The Legend of Atlantis
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Timeless Atlantis Ch. 01 free porn video
It will probably be remembered as the most significant period in British history. Great Inventors gave us amazing devices like Babbage’s numerator, Engineers like Isambard Kingdom Brunel constructed viaducts and bridges on a scale that would have made the Pharaohs jealous and literary geniuses like Jayne Eyre and Jules Verne stole our hearts and took us to places beyond our imagination. Britannia ruled the waves and the sun never set on the British Empire. It was a golden era and for those of us in the upper classes one of boundless optimism. There was nothing that could not be achieved and even though women were not normally anything other than wives and daughters we had Queen Victoria. She was a shining example to women everywhere of how commanding we could be and everyone practically worshipped her.
I was not only lucky to be born to wealth but to a father that liked my involvement in his life’s work. We traveled around the globe, unearthing artifacts and exploring tombs even when I was little more than a child. Before I was born Mother would accompany him and assisted with his lectures at the Royal Society. After I arrived Father took up a fellowship at Oxford for almost ten years before the lure of parts unknown was irresistible. Mother gave me a journal to record our adventures and I faithfully put pen to paper to describe the marvels we encountered. A turning point in my life came when we were cataloguing the artifacts of the temple of Angkor Wat in the deepest jungles of Indo China.
Poor Mother succumbed to a strain of malaria, for which our supply of quinine could do nothing. Both Father and I threw ourselves into our work after that. Had it not been for the diversions offered by our work then we might have gone insane. I grew closer to Father and became something of a Tom Boy, dressing in jodhpurs, sun helmet and carrying a pistol. Not quite the formal attire expected of the daughter of the Earl of Tredegar. I did return to more fitting dress whenever we were in England and the fashion of a plunging neckline and bustle saw many a young suitor become tiresome to me. Whilst in London we attended dinners and parties of the well to do but my mind was on other things. I ached for a new adventure and tired of roast pheasant and gossip.
One such occasion was a typical boring evening at the Lord Mayor’s residence in Kensington. The only difference to the normal routine of socializing was that Father had received the Knight’s Order of the Bath from her majesty that morning. I was proud of Father when he was knighted. He told me that I had done just as much work as he had and so should have been kneeling beside him. I minded a little I will admit but it was enough that he got what he deserved. I accepted that there was no avenue for recognizing the achievements of women, even though I found it displeasing. The chatter, as we mingled, glasses of sherry in hand, was the usual form. The women spoke of fashion, the young men of horses (often describing stallions in such great detail that I fancy they were trying to suggest themselves) and the older men of cigars and port.
I did, however, overhear a conversation between two ageing peers. They had been lifelong friends and found the area of science that Father and I engaged in most intriguing and longed to continue their edification by funding some expeditions. I kept my tongue that evening for I knew they were not the type of gentlemen to pay court to the thoughts of a woman. Instead I spoke to Father and pleaded with him to at least entreat divulgence of what exactly they had planned. It was not as if their money was paramount to the success of any expedition as Father had more than enough wealth to spare for our adventures. What mattered was that their patronage would bring accolades and better still, if they had a good idea, one that no one had ever thought of then it could make my Father a legend and no greater reward for a life’s work could I imagine.
Father was not as impressed as I when he learnt of their idea. They disagreed about the existence of certain myths and legends and wanted us to investigate three of them. It was by way of a wager between the two gentlemen, since they disagreed on all three, that whoever was right the most times would win. Father thought the notion ludicrous and a frivolous waste of his time. I, on the other hand, found the opportunity too good to pass up as if even one myth was proven by Father then it would be the making of him. He would become a household name for centuries to come. I set out to persuade him and eventually a daughter’s well-practiced petulance and tears won the day.
Our first expedition was a fruitless one. We endured the hardships of the Congo in search of the White Queen and found little more than primitive tribes. There was not even any temples or ancient artifacts to prove the existence of a defunct civilization. Father was not disappointed as he had expected nothing from our investigation but we would both have liked to have at least something new to walk away with. Our second was more fruitful, though ultimately a failure, and was full of adventure. The fabled King Solomon’s mines were our quarries and for that we traveled extensively around the Middle East and North Africa.
At one point we were attacked by Berber tribesmen and all looked lost. Father shot away with his Martini Henry rifle and I with my trusted side arm but our bearers fell around us as our cause looked ever increasingly doomed. Then over the hill came a surge of scarlet jackets sat astride magnificent steeds. Their steel glinted in the mid afternoon sun and nothing more glorious than the Queen’s Own Heavy Cavalry coming to one’s rescue could be imagined. The tribesmen’s rifles found no targets, the crack of each round impotently sounding out as the thunder of hooves drew closer.
Most fled rather than engage hand to hand, but a few brave souls did and paid dearly for their valor. The sound of steel against steel competed with the cries of mortally wounded men as a short battle ensued. As the wounded Arabs limped away to lick their wounds a dashing young lieutenant cantered up and stopped before us. I must have looked a frightful mess. My sun helmet lay on the floor and my hair was an unflattering tangled mess. Grease and powder stained my face and my blouse was torn. I was most annoyed that smoke had caused my eyes to well up and so it looked as though I had been crying. ‘Sir, Miss. My compliments. Lieutenant Richard Hallworth at your service. If you would do me the honor of accepting dinner at our encampment I would dearly love to ask what you are doing in the middle of our little war but for the meantime I think it best you accept our protection and leave before our friends return.’
I had brought no dress on the expedition and so the sight of a female wearing riding jodhpurs brought admiring glances from the younger officers and disapproving ones from the older ones. It was however a pleasant evening and for once I was in polite company that allowed for interesting conversation. Richard was soon to be Captain Hallworth as soon as the Colonel arrived from England with his gazette. He had proven himself in similar clashes with the Berber and his peers were not slow in producing tales of daring do that no doubt were for my benefit. I had no need for verbal embroidery to make me fall for him though. Over the coming weeks he proved himself to accept me as an equal though he did have the honesty to tell me he preferred to dine with women who were properly attired.
He persuaded his Major that he should provide escort for our expedition and whilst we found nothing of note I enjoyed his company. Afterwards he invited us to Cairo for a ball, which would, in part be a celebration of his new rank. He pleaded with me to buy a dress and I gave in without argument. The ball was a glittering affair and a more magical night a woman could ever hope to be at. The uniforms of the officers outshone the best efforts of even the most fashionable ladies and reminded m
e somewhat of peacocks and their hens. We danced and danced the night away and at one point he took Father aside. He had done the proper thing and asked for my hand but Father laughed and told him to ask me himself.
I don’t think I ever felt more like swooning before. He took me out onto the verandah and after kissing my hand, got on one knee. With his sabre at his side, his scarlet dress uniform and silver epaulettes he asked, ‘Miss Anne, would you do this poor fool the honor of becoming his wife?’ I agreed on the spot and with cheeks flushed I almost leapt into his arms. We almost skipped back into the dance hall intent on commanding the band to cease playing so that the Colonel could announce our engagement. It was not to be. The band had stopped playing and indeed the Colonel rose to the podium to make an announcement but it was not to be a happy one.
‘Ladies and gentlemen. I have here the gravest of news. After a valiant defence Khartoum has fallen. It says here that the last man to die was General Gordon. After running out of ammunition he fought his last foes with bayonet until overwhelmed. I have orders here that all officers and men are to return to barracks tonight. By thunder we shall have our revenge!’ The poor Colonel was upset though stoic at the news. His old school friend General Gordon had been pleading for the relief of Khartoum for months but it had fallen on deaf ears in London. The longer he held out seemed to back up the claim of his detractors that he was exaggerating. The Colonel had supported his request for troops but had been ordered to remain in Egypt. I saw him wipe away a tear from the corner of his eye as he described the manner of his friend’s death.
Not an emotional man normally it was the one physical manifestation he allowed himself. Richard and I parted that night. He had a Queen to serve before he and I could marry and Father and I would spend the time investigating the next wild goose chase. This time we sailed to Bermuda in search of the Amazons.
Richard would expect me to give up my travels upon getting married. I knew that when I accepted his proposal. A life of adventure is a difficult thing to give up but sometimes it is necessary, especially if the reason is love. I did not find the notion of bearing children a pleasant one, but again I knew the duty of a wife. What would be hardest would be ending the working relationship with Father. He said that he didn’t mind and would cease his own travels if it meant he could be close to his grandchildren. So we both decided that our quest for the Amazons would be our last expedition.
I was pleased with the idea of searching out the female warriors as there was more than simple passing fancies to back up the myth. There had been reports from ships of a large island somewhere near Bermuda and many scientists and historians believed that to be the location of the fabled lost Atlantis. Although many sailors exaggerate or simply lie a recent report came from a ship belonging to the Royal Ordnance Survey and so lent the islands existence some credibility. Homer wrote about Atlantis and with other descriptions by other writers of his time the approximate location seemed correct.
We had chased a great deal of false leads with other legends before and it is the nature of archaeology that a lot of time is wasted. As we investigated our raw data though there did appear something to our last task. Many authors wrote about Atlantis and descriptions of life there varied considerably. This was probably due to the fact that very few had ever been there and so relied on accounts, whispered rumors and plain falsehoods. What we had to do was compare similar accounts and try to find consistencies. We found quite a few. What we ended up assuming was derived in the manner I described.
Atlantis was an island kingdom (not an apt word) at one time. It was a matriarchal society where, unlike the rest of the known world, women were the dominant sex. They seldom ventured from their island as pirates and even foreign powers saw a ship full of women as a rich target for slavery. However other trading nations did go to Atlantis with goods. Lord Caernarvon’s feted expeditions to Egyptian tombs found evidence of tobacco and coca leaves, which was odd considering that until 1492 America, the only place where those could be found, was unknown to the rest of the world. It was not such a wild supposition that Atlantis traded with the Inca and Aztec nations to the west and the Phoenicians, Greeks and Carthaginians to the East.
For some reason Atlantis then disappeared off the map. Various explanations for this have been expounded, such as the island sinking, and only served to make Atlantis into a more unbelievable myth than ever before. More believable explanations included disease wiping them out or an invasion where all the women were carried off and enslaved. Some natives of South America can be blonde, which is a sign they have European blood and would be conducive to the latter story. We believed that they were European because if they had an appearance different to that then the stories would have made a point of it. Virtually all the stories talked of fair skinned women, and more often than not, blonde.
We commissioned the services of a Merchant Navy sloop and sailed into the Atlantic bound for Bermuda. Sailing is not my passion but I did not experience mal de mer luckily. What I did find uncomfortable was being in such cramped conditions with a large number of men with over active sexual imaginations. I kept my less than ladylike attire of jodhpurs, riding boots, blouse and sun helmet, thinking that it would make me less alluring. I don’t think it would have mattered what I was wearing as they even commented that it was easier to imagine my behind naked wearing trousers. I was glad to reach the port of Bermuda and get away from them. We were at the port to gather more provisions and to take on a squad of Royal Marines. We would be going into the interior of the island, if we found it, and a few extra rifles might come in handy.
Father and I met the Governor, who appeared to have been there for far too long. I had seen similar men before. The distance between their location and England told on them as time went by. He had gained weight and drank quinine in the form of tonic water profusely, mixed in with far too much gin to afford him and entirely sober disposition. He scoffed at our expedition and explained away the reports of an island as the tall tales of sailors seeking a free pint of rum from someone who liked a good story, or the services of a naïve wench. The last comment was delivered with a sly smile in my direction. He did nothing to deter us though. If we came up empty handed then we would accept that. Not to look was not an option we ever considered.
We seemed to sail around in circles for the next two weeks and were about to head for port when a tremendous storm erupted. I heard some sailors say they had never seen anything like it and our ship was tossed around like a toy boat in the bath of a two year old. Father and I were urged to remain below decks but when we realised that the ship was taking on water we ventured out as we were sure that it would soon sink. It was the last time I would ever see Father. The last thing I recall was slipping on the deck and hitting my head. I must have fallen over the side after that for the next thing I knew I awoke with my face resting against the sand of a beach.
I heard voices and as I raised my head I recognised them as German. ‘Get up!’ I did not rise fast enough and was pulled up by my shoulder. ‘Where am I?’ There were seven men stood on the beach, six in a type of bedraggled Naval uniform and the last in a green one-piece suit. The latter was knelt with his hands behind his head and a man pointing a gun at him. I found his clothes the oddest of all. It resembled a boiler suit yet had markings all over it, including an American Flag, though the flag appeared to have far more stars upon it than I could recall when I l
ast saw one. ‘You are English? You’re German is good. We need more women that can speak our language.’ I tried to take in everything about them but their uniforms were ones I had never seen before and yet I had attended balls in Berlin. There I had seen the uniforms of both officers and enlisted men in the Imperial Navy yet there were few similarities.
The oddest symbol on them was what I knew to be a swastika. I found that odd, as it was a symbol used by many ancient races such as the Celts and the Egyptians representing the sun. Their guns were odd too. I recognised the Luger pistol one had, and another held a bolt action rifle but the other ones were not anything I had ever seen before. Two of them had a heated discussion about not wasting time and I gathered that something worried them about being in the open. After our hands were tied behind our backs the man in green and I were led away down the beach and onto a trail leading into the palm trees and the jungle beyond.
‘I’d shake your hand and introduce myself Ma’am but as you see my hands are tied. I’m Captain Julian Schuster by the way. What’s yours?’ I returned the introduction and asked him why they were treating us this way. ‘Well Ma’am, I’ve been here for half a day by my reckoning and I am still finding things out but I’ll tell ya what I know. These guys are from a World War 2 Nazi submarine but they ain’t old, don’t seem crazy and are as close to the genuine article as I can tell.’ I hadn’t a clue what he was talking about and asked him what on earth he had just said. ‘Oh sorry. What year is it Ma’am?’ I answered and he uttered an oath that I neither understood nor cared to. ‘Since you just arrived I guess the Bermuda triangle must be dragging people in from up and down the time line. I’m from 2008. I was flying my Stealth fighter and got into trouble with the storm, managed to eject before it hit the deck though. Lucky for me I guess, even if it means being lost to the triangle.’
‘Captain. I speak twenty languages fluently and have even been known to understand Americans but there was little in your statement that made any sense to me.’ It brought a chuckle out in him and he tried his best to explain in terms that someone from over a hundred years before his time could understand. We were made to walk for a long time and only got relief from our bonds when we reached a stream. The foliage was changing from jungle to forest and our captors took the opportunity to take a break, although they seemed keener eyed than they had been before. It was a good chance for the Captain to try and explain away something, which he didn’t fully understand and found as equally a fantastic concept as I was to.
I found out about man flying, how the great nations had fought against each other twice and that John Logie Baird had not been a lunatic after all when he said we would one day send pictures down telegraph lines. I made him deviate his explanation of the island to fill in history so it was fortunate that we had so much time to talk. As he explained, and I have not since found a better explanation, is that we had been drawn into some sort of vortex of time. If a vessel (or aeroplane) came too close to the edge of that vortex it was drawn in. It always caused the destruction of the vessel and quite often the occupants too. It did not matter what part of time that vessel came from but he did not have enough knowledge to hazard a guess why.
He had apparently not seen enough ‘Star Trek’, whatever that meant. I did not stop him to explain what that was and can only assume that it is some sort of book along the lines of a scientific ‘Iliad’, or one of Mr. Verne’s fantastic books. If a person were lucky enough to survive the wreck then they would live on the island at the centre of the Bermuda triangle. The term apparently came about because disappearances seemed to happen in a triangular area and although that is factual the whole idea was considered myth. He had not let on to the Germans that he could speak their language and had gleaned a lot of information that he hadn’t been able to deduce. For one, time stood still on the island. The Germans had beached their submarine (not as new an invention as he presupposed I would consider it as I knew more about his civil war than he did) on the other side of island and had been there for thirty years yet one looked too young to shave.
Dani
- 04.11.2022
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