pages, which a certain vandal smashed up with his pocketknife, in
getting them away from the place where they were stowed."

"That's right, abuse me. Deucalion you say? There was a
Deucalion in the Greek mythology. He was one of the two who
escaped from the Flood: their Noah, in fact."

"The swamping of the continent of Atlantis might very well
correspond to the Flood."

"Is there a Pyrrha then? She was Deucalion's wife."

"I haven't come across her yet. But there's a Phorenice, who
may be the same. She seems to have been the reigning Empress, as
far as I can make out at present."

I looked with interest at illustrations in the margin. They
were quite understandable, although the perspective was all wrong.
"Weird beasts they seem to have had knocking about the country in
those days. Whacking big size too, if one may judge. By Jove,
that'll be a cave-tiger trying to puff down a mammoth. I shouldn't
care to have lived in those days."

"Probably they had some way of fighting the creatures.
However, that will show itself as I get along with the
translation." He looked at his watch--"I suppose I ought to be
ashamed of myself, but I haven't been to bed. Are you going out?"

"I shall drive back to Las Palmas. I promised a man to have a
round at golf this afternoon."