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assault on the High House was actually carried out, bombardment
continuing day and night for months together. Through a
misunderstanding of a well known magical law, Atlanteans at that
time considered themselves prohibited from employing any other
defence than the rods and the cones of their forefathers; and
these, it appears, were useless against machinery, or against men
protected by fortification in such a way that they could not be
got at from any quarter. Thus the sharklike submarines of the
enemy were unassailable. The war was therefore at first entirely
one-sided. A certain youthful magician, however, resolving to die
for his country if need were, decided to retaliate. He had found
that Zro in its nascent state (i.e. between the globes) had the
power of bringing about endothermic reaction, seawater for
example, becoming caustic soda and hydrochloric acid; and further
that this acid thus produced was many thousand times more active
than in its normal state. For example, the rock basins in which
he conducted his first experiment dissolved as rapidly as butter
under boiling oil. He then prepared a number of pairs of
receiver-globes, and dropped them in the vicinity of the enemy's
submarines by night. In this manner he destroyed the hulls of
almost the whole fleet in a single night; and the remainder fled
in panic at dawn. They returned the following year, carrying out
daylight raids only and devoting themselves chiefly to destroying
the labour-mills. The young magician had been rewarded for his
services by being presented to the Atla, and this example
encouraged others to find means of attacking the invaders.
Artificial darkness was therefore invented, and combined with the
former method; but this was only partially successful, the
tremendous pace of the 'sharks' enabling them to evade any
threatening clouds. They did enormous damage, and the supplies of
Zro were seriously curtailed. Things now went from bad to worse,
and culminated in the attack on the High House, the besiegers
keeping their battleships surrounded by rafts of fire, so that
attack was impossible even by night. It was then that the High
House called on the heorism of its sons. Armed with long swords
of Zro, they plunged into the sea, to perish under the tooth of
the Zhee-Zhou, but not before they had time to hack the invading
battleships to shreds. Their floating torch-rafts only assisted
the attack by directing the swimmers to their quarry. The attack
on the High House had aroused Atlas at last. A counter invasion
was plotted and carried out with immediate and complete success,
the enemy being exterminated, and their country not merely
ravaged but destroyed by arousing the forces of earthquake. All
activity of this kind however was deprecable, a recurrence was
guarded against by removing the High House to the lofty mountain
previously described, and a 'house' was chosen to cultivate the
art of war, and entrusted with the duty of destroying any living
thing that might approach within a hundred miles of Atlas.
Only one other adventure of historical importance remains to
be recorded. It is the attempt of some foolish Atlanteans to
found an 'Empire', and so to be entirely distinguished from the
missionary effort referred to previously. The original settlement
of Atlas, as has been the case with all flourishing colonies, was
made by a few hardy pioneers, who strengthened themselves
gradually by growth. But Atlas in her momentary madness poured
out blood and treasure in the fatuous attempt to impose alien
domination on lands utterly unsuited to the genius of the people.
The idea, of course, was to increase the supply of labour and
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