Chapter XVII
Yva Explains
When I reached the rock I was pleased to find Marama and about
twenty of his people engaged in erecting the house that we had
ordered them to build for our accommodation. Indeed, it was
nearly finished, since house-building in Orofena is a simple
business. The framework of poles let into palm trunks, since they
could not be driven into the rock, had been put together on the
further shore and towed over bodily by canoes. The overhanging
rock formed one side of the house; the ends were of palm leaves
tied to the poles, and the roof was of the same material. The
other side was left open for the present, which in that equable
and balmy clime was no disadvantage. The whole edifice was about
thirty feet long by fifteen deep and divided into two portions,
one for sleeping and one for living, by a palm leaf partition.
Really, it was quite a comfortable abode, cool and rainproof,
especially after Bastin had built his hut in which to cook.
Marama and his people were very humble in their demeanour and
implored us to visit them on the main island. I answered that
perhaps we would later on, as we wished to procure certain things
from the wreck. Also, he requested Bastin to continue his
ministrations as the latter greatly desired to do. But to this
proposal I would not allow him to give any direct answer at the
moment. Indeed, I dared not do so until I was sure of Oro's
approval.
Towards evening they departed in their canoes, leaving behind
them the usual ample store of provisions.
We cooked our meal as usual, only to discover that what Yva had
said about the Life-water was quite true, since we had but little
appetite for solid food, though this returned upon the following
day. The same thing happened upon every occasion after drinking
of that water which certainly was a most invigorating fluid.
Never for years had any of us felt so well as it caused us to do.
So we lit our pipes and talked about our experiences though of
these, indeed, we scarcely knew what to say. Bastin accepted them
as something out of the common, of course, but as facts which
admitted of no discussion. After all, he said, the Old Testament
told much the same story of people called the Sons of God who
lived very long lives and ran after the daughters of men whom
they should have left alone, and thus became the progenitors of a
remarkable race. Of this race, he presumed that Oro and his
daughter were survivors, especially as they spoke of their family
as "Heaven born." How they came to survive was more than he could
understand and really scarcely worth bothering over, since there
they were.
It was the same about the Deluge, continued Bastin, although
naturally Oro spoke falsely, or, at any rate, grossly
exaggerated, when he declared that he had caused this
catastrophe, unless indeed he was talking about a totally
different deluge, though even then he could not have brought it
about. It was curious, however, that the people drowned were said
to have been wicked, and Oro had the same opinion about those
whom he claimed to have drowned, though for the matter of that,
he could not conceive anyone more wicked than Oro himself. On his
own showing he was a most revengeful person and one who declined
to agree to a quite suitable alliance, apparently desired by both
parties, merely because it offended his family pride. No, on
reflection he might be unjust to Oro in this particular, since he
never told that story; it was only shown in some pictures which
very likely were just made up to astonish us. Meanwhile, it was
his business to preach to this old sinner down in that hole, and
he confessed honestly that he did not like the job. Still, it
must be done, so with our leave he would go apart and seek
inspiration, which at present seemed to be quite lacking.
Thus declaimed Bastin and departed.
"Don't you tell your opinion about the Deluge or he may cause
another just to show that you are wrong," called Bickley after
him.
"I can't help that," answered Bastin. "Certainly I shall not
hide the truth to save Oro's feelings, if he has got any. If he
revenges himself upon us in any way, we must just put up with it
like other martyrs."
"I haven't the slightest ambition to be a martyr," said
Bickley.
"No," shouted Bastin from a little distance, "I am quite aware
of that, as you have often said so before. Therefore, if you
become one, I am sorry to say that I do not see how you can
expect any benefit. You would only be like a man who puts a
sovereign into the offertory bag in mistake for a shilling. The
extra nineteen shillings will do him no good at all, since in his
heart he regrets the error and wishes that he could have them
back."
Then he departed, leaving me laughing. But Bickley did not
laugh.
"Arbuthnot," he said, "I have come to the conclusion that I
have gone quite mad. I beg you if I should show signs of
homicidal mania, which I feel developing in me where Bastin is
concerned, or of other abnormal violence, that you will take
whatever steps you consider necessary, even to putting me out of
the way if that is imperative."
"What do you mean?" I asked. "You seem sane enough."
"Sane, when I believe that I have seen and experienced a great
number of things which I know it to be quite impossible that I
should have seen or experienced. The only explanation is that I
am suffering from delusions."
"Then is Bastin suffering from delusions, too?"
"Certainly, but that is nothing new in his case."
"I don't agree with you, Bickley--about Bastin, I mean. I am by
no means certain that he is not the wisest of the three of us. He
has a faith and he sticks to it, as millions have done before
him, and that is better than making spiritual experiments, as I
am sorry to say I do, or rejecting things because one cannot
understand them, as you do, which is only a form of intellectual
vanity."
"I won't argue the matter, Arbuthnot; it is of no use. I repeat
that I am mad, and Bastin is mad."
"How about me? I also saw and experienced these things. Am I
mad, too?"
"You ought to be, Arbuthnot. If it isn't enough to drive a man
mad when he sees himself exactly reproduced in an utterly
impossible moving-picture show exhibited by an utterly impossible
young woman in an utterly impossible underground city, then I
don't know what is.
"What do you mean?" I asked, starting.
"Mean? Well, if you didn't notice it, there's hope for you."
"Notice what?"
"All that envoy scene. There, as I thought, appeared Yva. Do
you admit that?"
"Of course; there could be no mistake on that point."
"Very well. Then according to my version there came a man,
still young, dressed in outlandish clothes, who made propositions
of peace and wanted to marry Yva, who wanted to marry him. Is
that right?"
"Absolutely."
"Well, and didn't you recognise the man?"
"No; I only noticed that he was a fine-looking fellow whose
appearance reminded me of someone."
"I suppose it must be true," mused Bickley, "that we do not
know ourselves."
"So the old Greek thought, since he urged that this should be
our special study. 'Know thyself,' you remember."
"I meant physically, not intellectually. Arbuthnot, do you mean
to tell me that you did not recognise your own double in that
man? Shave off your beard and put on his clothes and no one could
distinguish you apart."
I sprang up, dropping my pipe.
"Now you mention it," I said slowly, "I suppose there was a
resemblance. I didn't look at him very much; I was studying the
simulacrum of Yva. Also, you know it is some time since--I mean,
there are no pier-glasses in Orofena."
"The man was you," went on Bickley with conviction. "If I were
superstitious I should think it a queer sort of omen. But as I am
not, I know that I must be mad."
"Why? After all, an ancient man and a modern man might resemble
each other."
"There are degrees in resemblance," said Bickley with one of
his contemptuous snorts. "It won't do, Humphrey, my boy," he
added. "I can only think of one possible explanation--outside of
the obvious one of madness."
"What is that?"
"The Glittering Lady produced what Bastin called that
cinematograph show in some way or other, did she not? She said
that in order to do this she loosed some hidden forces. I suggest
that she did nothing of the sort."
"Then whence did the pictures come and why?"
"From her own brain, in order to impress us with a cock-and-
bull, fairy-book story. If this were so she would quite naturally
fill the role of the lover of the piece with the last man who had
happened to impress her. Hence the resemblance."
"You presuppose a great deal, Bickley, including supernatural
cunning and unexampled hypnotic influence. I don't know, first,
why she should be so anxious to add another impression to the
many we have received in this place; and, secondly, if she was,
how she managed to mesmerise three average but totally different
men into seeing the same things. My explanation is that you were
deceived as to the likeness, which, mind you, I did not
recognise; nor, apparently, did Bastin."
"Bastin never recognises anything. But if you are in doubt, ask
Yva herself. She ought to know. Now I'm off to try to analyse
that confounded Life-water, which I suspect is of the ordinary
spring variety, lightened up with natural carbonic acid gas and
possibly not uninfluenced by radium. The trouble is that here I
can only apply some very elementary tests."
So he went also, in an opposite direction to Bastin, and I was
left alone with Tommy, who annoyed me much by attempting
continually to wander off into the cave, whence I must recall
him. I suppose that my experiences of the day, reviewed beneath
the sweet influences of the wonderful tropical night, affected
me. At any rate, that mystical side of my nature, to which I
think I alluded at the beginning of this record, sprang into
active and, in a sense, unholy life. The normal vanished, the
abnormal took possession, and that is unholy to most of us
creatures of habit and tradition, at any rate, if we are British.
I lost my footing on the world; my spirit began to wander in
strange places; of course, always supposing that we have a
spirit, which Bickley would deny.
I gave up reason; I surrendered myself to unreason; it is a not
unpleasant process, occasionally. Supposing now that all we see
and accept is but the merest fragment of the truth, or perhaps
only a refraction thereof? Supposing that we do live again and
again, and that our animating principle, whatever it might be,
does inhabit various bodies, which, naturally enough, it would
shape to its own taste and likeness? Would that taste and
likeness vary so very much over, let us say, a million years or
so, which, after all, is but an hour, or a minute, in the aeons
of Eternity?
On this hypothesis, which is so wild that one begins to suspect
that it may be true, was it impossible that I and that murdered
man of the far past were in fact identical? If the woman were the
same, preserved across the gulf in some unknown fashion, why
should not her lover be the same? What did I say--her lover? Was
I her lover? No, I was the lover of one who had died--my lost
wife. Well, if I had died and lived again, why should not--why
should not that Sleeper--have lived again during her long sleep?
Through all those years the spirit must have had some home, and,
if so, in what shapes did it live? There were points,
similarities, which rushed in upon me--oh! it was ridiculous.
Bickley was right. We were all mad!
There was another thing. Oro had declared that we were at war
with Germany. If this were so, how could he know it? Such
knowledge would presume powers of telepathy or vision beyond
those given to man. I could not believe that he possessed these;
as Bickley said, it would be past experience. Yet it was most
strange that he who was uninformed as to our national history and
dangers, should have hit upon a country with which we might well
have been plunged into sudden struggle. Here again I was
bewildered and overcome. My brain rocked. I would seek sleep, and
in it escape, or at any rate rest from all these mysteries.
On the following morning we despatched Bastin to keep his
rendezvous in the sepulchre at the proper time. Had we not done
so I felt sure that he would have forgotten it, for on this
occasion he was for once an unwilling missioner. He tried to
persuade one of us to come with him--even Bickley would have been
welcome; but we both declared that we could not dream of
interfering in such a professional matter; also that our presence
was forbidden, and would certainly distract the attention of his
pupil.
"What you mean," said the gloomy Bastin, "is that you intend to
enjoy yourselves up here in the female companionship of the
Glittering Lady whilst I sit thousands of feet underground
attempting to lighten the darkness of a violent old sinner whom I
suspect of being in league with Satan."
"With whom you should be proud to break a lance," said Bickley.
"So I am, in the daylight. For instance, when he uses your
mouth to advance his arguments. Bickley, but this is another
matter. However, if I do not appear again you will know that I
died in a good cause, and, I hope, try to recover my remains and
give them decent burial. Also, you might inform the Bishop of how
I came to my end, this is, if you ever get an opportunity, which
is more than doubtful."
"Hurry up, Bastin, hurry up!" said the unfeeling Bickley, "or
you will be late for your appointment and put your would-be
neophyte into a bad temper."
Then Bastin went, carrying under his arm a large Bible printed
in the language of the South Sea Islands.
A little while later Yva appeared, arrayed in her wondrous
robes which, being a man, it is quite impossible for me to
describe. She saw us looking at these, and, after greeting us
both, also Tommy, who was enraptured at her coming, asked us how
the ladies of our country attired themselves.
We tried to explain, with no striking success.
"You are as stupid about such matters as were the men of the
Old World," she said, shaking her head and laughing. "I thought
that you had with you pictures of ladies you have known which
would show me."
Now, in fact, I had in a pocket-book a photograph of my wife in
evening-dress, also a miniature of her head and bust painted on
ivory, a beautiful piece of work done by a master hand, which I
always wore. These, after a moment's hesitation, I produced and
showed to her, Bickley having gone away for a little while to see
about something connected with his attempted analysis of the
Life-water. She examined them with great eagerness, and as she
did so I noted that her face grew tender and troubled.
"This was your wife," she said as one who states what she knows
to be a fact. I nodded, and she went on:
"She was sweet and beautiful as a flower, but not so tall as I
am, I think."
"No," I answered, "she lacked height; given that she would have
been a lovely woman."
"I am glad you think that women should be tall," she said,
glancing at her shadow. "The eyes were such as mine, were they
not--in colour, I mean?"
"Yes, very like yours, only yours are larger."
"That is a beautiful way of wearing the hair. Would you be
angry if I tried it? I weary of this old fashion."
"Why should I be angry?" I asked.
At this moment Bickley reappeared and she began to talk of the
details of the dress, saying that it showed more of the neck than
had been the custom among the women of her people, but was very
pretty.
"That is because we are still barbarians," said Bickley; "at
least, our women are, and therefore rely upon primitive methods
of attraction, like the savages yonder."
She smiled, and, after a last, long glance, gave me back the
photograph and the miniature, saying as she delivered the latter:
"I rejoice to see that you are faithful, Humphrey, and wear
this picture on your heart, as well as in it."
"Then you must be a very remarkable woman," said Bickley.
"Never before did I hear one of your sex rejoice because a man
was faithful to somebody else."
"Has Bickley been disappointed in his love-heart, that he is so
angry to us women?" asked Yva innocently of me. Then, without
waiting for an answer, she inquired of him whether he had been
successful in his analysis of the Life-water.
"How do you know what I was doing with the Life-water? Did
Bastin tell you?" exclaimed Bickley.
"Bastin told me nothing, except that he was afraid of the
descent to Nyo; that he hated Nyo when he reached it, as indeed I
do, and that he thought that my father, the Lord Oro, was a devil
or evil spirit from some Under-world which he called hell."
"Bastin has an open heart and an open mouth," said Bickley,
"for which I respect him. Follow his example if you will, Lady
Yva, and tell us who and what is the Lord Oro, and who and what
are you."
"Have we not done so already? If not, I will repeat. The Lord
Oro and I are two who have lived on from the old time when the
world was different, and yet, I think, the same. He is a man and
not a god, and I am a woman. His powers are great because of his
knowledge, which he has gathered from his forefathers and in a
life of a thousand years before he went to sleep. He can do
things you cannot do. Thus, he can pass through space and take
others with him, and return again. He can learn what is happening
in far-off parts of the world, as he did when he told you of the
war in which your country is concerned. He has terrible powers;
for instance, he can kill, as he killed those savages. Also, he
knows the secrets of the earth, and, if it pleases him, can
change its turning so that earthquakes happen and sea becomes
land, and land sea, and the places that were hot grow cold, and
those that were cold grow hot."
"All of which things have happened many time in the history of
the globe," said Bickley, "without the help of the Lord Oro."
"Others had knowledge before my father, and others doubtless
will have knowledge after him. Even I, Yva, have some knowledge,
and knowledge is strength."
"Yes," I interposed, "but such powers as you attribute to your
father are not given to man."
"You mean to man as you know him, man like Bickley, who thinks
that he has learned everything that was ever learned. But it is
not so. Hundreds of thousands of years ago men knew more than it
seems they do today, ten times more, as they lived ten times
longer, or so you tell me."
"Men?" I said.
"Yes, men, not gods or spirits, as the uninstructed nations
supposed them to be. My father is a man subject to the hopes and
terrors of man. He desires power which is ambition, and when the
world refused his rule, he destroyed that part of it which
rebelled, which is revenge. Moreover, above all things he dreads
death, which is fear. That is why he suspended life in himself
and me for two hundred and fifty thousand years, as his knowledge
gave him strength to do, because death was near and he thought
that sleep was better than death."
"Why should he dread to die," asked Bickley, "seeing that sleep
and death are the same?"
"Because his knowledge tells him that Sleep and Death are not
the same, as you, in your foolishness, believe, for there Bastin
is wiser than you. Because for all his wisdom he remains ignorant
of what happens to man when the Light of Life is blown out by the
breath of Fate. That is why he fears to die and why he talks with
Bastin the Preacher, who says he has the secret of the future."
"And do you fear to die?" I asked.
"No, Humphrey," she answered gently. "Because I think that
there is no death, and, having done no wrong, I dread no evil. I
had dreams while I was asleep, O Humphrey, and it seemed to me
that--"
Here she ceased and glanced at where she knew the miniature was
hanging upon my breast.
"Now," she continued, after a little pause, "tell me of your
world, of its history, of its languages, of what happens there,
for I long to know."
So then and there, assisted by Bickley, I began the education
of the Lady Yva. I do not suppose that there was ever a more apt
pupil in the whole earth. To begin with, she was better
acquainted with every subject on which I touched than I was
myself; all she lacked was information as to its modern aspect.
Her knowledge ended two hundred and fifty thousand years ago, at
which date, however, it would seem that civilisation had already
touched a higher water-mark than it has ever since attained.
Thus, this vanished people understood astronomy, natural
magnetism, the force of gravity, steam, also electricity to some
subtle use of which, I gathered, the lighting of their
underground city was to be attributed. They had mastered
architecture and the arts, as their buildings and statues showed;
they could fly through the air better than we have learned to do
within the last few years.
More, they, or some of them, had learned the use of the Fourth
Dimension, that is their most instructed individuals, could move
through opposing things, as well as over them, up into them and
across them. This power these possessed in a two-fold form. I
mean, that they could either disintegrate their bodies at one
spot and cause them to integrate again at another, or they could
project what the old Egyptians called the Ka or Double, and
modern Theosophists name the Astral Shape, to any distance.
Moreover, this Double, or Astral Shape, while itself invisible,
still, so to speak, had the use of its senses. It could see, it
could hear, and it could remember, and, on returning to the body,
it could avail itself of the experience thus acquired.
Thus, at least, said Yva, while Bickley contemplated her with a
cold and unbelieving eye. She even went further and alleged that
in certain instances, individuals of her extinct race had been
able to pass through the ether and to visit other worlds in the
depths of space.
"Have you ever done that?" asked Bickley.
"Once or twice I dreamed that I did," she replied quietly.
"We can all dream," he answered.
As it was my lot to make acquaintance with this strange and
uncanny power at a later date, I will say no more of it now.
Telepathy, she declared, was also a developed gift among the
Sons of Wisdom; indeed, they seem to have used it as we use
wireless messages. Only, in their case, the sending and receiving
stations were skilled and susceptible human beings who went on
duty for so many hours at a time. Thus intelligence was
transmitted with accuracy and despatch. Those who had this
faculty were, she said, also very apt at reading the minds of
others and therefore not easy to deceive.
"Is that how you know that I had been trying to analyse your
Life-water?" asked Bickley.
"Yes," she answered, with her unvarying smile. "At the moment I
spoke thereof you were wondering whether my father would be angry
if he knew that you had taken the water in a little flask." She
studied him for a moment, then added: "Now you are wondering,
first, whether I did not see you take the water from the fountain
and guess the purpose, and, secondly, whether perhaps Bastin did
not tell me what you were doing with it when we met in the
sepulchre."
"Look here," said the exasperated Bickley, "I admit that
telepathy and thought-reading are possible to a certain limited
extent. But supposing that you possess those powers, as I think
in English, and you do not know English, how can you interpret
what is passing in my mind?"
"Perhaps you have been teaching me English all this while
without knowing it, Bickley. In any case, it matters little,
seeing that what I read is the thought, not the language with
which it is clothed. The thought comes from your mind to mine--
that is, if I wish it, which is not often--and I interpret it in
my own or other tongues."
"I am glad to hear it is not often, Lady Yva, since thoughts
are generally considered private."
"Yes, and therefore I will read yours no more. Why should I,
when they are so full of disbelief of all I tell you, and
sometimes of other things about myself which I do not seek to
know?"
"No wonder that, according to the story in the pictures, those
Nations, whom you named Barbarians, made an end of your people,
Lady Yva."
"You are mistaken, Bickley; the Lord Oro made an end of the
Nations, though against my prayer," she added with a sigh
Then Bickley departed in a rage, and did not appear again for
an hour.
"He is angry," she said, looking after him; "nor do I wonder.
It is hard for the very clever like Bickley, who think that they
have mastered all things, to find that after all they are quite
ignorant. I am sorry for him, and I like him very much."
"Then you would be sorry for me also, Lady Yva?"
"Why?" she asked with a dazzling smile, "when your heart is
athirst for knowledge, gaping for it like a fledgling's mouth for
food, and, as it chances, though I am not very wise, I can
satisfy something of your soul-hunger."
"Not very wise!" I repeated.
"No, Humphrey. I think that Bastin, who in many ways is so
stupid, has more true wisdom than I have, because he can believe
and accept without question. After all, the wisdom of my people
is all of the universe and its wonders. What you think magic is
not magic; it is only gathered knowledge and the finding out of
secrets. Bickley will tell you the same, although as yet he does
not believe that the mind of man can stretch so far."
"You mean that your wisdom has in it nothing of the spirit?"
"Yes, Humphrey, that is what I mean. I do not even know if
there is such a thing as spirit. Our god was Fate; Bastin's god
is a spirit, and I think yours also."
"Yes."
"Therefore, I wish you and Bastin to teach me of your god, as
does Oro, my father. I want--oh! so much, Humphrey, to learn
whether we live after death."
"You!" I exclaimed. "You who, according to the story, have
slept for two hundred and fifty thousand years! You, who have,
unless I mistake, hinted that during that sleep you may have
lived in other shapes! Do you doubt whether we can live after
death?"
"Yes. Sleep induced by secret arts is not death, and during
that sleep the I within might wander and inhabit other shapes,
because it is forbidden to be idle. Moreover, what seems to be
death may not be death, only another form of sleep from which the
I awakes again upon the world. But at last comes the real death,
when the I is extinguished to the world. That much I know,
because my people learned it."
"You mean, you know that men and women may live again and again
upon the world?"
"Yes, Humphrey, I do. For in the world there is only a certain
store of life which in many forms travels on and on, till the lot
of each I is fulfilled. Then comes the real death, and after
that--what, oh!--what?"
"You must ask Bastin," I said humbly. "I cannot dare to teach
of such matters."
"No, but you can and do believe, and that helps me, Humphrey,
who am in tune with you. Yes, it helps me much more than do
Bastin and his new religion, because such is woman's way. Now, I
think Bickley will soon return, so let us talk of other matters.
Tell me of the history of your people, Humphrey, that my father
says are now at war."
