They think me a little mad owing to my obsession with the foreshore but not entirely so. In fact they endeavour to ignore my eccentricity, with the natural politeness found among common people, and in other ways have come to regard me as a sort of overlord.
Instead of carrying their disputes to the courts or resorting to private vengeance they have formed the habit of bringing them to me and accepting my decisions as a basis for settlement. In return I could always have as much free labour as I wished—if I needed it—and hardly a morning passes without a gift of fruit or vegetables being left at my door by someone to whom I have had the good fortune to be of assistance.
My last mail brought me one of those delightfully humorous effusions from Vladimir. He and his 'so beautiful Princess' beg me again to visit them in Bucharest in order to see my little godson but, great as is the temptation, I cannot bring myself to leave the islands even for a month.
He tells me that plausible rogue Slinger is out of prison and that they met him a few weeks ago in Paris. When I am feeling very low I can still revive my sense of humour by thinking of Kate's rage when he realised how completely he had been fooled by two young women. No wonder you were so scared of his return, and so certain that he would come back vowing vengeance immediately he discovered that neither the carefully thought out letter to your lawyer nor the signature to the will itself were in the Duchess da Solento-Ragina's writing.
How infinitely wise you were my dear, after your first tragic marriage, to decide on changing identities with your cousin and how fortunate that you did so before Slinger came on the scene.
How marvellously too your plan to secure a husband who loved you for yourself, instead of a fortune hunter, succeeded. As long as I live I shall never forget the McKay's face when he learned that it was he who had married the real heiress to the Hart millions.
It is good to think of these things as I laugh little in these days.
My conviction that Lulluma got back safely remains unshakable. I believe that in all her spirit travels she comes to me here and at times I can almost feel the warmth of her beside me. But even if that is sheer imagination she was carrying enough fruit to satisfy her hunger and thirst for a week and I doubt if she had to remain hidden more than a few hours. The herd would certainly have returned to the harbour for their next feed of fish and after that the road would have been clear for her to repass the barrier.
Immediate discovery after she had left us was her only 351
real danger, but she was swifter of foot than the beast men and possessed those special senses, to guide her through that maze of tunnels.
She is living still—I know it—less than twelve miles distant from where I am writing now—safe in that secret island blessed by eternal Spring.
If I could once locate the wrecked entrance to the underworld, through which we returned to pick up the threads of our previous lives again, the rest would be easy. In company with a few stout fellows armed with machine guns those brutes which are neither animals nor men would prove no serious obstacle. Within four hours' march of this barren shore I should be able to look upon Lulluma's face again—the only thing I live for.
That I am so near her and yet separated from her by a barrier more difficult to cross than the seas from pole to pole causes me, at times, to go almost frantic with frustration, but my life is pledged to finding my way back to that enchanted garden where she dwells.
She was less than divine yet more than human and it never ceases to amaze me that one so infinitely gentle could be so splendidly courageous. For all those years she had known a faultless existence yet she abandoned it willingly in order to save us as, without her guidance, we would never have come through.
That she gave me her love, even for a brief season, has lifted me too a little toward the gods.
I crave for the sound of her laughter as a man lost in the desert thirsts for water and, whether I find her again in this life or die here first, all that was my heart remains for ever with Lulluma.
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They Found Atlantis lw-1 Page 39
