Page:Weird Tales Volume 26 Number 01 (1935-07).djvu/21
Europe for them, while my body grew older and older, my strength slipping from me. Agony of soul was mine as I saw the inexorable approach of death, whom I had cheated for so long, robbing me of my rightful revenge.
It could well be that Karnath and Etain had fled to America and there, with their millennium-gathered wisdom, had risen to power and wealth while I searched vainly for them in the Old World. Yet if I went and found them not there, the time lost might be fatal.
I stood up suddenly. I had decided to go, to gamble my vengeance on the chance that John Hardwick was Karnath.
Two days later I was aboard a huge liner bound from Marseilles to New York, heading for my last hope of finding revenge and atonement before I died.
On the broad forward decks were twinkling lanterns and an orchestra's throbbing music, and happy young men and women dancing. Back in the darkness of the stern I stood at the rail, looking down with aching heart into the black, rushing waters. Far down there in the dimness and ooze and slime lay the wrecked marbles of the land of which I, Ulios, had been Guardian. In all the slow-revolving years they had rested there in silence and darkness, their only tenant the crawling squid.
A young man and a girl, flushed with dancing, came and leaned over the rail in the darkness near me.
"Do you know, the legended Atlantis is said to lie under these very seas we're sailing," I heard him tell her.
"A city down there—how wonderful!" she exclaimed. "Is there any truth to the legend?"
"Of course not, it's just a pretty fairy-story," he said indulgently. "People used to believe it, but they know now such a city could never have existed."
Atlantis, Atlantis, shall the world ever see your like again, city of stainless white beauty beside the dark blue sea? Shall proud men and beautiful women ever again walk earth such as walked your green streets in the days of your glory?
The man and girl turned away to dance again, but I remained looking down at the rushing black waters.
The faithless twain who had cast my loved land down to doom beneath those waters still lived, still gloried in their evil. I prayed that I might be granted this last chance of vengeance and atonement.
When I reached New York, my hopes withered. For this John Hardwick and his wife who I hoped were Karnath and Etain were well-nigh utterly inaccessible. Their home was a great castle-like penthouse set on the top of a colossal skyscraper. When they were in it, armed guards watched every possible entrance. Even airplanes were forbidden over it. When John Hardwick or his wife went out of it, their car was guarded by other cars and by a dozen disguised bodyguards. The offices of the billionaire in lower New York were as heavily guarded.
For weeks I found it impossible even to see their faces. Yet I did not despair, for all this convinced me that they were so guarded because they feared something or someone greatly. And if they were Karnath and Etain, it was I, Ulios, whom they feared!
At last I had a momentary glimpse of them as they emerged one day from their great limousine. I knew at the first sight of John Hardwick's square, hard face and brilliant eyes, at the first glimpse of the woman's faultless features and secret gaze, that they were Karnath and Etain.
My heart shouted thanksgiving within