This was getting completely out of hand! First it had been the girl and now my estranged brother-in-law that I hadn't seen in six years.
I started to voice my objections, but Matt held up a hand forestalling me, "Think about it, if the objective is to find Atlantis then it would be very helpful to have someone like me along with you to help interpret any clues or puzzles that there might be, which are rooted in antiquities' past. I could be very useful if……."
"Matt my goal is not to find Atlantis! I don't want anything to do with the nightmare hassle of what something like discovering Atlantis or a whole new realm of the Earth would bring me!" I said in hot anger, as I felt myself being closed in on by a box of someone else's fabrication.
"Be that as it may dear brother-in-law the fact stands that the Southern treasure fleet you are in search of in order to continue eating and living a perpetual life at sea is likely to be found with Atlantis. Find Atlantis and you will find your treasure fleet."
"Now how can you claim to know that?" I exclaimed in exasperation.
Matt looked at the pieces on the table contemplatively, "As you know I am a lover of history and this is not the first time you've brought up this treasure scheme to find sunken Confederate treasure. It's been an idea that you've batted around for a long time. Do you recall what I told you the first time eight years ago?" Matt asked leadingly.
"You said my theory of the fleet being an actual reality was faulty, because under no circumstances or amount of bribe money were the British going to join in on the side of the South and even if they had whatever help they could have provided would've been too little and too late to do any good."
I said remembering Matt's putdown of my theory quite well.
"I continue to hold firm to that opinion of mine as well." Matt affirmed.
"Then where was such a fleet headed for?" I asked.
"Why to Atlantis of course." Matt said matter-of-factly.
I blinked.
That idea had never occurred to me and Matt now built on the seed he had just planted, "The South in late 1864 knew they had no chance of winning the war even with British aid. They only fought on into 1865 for pride's sake. Something else that stood out to me about this mythical fleet was that the few dock manifests that are available suggest a very different cargo than that of a fleet intended as a treasure convoy. There were a lot of passengers. Entire families of high class southern plantation owners, but they only made up roughly half of the human cargo. The rest were slaves. Now why would they take slaves that would only be set free by the British authorities upon their arrival in Great Britain? They weren't all house slaves either. They were field slaves. I think they knew the significance of the Orlanis Star and where it would lead them. The island of Atlantis for them represented a chance to escape from the threat of losing the life style of wealthy plantation owners that was ingrained in them from birth. On the island of Atlantis they would be able to set up a new plantation empire untouchable by the Yankees. Perhaps even find the technological ability to return and win the war for the South. I think it's a plausible occurrence given what evidence we do have that the intention of the fleet was never to reach England, but rather the island of Atlantis."