Robbery, burglary, fakes, anything short of murder--it's all the same
to us now--we're tired of starving--dead sick of it. We would do
anything, sell our very souls for a meal. My God! I never imagined how
terrible it is to feel so hungry. You appear to be interested, Matt.
What is it?"

"Why, look here, you fellows!" Kelson said slowly. "This book is all
about a place called Atlantis that is said to have existed in the
Atlantic Ocean between America and Ireland, and to have been deluged
by an earthquake owing to the wickedness of its inhabitants. They
practised sorcery."

"Practised foolery," Hamar said. "It's tosh--all tosh! Wickedness is
only a matter of climate--and there's no such thing as sorcery."

"So I thought," Kelson replied; "but I'm not so sure now. The author
of this book writes darned sensibly, and is apparently at no loss for
corroborative testimony. He was a professor too. See! Thomas Henry
Maitland, at one time Professor of English at the University of Basle
in Switzerland. There's an asterisk against his name and a footnote in
very old-fashioned handwriting--the 's's' are all 'f's,' and half the
letters capitals. Listen--

"'Thomas Maitland, despite the remonstrances of his friends,
visited Spain. By order of the Holy Inquisition he was arrested,
May 5, 1693, on a charge of practising sorcery, and burned alive
at the Auto da Fé, in the Grand Market Square, Madrid; having in
the interim been subjected to such tortures as only the subtle
brains of the hellish inquisitors could devise. On receipt of a
message from him, delivered in his supernatural body, we attended