stood in such close touch with all this magnificence. In the
throngs that lined the streets there were gaunt bodies and hungry
faces everywhere. Here and there stood one, a man or a woman, as
naked as a savage in Europe, and yet dull to shame. Even the
trader, with trumpery gauds on his coat, aping the prevailing
fashion for display, had a scared, uneasy look to his face, as
though he had forgotten the mere name of safety, and hid a frantic
heart with his tawdry outward vauntings of prosperity.

Phorenice read the direction of my looks.

"The season," she said, "has been unhealthy of recent months.
These lower people will not build fine houses to adorn my city, and
because they choose to live on in their squalid, unsightly kennels,
there have been calentures and other sicknesses amongst them, which
make them disinclined for work. And then, too, for the moment,
earning is not easy. Indeed, you may say trade is nearly stopped
this last half-year, since the rebels have been hammering so
lustily at my city gates."

I was fairly startled out of my decorum.

"Rebels!" I cried. "Who are hammering at the gates of
Atlantis? Is the city in a state of siege?"

"Of their condescension," said Phorenice lightly, "they are
giving us holiday to-day, and so, happily, my welcome to you comes
undisturbed. If they were fighting, your ears would have told you
of it. To give them their due, they are noisy enough in all their
efforts. My spies say they are making ready new engines for use