The Winded Horse of Atlantis

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21812, 18 June 1936, Page 7 (Supplement)

The Winded Horse of Atlantis

Part I. Dan knocked his elbow against the side of the porthole and when he stopped to rub it, Nick said, “Hurry up, Fatty,” so he gave another wriggle and slipped through. Up till that moment he had not really believed it would happen. The long evenings they had spent practising with his uncle’s lastest invention, the under-water wireless, had been like playing a game, a tiring one sometimes, but only a game. His uncle seemed, to have lost all interest in it, as he often did when a thing was finished. He and Mr Lindsay spent all their time in the laboratory, and refused to discuss their plans. Dan’s sister Vivien looked worried and said she felt sure they were going to visit Mars or shoot the moon or something and that if Uncle Vernon was not careful he would get hurt one of these days.

“He always is careful,” Dan had told her, but he could not help feeling curious.

He remembered the night when his cousin. Hick Halliday, walked in and said, “Uncle Vernon is going to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean to hunt for the lost continent.”

Thinking of it he grinned to himself; what an argument there had been! He had , started it by asking if his uncle really believed all that stuff about Atlantis, and Nick had said “Why not? There are all sorts of old legends about it, and Plato even described the sort of houses the people of Atlantis lived in.”

“But those old Johnnies would believe anything,” Vivien had objected. “They thought there were unicorns and mermaids and dragons all over the place. It must have taken a lot of nerve to go exploring in those days,” she added thoughtfully.

“There was usually some truth in their yarns,” Nick had persisted. “Of course the sailors probably added some trimmings themselves, and the artists who drew the pictures of the strange animals they described had never seen them. Suppose a man told how he had been charged by an animal as big as a horse with a horn on its forehead, the artist drew a picture of what he thought it would be like and called it a unicorn, but how would a rhinoceros do instead? When you were being chased by it you probably would not wait to see exactly where its horn was, or if you did, you wouldn’t come back to tell about it.”

In the laboratory Mr Lindsay had shown them a great black ball. “That’s the Meteor,” he told them, “v/hen your uncle started making plans I said to him that there wasn’t a metal in the world that would stand up to the’ pressure at the bottom of the ocean. Then he had word of a meteor that had been found in the Kalahari Desert and from what was said it seemed likely it might do. That was what took him out to South Africa in such a hurry last year, and the meteor has done it. I tell you it’s a dispensation of Providence, for he would have gone anyway, and without this new metal he could never have succeeded.”

Looking at the bulky black object Dan had felt sure no one would ever go hunting for drowned cities

(By Irene O. Laing)

in it. Secretly he agreed with Vivien when she said it was as unromantic looking as a petrol tank. Yet here he was, actually inside it, and making faces at his sister through the fused-quartz window. Outside, the heavy cap which sealed the entrance was being screwed into place and the noise in the confined space made speech impossible. Dan did not realise that his cousin was beside him until he found himself set firmly aside while Nick took his place at the window and tried to talk to Vivien on his fingers. Even when the noise stopped, Dan’s head continued to ring with the vibration. At the window Nick seemed to be in difficulties with his sign talk. He was shaking his head and moving his hands rapidly, sometimes in his excitement forgetting the small size of the window, he would hold them to one side where Vivien could not possibly see them. He

did not see the signal given to lift the Meteor, and as it rose from the deck he lost his balance and sat down suddenly. “We’re off!” he gasped.

Dan laughed. “All aboard that’s going aboard. Next stop Atlantis. Three miles straight down and mind the bottom step.” “Is that what I tripped on?” asked Nick.

They struck the sea in a splatter of foam. A wave washed across the window, then passed and a ray of reflected sunlight darlced on the wall, flickering gaily until the Meteor sank beneath the surface. “I wonder what will have happened before we see the sun again, or if we ever will,” Dan thought. He looked at his uncle, sharpening a pencil as calmly as if he were in the sitting-room at home, then turned to find that Nick had put on the wireless headphones. “Won’t it be a sell if that gadget doesn’t work?” he muttered.

“lf you are referring to the wireless. Daniel, you need not worry,”

said his uncle. “I have every confidence in it.” Nick reached for the message pad and wrote, “Funny how he always hears anything he isn’t meant to, yet if you want to attract his attention you have to shout, and even then he doesn’t always hear.” Then he stiffened to attention. “Here is Vivien talking already. She says it made her feel funny when she saw us submerge and are we all right?” He tapped rapicay in answer, “We are looking out into a world of pale green water, and a large cod has flattened his nose against the window and is looking in. I wish he would not stare so hard, he is making me feel nervous. I fancy he has seen Dan and noticed the resemblance. Probably he is wondering if he is a relation.” The reply was prompt. “Don’t forget you are related to Dan yourself. Listen, Nick, if Mr Lindsay is right and Eldorado, the City of Gold the Spaniards could never find in South America, is really in Atlantis bring me up a chimney or a few sheets of gold roofing, will you? Seriously, I wish Uncle Vernon had hot insisted on having that grappling iron attached to the Meteor. I feel sure it will foul something.” The grapnel, which opened or closed in response to a wireless im-

pulse, and which swung at the end of a steel cable, was intended to bring up a sample of rock, if possible one bearing signs 6f human workmanship.

Outside, the water was now a deep blue and was darkening steadily as they descended. A spark of light shone brightly and then disappeared. “What was that?” asked Dan.

“The first of the deep sea fish,” said his uncle. “Many of them have lights on their bodies and some carry ‘lanterns’ on the end of spines.”

Presently a shoal of fish swam past.

Tt looks almost like the sky on a clear night, except that they are all shooting stars,” said Nick. “That fellow looks more like a bus to me. Can we have the on ’ Uncle Vernon?” . The , beam Jot light showed the bus belonged to the eel family, but wlrf not i, a y°y ed to adn «re it for long, as he had to call up the ship and report

He found he had to listen intently for the answer, and from the rate at which it was sent be knew Vivien was nervous.

“Why are your signals so weak?” she asked.

“I didn’t know they were. Y quit’s seem to be fading out, too.” . Vernon Halliday turned from the window with a start.

“I don’t understand it,” said his uncle. "Take my place by the window, please, while I see if I can make any adjustments to it.” An hour later he was still working over the set near which the cousins crouched close together by the porthole. Their last message had evidently been understood, for the Meteor was still descending steadily.

“What’s that?” said Dan suddenly* “Where?”

‘‘That black shadow near the edge of thd beam. Look, it is rising higher.” Nick strained his eyes trying to see more clearly the dim formless shape that loomed up, half seen, half guessed at the edge of dark* ness.

“It is not rising, we are sinking past it,” said Dan. “It is not moving at alL’ Could it be an old wreck?”

“It looks too big for that” “I believe it is an under-water mountain,” said Dan. It is queer to think that we may be the first to set eyes on it since Atlantis sank beneath the sea in 10,000 B.C. Don't you want to have a look. Uncle?” He moved back and his uncle pressed close against the side of the Meteor and peered downwards. “Yes, you are right” he said, “and as we cannot signal our friends to stop lowering it is probable that we will crash on the lower slopes of the mountain. I wish now that I had not brought you boys with me, but it seemed such a unique opportunity and I felt sure we would return safely.” “Don’t bother about us,” said Nick. “We knew the risk we were taking.” “If only the wireless had not—' * he broke off with a startled exclamation as the Meteor jerked and quivered. The grappling iron had caught in something directly below them. In the same instant Dan realised that they were no longer descending. Nick, at the wireless controls, rapidly opened and closed the grappling iron, hoping the movement might help it to work loose. “It is no good. It is jammed,” he said. . . As he spoke the Meteor lurched forward on to its side and all three were flung on to the wall by the porthole in a helpless heap. They found themselves looking directly downwards into a vast building, the roof of which had fallen m. The walls were still standing ana glowed dully . where the search* light touched them. They had a glimpse of strange frescoes, of winged horses, mammoths, deer, a charging bull, and then the Meteor righted itself and slowly began to rise. . “I thought that was the finish, said .Nick, removing his elbow from the middle of Dan’s back. His cousin nodded. “Me, too. My heart is going like a trip-hammer. What happened anyhow?” “I don’t know.” Dan turned to his uncle, but he had snatched up a notebook from the floor and was writing furiously. “The grapnel must have been freed when we fell forward, but why?” As if in answer the Meteor suddenly dropped again.

(To be CmtinuedJ