The day was declining slowly; in an hour or so the sun would descend into the sea and the darkness of night would envelop Atlantis. Already the giant shadow of Bol-Gho was elongating, projecting a delightful coolness over the royal residence.
The new flower-beds extended between the palace and the edge of the cliff; subterranean conduits distributed water there from superior springs. Rapid and thin jets sprang up radiantly, scattering in fine dew beneath the hands of the slave gardeners, falling back upon the leaves with a soft noise. Penetrating aromas were emitted by reanimated corollas. Sparkling birds traversed the pluvious sprays, drinking on the wing under the quivering downpour, glittering like gems.
At the entrance to the path to the beach, Ortiz straightened up, cocking an ear. Musical laughter rose up to him, mingled with the rhythmic rise and fall of the waves. The young women, having gone down, were bathing, sheltered from any indiscretion and all peril.
The Queen made a sign to Ruslem to follow her in silence, and, going past the immobile equerry, set forth along the zigzags of the path.
The area uncovered at the foot of the cliff was revealed to be larger than one would have believed at the summit. A few trees grew there among the rocks; the sea only cast gentle waves upon the shore there, a feeble echo of its tumults. An accumulation of blocks of stone, forming a kind of cavern half-invaded by the waves, provided the modesty of the bathers with a comfortable and secure refuge.
A few paces higher up, at a turning of the path, a projecting platform permitted a view of the ensemble. The Queen and Ruslem paused momentarily. The laughter rang out close at hand; the young woman’s extended hand pointed out in the water the delicate heads, the brown hair and the gilded shoulders of the swimmers, whose pure forms were barely visible beneath the wavelets.
“Come, my Father,” said the Queen, “and have no fear of embarrassing them; they’ll emerge from the water into the grotto, where they’ll recover their garments.”
The last turnings, hollowed out in the rock, only permitted a view of the sky. Silence reigned briefly. The walls of the corridor emitted a heavy warmth into the motionless air. Abruptly, the passage broadened out. The granite of the ground gave way to fine sand. The sea breeze struck the strollers in the face.
At the same instant, shrill cries, a clamor of panic, and the breathless rumor of frightened running took them by surprise.
Bounding, disheveled, naked or scarcely veiled by the first garment that came to hand, the bathers were fleeing, passing by without even seeing them, plunging pell-mell into the narrow defile where their delicate feet were already being bloodied. Yerra’s hand, advanced to intercept them, had only seized a floating scarf, snatched away suddenly in a cry of terror. The rocky corridor received them, stifled their voices and the hectic gallop of the terror-stricken flock.
Ruslem uttered a cry of anguish: “Soroé!”
“She wasn’t there,” said the Queen, whose tone did not betray any emotion. “The danger, if it exists, is in front of us. Come!”
They hastened their pace. The grotto, broadly open to the sea, only offered a restricted entrance from the shore, masked by the rubble through which the path snaked. There, again, the view was limited, the silence profound.
Ruslem, quivering with anguish, called out to the young woman with all his might.
“She’s replied!” said the Queen.
The echoes of the cliff had not finished sending back the sonorous syllables when a formidable racket went upon, followed by the noise of shifted pebbles, a kind of enormous friction against the rocks. One of them, which ten men could not have shifted, suddenly oscillated, rocking on its base, and fell raising a cloud of dust. A monstrous form appeared, seeking a passage between the blocks, the narrow intervals of which were slowing its progress.
A frisson ran through the priest’s veins. This time, Yerra paled, while the same phrase came to their lips: “A Guardian of the Threshold!”
But already, the Queen had collected herself.
“Silence!” she murmured, in a breath, in Ruslem’s ear. “It hasn’t seen us. It isn’t us for whom it’s searching. Perhaps it will go away.”
The hot breath of the animal sniffing the ground, its comings and goings along the path followed by the bathers, seemed for a moment to confirm that hope.
It had doubtless escaped from the subterrains of the temple, where the priests, by immemorial custom, nourished one or two couples of its almost-extinct species. Argall, in heroic times, had exterminated the race throughout Atlantis, with the exception of a few inaccessible gorges of Bol-Gho. Two of the strongest, captured alive, with collars around their necks and retained by bronze chains, had replaced the guard-dogs at the gates of his palace for a long time: the “guardians of the threshold,” symbols of vanquished scourges tamed by the virtue of the Sword; and the name had stuck.
Now, it was in honor of the cruel gods that the stupid colossi with gray fur and the hideous muzzles were maintained. They could fell the most robust bull with a flick of the paw. Willingly satisfied by fruits and roots, they were rendered ferocious by hunger, captivity and blows in order only to show them to the people furious, sharpening their trenchant claws, clicking their formidable fangs in the expectation of horrible feasts. If one of them chanced to escape it was a public calamity, for their quality as sacred animals did not permit anyone, under pain of death, to employ a spear or sword against them. It was necessary to wait for hunger or some choice bait to bring them back of their own accord, or, as a last resort, to permit them to be caught in nets woven in rope, which their rage, scarcely mastered, had broken more than once, sowing fear and death.
This one must have broken its chain a few hours ago, at the most, for the alarm had not been raised; the bestiaries, in such cases, were never in a hurry to advertise their negligence, A few metal links were still hanging from its neck, clinking against the stones from time to time. Its body, long and low on its legs, was twice the size of a buffalo. In spite of its apparent heaviness, it was necessary not to hope to outdistance it running over open terrain; the bathers would certainly not have avoided its attack if it had been able to disengage itself sooner from the labyrinth of fallen rocks.
Ruslem and the Queen could not retrace their steps without coming within range of the claws, but already its sense of smell, more capable than its sight, had revealed the proximity of a prey or an enemy. Raising its head, it sniffed the air for some time, uttered a coarse growl, tested the resistance of a mass of granite with a shove, and, finding it immovable, set about moving around it.
“Can you see any means of getting away from it?” the Queen asked Ruslem, without a quiver, but with the consciousness of a mortal, almost inevitable, peril.
“The grotto?”
“It would follow us in.”
“The sea?”
“It can swim better than us.”
The priest made a gesture of resignation. Perhaps his child would avoid the pursuit of the monster, satisfied with a double prey. Perhaps the mystery of destinies reserved an unexpected future for her after the disappearance of Yerra the Immortal.
A feeble cry, the pressure of a quivering body against his own, and the grip of two tremulous hands clasping his shoulder recalled him to reality. The marvelous creature, ceding to fear, finally let it be seen that she was only a woman.
The Guardian of the Threshold stopped twenty paces away, blocking the path with its mass, and darted toward them the inflamed gleam of its little eyes, half-buried in its coarse fleece.
The old man, disarmed, pushed his companion behind him, and searched with his gaze for some sharp flint that might at least permit him to put up a semblance of resistance.
“Run!” said Ruslem, without turning round. “I’ll hold it back momentarily. Hurry!”
“This way!” said a voice that was not the Queen’s.
The priest dropped the sharp stone that he had just picked up, and the name of his child rose to his lips like a despairing imprecation. “Wretch! Why…?”
But the young woman did not give him time to finish.
“Quickly!” she said, breathless from running—because, deceived by the echo, she had mistaken the direction, and had searched for them at first along the cliff.
She drew him away; he resisted, obstinate in wanting to sacrifice himself, thinking of the start that she would gain while the Guardian of the Threshold was finishing him off, doubtless harassing his cadaver.
Finally, Soroé found the necessary words, and told him about the necessary refuge, a miniature cavern alongside the large one, the narrow entrance of which the monster would never be able to penetrate.
Yerra, calmed down, reflected.
“It’s true,” she said. “I remember. We’ll scarcely be able to get into it ourselves.”
“Hurry, then,” said Ruslem. “I’ll follow you.”
The Guardian of the Threshold, stopped momentarily by the immobility of its adversaries, finally decided to march toward them, with a prudent slowness. The path, fortunately, became sinuous. Ruslem, having allowed to two women to go on ahead, took a few steps back in order to escape the enemy’s gaze in his turn. It was only a momentary relief, for the animal, scenting their trail, would infallibly follow it to the end—but that brief respite would permit them to reach the refuge and to stay there until help arrived.
The labyrinth, broadening out before the entrance to the principal grotto, ended in a kind of sandy arena bordered by granite. Enormous boulders detached from the cliff extended their chaos all the way to the sea, leaving gaps of different dimensions between them, some open to the sky, others covered by immense slabs. The largest formed the usual retreat of bathers. One of the smallest, scarcely accessible through narrow cracks, offered the fugitives their refuge.
Guided by Soroé’s voice, Ruslem came through the fissure to safety just as the Guardian of the Threshold, close on his heels, decided to accelerate its pace. The heavy colossus saw its prey disappear again and stopped, disappointed. Soon, however, growling furiously, applying its muzzle to the interstices, it detected the presence of the odious beings it had tracked to that point. Undoubtedly, it took account of their inability to flee any further, and its own impotence to reach them in their shelter, for it drew away slightly, without losing sight of the opening, and lay down on the ground, its muzzle extended on its paws, in an attitude of expectation, almost of reflection.
“Just in time!” said the Queen, laughing lightly and shaking the sand from her sandals. “Fortunately, Ortiz saw us come down. As long as he doesn’t have the idea of joining us on his own!”
The equerry’s voice, coming from some distance away, justified that fear almost immediately. Yerra shouted to him to go back as quickly as possible and bring enough men to ensure the capture of the beast and the liberation of the prisoners.
After a few objections, the young man obeyed the imperious order of his sovereign. The Guardian of the Threshold had already raised its head and sniffed the air in the direction of that new enemy.
“The Guardian would only make a single mouthful of him,” said the Queen, “and we’d have to wait, perhaps all night, for the others at the palace to have understood the situation and decided on the necessary measures. Those foolish girls, who didn’t even recognize me just now, won’t even think about sending us help.”
“Forgive them,” said Soroé. “They were terrified.”
“So terrified that they abandoned you in cowardly fashion, when I had confided you to their care.”
“It’s my own fault, I didn’t get dressed quickly enough.”
“You mean that fear didn’t cause you to follow their example and forsake all shame and modesty. You’re a noble daughter, Soroé, and my Father Ruslem can be proud of you. As for those imbeciles, don’t worry: the whip and working in the fields for a few months will recall them to decency and correct the delicacy of their nerves.”
Without judging the conduct of her companions irreproachable, the young woman regretted being the innocent cause of their disgrace; she was preparing to take up their defense more ardently when an exclamation of alarm from Ruslem and a movement on Yerra’s part brought her attention back to the monster laying siege to them.
Either because Ortiz’ appeals had revived its wrath or because it was beginning to get hungry, the Guardian of the Threshold suddenly manifested the most ferocious intentions. Rearing up on its enormous feet, its neck extended and its lips drawn back over two frightful rows of yellow fangs, it growled and sniffed by turns, making a noise like the bellows of a forge; the angry stupidity of its little eyes illuminated a gleam of malevolence.
The cavern received daylight through some twenty fissures, the majority of which narrowed toward the top, leaving the upper part—the vast slab of the ceiling—in shadow. Only two or three were, strictly speaking, practicable for a human being. The grunting beast tried them all, with its claw and snout, breathing in the air and scratching the stone, from which it detached large flakes; but the mass defied its efforts. It seemed to comprehend that, and, returning to the crack into which it had seen its prey disappear, it started digging in the sand, which flew away beneath its claws as if moved by the picks of half a dozen workmen. Fortunately, the layer was thin and compact granite soon appeared, capable of blunting the sharpest mining implement.
“Praise the gods!” Ruslem respired. “I thought it was about to dig a way through to us.”
“My architects would have been poor fellows if they’d founded my new dwelling on soil so easy to bite into,” said the Queen, in a tone of light mockery whose deeper meaning did not escape Soroé’s grandfather. “The entire plateau is a single block of hard stone. The waves erode the base, but it will last as long as Atlantis.”
“And your immortality will collect the fruits of your foresight,” retorted Ruslem, in the most respectfully admiring manner.
If any irony was concealed beneath his praise, he did not expect to see it so rapidly underlined by the brutality of exterior facts. A strident sound, the sharp crack of broken flint and the sensible displacement of the walls of the opening suddenly betrayed the disrupted equilibrium, and the imminent ruination of the edifice. The rock, its base displaced by the beast’s claws, had slid under its effort. The entrance was only slightly enlarged, but however little it had budged, the animal’s instinct realized the importance of that first success and the way to take advantage of it.
“The movement has stopped,” Ruslem remarked, after a stunned silence.
A cry of fright from Soroé and a hail of debris falling from the vault all too evidently gave the lie to his optimism. At the same time, the Guardian, returning to the assault, attacked the natural pillar, now deprived of its buttresses, with a furious shove. For a minute the block resisted, immobilized in the monster’s grip. The enormous breast could be heard panting, with the gasps of a giant wrestler.
The living mass got the upper hand. The rocky spur resumed sliding on its base, slowly at first and then more rapidly, and suddenly, cleaving the air with a whistle like a slingshot, it toppled and fell, shaking the ground with such a shock that the entire cavern seemed to collapse. The vault sank by several cubits in the midst of a rain of sand mingled with sharp splinters and showers of sparks.
The beast, surprised by its achievement, leapt backwards. Its retreat saved Soroé momentarily, who, brushed by the granite ridge, had evaded it so narrowly that a loose flap of her tunic remained trapped under the block.
Retained in her leap, distraught with horror, the young woman felt herself falling, without any possible resistance, in the direction of the enemy from which nothing any longer separated her. Lying on the sand, stunned by the impact, she closed her eyes, hoping to lose consciousness. Incapable of moving, however, she had never been more conscious, more lucid and full of life than in that moment of terror, confronted by suffering and death.
Ruslem and Yerra had fled at first in the opposite direction; a few paces took them to the back of the grotto, where the young women backed up against the wall, disdainful and resigned, without a word of complaint, while the old man, drawn momentarily by the physical instinct of conservation, returned in haste to the threshold of their refuge. Only then did he perceive his daughter’s peril; the sentiment of his impotence crushed him.
“Atlantis is condemned!” he moaned, covering his face with his hands. “We have no more to do than die!”
His arms fell. Horror fascinated him. Involuntarily, his gaze was fixed, meeting that of the child lying on the sand. She had just reopened her eyes. She smiled at him. The Guardian’s claw touched her breast. The four talons, liked curved daggers, stretched the light fabric of the tunic between them, outlining the pure form of the breast. Unhurriedly, sure of its prey, the enormous animal turned its head toward Ruslem.
Abruptly, the dilated pupils of the victim became radiant with a prodigious light. Neither suffering nor resignation could have given them that sublime expression, mingled with surprise, admiration and hope. For an instant, the bewildered grandfather imagined that a compassionate divinity was allowing her to perceive the splendid immensities of the Beyond—but what was on that face, where not a single thought escaped him, was not the mystical exaltation of the martyr, the supreme renunciation of consent to death; it was the ardor and the will to live, the passionate leap of confidence and gratitude in encountering a savior.
A god, thought Ruslem, almost aloud. Only a god can save her.
A deep and musical sound, like the lowest note of a harp, a whistle as slight as a bird disturbed in its sleep, a thin and rapid streak passed like black lightning before his eyes: the three simultaneous impressions were confused for the old man with the roar of the Guardian, rearing up on three feet and shaking the fourth furiously above his liberated child.
With a young man’s bound he was next to her, lifted her up in arms that had become robust again, and ripped the flap of cloth that retained her feet.
The animal, meanwhile, having broken the wood of the arrow like a wisp of straw, was trying, with its teeth, to extract the iron profoundly embedded in the monstrous crease of its right paw. Ruslem had time to set Soroé down on a boulder, but he lacked the strength to climb over it with her, and the Guardian was already coming after them, grinding its teeth, blowing the noxious warmth of its breath in their faces.
Twice more the invisible bow uttered its deep note, and two more arrows came to plunge into the gray fur, at the weak point of the shoulder, where the roaring beast broke them like the first, keeping the points embedded in its flesh, but without its vitality seeming to be affected.
At that moment, when scarcely three paces separated it from its victims, a few syllables of an unknown language resonated above their heads; a bright shadow slid before their eyes; the sound of a soft fall was deadened by the sand, and a man was standing there, covering them with his body, confronting the brute, which, growling furiously, stopped and gathered itself, hesitant before the enemy that was not retreating.
It was only for a moment. The Guardian of the Threshold charged, its teeth bared. As he leapt from the rocks above, the man had flexed his knees, and seized a shard of granite in both hands. Bringing himself upright with a single thrust of his muscular back, stiffening his arm, whose muscles could be seen in play beneath the white skin, he hurled the mass with all his might into the gaping maw, all the way to the throat, where it seemed to disappear.
The animal, half-choked, nevertheless succeeded in vomiting it forth in a mixture of blood, saliva and broken teeth, with contortions by which the aggressor seemed to be amused, because he could be heard laughing quietly, while rubbing his hands to dislodge a few grains of sand.
In any case, the combat had only just begun. At his left side the man had an undecorated sword, like those worn by warriors of the most common rank, but large and solid. He drew it from its scabbard, striped the monster’s muzzle with a backhand sweep, leapt to avoid the thrust of the jaw that would have cut him in two, brought the point around and plunged it into the shoulder all the way to the hilt. The spurt of blood almost blinded him.
In order to withdraw his blade he had to apply his knee to the monster’s very body, nearly being scythed down by a sweep of the claw, and then flatten himself against a boulder, for lack of space. That rendered him prudent. It did not appear to be easy to reach any vital organ through the frightful thickness of the flesh; at each attempt he risked finding himself disarmed. Even so, he struck twice more, withdrew the streaming blade with an effort, and evaded the crushing riposte.
The roars of the colossus, sent back by the echoes of the cliff, were confused in a continuous thunder; its talons were steeped in a vermilion mud, but pain and fury rendered it agile; nothing indicated the imminent exhaustion of its prodigious vigor. On the contrary; as if certain of eventual triumph, it turned its gaze from time to time to what remained of the cave, seeming to count its victims again and enjoy their impotence to escape—for nothing, whether feint or direct attack, succeeded in displacing it from the narrow arena where the heaped-up debris and the red and slippery pools multiplied as many mortal traps beneath its adversary’s feet.
Abruptly, it all seemed to be over; the man slipped, and disappeared beneath the monster’s belly. Night had fallen, as it does beneath the skies of Atlantis, without any twilight. A few stars were already shining. The Guardian, rearing up on its hind feet, saluted the shadow with a high-pitched roar, fell silent, and lay down—or, rather, collapsed, as a section of the cliff might have done. Its halting breath could still be heard, the click of its jaws opening and closing again, for some unknown reason. One might have thought that it was devouring a prey.
Loud appeals burst forth from the path. Help had finally arrived: Ortiz, at the head of the entire palace garrison, more than three hundred warriors, a thousand servants carrying lanterns and flaming torches, the animal-keepers from the temple with rods fitted with nooses, nets of braided rope and all kinds of devices, including spades, pick-axes and levers, in order to dig ditches and construct barricades, if necessary, and priests to appease the gods and legitimate the inevitable violence.
The head of the cortege reached the beach while the last ranks were still at the top of the cliff, singing propitiatory hymns, waving torches and discussing methods of capture. Except for Ortiz and a few others, however, no one cared to make the first contact, and that general sentiment, combined with the narrowness of the path and the necessity of arriving in numbers slowed the whole march down.
Ortiz and the most courageous, however, having seized torches, ran forward, calling to the Queen with loud cries. The light reached the entrance to the cave. The Guardian of the Threshold was not moving. The warriors surrounded it at a respectful distance. Then, in the illuminated semicircle, the man reappeared, one knee on the ground, tranquilly wiping his sword on the dead animal’s fur. He replaced it carefully in its scabbard, and, standing up with a supple movement, he raised in the air the monstrous claw that he had just severed at the wrist, holding it by its long hair.
A murmur ran through the crowd, followed by a stupefied silence.
He was a very young man, almost an adolescent, with a superb and marvelously supple stature. With the exception of a loincloth, a belt and sturdy sandals, he was naked, and in spite of the afflictions of sunburn, his broad chest and narrow waist displayed skin finer and whiter than that of the daughters of Atlantis. His golden hair floated feely over his shoulders. His nascent beard and silky moustache, scarcely arrived, with their hue of ripe wheat, gave the lower half of his face a more virile aspect. The narrow nose, the massive forehead and the steel-blue irises beneath the robust brow-ridge gave the lie to the ingenuous candor of his smile, however, just as the rounded slimness of his perfectly-proportioned limbs did not prevent an experienced gaze from divining his athletic vigor. A few bloodstains also accentuated the bellicose aspect of his appearance; his sandals were literally soaked in it, all the way to the ankles.
With neither haste nor disturbance he examined his trophy, the four dagger-like talons shining in the torchlight. Then he searched the ground with his gaze, picked up and replaced on his shoulders a lion-skin that he had shrugged off, and leapt on to the top of the rocks. He picked up his bow, five cubits long, the wood of which was three fingers thick in the middle.
At that moment, as he drew nearer to her, Soroé, who had not made a movement or uttered a cry during the battle, and whose heart seemed to have stopped beating, felt her throat contract and her eyes fill with tears. An irresistible impulse drew her up to her full height and thrust her toward the stranger who had just snatched her from death. Without reflection, she bowed as if in the presence of the gods, set one knee on the ground, her arms extended toward his, and, having seized one, lifted it piously to her lips.
“My savior!”
But that hand, which, in the disturbance of her thought, she expected to find inert and as cold as that of a statue, responding to her grip and the fervor of her kiss, thrust her backwards with a gasp of shock, almost of fear.
An ardent blush covered her cheeks; her eyes closed; her frail figure broke like a reed under a shot from a child’s sling. The stranger, seeing her buckle, enveloped her with a protective gesture and, lifting her up gently, supported her in his folded arm, her head slumped against his breast.
“Reassure yourself, lovely maiden! I saw you more courageous when the claws of the beast rested upon your breast. Permit me to offer it to you now. It will not menace anyone again.”
The young warrior spoke thus in a harmonious voice, in the purest Atlantean dialect, albeit with a singular accent, which hardened the consonants somewhat. He smiled, revealing exceedingly white teeth. The simplicity of his attitude, emerging from an almost fabulous exploit, provoked a further murmur of astonishment in the crowd.
Ortiz, meanwhile, had rejoined the Queen, but she had imposed silence on him with a sign, and remained in the shadows, motionless, without missing a single gesture on the part of the unknown man.
Soroé opened her eyes again and moved away, confused, stammering expressions of gratitude, this time repeated by Ruslem. The stranger bowed, in a gravely courteous fashion.
“I would be well rewarded, had I really run some danger in defending you. A warrior does not take pride in a hunter’s victory. But if I have found favor in your eyes, deign to instruct me. What is this shore to which the winds have driven me? Doubtless you are the Queen of these people who surround us? Or ought I to salute as their chief this venerable and mild old man? You speak the Atlantean language; perhaps you can, O maiden more akin to the immortals, measure me the distance and inform me of the route to Atlantis?”
Ortiz’ voice rose up, abrupt and indignant.
“Know, stranger, that there is no other Queen here and no other chief here than Yerra the Immortal, absolute sovereign of Atlantis! And remember, if you value your life, that your destiny, like ours, is held in the palm of her hand. Remember…”
He would have said more, but the Queen, touching his arm, imposed silence on him again.
“Peace, Ortiz!” He understood by her tone, however, that he had not displeased her.
Meanwhile, the newcomer was preparing to react to the equerry’s insolence; his hand was already seeking the hilt of his sword. The young woman’s voice surprised him. He turned toward her and saw her emerge from the shadow.
She smiled. All his anger vanished; for him, the man no longer existed.
“Don’t be irritated with my servant, stranger, and although what he says is true, don’t be alarmed by his words. You can tell me, if you wish, your name and that of your country; but whoever you are, your courage has charmed me. Be welcome in the house of the Queen of Atlantis.”
The young warrior bowed. “I salute you, O Queen, and I thank you. When the master of the dwelling welcomes the traveler, it does not matter to him that the dogs growl at his approach.”
That statement, made in the most gracious tone, was not at all to Ortiz’ liking, but Yerra looked at him in a certain fashion and he kept silent, gnawing at the bit. Those of his companions who did not like him found the barbaric proverb ingenious, and promised themselves to remind him of it.
“My country,” the stranger said, “I will name for you if you wish; I doubt that it has ever struck your ears, for my companions and I have been sailing on the immense sea for eleven moons, in search of Atlantis.”
Another murmur of astonishment went up. That prodigious voyage confounded the imagination. At the same time, the homage rendered to their homeland flattered the pride of the Atlanteans.
“My name, even more surely, is that if an unknown. My companions call me Dhu Hern. Know, however, that my father, my grandfather and the ancestors of our ancestors were always the first in combats and respected in the gaze of the Immortals on the two banks of the Broad River, where I embarked, eleven moons ago, with thirty-one companions, nine of whom are dead.”
He stopped, pensive at the thought of what he had already seen, of what his companions had suffered.”
All of that was the truth; it will be remembered that since the departure from Erm-gilt-Herm, Argall had indeed renounced his name, in accordance with ancient custom, and on the advice of the prudent Maghée, until the day when it would be appropriate for him to reassume it, on the eve of a battle capable of making it illustrious forever.
“You will be my guest, then,” said Yerra.
Behind them, however, exclamations and lamentations were rising. The priests had arrived before the cavern, where the Guardian of the Threshold lay. At the sight of the mutilated corpse, their range and dolor burst forth.
“Sacrilege!” they howled, putting on a show of tearing their hair and tearing their breasts. They were, however, careful to dip their hands in the blood already shed, in order to avoid causing their own to flow.
“What’s the matter?” Argall asked.
“Nothing!” said Yerra—to the indignation of the sufferers, for the sacrilege was patent, and the guilty party should already have been bound and handed over to them, his execution only being deferred in order to give it more solemnity.
She ordered them dryly to be silent, to see that the sacred animal received funerary honors, and to leave the rest to their superiors.
“I’ll reach an understanding with Nohor.”
At that redoubted name, they did indeed fall silent, or at least lowered their voices until the Queen had departed, taking Argall, Ortiz and his guards with her. Litters had been brought down, on which Soroé and Ruslem also took their places, while a boat with eight oarsmen set off from the shore to carry the invitation of the Atlanteans’ sovereign to Maghée and his companions.
Argall had left them at anchor in a deserted inlet at the mouth of a small river while he scouted the terrain, for they still did not know in which direction Atlantis lay, and what welcome might await them there. He recommended the messenger to advance in the open and to hail Maghée in a loud voice, for the latter maintained a good guard, and arrows, once launched, cannot distinguish between friends and foes.
Meanwhile, in front of the entrance to the grotto, the servants, under the direction of the priests, built a gigantic pyre in accordance with the rituals. Fifty of the most robust, combining their efforts, hoisted the monstrous cadaver to the summit. All night long, the roaring flames enveloped it with their swirls, nourished with precious essences and odorous wood. And the sacrificers, with grim lamentations, implored the gods, the masters of the scourges, begging them to spare Atlantis, to reserve their wrath for the impious, rebels against their worship. They promised them treasures without number, chosen virgins and rivers of blood.