Chapter XVIII
The Accident
Bickley did return, having recovered his temper, since after
all it was impossible for anyone to remain angry with the Lady
Yva for long, and we spent a very happy time together. We
instructed and she was the humble pupil.
How swift and nimble was her intelligence! In that one morning
she learned all our alphabet and how to write our letters. It
appeared that among her people, at any rate in their later
periods, the only form of writing that was used was a highly
concentrated shorthand which saved labour. They had no journals,
since news which arrived telepathically or by some form of
wireless was proclaimed to those who cared to listen, and on it
all formed their own judgments. In the same way poems and even
romances were repeated, as in Homer's day or in the time of the
Norse sagas, by word of mouth. None of their secret knowledge was
written down. Like the ritual of Freemasonry it was considered
too sacred.
Moreover, when men lived for hundreds of years this was not so
necessary, especially as their great fear was lest it should fall
into the hands of the outside nations, whom they called
Barbarians. For, be it remembered, these Sons of Wisdom were
always a very small people who ruled by the weight of their
intelligence and the strength of their accumulated lore. Indeed,
they could scarcely be called a people; rather were they a few
families, all of them more or less connected with the original
ruling Dynasty which considered itself half divine. These
families were waited upon by a multitude of servants or slaves
drawn from the subject nations, for the most part skilled in one
art or another, or perhaps, remarkable for their personal beauty.
Still they remained outside the pale.
The Sons of Wisdom did not intermarry with them or teach them
their learning, or even allow them to drink of their Life-water.
They ruled them as men rule dogs, treating them with kindness,
but no more, and as many dogs run their course and die in the
lifetime of one master, so did many of these slaves in that of
one of the Sons of Wisdom. Therefore, the slaves came to regard
their lords not as men, but gods. They lived but three score
years and ten like the rest of us, and went their way, they,
whose great-great-grandfathers had served the same master and
whose great-great-great-grandchildren would still serve him. What
should we think of a lord who we knew was already adult in the
time of William the Conqueror, and who remained still vigorous
and all-powerful in that of George V? One, moreover, who
commanded almost infinite knowledge to which we were denied the
key? We might tremble before him and look upon him as half-
divine, but should we not long to kill him and possess his
knowledge and thereby prolong our own existence to his wondrous
measure?
Such, said Yva, was the case with their slaves and the peoples
from whence these sprang. They grew mad with jealous hate, till
at length came the end we knew.
Thus we talked on for hours till the time came for us to eat.
As before Yva partook of fruit and we of such meats as we had at
hand. These, we noticed, disgusted her, because, as she
explained, the Children of Wisdom, unless driven thereto by
necessity, touched no flesh, but lived on the fruits of the earth
and wine alone. Only the slaves and the Barbarians ate flesh. In
these views Bickley for once agreed with her, that is, except as
regards the wine, for in theory, if not in practice--he was a
vegetarian.
"I will bring you more of the Life-water," she said, "and then
you will grow to hate these dead things, as I do. And now
farewell. My father calls me. I hear him though you do not. To-
morrow I cannot come, but the day after I will come and bring you
the Life-water. Nay, accompany me not, but as I see he wishes it,
let Tommy go with me. I will care for him, and he is a friend in
all that lonely place."
So she went, and with her Tommy, rejoicing.
"Ungrateful little devil!" said Bickley. "Here we've fed and
petted him from puppyhood, or at least you have, and yet he skips
off with the first stranger. I never saw him behave like that to
any woman, except your poor wife."
"I know," I answered. "I cannot understand it. Hullo! here
comes Bastin."
Bastin it was, dishevelled and looking much the worse for wear,
also minus his Bible in the native tongue.
"Well, how have you been getting on?" said Bickley.
"I should like some tea, also anything there is to eat."
We supplied him with these necessaries, and after a while he
said slowly and solemnly:
"I cannot help thinking of a childish story which Bickley told
or invented one night at your house at home. I remember he had an
argument with my wife, which he said put him in mind of it, I am
sure I don't know why. It was about a monkey and a parrot that
were left together under a sofa for a long while, where they were
so quiet that everybody forgot them. Then the parrot came out
with only one feather left in its tail and none at all on its
body, saying, 'I've had no end of a time!' after which it dropped
down and died. Do you know, I feel just like that parrot, only I
don't mean to die, and I think I gave the monkey quite as good as
he gave me!"
"What happened?" I asked, intensely interested.
"Oh! the Glittering Lady took me into that palace hall where
Oro was sitting like a spider in a web, and left me there. I got
to work at once. He was much interested in the Old Testament
stories and said there were points of truth about them, although
they had evidently come down to the modern writer--he called him
a modern writer--in a legendary form. I thought his remarks
impertinent and with difficulty refrained from saying so. Leaving
the story of the Deluge and all that, I spoke of other matters,
telling him of eternal life and Heaven and Hell, of which the
poor benighted man had never heard. I pointed out especially that
unless he repented, his life, by all accounts, had been so
wicked, that he was certainly destined to the latter place."
"What did he say to that?" I asked.
"Do you know, I think it frightened him, if one could imagine
Oro being frightened. At any rate he remarked that the truth or
falsity of what I said was an urgent matter for him, as he could
not expect to live more than a few hundred years longer, though
perhaps he might prolong the period by another spell of sleep.
Then he asked me why I thought him so wicked. I replied because
he himself said that he had drowned millions of people, which
showed an evil heart and intention even if it were not a fact. He
thought a long while and asked what could be done in the
circumstances. I replied that repentance and reparation were the
only courses open to him."
"Reparation!" I exclaimed.
"Yes, reparation was what I said, though I think I made a
mistake there, as you will see. As nearly as I can remember, he
answered that he was beginning to repent, as from all he had
learned from us, he gathered that the races which had arisen as a
consequence of his action, were worse than those which he had
destroyed. As regards reparation, what he had done once he could
do again. He would think the matter over seriously, and see if it
were possible and advisable to raise those parts of the world
which had been sunk, and sink those which had been raised. If so,
he thought that would make very handsome amends to the departed
nations and set him quite right with any superior Power, if such
a thing existed. What are you laughing at, Bickley? I don't think
it a laughing matter, since such remarks do not seem to me to
indicate any real change in Oro's heart, which is what I was
trying to effect."
Bickley, who was convulsed with merriment, wiped his eyes and
said:
"You dear old donkey, don't you see what you have done, or
rather would have done if there were a word of truth in all this
ridiculous story about a deluge? You would be in the way of
making your precious pupil, who certainly is the most masterly
old liar in the world, repeat his offence and send Europe to the
bottom of the sea."
"That did occur to me, but it doesn't much matter as I am quite
certain that such a thing would never be allowed. Of course there
was a real deluge once, but Oro had no more to do with it than I
had. Don't you agree, Arbuthnot?"
"I think so," I answered cautiously, "but really in this place
I am beginning to lose count of what is or is not possible. Also,
of course, there may have been many deluges; indeed the history
of the world shows that this was so; it is written in its
geological strata. What was the end of it?"
"The end was that he took the South Sea Bible and, after I had
explained a little about our letters, seemed to be able to read
it at once. I suppose he was acquainted with the art of printing
in his youth. At any rate he said that he would study it, I don't
know how, unless he can read, and that in two days' time he would
let me know what he thought about the matter of my religion. Then
he told me to go. I said that I did not know the way and was
afraid of losing myself. Thereupon he waved his hand, and I
really can't say what happened."
"Did you levitate up here," asked Bickley, "like the late
lamented Mr. Home at the spiritualistic seances?"
"No, I did not exactly levitate, but something or someone
seemed to get a hold of me, and I was just rushed along in a most
tumultuous fashion. The next thing I knew was that I was standing
at the door of that sepulchre, though I have no recollection of
going up in the lift, or whatever it is. I believe those beastly
caves are full of ghosts, or devils, and the worst of it is that
they have kept my solar-tope, which I put on this morning
forgetting that it would be useless there."
"The Lady Yva's Fourth Dimension in action," I suggested, "only
it wouldn't work on solar-topes."
"I don't know what you are talking about," said Bastin, "but if
my hat had to be left, why not my boots and other garments?
Please stop your nonsense and pass the tea. Thank goodness I
haven't got to go down there tomorrow, as he seems to have had
enough of me for the present, so I vote we all pay a visit to the
ship. It will be a very pleasant change. I couldn't stand two
days running with that old fiend, and his ghosts or devils in the
cave."
Next morning accordingly, fearing no harm from the Orofenans,
we took the canoe and rowed to the main island. Marama had
evidently seen us coming, for he and a number of his people met
us with every demonstration of delight, and escorted us to the
ship. Here we found things just as we had left them, for there
had been no attempt at theft or other mischief.
While we were in the cabin a fit of moral weakness seemed to
overcome Bickley, the first and I may add the last from which I
ever saw him suffer.
"Do you know," he said, addressing us, "I think that we should
do well to try to get out of this place. Eliminating a great deal
of the marvelous with which we seem to have come in touch here,
it is still obvious that we find ourselves in very peculiar and
unhealthy surroundings. I mean mentally unhealthy, indeed I think
that if we stay here much longer we shall probably go off our
heads. Now that boat on the deck remains sound and seaworthy. Why
should not we provision her and take our chance? We know more or
less which way to steer."
Bastin and I looked at each other. It was he who spoke first.
"Wouldn't it be rather a risky job in an open boat?" he asked.
"However, that doesn't matter much because I don't take any
account of risks, knowing that I am of more value than a sparrow
and that the hairs of my head are all numbered."
"They might be numbered under water as well as above it,"
muttered Bickley, "and I feel sure that on your own showing, you
would be as valuable dead as alive."
"What I seem to feel," went on Bastin, "is that I have work to
my hand here. Also, the locum tenens at Fulcombe no doubt runs
the parish as well as I could. Indeed I consider him a better man
for the place than I am. That old Oro is a tough proposition, but
I do not despair of him yet, and besides him there is the
Glittering Lady, a most open-minded person, whom I have not yet
had any real opportunity of approaching in a spiritual sense.
Then there are all these natives who cannot learn without a
teacher. So on the whole I think I would rather stay where I am
until Providence points out some other path."
"I am of the same opinion, if for somewhat different reasons,"
I said. "I do not suppose that it has often been the fortune of
men to come in touch with such things as we have found upon this
island. They may be illusions, but at least they are very
interesting illusions. One might live ten lifetimes and find
nothing else of the sort. Therefore I should like to see the end
of the dream."
Bickley reflected a little, then said:
"On the whole I agree with you. Only my brain totters and I am
terribly afraid of madness. I cannot believe what I seem to hear
and see, and that way madness lies. It is better to die than to
go mad."
"You'll do that anyway when your time comes, Bickley, I mean
decease, of course," interrupted Bastin. "And who knows, perhaps
all this is an opportunity given by Providence to open your eyes,
which, I must say, are singularly blind. You think you know
everything there is to learn, but the fact is that like the rest
of us, you know nothing at all, and good man though you are,
obstinately refuse to admit the truth and to seek support
elsewhere. For my part I believe that you are afraid of falling
in love with that Glittering Lady and of being convinced by her
that you are wrong in your most unsatisfactory conclusions."
"I am out-voted anyway," said Bickley, "and for the rest,
Bastin, look after yourself and leave me alone. I will add that
on the whole I think you are both right, and that it is wisest
for us to stop where we are, for after all we can only die once."
"I am not so sure, Bickley. There is a thing called the second
death, which is what is troubling that old scoundrel, Oro. Now I
will go and look for those books."
So the idea of flight was abandoned, although I admit that even
to myself it had attractions. For I felt that I was being wrapped
in a net of mysteries from which I saw no escape. Yes, and of
more than mysteries; I who had sworn that I would never look upon
another woman, was learning to love this sweet and wondrous Yva,
and of that what could be the end?
We collected all we had come to seek, and started homewards
escorted by Marama and his people, including a number of young
women who danced before us in a light array of flowers.
Passing our old house, we came to the grove where the idol Oro
had stood and Bastin was so nearly sacrificed. There was another
idol there now which he wished to examine, but in the end did not
as the natives so obviously objected. Indeed Marama told me that
notwithstanding the mysterious death of the sorcerers on the Rock
of Offerings, there was still a strong party in the island who
would be glad to do us a mischief if any further affront were
offered to their hereditary god.
He questioned us also tentatively about the apparition, for
such he conceived it to be, which had appeared upon the rock and
killed the sorcerers, and I answered him as I thought wisest,
telling him that a terrible Power was afoot in the land, which he
would do well to obey.
"Yes," he said; "the God of the Mountain of whom the tradition
has come down to us from our forefathers. He is awake again; he
sees, he hears and we are afraid. Plead with him for us, O
Friend-from-the-Sea."
As he spoke we were passing through a little patch of thick
bush. Suddenly from out of this bush, I saw a lad appear. He wore
a mask upon his face, but from his shape could not have been more
than thirteen or fourteen years of age. In his hand was a wooden
club. He ran forward, stopped, and with a yell of hate hurled it,
I think at Bastin, but it hit me. At any rate I felt a shock and
remembered no more.
Dreams. Dreams. Endless dreams! What were they all about? I do
not know. It seemed to me that through them continually I saw the
stately figure of old Oro contemplating me gravely, as though he
were making up his mind about something in which I must play a
part. Then there was another figure, that of the gracious but
imperial Yva, who from time to time, as I thought, leant over me
and whispered in my ear words of rest and comfort. Nor was this
all, since her shape had a way of changing suddenly into that of
my lost wife who would speak with her voice. Or perhaps my wife
would speak with Yva's voice. To my disordered sense it was as
though they were one personality, having two shapes, either of
which could be assumed at will. It was most strange and yet to me
most blessed, since in the living I seemed to have found the
dead, and in the dead the living. More, I took journeys, or
rather some unknown part of me seemed to do so. One of these I
remember, for its majestic character stamped itself upon my mind
in such a fashion that all the waters of delirium could not wash
it out nor all its winds blow away that memory.
I was travelling through space with Yva a thousand times faster
than light can flash. We passed sun after sun. They drew near,
they grew into enormous, flaming Glories round which circled
world upon world. They became small, dwindled to points of light
and disappeared.
We found footing upon some far land and passed a marvelous
white city wherein were buildings with domes of crystal and
alabaster, in the latter of which were set windows made of great
jewels; sapphires or rubies they seemed to me. We went on up a
lovely valley. To the left were hills, down which tumbled
waterfalls; to the right was a river broad and deep that seemed
to overflow its banks as does the Nile. Behind were high
mountains on the slopes of which grew forests of glorious trees,
some of them aflame with bloom, while far away up their crests
stood colossal golden statues set wide apart. They looked like
guardian angels watching that city and that vale. The land was
lit with a light such as that of the moon, only intensified and
of many colours. Indeed looking up, I saw that above us floated
three moons, each of them bigger than our own at the full, and
gathered that here it was night.
We came to a house set amid scented gardens and having in front
of it terraces of flowers. It seemed not unlike my own house at
home, but I took little note of it, because of a woman who sat
upon the verandah, if I may call it so. She was clad in garments
of white silk fastened about her middle with a jewelled girdle.
On her neck also was a collar of jewels. I forget the colour;
indeed this seemed to change continually as the light from the
different moons struck when she moved, but I think its prevailing
tinge was blue. In her arms this woman nursed a beauteous,
sleeping child, singing happily as she rocked it to and fro. Yva
went towards the woman who looked up at her step and uttered a
little cry. Then for the first time I saw the woman's face. It
was that of my dead wife!
As I followed in my dream, a little cloud of mist seemed to
cover both my wife and Yva, and when I reached the place Yva was
gone. Only my wife remained, she and the child. There she stood,
solemn and sweet. While I drew near she laid down the child upon
the cushioned seat from which she had risen. She stretched out
her arms and flung them about me. She embraced me and I embraced
her in a rapture of reunion. Then turning she lifted up the
child, it was a girl, for me to kiss.
"See your daughter," she said, "and behold all that I am making
ready for you where we shall dwell in a day to come."
I grew confused.
"Yva," I said. "Where is Yva who brought me here? Did she go
into the house?"
"Yes," she answered happily. "Yva went into the house. Look
again!"
I looked and it was Yva's face that was pressed against my own,
and Yva's eyes that gazed into mine. Only she was garbed as my
wife had been, and on her bosom hung the changeful necklace.
"You may not stay," she whispered, and lo! it was my wife that
spoke, not Yva.
"Tell me what it means?" I implored.
"I cannot," she answered. "There are mysteries that you may not
know as yet. Love Yva if you will and I shall not be jealous, for
in loving Yva you love me. You cannot understand? Then know this,
that the spirit has many shapes, and yet is the same spirit--
sometimes. Now I who am far, yet near, bid you farewell a while."
Then all passed in a flash and the dream ended.
Such was the only one of those visions which I can recall.
I seemed to wake up as from a long and tumultuous sleep. The
first thing I saw was the palm roof of our house upon the rock. I
knew it was our house, for just above me was a palm leaf of which
I had myself tied the stalk to the framework with a bit of
coloured ribbon i had I had chanced to find in my pocket. It came
originally from the programme card of a dance that I had attended
at Honolulu and I had kept it because I thought it might be
useful. Finally I used it to secure that loose leaf. I stared at
the ribbon which brought back a flood of memories, and as I was
thus engaged I heard voices talking, and listened--Bickley's
voice, and the Lady Yva's.
"Yes," Bickley was saying, "he will do well now, but he went
near, very near."
"I knew he would not die," she answered, "because my father
said so."
"There are two sorts of deaths," replied Bickley, "that of the
body and that of the mind. I was afraid that even if he lived,
his reason would go, but from certain indications I do not think
that will happen now. He will get quite well again--though--" and
he stopped.
"I am very glad to hear you say so," chimed in Bastin. "For
weeks I thought that I should have to read the Burial Service
over poor Arbuthnot. Indeed I was much puzzled as to the best
place to bury him. Finally I found a very suitable spot round the
corner there, where it isn't rock, in which one can't dig and the
soil is not liable to be flooded. In fact I went so far as to
clear away the bush and to mark out the grave with its foot to
the east. In this climate one can't delay, you know."
Weak as I was, I smiled. This practical proceeding was so
exactly like Bastin.
"Well, you wasted your labour," exclaimed Bickley.
"Yes, I am glad to say I did. But I don't think it was your
operations and the rest that cured him, Bickley, although you
take all the credit. I believe it was the Life-water that the
Lady Yva made him drink and the stuff that Oro sent which we gave
him when you weren't looking."
"Then I hope that in the future you will not interfere with my
cases," said the indignant Bickley, and either the voices passed
away or I went to sleep.
When I woke up again it was to find the Lady Yva seated at my
side watching me.
"Forgive me, Humphrey, because I here; others gone out
walking," she said slowly in English.
"Who taught you my language?" I asked, astonished. "Bastin and
Bickley, while you ill, they teach; they teach me much. Man just
same now as he was hundred thousand years ago," she added
enigmatically. "All think one woman beautiful when no other woman
there."
"Indeed," I replied, wondering to what proceedings on the part
of Bastin and Bickley she alluded. Could that self-centred pair--
oh! it was impossible.
"How long have I been ill?" I asked to escape the subject which
I felt to be uncomfortable.
She lifted her beautiful eyes in search of words and began to
count upon her fingers.
"Two moon, one half moon, yes, ten week, counting Sabbath," she
answered triumphantly.
"Ten weeks!" I exclaimed.
"Yes, Humphrey, ten whole weeks and three days you first bad,
then mad. Oh!" she went on, breaking into the Orofenan tongue
which she spoke so perfectly, although it was not her own. That
language of hers I never learned, but I know she thought in it
and only translated into Orofenan, because of the great
difficulty which she had in rendering her high and refined ideas
into its simpler metaphor, and the strange words which often she
introduced. "Oh! you have been very ill, friend of my heart. At
times I thought that you were going to die, and wept and wept.
Bickley thinks that he saved you and he is very clever. But he
could not have saved you; that wanted more knowledge than any of
your people have; only I pray you, do not tell him so because it
would hurt his pride."
"What was the matter with me then, Yva?"
"All was the matter. First, the weapon which that youth threw--
he was the son of the sorcerer whom my father destroyed--crushed
in the bone of your head. He is dead for his crime and may he be
accursed for ever," she added in the only outbreak of rage and
vindictiveness in which I ever saw her indulge.
"One must make excuses for him; his father had been killed," I
said.
"Yes, that is what Bastin tells me, and it is true. Still, for
that young man I can make no excuse; it was cowardly and wicked.
Well, Bickley performed what he calls operation, and the Lord
Oro, he came up from his house and helped him, because Bastin is
no good in such things. Then he can only turn away his head and
pray. I, too, helped, holding hot water and linen and jar of the
stuff that made you feel like nothing, although the sight made me
feel more sick than anything since I saw one I loved killed, oh,
long, long ago."
"Was the operation successful?" I asked, for I did not dare to
begin to thank her.
"Yes, that clever man, Bickley, lifted the bone which had been
crushed in. Only then something broke in your head and you began
to bleed here," and she touched what I believe is called the
temporal artery. "The vein had been crushed by the blow, and gave
way. Bickley worked and worked, and just in time he tied it up
before you died. Oh! then I felt as though I loved Bickley,
though afterwards Bastin said that I ought to have loved him,
since it was not Bickley who stopped the bleeding, but his
prayer."
"Perhaps it was both," I suggested.
"Perhaps, Humphrey, at least you were saved. Then came another
trouble. You took fever. Bickley said that it was because a
certain gnat had bitten you when you went down to the ship, and
my father, the Lord Oro, told me that this was right. At the
least you grew very weak and lost your mind, and it seemed as
though you must die. Then, Humphrey, I went to the Lord Oro and
kneeled before him and prayed you life, for I knew that he could
cure you if he would, though Bickley's skill was at an end.
"'Daughter,' he said to me, 'not once but again and again you
have set up your will against mine in the past. Why then should I
trouble myself to grant this desire of yours in the present, and
save a man who is nothing to me?'
"I rose to my feet and answered, 'I do not know, my Father, yet
I am certain that for your own sake it will be well to do so. I
am sure that of everything even you must give an account at last,
great though you be, and who knows, perhaps one life which you
have saved may turn the balance in your favour.'
"'Surely the priest Bastin has been talking to you,' he said.
"'He has,' I answered, 'and not he alone. Many voices have been
talking to me.'"
"What did you mean by that?" I asked.
"It matters nothing what I meant, Humphrey. Be still and listen
to my story. My father thought a while and answered:
"'I am jealous of this stranger. What is he but a short-lived
half-barbarian such as we knew in the old days? And yet already
you think more of him than you do of me, your father, the divine
Oro who has lived a thousand years. At first I helped that
physician to save him, but now I think I wish him dead.'
"'If you let this man die, my Father,' I answered, 'then we
part. Remember that I also have of the wisdom of our people, and
can use it if I will.'
"'Then save him yourself,' he said.
"'Perhaps I shall, my Father,' I answered, 'but if so it will
not be here. I say that if so we part and you shall be left to
rule in your majesty alone.'
"Now this frightened the Lord Oro, for he has the weakness that
he hates to be alone.
"'If I do what you will, do you swear never to leave me, Yva?'
he asked. 'Know that if you will not swear, the man dies.'
"'I swear,' I answered--for your sake, Humphrey--though I did
not love the oath.
"Then he gave me a certain medicine to mix with the Life-water,
and when you were almost gone that medicine cured you, though
Bickley does not know it, as nothing else could have done. Now I
have told you the truth, for your own ear only, Humphrey."
"Yva," I asked, "why did you do all this for me?"
"Humphrey, I do not know," she answered, "but I think because I
must. Now sleep a while."
