elwin
/
h-rider-haggard_when-the-world-shook
1
0
Fork 0
Code Issues Pull Requests Projects Releases Wiki Activity
h-rider-haggard_when-the-wo.../src/epub/text/body.xhtml

16970 lines
668 KiB
HTML
Raw Blame History

This file contains invisible Unicode characters

This file contains invisible Unicode characters that are indistinguishable to humans but may be processed differently by a computer. If you think that this is intentional, you can safely ignore this warning. Use the Escape button to reveal them.

This file contains Unicode characters that might be confused with other characters. If you think that this is intentional, you can safely ignore this warning. Use the Escape button to reveal them.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en" xml:lang="en">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" />
<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" />
</head>
<body>
<h2>DEDICATION</h2>
<p class="right">
Ditchingham, 1918.
</p>
<p class="letter">
M<small>Y DEAR</small> C<small>URZON</small>,
</p>
<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>
<p class="right">
Believe me,<br />
Ever sincerely yours,<br />
H. RIDER HAGGARD.
</p>
<p class="letter">
To<br />
The Earl Curzon of Kedleston, K.G.
</p>
<hr />
<div class="chapter">
<h2><a name="chap01" id="chap01"></a>CHAPTER I.<br />
Arbuthnot Describes Himself</h2>
<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>
<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>
<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>
<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>
<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>
<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>
<p>
For my part I feel that I owe much to these High-Church views. They opened
certain doors to me and taught me something of the mysteries which lie at the
back of all religions and therefore have their home in the inspired soul of man
whence religions are born. Only the pity is that in ninety-nine cases out of a
hundred he never discovers, never even guesses at that entombed aspiration,
never sinks a shaft down on to this secret but most precious vein of ore.
</p>
<p>
I have said that my father was learned; but this is a mild description, for
never did I know anyone quite so learned. He was one of those men who is so
good all round that he became pre-eminent in nothing. A classic of the first
water, a very respectable mathematician, an expert in theology, a student of
sundry foreign languages and literature in his lighter moments, an inquirer
into sociology, a theoretical musician though his playing of the organ
excruciated most people because it was too correct, a really first-class
authority upon flint instruments and the best grower of garden vegetables in
the county, also of apples—such were some of his attainments. That was
what made his sermons so popular, since at times one or the other of these
subjects would break out into them, his theory being that God spoke to us
through all of these things.
</p>
<p>
But if I began to drift into an analysis of my father’s abilities, I
should never stop. It would take a book to describe them. And yet mark this,
with them all his name is as dead to the world to-day as though he had never
been. Light reflected from a hundred facets dissipates itself in space and is
lost; that concentrated in one tremendous ray pierces to the stars.
</p>
<p>
Now I am going to be frank about myself, for without frankness what is the
value of such a record as this? Then it becomes simply another convention, or
rather conventional method of expressing the octoroon kind of truths with which
the highly civilised races feed themselves, as fastidious ladies eat cakes and
bread from which all but the smallest particle of nourishment has been
extracted.
</p>
<p>
The fact is, therefore, that I inherited most of my father’s abilities,
except his love for flint instruments which always bored me to distraction,
because although they are by association really the most human of things,
somehow to me they never convey any idea of humanity. In addition I have a
practical side which he lacked; had he possessed it surely he must have become
an archbishop instead of dying the vicar of an unknown parish. Also I have a
spiritual sense, mayhap mystical would be a better term, which with all this
religion was missing from my father’s nature.
</p>
<p>
For I think that notwithstanding his charity and devotion he never quite got
away from the shell of things, never cracked it and set his teeth in the kernel
which alone can feed our souls. His keen intellect, to take an example,
recognised every one of the difficulties of our faith and flashed hither and
thither in the darkness, seeking explanation, seeking light, trying to
reconcile, to explain. He was not great enough to put all this aside and go
straight to the informing Soul beneath that strives to express itself
everywhere, even through those husks which are called the World, the Flesh and
the Devil, and as yet does not always quite succeed.
</p>
<p>
It is this boggling over exteriors, this peering into pitfalls, this desire to
prove that what such senses as we have tell us is impossible, is in fact
possible, which causes the overthrow of many an earnest, seeking heart and
renders its work, conducted on false lines, quite nugatory. These <i>will</i>
trust to themselves and their own intelligence and not be content to spring
from the cliffs of human experience into the everlasting arms of that Infinite
which are stretched out to receive them and to give them rest and the keys of
knowledge. When will man learn what was taught to him of old, that faith is the
only plank wherewith he can float upon this sea and that his miserable works
avail him nothing; also that it is a plank made of many sorts of wood, perhaps
to suit our different weights?
</p>
<p>
So to be honest, in a sense I believe myself to be my father’s superior,
and I know that he agreed with me. Perhaps this is owing to the blood of my
Scotch mother which mixed well with his own; perhaps because the essential
spirit given to me, though cast in his mould, was in fact quite
different—or of another alloy. Do we, I wonder, really understand that
there are millions and billions of these alloys, so many indeed that Nature, or
whatever is behind Nature, never uses the same twice over? That is why no two
human beings are or ever will be quite identical. Their flesh, the body of
their humiliation, is identical in all, any chemist will prove it to you, but
that which animates the flesh is distinct and different because it comes from
the home of that infinite variety which is necessary to the ultimate evolution
of the good and bad that we symbolise as heaven and hell.
</p>
<p>
Further, I had and to a certain extent still have another advantage over my
father, which certainly came to me from my mother, who was, as I judge from all
descriptions and such likenesses as remain of her, an extremely handsome woman.
I was born much better looking. He was small and dark, a little man with
deep-set eyes and beetling brows. I am also dark, but tall above the average,
and well made. I do not know that I need say more about my personal appearance,
to me not a very attractive subject, but the fact remains that they called me
“handsome Humphrey” at the University, and I was the captain of my
college boat and won many prizes at athletic sports when I had time to train
for them.
</p>
<p>
Until I went up to Oxford my father educated me, partly because he knew that he
could do it better than anyone else, and partly to save school expenses. The
experiment was very successful, as my love of all outdoor sports and of any
small hazardous adventure that came to my hand, also of associating with
fisherfolk whom the dangers of the deep make men among men, saved me from
becoming a milksop. For the rest I learned more from my father, whom I always
desired to please because I loved him, than I should have done at the best and
most costly of schools. This was shown when at last I went to college with a
scholarship, for there I did very well indeed, as search would still reveal.
</p>
<p>
Here I had better set out some of my shortcomings, which in their sum have made
a failure of me. Yes, a failure in the highest sense, though I trust what
Stevenson calls “a faithful failure.” These have their root in
fastidiousness and that lack of perseverance, which really means a lack of
faith, again using the word in its higher and wider sense. For if one had real
faith one would always persevere, knowing that in every work undertaken with
high aim, there is an element of nobility, however humble and unrecognised that
work may seem to be. God after all is the God of Work, it is written large upon
the face of the Universe. I will not expand upon the thought; it would lead me
too far afield, but those who have understanding will know what I mean.
</p>
<p>
As regards what I interpret as fastidiousness, this is not very easy to
express. Perhaps a definition will help. I am like a man with an over-developed
sense of smell, who when walking through a foreign city, however clean and well
kept, can always catch the evil savours that are inseparable from such cities.
More, his keen perception of them interferes with all other perceptions and
spoils his walks. The result is that in after years, whenever he thinks of that
beautiful city, he remembers, not its historic buildings or its wide
boulevards, or whatever it has to boast, but rather its ancient, fish-like
smell. At least he remembers that first owing to this defect in his
temperament.
</p>
<p>
So it is with everything. A lovely woman is spoiled for such a one because she
eats too much or has too high a voice; he does not care for his shooting
because the scenery is flat, or for his fishing because the gnats bite as well
as the trout. In short he is out of tune with the world as it is. Moreover,
this is a quality which, where it exists, cannot be overcome; it affects
day-labourers as well as gentlemen at large. It is bred in the bone.
</p>
<p>
Probably the second failure-breeding fault, lack of perseverance, has its roots
in the first, at any rate in my case. At least on leaving college with some
reputation, I was called to the Bar where, owing to certain solicitor and other
connections, I had a good opening. Also, owing to the excellence of my memory
and powers of work, I began very well, making money even during my first year.
Then, as it happened, a certain case came my way and, my leader falling ill
suddenly after it was opened, was left in my hands. The man whose cause I was
pleading was, I think, one of the biggest scoundrels it is possible to
conceive. It was a will case and if he won, the effect would be to beggar two
most estimable middle-aged women who were justly entitled to the property, to
which end personally I am convinced he had committed forgery; the perjury that
accompanied it I do not even mention.
</p>
<p>
Well, he did win, thanks to me, and the estimable middle-aged ladies were
beggared, and as I heard afterwards, driven to such extremities that one of
them died of her misery and the other became a lodging-house keeper. The
details do not matter, but I may explain that these ladies were unattractive in
appearance and manner and broke down beneath my cross-examination which made
them appear to be telling falsehoods, whereas they were only completely
confused. Further, I invented an ingenious theory of the facts which, although
the judge regarded it with suspicion, convinced an unusually stupid jury who
gave me their verdict.
</p>
<p>
Everybody congratulated me and at the time I was triumphant, especially as my
leader had declared that our case was impossible. Afterwards, however, my
conscience smote me sorely, so much so that arguing from the false premise of
this business, I came to the conclusion that the practice of the Law was not
suited to an honest man. I did not take the large view that such matters
average themselves up and that if I had done harm in this instance, I might
live to do good in many others, and perhaps become a just judge, even a great
judge. Here I may mention that in after years, when I grew rich, I rescued that
surviving old lady from her lodging-house, although to this day she does not
know the name of her anonymous friend. So by degrees, without saying anything,
for I kept on my chambers, I slipped out of practice, to the great
disappointment of everybody connected with me, and took to authorship.
</p>
<p>
A marvel came to pass, my first book was an enormous success. The whole world
talked of it. A leading journal, delighted to have discovered someone, wrote it
up; other journals followed suit to be in the movement. One of them, I
remember, which had already dismissed it with three or four sneering lines,
came out with a second and two-column notice. It sold like wildfire and I
suppose had some merits, for it is still read, though few know that I wrote it,
since fortunately it was published under a pseudonym.
</p>
<p>
Again I was much elated and set to work to write another and, as I believe, a
much better book. But jealousies had been excited by this leaping into fame of
a totally unknown person, which were, moreover, accentuated through a foolish
article that I published in answer to some criticisms, wherein I spoke my mind
with an insane freedom and biting sarcasm. Indeed I was even mad enough to
quote names and to give the example of the very powerful journal which at first
carped at my work and then gushed over it when it became the fashion. All of
this made me many bitter enemies, as I found out when my next book appeared.
</p>
<p>
It was torn to shreds, it was reviled as subversive of morality and religion,
good arrows in those days. It was called puerile, half-educated stuff—I
half-educated! More, an utterly false charge of plagiarism was cooked up
against me and so well and venomously run that vast numbers of people concluded
that I was a thief of the lowest order. Lastly, my father, from whom the secret
could no longer be kept, sternly disapproved of both these books which I admit
were written from a very radical and somewhat anti-church point of view. The
result was our first quarrel and before it was made up, he died suddenly.
</p>
<p class="p2">
Now again fastidiousness and my lack of perseverance did their work, and
solemnly I swore that I would never write another book, an oath which I have
kept till this moment, at least so far as publication is concerned, and now
break only because I consider it my duty so to do and am not animated by any
pecuniary object.
</p>
<p>
Thus came to an end my second attempt at carving out a career. By now I had
grown savage and cynical, rather revengeful also, I fear. Knowing myself to
possess considerable abilities in sundry directions, I sat down, as it were, to
think things over and digest my past experiences. Then it was that the truth of
a very ancient adage struck upon my mind, namely, that money is power. Had I
sufficient money I could laugh at unjust critics for example; indeed they or
their papers would scarcely dare to criticise me for fear lest it should be in
my power to do them a bad turn. Again I could follow my own ideas in life and
perhaps work good in the world, and live in such surroundings as commended
themselves to me. It was as clear as daylight, but—how to make the money?
</p>
<p>
I had some capital as the result of my father’s death, about £8,000 in
all, plus a little more that my two books had brought in. In what way could I
employ it to the best advantage? I remembered that a cousin of my father and
therefore my own, was a successful stock-broker, also that there had been some
affection between them. I went to him, he was a good, easy-natured man who was
frankly glad to see me, and offered to put £5,000 into his business, for I was
not minded to risk every thing I had, if he would give me a share in the
profits. He laughed heartily at my audacity.
</p>
<p>
“Why, my boy,” he said, “being totally inexperienced at this
game, you might lose us more than that in a month. But I like your courage, I
like your courage, and the truth is that I do want help. I will think it over
and write to you.”
</p>
<p>
He thought it over and in the end offered to try me for a year at a fixed
salary with a promise of some kind of a partnership if I suited him. Meanwhile
my £5,000 remained in my pocket.
</p>
<p>
I accepted, not without reluctance since with the impatience of youth I wanted
everything at once. I worked hard in that office and soon mastered the
business, for my knowledge of figures—I had taken a first-class
mathematical degree at college—came to my aid, as in a way did my
acquaintance with Law and Literature. Moreover I had a certain aptitude for
what is called high finance. Further, Fortune, as usual, showed me a favourable
face.
</p>
<p>
In one year I got the partnership with a small share in the large profits of
the business. In two the partner above me retired, and I took his place with a
third share of the firm. In three my cousin, satisfied that it was in able
hands, began to cease his attendance at the office and betook himself to
gardening which was his hobby. In four I paid him out altogether, although to
do this I had to borrow money on our credit, for by agreement the title of the
firm was continued. Then came that extraordinary time of boom which many will
remember to their cost. I made a bold stroke and won. On a certain Saturday
when the books were made up, I found that after discharging all liabilities, I
should not be worth more than £20,000. On the following Saturday but two when
the books were made up, I was worth £153,000! <i>L’appétit vient en
mangeant</i>. It seemed nothing to me when so many were worth millions.
</p>
<p>
For the next year I worked as few have done, and when I struck a balance at the
end of it, I found that on the most conservative estimate I was the owner of a
million and a half in hard cash, or its equivalent. I was so tired out that I
remember this discovery did not excite me at all. I felt utterly weary of all
wealth-hunting and of the City and its ways. Moreover my old fastidiousness and
lack of perseverance re-asserted themselves. I reflected, rather late in the
day perhaps, on the ruin that this speculation was bringing to thousands, of
which some lamentable instances had recently come to my notice, and once more
considered whether it were a suitable career for an upright man. I had wealth;
why should I not take it and enjoy life?
</p>
<p>
Also—and here my business acumen came in, I was sure that these times
could not last. It is easy to make money on a rising market, but when it is
falling the matter is very different. In five minutes I made up my mind. I sent
for my junior partners, for I had taken in two, and told them that I intended
to retire at once. They were dismayed both at my loss, for really I was the
firm, and because, as they pointed out, if I withdrew all my capital, there
would not be sufficient left to enable them to carry on.
</p>
<p>
One of them, a blunt and honest man, said to my face that it would be
dishonourable of me to do so. I was inclined to answer him sharply, then
remembered that his words were true.
</p>
<p>
“Very well,” I said, “I will leave you £600,000 on which you
shall pay me five per cent interest, but no share of the profits.”
</p>
<p>
On these terms we dissolved the partnership and in a year they had lost the
£600,000, for the slump came with a vengeance. It saved them, however, and
to-day they are earning a reasonable income. But I have never asked them for
that £600,000.
</p>
</div><!--end chapter-->
<div class="chapter">
<h2><a name="chap02" id="chap02"></a>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>
<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>
<p>
Lastly my neighbours were few and with all due deference to them, extremely
dull. At least I could not understand them because in them there did not seem
to be anything to understand, and I am quite certain that they did not
understand me. More, when they came to learn that I was radical in my views and
had written certain “dreadful” and somewhat socialistic books in
the form of fiction, they both feared and mistrusted me as an enemy to their
particular section of the race. As I had not married and showed no inclination
to do so, their womenkind also, out of their intimate knowledge, proclaimed
that I led an immoral life, though a little reflection would have shown them
that there was no one in the neighbourhood which for a time I seldom left, who
could possibly have tempted an educated creature to such courses.
</p>
<p>
Terrible is the lot of a man who, while still young and possessing the
intellect necessary to achievement, is deprived of all ambition. And I had none
at all. I did not even wish to purchase a peerage or a baronetcy in this
fashion or in that, and, as in my father’s case, my tastes were so many
and so catholic that I could not lose myself in any one of them. They never
became more than diversions to me. A hobby is only really amusing when it
becomes an obsession.
</p>
<p>
At length my lonesome friendlessness oppressed me so much that I took steps to
mitigate it. In my college life I had two particular friends whom I think I
must have selected because they were so absolutely different from myself.
</p>
<p>
They were named Bastin and Bickley. Bastin—Basil was his Christian
name—was an uncouth, shock-headed, flat-footed person of large, rugged
frame and equally rugged honesty, with a mind almost incredibly simple. Nothing
surprised him because he lacked the faculty of surprise. He was like that kind
of fish which lies at the bottom of the sea and takes every kind of food into
its great maw without distinguishing its flavour. Metaphorically speaking,
heavenly manna and decayed cabbage were just the same to Bastin. He was not
fastidious and both were mental pabulum—of a sort—together with
whatever lay between these extremes. Yet he was good, so painfully good that
one felt that without exertion to himself he had booked a first-class ticket
straight to Heaven; indeed that his guardian angel had tied it round his neck
at birth lest he should lose it, already numbered and dated like an
identification disc.
</p>
<p>
I am bound to add that Bastin never went wrong because he never felt the
slightest temptation to do so. This I suppose constitutes real virtue, since,
in view of certain Bible sayings, the person who is tempted and would like to
yield to the temptation, is equally a sinner with the person who does yield. To
be truly good one should be too good to be tempted, or too weak to make the
effort worth the tempter’s while—in short not deserving of his
powder and shot.
</p>
<p>
I need hardly add that Bastin went into the Church; indeed, he could not have
gone anywhere else; it absorbed him naturally, as doubtless Heaven will do in
due course. Only I think it likely that until they get to know him he will bore
the angels so much that they will continually move him up higher. Also if they
have any susceptibilities left, probably he will tread upon their toes—an
art in which I never knew his equal. However, I always loved Bastin, perhaps
because no one else did, a fact of which he remained totally unconscious, or
perhaps because of his brutal way of telling one what he conceived to be the
truth, which, as he had less imagination than a dormouse, generally it was not.
For if the truth is a jewel, it is one coloured and veiled by many different
lights and atmospheres.
</p>
<p>
It only remains to add that he was learned in his theological fashion and that
among his further peculiarities were the slow, monotonous voice in which he
uttered his views in long sentences, and his total indifference to adverse
argument however sound and convincing.
</p>
<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>
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>
“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>
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>
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>
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>
<p>
He thanked me warmly and in the end acted on the idea, with startling results
so far as his prospects were concerned. Very soon his really remarkable skill
became known and he was earning more money than as an unmarried man he could
possibly want. Indeed, scarcely a big operation took place at any town within
twenty miles, and even much farther away, at which he was not called in to
assist.
</p>
<p>
Needless to say his advent was a great boon to me, for as he lived in a house I
let him quite near by, whenever he had a spare evening he would drop in to
dinner, and from our absolutely opposite standpoints we discussed all things
human and divine. Thus I was enabled to sharpen my wits upon the hard steel of
his clear intellect which was yet, in a sense, so limited.
</p>
<p>
I must add that I never converted him to my way of thinking and he never
converted me to his, any more than he converted Bastin, for whom, queerly
enough, he had a liking. They pounded away at each other, Bickley frequently
getting the best of it in the argument, and when at last Bastin rose to go, he
generally made the same remark. It was:
</p>
<p>
“It really is sad, my dear Bickley, to find a man of your intellect so
utterly wrongheaded and misguided. I have convicted you of error at least half
a dozen times, and not to confess it is mere pigheadedness. Good night. I am
sure that Sarah will be sitting up for me.”
</p>
<p>
“Silly old idiot!” Bickley would say, shaking his fist after him.
“The only way to get him to see the truth would be to saw his head open
and pour it in.”
</p>
<p>
Then we would both laugh.
</p>
<p>
Such were my two most intimate friends, although I admit it was rather like the
equator cultivating close relationships with the north and south poles.
Certainly Bastin was as far from Bickley as those points of the earth are
apart, while I, as it were, sat equally distant between the two. However, we
were all very happy together, since in certain characters, there are few things
that bind men more closely than profound differences of opinion.
</p>
<p class="p2">
Now I must turn to my more personal affairs. After all, it is impossible for a
man to satisfy his soul, if he has anything of the sort about him which in the
remotest degree answers to that description, with the husks of wealth, luxury
and indolence, supplemented by occasional theological and other arguments
between his friends. Becoming profoundly convinced of this truth, I searched
round for something to do and, like Noah’s dove on the waste of waters,
found nothing. Then I asked Bickley and Bastin for their opinions as to my best
future course. Bickley proved a barren draw. He rubbed his nose and feebly
suggested that I might go in for “research work,” which, of course,
only represented his own ambitions. I asked him indignantly how I could do such
a thing without any scientific qualifications whatever. He admitted the
difficulty, but replied that I might endow others who had the qualifications.
</p>
<p>
“In short, become a milch cow for sucking scientists,” I replied,
and broke off the conversation.
</p>
<p>
Bastin’s idea was, first, that I should teach in a Sunday School;
secondly, that if this career did not satisfy all my aspirations, I might be
ordained and become a missionary.
</p>
<p>
On my rejection of this brilliant advice, he remarked that the only other thing
he could think of was that I should get married and have a large family, which
might possibly advantage the nation and ultimately enrich the Kingdom of
Heaven, though of such things no one could be quite sure. At any rate, he was
certain that at present I was in practice neglecting my duty, whatever it might
be, and in fact one of those cumberers of the earth who, he observed in the
newspaper he took in and read when he had time, were “very happily
named—the idle rich.”
</p>
<p>
“Which reminds me,” he added, “that the clothing-club
finances are in a perfectly scandalous condition; in fact, it is £25 in debt,
an amount that as the squire of the parish I consider it incumbent on you to
make good, not as a charity but as an obligation.”
</p>
<p>
“Look here, my friend,” I said, ignoring all the rest, “will
you answer me a plain question? Have you found marriage such a success that you
consider it your duty to recommend it to others? And if you have, why have
<i>you</i> not got the large family of which you speak?”
</p>
<p>
“Of course not,” he replied with his usual frankness.
“Indeed, it is in many ways so disagreeable that I am convinced it must
be right and for the good of all concerned. As regards the family I am sure I
do not know, but Sarah never liked babies, which perhaps has something to do
with it.”
</p>
<p>
Then he sighed, adding, “You see, Arbuthnot, we have to take things as we
find them in this world and hope for a better.”
</p>
<p>
“Which is just what I am trying to do, you unilluminating old
donkey!” I exclaimed, and left him there shaking his head over matters in
general, but I think principally over Sarah.
</p>
<p>
By the way, I think that the villagers recognised this good lady’s
vinegary nature. At least, they used to call her “Sour Sal.”
</p>
</div><!--end chapter-->
<div class="chapter">
<h2><a name="chap03" id="chap03"></a>CHAPTER III.<br />
Natalie</h2>
<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>
<p>
The upshot of it all was that I sought refuge in that last expedient of weary
Englishmen, travel, not as a globe-trotter, but leisurely and with an inquiring
mind, learning much but again finding, like the ancient writer whom I have
quoted already, that there is no new thing under the sun; that with certain
variations it is the same thing over and over again.
</p>
<p>
No, I will make an exception, the East did interest me enormously. There it
was, at Benares, that I came into touch with certain thinkers who opened my
eyes to a great deal. They released some hidden spring in my nature which
hitherto had always been striving to break through the crust of our conventions
and inherited ideas. I know now that what I was seeking was nothing less than
the Infinite; that I had “immortal longings in me.” I listened to
all their solemn talk of epochs and years measureless to man, and reflected
with a thrill that after all man might have his part in every one of them. Yes,
that bird of passage as he seemed to be, flying out of darkness into darkness,
still he might have spread his wings in the light of other suns millions upon
millions of years ago, and might still spread them, grown radiant and glorious,
millions upon millions of years hence in a time unborn.
</p>
<p>
If only I could know the truth. Was Life (according to Bickley) merely a short
activity bounded by nothingness before and behind; or (according to Bastin) a
conventional golden-harped and haloed immortality, a word of which he did not
in the least understand the meaning?
</p>
<p>
Or was it something quite different from either of these, something vast and
splendid beyond the reach of vision, something God-sent, beginning and ending
in the Eternal Absolute and at last partaking of His attributes and nature and
from aeon to aeon shot through with His light? And how was the truth to be
learned? I asked my Eastern friends, and they talked vaguely of long ascetic
preparation, of years upon years of learning, from whom I could not quite
discover. I was sure it could not be from them, because clearly they did not
know; they only passed on what they had heard elsewhere, when or how they
either could not or would not explain. So at length I gave it up, having
satisfied myself that all this was but an effort of Oriental imagination called
into life by the sweet influences of the Eastern stars.
</p>
<p>
I gave it up and went away, thinking that I should forget. But I did not
forget. I was quick with a new hope, or at any rate with a new aspiration, and
that secret child of holy desire grew and grew within my soul, till at length
it flashed upon me that this soul of mine was itself the hidden Master from
which I must learn my lesson. No wonder that those Eastern friends could not
give his name, seeing that whatever they really knew, as distinguished from
what they had heard, and it was little enough, each of them had learned from
the teaching of his own soul.
</p>
<p>
Thus, then, I too became a dreamer with only one longing, the longing for
wisdom, for that spirit touch which should open my eyes and enable me to see.
</p>
<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>
<p class="p2">
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>
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>
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>
<p>
It was a curious business, more like meeting a very old friend from whom one
had been separated by circumstances for a score of years or so than anything
else. We were, so to speak, intimate from the first; we knew all about each
other, although here and there was something new, something different which we
could not remember, lines of thought, veins of memory which we did not possess
in common. On one point I am absolutely clear: it was not solely the everyday
and ancient appeal of woman to man and man to woman which drew us together,
though doubtless this had its part in our attachment as under our human
conditions it must do, seeing that it is Nature’s bait to ensure the
continuance of the race. It was something more, something quite beyond that
elementary impulse.
</p>
<p>
At any rate we loved, and one evening in the shelter of the solemn walls of the
great Coliseum at Rome, which at that hour were shut to all except ourselves,
we confessed our love. I really think we must have chosen the spot by tacit but
mutual consent because we felt it to be fitting. It was so old, so impregnated
with every human experience, from the direst crime of the tyrant who thought
himself a god, to the sublimest sacrifice of the martyr who already was half a
god; with every vice and virtue also which lies between these extremes, that it
seemed to be the most fitting altar whereon to offer our hearts and all that
caused them to beat, each to the other.
</p>
<p>
So Natalie and I were betrothed within a month of our first meeting. Within
three we were married, for what was there to prevent or delay? Naturally Sir
Alfred was delighted, seeing that he possessed but small private resources and
I was able to make ample provision for his daughter who had hitherto shown
herself somewhat difficult in this business of matrimony and now was bordering
on her twenty-seventh year. Everybody was delighted, everything went smoothly
as a sledge sliding down a slope of frozen snow and the mists of time hid
whatever might be at the end of that slope. Probably a plain; at the worst the
upward rise of ordinary life.
</p>
<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>
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-<i>gaucherie</i> 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>
“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>
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>
<p>
The end of it was that I lent her the cart with a fast horse and a good driver,
and off she went. Reaching the town in question some two and a half hours
later, she searched high and low through wind and sleet, but found no Basil.
He, it appeared, had gone on to Exeter, to look at the cathedral where some
building was being done, and missing the last train had there slept the night.
</p>
<p>
About one in the morning, after being nearly locked up as a mad woman, she
drove back to the Vicarage, again to find no Basil. Even then she did not go to
bed but raged about the house in her wet clothes, until she fell down utterly
exhausted. When her husband did return on the following morning, full of
information about the cathedral, she was dangerously ill, and actually passed
away while uttering a violent tirade against him for his supposed suspicious
proceedings.
</p>
<p>
That was the end of this truly odious British matron.
</p>
<p>
In after days Bastin, by some peculiar mental process, canonised her in his
imagination as a kind of saint. “So loving,” he would say,
“such a devoted wife! Why, my dear Humphrey, I can assure you that even
in the midst of her death-struggle her last thoughts were of me,” words
that caused Bickley to snort with more than usual vigour, until I kicked him to
silence beneath the table.
</p>
</div><!--end chapter-->
<div class="chapter">
<h2><a name="chap04" id="chap04"></a>CHAPTER IV.<br />
Death and Departure</h2>
<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>
<p>
“I don’t quite know, dearest,” she replied, “especially
as I am wonderfully well. But—but—”
</p>
<p>
“But what?” I asked.
</p>
<p>
“But I think that our companionship is going to be broken for a little
while.”
</p>
<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>
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>
<p>
“My dear Humphrey,” he said, “don’t torment yourself
about such fancies. They are of everyday occurrence among women in your
wife’s condition. Sometimes they take one form, sometimes another. When
she has got her baby you will hear no more of them.”
</p>
<p>
I tried to be comforted but in vain.
</p>
<p>
The days and weeks went by like a long nightmare and in due course the event
happened. Bickley was not attending the case; it was not in his line, he said,
and he preferred that where a friend’s wife was concerned, somebody else
should be called in. So it was put in charge of a very good local man with a
large experience in such domestic matters.
</p>
<p>
How am I to tell of it? Everything went wrong; as for the details, let them be.
Ultimately Bickley did operate, and if surpassing skill could have saved her,
it would have been done. But the other man had misjudged the conditions; it was
too late, nothing could help either mother or child, a little girl who died
shortly after she was born but not before she had been christened, also by the
name of Natalie.
</p>
<p>
I was called in to say farewell to my wife and found her radiant, triumphant
even in her weakness.
</p>
<p>
“I know now,” she whispered in a faint voice. “I understood
as the chloroform passed away, but I cannot tell you. Everything is quite well,
my darling. Go where you seem called to go, far away. Oh! the wonderful place
in which you will find me, not knowing that you have found me. Good-bye for a
little while; only for a little while, my own, my own!”
</p>
<p>
Then she died. And for a time I too seemed to die, but could not. I buried her
and the child here at Fulcombe; or rather I buried their ashes since I could
not endure that her beloved body should see corruption.
</p>
<p class="p2">
Afterwards, when all was over, I spoke of these last words of Natalie’s
with both Bickley and Bastin, for somehow I seemed to wish to learn their
separate views.
</p>
<p>
The latter I may explain, had been present at the end in his spiritual
capacity, but I do not think that he in the least understood the nature of the
drama which was passing before his eyes. His prayers and the christening
absorbed all his attention, and he never was a man who could think of more than
one thing at a time.
</p>
<p>
When I told him exactly what had happened and repeated the words that Natalie
spoke, he was much interested in his own nebulous way, and said that it was
delightful to meet with an example of a good Christian, such as my wife had
been, who actually saw something of Heaven before she had gone there. His own
faith was, he thanked God, fairly robust, but still an undoubted occurrence of
the sort acted as a refreshment, “like rain on a pasture when it is
rather dry, you know,” he added, breaking into simile.
</p>
<p>
I remarked that she had not seemed to speak in the sense he indicated, but
appeared to allude to something quite near at hand and more or less immediate.
</p>
<p>
“I don’t know that there is anything nearer at hand than the
Hereafter,” he answered. “I expect she meant that you will probably
soon die and join her in Paradise, if you are worthy to do so. But of course it
is not wise to put too much reliance upon words spoken by people at the last,
because often they don’t quite know what they are saying. Indeed
sometimes I think this was so in the case of my own wife, who really seemed to
me to talk a good deal of rubbish. Good-bye, I promised to see Widow Jenkins
this afternoon about having her varicose veins cut out, and I mustn’t
stop here wasting time in pleasant conversation. She thinks just as much of her
varicose veins as we do of the loss of our wives.”
</p>
<p>
I wonder what Bastin’s ideas of <i>unpleasant</i> conversation may be,
thought I to myself, as I watched him depart already wool-gathering on some
other subject, probably the heresy of one of those “early fathers”
who occupied most of his thoughts.
</p>
<p>
Bickley listened to my tale in sympathetic silence, as a doctor does to a
patient. When he was obliged to speak, he said that it was interesting as an
example of a tendency of certain minds towards romantic vision which sometimes
asserts itself, even in the throes of death.
</p>
<p>
“You know,” he added, “that I put faith in none of these
things. I wish that I could, but reason and science both show me that they lack
foundation. The world on the whole is a sad place, where we arrive through the
passions of others implanted in them by Nature, which, although it cares
nothing for individual death, is tender towards the impulse of races of every
sort to preserve their collective life. Indeed the impulse <i>is</i> Nature, or
at least its chief manifestation. Consequently, whether we be gnats or
elephants, or anything between and beyond, even stars for aught I know, we must
make the best of things as they are, taking the good and the evil as they come
and getting all we can out of life until it leaves us, after which we need not
trouble. You had a good time for a little while and were happy in it; now you
are having a bad time and are wretched. Perhaps in the future, when your mental
balance has re-asserted itself, you will have other good times in the afternoon
of your days, and then follow twilight and the dark. That is all there is to
hope for, and we may as well look the thing in the face. Only I confess, my
dear fellow, that your experience convinces me that marriage should be avoided
at whatever inconvenience. Indeed I have long wondered that anyone can take the
responsibility of bringing a child into the world. But probably nobody does in
cold blood, except misguided idiots like Bastin,” he added. “He
would have twenty, had not his luck intervened.”
</p>
<p>
“Then you believe in nothing, Friend,” I said.
</p>
<p>
“Nothing, I am sorry to say, except what I see and my five senses
appreciate.”
</p>
<p>
“You reject all possibility of miracle, for instance?”
</p>
<p>
“That depends on what you mean by miracle. Science shows us all kinds of
wonders which our great grandfathers would have called miracles, but these are
nothing but laws that we are beginning to understand. Give me an
instance.”
</p>
<p>
“Well,” I replied at hazard, “if you were assured by someone
that a man could live for a thousand years?”
</p>
<p>
“I should tell him that he was a fool or a liar, that is all. It is
impossible.”
</p>
<p>
“Or that the same identity, spirit, animating principle—call it
what you will—can flit from body to body, say in successive ages? Or that
the dead can communicate with the living?”
</p>
<p>
“Convince me of any of these things, Arbuthnot, and mind you I desire to
be convinced, and I will take back every word I have said and walk through
Fulcombe in a white sheet proclaiming myself the fool. Now, I must get off to
the Cottage Hospital to cut out Widow Jenkins’s varicose veins. They are
tangible and real at any rate; about the largest I ever saw, indeed. Give up
dreams, old boy, and take to something useful. You might go back to your
fiction writing; you seem to have leanings that way, and you know you need not
publish the stories, except privately for the edification of your
friends.”
</p>
<p>
With this Parthian shaft Bickley took his departure to make a job of Widow
Jenkins’s legs.
</p>
<p>
I took his advice. During the next few months I did write something which
occupied my thoughts for a while, more or less. It lies in my safe to this
minute, for somehow I have never been able to make up my mind to burn what cost
me so much physical and mental toil.
</p>
<p>
When it was finished my melancholy returned to me with added force. Everything
in the house took a tongue and cried to me of past days. Its walls echoed a
voice that I could never hear again; in the very looking-glasses I saw the
reflection of a lost presence. Although I had moved myself for the purposes of
sleep to a little room at the further end of the building, footsteps seemed to
creep about my bed at night and I heard the rustle of a remembered dress
without the door. The place grew hateful to me. I felt that I must get away
from it or I should go mad.
</p>
<p class="p2">
One afternoon Bastin arrived carrying a book and in a state of high
indignation. This work, written, as he said, by some ribald traveller, grossly
traduced the character of missionaries to the South Sea Islands, especially of
those of the Society to which he subscribed, and he threw it on the table in
his righteous wrath. Bickley picked it up and opened it at a photograph of a
very pretty South Sea Island girl clad in a few flowers and nothing else, which
he held towards Bastin, saying:
</p>
<p>
“Is it to this child of Nature that you object? I call her distinctly
attractive, though perhaps she does wear her hibiscus blooms with a difference
to our women—a little lower down.”
</p>
<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>
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>
<p>
“If I could afford it,” exclaimed Bastin with rising anger,
“I should like to go there and expose this vile traducer of my
cloth.”
</p>
<p>
“So should I,” answered Bickley, “and expose these
introducers of consumption, measles and other European diseases, to say nothing
of gin, among an innocent and Arcadian people.”
</p>
<p>
“How can you call them innocent, Bickley, when they murder and eat
missionaries?”
</p>
<p>
“I dare say we should all eat a missionary, Bastin, if we were hungry
enough,” was the answer, after which something occurred to change the
conversation.
</p>
<p>
But I kept the book and read it as a neutral observer, and came to the
conclusion that these South Sea Islands, a land where it was always afternoon,
must be a charming place, in which perhaps the stars of the Tropics and the
scent of the flowers might enable one to forget a little, or at least take the
edge off memory. Why should I not visit them and escape another long and dreary
English winter? No, I could not do so alone. If Bastin and Bickley were there,
their eternal arguments might amuse me. Well, why should they not come also?
When one has money things can always be arranged.
</p>
<p>
The idea, which had its root in this absurd conversation, took a curious hold
on me. I thought of it all the evening, being alone, and that night it re-arose
in my dreams. I dreamed that my lost Natalie appeared to me and showed me a
picture. It was of a long, low land, a curving shore of which the ends were out
of the picture, whereon grew tall palms, and where great combers broke upon
gleaming sand.
</p>
<p>
Then the picture seemed to become a reality and I saw Natalie herself,
strangely changeful in her aspect, strangely varying in face and figure,
strangely bright, standing in the mouth of a pass whereof the little bordering
cliffs were covered with bushes and low trees, whose green was almost hid in
lovely flowers. There in my dream she stood, smiling mysteriously, and
stretched out her arms towards me.
</p>
<p>
As I awoke I seemed to hear her voice, repeating her dying words: “Go
where you seem called to go, far away. Oh! the wonderful place in which you
will find me, not knowing that you have found me.”
</p>
<p>
With some variations this dream visited me twice that night. In the morning I
woke up quite determined that I would go to the South Sea Islands, even if I
must do so alone. On that same evening Bastin and Bickley dined with me. I said
nothing to them about my dream, for Bastin never dreamed and Bickley would have
set it down to indigestion. But when the cloth had been cleared away and we
were drinking our glass of port—both Bastin and Bickley only took one,
the former because he considered port a sinful indulgence of the flesh, the
latter because he feared it would give him gout—I remarked casually that
they both looked very run down and as though they wanted a rest. They agreed,
at least each of them said he had noticed it in the other. Indeed Bastin added
that the damp and the cold in the church, in which he held daily services to no
congregation except the old woman who cleaned it, had given him rheumatism,
which prevented him from sleeping.
</p>
<p>
“Do call things by their proper names,” interrupted Bickley.
“I told you yesterday that what you are suffering from is neuritis in
your right arm, which will become chronic if you neglect it much longer. I have
the same thing myself, so I ought to know, and unless I can stop operating for
a while I believe my fingers will become useless. Also something is affecting
my sight, overstrain, I suppose, so that I am obliged to wear stronger and
stronger glasses. I think I shall have to leave Ogden” (his partner)
“in charge for a while, and get away into the sun. There is none here
before June.”
</p>
<p>
“I would if I could pay a <i>locum tenens</i> and were quite sure it
isn’t wrong,” said Bastin.
</p>
<p>
“I am glad you both think like that,” I remarked, “as I have
a suggestion to make to you. I want to go to the South Seas about which we were
talking yesterday, to get the thorough change that Bickley has been advising
for me, and I should be very grateful if you would both come as my guests. You,
Bickley, make so much money out of cutting people about, that you can arrange
your own affairs during your absence. But as for you, Bastin, I will see to the
wherewithal for the <i>locum tenens</i>, and everything else.”
</p>
<p>
“You are very kind,” said Bastin, “and certainly I should
like to expose that misguided author, who probably published his offensive work
without thinking that what he wrote might affect the subscriptions to the
missionary societies, also to show Bickley that he is not always right, as he
seems to think. But I could never dream of accepting without the full approval
of the Bishop.”
</p>
<p>
“You might get that of your nurse also, if she happens to be still
alive,” mocked Bickley. “As for his Lordship, I don’t think
he will raise any objection when he sees the certificate I will give you about
the state of your health. He is a great believer in me ever since I took that
carbuncle out of his neck which he got because he will not eat enough. As for
me, I mean to come if only to show you how continually and persistently you are
wrong. But, Arbuthnot, how do you mean to go?”
</p>
<p>
“I don’t know. In a mail steamer, I suppose.”
</p>
<p>
“If you can run to it, a yacht would be much better.”
</p>
<p>
“That’s a good idea, for one could get out of the beaten tracks and
see the places that are never, or seldom, visited. I will make some inquiries.
And now, to celebrate the occasion, let us all have another glass of port and
drink a toast.”
</p>
<p>
They hesitated and were lost, Bastin murmuring something about doing without
his stout next day as a penance. Then they both asked what was the toast, each
of them, after thought, suggesting that it should be the utter confusion of the
other.
</p>
<p>
I shook my head, whereon as a result of further cogitation, Bastin submitted
that the Unknown would be suitable. Bickley said that he thought this a foolish
idea as everything worth knowing was already known, and what was the good of
drinking to the rest? A toast to the Truth would be better.
</p>
<p>
A notion came to me.
</p>
<p>
“Let us combine them,” I said, “and drink to the Unknown
Truth.”
</p>
<p>
So we did, though Bastin grumbled that the performance made him feel like
Pilate.
</p>
<p>
“We are all Pilates in our way,” I replied with a sigh.
</p>
<p>
“That is what I think every time I diagnose a case,” exclaimed
Bickley.
</p>
<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>
<p class="p2">
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>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>
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>Star of the South</i>.
</p>
<p>
The arrangement was that the <i>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>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 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>
</div><!--end chapter-->
<div class="chapter">
<h2><a name="chap05" id="chap05"></a>CHAPTER V.<br />
The Cyclone</h2>
<p>
We enjoyed our voyage exceedingly. In Egypt, a land I was glad to revisit, we
only stopped a week while the <i>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>
<p>
First he accused Jacobsen, who was very indignant, and then me, who laughed. In
the end Jacobsen and I left the “circle” and the cabin, which was
locked behind us; only Bastin and Bickley remaining there in the dark.
Presently we heard sounds of altercation, and Bickley emerged looking very red
in the face, followed by Bastin, who was saying:
</p>
<p>
“Can I help it if something pulled your nose and snatched off your
eyeglasses, which anyhow are quite useless to you when there is no light?
Again, is it possible for me, sitting on the other side of that table, to have
placed the concertina on your head and made it play the National Anthem, a
thing that I have not the slightest idea how to do?”
</p>
<p>
“Please do not try to explain,” snapped Bickley. “I am
perfectly aware that you deceived me somehow, which no doubt you think a good
joke.”
</p>
<p>
“My dear fellow,” I interrupted, “is it possible to imagine
old Basil deceiving anyone?”
</p>
<p>
“Why not,” snorted Bickley, “seeing that he deceives himself
from one year’s end to the other?”
</p>
<p>
“I think,” said Bastin, “that this is an unholy business and
that we are both deceived by the devil. I will have no more to do with
it,” and he departed to his cabin, probably to say some appropriate
prayers.
</p>
<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>
“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>
“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>
<p>
Jacobsen paid no attention, for he was reading what followed. As he did so I
saw his face turn white and his eyes begin to start from his head. Then
suddenly he tore the paper in pieces which he thrust into his pocket. Lifting
his great fist he uttered some Danish oath and with a single blow smashed the
planchette to fragments, after which he strode away, leaving me astonished and
somewhat disturbed. When I met him the next morning I asked him what was on the
paper.
</p>
<p>
“Oh!” he said quietly, “something I should not like you
too-proper English gentlemens to see. Something not nice. You understand. Those
spirits not always good; they do that kind of thing sometimes. That’s why
I broke up this planchette.”
</p>
<p>
Then he began to talk of something else and there the matter ended.
</p>
<p>
I should have said that, principally with a view to putting themselves in a
position to confute each other, ever since we had started from Marseilles both
Bastin and Bickley spent a number of hours each day in assiduous study of the
language of the South Sea Islands. It became a kind of competition between them
as to which could learn the most. Now Bastin, although simple and even stupid
in some ways, was a good scholar, and as I knew at college, had quite a faculty
for acquiring languages in which he had taken high marks at examinations.
Bickley, too, was an extraordinarily able person with an excellent memory,
especially when he was on his mettle. The result was that before we ever
reached a South Sea island they had a good working knowledge of the local
tongues.
</p>
<p>
As it chanced, too, at Perth we picked up a Samoan and his wife who, under some
of the “white Australia” regulations, were not allowed to remain in
the country and offered to work as servants in return for a passage to Apia
where we proposed to call some time or other. With these people Bastin and
Bickley talked all day long till really they became fairly proficient in their
soft and beautiful dialect. They wished me to learn also, but I said that with
two such excellent interpreters and the natives while they remained with us, it
seemed quite unnecessary. Still, I picked up a good deal in a quiet way, as
much as they did perhaps.
</p>
<p>
At length, travelling on and on as a voyager to the planet Mars might do, we
sighted the low shores of Australia and that same evening were towed, for our
coal was quite exhausted, to the wharf at Fremantle. Here we spent a few days
exploring the beautiful town of Perth and its neighbourhood where it was very
hot just then, and eating peaches and grapes till we made ourselves ill, as a
visitor often does who is unaware that fruit should not be taken in quantity in
Australia while the sun is high. Then we departed for Melbourne almost before
our arrival was generally known, since I did not wish to advertise our presence
or the object of our journey.
</p>
<p>
We crossed the Great Australian Bight, of evil reputation, in the most perfect
weather; indeed it might have been a mill pond, and after a short stay at
Melbourne, went on to Sydney, where we coaled again and laid in supplies.
</p>
<p>
Then our real journey began. The plan we laid out was to sail to Suva in Fiji,
about 1,700 miles away, and after a stay there, on to Hawaii or the Sandwich
Islands, stopping perhaps at the Phoenix Islands and the Central Polynesian
Sporades, such as Christmas and Fanning Isles. Then we proposed to turn south
again through the Marshall Archipelago and the Caroline Islands, and so on to
New Guinea and the Coral Sea. Particularly did we wish to visit Easter Island
on account of its marvelous sculptures that are supposed to be the relics of a
pre-historic race. In truth, however, we had no fixed plan except to go
wherever circumstance and chance might take us. Chance, I may add, or something
else, took full advantage of its opportunities.
</p>
<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>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>
<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>
<p>
When the light came it was blowing very hard indeed, and the sky was utterly
overcast, so that we got no glimpse of the sun, or of the stars on the
following night. Unfortunately, there was no moon visible; indeed, if there had
been I do not suppose that it would have helped us because of the thick pall of
clouds. For quite seventy-two hours we ran on beneath bare poles before that
gale. The little vessel behaved splendidly, riding the seas like a duck, but I
could see that Captain Astley was growing alarmed. When I said something
complimentary to him about the conduct of the <i>Star of the South</i>, he
replied that she was forging ahead all right, but the question was—where
to? He had been unable to take an observation of any sort since we left Samoa;
both his patent logs had been carried away, so that now only the compass
remained, and he had not the slightest idea where we were in that great ocean
studded with atolls and islands.
</p>
<p>
I asked him whether we could not steam back to our proper course, but he
answered that to do so he would have to travel dead in the eye of the gale, and
he doubted whether the engines would stand it. Also there was the question of
coal to be considered. However, he had kept the fires going and would do what
he could if the weather moderated.
</p>
<p>
That night during dinner which now consisted of tinned foods and whisky and
water, for the seas had got to the galley fire, suddenly the gale dropped,
whereat we rejoiced exceedingly. The captain came down into the saloon very
white and shaken, I thought, and I asked him to have a nip of whisky to warm
him up, and to celebrate our good fortune in having run out of the wind. He
took the bottle and, to my alarm, poured out a full half tumbler of spirit,
which he swallowed undiluted in two or three gulps.
</p>
<p>
“That’s better!” he said with a hoarse laugh. “But man,
what is it you are saying about having run out of the wind? Look at the
glass!”
</p>
<p>
“We have,” said Bastin, “and it is wonderfully steady. About
29 degrees or a little over, which it has been for the last three days.”
</p>
<p>
Again Astley laughed in a mirthless fashion, as he answered:
</p>
<p>
“Oh, that thing! That’s the passengers’ glass. I told the
steward to put it out of gear so that you might not be frightened; it is an old
trick. Look at this,” and he produced one of the portable variety out of
his pocket.
</p>
<p>
We looked, and it stood somewhere between 27 degrees and 28 degrees.
</p>
<p>
“That’s the lowest glass I ever saw in the Polynesian or any other
seas during thirty years. It’s right, too, for I have tested it by three
others,” he said.
</p>
<p>
“What does it mean?” I asked rather anxiously.
</p>
<p>
“South Sea cyclone of the worst breed,” he replied. “That
cursed Dane knew it was coming and that’s why he left the ship. Pray as
you never prayed before,” and again he stretched out his hand towards the
whisky bottle. But I stepped between him and it, shaking my head. Thereon he
laughed for the third time and left the cabin. Though I saw him once or twice
afterwards, these were really the last words of intelligible conversation that
I ever had with Captain Astley.
</p>
<p>
“It seems that we are in some danger,” said Bastin, in an unmoved
kind of way. “I think that was a good idea of the captain’s, to put
up a petition, I mean, but as Bickley will scarcely care to join in it I will
go into the cabin and do so myself.”
</p>
<p>
Bickley snorted, then said:
</p>
<p>
“Confound that captain! Why did he play such a trick upon us about the
barometer? Humphrey, I believe he had been drinking.”
</p>
<p>
“So do I,” I said, looking at the whisky bottle. “Otherwise,
after taking those precautions to keep us in the dark, he would not have let on
like that.”
</p>
<p>
“Well,” said Bickley, “he can’t get to the liquor,
except through this saloon, as it is locked up forward with the other
stores.”
</p>
<p>
“That’s nothing,” I replied, “as doubtless he has a
supply of his own; rum, I expect. We must take our chance.”
</p>
<p>
Bickley nodded, and suggested that we should go on deck to see what was
happening. So we went. Not a breath of wind was stirring, and even the sea
seemed to be settling down a little. At least, so we judged from the motion,
for we could not see either it or the sky; everything was as black as pitch. We
heard the sailors, however, engaged in rigging guide ropes fore and aft, and
battening down the hatches with extra tarpaulins by the light of lanterns. Also
they were putting ropes round the boats and doing something to the spars and
topmasts.
</p>
<p>
Presently Bastin joined us, having, I suppose, finished his devotions.
</p>
<p>
“Really, it is quite pleasant here,” he said. “One never
knows how disagreeable so much wind is until it stops.”
</p>
<p>
I lit my pipe, making no answer, and the match burned quite steadily there in
the open air.
</p>
<p>
“What is that?” exclaimed Bickley, staring at something which now I
saw for the first time. It looked like a line of white approaching through the
gloom. With it came a hissing sound, and although there was still no wind, the
rigging began to moan mysteriously like a thing in pain. A big drop of water
also fell from the sides into my pipe and put it out. Then one of the sailors
cried in a hoarse voice:
</p>
<p>
“Get down below, governors, unless you want to go out to sea!”
</p>
<p>
“Why?” inquired Bastin.
</p>
<p>
“Why? Becos the ‘urricane is coming, that’s all. Coming as
though the devil had kicked it out of ‘ell.”
</p>
<p>
Bastin seemed inclined to remonstrate at this sort of language, but we pushed
him down the companion and followed, propelling the spaniel Tommy in front of
us. Next moment I heard the sailors battening the hatch with hurried blows, and
when this was done to their satisfaction, heard their feet also as they ran
into shelter.
</p>
<p>
Another instant and we were all lying in a heap on the cabin floor with poor
Tommy on top of us. The cyclone had struck the ship! Above the wash of water
and the screaming of the gale we heard other mysterious sounds, which doubtless
were caused by the yards hitting the seas, for the yacht was lying on her side.
I thought that all was over, but presently there came a rending, crashing
noise. The masts, or one of them, had gone, and by degrees we righted.
</p>
<p>
“Near thing!” said Bickley. “Good heavens, what’s
that?”
</p>
<p>
I listened, for the electric light had temporarily gone out, owing, I suppose,
to the dynamo having stopped for a moment. A most unholy and hollow sound was
rising from the cabin floor. It might have been caused by a bullock with its
windpipe cut, trying to get its breath and groaning. Then the light came on
again and we saw Bastin lying at full length on the carpet.
</p>
<p>
“He’s broken his neck or something,” I said.
</p>
<p>
Bickley crept to him and having looked, sang out:
</p>
<p>
“It’s all right! He’s only sea-sick. I thought it would come
to that if he drank so much tea.”
</p>
<p>
“Sea-sick,” I said faintly—“sea-sick?”
</p>
<p>
“That’s all,” said Bickley. “The nerves of the stomach
acting on the brain or vice-versa—that is, if Bastin has a brain,”
he added sotto voce.
</p>
<p>
“Oh!” groaned the prostrate clergyman. “I wish that I were
dead!”
</p>
<p>
“Don’t trouble about that,” answered Bickley. “I expect
you soon will be. Here, drink some whisky, you donkey.”
</p>
<p>
Bastin sat up and obeyed, out of the bottle, for it was impossible to pour
anything into a glass, with results too dreadful to narrate.
</p>
<p>
“I call that a dirty trick,” he said presently, in a feeble voice,
glowering at Bickley.
</p>
<p>
“I expect I shall have to play you a dirtier before long, for you are a
pretty bad case, old fellow.”
</p>
<p>
As a matter of fact he had, for once Bastin had begun really we thought that he
was going to die. Somehow we got him into his cabin, which opened off the
saloon, and as he could drink nothing more, Bickley managed to inject morphia
or some other compound into him, which made him insensible for a long while.
</p>
<p>
“He must be in a poor way,” he said, “for the needle went
more than a quarter of an inch into him, and he never cried out or stirred.
Couldn’t help it in that rolling.”
</p>
<p>
But now I could hear the engines working, and I think that the bow of the
vessel was got head on to the seas, for instead of rolling we pitched, or
rather the ship stood first upon one end and then upon the other. This
continued for a while until the first burst of the cyclone had gone by. Then
suddenly the engines stopped; I suppose that they had broken down, but I never
learned, and we seemed to veer about, nearly sinking in the process, and to run
before the hurricane at terrific speed.
</p>
<p>
“I wonder where we are going to?” I said to Bickley. “To the
land of sleep, Humphrey, I imagine,” he replied in a more gentle voice
than I had often heard him use, adding: “Good-bye, old boy, we have been
real friends, haven’t we, notwithstanding my peculiarities? I only wish
that I could think that there was anything in Bastin’s views. But I
can’t, I can’t. It’s good night for us poor creatures!”
</p>
</div><!--end chapter-->
<div class="chapter">
<h2><a name="chap06" id="chap06"></a>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>
<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>
<p>
On we sped, and on. About four in the afternoon we heard sounds from
Bastin’s cabin which faintly reminded me of some tune. I crept to the
door and listened. Evidently he had awakened and was singing or trying to sing,
for music was not one of his strong points, “For those in peril on the
sea.” Devoutly did I wish that it might be heard. Presently it ceased, so
I suppose he went to sleep again.
</p>
<p>
The darkness gathered once more. Then of a sudden something fearful happened.
There were stupendous noises of a kind I had never heard; there were
convulsions. It seemed to us that the ship was flung right up into the air a
hundred feet or more.
</p>
<p>
“Tidal wave, I expect,” shouted Bickley.
</p>
<p>
Almost as he spoke she came down with the most appalling crash on to something
hard and nearly jarred the senses out of us. Next the saloon was whirling round
and round and yet being carried forward, and we felt air blowing upon us. Then
our senses left us. As I clasped Tommy to my side, whimpering and licking my
face, my last thought was that all was over, and that presently I should learn
everything or nothing.
</p>
<p class="p2">
I woke up feeling very bruised and sore and perceived that light was flowing
into the saloon. The door was still shut, but it had been wrenched off its
hinges, and that was where the light came in; also some of the teak planks of
the decking, jagged and splintered, were sticking up through the carpet. The
table had broken from its fastenings and lay upon its side. Everything else was
one confusion. I looked at Bickley. Apparently he had not awakened. He was
stretched out still wedged in with his cushions and bleeding from a wound in
his head. I crept to him in terror and listened. He was not dead, for his
breathing was regular and natural. The whisky bottle which had been corked was
upon the floor unbroken and about a third full. I took a good pull at the
spirit; to me it tasted like nectar from the gods. Then I tried to force some
down Bickley’s throat but could not, so I poured a little upon the cut on
his head. The smart of it woke him in a hurry.
</p>
<p>
“Where are we now?” he exclaimed. “You don’t mean to
tell me that Bastin is right after all and that we live again somewhere else?
Oh! I could never bear that ignominy.”
</p>
<p>
“I don’t know about living somewhere else,” I said,
“although my opinions on that matter differ from yours. But I do know
that you and I are still on earth in what remains of the saloon of the <i>Star
of the South</i>.”
</p>
<p>
“Thank God for that! Let’s go and look for old Bastin,” said
Bickley. “I do pray that he is all right also.”
</p>
<p>
“It is most illogical of you, Bickley, and indeed wrong,” groaned a
deep voice from the other side of the cabin door, “to thank a God in Whom
you do not believe, and to talk of praying for one of the worst and most
inefficient of His servants when you have no faith in prayer.”
</p>
<p>
“Got you there, my friend,” I said.
</p>
<p>
Bickley murmured something about force of habit, and looked smaller than I had
ever seen him do before.
</p>
<p>
Somehow we forced that door open; it was not easy because it had jammed. Within
the cabin, hanging on either side of the bath towel which had stood the strain
nobly, something like a damp garment over a linen line, was Bastin most of
whose bunk seemed to have disappeared. Yes—Bastin, pale and dishevelled
and looking shrunk, with his hair touzled and his beard apparently growing all
ways, but still Bastin alive, if very weak.
</p>
<p>
Bickley ran at him and made a cursory examination with his fingers.
</p>
<p>
“Nothing broken,” he said triumphantly. “He’s all
right.”
</p>
<p>
“If <i>you</i> had hung over a towel for many hours in most violent
weather you would not say that,” groaned Bastin. “My inside is a
pulp. But perhaps you would be kind enough to untie me.”
</p>
<p>
“Bosh!” said Bickley as he obeyed. “All you want is something
to eat. Meanwhile, drink this,” and he handed him the remains of the
whisky.
</p>
<p>
Bastin swallowed it every drop, murmuring something about taking a little wine
for his stomach’s sake, “one of the Pauline injunctions, you
know,” after which he was much more cheerful. Then we hunted about and
found some more of the biscuits and other food with which we filled ourselves
after a fashion.
</p>
<p>
“I wonder what has happened,” said Bastin. “I suppose that,
thanks to the skill of the captain, we have after all reached the haven where
we would be.”
</p>
<p>
Here he stopped, rubbed his eyes and looked towards the saloon door which, as I
have said, had been wrenched off its hinges, but appeared to have opened wider
than when I observed it last. Also Tommy, who was recovering his spirits,
uttered a series of low growls.
</p>
<p>
“It is a most curious thing,” he went on, “and I suppose I
must be suffering from hallucinations, but I could swear that just now I saw
looking through that door the same improper young woman clothed in a few
flowers and nothing else, whose photograph in that abominable and libellous
book was indirectly the cause of our tempestuous voyage.”
</p>
<p>
“Indeed!” replied Bickley. “Well, so long as she has not got
on the broken-down stays and the Salvation Army bonnet without a crown, which
you may remember she wore after she had fallen into the hands of your
fraternity, I am sure <i>I</i> do not mind. In fact I should be delighted to
see anything so pleasant.”
</p>
<p>
At this moment a distinct sound of female tittering arose from beyond the door.
Tommy barked and Bickley stepped towards it, but I called to him.
</p>
<p>
“Look out! Where there are women there are sure to be men. Let us be
ready against accidents.”
</p>
<p>
So we armed ourselves with pistols, that is Bickley and I did, Bastin being
fortified solely with a Bible.
</p>
<p>
Then we advanced, a remarkable and dilapidated trio, and dragged the door wide.
Instantly there was a scurry and we caught sight of women’s forms wearing
only flowers, and but few of these, running over white sand towards groups of
men armed with odd-looking clubs, some of which were fashioned to the shapes of
swords and spears. To make an impression I fired two shots with my revolver
into the air, whereupon both men and women fled into groves of trees and
vanished.
</p>
<p>
“They don’t seem to be accustomed to white people,” said
Bickley. “Is it possible that we have found a shore upon which no
missionary has set a foot?”
</p>
<p>
“I hope so,” said Bastin, “seeing that unworthy as I am, then
the opportunities for me would be very great.”
</p>
<p>
We stood still and looked about us. This was what we saw. All the after part of
the ship from forward of the bridge had vanished utterly; there was not a trace
of it; she had as it were been cut in two. More, we were some considerable
distance from the sea which was still raging over a quarter of a mile away
where great white combers struck upon a reef and spouted into the air. Behind
us was a cliff, apparently of rock but covered with earth and vegetation, and
against this cliff, in which the prow of the ship was buried, she, or what
remained of her, had come to anchor for the last time.
</p>
<p>
“You see what has happened,” I said. “A great tidal wave has
carried us up here and retreated.”
</p>
<p>
“That’s it,” exclaimed Bickley. “Look at the
debris,” and he pointed to torn-up palms, bushes and seaweed piled into
heaps which still ran salt water; also to a number of dead fish that lay about
among them, adding, “Well, we are saved anyhow.”
</p>
<p>
“And yet there are people like you who say that there is no
Providence!” ejaculated Bastin.
</p>
<p>
“I wonder what the views of Captain Astley and the crew are, or rather
were, upon that matter,” interrupted Bickley.
</p>
<p>
“I don’t know,” answered Bastin, looking about him vaguely.
“It is true that I can’t see any of them, but if they are drowned
no doubt it is because their period of usefulness in this world had
ended.”
</p>
<p>
“Let’s get down and look about us,” I remarked, being anxious
to avoid further argument.
</p>
<p>
So we scrambled from the remnant of the ship, like Noah descending out of the
ark, as Bastin said, on to the beach beneath, where Tommy rushed to and fro,
gambolling for joy. Here we discovered a path which ran diagonally up the side
of a cliff which was nowhere more than fifty or sixty feet in height, and
possibly had once formed the shore of this land, or perhaps that of a lake. Up
this path we went, following the tracks of many human feet, and reaching the
crest of the cliff, looked about us, basking as we did so in the beautiful
morning sun, for the sky was now clear of clouds and with that last awful
effort, which destroyed our ship, the cyclone had passed away.
</p>
<p>
We were standing on a plain down which ran a little stream of good water
whereof Tommy drank greedily, we following his example. To the right and left
of this plain, further than we could see, stretched bushland over which towered
many palms, rather ragged now because of the lashing of the gale. Looking
inland we perceived that the ground sloped gently downwards, ending at a
distance of some miles in a large lake. Far out in this lake something like the
top of a mountain of a brown colour rose above the water, and on the edge of it
was what from that distance appeared to be a tumbled ruin.
</p>
<p>
“This is all very interesting,” I said to Bickley. “What do
you make of it?”
</p>
<p>
“I don’t quite know. At first sight I should say that we are
standing on the lip of a crater of some vast extinct volcano. Look how it
curves to north and south and at the slope running down to the lake.”
</p>
<p>
I nodded.
</p>
<p>
“Lucky that the tidal wave did not get over the cliff,” I said.
“If it had the people here would have all been drowned out. I wonder
where they have gone?”
</p>
<p>
As I spoke Bastin pointed to the edge of the bush some hundreds of yards away,
where we perceived brown figures slipping about among the trees. I suggested
that we should go back to the mouth of our path, so as to have a line of
retreat open in case of necessity, and await events. So we did and there stood
still. By degrees the brown figures emerged on to the plain to the number of
some hundreds, and we saw that they were both male and female. The women were
clothed in nothing except flowers and a little girdle; the men were all armed
with wooden weapons and also wore a girdle but no flowers. The children, of
whom there were many, were quite naked.
</p>
<p>
Among these people we observed a tall person clothed in what seemed to be a
magnificent feather cloak, and, walking around and about him, a number of
grotesque forms adorned with hideous masks and basket-like head-dresses that
were surmounted by plumes.
</p>
<p>
“The king or chief and his priests or medicine-men! This is
splendid,” said Bickley triumphantly.
</p>
<p>
Bastin also contemplated them with enthusiasm as raw material upon which he
hoped to get to work.
</p>
<p>
By degrees and very cautiously they approached us. To our joy, we perceived
that behind them walked several young women who bore wooden trays of food or
fruit.
</p>
<p>
“That looks well,” I said. “They would not make offerings
unless they were friendly.”
</p>
<p>
“The food may be poisoned,” remarked Bickley suspiciously.
</p>
<p>
The crowd advanced, we standing quite still looking as dignified as we could, I
as the tallest in the middle, with Tommy sitting at my feet. When they were
about five and twenty yards away, however, that wretched little dog caught
sight of the masked priests. He growled and then rushed at them barking, his
long black ears flapping as he went.
</p>
<p>
The effect was instantaneous. One and all they turned and fled precipitately,
who evidently had never before seen a dog and looked upon it as a deadly
creature. Yes, even the tall chief and his masked medicine-men fled like hares
pursued by Tommy, who bit one of them in the leg, evoking a terrific howl. I
called him back and took him into my arms. Seeing that he was safe for a while
the crowd reformed and once again advanced.
</p>
<p>
As they came we noted that they were a wonderfully handsome people, tall and
straight with regularly shaped features and nothing of the negro about them.
Some of the young women might even be called beautiful, though those who were
elderly had become corpulent. The feather-clothed chief, however, was much
disfigured by a huge growth with a narrow stalk to it that hung from his neck
and rested on his shoulder.
</p>
<p>
“I’ll have that off him before he is a week older,” said
Bickley, surveying this deformity with great professional interest.
</p>
<p>
On they came, the girls with the platters walking ahead. On one of these were
what looked like joints of baked pork, on another some plantains and
pear-shaped fruits. They knelt down and offered these to us. We contemplated
them for a while. Then Bickley shook his head and began to rub his stomach with
appropriate contortions. Clearly they were quick-minded enough for they saw the
point. At some words the girls brought the platters to the chief and others,
who took from them portions of the food at hazard and ate them to show that it
was not poisoned, we watching their throats the while to make sure that it was
swallowed. Then they returned again and we took some of the food though only
Bickley ate, because, as I pointed out to him, being a doctor who understood
the use of antidotes; clearly he should make the experiment. However, nothing
happened; indeed he said that it was very good.
</p>
<p>
After this there came a pause. Then suddenly Bastin took up his parable in the
Polynesian tongue which—to a certain extent—he had acquired with so
much pains.
</p>
<p>
“What is this place called?” he asked slowly and distinctly,
pausing between each word.
</p>
<p>
His audience shook their heads and he tried again, putting the accents on
different syllables. Behold! some bright spirit understood him and answered:
</p>
<p>
“Orofena.”
</p>
<p>
“That means a hill, or an island, or a hill in an island,”
whispered Bickley to me.
</p>
<p>
“Who is your God?” asked Bastin again.
</p>
<p>
The point seemed one upon which they were a little doubtful, but at last the
chief answered, “Oro. He who fights.”
</p>
<p>
“In other words, Mars,” said Bickley.
</p>
<p>
“I will give you a better one,” said Bastin in the same slow
fashion.
</p>
<p>
Thinking that he referred to himself these children of Nature contemplated his
angular form doubtfully and shook their heads. Then for the first time one of
the men who was wearing a mask and a wicker crate on his head, spoke in a
hollow voice, saying:
</p>
<p>
“If you try Oro will eat you up.”
</p>
<p>
“Head priest!” said Bickley, nudging me. “Old Bastin had
better be careful or he will get his teeth into him and call them
Oro’s.”
</p>
<p>
Another pause, after which the man in a feather cloak with the growth on his
neck that a servant was supporting, said:
</p>
<p>
“I am Marama, the chief of Orofena. We have never seen men like you
before, if you are men. What brought you here and with you that fierce and
terrible animal, or evil spirit which makes a noise and bites?”
</p>
<p>
Now Bickley pretended to consult me who stood brooding and majestic, that is if
I can be majestic. I whispered something and he answered:
</p>
<p>
“The gods of the wind and the sea.”
</p>
<p>
“What nonsense,” ejaculated Bastin, “there are no such
things.”
</p>
<p>
“Shut up,” I said, “we must use similes here,” to which
he replied:
</p>
<p>
“I don’t like similes that tamper with the truth.”
</p>
<p>
“Remember Neptune and Aeolus,” I suggested, and he lapsed into
consideration of the point.
</p>
<p>
“We knew that you were coming,” said Marama. “Our doctors
told us all about you a moon ago. But we wish that you would come more gently,
as you nearly washed away our country.”
</p>
<p>
After looking at me Bickley replied:
</p>
<p>
“How thankful should you be that in our kindness we have spared
you.”
</p>
<p>
“What do you come to do?” inquired Marama again. After the usual
formula of consulting me Bickley answered:
</p>
<p>
“We come to take that mountain (he meant lump) off your neck and make you
beautiful; also to cure all the sickness among your people.”
</p>
<p>
“And I come,” broke in Bastin, “to give you new
hearts.”
</p>
<p>
These announcements evidently caused great excitement. After consultation
Marama answered:
</p>
<p>
“We do not want new hearts as the old ones are good, but we wish to be
rid of lumps and sicknesses. If you can do this we will make you gods and
worship you and give you many wives.” (Here Bastin held up his hands in
horror.) “When will you begin to take away the lumps?”
</p>
<p>
“To-morrow,” said Bickley. “But learn that if you try to harm
us we will bring another wave which will drown all your country.”
</p>
<p>
Nobody seemed to doubt our capacities in this direction, but one inquiring
spirit in a wicker crate did ask how it came about that if we controlled the
ocean we had arrived in half a canoe instead of a whole one.
</p>
<p>
Bickley replied to the effect that it was because the gods always travelled in
half-canoes to show their higher nature, which seemed to satisfy everyone. Then
we announced that we had seen enough of them for that day and would retire to
think. Meanwhile we should be obliged if they would build us a house and keep
us supplied with whatever food they had.
</p>
<p>
“Do the gods eat?” asked the sceptic again.
</p>
<p>
“That fellow is a confounded radical,” I whispered to Bickley.
“Tell him that they do when they come to Orofena.”
</p>
<p>
He did so, whereon the chief said:
</p>
<p>
“Would the gods like a nice young girl cooked?”
</p>
<p>
At this point Bastin retired down the path, realising that he had to do with
cannibals. We said that we preferred to look at the girls alive and would meet
them again to-morrow morning, when we hoped that the house would be ready.
</p>
<p>
So our first interview with the inhabitants of Orofena came to an end, on which
we congratulated ourselves.
</p>
<p class="p2">
On reaching the remains of the <i>Star of the South</i> we set to work to take
stock of what was left to us. Fortunately it proved to be a very great deal. As
I think I mentioned, all the passenger part of the yacht lay forward of the
bridge, just in front of which the vessel had been broken in two, almost as
cleanly as though she were severed by a gigantic knife. Further our stores were
forward and practically everything else that belonged to us, even down to
Bickley’s instruments and medicines and Bastin’s religious works,
to say nothing of a great quantity of tinned food and groceries. Lastly on the
deck above the saloon had stood two large lifeboats. Although these were amply
secured at the commencement of the gale one of them, that on the port side, was
smashed to smithers; probably some spar had fallen upon it. The starboard boat,
however, remained intact and so far as we could judge, seaworthy, although the
bulwarks were broken by the waves.
</p>
<p>
“There’s something we can get away in if necessary,” I said.
</p>
<p>
“Where to?” remarked Bastin. “We don’t know where we
are or if there is any other land within a thousand miles. I think we had
better stop here as Providence seems to have intended, especially when there is
so much work to my hand.”
</p>
<p>
“Be careful,” answered Bickley, “that the work to your hand
does not end in the cutting of all our throats. It is an awkward thing
interfering with the religion of savages, and I believe that these untutored
children of Nature sometimes eat missionaries.”
</p>
<p>
“Yes, I have heard that,” said Bastin; “they bake them first
as they do pigs. But I don’t know that they would care to eat me,”
and he glanced at his bony limbs, “especially when you are much plumper.
Anyhow one can’t stop for a risk of that sort.”
</p>
<p>
Deigning no reply, Bickley walked away to fetch some fine fish which had been
washed up by the tidal wave and were still flapping about in a little pool of
salt water. Then we took counsel as to how to make the best of our
circumstances, and as a result set to work to tidy up the saloon and cabins,
which was not difficult as what remained of the ship lay on an even keel. Also
we got out some necessary stores, including paraffin for the swinging lamps
with which the ship was fitted in case of accident to the electric light,
candles, and the guns we had brought with us so that they might be handy in the
event of attack. This done, by the aid of the tools that were in the
storerooms, Bickley, who was an excellent carpenter, repaired the saloon door,
all that was necessary to keep us private, as the bulkhead still remained.
</p>
<p>
“Now,” he said triumphantly when he had finished and got the lock
and bolts to work to his satisfaction, “we can stand a siege if needed,
for as the ship is iron built they can’t even burn us out and that teak
door would take some forcing. Also we can shore it up.”
</p>
<p>
“How about something to eat? I want my tea,” said Bastin.
</p>
<p>
“Then, my reverend friend,” replied Bickley, “take a couple
of the fire buckets and fetch some water from the stream. Also collect
driftwood of which there is plenty about, clean those fish and grill them over
the saloon stove.”
</p>
<p>
“I’ll try,” said Bastin, “but I never did any cooking
before.”
</p>
<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>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>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>
<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>
<p>
“At least he is a deserter and failed in his duty. I never wish to hear
of him again,” I said.
</p>
<p>
As a matter of fact I never have. But the incident remains quite unexplained
either by Bickley or Bastin.
</p>
</div><!--end chapter-->
<div class="chapter">
<h2><a name="chap07" id="chap07"></a>CHAPTER VII.<br />
The Orofenans</h2>
<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>
<p>
“However much we may differ, Bastin, I respect you for that
sentiment,” commented Bickley.
</p>
<p>
“I don’t know why you should,” answered Bastin; “but if
so, you might follow my example.”
</p>
<p>
That night we slept like logs, trusting to our teak door which we barricaded,
and to Tommy, who was a most excellent watch-dog, to guard us against surprise.
At any rate we took the risk. As a matter of fact, nothing happened, though
before dawn Tommy did growl a good deal, for I heard him, but as he sank into
slumber again on my bed, I did not get up. In the morning I found from fresh
footprints that two or three men had been prowling about the ship, though at a
little distance.
</p>
<p>
We rose early, and taking the necessary precautions, bathed in the pool. Then
we breakfasted, and having filled every available receptacle with water, which
took us a long time as these included a large tank that supplied the bath, so
that we might have at least a week’s supply in case of siege, we went on
deck and debated what we should do. In the end we determined to stop where we
were and await events, because, as I pointed out, it was necessary that we
should discover whether these natives were hostile or friendly. In the former
event we could hold our own on the ship, whereas away from it we must be
overwhelmed; in the latter there was always time to move inland.
</p>
<p>
About ten o’clock when we were seated on stools smoking, with our guns by
our side—for here, owing to the overhanging cliff in which it will be
remembered the prow of the ship was buried, we could not be reached by missiles
thrown from above—we saw numbers of the islanders advancing upon us along
the beach on either side. They were preceded as before by women who bore food
on platters and in baskets. These people, all talking excitedly and laughing
after their fashion, stopped at a distance, so we took no notice of them.
Presently Marama, clad in his feather cloak, and again accompanied by priests
or medicine-men, appeared walking down the path on the cliff face, and,
standing below, made salutations and entered into a conversation with us of
which I give the substance—that is, so far as we could understand it.
</p>
<p>
He reproached us for not having come to him as he expected we would do. We
replied that we preferred to remain where we were until we were sure of our
greeting and asked him what was the position. He explained that only once
before, in the time of his grandfather, had any people reached their shores,
also during a great storm as we had done. They were dark-skinned men like
themselves, three of them, but whence they came was never known, since they
were at once seized and sacrificed to the god Oro, which was the right thing to
do in such a case.
</p>
<p>
We asked whether he would consider it right to sacrifice us. He replied:
</p>
<p>
Certainly, unless we were too strong, being gods ourselves, or unless an
arrangement could be concluded. We asked—what arrangement? He replied
that we must make them gifts; also that we must do what we had promised and
cure him—the chief—of the disease which had tormented him for
years. In that event everything would be at our disposal and we, with all our
belongings, should become <i>taboo</i>, holy, not to be touched. None would
attempt to harm us, nothing should be stolen under penalty of death.
</p>
<p>
We asked him to come up on the deck with only one companion that his sickness
might be ascertained, and after much hesitation he consented to do so. Bickley
made an examination of the growth and announced that he believed it could be
removed with perfect safety as the attachment to the neck was very slight, but
of course there was always a risk. This was explained to him with difficulty,
and much talk followed between him and his followers who gathered on the beach
beneath the ship. They seemed adverse to the experiment, till Marama grew
furious with them and at last burst into tears saying that he could no longer
drag this terrible burden about with him, and he touched the growth. He would
rather die. Then they gave way.
</p>
<p>
I will tell the rest as shortly as I can.
</p>
<p>
A hideous wooden idol was brought on board, wrapped in leaves and feathers, and
upon it the chief and his head people swore safety to us whether he lived or
died, making us the guests of their land. There were, however, two provisos
made, or as such we understood them. These seemed to be that we should offer no
insult or injury to their god, and secondly, that we should not set foot on the
island in the lake. It was not till afterwards that it occurred to me that this
must refer to the mountain top which appeared in the inland sheet of water. To
those stipulations we made no answer. Indeed, the Orofenans did all the
talking. Finally, they ratified their oaths by a man who, I suppose, was a head
priest, cutting his arm and rubbing the blood from it on the lips of the idol;
also upon those of the chief. I should add that Bastin had retired as soon as
he saw that false god appear, of which I was glad, since I felt sure that he
would make a scene.
</p>
<p>
The operation took place that afternoon and on the ship, for when once Marama
had made up his mind to trust us he did so very thoroughly. It was performed on
deck in the presence of an awed multitude who watched from the shore, and when
they saw Bickley appear in a clean nightshirt and wash his hands, uttered a
groan of wonder. Evidently they considered it a magical and religious ceremony;
indeed ever afterwards they called Bickley the Great Priest, or sometimes the
Great Healer in later days. This was a grievance to Bastin who considered that
he had been robbed of his proper title, especially when he learned that among
themselves he was only known as “the Bellower,” because of the loud
voice in which he addressed them. Nor did Bickley particularly appreciate the
compliment.
</p>
<p>
With my help he administered the chloroform, which was done under shelter of a
sail for fear lest the people should think that we were smothering their chief.
Then the operation went on to a satisfactory conclusion. I omit the details,
but an electric battery and a red-hot wire came into play.
</p>
<p>
“There,” said Bickley triumphantly when he had finished tying the
vessels and made everything neat and tidy with bandages, “I was afraid he
might bleed to death, but I don’t think there is any fear of that now,
for I have made a real job of it.” Then advancing with the horrid tumour
in his hands he showed it in triumph to the crowd beneath, who groaned again
and threw themselves on to their faces. Doubtless now it is the most sacred
relic of Orofena.
</p>
<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>i.e.</i>, 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 <i>taboo</i> 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>
<p>
At first he enjoyed it very much, but when we had been established in the house
for about three weeks he remarked, after putting in a solid ten hours of work,
that for all the holiday he was getting he might as well be back at his old
practice, with the difference that there he was earning several thousands a
year. Just then a poor woman arrived with a baby in convulsions to whose
necessities he was obliged to sacrifice his supper, after which came a man who
had fallen from a palm tree and broken his leg.
</p>
<p>
Nor did I escape, since having somehow or other established a reputation for
wisdom, as soon as I had mastered sufficient of the language, every kind of
knotty case was laid before me for decision. In short, I became a sort of Chief
Justice—not an easy office as it involved the acquirement of the native
law which was intricate and peculiar, especially in matrimonial cases.
</p>
<p>
At these oppressive activities Bastin looked on with a gloomy eye.
</p>
<p>
“You fellows seem very busy,” he said one evening; “but I can
find nothing to do. They don’t seem to want me, and merely to set a good
example by drinking water or tea while you swallow whisky and their palm wine,
or whatever it is, is very negative kind of work, especially as I am getting
tired of planting things in the garden and playing policeman round the wreck
which nobody goes near. Even Tommy is better off, for at least he can bark and
hunt rats.”
</p>
<p>
“You see,” said Bickley, “we are following our trades.
Arbuthnot is a lawyer and acts as a judge. I am a surgeon and I may add a
general—a very general—practitioner and work at medicine in an
enormous and much-neglected practice. Therefore, you, being a clergyman, should
go and do likewise. There are some ten thousand people here, but I do not
observe that as yet you have converted a single one.”
</p>
<p>
Thus spoke Bickley in a light and unguarded moment with his usual object of
what is known as “getting a rise” out of Bastin. Little did he
guess what he was doing.
</p>
<p>
Bastin thought a while ponderously, then said:
</p>
<p>
“It is very strange from what peculiar sources Providence sometimes sends
inspirations. If wisdom flows from babes and sucklings, why should it not do so
from the well of agnostics and mockers?”
</p>
<p>
“There is no reason which I can see,” scoffed Bickley,
“except that as a rule wells do not flow.”
</p>
<p>
“Your jest is ill-timed and I may add foolish,” continued Bastin.
“What I was about to add was that you have given me an idea, as it was no
doubt intended that you should do. I will, metaphorically speaking, gird up my
loins and try to bear the light into all this heathen blackness.”
</p>
<p>
“Then it is one of the first you ever had, old fellow. But what’s
the need of girding up your loins in this hot climate?” inquired Bickley
with innocence. “Pyjamas and that white and green umbrella of yours would
do just as well.”
</p>
<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>
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>
<p>
“Within a year, my dear fellow,” said Bickley, “you will have
your throat cut as a sacrifice, and probably ours also. It is a pity, too, as
within that time I should have stamped out ophthalmia and some other diseases
in the island.”
</p>
<p>
Here, leaving Bastin and his good work aside for a while, I will say a little
about the country. From information which I gathered on some journeys that I
made and by inquiries from the chief Marama, who had become devoted to us, I
found that Orofena was quite a large place. In shape the island was circular, a
broad band of territory surrounding the great lake of which I have spoken, that
in its turn surrounded a smaller island from which rose the mountain top. No
other land was known to be near the shores of Orofena, which had never been
visited by anyone except the strangers a hundred years ago or so, who were
sacrificed and eaten. Most of the island was covered with forest which the
inhabitants lacked the energy, and indeed had no tools, to fell. They were an
extremely lazy people and would only cultivate enough bananas and other food to
satisfy their immediate needs. In truth they lived mostly upon breadfruit and
other products of the wild trees.
</p>
<p>
Thus it came about that in years of scarcity through drought or climatic
causes, which prevented the forest trees from bearing, they suffered very much
from hunger. In such years hundreds of them would perish and the remainder
resorted to the dreadful expedient of cannibalism. Sometimes, too, the shoals
of fish avoided their shores, reducing them to great misery. Their only
domestic animal was the pig which roamed about half wild and in no great
numbers, for they had never taken the trouble to breed it in captivity. Their
resources, therefore, were limited, which accounted for the comparative
smallness of the population, further reduced as it was by a wicked habit of
infanticide practised in order to lighten the burden of bringing up children.
</p>
<p>
They had no traditions as to how they reached this land, their belief being
that they had always been there but that their forefathers were much greater
than they. They were poetical, and sang songs in a language which themselves
they could not understand; they said that it was the tongue their forefathers
had spoken. Also they had several strange customs of which they did not know
the origin. My own opinion, which Bickley shared, was that they were in fact a
shrunken and deteriorated remnant of some high race now coming to its end
through age and inter-breeding. About them indeed, notwithstanding their
primitive savagery which in its qualities much resembled that of other
Polynesians, there was a very curious air of antiquity. One felt that they had
known the older world and its mysteries, though now both were forgotten. Also
their language, which in time we came to speak perfectly, was copious, musical,
and expressive in its idioms.
</p>
<p>
One circumstance I must mention. In walking about the country I observed all
over it enormous holes, some of them measuring as much as a hundred yards
across, with a depth of fifty feet or more, and this not on alluvial lands
although there traces of them existed also, but in solid rock. What this rock
was I do not know as none of us were geologists, but it seemed to me to partake
of the nature of granite. Certainly it was not coral like that on and about the
coast, but of a primeval formation.
</p>
<p>
When I asked Marama what caused these holes, he only shrugged his shoulders and
said he did not know, but their fathers had declared that they were made by
stones falling from heaven. This, of course, suggested meteorites to my mind. I
submitted the idea to Bickley, who, in one of his rare intervals of leisure,
came with me to make an examination.
</p>
<p>
“If they were meteorites,” he said, “of which a shower struck
the earth in some past geological age, all life must have been destroyed by
them and their remains ought to exist at the bottom of the holes. To me they
look more like the effect of high explosives, but that, of course, is
impossible, though I don’t know what else could have caused such
craters.”
</p>
<p>
Then he went back to his work, for nothing that had to do with antiquity
interested Bickley very much. The present and its problems were enough for him,
he would say, who neither had lived in the past nor expected to have any share
in the future.
</p>
<p>
As I remained curious I made an opportunity to scramble to the bottom of one of
these craters, taking with me some of the natives with their wooden tools. Here
I found a good deal of soil either washed down from the surface or resulting
from the decomposition of the rock, though oddly enough in it nothing grew. I
directed them to dig. After a while to my astonishment there appeared a corner
of a great worked stone quite unlike that of the crater, indeed it seemed to me
to be a marble. Further examination showed that this block was most beautifully
carved in bas-relief, apparently with a design of leaves and flowers. In the
disturbed soil also I picked up a life-sized marble hand of a woman exquisitely
finished and apparently broken from a statue that might have been the work of
one of the great Greek sculptors. Moreover, on the third finger of this hand
was a representation of a ring whereof, unfortunately, the bezel had been
destroyed.
</p>
<p>
I put the hand in my pocket, but as darkness was coming on, I could not pursue
the research and disinter the block. When I wished to return the next day, I
was informed politely by Marama that it would not be safe for me to do so as
the priests of Oro declared that if I sought to meddle with the “buried
things the god would grow angry and bring disaster on me.”
</p>
<p>
When I persisted he said that at least I must go alone since no native would
accompany me, and added earnestly that he prayed me not to go. So to my great
regret and disappointment I was obliged to give up the idea.
</p>
</div><!--end chapter-->
<div class="chapter">
<h2><a name="chap08" id="chap08"></a>CHAPTER VIII.<br />
Bastin Attempts the Martyr’s Crown</h2>
<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>
<p>
But I, who have certain leanings towards the ancient and mysterious, could not
be put off in this fashion. I remembered that unapproachable mountain in the
midst of the lake and that on it appeared to be something which looked like
ruins as seen from the top of the cliff through glasses. At any rate this was a
point that I might clear up.
</p>
<p>
Saying nothing to anybody, one morning I slipped away and walked to the edge of
the lake, a distance of five or six miles over rough country. Having arrived
there I perceived that the cone-shaped mountain in the centre, which was about
a mile from the lake shore, was much larger than I had thought, quite three
hundred feet high indeed, and with a very large circumference. Further, its
sides evidently once had been terraced, and it was on one of these broad
terraces, half-way up and facing towards the rising sun, that the ruin-like
remains were heaped. I examined them through my glasses. Undoubtedly it was a
cyclopean ruin built of great blocks of coloured stone which seemed to have
been shattered by earthquake or explosion. There were the pillars of a mighty
gateway and the remains of walls.
</p>
<p>
I trembled with excitement as I stared and stared. Could I not get to the place
and see for myself? I observed that from the flat bush-clad land at the foot of
the mountain, ran out what seemed to be the residue of a stone pier which ended
in a large table-topped rock between two and three hundred feet across. But
even this was too far to reach by swimming, besides for aught I knew there
might be alligators in that lake. I walked up and down its borders, till
presently I came to a path which led into a patch of some variety of cotton
palm.
</p>
<p>
Following this path I discovered a boat-house thatched over with palm leaves.
Inside it were two good canoes with their paddles, floating and tied to the
stumps of trees by fibre ropes. Instantly I made up my mind that I would paddle
to the island and investigate. Just as I was about to step into one of the
canoes the light was cut off. Looking up I saw that a man was crouching in the
door-place of the boat-house in order to enter, and paused guiltily.
</p>
<p>
“Friend-from-the-Sea” (that was the name that these islanders had
given to me), said the voice of Marama, “say—what are you doing
here?”
</p>
<p>
“I am about to take a row on the lake, Chief,” I answered
carelessly.
</p>
<p>
“Indeed, Friend. Have we then treated you so badly that you are tired of
life?”
</p>
<p>
“What do you mean?” I asked.
</p>
<p>
“Come out into the sunlight, Friend, and I will explain to you.”
</p>
<p>
I hesitated till I saw Marama lifting the heavy wooden spear he carried and
remembered that I was unarmed. Then I came out.
</p>
<p>
“What does all this mean, Chief?” I asked angrily when we were
clear of the patch of cotton palm.
</p>
<p>
“I mean, Friend, that you have been very near to making a longer journey
than you thought. Have patience now and listen to me. I saw you leaving the
village this morning and followed, suspecting your purpose. Yes, I followed
alone, saying nothing to the priests of Oro who fortunately were away watching
the Bellower for their own reasons. I saw you searching out the secrets of the
mountain with those magic tubes that make things big that are small, and things
that are far off come near, and I followed you to the canoes.”
</p>
<p>
“All that is plain enough, Marama. But why?”
</p>
<p>
“Have I not told you, Friend-from-the-Sea, that yonder hill which is
called Orofena, whence this island takes its name, is sacred?”
</p>
<p>
“You said so, but what of it?”
</p>
<p>
“This: to set foot thereon is to die and, I suppose, great as you are,
you, too, can die like others. At least, although I love you, had you not come
away from that canoe I was about to discover whether this is so.”
</p>
<p>
“Then for what are the canoes used?” I asked with irritation.
</p>
<p>
“You see that flat rock, Friend, with the hole beyond, which is the mouth
of a cave that appeared only in the great storm that brought you to our land?
They are used to convey offerings which are laid upon the rock. Beyond it no
man may go, and since the beginning no man has ever gone.”
</p>
<p>
“Offerings to whom?”
</p>
<p>
“To the Oromatuas, the spirits of the great dead who live there.”
</p>
<p>
“Oromatuas? Oro! It is always something to do with Oro. Who and what is
Oro?”
</p>
<p>
“Oro is a god, Friend, though it is true that the priests say that above
him there is a greater god called Degai, the Creator, the Fate who made all
things and directs all things.”
</p>
<p>
“Very well, but why do you suppose that Oro, the servant of Degai, lives
in that mountain? I thought that he lived in a grove yonder where your priests,
as I am told, have an image of him.”
</p>
<p>
“I do not know, Friend-from-the-Sea, but so it has been held from the
beginning. The image in the grove is only visited by his spirit from time to
time. Now, I pray you, come back and before the priests discover that you have
been here, and forget that there are any canoes upon this lake.”
</p>
<p>
So, thinking it wisest, I turned the matter with a laugh and walked away with
him to the village. On our road I tried to extract some more information but
without success. He did not know who built the ruin upon the mountain, or who
destroyed it. He did not know how the terraces came there. All he knew was that
during the convulsion of Nature which resulted in the tidal wave that had
thrown our ship upon the island, the mountain had been seen to quiver like a
tree in the wind as though within it great forces were at work. Then it was
observed to have risen a good many more feet above the surface of the lake, as
might be noted by the water mark upon the shore, and then also the mouth of the
cave had appeared. The priests said that all this was because the Oromatuas who
dwelt there were stirring, which portended great things. Indeed great things
had happened—for had we not arrived in their land?
</p>
<p>
I thanked him for what he had told me, and, as there was nothing more to be
learned, dropped the subject which was never mentioned between us again, at
least not for a long while. But in my heart I determined that I would reach
that mountain even though to do so I must risk my life. Something seemed to
call me to the place; it was as though I were being drawn by a magnet.
</p>
<p class="p2">
As it happened, before so very long I did go to the mountain, not of my own
will but because I was obliged. It came about thus. One night I asked Bastin
how he was getting on with his missionary work. He replied: Very well indeed,
but there was one great obstacle in his path, the idol in the Grove. Were it
not for this accursed image he believed that the whole island would become
Christian. I asked him to be more plain. He explained that all his work was
thwarted by this idol, since his converts declared that they did not dare to be
baptised while it sat there in the Grove. If they did, the spirit that was in
it would bewitch them and perhaps steal out at night and murder them.
</p>
<p>
“The spirit being our friends the sorcerers,” I suggested.
</p>
<p>
“That’s it, Arbuthnot. Do you know, I believe those devilish men
sometimes offer human sacrifices to this satanic fetish, when there is a
drought or anything of that sort.”
</p>
<p>
“I can quite believe it,” I answered, “but as they will
scarcely remove their god and with it their own livelihood and authority, I am
afraid that as we don’t want to be sacrificed, there is nothing to be
done.”
</p>
<p>
At this moment I was called away. As I went I heard Bastin muttering something
about martyrs, but paid no attention. Little did I guess what was going on in
his pious but obstinate mind. In effect it was this—that if no one else
would remove that idol he was quite ready to do it himself.
</p>
<p>
However, he was very cunning over that business, almost Jesuitical indeed. Not
one word did he breathe of his dark plans to me, and still less to Bickley. He
just went on with his teaching, lamenting from time to time the stumbling-block
of the idol and expressing wonder as to how it might be circumvented by a
change in the hearts of the islanders, or otherwise. Sad as it is to record, in
fact, dear old Bastin went as near to telling a fib in connection with this
matter as I suppose he had ever done in his life. It happened thus. One day
Bickley’s sharp eye caught sight of Bastin walking about with what looked
like a bottle of whisky in his pocket.
</p>
<p>
“Hallo, old fellow,” he said, “has the self-denying ordinance
broken down? I didn’t know that you took pegs on the sly,” and he
pointed to the bottle.
</p>
<p>
“If you are insinuating, Bickley, that I absorb spirits surreptitiously,
you are more mistaken than usual, which is saying a good deal. This bottle
contains, not Scotch whisky but paraffin, although I admit that its label may
have misled you, unintentionally, so far as I am concerned.”
</p>
<p>
“What are you going to do with the paraffin?” asked Bickley.
</p>
<p>
Bastin coloured through his tan and replied awkwardly:
</p>
<p>
“Paraffin is very good to keep away mosquitoes if one can stand the smell
of it upon one’s skin. Not that I have brought it here with that sole
object. The truth is that I am anxious to experiment with a lamp of my own
design made—um—of native wood,” and he departed in a hurry.
</p>
<p>
“When next old Bastin wants to tell a lie,” commented Bickley,
“he should make up his mind as to what it is to be, and stick to it. I
wonder what he is after with that paraffin? Not going to dose any of my
patients with it, I hope. He was arguing the other day that it is a great
remedy taken internally, being quite unaware that the lamp variety is not used
for that purpose.”
</p>
<p>
“Perhaps he means to swallow some himself, just to show that he is
right,” I suggested.
</p>
<p>
“The stomach-pump is at hand,” said Bickley, and the matter
dropped.
</p>
<p>
Next morning I got up before it was light. Having some elementary knowledge of
the main facts of astronomy, which remained with me from boyhood when I had
attended lectures on the subject, which I had tried to refresh by help of an
encyclopedia I had brought from the ship, I wished to attempt to obtain an idea
of our position by help of the stars. In this endeavour, I may say, I failed
absolutely, as I did not know how to take a stellar or any other observation.
</p>
<p>
On my way out of our native house I observed, by the lantern I carried, that
the compartment of it occupied by Bastin was empty, and wondered whither he had
gone at that hour. On arriving at my observation-post, a rocky eminence on open
ground, where, with Tommy at my side, I took my seat with a telescope, I was
astonished to see or rather to hear a great number of the natives walking past
the base of the mound towards the bush. Then I remembered that some one,
Marama, I think, had informed me that there was to be a great sacrifice to Oro
at dawn on that day. After this I thought no more of the matter but occupied
myself in a futile study of the heavenly bodies. At length the dawn broke and
put a period to my labours.
</p>
<p>
Glancing round me before I descended from the little hill, I saw a flame of
light appear suddenly about half a mile or more away among those trees which I
knew concealed the image of Oro. On this personally I had never had the
curiosity to look, as I knew that it was only a hideous idol stuck over with
feathers and other bedizenments. The flame shot suddenly straight into the
still air and was followed a few seconds later by the sound of a dull
explosion, after which it went out. Also it was followed by something
else—a scream of rage from an infuriated mob.
</p>
<p>
At the foot of the hill I stopped to wonder what these sounds might mean. Then
of a sudden appeared Bickley, who had been attending some urgent case, and
asked me who was exploding gunpowder. I told him that I had no idea.
</p>
<p>
“Then I have,” he answered. “It is that ass Bastin up to some
game. Now I guess why he wanted that paraffin. Listen to the row. What are they
after?”
</p>
<p>
“Sacrificing Bastin, perhaps,” I replied, half in jest. “Have
you your revolver?”
</p>
<p>
He nodded. We always wore our pistols if we went out during the dark hours.
</p>
<p>
“Then perhaps we had better go to see.”
</p>
<p>
We started, and had not covered a hundred yards before a girl, whom I
recognised as one of Bastin’s converts, came flying towards us and
screaming out, “Help! Help! They kill the Bellower with fire! They cook
him like a pig!”
</p>
<p>
“Just what I expected,” said Bickley.
</p>
<p>
Then we ran hard, as evidently there was no time to lose. While we went I
extracted from the terrified girl, whom we forced to show us the way, that as
the sacrifice was about to be offered Bastin had appeared, and, “making
fire,” applied it to the god Oro, who instantly burst into flame. Then he
ran back, calling out that the devil was dead. As he did so there was a loud
explosion and Oro flew into pieces. His burning head went a long way into the
air and, falling on to one of the priests, killed him. Thereon the other
priests and the people seized the Bellower and made him fast. Now they were
engaged in heating an oven in which to put him to cook. When it was ready they
would eat him in honour of Oro.
</p>
<p>
“And serve him right too!” gasped Bickley, who, being stout, was
not a good runner. “Why can’t he leave other people’s gods
alone instead of blowing them up with gunpowder?”
</p>
<p>
“Don’t know,” I answered. “Hope we shall get there in
time!”
</p>
<p>
“To be cooked and eaten with Bastin!” wheezed Bickley, after which
his breath gave out.
</p>
<p>
As it chanced we did, for these stone ovens take a long time to heat. There by
the edge of his fiery grave with his hands and legs bound in palm-fibre
shackles, stood Bastin, quite unmoved, smiling indeed, in a sort of seraphic
way which irritated us both extremely. Round him danced the infuriated priests
of Oro, and round them, shrieking and howling with rage, was most of the
population of Orofena. We rushed up so suddenly that none tried to stop us, and
took our stand on either side of him, producing our pistols as we did so.
</p>
<p>
“Thank you for coming,” said Bastin in the silence which followed;
“though I don’t think it is the least use. I cannot recall that any
of the early martyrs were ever roasted and eaten, though, of course, throwing
them into boiling oil or water was fairly common. I take it that the rite is
sacrificial and even in a low sense, sacramental, not merely one of common
cannibalism.”
</p>
<p>
I stared at him, and Bickley gasped out:
</p>
<p>
“If you are to be eaten, what does it matter why you are eaten?”
</p>
<p>
“Oh!” replied Bastin; “there is all the difference in the
world, though it is one that I cannot expect you to appreciate. And now please
be quiet as I wish to say my prayers. I imagine that those stones will be hot
enough to do their office within twenty minutes or so, which is not very
long.”
</p>
<p>
At that moment Marama appeared, evidently in a state of great perturbation.
With him were some of the priests or sorcerers who were dancing about as I
imagine the priests of Baal must have done, and filled with fury. They rolled
their eyes, they stuck out their tongues, they uttered weird cries and shook
their wooden knives at the placid Bastin.
</p>
<p>
“What is the matter?” I asked sternly of the chief.
</p>
<p>
“This, Friend-from-the-Sea. The Bellower there, when the sacrifice was
about to be offered to Oro at the dawn, rushed forward, and having thrust
something between the legs of the image of the god, poured yellow water over
it, and with fire caused it to burst into fierce flame. Then he ran away and
mocked the god who presently, with a loud report, flew into pieces and killed
that man. Therefore the Bellower must be sacrificed.”
</p>
<p>
“What to?” I asked. “The image has gone and the piece of it
that ascended fell not upon the Bellower, as would have happened if the god had
been angry with him, but on one of its own priests, whom it killed. Therefore,
having been sacrificed by the god itself, he it is that should be eaten, not
the Bellower, who merely did what his Spirit bade him.”
</p>
<p>
This ingenious argument seemed to produce some effect upon Marama, but to the
priests it did not at all appeal.
</p>
<p>
“Eat them all!” these cried. “They are the enemies of Oro and
have worked sacrilege!”
</p>
<p>
Moreover, to judge from their demeanour, the bulk of the people seemed to agree
with them. Things began to look very ugly. The priests rushed forward,
threatening us with their wooden weapons, and one of them even aimed a blow at
Bickley, which only missed him by an inch or two.
</p>
<p>
“Look here, my friend,” called the doctor whose temper was rising,
“you name me the Great Priest or Great Healer, do you not? Well, be
careful, lest I should show you that I can kill as well as heal!”
</p>
<p>
Not in the least intimidated by this threat the man, a great bedizened fellow
who literally was foaming at the mouth with rage, rushed forward again, his
club raised, apparently with the object of dashing out Bickley’s brains.
</p>
<p>
Suddenly Bickley lifted his revolver and fired. The man, shot through the
heart, sprang into the air and fell upon his face—stone dead. There was
consternation, for these people had never seen us shoot anything before, and
were quite unacquainted with the properties of firearms, which they supposed to
be merely instruments for making a noise. They stared, they gasped in fear and
astonishment, and then they fled, pursued by Tommy, barking, leaving us alone
with the two dead men.
</p>
<p>
“It was time to teach them a lesson,” said Bickley as he replaced
the empty cartridge, and, seizing the dead man, rolled him into the burning
pit.
</p>
<p>
“Yes,” I answered; “but presently, when they have got over
their fright, they will come back to teach us one.”
</p>
<p>
Bastin said nothing; he seemed too dazed at the turn events had taken.
</p>
<p>
“What do you suggest?” asked Bickley.
</p>
<p>
“Flight,” I answered.
</p>
<p>
“Where to—the ship? We might hold that.”
</p>
<p>
“No; that is what they expect. Look! They are cutting off our road there.
To the island in the lake where they dare not follow us, for it is holy
ground.”
</p>
<p>
“How are we going to live on the island?” asked Bickley.
</p>
<p>
“I don’t know,” I replied; “but I am quite certain that
if we stay here we shall die.”
</p>
<p>
“Very well,” he said; “let us try it.”
</p>
<p>
While we were speaking I was cutting Bastin’s bonds. “Thank
you,” he said. “It is a great relief to stretch one’s arms
after they have been compressed with cords. But at the same time, I do not know
that I am really grateful. The martyr’s crown was hanging above me, so to
speak, and now it has vanished into the pit, like that man whom Bickley
murdered.”
</p>
<p>
“Look here,” exclaimed the exasperated Bickley, “if you say
much more, Bastin, I’ll chuck you into the pit too, to look for your
martyr’s crown, for I think you have done enough mischief for one
morning.”
</p>
<p>
“If you are trying to shift the responsibility for that unfortunate
man’s destruction on to me—”
</p>
<p>
“Oh! shut it and trot,” broke in Bickley. “Those infernal
savages are coming with your blessed converts leading the van.”
</p>
<p>
So we “trotted” at no mean pace. As we passed it, Bastin stooped
down and picked up the head of the image of Oro, much as Atalanta in Academy
pictures is represented as doing to the apples, and bore it away in triumph.
</p>
<p>
“I know it is scorched,” he ejaculated at intervals, “but
they might trim it up and stick it on to a new body as the original false god.
Now they <i>can’t</i>, for there’s nothing left.”
</p>
<p>
As a matter of fact, we were never in any real danger, for our pursuit was very
half-hearted indeed. To begin with, now that their first rage was over, the
Orofenans who were fond of us had no particular wish to do us to death, while
the ardour of their sorcerers, who wished this very much, had been greatly
cooled by the mysterious annihilation of their idol and the violent deaths of
two of their companions, which they thought might be reduplicated in their own
persons. So it came about that the chase, if noisy, was neither close nor
eager.
</p>
<p>
We reached the edge of the lake where was the boat-house of which I have spoken
already, travelling at little more than a walk. Here we made Bastin unfasten
the better of the two canoes that by good luck was almost filled with
offerings, which doubtless, according to custom, must be made upon the day of
this feast to Oro, while we watched against surprise at the boat-house door.
When he was ready we slipped in and took our seats, Tommy jumping in after us,
and pushed the canoe, now very heavily laden, out into the lake.
</p>
<p>
Here, at a distance of about forty paces, which we judged to be beyond wooden
spear-throw, we rested upon our paddles to see what would happen. All the crowd
of islanders had rushed to the lake edge where they stood staring at us
stupidly. Bastin, thinking the occasion opportune, lifted the hideous head of
the idol which he had carefully washed, and began to preach on the downfall of
“the god of the Grove.”
</p>
<p>
This action of his appeared to awake memories or forebodings in the minds of
his congregation. Perhaps some ancient prophecy was concerned—I do not
know. At any rate, one of the priests shouted something, whereon everybody
began to talk at once. Then, stooping down, they threw water from the lake over
themselves and rubbed its sand and mud into their hair, all the while making
genuflexions toward the mountain in the middle, after which they turned and
departed.
</p>
<p>
“Don’t you think we had better go back?” asked Bastin.
“Evidently my words have touched them and their minds are melting beneath
the light of Truth.”
</p>
<p>
“Oh! by all means,” replied Bickley with sarcasm; “for then
their spears will touch <i>us</i>, and our bodies will soon be melting above
the fires of that pit.”
</p>
<p>
“Perhaps you are right,” said Bastin; “at least, I admit that
you have made matters very difficult by your unjustifiable homicide of that
priest who I do not think meant to injure you seriously, and really was not at
all a bad fellow, though opinionated in some ways. Also, I do not suppose that
anybody is expected, as it were, to run his head into the martyr’s crown.
When it settles there of itself it is another matter.”
</p>
<p>
“Like a butterfly!” exclaimed the enraged Bickley.
</p>
<p>
“Yes, if you like to put it that way, though the simile seems a very poor
one; like a sunbeam would be better.”
</p>
<p>
Here Bickley gave way with his paddle so vigorously that the canoe was as
nearly as possible upset into the lake.
</p>
<p>
In due course we reached the flat Rock of Offerings, which proved to be quite
as wide as a double croquet lawn and much longer.
</p>
<p>
“What are those?” I asked, pointing to certain knobs on the edge of
the rock at a spot where a curved projecting point made a little harbour.
</p>
<p>
Bickley examined them, and answered:
</p>
<p>
“I should say that they are the remains of stone mooring-posts worn down
by many thousands of years of weather. Yes, look, there is the cut of the
cables upon the base of that one, and very big cables they must have
been.”
</p>
<p>
We stared at one another—that is, Bickley and I did, for Bastin was still
engaged in contemplating the blackened head of the god which he had overthrown.
</p>
</div><!--end chapter-->
<div class="chapter">
<h2><a name="chap09" id="chap09"></a>CHAPTER IX.<br />
The Island in the Lake</h2>
<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>
<p>
“You should cultivate the art of observation, Arbuthnot. What do you say,
Bastin?”
</p>
<p>
He stared at the grooves through his spectacles, and replied:
</p>
<p>
“I don’t say anything, except that I can’t see anybody to
make paths here. Indeed, the place seems quite unpopulated, and all the
Orofenans told me that they never landed on it because if they did they would
die. It is a part of their superstitious nonsense. If you have any idea in your
head you had better tell us quickly before we breakfast. I am very
hungry.”
</p>
<p>
“You always are,” remarked Bickley; “even when most
people’s appetites might have been affected. Well, I think that this
great plateau was once a landing-place for flying machines, and that there is
the air-shed or garage.”
</p>
<p>
Bastin stared at him.
</p>
<p>
“Don’t you think we had better breakfast?” he said.
“There are two roast pigs in that canoe, and lots of other food, enough
to last us a week, I should say. Of course, I understand that the blood you
have shed has thrown you off your balance. I believe it has that effect, except
on the most hardened. Flying machines were only invented a few years ago by the
brothers Wright in America.”
</p>
<p>
“Bastin,” said Bickley, “I begin to regret that I did not
leave you to take part in another breakfast yonder—I mean as the
principal dish.”
</p>
<p>
“It was Providence, not you, who prevented it, Bickley, doubtless because
I am unworthy of such a glorious end.”
</p>
<p>
“Then it is lucky that Providence is a good shot with a pistol. Stop
talking nonsense and listen. If those were paths worn by feet they would run to
the edge of the rock. They do not. They begin there in that gentle depression
and slope upwards somewhat steeply. The air machines, which were evidently
large, lit in the depression, possibly as a bird does, and then ran on wheels
or sledge skids along the grooves to the air-shed in the mountain. Come to the
cave and you will see.”
</p>
<p>
“Not till we have breakfast,” said Bastin. “I will get out a
pig. As a matter of fact, I had no supper last night, as I was taking a class
of native boys and making some arrangements of my own.”
</p>
<p>
As for me, I only whistled. It all seemed very feasible. And yet how could such
things be?
</p>
<p>
We unloaded the canoe and ate. Bastin’s appetite was splendid. Indeed, I
had to ask him to remember that when this supply was done I did not know where
we should find any more.
</p>
<p>
“Take no thought for the morrow,” he replied. “I have no
doubt it will come from somewhere,” and he helped himself to another
chop.
</p>
<p>
Never had I admired him so much. Not a couple of hours before he was about to
be cruelly murdered and eaten. But this did not seem to affect him in the
least. Bastin was the only man I have ever known with a really perfect faith.
It is a quality worth having and one that makes for happiness. What a great
thing not to care whether you are breakfasted on, or breakfast!
</p>
<p>
“I see that there is lots of driftwood about here,” he remarked,
“but unfortunately we have no tea, so in this climate it is of little
use, unless indeed we can catch some fish and cook them.”
</p>
<p>
“Stop talking about eating and help us to haul up the canoe,” said
Bickley.
</p>
<p>
Between the three of us we dragged and carried the canoe a long way from the
lake, fearing lest the natives should come and bear it off with our provisions.
Then, having given Tommy his breakfast off the scraps, we walked to the cave. I
glanced at my companions. Bickley’s face was alight with scientific
eagerness. Here are not dreams or speculations, but facts to be learned, it
seemed to say, and I will learn them. The past is going to show me some of its
secrets, to tell me how men of long ago lived and died and how far they had
advanced to that point on the road of civilisation at which I stand in my
little hour of existence.
</p>
<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>
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>
<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>
<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 <i>before</i> they were buried in some
ancient cataclysm, to be thus resurrected at the hour of our arrival upon the
island.
</p>
<p>
Without pausing to make any closer examination of these crumbled carvings, we
entered the yawning mouth of that great place, following and indeed walking in
the deep grooves that I have mentioned. Presently it seemed to open out as a
courtyard might at the end of a passage; yes, to open on to some vast place
whereof in that gloom we could not see the roof or the limits. All we knew was
that it must be enormous—the echoes of our voices and footsteps told us
as much, for these seemed to come back to us from high, high above and from
far, far away. Bickley and I said nothing; we were too overcome. But Bastin
remarked:
</p>
<p>
“Did you ever go to Olympia? I did once to see a kind of play where the
people said nothing, only ran about dressed up. They told me it was religious,
the sort of thing a clergyman should study. I didn’t think it religious
at all. It was all about a nun who had a baby.”
</p>
<p>
“Well, what of it?” snapped Bickley.
</p>
<p>
“Nothing particular, except that nuns don’t have babies, or if they
do the fact should not be advertised. But I wasn’t thinking of that. I
was thinking that this place is like an underground Olympia.”
</p>
<p>
“Oh, be quiet!” I said, for though Bastin’s description was
not bad, his monotonous, drawling voice jarred on me in that solemnity.
</p>
<p>
“Be careful where you walk,” whispered Bickley, for even he seemed
awed, “there may be pits in this floor.”
</p>
<p>
“I wish we had a light,” I said, halting.
</p>
<p>
“If candles are of any use,” broke in Bastin, “as it happens
I have a packet in my pocket. I took them with me this morning for a certain
purpose.”
</p>
<p>
“Not unconnected with the paraffin and the burning of the idol, I
suppose?” said Bickley. “Hand them over.”
</p>
<p>
“Yes; if I had been allowed a little more time I intended—”
</p>
<p>
“Never mind what you intended; we know what you did and that’s
enough,” said Bickley as he snatched the packet from Bastin’s hand
and proceeded to undo it, adding, “By heaven! I have no matches, nor have
you, Arbuthnot!”
</p>
<p>
“I have a dozen boxes of wax vestas in my other pocket,” said
Bastin. “You see, they burn so well when you want to get up a fire on a
damp idol. As you may have noticed, the dew is very heavy here.”
</p>
<p>
In due course these too were produced. I took possession of them as they were
too valuable to be left in the charge of Bastin, and, extracting a box from the
packet, lit two of the candles which were of the short thick variety, like
those used in carriage-lamps.
</p>
<p>
Presently they burned up, making two faint stars of light which, however, were
not strong enough to show us either the roof or the sides of that vast place.
By their aid we pursued our path, still following the grooves till suddenly
these came to an end. Now all around us was a flat floor of rock which, as we
perceived clearly when we pushed aside the dust that had gathered thickly on it
in the course of ages, doubtless from the gradual disintegration of the stony
walls, had once been polished till it resembled black marble. Indeed, certain
cracks in the floor appeared to have been filled in with some dark-coloured
cement. I stood looking at them while Bickley wandered off to the right and a
little forward, and presently called to me. I walked to him, Bastin sticking
close to me as I had the other candle, as did the little dog, Tommy, who did
not like these new surroundings and would not leave my heels.
</p>
<p>
“Look,” said Bickley, holding up his candle, “and tell
me—what’s that?”
</p>
<p>
Before me, faintly shown, was some curious structure of gleaming rods made of
yellowish metal, which rods appeared to be connected by wires. The structure
might have been forty feet high and perhaps a hundred long. Its bottom part was
buried in dust.
</p>
<p>
“What is that?” asked Bickley again.
</p>
<p>
I made no answer, for I was thinking. Bastin, however, replied:
</p>
<p>
“It’s difficult to be sure in this light, but I should think that
it may be the remains of a cage in which some people who lived here kept
monkeys, or perhaps it was an aviary. Look at those little ladders for the
monkeys to climb by, or possibly for the birds to sit on.”
</p>
<p>
“Are you sure it wasn’t tame angels?” asked Bickley.
</p>
<p>
“What a ridiculous remark! How can you keep an angel in a cage?
I—”
</p>
<p>
“Aeroplane!” I almost whispered to Bickley.
</p>
<p>
“You’ve got it!” he answered. “The framework of an
aeroplane and a jolly large one, too. Only why hasn’t it oxidised?”
</p>
<p>
“Some indestructible metal,” I suggested. “Gold, for
instance, does not oxidise.”
</p>
<p>
He nodded and said:
</p>
<p>
“We shall have to dig it out. The dust is feet thick about it; we can do
nothing without spades. Come on.”
</p>
<p>
We went round to the end of the structure, whatever it might be, and presently
came to another. Again we went on and came to another, all of them being
berthed exactly in line.
</p>
<p>
“What did I tell you?” said Bickley in a voice of triumph. “A
whole garage full, a regular fleet of aeroplanes!”
</p>
<p>
“That must be nonsense,” said Bastin, “for I am quite sure
that these Orofenans cannot make such things. Indeed they have no metal, and
even cut the throats of pigs with wooden knives.”
</p>
<p>
Now I began to walk forward, bearing to the left so as to regain our former
line. We could do nothing with these metal skeletons, and I felt that there
must be more to find beyond. Presently I saw something looming ahead of me and
quickened my pace, only to recoil. For there, not thirty feet away and perhaps
three hundred yards from the mouth of the cave, suddenly appeared what looked
like a gigantic man. Tommy saw it also and barked as dogs do when they are
frightened, and the sound of his yaps echoed endlessly from every quarter,
which scared him to silence. Recovering myself I went forward, for now I
guessed the truth. It was not a man but a statue.
</p>
<p>
The thing stood upon a huge base which lessened by successive steps, eight of
them, I think, to its summit. The foot of this base may have been a square of
fifty feet or rather more; the real support or pedestal of the statue, however,
was only a square of about six feet. The figure itself was little above
life-size, or at any rate above our life-size, say seven feet in height. It was
very peculiar in sundry ways.
</p>
<p>
To begin with, nothing of the body was visible, for it was swathed like a
corpse. From these wrappings projected one arm, the right, in the hand of which
was the likeness of a lighted torch. The head was not veiled. It was that of a
man, long-nosed, thin-lipped, stern-visaged; the countenance pervaded by an
awful and unutterable calm, as deep as that of Buddha only less benign. On the
brow was a wreathed head-dress, not unlike an Eastern turban, from which sprang
two little wings resembling in some degree those on the famous Greek head of
Hypnos, lord of Sleep. Between the folds of the wrappings on the back sprang
two other wings, enormous wings bent like those of a bird about to take flight.
Indeed the whole attitude of the figure suggested that it was springing from
earth to air. It was executed in black basalt or some stone of the sort, and
very highly finished. For instance, on the bare feet and the arm which held the
torch could be felt every muscle and even some of the veins. In the same way
the details of the skull were perfectly perceptible to the touch, although at
first sight not visible on the marble surface. This was ascertained by climbing
on the pedestal and feeling the face with our hands.
</p>
<p>
Here I may say that its modelling as well as that of the feet and the arm
filled Bickley, who, of course, was a highly trained anatomist, with absolute
amazement. He said that he would never have thought it possible that such
accuracy could have been reached by an artist working in so hard a material.
</p>
<p>
When the others had arrived we studied this relic as closely as our two candles
would allow, and in turn expressed our opinions of its significance. Bastin
thought that if those things down there were really the remains of aeroplanes,
which he did not believe, the statue had something to do with flying, as was
shown by the fact that it had wings on its head and shoulders. Also, he added,
after examining the face, the head was uncommonly like that of the idol that he
had blown up. It had the same long nose and severe shut mouth. If he was right,
this was probably another effigy of Oro which we should do well to destroy at
once before the islanders came to worship it.
</p>
<p>
Bickley ground his teeth as he listened to him.
</p>
<p>
“Destroy that!” he gasped. “Destroy! Oh! you, you—early
Christian.”
</p>
<p>
Here I may state that Bastin was quite right, as we proved subsequently when we
compared the head of the fetish, which, as it will be remembered, he had
brought away with him, with that of the statue. Allowing for an enormous
debasement of art, they were essentially identical in the facial
characteristics. This would suggest the descent of a tradition through
countless generations. Or of course it may have been accidental. I am sure I do
not know, but I think it possible that for unknown centuries other old statues
may have existed in Orofena from which the idol was copied. Or some daring and
impious spirit may have found his way to the cave in past ages and fashioned
the local god upon this ancient model.
</p>
<p>
Bickley was struck at once, as I had been, with the resemblance of the figure
to that of the Egyptian Osiris. Of course there were differences. For instance,
instead of the crook and the scourge, this divinity held a torch. Again, in
place of the crown of Egypt it wore a winged head-dress, though it is true this
was not very far removed from the winged disc of that country. The wings that
sprang from its shoulders, however, suggested Babylonia rather than Egypt, or
the Assyrian bulls that are similarly adorned. All of these symbolical ideas
might have been taken from that figure. But what was it? What was it?
</p>
<p>
In a flash the answer came to me. A representation of the spirit of Death!
Neither more nor less. There was the shroud; there the cold, inscrutable
countenance suggesting mysteries that it hid. But the torch and the wings?
Well, the torch was that which lighted souls to the other world, and on the
wings they flew thither. Whoever fashioned that statue hoped for another life,
or so I was convinced.
</p>
<p>
I explained my ideas. Bastin thought them fanciful and preferred his notion of
a flying man, since by constitution he was unable to discover anything
spiritual in any religion except his own. Bickley agreed that it was probably
an allegorical representation of death but sniffed at my interpretation of the
wings and the torch, since by constitution he could not believe that the folly
of a belief in immortality could have developed so early in the world, that is,
among a highly civilised people such as must have produced this statue.
</p>
<p>
What we could none of us understand was why this ominous image with its dead,
cold face should have been placed in an aerodrome, nor in fact did we ever
discover. Possibly it was there long before the cave was put to this use. At
first the place may have been a temple and have so remained until circumstances
forced the worshippers to change their habits, or even their Faith.
</p>
<p>
We examined this wondrous work and the pedestal on which it stood as closely as
we were able by the dim light of our candles. I was anxious to go further and
see what lay beyond it; indeed we did walk a few paces, twenty perhaps, onward
into the recesses of the cave.
</p>
<p>
Then Bickley discovered something that looked like the mouth of a well down
which he nearly tumbled, and Bastin began to complain that he was hot and very
thirsty; also to point out that he wished for no more caves and idols at
present.
</p>
<p>
“Look here, Arbuthnot,” said Bickley, “these candles are
burning low and we don’t want to use up more if we can prevent it, for we
may need what we have got very badly later on. Now, according to my pocket
compass the mouth of this cave points due east; probably at the beginning it
was orientated to the rising sun for purposes of astronomical observation or of
worship at certain periods of the year. From the position of the sun when we
landed on the rock this morning I imagine that just now it rises almost exactly
opposite to the mouth of the cave. If this is so, to-morrow at dawn, for a time
at least, the light should penetrate as far as the statue, and perhaps further.
What I suggest is that we should wait till then to explore.”
</p>
<p>
I agreed with him, especially as I was feeling tired, being exhausted by
wonder, and wanted time to think. So we turned back. As we did so I missed
Tommy and inquired anxiously where he was, being afraid lest he might have
tumbled down the well-like hole.
</p>
<p>
“He’s all right,” said Bastin. “I saw him sniffing at
the base of that statue. I expect there is a rat in there, or perhaps a
snake.”
</p>
<p>
Sure enough when we reached it there was Tommy with his black nose pressed
against the lowest of the tiers that formed the base of the statue, and
sniffing loudly. Also he was scratching in the dust as a dog does when he has
winded a rabbit in a hole. So engrossed was he in this occupation that it was
with difficulty that I coaxed him to leave the place.
</p>
<p>
I did not think much of the incident at that time, but afterwards it came back
to me, and I determined to investigate those stones at the first opportunity.
</p>
<p>
Passing the wrecks of the machines, we emerged on to the causeway without
accident. After we had rested and washed we set to work to draw our canoe with
its precious burden of food right into the mouth of the cave, where we hid it
as well as we could.
</p>
<p>
This done we went for a walk round the base of the peak. This proved to be a
great deal larger than we had imagined, over two miles in circumference indeed.
All about it was a belt of fertile land, as I suppose deposited there by the
waters of the great lake and resulting from the decay of vegetation. Much of
this belt was covered with ancient forest ending in mud flats that appeared to
have been thrown up recently, perhaps at the time of the tidal wave which bore
us to Orofena. On the higher part of the belt were many of the extraordinary
crater-like holes that I have mentioned as being prevalent on the main island;
indeed the place had all the appearance of having been subjected to a terrific
and continuous bombardment.
</p>
<p>
When we had completed its circuit we set to work to climb the peak in order to
explore the terraces of which I have spoken and the ruins which I had seen
through my field-glasses. It was quite true; they were terraces cut with
infinite labour out of the solid rock, and on them had once stood a city, now
pounded into dust and fragments. We struggled over the broken blocks of stone
to what we had taken for a temple, which stood near the lip of the crater, for
without doubt this mound was an extinct volcano, or rather its crest. All we
could make out when we arrived was that here had once stood some great
building, for its courts could still be traced; also there lay about fragments
of steps and pillars.
</p>
<p>
Apparently the latter had once been carved, but the passage of innumerable ages
had obliterated the work and we could not turn these great blocks over to
discover if any remained beneath. It was as though the god Thor had broken up
the edifice with his hammer, or Jove had shattered it with his thunderbolts;
nothing else would account for that utter wreck, except, as Bickley remarked
significantly, the scientific use of high explosives.
</p>
<p>
Following the line of what seemed to have been a road, we came to the edge of
the volcano and found, as we expected, the usual depression out of which fire
and lava had once been cast, as from Hecla or Vesuvius. It was now a lake more
than a quarter of a mile across. Indeed it had been thus in the ancient days
when the buildings stood upon the terraces, for we saw the remains of steps
leading down to the water. Perhaps it had served as the sacred lake of the
temple.
</p>
<p>
We gazed with wonderment and then, wearied out, scrambled back through the
ruins, which, by the way, were of a different stone from the lava of the
mountain, to the mouth of the great cave.
</p>
</div><!--end chapter-->
<div class="chapter">
<h2><a name="chap10" id="chap10"></a>CHAPTER X.<br />
The Dwellers in the Tomb</h2>
<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>
<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>
<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>
<p>
“And what of the Bellower?” I asked, indicating Bastin.
</p>
<p>
“We should like to see him back also, Friend-from-the-Sea, that we may
sacrifice and eat him, who destroyed our god with fire and caused the Healer to
kill his priest.”
</p>
<p>
“That is most unjust,” exclaimed Bastin. “I deeply regret the
blood that was shed on the occasion, unnecessarily as I think.”
</p>
<p>
“Then go and atone for it with your own,” said Bickley, “and
everybody will be pleased.”
</p>
<p>
Waving to them to be silent, I said:
</p>
<p>
“Are you mad, Marama, that you should ask us to return to sojourn among
people who tried to kill us, merely because the Bellower caused fire to burn an
image of wood and its head to fly from its shoulders, just to show you that it
had no power to hold itself together, although you call it a god? Not so, we
wash our hands of you; we leave you to go your own way while we go ours, till
perchance in a day to come, after many misfortunes have overtaken you, you
creep about our feet and with prayers and offerings beg us to return.”
</p>
<p>
I paused to observe the effect of my words. It was excellent, for both Marama
and the priest wrung their hands and groaned. Then I went on:
</p>
<p>
“Meanwhile we have something to tell you. We have entered the cave where
you said no man might set a foot, and have seen him who sits within, the true
god.” (Here Bastin tried to interrupt, but was suppressed by Bickley.)
</p>
<p>
They looked at each other in a frightened way and groaned more loudly than
before.
</p>
<p>
“He sends you a message, which, as he told us of your approach, we came
to the shore to deliver to you.”
</p>
<p>
“How can you say that?” began Bastin, but was again violently
suppressed by Bickley.
</p>
<p>
“It is that he, the real Oro, rejoices that the false Oro, whose face is
copied from his face, has been destroyed. It is that he commands you day by day
to bring food in plenty and lay it upon the Rock of Offerings, not forgetting a
supply of fresh fish from the sea, and with it all those things that are stored
in the house wherein we, the strangers from the sea, deigned to dwell awhile
until we left you because in your wickedness you wished to murder us.”
</p>
<p>
“And if we refuse—what then?” asked the priest, speaking for
the first time.
</p>
<p>
“Then Oro will send death and destruction upon you. Then your food shall
fail and you shall perish of sickness and want, and the Oromatuas, the spirits
of the great dead, shall haunt you in your sleep, and Oro shall eat up your
souls.”
</p>
<p>
At these horrible threats both of them uttered a kind of wail, after which,
Marama asked:
</p>
<p>
“And if we consent, what then, Friend-from-the-Sea?”
</p>
<p>
“Then, perchance,” I answered, “in some day to come we may
return to you, that I may give you of my wisdom and the Great Healer may cure
your sick and the Bellower may lead you through his gate, and in his kindness
make you to see with his eyes.”
</p>
<p>
This last clause of my ultimatum did not seem to appeal to the priest, who
argued a while with Marama, though what he said we could not hear. In the end
he appeared to give way. At any rate Marama called out that all should be done
as we wished, and that meanwhile they prayed us to intercede with Oro in the
cave, and to keep back the ghosts from haunting them, and to protect them from
misfortune. I replied that we would do our best, but could guarantee nothing
since their offence was very great.
</p>
<p>
Then, to show that the conversation was at an end, we walked away with dignity,
pushing Bastin in front of us, lest he should spoil the effect by some of his
ill-timed and often over-true remarks.
</p>
<p>
“That’s capital,” said Bickley, when we were out of hearing.
“The enemy has capitulated. We can stop here as long as we like,
provisioned from the mainland, and if for any reason we wish to leave, be sure
of our line of retreat.”
</p>
<p>
“I don’t know what you call capital,” exclaimed Bastin.
“It seems to me that all the lies which Arbuthnot has just told are
sufficient to bring a judgment upon us. Indeed, I think that I will go back
with Marama and explain the truth.”
</p>
<p>
“I never before knew anybody who was so anxious to be cooked and
eaten,” remarked Bickley. “Moreover, you are too late, for the
canoe is a hundred yards away by now, and you shan’t have ours. Remember
the Pauline maxims, old fellow, which you are so fond of quoting, and be all
things to all men, and another that is more modern, that when you are at Rome,
you must do as the Romans do; also a third, that necessity has no law, and for
the matter of that, a fourth, that all is fair in love and war.”
</p>
<p>
“I am sure, Bickley, that Paul never meant his words to bear the debased
sense which you attribute to them—” began Bastin, but at this point
I hustled him off to light a fire—a process at which I pointed out he had
shown himself an expert.
</p>
<p>
We slept that night under the overhanging rock just to one side of the cave,
not in the mouth, because of the draught which drew in and out of the great
place. In that soft and balmy clime this was no hardship, although we lacked
blankets. And yet, tired though I was, I could not rest as I should have done.
Bastin snored away contentedly, quite unaffected by his escape which to him was
merely an incident in the day’s work; and so, too, slumbered Bickley,
except that he did not snore. But the amazement and the mystery of all that we
had discovered and of all that might be left for us to discover, held me back
from sleep.
</p>
<p>
What did it mean? What could it mean? My nerves were taut as harp strings and
seemed to vibrate to the touch of invisible fingers, although I could not
interpret the music that they made. Once or twice also I thought I heard actual
music with my physical ears, and that of a strange quality. Soft and low and
dreamful, it appeared to well from the recesses of the vast cave, a wailing
song in an unknown tongue from the lips of women, or of a woman, multiplied
mysteriously by echoes. This, however, must have been pure fancy, since there
was no singer there.
</p>
<p>
Presently I dozed off, to be awakened by the sudden sound of a great fish
leaping in the lake. I sat up and stared, fearing lest it might be the splash
of a paddle, for I could not put from my mind the possibility of attack. All I
saw, however, was the low line of the distant shore, and above it the bright
and setting stars that heralded the coming of the sun. Then I woke the others,
and we washed and ate, since once the sun rose time would be precious.
</p>
<p>
At length it appeared, splendid in a cloudless sky, and, as I had hoped,
directly opposite to the mouth of the cave. Taking our candles and some stout
pieces of driftwood which, with our knives, we had shaped on the previous
evening to serve us as levers and rough shovels, we entered the cave. Bickley
and I were filled with excitement and hope of what we knew not, but Bastin
showed little enthusiasm for our quest. His heart was with his half-converted
savages beyond the lake, and of them, quite rightly I have no doubt, he thought
more than he did of all the archaeological treasures in the whole earth. Still,
he came, bearing the blackened head of Oro with him which, with unconscious
humour, he had used as a pillow through the night because, as he said,
“it was after all softer than stone.” Also, I believe that in his
heart he hoped that he might find an opportunity of destroying the bigger and
earlier edition of Oro in the cave, before it was discovered by the natives who
might wish to make it an object of worship. Tommy came also, with greater
alacrity than I expected, since dogs do not as a rule like dark places. When we
reached the statue I learned the reason; he remembered the smell he had
detected at its base on the previous day, which Bastin supposed to proceed from
a rat, and was anxious to continue his investigations.
</p>
<p>
We went straight to the statue, although Bickley passed the half-buried
machines with evident regret. As we had hoped, the strong light of the rising
sun fell upon it in a vivid ray, revealing all its wondrous workmanship and the
majesty—for no other word describes it—of the somewhat terrifying
countenance that appeared above the wrappings of the shroud. Indeed, I was
convinced that originally this monument had been placed here in order that on
certain days of the year the sun might fall upon it thus, when probably
worshippers assembled to adore their hallowed symbol. After all, this was
common in ancient days: witness the instance of the awful Three who sit in the
deepest recesses of the temple of Abu Simbel, on the Nile.
</p>
<p>
We gazed and gazed our fill, at least Bickley and I did, for Bastin was
occupied in making a careful comparison between the head of his wooden Oro and
that of the statue.
</p>
<p>
“There is no doubt that they are very much alike,” he said.
“Why, whatever is that dog doing? I think it is going mad,” and he
pointed to Tommy who was digging furiously at the base of the lowest step, as
at home I have seen him do at roots that sheltered a rabbit.
</p>
<p>
Tommy’s energy was so remarkable that at length it seriously attracted
our attention. Evidently he meant that it should do so, for occasionally he
sprang back to me barking, then returned and sniffed and scratched. Bickley
knelt down and smelt at the stone.
</p>
<p>
“It is an odd thing, Humphrey,” he said, “but there is a
strange odour here, a very pleasant odour like that of sandal-wood or attar of
roses.”
</p>
<p>
“I never heard of a rat that smelt like sandal-wood or attar of
roses,” said Bastin. “Look out that it isn’t a snake.”
</p>
<p>
I knelt down beside Bickley, and in clearing away the deep dust from what
seemed to be the bottom of the step, which was perhaps four feet in height, by
accident thrust my amateur spade somewhat strongly against its base where it
rested upon the rocky floor.
</p>
<p>
Next moment a wonder came to pass. The whole massive rock began to turn
outwards as though upon a pivot! I saw it coming and grabbed Bickley by the
collar, dragging him back so that we just rolled clear before the great block,
which must have weighed several tons, fell down and crushed us. Tommy saw it
too, and fled, though a little late, for the edge of the block caught the tip
of his tail and caused him to emit a most piercing howl. But we did not think
of Tommy and his woes; we did not think of our own escape or of anything else
because of the marvel that appeared to us. Seated there upon the ground, after
our backward tumble, we could see into the space which lay behind the fallen
step, for there the light of the sun penetrated.
</p>
<p>
The first idea it gave me was that of the jewelled shrine of some mediaeval
saint which, by good fortune, had escaped the plunderers; there are still such
existing in the world. It shone and glittered, apparently with gold and
diamonds, although, as a matter of fact, there were no diamonds, nor was it
gold which gleamed, but some ancient metal, or rather amalgam, which is now
lost to the world, the same that was used in the tubes of the air-machines. I
think that it contained gold, but I do not know. At any rate, it was equally
lasting and even more beautiful, though lighter in colour.
</p>
<p>
For the rest this adorned recess which resembled that of a large funeral vault,
occupying the whole space beneath the base of the statue that was supported on
its arch, was empty save for two flashing objects that lay side by side but
with nearly the whole width of the vault between them.
</p>
<p>
I pointed at them to Bickley with my finger, for really I could not speak.
</p>
<p>
“Coffins, by Jove!” he whispered. “Glass or crystal coffins
and people in them. Come on!”
</p>
<p>
A few seconds later we were crawling into that vault while Bastin, still
nursing the head of Oro as though it were a baby, stood confused outside
muttering something about desecrating hallowed graves.
</p>
<p>
Just as we reached the interior, owing to the heightening of the sun, the light
passed away, leaving us in a kind of twilight. Bickley produced carriage
candles from his pocket and fumbled for matches. While he was doing so I
noticed two things—firstly, that the place really did smell like a
scent-shop, and, secondly, that the coffins seemed to glow with a kind of
phosphorescent light of their own, not very strong, but sufficient to reveal
their outlines in the gloom. Then the candles burnt up and we saw.
</p>
<p>
Within the coffin that stood on our left hand as we entered, for this crystal
was as transparent as plate glass, lay a most wonderful old man, clad in a
gleaming, embroidered robe. His long hair, which was parted in the middle, as
we could see beneath the edge of the pearl-sewn and broidered cap he wore, also
his beard were snowy white. The man was tall, at least six feet four inches in
height, and rather spare. His hands were long and thin, very delicately made,
as were his sandalled feet.
</p>
<p>
But it was his face that fixed our gaze, for it was marvelous, like the face of
a god, and, as we noticed at once, with some resemblance to that of the statue
above. Thus the brow was broad and massive, the nose straight and long, the
mouth stern and clear-cut, while the cheekbones were rather high, and the
eyebrows arched. Such are the characteristics of many handsome old men of good
blood, and as the mummies of Seti and others show us, such they have been for
thousands of years. Only this man differed from all others because of the
fearful dignity stamped upon his features. Looking at him I began to think at
once of the prophet Elijah as he must have appeared rising to heaven, enhanced
by the more earthly glory of Solomon, for although the appearance of these
patriarchs is unknown, of them one conceives ideas. Only it seemed probable
that Elijah may have looked more benign. Here there was no benignity, only
terrible force and infinite wisdom.
</p>
<p>
Contemplating him I shivered a little and felt thankful that he was dead. For
to tell the truth I was afraid of that awesome countenance which, I should add,
was of the whiteness of paper, although the cheeks still showed tinges of
colour, so perfect was the preservation of the corpse.
</p>
<p>
I was still gazing at it when Bickley said in a voice of amazement:
</p>
<p>
“I say, look here, in the other coffin.”
</p>
<p>
I turned, looked, and nearly collapsed on the floor of the vault, since beauty
can sometimes strike us like a blow. Oh! there before me lay all loveliness,
such loveliness that there burst from my lips an involuntary cry:
</p>
<p>
“Alas! that she should be dead!”
</p>
<p>
A young woman, I supposed, at least she looked young, perhaps five or six and
twenty years of age, or so I judged. There she lay, her tall and delicate shape
half hidden in masses of rich-hued hair in colour of a ruddy blackness. I know
not how else to describe it, since never have I seen any of the same tint.
Moreover, it shone with a life of its own as though it had been dusted with
gold. From between the masses of this hair appeared a face which I can only
call divine. There was every beauty that woman can boast, from the curving
eyelashes of extraordinary length to the sweet and human mouth. To these charms
also were added a wondrous smile and an air of kind dignity, very different
from the fierce pride stamped upon the countenance of the old man who was her
companion in death.
</p>
<p>
She was clothed in some close-fitting robe of white broidered with gold; pearls
were about her neck, lying far down upon the perfect bosom, a girdle of gold
and shining gems encircled her slender waist, and on her little feet were
sandals fastened with red stones like rubies. In truth, she was a splendid
creature, and yet, I know not how, her beauty suggested more of the spirit than
of the flesh. Indeed, in a way, it was unearthly. My senses were smitten, it
pulled at my heart-strings, and yet its unutterable strangeness seemed to awake
memories within me, though of what I could not tell. A wild fancy came to me
that I must have known this heavenly creature in some past life.
</p>
<p>
By now Bastin had joined us, and, attracted by my exclamation and by the
attitude of Bickley, who was staring down at the coffin with a fixed look upon
his face, not unlike that of a pointer when he scents game, he began to
contemplate the wonder within it in his slow way.
</p>
<p>
“Well, I never!” he said. “Do you think the Glittering Lady
in there is human?”
</p>
<p>
“The Glittering Lady is dead, but I suppose that she was human in her
life,” I answered in an awed whisper.
</p>
<p>
“Of course she is dead, otherwise she would not be in that glass coffin.
I think I should like to read the Burial Service over her, which I daresay was
never done when she was put in there.”
</p>
<p>
“How do you know she is dead?” asked Bickley in a sharp voice and
speaking for the first time. “I have seen hundreds of corpses, and
mummies too, but never any that looked like these.”
</p>
<p>
I stared at him. It was strange to hear Bickley, the scoffer at miracles,
suggesting that this greatest of all miracles might be possible.
</p>
<p>
“They must have been here a long time,” I said, “for although
human, they are not, I think, of any people known to the world to-day; their
dress, everything, shows it, though perhaps thousands of years
ago—” and I stopped.
</p>
<p>
“Quite so,” answered Bickley; “I agree. That is why I suggest
that they may have belonged to a race who knew what we do not, namely, how to
suspend animation for great periods of time.”
</p>
<p>
I said no more, nor did Bastin, who was now engaged in studying the old man,
and for once, wonderstruck and overcome. Bickley, however, took one of the
candles and began to make a close examination of the coffins. So did Tommy, who
sniffed along the join of that of the Glittering Lady until his nose reached a
certain spot, where it remained, while his black tail began to wag in a
delighted fashion. Bickley pushed him away and investigated.
</p>
<p>
“As I thought,” he said—“air-holes. See!”
</p>
<p>
I looked, and there, bored through the crystal of the coffin in a line with the
face of its occupant, were a number of little holes that either by accident or
design outlined the shape of a human mouth.
</p>
<p>
“They are not airtight,” murmured Bickley; “and if air can
enter, how can dead flesh remain like that for ages?”
</p>
<p>
Then he continued his search upon the other side.
</p>
<p>
“The lid of this coffin works on hinges,” he said. “Here they
are, fashioned of the crystal itself. A living person within could have pulled
it down before the senses departed.”
</p>
<p>
“No,” I answered; “for look, here is a crystal bolt at the
end and it is shot from without.”
</p>
<p>
This puzzled him; then as though struck by an idea, he began to examine the
other coffin.
</p>
<p>
“I’ve got it!” he exclaimed presently. “The old god in
here” (somehow we all thought of this old man as not quite normal)
“shut down the Glittering Lady’s coffin and bolted it. His own is
not bolted, although the bolt exists in the same place. He just got in and
pulled down the lid. Oh! what nonsense I am talking—for how can such
things be? Let us get out and think.”
</p>
<p>
So we crept from the sepulchre in which the perfumed air had begun to oppress
us and sat ourselves down upon the floor of the cave, where for a while we
remained silent.
</p>
<p>
“I am very thirsty,” said Bastin presently. “Those smells
seem to have dried me up. I am going to get some tea—I mean water, as
unfortunately there is no tea,” and he set off towards the mouth of the
cave.
</p>
<p>
We followed him, I don’t quite know why, except that we wished to breathe
freely outside, also we knew that the sepulchre and its contents would be as
safe as they had been for—well, how long?
</p>
<p>
It proved to be a beautiful morning outside. We walked up and down enjoying it
sub-consciously, for really our—that is Bickley’s and my
own—intelligences were concentrated on that sepulchre and its contents.
Where Bastin’s may have been I do not know, perhaps in a visionary
teapot, since I was sure that it would take him a day or two to appreciate the
significance of our discoveries. At any rate, he wandered off, making no
remarks about them, to drink water, I suppose.
</p>
<p>
Presently he began to shout to us from the end of the table-rock and we went to
see the reason of his noise. It proved to be very satisfactory, for while we
were in the cave the Orofenans had brought absolutely everything belonging to
us, together with a large supply of food from the main island. Not a single
article was missing; even our books, a can with the bottom out, and the broken
pieces of a little pocket mirror had been religiously transported, and with
these a few articles that had been stolen from us, notably my pocket-knife.
Evidently a great taboo had been laid upon all our possessions. They were now
carefully arranged in one of the grooves of the rock that Bickley supposed had
been made by the wheels of aeroplanes, which was why we had not seen them at
once.
</p>
<p>
Each of us rushed for what we desired most—Bastin for one of the
canisters of tea, I for my diaries, and Bickley for his chest of instruments
and medicines. These were removed to the mouth of the cave, and after them the
other things and the food; also a bell tent and some camp furniture that we had
brought from the ship. Then Bastin made some tea of which he drank four large
pannikins, having first said grace over it with unwonted fervour. Nor did we
disdain our share of the beverage, although Bickley preferred cocoa and I
coffee. Cocoa and coffee we had no time to make then, and in view of that
sepulchre in the cave, what had we to do with cocoa and coffee?
</p>
<p>
So Bickley and I said to each other, and yet presently he changed his mind and
in a special metal machine carefully made some extremely strong black coffee
which he poured into a thermos flask, previously warmed with hot water, adding
thereto about a claret glass of brandy. Also he extracted certain drugs from
his medicine-chest, and with them, as I noted, a hypodermic syringe, which he
first boiled in a kettle and then shut up in a little tube with a glass
stopper.
</p>
<p>
These preparations finished, he called to Tommy to give him the scraps of our
meal. But there was no Tommy. The dog was missing, and though we hunted
everywhere we could not find him. Finally we concluded that he had wandered off
down the beach on business of his own and would return in due course. We could
not bother about Tommy just then.
</p>
<p>
After making some further preparations and fidgeting about a little, Bickley
announced that as we had now some proper paraffin lamps of the powerful sort
which are known as “hurricane,” he proposed by their aid to carry
out further examinations in the cave.
</p>
<p>
“I think I shall stop where I am,” said Bastin, helping himself
from the kettle to a fifth pannikin of tea. “Those corpses are very
interesting, but I don’t see any use in staring at them again at present.
One can always do that at any time. I have missed Marama once already by being
away in that cave, and I have a lot to say to him about my people; I
don’t want to be absent in case he should return.”
</p>
<p>
“To wash up the things, I suppose,” said Bickley with a sniff;
“or perhaps to eat the tea-leaves.”
</p>
<p>
“Well, as a matter of fact, I have noticed that these natives have a
peculiar taste for tea-leaves. I think they believe them to be a medicine, but
I don’t suppose they would come so far for them, though perhaps they
might in the hope of getting the head of Oro. Anyhow, I am going to stop
here.”
</p>
<p>
“Pray do,” said Bickley. “Are you ready, Humphrey?”
</p>
<p>
I nodded, and he handed to me a felt-covered flask of the non-conducting kind,
filled with boiling water, a tin of preserved milk, and a little bottle of meat
extract of a most concentrated sort. Then, having lit two of the hurricane
lamps and seen that they were full of oil, we started back up the cave.
</p>
</div><!--end chapter-->
<div class="chapter">
<h2><a name="chap11" id="chap11"></a>CHAPTER XI.<br />
Resurrection</h2>
<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>
<p>
“There is some wild beast in there,” said Bickley, halting.
“No, by George! it’s Tommy. What can the dog be after?”
</p>
<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>
<p>
“That’s very strange,” I exclaimed.
</p>
<p>
“Not stranger than everything else,” said Bickley.
</p>
<p>
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
</p>
<p>
“Open these coffins,” he answered, “beginning with that of
the old god, since I would rather experiment on him. I expect he will crumble
into dust. But if by chance he doesn’t I’ll jam a little
strychnine, mixed with some other drugs, of which you don’t know the
names, into one of his veins and see if anything happens. If it doesn’t,
it won’t hurt him, and if it does—well, who knows? Now give me a
hand.”
</p>
<p>
We went to the left-hand coffin and by inserting the hook on the back of my
knife, of which the real use is to pick stones out of horses’ hoofs, into
one of the little air-holes I have described, managed to raise the heavy
crystal lid sufficiently to enable us to force a piece of wood between it and
the top. The rest was easy, for the hinges being of crystal had not corroded.
In two minutes it was open.
</p>
<p>
From the chest came an overpowering spicy odour, and with it a veritable breath
of warm air before which we recoiled a little. Bickley took a pocket
thermometer which he had at hand and glanced at it. It marked a temperature of
82 degrees in the sepulchre. Having noted this, he thrust it into the coffin
between the crystal wall and its occupant. Then we went out and waited a little
while to give the odours time to dissipate, for they made the head reel.
</p>
<p>
After five minutes or so we returned and examined the thermometer. It had risen
to 98 degrees, the natural temperature of the human body.
</p>
<p>
“What do you make of that if the man is dead?” he whispered.
</p>
<p>
I shook my head, and as we had agreed, set to helping him to lift the body from
the coffin. It was a good weight, quite eleven stone I should say; moreover,
<i>it was not stiff</i>, for the hip joints bent. We got it out and laid it on
a blanket we had spread on the floor of the sepulchre. Whilst I was thus
engaged I saw something that nearly caused me to loose my hold from
astonishment. Beneath the head, the centre of the back and the feet were
crystal boxes about eight inches square, or rather crystal blocks, for in them
I could see no opening, and these boxes emitted a faint phosphorescent light. I
touched one of them and found that it was quite warm.
</p>
<p>
“Great heavens!” I exclaimed, “here’s magic.”
</p>
<p>
“There’s no such thing,” answered Bickley in his usual
formula. Then an explanation seemed to strike him and he added, “Not
magic but radium or something of the sort. That’s how the temperature was
kept up. In sufficient quantity it is practically indestructible, you see. My
word! this old gentleman knew a thing or two.”
</p>
<p>
Again we waited a little while to see if the body begun to crumble on exposure
to the air, I taking the opportunity to make a rough sketch of it in my
pocket-book in anticipation of that event. But it did not; it remained quite
sound.
</p>
<p>
“Here goes,” said Bickley. “If he should be alive, he will
catch cold in his lungs after lying for ages in that baby incubator, as I
suppose he has done. So it is now or never.”
</p>
<p>
Then bidding me hold the man’s right arm, he took the sterilized syringe
which he had prepared, and thrusting the needle into a vein he selected just
above the wrist, injected the contents.
</p>
<p>
“It would have been better over the heart,” he whispered,
“but I thought I would try the arm first. I don’t like risking
chills by uncovering him.”
</p>
<p>
I made no answer and again we waited and watched.
</p>
<p>
“Great heavens, he’s stirring!” I gasped presently.
</p>
<p>
Stirring he was, for his fingers began to move.
</p>
<p>
Bickley bent down and placed his ear to the heart—I forgot to say that he
had tested this before with a stethoscope, but had been unable to detect any
movement.
</p>
<p>
“I believe it is beginning to beat,” he said in an awed voice.
</p>
<p>
Then he applied the stethoscope, and added, “It is, it is!”
</p>
<p>
Next he took a filament of cotton wool and laid it on the man’s lips.
Presently it moved; he was breathing, though very faintly. Bickley took more
cotton wool and having poured something from his medicine-chest on to it,
placed it over the mouth beneath the man’s nostrils—I believe it
was sal volatile.
</p>
<p>
Nothing further happened for a little while, and to relieve the strain on my
mind I stared absently into the empty coffin. Here I saw what had escaped our
notice, two small plates of white metal and cut upon them what I took to be
star maps. Beyond these and the glowing boxes which I have mentioned, there was
nothing else in the coffin. I had no time to examine them, for at that moment
the old man opened his mouth and began to breathe, evidently with some
discomfort and effort, as his empty lungs filled themselves with air. Then his
eyelids lifted, revealing a wonderful pair of dark glowing eyes beneath. Next
he tried to sit up but would have fallen, had not Bickley supported him with
his arm.
</p>
<p>
I do not think he saw Bickley, indeed he shut his eyes again as though the
light hurt them, and went into a kind of faint. Then it was that Tommy, who all
this while had been watching the proceedings with grave interest, came forward,
wagging his tail, and licked the man’s face. At the touch of the
dog’s red tongue, he opened his eyes for the second time. Now he
saw—not us but Tommy, for after contemplating him for a few seconds,
something like a smile appeared upon his fierce but noble face. More, he lifted
his hand and laid it on the dog’s head, as though to pat it kindly. Half
a minute or so later his awakening senses appreciated our presence. The
incipient smile vanished and was replaced by a somewhat terrible frown.
</p>
<p>
Meanwhile Bickley had poured out some of the hot coffee laced with brandy into
the cup that was screwed on the top of the thermos flask. Advancing to the man
whom I supported, he put it to his lips. He tasted and made a wry face, but
presently he began to sip, and ultimately swallowed it all. The effect of the
stimulant was wonderful, for in a few minutes he came to life completely and
was even able to sit up without support.
</p>
<p>
For quite a long while he gazed at us gravely, taking us in and everything
connected with us. For instance, Bickley’s medicine-case which lay open
showing the little vulcanite tubes, a few instruments and other outfit, engaged
his particular attention, and I saw at once that he understood what it was.
Thus his arm still smarted where the needle had been driven in and on the
blanket lay the syringe. He looked at his arm, then looked at the syringe, and
nodded. The paraffin hurricane lamps also seemed to interest and win his
approval. We two men, as I thought, attracted him least of all; he just summed
us up and our garments, more especially the garments, with a few shrewd
glances, and then seemed to turn his thoughts to Tommy, who had seated himself
quite contentedly at his side, evidently accepting him as a new addition to our
party.
</p>
<p>
I confess that this behaviour on Tommy’s part reassured me not a little.
I am a great believer in the instincts of animals, especially of dogs, and I
felt certain that if this man had not been in all essentials human like
ourselves, Tommy would not have tolerated him. In the same way the
sleeper’s clear liking for Tommy, at whom he looked much oftener and with
greater kindness than he did at us, suggested that there was goodness in him
somewhere, since although a dog in its wonderful tolerance may love a bad
person in whom it smells out hidden virtue, no really bad person ever loved a
dog, or, I may add, a child or a flower.
</p>
<p>
As a matter of fact, the “old god,” as we had christened him while
he was in his coffin, during all our association with him, cared infinitely
more for Tommy than he did for any of us, a circumstance that ultimately was
not without its influence upon our fortunes. But for this there was a reason as
we learned afterwards, also he was not really so amiable as I hoped.
</p>
<p>
When we had looked at each other for a long while the sleeper began to arrange
his beard, of which the length seemed to surprise him, especially as Tommy was
seated on one end of it. Finding this out and apparently not wishing to disturb
Tommy, he gave up the occupation, and after one or two attempts, for his tongue
and lips still seemed to be stiff, addressed us in some sonorous and musical
language, unlike any that we had ever heard. We shook our heads. Then by an
afterthought I said “Good day” to him in the language of the
Orofenans. He puzzled over the word as though it were more or less familiar to
him, and when I repeated it, gave it back to me with a difference indeed, but
in a way which convinced us that he quite understood what I meant. The
conversation went no further at the moment because just then some memory seemed
to strike him.
</p>
<p>
He was sitting with his back against the coffin of the Glittering Lady, whom
therefore he had not seen. Now he began to turn round, and being too weak to do
so, motioned me to help him. I obeyed, while Bickley, guessing his purpose,
held up one of the hurricane lamps that he might see better. With a kind of
fierce eagerness he surveyed her who lay within the coffin, and after he had
done so, uttered a sigh as of intense relief.
</p>
<p>
Next he pointed to the metal cup out of which he had drunk. Bickley filled it
again from the thermos flask, which I observed excited his keen interest, for,
having touched the flask with his hand and found that it was cool, he appeared
to marvel that the fluid coming from it should be hot and steaming. Presently
he smiled as though he had got the clue to the mystery, and swallowed his
second drink of coffee and spirit. This done, he motioned to us to lift the lid
of the lady’s coffin, pointing out a certain catch in the bolts which at
first we could not master, for it will be remembered that on this coffin these
were shot.
</p>
<p>
In the end, by pursuing the same methods that we had used in the instance of
his own, we raised the coffin lid and once more were driven to retreat from the
sepulchre for a while by the overpowering odour like to that of a whole
greenhouse full of tuberoses, that flowed out of it, inducing a kind of
stupefaction from which even Tommy fled.
</p>
<p>
When we returned it was to find the man kneeling by the side of the coffin, for
as yet he could not stand, with his glowing eyes fixed upon the face of her who
slept therein and waving his long arms above her.
</p>
<p>
“Hypnotic business! Wonder if it will work,” whispered Bickley.
Then he lifted the syringe and looked inquiringly at the man, who shook his
head, and went on with his mesmeric passes.
</p>
<p>
I crept round him and took my stand by the sleeper’s head, that I might
watch her face, which was well worth watching, while Bickley, with his medicine
at hand, remained near her feet, I think engaged in disinfecting the syringe in
some spirit or acid. I believe he was about to make an attempt to use it when
suddenly, as though beneath the influence of the hypnotic passes, a change
appeared on the Glittering Lady’s face. Hitherto, beautiful as it was, it
had been a dead face though one of a person who had suddenly been cut off while
in full health and vigour a few hours, or at the most a day or so before. Now
it began to live again; it was as though the spirit were returning from afar,
and not without toil and tribulation.
</p>
<p>
Expression after expression flitted across the features; indeed these seemed to
change so much from moment to moment that they might have belonged to several
different individuals, though each was beautiful. The fact of these remarkable
changes with the suggestion of multiform personalities which they conveyed
impressed both Bickley and myself very much indeed. Then the breast heaved
tumultuously; it even appeared to struggle. Next the eyes opened. They were
full of wonder, even of fear, but oh! what marvelous eyes. I do not know how to
describe them, I cannot even state their exact colour, except that it was dark,
something like the blue of sapphires of the deepest tint, and yet not black;
large, too, and soft as a deer’s. They shut again as though the light
hurt them, then once more opened and wandered about, apparently without seeing.
</p>
<p>
At length they found my face, for I was still bending over her, and, resting
there, appeared to take it in by degrees. More, it seemed to touch and stir
some human spring in the still-sleeping heart. At least the fear passed from
her features and was replaced by a faint smile, such as a patient sometimes
gives to one known and well loved, as the effects of chloroform pass away. For
a while she looked at me with an earnest, searching gaze, then suddenly, for
the first time moving her arms, lifted them and threw them round my neck.
</p>
<p>
The old man stared, bending his imperial brows into a little frown, but did
nothing. Bickley stared also through his glasses and sniffed as though in
disapproval, while I remained quite still, fighting with a wild impulse to kiss
her on the lips as one would an awakening and beloved child. I doubt if I could
have done so, however, for really I was immovable; my heart seemed to stop and
all my muscles to be paralysed.
</p>
<p>
I do not know for how long this endured, but I do know how it ended. Presently
in the intense silence I heard Bastin’s heavy voice and looking round,
saw his big head projecting into the sepulchre.
</p>
<p>
“Well, I never!” he said, “you seem to have woke them up with
a vengeance. If you begin like <i>that</i> with the lady, there will be
complications before you have done, Arbuthnot.”
</p>
<p>
Talk of being brought back to earth with a rush! I could have killed Bastin,
and Bickley, turning on him like a tiger, told him to be off, find wood and
light a large fire in front of the statue. I think he was about to argue when
the Ancient gave him a glance of his fierce eyes, which alarmed him, and he
departed, bewildered, to return presently with the wood.
</p>
<p>
But the sound of his voice had broken the spell. The Lady let her arms fall
with a start, and shut her eyes again, seeming to faint. Bickley sprang forward
with his sal volatile and applied it to her nostrils, the Ancient not
interfering, for he seemed to recognise that he had to deal with a man of skill
and one who meant well by them.
</p>
<p>
In the end we brought her round again and, to omit details, Bickley gave her,
not coffee and brandy, but a mixture he compounded of hot water, preserved milk
and meat essence. The effect of it on her was wonderful, since a few minutes
after swallowing it she sat up in the coffin. Then we lifted her from that
narrow bed in which she had slept for—ah! how long? and perceived that
beneath her also were crystal boxes of the radiant, heat-giving substance. We
sat her on the floor of the sepulchre, wrapping her also in a blanket.
</p>
<p>
Now it was that Tommy, after frisking round her as though in welcome of an old
friend, calmly established himself beside her and laid his black head upon her
knee. She noted it and smiled for the first time, a marvelously sweet and
gentle smile. More, she placed her slender hand upon the dog and stroked him
feebly.
</p>
<p>
Bickley tried to make her drink some more of his mixture, but she refused,
motioning him to give it to Tommy. This, however, he would not do because there
was but one cup. Presently both of the sleepers began to shiver, which caused
Bickley anxiety. Abusing Bastin beneath his breath for being so long with the
fire, he drew the blankets closer about them.
</p>
<p>
Then an idea came to him and he examined the glowing boxes in the coffin. They
were loose, being merely set in prepared cavities in the crystal. Wrapping our
handkerchiefs about his hand, he took them out and placed them around the
wakened patients, a proceeding of which the Ancient nodded approval. Just then,
too, Bastin returned with his first load of firewood, and soon we had a merry
blaze going just outside the sepulchre. I saw that they observed the lighting
of this fire by means of a match with much interest.
</p>
<p>
Now they grew warm again, as indeed we did also—too warm. Then in my turn
I had an idea. I knew that by now the sun would be beating hotly against the
rock of the mount, and suggested to Bickley, that, if possible, the best thing
we could do would be to get them into its life-giving rays. He agreed, if we
could make them understand and they were able to walk. So I tried. First I
directed the Ancient’s attention to the mouth of the cave which at this
distance showed as a white circle of light. He looked at it and then at me with
grave inquiry. I made motions to suggest that he should proceed there,
repeating the word “Sun” in the Orofenan tongue. He understood at
once, though whether he read my mind rather than what I said I am not sure.
Apparently the Glittering Lady understood also and seemed to be most anxious to
go. Only she looked rather pitifully at her feet and shook her head. This
decided me.
</p>
<p>
I do not know if I have mentioned anywhere that I am a tall man and very
muscular. She was tall, also, but as I judged not so very heavy after her long
fast. At any rate I felt quite certain that I could carry her for that
distance. Stooping down, I lifted her up, signing to her to put her arms round
my neck, which she did. Then calling to Bickley and Bastin to bring along the
Ancient between them, with some difficulty I struggled out of the sepulchre,
and started down the cave. She was more heavy than I thought, and yet I could
have wished the journey longer. To begin with she seemed quite trustful and
happy in my arms, where she lay with her head against my shoulder, smiling a
little as a child might do, especially when I had to stop and throw her long
hair round my neck like a muffler, to prevent it from trailing in the dust.
</p>
<p>
A bundle of lavender, or a truss of new-mown hay, could not have been more
sweet to carry and there was something electric about the touch of her, which
went through and through me. Very soon it was over, and we were out of the cave
into the full glory of the tropical sun. At first, that her eyes might become
accustomed to its light and her awakened body to its heat, I set her down where
shadow fell from the overhanging rock, in a canvas deck chair that had been
brought by Marama with the other things, throwing the rug about her to protect
her from such wind as there was. She nestled gratefully into the soft seat and
shut her eyes, for the motion had tired her. I noted, however, that she drew in
the sweet air with long breaths.
</p>
<p>
Then I turned to observe the arrival of the Ancient, who was being borne
between Bickley and Bastin in what children know as a dandy-chair, which is
formed by two people crossing their hands in a peculiar fashion. It says much
for the tremendous dignity of his presence that even thus, with one arm round
the neck of Bickley and the other round that of Bastin, and his long white
beard falling almost to the ground, he still looked most imposing.
</p>
<p>
Unfortunately, however, just as they were emerging from the cave, Bastin,
always the most awkward of creatures, managed to leave hold with one hand, so
that his passenger nearly came to the ground. Never shall I forget the look
that he gave him. Indeed, I think that from this moment he hated Bastin.
Bickley he respected as a man of intelligence and learning, although in
comparison with his own, the latter was infantile and crude; me he tolerated
and even liked; but Bastin he detested. The only one of our party for whom he
felt anything approaching real affection was the spaniel Tommy.
</p>
<p>
We set him down, fortunately uninjured, on some rugs, and also in the shadow.
Then, after a little while, we moved both of them into the sun. It was quite
curious to see them expand there. As Bickley said, what happened to them might
well be compared to the development of a butterfly which has just broken from
the living grave of its chrysalis and crept into the full, hot radiance of the
light. Its crinkled wings unfold, their brilliant tints develop; in an hour or
two it is perfect, glorious, prepared for life and flight, a new creature.
</p>
<p>
So it was with this pair, from moment to moment they gathered strength and
vigour. Near-by to them, as it happened, stood a large basket of the luscious
native fruits brought that morning by the Orofenans, and at these the Lady
looked with longing. With Bickley’s permission, I offered them to her and
to the Ancient, first peeling them with my fingers. They ate of them greedily,
a full meal, and would have gone on had not the stern Bickley, fearing untoward
consequences, removed the basket. Again the results were wonderful, for half an
hour afterwards they seemed to be quite strong. With my assistance the
Glittering Lady, as I still call her, for at that time I did not know her name,
rose from the chair, and, leaning on me, tottered a few steps forward. Then she
stood looking at the sky and all the lovely panorama of nature beneath, and
stretching out her arms as though in worship. Oh! how beautiful she seemed with
the sunlight shining on her heavenly face!
</p>
<p>
Now for the first time I heard her voice. It was soft and deep, yet in it was a
curious bell-like tone that seemed to vibrate like the sound of chimes heard
from far away. Never have I listened to such another voice. She pointed to the
sun whereof the light turned her radiant hair and garments to a kind of golden
glory, and called it by some name that I could not understand. I shook my head,
whereon she gave it a different name taken, I suppose, from another language.
Again I shook my head and she tried a third time. To my delight this word was
practically the same that the Orofenans used for “sun.”
</p>
<p>
“Yes,” I said, speaking very slowly, “so it is called by the
people of this land.”
</p>
<p>
She understood, for she answered in much the same language:
</p>
<p>
“What, then, do you call it?”
</p>
<p>
“Sun in the English tongue,” I replied.
</p>
<p>
“Sun. English,” she repeated after me, then added, “How are
you named, Wanderer?”
</p>
<p>
“Humphrey,” I answered.
</p>
<p>
“Hum-fe-ry!” she said as though she were learning the word,
“and those?”
</p>
<p>
“Bastin and Bickley,” I replied.
</p>
<p>
Over these patronymics she shook her head; as yet they were too much for her.
</p>
<p>
“How are you named, Sleeper?” I asked.
</p>
<p>
“Yva,” she answered.
</p>
<p>
“A beautiful name for one who is beautiful,” I declared with
enthusiasm, of course always in the rich Orofenan dialect which by now I could
talk well enough.
</p>
<p>
She repeated the words once or twice, then of a sudden caught their meaning,
for she smiled and even coloured, saying hastily with a wave of her hand
towards the Ancient who stood at a distance between Bastin and Bickley,
“My father, Oro; great man; great king; great god!”
</p>
<p>
At this information I started, for it was startling to learn that here was the
original Oro, who was still worshipped by the Orofenans, although of his actual
existence they had known nothing for uncounted time. Also I was glad to learn
that he was her father and not her old husband, for to me that would have been
horrible, a desecration too deep for words.
</p>
<p>
“How long did you sleep, Yva?” I asked, pointing towards the
sepulchre in the cave.
</p>
<p>
After a little thought she understood and shook her head hopelessly, then by an
afterthought, she said,
</p>
<p>
“Stars tell Oro to-night.”
</p>
<p>
So Oro was an astronomer as well as a king and a god. I had guessed as much
from those plates in the coffin which seemed to have stars engraved on them.
</p>
<p>
At this point our conversation came to an end, for the Ancient himself
approached, leaning on the arm of Bickley who was engaged in an animated
argument with Bastin.
</p>
<p>
“For Heaven’s sake!” said Bickley, “keep your theology
to yourself at present. If you upset the old fellow and put him in a temper he
may die.”
</p>
<p>
“If a man tells me that he is a god it is my duty to tell him that he is
a liar,” replied Bastin obstinately.
</p>
<p>
“Which you did, Bastin, only fortunately he did not understand you. But
for your own sake I advise you not to take liberties. He is not one, I think,
with whom it is wise to trifle. I think he seems thirsty. Go and get some water
from the rain pool, not from the lake.”
</p>
<p>
Bastin departed and presently returned with an aluminum jug full of pure water
and a glass. Bickley poured some of it into a glass and handed it to Yva who
bent her head in thanks. Then she did a curious thing. Having first lifted the
glass with both hands to the sky and held it so for a few seconds, she turned
and with an obeisance poured a little of it on the ground before her
father’s feet.
</p>
<p>
A libation, thought I to myself, and evidently Bastin agreed with me, for I
heard him mutter,
</p>
<p>
“I believe she is making a heathen offering.”
</p>
<p>
Doubtless we were right, for Oro accepted the homage by a little motion of the
head. After this, at a sign from him she drank the water. Then the glass was
refilled and handed to Oro who also held it towards the sky. He, however, made
no libation but drank at once, two tumblers of it in rapid succession.
</p>
<p>
By now the direct sunlight was passing from the mouth of the cave, and though
it was hot enough, both of them shivered a little. They spoke together in some
language of which we could not understand a word, as though they were debating
what their course of action should be. The dispute was long and earnest. Had we
known what was passing, which I learned afterwards, it would have made us
sufficiently anxious, for the point at issue was nothing less than whether we
should or should not be forthwith destroyed—an end, it appears, that Oro
was quite capable of bringing about if he so pleased. Yva, however, had very
clear views of her own on the matter and, as I gather, even dared to threaten
that she would protect us by the use of certain powers at her command, though
what these were I do not know.
</p>
<p>
While the event hung doubtful Tommy, who was growing bored with these long
proceedings, picked up a bough still covered with flowers which, after their
pretty fashion, the Orofenans had placed on the top of one of the baskets of
food. This small bough he brought and laid at the feet of Oro, no doubt in the
hope that he would throw it for him to fetch, a game in which the dog
delighted. For some reason Oro saw an omen in this simple canine performance,
or he may have thought that the dog was making an offering to him, for he put
his thin hand to his brow and thought a while, then motioned to Bastin to pick
up the bough and give it to him.
</p>
<p>
Next he spoke to his daughter as though assenting to something, for I saw her
sigh in relief. No wonder, for he was conveying his decision to spare our lives
and admit us to their fellowship.
</p>
<p>
After this again they talked, but in quite a different tone and manner. Then
the Glittering Lady said to me in her slow and archaic Orofenan:
</p>
<p>
“We go to rest. You must not follow. We come back perhaps tonight,
perhaps next night. We are quite safe. You are quite safe under the beard of
Oro. Spirit of Oro watch you. You understand?”
</p>
<p>
I said I understood, whereon she answered:
</p>
<p>
“Good-bye, O Humfe-ry.”
</p>
<p>
“Good-bye, O Yva,” I replied, bowing.
</p>
<p>
Thereon they turned and refusing all assistance from us, vanished into the
darkness of the cave leaning upon each other and walking slowly.
</p>
</div><!--end chapter-->
<div class="chapter">
<h2><a name="chap12" id="chap12"></a>CHAPTER XII.<br />
Two Hundred and Fifty Thousand Years!</h2>
<p>
“You seem to have made the best of your time, old fellow,” said
Bickley in rather a sour voice.
</p>
<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>
<p>
“I know no other,” I said.
</p>
<p>
“Perhaps not, but at any rate <i>you</i> have another, though you
don’t seem to have told it to her. Anyway, I am glad they are gone, for I
was getting tired of being ordered by everybody to carry about wood and water
for them. Also I am terribly hungry as I can’t eat before it is light.
They have taken most of the best fruit to which I was looking forward, but
thank goodness they do not seem to care for pork.”
</p>
<p>
“So am I,” said Bickley, who really looked exhausted. “Get
the food, there’s a good fellow. We’ll talk afterwards.”
</p>
<p>
When we had eaten, somewhat silently, I asked Bickley what he made of the
business; also whither he thought the sleepers had gone.
</p>
<p>
“I think I can answer the last question,” interrupted Bastin.
“I expect it is to a place well known to students of the Bible which even
Bickley mentions sometimes when he is angry. At any rate, they seem to be very
fond of heat, for they wouldn’t part from it even in their coffins, and
you will admit that they are not quite natural, although that Glittering Lady
is so attractive as regards her exterior.”
</p>
<p>
Bickley waved these remarks aside and addressed himself to me.
</p>
<p>
“I don’t know what to think of it,” he said; “but as
the experience is not natural and everything in the Universe, so far as we know
it, has a natural explanation, I am inclined to the belief that we are
suffering from hallucinations, which in their way are also quite natural. It
does not seem possible that two people can really have been asleep for an
unknown length of time enclosed in vessels of glass or crystal, kept warm by
radium or some such substance, and then emerge from them comparatively strong
and well. It is contrary to natural law.”
</p>
<p>
“How about microbes?” I asked. “They are said to last
practically for ever, and they are living things. So in their case your natural
law breaks down.”
</p>
<p>
“That is true,” he answered. “Some microbes in a sealed tube
and under certain conditions do appear to possess indefinite powers of life.
Also radium has an indefinite life, but that is a mineral. Only these people
are not microbes nor are they minerals. Also, experience tells us that they
could not have lived for more than a few months at the outside in such
circumstances as we seemed to find them.”
</p>
<p>
“Then what do you suggest?”
</p>
<p>
“I suggest that we did not really find them at all; that we have all been
dreaming. You know that there are certain gases which produce illusions,
laughing gas is one of them, and that these gases are sometimes met with in
caves. Now there were very peculiar odours in that place under the statue,
which may have worked upon our imaginations in some such way. Otherwise we are
up against a miracle, and, as you know, I do not believe in miracles.”
</p>
<p>
“<i>I</i> do,” said Bastin calmly. “You’ll find all
about it in the Bible if you will only take the trouble to read. Why do you
talk such rubbish about gases?”
</p>
<p>
“Because only gas, or something of the sort, could have made us imagine
them.”
</p>
<p>
“Nonsense, Bickley! Those people were here right enough. Didn’t
they eat our fruit and drink the water I brought them without ever saying thank
you? Only, they are not human. They are evil spirits, and for my part I
don’t want to see any more of them, though I have no doubt Arbuthnot
does, as that Glittering Lady threw her arms round his neck when she woke up,
and already he is calling her by her Christian name, if the word Christian can
be used in connection with her. The old fellow had the impudence to tell us
that he was a god, and it is remarkable that he should have called himself Oro,
seeing that the devil they worship on the island is also called Oro and the
place itself is named Orofena.”
</p>
<p>
“As to where they have gone,” continued Bickley, taking no notice
of Bastin, “I really don’t know. My expectation is, however, that
when we go to look tomorrow morning—and I suggest that we should not do
so before then in order that we may give our minds time to clear—we shall
find that sepulchre place quite empty, even perhaps without the crystal coffins
we have imagined to stand there.”
</p>
<p>
“Perhaps we shall find that there isn’t a cave at all and that we
are not sitting on a flat rock outside of it,” suggested Bastin with
heavy sarcasm, adding, “You are clever in your way, Bickley, but you can
talk more rubbish than any man I ever knew.”
</p>
<p>
“They told us they would come back tonight or tomorrow,” I said.
“If they do, what will you say then, Bickley?”
</p>
<p>
“I will wait till they come to answer that question. Now let us go for a
walk and try to change our thoughts. We are all over-strained and scarcely know
what we are saying.”
</p>
<p>
“One more question,” I said as we rose to start. “Did Tommy
suffer from hallucinations as well as ourselves?”
</p>
<p>
“Why not?” answered Bickley. “He is an animal just as we are,
or perhaps we thought we saw Tommy do the things he did.”
</p>
<p>
“When you found that basket of fruit, Bastin, which the natives brought
over in the canoe, was there a bough covered with red flowers lying on the top
of it?”
</p>
<p>
“Yes, Arbuthnot, one bough only; I threw it down on the rock as it got in
the way when I was carrying the basket.”
</p>
<p>
“Which flowering bough we all thought we saw the Sleeper Oro carry away
after Tommy had brought it to him.”
</p>
<p>
“Yes; he made me pick it up and give it to him,” said Bastin.
</p>
<p>
“Well, if we did not see this it should still be lying on the rock, as
there has been no wind and there are no animals here to carry it away. You will
admit that, Bickley?”
</p>
<p>
He nodded.
</p>
<p>
“Then if it has gone you will admit also that the presumption is that we
saw what we thought we did see?”
</p>
<p>
“I do not know how that conclusion can be avoided, at any rate so far as
the incident of the bough is concerned,” replied Bickley with caution.
</p>
<p>
Then, without more words, we started to look. At the spot where the bough
should have been, there was no bough, but on the rock lay several of the red
flowers, bitten off, I suppose, by Tommy while he was carrying it. Nor was this
all. I think I have mentioned that the Glittering Lady wore sandals which were
fastened with red studs that looked like rubies or carbuncles. On the rock lay
one of these studs. I picked it up and we examined it. It had been sewn to the
sandal-strap with golden thread or silk. Some of this substance hung from the
hole drilled in the stone which served for an eye. It was as rotten as tinder,
apparently with extreme age. Moreover, the hard gem itself was pitted as though
the passage of time had taken effect upon it, though this may have been caused
by other agencies, such as the action of the radium rays. I smiled at Bickley
who looked disconcerted and even sad. In a way it is painful to see the effect
upon an able and earnest man of the upsetting of his lifelong theories.
</p>
<p>
We went for our walk, keeping to the flat lands at the foot of the volcano
cone, for we seemed to have had enough of wonders and to desire to reassure
ourselves, as it were, by the study of natural and familiar things. As it
chanced, too, we were rewarded by sundry useful discoveries. Thus we found a
place where the bread-tree and other fruits, most of them now ripe, grew in
abundance, as did the yam. Also, we came to an inlet that we noticed was
crowded with large and beautiful fish from the lake, which seemed to find it a
favourite spot. Perhaps this was because a little stream of excellent water ran
in here, overflowing from the great pool or mere which filled the crater above.
</p>
<p>
At these finds we rejoiced greatly, for now we knew that we need not fear
starvation even should our supply of food from the main island be cut off.
Indeed, by help of some palm-leaf stalks which we wove together roughly,
Bastin, who was rather clever at this kind of thing, managed to trap four fish
weighing two or three pounds apiece, wading into the water to do so. It was
curious to observe with what ease he adapted himself to the manners and customs
of primeval man, so much so, indeed, that Bickley remarked that if he could
believe in re-incarnation, he would be absolutely certain that Bastin was a
troglodyte in his last sojourn on the earth.
</p>
<p>
However this might be, Bastin’s primeval instincts and abilities were of
the utmost service to us. Before we had been many days on that island he had
built us a kind of native hut or house roofed with palm leaves in which, until
provided with a better, as happened afterwards, we ate and he and Bickley
slept, leaving the tent to me. Moreover, he wove a net of palm fibre with which
he caught abundance of fish, and made fishing-lines of the same material
(fortunately we had some hooks) which he baited with freshwater mussels and the
insides of fish. By means of these he secured some veritable monsters of the
carp species that proved most excellent eating. His greatest triumph, however,
was a decoy which he constructed of boughs, wherein he trapped a number of
waterfowl. So that soon we kept a very good table of a sort, especially after
he had learned how to cook our food upon the native plan by means of hot
stones. This suited us admirably, as it enabled Bickley and myself to devote
all our time to archaeological and other studies which did not greatly interest
Bastin.
</p>
<p>
By the time that we got back to camp it was drawing towards evening, so we
cooked our food and ate, and then, thoroughly exhausted, made ourselves as
comfortable as we could and went to sleep. Even our marvelous experiences could
not keep Bickley and myself from sleeping, and on Bastin such things had no
effect. He accepted them and that was all, much more readily than we did,
indeed. Triple-armed as he was in the mail of a child-like faith, he snapped
his fingers at evil spirits which he supposed the Sleepers to be, and at
everything else that other men might dread.
</p>
<p>
Now, as I have mentioned, after our talk with Marama, although we did not think
it wise to adventure ourselves among them again at present, we had lost all
fear of the Orofenans. In this attitude, so far as Marama himself and the
majority of his people were concerned, we were quite justified, for they were
our warm friends. But in the case of the sorcerers, the priests and all their
rascally and superstitious brotherhood, we were by no means justified. They had
not forgiven Bastin his sacrilege or for his undermining of their authority by
the preaching of new doctrines which, if adopted, would destroy them as a
hierarchy. Nor had they forgiven Bickley for shooting one of their number, or
any of us for our escape from the vengeance of their god.
</p>
<p>
So it came about that they made a plot to seize us all and hale us off to be
sacrificed to a substituted image of Oro, which by now they had set up. They
knew exactly where we slept upon the rock; indeed, our fire showed it to them
and so far they were not afraid to venture, since here they had been accustomed
for generations to lay their offerings to the god of the Mountain. Secretly on
the previous night, without the knowledge of Marama, they had carried two more
canoes to the borders of the lake. Now on this night, just as the moon was
setting about three in the morning, they made their attack, twenty-one men in
all, for the three canoes were large, relying on the following darkness to get
us away and convey us to the place of sacrifice to be offered up at dawn and
before Marama could interfere.
</p>
<p>
The first we knew of the matter, for most foolishly we had neglected to keep a
watch, was the unpleasant sensation of brawny savages kneeling on us and
trussing us up with palm-fibre ropes. Also they thrust handfuls of dry grass
into our mouths to prevent us from calling out, although as air came through
the interstices of the grass, we did not suffocate. The thing was so well done
that we never struck a blow in self-defence, and although we had our pistols at
hand, much less could we fire a shot. Of course, we struggled as well as we
were able, but it was quite useless; in three minutes we were as helpless as
calves in a net and like calves were being conveyed to the butcher. Bastin
managed to get the gag out of his mouth for a few seconds, and I heard him say
in his slow, heavy voice:
</p>
<p>
“This, Bickley, is what comes of trafficking with evil spirits in museum
cases—” There his speech stopped, for the grass wad was jammed down
his throat again, but distinctly I heard the inarticulate Bickley snort as he
conceived the repartee he was unable to utter. As for myself, I reflected that
the business served us right for not keeping a watch, and abandoned the issue
to fate.
</p>
<p>
Still, to confess the truth, I was infinitely more sorry to die than I should
have been forty-eight hours earlier. This is a dull and in most ways a dreadful
world, one, if we could only summon the courage, that some of us would be glad
to leave in search of new adventures. But here a great and unprecedented
adventure had begun to befall me, and before its mystery was solved, before
even I could formulate a theory concerning it, my body must be destroyed, and
my intelligence that was caged therein, sent far afield; or, if Bickley were
right, eclipsed. It seemed so sad just when the impossible, like an unguessed
wandering moon, had risen over the grey flats of the ascertained and made them
shine with hope and wonder.
</p>
<p>
They carried us off to the canoes, not too gently; indeed, I heard the bony
frame of Bastin bump into the bottom of one of them and reflected, not without
venom, that it served him right as he was the fount and origin of our woes. Two
stinking magicians, wearing on their heads undress editions of their court
cages, since these were too cumbersome for active work of the sort, and painted
all over with various pigments, were just about to swing me after him into the
same, or another canoe, when something happened. I did not know what it was,
but as a result, my captors left hold of me so that I fell to the rock, lying
upon my back.
</p>
<p>
Then, within my line of vision, which, it must be remembered, was limited
because I could not lift my head, appeared the upper part of the tall person of
the Ancient who said that he was named Oro. I could only see him down to his
middle, but I noted vaguely that he seemed to be much changed. For instance, he
wore a different coloured dress, or rather robe; this time it was dark blue,
which caused me to wonder where on earth it came from. Also, his tremendous
beard had been trimmed and dressed, and on his head there was a simple black
cap, strangely quilted, which looked as though it were made of velvet.
Moreover, his face had plumped out. He still looked ancient, it is true, and
unutterably wise, but now he resembled an antique youth, so great were his
energy and vigour. Also, his dark and glowing eyes shone with a fearful
intensity. In short, he seemed impressive and terrible almost beyond imagining.
</p>
<p>
He looked about him slowly, then asked in a deep, cold voice, speaking in the
Orofenan tongue:
</p>
<p>
“What do you, slaves?”
</p>
<p>
No one seemed able to answer, they were too horror-stricken at this sudden
vision of their fabled god, whose fierce features of wood had become flesh;
they only turned to fly. He waved his thin hand and they came to a standstill,
like animals which have reached the end of their tether and are checked by the
chains that bind them. There they stood in all sorts of postures, immovable and
looking extremely ridiculous in their paint and feathers, with dread
unutterable stamped upon their evil faces.
</p>
<p>
The Sleeper spoke again:
</p>
<p>
“You would murder as did your forefathers, O children of snakes and hogs
fashioned in the shape of men. You would sacrifice those who dwell in my shadow
to satisfy your hate because they are wiser than you. Come hither thou,”
and he beckoned with a bony finger to the chief magician.
</p>
<p>
The man advanced towards him in short jumps, as a mechanical toy might do, and
stood before him, his miniature crate and feathers all awry and the sweat of
terror melting the paint in streaks upon his face.
</p>
<p>
“Look into the eyes of Oro, O worshipper of Oro,” said the Sleeper,
and he obeyed, his own eyes starting out of his head.
</p>
<p>
“Receive the curse of Oro,” said the Ancient again. Then followed a
terrible spectacle. The man went raving mad. He bounded into the air to a
height inconceivable. He threw himself upon the ground and rolled upon the
rock. He rose again and staggered round and round, tearing pieces out of his
arms with his teeth. He yelled hideously like one possessed. He grovelled,
beating his forehead against the rock. Then he sat up, slowly choked
and—died.
</p>
<p>
His companions seemed to catch the infection of death as terrified savages
often do. They too performed dreadful antics, all except three of them who
stood paralysed. They rushed about battering each other with their fists and
wooden weapons, looking like devils from hell in their hideous painted attire.
They grappled and fought furiously. They separated and plunged into the lake,
where with a last grimace they sank like stones.
</p>
<p>
It seemed to last a long while, but I think that as a matter of fact within
five minutes it was over; they were all dead. Only the three paralysed ones
remained standing and rolling their eyes.
</p>
<p>
The Sleeper beckoned to them with his thin finger, and they walked forward in
step like soldiers.
</p>
<p>
“Lift that man from the boat,” he said, pointing to Bastin,
“cut his bonds and those of the others.”
</p>
<p>
They obeyed with a wonderful alacrity. In a minute we stood at liberty and were
pulling the grass gags from our mouths. The Ancient pointed to the head
magician who lay dead upon the rock, his hideous, contorted countenance staring
open-eyed at heaven.
</p>
<p>
“Take that sorcerer and show him to the other sorcerers yonder,” he
said, “and tell them where your fellows are if they would find them. Know
by these signs that the Oro, god of the Mountain, who has slept a while, is
awake, and ill will it go with them who question his power or dare to try to
harm those who dwell in his house. Bring food day by day and await commands.
Begone!”
</p>
<p>
The dreadful-looking body was bundled into one of the canoes, that out of which
Bastin had emerged. A rower sprang into each of them and presently was paddling
as he had never done before. As the setting moon vanished, they vanished with
it, and once more there was a great silence.
</p>
<p>
“I am going to find my boots,” said Bastin. “This rock is
hard and I hurt my feet kicking at those poor fellows who appear to have come
to a bad end, how, I do not exactly understand. Personally, I think that more
allowances should have been made for them, as I hope will be the case
elsewhere, since after all they only acted according to their lights.”
</p>
<p>
“Curse their lights!” ejaculated Bickley, feeling his throat which
was bruised. “I’m glad they are out.”
</p>
<p>
Bastin limped away in search of his boots, but Bickley and I stood where we
were contemplating the awakened Sleeper. All recollection of the recent
tumultuous scene seemed to have passed from his mind, for he was engaged in a
study of the heavens. They were wonderfully brilliant now that the moon was
down, brilliant as they only can be in the tropics when the sky is clear.
</p>
<p>
Something caused me to look round, and there, coming towards us, was she who
said her name was Yva. Evidently all her weakness had departed also, for now
she needed no support, but walked with a peculiar gliding motion that reminded
me of a swan floating forward on the water. Well had we named her the
Glittering Lady, for in the starlight literally she seemed to glitter. I
suppose the effect came from her golden raiment, which, however, I noticed, as
in her father’s case, was not the same that she had worn in the coffin;
also from her hair that seemed to give out a light of its own. At least, she
shimmered as she came, her tall shape swaying at every step like a willow in
the wind. She drew near, and I saw that her face, too, had filled out and now
was that of one in perfect health and vigour, while her eyes shone softly and
seemed wondrous large.
</p>
<p>
In her hands she carried those two plates of metal which I had seen lying in
the coffin of the Sleeper Oro. These she gave to him, then fell back out of his
hearing—if it were ever possible to do this, a point on which I am not
sure—and began to talk to me. I noted at once that in the few hours
during which she was absent, her knowledge of the Orofenan tongue seemed to
have improved greatly as though she had drunk deeply from some hidden fount of
memory. Now she spoke it with readiness, as Oro had done when he addressed the
sorcerers, although many of the words she used were not known to me, and the
general form of her language appeared archaic, as for instance that of Spenser
as compared with modern English. When she saw I did not comprehend her,
however, she would stop and cast her sentences in a different shape, till at
length I caught her meaning. Now I give the substance of what she said.
</p>
<p>
“You are safe,” she began, glancing first at the palm ropes that
lay upon the rock and then at my wrists, one of which was cut.
</p>
<p>
“Yes, Lady Yva, thanks to your father.”
</p>
<p>
“You should say thanks to me. My father was thinking of other things, but
I was thinking of you strangers, and from where I was I saw those wicked ones
coming to kill you.”
</p>
<p>
“Oh! from the top of the mountain, I suppose.”
</p>
<p>
She shook her head and smiled but vouchsafed no further explanation, unless her
following words can be so called. These were:
</p>
<p>
“I can see otherwise than with my eyes, if I choose.” A statement
that caused Bickley, who was listening, to mutter:
</p>
<p>
“Impossible! What the deuce can she mean? Telepathy, perhaps.”
</p>
<p>
“I saw,” she continued, “and told the Lord, my father. He
came forth. Did he kill them? I did not look to learn.”
</p>
<p>
“Yes. They lie in the lake, all except three whom he sent away as
messengers.”
</p>
<p>
“I thought so. Death is terrible, O Humphrey, but it is a sword which
those who rule must use to smite the wicked and the savage.”
</p>
<p>
Not wishing to pursue this subject, I asked her what her father was doing with
the metal plates.
</p>
<p>
“He reads the stars,” she answered, “to learn how long we
have been asleep. Before we went to sleep he made two pictures of them, as they
were then and as they should be at the time he had set for our
awakening.”
</p>
<p>
“We set that time,” interrupted Bickley.
</p>
<p>
“Not so, O Bickley,” she answered, smiling again. “In the
divine Oro’s head was the time set. You were the hand that executed his
decree.”
</p>
<p>
When Bickley heard this I really thought he would have burst. However, he
controlled himself nobly, being anxious to hear the end of this mysterious fib.
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
<img src="images/fig01.jpg" width="443" height="600" alt="[Illustration]" />
</div>
<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
<img src="images/fig02.jpg" width="409" height="600" alt="[Illustration]" />
</div>
<p>
“How long was the time that the lord Oro set apart for sleep?” I
asked.
</p>
<p>
She paused as though puzzled to find words to express her meaning, then held up
her hands and said:
</p>
<p>
“Ten,” nodding at her fingers. By second thoughts she took
Bickley’s hands, not mine, and counted his ten fingers.
</p>
<p>
“Ten years,” said Bickley. “Well, of course, it is
impossible, but perhaps—” and he paused.
</p>
<p>
“Ten tens,” she went on with a deepening smile, “one
hundred.”
</p>
<p>
“O!” said Bickley.
</p>
<p>
“Ten hundreds, one thousand.”
</p>
<p>
“I say!” said Bickley.
</p>
<p>
“Ten times ten thousand, one hundred thousand.”
</p>
<p>
Bickley became silent.
</p>
<p>
“Twice one hundred thousand and half a hundred thousand, two hundred and
fifty thousand years. <i>That</i> was the space of time which the lord Oro, my
father, set for our sleep. Whether it has been fulfilled he will know presently
when he has read the book of the stars and made comparison of it with what he
wrote before we laid us down to rest,” and she pointed to the metal
plates which the Ancient was studying.
</p>
<p>
Bickley walked away, making sounds as though he were going to be ill and
looking so absurd in his indignation that I nearly laughed. The Lady Yva
actually did laugh, and very musical was that laugh.
</p>
<p>
“He does not believe,” she said. “He is so clever he knows
everything. But two hundred and fifty thousand years ago we should have thought
him quite stupid. Then we could read the stars and calculate their movements
for ever.”
</p>
<p>
“So can we,” I answered, rather nettled.
</p>
<p>
“I am glad, O Humphrey, since you will be able to show my father if in
one of them he is wrong.”
</p>
<p>
Secretly I hoped that this task would not be laid on me. Indeed, I thought it
well to change the subject for the edification of Bickley who had recovered and
was drawn back by his eager curiosity. Just then, too, Bastin joined us, happy
in his regained boots.
</p>
<p>
“You tell us, Lady Yva,” I said, “that you slept, or should
have slept for two hundred and fifty thousand years.” Here Bastin opened
his eyes. “If that was so, where was your mind all this time?”
</p>
<p>
“If by my mind you mean spirit, O Humphrey, I have to answer that at
present I do not know for certain. I think, however, that it dwelt elsewhere,
perhaps in other bodies on the earth, or some different earth. At least, I know
that my heart is very full of memories which as yet I cannot unroll and
read.”
</p>
<p>
“Great heavens, this is madness!” said Bickley.
</p>
<p>
“In the great heavens,” she answered slowly, “there are many
things which you, poor man, would think to be madness, but yet are truth and
perfect wisdom. These things, or some of them, soon I shall hope to show
you.”
</p>
<p>
“Do if you can,” said Bickley.
</p>
<p>
“Why not?” interrupted Bastin. “I think the lady’s
remarks quite reasonable. It seems to me highly improbable if really she has
slept for two hundred and fifty thousand years, which, of course, I can’t
decide, that an immortal spirit would be allowed to remain idle for so long.
That would be wallowing in a bed of idleness and shirking its duty which is to
do its work. Also, as she tells you, Bickley, you are not half so clever as you
think you are in your silly scepticism, and I have no doubt that there are many
things in other worlds which would expose your ignorance, if only you could see
them.”
</p>
<p>
At this moment Oro turned and called his daughter. She went at once, saying:
</p>
<p>
“Come, strangers, and you shall learn.”
</p>
<p>
So we followed her.
</p>
<p>
“Daughter,” he said, speaking in Orofenan, I think that we might
understand, “ask these strangers to bring one of those lamps of theirs
that by the light of it I may study these writings.”
</p>
<p>
“Perhaps this may serve,” said Bickley, suddenly producing an
electric torch from his pocket and flashing it into his face. It was his form
of repartee for all he had suffered at the hands of this incomprehensible pair.
Let me say at once that it was singularly successful. Perhaps the wisdom of the
ages in which Oro flourished had overlooked so small a matter as electric
torches, or perhaps he did not expect to meet with them in these degenerate
days. At any rate for the first and last time in my intercourse with him I saw
the god, or lord—the native word bears either meaning—Oro genuinely
astonished. He started and stepped back, and for a moment or two seemed a
little frightened. Then muttering something as to the cleverness of this
light-producing instrument, he motioned to his daughter to take it from Bickley
and hold it in a certain position. She obeyed, and in its illumination he began
to study the engraved plates, holding one of them in either hand.
</p>
<p>
After a while he gave me one of the plates to hold, and with his disengaged
hand pointed successively to the constellation of Orion, to the stars Castor,
Pollux, Aldebaran, Rigel, the Pleiades, Sirius and others which with my very
limited knowledge I could not recognise offhand. Then on the plate which I
held, he showed us those same stars and constellations, checking them one by
one.
</p>
<p>
Then he remarked very quietly that all was in order, and handing the plate he
held to Yva, said:
</p>
<p>
“The calculations made so long ago are correct, nor have the stars varied
in their proper motions during what is after all but an hour of time. If you,
Stranger, who, I understand, are named Humphrey, should be, as I gather, a
heaven-master, naturally you will ask me how I could fix an exact date by the
stars without an error of, let us say, from five to ten thousand years. I
answer you that by the proper motion of the stars alone it would have been
difficult. Therefore I remember that in order to be exact, I calculated the
future conjunctions of those two planets,” and he pointed to Saturn and
Jupiter. “Finding that one of these occurred near yonder star,” and
he indicated the bright orb, Spica, “at a certain time, I determined that
then I would awake. Behold! There are the stars as I engraved them from my
foreknowledge, upon this chart, and there those two great planets hang in
conjunction. Daughter Yva, my wisdom has not failed me. This world of ours has
travelled round the sun neither less nor more than two hundred and fifty
thousand times since we laid ourselves down to sleep. It is written here, and
yonder,” and he pointed, first to the engraved plates and then to the
vast expanse of the starlit heavens.
</p>
<p>
Awe fell on me; I think that even Bickley and Bastin were awed, at any rate for
the moment. It was a terrible thing to look on a being, to all appearance more
or less human, who alleged that he had been asleep for two hundred and fifty
thousand years, and proceeded to prove it by certain ancient star charts. Of
course at the time I could not check those charts, lacking the necessary
knowledge, but I have done so since and found that they are quite accurate.
However this made no difference, since the circumstances and something in his
manner convinced me that he spoke the absolute truth.
</p>
<p>
He and his daughter had been asleep for two hundred and fifty thousand years.
Oh! Heavens, <i>for two hundred and fifty thousand years!</i>
</p>
</div><!--end chapter-->
<div class="chapter">
<h2><a name="chap13" id="chap13"></a>CHAPTER XIII.<br />
Oro Speaks and Bastin Argues</h2>
<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>
<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>
<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>
<p>
“We have much to learn and I hope that then you who, I understand, are a
priest, will begin to teach us of your religion and other matters.”
</p>
<p>
Bastin was so astonished that he could make no reply, but when they had gone he
said:
</p>
<p>
“Which of you told her that I was a priest?”
</p>
<p>
We shook our heads for neither of us could remember having done so.
</p>
<p>
“Well, I did not,” continued Bastin, “since at present I have
found no opportunity of saying a word in season. So I suppose she must have
gathered it from my attire, though as a matter of fact I haven’t been
wearing a collar, and those men who wanted to cook me, pulled off my white tie
and I didn’t think it worth while dirtying a clean one.”
</p>
<p>
“If,” said Bickley, “you imagine that you look like the
minister of any religion ancient or modern in a grubby flannel shirt, a
battered sun-helmet, a torn green and white umbrella and a pair of ragged duck
trousers, you are mistaken, Bastin, that is all.”
</p>
<p>
“I admit that the costume is not appropriate, Bickley, but how otherwise
could she have learned the truth?”
</p>
<p>
“These people seem to have ways of learning a good many things. But in
your case, Bastin, the cause is clear enough. You have been walking about with
the head of that idol and always keep it close to you. No doubt they believe
that you are a priest of the worship of the god of the Grove—Baal, you
know, or something of that sort.”
</p>
<p>
When he heard this Bastin’s face became a perfect picture. Never before
did I see it so full of horror struggling with indignation.
</p>
<p>
“I must undeceive them without a moment’s delay,” he said,
and was starting for the cave when we caught his arms and held him.
</p>
<p>
“Better wait till they come back, old fellow,” I said, laughing.
“If you disobey that Lord Oro you may meet with another experience in the
sacrifice line.”
</p>
<p>
“Perhaps you are right, Arbuthnot. I will occupy the interval in
preparing a suitable address.”
</p>
<p>
“Much better occupy it in preparing breakfast,” said Bickley.
“I have always noticed that you are at your best extempore.”
</p>
<p>
In the end he did prepare breakfast though in a <i>distrait</i> fashion; indeed
I found him beginning to make tea in the frying-pan. Bastin felt that his
opportunity had arrived, and was making ready to rise to the occasion.
</p>
<p>
Also we felt, all three of us, that we were extremely shabby-looking objects,
and though none of us said so, each did his best to improve his personal
appearance. First of all Bickley cut Bastin’s and my hair, after which I
did him the same service. Then Bickley who was normally clean shaven, set to
work to remove a beard of about a week’s growth, and I who wore one of
the pointed variety, trimmed up mine as best I could with the help of a
hand-glass. Bastin, too, performed on his which was of the square and rather
ragged type, wisely rejecting Bickley’s advice to shave it off
altogether, offered, I felt convinced, because he felt that the result on
Bastin would be too hideous for words. After this we cut our nails, cleaned our
teeth and bathed; I even caught Bickley applying hair tonic from his dressing
case in secret, behind a projecting rock, and borrowed some myself. He gave it
me on condition that I did not mention its existence to Bastin who, he
remarked, would certainly use the lot and make himself smell horrible.
</p>
<p>
Next we found clean ducks among our store of spare clothes, for the Orofenans
had brought these with our other possessions, and put them on, even adding silk
cumberbunds and neckties. My tie I fastened with a pin that I had obtained in
Egypt. It was a tiny gold statuette of very fine and early workmanship, of the
god Osiris, wearing the crown of the Upper Land with the uraeus crest, and
holding in his hands, which projected from the mummy wrappings, the emblems of
the crook, the scourge and the <i>crux ansata</i>, or Sign of Life.
</p>
<p>
Bastin, for his part, arrayed himself in full clerical costume, black coat and
trousers, white tie and stick-up clergyman’s collar which, as he
remarked, made him feel extremely hot in that climate, and were unsuitable to
domestic duties, such as washing-up. I offered to hold his coat while he did
this office and told him he looked very nice indeed.
</p>
<p>
“Beautiful!” remarked Bickley, “but why don’t you put
on your surplice and biretta?” (Being very High-Church Bastin did wear a
biretta on festival Sundays at home.) “There would be no mistake about
you then.”
</p>
<p>
“I do not think it would be suitable,” replied Bastin whose sense
of humour was undeveloped. “There is no service to be performed at
present and no church, though perhaps that cave—” and he stopped.
</p>
<p>
When we had finished these vain adornments and Bastin had put away the things
and tidied up, we sat down, rather at a loose end. We should have liked to walk
but refrained from doing so for fear lest we might dirty our clean clothes. So
we just sat and thought. At least Bickley thought, and so did I for a while
until I gave it up. What was the use of thinking, seeing that we were face to
face with circumstances which baffled reason and beggared all recorded human
experience? What Bastin did I am sure I do not know, but I think from the
expression of his countenance that he was engaged in composing sermons for the
benefit of Oro and the Glittering Lady.
</p>
<p>
One diversion we did have. About eleven o’clock a canoe came from the
main island laden with provisions and paddled by Marama and two of his people.
We seized our weapons, remembering our experiences of the night, but Marama
waved a bough in token of peace. So, carrying our revolvers, we went to the
rock edge to meet him. He crept ashore and, chief though he was, prostrated
himself upon his face before us, which told me that he had heard of the fate of
the sorcerers. His apologies were abject. He explained that he had no part in
the outrage of the attack, and besought us to intercede on behalf of him and
his people with the awakened god of the Mountain whom he looked for with a
terrified air.
</p>
<p>
We consoled him as well as we could, and told him that he had best be gone
before the god of the Mountain appeared, and perhaps treated him as he had done
the sorcerers. In his name, however, we commanded Marama to bring materials and
build us a proper house upon the rock, also to be sure to keep up a regular and
ample supply of provisions. If he did these things, and anything else we might
from time to time command, we said that perhaps his life and those of his
people would be spared. This, however, after the evil behaviour of some of them
of course we could not guarantee.
</p>
<p>
Marama departed so thoroughly frightened that he even forgot to make any
inquiries as to who this god of the Mountain might be, or where he came from,
or whither he was going. Of course, the place had been sacred among his people
from the beginning, whenever that may have been, but that its sacredness should
materialise into an active god who brought sorcerers of the highest reputation
to a most unpleasant end, just because they wished to translate their preaching
into practice, was another matter. It was not to be explained even by the fact
of which he himself had informed me, that during the dreadful storm of some
months before, the cave mouth which previously was not visible on the volcano,
had suddenly been lifted up above the level of the Rock of Offerings, although,
of course, all religious and instructed persons would have expected something
peculiar to happen after this event.
</p>
<p>
Such I knew were his thoughts, but, as I have said, he was too frightened and
too hurried to express them in questions that I should have found it extremely
difficult to answer. As it was he departed quite uncertain as to whether one of
us was not the real “god of the Mountain,” who had power to bring
hideous death upon his molesters. After all, what had he to go on to the
contrary, except the word of three priests who were so terrified that they
could give no coherent account of what had happened? Of these events, it was
true, there was evidence in the twisted carcass of their lamented high
sorcerer, and, for the matter of that, of certain corpses which he had seen,
that lay in shallow water at the bottom of the lake. Beyond all was vague, and
in his heart I am sure that Marama believed that Bastin was the real “god
of the Mountain.” Naturally, he would desire to work vengeance on those
who tried to sacrifice and eat him. Moreover, had he not destroyed the image of
the god of the Grove and borne away its head whence he had sucked magic and
power?
</p>
<p>
Thus argued Marama, disbelieving the tale of the frightened sorcerers, for he
admitted as much to me in after days.
</p>
<p>
Marama departed in a great hurry, fearing lest the “god of the
Mountain,” or Bastin, whose new and splendid garb he regarded with much
suspicion, might develop some evil energy against him. Then we went back to our
camp, leaving the industrious Bastin, animated by a suggestion from Bickley
that the fruit and food might spoil if left in the sun, to carry it into the
shade of the cave. Owing to the terrors of the Orofenans the supply was so
large that to do this he must make no fewer than seven journeys, which he did
with great good will since Bastin loved physical exercise. The result on his
clerical garments, however, was disastrous. His white tie went awry, squashed
fruit and roast pig gravy ran down his waistcoat and trousers, and his high
collar melted into limp crinkles in the moisture engendered by the tropical
heat. Only his long coat escaped, since that Bickley kindly carried for him.
</p>
<p>
It was just as he arrived with the seventh load in this extremely dishevelled
condition that Oro and his daughter emerged from the cave. Indeed Bastin, who,
being shortsighted, always wore spectacles that, owing to his heated state were
covered with mist, not seeing that dignitary, dumped down the last basket on to
his toes, exclaiming:
</p>
<p>
“There, you lazy beggar, I told you I would bring it all, and I
have.”
</p>
<p>
In fact he thought he was addressing Bickley and playing off on him a
troglodytic practical joke.
</p>
<p>
Oro, however, who at his age did not appreciate jokes, resented it and was
about to do something unpleasant when with extraordinary tact his daughter
remarked:
</p>
<p>
“Bastin the priest makes you offerings. Thank him, O Lord my
father.”
</p>
<p>
So Oro thanked him, not too cordially for evidently he still had feeling in his
toes, and once more Bastin escaped. Becoming aware of his error, he began to
apologise profusely in English, while the lady Yva studied him carefully.
</p>
<p>
“Is that the costume of the priests of your religion, O Bastin?”
she asked, surveying his dishevelled form. “If so, you were better
without it.”
</p>
<p>
Then Bastin retired to straighten his tie, and grabbing his coat from Bickley,
who handed it to him with a malicious smile, forced his perspiring arms into it
in a peculiarly awkward and elephantine fashion.
</p>
<p>
Meanwhile Bickley and I produced two camp chairs which we had made ready, and
on these the wondrous pair seated themselves side by side.
</p>
<p>
“We have come to learn,” said Oro. “Teach!”
</p>
<p>
“Not so, Father,” interrupted Yva, who, I noted, was clothed in yet
a third costume, though whence these came I could not imagine. “First I
would ask a question. Whence are you, Strangers, and how came you here?”
</p>
<p>
“We are from the country called England and a great storm shipwrecked us
here; that, I think, which raised the mouth of the cave above the level of this
rock,” I answered.
</p>
<p>
“The time appointed having come when it should be raised,” said Oro
as though to himself.
</p>
<p>
“Where is England?” asked Yva.
</p>
<p>
Now among the books we had with us was a pocket atlas, quite a good one of its
sort. By way of answer I opened it at the map of the world and showed her
England. Also I showed, to within a thousand miles or so, that spot on the
earth’s surface where we spoke together.
</p>
<p>
The sight of this atlas excited the pair greatly. They had not the slightest
difficulty in understanding everything about it and the shape of the world with
its division into hemispheres seemed to be quite familiar to them. What
appeared chiefly to interest them, and especially Oro, were the relative areas
and positions of land and sea.
</p>
<p>
“Of this, Strangers,” he said, pointing to the map, “I shall
have much to say to you when I have studied the pictures of your book and
compared them with others of my own.”
</p>
<p>
“So he has got maps,” said Bickley in English, “as well as
star charts. I wonder where he keeps them.”
</p>
<p>
“With his clothes, I expect,” suggested Bastin.
</p>
<p>
Meanwhile Oro had hidden the atlas in his ample robe and motioned to his
daughter to proceed.
</p>
<p>
“Why do you come here from England so far away?” the Lady Yva
asked, a question to which each of us had an answer.
</p>
<p>
“To see new countries,” I said.
</p>
<p>
“Because the cyclone brought us,” said Bickley.
</p>
<p>
“To convert the heathen to my own Christian religion,” said Bastin,
which was not strictly true.
</p>
<p>
It was on this last reply that she fixed.
</p>
<p>
“What does your religion teach?” she asked.
</p>
<p>
“It teaches that those who accept it and obey its commands will live
again after death for ever in a better world where is neither sorrow nor
sin,” he answered.
</p>
<p>
When he heard this saying I saw Oro start as though struck by a new thought and
look at Bastin with a curious intentness.
</p>
<p>
“Who are the heathen?” Yva asked again after a pause, for she also
seemed to be impressed.
</p>
<p>
“All who do not agree with Bastin’s spiritual views,”
answered Bickley.
</p>
<p>
“Those who, whether from lack of instruction or from hardness of heart,
do not follow the true faith. For instance, I suppose that your father and you
are heathen,” replied Bastin stoutly.
</p>
<p>
This seemed to astonish them, but presently Yva caught his meaning and smiled,
while Oro said:
</p>
<p>
“Of this great matter of faith we will talk later. It is an old question
in the world.”
</p>
<p>
“Why,” went on Yva, “if you wished to travel so far did you
come in a ship that so easily is wrecked? Why did you not journey through the
air, or better still, pass through space, leaving your bodies asleep, as, being
instructed, doubtless you can do?”
</p>
<p>
“As regards your first question,” I answered, “there are no
aircraft known that can make so long a journey.”
</p>
<p>
“And as regards the second,” broke in Bickley, “we did not do
so because it is impossible for men to transfer themselves to other places
through space either with or without their bodies.”
</p>
<p>
At this information the Glittering Lady lifted her arched eyebrows and smiled a
little, while Oro said:
</p>
<p>
“I perceive that the new world has advanced but a little way on the road
of knowledge.”
</p>
<p>
Fearing that Bastin was about to commence an argument, I began to ask questions
in my turn.
</p>
<p>
“Lord Oro and Lady Yva,” I said, “we have told you something
of ourselves and will tell you more when you desire it. But pardon us if first
we pray you to tell us what we burn to know. Who are you? Of what race and
country? And how came it that we found you sleeping yonder?”
</p>
<p>
“If it be your pleasure, answer, my Father,” said Yva.
</p>
<p>
Oro thought a moment, then replied in a calm voice:
</p>
<p>
“I am a king who once ruled most of the world as it was in my day, though
it is true that much of it rebelled against me, my councillors and servants.
Therefore I destroyed the world as it was then, save only certain portions
whence life might spread to the new countries that I raised up. Having done
this I put myself and my daughter to sleep for a space of two hundred and fifty
thousand years, that there might be time for fresh civilisations to arise. Now
I begin to think that I did not allot a sufficiency of ages, since I perceive
from what you tell me, that the learning of the new races is as yet but
small.”
</p>
<p>
Bickley and I looked at each other and were silent. Mentally we had collapsed.
Who could begin to discuss statements built upon such a foundation of gigantic
and paralysing falsehoods?
</p>
<p>
Well, Bastin could for one. With no more surprise in his voice than if he were
talking about last night’s dinner, he said:
</p>
<p>
“There must be a mistake somewhere, or perhaps I misunderstand you. It is
obvious that you, being a man, could not have destroyed the world. That could
only be done by the Power which made it and you.”
</p>
<p>
I trembled for the results of Bastin’s methods of setting out the truth.
To my astonishment, however, Oro replied:
</p>
<p>
“You speak wisely, Priest, but the Power you name may use instruments to
accomplish its decrees. I am such an instrument.”
</p>
<p>
“Quite so,” said Bastin, “just like anybody else. You have
more knowledge of the truth than I thought. But pray, how did you destroy the
world?”
</p>
<p>
“Using my wisdom to direct the forces that are at work in the heart of
this great globe, I drowned it with a deluge, causing one part to sink and
another to rise, also changes of climate which completed the work.”
</p>
<p>
“That’s quite right,” exclaimed Bastin delightedly. “We
know all about the Deluge, only <i>you</i> are not mentioned in connection with
the matter. A man, Noah, had to do with it when he was six hundred years
old.”
</p>
<p>
“Six hundred?” said Oro. “That is not very old. I myself had
seen more than a thousand years when I lay down to sleep.”
</p>
<p>
“A thousand!” remarked Bastin, mildly interested. “That is
unusual, though some of these mighty men of renown we know lived over nine
hundred.”
</p>
<p>
Here Bickley snorted and exclaimed:
</p>
<p>
“Nine hundred moons, he means.”
</p>
<p>
“I did not know Noah,” went on Oro. “Perhaps he lived after
my time and caused some other local deluge. Is there anything else you wish to
ask me before I leave you that I may study this map writing?”
</p>
<p>
“Yes,” said Bastin. “Why were you allowed to drown your
world?”
</p>
<p>
“Because it was evil, Priest, and disobeyed me and the Power I
serve.”
</p>
<p>
“Oh! thank you,” said Bastin, “that fits in exactly. It was
just the same in Noah’s time.”
</p>
<p>
“I pray that it is not just the same now,” said Oro, rising.
“To-morrow we will return, or if I do not who have much that I must do,
the lady my daughter will return and speak with you further.”
</p>
<p>
He departed into the cave, Yva following at a little distance.
</p>
<p>
I accompanied her as far as the mouth of the cave, as did Tommy, who all this
time had been sitting contentedly upon the hem of her gorgeous robe, quite
careless of its immemorial age, if it was immemorial and not woven yesterday, a
point on which I had no information.
</p>
<p>
“Lady Yva,” I said, “did I rightly understand the Lord Oro to
say that he was a thousand years old?”
</p>
<p>
“Yes, O Humphrey, and really he is more, or so I think.”
</p>
<p>
“Then are you a thousand years old also?” I asked, aghast.
</p>
<p>
“No, no,” she replied, shaking her head, “I am young, quite
young, for I do not count my time of sleep.”
</p>
<p>
“Certainly you look it,” I said. “But what, Lady Yva, do you
mean by young?”
</p>
<p>
She answered my question by another.
</p>
<p>
“What age are your women when they are as I am?”
</p>
<p>
“None of our women were ever quite like you, Lady Yva. Yet, say from
twenty-five to thirty years of age.”
</p>
<p>
“Ah! I have been counting and now I remember. When my father sent me to
sleep I was twenty-seven years old. No, I will not deceive you, I was
twenty-seven years and three moons.” Then, saying something to the effect
that she would return, she departed, laughing a little in a mischievous way,
and, although I did not observe this till afterwards, Tommy departed with her.
</p>
<p>
When I repeated what she had said to Bastin and Bickley, who were standing at a
distance straining their ears and somewhat aggrieved, the former remarked:
</p>
<p>
“If she is twenty-seven her father must have married late in life, though
of course it may have been a long while before he had children.”
</p>
<p>
Then Bickley, who had been suppressing himself all this while, went off like a
bomb.
</p>
<p>
“Do you tell us, Bastin,” he asked, “that you believe one
word of all this ghastly rubbish? I mean as to that antique charlatan being a
thousand years old and having caused the Flood and the rest?”
</p>
<p>
“If you ask me, Bickley, I see no particular reason to doubt it at
present. A person who can go to sleep in a glass coffin kept warm by a
pocketful of radium together with very accurate maps of the constellations at
the time he wakes up, can, I imagine, do most things.”
</p>
<p>
“Even cause the Deluge,” jeered Bickley.
</p>
<p>
“I don’t know about <i>the</i> Deluge, but perhaps he may have been
permitted to cause a deluge. Why not? You can’t look at things from far
enough off, Bickley. And if something seems big to you, you conclude that
therefore it is impossible. The same Power which gives you skill to succeed in
an operation, that hitherto was held impracticable, as I know you have done
once or twice, may have given that old fellow power to cause a deluge. You
should measure the universe and its possibilities by worlds and not by acres,
Bickley.”
</p>
<p>
“And believe, I suppose, that a man can live a thousand years, whereas we
know well that he cannot live more than about a hundred.”
</p>
<p>
“You don’t <i>know</i> anything of the sort, Bickley. All you know
is that over the brief period of history with which we are acquainted, say ten
thousand years at most, men have only lived to about a hundred. But the very
rocks which you are so fond of talking about, tell us that even this planet is
millions upon millions of years of age. Who knows then but that at some time in
its history, men did not live for a thousand years, and that lost civilisations
did not exist of which this Oro and his daughter may be two survivors?”
</p>
<p>
“There is no proof of anything of the sort,” said Bickley.
</p>
<p>
“I don’t know about proof, as you understand it, though I have read
in Plato of a continent called Atlantis that was submerged, according to the
story of old Egyptian priests. But personally I have every proof, for it is all
written down in the Bible at which you turn up your nose, and I am very glad
that I have been lucky enough to come across this unexpected confirmation of
the story. Not that it matters much, since I should have learned all about it
when it pleases Providence to remove me to a better world, which in our
circumstances may happen any day. Now I must change my clothes before I see to
the cooking and other things.”
</p>
<p>
“I am bound to admit,” said Bickley, looking after him, “that
old Bastin is not so stupid as he seems. From his point of view the arguments
he advances are quite logical. Moreover I think he is right when he says that
we look at things through the wrong end of the telescope. After all the
universe is very big and who knows what may happen there? Who knows even what
may have happened on this little earth during the æons of its existence,
whenever its balance chanced to shift, as the Ice Ages show us it has often
done? Still I believe that old Oro to be a Prince of Liars.”
</p>
<p>
“That remains to be proved,” I answered cautiously. “All I
know is that he is a wonderfully learned person of most remarkable appearance,
and that his daughter is the loveliest creature I ever saw.”
</p>
<p>
“There I agree,” said Bickley decidedly, “and as brilliant as
she is lovely. If she belongs to a past civilisation, it is a pity that it ever
became extinct. Now let’s go and have a nap. Bastin will call us when
supper is ready.”
</p>
</div><!--end chapter-->
<div class="chapter">
<h2><a name="chap14" id="chap14"></a>CHAPTER XIV.<br />
The Under-world</h2>
<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>
<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>
<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>
<p>
“Why does Tommy shine, Lady?” I asked.
</p>
<p>
“Because I washed him in certain waters that we have, so that now he
looks beautiful and smells sweet,” she answered, laughing.
</p>
<p>
It was true, the dog did smell sweet, which I may add had not always been the
case with him, especially when there were dead fish about. Also he appeared to
have been fed, for he turned up his nose at the bits we had saved for his
breakfast.
</p>
<p>
“He has drunk of the Life-water,” explained Yva, “and will
want no food for two days.”
</p>
<p>
Bickley pricked up his ears at this statement and looked incredulous.
</p>
<p>
“You do not believe, O Bickley,” she said, studying him gravely.
“Indeed, you believe nothing. You think my father and I tell you many
lies. Bastin there, he believes all. Humphrey? He is not sure; he thinks to
himself, I will wait and find out whether or no these funny people cheat
me.”
</p>
<p>
Bickley coloured and made some remark about things which were contrary to
experience, also that Tommy in a general way was rather a greedy little dog.
</p>
<p>
“You, too, like to eat, Bickley” (this was true, he had an
excellent appetite), “but when you have drunk the Life-water you will
care much less.”
</p>
<p>
“I am glad to hear it,” interrupted Bastin, “for Bickley
wants a lot of cooking done, and I find it tedious.”
</p>
<p>
“You eat also, Lady,” said Bickley.
</p>
<p>
“Yes, I eat sometimes because I like it, but I can go weeks and not eat,
when I have the Life-water. Just now, after so long a sleep, I am hungry.
Please give me some of that fruit. No, not the flesh, flesh I hate.”
</p>
<p>
We handed it to her. She took two plantains, peeled and ate them with
extraordinary grace. Indeed she reminded me, I do not know why, of some lovely
butterfly drawing its food from a flower.
</p>
<p>
While she ate she observed us closely; nothing seemed to escape the quick
glances of those beautiful eyes. Presently she said:
</p>
<p>
“What, O Humphrey, is that with which you fasten your neckdress?”
and she pointed to the little gold statue of Osiris that I used as a pin.
</p>
<p>
I told her that it was a statuette of a god named Osiris and very, very
ancient, probably quite five thousand years old, a statement at which she
smiled a little; also that it came from Egypt.
</p>
<p>
“Ah!” she answered, “is it so? I asked because we have
figures that are very like to that one, and they also hold in their hands a
staff surmounted by a loop. They are figures of Sleep’s
brother—Death.”
</p>
<p>
“So is this,” I said. “Among the Egyptians Osiris was the god
of Death.”
</p>
<p>
She nodded and replied that doubtless the symbol had come down to them.
</p>
<p>
“One day you shall take me to see this land which you call so very old.
Or I will take you, which would be quicker,” she added.
</p>
<p>
We all bowed and said we should be delighted. Even Bastin appeared anxious to
revisit Egypt in such company, though when he was there it seemed to bore him.
But what she meant about taking us I could not guess. Nor had we time to ask
her, for she went on, watching our faces as she spoke.
</p>
<p>
“The Lord Oro sends you a message, Strangers. He asks whether it is your
wish to see where we dwell. He adds that you are not to come if you do not
desire, or if you fear danger.”
</p>
<p>
We all answered that there was nothing we should like better, but Bastin added
that he had already seen the tomb.
</p>
<p>
“Do you think, Bastin, that we live in a tomb because we slept there for
a while, awaiting the advent of you wanderers at the appointed hour?”
</p>
<p>
“I don’t see where else it could be, unless it is further down that
cave,” said Bastin. “The top of the mountain would not be
convenient as a residence.”
</p>
<p>
“It has not been convenient for many an age, for reasons that I will show
you. Think now, before you come. You have naught to fear from us, and I believe
that no harm will happen to you. But you will see many strange things that will
anger Bickley because he cannot understand them, and perhaps will weary Bastin
because his heart turns from what is wondrous and ancient. Only Humphrey will
rejoice in them because the doors of his soul are open and he longs—what
do you long for, Humphrey?”
</p>
<p>
“That which I have lost and fear I shall never find again,” I
answered boldly.
</p>
<p>
“I know that you have lost many things—last night, for instance,
you lost Tommy, and when he slept with me he told me much about you
and—others.”
</p>
<p>
“This is ridiculous,” broke in Bastin. “Can a dog
talk?”
</p>
<p>
“Everything can talk, if you understand its language, Bastin. But keep a
good heart, Humphrey, for the bold seeker finds in the end. Oh! foolish man, do
you not understand that all is yours if you have but the soul to conceive and
the will to grasp? All, all, below, between, above! Even I know that, I who
have so much to learn.”
</p>
<p>
So she spoke and became suddenly magnificent. Her face which had been but that
of a super-lovely woman, took on grandeur. Her bosom swelled; her presence
radiated some subtle power, much as her hair radiated light.
</p>
<p>
In a moment it was gone and she was smiling and jesting.
</p>
<p>
“Will you come, Strangers, where Tommy was not afraid to go, down to the
Under-world? Or will you stay here in the sun? Perhaps you will do better to
stay here in the sun, for the Under-world has terrors for weak hearts that were
born but yesterday, and feeble feet may stumble in the dark.”
</p>
<p>
“I shall take my electric torch,” said Bastin with decision,
“and I advise you fellows to do the same. I always hated cellars, and the
catacombs at Rome are worse, though full of sacred interest.”
</p>
<p>
Then we started, Tommy frisking on ahead in a most provoking way as though he
were bored by a visit to a strange house and going home, and Yva gliding
forward with a smile upon her face that was half mystic and half mischievous.
We passed the remains of the machines, and Bickley asked her what they were.
</p>
<p>
“Carriages in which once we travelled through the skies, until we found a
better way, and that the uninstructed used till the end,” she answered
carelessly, leaving me wondering what on earth she meant.
</p>
<p>
We came to the statue and the sepulchre beneath without trouble, for the glint
of her hair, and I may add of Tommy’s back, were quite sufficient to
guide us through the gloom. The crystal coffins were still there, for Bastin
flashed his torch and we saw them, but the boxes of radium had gone.
</p>
<p>
“Let that light die,” she said to Bastin. “Humphrey, give me
your right hand and give your left to Bickley. Let Bastin cling to him and fear
nothing.”
</p>
<p>
We passed to the end of the tomb and stood against what appeared to be a rock
wall, all close together, as she directed.
</p>
<p>
“Fear nothing,” she said again, but next second I was never more
full of fear in my life, for we were whirling downwards at a speed that would
have made an American elevator attendant turn pale.
</p>
<p>
“Don’t choke me,” I heard Bickley say to Bastin, and the
latter’s murmured reply of:
</p>
<p>
“I never could bear these moving staircases and tubelifts. They always
make me feel sick.”
</p>
<p>
I admit that for my part I also felt rather sick and clung tightly to the hand
of the Glittering Lady. She, however, placed her other hand upon my shoulder,
saying in a low voice:
</p>
<p>
“Did I not tell you to have no fear?”
</p>
<p>
Then I felt comforted, for somehow I knew that it was not her desire to harm
and much less to destroy me. Also Tommy was seated quite at his ease with his
head resting against my leg, and his absence of alarm was reassuring. The only
stoic of the party was Bickley. I have no doubt that he was quite as frightened
as we were, but rather than show it he would have died.
</p>
<p>
“I presume this machinery is pneumatic,” he began when suddenly and
without shock, we arrived at the end of our journey. How far we had fallen I am
sure I do not know, but I should judge from the awful speed at which we
travelled, that it must have been several thousand feet, probably four or five.
</p>
<p>
“Everything seems steady now,” remarked Bastin, “so I suppose
this luggage lift has stopped. The odd thing is that I can’t see anything
of it. There ought to be a shaft, but we seem to be standing on a level
floor.”
</p>
<p>
“The odd thing is,” said Bickley, “that we can see at all.
Where the devil does the light come from thousands of feet underground?”
</p>
<p>
“I don’t know,” answered Bastin, “unless there is
natural gas here, as I am told there is at a town called Medicine Hat in
Canada.”
</p>
<p>
“Natural gas be blowed,” said Bickley. “It is more like
moonlight magnified ten times.”
</p>
<p>
So it was. The whole place was filled with a soft radiance, equal to that of
the sun at noon, but gentler and without heat.
</p>
<p>
“Where does it come from?” I whispered to Yva.
</p>
<p>
“Oh!” she replied, as I thought evasively. “It is the light
of the Under-world which we know how to use. The earth is full of light, which
is not wonderful, is it, seeing that its heart is fire? Now look about
you.”
</p>
<p>
I looked and leant on her harder than ever, since amazement made me weak. We
were in some vast place whereof the roof seemed almost as far off as the sky at
night. At least all that I could make out was a dim and distant arch which
might have been one of cloud. For the rest, in every direction stretched
vastness, illuminated far as the eye could reach by the soft light of which I
have spoken, that is, probably for several miles. But this vastness was not
empty. On the contrary it was occupied by a great city. There were streets much
wider than Piccadilly, all bordered by houses, though these, I observed, were
roofless, very fine houses, some of them, built of white stone or marble. There
were roadways and pavements worn by the passage of feet. There, farther on,
were market-places or public squares, and there, lastly, was a huge central
enclosure one or two hundred acres in extent, which was filled with majestic
buildings that looked like palaces, or town-halls; and, in the midst of them
all, a vast temple with courts and a central dome. For here, notwithstanding
the lack of necessity, its builders seemed to have adhered to the Over-world
tradition, and had roofed their fane.
</p>
<p>
And now came the terror. All of this enormous city was <i>dead</i>. Had it
stood upon the moon it could not have been more dead. None paced its streets;
none looked from its window-places. None trafficked in its markets, none
worshipped in its temple. Swept, garnished, lighted, practically untouched by
the hand of Time, here where no rains fell and no winds blew, it was yet a
howling wilderness. For what wilderness is there to equal that which once has
been the busy haunt of men? Let those who have stood among the buried cities of
Central Asia, or of Anarajapura in Ceylon, or even amid the ruins of Salamis on
the coast of Cyprus, answer the question. But here was something infinitely
more awful. A huge human haunt in the bowels of the earth utterly devoid of
human beings, and yet as perfect as on the day when these ceased to be.
</p>
<p>
“I do not care for underground localities,” remarked Bastin, his
gruff voice echoing strangely in that terrible silence, “but it does seem
a pity that all these fine buildings should be wasted. I suppose their
inhabitants left them in search of fresh air.”
</p>
<p>
“Why did they leave them?” I asked of Yva.
</p>
<p>
“Because death took them,” she answered solemnly. “Even those
who live a thousand years die at last, and if they have no children, with them
dies the race.”
</p>
<p>
“Then were you the last of your people?” I asked.
</p>
<p>
“Inquire of my father,” she replied, and led the way through the
massive arch of a great building.
</p>
<p>
It led into a walled courtyard in the centre of which was a plain cupola of
marble with a gate of some pale metal that looked like platinum mixed with
gold. This gate stood open. Within it was the statue of a woman beautifully
executed in white marble and set in a niche of some black stone. The figure was
draped as though to conceal the shape, and the face was stern and majestic
rather than beautiful. The eyes of the statue were cunningly made of some
enamel which gave them a strange and lifelike appearance. They stared upwards
as though looking away from the earth and its concerns. The arms were
outstretched. In the right hand was a cup of black marble, in the left a
similar cup of white marble. From each of these cups trickled a thin stream of
sparkling water, which two streams met and mingled at a distance of about three
feet beneath the cups. Then they fell into a metal basin which, although it
must have been quite a foot thick, was cut right through by their constant
impact, and apparently vanished down some pipe beneath. Out of this metal basin
Tommy, who gambolled into the place ahead of us, began to drink in a greedy and
demonstrative fashion.
</p>
<p>
“The Life-water?” I said, looking at our guide.
</p>
<p>
She nodded and asked in her turn:
</p>
<p>
“What is the statue and what does it signify, Humphrey?”
</p>
<p>
I hesitated, but Bastin answered:
</p>
<p>
“Just a rather ugly woman who hid up her figure because it was bad.
Probably she was a relation of the artist who wished to have her likeness done
and sat for nothing.”
</p>
<p>
“The goddess of Health,” suggested Bickley. “Her proportions
are perfect; a robust, a thoroughly normal woman.”
</p>
<p>
“Now, Humphrey,” said Yva.
</p>
<p>
I stared at the work and had not an idea. Then it flashed on me with such
suddenness and certainty that I am convinced the answer to the riddle was
passed to me from her and did not originate in my own mind.
</p>
<p>
“It seems quite easy,” I said in a superior tone. “The figure
symbolises Life and is draped because we only see the face of Life, the rest is
hidden. The arms are bare because Life is real and active. One cup is black and
one is white because Life brings both good and evil gifts; that is why the
streams mingle, to be lost beneath in the darkness of death. The features are
stern and even terrifying rather than lovely, because such is the aspect of
Life. The eyes look upward and far away from present things, because the real
life is not here.”
</p>
<p>
“Of course one may say anything,” said Bastin, “but I
don’t understand all that.”
</p>
<p>
“Imagination goes a long way,” broke in Bickley, who was vexed that
he had not thought of this interpretation himself. But Yva said:
</p>
<p>
“I begin to think that you are quite clever, Humphrey. I wonder whence
the truth came to you, for such is the meaning of the figure and the cups. Had
I told it to you myself, it could not have been better said,” and she
glanced at me out of the corners of her eyes. “Now, Strangers, will you
drink? Once that gate was guarded, and only at a great price or as a great
reward were certain of the Highest Blood given the freedom of this fountain
which might touch no common lips. Indeed it was one of the causes of our last
war, for all the world which was, desired this water which now is lapped by a
stranger’s hound.”
</p>
<p>
“I suppose there is nothing medicinal in it?” said Bastin.
“Once when I was very thirsty, I made a mistake and drank three tumblers
of something of the sort in the dark, thinking that it was Apollinaris, and I
don’t want to do it again.”
</p>
<p>
“Just the sort of thing you would do,” said Bickley. “But,
Lady Yva, what are the properties of this water?”
</p>
<p>
“It is very health-giving,” she answered, “and if drunk
continually, not less than once each thirty days, it wards off sickness,
lessens hunger and postpones death for many, many years. That is why those of
the High Blood endured so long and became the rulers of the world, and that, as
I have said, is the greatest of the reasons why the peoples who dwelt in the
ancient outer countries and never wished to die, made war upon them, to win
this secret fountain. Have no fear, O Bastin, for see, I will pledge you in
this water.”
</p>
<p>
Then she lifted a strange-looking, shallow, metal cup whereof the handles were
formed of twisted serpents, that lay in the basin, filled it from the trickling
stream, bowed to us and drank. But as she drank I noted with a thrill of joy
that her eyes were fixed on mine as though it were me she pledged and me alone.
Again she filled the cup with the sparkling water, for it did sparkle, like
that French liqueur in which are mingled little flakes of gold, and handed it
to me.
</p>
<p>
I bowed to her and drank. I suppose the fluid was water, but to me it tasted
more like strong champagne, dashed with Château Yquem. It was delicious. More,
its effects were distinctly peculiar. Something quick and subtle ran through my
veins; something that for a few moments seemed to burn away the obscureness
which blurs our thought. I began to understand several problems that had
puzzled me, and then lost their explanations in the midst of light, inner
light, I mean. Moreover, of a sudden it seemed to me as though a window had
been opened in the heart of that Glittering Lady who stood beside me. At least
I knew that it was full of wonderful knowledge, wonderful memories and
wonderful hopes, and that in the latter two of these I had some part; what part
I could not tell. Also I knew that my heart was open to her and that she saw in
it something which caused her to marvel and to sigh.
</p>
<p>
In a few seconds, thirty perhaps, all this was gone. Nothing remained except
that I felt extremely strong and well, happier, too, than I had been for years.
Mutely I asked her for more of the water, but she shook her head and, taking
the cup from me, filled it again and gave it to Bickley, who drank. He flushed,
seemed to lose the self-control which was his very strong characteristic, and
said in a rather thick voice:
</p>
<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>
<p>
Then he was silent, and Bastin’s turn came. He drank rather noisily,
after his fashion, and began:
</p>
<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>
<p class="poem">
From Greenland’s icy mountains,<br />
From India’s coral strand,<br />
Where Afric’s sunny fountains<br />
Roll down their golden sand.
</p>
<p>
Ceasing from melody, he added:
</p>
<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>
<p>
Then he, too, grew silent.
</p>
<p>
“Come,” said Yva, “my father, the Lord Oro, awaits
you.”
</p>
<p>
We crossed the court of the Water of Life and mounted steps that led to a wide
and impressive portico, Tommy frisking ahead of us in a most excited way for a
dog of his experience. Evidently the water had produced its effect upon him as
well as upon his masters. This portico was in a solemn style of architecture
which I cannot describe, because it differed from any other that I know. It was
not Egyptian and not Greek, although its solidity reminded me of the former,
and the beauty and grace of some of the columns, of the latter. The profuseness
and rather grotesque character of the carvings suggested the ruins of Mexico
and Yucatan, and the enormous size of the blocks of stone, those of Peru and
Baalbec. In short, all the known forms of ancient architecture might have found
their inspiration here, and the general effect was tremendous.
</p>
<p>
“The palace of the King,” said Yva, “whereof we approach the
great hall.”
</p>
<p>
We entered through mighty metal doors, one of which stood ajar, into a
vestibule which from certain indications I gathered had once been a guard, or
perhaps an assembly-room. It was about forty feet deep by a hundred wide.
Thence she led us through a smaller door into the hall itself. It was a vast
place without columns, for there was no roof to support. The walls of marble or
limestone were sculptured like those of Egyptian temples, apparently with
battle scenes, though of this I am not sure for I did not go near to them.
Except for a broad avenue along the middle, up which we walked, the area was
filled with marble benches that would, I presume, have accommodated several
thousand people. But they were empty—empty, and oh! the loneliness of it
all.
</p>
<p>
Far away at the head of the hall was a dais enclosed, and, as it were, roofed
in by a towering structure that mingled grace and majesty to a wonderful
degree. It was modelled on the pattern of a huge shell. The base of the shell
was the platform; behind were the ribs, and above, the overhanging lip of the
shell. On this platform was a throne of silvery metal. It was supported on the
arched coils of snakes, whereof the tails formed the back and the heads the
arms of the throne.
</p>
<p>
On this throne, arrayed in gorgeous robes, sat the Lord Oro, his white beard
flowing over them, and a jewelled cap upon his head. In front of him was a low
table on which lay graven sheets of metal, and among them a large ball of
crystal.
</p>
<p>
There he sat, solemn and silent in the midst of this awful solitude, looking in
very truth like a god, as we conceive such a being to appear. Small as he was
in that huge expanse of buildings, he seemed yet to dominate it, in a sense to
fill the emptiness which was accentuated by his presence. I know that the sight
of him filled me with true fear which it had never done in the light of day,
not even when he arose from his crystal coffin. Now for the first time I felt
as though I were really in the presence of a Being Supernatural. Doubtless the
surroundings heightened this impression. What were these mighty edifices in the
bowels of the world? Whence came this wondrous, all-pervading and translucent
light, whereof we could see no origin? Whither had vanished those who had
reared and inhabited them? How did it happen that of them all, this man, if he
were a man; and this lovely woman at my side, who, if I might trust my senses
and instincts, was certainly a woman, alone survived of their departed
multitudes?
</p>
<p>
The thing was crushing. I looked at Bickley for encouragement, but got none,
for he only shook his head. Even Bastin, now that the first effects of the
Life-water had departed, seemed overwhelmed, and muttered something about the
halls of Hades.
</p>
<p>
Only the little dog Tommy remained quite cheerful. He trotted down the hall,
jumped on to the dais and sat himself comfortably at the feet of its occupant.
</p>
<p>
“I greet you,” Oro said in his slow, resonant voice.
“Daughter, lead these strangers to me; I would speak with them.”
</p>
</div><!--end chapter-->
<div class="chapter">
<h2><a name="chap15" id="chap15"></a>CHAPTER XV.<br />
Oro in His House</h2>
<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>
<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>
<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>
<p>
“What say you of this city?” Oro asked after a while of me.
</p>
<p>
“We do not know what to say,” I replied. “It amazes us. In
our world there is nothing like to it.”
</p>
<p>
“Perchance there will be in the future when the nations grow more skilled
in the arts of war,” said Oro darkly.
</p>
<p>
“Be pleased, Lord Oro,” I went on, “if it is your will, to
tell us why the people who built this place chose to live in the bowels of the
earth instead of upon its surface.”
</p>
<p>
“They did not choose; it was forced upon them,” was the answer.
“This is a city of refuge that they occupied in time of war, not because
they hated the sun. In time of peace and before the Barbarians dared to attack
them, they dwelt in the city Pani which signifies Above. You may have noted
some of its remaining ruins on the mount and throughout the island. The rest of
them are now beneath the sea. But when trouble came and the foe rained fire on
them from the air, they retreated to this town, Nyo, which signifies
Beneath.”
</p>
<p>
“And then?”
</p>
<p>
“And then they died. The Water of Life may prolong life, but it cannot
make women bear children. That they will only do beneath the blue of heaven,
not deep in the belly of the world where Nature never designed that they should
dwell. How would the voices of children sound in such halls as these? Tell me,
you, Bickley, who are a physician.”
</p>
<p>
“I cannot. I cannot imagine children in such a place, and if born here
they would die,” said Bickley.
</p>
<p>
Oro nodded.
</p>
<p>
“They did die, and if they went above to Pani they were murdered. So soon
the habit of birth was lost and the Sons of Wisdom perished one by one. Yes,
they who ruled the world and by tens of thousands of years of toil had gathered
into their bosoms all the secrets of the world, perished, till only a few, and
among them I and this daughter of mine, were left.”
</p>
<p>
“And then?”
</p>
<p>
“Then, Humphrey, having power so to do, I did what long I had threatened,
and unchained the forces that work at the world’s heart, and destroyed
them who were my enemies and evil, so that they perished by millions, and with
them all their works. Afterwards we slept, leaving the others, our subjects who
had not the secret of this Sleep, to die, as doubtless they did in the course
of Nature or by the hand of the foe. The rest you know.”
</p>
<p>
“Can such a thing happen again?” asked Bickley in a voice that did
not hide his disbelief.
</p>
<p>
“Why do you question me, Bickley, you who believe nothing of what I tell
you, and therefore make wrath? Still I will say this, that what I caused to
happen I can cause once more—only once, I think—as perchance you
shall learn before all is done. Now, since you do not believe, I will tell you
no more of our mysteries, no, not whence this light comes nor what are the
properties of the Water of Life, both of which you long to know, nor how to
preserve the vital spark of Being in the grave of dreamless sleep, like a live
jewel in a casket of dead stone, nor aught else. As to these matters, Daughter,
I bid you also to be silent, since Bickley mocks at us. Yes, with all this
around him, he who saw us rise from the coffins, still mocks at us in his
heart. Therefore let him, this little man of a little day, when his few years
are done go to the tomb in ignorance, and his companions with him, they who
might have been as wise as I am.”
</p>
<p>
Thus Oro spoke in a voice of icy rage, his deep eyes glowing like coals.
Hearing him I cursed Bickley in my heart for I was sure that once spoken, his
decree was like to that of the Medes and Persians and could not be altered.
Bickley, however, was not in the least dismayed. Indeed he argued the point. He
told Oro straight out that he would not believe in the impossible until it had
been shown to him to be possible, and that the law of Nature never had been and
never could be violated. It was no answer, he said, to show him wonders without
explaining their cause, since all that he seemed to see might be but mental
illusions produced he knew not how.
</p>
<p>
Oro listened patiently, then answered:
</p>
<p>
“Good. So be it, they are illusions. I am an illusion; those savages who
died upon the rock will tell you so. This fair woman before you is an illusion;
Humphrey, I am sure, knows it as you will also before you have done with her.
These halls are illusions. Live on in your illusions, O little man of science,
who because you see the face of things, think that you know the body and the
heart, and can read the soul at work within. You are a worthy child of tens of
thousands of your breed who were before you and are now forgotten.”
</p>
<p>
Bickley looked up to answer, then changed his mind and was silent, thinking
further argument dangerous, and Oro went on:
</p>
<p>
“Now I differ from you, Bickley, in this way. I who have more wisdom in
my finger-point than you with all the physicians of your world added to you,
have in your brains and bodies, yet desire to learn from those who can give me
knowledge. I understand from your words to my daughter that you, Bastin, teach
a faith that is new to me, and that this faith tells of life eternal for the
children of earth. Is it so?”
</p>
<p>
“It is,” said Bastin eagerly. “I will set out—”
</p>
<p>
Oro cut him short with a wave of the hand.
</p>
<p>
“Not now in the presence of Bickley who doubtless disbelieves your faith,
as he does all else, holding it with justice or without, to be but another
illusion. Yet you shall teach me and on it I will form my own judgment.”
</p>
<p>
“I shall be delighted,” said Bastin. Then a doubt struck him, and
he added: “But why do you wish to learn? Not that you may make a mock of
my religion, is it?”
</p>
<p>
“I mock at no man’s belief, because I think that what men believe
is true—for them. I will tell you why I wish to hear of yours, since I
never hide the truth. I who am so wise and old, yet must die; though that time
may be far away, still I must die, for such is the lot of man born of woman.
And I do not desire to die. Therefore I shall rejoice to learn of any faith
that promises to the children of earth a life eternal beyond the earth.
Tomorrow you shall begin to teach me. Now leave me, Strangers, for I have much
to do,” and he waved his hand towards the table.
</p>
<p>
We rose and bowed, wondering what he could have to do down in this luminous
hole, he who had been for so many thousands of years out of touch with the
world. It occurred to me, however, that during this long period he might have
got in touch with other worlds, indeed he looked like it.
</p>
<p>
“Wait,” he said, “I have something to tell you. I have been
studying this book of writings, or world pictures,” and he pointed to my
atlas which, as I now observed for the first time, was also lying upon the
table. “It interests me much. Your country is small, very small. When I
caused it to be raised up I think that it was larger, but since then that seas
have flowed in.”
</p>
<p>
Here Bickley groaned aloud.
</p>
<p>
“This one is much greater,” went on Oro, casting a glance at
Bickley that must have penetrated him like a searchlight. Then he opened the
map of Europe and with his finger indicated Germany and Austria-Hungary.
“I know nothing of the peoples of these lands,” he added,
“but as you belong to one of them and are my guests, I trust that yours
may succeed in the war.”
</p>
<p>
“What war?” we asked with one voice.
</p>
<p>
“Since Bickley is so clever, surely he should know better than an
illusion such as I. All I can tell you is that I have learned that there is war
between this country and that,” and he pointed to Great Britain and to
Germany upon the map; “also between others.”
</p>
<p>
“It is quite possible,” I said, remembering many things. “But
how do you know?”
</p>
<p>
“If I told you, Humphrey, Bickley would not believe, so I will not tell.
Perhaps I saw it in that crystal, as did the necromancers of the early world.
Or perhaps the crystal serves some different purpose and I saw it
otherwise—with my soul. At least what I say is true.”
</p>
<p>
“Then who will win?” asked Bastin.
</p>
<p>
“I cannot read the future, Preacher. If I could, should I ask you to
expound to me your religion which probably is of no more worth than a score of
others I have studied, just because it tells of the future? If I could read the
future I should be a god instead of only an earth-lord.”
</p>
<p>
“Your daughter called you a god and you said that you knew we were coming
to wake you up, which is reading the future,” answered Bastin.
</p>
<p>
“Every father is a god to his daughter, or should be; also in my day
millions named me a god because I saw further and struck harder than they
could. As for the rest, it came to me in a vision. Oh! Bickley, if you were
wiser than you think you are, you would know that all things to come are born
elsewhere and travel hither like the light from stars. Sometimes they come
faster before their day into a single mind, and that is what men call prophecy.
But this is a gift which cannot be commanded, even by me. Also I did not know
that you would come. I knew only that we should awaken and by the help of men,
for if none had been present at that destined hour we must have died for lack
of warmth and sustenance.”
</p>
<p>
“I deny your hypothesis <i>in toto</i>,” exclaimed Bickley, but
nobody paid any attention to him.
</p>
<p>
“My father,” said Yva, rising and bowing before him with her
swan-like grace, “I have noted your commands. But do you permit that I
show the temple to these strangers, also something of our past?”
</p>
<p>
“Yes, yes,” he said. “It will save much talk in a savage
tongue that is difficult to me. But bring them here no more without my command,
save Bastin only. When the sun is four hours high in the upper world, let him
come tomorrow to teach me, and afterwards if so I desire. Or if he wills, he
can sleep here.”
</p>
<p>
“I think I would rather not,” said Bastin hurriedly. “I make
no pretense to being particular, but this place does not appeal to me as a
bedroom. There are degrees in the pleasures of solitude and, in short, I will
not disturb your privacy at night.”
</p>
<p>
Oro waved his hand and we departed down that awful and most dreary hall.
</p>
<p>
“I hope you will spend a pleasant time here, Bastin,” I said,
looking back from the doorway at its cold, illuminated vastness.
</p>
<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>
<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>
<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>
<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>
<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>
<p>
“I should like to dissect one of them, but I suppose that would not be
allowed,” said Bickley.
</p>
<p>
“No,” she answered. “I think that the Lord Oro would not wish
you to cut up his forefathers.”
</p>
<p>
“When you and he went to sleep, why did you not choose the family
vault?” asked Bastin.
</p>
<p>
“Would you have found us there?” she queried by way of answer.
Then, understanding that the invitation was refused by general consent, though
personally I should have liked to accept it, and have never ceased regretting
that I did not, she moved towards a colossal object which stood beneath the
centre of the dome.
</p>
<p>
On a stepped base, not very different from that in the cave but much larger,
sat a figure, draped in a cloak on which was graved a number of stars,
doubtless to symbolise the heavens. The fastening of the cloak was shaped like
the crescent moon, and the foot-stool on which rested the figure’s feet
was fashioned to suggest the orb of the sun. This was of gold or some such
metal, the only spot of brightness in all that temple. It was impossible to say
whether the figure were male or female, for the cloak falling in long, straight
folds hid its outlines. Nor did the head tell us, for the hair also was hidden
beneath the mantle and the face might have been that of either man or woman. It
was terrible in its solemnity and calm, and its expression was as remote and
mystic as that of Buddha, only more stern. Also without doubt it was blind; it
was impossible to mistake the sightlessness of those staring orbs. Across the
knees lay a naked sword and beneath the cloak the arms were hidden. In its
complete simplicity the thing was marvelous.
</p>
<p>
On either side upon the pedestal knelt a figure of the size of life. One was an
old and withered man with death stamped upon his face; the other was a
beautiful, naked woman, her hands clasped in the attitude of prayer and with
vague terror written on her vivid features.
</p>
<p>
Such was this glorious group of which the meaning could not be mistaken. It was
Fate throned upon the sun, wearing the constellations as his garment, armed
with the sword of Destiny and worshipped by Life and Death. This interpretation
I set out to the others.
</p>
<p>
Yva knelt before the statue for a little while, bowing her head in prayer, and
really I felt inclined to follow her example, though in the end I compromised,
as did Bickley, by taking off my hat, which, like the others, I still wore from
force of habit, though in this place none were needed. Only Bastin remained
covered.
</p>
<p>
“Behold the god of my people,” said Yva. “Have you no
reverence for it, O Bastin?”
</p>
<p>
“Not much,” he answered, “except as a work of art. You see I
worship Fate’s Master. I might add that <i>your</i> god doesn’t
seem to have done much for you, Lady Yva, as out of all your greatness
there’s nothing left but two people and a lot of old walls and
caves.”
</p>
<p>
At first she was inclined to be angry, for I saw her start. Then her mood
changed, and she said with a sigh:
</p>
<p>
“Fate’s Master! Where does He dwell?”
</p>
<p>
“Here amongst other places,” said Bastin. “I’ll soon
explain that to you.”
</p>
<p>
“I thank you,” she replied gravely. “But why have you not
explained it to Bickley?” Then waving her hand to show that she wished
for no answer, she went on:
</p>
<p>
“Friends, would you wish to learn something of the history of my
people?”
</p>
<p>
“Very much,” said the irrepressible Bastin, “but I would
rather the lecture took place in the open air.”
</p>
<p>
“That is not possible,” she answered. “It must be here and
now, or not at all. Come, stand by me. Be silent and do not move. I am about to
set loose forces that are dangerous if disturbed.”
</p>
</div><!--end chapter-->
<div class="chapter">
<h2><a name="chap16" id="chap16"></a>CHAPTER XVI.<br />
Visions of the Past</h2>
<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>
<p>
“I shall show you first our people in the day of their glory. Look in
front of you.”
</p>
<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>
<p>
A wonderful scene appeared. There was a palace of white marble and in front of
it a great courtyard upon which the sun beat vividly. At the foot of the steps
of the palace, beneath a silken awning, sat a king enthroned, a crown upon his
head and wearing glorious robes. In his hand was a jewelled sceptre. He was a
noble-looking man of middle age and about him were gathered the glittering
officers of his court. Fair women fanned him and to right and left, but a
little behind, sat other fair and jewelled women who, I suppose, were his wives
or daughters.
</p>
<p>
“One of the Kings of the Children of Wisdom new-crowned, receives the
homage of the world,” said Yva.
</p>
<p>
As she spoke there appeared, walking in front of the throne one by one, other
kings, for all were crowned and bore sceptres. At the foot of the throne each
of them kneeled and kissed the foot of him who sat thereon, as he did so laying
down his sceptre which at a sign he lifted again and passed away. Of these
kings there must have been quite fifty, men of all colours and of various
types, white men, black men, yellow men, red men.
</p>
<p>
Then came their ministers bearing gifts, apparently of gold and jewels, which
were piled on trays in front of the throne. I remember noting an incident. An
old fellow with a lame leg stumbled and upset his tray, so that the contents
rolled hither and thither. His attempts to recover them were ludicrous and
caused the monarch on the throne to relax from his dignity and smile. I mention
this to show that what we witnessed was no set scene but apparently a living
piece of the past. Had it been so the absurdity of the bedizened old man
tumbling down in the midst of the gorgeous pageant would certainly have been
omitted.
</p>
<p>
No, it must be life, real life, something that had happened, and the same may
be said of what followed. For instance, there was what we call a review.
Infantry marched, some of them armed with swords and spears, though these I
took to be an ornamental bodyguard, and others with tubes like savage blowpipes
of which I could not guess the use. There were no cannon, but carriages came by
loaded with bags that had spouts to them. Probably these were charged with
poisonous gases. There were some cavalry also, mounted on a different stamp of
horse from ours, thicker set and nearer the ground, but with arched necks and
fiery eyes and, I should say, very strong. These again, I take it, were
ornamental. Then came other men upon a long machine, slung in pairs in armoured
sacks, out of which only their heads and arms projected. This machine, which
resembled an elongated bicycle, went by at a tremendous rate, though whence its
motive power came did not appear. It carried twenty pairs of men, each of whom
held in his hand some small but doubtless deadly weapon, that in appearance
resembled an orange. Other similar machines which followed carried from forty
to a hundred pairs of men.
</p>
<p>
The marvel of the piece, however, were the aircraft. These came by in great
numbers. Sometimes they flew in flocks like wild geese, sometimes singly,
sometimes in line and sometimes in ordered squadrons, with outpost and officer
ships and an exact distance kept between craft and craft. None of them seemed
to be very large or to carry more than four or five men, but they were
extraordinarily swift and as agile as swallows. Moreover they flew as birds do
by beating their wings, but again we could not guess whence came their motive
power.
</p>
<p>
The review vanished, and next appeared a scene of festivity in a huge,
illuminated hall. The Great King sat upon a dais and behind him was that statue
of Fate, or one very similar to it, beneath which we stood. Below him in the
hall were the feasters seated at long tables, clad in the various costumes of
their countries. He rose and, turning, knelt before the statue of Fate. Indeed
he prostrated himself thrice in prayer. Then taking his seat again, he lifted a
cup of wine and pledged that vast company. They drank back to him and
prostrated themselves before him as he had done before the image of Fate. Only
I noted that certain men clad in sacerdotal garments not at all unlike those
which are worn in the Greek Church to-day, remained standing.
</p>
<p>
Now all this exhibition of terrestrial pomp faded. The next scene was simple,
that of the death-bed of this same king—we knew him by his wizened
features. There he lay, terribly old and dying. Physicians, women, courtiers,
all were there watching the end. The tableau vanished and in place of it
appeared that of the youthful successor amidst cheering crowds, with joy
breaking through the clouds of simulated grief upon his face. It vanished also.
</p>
<p>
“Thus did great king succeed great king for ages upon ages,” said
Yva. “There were eighty of them and the average of their reigns was 700
years. They ruled the earth as it was in those days. They gathered up learning,
they wielded power, their wealth was boundless. They nurtured the arts, they
discovered secrets. They had intercourse with the stars; they were as gods. But
like the gods they grew jealous. They and their councillors became a race apart
who alone had the secret of long life. The rest of the world and the
commonplace people about them suffered and died. They of the Household of
Wisdom lived on in pomp for generations till the earth was mad with envy of
them.
</p>
<p>
“Fewer and fewer grew the divine race of the Sons of Wisdom since
children are not given to the aged and to those of an ancient, outworn blood.
Then the World said:
</p>
<p>
“‘They are great but they are not many; let us make an end of them
by numbers and take their place and power and drink of their Life-water, that
they will not give to us. If myriads of us perish by their arts, what does it
matter, since we are countless?’ So the World made war upon the Sons of
Wisdom. See!”
</p>
<p>
Again a picture formed. The sky was full of aircraft which rained down fire
like flashes of lightning upon cities beneath. From these cities leapt up other
fires that destroyed the swift-travelling things above, so that they fell in
numbers like gnats burned by a lamp. Still more and more of them came till the
cities crumbled away and the flashes that darted from them ceased to rush
upwards. The Sons of Wisdom were driven from the face of the earth.
</p>
<p>
Again the scene changed. Now it showed this subterranean hall in which we
stood. There was pomp here, yet it was but a shadow of that which had been in
the earlier days upon the face of the earth. Courtiers moved about the palace
and there were people in the radiant streets and the houses, for most of them
were occupied, but rarely did the vision show children coming through their
gates.
</p>
<p>
Of a sudden this scene shifted. Now we saw that same hall in which we had
visited Oro not an hour before. There he sat, yes, Oro himself, upon the dais
beneath the overhanging marble shell. Round him were some ancient councillors.
In the body of the hall on either side of the dais were men in military array,
guards without doubt though their only weapon was a black rod not unlike a
ruler, if indeed it were a weapon and not a badge of office.
</p>
<p class="p2">
Yva, whose face had suddenly grown strange and fixed, began to detail to us
what was passing in this scene, in a curious monotone such as a person might
use who was repeating something learned by heart. This was the substance of
what she said:
</p>
<p>
“The case of the Sons of Wisdom is desperate. But few of them are left.
Like other men they need food which is hard to come by, since the foe holds the
upper earth and that which their doctors can make here in the Shades does not
satisfy them, even though they drink the Life-water. They die and die. There
comes an embassy from the High King of the confederated Nations to talk of
terms of peace. See, it enters.”
</p>
<p>
As she spoke, up the hall advanced the embassy. At the head of it walked a
young man, tall, dark, handsome and commanding, whose aspect seemed in some way
to be familiar to me. He was richly clothed in a purple cloak and wore upon his
head a golden circlet that suggested royal rank. Those who followed him were
mostly old men who had the astute faces of diplomatists, but a few seemed to be
generals. Yva continued in her monotonous voice:
</p>
<p>
“Comes the son of the King of the confederated Nations, the Prince who
will be king. He bows before the Lord Oro. He says ‘Great and Ancient
Monarch of the divine blood, Heaven-born One, your strait, and that of those
who remain to you, is sore. Yet on behalf of the Nations I am sent to offer
terms of peace, but this I may only do in the presence of your child who is
your heiress and the Queen-to-be of the Sons of Wisdom.’”
</p>
<p>
Here, in the picture, Oro waved his hand and from behind the marble shell
appeared Yva herself, gloriously apparelled, wearing royal ornaments and with
her train held by waiting ladies. She bowed to the Prince and his company and
they bowed back to her. More, we saw a glance of recognition pass between her
and the Prince.
</p>
<p>
Now the real Yva by our side pointed to the shadow Yva of the vision or the
picture, whichever it might be called, a strange thing to see her do, and went
on:
</p>
<p>
“The daughter of the Lord Oro comes. The Prince of the Nations salutes
her. He says that the great war has endured for hundreds of years between the
Children of Wisdom fighting for absolute rule and the common people of the
earth fighting for liberty. In that war many millions of the Sons of the
Nations had perished, brought to their death by fearful arts, by wizardries and
by plagues sown among them by the Sons of Wisdom. Yet they were winning, for
the glorious cities of the Sons of Wisdom were destroyed and those who remained
of them were driven to dwell in the caves of the earth where with all their
strength and magic they could not increase, but faded like flowers in the dark.
</p>
<p>
“The Lord Oro asks what are the terms of peace proposed by the Nations.
The Prince answers that they are these: That the Sons of Wisdom shall teach all
their wisdom to the wise men among the Nations. That they shall give them to
drink of the Life-water, so that their length of days also may be increased.
That they shall cease to destroy them by sickness and their mastery of the
forces which are hid in the womb of the world. If they will do these things,
then the Nations on their part will cease from war, will rebuild the cities
they have destroyed by means of their flying ships that rain down death, and
will agree that the Lord Oro and his seed shall rule them for ever as the King
of kings.
</p>
<p>
“The Lord Oro asks if that be all. The Prince answers that it is not all.
He says that when he dwelt a hostage at the court of the Sons of Wisdom he and
the divine Lady, the daughter of the Lord Oro, and his only living child,
learned to love each other. He demands, and the Nations demand, that she shall
be given to him to wife, that in a day to come he may rule with her and their
children after them.
</p>
<p>
“See!” went on Yva in her chanting, dreamy voice, “the Lord
Oro asks his daughter if this be true. She says,” here the real Yva at my
side turned and looked me straight in the eyes, “that it is true; that
she loves the Prince of the Nations and that if she lives a million years she
will wed no other man, since she who is her father’s slave in all else is
still the mistress of herself, as has ever been the right of her royal mothers.
</p>
<p>
“See again! The Lord Oro, the divine King, the Ancient, grows wroth. He
says that it is enough and more than enough that the Barbarians should ask to
eat of the bread of hidden learning and to drink of the Life-water of the Sons
of Wisdom, gifts that were given to them of old by Heaven whence they sprang in
the beginning. But that one of them, however highly placed, should dare to ask
to mix his blood with that of the divine Lady, the Heiress, the Queen of the
Earth to be, and claim to share her imperial throne that had been held by her
pure race from age to age, was an insult that could only be purged by death.
Sooner would he give his daughter in marriage to an ape than to a child of the
Barbarians who had worked on them so many woes and striven to break the golden
fetters of their rule.
</p>
<p>
“Look again!” continued Yva. “The Lord Oro, the divine, grows
angrier still” (which in truth he did, for never did I see such dreadful
rage as that which the picture revealed in him). “He warns, he threatens.
He says that hitherto out of gentle love and pity he has held his hand; that he
has strength at his command which will slay them, not by millions in slow war,
but by tens of millions at one blow; that will blot them and their peoples from
the face of earth and that will cause the deep seas to roll where now their
pleasant lands are fruitful in the sun. They shrink before his fury; behold,
their knees tremble because they know that he has this power. He mocks them,
does the Lord Oro. He asks for their submission here and now, and that in the
name of the Nations they should take the great oath which may not be broken,
swearing to cease from war upon the Sons of Wisdom and to obey them in all
things to the ends of the earth. Some of the ambassadors would yield. They look
about them like wild things that are trapped. But madness takes the Prince. He
cries that the oath of an ape is of no account, but that he will tear up the
Children of Wisdom as an ape tears leaves, and afterwards take the divine Lady
to be his wife.
</p>
<p>
“Look on the Lord Oro!” continued the living Yva, “his wrath
leaves him. He grows cold and smiles. His daughter throws herself upon her
knees and pleads with him. He thrusts her away. She would spring to the side of
the Prince; he commands his councillors to hold her. She cries to the Prince
that she loves him and him only, and that in a day to come him she will wed and
no other. He thanks her, saying that as it is with her, so it is with him, and
that because of his love he fears nothing. She swoons. The Lord Oro motions
with his hand to the guard. They lift their death-rods. Fire leaps from them.
The Prince and his companions, all save those who were afraid and would have
sworn the oath, twist and writhe. They turn black; they die. The Lord Oro
commands those who are left to enter their flying ships and bear to the Nations
of the Earth tidings of what befalls those who dare to defy and insult him; to
warn them also to eat and drink and be merry while they may, since for their
wickedness they are about to perish.”
</p>
<p class="p2">
The scene faded and there followed another which really I cannot describe. It
represented some vast underground place and what appeared to be a huge mountain
of iron clothed in light, literally a thing like an alp, rocking and spinning
down a declivity, which farther on separated into two branches because of a
huge razor-edge precipice that rose between. There in the middle of this vast
space with the dazzling mountain whirling towards him, stood Oro encased in
some transparent armour, as though to keep off heat, and with him his daughter
who under his direction was handling something in the rock behind her. Then
there was a blinding flash and everything vanished. All of this picture passed
so swiftly that we could not grasp its details; only a general impression
remained.
</p>
<p>
“The Lord Oro, using the strength that is in the world whereof he alone
has the secret, changes the world’s balance causing that which was land
to become sea and that which was sea to become land,” said Yva in her
chanting, unnatural voice.
</p>
<p>
Another scene of stupendous and changing awfulness. Countries were sinking,
cities crashing down, volcanoes were spouting fire; the end of the earth seemed
to be at hand. We could see human beings running to and fro in thousands like
ants. Then in huge waves hundreds and hundreds of feet high, the ocean flowed
in and all was troubled, yeasty sea.
</p>
<p>
“Oro carries out his threat to destroy the Nations who had rebelled
against him,” said Yva. “Much of the world sinks beneath the waves,
but in place of it other lands arise above the waves, to be inhabited by the
seed of those who remain living in those portions of the Earth that the deluge
spared.”
</p>
<p>
This horrible vision passed and was succeeded by one more, that of Oro standing
in the sepulchre of the cave by the side of the crystal coffin which contained
what appeared to be the body of his daughter. He gazed at her, then drank some
potion and laid himself down in the companion coffin, that in which we had
found him.
</p>
<p class="p2">
All vanished away and Yva, appearing to wake from some kind of trance, smiled,
and in her natural voice asked if we had seen enough.
</p>
<p>
“Quite,” I answered in a tone that caused her to say:
</p>
<p>
“I wonder what you have seen, Humphrey. Myself I do not know, since it is
through me that you see at all and when you see I am in you who see.”
</p>
<p>
“Indeed,” I replied. “Well, I will tell you about it
later.”
</p>
<p>
“Thank you so much,” exclaimed Bastin, recovering suddenly from his
amazement. “I have heard a great deal of these moving-picture shows which
are becoming so popular, but have always avoided attending them because their
influence on the young is supposed to be doubtful, and a priest must set a good
example to his congregation. Now I see that they can have a distinct
educational value, even if it is presented in the form of romance.”
</p>
<p>
“How is it done?” asked Bickley, almost fiercely.
</p>
<p>
“I do not altogether know,” she answered. “This I do know,
however, that everything which has happened on this world can be seen from
moment to moment at some point in the depths of space, for thither the
sun’s light takes it. There, too, it can be caught and thence in an
instant returned to earth again, to be reflected in the mirror of the present
by those who know how that mirror should be held. Ask me no more; one so wise
as you, O Bickley, can solve such problems for himself.”
</p>
<p>
“If you don’t mind, Lady Yva,” said Bastin, “I think I
should like to get out of this place, interesting as it is. I have food to cook
up above and lots of things to attend to, especially as I understand I am to
come back here tomorrow. Would you mind showing me the way to that lift or
moving staircase?”
</p>
<p>
“Come,” she said, smiling.
</p>
<p>
So we went past the image of Fate, out of the temple, down the vast and lonely
streets so unnaturally illuminated, to the place where we had first found
ourselves on arrival in the depths. There we stood.
</p>
<p>
A moment later and we were whirling up as we had whirled down. I suppose that
Yva came with us though I never saw her do so, and the odd thing was that when
we arrived in the sepulchre, she seemed already to be standing there waiting to
direct us.
</p>
<p>
“Really,” remarked Bastin, “this is exactly like Maskelyne
and Cook. Did you ever see their performance, Bickley? If so, it must have
given you lots to explain for quite a long while.”
</p>
<p>
“Jugglery never appealed to me, whether in London or in Orofena,”
replied Bickley in a sour voice as he extracted from his pocket an end of
candle to which he set light.
</p>
<p>
“What is jugglery?” asked Bastin, and they departed arguing,
leaving me alone with Yva in the sepulchre.
</p>
<p>
“What have I seen?” I asked her.
</p>
<p>
“I do not know, Humphrey. Everyone sees different things, but perhaps
something of the truth.”
</p>
<p>
“I hope not, Yva, for amongst other things I seemed to see you swear
yourself to a man for ever.”
</p>
<p>
“Yes, and this I did. What of it?”
</p>
<p>
“Only that it might be hard for another man.”
</p>
<p>
“Yes, for another man it might be hard. You were once married, were you
not, Humphrey, to a wife who died?”
</p>
<p>
“Yes, I was married.”
</p>
<p>
“And did you not swear to that wife that you would never look in love
upon another woman?”
</p>
<p>
“I did,” I answered in a shamed voice. “But how do you know?
I never told you so.”
</p>
<p>
“Oh! I know you and therefore guessed.”
</p>
<p>
“Well, what of it, Yva?”
</p>
<p>
“Nothing, except that you must find your wife before you love again, and
before I love again I must find him whom I wish to be my husband.”
</p>
<p>
“How can that happen,” I asked, “when both are dead?”
</p>
<p>
“How did all that you have seen to-day in Nyo happen?” she replied,
laughing softly. “Perhaps you are very blind, Humphrey, or perhaps we
both are blind. If so, mayhap light will come to us. Meanwhile do not be sad.
Tomorrow I will meet you and you shall teach me—your English tongue,
Humphrey, and other things.”
</p>
<p>
“Then let it be in the sunlight, Yva. I do not love those darksome halls
of Nyo that glow like something dead.”
</p>
<p>
“It is fitting, for are they not dead?” she answered, with a little
laugh. “So be it. Bastin shall teach my father down below, since sun and
shade are the same to him who only thinks of his religion, and you shall teach
me up above.”
</p>
<p>
“I am not so certain about Bastin and of what he thinks,” I said
doubtfully. “Also will the Lord Oro permit you to come?”
</p>
<p>
“Yes, for in such matters I rule myself. Also,” she added
meaningly, “he remembers my oath that I will wed no man—save one
who is dead. Now farewell a while and bid Bastin be here when the sun is three
hours high, not before or after.”
</p>
<p>
Then I left her.
</p>
</div><!--end chapter-->
<div class="chapter">
<h2><a name="chap17" id="chap17"></a>CHAPTER XVII.<br />
Yva Explains</h2>
<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>
<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>
<p>
Towards evening they departed in their canoes, leaving behind them the usual
ample store of provisions.
</p>
<p>
We cooked our meal as usual, only to discover that what Yva had said about the
Life-water was quite true, since we had but little appetite for solid food,
though this returned upon the following day. The same thing happened upon every
occasion after drinking of that water which certainly was a most invigorating
fluid. Never for years had any of us felt so well as it caused us to do.
</p>
<p>
So we lit our pipes and talked about our experiences though of these, indeed,
we scarcely knew what to say. Bastin accepted them as something out of the
common, of course, but as facts which admitted of no discussion. After all, he
said, the Old Testament told much the same story of people called the Sons of
God who lived very long lives and ran after the daughters of men whom they
should have left alone, and thus became the progenitors of a remarkable race.
Of this race, he presumed that Oro and his daughter were survivors, especially
as they spoke of their family as “Heaven born.” How they came to
survive was more than he could understand and really scarcely worth bothering
over, since there they were.
</p>
<p>
It was the same about the Deluge, continued Bastin, although naturally Oro
spoke falsely, or, at any rate, grossly exaggerated, when he declared that he
had caused this catastrophe, unless indeed he was talking about a totally
different deluge, though even then <i>he</i> could not have brought it about.
It was curious, however, that the people drowned were said to have been wicked,
and Oro had the same opinion about those whom he claimed to have drowned,
though for the matter of that, he could not conceive anyone more wicked than
Oro himself. On his own showing he was a most revengeful person and one who
declined to agree to a quite suitable alliance, apparently desired by both
parties, merely because it offended his family pride. No, on reflection he
might be unjust to Oro in this particular, since <i>he</i> never told that
story; it was only shown in some pictures which very likely were just made up
to astonish us. Meanwhile, it was his business to preach to this old sinner
down in that hole, and he confessed honestly that he did not like the job.
Still, it must be done, so with our leave he would go apart and seek
inspiration, which at present seemed to be quite lacking.
</p>
<p>
Thus declaimed Bastin and departed.
</p>
<p>
“Don’t you tell your opinion about the Deluge or he may cause
another just to show that you are wrong,” called Bickley after him.
</p>
<p>
“I can’t help that,” answered Bastin. “Certainly I
shall not hide the truth to save Oro’s feelings, if he has got any. If he
revenges himself upon us in any way, we must just put up with it like other
martyrs.”
</p>
<p>
“I haven’t the slightest ambition to be a martyr,” said
Bickley.
</p>
<p>
“No,” shouted Bastin from a little distance, “I am quite
aware of that, as you have often said so before. Therefore, if you become one,
I am sorry to say that I do not see how you can expect any benefit. You would
only be like a man who puts a sovereign into the offertory bag in mistake for a
shilling. The extra nineteen shillings will do him no good at all, since in his
heart he regrets the error and wishes that he could have them back.”
</p>
<p>
Then he departed, leaving me laughing. But Bickley did not laugh.
</p>
<p>
“Arbuthnot,” he said, “I have come to the conclusion that I
have gone quite mad. I beg you if I should show signs of homicidal mania, which
I feel developing in me where Bastin is concerned, or of other abnormal
violence, that you will take whatever steps you consider necessary, even to
putting me out of the way if that is imperative.”
</p>
<p>
“What do you mean?” I asked. “You seem sane enough.”
</p>
<p>
“Sane, when I believe that I have seen and experienced a great number of
things which I know it to be quite impossible that I should have seen or
experienced. The only explanation is that I am suffering from delusions.”
</p>
<p>
“Then is Bastin suffering from delusions, too?”
</p>
<p>
“Certainly, but that is nothing new in his case.”
</p>
<p>
“I don’t agree with you, Bickley—about Bastin, I mean. I am
by no means certain that he is not the wisest of the three of us. He has a
faith and he sticks to it, as millions have done before him, and that is better
than making spiritual experiments, as I am sorry to say I do, or rejecting
things because one cannot understand them, as you do, which is only a form of
intellectual vanity.”
</p>
<p>
“I won’t argue the matter, Arbuthnot; it is of no use. I repeat
that I am mad, and Bastin is mad.”
</p>
<p>
“How about me? I also saw and experienced these things. Am I mad,
too?”
</p>
<p>
“You ought to be, Arbuthnot. If it isn’t enough to drive a man mad
when he sees himself exactly reproduced in an utterly impossible moving-picture
show exhibited by an utterly impossible young woman in an utterly impossible
underground city, then I don’t know what is.”
</p>
<p>
“What do you mean?” I asked, starting.
</p>
<p>
“Mean? Well, if you didn’t notice it, there’s hope for
you.”
</p>
<p>
“Notice what?”
</p>
<p>
“All that envoy scene. There, as I thought, appeared Yva. Do you admit
that?”
</p>
<p>
“Of course; there could be no mistake on that point.”
</p>
<p>
“Very well. Then according to my version there came a man, still young,
dressed in outlandish clothes, who made propositions of peace and wanted to
marry Yva, who wanted to marry him. Is that right?”
</p>
<p>
“Absolutely.”
</p>
<p>
“Well, and didn’t you recognise the man?”
</p>
<p>
“No; I only noticed that he was a fine-looking fellow whose appearance
reminded me of someone.”
</p>
<p>
“I suppose it must be true,” mused Bickley, “that we do not
know ourselves.”
</p>
<p>
“So the old Greek thought, since he urged that this should be our special
study. ‘Know thyself,’ you remember.”
</p>
<p>
“I meant physically, not intellectually. Arbuthnot, do you mean to tell
me that you did not recognise your own double in that man? Shave off your beard
and put on his clothes and no one could distinguish you apart.”
</p>
<p>
I sprang up, dropping my pipe.
</p>
<p>
“Now you mention it,” I said slowly, “I suppose there was a
resemblance. I didn’t look at him very much; I was studying the
simulacrum of Yva. Also, you know it is some time since—I mean, there are
no pier-glasses in Orofena.”
</p>
<p>
“The man was <i>you</i>,” went on Bickley with conviction.
“If I were superstitious I should think it a queer sort of omen. But as I
am not, I know that I must be mad.”
</p>
<p>
“Why? After all, an ancient man and a modern man might resemble each
other.”
</p>
<p>
“There are degrees in resemblance,” said Bickley with one of his
contemptuous snorts. “It won’t do, Humphrey, my boy,” he
added. “I can only think of one possible explanation—outside of the
obvious one of madness.”
</p>
<p>
“What is that?”
</p>
<p>
“The Glittering Lady produced what Bastin called that cinematograph show
in some way or other, did she not? She said that in order to do this she loosed
some hidden forces. I suggest that she did nothing of the sort.”
</p>
<p>
“Then whence did the pictures come and why?”
</p>
<p>
“From her own brain, in order to impress us with a cock-and-bull,
fairy-book story. If this were so she would quite naturally fill the role of
the lover of the piece with the last man who had happened to impress her. Hence
the resemblance.”
</p>
<p>
“You presuppose a great deal, Bickley, including supernatural cunning and
unexampled hypnotic influence. I don’t know, first, why she should be so
anxious to add another impression to the many we have received in this place;
and, secondly, if she was, how she managed to mesmerise three average but
totally different men into seeing the same things. <i>My</i> explanation is
that you were deceived as to the likeness, which, mind you, I did not
recognise; nor, apparently, did Bastin.”
</p>
<p>
“Bastin never recognises anything. But if you are in doubt, ask Yva
herself. She ought to know. Now I’m off to try to analyse that confounded
Life-water, which I suspect is of the ordinary spring variety, lightened up
with natural carbonic acid gas and possibly not uninfluenced by radium. The
trouble is that here I can only apply some very elementary tests.”
</p>
<p>
So he went also, in an opposite direction to Bastin, and I was left alone with
Tommy, who annoyed me much by attempting continually to wander off into the
cave, whence I must recall him. I suppose that my experiences of the day,
reviewed beneath the sweet influences of the wonderful tropical night, affected
me. At any rate, that mystical side of my nature, to which I think I alluded at
the beginning of this record, sprang into active and, in a sense, unholy life.
The normal vanished, the abnormal took possession, and that is unholy to most
of us creatures of habit and tradition, at any rate, if we are British. I lost
my footing on the world; my spirit began to wander in strange places; of
course, always supposing that we have a spirit, which Bickley would deny.
</p>
<p>
I gave up reason; I surrendered myself to unreason; it is a not unpleasant
process, occasionally. Supposing now that all we see and accept is but the
merest fragment of the truth, or perhaps only a refraction thereof? Supposing
that we do live again and again, and that our animating principle, whatever it
might be, does inhabit various bodies, which, naturally enough, it would shape
to its own taste and likeness? Would that taste and likeness vary so very much
over, let us say, a million years or so, which, after all, is but an hour, or a
minute, in the æons of Eternity?
</p>
<p>
On this hypothesis, which is so wild that one begins to suspect that it may be
true, was it impossible that I and that murdered man of the far past were in
fact identical? If the woman were the same, preserved across the gulf in some
unknown fashion, why should not her lover be the same? What did I say—her
lover? Was I her lover? No, I was the lover of one who had died—my lost
wife. Well, if I had died and lived again, why should not—why should not
that Sleeper—have lived again during her long sleep? Through all those
years the spirit must have had some home, and, if so, in what shapes did it
live? There were points, similarities, which rushed in upon me—oh! it was
ridiculous. Bickley was right. We were all mad!
</p>
<p>
There was another thing. Oro had declared that we were at war with Germany. If
this were so, how could he know it? Such knowledge would presume powers of
telepathy or vision beyond those given to man. I could not believe that he
possessed these; as Bickley said, it would be past experience. Yet it was most
strange that he who was uninformed as to our national history and dangers,
should have hit upon a country with which we might well have been plunged into
sudden struggle. Here again I was bewildered and overcome. My brain rocked. I
would seek sleep, and in it escape, or at any rate rest from all these
mysteries.
</p>
<p class="p2">
On the following morning we despatched Bastin to keep his rendezvous in the
sepulchre at the proper time. Had we not done so I felt sure that he would have
forgotten it, for on this occasion he was for once an unwilling missioner. He
tried to persuade one of us to come with him—even Bickley would have been
welcome; but we both declared that we could not dream of interfering in such a
professional matter; also that our presence was forbidden, and would certainly
distract the attention of his pupil.
</p>
<p>
“What you mean,” said the gloomy Bastin, “is that you intend
to enjoy yourselves up here in the female companionship of the Glittering Lady
whilst I sit thousands of feet underground attempting to lighten the darkness
of a violent old sinner whom I suspect of being in league with Satan.”
</p>
<p>
“With whom you should be proud to break a lance,” said Bickley.
</p>
<p>
“So I am, in the daylight. For instance, when he uses <i>your</i> mouth
to advance his arguments, Bickley, but this is another matter. However, if I do
not appear again you will know that I died in a good cause, and, I hope, try to
recover my remains and give them decent burial. Also, you might inform the
Bishop of how I came to my end, that is, if you ever get an opportunity, which
is more than doubtful.”
</p>
<p>
“Hurry up, Bastin, hurry up!” said the unfeeling Bickley, “or
you will be late for your appointment and put your would-be neophyte into a bad
temper.”
</p>
<p>
Then Bastin went, carrying under his arm a large Bible printed in the language
of the South Sea Islands.
</p>
<p>
A little while later Yva appeared, arrayed in her wondrous robes which, being a
man, it is quite impossible for me to describe. She saw us looking at these,
and, after greeting us both, also Tommy, who was enraptured at her coming,
asked us how the ladies of our country attired themselves.
</p>
<p>
We tried to explain, with no striking success.
</p>
<p>
“You are as stupid about such matters as were the men of the Old
World,” she said, shaking her head and laughing. “I thought that
you had with you pictures of ladies you have known which would show me.”
</p>
<p>
Now, in fact, I had in a pocket-book a photograph of my wife in evening-dress,
also a miniature of her head and bust painted on ivory, a beautiful piece of
work done by a master hand, which I always wore. These, after a moment’s
hesitation, I produced and showed to her, Bickley having gone away for a little
while to see about something connected with his attempted analysis of the
Life-water. She examined them with great eagerness, and as she did so I noted
that her face grew tender and troubled.
</p>
<p>
“This was your wife,” she said as one who states what she knows to
be a fact. I nodded, and she went on:
</p>
<p>
“She was sweet and beautiful as a flower, but not so tall as I am, I
think.”
</p>
<p>
“No,” I answered, “she lacked height; given that she would
have been a lovely woman.”
</p>
<p>
“I am glad you think that women should be tall,” she said, glancing
at her shadow. “The eyes were such as mine, were they not—in
colour, I mean?”
</p>
<p>
“Yes, very like yours, only yours are larger.”
</p>
<p>
“That is a beautiful way of wearing the hair. Would you be angry if I
tried it? I weary of this old fashion.”
</p>
<p>
“Why should I be angry?” I asked.
</p>
<p>
At this moment Bickley reappeared and she began to talk of the details of the
dress, saying that it showed more of the neck than had been the custom among
the women of her people, but was very pretty.
</p>
<p>
“That is because we are still barbarians,” said Bickley; “at
least, our women are, and therefore rely upon primitive methods of attraction,
like the savages yonder.”
</p>
<p>
She smiled, and, after a last, long glance, gave me back the photograph and the
miniature, saying as she delivered the latter:
</p>
<p>
“I rejoice to see that you are faithful, Humphrey, and wear this picture
on your heart, as well as in it.”
</p>
<p>
“Then you must be a very remarkable woman,” said Bickley.
“Never before did I hear one of your sex rejoice because a man was
faithful to somebody else.”
</p>
<p>
“Has Bickley been disappointed in his love-heart, that he is so angry to
us women?” asked Yva innocently of me. Then, without waiting for an
answer, she inquired of him whether he had been successful in his analysis of
the Life-water.
</p>
<p>
“How do you know what I was doing with the Life-water? Did Bastin tell
you?” exclaimed Bickley.
</p>
<p>
“Bastin told me nothing, except that he was afraid of the descent to Nyo;
that he hated Nyo when he reached it, as indeed I do, and that he thought that
my father, the Lord Oro, was a devil or evil spirit from some Under-world which
he called hell.”
</p>
<p>
“Bastin has an open heart and an open mouth,” said Bickley,
“for which I respect him. Follow his example if you will, Lady Yva, and
tell us who and what is the Lord Oro, and who and what are you.”
</p>
<p>
“Have we not done so already? If not, I will repeat. The Lord Oro and I
are two who have lived on from the old time when the world was different, and
yet, I think, the same. He is a man and not a god, and I am a woman. His powers
are great because of his knowledge, which he has gathered from his forefathers
and in a life of a thousand years before he went to sleep. He can do things you
cannot do. Thus, he can pass through space and take others with him, and return
again. He can learn what is happening in far-off parts of the world, as he did
when he told you of the war in which your country is concerned. He has terrible
powers; for instance, he can kill, as he killed those savages. Also, he knows
the secrets of the earth, and, if it pleases him, can change its turning so
that earthquakes happen and sea becomes land, and land sea, and the places that
were hot grow cold, and those that were cold grow hot.”
</p>
<p>
“All of which things have happened many times in the history of the
globe,” said Bickley, “without the help of the Lord Oro.”
</p>
<p>
“Others had knowledge before my father, and others doubtless will have
knowledge after him. Even I, Yva, have some knowledge, and knowledge is
strength.”
</p>
<p>
“Yes,” I interposed, “but such powers as you attribute to
your father are not given to man.”
</p>
<p>
“You mean to man as you know him, man like Bickley, who thinks that he
has learned everything that was ever learned. But it is not so. Hundreds of
thousands of years ago men knew more than it seems they do today, ten times
more, as they lived ten times longer, or so you tell me.”
</p>
<p>
“Men?” I said.
</p>
<p>
“Yes, men, not gods or spirits, as the uninstructed nations supposed them
to be. My father is a man subject to the hopes and terrors of man. He desires
power which is ambition, and when the world refused his rule, he destroyed that
part of it which rebelled, which is revenge. Moreover, above all things he
dreads death, which is fear. That is why he suspended life in himself and me
for two hundred and fifty thousand years, as his knowledge gave him strength to
do, because death was near and he thought that sleep was better than
death.”
</p>
<p>
“Why should he dread to die,” asked Bickley, “seeing that
sleep and death are the same?”
</p>
<p>
“Because his knowledge tells him that Sleep and Death are <i>not</i> the
same, as you, in your foolishness, believe, for there Bastin is wiser than you.
Because for all his wisdom he remains ignorant of what happens to man when the
Light of Life is blown out by the breath of Fate. That is why he fears to die
and why he talks with Bastin the Preacher, who says he has the secret of the
future.”
</p>
<p>
“And do you fear to die?” I asked.
</p>
<p>
“No, Humphrey,” she answered gently. “Because I think that
there is no death, and, having done no wrong, I dread no evil. I had dreams
while I was asleep, O Humphrey, and it seemed to me that—”
</p>
<p>
Here she ceased and glanced at where she knew the miniature was hanging upon my
breast.
</p>
<p>
“Now,” she continued, after a little pause, “tell me of your
world, of its history, of its languages, of what happens there, for I long to
know.”
</p>
<p>
So then and there, assisted by Bickley, I began the education of the Lady Yva.
I do not suppose that there was ever a more apt pupil in the whole earth. To
begin with, she was better acquainted with every subject on which I touched
than I was myself; all she lacked was information as to its modern aspect. Her
knowledge ended two hundred and fifty thousand years ago, at which date,
however, it would seem that civilisation had already touched a higher
water-mark than it has ever since attained. Thus, this vanished people
understood astronomy, natural magnetism, the force of gravity, steam, also
electricity to some subtle use of which, I gathered, the lighting of their
underground city was to be attributed. They had mastered architecture and the
arts, as their buildings and statues showed; they could fly through the air
better than we have learned to do within the last few years.
</p>
<p>
More, they, or some of them, had learned the use of the Fourth Dimension, that
is their most instructed individuals, could move <i>through</i> opposing
things, as well as over them, up into them and across them. This power these
possessed in a two-fold form. I mean, that they could either disintegrate their
bodies at one spot and cause them to integrate again at another, or they could
project what the old Egyptians called the Ka or Double, and modern Theosophists
name the Astral Shape, to any distance. Moreover, this Double, or Astral Shape,
while itself invisible, still, so to speak, had the use of its senses. It could
see, it could hear, and it could remember, and, on returning to the body, it
could avail itself of the experience thus acquired.
</p>
<p>
Thus, at least, said Yva, while Bickley contemplated her with a cold and
unbelieving eye. She even went further and alleged that in certain instances,
individuals of her extinct race had been able to pass through the ether and to
visit other worlds in the depths of space.
</p>
<p>
“Have you ever done that?” asked Bickley.
</p>
<p>
“Once or twice I dreamed that I did,” she replied quietly.
</p>
<p>
“We can all dream,” he answered.
</p>
<p>
As it was my lot to make acquaintance with this strange and uncanny power at a
later date, I will say no more of it now.
</p>
<p>
Telepathy, she declared, was also a developed gift among the Sons of Wisdom;
indeed, they seem to have used it as we use wireless messages. Only, in their
case, the sending and receiving stations were skilled and susceptible human
beings who went on duty for so many hours at a time. Thus intelligence was
transmitted with accuracy and despatch. Those who had this faculty were, she
said, also very apt at reading the minds of others and therefore not easy to
deceive.
</p>
<p>
“Is that how you know that I had been trying to analyse your
Life-water?” asked Bickley.
</p>
<p>
“Yes,” she answered, with her unvarying smile. “At the moment
I spoke thereof you were wondering whether my father would be angry if he knew
that you had taken the water in a little flask.” She studied him for a
moment, then added: “Now you are wondering, first, whether I did not see
you take the water from the fountain and guess the purpose, and, secondly,
whether perhaps Bastin did not tell me what you were doing with it when we met
in the sepulchre.”
</p>
<p>
“Look here,” said the exasperated Bickley, “I admit that
telepathy and thought-reading are possible to a certain limited extent. But
supposing that you possess those powers, as I think in English, and you do not
know English, how can you interpret what is passing in my mind?”
</p>
<p>
“Perhaps you have been teaching me English all this while without knowing
it, Bickley. In any case, it matters little, seeing that what I read is the
thought, not the language with which it is clothed. The thought comes from your
mind to mine—that is, if I wish it, which is not often—and I
interpret it in my own or other tongues.”
</p>
<p>
“I am glad to hear it is not often, Lady Yva, since thoughts are
generally considered private.”
</p>
<p>
“Yes, and therefore I will read yours no more. Why should I, when they
are so full of disbelief of all I tell you, and sometimes of other things about
myself which I do not seek to know?”
</p>
<p>
“No wonder that, according to the story in the pictures, those Nations,
whom you named Barbarians, made an end of your people, Lady Yva.”
</p>
<p>
“You are mistaken, Bickley; the Lord Oro made an end of the Nations,
though against my prayer,” she added with a sigh.
</p>
<p>
Then Bickley departed in a rage, and did not appear again for an hour.
</p>
<p>
“He is angry,” she said, looking after him; “nor do I wonder.
It is hard for the very clever like Bickley, who think that they have mastered
all things, to find that after all they are quite ignorant. I am sorry for him,
and I like him very much.”
</p>
<p>
“Then you would be sorry for me also, Lady Yva?”
</p>
<p>
“Why?” she asked with a dazzling smile, “when your heart is
athirst for knowledge, gaping for it like a fledgling’s mouth for food,
and, as it chances, though I am not very wise, I can satisfy something of your
soul-hunger.”
</p>
<p>
“Not very wise!” I repeated.
</p>
<p>
“No, Humphrey. I think that Bastin, who in many ways is so stupid, has
more true wisdom than I have, because he can believe and accept without
question. After all, the wisdom of my people is all of the universe and its
wonders. What you think magic is not magic; it is only gathered knowledge and
the finding out of secrets. Bickley will tell you the same, although as yet he
does not believe that the mind of man can stretch so far.”
</p>
<p>
“You mean that your wisdom has in it nothing of the spirit?”
</p>
<p>
“Yes, Humphrey, that is what I mean. I do not even know if there is such
a thing as spirit. Our god was Fate; Bastin’s god is a spirit, and I
think yours also.”
</p>
<p>
“Yes.”
</p>
<p>
“Therefore, I wish you and Bastin to teach me of your god, as does Oro,
my father. I want—oh! so much, Humphrey, to learn whether we live after
death.”
</p>
<p>
“You!” I exclaimed. “You who, according to the story, have
slept for two hundred and fifty thousand years! You, who have, unless I
mistake, hinted that during that sleep you may have lived in other shapes! Do
you doubt whether we can live after death?”
</p>
<p>
“Yes. Sleep induced by secret arts is not death, and during that sleep
the <i>I</i> within might wander and inhabit other shapes, because it is
forbidden to be idle. Moreover, what seems to be death may not be death, only
another form of sleep from which the <i>I</i> awakes again upon the world. But
at last comes the real death, when the <i>I</i> is extinguished to the world.
That much I know, because my people learned it.”
</p>
<p>
“You mean, you know that men and women may live again and again upon the
world?”
</p>
<p>
“Yes, Humphrey, I do. For in the world there is only a certain store of
life which in many forms travels on and on, till the lot of each <i>I</i> is
fulfilled. Then comes the real death, and after that—what,
oh!—what?”
</p>
<p>
“You must ask Bastin,” I said humbly. “I cannot dare to teach
of such matters.”
</p>
<p>
“No, but you can and do believe, and that helps me, Humphrey, who am in
tune with you. Yes, it helps me much more than do Bastin and his new religion,
because such is woman’s way. Now, I think Bickley will soon return, so
let us talk of other matters. Tell me of the history of your people, Humphrey,
that my father says are now at war.”
</p>
</div><!--end chapter-->
<div class="chapter">
<h2><a name="chap18" id="chap18"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.<br />
The Accident</h2>
<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>
<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 <i>sagas</i>, by word of mouth. None of their secret
knowledge was written down. Like the ritual of Freemasonry it was considered
too sacred.
</p>
<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>
<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>
<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>
<p>
So she went, and with her Tommy, rejoicing.
</p>
<p>
“Ungrateful little devil!” said Bickley. “Here we’ve
fed and petted him from puppyhood, or at least you have, and yet he skips off
with the first stranger. I never saw him behave like that to any woman, except
your poor wife.”
</p>
<p>
“I know,” I answered. “I cannot understand it. Hullo! here
comes Bastin.”
</p>
<p>
Bastin it was, dishevelled and looking much the worse for wear, also minus his
Bible in the native tongue.
</p>
<p>
“Well, how have you been getting on?” said Bickley.
</p>
<p>
“I should like some tea, also anything there is to eat.”
</p>
<p>
We supplied him with these necessaries, and after a while he said slowly and
solemnly:
</p>
<p>
“I cannot help thinking of a childish story which Bickley told or
invented one night at your house at home. I remember he had an argument with my
wife, which he said put him in mind of it, I am sure I don’t know why. It
was about a monkey and a parrot that were left together under a sofa for a long
while, where they were so quiet that everybody forgot them. Then the parrot
came out with only one feather left in its tail and none at all on its body,
saying, ‘I’ve had no end of a time!’ after which it dropped
down and died. Do you know, I feel just like that parrot, only I don’t
mean to die, and I think I gave the monkey quite as good as he gave me!”
</p>
<p>
“What happened?” I asked, intensely interested.
</p>
<p>
“Oh! the Glittering Lady took me into that palace hall where Oro was
sitting like a spider in a web, and left me there. I got to work at once. He
was much interested in the Old Testament stories and said there were points of
truth about them, although they had evidently come down to the modern
writer—he called him a <i>modern</i> writer—in a legendary form. I
thought his remarks impertinent and with difficulty refrained from saying so.
Leaving the story of the Deluge and all that, I spoke of other matters, telling
him of eternal life and Heaven and Hell, of which the poor benighted man had
never heard. I pointed out especially that unless he repented, his life, by all
accounts, had been so wicked, that he was certainly destined to the latter
place.”
</p>
<p>
“What did he say to that?” I asked.
</p>
<p>
“Do you know, I think it frightened him, if one could imagine Oro being
frightened. At any rate he remarked that the truth or falsity of what I said
was an urgent matter for him, as he could not expect to live more than a few
hundred years longer, though perhaps he might prolong the period by another
spell of sleep. Then he asked me why I thought him so wicked. I replied because
he himself said that he had drowned millions of people, which showed an evil
heart and intention even if it were not a fact. He thought a long while and
asked what could be done in the circumstances. I replied that repentance and
reparation were the only courses open to him.”
</p>
<p>
“Reparation!” I exclaimed.
</p>
<p>
“Yes, reparation was what I said, though I think I made a mistake there,
as you will see. As nearly as I can remember, he answered that he was beginning
to repent, as from all he had learned from us, he gathered that the races which
had arisen as a consequence of his action, were worse than those which he had
destroyed. As regards reparation, what he had done once he could do again. He
would think the matter over seriously, and see if it were possible and
advisable to raise those parts of the world which had been sunk, and sink those
which had been raised. If so, he thought that would make very handsome amends
to the departed nations and set him quite right with any superior Power, if
such a thing existed. What are you laughing at, Bickley? I don’t think it
a laughing matter, since such remarks do not seem to me to indicate any real
change in Oro’s heart, which is what I was trying to effect.”
</p>
<p>
Bickley, who was convulsed with merriment, wiped his eyes and said:
</p>
<p>
“You dear old donkey, don’t you see what you have done, or rather
would have done if there were a word of truth in all this ridiculous story
about a deluge? You would be in the way of making your precious pupil, who
certainly is the most masterly old liar in the world, repeat his offence and
send Europe to the bottom of the sea.”
</p>
<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>
“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>
<p class="p2">
Next morning accordingly, fearing no harm from the Orofenans, we took the canoe
and rowed to the main island. Marama had evidently seen us coming, for he and a
number of his people met us with every demonstration of delight, and escorted
us to the ship. Here we found things just as we had left them, for there had
been no attempt at theft or other mischief.
</p>
<p>
While we were in the cabin a fit of moral weakness seemed to overcome Bickley,
the first and I may add the last from which I ever saw him suffer.
</p>
<p>
“Do you know,” he said, addressing us, “I think that we
should do well to try to get out of this place. Eliminating a great deal of the
marvelous with which we seem to have come in touch here, it is still obvious
that we find ourselves in very peculiar and unhealthy surroundings. I mean
mentally unhealthy, indeed I think that if we stay here much longer we shall
probably go off our heads. Now that boat on the deck remains sound and
seaworthy. Why should not we provision her and take our chance? We know more or
less which way to steer.”
</p>
<p>
Bastin and I looked at each other. It was he who spoke first.
</p>
<p>
“Wouldn’t it be rather a risky job in an open boat?” he
asked. “However, that doesn’t matter much because I don’t
take any account of risks, knowing that I am of more value than a sparrow and
that the hairs of my head are all numbered.”
</p>
<p>
“They might be numbered under water as well as above it,” muttered
Bickley, “and I feel sure that on your own showing, you would be as
valuable dead as alive.”
</p>
<p>
“What I seem to feel,” went on Bastin, “is that I have work
to my hand here. Also, the <i>locum tenens</i> at Fulcombe no doubt runs the
parish as well as I could. Indeed I consider him a better man for the place
than I am. That old Oro is a tough proposition, but I do not despair of him
yet, and besides him there is the Glittering Lady, a most open-minded person,
whom I have not yet had any real opportunity of approaching in a spiritual
sense. Then there are all these natives who cannot learn without a teacher. So
on the whole I think I would rather stay where I am until Providence points out
some other path.”
</p>
<p>
“I am of the same opinion, if for somewhat different reasons,” I
said. “I do not suppose that it has often been the fortune of men to come
in touch with such things as we have found upon this island. They may be
illusions, but at least they are very interesting illusions. One might live ten
lifetimes and find nothing else of the sort. Therefore I should like to see the
end of the dream.”
</p>
<p>
Bickley reflected a little, then said:
</p>
<p>
“On the whole I agree with you. Only my brain totters and I am terribly
afraid of madness. I cannot believe what I seem to hear and see, and that way
madness lies. It is better to die than to go mad.”
</p>
<p>
“You’ll do that anyway when your time comes, Bickley, I mean
decease, of course,” interrupted Bastin. “And who knows, perhaps
all this is an opportunity given by Providence to open your eyes, which, I must
say, are singularly blind. You think you know everything there is to learn, but
the fact is that like the rest of us, you know nothing at all, and good man
though you are, obstinately refuse to admit the truth and to seek support
elsewhere. For my part I believe that you are afraid of falling in love with
that Glittering Lady and of being convinced by her that you are wrong in your
most unsatisfactory conclusions.”
</p>
<p>
“I am out-voted anyway,” said Bickley, “and for the rest,
Bastin, look after yourself and leave me alone. I will add that on the whole I
think you are both right, and that it is wisest for us to stop where we are,
for after all we can only die once.”
</p>
<p>
“I am not so sure, Bickley. There is a thing called the second death,
which is what is troubling that old scoundrel, Oro. Now I will go and look for
those books.”
</p>
<p>
So the idea of flight was abandoned, although I admit that even to myself it
had attractions. For I felt that I was being wrapped in a net of mysteries from
which I saw no escape. Yes, and of more than mysteries; I who had sworn that I
would never look upon another woman, was learning to love this sweet and
wondrous Yva, and of that what could be the end?
</p>
<p class="p2">
We collected all we had come to seek, and started homewards escorted by Marama
and his people, including a number of young women who danced before us in a
light array of flowers.
</p>
<p>
Passing our old house, we came to the grove where the idol Oro had stood and
Bastin was so nearly sacrificed. There was another idol there now which he
wished to examine, but in the end did not as the natives so obviously objected.
Indeed Marama told me that notwithstanding the mysterious death of the
sorcerers on the Rock of Offerings, there was still a strong party in the
island who would be glad to do us a mischief if any further affront were
offered to their hereditary god.
</p>
<p>
He questioned us also tentatively about the apparition, for such he conceived
it to be, which had appeared upon the rock and killed the sorcerers, and I
answered him as I thought wisest, telling him that a terrible Power was afoot
in the land, which he would do well to obey.
</p>
<p>
“Yes,” he said; “the God of the Mountain of whom the
tradition has come down to us from our forefathers. He is awake again; he sees,
he hears and we are afraid. Plead with him for us, O
Friend-from-the-Sea.”
</p>
<p>
As he spoke we were passing through a little patch of thick bush. Suddenly from
out of this bush, I saw a lad appear. He wore a mask upon his face, but from
his shape could not have been more than thirteen or fourteen years of age. In
his hand was a wooden club. He ran forward, stopped, and with a yell of hate
hurled it, I think at Bastin, but it hit me. At any rate I felt a shock and
remembered no more.
</p>
<p class="p2">
Dreams. Dreams. Endless dreams! What were they all about? I do not know. It
seemed to me that through them continually I saw the stately figure of old Oro
contemplating me gravely, as though he were making up his mind about something
in which I must play a part. Then there was another figure, that of the
gracious but imperial Yva, who from time to time, as I thought, leant over me
and whispered in my ear words of rest and comfort. Nor was this all, since her
shape had a way of changing suddenly into that of my lost wife who would speak
with her voice. Or perhaps my wife would speak with Yva’s voice. To my
disordered sense it was as though they were one personality, having two shapes,
either of which could be assumed at will. It was most strange and yet to me
most blessed, since in the living I seemed to have found the dead, and in the
dead the living. More, I took journeys, or rather some unknown part of me
seemed to do so. One of these I remember, for its majestic character stamped
itself upon my mind in such a fashion that all the waters of delirium could not
wash it out nor all its winds blow away that memory.
</p>
<p>
I was travelling through space with Yva a thousand times faster than light can
flash. We passed sun after sun. They drew near, they grew into enormous,
flaming Glories round which circled world upon world. They became small,
dwindled to points of light and disappeared.
</p>
<p>
We found footing upon some far land and passed a marvelous white city wherein
were buildings with domes of crystal and alabaster, in the latter of which were
set windows made of great jewels; sapphires or rubies they seemed to me. We
went on up a lovely valley. To the left were hills, down which tumbled
waterfalls; to the right was a river broad and deep that seemed to overflow its
banks as does the Nile. Behind were high mountains on the slopes of which grew
forests of glorious trees, some of them aflame with bloom, while far away up
their crests stood colossal golden statues set wide apart. They looked like
guardian angels watching that city and that vale. The land was lit with a light
such as that of the moon, only intensified and of many colours. Indeed looking
up, I saw that above us floated three moons, each of them bigger than our own
at the full, and gathered that here it was night.
</p>
<p>
We came to a house set amid scented gardens and having in front of it terraces
of flowers. It seemed not unlike my own house at home, but I took little note
of it, because of a woman who sat upon the verandah, if I may call it so. She
was clad in garments of white silk fastened about her middle with a jewelled
girdle. On her neck also was a collar of jewels. I forget the colour; indeed
this seemed to change continually as the light from the different moons struck
when she moved, but I think its prevailing tinge was blue. In her arms this
woman nursed a beauteous, sleeping child, singing happily as she rocked it to
and fro. Yva went towards the woman who looked up at her step and uttered a
little cry. Then for the first time I saw the woman’s face. It was that
of my dead wife!
</p>
<p>
As I followed in my dream, a little cloud of mist seemed to cover both my wife
and Yva, and when I reached the place Yva was gone. Only my wife remained, she
and the child. There she stood, solemn and sweet. While I drew near she laid
down the child upon the cushioned seat from which she had risen. She stretched
out her arms and flung them about me. She embraced me and I embraced her in a
rapture of reunion. Then turning she lifted up the child, it was a girl, for me
to kiss.
</p>
<p>
“See your daughter,” she said, “and behold all that I am
making ready for you where we shall dwell in a day to come.”
</p>
<p>
I grew confused.
</p>
<p>
“Yva,” I said. “Where is Yva who brought me here? Did she go
into the house?”
</p>
<p>
“Yes,” she answered happily. “Yva went into the house. Look
again!”
</p>
<p>
I looked and it was Yva’s face that was pressed against my own, and
Yva’s eyes that gazed into mine. Only she was garbed as my wife had been,
and on her bosom hung the changeful necklace.
</p>
<p>
“You may not stay,” she whispered, and lo! it was my wife that
spoke, not Yva.
</p>
<p>
“Tell me what it means?” I implored.
</p>
<p>
“I cannot,” she answered. “There are mysteries that you may
not know as yet. Love Yva if you will and I shall not be jealous, for in loving
Yva you love me. You cannot understand? Then know this, that the spirit has
many shapes, and yet is the same spirit—sometimes. Now I who am far, yet
near, bid you farewell a while.”
</p>
<p>
Then all passed in a flash and the dream ended.
</p>
<p>
Such was the only one of those visions which I can recall.
</p>
<p class="p2">
I seemed to wake up as from a long and tumultuous sleep. The first thing I saw
was the palm roof of our house upon the rock. I knew it was our house, for just
above me was a palm leaf of which I had myself tied the stalk to the framework
with a bit of coloured ribbon that I had chanced to find in my pocket. It came
originally from the programme card of a dance that I had attended at Honolulu
and I had kept it because I thought it might be useful. Finally I used it to
secure that loose leaf. I stared at the ribbon which brought back a flood of
memories, and as I was thus engaged I heard voices talking, and
listened—Bickley’s voice, and the Lady Yva’s.
</p>
<p>
“Yes,” Bickley was saying, “he will do well now, but he went
near, very near.”
</p>
<p>
“I knew he would not die,” she answered, “because my father
said so.”
</p>
<p>
“There are two sorts of deaths,” replied Bickley, “that of
the body and that of the mind. I was afraid that even if he lived, his reason
would go, but from certain indications I do not think that will happen now. He
will get quite well again—though—” and he stopped.
</p>
<p>
“I am very glad to hear you say so,” chimed in Bastin. “For
weeks I thought that I should have to read the Burial Service over poor
Arbuthnot. Indeed I was much puzzled as to the best place to bury him. Finally
I found a very suitable spot round the corner there, where it isn’t rock,
in which one can’t dig and the soil is not liable to be flooded. In fact
I went so far as to clear away the bush and to mark out the grave with its foot
to the east. In this climate one can’t delay, you know.”
</p>
<p>
Weak as I was, I smiled. This practical proceeding was so exactly like Bastin.
</p>
<p>
“Well, you wasted your labour,” exclaimed Bickley.
</p>
<p>
“Yes, I am glad to say I did. But I don’t think it was your
operations and the rest that cured him, Bickley, although you take all the
credit. I believe it was the Life-water that the Lady Yva made him drink and
the stuff that Oro sent which we gave him when you weren’t
looking.”
</p>
<p>
“Then I hope that in the future you will not interfere with my
cases,” said the indignant Bickley, and either the voices passed away or
I went to sleep.
</p>
<p>
When I woke up again it was to find the Lady Yva seated at my side watching me.
</p>
<p>
“Forgive me, Humphrey, because I here; others gone out walking,”
she said slowly in English.
</p>
<p>
“Who taught you my language?” I asked, astonished.
</p>
<p>
“Bastin and Bickley, while you ill, they teach; they teach me much. Man
just same now as he was hundred thousand years ago,” she added
enigmatically. “All think one woman beautiful when no other woman
there.”
</p>
<p>
“Indeed,” I replied, wondering to what proceedings on the part of
Bastin and Bickley she alluded. Could that self-centred pair—oh! it was
impossible.
</p>
<p>
“How long have I been ill?” I asked to escape the subject which I
felt to be uncomfortable.
</p>
<p>
She lifted her beautiful eyes in search of words and began to count upon her
fingers.
</p>
<p>
“Two moon, one half moon, yes, ten week, counting Sabbath,” she
answered triumphantly.
</p>
<p>
“Ten weeks!” I exclaimed.
</p>
<p>
“Yes, Humphrey, ten whole weeks and three days you first bad, then mad.
Oh!” she went on, breaking into the Orofenan tongue which she spoke so
perfectly, although it was not her own. That language of hers I never learned,
but I know she thought in it and only translated into Orofenan, because of the
great difficulty which she had in rendering her high and refined ideas into its
simpler metaphor, and the strange words which often she introduced. “Oh!
you have been very ill, friend of my heart. At times I thought that you were
going to die, and wept and wept. Bickley thinks that he saved you and he is
very clever. But he could not have saved you; that wanted more knowledge than
any of your people have; only I pray you, do not tell him so because it would
hurt his pride.”
</p>
<p>
“What was the matter with me then, Yva?”
</p>
<p>
“All was the matter. First, the weapon which that youth threw—he
was the son of the sorcerer whom my father destroyed—crushed in the bone
of your head. He is dead for his crime and may he be accursed for ever,”
she added in the only outbreak of rage and vindictiveness in which I ever saw
her indulge.
</p>
<p>
“One must make excuses for him; his father had been killed,” I
said.
</p>
<p>
“Yes, that is what Bastin tells me, and it is true. Still, for that young
man I can make no excuse; it was cowardly and wicked. Well, Bickley performed
what he calls operation, and the Lord Oro, he came up from his house and helped
him, because Bastin is no good in such things. Then he can only turn away his
head and pray. I, too, helped, holding hot water and linen and jar of the stuff
that made you feel like nothing, although the sight made me feel more sick than
anything since I saw one I loved killed, oh, long, long ago.”
</p>
<p>
“Was the operation successful?” I asked, for I did not dare to
begin to thank her.
</p>
<p>
“Yes, that clever man, Bickley, lifted the bone which had been crushed
in. Only then something broke in your head and you began to bleed here,”
and she touched what I believe is called the temporal artery. “The vein
had been crushed by the blow, and gave way. Bickley worked and worked, and just
in time he tied it up before you died. Oh! then I felt as though I loved
Bickley, though afterwards Bastin said that I ought to have loved <i>him</i>,
since it was not Bickley who stopped the bleeding, but his prayer.”
</p>
<p>
“Perhaps it was both,” I suggested.
</p>
<p>
“Perhaps, Humphrey, at least you were saved. Then came another trouble.
You took fever. Bickley said that it was because a certain gnat had bitten you
when you went down to the ship, and my father, the Lord Oro, told me that this
was right. At the least you grew very weak and lost your mind, and it seemed as
though you must die. Then, Humphrey, I went to the Lord Oro and kneeled before
him and prayed for your life, for I knew that he could cure you if he would,
though Bickley’s skill was at an end.
</p>
<p>
“‘Daughter,’ he said to me, ‘not once but again and
again you have set up your will against mine in the past. Why then should I
trouble myself to grant this desire of yours in the present, and save a man who
is nothing to me?’
</p>
<p>
“I rose to my feet and answered, ‘I do not know, my Father, yet I
am certain that for your own sake it will be well to do so. I am sure that of
everything even you must give an account at last, great though you be, and who
knows, perhaps one life which you have saved may turn the balance in your
favour.’
</p>
<p>
“‘Surely the priest Bastin has been talking to you,’ he said.
</p>
<p>
“‘He has,’ I answered, ‘and not he alone. Many voices
have been talking to me.’”
</p>
<p>
“What did you mean by that?” I asked.
</p>
<p>
“It matters nothing what I meant, Humphrey. Be still and listen to my
story. My father thought a while and answered:
</p>
<p>
“‘I am jealous of this stranger. What is he but a short-lived
half-barbarian such as we knew in the old days? And yet already you think more
of him than you do of me, your father, the divine Oro who has lived a thousand
years. At first I helped that physician to save him, but now I think I wish him
dead.’
</p>
<p>
“‘If you let this man die, my Father,’ I answered,
‘then we part. Remember that I also have of the wisdom of our people, and
can use it if I will.’
</p>
<p>
“‘Then save him yourself,’ he said.
</p>
<p>
“‘Perhaps I shall, my Father,’ I answered, ‘but if so
it will not be here. I say that if so we part and you shall be left to rule in
your majesty alone.’
</p>
<p>
“Now this frightened the Lord Oro, for he has the weakness that he hates
to be alone.
</p>
<p>
“‘If I do what you will, do you swear never to leave me,
Yva?’ he asked. ‘Know that if you will not swear, the man
dies.’
</p>
<p>
“‘I swear,’ I answered—for your sake,
Humphrey—though I did not love the oath.
</p>
<p>
“Then he gave me a certain medicine to mix with the Life-water, and when
you were almost gone that medicine cured you, though Bickley does not know it,
as nothing else could have done. Now I have told you the truth, for your own
ear only, Humphrey.”
</p>
<p>
“Yva,” I asked, “why did you do all this for me?”
</p>
<p>
“Humphrey, I do not know,” she answered, “but I think because
I must. Now sleep a while.”
</p>
</div><!--end chapter-->
<div class="chapter">
<h2><a name="chap19" id="chap19"></a>CHAPTER XIX.<br />
The Proposals of Bastin and Bickley</h2>
<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>
<p>
Bickley’s reflection, for I can scarcely call it more, set me thinking.
Yva had said that Oro sent me medicine which was administered to me without
Bickley’s knowledge, and as she believed, saved my life, or certainly my
reason. What was in it? I wondered. Then there was that Life-water which Yva
brought and insisted upon my drinking every day. Undoubtedly it was a marvelous
tonic and did me good. But it had other effects also. Thus, as she said would
be the case, after a course of it I conceived the greatest dislike, which I may
add has never entirely left me, of any form of meat, also of alcohol. All I
seemed to want was this water with fruit, or such native vegetables as there
were. Bickley disapproved and made me eat fish occasionally, but even this
revolted me, and since I gained steadily in weight, as we found out by a simple
contrivance, and remained healthy in every other way, soon he allowed me to
choose my own diet.
</p>
<p>
About this time Oro began to pay me frequent visits. He always came at night,
and what is more I knew when he was coming, although he never gave me warning.
Here I should explain that during my illness Bastin, who was so ingenious in
such matters, had built another hut in which he and Bickley slept, of course
when they were not watching me, leaving our old bed-chamber to myself.
</p>
<p>
Well, I would wake up and be aware that Oro was coming. Then he appeared in a
silent and mysterious way, as though he had materialised in the room, for I
never saw him pass the doorway. In the moonlight, or the starlight, which
flowed through the entrance and the side of the hut that was only enclosed with
latticework, I perceived him seat himself upon a certain stool, looking like a
most majestic ghost with his flowing robes, long white beard, hooked nose and
hawk eyes. In the day-time he much resembled the late General Booth whom I had
often seen, except for certain added qualities of height and classic beauty of
countenance. At night, however, he resembled no one but himself, indeed there
was something mighty and godlike in his appearance, something that made one
feel that he was not as are other men.
</p>
<p>
For a while he would sit and look at me. Then he began to speak in a low,
vibrant voice. What did he speak of? Well, many matters. It was as though he
were unburdening that hoary soul of his because it could no longer endure the
grandeur of its own loneliness. Amongst sundry secret things, he told me of the
past history of this world of ours, and of the mighty civilisations which for
uncounted ages he and his forefathers had ruled by the strength of their will
and knowledge, of the dwindling of their race and of the final destruction of
its enemies, although I noticed that now he no longer said that this was his
work alone. One night I asked him if he did not miss all such pomp and power.
</p>
<p>
Then suddenly he broke out, and for the first time I really learned what
ambition can be when it utterly possesses the soul of man.
</p>
<p>
“Are you mad,” he asked, “that you suppose that I, Oro, the
King of kings, can be content to dwell solitary in a great cave with none but
the shadows of the dead to serve me? Nay, I must rule again and be even greater
than before, or else I too will die. Better to face the future, even if it
means oblivion, than to remain thus a relic of a glorious past, still living
and yet dead, like that statue of the great god Fate which you saw in the
temple of my worship.”
</p>
<p>
“Bastin does not think that the future means oblivion,” I remarked.
</p>
<p>
“I know it. I have studied his faith and find it too humble for my taste,
also too new. Shall I, Oro, creep a suppliant before any Power, and confess
what Bastin is pleased to call my sins? Nay, I who am great will be the equal
of all greatness, or nothing.”
</p>
<p>
He paused a while, then went on:
</p>
<p>
“Bastin speaks of ‘eternity.’ Where and what then is this
eternity which if it has no end can have had no beginning? I know the secret of
the suns and their attendant worlds, and they are no more eternal than the
insect which glitters for an hour. Out of shapeless, rushing gases they
gathered to live their day, and into gases at last they dissolve again with all
they bore.”
</p>
<p>
“Yes,” I answered, “but they reform into new worlds.”
</p>
<p>
“That have no part with the old. This world, too, will melt, departing to
whence it came, as your sacred writings say, and what then of those who dwelt
and dwell thereon? No, Man of today, give me Time in which I rule and keep your
dreams of an Eternity that is not, and in which you must still crawl and serve,
even if it were. Yet, if I might, I confess it, I would live on for ever, but
as Master not as Slave.”
</p>
<p class="p2">
On another night he began to tempt me, very subtly. “I see a spark of
greatness in you, Humphrey,” he said, “and it comes into my heart
that you, too, might learn to rule. With Yva, the last of my blood, it is
otherwise. She is the child of my age and of a race outworn; too gentle, too
much all womanly. The soul that triumphs must shine like steel in the sun, and
cut if need be; not merely be beauteous and shed perfume like a lily in the
shade. Yet she is very wise and fair,” here he looked at me,
“perchance of her might come children such as were their forefathers, who
again would wield the sceptre of the dominion of the earth.”
</p>
<p>
I made no answer, wondering what he meant exactly and thinking it wisest to be
silent.
</p>
<p>
“You are of the short-lived races,” he went on, “yet very
much a man, not without intelligence, and by the arts I have I can so
strengthen your frame that it will endure the shocks of time for three such
lives as yours, or perchance for more, and then—”
</p>
<p>
Again he paused and went on:
</p>
<p>
“The Daughter of kings likes you also, perhaps because you
resemble—” here he fixed me with his piercing eyes, “a
certain kinglet of base blood whom once she also liked, but whom it was my duty
to destroy. Well, I must think. I must study this world of yours also and
therein you may help me. Perhaps afterwards I will tell you how. Now
sleep.”
</p>
<p>
In another moment he was gone, but notwithstanding his powerful command, for a
while I could not sleep. I understood that he was offering Yva to me, but upon
what terms? That was the question. With her was to go great dominion over the
kingdoms of the earth. I could not help remembering that always this has been
and still is Satan’s favourite bait. To me it did not particularly
appeal. I had been ambitious in my time—who is not that is worth his
salt? I could have wished to excel in something, literature or art, or whatever
it might be, and thus to ensure the memory of my name in the world.
</p>
<p>
Of course this is a most futile desire, seeing that soon or late every name
must fade out of the world like an unfixed photograph which is exposed to the
sun. Even if it could endure, as the old demigod, or demidevil, Oro, had
pointed out, very shortly, by comparison with Time’s unmeasured vastness,
the whole solar system will also fade. So of what use is this feeble love of
fame and this vain attempt to be remembered that animates us so strongly?
Moreover, the idea of enjoying mere temporal as opposed to intellectual power,
appealed to me not at all. I am a student of history and I know what has been
the lot of kings and the evil that, often enough, they work in their little
day.
</p>
<p>
Also if I needed any further example, there was that of Oro himself. He had
outlived the greatness of his House, as a royal family is called, and after
some gigantic murder, if his own story was to be believed, indulged in a
prolonged sleep. Now he awoke to find himself quite alone in the world, save
for a daughter with whom he did not agree or sympathise. In short, he was but a
kind of animated mummy inspired by one idea which I felt quite sure would be
disappointed, namely, to renew his former greatness. To me he seemed as
miserable a figure as one could imagine, brooding and plotting in his
illuminated cave, at the end of an extended but misspent life.
</p>
<p>
Also I wondered what he, or rather his <i>ego</i>, had been doing during all
those two hundred and fifty thousand years of sleep. Possibly if Yva’s
theory, as I understood it, were correct, he had reincarnated as Attila, or
Tamerlane, or Napoleon, or even as Chaka the terrible Zulu king. At any rate
there he was still in the world, filled with the dread of death, but consumed
now as ever by his insatiable and most useless finite ambitions.
</p>
<p>
Yva, also! Her case was his, but yet how different. In all this long night of
Time she had but ripened into one of the sweetest and most gentle women that
ever the world bore. She, too, was great in her way, it appeared in her every
word and gesture, but where was the ferocity of her father? Where his desire to
reach to splendour by treading on a blood-stained road paved with broken human
hearts? It did not exist. Her nature was different although her body came of a
long line of these power-loving kings. Why this profound difference of the
spirit? Like everything else it was a mystery. The two were as far apart as the
Poles. Everyone must have hated Oro, from the beginning, however much he feared
him, but everyone who came in touch with her must have loved Yva.
</p>
<p class="p2">
Here I may break into my personal narrative to say that this, by their own
confession, proved to be true of two such various persons as Bastin and
Bickley.
</p>
<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>
“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 <i>this</i> was a <i>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>
<p>
“Well, and what did she say, Bastin?”
</p>
<p>
“Oh! she was most kind and flattering. Indeed that hour will always
remain the pleasantest of my life. I don’t know how it happened, but when
it was over I felt quite delighted that she had refused me. Indeed on second
thoughts, I am not certain but that I shall be much happier in the capacities
of a brother and teacher which she asked me to fill, than I should have been as
her husband. To tell you the truth, Arbuthnot, there are moments when I am not
sure whether I entirely understand the Lady Yva. It was rather like proposing
to one’s guardian angel.”
</p>
<p>
“Yes,” I said, “that’s about it, old fellow.
‘Guardian Angel’ is not a bad name for her.”
</p>
<p>
Afterwards I received the confidence of Bickley.
</p>
<p>
“Look here, Arbuthnot,” he said. “I want to own up to
something. I think I ought to, because of certain things I have observed, in
order to prevent possible future misunderstandings.”
</p>
<p>
“What’s that?” I asked innocently.
</p>
<p>
“Only this. As you know, I have always been a confirmed bachelor on
principle. Women introduce too many complications into life, and although it
involves some sacrifice, on the whole, I have thought it best to do without
them and leave the carrying on of the world to others.”
</p>
<p>
“Well, what of it? Your views are not singular, Bickley.”
</p>
<p>
“Only this. While you were ill the sweetness of that Lady Yva and her
wonderful qualities as a nurse overcame me. I went to pieces all of a sudden. I
saw in her a realisation of every ideal I had ever entertained of perfect
womanhood. So to speak, my resolves of a lifetime melted like wax in the sun.
Notwithstanding her queer history and the marvels with which she is mixed up, I
wished to marry her. No doubt her physical loveliness was at the bottom of it,
but, however that may be, there it was.”
</p>
<p>
“She is beautiful,” I commented; “though I daresay older than
she looks.”
</p>
<p>
“That is a point on which I made no inquiries, and I should advise you,
when your turn comes, as no doubt it will, to follow my example. You know,
Arbuthnot,” he mused, “however lovely a woman may be, it would put
one off if suddenly she announced that she was—let us say—a hundred
and fifty years old.”
</p>
<p>
“Yes,” I admitted, “for nobody wants to marry the
contemporary of his great-grandmother. However, she gave her age as
twenty-seven years and three moons.”
</p>
<p>
“And doubtless for once did not tell the truth. But, as she does not look
more than twenty-five, I think that we may all agree to let it stand at that,
namely, twenty-seven, plus an indefinite period of sleep. At any rate, she is a
sweet and most gracious woman, apparently in the bloom of youth, and, to cut it
short, I fell in love with her.”
</p>
<p>
“Like Bastin,” I said.
</p>
<p>
“Bastin!” exclaimed Bickley indignantly. “You don’t
mean to say that clerical oaf presumed—well, well, after all, I suppose
that he is a man, so one mustn’t be hard on him. But who could have
thought that he would run so cunning, even when he knew my sentiments towards
the lady? I hope she told him her mind.”
</p>
<p>
“The point is, what did she tell <i>you</i>, Bickley?”
</p>
<p>
“Me? Oh, she was perfectly charming! It really was a pleasure to be
refused by her, she puts one so thoroughly at one’s ease.” (Here,
remembering Bastin and his story, I turned away my face to hide a smile.)
“She said—what did she say exactly? Such a lot that it is difficult
to remember. Oh! that she was not thinking of marriage. Also, that she had not
yet recovered from some recent love affair which left her heart sore, since the
time of her sleep did not count. Also, that her father would never consent, and
that the mere idea of such a thing would excite his animosity against all of
us.”
</p>
<p>
“Is that all?” I asked.
</p>
<p>
“Not quite. She added that she felt wonderfully flattered and extremely
honoured by what I had been so good as to say to her. She hoped, however, that
I should never repeat it or even allude to the matter again, as her dearest
wish was to be able to look upon me as her most intimate friend to whom she
could always come for sympathy and counsel.”
</p>
<p>
“What happened then?”
</p>
<p>
“Nothing, of course, except that I promised everything that she wished,
and mean to stick to it, too. Naturally, I was very sore and upset, but I am
getting over it, having always practised self-control.”
</p>
<p>
“I am sorry for you, old fellow.”
</p>
<p>
“Are you?” he asked suspiciously. “Then perhaps you have
tried your luck, too?”
</p>
<p>
“No, Bickley.”
</p>
<p>
His face fell a little at this denial, and he answered:
</p>
<p>
“Well, it would have been scarcely decent if you had, seeing how lately
you were married. But then, so was that artful Bastin. Perhaps you will get
over it—recent marriage, I mean—as he has.” He hesitated a
while, then went on: “Of course you will, old fellow; I know it, and,
what is more, I seem to know that when your turn comes you will get a different
answer. If so, it will keep her in the family as it were—and good luck to
you. Only—”
</p>
<p>
“Only what?” I asked anxiously.
</p>
<p>
“To be honest, Arbuthnot, I don’t think that there will be real
good luck for any one of us over this woman—not in the ordinary sense, I
mean. The whole business is too strange and superhuman. Is she quite a woman,
and could she really marry a man as others do?”
</p>
<p>
“It is curious that you should talk like that,” I said uneasily.
“I thought that you had made up your mind that the whole business was
either illusion or trickery—I mean, the odd side of it.”
</p>
<p>
“If it is illusion, Arbuthnot, then a man cannot marry an illusion. And
if it is trickery, then he will certainly be tricked. But, supposing that I am
wrong, what then?”
</p>
<p>
“You mean, supposing things are as they seem to be?”
</p>
<p>
“Yes. In that event, Arbuthnot, I am sure that something will occur to
prevent your being united to a woman who lived thousands of years ago. I am
sorry to say it, but Fate will intervene. Remember, it is the god of her people
that I suppose she worships, and, I may add, to which the whole world
bows.”
</p>
<p>
At his words a kind of chill fell upon me. I think he saw or divined it, for
after a few remarks upon some indifferent matter, he turned and went away.
</p>
<p>
Shortly after this Yva came to sit with me. She studied me for a while and I
studied her. I had reason to do so, for I observed that of late her dress had
become much more modern, and on the present occasion this struck me forcibly. I
do not know exactly in what the change, or changes, consisted, because I am not
skilled in such matters and can only judge of a woman’s garments by their
general effect. At any rate, the gorgeous sweeping robes were gone, and though
her attire still looked foreign and somewhat oriental, with a touch of barbaric
splendour about it—it was simpler than it had been and showed more of her
figure, which was delicate, yet gracious.
</p>
<p>
“You have changed your robes, Lady,” I said.
</p>
<p>
“Yes, Humphrey. Bastin gave me pictures of those your women wear.”
(On further investigation I found that this referred to an old copy of the
<i>Queen</i> newspaper, which, somehow or other, had been brought with the
books from the ship.) “I have tried to copy them a little,” she
added doubtfully.
</p>
<p>
“How do you do it? Where do you get the material?” I asked.
</p>
<p>
“Oh!” she answered with an airy wave of her hand, “I make
it—it is there.”
</p>
<p>
“I don’t understand,” I said, but she only smiled radiantly,
offering no further explanation. Then, before I could pursue the subject, she
asked me suddenly:
</p>
<p>
“What has Bickley been saying to you about me?”
</p>
<p>
I fenced, answering: “I don’t know. Bastin and Bickley talk of
little else. You seem to have been a great deal with them while I was
ill.”
</p>
<p>
“Yes, a great deal. They are the nearest to you who were so sick. Is it
not so?”
</p>
<p>
“I don’t know,” I answered again. “In my illness it
seemed to me that <i>you</i> were the nearest.”
</p>
<p>
“About Bastin’s words I can guess,” she went on. “But I
ask again—what has Bickley been saying to you about me? Of the first
part, let it be; tell me the rest.”
</p>
<p>
I intended to evade her question, but she fixed those violet, compelling eyes
upon me and I was obliged to answer.
</p>
<p>
“I believe you know as well as I do,” I said; “but if you
will have it, it was that you are not as other human women are, and that he who
would treat you as such, must suffer; that was the gist of it.”
</p>
<p>
“Some might be content to suffer for such as I,” she answered with
quiet sweetness. “Even Bastin and Bickley may be content to suffer in
their own little ways.”
</p>
<p>
“You know that is not what I meant,” I interrupted angrily, for I
felt that she was throwing reflections on me.
</p>
<p>
“No; you meant that you agreed with Bickley that I am not quite a woman,
as you know women.”
</p>
<p>
I was silent, for her words were true.
</p>
<p>
Then she blazed out into one of her flashes of splendour, like something that
takes fire on an instant; like the faint and distant star which flames into
sudden glory before the watcher’s telescope.
</p>
<p>
“It is true that I am not as your women are—your poor, pale women,
the shadows of an hour with night behind them and before. Because I am humble
and patient, do you therefore suppose that I am not great? Man from the little
country across the sea, I lived when the world was young, and gathered up the
ancient wisdom of a greater race than yours, and when the world is old I think
that I still shall live, though not in this shape or here, with all that
wisdom’s essence burning in my breast, and with all beauty in my eyes.
Bickley does not believe although he worships. You only half believe and do not
worship, because memory holds you back, and I myself do not understand. I only
know though knowing so much, still I seek roads to learning, even the humble
road called Bastin, that yet may lead my feet to the gate of an immortal
city.”
</p>
<p>
“Nor do I understand how all this can be, Yva,” I said feebly, for
she dazzled and overwhelmed me with her blaze of power.
</p>
<p>
“No, you do not understand. How can you, when even I cannot? Thus for two
hundred and fifty thousand years I slept, and they went by as a lightning
flash. One moment my father gave me the draught and I laid me down, the next I
awoke with you bending over me, or so it seemed. Yet where was I through all
those centuries when for me time had ceased? Tell me, Humphrey, did you dream
at all while you were ill? I ask because down in that lonely cavern where I
sleep a strange dream came to me one night. It was of a journey which, as I
thought, you and I seemed to make together, past suns and universes to a very
distant earth. It meant nothing, Humphrey. If you and I chanced to have dreamed
the same thing, it was only because my dream travelled to you. It is most
common, or used to be. Humphrey, Bickley is quite right, I am not altogether as
your women are, and I can bring no happiness to any man, or at the least, to
one who cannot wait. Therefore, perhaps you would do well to think less of me,
as I have counselled Bastin and Bickley.”
</p>
<p>
Then again she gazed at me with her wonderful, great eyes, and, shaking her
glittering head a little, smiled and went.
</p>
<p>
But oh! that smile drew my heart after her.
</p>
</div><!--end chapter-->
<div class="chapter">
<h2><a name="chap20" id="chap20"></a>CHAPTER XX.<br />
Oro and Arbuthnot Travel by Night</h2>
<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>
<p>
I told him all I could, but did not in the least seem to satisfy his perennial
thirst for information.
</p>
<p>
“I should prefer to judge for myself,” he said at last.
</p>
<p>
“Why are you so anxious to learn about all these nations, Oro?” I
asked, exhausted.
</p>
<p>
“Because the knowledge I gather may affect my plans for the
future,” he replied darkly.
</p>
<p>
“I am told, Oro, that your people acquired the power of transporting
themselves from place to place.”
</p>
<p>
“It is true that the lords of the Sons of Wisdom had such power, and that
I have it still, O Humphrey.”
</p>
<p>
“Then why do you not go to look with your own eyes?” I suggested.
</p>
<p>
“Because I should need a guide; one who could explain much in a short
time,” he said, contemplating me with his burning glance until I began to
feel uncomfortable.
</p>
<p>
To change the subject I asked him whether he had any further information about
the war, which he had told me was raging in Europe.
</p>
<p>
He answered: “Not much; only that it was going on with varying success,
and would continue to do so until the nations involved therein were
exhausted,” or so he believed. The war did not seem greatly to interest
Oro. It was, he remarked, but a small affair compared to those which he had
known in the old days. Then he departed, and I went to sleep.
</p>
<p>
Next night he appeared again, and, after talking a little on different
subjects, remarked quietly that he had been thinking over what I had said as to
his visiting the modern world, and intended to act upon the suggestion.
</p>
<p>
“When?” I asked.
</p>
<p>
“Now,” he said. “I am going to visit this England of yours
and the town you call London, and <i>you</i> will accompany me.”
</p>
<p>
“It is not possible!” I exclaimed. “We have no ship.”
</p>
<p>
“We can travel without a ship,” said Oro.
</p>
<p>
I grew alarmed, and suggested that Bastin or Bickley would be a much better
companion than I should in my present weak state.
</p>
<p>
“An empty-headed man, or one who always doubts and argues, would be
useless,” he replied sharply. “You shall come and you only.”
</p>
<p>
I expostulated; I tried to get up and fly—which, indeed, I did do, in
another sense.
</p>
<p>
But Oro fixed his eyes upon me and slowly waved his thin hand to and fro above
my head.
</p>
<p>
My senses reeled. Then came a great darkness.
</p>
<p class="p2">
They returned again. Now I was standing in an icy, reeking fog, which I knew
could belong to one place only—London, in December, and at my side was
Oro.
</p>
<p>
“Is this the climate of your wonderful city?” he asked, or seemed
to ask, in an aggrieved tone.
</p>
<p>
I replied that it was, for about three months in the year, and began to look
about me.
</p>
<p>
Soon I found my bearings. In front of me were great piles of buildings, looking
dim and mysterious in the fog, in which I recognised the Houses of Parliament
and Westminster Abbey, for both could be seen from where we stood in front of
the Westminster Bridge Station. I explained their identity to Oro.
</p>
<p>
“Good,” he said. “Let us enter your Place of Talk.”
</p>
<p>
“But I am not a member, and we have no passes for the Strangers’
Gallery,” I expostulated.
</p>
<p>
“We shall not need any,” he replied contemptuously. “Lead
on.”
</p>
<p>
Thus adjured, I crossed the road, Oro following me. Looking round, to my horror
I saw him right in the path of a motor-bus which seemed to go over him.
</p>
<p>
“There’s an end to Oro,” thought I to myself. “Well, at
any rate, I have got home.”
</p>
<p>
Next instant he was at my side quite undisturbed by the incident of the bus. We
came to a policeman at the door and I hesitated, expecting to be challenged.
But the policeman seemed absolutely indifferent to our presence, even when Oro
marched past him in his flowing robes. So I followed with a like success. Then
I understood that we must be invisible.
</p>
<p>
We passed to the lobby, where members were hurrying to and fro, and
constituents and pressmen were gathered, and so on into the House. Oro walked
up its floor and took his stand by the table, in front of the Speaker. I
followed him, none saying us No.
</p>
<p>
As it chanced there was what is called a scene in progress—I think it was
over Irish matters; the details are of no account. Members shouted, Ministers
prevaricated and grew angry, the Speaker intervened. On the whole, it was
rather a degrading spectacle. I stood, or seemed to stand, and watched it all.
Oro, in his sweeping robes, which looked so incongruous in that place, stepped,
or seemed to step, up to the principal personages of the Government and
Opposition, whom I indicated to him, and inspected them one by one, as a
naturalist might examine strange insects. Then, returning to me, he said:
</p>
<p>
“Come away; I have seen and heard enough. Who would have thought that
this nation of yours was struggling for its life in war?”
</p>
<p>
We passed out of the House and somehow came to Trafalgar Square. A meeting was
in progress there, convened, apparently, to advocate the rights of Labour, also
those of women, also to protest against things in general, especially the
threat of Conscription in the service of the country.
</p>
<p>
Here the noise was tremendous, and, the fog having lifted somewhat, we could
see everything. Speakers bawled from the base of Nelson’s column. Their
supporters cheered, their adversaries rushed at them, and in one or two
instances succeeded in pulling them down. A woman climbed up and began to
scream out something which could only be heard by a few reporters gathered
round her. I thought her an unpleasant-looking person, and evidently her
remarks were not palatable to the majority of her auditors. There was a rush,
and she was dragged from the base of one of Landseer’s lions on which she
stood. Her skirt was half rent off her and her bodice split down the back.
Finally, she was conveyed away, kicking, biting, and scratching, by a number of
police. It was a disgusting sight, and tumult ensued.
</p>
<p>
“Let us go,” said Oro. “Your officers of order are good; the
rest is not good.”
</p>
<p>
Later we found ourselves opposite to the doors of a famous restaurant where a
magnificent and gigantic commissionaire helped ladies from motor-cars,
receiving in return money from the men who attended on them. We entered; it was
the hour of dinner. The place sparkled with gems, and the naked backs of the
women gleamed in the electric light. Course followed upon course; champagne
flowed, a fine band played, everything was costly; everything was, in a sense,
repellent.
</p>
<p>
“These are the wealthy citizens of a nation engaged in fighting for its
life,” remarked Oro to me, stroking his long beard. “It is
interesting, very interesting. Let us go.”
</p>
<p>
We went out and on, passing a public-house crowded with women who had left
their babies in charge of children in the icy street. It was a day of
Intercession for the success of England in the war. This was placarded
everywhere. We entered, or, rather, Oro did, I following him, one of the
churches in the Strand where an evening service was in progress. The preacher
in the pulpit, a very able man, was holding forth upon the necessity for
national repentance and self-denial; also of prayer. In the body of the church
exactly thirty-two people, most of them elderly women, were listening to him
with an air of placid acceptance.
</p>
<p>
“The priest talks well, but his hearers are not many,” said Oro.
“Let us go.”
</p>
<p>
We came to the flaunting doors of a great music-hall and passed through them,
though to others this would have been impossible, for the place was filled from
floor to roof. In its promenades men were drinking and smoking, while gaudy
women, painted and low-robed, leered at them. On the stage girls danced,
throwing their legs above their heads. Then they vanished amidst applause, and
a woman in a yellow robe, who pretended to be tipsy, sang a horrible and vulgar
song full of topical allusions, which was received with screams of delight by
the enormous audience.
</p>
<p>
“Here the hearers are very many, but those to whom they listen do not
talk well. Let us go,” said Oro, and we went.
</p>
<p>
At a recruiting station we paused a moment to consider posters supposed to be
attractive, the very sight of which sent a thrill of shame through me. I
remember that the inscription under one of them was: “What will your best
girl say?”
</p>
<p>
“Is that how you gather your soldiers? Later it will be otherwise,”
said Oro, and passed on.
</p>
<p>
We reached Blackfriars and entered a hall at the doors of which stood women in
poke-bonnets, very sweet-faced, earnest-looking women. Their countenances
seemed to strike Oro, and he motioned me to follow him into the hall. It was
quite full of a miserable-looking congregation of perhaps a thousand people. A
man in the blue and red uniform of the Salvation Army was preaching of duty to
God and country, of self-denial, hope and forgiveness. He seemed a humble
person, but his words were earnest, and love flowed from him. Some of his
miserable congregation wept, others stared at him open-mouthed, a few, who were
very weary, slept. He called them up to receive pardon, and a number, led by
the sweet-faced women, came and knelt before him. He and others whispered to
them, then seemed to bless them, and they rose with their faces changed.
</p>
<p>
“Let us go,” said Oro. “I do not understand these rites, but
at last in your great and wonderful city I have seen something that is pure and
noble.”
</p>
<p>
We went out. In the streets there was great excitement. People ran to and fro
pointing upwards. Searchlights, like huge fingers of flame, stole across the
sky; guns boomed. At last, in the glare of a searchlight, we saw a long and
sinister object floating high above us and gleaming as though it were made of
silver. Flashes came from it followed by terrible booming reports that grew
nearer and nearer. A house collapsed with a crash just behind us.
</p>
<p>
“Ah!” said Oro, with a smile. “I know this—it is war,
war as it was when the world was different and yet the same.”
</p>
<p>
As he spoke, a motor-bus rumbled past. Another flash and explosion. A man,
walking with his arms round the waist of a girl just ahead of us; seemed to be
tossed up and to melt. The girl fell in a heap on the pavement; somehow her
head and her feet had come quite close together and yet she appeared to be
sitting down. The motor-bus burst into fragments and its passengers hurtled
through the air, mere hideous lumps that had been men and women. The head of
one of them came dancing down the pavement towards us, a cigar still stuck in
the corner of its mouth.
</p>
<p>
“Yes, this is war,” said Oro. “It makes me young again to see
it. But does this city of yours understand?”
</p>
<p>
We watched a while. A crowd gathered. Policemen ran up, ambulances came. The
place was cleared, and all that was left they carried away. A few minutes later
another man passed by with his arm round the waist of another girl. Another
motor-bus rumbled up, and, avoiding the hole in the roadway, travelled on, its
conductor keeping a keen look-out for fares.
</p>
<p>
The street was cleared by the police; the airship continued its course,
spawning bombs in the distance, and vanished. The incident was closed.
</p>
<p>
“Let us go home,” said Oro. “I have seen enough of your great
and wonderful city. I would rest in the quiet of Nyo and think.”
</p>
<p>
The next thing that I remember was the voice of Bastin, saying:
</p>
<p>
“If you don’t mind, Arbuthnot, I wish that you would get up. The
Glittering Lady (he still called her that) is coming here to have a talk with
me which I should prefer to be private. Excuse me for disturbing you, but you
have overslept yourself; indeed, I think it must be nine o’clock, so far
as I can judge by the sun, for my watch is very erratic now, ever since Bickley
tried to clean it.”
</p>
<p>
“I am sorry, my dear fellow,” I said sleepily, “but do you
know I thought I was in London—in fact, I could swear that I have been
there.”
</p>
<p>
“Then,” interrupted Bickley, who had followed Bastin into the hut,
giving me that doubtful glance with which I was now familiar, “I wish to
goodness that you had brought back an evening paper with you.”
</p>
<p class="p2">
A night or two later I was again suddenly awakened to feel that Oro was
approaching. He appeared like a ghost in the bright moonlight, greeted me, and
said:
</p>
<p>
“Tonight, Humphrey, we must make another journey. I would visit the seat
of the war.”
</p>
<p>
“I do not wish to go,” I said feebly.
</p>
<p>
“What you wish does not matter,” he replied. “<i>I</i> wish
that you should go, and therefore you must.”
</p>
<p>
“Listen, Oro,” I exclaimed. “I do not like this business; it
seems dangerous to me.”
</p>
<p>
“There is no danger if you are obedient, Humphrey.”
</p>
<p>
“I think there is. I do not understand what happens. Do you make use of
what the Lady Yva called the Fourth Dimension, so that our bodies pass over the
seas and through mountains, like the vibrations of our Wireless, of which I was
speaking to you?”
</p>
<p>
“No, Humphrey. That method is good and easy, but I do not use it because
if I did we should be visible in the places which we visit, since there all the
atoms that make a man would collect together again and be a man.”
</p>
<p>
“What, then, do you do?” I asked, exasperated.
</p>
<p>
“Man, Humphrey, is not one; he is many. Thus, amongst other things he has
a Double, which can see and hear, as he can in the flesh, if it is separated
from the flesh.”
</p>
<p>
“The old Egyptians believed that,” I said.
</p>
<p>
“Did they? Doubtless they inherited the knowledge from us, the Sons of
Wisdom. The cup of our learning was so full that, keep it secret as we would,
from time to time some of it overflowed among the vulgar, and doubtless thus
the light of our knowledge still burns feebly in the world.”
</p>
<p>
I reflected to myself that whatever might be their other characteristics, the
Sons of Wisdom had lost that of modesty, but I only asked how he used his
Double, supposing that it existed.
</p>
<p>
“Very easily,” he answered. “In sleep it can be drawn from
the body and sent upon its mission by one that is its master.”
</p>
<p>
“Then while you were asleep for all those thousands of years your Double
must have made many journeys.”
</p>
<p>
“Perhaps,” he replied quietly, “and my spirit also, which is
another part of me that may have dwelt in the bodies of other men. But
unhappily, if so I forget, and that is why I have so much to learn and must
even make use of such poor instruments as you, Humphrey.”
</p>
<p>
“Then if I sleep and you distil my Double out of me, I suppose that you
sleep too. In that case who distils your Double out of <i>you</i>, Lord
Oro?”
</p>
<p>
He grew angry and answered:
</p>
<p>
“Ask no more questions, blind and ignorant as you are. It is your part
not to examine, but to obey. Sleep now,” and again he waved his hand over
me.
</p>
<p class="p2">
In an instant, as it seemed, we were standing in a grey old town that I judged
from its appearance must be either in northern France or Belgium. It was much
shattered by bombardment; the church, for instance, was a ruin; also many of
the houses had been burnt. Now, however, no firing was going on for the town
had been taken. The streets were full of armed men wearing the German uniform
and helmet. We passed down them and were able to see into the houses. In some
of these were German soldiers engaged in looting and in other things so
horrible that even the unmoved Oro turned away his head.
</p>
<p>
We came to the market-place. It was crowded with German troops, also with a
great number of the inhabitants of the town, most of them elderly men and women
with children, who had fallen into their power. The Germans, under the command
of officers, were dragging the men from the arms of their wives and children to
one side, and with rifle-butts beating back the screaming women. Among the men
I noticed two or three priests who were doing their best to soothe their
companions and even giving them absolution in hurried whispers.
</p>
<p>
At length the separation was effected, whereon at a hoarse word of command, a
company of soldiers began to fire at the men and continued doing so until all
had fallen. Then petty officers went among the slaughtered and with pistols
blew out the brains of any who still moved.
</p>
<p>
“These butchers, you say, are Germans?” asked Oro of me.
</p>
<p>
“Yes,” I answered, sick with horror, for though I was in the mind
and not in the body, I could feel as the mind does. Had I been in the body
also, I should have fainted.
</p>
<p>
“Then we need not waste time in visiting their country. It is enough; let
us go on.”
</p>
<p>
We passed out into the open land and came to a village. It was in the
occupation of German cavalry. Two of them held a little girl of nine or ten,
one by her body, the other by her right hand. An officer stood between them
with a drawn sword fronting the terrified child. He was a horrible,
coarse-faced man who looked to me as though he had been drinking.
</p>
<p>
“I’ll teach the young devil to show us the wrong road and let those
French swine escape,” he shouted, and struck with the sword. The
girl’s right hand fell to the ground.
</p>
<p>
“War as practised by the Germans!” remarked Oro. Then he stepped,
or seemed to step up to the man and whispered, or seemed to whisper, in his
ear.
</p>
<p>
I do not know what tongue or what spirit speech he used, or what he said, but
the bloated-faced brute turned pale. Yes, he drew sick with fear.
</p>
<p>
“I think there are spirits in this place,” he said with a German
oath. “I could have sworn that something told me that I was going to die.
Mount!”
</p>
<p>
The Uhlans mounted and began to ride away.
</p>
<p>
“Watch,” said Oro.
</p>
<p>
As he spoke out of a dark cloud appeared an aeroplane. Its pilot saw the band
of Germans beneath and dropped a bomb. The aim was good, for the missile
exploded in the midst of them, causing a great cloud of dust from which arose
the screams of men and horses.
</p>
<p>
“Come and see,” said Oro.
</p>
<p>
We were there. Out of the cloud of dust appeared one man galloping furiously.
He was a young fellow who, as I noted, had turned his head away and hidden his
eyes with his hand when the horror was done yonder. All the others were dead
except the officer who had worked the deed. He was still living, but both his
hands and one of his feet had been blown away. Presently he died, screaming to
God for mercy.
</p>
<p>
We passed on and came to a barn with wide doors that swung a little in the
wind, causing the rusted hinges to scream like a creature in pain. On each of
these doors hung a dead man crucified. The hat of one of them lay upon the
ground, and I knew from the shape of it that he was a Colonial soldier.
</p>
<p>
“Did you not tell me,” said Oro after surveying them, “that
these Germans are of your Christian faith?”
</p>
<p>
“Yes; and the Name of God is always on their ruler’s lips.”
</p>
<p>
“Ah!” he said, “I am glad that I worship Fate. Bastin the
priest need trouble me no more.”
</p>
<p>
“There is something behind Fate,” I said, quoting Bastin himself.
</p>
<p>
“Perhaps. So indeed I have always held, but after much study I cannot
understand the manner of its working. Fate is enough for me.”
</p>
<p>
We went on and came to a flat country that was lined with ditches, all of them
full of men, Germans on one side, English and French upon the other. A terrible
bombardment shook the earth, the shells raining upon the ditches. Presently
that from the English guns ceased and out of the trenches in front of them
thousands of men were vomited, who ran forward through a hail of fire in which
scores and hundreds fell, across an open piece of ground that was pitted with
shell craters. They came to barbed wire defenses, or what remained of them, cut
the wire with nippers and pulled up the posts. Then through the gaps they
surged in, shouting and hurling hand grenades. They reached the German
trenches, they leapt into them and from those holes arose a hellish din.
Pistols were fired and everywhere bayonets flashed.
</p>
<p>
Behind them rushed a horde of little, dark-skinned men, Indians who carried
great knives in their hands. Those leapt over the first trench and running on
with wild yells, dived into the second, those who were left of them, and there
began hacking with their knives at the defenders and the soldiers who worked
the spitting maxim guns. In twenty minutes it was over; those lines of trenches
were taken, and once more from either side the guns began to boom.
</p>
<p>
“War again,” said Oro, “clean, honest war, such as the god I
call Fate decrees for man. I have seen enough. Now I would visit those whom you
call Turks. I understand they have another worship and perhaps they are nobler
than these Christians.”
</p>
<p>
We came to a hilly country which I recognised as Armenia, for once I travelled
there, and stopped on a seashore. Here were the Turks in thousands. They were
engaged in driving before them mobs of men, women and children in countless
numbers. On and on they drove them till they reached the shore. There they
massacred them with bayonets, with bullets, or by drowning. I remember a
dreadful scene of a poor woman standing up to her waist in the water. Three
children were clinging to her—but I cannot go on, really I cannot go on.
In the end a Turk waded out and bayoneted her while she strove to protect the
last living child with her poor body whence it sprang.
</p>
<p>
“These, I understand,” said Oro, pointing to the Turkish soldiers,
“worship a prophet who they say is the voice of God.”
</p>
<p>
“Yes,” I answered, “and therefore they massacre these who are
Christians because they worship God without a prophet.”
</p>
<p>
“And what do the Christians massacre each other for?”
</p>
<p>
“Power and the wealth and territories that are power. That is, the King
of the Germans wishes to rule the world, but the other Nations do not desire
his dominion. Therefore they fight for Liberty and Justice.”
</p>
<p>
“As it was, so it is and shall be,” remarked Oro, “only with
this difference. In the old world some were wise, but here—” and he
stopped, his eyes fixed upon the Armenian woman struggling in her death agony
while the murderer drowned her child, then added: “Let us go.”
</p>
<p>
Our road ran across the sea. On it we saw a ship so large that it attracted
Oro’s attention, and for once he expressed astonishment.
</p>
<p>
“In my day,” he said, “we had no vessels of this greatness in
the world. I wish to look upon it.”
</p>
<p>
We landed on the deck of the ship, or rather the floating palace, and examined
her. She carried many passengers, some English, some American, and I pointed
out to Oro the differences between the two peoples. These were not, he
remarked, very wide except that the American women wore more jewels, also that
some of the American men, to whom we listened as they conversed, spoke of the
greatness of their country, whereas the Englishmen, if they said anything
concerning it, belittled their country.
</p>
<p>
Presently, on the surface of the sea at a little distance appeared something
strange, a small and ominous object like a can on the top of a pole. A voice
cried out “<i>Submarine!</i>” and everyone near rushed to look.
</p>
<p>
“If those Germans try any of their monkey tricks on us, I guess the
United States will give them hell,” said another voice near by.
</p>
<p>
Then from the direction of the pole with the tin can on the top of it, came
something which caused a disturbance in the smooth water and bubbles to rise in
its wake.
</p>
<p>
“A torpedo!” cried some.
</p>
<p>
“Shut your mouth,” said the voice. “Who dare torpedo a vessel
full of the citizens of the United States?”
</p>
<p>
Next came a booming crash and a flood of upthrown water, in the wash of which
that speaker was carried away into the deep. Then horror! horror! horror!
indescribable, as the mighty vessel went wallowing to her doom. Boats launched;
boats overset; boats dragged under by her rush through the water which could
not be stayed. Maddened men and women running to and fro, their eyes starting
from their heads, clasping children, fastening lifebelts over their costly
gowns, or appearing from their cabins, their hands filled with jewels that they
sought to save. Orders cried from high places by stern-faced officers doing
their duty to the last. And a little way off that thin pole with a tin can on
the top of it watching its work.
</p>
<p>
Then the plunge of the enormous ship into the deep, its huge screws still
whirling in the air and the boom of the bursting boilers. Lastly everything
gone save a few boats floating on the quiet sea and around them dots that were
the heads of struggling human beings.
</p>
<p>
“Let us go home,” said Oro. “I grow tired of this war of your
Christian peoples. It is no better than that of the barbarian nations of the
early world. Indeed it is worse, since then we worshipped Fate and but a few of
us had wisdom. Now you all claim wisdom and declare that you worship a God of
Mercy.”
</p>
<p class="p2">
With these words still ringing in my ears I woke up upon the Island of Orofena,
filled with terror at the horrible possibilities of nightmare.
</p>
<p>
What else could it be? There was the brown and ancient cone of the extinct
volcano. There were the tall palms of the main island and the lake glittering
in the sunlight between. There was Bastin conducting a kind of Sunday school of
Orofenans upon the point of the Rock of Offerings, as now he had obtained the
leave of Oro to do. There was the mouth of the cave, and issuing from it
Bickley, who by help of one of the hurricane lamps had been making an
examination of the buried remains of what he supposed to be flying machines.
Without doubt it was nightmare, and I would say nothing to them about it for
fear of mockery.
</p>
<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>
<p class="p2">
[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 class="p2">
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>
<p>
Over New Zealand, which he found beautiful, he shook his head for the same
reason.
</p>
<p>
On another night we visited the East. China with its teeming millions
interested him extremely, partly because he declared these to be the
descendants of one of the barbarian nations of his own day. He made a remark to
the effect that this race had always possessed points and capacities, and that
he thought that with proper government and instruction their Chinese offspring
would be of use in a regenerated world.
</p>
<p>
For the Japanese and all that they had done in two short generations, he went
so far as to express real admiration, a very rare thing with Oro, who was by
nature critical. I could see that mentally he put a white mark against their
name.
</p>
<p>
India, too, really moved him. He admired the ancient buildings at Delhi and
Agra, especially the Taj Mahal. This, he declared, was reminiscent of some of
the palaces that stood at Pani, the capital city of the Sons of Wisdom, before
it was destroyed by the Barbarians.
</p>
<p>
The English administration of the country also attracted a word of praise from
him, I think because of its rather autocratic character. Indeed he went so far
as to declare that, with certain modifications, it should be continued in the
future, and even to intimate that he would bear the matter in mind. Democratic
forms of government had no charms for Oro.
</p>
<p>
Amongst other places, we stopped at Benares and watched the funeral rites in
progress upon the banks of the holy Ganges. The bearers of the dead brought the
body of a woman wrapped in a red shroud that glittered with tinsel ornaments.
Coming forward at a run and chanting as they ran, they placed it upon the
stones for a little while, then lifted it up again and carried it down the
steps to the edge of the river. Here they took water and poured it over the
corpse, thus performing the rite of the baptism of death. This done, they
placed its feet in the water and left it looking very small and lonely.
Presently appeared a tall, white-draped woman who took her stand by the body
and wailed. It was the dead one’s mother. Again the bearers approached
and laid the corpse upon the flaming pyre.
</p>
<p>
“These rites are ancient,” said Oro. “When I ruled as King of
the World they were practised in this very place. It is pleasant to me to find
something that has survived the changefulness of Time. Let it continue till the
end.”
</p>
<p class="p2">
Here I will cease. These experiences that I have recorded are but samples, for
also we visited Russia and other countries. Perhaps, too, they were not
experiences at all, but only dreams consequent on my state of health. I cannot
say for certain, though much of what I seemed to see fitted in very well indeed
with what I learned in after days, and certainly at the time they appeared as
real as though Oro and I had stood together upon those various shores.
</p>
</div><!--end chapter-->
<div class="chapter">
<h2><a name="chap21" id="chap21"></a>CHAPTER XXI.<br />
Love’s Eternal Altar</h2>
<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>
<p>
“But were they journeyings, or dreams?” I asked.
</p>
<p>
She evaded a direct answer.
</p>
<p>
“I cannot say. My father has great powers. I do not know them all. It is
possible that they were neither journeyings nor dreams. Mayhap he used you as
the sorcerers in the old days used the magic glass, and after he had put his
spell upon you, read in your mind that which passes elsewhere.”
</p>
<p>
I understood her to refer to what we call clairvoyance, when the person
entranced reveals secret or distant things to the entrancer. This is a more or
less established phenomenon and much less marvelous than the actual
transportation of the spiritual self through space. Only I never knew of an
instance in which the seer, on awaking, remembered the things that he had seen,
as in my case. There, however, the matter rested, or rests, for I could extract
nothing more from Yva, who appeared to me to have her orders on the point.
</p>
<p>
Nor did Oro ever talk of what I had seemed to see in his company, although he
continued from time to time to visit me at night. But now our conversation was
of other matters. As Bastin had discovered, by some extraordinary gift he had
soon learned how to read the English language, although he never spoke a single
word in that tongue. Among our reference books that we brought from the yacht,
was a thin paper edition of the <i>Encyclopædia Britannica</i>, which he
borrowed when he discovered that it contained compressed information about the
various countries of the world, also concerning almost every other matter. My
belief is that within a month or so that marvelous old man not only read this
stupendous work from end to end, but that he remembered everything of interest
which it contained. At least, he would appear and show the fullest acquaintance
with certain subjects or places, seeking further light from me concerning them,
which very often I was quite unable to give him.
</p>
<p>
An accident, as it chanced, whereof I need not set out the details, caused me
to discover that his remarkable knowledge was limited. Thus, at one period, he
knew little about any modern topic which began with a letter later in the
alphabet than, let us say, C. A few days afterwards he was acquainted with
those up to F, or G; and so on till he reached Z, when he appeared to me to
know everything, and returned the book. Now, indeed, he was a monument of
learning, very ancient and very new, and with some Encyclopedia-garnered facts
or deductions of what had happened between.
</p>
<p>
Moreover, he took to astronomical research, for more than once we saw him
standing on the rock at night studying the heavens. On one of these occasions,
when he had the two metal plates, of which I have spoken, in his hands, I
ventured to approach and ask what he did. He replied that he was checking his
calculations that he found to be quite correct, an exact period of two hundred
and fifty thousand years having gone by since he laid himself down to sleep.
Then, by aid of the plates, he pointed out to me certain alterations that had
happened during that period in the positions of some of the stars.
</p>
<p>
For instance, he showed me one which, by help of my glasses, I recognised as
Sirius, and remarked that two hundred and fifty thousand years ago it was
further away and much smaller. Now it was precisely in the place and of the
size which he had predicted, and he pointed to it on his prophetic map. Again
he indicated a star that the night-glass told me was Capella, which, I suppose,
is one of the most brilliant stars in the sky, and showed me that on the map he
had made two hundred and fifty thousand years ago, it did not exist, as then it
was too far north to appear thereon. Still, he observed, the passage of this
vast period of time had produced but little effect upon the face of the
heavens. To the human eye the majority of the stars had not moved so very far.
</p>
<p>
“And yet they travel fast, O Humphrey,” he said. “Consider
then how great is their journey between the time they gather and that day when,
worn-out, once more they melt to vaporous gas. You think me long-lived who
compared to them exist but a tiny fraction of a second, nearly all of which I
have been doomed to pass in sleep. And, Humphrey, I desire to live—I, who
have great plans and would shake the world. But my day draws in; a few brief
centuries and I shall be gone, and—whither, whither?”
</p>
<p>
“If you lived as long as those stars, the end would be the same,
Oro.”
</p>
<p>
“Yes, but the life of the stars is very long, millions of millions of
years; also, after death, they reform, as other stars. But shall I reform as
another Oro? With all my wisdom, I do not know. It is known to Fate
only—Fate-the master of worlds and men and the gods they
worship—Fate, whom it may please to spill my gathered knowledge, to be
lost in the sands of Time.”
</p>
<p>
“It seems that you are great,” I said, “and have lived long
and learned much. Yet the end of it is that your lot is neither worse nor
better than that of us creatures of an hour.”
</p>
<p>
“It is so, Humphrey. Presently you will die, and within a few centuries I
shall die also and be as you are. You believe that you will live again
eternally. It may be so because you <i>do</i> believe, since Fate allows Faith
to shape the future, if only for a little while. But in me Wisdom has destroyed
Faith and therefore I must die. Even if I sleep again for tens of thousands of
years, what will it help me, seeing that sleep is unconsciousness and that I
shall only wake again to die, since sleep does not restore to us our
youth?”
</p>
<p>
He ceased, and walked up and down the rock with a troubled mien. Then he stood
in front of me and said in a triumphant voice:
</p>
<p>
“At least, while I live I will rule, and then let come what may come. I
know that you do not believe, and the first victory of this new day of mine
shall be to make you believe. I have great powers and you shall see them at
work, and afterwards, if things go right, rule with me for a little while,
perhaps, as the first of my subjects. Hearken now; in one small matter my
calculations, made so long ago, have gone wrong. They showed me that at this
time a day of earthquakes, such as those that again and again have rocked and
split the world, would recur. But now it seems that there is an error, a tiny
error of eleven hundred years, which must go by before those earthquakes
come.”
</p>
<p>
“Are you sure,” I suggested humbly, “that there is not also
an error in those star-maps you hold?”
</p>
<p>
“I am sure, Humphrey. Some day, who knows? You may return to your world
of modern men who, I gather, have knowledge of the great science of astronomy.
Take now these maps with which I have done, and submit them to the most learned
of those men, and let them tell you whether I was right or wrong in what I
wrote upon this metal two hundred and fifty thousand years ago. Whatever else
is false, at least the stars in their motions can never die.”
</p>
<p>
Then he handed me the maps and was gone. I have them today, and if ever this
book is published, they will appear with it, that those who are qualified may
judge of them and of the truth or otherwise of Oro’s words.
</p>
<p class="p2">
From that night forward for quite a long time I saw Oro no more. Nor indeed did
any of us, since for some reason of his own he forbade us to visit the
underground city of Nyo. Oddly enough, however, he commanded Yva to bring down
the spaniel, Tommy, to be with him from time to time. When I asked her why, she
said it was because he was lonely and desired the dog’s companionship. It
seemed to us very strange that this super-man, who had the wisdom of ten
Solomons gathered in one within his breast, should yet desire the company of a
little dog. What then was the worth of learning and long life, or, indeed, of
anything? Well, Solomon himself asked the question ages since, and could give
no answer save that all is vanity.
</p>
<p>
I noted about this time that Yva began to grow very sad and troubled; indeed,
looking at her suddenly on two or three occasions, I saw that her beautiful
eyes were aswim with tears. Also, I noted that always as she grew sadder she
became, in a sense, more human. In the beginning she was, as it were, far away.
One could never forget that she was the child of some alien race whose eyes had
looked upon the world when, by comparison, humanity was young; at times,
indeed, she might have been the denizen of another planet, strayed to earth.
Although she never flaunted it, one felt that her simplest word hid secret
wisdom; that to her books were open in which we could not read. Moreover, as I
have said, occasionally power flamed out of her, power that was beyond our ken
and understanding.
</p>
<p>
Yet with all this there was nothing elfish about her, nothing uncanny. She was
always kind, and, as we could feel, innately good and gentle-hearted, just a
woman made half-divine by gifts and experience that others lack. She did not
even make use of her wondrous beauty to madden men, as she might well have done
had she been so minded. It is true that both Bastin and Bickley fell in love
with her, but that was only because all with whom she had to do must love her,
and then, when she told them that it might not be, it was in such a fashion
that no soreness was left behind. They went on loving her, that was all, but as
men love their sisters or their daughters; as we conceive that they may love in
that land where there is no marrying or giving in marriage.
</p>
<p>
But now, in her sadness, she drew ever nearer to us, and especially to myself,
more in tune with our age and thought. In truth, save for her royal and
glittering loveliness in which there was some quality which proclaimed her of
another blood, and for that reserve of hidden power which at times would look
out of her eyes or break through her words, she might in most ways have been
some singularly gifted and beautiful modern woman.
</p>
<p>
The time has come when I must speak of my relations with Yva and of their
climax. As may have been guessed, from the first I began to love her. While the
weeks went on that love grew and grew, until it utterly possessed me, although
for a certain reason connected with one dead, at first I fought against it. Yet
it did not develop quite in the fashion that might have been expected. There
was no blazing up of passion’s fire; rather was there an ever-increasing
glow of the holiest affection, till at last it became a lamp by which I must
guide my feet through life and death. This love of mine seemed not of earth but
from the stars. As yet I had said nothing to her of it because in some way I
felt that she did not wish me to do so, felt also that she was well aware of
all that passed within my heart, and desired, as it were, to give it time to
ripen there. Then one day there came a change, and though no glance or touch of
Yva’s told me so, I knew that the bars were taken down and that I might
speak.
</p>
<p class="p2">
It was a night of full moon. All that afternoon she had been talking to Bastin
apart, I suppose about religion, for I saw that he had some books in his hand
from which he was expounding something to her in his slow, earnest way. Then
she came and sat with us while we took our evening meal. I remember that mine
consisted of some of the Life-water which she had brought with her and fruit,
for, as I think I have said, I had acquired her dislike to meat, also that she
ate some plantains, throwing the skins for Tommy to fetch and laughing at his
play. When it was over, Bastin and Bickley went away together, whether by
chance or design I do not know, and she said to me suddenly:
</p>
<p>
“Humphrey, you have often asked me about the city Pani, of which a little
portion of the ruins remains upon this island, the rest being buried beneath
the waters. If you wish I will show you where our royal palace was before the
barbarians destroyed it with their airships. The moon is very bright, and by it
we can see.”
</p>
<p>
I nodded, for, knowing what she meant, somehow I could not answer her, and we
began the ascent of the hill. She explained to me the plan of the palace when
we reached the ruins, showing me where her own apartments had been, and the
rest. It was very strange to hear her quietly telling of buildings which had
stood and of things that had happened over two hundred and fifty thousand years
before, much as any modern lady might do of a house that had been destroyed a
month ago by an earthquake or a Zeppelin bomb, while she described the details
of a disaster which now frightened her no more. I think it was then that for
the first time I really began to believe that in fact Yva had lived all those
æons since and been as she still appeared.
</p>
<p>
We passed from the palace to the ruins of the temple, through what, as she
said, had been a pleasure-garden, pointing out where a certain avenue of rare
palms had grown, down which once it was her habit to walk in the cool of the
day. Or, rather, there were two terraced temples, one dedicated to Fate like
that in the underground city of Nyo, and the other to Love. Of the temple to
Fate she told me her father had been the High Priest, and of the temple to Love
she was the High Priestess.
</p>
<p>
Then it was that I understood why she had brought me here.
</p>
<p>
She led the way to a marble block covered with worn-out carvings and almost
buried in the debris. This, she said, was the altar of offerings. I asked her
what offerings, and she replied with a smile:
</p>
<p>
“Only wine, to signify the spirit of life, and flowers to symbolise its
fragrance,” and she laid her finger on a cup-like depression, still
apparent in the marble, into which the wine was poured.
</p>
<p>
Indeed, I gathered that there was nothing coarse or bacchanalian about this
worship of a prototype of Aphrodite; on the contrary, that it was more or less
spiritual and ethereal. We sat down on the altar stone. I wondered a little
that she should have done so, but she read my thought, and answered:
</p>
<p>
“Sometimes we change our faiths, Humphrey, or perhaps they grow. Also,
have I not told you that sacrifices were offered on this altar?” and she
sighed and smiled.
</p>
<p>
I do not know which was the sweeter, the smile or the sigh.
</p>
<p>
We looked at the water glimmering in the crater beneath us on the edge of which
we sat. We looked at heaven above in which the great moon sailed royally. Then
we looked into each other’s eyes.
</p>
<p>
“I love you,” I said.
</p>
<p>
“I know it,” she answered gently. “You have loved me from the
first, have you not? Even when I lay asleep in the coffin you began to love me,
but until you dreamed a certain dream you would not admit it.”
</p>
<p>
“Yva, what was the meaning of that dream?”
</p>
<p>
“I cannot say, Humphrey. But I tell you this. As you will learn in time,
one spirit may be clothed in different garments of the flesh.”
</p>
<p>
I did not understand her, but, in some strange way, her words brought to my
mind those that Natalie spoke at the last, and I answered:
</p>
<p>
“Yva, when my wife lay dying she bade me seek her elsewhere, for
certainly I should find her. Doubtless she meant beyond the shores of
death—or perhaps she also dreamed.”
</p>
<p>
She bent her head, looking at me very strangely.
</p>
<p>
“Your wife, too, may have had the gift of dreams, Humphrey. As you dream
and I dream, so mayhap she dreamed. Of dreams, then, let us say no more, since
I think that they have served their purpose, and all three of us
understand.”
</p>
<p>
Then I stretched out my arms, and next instant my head lay upon her perfumed
breast. She lifted it and kissed me on the lips, saying:
</p>
<p>
“With this kiss again I give myself to you. But oh! Humphrey, do not ask
too much of the god of my people, Fate,” and she looked me in the eyes
and sighed.
</p>
<p>
“What do you mean?” I asked, trembling.
</p>
<p>
“Many, many things. Among them, that happiness is not for mortals, and
remember that though my life began long ago, I am mortal as you are, and that
in eternity time makes no difference.”
</p>
<p>
“And if so, Yva, what then? Do we meet but to part?”
</p>
<p>
“Who said it? Not I. Humphrey, I tell you this. Nor earth, nor heaven,
nor hell have any bars through which love cannot burst its way towards reunion
and completeness. Only there must be love, manifested in many shapes and at
many times, but ever striving to its end, which is not of the flesh. Aye, love
that has lost itself, love scorned, love defeated, love that seems false, love
betrayed, love gone astray, love wandering through the worlds, love asleep and
living in its sleep, love awake and yet sleeping; all love that has in it the
germ of life. It matters not what form love takes. If it be true I tell you
that it will win its way, and in the many that it has seemed to worship, still
find the one, though perchance not here.”
</p>
<p>
At her words a numb fear gripped my heart.
</p>
<p>
“Not here? Then where?” I said.
</p>
<p>
“Ask your dead wife, Humphrey. Ask the dumb stars. Ask the God you
worship, for I cannot answer, save in one word—Somewhere! Man, be not
afraid. Do you think that such as you and I can be lost in the aching abysms of
space? I know but little, yet I tell you that we are its rulers. I tell you
that we, too, are gods, if only we can aspire and believe. For the doubting and
timid there is naught. For those who see with the eyes of the soul and stretch
out their hands to grasp there is all. Even Bastin will tell you this.”
</p>
<p>
“But,” I said, “life is short. Those worlds are far away, and
you are near.”
</p>
<p>
She became wonderful, mysterious.
</p>
<p>
“Near I am far,” she said; “and far I am near, if only this
love of yours is strong enough to follow and to clasp. And, Humphrey, it needs
strength, for here I am afraid that it will bear little of such fruit as men
desire to pluck.”
</p>
<p>
Again terror took hold of me, and I looked at her, for I did not know what to
say or ask.
</p>
<p>
“Listen,” she went on. “Already my father has offered me to
you in marriage, has he not, but at a price which you do not understand?
Believe me, it is one that you should never pay, since the rule of the world
can be too dearly bought by the slaughter of half the world. And if you would
pay it, I cannot.”
</p>
<p>
“But this is madness!” I exclaimed. “Your father has no
powers over our earth.”
</p>
<p>
“I would that I could think so, Humphrey. I tell you that he has powers
and that it is his purpose to use them as he has done before. You, too, he
would use, and me.”
</p>
<p>
“And, if so, Yva, we are lords of ourselves. Let us take each other while
we may. Bastin is a priest.”
</p>
<p>
“Lords of ourselves! Why, for ought I know, at this very moment Oro
watches us in his thought and laughs. Only in death, Humphrey, shall we pass
beyond his reach and become lords of ourselves.”
</p>
<p>
“It is monstrous!” I cried. “There is the boat, let us fly
away.”
</p>
<p>
“What boat can bear us out of stretch of the arm of the old god of my
people, Fate, whereof Oro is the high priest? Nay, here we must wait our
doom.”
</p>
<p>
“Doom,” I said—“doom? What then is about to
happen?”
</p>
<p>
“A terrible thing, as I think, Humphrey. Or, rather, it will not
happen.”
</p>
<p>
“Why not, if it must?”
</p>
<p>
“Beloved,” she whispered, “Bastin has expounded to me a new
faith whereof the master-word is Sacrifice. The terrible thing will not happen
<i>because of sacrifice!</i> Ask me no more.”
</p>
<p>
She mused a while, seated there in the moonlight upon the ancient altar of
sacrifice, the veil she wore falling about her face and making her mysterious.
Then she threw it back, showing her lovely eyes and glittering hair, and
laughed.
</p>
<p>
“We have still an earthly hour,” she said; “therefore let us
forget the far, dead past and the eternities to come and be joyful in that
hour. Now throw your arms about me and I will tell you strange stories of lost
days, and you shall look into my eyes and learn wisdom, and you shall kiss my
lips and taste of bliss—you, who were and are and shall be—you, the
beloved of Yva from the beginning to the end of Time.”
</p>
</div><!--end chapter-->
<div class="chapter">
<h2><a name="chap22" id="chap22"></a>CHAPTER XXII.<br />
The Command</h2>
<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>
<p>
Mastering the situation I reflected a little while and then spoke straight out
to them.
</p>
<p>
“My friends,” I said, “as I see that you have guessed, Yva
and I are affianced to each other and love each other perfectly.”
</p>
<p>
“Yes, Arbuthnot,” said Bastin, “we saw that in your face, and
in hers as she bade us good night before she went into the cave, and we
congratulate you and wish you every happiness.”
</p>
<p>
“We wish you every happiness, old fellow,” chimed in Bickley. He
paused a while, then added, “But to be honest, I am not sure that I
congratulate you.”
</p>
<p>
“Why not, Bickley?”
</p>
<p>
“Not for the reason that you may suspect, Arbuthnot, I mean not because
you have won where we have lost, as it was only to be expected that you would
do, but on account of something totally different. I told you a while ago and
repetition is useless and painful. I need only add therefore that since then my
conviction has strengthened and I am sure, sorry as I am to say it, that in
this matter you must prepare for disappointment and calamity. That woman, if
woman she really is, will never be the wife of mortal man. Now be angry with me
if you like, or laugh as you have the right to do, seeing that like Bastin and
yourself, I also asked her to marry me, but something makes me speak what I
believe to be the truth.”
</p>
<p>
“Like Cassandra,” I suggested.
</p>
<p>
“Yes, like Cassandra who was not a popular person.” At first I was
inclined to resent Bickley’s words—who would not have been in the
circumstances? Then of a sudden there rushed in upon my mind the conviction
that he spoke the truth. In this world Yva was not for me or any man. Moreover
she knew it, the knowledge peeped out of every word she spoke in our passionate
love scene by the lake. She was aware, and subconsciously I was aware, that we
were plighting our troth, not for time but for eternity. With time we had
little left to do; not for long would she wear the ring I gave her on that holy
night.
</p>
<p>
Even Bastin, whose perceptions normally were not acute, felt that the situation
was strained and awkward and broke in with a curious air of forced
satisfaction:
</p>
<p>
“It’s uncommonly lucky for you, old boy, that you happen to have a
clergyman in your party, as I shall be able to marry you in a respectable
fashion. Of course I can’t say that the Glittering Lady is as yet
absolutely converted to our faith, but I am certain that she has absorbed
enough of its principles to justify me in uniting her in Christian
wedlock.”
</p>
<p>
“Yes,” I answered, “she has absorbed its principles; she told
me as much herself. Sacrifice, for instance,” and as I spoke the word my
eyes filled with tears.
</p>
<p>
“Sacrifice!” broke in Bickley with an angry snort, for he needed a
vent to his mental disturbance. “Rubbish. Why should every religion
demand sacrifice as savages do? By it alone they stand condemned.”
</p>
<p>
“Because as I think, sacrifice is the law of life, at least of all life
that is worth the living,” I answered sadly enough. “Anyhow I
believe you are right, Bickley, and that Bastin will not be troubled to marry
us.”
</p>
<p>
“You don’t mean,” broke in Bastin with a horrified air,
“that you propose to dispense—”
</p>
<p>
“No, Bastin, I don’t mean that. What I mean is that it comes upon
me that something will prevent this marriage. Sacrifice, perhaps, though in
what shape I do not know. And now good night. I am tired.”
</p>
<p class="p2">
That night in the chill dead hour before the dawn Oro came again. I woke up to
see him seated by my bed, majestic, and, as it seemed to me, lambent, though
this may have been my imagination.
</p>
<p>
“You take strange liberties with my daughter, Barbarian, or she takes
strange liberties with you, it does not matter which,” he said, regarding
me with his calm and terrible eyes.
</p>
<p>
“Why do you presume to call me Barbarian?” I asked, avoiding the
main issue.
</p>
<p>
“For this reason, Humphrey. All men are the same. They have the same
organs, the same instincts, the same desires, which in essence are but two,
food and rebirth that Nature commands; though it is true that millions of years
before I was born, as I have learned from the records of the Sons of Wisdom, it
was said that they were half ape. Yet being the same there is between them a
whole sea of difference, since some have knowledge and others none, or little.
Those who have none or little, among whom you must be numbered, are Barbarians.
Those who have much, among whom my daughter and I are the sole survivors, are
the Instructed.”
</p>
<p>
“There are nearly two thousand millions of living people in this
world,” I said, “and you name all of them Barbarians?”
</p>
<p>
“All, Humphrey, excepting, of course, myself and my daughter who are not
known to be alive. You think that you have learned much, whereas in truth you
are most ignorant. The commonest of the outer nations, when I destroyed them,
knew more than your wisest know today.”
</p>
<p>
“You are mistaken, Oro; since then we have learned something of the
soul.”
</p>
<p>
“Ah!” he exclaimed, “that interests me and perhaps it is
true. Also, if true it is very important, as I have told you before—or
was it Bastin? If a man has a soul, he lives, whereas even we Sons of Wisdom
die, and in Death what is the use of Wisdom? Because you can believe, you have
souls and are therefore, perhaps, heirs to life, foolish and ignorant as you
are today. Therefore I admit you and Bastin to be my equals, though Bickley,
who like myself believes nothing, is but a common chemist and doctor of
disease.”
</p>
<p>
“Then you bow to Faith, Oro?”
</p>
<p>
“Yes, and I think that my god Fate also bows to Faith. Perhaps, indeed,
Faith shapes Fate, not Fate, Faith. But whence comes that faith which even I
with all my learning cannot command? Why is it denied to me and given to you
and Bastin?”
</p>
<p>
“Because as Bastin would tell you, it is a gift, though one that is never
granted to the proud and self-sufficient. Become humble as a child, Oro, and
perchance you too may acquire faith.”
</p>
<p>
“And how shall I become humble?”
</p>
<p>
“By putting away all dreams of power and its exercise, if such you have,
and in repentance walking quietly to the Gates of Death,” I replied.
</p>
<p>
“For you, Humphrey, who have little or none of these things, that may be
easy. But for me who have much, if not all, it is otherwise. You ask me to
abandon the certain for the uncertain, the known for the unknown, and from a
half-god communing with the stars, to become an earthworm crawling in mud and
lifting blind eyes towards the darkness of everlasting night.”
</p>
<p>
“A god who must die is no god, half or whole, Oro; the earthworm that
lives on is greater than he.”
</p>
<p>
“Mayhap. Yet while I endure I will be as a god, so that when night comes,
if come it must, I shall have played my part and left my mark upon this little
world of ours. Have done!” he added with a burst of impatience.
“What will you of my daughter?”
</p>
<p>
“What man has always willed of woman—herself, body and soul.”
</p>
<p>
“Her soul perchance is yours, if she has one, but her body is mine to
give or withhold. Yet it can be bought at a price,” he added slowly.
</p>
<p>
“So she told me, Oro.”
</p>
<p>
“I can guess what she told you. Did I not watch you yonder by the lake
when you gave her a ring graved with the signs of Life and Everlastingness? The
question is, will you pay the price?”
</p>
<p>
“Not so; the question is—what is the price?”
</p>
<p>
“This; to enter my service and henceforth do my will—without debate
or cavil.”
</p>
<p>
“For what reward, Oro?”
</p>
<p>
“Yva and the dominion of the earth while you shall live, neither more nor
less.”
</p>
<p>
“And what is your will?”
</p>
<p>
“That you shall learn in due course. On the second night from this I
command the three of you to wait upon me at sundown in the buried halls of Nyo.
Till then you see no more of Yva, for I do not trust her. She, too, has powers,
though as yet she does not use them, and perchance she would forget her oaths,
and following some new star of love, for a little while vanish with you out of
my reach. Be in the sepulchre at the hour of sundown on the second day from
this, all three of you, if you would continue to live upon the earth.
Afterwards you shall learn my will and make your choice between Yva with
majesty and her loss with death.”
</p>
<p>
Then suddenly he was gone.
</p>
<p class="p2">
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>
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>
<p>
“Well, if you ask me, Bickley,” I answered, “I believe it is
the destruction of half the earth, or some little matter of that sort.”
</p>
<p>
At this suggestion Bickley only snorted, but Bastin said cheerfully:
</p>
<p>
“I dare say. He is bad enough even for that. But as I am quite convinced
that it will never be allowed, his intentions do not trouble me.”
</p>
<p>
I remarked that he seemed to have carried them out once before.
</p>
<p>
“Oh! you mean the Deluge. Well, no doubt there was a deluge, but I am
sure that Oro had no more to do with it than you or I, as I think I have said
already. Anyhow it is impossible to leave you to descend into that hole alone.
I suggest, therefore, that we should go into the sepulchre at the time which
you believe Oro appointed, and see what happens. If you are not mistaken, the
Glittering Lady will come there to fetch us, since it is quite certain that we
cannot work the lift or whatever it is, alone. If you are mistaken we can just
go back to bed as usual.”
</p>
<p>
“Yes, that’s the best plan,” said Bickley, shortly, after
which the conversation came to an end.
</p>
<p>
All that day and the next I watched and waited in vain for the coming of Yva,
but no Yva appeared. I even went as far as the sepulchre, but it was as empty
as were the two crystal coffins, and after waiting a while I returned. Although
I did not say so to Bickley, to me it was evident that Oro, as he had said, was
determined to cut off all communication between us.
</p>
<p>
The second day drew to its close. Our simple preparations were complete. They
consisted mainly in making ready our hurricane lamps and packing up a little
food, enough to keep us for three or four days if necessary, together with some
matches and a good supply of oil, since, as Bastin put it, he was determined
not to be caught like the foolish virgins in the parable.
</p>
<p>
“You see,” he added, “one never knows when it might please
that old wretch to turn off the incandescent gas or electric light, or whatever
it is he uses to illumine his family catacombs, and then it would be awkward if
we had no oil.”
</p>
<p>
“For the matter of that he might steal our lamps,” suggested
Bickley, “in which case we should be where Moses was when the light went
out.”
</p>
<p>
“I have considered that possibility,” answered Bastin, “and
therefore, although it is a dangerous weapon to carry loaded, I am determined
to take my revolver. If necessary I shall consider myself quite justified in
shooting him to save our lives and those of thousands of others.”
</p>
<p>
At this we both laughed; somehow the idea of Bastin trying to shoot Oro struck
us as intensely ludicrous. Yet that very thing was to happen.
</p>
<p class="p2">
It was a peculiarly beautiful sunset over the southern seas. To the west the
great flaming orb sank into the ocean, to the east appeared the silver circle
of the full moon. To my excited fancy they were like scales hanging from the
hand of a materialised spirit of calm. Over the volcano and the lake, over the
island with its palm trees, over the seas beyond, this calm brooded. Save for a
few travelling birds the sky was empty; no cloud disturbed its peace; the world
seemed steeped in innocence and quiet.
</p>
<p>
All these things struck me, as I think they did the others, because by the
action of some simultaneous thought it came to our minds that very probably we
were looking on them for the last time. It is all very well to talk of the
Unknown and the Infinite whereof we are assured we are the heirs, but that does
not make it any easier for us to part with the Known and the Finite. The
contemplation of the wonders of Eternity does not conceal the advantages of
actual and existent Time. In short there is no one of us, from a sainted
archbishop down to a sinful suicide, who does not regret the necessity of
farewell to the pleasant light and the kindly race of men wherewith we are
acquainted.
</p>
<p>
For after all, who can be quite certain of the Beyond? It may be splendid, but
it will probably be strange, and from strangeness, after a certain age, we
shrink. We know that all things will be different there; that our human
relationships will be utterly changed, that perhaps sex which shapes so many of
them, will vanish to be replaced by something unknown, that ambitions will lose
their hold of us, and that, at the best, the mere loss of hopes and fears will
leave us empty. So at least we think, who seek not variation but continuance,
since the spirit must differ from the body and that thought alarms our
intelligence.
</p>
<p>
At least some of us think so; others, like Bickley, write down the future as a
black and endless night, which after all has its consolations since, as has
been wisely suggested, perhaps oblivion is better than any memories. Others
again, like Bastin, would say of it with the Frenchman, <i>plus ça change, plus
c’est la même chose</i>. Yet others, like Oro, consider it as a realm of
possibilities, probably unpleasant and perhaps non-existent; just this and
nothing more. Only one thing is certain, that no creature which has life
desires to leap into the fire and from the dross of doubts, to resolve the
gold—or the lead—of certainty.
</p>
<p>
“It is time to be going,” said Bastin. “In these skies the
sun seems to tumble down, not to set decently as it does in England, and if we
wait any longer we shall be late for our appointment in the sepulchre. I am
sorry because although I don’t often notice scenery, everything looks
rather beautiful this evening. That star, for instance, I think it is called
Venus.”
</p>
<p>
“And therefore one that Arbuthnot should admire,” broke in Bickley,
attempting to lighten matters with a joke. “But come on and let us be rid
of this fool’s errand. Certainly the world is a lovely place after all,
and for my part I hope that we haven’t seen the last of it,” he
added with a sigh.
</p>
<p>
“So do I,” said Bastin, “though of course, Faith teaches us
that there are much better ones beyond. It is no use bothering about what they
are like, but I hope that the road to them doesn’t run through the hole
that the old reprobate, Oro, calls Nyo.”
</p>
<p>
A few minutes later we started, each of us carrying his share of the
impedimenta. I think that Tommy was the only really cheerful member of the
party, for he skipped about and barked, running backwards and forwards into the
mouth of the cave, as though to hurry our movements.
</p>
<p>
“Really,” said Bastin, “it is quite unholy to see an animal
going on in that way when it knows that it is about to descend into the bowels
of the earth. I suppose it must like them.”
</p>
<p>
“Oh! no,” commented Bickley, “it only likes what is in
them—like Arbuthnot. Since that little beast came in contact with the
Lady Yva, it has never been happy out of her company.”
</p>
<p>
“I think that is so,” said Bastin. “At any rate I have
noticed that it has been moping for the last two days, as it always does when
she is not present. It even seems to like Oro who gives me the creeps, perhaps
because he is her father. Dogs must be very charitable animals.”
</p>
<p>
By now we were in the cave marching past the wrecks of the half-buried
flying-machines, which Bickley, as he remarked regretfully, had never found
time thoroughly to examine. Indeed, to do so would have needed more digging
than we could do without proper instruments, since the machines were big and
deeply entombed in dust.
</p>
<p>
We came to the sepulchre and entered.
</p>
<p>
“Well,” said Bickley, seating himself on the edge of one of the
coffins and holding up his lamp to look about him, “this place seems
fairly empty. No one is keeping the assignation, Arbuthnot, although the sun is
well down.”
</p>
<p>
As he spoke the words Yva stood before us. Whence she came we did not see, for
all our backs were turned at the moment of her arrival. But there she was,
calm, beautiful, radiating light.
</p>
</div><!--end chapter-->
<div class="chapter">
<h2><a name="chap23" id="chap23"></a>CHAPTER XXIII.<br />
In the Temple of Fate</h2>
<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 <i>you</i> 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 <i>your</i> errands clothed in your own shape,
Lady Yva?”
</p>
<p>
“Alas! not so, though perhaps I could if I might. It is very simple,
Bickley. Standing here, I heard you say that although the sun was well down
there was no one to meet you as Humphrey had expected, and from those words and
your voice I guessed the rest.”
</p>
<p>
“Your knowledge of the English language is improving fast, Lady Yva.
Also, when I spoke, you were not here.”
</p>
<p>
“At least I was very near, Bickley, and these walls are thinner than you
think,” she answered, contemplating what seemed to be solid rock with
eyes that were full of innocence. “Oh! friend,” she went on
suddenly, “I wonder what there is which will cause you to believe that
you do not know all; that there exist many things beyond the reach of your
learning and imagination? Well, in a day or two, perhaps, even you will admit
as much, and confess it to me—elsewhere,” and she sighed.
</p>
<p>
“I am ready to confess now that much happens which I do not understand at
present, because I have not the key to the trick,” he replied.
</p>
<p>
Yva shook her head at him and smiled again. Then she motioned to all of us to
stand close to her, and, stooping, lifted Tommy in her arms. Next moment that
marvel happened which I have described already, and we were whirling downwards
through space, to find ourselves in a very little time standing safe in the
caves of Nyo, breathless with the swiftness of our descent. How and on what we
descended neither I nor the others ever learned. It was and must remain one of
the unexplained mysteries of our great experience.
</p>
<p>
“Whither now, Yva?” I asked, staring about me at the radiant
vastness.
</p>
<p>
“The Lord Oro would speak with you, Humphrey. Follow. And I pray you all
do not make him wrath, for his mood is not gentle.”
</p>
<p>
So once more we proceeded down the empty streets of that underground abode
which, except that it was better illuminated, reminded me of the Greek
conception of Hades. We came to the sacred fountain over which stood the
guardian statue of Life, pouring from the cups she held the waters of Good and
Ill that mingled into one health-giving wine.
</p>
<p>
“Drink, all of you,” she said; “for I think before the sun
sets again upon the earth we shall need strength, every one of us.”
</p>
<p>
So we drank, and she drank herself, and once more felt the blood go dancing
through our veins as though the draught had been some nectar of the gods. Then,
having extinguished the lanterns which we still carried, for here they were
needless, and we wished to save our oil, we followed her through the great
doors into the vast hall of audience and advanced up it between the endless,
empty seats. At its head, on the dais beneath the arching shell, sat Oro on his
throne. As before, he wore the jewelled cap and the gorgeous, flowing robes,
while the table in front of him was still strewn with sheets of metal on which
he wrote with a pen, or stylus, that glittered like a diamond or his own fierce
eyes. Then he lifted his head and beckoned to us to ascend the dais.
</p>
<p>
“You are here. It is well,” he said, which was all his greeting.
Only when Tommy ran up to him he bent down and patted the dog’s head with
his long, thin hand, and, as he did so, his face softened. It was evident to me
that Tommy was more welcome to him than were the rest of us.
</p>
<p>
There was a long silence while, one by one, he searched us with his piercing
glance. It rested on me, the last of the three of us, and from me travelled to
Yva.
</p>
<p>
“I wonder why I have sent for you?” he said at length, with a
mirthless laugh. “I think it must be that I may convince Bickley, the
sceptic, that there are powers which he does not understand, but that I have
the strength to move. Also, perhaps, that your lives may be spared for my own
purposes in that which is about to happen. Hearken! My labours are finished; my
calculations are complete,” and he pointed to the sheets of metal before
him that were covered with cabalistic signs. “Tomorrow I am about to do
what once before I did and to plunge half the world in the deeps of ocean and
lift again from the depths that which has been buried for a quarter of a
million years.”
</p>
<p>
“Which half?” asked Bickley.
</p>
<p>
“That is my secret, Physician, and the answer to it lies written here in
signs you cannot read. Certain countries will vanish, others will be spared. I
say that it is my secret.”
</p>
<p>
“Then, Oro, if you could do what you threaten, you would drown hundreds
of millions of people.”
</p>
<p>
“If I could do! If I could do!” he exclaimed, glaring at Bickley.
“Well, tomorrow you shall see what I can do. Oh! why do I grow angry with
this fool? For the rest, yes, they must drown. What does it matter? Their end
will be swift; some few minutes of terror, that is all, and in one short
century every one of them would have been dead.”
</p>
<p>
An expression of horror gathered on Bastin’s face.
</p>
<p>
“Do you really mean to murder hundreds of millions of people?” he
asked, in a thick, slow voice.
</p>
<p>
“I have said that I intend to send them to that heaven or that hell of
which you are so fond of talking, Preacher, somewhat more quickly than
otherwise they would have found their way thither. They have disappointed me,
they have failed; therefore, let them go and make room for others who will
succeed.”
</p>
<p>
“Then you are a greater assassin than any that the world has bred, or
than all of them put together. There is nobody as bad, even in the Book of
Revelation!” shouted Bastin, in a kind of fury. “Moreover, I am not
like Bickley. I know enough of you and your hellish powers to believe that what
you plan, that you can do.”
</p>
<p>
“I believe it also,” sneered Oro. “But how comes it that the
Great One whom you worship does not prevent the deed, if He exists, and it be
evil?”
</p>
<p>
“He <i>will</i> prevent it!” raved Bastin. “Even now He
commands me to prevent it, and I obey!” Then, drawing the revolver from
his pocket, he pointed it at Oro’s breast, adding: “Swear not to
commit this crime, or I will kill you!”
</p>
<p>
“So the man of peace would become a man of blood,” mused Oro,
“and kill that <i>I</i> may not kill for the good of the world? Why, what
is the matter with that toy of yours, Preacher?” and he pointed to the
pistol.
</p>
<p>
Well might he ask, for as he spoke the revolver flew out of Bastin’s
hand. High into the air it flew, and as it went discharged itself, all the six
chambers of it, in rapid succession, while Bastin stood staring at his arm and
hand which he seemed unable to withdraw.
</p>
<p>
“Do you still threaten me with that outstretched hand, Preacher?”
mocked Oro.
</p>
<p>
“I can’t move it,” said Bastin; “it seems turned to
stone.”
</p>
<p>
“Be thankful that you also are not turned to stone. But, because your
courage pleases me, I will spare you, yes, and will advance you in my New
Kingdom. What shall you be? Controller of Religions, I think, since all the
qualities that a high priest should have are yours—faith, fanaticism and
folly.”
</p>
<p>
“It is very strange,” said Bastin, “but all of a sudden my
arm and hand are quite well again. I suppose it must have been ‘pins and
needles’ or something of that sort which made me throw away the pistol
and pull the trigger when I didn’t mean to do so.”
</p>
<p>
Then he went to fetch that article which had fallen beyond the dais, and quite
forgot his intention of executing Oro in the interest of testing its mechanism,
which proved to be destroyed. To his proposed appointment he made no illusion.
If he comprehended what was meant, which I doubt, he took it as a joke.
</p>
<p>
“Hearken all of you,” said Oro, lifting his head suddenly, for
while Bastin recovered the revolver he had been brooding. “The great
thing which I shall do tomorrow must be witnessed by you because thereby only
can you come to understand my powers. Also yonder where I bring it about in the
bowels of the earth, you will be safer than elsewhere, since when and perhaps
before it happens, the whole world will heave and shake and tremble, and I know
not what may chance, even in these caves. For this reason also, do not forget
to bring the little hound with you, since him least of all of you would I see
come to harm, perhaps because once, hundreds of generations ago as you reckon
time, I had a dog very like to him. Your mother loved him much, Yva, and when
she died, this dog died also. He lies embalmed with her on her coffin yonder in
the temple, and yesterday I went to look at both of them. The beasts are
wonderfully alike, which shows the everlastingness of blood.”
</p>
<p>
He paused a while, lost in thought, then continued: “After the deed is
done I’ll speak with you and you shall choose, Strangers, whether you
will die your own masters, or live on to serve me. Now there is one problem
that is left to me to solve—whether I can save a certain land—do
not ask which it is, Humphrey, though I see the question in your eyes—or
must let it go with the rest. I only answer you that I will do my best because
you love it. So farewell for a while, and, Preacher, be advised by me and do
not aim too high again.”
</p>
<p>
“It doesn’t matter where I aim,” answered Bastin sturdily,
“or whether I hit or miss, since there is something much bigger than me
waiting to deal with you. The countries that you think you are going to destroy
will sleep quite as well tomorrow as they do tonight, Oro.”
</p>
<p>
“Much better, I think, Preacher, since by then they will have left sorrow
and pain and wickedness and war far behind them.”
</p>
<p>
“Where are we to go?” I asked.
</p>
<p>
“The Lady Yva will show you,” he answered, waving his hand, and
once more bent over his endless calculations.
</p>
<p>
Yva beckoned to us and we turned and followed her down the hall. She led us to
a street near the gateway of the temple and thence into one of the houses.
There was a portico to it leading to a court out of which opened rooms somewhat
in the Pompeian fashion. We did not enter the rooms, for at the end of the
court were a metal table and three couches also of metal, on which were spread
rich-looking rugs. Whence these came I do not know and never asked, but I
remember that they were very beautiful and soft as velvet.
</p>
<p>
“Here you may sleep,” she said, “if sleep you can, and eat of
the food that you have brought with you. Tomorrow early I will call you when it
is time for us to start upon our journey into the bowels of the earth.”
</p>
<p>
“I don’t want to go any deeper than we are,” said Bastin
doubtfully.
</p>
<p>
“I think that none of us want to go, Bastin,” she answered with a
sigh. “Yet go we must. I pray of you, anger the Lord Oro no more on this
or any other matter. In your folly you tried to kill him, and as it chanced he
bore it well because he loves courage. But another time he may strike back, and
then, Bastin—”
</p>
<p>
“I am not afraid of him,” he answered, “but I do not like
tunnels. Still, perhaps it would be better to accompany you than to be left in
this place alone. Now I will unpack the food.”
</p>
<p>
Yva turned to go.
</p>
<p>
“I must leave you,” she said, “since my father needs my help.
The matter has to do with the Force that he would let loose tomorrow, and its
measurements; also with the preparation of the robes that we must wear lest it
should harm us in its leap.”
</p>
<p>
Something in her eyes told me that she wished me to follow her, and I did so.
Outside the portico where we stood in the desolate, lighted street, she halted.
</p>
<p>
“If you are not afraid,” she said, “meet me at midnight by
the statue of Fate in the great temple, for I would speak with you, Humphrey,
where, if anywhere, we may be alone.”
</p>
<p>
“I will come, Yva.”
</p>
<p>
“You know the road, and the gates are open, Humphrey.”
</p>
<p>
Then she gave me her hand to kiss and glided away. I returned to the others and
we ate, somewhat sparingly, for we wished to save our food in case of need, and
having drunk of the Life-water, were not hungry. Also we talked a little, but
by common consent avoided the subject of the morrow and what it might bring
forth.
</p>
<p>
We knew that terrible things were afoot, but lacking any knowledge of what
these might be, thought it useless to discuss them. Indeed we were too
depressed, so much so that even Bastin and Bickley ceased from arguing. The
latter was so overcome by the exhibition of Oro’s powers when he caused
the pistol to leap into the air and discharge itself, that he could not even
pluck up courage to laugh at the failure of Bastin’s efforts to do
justice on the old Super-man, or rather to prevent him from attempting a
colossal crime.
</p>
<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>
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>
<p>
“Humphrey, be not foolish. Do you not remember, who have travelled with
him, that Oro can throw his soul afar and bring it back again laden with
knowledge, as the feet of a bee are laden with golden dust? Well, he went and
went again, and I must wait. And then the robes and shields; they must be
prepared by his arts and mine. Oh! ask not what they are, there is no time to
tell, and it matters nothing. Some folk are wise and some are foolish, but all
which matters is that within them flows the blood of life and that life breeds
love, and that love, as I believe, although Oro does not, breeds immortality.
And if so, what is Time but as a grain of sand upon the shore?”
</p>
<p>
“This, Yva; it is ours, who can count on nothing else.”
</p>
<p>
“Oh! Humphrey, if I thought that, no more wretched creature would breathe
tonight upon this great world.”
</p>
<p>
“What do you mean?” I asked, growing fearful, more at her manner
and her look than at her words.
</p>
<p>
“Nothing, nothing, except that Time is so very short. A kiss, a touch, a
little light and a little darkness, and it is gone. Ask my father Oro who has
lived a thousand years and slept for tens of thousands, as I have, and he will
say the same. It is against Time that he fights; he who, believing in nothing
beyond, will inherit nothing, as Bastin says; he to whom Time has brought
nothing save a passing, blood-stained greatness, and triumph ending in darkness
and disaster, and hope that will surely suffer hope’s eclipse, and power
that must lay down its coronet in dust.”
</p>
<p>
“And what has it brought to you, Yva, beyond a fair body and a soul of
strength?”
</p>
<p>
“It has brought a spirit, Humphrey. Between them the body and the soul
have bred a spirit, and in the fires of tribulation from that spirit has been
distilled the essence of eternal love. That is Time’s gift to me, and
therefore, although still he rules me here, I mock at Fate,” and she
waved her hand with a gesture of defiance at the stern-faced, sexless effigy
which sat above us, the sword across its knees.
</p>
<p>
“Look! Look!” she went on in a swelling voice of music, pointing to
the statues of the dotard and the beauteous woman. “They implore Fate,
they worship Fate. <i>I</i> do not implore, <i>I</i> do not worship or ask a
sign as even Oro does and as did his forefathers. <i>I</i> rise above and
triumph. As Fate, the god of my people, sets his foot upon the sun, so I set my
foot upon Fate, and thence, like a swimmer from a rock, leap into the waters of
Immortality.”
</p>
<p>
I looked at her whose presence, as happened from time to time, had grown
majestic beyond that of woman; I studied her deep eyes which were full of
lights, not of this world, and I grew afraid.
</p>
<p>
“What do you mean?” I asked. “Yva, you talk like one who has
finished with life.”
</p>
<p>
“It passes,” she answered quickly. “Life passes like breath
fading from a mirror. So should all talk who breathe beneath the sun.”
</p>
<p>
“Yes, Yva, but if you went and left me still breathing on that mocking
glass—”
</p>
<p>
“If so, what of it? Will not your breath fade also and join mine where
all vapours go? Or if it were yours that faded and mine that remained for some
few hours, is it not the same? I think, Humphrey, that already you have seen a
beloved breath melt from the glass of life,” she added, looking at me
earnestly.
</p>
<p>
I bowed my head and answered:
</p>
<p>
“Yes, and therefore I am ashamed.”
</p>
<p>
“Oh! why should you be ashamed, Humphrey, who are not sure but that two
breaths may yet be one breath? How do you know that there is a difference
between them?”
</p>
<p>
“You drive me mad, Yva. I cannot understand.”
</p>
<p>
“Nor can I altogether, Humphrey. Why should I, seeing that I am no more
than woman, as you are no more than man? I would always have you remember,
Humphrey, that I am no spirit or sorceress, but just a woman—like her you
lost.”
</p>
<p>
I looked at her doubtfully and answered:
</p>
<p>
“Women do not sleep for two hundred thousand years. Women do not take
dream journeys to the stars. Women do not make the dead past live again before
the watcher’s eyes. Their hair does not glimmer in the dusk nor do their
bodies gleam, nor have they such strength of soul or eyes so wonderful, or
loveliness so great.”
</p>
<p>
These words appeared to distress her who, as it seemed to me, was above all
things anxious to prove herself woman and no more.
</p>
<p>
“All these qualities are nothing, Humphrey,” she cried. “As
for the beauty, such as it is, it comes to me with my blood, and with it the
glitter of my hair which is the heritage of those who for generations have
drunk of the Life-water. My mother was lovelier than I, as was her mother, or
so I have heard, since only the fairest were the wives of the Kings of the
Children of Wisdom. For the rest, such arts as I have spring not from magic,
but from knowledge which your people will acquire in days to come, that is, if
Oro spares them. Surely you above all should know that I am only woman,”
she added very slowly and searching my face with her eyes.
</p>
<p>
“Why, Yva? During the little while that we have been together I have seen
much which makes me doubt. Even Bickley the sceptic doubts also.”
</p>
<p>
“I will tell you, though I am not sure that you will believe me.”
She glanced about her as though she were frightened lest someone should
overhear her words or read her thoughts. Then she stretched out her hands and
drawing my head towards her, put her lips to my ear and whispered:
</p>
<p>
“Because once you saw me <i>die</i>, as women often die—giving life
for life.”
</p>
<p>
“I saw <i>you</i> die?” I gasped.
</p>
<p>
She nodded, then continued to whisper in my ear, not in her own voice, but
another’s:
</p>
<p>
“<i>Go where you seem called to go, far away. Oh! the wonderful place in
which you will find me, not knowing that you have found me. Good-bye for a
little while; only for a little while, my own, my own!</i>”
</p>
<p>
I knew the voice as I knew the words, and knowing, I think that I should have
fallen to the ground, had she not supported me with her strong arms.
</p>
<p>
“Who told you?” I stammered. “Was it Bickley or Bastin? They
knew, though neither of them heard those holy words.”
</p>
<p>
“Not Bickley nor Bastin,” she answered, shaking her head,
“no, nor you yourself, awake or sleeping, though once, by the lake
yonder, you said to me that when a certain one lay dying, she bade you seek her
elsewhere, for certainly you would find her. Humphrey, I cannot say who told me
those words because I do not know. <i>I think they are a memory,
Humphrey!</i>”
</p>
<p>
“That would mean that you, Yva, are the same as one who was—not
called Yva.”
</p>
<p>
“The same as one who was called <i>Natalie</i>, Humphrey,” she
replied in solemn accents. “One whom you loved and whom you lost.”
</p>
<p>
“Then you think that we live again upon this earth?”
</p>
<p>
“Again and yet again, until the time comes for us to leave the earth for
ever. Of this, indeed, I am sure, for that knowledge was part of the secret
wisdom of my people.”
</p>
<p>
“But you were not dead. You only slept.”
</p>
<p>
“The sleep was a death-sleep which went by like a flash, yes, in an
instant, or so it seemed. Only the shell of the body remained preserved by
mortal arts, and when the returning spirit and the light of life were poured
into it again, it awoke. But during this long death-sleep, that spirit may have
spoken through other lips and that light may have shone through other eyes,
though of these I remember nothing.”
</p>
<p>
“Then that dream of our visit to a certain star may be no dream?”
</p>
<p>
“I think no dream, and you, too, have thought as much.”
</p>
<p>
“In a way, yes, Yva. But I could not believe and turned from what I held
to be a phantasy.”
</p>
<p>
“It was natural, Humphrey, that you should not believe. Hearken! In this
temple a while ago I showed you a picture of myself and of a man who loved me
and whom I loved, and of his death at Oro’s hands. Did you note anything
about that man?”
</p>
<p>
“Bickley did,” I answered. “Was he right?”
</p>
<p>
“I think that he was right, since otherwise I should not have loved you,
Humphrey.”
</p>
<p>
“I remember nothing of that man, Yva.”
</p>
<p>
“It is probable that you would not, since you and he are very far apart,
while between you and him flow wide seas of death, wherein are set islands of
life; perhaps many of them. But I remember much who seem to have left him but a
very little while ago.”
</p>
<p>
“When you awoke in your coffin and threw your arms about me, what did you
think, Yva?”
</p>
<p>
“I thought <i>you</i> were that man, Humphrey.”
</p>
<p>
There was silence between us and in that silence the truth came home to me.
Then there before the effigy of Fate and in the desolate, glowing temple we
plighted anew our troth made holy by a past that thus so wonderfully lived
again.
</p>
<p>
Of this consecrated hour I say no more. Let each picture it as he will. A glory
as of heaven fell upon us and in it we dwelt a space.
</p>
<p class="p2">
“Beloved,” she whispered at length in a voice that was choked as
though with tears, “if it chances that we should be separated again for a
little while, you will not grieve over much?”
</p>
<p>
“Knowing all I should try not to grieve, Yva, seeing that in truth we
never can be parted. But do you mean that I shall die?”
</p>
<p>
“Being mortal either of us might seem to die, Humphrey,” and she
bent her head as though to hide her face. “You know we go into dangers
this day.”
</p>
<p>
“Does Oro really purpose to destroy much of the world and has he in truth
the power, Yva?”
</p>
<p>
“He does so purpose and most certainly he has the power,
unless—unless some other Power should stay his hand.”
</p>
<p>
“What other power, Yva?”
</p>
<p>
“Oh! perhaps that which you worship, that which is called Love. The love
of man may avert the massacre of men. I hope so with all my heart. Hist! Oro
comes. I feel, I know that he comes, though not in search of us who are very
far from his thought tonight. Follow me. Swiftly.”
</p>
<p>
She sped across the temple to where a chapel opened out of it, which was full
of the statues of dead kings, for here was the entrance to their burial vault.
We reached it and hid behind the base of one of these statues. By standing to
our full height, without being seen we still could see between the feet of the
statue that stood upon a pedestal.
</p>
<p class="p2">
Then Oro came.
</p>
</div><!--end chapter-->
<div class="chapter">
<h2><a name="chap24" id="chap24"></a>CHAPTER XXIV.<br />
The Chariot of the Pit</h2>
<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>
<p>
“Then I slept. Through countless generations I slept on and at my side
was the one child of my body that was left to me. What chanced to my spirit and
to hers during that sleep, thou knowest alone, but doubtless they went forth to
work thy ends.
</p>
<p>
“At the appointed time which thou didst decree, I awoke again and found
in my house strangers from another land. In the company of one of those whose
spirit I drew forth, I visited the peoples of the new earth, and found them
even baser and more evil than those whom I had known. Therefore, since they
cannot be bettered. I purpose to destroy them also, and on their wreck to
rebuild a glorious empire, such as was that of the Sons of Wisdom at its prime.
</p>
<p>
“A sign! O Fate, ruler of the world, give me a sign that my desire shall
be fulfilled.”
</p>
<p>
He paused, stretching out his arms and staring upwards. While he waited I felt
the solid rock on which I stood quiver and sway beneath my feet so that Yva and
I clung to each other lest we should fall. This chanced also. The shock of the
earth tremor, for such without doubt it was, threw down the figures of the
ancient man and the lovely woman which knelt as though making prayers to Fate,
and shook the marble sword from off its knees. As it fell Oro caught it by the
hilt, and, rising, waved it in triumph.
</p>
<p>
“I thank thee, God of my people from the beginning,” he cried.
“Thou hast given to me, thy last servant, thine own sword and I will use
it well. For these worshippers of thine who have fallen, thou shalt have
others, yes, all those who dwell in the new world that is to be. My daughter
and the man whom she has chosen to be the father of the kings of the earth, and
with him his companions, shall be the first of the hundreds of millions that
are to follow, for they shall kiss thy feet or perish. Thou shalt set thy foot
upon the necks of all other gods; thou shalt rule and thou alone, and, as of
old, Oro be thy minister.”
</p>
<p>
Still holding the sword, he flung himself down as though in an ecstasy, and was
silent.
</p>
<p>
“I read the omen otherwise,” whispered Yva. “The worshippers
of Fate are overthrown. His sword of power is fallen, but not into the hands
that clasped it, and he totters on his throne. A greater God asserts dominion
of the world and this Fate is but his instrument.”
</p>
<p>
Oro rose again.
</p>
<p>
“One prayer more,” he cried. “Give me life, long life, that I
may execute thy decrees. By word or gesture show me a sign that I shall be
satisfied with life, a year for every year that I have lived, or twain!”
</p>
<p>
He waited, staring about him, but no token came; the idol did not speak or bow
its head, as Yva had told me it was wont to do in sign of accepted prayer, how,
she knew not. Only I thought I heard the echo of Oro’s cries run in a
whisper of mockery round the soaring dome.
</p>
<p>
Once more Oro flung himself upon his knees and began to pray in a veritable
agony.
</p>
<p>
“God of my forefathers, God of my lost people, I will hide naught from
thee,” he said. “I who fear nothing else, fear death. The
priest-fool yonder with his new faith, has spoken blundering words of judgment
and damnation which, though I do not believe them, yet stick in my heart like
arrows. I will stamp out his faith, and with this ancient sword of thine drive
back the new gods into the darkness whence they came. Yet what if some water of
Truth flows through the channel of his leaden lips, and what if because I have
ruled and will rule as thou didst decree, therefore, in some dim place of
souls, I must bear these burdens of terror and of doom which I have bound upon
the backs of others! Nay, it cannot be, for what power is there in all the
universe that dares to make a slave of Oro and to afflict him with stripes?
</p>
<p>
“Yet this can be and mayhap will be, that presently I lose my path in the
ways of everlasting darkness, and become strengthless and forgotten as are
those who went before me, while my crown of Power shines on younger brows.
Alas! I grow old, since æons of sleep have not renewed my strength. My time is
short and yet I would not die as mortals must. Oh! God of my people, whom I
have served so well, save me from the death I dread. For I would not die. Give
me a sign; give me the ancient, sacred sign!”
</p>
<p>
So he spoke, lifting his proud and splendid head and watching the statue with
wide, expectant eyes.
</p>
<p>
“Thou dost not answer,” he cried again. “Wouldst thou desert
me, Fate? Then beware lest I set up some new god against thee and hurl thee
from thine immemorial throne. While I live I still have powers, I who am the
last of thy worshippers, since it seems that my daughter turns her back on
thee. I will get me to the sepulchre of the kings and take counsel with the
dust of that wizard who first taught me wisdom. Even from the depths of death
he must come to my call clad in a mockery of life, and comfort me. A little
while yet I will wait, and if thou answer not, then Fate, soon I’ll tear
the sceptre from thy hand, and thou shalt join the company of dead gods.”
And throwing aside the sword, again Oro laid down his head upon the ground and
stretched out his arms in the last abasement of supplication.
</p>
<p>
“Come,” whispered Yva, “while there is yet time. Presently he
will seek this place to descend to the sepulchre, and if he learns that we have
read his heart and know him for a coward deserted of his outworn god, surely he
will blot us out. Come, and be swift and silent.”
</p>
<p>
We crept out of the chapel, Yva leading, and along the circle of the great dome
till we reached the gates. Here I glanced back and perceived that Oro, looking
unutterably small in that vastness, looking like a dead man, still lay
outstretched before the stern-faced, unanswering Effigy which, with all his
wisdom, he believed to be living and divine. Perhaps once it was, but if so its
star had set for ever, like those of Amon, Jupiter and Baal, and he was its
last worshipper.
</p>
<p>
Now we were safe, but still we sped on till we reached the portico of our
sleeping place. Then Yva turned and spoke.
</p>
<p>
“It is horrible,” she said, “and my soul sickens. Oh, I thank
the Strength which made it that I have no desire to rule the earth, and, being
innocent of death, do not fear to die and cross his threshold.”
</p>
<p>
“Yes, it is horrible,” I answered. “Yet all men fear
death.”
</p>
<p>
“Not when they have found love, Humphrey, for that I think is his true
name, and, with it written on his brow, he stands upon the neck of Fate who is
still my father’s god.”
</p>
<p>
“Then he is not yours, Yva?”
</p>
<p>
“Nay. Once it was so, but now I reject him; he is no longer mine. As Oro
threatens, and perchance dare do in his rage, I have broken his chain, though
in another fashion. Ask me no more; perhaps one day you will learn the path I
trod to freedom.”
</p>
<p>
Then before I could speak, she went off:
</p>
<p>
“Rest now, for within a few hours I must come to lead you and your
companions to a terrible place. Yet whatever you may see or hear, be not
afraid, Humphrey, for I think that Oro’s god has no power over you,
strong though he was, and that Oro’s plans will fail, while I, who too
have knowledge, shall find strength to save the world.”
</p>
<p>
Then of a sudden, once again she grew splendid, almost divine; no more a woman
but as it were an angel. Some fire of pure purpose seemed to burn up in her and
to shine out of her eyes. Yet she said little. Only this indeed:
</p>
<p>
“To everyone, I think, there comes the moment of opportunity when choice
must be made between what is great and what is small, between self and its
desires and the good of other wanderers in the way. This day that moment may
draw near to you or me, and if so, surely we shall greet it well. Such is
Bastin’s lesson, which I have striven to learn.”
</p>
<p>
Then she flung her arms about me and kissed me on the brow as a mother might,
and was gone.
</p>
<p class="p2">
Strangely enough, perhaps because of my mental exhaustion, for what I had
passed through seemed to overwhelm me so that I could no longer so much as
think with clearness, even after all that I have described I slept like a child
and awoke refreshed and well.
</p>
<p>
I looked at my watch to find that it was now eight o’clock in the morning
in this horrible place where there was neither morn, nor noon, nor night, but
only an eternal brightness that came I knew not whence, and never learned.
</p>
<p>
I found that I was alone, since Bickley and Bastin had gone to fill our bottles
with the Life-water. Presently they returned and we ate a little; with that
water to drink one did not need much food. It was a somewhat silent meal, for
our circumstances were a check on talk; moreover, I thought that the others
looked at me rather oddly. Perhaps they guessed something of my midnight visit
to the temple, but if so they thought it wisest to say nothing. Nor did I
enlighten them.
</p>
<p>
Shortly after we had finished Yva appeared. She was wonderfully quiet and
gentle in her manner, calm also, and greeted all of us with much sweetness. Of
our experiences during the night she said no word to me, even when we were
alone. One difference I noticed about her, however; that she was clothed in
garments such as I had never seen her wear before. They were close fitting,
save for a flowing cape, and made of some grey material, not unlike a coarse
homespun or even asbestos cloth. Still they became her very well, and when I
remarked upon them, all she answered was that part of our road would be rough.
Even her feet were shod with high buskins of this grey stuff.
</p>
<p>
Presently she touched Bastin on the shoulder and said that she would speak with
him apart. They went together into one of the chambers of that dwelling and
there remained for perhaps the half of an hour. It was towards the end of this
time that in the intense silence I heard a crash from the direction of the
temple, as though something heavy had fallen to the rocky floor. Bickley also
heard this sound. When the two reappeared I noticed that though still quite
calm, Yva looked radiant, and, if I may say so, even more human and womanly
than I had ever seen her, while Bastin also seemed very happy.
</p>
<p>
“One has strange experiences in life, yes, very strange,” he
remarked, apparently addressing the air, which left me wondering to what
particular experience he might refer. Well, I thought that I could guess.
</p>
<p>
“Friends,” said Yva, “it is time for us to be going and I am
your guide. You will meet the Lord Oro at the end of your journey. I pray you
to bring those lamps of yours with you, since all the road is not lightened
like this place.”
</p>
<p>
“I should like to ask,” said Bickley, “whither we go and for
what object, points on which up to the present we have had no definite
information.”
</p>
<p>
“We go, friend Bickley, deep into the bowels of the world, far deeper, I
think, than any mortal men have gone hitherto, that is, of your race.”
</p>
<p>
“Then we shall perish of heat,” said Bickley, “for with every
thousand feet the temperature rises many degrees.”
</p>
<p>
“Not so. You will pass through a zone of heat, but so swiftly that if you
hold your breath you will not suffer overmuch. Then you will come to a place
where a great draught blows which will keep you cool, and thence travel on to
the end.”
</p>
<p>
“Yes, but to what end, Lady Yva?”
</p>
<p>
“That you will see for yourselves, and with it other wondrous
things.”
</p>
<p>
Here some new idea seemed to strike her, and after a little hesitation she
added:
</p>
<p>
“Yet why should you go? Oro has commanded it, it is true, but I think
that at the last he will forget. It must be decided swiftly. There is yet time.
I can place you in safety in the sepulchre of Sleep where you found us. Thence
cross to the main island and sail away quickly in your boat out into the great
sea, where I believe you will find succour. Know that after disobeying him, you
must meet Oro no more lest it should be the worse for you. If that be your
will, let us start. What say you?”
</p>
<p>
She looked at me.
</p>
<p>
“I say, Yva, that I am willing to go if you come with us. Not
otherwise.”
</p>
<p>
“I say,” said Bickley, “that I want to see all this
supernatural rubbish thoroughly exploded, and that therefore I should prefer to
go on with the business.”
</p>
<p>
“And I say,” said Bastin, “that my most earnest desire is to
be clear of the whole thing, which wearies and perplexes me more than I can
tell. Only I am not going to run away, unless you think it desirable to do so
too, Lady Yva. I want you to understand that I am not in the least afraid of
the Lord Oro, and do not for one moment believe that he will be allowed to
bring about disaster to the world, as I understand is his wicked object.
Therefore on the whole I am indifferent and quite prepared to accept any
decision at which the rest of you may arrive.”
</p>
<p>
“Be it understood,” said Yva with a little smile when Bastin had
finished his sermonette, “that I must join my father in the bowels of the
earth for a reason which will be made plain afterwards. Therefore, if you go we
part, as I think to meet no more. Still my advice is that you should
go.”<a href="#fn-1" name="fnref-1" id="fnref-1"><sup>[1]</sup></a>
</p>
<p class="footnote">
<a name="fn-1" id="fn-1"></a> <a href="#fnref-1">[1]</a>
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.
</p>
<p>
To this our only answer was to attend to the lighting of our lamps and the
disposal of our small impedimenta, such as our tins of oil and water bottles.
Yva noted this and laughed outright.
</p>
<p>
“Courage did not die with the Sons of Wisdom,” she said.
</p>
<p>
Then we set out, Yva walking ahead of us and Tommy frisking at her side.
</p>
<p>
Our road led us through the temple. As we passed the great gates I started, for
there, in the centre of that glorious building, I perceived a change. The
statue of Fate was no more! It lay broken upon the pavement among those
fragments of its two worshippers which I had seen shaken down some hours
before.
</p>
<p>
“What does this mean?” I whispered to Yva. “I have felt no
other earthquake.”
</p>
<p>
“I do not know,” she answered, “or if I know I may not say.
Yet learn that no god can live on without a single worshipper, and, in a
fashion, that idol was alive, though this you will not believe.”
</p>
<p>
“How very remarkable,” said Bastin, contemplating the ruin.
“If I were superstitious, which I am not, I should say that this
occurrence was an omen indicating the final fall of a false god. At any rate it
is dead now, and I wonder what caused it?”
</p>
<p>
“I felt an earth tremor last night,” said Bickley, “though it
is odd that it should only have affected this particular statue. A thousand
pities, for it was a wonderful work of art.”
</p>
<p>
Then I remembered and reminded Bickley of the crash which we had heard while
Yva and Bastin were absent on some secret business in the chamber.
</p>
<p>
Walking the length of the great church, if so it could be called, we came to an
apse at the head of it where, had it been Christian, the altar would have
stood. In this apse was a little open door through which we passed. Beyond it
lay a space of rough rock that looked as though it had been partially prepared
for the erection of buildings and then abandoned. All this space was lighted,
however, like the rest of the City of Nyo, and in the same mysterious way. Led
by Yva, we threaded our path between the rough stones, following a steep
downward slope. Thus we walked for perhaps half a mile, till at length we came
to the mouth of a huge pit that must, I imagine, have lain quite a thousand
feet below the level of the temple.
</p>
<p>
I looked over the edge of this pit and shrank back terrified. It seemed to be
bottomless. Moreover, a great wind rushed up it with a roaring sound like to
that of an angry sea. Or rather there were two winds, perhaps draughts would be
a better term, if I may apply it to an air movement of so fierce and terrible a
nature. One of these rushed up the pit, and one rushed down. Or it may have
been that the up rush alternated with the down rush. Really it is impossible to
say.
</p>
<p>
“What is this place?” I asked, clinging to the others and shrinking
back in alarm from its sheer edge and bottomless depth, for that this was
enormous we could see by the shaft of light which flowed downwards farther than
the eye could follow.
</p>
<p>
“It is a vent up and down which air passes from and to the central
hollows of the earth,” Yva answered. “Doubtless in the beginning
through it travelled that mighty force which blew out these caves in the heated
rocks, as the craftsman blows out glass.”
</p>
<p>
“I understand,” said Bastin. “Just like one blows out a
bubble on a pipe, only on a larger scale. Well, it is very interesting, but I
have seen enough of it. Also I am afraid of being blown away.”
</p>
<p>
“I fear that you must see more,” answered Yva with a smile,
“since we are about to descend this pit.”
</p>
<p>
“Do you mean that we are to go down that hole, and if so, how? I
don’t see any lift, or moving staircase, or anything of that sort.”
</p>
<p>
“Easily and safely enough, Bastin. See.”
</p>
<p>
As she spoke a great flat rock of the size of a small room appeared, borne
upwards, as I suppose, by the terrific draught which roared past us on its
upward course. When it reached the lip of the shaft, it hung a little while,
then moved across and began to descend with such incredible swiftness that in a
few seconds it had vanished from view.
</p>
<p>
“Oh!” said Bastin, with his eyes almost starting out of his head,
“that’s the lift, is it? Well, I tell you at once I don’t
like the look of the thing. It gives me the creeps. Suppose it tilted.”
</p>
<p>
“It does not tilt,” answered Yva, still smiling. “I tell you,
Bastin, that there is naught to fear. Only yesterday, I rode this rock and
returned unharmed.”
</p>
<p>
“That is all very well, Lady Yva, but you may know how to balance it;
also when to get on and off.”
</p>
<p>
“If you are afraid, Bastin, remain here until your companions return.
They, I think, will make the journey.”
</p>
<p>
Bickley and I intimated that we would, though to tell the truth, if less frank
we were quite as alarmed as Bastin.
</p>
<p>
“No, I’ll come too. I suppose one may as well die this way as any
other, and if anything were to happen to them and I were left alone, it would
be worse still.”
</p>
<p>
“Then be prepared,” said Yva, “for presently this air-chariot
of ours will return. When it appears and hangs upon the edge, step on to it and
throw yourselves upon your faces and all will be well. At the foot of the shaft
the motion lessens till it almost stops, and it is easy to spring, or even
crawl to the firm earth.”
</p>
<p>
Then she stooped down and lifted Tommy who was sniffing suspiciously at the
edge of the pit, his long ears blown straight above his head, holding him
beneath her left arm and under her cloak, that he might not see and be
frightened.
</p>
<p>
We waited a while in silence, perhaps for five or six minutes, among the most
disagreeable, I think, that I ever passed. Then far down in the brightness
below appeared a black speck that seemed to grow in size as it rushed upwards.
</p>
<p>
“It comes,” said Yva. “Prepare and do as I do. Do not spring,
or run, lest you should go too far. Step gently on to the rock and to its
centre, and there lie down. Trust in me, all of you.”
</p>
<p>
“There’s nothing else to do,” groaned Bastin.
</p>
<p>
The great stone appeared and, as before, hung at the edge of the pit. Yva
stepped on to it quietly, as she did so, catching hold of my wrist with her
disengaged hand. I followed her feeling very sick, and promptly sat down. Then
came Bickley with the air of the virtuous hero of a romance walking a
pirate’s plank, and also sat down. Only Bastin hesitated until the stone
began to move away. Then with an ejaculation of “Here goes!” he
jumped over the intervening crack of space and landed in the middle of us like
a sack of coal. Had I not been seated really I think he would have knocked me
off the rock. As it was, with one hand he gripped me by the beard and with the
other grasped Yva’s robe, of neither of which would he leave go for quite
a long time, although we forced him on to his face. The lantern which he held
flew from his grasp and descended the shaft on its own account.
</p>
<p>
“You silly fool!” exclaimed Bickley whose perturbation showed
itself in anger. “There goes one of our lamps.”
</p>
<p>
“Hang the lamp!” muttered the prostrate Bastin. “We
shan’t want it in Heaven, or the other place either.”
</p>
<p>
Now the stone which had quivered a little beneath the impact of Bastin,
steadied itself again and with a slow and majestic movement sailed to the other
side of the gulf. There it felt the force of gravity, or perhaps the weight of
the returning air pressed on it, which I do not know. At any rate it began to
fall, slowly at first, then more swiftly, and afterwards at an incredible pace,
so that in a few seconds the mouth of the pit above us grew small and presently
vanished quite away. I looked up at Yva who was standing composedly in the
midst of our prostrate shapes. She bent down and called in my ear:
</p>
<p>
“All is well. The heat begins, but it will not endure for long.”
</p>
<p>
I nodded and glanced over the edge of the stone at Bastin’s lantern which
was sailing alongside of us, till presently we passed it. Bastin had lit it
before we started, I think in a moment of aberration, and it burned for quite a
long while, showing like a star when the shaft grew darker as it did by
degrees, a circumstance that testifies to the excellence of the make, which is
one advertised not to go out in any wind. Not that we felt wind, or even
draught, perhaps because we were travelling with it.
</p>
<p>
Then we entered the heat zone. About this there was no doubt, for the
perspiration burst out all over me and the burning air scorched my lungs. Also
Tommy thrust his head from beneath the cloak with his tongue hanging out and
his mouth wide open.
</p>
<p>
“Hold your breaths!” cried Yva, and we obeyed until we nearly
burst. At least I did, but what happened to the others I do not know.
</p>
<p>
Fortunately it was soon over and the air began to grow cool again. By now we
had travelled an enormous distance, it seemed to be miles on miles, and I
noticed that our terrific speed was slackening, also that the shaft grew more
narrow, till at length there were only a few feet between the edge of the stone
and its walls. The result of this, or so I supposed, was that the compressed
air acted as a buffer, lessening our momentum, till at length the huge stone
moved but very slowly.
</p>
<p>
“Be ready to follow me,” cried Yva again, and we rose to our feet,
that is, Bickley and I did, but poor Bastin was semi-comatose. The stone
stopped and Yva sprang from it to a rock platform level with which it lay. We
followed, dragging Bastin between us. As we did so something hit me gently on
the head. It was Bastin’s lamp, which I seized.
</p>
<p>
“We are safe. Sit down and rest,” said Yva, leading us a few paces
away.
</p>
<p>
We obeyed and presently by the dim light saw the stone begin to stir again,
this time upwards. In another twenty seconds it was away on its never-ending
journey.
</p>
<p>
“Does it always go on like that?” said Bastin, sitting up and
staring after it.
</p>
<p>
“Tens of thousands of years ago it was journeying thus, and tens of
thousands of years hence it will still be journeying, or so I think,” she
replied. “Why not, since the strength of the draught never changes and
there is nothing to wear it except the air?”
</p>
<p>
Somehow the vision of this huge stone, first loosed and set in motion by heaven
knows what agency, travelling from aeon to aeon up and down that shaft in
obedience to some law I did not understand, impressed my imagination like a
nightmare. Indeed I often dream of it to this day.
</p>
<p>
I looked about me. We were in some cavernous place that could be but dimly
seen, for here the light that flowed down the shaft from the upper caves where
it was mysteriously created, scarcely shone, and often indeed was entirely cut
off, when the ever-journeying stone was in the narrowest parts of the passage.
I could see, however, that this cavern stretched away both to right and left of
us, while I felt that from the left, as we sat facing the shaft, there drew
down a strong blast of fresh air which suggested that somewhere, however far
away, it must open on to the upper world. For the rest its bottom and walls
seemed to be smooth as though they had been planed in the past ages by the
action of cosmic forces. Bickley noticed this the first and pointed it out to
me. We had little time to observe, however, for presently Yva said:
</p>
<p>
“If you are rested, friends, I pray you light those lamps of yours, since
we must walk a while in darkness.”
</p>
<p>
We did and started, still travelling downhill. Yva walked ahead with me and
Tommy who seemed somewhat depressed and clung close to our heels. The other two
followed, arguing strenuously about I know not what. It was their way of
working off irritation and alarms.
</p>
<p>
I asked Yva what was about to happen, for a great fear oppressed me.
</p>
<p>
“I am not sure, Beloved,” she answered in a sweet and gentle voice,
“who do not know all Oro’s secrets, but as I think, great things.
We are now deep in the bowels of the world, and presently, perhaps, you will
see some of its mighty forces whereof your ignorant races have no knowledge,
doing their everlasting work.”
</p>
<p>
“Then how is it that we can breathe here?” I asked. “Because
this road that we are following connects with the upper air or used to do so,
since once I followed it. It is a long road and the climb is steep, but at last
it leads to the light of the blessed sun, nor are there any pitfalls in the
path. Would that we might tread it together, Humphrey,” she added with
passion, “and be rid of mysteries and the gloom, or that light which is
worse than gloom.”
</p>
<p>
“Why not?” I asked eagerly. “Why should we not turn and
flee?”
</p>
<p>
“Who can flee from my father, the Lord Oro?” she replied. “He
would snare us before we had gone a mile. Moreover, if we fled, by tomorrow
half the world must perish.”
</p>
<p>
“And how can we save it by not flying, Yva?”
</p>
<p>
“I do not know, Humphrey, yet I think it will be saved, perchance by
sacrifice. That is the keystone of your faith, is it not? Therefore if it is
asked of you to save the world, you will not shrink from it, will you,
Humphrey?”
</p>
<p>
“I hope not,” I replied, without enthusiasm, I admit. Indeed it
struck me that a business of this sort was better fitted to Bastin than to
myself, or at any rate to his profession. I think she guessed my thoughts, for
by the light of the lamp I saw her smile in her dazzling way. Then after a
swift glance behind her, she turned and suddenly kissed me, as she did so
calling down everlasting blessings on my head and on my spirit. There was
something very wonderful about this benediction of Yva’s and it thrilled
me through and through, so that to it I could make no answer.
</p>
<p>
Next moment it was too late to retreat, for our narrowing passage turned and we
found ourselves in a wondrous place. I call it wondrous because of it we could
see neither the beginning nor the end, nor the roof, nor aught else save the
rock on which we walked, and the side or wall that our hands touched. Nor was
this because of darkness, since although it was not illuminated like the upper
caverns, light of a sort was present. It was a very strange light, consisting
of brilliant and intermittent flashes, or globes of blue and lambent flame
which seemed to leap from nowhere into nowhere, or sometimes to hang poised in
mid air.
</p>
<p>
“How odd they are,” said the voice of Bastin behind me. “They
remind me of those blue sparks which jump up from the wires of the tramways in
London on a dark night. You know, don’t you, Bickley? I mean when the
conductor pulls round that long stick with an iron wheel on the top of
it.”
</p>
<p>
“Nobody but you could have thought of such a comparison, Bastin,”
answered Bickley. “Still, multiplied a thousandfold they are not
unlike.”
</p>
<p>
Nor indeed were they, except that each blue flash was as big as the full moon
and in one place or another they were so continuous that one could have read a
letter by their light. Also the effect of them was ghastly and most unnatural,
terrifying, too, since even their brilliance could not reveal the extent of
that gigantic hollow in the bowels of the world wherein they leapt to and fro
like lightnings, or hung like huge, uncanny lanterns.
</p>
</div><!--end chapter-->
<div class="chapter">
<h2><a name="chap25" id="chap25"></a>CHAPTER XXV.<br />
Sacrifice</h2>
<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>
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>
<p>
“How do you know it is an imitation?” asked Bickley.
</p>
<p>
“Because whatever might be the case with you, Bickley, if it were, the
Lady Yva and I should not be here.”
</p>
<p>
Even then I could not help smiling at this repartee, but the argument went no
further for Oro held up his hand and Yva bent the knee in greeting to him.
</p>
<p>
“So you have come, all of you,” he said. “I thought that
perhaps there were one or two who would not find courage to ride the flying
stone. I am glad that it is not so, since otherwise he who had shown himself a
coward should have had no share in the rule of that new world which is to be.
Therefore I chose yonder road that it might test you.”
</p>
<p>
“Then if you will be so good as to choose another for us to return by, I
shall be much obliged to you, Oro,” said Bastin.
</p>
<p>
“How do you know that if I did it would not be more terrible, Preacher?
How do you know indeed that this is not your last journey from which there is
no return?”
</p>
<p>
“Of course I can’t be sure of anything, Oro, but I think the
question is one which you might more appropriately put to yourself. According
to your own showing you are now extremely old and therefore your end is likely
to come at any moment. Of course, however, if it did you would have one more
journey to make, but it wouldn’t be polite for me to say in what
direction.”
</p>
<p>
Oro heard, and his splendid, icy face was twisted with sudden rage. Remembering
the scene in the temple where he had grovelled before his god, uttering
agonised, unanswered prayers for added days, I understood the reason of his
wrath. It was so great that I feared lest he should kill Bastin (who only a few
hours before, be it remembered, had tried to kill <i>him</i>) then and there,
as doubtless he could have done if he wished. Fortunately, if he felt it; the
impulse passed.
</p>
<p>
“Miserable fool!” he said. “I warn you to keep a watch upon
your words. Yesterday you would have slain me with your toy. Today you stab me
with your ill-omened tongue. Be fearful lest I silence it for ever.”
</p>
<p>
“I am not in the least fearful, Oro, since I am sure that <i>you</i>
can’t hurt me at all any more than I could hurt you last night because,
you see, it wasn’t permitted. When the time comes for me to die, I shall
go, but <i>you</i> will have nothing to do with that. To tell the truth, I am
very sorry for you, as with all your greatness, your soul is of the earth,
earthy, also sensual and devilish, as the Apostle said, and, I am afraid, very
malignant, and you will have a great deal to answer for shortly. Yours
<i>won’t</i> be a happy deathbed, Oro, because, you see, you glory in
your sins and don’t know what repentance means.”
</p>
<p>
I must add that when I heard these words I was filled with the most unbounded
admiration for Bastin’s fearless courage which enabled him thus to beard
this super-tyrant in his den. So indeed were we all, for I read it in
Yva’s face and heard Bickley mutter:
</p>
<p>
“Bravo! Splendid! After all there is something in faith!”
</p>
<p>
Even Oro appreciated it with his intellect, if not with his heart, for he
stared at the man and made no answer. In the language of the ring, he was quite
“knocked out” and, almost humbly, changed the subject.
</p>
<p>
“We have yet a little while,” he said, “before that happens
which I have decreed. Come, Humphrey, that I may show you some of the marvels
of this bubble blown in the bowels of the world,” and he motioned to us
to pick up the lanterns.
</p>
<p>
Then he led us away from the wall of the cavern, if such it was, for a distance
of perhaps six or seven hundred paces. Here suddenly we came to a great groove
in the rocky floor, as broad as a very wide roadway, and mayhap four feet in
depth. The bottom of this groove was polished and glittered; indeed it gave us
the impression of being iron, or other ore which had been welded together
beneath the grinding of some immeasurable weight. Just at the spot where we
struck the groove, it divided into two, for this reason.
</p>
<p>
In its centre the floor of iron, or whatever it may have been, rose, the
fraction of an inch at first, but afterwards more sharply, and this at a spot
where the groove had a somewhat steep downward dip which appeared to extend
onwards I know not how far.
</p>
<p>
Following along this central rise for a great way, nearly a mile, I should
think, we observed that it became ever more pronounced, till at length it ended
in a razor-edge cliff which stretched up higher than we could see, even by the
light of the electrical discharges. Standing against the edge of this cliff, we
perceived that at a distance from it there were now <i>two</i> grooves of about
equal width. One of these ran away into the darkness on our right as we faced
the sharp edge, and at an ever-widening angle, while the other, at a similar
angle, ran into the darkness to the left of the knife of cliff. That was all.
</p>
<p>
No, there were two more notable things. Neither of the grooves now lay within
hundreds of yards of the cliff, perhaps a quarter of a mile, for be it
remembered we had followed the rising rock between them. To put it quite
clearly, it was exactly as though one line of rails had separated into two
lines of rails, as often enough they do, and an observer standing on high
ground between could see them both vanishing into tunnels to the right and
left, but far apart.
</p>
<p>
The second notable thing was that the right-hand groove, where first we saw it
at the point of separation, was not polished like the left-hand groove,
although at some time or other it seemed to have been subjected to the pressure
of the same terrific weight which cut its fellow out of the bed of rock or
iron, as the sharp wheels of a heavily laden wagon sink ruts into a roadway.
</p>
<p>
“What does it all mean, Lord Oro?” I asked when he had led us back
to the spot where the one groove began to be two grooves, that is, a mile or so
away from the razor-edged cliff.
</p>
<p>
“This, Humphrey,” he answered. “That which travels along
yonder road, when it reaches this spot on which we stand, follows the left-hand
path which is made bright with its passage. Yet, could a giant at that moment
of its touching this exact spot on which I lay my hand, thrust it with
sufficient strength, it would leave the left-hand road and take the right-hand
road.”
</p>
<p>
“And if it did, what then; Lord Oro?”
</p>
<p>
“Then within an hour or so, when it had travelled far enough upon its
way, the balance of the earth would be changed, and great things would happen
in the world above, as once they happened in bygone days. Now do you
understand, Humphrey?”
</p>
<p>
“Good Heavens! Yes, I understand now,” I answered. “But
fortunately there is no such giant.”
</p>
<p>
Oro broke into a mocking laugh and his grey old face lit up with a fiendish
exultation, as he cried:
</p>
<p>
“Fool! I, Oro, am that giant. Once in the dead days I turned the balance
of the world from the right-hand road which now is dull with disuse, to the
left-hand road which glitters so brightly to your eyes, and the face of the
earth was changed. Now again I will turn it from the left-hand road to the
right-hand road in which for millions of years it was wont to run, and once
more the face of the earth shall change, and those who are left living upon the
earth, or who in the course of ages shall come to live upon the new earth, must
bow down to Oro and take him and his seed to be their gods and kings.”
</p>
<p>
When I heard this I was overwhelmed and could not answer. Also I remembered a
certain confused picture which Yva had shown to us in the Temple of Nyo. But
supported by his disbelief, Bickley asked:
</p>
<p>
“And how often does the balance of which you speak come this way, Lord
Oro?”
</p>
<p>
“Once only in many years; the number is my secret, Bickley,” he
replied.
</p>
<p>
“Then there is every reason to hope that it will not trouble us,”
remarked Bickley with a suspicion of mockery in his voice.
</p>
<p>
“Do you think so, you learned Bickley?” asked Oro. “If so, I
do not. Unless my skill has failed me and my calculations have gone awry, that
Traveller of which I tell should presently be with us. Hearken now! What is
that sound we hear?”
</p>
<p>
As he spoke there reached our ears the first, far-off murmurs of a dreadful
music. I cannot describe it in words because that is impossible, but it was
something like to the buzz of a thousand humming-tops such as are loved by
children because of their weird song.
</p>
<p>
“Back to the wall!” cried Oro triumphantly. “The time is
short!”
</p>
<p>
So back we went, Oro pausing a while behind and overtaking us with long,
determined strides. Yva led us, gliding at my side and, as I thought, now and
again glanced at my face with a look that was half anxious and half pitiful.
Also twice she stooped and patted Tommy.
</p>
<p>
We reached the wall, though not quite at the spot whence we had started to
examine the grooved roads. At least I think this was so, since now for the
first time I observed a kind of little window in its rocky face. It stood about
five feet from its floor level, and was perhaps ten inches square, not more. In
short, except for its shape it resembled a ship’s porthole rather than a
window. Its substance appeared to be talc, or some such material, and inches
thick, yet through it, after Oro had cast aside some sort of covering, came a
glare like that of a search-light. In fact it was a search-light so far as
concerned one of its purposes.
</p>
<p>
By this window or porthole lay a pile of cloaks, also four objects which looked
like Zulu battle shields cut in some unknown metal or material. Very deftly,
very quietly, Yva lifted these cloaks and wrapped one of them about each of us,
and while she was thus employed I noticed that they were of a substance very
similar to that of the gown she wore, which I have described, but harder. Next
she gave one of the metal-like shields to each of us, bidding us hold them in
front of our bodies and heads, and only to look through certain slits in them
in which were eyepieces that appeared to be of the same horny stuff as the
searchlight window. Further, she commanded us to stand in a row with our backs
against the rock wall, at certain spots which she indicated with great
precision, and whatever we saw or heard on no account to move.
</p>
<p>
So there we stood, Bickley next to me, and beyond him Bastin. Then Yva took the
fourth shield, as I noted a much larger one than ours, and placed herself
between me and the search-light or porthole. On the other side of this was Oro
who had no shield.
</p>
<p>
These arrangements took some minutes and during that time occupied all our
attention. When they were completed, however, our curiosity and fear began to
reassert themselves. I looked about me and perceived that Oro had his right
hand upon what seemed to be a rough stone rod, in shape not unlike that with
which railway points are moved. He shouted to us to stand still and keep the
shields over our faces. Then very gently he pressed upon the lever. The
porthole sank the fraction of an inch, and instantly there leapt from it a most
terrific blaze of lightning, which shot across the blackness in front and, as
lightning does, revealed far, far away another wall, or rather cliff, like that
against which we leant.
</p>
<p>
“All works well,” exclaimed Oro in a satisfied voice, lifting his
hand from the rod, “and the strength which I have stored will be more
than enough.”
</p>
<p>
Meanwhile the humming noise came nearer and grew in volume.
</p>
<p>
“I say,” said Bickley, “as you know, I have been sceptical,
but I don’t like this business. Oro, what are you going to do?”
</p>
<p>
“Sink half the world beneath the seas,” said Oro, “and raise
up that which I drowned more than two thousand centuries ago. But as you do not
believe that I have this power, Bickley, why do you ask such questions?”
</p>
<p>
“<i>I</i> believe that you have it, which was why I tried to shoot you
yesterday,” said Bastin. “For your soul’s sake I beg you to
desist from an attempt which I am sure will not succeed, but which will
certainly involve your eternal damnation, since the failure will be no fault of
yours.”
</p>
<p>
Then I spoke also, saying:
</p>
<p>
“I implore you, Lord Oro, to let this business be. I do not know exactly
how much or how little you can do, but I understand that your object is to slay
men by millions in order to raise up another world of which you will be the
absolute king, as you were of some past empire that has been destroyed, either
through your agency or otherwise. No good can come of such ambitions. Like
Bastin, for your soul’s sake I pray you to let them be.”
</p>
<p>
“What Humphrey says I repeat,” said Yva. “My Father, although
you know it not, you seek great evil, and from these hopes you sow you will
harvest nothing save a loss of which you do not dream. Moreover, your plans
will fail. Now I who am, like yourself, of the Children of Wisdom, have spoken,
for the first and last time, and my words are true. I pray you give them
weight, my Father.”
</p>
<p>
Oro heard, and grew furious.
</p>
<p>
“What!” he said. “Are you against me, every one, and my own
daughter also? I would lift you up, I would make you rulers of a new world; I
would destroy your vile civilisations which I have studied with my eyes, that I
may build better! To you, Humphrey, I would give my only child in marriage that
from you may spring a divine race of kings! And yet you are against me and set
up your puny scruples as a barrier across my path of wisdom. Well, I tread them
down, I go on my appointed way. But beware how you try to hold me back. If any
one of you should attempt to come between me and my ends, know that I will
destroy you all. Obey or die.”
</p>
<p>
“Well, he has had his chance and he won’t take it,” said
Bastin in the silence that followed. “The man must go to the devil his
own way and there is nothing more to be said.”
</p>
<p>
I say the silence, but it was no more silent. The distant humming grew to a
roar, the roar to a hellish hurricane of sound which presently drowned all
attempts at ordinary speech.
</p>
<p>
Then bellowing like ten millions of bulls, at length far away there appeared
something terrible. I can only describe its appearance as that of an attenuated
mountain on fire. When it drew nearer I perceived that it was more like a
ballet-dancer whirling round and round upon her toes, or rather all the
ballet-dancers in the world rolled into one and then multiplied a million times
in size. No, it was like a mushroom with two stalks, one above and one below,
or a huge top with a point on which it spun, a swelling belly and another point
above. But what a top! It must have been two thousand feet high, if it was an
inch, and its circumference who could measure?
</p>
<p>
On it came, dancing, swaying and spinning at a rate inconceivable, so that it
looked like a gigantic wheel of fire. Yet it was not fire that clothed it but
rather some phosphorescence, since from it came no heat. Yes, a phosphorescence
arranged in bands of ghastly blue and lurid red, with streaks of other colours
running up between, and a kind of waving fringe of purple.
</p>
<p>
The fire-mountain thundered on with a voice like to that of avalanches or of
icebergs crashing from their parent glaciers to the sea. Its terrific aspect
was appalling, and its weight caused the solid rock to quiver like a leaf.
Watching it, we felt as ants might feel at the advent of the crack of doom, for
its mere height and girth and size overwhelmed us. We could not even speak. The
last words I heard were from the mouth of Oro who screamed out:
</p>
<p>
“Behold the balance of the World, you miserable, doubting men, and behold
me change its path—turning it as the steersman turns a ship!”
</p>
<p>
Then he made certain signs to Yva, who in obedience to them approached the
porthole or search-light to which she did something that I could not
distinguish. The effect was to make the beam of light much stronger and
sharper, also to shift it on to the point or foot of the spinning mountain and,
by an aiming of the lens from time to time, to keep it there.
</p>
<p>
This went on for a while, since the dreadful thing did not travel fast
notwithstanding the frightful speed of its revolutions. I should doubt indeed
if it advanced more quickly than a man could walk; at any rate so it seemed to
us. But we had no means of judging its real rate of progress whereof we knew as
little as we did of the course it followed in the bowels of the earth. Perhaps
that was spiral, from the world’s deep heart upwards, and this was the
highest point it reached. Or perhaps it remained stationary, but still
spinning, for scores or hundreds of years in some central powerhouse of its
own, whence, in obedience to unknown laws, from time to time it made these
terrific journeys.
</p>
<p>
No one knows, unless perhaps Oro did, in which case he kept the information to
himself, and no one will ever know. At any rate there it was, travelling
towards us on its giant butt, the peg of the top as it were, which, hidden in a
cloud of friction-born sparks that enveloped it like the cup of a curving
flower of fire, whirled round and round at an infinite speed. It was on this
flaming flower that the search-light played steadily, doubtless that Oro might
mark and measure its monstrous progress.
</p>
<p>
“He is going to try to send the thing down the right-hand path,” I
shouted into Bickley’s ear.
</p>
<p>
“Can’t be done! Nothing can shift a travelling weight of tens of
millions of tons one inch,” Bickley roared back, trying to look
confident.
</p>
<p>
Clearly, however, Yva thought that it could be done, for of a sudden she cast
down her shield and, throwing herself upon her knees, stretched out her hands
in supplication to her father. I understood, as did we all, that she was
imploring him to abandon his hellish purpose. He glared at her and shook his
head. Then, as she still went on praying, he struck her across the face with
his hand and pushed her to her feet again. My blood boiled as I saw it and I
think I should have sprung at him, had not Bickley caught hold of me, shouting,
“Don’t, or he will kill her and us too.”
</p>
<p>
Yva lifted her shield and returned to her station, and in the blue discharges
which now flashed almost continuously, and the phosphorescent glare of the
advancing mountain, I saw that though her beautiful face worked beneath the
pain of the blow, her eyes remained serene and purposeful. Even then I
wondered—what was the purpose shining through them. Also I wondered if I
was about to be called upon to make that sacrifice of which she had spoken, and
if so, how. Of one thing I was determined—that if the call came it should
not find me deaf. Yet all the while I was horribly afraid.
</p>
<p>
At another sign from Oro, Yva did something more to the lens—again, being
alongside of her, I could not see what it was. The beam of light shifted and
wandered till, far away, it fell exactly upon that spot where the rock began to
rise into the ridge which separated the two grooves or roads and ended in the
razor-edged cliff. Moreover I observed that Oro, who left it the last of us,
had either placed something white to mark this first infinitesimal bulging of
the floor of the groove, or had smeared it with chalk or shining pigment. I
observed also what I had not been able to see before, that a thin white line
ran across the floor, no doubt to give the precise direction of this painted
rise of rock, and that the glare of the search-light now lay exactly over that
line.
</p>
<p>
The monstrous, flaming gyroscope fashioned in Nature’s workshop, for such
without doubt it was, was drawing near, emitting as it came a tumult of sounds
which, with the echoes that they caused, almost over-whelmed our senses. Poor
little Tommy, already cowed, although he was a bold-natured beast, broke down
entirely, and I could see from his open mouth that he was howling with terror.
He stared about him, then ran to Yva and pawed at her, evidently asking to be
taken into her arms. She thrust him away, almost fiercely, and made signs to me
to lift him up and hold him beneath my shield. This I did, reflecting sadly
that if I was to be sacrificed, Tommy must share my fate. I even thought of
passing him on to Bickley, but had no time. Indeed I could not attract his
attention, for Bickley was staring with all his eyes at the nightmare-like
spectacle which was in progress about us. Indeed no nightmare, no wild
imagination of which the mind of man is capable, could rival the aspect of its
stupendous facts.
</p>
<p>
Think of them! The unmeasured space of blackness threaded by those globes of
ghastly incandescence that now hung a while and now shot upwards, downwards,
across, apparently without origin or end, like a stream of meteors that had
gone mad. Then the travelling mountain, two thousand feet in height, or more,
with its enormous saucer-like rim painted round with bands of lurid red and
blue, and about its grinding foot the tulip bloom of emitted flame. Then the
fierce-faced Oro at his post, his hand upon the rod, waiting, remorseless, to
drown half of this great world, with the lovely Yva standing calm-eyed like a
saint in hell and watching me above the edge of the shield which such a saint
might bear to turn aside the fiery darts of the wicked. And lastly we three men
flattened terror-stricken, against the wall.
</p>
<p>
Nightmare! Imagination! No, these pale before that scene which it was given to
our human eyes to witness.
</p>
<p>
And all the while, bending, bowing towards us—away from us—making
obeisance to the path in front as though in greeting, to the path behind as
though in farewell; instinct with a horrible life, with a hideous and gigantic
grace, that titanic Terror whirled onwards to the mark of fate.
</p>
<p>
At the moment nothing could persuade me that it was not alive and did not know
its awful mission. Visions flashed across my mind. I thought of the peoples of
the world sleeping in their beds, or going about their business, or engaged
even in the work of war. I thought of the ships upon the seas steaming steadily
towards their far-off ports. Then I thought of what presently might happen to
them, of the tremors followed by convulsions, of the sudden crashing down of
cities, such as we had seen in the picture Yva showed us in the Temple, of the
inflow of the waters of the deep piled up in mighty waves, of the woe and
desolation as of the end of the world, and of the quiet, following death. So I
thought and in my heart prayed to the great Arch-Architect of the Universe to
stretch out His Arm to avert this fearsome ruin of His handiwork.
</p>
<p>
Oro glared, his thin fingers tightened their grip upon the rod, his hair and
long beard seemed to bristle with furious and delighted excitement. The
purple-fringed rim of the Monster had long overshadowed the whited patch of
rock; its grinding foot was scarce ten yards away. Oro made more signs to Yva
who, beneath the shelter of her shield, again bent down and did something that
I could not see. Then, as though her part were played, she rose, drew the grey
hood of her cloak all about her face so that her eyes alone remained visible,
took one step towards me and in the broken English we had taught her, called
into my ear.
</p>
<p>
“Humphrey, God you bless! Humphrey, we meet soon. Forget not me!”
</p>
<p>
She stepped back again before I could attempt to answer, and next instant with
a hideous, concentrated effort, Oro bending himself double, thrust upon the
rod, as I could see from his open mouth, shouting while he thrust.
</p>
<p>
At the same moment, with a swift spring, Yva leapt immediately in front of the
lens or window, so that the metallic shield with which she covered herself
pressed against its substance.
</p>
<p>
Simultaneously Oro flung up his arms as though in horror.
</p>
<p>
Too late! The shutter fell and from behind it there sprang out a rush of living
flame. It struck on Yva’s shield and expanded to right and left. The
insulated shield and garments that she wore seemed to resist it. For a fraction
of time she stood there like a glowing angel, wrapped in fire.
</p>
<p>
Then she was swept outwards and upwards and at a little distance dissolved like
a ghost and vanished from our sight.
</p>
<p>
Yva was ashes! Yva was gone! The sacrifice was consummated!
</p>
<p class="p2">
And not in vain! Not in vain! On her poor breast she had received the full
blast of that hellish lightning flash. Yet whilst destroying, it turned away
from her, seeking the free paths of the air. So it came about that its
obstructed strength struck the foot of the travelling gyroscope, diffused and
did not suffice to thrust it that one necessary inch on which depended the fate
of half the world, or missing it altogether, passed away on either side. Even
so the huge, gleaming mountain rocked and trembled. Once, twice, thrice, it
bowed itself towards us as though in majestic homage to greatness passed away.
For a second, too, its course was checked, and at the check the earth quaked
and trembled. Yes, then the world shook, and the blue globes of fire went out,
while I was thrown to the ground.
</p>
<p>
When they returned again, the flaming monster was once more sailing
majestically upon its way and <i>down the accustomed left-hand path!</i>
</p>
<p class="p2">
Indeed the sacrifice was not in vain. The world shook—but Yva had saved
the world!
</p>
</div><!--end chapter-->
<div class="chapter">
<h2><a name="chap26" id="chap26"></a>CHAPTER XXVI.<br />
Tommy</h2>
<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>
<p>
“Her translation, as you may have noticed, Bickley, if you were not too
frightened, was really very remarkable. No doubt it will have reminded you, as
it did me, of that of Elijah. She had exactly the appearance of a person going
up to Heaven in a vehicle of fire. The destination was certainly the same, and
even the cloak she wore added a familiar touch and increased the
similarity.”
</p>
<p>
“At any rate it did not fall upon you,” answered Bickley with
something like a sob, in a voice of mingled awe and exasperation. “For
goodness’ sake! Bastin, stop your Biblical parallels and let us adore,
yes, let us adore the divinest creature that the earth has borne!”
</p>
<p>
Never have I loved Bickley more than when I heard him utter those words.
</p>
<p>
“‘Divinest’ is a large term, Bickley, and one to which I
hesitate to subscribe, remembering as I do certain of the prophets and the
Early Fathers with all their faults, not of course to mention the Apostles.
But—” here he paused, for suddenly all three of us became aware of
Oro.
</p>
<p>
He also has been thrown to the ground by the strength of the prisoned forces
which he gathered and loosed upon their unholy errand, but, as I rejoiced to
observe, had suffered from them much more than ourselves. Doubtless this was
owing to the fact that he had sprung forward in a last wild effort to save his
daughter, or to prevent her from interfering with his experiment, I know not
which. As a result his right cheek was much scorched, his right arm was
withered and helpless, and his magnificent beard was half burnt off him.
Further, very evidently he was suffering from severe shock, for he rocked upon
his feet and shook like an aspen leaf. All this, however, did not interfere
with the liveliness of his grief and rage.
</p>
<p>
There he stood, a towering shape, like a lightning-smitten statue, and cursed
us, especially Bastin.
</p>
<p>
“My daughter has gone!” he cried, “burned up by the fiery
power that is my servant. Nothing remains of her but dust, and, Priest, this is
your doing. You poisoned her heart with your childish doctrines of mercy and
sacrifice, and the rest, so that she threw herself into the path of the flash
to save some miserable races that she had never even known.”
</p>
<p>
He paused exhausted, whereon Bastin answered him with spirit:
</p>
<p>
“Yes, Oro, she being a holy woman, has gone where you will never follow
her. Also it is your own fault since you should have listened to her entreaties
instead of boxing her ears like the brute you are.”
</p>
<p>
“My daughter is gone,” went on Oro, recovering his strength,
“and my great designs are ruined. Yet only for a while,” he added,
“for the world-balance will return again, if not till long after your
life-spans are done.”
</p>
<p>
“If you don’t doctor yourself, Lord Oro,” said Bickley, also
rising, “I may tell you as one who understands such things, that most
likely it will be after your life-span is done also. Although their effect may
be delayed, severe shocks from burns and over-excitement are apt to prove fatal
to the aged.”
</p>
<p>
Oro snarled at him; no other word describes it.
</p>
<p>
“And there are other things, Physician,” he said, “which are
apt to prove fatal to the young. At least now you will no longer deny my
power.”
</p>
<p>
“I am not so sure,” answered Bickley, “since it seems that
there is a greater Power, namely that of a woman’s love and
sacrifice.”
</p>
<p>
“And a greater still,” interrupted Bastin, “Which put those
ideas into her head.”
</p>
<p>
“As for you, Humphrey,” went on Oro, “I rejoice to think that
you at least have lost two things that man desires above all other
things—the woman you sought and the future kingship of the world.”
</p>
<p>
I stood up and faced him.
</p>
<p>
“The first I have gained, although how, you do not understand,
Oro,” I answered. “And of the second, seeing that it would have
come through you, on your conditions, I am indeed glad to be rid. I wish no
power that springs from murder, and no gifts from one who answered his
daughter’s prayer with blows.”
</p>
<p>
For a moment he seemed remorseful.
</p>
<p>
“She vexed me with her foolishness,” he said. Then his rage blazed
up again:
</p>
<p>
“And it was you who taught it to her,” he went on. “You are
guilty, all three of you, and therefore I am left with none to serve me in my
age; therefore also my mighty schemes are overthrown.”
</p>
<p>
“Also, Oro, if you speak truth, therefore half the world is saved,”
I added quietly, “and one has left it of whom it was unworthy.”
</p>
<p>
“You think that these civilisations of yours, as you are pleased to call
them, are saved, do you?” he sneered. “Yet, even if Bickley were
right and I should die and become powerless, I tell you that they are already
damned. I have studied them in your books and seen them with my eyes, and I say
that they are rotten before ever they are ripe, and that their end shall be the
end of the Sons of Wisdom, to die for lack of increase. That is why I would
have saved the East, because in it alone there is increase, and thence alone
can rise the great last race of man which I would have given to your children
for an heritage. Moreover, think not that you Westerners have done with wars. I
tell you that they are but begun and that the sword shall eat you up, and what
the sword spares class shall snatch from class in the struggle for supremacy
and ease.”
</p>
<p>
Thus he spoke with extraordinary and concentrated bitterness that I confess
would have frightened me, had I been capable of fear, which at the moment I was
not. Who is afraid when he has lost all?
</p>
<p>
Nor was Bastin alarmed, if for other reasons.
</p>
<p>
“I think it right to tell you, Oro,” he said, “that the only
future you need trouble about is your own. God Almighty will look after the
western civilisations in whatever way He may think best, as you may remember He
did just now. Only I am sure you won’t be here to see how it is
done.”
</p>
<p>
Again fury blazed in Oro’s eyes.
</p>
<p>
“At least I will look after you, you half-bred dogs, who yap out
ill-omened prophecies of death into my face. Since the three of you loved my
daughter whom you brought to her doom, and were by her beloved, if differently,
I think it best that you should follow on her road. How? That is the question?
Shall I leave you to starve in these great caves?—Nay, look not towards
the road of escape which doubtless she pointed out to you, for, as Humphrey
knows, I can travel swiftly and I will make sure that you find it blocked. Or
shall I—” and he glanced upwards at the great globes of wandering
fire, as though he purposed to summon them to be our death, as doubtless he
could have done.
</p>
<p>
“I do not care what you do,” I answered wearily. “Only I
would beg you to strike quickly. Yet for my friends I am sorry, since it was I
who led them on this quest, and for you, too, Tommy,” I added, looking at
the poor little hound. “You were foolish, Tommy,” I went on,
“when you scented out that old tyrant in his coffin, at least for our own
sake.”
</p>
<p>
Indeed the dog was terribly scared. He whined continually and from time to time
ran a little way and then returned to us, suggesting that we should go from
this horror-haunted spot. Lastly, as though he understood that it was Oro who
kept us there, he went to him and jumping up, licked his hand in a beseeching
fashion.
</p>
<p>
The super-man looked at the dog and as he looked the rage went out of his face
and was replaced by something resembling pity.
</p>
<p>
“I do not wish the beast to die,” he muttered to himself in low
reflective tones, as though he thought aloud, “for of them all it alone
liked and did not fear me. I might take it with me but still it would perish of
grief in the loneliness of the caves. Moreover, she loved it whom I shall see
no more; yes, Yva—” as he spoke the name his voice broke a little.
“Yet if I suffer them to escape they will tell my story to the world and
make me a laughingstock. Well, if they do, what does it matter? None of those
Western fools would believe it; thinking that they knew all; like Bickley they
would mock and say that they were mad, or liars.”
</p>
<p>
Again Tommy licked his hand, but more confidently, as though instinct told him
something of what was passing in Oro’s mind. I watched with an idle
wonder, marvelling whether it were possible that this merciless being would
after all spare us for the sake of the dog.
</p>
<p>
So, strange to say, it came about, for suddenly Oro looked up and said:
</p>
<p>
“Get you gone, and quickly, before my mood changes. The hound has saved
you. For its sake I give you your lives, who otherwise should certainly have
died. She who has gone pointed out to you, I doubt not, a road that runs to the
upper air. I think that it is still open. Indeed,” he added, closing his
eyes for a moment, “I see that it is still open, if long and difficult.
Follow it, and should you win through, take your boat and sail away as swiftly
as you can. Whether you die or live I care nothing, but my hands will be clean
of your blood, although yours are stained with Yva’s. Begone! and my
curse go with you.”
</p>
<p>
Without waiting for further words we went to fetch our lanterns, water-bottles
and bag of food which we had laid down at a little distance. As we approached
them I looked up and saw Oro standing some way off. The light from one of the
blue globes of fire which passed close above his head, shone upon him and made
him ghastly. Moreover, it seemed to me as though approaching death had written
its name upon his malevolent countenance.
</p>
<p>
I turned my head away, for about his aspect in those sinister surroundings
there was something horrible, something menacing and repellent to man and of
him I wished to see no more. Nor indeed did I, for when I glanced in that
direction again Oro was gone. I suppose that he had retreated into the shadows
where no light played.
</p>
<p class="p2">
We gathered up our gear, and while the others were relighting the lanterns, I
walked a few paces forward to the spot where Yva had been dissolved in the
devouring fire. Something caught my eye upon the rocky floor. I picked it up.
It was the ring, or rather the remains of the ring that I had given her on that
night when we declared our love amidst the ruins by the crater lake. She had
never worn it on her hand but for her own reasons, as she told me, suspended it
upon her breast beneath her robe. It was an ancient ring that I had bought in
Egypt, fashioned of gold in which was set a very hard basalt or other black
stone. On this was engraved the <i>ank</i> or looped cross, which was the
Egyptian symbol of Life, and round it a snake, the symbol of Eternity. The gold
was for the most part melted, but the stone, being so hard and protected by the
shield and asbestos cloak, for such I suppose it was, had resisted the fury of
the flash. Only now it was white instead of black, like a burnt onyx that had
known the funeral pyre. Indeed, perhaps it was an onyx. I kissed it and hid it
away, for it seemed to me to convey a greeting and with it a promise.
</p>
<p>
Then we started, a very sad and dejected trio. Leaving with a shudder that vast
place where the blue lights played eternally, we came to the shaft up and down
which the travelling stone pursued its endless path, and saw it arrive and
depart again.
</p>
<p>
“I wonder he did not send us that way,” said Bickley, pointing to
it.
</p>
<p>
“I am sure I am very glad it never occurred to him,” answered
Bastin, “for I am certain that we could not have made the journey again
without our guide, Yva.”
</p>
<p>
I looked at him and he ceased. Somehow I could not bear, as yet, to hear her
beloved name spoken by other lips.
</p>
<p>
Then we entered the passage that she pointed out to us, and began a most
terrible journey which, so far as we could judge, for we lost any exact count
of time, took us about sixty hours. The road, it is true, was smooth and
unblocked, but the ascent was fearfully steep and slippery; so much so that
often we were obliged to pull each other up it and lie down to rest.
</p>
<p>
Had it not been for those large, felt-covered bottles of Life-water, I am sure
we should never have won through. But this marvelous elixir, drunk a little at
a time, always re-invigorated us and gave us strength to push on. Also we had
some food, and fortunately our spare oil held out, for the darkness in that
tunnel was complete. Tommy became so exhausted that at length we must carry him
by turns. He would have died had it not been for the water; indeed I thought
that he was going to die.
</p>
<p>
After our last rest and a short sleep, however, he seemed to begin to recover,
and generally there was something in his manner which suggested to us that he
knew himself to be not far from the surface of the earth towards which we had
crawled upwards for thousands upon thousands of feet, fortunately without
meeting with any zone of heat which was not bearable.
</p>
<p>
We were right, for when we had staggered forward a little further, suddenly
Tommy ran ahead of us and vanished. Then we heard him barking but where we
could not see, since the tunnel appeared to take a turn and continue, but this
time on a downward course, while the sound of the barks came from our right. We
searched with the lanterns which were now beginning to die and found a little
hole almost filled with fallen pieces of rock. We scooped these away with our
hands, making an aperture large enough to creep through. A few more yards and
we saw light, the blessed light of the moon, and in it stood Tommy barking
hoarsely. Next we heard the sound of the sea. We struggled on desperately and
presently pushed our way through bushes and vegetation on to a steep declivity.
Down this we rolled and scrambled, to find ourselves at last lying upon a sandy
beach, whilst above us the full moon shone in the heavens.
</p>
<p>
Here, with a prayer of thankfulness, we flung ourselves down and slept.
</p>
<p>
If it had not been for Tommy and we had gone further along the tunnel, which I
have little doubt stretched on beneath the sea, where, I wonder, should we have
slept that night?
</p>
<p>
When we woke the sun was shining high in the heavens. Evidently there had been
rain towards the dawn, though as we were lying beneath the shelter of some
broad-leaved tree, from it we had suffered little inconvenience. Oh! how
beautiful, after our sojourn in those unholy caves, were the sun and the sea
and the sweet air and the raindrops hanging on the leaves.
</p>
<p>
We did not wake of ourselves; indeed if we had been left alone I am sure that
we should have slept the clock round, for we were terribly exhausted. What woke
us was the chatter of a crowd of Orofenans who were gathered at a distance from
the tree and engaged in staring at us in a frightened way, also the barks of
Tommy who objected to their intrusion. Among the people I recognised our old
friend the chief Marama by his feather cloak, and sitting up, beckoned to him
to approach. After a good deal of hesitation he came, walking delicately like
Agag, and stopping from time to time to study us, as though he were not sure
that we were real.
</p>
<p>
“What frightens you, Marama?” I asked him.
</p>
<p>
“You frighten us, O Friend-from-the-Sea. Whence did you and the Healer
and the Bellower come and why do your faces look like those of ghosts and why
is the little black beast so large-eyed and so thin? Over the lake we know you
did not come, for we have watched day and night; moreover there is no canoe
upon the shore. Also it would not have been possible.”
</p>
<p>
“Why not?” I asked idly.
</p>
<p>
“Come and see,” he answered.
</p>
<p>
Rising stiffly we emerged from beneath the tree and perceived that we were at
the foot of the cliff against which the remains of the yacht had been borne by
the great tempest. Indeed there it was within a couple of hundred yards of us.
</p>
<p>
Following Marama we climbed the sloping path which ran up the cliff and
ascended a knoll whence we could see the lake and the cone of the volcano in
its centre. At least we used to be able to see this cone, but now, at any rate
with the naked eye, we could make out nothing, except a small brown spot in the
midst of the waters of the lake.
</p>
<p>
“The mountain which rose up many feet in that storm which brought you to
Orofena, Friend-from-the-Sea, has now sunk till only the very top of it is to
be seen,” said Marama solemnly. “Even the Rock of Offerings has
vanished beneath the water, and with it the house that we built for you.”
</p>
<p>
“Yes,” I said, affecting no surprise. “But when did that
happen?”
</p>
<p>
“Five nights ago the world shook, Friend-from-the-Sea, and when the sun
rose we saw that the mouth of the cave which appeared on the day of your
coming, had vanished, and that the holy mountain itself had sunk deep, so that
now only the crest of it is left above the water.”
</p>
<p>
“Such things happen,” I replied carelessly.
</p>
<p>
“Yes, Friend-from-the-Sea. Like many other marvels they happen where you
and your companions are. Therefore we beg you who can arise out of the earth
like spirits, to leave us at once before our island and all of us who dwell
thereon are drowned beneath the ocean. Leave us before we kill you, if indeed
you be men, or die at your hands if, as we think, you be evil spirits who can
throw up mountains and drag them down, and create gods that slay, and move
about in the bowels of the world.”
</p>
<p>
“That is our intention, for our business here is done,” I answered
calmly. “Come now and help us to depart. But first bring us food. Bring
it in plenty, for we must victual our boat.”
</p>
<p>
Marama bowed and issued the necessary orders. Indeed food sufficient for our
immediate needs was already there as an offering, and of it we ate with
thankfulness.
</p>
<p>
Then we boarded the ship and examined the lifeboat. Thanks to our precautions
it was still in very fair order and only needed some little caulking which we
did with grass fibre and pitch from the stores. After this with the help of the
Orofenans who worked hard in their desperate desire to be rid of us, we drew
the boat into the sea, and provisioned her with stores from the ship, and with
an ample supply of water. Everything being ready at last, we waited for the
evening wind which always blew off shore, to start. As it was not due for half
an hour or more, I walked back to the tree under which we had slept and tried
to find the hole whence we had emerged from the tunnel on to the face of the
cliff.
</p>
<p>
My hurried search proved useless. The declivity of the cliff was covered with
tropical growth, and the heavy rain had washed away every trace of our descent,
and very likely filled the hole itself with earth. At any rate, of it I could
discover nothing. Then as the breeze began to blow I returned to the boat and
here bade adieu to Marama, who gave me his feather cloak as a farewell gift.
</p>
<p>
“Good-bye, Friend-from-the-Sea,” he said to me. “We are glad
to have seen you and thank you for many things. But we do not wish to see you
any more.”
</p>
<p>
“Good-bye, Marama,” I answered. “What you say, we echo. At
least you have now no great lump upon your neck and we have rid you of your
wizards. But beware of the god Oro who dwells in the mountain, for if you anger
him he will sink your island beneath the sea.”
</p>
<p>
“And remember all that I have taught you,” shouted Bastin.
</p>
<p>
Marama shivered, though whether at the mention of the god Oro, of whose powers
the Orofenans had so painful a recollection, or at the result of Bastin’s
teachings, I do not know. And that was the last we shall ever see of each other
in this world.
</p>
<p>
The island faded behind us and, sore at heart because of all that we had found
and lost again, for three days we sailed northward with a fair and steady wind.
On the fourth evening by an extraordinary stroke of fortune, we fell in with an
American tramp steamer, trading from the South Sea Islands to San Francisco. To
the captain, who treated us very kindly, we said simply that we were a party of
Englishmen whose yacht had been wrecked on a small island several hundreds of
miles away, of which we knew neither the name, if it had one, nor the position.
</p>
<p>
This story was accepted without question, for such things often happen in those
latitudes, and in due course we were landed at San Francisco, where we made
certain depositions before the British Consul as to the loss of the yacht
<i>Star of the South</i>. Then we crossed America, having obtained funds by
cable, and sailed for England in a steamer flying the flag of the United
States.
</p>
<p>
Of the great war which made this desirable I do not speak since it has nothing,
or rather little, to do with this history. In the end we arrived safely at
Liverpool, and thence travelled to our homes in Devonshire.
</p>
<p class="p2">
Thus ended the history of our dealings with Oro, the super-man who began his
life more than two hundred and fifty thousand years ago, and with his daughter,
Yva, whom Bastin still often calls the Glittering Lady.
</p>
</div><!--end chapter-->
<div class="chapter">
<h2><a name="chap27" id="chap27"></a>CHAPTER XXVII.<br />
Bastin Discovers a Resemblance</h2>
<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>
“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>
<p>
“Yes, but she may have meant a thousand moons. Further, as according to
her own showing she was still quite young, how could she know her
father’s age?”
</p>
<p>
“Quite so, Bickley. But all she actually said was that she was of the
same age as one of our women of twenty-seven, which may have meant two hundred
and seventy for all I know. However, putting that aside you will admit that
they had both slept for two hundred and fifty thousand years.”
</p>
<p>
“I admit that they slept, Bastin, because I helped to awaken them, but
for how long there is nothing to show, except those star maps which are
probably quite inaccurate.”
</p>
<p>
“They are not inaccurate,” I broke in, “for I have had them
checked by leading astronomers who say that they show a marvelous knowledge of
the heavens as these were two hundred and fifty thousand years ago, and are
today.”
</p>
<p>
Here I should state that those two metal maps and the ring which I gave to Yva
and found again after the catastrophe, were absolutely the only things
connected with her or with Oro that we brought away with us. The former I would
never part with, feeling their value as evidence. Therefore, when we descended
to the city Nyo and the depths beneath, I took them with me wrapped in cloth in
my pocket. Thus they were preserved. Everything else went when the Rock of
Offerings and the cave mouth sank beneath the waters of the lake.
</p>
<p>
This may have happened either in the earth tremor, which no doubt was caused by
the advance of the terrific world-balance, or when the electric power, though
diffused and turned by Yva’s insulated body, struck the great
gyroscope’s travelling foot with sufficient strength, not to shift it
indeed on to the right-hand path as Oro had designed, but still to cause it to
stagger and even perhaps to halt for the fraction of a second. Even this pause
may have been enough to cause convulsions of the earth above; indeed, I
gathered from Marama and other Orofenans that such convulsions had occurred on
and around the island at what must have corresponded with that moment of the
loosing of the force.
</p>
<p>
This loss of our belongings in the house of the Rock of Offerings was the more
grievous because among them were some Kodak photographs which I had taken,
including portraits of Oro and one of Yva that was really excellent, to say
nothing of pictures of the mouth of the cave and of the ruins and crater lake
above. How bitterly I regret that I did not keep these photographs in my pocket
with the map-plates.
</p>
<p>
“Even if the star-maps are correct, still it proves nothing,” said
Bickley, “since possibly Oro’s astronomical skill might have
enabled him to draw that of the sky at any period, though I allow this is
impossible.”
</p>
<p>
“I doubt his taking so much trouble merely to deceive three wanderers who
lacked the knowledge even to check them,” I said. “But all this
misses the point, Bickley. However long they had slept, that man and woman did
arise from seeming death. They did dwell in those marvelous caves with their
evidences of departed civilisations, and they did show us that fearful,
world-wandering gyroscope. These things we saw.”
</p>
<p>
“I admit that we saw them, Arbuthnot, and I admit that they are one and
all beyond human comprehension. To that extent I am converted, and, I may add,
humbled,” said Bickley.
</p>
<p>
“So you ought to be,” exclaimed Bastin, “seeing that you
always swore that there was nothing in the world that is not capable of a
perfectly natural explanation.”
</p>
<p>
“Of which all these things may be capable, Bastin, if only we held the
key.”
</p>
<p>
“Very well, Bickley, but how do you explain what the Lady Yva did? I may
tell you now what she commanded me to conceal at the time, namely, that she
became a Christian; so much so that by her own will, I baptised and confirmed
her on the very morning of her sacrifice. Doubtless it was this that changed
her heart so much that she became willing, of course without my knowledge, to
leave everything she cared for,” here he looked hard at me, “and
lay down her life to save the world, half of which she believed was about to be
drowned by Oro. Now, considering her history and upbringing, I call this a
spiritual marvel, much greater than any you now admit, and one you can’t
explain, Bickley.”
</p>
<p>
“No, I cannot explain, or, at any rate, I will not try,” he
answered, also staring hard at me. “Whatever she believed, or did not
believe, and whatever would or would not have happened, she was a great and
wonderful woman whose memory I worship.”
</p>
<p>
“Quite so, Bickley, and now perhaps you see my point, that what you
describe as mere vain words may also be helpful to mankind; more so, indeed,
than your surgical instruments and pills.”
</p>
<p>
“You couldn’t convert Oro, anyway,” exclaimed Bickley, with
irritation.
</p>
<p>
“No, Bickley; but then I have always understood that the devil is beyond
conversion because he is beyond repentance. You see, I think that if that old
scoundrel was not the devil himself, at any rate he was a bit of him, and, if I
am right, I am not ashamed to have failed in his case.”
</p>
<p>
“Even Oro was not utterly bad, Bastin,” I said, reflecting on
certain traits of mercy that he had shown, or that I dreamed him to have shown
in the course of our mysterious midnight journeys to various parts of the
earth. Also I remembered that he had loved Tommy and for his sake had spared
our lives. Lastly, I do not altogether wonder that he came to certain hasty
conclusions as to the value of our modern civilisations.
</p>
<p>
“I am very glad to hear it, Humphrey, since while there is a spark left
the whole fire may burn up again, and I believe that to the Divine mercy there
are no limits, though Oro will have a long road to travel before he finds it.
And now I have something to say. It has troubled me very much that I was
obliged to leave those Orofenans wandering in a kind of religious
twilight.”
</p>
<p>
“You couldn’t help that,” said Bickley, “seeing that if
you had stopped, by now you would have been wandering in religious
light.”
</p>
<p>
“Still, I am not sure that I ought not to have stopped. I seem to have
deserted a field that was open to me. However, it can’t be helped, since
it is certain that we could never find that island again, even if Oro has not
sunk it beneath the sea, as he is quite capable of doing, to cover his tracks,
so to speak. So I mean to do my best in another field by way of
atonement.”
</p>
<p>
“You are not going to become a missionary?” I said.
</p>
<p>
“No, but with the consent of the Bishop, who, I think, believes that my
<i>locum</i> got on better in the parish than I do, as no doubt was the case,
I, too, have volunteered for the Front, and been accepted as a chaplain of the
201st Division.”
</p>
<p>
“Why, that’s mine!” said Bickley.
</p>
<p>
“Is it? I am very glad, since now we shall be able to pursue our pleasant
arguments and to do our best to open each other’s minds.”
</p>
<p>
“You fellows are more fortunate than I am,” I remarked. “I
also volunteered, but they wouldn’t take me, even as a Tommy, although I
misstated my age. They told me, or at least a specialist whom I saw did
afterwards, that the blow I got on the head from that sorcerer’s
boy—”
</p>
<p>
“I know, I know!” broke in Bickley almost roughly. “Of
course, things might go wrong at any time. But with care you may live to old
age.”
</p>
<p>
“I am sorry to hear it,” I said with a sigh, “at least I
think I am. Meanwhile, fortunately there is much that I can do at home; indeed
a course of action has been suggested to me by an old friend who is now in
authority.”
</p>
<p class="p2">
Once more Bickley and Bastin in their war-stained uniforms were dining at my
table and on the very night of their return from the Front, which was
unexpected. Indeed Tommy nearly died of joy on hearing their voices in the
hall. They, who played a worthy part in the great struggle, had much to tell
me, and naturally their more recent experiences had overlaid to some extent
those which we shared in the mysterious island of Orofena. Indeed we did not
speak of these until, just as they were going away, Bastin paused beneath a
very beautiful portrait of my late wife, the work of an artist famous for his
power of bringing out the inner character, or what some might call the soul, of
the sitter. He stared at it for a while in his short-sighted way, then said:
“Do you know, Arbuthnot, it has sometimes occurred to me, and never more
than at this moment, that although they were different in height and so on,
there was a really curious physical resemblance between your late wife and the
Lady Yva.”
</p>
<p>
“Yes,” I answered. “I think so too.”
</p>
<p>
Bickley also examined the portrait very carefully, and as he did so I saw him
start. Then he turned away, saying nothing.
</p>
<p class="p2">
Such is the summary of all that has been important in my life. It is, I admit,
an odd story and one which suggests problems that I cannot solve. Bastin deals
with such things by that acceptance which is the privilege and hall-mark of
faith; Bickley disposes, or used to dispose, of them by a blank denial which
carries no conviction, and least of all to himself.
</p>
<p>
What is life to most of us who, like Bickley, think ourselves learned? A round,
short but still with time and to spare wherein to be dull and lonesome; a
fateful treadmill to which we were condemned we know not how, but apparently
through the casual passions of those who went before us and are now forgotten,
causing us, as the Bible says, to be born in sin; up which we walk wearily we
know not why, seeming never to make progress; off which we fall outworn we know
not when or whither.
</p>
<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>
</div><!--end chapter-->
<div class="chapter">
<h2><a name="chap28" id="chap28"></a>NOTE By J. R. Bickley, M.R.C.S.</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: “<i>I have seen her.
I</i>—” 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>
</div><!--end chapter-->
</body>
</html>
Reference in New Issue View Git Blame Copy Permalink