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
“Yes, Friend-from-the-Sea. Like many other marvels they happen where
you and your companions are. Therefore we beg you who can arise out of
the earth like spirits, to leave us at once before our island and all
of us who dwell thereon are drowned beneath the ocean. Leave us before
we kill you, if indeed you be men, or die at your hands if, as we
think, you be evil spirits who can throw up mountains and drag them
down, and create gods that slay, and move about in the bowels of the
world.”
“That is our intention, for our business here is done,” I answered
calmly. “Come now and help us to depart. But first bring us food. Bring
it in plenty, for we must victual our boat.”
Marama bowed and issued the necessary orders. Indeed food sufficient
for our immediate needs was already there as an offering, and of it we
ate with thankfulness.
Then we boarded the ship and examined the lifeboat. Thanks to our
precautions it was still in very fair order and only needed some little
caulking which we did with grass fibre and pitch from the stores. After
this with the help of the Orofenans who worked hard in their desperate
desire to be rid of us, we drew the boat into the sea, and provisioned
her with stores from the ship, and with an ample supply of water.
Everything being ready at last, we waited for the evening wind which
always blew off shore, to start. As it was not due for half an hour or
more, I walked back to the tree under which we had slept and tried to
find the hole whence we had emerged from the tunnel on to the face of
the cliff.
My hurried search proved useless. The declivity of the cliff was
covered with tropical growth, and the heavy rain had washed away every
trace of our descent, and very likely filled the hole itself with
earth. At any rate, of it I could discover nothing. Then as the breeze
began to blow I returned to the boat and here bade adieu to Marama, who
gave me his feather cloak as a farewell gift.
“Good-bye, Friend-from-the-Sea,” he said to me. “We are glad to have
seen you and thank you for many things. But we do not wish to see you
any more.”
“Good-bye, Marama,” I answered. “What you say, we echo. At least you
have now no great lump upon your neck and we have rid you of your
wizards. But beware of the god Oro who dwells in the mountain, for if
you anger him he will sink your island beneath the sea.”
“And remember all that I have taught you,” shouted Bastin.
Marama shivered, though whether at the mention of the god Oro, of whose
powers the Orofenans had so painful a recollection, or at the result of
Bastin’s teachings, I do not know. And that was the last we shall ever
see of each other in this world.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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