“Your daughter called you a god and you said that you knew we were coming to wake you up, which is reading the future,” answered Bastin.

“Every father is a god to his daughter, or should be; also in my day millions named me a god because I saw further and struck harder than they could.  As for the rest, it came to me in a vision.  Oh!  Bickley, if you were wiser than you think you are, you would know that all things to come are born elsewhere and travel hither like the light from stars.  Sometimes they come faster before their day into a single mind, and that is what men call prophecy.  But this is a gift which cannot be commanded, even by me.  Also I did not know that you would come.  I knew only that we should awaken and by the help of men, for if none had been present at that destined hour we must have died for lack of warmth and sustenance.”

“I deny your hypothesis in toto,” exclaimed Bickley, but nobody paid any attention to him.

“My father,” said Yva, rising and bowing before him with her swan-like grace, “I have noted your commands.  But do you permit that I show the temple to these strangers, also something of our past?”

“Yes, yes,” he said.  “It will save much talk in a savage tongue that is difficult to me.  But bring them here no more without my command, save Bastin only.  When the sun is four hours high in the upper world, let him come tomorrow to teach me, and afterwards if so I desire.  Or if he wills, he can sleep here.”

“I think I would rather not,” said Bastin hurriedly.  “I make no pretense to being particular, but this place does not appeal to me as a bedroom.  There are degrees in the pleasures of solitude and, in short, I will not disturb your privacy at night.”

Oro waved his hand and we departed down that awful and most dreary hall.

“I hope you will spend a pleasant time here, Bastin,” I said, looking back from the doorway at its cold, illuminated vastness.

“I don’t expect to,” he answered, “but duty is duty, and if I can drag that old sinner back from the pit that awaits him, it will be worth doing.  Only I have my doubts about him.  To me he seems to bear a strong family resemblance to Beelzebub, and he’s a bad companion week in and week out.”

We went through the portico, Yva leading us, and passed the fountain of Life-water, of which she cautioned us to drink no more at present, and to prevent him from doing so, dragged Tommy past it by his collar.  Bickley, however, lingered under the pretence of making a further examination of the statue.  As I had seen him emptying into his pocket the contents of a corked bottle of quinine tabloids which he always carried with him, I guessed very well that his object was to procure a sample of this water for future analysis.  Of course I said nothing, and Yva and Bastin took no note of what he was doing.