“Curse their lights!” ejaculated Bickley, feeling his throat which was bruised.  “I’m glad they are out.”

Bastin limped away in search of his boots, but Bickley and I stood where we were contemplating the awakened Sleeper.  All recollection of the recent tumultuous scene seemed to have passed from his mind, for he was engaged in a study of the heavens.  They were wonderfully brilliant now that the moon was down, brilliant as they only can be in the tropics when the sky is clear.

Something caused me to look round, and there, coming towards us, was she who said her name was Yva.  Evidently all her weakness had departed also, for now she needed no support, but walked with a peculiar gliding motion that reminded me of a swan floating forward on the water.  Well had we named her the Glittering Lady, for in the starlight literally she seemed to glitter.  I suppose the effect came from her golden raiment, which, however, I noticed, as in her father’s case, was not the same that she had worn in the coffin; also from her hair that seemed to give out a light of its own.  At least, she shimmered as she came, her tall shape swaying at every step like a willow in the wind.  She drew near, and I saw that her face, too, had filled out and now was that of one in perfect health and vigour, while her eyes shone softly and seemed wondrous large.

In her hands she carried those two plates of metal which I had seen lying in the coffin of the Sleeper Oro.  These she gave to him, then fell back out of his hearing—­if it were ever possible to do this, a point on which I am not sure—­and began to talk to me.  I noted at once that in the few hours during which she was absent, her knowledge of the Orofenan tongue seemed to have improved greatly as though she had drunk deeply from some hidden fount of memory.  Now she spoke it with readiness, as Oro had done when he addressed the sorcerers, although many of the words she used were not known to me, and the general form of her language appeared archaic, as for instance that of Spenser is compared with modern English.  When she saw I did not comprehend her, however, she would stop and cast her sentences in a different shape, till at length I caught her meaning.  Now I give the substance of what she said.

“You are safe,” she began, glancing first at the palm ropes that lay upon the rock and then at my wrists, one of which was cut.

“Yes, Lady Yva, thanks to your father.”

“You should say thanks to me.  My father was thinking of other things, but I was thinking of you strangers, and from where I was I saw those wicked ones coming to kill you.”

“Oh! from the top of the mountain, I suppose.”

She shook her head and smiled but vouchsafed no further explanation, unless her following words can be so called.  These were: 

“I can see otherwise than with my eyes, if I choose.”  A statement that caused Bickley, who was listening, to mutter: