They Found Atlantis

THEY FOUND ATLANTIS

BY DENNIS WHEATLEY

Camilla trembled. 'There is a hope for us then. There is a hope?'

'A faint one, no more. Zakar or his companions had actually used the map we found and marked all sorts of things upon it. The waterlogged galleries and chambers are clearly etched in. This road to the upper world which he tried to clear had many notes beside it. Lul-luma translated them for me. They show the place he drove the beast men that he had under his control into clearing great falls of rock, sometimes several yards in length. They show too the spot where tragedy overtook him. He was very near the surface then but the passage is still blocked. The Atlanteans of his own generation could not clear it . . . but there is just a possibility that we might succeed by using our dynamite.'

1

A Strange Craft

Funchal, the capital of Madeira, is on the south coast of the island. Its leisurely dealings in wine and sugar, lace and basketwork, hardly disturb the serenity of the little town. Its buildings, straggling out along a wide blue bay and up the foot of the mountain which rises steeply from the shore, white, cream, and lemon among the greenery of vineyards and cane brakes, face a limitless waste of sparkling waters and for the most part lie sleeping in the sun.

The western end of the bay is dominated by a high cliff upon which stands Reids Palace Hotel. That is the real centre of the island's life. Often, when a calling liner allows its passengers a few hours in which to stretch their legs ashore, two hundred extra places are laid for luncheon there, and all the year round holidaymakers come and go, basking for a week or two in certain sunshine, since the climate of the fortunate island rarely drops below seventy or rises above ninety in the shade.

Palms, oleanders, bougainvillea and magnolia trees rise from the semi-tropical gardens to screen the lower balconies of the hotel, then the cliff drops almost sheer, and a cactus-fringed stairway leads down to a rocky promontory upon which the hotel guests sunbathe between dips in the blue waters of the Atlantic.

The McKay had had his morning swim and baked the lean body, to which he was pleased to refer as 'the imperial carcass', a slightly deeper shade of golden brown. Now, with his Chinese robe girt tightly round him, he stood with his eyes glued to a pair of binoculars, watching a ship that had just come to anchor in the bay.

He was a shortish man but very upright, square-shouldered and square-headed. His hair, thick, wiry and close cut, except where it was brushed up from his broad forehead, had once been a violent red but was now only faintly sandy, the colour having been bleached from it until it had become almost white.

A girl with candid grey eyes and ripe-corn coloured hair was seated on the rocks near him.

'What do you make of her?' she enquired. 'I've never seen a queerer-looking yacht.'

'She's not a yacht, m'dear.' The McKay lowered his glasses and offered them. 'Take a look yourself. Fine feathers make fine birds they say but for all her brass and paintwork she's a tramp—or has been. It takes more than the addition of a few deck houses to deceive your old sailor man.'

'Thanks.' Sally Hart took the glasses and focused them upon the gaily painted ship with its unusual super-structure of white cabins forward and even stranger tangle of cranes, and massed machinery aft. 'But why,' she went on after a moment, 'do you persist in referring to yourself as if you had captained the Ark?—you're not really old at all.'

An appreciative grin spread over the McKay's face. It was lined from exposure to cutting wind, driving spray, and torrid sunglare on the bridges of the many ships in which he had served, but the webs of little wrinkles which creased up round the corners of his blue eyes were due to an irrepressible sense of humour.

'That's nice of you, m'dear,' he murmured, 'but I'm old enough to be your daddy and too old at forty-six to be given another ship. At least, that was the opinion formulated by their noble lordships of the Admiralty when they retired me last year—the blithering idiots.'

She shook her head. Til bet that wasn't the real reason. The British Admiralty like their sailors to be respectably married and have money when they reach captain's rank, so they can throw parties when they're in foreign stations. Naturally they axed a professional bad man like you who refuses to grow old and has no money or official wife—but a girl in every port.'

'If you're not careful I'll run you in for infringing the

official secrets act,* he countered quickly. 'You know too

much young woman—especially for a Yankee.*

Without removing the glasses from her eyes she shot out one bare foot and kicked him on the behind. 'How dare you call me a Yankee you ill-bred oaf. I come from California and don't you forget it. Now tell me please, what's that great ball thing hanging out from the rear of the ship?'

'Starn, dearie, starn, the word "rear" makes a sailor blush. I'm not certain what the ball thing is myself. It looks like the grandfather of all the buoys that ever were at this distance, but judging by photographs I've seen I'd hazard a guess that it's a bathysphere.'

'And what's a bathysphere Nelson Andy McKay?'

'A bathysphere, oh child of ignorance and sin. is a hollow steel ball constructed to resist enormous pressure. Adventurous souls like Dr. William Beebe, who invented it, climb inside; then their pals lower them into the depths of the ocean so that they can make long noses at giant octopuses through the super-thick portholes.'

'Of course—I remember hearing about Beebe's book "Half Mile Down". Would this be his research ship, then, I wonder?'

'No. I don't think she's Beebe's hooker. His bathysphere is quite a small affair. It holds only two divers and it's hoisted on and off the deck with a fair sized derrick— whereas that thing could hold half a dozen people and must weigh a hundred ton. That's why they ship it on those steel girders abaft the starn right down on the waterline I expect. It is about one third submerged already as you can see and they probably run it straight off the steel tracks so that the water carries part of its immense weight before it has to be taken up by that complicated system of cranes overhead.'

'Oh look!' Sally turned and pointed suddenly. 'Camilla and her boy friends are going off in the speed-boat to investigate.'

As she followed the foaming track of the speed-boat in its graceful curve towards the anchored mystery ship the McKay settled himself on his lean haunches and studied her excited young face at his leisure.

Sally's skin was good, her nose straight, her mouth full and red, hei teeth excellent, her eyes wide set but not large enough to give her face distinction. She was attractive but not a real beauty.

Her cheeks were just a shade too full and nothing, she knew, could alter that any more than the most skilful plucking would ever convert her golden eyebrows from semicircular arches to the long narrow Garboish sweeps which she would have liked. Besides, shame of all shames, her otherwise quite perfect figure was marred by thick ankles.

The McKay was not thinking of her ankles, only that she was a darned decent healthy little girl, and a thundering sight more fun to be with than her really beautiful multi-millionairess cousin, Camilla, newly divorced Duchess da Solento-Ragina, nee Hart, who was speeding out to the strange vessel in the bay with a little bodyguard of would-be second husbands.

'Wonder which of 'em will hook her?* the McKay remarked, airing his thoughts aloud. 'If 1 were her I'd pick the Swede—at least he's got some brains.'

'Oh, but Count Axel's so old!' Sally protested.

'Nonsense, he's not much over forty, just the age to deal with a fly-by-night young creature like your lovely cousin. Still she hasn't the sense to see that he's worth three of the Roumanian Prince—or ten of that little filth Master Nicolas Costello.'

'Nicky's not so bad. He's rather fun I think, and quite a famous film star. You've only got a hate against him because you don't like crooners—you said so the other day.*

'I'd croon him if I had him in a ship with me,' said the McKay grimly. 'I took a dislike to that young man before I even knew what brand of idiocy he indulged in. 1 suppose the odds are really on the Prince. Vladimir is a handsome looking bounder and she'd like another title, wouldn't she?'

Sally shrugged and regarded the McKay with mild amusement. 'She doesn't tell me much. I'm only the female counterpart of Rene P. Slinger—just a paid companion she trots round with her to do her chores. 1 don't think she'll be in any hurry to take a second husband though. We only unloaded the Duke three months ago and her experience with him would last most girls a lifetime.*

The McKay began to chuckle to himself.

'What are you laughing at?' Sally asked suspiciously.

•Just the story of Camilla and her Duke,' he confessed.

'Most men in his situation would have spent the rest of their lives tagging round after wealthy wifey like a kind of super footman on any pocket money she cared to dole out to them, but Ragina had the sense to fix things up properly before taking her to church. Then, when she started her tantrums, he was able to quit the party with enough cash to keep him in clover for the rest of his days as some compensation for the trouble she had put him to.'

'Trouble!' exclaimed Sally hotly. 'Not many men find it any trouble to make love to a pretty girl.'

'True,' the McKay agreed slowly, 'but Camilla's got a temper and her education is pathetic, despite all the thousands her guardians must have spent on it, whereas Ragina, I'm told, is a peace-loving cultured sort of chap so he probably found her a most awful bore to live with after the first fortnight.'

Sally flushed and hastened to the defence of her cousin. 'How can you! He was a rotten little blackguard who trapped her into that wicked marriage settlement by trading on the fact that she had fallen for him.'

'Fiddlesticks! Camilla wanted large coronets on her silk undies and the Duke was getting a bit weary of ye ancient family overdraft so they made a deal of it.'

'Thats not true. Before she was twenty-one her guardians would hardly allow her to see a man so she was horribly inexperienced and developed one of those wild short-lived passions the very moment she met him, just as any girl might who had been cooped up that way. He was terribly in love with her too—to begin with.'

The McKay's blue eyes twinkled beneath their bushy, sandy-white, caterpillar brows. 'Steady m'dear, you're getting almost as excited as if it had happened to you.'

'Well I certainly feel that way at times. You see, I've been with Camilla ever since she left school, and I'll never forget those months that she was married. D'you know that little swine used actually to beat her—with his braces.'

The McKay suddenly sat back and roared with laughter.

With an angry frown Sally stood up but he stretched out a detaining hand and caught at her bathrobe. 'Now, now, don't run away. Camilla doesn't seem to have had any bones broken and lots of girls enjoy a playful hiding sometimes. It probably did her a power of good to learn that she could not carry her millions into the bedroom. Besides, you must admit that there's a funny side of it. Just picture the little dark Duke chasing that great hoyden of a girl round the room to give her a leathering.'

'You brute,' exclaimed Sally her grey eyes wide with indignation but as he struggled to his feet she had difficulty in repressing a smile.

'Come on young woman,* he said firmly. 'It's time for the odd spot before lunch so if you will deign to accompany the imperial carcass up to the hotel I'll buy you a sherry cobbler.'

'Thanks.' She turned with him, then paused as she saw the speed-boat hurtling towards them across the water. 'Here come the others. They haven't been long have they? Do let's wait for a moment and learn the mystery about this queer ship.'

They stood silent until the speed-boat drew alongside. The tall, dark, Roumanian Prince sprang on to the landing steps. Nicolas Costello, the film star, jumped out beside him. The Swedish Count took the golden-haired Camilla's hand to assist her ashore. Rene P. Slinger, a bald-headed thin-nosed man who was the Duchess's confidential adviser, followed and after him came a fat puffing stranger who mopped his bare head, from which thick fair hair sprouted like the bristles of a brush, with a red bandana handkerchief.

'Darling!' shrilled Camilla as she landed, 'meet Herr Doktor Tisch. We just caught him leaving his wonder-ship and brought him ashore to lunch with us.'

The perspiring German thrust his handkerchief into his pocket and bowed stiffly from the waist.

'Isn't it too thrilling,' Camilla hurried on. 'The Herr Doktor is out to rediscover the biggest hoard of gold there's ever been in the world. With that ball thing on his boat he plans to go a mile deep in the sea and dig up all the vast treasure from the lost continent of Atlantis.'

The Sunken Continent

The Duchess da Solento-Ragina was certainly a lovely young woman. In face and figure she was very like her cousin Sally and in the distance they might easily have been mistaken for each other but, close to, Camilla's better breeding showed in her slim wrists and ankles, the more delicate bone construction of her face and larger eyes, the blue of which against her golden hair gave her a slightly more attractive colouring than Sally.

However, slim ankles do not guarantee a good temper or fine eyes a kindly consideration for the feelings of other people and Camilla, without being by any means an ill-natured girl was a little inclined to abuse the power which her millions gave her. She took an almost childish delight in watching her lovers quarrel for her favour and liked to tantalise them by withdrawing herself unexpectedly at times.

Now therefore, having introduced herself to Dr. Herman Tisch immediately on his ship's arrival and secured him as her guest for luncheon, she did not invite what the McKay cynically termed her 'circus' to join her table, so only Sally and Rene P. Slinger were privileged to share with her the Herr Doktor's account of his projected descent to the bottom of the ocean.

None of his auditors knew more of Atlantis than the bare legend that it had once existed as an island in the centre of the Atlantic, but the fat little German was an expert on his subject so it needed neither the two girls' eager questioning nor the bald sharp-featured Slinger's mild scepticism to release a positive spate of facts and figures, geological, botanical, and ethnological from the Doctor between the mouthfuls of a very hearty lunch.

Afterwards he asked to be excused in order that he might attend to his letters, which he had collected from the Hotel bureau, but promised to join them again later as they went out to drink their coffee on the terrace.

Nicolas Costello, his sleek fair hair brushed flatly back, and resplendent in a pale blue flannel suit, that no man other than a film star would have dared to wear, had already secured a table and ringed it with basket chairs. He held one facing the lovely prospect of the bay for Camilla and then, without a glance at the others, plumped himself down beside her.

Count Axel Fersan placed his long delicate hand on the back of another and drew it out for Sally, then he settled himself with leisurely ease between her and Slinger.

'Where is the Prince?' enquired Camilla with a little frown.

'Here, Madame!' The tall Roumanian appeared in the French window behind her. He was a magnificent figure of a man and his velvety eyes held a ready smile as he bowed to her.

'Come on now, Camilla,' Nicky urged. 'What's all this business about getting to the bottom of the Atlantic?'

The McKay appeared at that moment on his way down to the garden and Camilla called to him. 'Come and join us, Captain, you know all about the sea. What are the chances of getting to the bottom of it?'

'Remarkable few if you happen to be in the British Navy —thank God!' he replied drily as he pulled up a chair. 'I've managed to avoid it for twenty-eight years.'

'Oh, stop this fooling,' cut in Nicky impatiently. 'Didn't the little German say there was a whole heap of gold to be got? Let's hear about it then.'

The Roumanian's black eyes flashed with an antagonism that he did not attempt to conceal. .'I have heard a rumour that you are bankrupt stock, but thought that you seek an easier way than a gamble with life to make whole your balances.'

Nicky went scarlet. 'See here!' he began but Count Axel's gentle laughter mocked him into a furious silence.

The Count was older than the other two. Slim, elegant, of middle height, he had neither the Roumanian's military swagger or the Greek-god features which had made Nicky's profile world famous, but he possessed the quiet distinction which scholarship lends to nobility. His face was long, his nose a little pointed, his eyes a quick intelligent hazel. His lightish brown hair was already thinning on his delicately moulded skull.

'Now children,' Camilla held up her hand to quiet his impish laughter. 'Be good, and Rene shall tell you all the Herr Doktor said at lunch of what he plans to do.'

Slinger hunched himself forward, gave a twirl to the butt of his cigar, and began in a high reedy voice: 'I didn't understand half the scientific stuff he talked, but this is how I get it.

'Thousands of years ago there was land right in the middle of the North Atlantic—an island as big as France and Germany put together. There were chains of small islands too, one running from it down to Brazil and the other across to Portugal. According to the Professor that's the only way so many plants and animals that are common to both continents could have got across the ocean.'

'How about their migrating round the Arctic?' Nicky cut in sceptically.

Count Axel shook his head. Like the majority of educated Scandinavians he spoke perfect English. 'Many of the plants which are known to have existed independently in both hemispheres, such as the banana palm for example, could never have lived north of the temperate zone.'

'Anyhow,' Slinger went on, 'the Herr Doktor postulates that this island was the original Garden of Eden as far as the White Races go. Fertile, fine climate, about like this in its southern part and, above all, isolated for thousands of years by its sea barriers on either side—so completely protected from invasion. That enabled its inhabitants gradually to develop in peace and security until they achieved a wonderful civilisation, the remnants of which are the basis of all the other cultures which have come down to us.'

'That's interesting enough as a theory,' agreed the McKay.

'The Doctor maintains that he can prove it a hundred times over by similarities between the root language of the Central-American Indians and various Mediterranean peoples; by the fact that they had the same hierarchy of Gods, the same system of astrology, the same methods of agriculture, and the same style of architecture. It seems that the Mexicans once went in for Pyramid building just like the Egyptians.'

'That is so,' Count Axel's thin mouth twitched at the corners and his rather sad face was lit by a quick smile. 'Some of the pyramids built by the Aztecs in Mexico are very large and exactly similar to the early efforts in the valley of the Nile, although they got no further than the step pyramids which the Egyptians achieved as early as their Fourth Dynasty.'

'You seem to know quite a lot about it already, Count,' Slinger remarked.

'The rise of ancient civilisations has always interested me, and many people believe that they all owe their origin to trading colonies which were established by the Atlanteans before their island was submerged in some stupendous upheaval.'

Slinger shook his bald pate. 'The Herr Doktor was arguing that if that were the case those colonies would have carried on where the Atlanteans left off and reached a similar high plane within a few generations. His theory is that the Atlanteans held no communication with the outside world at all and that in one frightful day and night of earthquakes the whole continent went down. It must have been a catastrophe utterly unparalleled in the history of the world, but out of the several million people who probably inhabited the island it's likely that some who were in boats and so on would have been saved and washed ashore alive here and there in the huge tidal waves. A few reached Egypt and started that maybe: another lot struck northern Palestine and got going in Chaldea; a single man perhaps fetched up on the coast of Mexico and another in Brazil. If the Doctor's right that would explain why the new centres took so long to develop—only a little of the original knowledge would have survived with each man or group you see. Just as today, not one of us could carry a thousandth part of modern scientific knowledge and culture with us if we were suddenly dumped down among a barbarous people.'

'I've often wondered just how much we could do if half a dozen people like us were washed up on a desert island,' said Sally.

'It's an interesting speculation,' agreed Slinger, 'but to get 16

back—the Doctor thinks that some of these folk who reached Cornwall and Brittany were simple fishermen who could do little more than carry their great religion of sun worship to the natives they found, just as any of us would know enough of Christianity to preach it, however ignorant we might be about electricity and machines. He holds that they founded the Druid's cult, whereas others, the batch that got to Egypt for example, had educated people amongst them, which would account for the Egyptians worshipping the sun god Ra, but in a more sophisticated way, and corning on with regard to the amenities of life more than all the rest.'

Count Axel nodded. 'That theory fits in very well with the story of the Flood. In addition to the account of it in our scriptures, the Celts, the Babylonians and all the tribes of Central American Indians preserved legends of it too. I do not think anyone can doubt that the Deluge was an actual historical occurrence and a catastrophe of such tremendous magnitude would naturally be embodied in the race memories of all the people who knew of it. The Herr Doktor's idea of separate groups surviving is supported too by the fact that all legends of the Flood, although agreeing in their main particulars, differ in their account as to how their central figures were saved. Some, like Noah, had arks, others took refuge in caves on high mountains, others again were washed ashore dinging to great trees, and so on. The most curious thing of all is that Flood legends are very strong among the races of the West Indies and Mediterranean basin, vague if you go further north or south, and practically non-existent if you investigate the folk-lore of the Pacific Islands, China, Australia, Malaya and Japan. That points so very definitely to the calamity having occurred in the North Atlantic about where the Azores are now.'

Slinger stood up. 'I see you know more of this than I do Count, so I'll leave you to entertain the party while I find Doctor Tisch. He must have gotten through his mail by now.'

'Let's cut out the cackle and come to the gold,' Nicky suggested as Slinger left them.

'By all means.' Count Axel smiled lazily beneath half lowered lids. 'The case for the actual existence of Atlantis before the Deluge rests principally, for its historic foundation, on certain passages in Plato's Critias and Timosus. According to these a scholarly Greek named Solon visited Egypt about 450 b.c. and a learned Priest of Sais gave him an account of the marvellous island. Atlantis, according to the ancient tradition was preserved in the memory of the Egyptians as the place where early mankind dwelt for many ages in peace and happiness. It was the cradle of all civilisation and, when submerged some nine thousand years before Solon's time, inhabited by a powerful, wealthy, and cultured people.

'The capital of Atlantis was a mighty city beneath a great mountain in the northern part of the island. It was ringed by three broad canals, and three defensive zones each of which had high walls strengthened with plates of brass and copper. In the city itself stood the vast temple of Poseidon which was roofed and walled in pure red gold and contained life-size images fashioned from the same precious

metal so that-'

He broke off suddenly as Slinger and the German came out on to the terrace. The latter had lost his cheerful look. He now appeared a fat, hunched, dejected figure while Slinger exclaimed:

'The Doctor's had a rotten break. He feared it from a radio message he received a week ago but now it's been confirmed by mail. Klemo Farquason has crashed on Wall Street, so the whole show's off.'

'Seven years I prepare,' bleated the little Doctor, 'then for three more years I search for a rich financier who will back my great exploration. Everyone says I am a mad hatter but at last I convinced Mr. Farquason that I am not. Another year while we manufacture the super-bathysphere and have the ship outfitted. He is to meet me here—then I get a radiogram that there may be delay—now this.'

A general murmur of sympathy went round and Slinger remarked: 'I'm afraid it's not going to be easy for you to find another man with sufficient cash to finance a thing like this where the results are so problematical.' 'But the loss to science,' moaned the Doctor. 'Never mind the science,' said Nicky, 'how about the gold? Though I don't see how you'd ever find it. Even if it's get-at-able, and not buried under five hundred feet of mud, it might be anywhere between Lisbon and Miami. There must be ten thousand square miles of ocean where that continent was before it sank. You might go diving for a life time and not hit the spot where that city was.'

'No—that is not so,' protested the Doctor angrily. 'Eleven years ago, when I was an archaeologist on the Euphrates, 1 dug up a scroll at Eridu which gave me the great secret. The bearing of the stars which fixed the position of the city. The stars in ten thousand years do not vary more than a fraction. I will get within a mile of the temple at the first dive, then I dredge and within a week I will come to it.'

Nicky stared at him. 'That makes all the difference,' he said slowly, then he looked sharply at Camilla. 'How about it? People have staked worse bets than this. Why don't you cut in on it?'

Camilla straightened and they all watched her in silence for a moment, then: 'It would be rather fun,' she said slowly.

'If the expedition succeeds it will make history,' remarked the Count, 'and you, Madam, as the leader of it, will remain famous long after you are dead.'

It was a subtle piece of flattery and tickled Camilla's vanity. 'Chartering the yacht wouldn't harm the trust any,' she said thoughtfully, 'but I'd have to cut various engagements. How long is it going to take, Doctor?'

'The work of excavation may go on for years, but I will find the city in a fortnight—less Gniidige Herzogin.'

'That means I'll have to cancel my visit to Scotland,' Camilla hesitated, looking round at the ring of intent faces.

'Oh let's—do let's, please 1' Sally exclaimed.

'All right,' Camilla smiled and exclaimed suddenly: 'Will you all come as my guests on this party to discover the lost continent?'

Only the McKay's voice rose above quick murmurs of acceptance that greeted her invitation. 'If you're including me I hope you don't expect me to go under water in that bathysphere?'

'No, we'll let you play with a sextant on the bridge, but it would be nice to have the British Navy with us!'

'Well, what could be fairer than that,' he laughed. 'I'd love to come.'

"Ach! Himmel!' the Doctor cried. 'You mean this? You will finance my exploration with your money?'

'Certainly I will,' Camilla assured him a little pompously.

An ecstatic smile spread over the German's face as he grabbed her hand in his pudgy fingers and kissed it.

Half an hour later the party had broken up. Only Rene P. Slinger and the Doctor remained on the terrace. The latter no longer smiled. His pink face showed doubt and distress.

'I haf agreed to do this only to save my exploration,' he said heavily.

'Sure,' nodded Slinger cheerfully, 'but haven't things panned out just as 1 said. The moment I heard Farquason had fallen down on you a month back I knew that if you brought your outfit here Camilla would jump right into it. Once we get her up to the Azores in that ship of yours and the big boy comes on board you'll see things happen. Then you can go hunting your lost Atlantis until it rises out of the water again to hit you in the pants.'

The Doctor ignored the gibe and nodded gloomily. 'But there must be no bloodshed mind—no bloodshed—you haf promised me that.'

Signs, Sounds, and a Worried Little Man

That night, the lovely Camilla, Duchess of Solento-Ragina —nee Hart, expended some infinitesimal portion of her millions by giving a party to those friends and retainers who were to accompany her on Doktor Herman Tisch's mystery ship.

The retainers, her cousin Sally and her man of business Rene P. Slinger, were in excellent spirits. Sally because she felt that however mad the quest might appear it should prove amusing and Slinger, because he had succeeded in his secret design of getting Camilla to undertake the expedition for his own dubious purposes.

The McKay punished the champagne and blessed his luck that he had chanced to be present when Camilla offered the invitation to her intimates. As a Naval Captain, just retired, he was already finding it a difficult business to live in comfort on his pension and his inclusion in the party meant a few weeks' free keep in pleasant company.

Camilla's three would-be second husbands—the Roumanian, Prince Vladimir Renescu, the film-star crooner Nicky Costello, and the Swede, Count Axel Fersan—were equally cheerful at the prospect of this voyage, which meant that the heiress to the Hart millions would be safe for some time from the pursuit of other suitors who might arrive upon the scene at any moment; moreover each was visualising in advance the delightful opportunities which mignt occur to get slender, blue-eyed, Camilla alone upon a moonlit afterdeck, persuade her to accept him, and thus finally rout his rivals before Doktor Tisch's ship returned to port. The little German doctor alone remained morose and uneasy, tortured by his secret thoughts.

When dinner was over the whole party migrated to the little Casino which lies half way down the hill between Reids Palace Hotel and Funchal. It was early yet and only about fifty people were scattered about the low cool rooms. The young Roumanian carried Camilla off to dance and Nicky secured Sally solely because he knew that by dancing with her he would be able to keep an eye on Camilla without actually giving his rival the pleasure of seeing him lounge sulkily in the doorway of the dance room. The others passed through the far door and sitting down at a table on the terrace, ordered drinks.

The night was fine, the air soft and scented by the semi-tropical moon flowers which open their great white bells only after the sun had set. A sheer cliff dropped from the terrace to the bay, now shrouded in darkness, but out on its gently heaving waters the lights of the shipping, riding at anchor for a few hours after having dropped their passengers and mails for Madeira, twinkled cheerfully. To the left they could catch a glimpse of the lights on the foreshore down in Funchal town, and to the right those of Reids Palace Hotel glimmered from its eminence on the headland of the bay.

When they had finished their first drink Slinger suggested a stroll to Doktor Tisch leaving the McKay and Count Axel on their own. The sailor immediately broached the topic which was foremost in all their minds and asked:

'Well, Count! What do you think of this Atlantic trip we are to take together?'

'That it is one of the most interesting upon which any party of people can ever have embarked and I considered myself highly fortunate that chance should have made me a member of it,' replied the Swede affably.

The McKay's thin lips twitched as he suppressed a disbelieving smile. 'You don't really think though that we shall succeed in dragging up the gold from this temple a mile deep in the ocean?'

'Ah, that I do not say, but if we can secure even one small stone from the ocean bed, which bears an inscription, we shall have proved the one-time existence of the lost continent and all histories of the world will have to be rewritten. Think of the romantic thrill in actually being present at such an epoch making discovery.'

'Come now.' The McKay shook his head and gave a low chuckle. 'I thought all you told us of the Flood legends today extremely interesting—but then you are an admirable raconteur and, although your stories served their purpose, you can hardly expect a hardened old sinner like myself to believe them.'

'Why should you think that I was not in earnest?'

'Isn't that rather obvious. Forgive me if I seem rude and of course your private affairs are none of my business but it must be an expensive pastime pursuing Camilla round Europe from one luxury hotel to another in the hope of making her your Countess. Surely this is a heaven sent opportunity to be certain of her company for several weeks to come at her sole charge. I would not put it to you so bluntly if I were not devilish hard up myself and willing to confess that the prospect of the trip at the expense of this lady, who can so well afford it, tempted me to accept her invitation.'

Count Axel's eyes narrowed a fraction but his smile was lazy, tolerant, good natured. '1 see,' he murmured after a moment.

'You thought that I was distorting facts in order to persuade her to undertake this voyage and, perhaps, considering it offered excellent opportunities to divert her attention from my empty headed rivals to myself by frequent displays of my erudition. 1 might resent that suggestion most strongly—from some people—but, as it happens, 1 like you sufficiently to let it pass. Actually it is true that this venture comes as a boon in the present state of my finances, yet I assure you that I distorted nothing, and meant every single word I said this afternoon.'

'Then you honestly believe that this fabled continent did exist?'

'I do indeed and if you like I will endeavour to prove it to you.'

'Right. Go ahead, the r.ight is still young, but let's repeat the drinks before we settle down to it—hi, waiter!'

The man paused at the table and took their order, to which Count Axel added: 'Bring me a few sheets of scribbling paper, will you.' Then he turned back to the McKay.

'Am I right in supposing that you have no knowledge of 23

ancient languages—Sanscrit, Hebrew, Maya, Phoenician

and so on I mean?'

'Perfectly.' The McKay's lined face broke into a quick smile. 'Even my Latin is pretty rusty now.'

'Then my dear Captain 1 must ask you to accept my word for the truth of all that I am about to say. I wili give you nothing which is not accepted by all serious students of archaic languages.'

'Certainly, Count.'

'Good. The study of words and their origins has been one of my hobbies for many years and although of course I could not carry on a conversation in these long dead languages which hold the roots of modern speech, 1 know quite a considerable amount about them. Did you know that from all the thousands of tongues in which men convey their thoughts to one another only two original phonetic alphabets had been produced?'

'I don't know the first thing about it,' the McKay admitted, 'but never mind that.'

'Well, it is so. All writing originated in the picture drawings left by primitive people who were on the march from one territory to another so that the other portion of their tribe, which was following, perhaps days later, might learn from their markings on stones and trees the direction they had taken and the good or ill fortune that they had met with in their migration.

'A crude drawing of a sun meant a day, of the moon—a. month, rippling lines—water, crossed spears—a battle with another tribe, the horns of a buck—plentiful game, and so on. In time these signs became simplified or conventionalised so much as often to bear no further resemblance to their original. The Chinese script is an excellent if exaggerated example of the latter case. Each of the thousands of characters which are utterly meaningless to us, or even to all the highly educated among themselves today, originally represented a picture of something—a peach—a cart—a tree bent in the breeze—or a state of emotion shown by the posture of a human figure. Egyptian hieroglyphics were the same although less obscured, because in quite early times the Egyptians decided to retain them as they stood for all sacred writings while bringing in an easier abbreviated set of forms, called the demotic, for everyday use. The great

Maya race of Central America however retained their

hieroglyphic system until the Spanish Conquest.

'Think now how laborious it must have been to convey a message by this picture writing once you passed out of the realm of material things into that of ideas. The number of drawings you would have to chip out of a piece of rock to convey even one sentence such as "The chief in this neighbourhood is a fool but his nephew the witch doctor is cunning,! therefore propitiate to flatter him while tricking the chief into agreeing to your demands."' Count Axel paused. 'But perhaps I bore you with all this?'

'No, no,' the McKay lied politely, 'do go on.'

'The time came when some long-forgotten genius conceived the possibility of utilising already established symbols to convey sounds instead of ideas. The human throat, lips and tongue are capable of producing about twenty distinct sounds and these formed the basis of the alphabet. The letters which have been added since, bringing the total number up to twenty-six, are more or less variations of the originals or interchangeable with them. T and D for example, or V and F, or I and J.

'The alphabets of all European languages are, as you will know, derived from the Phoenician which, up to about four hundred years ago, was the only known archaic writing in the world based on sound and not picture drawing. If you will pause to think for a moment you will realise that the difference between the two—as a medium for the exchange of ideas—is stupendous.'

The McKay, more interested now, nodded. 'Yes, I see that. It must have been as big an advance as from sail to steam in shipping—bigger in fact.'

The waiter arrived with their drinks and the paper for Count Axel, who thanked him and went on:

'Very well then. Now we come to a very interesting fact. A decade or two after Columbus discovered America Diego da Landa, who was the first Bishop of Yucatan, took the trouble to enquire from the Mayas he was seeking to convert to Christianity the meaning of the grotesque hieroglyphics which decorated all their monuments. They told him that it was a form of writing which their predecessors had handed down to them and, to his utter amazement, he

found that they were not picture drawings conventionalised but the letters of a phonetic alphabet.

'Now it was curious enough to find such a system in existence among the Mayas of Central America at all when all the great civilisations of Asia, Europe and Africa together had only succeeded in producing one—the Phoenician—but what is stranger still is that these two alphabets—the only ones of their kind—should bear an absolutely striking resemblance to each other.

'Say you were faced with the task of selecting sixteen signs to represent the sixteen principal sounds—for that was the number in the Maya alphabet—the variety of combinations of lines and curves which you might use to denote each are almost inexhaustible. If a hundred men sat down to the job separately it is hardly conceivable that two of them would select the same sign for the same letter. Yet I can prove to you that thirteen signs out of sixteen in the two original phonetic alphabets have a distinct similarity of form.'

The Count took up a pencil and drew rapidly on the paper . 'That is the hieroglyphic for H as given

before him

by De Landa in his Maya alphabet. Simplify it a little as people would do in the course of time if they were in a

hurry and you get

which is the hieroglyphic represent-

, an even

ing the sound CH in the Egyptian or this

nearer form, which appears for H, in the archaic Greek and Hebrew. From that it is but a step to our modern symbol

for the same sound. 'Take the Maya C which was drawn like this

What is the essential characteristic of it which would come to be employed alone in course of time? Obviously the large

single lower tooth

. Well, that is the form in which the

letter C was found by Dr. Schliemann in the inscriptions which he unearthed from the ruins of Troy. The archaic

curved its point so that we use it thus

. Later whei

Greeks shortened one limb and wrote it

the Greeks changed their manner of writing from right to left to our modern method of left to right they turned

round all such signs as were reversible and altered it to

The Romans made it

then time and swifter writing

'Now N which is an even clearer case. That sound in Maya

was drawn

. In early Phoenician we find it

versed their writing it became

and later

. The Greeks wrote it

and when they re

as we use it today.

'The Maya O bears little resemblance to our own at

first sight

, but what is the essential characteristic about

it? Surely the circle within a circle at the bottom,

. Then people began

the inner circle became a mere dot

to say, "Why bother about dotting your O's!"

'One more example which we will approach from a slightly different angle. What, to your mind, does this

represent?

The McKay leaned over. 'A foot or footprint 1 should say.'

whjch was the Phoenician form for that same sound. Later

'Precisely, and the Maya word for footprint or path is pronounced "Be." Now see their hieroglyphic for the letter B. This time we have secured the essential characteristic by working from the opposite direction. It is the foot sign with the toes separated from it as a series of dots. Now behold the Egyptian hieroglyphic for the letter B—It is viewed from a different angle—but again we have a foot.'

The Count leaned back and smiled. 'I could give you many more instances of a similar nature, but I feel that these are enough to prove my point."

'You mean that it would be quite impossible for these two alphabets to have so many things in common and yet to have originated among two completely separate peoples.*

'Exactly. It is utterly inconceivable that these, the only two systems in the world of conveying vocal sounds by written signs, did not spring from the same original source.'

'Well, I'll grant you that.' The McKay's lined face broke into a broad grin. 'But what's all this got to do with Atlantis?'

'Good God I My dear Captain. Think for a moment. If the two had a common origin where was it? Although both sets of hieroglyphics embody ideas which are common to both alphabets, no archaeologists in their diggings from Iceland to Cape Town or the jungles of Assam to the barren rocks of Patagonia have ever discovered the common root from which both must have sprung. Yet it must have taken thousands of years' thought and experiment among a highly civilised people to build up this unique system of vocal signs. Where did they live? Why have we found no single trace of their efforts to perfect this staggering invention when we can find cave drawings which must be of a far earlier date in every continent. They were the people of Atlantis of course, and when their whole country was submerged in some terrible cataclysm all the evidence of their gradual development to this high state of culture perished with them. That is the only possible explanation.'

'It's a very forcible argument,' the McKay admitted, 'but-'

His objection was cut short by Sally who arrived at that 28

m

j

moment with Prince Vladimir behind her, Nicky having now secured Camilla from him.

'Nelson Andy McKay, come and dance with me,' she cried gaily.

'I'm too old for dancing,' he protested, 'you ought to know that by now.'

'You're not too old to dance with me,' she laughed. 'We got on famously the other night. Come along—Admiral's orders.'

'Drat the girl!' he exclaimed pushing back his chair and standing up with mock reluctance. His plea of advancing age was a well-worn pose. Actually he loved dancing and, given a good partner, could put up a very passable performance. With an old-fashioned little bow he offered Sally his arm as he said: 'Well, the results to your feet must be upon your own head, m'dear,' and they passed into the dance-room.

When they returned to the terrace Camilla and Nicky came out with them, and they found that Slinger and Doktor Tisch had joined the Roumanian and Count Axel at the table so the whole party was assembled again.

Camilla now devoted her attention to the Count and, as the other two had basked equally in her favours, the latent jealousy which was ever liable to flame into bitter anger between the three was temporarily at rest. Sally and the McKay had laughed a lot during their two long dances together and the bald-headed Slinger, urbane as ever, was superintending the icing of two fresh magnums of champagne. Camilla's party was undoubtedly proving a great success. Only the little German Doctor remained silent and depressed.

During his stroll with Siinger he had pressed for particulars of the dark business which was to be carried out on the trip, but Slinger had put him off with vague generalities and finally, the abrupt admonition that, once the job was done, he could go ahead with his scientific stuff—all expenses paid for as long as he liked, but if he wanted that, he'd best stay in his cabin and forget that Camilla and her friends even existed once they reached the Azores.

It was eleven years since Doktor Tisch had dug up and deciphered that little cylinder of baked clay at Eridu on the Euphrates which, by bearings on fixed stars, gave the actual position of the great city that had once been the capital of the lost continent. With all the fanaticism of a scientist who lives for his work alone he had slaved ever since on the compilation of vast folios which would prove to an unbelieving world that Atlantis had actually existed in order that he might persuade some millionaire to finance an expedition for its rediscovery. After three years' search he had found Klemo Farquason. All preparations had been completed and then, a month ago, when he was waiting for Farquason to join him in Paris he had received a cable reporting the financier's collapse.

His long-cherished hopes completely shattered by this blow he had poured out his woes to an old friend, who had suggested that the millionaire Duchess might be persuaded to take Farquason's place, and provided him an introduction to her satellite, Slinger. The shrewd confidential secretary had seen, in this projected expedition, just the opportunity he had been seeking for the carrying out of a plan which he had conceived in concert with a certain very powerful person in New York. Long cables had been exchanged in private code. New York approved. Slinger and the Doctor had met again, and the latter, in abject despair at the wrecking of his life work for the mere lack of money had been tempted into agreeing to bring his ship down to Madeira, to which the Duchess was proceeding, and where Slinger promised to persuade her to undertake the enterprise provided that the Doctor was prepared to close his eyes to anything unusual which might happen once she was on board.

The Herr Doktor sipped his champagne and glanced across the table at his hostess. What did Slinger and his friends mean to do, he wondered, when they got this slim golden-haired young woman to his base in the Azores. The men of the party would endeavour to protect her, that was certain, and there were four of them—no three, the crooner could be counted out. Doktor Tisch did not take a good view of Nicky despite his Greek god profile: but the tall dark Roumanian appeared to have the strength and temper of a bull, the Swedish Count might prove a dangerous antagonist despite his frail scholarly appearance and the square-jawed British sailor looked the sort of person who would jump into a fight for the sheer love of the thing.

Slinger had promised faithfully that there should be no bloodshed but the little Doctor found it difficult to place much trust in his word.

Herr Doktor Tisch took another, longer pull from his big goblet and coughed a little. Then he endeavoured to solace himself with the thought that there were 1,600,000,000 men and women in the world's population so if the worst happened and there was a fracas, of what real importance was it that half a dozen of them might get hurt—providing that his epoch-making expedition was enabled to go on.

The McKay Meets Heavy Weather in a Bullo-carro

Shortly after, the party on the now moonlit terrace broke up once more. The two girls wished to dance again before the band stopped playing and the little Casino would be closing soon. Night life in Madeira is not prolonged into the small hours.

Nicky grabbed Camilla before Prince Vladimir Renescu could ask her, and Sally insisted on the McKay taking her for another turn. Doktor Herman Tisch excused himself on the plea of fatigue and Slinger decided to return with him to the Hotel so the Roumanian and Count Axel Fersan were left to keep each other company.

'It has been a day of excitements,' declared the Prince pouring himself another goblet of champagne.

'It has indeed,' Count Axel agreed politely. He had little in common with either of his rivals to Camilla's hand and millions, but while he regarded Nicky as a nasty little bounder, the transparently simple good nature of the broad-shouldered young giant opposite rather appealed to him. He smiled his lazy, faintly supercilious smile into the Roumanian's flashing black-velvet eyes and went on amiably:

'I consider this expedition to rediscover the lost continent of Atlantis a thing of quite exceptional interest.'

'By crikey! You cannot believe in this sunken continent except as a thing of the imaginations surely.'

'I certainly do.'

'Mon Dieu! Count, no! It is a story for cocks and bulls

only.'

'You think so? Yet you were as eager as the rest of us to 32

persuade Camilla into financing this expedition after lunch today.'

The Prince threw back his dark curly head and gave a great guffaw of laughter. 'And for why not?' he asked spreading out his enormous hands. 'My bankers pester me ever with stupid cryings that I have not enough money. That would matter nothing if they would make remit—but they do not, pigs and liars that they are. This invitation from our so adorable Duchess come my anxieties for remits to relieve. Am I a half-bake that 1 say no. Besides—what opportunities! Before we reverse to harbour Camilla will be affianced to myself.'

'Aren't you rather counting your chickens before they are hatched?' observed Count Axel mildly.

'By crikey no!' exclaimed the Prince with cheerful boast-fulness, his dark eyes sparkling and his strong white even teeth flashing in a glorious smile. 'Myself I know. Our so adorable Duchess 1 know also. Behold then, it asks only time and place—you will see. When all is done I will make a great presentings to you, to show my esteems, for I like you Count. As for that Nicky I will give him a great kick in his so colourful pants.' Upon which declaration he happily tossed off a further ration of his so adorable Duchess' champagne.

'Thanks, that's nice of you,' Count Axel murmured, then he added with mild cynicism: 'Since Camilla will have to pay for it in any case 1 am delighted to promise you a similar gift should my own fortunes with her prove better than you are inclined to think.'

Vladimir shook his head. 'Ah Count, you are pleased to joke—but you will see. The wedding it shall be in my dear Roumania. There will be much dancing and many flowers. We will roast an ox for the people of my lands and get drunk ourselves on sweet sparkling wines—also the Tokay which my grandfather bring back when he was Ambassador to Vienna Court. This folly of Camilla's that she takes us all to seek a place that is not, in the Doctor's ship, is just what I have need to make settled my good plans.'

'You are quite convinced that Atlantis never existed then?

'No, no. Be wise—how could it?'

Count Axel had no intention of going over the long t.f.a.—b 33

exposition upon ancient languages to which he had treated the McKay. He doubted if this nice young giant had the brain to understand its importance, so he contented himself with saying:

'The assumption that it did is no more wild than that the Sahara was once a great inland sea, a fact upon which all the leading geologists are now agreed.'

'Ah, but that differs. If the coast barriers were broke down the desert Sahara might become sea again. Somewhere I have read that to be so—but it would alter no how the levels of the land. To make believe that great pieces of territory can all suddenly jump out of the ocean or fall down beneath it is a story for cocks and bulls.'

'Not at all,' declared Count Axel stung into argument despite himself. 'At one time the entire surface of Great Britain was submerged under water to a depth of at least 1,700 feet. Over its face was strewn thick beds of sand, gravel, and clay, which the geologists term "The Northern Drift". The land then rose again from the sea bearing those water deposits upon it. What is now Sicily once lay beneath the waters of the Mediterranean yet it subsequently rose to 3.000 feet above sea-level. Even in modern times there have occurred vast upheavals and subsidences. In 1783 Iceland sustained a colossal earthquake which killed one-fifth of its population and the disturbance in the whole area was thrown up near by. Its size was so considerable that the King of Denmark considered it worth claiming officially and he named it Nyoe. The Andes mountains in South America have sunk 220 feet in the last seventy years. The fort and village of Sindra on the eastern arm of the Indus were submerged by an earthquake in 1819 together with a tract of country 2,000 miles in extent. Such radical changes in the distribution of land and water have occurred throughout every century in the world's history and because the cataclysm that detroyed Atlantis chanced to be far greater than any disaster which has happened since that is no earthly reason for maintaining that the occurrence was a myth.'

The Prince shrugged his broad shoulders. 'Really Count, it would be an ugliness for me to make argument facing as I do your high knowledge. Atlantis did exist then if it please you. To myself it counts no how except that from the strong interest the fat German holds in fossils I am given opportunity to speak of my mind to our so adorable Duchess. Permit me to brim your glass.'

'You are incorrigible Prince.' Count Axel smiled as he pushed his goblet across the table. 'Almost you make me envious of your youth.'

'Ah my poor Count—how I understand that for you.'

'Almost, I said,' submitted Axel, 'but not quite. With age comes wisdom and experience and persons of my temperament are apt to value that—more than they should perhaps —but we are just made that way.'

The band blared out the Portuguese National Anthem and then, in deference to the British visitors who are the mainstay of all entertainment enterprises on the island, God Save the King. The two girls, Nicky, and the McKay joined the others on the terrace. Ten minutes later the attendants began to put out the lights so Camilla's party decided to return to the Hotel.

Sally insisted on going back in a Bullo-carro, one of those strange square curtained contraptions like a four-poster bed on sleigh runners—a form of conveyance peculiar to the island of Madeira. Camilla told her that she was certain to pick up fleas from the cushioned seats, but the McKay volunteered to accompany her so they set off in their musty chariot while Camilla and the others, disdaining to walk the half mile through the scented night, were whirled away in a big car.

Beside the Bullo-carro walked its tattered driver urging on his lazy bullocks with a constant stream of profane Portuguese and frequent prods from a long bamboo cane. Occasionally he ran forward and threw a sausage-like sack filled with mutton fat beneath the runners to grease them and facilitate the progress of the vehicle as it slithered and jolted over the thousands of closely packed little round pebbles which formed the surface of the road.

'What do you think our chances are of finding this lost city?' Sally asked idly.

'About as good as of the King sending a boy scout to tell me that he is recalling me from my retirement to make me an Admiral of the Fleet,' grunted the McKay. 'The Doctor's a nice little man but he's nuts, m'dear—nuts 1'

'Count Axel doesn't seem to think so.'

'No, the Count's got all sorts of bees in his bonnet. I like

him but he's gone cranky from too much learning. He treated me to a long dissertation on ancient languages this evening and made quite a good case of it too, but hieroglyphics are like figures in a balance sheet, you can make 'em prove anything provided you juggle with them cleverly enough.'

'What he told us about the Flood legends after lunch fitted in with the Doctors theory perfectly.'

'Fairy tales m'dear—all of 'em. As well believe in the Gorgon's head or the one-eyed Cyclops. If there were any truth in these old wives' tales the scientists would have got on to it long ago.'

Sally was silent for a moment. If the McKay was so sceptical about the motive for the expedition why was he so keen to come on it? Perhaps—Sally's mouth curved into a pleased smile in the darkness—because he welcomed the chance of spending several weeks in the same party as herself. Till now she had refrained from examining her feelings about him and her thoughts were vacillating like the needle of a compass on a merry-go-round. True he was no handsome young gallant but he had the high spirits of youth coupled with the poise of a man of the world—moreover he never even glanced at Camilla. Sally was jealous, bitterly jealous that an unjust God had created her so like Camilla in colouring, face, and form yet denied her just that millimetre of difference in features which made her only good looking where Camilla merely had to look at a man to turn his head. She never quite succeeded in cheating herself into the belief that Camilla's adorers were only after her money, but now, here was a very personable man who paid no attention whatever to Camilla—instead he quite unostentatiously, but persistently, sought her own company. Sally gave a little secret chuckle as she felt him put out a hand gropingly in search of hers.

Even if he was right in his belief that they were setting out on a fool's errand she felt that the party would be fun, if he was going solely to be with her and, wishing to make him admit that she sought to give him a lead by labouring its possibilities.

'I don't agree with you,' she said softly as he took her hand. 'For hundreds of years all the learned people scoffed at the local folk tale that there were two buried cities at the foot of Mount Vesuvius. They changed their tune though when a farmer stink a well one day and went slap through the roof of a building twenty feet underground which led to the discovery of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Look at the ridicule all the wiseacres used to pour on that poor old Greek Herodotus too. They laughed at his account of his travels in ancient Egypt and Asia Minor for over two thousand years and dubbed them sheer romance, but we know now that his descriptions of the countries that he visited were true, and marvellously accurate. Why shouldn't Plato's account of Atlantis be the same?'

"Because he never visited it m'dear. He got the story from some old boy who got it from someone else and even then it was a nine thousand year old chestnut. If Camilla expects to find any lost cities under the ocean she's just pouring her money down the drain I tell you.'

"But-'

'Now stop it,' he interrupted quickly. 'I've had my fill of erudition for one evening. You just be a good little girl and don't bother your head with such nonsense. We're all going to have a darn good trip at Camilla's expense, and she'll get plenty of fun herself exercising her "circus".'

As he squeezed her hand Sally's heart gave a thump. She waited a little holding her breath and then asked with deliberate casualness, 'Well if that's all there's going to be to it why are you so keen to come?'

'That's easy, he replied without hesitation. 'I'm poor, I love the sea, and it amuses me to watch the "circus".' Then, like a bolt from the blue he added meditatively: 'I don't think I've ever seen a better looking woman than Camilla.'

Sally pulled her hand away as if she had been stung. 'I thought you didn't like her!' she snapped angrily.

'Yo ho!' he laughed. 'Sits the wind in that quarter. You're jealous m'dear. Interested in one of the "circus" yourself, eh? But believe me jealousy's a great mistake—even in a pretty woman.'

There was a sudden silence in the Bullo-carro. Sally thanked God for the friendly darkness. Her cheeks were scarlet and her face burning. Only the creaking of the springless box broke the uncomfortable silence. The stuffy air behind the thick curtains was charged with emotions as heavily as is a battery with electricity.

It even began to penetrate the McKay's weather-beaten skin that Sally might resent his last speech and he searched clumsily in his mind for words with which to comfort her.

'I'm afraid that wasn't very polite,' he said nervously, 'I'm sorry m'dear. You know I'm looking forward to seeing a lot of you on board. I always thought you had a rotten time with Camilla. It can't be any fun seeing her get away with everything. Now be sensible and the old man will do his best to console you-'

'And himself I suppose,' she flashed, then her eyes filled with angry tears as she hurried on, 'But don't worry—the trip isn't coming off. Camilla's not all that set on going to sea for weeks on end if there's no real excitement of finding lost cities to be had. We're due in Scotland at the end of the month and she was looking forward to that.'

'Hi! Half a moment, you're not thinking of trying to persuade her to back out, are you?' the McKay exclaimed in some alarm.

'I am.'

'That would be awfully hard lines on the little doctor.'

'Oh, you needn't concern yourself about him,' said Sally bitterly. 'Nothing's signed yet but I don't doubt she'll compensate him. She has so much money that she wouldn't miss it if she financed him to set off on his own. Anyhow I might just as well save her from being sponged on by people like Captain McKay.'

'Tut-tut,' he murmured. 'Naughty, naughty temper. However, you were saying only this morning that Camilla never consulted you about anything and she's keen on this trip, stupid as its object may be, so the chances are all against your being able to get her to alter her decision now.'

'You think so? Well you've provided me with ample reasons for its cancellation and taken special care to point out how dull it's going to be for me. I haven't lived with Camilla all this time without learning how to handle her, so you might as well resign yourself to the fact that she'll cut it out.'

'Thanks,' replied McKay stiffly, 'I'll believe that when I hear it from Camilla—not before.'

'All right—wait and see!'

At that moment the Bullo-carro halted before the door of the hotel. Sally jumped out and, to avoid displaying her flaming cheeks and angry eyes, she flung a curt 'Good night' over her shoulder then, while McKay was still paying off the man, dashed straight up to her room.

As he walked thoughtfully upstairs behind her the McKay was a little worried by this apparently senseless quarrel. Certainly he admired Camilla. She was good to look at like any other well executed work of art and, having a simple old-fashioned belief in God, he had always considered really beautiful women to be the high watermark of the Great Master's efforts in the creative field. She was probably quite a nice girl too, he felt, if one happened to care for her type of outlook and conversation but personally she bored him stiff. Whereas he liked Sally. There was no nonsense about her in the ordinary way and she gave a fellow a comfortable companionable sort of feeling which it was nice to have. He had been looking forward to this cruise with her even more than he had realised up to that moment and he knew that he was going to be distinctly disappointed if she blew it up.

By the time he climbed into bed he had assured himself that she couldn't be such a young ass as seriously to resent his chipping and that anyhow she hadn't sufficient influence with Camilla to outweigh the interest of all the others who were so obviously keen to go. In the morning therefore he was somewhat disconcerted to receive, on his breakfast tray, a neatly typed note—which read:

'Camilla, Duchess da Solento-Ragina presents her compliments to Captain N. A. McKay, R.N., and regrets that, owing to unforeseen circumstances, she has been compelled to cancel the party which she had arranged to cruise in search of the lost continent of Atlantis on Doktor Herman Tisch's yacht.'

The Island of the Blessed

Rene P. Slinger was not a handsome man. His bald polished skull and beaky nose were vaguely reminiscent cf a vulture. But he had an easy mariner and a shrewd, witty way of summing up events and people that made him an acceptable companion in the most diverse company. Moreover, his tact was only equalled by his efficiency and he had a genuine flair for getting things done with rapidity and ease.

It was this latter quality in him which had appealed to Camilla when, three months before, her previous man of business had gone down with a duodenal ulcer. Slinger had been an international lawyer practising in quite a small way in Paris. The slump had robbed him of his only two really important clients and the fall in the dollar had driven two thirds of the expatriate Americans, who gave him their casual business, back to their own country. To save himself from bankruptcy he had been angling for some share of the work which Camilla had to give, when her manager was taken ill, and had taken over her arrangements, to begin with, apparently in a purely friendly way. She had been surprised, not knowing the state of his finances, but pleased when he had proposed himself as a permanency. A cable to her lawyers in the States had revealed nothing questionable in his past history and so she had taken him on.

His task of dealing with her accounts and charities, arranging her accommodation as she moved from place to place and organising her parties might appear an easy one in view of the almost limitless funds behind hiin but, as Camilla had a habit of altering her mind every second moment, the job required real ability and the utmost diplomacy. However, Rene P. Slinger was not the man to be content with such a dependent position despite the very handsome salary which she paid him, and would never have considered it, except as a makeshift during temporary difficulties, had not a certain very powerful person in New York urged him to take on the job with a view to arranging a highly secret enterprise which would prove far more remunerative.

Rene was completely unscrupulous and saw in this person's suggestion a reasonably safe way to permanent affluence. He had agreed at once, seized upon Doctor Tisch's misfortune as offering the very thing he needed to further his plan and, with his usual skilful handling of people and situations juggled the Doctor into acquiescence and Camilla into financing the expedition to rediscover Atlantis without appearing to be in any way responsible for her decision himself.

Now, the whole thing had blown up on him at the last moment and it was a very angry Rene P. Slinger who lured the miserable little Doctor out into a secluded portion of the hotel garden immediately after breakfast.

His thin beaky nose was rather red but that was indigestion. He did not display any signs of the intense irritation and annoyance that he felt but inside he was cold, hard, venomous and determined, as he faced the fat bristly-haired German scientist beneath a great bougainvillea bush covered with purple blossoms.

'See here,' he opened up, 'that darned British ex-Naval Captain doesn't believe in your lost Continent. He told his tale to Sally last night and ..he got at the Duchess after, so the whole party has been called off. Maybe the fool's right but whether he is or not I don't give a dime. What matters is that this show's got to go on.'

The Doctor's sandy eyebrows shot up into two arches, his fat red face showed surprise and dismay. 'But I thought it was all sealed,' he protested. '1 brought my ship to Madeira —I promised to close my eyes to what may happen when the Duchess is on board. ... I need the wages for my crew. I shall be sent to prison if I cannot pay.'

'You've said it,' agreed Slinger laconically, suppressing for his own purposes the handsome offer of financial compensation which Camilla had charged him to make the little man when he broke the news.

'But this is terrible!' exclaimed the Doctor. 'And what case have I, for nothing is signed yet.'

'No, nothing's signed yet,' Slinger repeated with an unhelpful stare.

'The Captain is a liar and a fool,' burst out the Doctor suddenly. 'The continent is there—sunk beneath the ocean— also the gold. I will talk with the Duchess and give her proof.'

'Can you?' asked Slinger with apparent scepticism.

'Proof and again proof! I can convince anyone who will listen.'

'Well you'll be in a fine mess if you fail. But you know I'm out to help you and I've been counting on it that you'd be able to put up a show so I've fixed a meeting for eleven-thirty in Camilla's private sitting-room upstairs. Are you prepared to come and say your piece?'

'Ja! I will come and she will be convinced.'

'That's the idea. Don't make it too long though or too mighty scientific. Just think up a few really telling facts.'

'Leave it to me. I haf argued with damn fools before.'

Slinger at last permitted himself the shadow of a smile. He felt that he had manoeuvred the little Doctor into fighting trim and could trust him to do his utmost to persuade Camilla. He nodded encouragement.

'That's the stuff—but remember if you fail to put it over the expedition is definitely off.'

'That must not be. To save my exploration I have already agreed to things which my conscience hates.'

'Sure,' Slinger agreed and they turned to stroll back to the hotel.

In the lounge at that moment four disappointed men were holding an unofficial conference. The McKay and Camilla's 'circus'. He found that all three of them had received similar notes to his own cancelling their invitation for the trip and, although Count Axel was the only one among them who understood the scientific possibilities of the venture and had been looking forward to it on that account, Nicky Costello, and Prince Vladimir were equally dismayed that the expedition appeared to have fallen through.

The two latter were now saying that, after all, the Doctor was a very clever man and, wild as theories might be, it was a darned shame not to give him a chance to try them out since Camilla could well afford it.

The McKay was generally regarded as an interfering fool, as it was in the nature of the man to confess that his scepticism the night before had been mainly responsible for the party falling through. He still stoutly maintained his complete disbelief in the whole fantastic story, but readily agreed to adopt a benevolent neutrality if the matter was reopened.

When they were summoned to the presence an hour later therefore, the Doctor had everybody's sympathy and backing. Even Sally's interest had been re-awakened, for she had just received an unexpected parcel from the town. It contained a table cloth and a dozen mats embroidered in the local Madeira work. A strange gift, to be sure, for a girl who always lived in hotels, but enclosed was a scribbled note from the McKay, 'Souvenir of some very pleasant hours you were kind enough to devote to an old man in Madeira.'

It must have cost him a lot she knew, probably more than he could really afford, and on thinking it over she saw that his choice of a gift was a subtle suggestion that she would soon be married, a pretty compliment. He evidently felt very contrite about the night before to go to such lengths to make his peace.

The Doctor gave a jerky little bow and addressed Camilla with a certain awkward dignity.

'Gncidige Herzogin. It was with great distress that I heard the reversal of your decision yesterday.'

Camilla smiled her golden smile. 'I'm sure I owe you an apology, Doctor, but things were fixed up in such a hurry. When it was pointed out to me last night that, after cancelling lots of engagements to which I've been looking forward, maybe we'd be weeks at sea without finding anything after all, I felt I'd rather not go, but I'm willing to hear anything you have to say.'

'Thank you. I hope to convince you that my proposition is no dream but a practical exploration which will bring results.' As the Doctor plumped himself down in an armchair the others settled themselves, then he began :

'The principal historical evidence for the one time existence of Atlantis is based on an account by Plato. He lived in Greece during the fourth century B.C. and received his

particulars via his compatriot Solon who had travelled to Egypt half a century earlier.

'While in Egypt, Solon visited the city of Sais which lies in the Delta. There he conversed with an Egyptian priest and recounted to him something of Greek beliefs and what we now term their mythology; upon which, to quote if you permit, the Egyptian replied:

' "Oh Solon, Solon, you Greeks are but children . . . in mind you are all young; there is no old opinion handed down among you by ancient tradition, or science which is

hoary with age."

The priest then went on to say that the reason for this

was that there had been many partial destructions of mankind both by fire and Hood, which had wiped out whole races and their histories with them; leaving nothing to prove that they had ever existed except vague legends among the distant peoples who had escaped these calamities. He instanced the story of Phaeton who, unable to manage the steeds of his father's chariot, the Sun, was said to have burnt up all that was upon the earth, and explained that this Gieek myth was really a memory of distant time when a declination of the bodies moving round the earth and in the heavens had caused a great conflagration.'

'What's all that got to do with Atlantis though?' Nicky asked.

'Be patient please,' the Doctor reproved him gruffly. 'This Egyptian Priest then gave Solon an account of the last great natural occurrence which had decimated a large portion of the human race, the Atlanteans, nine thousand years before; and I shall now give you the salient facts which emerge from Plato's written version of the story which came to him from Solon.

'There was once an island situated in front of the Straits of Gibraltar. It was larger than Lybia and Asia Minor put together and was the way to other islands from which one could pass through the whole of the opposite continent surrounding the true ocean. By that he meant America of

course and he actually refers to the Mediterranean as being

no more than an inland sea.

'In this island there was a great and wonderful Empire, founded, so legend relates, by the god Poseidon—or Neptune if you prefer— who begat children by a mortal woman. The centre of the island was a plain which is said to have been the fairest of ail places and very fertile. Near the plain was a small mountain and this was enclosed with alternate zones of water and land equidistant every way and turned, as with a lathe, out of the centre of the land. This district the god gave to his eldest son named Atlas; and to his twin brother, Gadeirus, who was born after him he gave the extremity of the island nearest the Straits of Gibraltar, and to others of his children other regions were given.

'Atlas was made King over them all, giving his name to the whole island continent and the surrounding ocean; and the royal line descended from him direct for many generations. The wealth or these kings and their kingdom is stated to have been greater than that of any known before or since —that is, to Plato's time. The Atlanteans were great miners and dug out of the earth every kind of mineral including orichalcuin, of which there were large deposits, and this they considered more valuable than any other metal except gold. There were great forests which supplied them with all sorts of woods and sheltered many species of wild animals including elephants which furnished them with ivory. Flowers, cereals and fruits both wild and cultivated grew in great abundance and variety including one fruit which is spoken of as having a hard rind and providing drink, flesh and ointment.

'They employed themselves in building temples, palaces, and docks and bridged over the zones of water which surrounded the ancient metropolis; also they dug a canal three hundred feet in width and a hundred feet deep which they carried about six miles in order to link up the capital with the open sea, thus making the circular zones of water into a great inland harbour.

The central island upon which the Palaces and Temples stood was surrounded by a high stone wall with towers flanking its approach across the bridges, and the two zones of land also had stone walls protecting the whole length of their outer circuits. The stone which was used in the work was of three colours, white, black and red. It was quarried from underneath the outer as well as the inner sides of the land zones and they removed it in such a fashion as to hollow out covered docks having roofs formed out of the native rock. The wall which went round the outermost canal they covered with a coating of brass; the next wall they coated with tin, and the third which encompassed the citadel flashed with the red light of orichalcum.

'Within the citadel was the great temple of Poseidon and this was ornamented with increasing splendour by many generations until the whole of the outside, with the exception of the pinnacles, had been plated with silver, and the pinnacles with gold. In the interior of the temple the roof was of ivory adorned everywhere with precious metals, and the temple contained many solid golden statues, together with that of the god himself which was of such a size that it touched the roof of the building with its head. This huge statue of Poseidon represented him standing in a chariot drawn by six winged horses and surrounded by a hundred nereids riding on dolphins.

'Between the buildings of the capital there were pleasure gardens containing fountains of both hot and cold water supplied from underground springs; also cisterns, some open to the heavens and others roofed over which were used in winter as warm baths. In the grove of Poseidon, which appears to have been a very beautiful park, many rare trees flourished owing to the excellence of the soil. The surplus water was carried off by means of aqueducts passing over the bridges to the outer canal. There were many places set apart for exercise and in the centre of the larger land zone there was a race course a stadium in width which circled the whole island.

'The country outside the capital is described as a level plain surrounded by mountains which descended towards the sea. Those to the north were very lofty and precipitous, but to the south the plain spread out through the centre of the land measuring at its broadest 3,000 stadia in one direction and 2,000 in the other, which is about 345 miles by 230. The whole region of the island was said to lie towards the south and be sheltered from the north.

'There were many villages in the mountains with rivers, lakes and meadows which supported them independently of the towns, and the great plain had been scientifically cultivated during many ages by many kings. The plain was entirely surrounded by a circular ditch and Plato says of this:

' "The length and width of this ditch was incredible, and gave the impression that such a work, in addition to so many other works, could hardly have been wrought by the hand of man. But I must say what I have heard."

'It was 100 feet deep, 220 feet wide and about 1,150 miles in length. It received the streams which came down from the mountains, wound round the plain, and was then let off into the sea. Smaller canals a hundred feet in width intersected the plain at intervals of a hundred stadia, roughly eleven and a half miles, and by these wood was brought down from the mountains to the city and the fruits of the earth were conveyed in ships from one place to another. Twice a year the crops were gathered since in winter they had the benefit of the rains and in the summer they were able to irrigate the whole plain by means of their canals.

'Plato goes on to say that for countless generations, as long as the divine nature lasted in them, the Atlanteans were obedient to the law, rejoicing in all the blessings that sacred island, lying beneath the sun, brought forth in such abundance, and that their wealth did not deprive them of their self control; but that the divine portion of their nature began to fade away by becoming diluted too often, so that human nature got the upper hand. They became base, corrupt and evil. Then the father of the gods wished to inflict punishment upon them that they might be chastened---

'Here to our great loss Plato's story abruptly ends and it is believed that he died before the completion of his manuscript.'

'It sounds almost too wonderful to have been true,' said Camilla doubtfully. 'Is all that you've told us in Plato's book?'

'Every point that I have touched upon,' the Doctor assured her with his little bow. 'Also many other marvellous descriptions. I have a copy here if you would care to verify.'

'No, no, Doctor, we'll take your word. Go on please do.'

'Very well then.' He sat forward with his pudgy hands 47

planted firmly on his fat knees. 'Consider please the following facts.

'How could Plato have invented a story correctly describing the opposite continent of America which he speaks of as surrounding the true ocean, meaning of course its semicircle from the Cape of St. John's, Newfoundland to the north eastern point of Brazil.

'Atlas's brother Gadeirus was given the extremity of the island towards the Straits of Gibraltar, which in Plato's time was still called the region of Gades. We still have a memory of this in the Spanish city of Cadiz. Moreover, it is a curious fact that the Basque people differ from all other European races. Their language, which has preserved its identity in this western corner of Europe between two mighty kingdoms, resembles in its grammatical structure no other language of the old world in any respect, but it has incontestable affinities with the aboriginal languages of America and those alone.

'The fruit, having a hard rind, affording drinks, flesh and ointment, which Plato speaks of, is obviously the cocoanut, and the existence of Atlantis and other islands could alone account for the migration of it, and countless other examples of semi-tropical flora from one continent to the other.

'In all the hundreds of systems of writing which have been evolved by different races all are based upon picture drawings with two exceptions only, these are the Phoenician alphabet and the Maya alphabet of Central America. Both of these are based upon the expression of vocal sounds by written signs. These correspond to such a remarkable degree that it is impossible to doubt their common origin.

'In view of that it is particularly interesting to note that when the Phoenicians founded their great colony at Carthage they constructed their harbour upon precisely the same principle as that which Plato tells us was the Atlantean plan used many thousands of years before. Both were inland and circular in formation, both had islands in their centre containing the most important buildings of the city. Moreover, we find that both peoples used covered docks for their shipping so that each harbour must have presented the appearance of a great ring of airship hangars right down on the waterline.

'Plato speaks of three kinds of stone being used in the construction of the Atlantean fortifications. In the Azores we find rocks red and white in colour and also great lumps of black lava. He also mentions hot springs and these too are abundant in the Azores.

'The metal termed by Plato "orichalcum" is undoubtedly pure red copper. The importance of the stress which is laid upon this metal is enormous. In both hemispheres we have ample evidence of a Bronze Age and in both, weapons end utensils formed from this compound of approximately nine parts copper and one part tin are almost identical in appearance. The tin is added to give hardness and durability, but it is inconceivable that this fact should have been discovered in both continents simultaneously The Bronze Age must have been preceded by a Copper Age of several thousand years during which men worked copper alone without the addition of tin.

'Where are the traces of this Copper Age? There is no evidence to be found of its existence in any portion of the known world. The explanation therefore is that it developed in Atlantis, and the barbarous peoples of the outer continents passed straight from Stone to Bronze upon the arrival of the cultured survivors from the Atlantean disaster.

'Just as the Arab countries today are passing straight from the horse to the aeroplane having entirely missed the era of roads and motor cars.' put in Count Axel.

'Exactly—you make my point Count,' the Doctor agreed with a throaty chuckle. 'Now, to proceed:

'In Plato's description of Poseidon's temple he tells us that the god was represented as standing in a chsrlot with six winged horses. In every representation of Neptune we see him thus. Why should the god of the sea always be pictured driving a chariot or mounted upon horseback? Because he was not, in fact, a sea king but a landsman, who ruled the great island in the centre of the ocean, the survivors of which filled all other peoples with awe because, when they came up out of the ocean, they had already achieved the domestication of the horse.

'Further, in connection with this domestication of wild animals. In all our history we have no evidence of fresh species of animals being tamed and made to serve human convenience. Such a development would take many thousands of years experiment and practice. Atlantis, safe in its island security from invasion by barbarians, alone supplies a satisfactory territory in which their tremendous work for humanity could have taken place.

'This also applies to the conversion of wild plants and grasses into cultivated flowers, orchards, and reapable crops. It is a singular fact, that despite their great range of species, we owe hardly a dozen useful plants to Australia, South Africa, America north of Mexico, New Zealand, or America, south of the River Plate. What is even more strange is, that of more than one third of our cultivated species we have no trace whatever of the wild originals. All our great cereals—wheat, oats, barley, rye and maize—must have been first domesticated in a vast antiquity or in some portion of the globe which has disappeared carrying many of their parent wild plants with it.

'Where could such a place have been. Have we a pointer to it? Yes, for we find the homes of many others which we can trace to be in the mainland regions bordering on the central Atlantic. Innumerable trees and plants are common to Europe and the Atlantic states of America yet are not to be found west of the Rocky mountains. Upon the Pacific coast there are no hollys, burr-woods, lindens, gums, elms, mulberrys, hickorys or beeches. How, if they could not cross the comparatively narrow mountain barriers could they have passed from one side of the great ocean to the other unless, at one time, there had been fertile land and chains of islands, between.'

'Seeds are carried by the sea and by birds,' suggested the McKay.

The Doctor stared at him. 'That is true and it might have happened in a few rare cases, but not more—over such a great distance, and why please did not the sea and the birds carry the same seeds to the fertile sunny shores of South Africa? No. A central Atlantic continent is the only practical solution to the problem. That was the nursery where, through countless generations, from a state of primitive husbandry up to that of trained horticulturists, men must have laboured to produce and perfect practically every cereal, fruit and vegetable which we eat today.'

'All right, I'll give you that,' grinned the McKay.

'Good. We go on then,' the Doctor leaned forward again:

'The description of the wealth and magnificence of Poseidon's temple may at first seem overstrained in Plato's account, but we have its parallel in the great temple of the Sun god of the Incas at Chuzco in Peru. When this was first visited by Pizarro thirty years after Columbus discovered America he states that it was a veritable mine of gold. Images, pillars, cornices, and even the flowers in the sacred garden being fashioned from the precious metal. The gold from that astounding temple was shipped home in the Spanish treasure fleets and, although it has been reminted many times in various currencies, its bulk was so great that it still represents a considerable portion of the gold currency in circulation in the world today.

'To leave Plato now and note various other correspondences. Our biblical legend states that Noah was the hero of the Flood. The ancient Mexicans had a similar story and a similar hero, they called him Nata, or Noe. In yet another aboriginal American tongue he is known as Hurakan, which has a strange resemblance to our own word hurricane, and they may well have christened him that on account of his coming up out of the great tempestuous waters.

'The Mandan Indians, although an inland people, preserve amongst them as the central focus of their religion an Ark, which they term the Big Canoe. Each year one of their witch doctors is painted white all over and comes among them as the white man who arrived from the waters bringing them peace, civilisation and prosperity.

'Our Bible story tells us that Noah caulked the seams of the Ark with asphalt and we find the greatest pitch lakes in the West Indies. Further we are told that God gave the rainbow as His sign that He would never again destroy the earth by a deluge. This is also the belief of the Peruvians.

'The Mexicans, like ourselves, baptised children with a view to cleansing them from original sin. They mummified their dead as did the Egyptians; and many curious unnatural customs with regard to childbirth are common to both hemispheres.

'Even the place names of Central America and the earliest civilised regions of the Mediterranean bear a resemblance which it is almost impossible to explain except by the

Atlantean theory. Choi Zuivana, Colua and Cholitna are four ancient Armenian towns. In Centra) America we have Chol-ula, Zuivan, Colua-can and Colima. The gods Pan and Mais of the Greeks are to be found as Pan and Maya in Central American mythology. The god of the Welsh, Hu the Mighty is found in Hu-natu, the hero god of the American Quiche Indians. Bel or Baal, the Phoenician deity whose cult is to be found in all parts of Europe, is represented almost as strongly by Balam among many tribes of American aborigines. And perhaps more important than any of these the great Sun god Ra of Egypt is identical with the Peruvian .Sun god Ra-mi.

'Examine resemblances between the Chiapenee American Indian and Hebrew. "Son" in one is Been, in the other Ben, "daughter" Batz in the first and Bath in the second, "father" Abagh in one, Abba in the other. "King" is Molo--'

'Hi stop!' exclaimed Nicky. This is getting too much for me. Let's get on to something else.'

'I regret Herr Costello if I bore you,' the Doctor said frigidity, but these explanations are necessary to prove my case. I shall not detain you much longer.'

'I'm sorry,' Nicky apologised, 'forget it please and go right on with what you want to say.'

'I thank you. The very word Atlantis speaks for itself. Atlas, we are told, was the first King of Atlantis and gave his name to the Atlantic ocean, the Mexican word All means water. There is an Atlas Mountain in Morocco, a town called Atlan on the shores of Central America. The Atlantes were a people well known to the Greeks and Romans who lived on the North West coast of Africa. In Central America we have the Aztecs, whose history states they originally came from a country called Azland. What can be clearer than the association between these two opposite points in the Atlantic ocean.

'In Plato's account of Atlantis he speaks of a vast canal system, great harbours, bridges and fortifications. The Peruvian roads and bridges through the passes of the Andes were feats of engineering which have hardly been surpassed in the modern world. The canal system in Egypt alone enabled a sufficient area to be placed under cultivation for so great a population to exist in the restricted valley of the

Nile. The artificial lake of Moesis, which they created as a

reservoir, was 450 miles in circumference and 350 feet deep with subterranean channels, flood gates, locks and dams by which the wilderness was reclaimed from sterility. The Mexicans and the Egyptians both erected stone structures, similar in type, which are larger and more durable than anything modern civilisation has yet produced—their Pyramids. Owing to their inaccessibility to the ordinary traveller it is not sufficiently recognised that those in the New World are greater than those in the Old. The base of the pyramid at Choula covers 45 acres of land compared to the 12 acres covercd by the great pyramid of Cheops in Egypt. The masonry of both people had reached such a degree of accuracy that the joints in their stone work are scarcely perceptible and not wider than the thickness of silver paper. Both had astrological systems showing a degree of scientific exactitude with which we have caught up only in the last century yet, neither of these amazing civilisations had any infancy and their art has no archaic period.

Ten thousand years would be but little for man to develop from a cave dwelling savage to such a high state of culture, yet all trace of that 10,000 years has been blotted from the face of the earth. Suddenly, from nowhere it seems, this race who must have appeared like gods to the barbarians, arrived in countries thousands of miles apart; and in a few generations they are creating marvels that have never been surpassed. Where did they come from? Where is the evidence of their long struggle against nature? The only conceivable explanation is the acceptance of Plato's record—that it lies beneath the waves that cover the lost continent.

'If further evidence is needed we have abundant historical memories to confirm the belief embodied as mythology in the religions of these races which had been completely separated for thousands of years until the rediscovery of the New World in the fifteenth century. The Incas and the Aztecs trace the foundation of their empires to a fair-haired, blue-eyed bearded stranger, who came up from the waters out of the East. This god-like figure is found with many names but all accounts agree that he brought with him infinite knowledge, peace and prosperity, teaching them husbandry, metallurgy, weaving, and to live in houses instead of rude tents and caves; then, after giving them a new code of laws his spirit returned to the island Paradise in the East from which he had come.

'It was on account of a similar fully accepted belief, so Cortes relates, that he was able, with a handful of white men, to subdue the legions of the Mexican Emperor Montezuma. They believed that their bearded myth heroes had come again from their island Paradise in the East and they fell down in their thousands before the Spanish lord, Alvardo, worshipping him as a god in human form because he possessed the white skin, the blue eyes, the magnificent golden hair, which tallied in all particulars with those of his predecessor who had brought them the blessings of civilisation.

'Turn now to the Mediterranean side of the Atlantic. The ancient peoples of the Euphrates believed that Ea, god of the Ocean, first brought civilisation from out of the great waters of the West to Assyria. In the Osiris legends of Egypt we get an exact parallel of the Mexican belief. The fair-skinned golden-haired Osiris arrived among the dusky primitive Egyptians, taught them the arts of agriculture, architecture and to observe a new highly civilised code of laws. Then his spirit departed to the islands of Sekhet-Aaru in the West, which are specifically stated to be intersected by canals filled with running water, which caused them to be always green and fertile. Wherever we turn in the mythologies of the Mediterranean peoples we find constant and persistent mention of this antediluvian world, the Garden of Eden, The Elysian Fields, The Gardens of the Hesperides and the Islands of the Blessed. Invariably this happy state is situated towards the West in the great open ocean that lies beyond the Straits of Gibraltar; so that the belief is even perpetuated in Europe to this very day in that colloquial expression for death "to go West".

'The ancient universal belief in the spirits of the dead going to an underworld is part of the same tradition. It was not until comparatively recent times that the expression was taken to mean a world under the earth. It signified originally the world beyond or under the horizon.

'The only possible explanation therefore of the American Heaven being placed in the East and the Mediterranean peoples Paradise being universally in the West, is that it lay somewhere between the two and is a race memory of that great peaceful island where all civilisation was first born, in the centre of the Atlantic.'

As the Doctor ceased there was a moment's hush then, his lined face breaking into a boyish smile, the McKay exclaimed:

'Doctor, I owe you an apology. I had no right to express an opinion without knowing more about the subject. I couldn't attempt to confute a single one of your arguments if I racked my brains for a month.'

'There are more—details—checkings up, a hundred points I have not yet touched upon,' the Doctor burst out determinedly. 'Take the mound builders-'

'Take nothing!' Nicky interrupted, 'I've had enough. Once I was through College I took a vow against learning. We've heard all we want to of this mystic isle. What about it now Camilla?'

'The Doctor has convinced me about his theory all right,' Camilla hesitated a moment. 'But is the expedition practical —that's what 1 want to know?'

'That's it,' echoed Sally. 'Is there a chance in a hundred of our finding this place that's been eleven and a half thousand years beneath the seas?'

'Yes, yes, Fraulein,' the Doctor insisted. 'Ten years ago, even with the secret of the latitude and longitude which I possess—no. Five years ago—no. But now that Dr. William Beebe has invented his bathysphere for deep sea-diving— yes. In my model which is much larger I will take you to the very place where is the sunken gold.'

'In that case I'm all for it,' Sally agreed, and Camilla smiled round at them.

'All right then—the party's on if you wish.'

Thus the final decision was taken which led this diverse group of people into the strangest adventure that has ever befallen men and women in our time.

The Three Lovers of Camilla

Doktor Herman Tisch's mystery ship was steaming almost due north-west towards the little coast town of Horta on the island of Fayal in the Azores. He had chosen it for his base in preference to Funta Delgada on the larger island of Saint Miguel because it lay nearer to the spot which was indicated on the precious cylinder of baked clay that he had unearthed from the banks of the Euphrates.

Eleven thousand four hundred years is but a split second in astronomical time and it needed only decimal corrections in the bearing of the fixed stars to give him the exact site where the mighty capital of Atlantis had once stood.

37° 52"N. 27° 8"W. was the important cypher which he kept locked in his own brain. He had an almost morbid dread that someone might steal his secret and forestall his great discovery so he would not even make a jotting of the map reference in his notebook. When Camilla had pressed him, as her right through financing the expedition, for details of their destination, he had refused to say more than that the place lay between the latitudes of Richmond, Virginia; and Lisbon; which still left him sixty miles leeway, and he refused to give any indication of its longitude at all so they still knew only that it was somewhere to the southward of the Azores.

This uncharted point upon the map which held all the Doctor's interest lay well within the 1,000 fathom line. There might be pockets of a greater depth, of course, but he had 10,000 feet of cable on his drums, and so enough to reach the bottom in the bathysphere, even if it was nearly double the depth that he anticipated, for the few miles round that area in which it was his unshakable conviction that the Golden Temple of Poseidon had once reared its flashing pinnacles to the sky.

All thoughts of Slinger's sinister designs upon Camilla which, at the last, had alone made his expedition possible had left him. He was consumed with impatience now to reach his destination and get to work so on their first morning out from Madeira he paced the deck oblivious of his surroundings while the others explored the ship.

It was an ex-cargo vessel of 2,500 tons, in forward part and midships converted to the semblance of a private yacht. Below the bridge a wide lounge with comfortable furniture and gay chintz curtains opened on to the sun deck where what had formerly been the forward hatch was boarded and canvassed to form a swimming pool. The dining room lay beneath the lounge and on either side of it were the cabins which accommodated the guests. To Camilla's annoyance the ship had no deck cabins but she had one which contained a private bath and sitting-room forming the owner's suite. Contrary to usual arrangements the entire accommodation abaft the bridge below decks was given over to the crew, while above, all the available space was occupied by the huge drums which carried the cable of the bathysphere and the massive machinery for lowering it into the depths. The bathysphere itself, supported by two huge steel girders locked into the hull of the ship, rode on the water line astern.

Captain Ardow took Camilla and her party round. They were, at first, uncertain of his nationality but on enquiry found him to be Russian. He was a tall, lean, grey man, courteous but silent and unsmiling. Camilla invited him to dine that night but he asked her to excuse him with a firmness that discouraged her from pursuing the suggestion and went on to request that she would not extend similar invitations to his officers during the voyage or encourage them to mingle with her guests. As his reason for this lack of sociability he stated that the crew, which had been scraped together at the last moment, was a mixed one; so his officers would need to supervise it closely if the ship was to be kept neat and trim and he preferred that they should not be distracted from their duties.

Slinger congratulated himself upon his choice of Captain, for when he had made his arrangements with the Doctor in

Paris he had insisted on selecting his own man for the job with power to pick his officers and crew. Evidently Captain Ardow meant to earn the very considerable sum he had been promised for his complaisance. He was taking no chances that any of his people should warn Camilla that something queer was afoot or cause trouble at the last moment through having formed a pleasant association with any member of her party during the trip.

For a few moments they all stood in the stern of the ship staring at the great spherical steel bathysphere with its row of small round protruding windows like flat eyes on short thick stalks.

'I should have thought that the glass in those portholes would have been liable to burst, however thick they are, under the immense pressure they will have to sustain at any considerable depth,' remarked Nicky.

'They are not glass but fused quartz,' replied Captain Ardow.

'How can you see through quartz?' enquired Camilla, 'the bits I've seen in museums are all misty even when it's the kind that's supposed to be lumps of crystal.'

'This is fused,' Count Axel informed with his quiet smile. 'Not only is it far stronger than ordinary plate glass but infinitely clearer. So clear in fact that when you look through it things appear to be nearer than they are.'

'That's fair enough,' agreed Nicky, 'and I don't doubt we'll see the ocean bottom plenty but we can't get outside that thing once we've been screwed into it so what I don't get is how we're to pick up the gold when we find it.'

'There are dredges underneath the sphere which can be operated by electricity from inside it,' Captain Ardow told him. 'You cannot perceive them now for they are under water, but they are like the claws and pincers of a great crab.'

Prince Vladimir Renescu stood by, a faintly supercilious smile on his firm lips. The arguments of Count Axel and the Doctor for the existence of Atlantis had passed right over his head. He still regarded the whole trip only as a heaven sent opportunity to get Camilla on her own. That afternoon he succeeded.

Count Axel Fersan, who was employing his very considerable brain to counter the physical attractions of his younger rivals, had decided to allow them to expend their powder and shot, since he was reasonably certain that Camilla enjoyed playing with all three of her suitors so much that she would not get engaged to any of them before the voyage was nearly at an end.

Little as he had in common with Nicky therefore, he buttonholed him after lunch in order to give the Roumanian his chance. Prince Vladimir took it and rushed Camilla off to have another look at the bathysphere since that was at the secluded end of the ship.

No sooner had they reached the stern than he shot one contemptuous glance at the big ball and said: 'So we do divings in that round iron house eh? Wait here and we will talk of pleasant things far more.'

Then he disappeared among the masses of machinery, to return a few moments later, red faced and breathless from his haste and the fear that one of the others might find Camilla on her own, with a pile of cushions and rugs. These he spread carefully on a few feet of open deck and with a smiling bow invited her to be seated.

Camilla was an artist at reclining gracefully and now she disposed her delicious limbs to their utmost advantage on the couch he had prepared; but her charming pose was rudely disturbed a second later for, with amazing speed and dexterity, he suddenly snatched at both her shoes and pulled them from her feet.

'Vladimir!' she exclaimed sharply.

He only laughed and his great deep healthy booming merriment drowned the hissing of the waters as they foamed from the screws, beneath the bathysphere, out into the white wake of the ship.

'You escape me not at all—now or hereafter,' he declared. 'Prisoner most precious 1 have you mine.'

'Vladimir don't be stupid,' she smiled. 'Give me back my shoes.'

He shook his dark curly head. 'Not so, while I have you are compelled here to repose. Also your feet so small are godlike to behold. I could eat them for pleasure,' then suiting the action to the idea he took one in his great fist, and carrying it up to his mouth, bit her big toe.

'Vladimir!—you idiot! Stop I say!' Camilla insisted, but she felt a sudden thrill run through her as, releasing her foot, his white teeth flashed in a quick smile, and he declared:

'This voyage I shall persuade you of myself and we will make happiness together. When we are so put, i wiil bite you all over.'

'We are not going to be "so put". You'd better understand that, Prince,' she said a little nervously. 'I don't approve of that sort of thing unless people are married.'

'But you have me misunderstood,' he protested, and his black velvet eyes stared into her with sudden seriousness. 'As my wife I will bite you all over—not before. Think upon it—all the happiness we will make morning, noon and by night.'

'Is that another proposal of marriage?'

'Why yes. I am to you loving with desperateness. Take then my homage heartfelt so deep. The rank which should be by right with your so marvellous beauty 1 delight to give. Think of it. Prince Vladimir Renescu and his Princess. No couple so handsome would be in Europe. Young marrieds, as you say, very rich, very chic—everywhere most welcome. Also any man who speaks that you are not the most beautiful woman in the world—I strangle with these two fists.' He held out his leg of mutton paws.

Camilla smiled and shook her head. 'I can't decide just yet. Nicky and Count Axel both want me to marry them too.'

He shrugged his vast shoulders. 'Count Axel is a man of rank but not enough—also he is old. He must be fifty at the smallest, and he could not make happiness as I, who have no fatigues—ever. As for Nicky—no. You could not. He is one indivisible cad. Presently I kick him in his so colourful pants.'

'You will do no such thing. You'd find Nicky a dear if you tried to understand him.'

'For me that can never be. I am a Prince and he is a cad,' declared the Roumanian with simple logic.

You are a snob,' smiled Camilla lazily, 'but nevertheless I like you Vladimir—awfully.'

'You like me eh!' His black eyes sparkled as he bent above her. 'In that case—by crikey—we will kiss.' And they spent the remainder of the afternoon that way.

After tea Vladimir tried to follow up his advantage but

Camilla refused to be drawn away from the forward deck.

Slinger had organised a deck-tennis tournament and, in the intervals between sets, those who were not playing either watched the others or the waves peacefully dissolving one into another on the limitless expanse of ocean.

Despite the sea's apparent emptiness there was always something of interest to observe. A school of round backed porpoises leaping and diving as they ploughed their way to the south-eastward across the bows of the ship; a huge solitary sea turtle, floating idly in the waves, far from his home upon the Moroccan shore; the fate of a bucket of refuse that one of the cooks shot without warning from the galley below, and the graceful swoop of the screaming gulls from the mast-head as they dived to secure the floating crusts. Cocktail time came and went, then the party dispersed to change for dinner. The lazy hours of the day had drifted pleasantly by as they are apt to do in the fair weather upon a ship at sea.

Dinner was cheerful but uneventful and after the meal Count Axel, pursuing his subtle policy of letting his rivals do their worst, suggested bridge. He knew that neither Camilla nor Nicky cared for the game whereas Vladimir not only prided himself upon playing a fine hand but being a born gambler in addition could not resist the lure of a pack of cards.

The Prince hesitated only a second. He did not consider that he had anything to fear from Nicky. It was inconceivable to him that his so beautiful Duchess could seriously contemplate marrying the crooner; whereas he regarded the clever, polished. Count Axel, whose age he exaggerated, as a really dangerous competitor. If the Count was willing to tie himself to the card table for the evening why should he not do likewise and enjoy his favourite recreation. Immediately he learned that Sally and the McKay were willing to make up a four, he agreed at once.

Slinger, as usual when his presence was not required, tactfully disappeared upon his own concerns so Nicky, quite unaware that Count Axel had arranged matters for his especial benefit, shepherded Camilla out on to the starlit forward deck.

'Sing something for me Nicky,' she said as soon as they were settled.

'No,' he shook his smooth fair head, 'let's talk. I've got a heap of things I want to say to you.'

'Presently. Sing something for me first. They'll be cooped up in there over their bridge for hours—so we've got lots of time.' Her voice held a gently intimate note which flattered him. One of Camilla's many great attractions as a woman was her ability to make anyone whom she wished to please at the moment think that she really wanted to be with them all the time.

'All right,' Nicky agreed and sitting on the deck at her feet, his hands clasped round his knees, he threw back his head and began to sing.

Some people like listening to crooners. Obviously many people must, for the records of the theme songs from Nicky's pictures sold in their millions all over the world. Camilla certainly did, and lay back with half closed eyes savouring to the full the primitive emotionalism of 'Dear Baby God Gave Me I'm holding your hands', and 'In all the world Mother—there's no one like you'. Not so the McKay, who fifty feet away in the deck lounge, trumped his partner's trick, apologised and muttered fiercely: 'God! how I'd like to tan that youngster's hide.' Prince Vladimir only smiled darkly, recognising that it is impossible to sing and make love at the same time. He felt that he had less reason than ever to fear Nicky as a rival and that he had been wise to settle to his beloved cards while Camilla amused herself with her pet clown.

Ordinarily Nicky was extremely averse to giving free performances either in private or public. For one thing he very wisely took the greatest care of his voice, and for another he quite seriously thought of himself as the successor to Caruso who had developed his talents in a slightly different field. Having once got going however he did not stint his numbers. The soft night air, the illusion of being alone with Camilla on the face of the great waters, the ceaseless hissing of the wavelets as they rushed past the ship's bows, the faint starlight, all worked upon his artistic temperament and as time slipped by he sobbed out song after song with ever increasing pain and emotion. Suddenly he ceased and buried his face in his hands.

'What is it Nicky?' Camilla enquired gently.

'I love you,' he muttered, 'I'm miserable because I love you so.'

'Are you?' Camilla smiled. 'But I like you Nicky— awfully.'

'Then why don't you marry me?' he shot out suddenly.

'But my dear—I said I'd think it over.'

'Words! words!' he exclaimed tragically, now visualising himself in the role of betrayed lover. 'Camilla, you're driving me to despair. I love you! I want you! We were made for each other. What is it that has come between us? You were so sweet to me only two nights ago—and now—' he paused dramatically as though choking on a sob.

'Nicky dear, I haven't changed I-'

'Don't lie to me! Not that! I couldn't bear it!' he interrupted, passing a hand across his eyes as all the old cliches from a hundred parts he had played in the past came tumbling from his tongue. 'Tell me the truth. I'm brave and I can bear that although life will never be the same again. I'm not a Prince. I'm not even a Count. I'm only a man who has worked his way up from nothing—I know that—but I love you Camilla. I love you more than words can say.'

'Dear Nicky,' cooed Camilla happily, allowing her hand to rest lightly on his bowed head. She was very gentle about it though knowing that he hated to have his fair, slightly wavy hair disturbed or ruffled.

He turned and caught her hand, bringing it quickly to his lips as he instinctively changed his role to that of the Other Man who has just come into the life of the woman with the drunken husband. 'Camilla—dearest—you must leave all this! Let's go away together! I'll take care of you—I swear it! We'll start life anew. Just you and I in some place where no one knows us. It will be heaven to have you with me always. Poor little girl you've had a rotten deal—but I'll make up to you for everything.'

Nicky had got himself so wrought up by this time that he made the unfortunate mistake of unconsciously dropping into the lines of his last big part which Camilla recognised. Angrily she jerked her hand away, and cried: 'I haven't had a rotten deal and I don't want to be taken anywhere.'

'Ah!' Nicky stared at her with a pained look as she hurried on: 'In another moment you would have broken

into your theme song and I don't care about being made

fun of that way.'

Just as though a bucket of ice cold water had been slung over him Nicky came out of his highly emotional state. The hard practical side of his nature reasserted itself instantly and he saw that he had slipped up badly. Without the flicker of an eyelid he passed from unconscious to conscious acting and gave a sad little laugh.

'Camilla how can you be so unfair to me just because I happened to use the same words to you that I had in that fool part. In this case 1 meant them. You have had a rotten deal and I would like to take you away from all this.'

'I don't quite see what you mean,' Camilla confessed intrigued despite herself.

'Why all this money you inherited. Money's not everything you know.'

'Oh that.'

'Yes. It prevents you knowing who your true friends are. Surely you don't think this Roumanian Prince and Count Axel would be running after you if you hadn't got a cent— do you? And I'm sorry for you Camilla. Sorry to see you deceived by all this flattery and hypocrisy just because of your wealth. That's why I'd like to take you away, because I know that we could be happy together even if we were poor.'

'I don't think I'd care much about being poor,' said Camilla doubtfully.

'Well not poor exactly. My expenses are mighty heavy. Advertising costs a lot and my business manager takes a pretty useful cut but I'd have enough to keep you with all you'd need outside a yacht. That's what I'd like to do, and I'd be a sight happier if you hadn't got this great pile of cash.'

'Would you really, Nicky?'

'Sure 1 would. Besides I hate to see you wasting your life among this crowd of spongers—doing nothing. You're worth better things than that. I'd like to see you doing something, making a big name for yourself you know.'

Camilla's blue eyes brightened. 'D'you think I could Nicky? How would I do that?'

'Why in the film game of course. There's not a girl in Hollywood that's got half your looks.'

That's the one thing I've always longed for—to be a film

star,' she said dreamily. 'But it's no good—you see I can't act.'

He shrugged disdainfully. 'You don't have to. Film stars are not born but made these days. It's just a matter of a little preparation and a first class director does the rest.'

'Is that true—really? Do you think then that someone would take me on and make me a star?'

He shrugged again. 'They might, but the competition's something frightful and most of the big men have their own axe to grind when they're out picking stars. However—' He paused feeling that now was the time to bring up his heavy artillery and produce the scheme he had hatched up for his own benefit while holding out the bait of fame to dazzle her.

'However—what,' she prompted leaning forward.

'Well. There's no denying that big money has its uses now and then. In this case for instance—say you set your mind on becoming a star. What's to prevent you forming a company. I've made a useful packet and I'd put in all I've got. If we were married we could go to some quiet place for a six months honeymoon where it would be fun instead of work for me to teach you all I know—and I know plenty. Then we'd get Markowitz to tune you up before directing you in a real big picture where we'd play opposite each other. Camilla if you were really game to do your bit by this time next year you could make Garbo come off her silent stunt and scream with jealousy.'

For a moment Camilla sat spellbound fascinated by the supreme crown to a lovely talentless woman's ambition that Nicky was offering her. Then a gay voice broke in behind them.

'Have you any more so marvellous stories Nicky for the cocks and bulls?'

The bridge party having just broken up, Prince Vladimir had come silently across the deck and caught the drift of Nicky's last sentences.

Furious with indignation Nicky stumbled to his feet and confronted the Roumanian.

'You damned eavesdropper! Get to hell out of here!' he cried, his face dead white, his hands clenched but trembling.

Vladimir's teeth flashed in a contemptuous grin. 'Hold t.f.a.—c 65

your peace whippersnap,' he sneered, 'or with one fist I will lift you overboard.'

'You lousy wop!' screamed Nicky temporarily blinded to fear by his almost maniacal anger at having had his attempt to get control of Camilla's fortune exposed and ridiculed.

The Prince's eyes suddenly went blacker than the night, his smile became fixed and terrifying. He lifted one huge fist.

'Stop!' Camilla threw herself between them as the McKay seized Vladimir's arm from behind.

'How dare you,' she stormed at the Prince. 'How dare you start quarrelling in front of me.' Then she swung on Nicky. 'You've been abominably rude—you'd better apologise I think—both of you to each other.'

'All right, I'm sorry,' muttered Nicky sullenly.

The Prince shrugged. 'In deference to my hostess I express regret.'

Camilla turned to Count Axel, who was standing by, and almost instinctively took his arm. 'Why is it,' she asked sadly as he led her back to the lounge, 'that those two cannot remain civil to each other for five minutes?'

'Alas Madame,' Count Axel's tone was filled with pained regret, 'the Prince is still very young and unfortunately possesses a most unreliable temper coupled with very few brains; while Nicky has the misfortune to have been deprived during his youth of those social advantages which are, after all, the most important part of a gentleman's education.' Thus, in one sentence. Count Axel disposed of any headway which his rivals might have made during the day.

The following morning the weather was again bright and clear. The sea, if anything, was even smoother, and the rise and fall of the water in the canvas swimming pool barely reflected the slight pitch of the ship as she held steadily on her course.

Camilla had not quite forgiven Vladimir. She did not resent his interruption of her tete-a-tete the night before so much as his tactless assumption that the possibility of her outgarboing Garbo, if she put her mind to it, was a story for cocks and bulls. Nicky did not put in an appearance when the rest of the party assembled round the swimming pool at ten o'clock. He was still under the impression that the Prince had shown him up for the fortune hunter that he was and unaware that Camilla's vanity had been so tickled by his proposals that she had failed to see his obvious self-interest at the bottom of the scheme. As he remained, like Achilles, sulking in his tent, Camilla selected Count Axel for the target of her smiles.

Feeling that he had many days before him the Count did not seek to press his advantage in the least but slim, supple and enchanting in her sunbathing suit she came to sit beside him after they had had their swim.

'You are neglecting me shamefully Count,' she declared. 'I hardly saw you yesterday.'

'Madame that was my loss,' he inclined his scholarly head in a little bow, 'but we have all today before us. Let me see if I cannot win your good graces by suggesting a new entertainment for you.'

She liked the way he called her Madame. It lent her dignity that she was never quite sure that she possessed. Smiling at him as she dangled her long legs over the side of the pool she said: 'Now's your chance then Count. I'm all for new amusements.'

'You will give me your promise then to play this game with me?'

'Well,' she hesitated. 'If it's to be with you alone I think I'd like to know first what it is.'

Count Axel's blue eyes twinkled under their half-lowered lids. 'It's a game for three,' he reassured her. 'You, I, and one other.'

'All right then—fire away.'

'We will get the good Doctor to stop this ship and take us down for a trial trip in his bathysphere.'

Camilla paled a little. 'But—but do you think that would be quite safe?'

'Certainly. We shall send it down empty first to see that its windows and door resist the pressure of the water. If all is well there should be no danger after.'

'I think I'd be scared of doing that.'

'A little perhaps—but not too much,' he encouraged her. "After all you do not mean to miss the wonderful thrill of seeing the sunken city if we find it surely—so you must make your first dive sometime. Why not now?'

'But would there be anything worth seeing here in the open sea?'

The Count raised his mental eyes to heaven at the stupidity of the question but his placid smile remained unchanged. 'Why yes. All sorts of fish, octopus perhaps, and all the teeming life of the great ocean. No aquarium that you have ever visited could compare with such a sight. If you will come I promise that you shall not have one dull moment and will thank me ever after for being the first to introduce you to such marvels.'

It was an invitation which many men might have hesitated to accept, but Camilla was no coward and although her voice was a little breathless she nodded. 'All right let's.'

Doctor Tisch was furious when he was informed of her decision. His only thought now was to reach the Azores as quickly as possible in order that Slinger and his confederates could get through with whatever dubious business they meditated against Camilla and her party—and leave him free to proceed with his scientific investigation.

He protested in vain that the bathysphere had already been tested in European waters, that the dive was pointless, and that oxygen would be wasted to no purpose. Count Axel met his every objection and, since there was not the faintest indication of bad weather approaching, the Doctor was compelled to give in.

By eleven o'clock the whole party and a good portion of the crew had assembled aft. The ship was hove to facing the gentle swell. The tackles attached to the winches hauled the bathysphere to the extremity of its runners, the great crane rumbled into motion and took up the slack of the cable. Then, with no perceptible drop, the big sphere, already one third submerged, slid from its steel guides into the water.

At a signal from Captain Ardow the cables were paid out, the empty bathysphere sank from sight to a depth of fifty feet, then the great arm of the crane swung round until, further forward, the cable was brought almost to the ship's side.

As the bathysphere descended a group of men under the second officer had been paying out the thick rubber hose containing the triple telephone and lighting wires which entered the top of the sphere through the stuffing box. Now, this was attached to the cable by a rope tie in order that it should not break under the strain of its own weight. Captain Ardow gave another order and the bathysphere was let down a further 200 feet.

Another tie was fixed attaching the communication hose again to the cable. Both were paid out once more and so the business proceeded, with a halt at every 200 feet for fresh ties to be attached, until the empty bathysphere hung 2,000 feet beneath the ship.

The Doctor then gave orders for it to be hauled up again, and the reverse process was followed. As the cable wound in on the drums the communication hose was coiled down by hand, the machinery stopping every two minutes to enable the second officer to remove the ties which attached the hose to the cable.

At last, eighty-three minutes after the bathysphere had sunk from view, it reappeared again and now the ticklish task of getting it back on its runners was undertaken. A boat having been lowered guy ropes were attached to ringbolts in the sphere's surface, the winches were brought into play and the guy ropes tightened until the great steel ball had been brought into correct alignment. The crane clanked, the bathysphere lifted a fraction, and slid gently back into its original position.

The whole operation had occupied an hour and fifty minutes so it was now nearly one o'clock but Camilla feared that if she put off her dive until after lunch she would lose her courage and told the Doctor that, if all was well, she was quite prepared to go down.

A ladder was lowered to the special platform which supported by the steel runners of the bathysphere, filled the gap between it and the ship. The Doctor and four of the crew descended to it.

For ten minutes they worked with great wrenches on the bolts that sealed the circular door in the side of the sphere. At last they got it off and Doctor Tisch, having made a careful examination of the interior reported that everything was perfectly satisfactory.

Sally kissed Camilla impulsively and cried: 'Oh do be careful darling! Are you sure you wouldn't like me to come with you.'

Camilla bit her lower lip nervously, but shook her head.

'No dear,' she said. 'I promised to make the first trip alone with the Doctor and Count Axel—so here goes.'

The Count handed her down on to the platform and helped her in the awkward business of scrambling through the small round opening in the sphere, then he turned, waved to the others and followed her inside.

At first there seemed hardly room to turn round in the strange spherical chamber in which they found themselves and except in its centre, it was impossible to stand upright. The concave walls positively bristled with instruments, cylinders, gauges, wires, and the searchlight apparatus occupied a good portion of the headroom to their right. However, it was actually constructed to hold eight people and climbing over the backs of the canvas chairs which were screwed to the wooden floor they settled themselves opposite the row of fused quartz portholes.

The Doctor climbed in after them and then his telephonist, Oscar, a pale pimply young man whom they had not seen before. A derrick lifted the solid steel door from the platform and swung it into place, the crew pushed it home over the ring of bolts that held it in position, and then began to screw it down.

Oscar squatted on a stool near the door and put his instruments over his head, while the Doctor wriggled into another of the canvas chairs from which he could control the searchlight. Suddenly there was a thunderous, ear-splitting crash.

Camilla and Axel both ducked but the Doctor shouted to them. 'Do not be alarmed! It is only the crew who hammer home the bolts, and stuffed his fingers in his ears.

They followed his example but it was impossible to shut out the din and for the next five minutes the sphere reverberated as though giant projectiles were constantly being hurled against it. Then the noise ceased as suddenly as it had begun and gave place to an utter eerie silence.

'I'm frightened,' said Camilla breathlessly.

Count Axel took her arm and pressed it. 'No you're not,' he told her confidently. 'You are just missing the sound of the waves—that's all.'

'All right, I'm not then,' she smiled faintly but clung tightly to his arm.

The telephonist was speaking to his opposite number on 70

the deck. The Doctor opened up his trays of Calcium chloride for absorbing excessive moisture, and Soda lime for removing the poisonous Carbon dioxide from the used air. Then he turned on the precious life giving oxygen, and the circulator fan. The telephonist spoke again, and the bathysphere began to move.

Up on the deck the McKay leaned over the rail with Sally beside him. 'By Jove,' he murmured, 'I've often thought Camilla wanted her bottom smacking, but I'll give it to her that she's a darn brave kid. I wouldn't go down in that thing for a thousand pounds.'

As he spoke the waters closed over the bathysphere and it began its journey to those grim regions where strange life dwells in perpetual night.

Dive Number One

Camilla stared nervously out of one of the portholes. As the bathysphere sank below the waterline bubbles of air obscured her view and she could see nothing for a moment, then the chamber dimmed to a gentle green and she found herself facing a barnacle encrusted surface which had long streamers of greeny-yellow weed waving gracefully from it —the hull of the ship.

They seemed so near that she started back, fearing that they were going to crash against it, but Count Axel gave her hand another reassuring squeeze. He knew that, fused quartz being the clearest and most transparent material in the world, distances are apt to be deceptive when judged through it, and that the streamers of golden weed which appeared near enough to touch by stretching out a hand were actually fifteen to twenty feet away at the least. Another moment and the hull had slipped from view, their last visible link with the upper world was gone.

Almost at once the water took on a bluish tinge but the interior of the bathysphere remained light and bright. A thousand little motes drifted past the windows as they sank —the insects of the sea. Then a shoal of aurelia jellyfish drifted by pulsing gracefully along as they passed their level and, as they were halted for the first tie—attaching the communication hose to the table—to be fixed, they saw their first fish.

'Oh look,' exclaimed Camilla, 'aren't they lovely!' It was only small fry but the iridescent light upon their scales made them seem like living jewels.

The telephonist muttered, the sphere descended again. All trace of red and orange in the light had disappeared, the yellow tinge was now scarcely perceptible and instead they had been replaced with a more brilliant blue. A dozen prawns came swimming by graceful, silver, fairy like, and then three fishes in a row. The bathysphere stopped and the Doctor murmured: 'We are now at 400 feet. Deeper than any submarine now made can go.'

A long string of siphonophores making a pattern like the most delicate lace slipped past. Then came another fish, a small fat absurd looking puffer, who peered with round expressionless eyes at them through the window, but he flashed away with a swift thrust of his tail as a ghostly pilot fish, pure white with black upright bands, came into view. As the sphere moved on its downward journey two big silvery bronze eels came swimming by and now Camilla sat entranced. All sense of fear had left her under the fascination of this marvellous ever changing spectacle. The sight of all this teeming life beneath the ocean with its myriad colours and thousand different forms held her spellbound as she gazed.

Now the last trace of green had faded from the spectrum and the brilliant blue was tinged with violet. Yet the light had not perceptibly darkened, only its reds, yellows, and greens had disappeared leaving a strange unearthly brightness which had a queer effect upon them. It held excitement and exhilaration something similar to the effect of mountain air or a draught of iced champagne. There was a tenseness in the atmosphere and their senses seemed tuned up to a greater, almost unnatural, degree of vivid receptivity.

A lantern fish, their first sight of a real inhabitant of the deeper seas came sailing by, his scales ablaze with his full armour of iridescence. A squid, goggle eyed, pouched bodied, his tentacles waving in a deep sea dance pulsed on his way, then some pinkish fish, semi-transparent so that their vertebrae and food filled stomachs were clearly visible, and next a great scarlet snapper.

'Now 600 feet,' announced the Doctor as the sphere stopped in its descent again. 'No man has been so deep except in a bathysphere.'

The light had darkened to a deep violet blue and still had that eerie unearthly quality about it. In the distance now they could see some pale flashes as fish from the deeps, carrying their own lights, moved to and fro. The Doctor switched on his searchlight but although it seemed dark outside the yellow glare had, as yet, little effect, so he turned it off.

Again the steel chamber in which they crouched together slipped gently downward. Two iridescent eyes suddenly appeared at the porthole, then as they moved a long pale ribbon like transparent gelatine undulated by. the larva of some great sea eel. Black jellyfish, a shoal of shrimps, a pale blue fish and then a great dark form moving slowly in the blue black distance. More sea snails looking like dull gold shields, another squid, larger this time, and next a lovely silver hatchet fish glowing faintly in the deep blue murk.

At 800 feet it seemed that the limit to light penetrating from that far upper world of sun and wind and sky. had come. Only a grey blue blackness now filled the steel chamber yet the remaining suggestion of light still had that strange brilliant quality about it and when they tried the searchlight it made little impression on the darkened waters. As the Doctor switched it off everything went dead black for a moment then the intensely silent blue black twilight wrapped them in its folds again.

As they sank still lower, twinkling lights moved all the time in the distance palish green, lemon, pink, yellow, and blue. A big jellyfish slopped against one of the portholes its stomach filled with luminous food, a great deep sea eel came slithering past and then a cloud of petropods momentarily shut out everything else from view.

'1,000 feet,' announced the Doctor. 'We shall see now with our light,' and as he switched it on they saw that it had at last become effective. The bright yellow beam cut a sharply defined path through the inky blueness of the waters. Then they were able to witness a most curious phenomenon. Outside the beam lights of all colours were visible like the fairy lamps in some enchanted garden as a row of them moved forward they suddenly went out and the head and body of a strange looking fish appeared like a brilliant colourful painting in the yellow ray. Sometimes a fish would remain half in half out. its head and fore-part clear and beautiful but cut off as though with a sharp knife in the middle, the rest of its body and tail only indicated by a row of tiny lights like the portholes of a ship.

At 1,200 feet a great cloud-like mass came into view again but the extreme range of the searchlight only just showed it so their intense curiosity regarding this mighty inhabitant of the lower seas had to remain unsatisfied.

At 1,400 feet, there was an inexplicable empty patch. For some unknown reason not a single organism of any kind was visible, but at 1,600 they passed into teeming life again. Squids, jellies, deep sea prawns, rat-tailed macrourids and golden-tailed serpent dragons all carrying their own illuminations drifted or swam by. Even Count Axel who had expected wonders was staggered by the thought of all this brilliant multi-coloured life spreading over the thousands of miles of sea that cover two thirds of the earth's entire surface.

When they reached 1,800 feet the Doctor switched off the light again. After the first almost physical blow of darkness had fallen an intense unutterable loneliness seemed to chill their hearts. The ship above seemed as far away as England. It was in another world, distinct, apart; their present life did not even seem to be a continuation of that which they had known; years back as they felt it at that moment, where moon and stars alternate with the daily rising and setting of the sun.

Gradually, into that vital bluish darkness a faint, faint greyness seemed to penetrate, and they knew that even here the last tenuous suggestion of the brilliant sunshine above could just reach them.

Spellbound they gazed from the ports. The blackness tinged only by palest grey was lit by an absolute display of fireworks. Green, red, yellow, blue, in rows of dots, singly, in pairs, in long tenuous streamers, they flickered and moved, some going on and off as though under the control of their strange owners. Something seemed to burst in the near distance giving off a million tiny sparks. The Doctor switched on the light; there was nothing to be seen but a shoal of incredibly thin fairy like fish and a big octopus half in and half out of the beam.

As they moved downward again more lantern fish appeared, and a shoal of hatchet fish, then a great blunt nosed monster at least three feet in length who carried a large green light waving above his head upon a single fin.

'We register now 2,000 feet,' announced the Doctor. 'The sun's light never penetrates to this depth. Here is the region of perpetual night.' Again he switched off the searchlight. The pyrotechnic display outside continued but not the faintest glimmer of greyness now came to light the Stygian blackness of this uncharted world.

'We ascend now,' said the Doctor, and Oscar, who had been keeping up an intermittent mutter, mumbled again into his mouthpiece.

'No, no!' cried Camilla, 'let's go further down—please.' It was the first time she had spoken for nearly three quarters of an hour.

'Not so!' The Doctor shook his head. 'It is enough. The sphere has only been tested for this depth today. We must not go deeper,' and as he spoke they felt the pull of the cable carrying them up to daylight once more.

For the forty minutes of the upward journey they witnessed fresh scenes in the ever changing life which flourishes beneath the seas, from the self-lighted creatures who roam the depths, to a ten foot shark at 400 feet, and the floating jellies of the shallow waters. From out of the pitch black depths they rose by stages through the faint grey lighting of the bluish murk into the deep black-blue, then experienced again, for a thousand feet, the weird exhilaration of that staggeringly brilliant blue light growing brighter and brighter as they came near to the surface and, at last, passed into the area where green still penetrates then yellow and finally, just beneath the surface orange and red.

As the crew began their preparations for hoisting the bathysphere back on to its steel supports Count Axel smiled at Camilla.

'You enjoyed it?'

'Oh immensely.' She squeezed his arm, 'I never dreamed that such things could be. Thank you a thousand times for persuading me to come.'

He leaned towards her: 'There are many other wonderful things in the world which I could show you if you wished.

'Are there?' she raised one eyebrow with a little smile.

'Yes. You have hardly travelled at all yet and travel needs more than just money and a guide book to be undertaken successfully. It is an art.'

'Of which you are a master Count—I suspect.'

'And you Madame an apt pupil—as you have proved.'

'But travel is not the only thing in life.'

'By no means. I am a poor man and so have little choice but to wander as economically as I can from one pleasant spot to another. If I were rich I should spend at least half the year in London, Paris, and New York. In each—if I were very rich of course—I should keep a fine house in the old tradition. It would be no more expensive than occupying luxury suites at the big hotels and infinitely more comfortable. I should stock my cellars with great wines and appoint three Cordon Bleus to be my chefs; for the lure of a superlatively fine table rarely fails to attract the great brains of the world. Artists, scientists, men of letters, diplomats, statesmen, great beauties, prima donnas and all the men and women who are moulding the world that we shall know tomorrow would be my guests in carefully selected parties where each would be invited to meet some other that they wished to know.

'As I am blessed with a tolerant disposition I should doubtless make many real friends among them and learn much of their hopes and fears, also perhaps something of those fascinating hidden motives, of which the great public never know, but which actuate the policies of men of power and often change the whole lives of many million people. Especially too I would seek for struggling talent among young people and by my introductions bring it to the light. That is a selfish thought perhaps but few pleasures can be so harmless or bring such satisfaction as being the means of helping people of ability to recognition. Then, when I tired of all their chatter I should be more selfish still and, leaving them for a period, sail away to refresh myself by visiting the marvels of India, Egypt, China or Peru.'

Camilla knew that he was really speaking of the life he would make for her if she would marry him. It would be wonderful, she thought, to be a real Grande Dame, and a personality among the people who mattered in the world instead of just a rich girl throwing costly parties for hordes of nonentities whom she hardly knew. She saw herself receiving at the head of a great staircase in some old ducal mansion, accepting the homage of the writers and painters who, by her patronage, she had brought from poverty to fame, or listening in her salon to inventors and explorers as they told her of their latest discoveries before disclosing their secrets to the common world.

Axel was not boasting about his genius for friendship, she felt sure of that. His personality and breeding would secure him a place on equal terms with people of any rank, his brain and learning enable him to converse with the most intelligent, and his sure taste gave him a ready sympathy towards all creators of real beauty in any form. Given the money to pay for the right setting Camilla was certain that he was capable of carrying his wife to almost any height of influence and importance. It would be fun to travel too with a man who possessed such a wide knowledge of the world yet never laboured his learning and, in addition, was such an even tempered and amusing companion. But there was one thing he had not mentioned so Camilla asked with a sly smile:

'Is that everything you want in life Count?'

'No Camilla,' he answered softly. 'As a connoisseur of all things beautiful I want you for my wife.'

Truly Count Axel was an artist in other things besides travel. The very syllables of her christian name coming so firmly but unexpectedly from him, was more effective than a score of platitudes.

There was a slight jolt as the bathysphere landed on its runners and next moment pandemonium reigned as the sailors on the platform attacked the bolts of the steel door with their heavy hammers.

Five minutes later Camilla was on deck again surrounded by her anxious friends.

'It was marvellous,' she exclaimed breathlessly. 'Absolutely wonderful—you've no idea.'

'Tell us,' they cried, 'did you see any fish!'

She threw back her golden head and gave way to peals of laughter, then still gurgling she turned to Axel. 'Listen to them 1 Did we see any fish 1 Scores my dear, hundreds, and every colour of the rainbow.'

'Do tell us about it,' pleaded Sally.

'I can't darling. It's utterly impossible. It's another world, fairyland, heaven, I don't know. And the light—the brilliance of it—that amazing blue.'

'Light!—down there?' expostulated Nicky.

'Yes, yes, I can't explain it but it almost makes the sun-78

shine look pale by comparison, and it's not the tiniest bit frightening. I know one thing. Every time the bathysphere goes down again I'm going too. But I'm ravenous. It's getting on for three—have you all had lunch?'

They confessed that they had not, but had been hanging about on deck for . the last hour and a half wondering if they would ever see her alive again.

Even the taciturn little Doctor was cheerful over the belated meal that followed. It was his second descent in the sphere and, as on the first occasion off the Scillies, his apparatus had worked splendidly. Only a pint and a half of water had been found in the bathysphere's concave bottom after the dive and he saw no reason that he should not descend in it to much greater depths with equal safety.

After lunch Nicky cornered Sally. 'Look here,' he said, 'I want to talk to you.'

'All right,' Sally smiled. 'It's a free country—ship I mean. Come on deck and don't look so serious about it.*

'But I am serious,' he announced as soon as they had settled down. 'It's about Camilla.'

'How disappointing, I thought you were going to make love to me.'

'You didn't!'

'Of course I didn't. You are a fool Nicky. But quite apart from any question of making love you'd be far wiser at least to pretend a friendly interest in people for their own sakes when you want something out of them.'

'I didn't say that I wanted anything out of you.'

'But you do.

'Well yes—in a way—but I've been thinking a lot lately and what I want to talk to you about will benefit you too.'

Sally glanced suspiciously at his fine regular features and rather weak mouth. In a way she was sorry for Nicky, most women were when they did not fall desperately for his rather feminine good looks. She knew that his vanity and egoism were not entirely his own fault. Success had come to him when he was still too young to keep any sense of proportion. The flattery of the insincere but anxious to please artists who wanted minor parts in his pictures, and the adulation expressed in his feminine fan mail had gone to his head. Like others among the more sensible of her sex she remained quite untouched by what he believed to be his irresistible fascination for women, but had an instinct to mother him, and make allowances for his shortcomings which men, who mostly loathed him on sight, were quite unprepared to do.

'All right,' she said, 'fire away.'

'Well you don't have much of a life—do you?'

'How exactly do you mean?'

'You're entirely dependent on Camilla—and at her beck and call all the time.'

'Yes—I suppose I am. Anyhow for the moment.'

'Why for the moment only?'

'Well I might marry you know.'

'Yes,' he said slowly, 'you might but not before Camilla.'

'Thank you Nicky.'

'Oh no offence, but the odds are all on her—aren't they?'

'Yes, I suppose they are.'

'I'd hate to see her marry this rotten dago Prince,' he exclaimed with sudden venom.

'Now Nicky don't be naughty. Vladimir is just a nice large healthy animal. He's a gay and affectionate person too but if you will persist in sticking pins in him and making fun of his quaint English you can't expect him to be nice to you.'

'I don't give a dime if he's nice or not. Do you think Camilla is likely to fall for him?'

'I've no idea. You'd better ask Camilla.'

'Not very helpful are you?*

'Well, I don't think there is any immediate danger of her becoming Princess Renescu.'

'Good. Well the Count's out of it anyway. He's far too old. Now about me? What do you think of my chances?'

'Honestly I can't say Nicky. She likes you a lot I'm sure and last night she was talking to me in her cabin about your idea of making her a film star. She seemed terribly intrigued by that but-'

'Did she,' he interrupted joyfully. 'That's fine! Now look here Sally this is where you come in. She thinks a lot of you. Just back me all you know and I'll see you right. Tell her I'm the Katz pyjamas and do everything you can to sheer her off that rotten Prince. Then, the day she marries me I'll give you a cheque that will make you independent of her for life—get me?

Sally got him so thoroughly that for a second her mouth hung open with sheer amazement at his audacity in trying to bribe her, but she shut it slowly and murmured: 'Yes— I get you Nicky.'

'Well—is it a deal?'

'I don't quite know,' Sally hedged. 'Do you really love her?'

'Sure,' Nicky declared airily, 'I love her lots and I'm not after her cash like those other two. I make the sort of big money that most folks would be mighty glad to have.'

'Even then I hardly like to influence her judgment, besides —after all—I might get married myself and then I wouldn't need the cheque—would I?'

'Oh nuts. It's always good for a girl to have her own income. She can tell her old man where he gets off if he starts any rough stuff then. And who could you marry anyway unless—' He paused suddenly.

'Unless what?'

'Unless you've got your eye on that old Naval bird. He's not interested in Camilla—but you're always cooped up in some corner with him.' Nicky swung round to face her with a jerk. 'By Jabez! Sure enough that's why he was brought along on this fool trip.'

Sally flushed scarlet but she kept her grey eyes steady as she shrugged. 'What nonsense! Nicky you do get the most absurd ideas. The McKay is old enough to be my father— almost. Besides he's an arrant coward and I've no time for men who're as spineless as all that.'

'Coward my foot! You can't put that over on me.' Nicky grinned. 'Everyone knows he's a V.C. and that's the highest buttonhole they dish out for glory in the British Isles.'

'How do you know that?' Sally asked with veiled curiosity.

'A fellar back in the hotel told me before we started out. He won it at Zeebrugge or Jutland or some place where they cut each other's throats when I was in my pram. For jumping on a dock I think it was and shooting down ten Germans while his pals fixed a ladder from their ship. Murderous old devil, the thought of all those fools slaughtering each other makes me feel absolutely sick.'

'Yes Nicky I suppose it does,' murmured Sally thoughtfully.

'Now what about our little arrangement eh? If you've got 81

a fancy for old square face that makes no difference to our deal, so can I consider it all fixed?'

'I'll think about it Nicky,' she replied standing up. 'For the moment I'm just remaining neutral if you -don't mind. I've got some letters to write now so I'm going below.'

'You won't say a word about this eh?' he asked anxiously.

'No,' she shook her head, 'I'm good at keeping secrets; and I'll let you know later if I feel I need that cheque.'

Sally's letters were of no immediate importance and she was much more anxious to have a few words with the McKay. When she found him however he was deep in a discussion with Count Axel about New Zealand, for both had visited the country and they discovered that they had mutual friends living there.

The moment being unpropitious Sally left them and it was not until after dinner, when the ship had dropped anchor off the little town of Horta, their base in the Azores, that she managed to get him on his own.

He was leaning on the rail placidly smoking a cigar as he watched the lights of the tiny port when Sally came up and said abruptly: 'I owe you an apology.'

'Oh that's all right m'dear,' he replied casually turning to smile over his shoulder at her. 'Children are always apt to be impetuous but aged people like myself get accustomed to making allowances for the error of their ways.'

'You're not aged—and I'm not a child,' she protested sullenly.

'Yes, you are m'dear—and a very pretty one.'

'You brute.' Sally felt her cheeks glow in the darkness. 'You would choose a moment like this to say things like that—wouldn't you? But I had no idea you were a V.C.'

'Oh that! Who's been telling tales out of school, eh?'

'Nicky—he heard it from a man in the hotel. He says you did terribly brave things at Zeebrugge. Won't you tell me about it?'

He wrinkled up his nose in faint mockery and began to sing in his deep bass voice:

'What shall we do with a drunken sailor?

What shall we do with a drunken sailor?

Hoist him up with a running bowline

Early in the morn-ing.

Hi! Hi! up she rises Hi! Hi! up she rises Hi! Hi! up—she—rises Early in the morn-ing.'

'No seriously,' Sally said in wheedling voice, 'do teii me?'

'There isn't much to tell. It was a dark and stormy night and the Captain said to the First Mate, "Mate, tell us a story Mate' and the Mate began as follows: "It was a dark and stormy night and the Captain said to the First Mate, 'Mate tell us a-'

'You idiot!' Sally interrupted. 'Please. I've never met a V.C. before. What did you do?'

'I wasn't joking. It was just like all the other shows of its kind, thousands of which received no recognition at all. I happened to be first off my ship when we were alongside the Mole and created a bit of trouble for the Bosch; then I helped a few of our wounded back just before we sheered off again. My Captain happened to see me so he put in a report. I thought I might perhaps get a mention in despatches and I was "struck all of an 'eap dearie" when the Cross came through. Honestly there was no conspicuous bravery in what I did.'

'Of course there was,' Sally insisted. 'Leading the attack and saving wounded under fire. If that isn't bravery—what is, and I was fool enough to call you a coward this morning because you said that you wouldn't go down in the bathysphere.'

'You are probably right m'dear. If it were a matter of duty it would be different although I'd be scared stiff all the same, but nothing would induce me to go below in that death trap just for the fun of the thing.'

'But if you're a V.C. you must be brave so I can't understand why you should be frightened of a little trip under water.'

'Can't you? Have you had a look at the chart in the lounge by any chance?'

'No.'

'All right—come on then.' He took her arm and led her back to the brightly lighted deck house. A map of the Azores was pinned to the bulkhead and he pointed a square stubby finger at a dark spot on the southern side of Fayal Island—the town of Horta.

'That's where we are now, and the Doctor is being very secret about where we're going next, but I can give a pretty shrewd guess. If his theory is correct the whole group of islands are the mountain tops of the sunken continent. Now you remember what it said in that account of Plato's—that the whole region of Atlantis lay towards the south and was sheltered from the north. Further that its capital was on a low mountain no more than sixty miles from the sea. Pretty obviously that meant on one of the foothills of the range which formed the northern coast so the canal which connected it with the open ocean must have been either between the island of St. Maria in the extreme west and St. Miguel further north or between St. Miguel and the big island of Pico north east of us. The odds are anyhow that it lies somewhere about equidistant between ail three and the Doctor would have used Pico for his base if it hadn't been practically uninhabited as you can see from the fact that there are no towns marked on it.'

Sally nodded. 'That seems all right, but what is all this leading up to?'

'Now take a look at the soundings,' said the McKay, 'and you'll see that practically the whole of that area is nearly a thousand fathoms deep.'

'Well?'

'One thousand fathoms is six thousand feet and Camilla only went down two thousand today. Have you any idea what the pressure will be on that tin can of the Doctor's when they start trying to touch bottom?'

'No,' said Sally.

'Well at two thousand feet it's very nearly half a ton to the square inch. Think of that on those windows, and the ratio of pressure increases the further you go down, so at six thousand, it's going to be something that doesn't bear thinking about. Ever heard of implosion?'

'No.'

'It's the opposite of explosion and even more horrible. When something explodes near you there is at least a sport ing chance of being blown clear and suffering nothing worse than concussion, but from implosion there is not the faintest hope of escape. If one of the ports of the bathysphere gave way under the immense pressure at six thousand feet the implosion would be so terrific that anyone inside it would be crushed as flat as a piece of tissue paper before they could flicker an eyelid. That's why the old sailor man prefers to stay on deck and smoke his pipe.'

'But the bathysphere has been specially made to resist pressure at that depth.'

'Maybe—still all sorts of things might happen. Say the cable snapped. Where would they be then ... Down in Davy Jones' locker for keeps.'

'I don't understand you,' Sally shook her head. 'They will send it down empty before each dive so where is the tremendous danger—and after all—to have any fun in life one's got to be prepared to take a little risk.'

'A little risk eh! Well I've only survived to this age because I've always refused to take any risks that weren't strictly necessary.'

'And yet you got the V.C. The highest decoration for valour that your country gives. I can't make up my mind if you're really brave or not."

'Nor can I m'dear,' smiled the McKay. 'It's a thing that I've often wondered but never been quite certain about.'

The gallant McKay was still in doubt upon the point when, five hours later he woke with a start to see his cabin door swing softly back, and beheld two men silhouetted against the light of the passage both of whom held pistols which were pointing at his head.

The Gentleman in the 'Old School Tie'

The McKay raised himself on one elbow. From years of responsibility in the ships he had commanded he was by habit a light sleeper. It was that which had brought him wide awake the second his cabin door had been unhooked and swung softly open. It was that too which had half roused him a little time before to the knowledge that a launch had come alongside and that people were moving about on the deck above. He had wondered vaguely then what they were up to at such an hour, but put it down to a shore party among the crew returning late from a binge in Horta. As a passenger such things were none of his business so he had dropped off to sleep again, but this was a very different affair.

"What the hell!' he exclaimed sharply.

'Get up!' said the taller of the two men, switching on the light.

The McKay blinked for a moment and stared at the intruders. They were hard-faced looking fellows clad in flashy, striped lounge suits.

'What the thunderin' blazes—' he began, but the taller man cut him short again.

'Get up,' he repeated tonelessly.

The McKay proceeded to show a leg. He was far too old a bird to contemplate any heroics against these purposeful looking gunmen.

'Hurry!' said the man. 'You're wanted in the deck parlour.'

'Who wants me?' enquired the McKay, struggling into his slippers.

'Oxford Kate wants you.'

'Does she indeed. Well I'd hate to keep a lady waiting.'

'Oxford's no skirt an' he'll make it hot fer you plenty if you don't make it snappy.'

The McKay did not like the look of things at all. He was thinking that Sally and Camilla would get a very nasty shock if they received a similar visitation. However he could do nothing for the moment except save loss of 'face' as far as possible. It would never do to allow these raiders to suppose that he was scared so, as he ran a comb through his crisp sandy greyish hair that had once been fiery red, he said curtly:

'If one of you care to take a message you can say that Captain McKay presents his compliments to Mr. Oxford Kate and will be with him in two minutes.'

Both men ignored the remark so he took his silk dressing-gown off its hook and handed the garment to the man who had so far remained silent.

The fellow stretched out his free hand and had taken it by the collar before he realised quite what he was doing. Then, as the McKay turned his back and slipped one arm through a sleeve, the man's mouth dropped open.

'Well!' he exclaimed, 'can yer beat that?'

'It'll be a great laugh for the bunch.' the other's lip curled in a sneer. 'Jeff the Razz turns clothes help to English society man.'

'You'd better! You spill that an' I'll—' the smaller man began venomously.

'Aw can it now,' his friend cut in harshly. 'Kate's up above.'

The McKay hoped for a second that they might go for each other but seeing that there was no likelihood of the quarrel becoming violent he tightened the girdle of his robe and said:

'Now I'm ready to go and see the owner.'

The who?

'Your friend who has apparently taken control of this ship.'

'Oh sure—come on then.' The taller of the two jerked his head towards the door. 'Get in front and head fer the deck parlour. Any funny business an' you're for it—see!'

The McKay had seen several moments before, that from the way they handled their guns his two visitors were evidently accustomed to using them so, without further comment, he preceded them along the passage and up the hatchway.

The lounge was fully lit and as the McKay glanced round it he took an even grimmer view of the situation.

At the doorway stood two more gunmen, impassive but watchful, with their weapons prominently displayed. To the right, Nicky, clad in silks which for their colours would have rivalled the plumage of the bird of paradise, lounged sullenly upon a settee, his legs stuck out before him. Beside him was the Doctor, swathed in thick flannel night attire and looking more worried than ever while, at their feet, Prince Vladimir, breathing stertorously, was laid out neatly with a pillow beneath his head—unconscious on the floor.

Opposite this unhappy little group stood Slinger and Captain Ardow, both fully dressed, but the figure who immediately engaged the McKay's attention was a well made man of about forty, with a broad forehead and shrewd blue eyes, who sat behind a desk that occupied the middle of the apartment. His fair hair was a trifle thin, parted in the centre and brushed neatly back. The striped tie of a well known public school lent a patch of colour to his admirably cut lounge suit. Something about him suggested a combination of racing motorist, banker, and dandy, all merged into one strong personality.

'Captain McKay.' It was a statement rather than an enquiry which came from the man at the desk and even the intonation of those words spoken with quick assurance were enough to suggest the reason for his soubriquet 'Oxford'.

'Guilty,' replied McKay. 'Mr. Kate I imagine?'

The other smiled although his blue eyes remained hard and cold. 'A somewhat vulgar witticism* on the part of my henchmen, derived perhaps from my preference for silk shirting and my choice of socks. The ancient firm of Seal and Unman who supply them would be quite horrified if they knew that, I think—don't you?'

'I've never heard of 'em,' replied the McKay abruptly.

'Never mind—the name serves as well as any other—sit down.' Mr. Kate carefully ticked the McKay's name on a list which he had in front of him and, as he looked up again, Count Axel was marched in between two more of his men.

'Count Axel Fersan?' he enquired sharply.

'That is my name,' Count Axel regarded him steadily from beneath lowered lids.

'You, I am sure have heard of Seal and Unman—am I right?'

The Count's face went blank with surprise for a second then he smiled. 'Of course, when I can afford such luxuries I still get my things from them.'

'Do you? In that case my people will probably call you Maud—be seated please.' Despite the cynical jest Mr. Kate's blue eyes remained cold and unsmiling as he ticked off the Count's name on his paper.

The McKay's two captors had disappeared and, after a few moments of almost electric silence, they reappeared with Sally between them.

'Miss Hart I think?' the man behind the desk rose to his feet politely as he asked the question.

Sally stared at him angrily. Her hair was scraped back from her forehead and, below her dressing-gown which she clutched tightly round her, portions of her seductive pyjamas were visible.

'Yes,' she snapped, 'what's the meaning of all this?'

'A little meeting to save you inconvenience tomorrow. Will you be seated—to the left there next to my friend Mr. Slinger. You know each other of course.'

'So he's your friend, eh?' Sally cried bitterly, 'and he's up and dressed so he's let us in for this.' Her glance flashed murder at Slinger, then it fell on the still form of the Roumanian Prince.

'Oh, what have you done to him!' She started forward but Oxford Kate waved her back.

'Don't worry please, Miss Hart. He very foolishly resisted when I sent for him, so my men were compelled to hit him over his thick skull with their rubber truncheons—he will come round in a minute.'

'You brute!' Ignoring his signal she fell on her knees beside Vladimir just as Camilla was brought into the room.

'Kate' turned to her at once. 'La Duchessa Da Solento-Ragina?'

Camilla's face was pale but her eyes were steady. 'What is this?' she asked in a low voice. 'A hold up?'

Vladimir groaned and Camilla, catching sight of Sally 89

bending over him, ran to them without waiting for an answer.

'Oh my poor lamb!' she exclaimed, slipping her arm gently beneath his head.

His painful grimace gave way to a sudden smile. 'Camilla, it is you! 1 was sprung upon too much but to see you safe is my reimburse for all distresses.'

'He was the only one who had the pluck to put up a fight,' said Sally, glancing indignantly at the others.

'My brave Vladimir,' Camilla whispered and, with tears filling her blue eyes for a second, she stooped and kissed him swiftly on the cheek.

'Very pretty,' sneered the big man at the desk. 'Now, if you've quite finished I would be glad if you would give me your attention.'

The two girls stared angrily at him but he motioned to a couple of his men. 'Get the Prince up into a chair and if the ladies won't sit down kindly persuade them.'

As the gunmen advanced Prince Vladimir staggered to his feet unaided and collapsed next to Nicky on the settee. The girls did as they were told without further argument. 'Kate's' eight men took up positions at the entrances of the apartment and he sat down heavily behind the desk again.

For a moment he remained silent, his hard eyes travelling without a flicker of emotion over each of their faces in turn, apparently assessing and registering the qualities of his prisoners, then he said quietly:

'My business concerns only the Duchess, but it occurred to me that if I saw her alone, she would pass on some garbled version of our interview to the rest of you immediately she got the opportunity. It is better therefore that you should hear what I have to say then there can be no excuse for any of you men attempting any heroics under the impression that you can prevent me carrying out my decision regarding her.

'I hope it is obvious to you all that my word is now law on board this ship. Anyone who endeavours to interfere with my wishes will be summarily dealt with. Captain Ardow and his men are in my pay so you need not imagine that you will receive any assistance from the crew——

'Damn it, man!' the McKay broke in, 'this is worse than piracy!'

Thanks,' Oxford Kate snapped with equal sharpness. 'If you are thinking of treating me to a dissertation on the punishment meted out to seafaring criminals at Execution Dock in the years gone by you may save yourself the trouble.'

'It's a kidnapping hold up,' cried Camilla. 'But you're making a big mistake if you think you can extort money from me.'

'I don't,' he replied evenly. 'That would be crude and my plans have been worked out with considerable care. To begin with, you, my dear Duchess, are going to die.'

The effect of his words was electric. The whole party stiffened with a cold positive horror. Camilla went deadly white and clutched at Sally. Axel's thin lips contracted in a sudden spasm, Nicky jerked back his legs and sat forward with staring eyes, while the Prince staggered to his feet and let out a roar like a bull.

One of the gunmen jabbed him in the ribs with an automatic and he fell back with a choking cough on to the settee but, his eyes night-black with rage, he would have struggled up again if the McKay had not held him down by the shoulders from behind for fear that they would shoot him.

'You can't!' cried Sally wildly. 'You can't!—you can't! Oh, you inhuman devil. She—she'll pay—of course she will,' and she threw her arms protectively about Camilla.

'Kate' held up his hand for silence but they refused to heed him. Doctor Tisch's face had gone a deep suffused red, as though he was going to have a fit. 'No bloodshed,' he spluttered, 'no bloodshed. Herr Slinger I appeal to you!'

The McKay released the Prince and stepped from behind him with his chin stuck out. 'Look here,' he said firmly, 'you can't get away with murder on the high seas in these days. Even if you butcher the lot of us, the truth will out, and if your own people don't give you away there are too many hands in the crew for one of them not to split on you. If you think you can make off safely because you've got this ship, you're mistaken. Within a week half the navies in the world will be after you.'

'If you think that I could not kill her and get away with it you are wrong, my gallant Captain.' The fair man suddenly leaned forward across his desk. 'The Duchess, with her well-known love of excitement, has been sufficiently ill-advised to finance Doktor Herman Tisch's expedition for the rediscovery of the lost continent of Atlantis and become a member of it. You would not know it, of course, but the papers in London and New York are already full of wild statements regarding this unusual cruise. I have seen to that. Now the essential portion of the exploration is to be carried out by a series of descents into the ocean depths in Doctor Tisch's bathysphere. The public has been well informed, by my agents via the press, as to the very grave risk attaching to such courageous descents to the ocean bottom. Should some unfortunate accident occur to the bathysphere when the Duchess is in it no one will be the least surprised. The newspapers will run it as a great story for a week and preach delightful sermons about this beautiful and wealthy young woman who so courageously gave her life in the interests of science. After that there will be silence and no one outside this room would ever have cause for the least suspicion that the Duchess had been murdered.'

'You, I imagine, have taken steps to become her heir?' Count Axel suggested quietly.

'Exactly. You are a man of intelligence, Count.'

'What!' barked the McKay. 'You mean to send her below with a time bomb in that damned thing. God man! You're English! You couldn't do it!'

'I kill,' shouted Vladimir lurching to his feet again. 'I stamp out this so low swine.'

The McKay, Axel and Doctor Tisch flung themselves upon him and forced him back before the gunmen could intervene. A storm of horrified protest rose from the others.

'I won't go,' screamed Camilla, 'I won't! I won't!'

'Silence!' 'Kate' brought his fist down with a crash on the desk. 'If you were not excitable and would listen instead of interrupting you would have heard, by this time, my true intention.'

A sudden hush fell among them. The terrifying picture which had been conjured up in all their minds, and made more real by the stony unsmiling determination with which their captor spoke of it in his level cultured voice, had chilled their hearts and frayed all their nerves almost to panic but now, although they could not guess his meaning, something in the tone of his last words seemed to hold a glimmer of hope for Camilla.

'You are far better looking than I had anticipated, he said gazing at her thoughtfully. 'However, that is beside the point. I kill without scruple when it is necessary—but never wantonly—so if you had been old and toothless I would still have had no objection to your living out your natural span—provided of course that you do exactly as I tell you. It is essential for my purpose that, as far as your friends in New York and London are concerned, you should die within a week.'

Count Axel released his breath with a sharp sigh and spoke again. 'You mean that the Duchess is only to die officially?'

'Yes.'

A murmur of intense relief ran round among them as the man behind the desk went on.

'She will die in fact only if she refuses to do as she is told and, in such case you can scream your heads off but, believe me, I'll send her down in the bathysphere and see to it that she never comes up again. What's more I'll send the lot of you with her but, if she signs certain papers in accordance with my directions no one will have anything to fear.'

'You mean her will? asked Axel.

'Yes, that and a letter to her New York lawyer which she must write herself.'

'Then you're planning to rob her of her entire fortune,' exclaimed Sally heatedly.

'Why take two bites at a cherry,' he replied evenly. 'Do I appear to you the ordinary gangster who risks a long term in Sing Sing for the sake of a few thousand dollars. However many fools may sneer at it there is some benefit to be derived from a decent education.' He fingered his 'old school tie' with grim unsmiling humour.

'But what's to become of her if you take all her money?' Sally asked bitterly. 'She—she'll starve.'

He shrugged his broad shoulders. 'Quite a lot of people are starving already through no fault of their own. She has been remarkably fortunate to have had the enjoyment of so much money for so long, and I see no reason at all why she should actually die of hunger. She is doubly lucky in having been blessed with good looks as well as money. I can't take those from her—at least I could—but I have no intention of doing that, so let her utilise them to provide for her future as other women have to.'

'See here,' Nicky remarked, 'that means you'll have to land us all some place sometime, and it's not going to be so funny for you when the police have heard this story.'

'You underrate my intelligence, I fear,' 'Kate' sat back and brought the tips of his square blunt practical fingers together. 'Let me outline for you my intentions regarding this interesting cruise. In a few minutes the Duchess will sign her last will and testament and the letter which I require. I shall take these documents ashore and register them through the ordinary post to New York tomorrow, or rather this morning. That is the last you see of me. The cruise will then proceed as previously arranged under Doctor Tisch's guidance. My men however, will remain on board to assist Captain Ardow in his management of the crew and to make quite certain that none of you communicate by wireless or other means with the authorities on shore or passing vessels. The search for Atlantis will develop entirely as planned. Numerous descents will be made in the bathysphere and my friend Slinger will transmit carefully edited reports of each descent over the radio for the use of the press in both hemispheres. On the seventh day from now, by which time the documents will be in the possession of the Duchess's lawyers, an unfortunate "accident" will occur—at least Slinger will wireless a report of it so that the world will learn from the headlines of its newspapers that the beautiful Duchess and her friends, with the exception of Miss Hart, have lost their lives a mile deep in the ocean—and of course her executors will meet to deal with the instructions in her will. This ship will then return to Horta. Slinger will land and hurry to New York in order to give a personal account of the tragedy and convince the lawyers beyond question that the report is genuine. Further he will state that Miss Hart is so upset by the occurrence that rather than face countless interviews with the press she has decided to be landed at an unknown destination and travel incognito until the public interest in the tragedy has died down.

'Captain Ardow then has his instructions. Having landed Slinger the ship will proceed on a delightful three weeks' cruise to the Falkland Islands. You will all be landed there with a supply of stores sufficient to keep you from starvation. Turning north again the ship will land my men at a small South American port whence they will travel by various means to rejoin me in New York. Captain Ardow will then dispose of this ship at a secret destination. I have never visited the Falklands and I fear that you will find the small uninhabited island upon which we intend to land you a somewhat inhospitable place, but in due course you will doubtless manage to make your way back to civilisation. By that time, however, an ample period will have elapsed for the Duchess's executors to deal with the instructions in her will and, having suitably rewarded my companions, I shall have had an opportunity of distributing her wealth beyond all trace through various intricate channels. Your adventures will probably make a great story for the newspapers in a year or two's time and by then, of course, I shall have disappeared for good and all so that even the underworld of New York will not have the faintest idea as to my whereabouts—any complaints, eh?'

The McKay's face looked grimmer, greyer, and more lined than ever. He knew those barren rock islands that lie to the northward of the Falkland group. It would be no joke to be marooned on one of those with a couple of women. Ships only passed at rare intervals, a year might well elapse before they could attract attention to themselves or build a boat sufficiently seaworthy to carry them across those rough cold seas to one of the larger, inhabited, islands.

Count Axel was seeking for faults in the plan which their round-skulled sprucely dressed captor had outlined but he could find no reason why it should not be carried to completion. The utilisation of the public's interest in Camilla's doings to facilitate his coup was a devilishly ingenious piece of business. Countless newspaper readers in both hemispheres had been following the glamorous career of the beautiful millionairess ever since she came of age. They had glowed to the accounts of her romance with Solento-Ragina, devoured the columns of print upon her wedding, almost indecently lapped up the details of her trousseau and her honeymoon, then of her divorce. There had been rumours since of her marrying again, alternating with articles on her choice of underclothes and hats. Now, Oxford Kate had made her front page news again with the story of this expedition and at the same time made the world Atlantis and bathysphere conscious. Her adventurous nature would be stressed and the dangers of the bathysphere diving grossly exaggerated. During the next week, 20,000,000 people would read Slinger's accounts of their hazardous descents into the deep and then the blow would fall. The news of the accident would be flashed to every city in the world within ten minutes of its first being sent out, and why should it occur to anyone for a second to doubt the truth of it when the ground had been so well prepared. Slinger's personal testimony when he arrived in New York a few days later would set the final seal upon it. Count Axel took off his mental hat to Mr. Kate while hoping profoundly that he might yet devise a way to outwit him.

Nick stood up and faced the desk, his Greek god features distorted to a mask of fury:

'Two years you say before we'll get back to civilisation. To hell with that! I've got important contracts I can't afford to miss—besides what'll my public do without my pictures? You can't know who I am.'

'I know quite well who you are,' 'Kate's' hard passionless stare met the indignant eyes of the crooner, 'and if I have any insolence from you young man, I'll get Captain Ardow to put you on a ten hour job a day shovelling coal in the stokehold.'

Nicky's mouth twisted venomously but he wilted where he stood and flung himself down on the settee again, as 'Kate' turned to Slinger:

'Have you got that draft letter for the Duchess?'

'Here it is, Chief.'

Thanks.' He stood up. 'Now Duchess, will you please come and sit here.'

Camilla shrunk back against Sally. 'No, no,' she muttered, shaking her head. 'No.'

'Let me try and persuade you.'

'It's no use,' she stuttered, 'I can't, I oh—' she broke off suddenly and burst into tears.

'Come. Surely you do not mean to compel me to take extreme measures?' There was a harshness now in 'Kate's' tone which made them all think again those horrifying thoughts which had come to them when they first believed that he meant to kill her. By giving ample opportunity for that fear to sink well into their consciousness while expatiating upon the ease with which he could do it and get away, he had very skilfully prepared his ground; for now, by comparison the loss, even of her entire fortune, seemed only a minor matter and Sally voiced their feelings when she patted Camilla's hands and said:

'Go on, darling. Do as he says. This is an awful business but if you sign the papers at least we'll remain alive.'

That's the ticket, thought the McKay. While there's life there's hope.

'Would you—would you really, Sally?' Camilla asked tearfully.

'I would darling—I certainly would if I were you,' and so, owing to 'Kate's' careful manipulation of the sequence of events Camilla sat down with far less fuss than might have been expected to sign away her fortune.

'This is the letter to your family lawyer whom you call Simon John,' 'Kate' said placing a typed sheet of paper in front of her. 'In so many words it says that in view of the fact that you are setting out today on this expedition, and intend personally to share with others in your party the risk of making numerous descents in the bathysphere, you feel that it is only right to set your affairs in order just in case any unforeseen misfortune should overtake you. There's a little joke about that showing that you think it extremely unlikely. Then you go on to say that you are enclosing a new will embodying your final wishes over which you've been thinking a lot and that the principal alteration in it is owing to your dissatisfaction with the way in which the Hart Institute funds are administered. You add that as it has been drawn up by Mr. Slinger, who did a certain amount of legal work for you in Paris and who of course they know has been handling your personal affairs for the last few months, you feel sure that they will find it all in order. Then there's another little joke about the old man's golf average, and you send your love to that little dog Skip of his you used to be so fond of. It's a nice chatty letter couched as you would write it in ordinary colloquialisms. Now please copy it out in your own hand on this blank piece of headed paper.'

Camilla dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief, then t.f.*.—o 97

took the pen he handed her and commenced to write in a round childish scrawl.

Doctor Tisch suddenly stood up. For some moments past he had been torn between fear and indignation. There was to be no bloodshed after all, it seemed, which was a great weight off his conscience, but what about the other part of the bargain which he had made in order to save his expedition? Surely this criminal could not mean to cheat him after he had made this tremendous coup possible by his complaisance.

'I wish to speak with you,' he shot out at 'Kate'.

'All right—go ahead.'

'With you alone.'

'Sorry. I've no time to give you,' Kate replied curtly.

'But how, if you send me to the Falkland Isles, can I make my great exploration?'

'You'll have a week. You must do your best in that.'

'A week—a week! What is a week after so many years of waiting,' cried the Doctor indignantly. 'Come please 1 must speak with you alone.'

'Anything you have to say you can say quite well here, but you will be wasting your breath anyway so if I were you I should say nothing. You might regret it afterwards.'

The little Doctor's face went a shade deeper purple but after a second he plumped himself down in his chair again. He was caught. He saw that clearly now. They had no intention of carrying out their bargain with him and if he claimed it as a right they would still refuse, while he would have to suffer the ignominy of exposing himself as having been in league with these crooks to bring Camilla to her present pass which, so far at least, had been spared him.

'There 1' cried Camilla throwing down her pen and staring angrily at Kate.

'Thanks,' he picked up the letter and read it through carefully. 'That's all right. Now Slinger, the will.'

Slinger produced a bulky document from an attach^ case and handed it across.

'You're sure it's all in order?' Kate fixed him for a second.

'Certain, Chief. I've vetted it to the last detail and believe me it's a gem for plausibility. That was a great idea of yours having the codicil added. Just the sort of thing Camilla would do to her will the day after she'd made it.'

'Kate' did not reply and they all waited in silence for a good ten minutes while he examined each clause in the lengthy document.

At last he looked up and addressed them again: 'As you heard Slinger say this will has been drawn up with very great care and forethought. A young man who is in the office of the Duchess's lawyer was persuaded to give certain information to an associate of mine. Having been employed clerically on the Duchess's last will, made after her divorce, the particulars he supplied have enabled us to draft this new will on very similar lines. Miss Hart, as you may know, is her only near relative, but all those distant connections who were beneficiaries under the old will retain their interest under this, for similar amounts so far as my informant could remember. Any slight variations are unlikely to cause comment since the Duchess, not having the original before her when she presumably gave Slinger his instructions, would probably not remember all the amounts previously stated. The same remarks apply with regard to legacies to old family servants and present employees. All these have been allowed to stand and the faithful Slinger's name added for a substantial but not spectacular honorarium, which, however, he will unfortunately be compelled to forfeit through not having been in the Duchess's service for three years—a nice touch that. In the matter of the various charities we have again adhered as closely as possible to the Duchess's intentions, the only considerable alteration being that, instead of the residue of her estate, which of course comprises the great bulk of her fortune, going to the Hart Institute, it will pass to the St. Protea Bible and Tract Society. For your information I may add that the Saint Protea Bible and Tract Society has been in existence for some years and its activities are quite beyond reproach. It has been built up at considerable cost and with much care for just such an occasion as this, but it will cease to function a few weeks after this extremely handsome bequest has been paid into its account, because, of course, I am the Saint Protea Bible and Tract Society myself.'