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, that 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 times 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."