Chapter XXVII. Bastin Discovers a Resemblance
There is little more to tell.
Shortly after our return Bickley, like a patriotic Englishman,volunteered for service at the front and departed in the uniform of theR.A.M.C. Before he left he took the opportunity of explaining to Bastinhow much better it was in such a national emergency as existed, tobelong to a profession in which a man could do something to help thebodies of his countrymen that had been broken in the common cause, thanto one like his in which it was only possible to pelt them with vainwords.
"You think that, do you, Bickley?" answered Bastin. "Well, I hold thatit is better to heal souls than bodies, because, as even you will havelearned 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 hehad lived a thousand years, but what was there to prove this except hisword, 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 accordingto her own showing she was still quite young, how could she know herfather's age?"
"Quite so, Bickley. But all she actually said was that she was of thesame age as one of our women of twenty-seven, which may have meant twohundred and seventy for all I know. However, putting that aside youwill admit that they had both slept for two hundred and fifty thousandyears."
"I admit that they slept, Bastin, because I helped to awaken them, butfor how long there is nothing to show, except those star maps which areprobably quite inaccurate."
"They are not inaccurate," I broke in, "for I have had them checked byleading astronomers who say that they show a marvelous knowledge of theheavens as these were two hundred and fifty thousand years ago, and aretoday."
Here I should state that those two metal maps and the ring which I gaveto Yva and found again after the catastrophe, were absolutely the onlythings 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 werepreserved. Everything else went when the Rock of Offerings and the cavemouth sank beneath the waters of the lake.
This may have happened either in the earth tremor, which no doubtwas caused by the advance of the terrific world-balance, or when theelectric 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 thefraction of a second. Even this pause may have been enough to causeconvulsions of the earth above; indeed, I gathered from Marama and otherOrofenans that such convulsions had occurred on and around the islandat what must have corresponded with that moment of the loosing of theforce.
This loss of our belongings in the house of the Rock of Offerings wasthe more grievous because among them were some Kodak photographs whichI had taken, including portraits of Oro and one of Yva that was reallyexcellent, to say nothing of pictures of the mouth of the cave and ofthe ruins and crater lake above. How bitterly I regret that I did notkeep these photographs in my pocket with the map-plates.
"Even if the star-maps are correct, still it proves nothing," saidBickley, "since possibly Oro's astronomical skill might have enabledhim to draw that of the sky at any period, though I allow this isimpossible."
"I doubt his taking so much trouble merely to deceive three wandererswho lacked the knowledge even to check them," I said. "But all thismisses the point, Bickley. However long they had slept, that man andwoman did arise from seeming death. They did dwell in those marvelouscaves with their evidences of departed civilisations, and they did showus that fearful, world-wandering gyroscope. These things we saw."
"I admit that we saw them, Arbuthnot, and I admit that they are one andall beyond human comprehension. To that extent I am converted, and, Imay add, humbled," said Bickley.
"So you ought to be," exclaimed Bastin, "seeing that you always sworethat there was nothing in the world that is not capable of a perfectlynatural explanation."
"Of which all these things may be capable, Bastin, if only we held thekey."
"Very well, Bickley, but how do you explain what the Lady Yva did? I maytell you now what she commanded me to conceal at the time, namely, thatshe became a Christian; so much so that by her own will, I baptised andconfirmed her on the very morning of her sacrifice. Doubtless it wasthis that changed her heart so much that she became willing, of coursewithout my knowledge, to leave everything she cared for," here he lookedhard at me, "and lay down her life to save the world, half of which shebelieved was about to be drowned by Oro. Now, considering her historyand upbringing, I call this a spiritual marvel, much greater than anyyou 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, andwhatever would or would not have happened, she was a great and wonderfulwoman whose memory I worship."
"Quite so, Bickley, and now perhaps you see my point, that what youdescribe 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 beyondconversion because he is beyond repentance. You see, I think that ifthat old scoundrel was not the devil himself, at any rate he was abit of him, and, if I am right, I am not ashamed to have failed in hiscase."
"Even Oro was not utterly bad, Bastin," I said, reflecting on certaintraits of mercy that he had shown, or that I dreamed him to have shownin the course of our mysterious midnight journeys to various parts ofthe earth. Also I remembered that he had loved Tommy and for his sakehad spared our lives. Lastly, I do not altogether wonder that he came tocertain hasty conclusions as to the value of our modern civilisations.
"I am very glad to hear it, Humphrey, since while there is a spark leftthe whole fire may burn up again, and I believe that to the Divine mercythere are no limits, though Oro will have a long road to travel beforehe finds it. And now I have something to say. It has troubled me verymuch that I was obliged to leave those Orofenans wandering in a kind ofreligious 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 havedeserted a field that was open to me. However, it can't be helped, sinceit is certain that we could never find that island again, even if Orohas not sunk it beneath the sea, as he is quite capable of doing, tocover his tracks, so to speak. So I mean to do my best in another fieldby 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 mylocum 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 chaplainof the 201st Division."
"Why, that's mine!" said Bickley.
"Is it? I am very glad, since now we shall be able to pursue ourpleasant arguments and to do our best to open each other's minds."
"You fellows are more fortunate than I am," I remarked. "I alsovolunteered, but they wouldn't take me, even as a Tommy, although Imisstated my age. They told me, or at least a specialist whom I saw didafterwards, that the blow I got on the head from that sorcerer's boy--"
"I know, I know!" broke in Bickley almost roughly. "Of course, thingsmight 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 acourse of action has been suggested to me by a
n old friend who is now inauthority."
Once more Bickley and Bastin in their war-stained uniforms were diningat my table and on the very night of their return from the Front, whichwas unexpected. Indeed Tommy nearly died of joy on hearing their voicesin the hall. They, who played a worthy part in the great struggle,had much to tell me, and naturally their more recent experiences hadoverlaid to some extent those which we shared in the mysterious islandof Orofena. Indeed we did not speak of these until, just as they weregoing away, Bastin paused beneath a very beautiful portrait of my latewife, the work of an artist famous for his power of bringing out theinner character, or what some might call the soul, of the sitter. Hestared at it for a while in his short-sighted way, then said: "Do youknow, Arbuthnot, it has sometimes occurred to me, and never more thanat this moment, that although they were different in height and so on,there was a really curious physical resemblance between your late wifeand the Lady Yva."
"Yes," I answered. "I think so too."
Bickley also examined the portrait very carefully, and as he did so Isaw him start. Then he turned away, saying nothing.
Such is the summary of all that has been important in my life. It is, Iadmit, an odd story and one which suggests problems that I cannot solve.Bastin deals with such things by that acceptance which is the privilegeand hall-mark of faith; Bickley disposes, or used to dispose, of them bya 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 andlonesome; a fateful treadmill to which we were condemned we know nothow, but apparently through the casual passions of those who went beforeus and are now forgotten, causing us, as the Bible says, to be born insin; up which we walk wearily we know not why, seeming never to makeprogress; off which we fall outworn we know not when or whither.
Such upon the surface it appears to be, nor in fact does our ascertainedknowledge, as Bickley would sum it up, take us much further. No prophethas yet arisen who attempted to define either the origin or the reasonsof life. Even the very Greatest of them Himself is quite silent on thismatter. We are tempted to wonder why. Is it because life as expressed inthe higher of human beings, is, or will be too vast, too multiform andtoo glorious for any definition which we could understand? Is itbecause in the end it will involve for some, if not for all, majesty onunfathomed majesty, and glory upon unimaginable glory such as at presentfar outpass the limits of our thought?
The experiences which I have recorded in these pages awake in my heart ahope that this may be so. Bastin is wont, like many others, to talk ina light fashion of Eternity without in the least comprehending what hemeans by that gigantic term. It is not too much to say that Eternity,something without beginning and without end, and involving, itwould appear, an everlasting changelessness, is a state beyondhuman comprehension. As a matter of fact we mortals do not think inconstellations, so to speak, or in aeons, but by the measures of our ownsmall earth and of our few days thereon. We cannot really conceive ofan existence stretching over even one thousand years, such as thatwhich Oro claimed and the Bible accords to a certain early race of men,omitting of course his two thousand five hundred centuries of sleep. Andyet what is this but one grain in the hourglass of time, one day in thelost record of our earth, of its sisters the planets and its father thesun, to say nothing of the universes beyond?
It is because I have come in touch with a prolonged though perfectlyfinite existence of the sort, that I try to pass on the reflectionswhich the fact of it awoke in me. There are other reflections connectedwith Yva and the marvel of her love and its various manifestationswhich arise also. But these I keep to myself. They concern the wonder ofwoman's heart, which is a microcosm of the hopes and fears and desiresand despairs of this humanity of ours whereof from age to age she is themother.
HUMPHREY ARBUTHNOT.
NOTE By J. R. Bickley, M.R.C.S.
Within about six months of the date on which he wrote the last wordsof this history of our joint adventures, my dear friend, HumphreyArbuthnot, 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 hisproperty 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 effusionof blood upon the brain. When I was summoned I found him lying dead bythe writing desk in his library at Fulcombe Priory. He had been writingat 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 hethought he had seen in the moments of mental disturbance or delusionwhich preceded his decease.
Save for certain verbal corrections, I publish this manuscript withoutcomment as the will directs, only adding that it sets out our mutualexperiences very faithfully, though Arbuthnot's deductions from them arenot always my own.
I would say also that I am contemplating another visit to the South SeaIslands, where I wish to make some further investigations. I daresay, however, that these will be barren of results, as the fountain ofLife-water is buried for ever, nor, as I think, will any human beingstand again in the Hades-like halls of Nyo. It is probable also that itwould prove impossible to rediscover the island of Orofena, if indeedthat volcanic land still remains above the waters of the deep.
Now that he is a very wealthy man, Bastin talks of accompanying me forpurposes quite different from my own, but on the whole I hope he willabandon this idea. I may add that when he learned of his unexpectedinheritance he talked much of the "deceitfulness of riches," but that hehas not as yet taken any steps to escape their golden snare. Indeed henow converses of his added "opportunities of usefulness," I gather inconnection with missionary enterprise.
J. R. BICKLEY.
P.S.--I forgot to state that the spaniel Tommy died within three days ofhis owner. The poor little beast was present in the room at the timeof Arbuthnot's passing away, and when found seemed to be suffering fromshock. From that moment Tommy refused food and finally was discoveredquite dead and lying by the body on Marama's feather cloak, whichArbuthnot often used as a dressing-gown. As Bastin raised some religiousobjections, I arranged without his knowledge that the dog's ashes shouldrest not far from those of the master and mistress whom it loved sowell.
J.R.B.
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