Hok undid the string of beads.
“It is gold,” he said. “A woman called Maie gave it to me.”
“A pretty woman?” demanded Oloana quickly.
“Not as pretty as you,” Hok assured her, with something like marital diplomacy. “She is dead. I kept her gift for you. It is to be worn on the neck.”
Oloana donned the bauble, and asked other questions, but Hok never had much to say about Maie, then or later. Today her name, as Mu or Mou, or Maya, is a name of mystery.
Zhik arrived from the hunt, to greet
his brother heartily, and to him Hok presented the bronze dagger that he had taken from the priest of Ghirann. For himself he kept, forever after, the Wise Stone in its wooden handle, as a war- club hard enough to crush the toughest skulls of man or beast-
And finally he came to his cave, and sat alone by the fire in the entrance. It was quiet there, and he began to yawn. A patter of feet sounded from the gloomy interior. There emerged a plump little entity, with a shock of hair as pale as frosted barley grass. In one chubby fist was clutched a toy spear of wood.
“My son,” said Hok.
“Father,” came the solemn response. “Will you tell me a story?”
Hok drew the boy to his knee.
“I will tell you,” he began, “a story which you must remember as a great marvel. When you have children, tell it to them, and they will tell it to their children. It is the story of Tlanis, the home of many strange and wonderful things, and of how the sea drowned it and them.”
[1] Stone age men called the Neanderthal beast- men Gnorrls. See “Battle in the Dawn,” AMAZING STORIES, January, 1939.—Ed.
[2] From some such introduction to mounted men must have come the first conception oi the centaur.—Author.
[3] The volcanic character of the rocks at Gibraltar, and across the straits in Morocco, suggests that a great volcano once rose there, shutting back the ocean from the sunken valley which now holds the Mediterranean.—Author.
[4] Ignatius Donelly, in his interesting work, Atlantis, offers an interesting collectio.n of legends about explosives among Atlanteans.—Author.
[5] This belief is common today, among many ancient peoples.—Author.
[6] The octopus is represented in the votive art of ancient Crete, pre-Spanish Mexico, and Japan.— Author.
[7] See the myth of Hercules, and his conquest of Geyron, the six-legged man-monster, in a land far to the west of Greece.
[8] Diamonds are often phosphorescent in complete darkness.
[9] Saltpeter can be produced in beds of dessicat- ing kelp and other sea plants rich in nitrates. The priest’s formula has not been too far improved upon—25 percent of charcoal and sulphur combined, with 75 percent of saltpeter, has made a powerful explosive for later ages than his.—Author.
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