They Found Atlantis

Axel took her hand as they strolled slowly past the lake. 'Is the fact that there are six women and six men amongst you just chance,' he asked, 'or do you determine sex as well?'

'Oh, that was all planned long ago—it was one of the first steps. Each of the six women here bears two children—a boy and a girl. Your people will reach that stage of development soon I expect.'

'We are fairly near it now, Axel told her. 'I don't know very much about it but I believe it is a matter of the glands. Tell me, could you have more children if you wanted to?'

'I suppose so—but I've had my two. Danoe, the girl you saw, who is twenty, and Ciston, a boy of eight. Therefore I should never give my will to that again. It would be unutterably wrong.'

For a moment they walked in silence then, as they passed through the vine-covered trellis into the vegetable garden, Axel said: 'No one seems to be working here or in the shops. How is this place cultivated if ten out of twelve of you are asleep and the remaining two laze away the hours in the sunshine?'

'We do not laze,' she said quickly. 'The two of us who are here work for long hours tending our fruit trees, flowers and vegetables. It keeps us healthy and we need little sleep because we get so much at other times. Our only holidays are when two of us fall in love—then we are free to laze together for as long as we like. The arrival of your party is a tremendous event and that is why work has ceased in the last few days. Besides, in addition to the two months' labour each of us puts in to provide our necessities we all return for four fortnights in the year during which we sow and harvest our biannual crops. I enjoy those fortnights—just as I am enjoying all the strangeness of having you here—for it is then that we tell each other of our journeys into distant lands and at the end we have a festival!—a Feast of Love.'

'But I thought you told me that you only had affairs every two years or so?

'The serious ones—yes. Those which I was speaking of grow from flirtations during the period of harvest and generally end quite naturally at the Feast—but in them often lies the seed of deep attraction which leads to a more lasting attachment sometimes of months.'

She suddenly caught sight of his face and began to laugh. 'I believe you are shocked,' she said. 'I forgot that the ideas of your people are as ours were before the Flood I'

'I'm not shocked,' he countered her teasing, 'but it is all so strange. Most upper-world people could call you an immoral baggage, but after all it is quite natural to you and nothing,' he added seriously, 'which is natural can be immoral.'

'Only anger and the giving of pain are immoral,' declared Lulluma firmly, 'and, after all there are only six men here to choose from—I'm sure you've known at least a dozen women?'

'Quite,' Axel went so far as to admit, 'but don't let's go into that.'

'Why not?' she asked curiously. 'If we are going to spend a lot of time together it will give us some amusing and" interesting subjects to discuss.'

'I suppose there's no reason why we shouldn't but I was¹ brought up in the tradition that one might kiss a lot—but never tell I'

'We are not jealous as your women are, so it could do no harm among us, and any confidences you make to me can never reach the upper world because none of you will ever be able to return.'

He sighed happily and put his arm round her shoulders again. 'That is not a distressing thought—in fact I am convinced that I have been waiting all my life for the moment when I should meet you in this garden.'

Lulluma smiled up into his eyes and he caught his breath in wonder at her loveliness as she asked: 'Would you be content to stay here making love a little—working regularly —talking a lot?'

'My dear,' he said and put his hands behind his back. Me 273

felt that he was treading on sacred ground and must be careful not to make the smallest slip which might dash all the great hopes which had risen in him like an overpowering force since he had walked and talked with Lulluma in the Garden.

'My dear,' he said again, 'what more could one do if one had all the upper world to do it in and were a millionaire besides? There, one is beset with constant cares. If you possess no property you go hungry and if you own land or business interests life is one constant war to defend them from others who would take them from you. Here all causes of worry seem to have been eliminated. You have enough work to keep you healthy but no more and interests and food enough for all. What mortal who had eyes to see and understanding could ever wish to leave this Garden of the Gods?'

Lulluma stretched out her hand and put two cool fingers on his forehead. She seemed to listen for a moment and then she took her hand away and said: 'It is strange but you are, I believe, one of us in spirit—I am glad 1 But your friends —some of them are as different from you as we are from the creatures of the depths. I fear they will make themselves miserable by always craving to get back.'

'I had thought of that too,' acknowledged Axel, and his face clouded. 'I wonder if any of them have woken yet?'

'If so Nahou will look after them—or Rahossis.'

'Who is Rahossis?'

'My mother. She returned from a journey two days ago. She is very beautiful and very gay—red-haired and statuesque—and in the full bloom of her beauty—you will imagine her to be about thirty-two—but really she has lived many more years than that. She is twelve years younger than Quet, the son of Nahou, who was my father, and twelve years older than Peramon, who was the father of my first child Danoe.'

They reached the palm grove and, walking through it, came round the miniature golden temple to find that only Nicky and Vladimir were still asleep. Camilla and Sally had disappeared while the McKay and Doctor Tisch, with only trousers on, sat side by side on the grass near the bathing pool. Their coats were now covering—or partially so—the middle portions of the bodies of their still sleeping friends.

As the McKay's glance fell on the Count, arm in arm with Luiluma and dressed only in a short airy green tunic he clutched the Doctor's arm and exclaimed in a horrified voice:

'Good God 1 Look at Axel—he's gone native.'

The Doctor scratched his bristly head and laughed guttur-ally. He was still vaguely wondering where all this was going to end. It had not yet penetrated to his mind that those great stones he had discovered on the ocean bed were only the ghosts of a past Atlantis, whereas here, he was seated in the very heart of that long dead civilisation which it had been his life's ambition to find.

'Well, how are you both feeling?' Axel asked as he came up. 'I see you've both had a bath and a shave and are looking years younger already so your long sleep must have done you good.'

'Oh, I'm feeling all right,' the McKay agreed guardedly, 'and Mr. Nahou has been kindness itself although when I agreed to him putting me to sleep I didn't know it was to be for a week!'

Axel's lazy smile flitted across his face. 'We should all be most distressed, I know,' he said, 'if that has caused you to miss any important engagements.'

'Eh?—Ohl' the McKay's friendly grin appeared. 'You've caught me out there, Count—but I find it a little difficult to get the hang of our new quarters and he wanted me to put on one of those fancy dress affairs you are wearing. Well, no offence, but I thought that was a trifle thick!'