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

made fast to the rings of gold on the royal quay, and whilst we were waiting for litters to be brought, I watched a lantern lit in the boat which stood guard over Phorenice’s mammoth. The huge red beast stood shoulder-deep in the harbour water, with trunk upturned. It was tamed now, and the light of the boat’s lantern fell on the little ripples sent out by its tremblings. But I did not choose to intercede or ask mercy for it. If the mammoth sank deeper in the harbour mud, and was swallowed, I could have borne the loss with equanimity.

To tell the truth, that ride on the great beast’s back had impressed me unfavourably. In fact, it put into me a sense of helplessness that was well-nigh intolerable. Perhaps circumstances have made me unduly self-reliant: on that others must judge. But I will own to having a preference for walking on my own proper feet, as the Gods in fashioning our shapes most certainly intended. On my own feet I am able to guard my own head and neck, and have done on four continents, throughout a long and active life, and on many a thousand occasions. But on the back of that detestable mammoth, pah! I grew as nervous as a child or a dastard.

However, I had little enough leisure for personal megrims just then. Whilst we waited, Phorenice asked the port-captain (who must needs come up officiously to make his salutations) after the disposal of Nais, and was told that she had been clapped into a dungeon beneath the royal pyramid, and the officer of the guard there had given his bond for her safekeeping.

“It is to be hoped he understands his work,” said the Empress. “That pretty Nais knows the pyramid better than most, and it may be he will be sent to the tormentors for putting her in a cell which had a secret outlet. You would feel pleasure if the girl escaped, Deucalion?”

“Assuredly,” said I, knowing how useless it would be to make a secret of the matter. “I have no enmity against Nais.”

“But I have,” said she viciously, “and I am still minded to lock your faith to me by that wedding gift you know of.”

“The thing shall be done,” I said. “Before all, the Empress of Atlantis.”

“Poof! Deucalion, you are too stiff and formal. You ought to be mightily honoured that I condescend to be jealous of your favours. Your hand, sir, please, to help me into the litter. And now come in beside me, and keep me warm against the night air. Ho! you guards there with the torches! Keep farther back against the street walls. The perfume you are burning stifles me.”

Again there was a feast that night in the royal banqueting-hall; again I sat beside Phorenice on the raised dais which stands beneath the symbols of the snake and the outstretched hand. What had been taken for granted before about our forthcoming relationship was this time proclaimed openly; the Empress herself acknowledged me as her husband that was to be; and all that curled and jewelled throng of courtiers hailed me as greater than themselves, by reason of this woman’s choice. There was method, too, in their salutation. Some rumour must have got about of my preference for the older and simpler habits, and there was no drinking wine to my health after the new and (as I considered) impertinent manner. Decorously, each lord and lady there came forward, and each in turn spilt a goblet at my feet; and when I called any up, whether man or woman, to receive titbits from my platter, it was eaten simply and thankfully, and not kissed or pocketed with any extravagant gesture.

The flaring jets of earth-breath showed me, too, so I thought, a plainer habit of dress, and a more sober mien amongst this thoughtless mob of banqueters. And, indeed, it must have been plain to notice, for Phorenice, leaning over till the ruddy curls on her shoulder brushed my face, chided me in a playful whisper as having usurped her high authority already.

“Oh, sir,” she pleaded mockingly, “do not make your rule over us too ascetic. I have given no orders for this change, but tonight there are no perfumes in the air; the food is so plain and I have half a mind to burn the cook; and as for the clothes and gauds of these diners, by my face! they might have come straight from the old King’s reign before I stepped in here to show how tasteful could be colours on a robe, or how pretty the glint of a jewel. It’s done by no orders of mine, Deucalion. They have swung round to this change by sheer courtier instinct. Why, look at the beards of the men! There is not half the curl about many of them today that they showed with such exquisiteness yesterday. By my face! I believe they’d reap their chins tomorrow as smooth as yours, if you go on setting the fashions at this prodigious rate and I do not interfere.”

“Why hinder them if they feel more cleanly shaven?”

“No, sir. There shall be only one clean chin where a beard can grow in all Atlantis, and that shall be carried by the man who is husband to the Empress. Why, my Deucalion, would you have no sumptuary laws? Would you have these good folk here and the common people outside imitate us in every cut of the hair and every fold of a garment which it pleases us to discover? Come, sir, if you and I chose to say that our sovereignty was marked only by our superior strength of arm and wit, they would hate us at once for our arrogance; whereas, if we keep apart to ourselves a few mere personal decorations, these become just objects to admire and pleasantly envy.”

“You show me that there is more in the office of a ruler than meets the eye.”

“And yet they tell