Free The Romance of Atlantis by Taylor Caldwell Page A

the room, at the older men, scientists, philosophers, writers, engineers, musicians, sculptors, dramatists. Already these distinguished men were bored by the simpering maidens on either side, especially as all their overtures had met with embarrassed giggles and shrinking withdrawals. The maidens did not shrink so obviously from the younger men, not even when a casual hand dropped to a soft breast. The elders began to talk soberly over the heads of the maidens, and to count the hours with impatience.
    Noticing all this, Salustra smiled to herself, looking to an early end of Tyrhia’s phase of the party.
    “Thou wilt remain?” she insisted in that low and languid voice.
    Mahius gave a troubled sigh. “Will it displease thy Majesty if I should refuse? I am very tired of late. I have a premonition of approaching disaster. I am not superstitious, but there is something in the air, something sinister. No, no! No human foe, no human danger, not this time. Forgive my drive-lings, great Salustra. The forewarnings of those artful astrologers have always aroused in me the deepest ridicule. No, no! It is something else, something most awful …”
    Salustra looked at him with incredulous eyes. Her bosom rose, as though with suppressed laughter. “With what childish fear we cower in the shelter of the known, hiding from the cold winds of the unknown! A thousand legions could not disturb thy iron equanimity, Mahius, but the first breath from the black and icy cavern of superstition freezes the very marrow in thy bones! Bah! I have a most efficacious powder which my physician hath given me. It is a splendid laxative; it stirs up the bowels like the lash of a whip. Religion and her twin, superstition, are naught but the phantoms of a sluggish liver, Mahius!”
    Mahius winced but made no reply.
    She touched his arm lightly. “There are three times in a man’s life when he believes in the gods, Mahius. When he is a child, when well fed, and when he is old. Thou art old, dear friend. Thy blood no longer runs swift and hot; thy eye no longer wanders to virginal bosoms and young lips. Music fails to stir thee; thou wouldst return to thy books and to the grave contemplation of thy gods. The man who tells himself that he is old is old, no matter how few his years: the white-haired grandsire who assures himself that he is young is truly young.”
    Mahius looked at her almost sadly. “I am old, Majesty,” he said quietly, “and thou are eternally young. Perhaps it is because I am old that I am afraid, that I feel something insidious in the air. Age is always apprehensive, I know. But when I look at thee, I am affrighted. It is as though I see a huge shadow over thee. Thou knowest how I love thee, and how I loved thy father, and thou canst judge how thought of danger to thee fills me with dread and confusion. Fear! I, who have never felt fear before, fear now, and its icy wind causes my teeth to chatter and my heart to chill.” So earnest, so urgent was his voice that the quiet smile faded from Salustra’s lips.
    She reacted defiantly, affected more than she would admit. “Fear!” she said contemptuously. “Sati, I believe, can find it possible to forgive the fool, the adulterer, the liar and the traitor. She may even find extenuating circumstances for the hypocrite, for where is there one of us but is forced to dissemble in some manner? But I doubt that she can forgive the coward, who fills the dim and lofty halls of heaven with his pusillanimous cries and disturbs the most high Herself with his craven bleatings. And I, have I ever feared? Nay, fear hath never touched me with her shriveling hand. I come not of the blood of cowards, my Mahius!”
    She touched her minister upon the cheek with the back of her hand, and then, as her mood swiftly changed, she experienced a sudden wave of melancholy. “This city, I loathe it, and I am weary. Dost know why those barbarian envoys of Signar’s have requested a special audience