ed apparently in some Egypt of her dreams. Her
interest was neither historical, archaeological, nor political. It was
religious--yet hardly of this earth at all. The conversation turned upon
the knowledge of the ancient Egyptians from an unearthly point of view,
and even while he talked he was vaguely aware that it was _her_ mind
talking through his own. She drew out his ideas and made him say them.
But this he was properly aware of only afterwards--that she had
cleverly, mercilessly pumped him of all he had ever known or read upon
the subject. Moreover, what Vance watched so intently was himself, and
the reactions in himself this remarkable woman produced. That also he
realised later.

His first impression that these two belonged to what may be called the
"crank" order was justified by the conversation. But, at least, it was
interesting crankiness, and the belief behind it made it even
fascinating. Long before the end he surprised in her a more vital form
of his own attitude that anything _may_ be true, since knowledge has
never yet found final answers to any of the biggest questions.

He understood, from sentences dropped early in the talk, that she was
among those few "superstitious" folk who think that the old Egyptians
came closer to reading the eternal riddles of the world than any
others, and that their knowledge was a remnant of that ancient Wisdom
Religion which existed in the superb, dark civilization of the sunken
Atlantis, lost continent that once joined Africa to Mexico. Eighty
thousand years ago the dim sands of Poseidonis, great island adjoining
the main continent which itself had vanished a vast period before, sank
down beneath the waves, and the entire known world to-day was descended
from its survivors.

Hence the significant fact that all religions and "mythological" systems
begin with a story of a flood--some cataclysmic upheaval that destroyed
the world. Egypt itself was colonised by a group of Atlantean priests
who brought their curious, deep knowledge with them. They had foreseen
the cataclysm.

Lady Statham talked well, bringing into her great dream this strong,
insistent quality of belief and fact. She knew, from Plato to Donelly,
all that the minds of men have ever speculated upon the gorgeous legend.
The evidence for such a sunken continent--Henriot had skimmed it too in
years gone by--she made bewilderingly complete. He had heard Baconians
demolish Shakespeare with an array of evidence eq