Chapter XXI. Love's Eternal Altar
Now of all these happenings I said very little to Bastin and Bickley.The former would not have understood them, and the latter attributedwhat I did tell him to mental delusions following on my illness. To YvaI did speak about them, however, imploring her to explain their originand to tell me whether or not they were but visions of the night.
She listened to me, as I thought not without anxiety, from which Igathered that she too feared for my mind. It was not so, however, forshe said:
"I am glad, O Humphrey, that your journeyings are done, since suchthings are not without danger. He who travels far out of the body maychance to return there no more."
"But were they journeyings, or dreams?" I asked.
She evaded a direct answer.
"I cannot say. My father has great powers. I do not know them all. It ispossible that they were neither journeyings nor dreams. Mayhap he usedyou as the sorcerers in the old days used the magic glass, and afterhe had put his spell upon you, read in your mind that which passeselsewhere."
I understood her to refer to what we call clairvoyance, when the personentranced reveals secret or distant things to the entrancer. This isa more or less established phenomenon and much less marvelous than theactual transportation of the spiritual self through space. Only I neverknew of an instance in which the seer, on awaking, remembered the thingsthat he had seen, as in my case. There, however, the matter rested, orrests, for I could extract nothing more from Yva, who appeared to me tohave her orders on the point.
Nor did Oro ever talk of what I had seemed to see in his company,although he continued from time to time to visit me at night. But nowour conversation was of other matters. As Bastin had discovered, by someextraordinary gift he had soon learned how to read the English language,although he never spoke a single word in that tongue. Among ourreference books that we brought from the yacht, was a thin paper editionof the Encyclopedia Britannica, which he borrowed when he discoveredthat it contained compressed information about the various countries ofthe world, also concerning almost every other matter. My belief isthat within a month or so that marvelous old man not only read thisstupendous work from end to end, but that he remembered everything ofinterest which it contained. At least, he would appear and show thefullest acquaintance with certain subjects or places, seeking furtherlight from me concerning them, which very often I was quite unable togive him.
An accident, as it chanced, whereof I need not set out the details,caused me to discover that his remarkable knowledge was limited. Thus,at one period, he knew little about any modern topic which began with aletter later in the alphabet than, let us say, C. A few days afterwardshe was acquainted with those up to F, or G; and so on till he reached Z,when he appeared to me to know everything, and returned the book. Now,indeed, he was a monument of learning, very ancient and very new, andwith some Encyclopedia-garnered facts or deductions of what had happenedbetween.
Moreover, he took to astronomical research, for more than once we sawhim standing on the rock at night studying the heavens. On one of theseoccasions, when he had the two metal plates, of which I have spoken, inhis hands, I ventured to approach and ask what he did. He replied thathe was checking his calculations that he found to be quite correct,an exact period of two hundred and fifty thousand years having goneby since he laid himself down to sleep. Then, by aid of the plates,he pointed out to me certain alterations that had happened during thatperiod in the positions of some of the stars.
For instance, he showed me one which, by help of my glasses, Irecognised as Sirius, and remarked that two hundred and fifty thousandyears ago it was further away and much smaller. Now it was precisely inthe place and of the size which he had predicted, and he pointed to iton his prophetic map. Again he indicated a star that the night-glasstold me was Capella, which, I suppose, is one of the most brilliantstars in the sky, and showed me that on the map he had made two hundredand fifty thousand years ago, it did not exist, as then it was too farnorth to appear thereon. Still, he observed, the passage of this vastperiod of time had produced but little effect upon the face of theheavens. To the human eye the majority of the stars had not moved sovery far.
"And yet they travel fast, O Humphrey," he said. "Consider then howgreat is their journey between the time they gather and that day when,worn-out, once more they melt to vaporous gas. You think me long-livedwho compared to them exist but a tiny fraction of a second, nearly allof which I have been doomed to pass in sleep. And, Humphrey, I desireto live--I, who have great plans and would shake the world. But myday draws in; a few brief centuries and I shall be gone, and--whither,whither?"
"If you lived as long as those stars, the end would be the same, Oro."
"Yes, but the life of the stars is very long, millions of millionsof years; also, after death, they reform, as other stars. But shall Ireform as another Oro? With all my wisdom, I do not know. It is knownto Fate only--Fate-the master of worlds and men and the gods theyworship--Fate, whom it may please to spill my gathered knowledge, to belost in the sands of Time."
"It seems that you are great," I said, "and have lived long and learnedmuch. Yet the end of it is that your lot is neither worse nor betterthan that of us creatures of an hour."
"It is so, Humphrey. Presently you will die, and within a few centuriesI shall die also and be as you are. You believe that you will live againeternally. It may be so because you do believe, since Fate allows Faithto shape the future, if only for a little while. But in me Wisdom hasdestroyed Faith and therefore I must die. Even if I sleep again fortens of thousands of years, what will it help me, seeing that sleep isunconsciousness and that I shall only wake again to die, since sleepdoes not restore to us our youth?"
He ceased, and walked up and down the rock with a troubled mien. Then hestood in front of me and said in a triumphant voice:
"At least, while I live I will rule, and then let come what may come. Iknow that you do not believe, and the first victory of this new day ofmine shall be to make you believe. I have great powers and you shallsee them at work, and afterwards, if things go right, rule with me for alittle while, perhaps, as the first of my subjects. Hearken now; in onesmall matter my calculations, made so long ago, have gone wrong. Theyshowed me that at this time a day of earthquakes, such as those thatagain and again have rocked and split the world, would recur. But nowit seems that there is an error, a tiny error of eleven hundred years,which must go by before those earthquakes come."
"Are you sure," I suggested humbly, "that there is not also an error inthose star-maps you hold?"
"I am sure, Humphrey. Some day, who knows? You may return to your worldof modern men who, I gather, have knowledge of the great science ofastronomy. Take now these maps with which I have done, and submit themto the most learned of those men, and let them tell you whether I wasright or wrong in what I wrote upon this metal two hundred and fiftythousand years ago. Whatever else is false, at least the stars in theirmotions can never die."
Then he handed me the maps and was gone. I have them today, and if everthis book is published, they will appear with it, that those who arequalified may judge of them and of the truth or otherwise of Oro'swords.
From that night forward for quite a long time I saw Oro no more. Norindeed did any of us, since for some reason of his own he forbade us tovisit the under ground city of Nyo. Oddly enough, however, he commandedYva to bring down the spaniel, Tommy, to be with him from time to time.When I asked her why, she said it was because he was lonely anddesired the dog's companionship. It seemed to us very strange that thissuper-man, who had the wisdom of ten Solomons gathered in one within hisbreast, should yet desire the company of a little dog. What then was theworth of learning and long life, or, indeed, of anything? Well, Solomonhimself asked the question ages since, and could give no answer savethat all is vanity.
I noted about this time that Yva began to grow very sad and troubled;indeed, looking at her suddenly on two or three occasions, I saw thather beautiful eyes were
aswim with tears. Also, I noted that always asshe grew sadder she became, in a sense, more human. In the beginning shewas, as it were, far away. One could never forget that she was thechild of some alien race whose eyes had looked upon the world when, bycomparison, humanity was young; at times, indeed, she might have beenthe denizen of another planet, strayed to earth. Although she neverflaunted it, one felt that her simplest word hid secret wisdom; thatto her books were open in which we could not read. Moreover, as I havesaid, occasionally power flamed out of her, power that was beyond ourken and understanding.
Yet with all this there was nothing elfish about her, nothinguncanny. She was always kind, and, as we could feel, innately good andgentle-hearted, just a woman made half-divine by gifts and experiencethat others lack. She did not even make use of her wondrous beauty tomadden men, as she might well have done had she been so minded. It istrue that both Bastin and Bickley fell in love with her, but that wasonly because all with whom she had to do must love her, and then, whenshe told them that it might not be, it was in such a fashion that nosoreness was left behind. They went on loving her, that was all, but asmen love their sisters or their daughters; as we conceive that they maylove in that land where there is no marrying or giving in marriage.
But now, in her sadness, she drew ever nearer to us, and especially tomyself, more in tune with our age and thought. In truth, save for herroyal and glittering loveliness in which there was some quality whichproclaimed her of another blood, and for that reserve of hidden powerwhich at times would look out of her eyes or break through her words,she might in most ways have been some singularly gifted and beautifulmodern woman.
The time has come when I must speak of my relations with Yva and oftheir climax. As may have been guessed, from the first I began to loveher. While the weeks went on that love grew and grew, until it utterlypossessed me, although for a certain reason connected with one dead, atfirst I fought against it. Yet it did not develop quite in the fashionthat might have been expected. There was no blazing up of passion'sfire; rather was there an ever-increasing glow of the holiest affection,till at last it became a lamp by which I must guide my feet through lifeand death. This love of mine seemed not of earth but from the stars. Asyet I had said nothing to her of it because in some way I felt that shedid not wish me to do so, felt also that she was well aware of all thatpassed within my heart, and desired, as it were, to give it time toripen there. Then one day there came a change, and though no glance ortouch of Yva's told me so, I knew that the bars were taken down and thatI might speak.
It was a night of full moon. All that afternoon she had been talking toBastin apart, I suppose about religion, for I saw that he had some booksin his hand from which he was expounding something to her in his slow,earnest way. Then she came and sat with us while we took our eveningmeal. I remember that mine consisted of some of the Life-water whichshe had brought with her and fruit, for, as I think I have said, I hadacquired her dislike to meat, also that she ate some plantains, throwingthe skins for Tommy to fetch and laughing at his play. When it was over,Bastin and Bickley went away together, whether by chance or design I donot know, and she said to me suddenly:
"Humphrey, you have often asked me about the city Pani, of which alittle portion of the ruins remains upon this island, the rest beingburied beneath the waters. If you wish I will show you where our royalpalace was before the barbarians destroyed it with their airships. Themoon is very bright, and by it we can see."
I nodded, for, knowing what she meant, somehow I could not answer her,and we began the ascent of the hill. She explained to me the plan of thepalace when we reached the ruins, showing me where her own apartmentshad been, and the rest. It was very strange to hear her quietly tellingof buildings which had stood and of things that had happened over twohundred and fifty thousand years before, much as any modern lady mightdo of a house that had been destroyed a month ago by an earthquake or aZeppelin bomb, while she described the details of a disaster which nowfrightened her no more. I think it was then that for the first time Ireally began to believe that in fact Yva had lived all those aeons sinceand been as she still appeared.
We passed from the palace to the ruins of the temple, through what,as she said, had been a pleasure-garden, pointing out where a certainavenue of rare palms had grown, down which once it was her habit to walkin the cool of the day. Or, rather, there were two terraced temples,one dedicated to Fate like that in the underground city of Nyo, and theother to Love. Of the temple to Fate she told me her father had been theHigh Priest, and of the temple to Love she was the High Priestess.
Then it was that I understood why she had brought me here.
She led the way to a marble block covered with worn-out carvings andalmost buried in the debris. This, she said, was the altar of offerings.I asked her what offerings, and she replied with a smile:
"Only wine, to signify the spirit of life, and flowers to symboliseits fragrance," and she laid her finger on a cup-like depression, stillapparent in the marble, into which the wine was poured.
Indeed, I gathered that there was nothing coarse or bacchanalian aboutthis worship of a prototype of Aphrodite; on the contrary, that it wasmore or less spiritual and ethereal. We sat down on the altar stone. Iwondered a little that she should have done so, but she read my thought,and answered:
"Sometimes we change our faiths, Humphrey, or perhaps they grow. Also,have I not told you that sacrifices were offered on this altar?" and shesighed and smiled.
I do not know which was the sweeter, the smile or the sigh.
We looked at the water glimmering in the crater beneath us on the edgeof which we sat. We looked at heaven above in which the great moonsailed royally. Then we looked into each other's eyes.
"I love you," I said.
"I know it," she answered gently. "You have loved me from the first,have you not? Even when I lay asleep in the coffin you began to love me,but until you dreamed a certain dream you would not admit it."
"Yva, what was the meaning of that dream?"
"I cannot say, Humphrey. But I tell you this. As you will learn in time,one spirit may be clothed in different garments of the flesh."
I did not understand her, but, in some strange way, her words brought tomy mind those that Natalie spoke at the last, and I answered:
"Yva, when my wife lay dying she bade me seek her elsewhere, forcertainly I should find her. Doubtless she meant beyond the shores ofdeath--or perhaps she also dreamed."
She bent her head, looking at me very strangely.
"Your wife, too, may have had the gift of dreams, Humphrey. As you dreamand I dream, so mayhap she dreamed. Of dreams, then, let us say no more,since I think that they have served their purpose, and all three of usunderstand."
Then I stretched out my arms, and next instant my head lay upon herperfumed breast. She lifted it and kissed me on the lips, saying:
"With this kiss again I give myself to you. But oh! Humphrey, do not asktoo much of the god of my people, Fate," and she looked me in the eyesand sighed.
"What do you mean?" I asked, trembling.
"Many, many things. Among them, that happiness is not for mortals, andremember that though my life began long ago, I am mortal as you are, andthat in eternity time makes no difference."
"And if so, Yva, what then? Do we meet but to part?"
"Who said it? Not I. Humphrey, I tell you this. Nor earth, nor heaven,nor hell have any bars through which love cannot burst its way towardsreunion and completeness. Only there must be love, manifested in manyshapes and at many times, but ever striving to its end, which is not ofthe flesh. Aye, love that has lost itself, love scorned, love defeated,love that seems false, love betrayed, love gone astray, love wanderingthrough the worlds, love asleep and living in its sleep, love awake andyet sleeping; all love that has in it the germ of life. It matters notwhat form love takes. If it be true I tell you that it will win itsway, and in the many that it has seemed to worship, still find the one,though perchance not here."
A
t her words a numb fear gripped my heart.
"Not here? Then where?" I said.
"Ask your dead wife, Humphrey. Ask the dumb stars. Ask the God youworship, for I cannot answer, save in one word--Somewhere! Man, be notafraid. Do you think that such as you and I can be lost in the achingabysms of space? I know but little, yet I tell you that we are itsrulers. I tell you that we, too, are gods, if only we can aspire andbelieve. For the doubting and timid there is naught. For those who seewith the eyes of the soul and stretch out their hands to grasp there isall. Even Bastin will tell you this."
"But," I said, "life is short. Those worlds are far away, and you arenear."
She became wonderful, mysterious.
"Near I am far," she said; "and far I am near, if only this love ofyours is strong enough to follow and to clasp. And, Humphrey, it needsstrength, for here I am afraid that it will bear little of such fruit asmen desire to pluck."
Again terror took hold of me, and I looked at her, for I did not knowwhat to say or ask.
"Listen," she went on. "Already my father has offered me to you inmarriage, has he not, but at a price which you do not understand?Believe me, it is one that you should never pay, since the rule of theworld can be too dearly bought by the slaughter of half the world. Andif you would pay it, I cannot."
"But this is madness!" I exclaimed. "Your father has no powers over ourearth."
"I would that I could think so, Humphrey. I tell you that he has powersand that it is his purpose to use them as he has done before. You, too,he would use, and me."
"And, if so, Yva, we are lords of ourselves. Let us take each otherwhile we may. Bastin is a priest."
"Lords of ourselves! Why, for ought I know, at this very moment Orowatches us in his thought and laughs. Only in death, Humphrey, shall wepass beyond his reach and become lords of ourselves."
"It is monstrous!" I cried. "There is the boat, let us fly away."
"What boat can bear us out of stretch of the arm of the old god of mypeople, Fate, whereof Oro is the high priest? Nay, here we must wait ourdoom."
"Doom," I said--"doom? What then is about to happen?"
"A terrible thing, as I think, Humphrey. Or, rather, it will nothappen."
"Why not, if it must?"
"Beloved," she whispered, "Bastin has expounded to me a new faithwhereof the master-word is Sacrifice. The terrible thing will not happenbecause of sacrifice! Ask me no more."
She mused a while, seated there in the moonlight upon the ancient altarof sacrifice, the veil she wore falling about her face and makingher mysterious. Then she threw it back, showing her lovely eyes andglittering hair, and laughed.
"We have still an earthly hour," she said; "therefore let us forget thefar, dead past and the eternities to come and be joyful in that hour.Now throw your arms about me and I will tell you strange stories of lostdays, and you shall look into my eyes and learn wisdom, and you shallkiss my lips and taste of bliss--you, who were and are and shallbe--you, the beloved of Yva from the beginning to the end of Time."