reatures had thought it was every
one for himself now, till these guards (by their mistress's order)
proved to them that Phorenice still came first.

And in the middle of them, borne in a litter of gold and ivory by her
grotesque European slaves, rode the Empress, still calm, still lovely,
and seemingly divided in her sentiments between contempt and amusement.
Her two children lay in the litter at her feet. On her right hand
marched Tatho gorgeously apparelled, and with a beard curled and plaited
into a thousand ringlets. On the other side, plying her industry with
unruffled defence, walked Ylga, once again fan-girl, and so still second
lady in this dwindling kingdom.

The party of them halted half a score of paces from the Ark by
Phorenice's order. "Do not go nearer to those unclean old men. They
carry a rank odour with them, and for the moment we are short of
essences to sweeten the air of their neighbourhood." She lifted her
eyebrows and looked up at me. "Truly a quiet little gathering of old
acquaintances. Why, there is Deucalion, that once I took the flavour of
and threw aside when he cloyed me."

"I have Nais here," I said, "and presently we two will be all that are
left alive of this nation."

"Nais is quite welcome to my leavings," she laughed. "I will look down
upon your country cooings when presently I go back to the Place behind
the stars from which I came. You are a very rustic person, Deucalion.
They tell me too that three or four of these smelling old men up
here have named you King. Did you swell much with dignity? Or did
you remember that there was a pretty Empress left that would still be
Empress so long as there was an Atlantis to govern? Come, sir, find your
tongue. By my face! you must have hungered for me very madly these years
we have been parted, if new-grown ruggedness of feature is an evidence."

"Have your gibe. I do not gibe back at a woman who presently will die."

"Bah! Deucalion, you will live behind the times. Have they not told you
that I know the Great Secret and am indeed a Goddess now? My arts can
make life run on eternally."

"Then the waters will presently test them hard," I said, but there the
talk was taken into other lips. Zaemon went forward to the front of
the litter with the Symbol of our Lord the Sun glowing in his hand, and
burst into a flow of cursing. It was hard for me to hear his words. The
roar of the waters which poured up over the land, and beat in vast waves
a