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?”
“In 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.