Dennis Wheatley - They Found Atlantis

The Doctor's body and Nicky's unconscious form were carried back to the centre of the island. There, the wailing Atlantean women claimed the former and insisted on taking it into the temple. For a moment it occurred to Sally that, as a good Christian, the Doctor might not care to have

pagan rites performed over his body, but even the McKay

found it impossible to resist the distraught importunity of Semiramis and the females of her family. On learning that the burial would not take place until the following day, he felt that the temple was as good a place as any for the corpse to remain the night, so he let them have their way.

He enquired then what Menes wished done with Nicky, but the old man shook his head as though hopelessly bewildered.

Quet spoke to him in Atlantean and evidently told him what he had done to the evil-doer in the grove. Menes then made certain passes over Nicky's head and said:

'I have caused him to pass into a natural sleep. He will not wake until tomorrow night.'

The McKay escorted Menes to his apartment. The male Atlanteans walked slowly away with downcast heads. Sally, Camilla, Vladimir and Axel remained in a silent stricken group beside the pool.

After a few moments the McKay joined them again.

'Well?'whispered Sally.

'The poor old Admiral's all to pieces,' he replied tone-lessly. 'You see there hasn't been a murder here since 1066 —no, since the Flood I mean. All these people always die a natural death, so they're shocked out of their senses. Just listen to those women now!'

Piercing long-drawn cries coming from the direction of the temple made the night hideous. There was something about that eerie persistent wailing which made their flesh creep and the top of their scalps prickle.

Axel shuddered. 'It is the spilling of blood which has affected them so profoundly.'

'Oh, it's horrible.' Camilla dabbed her eyes. 'Just to think of the Doctor being dead now when he was laughing with us only an hour ago at supper.'

'Yes,' said Sally. 'Yes, it's awful. He was such a harmless little man, but all the same,' she added practically, 'terrible asthis is for everybody, he was our friend more than theirs. I don't see why they should be so utterly distracted. They must have seen bloodshed before on their travels in the upper world.'

'Maybe, me'dear,' the McKay replied, 'and you've read325

of ghosts or the Devil appearing in stories, but you'd get a pretty nasty shock if Satan stood before you in the flesh one night—cloven hooves and all.'

'I forgot that. Of course, they only see the people in our upper world as though they were acting in a sort of motion picture and the happenings there aren't truly real to them at all.'

'No, only as stories for cocks and bulls,' muttered Vladimir miserably.

They sank again into a tense silence. All five of them had been marvellously happy during these past weeks. They had accepted the life in this heaven that they had found so completely that it almost seemed now as if they had never known any other, and it had become unthinkable that any event should suddenly leap out upon them to mar their perfect joy.

'What would the Atlanteans do to Nicky?' 'Could life in the island ever be quite so carefree and wonderful again?' Those were the thoughts which agitated them to the very depths of their beings, but they shrank from putting their fears into words.

Obviously there was nothing to be done for the moment so they took a despondent leave of each other and separated, but none of them was to get much sleep that night.

The keening of the women in the temple continued unabated and all the doctor's friends were saddened with the thought that they would never hear his guttural laugh again. They felt too, now, that they had never taken the trouble to be quite as nice to him as they should have been when he was alive. As Sally had said, he was such a harmless little man. His only vice was the apparently crazy desire to discover Atlantis, which had ended for them in this unique experience and, latterly, his eagerness to form a collection of the island's leaves and flowers.

Camilla wept passionately on Vladimir's broad chest when he had carried her up to that absurd tree-top home which had caused the Atlanteans so much amusement but which they had had such fun in making together. Sally wept too, in spite of all the McKay's efforts to comfort her with theoretical assurances that death was not a thing to be afraid of after all, and that where the Doctor had gone he had probably forgotten all about them now through being busy with the collection of another lot of flowers. Axel went back to the jungle, but he could not face his usual vine-hung couch without Lulluma and she was with the other women mourning for the dead. Like a lean ghost he roamed the island, haunting the scenes of his past happiness, while darkness lasted. Nicky the evil-doer alone slept peacefully, deep in the oblivion into which Menes had bade him pass by those signs of power made across his unconscious head.

In the morning everyone was astir early. Pale and exhausted, their beautiful faces haggard now from the stress of their emotion, the women came out of the temple. The Atlantean men crouched on its steps in dull apathy. None of them made any attempt to get themselves breakfast, so the McKay ordered his party to pick some ripe fruit and serve it as though nothing had happened, but the Atlanteans refused to eat. The women, who all seemed to have aged ten years in a single night, flung themselves down where they were to sleep and the men sat unmoving, silent and heavy eyed.

Nicky slept on, a huddled figure beside the pool, the Doctor's blood still staining his guilty hands. After a little Sally could bear the sight no longer and strove to wake him, but Menes' hypnotic power held him in its spell. Failing in her efforts she washed his limp hands before them all, tidied his golden hair, and arranged him more comfortably. The McKay walked away behind some bushes while she did it in order that none of the others should see his face. He rated himself furiously because he was 'blubbing like a stupid kid' and such a thing hadn't happened to him in a quarter of a century, but he just couldn't help it, he loved her so much.

When he had cursed himself into renewed composure and Sally had completed her self-appointed task, he gathered his party together and led them off into the depths of the garden.

The flowers blossomed just as they had yesterday, some were fading but new varieties were bursting from their buds in those Elysian fields that held eternal Spring, but somehow there was a subtle difference. The spirit of death brooded over the secret enclosures. The leaves of the trees still hung motionless in the windless air, yet they seemed to whisper to one another: 'Death and decay—death and decay.'

The McKay halted in an open space and sat down on the grass. The others followed suit.

'Look here,' he said, 'I couldn't sleep a wink last night and I've been thinking. Quite apart from anything the Admiral may decide we've got to make up our own minds what our attitude is going to be about Nicky's crime—and then hang together.'

'Our own laws may not be perfect, but in this they are the only guide we have,' suggested Axel.

'That's my view, but the point is—did Nicky commit murder?'

'I would interpret murder as a deliberate attempt to kill another human being,' declared the Count, 'and Nicky said this was an accident. I believe him too.'

'So do I,' agreed Camilla, 'and anyhow he was tight when he did it.'

'Of course he was tight, but that would not be accepted as an excuse in any court of law,' rejoined the McKay abruptly. 'If you kill anybody when you're driving a car and you've had one over the odds it's manslaughter in the first degree, but this is worse unfortunately. We have to remember that Nicky struck a blow in anger and that blow caused the Doctor's death.'