“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?”
“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.”
“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.”
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.”
“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?”
“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.”
“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 aeons 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, this 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 time 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.”
“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.”
“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 such a thing as spirit. Our god was Fate; Bastin’s god is a spirit, and I think yours also.”
“Therefore, I wish you and Bastin to teach me of your god, as does Oro, my father. I want–oh! so much, Humphrey, to learn whether we live after death.”
“You!” I exclaimed. “You who, according to the story, have slept for two hundred and fifty thousand years! You, who have, unless I mistake, hinted that during that sleep you may have lived in other shapes! Do you doubt whether we can live after death?”
“Yes. Sleep induced by secret arts is not death, and during that sleep the I within might wander and inhabit other shapes, because it is forbidden to be idle. Moreover, what seems to be death may not be death, only another form of sleep from which the I awakes again upon the world. But at last comes the real death, when the I is extinguished to the world. That much I know, because my people learned it.”
“You mean, you know that men and women may live again and again upon the world?”
“Yes, Humphrey, I do. For in the world there is only a certain store of life which in many forms travels on and on, till the lot of each I is fulfilled. Then comes the real death, and after that–what, oh!–what?”
“You must ask Bastin,” I said humbly. “I cannot dare to teach of such matters.”
“No, but you can and do believe, and that helps me, Humphrey, who am in tune with you. Yes, it helps me much more than do Bastin and his new religion, because such is woman’s way. Now, I think Bickley will soon return, so let us talk of other matters. Tell me of the history of your people, Humphrey, that my father says are now at war.”
Bickley did return, having recovered his temper, since after all it was impossible for anyone to remain angry with the Lady Yva for long, and we spent a very happy time together. We instructed and she was the humble pupil.
How swift and nimble was her intelligence! In that one morning she learned all our alphabet and how to write our letters. It appeared that among her people, at any rate in their later periods, the only form of writing that was used was a highly concentrated shorthand which saved labour. They had no journals, since news which arrived telepathically or by some form of wireless was proclaimed to those who cared to listen, and on it all formed their own judgments. In the same way poems and even romances were repeated, as in Homer’s day or in the time of the Norse sagas, by word of mouth. None of their secret knowledge was written down. Like the ritual of Freemasonry it was considered too sacred.
Moreover, when men lived for hundreds of years this was not so necessary, especially as their great fear was lest it should fall into the hands of the outside nations, whom they called Barbarians. For, be it remembered, these Sons of Wisdom were always a very small people who ruled by the weight of their intelligence and the strength of their accumulated lore. Indeed, they could scarcely be called a people; rather were they a few families, all of them more or less connected with the original ruling Dynasty which considered itself half divine. These families were waited upon by a multitude of servants or slaves drawn from the subject nations, for the most part skilled in one art or another, or perhaps, remarkable for their personal beauty. Still they remained outside the pale.
The Sons of Wisdom did not intermarry with them or teach them their learning, or even allow them to drink of their Life-water. They ruled them as men rule dogs, treating them with kindness, but no more, and as many dogs run their course and die in the lifetime of one master, so did many of these slaves in that of one of the Sons of Wisdom. Therefore, the slaves came to regard their lords not as men, but gods. They lived but three score years and ten like the rest of us, and went their way, they, whose great-great-grandfathers had served the same master and whose great-great-great-grandchildren would still serve him. What should we think of a lord who we knew was already adult in the time of William the Conqueror, and who remained still vigorous and all-powerful in that of George V? One, moreover, who commanded almost infinite knowledge to which we were denied the key? We might tremble before him and look upon him as half- divine, but should we not long to kill him and possess his knowledge and thereby prolong our own existence to his wondrous measure?
Such, said Yva, was the case with their slaves and the peoples from whence these sprang. They grew mad with jealous hate, till at length came the end we knew.
Thus we talked on for hours till the time came for us to eat. As before Yva partook of fruit and we of such meats as we had at hand. These, we noticed, disgusted her, because, as she explained, the Children of Wisdom, unless driven thereto by necessity, touched no flesh, but lived on the fruits of the earth and wine alone. Only the slaves and the Barbarians ate flesh. In these views Bickley for once agreed with her, that is, except as regards the wine, for in theory, if not in practice–he was a vegetarian.
“I will bring you more of the Life-water,” she said, “and then you will grow to hate these dead things, as I do. And now farewell. My father calls me. I hear him though you do not. To- morrow I cannot come, but the day after I will come and bring you the Life-water. Nay, accompany me not, but as I see he wishes it, let Tommy go with me. I will care for him, and he is a friend in all that lonely place.”
So she went, and with her Tommy, rejoicing.
“Ungrateful little devil!” said Bickley. “Here we’ve fed and petted him from puppyhood, or at least you have, and yet he skips off with the first stranger. I never saw him behave like that to any woman, except your poor wife.”
“I know,” I answered. “I cannot understand it. Hullo! here comes Bastin.”
Bastin it was, dishevelled and looking much the worse for wear, also minus his Bible in the native tongue.
“Well, how have you been getting on?” said Bickley.
“I should like some tea, also anything there is to eat.”
We supplied him with these necessaries, and after a while he said slowly and solemnly:
“I cannot help thinking of a childish story which Bickley told or invented one night at your house at home. I remember he had an argument with my wife, which he said put him in mind of it, I am sure I don’t know why. It was about a monkey and a parrot that were left together under a sofa for a long while, where they were so quiet that everybody forgot them. Then the parrot came out with only one feather left in its tail and none at all on its body, saying, ‘I’ve had no end of a time!’ after which it dropped down and died. Do you know, I feel just like that parrot, only I don’t mean to die, and I think I gave the monkey quite as good as he gave me!”
“What happened?” I asked, intensely interested.
“Oh! the Glittering Lady took me into that palace hall where Oro was sitting like a spider in a web, and left me there. I got to work at once. He was much interested in the Old Testament stories and said there were points of truth about them, although they had evidently come down to the modern writer–he called him a modern writer–in a legendary form. I thought his remarks impertinent and with difficulty refrained from saying so. Leaving the story of the Deluge and all that, I spoke of other matters, telling him of eternal life and Heaven and Hell, of which the poor benighted man had never heard. I pointed out especially that unless he repented, his life, by all accounts, had been so wicked, that he was certainly destined to the latter place.”
“What did he say to that?” I asked.
“Do you know, I think it frightened him, if one could imagine Oro being frightened. At any rate he remarked that the truth or falsity of what I said was an urgent matter for him, as he could not expect to live more than a few hundred years longer, though perhaps he might prolong the period by another spell of sleep. Then he asked me why I thought him so wicked. I replied because he himself said that he had drowned millions of people, which showed an evil heart and intention even if it were not a fact. He thought a long while and asked what could be done in the circumstances. I replied that repentance and reparation were the only courses open to him.”
“Yes, reparation was what I said, though I think I made a mistake there, as you will see. As nearly as I can remember, he answered that he was beginning to repent, as from all he had learned from us, he gathered that the races which had arisen as a consequence of his action, were worse than those which he had destroyed. As regards reparation, what he had done once he could do again. He would think the matter over seriously, and see if it were possible and advisable to raise those parts of the world which had been sunk, and sink those which had been raised. If so, he thought that would make very handsome amends to the departed nations and set him quite right with any superior Power, if such a thing existed. What are you laughing at, Bickley? I don’t think it a laughing matter, since such remarks do not seem to me to indicate any real change in Oro’s heart, which is what I was trying to effect.”
Bickley, who was convulsed with merriment, wiped his eyes and said:
“You dear old donkey, don’t you see what you have done, or rather would have done if there were a word of truth in all this ridiculous story about a deluge? You would be in the way of making your precious pupil, who certainly is the most masterly old liar in the world, repeat his offence and send Europe to the bottom of the sea.”
“That did occur to me, but it doesn’t much matter as I am quite certain that such a thing would never be allowed. Of course there was a real deluge once, but Oro had no more to do with it than I had. Don’t you agree, Arbuthnot?”
“I think so,” I answered cautiously, “but really in this place I am beginning to lose count of what is or is not possible. Also, of course, there may have been many deluges; indeed the history of the world shows that this was so; it is written in its geological strata. What was the end of it?”
“The end was that he took the South Sea Bible and, after I had explained a little about our letters, seemed to be able to read it at once. I suppose he was acquainted with the art of printing in his youth. At any rate he said that he would study it, I don’t know how, unless he can read, and that in two days’ time he would let me know what he thought about the matter of my religion. Then he told me to go. I said that I did not know the way and was afraid of losing myself. Thereupon he waved his hand, and I really can’t say what happened.”
“Did you levitate up here,” asked Bickley, “like the late lamented Mr. Home at the spiritualistic seances?”
“No, I did not exactly levitate, but something or someone seemed to get a hold of me, and I was just rushed along in a most tumultuous fashion. The next thing I knew was that I was standing at the door of that sepulchre, though I have no recollection of going up in the lift, or whatever it is. I believe those beastly caves are full of ghosts, or devils, and the worst of it is that they have kept my solar-tope, which I put on this morning forgetting that it would be useless there.”
“The Lady Yva’s Fourth Dimension in action,” I suggested, “only it wouldn’t work on solar-topes.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” said Bastin, “but if my hat had to be left, why not my boots and other garments? Please stop your nonsense and pass the tea. Thank goodness I haven’t got to go down there tomorrow, as he seems to have had enough of me for the present, so I vote we all pay a visit to the ship. It will be a very pleasant change. I couldn’t stand two days running with that old fiend, and his ghosts or devils in the cave.”
Next morning accordingly, fearing no harm from the Orofenans, we took the canoe and rowed to the main island. Marama had evidently seen us coming, for he and a number of his people met us with every demonstration of delight, and escorted us to the ship. Here we found things just as we had left them, for there had been no attempt at theft or other mischief.
While we were in the cabin a fit of moral weakness seemed to overcome Bickley, the first and I may add the last from which I ever saw him suffer.
“Do you know,” he said, addressing us, “I think that we should do well to try to get out of this place. Eliminating a great deal of the marvelous with which we seem to have come in touch here, it is still obvious that we find ourselves in very peculiar and unhealthy surroundings. I mean mentally unhealthy, indeed I think that if we stay here much longer we shall probably go off our heads. Now that boat on the deck remains sound and seaworthy. Why should not we provision her and take our chance? We know more or less which way to steer.”
Bastin and I looked at each other. It was he who spoke first.
“Wouldn’t it be rather a risky job in an open boat?” he asked. “However, that doesn’t matter much because I don’t take any account of risks, knowing that I am of more value than a sparrow and that the hairs of my head are all numbered.”
“They might be numbered under water as well as above it,” muttered Bickley, “and I feel sure that on your own showing, you would be as valuable dead as alive.”
“What I seem to feel,” went on Bastin, “is that I have work to my hand here. Also, the locum tenens at Fulcombe no doubt runs the parish as well as I could. Indeed I consider him a better man for the place than I am. That old Oro is a tough proposition, but I do not despair of him yet, and besides him there is the Glittering Lady, a most open-minded person, whom I have not yet had any real opportunity of approaching in a spiritual sense. Then there are all these natives who cannot learn without a teacher. So on the whole I think I would rather stay where I am until Providence points out some other path.”
“I am of the same opinion, if for somewhat different reasons,” I said. “I do not suppose that it has often been the fortune of men to come in touch with such things as we have found upon this island. They may be illusions, but at least they are very interesting illusions. One might live ten lifetimes and find nothing else of the sort. Therefore I should like to see the end of the dream.”
Bickley reflected a little, then said:
“On the whole I agree with you. Only my brain totters and I am terribly afraid of madness. I cannot believe what I seem to hear and see, and that way madness lies. It is better to die than to go mad.”
“You’ll do that anyway when your time comes, Bickley, I mean decease, of course,” interrupted Bastin. “And who knows, perhaps all this is an opportunity given by Providence to open your eyes, which, I must say, are singularly blind. You think you know everything there is to learn, but the fact is that like the rest of us, you know nothing at all, and good man though you are, obstinately refuse to admit the truth and to seek support elsewhere. For my part I believe that you are afraid of falling in love with that Glittering Lady and of being convinced by her that you are wrong in your most unsatisfactory conclusions.”
“I am out-voted anyway,” said Bickley, “and for the rest, Bastin, look after yourself and leave me alone. I will add that on the whole I think you are both right, and that it is wisest for us to stop where we are, for after all we can only die once.”
“I am not so sure, Bickley. There is a thing called the second death, which is what is troubling that old scoundrel, Oro. Now I will go and look for those books.”
So the idea of flight was abandoned, although I admit that even to myself it had attractions. For I felt that I was being wrapped in a net of mysteries from which I saw no escape. Yes, and of more than mysteries; I who had sworn that I would never look upon another woman, was learning to love this sweet and wondrous Yva, and of that what could be the end?
We collected all we had come to seek, and started homewards escorted by Marama and his people, including a number of young women who danced before us in a light array of flowers.
Passing our old house, we came to the grove where the idol Oro had stood and Bastin was so nearly sacrificed. There was another idol there now which he wished to examine, but in the end did not as the natives so obviously objected. Indeed Marama told me that notwithstanding the mysterious death of the sorcerers on the Rock of Offerings, there was still a strong party in the island who would be glad to do us a mischief if any further affront were offered to their hereditary god.
He questioned us also tentatively about the apparition, for such he conceived it to be, which had appeared upon the rock and killed the sorcerers, and I answered him as I thought wisest, telling him that a terrible Power was afoot in the land, which he would do well to obey.
“Yes,” he said; “the God of the Mountain of whom the tradition has come down to us from our forefathers. He is awake again; he sees, he hears and we are afraid. Plead with him for us, O Friend-from-the-Sea.”
As he spoke we were passing through a little patch of thick bush. Suddenly from out of this bush, I saw a lad appear. He wore a mask upon his face, but from his shape could not have been more than thirteen or fourteen years of age. In his hand was a wooden club. He ran forward, stopped, and with a yell of hate hurled it, I think at Bastin, but it hit me. At any rate I felt a shock and remembered no more.
Dreams. Dreams. Endless dreams! What were they all about? I do not know. It seemed to me that through them continually I saw the stately figure of old Oro contemplating me gravely, as though he were making up his mind about something in which I must play a part. Then there was another figure, that of the gracious but imperial Yva, who from time to time, as I thought, leant over me and whispered in my ear words of rest and comfort. Nor was this all, since her shape had a way of changing suddenly into that of my lost wife who would speak with her voice. Or perhaps my wife would speak with Yva’s voice. To my disordered sense it was as though they were one personality, having two shapes, either of which could be assumed at will. It was most strange and yet to me most blessed, since in the living I seemed to have found the dead, and in the dead the living. More, I took journeys, or rather some unknown part of me seemed to do so. One of these I remember, for its majestic character stamped itself upon my mind in such a fashion that all the waters of delirium could not wash it out nor all its winds blow away that memory.
I was travelling through space with Yva a thousand times faster than light can flash. We passed sun after sun. They drew near, they grew into enormous, flaming Glories round which circled world upon world. They became small, dwindled to points of light and disappeared.
We found footing upon some far land and passed a marvelous white city wherein were buildings with domes of crystal and alabaster, in the latter of which were set windows made of great jewels; sapphires or rubies they seemed to me. We went on up a lovely valley. To the left were hills, down which tumbled waterfalls; to the right was a river broad and deep that seemed to overflow its banks as does the Nile. Behind were high mountains on the slopes of which grew forests of glorious trees, some of them aflame with bloom, while far away up their crests stood colossal golden statues set wide apart. They looked like guardian angels watching that city and that vale. The land was lit with a light such as that of the moon, only intensified and of many colours. Indeed looking up, I saw that above us floated three moons, each of them bigger than our own at the full, and gathered that here it was night.
We came to a house set amid scented gardens and having in front of it terraces of flowers. It seemed not unlike my own house at home, but I took little note of it, because of a woman who sat upon the verandah, if I may call it so. She was clad in garments of white silk fastened about her middle with a jewelled girdle. On her neck also was a collar of jewels. I forget the colour; indeed this seemed to change continually as the light from the different moons struck when she moved, but I think its prevailing tinge was blue. In her arms this woman nursed a beauteous, sleeping child, singing happily as she rocked it to and fro. Yva went towards the woman who looked up at her step and uttered a little cry. Then for the first time I saw the woman’s face. It was that of my dead wife!
As I followed in my dream, a little cloud of mist seemed to cover both my wife and Yva, and when I reached the place Yva was gone. Only my wife remained, she and the child. There she stood, solemn and sweet. While I drew near she laid down the child upon the cushioned seat from which she had risen. She stretched out her arms and flung them about me. She embraced me and I embraced her in a rapture of reunion. Then turning she lifted up the child, it was a girl, for me to kiss.
“See your daughter,” she said, “and behold all that I am making ready for you where we shall dwell in a day to come.”
“Yva,” I said. “Where is Yva who brought me here? Did she go into the house?”
“Yes,” she answered happily. “Yva went into the house. Look again!”
I looked and it was Yva’s face that was pressed against my own, and Yva’s eyes that gazed into mine. Only she was garbed as my wife had been, and on her bosom hung the changeful necklace.
“You may not stay,” she whispered, and lo! it was my wife that spoke, not Yva.
“Tell me what it means?” I implored.
“I cannot,” she answered. “There are mysteries that you may not know as yet. Love Yva if you will and I shall not be jealous, for in loving Yva you love me. You cannot understand? Then know this, that the spirit has many shapes, and yet is the same spirit– sometimes. Now I who am far, yet near, bid you farewell a while.”
Then all passed in a flash and the dream ended.
Such was the only one of those visions which I can recall.
I seemed to wake up as from a long and tumultuous sleep. The first thing I saw was the palm roof of our house upon the rock. I knew it was our house, for just above me was a palm leaf of which I had myself tied the stalk to the framework with a bit of coloured ribbon i had I had chanced to find in my pocket. It came originally from the programme card of a dance that I had attended at Honolulu and I had kept it because I thought it might be useful. Finally I used it to secure that loose leaf. I stared at the ribbon which brought back a flood of memories, and as I was thus engaged I heard voices talking, and listened–Bickley’s voice, and the Lady Yva’s.
“Yes,” Bickley was saying, “he will do well now, but he went near, very near.”
“I knew he would not die,” she answered, “because my father said so.”
“There are two sorts of deaths,” replied Bickley, “that of the body and that of the mind. I was afraid that even if he lived, his reason would go, but from certain indications I do not think that will happen now. He will get quite well again–though–” and he stopped.
“I am very glad to hear you say so,” chimed in Bastin. “For weeks I thought that I should have to read the Burial Service over poor Arbuthnot. Indeed I was much puzzled as to the best place to bury him. Finally I found a very suitable spot round the corner there, where it isn’t rock, in which one can’t dig and the soil is not liable to be flooded. In fact I went so far as to clear away the bush and to mark out the grave with its foot to the east. In this climate one can’t delay, you know.”
Weak as I was, I smiled. This practical proceeding was so exactly like Bastin.
“Well, you wasted your labour,” exclaimed Bickley.
“Yes, I am glad to say I did. But I don’t think it was your operations and the rest that cured him, Bickley, although you take all the credit. I believe it was the Life-water that the Lady Yva made him drink and the stuff that Oro sent which we gave him when you weren’t looking.”
“Then I hope that in the future you will not interfere with my cases,” said the indignant Bickley, and either the voices passed away or I went to sleep.
When I woke up again it was to find the Lady Yva seated at my side watching me.
“Forgive me, Humphrey, because I here; others gone out walking,” she said slowly in English.
“Who taught you my language?” I asked, astonished. “Bastin and Bickley, while you ill, they teach; they teach me much. Man just same now as he was hundred thousand years ago,” she added enigmatically. “All think one woman beautiful when no other woman there.”
“Indeed,” I replied, wondering to what proceedings on the part of Bastin and Bickley she alluded. Could that self-centred pair– oh! it was impossible.
“How long have I been ill?” I asked to escape the subject which I felt to be uncomfortable.
She lifted her beautiful eyes in search of words and began to count upon her fingers.
“Two moon, one half moon, yes, ten week, counting Sabbath,” she answered triumphantly.
“Yes, Humphrey, ten whole weeks and three days you first bad, then mad. Oh!” she went on, breaking into the Orofenan tongue which she spoke so perfectly, although it was not her own. That language of hers I never learned, but I know she thought in it and only translated into Orofenan, because of the great difficulty which she had in rendering her high and refined ideas into its simpler metaphor, and the strange words which often she introduced. “Oh! you have been very ill, friend of my heart. At times I thought that you were going to die, and wept and wept. Bickley thinks that he saved you and he is very clever. But he could not have saved you; that wanted more knowledge than any of your people have; only I pray you, do not tell him so because it would hurt his pride.”
“What was the matter with me then, Yva?”
“All was the matter. First, the weapon which that youth threw– he was the son of the sorcerer whom my father destroyed–crushed in the bone of your head. He is dead for his crime and may he be accursed for ever,” she added in the only outbreak of rage and vindictiveness in which I ever saw her indulge.
“One must make excuses for him; his father had been killed,” I said.
“Yes, that is what Bastin tells me, and it is true. Still, for that young man I can make no excuse; it was cowardly and wicked. Well, Bickley performed what he calls operation, and the Lord Oro, he came up from his house and helped him, because Bastin is no good in such things. Then he can only turn away his head and pray. I, too, helped, holding hot water and linen and jar of the stuff that made you feel like nothing, although the sight made me feel more sick than anything since I saw one I loved killed, oh, long, long ago.”
“Was the operation successful?” I asked, for I did not dare to begin to thank her.
“Yes, that clever man, Bickley, lifted the bone which had been crushed in. Only then something broke in your head and you began to bleed here,” and she touched what I believe is called the temporal artery. “The vein had been crushed by the blow, and gave way. Bickley worked and worked, and just in time he tied it up before you died. Oh! then I felt as though I loved Bickley, though afterwards Bastin said that I ought to have loved him, since it was not Bickley who stopped the bleeding, but his prayer.”
“Perhaps it was both,” I suggested.
“Perhaps, Humphrey, at least you were saved. Then came another trouble. You took fever. Bickley said that it was because a certain gnat had bitten you when you went down to the ship, and my father, the Lord Oro, told me that this was right. At the least you grew very weak and lost your mind, and it seemed as though you must die. Then, Humphrey, I went to the Lord Oro and kneeled before him and prayed you life, for I knew that he could cure you if he would, though Bickley’s skill was at an end.
“‘Daughter,’ he said to me, ‘not once but again and again you have set up your will against mine in the past. Why then should I trouble myself to grant this desire of yours in the present, and save a man who is nothing to me?’
“I rose to my feet and answered, ‘I do not know, my Father, yet I am certain that for your own sake it will be well to do so. I am sure that of everything even you must give an account at last, great though you be, and who knows, perhaps one life which you have saved may turn the balance in your favour.’
“‘Surely the priest Bastin has been talking to you,’ he said.
“‘He has,’ I answered, ‘and not he alone. Many voices have been talking to me.'”
“What did you mean by that?” I asked.
“It matters nothing what I meant, Humphrey. Be still and listen to my story. My father thought a while and answered:
“‘I am jealous of this stranger. What is he but a short-lived half-barbarian such as we knew in the old days? And yet already you think more of him than you do of me, your father, the divine Oro who has lived a thousand years. At first I helped that physician to save him, but now I think I wish him dead.’
“‘If you let this man die, my Father,’ I answered, ‘then we part. Remember that I also have of the wisdom of our people, and can use it if I will.’
“‘Then save him yourself,’ he said.
“‘Perhaps I shall, my Father,’ I answered, ‘but if so it will not be here. I say that if so we part and you shall be left to rule in your majesty alone.’
“Now this frightened the Lord Oro, for he has the weakness that he hates to be alone.
“‘If I do what you will, do you swear never to leave me, Yva?’ he asked. ‘Know that if you will not swear, the man dies.’
“‘I swear,’ I answered–for your sake, Humphrey–though I did not love the oath.
“Then he gave me a certain medicine to mix with the Life-water, and when you were almost gone that medicine cured you, though Bickley does not know it, as nothing else could have done. Now I have told you the truth, for your own ear only, Humphrey.”
“Yva,” I asked, “why did you do all this for me?”
“Humphrey, I do not know,” she answered, “but I think because I must. Now sleep a while.”
The Proposals of Bastin and Bickley
So far as my body was concerned I grew well with great rapidity, though it was long before I got back my strength. Thus I could not walk far or endure any sustained exertion. With my mind it was otherwise. I can not explain what had happened to it; indeed I do not know, but in a sense it seemed to have become detached and to have assumed a kind of personality of its own. At times it felt as though it were no longer an inhabitant of the body, but rather its more or less independent partner. I was perfectly clear-headed and of insanity I experienced no symptoms. Yet my mind, I use that term from lack of a better, was not entirely under my control. For one thing, at night it appeared to wander far away, though whither it went and what it saw there I could never remember.
I record this because possibly it explains certain mysterious events, if they were events and not dreams, which shortly I must set out. I spoke to Bickley about the matter. He put it by lightly, saying that it was only a result of my long and most severe illness and that I should steady down in time, especially if we could escape from that island and its unnatural atmosphere. Yet as he spoke he glanced at me shrewdly with his quick eyes, and when he turned to go away I heard him mutter something to himself about “unholy influences” and “that confounded old Oro.”
The words were spoken to himself and quite beneath his breath, and of course not meant to reach me. But one of the curious concomitants of my state was that all my senses, and especially my hearing, had become most abnormally acute. A whisper far away was now to me like a loud remark made in a room.
Bickley’s reflection, for I can scarcely call it more, set me thinking. Yva had said that Oro sent me medicine which was administered to me without Bickley’s knowledge, and as she believed, saved my life, or certainly my reason. What was in it? I wondered. Then there was that Life-water which Yva brought and insisted upon my drinking every day. Undoubtedly it was a marvelous tonic and did me good. But it had other effects also. Thus, as she said would be the case, after a course of it I conceived the greatest dislike, which I may add has never entirely left me, of any form of meat, also of alcohol. All I seemed to want was this water with fruit, or such native vegetables as there were. Bickley disapproved and made me eat fish occasionally, but even this revolted me, and since I gained steadily in weight, as we found out by a simple contrivance, and remained healthy in every other way, soon he allowed me to choose my own diet.
About this time Oro began to pay me frequent visits. He always came at night, and what is more I knew when he was coming, although he never gave me warning. Here I should explain that during my illness Bastin, who was so ingenious in such matters, had built another hut in which he and Bickley slept, of course when they were not watching me, leaving our old bed-chamber to myself.
Well, I would wake up and be aware that Oro was coming. Then he appeared in a silent and mysterious way, as though he had materialised in the room, for I never saw him pass the doorway. In the moonlight, or the starlight, which flowed through the entrance and the side of the hut that was only enclosed with latticework, I perceived him seat himself upon a certain stool, looking like a most majestic ghost with his flowing robes, long white beard, hooked nose and hawk eyes. In the day-time he much resembled the late General Booth whom I had often seen, except for certain added qualities of height and classic beauty of countenance. At night, however, he resembled no one but himself, indeed there was something mighty and godlike in his appearance, something that made one feel that he was not as are other men.
For a while he would sit and look at me. Then he began to speak in a low, vibrant voice. What did he speak of? Well, many matters. It was as though he were unburdening that hoary soul of his because it could no longer endure the grandeur of its own loneliness. Amongst sundry secret things, he told me of the past history of this world of ours, and of the mighty civilisations which for uncounted ages he and his forefathers had ruled by the strength of their will and knowledge, of the dwindling of their race and of the final destruction of its enemies, although I noticed that now he no longer said that this was his work alone. One night I asked him if he did not miss all such pomp and power.
Then suddenly he broke out, and for the first time I really learned what ambition can be when it utterly possesses the soul of man.
“Are you mad,” he asked, “that you suppose that I, Oro, the King of kings, can be content to dwell solitary in a great cave with none but the shadows of the dead to serve me? Nay, I must rule again and be even greater than before, or else I too will die. Better to face the future, even if it means oblivion, than to remain thus a relic of a glorious past, still living and yet dead, like that statue of the great god Fate which you saw in the temple of my worship.”
“Bastin does not think that the future means oblivion,” I remarked.
“I know it. I have studied his faith and find it too humble for my taste, also too new. Shall I, Oro, creep a suppliant before any Power, and confess what Bastin is pleased to call my sins? Nay, I who am great will be the equal of all greatness, or nothing.”
He paused a while, then went on:
“Bastin speaks of ‘eternity.’ Where and what then is this eternity which if it has no end can have had no beginning? I know the secret of the suns and their attendant worlds, and they are no more eternal than the insect which glitters for an hour. Out of shapeless, rushing gases they gathered to live their day, and into gases at last they dissolve again with all they bore.”
“Yes,” I answered, “but they reform into new worlds.”
“That have no part with the old. This world, too, will melt, departing to whence it came, as your sacred writings say, and what then of those who dwelt and dwell thereon? No, Man of today, give me Time in which I rule and keep your dreams of an Eternity that is not, and in which you must still crawl and serve, even if it were. Yet, if I might, I confess it, I would live on for ever, but as Master not as Slave.”
On another night he began to tempt me, very subtly. “I see a spark of greatness in you, Humphrey,” he said, “and it comes into my heart that you, too, might learn to rule. With Yva, the last of my blood, it is otherwise. She is the child of my age and of a race outworn; too gentle, too much all womanly. The soul that triumphs must shine like steel in the sun, and cut if need be; not merely be beauteous and shed perfume like a lily in the shade. Yet she is very wise and fair,” here he looked at me, “perchance of her might come children such as were their forefathers, who again would wield the sceptre of the dominion of the earth.”
I made no answer, wondering what he meant exactly and thinking it wisest to be silent.
“You are of the short-lived races,” he went on, “yet very much a man, not without intelligence, and by the arts I have I can so strengthen your frame that it will endure the shocks of time for three such lives as yours, or perchance for more, and then–”
“The Daughter of kings likes you also, perhaps because you resemble–” here he fixed me with his piercing eyes, “a certain kinglet of base blood whom once she also liked, but whom it was my duty to destroy. Well, I must think. I must study this world of yours also and therein you may help me. Perhaps afterwards I will tell you how. Now sleep.”
In another moment he was gone, but notwithstanding his powerful command, for a while I could not sleep. I understood that he was offering Yva to me, but upon what terms? That was the question. With her was to go great dominion over the kingdoms of the earth. I could not help remembering that always this has been and still is Satan’s favourite bait. To me it did not particularly appeal. I had been ambitious in my time–who is not that is worth his salt? I could have wished to excel in something, literature or art, or whatever it might be, and thus to ensure the memory of my name in the world.
Of course this is a most futile desire, seeing that soon or late every name must fade out of the world like an unfixed photograph which is exposed to the sun. Even if it could endure, as the old demigod, or demidevil, Oro, had pointed out, very shortly, by comparison with Time’s unmeasured vastness, the whole solar system will also fade. So of what use is this feeble love of fame and this vain attempt to be remembered that animates us so strongly? Moreover, the idea of enjoying mere temporal as opposed to intellectual power, appealed to me not at all. I am a student of history and I know what has been the lot of kings and the evil that, often enough, they work in their little day.
Also if I needed any further example, there was that of Oro himself. He had outlived the greatness of his House, as a royal family is called, and after some gigantic murder, if his own story was to be believed, indulged in a prolonged sleep. Now he awoke to find himself quite alone in the world, save for a daughter with whom he did not agree or sympathise. In short, he was but a kind of animated mummy inspired by one idea which I felt quite sure would be disappointed, namely, to renew his former greatness. To me he seemed as miserable a figure as one could imagine, brooding and plotting in his illuminated cave, at the end of an extended but misspent life.
Also I wondered what he, or rather his ego, had been doing during all those two hundred and fifty thousand years of sleep. Possibly if Yva’s theory, as I understood it, were correct, he had reincarnated as Attila, or Tamerlane, or Napoleon, or even as Chaka the terrible Zulu king. At any rate there he was still in the world, filled with the dread of death, but consumed now as ever by his insatiable and most useless finite ambitions.
Yva, also! Her case was his, but yet how different. In all this long night of Time she had but ripened into one of the sweetest and most gentle women that ever the world bore. She, too, was great in her way, it appeared in her every word and gesture, but where was the ferocity of her father? Where his desire to reach to splendour by treading on a blood-stained road paved with broken human hearts? It did not exist. Her nature was different although her body came of a long line of these power-loving kings. Why this profound difference of the spirit? Like everything else it was a mystery. The two were as far apart as the Poles. Everyone must have hated Oro, from the beginning, however much he feared him, but everyone who came in touch with her must have loved Yva.
Here I may break into my personal narrative to say that this, by their own confession, proved to be true of two such various persons as Bastin and Bickley.
“The truth, which I am sure it would be wrong to hide from you, Arbuthnot,” said the former to me one day, “is that during your long illness I fell in love, I suppose that is the right word, with the Glittering Lady. After thinking the matter over also, I conceived that it would be proper to tell her so if only to clear the air and prevent future misunderstandings. As I remarked to her on that occasion, I had hesitated long, as I was not certain how she would fill the place of the wife of the incumbent of an English parish.”
“Mothers’ Meetings, and the rest,” I suggested.
“Exactly so, Arbuthnot. Also there were the views of the Bishop to be considered, who might have objected to the introduction into the diocese of a striking person who so recently had been a heathen, and to one in such strong contrast to my late beloved wife.”
“I suppose you didn’t consider the late Mrs. Bastin’s views on the subject of re-marriage. I remember that they were strong,” I remarked rather maliciously.
“No, I did not think it necessary, since the Scriptural instructions on the matter are very clear, and in another world no doubt all jealousies, even Sarah’s, will be obliterated. Upon that point my conscience was quite easy. So when I found that, unlike her parent, the Lady Yva was much inclined to accept the principles of the faith in which it is my privilege to instruct her, I thought it proper to say to her that if ultimately she made up her mind to do so–of course this was a sine qua non–I should be much honoured, and as a man, not as a priest, it would make me most happy if she would take me as a husband. Of course I explained to her that I considered, under the circumstances, I could quite lawfully perform the marriage ceremony myself with you and Bickley as witnesses, even should Oro refuse to give her away. Also I told her that although after her varied experiences in the past, life at Fulcombe, if we could ever get there, might be a little monotonous, still it would not be entirely devoid of interest.”
“You mean Christmas decorations and that sort of thing?”
“Yes, and choir treats and entertaining Deputations and attending other Church activities.”
“Well, and what did she say, Bastin?”
“Oh! she was most kind and flattering. Indeed that hour will always remain the pleasantest of my life. I don’t know how it happened, but when it was over I felt quite delighted that she had refused me. Indeed on second thoughts, I am not certain but that I shall be much happier in the capacities of a brother and teacher which she asked me to fill, than I should have been as her husband. To tell you the truth, Arbuthnot, there are moments when I am not sure whether I entirely understand the Lady Yva. It was rather like proposing to one’s guardian angel.”
“Yes,” I said, “that’s about it, old fellow. ‘Guardian Angel’ is not a bad name for her.”
Afterwards I received the confidence of Bickley.
“Look here, Arbuthnot,” he said. “I want to own up to something. I think I ought to, because of certain things I have observed, in order to prevent possible future misunderstandings.”
“What’s that?” I asked innocently.
“Only this. As you know, I have always been a confirmed bachelor on principle. Women introduce too many complications into life, and although it involves some sacrifice, on the whole, I have thought it best to do without them and leave the carrying on of the world to others.”
“Well, what of it? Your views are not singular, Bickley.”
“Only this. While you were ill the sweetness of that Lady Yva and her wonderful qualities as a nurse overcame me. I went to pieces all of a sudden. I saw in her a realisation of every ideal I had ever entertained of perfect womanhood. So to speak, my resolves of a lifetime melted like wax in the sun. Notwithstanding her queer history and the marvels with which she is mixed up, I wished to marry her. No doubt her physical loveliness was at the bottom of it, but, however that may be, there it was.”
“She is beautiful,” I commented; “though I daresay older than she looks.”
“That is a point on which I made no inquiries, and I should advise you, when your turn comes, as no doubt it will, to follow my example. You know, Arbuthnot,” he mused, “however lovely a woman may be, it would put one off if suddenly she announced that she was–let us say–a hundred and fifty years old.”
“Yes,” I admitted, “for nobody wants to marry the contemporary of his great-grandmother. However, she gave her age as twenty- seven years and three moons.”
“And doubtless for once did not tell the truth. But, as she does not look more than twenty-five, I think that we may all agree to let it stand at that, namely, twenty-seven, plus an indefinite period of sleep. At any rate, she is a sweet and most gracious woman, apparently in the bloom of youth, and, to cut it short, I fell in love with her.”
“Bastin!” exclaimed Bickley indignantly. “You don’t mean to say that clerical oaf presumed–well, well, after all, I suppose that he is a man, so one mustn’t be hard on him. But who could have thought that he would run so cunning, even when he knew my sentiments towards the lady? I hope she told him her mind.”
“The point is, what did she tell you, Bickley?”
“Me? Oh, she was perfectly charming! It really was a pleasure to be refused by her, she puts one so thoroughly at one’s ease.” (Here, remembering Bastin and his story, I turned away my face to hide a smile.) “She said–what did she say exactly? Such a lot that it is difficult to remember. Oh! that she was not thinking of marriage. Also, that she had not yet recovered from some recent love affair which left her heart sore, since the time of her sleep did not count. Also, that her father would never consent, and that the mere idea of such a thing would excite his animosity against all of us.”
“Not quite. She added that she felt wonderfully flattered and extremely honoured by what I had been so good as to say to her. She hoped, however, that I should never repeat it or even allude to the matter again, as her dearest wish was to be able to look upon me as her most intimate friend to whom she could always come for sympathy and counsel.”
“Nothing, of course, except that I promised everything that she wished, and mean to stick to it, too. Naturally, I was very sore and upset, but I am getting over it, having always practised self-control.”
“I am sorry for you, old fellow.”
“Are you?” he asked suspiciously. “Then perhaps you have tried your luck, too?”
His face fell a little at this denial, and he answered:
“Well, it would have been scarcely decent if you had, seeing how lately you were married. But then, so was that artful Bastin. Perhaps you will get over it–recent marriage, I mean–as he has.” He hesitated a while, then went on: “Of course you will, old fellow; I know it, and, what is more, I seem to know that when your turn comes you will get a different answer. If so, it will keep her in the family as it were–and good luck to you. Only–”
“Only what?” I asked anxiously.
“To be honest, Arbuthnot, I don’t think that there will be real good luck for any one of us over this woman–not in the ordinary sense, I mean. The whole business is too strange and superhuman. Is she quite a woman, and could she really marry a man as others do?”
“It is curious that you should talk like that,” I said uneasily. “I thought that you had made up your mind that the whole business was either illusion or trickery–I mean, the odd side of it.”
“If it is illusion, Arbuthnot, then a man cannot marry an illusion. And if it is trickery, then he will certainly be tricked. But, supposing that I am wrong, what then?”
“You mean, supposing things are as they seem to be?”
“Yes. In that event, Arbuthnot, I am sure that something will occur to prevent your being united to a woman who lived thousands of years ago. I am sorry to say it, but Fate will intervene. Remember, it is the god of her people that I suppose she worships, and, I may add, to which the whole world bows.”
At his words a kind of chill fell upon me. I think he saw or divined it, for after a few remarks upon some indifferent matter, he turned and went away.
Shortly after this Yva came to sit with me. She studied me for a while and I studied her. I had reason to do so, for I observed that of late her dress had become much more modern, and on the present occasion this struck me forcibly. I do not know exactly in what the change, or changes, consisted, because I am not skilled in such matters and can only judge of a woman’s garments by their general effect. At any rate, the gorgeous sweeping robes were gone, and though her attire still looked foreign and somewhat oriental, with a touch of barbaric splendour about it– it was simpler than it had been and showed more of her figure, which was delicate, yet gracious.
“You have changed your robes, Lady,” I said. “Yes, Humphrey. Bastin gave me pictures of those your women wear.” (On further investigation I found that this referred to an old copy of the Queen newspaper, which, somehow or other, had been brought with the books from the ship.) “I have tried to copy them a little,” she added doubtfully.
“How do you do it? Where do you get the material?” I asked.
“Oh!” she answered with an airy wave of her hand, “I make it– it is there.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, but she only smiled radiantly, offering no further explanation. Then, before I could pursue the subject, she asked me suddenly:
“What has Bickley been saying to you about me?” I fenced, answering: “I don’t know. Bastin and Bickley talk of little else. You seem to have been a great deal with them while I was ill.”
“Yes, a great deal. They are the nearest to you who were so sick. Is it not so?”
“I don’t know,” I answered again. “In my illness it seemed to me that you were the nearest.”
“About Bastin’s words I can guess,” she went on. “But I ask again–what has Bickley been saying to you about me? Of the first part, let it be; tell me the rest.”
I intended to evade her question, but she fixed those violet, compelling eyes upon me and I was obliged to answer.
“I believe you know as well as I do,” I said; “but if you will have it, it was that you are not as other human women are, and that he who would treat you as such, must suffer; that was the gist of it.”
“Some might be content to suffer for such as I,” she answered with quiet sweetness. “Even Bastin and Bickley may be content to suffer in their own little ways.”
“You know that is not what I meant,” I interrupted angrily, for I felt that she was throwing reflections on me.
“No; you meant that you agreed with Bickley that I am not quite a woman, as you know women.”
I was silent, for her words were true.
Then she blazed out into one of her flashes of splendour, like something that takes fire on an instant; like the faint and distant star which flames into sudden glory before the watcher’s telescope.
“It is true that I am not as your women are–your poor, pale women, the shadows of an hour with night behind them and before. Because I am humble and patient, do you therefore suppose that I am not great? Man from the little country across the sea, I lived when the world was young, and gathered up the ancient wisdom of a greater race than yours, and when the world is old I think that I still shall live, though not in this shape or here, with all that wisdom’s essence burning in my breast, and with all beauty in my eyes. Bickley does not believe although he worships. You only half believe and do not worship, because memory holds you back, and I myself do not understand. I only know though knowing so much, still I seek roads to learning, even the humble road called Bastin, that yet may lead my feet to the gate of an immortal city.”
“Nor do I understand how all this can be, Yva,” I said feebly, for she dazzled and overwhelmed me with her blaze of power.
“No, you do not understand. How can you, when even I cannot? Thus for two hundred and fifty thousand years I slept, and they went by as a lightning flash. One moment my father gave me the draught and I laid me down, the next I awoke with you bending over me, or so it seemed. Yet where was I through all those centuries when for me time had ceased? Tell me, Humphrey, did you dream at all while you were ill? I ask because down in that lonely cavern where I sleep a strange dream came to me one night. It was of a journey which, as I thought, you and I seemed to make together, past suns and universes to a very distant earth. It meant nothing, Humphrey. If you and I chanced to have dreamed the same thing, it was only because my dream travelled to you. It is most common, or used to be. Humphrey, Bickley is quite right, I am not altogether as your women are, and I can bring no happiness to any man, or at the least, to one who cannot wait. Therefore, perhaps you would do well to think less of me, as I have counselled Bastin and Bickley.”
Then again she gazed at me with her wonderful, great eyes, and, shaking her glittering head a little, smiled and went.
But oh! that smile drew my heart after her.
Oro and Arbuthnot Travel by Night
As time went on, Oro began to visit me more and more frequently, till at last scarcely a night went by that he did not appear mysteriously in my sleeping-place. The odd thing was that neither Bickley nor Bastin seemed to be aware of these nocturnal calls. Indeed, when I mentioned them on one or two occasions, they stared at me and said it was strange that he should have come and gone as they saw nothing of him.
On my speaking again of the matter, Bickley at once turned the conversation, from which I gathered that he believed me to be suffering from delusions consequent on my illness, or perhaps to have taken to dreaming. This was not wonderful since, as I learned afterwards, Bickley, after he was sure that I was asleep, made a practice of tying a thread across my doorway and of ascertaining at the dawn that it remained unbroken. But Oro was not to be caught in that way. I suppose, as it was impossible for him to pass through the latticework of the open side of the house, that he undid the thread and fastened it again when he left; at least, that was Bastin’s explanation, or, rather, one of them. Another was that he crawled beneath it, but this I could not believe. I am quite certain that during all his prolonged existence Oro never crawled.
At any rate, he came, or seemed to come, and pumped me–I can use no other word–most energetically as to existing conditions in the world, especially those of the civilised countries, their methods of government, their social state, the physical characteristics of the various races, their religions, the exact degrees of civilisation that they had developed, their attainments in art, science and literature, their martial capacities, their laws, and I know not what besides.
I told him all I could, but did not in the least seem to satisfy his perennial thirst for information.
“I should prefer to judge for myself,” he said at last. “Why are you so anxious to learn about all these nations, Oro?” I asked, exhausted.
“Because the knowledge I gather may affect my plans for the future,” he replied darkly.
“I am told, Oro, that your people acquired the power of transporting themselves from place to place.”
“It is true that the lords of the Sons of Wisdom had such power, and that I have it still, O Humphrey.”
“Then why do you not go to look with your own eyes?” I suggested.
“Because I should need a guide; one who could explain much in a short time,” he said, contemplating me with his burning glance until I began to feel uncomfortable.
To change the subject I asked him whether he had any further information about the war, which he had told me was raging in Europe.
He answered: “Not much; only that it was going on with varying success, and would continue to do so until the nations involved therein were exhausted,” or so he believed. The war did not seem greatly to interest Oro. It was, he remarked, but a small affair compared to those which he had known in the old days. Then he departed, and I went to sleep.
Next night he appeared again, and, after talking a little on different subjects, remarked quietly that he had been thinking over what I had said as to his visiting the modern world, and intended to act upon the suggestion.
“Now,” he said. “I am going to visit this England of yours and the town you call London, and you will accompany me.”
“It is not possible!” I exclaimed. “We have no ship.”
“We can travel without a ship,” said Oro.
I grew alarmed, and suggested that Bastin or Bickley would be a much better companion than I should in my resent weak state.
“An empty-headed man, or one who always doubts and argues, would be useless,” he replied sharply. “You shall come and you only.”
I expostulated; I tried to get up and fly–which, indeed, I did do, in another sense.
But Oro fixed his eyes upon me and slowly waved his thin hand to and fro above my head.
My senses reeled. Then came a great darkness.
They returned again. Now I was standing in an icy, reeking fog, which I knew could belong to one place only–London, in December, and at my side was Oro.
“Is this the climate of your wonderful city?” he asked, or seemed to ask, in an aggrieved tone.
I replied that it was, for about three months in the year, and began to look about me.
Soon I found my bearings. In front of me were great piles of buildings, looking dim and mysterious in the fog, in which I recognised the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey, for both could be seen from where we stood in front of the Westminster Bridge Station. I explained their identity to Oro.
“Good,” he said. “Let us enter your Place of Talk.”
“But I am not a member, and we have no passes for the Strangers’ Gallery,” I expostulated.
“We shall not need any,” he replied contemptuously. “Lead on.”
Thus adjured, I crossed the road, Oro following me. Looking round, to my horror I saw him right in the path of a motor-bus which seemed to go over him.
“There’s an end to Oro,” thought I to myself. “Well, at any rate, I have got home.”
Next instant he was at my side quite undisturbed by the incident of the bus. We came to a policeman at the door and I hesitated, expecting to be challenged. But the policeman seemed absolutely indifferent to our presence, even when Oro marched past him in his flowing robes. So I followed with a like success. Then I understood that we must be invisible.
We passed to the lobby, where members were hurrying to and fro, and constituents and pressmen were gathered, and so on into the House. Oro walked up its floor and took his stand by the table, in front of the Speaker. I followed him, none saying us No.
As it chanced there was what is called a scene in progress–I think it was over Irish matters; the details are of no account. Members shouted, Ministers prevaricated and grew angry, the Speaker intervened. On the whole, it was rather a degrading spectacle. I stood, or seemed to stand, and watched it all. Oro, in his sweeping robes, which looked so incongruous in that place, stepped, or seemed to step, up to the principal personages of the Government and Opposition, whom I indicated to him, and inspected them one by one, as a naturalist might examine strange insects. Then, returning to me, he said:
“Come away; I have seen and heard enough. Who would have thought that this nation of yours was struggling for its life in war?”
We passed out of the House and somehow came to Trafalgar Square. A meeting was in progress there, convened, apparently, to advocate the rights of Labour, also those of women, also to protest against things in general, especially the threat of Conscription in the service of the country.
Here the noise was tremendous, and, the fog having lifted somewhat, we could see everything. Speakers bawled from the base of Nelson’s column. Their supporters cheered, their adversaries rushed at them, and in one or two instances succeeded in pulling them down. A woman climbed up and began to scream out something which could only be heard by a few reporters gathered round her. I thought her an unpleasant-looking person, and evidently her remarks were not palatable to the majority of her auditors. There was a rush, and she was dragged from the base of one of Landseer’s lions on which she stood. Her skirt was half rent off her and her bodice split down the back. Finally, she was conveyed away, kicking, biting, and scratching, by a number of police. It was a disgusting sight, and tumult ensued.
“Let us go,” said Oro. “Your officers of order are good; the rest is not good.”
Later we found ourselves opposite to the doors of a famous restaurant where a magnificent and gigantic commissionaire helped ladies from motor-cars, receiving in return money from the men who attended on them. We entered; it was the hour of dinner. The place sparkled with gems, and the naked backs of the women gleamed in the electric light. Course followed upon course; champagne flowed, a fine band played, everything was costly; everything was, in a sense, repellent.