Page:Weird Tales volume 36 number 02.djvu/109

 "Dead!" said Professor Shepard. "They have been dead for twenty-four centuries. And you have been dead. We've just brought you back to life."

For a long moment the Egyptian stared at Professor Shepard, his eyes gradually dulling. "It must be so," he finally conceded, "you would not dare, otherwise. Not to Ramahadin. The experiment—succeeded?"

"Yes," said Professor Shepard. "You did not die at all. You were merely placed in a state of suspended animation. Your savants prepared your body for death—and you were dead—for twenty-four hundred years, And now you are alive!"

Ramahadin's eyes continued to roam about the laboratory. "What is all this? Who are you strange-looking creatures? Who is the Pharoah?"

"A boy is king of Egypt," Professor Blythe said. "A boy named Farouk. This is not Egypt, however. This is America, a land beyond the sea."

"The barbaric country beyond Sicily?"

"Rome? No, Ramahadin. Rome is alive—but almost dead. I forgot. You do not know.

"The glory that was Greece faded shortly after you died. The Romans became the greatest people of the earth. They conquered Egypt and sent their legions to all parts of the known world. They crushed Carthage and the land of the Jews. And then, in their turn, they were defeated. The Teutonic tribes of the north over-ran Europe—"

"And who defeated them?" asked Ramahadin.

"They were assimilated. War has ruled the earth ever since you were buried. The world is at war today, the greatest war of all time. Men fly through the skies—"

"That is a lie!" cried Ramahadin. "Men cannot fly, because they cannot grow wings."

"They built machines. One machine can carry fifty people for five thousand miles."

Ramahadin stared at Professor Blythe, then his eyes shifted to the face of Professor Shepard and in turn to Eric Hanley. All nodded.

"Men learned to fly," said Eric Hanley. "So they could drop bombs upon other men—terrible bombs that destroy entire cities. Man conquered the earth, the sky and the water. But he could not conquer man himself."

"I am hungry!" declared Ramahadin. "Bring me food."

Professor Blythe went to the house telephone. "Martha," he ordered. "Bring a tray of food to the door. Set it down outside and then leave—no, only for one."

E HUNG up and turned back, just as Ramahadin put his feet upon the floor. "America," he said, "this must then be the country of Atlantis—the unknown land."

"Yes, I guess you could call it Atlantis," Hanley said. "But it is today the greatest country in the world. The richest and the most powerful—"

"And it is at war?"

"No. But we are aiding the Britons in their war against the Teutons and the Romans. We are sending them ships and airplanes—"

"The Romans, bah!" snapped Ramahadin. "They have always been at war. One tribe always fought the other and when neither had anything to fight about they went to sea in their galleys and became pirates. There is no civilization but Egypt's. Greece is too young—ah, but I forget! What kind of civilization do you have in this America?"

"The greatest the world has even known," said Hanley. "We have conquered disease and pestilence. We have built machines that fly through the air. We have invented instruments by which we can talk to men in Egypt five thousand