The Lost Continent: The Story of Atlantis by C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne

Author:C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Science fiction, Lost continents -- Fiction, Atlantis (Legendary place) -- Fiction, Fantasy fiction
Publisher: Standard Ebooks
Published: 2017-02-06T23:35:56+00:00

XI

An Af­fair with the Bar­bar­ous Fish­ers

So this mighty Empress chose to be jeal­ous of a mere wo­man pris­on­er!

Now my mind has been trained to work with a sol­dierly quick­ness in these mo­ments of stress, and I de­cided on my prop­er course on the in­stant the words had left her lips. I was sac­ri­fi­cing my­self for At­lantis by or­der of the High Coun­cil of the Priests, and, if need­ful, Nais must be sac­ri­ficed also, al­though in the same flash a scheme came to me for sav­ing her.

So I bowed gravely be­fore the Empress, and said I, “In this, and in all oth­er things where a mere hu­man hand is po­tent, I will carry out your wishes, Phorenice.” And she on her part pat­ted my arm, and fresh waves of feel­ing welled up from the depths of her won­drous eyes. Surely the Gods won for her half her schemes and half her battles when they gave Phorenice her shape, and her voice, and the mat­ters which lay with­in the out­lines of her face.

By this time the mer­chants, and the oth­er dwell­ers ad­ja­cent to this part of the har­bour, where the roy­al quay stands, had come down, of­fer­ing changes of raiment, and houses to re­tire in­to. Phorenice was all gra­cious­ness, and though it was little enough I cared for mere wet­ness of my coat, still that part of the har­bour in­to which we had been thrown by the mam­moth was not over sa­voury, and I was glad enough to fol­low her ex­ample. For my­self, I said no fur­ther word to Nais, and re­frained even from giv­ing her a glance of farewell. But a small sop like this was no meal for Phorenice, and she gave the port-cap­tain strict or­ders for the guard­ing of his pris­on­er be­fore she left him.

At the house in­to which I was ushered they gave me a bath, and I eased my host of the plain­est gar­ment in his store, and he was pleased enough at get­ting off so cheaply. But I had an hour to spend out­side on the pave­ment listen­ing to the dis­tant din of bom­bard­ment be­fore Phorenice came out to me again, and I could not help feel­ing some grim amuse­ment at the face of the mer­chant who fol­lowed. The fel­low was clearly ruined. He had a store of jew­els and gauds of the most costly kind, which were only in frac­tion his own, see­ing that he had bought them (as the cus­tom is) in part­ner­ship with oth­er mer­chants. These had pleased Phorenice’s eye, and so she had taken all and dis­posed them on her per­son.

“Are they not pretty?” said she, show­ing them to me. “See how they flash un­der the sun. I am quite glad now, Deu­calion, that the mam­moth gave us that furi­ous ride and that spill, since it has brought me such a bonny present. You may tell the fel­low here that some day when he has earned some more, I will come and be his guest again. Ah! They have brought us lit­ters, I see.

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