“So do I. How often has he come between the sacred hierarchy and their rights. He was always intent upon the spirit rather than on the ritual practice of our faith. By his will Yermah is made hierophant, and I, who have served a lifetime, am cast aside with scant courtesy.” Imos was a man advanced in years, having a broad high forehead, aquiline nose, square-cut eye-brows, and thin, finely compressed lips. His bald head, protruding like the knob of a knee, revealed a combative and tyrannical disposition. Setos had much ado to conceal a grin of satisfaction, as the high-priest bared his secret ambition. He was unusually affable as he answered: “Thou art shamefully ill-used, but I am thy brother in misfortune. When war devastated Atlantis, Akaza stood continually before the rabble, out-tonguing them in demands. The powers of right were on our side; but in the third day’s battle he turned the tide of victory by his infernal enchantments. Our gallant spearsmen were advancing two deep, when he charged them with three bodies of horsemen. “‘It is Akaza!’” cried our leader, Poseidon. “‘The traitor comes to certain death.’ Some say that bolts from a mangonel struck through our ranks; others, that he cut off the spear-heads. Of this I know not. Poseidon rode at him in mortal combat, but fell uninjured at Akaza’s feet. Failing to kill him, he was obliged to give the Dorado as hostage. Ichanor, the war-chief of Poseidon, was compelled to surrender his son Orondo. By this means the schemer contrived to gain supremacy in Atlantis and all her dependencies. So long as he lived oppression hung over me. Thou mayst judge what love I bear his successor.” The two men gave each other a searching glance, which said as plainly as words, “How shall we be rid of him?” “We must be masters of caution,” said the wily priest. “Suspicion abides not with Yermah and he knows nothing of black art.” A loud rapping at the front door and hurrying feet along the passageway caused both to rise and listen intently. Simultaneously with the permit to enter, came Cezardis, flushed and in breathless haste. “Exigency compels the waiving of ceremony,” said he. “A great concourse are in the theater listening to Rahula’s arraignment of Yermah. By a cunningly contrived tragedy, called ‘The Lost Soul’ she scores him without mercy, and has given utterance to all that Alcamayn confided to her concerning the Dorado having concealed his divinity in a ruby which he sent to the high-priestess, Kerœcia.