Dennis Wheatley - They Found Atlantis

'You know where we are then?'

'Yes. I was so perturbed by what had taken place that I hardly realised the ship had left Horta until we had been under steam for the best part of an hour but I looked out of my porthole then and saw from the stars that we were moving East South East. Unless I am completely astray, that smudge of land which we can still see to the north-west now must be the south-east point of Pico Island.'

'That's it,' agreed the McKay. 'I took a look at the stars myself immediately the ship got under way and I'm able to verify the outline of Pico because, although it's years ago now, I've sailed before in these waters. You heard that the bathysphere had been sent down to the bottom?'

'Yes, they are reeling it in now. It took one hour and forty-four minutes going down. 5,168 feet the Doctor told me. I can hardly contain my impatience to learn if it reaches the surface again intact. So much depends on that.'

'Getting on for nine-hundred fathoms, eh? The pressure must be something tremendous at that depth. Do you mean to chance going down there if the test has proved satisfactory?'

'Certainly. I would not forgo the possibility of being among the first to behold these remains which have been under water for over eleven thousand years for anything in the world—not even to be free of this ghastly threat of being marooned on the Falkland Islands afterwards.'

The McKay shrugged his square shoulders. 'Well, each man has his particular kind of fun, but I can't see how you really believe in this old wives' tale. How could such tremendous destruction have taken place in one upheaval? It isn't reasonable.'

'My dear Captain, the site of Atlantis is the very centre of an earthquake region. The nearest coast to it is that of Portugal and it was there that the greatest earthquake of modern times occurred. In Lisbon on the first of November 1775 the sound of thunder was heard underground and immediately afterwards a violent shock threw down the greater part of the city. In six minutes 60,000 persons perished. The entire harbour, built of solid marble, sank down with hundreds of people on it and not one of their bodies ever floated to the surface. A score of great vessels were instantaneously engulfed and disappeared with all their crews as though they had never existed. No trace of them has ever been found since and the water in the place where the fine quay once stood is now five-hundred feet deep.'

'That's terrible enough I grant you, but it was a local calamity.*

'How about the frightful eruptions which devastated the island of Sumbawa, east of Java, in 1815 then? The sound of the explosion was heard for nearly a thousand miles and, in one province, out of a population of 12,000, only twenty-six people escaped with their lives. Whirlwinds carried up men, horses and cattle into the air, tore up the largest trees by the roots and covered the whole sea with ashes and floating timber. The darkness in daytime was as profound as the blackest night and the area covered by the convulsion was 1,000 English miles in circumference. I tell you the accounts of the Flood in our Bible and the Mexicans' sacred book—the Popul Vuh—which are almost identical, are not myths at all but actual records of an historical occurrence; and every indication of the locality in which it took place points to Atlantis. Take the island of Dominica in the Leeward group of the West Indies—the nearest land to the south-west of where the lost continent is believed to have been. That too is full of hot springs and in 1880 there was an eruption there of such magnitude that it rained mud in the streets of Roseau, miles from the centre of the disturbance, and simultaneously there was a cloudburst out of which great gouts of water came streaming from the sky. To read the description of it is to picture an exact replica, upon a minor scale, of the Flood described in Genesis where on the same day all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened...'

'All right Count—all right. That's quite enough!' The McKay put up his hands in mock surrender. 'I only wish to God that they were sending us to Dominica instead of to the Falklands. It's a charming climate and I had a friend there once—but that's another story.'

Count Axel smiled. 'Well, believe me or not I am absolutely convinced that Atlantis once existed and that we are now floating above the site it occupied. We may find nothing. Thousands of tons of ashes and volcanic lava may have buried its great buildings before they sank. The ocear bed changes and shifts through submarine eruptions from time to time but if the Atlanteans had pyramids as large and solid as those of Egypt or Mexico the remains of such mighty structures can hardly have disappeared like the flimsy hutments of a native village or even Lisbon's docks, so there is at least a fair chance of our finding them. In any case the search will serve to distract my mind from the damnable fate which appears to have been allotted to us for our very near future.'

'You're right, and the descents will help to take Camilla's thoughts off this devilish business of losing all her money too, 1 hope. However, I prefer to relieve my anxieties by an occasional swim with Sally.'

By half-past twelve, after a submergence of nearly three and a half hours, during nearly the whole of which period it had been travelling either down or up at the rate of a hundred feet every two minutes, the bathysphere reached the surface again.

To Doctor Tisch's overwhelming joy it had withstood the gigantic pressure at 5,000 feet and showed no trace of the strain which must have been placed upon it. Round, solid, its fused quartz portholes projected from its sides like a row of stumpy cannons, uncracked, unscarred, it appeared above the waterline exactly as it had been sent down. As soon as its weighty door had been lifted off a rapid survey of its interior revealed that all was well, and no more water had collected in its sump than was to be expected from the condensation natural during three and a half hours submergence.

Frantic with excitement the Doctor came forward to report his news; and his enthusiasm was so infectious that it galvanised the despondent prisoners into some display of interest.

He said that he was going down at once since he could suffer not a moment's delay in making the first trip to the ocean bottom in this area that had so long held his imagination. That it was over 800 fathoms down and nearly twice the depth that any human being had ever been before troubled him not at all. If any of the others wished to accompany him Slinger had no objection to their doing so, he said; but they must make up their minds and be quick about it.

Camilla jumped up without the slightest hesitation. Her previous experience of the marvels to be seen on a deep sea dive had whetted her appetite for more. Count Axel stepped quickly to her side.

'Come on Sally—why don't you,' Camilla cried. 'It's so 122

utterly thrilling to see all the wonderful things down there that one just forgets to be frightened the second the ball's beneath the surface.'

'All right,' Sally stood up a little slowly. 'I'll come.'

Vladimir shrugged his broad shoulders. 'If we are to stand twiddling our toes instead of combating our distresses we can do it as well under sea, so I join you.'

'What about you, Nicky?' Camilla glanced at the slim handsome young man who was wearing again his startling sky blue flannel suit.

'No thanks.' Nicky shook his head. 'If we're going to start playing games again just as though we had no cause to worry ourselves sick I'd rather take on the McKay at deck tennis—if he still doesn't care for the idea of going down.'