The Treasure of Atlantis - J. Allan Dunn (finding audrey .TXT) 📗

back?” replied his companion with a grin. “If I wait till that stream goes down I’ll be too weak to wade, much less swim.”

“We won’t go thirsty, anyway,” answered Morse. “Where’s that bundle?” He looked for a special parcel of restoratives bound tightly with the lesser lianas that he had tossed ahead of him. It had dropped safely on the surface of the steps, and he picked it up.

The lower treads of the stone stairway—and they were obviously cut by human hands—were submerged. The remainder led steeply up the side of the cliff, broken away here and there, but easily surmountable.

The party hurried up them to the ledge where the prisoner lay. As the four came into sight of the bound man, they stopped dead in their tracks. Close by the prostrate form poised a great vulture, beak ready to plunge into the unprotected man’s face.

Morse’s pistol flashed from its belt holster, and the foul creature fell, flapping feebly, across the form of its intended victim. Laidlaw, as swiftly as his short legs would allow, reached it and flung it by one wing far out into the canyon.

The man had fainted. Maya and Xolo slashed at the leather strips that had sunk cruelly and deeply into his flesh, while Laidlaw chafed the released limbs with

gentle strength and Morse forced a few drops of aguardiente between the clenched teeth. The man swallowed, coughed on a second mouthful, and opened his eyes upon the solicitous face of Morse upon whose knee his own head rested.

“We are friends,” said Morse in Greek. For a second the man’s eyes looked puzzled, then he smiled and answered in a swift gush of words of which Morse only vaguely caught the drift. Laidlaw answered promptly, and the two began an animated conversation which Morse interrupted by an offer of iguana flesh and bananas which the man gratefully accepted.

“You’ll soon get the swing of what he says,” Laidlaw told Morse in English. “The language was certain to. have some variants, but essentially it is the Greek of Homer. I will ask him to talk more slowly. He has said that we are not friends, but his preservers—gods, in fact. I am trying to disabuse him of that idea.”

When their patient had completed his meal, Laidlaw looked whimsically across the scraps at Morse. “I wish I were a god,” he said. “I wouldn’t be so dependent on food. You haven’t got a banana or two hidden away for supper have you?”

The two Indians had taken over the rubbing of the Atlantean’s limbs, massaging them methodically, apparently a little in awe of him. He accepted their ministrations as one born for such attention.

Presently he stood up and stretched himself, going through a series of calisthenics that he persisted in despite his evident stiffness. His body was as finely modeled as a Greek statue, muscles showing evidence of athletic training, ivory skin speaking eloquently of special care. Beside Laidlaw he appeared almost a stripling. The Atlantean was more a reduced replica of Morse’s almost perfect physique.

As the twilight gathered in the depths of the canyon L and the setting sun painted its daily band of rose on the cliff above their heads, he told his story.

“I am Kiron,” he began, with a proud consciousness of all the name imported among his own people. “Male regent of the New Atlantis. In the one hundred and twenty-third generation after the great flood”—Laidlaw looked meaningly at Morse—“the last Pta died

without issue, and the people were divided concerning a successor. So the kingdom was made a double kingdom, and a son and a daughter of the two brothers of Pta were made joint rulers. Ever since then a king and queen have reigned over the land together. Now, Rana, daughter of my uncle, is queen. She is ambitious to establish an individual monarchy, both from her own desires and those of the priests under Ru, who is their chief.

“Rana is not my consort, for it is against our law for the children of brothers or sisters to mate with each other. Neither is there love between us; nor has there ever been. Moreover, my heart is long given elsewhere.

“Therefore, she and Ru plotted against me that Rana might rule, for there is no one of the rank to take my place. Open warfare they feared lest the best of the land be killed. For you must know that we people of Atlantis mingle not with other nations, and much care has been given to our breeding that the race might sustain its strength and beauty. It is the law of Atlantis that none may lead who are not perfect in body. Indeed, despite all care in mating and the development of the young men and maidens, we have lost much in stature.”

He paused and gazed admiringly at Morse.

“There goes any lingering idea of my godhood,” said Laidlaw. “I don’t qualify.”

Kiron resumed his tale. “Rana and Ru sent me a message to come to her in secret on a question of grave import. When I did so, they commanded me to be seized and borne to this place by the secret way that has been closed for many generations, leaving me here for the vultures to devour.

“It was a shrewd stroke. I was at my private palace of Zut, and crossed the lake by night—last night—and none saw my entrance to the palace by the royal water gate save my slaves. I found Rana and Ru, and their henchmen made me captive without preamble. No others know what has befallen me, and Rana and Ru would not dare announce it. For I am beloved of my people.

“They brought me here at daybreak, and as the bird-settled for its meal—you came! Henceforth you are as my brothers.” He extended his hands to them with a gesture of equality.

“Will not your slaves tell of your visit?”

“All Atlantean slaves are bred dumb,” Kiron answered. “Neither can they read nor write. We find that it makes them far less prone to revolt… It is a good custom.” He looked casually at the two Indians, squatting apart, and they seemed to catch the import of his words.

“Now, my brothers,” said Kiron, “tell me of your purpose and of your own land, in which doubtless you are princes.”

Laidlaw complied, Morse listening with increasing ease as the familiar accents of the scientist’s voice aided him to catch the change of phrasing and of word endings. The scientist dealt lightly with American customs and democracy, and soon included Morse in his story with the discovery of the vase. Kiron’s interest evinced itself by his rapt silence. Night fell as Laidlaw told of his own researches in Europe and northern Africa, of his theory and its apparent proving.

The stars came out and the shining constellations changed as they swung above the canyon gap, but Laidlaw still boomed his tale in sonorous Greek.

They were three thousand feet above sea level. The night was warm and two men, one naked and the other practically so, listened to a third, whose mighty upper body showed gray in the dusk, tell his strange story. The two Indians, smudges of silent statuary, hunkered with heads on their knees, appeared to sleep as Laidlaw knitted together the raveled web of bygone ages and annihilated the years, while below them the torrent labored at the never-ending task of world-shaping.

“By all the gods, that is a mighty tale!” said Kiron. “And you may hold me witness that it is the truth. As prince regent, I was taught much of our lore that is hidden from all save the priests and monarchs, and your story bridges the chasms and throws light upon the dark places. Ru shall hear you and be abashed before your knowledge, and all Atlantis shall proclaim your wisdom.”

He turned to set a friendly hand upon Morse’s arm.

“And you, brother, who are formed even as Minos himself, son of Zeus and god of the sun, greatly will we reward you. And, because of your manhood, Atlantis shall make you a first noble and you shall enter the

[paragraph continues] Brotherhood of Kal.”

“You do us honor,” said Morse. “But how may such things be accomplished? It seems to me we sit outside a barrier beyond which lies your kingdom and the fulfillment of your wishes toward us.”

Kiron laughed. “Truthfully,” he said, “I had forgotten. On the third morning slaves will come to find what the vultures have left and cast the remains into the river, and then report that Kiron has been disposed of. We will stand aside until the way is open, and it shall be the slaves who are fed to the water. If you care not to soil your own hands, I will slay them with mine.”

He spoke with an arrogant confidence in his powers. “So we shall descend the pathway of the burned out fires and come to Dor,” he continued. “It will be a rare sight, the faces of my Cousin Rana and of the high priest, Ru! They will say nothing, for even Rana’s people would not,. dare to seize me and would rise against her. A king of Atlantis may not be judged save by universal consent. You will do well to watch Rana’s face, my brothers. It is as beautiful and yet as cruel as the Flower of the Long Sleep that slays you as you bend to inhale its fragrant, deadly breath.

“But where is this vase you speak of?”

“It is across the canyon with the rest of our weapons and some of our supplies,” said Laidlaw, sighing half out of weariness and half out of hunger.

“We may cross the river by nightfall tomorrow,” said Kiron. “I fear I have left you hungry, yet what is hunger compared with the gain of knowledge and of friendship? Let us sleep here on the ledge. Tomorrow we shall pass to your encampment and return to punish the dogs that Rana intrusted with her treachery.”

Morse spoke to Maya and Xolo and, without a word, they found a sleeping place and settled themselves for the night. The Americans and the Atlantean were soon to duplicate their example.

They cat-napped away a good part of the following day, with some time devoted to fruitless exploration. In the late afternoon the torrent had subsided sufficiently for them to cross the stream, wading and leaping from boulder to boulder, and to climb to the summit of the cliff.

While Maya and Xolo prepared the meal that was so badly needed, Kiron examined the vase.

“It is from the royal treasury,” he said, “though the cover is of strange craftsmanship. See here the double axes of Minos and Pasiphae. I would like to meet the dog who stole it!”

“He is long since dust,” said Morse, and he explained to Kiron the presence of the funereal ashes of Murdock within the vase and his intentions concerning their disposition.

The idea caught the young king’s imagination. “It is a worthy deed,” he proclaimed. “It shall be carried out, and the name of your friend carven upon the walls of the temple along with your own. Have you not brought great news to Atlantis?”

After the meal he examined with unconcealed wonder the rifles, the field glasses, compass, and chronometer, following intelligently the explanations of Laidlaw of their use and mechanism. The compass was new to him only in form. The flashlights excited his particular delight. “They are little suns,” he exclaimed, “little suns that shall light us through the fire path.”

They recrossed the stream with little difficulty in the gray of early morning, relying on Kiron’s assurance that the slaves could not reach the ledge before dawn. Carefully and quickly they disposed themselves close to the gate that led to a lost race.

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