H. Rider Haggard

“ If I could read the future I should be a god instead of only an earth-lord.”
“Your daughter called you a god and you said that you knew we were coming to wake you up, which is reading the future,” answered Bastin.
“Every father is a god to his daughter, or should be; also in my day millions named me a god because I saw further and struck harder than they could. As for the rest, it came to me in a vision. Oh! Bickley, if you were wiser than you think you are, you would know that all things to come are born elsewhere and travel hither like the light from stars. ”

“ Better to face the future, even if it means oblivion, than to remain thus a relic of a glorious past, still living and yet dead, like that statue of the great god Fate which you saw in the temple of my worship.”
“Bastin does not think that the future means oblivion,” I remarked.
“I know it. I have studied his faith and find it too humble for my taste, also too new. Shall I, Oro, creep a suppliant before any Power, and confess what Bastin is pleased to call my sins? Nay, I who am great will be the equal of all greatness, or nothing.” ”

“ I answered. “Yet all men fear death.”
“Not when they have found love, Humphrey, for that I think is his true name, and, with it written on his brow, he stands upon the neck of Fate who is still my father’s god.”
“Then he is not yours, Yva?”
“Nay. Once it was so, but now I reject him; he is no longer mine. As Oro threatens, and perchance dare do in his rage, I have broken his chain, though in another fashion. Ask me no more; perhaps one day you will learn the path I trod to freedom.” ”

“ Behold! There are the stars as I engraved them from my foreknowledge, upon this chart, and there those two great planets hang in conjunction. Daughter Yva, my wisdom has not failed me. This world of ours has travelled round the sun neither less nor more than two hundred and fifty thousand times since we laid ourselves down to sleep. It is written here, and yonder,” and he pointed, first to the engraved plates and then to the vast expanse of the starlit heavens.
Awe fell on me; I think that even Bickley and Bastin were awed, at any rate for the moment. ”

“ Bickley looked up to answer, then changed his mind and was silent, thinking further argument dangerous, and Oro went on:
“Now I differ from you, Bickley, in this way. I who have more wisdom in my finger-point than you with all the physicians of your world added to you, have in your brains and bodies, yet desire to learn from those who can give me knowledge. I understand from your words to my daughter that you, Bastin, teach a faith that is new to me, and that this faith tells of life eternal for the children of earth. ”

“ You think me long-lived who compared to them exist but a tiny fraction of a second, nearly all of which I have been doomed to pass in sleep. And, Humphrey, I desire to live—I, who have great plans and would shake the world. But my day draws in; a few brief centuries and I shall be gone, and—whither, whither?”
“If you lived as long as those stars, the end would be the same, Oro.”
“Yes, but the life of the stars is very long, millions of millions of years; also, after death, they reform, as other stars. But shall I reform as another Oro? With all my wisdom, I do not know. ”

“ Still holding the sword, he flung himself down as though in an ecstasy, and was silent.
“I read the omen otherwise,” whispered Yva. “The worshippers of Fate are overthrown. His sword of power is fallen, but not into the hands that clasped it, and he totters on his throne. A greater God asserts dominion of the world and this Fate is but his instrument.”
Oro rose again.
“One prayer more,” he cried. “Give me life, long life, that I may execute thy decrees. By word or gesture show me a sign that I shall be satisfied with life, a year for every year that I have lived, or twain!” ”

“ Perhaps, indeed, Faith shapes Fate, not Fate, Faith. But whence comes that faith which even I with all my learning cannot command? Why is it denied to me and given to you and Bastin?”
“Because as Bastin would tell you, it is a gift, though one that is never granted to the proud and self-sufficient. Become humble as a child, Oro, and perchance you too may acquire faith.”
“And how shall I become humble?”
“By putting away all dreams of power and its exercise, if such you have, and in repentance walking quietly to the Gates of Death,” I replied. ”

“ Ask my father Oro who has lived a thousand years and slept for tens of thousands, as I have, and he will say the same. It is against Time that he fights; he who, believing in nothing beyond, will inherit nothing, as Bastin says; he to whom Time has brought nothing save a passing, blood-stained greatness, and triumph ending in darkness and disaster, and hope that will surely suffer hope’s eclipse, and power that must lay down its coronet in dust.”
“And what has it brought to you, Yva, beyond a fair body and a soul of strength?” ”

“ Nay, it cannot be, for what power is there in all the universe that dares to make a slave of Oro and to afflict him with stripes?
“Yet this can be and mayhap will be, that presently I lose my path in the ways of everlasting darkness, and become strengthless and forgotten as are those who went before me, while my crown of Power shines on younger brows. Alas! I grow old, since æons of sleep have not renewed my strength. My time is short and yet I would not die as mortals must. Oh! God of my people, whom I have served so well, save me from the death I dread. ”

“ I would always have you remember, Humphrey, that I am no spirit or sorceress, but just a woman—like her you lost.”
I looked at her doubtfully and answered:
“Women do not sleep for two hundred thousand years. Women do not take dream journeys to the stars. Women do not make the dead past live again before the watcher’s eyes. Their hair does not glimmer in the dusk nor do their bodies gleam, nor have they such strength of soul or eyes so wonderful, or loveliness so great.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ I even thought of passing him on to Bickley, but had no time. Indeed I could not attract his attention, for Bickley was staring with all his eyes at the nightmare-like spectacle which was in progress about us. Indeed no nightmare, no wild imagination of which the mind of man is capable, could rival the aspect of its stupendous facts.
Think of them! The unmeasured space of blackness threaded by those globes of ghastly incandescence that now hung a while and now shot upwards, downwards, across, apparently without origin or end, like a stream of meteors that had gone mad. ”

“ Oh! ask not what they are, there is no time to tell, and it matters nothing. Some folk are wise and some are foolish, but all which matters is that within them flows the blood of life and that life breeds love, and that love, as I believe, although Oro does not, breeds immortality. And if so, what is Time but as a grain of sand upon the shore?”
“This, Yva; it is ours, who can count on nothing else.”
“Oh! Humphrey, if I thought that, no more wretched creature would breathe tonight upon this great world.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ Next we heard the sound of the sea. We struggled on desperately and presently pushed our way through bushes and vegetation on to a steep declivity. Down this we rolled and scrambled, to find ourselves at last lying upon a sandy beach, whilst above us the full moon shone in the heavens.
Here, with a prayer of thankfulness, we flung ourselves down and slept.
If it had not been for Tommy and we had gone further along the tunnel, which I have little doubt stretched on beneath the sea, where, I wonder, should we have slept that night?
When we woke the sun was shining high in the heavens. ”

“ We crept out of the chapel, Yva leading, and along the circle of the great dome till we reached the gates. Here I glanced back and perceived that Oro, looking unutterably small in that vastness, looking like a dead man, still lay outstretched before the stern-faced, unanswering Effigy which, with all his wisdom, he believed to be living and divine. Perhaps once it was, but if so its star had set for ever, like those of Amon, Jupiter and Baal, and he was its last worshipper.
Now we were safe, but still we sped on till we reached the portico of our sleeping place. Then Yva turned and spoke. ”

“ Here Bastin opened his eyes. “If that was so, where was your mind all this time?”
“If by my mind you mean spirit, O Humphrey, I have to answer that at present I do not know for certain. I think, however, that it dwelt elsewhere, perhaps in other bodies on the earth, or some different earth. At least, I know that my heart is very full of memories which as yet I cannot unroll and read.”
“Great heavens, this is madness!” said Bickley.
“In the great heavens,” she answered slowly, “there are many things which you, poor man, would think to be madness, but yet are truth and perfect wisdom. ”

“ Doubtless the stored-up electricity or earth magnetism, or whatever it may have been that had leapt out of that hole, being diffused by the resistance with which it was met, had grazed me with its outer edge, and had it not been for the shield and cloak, I also should have been burned up. I wished, oh! how I wished that it had been so. Then, by now all must have finished and I should have known the truth as to what awaits us beyond the change: sleep, or dreams, or perchance the fullest life. ”

“ You have naught to fear from us, and I believe that no harm will happen to you. But you will see many strange things that will anger Bickley because he cannot understand them, and perhaps will weary Bastin because his heart turns from what is wondrous and ancient. Only Humphrey will rejoice in them because the doors of his soul are open and he longs—what do you long for, Humphrey? ”

“ Countries were sinking, cities crashing down, volcanoes were spouting fire; the end of the earth seemed to be at hand. We could see human beings running to and fro in thousands like ants. Then in huge waves hundreds and hundreds of feet high, the ocean flowed in and all was troubled, yeasty sea.
“Oro carries out his threat to destroy the Nations who had rebelled against him,” said Yva. “Much of the world sinks beneath the waves, but in place of it other lands arise above the waves, to be inhabited by the seed of those who remain living in those portions of the Earth that the deluge spared.” ”

“ What are you laughing at, Bickley? I don’t think it a laughing matter, since such remarks do not seem to me to indicate any real change in Oro’s heart, which is what I was trying to effect.”
Bickley, who was convulsed with merriment, wiped his eyes and said:
“You dear old donkey, don’t you see what you have done, or rather would have done if there were a word of truth in all this ridiculous story about a deluge? You would be in the way of making your precious pupil, who certainly is the most masterly old liar in the world, repeat his offence and send Europe to the bottom of the sea.” ”

“ With Yva, the last of my blood, it is otherwise. She is the child of my age and of a race outworn; too gentle, too much all womanly. The soul that triumphs must shine like steel in the sun, and cut if need be; not merely be beauteous and shed perfume like a lily in the shade. Yet she is very wise and fair,” here he looked at me, “perchance of her might come children such as were their forefathers, who again would wield the sceptre of the dominion of the earth.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ When we were clear of the palace, of which we had only seen one hall, we walked across an open space made unutterably dreary by the absence of any vegetation or other sign of life, towards a huge building of glorious proportions that was constructed of black stone or marble. It is impossible for me to give any idea of the frightful solemnity of this domed edifice, for as I think I have said, it alone had a roof, standing there in the midst of that brilliant, unvarying and most unnatural illumination which came from nowhere and yet was everywhere. ”

“ If myriads of us perish by their arts, what does it matter, since we are countless?’ So the World made war upon the Sons of Wisdom. See!”
Again a picture formed. The sky was full of aircraft which rained down fire like flashes of lightning upon cities beneath. From these cities leapt up other fires that destroyed the swift-travelling things above, so that they fell in numbers like gnats burned by a lamp. Still more and more of them came till the cities crumbled away and the flashes that darted from them ceased to rush upwards. The Sons of Wisdom were driven from the face of the earth. ”

“ It led into a walled courtyard in the centre of which was a plain cupola of marble with a gate of some pale metal that looked like platinum mixed with gold. This gate stood open. Within it was the statue of a woman beautifully executed in white marble and set in a niche of some black stone. The figure was draped as though to conceal the shape, and the face was stern and majestic rather than beautiful. The eyes of the statue were cunningly made of some enamel which gave them a strange and lifelike appearance. They stared upwards as though looking away from the earth and its concerns. ”