“All of which things have happened many times 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.  I had 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.