“When from the shores
And forest-nestling mountains came a voice
That, solemn sounding, bids the world prepare!”
The sphinx, one of the first symbols known to man, demands that we solve its riddle—which is Life, not Death. The Egyptian sphinxes with their human heads face the West. The mastodon-headed sphinxes of Mexico face the East. Will future research unearth the evidence necessary to locate the sunken Atlantis lying between these two avenues of sphinxes, and thus reveal the origin of man? Did the primitive races evolve similar civilization separately, or were they all from one source? Perhaps the answer to this, is the solution of the enigma.
Akaza, meaning “God within thee” was the hierophant, prophet and high-priest of the Brotherhood of the White Star, which had its origin in Atlantis. His was an equilibrated, evenly balanced mind and nature. As an initiate he knew all that transpired on the subjective as well as on the positive planes of consciousness. He was always a disturbing element on the shallow, false and artificial side of life. He cared nothing for consequences. A natural wanderer on the face of the earth, Akaza was in his element when it came time for him to lead Yermah’s band away from the doomed island.
Akaza was waiting for Yermah this Monday morning, or Moon’s day. He stood at the entrance of a cave extending well back under Sutro Heights. It was called Ingharep at that time, and marked the orbit of Uranus—from the center of Tlamco—the planet which was correlated to Akaza’s life.
In the time of our story the water’s edge did not extend inside Seal Rocks. A careful inspection at low tide to-day will lead to the discovery of the cave still tunneled back under the Cliff House foundation.
The Indians never fail to locate a cavern. Where one is suspected, they wait until after sunset on a windy day. Then they lie down over the supposed cave, and with an ear pressed close to the ground, listen attentively for the roar, such as is heard in a sea-shell. If once this roar is heard, they refuse to search further, experience teaching them that they have found the right spot. Such was the method employed in discovering Ingharep.
Akaza, the hierophant, was an interesting part of the picture as he stood at the mouth of this cavern. The white robe which he wore was made of paca wool, stiff and lustrous as silk, but thick and warm. It was embroidered with five-pointed and six-pointed silver stars, having diamonds in the center. On his thumb was a silver signet-ring. He wore bracelets of the same metal. At his waist was a sash of yellow silk, with double-key pattern outlined in silver. Over his shoulders was a purple cloth mantle, trimmed with a coarse blue tracery in lace pattern.
The mouth of the cave faced due west, thus enabling Akaza to see the last glimmerings of daylight go out as the sun dropped, apparently, into the ocean or was swallowed up in the vaporous clouds or fog-banks each day. For many months Akaza had watched this process, and, since his return from the Yo-Semite, he had busied himself incessantly with astronomical calculations.