When the World Shook
 Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot

DEDICATION

Ditchingham, 1918.

MY DEAR CURZON,

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.

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.

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.

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.

The application of its parable to our state and possibilities—beneath

or beyond these glimpses of the moon—I leave to your discernment.

Believe me,

Ever sincerely yours,

H. RIDER HAGGARD.

To

The Earl Curzon of Kedleston, K.G.

WHEN THE WORLD SHOOK

CHAPTER I.

Arbuthnot Describes Himself

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 _will_ 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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

“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.”

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.

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.

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! _L’appétit vient

en mangeant_. It seemed nothing to me when so many were worth millions.

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?

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.

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.

“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.”

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.

CHAPTER II.

Bastin and Bickley

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

There was, however, a P.S. to the letter, which ran as follows:

“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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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:

“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.”

“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.”

Then we would both laugh.

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.

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.

“In short, become a milch cow for sucking scientists,” I replied, and

broke off the conversation.

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.

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.”

“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.”

“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 _you_ not got the large family of which you speak?”

“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.”

Then he sighed, adding, “You see, Arbuthnot, we have to take things as

we find them in this world and hope for a better.”

“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.

By the way, I think that the villagers recognised this good lady’s

vinegary nature. At least, they used to call her “Sour Sal.”

CHAPTER III.

Natalie

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Afterwards in the drawing-room her father, with whom I had talked at

the table, introduced me to her, saying:

“My daughter is the real archaeologist, Mr. Arbuthnot, and I think if

you ask her, she may be able to help you.”

Then he bustled away to speak to some of his important guests, from

whom I think he was seeking political information.

“My father exaggerates,” she said in a soft and very sympathetic voice,

“but perhaps”—and she motioned me to a seat at her side.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

“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.

I do not know why, but his wandering words struck me cold; the

proverbial funeral bell at the marriage feast was nothing to them. I

suppose it was because in a flash of intuition I knew that they would

come true and that he was an appointed Cassandra. Perhaps this uncanny

knowledge overcame my natural indignation at such super-_gaucherie_ of

which no one but Bastin could have been capable, and even prevented me

from replying at all, so that I merely sat still and looked at him.

But Bickley did reply with some vigour.

“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.”

“Why?” asked Bastin blankly. “I only said what I thought to be the

truth. The truth is better than what you call good taste.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.

I followed him.

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.

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:

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.

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.)

I suggested that she might have a little confidence in him, to which

she replied darkly that she had no confidence in anybody.

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.

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.

That was the end of this truly odious British matron.

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.

CHAPTER IV.

Death and Departure

Now I must tell of my own terrible sorrow, which turned my life to

bitterness and my hopes to ashes.

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.

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.

“I don’t quite know, dearest,” she replied, “especially as I am

wonderfully well. But—but—”

“But what?” I asked.

“But I think that our companionship is going to be broken for a little

while.”

“For a little while!” I exclaimed.

“Yes, Humphrey. I think that I shall be taken away from you—you know

what I mean,” and she nodded towards the churchyard.

“Oh, my God!” I groaned.

“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.”

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.

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.

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.

“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.”

I tried to be comforted but in vain.

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.

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.

I was called in to say farewell to my wife and found her radiant,

triumphant even in her weakness.

“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!”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

“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.”

I wonder what Bastin’s ideas of _unpleasant_ 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.

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.

“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 _is_ 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.”

“Then you believe in nothing, Friend,” I said.

“Nothing, I am sorry to say, except what I see and my five senses

appreciate.”

“You reject all possibility of miracle, for instance?”

“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.”

“Well,” I replied at hazard, “if you were assured by someone that a man

could live for a thousand years?”

“I should tell him that he was a fool or a liar, that is all. It is

impossible.”

“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?”

“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.”

With this Parthian shaft Bickley took his departure to make a job of

Widow Jenkins’s legs.

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.

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.

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:

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.

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.

“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.”

“Why do you complain?” asked Bickley. “Probably it is quite true,

though that we could never ascertain without visiting the lady’s home.”

“If I could afford it,” exclaimed Bastin with rising anger, “I should

like to go there and expose this vile traducer of my cloth.”

“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.”

“How can you call them innocent, Bickley, when they murder and eat

missionaries?”

“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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

“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.”

“I would if I could pay a _locum tenens_ and were quite sure it isn’t

wrong,” said Bastin.

“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

_locum tenens_, and everything else.”

“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.”

“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?”

“I don’t know. In a mail steamer, I suppose.”

“If you can run to it, a yacht would be much better.”

“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.”

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.

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.

A notion came to me.

“Let us combine them,” I said, “and drink to the Unknown Truth.”

So we did, though Bastin grumbled that the performance made him feel

like Pilate.

“We are all Pilates in our way,” I replied with a sigh.

“That is what I think every time I diagnose a case,” exclaimed Bickley.

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!

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 _Star of the South_, could steam at about

ten knots as well as sail.

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.

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 _Star of the South_.

The arrangement was that the _Star of the South_ 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.

All the first part of the plan we carried out to the letter. Of the

remainder I say nothing at present.

_Star of the South_ 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.

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?

CHAPTER V.

The Cyclone

We enjoyed our voyage exceedingly. In Egypt, a land I was glad to

revisit, we only stopped a week while the _Star of the South_, 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.

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.

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.

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:

“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?”

“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.”

“My dear fellow,” I interrupted, “is it possible to imagine old Basil

deceiving anyone?”

“Why not,” snorted Bickley, “seeing that he deceives himself from one

year’s end to the other?”

“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.

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.

“Will the Doctor look?” said Jacobsen. “Perhaps the spirits have told

him something.”

“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.

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.”

“It seems that the devil really can quote Scripture,” was Bastin’s only

comment, while Jacobsen stared before him and smiled.

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.

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.

“That is not a good question,” said Jacobsen, “since as a sailor I

might guess the reply. Try again, Mr. Arbuthnot.”

“Will anything remarkable happen on our voyage to the South Seas?” I

inquired casually.

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.”

“That must mean me, Bickley the doctor and Bastin the clergyman,” I

said, laughing.

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.

“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.”

Then he began to talk of something else and there the matter ended.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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:

“Honoured Sir,

“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

_Star of the South_, 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.”

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.

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.

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.

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 _Star of the South_, 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.

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.

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.

“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!”

“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.”

Again Astley laughed in a mirthless fashion, as he answered:

“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.

We looked, and it stood somewhere between 27 degrees and 28 degrees.

“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.

“What does it mean?” I asked rather anxiously.

“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.

“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.”

Bickley snorted, then said:

“Confound that captain! Why did he play such a trick upon us about the

barometer? Humphrey, I believe he had been drinking.”

“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.”

“Well,” said Bickley, “he can’t get to the liquor, except through this

saloon, as it is locked up forward with the other stores.”

“That’s nothing,” I replied, “as doubtless he has a supply of his own;

rum, I expect. We must take our chance.”

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.

Presently Bastin joined us, having, I suppose, finished his devotions.

“Really, it is quite pleasant here,” he said. “One never knows how

disagreeable so much wind is until it stops.”

I lit my pipe, making no answer, and the match burned quite steadily

there in the open air.

“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:

“Get down below, governors, unless you want to go out to sea!”

“Why?” inquired Bastin.

“Why? Becos the ‘urricane is coming, that’s all. Coming as though the

devil had kicked it out of ‘ell.”

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.

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.

“Near thing!” said Bickley. “Good heavens, what’s that?”

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.

“He’s broken his neck or something,” I said.

Bickley crept to him and having looked, sang out:

“It’s all right! He’s only sea-sick. I thought it would come to that if

he drank so much tea.”

“Sea-sick,” I said faintly—“sea-sick?”

“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.

“Oh!” groaned the prostrate clergyman. “I wish that I were dead!”

“Don’t trouble about that,” answered Bickley. “I expect you soon will

be. Here, drink some whisky, you donkey.”

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.

“I call that a dirty trick,” he said presently, in a feeble voice,

glowering at Bickley.

“I expect I shall have to play you a dirtier before long, for you are a

pretty bad case, old fellow.”

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.

“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.”

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.

“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!”

CHAPTER VI.

Land

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

“Tidal wave, I expect,” shouted Bickley.

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.

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.

“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.”

“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 _Star of the

South_.”

“Thank God for that! Let’s go and look for old Bastin,” said Bickley.

“I do pray that he is all right also.”

“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.”

“Got you there, my friend,” I said.

Bickley murmured something about force of habit, and looked smaller

than I had ever seen him do before.

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.

Bickley ran at him and made a cursory examination with his fingers.

“Nothing broken,” he said triumphantly. “He’s all right.”

“If _you_ 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.”

“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.

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.

“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.”

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.

“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.”

“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_ do not mind. In fact I should be delighted to

see anything so pleasant.”

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.

“Look out! Where there are women there are sure to be men. Let us be

ready against accidents.”

So we armed ourselves with pistols, that is Bickley and I did, Bastin

being fortified solely with a Bible.

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.

“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?”

“I hope so,” said Bastin, “seeing that unworthy as I am, then the

opportunities for me would be very great.”

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.

“You see what has happened,” I said. “A great tidal wave has carried us

up here and retreated.”

“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.”

“And yet there are people like you who say that there is no

Providence!” ejaculated Bastin.

“I wonder what the views of Captain Astley and the crew are, or rather

were, upon that matter,” interrupted Bickley.

“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.”

“Let’s get down and look about us,” I remarked, being anxious to avoid

further argument.

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.

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.

“This is all very interesting,” I said to Bickley. “What do you make of

it?”

“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.”

I nodded.

“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?”

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.

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.

“The king or chief and his priests or medicine-men! This is splendid,”

said Bickley triumphantly.

Bastin also contemplated them with enthusiasm as raw material upon

which he hoped to get to work.

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.

“That looks well,” I said. “They would not make offerings unless they

were friendly.”

“The food may be poisoned,” remarked Bickley suspiciously.

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.

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.

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.

“I’ll have that off him before he is a week older,” said Bickley,

surveying this deformity with great professional interest.

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.

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.

“What is this place called?” he asked slowly and distinctly, pausing

between each word.

His audience shook their heads and he tried again, putting the accents

on different syllables. Behold! some bright spirit understood him and

answered:

“Orofena.”

“That means a hill, or an island, or a hill in an island,” whispered

Bickley to me.

“Who is your God?” asked Bastin again.

The point seemed one upon which they were a little doubtful, but at

last the chief answered, “Oro. He who fights.”

“In other words, Mars,” said Bickley.

“I will give you a better one,” said Bastin in the same slow fashion.

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:

“If you try Oro will eat you up.”

“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.”

Another pause, after which the man in a feather cloak with the growth

on his neck that a servant was supporting, said:

“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?”

Now Bickley pretended to consult me who stood brooding and majestic,

that is if I can be majestic. I whispered something and he answered:

“The gods of the wind and the sea.”

“What nonsense,” ejaculated Bastin, “there are no such things.”

“Shut up,” I said, “we must use similes here,” to which he replied:

“I don’t like similes that tamper with the truth.”

“Remember Neptune and Aeolus,” I suggested, and he lapsed into

consideration of the point.

“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.”

After looking at me Bickley replied:

“How thankful should you be that in our kindness we have spared you.”

“What do you come to do?” inquired Marama again. After the usual

formula of consulting me Bickley answered:

“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.”

“And I come,” broke in Bastin, “to give you new hearts.”

These announcements evidently caused great excitement. After

consultation Marama answered:

“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?”

“To-morrow,” said Bickley. “But learn that if you try to harm us we

will bring another wave which will drown all your country.”

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.

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.

“Do the gods eat?” asked the sceptic again.

“That fellow is a confounded radical,” I whispered to Bickley. “Tell

him that they do when they come to Orofena.”

He did so, whereon the chief said:

“Would the gods like a nice young girl cooked?”

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.

So our first interview with the inhabitants of Orofena came to an end,

on which we congratulated ourselves.

On reaching the remains of the _Star of the South_ 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.

“There’s something we can get away in if necessary,” I said.

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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.

“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.”

“How about something to eat? I want my tea,” said Bastin.

“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.”

“I’ll try,” said Bastin, “but I never did any cooking before.”

“No,” replied Bickley, “on second thoughts I will see to that myself,

but you can get the fish ready.”

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.

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 _Star of the South_ for the

last time, I read it. It was as follows:

“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 _Star of the South_ 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.—SKOLL.”

“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.—JACOB JACOBSEN.

“_P.S_.—It is an awful thing to know the future. Never try to learn

that.”

I gave this letter to Bastin and Bickley to read and asked them what

they thought of it.

“Coincidence,” said Bickley. “The man is a weak-minded idiot and heard

in Samoa that they expected a hurricane.”

“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.”

“At least he is a deserter and failed in his duty. I never wish to hear

of him again,” I said.

As a matter of fact I never have. But the incident remains quite

unexplained either by Bickley or Bastin.

CHAPTER VII.

The Orofenans

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.

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.

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.

“However much we may differ, Bastin, I respect you for that sentiment,”

commented Bickley.

“I don’t know why you should,” answered Bastin; “but if so, you might

follow my example.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

We asked whether he would consider it right to sacrifice us. He

replied:

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 _taboo_, holy, not to be

touched. None would attempt to harm us, nothing should be stolen under

penalty of death.

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.

I will tell the rest as shortly as I can.

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.

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.

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.

“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.

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.

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.

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.

Afterward it turned out that he conceived Tommy to be a divine but most

venomous lizard that could make a very horrible noise, and began to

suffer as one might do from the bite of such a creature. Nothing that

Bickley could do was enough to save him and ultimately he died in

convulsions, a circumstance that enormously enhanced Tommy’s

reputation. To tell the truth, we took advantage of it to explain that

Tommy was in fact a supernatural animal, a sort of tame demon which

only harmed people who had malevolent intentions towards those he

served or who tried to steal any of their possessions or to intrude

upon them at inconvenient hours, especially in the dark. So terrible

was he, indeed, that even the skill of the Great Priest, _i.e._,

Bickley, could not avail to save any whom once he had bitten in his

rage. Even to be barked at by him was dangerous and conveyed a curse

that might last for generations.

All this we set out when Bastin was not there. He had wandered off, as

he said, to look for shells, but as we knew, to practise religious

orations in the Polynesian tongue with the waves for audience, as

Demosthenes is said to have done to perfect himself as a political

orator. Personally I admit that I relied more on the terrors of Tommy

to safeguard us from theft and other troubles than I did upon those of

the native _taboo_ and the priestly oaths.

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.

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.

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.

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.

At these oppressive activities Bastin looked on with a gloomy eye.

“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.”

“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.”

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.

Bastin thought a while ponderously, then said:

“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?”

“There is no reason which I can see,” scoffed Bickley, “except that as

a rule wells do not flow.”

“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.”

“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.”

Bastin vouchsafed no reply and sat for the rest of that evening plunged

in deep thought.

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.

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!

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.

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:

“No, no, he dwells on the mountain in the lake,” which was why they

never dared to approach that mountain.

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.

“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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

“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.”

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.

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.

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.”

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.

CHAPTER VIII.

Bastin Attempts the Martyr’s Crown

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.

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:

“I suppose someone left them there, and anyhow it doesn’t matter much,

does it?”

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.

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.

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.

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.

“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?”

“I am about to take a row on the lake, Chief,” I answered carelessly.

“Indeed, Friend. Have we then treated you so badly that you are tired

of life?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Come out into the sunlight, Friend, and I will explain to you.”

I hesitated till I saw Marama lifting the heavy wooden spear he carried

and remembered that I was unarmed. Then I came out.

“What does all this mean, Chief?” I asked angrily when we were clear of

the patch of cotton palm.

“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.”

“All that is plain enough, Marama. But why?”

“Have I not told you, Friend-from-the-Sea, that yonder hill which is

called Orofena, whence this island takes its name, is sacred?”

“You said so, but what of it?”

“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.”

“Then for what are the canoes used?” I asked with irritation.

“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.”

“Offerings to whom?”

“To the Oromatuas, the spirits of the great dead who live there.”

“Oromatuas? Oro! It is always something to do with Oro. Who and what is

Oro?”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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?

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.

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.

“The spirit being our friends the sorcerers,” I suggested.

“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.”

“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.”

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.

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.

“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.

“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.”

“What are you going to do with the paraffin?” asked Bickley.

Bastin coloured through his tan and replied awkwardly:

“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.

“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.”

“Perhaps he means to swallow some himself, just to show that he is

right,” I suggested.

“The stomach-pump is at hand,” said Bickley, and the matter dropped.

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.

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.

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.

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.

“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?”

“Sacrificing Bastin, perhaps,” I replied, half in jest. “Have you your

revolver?”

He nodded. We always wore our pistols if we went out during the dark

hours.

“Then perhaps we had better go to see.”

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!”

“Just what I expected,” said Bickley.

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.

“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?”

“Don’t know,” I answered. “Hope we shall get there in time!”

“To be cooked and eaten with Bastin!” wheezed Bickley, after which his

breath gave out.

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.

“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.”

I stared at him, and Bickley gasped out:

“If you are to be eaten, what does it matter why you are eaten?”

“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.”

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.

“What is the matter?” I asked sternly of the chief.

“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.”

“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.”

This ingenious argument seemed to produce some effect upon Marama, but

to the priests it did not at all appeal.

“Eat them all!” these cried. “They are the enemies of Oro and have

worked sacrilege!”

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.

“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!”

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.

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.

“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.

“Yes,” I answered; “but presently, when they have got over their

fright, they will come back to teach us one.”

Bastin said nothing; he seemed too dazed at the turn events had taken.

“What do you suggest?” asked Bickley.

“Flight,” I answered.

“Where to—the ship? We might hold that.”

“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.”

“How are we going to live on the island?” asked Bickley.

“I don’t know,” I replied; “but I am quite certain that if we stay here

we shall die.”

“Very well,” he said; “let us try it.”

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.”

“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.”

“If you are trying to shift the responsibility for that unfortunate

man’s destruction on to me—”

“Oh! shut it and trot,” broke in Bickley. “Those infernal savages are

coming with your blessed converts leading the van.”

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.

“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 _can’t_, for there’s nothing left.”

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.

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.

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.”

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.

“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.”

“Oh! by all means,” replied Bickley with sarcasm; “for then their

spears will touch _us_, and our bodies will soon be melting above the

fires of that pit.”

“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.”

“Like a butterfly!” exclaimed the enraged Bickley.

“Yes, if you like to put it that way, though the simile seems a very

poor one; like a sunbeam would be better.”

Here Bickley gave way with his paddle so vigorously that the canoe was

as nearly as possible upset into the lake.

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.

“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.

Bickley examined them, and answered:

“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.”

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.

CHAPTER IX.

The Island in the Lake

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.

“Explain!” said Bickley.

“Paths,” I said, “worn by countless feet walking on them for thousands

of years.”

“You should cultivate the art of observation, Arbuthnot. What do you

say, Bastin?”

He stared at the grooves through his spectacles, and replied:

“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.”

“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.”

Bastin stared at him.

“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.”

“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.”

“It was Providence, not you, who prevented it, Bickley, doubtless

because I am unworthy of such a glorious end.”

“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.”

“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.”

As for me, I only whistled. It all seemed very feasible. And yet how

could such things be?

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.

“Take no thought for the morrow,” he replied. “I have no doubt it will

come from somewhere,” and he helped himself to another chop.

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!

“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.”

“Stop talking about eating and help us to haul up the canoe,” said

Bickley.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 _before_ they were buried in some

ancient cataclysm, to be thus resurrected at the hour of our arrival

upon the island.

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:

“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.”

“Well, what of it?” snapped Bickley.

“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.”

“Oh, be quiet!” I said, for though Bastin’s description was not bad,

his monotonous, drawling voice jarred on me in that solemnity.

“Be careful where you walk,” whispered Bickley, for even he seemed

awed, “there may be pits in this floor.”

“I wish we had a light,” I said, halting.

“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.”

“Not unconnected with the paraffin and the burning of the idol, I

suppose?” said Bickley. “Hand them over.”

“Yes; if I had been allowed a little more time I intended—”

“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!”

“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.”

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.

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.

“Look,” said Bickley, holding up his candle, “and tell me—what’s that?”

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.

“What is that?” asked Bickley again.

I made no answer, for I was thinking. Bastin, however, replied:

“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.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t tame angels?” asked Bickley.

“What a ridiculous remark! How can you keep an angel in a cage? I—”

“Aeroplane!” I almost whispered to Bickley.

“You’ve got it!” he answered. “The framework of an aeroplane and a

jolly large one, too. Only why hasn’t it oxidised?”

“Some indestructible metal,” I suggested. “Gold, for instance, does not

oxidise.”

He nodded and said:

“We shall have to dig it out. The dust is feet thick about it; we can

do nothing without spades. Come on.”

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.

“What did I tell you?” said Bickley in a voice of triumph. “A whole

garage full, a regular fleet of aeroplanes!”

“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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Bickley ground his teeth as he listened to him.

“Destroy that!” he gasped. “Destroy! Oh! you, you—early Christian.”

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

“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.”

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.

“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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

CHAPTER X.

The Dwellers in the Tomb

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.

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.

“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.”

“And what of the Bellower?” I asked, indicating Bastin.

“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.”

“That is most unjust,” exclaimed Bastin. “I deeply regret the blood

that was shed on the occasion, unnecessarily as I think.”

“Then go and atone for it with your own,” said Bickley, “and everybody

will be pleased.”

Waving to them to be silent, I said:

“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.”

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:

“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.)

They looked at each other in a frightened way and groaned more loudly

than before.

“He sends you a message, which, as he told us of your approach, we came

to the shore to deliver to you.”

“How can you say that?” began Bastin, but was again violently

suppressed by Bickley.

“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.”

“And if we refuse—what then?” asked the priest, speaking for the first

time.

“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.”

At these horrible threats both of them uttered a kind of wail, after

which, Marama asked:

“And if we consent, what then, Friend-from-the-Sea?”

“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.”

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.

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.

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

“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.

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.

“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.”

“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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

I pointed at them to Bickley with my finger, for really I could not

speak.

“Coffins, by Jove!” he whispered. “Glass or crystal coffins and people

in them. Come on!”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I was still gazing at it when Bickley said in a voice of amazement:

“I say, look here, in the other coffin.”

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:

“Alas! that she should be dead!”

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.

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.

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.

“Well, I never!” he said. “Do you think the Glittering Lady in there is

human?”

“The Glittering Lady is dead, but I suppose that she was human in her

life,” I answered in an awed whisper.

“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.”

“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.”

I stared at him. It was strange to hear Bickley, the scoffer at

miracles, suggesting that this greatest of all miracles might be

possible.

“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.

“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.”

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.

“As I thought,” he said—“air-holes. See!”

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.

“They are not airtight,” murmured Bickley; “and if air can enter, how

can dead flesh remain like that for ages?”

Then he continued his search upon the other side.

“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.”

“No,” I answered; “for look, here is a crystal bolt at the end and it

is shot from without.”

This puzzled him; then as though struck by an idea, he began to examine

the other coffin.

“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.”

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.

“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.

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?

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

“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.”

“To wash up the things, I suppose,” said Bickley with a sniff; “or

perhaps to eat the tea-leaves.”

“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.”

“Pray do,” said Bickley. “Are you ready, Humphrey?”

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.

CHAPTER XI.

Resurrection

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.

“There is some wild beast in there,” said Bickley, halting. “No, by

George! it’s Tommy. What can the dog be after?”

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.

“That’s very strange,” I exclaimed.

“Not stranger than everything else,” said Bickley.

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

“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.”

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.

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.

After five minutes or so we returned and examined the thermometer. It

had risen to 98 degrees, the natural temperature of the human body.

“What do you make of that if the man is dead?” he whispered.

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, _it was not stiff_, 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.

“Great heavens!” I exclaimed, “here’s magic.”

“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.”

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.

“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.”

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.

“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.”

I made no answer and again we waited and watched.

“Great heavens, he’s stirring!” I gasped presently.

Stirring he was, for his fingers began to move.

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.

“I believe it is beginning to beat,” he said in an awed voice.

Then he applied the stethoscope, and added, “It is, it is!”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

“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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

“Well, I never!” he said, “you seem to have woke them up with a

vengeance. If you begin like _that_ with the lady, there will be

complications before you have done, Arbuthnot.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.”

“Yes,” I said, speaking very slowly, “so it is called by the people of

this land.”

She understood, for she answered in much the same language:

“What, then, do you call it?”

“Sun in the English tongue,” I replied.

“Sun. English,” she repeated after me, then added, “How are you named,

Wanderer?”

“Humphrey,” I answered.

“Hum-fe-ry!” she said as though she were learning the word, “and

those?”

“Bastin and Bickley,” I replied.

Over these patronymics she shook her head; as yet they were too much

for her.

“How are you named, Sleeper?” I asked.

“Yva,” she answered.

“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.

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!”

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.

“How long did you sleep, Yva?” I asked, pointing towards the sepulchre

in the cave.

After a little thought she understood and shook her head hopelessly,

then by an afterthought, she said,

“Stars tell Oro to-night.”

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.

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.

“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.”

“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.

“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.”

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.

A libation, thought I to myself, and evidently Bastin agreed with me,

for I heard him mutter,

“I believe she is making a heathen offering.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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:

“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?”

I said I understood, whereon she answered:

“Good-bye, O Humfe-ry.”

“Good-bye, O Yva,” I replied, bowing.

Thereon they turned and refusing all assistance from us, vanished into

the darkness of the cave leaning upon each other and walking slowly.

CHAPTER XII.

Two Hundred and Fifty Thousand Years!

“You seem to have made the best of your time, old fellow,” said Bickley

in rather a sour voice.

“I never knew people begin to call each other by their Christian names

so soon,” added Bastin, looking at me with a suspicious eye.

“I know no other,” I said.

“Perhaps not, but at any rate _you_ 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.”

“So am I,” said Bickley, who really looked exhausted. “Get the food,

there’s a good fellow. We’ll talk afterwards.”

When we had eaten, somewhat silently, I asked Bickley what he made of

the business; also whither he thought the sleepers had gone.

“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.”

Bickley waved these remarks aside and addressed himself to me.

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Then what do you suggest?”

“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.”

“_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?”

“Because only gas, or something of the sort, could have made us imagine

them.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“They told us they would come back tonight or tomorrow,” I said. “If

they do, what will you say then, Bickley?”

“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.”

“One more question,” I said as we rose to start. “Did Tommy suffer from

hallucinations as well as ourselves?”

“Why not?” answered Bickley. “He is an animal just as we are, or

perhaps we thought we saw Tommy do the things he did.”

“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?”

“Yes, Arbuthnot, one bough only; I threw it down on the rock as it got

in the way when I was carrying the basket.”

“Which flowering bough we all thought we saw the Sleeper Oro carry away

after Tommy had brought it to him.”

“Yes; he made me pick it up and give it to him,” said Bastin.

“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?”

He nodded.

“Then if it has gone you will admit also that the presumption is that

we saw what we thought we did see?”

“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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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:

“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.

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.

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.

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.

He looked about him slowly, then asked in a deep, cold voice, speaking

in the Orofenan tongue:

“What do you, slaves?”

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.

The Sleeper spoke again:

“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.

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.

“Look into the eyes of Oro, O worshipper of Oro,” said the Sleeper, and

he obeyed, his own eyes starting out of his head.

“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.

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.

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.

The Sleeper beckoned to them with his thin finger, and they walked

forward in step like soldiers.

“Lift that man from the boat,” he said, pointing to Bastin, “cut his

bonds and those of the others.”

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.

“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!”

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.

“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.”

“Curse their lights!” ejaculated Bickley, feeling his throat which was

bruised. “I’m glad they are out.”

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.

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.

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.

“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.

“Yes, Lady Yva, thanks to your father.”

“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.”

“Oh! from the top of the mountain, I suppose.”

She shook her head and smiled but vouchsafed no further explanation,

unless her following words can be so called. These were:

“I can see otherwise than with my eyes, if I choose.” A statement that

caused Bickley, who was listening, to mutter:

“Impossible! What the deuce can she mean? Telepathy, perhaps.”

“I saw,” she continued, “and told the Lord, my father. He came forth.

Did he kill them? I did not look to learn.”

“Yes. They lie in the lake, all except three whom he sent away as

messengers.”

“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.”

Not wishing to pursue this subject, I asked her what her father was

doing with the metal plates.

“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.”

“We set that time,” interrupted Bickley.

“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.”

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.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

“How long was the time that the lord Oro set apart for sleep?” I asked.

She paused as though puzzled to find words to express her meaning, then

held up her hands and said:

“Ten,” nodding at her fingers. By second thoughts she took Bickley’s

hands, not mine, and counted his ten fingers.

“Ten years,” said Bickley. “Well, of course, it is impossible, but

perhaps—” and he paused.

“Ten tens,” she went on with a deepening smile, “one hundred.”

“O!” said Bickley.

“Ten hundreds, one thousand.”

“I say!” said Bickley.

“Ten times ten thousand, one hundred thousand.”

Bickley became silent.

“Twice one hundred thousand and half a hundred thousand, two hundred

and fifty thousand years. _That_ 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.

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.

“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.”

“So can we,” I answered, rather nettled.

“I am glad, O Humphrey, since you will be able to show my father if in

one of them he is wrong.”

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.

“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?”

“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.”

“Great heavens, this is madness!” said Bickley.

“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.”

“Do if you can,” said Bickley.

“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.”

At this moment Oro turned and called his daughter. She went at once,

saying:

“Come, strangers, and you shall learn.”

So we followed her.

“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.”

“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.

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.

Then he remarked very quietly that all was in order, and handing the

plate he held to Yva, said:

“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.

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.

He and his daughter had been asleep for two hundred and fifty thousand

years. Oh! Heavens, _for two hundred and fifty thousand years!_

CHAPTER XIII.

Oro Speaks and Bastin Argues

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?

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.

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:

“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.”

Bastin was so astonished that he could make no reply, but when they had

gone he said:

“Which of you told her that I was a priest?”

We shook our heads for neither of us could remember having done so.

“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.”

“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.”

“I admit that the costume is not appropriate, Bickley, but how

otherwise could she have learned the truth?”

“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.”

When he heard this Bastin’s face became a perfect picture. Never before

did I see it so full of horror struggling with indignation.

“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.

“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.”

“Perhaps you are right, Arbuthnot. I will occupy the interval in

preparing a suitable address.”

“Much better occupy it in preparing breakfast,” said Bickley. “I have

always noticed that you are at your best extempore.”

In the end he did prepare breakfast though in a _distrait_ 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.

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.

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 _crux ansata_, or Sign of Life.

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.

“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.”

“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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

Thus argued Marama, disbelieving the tale of the frightened sorcerers,

for he admitted as much to me in after days.

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.

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:

“There, you lazy beggar, I told you I would bring it all, and I have.”

In fact he thought he was addressing Bickley and playing off on him a

troglodytic practical joke.

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:

“Bastin the priest makes you offerings. Thank him, O Lord my father.”

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.

“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.”

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.

Meanwhile Bickley and I produced two camp chairs which we had made

ready, and on these the wondrous pair seated themselves side by side.

“We have come to learn,” said Oro. “Teach!”

“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?”

“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.

“The time appointed having come when it should be raised,” said Oro as

though to himself.

“Where is England?” asked Yva.

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.

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.

“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.”

“So he has got maps,” said Bickley in English, “as well as star charts.

I wonder where he keeps them.”

“With his clothes, I expect,” suggested Bastin.

Meanwhile Oro had hidden the atlas in his ample robe and motioned to

his daughter to proceed.

“Why do you come here from England so far away?” the Lady Yva asked, a

question to which each of us had an answer.

“To see new countries,” I said.

“Because the cyclone brought us,” said Bickley.

“To convert the heathen to my own Christian religion,” said Bastin,

which was not strictly true.

It was on this last reply that she fixed.

“What does your religion teach?” she asked.

“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.

When he heard this saying I saw Oro start as though struck by a new

thought and look at Bastin with a curious intentness.

“Who are the heathen?” Yva asked again after a pause, for she also

seemed to be impressed.

“All who do not agree with Bastin’s spiritual views,” answered Bickley.

“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.

This seemed to astonish them, but presently Yva caught his meaning and

smiled, while Oro said:

“Of this great matter of faith we will talk later. It is an old

question in the world.”

“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?”

“As regards your first question,” I answered, “there are no aircraft

known that can make so long a journey.”

“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.”

At this information the Glittering Lady lifted her arched eyebrows and

smiled a little, while Oro said:

“I perceive that the new world has advanced but a little way on the

road of knowledge.”

Fearing that Bastin was about to commence an argument, I began to ask

questions in my turn.

“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?”

“If it be your pleasure, answer, my Father,” said Yva.

Oro thought a moment, then replied in a calm voice:

“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.”

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?

Well, Bastin could for one. With no more surprise in his voice than if

he were talking about last night’s dinner, he said:

“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.”

I trembled for the results of Bastin’s methods of setting out the

truth. To my astonishment, however, Oro replied:

“You speak wisely, Priest, but the Power you name may use instruments

to accomplish its decrees. I am such an instrument.”

“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?”

“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.”

“That’s quite right,” exclaimed Bastin delightedly. “We know all about

the Deluge, only _you_ are not mentioned in connection with the matter.

A man, Noah, had to do with it when he was six hundred years old.”

“Six hundred?” said Oro. “That is not very old. I myself had seen more

than a thousand years when I lay down to sleep.”

“A thousand!” remarked Bastin, mildly interested. “That is unusual,

though some of these mighty men of renown we know lived over nine

hundred.”

Here Bickley snorted and exclaimed:

“Nine hundred moons, he means.”

“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?”

“Yes,” said Bastin. “Why were you allowed to drown your world?”

“Because it was evil, Priest, and disobeyed me and the Power I serve.”

“Oh! thank you,” said Bastin, “that fits in exactly. It was just the

same in Noah’s time.”

“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.”

He departed into the cave, Yva following at a little distance.

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.

“Lady Yva,” I said, “did I rightly understand the Lord Oro to say that

he was a thousand years old?”

“Yes, O Humphrey, and really he is more, or so I think.”

“Then are you a thousand years old also?” I asked, aghast.

“No, no,” she replied, shaking her head, “I am young, quite young, for

I do not count my time of sleep.”

“Certainly you look it,” I said. “But what, Lady Yva, do you mean by

young?”

She answered my question by another.

“What age are your women when they are as I am?”

“None of our women were ever quite like you, Lady Yva. Yet, say from

twenty-five to thirty years of age.”

“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.

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:

“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.”

Then Bickley, who had been suppressing himself all this while, went off

like a bomb.

“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?”

“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.”

“Even cause the Deluge,” jeered Bickley.

“I don’t know about _the_ 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.”

“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.”

“You don’t _know_ 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?”

“There is no proof of anything of the sort,” said Bickley.

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

CHAPTER XIV.

The Under-world

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.

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.

“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.

“Why does Tommy shine, Lady?” I asked.

“Because I washed him in certain waters that we have, so that now he

looks beautiful and smells sweet,” she answered, laughing.

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.

“He has drunk of the Life-water,” explained Yva, “and will want no food

for two days.”

Bickley pricked up his ears at this statement and looked incredulous.

“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.”

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.

“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.”

“I am glad to hear it,” interrupted Bastin, “for Bickley wants a lot of

cooking done, and I find it tedious.”

“You eat also, Lady,” said Bickley.

“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.”

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.

While she ate she observed us closely; nothing seemed to escape the

quick glances of those beautiful eyes. Presently she said:

“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.

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.

“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.”

“So is this,” I said. “Among the Egyptians Osiris was the god of

Death.”

She nodded and replied that doubtless the symbol had come down to them.

“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.

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.

“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.”

We all answered that there was nothing we should like better, but

Bastin added that he had already seen the tomb.

“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?”

“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.”

“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?”

“That which I have lost and fear I shall never find again,” I answered

boldly.

“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.”

“This is ridiculous,” broke in Bastin. “Can a dog talk?”

“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.”

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.

In a moment it was gone and she was smiling and jesting.

“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.”

“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.”

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.

“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.

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.

“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.”

We passed to the end of the tomb and stood against what appeared to be

a rock wall, all close together, as she directed.

“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.

“Don’t choke me,” I heard Bickley say to Bastin, and the latter’s

murmured reply of:

“I never could bear these moving staircases and tubelifts. They always

make me feel sick.”

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:

“Did I not tell you to have no fear?”

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.

“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.

“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.”

“The odd thing is,” said Bickley, “that we can see at all. Where the

devil does the light come from thousands of feet underground?”

“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.”

“Natural gas be blowed,” said Bickley. “It is more like moonlight

magnified ten times.”

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.

“Where does it come from?” I whispered to Yva.

“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.”

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.

And now came the terror. All of this enormous city was _dead_. 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.

“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.”

“Why did they leave them?” I asked of Yva.

“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.”

“Then were you the last of your people?” I asked.

“Inquire of my father,” she replied, and led the way through the

massive arch of a great building.

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.

“The Life-water?” I said, looking at our guide.

She nodded and asked in her turn:

“What is the statue and what does it signify, Humphrey?”

I hesitated, but Bastin answered:

“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.”

“The goddess of Health,” suggested Bickley. “Her proportions are

perfect; a robust, a thoroughly normal woman.”

“Now, Humphrey,” said Yva.

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.

“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.”

“Of course one may say anything,” said Bastin, “but I don’t understand

all that.”

“Imagination goes a long way,” broke in Bickley, who was vexed that he

had not thought of this interpretation himself. But Yva said:

“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.”

“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.”

“Just the sort of thing you would do,” said Bickley. “But, Lady Yva,

what are the properties of this water?”

“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.”

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.

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.

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:

“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.”

Then he was silent, and Bastin’s turn came. He drank rather noisily,

after his fashion, and began:

“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:

From Greenland’s icy mountains,

From India’s coral strand,

Where Afric’s sunny fountains

Roll down their golden sand.

Ceasing from melody, he added:

“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.”

Then he, too, grew silent.

“Come,” said Yva, “my father, the Lord Oro, awaits you.”

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.

“The palace of the King,” said Yva, “whereof we approach the great

hall.”

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

“I greet you,” Oro said in his slow, resonant voice. “Daughter, lead

these strangers to me; I would speak with them.”

CHAPTER XV.

Oro in His House

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.

“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.”

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.

“What say you of this city?” Oro asked after a while of me.

“We do not know what to say,” I replied. “It amazes us. In our world

there is nothing like to it.”

“Perchance there will be in the future when the nations grow more

skilled in the arts of war,” said Oro darkly.

“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.”

“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.”

“And then?”

“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.”

“I cannot. I cannot imagine children in such a place, and if born here

they would die,” said Bickley.

Oro nodded.

“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.”

“And then?”

“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.”

“Can such a thing happen again?” asked Bickley in a voice that did not

hide his disbelief.

“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.”

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.

Oro listened patiently, then answered:

“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.”

Bickley looked up to answer, then changed his mind and was silent,

thinking further argument dangerous, and Oro went on:

“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?”

“It is,” said Bastin eagerly. “I will set out—”

Oro cut him short with a wave of the hand.

“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.”

“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?”

“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.

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.

“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.”

Here Bickley groaned aloud.

“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.”

“What war?” we asked with one voice.

“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.”

“It is quite possible,” I said, remembering many things. “But how do

you know?”

“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.”

“Then who will win?” asked Bastin.

“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.”

“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.

“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.”

“I deny your hypothesis _in toto_,” exclaimed Bickley, but nobody paid

any attention to him.

“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?”

“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.”

“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.”

Oro waved his hand and we departed down that awful and most dreary

hall.

“I hope you will spend a pleasant time here, Bastin,” I said, looking

back from the doorway at its cold, illuminated vastness.

“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.”

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.

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.

“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?”

“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.”

“I should like to dissect one of them, but I suppose that would not be

allowed,” said Bickley.

“No,” she answered. “I think that the Lord Oro would not wish you to

cut up his forefathers.”

“When you and he went to sleep, why did you not choose the family

vault?” asked Bastin.

“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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

“Behold the god of my people,” said Yva. “Have you no reverence for it,

O Bastin?”

“Not much,” he answered, “except as a work of art. You see I worship

Fate’s Master. I might add that _your_ 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.”

At first she was inclined to be angry, for I saw her start. Then her

mood changed, and she said with a sigh:

“Fate’s Master! Where does He dwell?”

“Here amongst other places,” said Bastin. “I’ll soon explain that to

you.”

“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:

“Friends, would you wish to learn something of the history of my

people?”

“Very much,” said the irrepressible Bastin, “but I would rather the

lecture took place in the open air.”

“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.”

CHAPTER XVI.

Visions of the Past

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:

“I shall show you first our people in the day of their glory. Look in

front of you.”

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.

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.

“One of the Kings of the Children of Wisdom new-crowned, receives the

homage of the world,” said Yva.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

“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.

“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:

“‘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!”

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.

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.

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.

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:

“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.”

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:

“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.’”

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.

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:

“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.

“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.

“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.

“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.

“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.

“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.

“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.”

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.

“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.

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.

“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.”

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.

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.

“Quite,” I answered in a tone that caused her to say:

“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.”

“Indeed,” I replied. “Well, I will tell you about it later.”

“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.”

“How is it done?” asked Bickley, almost fiercely.

“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.”

“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?”

“Come,” she said, smiling.

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.

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.

“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.”

“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.

“What is jugglery?” asked Bastin, and they departed arguing, leaving me

alone with Yva in the sepulchre.

“What have I seen?” I asked her.

“I do not know, Humphrey. Everyone sees different things, but perhaps

something of the truth.”

“I hope not, Yva, for amongst other things I seemed to see you swear

yourself to a man for ever.”

“Yes, and this I did. What of it?”

“Only that it might be hard for another man.”

“Yes, for another man it might be hard. You were once married, were you

not, Humphrey, to a wife who died?”

“Yes, I was married.”

“And did you not swear to that wife that you would never look in love

upon another woman?”

“I did,” I answered in a shamed voice. “But how do you know? I never

told you so.”

“Oh! I know you and therefore guessed.”

“Well, what of it, Yva?”

“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.”

“How can that happen,” I asked, “when both are dead?”

“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.”

“Then let it be in the sunlight, Yva. I do not love those darksome

halls of Nyo that glow like something dead.”

“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.”

“I am not so certain about Bastin and of what he thinks,” I said

doubtfully. “Also will the Lord Oro permit you to come?”

“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.”

Then I left her.

CHAPTER XVII.

Yva Explains

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.

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.

Towards evening they departed in their canoes, leaving behind them the

usual ample store of provisions.

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.

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.

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 _he_ 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 _he_ 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.

Thus declaimed Bastin and departed.

“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.

“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.”

“I haven’t the slightest ambition to be a martyr,” said Bickley.

“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.”

Then he departed, leaving me laughing. But Bickley did not laugh.

“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.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “You seem sane enough.”

“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.”

“Then is Bastin suffering from delusions, too?”

“Certainly, but that is nothing new in his case.”

“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.”

“I won’t argue the matter, Arbuthnot; it is of no use. I repeat that I

am mad, and Bastin is mad.”

“How about me? I also saw and experienced these things. Am I mad, too?”

“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.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, starting.

“Mean? Well, if you didn’t notice it, there’s hope for you.”

“Notice what?”

“All that envoy scene. There, as I thought, appeared Yva. Do you admit

that?”

“Of course; there could be no mistake on that point.”

“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?”

“Absolutely.”

“Well, and didn’t you recognise the man?”

“No; I only noticed that he was a fine-looking fellow whose appearance

reminded me of someone.”

“I suppose it must be true,” mused Bickley, “that we do not know

ourselves.”

“So the old Greek thought, since he urged that this should be our

special study. ‘Know thyself,’ you remember.”

“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.”

I sprang up, dropping my pipe.

“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.”

“The man was _you_,” 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.”

“Why? After all, an ancient man and a modern man might resemble each

other.”

“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.”

“What is that?”

“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.”

“Then whence did the pictures come and why?”

“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.”

“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.

_My_ explanation is that you were deceived as to the likeness, which,

mind you, I did not recognise; nor, apparently, did Bastin.”

“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.”

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.

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?

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!

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.

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.

“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.”

“With whom you should be proud to break a lance,” said Bickley.

“So I am, in the daylight. For instance, when he uses _your_ 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.”

“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.”

Then Bastin went, carrying under his arm a large Bible printed in the

language of the South Sea Islands.

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.

We tried to explain, with no striking success.

“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.”

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.

“This was your wife,” she said as one who states what she knows to be a

fact. I nodded, and she went on:

“She was sweet and beautiful as a flower, but not so tall as I am, I

think.”

“No,” I answered, “she lacked height; given that she would have been a

lovely woman.”

“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?”

“Yes, very like yours, only yours are larger.”

“That is a beautiful way of wearing the hair. Would you be angry if I

tried it? I weary of this old fashion.”

“Why should I be angry?” I asked.

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.

“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.”

She smiled, and, after a last, long glance, gave me back the photograph

and the miniature, saying as she delivered the latter:

“I rejoice to see that you are faithful, Humphrey, and wear this

picture on your heart, as well as in it.”

“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.”

“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.

“How do you know what I was doing with the Life-water? Did Bastin tell

you?” exclaimed Bickley.

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“All of which things have happened many times in the history of the

globe,” said Bickley, “without the help of the Lord Oro.”

“Others had knowledge before my father, and others doubtless will have

knowledge after him. Even I, Yva, have some knowledge, and knowledge is

strength.”

“Yes,” I interposed, “but such powers as you attribute to your father

are not given to man.”

“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.”

“Men?” I said.

“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.”

“Why should he dread to die,” asked Bickley, “seeing that sleep and

death are the same?”

“Because his knowledge tells him that Sleep and Death are _not_ 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.”

“And do you fear to die?” I asked.

“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—”

Here she ceased and glanced at where she knew the miniature was hanging

upon my breast.

“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.”

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.

More, they, or some of them, had learned the use of the Fourth

Dimension, that is their most instructed individuals, could move

_through_ 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.

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.

“Have you ever done that?” asked Bickley.

“Once or twice I dreamed that I did,” she replied quietly.

“We can all dream,” he answered.

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.

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.

“Is that how you know that I had been trying to analyse your

Life-water?” asked Bickley.

“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.”

“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?”

“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.”

“I am glad to hear it is not often, Lady Yva, since thoughts are

generally considered private.”

“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?”

“No wonder that, according to the story in the pictures, those Nations,

whom you named Barbarians, made an end of your people, Lady Yva.”

“You are mistaken, Bickley; the Lord Oro made an end of the Nations,

though against my prayer,” she added with a sigh.

Then Bickley departed in a rage, and did not appear again for an hour.

“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.”

“Then you would be sorry for me also, Lady Yva?”

“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.”

“Not very wise!” I repeated.

“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.”

“You mean that your wisdom has in it nothing of the spirit?”

“Yes, Humphrey, that is what I mean. I do not even know if there is