CHAPTER XXI
"THE FATHER OF HORROR"
At the time when the President of the United States and his companionswere beginning to discover the refugees around Pike's Peak, CosmoVersal's Ark accompanied by the _Jules Verne_, whose commander haddecided to remain in touch with his friends, was crossing the submergedhills and valleys of Languedoc under a sun as brilliant as that whichhad once made them a land of gold.
De Beauxchamps remained aboard the Ark much of the time. Cosmo liked tohave him, with himself and Captain Arms, on the bridge, because therethey could talk freely about their plans and prospects, and theFrenchman was a most entertaining companion.
Meanwhile, the passengers in the saloons and on the promenade decksformed little knots and coteries for conversation, for reading, and formutual diversion, or strolled about from side to side, watching theendless expanse of waters for the occasional appearance of someinhabitant of the deep that had wandered over the new ocean's bottom.
These animals seemed to be coming to the surface to get bearings. Everysuch incident reminded the spectators of what lay beneath the waves, andled them to think and talk of the awful fate that had overwhelmed theirfellow men, until the spirits of the most careless were subdued by thepervading melancholy.
King Richard, strangely enough, had taken a liking for Amos Blank, whowas frequently asked to join the small and somewhat exclusive circle ofcompatriots that continually surrounded the fallen monarch. Thebillionaire and the king often leaned elbow to elbow over the rail, andput their heads companionably together while pointing out some object onthe sea. Lord Swansdown felt painfully cut by this, but, of course, hecould offer no objection.
Finally Cosmo invited the king to come upon the bridge, from whichpassengers were generally excluded, and the king insisted that Blankshould go, too. Cosmo consented, for Blank seemed to him to have becomequite a changed man, and he found him sometimes full of practicalsuggestions.
So it happened that when Captain Arms announced that the Ark was passingover the ancient city of Carcassonne, Cosmo, the king, De Beauxchamps,Amos Blank, and the captain were all together on the bridge. WhenCaptain Arms mentioned their location, King Richard became verythoughtful. After a time he said musingly:
"Ah! how all these names, Toulouse, Carcassonne, Languedoc, bring backto me the memory of my namesake of olden times, Richard I. of England.This, over which we are floating, was the land of the Troubadours, andRichard was the very Prince of Troubadours. With all his faults Englandnever had a king like him!"
"Knowing your devotion to peace, which was the reason why I wished youto be of the original company in the Ark, I am surprised to hear you saythat," said Cosmo.
"Ah!" returned the King, "But Coeur de Lion was a true Englishman, evenin his love of fighting. What would he say if he knew where England liesto-day? What would he say if he knew the awful fate that has come uponthis fair and pleasant land, from whose poets and singers he learned theart of minstrelsy?"
"He would say, 'Do not despair,'" replied Cosmo. "' Show the courage ofan Englishman, and fight for your race if you cannot for your country.'"
"But may not England, may not all these lands, emerge again from thefloods?" asked the king.
"Not in our time, not in our children's time," said Cosmo Versal,thoughtfully shaking his head.
"In the remote future, yes--but I cannot tell how remote. Tibet was oncean appanage of your crown, before China taught the West what war meant,and in Tibet you may help to found a new empire, but I must tell youthat it will not resemble the empires of the past. Democracy will be itscorner stone, and science its law."
"Then I devote myself to democracy and science," responded King Richard.
"Good! Admirable!" exclaimed Amos Blank and De Beauxchampssimultaneously, while Captain Arms would probably have patted the kingon the back had not his attention, together with that of the others,been distracted by a huge whale blowing almost directly in the course ofthe Ark.
"Blessed if I ever expected to see a sight like that in these parts!"exclaimed the captain. "This lifting the ocean up into the sky isupsetting the order of nature. I'd as soon expect to sight a cachalot ontop of the Rocky Mountains."
"They'll be there, too, before long," said Cosmo.
"I wonder what he's looking for," continued Captain Arms. "He must havecome down from the north. He couldn't have got in through the Pyreneesor the Sierra Nevadas. He's just navigated right over the whole countrystraight down from the English Channel."
The whale sounded at the approach of the Ark, but in a little while hewas blowing again off toward the south, and then the passengers caughtsight of him, and there was great excitement.
He seemed to be of enormous size, and he sent his fountain to anextraordinary height in the air. On he went, appearing and disappearing,steering direct for Africa, until, with glasses, they could see hiswhite plume blowing on the very edge of the horizon.
Not even the reflection that they themselves were sailing over Europeimpressed some of the passengers with so vivid a sense of theirsituation as the sight of this monstrous inhabitant of the ocean takinga view of his new domain.
At night Cosmo continued the concerts and the presentation of theShakespearian dramas, and for an hour each afternoon he had a"conference" in the saloon, at which Theriade and Sir Athelstone werealmost the sole performers.
Their disputes, and Cosmo's efforts to keep the peace, amused for awhile, but at length the audiences diminished until Cosmo, with hisconstant companions, the Frenchman, the king, Amos Blank, the threeprofessors from Washington, and a few other savants were the onlylisteners.
But the music and the plays always drew immensely.
Joseph Smith was kept busy most of the time in Cosmo's cabin, copyingplans for the regeneration of mankind.
When they knew that they had finally left the borders of France and weresailing above the Mediterranean Sea, it became necessary to lay theircourse with considerable care. Cosmo decided that the only safe planwould be to run south of Sardinia, and then keep along between Sicilyand Tunis, and so on toward lower Egypt.
There he intended to seek a way over the mountains north of the Sinaipeninsula into the Syrian desert, from which he could reach the ancientvalley of the Euphrates and the Persian Gulf. He would then pass downthe Arabian Sea, swing round India and Ceylon, and, by way of the Bay ofBengal and the plains of the Ganges and Brahmaputra, approach theHimalayas.
Captain Arms was rather inclined to follow the Gulf of Suez and thedepression of the Red Sea, but Cosmo was afraid that they would havedifficulty in getting the Ark safely through between the Mt. Sinai peaksand the Jebel Gharib range.
"Well, you're the commodore," said the captain at the end of thediscussion, "but hang me if I'd not rather follow a sea, where I knowthe courses, than go navigating over mountains and deserts in the landof Shinar. We'll land on top of Jerusalem yet, you'll see!"
Feeling sure of plenty of water under keel, they now made better speedand De Beauxchamps retired into the _Jules Verne_, and detached it fromthe Ark, finding that he could distance the latter easily with thesubmersible running just beneath the surface of the water.
"Come up to blow, and take a look around from the bridge, once in awhile," the captain called out to him as he disappeared and the coverclosed over him. The _Jules Verne_ immediately sank out of sight.
They passed round Sardinia, and between the old African coast andSicily, and were approaching the Malta Channel when their attention wasdrawn to a vast smoke far off toward the north.
"It's Etna in eruption," said Cosmo to the captain.
"A magnificent sight!" exclaimed King Richard, who happened to be on thebridge.
"Yes, and I'd like to see it nearer," remarked Cosmo, as a wonderfulcolumn of smoke, as black as ink, seemed to shoot up to the very zenith.
"You'd better keep away," Captain Arms said warningly. "There's no goodcomes of fooling round volcanoes in a ship."
"Oh, it's safe enough," returned Cosm
o. "We can run right over thesoutheastern corner of Sicily and get as near as we like. There isnothing higher than about three thousand feet in that part of theisland, so we'll have a thousand feet to spare."
"But maybe the water has lowered."
"Not more than a foot or two," said Cosmo. "Go ahead."
The captain plainly didn't fancy the adventure, but he obeyed orders,and the Ark's nose was turned northward, to the delight of many of thepassengers who had become greatly interested when they learned that thetremendous smoke that they saw came from Mount Etna.
Some of them were nervous, but the more adventurous spirits heartilyapplauded Cosmo Versal's design to give them a closer view of soextraordinary a spectacle. Even from their present distance the sightwas one that might have filled them with terror if they had not alreadybeen through adventures which had hardened their nerves. The smoke wastruly terrific in appearance.
It did not spread low over the sea, but rose in an almost verticalcolumn, widening out at a height of several miles, until it seemed tocanopy the whole sky toward the north.
It could be seen spinning in immense rolling masses, the outer parts ofwhich were turned by the sunshine to a dingy brown color, while the mainstem of the column, rising directly from the great crater, was of pitchyblackness.
An awful roaring was audible, sending a shiver through the Ark. At thebottom of the mass of smoke, through which gleams of fire were seen toshoot as they drew nearer, appeared the huge conical form of themountain, whose dark bulk still rose nearly seven thousand feet abovethe sea that covered the great, beautiful, and historic island beneathit.
They had got within about twenty miles of the base of the mountain, whena shout was heard by those on the bridge, and Cosmo and the captain,looking for its source, saw the _Jules Verne_, risen to the surface alittle to starboard, and De Beauxchamps excitedly signaling to them.They just made out the words, "Sheer off!" when the Ark, with a groaningsound, took ground, and they were almost precipitated over the rail ofthe bridge.
"Aground again, by ----!" exclaimed Captain Arms, instantly signalingall astern. "I told you not to go fooling round a volcano."
"This beats me!" cried Cosmo Versal. "I wonder if the island has begunto rise."
"More likely the sea has begun to fall," growled Captain Arms.
"Do you know where we are?" asked Cosmo.
"We can't be anywhere but on the top of Monte Lauro," replied thecaptain.
"But that's only three thousand feet high."
"It's exactly three thousand two hundred and thirty feet," said thecaptain. "I haven't navigated the old Mediterranean a hundred times fornothing."
"But even then we should have near seven hundred and fifty feet tospare, allowing for the draft of the Ark, and a slight subsidence of thewater."
"Well, you haven't allowed enough, that's plain," said the captain.
"But it's impossible that the flood can have subsided more than sevenhundred feet already."
"I don't care how impossible it is--here we are! We're stuck on amountain-top, and if we don't leave our bones on it I'm a porpoise."
By this time the _Jules Verne_ was alongside, and De Beauxchamps shoutedup:
"I was running twenty feet under water, keeping along with the Ark, whenmy light suddenly revealed the mountain ahead. I hurried up and tried towarn you, but it was too late."
"Can't you go down and see where we're fast?" asked Cosmo.
"Certainly; that's just what I was about to propose," replied theFrenchman, and immediately the submersible disappeared.
After a long time, during which Cosmo succeeded in allaying the fears ofhis passengers, the submersible reappeared, and De Beauxchamps made hisreport. He said that the Ark was fast near the bow on a bed of shellylimestone.
He thought that by using the utmost force of the _Jules Verne_, whoseengines were very powerful, in pushing the Ark, combined with thebacking of her own engines, she might be got off.
"Hurry up, then, and get to work," cried Captain Arms. "This flood is onthe ebb, and a few hours more will find us stuck here like a ray withhis saw in a whale's back."
De Beauxchamps's plan was immediately adopted. The _Jules Verne_descended, and pushed with all her force, while the engines of the Arkwere reversed, and within fifteen minutes they were once more afloat.
Without waiting for a suggestion from Cosmo Versal, the Frenchmancarefully inspected with his searchlight the bottom of the Ark where shehad struck, and when he came to the surface he was able to report thatno serious damage had resulted.
"There's no hole," he said, "only a slight denting of one of the plates,which will not amount to anything."
Cosmo, however, was not content until he had made a careful inspectionby opening some of the manholes in the inner skin of the vessel. Hefound no cause for anxiety, and in an hour the Ark resumed its voyageeastward, passing over the site of ancient Syracuse.
By this time a change of the wind had sent the smoke from Etna in theirdirection, and now it lay thick upon the water, and rendered it, for awhile, impossible to see twenty fathoms from the bridge.
"It's old Etna's dying salute," said Cosmo. "He won't have his headabove water much longer."
"But the flood is going down," exclaimed Captain Arms.
"Yes, and that puzzles me. There must have been an enormous absorptionof water into the interior, far greater than I ever imagined possible.But wait until the nucleus of the nebula strikes us! In the meantime,this lowering of the water renders it necessary for us to make haste, orwe may not get over the mountains round Suez before the downpourrecommences."
As soon as they escaped from the smoke of Etna they ran full speed aheadagain, and, keeping well south of Crete, at length, one morning theyfound themselves in the latitude and longitude of Alexandria.
The weather was still superb, and Cosmo was very desirous of getting aline on the present height of the water. He thought that he could make afair estimate of this from the known elevation of the mountains aboutSinai. Accordingly they steered in that direction, and on the way passeddirectly over the site of Cairo.
Then the thought of the pyramids came to them all, and De Beauxchamps,who had come aboard the Ark, and who was always moved by sentimentalconsiderations, proposed that they should spend a few hours here, whilehe descended to inspect the condition in which the flood had left thosemighty monuments.
Cosmo not only consented to this, but he even offered to be a member ofthe party. The Frenchman was only too glad to have his company. CosmoVersal descended into the submersible after instructing Captain Arms tohover in the neighborhood.
The passengers and crew of the Ark, with expressions of anxiety thatwould have pleased their subject if he had heard them, watched the_Jules Verne_ disappear into the depths beneath.
The submersible was gone so long that the anxiety of those aboard theArk deepened into alarm, and finally became almost panic. They had neverbefore known how much they depended upon Cosmo Versal.
He was their only reliance, their only hope. He alone had known how tokeep up their spirits, and when he had assured them, as he so often did,that the flooding would surely recommence, they had hardly beenterrified because of their unexpressed confidence that, let come whatwould, his great brain would find a way out for them.
Now he was gone, down into the depths of this awful sea, where theirimaginations pictured a thousand unheard-of perils, and perhaps theywould never see him again! Without him they knew themselves to behelpless. Even Captain Arms almost lost his nerve.
The strong good sense of Amos Blank alone saved them from the utterdespair that began to seize upon them as hour after hour passed withoutthe reappearance of the _Jules Verne_.
His experience had taught him how to keep a level head in an emergency,and how to control panics. With King Richard always at his side, he wentabout among the passengers and fairly laughed them out of their fears.
Without discussing the matter at all, he convinced them, by the simpleforce of his own
apparent confidence, that they were worrying themselvesabout nothing.
He was, in fact, as much alarmed as any of the others, but he nevershowed it. He started a rumor, after six hours had elapsed, that Cosmohimself had said that they would probably require ten or twelve hoursfor their exploration.
Cosmo had said nothing of the kind, but Blank's prevarication had itsintended effect, and fortunately, before the lapse of another six hours,there was news from under the sea.
And what was happening in the mysterious depths below the Ark? What hadso long detained the submersible?
The point where the descent was made had been so well chosen that the_Jules Verne_ almost struck the apex of the Great Pyramid as itapproached the bottom. The water was somewhat muddy from the sands ofthe desert, and the searchlight streamed through a yellowish medium,recalling the "golden atmosphere" for which Egypt had been celebrated.But, nevertheless, the light was so powerful that they could seedistinctly at a distance of several rods.
The pyramid appeared to have been but little injured, although thetremendous tidal wave that had swept up the Nile during the invasion ofthe sea before the downpour began had scooped out the sand down to thebed-rock on all sides.
Finding nothing of particular interest in a circuit of the pyramid, theyturned in the direction of the Great Sphinx.
This, too, had been excavated to its base, and it now stood up to itsfull height, and a terrible expression seemed to have come into itsenigmatic features.
Cosmo wished to get a close look at it, and they ran the submersibleinto actual contact with the forepart of the gigantic statue, just underthe mighty chin.
While they paused there, gazing out of the front window of the vessel, abursting sound was heard, followed by a loud crash, and the _JulesVerne_ was shaken from stem to stern. Every man of them threw himselfagainst the sides of the vessel, for the sound came from overhead, andthey had an instinctive notion that the roof was being crushed down uponthem.
A second resounding crash was heard, shaking them like an earthquake,and the little vessel rolled partly over upon its side.
"We are lost!" cried De Beauxchamps. "The Sphinx is falling upon us! Weshall be buried alive here!"
A third crash came over their heads, and the submersible seemed to sinkbeneath them as if seeking to avoid the fearful blows that were rainedupon its roof.
Still, the stout curved ceiling, strongly braced within, did not yield,although they saw, with affright, that it was bulged inward, and some ofthe braces were torn from their places. But no water came in.
Stunned by the suddenness of the accident, for a few moments they didnothing but cling to such supports as were within their reach, expectingthat another blow would either force the vessel completely over or breakthe roof in.
But complete silence now reigned, and the missiles from above ceased tostrike the submersible. The searchlight continued to beam out of thefore end of the vessel, and following its broad ray with their eyes,they uttered one cry of mingled amazement and fear, and then staredwithout a word at such a spectacle as the wildest imagination could nothave pictured.
The front of the Sphinx had disappeared, and the light, penetratingbeyond the place where it had stood, streamed upon the face and breastof an enormous black figure, seated on a kind of throne, and staringinto their faces with flaming eyes which at once fascinated andterrified them.
To their startled imaginations the eyes seemed to roll in their sockets,and flashes of fire to dart from them. Their expression was menacing andterrifying beyond belief. At the same time the aspect of the face was somajestic that they cowered before it.
The cheekbones were high, massive, and polished until they shone in thelight; the nose and chin were powerful in their contours; and the browwore an intimidating frown. It seemed to the awed onlookers as if theyhad sacrilegiously burst into the sanctuary of an offended god.
But, after a minute or two of stupefaction, they thought again of thedesperateness of their situation, and turned from staring at the strangeidol to consider what they should do.
The fact that no water was finding its way into the submersible somewhatreassured them, but the question now arose whether it could be withdrawnfrom its position.
They had no doubt that the front of the Sphinx, saturated by the waterafter the thousands of years that it had stood there, exposed to thedesiccating influences of the sun and the desert sands, had suddenlydisintegrated, and fallen upon them, pinning their vessel fast under thefragments of the huge head.
De Beauxchamps tried the engines and found that they had no effect inmoving the _Jules Verne_. He tried again and again by reversing todisengage the vessel, but it would not stir. Then they debated the onlyother means of escape.
"Although I have levium life-suits," said the Frenchman, "and althoughthe top of the _Jules Verne_ can probably be opened, for the door seemsnot to have been touched, yet the instant it is removed the water willrush in, and it will be impossible to pump out the vessel."
"Are your life-suits so arranged that they will permit of moving thelimbs?" demanded Cosmo.
"Certainly they are."
"And can they be weighted so as to remain at the bottom?"
"They are arranged for that," responded De Beauxchamps.
"And can the weights be detached by the inmates without permitting theentrance of water?"
"It can be done, although a very little water might enter during theoperation."
"Then," said Cosmo, "let us put on the suits, open the door, take outthe ballast so that, if released, the submersible will rise to thesurface through its own buoyancy, and then see if we cannot loosen thevessel from outside."
It was a suggestion whose boldness made even the owner and constructorof the _Jules Verne_ stare for a moment, but evidently it was the onlypossible way in which the vessel might be saved; and knowing that, incase of failure, they could themselves float to the surface afterremoving the weights from the bottom of the suits, they unanimouslydecided to try Cosmo Versal's plan.
It was terribly hard work getting the ballast out of the submersible,working as they had to do under water, which rushed in as soon as thedoor was opened, and in their awkward suits, which were provided withapparatus for renewing the supply of oxygen; but at last they succeeded.
Then they clambered outside, and labored desperately to release thevessel from the huge fragments of stone that pinned it down. Finally,exhausted by their efforts, and unable to make any impression, they gaveup.
De Beauxchamps approached Cosmo and motioned to him that it was time toascend to the surface and leave the _Jules Verne_ to her fate. But Cosmosignaled back that he wished first to examine more closely the strangestatue that was gazing upon them in the still unextinguished beam of thesearchlight with what they might now have regarded as a look of mockery.
The others, accordingly, waited while Cosmo Versal, greatly impeded byhis extraordinary garment, clambered up to the front of the figure.There he saw something which redoubled his amazement.
On the broad breast he saw a representation of a world overwhelmed witha deluge and encircling it was what he instantly concluded to be thepicture of a nebula. Underneath, in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, withwhich Cosmo was familiar, was an inscription in letters of gold, whichcould only be translated thus:
I Come Again-- At the End of Time.
"Great Heavens!" he said to himself. "It is a prophecy of the SecondDeluge!"
"IT IS A PROPHECY OF THE SECOND DELUGE."]
He continued to gaze, amazed, at the figure and the inscription, untilDe Beauxchamps clambered to his side and indicated to him that it wasnecessary that they should ascend without further delay, showing him bysigns that the air-renewing apparatus would give out.
With a last lingering look at the figure, Cosmo imitated the others bydetaching the weights from below his feet, and a minute later they wereall shooting rapidly toward the surface of the sea, De Beauxchamps, ashe afterwards declared, uttering a prayer for the repose of
the _JulesVerne_.
The imaginary time which Amos Blank had fixed as the limit set by Cosmofor the return from the depths was nearly gone, and he was beginning tocast about for some other invention to quiet the rising fears of thepassengers, when a form became visible which made the eyes of CaptainArms, the first to catch sight of it, start from their sockets. Herubbed them, and looked again--but there it was!
A huge head, human in outline, with bulging, glassy eyes, poppedsuddenly out of the depths, followed by the upper part of a giganticform which was no less suggestive of a monstrous man, and whichimmediately began to wave its arms!
Before the captain could collect his senses another shot to the surface,and then another and another, until there were seven of them floatingand awkwardly gesticulating within a radius of a hundred fathoms on thestarboard side of the vessel.
The whole series of apparitions did not occupy more than a quarter of aminute in making their appearance.
By the time the last had sprung into sight Captain Arms had recoveredhis wits, and he shouted an order to lower a boat, at the same timerunning down from the bridge to superintend the operation. Many of thecrew and passengers had in the meantime seen the strange objects, andthey were thrown into a state of uncontrollable excitement.
"It's them!" shouted the captain over his shoulder, in response to ahundred inquiries all put at once, and forgetting his grammar in theexcitement. "They've come up in diving-suits."
Amos Blank comprehended the situation at once; and while the captain wasgetting out the boat, he explained matters to the crowd.
"The submersible must be lost," he said quietly, "but the men haveescaped, so there is no great harm done. It does great credit to thatFrenchman that he should have been prepared for such an emergency. Thoseare levium suits, and I've no doubt that he has got hydrogen somewhereinside to increase their buoyancy."
Within a quarter of an hour all the seven had been picked up by theboat, and it returned to the Ark. The strange forms were lifted aboardwith tackle to save time; and as the first one reached the deck, itstaggered about on its big limbs for a moment.
Then the metallic head opened, and the features of De Beauxchamps wererevealed.
Before anybody could assist him he had freed himself from the suit, andimmediately he began to aid the others. In ten minutes they all stoodsafe and sound before the astonished eyes of the spectators. Cosmo hadsuffered from the confinement, and he sank upon a seat, but DeBeauxchamps seemed to be the most affected. With downcast look he said,sadly shaking his head:
"The poor _Jules Verne_! I shall never see her again."
"What has happened?" demanded Captain Arms.
"It was the Father of Horror," muttered Cosmo Versal.
"The Father of Horror--what's that?"
"Why, the Great Sphinx," returned Cosmo, gradually recovering hisbreath. "Didn't you know that that was what the Arabs always called theSphinx?
"It was that which fell upon the submersible--split right open anddropped its great chin upon us as we were sailing round it, and pinnedus fast. But the sight that we saw when the Sphinx fell apart! Tellthem, De Beauxchamps."
The Frenchman took up the narrative, while, with breathless attention,passengers and crew crowded about to listen to his tale.
"When we got to the bottom," he said, "we first inspected the GreatPyramid, going all round it with our searchlight. It was in goodcondition, although the tide that had come up the Nile with the invasionof the sea had washed away the sands to a great depth all about. When wehad completed the circuit of the pyramid, we saw the Sphinx, which hadbeen excavated by the water so that it stood up to its full height.
"We ran close around it, and when we were under the chin the wholething, saturated by the water, which no doubt caused an expansionwithin--you know how many thousand years the gigantic idol had beensun-dried--dropped apart.
"The submersible was caught by the falling mass, and partly crushed. Welabored for hours and hours to release the vessel, but there was littlethat we could do. It almost broke my heart to think of leaving the_Jules Verne_ there, but it had to be done.
"At last we put on the levium floating-suits, opened the cover at thetop, and came to the surface. The last thing I saw was the searchlight,still burning, and illuminating the most marvelous spectacle that humaneyes ever gazed upon."
"Oh, what was it? What was it?" demanded a score of voices in chorus.
"It is impossible to describe it. It was the secret of old Egyptrevealed at last--at the end of the world!"
"But what was it like?"
"Like a glimpse into the remotest corridors of time," interposed CosmoVersal, with a curious look in his eyes.
"Some of you may have heard that long ago holes were driven through theSphinx in the hope of discovering something hidden inside, but theymissed the secret. The old god kept it well until his form fell apart.We were pinned so close to it that we could not help seeing it, even inthe excitement of our situation.
"It had always been supposed that the Sphinx was the symbol ofsomething--it _was_, and more than a symbol! The explorers away back inthe nineteenth century who thought that they had found somethingmysterious in the Great Pyramid went wide of the mark when theyneglected the Sphinx."
"But what did you see?"
_"We saw the prophecy of the Second Deluge,"_ said Cosmo, rising to hisfeet, his piercing eyes aflame. "In the heart of the huge mass,approachable, no doubt, by some concealed passage in the rock beneath,known only to the priests, stood a gigantic idol, carved out of blackmarble.
"It had enormous eyes of some gem that blazed in the electric beam fromthe searchlight, with huge golden ears and beard, and on its breast wasa representation of a drowning world, with a great nebula sweeping overit."
"It might have been a history instead of a prophecy," suggested one ofthe listening savants. "Perhaps it only told what had once happened."
"No," replied Cosmo, shaking his big head. "It was a prophecy. Under it,in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, which I recognized, was aninscription which could only be translated by the words, 'I comeagain--at the end of time!'"
There was a quality in Cosmo Versal's voice which made the hearersshudder with horror.
"Yes," he added. "It comes again! The prophecy was hidden, but sciencehad its means of revelation, too, if the world would but have listenedto its voice. Even without the prophecy I have saved the flower ofmankind."