to the grade from which savages like those of Europe have never yet
emerged. It was a grim commentary on the success of Phorenice's

rule.
The crowd merged me into their ranks without question, and

with them I pressed forward down the winding streets, once so clean
and trim, now so foul and mud-strewn. Men and women had died of

hunger in these streets these latter years, and rotted where they
lay, and we trod their bones underfoot as we walked. Yet rising

out of this squalor and this misery were great pyramids and
palaces, the like of which for splendour and magnificence had never

been seen before. It was a jarring admixture.
In time we came to the open space in the centre of the city,

which even Phorenice had not dared to encroach upon with her
ambitious building schemes, and stood on the secular ground which

surrounds the most ancient, the most grand, and the breast of all
this world's temples.

Since the beginning of time, when man first emerged amongst
the beasts, our Lord the Sun has always been his chiefest God, and

legend says that He raised this circle of stones Himself to be a
place where votaries should offer Him worship. It is the fashion

amongst us moderns not to take these old tales in a too literal
sense, but for myself, this one satisfies me. By our wits we can

lift blocks weighing six hundred men, and set them as the capstones
of our pyramids. But to uprear the stones of that great circle

would be beyond all our art, and much more would it be impossible
to-day, to transport them from their distant quarries across the

rugged mountains.
There were nine-and-forty of the stones, alternating with

spaces, and set in an accuratecircle, and across the tops of them
other stones were set, equally huge. The stones were undressed and

rugged; but the huge massiveness of them impressed the eye more
than all the temples and daintily tooled pyramids of our wondrous

city. And in the centre of the circle was that still greater stone
which formed the altar, and round which was carved, in the rude

chiselling of the ancients, the snake and the outstretched hand.
The crowd which bore me on came to a standstill before the

circle of stones. To trespass beyond this is death for the common
people; and for myself, although I had the right of entrance, I

chose to stay where I was for the present, unnoticed amongst the
mob, and wait upon events.

For long enough we stood there, our Lord the Sun burning high
and fiercely from the clear blue sky above our heads. The din of

the rebels' attack upon the walls came to us clearly, even above
the gabble of the multitude, but no one gave attention to it.

Excitement about what was to befall in the circle mastered every
other emotion.

I learned afterways that so pressing was the rebels' attack,
and so destructive the battering of their new war engines, that

Phorenice had gone off to the walls first to lend awhile her
brilliant skill for its repulse, and to put heart into the

defenders. But as it was, the day had burned out to its middle and
scorched us intolerably, before the noise of the drums and horns

gave advertisement that the pageant had formed in procession; and
of those who waited in the crowd, many had fainted with exhaustion

and the heat, and not a few had died. But life was cheap in the
city of Atlantis now, and no one heeded the fallen.

Nearer and nearer drew the drums and the braying of the other
music, and presently the head of a glittering procession began to

arrive and dispose itself in the space which had been set apart.
Many a thousand poor starving wretches sighed when they saw the

wanton splendour of it. But these lords and these courtiers of
this new Atlantis had no concern beyond their own bellies and their

own backs, except for their one alien regard--their simpering
affection for Phorenice.

I think, though, their loyalty for the Empress was real
enough, and it was not to be wondered at, since everything they had

came from her lavish hands. Indeed, the woman had a charm that
cannot be denied, for when she appeared, riding in the golden

castle (where I also had ridden) on the back of her monstrous
shaggy mammoth, the starved sullen faces of the crowd brightened as

though a meal and sudden prosperity had been bestowed upon them;
and without a word of command, without a trace of compulsion, they

burst into spontaneous shouts of welcome.
She acknowledged it with a smile of thanks. Her cheeks were

a little flushed, her movements quick, her manner high-strung, as
all well might be, seeing the horrible sacrilege she had in mind.

But she was undeniably lovely; yes, more adorably beautiful than
ever with her present thrill of excitement; and when the stair was

brought, and she walked down from the mammoth's back to the ground,
those near fell to their knees and gave her worship, out of sheer

fascination for her beauty and charm.
Ylga, the fan-girl, alone of all that vast multitude round the

Sun temple contained herself with her formal paces and duties. She
looked pained and troubled. It was plain to see, even from the

distance where I stood, that she carried a heavy heart under the
jewels of her robe. It was fitting, too, that this should be so.

Though she had been long enough divorced from his care and fostered
by the Empress, Ylga was a daughter of Zaemon, and he was the

chiefest of our Lord the Sun's ministers here on earth. She could
not forget her upbringing now at this supreme moment when the

highest of the old Gods was to be formally defied. And perhaps
also (having a kindness for Phorenice) she was not a little

dreadful of the consequences.
But the Empress had no eye for one sad look amongst all that

sea of glowing faces. Boldly and proudly she strode out into the
circle, as though she had been the duly appointed priest for the

sacrifice. And after her came a knot of men, dressed as priests,
and bearing the victim. Some of these were creatures of her own,

and it was easy to forgive mere ignorant laymen, won over by the
glamour of Phorenice's presence. But some, to their shame, were

men born in the Priests' Clan, and brought up in the groves and
colleges of the Sacred Mountain, and for their apostasy there could

be no palliation.
The wood had already been stacked on the altar-stone in the

due form required by the ancient symbolism, and the Empress stood
aside whilst those who followed did what was needful. As they

opened out, I saw that the victim was one of the small,
cloven-hoofed horses that roam the plains--a most acceptable

sacrifice. They bound its feet with metal gyves, and put it on the
pyre, where, for a while, it lay neighing. Then they stepped

aside, and left it living. Here was an innovation.
The false priests went back to the farther side of the circle,

and Phorenice stood alone before the altar. She lifted up her
voice, sweet, tuneful, and carrying, and though the din of the

siege still came from over the city, no ear there lost a word of
what was spoken.

She raised her glance aloft, and all other eyes followed it.
The heaven was clear as the deep sea, a gorgeous blue. But as the

words came from her, so a small mist was born in the sky, wheeling
and circling like a ball, although the day was windless, and

rapidly growing darker and more compact. So dense had it become,
that presently it threw a shadow on part of the sacredcircle and

soothed it into twilight, though all without where the people stood
was still garish day. And in the ball of mist were little quick

stabs and splashes of noiseless flame.
She spoke, not in the priests' sacred tongue--though such was

her wicked cleverness, that she may very well have learned it--but
in the common speech of the people, so that all who heard might

understand; and she told of her wondrous birth (as she chose to
name it), and of the direct aid of the most High Gods, which had