The other two followed, arguing strenuously about I know not what. It was their way of working off irritation and alarms.

I asked Yva what was about to happen, for a great fear oppressed me.

"I am not sure, Beloved," she answered in a sweet and gentle 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 some of its mighty forces whereof your ignorant 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 climb is steep, but at last it leads to the light of the blessed sun, nor are there any pitfalls in the path. Would that we might tread it together, Humphrey,"

she added with pa.s.sion, "and be rid of mysteries and the gloom, or that light which is worse than gloom."

"Why not?" I asked eagerly. "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 must perish."

"And how can we save it by not flying, 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 myself, or at any rate to his profession. I think she guessed my thoughts, for by the light of the lamp I saw her smile in her dazzling way. Then after a swift glance behind her, she turned and suddenly kissed me, as she did so calling down everlasting blessings on my head and on my spirit. There was something very wonderful about this benediction of Yva's and it thrilled me through and through, so that to it I could make no answer.

Next moment it was too late to retreat, for our narrowing pa.s.sage 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 we walked, and the side or wall that our hands touched. Nor was this because of darkness, since although it was not illuminated like the upper caverns, light of a sort was present.

It was a very strange light, consisting of brilliant and intermittent flashes, or globes of blue and lambent flame which seemed to leap from nowhere into nowhere, or sometimes to hang poised in mid air.

"How odd they are," said the voice of Bastin behind me. "They remind me of those blue sparks which jump up from the wires of the tramways in London on a dark night. You know, don't you, Bickley? I mean when the conductor pulls round that long stick with an iron wheel on the top of it."

"n.o.body 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 them was ghastly and most unnatural, terrifying, 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 must be charged with some form of electricity, but the odd thing is that it does not seem to harm us," said Bickley in a matter-of-fact fashion as though he were determined not to be astonished.

"To me it looks more like marsh fires or St. Elmo lights, though how these can be where there is no vapour, I do not know," I answered.

As I spoke a particularly large ball of flame fell from above. It resembled a shooting star or a meteor more than anything else that I had ever seen, and made me wonder whether we were not perhaps standing beneath some inky, unseen sky.

Next moment I forgot such speculations, for in its blue light, which made him terrible and ghastly, I perceived Oro standing in 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 h.e.l.l."

"How do you know it is an imitation?" asked Bickley.

"Because whatever might be the case with you, Bickley, if it were, the Lady Yva and I should not be here."

Even then I could not help smiling at this repartee, but the argument went no further for Oro held up his hand and Yva bent the knee in greeting to him.

"So you have come, all of you," he said. "I thought that perhaps there were one or two who would not find courage to ride the flying stone. I am glad that it is not so, since otherwise he who had shown himself a coward should have had no share in the rule of that new world which is to be. Therefore I chose yonder road that it might test you."

"Then if you will be so good as to choose another for us to return by, I shall be much obliged 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?"

"Of course I can't be sure of anything, Oro, but I think the question is one which you might more appropriately put to yourself. According to your own showing you are now extremely old and therefore your end is likely to come at any moment. Of course, however, if it did you would have one more journey to make, but it wouldn't be polite for me to say in what direction."

Oro heard, and his splendid, icy face was twisted with sudden rage.

Remembering the scene in the temple where he had grovelled before his G.o.d, uttering agonised, unanswered prayers for added days, I understood the reason of his wrath. It was so great that I feared lest he should kill Bastin (who only a few hours before, be it remembered, had tried to kill him) then and there, as doubtless he could have done if he wished.

Fortunately, if he felt it; the impulse pa.s.sed.

"Miserable fool!" he said. "I warn you to keep a watch upon your words.

Yesterday you would have slain me with your toy. Today you stab me with your ill-omened tongue. Be fearful lest I silence it for ever."

"I am not in the least fearful, Oro, since I am sure that you can't hurt me at all any more than I could hurt you last night because, you see, it wasn't permitted. When the time comes for me to die, I shall go, but you will have nothing to do with that. To tell the truth, I am very sorry for you, as with all your greatness, your soul is of the earth, earthy, also sensual and devilish, as the Apostle said, and, I am afraid, very malignant, and you will have a great deal to answer for shortly. Yours won't be a happy deathbed, Oro, because, you see, you glory in your sins and don't know what repentance means."

I must add that when I heard these words I was filled with the most unbounded admiration for Bastin's fearless courage which enabled him thus to beard this super-tyrant in his den. So indeed were we all, for I read it in Yva's face and heard Bickley mutter:

"Bravo! Splendid! After all there is something in faith!"

Even Oro appreciated it with his intellect, if not with his heart, for he stared at the man and made no answer. In the language of the ring, he was quite "knocked out" and, almost humbly, changed the subject.

"We have yet a little while," he said, "before that happens which I have decreed. Come, Humphrey, that I may show you some of the marvels of this bubble blown in the bowels of the world," and he motioned to us to pick up the lanterns.

Then he led us away from the wall of the cavern, if such it was, for a distance of perhaps six or seven hundred paces. Here suddenly we came to a great groove in the rocky floor, as broad as a very wide roadway, and mayhap four feet in depth. The bottom of this groove was polished and glittered; indeed it gave us the impression of being iron, or other ore which had been welded together beneath the grinding of some immeasurable weight. Just at the spot where we struck the groove, it divided into two, for this reason.

In its centre the floor of iron, or whatever it may have been, rose, the fraction of an inch at first, but afterwards more sharply, and this at a spot where the groove had a somewhat steep downward dip which appeared to extend onwards I know not how far.

Following along this central rise for a great way, nearly a mile, I should think, we observed that it became ever more p.r.o.nounced, till at length it ended in a razor-edge cliff which stretched up higher than we could see, even by the light of the electrical discharges. Standing against the edge of this cliff, we perceived that at a distance from it there were now two grooves of about equal width. One of these ran away into the darkness on our right as we faced the sharp edge, and at an ever-widening angle, while the other, at a similar angle, ran into the darkness to the left of the knife of cliff. That was all.

No, there were two more notable things. Neither of the grooves now lay within hundreds of yards of the cliff, perhaps a quarter of a mile, for be it remembered we had followed the rising rock between them. To put it quite clearly, it was exactly as though one line of rails had separated into two lines of rails, as often enough they do, and an observer standing on high ground between could see them both vanishing into tunnels to the right and left, but far apart.

The second notable thing was that the right-hand groove, where first we saw it at the point of separation, was not polished like the left-hand groove, although at some time or other it seemed to have been subjected to the pressure of the same terrific weight which cut its fellow out of the bed of rock or iron, as the sharp wheels of a heavily laden wagon sink ruts into a roadway.

"What does it all mean, Lord Oro?" I asked when he had led us back to the spot where the one groove began to be two grooves, that is, a mile or so away from the razor-edged cliff.

"This, Humphrey," he answered. "That which travels along yonder road, when it reaches this spot on which we stand, follows the left-hand path which is made bright with its pa.s.sage. Yet, could a giant at that moment of its touching this exact spot on which I lay my hand, thrust it with sufficient strength, it would leave the left-hand road and take the right-hand road."

"And if it did, what then; Lord Oro?"

"Then within an hour or so, when it had travelled far enough upon its way, the balance of the earth would be changed, and great things would happen in the world above, as once they happened in bygone days. Now do you understand, Humphrey?"

"Good Heavens! Yes, I understand now," I answered. "But fortunately there is no such giant."

Oro broke into a mocking laugh and his grey old face lit up with a fiendish exultation, as he cried:

"Fool! I, Oro, am that giant. Once in the dead days I turned the balance of the world from the right-hand road which now is dull with disuse, to the left-hand road which glitters so brightly to your eyes, and the face of the earth was changed. Now again I will turn it from the left-hand road to the right-hand road in which for millions of years it was wont to run, and once more the face of the earth shall change, and those who are left living upon the earth, or who in the course of ages shall come to live upon the new earth, must bow down to Oro and take him and his seed to be their G.o.ds and kings."