r was ordered to be put
into employment. It was the largest army, and the best equipped army
that Atlantis then had ever raised, and the Priestly Clan saw fit to put
in supreme command their general, Tatho."

"You!" I cried.

"Even myself, Deucalion. And mark you, I fought my utmost. I was not her
creature then; and when I set out (because they wanted to spur me to the
uttermost) the High Council of the priests pointed out my prospects. The
King we had known so long, was ailing and wearily old; he was so wrapped
up in the study of the mysteries, and the joy of closely knowing them,
that earthly matters had grown nauseous to him; and at any time he might
decide to die. The Priestly Clan uses its own discretion in the election
of a new king, but it takes note of popular sentiment; and a general who
at the critical time could come home victorious from a great campaign,
which moreover would release a harassed people from the constant
application of arms, would be the idol of the moment. These things were
pointed out to me solemnly and in the full council."

"What! They promised you the throne?"

"Even that. So you see I set out with a high stake before me. Phorenice
I had never seen, and I swore to take her alive, and give her to be the
sport of my soldiery. I had a fine confidence in my own strategy then,
Deucalion. But the old Gods, in whom I trusted then, remained old,
taught me no new thing. I drilled and exercised my army according to the
forms you and I learnt together, old comrade, and in many a tough fight
found to serve well; I armed them with the choicest weapons we knew of
then, with sling and mace, with bow and spear, with axe and knife, with
sword and the throwing fire; their bodies I covered with metal plates;
even their bellies I cared for, with droves of cattle driven in the rear
of the fighting troops.

"But when the encounter came, they might have been men of straw for all
the harm they did. Out of her own brain Phorenice had made fire-tubes
that cast a dart which would kill beyond two bowshots, and the fashion
in which she handled her troops dazzled me. They threatened us on one
flank, they harassed us on the other. It was not war as we had been
accustomed to. It was a newer and more deadly game, and I had to watch
my splendid army eaten away as waves eat a sandhill. Never once did I
get a chance of forcing close action. These new tactics that had come
from Phorenice's invention, were beyond my art t