"Take that sorcerer and show him to the other sorcerers yonder,"he said, "and tell them where your fellows are if they would find them.Know by these signs that the Oro, god of the Mountain, who has slept a while, is awake, and ill will it go with them who question his power or dare to try to harm those who dwell in his house.Bring food day by day and await commands.Begone!"The dreadful-looking body was bundled into one of the canoes, that out of which Bastin had emerged.A rower sprang into each of them and presently was paddling as he had never done before.As the setting moon vanished, they vanished with it, and once more there was a great silence.
"I am going to find my boots," said Bastin."This rock is hard and I hurt my feet kicking at those poor fellows who appear to have come to a bad end, how, I do not exactly understand.
Personally, I think that more allowances should have been made for them, as I hope will be the case elsewhere, since after all they only acted according to their lights.""Curse their lights!" ejaculated Bickley, feeling his throat which was bruised."I'm glad they are out."Bastin limped away in search of his boots, but Bickley and Istood where we were contemplating the awakened Sleeper.All recollection of the recent tumultuous scene seemed to have passed from his mind, for he was engaged in a study of the heavens.They were wonderfully brilliant now that the moon was down, brilliant as they only can be in the tropics when the sky is clear.
Something caused me to look round, and there, coming towards us, was she who said her name was Yva.Evidently all her weakness had departed also, for now she needed no support, but walked with a peculiar gliding motion that reminded me of a swan floating forward on the water.Well had we named her the Glittering Lady, for in the starlight literally she seemed to glitter.I suppose the effect came from her golden raiment, which, however, Inoticed, as in her father's case, was not the same that she had worn in the coffin; also from her hair that seemed to give out a light of its own.At least, she shimmered as she came, her tall shape swaying at every step like a willow in the wind.She drew near, and I saw that her face, too, had filled out and now was that of one in perfect health and vigour, while her eyes shone softly and seemed wondrous large.
In her hands she carried those two plates of metal which I had seen lying in the coffin of the Sleeper Oro.These she gave to him, then fell back out of his hearing--if it were ever possible to do this, a point on which I am not sure--and began to talk to me.I noted at once that in the few hours during which she was absent, her knowledge of the Orofenan tongue seemed to have improved greatly as though she had drunk deeply from some hidden fount of memory.Now she spoke it with readiness, as Oro had done when he addressed the sorcerers, although many of the words she used were not known to me, and the general form of her language appeared archaic, as for instance that of Spenser is compared with modern English.When she saw I did not comprehend her, however, she would stop and cast her sentences in a different shape, till at length I caught her meaning.Now I give the substance of what she said.
"You are safe," she began, glancing first at the palm ropes that lay upon the rock and then at my wrists, one of which was cut.
"Yes, Lady Yva, thanks to your father."
"You should say thanks to me.My father was thinking of other things, but I was thinking of you strangers, and from where I was I saw those wicked ones coming to kill you.""Oh! from the top of the mountain, I suppose."She shook her head and smiled but vouchsafed no further explanation, unless her following words can be so called.These were:
"I can see otherwise than with my eyes, if I choose." Astatement that caused Bickley, who was listening, to mutter:
"Impossible! What the deuce can she mean? Telepathy, perhaps.""I saw," she continued, "and told the Lord, my father.He came forth.Did he kill them? I did not look to learn.""Yes.They lie in the lake, all except three whom he sent away as messengers.""I thought so.Death is terrible, O Humphrey, but it is a sword which those, who rule must use to smite the wicked and the savage.
Not wishing to pursue this subject, I asked her what her father was doing with the metal plates.
"He reads the stars," she answered, "to learn how long we have been asleep.Before we went to sleep he made two pictures of them, as they were then and as they should be at the time he had set for our awakening.""We set that time," interrupted Bickley.
"Not so.O Bickley," she answered, smiling again."In the divine Oro's head was the time set.You were the hand that executed his decree."When Bickley heard this I really thought he would have burst.
However, he controlled himself nobly, being anxious to hear the end of this mysterious fib.
"How long was the time that the lord Oro set apart for sleep?"I asked.
She paused as though puzzled to find words to express her meaning, then held up her hands and said:
"Ten," nodding at her fingers.By second thoughts she took Bickley's hands, not mine, and counted his ten fingers.
"Ten years," said Bickley."Well, of course, it is impossible, but perhaps--" and he paused.
"Ten tens," she went on with a deepening smile, "one hundred.""O!" said Bickley.
"Ten hundreds, one thousand."
"I say!" said Bickley.
"Ten times ten thousand, one hundred thousand."Bickley became silent.
"Twice one hundred thousand and half a hundred thousand, two hundred and fifty thousand years.That was the space of time which the lord Oro, my father, set for our sleep.Whether it has been fulfilled he will know presently when he has read the book of the stars and made comparison of it with what he wrote before we laid us down to rest," and she pointed to the metal plates which the Ancient was studying.
