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.