priest nor scribe to join us and set down
the union. I am the law here in Atlantis, and you soon will be part of
me. We will not be demeaned by profaner hands. We will make the ceremony
for ourselves, and for witnesses, there are sufficient in waiting.
Afterwards, the record shall be cut deep in the granite throne you have
built for me, and the lettering filled in with gold, so that it shall
endure and remain bright for always."

"The Empress can do no wrong," I said formally, and took the hand she
offered me, and helped her to rise. We walked out from the scarlet
awning into the glare of the sunshine, she leaning on me, flushing, and
so radiantly lovely that the people began to hail her with rapturous
shouts of "A Goddess; our Goddess Phorenice." But for me they had no
welcoming word. I think the set grimness of my face both scared and
repelled them.

We went up the steps which led to the throne, the people still shouting,
and I sat her in the royal seat beneath the snake's outstretched head,
and she drew me down to sit beside her.

She raised her jewelled hand, and a silence fell on that great throng,
as though the breath had been suddenly cut short for all of them.

Then Phorenice made proclamation:

"Hear me, O my people, and hear me, O High Gods from whom I am come.
I take this man Deucalion, to be my husband, to share with me the
prosperity of Atlantis, and join me in guarding our great possession.
May all our enemies perish as she is now perishing above whom we sit."
And then she put her arms around my neck, and kissed me hotly on the
mouth.

In turn I also spoke: "Hear me, O most High Gods, whose servant I am,
and hear me also, O ye people. I take this Empress, Phorenice, to
wife, to help with her the prosperity of Atlantis, and join with her in
guarding the welfare of that great possession. May all the enemies of
this country perish as they have perished in the past."

And then, I too, who had not been permitted by the fate to touch the
lips of my love, bestowed the first kiss I had ever given woman to
Phorenice, that was now being made my wife.

But we were not completely linked yet.

"A woman is one, and man is one," she proclaimed, following for the
first time the old form of words, "but in marriage they merge, so that
wife and husband are no more separate, but one conjointly. In token of
this we will now make the symbolic joining together, so that all may see
and remember." She took her dagger, a