begin with a story of a flood--some cataclysmic upheaval that destroyed
the world. Egypt itself was colonised by a group of Atlantean priests
who brought their curious, deep knowledge with them. They had foreseen
the cataclysm.

Lady Statham talked well, bringing into her great dream this strong,
insistent quality of belief and fact. She knew, from Plato to Donelly,
all that the minds of men have ever speculated upon the gorgeous legend.
The evidence for such a sunken continent--Henriot had skimmed it too in
years gone by--she made bewilderingly complete. He had heard Baconians
demolish Shakespeare with an array of evidence equally overwhelming. It
catches the imagination though not the mind. Yet out of her facts, as
she presented them, grew a strange likelihood. The force of this woman's
personality, and her calm and quiet way of believing all she talked
about, took her listener to some extent--further than ever before,
certainly--into the great dream after her. And the dream, to say the
least, was a picturesque one, laden with wonderful possibilities. For as
she talked the spirit of old Egypt moved up, staring down upon him out
of eyes lidded so curiously level. Hitherto all had prated to him of the
Arabs, their ancient faith and customs, and the splendour of the
Bedouins, those Princes of the Desert. But what he sought, barely
confessed in words even to himself, was something older far than this.
And this strange, dark woman brought it close. Deeps in his soul, long
slumbering, awoke. He heard forgotten questions.

Only in this brief way could he attempt to sum up the storm she roused
in him.

She carried him far beyond mere outline, however, though afterwards he
recalled the details with difficulty. So much more was suggested than