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On several occasions in the history of Atlas the Zro 'failed'.
Although not changed in appearance, its properties were lost or
diminished. In such a case young men and maidens in great numbers
were captured on the plains, brought into Atlas, and offered in
sacrifice to the Gods. Their blood was mingled with Zro in its
third stage, and the latter recovered its potency. Their flesh
was eaten by the high priests and priestesses in penance for the
unknown wrong. It was subject to other and terrible scourges,
being the most sensitive as well as the strongest thing on Earth.
On one occasion it had to be treated with a fox-like perfume
prepared by the chief magician; on another it was subjected to
streams of moonlight from parabolic mirrors.
The most serious crisis was some two thousand years before the
destruction of Atlas. One of the serviles, riding his
'hippopotamus' to the ploughing, fell off and was instantly
bitten by the poisonous fish previously described. Through an
accident of boyhood he had, however, for a reason too obscure to
describe here, no such vulnerable spot as suited the Zhee-Zhou.
He survived and went to work, as it chanced, the next day. The
Zro was poisoned; a third of Atlas died within the hour; the
plants on the affected island had to be destroyed, and all its
people. It was only repopulated some three hundred and eighty
years later, and then for particular reasons of magical economy
impossible to dwell upon in this account.
Marriage was compulsory on all those whose passion had been so
exclusive and enduring as to produce two children. Further
intercourse between the pair was barred. The Magicians thought it
was inimical to variation for a woman to have more than one child
(a fortiori two) by the same father; and the custom further
prevented those stupid sporadic outbursts of burnt-out lust which
make so many modern marriages intolerable.
Closely connected with marriage, the close of the reproductive
life, is that of death, the close of the little that remains.
Death hardly threatened the Atlantean; he would decide to "go and
see", as the old phrase ran, and take an overdose of a particular
preparation of black phosphorus mixed with a very little Zro in
the ninth stage, which ensured a painless death. That none ever
returned was taken as proof of the supreme attractiveness of
death.
The ghoulish and necromantic practices with which Atlanteans
have been unjustly reproached never occurred. A little vampirism,
perhaps, in the early days before the perfecting of Zro; but no
Atlantean was ever so stupid or so ignorant as to confuse death
with life.
Beside this voluntary death only one danger existed. As the
use of Zro guaranteed life and health and youth--a centenarian
high priest was no better than a kitten!--so did its abuse spell
instant corruption of those qualities. As mentioned above, now
and then the Zro itself was at fault, and caused epidemics; but
from time to time there were deaths in a particularly loathsome
form caused by what they called 'misunderstanding' the Zro.* Such
mistakes were particularly common in the early days of its
discovery, and before its use had become well nigh a worship. The
first symptom was a crack in the skin of the temple, or sometimes
of the bridge of the nose, more rarely of an eyelid or cheek.
Within a few minutes this crack became one open sore, of horrid
foetor, and within twenty-four hours, the patient was completely
rotted away, bone and marrow. A circumstance of singular atrocity
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