9. PHORENICE, GODDESS


Now the passage, though its entrance had been cunningly hidden
by man's artifice, was one of those veins in which the fiery blood
of our mother, the Earth, had aforetime coursed. Long years had
passed since it carried lava streams, but the air in it was still
warm and sulphurous, and there was no inducement to linger in
transit. I lit me a lamp which I found in an appointed niche, and
walked briskly along my ways, coughing, and wishing heartily I had
some of those simples which ease a throat that has a tendency to
catarrh. But, alas! all that packet of drugs which were my sole
spoil from the vice-royalty of Yucatan were lost in the sea-fight
with Dason's navy, and since landing in Atlantis there had been
little enough time to think for the refinements of medicine.

The network of earth-veins branched prodigiously, and if any
but one of us Seven Priests had found a way into its recesses by
chance, he would have perished hopelessly in the windings, or have
fallen into one of those pits which lead to the boil below. But I
carried the chart of the true course clearly in my head,
remembering it from that old initiation of twenty years back, when,
as an appointed viceroy, I was raised to the highest degree but one
known to our Clan, and was given its secrets and working
implements.

The way was long, the floor was monstrous uneven, and the air,
as I have said, bad; and I knew that day would be far advanced