Dennis Wheatley - They Found Atlantis

He climbed on the kitchen table and took eighteen plates from the racks, picked a selection of fresh fruit, laid it out, and carried the plates one by one to the places where his elders slept, putting them carefully within easy reach. Then he got cups and, staggering round the island with a great jug of fruit juice, poured a draught into each. Lastly he gathered eighteen little bunches of flowers and laid them beside the fruit, after which good work he felt entitled to turn a couple of noiseless somersaults and dive into the pool for his morning swim, carefully refraining from his usual splashings in case he woke the sleepers.

It was not till after midday that his elders began to stir. Then they sat up drowsily, drank their fruit juice so thoughtfully provided by Ciston, nibbled the fruit, smelled the flowers, kissed their companions and made for the bathing pool. Soon there were a dozen of them laughing, shouting and plunging in the clear cool waters, or reclining on cushions along its marble sides.

Sally and the McKay declared their intention of being married that night upon which Menes decreed another Feast. Some of the Atlanteans did not at first see the reason for this, but Menes told them that as it was a custom in the upper world he desired to honour their new friends by its observance.

Quet laughed impishly and said: 'If we adopted such a custom here it would bring us to starvation, for every day would be a feast day and no work would ever be done,' but everyone welcomed Menes' gesture and made a fuss of the couple who were to play the principal parts in the ceremony.

Only dark-haired serious Tzarinska remarked privately to Rahossis that she thought it rather barbarous to make such a fuss about such a very normal thing and that it savoured somewhat of savage exhibitionism.

In the latter part of the afternoon most of them slept again but Semiramis invited Camilla and Sally to her apartment. She was a picturesque old lady with a fine head of silver hair and a high bridged Roman nose. The girls thought that she must have been extremely good-looking in her youth.

After some little courtesies she told Camilla that she fully appreciated the differences between the woman of the upper world and her own. She would have spoken the day before, she said, but one day was of small importance out of a life-time, particularly as she understood that Camilla had been married before.

Then she proceeded to give them both the benefit of the cumulative experience of the women of her race and, by the time she had finished they were both convinced that she could have made the Professors of Psychology in Vienna and the British Medical Council look like first year students.

She had a deep throaty chuckle and a shrewd witty humour which saved her conversation from any resemblance to a lecture and the two girls listened with immense interest as pearls of wisdom regarding the handling of their menfolk rolled continuously from her tongue.

When she had done she kissed them both, made the sign of the Swastika on their foreheads, breasts, and thighs with a curiously scented oil from a tiny bottle, then bundled them out with instructions to rest until the evening.

Sally and Camilla were both a little silent as they walked away. The old lady had told them that their coming involved a readjustment in the population of the island, but that was a matter which would be settled when the Gods gave Menes enlightenment, as they surely would in due course. In the meantime she would perform a magical ceremony which would cause their unions to be sterile. Later they would not be robbed of their right to have children but they must be trained in the tremendous responsibility of the task, since in the years to come their stock would mingle with that of the Atlanteans.

That night there was another banquet. Afterwards Doctor Tisch married the McKay and Sally before their assembled friends, then the feast was resumed and Carnival reigned as King until the small hours of the morning.

The next day they slept late and lazed again but on the following morning the work of the island was resumed. Semiramis and Menes were exempted by their age and rank from all manual labour, also the two newly-married couples for the Atlanteans considered their honeymoons in the same light as when a real love affair occurred between two of their own people. All the others set about the varied tasks of tending their crops, laundering their tunics and tidying the pleasances.

The work was not heavy because it was so admirably organised through long centuries of custom and they sang, bandied jests, and laughed while they toiled. After the first meal in the morning they played games for a spell which necessitated the incorporation of certain exercises and holding the breath in a particular manner, to ensure their continued fitness. After the midday meal they slept for an hour or so, the rest of the day they worked until they gathered for the evening meal after which, in the scented dusk of the dimmed earthshine, they told stories or discussed the histories and religious beliefs of many nations.

Conversation was conducted principally in English in deference to the newcomers and most of the Atlanteans spoke it fluently. The younger ones understood enough to follow the talk and to contribute their share in broken accents.

Quet, alone, always spoke French—a language for which he had a passion, while Danoe and Karnoum often addressed each other in Spanish as they were practising that tongue together.

The new arrivals were called on to answer innumerable questions of a fantastically varied nature. Some showed an extreme astuteness or were on subjects of which the upper world party were completely ignorant, others were of such a childlike simplicity that they amazed the people who were questioned.

It transpired that in their spiritual journeys the Atlanteans witnessed many happenings, the true significance of which entirely escaped them. Nearly all of them had been horrified spectators of certain phases of the last great war, but it had taken them many months to discover exactly who was fighting whom and for what reason. They had no means of getting inside books or newspapers and could only read the printed page if it was spread out before them and if their knowledge of the language proved sufficient. In consequence they had constantly placed wrong constructions on past events from being unable to learn their context. Since broadcasting had been general however they were far better informed as they could listen in to any set which was functioning at their leisure.

Rather surprisingly their principal interests did not centre in world events or such problems as to why many people in the great industrial centres remained permanently unemployed, or in slum clearance, or needless mortality in childbirth. They accepted these as ills common throughout the centuries to a civilisation which they considered to be a comparatively low state of evolution, and were far more inclined to follow the fate of individuals. For weeks on end, it seemed, they would watch the romance of a pair of young lovers in some obscure township, or a domestic drama in one of the luxurious homes of a modern capital. Such scenes from human destinies were their story books, their theatres, their talking pictures, and on their return to the island, so they said, it was their practice to recount the stages of these comedies or dramas which they had witnessed, in such detail that the others also felt they knew the protagonists in them, not only by name but by the minutest particulars of their daily lives and surroundings.

It was a slow method perhaps of satisfying that craving for stories common to all humanity, but the very details intensified the plots and the instalments followed each other from time to time like the longed for portions of a serial.