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

with the dangers natural to the way. Once only did we touch one another, and that was where a tree-trunk bridged a rivulet of scalding water which flowed from a boil-spring towards the sea.

“Are you sure of footing?” I asked, for the night was dark, and the heat of the water would peel the flesh from the bones if one slipped into it.

“No,” she said, “I am not,” and reached out and took my hand. I helped her over and then loosed my grip, and she sighed, and slowly slipped her hand away. Then on again we went in silence, side by side, hour after hour, and league after league.

But at last we topped a rise, and below us through the trees I could see the gleam of the great estuary on which the city of Atlantis stands. The ground was soggy and wet beneath us, the trees were full of barbs and spines, the way was monstrous hard. Ylga’s breath was beginning to come in laboured pants. But when I offered to take her arm, and help her, as some return against what she had done for me, she repulsed me rudely enough. “I am no poor weakling,” said she, “if that is your only reason for wanting to touch me.”

Presently, however, we came out through the trees, and the roughest part of our journey was done. We saw the ship riding to her anchors in shore a mile away, and a weird enough object she was under the faint starlight. We made our way to her along the level beaches.

Tob was keeping a keen watch. We were challenged the moment we came within stone or arrow shot, and bidden to halt and recite our business; but he was civil enough when he heard we were those whom he expected. He called a crew and slacked out his anchor-rope till his ship ground against the shingle, and then thrust out his two steering oars to help us clamber aboard.

I turned to Ylga with words of thanks and farewell. “I will never forget what you have done for me this night; and should the High Gods see fit to bring me back to Atlantis and power, you shall taste my gratitude.”

“I do not want to return. I am sick of this old life here.”

“But you have your palace in the city, and your servants, and your wealth, and Phorenice will not disturb you from their possession.”

“Oh, as for that, I could go back and be fan-girl tomorrow. But I do not want to go back.”

“Let me tell you it is no time for a gently nurtured lady like yourself to go forward. I have been viceroy of Yucatan, Ylga, and know somewhat of making a foothold in these new countries. And that was nothing compared with what this will be. I tell you it entails hardships, and privations, and sufferings which you could not guess at. Few survive who go to colonise in the beginning, and those only of the hardiest, and they earn new scars and new batterings every day.”

“I do not care, and, besides, I can share the work. I can cook, I can shoot a good arrow, and I can make garments, yes, though they were cut from the skins of beasts and had to be sewn with backbone sinews. Because you despise fine clothes, and because you have seen me only decked out as fan-girl, you think I am useless. Bah, Deucalion! Never let people prate to me about your perfection. You know less about a woman than a boy new from school.”

“I have learned all I care to know about one woman, and because of the memory of her, I could not presume to ask her sister to come with me now.”

“Aye,” she said bitterly, “kick my pride. I knew well enough it was only second place to Nais I could get all the time I was wanting to come. Yet no one but a boor would have reminded me of it. Gods! and to think that half the men in Atlantis have courted me, and now I am arrived at this!”

“I must go alone. It would have made me happier to take your esteem with me. But as it is, I suppose I shall carry only your hate.”

“That is the most humiliating thing of all; I cannot bring myself to hate you. I ought to, I know, after the brutal way you have scorned me. But I do not, and there is the truth. I seem to grow the fonder of you, and if I thought there was a way of keeping you alive, and unmutilated, here in Atlantis, I do not think I should point out that Tob is tired of waiting, and will probably be off without you.” She flung her arms suddenly about my neck, and kissed me hotly on the mouth. “There, that is for goodbye, dear. You see I am reckless. I care not what I do now, knowing that you cannot despise me more than you have done all along for my forwardness.”

She ran back from me into the edge of the trees.

“But this is foolishness,” I said. “I must take you through the dangers that lie between here and some gate of the city, and then come back to the ship.”

“You need not fear for me. The unhappy are always safe. And, besides, I have a way. It is my solace to know that you will remember me now. You will never forget that kiss.”

“Fare you well, Ylga,” I cried. “May the High Gods keep you entirely in their holy care.”

But no reply came back. She had gone off into the forest. And so I turned down to the beach, and splashed into the water, and climbed on board the ship up the steering oars. Tob gave the word to haul-to the anchor, and get her away from the beach.

“Greeting, my lord,” said he, “but I’d have been pleased to see you earlier. We’ve small enough force