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.