s store of
grain. Sweet water was in other tanks at the other end. In another place
were drugs and samples, and essences of the life of beasts; all these
things being for use whilst the Ark roamed under the guidance of the
Gods on the bosom of the deep. On all the walls of the Ark, and on all
the partitions of the tanks and the other woodwork, there were carved
in the rude art of bygone time representations of all the beasts which
lived in Atlantis; and on these I looked with a hunter's interest, as
some of them were strange to me, and had died out with the men who had
perpetuated them in these sculptures. There was a good store of weapons
too and the tools for handicrafts.

Now, for many weeks, our life endured in this Ark as the Gods drove it
about here and there across the face of the waters. We had no government
over direction; we could not by so much as a hair's breadth a day
increase her speed. The High Gods that had chosen the two of us to be
the only ones saved out of all Atlantis, had sole control of our fate,
and into Their hands we cheerfully resigned our future direction.

Of that land which we reached in due time, and where we made our abiding
place, and where our children were born, I shall tell of in its place;
but since this chronicle has proceeded so far in an exact order of the
events as they came to pass, it is necessary first to narrate how we
came by the sheets on which it is written.

In a great coffer, in the centre of the Ark's floor, the whole of the
Mysteries learned during the study of ages were set down in accurate
writing. I read through some of them during the days which passed, and
the awfulness of the Powers over which they gave control appalled me. I
had seen some of these Powers set loose in Atlantis, and was a witness
of her destruction. But here were Powers far higher than those; here was
the great Secret of Life and Death which Phorenice also had found, and
for which she had been destroyed; and there were other things also of
which I cannot even bring my stylo to scribe.

The thought of being custodian of these writings was more than I could
endure, and the more the matter rested in my mind, the more intolerable
became the burden. And at last I took hot irons, and with them seared
the wax on the sheets till every letter of the old writings was
obliterated. If I did wrong, the High Gods in Their infinite justice
will give me punishment; if it is well that these great secrets should