I have found useful to the stomach. I possess also three slaves,

two of them scribes and the third a sturdysavage 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 findingagreement. 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