The Lost Continent by Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne (e novels to read .txt) 📗

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 good-bye, 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 and slow enough heels in this vessel, and it’s my idea that the sooner we’re away from here and beyond range of pursuit, the safer it will be for my woman and brats who are in that hutch of an after-castle. It’s long enough since I sailed in such a small old-fashioned ship as this. She’s no machines, and she’s not even a steering mannikin. Look at the meanness of her furniture and (in your ear) I’ve suspicions that there’s rottenness in her bottom. But she’s the best I’d the means to buy, and if she reaches the place at the farther end I’ve got my eye on, we shall have to make a home there, or be content to die, for she’ll never have strength to carry us farther or back. She’s been a ship in the Egypt trade, and you know what that is for getting worm and rot in the wood.”

“You’d enough hands for your scheme before I came?”

“Oh yes. I’ve fifty stout lads and eight women packed in the ship somehow, and trouble enough I’ve had to get them away from the city. That thief of a port-captain wellnigh skinned us clean before he could see it lawful that so many useful fighting men might go out of harbour. Times are not what they were, I tell you, and the sea trade’s about done. All sailor men of any skill have taken a woman or two and gone out in companies to try their fortunes in other lands. Why, I’d trouble enough to get half a score to help me work this ship. All my balance are just landsmen raw and simple, and if I land half of them alive at the other end, we shall be doing well.”

“Still with luck and a few good winds it should not take long to get across to Europe.”

Tob slapped his leg. “No savage Europe for me, my lord. Now, see the advantage of being a mariner. I found once some islands to the north of Europe, separated from the main by a strait, which I called the Tin Islands, seeing that tin ore litters many of the beaches. I was driven there by storm, and said no word of the find when I got back, and here you see it comes in useful. There’s no one in all Atlantis but me knows of those Tin Islands to-day, and we’ll go and fight honestly for our ground, and build a town and a kingdom on it.”

“With Tob for king?”

“Well, I have figured it out as such for many a day, but I know when I meet my better, and I’m content to serve under Deucalion. My lord would have done wiser to have brought a wife with him, though, and I thought it was understood by the good lady that spoke to me down at the harbour, or I’d have mentioned it earlier. The savages in my Tin Islands go naked and stain themselves blue with woad, and are very filthy and brutish to look upon. They are sturdy, and should make good slaves, but one would have to get blunted in the taste before one could wish to be father to their children.”

“I am still husband to Phorenice.”