Part 13 (1/2)
”Not till we have breakfast,” said Bastin ”I will get out a pig As aa class of native boys and ements of my own”
As for me, I only whistled It all sees 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 knohere we should find any ht 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 knoith a really perfect faith It is a quality worth having and one thatnot 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 so and help us to haul up the canoe,” said Bickley
Between the three of us we dragged and carried the canoe a long way fro lest the natives should coiven Tomlanced at erness Here are not dreams or speculations, but facts to be learned, it see to show o 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, noof so else, probably of his converts on the main island and of the school class fixed for this hour which circu 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 h 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 hi, 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 extre-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 seht have been amy soul With my body I should have been afraid, as I daresay I was, for our circumstances were sufficiently desperate Here ere, castaways upon an island, probably uncharted, one of thousands in the recesses of a vast ocean, fro 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 attees Yet these facts did not oppressdrawn, 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 e for hio (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 h to discover theh 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 Tith of tiuess, 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 es It will be remembered that Mara the frightful cyclone in which recked and with it the cave mouth which previously had been invisible
Fros on theof 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 throards
Once in the far past the cave had been as it e found it Then it had gone down in such a way that the table-rock entirely sealed the entrance Now this entrance was once h of course there was a break in therooves of which I have spoken ran on into the cave at only a slightly different level froh they had been thus sheltered by a great stone curtain in front of them, still these sculptures orn 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 s, we entered the yawningin the deep grooves that I have ht at the end of a passage; yes, to open on to soloom we could not see the roof or the limits All we kneas that it must be enormous--the echoes of our voices and footsteps told us as h above and fro; ere too overcoo to Olympia? I did once to see a kind of play where the people said nothing, only ran about dressed up They told yious 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 Olyh Bastin's description was not bad, hisvoice jarred on me in that solemnity
”Be careful where you walk,” whispered Bickley, for even he seemed awed, ”there ht,” I said, halting
”If candles are of any use,” broke in Bastin, ”as it happens I have a packet infor a certain purpose”
”Not unconnected with the paraffin and the burning of the idol, I suppose?” said Bickley ”Hand them over”