"Ah!" said Oro, with a smile."I know this--it is war, war as it was when the world was different and yet the same."As he spoke, a motor-bus rumbled past.Another flash and explosion.A man, walking with his arms round the waist of a girl just ahead of us; seemed to be tossed up and to melt.The girl fell in a heap on the pavement; somehow her head and her feet had come quite close together and yet she appeared to be sitting down.The motor-bus burst into fragments and its passengers hurtled through the air, mere hideous lumps that had been men and women.The head of one of them came dancing down the pavement towards us, a cigar still stuck in the corner of its mouth.
"Yes, this is war," said Oro."It makes me young again to see it.But does this city of yours understand?"We watched a while.A crowd gathered.Policemen ran up, ambulances came.The place was cleared, and all that was left they carried away.A few minutes later another man passed by with his arm round the waist of another girl.Another motor-bus rumbled up, and, avoiding the hole in the roadway, travelled on, its conductor keeping a keen look-out for fares.
The street was cleared by the police; the airship continued its course, spawning bombs in the distance, and vanished.The incident was closed.
"Let us go home," said Oro."I have seen enough of your great and wonderful city.I would rest in the quiet of Nyo and think."The next thing that I remember was the voice of Bastin, saying:
"If you don't mind, Arbuthnot, I wish that you would get up.
The Glittering Lady (he still called her that) is coming here to have a talk with me which I should prefer to be private.Excuse me for disturbing you, but you have overslept yourself; indeed, Ithink it must be nine o'clock, so far as I can judge by the sun, for my watch is very erratic now, ever since Bickley tried to clean it.""I am sorry, my dear fellow," I said sleepily, "but do you know I thought I was in London--in fact, I could swear that I have been there.""Then," interrupted Bickley, who had followed Bastin into the hut, giving me that doubtful glance with which I was now familiar, "I wish to goodness that you had brought back an evening paper with you."A night or two later I was again suddenly awakened to feel that Oro was approaching.He appeared like a ghost in the bright moonlight, greeted me, and said:
"Tonight, Humphrey, we must make another journey.I would visit the seat of the war.""I do not wish to go," I said feebly.
"What you wish does not matter," he replied."I wish that you should go, and therefore you must.""Listen, Oro," I exclaimed."I do not like this business; it seems dangerous to me.""There is no danger if you are obedient, Humphrey.""I think there is.I do not understand what happens.Do you make use of what the Lady Yva called the Fourth Dimension, so that our bodies pass over the seas and through mountains, like the vibrations of our Wireless, of which I was speaking to you?""No, Humphrey.That method is good and easy, but I do not use it because if I did we should be visible in the places which we visit, since there all the atoms that make a man would collect together again and be a man.""What, then, do you do?" I asked, exasperated.
"Man, Humphrey, is not one; he is many.Thus, amongst other things he has a Double, which can see and hear, as he can in the flesh, if it is separated from the flesh.""The old Egyptians believed that," I said.
"Did they? Doubtless they inherited the knowledge from us, the Sons of Wisdom.The cup of our learning was so full that, keep it secret as we would, from time to time some of it overflowed among the vulgar, and doubtless thus the light of our knowledge still burns feebly in the world."I reflected to myself that whatever might be their other characteristics, the Sons of Wisdom had lost that of modesty, but I only asked how he used his Double, supposing that it existed.
"Very easily," he answered."In sleep it can be drawn from the body and sent upon its mission by one that is its master.""Then while you were asleep for all those thousands of years your Double must have made many journeys.""Perhaps," he replied quietly, "and my spirit also, which is another part of me that may have dwelt in the bodies of other men.But unhappily, if so I forget, and that is why I have so much to learn and must even make use of such poor instruments as you, Humphrey.""Then if I sleep and you distil my Double out of me, I suppose that you sleep too.In that case who distils your Double out of you, Lord Oro?"He grew angry and answered:
"Ask no more questions, blind and ignorant as you are.It is your part not to examine, but to obey.Sleep now," and again he waved his hand over me.
In an instant, as it seemed, we were standing in a grey old town that I judged from its appearance must be either in northern France or Belgium.It was much shattered by bombardment; the church, for instance, was a ruin; also many of the houses had been burnt.Now, however, no firing was going on for the town had been taken.The streets were full of armed men wearing the German uniform and helmet.We passed down them and were able to see into the houses.In some of these were German soldiers engaged in looting and in other things so horrible that even the unmoved Oro turned away his head.
We came to the market-place.It was crowded with German troops, also with a great number of the inhabitants of the town, most of them elderly men and women with children, who had fallen into their power.The Germans, under the command of officers, were dragging the men from the arms of their wives and children to one side, and with rifle-butts beating back the screaming women.Among the men I noticed two or three priests who were doing their best to soothe their companions and even giving them absolution in hurried whispers.
At length the separation was effected, whereon at a hoarse word of command, a company of soldiers began to fire at the men and continued doing so until all had fallen.Then petty officers went among the slaughtered and with pistols blew out the brains of any who still moved.