But let me not anticipate. I must describe as dispassionately as I can those overwhelming events which descended like lightning to blast Atlantean life, and which are so disturbing even in memory that my pen trembles and my startled mind takes fresh alarm. Merely to try to record those distracting days and nights is to be obsessed as by an old madness; I can feel a paralyzing dread spreading once more through all my nerves; I can feel my brain grow numb, my eyes grow strained and distended, my arteries throb with delirious haste. And all the while confused visions come swarming across my mind--visions of roaring vigils by lamplit walls of glass, visions of huddled faces, weeping or praying or with terror-stricken eyes, visions of thundering waters, panicky flights, submerged temples and inundated plains; and it all seems like some nightmare I dreamt long ago, yet more vivid than any nightmare, for there are sobs and lamentations that echo even now in my memory, and pleading lips that shall never stir again, and agonized eyes that peer at me like phantoms which will not be exorcised. Long before, in moments of aimless fancy, I had sought to picture to myself the end of the world; to imagine the consternation and horror of an earth maddened by dread of impending doom. But I had never thought that I myself would be the spectator of a crumbling universe.... As in the case of the crack in the wall years before, the danger appeared with devastating suddenness. One moment, all was tranquil; the next moment, the Sunken World was in a frenzy. I remember that one afternoon Aelios and I had gone to the Agripides Theatre to witness a performance of some sort (its precise nature has slipped from my mind); and it was at the close of the first act that the warning came. From the unexplained absence of the chorus that usually sang during intermissions, I might have suspected that something was wrong; but actually I was without misgivings until suddenly a great burnished, silvery horn--the horn of the Autophone!--was lifted quietly on the stage. At this unexpected sight, a stab of alarm darted through me; Aelios seized my hand and held it as if for reassurance; the audience sat rigid and tense, like persons who behold a ghost. For an instant we heard no sound, except for the quick breathing of our neighbors; then the strained silence was broken by an uncanny hollow voice that issued sonorously as if from nowhere. “A great misfortune has befallen,” announced the unseen, in tones that sounded almost sepulchral. “The crack in the glass wall has re-appeared, but this time it is of more serious proportions than before.” The voice faltered for an instant and halted, while murmurs of dismay, terror and unbelief shuddered through the audience.