s to the
loss of the yacht Star of the South. Then we crossed America, having
obtained funds by cable, and sailed for England in a steamer flying the
flag of the United States.

Of the great war which made this desirable I do not speak since it
has nothing, or rather little, to do with this history. In the end
we arrived safely at Liverpool, and thence travelled to our homes in
Devonshire.

Thus ended the history of our dealings with Oro, the super-man who began
his life more than two hundred and fifty thousand years ago, and with
his daughter, Yva, whom Bastin still often calls the Glittering Lady.

Chapter XXVII. Bastin Discovers a Resemblance

There is little more to tell.

Shortly after our return Bickley, like a patriotic Englishman,
volunteered for service at the front and departed in the uniform of the
R.A.M.C. Before he left he took the opportunity of explaining to Bastin
how much better it was in such a national emergency as existed, to
belong to a profession in which a man could do something to help the
bodies of his countrymen that had been broken in the common cause, than
to one like his in which it was only possible to pelt them with vain
words.

"You think that, do you, Bickley?" answered Bastin. "Well, I hold that
it is better to heal souls than bodies, because, as even you will have
learned out there in Orofena, they last so much longer."

"I am not certain that I learned anything of the sort," said Bickley,
"or even that Oro was more than an ordinary old man. He said that he
had lived a thousand years, but what was there to prove this except his
word, which is worth nothing?"

"There was the Lady Yva's word also, which is worth a great deal,
Bickley."

"Yes, but she may have meant a thousand moons. Further, as according
to her own showing she was still quite young, how could she know her
father's age?"

"Quite so, Bickley. But all she actually said was that she was of the
same age as one of our women of twenty-seven, which may have meant two
hundred and seventy for all I know. However, putting that aside you
will admit that they had both slept for two hundred and fifty thousand
years."

"I admit that they slept, Bastin, because I helped to awaken them, but
for how long there is nothing to show, except those star maps which are
probably quite inaccurate."

"They are not inaccurate," I broke in, "for I have had them checked by
leading astronomers who say that they show a marvelous