When the World Shook: Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and ArbuthnotHaggard, H. Rider (Henry Rider)
Science
When the World Shook: Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot
Haggard, H. Rider (Henry Rider)
Adventure stories; Science fiction
We came to a house set amid scented gardens and having in front of it
terraces of flowers. It seemed not unlike my own house at home, but I
took little note of it, because of a woman who sat upon the verandah,
if I may call it so. She was clad in garments of white silk fastened
about her middle with a jewelled girdle. On her neck also was a collar
of jewels. I forget the colour; indeed this seemed to change
continually as the light from the different moons struck when she
moved, but I think its prevailing tinge was blue. In her arms this
woman nursed a beauteous, sleeping child, singing happily as she rocked
it to and fro. Yva went towards the woman who looked up at her step and
uttered a little cry. Then for the first time I saw the woman’s face.
It was that of my dead wife!
As I followed in my dream, a little cloud of mist seemed to cover both
my wife and Yva, and when I reached the place Yva was gone. Only my
wife remained, she and the child. There she stood, solemn and sweet.
While I drew near she laid down the child upon the cushioned seat from
which she had risen. She stretched out her arms and flung them about
me. She embraced me and I embraced her in a rapture of reunion. Then
turning she lifted up the child, it was a girl, for me to kiss.
“See your daughter,” she said, “and behold all that I am making ready
for you where we shall dwell in a day to come.”
I grew confused.
“Yva,” I said. “Where is Yva who brought me here? Did she go into the
house?”
“Yes,” she answered happily. “Yva went into the house. Look again!”
I looked and it was Yva’s face that was pressed against my own, and
Yva’s eyes that gazed into mine. Only she was garbed as my wife had
been, and on her bosom hung the changeful necklace.
“You may not stay,” she whispered, and lo! it was my wife that spoke,
not Yva.
“Tell me what it means?” I implored.
“I cannot,” she answered. “There are mysteries that you may not know as
yet. Love Yva if you will and I shall not be jealous, for in loving Yva
you love me. You cannot understand? Then know this, that the spirit has
many shapes, and yet is the same spirit—sometimes. Now I who am far,
yet near, bid you farewell a while.”
Then all passed in a flash and the dream ended.
Such was the only one of those visions which I can recall.
I seemed to wake up as from a long and tumultuous sleep. The first
thing I saw was the palm roof of our house upon the rock. I knew it was
our house, for just above me was a palm leaf of which I had myself tied
the stalk to the framework with a bit of coloured ribbon that I had
chanced to find in my pocket. It came originally from the programme
card of a dance that I had attended at Honolulu and I had kept it
because I thought it might be useful. Finally I used it to secure that
loose leaf. I stared at the ribbon which brought back a flood of
memories, and as I was thus engaged I heard voices talking, and
listened—Bickley’s voice, and the Lady Yva’s.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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