The Lost Continent

“Bring her here to the fire,” I ordered, and then on second thoughts remembering that the woman, whoever she might be, had news likely enough for my private ear (or otherwise sh...

With all that ruin spread around, it would be hopeless to think that any of those secret galleries which tunnelled under the ground would be left unbroken, and so it was useless...

I had taken the plan of the pyramid out of the archives before the banquet and learned it thoroughly, and so was able to thread my way through its angular mazes without pause or...

The idea seemed good, or at least no other occurred to me which would in any way relieve our desperate situation, and I looked around me for means to put it into execution. Up a...

Ah, well! I had no home now in any of those wondrous cities of Yucatan, and I could not help feeling a bitterness, though in sooth I should have been thankful enough to return t...

“There is no Yucatan. A vast nation of little hairy men, so the tale goes, coming from the West overran the country. They had clubs of wood tipped with stone as their only arm,...

But it was pleasant to see that she still wore her clothing. Raiment, whether of fabric or skin, has its value, and custom has always given the garments of the condemned to the...

Condemn my weakness how you will, but I came very near then to liking the Empress of Atlantis in the way she wished. And as for that other woman who should have filled my mind,...

“We will risk it,” he bawled back, “and consider the odds against us are small. Regard! Here is thy last horn of wine in the ship, and my woman has treasured it against this mom...

“Let me call your favourites to memory now. There was Tarca, of course, but Tarca had a difference with that ill-dressed father of yours, and wears a leprosy on half his face in...

But at this, though I might regret it abominably, I could make no strong complaint. By the ancient law of the land all the people, great and small, were the servants of the king...

Another of the wise precautions of the men of old stood us in good stead then. In the ancient times, when grain first was grown as food, it came to be looked upon as the acme of...

“I do not ask you for service. Or else, I wished to say, I shall live so long as the High Gods wish, and do my poor best for this country. And for you--I shall set you free to d...

But I had my own notions of what is due to one’s own self-respect in these matters, and I marched across the bare open space with head erect, giving the Empress gaze for gaze. S...

“Possibly; but for mine, I prefer to nourish it myself. I tell you with frankness that I have not come here to follow in the pattern you have made for a vice-royalty. I shall go...

She gave me one of her queer, sidelong looks. “Deucalion may have more beside, if he asks for it prettily. He may have what all the other men in the known world have sighed for,...

The way was long, the floor was monstrous uneven, and the air, as I have said, bad; and I knew that day would be far advanced before the signs told me that I had passed beneath...

PREFATORY: THE LEGATEES OF DEUCALION 1 MY RECALL 2 BACK TO ATLANTIS 3 A RIVAL NAVY 4 THE WELCOME OF PHORENICE 5 ZAEMON’S CURSE 6 THE BITERS OF THE CITY WALLS 7 THE BITERS OF THE...

“Well, Tob, I hope you’ll drown easy. As for that wife of yours, I’ve always had a fancy for her myself, and I shall know how to find a use for the woman.”

It appeared then that I was to be condoned for not offering her worship, and so putting public question on her deification. It appeared also that Ylga’s interference was looked...

But here we were reckoning without the inevitable busybody. A dozen pairs of feet splashing through the wet came up to the side of the little temple, and cried loudly that Nais...

But there was no hurrying Zaemon and his fellow sage. They were without temple for the ceremony, without sacrifice or incense to decorate it. They had but the sky for a roof to...