temple whose God has little flavour with shore folk, and here
they make sacrifice with clamour and lavish outlay. And, finally, there
follows a feast in honour of the God, and they arrive back on board, and
put to sea for the most part drunken, and all heavy and evil-humoured
with gluttony and their other excesses.

The voyage was very different to my previous sea-going. There was no
creeping timorously along in touch with the coasts. We stood straight
across the open gulf in the direction of home, came up with the band of
the Carib Islands, and worked confidently through them, as though they
had been signposts to mark the sea highway; and stopped only twice
to replenish with wood, water, and fruit. These commodities, too, the
savages brought us freely, so great was their subjection, and in
neither place did we have even the semblance of a fight. It was a great
certificate of the growing power of Atlantis and her finest over-sea
colony.

Then boldly on we went across the vast ocean beyond, with never a
sacrifice to implore the Gods that they should help our direction. One
might feel censure towards these rugged mariners for their impiety, but
one could not help an admiration for their lusty skill and confidence.

The dangers of the desolate sea are dealt out as the Gods will, and man
can only take them as they come. Storms we encountered, and the mariners
fought them with stubborn endurance; twice a blazing stone from Heaven
hissed into the sea beside us, though without injuring any of our ships;
and, as was unavoidable, the great beasts of the sea hunted us with
their accustomed savagery. But only once did we suffer material loss
from these last, and that was when three of the greater sea lizards
attacked the "Bear," the ship whereon I travelled, at one and the same
time.

The hour of their onset was during the blazing midday heat, and the Sun
being at the full of His power, our machines were getting full force
from Him. The vessel was travelling forward faster than a man on dry
land could walk. But for the power escape she might as well have been
standing still when the beasts sighted her. There were three of them,
as I have said, and we saw them come up over the curve of the horizon,
beating the sea into foam with their flappers, and waving their great
necks like masts as they swam. Our navy was spread out in a long line
of ships, and in olden days each of the beasts would have selected a
separate prey, and proce