atlantis'
+good, but there is a limit to human endurance, and mine was
+reached.  I was not all anger towards her.  I had some pity for
+this passion of hers, which had grown of itself certainly, but
+which I had done nothing to check; and the indecent frankness with
+which it was displayed was only part of the livery of potentates
+who flaunt what meaner folk would coyly hide.  But always before my
+eyes was a picture of the girl on whom her jealousy had taken such
+a bitter vengeance, and to invent spurious lover's talk then was a
+thing my tongue refused to do.
+
+"Words are poor things," I said, "and I am a man unused to
+women, and have but a small stock of any phrases except the dryest. 
+Remember, Phorenice, a week agone, I did not know what love was,
+and now that I have learned the lesson, somewhat of the suddenest,
+the language remains still to come to me.  My inwards speak; indeed
+they are full of speech; but I cannot translate into bald cold
+words what they say."
+
+And here, surely the High Gods took pity on my tied tongue and
+my misery, and made an opportunity for bringing the ceremony to an
+end.  A man ran into the square shouting, and showing a wound that
+dripped, and presently all that vast crowd which stood on the
+pavements, and the sides of the pyramids, and the roofs of the
+temples, took up the cry, and began to feel for their weapons.
+
+"The rebels are in!"  "They have burrowed a path into the
+city!"  "They have killed the cave-tigers and taken a gate!"  "They
+are putting the whole place to the storm!"  "They will presently
+leave no poor soul of us here alive!"
+
+There then was a termination of our marriage cooings.  With
+rebels merely biting at the walls, it was fine to put strong trust
+in the defences, and easy to affect contempt for the besiegers'
+powers, and to keep the business of pageants and state craft and
+marryings turning on easy wheels.  But with rebel soldiers already
+inside the city (and hordes of others doubtless pressing on their
+heels), the affairs took a different light.  It was no moment for
+further delay, and Phorenice was the first to admit it.  The glow
+that had been in her eyes changed to the glare of the fighter, as
+the fellow who had run up squalled out his tidings.
+
+I stood and stretched my chest.  I seemed in need of air. 
+"Here," I said, "is work that I can understand more clearly.  I
+will go and sweep this rabble back to their burrows, Phorenice."
+
+"But not alone, sir.  I come too.  It is my city still.  Nay,
+sir, we are too newly wed to be parted yet."
+
+"Have your will," I said, and together we went down the steps
+of the throne to the pavement below.  Under my breath I said a
+farewell to Nais.
+
+Our armour-bearers met us with weapons, and we stepped into
+litters, and the slaves took us off hot foot.  The wounded man who
+had first brought the news had fallen in a faint, and no more
+tidings was to be got from him, but the growing din of the fight
+gave us the general direction, and presently we began to meet knots
+of people who dwelt near the place of irruption, running away in
+wild panic, loaded down with their household goods.
+
+It was useless to stop these, as fight they could not, and if
+they had stayed they would merely have been slaughtered like flies,
+and would in all likelihood have impeded our own soldiery.  And so
+we let them run screaming on their blind way, but forced the
+litters through them with but very little regard for their coward
+convenience.
+
+Now the advantage of the rebels, when it came to be looked
+upon by a soldier's eye, was a thing of little enough importance. 
+They had driven a tunnel from behind a covering mound, beneath the
+walls, and had opened it cleverly enough through the floor of a
+middle-class house.  They had come through into this, collecting
+their numbers under its shelter, and doubtless hoping that the
+marriage of the Empress (of which spies had given them information)
+would sap the watchfulness of the city guards.  But it seems they
+were discovered and attacked before they were thoroughly ready to
+emerge, and, as a fine body of troops were barracked near the spot,
+their extermination would have been merely a matter of time, even
+if we had not come up.
+
+It did not take a trained eye long to decide on this, and
+Phorenice, with a laugh, lay back on the cushions of the litter,
+and returned her weapons to the armour-bearer who came panting up
+to receive them.  "We grow nervous with our married life, my
+Deucalion," she said.  "We are fearful lest this new-found
+happiness be taken from us too suddenly."
+
+But I was not to be robbed of my breathing-space in this wise. 
+"Let me crave a wedding gift of you," I said.
+
+"It is yours before you name it."
+
+"Then give me troops, and set me wide a city gate a mile away
+from here."
+
+"You can gather five hundred as you go from here to the gate,
+taking two hundred of those that are here.  If you want more, they
+must be fetched from other barracks along the walls.  But where is
+your plan?"
+
+"Why, my poor strategy teaches me this: these foolish rebels
+have set all their hopes on this mine, and all their excitement on
+its present success.  If they are kept occupied here by a
+Phorenice, who will give them some dainty fighting without checking
+them unduly, they will press on to the attack and forget all else,
+and never so much as dream of a sortie.  And meanwhile, a Deucalion
+with his troop will march out of the city well away from here,
+without tuck of drum or blare of trumpet, and fall most
+unpleasantly upon their rear.  After which, a Phorenice will burn
+the house here at the mine's head, which is of wood, and straw
+thatched, to discourage further egress, and either go to the walls
+to watch the fight from there, or sally out also and spur on the
+rout as her fancy dictates."
+
+"Your scheme is so pretty, I would I could rob you of it for
+my own credit's sake, and as it is, I must kiss you for your
+cleverness.  But you got my word first, you naughty fellow, and you
+shall have the men and do as you ask.  Eh, sir, this is a sad
+beginning of our wedded life, if you begin to rob your little wife
+of all the sweets of conquest from the outset."
+
+She took back the weapons and target she had given to the
+armour-bearer, and stepped over the side of the litter to the
+ground.  "But at least," she said, "if you are going to fight, you
+shall have troops that will do credit to my drill," and thereupon
+proceeded to tell off the companies of men-at-arms who were to
+accompany me. She left herself few enough to stem the influx of
+rebels who poured ceaselessly in through the tunnel; but as I had
+seen, with Phorenice, heavy odds added only to her enjoyment.
+
+But for the Empress, I will own at the time to have given
+little enough of thought.  My own proper griefs were raw within me,
+and I thirsted for that forgetfulness of all else which battle
+gives, so that for awhile I might have a rest from their gnawings.
+
+It made my blood run freer to hear once more the tramp of
+practised troops behind me, and when all had been collected, we
+marched out through a gate of the city, and presently were charging
+through and through the straggling rear of the enemy.  By the Gods!
+for the moment even Nais was blotted from my wearied mind.  Never
+had I loved more to let my fierceness run madly riot.  Never have
+I gloated more abundantly over the terrible joy of battle.
+
+Nais must forgive my weakness in seeking to forget her even
+for a breathing-space.  Had that opportunity been denied me, I
+believe the agony of remembering would have snapped my
+brain-strings for always.
+
+
+
+14.  AGAIN THE GODS MAKE CHANGE
+
+
+Now it would be tedious to tell how with a handful of highly
+trained fighting men, I charged and recharged, and finally broke up
+that horde of rebels which outnumbered us by fifteen times.  It
+must be remembered that they grew suddenly panic-stricken in
+finding that of all those who went in under the city walls by the
+mine on which they had set such great store, none came back, and
+that the sounds of panic which had first broken out within the city
+soon gave way to cries of triumph and joy.  And it must be carried
+in memory also that these wretched rebels were without training
+worthy of the name, were for the most part weaponed very vilely,
+and, seeing that their silly principles made each the equal of his
+neighbour, were practically without heads or leaders also.
+
+So when the panic began, it spread like a malignant murrain
+through all their ragged ranks, and there were none to rally the
+flying, none to direct those of more desperate bravery who stayed
+and fought.
+
+My scheme of attack was simple.  I hunted them without a halt. 
+I and my fellows never stopped to play the defensive.  We turned
+one flank, and charged through a centre, and then we were harrying
+the other flank, and once more hacking our passage through the
+solid mass.  And so by constantly keeping them on the run, and in
+ignorance of whence would come the next attack, panic began to grow
+amongst them and ferment, till presently those in the outer lines
+commenced to scurry away towards the forests and the spoiled
+corn-lands of the country, and those in the inner packs were only
+wishful of a chance to follow them.
+
+It was no feat of arms this breaking up of the rebel leaguer,
+and no practised soldier would wish to claim it as such.  It was
+simply taking advantage of the chances of the moment, and as such
+it was successful.  Given an open battle on their own ground, these
+desperate rebels would have fought till none could stand, and by
+sheer ferocious numbers would have pulled down any trained troops
+that the city could have sent against them, whether they had
+advanced in phalanx or what formation you will.  For it must be
+remembered they were far removed from cowards, being Atlantean all,
+just as were those within the city, and were, moreover, spurred to
+extraordinary savageness and desperation by the oppression under
+which they had groaned, and the wrongs they had been forced to
+endure.
+
+Still, as I say, the poor creatures were scattered, and the
+siege was raised from that moment, and it was plain to see that the
+rebellion might be made to end, if no unreasonable harshness was
+used for its final suppression.  Too great severity, though perhaps
+it may be justly their portion, only drives such malcontents to
+further desperations.
+
+Now, following up these fugitives, to make sure that there was
+no halt in their retreat, and to send the lesson of panic
+thoroughly home to them, had led us a long distance from the city
+walls; and as we had fought all through the burning heat of the day
+and my men were heavily wearied, I decided to halt where we were
+for the night amongst some half-ruined houses which would make a
+temporary fortification.  Fortunately, a drove of little
+cloven-hoofed horses which had been scared by some of the rebels in
+their flight happened to blunder into our lines, and as we killed
+five before they were clear again, there was a soldier's supper for
+us, and quickly the fires were lit and cooking it.
+
+Sentries paced the outskirts and made their cries to one
+another, and the wounded sat by the fires and dressed their hurts,
+and with the officers I talked over the engagements of the day, and
+the methods of each charge, and the other details of the fighting. 
+It is the special perquisite of soldiers to dally over these
+matters with gusto, though they are entirely without interest for
+laymen.
+
+The hour drew on for sleep, and snores went up from every
+side.  It was clear that all my officers were wearied out, and only
+continued the talk through deference to their commander.  Yet I had
+a feverish dread of being left alone again with my thoughts, and
+pressed them on with conversation remorselessly.  But in the end
+they were saved the rudeness of dropping off into unconsciousness
+during my talk.  A sentry came up and saluted.  "My lord," he
+reported.  "there is a woman come up from the city whom we have
+caught trying to come into the bivouac."
+
+"How is she named?"
+
+"She will not say."
+
+"Has she business?'
+
+"She will say none.  She demands only to see my lord."
+
+"Bring her here to the fire," I ordered, and then on second
+thoughts remembering that the woman, whoever she might be, had news
+likely enough for my private ear (or otherwise she would not have
+come to so uncouth a rendezvous), I said to the sentry: "Stay,"
+and got up from the ground beside the fire, and went with him to
+the outer line.
+
+"Where is she?" I asked.
+
+"My comrades are holding her.  She might be a wench belonging
+to these rebels, with designs to put a knife into my lord's heart,
+and then we sentries would suffer.  The Empress," he added simply,
+"seems to set good store upon my lord at present, and we know the
+cleverness of her tormentors."
+
+"Your thoughtfulness is frank," I said, and then he showed me
+the woman.  She was muffled up in hood and cloak, but one who loved
+Nais as I loved could not mistake the form of Ylga, her twin
+sister, because of mere swathings.  So I told the sentries to
+release her without asking her for speech, and then led her out
+from the bivouac beyond earshot of their lines.
+
+"It is something of the most pressing that has brought you out
+here, Ylga?"
+
+"You know me, then?  There must be something warmer than the
+ordinary between us two, Deucalion, if you could guess who walked
+beneath all these mufflings."
+
+I let that pass.  "But what's your errand, girl?"
+
+"Aye," she said bitterly, "there's my reward.  All your
+concern's for the message, none for the carrier.  Well, good my
+lord, you are husband to the dainty Phorenice no longer."
+
+"This is news."
+
+"And true enough, too.  She will have no more of you, divorces
+you, spurns you, thrusts you from her, and, after the first
+splutter of wrath is done, then come pains and penalties."
+
+"The Empress can do no wrong.  I will have you speak
+respectful words of the Empress."
+
+"Oh, be done with that old fable!  It sickens me.  The woman
+was mad for love of you, and now she's mad with jealousy.  She
+knows that you gave Nais some of your priest's magic, and that she
+sleeps till you choose to come and claim her, even though the day
+be a century from this.  And if you wish to know the method of her
+enlightenment, it is simple.  There is another airshaft next to the
+one down which you did your cooing and billing, and that leads to
+another cell in which lay another prisoner.  The wretch heard all
+that passed, and thought to buy enlargement by telling it.
+
+"But his news came a trifle stale.  It seems that with the
+pressure of the morning's ceremonies, they forgot to bring a
+ration, and when at last his gaoler did remember him, it was rather
+late, seeing that by then Phorenice had tied herself publicly to a
+husband, and poor Nais had doubtless eaten her green drug. 
+However, the fools must needs try and barter his tale for what it
+would fetch; and, as was natural, had such a silly head chopped off
+for his pains; and after that your Phorenice behaved as you may
+guess.  And now you may thank me, sir, for coming to warn you not
+to go back to Atlantis."
+
+"But I shall go back.  And if the Empress chooses to cut my
+head also from its proper column, that is as the High Gods will."
+
+"You are more sick of life than I thought.  But I think, sir,
+our Phorenice judges your case very accurately.  It was permitted
+me to hear the outbursting of this lady's rage.  'Shall I hew off
+his head?' said she.  'Pah!  Shall I give him over to my
+tormentors, and stand by whilst they do their worst?  He would not
+wrinkle his brow at their fiercest efforts.  No; he must have a
+heavier punishment than any of these, and one also which will
+endure.  I shall lop off his right hand and his left foot, so that
+he may be a fighting man no longer, and then I shall drive him
+forth crippled into the dangerous lands, where he may learn Fear. 
+The beasts shall hunt him, the fires of the ground shall spoil his
+rest.  He shall know hunger, and he shall breathe bad air.  And all
+the while he shall remember that I have Nais near me, living and
+locked in her coffin of stone, to play with as I choose, and to
+give over to what insults may come to my fancy.' That is what she
+said, Deucalion.  Now I ask you again will you go back to meet her
+vengeance?"
+
+"No," I said, "it is no part of my plan to be mutilated and
+left to live."
+
+"So, being a woman of some sense, I judged.  And, moreover,
+having some small kindness still left for you, I have taken it upon
+myself to make a plan for your further movement which may fall in
+with your whim.  Does the name of Tob come back to your memory?"
+
+"One who was Captain of Tatho's navy?"
+
+"That same Tob.  A gruff, rude fellow, and smelling vile of
+tar, but seeming to have a sturdy honesty of his own.  Tob sails
+away this night for parts unknown, presumably to found a kingdom
+with Tob for king.  It seems he can find little enough to earn at
+his craft in Atlantis these latter days, and has scruples at seeing
+his wife and young ones hungry.  He told me this at the harbour
+side when I put my neck under the axe by saying I wanted carriage
+for you, sir, and so having me under his thumb, he was perhaps more
+loose-lipped than usual.  You seem to have made a fine impression
+on Tob, Deucalion.  He said--I repeat his hearty disrespect--you
+were just the recruit he wanted, but whether you joined him or not,
+he would go to the nether Gods to do you service."
+
+"By the fellow's side, I gained some experience in fighting
+the greater sea beasts."
+
+"Well, go and do it again.  Believe me, sir, it is your only
+chance.  It would grieve me much to hear the searing-iron hiss on
+your stumps.  I bargained with Tob to get clear of the harbour
+forts before the chain was up for the night, and as he is a very
+daring fellow, with no fear of navigating under the darkness, he
+himself said he would come to a point of the shore which we agreed
+upon, and there await you.  Come, Deucalion, let me lead you to the
+place."
+
+"My girl," I said, "I see I owe you many thanks for what you
+have done on my poor behalf."
+
+"Oh, your thanks!" she said.  "You may keep them.  I did not
+come out here in the dark and the dangers for mere thanks, though
+I knew well enough there would be little else offered."--She
+plucked at my sleeve.--"Now show me your walking pace, sir.  They
+will begin to want your countenance in the camp directly, and we
+need hanker after no too narrow inquiries for what's along."
+
+So thereon we set off, Ylga and I, leaving the lights of the
+bivouac behind us, and she showed the way, whilst I carried my
+weapons ready to ward off attacks whether from beasts or from men. 
+Few words were passed between us, except those which had concern
+with the dangers natural to the way.  Once only did we touch one
+another, and that was where a tree-trunk bridged a rivulet of
+scalding water which flowed from a boil-spring towards the sea.
+
+"Are you sure of footing?" I asked, for the night was dark,
+and the heat of the water would peel the flesh from the bones if
+one slipped into it.
+
+"No," she said, "I am not," and reached out and took my hand. 
+I helped her over and then loosed my grip, and she sighed, and
+slowly slipped her hand away.  Then on again we went in silence,
+side by side, hour after hour, and league after league.
+
+But at last we topped a rise, and below us through the trees
+I could see the gleam of the great estuary on which the city of
+Atlantis stands.  The ground was soggy and wet beneath us, the
+trees were full of barbs and spines, the way was monstrous hard. 
+Ylga's breath was beginning to come in laboured pants.  But when I
+offered to take her arm, and help her, as some return against what
+she had done for me, she repulsed me rudely enough.  "I am no poor
+weakling," said she, "if that is your only reason for wanting to
+touch me."
+
+Presently, however, we came out through the trees, and the
+roughest part of our journey was done.  We saw the ship riding to
+her anchors in shore a mile away, and a weird enough object she was
+under the faint starlight.  We made our way to her along the level
+beaches.
+
+Tob was keeping a keen watch.  We were challenged the moment
+we came within stone or arrow shot, and bidden to halt and recite
+our business; but he was civil enough when he heard we were those
+whom he expected.  He called a crew and slacked out his anchor-rope
+till his ship ground against the shingle, and then thrust out his
+two steering oars to help us clamber aboard.
+
+I turned to Ylga with words of thanks and farewell.  "I will
+never forget what you have done for me this night; and should the
+High Gods see fit to bring me back to Atlantis and power, you shall
+taste my gratitude."
+
+"I do not want to return.  I am sick of this old life here."
+
+"But you have your palace in the city, and your servants, and
+your wealth, and Phorenice will not disturb you from their
+possession."
+
+"Oh, as for that, I could go back and be fan-girl tomorrow. 
+But I do not want to go back."
+
+"Let me tell you it is no time for a gently nurtured lady like
+yourself to go forward.  I have been viceroy of Yucatan, Ylga, and
+know somewhat of making a foothold in these new countries.  And
+that was nothing compared with what this will be.  I tell you it
+entails hardships, and privations, and sufferings which you could
+not guess at.  Few survive who go to colonise in the beginning, and
+those only of the hardiest, and they earn new scars and new
+batterings every day."
+
+"I do not care, and, besides, I can share the work.  I can
+cook, I can shoot a good arrow, and I can make garments, yes,
+though they were cut from the skins of beasts and had to be sewn
+with backbone sinews.  Because you despise fine clothes, and
+because you have seen me only decked out as fan-girl, you think I
+am useless.  Bah, Deucalion!  Never let people prate to me about
+your perfection.  You know less about a woman than a boy new from
+school."
+
+"I have learned all I care to know about one woman, and because
+of the memory of her, I could not presume to ask her sister to
+come with me now."
+
+"Aye," she said bitterly, "kick my pride.  I knew well enough
+it was only second place to Nais I could get all the time I was
+wanting to come.  Yet no one but a boor would have reminded me of
+it.  Gods! and to think that half the men in Atlantis have courted
+me, and now I am arrived at this!"
+
+"I must go alone.  It would have made me happier to take your
+esteem with me.  But as it is, I suppose I shall carry only your
+hate."
+
+"That is the most humiliating thing of all; I cannot bring
+myself to hate you.  I ought to, I know, after the brutal way you
+have scorned me.  But I do not, and there is the truth.  I seem to
+grow the fonder of you, and if I thought there was a way of keeping
+you alive, and unmutilated, here in Atlantis, I do not think I
+should point out that Tob is tired of waiting, and will probably be
+off without you."  She flung her arms suddenly about my neck, and
+kissed me hotly on the mouth.  "There, that is for good-bye, dear. 
+You see I am reckless.  I care not what I do now, knowing that you
+cannot despise me more than you have done all along for my
+forwardness."
+
+She ran back from me into the edge of the trees.
+
+"But this is foolishness," I said.  "I must take you through
+the dangers that lie between here and some gate of the city, and
+then come back to the ship."
+
+"You need not fear for me.  The unhappy are always safe.  And,
+besides, I have a way.  It is my solace to know that you will
+remember me now.  You will never forget that kiss."
+
+"Fare you well, Ylga," I cried.  "May the High Gods keep you
+entirely in their holy care."
+
+But no reply came back.  She had gone off into the forest. 
+And so I turned down to the beach, and splashed into the water, and
+climbed on board the ship up the steering oars.  Tob gave the word
+to haul-to the anchor, and get her away from the beach.
+
+"Greeting, my lord," said he, "but I'd have been pleased to
+see you earlier.  We've small enough force and slow enough heels in
+this vessel, and it's my idea that the sooner we're away from here
+and beyond range of pursuit, the safer it will be for my woman and
+brats who are in that hutch of an after-castle.  It's long enough
+since I sailed in such a small old-fashioned ship as this.  She's
+no machines, and she's not even a steering mannikin.  Look at the
+meanness of her furniture and (in your ear) I've suspicions that
+there's rottenness in her bottom.  But she's the best I'd the means
+to buy, and if she reaches the place at the farther end I've got my
+eye on, we shall have to make a home there, or be content to die,
+for she'll never have strength to carry us farther or back.  She's
+been a ship in the Egypt trade, and you know what that is for
+getting worm and rot in the wood."
+
+"You'd enough hands for your scheme before I came?"
+
+"Oh yes.  I've fifty stout lads and eight women packed in the
+ship somehow, and trouble enough I've had to get them away from the
+city.  That thief of a port-captain wellnigh skinned us clean
+before he could see it lawful that so many useful fighting men
+might go out of harbour.  Times are not what they were, I tell you,
+and the sea trade's about done.  All sailor men of any skill have
+taken a woman or two and gone out in companies to try their
+fortunes in other lands.  Why, I'd trouble enough to get half a
+score to help me work this ship.  All my balance are just landsmen
+raw and simple, and if I land half of them alive at the other end,
+we shall be doing well."
+
+"Still with luck and a few good winds it should not take long
+to get across to Europe."
+
+Tob slapped his leg.  "No savage Europe for me, my lord.  Now,
+see the advantage of being a mariner.  I found once some islands to
+the north of Europe, separated from the main by a strait, which I
+called the Tin Islands, seeing that tin ore litters many of the
+beaches.  I was driven there by storm, and said no word of the find
+when I got back, and here you see it comes in useful.  There's no
+one in all Atlantis but me knows of those Tin Islands to-day, and
+we'll go and fight honestly for our ground, and build a town and a
+kingdom on it."
+
+"With Tob for king?"
+
+"Well, I have figured it out as such for many a day, but I
+know when I meet my better, and I'm content to serve under
+Deucalion.  My lord would have done wiser to have brought a wife
+with him, though, and I thought it was understood by the good lady
+that spoke to me down at the harbour, or I'd have mentioned it
+earlier.  The savages in my Tin Islands go naked and stain
+themselves blue with woad, and are very filthy and brutish to look
+upon.  They are sturdy, and should make good slaves, but one would
+have to get blunted in the taste before one could wish to be father
+to their children."
+
+"I am still husband to Phorenice."
+
+Tob grinned.  "The Gods give you joy of her.  But it is part
+of a mariner's creed--and you will grow to be a mariner here--that
+wedlock does not hold across the seas.  However, that matter may
+rest.  But, coming to my Tin Islands again: they'll delight you. 
+And I tell you, a kingdom will not be so hard to carve out as it
+was in Egypt, or as you found in Yucatan.  There are beasts there,
+of course, and no one who can hunt need ever go hungry.  But the
+greater beasts are few.  There are cave-bears and cave-tigers in
+small numbers, to be sure, and some river-horses and great snakes. 
+But the greater lizards seem to avoid the land; and as for birds,
+there is rarely seen one that can hurt a grown man.  Oh, I tell
+you, it will be a most desirable kingdom."
+
+"Tob seems to have imagined himself king of the Tin Islands
+with much reality."
+
+He sighed a little.  "In truth I did, and there is no denying
+it, and I tell you plain, there is not another man living that I
+would have broken this voyage for but Deucalion.  But don't think
+I regret it, and don't think I want to push myself above my place. 
+This breeze and the ebb are taking the old ship finely along her
+ways.  See those fire baskets on the harbour forts?  We're abreast
+of them now.  We'll have dropped them and the city out of sight by
+daylight, and the flood will not begin to run up till then.  But I
+fear unless the wind hardens down with the dawn we'll have to bring
+up to an anchor when the flood makes.  Tides run very hard in these
+narrow seas.  Aye, and there are some shrewdish tide-rips round my
+Tin Islands, as you shall see when we reach them."
+
+There were many fearful glances backwards when day came and
+showed the waters, and the burning mountains that hemmed them in
+beyond the shores.  All seemed to expect some navy of Phorenice to
+come surging up to take them back to servitude and starvation in
+the squalid wards of the city; and I confess ingenuously that I was
+with them in all truth when they swore they would fight the ship
+till she sank beneath them, before they would obey another of the
+commands of Phorenice.  However, their brave heroics were displayed
+to no small purpose.  For the full flow of the tide we hung in our
+place, barely moving past the land, but yet not seeing either oar
+or sail; and then, when the tide turned, away we went once more
+with speed, mightily comforted.
+
+Tob's woman must needs bring drink on deck, and bid all pour
+libations to her as a future queen.  But Tob cuffed her back into
+the after-castle, slamming to the hatch behind her heels, and
+bidding the crew send the liquor down their dusty throats.  "We are
+done with that foolery," said he.  "My Lord Deucalion will be king
+of this new kingdom we shall build in the Tin Islands, and a right
+proper king he'll make, as you untravelled ones would know, if
+you'd sailed the outer seas with him as I have done."  Beneath
+which I read a regret, but said nothing, having made my plans from
+the moment of stepping on board, as will appear on a later sheet.
+
+So on down the great estuary we made our way, and though it
+pleasured the others on board when they saw that the seas were
+desolate of sails, it saddened me when I recalled how once the
+waters had been whitened with the glut of shipping.
+
+They had started off on their voyage with a bare two days'
+provision in their equipment, and so, of necessity even after
+leaving the great estuary, we were forced to voyage coastwise,
+putting into every likely river and sheltered beach to slay fish
+and meat for future victualling.  "And when the winter comes," said
+Tob, "as its gales will be heavier than this old ship can stomach,
+I had determined to haul up and make a permanent camp ashore, and
+get a crop of grain grown and threshed before setting sail again. 
+It is the usual custom in these voyages.  And I shall do it still,
+subject to my lord's better opinion."
+
+So here, having by this time completed a two months' leisurely
+journey from the city, I saw my opportunity to speak what I had
+always carried in my mind.  "Tob," I said, "I am a poor, weak,
+defenceless man, and I am quite at your mercy, but what if I do not
+voyage all the way to the Tin Islands, and oust you of this
+kingship?"
+
+He brightened perceptibly.  "Aye," he grunted, "you are very
+weak, my lord, and mighty defenceless.  We know all about that. 
+But what's else?  You must tell all your meaning plain.  I'm a
+common mariner, and understand little of your fancy talk."
+
+"Why, this.  That it is not my wish to leave the continent of
+Atlantis.  If you will put me down on any part of this side that
+faces Europe, I will commend you strongly to the Gods.  I would I
+could give you money, or (better still) articles that would be
+useful to you in your colonising; but as it is, you see me
+destitute."
+
+"As to that, you owe me nothing, having done vastly more than
+your share each time we have put in shore for the hunting.  But it
+will  not do, this plan of yours.  I will shamedly confess that the
+sound of that kingship in my Tin Islands sounds sweet to me.  But
+no, my lord, it will not do.  You are no mariner yet, and
+understand little of geography, but I must tell you that the part
+of Atlantis there"--he jerked his thumb towards the line of trees,
+and the mountains which lay beyond the fringe of surf--"is called
+the Dangerous Lands, and a man must needs be a salamander and be
+learned in magic (so I am told) before he can live there."
+
+I laughed.  "We of the Priests' Clan have some education, Tob,
+though it may not be on the same lines as your own.  In fact, I may
+say I was taught in the colleges concerning the boundaries and the
+contents of our continent with a nicety that would surprise you.  
+And once ashore, my fate will still be under the control of the
+most High Gods."
+
+He muttered something in his profane seaman's way about
+preferring to keep his own fate under control of his own most
+strong right arm, but saying that he would keep the matter in his
+thoughts, he excused himself hurriedly to go and see to somewhat
+concerning the working of the ship, and there left me.
+
+But I think the sweets of kingly rule were a strong argument
+in favour of letting me have my way (which I should have had
+otherwise if it had not been given peacefully), and on the third
+day after our talk he put the ship inshore again for
+re-victualling.  We lurched into a river-mouth, half swamped over
+a roaring bar, and ran up against the bank and made fast there to
+trees, but booming ourselves a safe distance off with oars and
+poles, so that no beast could leap on board out of the thicket.
+
+Fish-spearing and meat-hunting were set about with
+promptitude, and on the second day we were happy enough to slay a
+yearling river-horse, which gave provisions in all sufficiency.  A
+space was cleared on the bank, fires were lit, and the meat hung
+over the smoke in strips, and when as much was cured as the ship
+would carry, the shipmen made a final gorge on what remained,
+filled up a great stack of hollow reeds with drinking water, and
+were ready to continue the voyage.
+
+With sturdy generosity did Tob again attempt to make me sail
+on with them as their future king, and as steadfastly did I make
+refusal; and at last stood alone on the bank amongst the gnawed
+bones of their feast, with my weapons to bear me company, and he,
+and his men, and the women stood in the little old ship, ready to
+drop down river with the current.
+
+"At least," said Tob, "we'll carry your memory with us, and
+make it big in the Tin Islands for everlasting."
+
+"Forget me," I said, "I am nothing.  I am merely an incident
+that has come in your way.  But if you want to carry some memory
+with you that shall endure, preserve the cult of the most High Gods
+as it was taught to you when you were children here in Atlantis.  
+And afterwards, when your colony grows in power, and has come to
+sufficient magnificence, you may send to the old country for a
+priest."
+
+"We want no priest, except one we shall make ourselves, and
+that will be me.  And as for the old Gods--well, I have laid my
+ideas before the fellows here, and they agree to this: We are done
+with those old Gods for always.  They seem worn out, if one may
+judge from Their present lack of usefulness in Atlantis, and,
+anyway, there will be no room for Them on the Tin Islands.--Let go
+those warps there aft, and shove her head out.--We are under weigh
+now, my lord, and beyond recall, and so I am free to tell you what
+we have decided upon for our religious exercises.  We shall set up
+the memory of a living Hero on earth, and worship that.  And when
+in years to come the picture of his face grows dim, we shall
+doubtless make an image of him, as accurate as our art permits, and
+build him a temple for shelter, and bring there our offerings and
+prayers.  And as I say, my lord, I shall be priest, and when I am
+dead, the sons of my body shall be priests after me, and the eldest
+a king also."
+
+"Let me plead with you," I said.  "This must not be."
+
+The ship was drifting rapidly away with the current, and they
+were hoisting sail.  Tob had to shout to make himself heard.  "Aye,
+but it shall be.  For I, too, am a strong man after my kind, and I
+have ordered it so.  And if you want the name of our Hero that some
+day shall be God, you wear it on yourself.  Deucalion shall be God
+for our children."
+
+"This is blasphemy," I cried.  "Have a care, fool, or this
+impiety will sink you."
+
+"We will risk it," he bawled back, "and consider the odds
+against us are small.  Regard!  Here is thy last horn of wine in
+the ship, and my woman has treasured it against this moment. 
+Regard, all men, together with Those above and Those below!  I pour
+this wine as a libation to Deucalion, great lord that is to-day,
+Hero that shall be to-morrow, God that will be in time to come!" 
+And then all those on the ship joined in the acclaim till they were
+beyond the reach of my voice, and were battling their way out to
+sea through the roaring breakers of the bar.
+
+Solitary I stood at the brink of the forest, looking after
+them and musing sadly.  Tob, despite his lowly station, was a man
+I cared for more than many.  Like all seamen, I knew that he paid
+his devotions to one of the obscurer Gods, but till then I had
+supposed him devout in his worship.  His new avowal came to me as
+a desolating shock.  If a man like Tob could forsake all the older
+Gods to set up on high some poor mortal who had momentarily caught
+his fancy, what could be expected from the mere thoughtless mob,
+when swayed by such a brilliant tongue as Phorenice's?  It seemed
+I was to begin my exile with a new dreariness added to all the
+other adverse prospects of Atlantis.
+
+But then behind me I heard the rustle of some great beast that
+had scented me, and was coming to attack through the thicket, and
+so I had other matters to think upon.  I had to let Tob and his
+ship go out over the rim of the horizon unwatched.
+
+
+
+15.  ZAEMON'S SUMMONS
+
+
+Since the days when man was first created upon the earth by
+Gods who looked down and did their work from another place, there
+have always been areas of the land ill-adapted for his maintenance,
+but none more so than that part of Atlantis which lies over against
+the savage continents of Europe and Africa.  The common people
+avoid it, because of a superstition which says that the spirits of
+the evil dead stalk about there in broad daylight, and slay all
+those that the more open dangers of the place might otherwise
+spare.  And so it has happened often that the criminals who might
+have fled there from justice, have returned of their own free will,
+and voluntarily given themselves up to the tormentors, rather than
+face its fabulous terrors.
+
+To the educated, many of these legends are known to be
+mythical; but withal there are enough disquietudes remaining to
+make life very arduous and stocked with peril.  Everywhere the
+mountains keep their contents on the boil; earth tremors are every
+day's experience; gushes of unseen evil vapours steal upon one with
+such cunningness and speed, that it is often hard to flee in time
+before one is choked and killed; poisons well up into the rivers,
+yet leave their colour unchanged; great cracks split across the
+ground reaching down to the fires beneath, and the waters gush into
+these, and are shot forth again with devastating explosion; and
+always may be expected great outpourings of boiling mud or molten
+rock.
+
+Yet with all this, there are great sombre forests in these
+lands, with trees whose age is unimaginable, and fires amongst the
+herbage are rare.  All beneath the trees is water, and the air is
+full of warm steam and wetness.  For a man to live in that constant
+hot damp is very mortifying to the strength.  But strength is
+wanted, and cunning also beyond the ordinary, for these dangerous
+lands are the abode of the lizards, which of all beasts grow to the
+most enormous size and are the most fearsome to deal with.
+
+There are countless families and species of these lizards, and
+with some of them a man can contend with prospect of success.  But
+there are others whose hugeness no human force can battle against. 
+One I saw, as it came up out of a lake after gaining its day's
+food, that made the wet land shake and pulse as it trod.  It could
+have taken Phorenice's mammoth into its belly,* and even a mammoth
+in full charge could not have harmed it.  Great horny plates
+covered its head and body, and on the ridge of its back and tail
+and limbs were spines that tore great slivers from the black trees
+as it passed amongst them.
+
+
+* TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: Professor Reeder of the Wyoming
+State University has recently unearthed the skeleton of a
+Brontosaurus, 130 ft. in length, which would have weighed 50 tons
+when alive.  It was 35 ft. in height at the hips, and 25 ft. at the
+shoulder, and 40 people could be seated with comfort within its
+ribs.  Its thigh bone was 8 ft. long.  The fossils of a whole
+series of these colossal lizards have been found.
+
+
+Now and again these monsters would get caught in some vast
+fissuring of the ground, but not often.  Their speed of foot was
+great, and their sagacity keen.  They seemed to know when the worst
+boilings of the mountains might be expected, and then they found
+safety in the deeper lakes, or buried themselves in wallows of the
+mud.  Moreover, they were more kindly constituted than man to
+withstand one great danger of these regions, in that the heat of
+the water did them no harm.  Indeed, they will lie peacefully in
+pools where sudden steam-bursts are making the water leap into
+boiling fountains, and I have seen one run quickly across a flow of
+molten rock which threatened to cut it off, and not be so much as
+singed in the transit.
+
+In the midst of such neighbours, then, was my new life thrown,
+and existence became perilous and hard to me from the outset.  I
+came near to knowing what Fear was, and indeed only a fervent trust
+in the most High Gods, and a firm belief that my life was always
+under Their fostering care, prevented me from gaining that horrid
+knowledge.  For long enough, till I learned somewhat of the ways of
+this steaming, sweltering land, I was in as miserable a case as
+even Phorenice could have wished to see me.  My clothes rotted from
+my back with the constant wetness, till I went as naked as a savage
+from Europe; my limbs were racked with agues, and I could find no
+herbs to make drugs for their relief; for days together I could
+find no better food than tree-grubs and leaves; and often when I
+did kill beasts, knowing little of their qualities, I ate those
+that gave me pain and sickness.
+
+But as man is born to make himself adaptable to his
+surroundings, so as the months dragged on did I learn the
+limitation of this new life of mine, and gather some knowledge of
+its resources.  As example: I found a great black tree, with a
+hollow core, and a hole into its middle near the roots.  Here I
+harboured, till one night some monstrous lizard, whose sheer weight
+made the tree rock like a sapling, endeavoured to suck me forth as
+a bird picks a worm from a hollow log.  I escaped by the will of
+the Gods--I could as much have done harm to a mountain as injure
+that horny tongue with my weapons--but I gave myself warning that
+this chance must not happen again.
+
+So I cut myself a ladder of footholes on the inside of the
+trunk till I had reached a point ten man-heights from the ground,
+and there cut other notches, and with tree branches made a floor on
+which I might rest.  Later, for luxury, I carved me arrow-slit
+windows in the walls of my chamber, and even carried up sand for a
+hearth, so that I might cook my victual up there instead of
+lighting a fire in all the dangers of the open below.
+
+By degrees, too, I began to find how the large-scaled fish of
+the rivers and the lesser turtles might be more readily captured,
+and so my ribs threatened less to start through their proper
+covering of skin as the days went on.  But the lack of salads and
+gruels I could never overcome.  All the green meat was tainted so
+powerfully with the taste of tars that never could I force my
+palate to accept it.  And of course, too, there remained the peril
+of the greater lizards and the other dangers native to the place.
+
+But as the months began to mount into years, and the brute
+part of my nature became more satisfied, there came other longings
+which it was less easy to provide for.  From the ivory of a river
+horse's tooth I had endeavoured to carve me a representative of
+Nais as last I had seen her.  But, though my fingers might be
+loving, and my will good, my art was of the dullest, and the
+result--though I tried time and time again--was always clumsy and
+pitiful.  Still, in my eyes it carried some suggestion of the
+original--a curve here, an outline there, and it made my old love
+glow anew within me as I sat and ate it with my eyes.  Yet it did
+little to satisfy my longings for the woman I had lost; rather
+it whetted my cravings to be with her again, or at least to have
+some knowledge of her fate.
+
+Other men of the Priests' Clan have come out and made an abode
+in these Dangerous Lands, and by mortifying the flesh, have gained
+an intimacy with the Higher Mysteries which has carried them far
+past what mere human learning and repetition could teach.  Indeed,
+here and there one, who from some cause and another has returned to
+the abodes of men, has carried with him a knowledge that has
+brought him the reputation amongst the vulgar for the workings of
+magic and miracles, which--since all arts must be allowed which aid
+so holy a cause--have added very materially to the ardour with
+which these common people pursue the cult of the Gods.  But for
+myself I could not free my mind to the necessary clearness for
+following these abstruse studies.  During that voyage home from
+Yucatan I had communed with them with growing insight; but now my
+mind was not my own.  Nais had a lien upon it, and refused to be
+ousted; and, in truth, her sweet trespass was my chief solace.
+
+But at last my longing could no further be denied.  Through
+one of the arrow-slit windows of my tree-house I could see far away
+a great mountain top whitened with perpetual snow, which our Lord
+the Sun dyed with blood every night of His setting.  Night after
+night I used to watch that ruddy light with wide straining eyes. 
+Night after night I used to remember that in days agone when I was
+entering upon the priesthood, it had been my duty to adore our
+great Lord as He rose for His day behind the snows of that very
+mountain.  And always the thought followed on these musings, that
+from that distant crest I could see across the continent to the
+Sacred Mount, which had the city below it where I had buried my
+love alive.
+
+So at last I gave way and set out, and a perilous journey I
+made of it.  In the heavy mists, which hung always on the lower
+ground, my way lay blind before me, and I was constantly losing it. 
+Indeed, to say that I traversed three times the direct distance is
+setting a low estimate.  Throughout all those swamps the great
+lizards hunted, and as the country was new to me I did not know
+places of harbour, and a hundred times was within an ace of being
+spied and devoured at a mouthful.  But the High Gods still desired
+me for Their own purposes, and blinded the great beasts' eyes when
+I slunk to cover as they passed.  Twice rivers of scalding water
+roared boiling across my path, and I had to delay till I could
+collect enough black timber from the forests to build rafts that
+would give me dry ferriage.
+
+It will be seen then that my journey was in a way infinitely
+tedious, but to me, after all those years of waiting, the time
+passed on winged feet.  I had been separated from my love till I
+could bear the strain no longer; let me but see from a distance the
+place where she lay, and feast my eyes upon it for a while, and
+then I could go back to my abode in the tree and there remain
+patiently awaiting the will of the Gods.
+
+The air grew more chilly as I began to come out above the
+region of trees, on to that higher ground which glares down on the
+rest of the world, and I made buskins and a coat of woven grasses
+to protect my body from the cold, which began to blow upon me
+keenly.  And later on, where the snow lay eternally, and was blown
+into gullies, and frozen into solid banks and bergs of ice, I had
+hard work to make any progress amongst its perilous mazes, and was
+moreover so numbed by the chill, that my natural strength was
+vastly weakened.  Overhead, too, following me up with forbidding
+swoops, and occasionally coming so close that I had to threaten it
+with my weapons, was one of those huge man-eating birds which live
+by pulling down and carrying off any creature that their instincts
+tell them is weakly, and likely soon to die.
+
+But the lure ahead of me was strong enough to make these
+difficulties seem small, and though the air of the mountain agreed
+with me ill, causing sickness and panting, I pressed on with what
+speed I could muster towards the elusive summit.  Time after time
+I thought the next spurt would surely bring me out to the view for
+which my soul yearned, but always there seemed another bank of snow
+and ice yet to be climbed.  But at last I reached the crest, and
+gave thanks to the most High Gods for Their protection and favour.
+
+Far, far away I could see the Sacred Mountain with its ring of
+fires burning pale under the day, and although the splendid city
+which nestled at its foot could not be seen from where I stood, I
+knew its position and I knew its plan, and my soul went out to that
+throne of granite in the square before the royal pyramid, where
+once, years before, I had buried my love.  Had Phorenice left the
+tomb unviolated?
+
+I stood there leaning on my spear, filling my eye with the
+prospect, warming even to the smoke of mountains that I recognised
+as old acquaintances.  Gods! how my love burned within me for this
+woman.  My whole being seemed gone out to meet her, and to leave
+room for nothing beside.  For long enough a voice seemed dimly to
+be calling me, but I gave it no regard.  I had come out to that
+hoary mountain top for communion with Nais alone, and I wanted none
+others to interrupt.
+
+But at length the voice calling my name grew too loud to be
+neglected, and I pulled myself out of my sweet musing with a start
+to think that here, for the first time since parting with Tob and
+his company, I should see another human fellow-being.  I gripped my
+weapon and asked who called.  The reply came clearly from up the
+slopes of mountain, and I saw a man coming towards me over the
+snows.  He was old and feeble.  His body was bent, and his hair and
+beard were white as the ground on which he trod, and presently I
+recognised him as Zaemon.  He was coming towards me with incredible
+speed for a man of his years and feebleness, but he carried in his
+hand the glowing Symbol of our Lord the Sun, and holy strength from
+this would add largely to his powers.
+
+He came close to me and made the sign of the Seven, which I
+returned to him, with its completion, with due form and ceremony. 
+And then he saluted me in the manner prescribed as messenger
+appointed by the High Council of the Priests seated before the Ark
+of the Mysteries, and I made humble obeisance before him.
+
+"In all things I will obey the orders that you put before me,"
+I said.
+
+"Such is your duty, my brother.  The command is, that you
+return immediately to the Sacred Mountain, so that if human means
+may still prevail, you, as the most skilful general Atlantis owns
+within her borders, may still save the country from final wreck and
+punishment.  The woman Phorenice persists in her infamies.  The
+poor land groans under her heel.  And now she has laid siege to our
+Sacred Mountain itself, and swears that not one soul shall be left
+alive in all Atlantis who does not bend humbly to her will."
+
+"It is a command and I obey it.  But let me ask of another
+matter that is intimate to both of us.  What of Nais?"
+
+"Nais rests where you left her, untouched.  Phorenice knows by
+her arts--she has stolen nearly all the ancient knowledge now--that
+still you live, and she keeps Nais unharmed beneath the granite
+throne in the hopes that some time she may use her as a weapon
+against you.  Little she knows the sternness of our Priests' creed,
+my brother.  Why, even I, that am the girl's father, would
+sacrifice her blithely, if her death or ruin might do a tittle of
+good to Atlantis."
+
+"You go beyond me with your devotion."
+
+The old man leaned forward at me, with glowering brow. 
+"What!"
+
+"Or my old blind adherence to the ancient dogma has been
+sapped and weakened by events.  You must buy my full obedience,
+Zaemon, if you want it.  Promise me Nais--and your arts I know can
+snatch her--and I will be true servant to the High Council of the
+Priest, and will die in the last ditch if need be for the carrying
+out of order.  But let me see Nais given over to the fury of that
+wanton woman, and I shall have no inwards left, except to take my
+vengeance, and to see Atlantis piled up in ruins as her funeral-
+stone."
+
+Zaemon looked at me bitterly.  "And you are the man the High
+Council thought to trust as they would trust one of themselves? 
+Truly we are in an age of weak men and faithless now.  But, my
+lord--nay, I must call you brother still: we cannot be too nice in
+our choosing to-day--you are the best there is, and we must have
+you.  We little thought you would ask a price for your generalship,
+having once taken oath on the walls of the Ark of the Mysteries
+itself that always, come what might, you would be a servant of the
+High Council of the Clan without fee and without hope of
+advancement.  But this is the age of broken vows, and you are going
+no more than trim with the fashion.  Indeed, brother, perhaps I
+should thank you for being no more greedy in your demands."
+
+"You may spare me your taunts.  You, by self-denial and
+profound search into the highest of the higher Mysteries, have made
+yourself something wiser than human; I have preserved my humanity,
+and with it its powers and frailties; and it seems that each of us
+has his proper uses, or you would not be come now here to me.
+Rather you would have done the generalling yourself."
+
+"You make a warm defence, my brother.  But I have no leisure
+now to stand before you with argument.  Come to the Sacred
+Mountain, fight me this wanton, upstart Empress, and by my beard
+you shall have your Nais as you left her as a reward."
+
+"It is a command of the High Council which shall be obeyed. 
+I will  come with my brother now, as soon as he is rested."
+
+"Nay," said the old man, "I have no tiredness, and as for
+coming with me, there you will not be able.  But follow at what
+pace you may."
+
+He turned and set off down the snowy slopes of the mountain
+and I followed; but gradually he distanced me; and so he kept on,
+with speed always increasing, till presently he passed out of my
+sight round the spur of an ice-cliff, and I found myself alone on
+the mountain side.  Yes, truly alone.  For his footmarks in the
+snow from being deep, grew shallower, and less noticeable, so that
+I had to stoop to see them.  And presently they vanished entirely,
+and the great mountain's flank lay before me trackless, and
+untrodden by the foot of man since time began.
+
+I was not shaken by any great amazement.  Though it was beyond
+my poor art to compass this thing myself, having occupied my mind
+in exile more with memories of Nais than in study of those
+uppermost recesses of the Higher Mysteries in which Zaemon was so
+prodigiously wise, still I had some inkling of his powers.
+
+Zaemon I knew would be back again in his dwelling on the
+Sacred Mountain, shaken and breathless, even before I had found an
+end to his tracks in the snow, and it behoved me to join him there
+in the quickest possible time.  I had his promise now for my
+reward, and I knew that he would carry it into effect.  Beforetime
+I had made an error.  I had valued Atlantis most, and Nais, my
+private love, as only second.  But now it was in my mind to be
+honest with others even as with myself.  Though all the world were
+hanging on my choice, I could but love my Nais most, and serve her
+first and foremost of all.
+
+
+
+16.  SIEGE OF THE SACRED MOUNTAIN
+
+
+Now, my passage across the great continent of Atlantis, if
+tedious and haunted by many dangers, need not be recounted in
+detail here.  Only one halt did I make of any duration, and that
+was unavoidable.  I had killed a stag one day, bringing it down
+after a long chase in an open savannah.  I scented the air
+carefully, to see if there was any other beast which could do me
+harm within reach, and thinking that the place was safe, set about
+cutting my meat, and making a sufficiency into a bundle for
+carriage.
+
+But underfoot amongst the grasses there was a great legged
+worm, a monstrous green thing, very venomous in its bite; and
+presently as I moved I brushed it with my heel, and like the dart
+of light it swooped with its tiny head and struck me with its fangs
+in the lower thigh.  With my knife I cut through its neck and it
+fell to writhing and struggling and twining its hundred legs into
+all manner of contortions; and then, cleaning my blade in the
+ground, I stabbed with it deep all round the wound, so that the
+blood might flow freely and wash the venom from its lodgement.  And
+then with the blood trickling healthily down from my heel, I
+shouldered the meat and strode off, thankful for being so well quit
+of what might have made itself a very ugly adventure.
+
+As I walked, however, my leg began to be filled with a
+tightness and throbbing which increased every hour, and presently
+it began to swell also, till the skin was stretched like drawn
+parchment.  I was taken, too, with a sickness, that racked me
+violently, and if one of the greater and more dangerous beasts had
+come upon me then, he would have eaten me without a fight.  With
+the fall of darkness I managed to haul myself up into a tree, and
+there abode in the crutch of a limb, in wakefulness and pain
+throughout the night.
+
+With the dawn, when the night beasts had gone to their lairs,
+I clambered down again, and leaning heavily on my spear, limped
+onwards through the sombre forests along my way.  The moss which
+grows on the northern side of each tree was my guide, but gradually
+I began to note that I was seeing moss all round the trees, and, in
+fact, was growing light-headed with the pain and the swelling of
+the limb.  But still I pressed onwards with my journey, my last
+instinct being to obey the command of the High Council, and so
+procure the enlargement of Nais as had been promised.
+
+My last memory was of being met by someone in the black forest
+who aided me, and there my waking senses took wings into
+forgetfulness.
+
+But after an interval, wit returned, and I found myself on a
+bed of leaves in a cleft between two rocks, which was furnished
+with some poor skill, and fortified with stakes and buildings
+against the entrance of the larger marauding beasts.  My wound was
+dressed with a poultice of herbs, and at the other side of the
+cavern there squatted a woman, cooking a mess of wood-grubs and
+honey over a fire of sticks.
+
+"How came I here?" I asked.
+
+"I brought you," said she.
+
+"And who are you?"
+
+"A nymph, they call me, and I practise as such, collecting
+herbs and curing the diseases of those that come to me, telling
+fortunes, and making predictions.  In return I receive what each
+can afford, and if they do not pay according to their means, I clap
+on a curse to make them wither.  It's a lean enough living when
+wars and the pestilence have left so few poor folk to live in the
+land."
+
+"Do you visit Atlantis?"
+
+"Not I. Phorenice would have me boiled in brine, living, if
+she could lay easy hands on me.  Our dainty Empress tolerates no
+magic but her own.  They say she is for pulling down the Priests
+off their Mountain now."
+
+"So you do get news of the city?"
+
+"Assuredly.  It is my trade to get good news, or otherwise how
+could I tell fortunes to the vulgar?  You see, my lord, I detected
+your quality by your speech, and knowing you are not one of those
+that come to me for spells, and potions, I have no fear in speaking
+to you plainly."
+
+"Tell me then: Phorenice still reigns?"
+
+"Most vilely."
+
+"As a maiden?"
+
+"As the mother of twin sons.  Tatho's her husband now, and has
+been these three years."
+
+"Tatho!  Who followed him as viceroy of Yucatan?"
+
+"There is no Yucatan.  A vast nation of little hairy men, so
+the tale goes, coming from the West overran the country.  They had
+clubs of wood tipped with stone as their only arm, but numbers made
+their chief weapon.  They had no desire for plunder, or the taking
+of slaves, or the conquering of cities.  To eat the flesh of
+Atlanteans was their only lust, and they followed it prodigiously. 
+Their numbers were like the bees in a swarm.
+
+"They came to each of the cities of Yucatan in turn, and
+though the colonists slew them in thousands, the weight of numbers
+always prevailed.  They ate clean each city they took, and left it
+to the beasts of the forest, and went on to the next.  And so in
+time they reached the coast towns, and Tatho and the few that
+survived took ship, and sailed home.  They even ate Tatho's wife
+for him.  They must be curious persevering things, these little
+hairy men.  The Gods send they do not get across the seas to
+Atlantis, or they would be worse plague to the poor country than
+Phorenice."
+
+Now I had heard of these little hairy creatures before, and
+though indeed I had never seen them, I had gathered that they were
+a little less than human and a little more than bestial; a link so
+to speak between the two orders; and specially held in check by the
+Gods in certain forest solitudes.  Also I had learned that on
+occasion, when punishment was needful, they could be set loose as
+a devastating army upon men, devouring all before them.  But I said
+nothing of this to the nymph, she being but a vulgar woman, and
+indeed half silly, as is always the case with these self-styled
+sorceresses who gull the ignorant, common folk.  But within myself
+I was bitterly grieved at the fate of that fine colony of Yucatan,
+in which I had expended such an infinity of pains to do my share of
+the building.
+
+But it did not suit my purpose to have my name and quality
+blazoned abroad till the time was full, and so I said nothing to
+the nymph about Yucatan, but let the talk continue upon other
+matters.  "What about Egypt?" I asked.
+
+"In its accustomed darkness, so they say.  Who cares for Egypt
+these latter years?  Who cares for anyone or anything for that
+matter except for himself and his own proper estate?  Time was when
+the country folk and the hunters hereabouts brought me offerings to
+this cave for sheer piety's sake.  But now they never come near
+unless they see a way of getting good value in return for their
+gifts.  And, by result, instead of living fat and hearty, I make
+lean meals off honey and grubs.  It's a poor life, a nymph's, in
+these latter years I tell you, my lord.  It's the fashion for all
+classes to believe in no kind of mystery now."
+
+"What manner of pestilence is this you spoke of?"
+
+"I have not seen it.  Thank the Gods it has not come this way. 
+But they do say that it has grown from the folk Phorenice has
+slain, and whose bodies remain unburied.  She is always slaying,
+and so the bodies lie thicker than the birds and beasts can eat
+them.  For which of our sins, I wonder, did the Gods let Phorenice
+come to reign?  I wish that she and her twins were boiled alive in
+brine before they came between an honest nymph of the forest and
+her living.
+
+"They say she has put an image of herself in all the temples
+of the city now, and has ordered prayers and sacrifices to be made
+night and morning.  She has decreed all other Gods inferior to 
+herself and forbidden their worship, and those of the people that
+are not sufficiently devout for her taste, have their hamstrings
+slit by their tormentors to aid them constantly into a devotional
+attitude.--Will you eat of my grubs and honey?  There is nothing
+else.  Your back was bloody with carrying meat when I met you, but
+you had lost your load.  You must either taste this mess of mine
+now, or go without."
+
+I harboured with that nymph in cave six days, she using her
+drugs and charms to cure my leg the while, and when I was
+recovered, I hunted the plains and killed her a fat cloven-hoofed
+horse as payment, and then went along my ways.
+
+The country from there onwards had at one time carried a
+sturdy population which held its own firmly, and, as its numbers
+grew, took in more ground, and built more homesteads farther
+afield.  The houses were perched in trees for the most part, as
+there they were out of reach of cave-bear and cave-tiger and the
+other more dangerous beasts.  But others, and these were the better
+ones, were built on the ground, of logs so ponderous and so firmly
+clamped and dovetailed that the beasts could not pull them down,
+and once inside a house of this fashion its owners were safe, and
+could progue at any attackers through the interstices between the
+logs, and often wound, sometimes make a kill.
+
+But not one in ten of these outlying settlers remained.  The
+houses were silent when I reached them, the fire-hearth before the
+door weed-grown, and the patch of vegetables taken back by the
+greedy fingers of the forest into mere scrub and jungle.  And
+farther on, when villages began to appear, strongly-walled as the
+custom is, to ward off the attacks of beasts, the logs which
+aforetime had barred the gateway lay strewn in a sprouting
+undergrowth, and naught but the kitchen middens remained to prove
+that once they had sheltered human tenants.  Phorenice's influence
+seemed to have spread as though it were some horrid blight over the
+whole face of what was once a smiling and an easy-living land.
+
+So far I had met with little enough interference from any men
+I had come across.  Many had fled with their women into the depths
+of the forest at the bare sight of me; some stood their ground with
+a threatening face, but made no offer to attack, seeing that I did
+not offer them insult first; and a few, a very few, offered me
+shelter and provision.  But as I neared the city, and began to come
+upon muddy beaten paths, I passed through governments that were
+more thickly populated, and here appeared strong chance of delay. 
+The watcher in the tower which is set above each village would spy
+me and cry: "Here is a masterless man," and then the people that
+were within would rush out with intent to spoil me of my weapons,
+and afterwards to appoint me as a labourer.
+
+I had no desire to slay these wretched folk, being filled with
+pity at the state to which they had fallen; and often words served
+me to make them stand aside from the path, and stare wonderingly at
+my fierceness, and let me go my ways.  And when at other times
+words had no avail, I strove to strike as lightly as could be, my
+object being to get forward with my journey and leave no
+unnecessary dead behind me.  Indeed, having found the modern way of
+these villages, it grew to be my custom to turn off into the
+forest, and make a circuit whenever I came within smell of their
+garbage.
+
+Similarly, too, when I got farther on, and came amongst
+greater towns also, I kept beyond challenge of their walls, having
+no mind to risk delay from the whim of any new law which might
+chance to be set up by their governors.  My progress might be
+slinking, but my pride did not upbraid me very loudly; indeed, the
+fever of haste burned within me so hot and I had little enough
+carrying space for other emotions.
+
+But at last I found myself within a half-day's journey the
+city of Atlantis itself, with the Sacred Mountain and its ring of
+fires looming high beside it, and the call for caution became
+trebly accentuated.  Everywhere evidences showed that the country
+had been drained of its fighting men.  Everywhere women prayed that
+the battles might end with the rout of the Priests or the killing
+of Phorenice, so that the wretched land might have peace and time
+to lick its wounds.
+
+An army was investing the sacred Mountain, and its one
+approach was most narrowly guarded.  Even after having journeyed so
+far, it seemed as if I should have to sit hopelessly down without
+being able to carry out the orders which had been laid upon me by
+the High Council, and earn the reward which had been promised. 
+Force would be useless here.  I should have one good fight--a
+gorgeous fight--one man against an army, and my usefulness would be
+ended. . . .  No; this was the occasion for guile, and I found
+covert in the outskirts of a wood, and lay there cudgelling my
+brain for a plan.
+
+Across the plain before me lay the grim great walls of the
+city, with the heads of its temples, and its palaces, and its
+pyramids showing beyond.  The step-sides of the royal pyramid held
+my eye.  Phorenice had expended some of her new-found store of gold
+in overlaying their former whiteness with sheets of shining yellow
+metal.  But it was not that change that moved me. I was remembering
+that, in the square before the pyramid, there stood a throne of
+granite carved with the snake and the outstretched hand, and in the
+hollow beneath the throne was Nais, my love, asleep these eight
+years now because of the drug that had been given to her, but alive
+still, and waiting for me, if only I on my part could make a way to
+the place where Zaemon defied the Empress, and announce my coming.
+
+In that covert of the woods I lay a day and a night raging
+with myself for not discovering some plan to get within the
+defences of the Sacred Mountain, but in the morning which followed,
+there came a man towards me running.
+
+"You need not threaten me with your weapons," he cried.  "I
+mean no harm.  It seems that you are Deucalion; though I should not
+have known you myself in those rags and skins, and behind that
+tangle of hair and beard.  You will give me your good word I know. 
+Believe me, I have not loitered unduly."
+
+He was a lower priest whom I knew, and held in little esteem;
+his name was Ro, a greedy fellow and not overworthy of trust. 
+"From whom do you come?" I asked.
+
+"Zaemon laid a command on me.  He came to my house, though how
+he got there I cannot tell, seeing that Phorenice's army blocks all
+possible passage to and from the Mountain.  I told him I wished to
+be mixed with none of his schemings.  I am a peaceful man,
+Deucalion, and have taken a wife who requires nourishment.  I still
+serve in the same temple, though we have swept out the old Gods by
+order of the Empress, and put her image in their place.  The people
+are tidily pious nowadays, those that are left of them, and the
+living is consequently easy.  Yes, I tell you there are far more
+offerings now than there were in the old days.  And so I had no
+wish to be mixed with matters which might well make me be deprived
+of a snug post, and my head to boot."
+
+"I can believe it all of you, Ro."
+
+"But there was no denying Zaemon.  He burst into one of his
+black furies, and while he spoke at me, I tell you I felt as good
+as dead.  You know his powers?"
+
+"I have seen some of them."
+
+"Well, the Gods alone know which are the true Gods, and which
+are the others.  I serve the one that gives me employment.  But
+those that Zaemon serves give him power, and that's beyond denying. 
+You see that right hand of mine?  It is dead and paralysed from the
+wrist, and that is a gift of Zaemon.  He bestowed it, he said, to
+make me collect my attention.  Then he said more hard things
+concerning what he was pleased to term my apostasy, not letting me
+put up a word in my own defence of how the change was forced upon
+me. And finally, said he, I might either do his bidding on a
+certain matter to the letter, or take that punishment which my
+falling away from the old Gods had earned.  'I shall not kill you,'
+said he, 'but I will cover all your limbs with a paralysis, such as
+you have tasted already, and when at length death reaches you in
+some gutter, you will welcome it.'"
+
+"If Zaemon said those words, he meant them.  So you accepted
+the alternative?"
+
+"Had I, with a wife depending on me, any other choice?  I
+asked his pleasure.  It was to find you when you came in here from
+some distant part of the land, and deliver to you his message.
+
+"'Then tell me where is the meeting place,' said I, 'and
+when.'
+
+"'There is none appointed, nor is the day fixed,' said he. 
+'You must watch and search always for him.  But when he comes, you
+will be guided to his place.'  Well, Deucalion, I think I was
+guided, but how, I do not know.  But now I have found you, and if
+there's such a thing as gratitude, I ask you to put in your word
+with Zaemon that this deadness be taken away from my hand.  It's an
+awful thing for a man to be forced to go through life like this,
+for no real fault of his own.  And Zaemon could cure it from where
+he sat, if he was so minded."
+
+"You seem still to have a very full faith in some of the old
+Gods' priests," I said.  "But so far, I do not see that your errand
+is done.  I have had no message yet."
+
+"Why, the message is so simple that I do not see why he could
+not have got some one else to carry it.  You are to make a great
+blaze.  You may fire the grasses of the plain in front of this wood
+if you choose.  And on the night which follows, you are to go round
+to that flank of the Sacred Mountain away from the city where the
+rocks run down sheer, and there they will lower a rope and haul you
+up to their hands above."
+
+"It seems easy, and I thank you for your pains.  I will ask
+Zaemon that your hand may be restored to you."
+
+"You shall have my prayers if it is.  And look, Deucalion, it
+is a small matter, and it would be less likely to slip your memory
+if you saw to it at once on your landing.  Later, you may be
+disturbed.  Phorenice is bound to pull you down off your perch up
+there now she has made her mind to it.  She never fails, once she
+has set her hand to a thing.  Indeed, if she was no Goddess at
+birth, she is making herself into one very rapidly.  She has got
+all the ancient learning of our Priests, and more besides.  She has
+discovered the Secret of Life these recent months--"
+
+"She has found that?" I cried, fairly startled.  "How?  Tell
+me how?  Only the Three know that.  It is beyond our knowledge even
+who are members of the Seven."
+
+"I know nothing of her means.  But she has the secret, and now
+she is as good an immortal (so she says) as any of them.  Well,
+Deucalion, it is dangerous for me to be missing from my temple
+overlong, so I will go.  You will carry that matter we spoke of in
+your mind?  It means much to me."--His eye wandered over my ragged
+person--"And if you think my service is of value to you--"
+
+"You see me poor, my man, and practically destitute."
+
+"Some small coin," he murmured, "or even a link of bronze?  I
+am at great expense just now buying nourishment for my wife.  Well,
+if you have nothing, you cannot give.  So I'll just bid you
+farewell."
+
+He took himself off then, and I was not sorry.  I had never
+liked Ro.  But I wasted no more precious time then.  The grass
+blazed up for a signal almost before his timorous heels were clear
+of it, and that night when the darkness gave me cover, I took the
+risk of what beasts might be prowling, and went to the place
+appointed.  There was no rope dangling, but presently one came down
+the smooth cliff face like some slender snake.  I made a loop,
+slipped it over a leg, and pulled hard as a signal.  Those above
+began to haul, and so I went back to the Sacred Mountain after an
+absence of so many toilsome and warring years.  There were none to
+disturb the ascent.  Phorenice's troops had no thought to guard
+that gaunt, bare, seamless precipice.
+
+The men who hauled me up were old, and panted heavily with
+their task, and, until I knew the reason, I wondered why a knot of
+younger priests had not been appointed for the duty.  But I put no
+question.  With us of the Priests' Clan on the Sacred Mountain, it
+is always taken as granted that when an order is given, it is given
+for the best.  Besides, these priests did not offer themselves to
+question.  They took me off at once to Zaemon, and that is what I
+could have wished.
+
+The old man greeted me with the royal sign.  "All hail to
+Deucalion," he cried, "King of Atlantis, duly called thereto by the
+High Council of the priests."
+
+"Is Phorenice dead?" I asked.
+
+"It remains for you to slay her, and take your kingdom, if,
+indeed, when all is done, there remains a man or a rood of land to
+govern.  The sentence has gone out that she is to die, and it shall
+be carried into effect, even though we have to set loose the most
+dreadful powers that are stored in the Ark of the Mysteries, and
+wreck this continent in our effort.  We have borne with her
+infamies all these years by command sent down by the most High
+Gods; but now she has gone beyond endurance, and They it is who
+have given the word for her cutting off."
+
+"You are one of the highest Three; I am only one of the Seven;
+you best know the cost."
+
+"There can be no counting the cost now, my brother, and my
+king.  It is an order."
+
+"It is an order," I repeated formally, "so I obey."
+
+"If it were not impious to do so, it would be easy to justify
+this decision of the Gods.  The woman has usurped the throne; yet
+she was forgiven and bidden rule on wisely.  She has tampered with
+our holy religion; yet she was forgiven.  She has killed the
+peoples of Atlantis in greedy useless wars, and destroyed the
+country's trade; yet she was forgiven.  She has desecrated the old
+temples, and latterly has set up in them images of herself to be
+worshipped as a deity; yet she was forgiven.  But at last her evil
+cleverness has discovered to her the tremendous Secret of Life and
+Death, and there she overstepped the boundary of the High Gods'
+forbearance.
+
+"I myself went to carry a final warning, and once more faced
+her in the great banqueting-hall.  Solemnly I recited to her the
+edict, and she chose to take it as a challenge.  She would live on
+eternally herself and she would share her knowledge with those that
+pleased her.  Tatho that was her husband should also be immortal. 
+Indeed, if she thought fit, she would cry the secret aloud so that
+even the common people might know it, and death from mere age would
+become a legend.
+
+"She cared no wit how she might upset the laws of Nature.  She
+was Phorenice, and was the highest law of all.  And finally she
+defied me there in that banqueting-hall and defied also the High
+Gods that stood behind my mouth.  'My magic is as strong as yours,
+you pompous fool,' she cried, 'and presently you shall see the two
+stand side by side upon their trial.'
+
+"She began to collect an army from that moment, and we on our
+part made our preparations.  It was discovered by our arts that you
+still lived, and King of Atlantis you were made by solemn election. 
+How you were summoned, you know as nearly as it is lawful that one
+of your degree should know; how you came, you understand best
+yourself; but here you are, my brother, and being King now, you
+must order all things as you see best for the preservation of your
+high estate, and we others live only to give you obedience."
+
+"Then being King, I can speak without seeming to make use of
+a threat.  I must have my Queen first, or I am not strong enough to
+give my whole mind to this ruling."
+
+"She shall be brought here."
+
+"So!  Then I will be a General now, and see to the defences of
+this place, and view the men who are here to stand behind them."
+
+I went out of the dwelling then, Zaemon giving place and
+following me.  It was night still but there is no darkness on the
+upper part of the Sacred Mountain.  A ring of fires, fed eternally
+from the earth-breath which wells up from below, burns round one-
+half of the crest, lighting it always as bright as day, and in fact
+forming no small part of its fortification.  Indeed, it is said
+that, in the early dawn of history, men first came to the Mountain
+as a stronghold because of the natural defence which the fires
+offered.
+
+There is no bridging these flames or smothering them.  On
+either side of their line for a hundred paces the ground glows with
+heat, and a man would be turned to ash who tried to cross it. 
+Round full one-half the mountain slopes the fires make a rampart
+unbreakable, and on the other side the rock runs in one sheer
+precipice from the crest to the plain which spreads beyond its
+foot.  But it is on this farther side that there is the only
+entrance way which gives passage to the crest of the Sacred
+Mountain from below.  Running diagonally up the steep face of the
+cliff is a gigantic fissure, which succeeding ages (as man has
+grown more luxurious) have made more easy to climb.
+
+Looking at the additions, in the ancient days, I can well
+imagine that none but the most daring could have made the ascent. 
+But one generation has thrown a bridge over a bad gap here, and
+another has cut into the living stone and widened a ledge there,
+till in these latter years there is a path with cut steps and
+carved balustrade such as the feeblest or most giddy might traverse
+with little effort or exertion.  But always when these improvers
+made smooth the obstacles, they were careful to weaken in no
+possible way the natural defences but rather to add to them.
+
+Eight gates of stone there were cutting the pathway, each
+commanding a straight, steep piece of the ascent, and overhanging
+each gate was a gallery secure from arrow-shot, yet so contrived
+that great stones could be hurled through holes in the floor of it,
+in such a manner that they must irretrievably smash to a pulp any
+men advancing against it from below.  And in caves dug out from the
+rock on either hand was a great hoard of these stones, so that no
+enemy through sheer expenditure of troops could hope to storm a
+gate by exhausting its ammunition.
+
+But though there were eight of these granite gates in the
+series, we had the whole number to depend on no longer.  The lowest
+gate was held by a garrison of Phorenice's troops, who had built a
+wall above them to protect their occupation.  The gate had been
+gained by no brilliant feat of arms--it had been won by threats,
+bribery, and promises; or, in other words, it had been given up by
+the blackest treachery.
+
+And here lay the keynote of the weakness in our defence.  The
+most perfect ramparts that brain can invent are useless without men
+to line them, and it was men we lacked.  Of students entering into
+the colleges of the Sacred Mountain, there had been none now for
+many a year.  The younger generation thought little of the older
+Gods.  Of the men that had grown up amongst the sacred groves, and
+filled offices there, many had become lukewarm in their faith and
+remained on only through habit, and because an easy living stayed
+near them there; and these, when the siege began, quickly made
+their way over to the other side.
+
+Phorenice was no fool to fight against unnecessary strength. 
+Her heralds made proclamation that peace and a good subsistence
+would be given to those who chose to come out to her willingly; and
+as an alternative she would kill by torture and mutilation those
+she caught in the place when she took it by storm, as she most
+assuredly would do before she had finished with it. And so great
+was the prestige of her name, that quite one-half of these that
+remained on the mountain took themselves away from the defence.
+
+There was no attempt to hold back these sorry priests, nor was
+there any punishing them as they went.  Zaemon, indeed, was minded
+(so he told me with grim meaning himself) to give them some memento
+of their apostasy to carry away which would not wear out, but the
+others of the High Council made him stay his vengeful hand.  And so
+when I came to the place the garrison numbered no more than eighty,
+counting even feeble old dotards who could barely walk; and of men
+not past their prime I could barely command a score.
+
+Still, seeing the narrowness of the passages which led to each
+of the gates, up which in no place could more than two men advance
+together, we were by no means in desperate straits for the defence
+as yet; and if my new-given kingdom was so far small, consisting as
+it did in effect of the Sacred Mountain and no other part of
+Atlantis, at any rate there seemed little danger of its being
+further contracted.
+
+Another of the wise precautions of the men of old stood us in
+good stead then.  In the ancient times, when grain first was grown
+as food, it came to be looked upon as the acme of wealth.  Tribute
+was always paid from the people to their Priests, and presently, so
+the old histories say, it was appointed that this should take the
+form of grain, as this was a medium both dignified and fitting. 
+And those of the people who had it not, were forced to barter their
+other produce for grain before they could pay this tribute.
+
+On the Sacred Mountain itself vast storehouses were dug in the
+rock, and here the grain was teemed in great yellow heaps, and each
+generation of those that were set over it, took a pride in adding
+to the accumulation.
+
+In more modern days it had been a custom amongst the younger
+and more forward of the Priests to scoff at this ancient provision,
+and to hold that a treasure of gold, or weapons, or jewels would
+have more value and no less of dignity; and more than once it has
+been a close thing lest these innovators should not be out-voted. 
+But as it was, the old constitution had happily been preserved, and
+now in these years of trial the Clan reaped the benefit.  And so
+with these granaries, and a series of great tanks and cisterns
+which held the rainfall, there was no chance of Phorenice reducing
+our stronghold by mere close investment, even though she sat down
+stubbornly before it for a score of years.
+
+But it was the paucity of men for the defence which oppressed
+me most.  As I took my way about the head of the Mountain,
+inspecting all points, the emptiness of the place smote me like a
+succession of blows.  The groves, once so trim, were now shaggy and
+unpruned.  Wind had whirled the leaves in upon the temple floors,
+and they lay there unswept.  The college of youths held no more now
+than a musty smell to bear witness that men had once been grown
+there.  The homely palaces of the higher Priests, at one time so
+ardently sought after, lay many of them empty, because not even one
+candidate came forward now to canvass for election.
+
+Evil thoughts surged up within me as I saw these things, that
+were direct promptings from the nether Gods.  "There must be
+something wanting," these tempters whispered, "in a religion from
+which so many of its Priests fled at the first pinch of
+persecution."
+
+I did what I could to thrust these waverings resolutely behind
+me; but they refused to be altogether ousted from my brain; and so
+I made a compromise with myself: First, I would with the help that
+might be given me, destroy this wanton Phorenice, and regain the
+kingdom which had been given me to my own proper rule; and
+afterwards I would call a council of the Seven and council of the
+Three, and consider without prejudice if there was any matter in
+which our ancient ritual could be amended to suit the more modern
+requirements.  But this should not be done till Phorenice was dead
+and I was firmly planted in her room.  I would not be a party, even
+to myself, to any plan which smacked at all of surrender.
+
+And there as I walked through the desolate groves and beside
+the cold altars, the High Gods were pleased to show their approval
+of my scheme, and to give me opportunity to bind myself to it with
+a solemn oath and vow.  At that moment from His distant
+resting-place in the East, our Lord the Sun leaped up to begin
+another day.  For long enough from where I stood below the crest of
+the Mountain, He Himself would be invisible.  But the great light
+of His glory spread far into the sky, and against it the Ark of the
+Mysteries loomed in black outline from the highest crag where it
+rested, lonely and terrible.
+
+For anyone unauthorised to go nearer than a thousand paces to
+this storehouse of the Highest Mysteries meant instant death.  On
+that day when I was initiated as one of the Seven, I had been
+permitted to go near and once press my lips against its ample
+curves; and the rank of my degree gave me the privilege to repeat
+that salute again once on each day when a new year was born.  But
+what lay inside its great interior, and how it was entered, that
+was hidden from the Seven, even as it was from the other Priests
+and the common people in the city below.  Only those who had been
+raised to the sublime elevation of the Three had a knowledge of
+the dreadful powers which were stored within it.
+
+I went down on my knees where I was, and Zaemon knelt beside
+me, and together we recited the prayers which had been said by the
+Priests from the beginning of time, giving thanks to our great Lord
+that He has come to brighten another day.  And then, with my eyes
+fixed on the black outline of the Ark of Mysteries I vowed that,
+come what might, I at least would be true servant of the High Gods
+to my life's end, and that my whole strength should be spent in
+restoring Their worship and glory.
+
+
+
+17.  NAIS THE REGAINED
+
+
+Now, from where we stood together just below the crest of the
+Sacred Mountain, we could see down into the city, which lay spread
+out below us like a map.  The harbour and the great estuary gleamed
+at its farther side; and the fringe of hills beyond smoked and
+fumed in their accustomed fashion; the great stone circle of our
+Lord the Sun stood up grim and bare in the middle of the city; and
+nearer in reared up the great mass of the royal pyramid, the gold
+on its sides catching new gold from the Sun.  There, too, in the
+square before the pyramid stood the throne of granite, dwarfed by
+the distance to the size of a mole's hill, in which these nine
+years my love had lain sleeping.
+
+Old Zaemon followed my gaze.  "Ay," he said with a sigh, "I
+know where your chief interest is.  Deucalion when he landed here
+new from Yucatan was a strong man.  The King whom we have
+chosen--and who is the best we have to choose--has his weakness."
+
+"It can be turned into additional strength.  Give me Nais
+here, living and warm to fight for, and I am a stronger man by far
+than the cold viceroy and soldier that you speak about."
+
+"I have passed my word to that already, and you shall have
+her, but at the cost of damaging somewhat this new kingdom of
+yours.  Maybe too at the same time we may rid you of this Phorenice
+and her brood.  But I do not think it likely.  She is too wily, and
+once we begin our play, she is likely to guess whence it comes, and
+how it will end, and so will make an escape before harm can reach
+her.  The High Gods, who have sent all these trials for our
+refinement, have seen fit to give her some knowledge of how these
+earth tremors may be set a-moving."
+
+"I have seen her juggle with them.  But may I hear your
+scheme?"
+
+"It will be shown you in good time enough.  But for the
+present I would bid you sleep.  It will be your part to go into the
+city to-night, and take your woman (that is my daughter) when she
+is set free, and bring her here as best you can.  And for that you
+will need all a strong man's strength."--He stepped back, and
+looked me up and down.--"There are not many folk that would take
+you for the tidy clean-chinned Deucalion now, my brother.  Your
+appearance will be a fine armour for you down yonder in the city
+to-night when we wake it with our earth-shaking and terror.  As you
+stand now, you are hairy enough, and shaggy enough, and naked
+enough, and dirty enough for some wild savage new landed out of
+Europe.  Have a care that no fine citizen down yonder takes a fancy
+to your thews, and seizes upon you as his servant."
+
+"I somewhat pity him in his household if he does."
+
+Old Zaemon laughed.  "Why, come to think of it, so do I."
+
+But quickly he got grave again.  Laughter and Zaemon were very
+rare playmates.  "Well, get you to bed, my King, and leave me to go
+into the Ark of Mysteries and prepare there with another of the
+Three the things that must be done.  It is no light business to
+handle the tremendous powers which we must put into movement this
+night.  And there is danger for us as there is for you.  So if by
+chance we do not meet again till we stand up yonder behind the
+stars, giving account to the Gods, fare you well, Deucalion."
+
+I slept that day as a soldier sleeps, taking full rest out of
+the hours, and letting no harassing thought disturb me.  It is only
+the weak who permit their sleep to be broken on these occasions. 
+And when the dark was well set, I roused and fetched those who
+should attend to the rope.  Our Lady the Moon did not shine at that
+turn of the month: and the air was full of a great blackness.  So
+I was out of sight all the while they lowered me.
+
+I reached the tumbled rocks that lay at the deep foot of the
+cliff, and then commenced to use a nice caution, because
+Phorenice's soldiers squatted uneasily round their camp-fires, as
+though they had forebodings of the coming evil.  I had no mind to
+further stir their wakefulness.  So I crept swiftly along in the
+darkest of the shadows, and at last came to the spot where that
+passage ends which before I had used to get beneath the walls of
+the city.
+
+The lamp was in place, and I made my way along the windings
+swiftly.  The air, so it seemed to me, was even more noxious with
+vapours than it had been when I was down there before, and I judged
+that Zaemon had already begun to stir those internal activities
+which were shortly to convulse the city.  But again I had
+difficulty in finding an exit, and this, not because there were
+people moving about at the places where I had to come out, but
+because the set of the masonry was entirely changed.  In olden
+times the Priests' Clan oversaw all the architects' plans, and
+ruled out anything likely to clash with their secret passages and
+chambers.  But in this modern day the Priests were of small
+account, and had no say in this matter, and the architects often
+through sheer blundering sealed up and made useless many of these
+outlets and hiding-places.
+
+As it was then, I had to get out of the network of tunnels and
+galleries where I could, and not where I would, and in the event
+found myself at the farther side of the city, almost up to where
+the outer wall joins down to the harbour.  I came out without being
+seen, careful even in this moment of extremity to preserve the
+ordinances, and closed all traces of exit behind me.  The earth
+seemed to spring beneath my feet like the deck of a ship in smooth
+water; and though there was no actual movement as yet to disturb
+the people, and indeed these slept on in their houses and shelters
+without alarm, I could feel myself that the solid deadness of the
+ground was gone, and that any moment it might break out into
+devastating waves of movement.
+
+Gods!  Should I be too late to see the untombing of my love? 
+Would she be laid there bare to the public gaze when presently the
+people swarmed out into the open spaces through fear at what the
+great earth tremor might cause to fall?  I could see, in fancy,
+their rude, cruel hands thrust upon her as she lay there helpless,
+and my inwards dried up at the thought.
+
+I ran madly down and down the narrow winding streets with the
+one thought of coming to the square which lay in front of the royal
+pyramid before these things came to pass.  With exquisite cruelty
+I had been forced with my own hands to place her alive in her
+burying-place beneath the granite throne, and if thews and speed
+could do it, I would not miss my reward of taking her forth again
+with the same strong hands.
+
+Few disturbed that furious hurry.  At first here and there
+some wretch who harboured in the gutter cried: "A thief!  Throw a
+share or I pursue."  But if any of these followed, I do not know. 
+At any rate, my speed then must have out-distanced anyone. 
+Presently, too, as the swing of the earth underfoot became more
+keen, and the stonework of the buildings by the street side began
+to grate and groan and grit, and sent forth little showers of dust,
+people began to run with scared cries from out of their doors.  But
+none of these had a mind to stop the ragged, shaggy, savage man who
+ran so swiftly past, and flung the mud from his naked feet.
+
+And so in time I came to the great square, and was there none
+too soon.  The place was filling with people who flocked away from
+the narrow streets, and it was full of darkness, and noise, and
+dust, and sickness.  Beneath us the ground rippled in undulations
+like a sea, which with terrifying slowness grew more and more
+intense.
+
+Ever and again a house crashed down unseen in the gloom, and
+added to the tumult.  But the great pyramid had been planned by its
+old builders to stand rude shocks.  Its stones were dovetailed into
+one another with a marvellous cleverness, and were further clamped
+and joined by ponderous tongues of metal.  It was a boast that
+one-half the foundations could be dug from beneath it, and still
+the pyramid would stand four-square under heaven, more enduring
+than the hills.
+
+Flickering torches showed that its great stone doors lay open,
+and ever and again I saw some frightened inmate scurry out and then
+be lost to sight in the gloom.  But with the royal pyramid and its
+ultimate fate I had little concern; I did not even care then
+whether Phorenice was trapped, or whether she came out sound and
+fit for further mischief.  I crouched by the granite throne which
+stood in the middle of that splendid square, and heard its stones
+grate together like the ends of a broken bone as it rocked to the
+earth-waves.
+
+In that night of dust and darkness it was hard to see the
+outline of one's own hand, but I think that the Gods in some
+requital for the love which had ached so long within me, gave me
+special power of sight.  As I watched, I saw the great carved rock
+which formed the capstone of the throne move slightly and then move
+again, and then again; a tiny jerk for each earth-pulse, but still
+there was an appreciable shifting; and, moreover, the stone moved
+always to one side.
+
+There was method in Zaemon's desperate work, and this in my
+blind panic of love and haste, I had overlooked.  So I went up the
+steps of the throne on the side from which the great capstone was
+moving, and clung there afire with expectation.
+
+More and more violent did the earth-swing grow, though the
+graduations of its increase could not be perceived, and the din of
+falling houses and the shrieks and cries of hurt and frightened
+people went louder up into the night.  Thicker grew the dust that
+filled the air, till one coughed and strangled in the breathing,
+and more black did the night become as the dust rose and blotted
+the rare stars from sight.  I clung to an angle of the granite
+throne, crouching on the uppermost step but one below the capstone,
+and could scarcely keep my place against the violence of the earth
+tremors.
+
+But still the huge capstone that was carved with the snake and
+the outstretched hand held my love fast locked in her living tomb,
+and I could have bit the cold granite at the impotence which barred
+me from her.  The people who kept thronging into the square were
+mad with terror, but their very numbers made my case more desperate
+every moment.  "Phorenice, Goddess, aid us now!" some cried, and
+when the prayer did not bring them instant relief, they fell to
+yammering out the old confessions of the faith which they had
+learned in childhood, turning in this hour of their dreadful need
+to those old Gods, which, through so many dishonourable years, they
+had spurned and deserted.  It was a curious criticism on the
+balance of their real religion, if one had cared to make it.
+
+Louder grew the crash of falling masonry; and from the royal
+pyramid itself, though indeed I could not even see its outline
+through the darkness, there came sounds of grinding stones and
+cracking bars of metal which told that even its superb majestic
+strength had a breaking strain.  There came to my mind the threat
+that old Zaemon had thundered forth in that painted, perfumed 
+banqueting-hall: "You shall see," he had cried to the Empress,
+"this royal pyramid which you have polluted with your debaucheries
+torn tier from tier, and stone from stone, and scattered as
+feathers spread before a wind!"
+
+Still heavier grew the surging of the earth, and the pavement
+of the great square gaped and upheaved, and the people who thronged
+it screamed still more shrilly as their feet were crushed by the
+grinding blocks.  And now too the great pyramid itself was
+commencing to split, and gape, and topple.  The roofs of its
+splendid chambers gave way, and the ponderous masonry above
+shuttered down and filled them.  In part, too, one could see the
+destruction now, and not guess at it merely from the fearful
+hearings of the darkness.  Thunders had begun to roar through the
+black night above, and add their bellowings to this devil's
+orchestration of uproar, and vivid lightning splashes lit the
+flying dust-clouds.
+
+It was perhaps natural that she should be there, but it came
+as a shock when a flare of the lightning showed me Phorenice safe
+out in the square, and indeed standing not far from myself.
+
+She had taken her place in the middle of a great flagstone,
+and stood there swaying her supple body to the shocks.  Her face
+was calm, and its loveliness was untouched by the years.  From time
+to time she brushed away the dust as it settled on the short red
+hair which curled about her neck.  There was no trace of fear
+written upon her face.  There was some weariness, some contempt,
+and I think a tinge of amusement.  Yes, it took more than the
+crumbling of her royal pyramid to impress Phorenice with the
+infinite powers of those she warred against.
+
+Gods!  How the sight of her cool indifference maddened me
+then.  I had it in me to have strangled her with my hands if she
+had come within my reach.  But as it was, she stood in her place,
+swaying easily to the earth-waves as a sailor sways on a ship's
+deck, and beside her, crouched on the same great flagstone, and
+overcome with nausea was Ylga, who again was raised to be her
+fan-girl.  It came to my mind that Ylga was twin sister to Nais,
+and that I owed her for an ancient kindness, but I had leisure to
+do nothing for her then, and indeed it was little enough I could
+have done.  With each shock the great capstone of the throne to
+which I clung jarred farther and farther from its bed place, and my
+love was coming nearer to me.  It was she who claimed all my
+service then.
+
+Once in their blind panic a knot of the people in the square
+thought that the granite stone was too solid to be overturned, and
+saw in it an oasis of safety.  They flocked towards it, many of
+them dragging themselves up the steep deep high steps on hands and
+knees because their feet had been injured by the billowing
+flagstones of the square.
+
+But I was in no mood to have the place profaned by their silly
+tremblings and stares: I beat at them with my hands, tearing them
+away, and hurling them back down the steepness of the steps.  They
+asked me what was my title to the place above their own, and I
+answered them with blows and gnashing teeth.  I was careless as to
+what they thought me or who they thought me.  Only I wished them
+gone.  And so they went, wailing and crying that I was a devil of
+the night, for they had no spirit left to defend themselves.
+
+Farther and farther the great stone that made the top of the
+throne slid out from its bed, but its slowness of movement maddened
+me.  A life's education left me in that moment, and I had no trace
+of stately patience left.  In my puny fury I thrust at the great
+block with my shoulder and head, and clawed at it with my hands
+till the muscles rose on me in great ropes and knots, and the High
+Gods must have laughed at my helplessness as They looked.  All was
+being ordered by the Three who were Their trusted servants, in
+Their good time.  The work of the Gods may be done slowly, but it
+is done exceeding sure.
+
+But at last, when all the people of the city were numb with
+terror, and incapable of further emotion (save only for Phorenice
+who still had nerve enough to show no concern), what had been
+threatened came to pass.  The capstone of the throne slid out till
+it reached the balance, and the next shock threw it with a roar and
+a clatter to the ground.  And then a strange tremor seized me.
+
+After all the scheming and effort, what I had so ardently
+prayed for had come about; but yet my inwards sank at the thought
+of mounting on the stone where I had mounted before, and taking my
+dear from the hollow where my hands had laid her.  I knew
+Phorenice's vengefulness, and had a high value for her cleverness. 
+Had she left Nais to lie in peace, or had she stolen her away to
+suffer indignities elsewhere?  Or had she ended her sleep with
+death, and (as a grisly jest) left the corpse for my finding?  I
+could not tell; I dared not guess.  Never during a whole hard-
+fighting life have my emotions been so wrenched as they were at
+that moment.  And, for excuse, it must be owned that love for Nais
+had sapped my hardihood over a matter in which she was so privately
+concerned.
+
+It began to come to my mind, however, that the infernal uproar
+of the earth tremor was beginning to slacken somewhat, as though
+Zaemon knew he had done the work that he had promised, and was
+minded to give the wretched city a breathing space.  So I took my
+fortitude in hand, and clambered up on to the flat of the stone. 
+The lightning flashes had ceased and all was darkness again and
+stifling dust, but at any moment the sky might be lit once more,
+and if I were seen in that place, shaggy and changed though I might
+be, Phorenice, if she were standing near, would not be slow to
+guess my name and errand.
+
+So changed was I for the moment, that I will finely confess
+that the idea of a fight was loathsome to me then.  I wanted to
+have my business done and get gone from the place.
+
+With hands that shook, I fumbled over the face of the stone
+and found the clamps and bars of metal still in position where I
+had clenched them, and then reverently I let my fingers pass
+between these, and felt the curves of my love's body in its rest
+beneath.  An exultation began to whirl within me.  I did not know
+if she had been touched since I last left her; I did not know if
+the drug would have its due effect, and let her be awakened to
+warmth and sight again; but, dead or alive, I had her there, and
+she was mine, mine, mine, and I could have yelled aloud in my joy
+at her possession.
+
+Still the earth shook beneath us, and masonry roared and
+crashed into ruin.  I had to cling to my place with one hand,
+whilst I unhasped the clamps of metal that made the top of her
+prison with the other.  But at last I swung the upper half of them
+clear, and those which pinned down her feet I let remain.  I
+stooped and drew her soft body up on to the flat of the stone
+beside me, and pressed my lips a hundred times to the face I could
+not see.
+
+Some mad thought took me, I believe, that the mere fierceness
+and heat of my kisses would bring her back again to life and
+wakefulness.  Indeed I will own plainly, that I did but sorry
+credit to my training in calmness that night.  But she lay in my
+arms cold and nerveless as a corpse, and by degrees my sober wits
+returned to me.
+
+This was no place for either of us.  Let the earth's tremors
+cease (as was plainly threatened), let daylight come, and let a few
+of these nerveless people round recover from their panic, and all
+the great cost that had been expended might be counted as waste. 
+We should be seen, and it would not be long before some one put a
+name to Nais; and then it would be an easy matter to guess at
+Deucalion under the beard and the shaggy hair and the browned
+nakedness of the savage who attended on her.  Tell of fright?  By
+the Gods!  I was scared as the veriest trembler who blundered
+amongst the dust-clouds that night when the thought came to me.
+
+With all that ruin spread around, it would be hopeless to
+think that any of those secret galleries which tunnelled under the
+ground would be left unbroken, and so it was useless to try a
+passage under the walls by the old means.  But I had heard shouts
+from that frightened mob which came to me through the din and the
+darkness, that gave another idea for escape.  "The city is
+accursed," they had cried: "if we stay here it will fall on us. 
+Let us get outside the walls where there are no buildings to bury
+us."
+
+If they went, I could not see.  But one gate lay nearest to
+the royal pyramid, and I judged that in their panic they would not
+go farther than was needful.  So I put the body of Nais over my
+shoulder (to leave my right arm free) and blundered off as best I
+could through the stifling darkness.
+
+It was hard to find a direction; it was hard to walk in the
+inky darkness over ground that was tossed and tumbled like a frozen
+sea: and as the earth still quaked and heaved, it was hard also to
+keep a footing.  But if I did fall myself a score of times, my dear
+burden got no bruise, and presently I got to the skirts of the
+square, and found a street I knew.  The most venomous part of the
+shaking was done, and no more buildings fell, but enough lay
+sprawled over the roadway to make walking into a climb, and the
+sweat rolled from me as I laboured along my way.
+
+There was no difficulty about passing the gate.  There was no
+gate.  There was no wall.  The Gods had driven their plough through
+it, and it lay flat, and proud Atlantis stood as defenceless as the
+open country.  Though I knew the cause of this ruin, though, in
+fact, I had myself in some measure incited it, I was almost sad at
+the ruthlessness with which it had been carried out.  The royal
+pyramid might go, houses and palaces might be levelled, and for
+these I cared little enough; but when I saw those stately ramparts
+also filched away, there the soldier in me woke, and I grieved at
+this humbling of the mighty city that once had been my only
+mistress.
+
+But this was only a passing regret, a mere touch of the
+fighting-man's pride.  I had a different love now, that had wrapped
+herself round me far deeper and more tightly, and my duty was
+towards her first and foremost.  The night would soon be past, and
+then dangers would increase.  None had interfered with us so far,
+though many had jostled us as I clambered over the ruins; but this
+forbearance could not be reckoned upon for long.  The earth tremors
+had almost died away, and after the panic and the storm, then comes
+the time for the spoiling.
+
+All men who were poor would try to seize what lay nearest to
+their hands, and those of higher station, and any soldiers who
+could be collected and still remained true to command, would
+ruthlessly stop and strip any man they saw making off with plunder. 
+I had no mind to clash with these guardians of law and property,
+and so I fled on swiftly through the night with my burden, using
+the unfrequented ways; and crying to the few folk who did meet me
+that the woman had the plague, and would they lend me the shelter
+of their house as ours had fallen.  And so in time we came to the
+place where the rope dangled from the precipice, and after Nais had
+been drawn up to the safety of the Sacred Mountain, I put my leg in
+the loop of the rope and followed her.
+
+Now came what was the keenest anxiety of all.  We took the
+girl and laid her on a bed in one of the houses, and there in the
+lit room for the first time I saw her clearly.  Her beauty was
+drawn and pale.  Her eyes were closed, but so thin and transparent
+had grown the lids that one could almost see the brown of the pupil
+beneath them.  Her hair had grown to inordinate thickness and
+length, and lay as a cushion behind and beside her head.
+
+There was no flicker of breath; there was none of that pulsing
+of the body which denotes life; but still she had not the
+appearance of ordinary death.  The Nais I had placed nine long
+years before to rest in the hollow of the stone, was a fine grown
+woman, full bosomed, and well boned.  The Nais that remained for
+me was half her weight.  The old Nais it would have puzzled me to
+carry for an hour: this was no burden to impede a grown man.
+
+In other ways too she had altered.  The nails of her fingers
+had grown to such a great length that they were twisted in spirals,
+and the fingers themselves and her hands were so waxy and
+transparent that the bony core upon which they were built showed
+itself beneath the flesh in plain dull outline.  Her clay-cold lips
+were so white, that one sighed to remember the full beauty of their
+carmine.  Her shoulders and neck had lost their comely curves, and
+made bony hollows now in which the dust of entombment lodged black
+and thickly.
+
+Reverently I set about preparing those things which if all
+went well should restore her.  I heated water and filled a bath,
+and tinctured it heavily with those essences of the life of beasts
+which the Priests extract and store against times of urgent need
+and sickness.  I laid her chin-deep in this bath, and sat beside it
+to watch, maintaining that bath at a constant blood heat.
+
+An hour I watched; two hours I watched; three hours--and yet
+she showed no flicker of life.  The heat of her body given her by
+the bath, was the same as the heat of my own.  But in the feel of
+her skin when I stroked it with my hand, there was something
+lacking still.  Only when our Lord the Sun rose for His day did I
+break off my watching, whilst I said the necessary prayer which is
+prescribed, and quickly returned again to the gloom of the house.
+
+I was torn with anxiety, and as the time went on and still no
+sign of life came back, the hope that had once been so high within
+me began to sicken and leave me downcast and despondent.  From
+without, came the din of fighting.  Already Phorenice had sent her
+troops to storm the passageway, and the Priests who defended it
+were shattering them with volleys of rocks.  But these sounds of
+war woke no pulse within me.  If Nais did not wake, then the world
+for me was ended, and I had no spirit left to care who remained
+uppermost.  The Gods in Their due time will doubtless smite me for
+this impiety.  But I make a confession of it here on these sheets,
+having no mind to conceal any portion of this history for the small
+reason that it does me a personal discredit.
+
+But as the hours went on, and still no flicker of life came to
+lessen the dumb agony that racked me, I grew more venturesome, and
+added more essences to the bath, and drugs also such as experience
+had shown might wake the disused tissues into life.  I watched on
+with staring eyes, rubbing her wasted body now and again, and
+always keeping the heat of the bath at a constant.  From the first
+I had barred the door against all who would have come near to help
+me.  With my own hands I had laid my love to sleep, and I could not
+bear that others should rouse her, if indeed roused she should ever
+be.  But after those first offers, no others came, and the snarl
+and din of fighting told of what occupied them.
+
+It is hard to take note of small changes which occur with
+infinite slowness when one is all the while on the tense watch, and
+high strung though my senses were, I think there must have been
+some indication of returning life shown before I was keen enough to
+notice it. For of a sudden, as I gazed, I saw a faint rippling on
+the surface of the water of the bath.  Gods!  Would it come back
+again to my love at last--this life, this wakefulness?  The ripple
+died out as it had come, and I stooped my head nearer to the bath
+to try if I could see some faint heaving of her bosom some small
+twitching of the limbs.  No, she lay there still without even a
+flutter of movement.  But as I watched, surely it seemed to my
+aching eyes that some tinge was beginning to warm that blank
+whiteness of skin?
+
+How I filled myself with that sight.  The colour was returning
+to her again beyond a doubt.  Once more the dried blood was
+becoming fluid and beginning again to course in its old channels. 
+Her hair floated out in the liquid of the bath like some brown
+tangle of the ocean weed, and ever and again it twitched and eddied
+to some impulse which in itself was too small for the eye to see.
+
+She had slept for nine long years, and I knew that the
+wakening could be none of the suddenest.  Indeed, it came by its
+own gradations and with infinite slowness, and I did not dare do
+more to hasten it.  Further drugs might very well stop eternally
+what those which had been used already had begun.  So I sat
+motionless where I was, and watched the colour come back, and the
+waxenness go, and even the fullness of her curves in some small
+measure return.  And when growing strength gave her power to endure
+them, and she was racked with those pains which are inevitable to
+being born back again in this fashion to life, I too felt the
+reflex of her agony, and writhed in loving sympathy.
+
+Still further, too, was I wrung by a torment of doubt as to
+whether life or these rackings would in the end be conqueror. 
+After each paroxysm the colour ebbed back from her again, and for
+a while she would lie motionless.  But strength and power seemed
+gradually to grow, and at last these prevailed, and drove death and
+sleep beneath them.  Her eyelids struggled with their fastenings. 
+Her lips parted, and her bosom heaved.  With shivering gasps her
+breath began to pant between her reddening lips.  At first it
+rattled dryly in her throat, but soon it softened and became more
+regular.  And then with a last effort her eyes, her glorious loving
+eyes, slowly opened.
+
+I leaned over and called her softly by name.
+
+Her eyes met mine, and a glow arose from their depths that
+gave me the greatest joy I have met in all the world.
+
+"Deucalion, my love," she whispered.  "Oh, my dear, so you
+have come for me.  How I have dreamed of you!  How I have been
+racked!  But it was worth it all for this."
+
+
+
+18.  STORM OF THE SACRED MOUNTAIN
+
+
+It was Nais herself who sent me to attend to my sterner
+duties.  The din of the attack came to us in the house where I was
+tending her, and she asked its meaning.  As pithily as might be,
+for she was in no condition for tedious listening, I gave her the
+history of her nine years' sleep.
+
+The colour flushed more to her face.  "My lord is the
+properest man in all the world to be King," she whispered.
+
+"I refused to touch the trade till they had given me the Queen
+I desired, safe and alive, here upon the Mountain."
+
+"How we poor women are made the chattels of you men!  But, for
+myself, I seem to like the traffic well enough.  You should not
+have let me stand in the way of Atlantis' good, Deucalion.  Still,
+it is very sweet to know you were weak there for once, and that I
+was the cause of your weakness.  What is that bath over yonder? 
+Ah!  I remember; my wits seem none of the clearest just now."
+
+"You have made the beginning.  Your strength will return to
+you by quick degrees.  But it will not bear hurrying.  You must
+have a patience."
+
+"Your ear, sir, for one moment, and then I will rest in peace. 
+My poor looks, are they all gone?  You seem to have no mirror here. 
+I had visions that I should wake up wrinkled and old."
+
+"You are as you were, dear, that first night I saw you--the
+most beautiful woman in all the world."
+
+"I am pleased you like me," she said, and took the cup of
+broth I offered her.  "My hair seems to have grown; but it needs
+combing sadly.  I had a fancy, dear, once, that you liked ruddy
+hair best, and not a plain brown."  She closed her eyes then, lying
+back amongst the cushions where I had placed her, and dropped off
+into healthy sleep, with the smiles still playing upon her lips. 
+I put the coverlet over her, and kissed her lightly, holding back
+my beard lest it should sweep her cheek.  And then I went out of
+the chamber.
+
+That beard had grown vastly disagreeable to me these last
+hours, and then I went into a room in the house, and found
+instruments, and shaved it down to the bare chin.  A change of robe
+also I found there and took it instead of my squalid rags.  If a
+man is in truth a king, he owes these things to the dignity of his
+office.
+
+But, if the din of the fighting was any guide, mine was a
+narrowing kingdom.  Every hour it seemed to grow fiercer and more
+near, and it was clear that some of the gates in the passage up the
+cleft in the cliff, impregnable though all men had thought them,
+had yielded to the vehemence of Phorenice's attack.  And, indeed,
+it was scarcely to be marvelled at.  With all her genius spurred on
+to fury by the blow that had been struck at her by wrecking so fair
+a part of the city, the Empress would be no light adversary even
+for a strong place to resist, and the Sacred Mountain was no longer
+strong.
+
+Defences of stone, cunningly planned and mightily built, it
+still possessed, but these will not fight alone.  They need men to
+line them, and, moreover, abundance of men.  For always in a storm
+of this kind, some desperate fellows will spit at death and get to
+hand grips, or slingers and archers slip in their shot, or the
+throwing-fire gets home, or (as here) some newfangled machine like
+Phorenice's fire-tubes, make one in a thousand of their wavering
+darts find the life; and so, though the general attacking loses his
+hundreds, the defenders also are not without their dead.
+
+The slaughter, as it turned out, had been prodigious.  As fast
+as the stormers came up, the Priests who held the lowest gate
+remaining to us rained down great rocks upon them till the narrow
+alley of the stair was paved with their writhing dead.  But
+Phorenice stood on a spur of the rock below them urging on the
+charges, and with an insane valour company after company marched up
+to hurl themselves hopelessly against the defences.  They had no
+machines to batter the massive gates, and their attack was as
+pathetically useless as that of a child who hammers against a wall
+with an orange; and meanwhile the terrible stones from above mowed
+them down remorselessly.
+
+Company after company of the troops marched into this terrible
+death-trap, and not a man of all of them ever came back.  Nor was
+it Phorenice's policy that they should do so.  In her lust for this
+final conquest, she was minded to pour out troops till she had
+filled up the passes with the slain, so that at last she might
+march on to a level fight over the bridge of their poor bodies.  It
+was no part of Phorenice's mood ever to count the cost.  She set
+down the object which was to be gained, and it was her policy that
+the people of Atlantis were there to gain it for her.
+
+Two gates then had she carried in this dreadful fashion,
+slaughtering those Priests that stood behind, them who had not been
+already shot down.  And here I came down from above to take my
+share in the fight.  There was no trumpet to announce my coming, no
+herald to proclaim my quality, but the Priests as a sheer custom
+picked up "Deucalion!" as a battle-cry; and some shouted that, with
+a King to lead, there would be no further ground lost.
+
+It was clear that the name carried to the other side and bore
+weight with it.  A company of poor, doomed wretches who were
+hurrying up stopped in their charge.  The word "Deucalion!" was
+bandied round and handed back down the line.  I though with some
+grim satisfaction, that here was evidence I was not completely
+forgotten in the land.
+
+There came shouts to them from behind to carry on their advance;
+but they did not budge; and presently a glittering officer panted
+up, and commenced to strike right and left amongst them with his
+sword.  From where I stood on the high rampart above the gate,
+I could see him plainly, and recognised him at once.
+
+"It matters not what they use for their battle-cry," he was
+shouting.  "You have the orders of your divine Empress, and that is
+enough.  You should be proud to die for her wish, you cowards.  And
+if you do not obey, you will die afterwards under the instruments
+of the tormentors, very painfully.  As for Deucalion, he is dead
+any time these nine years."
+
+"There it seems you lie, my Lord Tatho," I shouted down to
+him.
+
+He started, and looked up at me.
+
+"So you are there in real truth, then?  Well, old comrade, I
+am sorry.  But it is too late to make a composition now.  You are
+on the side of these mangy Priests, and the Empress has made an
+edict that they are to be rooted out, and I am her most obedient
+servant."
+
+"You used to be skilful of fence," I said, and indeed there
+was little enough to choose between us.  "If it please you to stop
+this pitiful killing, make yourself the champion of your side, and
+I will stand for mine, and we will fight out this quarrel in some
+fair place, and bind our parties to abide by the result."
+
+"It would be a grand fight between us two, old friend, and it
+goes hard with me to balk you of it.  But I cannot pleasure you. 
+I am general here under Phorenice, and she has given me the
+strongest orders not to peril myself.  And besides, though you are
+a great man, Deucalion, you are not chief.  You are not even one of
+the Three."
+
+"I am King."
+
+Tatho laughed.  "Few but yourself would say so, my lord."
+
+"Few truly, but what there are, they are powerful.  I was given
+the name for the first time yesterday, and as a first blow in
+the campaign there was some mischief done in the city.  I was there
+myself, and saw how you took it."
+
+"You were in Atlantis!"
+
+"I went for Nais.  She is on the mountain now, and to-morrow
+will be my Queen.  Tatho, as a priest to a priest, let me solemnly
+bring to your memory the infinite power you bite against on this
+Sacred Mountain.  Your teaching has warned you of the weapons that
+are stored in the Ark of the Mysteries.  If you persist in this
+attack, at the best you can merely lose; at the worst you can bring
+about a wreck over which even the High Gods will shudder as They
+order it."
+
+"You cannot scare us back now by words," said Tatho doggedly. 
+"And as for magic, it will be met by magic.  Phorenice has found by
+her own cleverness as many powers as were ever stored up in the Ark
+of the Mysteries."
+
+"Yet she looked on helplessly enough last night, when her
+royal pyramid was trundled into a rubbish heap.  Zaemon had
+prophesied that this should be so, and for a witness, why I myself
+stood closer to her than we two stand now, and saw her."
+
+"I will own you took her by surprise somewhat there.  I do not
+understand these matters myself; I was never more than one of the
+Seven in the old days; and now, quite rightly, Phorenice keeps the
+knowledge of her magic to herself: but it seems time is needed when
+one magic is to be met by another."
+
+"Well," I said, "I know little about the business either.  I
+leave these matters now to those who are higher above me in the
+priesthood.  Indeed, having a liking for Nais, it seems I am
+debarred from ever being given understanding about the highest of
+the higher Mysteries.  So I content myself with being a soldier,
+and when the appointed day comes, I shall fall and kiss my mother
+the Earth for the last time.  You, so I am told, have ambition for
+longer life."
+
+He nodded.  "Phorenice has found the Great Secret, and I am to
+be the first that will share it with her.  We shall be as Gods upon
+the earth, seeing that Death will be powerless to touch us.  And
+the twin sons she has borne me, will be made immortal also."
+
+"Phorenice is headstrong.  No, my lord, there is no need to
+shake your head and try to deny it.  I have had some acquaintance
+with her.  But the order has been made, and her immortality will be
+snatched from her very rudely.  Now, mark solemnly my words.  I,
+Deucalion, have been appointed King of Atlantis by the High Council
+of the Priests who are the mouthpiece of the most High Gods, and if
+I do not have my reign, then there will be no Atlantis left to
+carry either King or Empress.  You know me, Tatho, for a man that
+never lies."
+
+He nodded.
+
+"Then save yourself before it is too late.  You shall have
+again your vice-royalty in Yucatan."
+
+"But, man, there is no Yucatan.  A great horde of little hairy
+creatures, that were something less than human and something more
+than beasts, swept down upon our cities and ate them out.  Oh, you
+may sneer if you choose!  Others sneered when I came home, till the
+Empress stopped them.  But you know what a train of driver ants is,
+that you meet with in the forests?  You may light fires across
+their path, and they will march into them in their blind bravery,
+and put them out with their bodies, and those that are left will
+march on in an unbroken column, and devour all that stands in their
+path.  I tell you, my lord, those little hairy creatures were like
+the ants--aye, for numbers, and wooden bravery, as well as for
+appetite.  As a result to-day, there is no Yucatan."
+
+"You shall have Egypt, then."
+
+He burst at me hotly.  "I would not take seven Egypts and ten
+Yucatans.  My lord, you think more poorly of me than is kind, when
+you ask me to become a traitor.  In your place would you throw your
+Nais away, if the doing it would save you from a danger?"
+
+"That is different."
+
+"In no degree.  You have a kindness for her.  I have all that
+and more for Phorenice, who is, besides, my wife and the mother of
+my children.  If I have qualms--and I freely confess I know you are
+desperate men up there, and have dreadful powers at your
+command--my shiverings are for them and not for myself.  But I
+think, my lord, this parley is leading to nothing, and though these
+common soldiers here will understand little enough of our talk,
+they may be picking up a word here and there, and I do not wish
+them to go on to their death (as you will see them do shortly) and
+carry evil reports about me to whatever Gods they chance to come
+before."
+
+He saluted me with his sword and drew back, and once more the
+missiles began to fly, and the doomed wretches, who had been
+halting beside the steep rock walls of the pass began once more to
+press hopelessly forward.  They had scaling-ladders certainly, but
+they had no chance of getting these planted.  They could do naught
+but fill the narrow way with their bodies, and to that end they had
+been sent, and to that end they humbly died.  Our Priests with crow
+and lever wrenched from their lodging-places the great rocks which
+had been made ready, and sent them crashing down, so that once more
+screams filled the pass, and the horrid butchery was renewed.
+
+But ever and again, some arrow or some sling-stone, or some
+fire-tube's dart would find its way up from below and through the
+defences, and there we would be with a man the less to carry on the
+fight.  It was well enough for Phorenice to be lavish with her
+troops; indeed, if she wished for success, there were no two ways
+for it; and when those she had levied were killed, she could
+readily press others into the service, seeing that she had the
+whole broad face of the country under her rule.  But with us it was
+different.  A man down on our side was a man whose arm would
+bitterly be missed, and one which could in no possible way be
+replaced.
+
+I made calculation of the chances, and saw clearly that, if we
+continued the fight on the present plan, they would storm the gates
+one after another as they came to them, and that by the time the
+uppermost gate was reached, there would be no Priest alive to
+defend it.  And so, not disdaining to fashion myself on Phorenice's
+newer plan, which held that a general should at times in preference
+plot coldly from a place of some safety, and not lead the thick of
+the fighting, I left those who stood to the gate with some rough
+soldier's words of cheer, and withdrew again up the narrow stair of
+the pass.
+
+This one approach to the Sacred Mountain was, as I have said
+before, vastly more difficult and dangerous in the olden days when
+it stood as a mere bare cleft as the High Gods made it.  But a
+chasm had been bridged here, a shelf cut through the solid rock
+there, and in many places the roadway was built up on piers from
+distant crags below so as to make all uniform and easy.  It came to
+my mind now, that if I could destroy this path, we might gain a
+breathing space for further effort.
+
+The idea seemed good, or at least no other occurred to me
+which would in any way relieve our desperate situation, and I
+looked around me for means to put it into execution.  Up and down,
+from the mountain to the plains below, I had traversed that narrow
+stair of a pass some thousands of times, and so in a manner of
+speaking knew every stone, and every turn, and every cut of it by
+heart.  But I had never looked upon it with an eye to shaving off
+all roadway to the Sacred Mountain, and so now, even in this moment
+of dreadful stress, I had to traverse it no less than three times
+afresh before I could decide upon the best site for demolition.
+
+But once the point was fixed, there was little delay in getting
+the scheme in movement.  Already I had sent men to the storehouses
+amongst the Priests' dwellings to fetch me rams, and crows, and
+acids, and hammers, and such other material as was needed, and
+these stood handy behind one of the upper gates.  I put on
+every pair of hands that could be spared to the work, no matter
+what was their age and feebleness; yes, if Nais could have walked
+so far I would have pressed her for the labour; and presently
+carved balustrade, and wayside statue, together with the lettered
+wall-stones and the foot-worn cobbles, roared down into the gulf
+below, and added their din to the shrieks and yells and crashes of
+the fighting.  Gods!  But it was a hateful task, smashing down that
+splendid handiwork of the men of the past.  But it was better that
+it should crash down to ruin in the abyss below, than that
+Phorenice should profane it with her impious sandals.
+
+At first I had feared that it would be needful to sacrifice
+the knot of brave men who were so valiantly defending the gate then
+being attacked.  It is disgusting to be forced into a measure of
+this kind, but in hard warfare it is often needful to the carrying
+out of his schemes for a general to leave a part of his troops to
+fight to a finish, and without hope of rescue, as valiantly as they
+may; and all he can do for their reward is to recommend them
+earnestly to the care of the Gods.  But when the work of destroying
+the pathway was nearly completed, I saw a chance of retrieving
+them.
+
+We had not been content merely with breaking arches, and throwing
+down the piers.  We had got our rams and levers under the living
+rock itself on which all the whole fabric stood; and fire stood
+ready to heat the rams for their work; and when the word was
+given, the whole could be sent crashing down the face of the cliffs
+beyond chance of repair.
+
+All was, I say, finally prepared in this fashion, and then I
+gave the word to hold.  A narrow ledge still remained undestroyed,
+and offered footway, and over this I crossed.  The cut we had made
+was immediately below the uppermost gate of all, and below it there
+were three more massive gates still unviolated, besides the one
+then being so vehemently attacked.  Already, the garrisons had been
+retired from these, and I passed through them all in turn,
+unchallenged and unchecked, and came to that busy rampart where the
+twelve Priests left alive worked, stripped to the waist, at heaving
+down the murderous rocks.
+
+For awhile I busied myself at their side, stopping an occasional
+fire-tube dart or arrow on my shield and passing them the tidings. 
+The attack was growing fiercer every minute now.  The enemy had
+packed the pass below well-nigh full of their dead, and our
+battering stones had less distance to fall and so could do less
+execution.  They pressed forward more eagerly than ever with their
+scaling ladders, and it was plain that soon they would inevitably
+put the place to the storm.  Even during the short time I was
+there, their sling-stones and missiles took life from three more of
+the twelve who stood with me on the defence.
+
+So I gave the word for one more furious avalanche of rock to
+be pelted down, and whilst the few living were crawling out from
+those killed by the discharge, and whilst the next band of
+reinforcements came scrambling up over the bodies, I sent my nine
+remaining men away at a run up the steep stairway of the path, and
+then followed them myself.  Each of the gates in turn we passed,
+shutting them after us, and breaking the bars and levers with which
+they were moved, and not till we were through the last did the roar
+of shouts from below tell that the besiegers had found the gate
+they bit against was deserted.
+
+One by one we balanced our way across the narrow ledge which
+was left where the path had been destroyed, and one poor Priest
+that carried a wound grew giddy, and lost his balance here, and
+toppled down to his death in the abyss below before a hand could be
+stretched out to steady him.  And then, when we were all over, heat
+was put to the rams, and they expanded with their resistless force,
+and tore the remaining ledges from their hold in the rock.  I think
+a pang went through us all then when we saw for ourselves the last
+connecting link cut away from between the poor remaining handful of
+our Sacred Clan on the Mountain, and the rest of our great nation,
+who had grown so bitterly estranged to us, below.
+
+But here at any rate was a break in the fighting.  There were
+no further preparations we could make for our defence, and high
+though I knew Phorenice's genius to be, I did not see how she could
+very well do other than accept the check and retire.  So I set a
+guard on the ramparts of the uppermost gate to watch all possible
+movements, and gave the word to the others to go and find the rest
+which so much they needed.
+
+For myself, dutifully I tried to find Zaemon first, going on
+the errand my proper self, for there was little enough of kingly
+state observed on the Sacred Mountain, although the name and title
+had been given me.  But Zaemon was not to be come at.  He was
+engaged inside the Ark of the Mysteries with another of the Three,
+and being myself only one of the Seven, I had not rank enough in
+the priesthood to break in upon their workings.  And so I was free
+to turn where my likings would have led me first, and that was to
+the house which sheltered Nais.
+
+She waked as I came in over the threshold, and her eyes filled
+with a welcome for me.  I went across and knelt where she lay,
+putting my face on the pillow beside her.  She was full of tender
+talk and sweet endearments.  Gods!  What an infinity of delight I
+had missed by not knowing my Nais earlier!  But she had a will of
+her own through it all, and some quaint conceits which made her all
+the more adorable.  She rallied me on the new cleanness of my chin,
+and on the robe which I had taken as a covering.  She professed a
+pretty awe for my kingship, and vowed that had she known of my
+coming dignities she would never have dared to discover a love for
+me.  But about my marriage with Phorenice she spoke with less
+lightness.  She put out her thin white hand, and drew my face to
+her lips.
+
+"It is weak of me to have a jealousy," she murmured, "knowing
+how completely my lord is mine alone; but I cannot help it.  You
+have said you were her husband for awhile.  It gives me a pang to
+think that I shall not be the first to lie in your arms,
+Deucalion."
+
+"Then you may gaily throw your pang away," I whispered back. 
+"I was husband to Phorenice in mere word for how long I do not
+precisely know.  But in anything beyond, I was never her husband at
+all.  She married me by a form she prescribed herself, ignoring all
+the old rites and ceremonies, and whether it would hold as legal or
+not, we need not trouble to inquire.  She herself has most nicely
+and completely annulled that marriage as I have told you.  Tatho is
+her husband now, and father to her children, and he seems to have
+a fondness for her which does him credit."
+
+We said other things too in that chamber, those small repetitions
+of endearments which are so precious to lovers, and so beyond the
+comprehension of other folk, but they are not to be set down on
+these sheets.  They are a mere private matter which can have no
+concern to any one beyond our two selves, and more weighty
+subjects are piling themselves up in deep index for the historian.
+
+Phorenice, it seemed, had more rage against the Priests' Clan
+on the Mountain and more bright genius to help her to a vengeance
+than I had credited.  Her troops stormed easily the gates we had
+left to them, and swarmed up till they stood where the pathway was
+broken down.  In the fierceness of their rush, the foremost were
+thrust over the brink by those pressing up behind, before the
+advance could be halted, and these went screaming to a horrid death
+in the great gulf below.  But it was no position here that a lavish
+spending of men could take, and presently all were drawn off, save
+for some half-score who stood as outpost sentries, and dodged out
+of arrow-shot behind angles of the rock.
+
+It seems, too, that the Empress herself reconnoitered the place,
+using due caution and quickness, and so got for herself a full
+plan of its requirements without being obliged to trust the
+measuring of another eye.  With extraordinary nimbleness she must
+have planned an engine such as was necessary to suit her purposes,
+and given orders for its making; for even with the vast force and
+resources at her disposal, the speed with which it was built was
+prodigious.
+
+There was very little noise made to tell of what was afoot. 
+All the woodwork and metalwork was cut, and tongued, and forged,
+and fitted first by skilled craftsmen below, in the plain at the
+foot of the cleft; and when each ponderous balk and each
+crosspiece, and each plank was dragged up the steep pass through
+the conquered gates, it was ready instantly for fitting into its
+appointed place in the completed machine.
+
+The cleft was straight where they set about their building,
+and there was no curve or spur of the cliff to hide their handiwork
+from those of the Priests who watched from the ramparts above our
+one remaining gate.  But Phorenice had a coyness lest her engine
+should be seen before it was completed, and so to screen it she
+had a vast fire built at the uppermost point where the causeway was
+broken off, and fed diligently with wet sedge and green wood, so
+that a great smoke poured out, rising like a curtain that shut out
+all view.  And so though the Priests on the rampart above the gate
+picked off now and again some of those who tended the fire, they
+could do the besiegers no further injury, and remained up to the
+last quite in ignorance of their tactics.
+
+The passage up the cleft was in shadow during the night hours,
+for, though all the crest of the Sacred Mountain was always lit
+brightly by the eternal fires which made its defence on the farther
+side, their glow threw no gleam down that flank where the cliff ran
+sheer to the plains beneath.  And so it was under cover of the
+darkness that Phorenice brought up her engine into position for
+attack.
+
+Planking had been laid down for its wheels, and the wheels
+themselves well greased, and it may be that she hoped to march in
+upon us whilst all slept.  But there was a certain creaking and
+groaning of timbers, and laboured panting of men, which gave
+advertisement that something was being attempted, and the alarm
+was spread quietly in the hope that if a surprise had been planned,
+the real surprise might be turned the other way.
+
+A messenger came to me running, where I sat in the house at
+the side of my love, and she, like the soldier's wife she was made
+to be, kissed me and bade me go quickly and care for my honour, and
+bring back my wounds for her to mend.
+
+On the rampart above the gate all was silence, save for the
+faint rustle of armed men, and out of the black darkness ahead, and
+from the other side of the broken causeway, came the sounds of
+which the messenger bad warned me.
+
+The captain of the gate came to me and whispered: "We have
+made no light till the King came, not knowing the King's will in
+the matter.  Is it wished I send some of the throwing-fire down
+yonder, on the chance that it does some harm, and at the same time
+lights up the place?  Or is it willed that we wait for their
+surprise?"
+
+"Send the fire," I said, "or we may find that Phorenice's
+brain has been one too many for us."
+
+The captain of the gate took one of the balls in his hand, lit
+the fuse, and hurled it.  The horrid thing burst amongst a mass of
+men who were labouring with a huge engine, sputtering them with its
+deadly fire, and lighting their garments.  The plan of the engine
+showed itself plainly.  They had built them a vast great tower,
+resting on wheels at its base, so that it might by pushed forward
+from behind, and slanting at its foot to allow for the steepness of
+the path and leave it always upright.
+
+It was storeyed inside, with ladders joining each floor, and
+through slits in the side which faced us bowmen could cover an
+attack.  From its top a great bridge reared high above it, being
+carried vertically till the tower was brought near enough for its
+use.  The bridge was hinged at the third storey of the tower, and
+fastened with ropes to its extreme top; but, once the ropes were
+cut, the bridge would fall, and light upon whatever came within its
+swing, and be held there by the spikes with which it was studded
+beneath.
+
+I saw, and inwardly felt myself conquered.  The cleverness of
+Phorenice had been too strong for my defence.  No war-engine of
+which we had command could overset the tower.  The whole of its
+massive timbers were hung with the wet new-stripped skins of
+beasts, so that even the throwing-fire could not destroy it.  What
+puny means we had to impede those who pushed it forward would have
+little effect.  Presently it would come to the place appointed, and
+the ropes would be cut, and the bridge would thunder down on the
+rampart above our last gate, and the stormers would pour out to
+their final success.
+
+Well, life had loomed very pleasant for me these few days with
+a warm and loving Nais once more in touch of my arms, but the High
+Gods in Their infinite wisdom knew best always, and I was no rebel
+to stay stiff-necked against their decision.  But it is ever a
+soldier's privilege, come what may, to warm over a fight, and the
+most exquisitely fierce joy of all is that final fight of a man who
+knows that he must die, and who lusts only to make his bed of slain
+high enough to carry a due memory of his powers with those who
+afterwards come to gaze upon it.  I gripped my axe, and the muscles
+of my arms stood out in knots at the thought of it.  Would Tatho
+come to give me sport?  I feared not.  They would send only the
+common soldiers first to the storm, and I must be content to do my
+killing on those.
+
+And Nais, what of her?  I had a quiet mind there.  When any
+spoilers came to the house where she lay, she would know that
+Deucalion had been taken up to the Gods, and she would not be long
+in following him.  She had her dagger.  No, I had no fears of being
+parted long from Nais now.
+
+
+
+19.  DESTRUCTION OF ATLANTIS
+
+
+A tottering old Priest came up and touched me on the shoulder.
+
+"Well?" I said sharply, having small taste for interruption
+just now.
+
+"News has been carried to the Three, my King, of what is
+threatened."
+
+"Then they will know that I stand here now, brother, to enjoy
+the finest fight of my life.  When it is finished I shall go to the
+Gods, and be there standing behind the stars to welcome them when
+presently they also arrive.  They have my regrets that they are too
+old and too feeble to die and look upon a fine killing themselves."
+
+"I have commands from them, my King, to lay upon you, which I
+fear you will like but slenderly.  You are forbidden to find your
+death here in the fighting.  They have a further use for you yet."
+
+I turned on the old man angrily enough.  "I shall take no such
+order, my brother.  I am not going to believe it was ever given. 
+You must have misunderstood.  If I am a man, if I am a Priest, if
+I am a soldier, if I am a King, then it stands to my honour that no
+enemy should pass this gate whilst yet I live.  And you may go back
+and throw that message at their teeth."
+
+The old man smiled enviously.  He, too, had been a keen soldier
+in his day.  "I told them you would not easily believe such a
+message, and asked them for a sign, and they bore with me, and
+gave me one.  I was to give you this jewel, my King."
+
+"How came they by that?  It is a bracelet from the elbow of
+Nais."
+
+"They must have stripped her of it.  I did not know it came
+from Nais.  The word I was to bring you said that the owner of the
+jewel was inside the Ark of the Mysteries, and waited you there. 
+The use which the Three have for you further concerns her also."
+
+Even when I heard that, I will freely confess that my obedience
+was sorely tried, and I have the less shame in setting it
+down on these sheets, because I know that all true soldiers will
+feel a sympathy for my plight.  Indeed, the promise of the battle
+was very tempting.  But in the end my love for Nais prevailed, and
+I gave the salutation that was needful in token that I heard the
+order and obeyed it.
+
+To the knot of Priests who were left for the defence, I turned
+and made my farewells.  "You will have what I shall miss, my
+brothers," I said.  "I envy you that fight.  But, though I am King
+of Atlantis, still I am only one of the Seven, and so am the
+servant of the Three and must obey their order.  They speak in
+words the will of the most High Gods, and we must do as they
+command.  You will stand behind the stars before I come, and I ask
+of you that you will commend me to Those you meet there.  It is not
+my own will that I shall not appear there by your side."
+
+They heard my words with smiles, and very courteously saluted
+me with their weapons, and there we parted.  I did not see the
+fight, but I know it was good, from the time which passed before
+Phorenice's hordes broke out on to the crest of the Mountain.  They
+died hard, that last remnant of the lesser Priests of Atlantis.
+
+With a sour enough feeling I went up to the head of the pass,
+and then through the groves, and between the temples and colleges
+and houses which stood on the upper slopes of the Sacred Mountain,
+till I reached that boundary, beyond which in milder days it was
+death for any but the privileged few to pass.  But the time, it
+appeared to me, was past for conventions, and, moreover, my own
+temper was hot; and it is likely that I should have strode on with
+little scruple if I had not been interrupted.  But in the temple
+which marked the boundary, there was old Zaemon waiting; and he,
+with due solemnity of words, and with the whole of some ancient
+ritual ordained for that purpose, sought dispensation from the High
+Gods for my trespass, and would not give me way till he was through
+with his ceremony.
+
+Already Phorenice's tower and bridge were in position, for the
+clash and yelling of a fight told that the small handful of Priests
+on the rampart of the last gate were bartering their lives for the
+highest return in dead that they could earn.  They were trained
+fighting men all, but old and feeble, and the odds against them
+were too enormous to be stemmed for over long.  In a very short
+time the place would be put to the storm, and the roof of the
+Sacred Mountain would be at the open mercy of the invader.  If
+there was any further thing to be done, it was well that it should
+be set about quickly whilst peace remained. It seemed to me that
+the moment for prompt action, and the time for lengthy pompous
+ceremonial was done for good.
+
+But Zaemon was minded otherwise. He led me up to the Ark of the
+Mysteries, and chided my impatience, and waited till I had given it
+my reverential kiss, and then he called aloud, and another old man
+came out of the opening which is in the top of the Ark, and climbed
+painfully down by the battens which are fixed on its sides.  He was
+a man I had never seen before, hoary, frail, and emaciated, and he
+and Zaemon were then the only two remaining Priests who had been
+raised to the highest degree known to our Clan, and who alone had
+knowledge of the highest secrets and powers and mysteries.
+
+"Look!" cried Zaemon, in his shrill old voice, and swept a
+trembling finger over the shattered city, and the great spread of
+sea and country which lay in view of us below.  I followed his
+pointing and looked, and a chill began to crawl through me.  All
+was plainly shown.  Our Lord the Sun burned high overhead in a sky
+of cloudless blue, and day shimmered in His heat.  All below seemed
+from that distance peaceful and warm and still, save only that the
+mountains smoked more than ordinary, and some spouted fires, and
+that the sea boiled with some strange disorder.
+
+But it was the significance of the sea that troubled me most. 
+Far out on the distant coast it surged against the rocks in
+enormous rolls of surf; and up the great estuary, at the head of
+which the city of Atlantis stands, it gushed in successive waves of
+enormous height which never returned.  Already the lower lands on
+either side were blotted out beneath tumultuous waters, the harbour
+walls were drowned out of sight, and the flood was creeping up into
+the lower wards of the great city itself.
+
+"You have seen?" asked Zaemon.
+
+"I have seen."
+
+"You understand?"
+
+"ln part."
+
+"Then let me tell you all.  This is the beginning, and the end
+will follow swiftly.  The most High Gods, that sit behind the
+stars, have a limit to even Their sublime patience; and that has
+been passed.  The city of Atlantis, the great continent that is
+beyond, and all that are in them are doomed to unutterable
+destruction.  Of old it was foreseen that this great wiping-out
+would happen through the sins of men, and to this end the Ark of
+the Mysteries was built under the direction of the Gods.  No mortal
+implements can so much as scratch its surface, no waves or rocks
+wreck it.  Inside is stored on sheets of the ancient writing all
+that is known in the world of learning that is not shared by the
+common people, also there is grain in a store, and sweet water in
+tanks sufficient for two persons for the space of four years,
+together with seeds, weapons, and all such other matters as were
+deemed fit.
+
+"Out of all this vast country it has been decreed by the High
+Gods that two shall not perish.  Two shall be chosen, a man and a
+woman, who are fit and proper persons to carry away with them the
+ancient learning to dispose of it as they see best, and afterwards
+to rear up a race who shall in time build another kingdom and do
+honour to our Lord the Sun and the other Gods in another place. 
+The woman is within the Ark already, and seated in the place
+appointed for her, and though she is a daughter of mine, the burden
+of her choosing is with you.  For the man, the choice has fallen
+upon yourself."
+
+I was half numb with the shock of what was befalling.  "I do
+not know that I care to be a survivor."
+
+"You are not asked for your wishes," said the old man.  "You
+are given an order from the High Gods, who know you to be Their
+faithful servant."
+
+Habit rode strong upon me.  I made salutation in the required
+form, and said that I heard and would obey.
+
+"Then it remains to raise you to the sublime degree of the
+Three, and if your learning is so small that you will not
+understand the keys to many of the Powers, and the highest of the
+Mysteries, when they are handed to you, that fault cannot be
+remedied now."
+
+Certainly the time remaining was short enough.  The fight
+still raged down at the gate in the pass, though it was a wonder
+how the handful of Priests had held their ground so long.  But the
+ocean rolled in upon the land in an ever-increasing flood, and the
+mountains smoked and belched forth more volleys of rock as the
+weight increased on their lower parts, and presently those that
+besieged the Mountain could not fail to see the fate that
+threatened them.  Then there would be no withholding their rush. 
+In their mad fury and panic they would sweep all obstruction
+resistlessly before them, and those who stood in their path might
+look to themselves.
+
+But there was no hurrying Zaemon and his fellow sage.  They
+were without temple for the ceremony, without sacrifice or incense
+to decorate it.  They had but the sky for a roof to make their
+echoes, and the Gods themselves for witnesses.  But they went
+through the work of raising me to their own degree, with all the
+grand and majestic form which has gathered dignity from the ages,
+and by no one sentence did they curtail it. A burning mountain
+burst with a bellowing roar as the incoming waters met its fires,
+but gravely they went on, in turn reciting their sentences. 
+Phorenice's troops broke down the last resistance, and poured in a
+frenzied stream amongst the groves and temples, but still they
+quavered never in the ritual.
+
+It had been said that this ceremony is the grandest and the
+most impressive of all those connected with our holy religion; and
+certainly I found it so; and I speak as one intimate with all the
+others.  Even the tremendous circumstances which hemmed them in
+could do nothing to make these frail old men forget the deference
+which was due to the highest order of the Clan.
+
+For myself, I will freely own I was less rapt.  I stood there
+bareheaded in the heat, a man trying to concentrate himself, and
+yet torn the while by a thousand foreign emotions.  The awful thing
+that was happening all around compelled some of my attention.  A
+continent was in the very act and article of meeting with complete
+destruction, and if Zaemon and the other Priest were strong enough
+to give their minds wholly up to a matter parochial to the
+priesthood, I was not so stoical.  And moreover, I was filled with
+other anxieties and thoughts concerning Nais.  Yet I managed to
+preserve a decent show of attention to the ceremony; making all
+those responses which were required of me; and trying as well as
+might be to preserve in my mind those sentences which were the keys
+to power and learning, and not mere phrasings of grandeur and
+devotion.
+
+But it became clear that if the ceremony of my raising did not
+soon arrive at its natural end, it would be cut short presently
+with something of suddenness.  Phorenice's conquering legions
+swarmed out on to the crest of the Mountain, and now carried full
+knowledge of the dreadful thing that was come upon the country. 
+They were out of all control, and ran about like men distracted;
+but knowing full well that the Priests would have brought this
+terrible wreck to pass by virtue of the powers which were stored
+within the Ark of the Mysteries, it would be their natural impulse
+to pour out a final vengeance upon any of these same Priests they
+could come across before it was too late.
+
+It began to come to my mind that if the ceremony did not very
+shortly terminate, the further part of the plan would stand very
+small chance of completion, and I should come by my death after all
+by fighting to a finish, as I had pictured to myself before.  My
+flickering attention saw the soldiers coming always nearer in their
+frantic wanderings, and saw also the sea below rolling deeper and
+deeper in upon the land.
+
+The fires, too, which ringed in half the mountain, spurted up
+to double their old height, and burned with an unceasing roar.  But
+for all distraction these things gave to the two old Priests who
+were raising me, we might have been in the quietness of some
+ancient temple, with no so much as a fly to buzz an interruption.
+
+But at last an end came to the ceremony.  "Kneel," cried Zaemon,
+"and make obeisance to your mother the Earth, and swear by the
+High Gods that you will never make improper use of the powers
+over Her which this day you have been granted."
+
+When I had done that, he bade me rise as a fully installed and
+duly initiated member of the Three.  "You will have no opportunity
+to practise the workings of this degree with either of us, my
+brother," said he, "for presently our other brother and I go to
+stand before the Gods to deliver to Them an account of our trust,
+and of how we have carried it out.  But what items you remember
+here and there may turn of use to you hereafter.  And now we two
+give you our farewells, and promise to commend you highly to the
+Gods when soon we meet Them in Their place behind the stars.  Climb
+now into the Ark, and be ready to shut the door which guards it, if
+there is any attempt by these raging people to invade that also. 
+Remember, my brother, it is the Gods' direct will that you and the
+woman Nais go from this place living and sound, and you are
+expressly forbidden to accept challenge or provocation to fight on
+any pretext whatever.  But as long as may be done in safety, you
+may look out upon Atlantis in her death-throes.  It is very fitting
+that one of the only two who are sent hence alive, should carry the
+full tale of what has befallen."
+
+I went to the top of the Ark of Mysteries then, climbing there
+by the battens which are fastened to the sides, and then descended
+by the stair which is inside and found Nais in a little chamber
+waiting for me.
+
+"I was bidden stay here by Zaemon," she said, "who forced me
+to this place by threats and also by promises that my lord would
+follow.  He is very ungentle, that father of mine, but I think he
+has a kindness for us both, and any way he is my father and I
+cannot help loving him.  Is there no chance to save him from what
+is going to happen?"
+
+"He will not come into this Ark, for I asked him.  It has been
+ordained from the ancient time when first the Ark was built, that
+when the day for its purpose came, one woman and one man should be
+its only tenants, and they are here already.  Zaemon's will in the
+matter is not to be twisted by you or by me.  He has a message to
+be delivered to the Gods, and (if I know him at all), he grudges
+every minute that is lost in carrying it to them."
+
+I left her then, and went out again up the stair, and stood
+once more on the roof of the Ark.  On the Mountain top men still
+ran about distracted, but gradually they were coming to where the
+Ark rested on the highest point.  For the moment, however, I passed
+them lightly.  The drowning of the great continent that had been
+spread out below filled the eye.  Ocean roared in upon it with
+still more furious waves.  The plains  and the level lands were
+foaming lakes.  The great city of Atlantis had vanished eternally. 
+The mountains alone kept their heads above the flood, and spewed
+out rocks, and steam, and boiling stone, or burst when the waters
+reached them and created great whirlpools of surging sea, and
+twisted trees, and bubbling mud.
+
+In the space of a few breaths every living creature that dwelt
+in the lower grounds had been smothered by the waters, save for a
+few who huddled in a pair of galleys that were driven oarless
+inland, over what had once been black forest and hunting land for
+the beasts.  And even as I watched, these also were swallowed up by
+the horrid turmoil of sea, and nothing but the sea beasts, and
+those of the greater lizards which can live in such outrageous
+waters, could have survived even that state of the destruction. 
+Indeed, none but those men who had now found standing-ground on the
+upper slopes of the Sacred Mountain survived, and it was plain that
+their span was short, for the great mass of the continent sank
+deeper and more deep every minute before our aching eyes, beneath
+the boiling inrush of the seas.
+
+But though the great mass of the soldiery were dazed and
+maddened at the prospect of the overwhelming which threatened them,
+there were some with a strength of mind too valiant to give any
+outward show of discomposure.  Presently a compact little body of
+people came from out the houses and the temples, and headed
+directly across the open ground towards the Ark.  On the outside
+marched Phorenice's personal guards with their weapons new blooded. 
+They had been forced to fight a way through their own fellow
+soldiers.  The poor demented creatures had thought it was every one
+for himself now, till these guards (by their mistress's order)
+proved to them that Phorenice still came first.
+
+And in the middle of them, borne in a litter of gold and ivory
+by her grotesque European slaves, rode the Empress, still calm,
+still lovely, and seemingly divided in her sentiments between
+contempt and amusement.  Her two children lay in the litter at her
+feet.  On her right hand marched Tatho gorgeously apparelled, and
+with a beard curled and plaited into a thousand ringlets.  On the
+other side, plying her industry with unruffled defence, walked
+Ylga, once again fan-girl, and so still second lady in this
+dwindling kingdom.
+
+The party of them halted half a score of paces from the Ark by
+Phorenice's order.  "Do not go nearer to those unclean old men. 
+They carry a rank odour with them, and for the moment we are short
+of essences to sweeten the air of their neighbourhood."  She lifted
+her eyebrows and looked up at me.  "Truly a quiet little gathering
+of old acquaintances.  Why, there is Deucalion, that once I took
+the flavour of and threw aside when he cloyed me."
+
+"I have Nais here," I said, "and presently we two will be all
+that are left alive of this nation."
+
+"Nais is quite welcome to my leavings," she laughed.  "I will
+look down upon your country cooings when presently I go back to the
+Place behind the stars from which I came.  You are a very rustic
+person, Deucalion.  They tell me too that three or four of these
+smelling old men up here have named you King.  Did you swell much
+with dignity?  Or did you remember that there was a pretty Empress
+left that would still be Empress so long as there was an Atlantis
+to govern?  Come, sir, find your tongue.  By my face! you must have
+hungered for me very madly these years we have been parted, if
+new-grown ruggedness of feature is an evidence."
+
+"Have your gibe.  I do not gibe back at a woman who presently
+will die."
+
+"Bah!  Deucalion, you will live behind the times.  Have they
+not told you that I know the Great Secret and am indeed a Goddess
+now?  My arts can make life run on eternally."
+
+"Then the waters will presently test them hard," I said, but
+there the talk was taken into other lips.  Zaemon went forward to
+the front of the litter with the Symbol of our Lord the Sun glowing
+in his hand, and burst into a flow of cursing.  It was hard for me
+to hear his words.  The roar of the waters which poured up over the
+land, and beat in vast waves against the Sacred Mountain itself,
+grew nearer and more loud.  But the old man had his say.
+
+Phorenice gave orders to her guards for his killing; yes,
+tried even to rise from the litter and do the work herself; but
+Zaemon held the Symbol to his front, and its power in that supreme
+moment mastered all the arts that could be brought against it.  The
+majesty of the most High Gods was vindicated, and that splendid
+Empress knew it and lay back sullenly amongst the cushions of her
+litter, a beaten woman.
+
+Only one person in that rigid knot of people found power to leave
+the rest, and that was Ylga.  She came out to the side of the
+Ark, and leaned up, and cried me a farewell through the gathering
+roar of the flood.
+
+"I would I might save you and take you with us," I said.
+
+"As for that," she said, with a gesture, "I would not come if
+you asked me.  I am not a woman that will take anything less than
+all.  But I shall meet what comes presently with the memory that
+you will have me always somewhere in your recollection.  I know
+somewhat of men, even men of your stamp, Deucalion, and you will
+never forget that you came very near to loving me once."
+
+I think, too, she said something further, concerning Nais, but
+the bellowing rush of the waters drowned all other words.  A great
+mist made from the stream sent up by the swamped burning mountains
+stopped all accurate view, though the blaze from the fires lit it
+like gold.  But I had a last sight of a horde of soldiery rushing
+up the slopes of the Mountain, with a scum of surge billowing at
+their heels, and licking many of them back in its clutch.  And then
+my eye fell on old Zaemon waving to me with the Symbol to shut down
+the door in the roof of the Ark.
+
+I obeyed his last command, and went down the stair, and closed
+all ingress behind me.  There were bolts placed ready, and I shot
+these into their sockets, and there were Nais and I alone, and cut
+off from all the rest of our world that remained.
+
+I went to the place where she lay, and put my arms tightly
+around her.  Without, we heard men beating desperately on the Ark
+with their weapons, and some even climbed by the battens to the top
+and wrenched to try and move the door from its fastenings.  The end
+was coming very nearly to them now, and the great crowd of them
+were mad with terror.
+
+I would have given much to have known how Phorenice fared in
+that final tumult, and how she faced it.  I could see her, with her
+lovely face, and her wondrous eyes, and her ruddy hair curling
+about her neck, and by all the Gods!  I thought more of her at that
+last moment than of the poor land she had conquered, and
+misgoverned, and brought to this horrid destruction.  There is no
+denying the fascination which Phorenice carried with her.
+
+But the end did not dally long with its coming.  There was a
+little surge that lifted the Ark a hand's breadth or so in its
+cradle, and set it back again with a jar and a quiver.  The blows
+from axes and weapons ceased on its lower part, but  redoubled into
+frenzied batterings on its rounded roof.  There were some screams
+and cries also which came  to us but dully through the thickness of
+its ponderous sheathing, though likely enough they were sent forth
+at the full pitch of human lungs outside.  And when another surge
+came, roaring and thundering, which picked up the great vessel as
+though it had been a feather, and spun it giddily; and after that
+we touched earth or rock no more.
+
+We tossed about on the crest and troughs of delirious seas, a
+sport for the greedy Gods of the ocean.  The lamp had fallen, and
+we crouched there in darkness, dully weighed with the burden of
+knowledge that we alone were saved out of what was yesterday a
+mighty nation.
+
+
+
+20.  ON THE BOSOM OF THE DEEP
+
+
+The Ark was rudderless, oarless, and machineless, and could
+travel only where the High Gods chose.  The inside was dark, and
+full of an ancient smell, and crowded with groanings and noise.  I
+could not find the fire-box to relight the fallen lamp, and so we
+had to endure blindly what was dealt out to us.  The waves tossed
+us in merciless sport, and I clung on by the side of Nais, holding
+her to the bed.  We did not speak much, but there was full
+companionship in our bereavement and our silence.
+
+When Atlantis sank to form new ocean bed, she left great
+whirlpools and spoutings from her drowned fires as a fleeting
+legacy to the Gods of the Sea.  And then, I think (though in the
+black belly of the Ark we could not see these things), a vast
+hurricane of wind must have come on next so as to leave no piece
+of the desolation incomplete.  For seven nights and seven days did
+this dreadful turmoil continue, as counted for us afterwards by the
+reckoner of hours which hung within the Ark, and then the howling
+of the wind departed, and only the roll of a long still swell
+remained.  It was regular and it was oily, as I could tell by the
+difference of the motion, and then for the first time I dared to go
+up the stair, and open the door which stood in the roof of the Ark.
+
+The sweet air came gushing down to freshen the foulness within,
+and as the Ark rode dryly over the seas, I went below and brought
+up Nais to gain refreshment from the curing rays of our Lord the
+Sun.  Duly the pair of us adored Him, and gave thanks for His
+great mercy in coming to light another day, and then we laid
+ourselves down where we were to doze, and take that easy rest which
+we so urgently needed.
+
+Yet, though I was tired beyond words, for long enough sleep
+would not visit me.  Wearily I stared out over the oily sunlit
+waters.  No blur of land met the eye.  The ring of ocean was
+unbroken on every side, and overhead the vault of heaven remained
+unchanged.  The bosom of the deep was littered with the poor
+wreckage of Atlantis, to remind one, if there had been a need, that
+what had come about was fact, and not some horrid dream.  Trees,
+squared timber, a smashed and upturned boat of hides, and here and
+there the rounded corpse of a man or beast shouldered over the
+swells, and kept convoy with our Ark as she drifted on in charge of
+the Gods and the current.
+
+But sleep came to me at last, and I dropped off into
+unconsciousness, holding the hand of Nais in mine, and when next I
+woke, I found her open-eyed also and watching me tenderly.  We were
+finely rested, both of us, and rest and strength bring one
+complacency.  We were more ready now to accept the station which
+the High Gods had made for us without repining, and so we went
+below again into the belly of the Ark to eat and drink and maintain
+strength for the new life which lay before us.
+
+A wonderful vessel was this Ark, now we were able to see it at
+leisure and intimately.  Although for the first time now in all its
+centuries of life it swam upon the waters, it showed no leak or
+suncrack.  Inside, even its floor was bone dry.  That it was built
+from some wood, one could see by the grainings, but nowhere could
+one find suture or joint.  The living timbers had been put in place
+and then grown together by an art which we have lost to-day, but
+which the Ancients knew with much perfection; and afterwards some
+treatment, which is also a secret of those forgotten builders, had
+made the wood as hard as metal and impervious to all attacks of the
+weather.
+
+In the gloomy cave of its belly were stored many matters.  At
+one end, in great tanks on either side of central alley, was a
+prodigious store of grain.  Sweet water was in other tanks at the
+other end.  In another place were drugs and samples, and essences
+of the life of beasts; all these things being for use whilst the
+Ark roamed under the guidance of the Gods on the bosom of the deep. 
+On all the walls of the Ark, and on all the partitions of the tanks
+and the other woodwork, there were carved in the rude art of bygone
+time representations of all the beasts which lived in Atlantis; and
+on these I looked with a hunter's interest, as some of them were
+strange to me, and had died out with the men who had perpetuated
+them in these sculptures.  There was a good store of weapons too
+and the tools for handicrafts.
+
+Now, for many weeks, our life endured in this Ark as the Gods
+drove it about here and there across the face of the waters.  We
+had no government over direction; we could not by so much as a
+hair's breadth a day increase her speed.  The High Gods that had
+chosen the two of us to be the only ones saved out of all Atlantis,
+had sole control of our fate, and into Their hands we cheerfully
+resigned our future direction.
+
+Of that land which we reached in due time, and where we made
+our abiding place, and where our children were born, I shall tell
+of in its place; but since this chronicle has proceeded so far in
+an exact order of the events as they came to pass, it is necessary
+first to narrate how we came by the sheets on which it is written.
+
+In a great coffer, in the centre of the Ark's floor, the whole
+of the Mysteries learned during the study of ages were set down in
+accurate writing.  I read through some of them during the days
+which passed, and the awfulness of the Powers over which they gave
+control appalled me.  I had seen some of these Powers set loose in
+Atlantis, and was a witness of her destruction.  But here were
+Powers far higher than those; here was the great Secret of Life and
+Death which Phorenice also had found, and for which she had been
+destroyed; and there were other things also of which I cannot even
+bring my stylo to scribe.
+
+The thought of being custodian of these writings was more than
+I could endure, and the more the matter rested in my mind, the more
+intolerable became the burden.  And at last I took hot irons, and
+with them seared the wax on the sheets till every letter of the old
+writings was obliterated.  If I did wrong, the High Gods in Their
+infinite justice will give me punishment; if it is well that these
+great secrets should endure on earth, They in their infinite power
+will dictate them afresh to some fitting scribes; but I destroyed
+them there as the Ark swayed with us over the waves; and later,
+when we came to land, I rewrote upon the sheets the matters which
+led to great Atlantis being dragged to her death-throes.
+
+Nais, that I love so tenderly--
+
+[TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: The remaining sheets are too broken
+to be legible.]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg Etext The Lost Continent
+
+
+
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