Chapter 17: Yva Explains

When I reached the rock I was pleased to find Marama and about twenty of his people engaged in erecting the house that we had ordered them to build for our accommodation. Indeed, it was nearly finished, since house-building in Orofena is a simple business. The framework of poles let into palm trunks, since they could not be driven into the rock, had been put together on the further shore and towed over bodily by canoes. The overhanging rock formed one side of the house; the ends were of palm leaves tied to the poles, and the roof was of the same material. The other side was left open for the present, which in that equable and balmy clime was no disadvantage. The whole edifice was about thirty feet long by fifteen deep and divided into two portions, one for sleeping and one for living, by a palm leaf partition. Really, it was quite a comfortable abode, cool and rainproof, especially after Bastin had built his hut in which to cook.

Marama and his people were very humble in their demeanour and implored us to visit them on the main island. I answered that perhaps we would later on, as we wished to procure certain things from the wreck. Also, he requested Bastin to continue his ministrations as the latter greatly desired to do. But to this proposal I would not allow him to give any direct answer at the moment. Indeed, I dared not do so until I was sure of Oro’s approval.

Towards evening they departed in their canoes, leaving behind them the usual ample store of provisions.

We cooked our meal as usual, only to discover that what Yva had said about the Life-water was quite true, since we had but little appetite for solid food, though this returned upon the following day. The same thing happened upon every occasion after drinking of that water which certainly was a most invigorating fluid. Never for years had any of us felt so well as it caused us to do.

So we lit our pipes and talked about our experiences though of these, indeed, we scarcely knew what to say. Bastin accepted them as something out of the common, of course, but as facts which admitted of no discussion. After all, he said, the Old Testament told much the same story of people called the Sons of God who lived very long lives and ran after the daughters of men whom they should have left alone, and thus became the progenitors of a remarkable race. Of this race, he presumed that Oro and his daughter were survivors, especially as they spoke of their family as “Heaven born.” How they came to survive was more than he could understand and really scarcely worth bothering over, since there they were.

It was the same about the Deluge, continued Bastin, although naturally Oro spoke falsely, or, at any rate, grossly exaggerated, when he declared that he had caused this catastrophe, unless indeed he was talking about a totally different deluge, though even then he could not have brought it about. It was curious, however, that the people drowned were said to have been wicked, and Oro had the same opinion about those whom he claimed to have drowned, though for the matter of that, he could not conceive anyone more wicked than Oro himself. On his own showing he was a most revengeful person and one who declined to agree to a quite suitable alliance, apparently desired by both parties, merely because it offended his family pride. No, on reflection he might be unjust to Oro in this particular, since he never told that story; it was only shown in some pictures which very likely were just made up to astonish us. Meanwhile, it was his business to preach to this old sinner down in that hole, and he confessed honestly that he did not like the job. Still, it must be done, so with our leave he would go apart and seek inspiration, which at present seemed to be quite lacking.

Thus declaimed Bastin and departed.

“Don’t you tell your opinion about the Deluge or he may cause another just to show that you are wrong,” called Bickley after him.

“I can’t help that,” answered Bastin. “Certainly I shall not hide the truth to save Oro’s feelings, if he has got any. If he revenges himself upon us in any way, we must just put up with it like other martyrs.”

“I haven’t the slightest ambition to be a martyr,” said Bickley.

“No,” shouted Bastin from a little distance, “I am quite aware of that, as you have often said so before. Therefore, if you become one, I am sorry to say that I do not see how you can expect any benefit. You would only be like a man who puts a sovereign into the offertory bag in mistake for a shilling. The extra nineteen shillings will do him no good at all, since in his heart he regrets the error and wishes that he could have them back.”

Then he departed, leaving me laughing. But Bickley did not laugh.

“Arbuthnot,” he said, “I have come to the conclusion that I have gone quite mad. I beg you if I should show signs of homicidal mania, which I feel developing in me where Bastin is concerned, or of other abnormal violence, that you will take whatever steps you consider necessary, even to putting me out of the way if that is imperative.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “You seem sane enough.”

“Sane, when I believe that I have seen and experienced a great number of things which I know it to be quite impossible that I should have seen or experienced. The only explanation is that I am suffering from delusions.”

“Then is Bastin suffering from delusions, too?”

“Certainly, but that is nothing new in his case.”

“I don’t agree with you, Bickley--about Bastin, I mean. I am by no means certain that he is not the wisest of the three of us. He has a faith and he sticks to it, as millions have done before him, and that is better than making spiritual experiments, as I am sorry to say I do, or rejecting things because one cannot understand them, as you do, which is only a form of intellectual vanity.”

“I won’t argue the matter, Arbuthnot; it is of no use. I repeat that I am mad, and Bastin is mad.”

“How about me? I also saw and experienced these things. Am I mad, too?”

“You ought to be, Arbuthnot. If it isn’t enough to drive a man mad when he sees himself exactly reproduced in an utterly impossible moving-picture show exhibited by an utterly impossible young woman in an utterly impossible underground city, then I don’t know what is.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, starting.

“Mean? Well, if you didn’t notice it, there’s hope for you.”

“Notice what?”

“All that envoy scene. There, as I thought, appeared Yva. Do you admit that?”

“Of course; there could be no mistake on that point.”

“Very well. Then according to my version there came a man, still young, dressed in outlandish clothes, who made propositions of peace and wanted to marry Yva, who wanted to marry him. Is that right?”

“Absolutely.”

“Well, and didn’t you recognise the man?”

“No; I only noticed that he was a fine-looking fellow whose appearance reminded me of someone.”

“I suppose it must be true,” mused Bickley, “that we do not know ourselves.”

“So the old Greek thought, since he urged that this should be our special study. ‘Know thyself, ‘ you remember.”

“I meant physically, not intellectually. Arbuthnot, do you mean to tell me that you did not recognise your own double in that man? Shave off your beard and put on his clothes and no one could distinguish you apart.”

I sprang up, dropping my pipe.

“Now you mention it,” I said slowly, “I suppose there was a resemblance. I didn’t look at him very much; I was studying the simulacrum of Yva. Also, you know it is some time since--I mean, there are no pier-glasses in Orofena.”

“The man was you,” went on Bickley with conviction. “If I were superstitious I should think it a queer sort of omen. But as I am not, I know that I must be mad.”

“Why? After all, an ancient man and a modern man might resemble each other.”

“There are degrees in resemblance,” said Bickley with one of his contemptuous snorts. “It won’t do, Humphrey, my boy,” he added. “I can only think of one possible explanation--outside of the obvious one of madness.”

“What is that?”

“The Glittering Lady produced what Bastin called that cinematograph show in some way or other, did she not? She said that in order to do this she loosed some hidden forces. I suggest that she did nothing of the sort.”

“Then whence did the pictures come and why?”

“From her own brain, in order to impress us with a cock-and-bull, fairy-book story. If this were so she would quite naturally fill the role of the lover of the piece with the last man who had happened to impress her. Hence the resemblance.”

“You presuppose a great deal, Bickley, including supernatural cunning and unexampled hypnotic influence. I don’t know, first, why she should be so anxious to add another impression to the many we have received in this place; and, secondly, if she was, how she managed to mesmerise three average but totally different men into seeing the same things. My explanation is that you were deceived as to the likeness, which, mind you, I did not recognise; nor, apparently, did Bastin.”

“Bastin never recognises anything. But if you are in doubt, ask Yva herself. She ought to know. Now I’m off to try to analyse that confounded Life-water, which I suspect is of the ordinary spring variety, lightened up with natural carbonic acid gas and possibly not uninfluenced by radium. The trouble is that here I can only apply some very elementary tests.”

So he went also, in an opposite direction to Bastin, and I was left alone with Tommy, who annoyed me much by attempting continually to wander off into the cave, whence I must recall him. I suppose that my experiences of the day, reviewed beneath the sweet influences of the wonderful tropical night, affected me. At any rate, that mystical side of my nature, to which I think I alluded at the beginning of this record, sprang into active and, in a sense, unholy life. The normal vanished, the abnormal took possession, and that is unholy to most of us creatures of habit and tradition, at any rate, if we are British. I lost my footing on the world; my spirit began to wander in strange places; of course, always supposing that we have a spirit, which Bickley would deny.

I gave up reason; I surrendered myself to unreason; it is a not unpleasant process, occasionally. Supposing now that all we see and accept is but the merest fragment of the truth, or perhaps only a refraction thereof? Supposing that we do live again and again, and that our animating principle, whatever it might be, does inhabit various bodies, which, naturally enough, it would shape to its own taste and likeness? Would that taste and likeness vary so very much over, let us say, a million years or so, which, after all, is but an hour, or a minute, in the aeons of Eternity?

On this hypothesis, which is so wild that one begins to suspect that it may be true, was it impossible that I and that murdered man of the far past were in fact identical? If the woman were the same, preserved across the gulf in some unknown fashion, why should not her lover be the same? What did I say--her lover? Was I her lover? No, I was the lover of one who had died--my lost wife. Well, if I had died and lived again, why should not--why should not that Sleeper--have lived again during her long sleep? Through all those years the spirit must have had some home, and, if so, in what shapes did it live? There were points, similarities, which rushed in upon me--oh! it was ridiculous. Bickley was right. We were all mad!

There was another thing. Oro had declared that we were at war with Germany. If this were so, how could he know it? Such knowledge would presume powers of telepathy or vision beyond those given to man. I could not believe that he possessed these; as Bickley said, it would be past experience. Yet it was most strange that he who was uninformed as to our national history and dangers, should have hit upon a country with which we might well have been plunged into sudden struggle. Here again I was bewildered and overcome. My brain rocked. I would seek sleep, and in it escape, or at any rate rest from all these mysteries.

On the following morning we despatched Bastin to keep his rendezvous in the sepulchre at the proper time. Had we not done so I felt sure that he would have forgotten it, for on this occasion he was for once an unwilling missioner. He tried to persuade one of us to come with him--even Bickley would have been welcome; but we both declared that we could not dream of interfering in such a professional matter; also that our presence was forbidden, and would certainly distract the attention of his pupil.

“What you mean,” said the gloomy Bastin, “is that you intend to enjoy yourselves up here in the female companionship of the Glittering Lady whilst I sit thousands of feet underground attempting to lighten the darkness of a violent old sinner whom I suspect of being in league with Satan.”

“With whom you should be proud to break a lance,” said Bickley.

“So I am, in the daylight. For instance, when he uses your mouth to advance his arguments. Bickley, but this is another matter. However, if I do not appear again you will know that I died in a good cause, and, I hope, try to recover my remains and give them decent burial. Also, you might inform the Bishop of how I came to my end, that is, if you ever get an opportunity, which is more than doubtful.”

“Hurry up, Bastin, hurry up!” said the unfeeling Bickley, “or you will be late for your appointment and put your would-be neophyte into a bad temper.”

Then Bastin went, carrying under his arm a large Bible printed in the language of the South Sea Islands.