Tatho shrugged his shoulders. "The Gods? They occupy us very
little these latter years. With our modern science, we have grown
past the tether of the older Gods, and no new one has appeared.
No, my Lord Deucalion, if it were merely the Gods who were your
competitors on men's lips, your name would be a thousand times the
better known."

"Of mere human names," I said, "the name of this new Empress
should come first in Atlantis, our lord the old King being now
dead."

"She certainly would have it so," replied Tatho, and there was
something in his tone which made me see that more was meant behind
the words. I drew him to one of the marble seats, and bent myself
familiarly towards him. "I am speaking," I said, "not to the new
Viceroy of Yucatan, but to my old friend Tatho, a member of the
Priests' Clan, like myself, with whom I worked side by side in a
score of the smaller home governments, in hamlets, in villages, in
smaller towns, in greater towns, as we gained experience in war and
knowledge in the art of ruling people, and so tediously won our
promotion. I am speaking in Tatho's private abode, that was mine
own not two hours since, and I would have an answer with that
plainness which we always then used to one another."

The new Viceroy sighed whimsically. "I almost forget how to
speak in plain words now," he said. "We have grown so polished in
these latter days, that mere bald truth would be hissed as
indelicate. But for the memory of those early years, when we
expended as much law and thought over the ownership of a hay-byre