Part 46 (1/2)
The other two followed, arguing strenuously about I know not what It was their way of working off irritation and alarreat fear oppressed me
”I aentle voice, ”who do not know all Oro's secrets, but as I think, great things We are now deep in the bowels of the world, and presently, perhaps, you will see sonorant races have no knowledge, doing their everlasting work”
”Then how is it that we can breathe here?” I asked ”Because this road that we are following connects with the upper air or used to do so, since once I followed it It is a long road and the cliht of the blessed sun, nor are there any pitfalls in the path Would that we ether, Humphrey,”
she added with passion, ”and be rid of looerly ”Why should we not turn and flee?”
”Who can flee from my father, the Lord Oro?” she replied ”He would snare us before we had gone a mile Moreover, if we fled, by tomorrow half the world , Yva?”
”I do not know, Humphrey, yet I think it will be saved, perchance by sacrifice That is the keystone of your faith, is it not? Therefore if it is asked of you to save the world, you will not shrink from it, will you, Humphrey?”
”I hope not,” I replied, without enthusiasm, I admit Indeed it struck me that a business of this sort was better fitted to Bastin than to uessed ht of the lalance behind her, she turned and suddenly kissed s onvery wonderful about this benediction of Yva's and it thrilled h, so that to it I could make no answer
Next e turned and we found ourselves in a wondrous place I call it wondrous because of it we could see neither the beginning nor the end, nor the roof, nor aught else save the rock on which alked, and the side or wall that our hands touched Nor was this because of darkness, since although it was not illuht of a sort was present
It was a very strange light, consisting of brilliant and interlobes of blue and lambent flame which see poised in mid air
”How odd they are,” said the voice of Bastin behind me ”They remind me of those blue sparks which juht You know, don't you, Bickley? Istick with an iron wheel on the top of it”
”nobody but you could have thought of such a comparison, Bastin,”
answered Bickley ”Still, multiplied a thousandfold they are not unlike”
Nor indeed were they, except that each blue flash was as big as the full moon and in one place or another they were so continuous that one could have read a letter by their light Also the effect of the, too, since even their brilliance could not reveal the extent of that gigantic hollow in the bowels of the world wherein they leapt to and fro like lightnings, or hung like huge, uncanny lanterns
Chapter XXV Sacrifice
”The air in this place ed with so is that it does not seem to harh he were determined not to be astonished
”To h how these can be where there is no vapour, I do not know,” I answered
As I spoke a particularly large ball of fla star or aelse that I had ever seen, andbeneath soot such speculations, for in its blue light, whichin front of us clad in a long cloak
”Dear me!” said Bastin, ”he looks just like the devil, doesn't he, and now I come to think of it, this isn't at all a bad imitation of hell”
”How do you know it is an iht be the case with you, Bickley, if it were, the Lady Yva and I should not be here”
Even then I could not help sument went no further for Oro held up his hand and Yva bent the knee in greeting to hiht that perhaps there were one or tould not find courage to ride the flying stone I alad that it is not so, since otherwise he who had shown himself a coward should have had no share in the rule of that neorld which is to be Therefore I chose yonder road that it ood as to choose another for us to return by, I shall be ed to you, Oro,” said Bastin
”How do you know that if I did it would not be more terrible, Preacher?
How do you know indeed that this is not your last journey from which there is no return?”