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When the World Shook

by H. Rider Haggard · English · Gutenberg #1368 · 669,786 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: When the World Shook

Author: H. Rider Haggard


        
Release date: June 1, 1998 [eBook #1368]
                Most recently updated: October 29, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHEN THE WORLD SHOOK ***

[Illustration]




When the World Shook

Being an Account of the Great Adventure
of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot

by H. Rider Haggard


Contents

 CHAPTER I. Arbuthnot Describes Himself
 CHAPTER II. Bastin and Bickley
 CHAPTER III. Natalie
 CHAPTER IV. Death and Departure
 CHAPTER V. The Cyclone
 CHAPTER VI. Land
 CHAPTER VII. The Orofenans
 CHAPTER VIII. Bastin Attempts the Martyr’s Crown
 CHAPTER IX. The Island in the Lake
 CHAPTER X. The Dwellers in the Tomb
 CHAPTER XI. Resurrection
 CHAPTER XII. Two Hundred and Fifty Thousand Years!
 CHAPTER XIII. Oro Speaks and Bastin Argues
 CHAPTER XIV. The Under-world
 CHAPTER XV. Oro in His House
 CHAPTER XVI. Visions of the Past
 CHAPTER XVII. Yva Explains
 CHAPTER XVIII. The Accident
 CHAPTER XIX. The Proposals of Bastin and Bickley
 CHAPTER XX. Oro and Arbuthnot Travel by Night
 CHAPTER XXI. Love’s Eternal Altar
 CHAPTER XXII. The Command
 CHAPTER XXIII. In the Temple of Fate
 CHAPTER XXIV. The Chariot of the Pit
 CHAPTER XXV. Sacrifice
 CHAPTER XXVI. Tommy
 CHAPTER XXVII. Bastin Discovers a Resemblance
 NOTE By J. R. Bickley, M.R.C.S.




DEDICATION


Ditchingham, 1918.

MY DEAR CURZON,

More than thirty years ago you tried to protect me, then a stranger to
you, from one of the falsest and most malignant accusations ever made
against a writer.

So complete was your exposure of the methods of those at work to
blacken a person whom they knew to be innocent, that, as you will
remember, they refused to publish your analysis which destroyed their
charges and, incidentally, revealed their motives.

Although for this reason vindication came otherwise, your kindness is
one that I have never forgotten, since, whatever the immediate issue of
any effort, in the end it is the intention that avails.

Therefore in gratitude and memory I ask you to accept this romance, as
I know that you do not disdain the study of romance in the intervals of
your Imperial work.

The application of its parable to our state and possibilities—beneath
or beyond these glimpses of the moon—I leave to your discernment.

Believe me,
Ever sincerely yours,
H. RIDER HAGGARD.

To
The Earl Curzon of Kedleston, K.G.




WHEN THE WORLD SHOOK




CHAPTER I.
Arbuthnot Describes Himself


I suppose that I, Humphrey Arbuthnot, should begin this history in
which Destiny has caused me to play so prominent a part, with some
short account of myself and of my circumstances.

I was born forty years ago in this very Devonshire village in which I
write, but not in the same house. Now I live in the Priory, an ancient
place and a fine one in its way, with its panelled rooms, its beautiful
gardens where, in this mild climate, in addition to our own, flourish
so many plants which one would only expect to find in countries that
lie nearer to the sun, and its green, undulating park studded with
great timber trees. The view, too, is perfect; behind and around the
rich Devonshire landscape with its hills and valleys and its scarped
faces of red sandstone, and at a distance in front, the sea. There are
little towns quite near too, that live for the most part on visitors,
but these are so hidden away by the contours of the ground that from
the Priory one cannot see them. Such is Fulcombe where I live, though
for obvious reasons I do not give it its real name.

Many years ago my father, the Rev. Humphrey Arbuthnot, whose only child
I am, after whom also I am named Humphrey, was the vicar of this place
with which our family is said to have some rather vague hereditary
connection. If so, it was severed in the Carolian times because my
ancestors fought on the side of Parliament.

My father was a recluse, and a widower, for my mother, a Scotswoman,
died at or shortly after my birth. Being very High Church for those
days he was not popular with the family that owned the Priory before
me. Indeed its head, a somewhat vulgar person of the name of Enfield
who had made money in trade, almost persecuted him, as he was in a
position to do, being the local magnate and the owner of the rectorial
tithes.

I mention this fact because owing to it as a boy I made up my mind that
one day I would buy that place and sit in his seat, a wild enough idea
at the time. Yet it became engrained in me, as do such aspirations of
our youth, and when the opportunity arose in after years I carried it
out. Poor old Enfield! He fell on evil fortunes, for in trying to
bolster up a favourite son who was a gambler, a spendthrift, and an
ungrateful scamp, in the end he was practically ruined and when the bad
times came, was forced to sell the Fulcombe estate. I think of him
kindly now, for after all he was good to me and gave me many a day’s
shooting and leave to fish for trout in the river.

By the poor people, however, of all the district round, for the parish
itself is very small, my father was much beloved, although he did
practise confession, wear vestments and set lighted candles on the
altar, and was even said to have openly expressed the wish, to which
however he never attained, that he could see a censer swinging in the
chancel. Indeed the church which, as monks built it, is very large and
fine, was always full on Sundays, though many of the worshippers came
from far away, some of them doubtless out of curiosity because of its
papistical repute, also because, in a learned fashion, my father’s
preaching was very good indeed.

For my part I feel that I owe much to these High-Church views. They
opened certain doors to me and taught me something of the mysteries
which lie at the back of all religions and therefore have their home in
the inspired soul of man whence religions are born. Only the pity is
that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred he never discovers, never
even guesses at that entombed aspiration, never sinks a shaft down on
to this secret but most precious vein of ore.

I have said that my father was learned; but this is a mild description,
for never did I know anyone quite so learned. He was one of those men
who is so good all round that he became pre-eminent in nothing. A
classic of the first water, a very respectable mathematician, an expert
in theology, a student of sundry foreign languages and literature in
his lighter moments, an inquirer into sociology, a theoretical musician
though his playing of the organ excruciated most people because it was
too correct, a really first-class authority upon flint instruments and
the best grower of garden vegetables in the county, also of apples—such
were some of his attainments. That was what made his sermons so
popular, since at times one or the other of these subjects would break
out into them, his theory being that God spoke to us through all of
these things.

But if I began to drift into an analysis of my father’s abilities, I
should never stop. It would take a book to describe them. And yet mark
this, with them all his name is as dead to the world to-day as though
he had never been. Light reflected from a hundred facets dissipates
itself in space and is lost; that concentrated in one tremendous ray
pierces to the stars.

Now I am going to be frank about myself, for without frankness what is
the value of such a record as this? Then it becomes simply another
convention, or rather conventional method of expressing the octoroon
kind of truths with which the highly civilised races feed themselves,
as fastidious ladies eat cakes and bread from which all but the
smallest particle of nourishment has been extracted.

The fact is, therefore, that I inherited most of my father’s abilities,
except his love for flint instruments which always bored me to
distraction, because although they are by association really the most
human of things, somehow to me they never convey any idea of humanity.
In addition I have a practical side which he lacked; had he possessed
it surely he must have become an archbishop instead of dying the vicar
of an unknown parish. Also I have a spiritual sense, mayhap mystical
would be a better term, which with all this religion was missing from
my father’s nature.

For I think that notwithstanding his charity and devotion he never
quite got away from the shell of things, never cracked it and set his
teeth in the kernel which alone can feed our souls. His keen intellect,
to take an example, recognised every one of the difficulties of our
faith and flashed hither and thither in the darkness, seeking
explanation, seeking light, trying to reconcile, to explain. He was not
great enough to put all this aside and go straight to the informing
Soul beneath that strives to express itself everywhere, even through
those husks which are called the World, the Flesh and the Devil, and as
yet does not always quite succeed.

It is this boggling over exteriors, this peering into pitfalls, this
desire to prove that what such senses as we have tell us is impossible,
is in fact possible, which causes the overthrow of many an earnest,
seeking heart and renders its work, conducted on false lines, quite
nugatory. These _will_ trust to themselves and their own intelligence
and not be content to spring from the cliffs of human experience into
the everlasting arms of that Infinite which are stretched out to
receive them and to give them rest and the keys of knowledge. When will
man learn what was taught to him of old, that faith is the only plank
wherewith he can float upon this sea and that his miserable works avail
him nothing; also that it is a plank made of many sorts of wood,
perhaps to suit our different weights?

So to be honest, in a sense I believe myself to be my father’s
superior, and I know that he agreed with me. Perhaps this is owing to
the blood of my Scotch mother which mixed well with his own; perhaps
because the essential spirit given to me, though cast in his mould, was
in fact quite different—or of another alloy. Do we, I wonder, really
understand that there are millions and billions of these alloys, so
many indeed that Nature, or whatever is behind Nature, never uses the
same twice over? That is why no two human beings are or ever will be
quite identical. Their flesh, the body of their humiliation, is
identical in all, any chemist will prove it to you, but that which
animates the flesh is distinct and different because it comes from the
home of that infinite variety which is necessary to the ultimate
evolution of the good and bad that we symbolise as heaven and hell.

Further, I had and to a certain extent still have another advantage
over my father, which certainly came to me from my mother, who was, as
I judge from all descriptions and such likenesses as remain of her, an
extremely handsome woman. I was born much better looking. He was small
and dark, a little man with deep-set eyes and beetling brows. I am also
dark, but tall above the average, and well made. I do not know that I
need say more about my personal appearance, to me not a very attractive
subject, but the fact remains that they called me “handsome Humphrey”
at the University, and I was the captain of my college boat and won
many prizes at athletic sports when I had time to train for them.

Until I went up to Oxford my father educated me, partly because he knew
that he could do it better than anyone else, and partly to save school
expenses. The experiment was very successful, as my love of all outdoor
sports and of any small hazardous adventure that came to my hand, also
of associating with fisherfolk whom the dangers of the deep make men
among men, saved me from becoming a milksop. For the rest I learned
more from my father, whom I always desired to please because I loved
him, than I should have done at the best and most costly of schools.
This was shown when at last I went to college with a scholarship, for
there I did very well indeed, as search would still reveal.

Here I had better set out some of my shortcomings, which in their sum
have made a failure of me. Yes, a failure in the highest sense, though
I trust what Stevenson calls “a faithful failure.” These have their
root in fastidiousness and that lack of perseverance, which really
means a lack of faith, again using the word in its higher and wider
sense. For if one had real faith one would always persevere, knowing
that in every work undertaken with high aim, there is an element of
nobility, however humble and unrecognised that work may seem to be. God
after all is the God of Work, it is written large upon the face of the
Universe. I will not expand upon the thought; it would lead me too far
afield, but those who have understanding will know what I mean.

As regards what I interpret as fastidiousness, this is not very easy to
express. Perhaps a definition will help. I am like a man with an
over-developed sense of smell, who when walking through a foreign city,
however clean and well kept, can always catch the evil savours that are
inseparable from such cities. More, his keen perception of them
interferes with all other perceptions and spoils his walks. The result
is that in after years, whenever he thinks of that beautiful city, he
remembers, not its historic buildings or its wide boulevards, or
whatever it has to boast, but rather its ancient, fish-like smell. At
least he remembers that first owing to this defect in his temperament.

So it is with everything. A lovely woman is spoiled for such a one
because she eats too much or has too high a voice; he does not care for
his shooting because the scenery is flat, or for his fishing because
the gnats bite as well as the trout. In short he is out of tune with
the world as it is. Moreover, this is a quality which, where it exists,
cannot be overcome; it affects day-labourers as well as gentlemen at
large. It is bred in the bone.

Probably the second failure-breeding fault, lack of perseverance, has
its roots in the first, at any rate in my case. At least on leaving
college with some reputation, I was called to the Bar where, owing to
certain solicitor and other connections, I had a good opening. Also,
owing to the excellence of my memory and powers of work, I began very
well, making money even during my first year. Then, as it happened, a
certain case came my way and, my leader falling ill suddenly after it
was opened, was left in my hands. The man whose cause I was pleading
was, I think, one of the biggest scoundrels it is possible to conceive.
It was a will case and if he won, the effect would be to beggar two
most estimable middle-aged women who were justly entitled to the
property, to which end personally I am convinced he had committed
forgery; the perjury that accompanied it I do not even mention.

Well, he did win, thanks to me, and the estimable middle-aged ladies
were beggared, and as I heard afterwards, driven to such extremities
that one of them died of her misery and the other became a
lodging-house keeper. The details do not matter, but I may explain that
these ladies were unattractive in appearance and manner and broke down
beneath my cross-examination which made them appear to be telling
falsehoods, whereas they were only completely confused. Further, I
invented an ingenious theory of the facts which, although the judge
regarded it with suspicion, convinced an unusually stupid jury who gave
me their verdict.

Everybody congratulated me and at the time I was triumphant, especially
as my leader had declared that our case was impossible. Afterwards,
however, my conscience smote me sorely, so much so that arguing from
the false premise of this business, I came to the conclusion that the
practice of the Law was not suited to an honest man. I did not take the
large view that such matters average themselves up and that if I had
done harm in this instance, I might live to do good in many others, and
perhaps become a just judge, even a great judge. Here I may mention
that in after years, when I grew rich, I rescued that surviving old
lady from her lodging-house, although to this day she does not know the
name of her anonymous friend. So by degrees, without saying anything,
for I kept on my chambers, I slipped out of practice, to the great
disappointment of everybody connected with me, and took to authorship.

A marvel came to pass, my first book was an enormous success. The whole
world talked of it. A leading journal, delighted to have discovered
someone, wrote it up; other journals followed suit to be in the
movement. One of them, I remember, which had already dismissed it with
three or four sneering lines, came out with a second and two-column
notice. It sold like wildfire and I suppose had some merits, for it is
still read, though few know that I wrote it, since fortunately it was
published under a pseudonym.

Again I was much elated and set to work to write another and, as I
believe, a much better book. But jealousies had been excited by this
leaping into fame of a totally unknown person, which were, moreover,
accentuated through a foolish article that I published in answer to
some criticisms, wherein I spoke my mind with an insane freedom and
biting sarcasm. Indeed I was even mad enough to quote names and to give
the example of the very powerful journal which at first carped at my
work and then gushed over it when it became the fashion. All of this
made me many bitter enemies, as I found out when my next book appeared.

It was torn to shreds, it was reviled as subversive of morality and
religion, good arrows in those days. It was called puerile,
half-educated stuff—I half-educated! More, an utterly false charge of
plagiarism was cooked up against me and so well and venomously run that
vast numbers of people concluded that I was a thief of the lowest
order. Lastly, my father, from whom the secret could no longer be kept,
sternly disapproved of both these books which I admit were written from
a very radical and somewhat anti-church point of view. The result was
our first quarrel and before it was made up, he died suddenly.

Now again fastidiousness and my lack of perseverance did their work,
and solemnly I swore that I would never write another book, an oath
which I have kept till this moment, at least so far as publication is
concerned, and now break only because I consider it my duty so to do
and am not animated by any pecuniary object.

Thus came to an end my second attempt at carving out a career. By now I
had grown savage and cynical, rather revengeful also, I fear. Knowing
myself to possess considerable abilities in sundry directions, I sat
down, as it were, to think things over and digest my past experiences.
Then it was that the truth of a very ancient adage struck upon my mind,
namely, that money is power. Had I sufficient money I could laugh at
unjust critics for example; indeed they or their papers would scarcely
dare to criticise me for fear lest it should be in my power to do them
a bad turn. Again I could follow my own ideas in life and perhaps work
good in the world, and live in such surroundings as commended
themselves to me. It was as clear as daylight, but—how to make the
money?

I had some capital as the result of my father’s death, about £8,000 in
all, plus a little more that my two books had brought in. In what way
could I employ it to the best advantage? I remembered that a cousin of
my father and therefore my own, was a successful stock-broker, also
that there had been some affection between them. I went to him, he was
a good, easy-natured man who was frankly glad to see me, and offered to
put £5,000 into his business, for I was not minded to risk every thing
I had, if he would give me a share in the profits. He laughed heartily
at my audacity.

“Why, my boy,” he said, “being totally inexperienced at this game, you
might lose us more than that in a month. But I like your courage, I
like your courage, and the truth is that I do want help. I will think
it over and write to you.”

He thought it over and in the end offered to try me for a year at a
fixed salary with a promise of some kind of a partnership if I suited
him. Meanwhile my £5,000 remained in my pocket.

I accepted, not without reluctance since with the impatience of youth I
wanted everything at once. I worked hard in that office and soon
mastered the business, for my knowledge of figures—I had taken a
first-class mathematical degree at college—came to my aid, as in a way
did my acquaintance with Law and Literature. Moreover I had a certain
aptitude for what is called high finance. Further, Fortune, as usual,
showed me a favourable face.

In one year I got the partnership with a small share in the large
profits of the business. In two the partner above me retired, and I
took his place with a third share of the firm. In three my cousin,
satisfied that it was in able hands, began to cease his attendance at
the office and betook himself to gardening which was his hobby. In four
I paid him out altogether, although to do this I had to borrow money on
our credit, for by agreement the title of the firm was continued. Then
came that extraordinary time of boom which many will remember to their
cost. I made a bold stroke and won. On a certain Saturday when the
books were made up, I found that after discharging all liabilities, I
should not be worth more than £20,000. On the following Saturday but
two when the books were made up, I was worth £153,000! _L’appétit vient
en mangeant_. It seemed nothing to me when so many were worth millions.

For the next year I worked as few have done, and when I struck a
balance at the end of it, I found that on the most conservative
estimate I was the owner of a million and a half in hard cash, or its
equivalent. I was so tired out that I remember this discovery did not
excite me at all. I felt utterly weary of all wealth-hunting and of the
City and its ways. Moreover my old fastidiousness and lack of
perseverance re-asserted themselves. I reflected, rather late in the
day perhaps, on the ruin that this speculation was bringing to
thousands, of which some lamentable instances had recently come to my
notice, and once more considered whether it were a suitable career for
an upright man. I had wealth; why should I not take it and enjoy life?

Also—and here my business acumen came in, I was sure that these times
could not last. It is easy to make money on a rising market, but when
it is falling the matter is very different. In five minutes I made up
my mind. I sent for my junior partners, for I had taken in two, and
told them that I intended to retire at once. They were dismayed both at
my loss, for really I was the firm, and because, as they pointed out,
if I withdrew all my capital, there would not be sufficient left to
enable them to carry on.

One of them, a blunt and honest man, said to my face that it would be
dishonourable of me to do so. I was inclined to answer him sharply,
then remembered that his words were true.

“Very well,” I said, “I will leave you £600,000 on which you shall pay
me five per cent interest, but no share of the profits.”

On these terms we dissolved the partnership and in a year they had lost
the £600,000, for the slump came with a vengeance. It saved them,
however, and to-day they are earning a reasonable income. But I have
never asked them for that £600,000.




CHAPTER II.
Bastin and Bickley


Behold me once more a man without an occupation, but now the possessor
of about £900,000. It was a very considerable fortune, if not a large
one in England; nothing like the millions of which I had dreamed, but
still enough. To make the most of it and to be sure that it remained, I
invested it very well, mostly in large mortgages at four per cent
which, if the security is good, do not depreciate in capital value.
Never again did I touch a single speculative stock, who desired to
think no more about money. It was at this time that I bought the
Fulcombe property. It cost me about £120,000 of my capital, or with
alterations, repairs, etc., say £150,000, on which sum it may pay a net
two and a half per cent, not more.

This £3,700 odd I have always devoted to the upkeep of the place, which
is therefore in first-rate order. The rest I live on, or save.

These arrangements, with the beautifying and furnishing of the house
and the restoration of the church in memory of my father, occupied and
amused me for a year or so, but when they were finished time began to
hang heavy on my hands. What was the use of possessing about £20,000 a
year when there was nothing upon which it could be spent? For after all
my own wants were few and simple and the acquisition of valuable
pictures and costly furniture is limited by space. Oh! in my small way
I was like the weary King Ecclesiast. For I too made me great works and
had possessions of great and small cattle (I tried farming and lost
money over it!) and gathered me silver and gold and the peculiar
treasure of kings, which I presume means whatever a man in authority
chiefly desires, and so forth. But “behold all was vanity and vexation
of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun.”

So, notwithstanding my wealth and health and the deference which is the
rich man’s portion, especially when the limit of his riches is not
known, it came about that I too “hated life,” and this when I was not
much over thirty. I did not know what to do; for Society as the word is
generally understood, I had no taste; it bored me; horse-racing and
cards I loathed, who had already gambled too much on a big scale. The
killing of creatures under the name of sport palled upon me, indeed I
began to doubt if it were right, while the office of a junior county
magistrate in a place where there was no crime, only occupied me an
hour or two a month.

Lastly my neighbours were few and with all due deference to them,
extremely dull. At least I could not understand them because in them
there did not seem to be anything to understand, and I am quite certain
that they did not understand me. More, when they came to learn that I
was radical in my views and had written certain “dreadful” and somewhat
socialistic books in the form of fiction, they both feared and
mistrusted me as an enemy to their particular section of the race. As I
had not married and showed no inclination to do so, their womenkind
also, out of their intimate knowledge, proclaimed that I led an immoral
life, though a little reflection would have shown them that there was
no one in the neighbourhood which for a time I seldom left, who could
possibly have tempted an educated creature to such courses.

Terrible is the lot of a man who, while still young and possessing the
intellect necessary to achievement, is deprived of all ambition. And I
had none at all. I did not even wish to purchase a peerage or a
baronetcy in this fashion or in that, and, as in my father’s case, my
tastes were so many and so catholic that I could not lose myself in any
one of them. They never became more than diversions to me. A hobby is
only really amusing when it becomes an obsession.

At length my lonesome friendlessness oppressed me so much that I took
steps to mitigate it. In my college life I had two particular friends
whom I think I must have selected because they were so absolutely
different from myself.

They were named Bastin and Bickley. Bastin—Basil was his Christian
name—was an uncouth, shock-headed, flat-footed person of large, rugged
frame and equally rugged honesty, with a mind almost incredibly simple.
Nothing surprised him because he lacked the faculty of surprise. He was
like that kind of fish which lies at the bottom of the sea and takes
every kind of food into its great maw without distinguishing its
flavour. Metaphorically speaking, heavenly manna and decayed cabbage
were just the same to Bastin. He was not fastidious and both were
mental pabulum—of a sort—together with whatever lay between these
extremes. Yet he was good, so painfully good that one felt that without
exertion to himself he had booked a first-class ticket straight to
Heaven; indeed that his guardian angel had tied it round his neck at
birth lest he should lose it, already numbered and dated like an
identification disc.

I am bound to add that Bastin never went wrong because he never felt
the slightest temptation to do so. This I suppose constitutes real
virtue, since, in view of certain Bible sayings, the person who is
tempted and would like to yield to the temptation, is equally a sinner
with the person who does yield. To be truly good one should be too good
to be tempted, or too weak to make the effort worth the tempter’s
while—in short not deserving of his powder and shot.

I need hardly add that Bastin went into the Church; indeed, he could
not have gone anywhere else; it absorbed him naturally, as doubtless
Heaven will do in due course. Only I think it likely that until they
get to know him he will bore the angels so much that they will
continually move him up higher. Also if they have any susceptibilities
left, probably he will tread upon their toes—an art in which I never
knew his equal. However, I always loved Bastin, perhaps because no one
else did, a fact of which he remained totally unconscious, or perhaps
because of his brutal way of telling one what he conceived to be the
truth, which, as he had less imagination than a dormouse, generally it
was not. For if the truth is a jewel, it is one coloured and veiled by
many different lights and atmospheres.

It only remains to add that he was learned in his theological fashion
and that among his further peculiarities were the slow, monotonous
voice in which he uttered his views in long sentences, and his total
indifference to adverse argument however sound and convincing.

My other friend, Bickley, was a person of a quite different character.
Like Bastin, he was learned, but his tendencies faced another way. If
Bastin’s omnivorous throat could swallow a camel, especially a
theological camel, Bickley’s would strain at the smallest gnat,
especially a theological gnat. The very best and most upright of men,
yet he believed in nothing that he could not taste, see or handle. He
was convinced, for instance, that man is a brute-descended accident and
no more, that what we call the soul or the mind is produced by a
certain action of the grey matter of the brain; that everything
apparently inexplicable has a perfectly mundane explanation, if only
one could find it; that miracles certainly never did happen, and never
will; that all religions are the fruit of human hopes and fears and the
most convincing proof of human weakness; that notwithstanding our
infinite variations we are the subjects of Nature’s single law and the
victims of blind, black and brutal chance.

Such was Bickley with his clever, well-cut face that always reminded me
of a cameo, and thoughtful brow; his strong, capable hands and his
rather steely mouth, the mere set of which suggested controversy of an
uncompromising kind. Naturally as the Church had claimed Bastin, so
medicine claimed Bickley.

Now as it happened the man who succeeded my father as vicar of Fulcombe
was given a better living and went away shortly after I had purchased
the place and with it the advowson. Just at this time also I received a
letter written in the large, sprawling hand of Bastin from whom I had
not heard for years. It went straight to the point, saying that he,
Bastin, had seen in a Church paper that the last incumbent had resigned
the living of Fulcombe which was in my gift. He would therefore be
obliged if I would give it to him as the place he was at in Yorkshire
did not suit his wife’s health.

Here I may state that afterwards I learned that what did not suit Mrs.
Bastin was the organist, who was pretty. She was by nature a woman with
a temperament so insanely jealous that actually she managed to be
suspicious of Bastin, whom she had captured in an unguarded moment when
he was thinking of something else and who would as soon have thought of
even looking at any woman as he would of worshipping Baal. As a matter
of fact it took him months to know one female from another. Except as
possible providers of subscriptions and props of Mothers’ Meetings,
women had no interest for him.

To return—with that engaging honesty which I have mentioned—Bastin’s
letter went on to set out all his own disabilities, which, he added,
would probably render him unsuitable for the place he desired to fill.
He was a High Churchman, a fact which would certainly offend many; he
had no claims to being a preacher although he was extraordinarily well
acquainted with the writings of the Early Fathers. (What on earth had
that to do with the question, I wondered.) On the other hand he had
generally been considered a good visitor and was fond of walking (he
meant to call on distant parishioners, but did not say so).

Then followed a page and a half on the evils of the existing system of
the presentation to livings by private persons, ending with the
suggestion that I had probably committed a sin in buying this
particular advowson in order to increase my local authority, that is,
if I had bought it, a point on which he was ignorant. Finally he
informed me that as he had to christen a sick baby five miles away on a
certain moor and it was too wet for him to ride his bicycle, he must
stop. And he stopped.

There was, however, a P.S. to the letter, which ran as follows:

“Someone told me that you were dead a few years ago, and of course it
may be another man of the same name who owns Fulcombe. If so, no doubt
the Post Office will send back this letter.”

That was his only allusion to my humble self in all those diffuse
pages. It was a long while since I had received an epistle which made
me laugh so much, and of course I gave him the living by return of
post, and even informed him that I would increase its stipend to a sum
which I considered suitable to the position.

About ten days later I received another letter from Bastin which, as a
scrawl on the flap of the envelope informed me, he had carried for a
week in his pocket and forgotten to post. Except by inference it
returned no thanks for my intended benefits. What it did say, however,
was that he thought it wrong of me to have settled a matter of such
spiritual importance in so great a hurry, though he had observed that
rich men were nearly always selfish where their time was concerned.
Moreover, he considered that I ought first to have made inquiries as to
his present character and attainments, etc., etc.

To this epistle I replied by telegraph to the effect that I should as
soon think of making inquiries about the character of an archangel, or
that of one of his High Church saints. This telegram, he told me
afterwards, he considered unseemly and even ribald, especially as it
had given great offence to the postmaster, who was one of the sidesmen
in his church.

Thus it came about that I appointed the Rev. Basil Bastin to the living
of Fulcombe, feeling sure that he would provide me with endless
amusement and act as a moral tonic and discipline. Also I appreciated
the man’s blunt candour. In due course he arrived, and I confess that
after a few Sundays of experience I began to have doubts as to the
wisdom of my choice, glad as I was to see him personally. His sermons
at once bored me, and, when they did not send me to sleep, excited in
me a desire for debate. How could he be so profoundly acquainted with
mysteries before which the world had stood amazed for ages? Was there
nothing too hot or too heavy in the spiritual way for him to dismiss in
a few blundering and casual words, as he might any ordinary incident of
every-day life, I wondered? Also his idea of High Church observances
was not mine, or, I imagine, that of anybody else. But I will not
attempt to set it out.

His peculiarities, however, were easy to excuse and entirely swallowed
up by the innate goodness of his nature which soon made him beloved of
everyone in the place, for although he thought that probably most
things were sins, I never knew him to discover a sin which he
considered to be beyond the reach of forgiveness. Bastin was indeed a
most charitable man and in his way wide-minded.

The person whom I could not tolerate, however, was his wife, who, to my
fancy, more resembled a vessel, a very unattractive vessel, full of
vinegar than a woman. Her name was Sarah and she was small, plain,
flat, sandy-haired and odious, quite obsessed, moreover, with her
jealousies of the Rev. Basil, at whom it pleased her to suppose that
every woman in the countryside under fifty was throwing herself.

Here I will confess that to the best of my ability I took care that
they did in outward seeming, that is, whenever she was present,
instructing them to sit aside with him in darkened corners, to present
him with flowers, and so forth. Several of them easily fell into the
humour of the thing, and I have seen him depart from a dinner-party
followed by that glowering Sarah, with a handful of rosebuds and
violets, to say nothing of the traditional offerings of slippers,
embroidered markers and the like. Well, it was my only way of coming
even with her, which I think she knew, for she hated me poisonously.

So much for Basil Bastin. Now for Bickley. Him I had met on several
occasions since our college days, and after I was settled at the Priory
from time to time I asked him to stay with me. At length he came, and I
found out that he was not at all comfortable in his London practice
which was of a nature uncongenial to him; further, that he did not get
on with his partners. Then, after reflection, I made a suggestion to
him. I pointed out that, owing to its popularity amongst seaside
visitors, the neighbourhood of Fulcombe was a rising one, and that
although there were doctors in it, there was no really first-class
surgeon for miles.

Now Bickley was a first-class surgeon, having held very high hospital
appointments, and indeed still holding them. Why, I asked, should he
not come and set up here on his own? I would appoint him doctor to the
estate and also give him charge of a cottage hospital which I was
endowing, with liberty to build and arrange it as he liked. Further, as
I considered that it would be of great advantage to me to have a man of
real ability within reach, I would guarantee for three years whatever
income he was earning in London.

He thanked me warmly and in the end acted on the idea, with startling
results so far as his prospects were concerned. Very soon his really
remarkable skill became known and he was earning more money than as an
unmarried man he could possibly want. Indeed, scarcely a big operation
took place at any town within twenty miles, and even much farther away,
at which he was not called in to assist.

Needless to say his advent was a great boon to me, for as he lived in a
house I let him quite near by, whenever he had a spare evening he would
drop in to dinner, and from our absolutely opposite standpoints we
discussed all things human and divine. Thus I was enabled to sharpen my
wits upon the hard steel of his clear intellect which was yet, in a
sense, so limited.

I must add that I never converted him to my way of thinking and he
never converted me to his, any more than he converted Bastin, for whom,
queerly enough, he had a liking. They pounded away at each other,
Bickley frequently getting the best of it in the argument, and when at
last Bastin rose to go, he generally made the same remark. It was:

“It really is sad, my dear Bickley, to find a man of your intellect so
utterly wrongheaded and misguided. I have convicted you of error at
least half a dozen times, and not to confess it is mere pigheadedness.
Good night. I am sure that Sarah will be sitting up for me.”

“Silly old idiot!” Bickley would say, shaking his fist after him. “The
only way to get him to see the truth would be to saw his head open and
pour it in.”

Then we would both laugh.

Such were my two most intimate friends, although I admit it was rather
like the equator cultivating close relationships with the north and
south poles. Certainly Bastin was as far from Bickley as those points
of the earth are apart, while I, as it were, sat equally distant
between the two. However, we were all very happy together, since in
certain characters, there are few things that bind men more closely
than profound differences of opinion.

Now I must turn to my more personal affairs. After all, it is
impossible for a man to satisfy his soul, if he has anything of the
sort about him which in the remotest degree answers to that
description, with the husks of wealth, luxury and indolence,
supplemented by occasional theological and other arguments between his
friends. Becoming profoundly convinced of this truth, I searched round
for something to do and, like Noah’s dove on the waste of waters, found
nothing. Then I asked Bickley and Bastin for their opinions as to my
best future course. Bickley proved a barren draw. He rubbed his nose
and feebly suggested that I might go in for “research work,” which, of
course, only represented his own ambitions. I asked him indignantly how
I could do such a thing without any scientific qualifications whatever.
He admitted the difficulty, but replied that I might endow others who
had the qualifications.

“In short, become a milch cow for sucking scientists,” I replied, and
broke off the conversation.

Bastin’s idea was, first, that I should teach in a Sunday School;
secondly, that if this career did not satisfy all my aspirations, I
might be ordained and become a missionary.

On my rejection of this brilliant advice, he remarked that the only
other thing he could think of was that I should get married and have a
large family, which might possibly advantage the nation and ultimately
enrich the Kingdom of Heaven, though of such things no one could be
quite sure. At any rate, he was certain that at present I was in
practice neglecting my duty, whatever it might be, and in fact one of
those cumberers of the earth who, he observed in the newspaper he took
in and read when he had time, were “very happily named—the idle rich.”

“Which reminds me,” he added, “that the clothing-club finances are in a
perfectly scandalous condition; in fact, it is £25 in debt, an amount
that as the squire of the parish I consider it incumbent on you to make
good, not as a charity but as an obligation.”

“Look here, my friend,” I said, ignoring all the rest, “will you answer
me a plain question? Have you found marriage such a success that you
consider it your duty to recommend it to others? And if you have, why
have _you_ not got the large family of which you speak?”

“Of course not,” he replied with his usual frankness. “Indeed, it is in
many ways so disagreeable that I am convinced it must be right and for
the good of all concerned. As regards the family I am sure I do not
know, but Sarah never liked babies, which perhaps has something to do
with it.”

Then he sighed, adding, “You see, Arbuthnot, we have to take things as
we find them in this world and hope for a better.”

“Which is just what I am trying to do, you unilluminating old donkey!”
I exclaimed, and left him there shaking his head over matters in
general, but I think principally over Sarah.

By the way, I think that the villagers recognised this good lady’s
vinegary nature. At least, they used to call her “Sour Sal.”




CHAPTER III.
Natalie


Now what Bastin had said about marriage stuck in my mind as his
blundering remarks had a way of doing, perhaps because of the grain of
honest truth with which they were often permeated. Probably in my
position it was more or less my duty to marry. But here came the rub; I
had never experienced any leanings that way. I was as much a man as
others, more so than many are, perhaps, and I liked women, but at the
same time they repelled me.

My old fastidiousness came in; to my taste there was always something
wrong about them. While they attracted one part of my nature they
revolted another part, and on the whole I preferred to do without their
intimate society, rather than work violence to this second and higher
part of me. Moreover, quite at the beginning of my career I had
concluded from observation that a man gets on better in life alone,
rather than with another to drag at his side, or by whom perhaps he
must be dragged. Still true marriage, such as most men and some women
have dreamed of in their youth, had always been one of my ideals;
indeed it was on and around this vision that I wrote that first book of
mine which was so successful. Since I knew this to be unattainable in
our imperfect conditions, however, notwithstanding Bastin’s strictures,
again I dismissed the whole matter from my mind as a vain imagination.

As an alternative I reflected upon a parliamentary career which I was
not too old to begin, and even toyed with one or two opportunities that
offered themselves, as these do to men of wealth and advanced views.
They never came to anything, for in the end I decided that Party
politics were so hateful and so dishonest, that I could not bring
myself to put my neck beneath their yoke. I was sure that if I tried to
do so, I should fail more completely than I had done at the Bar and in
Literature. Here, too, I am quite certain that I was right.

The upshot of it all was that I sought refuge in that last expedient of
weary Englishmen, travel, not as a globe-trotter, but leisurely and
with an inquiring mind, learning much but again finding, like the
ancient writer whom I have quoted already, that there is no new thing
under the sun; that with certain variations it is the same thing over
and over again.

No, I will make an exception, the East did interest me enormously.
There it was, at Benares, that I came into touch with certain thinkers
who opened my eyes to a great deal. They released some hidden spring in
my nature which hitherto had always been striving to break through the
crust of our conventions and inherited ideas. I know now that what I
was seeking was nothing less than the Infinite; that I had “immortal
longings in me.” I listened to all their solemn talk of epochs and
years measureless to man, and reflected with a thrill that after all
man might have his part in every one of them. Yes, that bird of passage
as he seemed to be, flying out of darkness into darkness, still he
might have spread his wings in the light of other suns millions upon
millions of years ago, and might still spread them, grown radiant and
glorious, millions upon millions of years hence in a time unborn.

If only I could know the truth. Was Life (according to Bickley) merely
a short activity bounded by nothingness before and behind; or
(according to Bastin) a conventional golden-harped and haloed
immortality, a word of which he did not in the least understand the
meaning?

Or was it something quite different from either of these, something
vast and splendid beyond the reach of vision, something God-sent,
beginning and ending in the Eternal Absolute and at last partaking of
His attributes and nature and from aeon to aeon shot through with His
light? And how was the truth to be learned? I asked my Eastern friends,
and they talked vaguely of long ascetic preparation, of years upon
years of learning, from whom I could not quite discover. I was sure it
could not be from them, because clearly they did not know; they only
passed on what they had heard elsewhere, when or how they either could
not or would not explain. So at length I gave it up, having satisfied
myself that all this was but an effort of Oriental imagination called
into life by the sweet influences of the Eastern stars.

I gave it up and went away, thinking that I should forget. But I did
not forget. I was quick with a new hope, or at any rate with a new
aspiration, and that secret child of holy desire grew and grew within
my soul, till at length it flashed upon me that this soul of mine was
itself the hidden Master from which I must learn my lesson. No wonder
that those Eastern friends could not give his name, seeing that
whatever they really knew, as distinguished from what they had heard,
and it was little enough, each of them had learned from the teaching of
his own soul.

Thus, then, I too became a dreamer with only one longing, the longing
for wisdom, for that spirit touch which should open my eyes and enable
me to see.

Yet now it happened strangely enough that when I seemed within myself
to have little further interest in the things of the world, and least
of all in women, I, who had taken another guest to dwell with me, those
things of the world came back to me and in the shape of Woman the
Inevitable. Probably it was so decreed since is it not written that no
man can live to himself alone, or lose himself in watching and
nurturing the growth of his own soul?

It happened thus. I went to Rome on my way home from India, and stayed
there a while. On the day after my arrival I wrote my name in the book
of our Minister to Italy at that time, Sir Alfred Upton, not because I
wished him to ask me to dinner, but for the reason that I had heard of
him as a man of archæological tastes and thought that he might enable
me to see things which otherwise I should not see.

As it chanced he knew about me through some of my Devonshire neighbours
who were friends of his, and did ask me to dinner on the following
night. I accepted and found myself one of a considerable party, some of
them distinguished English people who wore Orders, as is customary when
one dines with the representative of our Sovereign. Seeing these, and
this shows that in the best of us vanity is only latent, for the first
time in my life I was sorry that I had none and was only plain Mr.
Arbuthnot who, as Sir Alfred explained to me politely, must go in to
dinner last, because all the rest had titles, and without even a lady
as there was not one to spare.

Nor was my lot bettered when I got there, as I found myself seated
between an Italian countess and a Russian prince, neither of whom could
talk English, while, alas, I knew no foreign language, not even French
in which they addressed me, seeming surprised that I did not understand
them. I was humiliated at my own ignorance, although in fact I was not
ignorant, only my education had been classical. Indeed I was a good
classic and had kept up my knowledge more or less, especially since I
became an idle man. In my confusion it occurred to me that the Italian
countess might know Latin from which her own language was derived, and
addressed her in that tongue. She stared, and Sir Alfred, who was not
far off and overheard me (he also knew Latin), burst into laughter and
proceeded to explain the joke in a loud voice, first in French and then
in English, to the assembled company, who all became infected with
merriment and also stared at me as a curiosity.

Then it was that for the first time I saw Natalie, for owing to a
mistake of my driver I had arrived rather late and had not been
introduced to her. As her father’s only daughter, her mother being
dead, she was seated at the end of the table behind a fan-like
arrangement of white Madonna lilies, and she had bent forward and, like
the others, was looking at me, but in such a fashion that her head from
that distance seemed as though it were surrounded and crowned with
lilies. Indeed the greatest art could not have produced a more
beautiful effect which was, however, really one of naked accident.

An angel looking down upon earth through the lilies of Heaven—that was
the rather absurd thought which flashed into my mind. I did not quite
realise her face at first except that it seemed to be both dark and
fair; as a fact her waving hair which grew rather low upon her
forehead, was dark, and her large, soft eyes were grey. I did not know,
and to this moment I do not know if she was really beautiful, but
certainly the light that shone through those eyes of hers and seemed to
be reflected upon her delicate features, was beauty itself. It was like
that glowing through a thin vase of the purest alabaster within which a
lamp is placed, and I felt this effect to arise from no chance, like
that of the lily-setting, but, as it were, from the lamp of the spirit
within.

Our eyes met, and I suppose that she saw the wonder and admiration in
mine. At any rate her amused smile faded, leaving the face rather
serious, though still sweetly serious, and a tinge of colour crept over
it as the first hue of dawn creeps into a pearly sky. Then she withdrew
herself behind the screen of lilies and for the rest of that dinner
which I thought was never coming to an end, practically I saw her no
more. Only I noted as she passed out that although not tall, she was
rounded and graceful in shape and that her hands were peculiarly
delicate.

Afterwards in the drawing-room her father, with whom I had talked at
the table, introduced me to her, saying:

“My daughter is the real archaeologist, Mr. Arbuthnot, and I think if
you ask her, she may be able to help you.”

Then he bustled away to speak to some of his important guests, from
whom I think he was seeking political information.

“My father exaggerates,” she said in a soft and very sympathetic voice,
“but perhaps”—and she motioned me to a seat at her side.

Then we talked of the places and things that I more particularly
desired to see and, well, the end of it was that I went back to my
hotel in love with Natalie; and as she afterwards confessed, she went
to bed in love with me.

It was a curious business, more like meeting a very old friend from
whom one had been separated by circumstances for a score of years or so
than anything else. We were, so to speak, intimate from the first; we
knew all about each other, although here and there was something new,
something different which we could not remember, lines of thought,
veins of memory which we did not possess in common. On one point I am
absolutely clear: it was not solely the everyday and ancient appeal of
woman to man and man to woman which drew us together, though doubtless
this had its part in our attachment as under our human conditions it
must do, seeing that it is Nature’s bait to ensure the continuance of
the race. It was something more, something quite beyond that elementary
impulse.

At any rate we loved, and one evening in the shelter of the solemn
walls of the great Coliseum at Rome, which at that hour were shut to
all except ourselves, we confessed our love. I really think we must
have chosen the spot by tacit but mutual consent because we felt it to
be fitting. It was so old, so impregnated with every human experience,
from the direst crime of the tyrant who thought himself a god, to the
sublimest sacrifice of the martyr who already was half a god; with
every vice and virtue also which lies between these extremes, that it
seemed to be the most fitting altar whereon to offer our hearts and all
that caused them to beat, each to the other.

So Natalie and I were betrothed within a month of our first meeting.
Within three we were married, for what was there to prevent or delay?
Naturally Sir Alfred was delighted, seeing that he possessed but small
private resources and I was able to make ample provision for his
daughter who had hitherto shown herself somewhat difficult in this
business of matrimony and now was bordering on her twenty-seventh year.
Everybody was delighted, everything went smoothly as a sledge sliding
down a slope of frozen snow and the mists of time hid whatever might be
at the end of that slope. Probably a plain; at the worst the upward
rise of ordinary life.

That is what we thought, if we thought at all. Certainly we never
dreamed of a precipice. Why should we, who were young, by comparison,
quite healthy and very rich? Who thinks of precipices under such
circumstances, when disaster seems to be eliminated and death is yet a
long way off?

And yet we ought to have done so, because we should have known that
smooth surfaces without impediment to the runners often end in
something of the kind.

I am bound to say that when we returned home to Fulcombe, where of
course we met with a great reception, including the ringing (out of
tune) of the new peal of bells that I had given to the church, Bastin
made haste to point this out.

“Your wife seems a very nice and beautiful lady, Arbuthnot,” he
reflected aloud after dinner, when Mrs. Bastin, glowering as usual,
though what at I do not know, had been escorted from the room by
Natalie, “and really, when I come to think of it, you are an unusually
fortunate person. You possess a great deal of money, much more than you
have any right to; which you seem to have done very little to earn and
do not spend quite as I should like you to do, and this nice property,
that ought to be owned by a great number of people, as, according to
the views you express, I should have thought you would acknowledge, and
everything else that a man can want. It is very strange that you should
be so favoured and not because of any particular merits of your own
which one can see. However, I have no doubt it will all come even in
the end and you will get your share of troubles, like others. Perhaps
Mrs. Arbuthnot will have no children as there is so much for them to
take. Or perhaps you will lose all your money and have to work for your
living, which might be good for you. Or,” he added, still thinking
aloud after his fashion, “perhaps she will die young—she has that kind
of face, although, of course, I hope she won’t,” he added, waking up.

I do not know why, but his wandering words struck me cold; the
proverbial funeral bell at the marriage feast was nothing to them. I
suppose it was because in a flash of intuition I knew that they would
come true and that he was an appointed Cassandra. Perhaps this uncanny
knowledge overcame my natural indignation at such super-_gaucherie_ of
which no one but Bastin could have been capable, and even prevented me
from replying at all, so that I merely sat still and looked at him.

But Bickley did reply with some vigour.

“Forgive me for saying so, Bastin,” he said, bristling all over as it
were, “but your remarks, which may or may not be in accordance with the
principles of your religion, seem to me to be in singularly bad taste.
They would have turned the stomachs of a gathering of early Christians,
who appear to have been the worst mannered people in the world, and at
any decent heathen feast your neck would have been wrung as that of a
bird of ill omen.”

“Why?” asked Bastin blankly. “I only said what I thought to be the
truth. The truth is better than what you call good taste.”

“Then I will say what I think also to be the truth,” replied Bickley,
growing furious. “It is that you use your Christianity as a cloak for
bad manners. It teaches consideration and sympathy for others of which
you seem to have none. Moreover, since you talk of the death of
people’s wives, I will tell you something about your own, as a doctor,
which I can do as I never attended her. It is highly probable, in my
opinion, that she will die before Mrs. Arbuthnot, who is quite a
healthy person with a good prospect of life.”

“Perhaps,” said Bastin. “If so, it will be God’s will and I shall not
complain” (here Bickley snorted), “though I do not see what you can
know about it. But why should you cast reflections on the early
Christians who were people of strong principle living in rough times,
and had to wage war against an established devil-worship? I know you
are angry because they smashed up the statues of Venus and so forth,
but had I been in their place I should have done the same.”

“Of course you would, who doubts it? But as for the early Christians
and their iconoclastic performances—well, curse them, that’s all!” and
he sprang up and left the room.

I followed him.

Let it not be supposed from the above scene that there was any
ill-feeling between Bastin and Bickley. On the contrary they were much
attached to each other, and this kind of quarrel meant no more than the
strong expression of their individual views to which they were
accustomed from their college days. For instance Bastin was always
talking about the early Christians and missionaries, while Bickley
loathed both, the early Christians because of the destruction which
they had wrought in Egypt, Italy, Greece and elsewhere, of all that was
beautiful; and the missionaries because, as he said, they were
degrading and spoiling the native races and by inducing them to wear
clothes, rendering them liable to disease. Bastin would answer that
their souls were more important than their bodies, to which Bickley
replied that as there was no such thing as a soul except in the stupid
imagination of priests, he differed entirely on the point. As it was
quite impossible for either to convince the other, there the
conversation would end, or drift into something in which they were
mutually interested, such as natural history and the hygiene of the
neighbourhood.

Here I may state that Bickley’s keen professional eye was not mistaken
when he diagnosed Mrs. Bastin’s state of health as dangerous. As a
matter of fact she was suffering from heart disease that a doctor can
often recognise by the colour of the lips, etc., which brought about
her death under the following circumstances:

Her husband attended some ecclesiastical function at a town over twenty
miles away and was to have returned by a train which would have brought
him home about five o’clock. As he did not arrive she waited at the
station for him until the last train came in about seven
o’clock—without the beloved Basil. Then, on a winter’s night she tore
up to the Priory and begged me to lend her a dog-cart in which to drive
to the said town to look for him. I expostulated against the folly of
such a proceeding, saying that no doubt Basil was safe enough but had
forgotten to telegraph, or thought that he would save the sixpence
which the wire cost.

Then it came out, to Natalie’s and my intense amusement, that all this
was the result of her jealous nature of which I have spoken. She said
she had never slept a night away from her husband since they were
married and with so many “designing persons” about she could not say
what might happen if she did so, especially as he was “such a favourite
and so handsome.” (Bastin was a fine looking man in his rugged way.)

I suggested that she might have a little confidence in him, to which
she replied darkly that she had no confidence in anybody.

The end of it was that I lent her the cart with a fast horse and a good
driver, and off she went. Reaching the town in question some two and a
half hours later, she searched high and low through wind and sleet, but
found no Basil. He, it appeared, had gone on to Exeter, to look at the
cathedral where some building was being done, and missing the last
train had there slept the night.

About one in the morning, after being nearly locked up as a mad woman,
she drove back to the Vicarage, again to find no Basil. Even then she
did not go to bed but raged about the house in her wet clothes, until
she fell down utterly exhausted. When her husband did return on the
following morning, full of information about the cathedral, she was
dangerously ill, and actually passed away while uttering a violent
tirade against him for his supposed suspicious proceedings.

That was the end of this truly odious British matron.

In after days Bastin, by some peculiar mental process, canonised her in
his imagination as a kind of saint. “So loving,” he would say, “such a
devoted wife! Why, my dear Humphrey, I can assure you that even in the
midst of her death-struggle her last thoughts were of me,” words that
caused Bickley to snort with more than usual vigour, until I kicked him
to silence beneath the table.




CHAPTER IV.
Death and Departure


Now I must tell of my own terrible sorrow, which turned my life to
bitterness and my hopes to ashes.

Never were a man and a woman happier together than I and Natalie.
Mentally, physically, spiritually we were perfectly mated, and we loved
each other dearly. Truly we were as one. Yet there was something about
her which filled me with vague fears, especially after she found that
she was to become a mother. I would talk to her of the child, but she
would sigh and shake her head, her eyes filling with tears, and say
that we must not count on the continuance of such happiness as ours,
for it was too great.

I tried to laugh away her doubts, though whenever I did so I seemed to
hear Bastin’s slow voice remarking casually that she might die, as he
might have commented on the quality of the claret. At last, however, I
grew terrified and asked her bluntly what she meant.

“I don’t quite know, dearest,” she replied, “especially as I am
wonderfully well. But—but—”

“But what?” I asked.

“But I think that our companionship is going to be broken for a little
while.”

“For a little while!” I exclaimed.

“Yes, Humphrey. I think that I shall be taken away from you—you know
what I mean,” and she nodded towards the churchyard.

“Oh, my God!” I groaned.

“I want to say this,” she added quickly, “that if such a thing should
happen, as it happens every day, I implore you, dearest Humphrey, not
to be too much distressed, since I am sure that you will find me again.
No, I can’t explain how or when or where, because I do not know. I have
prayed for light, but it has not come to me. All I know is that I am
not talking of reunion in Mr. Bastin’s kind of conventional heaven,
which he speaks about as though to reach it one stumbled through
darkness for a minute into a fine new house next door, where excellent
servants had made everything ready for your arrival and all the lights
were turned up. It is something quite different from that and very much
more real.”

Then she bent down ostensibly to pat the head of a little black cocker
spaniel called Tommy which had been given to her as a puppy, a highly
intelligent and affectionate animal that we both adored and that loved
her as only a dog can love. Really, I knew, it was to hide her tears,
and fled from the room lest she should see mine.

As I went I heard the dog whimpering in a peculiar way, as though some
sympathetic knowledge had been communicated to its wonderful animal
intelligence.

That night I spoke to Bickley about the matter, repeating exactly what
had passed. As I expected, he smiled in his grave, rather sarcastic
way, and made light of it.

“My dear Humphrey,” he said, “don’t torment yourself about such
fancies. They are of everyday occurrence among women in your wife’s
condition. Sometimes they take one form, sometimes another. When she
has got her baby you will hear no more of them.”

I tried to be comforted but in vain.

The days and weeks went by like a long nightmare and in due course the
event happened. Bickley was not attending the case; it was not in his
line, he said, and he preferred that where a friend’s wife was
concerned, somebody else should be called in. So it was put in charge
of a very good local man with a large experience in such domestic
matters.

How am I to tell of it? Everything went wrong; as for the details, let
them be. Ultimately Bickley did operate, and if surpassing skill could
have saved her, it would have been done. But the other man had
misjudged the conditions; it was too late, nothing could help either
mother or child, a little girl who died shortly after she was born but
not before she had been christened, also by the name of Natalie.

I was called in to say farewell to my wife and found her radiant,
triumphant even in her weakness.

“I know now,” she whispered in a faint voice. “I understood as the
chloroform passed away, but I cannot tell you. Everything is quite
well, my darling. Go where you seem called to go, far away. Oh! the
wonderful place in which you will find me, not knowing that you have
found me. Good-bye for a little while; only for a little while, my own,
my own!”

Then she died. And for a time I too seemed to die, but could not. I
buried her and the child here at Fulcombe; or rather I buried their
ashes since I could not endure that her beloved body should see
corruption.

Afterwards, when all was over, I spoke of these last words of Natalie’s
with both Bickley and Bastin, for somehow I seemed to wish to learn
their separate views.

The latter I may explain, had been present at the end in his spiritual
capacity, but I do not think that he in the least understood the nature
of the drama which was passing before his eyes. His prayers and the
christening absorbed all his attention, and he never was a man who
could think of more than one thing at a time.

When I told him exactly what had happened and repeated the words that
Natalie spoke, he was much interested in his own nebulous way, and said
that it was delightful to meet with an example of a good Christian,
such as my wife had been, who actually saw something of Heaven before
she had gone there. His own faith was, he thanked God, fairly robust,
but still an undoubted occurrence of the sort acted as a refreshment,
“like rain on a pasture when it is rather dry, you know,” he added,
breaking into simile.

I remarked that she had not seemed to speak in the sense he indicated,
but appeared to allude to something quite near at hand and more or less
immediate.

“I don’t know that there is anything nearer at hand than the
Hereafter,” he answered. “I expect she meant that you will probably
soon die and join her in Paradise, if you are worthy to do so. But of
course it is not wise to put too much reliance upon words spoken by
people at the last, because often they don’t quite know what they are
saying. Indeed sometimes I think this was so in the case of my own
wife, who really seemed to me to talk a good deal of rubbish. Good-bye,
I promised to see Widow Jenkins this afternoon about having her
varicose veins cut out, and I mustn’t stop here wasting time in
pleasant conversation. She thinks just as much of her varicose veins as
we do of the loss of our wives.”

I wonder what Bastin’s ideas of _unpleasant_ conversation may be,
thought I to myself, as I watched him depart already wool-gathering on
some other subject, probably the heresy of one of those “early fathers”
who occupied most of his thoughts.

Bickley listened to my tale in sympathetic silence, as a doctor does to
a patient. When he was obliged to speak, he said that it was
interesting as an example of a tendency of certain minds towards
romantic vision which sometimes asserts itself, even in the throes of
death.

“You know,” he added, “that I put faith in none of these things. I wish
that I could, but reason and science both show me that they lack
foundation. The world on the whole is a sad place, where we arrive
through the passions of others implanted in them by Nature, which,
although it cares nothing for individual death, is tender towards the
impulse of races of every sort to preserve their collective life.
Indeed the impulse _is_ Nature, or at least its chief manifestation.
Consequently, whether we be gnats or elephants, or anything between and
beyond, even stars for aught I know, we must make the best of things as
they are, taking the good and the evil as they come and getting all we
can out of life until it leaves us, after which we need not trouble.
You had a good time for a little while and were happy in it; now you
are having a bad time and are wretched. Perhaps in the future, when
your mental balance has re-asserted itself, you will have other good
times in the afternoon of your days, and then follow twilight and the
dark. That is all there is to hope for, and we may as well look the
thing in the face. Only I confess, my dear fellow, that your experience
convinces me that marriage should be avoided at whatever inconvenience.
Indeed I have long wondered that anyone can take the responsibility of
bringing a child into the world. But probably nobody does in cold
blood, except misguided idiots like Bastin,” he added. “He would have
twenty, had not his luck intervened.”

“Then you believe in nothing, Friend,” I said.

“Nothing, I am sorry to say, except what I see and my five senses
appreciate.”

“You reject all possibility of miracle, for instance?”

“That depends on what you mean by miracle. Science shows us all kinds
of wonders which our great grandfathers would have called miracles, but
these are nothing but laws that we are beginning to understand. Give me
an instance.”

“Well,” I replied at hazard, “if you were assured by someone that a man
could live for a thousand years?”

“I should tell him that he was a fool or a liar, that is all. It is
impossible.”

“Or that the same identity, spirit, animating principle—call it what
you will—can flit from body to body, say in successive ages? Or that
the dead can communicate with the living?”

“Convince me of any of these things, Arbuthnot, and mind you I desire
to be convinced, and I will take back every word I have said and walk
through Fulcombe in a white sheet proclaiming myself the fool. Now, I
must get off to the Cottage Hospital to cut out Widow Jenkins’s
varicose veins. They are tangible and real at any rate; about the
largest I ever saw, indeed. Give up dreams, old boy, and take to
something useful. You might go back to your fiction writing; you seem
to have leanings that way, and you know you need not publish the
stories, except privately for the edification of your friends.”

With this Parthian shaft Bickley took his departure to make a job of
Widow Jenkins’s legs.

I took his advice. During the next few months I did write something
which occupied my thoughts for a while, more or less. It lies in my
safe to this minute, for somehow I have never been able to make up my
mind to burn what cost me so much physical and mental toil.

When it was finished my melancholy returned to me with added force.
Everything in the house took a tongue and cried to me of past days. Its
walls echoed a voice that I could never hear again; in the very
looking-glasses I saw the reflection of a lost presence. Although I had
moved myself for the purposes of sleep to a little room at the further
end of the building, footsteps seemed to creep about my bed at night
and I heard the rustle of a remembered dress without the door. The
place grew hateful to me. I felt that I must get away from it or I
should go mad.

One afternoon Bastin arrived carrying a book and in a state of high
indignation. This work, written, as he said, by some ribald traveller,
grossly traduced the character of missionaries to the South Sea
Islands, especially of those of the Society to which he subscribed, and
he threw it on the table in his righteous wrath. Bickley picked it up
and opened it at a photograph of a very pretty South Sea Island girl
clad in a few flowers and nothing else, which he held towards Bastin,
saying:

“Is it to this child of Nature that you object? I call her distinctly
attractive, though perhaps she does wear her hibiscus blooms with a
difference to our women—a little lower down.”

“The devil is always attractive,” replied Bastin gloomily. “Child of
Nature indeed! I call her Child of Sin. That photograph is enough to
make my poor Sarah turn in her grave.”

“Why?” asked Bickley; “seeing that wide seas roll between you and this
dusky Venus. Also I thought that according to your Hebrew legend sin
came in with bark garments.”

“You should search the Scriptures, Bickley,” I broke in, “and cultivate
accuracy. It was fig-leaves that symbolised its arrival. The garments,
which I think were of skin, developed later.”

“Perhaps,” went on Bickley, who had turned the page, “she” (he referred
to the late Mrs. Bastin) “would have preferred her thus,” and he held
up another illustration of the same woman.

In this the native belle appeared after conversion, clad in broken-down
stays—I suppose they were stays—out of which she seemed to bulge and
flow in every direction, a dirty white dress several sizes too small, a
kind of Salvation Army bonnet without a crown and a prayer-book which
she held pressed to her middle; the general effect being hideous, and
in some curious way, improper.

“Certainly,” said Bastin, “though I admit her clothes do not seem to
fit and she has not buttoned them up as she ought. But it is not of the
pictures so much as of the letterpress with its false and scandalous
accusations, that I complain.”

“Why do you complain?” asked Bickley. “Probably it is quite true,
though that we could never ascertain without visiting the lady’s home.”

“If I could afford it,” exclaimed Bastin with rising anger, “I should
like to go there and expose this vile traducer of my cloth.”

“So should I,” answered Bickley, “and expose these introducers of
consumption, measles and other European diseases, to say nothing of
gin, among an innocent and Arcadian people.”

“How can you call them innocent, Bickley, when they murder and eat
missionaries?”

“I dare say we should all eat a missionary, Bastin, if we were hungry
enough,” was the answer, after which something occurred to change the
conversation.

But I kept the book and read it as a neutral observer, and came to the
conclusion that these South Sea Islands, a land where it was always
afternoon, must be a charming place, in which perhaps the stars of the
Tropics and the scent of the flowers might enable one to forget a
little, or at least take the edge off memory. Why should I not visit
them and escape another long and dreary English winter? No, I could not
do so alone. If Bastin and Bickley were there, their eternal arguments
might amuse me. Well, why should they not come also? When one has money
things can always be arranged.

The idea, which had its root in this absurd conversation, took a
curious hold on me. I thought of it all the evening, being alone, and
that night it re-arose in my dreams. I dreamed that my lost Natalie
appeared to me and showed me a picture. It was of a long, low land, a
curving shore of which the ends were out of the picture, whereon grew
tall palms, and where great combers broke upon gleaming sand.

Then the picture seemed to become a reality and I saw Natalie herself,
strangely changeful in her aspect, strangely varying in face and
figure, strangely bright, standing in the mouth of a pass whereof the
little bordering cliffs were covered with bushes and low trees, whose
green was almost hid in lovely flowers. There in my dream she stood,
smiling mysteriously, and stretched out her arms towards me.

As I awoke I seemed to hear her voice, repeating her dying words: “Go
where you seem called to go, far away. Oh! the wonderful place in which
you will find me, not knowing that you have found me.”

With some variations this dream visited me twice that night. In the
morning I woke up quite determined that I would go to the South Sea
Islands, even if I must do so alone. On that same evening Bastin and
Bickley dined with me. I said nothing to them about my dream, for
Bastin never dreamed and Bickley would have set it down to indigestion.
But when the cloth had been cleared away and we were drinking our glass
of port—both Bastin and Bickley only took one, the former because he
considered port a sinful indulgence of the flesh, the latter because he
feared it would give him gout—I remarked casually that they both looked
very run down and as though they wanted a rest. They agreed, at least
each of them said he had noticed it in the other. Indeed Bastin added
that the damp and the cold in the church, in which he held daily
services to no congregation except the old woman who cleaned it, had
given him rheumatism, which prevented him from sleeping.

“Do call things by their proper names,” interrupted Bickley. “I told
you yesterday that what you are suffering from is neuritis in your
right arm, which will become chronic if you neglect it much longer. I
have the same thing myself, so I ought to know, and unless I can stop
operating for a while I believe my fingers will become useless. Also
something is affecting my sight, overstrain, I suppose, so that I am
obliged to wear stronger and stronger glasses. I think I shall have to
leave Ogden” (his partner) “in charge for a while, and get away into
the sun. There is none here before June.”

“I would if I could pay a _locum tenens_ and were quite sure it isn’t
wrong,” said Bastin.

“I am glad you both think like that,” I remarked, “as I have a
suggestion to make to you. I want to go to the South Seas about which
we were talking yesterday, to get the thorough change that Bickley has
been advising for me, and I should be very grateful if you would both
come as my guests. You, Bickley, make so much money out of cutting
people about, that you can arrange your own affairs during your
absence. But as for you, Bastin, I will see to the wherewithal for the
_locum tenens_, and everything else.”

“You are very kind,” said Bastin, “and certainly I should like to
expose that misguided author, who probably published his offensive work
without thinking that what he wrote might affect the subscriptions to
the missionary societies, also to show Bickley that he is not always
right, as he seems to think. But I could never dream of accepting
without the full approval of the Bishop.”

“You might get that of your nurse also, if she happens to be still
alive,” mocked Bickley. “As for his Lordship, I don’t think he will
raise any objection when he sees the certificate I will give you about
the state of your health. He is a great believer in me ever since I
took that carbuncle out of his neck which he got because he will not
eat enough. As for me, I mean to come if only to show you how
continually and persistently you are wrong. But, Arbuthnot, how do you
mean to go?”

“I don’t know. In a mail steamer, I suppose.”

“If you can run to it, a yacht would be much better.”

“That’s a good idea, for one could get out of the beaten tracks and see
the places that are never, or seldom, visited. I will make some
inquiries. And now, to celebrate the occasion, let us all have another
glass of port and drink a toast.”

They hesitated and were lost, Bastin murmuring something about doing
without his stout next day as a penance. Then they both asked what was
the toast, each of them, after thought, suggesting that it should be
the utter confusion of the other.

I shook my head, whereon as a result of further cogitation, Bastin
submitted that the Unknown would be suitable. Bickley said that he
thought this a foolish idea as everything worth knowing was already
known, and what was the good of drinking to the rest? A toast to the
Truth would be better.

A notion came to me.

“Let us combine them,” I said, “and drink to the Unknown Truth.”

So we did, though Bastin grumbled that the performance made him feel
like Pilate.

“We are all Pilates in our way,” I replied with a sigh.

“That is what I think every time I diagnose a case,” exclaimed Bickley.

As for me I laughed and for some unknown reason felt happier than I had
done for months. Oh! if only the writer of that tourist tale of the
South Sea Islands could have guessed what fruit his light-thrown seed
would yield to us and to the world!

I made my inquiries through a London agency which hired out yachts or
sold them to the idle rich. As I expected, there were plenty to be had,
at a price, but wealthy as I was, the figure asked of the buyer of any
suitable craft, staggered me. In the end, however, I chartered one for
six months certain and at so much per month for as long as I liked
afterwards. The owners paid insurance and everything else on condition
that they appointed the captain and first mate, also the engineer, for
this yacht, which was named _Star of the South_, could steam at about
ten knots as well as sail.

I know nothing about yachts, and therefore shall not attempt to
describe her, further than to say that she was of five hundred and
fifty tons burden, very well constructed, and smart to look at, as well
she might be, seeing that a deceased millionaire from whose executors I
hired her had spent a fortune in building and equipping her in the best
possible style. In all, her crew consisted of thirty-two hands. A
peculiarity of the vessel was that owing to some fancy of the late
owner, the passenger accommodation, which was splendid, lay forward of
the bridge, this with the ship’s store-rooms, refrigerating chamber,
etc., being almost in the bows. It was owing to these arrangements,
which were unusual, that the executors found it impossible to sell, and
were therefore glad to accept such an offer as mine in order to save
expenses. Perhaps they hoped that she might go to the bottom, being
heavily insured. If so, the Fates did not disappoint them.

The captain, named Astley, was a jovial person who held every kind of
certificate. He seemed so extraordinarily able at his business that
personally I suspected him of having made mistakes in the course of his
career, not unconnected with the worship of Bacchus. In this I believe
I was right; otherwise a man of such attainments would have been
commanding something bigger than a private yacht. The first mate,
Jacobsen, was a melancholy Dane, a spiritualist who played the
concertina, and seemed to be able to do without sleep. The crew were a
mixed lot, good men for the most part and quite unobjectionable, more
than half of them being Scandinavian. I think that is all I need say
about the _Star of the South_.

The arrangement was that the _Star of the South_ should proceed through
the Straits of Gibraltar to Marseilles, where we would join her, and
thence travel via the Suez Canal, to Australia and on to the South
Seas, returning home as our fancy or convenience might dictate.

All the first part of the plan we carried out to the letter. Of the
remainder I say nothing at present.

_Star of the South_ was amply provided with every kind of store. Among
them were medicines and surgical instruments, selected by Bickley, and
a case of Bibles and other religious works in sundry languages of the
South Seas, selected by Bastin, whose bishop, when he understood the
pious objects of his journey, had rather encouraged than hindered his
departure on sick leave, and a large number of novels, books of
reference, etc., laid in by myself. She duly sailed from the Thames and
reached Marseilles after a safe and easy passage, where all three of us
boarded her.

I forgot to add that she had another passenger, the little spaniel,
Tommy. I had intended to leave him behind, but while I was packing up
he followed me about with such evident understanding of my purpose that
my heart was touched. When I entered the motor to drive to the station
he escaped from the hands of the servant, whimpering, and took refuge
on my knee. After this I felt that Destiny intended him to be our
companion. Moreover, was he not linked with my dead past, and, had I
but known it, with my living future also?




CHAPTER V.
The Cyclone


We enjoyed our voyage exceedingly. In Egypt, a land I was glad to
revisit, we only stopped a week while the _Star of the South_, which we
rejoined at Suez, coaled and went through the Canal. This, however,
gave us time to spend a few days in Cairo, visit the Pyramids and
Sakkara which Bastin and Bickley had never seen before, and inspect the
great Museum. The journey up the Nile was postponed until our return.
It was a pleasant break and gave Bickley, a most omnivorous reader who
was well acquainted with Egyptian history and theology, the opportunity
of trying to prove to Bastin that Christianity was a mere development
of the ancient Egyptian faith. The arguments that ensued may be
imagined. It never seemed to occur to either of them that all faiths
may be and indeed probably are progressive; in short, different rays of
light thrown from the various facets of the same crystal, as in turn
these are shone upon by the sun of Truth.

Our passage down the Red Sea was cool and agreeable. Thence we shaped
our course for Ceylon. Here again we stopped a little while to run up
to Kandy and to visit the ruined city of Anarajapura with its great
Buddhist topes that once again gave rise to religious argument between
my two friends. Leaving Ceylon we struck across the Indian Ocean for
Perth in Western Australia.

It was a long voyage, since to save our coal we made most of it under
canvas. However, we were not dull as Captain Astley was a good
companion, and even out of the melancholy Dane, Jacobsen, we had
entertainment. He insisted on holding seances in the cabin, at which
the usual phenomena occurred. The table twisted about, voices were
heard and Jacobsen’s accordion wailed out tunes above our heads. These
happenings drove Bickley to a kind of madness, for here were events
which he could not explain. He was convinced that someone was playing
tricks upon him, and devised the most elaborate snares to detect the
rogue, entirely without result.

First he accused Jacobsen, who was very indignant, and then me, who
laughed. In the end Jacobsen and I left the “circle” and the cabin,
which was locked behind us; only Bastin and Bickley remaining there in
the dark. Presently we heard sounds of altercation, and Bickley emerged
looking very red in the face, followed by Bastin, who was saying:

“Can I help it if something pulled your nose and snatched off your
eyeglasses, which anyhow are quite useless to you when there is no
light? Again, is it possible for me, sitting on the other side of that
table, to have placed the concertina on your head and made it play the
National Anthem, a thing that I have not the slightest idea how to do?”

“Please do not try to explain,” snapped Bickley. “I am perfectly aware
that you deceived me somehow, which no doubt you think a good joke.”

“My dear fellow,” I interrupted, “is it possible to imagine old Basil
deceiving anyone?”

“Why not,” snorted Bickley, “seeing that he deceives himself from one
year’s end to the other?”

“I think,” said Bastin, “that this is an unholy business and that we
are both deceived by the devil. I will have no more to do with it,” and
he departed to his cabin, probably to say some appropriate prayers.

After this the seances were given up but Jacobsen produced an
instrument called a planchette and with difficulty persuaded Bickley to
try it, which he did after many precautions. The thing, a heart-shaped
piece of wood mounted on wheels and with a pencil stuck at its narrow
end, cantered about the sheet of paper on which it was placed, Bickley,
whose hands rested upon it, staring at the roof of the cabin. Then it
began to scribble and after a while stopped still.

“Will the Doctor look?” said Jacobsen. “Perhaps the spirits have told
him something.”

“Oh! curse all this silly talk about spirits,” exclaimed Bickley, as he
arranged his eyeglasses and held up the paper to the light, for it was
after dinner.

He stared, then with an exclamation which I will not repeat, and a
glance of savage suspicion at the poor Dane and the rest of us, threw
it down and left the cabin. I picked it up and next moment was
screaming with laughter. There on the top of the sheet was a rough but
entirely recognizable portrait of Bickley with the accordion on his
head, and underneath, written in a delicate, Italian female hand,
absolutely different from his own, were these words taken from one of
St. Paul’s Epistles—“Oppositions of science falsely so called.”
Underneath them again in a scrawling, schoolboy fist, very like
Bastin’s, was inscribed, “Tell us how this is done, you silly doctor,
who think yourself so clever.”

“It seems that the devil really can quote Scripture,” was Bastin’s only
comment, while Jacobsen stared before him and smiled.

Bickley never alluded to the matter, but for days afterwards I saw him
experimenting with paper and chemicals, evidently trying to discover a
form of invisible ink which would appear upon the application of the
hand. As he never said anything about it, I fear that he failed.

This planchette business had a somewhat curious ending. A few nights
later Jacobsen was working it and asked me to put a question. To oblige
him I inquired on what day we should reach Fremantle, the port of
Perth. It wrote an answer which, I may remark, subsequently proved to
be quite correct.

“That is not a good question,” said Jacobsen, “since as a sailor I
might guess the reply. Try again, Mr. Arbuthnot.”

“Will anything remarkable happen on our voyage to the South Seas?” I
inquired casually.

The planchette hesitated a while then wrote rapidly and stopped.
Jacobsen took up the paper and began to read the answer aloud—“To A, B
the D, and B the C, the most remarkable things will happen that have
happened to men living in the world.”

“That must mean me, Bickley the doctor and Bastin the clergyman,” I
said, laughing.

Jacobsen paid no attention, for he was reading what followed. As he did
so I saw his face turn white and his eyes begin to start from his head.
Then suddenly he tore the paper in pieces which he thrust into his
pocket. Lifting his great fist he uttered some Danish oath and with a
single blow smashed the planchette to fragments, after which he strode
away, leaving me astonished and somewhat disturbed. When I met him the
next morning I asked him what was on the paper.

“Oh!” he said quietly, “something I should not like you too-proper
English gentlemens to see. Something not nice. You understand. Those
spirits not always good; they do that kind of thing sometimes. That’s
why I broke up this planchette.”

Then he began to talk of something else and there the matter ended.

I should have said that, principally with a view to putting themselves
in a position to confute each other, ever since we had started from
Marseilles both Bastin and Bickley spent a number of hours each day in
assiduous study of the language of the South Sea Islands. It became a
kind of competition between them as to which could learn the most. Now
Bastin, although simple and even stupid in some ways, was a good
scholar, and as I knew at college, had quite a faculty for acquiring
languages in which he had taken high marks at examinations. Bickley,
too, was an extraordinarily able person with an excellent memory,
especially when he was on his mettle. The result was that before we
ever reached a South Sea island they had a good working knowledge of
the local tongues.

As it chanced, too, at Perth we picked up a Samoan and his wife who,
under some of the “white Australia” regulations, were not allowed to
remain in the country and offered to work as servants in return for a
passage to Apia where we proposed to call some time or other. With
these people Bastin and Bickley talked all day long till really they
became fairly proficient in their soft and beautiful dialect. They
wished me to learn also, but I said that with two such excellent
interpreters and the natives while they remained with us, it seemed
quite unnecessary. Still, I picked up a good deal in a quiet way, as
much as they did perhaps.

At length, travelling on and on as a voyager to the planet Mars might
do, we sighted the low shores of Australia and that same evening were
towed, for our coal was quite exhausted, to the wharf at Fremantle.
Here we spent a few days exploring the beautiful town of Perth and its
neighbourhood where it was very hot just then, and eating peaches and
grapes till we made ourselves ill, as a visitor often does who is
unaware that fruit should not be taken in quantity in Australia while
the sun is high. Then we departed for Melbourne almost before our
arrival was generally known, since I did not wish to advertise our
presence or the object of our journey.

We crossed the Great Australian Bight, of evil reputation, in the most
perfect weather; indeed it might have been a mill pond, and after a
short stay at Melbourne, went on to Sydney, where we coaled again and
laid in supplies.

Then our real journey began. The plan we laid out was to sail to Suva
in Fiji, about 1,700 miles away, and after a stay there, on to Hawaii
or the Sandwich Islands, stopping perhaps at the Phoenix Islands and
the Central Polynesian Sporades, such as Christmas and Fanning Isles.
Then we proposed to turn south again through the Marshall Archipelago
and the Caroline Islands, and so on to New Guinea and the Coral Sea.
Particularly did we wish to visit Easter Island on account of its
marvelous sculptures that are supposed to be the relics of a
pre-historic race. In truth, however, we had no fixed plan except to go
wherever circumstance and chance might take us. Chance, I may add, or
something else, took full advantage of its opportunities.

We came to Suva in safety and spent a while in exploring the beautiful
Fiji Isles where both Bastin and Bickley made full inquiries about the
work of the missionaries, each of them drawing exactly opposite
conclusions from the same set of admitted facts. Thence we steamed to
Samoa and put our two natives ashore at Apia, where we procured some
coal. We did not stay long enough in these islands to investigate them,
however, because persons of experience there assured us from certain
familiar signs that one of the terrible hurricanes with which they are
afflicted, was due to arrive shortly and that we should do well to put
ourselves beyond its reach. So having coaled and watered we departed in
a hurry.

Up to this time I should state we had met with the most wonderful good
fortune in the matter of weather, so good indeed that never on one
occasion since we left Marseilles, had we been obliged to put the
fiddles on the tables. With the superstition of a sailor Captain
Astley, when I alluded to the matter, shook his head saying that
doubtless we should pay for it later on, since “luck never goes all the
way” and cyclones were reported to be about.

Here I must tell that after we were clear of Apia, it was discovered
that the Danish mate who was believed to be in his cabin unwell from
something he had eaten, was missing. The question arose whether we
should put back to find him, as we supposed that he had made a trip
inland and met with an accident, or been otherwise delayed. I was in
favour of doing so though the captain, thinking of the threatened
hurricane, shook his head and said that Jacobsen was a queer fellow who
might just as well have gone overboard as anywhere else, if he thought
he heard “the spirits, of whom he was so fond,” calling him. While the
matter was still in suspense I happened to go into my own stateroom and
there, stuck in the looking-glass, saw an envelope in the Dane’s
handwriting addressed to myself. On opening it I found another sealed
letter, unaddressed, also a note that ran as follows:

“Honoured Sir,
    “You will think very badly of me for leaving you, but the enclosed
    which I implore you not to open until you have seen the last of the
    _Star of the South_, will explain my reason and I hope clear my
    reputation. I thank you again and again for all your kindness and
    pray that the Spirits who rule the world may bless and preserve
    you, also the Doctor and Mr. Bastin.”


This letter, which left the fate of Jacobsen quite unsolved, for it
might mean either that he had deserted or drowned himself, I put away
with the enclosure in my pocket. Of course there was no obligation on
me to refrain from opening the letter, but I shrank from doing so both
from some kind of sense of honour and, to tell the truth, for fear of
what it might contain. I felt that this would be disagreeable; also,
although there was nothing to connect them together, I bethought me of
the scene when Jacobsen had smashed the planchette.

On my return to the deck I said nothing whatsoever about the discovery
of the letter, but only remarked that on reflection I had changed my
mind and agreed with the captain that it would be unwise to attempt to
return in order to look for Jacobsen. So the boatswain, a capable
individual who had seen better days, was promoted to take his watches
and we went on as before. How curiously things come about in the world!
For nautical reasons that were explained to me, but which I will not
trouble to set down, if indeed I could remember them, I believe that if
we had returned to Apia we should have missed the great gale and
subsequent cyclone, and with these much else. But it was not so fated.

It was on the fourth day, when we were roughly seven hundred miles or
more north of Samoa, that we met the edge of this gale about sundown.
The captain put on steam in the hope of pushing through it, but that
night we dined for the first time with the fiddles on, and by eleven
o’clock it was as much as one could do to stand in the cabin, while the
water was washing freely over the deck. Fortunately, however, the wind
veered more aft of us, so that by putting about her head a little
(seamen must forgive me if I talk of these matters as a landlubber) we
ran almost before the wind, though not quite in the direction that we
wished to go.

When the light came it was blowing very hard indeed, and the sky was
utterly overcast, so that we got no glimpse of the sun, or of the stars
on the following night. Unfortunately, there was no moon visible;
indeed, if there had been I do not suppose that it would have helped us
because of the thick pall of clouds. For quite seventy-two hours we ran
on beneath bare poles before that gale. The little vessel behaved
splendidly, riding the seas like a duck, but I could see that Captain
Astley was growing alarmed. When I said something complimentary to him
about the conduct of the _Star of the South_, he replied that she was
forging ahead all right, but the question was—where to? He had been
unable to take an observation of any sort since we left Samoa; both his
patent logs had been carried away, so that now only the compass
remained, and he had not the slightest idea where we were in that great
ocean studded with atolls and islands.

I asked him whether we could not steam back to our proper course, but
he answered that to do so he would have to travel dead in the eye of
the gale, and he doubted whether the engines would stand it. Also there
was the question of coal to be considered. However, he had kept the
fires going and would do what he could if the weather moderated.

That night during dinner which now consisted of tinned foods and whisky
and water, for the seas had got to the galley fire, suddenly the gale
dropped, whereat we rejoiced exceedingly. The captain came down into
the saloon very white and shaken, I thought, and I asked him to have a
nip of whisky to warm him up, and to celebrate our good fortune in
having run out of the wind. He took the bottle and, to my alarm, poured
out a full half tumbler of spirit, which he swallowed undiluted in two
or three gulps.

“That’s better!” he said with a hoarse laugh. “But man, what is it you
are saying about having run out of the wind? Look at the glass!”

“We have,” said Bastin, “and it is wonderfully steady. About 29 degrees
or a little over, which it has been for the last three days.”

Again Astley laughed in a mirthless fashion, as he answered:

“Oh, that thing! That’s the passengers’ glass. I told the steward to
put it out of gear so that you might not be frightened; it is an old
trick. Look at this,” and he produced one of the portable variety out
of his pocket.

We looked, and it stood somewhere between 27 degrees and 28 degrees.

“That’s the lowest glass I ever saw in the Polynesian or any other seas
during thirty years. It’s right, too, for I have tested it by three
others,” he said.

“What does it mean?” I asked rather anxiously.

“South Sea cyclone of the worst breed,” he replied. “That cursed Dane
knew it was coming and that’s why he left the ship. Pray as you never
prayed before,” and again he stretched out his hand towards the whisky
bottle. But I stepped between him and it, shaking my head. Thereon he
laughed for the third time and left the cabin. Though I saw him once or
twice afterwards, these were really the last words of intelligible
conversation that I ever had with Captain Astley.

“It seems that we are in some danger,” said Bastin, in an unmoved kind
of way. “I think that was a good idea of the captain’s, to put up a
petition, I mean, but as Bickley will scarcely care to join in it I
will go into the cabin and do so myself.”

Bickley snorted, then said:

“Confound that captain! Why did he play such a trick upon us about the
barometer? Humphrey, I believe he had been drinking.”

“So do I,” I said, looking at the whisky bottle. “Otherwise, after
taking those precautions to keep us in the dark, he would not have let
on like that.”

“Well,” said Bickley, “he can’t get to the liquor, except through this
saloon, as it is locked up forward with the other stores.”

“That’s nothing,” I replied, “as doubtless he has a supply of his own;
rum, I expect. We must take our chance.”

Bickley nodded, and suggested that we should go on deck to see what was
happening. So we went. Not a breath of wind was stirring, and even the
sea seemed to be settling down a little. At least, so we judged from
the motion, for we could not see either it or the sky; everything was
as black as pitch. We heard the sailors, however, engaged in rigging
guide ropes fore and aft, and battening down the hatches with extra
tarpaulins by the light of lanterns. Also they were putting ropes round
the boats and doing something to the spars and topmasts.

Presently Bastin joined us, having, I suppose, finished his devotions.

“Really, it is quite pleasant here,” he said. “One never knows how
disagreeable so much wind is until it stops.”

I lit my pipe, making no answer, and the match burned quite steadily
there in the open air.

“What is that?” exclaimed Bickley, staring at something which now I saw
for the first time. It looked like a line of white approaching through
the gloom. With it came a hissing sound, and although there was still
no wind, the rigging began to moan mysteriously like a thing in pain. A
big drop of water also fell from the sides into my pipe and put it out.
Then one of the sailors cried in a hoarse voice:

“Get down below, governors, unless you want to go out to sea!”

“Why?” inquired Bastin.

“Why? Becos the ‘urricane is coming, that’s all. Coming as though the
devil had kicked it out of ‘ell.”

Bastin seemed inclined to remonstrate at this sort of language, but we
pushed him down the companion and followed, propelling the spaniel
Tommy in front of us. Next moment I heard the sailors battening the
hatch with hurried blows, and when this was done to their satisfaction,
heard their feet also as they ran into shelter.

Another instant and we were all lying in a heap on the cabin floor with
poor Tommy on top of us. The cyclone had struck the ship! Above the
wash of water and the screaming of the gale we heard other mysterious
sounds, which doubtless were caused by the yards hitting the seas, for
the yacht was lying on her side. I thought that all was over, but
presently there came a rending, crashing noise. The masts, or one of
them, had gone, and by degrees we righted.

“Near thing!” said Bickley. “Good heavens, what’s that?”

I listened, for the electric light had temporarily gone out, owing, I
suppose, to the dynamo having stopped for a moment. A most unholy and
hollow sound was rising from the cabin floor. It might have been caused
by a bullock with its windpipe cut, trying to get its breath and
groaning. Then the light came on again and we saw Bastin lying at full
length on the carpet.

“He’s broken his neck or something,” I said.

Bickley crept to him and having looked, sang out:

“It’s all right! He’s only sea-sick. I thought it would come to that if
he drank so much tea.”

“Sea-sick,” I said faintly—“sea-sick?”

“That’s all,” said Bickley. “The nerves of the stomach acting on the
brain or vice-versa—that is, if Bastin has a brain,” he added sotto
voce.

“Oh!” groaned the prostrate clergyman. “I wish that I were dead!”

“Don’t trouble about that,” answered Bickley. “I expect you soon will
be. Here, drink some whisky, you donkey.”

Bastin sat up and obeyed, out of the bottle, for it was impossible to
pour anything into a glass, with results too dreadful to narrate.

“I call that a dirty trick,” he said presently, in a feeble voice,
glowering at Bickley.

“I expect I shall have to play you a dirtier before long, for you are a
pretty bad case, old fellow.”

As a matter of fact he had, for once Bastin had begun really we thought
that he was going to die. Somehow we got him into his cabin, which
opened off the saloon, and as he could drink nothing more, Bickley
managed to inject morphia or some other compound into him, which made
him insensible for a long while.

“He must be in a poor way,” he said, “for the needle went more than a
quarter of an inch into him, and he never cried out or stirred.
Couldn’t help it in that rolling.”

But now I could hear the engines working, and I think that the bow of
the vessel was got head on to the seas, for instead of rolling we
pitched, or rather the ship stood first upon one end and then upon the
other. This continued for a while until the first burst of the cyclone
had gone by. Then suddenly the engines stopped; I suppose that they had
broken down, but I never learned, and we seemed to veer about, nearly
sinking in the process, and to run before the hurricane at terrific
speed.

“I wonder where we are going to?” I said to Bickley. “To the land of
sleep, Humphrey, I imagine,” he replied in a more gentle voice than I
had often heard him use, adding: “Good-bye, old boy, we have been real
friends, haven’t we, notwithstanding my peculiarities? I only wish that
I could think that there was anything in Bastin’s views. But I can’t, I
can’t. It’s good night for us poor creatures!”




CHAPTER VI.
Land


At last the electric light really went out. I had looked at my watch
just before this happened and wound it up, which, Bickley remarked, was
superfluous and a waste of energy. It then marked 3.20 in the morning.
We had wedged Bastin, who was now snoring comfortably, into his berth,
with pillows, and managed to tie a cord over him—no, it was a large
bath towel, fixing one end of it to the little rack over his bed and
the other to its framework. As for ourselves, we lay down on the floor
between the table legs, which, of course, were screwed, and the settee,
protecting ourselves as best we were able by help of the cushions,
etc., between two of which we thrust the terrified Tommy who had been
sliding up and down the cabin floor. Thus we remained, expecting death
every moment till the light of day, a very dim light, struggling
through a port-hole of which the iron cover had somehow been wrenched
off. Or perhaps it was never shut, I do not remember.

About this time there came a lull in the hellish, howling hurricane;
the fact being, I suppose, that we had reached the centre of the
cyclone. I suggested that we should try to go on deck and see what was
happening. So we started, only to find the entrance to the companion so
faithfully secured that we could not by any means get out. We knocked
and shouted, but no one answered. My belief is that at this time
everyone on the yacht except ourselves had been washed away and
drowned.

Then we returned to the saloon, which, except for a little water
trickling about the floor, was marvelously dry, and, being hungry,
retrieved some bits of food and biscuit from its corners and ate. At
this moment the cyclone began to blow again worse than ever, but it
seemed to us, from another direction, and before it sped our poor
derelict barque. It blew all day till for my part I grew utterly weary
and even longed for the inevitable end. If my views were not quite
those of Bastin, certainly they were not those of Bickley. I had
believed from my youth up that the individuality of man, the ego, so to
speak, does not die when life goes out of his poor body, and this faith
did not desert me then. Therefore, I wished to have it over and learn
what there might be upon the other side.

We could not speak much because of the howling of the wind, but Bickley
did manage to shout to me something to the effect that his partners
would, in his opinion, make an end of their great practice within two
years, which, he added, was a pity. I nodded my head, not caring
twopence what happened to Bickley’s partners or their business, or to
my own property, or to anything else. When death is at hand most of us
do not think much of such things because then we realise how small they
are. Indeed I was wondering whether within a few minutes or hours I
should or should not see Natalie again, and if this were the end to
which she had seemed to beckon me in that dream.

On we sped, and on. About four in the afternoon we heard sounds from
Bastin’s cabin which faintly reminded me of some tune. I crept to the
door and listened. Evidently he had awakened and was singing or trying
to sing, for music was not one of his strong points, “For those in
peril on the sea.” Devoutly did I wish that it might be heard.
Presently it ceased, so I suppose he went to sleep again.

The darkness gathered once more. Then of a sudden something fearful
happened. There were stupendous noises of a kind I had never heard;
there were convulsions. It seemed to us that the ship was flung right
up into the air a hundred feet or more.

“Tidal wave, I expect,” shouted Bickley.

Almost as he spoke she came down with the most appalling crash on to
something hard and nearly jarred the senses out of us. Next the saloon
was whirling round and round and yet being carried forward, and we felt
air blowing upon us. Then our senses left us. As I clasped Tommy to my
side, whimpering and licking my face, my last thought was that all was
over, and that presently I should learn everything or nothing.

I woke up feeling very bruised and sore and perceived that light was
flowing into the saloon. The door was still shut, but it had been
wrenched off its hinges, and that was where the light came in; also
some of the teak planks of the decking, jagged and splintered, were
sticking up through the carpet. The table had broken from its
fastenings and lay upon its side. Everything else was one confusion. I
looked at Bickley. Apparently he had not awakened. He was stretched out
still wedged in with his cushions and bleeding from a wound in his
head. I crept to him in terror and listened. He was not dead, for his
breathing was regular and natural. The whisky bottle which had been
corked was upon the floor unbroken and about a third full. I took a
good pull at the spirit; to me it tasted like nectar from the gods.
Then I tried to force some down Bickley’s throat but could not, so I
poured a little upon the cut on his head. The smart of it woke him in a
hurry.

“Where are we now?” he exclaimed. “You don’t mean to tell me that
Bastin is right after all and that we live again somewhere else? Oh! I
could never bear that ignominy.”

“I don’t know about living somewhere else,” I said, “although my
opinions on that matter differ from yours. But I do know that you and I
are still on earth in what remains of the saloon of the _Star of the
South_.”

“Thank God for that! Let’s go and look for old Bastin,” said Bickley.
“I do pray that he is all right also.”

“It is most illogical of you, Bickley, and indeed wrong,” groaned a
deep voice from the other side of the cabin door, “to thank a God in
Whom you do not believe, and to talk of praying for one of the worst
and most inefficient of His servants when you have no faith in prayer.”

“Got you there, my friend,” I said.

Bickley murmured something about force of habit, and looked smaller
than I had ever seen him do before.

Somehow we forced that door open; it was not easy because it had
jammed. Within the cabin, hanging on either side of the bath towel
which had stood the strain nobly, something like a damp garment over a
linen line, was Bastin most of whose bunk seemed to have disappeared.
Yes—Bastin, pale and dishevelled and looking shrunk, with his hair
touzled and his beard apparently growing all ways, but still Bastin
alive, if very weak.

Bickley ran at him and made a cursory examination with his fingers.

“Nothing broken,” he said triumphantly. “He’s all right.”

“If _you_ had hung over a towel for many hours in most violent weather
you would not say that,” groaned Bastin. “My inside is a pulp. But
perhaps you would be kind enough to untie me.”

“Bosh!” said Bickley as he obeyed. “All you want is something to eat.
Meanwhile, drink this,” and he handed him the remains of the whisky.

Bastin swallowed it every drop, murmuring something about taking a
little wine for his stomach’s sake, “one of the Pauline injunctions,
you know,” after which he was much more cheerful. Then we hunted about
and found some more of the biscuits and other food with which we filled
ourselves after a fashion.

“I wonder what has happened,” said Bastin. “I suppose that, thanks to
the skill of the captain, we have after all reached the haven where we
would be.”

Here he stopped, rubbed his eyes and looked towards the saloon door
which, as I have said, had been wrenched off its hinges, but appeared
to have opened wider than when I observed it last. Also Tommy, who was
recovering his spirits, uttered a series of low growls.

“It is a most curious thing,” he went on, “and I suppose I must be
suffering from hallucinations, but I could swear that just now I saw
looking through that door the same improper young woman clothed in a
few flowers and nothing else, whose photograph in that abominable and
libellous book was indirectly the cause of our tempestuous voyage.”

“Indeed!” replied Bickley. “Well, so long as she has not got on the
broken-down stays and the Salvation Army bonnet without a crown, which
you may remember she wore after she had fallen into the hands of your
fraternity, I am sure _I_ do not mind. In fact I should be delighted to
see anything so pleasant.”

At this moment a distinct sound of female tittering arose from beyond
the door. Tommy barked and Bickley stepped towards it, but I called to
him.

“Look out! Where there are women there are sure to be men. Let us be
ready against accidents.”

So we armed ourselves with pistols, that is Bickley and I did, Bastin
being fortified solely with a Bible.

Then we advanced, a remarkable and dilapidated trio, and dragged the
door wide. Instantly there was a scurry and we caught sight of women’s
forms wearing only flowers, and but few of these, running over white
sand towards groups of men armed with odd-looking clubs, some of which
were fashioned to the shapes of swords and spears. To make an
impression I fired two shots with my revolver into the air, whereupon
both men and women fled into groves of trees and vanished.

“They don’t seem to be accustomed to white people,” said Bickley. “Is
it possible that we have found a shore upon which no missionary has set
a foot?”

“I hope so,” said Bastin, “seeing that unworthy as I am, then the
opportunities for me would be very great.”

We stood still and looked about us. This was what we saw. All the after
part of the ship from forward of the bridge had vanished utterly; there
was not a trace of it; she had as it were been cut in two. More, we
were some considerable distance from the sea which was still raging
over a quarter of a mile away where great white combers struck upon a
reef and spouted into the air. Behind us was a cliff, apparently of
rock but covered with earth and vegetation, and against this cliff, in
which the prow of the ship was buried, she, or what remained of her,
had come to anchor for the last time.

“You see what has happened,” I said. “A great tidal wave has carried us
up here and retreated.”

“That’s it,” exclaimed Bickley. “Look at the debris,” and he pointed to
torn-up palms, bushes and seaweed piled into heaps which still ran salt
water; also to a number of dead fish that lay about among them, adding,
“Well, we are saved anyhow.”

“And yet there are people like you who say that there is no
Providence!” ejaculated Bastin.

“I wonder what the views of Captain Astley and the crew are, or rather
were, upon that matter,” interrupted Bickley.

“I don’t know,” answered Bastin, looking about him vaguely. “It is true
that I can’t see any of them, but if they are drowned no doubt it is
because their period of usefulness in this world had ended.”

“Let’s get down and look about us,” I remarked, being anxious to avoid
further argument.

So we scrambled from the remnant of the ship, like Noah descending out
of the ark, as Bastin said, on to the beach beneath, where Tommy rushed
to and fro, gambolling for joy. Here we discovered a path which ran
diagonally up the side of a cliff which was nowhere more than fifty or
sixty feet in height, and possibly had once formed the shore of this
land, or perhaps that of a lake. Up this path we went, following the
tracks of many human feet, and reaching the crest of the cliff, looked
about us, basking as we did so in the beautiful morning sun, for the
sky was now clear of clouds and with that last awful effort, which
destroyed our ship, the cyclone had passed away.

We were standing on a plain down which ran a little stream of good
water whereof Tommy drank greedily, we following his example. To the
right and left of this plain, further than we could see, stretched
bushland over which towered many palms, rather ragged now because of
the lashing of the gale. Looking inland we perceived that the ground
sloped gently downwards, ending at a distance of some miles in a large
lake. Far out in this lake something like the top of a mountain of a
brown colour rose above the water, and on the edge of it was what from
that distance appeared to be a tumbled ruin.

“This is all very interesting,” I said to Bickley. “What do you make of
it?”

“I don’t quite know. At first sight I should say that we are standing
on the lip of a crater of some vast extinct volcano. Look how it curves
to north and south and at the slope running down to the lake.”

I nodded.

“Lucky that the tidal wave did not get over the cliff,” I said. “If it
had the people here would have all been drowned out. I wonder where
they have gone?”

As I spoke Bastin pointed to the edge of the bush some hundreds of
yards away, where we perceived brown figures slipping about among the
trees. I suggested that we should go back to the mouth of our path, so
as to have a line of retreat open in case of necessity, and await
events. So we did and there stood still. By degrees the brown figures
emerged on to the plain to the number of some hundreds, and we saw that
they were both male and female. The women were clothed in nothing
except flowers and a little girdle; the men were all armed with wooden
weapons and also wore a girdle but no flowers. The children, of whom
there were many, were quite naked.

Among these people we observed a tall person clothed in what seemed to
be a magnificent feather cloak, and, walking around and about him, a
number of grotesque forms adorned with hideous masks and basket-like
head-dresses that were surmounted by plumes.

“The king or chief and his priests or medicine-men! This is splendid,”
said Bickley triumphantly.

Bastin also contemplated them with enthusiasm as raw material upon
which he hoped to get to work.

By degrees and very cautiously they approached us. To our joy, we
perceived that behind them walked several young women who bore wooden
trays of food or fruit.

“That looks well,” I said. “They would not make offerings unless they
were friendly.”

“The food may be poisoned,” remarked Bickley suspiciously.

The crowd advanced, we standing quite still looking as dignified as we
could, I as the tallest in the middle, with Tommy sitting at my feet.
When they were about five and twenty yards away, however, that wretched
little dog caught sight of the masked priests. He growled and then
rushed at them barking, his long black ears flapping as he went.

The effect was instantaneous. One and all they turned and fled
precipitately, who evidently had never before seen a dog and looked
upon it as a deadly creature. Yes, even the tall chief and his masked
medicine-men fled like hares pursued by Tommy, who bit one of them in
the leg, evoking a terrific howl. I called him back and took him into
my arms. Seeing that he was safe for a while the crowd reformed and
once again advanced.

As they came we noted that they were a wonderfully handsome people,
tall and straight with regularly shaped features and nothing of the
negro about them. Some of the young women might even be called
beautiful, though those who were elderly had become corpulent. The
feather-clothed chief, however, was much disfigured by a huge growth
with a narrow stalk to it that hung from his neck and rested on his
shoulder.

“I’ll have that off him before he is a week older,” said Bickley,
surveying this deformity with great professional interest.

On they came, the girls with the platters walking ahead. On one of
these were what looked like joints of baked pork, on another some
plantains and pear-shaped fruits. They knelt down and offered these to
us. We contemplated them for a while. Then Bickley shook his head and
began to rub his stomach with appropriate contortions. Clearly they
were quick-minded enough for they saw the point. At some words the
girls brought the platters to the chief and others, who took from them
portions of the food at hazard and ate them to show that it was not
poisoned, we watching their throats the while to make sure that it was
swallowed. Then they returned again and we took some of the food though
only Bickley ate, because, as I pointed out to him, being a doctor who
understood the use of antidotes; clearly he should make the experiment.
However, nothing happened; indeed he said that it was very good.

After this there came a pause. Then suddenly Bastin took up his parable
in the Polynesian tongue which—to a certain extent—he had acquired with
so much pains.

“What is this place called?” he asked slowly and distinctly, pausing
between each word.

His audience shook their heads and he tried again, putting the accents
on different syllables. Behold! some bright spirit understood him and
answered:

“Orofena.”

“That means a hill, or an island, or a hill in an island,” whispered
Bickley to me.

“Who is your God?” asked Bastin again.

The point seemed one upon which they were a little doubtful, but at
last the chief answered, “Oro. He who fights.”

“In other words, Mars,” said Bickley.

“I will give you a better one,” said Bastin in the same slow fashion.

Thinking that he referred to himself these children of Nature
contemplated his angular form doubtfully and shook their heads. Then
for the first time one of the men who was wearing a mask and a wicker
crate on his head, spoke in a hollow voice, saying:

“If you try Oro will eat you up.”

“Head priest!” said Bickley, nudging me. “Old Bastin had better be
careful or he will get his teeth into him and call them Oro’s.”

Another pause, after which the man in a feather cloak with the growth
on his neck that a servant was supporting, said:

“I am Marama, the chief of Orofena. We have never seen men like you
before, if you are men. What brought you here and with you that fierce
and terrible animal, or evil spirit which makes a noise and bites?”

Now Bickley pretended to consult me who stood brooding and majestic,
that is if I can be majestic. I whispered something and he answered:

“The gods of the wind and the sea.”

“What nonsense,” ejaculated Bastin, “there are no such things.”

“Shut up,” I said, “we must use similes here,” to which he replied:

“I don’t like similes that tamper with the truth.”

“Remember Neptune and Aeolus,” I suggested, and he lapsed into
consideration of the point.

“We knew that you were coming,” said Marama. “Our doctors told us all
about you a moon ago. But we wish that you would come more gently, as
you nearly washed away our country.”

After looking at me Bickley replied:

“How thankful should you be that in our kindness we have spared you.”

“What do you come to do?” inquired Marama again. After the usual
formula of consulting me Bickley answered:

“We come to take that mountain (he meant lump) off your neck and make
you beautiful; also to cure all the sickness among your people.”

“And I come,” broke in Bastin, “to give you new hearts.”

These announcements evidently caused great excitement. After
consultation Marama answered:

“We do not want new hearts as the old ones are good, but we wish to be
rid of lumps and sicknesses. If you can do this we will make you gods
and worship you and give you many wives.” (Here Bastin held up his
hands in horror.) “When will you begin to take away the lumps?”

“To-morrow,” said Bickley. “But learn that if you try to harm us we
will bring another wave which will drown all your country.”

Nobody seemed to doubt our capacities in this direction, but one
inquiring spirit in a wicker crate did ask how it came about that if we
controlled the ocean we had arrived in half a canoe instead of a whole
one.

Bickley replied to the effect that it was because the gods always
travelled in half-canoes to show their higher nature, which seemed to
satisfy everyone. Then we announced that we had seen enough of them for
that day and would retire to think. Meanwhile we should be obliged if
they would build us a house and keep us supplied with whatever food
they had.

“Do the gods eat?” asked the sceptic again.

“That fellow is a confounded radical,” I whispered to Bickley. “Tell
him that they do when they come to Orofena.”

He did so, whereon the chief said:

“Would the gods like a nice young girl cooked?”

At this point Bastin retired down the path, realising that he had to do
with cannibals. We said that we preferred to look at the girls alive
and would meet them again to-morrow morning, when we hoped that the
house would be ready.

So our first interview with the inhabitants of Orofena came to an end,
on which we congratulated ourselves.

On reaching the remains of the _Star of the South_ we set to work to
take stock of what was left to us. Fortunately it proved to be a very
great deal. As I think I mentioned, all the passenger part of the yacht
lay forward of the bridge, just in front of which the vessel had been
broken in two, almost as cleanly as though she were severed by a
gigantic knife. Further our stores were forward and practically
everything else that belonged to us, even down to Bickley’s instruments
and medicines and Bastin’s religious works, to say nothing of a great
quantity of tinned food and groceries. Lastly on the deck above the
saloon had stood two large lifeboats. Although these were amply secured
at the commencement of the gale one of them, that on the port side, was
smashed to smithers; probably some spar had fallen upon it. The
starboard boat, however, remained intact and so far as we could judge,
seaworthy, although the bulwarks were broken by the waves.

“There’s something we can get away in if necessary,” I said.

“Where to?” remarked Bastin. “We don’t know where we are or if there is
any other land within a thousand miles. I think we had better stop here
as Providence seems to have intended, especially when there is so much
work to my hand.”

“Be careful,” answered Bickley, “that the work to your hand does not
end in the cutting of all our throats. It is an awkward thing
interfering with the religion of savages, and I believe that these
untutored children of Nature sometimes eat missionaries.”

“Yes, I have heard that,” said Bastin; “they bake them first as they do
pigs. But I don’t know that they would care to eat me,” and he glanced
at his bony limbs, “especially when you are much plumper. Anyhow one
can’t stop for a risk of that sort.”

Deigning no reply, Bickley walked away to fetch some fine fish which
had been washed up by the tidal wave and were still flapping about in a
little pool of salt water. Then we took counsel as to how to make the
best of our circumstances, and as a result set to work to tidy up the
saloon and cabins, which was not difficult as what remained of the ship
lay on an even keel. Also we got out some necessary stores, including
paraffin for the swinging lamps with which the ship was fitted in case
of accident to the electric light, candles, and the guns we had brought
with us so that they might be handy in the event of attack. This done,
by the aid of the tools that were in the storerooms, Bickley, who was
an excellent carpenter, repaired the saloon door, all that was
necessary to keep us private, as the bulkhead still remained.

“Now,” he said triumphantly when he had finished and got the lock and
bolts to work to his satisfaction, “we can stand a siege if needed, for
as the ship is iron built they can’t even burn us out and that teak
door would take some forcing. Also we can shore it up.”

“How about something to eat? I want my tea,” said Bastin.

“Then, my reverend friend,” replied Bickley, “take a couple of the fire
buckets and fetch some water from the stream. Also collect driftwood of
which there is plenty about, clean those fish and grill them over the
saloon stove.”

“I’ll try,” said Bastin, “but I never did any cooking before.”

“No,” replied Bickley, “on second thoughts I will see to that myself,
but you can get the fish ready.”

So, with due precautions, Bastin and I fetched water from the stream
which we found flowed over the edge of the cliff quite close at hand
into a beautiful coral basin that might have been designed for a bath
of the nymphs. Indeed one at a time, while the other watched, we
undressed and plunged into it, and never was a tub more welcome than
after our long days of tempest. Then we returned to find that Bickley
had already set the table and was engaged in frying the fish very
skilfully on the saloon stove, which proved to be well adapted to the
purpose. He was cross, however, when he found that we had bathed and
that it was now too late for him to do likewise.

While he was cleaning himself as well as he could in his cabin basin
and Bastin was boiling water for tea, suddenly I remembered the letter
from the Danish mate Jacobsen. Concluding that it might now be opened
as we had certainly parted with most of the _Star of the South_ for the
last time, I read it. It was as follows:

“The reason, honoured Sir, that I am leaving the ship is that on the
night I tore up the paper, the spirit controlling the planchette wrote
these words: ‘After leaving Samoa the _Star of the South_ will be
wrecked in a hurricane and everybody on board drowned except A. B. and
B. Get out of her! Get out of her! Don’t be a fool, Jacob, unless you
want to come over here at once. Take our advice and get out of her and
you will live to be old.—SKOLL.”


“Sir, I am not a coward but I know that this will happen, for that
spirit which signs itself Skoll never tells a lie. I did try to give
the captain a hint to stop at Apia, but he had been drinking and openly
cursed me and called me a sneaking cheat. So I am going to run away, of
which I am very much ashamed. But I do not wish to be drowned yet as
there is a girl whom I want to marry, and my mother I support. You will
be safe and I hope you will not think too badly of me.—JACOB JACOBSEN.
    “_P.S_.—It is an awful thing to know the future. Never try to learn
    that.”


I gave this letter to Bastin and Bickley to read and asked them what
they thought of it.

“Coincidence,” said Bickley. “The man is a weak-minded idiot and heard
in Samoa that they expected a hurricane.”

“I think,” chimed in Bastin, “that the devil knows how to look after
his own at any rate for a little while. I dare say it would have been
much better for him to be drowned.”

“At least he is a deserter and failed in his duty. I never wish to hear
of him again,” I said.

As a matter of fact I never have. But the incident remains quite
unexplained either by Bickley or Bastin.




CHAPTER VII.
The Orofenans


To our shame we had a very pleasant supper that night off the grilled
fish, which was excellent, and some tinned meat. I say to our shame, in
a sense, for on our companions the sharks were supping and by rights we
should have been sunk in woe. I suppose that the sense of our own
escape intoxicated us. Also, notwithstanding his joviality, none of us
had cared much for the captain, and his policy had been to keep us
somewhat apart from the crew, of whom therefore we knew but little. It
is true that Bastin held services on Sundays, for such as would attend,
and Bickley had doctored a few of them for minor ailments, but there,
except for a little casual conversation, our intercourse began and
ended.

Now the sad fact is that it is hard to be overwhelmed with grief for
those with whom we are not intimate. We were very sorry and that is all
that can be said, except that Bastin, being High Church, announced in a
matter-of-fact way that he meant to put up some petitions for the
welfare of their souls. To this Bickley retorted that from what he had
seen of their bodies he was sure they needed them.

Yes, it was a pleasant supper, not made less so by a bottle of
champagne which Bickley and I shared. Bastin stuck to his tea, not
because he did not like champagne, but because, as he explained, having
now come in contact with the heathen it would never do for him to set
them an example in the use of spirituous liquors.

“However much we may differ, Bastin, I respect you for that sentiment,”
commented Bickley.

“I don’t know why you should,” answered Bastin; “but if so, you might
follow my example.”

That night we slept like logs, trusting to our teak door which we
barricaded, and to Tommy, who was a most excellent watch-dog, to guard
us against surprise. At any rate we took the risk. As a matter of fact,
nothing happened, though before dawn Tommy did growl a good deal, for I
heard him, but as he sank into slumber again on my bed, I did not get
up. In the morning I found from fresh footprints that two or three men
had been prowling about the ship, though at a little distance.

We rose early, and taking the necessary precautions, bathed in the
pool. Then we breakfasted, and having filled every available receptacle
with water, which took us a long time as these included a large tank
that supplied the bath, so that we might have at least a week’s supply
in case of siege, we went on deck and debated what we should do. In the
end we determined to stop where we were and await events, because, as I
pointed out, it was necessary that we should discover whether these
natives were hostile or friendly. In the former event we could hold our
own on the ship, whereas away from it we must be overwhelmed; in the
latter there was always time to move inland.

About ten o’clock when we were seated on stools smoking, with our guns
by our side—for here, owing to the overhanging cliff in which it will
be remembered the prow of the ship was buried, we could not be reached
by missiles thrown from above—we saw numbers of the islanders advancing
upon us along the beach on either side. They were preceded as before by
women who bore food on platters and in baskets. These people, all
talking excitedly and laughing after their fashion, stopped at a
distance, so we took no notice of them. Presently Marama, clad in his
feather cloak, and again accompanied by priests or medicine-men,
appeared walking down the path on the cliff face, and, standing below,
made salutations and entered into a conversation with us of which I
give the substance—that is, so far as we could understand it.

He reproached us for not having come to him as he expected we would do.
We replied that we preferred to remain where we were until we were sure
of our greeting and asked him what was the position. He explained that
only once before, in the time of his grandfather, had any people
reached their shores, also during a great storm as we had done. They
were dark-skinned men like themselves, three of them, but whence they
came was never known, since they were at once seized and sacrificed to
the god Oro, which was the right thing to do in such a case.

We asked whether he would consider it right to sacrifice us. He
replied:

Certainly, unless we were too strong, being gods ourselves, or unless
an arrangement could be concluded. We asked—what arrangement? He
replied that we must make them gifts; also that we must do what we had
promised and cure him—the chief—of the disease which had tormented him
for years. In that event everything would be at our disposal and we,
with all our belongings, should become _taboo_, holy, not to be
touched. None would attempt to harm us, nothing should be stolen under
penalty of death.

We asked him to come up on the deck with only one companion that his
sickness might be ascertained, and after much hesitation he consented
to do so. Bickley made an examination of the growth and announced that
he believed it could be removed with perfect safety as the attachment
to the neck was very slight, but of course there was always a risk.
This was explained to him with difficulty, and much talk followed
between him and his followers who gathered on the beach beneath the
ship. They seemed adverse to the experiment, till Marama grew furious
with them and at last burst into tears saying that he could no longer
drag this terrible burden about with him, and he touched the growth. He
would rather die. Then they gave way.

I will tell the rest as shortly as I can.

A hideous wooden idol was brought on board, wrapped in leaves and
feathers, and upon it the chief and his head people swore safety to us
whether he lived or died, making us the guests of their land. There
were, however, two provisos made, or as such we understood them. These
seemed to be that we should offer no insult or injury to their god, and
secondly, that we should not set foot on the island in the lake. It was
not till afterwards that it occurred to me that this must refer to the
mountain top which appeared in the inland sheet of water. To those
stipulations we made no answer. Indeed, the Orofenans did all the
talking. Finally, they ratified their oaths by a man who, I suppose,
was a head priest, cutting his arm and rubbing the blood from it on the
lips of the idol; also upon those of the chief. I should add that
Bastin had retired as soon as he saw that false god appear, of which I
was glad, since I felt sure that he would make a scene.

The operation took place that afternoon and on the ship, for when once
Marama had made up his mind to trust us he did so very thoroughly. It
was performed on deck in the presence of an awed multitude who watched
from the shore, and when they saw Bickley appear in a clean nightshirt
and wash his hands, uttered a groan of wonder. Evidently they
considered it a magical and religious ceremony; indeed ever afterwards
they called Bickley the Great Priest, or sometimes the Great Healer in
later days. This was a grievance to Bastin who considered that he had
been robbed of his proper title, especially when he learned that among
themselves he was only known as “the Bellower,” because of the loud
voice in which he addressed them. Nor did Bickley particularly
appreciate the compliment.

With my help he administered the chloroform, which was done under
shelter of a sail for fear lest the people should think that we were
smothering their chief. Then the operation went on to a satisfactory
conclusion. I omit the details, but an electric battery and a red-hot
wire came into play.

“There,” said Bickley triumphantly when he had finished tying the
vessels and made everything neat and tidy with bandages, “I was afraid
he might bleed to death, but I don’t think there is any fear of that
now, for I have made a real job of it.” Then advancing with the horrid
tumour in his hands he showed it in triumph to the crowd beneath, who
groaned again and threw themselves on to their faces. Doubtless now it
is the most sacred relic of Orofena.

When Marama came out of the anesthetic, Bickley gave him something
which sent him to sleep for twelve hours, during all which time his
people waited beneath. This was our dangerous period, for our
difficulty was to persuade them that he was not dead, although Bickley
had assured them that he would sleep for a time while the magic worked.
Still, I was very glad when he woke up on the following morning, and
two or three of his leading men could see that he was alive. The rest
was lengthy but simple, consisting merely in keeping him quiet and on a
suitable diet until there was no fear of the wound opening. We achieved
it somehow with the help of an intelligent native woman who, I suppose,
was one of his wives, and five days later were enabled to present him
healed, though rather tottery, to his affectionate subjects.

It was a great scene, which may be imagined. They bore him away in a
litter with the native woman to watch him and another to carry the
relic preserved in a basket, and us they acclaimed as gods.
Thenceforward we had nothing to fear in Orofena—except Bastin, though
this we did not know at the time.

All this while we had been living on our ship and growing very bored
there, although we employed the empty hours in conversation with
selected natives, thereby improving our knowledge of the language.
Bickley had the best of it, since already patients began to arrive
which occupied him. One of the first was that man whom Tommy had
bitten. He was carried to us in an almost comatose state, suffering
apparently from the symptoms of snake poisoning.

Afterward it turned out that he conceived Tommy to be a divine but most
venomous lizard that could make a very horrible noise, and began to
suffer as one might do from the bite of such a creature. Nothing that
Bickley could do was enough to save him and ultimately he died in
convulsions, a circumstance that enormously enhanced Tommy’s
reputation. To tell the truth, we took advantage of it to explain that
Tommy was in fact a supernatural animal, a sort of tame demon which
only harmed people who had malevolent intentions towards those he
served or who tried to steal any of their possessions or to intrude
upon them at inconvenient hours, especially in the dark. So terrible
was he, indeed, that even the skill of the Great Priest, _i.e._,
Bickley, could not avail to save any whom once he had bitten in his
rage. Even to be barked at by him was dangerous and conveyed a curse
that might last for generations.

All this we set out when Bastin was not there. He had wandered off, as
he said, to look for shells, but as we knew, to practise religious
orations in the Polynesian tongue with the waves for audience, as
Demosthenes is said to have done to perfect himself as a political
orator. Personally I admit that I relied more on the terrors of Tommy
to safeguard us from theft and other troubles than I did upon those of
the native _taboo_ and the priestly oaths.

The end of it all was that we left our ship, having padlocked up the
door (the padlock, we explained, was a magical instrument that bit
worse than Tommy), and moved inland in a kind of triumphal procession,
priests and singers going before (the Orofenans sang extremely well)
and minstrels following after playing upon instruments like flutes,
while behind came the bearers carrying such goods as we needed. They
took us to a beautiful place in a grove of palms on a ridge where grew
many breadfruit trees, that commanded a view of the ocean upon one side
and of the lake with the strange brown mountain top on the other. Here
in the midst of the native gardens we found that a fine house had been
built for us of a kind of mud brick and thatched with palm leaves,
surrounded by a fenced courtyard of beaten earth and having wide
overhanging verandahs; a very comfortable place indeed in that
delicious climate. In it we took up our abode, visiting the ship
occasionally to see that all was well there, and awaiting events.

For Bickley these soon began to happen in the shape of an
ever-increasing stream of patients. The population of the island was
considerable, anything between five and ten thousand, so far as we
could judge, and among these of course there were a number of sick.
Ophthalmia, for instance, was a prevalent disease, as were the growths
such as Marama had suffered from, to say nothing of surgical cases and
those resulting from accident or from nervous ailments. With all of
these Bickley was called upon to deal, which he did with remarkable
success by help of his books on Tropical Diseases and his ample
supplies of medical necessaries.

At first he enjoyed it very much, but when we had been established in
the house for about three weeks he remarked, after putting in a solid
ten hours of work, that for all the holiday he was getting he might as
well be back at his old practice, with the difference that there he was
earning several thousands a year. Just then a poor woman arrived with a
baby in convulsions to whose necessities he was obliged to sacrifice
his supper, after which came a man who had fallen from a palm tree and
broken his leg.

Nor did I escape, since having somehow or other established a
reputation for wisdom, as soon as I had mastered sufficient of the
language, every kind of knotty case was laid before me for decision. In
short, I became a sort of Chief Justice—not an easy office as it
involved the acquirement of the native law which was intricate and
peculiar, especially in matrimonial cases.

At these oppressive activities Bastin looked on with a gloomy eye.

“You fellows seem very busy,” he said one evening; “but I can find
nothing to do. They don’t seem to want me, and merely to set a good
example by drinking water or tea while you swallow whisky and their
palm wine, or whatever it is, is very negative kind of work, especially
as I am getting tired of planting things in the garden and playing
policeman round the wreck which nobody goes near. Even Tommy is better
off, for at least he can bark and hunt rats.”

“You see,” said Bickley, “we are following our trades. Arbuthnot is a
lawyer and acts as a judge. I am a surgeon and I may add a general—a
very general—practitioner and work at medicine in an enormous and
much-neglected practice. Therefore, you, being a clergyman, should go
and do likewise. There are some ten thousand people here, but I do not
observe that as yet you have converted a single one.”

Thus spoke Bickley in a light and unguarded moment with his usual
object of what is known as “getting a rise” out of Bastin. Little did
he guess what he was doing.

Bastin thought a while ponderously, then said:

“It is very strange from what peculiar sources Providence sometimes
sends inspirations. If wisdom flows from babes and sucklings, why
should it not do so from the well of agnostics and mockers?”

“There is no reason which I can see,” scoffed Bickley, “except that as
a rule wells do not flow.”

“Your jest is ill-timed and I may add foolish,” continued Bastin. “What
I was about to add was that you have given me an idea, as it was no
doubt intended that you should do. I will, metaphorically speaking,
gird up my loins and try to bear the light into all this heathen
blackness.”

“Then it is one of the first you ever had, old fellow. But what’s the
need of girding up your loins in this hot climate?” inquired Bickley
with innocence. “Pyjamas and that white and green umbrella of yours
would do just as well.”

Bastin vouchsafed no reply and sat for the rest of that evening plunged
in deep thought.

On the following morning he approached Marama and asked his leave to
teach the people about the gods. The chief readily granted this,
thinking, I believe, that he alluded to ourselves, and orders were
issued accordingly. They were to the effect that Bastin was to be
allowed to go everywhere unmolested and to talk to whom he would about
what he would, to which all must listen with respect.

Thus he began his missionary career in Orofena, working at it, good and
earnest man that he was, in a way that excited even the admiration of
Bickley. He started a school for children, which was held under a fine,
spreading tree. These listened well, and being of exceedingly quick
intellect soon began to pick up the elements of knowledge. But when he
tried to persuade them to clothe their little naked bodies his failure
was complete, although after much supplication some of the bigger girls
did arrive with a chaplet of flowers—round their necks!

Also he preached to the adults, and here again was very successful in a
way, especially after he became more familiar with the language. They
listened; to a certain extent they understood; they argued and put to
poor Bastin the most awful questions such as the whole Bench of Bishops
could not have answered. Still he did answer them somehow, and they
politely accepted his interpretation of their theological riddles. I
observed that he got on best when he was telling them stories out of
the Old Testament, such as the account of the creation of the world and
of human beings, also of the Deluge, etc. Indeed one of their elders
said—Yes, this was quite true. They had heard it all before from their
fathers, and that once the Deluge had taken place round Orofena,
swallowing up great countries, but sparing them because they were so
good.

Bastin, surprised, asked them who had caused the deluge. They replied,
Oro which was the name of their god, Oro who dwelt yonder on the
mountain in the lake, and whose representation they worshipped in
idols. He said that God dwelt in Heaven, to which they replied with
calm certainty:

“No, no, he dwells on the mountain in the lake,” which was why they
never dared to approach that mountain.

Indeed it was only by giving the name Oro to the Divinity and admitting
that He might dwell in the mountain as well as everywhere else, that
Bastin was able to make progress. Having conceded this, not without
scruples, however, he did make considerable progress, so much, in fact,
that I perceived that the priests of Oro were beginning to grow very
jealous of him and of his increasing authority with the people. Bastin
was naturally triumphant, and even exclaimed exultingly that within a
year he would have half of the population baptised.

“Within a year, my dear fellow,” said Bickley, “you will have your
throat cut as a sacrifice, and probably ours also. It is a pity, too,
as within that time I should have stamped out ophthalmia and some other
diseases in the island.”

Here, leaving Bastin and his good work aside for a while, I will say a
little about the country. From information which I gathered on some
journeys that I made and by inquiries from the chief Marama, who had
become devoted to us, I found that Orofena was quite a large place. In
shape the island was circular, a broad band of territory surrounding
the great lake of which I have spoken, that in its turn surrounded a
smaller island from which rose the mountain top. No other land was
known to be near the shores of Orofena, which had never been visited by
anyone except the strangers a hundred years ago or so, who were
sacrificed and eaten. Most of the island was covered with forest which
the inhabitants lacked the energy, and indeed had no tools, to fell.
They were an extremely lazy people and would only cultivate enough
bananas and other food to satisfy their immediate needs. In truth they
lived mostly upon breadfruit and other products of the wild trees.

Thus it came about that in years of scarcity through drought or
climatic causes, which prevented the forest trees from bearing, they
suffered very much from hunger. In such years hundreds of them would
perish and the remainder resorted to the dreadful expedient of
cannibalism. Sometimes, too, the shoals of fish avoided their shores,
reducing them to great misery. Their only domestic animal was the pig
which roamed about half wild and in no great numbers, for they had
never taken the trouble to breed it in captivity. Their resources,
therefore, were limited, which accounted for the comparative smallness
of the population, further reduced as it was by a wicked habit of
infanticide practised in order to lighten the burden of bringing up
children.

They had no traditions as to how they reached this land, their belief
being that they had always been there but that their forefathers were
much greater than they. They were poetical, and sang songs in a
language which themselves they could not understand; they said that it
was the tongue their forefathers had spoken. Also they had several
strange customs of which they did not know the origin. My own opinion,
which Bickley shared, was that they were in fact a shrunken and
deteriorated remnant of some high race now coming to its end through
age and inter-breeding. About them indeed, notwithstanding their
primitive savagery which in its qualities much resembled that of other
Polynesians, there was a very curious air of antiquity. One felt that
they had known the older world and its mysteries, though now both were
forgotten. Also their language, which in time we came to speak
perfectly, was copious, musical, and expressive in its idioms.

One circumstance I must mention. In walking about the country I
observed all over it enormous holes, some of them measuring as much as
a hundred yards across, with a depth of fifty feet or more, and this
not on alluvial lands although there traces of them existed also, but
in solid rock. What this rock was I do not know as none of us were
geologists, but it seemed to me to partake of the nature of granite.
Certainly it was not coral like that on and about the coast, but of a
primeval formation.

When I asked Marama what caused these holes, he only shrugged his
shoulders and said he did not know, but their fathers had declared that
they were made by stones falling from heaven. This, of course,
suggested meteorites to my mind. I submitted the idea to Bickley, who,
in one of his rare intervals of leisure, came with me to make an
examination.

“If they were meteorites,” he said, “of which a shower struck the earth
in some past geological age, all life must have been destroyed by them
and their remains ought to exist at the bottom of the holes. To me they
look more like the effect of high explosives, but that, of course, is
impossible, though I don’t know what else could have caused such
craters.”

Then he went back to his work, for nothing that had to do with
antiquity interested Bickley very much. The present and its problems
were enough for him, he would say, who neither had lived in the past
nor expected to have any share in the future.

As I remained curious I made an opportunity to scramble to the bottom
of one of these craters, taking with me some of the natives with their
wooden tools. Here I found a good deal of soil either washed down from
the surface or resulting from the decomposition of the rock, though
oddly enough in it nothing grew. I directed them to dig. After a while
to my astonishment there appeared a corner of a great worked stone
quite unlike that of the crater, indeed it seemed to me to be a marble.
Further examination showed that this block was most beautifully carved
in bas-relief, apparently with a design of leaves and flowers. In the
disturbed soil also I picked up a life-sized marble hand of a woman
exquisitely finished and apparently broken from a statue that might
have been the work of one of the great Greek sculptors. Moreover, on
the third finger of this hand was a representation of a ring whereof,
unfortunately, the bezel had been destroyed.

I put the hand in my pocket, but as darkness was coming on, I could not
pursue the research and disinter the block. When I wished to return the
next day, I was informed politely by Marama that it would not be safe
for me to do so as the priests of Oro declared that if I sought to
meddle with the “buried things the god would grow angry and bring
disaster on me.”

When I persisted he said that at least I must go alone since no native
would accompany me, and added earnestly that he prayed me not to go. So
to my great regret and disappointment I was obliged to give up the
idea.




CHAPTER VIII.
Bastin Attempts the Martyr’s Crown


That carved stone and the marble hand took a great hold of my
imagination. What did they mean? How could they have come to the bottom
of that hole, unless indeed they were part of some building and its
ornaments which had been destroyed in the neighbourhood? The stone of
which we had only uncovered a corner seemed far too big to have been
carried there from any ship; it must have weighed several tons.
Besides, ships do not carry such things about the world, and none had
visited this island during the last two centuries at any rate, or local
tradition would have recorded so wonderful a fact. Were there, then,
once edifices covered with elegant carving standing on this place, and
were they adorned with lovely statues that would not have disgraced the
best period of Greek art? The thing was incredible except on the
supposition that these were relics of an utterly lost civilisation.

Bickley was as much puzzled as myself. All he could say was that the
world was infinitely old and many things might have happened in it
whereof we had no record. Even Bastin was excited for a little while,
but as his imagination was represented by zero, all he could say was:

“I suppose someone left them there, and anyhow it doesn’t matter much,
does it?”

But I, who have certain leanings towards the ancient and mysterious,
could not be put off in this fashion. I remembered that unapproachable
mountain in the midst of the lake and that on it appeared to be
something which looked like ruins as seen from the top of the cliff
through glasses. At any rate this was a point that I might clear up.

Saying nothing to anybody, one morning I slipped away and walked to the
edge of the lake, a distance of five or six miles over rough country.
Having arrived there I perceived that the cone-shaped mountain in the
centre, which was about a mile from the lake shore, was much larger
than I had thought, quite three hundred feet high indeed, and with a
very large circumference. Further, its sides evidently once had been
terraced, and it was on one of these broad terraces, half-way up and
facing towards the rising sun, that the ruin-like remains were heaped.
I examined them through my glasses. Undoubtedly it was a cyclopean ruin
built of great blocks of coloured stone which seemed to have been
shattered by earthquake or explosion. There were the pillars of a
mighty gateway and the remains of walls.

I trembled with excitement as I stared and stared. Could I not get to
the place and see for myself? I observed that from the flat bush-clad
land at the foot of the mountain, ran out what seemed to be the residue
of a stone pier which ended in a large table-topped rock between two
and three hundred feet across. But even this was too far to reach by
swimming, besides for aught I knew there might be alligators in that
lake. I walked up and down its borders, till presently I came to a path
which led into a patch of some variety of cotton palm.

Following this path I discovered a boat-house thatched over with palm
leaves. Inside it were two good canoes with their paddles, floating and
tied to the stumps of trees by fibre ropes. Instantly I made up my mind
that I would paddle to the island and investigate. Just as I was about
to step into one of the canoes the light was cut off. Looking up I saw
that a man was crouching in the door-place of the boat-house in order
to enter, and paused guiltily.

“Friend-from-the-Sea” (that was the name that these islanders had given
to me), said the voice of Marama, “say—what are you doing here?”

“I am about to take a row on the lake, Chief,” I answered carelessly.

“Indeed, Friend. Have we then treated you so badly that you are tired
of life?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Come out into the sunlight, Friend, and I will explain to you.”

I hesitated till I saw Marama lifting the heavy wooden spear he carried
and remembered that I was unarmed. Then I came out.

“What does all this mean, Chief?” I asked angrily when we were clear of
the patch of cotton palm.

“I mean, Friend, that you have been very near to making a longer
journey than you thought. Have patience now and listen to me. I saw you
leaving the village this morning and followed, suspecting your purpose.
Yes, I followed alone, saying nothing to the priests of Oro who
fortunately were away watching the Bellower for their own reasons. I
saw you searching out the secrets of the mountain with those magic
tubes that make things big that are small, and things that are far off
come near, and I followed you to the canoes.”

“All that is plain enough, Marama. But why?”

“Have I not told you, Friend-from-the-Sea, that yonder hill which is
called Orofena, whence this island takes its name, is sacred?”

“You said so, but what of it?”

“This: to set foot thereon is to die and, I suppose, great as you are,
you, too, can die like others. At least, although I love you, had you
not come away from that canoe I was about to discover whether this is
so.”

“Then for what are the canoes used?” I asked with irritation.

“You see that flat rock, Friend, with the hole beyond, which is the
mouth of a cave that appeared only in the great storm that brought you
to our land? They are used to convey offerings which are laid upon the
rock. Beyond it no man may go, and since the beginning no man has ever
gone.”

“Offerings to whom?”

“To the Oromatuas, the spirits of the great dead who live there.”

“Oromatuas? Oro! It is always something to do with Oro. Who and what is
Oro?”

“Oro is a god, Friend, though it is true that the priests say that
above him there is a greater god called Degai, the Creator, the Fate
who made all things and directs all things.”

“Very well, but why do you suppose that Oro, the servant of Degai,
lives in that mountain? I thought that he lived in a grove yonder where
your priests, as I am told, have an image of him.”

“I do not know, Friend-from-the-Sea, but so it has been held from the
beginning. The image in the grove is only visited by his spirit from
time to time. Now, I pray you, come back and before the priests
discover that you have been here, and forget that there are any canoes
upon this lake.”

So, thinking it wisest, I turned the matter with a laugh and walked
away with him to the village. On our road I tried to extract some more
information but without success. He did not know who built the ruin
upon the mountain, or who destroyed it. He did not know how the
terraces came there. All he knew was that during the convulsion of
Nature which resulted in the tidal wave that had thrown our ship upon
the island, the mountain had been seen to quiver like a tree in the
wind as though within it great forces were at work. Then it was
observed to have risen a good many more feet above the surface of the
lake, as might be noted by the water mark upon the shore, and then also
the mouth of the cave had appeared. The priests said that all this was
because the Oromatuas who dwelt there were stirring, which portended
great things. Indeed great things had happened—for had we not arrived
in their land?

I thanked him for what he had told me, and, as there was nothing more
to be learned, dropped the subject which was never mentioned between us
again, at least not for a long while. But in my heart I determined that
I would reach that mountain even though to do so I must risk my life.
Something seemed to call me to the place; it was as though I were being
drawn by a magnet.

As it happened, before so very long I did go to the mountain, not of my
own will but because I was obliged. It came about thus. One night I
asked Bastin how he was getting on with his missionary work. He
replied: Very well indeed, but there was one great obstacle in his
path, the idol in the Grove. Were it not for this accursed image he
believed that the whole island would become Christian. I asked him to
be more plain. He explained that all his work was thwarted by this
idol, since his converts declared that they did not dare to be baptised
while it sat there in the Grove. If they did, the spirit that was in it
would bewitch them and perhaps steal out at night and murder them.

“The spirit being our friends the sorcerers,” I suggested.

“That’s it, Arbuthnot. Do you know, I believe those devilish men
sometimes offer human sacrifices to this satanic fetish, when there is
a drought or anything of that sort.”

“I can quite believe it,” I answered, “but as they will scarcely remove
their god and with it their own livelihood and authority, I am afraid
that as we don’t want to be sacrificed, there is nothing to be done.”

At this moment I was called away. As I went I heard Bastin muttering
something about martyrs, but paid no attention. Little did I guess what
was going on in his pious but obstinate mind. In effect it was
this—that if no one else would remove that idol he was quite ready to
do it himself.

However, he was very cunning over that business, almost Jesuitical
indeed. Not one word did he breathe of his dark plans to me, and still
less to Bickley. He just went on with his teaching, lamenting from time
to time the stumbling-block of the idol and expressing wonder as to how
it might be circumvented by a change in the hearts of the islanders, or
otherwise. Sad as it is to record, in fact, dear old Bastin went as
near to telling a fib in connection with this matter as I suppose he
had ever done in his life. It happened thus. One day Bickley’s sharp
eye caught sight of Bastin walking about with what looked like a bottle
of whisky in his pocket.

“Hallo, old fellow,” he said, “has the self-denying ordinance broken
down? I didn’t know that you took pegs on the sly,” and he pointed to
the bottle.

“If you are insinuating, Bickley, that I absorb spirits
surreptitiously, you are more mistaken than usual, which is saying a
good deal. This bottle contains, not Scotch whisky but paraffin,
although I admit that its label may have misled you, unintentionally,
so far as I am concerned.”

“What are you going to do with the paraffin?” asked Bickley.

Bastin coloured through his tan and replied awkwardly:

“Paraffin is very good to keep away mosquitoes if one can stand the
smell of it upon one’s skin. Not that I have brought it here with that
sole object. The truth is that I am anxious to experiment with a lamp
of my own design made—um—of native wood,” and he departed in a hurry.

“When next old Bastin wants to tell a lie,” commented Bickley, “he
should make up his mind as to what it is to be, and stick to it. I
wonder what he is after with that paraffin? Not going to dose any of my
patients with it, I hope. He was arguing the other day that it is a
great remedy taken internally, being quite unaware that the lamp
variety is not used for that purpose.”

“Perhaps he means to swallow some himself, just to show that he is
right,” I suggested.

“The stomach-pump is at hand,” said Bickley, and the matter dropped.

Next morning I got up before it was light. Having some elementary
knowledge of the main facts of astronomy, which remained with me from
boyhood when I had attended lectures on the subject, which I had tried
to refresh by help of an encyclopedia I had brought from the ship, I
wished to attempt to obtain an idea of our position by help of the
stars. In this endeavour, I may say, I failed absolutely, as I did not
know how to take a stellar or any other observation.

On my way out of our native house I observed, by the lantern I carried,
that the compartment of it occupied by Bastin was empty, and wondered
whither he had gone at that hour. On arriving at my observation-post, a
rocky eminence on open ground, where, with Tommy at my side, I took my
seat with a telescope, I was astonished to see or rather to hear a
great number of the natives walking past the base of the mound towards
the bush. Then I remembered that some one, Marama, I think, had
informed me that there was to be a great sacrifice to Oro at dawn on
that day. After this I thought no more of the matter but occupied
myself in a futile study of the heavenly bodies. At length the dawn
broke and put a period to my labours.

Glancing round me before I descended from the little hill, I saw a
flame of light appear suddenly about half a mile or more away among
those trees which I knew concealed the image of Oro. On this personally
I had never had the curiosity to look, as I knew that it was only a
hideous idol stuck over with feathers and other bedizenments. The flame
shot suddenly straight into the still air and was followed a few
seconds later by the sound of a dull explosion, after which it went
out. Also it was followed by something else—a scream of rage from an
infuriated mob.

At the foot of the hill I stopped to wonder what these sounds might
mean. Then of a sudden appeared Bickley, who had been attending some
urgent case, and asked me who was exploding gunpowder. I told him that
I had no idea.

“Then I have,” he answered. “It is that ass Bastin up to some game. Now
I guess why he wanted that paraffin. Listen to the row. What are they
after?”

“Sacrificing Bastin, perhaps,” I replied, half in jest. “Have you your
revolver?”

He nodded. We always wore our pistols if we went out during the dark
hours.

“Then perhaps we had better go to see.”

We started, and had not covered a hundred yards before a girl, whom I
recognised as one of Bastin’s converts, came flying towards us and
screaming out, “Help! Help! They kill the Bellower with fire! They cook
him like a pig!”

“Just what I expected,” said Bickley.

Then we ran hard, as evidently there was no time to lose. While we went
I extracted from the terrified girl, whom we forced to show us the way,
that as the sacrifice was about to be offered Bastin had appeared, and,
“making fire,” applied it to the god Oro, who instantly burst into
flame. Then he ran back, calling out that the devil was dead. As he did
so there was a loud explosion and Oro flew into pieces. His burning
head went a long way into the air and, falling on to one of the
priests, killed him. Thereon the other priests and the people seized
the Bellower and made him fast. Now they were engaged in heating an
oven in which to put him to cook. When it was ready they would eat him
in honour of Oro.

“And serve him right too!” gasped Bickley, who, being stout, was not a
good runner. “Why can’t he leave other people’s gods alone instead of
blowing them up with gunpowder?”

“Don’t know,” I answered. “Hope we shall get there in time!”

“To be cooked and eaten with Bastin!” wheezed Bickley, after which his
breath gave out.

As it chanced we did, for these stone ovens take a long time to heat.
There by the edge of his fiery grave with his hands and legs bound in
palm-fibre shackles, stood Bastin, quite unmoved, smiling indeed, in a
sort of seraphic way which irritated us both extremely. Round him
danced the infuriated priests of Oro, and round them, shrieking and
howling with rage, was most of the population of Orofena. We rushed up
so suddenly that none tried to stop us, and took our stand on either
side of him, producing our pistols as we did so.

“Thank you for coming,” said Bastin in the silence which followed;
“though I don’t think it is the least use. I cannot recall that any of
the early martyrs were ever roasted and eaten, though, of course,
throwing them into boiling oil or water was fairly common. I take it
that the rite is sacrificial and even in a low sense, sacramental, not
merely one of common cannibalism.”

I stared at him, and Bickley gasped out:

“If you are to be eaten, what does it matter why you are eaten?”

“Oh!” replied Bastin; “there is all the difference in the world, though
it is one that I cannot expect you to appreciate. And now please be
quiet as I wish to say my prayers. I imagine that those stones will be
hot enough to do their office within twenty minutes or so, which is not
very long.”

At that moment Marama appeared, evidently in a state of great
perturbation. With him were some of the priests or sorcerers who were
dancing about as I imagine the priests of Baal must have done, and
filled with fury. They rolled their eyes, they stuck out their tongues,
they uttered weird cries and shook their wooden knives at the placid
Bastin.

“What is the matter?” I asked sternly of the chief.

“This, Friend-from-the-Sea. The Bellower there, when the sacrifice was
about to be offered to Oro at the dawn, rushed forward, and having
thrust something between the legs of the image of the god, poured
yellow water over it, and with fire caused it to burst into fierce
flame. Then he ran away and mocked the god who presently, with a loud
report, flew into pieces and killed that man. Therefore the Bellower
must be sacrificed.”

“What to?” I asked. “The image has gone and the piece of it that
ascended fell not upon the Bellower, as would have happened if the god
had been angry with him, but on one of its own priests, whom it killed.
Therefore, having been sacrificed by the god itself, he it is that
should be eaten, not the Bellower, who merely did what his Spirit bade
him.”

This ingenious argument seemed to produce some effect upon Marama, but
to the priests it did not at all appeal.

“Eat them all!” these cried. “They are the enemies of Oro and have
worked sacrilege!”

Moreover, to judge from their demeanour, the bulk of the people seemed
to agree with them. Things began to look very ugly. The priests rushed
forward, threatening us with their wooden weapons, and one of them even
aimed a blow at Bickley, which only missed him by an inch or two.

“Look here, my friend,” called the doctor whose temper was rising, “you
name me the Great Priest or Great Healer, do you not? Well, be careful,
lest I should show you that I can kill as well as heal!”

Not in the least intimidated by this threat the man, a great bedizened
fellow who literally was foaming at the mouth with rage, rushed forward
again, his club raised, apparently with the object of dashing out
Bickley’s brains.

Suddenly Bickley lifted his revolver and fired. The man, shot through
the heart, sprang into the air and fell upon his face—stone dead. There
was consternation, for these people had never seen us shoot anything
before, and were quite unacquainted with the properties of firearms,
which they supposed to be merely instruments for making a noise. They
stared, they gasped in fear and astonishment, and then they fled,
pursued by Tommy, barking, leaving us alone with the two dead men.

“It was time to teach them a lesson,” said Bickley as he replaced the
empty cartridge, and, seizing the dead man, rolled him into the burning
pit.

“Yes,” I answered; “but presently, when they have got over their
fright, they will come back to teach us one.”

Bastin said nothing; he seemed too dazed at the turn events had taken.

“What do you suggest?” asked Bickley.

“Flight,” I answered.

“Where to—the ship? We might hold that.”

“No; that is what they expect. Look! They are cutting off our road
there. To the island in the lake where they dare not follow us, for it
is holy ground.”

“How are we going to live on the island?” asked Bickley.

“I don’t know,” I replied; “but I am quite certain that if we stay here
we shall die.”

“Very well,” he said; “let us try it.”

While we were speaking I was cutting Bastin’s bonds. “Thank you,” he
said. “It is a great relief to stretch one’s arms after they have been
compressed with cords. But at the same time, I do not know that I am
really grateful. The martyr’s crown was hanging above me, so to speak,
and now it has vanished into the pit, like that man whom Bickley
murdered.”

“Look here,” exclaimed the exasperated Bickley, “if you say much more,
Bastin, I’ll chuck you into the pit too, to look for your martyr’s
crown, for I think you have done enough mischief for one morning.”

“If you are trying to shift the responsibility for that unfortunate
man’s destruction on to me—”

“Oh! shut it and trot,” broke in Bickley. “Those infernal savages are
coming with your blessed converts leading the van.”

So we “trotted” at no mean pace. As we passed it, Bastin stooped down
and picked up the head of the image of Oro, much as Atalanta in Academy
pictures is represented as doing to the apples, and bore it away in
triumph.

“I know it is scorched,” he ejaculated at intervals, “but they might
trim it up and stick it on to a new body as the original false god. Now
they _can’t_, for there’s nothing left.”

As a matter of fact, we were never in any real danger, for our pursuit
was very half-hearted indeed. To begin with, now that their first rage
was over, the Orofenans who were fond of us had no particular wish to
do us to death, while the ardour of their sorcerers, who wished this
very much, had been greatly cooled by the mysterious annihilation of
their idol and the violent deaths of two of their companions, which
they thought might be reduplicated in their own persons. So it came
about that the chase, if noisy, was neither close nor eager.

We reached the edge of the lake where was the boat-house of which I
have spoken already, travelling at little more than a walk. Here we
made Bastin unfasten the better of the two canoes that by good luck was
almost filled with offerings, which doubtless, according to custom,
must be made upon the day of this feast to Oro, while we watched
against surprise at the boat-house door. When he was ready we slipped
in and took our seats, Tommy jumping in after us, and pushed the canoe,
now very heavily laden, out into the lake.

Here, at a distance of about forty paces, which we judged to be beyond
wooden spear-throw, we rested upon our paddles to see what would
happen. All the crowd of islanders had rushed to the lake edge where
they stood staring at us stupidly. Bastin, thinking the occasion
opportune, lifted the hideous head of the idol which he had carefully
washed, and began to preach on the downfall of “the god of the Grove.”

This action of his appeared to awake memories or forebodings in the
minds of his congregation. Perhaps some ancient prophecy was
concerned—I do not know. At any rate, one of the priests shouted
something, whereon everybody began to talk at once. Then, stooping
down, they threw water from the lake over themselves and rubbed its
sand and mud into their hair, all the while making genuflexions toward
the mountain in the middle, after which they turned and departed.

“Don’t you think we had better go back?” asked Bastin. “Evidently my
words have touched them and their minds are melting beneath the light
of Truth.”

“Oh! by all means,” replied Bickley with sarcasm; “for then their
spears will touch _us_, and our bodies will soon be melting above the
fires of that pit.”

“Perhaps you are right,” said Bastin; “at least, I admit that you have
made matters very difficult by your unjustifiable homicide of that
priest who I do not think meant to injure you seriously, and really was
not at all a bad fellow, though opinionated in some ways. Also, I do
not suppose that anybody is expected, as it were, to run his head into
the martyr’s crown. When it settles there of itself it is another
matter.”

“Like a butterfly!” exclaimed the enraged Bickley.

“Yes, if you like to put it that way, though the simile seems a very
poor one; like a sunbeam would be better.”

Here Bickley gave way with his paddle so vigorously that the canoe was
as nearly as possible upset into the lake.

In due course we reached the flat Rock of Offerings, which proved to be
quite as wide as a double croquet lawn and much longer.

“What are those?” I asked, pointing to certain knobs on the edge of the
rock at a spot where a curved projecting point made a little harbour.

Bickley examined them, and answered:

“I should say that they are the remains of stone mooring-posts worn
down by many thousands of years of weather. Yes, look, there is the cut
of the cables upon the base of that one, and very big cables they must
have been.”

We stared at one another—that is, Bickley and I did, for Bastin was
still engaged in contemplating the blackened head of the god which he
had overthrown.




CHAPTER IX.
The Island in the Lake


We made the canoe fast and landed on the great rock, to perceive that
it was really a peninsula. That is to say, it was joined to the main
land of the lake island by a broad roadway quite fifty yards across,
which appeared to end in the mouth of the cave. On this causeway we
noted a very remarkable thing, namely, two grooves separated by an
exact distance of nine feet which ran into the mouth of the cave and
vanished there.

“Explain!” said Bickley.

“Paths,” I said, “worn by countless feet walking on them for thousands
of years.”

“You should cultivate the art of observation, Arbuthnot. What do you
say, Bastin?”

He stared at the grooves through his spectacles, and replied:

“I don’t say anything, except that I can’t see anybody to make paths
here. Indeed, the place seems quite unpopulated, and all the Orofenans
told me that they never landed on it because if they did they would
die. It is a part of their superstitious nonsense. If you have any idea
in your head you had better tell us quickly before we breakfast. I am
very hungry.”

“You always are,” remarked Bickley; “even when most people’s appetites
might have been affected. Well, I think that this great plateau was
once a landing-place for flying machines, and that there is the
air-shed or garage.”

Bastin stared at him.

“Don’t you think we had better breakfast?” he said. “There are two
roast pigs in that canoe, and lots of other food, enough to last us a
week, I should say. Of course, I understand that the blood you have
shed has thrown you off your balance. I believe it has that effect,
except on the most hardened. Flying machines were only invented a few
years ago by the brothers Wright in America.”

“Bastin,” said Bickley, “I begin to regret that I did not leave you to
take part in another breakfast yonder—I mean as the principal dish.”

“It was Providence, not you, who prevented it, Bickley, doubtless
because I am unworthy of such a glorious end.”

“Then it is lucky that Providence is a good shot with a pistol. Stop
talking nonsense and listen. If those were paths worn by feet they
would run to the edge of the rock. They do not. They begin there in
that gentle depression and slope upwards somewhat steeply. The air
machines, which were evidently large, lit in the depression, possibly
as a bird does, and then ran on wheels or sledge skids along the
grooves to the air-shed in the mountain. Come to the cave and you will
see.”

“Not till we have breakfast,” said Bastin. “I will get out a pig. As a
matter of fact, I had no supper last night, as I was taking a class of
native boys and making some arrangements of my own.”

As for me, I only whistled. It all seemed very feasible. And yet how
could such things be?

We unloaded the canoe and ate. Bastin’s appetite was splendid. Indeed,
I had to ask him to remember that when this supply was done I did not
know where we should find any more.

“Take no thought for the morrow,” he replied. “I have no doubt it will
come from somewhere,” and he helped himself to another chop.

Never had I admired him so much. Not a couple of hours before he was
about to be cruelly murdered and eaten. But this did not seem to affect
him in the least. Bastin was the only man I have ever known with a
really perfect faith. It is a quality worth having and one that makes
for happiness. What a great thing not to care whether you are
breakfasted on, or breakfast!

“I see that there is lots of driftwood about here,” he remarked, “but
unfortunately we have no tea, so in this climate it is of little use,
unless indeed we can catch some fish and cook them.”

“Stop talking about eating and help us to haul up the canoe,” said
Bickley.

Between the three of us we dragged and carried the canoe a long way
from the lake, fearing lest the natives should come and bear it off
with our provisions. Then, having given Tommy his breakfast off the
scraps, we walked to the cave. I glanced at my companions. Bickley’s
face was alight with scientific eagerness. Here are not dreams or
speculations, but facts to be learned, it seemed to say, and I will
learn them. The past is going to show me some of its secrets, to tell
me how men of long ago lived and died and how far they had advanced to
that point on the road of civilisation at which I stand in my little
hour of existence.

That of Bastin was mildly interested, no more. Obviously, with half his
mind he was thinking of something else, probably of his converts on the
main island and of the school class fixed for this hour which
circumstances prevented him from attending. Indeed, like Lot’s wife he
was casting glances behind him towards the wicked place from which he
had been forced to flee.

Neither the past nor the future had much real interest for Bastin; any
more than they had for Bickley, though for different reasons. The
former was done with; the latter he was quite content to leave in other
hands. If he had any clear idea thereof, probably that undiscovered
land appeared to him as a big, pleasant place where are no unbelievers
or erroneous doctrines, and all sinners will be sternly repressed, in
which, clad in a white surplice with all proper ecclesiastical
trappings, he would argue eternally with the Early Fathers and in due
course utterly annihilate Bickley, that is in a moral sense. Personally
and as a man he was extremely attached to Bickley as a necessary and
wrong-headed nuisance to which he had become accustomed.

And I! What did I feel? I do not know; I cannot describe. An
extraordinary attraction, a semi-spiritual exaltation, I think. That
cave mouth might have been a magnet drawing my soul. With my body I
should have been afraid, as I daresay I was, for our circumstances were
sufficiently desperate. Here we were, castaways upon an island,
probably uncharted, one of thousands in the recesses of a vast ocean,
from which we had little chance of escape. More, having offended the
religious instincts of the primeval inhabitants of that island, we had
been forced to flee to a rocky mountain in the centre of a lake, where,
after the food we had brought with us by accident was consumed, we
should no doubt be forced to choose between death by starvation, or, if
we attempted to retreat, at the hands of justly infuriated savages. Yet
these facts did not oppress me, for I was being drawn, drawn to I knew
not what, and if it were to doom—well, no matter.

Therefore, none of us cared: Bastin because his faith was equal to any
emergency and there was always that white-robed heaven waiting for him
beyond which his imagination did not go (I often wondered whether he
pictured Mrs. Bastin as also waiting; if so, he never said anything
about her); Bickley because as a child of the Present and a servant of
knowledge he feared no future, believing it to be for him non-existent,
and was careless as to when his strenuous hour of life should end; and
I because I felt that yonder lay my true future; yes, and my true past,
even though to discover them I must pass through that portal which we
know as Death.

We reached the mouth of the cave. It was a vast place; perhaps the arch
of it was a hundred feet high, and I could see that once all this arch
had been adorned with sculptures. Protected as these were by the
overhanging rock, for the sculptured mouth of the cave was cut deep
into the mountain face, they were still so worn that it was impossible
to discern their details. Time had eaten them away like an acid. But
what length of time? I could not guess, but it must have been
stupendous to have worked thus upon that hard and sheltered rock.

This came home to me with added force when, from subsequent
examination, we learned that the entire mouth of this cave had been
sealed up for unnumbered ages. It will be remembered that Marama told
me the mountain in the lake had risen much during the frightful cyclone
in which we were wrecked and with it the cave mouth which previously
had been invisible. From the markings on the mountain side it was
obvious that something of the sort had happened very recently, at any
rate on this eastern face. That is, either the flat rock had sunk or
the volcano had been thrown upwards.

Once in the far past the cave had been as it was when we found it. Then
it had gone down in such a way that the table-rock entirely sealed the
entrance. Now this entrance was once more open, and although of course
there was a break in them, the grooves of which I have spoken ran on
into the cave at only a slightly different level from that at which
they lay upon the flat rock. And yet, although they had been thus
sheltered by a great stone curtain in front of them, still these
sculptures were worn away by the tooth of Time. Of course, however,
this may have happened to them _before_ they were buried in some
ancient cataclysm, to be thus resurrected at the hour of our arrival
upon the island.

Without pausing to make any closer examination of these crumbled
carvings, we entered the yawning mouth of that great place, following
and indeed walking in the deep grooves that I have mentioned. Presently
it seemed to open out as a courtyard might at the end of a passage;
yes, to open on to some vast place whereof in that gloom we could not
see the roof or the limits. All we knew was that it must be
enormous—the echoes of our voices and footsteps told us as much, for
these seemed to come back to us from high, high above and from far, far
away. Bickley and I said nothing; we were too overcome. But Bastin
remarked:

“Did you ever go to Olympia? I did once to see a kind of play where the
people said nothing, only ran about dressed up. They told me it was
religious, the sort of thing a clergyman should study. I didn’t think
it religious at all. It was all about a nun who had a baby.”

“Well, what of it?” snapped Bickley.

“Nothing particular, except that nuns don’t have babies, or if they do
the fact should not be advertised. But I wasn’t thinking of that. I was
thinking that this place is like an underground Olympia.”

“Oh, be quiet!” I said, for though Bastin’s description was not bad,
his monotonous, drawling voice jarred on me in that solemnity.

“Be careful where you walk,” whispered Bickley, for even he seemed
awed, “there may be pits in this floor.”

“I wish we had a light,” I said, halting.

“If candles are of any use,” broke in Bastin, “as it happens I have a
packet in my pocket. I took them with me this morning for a certain
purpose.”

“Not unconnected with the paraffin and the burning of the idol, I
suppose?” said Bickley. “Hand them over.”

“Yes; if I had been allowed a little more time I intended—”

“Never mind what you intended; we know what you did and that’s enough,”
said Bickley as he snatched the packet from Bastin’s hand and proceeded
to undo it, adding, “By heaven! I have no matches, nor have you,
Arbuthnot!”

“I have a dozen boxes of wax vestas in my other pocket,” said Bastin.
“You see, they burn so well when you want to get up a fire on a damp
idol. As you may have noticed, the dew is very heavy here.”

In due course these too were produced. I took possession of them as
they were too valuable to be left in the charge of Bastin, and,
extracting a box from the packet, lit two of the candles which were of
the short thick variety, like those used in carriage-lamps.

Presently they burned up, making two faint stars of light which,
however, were not strong enough to show us either the roof or the sides
of that vast place. By their aid we pursued our path, still following
the grooves till suddenly these came to an end. Now all around us was a
flat floor of rock which, as we perceived clearly when we pushed aside
the dust that had gathered thickly on it in the course of ages,
doubtless from the gradual disintegration of the stony walls, had once
been polished till it resembled black marble. Indeed, certain cracks in
the floor appeared to have been filled in with some dark-coloured
cement. I stood looking at them while Bickley wandered off to the right
and a little forward, and presently called to me. I walked to him,
Bastin sticking close to me as I had the other candle, as did the
little dog, Tommy, who did not like these new surroundings and would
not leave my heels.

“Look,” said Bickley, holding up his candle, “and tell me—what’s that?”

Before me, faintly shown, was some curious structure of gleaming rods
made of yellowish metal, which rods appeared to be connected by wires.
The structure might have been forty feet high and perhaps a hundred
long. Its bottom part was buried in dust.

“What is that?” asked Bickley again.

I made no answer, for I was thinking. Bastin, however, replied:

“It’s difficult to be sure in this light, but I should think that it
may be the remains of a cage in which some people who lived here kept
monkeys, or perhaps it was an aviary. Look at those little ladders for
the monkeys to climb by, or possibly for the birds to sit on.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t tame angels?” asked Bickley.

“What a ridiculous remark! How can you keep an angel in a cage? I—”

“Aeroplane!” I almost whispered to Bickley.

“You’ve got it!” he answered. “The framework of an aeroplane and a
jolly large one, too. Only why hasn’t it oxidised?”

“Some indestructible metal,” I suggested. “Gold, for instance, does not
oxidise.”

He nodded and said:

“We shall have to dig it out. The dust is feet thick about it; we can
do nothing without spades. Come on.”

We went round to the end of the structure, whatever it might be, and
presently came to another. Again we went on and came to another, all of
them being berthed exactly in line.

“What did I tell you?” said Bickley in a voice of triumph. “A whole
garage full, a regular fleet of aeroplanes!”

“That must be nonsense,” said Bastin, “for I am quite sure that these
Orofenans cannot make such things. Indeed they have no metal, and even
cut the throats of pigs with wooden knives.”

Now I began to walk forward, bearing to the left so as to regain our
former line. We could do nothing with these metal skeletons, and I felt
that there must be more to find beyond. Presently I saw something
looming ahead of me and quickened my pace, only to recoil. For there,
not thirty feet away and perhaps three hundred yards from the mouth of
the cave, suddenly appeared what looked like a gigantic man. Tommy saw
it also and barked as dogs do when they are frightened, and the sound
of his yaps echoed endlessly from every quarter, which scared him to
silence. Recovering myself I went forward, for now I guessed the truth.
It was not a man but a statue.

The thing stood upon a huge base which lessened by successive steps,
eight of them, I think, to its summit. The foot of this base may have
been a square of fifty feet or rather more; the real support or
pedestal of the statue, however, was only a square of about six feet.
The figure itself was little above life-size, or at any rate above our
life-size, say seven feet in height. It was very peculiar in sundry
ways.

To begin with, nothing of the body w

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