The Lost Continent, Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne [the best ebook reader for android TXT] 📗

You’re the finest fighter of beasts and men that walks this world to-day, and I love you for it. That spear-stroke of yours on the lizard is a thing the singers in the taverns shall make chaunts about.”

We drew rapidly into the harbour, the soldiers in the entrance castle blowing their trumpets in welcome as we passed between them. The captain of the port had run up my banner to the masthead of his boat, having been provided with one apparently for this purpose of announcement, and from the quays, across the vast basin of the harbour, there presently came to us the noises of musicians, and the pale glow of welcoming fires, dancing under the sunlight. I was almost awed to think that an Empress of Atlantis had come to such straits as to feel an interest like this in any mere returning subject.

It was clear that nothing was to be done by halves. The port-captain’s boat led, and we had no choice but to follow. Our galley was run up alongside the royal quay and moored to its posts and rings of gold, all of which are sacred to the reigning house.

“If Dason could only have foreseen this honour,” said Tob, with grisly jest, “I’m sure he’d have laid in a silken warp to make fast on the bollards instead of mere plebeian hemp. I’m sure there’d be a frown on Dason’s head this minute, if the sun hadn’t scorched it stiff. My Lord Deucalion, will you pick your way with niceness over this common ship and tread on the genteel carpet they’ve spread for you on the quay yonder?”

The port-captain heard Tob’s rude banter and looked up with a face of horror, and I remembered, with a small sigh, that colonial freedom would have no place here in Atlantis. Once more I must prepare myself for all the dignity of rank, and make ready to tread the formalities of vast and gorgeous ceremonial.

But, be these things how they may, a self-respecting man must preserve his individuality also, and though I consented to enter a pavilion of crimson cloth, specially erected to shelter me till the Empress should deign to arrive, there my complaisance ended. Again the matter of clothes was harped upon. The three gorgeously caparisoned chamberlains, who had inducted me to the shelter, laid before me changes of raiment bedecked with every imaginable kind of frippery, and would have me transform myself into a popinjay in fashion like their own.

Curtly enough, I refused to alter my garb, and when one of them stammeringly referred to the Empress’s tastes I asked him with plainness if he had got any definite commands on this paltry matter from her mightiness.

Of course, he had to confess that there were none.

Upon which I retorted that Phorenice had commanded Deucalion, the man, to attend before her, and had sent no word of her pleasure as to his outer casing.

“This dress,” I said, “suits my temper well. It shields my poor body from the heat and the wind, and, moreover, it is clean. It seems to me, sirs,” I added, “that your interfering savours somewhat of an impertinence.”

With one accord the chamberlains drew their swords and pushed the hilts towards me.

“It would be a favour,” said their spokesman, “if the great Lord Deucalion would take his vengeance now, instead of delivering us to the tormentors hereafter.”

“Poof,” I said, “the matter is forgotten. You make too much of a little.”

Nevertheless, their action gave me some enlightenment. They were perfectly in earnest in offering me the swords, and I recognised that this was a different Atlantis that I had come home to, where a man had dread of the torture for a mere difference concerning the cut of a coat.

There was a bath in the pavilion, and in that I regaled myself gladly, though there was some paltry scent added to the water that took away half its refreshing power; and then I set myself to wait with all outward composure and placidity. The chamberlains were too well-bred to break into my calm, and I did not condescend to small talk. So there we remained, the four of us, I sitting, they standing, with our Lord the Sun smiting heavily on the scarlet roof of the pavilion, whilst the music blared, and the welcoming fires dispersed their odours from the great paved square without, which faced upon the quay.

It has been said that the great should always collect dignity by keeping those of lesser degree waiting their pleasure, though for myself I must say I have always thought the stratagem paltry and beneath me. Phorenice also seemed of this opinion, for (as she herself told me later) at the moment that Tob’s galley was reported as having its flank against the marble of the royal quay, at that precise moment did she start out from the palace. The gorgeous procession was already marshalled, bedecked, and waiting only for its chiefest ornament, and as soon as she had mounted to her steed, trumpets gave the order, and the advance began.

Sitting in the doorway of the pavilion, I saw the soldiery who formed the head of this vast concourse emerge from the great broad street where it left the houses. They marched straight across to give me the salute, and then ranged themselves on the farther side of the square. Then came the Mariners’ Guild, then more soldiers, all making obeisance in their turn, and passing on to make room for others. Following were the merchants, the tanners, the spear-makers and all the other acknowledged Guilds, deliberately attired (so it seemed to me) that they might make a pageant; and whilst most walked on foot, there were some who proudly rode on beasts which they had tamed into rendering them this menial service.

But presently came the two wonders of all that dazzling spectacle. From out of the eclipse of the houses there swung into the open no less a beast than a huge bull mammoth. The sight had sufficient surprise in it almost to make me start. Many a time during my life had I led hunts to kill the mammoth, when a herd of them had raided some village or cornland under my charge. I had seen the huge brutes in the wild ground, shaggy, horrid, monstrous; more fierce than even the cave-tiger or the cave-bear; most dangerous beast of all that fight with man for dominion of the earth, save only for a few of the greater lizards. And here was this creature, a giant even amongst mammoths, yet tame as any well-whipped slave, and bearing upon its back a great half-castle of gold, stamped with the outstretched hand, and bedecked with silver snakes. Its murderous tusks were gilded, its hairy neck was garlanded with flowers, and it trod on in the procession as though assisting at such pageantry was the beginning and end of its existence. Its tameness seemed a fitting symbol of the masterful strength of this new ruler of Atlantis.

Simultaneously with the mammoth, there came into sight that other and greater wonder, the mammoth’s mistress, the Empress Phorenice. The beast took my eye at the first, from its very uncouth hugeness, from its show of savage power restrained; but the lady who sat in the golden half-castle on its lofty back quickly drew away my gaze, and held it immovable from then onwards with an infinite attraction.

I stood to my feet when the people first shouted at Phorenice’s approach, and remained in the porchway of my scarlet pavilion till her vast steed had halted in the centre of the square, and then I advanced across the pavement