The port-captain heard Tob’s rude banter and looked up with a face of horror, and I remembered, with a small sigh, that colonial freedom would have no place here in Atlantis. Once more I must prepare myself for all the dignity of rank, and make ready to tread the formalities of vast and gorgeous ceremonial.
But, be these things how they may, a self-respecting man must preserve his individuality also, and though I consented to enter a pavilion of crimson cloth, specially erected to shelter me till the Empress should deign to arrive, there my complaisance ended. Again the matter of clothes was harped upon. The three gorgeously caparisoned chamberlains, who had inducted me to the shelter, laid before me changes of raiment bedecked with every imaginable kind of frippery, and would have me transform myself into a popinjay in fashion like their own.
Curtly enough, I refused to alter my garb, and when one of them stammeringly referred to the Empress’s tastes I asked him with plainness if he had got any definite commands on this paltry matter from her mightiness.
Of course, he had to confess that there were none.
Upon which I retorted that Phorenice had commanded Deucalion, the man, to attend before her, and had sent no word of her pleasure as to his outer casing.
“This dress,” I said, “suits my temper well. It shields my poor body from the heat and the wind, and, moreover, it is clean. It seems to me, sirs,” I added, “that your interfering savours somewhat of an impertinence.”
With one accord the chamberlains drew their swords and pushed the hilts towards me.
“It would be a favour,” said their spokesman, “if the great Lord Deucalion would take his vengeance now, instead of delivering us to the tormentors hereafter.”
“Poof,” I said, “the matter is forgotten. You make too much of a little.”
Nevertheless, their action gave me some enlightenment. They were perfectly in earnest in offering me the swords, and I recognised that this was a different Atlantis that I had come home to, where a man had dread of the torture for a mere difference concerning the cut of a coat.
There was a bath in the pavilion, and in that I regaled myself gladly, though there was some paltry scent added to the water that took away half its refreshing power; and then I set myself to wait with all outward composure and placidity. The chamberlains were too well-bred to break into my calm, and I did not condescend to small talk. So there we remained, the four of us, I sitting, they standing, with our Lord the Sun smiting heavily on the scarlet roof of the pavilion, whilst the music blared, and the welcoming fires dispersed their odours from the great paved square without, which faced upon the quay.