Chapter 20: Oro and Arbuthnot Travel by Night

As time went on, Oro began to visit me more and more frequently, till at last scarcely a night went by that he did not appear mysteriously in my sleeping-place. The odd thing was that neither Bickley nor Bastin seemed to be aware of these nocturnal calls. Indeed, when I mentioned them on one or two occasions, they stared at me and said it was strange that he should have come and gone as they saw nothing of him.

On my speaking again of the matter, Bickley at once turned the conversation, from which I gathered that he believed me to be suffering from delusions consequent on my illness, or perhaps to have taken to dreaming. This was not wonderful since, as I learned afterwards, Bickley, after he was sure that I was asleep, made a practice of tying a thread across my doorway and of ascertaining at the dawn that it remained unbroken. But Oro was not to be caught in that way. I suppose, as it was impossible for him to pass through the latticework of the open side of the house, that he undid the thread and fastened it again when he left; at least, that was Bastin’s explanation, or, rather, one of them. Another was that he crawled beneath it, but this I could not believe. I am quite certain that during all his prolonged existence Oro never crawled.

At any rate, he came, or seemed to come, and pumped me--I can use no other word--most energetically as to existing conditions in the world, especially those of the civilised countries, their methods of government, their social state, the physical characteristics of the various races, their religions, the exact degrees of civilisation that they had developed, their attainments in art, science and literature, their martial capacities, their laws, and I know not what besides.

I told him all I could, but did not in the least seem to satisfy his perennial thirst for information.

“I should prefer to judge for myself,” he said at last. “Why are you so anxious to learn about all these nations, Oro?” I asked, exhausted.

“Because the knowledge I gather may affect my plans for the future,” he replied darkly.

“I am told, Oro, that your people acquired the power of transporting themselves from place to place.”

“It is true that the lords of the Sons of Wisdom had such power, and that I have it still, O Humphrey.”

“Then why do you not go to look with your own eyes?” I suggested.

“Because I should need a guide; one who could explain much in a short time,” he said, contemplating me with his burning glance until I began to feel uncomfortable.

To change the subject I asked him whether he had any further information about the war, which he had told me was raging in Europe.

He answered: “Not much; only that it was going on with varying success, and would continue to do so until the nations involved therein were exhausted,” or so he believed. The war did not seem greatly to interest Oro. It was, he remarked, but a small affair compared to those which he had known in the old days. Then he departed, and I went to sleep.

Next night he appeared again, and, after talking a little on different subjects, remarked quietly that he had been thinking over what I had said as to his visiting the modern world, and intended to act upon the suggestion.

“When?” I asked.

“Now,” he said. “I am going to visit this England of yours and the town you call London, and you will accompany me.”

“It is not possible!” I exclaimed. “We have no ship.”

“We can travel without a ship,” said Oro.

I grew alarmed, and suggested that Bastin or Bickley would be a much better companion than I should in my present weak state.

“An empty-headed man, or one who always doubts and argues, would be useless,” he replied sharply. “You shall come and you only.”

I expostulated; I tried to get up and fly--which, indeed, I did do, in another sense.

But Oro fixed his eyes upon me and slowly waved his thin hand to and fro above my head.

My senses reeled. Then came a great darkness.

They returned again. Now I was standing in an icy, reeking fog, which I knew could belong to one place only--London, in December, and at my side was Oro.

“Is this the climate of your wonderful city?” he asked, or seemed to ask, in an aggrieved tone.

I replied that it was, for about three months in the year, and began to look about me.

Soon I found my bearings. In front of me were great piles of buildings, looking dim and mysterious in the fog, in which I recognised the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey, for both could be seen from where we stood in front of the Westminster Bridge Station. I explained their identity to Oro.

“Good,” he said. “Let us enter your Place of Talk.”

“But I am not a member, and we have no passes for the Strangers’ Gallery,” I expostulated.

“We shall not need any,” he replied contemptuously. “Lead on.”

Thus adjured, I crossed the road, Oro following me. Looking round, to my horror I saw him right in the path of a motor-bus which seemed to go over him.

“There’s an end to Oro,” thought I to myself. “Well, at any rate, I have got home.”

Next instant he was at my side quite undisturbed by the incident of the bus. We came to a policeman at the door and I hesitated, expecting to be challenged. But the policeman seemed absolutely indifferent to our presence, even when Oro marched past him in his flowing robes. So I followed with a like success. Then I understood that we must be invisible.

We passed to the lobby, where members were hurrying to and fro, and constituents and pressmen were gathered, and so on into the House. Oro walked up its floor and took his stand by the table, in front of the Speaker. I followed him, none saying us No.

As it chanced there was what is called a scene in progress--I think it was over Irish matters; the details are of no account. Members shouted, Ministers prevaricated and grew angry, the Speaker intervened. On the whole, it was rather a degrading spectacle. I stood, or seemed to stand, and watched it all. Oro, in his sweeping robes, which looked so incongruous in that place, stepped, or seemed to step, up to the principal personages of the Government and Opposition, whom I indicated to him, and inspected them one by one, as a naturalist might examine strange insects. Then, returning to me, he said:

“Come away; I have seen and heard enough. Who would have thought that this nation of yours was struggling for its life in war?”

We passed out of the House and somehow came to Trafalgar Square. A meeting was in progress there, convened, apparently, to advocate the rights of Labour, also those of women, also to protest against things in general, especially the threat of Conscription in the service of the country.

Here the noise was tremendous, and, the fog having lifted somewhat, we could see everything. Speakers bawled from the base of Nelson’s column. Their supporters cheered, their adversaries rushed at them, and in one or two instances succeeded in pulling them down. A woman climbed up and began to scream out something which could only be heard by a few reporters gathered round her. I thought her an unpleasant-looking person, and evidently her remarks were not palatable to the majority of her auditors. There was a rush, and she was dragged from the base of one of Landseer’s lions on which she stood. Her skirt was half rent off her and her bodice split down the back. Finally, she was conveyed away, kicking, biting, and scratching, by a number of police. It was a disgusting sight, and tumult ensued.

“Let us go,” said Oro. “Your officers of order are good; the rest is not good.”

Later we found ourselves opposite to the doors of a famous restaurant where a magnificent and gigantic commissionaire helped ladies from motor-cars, receiving in return money from the men who attended on them. We entered; it was the hour of dinner. The place sparkled with gems, and the naked backs of the women gleamed in the electric light. Course followed upon course; champagne flowed, a fine band played, everything was costly; everything was, in a sense, repellent.

“These are the wealthy citizens of a nation engaged in fighting for its life,” remarked Oro to me, stroking his long beard. “It is interesting, very interesting. Let us go.”

We went out and on, passing a public-house crowded with women who had left their babies in charge of children in the icy street. It was a day of Intercession for the success of England in the war. This was placarded everywhere. We entered, or, rather, Oro did, I following him, one of the churches in the Strand where an evening service was in progress. The preacher in the pulpit, a very able man, was holding forth upon the necessity for national repentance and self-denial; also of prayer. In the body of the church exactly thirty-two people, most of them elderly women, were listening to him with an air of placid acceptance.

“The priest talks well, but his hearers are not many,” said Oro. “Let us go.”

We came to the flaunting doors of a great music-hall and passed through them, though to others this would have been impossible, for the place was filled from floor to roof. In its promenades men were drinking and smoking, while gaudy women, painted and low-robed, leered at them. On the stage girls danced, throwing their legs above their heads. Then they vanished amidst applause, and a woman in a yellow robe, who pretended to be tipsy, sang a horrible and vulgar song full of topical allusions, which was received with screams of delight by the enormous audience.

“Here the hearers are very many, but those to whom they listen do not talk well. Let us go,” said Oro, and we went.

At a recruiting station we paused a moment to consider posters supposed to be attractive, the very sight of which sent a thrill of shame through me. I remember that the inscription under one of them was: “What will your best girl say?”

“Is that how you gather your soldiers? Later it will be otherwise,” said Oro, and passed on.

We reached Blackfriars and entered a hall at the doors of which stood women in poke-bonnets, very sweet-faced, earnest-looking women. Their countenances seemed to strike Oro, and he motioned me to follow him into the hall. It was quite full of a miserable-looking congregation of perhaps a thousand people. A man in the blue and red uniform of the Salvation Army was preaching of duty to God and country, of self-denial, hope and forgiveness. He seemed a humble person, but his words were earnest, and love flowed from him. Some of his miserable congregation wept, others stared at him open-mouthed, a few, who were very weary, slept. He called them up to receive pardon, and a number, led by the sweet-faced women, came and knelt before him. He and others whispered to them, then seemed to bless them, and they rose with their faces changed.

“Let us go,” said Oro. “I do not understand these rites, but at last in your great and wonderful city I have seen something that is pure and noble.”

We went out. In the streets there was great excitement. People ran to and fro pointing upwards. Searchlights, like huge fingers of flame, stole across the sky; guns boomed. At last, in the glare of a searchlight, we saw a long and sinister object floating high above us and gleaming as though it were made of silver. Flashes came from it followed by terrible booming reports that grew nearer and nearer. A house collapsed with a crash just behind us.

“Ah!” said Oro, with a smile. “I know this--it is war, war as it was when the world was different and yet the same.”

As he spoke, a motor-bus rumbled past. Another flash and explosion. A man, walking with his arms round the waist of a girl just ahead of us; seemed to be tossed up and to melt. The girl fell in a heap on the pavement; somehow her head and her feet had come quite close together and yet she appeared to be sitting down. The motor-bus burst into fragments and its passengers hurtled through the air, mere hideous lumps that had been men and women. The head of one of them came dancing down the pavement towards us, a cigar still stuck in the corner of its mouth.

“Yes, this is war,” said Oro. “It makes me young again to see it. But does this city of yours understand?”

We watched a while. A crowd gathered. Policemen ran up, ambulances came. The place was cleared, and all that was left they carried away. A few minutes later another man passed by with his arm round the waist of another girl. Another motor-bus rumbled up, and, avoiding the hole in the roadway, travelled on, its conductor keeping a keen look-out for fares.

The street was cleared by the police; the airship continued its course, spawning bombs in the distance, and vanished. The incident was closed.

“Let us go home,” said Oro. “I have seen enough of your great and wonderful city. I would rest in the quiet of Nyo and think.”

The next thing that I remember was the voice of Bastin, saying:

“If you don’t mind, Arbuthnot, I wish that you would get up. The Glittering Lady (he still called her that) is coming here to have a talk with me which I should prefer to be private. Excuse me for disturbing you, but you have overslept yourself; indeed, I think it must be nine o’clock, so far as I can judge by the sun, for my watch is very erratic now, ever since Bickley tried to clean it.”

“I am sorry, my dear fellow,” I said sleepily, “but do you know I thought I was in London--in fact, I could swear that I have been there.”

“Then,” interrupted Bickley, who had followed Bastin into the hut, giving me that doubtful glance with which I was now familiar, “I wish to goodness that you had brought back an evening paper with you.”

A night or two later I was again suddenly awakened to feel that Oro was approaching. He appeared like a ghost in the bright moonlight, greeted me, and said:

“Tonight, Humphrey, we must make another journey. I would visit the seat of the war.”

“I do not wish to go,” I said feebly.

“What you wish does not matter,” he replied. “I wish that you should go, and therefore you must.”

“Listen, Oro,” I exclaimed. “I do not like this business; it seems dangerous to me.”

“There is no danger if you are obedient, Humphrey.”

“I think there is. I do not understand what happens. Do you make use of what the Lady Yva called the Fourth Dimension, so that our bodies pass over the seas and through mountains, like the vibrations of our Wireless, of which I was speaking to you?”

“No, Humphrey. That method is good and easy, but I do not use it because if I did we should be visible in the places which we visit, since there all the atoms that make a man would collect together again and be a man.”

“What, then, do you do?” I asked, exasperated.

“Man, Humphrey, is not one; he is many. Thus, amongst other things he has a Double, which can see and hear, as he can in the flesh, if it is separated from the flesh.”

“The old Egyptians believed that,” I said.

“Did they? Doubtless they inherited the knowledge from us, the Sons of Wisdom. The cup of our learning was so full that, keep it secret as we would, from time to time some of it overflowed among the vulgar, and doubtless thus the light of our knowledge still burns feebly in the world.”

I reflected to myself that whatever might be their other characteristics, the Sons of Wisdom had lost that of modesty, but I only asked how he used his Double, supposing that it existed.

“Very easily,” he answered. “In sleep it can be drawn from the body and sent upon its mission by one that is its master.”