Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1902-05-10

accept the station which the high gods
had made for us without repining,
and so we went below again into the
belly of the ark to eat and drink and
maintain strength for the new life
which lay before us.
A wonderful vessel was this ark,
now we were able to see it at leisure
and intimately. Although for the first
time now in all its centuries of life
it swan upon the waters, it showed no
leak or sun-crack. Inside, even its
floor was bone-dry. That it was built
from some wood, one could see by the
CRAVINGS, but nowhere could one find
suture or joint. The living timbers
had been put in place and then grown
together by an art which we have lost
to-day, but which the ancients knew
with much perfection; and afterwards
some treat ment, which is also a Sc
cret of those forgotten builders, had
made the wood as hard as metal and
impervious to all attacks of the
weather.
| In the gloomy cave of its belly were
stored many matters. AT one end, in
| great tanks on either side of central
alley, was prodigious store of grain.
| Sweet water was in other tanks at
| the other end. In another place were
| drugs, and simples, and essences of
the life of beasts; all these things
being for use while the ark roamed
under the guidance of the gods on
the bosom of the deep. On all the
| Of RI al 10
titions of the tanks and the other
woodwork, there were carved in the
rude art of bygone times representa-
tons of all the beasts which lived in
Atlantis; and on these 1 looked with
hunters interest, as some of them
were strange to me, and had died out
with the men who had perpetuated
them in these sculptures. There was
good store of weapons, and the tools
| for handicrafts.
Now for many weeks our life en-
about here and there across the face
of the waters. We had no government
over directions; we could not by so
much as a hairs breadth day in
crease her speed. The high gods that
had chosen the two of us to be the
only ones saved out of all Atlantis, had
sole control of our fate, and into their
hands we cheerfully resigned our fu-
ture direction.
Of that land which we reached in
due time, and where we made our
abiding-place, and where our children
were born, [ shall tell of in its place;
] - I. oil hos
so far in an exact order of the events
as they came to pass, it is necessary
first to narrate how we came by the
sheets on which it is written.
In great Golfer, in the center Of
the ark's floor, the whole of the mys-
teries learned during the study of
ages were set down in accurate writ
ing. I read through some of them
during the days which passed, and the
awfulness of the powers over which
they gave control appalled, me. had
seen some of these powers let loose
in Atlantis, and was a witness of her
destruction. But here were powers
far higher than those; here was the
great secret of life and death which
Phorenice also had found, and for
which she had been destroyed; and
there were other things also of which
/ cannot even bring my style to scribe.
The thought of being custodian of
these writings was more than | could
endure, and the more the matter rest
ed in my mind, the more intolerable
| became the burden. And at las took
hot irons, and with them scared the
wax on the sheets till every letter of
the old writings was obliterated. If
1 did wrong, the high gods in their
infinite justice will give me punish
ment; if it is well that these great
secrets should endure on earth, they
in their infinite power will dictate
them afresh to some fitting scribes;
but I destroyed them there as the
ark swayed with us over the waves;
and later, when we came to land l
rewrote upon the sheets the matters
which led to great Atlantis being
dragged to her death-throes.
Nais, that [ love so tenderiy-
| [Translators Note. - The remaining
| sheets are too broken to be legible.1
THE END.