They walked.

And they walked the more, while barren cliffs brooded over them and chilled them in grim shadow. The declivity widened, then narrowed. It widened again, and still again drew snug, while it turned a half-score times like a road that followed a cow’s meandering path. Nor did the nine men see aught of man or animal, not even the wild fowls they had heard.

Then they rounded another turn in that winding corridor roofed with sky and walled with somber basalt, and they came to a halt, and every man stared.

“Odin’s eye!”

“By Odin and the beard of Odin!”

“It-it be a jest of Loki, surely!”

“It’s to Valhalla we’ve come for all that, and still no cup-bearer in sight!”

Thus did those stout weapon-men make exclamation, while they stared.

Before them the slash in the rock widened into a canyon. The canyon became a valley, dotted with fallen rock ranging in size from pebbles to great deep-set chunks large as houses. The expanse of the valley itself was such that they could discern no details in the great dark wall of glowering basalt at its far end. But it was not that natural wall that gave them pause and filled them with awe.

Here were man-made walls.

Between the lofty natural fortress and the stranded sea-rovers, incredibly, stood no less than a castle, a towered and columned palace of spectacular porportion.

Chapter Two: The Castle of Atlantis

Great were their deeds, their passions,

and their sports;

With clay and stone

They piled on strath and shore

those mystic forts,