us. In our world
there is nothing like to it."

"Perchance there will be in the future when the nations grow more
skilled in the arts of war," said Oro darkly.

"Be pleased, Lord Oro," I went on, "if it is your will, to tell us why
the people who built this place chose to live in the bowels of the earth
instead of upon its surface."

"They did not choose; it was forced upon them," was the answer. "This
is a city of refuge that they occupied in time of war, not because
they hated the sun. In time of peace and before the Barbarians dared to
attack them, they dwelt in the city Pani which signifies Above. You may
have noted some of its remaining ruins on the mount and throughout the
island. The rest of them are now beneath the sea. But when trouble came
and the foe rained fire on them from the air, they retreated to this
town, Nyo, which signifies Beneath."

"And then?"

"And then they died. The Water of Life may prolong life, but it cannot
make women bear children. That they will only do beneath the blue of
heaven, not deep in the belly of the world where Nature never designed
that they should dwell. How would the voices of children sound in such
halls as these? Tell me, you, Bickley, who are a physician."

"I cannot. I cannot imagine children in such a place, and if born here
they would die," said Bickley.

Oro nodded.

"They did die, and if they went above to Pani they were murdered. So
soon the habit of birth was lost and the Sons of Wisdom perished one by
one. Yes, they who ruled the world and by tens of thousands of years
of toil had gathered into their bosoms all the secrets of the world,
perished, till only a few, and among them I and this daughter of mine,
were left."

"And then?"

"Then, Humphrey, having power so to do, I did what long I had
threatened, and unchained the forces that work at the world's heart, and
destroyed them who were my enemies and evil, so that they perished by
millions, and with them all their works. Afterwards we slept, leaving
the others, our subjects who had not the secret of this Sleep, to die,
as doubtless they did in the course of Nature or by the hand of the foe.
The rest you know."

"Can such a thing happen again?" asked Bickley in a voice that did not
hide his disbelief.

"Why do you question me, Bickley, you who believe nothing of what I tell
you, and therefore make wrath? Still I will say this, that what I caused
to happen I can cause once more--only once, I think-