He also knew it would require his best endeavors to procure food for the ensuing year.
Reports from the Valley of the Mississippi stated that heavy floods had prevailed for months, caused by preponderance of hot air blown over the Rocky Mountains and condensed into rainfall early in the season. The winter months set in with unparalleled rigor, and the spring found that whole country under one solid sheet of ice.
Many of the inhabitants had fled to the south. The exodus to Mexico was in full tide. This migration caused the mysterious race, the Toltecs or the Mayas, to leave their mounds and earthworks, their canals and busy centers, their cities and civilization, to puzzle the antiquarian in later ages.
The earth still moaned and sighed under the impulse of subterranean fire, while the surface froze stiff in the accumulation of waters and low temperature. Man, ever the creature of circumstance, was still panic-stricken, oppressed by dismal forebodings, all his settled faiths rudely shaken, and he an easy prey to cunning and unscrupulous design.
Setos flattered himself that he managed the situation very cleverly when he said to every one whom he met:
“It is rumored that our Grand Servitor intends to marry. Traditional law and custom forbid his remaining in supreme control more than a year without giving promise of succession.”
To which his auditor invariably gave tongue with speculation as upon whom his choice could fall.
“Property and descent are traced through the female side; therefore, he should espouse Ildiko,” said the high-priest Imos. “It is better that pure Atlantian blood should be continued in power.”
Flattering things were said to, and of, Ildiko, until her silly head was in a whirl, and she began to take on grand airs of importance. She snubbed Alcamayn unmercifully, not because she really disliked him, but—to be perverse, especially when her woman’s wit discovered that Rahula cherished hopes of supplanting her in her father’s affection.
Like many a child since, she had no intention of cheering her father’s declining years; nor was she unselfish enough to allow any one else to do so.