“Don’t you think we had better go back?” asked Bastin. “Evidently my words have touched them and their minds are melting beneath the light of Truth.”
“Oh! by all means,” replied Bickley with sarcasm; “for then their spears will touch us, and our bodies will soon be melting above the fires of that pit.”
“Perhaps you are right,” said Bastin; “at least, I admit that you have made matters very difficult by your unjustifiable homicide of that priest who I do not think meant to injure you seriously, and really was not at all a bad fellow, though opinionated in some ways. Also, I do not suppose that anybody is expected, as it were, to run his head into the martyr’s crown. When it settles there of itself it is another matter.”
“Like a butterfly!” exclaimed the enraged Bickley.
“Yes, if you like to put it that way, though the simile seems a very poor one; like a sunbeam would be better.”
Here Bickley gave way with his paddle so vigorously that the canoe was as nearly as possible upset into the lake.
In due course we reached the flat Rock of Offerings, which proved to be quite as wide as a double croquet lawn and much longer.
“What are those?” I asked, pointing to certain knobs on the edge of the rock at a spot where a curved projecting point made a little harbour.
Bickley examined them, and answered:
“I should say that they are the remains of stone mooring-posts worn down by many thousands of years of weather. Yes, look, there is the cut of the cables upon the base of that one, and very big cables they must have been.”
We stared at one another—that is, Bickley and I did, for Bastin was still engaged in contemplating the blackened head of the god which he had overthrown.
IX
The Island in the Lake
We made the canoe fast and landed on the great rock, to perceive that it was really a peninsula. That is to say, it was joined to the main land of the lake island by a broad roadway quite fifty yards across, which appeared to end in the mouth of the cave. On this causeway we noted a very remarkable thing, namely, two grooves separated by an exact distance of nine feet which ran into the mouth of the cave and vanished there.
“Explain!” said Bickley.
“Paths,” I said, “worn by countless feet walking on them for thousands of years.”
“You should cultivate the art of observation, Arbuthnot. What do you say, Bastin?”
He stared at the grooves through his spectacles, and replied:
“I don’t say anything, except that I can’t see anybody to make paths here. Indeed, the place seems quite unpopulated, and all the Orofenans told me that they never landed on it because if they did they would die. It is a part of their superstitious nonsense. If you have any idea in your head you had better tell us quickly before we breakfast. I am very hungry.”
“You always are,” remarked Bickley; “even when most people’s appetites might have been affected. Well, I think that this great plateau was once a landing-place for flying machines, and that there is the air-shed or garage.”
Bastin stared at him.
“Don’t you think we had better breakfast?” he said. “There are two roast pigs in that canoe, and lots of other food, enough to last us a week, I should say. Of course, I understand that the blood you have shed has thrown you off your balance. I believe it has that effect, except on the most hardened. Flying machines were only invented a few years ago by the brothers Wright in America.”
“Bastin,” said Bickley, “I begin to regret that I did not leave you to take part in another breakfast yonder—I mean as the principal dish.”
“It was Providence, not you, who prevented it, Bickley, doubtless because I am unworthy of such a glorious end.”
“Then it is lucky that Providence is a good shot with a pistol. Stop talking nonsense and listen. If those were paths worn by feet they would run to the edge of the rock. They do not. They begin there in that gentle depression and slope upwards somewhat steeply. The air machines, which were evidently large, lit in the depression, possibly as a bird does, and then ran on wheels or sledge skids along the grooves to the air-shed in the mountain. Come to the cave and you will see.”
“Not till we have breakfast,” said Bastin. “I will get out a pig. As a matter of fact, I had no supper last night, as I was taking a class of native boys and making some arrangements of my own.”
As for me, I only whistled. It all seemed very feasible. And yet how could such things be?
We unloaded the canoe and ate. Bastin’s appetite was splendid. Indeed, I had to ask him to remember that when this supply was done I did not know where we should find any more.
“Take no thought for the morrow,” he replied. “I have no doubt it will come from somewhere,” and he helped himself to another chop.
Never had I admired him so much. Not a couple of hours before he was about to be cruelly murdered and eaten. But this did not seem to affect him in the least. Bastin was the only man I have ever known with a really perfect faith. It is a quality worth having and one that makes for happiness. What a great thing not to care whether you are breakfasted on, or breakfast!
“I see that there is lots of driftwood about here,” he remarked, “but unfortunately we have no tea, so in this climate it is of little use, unless
