Part 33 (1/2)

”'I aer What is he but a short-lived half-barbarian such as we knew in the old days? And yet already you think more of him than you do of me, your father, the divine Oro who has lived a thousand years At first I helped that physician to save him, but now I think I wish him dead'

”'If you let this man die, my Father,' I answered, 'then we part

Remember that I also have of the wisdom of our people, and can use it if I will'

”'Then save him yourself,' he said

”'Perhaps I shall, my Father,' I answered, 'but if so it will not be here I say that if so we part and you shall be left to rule in your htened the Lord Oro, for he has the weakness that he hates to be alone

”'If I do what you will, do you swear never to leave me, Yva?' he asked

'Know that if you will not swear, the man dies'

”'I swear,' I answered--for your sake, Huave me a certain medicine to one that h Bickley does not know it, as nothing else could have done Now I have told you the truth, for your own ear only, Humphrey”

”Yva,” I asked, ”why did you do all this for me?”

”Humphrey, I do not know,” she answered, ”but I think because I must

Now sleep a while”

Chapter XIX The Proposals of Bastin and Bickley

So far as h it was long before I got back th Thus I could not walk far or endure any sustained exertion With my mind it was otherwise I can not explain what had happened to it; indeed I do not know, but in a sense it seemed to have become detached and to have assumed a kind of personality of its own At tier an inhabitant of the body, but rather its more or less independent partner I was perfectly clear-headed and of insanity I experienced no symptoms Yet my mind, I use that term from lack of a better, was not entirely under ht it appeared to wander far away, though whither it went and what it saw there I could never remember

I record this because possibly it explains certain mysterious events, if they were events and not dreams, which shortly I must set out I spoke to Bickley about thethat it was only a result ofand most severe illness and that I should steady down in time, especially if we could escape from that island and its unnatural atlanced at o away I heard hi to himself about ”unholy influences” and ”that confounded old Oro”

The words were spoken to himself and quite beneath his breath, and of course not meant to reach me But one of the curious concomitants of , had become most abnormally acute A whisper far aas now to me like a loud remark made in a room

Bickley's reflection, for I can scarcely call it

Yva had said that Oro sent me medicine which was ade, and as she believed, saved my life, or certainly my reason What was in it? I wondered Then there was that Life-water which Yva brought and insisted uponevery day

Undoubtedly it was a ood But it had other effects also Thus, as she said would be the case, after a course of it I conceived the greatest dislike, which I may add has never entirely left me, of any form of meat, also of alcohol All I seeetables as there were Bickley disapproved and made me eat fish occasionally, but even this revolted ht, as we found out by a simple contrivance, and remained healthy in every other way, soon he allowed an to pay ht, and what is aveenious in such matters, had built another hut in which he and Bickley slept, of course when they were not watchingour old bed-chamber to myself

Well, I would wake up and be aware that Oro was co Then he appeared in a silent and h he had materialised in the rooht, or the starlight, which flowed through the entrance and the side of the hut that was only enclosed with latticework, I perceived hi like awhite beard, hooked nose and hawk eyes In the day-time he much resembled the late General Booth whoht and classic beauty of countenance At night, however, he resehty and Godlike in his appearance, so that made one feel that he was not as are other men

For a while he would sit and look at an to speak in a low, vibrant voice What did he speak of? Well,that hoary soul of his because it could no longer endure the grandeur of its own loneliness As, he told hty civilisations which for uncounted ages he and his forefathers had ruled by the strength of their will and knowledge, of the dwindling of their race and of the final destruction of its eneer said that this was his work alone One night I asked him if he did not miss all such pomp and power

Then suddenly he broke out, and for the first time I really learned what ambition can be when it utterly possesses the soul of man

”Are youof kings, can be content to dwell solitary in a great cave with none but the shadows of the dead to serve reater than before, or else I too will die Better to face the future, even if it lorious past, still living and yet dead, like that statue of the great God Fate which you saw in the temple of my worshi+p”

”Bastin does not think that the future means oblivion,” I remarked