“Impossible!  What the deuce can she mean?  Telepathy, perhaps.”

“I saw,” she continued, “and told the Lord, my father.  He came forth.  Did he kill them?  I did not look to learn.”

“Yes.  They lie in the lake, all except three whom he sent away as messengers.”

“I thought so.  Death is terrible, O Humphrey, but it is a sword which those who rule must use to smite the wicked and the savage.”

Not wishing to pursue this subject, I asked her what her father was doing with the metal plates.

“He reads the stars,” she answered, “to learn how long we have been asleep.  Before we went to sleep he made two pictures of them, as they were then and as they should be at the time he had set for our awakening.”

“We set that time,” interrupted Bickley.

“Not so, O Bickley,” she answered, smiling again.  “In the divine Oro’s head was the time set.  You were the hand that executed his decree.”

When Bickley heard this I really thought he would have burst.  However, he controlled himself nobly, being anxious to hear the end of this mysterious fib.

“How long was the time that the lord Oro set apart for sleep?” I asked.

She paused as though puzzled to find words to express her meaning, then held up her hands and said: 

“Ten,” nodding at her fingers.  By second thoughts she took Bickley’s hands, not mine, and counted his ten fingers.

“Ten years,” said Bickley.  “Well, of course, it is impossible, but perhaps—­” and he paused.

“Ten tens,” she went on with a deepening smile, “one hundred.”

“O!” said Bickley.

“Ten hundreds, one thousand.”

“I say!” said Bickley.

“Ten times ten thousand, one hundred thousand.”

Bickley became silent.

“Twice one hundred thousand and half a hundred thousand, two hundred and fifty thousand years.  That was the space of time which the lord Oro, my father, set for our sleep.  Whether it has been fulfilled he will know presently when he has read the book of the stars and made comparison of it with what he wrote before we laid us down to rest,” and she pointed to the metal plates which the Ancient was studying.

Bickley walked away, making sounds as though he were going to be ill and looking so absurd in his indignation that I nearly laughed.  The Lady Yva actually did laugh, and very musical was that laugh.

“He does not believe,” she said.  “He is so clever he knows everything.  But two hundred and fifty thousand years ago we should have thought him quite stupid.  Then we could read the stars and calculate their movements for ever.”

“So can we,” I answered, rather nettled.

“I am glad, O Humphrey, since you will be able to show my father if in one of them he is wrong.”

Secretly I hoped that this task would not be laid on me.  Indeed, I thought it well to change the subject for the edification of Bickley who had recovered and was drawn back by his eager curiosity.  Just then, too, Bastin joined us, happy in his regained boots.