en crushed
in. Only then something broke in your head and you began to bleed here,"
and she touched what I believe is called the temporal artery. "The vein
had been crushed by the blow, and gave way. Bickley worked and worked,
and just in time he tied it up before you died. Oh! then I felt as
though I loved Bickley, though afterwards Bastin said that I ought to
have loved him, since it was not Bickley who stopped the bleeding, but
his prayer."

"Perhaps it was both," I suggested.

"Perhaps, Humphrey, at least you were saved. Then came another trouble.
You took fever. Bickley said that it was because a certain gnat had
bitten you when you went down to the ship, and my father, the Lord Oro,
told me that this was right. At the least you grew very weak and lost
your mind, and it seemed as though you must die. Then, Humphrey, I went
to the Lord Oro and kneeled before him and prayed for your life, for I
knew that he could cure you if he would, though Bickley's skill was at
an end.

"'Daughter,' he said to me, 'not once but again and again you have set
up your will against mine in the past. Why then should I trouble myself
to grant this desire of yours in the present, and save a man who is
nothing to me?'

"I rose to my feet and answered, 'I do not know, my Father, yet I am
certain that for your own sake it will be well to do so. I am sure that
of everything even you must give an account at last, great though you
be, and who knows, perhaps one life which you have saved may turn the
balance in your favour.'

"'Surely the priest Bastin has been talking to you,' he said.

"'He has,' I answered, 'and not he alone. Many voices have been talking
to me.'"

"What did you mean by that?" I asked.

"It matters nothing what I meant, Humphrey. Be still and listen to my
story. My father thought a while and answered:

"'I am jealous of this stranger. What is he but a short-lived
half-barbarian such as we knew in the old days? And yet already you
think more of him than you do of me, your father, the divine Oro who has
lived a thousand years. At first I helped that physician to save him,
but now I think I wish him dead.'

"'If you let this man die, my Father,' I answered, 'then we part.
Remember that I also have of the wisdom of our people, and can use it if
I will.'

"'Then save him yourself,' he said.

"'Perhaps I shall, my Father,' I answered, 'but if so it will not be
here. I say that if so we part and you shall be left to