CHAPTER XXXV

The Return

The facts of my return from Atlantis have been reported so widely that it would be futile for me to dwell upon them. It is generally known how, having crossed the ocean at the sixty-knot speed made possible by our intra-atomic propellers, our submarine found its way to the mouth of the Potomac and almost up to Washington; how, after it had anchored obscurely some distance below the city, I donned my old uniform and made my way out under cover of night; how I hastened the next day to the offices of the naval department, disclosed my identity, and met with ridicule not only at my incredible tale, but at my strange appearance, my long beard, my goggles and my greenish skin.

Unfortunately, in the haste and confusion of my departure from the Sunken World, I had made one oversight. I had forgotten the copy of Homer’s lost “Telegonus,” which I had hoped to exhibit in verification of my story! Scattered lines of the poem, to be sure, did keep trailing through my mind with a wild, ringing majesty--but they were the merest fragments, and to recite them would have been to brand myself as a madman. Yet I had little other evidence to display. Aelios could not help me, for she could not speak English; and in spite of her exceptional beauty, there would have been nothing to prove that she had not been born above seas. And as for the four members of the submarine crew, they refused stanchly to leave the vessel; and, besides, they likewise could not speak English, and their fantastic Atlantean garb would no doubt have marked them also as lunatics.

And so there was nothing to do but wait, wait for days and days, haunting the naval offices, making myself a laughing stock and a nuisance, yet repeating my pleas so insistently that in the end they had to be heeded. But meanwhile I was losing time--time which I knew to be all-important. Even now Atlantis might be in a death-grip with the waters; and the difference of a few hours might bridge the gap between safety and disaster. Would not my fellows make haste? was the question I kept asking and asking; and all the while they remained inactive and unmoved. Every day, with tears in her eyes, Aelios would inquire when the rescuing expedition was to set out; and every day I would nod sadly, and sigh, “Perhaps tomorrow.” But tomorrow would bring little hope; and even when at last an investigation was undertaken, it was careless and dilatory--and it was long before I could convince the bewildered inspectors that I was actually one of the company of the lost X-111.

It was long, indeed, before I could even find any one to identify me. In a land where my acquaintances had been legion, I was apparently unknown; and my old friends had either been dispersed or else I had slipped out of their minds. Even Alma Huntley failed to reply to my letters; and it was months before I learned that, having long given me up as lost, she had left two years before for the Pacific Coast as the bride of the Reverend David Mosely.

But though my messages to Alma never reached their destination, a letter to my old friend, Frank Everett, survived many forwardings and found its goal; and not only did Everett hasten to me from New York, but he summoned others of our former group, whose testimony combined with the evidence of finger-prints and handwriting to identify me beyond dispute.

Matters now began to move more quickly--in fact, with a rapidity that was bewildering. Almost overnight my story was flashed from end to end of the land, and I found myself a public figure. Newspaper headlines flaunted my name, and the word Atlantis was on every one’s lips; interviewers came swarming to see me, scientists with their demands for information, the heads of lecture bureaus and of motion picture corporations with their golden offers. But all that really interested me were the offers of assistance for the Sunken World. Several men of means became interested, and placed large funds at our disposal, so making possible the Harkness Institute for Marine Research; half a dozen engineers volunteered to accompany me back to Atlantis, and with their aid we secured implements and chemicals capable of sealing wide breaches in a glass wall. But we could produce no vessel other than that in which we had left Atlantis, for the naval submarines were not equipped for the deep waters of the Sunken World; and so when finally the rescuing party set off down the Potomac from Washington, its members numbered only six in addition to Aelios and myself and the original crew.

* * * * *

The small size of this expedition and its limited equipment would alone have made us doubtful of success; but we remembered with acute misgivings that two full months had passed since we left Archeon, and that during all this time the flood waters must have been rising. We were particularly uneasy because of the failure of Gavison to appear in a second submarine, as the High Chief Adviser had promised; and, brooding upon his absence, we would recall how we had bidden farewell to Atlantis, and would think with a shudder of the bleak confusion of the people and the swelling torrents swishing through the darkness.

To make matters worse (if they could possibly be worse) our voyage back to Atlantis was beset with unforeseen difficulties. Owing to the absence of definite charts and our uncertainty as to the latitude and longitude of the Sunken World, we were lost for several days amid the wildest wastes of the Atlantic. At times we would dive to the sea bottom, or to such depths that Atlantis could not conceivably be beneath us, and would go cruising for hours amid that black infinity or along the shell-strewn or bouldery floor of the ocean, staring through the portholes at the luminous-eyed creatures that flitted ghost-like about us, and here and there gaping horror-stricken at some contorted but strangely eloquent rusty iron mass. But of Atlantis itself there was no sign, and we had the queer impression that it had dissolved bubble-like amid the watery immensity.

And so at length our expedition converted itself into little more than a random questing after what did not appear to exist. Should we ever again catch a glimpse of the green-golden walls of our lost universe? There were moments when I was given to curious doubts, and felt that Atlantis, once lost, could never be found again; that the billows would cover it as completely from our sight as from the sight of the ages. But all the time, while we kept dashing at prodigious speed through the vacant waters, we were given to strange fits of hope that alternated with spells of despair,--hope when we would descry a far-off light that would turn out to be merely some elusive fishy lantern,--despair that our help, already too long delayed, was being retarded to the point of impotence.

The final discovery came with startling suddenness. One day, gliding slowly downward at a considerable depth, we were stopped by a hard, flat barrier that spread beneath us like the sea bottom. But as we began to drift horizontally, we observed that the surface was smooth and ominously light-reflecting--and with a gasp of despair we recognized that the substance was glass!

The surprise and horror of that moment are still vivid in my memory. “Turn the searchlights down, down!” muttered the leader of our crew, in a voice that trembled perceptibly; and as the great water-piercing streamers began to quiver and shake and then slowly descended in long, rambling curves, Aelios came rushing to my side like a child who fears to be alone, and clung closely to me while we both stared through the portholes with faces rigid and eager.

But at first we saw nothing. All was dark beneath us--not a gleam, not a flicker, broke the blackness of the Sunken World.

Then, as the searchlights swayed and shifted till they swept the depths directly beneath, we began to make out familiar objects amid the obscurity. Dimly, strangely, as though draped in a fog, the outlines of great domes and arches and colonnades began to emerge, interspersed by Titanic columns and statuesque temples that appeared to waver uncannily.

“See! See! It is still there!” Aelios cried, frantically, as she pressed more closely to me; and with the agony of despair in her voice was mingled just a tinge of hope.

I took her hand and sought to console her; but even as I did so her whole body began to shake spasmodically, and her sobbing throbbed from end to end of the ship. For many minutes she seemed unable to speak.

Yet, even while the long-drawn, heartbreaking sobs panted forth, she began to point, to point distractedly downward, with blind, quivering fingers that called with frenzied urgency, forcing me to peer again through the porthole.

With my arms still about her, I scanned the dim, ghostly twilight. But for a moment I observed nothing alarming. Then, as my gaze became focused upon a gray dome just below, I too cried out in dread realization.

Those glass-covered depths were not without sign of life, as I had thought; but here and there a lantern-bearing object, with flapping finny body, went wavering through the windows and above the temple roofs!

THE END.

Transcriber’s note:

This etext was transcribed from _Amazing Stories Quarterly_, Summer 1928 (vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 292–377).

The section titles “Foreword” and “Introduction” were not present in the original.

Obvious errors in spelling, hyphenation and punctuation have been silently corrected in this version, but minor inconsistencies and archaic forms have been retained as printed. Some illustrations have been moved to the nearest chapter break.