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The Lost Continent-Part35_C.J.Cutcliffe Hyne(1865-1944)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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But at last I found myself within a half-day's journey the

city of Atlantis itself, with the Sacred Mountain and its ring of



fires looming high beside it, and the call for caution became

trebly accentuated. Everywhere evidences showed that the country



had been drained of its fighting men. Everywhere women prayed that

the battles might end with the rout of the Priests or the killing



of Phorenice, so that the wretched land might have peace and time

to lick its wounds.



An army was investing the sacred Mountain, and its one

approach was most narrowly guarded. Even after having journeyed so



far, it seemed as if I should have to sit hopelessly down without

being able to carry out the orders which had been laid upon me by



the High Council, and earn the reward which had been promised.

Force would be useless here. I should have one good fight--a



gorgeous fight--one man against an army, and my usefulness would be

ended. . . . No; this was the occasion for guile, and I found



covert in the outskirts of a wood, and lay there cudgelling my

brain for a plan.



Across the plain before me lay the grim great walls of the

city, with the heads of its temples, and its palaces, and its



pyramids showing beyond. The step-sides of the royal pyramid held

my eye. Phorenice had expended some of her new-found store of gold



in overlaying their former whiteness with sheets of shining yellow

metal. But it was not that change that moved me. I was remembering



that, in the square before the pyramid, there stood a throne of

granite carved with the snake and the outstretched hand, and in the



hollow beneath the throne was Nais, my love, asleep these eight

years now because of the drug that had been given to her, but alive



still, and waiting for me, if only I on my part could make a way to

the place where Zaemon defied the Empress, and announce my coming.



In that covert of the woods I lay a day and a night raging

with myself for not discovering some plan to get within the



defences of the Sacred Mountain, but in the morning which followed,

there came a man towards me running.



"You need not threaten me with your weapons," he cried. "I

mean no harm. It seems that you are Deucalion; though I should not



have known you myself in those rags and skins, and behind that

tangle of hair and beard. You will give me your good word I know.



Believe me, I have not loitered unduly."

He was a lower priest whom I knew, and held in little esteem;



his name was Ro, a greedy fellow and not overworthy of trust.

"From whom do you come?" I asked.



"Zaemon laid a command on me. He came to my house, though how

he got there I cannot tell, seeing that Phorenice's army blocks all



possible passage to and from the Mountain. I told him I wished to

be mixed with none of his schemings. I am a peaceful man,



Deucalion, and have taken a wife who requires nourishment. I still

serve in the same temple, though we have swept out the old Gods by



order of the Empress, and put her image in their place. The people

are tidily pious nowadays, those that are left of them, and the



living is consequently easy. Yes, I tell you there are far more

offerings now than there were in the old days. And so I had no



wish to be mixed with matters which might well make me be deprived

of a snug post, and my head to boot."



"I can believe it all of you, Ro."

"But there was no denying Zaemon. He burst into one of his



black furies, and while he spoke at me, I tell you I felt as good

as dead. You know his powers?"



"I have seen some of them."

"Well, the Gods alone know which are the true Gods, and which



are the others. I serve the one that gives me employment. But

those that Zaemon serves give him power, and that's beyond denying.



You see that right hand of mine? It is dead and paralysed from the

wrist, and that is a gift of Zaemon. He bestowed it, he said, to



make me collect my attention. Then he said more hard things

concerning what he was pleased to term my apostasy, not letting me



put up a word in my own defence of how the change was forced upon

me. And finally, said he, I might either do his bidding on a



certain matter to the letter, or take that punishment which my

falling away from the old Gods had earned. 'I shall not kill you,'



said he, 'but I will cover all your limbs with a paralysis, such as

you have tasted already, and when at length death reaches you in



some gutter, you will welcome it.'"

"If Zaemon said those words, he meant them. So you accepted



the alternative?"

"Had I, with a wife depending on me, any other choice? I






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