"Bastin told me nothing, except that he was afraid of the descent to Nyo; that he hated Nyo when he reached it, as indeed Ido, and that he thought that my father, the Lord Oro, was a devil or evil spirit from some Under-world which he called hell.""Bastin has an open heart and an open mouth," said Bickley, "for which I respect him.Follow his example if you will, Lady Yva, and tell us who and what is the Lord Oro, and who and what are you.""Have we not done so already? If not, I will repeat.The Lord Oro and I are two who have lived on from the old time when the world was different, and yet, I think, the same.He is a man and not a god, and I am a woman.His powers are great because of his knowledge, which he has gathered from his forefathers and in a life of a thousand years before he went to sleep.He can do things you cannot do.Thus, he can pass through space and take others with him, and return again.He can learn what is happening in far-off parts of the world, as he did when he told you of the war in which your country is concerned.He has terrible powers;for instance, he can kill, as he killed those savages.Also, he knows the secrets of the earth, and, if it pleases him, can change its turning so that earthquakes happen and sea becomes land, and land sea, and the places that were hot grow cold, and those that were cold grow hot.""All of which things have happened many time in the history of the globe," said Bickley, "without the help of the Lord Oro.""Others had knowledge before my father, and others doubtless will have knowledge after him.Even I, Yva, have some knowledge, and knowledge is strength.""Yes," I interposed, "but such powers as you attribute to your father are not given to man.""You mean to man as you know him, man like Bickley, who thinks that he has learned everything that was ever learned.But it is not so.Hundreds of thousands of years ago men knew more than it seems they do today, ten times more, as they lived ten times longer, or so you tell me.""Men?" I said.
"Yes, men, not gods or spirits, as the uninstructed nations supposed them to be.My father is a man subject to the hopes and terrors of man.He desires power which is ambition, and when the world refused his rule, he destroyed that part of it which rebelled, which is revenge.Moreover, above all things he dreads death, which is fear.That is why he suspended life in himself and me for two hundred and fifty thousand years, as his knowledge gave him strength to do, because death was near and he thought that sleep was better than death.""Why should he dread to die," asked Bickley, "seeing that sleep and death are the same?""Because his knowledge tells him that Sleep and Death are not the same, as you, in your foolishness, believe, for there Bastin is wiser than you.Because for all his wisdom he remains ignorant of what happens to man when the Light of Life is blown out by the breath of Fate.That is why he fears to die and why he talks with Bastin the Preacher, who says he has the secret of the future.""And do you fear to die?" I asked.
"No, Humphrey," she answered gently."Because I think that there is no death, and, having done no wrong, I dread no evil.Ihad dreams while I was asleep, O Humphrey, and it seemed to me that--"Here she ceased and glanced at where she knew the miniature was hanging upon my breast.
"Now," she continued, after a little pause, "tell me of your world, of its history, of its languages, of what happens there, for I long to know."So then and there, assisted by Bickley, I began the education of the Lady Yva.I do not suppose that there was ever a more apt pupil in the whole earth.To begin with, she was better acquainted with every subject on which I touched than I was myself; all she lacked was information as to its modern aspect.
Her knowledge ended two hundred and fifty thousand years ago, at which date, however, it would seem that civilisation had already touched a higher water-mark than it has ever since attained.
Thus, this vanished people understood astronomy, natural magnetism, the force of gravity, steam, also electricity to some subtle use of which, I gathered, the lighting of their underground city was to be attributed.They had mastered architecture and the arts, as their buildings and statues showed;they could fly through the air better than we have learned to do within the last few years.
More, they, or some of them, had learned the use of the Fourth Dimension, that is their most instructed individuals, could move through opposing things, as well as over them, up into them and across them.This power these possessed in a two-fold form.Imean, that they could either disintegrate their bodies at one spot and cause them to integrate again at another, or they could project what the old Egyptians called the Ka or Double, and modern Theosophists name the Astral Shape, to any distance.
Moreover, this Double, or Astral Shape, while itself invisible, still, so to speak, had the use of its senses.It could see, it could hear, and it could remember, and, on returning to the body, it could avail itself of the experience thus acquired.