FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142  
143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   >>   >|  
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. These things, or some of them, soon I shall hope to show you." "Do if you can," said Bickley. "Why not?" interrupted Bastin. "I think the lady's remarks quite reasonable. It seems to me highly improbable if really she has slept for two hundred and fifty thousand years, which, of course, I can't decide, that an immortal spirit would be allowed to remain idle for so long. That would be wallowing in a bed of idleness and shirking its duty which is to do its work. Also, as she tells you, Bickley, you are not half so clever as you think you are in your silly scepticism, and I have no doubt that there are many things in other worlds which would expose your ignorance, if only you could see them." At this moment Oro turned and called his daughter. She went at once, saying: "Come, strangers, and you shall learn." So we followed her. "Daughter," he said, speaking in Orofenan, I think that we might understand, "ask these strangers to bring one of those lamps of theirs that by the light of it I may study these writings." "Perhaps this may serve," said Bickley, suddenly producing an electric torch from his pocket and flashing it into his face. It was his form of repartee for all he had suffered at the hands of this incomprehensible pair. Let me say at once that it was singularly successful. Perhaps the wisdom of the ages in which Oro flourished had overlooked so small a matter as electric torches, or perhaps he did not expect to meet with them in these degenerate days. At any rate for the first and last time in my intercourse with him I saw the god, or lord--the native word bears either meaning--Oro genuinely astonished. He started and stepped back, and for a moment or two seemed a little frightened. Then muttering something as to the cleverness of this light-producing instrument, he motioned to his daughter to take it from Bickley and hold it in a certain position. She obeyed, and in its illumination he began to study the engraved plates, holding one of them in either hand. After a while he gave me one of the plates to hold, and with his disengaged hand pointed successively to the constellation of Orion, to the stars Castor, Pollux, Aldebaran, Rigel, the
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142  
143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
Bickley
 

things

 

electric

 

plates

 

moment

 
strangers
 
producing
 

Perhaps

 
daughter
 

wisdom


madness

 

heavens

 
expect
 

unroll

 
pocket
 

torches

 
degenerate
 
intercourse
 

matter

 

suffered


flashing

 

repartee

 

incomprehensible

 

flourished

 

overlooked

 

successful

 

singularly

 

holding

 

memories

 

engraved


position

 
obeyed
 

illumination

 

disengaged

 

Castor

 
Pollux
 

Aldebaran

 
pointed
 

successively

 
constellation

genuinely
 

astonished

 
started
 
meaning
 

native

 

stepped

 
cleverness
 

instrument

 
motioned
 

muttering