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
I understood her to refer to what we call clairvoyance, when the person
entranced reveals secret or distant things to the entrancer. This is a
more or less established phenomenon and much less marvelous than the
actual transportation of the spiritual self through space. Only I never
knew of an instance in which the seer, on awaking, remembered the
things that he had seen, as in my case. There, however, the matter
rested, or rests, for I could extract nothing more from Yva, who
appeared to me to have her orders on the point.
Nor did Oro ever talk of what I had seemed to see in his company,
although he continued from time to time to visit me at night. But now
our conversation was of other matters. As Bastin had discovered, by
some extraordinary gift he had soon learned how to read the English
language, although he never spoke a single word in that tongue. Among
our reference books that we brought from the yacht, was a thin paper
edition of the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, which he borrowed when he
discovered that it contained compressed information about the various
countries of the world, also concerning almost every other matter. My
belief is that within a month or so that marvelous old man not only
read this stupendous work from end to end, but that he remembered
everything of interest which it contained. At least, he would appear
and show the fullest acquaintance with certain subjects or places,
seeking further light from me concerning them, which very often I was
quite unable to give him.
An accident, as it chanced, whereof I need not set out the details,
caused me to discover that his remarkable knowledge was limited. Thus,
at one period, he knew little about any modern topic which began with a
letter later in the alphabet than, let us say, C. A few days afterwards
he was acquainted with those up to F, or G; and so on till he reached
Z, when he appeared to me to know everything, and returned the book.
Now, indeed, he was a monument of learning, very ancient and very new,
and with some Encyclopedia-garnered facts or deductions of what had
happened between.
Moreover, he took to astronomical research, for more than once we saw
him standing on the rock at night studying the heavens. On one of these
occasions, when he had the two metal plates, of which I have spoken, in
his hands, I ventured to approach and ask what he did. He replied that
he was checking his calculations that he found to be quite correct, an
exact period of two hundred and fifty thousand years having gone by
since he laid himself down to sleep. Then, by aid of the plates, he
pointed out to me certain alterations that had happened during that
period in the positions of some of the stars.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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