Chapter XXVI. Tommy
I lay still a while, on my back as I had fallen, and beneath theshield-like defence which Yva had given to me. Notwithstanding thefire-resisting, metalised stuff of which it was made, I noted thatit was twisted and almost burnt through. Doubtless the stored-upelectricity or earth magnetism, or whatever it may have been that hadleapt out of that hole, being diffused by the resistance with which itwas met, had grazed me with its outer edge, and had it not been for theshield and cloak, I also should have been burned up. I wished, oh! howI wished that it had been so. Then, by now all must have finished andI 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 havelearned alone.
Lying there thus, idly, as though in a half-sleep, I felt Tommy lickingmy face, and throwing my arm about the poor little frightened beast, Iwatched the great world-balance as it retreated on its eternal journey.At one time its vast projecting rim had overshadowed us and almostseemed to touch the cliff of rock against which we leant. I rememberthat the effect of that shining arch a thousand feet or so above ourheads was wonderful. It reminded me of a canopy of blackest thunderclouds supported upon a framework of wheeling rainbows, while beneathit all the children of the devil shouted together in joy. I noted thiseffect only a few seconds before Yva spoke to me and leapt into the pathof the flash.
Now, however, it was far away, a mere flaming wheel that becamegradually smaller, and its Satanic voices were growing faint. As I havesaid, I watched its disappearance idly, reflecting that I should neverlook upon its like again; also that it was something well worth goingforth to see. Then I became aware that the humming, howling din haddecreased sufficiently to enable me to hear human voices without effort.Bastin was addressing Bickley--like myself they were both upon theground.
"Her translation, as you may have noticed, Bickley, if you were not toofrightened, was really very remarkable. No doubt it will have remindedyou, as it did me, of that of Elijah. She had exactly the appearance ofa person going up to Heaven in a vehicle of fire. The destination wascertainly the same, and even the cloak she wore added a familiar touchand increased the similarity."
"At any rate it did not fall upon you," answered Bickley with somethinglike a sob, in a voice of mingled awe and exasperation. "For goodness'sake! Bastin, stop your Biblical parallels and let us adore, yes, let usadore 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 tosubscribe, remembering as I do certain of the prophets and the EarlyFathers 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 prisonedforces which he gathered and loosed upon their unholy errand, but, asI rejoiced to observe, had suffered from them much more than ourselves.Doubtless this was owing to the fact that he had sprung forward ina last wild effort to save his daughter, or to prevent her frominterfering with his experiment, I know not which. As a result his rightcheek was much scorched, his right arm was withered and helpless, andhis magnificent beard was half burnt off him. Further, very evidently hewas suffering from severe shock, for he rocked upon his feet and shooklike an aspen leaf. All this, however, did not interfere with theliveliness of his grief and rage.
There he stood, a towering shape, like a lightning-smitten statue, andcursed us, especially Bastin.
"My daughter has gone!" he cried, "burned up by the fiery power that ismy servant. Nothing remains of her but dust, and, Priest, this is yourdoing. You poisoned her heart with your childish doctrines of mercy andsacrifice, and the rest, so that she threw herself into the path of theflash 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 followher. Also it is your own fault since you should have listened to herentreaties instead of boxing her ears like the brute you are."
"My daughter is gone," went on Oro, recovering his strength, "and mygreat designs are ruined. Yet only for a while," he added, "for theworld-balance will return again, if not till long after your life-spansare 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 itwill be after your life-span is done also. Although their effect may bedelayed, severe shocks from burns and over-excitement are apt to provefatal to the aged."
Oro snarled at him; no other word describes it.
"And there are other things, Physician," he said, "which are apt toprove fatal to the young. At least now you will no longer deny mypower."
"I am not so sure," answered Bickley, "since it seems that there is agreater Power, namely that of a woman's love and sacrifice."
"And a greater still," interrupted Bastin, "Which put those ideas intoher head."
"As for you, Humphrey," went on Oro, "I rejoice to think that you atleast have lost two things that man desires above all other things--thewoman you sought and the future kingship of the world."
I stood up and faced him.
"The first I have gained, although how, you do not understand, Oro,"I answered. "And of the second, seeing that it would have come throughyou, on your conditions, I am indeed glad to be rid. I wish no powerthat springs from murder, and no gifts from one who answered hisdaughter's prayer with blows."
For a moment he seemed remorseful.
"She vexed me with her foolishness," he said. Then his rage blazed upagain:
"And it was you who taught it to her," he went on. "You are guilty, allthree 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," Iadded quietly, "and one has left it of whom it was unworthy."
"You think that these civilisations of yours, as you are pleased to callthem, are saved, do you?" he sneered. "Yet, even if Bickley were rightand I should die and become powerless, I tell you that they are alreadydamned. 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 theirend 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 isincrease, and thence alone can rise the great last race of man which Iwould have given to your children for an heritage. Moreover, think notthat you Westerners have done with wars. I tell you that they are butbegun and that the sword shall eat you up, and what the sword sparesclass shall snatch from class in the struggle for supremacy and ease."
Thus he spoke with extraordinary and concentrated bitterness that Iconfess would have frightened me, had I been capable of fear, which atthe 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 youneed trouble about is your own. God Almighty will look after the westerncivilisations in whatever way He may think best, as you may remember Hedid 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 outill-omened prophecies of death into my face. Since the three of youloved 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 greatcaves?--Nay, look not towards the road of escape which doubtless shepointed out to you, for, as Humphrey knows, I can travel swiftly and Iwill make sure that you find it blocked. Or shall I--" and he glancedupwards at the great globes of wandering fire, as though he purposed tosummon 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 youto strike quickly. Yet for my friends I am sorry, since it was I who ledthem on this quest, and for you, too, Tommy," I added, looking at thepoor little hound. "You were foolish, Tommy," I went on, "when youscented out that old tyrant in his coffin, at least for our own sake."
Indeed the dog was terribly scared. He whined continually and from timeto time ran a little way and then returned to us, suggesting that weshould go from this horror-haunted spot. Lastly, as though he understoodthat it was Oro who kept us there, he went to him and jumping up, lickedhis hand in a beseeching fashion.
The super-man looked at the dog and as he looked the rage went out ofhis face and was replaced by something resembling pity.
"I do not wish the beast to die," he muttered to himself in lowreflective tones, as though he thought aloud, "for of them all it aloneliked and did not fear me. I might take it with me but still it wouldperish of grief in the loneliness of the caves. Moreover, she loved itwhom I shall see no more; yes, Yva--" as he spoke the name his voicebroke a little. "Yet if I suffer them to escape they will tell my storyto the world and make me a laughingstock. Well, if they do, what does itmatter? None of those Western fools would believe it; thinking that theyknew all; like Bickley they would mock and say that they were mad, orliars."
Again Tommy licked his hand, but more confidently, as though instincttold him something of what was passing in Oro's mind. I watched withan idle wonder, marvelling whether it were possible that this mercilessbeing 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 savedyou. For its sake I give you your lives, who otherwise should certainlyhave died. She who has gone pointed out to you, I doubt not, a road thatruns 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 longand difficult. Follow it, and should you win through, take your boat andsail 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 stainedwith 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 littledistance. As we approached them I looked up and saw Oro standing someway off. The light from one of the blue globes of fire which passedclose above his head, shone upon him and made him ghastly. Moreover, itseemed to me as though approaching death had written its name upon hismalevolent countenance.
I turned my head away, for about his aspect in those sinistersurroundings there was something horrible, something menacing andrepellent 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 thathe had retreated into the shadows where no light played.
We gathered up our gear, and while the others were relighting thelanterns, I walked a few paces forward to the spot where Yva had beendissolved in the devouring fire. Something caught my eye upon the rockyfloor. I picked it up. It was the ring, or rather the remains of thering that I had given her on that night when we declared our love amidstthe ruins by the crater lake. She had never worn it on her hand but forher own reasons, as she told me, suspended it upon her breast beneathher robe. It was an ancient ring that I had bought in Egypt, fashionedof gold in which was set a very hard basalt or other black stone. Onthis was engraved the ank or looped cross, which was the Egyptian symbolof Life, and round it a snake, the symbol of Eternity. The gold was forthe most part melted, but the stone, being so hard and protected by theshield and asbestos cloak, for such I suppose it was, had resisted thefury of the flash. Only now it was white instead of black, like a burntonyx that had known the funeral pyre. Indeed, perhaps it was an onyx. Ikissed it and hid it away, for it seemed to me to convey a greeting andwith it a promise.
Then we started, a very sad and dejected trio. Leaving with a shudderthat vast place where the blue lights played eternally, we came to theshaft 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 withoutour guide, Yva."
I looked at him and he ceased. Somehow I could not bear, as yet, to hearher beloved name spoken by other lips.
Then we entered the passage that she pointed out to us, and began a mostterrible journey which, so far as we could judge, for we lost any exactcount of time, took us about sixty hours. The road, it is true, wassmooth 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 liedown 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 strengthto push on. Also we had some food, and fortunately our spare oil heldout, for the darkness in that tunnel was complete. Tommy became soexhausted that at length we must carry him by turns. He would have diedhad it not been for the water; indeed I thought that he was going todie.
After our last rest and a short sleep, however, he seemed to begin torecover, and generally there was something in his manner which suggestedto us that he knew himself to be not far from the surface of the earthtowards which we had crawled upwards for thousands upon thousands offeet, fortunately without meeting with any zone of heat which was notbearable.
We were right, for when we had staggered forward a little further,suddenly Tommy ran ahead of us and vanished. Then we heard him barkingbut where we could not see, since the tunnel appeared to take a turnand continue, but this time on a downward course, while the sound of thebarks came from our right. We searched with the lanterns which werenow beginning to die and found a little hole almost filled with fallenpieces of rock. We scooped these away with our hands, making an aperturelarge enough to creep through. A few more yards and we saw light, theblessed light of the moon, and in it stood Tommy barking hoarsely. Nextwe heard the sound of the sea. We struggled on desperately and presentlypushed our way through bushes and vegetation on to a steep declivity.Down this we rolled and scrambled, to find ourselves at last lying upona 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 therehad been rain towards the dawn, though as we were lying beneath theshelter of some broad-leaved tree, from it we had suffered littleinconvenience. Oh! how beautiful, after our sojourn in those unholycaves, were the sun and the sea and the sweet air and the raindropshanging on the leaves.
We did not wake of ourselves; indeed if we had been left alone I amsure that we should have slept the clock round, for we were terriblyexhausted. What woke us was the chatter of a crowd of Orofenans who weregathered at a distance from the tree and engaged in staring at us in afrightened way, also the barks of Tommy who objected to their intrusion.Among the people I recognised our old friend the chief Marama by hisfeather cloak, and sitting up, beckoned to him to approach. After a gooddeal of hesitation he came, walking delicately like Agag, and stoppingfrom time to time to study us, as though he were not sure that we werereal.
"What frightens you, Marama?" I asked him.
"You frighten us, O Friend-from-the-Sea. Whence did you and the Healerand the Bellower come and why do your faces look like those of ghostsand why is the little black beast so large-eyed and so thin? Overthe lake we know you did not come, for we have watched day and night;moreover there is no canoe upon the shore. Also it woul
d not have beenpossible."
"Why not?" I asked idly.
"Come and see," he answered.
Rising stiffly we emerged from beneath the tree and perceived that wewere at the foot of the cliff against which the remains of the yacht hadbeen borne by the great tempest. Indeed there it was within a couple ofhundred yards of us.
Following Marama we climbed the sloping path which ran up the cliffand ascended a knoll whence we could see the lake and the cone of thevolcano in its centre. At least we used to be able to see this cone, butnow, at any rate with the naked eye, we could make out nothing, except asmall brown spot in the midst of the waters of the lake.
"The mountain which rose up many feet in that storm which brought you toOrofena, Friend-from-the-Sea, has now sunk till only the very top of itis to be seen," said Marama solemnly. "Even the Rock of Offerings hasvanished beneath the water, and with it the house that we built foryou."
"Yes," I said, affecting no surprise. "But when did that happen?"
"Five nights ago the world shook, Friend-from-the-Sea, and when the sunrose we saw that the mouth of the cave which appeared on the day of yourcoming, 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 youand your companions are. Therefore we beg you who can arise out of theearth like spirits, to leave us at once before our island and all of uswho dwell thereon are drowned beneath the ocean. Leave us before we killyou, if indeed you be men, or die at your hands if, as we think, you beevil spirits who can throw up mountains and drag them down, and creategods that slay, and move about in the bowels of the world."
"That is our intention, for our business here is done," I answeredcalmly. "Come now and help us to depart. But first bring us food. Bringit in plenty, for we must victual our boat."
Marama bowed and issued the necessary orders. Indeed food sufficient forour immediate needs was already there as an offering, and of it we atewith thankfulness.
Then we boarded the ship and examined the lifeboat. Thanks to ourprecautions it was still in very fair order and only needed some littlecaulking which we did with grass fibre and pitch from the stores. Afterthis with the help of the Orofenans who worked hard in their desperatedesire to be rid of us, we drew the boat into the sea, and provisionedher with stores from the ship, and with an ample supply of water.Everything being ready at last, we waited for the evening wind whichalways blew off shore, to start. As it was not due for half an hour ormore, I walked back to the tree under which we had slept and tried tofind the hole whence we had emerged from the tunnel on to the face ofthe cliff.
My hurried search proved useless. The declivity of the cliff was coveredwith tropical growth, and the heavy rain had washed away every trace ofour descent, and very likely filled the hole itself with earth. At anyrate, of it I could discover nothing. Then as the breeze began to blowI returned to the boat and here bade adieu to Marama, who gave me hisfeather cloak as a farewell gift.
"Good-bye, Friend-from-the-Sea," he said to me. "We are glad to haveseen you and thank you for many things. But we do not wish to see youany more."
"Good-bye, Marama," I answered. "What you say, we echo. At least youhave now no great lump upon your neck and we have rid you of yourwizards. But beware of the god Oro who dwells in the mountain, for ifyou 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 whosepowers the Orofenans had so painful a recollection, or at the result ofBastin's teachings, I do not know. And that was the last we shall eversee of each other in this world.
The island faded behind us and, sore at heart because of all that we hadfound and lost again, for three days we sailed northward with a fairand steady wind. On the fourth evening by an extraordinary stroke offortune, we fell in with an American tramp steamer, trading from theSouth Sea Islands to San Francisco. To the captain, who treated us verykindly, we said simply that we were a party of Englishmen whose yachthad been wrecked on a small island several hundreds of miles away, ofwhich we knew neither the name, if it had one, nor the position.
This story was accepted without question, for such things often happenin those latitudes, and in due course we were landed at San Francisco,where we made certain depositions before the British Consul as to theloss of the yacht Star of the South. Then we crossed America, havingobtained funds by cable, and sailed for England in a steamer flying theflag of the United States.
Of the great war which made this desirable I do not speak since ithas nothing, or rather little, to do with this history. In the endwe arrived safely at Liverpool, and thence travelled to our homes inDevonshire.
Thus ended the history of our dealings with Oro, the super-man who beganhis life more than two hundred and fifty thousand years ago, and withhis daughter, Yva, whom Bastin still often calls the Glittering Lady.