"Humphrey, you have often asked me about the city Pani, of which a little portion of the ruins remains upon this island, the rest being buried beneath the waters. If you wish I will show you where our royal palace was before the barbarians destroyed it with their airships. The moon is very bright, and by it we can see."
I nodded, for, knowing what she meant, somehow I could not answer her, and we began the ascent of the hill. She explained to me the plan of the palace when we reached the ruins, showing me where her own apartments had been, and the rest. It was very strange to hear her quietly telling of buildings which had stood and of things that had happened over two hundred and fifty thousand years before, much as any modern lady might do of a house that had been destroyed a month ago by an earthquake or a Zeppelin bomb, while she described the details of a disaster which now frightened her no more. I think it was then that for the first time I really began to believe that in fact Yva had lived all those aeons since and been as she still appeared.
We passed from the palace to the ruins of the temple, through what, as she said, had been a pleasure–garden, pointing out where a certain avenue of rare palms had grown, down which once it was her habit to walk in the cool of the day. Or, rather, there were two terraced temples, one dedicated to Fate like that in the underground city of Nyo, and the other to Love. Of the temple to Fate she told me her father had been the High Priest, and of the temple to Love she was the High Priestess.
Then it was that I understood why she had brought me here.
She led the way to a marble block covered with worn–out carvings and almost buried in the debris. This, she said, was the altar of offerings. I asked her what offerings, and she replied with a smile:
"Only wine, to signify the spirit of life, and flowers to symbolise its fragrance," and she laid her finger on a cup–like depression, still apparent in the marble, into which the wine was poured.
Indeed, I gathered that there was nothing coarse or bacchanalian about this worship of a prototype of Aphrodite; on the contrary, that it was more or less spiritual and ethereal. We sat down on the altar stone. I wondered a little that she should have done so, but she read my thought, and answered:
"Sometimes we change our faiths, Humphrey, or perhaps they grow. Also, have I not told you that sacrifices were offered on this altar?" and she sighed and smiled.
I do not know which was the sweeter, the smile or the sigh.
We looked at the water glimmering in the crater beneath us on the edge of which we sat. We looked at heaven above in which the great moon sailed royally. Then we looked into each other's eyes.
"I love you," I said.
"I know it," she answered gently. "You have loved me from the first, have you not? Even when I lay asleep in the coffin you began to love me, but until you dreamed a certain dream you would not admit it."
"Yva, what was the meaning of that dream?"
"I cannot say, Humphrey. But I tell you this. As you will learn in time, one spirit may be clothed in different garments of the flesh."
I did not understand her, but, in some strange way, her words brought to my mind those that Natalie spoke at the last, and I answered:
"Yva, when my wife lay dying she bade me seek her elsewhere, for certainly I should find her. Doubtless she meant beyond the shores of death—or perhaps she also dreamed."
She bent her head, looking at me very strangely.
"Your wife, too, may have had the gift of dreams, Humphrey. As you dream and I dream, so mayhap she dreamed. Of dreams, then, let us say no more, since I think that they have served their purpose, and all three of us understand."
Then I stretched out my arms, and next instant my head lay upon her perfumed breast. She lifted it and kissed me on the lips, saying:
"With this kiss again I give myself to you. But oh! Humphrey, do not ask too much of the god of my people, Fate," and she looked me in the eyes and sighed.
"What do you mean?" I asked, trembling.
"Many, many things. Among them, that happiness is not for mortals, and remember that though my life began long ago, I am mortal as you are, and that in eternity time makes no difference."
"And if so, Yva, what then? Do we meet but to part?"
"Who said it? Not I. Humphrey, I tell you this. Nor earth, nor heaven, nor hell have any bars through which love cannot burst its way towards reunion and completeness. Only there must be love, manifested in many shapes and at many times, but ever striving to its end, which is not of the flesh. Aye, love that has lost itself, love scorned, love defeated, love that seems false, love betrayed, love gone astray, love wandering through the worlds, love asleep and living in its sleep, love awake and yet sleeping; all love that has in it the germ of life. It matters not what form love takes. If it be true I tell you that it will win its way, and in the many that it has seemed to worship, still find the one, though perchance not here."
At her words a numb fear gripped my heart.
"Not here? Then where?" I said.
"Ask your dead wife, Humphrey. Ask the dumb stars. Ask the God you worship, for I cannot answer, save in one word—Somewhere! Man, be not afraid. Do you think that such as you and I can be lost in the aching abysms of space? I know but little, yet I tell you that we are its rulers. I tell you that we, too, are gods, if only we can aspire and believe. For the doubting and timid there is naught. For those who see with the eyes of the soul and stretch out their hands to grasp there is all. Even Bastin will tell you this."
"But," I said, "life is short. Those worlds are far away, and you are near."
She became wonderful, mysterious.
"Near I am far," she said; "and far I am near, if only this love of yours is strong enough to follow and to clasp. And, Humphrey, it needs strength, for here I am afraid that it will bear little of such fruit as men desire to pluck."
Again terror took hold of me, and I looked at her, for I did not know what to say or ask.
"Listen," she went on. "Already my father has offered me to you in marriage, has he not, but at a price which you do not understand? Believe me, it is one that you should never pay, since the rule of the world can be too dearly bought by the slaughter of half the world. And if you would pay it, I cannot."
"But this is madness!" I exclaimed. "Your father has no powers over our earth."
"I would that I could think so, Humphrey. I tell you that he has powers and that it is his purpose to use them as he has done before. You, too, he would use, and me."
"And, if so, Yva, we are lords of ourselves. Let us take each other while we may. Bastin is a priest."
"Lords of ourselves! Why, for ought I know, at this very moment Oro watches us in his thought and laughs. Only in death, Humphrey, shall we pass beyond his reach and become lords of ourselves."
"It is monstrous!" I cried. "There is the boat, let us fly away."
"What boat can bear us out of stretch of the arm of the old god of my people, Fate, whereof Oro is the high priest? Nay, here we must wait our doom."
"Doom," I said—"doom? What then is about to happen?"
"A terrible thing, as I think, Humphrey. Or, rather, it will not happen."
"Why not, if it must?"
"Beloved," she whispered, "Bastin has expounded to me a new faith whereof the master–word is Sacrifice. The terrible thing will not happen because of sacrifice! Ask me no more."
She mused a while, seated there in the moonlight upon the ancient altar of sacrifice, the veil she wore falling about her face and making her mysterious. Then she threw it back, showing her lovely eyes and glittering hair, and laughed.