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
It is because I have come in touch with a prolonged though perfectly
finite existence of the sort, that I try to pass on the reflections
which the fact of it awoke in me. There are other reflections connected
with Yva and the marvel of her love and its various manifestations
which arise also. But these I keep to myself. They concern the wonder
of woman’s heart, which is a microcosm of the hopes and fears and
desires and despairs of this humanity of ours whereof from age to age
she is the mother.
HUMPHREY ARBUTHNOT.
NOTE By J. R. Bickley, M.R.C.S.
Within about six months of the date on which he wrote the last words of
this history of our joint adventures, my dear friend, Humphrey
Arbuthnot, died suddenly, as I had foreseen that probably he would do,
from the results of the injury he received in the island of Orofena.
He left me the sole executor to his will, under which he divided his
property into three parts. One third he bequeathed to me, one third
(which is strictly tied up) to Bastin, and one third to be devoted,
under my direction, to the advancement of Science.
His end appears to have been instantaneous, resulting from an effusion
of blood upon the brain. When I was summoned I found him lying dead by
the writing desk in his library at Fulcombe Priory. He had been writing
at the desk, for on it was a piece of paper on which appear these
words: “_I have seen her. I_—” There the writing ends, not stating whom
he thought he had seen in the moments of mental disturbance or delusion
which preceded his decease.
Save for certain verbal corrections, I publish this manuscript without
comment as the will directs, only adding that it sets out our mutual
experiences very faithfully, though Arbuthnot’s deductions from them
are not always my own.
I would say also that I am contemplating another visit to the South Sea
Islands, where I wish to make some further investigations. I dare say,
however, that these will be barren of results, as the fountain of
Life-water is buried for ever, nor, as I think, will any human being
stand again in the Hades-like halls of Nyo. It is probable also that it
would prove impossible to rediscover the island of Orofena, if indeed
that volcanic land still remains above the waters of the deep.
Now that he is a very wealthy man, Bastin talks of accompanying me for
purposes quite different from my own, but on the whole I hope he will
abandon this idea. I may add that when he learned of his unexpected
inheritance he talked much of the “deceitfulness of riches,” but that
he has not as yet taken any steps to escape their golden snare. Indeed
he now converses of his added “opportunities of usefulness,” I gather
in connection with missionary enterprise.
J. R. BICKLEY.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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