Lives of Alcyone

eginning again in a small way; and though he lived only for a few
years, two of his children, Cetus and Pyx, whom he had hidden,
carried on the work after his death, and had succeeded in bringing
part of the estate once more under cultivation before the date of the
sinking of the island. They were, however, among these who
accepted the warning of the priests, and made their escape from
Poseidonis in time to avoid to final catastrophe.
A considerable number of the children escaped the massacre.
Some, like Cetus and Pyx, were hidden in caves which the Toltec
marauders never discovered; others were sent away when the first
rumours of the inland valley, the very existence of which was
unknown to the soldiers of the plains. It happened that some twenty
years before. Alcyone had sent his nephew Fides on a mission to
chief of that inland valley; and that chief, taking a great fancy to
Fides, and seeing that he could be of great use to him and could
teach his people much, had begged him to send for his family and
settle there. This fides did, after obtaining permission from Alcyone;
and so when wars and rumours of wars began to fill the air, a refuge
among their own relations in that place of safety was ready for those
children whose parents thought it wise to provide for them. Sirius, for
example, made this arrangement for her two little daughters Ajax
and Elsa, and consequently they grew up under the fostering care of
Fides and Uranus, and in due course were happily married.
When the priests and astrologers of the white mountain race
issued their warning of the impending destruction of the continent,
Fides, though by that time an old man, gathered together those
among his adopted people who wished to leave the country, and
acted as leader of a considerable migration by sea to Northern
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