Pleiades, Sirius and
others which with my very limited knowledge I could not recognise
offhand. Then on the plate which I held, he showed us those same stars
and constellations, checking them one by one.

Then he remarked very quietly that all was in order, and handing the
plate he held to Yva, said:

"The calculations made so long ago are correct, nor have the stars
varied in their proper motions during what is after all but an hour of
time. If you, Stranger, who, I understand, are named Humphrey, should
be, as I gather, a heaven-master, naturally you will ask me how I could
fix an exact date by the stars without an error of, let us say, from
five to ten thousand years. I answer you that by the proper motion of
the stars alone it would have been difficult. Therefore I remember that
in order to be exact, I calculated the future conjunctions of those two
planets," and he pointed to Saturn and Jupiter. "Finding that one of
these occurred near yonder star," and he indicated the bright orb,
Spica, "at a certain time, I determined that then I would awake. 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. It was a terrible thing to look on a being, to all
appearance more or less human, who alleged that he had been asleep
for two hundred and fifty thousand years, and proceeded to prove it by
certain ancient star charts. Of course at the time I could not check
those charts, lacking the necessary knowledge, but I have done so since
and found that they are quite accurate. However this made no difference,
since the circumstances and something in his manner convinced me that he
spoke the absolute truth.

He and his daughter had been asleep for two hundred and fifty thousand
years. Oh! Heavens, for two hundred and fifty thousand years!

Chapter XIII. Oro Speaks and Bastin Argues

The reader of what I have written, should there ever be such a person,
may find the record marvelous, and therefore rashly conclude that
becaus