CHAPTER XXXIII

The Flood Gates Open

When I look back now upon my life in Atlantis, my sojourn there seems to divide itself into two periods, of which the longer and by far the more tranquil, dates from my union with Aelios. In the new-found contentment of our marriage--and ours was no exception to the rule--we seemed to lose track of time; and months and years began gliding by at a smooth and even pace that was particularly deceptive because there were no seasons to mark the change and there were no outstanding events to serve as landmarks.

Perhaps the secret lay in the fact that Aelios and I were both amply occupied; for in the hours when we were not together, we each had our own work to keep us busy. Aelios still tutored for several hours a day, and still led in the dances at public festivals; for in Atlantis no distinction was made between a married and a single woman, except in the event of motherhood; and even a mother, while released from her prescribed duties, was expected to keep alive a broad interest in life, by performing some optional services.

For my own part, I was no less busy than Aelios, for after I had completed my “History of the Upper World,” I had again been summoned by the Committee on Selective Assignments, and had been directed to write a treatise on “Social Traditions and Institutions in the Upper World,” wherein I might describe conditions above seas in greater detail than in my previous book. This task, although far from uncongenial, was proving both lengthy and laborious, for I tried to cover every modern country; and the further I proceeded the harder the work became, for the more I learned of Atlantis the more difficult it appeared to represent the earth in a light that was not merely pitiable.

I was now quite reconciled to passing my remaining days in Atlantis. Although Xanocles and his colleagues persisted with their agitation, the cause of Emergence was dwindling in my mind to an impossible dream; and, had it not been for the cataclysm which aroused us all to frenzied

## action, I might have been content to grow gray and wrinkled in the

Sunken World. For now that Aelios was mine, I found that life was far richer than ever before; that not only was I steeped in pleasurable

## activity amid a delightful environment, but that there was an almost

charmed absence of strain and hurry, and a leisure and serenity that would once have seemed the attributes only of a Nirvana.

It is true, of course, that I could not escape all the ordinary physical ills of life. Once, for example, when my awkwardness betrayed me in an athletic contest and I suffered a broken arm, I was conducted to a State hospital, where a State physician skilfully treated my injury; and once when the incessant golden glare began to tell upon my eyes, I had to visit a State occulist, who relieved the strain by prescribing a pair of wide-rimmed amber-tinged glasses.

My appearance was changing, moreover, in other ways than the mere addition of glasses. I was acquiring a long beard, largely owing to the habit formed during my first days in Atlantis; and my complexion was taking on a curious greenish tint, due to some peculiar action of the Atlantean light--an action to which the Atlanteans themselves had inherited immunity. But I was not alone in my queer pistache complexion; there were exactly thirty-eight others who could show the same distinctive pigmentation; and so marked was the coloration that, as the men sometimes declared, our origin was “written on our skins.”

My fellow members of the Upper World Club meanwhile did not share my liking for Atlantis. As time went by, in fact, they seemed to care less and less for their adopted country. With the exception of Gavison, who had written a brief but popular treatise on “Navigation on Upper World Waters” and a not less popular “Comparison of Upper and Lower World Civilizations,” there was not one of my former shipmates who was adapting himself to life in Atlantis or who was not remiss in his obligations as a citizen. While they had all acquired at least a rudimentary knowledge of the language and were all reasonably successful in performing some prescribed mechanical task for two or three hours a day, yet none of them had accomplished anything in any of those artistic or intellectual pursuits which alone were considered worth while in Atlantis. For how, indeed, could they hope to conform to the standards of a world that had so little in common with their own? Apparently the natives did not even expect them to conform, and tolerated lapses that would have been considered disgraceful in born Atlanteans; but they themselves appeared to feel that they were somehow inferior, somehow out of place; and much of their restlessness, and much of their longing to escape, is to be explained by the desire for a less ideal but more familiar mode of life.

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Considering the eagerness with which my companions would have exchanged the ease of Atlantis for even the most strenuous labors and hardships of the earth, it seems ironic that the man ultimately chosen to emerge, was he whose marriage to an Atlantean had made him more than resigned to the Sunken World. My sole excuse is that the choice, when it fell upon me, was made wholly upon the suggestion of others, and occurred at a time of such acute public peril that the happiness or fate of individuals was as nothing.

For the hour was to come--and to come with startling suddenness--when a fateful writing was to glare from the walls of Atlantis. I had been in the Sunken World seven full years when the menace burst forth, and I was not there seven days after it appeared.... But in the interval I was a witness to scenes of such havoc, such horror, confusion and despair as I had never seen before and fervently hope I shall never see again.

It torments me now to recall that all that terror and all that irremediable loss might have been avoided, had we but heeded the advice of Peliades, Peliades who insisted that the crack in the wall had not been adequately repaired....

But let me not anticipate. I must describe as dispassionately as I can those overwhelming events which descended like lightning to blast Atlantean life, and which are so disturbing even in memory that my pen trembles and my startled mind takes fresh alarm. Merely to try to record those distracting days and nights is to be obsessed as by an old madness; I can feel a paralyzing dread spreading once more through all my nerves; I can feel my brain grow numb, my eyes grow strained and distended, my arteries throb with delirious haste. And all the while confused visions come swarming across my mind--visions of roaring vigils by lamplit walls of glass, visions of huddled faces, weeping or praying or with terror-stricken eyes, visions of thundering waters, panicky flights, submerged temples and inundated plains; and it all seems like some nightmare I dreamt long ago, yet more vivid than any nightmare, for there are sobs and lamentations that echo even now in my memory, and pleading lips that shall never stir again, and agonized eyes that peer at me like phantoms which will not be exorcised.

Long before, in moments of aimless fancy, I had sought to picture to myself the end of the world; to imagine the consternation and horror of an earth maddened by dread of impending doom. But I had never thought that I myself would be the spectator of a crumbling universe....

As in the case of the crack in the wall years before, the danger appeared with devastating suddenness. One moment, all was tranquil; the next moment, the Sunken World was in a frenzy. I remember that one afternoon Aelios and I had gone to the Agripides Theatre to witness a performance of some sort (its precise nature has slipped from my mind); and it was at the close of the first act that the warning came. From the unexplained absence of the chorus that usually sang during intermissions, I might have suspected that something was wrong; but actually I was without misgivings until suddenly a great burnished, silvery horn--the horn of the Autophone!--was lifted quietly on the stage.

At this unexpected sight, a stab of alarm darted through me; Aelios seized my hand and held it as if for reassurance; the audience sat rigid and tense, like persons who behold a ghost. For an instant we heard no sound, except for the quick breathing of our neighbors; then the strained silence was broken by an uncanny hollow voice that issued sonorously as if from nowhere.

“A great misfortune has befallen,” announced the unseen, in tones that sounded almost sepulchral. “The crack in the glass wall has re-appeared, but this time it is of more serious proportions than before.”

The voice faltered for an instant and halted, while murmurs of dismay, terror and unbelief shuddered through the audience.

And in a more deliberate and even graver manner the speaker continued: “Late last evening our navigators observed that the Salty River was higher than usual; and an investigating party sent out today by the High Chief Adviser has discovered that the wall has actually given way at one point, and that the water is pouring in through a fissure several feet across. There is as yet no cause for despair, for the surplus water, while highly inconvenient, can be disposed of by the reserve capacity of our intra-atomic pumps, which are equipped for all ordinary emergencies and can discharge fifty per cent more than their usual delivery. But there is danger that the break will expand before repairs can be made; and for this reason the High Chief Adviser requests that you try to meet the situation courageously, and freely enlist your brains and your services till the peril is overcome.”

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It would be impossible to convey any idea of the commotion which these words created. The people did indeed follow the High Chief Adviser’s advice to be courageous, for there was no more than a hint of that panic which one might have expected. But there could be no further thought of the performance in the theatre. After an instant’s chill silence, the audience arose with one accord; and men’s faces were blanched and women could be heard muttering in fear as the crowd began pushing toward the exits. In their excitement, the people had forgotten their usual courtesy; and Aelios and I were shoved and jostled in a way that reminded me of the New York subways. It was all I could do not to lose track of her amid the mob; yet both of us were anxious not to be separated, particularly since the speechless eagerness of the throng, the sighs of women, the rapid breathing of men and our own fast-beating hearts, all served to fill us with grim forebodings.

Once out of the great theatre, the people were driven as by a common instinct toward the river. All seemed fearful of even a second’s delay, as though our haste might repair the fractured wall!--and in a long, swiftly moving column, constantly augmented as we advanced, we followed the winding avenue that curved toward the waterfront. None of us spoke more than an occasional word; even Aelios was silent, but she clutched my arm with unwonted firmness, and looked up at me with eyes wherein apprehension alternated with a reassuring courage.

But there was no prop for courage in the sight that greeted us at the river bank. The stream, which previously had flowed five or six feet beneath the docks, was now not more than eight or ten inches below the level.

In speechless dismay we watched that broad, greenish-gray torrent go swishing and gurgling past. But what was there that we could do? Nothing--except to stand and gape helplessly at that swift-flowing, swollen stream. Indeed, we seemed worse than merely helpless, for as I stood there with Aelios amid that horror-faced crowd, I became conscious--as during that other crisis years before--that I was arousing a singular repulsion. My neighbors were edging away from me visibly; some were pointing toward me, or uttering half-suppressed oaths; I thought I heard some one ruefully mumbling something about “That foreigner” and something else about “The cause of all our troubles.”

I would quickly have withdrawn with Aelios from that hostile throng, had I not chanced to observe a slim, gray form approaching from far upstream. With the speed of the swiftest racing craft it drew near, and in a few minutes was recognizable as an intra-atomic boat, akin to the one I had boarded years before. Much to my relief, it came to a rapid halt, drew up at the dock, and let down its gangplank. And as the crowd forced its way on to the docks, Aelios and I was not slow in finding seats for ourselves for what was sure to prove an extremely exciting trip.

And exciting it was--far more exciting than we could have desired. We had been under way only a few minutes when the aspect of the river began to change disquietingly. Except for the current, it lost the character of a river entirely, and took on the appearance of a long lake! On both sides the water spread in a smooth-flowing sheet two or three miles broad; and above the surface in places stared dumps and dusters of vegetation, with here and there a miniature island; while several temples and colonnades stood with marble bases buried in the water, like the palaces of some aquatic goddess.

But if this overflow was alarming, the full extent of the disaster was not evident until we approached the glass wall itself. This time it did not require any searchlight to reveal the nature of the injury; our ears might have told us if our eyes had not--but our eyes had sufficient to report. As we strode along the little, clay path toward the wall, we became aware of a broad, gleaming, greenish expanse between--a sheet of water where all had been dry land! And into that sheet of water, with a continuous thunder equal to that of the floods from the river valve, a long, white torrent spurted in a gracefully curving jet, shooting outward hundreds of yards from the glass bulwark, and descending with a splashing as of some gigantic fountain. It was impossible to estimate the volume, except to say that it was enormous; nor could we see the nature or extent of the leak, since the intervening water forbade our close approach. But we observed how the overflow worked its way circuitously into the Salty River in a sort of channel of its own choosing; and occasional swift-moving lights, which even from our distance we could see flashing from beyond the glass, showed us that the repair ships were busy trying to seal up the crack. But from the beginning we knew how hopeless were their efforts--with their midget vessels and midget tools they were like ants trying to stem the flood of a Niagara. And the utter helplessness of their plight--and of ours--became tragically apparent when suddenly a great elongated, gray mass came flying in with the torrents from the sea, and fell with a splash and a clatter in a battered heap projecting above the waters--a rescuing submarine that had been hurled in through the gap in the wall!

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[Illustration: Almost before I realized that the ultimate moment had come, I found myself assisting Aelios up the half-submerged gangplank and on to the deck of the grim, low-lying, shadowy ship ... we mounted to the deck, cast a last glance at the darkness that hid the marble temples of Atlantis, and waved for the last time to the dim watching figures.]

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