The Lost Continent by C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne (best desktop ebook reader TXT) 📕

“Then if my lord will honour me by sitting in my room that overlooks the outer gate, the favour will never be forgotten.”

“Show the way,” I said, and took the woman by the fingers, leading her gently. At the two ends of the circus the tigers prowled about on short chains, growling and muttering.

We passed through the door into the thickness of the outer wall, and the captain of the gate led us into his private chamber, a snug enough box overlooking the plain beyond the city. He lit a torch from his lamp and thrust it into a bracket on the wall, and bowing deeply and walking backwards, left us alone, closing the door in place behind him. He was an industrious fellow, this captain, to judge from the spoil with which his chamber was packed. There could have come very few traders in through that gate below without his levying a private tribute; and so, judging that most of his goods had been unlawfully come by, I had little qualm at making a selection. It was not decent that the woman, being an Atlantean, should go bereft of the dignity of clothes, as though she were a mere savage from Europe; and so I sought about amongst the captain’s spoil for garments that would be befitting.

But, as I busied myself in this search for raiment, rummaging amongst the heaps and bales, with a hand and eye little skilled in such business, I heard a sound behind which caused me to turn my head, and there was the woman with a dagger she had picked from the floor, in the act of drawing it from the sheath.

She caught my eye and drew the weapon clear, but seeing that I made no advance towards her, or move to protect myself, waited where she was, and presently was took with a shuddering.

“Your designs seem somewhat of a riddle,” I said. “At first you wished to kill me from motives which you explained, and which I quite understood. It lay in my power next to confer some small benefit upon you, in consequence of which you are here, and not⁠—shall we say?⁠—yonder in the circus. Why you should desire now to kill the only man here who can set you completely free, and beyond these walls, is a thing it would gratify me much to learn. I say nothing of the trifle of ingratitude. Gratitude and ingratitude are of little weight here. There is some far greater in your mind.”

She pressed a hand hard against her breasts. “You are Deucalion,” she gasped; “I heard you say it.”

“I am Deucalion. So far, I have known no reason to feel shame for my name.”

“And I come of those,” she cried, with a rising voice, “who bite against this city, because they have found their fate too intolerable with the land as it is ordered now. We heard of your coming from Yucatan. It was we who sent the fleet to take you at the entrance to the Gulf.”

“Your fleet gave us a pretty fight.”

“Oh, I know, I know. We had our watchers on the high land who brought us the tidings. We had an omen even before that. Where we lay with our army before the walls here, we saw great birds carrying off the slain to the mountains. But where the fleet failed, I saw a chance where I, a woman, might⁠—”

“Where you might succeed?” I sat me down on a pile of the captain’s stuffs. It seemed as if here at last that I should find a solution for many things. “You carry a name?” I asked.

“They call me Nais.”

“Ah,” I said, and signed to her to take the clothes that I had sought out. She was curiously like, so both my eyes and hearing said, to Ylga, the fan-girl of Phorenice, but as she had told me of no parentage I asked for none then. Still her talk alone let me know that she was bred of none of the common people, and I made up my mind towards definite understanding. “Nais,” I said, “you wish to kill me. At the same time I have no doubt you wish to live on yourself, if only to get credit from your people for what you have done. So here I will make a contract with you. Prove to me that my death is for Atlantis’ good, and I swear by our Lord the Sun to go out with you beyond the walls, where you can stab me and then get you gone. Or the⁠—”

“I will not be your slave.”

“I do not ask you for service. Or else, I wished to say, I shall live so long as the High Gods wish, and do my poor best for this country. And for you⁠—I shall set you free to do your best also. So now, I pray you, speak.”

“You will set me free,” she said, regarding me from under her brows, “without any further exactions or treaty?”

“I will set you free exactly on those terms,” I answered, “unless indeed we here decide that it is better for Atlantis that I should die, in which case the freedom will be of your own taking.”

“My lord plays a bold game.”

“Tut, tut,” I said.

“But I shall not hesitate to take the full of my bond, unless my theories are most clearly disproved to me.”

“Tut,” I said, “you women, how you can play out the time needlessly. Show me sufficient cause, and you shall kill me where and how you please. Come, begin the accusation.”

“You are a tyrant.”

“At least I have not paraded my tyrannies in Atlantis these twenty years. Why, Nais, I did but land yesterday.”

“You will not deny you came back from Yucatan for a purpose.”

“I came back because I was sent for. The Empress gives no reasons for her recalls. She states her will; and we who serve her obey