The Lost Continent

C >> C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne >> The Lost Continent

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THE LOST
CONTINENT

C. J. Cutliffe Hyne

CONTENTS

PREFATORY: THE LEGATEES OF DEUCALION
1 MY RECALL
2 BACK TO ATLANTIS
3 A RIVAL NAVY
4 THE WELCOME OF PHORENICE
5 ZAEMON'S CURSE
6 THE BITERS OF THE CITY WALLS
7 THE BITERS OF THE WALLS
(FURTHER ACCOUNT)
8 THE PREACHER FROM THE MOUNTAINS
9 PHORENICE, GODDESS
10 A WOOING
11 AN AFFAIR WITH THE BARBAROUS FISHERS
12 THE DRUG OF OUR LADY THE MOON
13 THE BURYING ALIVE OF NAIS
14 AGAIN THE GODS MAKE CHANGE
15 ZAEMON'S SUMMONS
16 SIEGE OF THE SACRED MOUNTAIN
17 NAIS THE REGAINED
18 STORM OF THE SACRED MOUNTAIN
19 DESTRUCTION OF THE ATLANTIS
20 ON THE BOSOM OF THE DEEP

PREFATORY:

THE LEGATEES OF DEUCALION

We were both of us not a little stiff as the result of
sleeping out in the open all that night, for even in Grand Canary
the dew-fall and the comparative chill of darkness are not to be
trifled with. For myself on these occasions I like a bit of a run
as an early refresher. But here on this rough ground in the middle
of the island there were not three yards of level to be found, and
so as Coppinger proceeded to go through some sort of dumb-bell
exercises with a couple of lumps of bristly lava, I followed his
example. Coppinger has done a good deal of roughing it in his
time, but being a doctor of medicine amongst other things--he takes
out a new degree of some sort on an average every other year--he is
great on health theories, and practises them like a religion.

There had been rain two days before, and as there was still a
bit of stream trickling along at the bottom of the barranca, we
went down there and had a wash, and brushed our teeth. Greatest
luxury imaginable, a toothbrush, on this sort of expedition.

"Now," said Coppinger when we had emptied our pockets,
"there's precious little grub left, and it's none the better for
being carried in a local Spanish newspaper."

"Yours is mostly tobacco ashes."

"It'll get worse if we leave it. We've a lot more bad
scrambling ahead of us."

That was obvious. So we sat down beside the stream there at
the bottom of the barranca, and ate up all of what was left. It
was a ten-mile tramp to the fonda at Santa Brigida, where we had
set down our traps; and as Coppinger wanted to take a lot more
photographs and measurements before we left this particular group
of caves, it was likely we should be pretty sharp set before we got
our next meal, and our next taste of the PATRON'S splendid
old country wine. My faith! If only they knew down in the English
hotels in Las Palmas what magnificent wines one could get--with
diplomacy--up in some of the mountain villages, the old vintage
would become a thing of the past in a week.

Now to tell the truth, the two mummies he had gathered already
quite satisfied my small ambition. The goatskins in which they
were sewn up were as brittle as paper, and the poor old things
themselves gave out dust like a puffball whenever they were
touched. But you know what Coppinger is. He thought he'd come
upon traces of an old Guanche university, or sacred college, or
something of that kind, like the one there is on the other side of
the island, and he wouldn't be satisfied till he'd ransacked every
cave in the whole face of the cliff. He'd plenty of stuff left for
the flashlight thing, and twenty-eight more films in his kodak, and
said we might as well get through with the job then as make a
return journey all on purpose. So he took the crowbar, and I
shouldered the rope, and away we went up to the ridge of the cliff,
where we had got such a baking from the sun the day before.

Of course these caves were not easy to come at, or else they
would have been raided years before. Coppinger, who on principle
makes out he knows all about these things, says that in the old
Guanche days they had ladders of goatskin rope which they could
pull up when they were at home, and so keep out undesirable
callers; and as no other plan occurs to me, perhaps he may be
right. Anyway the mouths of the caves were in a more or less level
row thirty feet below the ridge of the cliff, and fifty feet above
the bottom; and Spanish curiosity doesn't go in much where it
cannot walk.

Now laddering such caves from below would have been cumbersome,
but a light knotted rope is easily carried, and though it would
have been hard to climb up this, our plan was to descend on
each cave mouth from above, and then slip down to the foot of
the cliffs, and start again AB INITIO for the next.

Coppinger is plucky enough, and he has a good head on a height,
but there is no getting over the fact that he is portly and
nearer fifty than forty-five. So you can see he must have been
pretty keen. Of course I went first each time, and got into the
cave mouth, and did what I could to help him in; but when you have
to walk down a vertical cliff face fly-fashion, with only a thin
bootlace of a rope for support, it is not much real help the man
below can give, except offer you his best wishes.

I wanted to save him as much as I could, and as the first three
caves I climbed to were small and empty, seeming to be merely
store-places, I asked him to take them for granted, and save
himself the rest. But he insisted on clambering down to each one
in person, and as he decided that one of my granaries was a prison,
and another a pot-making factory, and another a schoolroom for
young priests, he naturally said he hadn't much reliance on my
judgment, and would have to go through the whole lot himself. You
know what these thorough-going archaeologists are for imagination.

But as the day went on, and the sun rose higher, Coppinger began
clearly to have had enough of it, though he was very game, and
insisted on going on much longer than was safe. I must say I
didn't like it. You see the drop was seldom less than eighty feet
from the top of the cliffs. However, at last he was forced to give
it up. I suggested marching off to Santa Brigida forthwith, but he
wouldn't do that. There were three more cave-openings to be looked
into, and if I wouldn't do them for him, he would have to make
another effort to get there himself. He tried to make out he was
conferring a very great favour on me by offering to take a report
solely from my untrained observation, but I flatly refused to look
at it in that light. I was pretty tired also; I was soaked with
perspiration from the heat; my head ached from the violence of the
sun; and my hands were cut raw with the rope.

Coppinger might be tired, but he was still enthusiastic. He
tried to make me enthusiastic also. "Look here," he said, "there's
no knowing what you may find up there, and if you do lay hands on
anything, remember it's your own. I shall have no claim whatever."

"Very kind of you, but I've got no use for any more mummies done
up in goatskin bags."

"Bah! That's not a burial cave up there. Don't you know the
difference yet in the openings? Now, be a good fellow. It doesn't
follow that because we have drawn all the rest blank, you won't
stumble across a good find for yourself up there."

"Oh, very well," I said, as he seemed so set on it; and away I
stumbled over the fallen rocks, and along the ledge, and then
scrambled up by that fissure in the cliff which saved us the
two-mile round which we had had to take at first. I wrenched out
the crowbar, and jammed it down in a new place, and then away I
went over the side, with hands smarting worse at every new grip of
the rope. It was an awkward job swinging into the cave mouth
because the rock above overhung, or else (what came to the same
thing) it had broken away below; but I managed it somehow, although
I landed with an awkward thump on my back, and at the same time I
didn't let go the rope. It wouldn't do to have lost the rope then:
Coppinger couldn't have flicked it into me from where he was below.

Now from the first glance I could see that this cave was of
different structure to the others. They were for the most part
mere dens, rounded out anyhow; this had been faced up with cutting
tools, so that all the angles were clean, and the sides smooth and
flat. The walls inclined inwards to the roof, reminding me of an
architecture I had seen before but could not recollect where, and
moreover there were several rooms connected up with passages. I
was pleased to find that the other cave-openings which Coppinger
wanted me to explore were merely the windows or the doorways of two
of these other rooms.

Of inscriptions or markings on the walls there was not a trace,
though I looked carefully, and except for bats the place was
entirely bare. I lit a cigarette and smoked it through--Coppinger
always thinks one is slurring over work if it is got through too
quickly--and then I went to the entrance where the rope was, and
leaned out, and shouted down my news.

He turned up a very anxious face. "Have you searched it
thoroughly?" he bawled back.

"Of course I have. What do you think I've been doing all this
time?"

"No, don't come down yet. Wait a minute. I say, old man, do
wait a minute. I'm making fast the kodak and the flashlight
apparatus on the end of the rope. Pull them up, and just make me
half a dozen exposures, there's a good fellow."

"Oh, all right," I said, and hauled the things up, and got them
inside. The photographs would be absolutely dull and
uninteresting, but that wouldn't matter to Coppinger. He rather
preferred them that way. One has to be careful about halation in
photographing these dark interiors, but there was a sort of ledge
like a seat by the side of each doorway, and so I lodged the camera
on that to get a steady stand, and snapped off the flashlight from
behind and above.

I got pictures of four of the chambers this way, and then came
to one where the ledge was higher and wider. I put down the
camera, wedged it level with scraps of stone, and then sat down
myself to recharge the flashlight machine. But the moment my
weight got on that ledge, there was a sharp crackle, and down I
went half a dozen inches.

Of course I was up again pretty sharply, and snapped up the
kodak just as it was going to slide off to the ground. I will
confess, too, I was feeling pleased. Here at any rate was a
Guanche cupboard of sorts, and as they had taken the trouble to
hermetically seal it with cement, the odds were that it had
something inside worth hiding. At first there was nothing to be
seen but a lot of dust and rubble, so I lit a bit of candle and
cleared this away. Presently, however, I began to find that I was
shelling out something that was not cement. It chipped away, in
regular layers, and when I took it to the daylight I found that
each layer was made up of two parts. One side was shiny staff that
looked like talc, and on this was smeared a coating of dark toffee-
coloured material, that might have been wax. The toffee-coloured
surface was worked over with some kind of pattern.

Now I do not profess to any knowledge on these matters, and as
a consequence took what Coppinger had told me about Guanche habits
and acquirements as more or less true. For instance, he had
repeatedly impressed upon me that this old people could not write,
and having this in my memory, I did not guess that the patterns
scribed through the wax were letters in some obsolete character,
which, if left to myself, probably I should have done. But still
at the same time I came to the conclusion that the stuff was worth
looting, and so set to work quarrying it out with the heel of my
boot and a pocket-knife.

The sheets were all more or less stuck together, and so I did not
go in for separating them farther. They fitted exactly to the
cavity in which they were stored, but by smashing down its front I
was able to get at the foot of them, and then I hacked away through
the bottom layers with the knife till I got the bulk out in one
solid piece. It measured some twenty inches by fifteen, by
fifteen, but it was not so heavy as it looked, and when I had taken
the remaining photographs, I lowered it down to Coppinger on the
end of the rope.

There was nothing more to do in the caves then, so I went down
myself next. The lump of sheets was on the ground, and Coppinger
was on all fours beside it. He was pretty nearly mad with
excitement.

"What is it?" I asked him.

"I don't know yet. But it is the most valuable find ever made
in the Canary Islands, and it's yours, you unappreciative beggar;
at least what there is left of it. Oh, man, man, you've smashed up
the beginning, and you've smashed up the end of some history that
is probably priceless. It's my own fault. I ought to have known
better than set an untrained man to do important exploring work."

"I should say it's your fault if anything's gone wrong. You
said there was no such thing as writing known to these ancient
Canarios, and I took your word for it. For anything I knew the
stuff might have been something to eat."

"It isn't Guanche work at all," said he testily. "You ought to
have known that from the talc. Great heavens, man, have you no
eyes? Haven't you seen the general formation of the island? Don't
you know there's no talc here?"

"I'm no geologist. Is this imported literature then?"

"Of course. It's Egyptian: that's obvious at a glance. Though
how it's got here I can't tell yet. It isn't stuff you can read
off like a newspaper. The character's a variant on any of those
that have been discovered so far. And as for this waxy stuff
spread over the talc, it's unique. It's some sort of a mineral, I
think: perhaps asphalt. It doesn't scratch up like animal wax.
I'll analyse that later. Why they once invented it, and then let
such a splendid notion drop out of use, is just a marvel. I could
stay gloating over this all day."

"Well," I said, "if it's all the same for you, I'd rather gloat
over a meal. It's a good ten miles hard going to the fonda,
and I'm as hungry as a hawk already. Look here, do you know it is
four o'clock already? It takes longer than you think climbing down
to each of these caves, and then getting up again for the next."

Coppinger spread his coat on the ground, and wrapped the lump
of sheets with tender care, but would not allow it to be tied with
a rope for fear of breaking more of the edges. He insisted on
carrying it himself too, and did so for the larger part of the way
to Santa Brigida, and it was only when he was within an ace of
dropping himself with sheer tiredness that he condescended to let
me take my turn. He was tolerably ungracious about it too. "I
suppose you may as well carry the stuff," he snapped, "seeing that
after all it's your own."

Personally, when we got to the fonda, I had as good a dinner
as was procurable, and a bottle of that old Canary wine, and turned
into bed after a final pipe. Coppinger dined also, but I have
reason to believe he did not sleep much. At any rate I found him
still poring over the find next morning, and looking very heavy-
eyed, but brimming with enthusiasm.

"Do you know," he said, "that you've blundered upon the most
valuable historical manuscript that the modern world has ever yet
seen? Of course, with your clumsy way of getting it out, you've
done an infinity of damage. For instance, those top sheets you
shelled away and spoiled, contained probably an absolutely unique
account of the ancient civilisation of Yucatan."

"Where's that, anyway?"

"In the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. It's all ruins to-day,
but once it was a very prosperous colony of the Atlanteans."

"Never heard of them. Oh yes, I have though. They were the
people Herodotus wrote about, didn't he? But I thought they were
mythical."

"They were very real, and so was Atlantis, the continent where
they lived, which lay just north of the Canaries here."

"What's that crocodile sort of thing with wings drawn in the
margin?"

"Some sort of beast that lived in those bygone days. The pages
are full of them. That's a cave-tiger. And that's some sort
of colossal bat. Thank goodness he had the sense to illustrate
fully, the man who wrote this, or we should never have been able to
reconstruct the tale, or at any rate we could not have understood
half of it. Whole species have died out since this was written,
just as a whole continent has been swept away and three
civilisations quenched. The worst of it is, it was written by a
highly-educated man who somewhat naturally writes a very bad fist.
I've hammered at it all the night through, and have only managed to
make out a few sentences here and there"--he rubbed his hands
appreciatively. "It will take me a year's hard work to translate
this properly."

"Every man to his taste. I'm afraid my interest in the thing
wouldn't last as long as that. But how did it get there? Did your
ancient Egyptian come to Grand Canary for the good of his lungs,
and write it because he felt dull up in that cave?"

"I made a mistake there. The author was not an Egyptian. It
was the similarity of the inscribed character which misled me. The
book was written by one Deucalion, who seems to have been a priest
or general--or perhaps both--and he was an Atlantean. How it got
there, I don't know yet. Probably that was told in the last few
pages, which a certain vandal smashed up with his pocketknife, in
getting them away from the place where they were stowed."

"That's right, abuse me. Deucalion you say? There was a
Deucalion in the Greek mythology. He was one of the two who
escaped from the Flood: their Noah, in fact."

"The swamping of the continent of Atlantis might very well
correspond to the Flood."

"Is there a Pyrrha then? She was Deucalion's wife."

"I haven't come across her yet. But there's a Phorenice, who
may be the same. She seems to have been the reigning Empress, as
far as I can make out at present."

I looked with interest at illustrations in the margin. They
were quite understandable, although the perspective was all wrong.
"Weird beasts they seem to have had knocking about the country in
those days. Whacking big size too, if one may judge. By Jove,
that'll be a cave-tiger trying to puff down a mammoth. I shouldn't
care to have lived in those days."

"Probably they had some way of fighting the creatures.
However, that will show itself as I get along with the
translation." He looked at his watch--"I suppose I ought to be
ashamed of myself, but I haven't been to bed. Are you going out?"

"I shall drive back to Las Palmas. I promised a man to have a
round at golf this afternoon."

"Very well, see you at dinner. I hope they've sent back my dress
shirts from the wash. O, lord! I am sleepy."

I left him going up to bed, and went outside and ordered a
carriage to take me down, and there I may say we parted for a
considerable time. A cable was waiting for me in the hotel at Las
Palmas to go home for business forthwith, and there was a Liverpool
boat in the harbour which I just managed to catch as she was
steaming out. It was a close thing, and the boatmen made a small
fortune out of my hurry.

Now Coppinger was only an hotel acquaintance, and as I was up to
the eyes in work when I got back to England, I'm afraid I didn't
think very much more about him at the time. One doesn't with
people one just meets casually abroad like that. And it must have
been at least a year later that I saw by a paragraph in one of the
papers, that he had given the lump of sheets to the British Museum,
and that the estimated worth of them was ten thousand pounds at the
lowest valuation.

Well, this was a bit of revelation, and as he had so repeatedly
impressed on me that the things were mine by right of discovery,
I wrote rather a pointed note to him mentioning that he seemed to
have been making rather free with my property. Promptly came
back a stilted letter beginning, "Doctor Coppinger regrets" and so
on, and with it the English translation of the wax-upon-talc
MSS. He "quite admitted" my claim, and "trusted that the profits
of publication would be a sufficient reimbursement for any damage
received."

Now I had no idea that he would take me unpleasantly like this,
and wrote back a pretty warm reply to that effect; but the only
answer I got to this was through a firm of solicitors, who stated
that all further communications with Dr. Coppinger must be made
through them.

I will say here publicly that I regret the line he has taken
over the matter; but as the affair has gone so far, I am disposed
to follow out his proposition. Accordingly the old history is here
printed; the credit (and the responsibility) of the translation
rests with Dr. Coppinger; and whatever revenue accrues from
readers, goes to the finder of the original talc-upon-wax sheets,
myself.

If there is a further alteration in this arrangement, it will
be announced publicly at a later date. But at present this appears
to be most unlikely.

1. MY RECALL

The public official reception was over. The sentence had been
read, the name of Phorenice, the Empress, adored, and the new
Viceroy installed with all that vast and ponderous ceremonial which
had gained its pomp and majesty from the ages. Formally, I had
delivered up the reins of my government; formally, Tatho had seated
himself on the snake-throne, and had put over his neck the chain of
gems which symbolised the supreme office; and then, whilst the
drums and the trumpets made their proclamation of clamour, he had
risen to his feet, for his first state progress round that gilded
council chamber as Viceroy of the Province of Yucatan.

With folded arms and bended head, I followed him between the
glittering lines of soldiers, and the brilliant throng of
courtiers, and chiefs, and statesmen. The roof-beams quivered to
the cries of "Long Live Tatho!" "Flourish the Empress!" which came
forth as in duty bound, and the new ruler acknowledged the welcome
with stately inclinations of the head. In turn he went to the
three lesser thrones of the lesser governors--in the East, the
North, and the South, and received homage from each as the ritual
was; and I, the man whom his coming had deposed, followed with the
prescribed meekness in his train.

It was a hard task, but we who hold the higher offices learn
to carry before the people a passionless face. Once, twenty years
before, these same fine obeisances had been made to me; now the
Gods had seen fit to make fortune change. But as I walked bent and
humbly on behind the heels of Tatho, though etiquette forbade noisy
salutations to myself, it could not inhibit kindly glances, and
these came from every soldier, every courtier, and every chief who
stood there in that gilded hall, and they fell upon me very
gratefully. It is not often the fallen meet such tender looks.

The form goes, handed down from immemorial custom, that on
these great ceremonial days of changing a ruler, those of the
people being present may bring forward petitions and requests; may
make accusations against their retiring head with sure immunity
from his vengeance; or may state their own private theories for the
better government of the State in the future. I think it may be
pardoned to my vanity if I record that not a voice was raised
against me, or against any of the items of my twenty years of rule.
Nor did any speak out for alterations in the future. Yes, even
though we made the circuit for the three prescribed times, all
present showed their approval in generous silence.

Then, one behind the other, the new Viceroy and the old, we
marched with formal step over golden tiles of that council hall
beneath the pyramid, and the great officers of state left their
stations and joined in our train; and at the farther wall we came
to the door of those private chambers which an hour ago had been
mine own.

Ah, well! I had no home now in any of those wondrous cities
of Yucatan, and I could not help feeling a bitterness, though in
sooth I should have been thankful enough to return to the Continent
of Atlantis with my head still in its proper station.

Tatho gave his formal summons of "Open ye to the Viceroy,"
which the ritual commands, and the slaves within sent the massive
stone valves of the door gaping wide. Tatho entered, I at his
heels; the others halted, sending valedictions from the threshold;
and the valves of the door clanged on the lock behind us. We
passed on to the chamber beyond, and then, when for the first time
we were alone together, and the forced etiquette of courts was
behind us, the new Viceroy turned with meekly folded arms, and
bowed low before me.

"Deucalion," he said, "believe me that I have not sought this
office. It was thrust upon me. Had I not accepted, my head would
have paid forfeit, and another man--your enemy--would have been
sent out as viceroy in your place. The Empress does not permit
that her will shall ever be questioned."

"My friend," I made answer, "my brother in all but blood,
there is no man living in all Atlantis or her territories to whom
I had liefer hand over my government. For twenty years now have I
ruled this country of Yucatan, and Mexico beyond, first under the
old King, and then as minister to this new Empress. I know my
colony like a book. I am intimate with all her wonderful cities,
with their palaces, their pyramids, and their people. I have
hunted the beasts and the savages in the forests. I have built
roads, and made the rivers so that they will carry shipping. I
have fostered the arts and crafts like a merchant; I have
discoursed, three times each day, the cult of the Gods with mine
own lips. Through evil years and through good have I ruled here,
striving only for the prosperity of the land and the strengthening
of Atlantis, and I have grown to love the peoples like a father.
To you I bequeath them, Tatho, with tender supplications for their
interests."

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