aloud the prescribed prayer to the most High Gods in gratitude for
the fresh, sweet air which They had provided.

Our Lord the Sun was on the verge of rising for His day, and
all things were plainly shown. Before me were the monstrous walls

of the capital, with the heads of its pyramids and higher buildings
showing above them. And on the walls, the sentries walked calmly

their appointed paces, or took shelter against arrows in the
casemates provided for them.

The din of fighting within the gate rose high into the air,
and the heavy roaring of the cave-tigers told that they too were

taking their share of the melee. But the massive stonework of the
walls hid all the actualengagement from our view, and which party

was getting the upper hand we could not even guess. But the sounds
told how tight a fight was being hammered out in those narrow

boundaries, and my veins tingled to be once more back at the old
trade, and to be doing my share.

But there was no chivalry about the fellows who held me by my
bonds. They thrust me into a small temple near by, which once had

been a fane in much favour with travellers, who wished to show
gratitude for the safe journey to the capital, but which now was

robbed and ruined, and they swung to the stone entrance gate and
barred it, leaving me to commune with myself. Presently, they told

me, I should be put to death by torments. Well, this seemed to be
the new custom of Atlantis, and I should have to endure it as best

I could. The High Gods, it appeared, had no further use for my
services in Atlantis, and I was not in the mood then to bite very

much at their decision. What I had seen of the country since my
return had not enamoured me very much with its new conditions.

The little temple in which I was gaoled had been robbed and
despoiled of all its furnishments. But the light-slits, where at

certain hours of the day the rays of our Lord the Sun had fallen
upon the image of the God, before this had been taken away, gave me

vantage places from which I could see over the camp of these rebel
besiegers, and a drearyprospect it was. The people seemed to have

shucked off the culture of centuries in as many months, and to have
gone back for the most part to sheer brutishness. The majority

harboured on the bare ground. Few owned shelter, and these were
merely bowers of mud and branches.

They fought and quarrelled amongst themselves for food, eating
their meat raw, and their grain (when they had it) unground. Many

who passed my vision I saw were even gnawing the soft inside of
tree bark.

The dead lay where they fell. The sick and the wounded found
no hand to tend them. Great man-eating birds hovered about the

camp or skulked about, heavy with gorging, amongst the hovels, and
no one had public spirit enough to give them battle. The stink of

the place rose up to heaven as a foul incenseinviting a
pestilence. There was no order, no trace of strong command

anywhere. With three hundred well-disciplined troops it seemed to
me that I could have sent those poor desperate hordes flying in

panic to the forest.
However, there was no very lengthy space of time granted me

for thinking out the policy of this matter to any great depth. The
attack on the gate had been delivered with suddenness; the repulse

was not slow. Of what desperate fighting took place in the
galleries, and in the circus between the two sets of gates, the

detail will never be told in full.
At the first alarm the great cave-tigers were set loose, and

these raged impartially against keeper and foe. Of those that went
in through the tunnel, not one in ten returned, and there were few

of these but what carried a bloody wound. Some, with the ruling
passion still strong in them, bore back plunder; one trailed along

with him the head of the captain of the gate; and amongst them they
dragged out two of the warders who were wounded, and whom revenge

had urged them to take as prisoners.
Over these two last a hubbub now arose, that seemed likely to

boil over into blows. Every voice shouted out for them what he
thought the most repulsive fate. Some were for burning, some for

skinning, some for impaling, some for other things: my flesh crept
as I heard their ravenous yells. Those that had been to the

trouble of making them captive were still breathless" target="_blank" title="a.屏息的">breathless from the
fight, and were readilythrust aside; and it seemed to me that the

poor wretches would be hustled into death before any definite fate
was agreed upon, which all would pass as sufficientlyterrific.

Never had I seen such a disorderly tumult, never such a leaderless
mob. But, as always has happened, and always will, the stronger

men by dint of louder voices and more vigorous shoulders got their
plans agreed to at last, and the others perforce had to give way.

A band of them set off running, and presently returned at
snails' pace, dragging with them (with many squeals from ungreased

wheels) one of those huge war engines with which besiegers are wont
to throw great stones and other missiles into the cities they sit

down against. They ran it up just beyond bowshot of the walls, and
clamped it firmly down with stakes and ropes to the earth. Then

setting their lean arms to the windlasses, they drew back the great
tree which formed the spring till its tethering place reached the

ground, and in the cradle at its head they placed one of the
prisoners, bound helplessly" target="_blank" title="ad.无能为力地">helplessly, so that he could not throw himself

over the side.
Then the rude, savage, skin-clad mob stood back, and one who

had appointed himself engineer knocked back the catch that held the
great spring in place.

With a whir and a twang the elastic wood flung upwards, and
the bound man was shot away from its tip with the speed of a

lightning flash. He sang through the air, spinning over and over
with inconceivable rapidity, and the great crowd of rebels held

their breath in silence as they watched. He passed high above the
city wall, a tiny mannikin in the distance now, and then the

trajectory of his flight began to lower. The spike of a new-built
pyramid lay in the path of his terrificflight, and he struck it

with a thud whose sound floated out to us afterwards, and then he
toppled down out of our sight, leaving a red stain on the whiteness

of the stone as he fell.
With a roar the crowd acknowledged the success of their

device, and bellowed out insults to Phorenice, and insults to the
Gods: a poor frantic crowd they showed themselves. And then with

ravening shouts, they fell upon the other captive warder, binding
him also into a compacthelpless missile, and meanwhile getting the

engine in gear again for another shot.
But for my part I saw nothing of this disgusting scene. I

heard the bolt grate stealthily against the door of the little
temple in which I was imprisoned, and was minded to give these

brutish rebels somewhat of a surprise. I had rid myself of my
bonds handily enough; I had rubbed my limbs to that perfect

suppleness which is always desirable before a fight; and I had
planned to rush out so soon as the door was swung, and kill those

that came first with fist blows on the brow and chin.
They had not suspected my name, it was clear, for my stature

and garb were nothing out of the ordinary; but if my bodily
strength and fighting power had been sufficient to raise me to a

vice-royalty like that of Yucatan, and let me endure alive in that
government throughout twenty hard-battling years, why, it was

likely that this rabble of savages would see something that was new
and admirable in the practice of arms before the crude weight of

their numbers could drag me down. Nay, I did not even despair of
winning free altogether. I must find me a weapon from those that

came up to battle, with which I could write worthy signatures, and
I must attempt no standing fights. Gods! but what a glow the