on their occupants.

In the morning it was observed that the mountain on which the prophet's
people lived had settled until the place where the ship rested was but a
few feet above the level of our new sea. The mountain on which our
pyramid had been constructed and the adjacent plain on which the city
was built had risen materially in altitude; at least such seemed to be
the case.

Within ten days the ship rode at anchor. Then I knew that my gods had
been good to me and had truly warned so I might make preparation. I
determined on the morrow to seize the ship and retain it for my own use.
All owners of boats had long since fled the land. The next morning when
I awoke the ship was a distant speck upon the growing ocean. It seemed
the gods of some few others were caring for them also.

The pyramid now was about completed and not having provisions for all,
though we of the palace stinted not ourselves, having plenty for years,
I directed the guards to issue only half rations to the people. They
died by hundreds and were cast from the cliffs into the cold waters of
the sea.

Noticing that great crowds gathered in the city and that they wept and
swore and encouraged one another to assault the palace and tear their
ruler to pieces, I thought it best to desert the palace and take
possession of the pyramid, which was full of provisions, and had a guard
of several thousand soldiers.

So we of the palace, some hundred persons, with a guard of more than
three hundred, moved into the pyramid; and, with the stones prepared for
that purpose, closed the entrance hall with fifty feet of solid
masonry, telling the soldiers outside that we would feed them from our
supplies, which we had no intention of doing, except as they might be of
use. How easy it is to fool the common people.

That night it stormed and sleet and snow made the outer pyramid a thing
of milky glass.

The half-naked, half-starved people came by thousands, and holding out
their hands in supplication, begged for bread. But we, sheltered and fed
and clothed and sitting by our fires, had no thought for and took no
risk for others.

The pyramid in the winter sunlight, with its coating of milk-white ice,
seemed an immense half-buried diamond; and we within its heart were not
more considerate of the starving, surging mass at its base.

Through the narrow slit-like ventilators, we heard in the afternoon the
sound of strife; and, climbing to the flat top, where there