The Lost Continent

  16. SIEGE OF THE SACRED MOUNTAIN

  Now, my passage across the great continent of Atlantis, if tedious andhaunted by many dangers, need not be recounted in detail here. Only onehalt did I make of any duration, and that was unavoidable. I had killeda stag one day, bringing it down after a long chase in an open savannah.I scented the air carefully, to see if there was any other beast whichcould do me harm within reach, and thinking that the place was safe,set about cutting my meat, and making a sufficiency into a bundle forcarriage.

  But underfoot amongst the grasses there was a great legged worm, amonstrous green thing, very venomous in its bite; and presently as Imoved I brushed it with my heel, and like the dart of light it swoopedwith its tiny head and struck me with its fangs in the lower thigh. Withmy knife I cut through its neck and it fell to writhing and strugglingand twining its hundred legs into all manner of contortions; and then,cleaning my blade in the ground, I stabbed with it deep all round thewound, so that the blood might flow freely and wash the venom from itslodgement. And then with the blood trickling healthily down from myheel, I shouldered the meat and strode off, thankful for being so wellquit of what might have made itself a very ugly adventure.

  As I walked, however, my leg began to be filled with a tightness andthrobbing which increased every hour, and presently it began to swellalso, till the skin was stretched like drawn parchment. I was taken,too, with a sickness, that racked me violently, and if one of thegreater and more dangerous beasts had come upon me then, he would haveeaten me without a fight. With the fall of darkness I managed to haulmyself up into a tree, and there abode in the crutch of a limb, inwakefulness and pain throughout the night.

  With the dawn, when the night beasts had gone to their lairs, Iclambered down again, and leaning heavily on my spear, limped onwardsthrough the sombre forests along my way. The moss which grows on thenorthern side of each tree was my guide, but gradually I began to notethat I was seeing moss all round the trees, and, in fact, was growinglight-headed with the pain and the swelling of the limb. But still Ipressed onwards with my journey, my last instinct being to obey thecommand of the High Council, and so procure the enlargement of Nais ashad been promised.

  My last memory was of being met by someone in the black forest who aidedme, and there my waking senses took wings into forgetfulness.

  But after an interval, wit returned, and I found myself on a bed ofleaves in a cleft between two rocks, which was furnished with some poorskill, and fortified with stakes and buildings against the entrance ofthe larger marauding beasts. My wound was dressed with a poultice ofherbs, and at the other side of the cavern there squatted a woman,cooking a mess of wood-grubs and honey over a fire of sticks.

  "How came I here?" I asked.

  "I brought you," said she.

  "And who are you?"

  "A nymph, they call me, and I practise as such, collecting herbs andcuring the diseases of those that come to me, telling fortunes, andmaking predictions. In return I receive what each can afford, and ifthey do not pay according to their means, I clap on a curse to make themwither. It's a lean enough living when wars and the pestilence have leftso few poor folk to live in the land."

  "Do you visit Atlantis?"

  "Not I. Phorenice would have me boiled in brine, living, if she couldlay easy hands on me. Our dainty Empress tolerates no magic but her own.They say she is for pulling down the Priests off their Mountain now."

  "So you do get news of the city?"

  "Assuredly. It is my trade to get good news, or otherwise how could Itell fortunes to the vulgar? You see, my lord, I detected your qualityby your speech, and knowing you are not one of those that come to me forspells, and potions, I have no fear in speaking to you plainly."

  "Tell me then: Phorenice still reigns?"

  "Most vilely."

  "As a maiden?"

  "As the mother of twin sons. Tatho's her husband now, and has been thesethree years."

  "Tatho! Who followed him as viceroy of Yucatan?"

  "There is no Yucatan. A vast nation of little hairy men, so the talegoes, coming from the West overran the country. They had clubs ofwood tipped with stone as their only arm, but numbers made their chiefweapon. They had no desire for plunder, or the taking of slaves, orthe conquering of cities. To eat the flesh of Atlanteans was their onlylust, and they followed it prodigiously. Their numbers were like thebees in a swarm.

  "They came to each of the cities of Yucatan in turn, and thoughthe colonists slew them in thousands, the weight of numbers alwaysprevailed. They ate clean each city they took, and left it to the beastsof the forest, and went on to the next. And so in time they reached thecoast towns, and Tatho and the few that survived took ship, andsailed home. They even ate Tatho's wife for him. They must be curiouspersevering things, these little hairy men. The Gods send they do notget across the seas to Atlantis, or they would be worse plague to thepoor country than Phorenice."

  Now I had heard of these little hairy creatures before, and thoughindeed I had never seen them, I had gathered that they were a littleless than human and a little more than bestial; a link so to speakbetween the two orders; and specially held in check by the Gods incertain forest solitudes. Also I had learned that on occasion, whenpunishment was needful, they could be set loose as a devastating armyupon men, devouring all before them. But I said nothing of this to thenymph, she being but a vulgar woman, and indeed half silly, as is alwaysthe case with these self-styled sorceresses who gull the ignorant,common folk. But within myself I was bitterly grieved at the fate ofthat fine colony of Yucatan, in which I had expended such an infinity ofpains to do my share of the building.

  But it did not suit my purpose to have my name and quality blazonedabroad till the time was full, and so I said nothing to the nymph aboutYucatan, but let the talk continue upon other matters. "What aboutEgypt?" I asked.

  "In its accustomed darkness, so they say. Who cares for Egypt theselatter years? Who cares for anyone or anything for that matter exceptfor himself and his own proper estate? Time was when the country folkand the hunters hereabouts brought me offerings to this cave for sheerpiety's sake. But now they never come near unless they see a way ofgetting good value in return for their gifts. And, by result, insteadof living fat and hearty, I make lean meals off honey and grubs. It'sa poor life, a nymph's, in these latter years I tell you, my lord. It'sthe fashion for all classes to believe in no kind of mystery now."

  "What manner of pestilence is this you spoke of?"

  "I have not seen it. Thank the Gods it has not come this way. But theydo say that it has grown from the folk Phorenice has slain, and whosebodies remain unburied. She is always slaying, and so the bodies liethicker than the birds and beasts can eat them. For which of our sins,I wonder, did the Gods let Phorenice come to reign? I wish that she andher twins were boiled alive in brine before they came between an honestnymph of the forest and her living.

  "They say she has put an image of herself in all the temples of thecity now, and has ordered prayers and sacrifices to be made nightand morning. She has decreed all other Gods inferior to herselfand forbidden their worship, and those of the people that are notsufficiently devout for her taste, have their hamstrings slit by theirtormentors to aid them constantly into a devotional attitude.--Will youeat of my grubs and honey? There is nothing else. Your back was bloodywith carrying meat when I met you, but you had lost your load. You musteither taste this mess of mine now, or go without."

  I harboured with that nymph in cave six days, she using her drugs andcharms to cure my leg the while, and when I was recovered, I hunted theplains and killed her a fat cloven-hoofed horse as payment, and thenwent along my ways.

  The country from there onwards had at one time carried a sturdypopulation which held its own firmly, and, as its numbers grew, took inmore ground, and built more homesteads farther afield. The houses wereperched in trees for the most part, as there they were out of reachof cave-bear and cave-tiger and the other more dangerous beasts. Butothers, and these were
the better ones, were built on the ground, oflogs so ponderous and so firmly clamped and dovetailed that the beastscould not pull them down, and once inside a house of this fashionits owners were safe, and could progue at any attackers through theinterstices between the logs, and often wound, sometimes make a kill.

  But not one in ten of these outlying settlers remained. The houses weresilent when I reached them, the fire-hearth before the door weed-grown,and the patch of vegetables taken back by the greedy fingers of theforest into mere scrub and jungle. And farther on, when villages beganto appear, strongly-walled as the custom is, to ward off the attacks ofbeasts, the logs which aforetime had barred the gateway lay strewn ina sprouting undergrowth, and naught but the kitchen middens remained toprove that once they had sheltered human tenants. Phorenice's influenceseemed to have spread as though it were some horrid blight over thewhole face of what was once a smiling and an easy-living land.

  So far I had met with little enough interference from any men I had comeacross. Many had fled with their women into the depths of the forest atthe bare sight of me; some stood their ground with a threatening face,but made no offer to attack, seeing that I did not offer them insultfirst; and a few, a very few, offered me shelter and provision. But asI neared the city, and began to come upon muddy beaten paths, I passedthrough governments that were more thickly populated, and here appearedstrong chance of delay. The watcher in the tower which is set above eachvillage would spy me and cry: "Here is a masterless man," and then thepeople that were within would rush out with intent to spoil me of myweapons, and afterwards to appoint me as a labourer.

  I had no desire to slay these wretched folk, being filled with pity atthe state to which they had fallen; and often words served me to makethem stand aside from the path, and stare wonderingly at my fierceness,and let me go my ways. And when at other times words had no avail, Istrove to strike as lightly as could be, my object being to get forwardwith my journey and leave no unnecessary dead behind me. Indeed, havingfound the modern way of these villages, it grew to be my custom to turnoff into the forest, and make a circuit whenever I came within smell oftheir garbage.

  Similarly, too, when I got farther on, and came amongst greater townsalso, I kept beyond challenge of their walls, having no mind to riskdelay from the whim of any new law which might chance to be set up bytheir governors. My progress might be slinking, but my pride did notupbraid me very loudly; indeed, the fever of haste burned within me sohot and I had little enough carrying space for other emotions.

  But at last I found myself within a half-day's journey the city ofAtlantis itself, with the Sacred Mountain and its ring of fires loominghigh beside it, and the call for caution became trebly accentuated.Everywhere evidences showed that the country had been drained of itsfighting men. Everywhere women prayed that the battles might endwith the rout of the Priests or the killing of Phorenice, so that thewretched land might have peace and time to lick its wounds.

  An army was investing the Sacred Mountain, and its one approach was mostnarrowly guarded. Even after having journeyed so far, it seemed as if Ishould have to sit hopelessly down without being able to carry out theorders which had been laid upon me by the High Council, and earn thereward which had been promised. Force would be useless here. I shouldhave one good fight--a gorgeous fight--one man against an army, and myusefulness would be ended.... No; this was the occasion for guile, andI found covert in the outskirts of a wood, and lay there cudgelling mybrain for a plan.

  Across the plain before me lay the grim great walls of the city, withthe heads of its temples, and its palaces, and its pyramids showingbeyond. The step-sides of the royal pyramid held my eye. Phorenice hadexpended some of her new-found store of gold in overlaying their formerwhiteness with sheets of shining yellow metal. But it was not thatchange that moved me. I was remembering that, in the square before thepyramid, there stood a throne of granite carved with the snake and theoutstretched hand, and in the hollow beneath the throne was Nais, mylove, asleep these eight years now because of the drug that had beengiven to her, but alive still, and waiting for me, if only I on mypart could make a way to the place where Zaemon defied the Empress, andannounce my coming.

  In that covert of the woods I lay a day and a night raging with myselffor not discovering some plan to get within the defences of the SacredMountain, but in the morning which followed, there came a man towards merunning.

  "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 youmyself in those rags and skins, and behind that tangle of hair andbeard. You will give me your good word I know. Believe me, I have notloitered unduly."

  He was a lower priest whom I knew, and held in little esteem; his namewas Ro, a greedy fellow and not overworthy of trust. "From whom do youcome?" I asked.

  "Zaemon laid a command on me. He came to my house, though how he gotthere I cannot tell, seeing that Phorenice's army blocks all possiblepassage to and from the Mountain. I told him I wished to be mixed withnone of his schemings. I am a peaceful man, Deucalion, and have taken awife who requires nourishment. I still serve in the same temple, thoughwe have swept out the old Gods by order of the Empress, and put herimage in their place. The people are tidily pious nowadays, those thatare left of them, and the living is consequently easy. Yes, I tell youthere are far more offerings now than there were in the old days. Andso I had no wish to be mixed with matters which might well make me bedeprived 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 knowhis powers?"

  "I have seen some of them."

  "Well, the Gods alone know which are the true Gods, and which are theothers. I serve the one that gives me employment. But those that Zaemonserves give him power, and that's beyond denying. You see that righthand of mine? It is dead and paralysed from the wrist, and that isa gift of Zaemon. He bestowed it, he said, to make me collect myattention. Then he said more hard things concerning what he was pleasedto term my apostasy, not letting me put up a word in my own defence ofhow the change was forced upon me. And finally, said he, I mighteither do his bidding on a certain matter to the letter, or take thatpunishment which my falling away from the old Gods had earned. 'Ishall not kill you,' said he, 'but I will cover all your limbs with aparalysis, such as you have tasted already, and when at length deathreaches you in some gutter, you will welcome it.'"

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

  "Had I, with a wife depending on me, any other choice? I asked hispleasure. It was to find you when you came in here from some distantpart of the land, and deliver to you his message.

  "'Then tell me where is the meeting place,' said I, 'and when.'

  "'There is none appointed, nor is the day fixed,' said he. 'You mustwatch and search always for him. But when he comes, you will be guidedto his place.' Well, Deucalion, I think I was guided, but how, I donot know. But now I have found you, and if there's such a thing asgratitude, I ask you to put in your word with Zaemon that this deadnessbe taken away from my hand. It's an awful thing for a man to be forcedto go through life like this, for no real fault of his own. And Zaemoncould cure it from where he sat, if he was so minded."

  "You seem still to have a very full faith in some of the old Gods'priests," I said. "But so far, I do not see that your errand is done. Ihave had no message yet."

  "Why, the message is so simple that I do not see why he could not havegot some one else to carry it. You are to make a great blaze. You mayfire the grasses of the plain in front of this wood if you choose. Andon the night which follows, you are to go round to that flank of theSacred Mountain away from the city where the rocks run down sheer, andthere they will lower a rope and haul you up to their hands above."

  "It seems easy, and I thank you for your pains. I will ask Zaemon thatyour hand may
be restored to you."

  "You shall have my prayers if it is. And look, Deucalion, it is a smallmatter, and it would be less likely to slip your memory if you saw to itat once on your landing. Later, you may be disturbed. Phorenice is boundto pull you down off your perch up there now she has made her mind toit. She never fails, once she has set her hand to a thing. Indeed,if she was no Goddess at birth, she is making herself into one veryrapidly. She has got all the ancient learning of our Priests, and morebesides. She has discovered the Secret of Life these recent months--"

  "She has found that?" I cried, fairly startled. "How? Tell me how? Onlythe Three know that. It is beyond our knowledge even who are members ofthe Seven."

  "I know nothing of her means. But she has the secret, and now she is asgood an immortal (so she says) as any of them. Well, Deucalion, it isdangerous for me to be missing from my temple overlong, so I will go.You will carry that matter we spoke of in your mind? It means muchto me."--His eye wandered over my ragged person--"And if you think myservice is of value to you--"

  "You see me poor, my man, and practically destitute."

  "Some small coin," he murmured, "or even a link of bronze? I am atgreat expense just now buying nourishment for my wife. Well, if you havenothing, you cannot give. So I'll just bid you farewell."

  He took himself off then, and I was not sorry. I had never liked Ro. ButI wasted no more precious time then. The grass blazed up for a signalalmost before his timorous heels were clear of it, and that night whenthe darkness gave me cover, I took the risk of what beasts might beprowling, and went to the place appointed. There was no rope dangling,but presently one came down the smooth cliff face like some slendersnake. I made a loop, slipped it over a leg, and pulled hard as asignal. Those above began to haul, and so I went back to the SacredMountain after an absence of so many toilsome and warring years. Therewere none to disturb the ascent. Phorenice's troops had no thought toguard that gaunt, bare, seamless precipice.

  The men who hauled me up were old, and panted heavily with their task,and, until I knew the reason, I wondered why a knot of younger priestshad not been appointed for the duty. But I put no question. With us ofthe Priests' Clan on the Sacred Mountain, it is always taken as grantedthat when an order is given, it is given for the best. Besides, thesepriests did not offer themselves to question. They took me off at onceto Zaemon, and that is what I could have wished.

  The old man greeted me with the royal sign. "All hail to Deucalion," hecried, "King of Atlantis, duly called thereto by the High Council of thepriests."

  "Is Phorenice dead?" I asked.

  "It remains for you to slay her, and take your kingdom, if, indeed,when all is done, there remains a man or a rood of land to govern. Thesentence has gone out that she is to die, and it shall be carried intoeffect, even though we have to set loose the most dreadful powers thatare stored in the Ark of the Mysteries, and wreck this continent in oureffort. We have borne with her infamies all these years by command sentdown by the most High Gods; but now she has gone beyond endurance, andThey it is who have given the word for her cutting off."

  "You are one of the highest Three; I am only one of the Seven; you bestknow the cost."

  "There can be no counting the cost now, my brother, and my king. It isan order."

  "It is an order," I repeated formally, "so I obey."

  "If it were not impious to do so, it would be easy to justify thisdecision of the Gods. The woman has usurped the throne; yet she wasforgiven and bidden rule on wisely. She has tampered with our holyreligion; yet she was forgiven. She has killed the peoples of Atlantisin greedy useless wars, and destroyed the country's trade; yet she wasforgiven. She has desecrated the old temples, and latterly has set upin them images of herself to be worshipped as a deity; yet she wasforgiven. But at last her evil cleverness has discovered to her thetremendous Secret of Life and Death, and there she overstepped theboundary of the High Gods' forbearance.

  "I myself went to carry a final warning, and once more faced her inthe great banqueting-hall. Solemnly I recited to her the edict, and shechose to take it as a challenge. She would live on eternally herself andshe would share her knowledge with those that pleased her. Tatho thatwas her husband should also be immortal. Indeed, if she thought fit, shewould cry the secret aloud so that even the common people might know it,and death from mere age would become a legend.

  "She cared no wit how she might upset the laws of Nature. She wasPhorenice, and was the highest law of all. And finally she defied methere in that banqueting-hall and defied also the High Gods that stoodbehind my mouth. 'My magic is as strong as yours, you pompous fool,'she cried, 'and presently you shall see the two stand side by side upontheir trial.'

  "She began to collect an army from that moment, and we on our part madeour preparations. It was discovered by our arts that you still lived,and King of Atlantis you were made by solemn election. How you weresummoned, you know as nearly as it is lawful that one of your degreeshould know; how you came, you understand best yourself; but here youare, my brother, and being King now, you must order all things as yousee best for the preservation of your high estate, and we others liveonly to give you obedience."

  "Then being King, I can speak without seeming to make use of a threat.I must have my Queen first, or I am not strong enough to give my wholemind to this ruling."

  "She shall be brought here."

  "So! Then I will be a General now, and see to the defences of thisplace, and view the men who are here to stand behind them."

  I went out of the dwelling then, Zaemon giving place and following me.It was night still but there is no darkness on the upper part of theSacred Mountain. A ring of fires, fed eternally from the earth-breathwhich wells up from below, burns round one-half of the crest, lightingit always as bright as day, and in fact forming no small part of itsfortification. Indeed, it is said that, in the early dawn of history,men first came to the Mountain as a stronghold because of the naturaldefence which the fires offered.

  There is no bridging these flames or smothering them. On either sideof their line for a hundred paces the ground glows with heat, and a manwould be turned to ash who tried to cross it. Round full one-half themountain slopes the fires make a rampart unbreakable, and on the otherside the rock runs in one sheer precipice from the crest to the plainwhich spreads beyond its foot. But it is on this farther side that thereis the only entrance way which gives passage to the crest of the SacredMountain from below. Running diagonally up the steep face of the cliffis a gigantic fissure, which succeeding ages (as man has grown moreluxurious) have made more easy to climb.

  Looking at the additions, in the ancient days, I can well imagine thatnone but the most daring could have made the ascent. But one generationhas thrown a bridge over a bad gap here, and another has cut into theliving stone and widened a ledge there, till in these latter years thereis a path with cut steps and carved balustrade such as the feeblest ormost giddy might traverse with little effort or exertion. But alwayswhen these improvers made smooth the obstacles, they were careful toweaken in no possible way the natural defences but rather to add tothem.

  Eight gates of stone there were cutting the pathway, each commandinga straight, steep piece of the ascent, and overhanging each gate was agallery secure from arrow-shot, yet so contrived that great stones couldbe hurled through holes in the floor of it, in such a manner that theymust irretrievably smash to a pulp any men advancing against it frombelow. And in caves dug out from the rock on either hand was a greathoard of these stones, so that no enemy through sheer expenditure oftroops could hope to storm a gate by exhausting its ammunition.

  But though there were eight of these granite gates in the series, we hadthe whole number to depend on no longer. The lowest gate was held bya garrison of Phorenice's troops, who had built a wall above them toprotect their occupation. The gate had been gained by no brilliant featof arms--it had been won by threats, bribery, and promises; or, in otherwords, it had been given up by the blackest treachery.

  An
d here lay the keynote of the weakness in our defence. The mostperfect ramparts that brain can invent are useless without men to linethem, and it was men we lacked. Of students entering into the collegesof the Sacred Mountain, there had been none now for many a year. Theyounger generation thought little of the older Gods. Of the men that hadgrown up amongst the sacred groves, and filled offices there, many hadbecome lukewarm in their faith and remained on only through habit, andbecause an easy living stayed near them there; and these, when the siegebegan, quickly made their way over to the other side.

  Phorenice was no fool to fight against unnecessary strength. Her heraldsmade proclamation that peace and a good subsistence would be given tothose who chose to come out to her willingly; and as an alternative shewould kill by torture and mutilation those she caught in the place whenshe took it by storm, as she most assuredly would do before she hadfinished with it. And so great was the prestige of her name, that quiteone-half of these that remained on the mountain took themselves awayfrom the defence.

  There was no attempt to hold back these sorry priests, nor was there anypunishing them as they went. Zaemon, indeed, was minded (so he told mewith grim meaning himself) to give them some memento of their apostasyto carry away which would not wear out, but the others of the HighCouncil made him stay his vengeful hand. And so when I came to the placethe garrison numbered no more than eighty, counting even feeble olddotards who could barely walk; and of men not past their prime I couldbarely command a score.

  Still, seeing the narrowness of the passages which led to each of thegates, up which in no place could more than two men advance together, wewere by no means in desperate straits for the defence as yet; and if mynew-given kingdom was so far small, consisting as it did in effect ofthe Sacred Mountain and no other part of Atlantis, at any rate thereseemed little danger of its being further contracted.

  Another of the wise precautions of the men of old stood us in good steadthen. In the ancient times, when grain first was grown as food, it cameto be looked upon as the acme of wealth. Tribute was always paid fromthe people to their Priests, and presently, so the old histories say,it was appointed that this should take the form of grain, as this wasa medium both dignified and fitting. And those of the people who hadit not, were forced to barter their other produce for grain before theycould pay this tribute.

  On the Sacred Mountain itself vast storehouses were dug in the rock, andhere the grain was teemed in great yellow heaps, and each generation ofthose that were set over it, took a pride in adding to the accumulation.

  In more modern days it had been a custom amongst the younger and moreforward of the Priests to scoff at this ancient provision, and to holdthat a treasure of gold, or weapons, or jewels would have more value andno less of dignity; and more than once it has been a close thinglest these innovators should not be out-voted. But as it was, the oldconstitution had happily been preserved, and now in these years of trialthe Clan reaped the benefit. And so with these granaries, and a seriesof great tanks and cisterns which held the rainfall, there was no chanceof Phorenice reducing our stronghold by mere close investment, eventhough she sat down stubbornly before it for a score of years.

  But it was the paucity of men for the defence which oppressed me most.As I took my way about the head of the Mountain, inspecting all points,the emptiness of the place smote me like a succession of blows. Thegroves, once so trim, were now shaggy and unpruned. Wind had whirledthe leaves in upon the temple floors, and they lay there unswept. Thecollege of youths held no more now than a musty smell to bear witnessthat men had once been grown there. The homely palaces of the higherPriests, at one time so ardently sought after, lay many of them empty,because not even one candidate came forward now to canvass for election.

  Evil thoughts surged up within me as I saw these things, that weredirect promptings from the nether Gods. "There must be somethingwanting," these tempters whispered, "in a religion from which so many ofits Priests fled at the first pinch of persecution."

  I did what I could to thrust these waverings resolutely behind me; butthey refused to be altogether ousted from my brain; and so I made acompromise with myself: First, I would with the help that might be givenme, destroy this wanton Phorenice, and regain the kingdom which had beengiven me to my own proper rule; and afterwards I would call a councilof the Seven and council of the Three, and consider without prejudiceif there was any matter in which our ancient ritual could be amendedto suit the more modern requirements. But this should not be done tillPhorenice was dead and I was firmly planted in her room. I would not bea party, even to myself, to any plan which smacked at all of surrender.

  And there as I walked through the desolate groves and beside the coldaltars, the High Gods were pleased to show their approval of my scheme,and to give me opportunity to bind myself to it with a solemn oath andvow. At that moment from His distant resting-place in the East, our Lordthe Sun leaped up to begin another day. For long enough from where Istood below the crest of the Mountain, He Himself would be invisible.But the great light of His glory spread far into the sky, and against itthe Ark of the Mysteries loomed in black outline from the highest cragwhere it rested, lonely and terrible.

  For anyone unauthorised to go nearer than a thousand paces to thisstorehouse of the Highest Mysteries meant instant death. On that daywhen I was initiated as one of the Seven, I had been permitted to gonear and once press my lips against its ample curves; and the rank ofmy degree gave me the privilege to repeat that salute again once on eachday when a new year was born. But what lay inside its great interior,and how it was entered, that was hidden from the Seven, even as it wasfrom the other Priests and the common people in the city below. Onlythose who had been raised to the sublime elevation of the Three had aknowledge of the dreadful powers which were stored within it.

  I went down on my knees where I was, and Zaemon knelt beside me, andtogether we recited the prayers which had been said by the Priests fromthe beginning of time, giving thanks to our great Lord that He hascome to brighten another day. And then, with my eyes fixed on the blackoutline of the Ark of Mysteries I vowed that, come what might, I atleast would be true servant of the High Gods to my life's end, and thatmy whole strength should be spent in restoring Their worship and glory.