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.