thought that he glanced out of the corners of them towards the chapel where we were hid. But this I think was fancy. For as Yva said, his thoughts were set elsewhere.
He reached the statue of Fate and stood for a while contemplating it and the suppliant figures on either side, as though he were waiting for his invisible court to arrange itself. Then he doffed his jewelled cap to the effigy, and knelt before it. Yes, Oro the Ancient, the Super-man, the God, as the early peoples of the earth fancied such a being, namely, one full of wrath, revenge, jealousy, caprice and power, knelt in supplication to this image of stone which he believed to be the home of a spirit, thereby showing himself to be after all not so far removed from the savages whose idol Bastin had destroyed. More, in a clear and resonant voice which reached us even across that great space, he put up his prayer. It ran something as follows, for although I did not understand the language in which he spoke Yva translated it to me in a whisper:
“God of the Sons of Wisdom, God of the whole earth, only God to whom must bow every other Power and Dominion, to thee I, Oro the Great King, make prayer and offer sacrifice. Twenty times ten thousand years and more have gone by since I, Oro, visited this, thy temple and knelt before this, thy living effigy, yet thou, ruler of the world, dost remember the prayer I made and the sacrifice I offered. The prayer was for triumph over my enemies and the sacrifice a promise of the lives of half of those who in that day dwelt upon the earth. Thou heardest the prayer, thou didst bow thy head and accept the sacrifice. Yea, the prayer was granted and the sacrifice was made, and in it were counted the number of my foes.
“Then I slept. Through countless generations I slept on and at my side was the one child of my body that was left to me. What chanced to my spirit and to hers during that sleep, thou knowest alone, but doubtless they went forth to work thy ends.
“At the appointed time which thou didst decree, I awoke again and found in my house strangers from another land. In the company of one of those whose spirit I drew forth, I visited the peoples of the new earth, and found them even baser and more evil than those whom I had known. Therefore, since they cannot be bettered. I purpose to destroy them also, and on their wreck to rebuild a glorious empire, such as was that of the Sons of Wisdom at its prime.
“A sign! O Fate, ruler of the world, give me a sign that my desire shall be fulfilled.”
He paused, stretching out his arms and staring upwards. While he waited I felt the solid rock on which I stood quiver and sway beneath my feet so that Yva and I clung to each other lest we should fall. This chanced also. The shock of the earth tremor, for such without doubt it was, threw down the figures of the ancient man and the lovely woman which knelt as though making prayers to Fate, and shook the marble sword from off its knees. As it fell Oro caught it by the hilt, and, rising, waved it in triumph.
“I thank thee, God of my people from the beginning,” he cried. “Thou hast given to me, thy last servant, thine own sword and I will use it well. For these worshippers of thine who have fallen, thou shalt have others, yes, all those who dwell in the new world that is to be. My daughter and the man whom she has chosen to be the father of the kings of the earth, and with him his companions, shall be the first of the hundreds of millions that are to follow, for they shall kiss thy feet or perish. Thou shalt set thy foot upon the necks of all other gods; thou shalt rule and thou alone, and, as of old, Oro be thy minister.”
Still holding the sword, he flung himself down as though in an ecstasy, and was silent.
“I read the omen otherwise,” whispered Yva. “The worshippers of Fate are overthrown. His sword of power is fallen, but not into the hands that clasped it, and he totters on his throne. A greater God asserts dominion of the world and this Fate is but his instrument.”
“One prayer more,” he cried. “Give me life, long life, that I may execute thy decrees. By word or gesture show me a sign that I shall be satisfied with life, a year for every year that I have lived, or twain!”
He waited, staring about him, but no token came; the idol did not speak or bow its head, as Yva had told me it was wont to do in sign of accepted prayer, how, she knew not. Only I thought I heard the echo of Oro’s cries run in a whisper of mockery round the soaring dome.
Once more Oro flung himself upon his knees and began to pray in a veritable agony.
“God of my forefathers, God of my lost people, I will hide naught from thee,” he said. “I who fear nothing else, fear death. The priest-fool yonder with his new faith, has spoken blundering words of judgment and damnation which, though I do not believe them, yet stick in my heart like arrows. I will stamp out his faith, and with this ancient sword of thine drive back the new gods into the darkness whence they came. Yet what if some water of Truth flows through the channel of his leaden lips, and what if because I have ruled and will rule as thou didst decree, therefore, in some dim place of souls, I must bear these burdens of terror and of doom which I have bound upon the backs of others! Nay, it cannot be, for what power is there in all the universe that dares to make a slave of Oro and to afflict him with stripes?
“Yet this can be and mayhap will be, that presently I lose my path in the ways of everlasting darkness, and become strengthless and forgotten as are those who went before me, while my crown of Power shines on younger brows. Alas! I grow old, since aeons of sleep have not renewed my strength. My time is short and yet I would not die as mortals must. Oh! God of my people, whom I have served so well, save me from the death I dread. For I would not die. Give me a sign; give me the ancient, sacred sign!”
So he spoke, lifting his proud and splendid head and watching the statue with wide, expectant eyes.
“Thou dost not answer,” he cried again. “Wouldst thou desert me, Fate? Then beware lest I set up some new god against thee and hurl thee from thine immemorial throne. While I live I still have powers, I who am the last of thy worshippers, since it seems that my daughter turns her back on thee. I will get me to the sepulchre of the kings and take counsel with the dust of that wizard who first taught me wisdom. Even from the depths of death he must come to my call clad in a mockery of life, and comfort me. A little while yet I will wait, and if thou answer not, then Fate, soon I’ll tear the sceptre from thy hand, and thou shalt join the company of dead gods.” And throwing aside the sword, again Oro laid down his head upon the ground and stretched out his arms in the last abasement of supplication.
“Come,” whispered Yva, “while there is yet time. Presently he will seek this place to descend to the sepulchre, and if he learns that we have read his heart and know him for a coward deserted of his outworn god, surely he will blot us out. Come, and be swift and silent.”
We crept out of the chapel, Yva leading, and along the circle of the great dome till we reached the gates. Here I glanced back and perceived that Oro, looking unutterably small in that vastness, looking like a dead man, still lay outstretched before the stern-faced, unanswering Effigy which, with all his wisdom, he believed to be living and divine. Perhaps once it was, but if so its star had set for ever, like those of Amon, Jupiter and Baal, and he was its last worshipper.
Now we were safe, but still we sped on till we reached the portico of our sleeping place. Then Yva turned and spoke.
“It is horrible,” she said, “and my soul sickens. Oh, I thank the Strength which made it that I have no desire to rule the earth, and, being innocent of death, do not fear to die and cross his threshold.”
“Yes, it is horrible,” I answered. “Yet all men fear death.”
“Not when they have found love, Humphrey, for that I think is his true name, and, with it written on his brow, he stands upon the neck of Fate who is still my father’s god.”
“Nay. Once it was so, but now I reject him; he is no longer mine. As Oro threatens, and perchance dare do in his rage, I have broken his chain, though in another fashion. Ask me no more; perhaps one day you will learn the path I trod to freedom.”
Then before I could speak, she went off:
“Rest now, for within a few hours I must come to lead you and your companions to a terrible place. Yet whatever you may see or hear, be not afraid, Humphrey, for I think that Oro’s god has no power over you, strong though he was, and that Oro’s plans will fail, while I, who too have knowledge, shall find strength to save the world.”
Then of a sudden, once again she grew splendid, almost divine; no more a woman but as it were an angel. Some fire of pure purpose seemed to burn up in her and to shine out of her eyes. Yet she said little. Only this indeed:
“To everyone, I think, there comes the moment of opportunity when choice must be made between what is great and what is small, between self and its desires and the good of other wanderers in the way. This day that moment may draw near to you or me, and if so, surely we shall greet it well. Such is Bastin’s lesson, which I have striven to learn.”
Then she flung her arms about me and kissed me on the brow as a mother might, and was gone.
Strangely enough, perhaps because of my mental exhaustion, for what I had passed through seemed to overwhelm me so that I could no longer so much as think with clearness, even after all that I have described I slept like a child and awoke refreshed and well.
I looked at my watch to find that it was now eight o’clock in the morning in this horrible place where there was neither morn, nor noon, nor night, but only an eternal brightness that came I knew not whence, and never learned.
I found that I was alone, since Bickley and Bastin had gone to fill our bottles with the Life-water. Presently they returned and we ate a little; with that water to drink one did not need much food. It was a somewhat silent meal, for our circumstances were a check on talk; moreover, I thought that the others looked at me rather oddly. Perhaps they guessed something of my midnight visit to the temple, but if so they thought it wisest to say nothing. Nor did I enlighten them.
Shortly after we had finished Yva appeared. She was wonderfully quiet and gentle in her manner, calm also, and greeted all of us with much sweetness. Of our experiences during the night she said no word to me, even when we were alone. One difference I noticed about her, however; that she was clothed in garments such as I had never seen her wear before. They were close fitting, save for a flowing cape, and made of some grey material, not unlike a coarse homespun or even asbestos cloth. Still they became her very well, and when I remarked upon them, all she answered was that part of our road would be rough. Even her feet were shod with high buskins of this grey stuff.
Presently she touched Bastin on the shoulder and said that she would speak with him apart. They went together into one of the chambers of that dwelling and there remained for perhaps the half of an hour. It was towards the end of this time that in the intense silence I heard a crash from the direction of the temple, as though something heavy had fallen to the rocky floor. Bickley also heard this sound. When the two reappeared I noticed that though still quite calm, Yva looked radiant, and, if I may say so, even more human and womanly than I had ever seen her, while Bastin also seemed very happy.
“One has strange experiences in life, yes, very strange,” he remarked, apparently addressing the air, which left me wondering to what particular experience he might refer. Well, I thought that I could guess.
“Friends,” said Yva, “it is time for us to be going and I am your guide. You will meet the Lord Oro at the end of your journey. I pray you to bring those lamps of yours with you, since all the road is not lightened like this place.”
“I should like to ask,” said Bickley, “whither we go and for what object, points on which up to the present we have had no definite information.”
“We go, friend Bickley, deep into the bowels of the world, far deeper, I think, than any mortal men have gone hitherto, that is, of your race.”
“Then we shall perish of heat,” said Bickley, “for with every thousand feet the temperature rises many degrees.”
“Not so. You will pass through a zone of heat, but so swiftly that if you hold your breath you will not suffer overmuch. Then you will come to a place where a great draught blows which will keep you cool, and thence travel on to the end.”
“Yes, but to what end, Lady Yva?”
“That you will see for yourselves, and with it other wondrous things.”
Here some new idea seemed to strike her, and after a little hesitation she added:
“Yet why should you go? Oro has commanded it, it is true, but I think that at the last he will forget. It must be decided swiftly. There is yet time. I can place you in safety in the sepulchre of Sleep where you found us. Thence cross to the main island and sail away quickly in your boat out into the great sea, where I believe you will find succour. Know that after disobeying him, you must meet Oro no more lest it should be the worse for you. If that be your will, let us start. What say you?”
“I say, Yva, that I am willing to go if you come with us. Not otherwise.”
“I say,” said Bickley, “that I want to see all this supernatural rubbish thoroughly exploded, and that therefore I should prefer to go on with the business.”
“And I say,” said Bastin, “that my most earnest desire is to be clear of the whole thing, which wearies and perplexes me more than I can tell. Only I am not going to run away, unless you think it desirable to do so too, Lady Yva. I want you to understand that I am not in the least afraid of the Lord Oro, and do not for one moment believe that he will be allowed to bring about disaster to the world, as I understand is his wicked object. Therefore on the whole I am indifferent and quite prepared to accept any decision at which the rest of you may arrive.”
“Be it understood,” said Yva with a little smile when Bastin had finished his sermonette, “that I must join my father in the bowels of the earth for a reason which will be made plain afterwards. Therefore, if you go we part, as I think to meet no more. Still my advice is that you should go.” *
( * It is fortunate that we did not accept Yva’s offer. Had we done so we should have found ourselves shut in, and perished, as shall be told.ÄH. A. )
To this our only answer was to attend to the lighting of our lamps and the disposal of our small impedimenta, such as our tins of oil and water bottles. Yva noted this and laughed outright.
“Courage did not die with the Sons of Wisdom,” she said.
Then we set out, Yva walking ahead of us and Tommy frisking at her side.
Our road led us through the temple. As we passed the great gates I started, for there, in the centre of that glorious building, I perceived a change. The statue of Fate was no more! It lay broken upon the pavement among those fragments of its two worshippers which I had seen shaken down some hours before.
“What does this mean?” I whispered to Yva. “I have felt no other earthquake.”
“I do not know,” she answered, “or if I know I may not say. Yet learn that no god can live on without a single worshipper, and, in a fashion, that idol was alive, though this you will not believe.”
“How very remarkable,” said Bastin, contemplating the ruin. “If I were superstitious, which I am not, I should say that this occurrence was an omen indicating the final fall of a false god. At any rate it is dead now, and I wonder what caused it?”
“I felt an earth tremor last night,” said Bickley, “though it is odd that it should only have affected this particular statue. A thousand pities, for it was a wonderful work of art.”
Then I remembered and reminded Bickley of the crash which we had heard while Yva and Bastin were absent on some secret business in the chamber.
Walking the length of the great church, if so it could be called, we came to an apse at the head of it where, had it been Christian, the altar would have stood. In this apse was a little open door through which we passed. Beyond it lay a space of rough rock that looked as though it had been partially prepared for the erection of buildings and then abandoned. All this space was lighted, however, like the rest of the City of Nyo, and in the same mysterious way. Led by Yva, we threaded our path between the rough stones, following a steep downward slope. Thus we walked for perhaps half a mile, till at length we came to the mouth of a huge pit that must, I imagine, have lain quite a thousand feet below the level of the temple.
I looked over the edge of this pit and shrank back terrified. It seemed to be bottomless. Moreover, a great wind rushed up it with a roaring sound like to that of an angry sea. Or rather there were two winds, perhaps draughts would be a better term, if I may apply it to an air movement of so fierce and terrible a nature. One of these rushed up the pit, and one rushed down. Or it may have been that the up rush alternated with the down rush. Really it is impossible to say.
“What is this place?” I asked, clinging to the others and shrinking back in alarm from its sheer edge and bottomless depth, for that this was enormous we could see by the shaft of light which flowed downwards farther than the eye could follow.
“It is a vent up and down which air passes from and to the central hollows of the earth,” Yva answered. “Doubtless in the beginning through it travelled that mighty force which blew out these caves in the heated rocks, as the craftsman blows out glass.”
“I understand,” said Bastin. “Just like one blows out a bubble on a pipe, only on a larger scale. Well, it is very interesting, but I have seen enough of it. Also I am afraid of being blown away.”
“I fear that you must see more,” answered Yva with a smile, “since we are about to descend this pit.”
“Do you mean that we are to go down that hole, and if so, how? I don’t see any lift, or moving staircase, or anything of that sort.”
“Easily and safely enough, Bastin. See.”
As she spoke a great flat rock of the size of a small room appeared, borne upwards, as I suppose, by the terrific draught which roared past us on its upward course. When it reached the lip of the shaft, it hung a little while, then moved across and began to descend with such incredible swiftness that in a few seconds it had vanished from view.
“Oh!” said Bastin, with his eyes almost starting out of his head, “that’s the lift, is it? Well, I tell you at once I don’t like the look of the thing. It gives me the creeps. Suppose it tilted.”
“It does not tilt,” answered Yva, still smiling. “I tell you, Bastin, that there is naught to fear. Only yesterday, I rode this rock and returned unharmed.”
“That is all very well, Lady Yva, but you may know how to balance it; also when to get on and off.”
“If you are afraid, Bastin, remain here until your companions return. They, I think, will make the journey.”
Bickley and I intimated that we would, though to tell the truth, if less frank we were quite as alarmed as Bastin.
“No, I’ll come too. I suppose one may as well die this way as any other, and if anything were to happen to them and I were left alone, it would be worse still.”
“Then be prepared,” said Yva, “for presently this air-chariot of ours will return. When it appears and hangs upon the edge, step on to it and throw yourselves upon your faces and all will be well. At the foot of the shaft the motion lessens till it almost stops, and it is easy to spring, or even crawl to the firm earth.”
Then she stooped down and lifted Tommy who was sniffing suspiciously at the edge of the pit, his long ears blown straight above his head, holding him beneath her left arm and under her cloak, that he might not see and be frightened.
We waited a while in silence, perhaps for five or six minutes, among the most disagreeable, I think, that I ever passed. Then far down in the brightness below appeared a black speck that seemed to grow in size as it rushed upwards.
“It comes,” said Yva. “Prepare and do as I do. Do not spring, or run, lest you should go too far. Step gently on to the rock and to its centre, and there lie down. Trust in me, all of you.”
“There’s nothing else to do,” groaned Bastin.
The great stone appeared and, as before, hung at the edge of the pit. Yva stepped on to it quietly, as she did so, catching hold of my wrist with her disengaged hand. I followed her feeling very sick, and promptly sat down. Then came Bickley with the air of the virtuous hero of a romance walking a pirate’s plank, and also sat down. Only Bastin hesitated until the stone began to move away. Then with an ejaculation of “Here goes!” he jumped over the intervening crack of space and landed in the middle of us like a sack of coal. Had I not been seated really I think he would have knocked me off the rock. As it was, with one hand he gripped me by the beard and with the other grasped Yva’s robe, of neither of which would he leave go for quite a long time, although we forced him on to his face. The lantern which he held flew from his grasp and descended the shaft on its own account.
“You silly fool!” exclaimed Bickley whose perturbation showed itself in anger. “There goes one of our lamps.”
“Hang the lamp!” muttered the prostrate Bastin. “We shan’t want it in Heaven, or the other place either.”
Now the stone which had quivered a little beneath the impact of Bastin, steadied itself again and with a slow and majestic movement sailed to the other side of the gulf. There it felt the force of gravity, or perhaps the weight of the returning air pressed on it, which I do not know. At any rate it began to fall, slowly at first, then more swiftly, and afterwards at an incredible pace, so that in a few seconds the mouth of the pit above us grew small and presently vanished quite away. I looked up at Yva who was standing composedly in the midst of our prostrate shapes. She bent down and called in my ear:
“All is well. The heat begins, but it will not endure for long.”
I nodded and glanced over the edge of the stone at Bastin’s lantern which was sailing alongside of us, till presently we passed it. Bastin had lit it before we started, I think in a moment of aberration, and it burned for quite a long while, showing like a star when the shaft grew darker as it did by degrees, a circumstance that testifies to the excellence of the make, which is one advertised not to go out in any wind. Not that we felt wind, or even draught, perhaps because we were travelling with it.
Then we entered the heat zone. About this there was no doubt, for the perspiration burst out all over me and the burning air scorched my lungs. Also Tommy thrust his head from beneath the cloak with his tongue hanging out and his mouth wide open.
“Hold your breaths!” cried Yva, and we obeyed until we nearly burst. At least I did, but what happened to the others I do not know.
Fortunately it was soon over and the air began to grow cool again. By now we had travelled an enormous distance, it seemed to be miles on miles, and I noticed that our terrific speed was slackening, also that the shaft grew more narrow, till at length there were only a few feet between the edge of the stone and its walls. The result of this, or so I supposed, was that the compressed air acted as a buffer, lessening our momentum, till at length the huge stone moved but very slowly.
“Be ready to follow me,” cried Yva again, and we rose to our feet, that is, Bickley and I did, but poor Bastin was semi- comatose. The stone stopped and Yva sprang from it to a rock platform level with which it lay. We followed, dragging Bastin between us. As we did so something hit me gently on the head. It was Bastin’s lamp, which I seized.
“We are safe. Sit down and rest,” said Yva, leading us a few paces away.
We obeyed and presently by the dim light saw the stone begin to stir again, this time upwards. In another twenty seconds it was away on its never-ending journey.
“Does it always go on like that?” said Bastin, sitting up and staring after it.
“Tens of thousands of years ago it was journeying thus, and tens of thousands of years hence it will still be journeying, or so I think,” she replied. “Why not, since the strength of the draught never changes and there is nothing to wear it except the air?”
Somehow the vision of this huge stone, first loosed and set in motion by heaven knows what agency, travelling from aeon to aeon up and down that shaft in obedience to some law I did not understand, impressed my imagination like a nightmare. Indeed I often dream of it to this day.
I looked about me. We were in some cavernous place that could be but dimly seen, for here the light that flowed down the shaft from the upper caves where it was mysteriously created, scarcely shone, and often indeed was entirely cut off, when the ever- journeying stone was in the narrowest parts of the passage. I could see, however, that this cavern stretched away both to right and left of us, while I felt that from the left, as we sat facing the shaft, there drew down a strong blast of fresh air which suggested that somewhere, however far away, it must open on to the upper world. For the rest its bottom and walls seemed to be smooth as though they had been planed in the past ages by the action of cosmic forces. Bickley noticed this the first and pointed it out to me. We had little time to observe, however, for presently Yva said:
“If you are rested, friends, I pray you light those lamps of yours, since we must walk a while in darkness.”
We did and started, still travelling downhill. Yva walked ahead with me and Tommy who seemed somewhat depressed and clung close to our heels. The other two followed, arguing strenuously about I know not what. It was their way of working off irritation and alarms.
I asked Yva what was about to happen, for a great fear oppressed me.
“I am not sure, Beloved,” she answered in a sweet and gentle voice, “who do not know all Oro’s secrets, but as I think, great things. We are now deep in the bowels of the world, and presently, perhaps, you will see some of its mighty forces whereof your ignorant races have no knowledge, doing their everlasting work.”
“Then how is it that we can breathe here?” I asked. “Because this road that we are following connects with the upper air or used to do so, since once I followed it. It is a long road and the climb is steep, but at last it leads to the light of the blessed sun, nor are there any pitfalls in the path. Would that we might tread it together, Humphrey,” she added with passion, “and be rid of mysteries and the gloom, or that light which is worse than gloom.”
“Why not?” I asked eagerly. “Why should we not turn and flee?”
“Who can flee from my father, the Lord Oro?” she replied. “He would snare us before we had gone a mile. Moreover, if we fled, by tomorrow half the world must perish.”
“And how can we save it by not flying, Yva?”
“I do not know, Humphrey, yet I think it will be saved, perchance by sacrifice. That is the keystone of your faith, is it not? Therefore if it is asked of you to save the world, you will not shrink from it, will you, Humphrey?”
“I hope not,” I replied, without enthusiasm, I admit. Indeed it struck me that a business of this sort was better fitted to Bastin than to myself, or at any rate to his profession. I think she guessed my thoughts, for by the light of the lamp I saw her smile in her dazzling way. Then after a swift glance behind her, she turned and suddenly kissed me, as she did so calling down everlasting blessings on my head and on my spirit. There was something very wonderful about this benediction of Yva’s and it thrilled me through and through, so that to it I could make no answer.
Next moment it was too late to retreat, for our narrowing passage turned and we found ourselves in a wondrous place. I call it wondrous because of it we could see neither the beginning nor the end, nor the roof, nor aught else save the rock on which we walked, and the side or wall that our hands touched. Nor was this because of darkness, since although it was not illuminated like the upper caverns, light of a sort was present. It was a very strange light, consisting of brilliant and intermittent flashes, or globes of blue and lambent flame which seemed to leap from nowhere into nowhere, or sometimes to hang poised in mid air.
“How odd they are,” said the voice of Bastin behind me. “They remind me of those blue sparks which jump up from the wires of the tramways in London on a dark night. You know, don’t you, Bickley? I mean when the conductor pulls round that long stick with an iron wheel on the top of it.”
“Nobody but you could have thought of such a comparison, Bastin,” answered Bickley. “Still, multiplied a thousandfold they are not unlike.”
Nor indeed were they, except that each blue flash was as big as the full moon and in one place or another they were so continuous that one could have read a letter by their light. Also the effect of them was ghastly and most unnatural, terrifying, too, since even their brilliance could not reveal the extent of that gigantic hollow in the bowels of the world wherein they leapt to and fro like lightnings, or hung like huge, uncanny lanterns.
“The air in this place must be charged with some form of electricity, but the odd thing is that it does not seem to harm us,” said Bickley in a matter-of-fact fashion as though he were determined not to be astonished.
“To me it looks more like marsh fires or St. Elmo lights, though how these can be where there is no vapour, I do not know,” I answered.
As I spoke a particularly large ball of flame fell from above. It resembled a shooting star or a meteor more than anything else that I had ever seen, and made me wonder whether we were not perhaps standing beneath some inky, unseen sky.
Next moment I forgot such speculations, for in its blue light, which made him terrible and ghastly, I perceived Oro standing in front of us clad in a long cloak.
“Dear me!” said Bastin, “he looks just like the devil, doesn’t he, and now I come to think of it, this isn’t at all a bad imitation of hell.”
“How do you know it is an imitation?” asked Bickley.
“Because whatever might be the case with you, Bickley, if it were, the Lady Yva and I should not be here.”
Even then I could not help smiling at this repartee, but the argument went no further for Oro held up his hand and Yva bent the knee in greeting to him.
“So you have come, all of you,” he said. “I thought that perhaps there were one or two who would not find courage to ride the flying stone. I am glad that it is not so, since otherwise he who had shown himself a coward should have had no share in the rule of that new world which is to be. Therefore I chose yonder road that it might test you.”
“Then if you will be so good as to choose another for us to return by, I shall be much obliged to you, Oro,” said Bastin.
“How do you know that if I did it would not be more terrible, Preacher? How do you know indeed that this is not your last journey from which there is no return?”
“Of course I can’t be sure of anything, Oro, but I think the question is one which you might more appropriately put to yourself. According to your own showing you are now extremely old and therefore your end is likely to come at any moment. Of course, however, if it did you would have one more journey to make, but it wouldn’t be polite for me to say in what direction.”
Oro heard, and his splendid, icy face was twisted with sudden rage. Remembering the scene in the temple where he had grovelled before his god, uttering agonised, unanswered prayers for added days, I understood the reason of his wrath. It was so great that I feared lest he should kill Bastin (who only a few hours before, be it remembered, had tried to kill him) then and there, as doubtless he could have done if he wished. Fortunately, if he felt it; the impulse passed.
“Miserable fool!” he said. “I warn you to keep a watch upon your words. Yesterday you would have slain me with your toy. Today you stab me with your ill-omened tongue. Be fearful lest I silence it for ever.”
“I am not in the least fearful, Oro, since I am sure that you can’t hurt me at all any more than I could hurt you last night because, you see, it wasn’t permitted. When the time comes for me to die, I shall go, but you will have nothing to do with that. To tell the truth, I am very sorry for you, as with all your greatness, your soul is of the earth, earthy, also sensual and devilish, as the Apostle said, and, I am afraid, very malignant, and you will have a great deal to answer for shortly. Yours won’t be a happy deathbed, Oro, because, you see, you glory in your sins and don’t know what repentance means.”
I must add that when I heard these words I was filled with the most unbounded admiration for Bastin’s fearless courage which enabled him thus to beard this super-tyrant in his den. So indeed were we all, for I read it in Yva’s face and heard Bickley mutter:
“Bravo! Splendid! After all there is something in faith!”
Even Oro appreciated it with his intellect, if not with his heart, for he stared at the man and made no answer. In the language of the ring, he was quite “knocked out” and, almost humbly, changed the subject.
“We have yet a little while,” he said, “before that happens which I have decreed. Come, Humphrey, that I may show you some of the marvels of this bubble blown in the bowels of the world,” and he motioned to us to pick up the lanterns.
Then he led us away from the wall of the cavern, if such it was, for a distance of perhaps six or seven hundred paces. Here suddenly we came to a great groove in the rocky floor, as broad as a very wide roadway, and mayhap four feet in depth. The bottom of this groove was polished and glittered; indeed it gave us the impression of being iron, or other ore which had been welded together beneath the grinding of some immeasurable weight. Just at the spot where we struck the groove, it divided into two, for this reason.
In its centre the floor of iron, or whatever it may have been, rose, the fraction of an inch at first, but afterwards more sharply, and this at a spot where the groove had a somewhat steep downward dip which appeared to extend onwards I know not how far.
Following along this central rise for a great way, nearly a mile, I should think, we observed that it became ever more pronounced, till at length it ended in a razor-edge cliff which stretched up higher than we could see, even by the light of the electrical discharges. Standing against the edge of this cliff, we perceived that at a distance from it there were now two grooves of about equal width. One of these ran away into the darkness on our right as we faced the sharp edge, and at an ever- widening angle, while the other, at a similar angle, ran into the darkness to the left of the knife of cliff. That was all.
No, there were two more notable things. Neither of the grooves now lay within hundreds of yards of the cliff, perhaps a quarter of a mile, for be it remembered we had followed the rising rock between them. To put it quite clearly, it was exactly as though one line of rails had separated into two lines of rails, as often enough they do, and an observer standing on high ground between could see them both vanishing into tunnels to the right and left, but far apart.
The second notable thing was that the right-hand groove, where first we saw it at the point of separation, was not polished like the left-hand groove, although at some time or other it seemed to have been subjected to the pressure of the same terrific weight which cut its fellow out of the bed of rock or iron, as the sharp wheels of a heavily laden wagon sink ruts into a roadway.
“What does it all mean, Lord Oro?” I asked when he had led us back to the spot where the one groove began to be two grooves, that is, a mile or so away from the razor-edged cliff.
“This, Humphrey,” he answered. “That which travels along yonder road, when it reaches this spot on which we stand, follows the left-hand path which is made bright with its passage. Yet, could a giant at that moment of its touching this exact spot on which I lay my hand, thrust it with sufficient strength, it would leave the left-hand road and take the right-hand road.”
“And if it did, what then; Lord Oro?”
“Then within an hour or so, when it had travelled far enough upon its way, the balance of the earth would be changed, and great things would happen in the world above, as once they happened in bygone days. Now do you understand, Humphrey?”
“Good Heavens! Yes, I understand now,” I answered. “But fortunately there is no such giant.”
Oro broke into a mocking laugh and his grey old face lit up with a fiendish exultation, as he cried:
“Fool! I, Oro, am that giant. Once in the dead days I turned the balance of the world from the right-hand road which now is dull with disuse, to the left-hand road which glitters so brightly to your eyes, and the face of the earth was changed. Now again I will turn it from the left-hand road to the right-hand road in which for millions of years it was wont to run, and once more the face of the earth shall change, and those who are left living upon the earth, or who in the course of ages shall come to live upon the new earth, must bow down to Oro and take him and his seed to be their gods and kings.”
When I heard this I was overwhelmed and could not answer. Also I remembered a certain confused picture which Yva had shown to us in the Temple of Nyo. But supported by his disbelief, Bickley asked:
“And how often does the balance of which you speak come this way, Lord Oro?”
“Once only in many years; the number is my secret, Bickley,” he replied.
“Then there is every reason to hope that it will not trouble us,” remarked Bickley with a suspicion of mockery in his voice.
“Do you think so, you learned Bickley?” asked Oro. “If so, I do not. Unless my skill has failed me and my calculations have gone awry, that Traveller of which I tell should presently be with us. Hearken now! What is that sound we hear?”
As he spoke there reached our ears the first, far-off murmurs of a dreadful music. I cannot describe it in words because that is impossible, but it was something like to the buzz of a thousand humming-tops such as are loved by children because of their weird song.
“Back to the wall!” cried Oro triumphantly. “The time is short!”
So back we went, Oro pausing a while behind and overtaking us with long, determined strides. Yva led us, gliding at my side and, as I thought, now and again glanced at my face with a look that was half anxious and half pitiful. Also twice she stooped and patted Tommy.
We reached the wall, though not quite at the spot whence we had started to examine the grooved roads. at least I think this was so, since now for the first time observed a kind of little window in its rocky face. It stood about five feet from its floor level, and was perhaps ten inches square, not more. In short, except for its shape it resembled a ship’s porthole rather than a window. Its substance appeared to be talc, or some such material, and inches thick, yet through it, after Oro had cast aside some sort of covering, came a glare like that of a search-light. In fact it was a search-light so far as concerned one of its purposes.
By this window or porthole lay a pile of cloaks, also four objects which looked like Zulu battle shields cut in some unknown metal or material. Very deftly, very quietly, Yva lifted these cloaks and wrapped one of them about each of us, and while she was thus employed I noticed that they were of a substance very similar to that of the gown she wore, which I have described, but harder. Next she gave one of the metal-like shields to each of us, bidding us hold them in front of our bodies and heads, and only to look through certain slits in them in which were eyepieces that appeared to be of the same horny stuff as the searchlight window. Further, she commanded us to stand in a row with our backs against the rock wall, at certain spots which she indicated with great precision, and whatever we saw or heard on no account to move.
So there we stood, Bickley next to me, and beyond him Bastin. Then Yva took the fourth shield, as I noted a much larger one than ours, and placed herself between me and the search-light or porthole. On the other side of this was Oro who had no shield.
These arrangements took some minutes and during that time occupied all our attention. When they were completed, however, our curiosity and fear began to reassert themselves. I looked about me and perceived that Oro had his right hand upon what seemed to be a rough stone rod, in shape not unlike that with which railway points are moved. He shouted to us to stand still and keep the shields over our faces. Then very gently he pressed upon the lever. The porthole sank the fraction of an inch, and instantly there leapt from it a most terrific blaze of lightning, which shot across the blackness in front and, as lightning does, revealed far, far away another wall, or rather cliff, like that against which we leant.
“All works well,” exclaimed Oro in a satisfied voice, lifting his hand from the rod, “and the strength which I have stored will be more than enough.”
Meanwhile the humming noise came nearer and grew in volume.
“I say,” said Bickley, “as you know, I have been sceptical, but I don’t like this business. Oro, what are you going to do?”
“Sink half the world beneath the seas,” said Oro, “and raise up that which I drowned more than two thousand centuries ago. But as you do not believe that I have this power, Bickley, why do you ask such questions?”
“I believe that you have it, which was why I tried to shoot you yesterday,” said Bastin. “For your soul’s sake I beg you to desist from an attempt which I am sure will not succeed, but which will certainly involve your eternal damnation, since the failure will be no fault of yours.”
“I implore you, Lord Oro, to let this business be. I do not know exactly how much or how little you can do, but I understand that your object is to slay men by millions in order to raise up another world of which you will be the absolute king, as you were of some past empire that has been destroyed, either through your agency or otherwise. No good can come of such ambitions. Like Bastin, for your soul’s sake I pray you to let them be.”
“What Humphrey says I repeat,” said Yva. “My Father, although you know it not, you seek great evil, and from these hopes you sow you will harvest nothing save a loss of which you do not dream. Moreover, your plans will fail. Now I who am, like yourself, of the Children of Wisdom, have spoken, for the first and last time, and my words are true. I pray you give them weight, my Father.”
“What!” he said. “Are you against me, every one, and my own daughter also? I would lift you up, I would make you rulers of a new world; I would destroy your vile civilisations which I have studied with my eyes, that I may build better! To you, Humphrey, I would give my only child in marriage that from you may spring a divine race of kings! And yet you are against me and set up your puny scruples as a barrier across my path of wisdom. Well, I tread them down, I go on my appointed way. But beware how you try to hold me back. If any one of you should attempt to come between me and my ends, know that I will destroy you all. Obey or die.”
“Well, he has had his chance and he won’t take it,” said Bastin in the silence that followed. “The man must go to the devil his own way and there is nothing more to be said.”
I say the silence, but it was no more silent. The distant humming grew to a roar, the roar to a hellish hurricane of sound which presently drowned all attempts at ordinary speech.
Then bellowing like ten millions of bulls, at length far away there appeared something terrible. I can only describe its appearance as that of an attenuated mountain on fire. When it drew nearer I perceived that it was more like a ballet-dancer whirling round and round upon her toes, or rather all the ballet-dancers in the world rolled into one and then multiplied a million times in size. No, it was like a mushroom with two stalks, one above and one below, or a huge top with a point on which it spun, a swelling belly and another point above. But what a top! It must have been two thousand feet high, if it was an inch, and its circumference who could measure?
On it came, dancing, swaying and spinning at a rate inconceivable, so that it looked like a gigantic wheel of fire. Yet it was not fire that clothed it but rather some phosphorescence, since from it came no heat. Yes, a phosphorescence arranged in bands of ghastly blue and lurid red, with streaks of other colours running up between, and a kind of waving fringe of purple.
The fire-mountain thundered on with a voice like to that of avalanches or of icebergs crashing from their parent glaciers to the sea. Its terrific aspect was appalling, and its weight caused the solid rock to quiver like a leaf. Watching it, we felt as ants might feel at the advent of the crack of doom, for its mere height and girth and size overwhelmed us. We could not even speak. The last words I heard were from the mouth of Oro who screamed out:
“Behold the balance of the World, you miserable, doubting men, and behold me change its path–turning it as the steersman turns a ship!”
Then he made certain signs to Yva, who in obedience to them approached the porthole or search-light to which she did something that I could not distinguish. The effect was to make the beam of light much stronger and sharper, also to shift it on to the point or foot of the spinning mountain and, by an aiming of the lens from time to time, to keep it there.
This went on for a while, since the dreadful thing did not travel fast notwithstanding the frightful speed of its revolutions. I should doubt indeed if it advanced more quickly than a man could walk; at any rate so it seemed to us. But we had no means of judging its real rate of progress whereof we knew as little as we did of the course it followed in the bowels of the earth. Perhaps that was spiral, from the world’s deep heart upwards, and this was the highest point it reached. Or perhaps it remained stationary, but still spinning, for scores or hundreds of years in some central powerhouse of its own, whence, in obedience to unknown laws, from time to time it made these terrific journeys.
No one knows, unless perhaps Oro did, in which case he kept the information to himself, and no one will ever know. At any rate there it was, travelling towards us on its giant butt, the peg of the top as it were, which, hidden in a cloud of friction-born sparks that enveloped it like the cup of a curving flower of fire, whirled round and round at an infinite speed. It was on this flaming flower that the search-light played steadily, doubtless that Oro might mark and measure its monstrous progress.
“He is going to try to send the thing down the right-hand path,” I shouted into Bickley’s ear.
“Can’t be done! Nothing can shift a travelling weight of tens of millions of tons one inch,” Bickley roared back, trying to look confident.
Clearly, however, Yva thought that it could be done, for of a sudden she cast down her shield and, throwing herself upon her knees, stretched out her hands in supplication to her father. I understood, as did we all, that she was imploring him to abandon his hellish purpose. He glared at her and shook his head. Then, as she still went on praying, he struck her across the face with his hand and pushed her to her feet again. My blood boiled as I saw it and I think I should have sprung at him, had not Bickley caught hold of me, shouting, “Don’t, or he will kill her and us too.”
Yva lifted her shield and returned to her station, and in the blue discharges which now flashed almost continuously, and the phosphorescent glare of the advancing mountain, I saw that though her beautiful face worked beneath the pain of the blow, her eyes remained serene and purposeful. Even then I wondered–what was the purpose shining through them. Also I wondered if I was about to be called upon to make that sacrifice of which she had spoken, and if so, how. Of one thing I was determined–that if the call came it should not find me deaf. Yet all the while I was horribly afraid.
At another sign from Oro, Yva did something more to the lens– again, being alongside of her, I could not see what it was. The beam of light shifted and wandered till, far away, it fell exactly upon that spot where the rock began to rise into the ridge which separated the two grooves or roads and ended in the razor-edged cliff. Moreover I observed that Oro, who left it the last of us, had either placed something white to mark this first infinitesimal bulging of the floor of the groove, or had smeared it with chalk or shining pigment. I observed also what I had not been able to see before, that a thin white line ran across the floor, no doubt to give the precise direction of this painted rise of rock, and that the glare of the search-light now lay exactly over that line.
The monstrous, flaming gyroscope fashioned in Nature’s workshop, for such without doubt it was, was drawing near, emitting as it came a tumult of sounds which, with the echoes that they caused, almost over-whelmed our senses. Poor little Tommy, already cowed, although he was a bold-natured beast, broke down entirely, and I could see from his open mouth that he was howling with terror. He stared about him, then ran to Yva and pawed at her, evidently asking to be taken into her arms. She thrust him away, almost fiercely, and made signs to me to lift him up and hold him beneath my shield. This I did, reflecting sadly that if I was to be sacrificed, Tommy must share my fate. I even thought of passing him on to Bickley, but had no time. Indeed I could not attract his attention, for Bickley was staring with all his eyes at the nightmare-like spectacle which was in progress about us. Indeed no nightmare, no wild imagination of which the mind of man is capable, could rival the aspect of its stupendous facts.
Think of them! The unmeasured space of blackness threaded by those globes of ghastly incandescence that now hung a while and now shot upwards, downwards, across, apparently without origin or end, like a stream of meteors that had gone mad. Then the travelling mountain, two thousand feet in height, or more, with its enormous saucer-like rim painted round with bands of lurid red and blue, and about its grinding foot the tulip bloom of emitted flame. Then the fierce-faced Oro at his post, his hand upon the rod, waiting, remorseless, to drown half of this great world, with the lovely Yva standing calm-eyed like a saint in hell and watching me above the edge of the shield which such a saint might bear to turn aside the fiery darts of the wicked. And lastly we three men flattened terror-stricken, against the wall.
Nightmare! Imagination! No, these pale before that scene which it was given to our human eyes to witness.
And all the while, bending, bowing towards us–away from us– making obeisance to the path in front as though in greeting, to the path behind as though in farewell; instinct with a horrible life, with a hideous and gigantic grace, that titanic Terror whirled onwards to the mark of fate.
At the moment nothing could persuade me that it was not alive and did not know its awful mission. Visions flashed across my mind. I thought of the peoples of the world sleeping in their beds, or going about their business, or engaged even in the work of war. I thought of the ships upon the seas steaming steadily towards their far-off ports. Then I thought of what presently might happen to them, of the tremors followed by convulsions, of the sudden crashing down of cities, such as we had seen in the picture Yva showed us in the Temple, of the inflow of the waters of the deep piled up in mighty waves, of the woe and desolation as of the end of the world, and of the quiet, following death. So I thought and in my heart prayed to the great Arch-Architect of the Universe to stretch out His Arm to avert this fearsome ruin of His handiwork.
Oro glared, his thin fingers tightened their grip upon the rod, his hair and long beard seemed to bristle with furious and delighted excitement. The purple-fringed rim of the Monster had long overshadowed the whited patch of rock; its grinding foot was scarce ten yards away. Oro made more signs to Yva who, beneath the shelter of her shield, again bent down and did something that I could not see. Then, as though her part were played, she rose, drew the grey hood of her cloak all about her face so that her eyes alone remained visible, took one step towards me and in the broken English we had taught her, called into my ear.
“Humphrey, God you bless! Humphrey, we meet soon. Forget not me!”
She stepped back again before I could attempt to answer, and next instant with a hideous, concentrated effort, Oro bending himself double, thrust upon the rod, as I could see from his open mouth, shouting while he thrust.
At the same moment, with a swift spring, Yva leapt immediately in front of the lens or window, so that the metallic shield with which she covered herself pressed against its substance.
Simultaneously Oro flung up his arms as though in horror.
Too late! The shutter fell and from behind it there sprang out a rush of living flame. It struck on Yva’s shield and expanded to right and left. The insulated shield and garments that she wore seemed to resist it. For a fraction of time she stood there like a glowing angel, wrapped in fire.
Then she was swept outwards and upwards and at a little distance dissolved like a ghost and vanished from our sight.
Yva was ashes! Yva was gone! The sacrifice was consummated!
And not in vain! Not in vain! On her poor breast she had received the full blast of that hellish lightning flash. Yet whilst destroying, it turned away from her, seeking the free paths of the air. So it came about that its obstructed strength struck the foot of the travelling gyroscope, diffused and did not suffice to thrust it that one necessary inch on which depended the fate of half the world, or missing it altogether, passed away on either side. Even so the huge, gleaming mountain rocked and trembled. Once, twice, thrice, it bowed itself towards us as though in majestic homage to greatness passed away. For a second, too, its course was checked, and at the check the earth quaked and trembled. Yes, then the world shook, and the blue globes of fire went out, while I was thrown to the ground.
When they returned again, the flaming monster was once more sailing majestically upon its way and down the accustomed left-hand path!
Indeed the sacrifice was not in vain. The world shook–but Yva had saved the world!
I lay still a while, on my back as I had fallen, and beneath the shield-like defence which Yva had given to me. Notwithstanding the fire-resisting, metalised stuff of which it was made, I noted that it was twisted and almost burnt through. Doubtless the stored-up electricity or earth magnetism, or whatever it may have been that had leapt out of that hole, being diffused by the resistance with which it was met, had grazed me with its outer edge, and had it not been for the shield and cloak, I also should have been burned up. I wished, oh! how I wished that it had been so. Then, by now all must have finished and I should have known the truth as to what awaits us beyond the change: sleep, or dreams, or perchance the fullest life. Also I should not have learned alone.
Lying there thus, idly, as though in a half-sleep, I felt Tommy licking my face, and throwing my arm about the poor little frightened beast, I watched the great world-balance as it retreated on its eternal journey. At one time its vast projecting rim had overshadowed us and almost seemed to touch the cliff of rock against which we leant. I remember that the effect of that shining arch a thousand feet or so above our heads was wonderful. It reminded me of a canopy of blackest thunder clouds supported upon a framework of wheeling rainbows, while beneath it all the children of the devil shouted together in joy. I noted this effect only a few seconds before Yva spoke to me and leapt into the path of the flash.
Now, however, it was far away, a mere flaming wheel that became gradually smaller, and its Satanic voices were growing faint. As I have said, I watched its disappearance idly, reflecting that I should never look upon its like again; also that it was something well worth going forth to see. Then I became aware that the humming, howling din had decreased sufficiently to enable me to hear human voices without effort. Bastin was addressing Bickley– like myself they were both upon the ground.
“Her translation, as you may have noticed, Bickley, if you were not too frightened, was really very remarkable. No doubt it will have reminded you, as it did me, of that of Elijah. She had exactly the appearance of a person going up to Heaven in a vehicle of fire. The destination was certainly the same, and even the cloak she wore added a familiar touch and increased the similarity.”
“At any rate it did not fall upon you,” answered Bickley with something like a sob, in a voice of mingled awe and exasperation. “For goodness’ sake! Bastin, stop your Biblical parallels and let us adore, yes, let us adore the divinest creature that the earth has borne!”
Never have I loved Bickley more than when I heard him utter those words.
“‘Divinest’ is a large term, Bickley, and one to which I hesitate to subscribe, remembering as I do certain of the prophets and the Early Fathers with all their faults, not of course to mention the Apostles. But–” here he paused, for suddenly all three of us became aware of Oro.
He also has been thrown to the ground by the strength of the prisoned forces which he gathered and loosed upon their unholy errand, but, as I rejoiced to observe, had suffered from them much more than ourselves. Doubtless this was owing to the fact that he had sprung forward in a last wild effort to save his daughter, or to prevent her from interfering with his experiment, I know not which. As a result his right cheek was much scorched, his right arm was withered and helpless, and his magnificent beard was half burnt off him. Further, very evidently he was suffering from severe shock, for he rocked upon his feet and shook like an aspen leaf. All this, however, did not interfere with the liveliness of his grief and rage.
There he stood, a towering shape, like a lightning-smitten statue, and cursed us, especially Bastin.
“My daughter has gone!” he cried, “burned up by the fiery power that is my servant. Nothing remains of her but dust, and, Priest, this is your doing. You poisoned her heart with your childish doctrines of mercy and sacrifice, and the rest, so that she threw herself into the path of the flash to save some miserable races that she had never even known.”
He paused exhausted, whereon Bastin answered him with spirit:
“Yes, Oro, she being a holy woman, has gone where you will never follow her. Also it is your own fault since you should have listened to her entreaties instead of boxing her ears like the brute you are.”
“My daughter is gone,” went on Oro, recovering his strength, “and my great designs are ruined. Yet only for a while,” he added, “for the world-balance will return again, if not till long after your life-spans are done.”
“If you don’t doctor yourself, Lord Oro,” said Bickley, also rising, “I may tell you as one who understands such things, that most likely it will be after your life-span is done also. Although their effect may be delayed, severe shocks from burns and over- excitement are apt to prove fatal to the aged.”
Oro snarled at him; no other word describes it.
“And there are other things, Physician,” he said, “which are apt to prove fatal to the young. At least now you will no longer deny my power.”
“I am not so sure,” answered Bickley, “since it seems that there is a greater Power, namely that of a woman’s love and sacrifice.”
“And a greater still,” interrupted Bastin, “Which put those ideas into her head.”
“As for you, Humphrey,” went on Oro, “I rejoice to think that you at least have lost two things that man desires above all other things–the woman you sought and the future kingship of the world.”
“The first I have gained, although how, you do not understand, Oro,” I answered. “And of the second, seeing that it would have come through you, on your conditions, I am indeed glad to be rid. I wish no power that springs from murder, and no gifts from one who answered his daughter’s prayer with blows.”
For a moment he seemed remorseful.
“She vexed me with her foolishness,” he said. Then his rage blazed up again:
“And it was you who taught it to her,” he went on. “You are guilty, all three of you, and therefore I am left with none to serve me in my age; therefore also my mighty schemes are overthrown.”
“Also, Oro, if you speak truth, therefore half the world is saved,” I added quietly, “and one has left it of whom it was unworthy.”
“You think that these civilisations of yours, as you are pleased to call them, are saved, do you?” he sneered. “Yet, even if Bickley were right and I should die and become powerless, I tell you that they are already damned. I have studied them in your books and seen them with my eyes, and I say that they are rotten before ever they are ripe, and that their end shall be the end of the Sons of Wisdom, to die for lack of increase. That is why I would have saved the East, because in it alone there is increase, and thence alone can rise the great last race of man which I would have given to your children for an heritage. Moreover, think not that you Westerners have done with wars. I tell you that they are but begun and that the sword shall eat you up, and what the sword spares class shall snatch from class in the struggle for supremacy and ease.”
Thus he spoke with extraordinary and concentrated bitterness that I confess would have frightened me, had I been capable of fear, which at the moment I was not. Who is afraid when he has lost all?
Nor was Bastin alarmed, if for other reasons.
“I think it right to tell you, Oro,” he said, “that the only future you need trouble about is your own. God Almighty will look after the western civilisations in whatever way He may think best, as you may remember He did just now. Only I am sure you won’t be here to see how it is done.”
Again fury blazed in Oro’s eyes.
“At least I will look after you, you half-bred dogs, who yap out ill-omened prophecies of death into my face. Since the three of you loved my daughter whom you brought to her doom, and were by her beloved, if differently, I think it best that you should follow on her road. How? That is the question? Shall I leave you to starve in these great caves?–Nay, look not towards the road of escape which doubtless she pointed out to you, for, as Humphrey knows, I can travel swiftly and I will make sure that you find it blocked. Or shall I–” and he glanced upwards at the great globes of wandering fire, as though he purposed to summon them to be our death, as doubtless he could have done.
“I do not care what you do,” I answered wearily. “Only I would beg you to strike quickly. Yet for my friends I am sorry, since it was I who led them on this quest, and for you, too, Tommy,” I added, looking at the poor little hound. “You were foolish, Tommy,” I went on, “when you scented out that old tyrant in his coffin, at least for our own sake.”
Indeed the dog was terribly scared. He whined continually and from time to time ran a little way and then returned to us, suggesting that we should go from this horror-haunted spot. Lastly, as though he understood that it was Oro who kept us there, he went to him and jumping up, licked his hand in a beseeching fashion.
The super-man looked at the dog and as he looked the rage went out of his face and was replaced by something resembling pity.
“I do not wish the beast to die,” he muttered to himself in low reflective tones, as though he thought aloud, “for of them all it alone liked and did not fear me. I might take it with me but still it would perish of grief in the loneliness of the caves. Moreover, she loved it whom I shall see no more; yes, Yva–” as he spoke the name his voice broke a little. “Yet if I suffer them to escape they will tell my story to the world and make me a laughingstock. Well, if they do, what does it matter? None of those Western fools would believe it; thinking that they knew all; like Bickley they would mock and say that they were mad, or liars.”
Again Tommy licked his hand, but more confidently, as though instinct told him something of what was passing in Oro’s mind. I watched with an idle wonder, marvelling whether it were possible that this merciless being would after all spare us for the sake of the dog.
So, strange to say, it came about, for suddenly Oro looked up and said:
“Get you gone, and quickly, before my mood changes. The hound has saved you. For its sake I give you your lives, who otherwise should certainly have died. She who has gone pointed out to you, I doubt not, a road that runs to the upper air. I think that it is still open. Indeed,” he added, closing his eyes for a moment, “I see that it is still open, if long and difficult. Follow it, and should you win through, take your boat and sail away as swiftly as you can. Whether you die or live I care nothing, but my hands will be clean of your blood, although yours are stained with Yva’s. Begone! and my curse go with you.”
Without waiting for further words we went to fetch our lanterns, water-bottles and bag of food which we had laid down at a little distance. As we approached them I looked up and saw Oro standing some way off. The light from one of the blue globes of fire which passed close above his head, shone upon him and made him ghastly. Moreover, it seemed to me as though approaching death had written its name upon his malevolent countenance.
I turned my head away, for about his aspect in those sinister surroundings there was something horrible, something menacing and repellent to man and of him I wished to see no more. Nor indeed did I, for when I glanced in that direction again Oro was gone. I suppose that he had retreated into the shadows where no light played.
We gathered up our gear, and while the others were relighting the lanterns, I walked a few paces forward to the spot where Yva had been dissolved in the devouring fire. Something caught my eye upon the rocky floor. I picked it up. It was the ring, or rather the remains of the ring that I had given her on that night when we declared our love amidst the ruins by the crater lake. She had never worn it on her hand but for her own reasons, as she told me, suspended it upon her breast beneath her robe. It was an ancient ring that I had bought in Egypt, fashioned of gold in which was set a very hard basalt or other black stone. On this was engraved the ank or looped cross, which was the Egyptian symbol of Life, and round it a snake, the symbol of Eternity. The gold was for the most part melted, but the stone, being so hard and protected by the shield and asbestos cloak, for such I suppose it was, had resisted the fury of the flash. Only now it was white instead of black, like a burnt onyx that had known the funeral pyre. Indeed, perhaps it was an onyx. I kissed it and hid it away, for it seemed to me to convey a greeting and with it a promise.
Then we started, a very sad and dejected trio. Leaving with a shudder that vast place where the blue lights played eternally, we came to the shaft up and down which the travelling stone pursued its endless path, and saw it arrive and depart again.
“I wonder he did not send us that way,” said Bickley, pointing to it.
“I am sure I am very glad it never occurred to him,” answered Bastin, “for I am certain that we could not have made the journey again without our guide, Yva.”
I looked at him and he ceased. Somehow I could not bear, as yet, to hear her beloved name spoken by other lips.
Then we entered the passage that she pointed out to us, and began a most terrible journey which, so far as we could judge, for we lost any exact count of time, took us about sixty hours. The road, it is true, was smooth and unblocked, but the ascent was fearfully steep and slippery; so much so that often we were obliged to pull each other up it and lie down to rest.
Had it not been for those large, felt-covered bottles of Life- water, I am sure we should never have won through. But this marvelous elixir, drunk a little at a time, always re- invigorated us and gave us strength to push on. Also we had some food, and fortunately our spare oil held out, for the darkness in that tunnel was complete. Tommy became so exhausted that at length we must carry him by turns. He would have died had it not been for the water; indeed I thought that he was going to die.
After our last rest and a short sleep, however, he seemed to begin to recover, and generally there was something in his manner which suggested to us that he knew himself to be not far from the surface of the earth towards which we had crawled upwards for thousands upon thousands of feet, fortunately without meeting with any zone of heat which was not bearable.
We were right, for when we had staggered forward a little further, suddenly Tommy ran ahead of us and vanished. Then we heard him barking but where we could not see, since the tunnel appeared to take a turn and continue, but this time on a downward course, while the sound of the barks came from our right. We searched with the lanterns which were now beginning to die and found a little hole almost filled with fallen pieces of rock. We scooped these away with our hands, making an aperture large enough to creep through. A few more yards and we saw light, the blessed light of the moon, and in it stood Tommy barking hoarsely. Next we heard the sound of the sea. We struggled on desperately and presently pushed our way through bushes and vegetation on to a steep declivity. Down this we rolled and scrambled, to find ourselves at last lying upon a sandy beach, whilst above us the full moon shone in the heavens.
Here, with a prayer of thankfulness, we flung ourselves down and slept.
If it had not been for Tommy and we had gone further along the tunnel, which I have little doubt stretched on beneath the sea, where, I wonder, should we have slept that night?
When we woke the sun was shining high in the heavens. Evidently there had been rain towards the dawn, though as we were lying beneath the shelter of some broad-leaved tree, from it we had suffered little inconvenience. Oh! how beautiful, after our sojourn in those unholy caves, were the sun and the sea and the sweet air and the raindrops hanging on the leaves.
We did not wake of ourselves; indeed if we had been left alone I am sure that we should have slept the clock round, for we were terribly exhausted. What woke us was the chatter of a crowd of Orofenans who were gathered at a distance from the tree and engaged in staring at us in a frightened way, also the barks of Tommy who objected to their intrusion. Among the people I recognised our old friend the chief Marama by his feather cloak, and sitting up, beckoned to him to approach. After a good deal of hesitation he came, walking delicately like Agag, and stopping from time to time to study us, as though he were not sure that we were real.
“What frightens you, Marama?” I asked him.
“You frighten us, O Friend-from-the-Sea. Whence did you and the Healer and the Bellower come and why do your faces look like those of ghosts and why is the little black beast so large-eyed and so thin? Over the lake we know you did not come, for we have watched day and night; moreover there is no canoe upon the shore. Also it would not have been possible.”
Rising stiffly we emerged from beneath the tree and perceived that we were at the foot of the cliff against which the remains of the yacht had been borne by the great tempest. Indeed there it was within a couple of hundred yards of us.
Following Marama we climbed the sloping path which ran up the cliff and ascended a knoll whence we could see the lake and the cone of the volcano in its centre. At least we used to be able to see this cone, but now, at any rate with the naked eye, we could make out nothing, except a small brown spot in the midst of the waters of the lake.
“The mountain which rose up many feet in that storm which brought you to Orofena, Friend-from-the-Sea, has now sunk till only the very top of it is to be seen,” said Marama solemnly. “Even the Rock of Offerings has vanished beneath the water, and with it the house that we built for you.”
“Yes,” I said, affecting no surprise. “But when did that happen?”
“Five nights ago the world shook, Friend-from-the-Sea, and when the sun rose we saw that the mouth of the cave which appeared on the day of your coming, had vanished, and that the holy mountain itself had sunk deep, so that now only the crest of it is left above the water.”
“Such things happen,” I replied carelessly.
“Yes, Friend-from-the-Sea. Like many other marvels they happen where you and your companions are. Therefore we beg you who can arise out of the earth like spirits, to leave us at once before our island and all of us who dwell thereon are drowned beneath the ocean. Leave us before we kill you, if indeed you be men, or die at your hands if, as we think, you be evil spirits who can throw up mountains and drag them down, and create gods that slay, and move about in the bowels of the world.”
“That is our intention, for our business here is done,” I answered calmly. “Come now and help us to depart. But first bring us food. Bring it in plenty, for we must victual our boat.”
Marama bowed and issued the necessary orders. Indeed food sufficient for our immediate needs was already there as an offering, and of it we ate with thankfulness.
Then we boarded the ship and examined the lifeboat. Thanks to our precautions it was still in very fair order and only needed some little caulking which we did with grass fibre and pitch from the stores. After this with the help of the Orofenans who worked hard in their desperate desire to be rid of us, we drew the boat into the sea, and provisioned her with stores from the ship, and with an ample supply of water. Everything being ready at last, we waited for the evening wind which always blew off shore, to start. As it was not due for half an hour or more, I walked back to the tree under which we had slept and tried to find the hole whence we had emerged from the tunnel on to the face of the cliff.
My hurried search proved useless. The declivity of the cliff was covered with tropical growth, and the heavy rain had washed away every trace of our descent, and very likely filled the hole itself with earth. At any rate, of it I could discover nothing. Then as the breeze began to blow I returned to the boat and here bade adieu to Marama, who gave me his feather cloak as a farewell gift.
“Good-bye, Friend-from-the-Sea,” he said to me. “We are glad to have seen you and thank you for many things. But we do not wish to see you any more.”
“Good-bye, Marama,” I answered. “What you say, we echo. At least you have now no great lump upon your neck and we have rid you of your wizards. But beware of the god Oro who dwells in the mountain, for if you anger him he will sink your island beneath the sea.”
“And remember all that I have taught you,” shouted Bastin.
Marama shivered, though whether at the mention of the god Oro, of whose powers the Orofenans had so painful a recollection, or at the result of Bastin’s teachings, I do not know. And that was the last we shall ever see of each other in this world.
The island faded behind us and, sore at heart because of all that we had found and lost again, for three days we sailed northward with a fair and steady wind. On the fourth evening by an extraordinary stroke of fortune, we fell in with an American tramp steamer, trading from the South Sea Islands to San Francisco. To the captain, who treated us very kindly, we said simply that we were a party of Englishmen whose yacht had been wrecked on a small island several hundreds of miles away, of which we knew neither the name, if it had one, nor the position.
This story was accepted without question, for such things often happen in those latitudes, and in due course we were landed at San Francisco, where we made certain depositions before the British Consul as to the loss of the yacht Star of the South. Then we crossed America, having obtained funds by cable, and sailed for England in a steamer flying the flag of the United States.
Of the great war which made this desirable I do not speak since it has nothing, or rather little, to do with this history. In the end we arrived safely at Liverpool, and thence travelled to our homes in Devonshire.
Thus ended the history of our dealings with Oro, the super-man who began his life more than two hundred and fifty thousand years ago, and with his daughter, Yva, whom Bastin still often calls the Glittering Lady.
Bastin Discovers a Resemblance
Shortly after our return Bickley, like a patriotic Englishman, volunteered for service at the front and departed in the uniform of the R.A.M.C. Before he left he took the opportunity of explaining to Bastin how much better it was in such a national emergency as existed, to belong to a profession in which a man could do something to help the bodies of his countrymen that had been broken in the common cause, than to one like his in which it was only possible to pelt them with vain words.
“You think that, do you, Bickley?” answered Bastin. “Well, I hold that it is better to heal souls than bodies, because, as even you will have learned out there in Orofena, they last so much longer.”
“I am not certain that I learned anything of the sort,” said Bickley, “or even that Oro was more than an ordinary old man. He said that he had lived a thousand years, but what was there to prove this except his word, which is worth nothing?”
“There was the Lady Yva’s word also, which is worth a great deal, Bickley.”
“Yes, but she may have meant a thousand moons. Further, as according to her own showing she was still quite young, how could she know her father’s age?”
“Quite so, Bickley. But all she actually said was that she was of the same age as one of our women of twenty-seven, which may have meant two hundred and seventy for all I know. However, putting that aside you will admit that they had both slept for two hundred and fifty thousand years.”
“I admit that they slept, Bastin, because I helped to awaken them, but for how long there is nothing to show, except those star maps which are probably quite inaccurate.”
“They are not inaccurate,” I broke in, “for I have had them checked by leading astronomers who say that they show a marvelous knowledge of the heavens as these were two hundred and fifty thousand years ago, and are today.”
Here I should state that those two metal maps and the ring which I gave to Yva and found again after the catastrophe, were absolutely the only things connected with her or with Oro that we brought away with us. The former I would never part with, feeling their value as evidence. Therefore, when we descended to the city Nyo and the depths beneath, I took them with me wrapped in cloth in my pocket. Thus they were preserved. Everything else went when the Rock of Offerings and the cave mouth sank beneath the waters of the lake.
This may have happened either in the earth tremor, which no doubt was caused by the advance of the terrific world-balance, or when the electric power, though diffused and turned by Yva’s insulated body, struck the great gyroscope’s travelling foot with sufficient strength, not to shift it indeed on to the right-hand path as Oro had designed, but still to cause it to stagger and even perhaps to halt for the fraction of a second. Even this pause may have been enough to cause convulsions of the earth above; indeed, I gathered from Marama and other Orofenans that such convulsions had occurred on and around the island at what must have corresponded with that moment of the loosing of the force.
This loss of our belongings in the house of the Rock of Offerings was the more grievous because among them were some Kodak photographs which I had taken, including portraits of Oro and one of Yva that was really excellent, to say nothing of pictures of the mouth of the cave and of the ruins and crater lake above. How bitterly I regret that I did not keep these photographs in my pocket with the map-plates.
“Even if the star-maps are correct, still it proves nothing,” said Bickley, “since possibly Oro’s astronomical skill might have enabled him to draw that of the sky at any period, though I allow this is impossible.”
“I doubt his taking so much trouble merely to deceive three wanderers who lacked the knowledge even to check them,” I said. “But all this misses the point, Bickley. However long they had slept, that man and woman did arise from seeming death. They did dwell in those marvelous caves with their evidences of departed civilisations, and they did show us that fearful, world-wandering gyroscope. These things we saw.”
“I admit that we saw them, Arbuthnot, and I admit that they are one and all beyond human comprehension. To that extent I am converted, and, I may add, humbled,” said Bickley.
“So you ought to be,” exclaimed Bastin, “seeing that you always swore that there was nothing in the world that is not capable of a perfectly natural explanation.”
“Of which all these things may be capable, Bastin, if only we held the key.”
“Very well, Bickley, but how do you explain what the Lady Yva did? I may tell you now what she commanded me to conceal at the time, namely, that she became a Christian; so much so that by her own will, I baptised and confirmed her on the very morning of her sacrifice. Doubtless it was this that changed her heart so much that she became willing, of course without my knowledge, to leave everything she cared for,” here he looked hard at me, “and lay down her life to save the world, half of which she believed was about to be drowned by Oro. Now, considering her history and upbringing, I call this a spiritual marvel, much greater than any you now admit, and one you can’t explain, Bickley.”
“No, I cannot explain, or, at any rate, I will not try,” he answered, also staring hard at me. “Whatever she believed, or did not believe, and whatever would or would not have happened, she was a great and wonderful woman whose memory I worship.”
“Quite so, Bickley, and now perhaps you see my point, that what you describe as mere vain words may also be helpful to mankind; more so, indeed, than your surgical instruments and pills.”
“You couldn’t convert Oro, anyway,” exclaimed Bickley, with irritation.
“No, Bickley; but then I have always understood that the devil is beyond conversion because he is beyond repentance. You see, I think that if that old scoundrel was not the devil himself, at any rate he was a bit of him, and, if I am right, I am not ashamed to have failed in his case.”
“Even Oro was not utterly bad, Bastin,” I said, reflecting on certain traits of mercy that he had shown, or that I dreamed him to have shown in the course of our mysterious midnight journeys to various parts of the earth. Also I remembered that he had loved Tommy and for his sake had spared our lives. Lastly, I do not altogether wonder that he came to certain hasty conclusions as to the value of our modern civilisations.
“I am very glad to hear it, Humphrey, since while there is a spark left the whole fire may burn up again, and I believe that to the Divine mercy there are no limits, though Oro will have a long road to travel before he finds it. And now I have something to say. It has troubled me very much that I was obliged to leave those Orofenans wandering in a kind of religious twilight.”
“You couldn’t help that,” said Bickley, “seeing that if you had stopped, by now you would have been wandering in religious light.”
“Still, I am not sure that I ought not to have stopped. I seem to have deserted a field that was open to me. However, it can’t be helped, since it is certain that we could never find that island again, even if Oro has not sunk it beneath the sea, as he is quite capable of doing, to cover his tracks, so to speak. So I mean to do my best in another field by way of atonement.”
“You are not going to become a missionary?” I said.
“No, but with the consent of the Bishop, who, I think, believes that my locum got on better in the parish than I do, as no doubt was the case, I, too, have volunteered for the Front, and been accepted as a chaplain of the 201st Division.”
“Why, that’s mine!” said Bickley.
“Is it? I am very glad, since now we shall be able to pursue our pleasant arguments and to do our best to open each other’s minds.”
“You fellows are more fortunate than I am,” I remarked. “I also volunteered, but they wouldn’t take me, even as a Tommy, although I misstated my age. They told me, or at least a specialist whom I saw did afterwards, that the blow I got on the head from that sorcerer’s boy–”
“I know, I know!” broke in Bickley almost roughly. “Of course, things might go wrong at any time. But with care you may live to old age.”
“I am sorry to hear it,” I said with a sigh, “at least I think I am. Meanwhile, fortunately there is much that I can do at home; indeed a course of action has been suggested to me by an old friend who is now in authority.”
Once more Bickley and Bastin in their war-stained uniforms were dining at my table and on the very night of their return from the Front, which was unexpected. Indeed Tommy nearly died of joy on hearing their voices in the hall. They, who played a worthy part in the great struggle, had much to tell me, and naturally their more recent experiences had overlaid to some extent those which we shared in the mysterious island of Orofena. Indeed we did not speak of these until, just as they were going away, Bastin paused beneath a very beautiful portrait of my late wife, the work of an artist famous for his power of bringing out the inner character, or what some might call the soul, of the sitter. He stared at it for a while in his short-sighted way, then said: “Do you know, Arbuthnot, it has sometimes occurred to me, and never more than at this moment, that although they were different in height and so on, there was a really curious physical resemblance between your late wife and the Lady Yva.”
“Yes,” I answered. “I think so too.”
Bickley also examined the portrait very carefully, and as he did so I saw him start. Then he turned away, saying nothing.
Such is the summary of all that has been important in my life. It is, I admit, an odd story and one which suggests problems that I cannot solve. Bastin deals with such things by that acceptance which is the privilege and hall-mark of faith; Bickley disposes, or used to dispose, of them by a blank denial which carries no conviction, and least of all to himself.
What is life to most of us who, like Bickley, think ourselves learned? A round, short but still with time and to spare wherein to be dull and lonesome; a fateful treadmill to which we were condemned we know not how, but apparently through the casual passions of those who went before us and are now forgotten, causing us, as the Bible says, to be born in sin; up which we walk wearily we know not why, seeming never to make progress; off which we fall outworn we know not when or whither.
Such upon the surface it appears to be, nor in fact does our ascertained knowledge, as Bickley would sum it up, take us much further. No prophet has yet arisen who attempted to define either the origin or the reasons of life. Even the very Greatest of them Himself is quite silent on this matter. We are tempted to wonder why. Is it because life as expressed in the higher of human beings, is, or will be too vast, too multiform and too glorious for any definition which we could understand? Is it because in the end it will involve for some, if not for all, majesty on unfathomed majesty, and glory upon unimaginable glory such as at present far outpass the limits of our thought?
The experiences which I have recorded in these pages awake in my heart a hope that this may be so. Bastin is wont, like many others, to talk in a light fashion of Eternity without in the least comprehending what he means by that gigantic term. It is not too much to say that Eternity, something without beginning and without end, and involving, it would appear, an everlasting changelessness, is a state beyond human comprehension. As a matter of fact we mortals do not think in constellations, so to speak, or in aeons, but by the measures of our own small earth and of our few days thereon. We cannot really conceive of an existence stretching over even one thousand years, such as that which Oro claimed and the Bible accords to a certain early race of men, omitting of course his two thousand five hundred centuries of sleep. And yet what is this but one grain in the hourglass of time, one day in the lost record of our earth, of its sisters the planets and its father the sun, to say nothing of the universes beyond?
It is because I have come in touch with a prolonged though perfectly finite existence of the sort, that I try to pass on the reflections which the fact of it awoke in me. There are other reflections connected with Yva and the marvel of her love and its various manifestations which arise also. But these I keep to myself. They concern the wonder of woman’s heart, which is a microcosm of the hopes and fears and desires and despairs of this humanity of ours whereof from age to age she is the mother.
NOTE
By J. R. Bickley, M.R.C.S.
WITHIN about six months of the date on which he wrote the last words of this history of our joint adventures, my dear friend, Humphrey Arbuthnot, died suddenly, as I had foreseen that probably he would do, from the results of the injury he received in the island of Orofena.
He left me the sole executor to his will, under which he divided his property into three parts. One third he bequeathed to me, one third (which is strictly tied up) to Bastin, and one third to be devoted, under my direction, to the advancement of Science.
His end appears to have been instantaneous, resulting from an effusion of blood upon the brain. When I was summoned I found him lying dead by the writing desk in his library at Fulcombe Priory. He had been writing at the desk, for on it was a piece of paper on which appear these words: “I have seen her. I–” There the writing ends, not stating whom he thought he had seen in the moments of mental disturbance or delusion which preceded his decease.
Save for certain verbal corrections, I publish this manuscript without comment as the will directs, only adding that it sets out our mutual experiences very faithfully, though Arbuthnot’s deductions from them are not always my own.
I would say also that I am contemplating another visit to the South Sea Islands, where I wish to make some further investigations. I dare say, however, that these will be barren of results, as the fountain of Life-water is buried for ever, nor, as I think, will any human being stand again in the Hades-like halls of Nyo. It is probable also that it would prove impossible to rediscover the island of Orofena, if indeed that volcanic land still remains above the waters of the deep.
Now that he is a very wealthy man, Bastin talks of accompanying me for purposes quite different from my own, but on the whole I hope he will abandon this idea. I may add that when he learned of his unexpected inheritance he talked much of the “deceitfulness of riches,” but that he has not as yet taken any steps to escape their golden snare. Indeed he now converses of his added “opportunities of usefulness,” I gather in connection with missionary enterprise.
P.S.–I forgot to state that the spaniel Tommy died within three days of his owner. The poor little beast was present in the room at the time of Arbuthnot’s passing away, and when found seemed to be suffering from shock. From that moment Tommy refused food and finally was discovered quite dead and lying by the body on Marama’s feather cloak, which Arbuthnot often used as a dressing-gown. As Bastin raised some religious objections, I arranged without his knowledge that the dog’s ashes should rest not far from those of the master and mistress whom it loved so well.