Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1902-02-05
. . The > D
Lost Continent
By CUTCLIFFE HYNE.
PaA By larper H.os CepYisht 1871 h1 Cntclifa Hxna
CHAPTER X
Pub By Harper s:os Copyright 1901, BY catslihs Hy
PHORENICE, GODDESS.

CHAPTER TX.
PHORENICE, GODDESS.
A motley crowd filed the street
which ran past the front of the OBJ
scure temple, through which gained
entrance to the city, and all were
hurrying one way. With what had
been told, it did not take much art
to guess that the great stone circle
OF our Lord the Sun was their mark,
and it grieved me to think of how
many venerable, centuries that great
fame had upreared before the wealth
eE and the earth tremors, without
such proclamation as it would witness
to-day. And also the thought oc-
CURED to me: "Was our Great Lord
above drawing this woman on to her
destruction? Would He take some
vast and final act of vengeance when
she consummated her final sacrifce?"
But the crowd pressed on, thrilled
and excited, and thinking little (as is
a crowds wont) on the deeper mat
tiers which lay beneath the bare spec
tacle. From one quarter of the city
walls the din of an attack from the
besiegers made itself clearly heard
from over the houses, and the tenn
pies and the palaces intervening, but
no one needed it. They had grown
callous, these townsfolk. to the bat
tering of rams, and the flight of fire.
darts, and the other emotions of
bombardment. Their nerves, their
hunger, their despera ton were stung
to such pitch that little short of an
actual storm could stir them into new
excitement over the siege.
All were weaponed. The naked car
some one whom they could overcome
and rob; those that had possession
walked ready to do a battle for it's
ownership. There was no security,
no trust; the lesson of civilization
had dropped away from these com
mon people as mud is washed from
the feet by rain, and in their new
habits and their thoughts they had
gone back to the grade from which
savages like those of Europe have
never yet emerged. It was a grim
commentary on the success of Pho
renice's rule.
The crowd merged me into their
ranks without question. and with
them I pressed forward down the
winding streets, once so clean and
trim, now so foul and mud-strewn.
Men and women had died of hunger
in these streets these latter years,
and rotted where they lay, and we
trod their bones under foot as we
walked. Yet rising out of this squat
or and this misery were great pyra-
mids and palaces. the like of which
for splendor and magnifcence had
never been seen before. It was q lar
ring admixture.
In time we came to the open space
in the center of the city, which even
Phorenice had not dared to encroach
upon with her ambitious building
schemes, and stood on the secular
ground which surrounds the most an
cient, the most grand, and the barest of
Ill this worlds temples.
Since the beginning of time, when
man first emerged among the beasts,
our Lord the Sun has always been
Ais chiefest god, and legend says that
he raised this circle of stones him.
self to be place where .votaries
should offer him worship. It is the
fashion among us moderns not to take
these old tales in too literal sense;
but for myself, this one satisfies me.
BY our wits we can lift blocks weigh
ing GOO men, and set them as the cap
stones of our great pyramids. But
to uprear the stones of that great
circle would be beyond all our art,
and much more would it be impos-
sible to-day to transport them from
their distant quarries across the rug
ged mountains.
There were nine-andforty of the
stones, alternating with spaces, and.
set in an accurate circle, and across
the tops of them other stones were
set, equally huge. The stones were
undressed and rugged: but the huge
massiveness of them impressed the
eye more than all the temples and
daintily fooled pyramids of our won
drous city. And in the center of the
circle was that still greater stone
which formed the altar, and round
which was carved, in the rude chisel-
ing of the ancients, the snake and
the outstretched hand.
The crowd which bore me on came
to standstill before the circle of
stones. To trespass beyond this is
death for the common people; and
for myself, although 1 had the right
of entrance, 1 chose to stay where l
was for the present, unnoticed among
the mob, and wait upon events.
Nearer and nearer drew the drums
and the braying of the other music, and
presently the head of glittering
procession began to arrive and dis
pose itself in the space which had
been set apart. Many q thousand
poor, starving wretches sighed when
they saw the-wanron splendor of it.
But these lords and these courtiers
of this new Atlantis had no concern
beyond their own bellies and their
own backs, except for their one
alien regard-their simpering affec-
ton for Phorenice.
I think, though, their loyalty for
the empress was real enough; and it
was not to be wondered at, since
everything they had came from her
lavish hands. Indeed, the woman had
a charm that cannot be denied; for
when she appeared riding in the
golden castle (where also had rid
deny on the back of her monstrous