“Fool!  I, Oro, am that giant.  Once in the dead days I turned the balance of the world from the right-hand road which now is dull with disuse, to the left-hand road which glitters so brightly to your eyes, and the face of the earth was changed.  Now again I will turn it from the left-hand road to the right-hand road in which for millions of years it was wont to run, and once more the face of the earth shall change, and those who are left living upon the earth, or who in the course of ages shall come to live upon the new earth, must bow down to Oro and take him and his seed to be their gods and kings.”

When I heard this I was overwhelmed and could not answer.  Also I remembered a certain confused picture which Yva had shown to us in the Temple of Nyo.  But supported by his disbelief, Bickley asked: 

“And how often does the balance of which you speak come this way, Lord Oro?”

“Once only in many years; the number is my secret, Bickley,” he replied.

“Then there is every reason to hope that it will not trouble us,” remarked Bickley with a suspicion of mockery in his voice.

“Do you think so, you learned Bickley?” asked Oro.  “If so, I do not.  Unless my skill has failed me and my calculations have gone awry, that Traveller of which I tell should presently be with us.  Hearken now!  What is that sound we hear?”

As he spoke there reached our ears the first, far-off murmurs of a dreadful music.  I cannot describe it in words because that is impossible, but it was something like to the buzz of a thousand humming-tops such as are loved by children because of their weird song.

“Back to the wall!” cried Oro triumphantly.  “The time is short!”

So back we went, Oro pausing a while behind and overtaking us with long, determined strides.  Yva led us, gliding at my side and, as I thought, now and again glanced at my face with a look that was half anxious and half pitiful.  Also twice she stooped and patted Tommy.

We reached the wall, though not quite at the spot whence we had started to examine the grooved roads.  At least I think this was so, since now for the first time I observed a kind of little window in its rocky face.  It stood about five feet from its floor level, and was perhaps ten inches square, not more.  In short, except for its shape it resembled a ship’s porthole rather than a window.  Its substance appeared to be talc, or some such material, and inches thick, yet through it, after Oro had cast aside some sort of covering, came a glare like that of a search-light.  In fact it was a search-light so far as concerned one of its purposes.