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<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
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<section id="chapter-1" epub:type="chapter">
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<h2>Dedication</h2>
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<p class="right">Ditchingham, 1918.</p>
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<p class="letter">M<small>Y DEAR</small> C<small>URZON</small>,</p>
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<p>More than thirty years ago you tried to protect me, then a stranger to you, from one of the falsest and most malignant accusations ever made against a writer.</p>
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<p>So complete was your exposure of the methods of those at work to blacken a person whom they knew to be innocent, that, as you will remember, they refused to publish your analysis which destroyed their charges and, incidentally, revealed their motives.</p>
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<p>Although for this reason vindication came otherwise, your kindness is one that I have never forgotten, since, whatever the immediate issue of any effort, in the end it is the intention that avails.</p>
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<p>Therefore in gratitude and memory I ask you to accept this romance, as I know that you do not disdain the study of romance in the intervals of your Imperial work.</p>
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<p>The application of its parable to our state and possibilities—beneath or beyond these glimpses of the moon—I leave to your discernment.</p>
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<p class="right">Believe me,<br/>
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Ever sincerely yours,<br/>
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H. RIDER HAGGARD.</p>
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<p class="letter">To<br/>
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The Earl Curzon of Kedleston, K.G.</p>
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<hr/>
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<h2><a id="chap01" name="chap01"/>Chapter I.<br/>
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Arbuthnot Describes Himself</h2>
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<hgroup>
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<h2 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">I</h2>
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<h3 epub:type="title">Arbuthnot Describes Himself</h3>
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</hgroup>
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<p>I suppose that I, Humphrey Arbuthnot, should begin this history in which Destiny has caused me to play so prominent a part, with some short account of myself and of my circumstances.</p>
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<p>I was born forty years ago in this very Devonshire village in which I write, but not in the same house. Now I live in the Priory, an ancient place and a fine one in its way, with its panelled rooms, its beautiful gardens where, in this mild climate, in addition to our own, flourish so many plants which one would only expect to find in countries that lie nearer to the sun, and its green, undulating park studded with great timber trees. The view, too, is perfect; behind and around the rich Devonshire landscape with its hills and valleys and its scarped faces of red sandstone, and at a distance in front, the sea. There are little towns quite near too, that live for the most part on visitors, but these are so hidden away by the contours of the ground that from the Priory one cannot see them. Such is Fulcombe where I live, though for obvious reasons I do not give it its real name.</p>
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<p>Many years ago my father, the Rev. Humphrey Arbuthnot, whose only child I am, after whom also I am named Humphrey, was the vicar of this place with which our family is said to have some rather vague hereditary connection. If so, it was severed in the Carolian times because my ancestors fought on the side of Parliament.</p>
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<p>Many years ago my father, the <abbr>Rev.</abbr> Humphrey Arbuthnot, whose only child I am, after whom also I am named Humphrey, was the vicar of this place with which our family is said to have some rather vague hereditary connection. If so, it was severed in the Carolian times because my ancestors fought on the side of Parliament.</p>
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<p>My father was a recluse, and a widower, for my mother, a Scotswoman, died at or shortly after my birth. Being very High Church for those days he was not popular with the family that owned the Priory before me. Indeed its head, a somewhat vulgar person of the name of Enfield who had made money in trade, almost persecuted him, as he was in a position to do, being the local magnate and the owner of the rectorial tithes.</p>
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<p>I mention this fact because owing to it as a boy I made up my mind that one day I would buy that place and sit in his seat, a wild enough idea at the time. Yet it became engrained in me, as do such aspirations of our youth, and when the opportunity arose in after years I carried it out. Poor old Enfield! He fell on evil fortunes, for in trying to bolster up a favourite son who was a gambler, a spendthrift, and an ungrateful scamp, in the end he was practically ruined and when the bad times came, was forced to sell the Fulcombe estate. I think of him kindly now, for after all he was good to me and gave me many a day’s shooting and leave to fish for trout in the river.</p>
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<p>By the poor people, however, of all the district round, for the parish itself is very small, my father was much beloved, although he did practise confession, wear vestments and set lighted candles on the altar, and was even said to have openly expressed the wish, to which however he never attained, that he could see a censer swinging in the chancel. Indeed the church which, as monks built it, is very large and fine, was always full on Sundays, though many of the worshippers came from far away, some of them doubtless out of curiosity because of its papistical repute, also because, in a learned fashion, my father’s preaching was very good indeed.</p>
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</head>
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<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
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<section id="chapter-10" epub:type="chapter">
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<h2><a id="chap10" name="chap10"/>Chapter X.<br/>
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The Dwellers in the Tomb</h2>
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<hgroup>
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<h2 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">X</h2>
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<h3 epub:type="title">The Dwellers in the Tomb</h3>
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</hgroup>
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<p>By now it was drawing towards sunset, so we made such preparations as we could for the night. One of these was to collect dry driftwood, of which an abundance lay upon the shore, to serve us for firing, though unfortunately we had nothing that we could cook for our meal.</p>
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<p>While we were thus engaged we saw a canoe approaching the table-rock and perceived that in it were the chief Marama and a priest. After hovering about for a while they paddled the canoe near enough to allow of conversation which, taking no notice of their presence, we left it to them to begin.</p>
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<p>“O, Friend-from-the-Sea,” called Marama, addressing myself, “we come to pray you and the Great Healer to return to us to be our guests as before. The people are covered with darkness because of the loss of your wisdom, and the sick cry aloud for the Healer; indeed two of those whom he has cut with knives are dying.”</p>
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</head>
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<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
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<section id="chapter-11" epub:type="chapter">
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<h2><a id="chap11" name="chap11"/>Chapter XI.<br/>
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Resurrection</h2>
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<hgroup>
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<h2 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">XI</h2>
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<h3 epub:type="title">Resurrection</h3>
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</hgroup>
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<p>We reached the sepulchre without stopping to look at the parked machines or even the marvelous statue that stood above it, for what did we care about machines or statues now? As we approached we were astonished to hear low and cavernous growlings.</p>
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<p>“There is some wild beast in there,” said Bickley, halting. “No, by George! it’s Tommy. What can the dog be after?”</p>
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<p>We peeped in, and there sure enough was Tommy lying on the top of the Glittering Lady’s coffin and growling his very best with the hair standing up upon his back. When he saw who it was, however, he jumped off and frisked round, licking my hand.</p>
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</head>
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<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
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<section id="chapter-12" epub:type="chapter">
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<h2><a id="chap12" name="chap12"/>Chapter XII.<br/>
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Two Hundred and Fifty Thousand Years!</h2>
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<hgroup>
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<h2 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">XII</h2>
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<h3 epub:type="title">Two Hundred and Fifty Thousand Years!</h3>
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</hgroup>
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<p>“You seem to have made the best of your time, old fellow,” said Bickley in rather a sour voice.</p>
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<p>“I never knew people begin to call each other by their Christian names so soon,” added Bastin, looking at me with a suspicious eye.</p>
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<p>“I know no other,” I said.</p>
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</head>
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<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
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<section id="chapter-13" epub:type="chapter">
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<h2><a id="chap13" name="chap13"/>Chapter XIII.<br/>
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Oro Speaks and Bastin Argues</h2>
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<hgroup>
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<h2 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">XIII</h2>
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<h3 epub:type="title">Oro Speaks and Bastin Argues</h3>
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</hgroup>
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<p>The reader of what I have written, should there ever be such a person, may find the record marvelous, and therefore rashly conclude that because it is beyond experience, it could not be. It is not a wise deduction, as I think Bickley would admit today, because without doubt many things are which surpass our extremely limited experience. However, those who draw the veil from the Unknown and reveal the New, must expect incredulity, and accept it without grumbling. Was that not the fate, for instance, of those who in the Middle Ages, a few hundred years ago, discovered, or rather rediscovered the mighty movements of those constellations which served Oro for an almanac?</p>
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<p>But the point I want to make is that if the sceptic plays a Bickleyan part as regards what has been written, it seems probable that his attitude will be accentuated as regards that which it still remains for me to write. If so, I cannot help it, and must decline entirely to water down or doctor facts and thus pander to his prejudice and ignorance. For my part I cannot attempt to explain these occurrences; I only know that they happened and that I set down what I saw, heard and felt, neither more nor less.</p>
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<p>Immediately after Oro had triumphantly vindicated his stellar calculations he turned and departed into the cave, followed by his daughter, waving to us to remain where we were. As she passed us, however, the Glittering Lady whispered—this time to Bastin—that he would see them again in a few hours, adding:</p>
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</head>
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<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
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<section id="chapter-14" epub:type="chapter">
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<h2><a id="chap14" name="chap14"/>Chapter XIV.<br/>
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The Under-world</h2>
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<hgroup>
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<h2 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">XIV</h2>
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<h3 epub:type="title">The Under-world</h3>
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</hgroup>
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<p>That night we slept well and without fear, being quite certain that after their previous experience the Orofenans would make no further attempts upon us. Indeed our only anxiety was for Tommy, whom we could not find when the time came to give him his supper. Bastin, however, seemed to remember having seen him following the Glittering Lady into the cave. This, of course, was possible, as certainly he had taken an enormous fancy to her and sat himself down as close to her as he could on every occasion. He even seemed to like the ancient Oro, and was not afraid to jump up and plant his dirty paws upon that terrific person’s gorgeous robe. Moreover Oro liked him, for several times I observed him pat the dog upon the head; as I think I have said, the only human touch that I had perceived about him. So we gave up searching and calling in the hope that he was safe with our supernatural friends.</p>
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<p>The next morning quite early the Lady Yva appeared alone; no, not alone, for with her came our lost Tommy looking extremely spry and well at ease. The faithless little wretch just greeted us in a casual fashion and then went and sat by Yva. In fact when the awkward Bastin managed to stumble over the end of her dress Tommy growled at him and showed his teeth. Moreover the dog was changed. He was blessed with a shiny black coat, but now this coat sparkled in the sunlight, like the Lady Yva’s hair.</p>
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<p>“The Glittering Lady is all very well, but I’m not sure that I care for a glittering dog. It doesn’t look quite natural,” said Bastin, contemplating him.</p>
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<p>“Curious! but I do not think at this moment there is any operation that has ever been attempted which I could not tackle single-handed and with success.”</p>
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<p>Then he was silent, and Bastin’s turn came. He drank rather noisily, after his fashion, and began:</p>
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<p>“My dear young lady, I think the time has come when I should expound to you—” Here he broke off and commenced singing very badly, for his voice was somewhat raucous:</p>
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<p class="poem">From Greenland’s icy mountains,<br/>
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From India’s coral strand,<br/>
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Where Afric’s sunny fountains<br/>
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Roll down their golden sand.</p>
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<blockquote epub:type="z3998:song">
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<p>
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<span>From Greenland’s icy mountains,</span>
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<br/>
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<span>From India’s coral strand,</span>
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<br/>
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<span>Where Afric’s sunny fountains</span>
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<br/>
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<span>Roll down their golden sand.</span>
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</p>
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</blockquote>
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<p>Ceasing from melody, he added:</p>
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<p>“I determined that I would drink nothing intoxicating while I was on this island that I might be a shining light in a dark place, and now I fear that quite unwittingly I have broken what I look upon as a promise.”</p>
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<p>Then he, too, grew silent.</p>
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</head>
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<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
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<section id="chapter-15" epub:type="chapter">
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<h2><a id="chap15" name="chap15"/>Chapter XV.<br/>
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Oro in His House</h2>
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<hgroup>
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<h2 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">XV</h2>
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<h3 epub:type="title">Oro in His House</h3>
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</hgroup>
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<p>We climbed on to the dais by some marble steps, and sat ourselves down in four curious chairs of metal that were more or less copied from that which served Oro as a throne; at least the arms ended in graven heads of snakes. These chairs were so comfortable that I concluded the seats were fixed on springs, also we noticed that they were beautifully polished.</p>
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<p>“I wonder how they keep everything so clean,” said Bastin as we mounted the dais. “In this big place it must take a lot of housemaids, though I don’t see any. But perhaps there is no dust here.”</p>
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<p>I shrugged my shoulders while we seated ourselves, the Lady Yva and I on Oro’s right, Bickley and Bastin on his left, as he indicated by pointing with his finger.</p>
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<p>“I hope you will spend a pleasant time here, Bastin,” I said, looking back from the doorway at its cold, illuminated vastness.</p>
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<p>“I don’t expect to,” he answered, “but duty is duty, and if I can drag that old sinner back from the pit that awaits him, it will be worth doing. Only I have my doubts about him. To me he seems to bear a strong family resemblance to Beelzebub, and he’s a bad companion week in and week out.”</p>
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<p>We went through the portico, Yva leading us, and passed the fountain of Life-water, of which she cautioned us to drink no more at present, and to prevent him from doing so, dragged Tommy past it by his collar. Bickley, however, lingered under the pretence of making a further examination of the statue. As I had seen him emptying into his pocket the contents of a corked bottle of quinine tabloids which he always carried with him, I guessed very well that his object was to procure a sample of this water for future analysis. Of course I said nothing, and Yva and Bastin took no note of what he was doing.</p>
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<p>When we were clear of the palace, of which we had only seen one hall, we walked across an open space made unutterably dreary by the absence of any vegetation or other sign of life, towards a huge building of glorious proportions that was constructed of black stone or marble. It is impossible for me to give any idea of the frightful solemnity of this domed edifice, for as I think I have said, it alone had a roof, standing there in the midst of that brilliant, unvarying and most unnatural illumination which came from nowhere and yet was everywhere. Thus, when one lifted a foot, there it was between the sole of the boot and the floor, or to express it better, the boot threw no shadow. I think this absence of shadows was perhaps the most terrifying circumstance connected with that universal and pervading light. Through it we walked on to the temple. We passed three courts, pillared all of them, and came to the building which was larger than St. Paul’s in London. We entered through huge doors which still stood open, and presently found ourselves beneath the towering dome. There were no windows, why should there be in a place that was full of light? There was no ornamentation, there was nothing except black walls. And yet the general effect was magnificent in its majestic grace.</p>
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<p>When we were clear of the palace, of which we had only seen one hall, we walked across an open space made unutterably dreary by the absence of any vegetation or other sign of life, towards a huge building of glorious proportions that was constructed of black stone or marble. It is impossible for me to give any idea of the frightful solemnity of this domed edifice, for as I think I have said, it alone had a roof, standing there in the midst of that brilliant, unvarying and most unnatural illumination which came from nowhere and yet was everywhere. Thus, when one lifted a foot, there it was between the sole of the boot and the floor, or to express it better, the boot threw no shadow. I think this absence of shadows was perhaps the most terrifying circumstance connected with that universal and pervading light. Through it we walked on to the temple. We passed three courts, pillared all of them, and came to the building which was larger than <abbr>St.</abbr> Paul’s in London. We entered through huge doors which still stood open, and presently found ourselves beneath the towering dome. There were no windows, why should there be in a place that was full of light? There was no ornamentation, there was nothing except black walls. And yet the general effect was magnificent in its majestic grace.</p>
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<p>“In this place,” said Yva, and her sweet voice went whispering round the walls and the arching dome, “were buried the Kings of the Sons of Wisdom. They lie beneath, each in his sepulchre. Its entrance is yonder,” and she pointed to what seemed to be a chapel on the right. “Would you wish to see them?”</p>
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<p>“Somehow I don’t care to,” said Bastin. “The place is dreary enough as it is without the company of a lot of dead kings.”</p>
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<p>“I should like to dissect one of them, but I suppose that would not be allowed,” said Bickley.</p>
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</head>
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<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
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<section id="chapter-16" epub:type="chapter">
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<h2><a id="chap16" name="chap16"/>Chapter XVI.<br/>
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Visions of the Past</h2>
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<hgroup>
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<h2 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">XVI</h2>
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<h3 epub:type="title">Visions of the Past</h3>
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</hgroup>
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<p>She led us to the back of the statue and pointed to each of us where we should remain. Then she took her place at right angles to us, as a showman might do, and for a while stood immovable. Watching her face, once more I saw it, and indeed all her body, informed with that strange air of power, and noted that her eyes flashed and that her hair grew even more brilliant than was common, as though some abnormal strength were flowing through it and her. Presently she spoke, saying:</p>
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<p>“I shall show you first our people in the day of their glory. Look in front of you.”</p>
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<p>We looked and by degrees the vast space of the apse before us became alive with forms. At first these were vague and shadowy, not to be separated or distinguished. Then they became so real that until he was reproved by a kick, Tommy growled at them and threatened to break out into one of his peals of barking.</p>
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</head>
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<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
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<section id="chapter-17" epub:type="chapter">
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<h2><a id="chap17" name="chap17"/>Chapter XVII.<br/>
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Yva Explains</h2>
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<hgroup>
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<h2 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">XVII</h2>
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<h3 epub:type="title">Yva Explains</h3>
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</hgroup>
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<p>When I reached the rock I was pleased to find Marama and about twenty of his people engaged in erecting the house that we had ordered them to build for our accommodation. Indeed, it was nearly finished, since house-building in Orofena is a simple business. The framework of poles let into palm trunks, since they could not be driven into the rock, had been put together on the further shore and towed over bodily by canoes. The overhanging rock formed one side of the house; the ends were of palm leaves tied to the poles, and the roof was of the same material. The other side was left open for the present, which in that equable and balmy clime was no disadvantage. The whole edifice was about thirty feet long by fifteen deep and divided into two portions, one for sleeping and one for living, by a palm leaf partition. Really, it was quite a comfortable abode, cool and rainproof, especially after Bastin had built his hut in which to cook.</p>
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<p>Marama and his people were very humble in their demeanour and implored us to visit them on the main island. I answered that perhaps we would later on, as we wished to procure certain things from the wreck. Also, he requested Bastin to continue his ministrations as the latter greatly desired to do. But to this proposal I would not allow him to give any direct answer at the moment. Indeed, I dared not do so until I was sure of Oro’s approval.</p>
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<p>Towards evening they departed in their canoes, leaving behind them the usual ample store of provisions.</p>
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</head>
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<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
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<section id="chapter-18" epub:type="chapter">
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<h2><a id="chap18" name="chap18"/>Chapter XVIII.<br/>
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The Accident</h2>
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<hgroup>
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<h2 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">XVIII</h2>
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<h3 epub:type="title">The Accident</h3>
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</hgroup>
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<p>Bickley did return, having recovered his temper, since after all it was impossible for anyone to remain angry with the Lady Yva for long, and we spent a very happy time together. We instructed and she was the humble pupil.</p>
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<p>How swift and nimble was her intelligence! In that one morning she learned all our alphabet and how to write our letters. It appeared that among her people, at any rate in their later periods, the only form of writing that was used was a highly concentrated shorthand which saved labour. They had no journals, since news which arrived telepathically or by some form of wireless was proclaimed to those who cared to listen, and on it all formed their own judgments. In the same way poems and even romances were repeated, as in Homer’s day or in the time of the Norse sagas, by word of mouth. None of their secret knowledge was written down. Like the ritual of Freemasonry it was considered too sacred.</p>
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<p>Moreover, when men lived for hundreds of years this was not so necessary, especially as their great fear was lest it should fall into the hands of the outside nations, whom they called Barbarians. For, be it remembered, these Sons of Wisdom were always a very small people who ruled by the weight of their intelligence and the strength of their accumulated lore. Indeed, they could scarcely be called a people; rather were they a few families, all of them more or less connected with the original ruling Dynasty which considered itself half divine. These families were waited upon by a multitude of servants or slaves drawn from the subject nations, for the most part skilled in one art or another, or perhaps, remarkable for their personal beauty. Still they remained outside the pale.</p>
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<p>The Sons of Wisdom did not intermarry with them or teach them their learning, or even allow them to drink of their Life-water. They ruled them as men rule dogs, treating them with kindness, but no more, and as many dogs run their course and die in the lifetime of one master, so did many of these slaves in that of one of the Sons of Wisdom. Therefore, the slaves came to regard their lords not as men, but gods. They lived but three score years and ten like the rest of us, and went their way, they, whose great-great-grandfathers had served the same master and whose great-great-great-grandchildren would still serve him. What should we think of a lord who we knew was already adult in the time of William the Conqueror, and who remained still vigorous and all-powerful in that of George V? One, moreover, who commanded almost infinite knowledge to which we were denied the key? We might tremble before him and look upon him as half-divine, but should we not long to kill him and possess his knowledge and thereby prolong our own existence to his wondrous measure?</p>
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<p>The Sons of Wisdom did not intermarry with them or teach them their learning, or even allow them to drink of their Life-water. They ruled them as men rule dogs, treating them with kindness, but no more, and as many dogs run their course and die in the lifetime of one master, so did many of these slaves in that of one of the Sons of Wisdom. Therefore, the slaves came to regard their lords not as men, but gods. They lived but three score years and ten like the rest of us, and went their way, they, whose great-great-grandfathers had served the same master and whose great-great-great-grandchildren would still serve him. What should we think of a lord who we knew was already adult in the time of William the Conqueror, and who remained still vigorous and all-powerful in that of George <span epub:type="z3998:roman">V</span>? One, moreover, who commanded almost infinite knowledge to which we were denied the key? We might tremble before him and look upon him as half-divine, but should we not long to kill him and possess his knowledge and thereby prolong our own existence to his wondrous measure?</p>
|
||||
<p>Such, said Yva, was the case with their slaves and the peoples from whence these sprang. They grew mad with jealous hate, till at length came the end we knew.</p>
|
||||
<p>Thus we talked on for hours till the time came for us to eat. As before Yva partook of fruit and we of such meats as we had at hand. These, we noticed, disgusted her, because, as she explained, the Children of Wisdom, unless driven thereto by necessity, touched no flesh, but lived on the fruits of the earth and wine alone. Only the slaves and the Barbarians ate flesh. In these views Bickley for once agreed with her, that is, except as regards the wine, for in theory, if not in practice—he was a vegetarian.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I will bring you more of the Life-water,” she said, “and then you will grow to hate these dead things, as I do. And now farewell. My father calls me. I hear him though you do not. To-morrow I cannot come, but the day after I will come and bring you the Life-water. Nay, accompany me not, but as I see he wishes it, let Tommy go with me. I will care for him, and he is a friend in all that lonely place.”</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -35,7 +37,7 @@
|
|||
<p>“That did occur to me, but it doesn’t much matter as I am quite certain that such a thing would never be allowed. Of course there was a real deluge once, but Oro had no more to do with it than I had. Don’t you agree, Arbuthnot?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I think so,” I answered cautiously, “but really in this place I am beginning to lose count of what is or is not possible. Also, of course, there may have been many deluges; indeed the history of the world shows that this was so; it is written in its geological strata. What was the end of it?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“The end was that he took the South Sea Bible and, after I had explained a little about our letters, seemed to be able to read it at once. I suppose he was acquainted with the art of printing in his youth. At any rate he said that he would study it, I don’t know how, unless he can read, and that in two days’ time he would let me know what he thought about the matter of my religion. Then he told me to go. I said that I did not know the way and was afraid of losing myself. Thereupon he waved his hand, and I really can’t say what happened.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Did you levitate up here,” asked Bickley, “like the late lamented Mr. Home at the spiritualistic seances?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Did you levitate up here,” asked Bickley, “like the late lamented <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Home at the spiritualistic seances?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“No, I did not exactly levitate, but something or someone seemed to get a hold of me, and I was just rushed along in a most tumultuous fashion. The next thing I knew was that I was standing at the door of that sepulchre, though I have no recollection of going up in the lift, or whatever it is. I believe those beastly caves are full of ghosts, or devils, and the worst of it is that they have kept my solar-tope, which I put on this morning forgetting that it would be useless there.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“The Lady Yva’s Fourth Dimension in action,” I suggested, “only it wouldn’t work on solar-topes.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I don’t know what you are talking about,” said Bastin, “but if my hat had to be left, why not my boots and other garments? Please stop your nonsense and pass the tea. Thank goodness I haven’t got to go down there tomorrow, as he seems to have had enough of me for the present, so I vote we all pay a visit to the ship. It will be a very pleasant change. I couldn’t stand two days running with that old fiend, and his ghosts or devils in the cave.”</p>
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -7,8 +7,10 @@
|
|||
</head>
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<section id="chapter-19" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h2><a id="chap19" name="chap19"/>Chapter XIX.<br/>
|
||||
The Proposals of Bastin and Bickley</h2>
|
||||
<hgroup>
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">XIX</h2>
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title">The Proposals of Bastin and Bickley</h3>
|
||||
</hgroup>
|
||||
<p>So far as my body was concerned I grew well with great rapidity, though it was long before I got back my strength. Thus I could not walk far or endure any sustained exertion. With my mind it was otherwise. I can not explain what had happened to it; indeed I do not know, but in a sense it seemed to have become detached and to have assumed a kind of personality of its own. At times it felt as though it were no longer an inhabitant of the body, but rather its more or less independent partner. I was perfectly clear-headed and of insanity I experienced no symptoms. Yet my mind, I use that term from lack of a better, was not entirely under my control. For one thing, at night it appeared to wander far away, though whither it went and what it saw there I could never remember.</p>
|
||||
<p>I record this because possibly it explains certain mysterious events, if they were events and not dreams, which shortly I must set out. I spoke to Bickley about the matter. He put it by lightly, saying that it was only a result of my long and most severe illness and that I should steady down in time, especially if we could escape from that island and its unnatural atmosphere. Yet as he spoke he glanced at me shrewdly with his quick eyes, and when he turned to go away I heard him mutter something to himself about “unholy influences” and “that confounded old Oro.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The words were spoken to himself and quite beneath his breath, and of course not meant to reach me. But one of the curious concomitants of my state was that all my senses, and especially my hearing, had become most abnormally acute. A whisper far away was now to me like a loud remark made in a room.</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -40,7 +42,7 @@
|
|||
<p>“The truth, which I am sure it would be wrong to hide from you, Arbuthnot,” said the former to me one day, “is that during your long illness I fell in love, I suppose that is the right word, with the Glittering Lady. After thinking the matter over also, I conceived that it would be proper to tell her so if only to clear the air and prevent future misunderstandings. As I remarked to her on that occasion, I had hesitated long, as I was not certain how she would fill the place of the wife of the incumbent of an English parish.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Mothers’ Meetings, and the rest,” I suggested.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Exactly so, Arbuthnot. Also there were the views of the Bishop to be considered, who might have objected to the introduction into the diocese of a striking person who so recently had been a heathen, and to one in such strong contrast to my late beloved wife.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I suppose you didn’t consider the late Mrs. Bastin’s views on the subject of re-marriage. I remember that they were strong,” I remarked rather maliciously.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I suppose you didn’t consider the late <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Bastin’s views on the subject of re-marriage. I remember that they were strong,” I remarked rather maliciously.</p>
|
||||
<p>“No, I did not think it necessary, since the Scriptural instructions on the matter are very clear, and in another world no doubt all jealousies, even Sarah’s, will be obliterated. Upon that point my conscience was quite easy. So when I found that, unlike her parent, the Lady Yva was much inclined to accept the principles of the faith in which it is my privilege to instruct her, I thought it proper to say to her that if ultimately she made up her mind to do so—of course <em>this</em> was a <i xml:lang="la">sine qua non</i>—I should be much honoured, and as a man, not as a priest, it would make me most happy if she would take me as a husband. Of course I explained to her that I considered, under the circumstances, I could quite lawfully perform the marriage ceremony myself with you and Bickley as witnesses, even should Oro refuse to give her away. Also I told her that although after her varied experiences in the past, life at Fulcombe, if we could ever get there, might be a little monotonous, still it would not be entirely devoid of interest.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“You mean Christmas decorations and that sort of thing?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Yes, and choir treats and entertaining Deputations and attending other Church activities.”</p>
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -7,9 +7,11 @@
|
|||
</head>
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<section id="chapter-2" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h2><a id="chap02" name="chap02"/>Chapter II.<br/>
|
||||
Bastin and Bickley</h2>
|
||||
<p>Behold me once more a man without an occupation, but now the possessor of about £900,000. It was a very considerable fortune, if not a large one in England; nothing like the millions of which I had dreamed, but still enough. To make the most of it and to be sure that it remained, I invested it very well, mostly in large mortgages at four per cent which, if the security is good, do not depreciate in capital value. Never again did I touch a single speculative stock, who desired to think no more about money. It was at this time that I bought the Fulcombe property. It cost me about £120,000 of my capital, or with alterations, repairs, etc., say £150,000, on which sum it may pay a net two and a half per cent, not more.</p>
|
||||
<hgroup>
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">II</h2>
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title">Bastin and Bickley</h3>
|
||||
</hgroup>
|
||||
<p>Behold me once more a man without an occupation, but now the possessor of about £900,000. It was a very considerable fortune, if not a large one in England; nothing like the millions of which I had dreamed, but still enough. To make the most of it and to be sure that it remained, I invested it very well, mostly in large mortgages at four per cent which, if the security is good, do not depreciate in capital value. Never again did I touch a single speculative stock, who desired to think no more about money. It was at this time that I bought the Fulcombe property. It cost me about £120,000 of my capital, or with alterations, repairs, <abbr>etc.</abbr>, say £150,000, on which sum it may pay a net two and a half per cent, not more.</p>
|
||||
<p>This £3,700 odd I have always devoted to the upkeep of the place, which is therefore in first-rate order. The rest I live on, or save.</p>
|
||||
<p>These arrangements, with the beautifying and furnishing of the house and the restoration of the church in memory of my father, occupied and amused me for a year or so, but when they were finished time began to hang heavy on my hands. What was the use of possessing about £20,000 a year when there was nothing upon which it could be spent? For after all my own wants were few and simple and the acquisition of valuable pictures and costly furniture is limited by space. Oh! in my small way I was like the weary King Ecclesiast. For I too made me great works and had possessions of great and small cattle (I tried farming and lost money over it!) and gathered me silver and gold and the peculiar treasure of kings, which I presume means whatever a man in authority chiefly desires, and so forth. But “behold all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun.”</p>
|
||||
<p>So, notwithstanding my wealth and health and the deference which is the rich man’s portion, especially when the limit of his riches is not known, it came about that I too “hated life,” and this when I was not much over thirty. I did not know what to do; for Society as the word is generally understood, I had no taste; it bored me; horse-racing and cards I loathed, who had already gambled too much on a big scale. The killing of creatures under the name of sport palled upon me, indeed I began to doubt if it were right, while the office of a junior county magistrate in a place where there was no crime, only occupied me an hour or two a month.</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -23,17 +25,17 @@
|
|||
<p>My other friend, Bickley, was a person of a quite different character. Like Bastin, he was learned, but his tendencies faced another way. If Bastin’s omnivorous throat could swallow a camel, especially a theological camel, Bickley’s would strain at the smallest gnat, especially a theological gnat. The very best and most upright of men, yet he believed in nothing that he could not taste, see or handle. He was convinced, for instance, that man is a brute-descended accident and no more, that what we call the soul or the mind is produced by a certain action of the grey matter of the brain; that everything apparently inexplicable has a perfectly mundane explanation, if only one could find it; that miracles certainly never did happen, and never will; that all religions are the fruit of human hopes and fears and the most convincing proof of human weakness; that notwithstanding our infinite variations we are the subjects of Nature’s single law and the victims of blind, black and brutal chance.</p>
|
||||
<p>Such was Bickley with his clever, well-cut face that always reminded me of a cameo, and thoughtful brow; his strong, capable hands and his rather steely mouth, the mere set of which suggested controversy of an uncompromising kind. Naturally as the Church had claimed Bastin, so medicine claimed Bickley.</p>
|
||||
<p>Now as it happened the man who succeeded my father as vicar of Fulcombe was given a better living and went away shortly after I had purchased the place and with it the advowson. Just at this time also I received a letter written in the large, sprawling hand of Bastin from whom I had not heard for years. It went straight to the point, saying that he, Bastin, had seen in a Church paper that the last incumbent had resigned the living of Fulcombe which was in my gift. He would therefore be obliged if I would give it to him as the place he was at in Yorkshire did not suit his wife’s health.</p>
|
||||
<p>Here I may state that afterwards I learned that what did not suit Mrs. Bastin was the organist, who was pretty. She was by nature a woman with a temperament so insanely jealous that actually she managed to be suspicious of Bastin, whom she had captured in an unguarded moment when he was thinking of something else and who would as soon have thought of even looking at any woman as he would of worshipping Baal. As a matter of fact it took him months to know one female from another. Except as possible providers of subscriptions and props of Mothers’ Meetings, women had no interest for him.</p>
|
||||
<p>Here I may state that afterwards I learned that what did not suit <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Bastin was the organist, who was pretty. She was by nature a woman with a temperament so insanely jealous that actually she managed to be suspicious of Bastin, whom she had captured in an unguarded moment when he was thinking of something else and who would as soon have thought of even looking at any woman as he would of worshipping Baal. As a matter of fact it took him months to know one female from another. Except as possible providers of subscriptions and props of Mothers’ Meetings, women had no interest for him.</p>
|
||||
<p>To return—with that engaging honesty which I have mentioned—Bastin’s letter went on to set out all his own disabilities, which, he added, would probably render him unsuitable for the place he desired to fill. He was a High Churchman, a fact which would certainly offend many; he had no claims to being a preacher although he was extraordinarily well acquainted with the writings of the Early Fathers. (What on earth had that to do with the question, I wondered.) On the other hand he had generally been considered a good visitor and was fond of walking (he meant to call on distant parishioners, but did not say so).</p>
|
||||
<p>Then followed a page and a half on the evils of the existing system of the presentation to livings by private persons, ending with the suggestion that I had probably committed a sin in buying this particular advowson in order to increase my local authority, that is, if I had bought it, a point on which he was ignorant. Finally he informed me that as he had to christen a sick baby five miles away on a certain moor and it was too wet for him to ride his bicycle, he must stop. And he stopped.</p>
|
||||
<p>There was, however, a P.S. to the letter, which ran as follows:</p>
|
||||
<p>There was, however, a <abbr class="initialism">P.S.</abbr> to the letter, which ran as follows:</p>
|
||||
<p>“Someone told me that you were dead a few years ago, and of course it may be another man of the same name who owns Fulcombe. If so, no doubt the Post Office will send back this letter.”</p>
|
||||
<p>That was his only allusion to my humble self in all those diffuse pages. It was a long while since I had received an epistle which made me laugh so much, and of course I gave him the living by return of post, and even informed him that I would increase its stipend to a sum which I considered suitable to the position.</p>
|
||||
<p>About ten days later I received another letter from Bastin which, as a scrawl on the flap of the envelope informed me, he had carried for a week in his pocket and forgotten to post. Except by inference it returned no thanks for my intended benefits. What it did say, however, was that he thought it wrong of me to have settled a matter of such spiritual importance in so great a hurry, though he had observed that rich men were nearly always selfish where their time was concerned. Moreover, he considered that I ought first to have made inquiries as to his present character and attainments, etc., etc.</p>
|
||||
<p>About ten days later I received another letter from Bastin which, as a scrawl on the flap of the envelope informed me, he had carried for a week in his pocket and forgotten to post. Except by inference it returned no thanks for my intended benefits. What it did say, however, was that he thought it wrong of me to have settled a matter of such spiritual importance in so great a hurry, though he had observed that rich men were nearly always selfish where their time was concerned. Moreover, he considered that I ought first to have made inquiries as to his present character and attainments, <abbr>etc.</abbr>, <abbr class="eoc">etc.</abbr></p>
|
||||
<p>To this epistle I replied by telegraph to the effect that I should as soon think of making inquiries about the character of an archangel, or that of one of his High Church saints. This telegram, he told me afterwards, he considered unseemly and even ribald, especially as it had given great offence to the postmaster, who was one of the sidesmen in his church.</p>
|
||||
<p>Thus it came about that I appointed the Rev. Basil Bastin to the living of Fulcombe, feeling sure that he would provide me with endless amusement and act as a moral tonic and discipline. Also I appreciated the man’s blunt candour. In due course he arrived, and I confess that after a few Sundays of experience I began to have doubts as to the wisdom of my choice, glad as I was to see him personally. His sermons at once bored me, and, when they did not send me to sleep, excited in me a desire for debate. How could he be so profoundly acquainted with mysteries before which the world had stood amazed for ages? Was there nothing too hot or too heavy in the spiritual way for him to dismiss in a few blundering and casual words, as he might any ordinary incident of every-day life, I wondered? Also his idea of High Church observances was not mine, or, I imagine, that of anybody else. But I will not attempt to set it out.</p>
|
||||
<p>Thus it came about that I appointed the <abbr>Rev.</abbr> Basil Bastin to the living of Fulcombe, feeling sure that he would provide me with endless amusement and act as a moral tonic and discipline. Also I appreciated the man’s blunt candour. In due course he arrived, and I confess that after a few Sundays of experience I began to have doubts as to the wisdom of my choice, glad as I was to see him personally. His sermons at once bored me, and, when they did not send me to sleep, excited in me a desire for debate. How could he be so profoundly acquainted with mysteries before which the world had stood amazed for ages? Was there nothing too hot or too heavy in the spiritual way for him to dismiss in a few blundering and casual words, as he might any ordinary incident of every-day life, I wondered? Also his idea of High Church observances was not mine, or, I imagine, that of anybody else. But I will not attempt to set it out.</p>
|
||||
<p>His peculiarities, however, were easy to excuse and entirely swallowed up by the innate goodness of his nature which soon made him beloved of everyone in the place, for although he thought that probably most things were sins, I never knew him to discover a sin which he considered to be beyond the reach of forgiveness. Bastin was indeed a most charitable man and in his way wide-minded.</p>
|
||||
<p>The person whom I could not tolerate, however, was his wife, who, to my fancy, more resembled a vessel, a very unattractive vessel, full of vinegar than a woman. Her name was Sarah and she was small, plain, flat, sandy-haired and odious, quite obsessed, moreover, with her jealousies of the Rev. Basil, at whom it pleased her to suppose that every woman in the countryside under fifty was throwing herself.</p>
|
||||
<p>The person whom I could not tolerate, however, was his wife, who, to my fancy, more resembled a vessel, a very unattractive vessel, full of vinegar than a woman. Her name was Sarah and she was small, plain, flat, sandy-haired and odious, quite obsessed, moreover, with her jealousies of the <abbr>Rev.</abbr> Basil, at whom it pleased her to suppose that every woman in the countryside under fifty was throwing herself.</p>
|
||||
<p>Here I will confess that to the best of my ability I took care that they did in outward seeming, that is, whenever she was present, instructing them to sit aside with him in darkened corners, to present him with flowers, and so forth. Several of them easily fell into the humour of the thing, and I have seen him depart from a dinner-party followed by that glowering Sarah, with a handful of rosebuds and violets, to say nothing of the traditional offerings of slippers, embroidered markers and the like. Well, it was my only way of coming even with her, which I think she knew, for she hated me poisonously.</p>
|
||||
<p>So much for Basil Bastin. Now for Bickley. Him I had met on several occasions since our college days, and after I was settled at the Priory from time to time I asked him to stay with me. At length he came, and I found out that he was not at all comfortable in his London practice which was of a nature uncongenial to him; further, that he did not get on with his partners. Then, after reflection, I made a suggestion to him. I pointed out that, owing to its popularity amongst seaside visitors, the neighbourhood of Fulcombe was a rising one, and that although there were doctors in it, there was no really first-class surgeon for miles.</p>
|
||||
<p>Now Bickley was a first-class surgeon, having held very high hospital appointments, and indeed still holding them. Why, I asked, should he not come and set up here on his own? I would appoint him doctor to the estate and also give him charge of a cottage hospital which I was endowing, with liberty to build and arrange it as he liked. Further, as I considered that it would be of great advantage to me to have a man of real ability within reach, I would guarantee for three years whatever income he was earning in London.</p>
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -7,8 +7,10 @@
|
|||
</head>
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<section id="chapter-20" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h2><a id="chap20" name="chap20"/>Chapter XX.<br/>
|
||||
Oro and Arbuthnot Travel by Night</h2>
|
||||
<hgroup>
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">XX</h2>
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title">Oro and Arbuthnot Travel by Night</h3>
|
||||
</hgroup>
|
||||
<p>As time went on, Oro began to visit me more and more frequently, till at last scarcely a night went by that he did not appear mysteriously in my sleeping-place. The odd thing was that neither Bickley nor Bastin seemed to be aware of these nocturnal calls. Indeed, when I mentioned them on one or two occasions, they stared at me and said it was strange that he should have come and gone as they saw nothing of him.</p>
|
||||
<p>On my speaking again of the matter, Bickley at once turned the conversation, from which I gathered that he believed me to be suffering from delusions consequent on my illness, or perhaps to have taken to dreaming. This was not wonderful since, as I learned afterwards, Bickley, after he was sure that I was asleep, made a practice of tying a thread across my doorway and of ascertaining at the dawn that it remained unbroken. But Oro was not to be caught in that way. I suppose, as it was impossible for him to pass through the latticework of the open side of the house, that he undid the thread and fastened it again when he left; at least, that was Bastin’s explanation, or, rather, one of them. Another was that he crawled beneath it, but this I could not believe. I am quite certain that during all his prolonged existence Oro never crawled.</p>
|
||||
<p>At any rate, he came, or seemed to come, and pumped me—I can use no other word—most energetically as to existing conditions in the world, especially those of the civilised countries, their methods of government, their social state, the physical characteristics of the various races, their religions, the exact degrees of civilisation that they had developed, their attainments in art, science and literature, their martial capacities, their laws, and I know not what besides.</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -139,7 +141,7 @@
|
|||
<p>Yet two nights later Oro came again and after the usual preliminaries, said:</p>
|
||||
<p>“Humphrey, this night we will visit that mighty American nation, of which you have told me so much, and the other Neutral Countries.”</p>
|
||||
<hr/>
|
||||
<p>[At this point there is a gap in Mr. Arbuthnot’s M.S., so Oro’s reflections on the Neutral Nations, if any, remain unrecorded. It continues:]</p>
|
||||
<p>[At this point there is a gap in <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Arbuthnot’s <abbr>MS.</abbr>, so Oro’s reflections on the Neutral Nations, if any, remain unrecorded. It continues:]</p>
|
||||
<hr/>
|
||||
<p>On our homeward way we passed over Australia, making a detour to do so. Of the cities Oro took no account. He said that they were too large and too many, but the country interested him so much that I gathered he must have given great attention to agriculture at some time in the past. He pointed out to me that the climate was fine, and the land so fertile that with a proper system of irrigation and water-storage it could support tens of millions and feed not only itself but a great part of the outlying world.</p>
|
||||
<p>“But where are the people?” he asked. “Outside of those huge hives,” and he indicated the great cities, “I see few of them, though doubtless some of the men are fighting in this war. Well, in the days to come this must be remedied.”</p>
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -7,8 +7,10 @@
|
|||
</head>
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<section id="chapter-21" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h2><a id="chap21" name="chap21"/>Chapter XXI.<br/>
|
||||
Love’s Eternal Altar</h2>
|
||||
<hgroup>
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">XXI</h2>
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title">Love’s Eternal Altar</h3>
|
||||
</hgroup>
|
||||
<p>Now of all these happenings I said very little to Bastin and Bickley. The former would not have understood them, and the latter attributed what I did tell him to mental delusions following on my illness. To Yva I did speak about them, however, imploring her to explain their origin and to tell me whether or not they were but visions of the night.</p>
|
||||
<p>She listened to me, as I thought not without anxiety, from which I gathered that she too feared for my mind. It was not so, however, for she said:</p>
|
||||
<p>“I am glad, O Humphrey, that your journeyings are done, since such things are not without danger. He who travels far out of the body may chance to return there no more.”</p>
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -7,8 +7,10 @@
|
|||
</head>
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<section id="chapter-22" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h2><a id="chap22" name="chap22"/>Chapter XXII.<br/>
|
||||
The Command</h2>
|
||||
<hgroup>
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">XXII</h2>
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title">The Command</h3>
|
||||
</hgroup>
|
||||
<p>I think that both Bastin and Bickley, by instinct as it were, knew what had passed between Yva and myself and that she had promised herself to me. They showed this by the way in which they avoided any mention of her name. Also they began to talk of their own plans for the future as matters in which I had no part. Thus I heard them discussing the possibility of escape from the island whereof suddenly they seemed to have grown weary, and whether by any means two men (two, not three) could manage to sail and steer the lifeboat that remained upon the wreck. In short, as in all such cases, the woman had come between; also the pressure of a common loss caused them to forget their differences and to draw closer together. I who had succeeded where they both had failed, was, they seemed to think, out of their lives, so much that our ancient intimacy had ended.</p>
|
||||
<p>This attitude hurt me, perhaps because in many respects the situation was awkward. They had, it is true, taken their failures extremely well, still the fact remained that both of them had fallen in love with the wonderful creature, woman and yet more than woman, who had bound herself to me. How then could we go on living together, I in prospective possession of the object that all had desired, and they without the pale?</p>
|
||||
<p>Moreover, they were jealous in another and quite a different fashion because they both loved me in their own ways and were convinced that I who had hitherto loved them, henceforward should have no affection left to spare, since surely this Glittering Lady, this marvel of wisdom and physical perfections would take it all. Of course they were in error, since even if I could have been so base and selfish, this was no conduct that Yva would have wished or even suffered. Still that was their thought.</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -59,7 +61,7 @@
|
|||
<p>Next morning I told the others what had passed, and we talked the matter over. The trouble was, of course, that Bickley did not believe me. He had no faith in my alleged interviews with Oro, which he set down to delusions of a semi-mesmeric character. This was not strange, since it appeared that on the previous night he had watched the door of my sleeping-place until dawn broke, which it did long after Oro had departed, and he had not seen him either come or go, although the moon was shining brightly.</p>
|
||||
<p>When he told me this I could only answer that all the same he had been there as, if he could speak, Tommy would have been able to certify. As it chanced the dog was sleeping with me and at the first sound of the approach of someone, woke up and growled. Then recognising Oro, he went to him, wagged his tail and curled himself up at his feet.</p>
|
||||
<p>Bastin believed my story readily enough, saying that Oro was a peculiar person who no doubt had ways of coming and going which we did not understand. His point was, however, that he did not in the least wish to visit Nyo any more. The wonders of its underground palaces and temples had no charms for him. Also he did not think he could do any good by going, since after “sucking him as dry as an orange” with reference to religious matters “that old vampire-bat Oro had just thrown him away like the rind,” and, he might add, “seemed no better for the juice he had absorbed.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I doubt,” continued Bastin, “whether St. Paul himself could have converted Oro, even if he performed miracles before him. What is the use of showing miracles to a man who could always work a bigger one himself?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I doubt,” continued Bastin, “whether <abbr>St.</abbr> Paul himself could have converted Oro, even if he performed miracles before him. What is the use of showing miracles to a man who could always work a bigger one himself?”</p>
|
||||
<p>In short, Bastin’s one idea, and Bickley’s also for the matter of that, was to get away to the main island and thence escape by means of the boat, or in some other fashion.</p>
|
||||
<p>I pointed out that Oro had said we must obey at the peril of our lives; indeed that he had put it even more strongly, using words to the effect that if we did not he would kill us.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I’d take the risk,” said Bickley, “since I believe that you dreamt it all, Arbuthnot. However, putting that aside, there is a natural reason why you should wish to go, and for my own part, so do I in a way. I want to see what that old fellow has up his extremely long sleeve, if there is anything there at all.”</p>
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -7,8 +7,10 @@
|
|||
</head>
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<section id="chapter-23" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h2><a id="chap23" name="chap23"/>Chapter XXIII.<br/>
|
||||
In the Temple of Fate</h2>
|
||||
<hgroup>
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">XXIII</h2>
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title">In the Temple of Fate</h3>
|
||||
</hgroup>
|
||||
<p>Yva glanced at me, and in her eyes I read tenderness and solicitude, also something of inquiry. It seemed to me as though she were wondering what I should do under circumstances that might, or would, arise, and in some secret fashion of which I was but half conscious, drawing an answer from my soul. Then she turned, and, smiling in her dazzling way, said:</p>
|
||||
<p>“So, Bickley, as usual, you did not believe? Because <em>you</em> did not see him, therefore the Lord Oro, my father, never spoke with Humphrey. As though the Lord Oro could not pass you without your knowledge, or, perchance, send thoughts clothed in his own shape to work his errand.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“How do you know that I did not believe Arbuthnot’s story?” Bickley asked in a rather cross voice and avoiding the direct issue. “Do you also send thoughts to work <em>your</em> errands clothed in your own shape, Lady Yva?”</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -64,7 +66,7 @@
|
|||
<p>At length we lay down on the couches to rest, Bastin remarking that he wished he could turn off the light, also that he did not in the least regret having tried to kill Oro. Sleep seemed to come to the others quickly, but I could only doze, to wake up from time to time. Of this I was not sorry, since whenever I dropped off dreams seemed to pursue me. For the most part they were of my dead wife. She appeared to be trying to console me for some loss, but the strange thing was that sometimes she spoke with her own voice and sometimes with Yva’s, and sometimes looked at me with her own eyes and sometimes with those of Yva. I remember nothing else about these dreams, which were very confused.</p>
|
||||
<p>After one of them, the most vivid of all, I awoke and looked at my watch. It was half-past eleven, almost time for me to be starting. The other two seemed to be fast asleep. Presently I rose and crept down the court without waking them. Outside the portico, which by the way was a curious example of the survival of custom in architecture, since none was needed in that weatherless place, I turned to the right and followed the wide street to the temple enclosure. Through the pillared courts I went, my footsteps, although I walked as softly as I could, echoing loudly in that intense silence, through the great doors into the utter solitude of the vast and perfect fane.</p>
|
||||
<p>Words can not tell the loneliness of that place. It flowed over me like a sea and seemed to swallow up my being, so that even the wildest and most dangerous beast would have been welcome as a companion. I was as terrified as a child that wakes to find itself deserted in the dark. Also an uncanny sense of terrors to come oppressed me, till I could have cried aloud if only to hear the sound of a mortal voice. Yonder was the grim statue of Fate, the Oracle of the Kings of the Sons of Wisdom, which was believed to bow its stony head in answer to their prayers. I ran to it, eager for its terrible shelter, for on either side of it were figures of human beings. Even their cold marble was company of a sort, though alas! over all frowned Fate.</p>
|
||||
<p>Let anyone imagine himself standing alone beneath the dome of St. Paul’s; in the centre of that cathedral brilliant with mysterious light, and stretched all about it a London that had been dead and absolutely unpeopled for tens of thousands of years. If he can do this he will gather some idea of my physical state. Let him add to his mind-picture a knowledge that on the following day something was to happen not unlike the end of the world, as prognosticated by the Book of Revelation and by most astronomers, and he will have some idea of my mental perturbations. Add to the mixture a most mystic yet very real love affair and an assignation before that symbol of the cold fate which seems to sway the universes down to the tiniest detail of individual lives, and he may begin to understand what I, Humphrey Arbuthnot, experienced during my vigil in this sanctuary of a vanished race.</p>
|
||||
<p>Let anyone imagine himself standing alone beneath the dome of <abbr>St.</abbr> Paul’s; in the centre of that cathedral brilliant with mysterious light, and stretched all about it a London that had been dead and absolutely unpeopled for tens of thousands of years. If he can do this he will gather some idea of my physical state. Let him add to his mind-picture a knowledge that on the following day something was to happen not unlike the end of the world, as prognosticated by the Book of Revelation and by most astronomers, and he will have some idea of my mental perturbations. Add to the mixture a most mystic yet very real love affair and an assignation before that symbol of the cold fate which seems to sway the universes down to the tiniest detail of individual lives, and he may begin to understand what I, Humphrey Arbuthnot, experienced during my vigil in this sanctuary of a vanished race.</p>
|
||||
<p>It seemed long before Yva came, but at last she did come. I caught sight of her far away beyond the temple gate, flitting through the unholy brightness of the pillared courts like a white moth at night and seeming quite as small. She approached; now she was as a ghost, and then drawing near, changed into a living, breathing, lovely woman. I opened my arms, and with something like a sob she sank into them and we kissed as mortals do.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I could not come more quickly,” she said. “The Lord Oro needed me, and those calculations were long and difficult. Also twice he must visit the place whither we shall go tomorrow, and that took time.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Then it is close at hand?” I said.</p>
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -7,8 +7,10 @@
|
|||
</head>
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<section id="chapter-24" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h2><a id="chap24" name="chap24"/>Chapter XXIV.<br/>
|
||||
The Chariot of the Pit</h2>
|
||||
<hgroup>
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">XXIV</h2>
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title">The Chariot of the Pit</h3>
|
||||
</hgroup>
|
||||
<p>Oro came and of necessity alone. Yet there was that in his air as he advanced into the temple, which suggested a monarch surrounded by the pomp and panoply of a great court. He marched, his head held high, as though heralds and pursuivants went in front of him, as though nobles surrounded him and guards or regiments followed after him. Let it be admitted that he was a great figure in his gorgeous robes, with his long white beard, his hawk-like features, his tall shape and his glittering eyes, which even at that distance I could see. Indeed once or twice I thought that he glanced out of the corners of them towards the chapel where we were hid. But this I think was fancy. For as Yva said, his thoughts were set elsewhere.</p>
|
||||
<p>He reached the statue of Fate and stood for a while contemplating it and the suppliant figures on either side, as though he were waiting for his invisible court to arrange itself. Then he doffed his jewelled cap to the effigy, and knelt before it. Yes, Oro the Ancient, the Super-man, the God, as the early peoples of the earth fancied such a being, namely, one full of wrath, revenge, jealousy, caprice and power, knelt in supplication to this image of stone which he believed to be the home of a spirit, thereby showing himself to be after all not so far removed from the savages whose idol Bastin had destroyed. More, in a clear and resonant voice which reached us even across that great space, he put up his prayer. It ran something as follows, for although I did not understand the language in which he spoke Yva translated it to me in a whisper:</p>
|
||||
<p>“God of the Sons of Wisdom, God of the whole earth, only God to whom must bow every other Power and Dominion, to thee I, Oro the Great King, make prayer and offer sacrifice. Twenty times ten thousand years and more have gone by since I, Oro, visited this, thy temple and knelt before this, thy living effigy, yet thou, ruler of the world, dost remember the prayer I made and the sacrifice I offered. The prayer was for triumph over my enemies and the sacrifice a promise of the lives of half of those who in that day dwelt upon the earth. Thou heardest the prayer, thou didst bow thy head and accept the sacrifice. Yea, the prayer was granted and the sacrifice was made, and in it were counted the number of my foes.</p>
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -7,10 +7,12 @@
|
|||
</head>
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<section id="chapter-25" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h2><a id="chap25" name="chap25"/>Chapter XXV.<br/>
|
||||
Sacrifice</h2>
|
||||
<hgroup>
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">XXV</h2>
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title">Sacrifice</h3>
|
||||
</hgroup>
|
||||
<p>“The air in this place must be charged with some form of electricity, but the odd thing is that it does not seem to harm us,” said Bickley in a matter-of-fact fashion as though he were determined not to be astonished.</p>
|
||||
<p>“To me it looks more like marsh fires or St. Elmo lights, though how these can be where there is no vapour, I do not know,” I answered.</p>
|
||||
<p>“To me it looks more like marsh fires or <abbr>St.</abbr> Elmo lights, though how these can be where there is no vapour, I do not know,” I answered.</p>
|
||||
<p>As I spoke a particularly large ball of flame fell from above. It resembled a shooting star or a meteor more than anything else that I had ever seen, and made me wonder whether we were not perhaps standing beneath some inky, unseen sky.</p>
|
||||
<p>Next moment I forgot such speculations, for in its blue light, which made him terrible and ghastly, I perceived Oro standing in front of us clad in a long cloak.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Dear me!” said Bastin, “he looks just like the devil, doesn’t he, and now I come to think of it, this isn’t at all a bad imitation of hell.”</p>
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -7,8 +7,10 @@
|
|||
</head>
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<section id="chapter-26" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h2><a id="chap26" name="chap26"/>Chapter XXVI.<br/>
|
||||
Tommy</h2>
|
||||
<hgroup>
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">XXVI</h2>
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title">Tommy</h3>
|
||||
</hgroup>
|
||||
<p>I lay still a while, on my back as I had fallen, and beneath the shield-like defence which Yva had given to me. Notwithstanding the fire-resisting, metalised stuff of which it was made, I noted that it was twisted and almost burnt through. Doubtless the stored-up electricity or earth magnetism, or whatever it may have been that had leapt out of that hole, being diffused by the resistance with which it was met, had grazed me with its outer edge, and had it not been for the shield and cloak, I also should have been burned up. I wished, oh! how I wished that it had been so. Then, by now all must have finished and I should have known the truth as to what awaits us beyond the change: sleep, or dreams, or perchance the fullest life. Also I should not have learned alone.</p>
|
||||
<p>Lying there thus, idly, as though in a half-sleep, I felt Tommy licking my face, and throwing my arm about the poor little frightened beast, I watched the great world-balance as it retreated on its eternal journey. At one time its vast projecting rim had overshadowed us and almost seemed to touch the cliff of rock against which we leant. I remember that the effect of that shining arch a thousand feet or so above our heads was wonderful. It reminded me of a canopy of blackest thunder clouds supported upon a framework of wheeling rainbows, while beneath it all the children of the devil shouted together in joy. I noted this effect only a few seconds before Yva spoke to me and leapt into the path of the flash.</p>
|
||||
<p>Now, however, it was far away, a mere flaming wheel that became gradually smaller, and its Satanic voices were growing faint. As I have said, I watched its disappearance idly, reflecting that I should never look upon its like again; also that it was something well worth going forth to see. Then I became aware that the humming, howling din had decreased sufficiently to enable me to hear human voices without effort. Bastin was addressing Bickley—like myself they were both upon the ground.</p>
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -7,10 +7,12 @@
|
|||
</head>
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<section id="chapter-27" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h2><a id="chap27" name="chap27"/>Chapter XXVII.<br/>
|
||||
Bastin Discovers a Resemblance</h2>
|
||||
<hgroup>
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">XXVII</h2>
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title">Bastin Discovers a Resemblance</h3>
|
||||
</hgroup>
|
||||
<p>There is little more to tell.</p>
|
||||
<p>Shortly after our return Bickley, like a patriotic Englishman, volunteered for service at the front and departed in the uniform of the R.A.M.C. Before he left he took the opportunity of explaining to Bastin how much better it was in such a national emergency as existed, to belong to a profession in which a man could do something to help the bodies of his countrymen that had been broken in the common cause, than to one like his in which it was only possible to pelt them with vain words.</p>
|
||||
<p>Shortly after our return Bickley, like a patriotic Englishman, volunteered for service at the front and departed in the uniform of the <abbr class="initialism eoc">R.A.M.C.</abbr> Before he left he took the opportunity of explaining to Bastin how much better it was in such a national emergency as existed, to belong to a profession in which a man could do something to help the bodies of his countrymen that had been broken in the common cause, than to one like his in which it was only possible to pelt them with vain words.</p>
|
||||
<p>“You think that, do you, Bickley?” answered Bastin. “Well, I hold that it is better to heal souls than bodies, because, as even you will have learned out there in Orofena, they last so much longer.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I am not certain that I learned anything of the sort,” said Bickley, “or even that Oro was more than an ordinary old man. He said that he had lived a thousand years, but what was there to prove this except his word, which is worth nothing?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“There was the Lady Yva’s word also, which is worth a great deal, Bickley.”</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -52,7 +54,7 @@
|
|||
<p>Such upon the surface it appears to be, nor in fact does our ascertained knowledge, as Bickley would sum it up, take us much further. No prophet has yet arisen who attempted to define either the origin or the reasons of life. Even the very Greatest of them Himself is quite silent on this matter. We are tempted to wonder why. Is it because life as expressed in the higher of human beings, is, or will be too vast, too multiform and too glorious for any definition which we could understand? Is it because in the end it will involve for some, if not for all, majesty on unfathomed majesty, and glory upon unimaginable glory such as at present far outpass the limits of our thought?</p>
|
||||
<p>The experiences which I have recorded in these pages awake in my heart a hope that this may be so. Bastin is wont, like many others, to talk in a light fashion of Eternity without in the least comprehending what he means by that gigantic term. It is not too much to say that Eternity, something without beginning and without end, and involving, it would appear, an everlasting changelessness, is a state beyond human comprehension. As a matter of fact we mortals do not think in constellations, so to speak, or in æons, but by the measures of our own small earth and of our few days thereon. We cannot really conceive of an existence stretching over even one thousand years, such as that which Oro claimed and the Bible accords to a certain early race of men, omitting of course his two thousand five hundred centuries of sleep. And yet what is this but one grain in the hourglass of time, one day in the lost record of our earth, of its sisters the planets and its father the sun, to say nothing of the universes beyond?</p>
|
||||
<p>It is because I have come in touch with a prolonged though perfectly finite existence of the sort, that I try to pass on the reflections which the fact of it awoke in me. There are other reflections connected with Yva and the marvel of her love and its various manifestations which arise also. But these I keep to myself. They concern the wonder of woman’s heart, which is a microcosm of the hopes and fears and desires and despairs of this humanity of ours whereof from age to age she is the mother.</p>
|
||||
<p class="right">H<small>UMPHREY</small> A<small>RBUTHNOT</small>.</p>
|
||||
<p epub:type="z3998:signature"><b>Humphrey Arbuthnot</b>.</p>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
</body>
|
||||
</html>
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -7,8 +7,10 @@
|
|||
</head>
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<section id="chapter-3" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h2><a id="chap03" name="chap03"/>Chapter III.<br/>
|
||||
Natalie</h2>
|
||||
<hgroup>
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">III</h2>
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title">Natalie</h3>
|
||||
</hgroup>
|
||||
<p>Now what Bastin had said about marriage stuck in my mind as his blundering remarks had a way of doing, perhaps because of the grain of honest truth with which they were often permeated. Probably in my position it was more or less my duty to marry. But here came the rub; I had never experienced any leanings that way. I was as much a man as others, more so than many are, perhaps, and I liked women, but at the same time they repelled me.</p>
|
||||
<p>My old fastidiousness came in; to my taste there was always something wrong about them. While they attracted one part of my nature they revolted another part, and on the whole I preferred to do without their intimate society, rather than work violence to this second and higher part of me. Moreover, quite at the beginning of my career I had concluded from observation that a man gets on better in life alone, rather than with another to drag at his side, or by whom perhaps he must be dragged. Still true marriage, such as most men and some women have dreamed of in their youth, had always been one of my ideals; indeed it was on and around this vision that I wrote that first book of mine which was so successful. Since I knew this to be unattainable in our imperfect conditions, however, notwithstanding Bastin’s strictures, again I dismissed the whole matter from my mind as a vain imagination.</p>
|
||||
<p>As an alternative I reflected upon a parliamentary career which I was not too old to begin, and even toyed with one or two opportunities that offered themselves, as these do to men of wealth and advanced views. They never came to anything, for in the end I decided that Party politics were so hateful and so dishonest, that I could not bring myself to put my neck beneath their yoke. I was sure that if I tried to do so, I should fail more completely than I had done at the Bar and in Literature. Here, too, I am quite certain that I was right.</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -21,13 +23,13 @@
|
|||
<p>Yet now it happened strangely enough that when I seemed within myself to have little further interest in the things of the world, and least of all in women, I, who had taken another guest to dwell with me, those things of the world came back to me and in the shape of Woman the Inevitable. Probably it was so decreed since is it not written that no man can live to himself alone, or lose himself in watching and nurturing the growth of his own soul?</p>
|
||||
<hr/>
|
||||
<p>It happened thus. I went to Rome on my way home from India, and stayed there a while. On the day after my arrival I wrote my name in the book of our Minister to Italy at that time, Sir Alfred Upton, not because I wished him to ask me to dinner, but for the reason that I had heard of him as a man of archæological tastes and thought that he might enable me to see things which otherwise I should not see.</p>
|
||||
<p>As it chanced he knew about me through some of my Devonshire neighbours who were friends of his, and did ask me to dinner on the following night. I accepted and found myself one of a considerable party, some of them distinguished English people who wore Orders, as is customary when one dines with the representative of our Sovereign. Seeing these, and this shows that in the best of us vanity is only latent, for the first time in my life I was sorry that I had none and was only plain Mr. Arbuthnot who, as Sir Alfred explained to me politely, must go in to dinner last, because all the rest had titles, and without even a lady as there was not one to spare.</p>
|
||||
<p>As it chanced he knew about me through some of my Devonshire neighbours who were friends of his, and did ask me to dinner on the following night. I accepted and found myself one of a considerable party, some of them distinguished English people who wore Orders, as is customary when one dines with the representative of our Sovereign. Seeing these, and this shows that in the best of us vanity is only latent, for the first time in my life I was sorry that I had none and was only plain <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Arbuthnot who, as Sir Alfred explained to me politely, must go in to dinner last, because all the rest had titles, and without even a lady as there was not one to spare.</p>
|
||||
<p>Nor was my lot bettered when I got there, as I found myself seated between an Italian countess and a Russian prince, neither of whom could talk English, while, alas, I knew no foreign language, not even French in which they addressed me, seeming surprised that I did not understand them. I was humiliated at my own ignorance, although in fact I was not ignorant, only my education had been classical. Indeed I was a good classic and had kept up my knowledge more or less, especially since I became an idle man. In my confusion it occurred to me that the Italian countess might know Latin from which her own language was derived, and addressed her in that tongue. She stared, and Sir Alfred, who was not far off and overheard me (he also knew Latin), burst into laughter and proceeded to explain the joke in a loud voice, first in French and then in English, to the assembled company, who all became infected with merriment and also stared at me as a curiosity.</p>
|
||||
<p>Then it was that for the first time I saw Natalie, for owing to a mistake of my driver I had arrived rather late and had not been introduced to her. As her father’s only daughter, her mother being dead, she was seated at the end of the table behind a fan-like arrangement of white Madonna lilies, and she had bent forward and, like the others, was looking at me, but in such a fashion that her head from that distance seemed as though it were surrounded and crowned with lilies. Indeed the greatest art could not have produced a more beautiful effect which was, however, really one of naked accident.</p>
|
||||
<p>An angel looking down upon earth through the lilies of Heaven—that was the rather absurd thought which flashed into my mind. I did not quite realise her face at first except that it seemed to be both dark and fair; as a fact her waving hair which grew rather low upon her forehead, was dark, and her large, soft eyes were grey. I did not know, and to this moment I do not know if she was really beautiful, but certainly the light that shone through those eyes of hers and seemed to be reflected upon her delicate features, was beauty itself. It was like that glowing through a thin vase of the purest alabaster within which a lamp is placed, and I felt this effect to arise from no chance, like that of the lily-setting, but, as it were, from the lamp of the spirit within.</p>
|
||||
<p>Our eyes met, and I suppose that she saw the wonder and admiration in mine. At any rate her amused smile faded, leaving the face rather serious, though still sweetly serious, and a tinge of colour crept over it as the first hue of dawn creeps into a pearly sky. Then she withdrew herself behind the screen of lilies and for the rest of that dinner which I thought was never coming to an end, practically I saw her no more. Only I noted as she passed out that although not tall, she was rounded and graceful in shape and that her hands were peculiarly delicate.</p>
|
||||
<p>Afterwards in the drawing-room her father, with whom I had talked at the table, introduced me to her, saying:</p>
|
||||
<p>“My daughter is the real archaeologist, Mr. Arbuthnot, and I think if you ask her, she may be able to help you.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“My daughter is the real archaeologist, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Arbuthnot, and I think if you ask her, she may be able to help you.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Then he bustled away to speak to some of his important guests, from whom I think he was seeking political information.</p>
|
||||
<p>“My father exaggerates,” she said in a soft and very sympathetic voice, “but perhaps”—and she motioned me to a seat at her side.</p>
|
||||
<p>Then we talked of the places and things that I more particularly desired to see and, well, the end of it was that I went back to my hotel in love with Natalie; and as she afterwards confessed, she went to bed in love with me.</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -37,17 +39,17 @@
|
|||
<p>That is what we thought, if we thought at all. Certainly we never dreamed of a precipice. Why should we, who were young, by comparison, quite healthy and very rich? Who thinks of precipices under such circumstances, when disaster seems to be eliminated and death is yet a long way off?</p>
|
||||
<p>And yet we ought to have done so, because we should have known that smooth surfaces without impediment to the runners often end in something of the kind.</p>
|
||||
<p>I am bound to say that when we returned home to Fulcombe, where of course we met with a great reception, including the ringing (out of tune) of the new peal of bells that I had given to the church, Bastin made haste to point this out.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Your wife seems a very nice and beautiful lady, Arbuthnot,” he reflected aloud after dinner, when Mrs. Bastin, glowering as usual, though what at I do not know, had been escorted from the room by Natalie, “and really, when I come to think of it, you are an unusually fortunate person. You possess a great deal of money, much more than you have any right to; which you seem to have done very little to earn and do not spend quite as I should like you to do, and this nice property, that ought to be owned by a great number of people, as, according to the views you express, I should have thought you would acknowledge, and everything else that a man can want. It is very strange that you should be so favoured and not because of any particular merits of your own which one can see. However, I have no doubt it will all come even in the end and you will get your share of troubles, like others. Perhaps Mrs. Arbuthnot will have no children as there is so much for them to take. Or perhaps you will lose all your money and have to work for your living, which might be good for you. Or,” he added, still thinking aloud after his fashion, “perhaps she will die young—she has that kind of face, although, of course, I hope she won’t,” he added, waking up.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Your wife seems a very nice and beautiful lady, Arbuthnot,” he reflected aloud after dinner, when <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Bastin, glowering as usual, though what at I do not know, had been escorted from the room by Natalie, “and really, when I come to think of it, you are an unusually fortunate person. You possess a great deal of money, much more than you have any right to; which you seem to have done very little to earn and do not spend quite as I should like you to do, and this nice property, that ought to be owned by a great number of people, as, according to the views you express, I should have thought you would acknowledge, and everything else that a man can want. It is very strange that you should be so favoured and not because of any particular merits of your own which one can see. However, I have no doubt it will all come even in the end and you will get your share of troubles, like others. Perhaps <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Arbuthnot will have no children as there is so much for them to take. Or perhaps you will lose all your money and have to work for your living, which might be good for you. Or,” he added, still thinking aloud after his fashion, “perhaps she will die young—she has that kind of face, although, of course, I hope she won’t,” he added, waking up.</p>
|
||||
<p>I do not know why, but his wandering words struck me cold; the proverbial funeral bell at the marriage feast was nothing to them. I suppose it was because in a flash of intuition I knew that they would come true and that he was an appointed Cassandra. Perhaps this uncanny knowledge overcame my natural indignation at such super-gaucherie of which no one but Bastin could have been capable, and even prevented me from replying at all, so that I merely sat still and looked at him.</p>
|
||||
<p>But Bickley did reply with some vigour.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Forgive me for saying so, Bastin,” he said, bristling all over as it were, “but your remarks, which may or may not be in accordance with the principles of your religion, seem to me to be in singularly bad taste. They would have turned the stomachs of a gathering of early Christians, who appear to have been the worst mannered people in the world, and at any decent heathen feast your neck would have been wrung as that of a bird of ill omen.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why?” asked Bastin blankly. “I only said what I thought to be the truth. The truth is better than what you call good taste.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Then I will say what I think also to be the truth,” replied Bickley, growing furious. “It is that you use your Christianity as a cloak for bad manners. It teaches consideration and sympathy for others of which you seem to have none. Moreover, since you talk of the death of people’s wives, I will tell you something about your own, as a doctor, which I can do as I never attended her. It is highly probable, in my opinion, that she will die before Mrs. Arbuthnot, who is quite a healthy person with a good prospect of life.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Then I will say what I think also to be the truth,” replied Bickley, growing furious. “It is that you use your Christianity as a cloak for bad manners. It teaches consideration and sympathy for others of which you seem to have none. Moreover, since you talk of the death of people’s wives, I will tell you something about your own, as a doctor, which I can do as I never attended her. It is highly probable, in my opinion, that she will die before <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Arbuthnot, who is quite a healthy person with a good prospect of life.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Perhaps,” said Bastin. “If so, it will be God’s will and I shall not complain” (here Bickley snorted), “though I do not see what you can know about it. But why should you cast reflections on the early Christians who were people of strong principle living in rough times, and had to wage war against an established devil-worship? I know you are angry because they smashed up the statues of Venus and so forth, but had I been in their place I should have done the same.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Of course you would, who doubts it? But as for the early Christians and their iconoclastic performances—well, curse them, that’s all!” and he sprang up and left the room.</p>
|
||||
<p>I followed him.</p>
|
||||
<p>Let it not be supposed from the above scene that there was any ill-feeling between Bastin and Bickley. On the contrary they were much attached to each other, and this kind of quarrel meant no more than the strong expression of their individual views to which they were accustomed from their college days. For instance Bastin was always talking about the early Christians and missionaries, while Bickley loathed both, the early Christians because of the destruction which they had wrought in Egypt, Italy, Greece and elsewhere, of all that was beautiful; and the missionaries because, as he said, they were degrading and spoiling the native races and by inducing them to wear clothes, rendering them liable to disease. Bastin would answer that their souls were more important than their bodies, to which Bickley replied that as there was no such thing as a soul except in the stupid imagination of priests, he differed entirely on the point. As it was quite impossible for either to convince the other, there the conversation would end, or drift into something in which they were mutually interested, such as natural history and the hygiene of the neighbourhood.</p>
|
||||
<p>Here I may state that Bickley’s keen professional eye was not mistaken when he diagnosed Mrs. Bastin’s state of health as dangerous. As a matter of fact she was suffering from heart disease that a doctor can often recognise by the colour of the lips, etc., which brought about her death under the following circumstances:</p>
|
||||
<p>Here I may state that Bickley’s keen professional eye was not mistaken when he diagnosed <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Bastin’s state of health as dangerous. As a matter of fact she was suffering from heart disease that a doctor can often recognise by the colour of the lips, <abbr>etc.</abbr>, which brought about her death under the following circumstances:</p>
|
||||
<p>Her husband attended some ecclesiastical function at a town over twenty miles away and was to have returned by a train which would have brought him home about five o’clock. As he did not arrive she waited at the station for him until the last train came in about seven o’clock—without the beloved Basil. Then, on a winter’s night she tore up to the Priory and begged me to lend her a dog-cart in which to drive to the said town to look for him. I expostulated against the folly of such a proceeding, saying that no doubt Basil was safe enough but had forgotten to telegraph, or thought that he would save the sixpence which the wire cost.</p>
|
||||
<p>Then it came out, to Natalie’s and my intense amusement, that all this was the result of her jealous nature of which I have spoken. She said she had never slept a night away from her husband since they were married and with so many “designing persons” about she could not say what might happen if she did so, especially as he was “such a favourite and so handsome.” (Bastin was a fine looking man in his rugged way.)</p>
|
||||
<p>I suggested that she might have a little confidence in him, to which she replied darkly that she had no confidence in anybody.</p>
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -7,8 +7,10 @@
|
|||
</head>
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<section id="chapter-4" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h2><a id="chap04" name="chap04"/>Chapter IV.<br/>
|
||||
Death and Departure</h2>
|
||||
<hgroup>
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">IV</h2>
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title">Death and Departure</h3>
|
||||
</hgroup>
|
||||
<p>Now I must tell of my own terrible sorrow, which turned my life to bitterness and my hopes to ashes.</p>
|
||||
<p>Never were a man and a woman happier together than I and Natalie. Mentally, physically, spiritually we were perfectly mated, and we loved each other dearly. Truly we were as one. Yet there was something about her which filled me with vague fears, especially after she found that she was to become a mother. I would talk to her of the child, but she would sigh and shake her head, her eyes filling with tears, and say that we must not count on the continuance of such happiness as ours, for it was too great.</p>
|
||||
<p>I tried to laugh away her doubts, though whenever I did so I seemed to hear Bastin’s slow voice remarking casually that she might die, as he might have commented on the quality of the claret. At last, however, I grew terrified and asked her bluntly what she meant.</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -18,7 +20,7 @@
|
|||
<p>“For a little while!” I exclaimed.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Yes, Humphrey. I think that I shall be taken away from you—you know what I mean,” and she nodded towards the churchyard.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh, my God!” I groaned.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I want to say this,” she added quickly, “that if such a thing should happen, as it happens every day, I implore you, dearest Humphrey, not to be too much distressed, since I am sure that you will find me again. No, I can’t explain how or when or where, because I do not know. I have prayed for light, but it has not come to me. All I know is that I am not talking of reunion in Mr. Bastin’s kind of conventional heaven, which he speaks about as though to reach it one stumbled through darkness for a minute into a fine new house next door, where excellent servants had made everything ready for your arrival and all the lights were turned up. It is something quite different from that and very much more real.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I want to say this,” she added quickly, “that if such a thing should happen, as it happens every day, I implore you, dearest Humphrey, not to be too much distressed, since I am sure that you will find me again. No, I can’t explain how or when or where, because I do not know. I have prayed for light, but it has not come to me. All I know is that I am not talking of reunion in <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Bastin’s kind of conventional heaven, which he speaks about as though to reach it one stumbled through darkness for a minute into a fine new house next door, where excellent servants had made everything ready for your arrival and all the lights were turned up. It is something quite different from that and very much more real.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Then she bent down ostensibly to pat the head of a little black cocker spaniel called Tommy which had been given to her as a puppy, a highly intelligent and affectionate animal that we both adored and that loved her as only a dog can love. Really, I knew, it was to hide her tears, and fled from the room lest she should see mine.</p>
|
||||
<p>As I went I heard the dog whimpering in a peculiar way, as though some sympathetic knowledge had been communicated to its wonderful animal intelligence.</p>
|
||||
<p>That night I spoke to Bickley about the matter, repeating exactly what had passed. As I expected, he smiled in his grave, rather sarcastic way, and made light of it.</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -55,7 +57,7 @@
|
|||
<p>“The devil is always attractive,” replied Bastin gloomily. “Child of Nature indeed! I call her Child of Sin. That photograph is enough to make my poor Sarah turn in her grave.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why?” asked Bickley; “seeing that wide seas roll between you and this dusky Venus. Also I thought that according to your Hebrew legend sin came in with bark garments.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“You should search the Scriptures, Bickley,” I broke in, “and cultivate accuracy. It was fig-leaves that symbolised its arrival. The garments, which I think were of skin, developed later.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Perhaps,” went on Bickley, who had turned the page, “she” (he referred to the late Mrs. Bastin) “would have preferred her thus,” and he held up another illustration of the same woman.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Perhaps,” went on Bickley, who had turned the page, “she” (he referred to the late <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Bastin) “would have preferred her thus,” and he held up another illustration of the same woman.</p>
|
||||
<p>In this the native belle appeared after conversion, clad in broken-down stays—I suppose they were stays—out of which she seemed to bulge and flow in every direction, a dirty white dress several sizes too small, a kind of Salvation Army bonnet without a crown and a prayer-book which she held pressed to her middle; the general effect being hideous, and in some curious way, improper.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Certainly,” said Bastin, “though I admit her clothes do not seem to fit and she has not buttoned them up as she ought. But it is not of the pictures so much as of the letterpress with its false and scandalous accusations, that I complain.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why do you complain?” asked Bickley. “Probably it is quite true, though that we could never ascertain without visiting the lady’s home.”</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -86,11 +88,11 @@
|
|||
<p>As for me I laughed and for some unknown reason felt happier than I had done for months. Oh! if only the writer of that tourist tale of the South Sea Islands could have guessed what fruit his light-thrown seed would yield to us and to the world!</p>
|
||||
<hr/>
|
||||
<p>I made my inquiries through a London agency which hired out yachts or sold them to the idle rich. As I expected, there were plenty to be had, at a price, but wealthy as I was, the figure asked of the buyer of any suitable craft, staggered me. In the end, however, I chartered one for six months certain and at so much per month for as long as I liked afterwards. The owners paid insurance and everything else on condition that they appointed the captain and first mate, also the engineer, for this yacht, which was named <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Star of the South</i>, could steam at about ten knots as well as sail.</p>
|
||||
<p>I know nothing about yachts, and therefore shall not attempt to describe her, further than to say that she was of five hundred and fifty tons burden, very well constructed, and smart to look at, as well she might be, seeing that a deceased millionaire from whose executors I hired her had spent a fortune in building and equipping her in the best possible style. In all, her crew consisted of thirty-two hands. A peculiarity of the vessel was that owing to some fancy of the late owner, the passenger accommodation, which was splendid, lay forward of the bridge, this with the ship’s store-rooms, refrigerating chamber, etc., being almost in the bows. It was owing to these arrangements, which were unusual, that the executors found it impossible to sell, and were therefore glad to accept such an offer as mine in order to save expenses. Perhaps they hoped that she might go to the bottom, being heavily insured. If so, the Fates did not disappoint them.</p>
|
||||
<p>I know nothing about yachts, and therefore shall not attempt to describe her, further than to say that she was of five hundred and fifty tons burden, very well constructed, and smart to look at, as well she might be, seeing that a deceased millionaire from whose executors I hired her had spent a fortune in building and equipping her in the best possible style. In all, her crew consisted of thirty-two hands. A peculiarity of the vessel was that owing to some fancy of the late owner, the passenger accommodation, which was splendid, lay forward of the bridge, this with the ship’s store-rooms, refrigerating chamber, <abbr>etc.</abbr>, being almost in the bows. It was owing to these arrangements, which were unusual, that the executors found it impossible to sell, and were therefore glad to accept such an offer as mine in order to save expenses. Perhaps they hoped that she might go to the bottom, being heavily insured. If so, the Fates did not disappoint them.</p>
|
||||
<p>The captain, named Astley, was a jovial person who held every kind of certificate. He seemed so extraordinarily able at his business that personally I suspected him of having made mistakes in the course of his career, not unconnected with the worship of Bacchus. In this I believe I was right; otherwise a man of such attainments would have been commanding something bigger than a private yacht. The first mate, Jacobsen, was a melancholy Dane, a spiritualist who played the concertina, and seemed to be able to do without sleep. The crew were a mixed lot, good men for the most part and quite unobjectionable, more than half of them being Scandinavian. I think that is all I need say about the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Star of the South</i>.</p>
|
||||
<p>The arrangement was that the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Star of the South</i> should proceed through the Straits of Gibraltar to Marseilles, where we would join her, and thence travel via the Suez Canal, to Australia and on to the South Seas, returning home as our fancy or convenience might dictate.</p>
|
||||
<p>All the first part of the plan we carried out to the letter. Of the remainder I say nothing at present.</p>
|
||||
<p><i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Star of the South</i> was amply provided with every kind of store. Among them were medicines and surgical instruments, selected by Bickley, and a case of Bibles and other religious works in sundry languages of the South Seas, selected by Bastin, whose bishop, when he understood the pious objects of his journey, had rather encouraged than hindered his departure on sick leave, and a large number of novels, books of reference, etc., laid in by myself. She duly sailed from the Thames and reached Marseilles after a safe and easy passage, where all three of us boarded her.</p>
|
||||
<p><i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Star of the South</i> was amply provided with every kind of store. Among them were medicines and surgical instruments, selected by Bickley, and a case of Bibles and other religious works in sundry languages of the South Seas, selected by Bastin, whose bishop, when he understood the pious objects of his journey, had rather encouraged than hindered his departure on sick leave, and a large number of novels, books of reference, <abbr>etc.</abbr>, laid in by myself. She duly sailed from the Thames and reached Marseilles after a safe and easy passage, where all three of us boarded her.</p>
|
||||
<p>I forgot to add that she had another passenger, the little spaniel, Tommy. I had intended to leave him behind, but while I was packing up he followed me about with such evident understanding of my purpose that my heart was touched. When I entered the motor to drive to the station he escaped from the hands of the servant, whimpering, and took refuge on my knee. After this I felt that Destiny intended him to be our companion. Moreover, was he not linked with my dead past, and, had I but known it, with my living future also?</p>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
</body>
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -7,8 +7,10 @@
|
|||
</head>
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<section id="chapter-5" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h2><a id="chap05" name="chap05"/>Chapter V.<br/>
|
||||
The Cyclone</h2>
|
||||
<hgroup>
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">V</h2>
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title">The Cyclone</h3>
|
||||
</hgroup>
|
||||
<p>We enjoyed our voyage exceedingly. In Egypt, a land I was glad to revisit, we only stopped a week while the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Star of the South</i>, which we rejoined at Suez, coaled and went through the Canal. This, however, gave us time to spend a few days in Cairo, visit the Pyramids and Sakkara which Bastin and Bickley had never seen before, and inspect the great Museum. The journey up the Nile was postponed until our return. It was a pleasant break and gave Bickley, a most omnivorous reader who was well acquainted with Egyptian history and theology, the opportunity of trying to prove to Bastin that Christianity was a mere development of the ancient Egyptian faith. The arguments that ensued may be imagined. It never seemed to occur to either of them that all faiths may be and indeed probably are progressive; in short, different rays of light thrown from the various facets of the same crystal, as in turn these are shone upon by the sun of Truth.</p>
|
||||
<p>Our passage down the Red Sea was cool and agreeable. Thence we shaped our course for Ceylon. Here again we stopped a little while to run up to Kandy and to visit the ruined city of Anarajapura with its great Buddhist topes that once again gave rise to religious argument between my two friends. Leaving Ceylon we struck across the Indian Ocean for Perth in Western Australia.</p>
|
||||
<p>It was a long voyage, since to save our coal we made most of it under canvas. However, we were not dull as Captain Astley was a good companion, and even out of the melancholy Dane, Jacobsen, we had entertainment. He insisted on holding seances in the cabin, at which the usual phenomena occurred. The table twisted about, voices were heard and Jacobsen’s accordion wailed out tunes above our heads. These happenings drove Bickley to a kind of madness, for here were events which he could not explain. He was convinced that someone was playing tricks upon him, and devised the most elaborate snares to detect the rogue, entirely without result.</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -21,11 +23,11 @@
|
|||
<p>After this the seances were given up but Jacobsen produced an instrument called a planchette and with difficulty persuaded Bickley to try it, which he did after many precautions. The thing, a heart-shaped piece of wood mounted on wheels and with a pencil stuck at its narrow end, cantered about the sheet of paper on which it was placed, Bickley, whose hands rested upon it, staring at the roof of the cabin. Then it began to scribble and after a while stopped still.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Will the Doctor look?” said Jacobsen. “Perhaps the spirits have told him something.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Oh! curse all this silly talk about spirits,” exclaimed Bickley, as he arranged his eyeglasses and held up the paper to the light, for it was after dinner.</p>
|
||||
<p>He stared, then with an exclamation which I will not repeat, and a glance of savage suspicion at the poor Dane and the rest of us, threw it down and left the cabin. I picked it up and next moment was screaming with laughter. There on the top of the sheet was a rough but entirely recognizable portrait of Bickley with the accordion on his head, and underneath, written in a delicate, Italian female hand, absolutely different from his own, were these words taken from one of St. Paul’s Epistles—“Oppositions of science falsely so called.” Underneath them again in a scrawling, schoolboy fist, very like Bastin’s, was inscribed, “Tell us how this is done, you silly doctor, who think yourself so clever.”</p>
|
||||
<p>He stared, then with an exclamation which I will not repeat, and a glance of savage suspicion at the poor Dane and the rest of us, threw it down and left the cabin. I picked it up and next moment was screaming with laughter. There on the top of the sheet was a rough but entirely recognizable portrait of Bickley with the accordion on his head, and underneath, written in a delicate, Italian female hand, absolutely different from his own, were these words taken from one of <abbr>St.</abbr> Paul’s Epistles—“Oppositions of science falsely so called.” Underneath them again in a scrawling, schoolboy fist, very like Bastin’s, was inscribed, “Tell us how this is done, you silly doctor, who think yourself so clever.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“It seems that the devil really can quote Scripture,” was Bastin’s only comment, while Jacobsen stared before him and smiled.</p>
|
||||
<p>Bickley never alluded to the matter, but for days afterwards I saw him experimenting with paper and chemicals, evidently trying to discover a form of invisible ink which would appear upon the application of the hand. As he never said anything about it, I fear that he failed.</p>
|
||||
<p>This planchette business had a somewhat curious ending. A few nights later Jacobsen was working it and asked me to put a question. To oblige him I inquired on what day we should reach Fremantle, the port of Perth. It wrote an answer which, I may remark, subsequently proved to be quite correct.</p>
|
||||
<p>“That is not a good question,” said Jacobsen, “since as a sailor I might guess the reply. Try again, Mr. Arbuthnot.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“That is not a good question,” said Jacobsen, “since as a sailor I might guess the reply. Try again, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Arbuthnot.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Will anything remarkable happen on our voyage to the South Seas?” I inquired casually.</p>
|
||||
<p>The planchette hesitated a while then wrote rapidly and stopped. Jacobsen took up the paper and began to read the answer aloud—“To A, B the D, and B the C, the most remarkable things will happen that have happened to men living in the world.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“That must mean me, Bickley the doctor and Bastin the clergyman,” I said, laughing.</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -40,8 +42,10 @@
|
|||
<p>We came to Suva in safety and spent a while in exploring the beautiful Fiji Isles where both Bastin and Bickley made full inquiries about the work of the missionaries, each of them drawing exactly opposite conclusions from the same set of admitted facts. Thence we steamed to Samoa and put our two natives ashore at Apia, where we procured some coal. We did not stay long enough in these islands to investigate them, however, because persons of experience there assured us from certain familiar signs that one of the terrible hurricanes with which they are afflicted, was due to arrive shortly and that we should do well to put ourselves beyond its reach. So having coaled and watered we departed in a hurry.</p>
|
||||
<p>Up to this time I should state we had met with the most wonderful good fortune in the matter of weather, so good indeed that never on one occasion since we left Marseilles, had we been obliged to put the fiddles on the tables. With the superstition of a sailor Captain Astley, when I alluded to the matter, shook his head saying that doubtless we should pay for it later on, since “luck never goes all the way” and cyclones were reported to be about.</p>
|
||||
<p>Here I must tell that after we were clear of Apia, it was discovered that the Danish mate who was believed to be in his cabin unwell from something he had eaten, was missing. The question arose whether we should put back to find him, as we supposed that he had made a trip inland and met with an accident, or been otherwise delayed. I was in favour of doing so though the captain, thinking of the threatened hurricane, shook his head and said that Jacobsen was a queer fellow who might just as well have gone overboard as anywhere else, if he thought he heard “the spirits, of whom he was so fond,” calling him. While the matter was still in suspense I happened to go into my own stateroom and there, stuck in the looking-glass, saw an envelope in the Dane’s handwriting addressed to myself. On opening it I found another sealed letter, unaddressed, also a note that ran as follows:</p>
|
||||
<p class="letter">“Honoured Sir,<br/>
|
||||
“You will think very badly of me for leaving you, but the enclosed which I implore you not to open until you have seen the last of the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Star of the South</i>, will explain my reason and I hope clear my reputation. I thank you again and again for all your kindness and pray that the Spirits who rule the world may bless and preserve you, also the Doctor and Mr. Bastin.”</p>
|
||||
<blockquote epub:type="z3998:letter">
|
||||
<p epub:type="z3998:salutation">“Honoured Sir,</p>
|
||||
<p>“You will think very badly of me for leaving you, but the enclosed which I implore you not to open until you have seen the last of the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Star of the South</i>, will explain my reason and I hope clear my reputation. I thank you again and again for all your kindness and pray that the Spirits who rule the world may bless and preserve you, also the Doctor and <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Bastin.”</p>
|
||||
</blockquote>
|
||||
<p>This letter, which left the fate of Jacobsen quite unsolved, for it might mean either that he had deserted or drowned himself, I put away with the enclosure in my pocket. Of course there was no obligation on me to refrain from opening the letter, but I shrank from doing so both from some kind of sense of honour and, to tell the truth, for fear of what it might contain. I felt that this would be disagreeable; also, although there was nothing to connect them together, I bethought me of the scene when Jacobsen had smashed the planchette.</p>
|
||||
<p>On my return to the deck I said nothing whatsoever about the discovery of the letter, but only remarked that on reflection I had changed my mind and agreed with the captain that it would be unwise to attempt to return in order to look for Jacobsen. So the boatswain, a capable individual who had seen better days, was promoted to take his watches and we went on as before. How curiously things come about in the world! For nautical reasons that were explained to me, but which I will not trouble to set down, if indeed I could remember them, I believe that if we had returned to Apia we should have missed the great gale and subsequent cyclone, and with these much else. But it was not so fated.</p>
|
||||
<p>It was on the fourth day, when we were roughly seven hundred miles or more north of Samoa, that we met the edge of this gale about sundown. The captain put on steam in the hope of pushing through it, but that night we dined for the first time with the fiddles on, and by eleven o’clock it was as much as one could do to stand in the cabin, while the water was washing freely over the deck. Fortunately, however, the wind veered more aft of us, so that by putting about her head a little (seamen must forgive me if I talk of these matters as a landlubber) we ran almost before the wind, though not quite in the direction that we wished to go.</p>
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -7,9 +7,11 @@
|
|||
</head>
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<section id="chapter-6" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h2><a id="chap06" name="chap06"/>Chapter VI.<br/>
|
||||
Land</h2>
|
||||
<p>At last the electric light really went out. I had looked at my watch just before this happened and wound it up, which, Bickley remarked, was superfluous and a waste of energy. It then marked 3.20 in the morning. We had wedged Bastin, who was now snoring comfortably, into his berth, with pillows, and managed to tie a cord over him—no, it was a large bath towel, fixing one end of it to the little rack over his bed and the other to its framework. As for ourselves, we lay down on the floor between the table legs, which, of course, were screwed, and the settee, protecting ourselves as best we were able by help of the cushions, etc., between two of which we thrust the terrified Tommy who had been sliding up and down the cabin floor. Thus we remained, expecting death every moment till the light of day, a very dim light, struggling through a port-hole of which the iron cover had somehow been wrenched off. Or perhaps it was never shut, I do not remember.</p>
|
||||
<hgroup>
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">VI</h2>
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title">Land</h3>
|
||||
</hgroup>
|
||||
<p>At last the electric light really went out. I had looked at my watch just before this happened and wound it up, which, Bickley remarked, was superfluous and a waste of energy. It then marked 3:20 in the morning. We had wedged Bastin, who was now snoring comfortably, into his berth, with pillows, and managed to tie a cord over him—no, it was a large bath towel, fixing one end of it to the little rack over his bed and the other to its framework. As for ourselves, we lay down on the floor between the table legs, which, of course, were screwed, and the settee, protecting ourselves as best we were able by help of the cushions, <abbr>etc.</abbr>, between two of which we thrust the terrified Tommy who had been sliding up and down the cabin floor. Thus we remained, expecting death every moment till the light of day, a very dim light, struggling through a port-hole of which the iron cover had somehow been wrenched off. Or perhaps it was never shut, I do not remember.</p>
|
||||
<p>About this time there came a lull in the hellish, howling hurricane; the fact being, I suppose, that we had reached the centre of the cyclone. I suggested that we should try to go on deck and see what was happening. So we started, only to find the entrance to the companion so faithfully secured that we could not by any means get out. We knocked and shouted, but no one answered. My belief is that at this time everyone on the yacht except ourselves had been washed away and drowned.</p>
|
||||
<p>Then we returned to the saloon, which, except for a little water trickling about the floor, was marvelously dry, and, being hungry, retrieved some bits of food and biscuit from its corners and ate. At this moment the cyclone began to blow again worse than ever, but it seemed to us, from another direction, and before it sped our poor derelict barque. It blew all day till for my part I grew utterly weary and even longed for the inevitable end. If my views were not quite those of Bastin, certainly they were not those of Bickley. I had believed from my youth up that the individuality of man, the ego, so to speak, does not die when life goes out of his poor body, and this faith did not desert me then. Therefore, I wished to have it over and learn what there might be upon the other side.</p>
|
||||
<p>We could not speak much because of the howling of the wind, but Bickley did manage to shout to me something to the effect that his partners would, in his opinion, make an end of their great practice within two years, which, he added, was a pity. I nodded my head, not caring twopence what happened to Bickley’s partners or their business, or to my own property, or to anything else. When death is at hand most of us do not think much of such things because then we realise how small they are. Indeed I was wondering whether within a few minutes or hours I should or should not see Natalie again, and if this were the end to which she had seemed to beckon me in that dream.</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -117,9 +119,13 @@
|
|||
<p>“No,” replied Bickley, “on second thoughts I will see to that myself, but you can get the fish ready.”</p>
|
||||
<p>So, with due precautions, Bastin and I fetched water from the stream which we found flowed over the edge of the cliff quite close at hand into a beautiful coral basin that might have been designed for a bath of the nymphs. Indeed one at a time, while the other watched, we undressed and plunged into it, and never was a tub more welcome than after our long days of tempest. Then we returned to find that Bickley had already set the table and was engaged in frying the fish very skilfully on the saloon stove, which proved to be well adapted to the purpose. He was cross, however, when he found that we had bathed and that it was now too late for him to do likewise.</p>
|
||||
<p>While he was cleaning himself as well as he could in his cabin basin and Bastin was boiling water for tea, suddenly I remembered the letter from the Danish mate Jacobsen. Concluding that it might now be opened as we had certainly parted with most of the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Star of the South</i> for the last time, I read it. It was as follows:</p>
|
||||
<p class="letter">“The reason, honoured Sir, that I am leaving the ship is that on the night I tore up the paper, the spirit controlling the planchette wrote these words: ‘After leaving Samoa the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Star of the South</i> will be wrecked in a hurricane and everybody on board drowned except A. B. and B. Get out of her! Get out of her! Don’t be a fool, Jacob, unless you want to come over here at once. Take our advice and get out of her and you will live to be old.—S<small>KOLL</small>.”</p>
|
||||
<p class="letter">“Sir, I am not a coward but I know that this will happen, for that spirit which signs itself Skoll never tells a lie. I did try to give the captain a hint to stop at Apia, but he had been drinking and openly cursed me and called me a sneaking cheat. So I am going to run away, of which I am very much ashamed. But I do not wish to be drowned yet as there is a girl whom I want to marry, and my mother I support. You will be safe and I hope you will not think too badly of me.—J<small>ACOB</small> J<small>ACOBSEN</small>.<br/>
|
||||
“<i>P.S</i>.—It is an awful thing to know the future. Never try to learn that.”</p>
|
||||
<blockquote epub:type="z3998:letter">
|
||||
<p>“The reason, honoured Sir, that I am leaving the ship is that on the night I tore up the paper, the spirit controlling the planchette wrote these words: ‘After leaving Samoa the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Star of the South</i> will be wrecked in a hurricane and everybody on board drowned except A., B. and B. Get out of her! Get out of her! Don’t be a fool, Jacob, unless you want to come over here at once. Take our advice and get out of her and you will live to be old.—<span epub:type="z3998:signature">Skoll</span>.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Sir, I am not a coward but I know that this will happen, for that spirit which signs itself Skoll never tells a lie. I did try to give the captain a hint to stop at Apia, but he had been drinking and openly cursed me and called me a sneaking cheat. So I am going to run away, of which I am very much ashamed. But I do not wish to be drowned yet as there is a girl whom I want to marry, and my mother I support. You will be safe and I hope you will not think too badly of me.—<span epub:type="z3998:sender z3998:signature">Jacob Jacobsen</span>.</p>
|
||||
<footer>
|
||||
<p epub:type="z3998:postscript">“<abbr class="initialism">P.S.</abbr>—It is an awful thing to know the future. Never try to learn that.”</p>
|
||||
</footer>
|
||||
</blockquote>
|
||||
<p>I gave this letter to Bastin and Bickley to read and asked them what they thought of it.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Coincidence,” said Bickley. “The man is a weak-minded idiot and heard in Samoa that they expected a hurricane.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I think,” chimed in Bastin, “that the devil knows how to look after his own at any rate for a little while. I dare say it would have been much better for him to be drowned.”</p>
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -7,8 +7,10 @@
|
|||
</head>
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<section id="chapter-7" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h2><a id="chap07" name="chap07"/>Chapter VII.<br/>
|
||||
The Orofenans</h2>
|
||||
<hgroup>
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">VII</h2>
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title">The Orofenans</h3>
|
||||
</hgroup>
|
||||
<p>To our shame we had a very pleasant supper that night off the grilled fish, which was excellent, and some tinned meat. I say to our shame, in a sense, for on our companions the sharks were supping and by rights we should have been sunk in woe. I suppose that the sense of our own escape intoxicated us. Also, notwithstanding his joviality, none of us had cared much for the captain, and his policy had been to keep us somewhat apart from the crew, of whom therefore we knew but little. It is true that Bastin held services on Sundays, for such as would attend, and Bickley had doctored a few of them for minor ailments, but there, except for a little casual conversation, our intercourse began and ended.</p>
|
||||
<p>Now the sad fact is that it is hard to be overwhelmed with grief for those with whom we are not intimate. We were very sorry and that is all that can be said, except that Bastin, being High Church, announced in a matter-of-fact way that he meant to put up some petitions for the welfare of their souls. To this Bickley retorted that from what he had seen of their bodies he was sure they needed them.</p>
|
||||
<p>Yes, it was a pleasant supper, not made less so by a bottle of champagne which Bickley and I shared. Bastin stuck to his tea, not because he did not like champagne, but because, as he explained, having now come in contact with the heathen it would never do for him to set them an example in the use of spirituous liquors.</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -29,7 +31,7 @@
|
|||
<p>When Marama came out of the anesthetic, Bickley gave him something which sent him to sleep for twelve hours, during all which time his people waited beneath. This was our dangerous period, for our difficulty was to persuade them that he was not dead, although Bickley had assured them that he would sleep for a time while the magic worked. Still, I was very glad when he woke up on the following morning, and two or three of his leading men could see that he was alive. The rest was lengthy but simple, consisting merely in keeping him quiet and on a suitable diet until there was no fear of the wound opening. We achieved it somehow with the help of an intelligent native woman who, I suppose, was one of his wives, and five days later were enabled to present him healed, though rather tottery, to his affectionate subjects.</p>
|
||||
<p>It was a great scene, which may be imagined. They bore him away in a litter with the native woman to watch him and another to carry the relic preserved in a basket, and us they acclaimed as gods. Thenceforward we had nothing to fear in Orofena—except Bastin, though this we did not know at the time.</p>
|
||||
<p>All this while we had been living on our ship and growing very bored there, although we employed the empty hours in conversation with selected natives, thereby improving our knowledge of the language. Bickley had the best of it, since already patients began to arrive which occupied him. One of the first was that man whom Tommy had bitten. He was carried to us in an almost comatose state, suffering apparently from the symptoms of snake poisoning.</p>
|
||||
<p>Afterward it turned out that he conceived Tommy to be a divine but most venomous lizard that could make a very horrible noise, and began to suffer as one might do from the bite of such a creature. Nothing that Bickley could do was enough to save him and ultimately he died in convulsions, a circumstance that enormously enhanced Tommy’s reputation. To tell the truth, we took advantage of it to explain that Tommy was in fact a supernatural animal, a sort of tame demon which only harmed people who had malevolent intentions towards those he served or who tried to steal any of their possessions or to intrude upon them at inconvenient hours, especially in the dark. So terrible was he, indeed, that even the skill of the Great Priest, i.e., Bickley, could not avail to save any whom once he had bitten in his rage. Even to be barked at by him was dangerous and conveyed a curse that might last for generations.</p>
|
||||
<p>Afterward it turned out that he conceived Tommy to be a divine but most venomous lizard that could make a very horrible noise, and began to suffer as one might do from the bite of such a creature. Nothing that Bickley could do was enough to save him and ultimately he died in convulsions, a circumstance that enormously enhanced Tommy’s reputation. To tell the truth, we took advantage of it to explain that Tommy was in fact a supernatural animal, a sort of tame demon which only harmed people who had malevolent intentions towards those he served or who tried to steal any of their possessions or to intrude upon them at inconvenient hours, especially in the dark. So terrible was he, indeed, that even the skill of the Great Priest, <abbr class="initialism">i.e.</abbr>, Bickley, could not avail to save any whom once he had bitten in his rage. Even to be barked at by him was dangerous and conveyed a curse that might last for generations.</p>
|
||||
<p>All this we set out when Bastin was not there. He had wandered off, as he said, to look for shells, but as we knew, to practise religious orations in the Polynesian tongue with the waves for audience, as Demosthenes is said to have done to perfect himself as a political orator. Personally I admit that I relied more on the terrors of Tommy to safeguard us from theft and other troubles than I did upon those of the native taboo and the priestly oaths.</p>
|
||||
<p>The end of it all was that we left our ship, having padlocked up the door (the padlock, we explained, was a magical instrument that bit worse than Tommy), and moved inland in a kind of triumphal procession, priests and singers going before (the Orofenans sang extremely well) and minstrels following after playing upon instruments like flutes, while behind came the bearers carrying such goods as we needed. They took us to a beautiful place in a grove of palms on a ridge where grew many breadfruit trees, that commanded a view of the ocean upon one side and of the lake with the strange brown mountain top on the other. Here in the midst of the native gardens we found that a fine house had been built for us of a kind of mud brick and thatched with palm leaves, surrounded by a fenced courtyard of beaten earth and having wide overhanging verandahs; a very comfortable place indeed in that delicious climate. In it we took up our abode, visiting the ship occasionally to see that all was well there, and awaiting events.</p>
|
||||
<p>For Bickley these soon began to happen in the shape of an ever-increasing stream of patients. The population of the island was considerable, anything between five and ten thousand, so far as we could judge, and among these of course there were a number of sick. Ophthalmia, for instance, was a prevalent disease, as were the growths such as Marama had suffered from, to say nothing of surgical cases and those resulting from accident or from nervous ailments. With all of these Bickley was called upon to deal, which he did with remarkable success by help of his books on Tropical Diseases and his ample supplies of medical necessaries.</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -47,7 +49,7 @@
|
|||
<p>Bastin vouchsafed no reply and sat for the rest of that evening plunged in deep thought.</p>
|
||||
<p>On the following morning he approached Marama and asked his leave to teach the people about the gods. The chief readily granted this, thinking, I believe, that he alluded to ourselves, and orders were issued accordingly. They were to the effect that Bastin was to be allowed to go everywhere unmolested and to talk to whom he would about what he would, to which all must listen with respect.</p>
|
||||
<p>Thus he began his missionary career in Orofena, working at it, good and earnest man that he was, in a way that excited even the admiration of Bickley. He started a school for children, which was held under a fine, spreading tree. These listened well, and being of exceedingly quick intellect soon began to pick up the elements of knowledge. But when he tried to persuade them to clothe their little naked bodies his failure was complete, although after much supplication some of the bigger girls did arrive with a chaplet of flowers—round their necks!</p>
|
||||
<p>Also he preached to the adults, and here again was very successful in a way, especially after he became more familiar with the language. They listened; to a certain extent they understood; they argued and put to poor Bastin the most awful questions such as the whole Bench of Bishops could not have answered. Still he did answer them somehow, and they politely accepted his interpretation of their theological riddles. I observed that he got on best when he was telling them stories out of the Old Testament, such as the account of the creation of the world and of human beings, also of the Deluge, etc. Indeed one of their elders said—Yes, this was quite true. They had heard it all before from their fathers, and that once the Deluge had taken place round Orofena, swallowing up great countries, but sparing them because they were so good.</p>
|
||||
<p>Also he preached to the adults, and here again was very successful in a way, especially after he became more familiar with the language. They listened; to a certain extent they understood; they argued and put to poor Bastin the most awful questions such as the whole Bench of Bishops could not have answered. Still he did answer them somehow, and they politely accepted his interpretation of their theological riddles. I observed that he got on best when he was telling them stories out of the Old Testament, such as the account of the creation of the world and of human beings, also of the Deluge, <abbr class="eoc">etc.</abbr> Indeed one of their elders said—Yes, this was quite true. They had heard it all before from their fathers, and that once the Deluge had taken place round Orofena, swallowing up great countries, but sparing them because they were so good.</p>
|
||||
<p>Bastin, surprised, asked them who had caused the deluge. They replied, Oro which was the name of their god, Oro who dwelt yonder on the mountain in the lake, and whose representation they worshipped in idols. He said that God dwelt in Heaven, to which they replied with calm certainty:</p>
|
||||
<p>“No, no, he dwells on the mountain in the lake,” which was why they never dared to approach that mountain.</p>
|
||||
<p>Indeed it was only by giving the name Oro to the Divinity and admitting that He might dwell in the mountain as well as everywhere else, that Bastin was able to make progress. Having conceded this, not without scruples, however, he did make considerable progress, so much, in fact, that I perceived that the priests of Oro were beginning to grow very jealous of him and of his increasing authority with the people. Bastin was naturally triumphant, and even exclaimed exultingly that within a year he would have half of the population baptised.</p>
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -7,8 +7,10 @@
|
|||
</head>
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<section id="chapter-8" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h2><a id="chap08" name="chap08"/>Chapter VIII.<br/>
|
||||
Bastin Attempts the Martyr’s Crown</h2>
|
||||
<hgroup>
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">VIII</h2>
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title">Bastin Attempts the Martyr’s Crown</h3>
|
||||
</hgroup>
|
||||
<p>That carved stone and the marble hand took a great hold of my imagination. What did they mean? How could they have come to the bottom of that hole, unless indeed they were part of some building and its ornaments which had been destroyed in the neighbourhood? The stone of which we had only uncovered a corner seemed far too big to have been carried there from any ship; it must have weighed several tons. Besides, ships do not carry such things about the world, and none had visited this island during the last two centuries at any rate, or local tradition would have recorded so wonderful a fact. Were there, then, once edifices covered with elegant carving standing on this place, and were they adorned with lovely statues that would not have disgraced the best period of Greek art? The thing was incredible except on the supposition that these were relics of an utterly lost civilisation.</p>
|
||||
<p>Bickley was as much puzzled as myself. All he could say was that the world was infinitely old and many things might have happened in it whereof we had no record. Even Bastin was excited for a little while, but as his imagination was represented by zero, all he could say was:</p>
|
||||
<p>“I suppose someone left them there, and anyhow it doesn’t matter much, does it?”</p>
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -7,8 +7,10 @@
|
|||
</head>
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<section id="chapter-9" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h2><a id="chap09" name="chap09"/>Chapter IX.<br/>
|
||||
The Island in the Lake</h2>
|
||||
<hgroup>
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="ordinal z3998:roman">IX</h2>
|
||||
<h3 epub:type="title">The Island in the Lake</h3>
|
||||
</hgroup>
|
||||
<p>We made the canoe fast and landed on the great rock, to perceive that it was really a peninsula. That is to say, it was joined to the main land of the lake island by a broad roadway quite fifty yards across, which appeared to end in the mouth of the cave. On this causeway we noted a very remarkable thing, namely, two grooves separated by an exact distance of nine feet which ran into the mouth of the cave and vanished there.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Explain!” said Bickley.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Paths,” I said, “worn by countless feet walking on them for thousands of years.”</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -32,7 +34,7 @@
|
|||
<p>That of Bastin was mildly interested, no more. Obviously, with half his mind he was thinking of something else, probably of his converts on the main island and of the school class fixed for this hour which circumstances prevented him from attending. Indeed, like Lot’s wife he was casting glances behind him towards the wicked place from which he had been forced to flee.</p>
|
||||
<p>Neither the past nor the future had much real interest for Bastin; any more than they had for Bickley, though for different reasons. The former was done with; the latter he was quite content to leave in other hands. If he had any clear idea thereof, probably that undiscovered land appeared to him as a big, pleasant place where are no unbelievers or erroneous doctrines, and all sinners will be sternly repressed, in which, clad in a white surplice with all proper ecclesiastical trappings, he would argue eternally with the Early Fathers and in due course utterly annihilate Bickley, that is in a moral sense. Personally and as a man he was extremely attached to Bickley as a necessary and wrong-headed nuisance to which he had become accustomed.</p>
|
||||
<p>And I! What did I feel? I do not know; I cannot describe. An extraordinary attraction, a semi-spiritual exaltation, I think. That cave mouth might have been a magnet drawing my soul. With my body I should have been afraid, as I daresay I was, for our circumstances were sufficiently desperate. Here we were, castaways upon an island, probably uncharted, one of thousands in the recesses of a vast ocean, from which we had little chance of escape. More, having offended the religious instincts of the primeval inhabitants of that island, we had been forced to flee to a rocky mountain in the centre of a lake, where, after the food we had brought with us by accident was consumed, we should no doubt be forced to choose between death by starvation, or, if we attempted to retreat, at the hands of justly infuriated savages. Yet these facts did not oppress me, for I was being drawn, drawn to I knew not what, and if it were to doom—well, no matter.</p>
|
||||
<p>Therefore, none of us cared: Bastin because his faith was equal to any emergency and there was always that white-robed heaven waiting for him beyond which his imagination did not go (I often wondered whether he pictured Mrs. Bastin as also waiting; if so, he never said anything about her); Bickley because as a child of the Present and a servant of knowledge he feared no future, believing it to be for him non-existent, and was careless as to when his strenuous hour of life should end; and I because I felt that yonder lay my true future; yes, and my true past, even though to discover them I must pass through that portal which we know as Death.</p>
|
||||
<p>Therefore, none of us cared: Bastin because his faith was equal to any emergency and there was always that white-robed heaven waiting for him beyond which his imagination did not go (I often wondered whether he pictured <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Bastin as also waiting; if so, he never said anything about her); Bickley because as a child of the Present and a servant of knowledge he feared no future, believing it to be for him non-existent, and was careless as to when his strenuous hour of life should end; and I because I felt that yonder lay my true future; yes, and my true past, even though to discover them I must pass through that portal which we know as Death.</p>
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<p>We reached the mouth of the cave. It was a vast place; perhaps the arch of it was a hundred feet high, and I could see that once all this arch had been adorned with sculptures. Protected as these were by the overhanging rock, for the sculptured mouth of the cave was cut deep into the mountain face, they were still so worn that it was impossible to discern their details. Time had eaten them away like an acid. But what length of time? I could not guess, but it must have been stupendous to have worked thus upon that hard and sheltered rock.</p>
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<p>This came home to me with added force when, from subsequent examination, we learned that the entire mouth of this cave had been sealed up for unnumbered ages. It will be remembered that Marama told me the mountain in the lake had risen much during the frightful cyclone in which we were wrecked and with it the cave mouth which previously had been invisible. From the markings on the mountain side it was obvious that something of the sort had happened very recently, at any rate on this eastern face. That is, either the flat rock had sunk or the volcano had been thrown upwards.</p>
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<p>Once in the far past the cave had been as it was when we found it. Then it had gone down in such a way that the table-rock entirely sealed the entrance. Now this entrance was once more open, and although of course there was a break in them, the grooves of which I have spoken ran on into the cave at only a slightly different level from that at which they lay upon the flat rock. And yet, although they had been thus sheltered by a great stone curtain in front of them, still these sculptures were worn away by the tooth of Time. Of course, however, this may have happened to them <em>before</em> they were buried in some ancient cataclysm, to be thus resurrected at the hour of our arrival upon the island.</p>
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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:epub="http://www.idpf.org/2007/ops" epub:prefix="z3998: http://www.daisy.org/z3998/2012/vocab/structure/, se: https://standardebooks.org/vocab/1.0" xml:lang="en-GB">
|
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<head>
|
||||
<title>Chapter 1</title>
|
||||
<link href="../css/core.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>
|
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<link href="../css/local.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>
|
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</head>
|
||||
<body epub:type="frontmatter">
|
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<section id="dedication" epub:type="dedication">
|
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<h2 epub:type="label">Dedication</h2>
|
||||
<blockquote epub:type="z3998:letter">
|
||||
<header>
|
||||
<p epub:type="se:letter.dateline">Ditchingham, <time datetime="1918-01-01">1918</time>.</p>
|
||||
<p epub:type="z3998:salutation"><b>My dear Curzon,</b></p>
|
||||
</header>
|
||||
<p>More than thirty years ago you tried to protect me, then a stranger to you, from one of the falsest and most malignant accusations ever made against a writer.</p>
|
||||
<p>So complete was your exposure of the methods of those at work to blacken a person whom they knew to be innocent, that, as you will remember, they refused to publish your analysis which destroyed their charges and, incidentally, revealed their motives.</p>
|
||||
<p>Although for this reason vindication came otherwise, your kindness is one that I have never forgotten, since, whatever the immediate issue of any effort, in the end it is the intention that avails.</p>
|
||||
<p>Therefore in gratitude and memory I ask you to accept this romance, as I know that you do not disdain the study of romance in the intervals of your Imperial work.</p>
|
||||
<p>The application of its parable to our state and possibilities—beneath or beyond these glimpses of the moon—I leave to your discernment.</p>
|
||||
<footer>
|
||||
<p epub:type="z3998:valediction">Believe me,</p>
|
||||
<p epub:type="z3998:valediction">Ever sincerely yours,</p>
|
||||
<p epub:type="z3998:sender z3998:signature"><b>H. Rider Haggard.</b></p>
|
||||
<p>To</p>
|
||||
<p epub:type="z3998:recipient">The Earl Curzon of Kedleston, <abbr class="initialism">K.G.</abbr></p>
|
||||
</footer>
|
||||
</blockquote>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
</body>
|
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</html>
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|
|
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|
|||
<h2 epub:type="title">Endnotes</h2>
|
||||
<ol>
|
||||
<li id="note-1" epub:type="endnote">
|
||||
<p>It is fortunate that we did not accept Yva’s offer. Had we done so we should have found ourselves shut in, and perished, as shall be told.—H. A. <a href="chapter-24.xhtml#noteref-1" epub:type="backlink">↩</a></p>
|
||||
<p>It is fortunate that we did not accept Yva’s offer. Had we done so we should have found ourselves shut in, and perished, as shall be told.—<abbr class="name">H. A.</abbr> <a href="chapter-24.xhtml#noteref-1" epub:type="backlink">↩</a></p>
|
||||
</li>
|
||||
</ol>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
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|
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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
|
||||
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:epub="http://www.idpf.org/2007/ops" epub:prefix="z3998: http://www.daisy.org/z3998/2012/vocab/structure/, se: https://standardebooks.org/vocab/1.0" xml:lang="en-GB">
|
||||
<head>
|
||||
<title>Chapter 28</title>
|
||||
<title>Note By <abbr class="name">J. R.</abbr> Bickley, <abbr class="initialism">M.R.C.S.</abbr></title>
|
||||
<link href="../css/core.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>
|
||||
<link href="../css/local.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>
|
||||
</head>
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<section id="chapter-28" epub:type="chapter">
|
||||
<h2><a id="chap28" name="chap28"/>NOTE By J. R. Bickley, M.R.C.S.</h2>
|
||||
<section id="epilogue" epub:type="epilogue">
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">Note By <abbr class="name">J. R.</abbr> Bickley, <abbr class="initialism">M.R.C.S.</abbr></h2>
|
||||
<p>Within about six months of the date on which he wrote the last words of this history of our joint adventures, my dear friend, Humphrey Arbuthnot, died suddenly, as I had foreseen that probably he would do, from the results of the injury he received in the island of Orofena.</p>
|
||||
<p>He left me the sole executor to his will, under which he divided his property into three parts. One third he bequeathed to me, one third (which is strictly tied up) to Bastin, and one third to be devoted, under my direction, to the advancement of Science.</p>
|
||||
<p>His end appears to have been instantaneous, resulting from an effusion of blood upon the brain. When I was summoned I found him lying dead by the writing desk in his library at Fulcombe Priory. He had been writing at the desk, for on it was a piece of paper on which appear these words: “<em>I have seen her. I</em>—” There the writing ends, not stating whom he thought he had seen in the moments of mental disturbance or delusion which preceded his decease.</p>
|
||||
<p>Save for certain verbal corrections, I publish this manuscript without comment as the will directs, only adding that it sets out our mutual experiences very faithfully, though Arbuthnot’s deductions from them are not always my own.</p>
|
||||
<p>I would say also that I am contemplating another visit to the South Sea Islands, where I wish to make some further investigations. I dare say, however, that these will be barren of results, as the fountain of Life-water is buried for ever, nor, as I think, will any human being stand again in the Hades-like halls of Nyo. It is probable also that it would prove impossible to rediscover the island of Orofena, if indeed that volcanic land still remains above the waters of the deep.</p>
|
||||
<p>Now that he is a very wealthy man, Bastin talks of accompanying me for purposes quite different from my own, but on the whole I hope he will abandon this idea. I may add that when he learned of his unexpected inheritance he talked much of the “deceitfulness of riches,” but that he has not as yet taken any steps to escape their golden snare. Indeed he now converses of his added “opportunities of usefulness,” I gather in connection with missionary enterprise.</p>
|
||||
<p class="right">J. R. B<small>ICKLEY</small>.</p>
|
||||
<p><i>P.S</i>.—I forgot to state that the spaniel Tommy died within three days of his owner. The poor little beast was present in the room at the time of Arbuthnot’s passing away, and when found seemed to be suffering from shock. From that moment Tommy refused food and finally was discovered quite dead and lying by the body on Marama’s feather cloak, which Arbuthnot often used as a dressing-gown. As Bastin raised some religious objections, I arranged without his knowledge that the dog’s ashes should rest not far from those of the master and mistress whom it loved so well.</p>
|
||||
<p class="right">J.R.B.</p>
|
||||
<p epub:type="z3998:signature"><b><abbr class="name">J. R.</abbr> Bickley.</b></p>
|
||||
<p><i><abbr class="initialism">P.S.</abbr></i>—I forgot to state that the spaniel Tommy died within three days of his owner. The poor little beast was present in the room at the time of Arbuthnot’s passing away, and when found seemed to be suffering from shock. From that moment Tommy refused food and finally was discovered quite dead and lying by the body on Marama’s feather cloak, which Arbuthnot often used as a dressing-gown. As Bastin raised some religious objections, I arranged without his knowledge that the dog’s ashes should rest not far from those of the master and mistress whom it loved so well.</p>
|
||||
<p epub:type="z3998:signature"><abbr class="name">J. R. B.</abbr></p>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
</body>
|
||||
</html>
|
||||
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Reference in New Issue