When they had finished their first drink Slinger suggested a stroll to Doktor Tisch leaving the McKay and Count Axel on their own. The sailor immediately broached the topic which was foremost in all their minds and asked:
“Well, Count! What do you think of this Atlantis trip we are to take together?”
“That it is one of the most interesting upon which any party of people can ever have embarked and I consider myself highly fortunate that chance should have made me a member of it,” replied the Swede affably.
The McKay’s thin lips twitched as he suppressed a disbelieving smile. “You don’t really think though that we shall succeed in dragging up the gold from this temple a mile deep in the ocean?”
“Ah, that I do not say, but if we can secure even one small stone from the ocean bed, which bears an inscription, we shall have proved the one-time existence of this lost continent and all the histories of the world will have to be rewritten. Think of the romantic thrill in actually being present at such an epoch making discovery.”
“Come now.” The McKay shook his head and gave a low chuckle. “I thought all you told us of the Flood legends to-day extremely interesting—but then you are an admirable raconteur and, although your stories served their purpose, you can hardly expect a hardened old sinner like myself to believe them.”
“Why should you think that I was not in earnest?”
“Isn’t that rather obvious. Forgive me if I seem rude and of course your private affairs are none of my business but it must be an expensive pastime pursuing Camilla round Europe from one luxury hotel to another in the hope of making her your Countess. Surely this is a heaven sent opportunity to be certain of her company for several weeks to come at her sole charge. I would not put it to you so bluntly if I were not devilish hard up myself and willing to confess that the prospect of the trip at the expense of this lady, who can so well afford it, tempted me to accept her invitation.”
Count Axel’s eyes narrowed a fraction but his smile was lazy, tolerant, good natured. “I see,” he murmured after a moment. “You thought that I was distorting facts in order to persuade her to undertake this voyage and, perhaps, considering it offered excellent opportunities to divert her attention from my empty headed rivals to myself by frequent displays of my erudition. I might resent that suggestion most strongly—from some people—but, as it happens, I like you sufficiently to let it pass. Actually it is true that this venture comes as a boon in the present state of my finances, yet I assure you that I distorted nothing, and meant every single word I said this afternoon.”
“Then you honestly believe that this fabled continent did exist?”
“I do indeed and if you like I will endeavour to prove it to you.”
“Right. Go ahead, the night is young but let’s repeat the drinks before we settle down to it—hi, waiter!”
The man paused at the table and took their order, to which Count Axel added: “Bring me a few sheets of scribbling paper, will you.” Then he turned back to the McKay.
“Am I right in supposing that you have no knowledge of ancient languages,—Sanscrit, Hebrew, Maya, Phoenician and so on I mean?”
“Perfectly.” The McKay’s lined face broke into a quick smile. “Even my Latin is pretty rusty now.”
“Then my dear Captain I must ask you to accept my word for the truth of all that I am about to say. I will give you nothing which is not accepted as a fact by all serious students of archaic languages.”
“Certainly, Count.”
“Good. The study of words and their origins has been one of my hobbies for many years and although of course I could not carry on a conversation in these long dead languages which hold the roots of modern speech, I know quite a considerable amount about them. Did you know that from all the thousands of tongues in which men convey their thoughts to one another only two original phonetic alphabets had been produced?”
“I don’t know the first thing about it,” the McKay admitted, “but never mind that.”
“Well, it is so. All writing originated in the picture drawings left by primitive people who were on the march from one territory to another so that the other portion of their tribe, which was following, perhaps days later, might learn from their markings on stones and trees the direction they had taken and the good or ill fortune that they had met with in their migration.
“A crude drawing of a sun meant a day, of the moon—a month, rippling lines—water, crossed spears—a battle with another tribe, the horns of a buck—plentiful game, and so on. In time these signs became simplified or conventionalised so much as often to bear no further resemblance to their original. The Chinese script is an excellent if exaggerated example of the latter case. Each of the thousands of characters which are utterly meaningless to us, or even to all but the highly educated among themselves to-day, originally represented a picture of something—a peach—a cart—a tree bent in the breeze—or a state of emotion shown by the posture of a human figure. Egyptian hieroglyphics were the same although less obscured, because in quite early times the Egyptians decided to retain them as they stood for all sacred writings while bringing in an easier abbreviated set of forms, called the demotic, for every day use. The great Maya race of Central America however retained their hieroglyphic system until the Spanish Conquest.
“Think now how laborious it must have been to convey a message by this picture writing once you passed out of the realm of material things into that of ideas. The number of drawings you would have to chip out of a piece of rock to convey even one sentence such as ‘The chief in this neighbourhood is a fool but his nephew the witch doctor is cunning, therefore propitiate and flatter him while tricking the chief into agreeing to your demands.’” Count Axel paused. “But perhaps I bore you with all this?”
“No, no,” the McKay lied politely, “do go on.”
“The time came when some long-forgotten genius conceived the possibility of utilising already established symbols to convey sounds instead of ideas. The human throat, lips and tongue are capable of producing about twenty distinct sounds and these formed the basis of the alphabet. The letters which have been added since, bringing the total number up to twenty-six, are more or less variations of the originals or interchangeable with them. T and D for example, or V and F, or I and J.
“The alphabets of all European languages are, as you will know, derived from the Phoenician which, up to about four hundred years ago, was the only known archaic writing in in the world based on sound and not picture drawing. If you will pause to think for a moment you will realise that the difference between the two—as a medium for the exchange of ideas—is stupendous.”
The McKay, more interested now, nodded. “Yes, I see that. It must have been as big an advance as from sail to steam in shipping—bigger in fact.”
The waiter arrived with their drinks and the paper for Count Axel, who thanked him and went on:
“Very well then. Now we come to a very interesting fact. A decade or two after Columbus discovered America Diego da Landa, who was the first Bishop of Yucatan, took the trouble to enquire from the Mayas he was seeking to convert to Christianity the meaning of the grotesque hieroglyphics which decorated all their monuments. They told him that it was a form of writing which their predecessors had handed down to them and, to his utter amazement, he found that they were not picture drawings conventionalised but the letters of a phonetic alphabet.”
Now it was curious enough to find such a system in existence among the Mayas of Central America at all when all the great civilisations of Asia, Europe and Africa together had only succeeded in producing one—the Phoenician—but what is stranger still is that these two alphabets—the only ones of their kind—should bear an absolutely striking resemblance to each other.
“Say you were faced with the task of selecting sixteen signs to represent the sixteen principal sounds—for that was the number in the Maya alphabet—the variety of combinations of lines and curves which you might use to denote each are almost inexha
ustible. If a hundred men sat down to the job separately it is hardly conceivable that two of them would select the same sign for the same letter. Yet I can prove to you that thirteen signs out of the sixteen in the two original phonetic alphabets have a distinct similarity of form.”
The Count took up a pencil and drew rapidly on the paper before him . “That is the hieroglyphic for H as given by De Landa in his Maya alphabet. Simplify it a little as people would do in the course of time if they were in a hurry and you get which is the hieroglyphic representing the sound CH in the Egyptian or this, an even nearer form, which appears for H, in the archaic Greek and Hebrew. From that it is but a step to our modern symbol for the same sound.
“Take the Maya C which was drawn like this What is the essential characteristic of it which would come to be employed alone in course of time. Obviously the large single lower tooth . Well that is the form in which the letter C was found by Dr. Schliemann in the inscriptions which he unearthed from the ruins of Troy. The archaic Greeks shortened one limb and wrote it . Later when the Greeks changed their manner of writing from right to left to our modern method of left to right they turned round all such signs as were reversible and altered it to . The Romans made it then time and swifter writing curved its point so that we use it thus
“The Maya O bears little resemblance to our own at first sight , but what is the essential characteristic about it? Surely the circle within a circle at the bottom, which was the Phoenician form for that same sound. Later the inner circle became a mere dot . Then people began to say, ‘Why bother about dotting your O’s!’
“One more example which we will approach from a slightly different angle. What, to your mind, does this represent?”
The McKay leaned over. “A foot or footprint I should say.”
“Precisely and the Maya word for footprint or path is pronounced ‘Be.’ Now see their hieroglyphic for the letter B. This time we have secured the essential characteristic by working from the opposite direction. It is the foot sign with the toes separated from it as a series of dots. Now behold the Egyptian hieroglyphic for the letter B. It is viewed from a different angle—but again we have a foot.”
The Count leaned back and smiled. “I could give you many more instances of a similar nature, but I feel that these are enough to prove my point.”
“You mean that it would be quite impossible for these two alphabets to have so many things in common and yet to have originated among two completely separate peoples.”
“Exactly. It is utterly inconceivable that these, the only two systems in the world of conveying vocal sounds by written signs, did not spring from the same original source.”
“Well, I’ll grant you that.” The McKay’s lined face broke into a broad grin. “But what’s all this got to do with Atlantis?”
“Good God! My dear Captain. Think for a moment. If the two had a common origin where was it? Although both sets of hieroglyphics embody ideas which are common to both alphabets, no archaeologists in their diggings from Iceland to Cape Town or the jungles of Assam to the barren rocks of Patagonia have ever discovered the common root from which both must have sprung. Yet it must have taken thousands of years’ thought and experiment among a highly civilised people to build up this unique system of vocal signs. Where did they live? Why have we found no single trace of their efforts to perfect this staggering invention when we can find cave drawings which must be of a far earlier date in every continent. They were the people of Atlantis of course, and when their whole country was submerged in some terrible cataclysm all the evidence of their gradual development to this high state of culture perished with them. That is the only possible explanation.”
“It’s a very forcible argument,” the McKay admitted, “but—”
His objection was cut short by Sally who arrived at that moment with Prince Vladimir behind her, Nicky having now secured Camilla from him.
“Nelson Andy McKay, come and dance with me,” she cried gaily.
“I’m too old for dancing,” he protested, “you ought to know that by now.”
“You’re not too old to dance with me,” she laughed. “We got on famously the other night. Come along—Admiral’s orders.”
“Drat the girl!” he exclaimed pushing back his chair and standing up with mock reluctance. His plea of advancing age was a well-worn pose. Actually he loved dancing and, given a good partner, could put up a very passable performance. With an old-fashioned little bow he offered Sally his arm as he said: “Well, the result to your feet must be upon your own head, m’dear,” and they passed into the dance room.
When they returned to the terrace Camilla and Nicky came out with them, and they found that Slinger and Doktor Tisch had joined the Roumanian and Count Axel at the table so the whole party was assembled again.
Camilla now devoted her attention to the Count and, as the other two had basked equally in her favours, the latent jealousy which was ever liable to flame into bitter anger between the three was temporarily at rest. Sally and the McKay had laughed a lot during their two long dances together and the bald-headed Slinger, urbane as ever, was superintending the icing of two fresh magnums of champagne. Camilla’s party was undoubtedly proving a great success. Only the little German Doctor remained silent and depressed.
During his stroll with Slinger he had pressed for particulars of the dark business which was to be carried out on the trip, but Slinger had put him off with vague generalities and finally, the abrupt admonition that, once the job was done, he could go ahead with his scientific stuff—all expenses paid for as long as he liked, but if he wanted that, he’d best stay in his cabin and forget that Camilla and her friends even existed once they reached the Azores.
It was eleven years since Doktor Tisch had dug up and deciphered that little cylinder of baked clay at Eridu on the Euphrates which, by bearings on fixed stars, gave the actual position of the great city that had once been the capital of the lost continent. With all the fanaticism of a scientist who lives for his work alone he had slaved ever since on the compilation of vast folios which would prove to an unbelieving world that Atlantis had actually existed in order that he might persuade some millionaire to finance an expedition for its rediscovery. After three years’ search he had found Klemo Farquason. All preparations had been completed and then, a month ago, when he was waiting for Farquason to join him in Paris he had received a cable reporting the financier’s collapse.
His long cherished hopes completely shattered by this blow he had poured out his woes to an old friend, who had suggested that the millionaire Duchess might be persuaded to take Farquason’s place, and provided him with an introduction to her satellite, Slinger. The shrewd confidential secretary had seen, in this projected expedition, just the opportunity he had been seeking for the carrying out of a plan which he had conceived in concert with a certain very powerful person in New York. Long cables had been exchanged in private code. New York approved. Slinger and the Doctor had met again, and the latter, in abject despair at the wrecking of his life work for the mere lack of money had been tempted into agreeing to bring his ship down to Madeira, to which the Duchess was proceeding, and where Slinger promised to persuade her to undertake the enterprise provided that the doctor was prepared to close his eyes to anything unusual which might happen once she was on board.
The Herr Doktor sipped his champagne and glanced across the table at his hostess. What did Slinger and his friends mean to do, he wondered, when they got this slim golden-haired young woman to his base in the Azores. The men of the party would endeavour to protect her, that was certain, and there were four of them—no three, the crooner could be counted out. Doctor Tisch did not take a good view of Nicky despite his Greek god profile: but the tall dark Roumanian appeared to have the strength and temper of a bull, the Swedish Count might prove a dangerous antagonist despite his frail scholarly appearance and the square-jawed British sailor looked the sort of person who would jump into a fight for the sheer love of the thing.
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p; Slinger had promised faithfully that there should be no bloodshed but the little Doctor found it difficult to place much trust in his word.
Herr Doktor Tisch took another, longer, pull from his big goblet and coughed a little. Then he endeavoured to solace himself with the thought that there were 1,600,000,000 men and women in the world’s population so if the worst happened and there was a fracas, of what real importance was it that half a dozen of them might get hurt—providing that his epoch-making expedition was enabled to go on.
CHAPTER IV
THE MCKAY MEETS HEAVY WEATHER IN A BULLO-CARRO
Shortly after, the party on the now moonlit terrace broke up once more. The two girls wished to dance again before the band stopped playing and the little Casino would be closing soon. Night life in Madeira is not prolonged into the small hours.
Nicky grabbed Camilla before Prince Vladimir Renescu could ask her, and Sally insisted on the McKay taking her for another turn. Doktor Herman Tisch excused himself on the plea of fatigue and Slinger decided to return with him to the Hotel so the Roumanian and Count Axel Fersan were left to keep each other company.
“It has been a day of excitements,” declared the Prince pouring himself another goblet of champagne.
“It has indeed,” Count Axel agreed politely. He had little in common with either of his rivals to Camilla’s hand and millions, but while he regarded Nicky as a nasty little bounder, the transparently simple good nature of the broad shouldered young giant opposite rather appealed to him. He smiled his lazy, faintly supercilious smile into the Roumanian’s flashing black-velvet eyes and went on amiably:
“I consider this expedition to rediscover the lost continent of Atlantis a thing of quite exceptional interest.”
They Found Atlantis Page 3