Such, said Yva, was the case with their slaves and the peoples from whence these sprang.  They grew mad with jealous hate, till at length came the end we knew.

Thus we talked on for hours till the time came for us to eat.  As before Yva partook of fruit and we of such meats as we had at hand.  These, we noticed, disgusted her, because, as she explained, the Children of Wisdom, unless driven thereto by necessity, touched no flesh, but lived on the fruits of the earth and wine alone.  Only the slaves and the Barbarians ate flesh.  In these views Bickley for once agreed with her, that is, except as regards the wine, for in theory, if not in practice—­he was a vegetarian.

“I will bring you more of the Life-water,” she said, “and then you will grow to hate these dead things, as I do.  And now farewell.  My father calls me.  I hear him though you do not.  To-morrow I cannot come, but the day after I will come and bring you the Life-water.  Nay, accompany me not, but as I see he wishes it, let Tommy go with me.  I will care for him, and he is a friend in all that lonely place.”

So she went, and with her Tommy, rejoicing.

“Ungrateful little devil!” said Bickley.  “Here we’ve fed and petted him from puppyhood, or at least you have, and yet he skips off with the first stranger.  I never saw him behave like that to any woman, except your poor wife.”

“I know,” I answered.  “I cannot understand it.  Hullo! here comes Bastin.”

Bastin it was, dishevelled and looking much the worse for wear, also minus his Bible in the native tongue.

“Well, how have you been getting on?” said Bickley.

“I should like some tea, also anything there is to eat.”

We supplied him with these necessaries, and after a while he said slowly and solemnly: 

“I cannot help thinking of a childish story which Bickley told or invented one night at your house at home.  I remember he had an argument with my wife, which he said put him in mind of it, I am sure I don’t know why.  It was about a monkey and a parrot that were left together under a sofa for a long while, where they were so quiet that everybody forgot them.  Then the parrot came out with only one feather left in its tail and none at all on its body, saying, ‘I’ve had no end of a time!’ after which it dropped down and died.  Do you know, I feel just like that parrot, only I don’t mean to die, and I think I gave the monkey quite as good as he gave me!”

“What happened?” I asked, intensely interested.

“Oh! the Glittering Lady took me into that palace hall where Oro was sitting like a spider in a web, and left me there.  I got to work at once.  He was much interested in the Old Testament stories and said there were points of truth about them, although they had evidently come down to the modern writer—­he called him a modern writer—­in a legendary form.  I thought his remarks impertinent and with difficulty refrained from saying so.  Leaving the story of the Deluge and all that, I spoke of other matters, telling him of eternal life and Heaven and Hell, of which the poor benighted man had never heard.  I pointed out especially that unless he repented, his life, by all accounts, had been so wicked, that he was certainly destined to the latter place.”