faint strip along the western horizon.

It was about the middle of the afternoon, while passing the ruins of a
gigantic tower--perhaps a lighthouse--that Nofuhl, of a sudden,
clambered hastily to his feet and looked about him. Then he called to
Grip-til-lah, asking how many leagues we were from the harbor of
Nhu-Yok. Grip-til-lah's reply I forget, but it filled the old man with
a gentle excitement. I observed an unwonted sparkle in his eyes, also
a quivering of the fingers as he pointed to the ocean around about,
and exclaimed--

"Beneath us, the bottom of the sea is covered with iron ships--the
wrecks of stupendous navies--the mightiest of all human history!"

At once we all became interested.

"What navies?" I inquired. "And what compassed their destruction?
Was it a battle?"

Nofuhl.
A battle of whose magnitude no Persian has conception; a conflict in
which the sea was tossed and the heavens rent by thunderings of iron
monsters. Any one of them would have blown to atoms a fleet of
Zlotuhbs.

Ad-el-pate.
Verily! A tale easier told than believed. But I would readily
venture my head in the Zlotuhb against any of these nursery-tale
wonders.