The Island in the Lake We made the canoe fast and landed on the great rock, to perceive that it was really a peninsula.That is to say, it was joined to the main land of the lake island by a broad roadway quite fifty yards across, which appeared to end in the mouth of the cave.On this causeway we noted a very remarkable thing, namely, two grooves separated by an exact distance of nine feet which ran into the mouth of the cave and vanished there.
"Explain!" said Bickley.
"Paths," I said, "worn by countless feet walking on them for thousands of years.""You should cultivate the art of observation, Arbuthnot.What do you say, Bastin?"He stared at the grooves through his spectacles, and replied:
"I don't say anything, except that I can't see anybody to make paths here.Indeed, the place seems quite unpopulated, and all the Orofenans told me that they never landed on it because if they did they would die.It is a part of their superstitious nonsense.If you have any idea in your head you had better tell us quickly before we breakfast.I am very hungry.""You always are," remarked Bickley; "even when most people's appetites might have been affected.Well, I think that this great plateau was once a landing-place for flying machines, and that there is the air-shed or garage."Bastin stared at him.
"Don't you think we had better breakfast?" he said."There are two roast pigs in that canoe, and lots of other food, enough to last us a week, I should say.Of course, I understand that the blood you have shed has thrown you off your balance.I believe it has that effect, except on the most hardened.Flying machines were only invented a few years ago by the brothers Wright in America.""Bastin," said Bickley, "I begin to regret that I did not leave you to take part in another breakfast yonder--I mean as the principal dish.""It was Providence, not you, who prevented it, Bickley, doubtless because I am unworthy of such a glorious end.""Then it is lucky that Providence is a good shot with a pistol.
Stop talking nonsense and listen.If those were paths worn by feet they would run to the edge of the rock.They do not.They begin there in that gentle depression and slope upwards somewhat steeply.The air machines, which were evidently large, lit in the depression, possibly as a bird does, and then ran on wheels or sledge skids along the grooves to the air-shed in the mountain.
Come to the cave and you will see."
"Not till we have breakfast," said Bastin."I will get out a pig.As a matter of fact, I had no supper last night, as I was taking a class of native boys and making some arrangements of my own."As for me, I only whistled.It all seemed very feasible.And yet how could such things be?
We unloaded the canoe and ate.Bastin's appetite was splendid.
Indeed, I had to ask him to remember that when this supply was done I did not know where we should find any more.
"Take no thought for the morrow," he replied."I have no doubt it will come from somewhere," and he helped himself to another chop.
Never had I admired him so much.Not a couple of hours before he was about to be cruelly murdered and eaten.But this did not seem to affect him in the least.Bastin was the only man I have ever known with a really perfect faith.It is a quality worth having and one that makes for happiness.What a great thing not to care whether you are breakfasted on, or breakfast!
"I see that there is lots of driftwood about here," he remarked, "but unfortunately we have no tea, so in this climate it is of little use, unless indeed we can catch some fish and cook them.""Stop talking about eating and help us to haul up the canoe,"said Bickley.
Between the three of us we dragged and carried the canoe a long way from the lake, fearing lest the natives should come and bear it off with our provisions.Then, having given Tommy his breakfast off the scraps, we walked to the cave.I glanced at my companions.Bickley's face was alight with scientific eagerness.
Here are not dreams or speculations, but facts to be learned, it seemed to say, and I will learn them.The past is going to show me some of its secrets, to tell me how men of long ago lived and died and how far they had advanced to that point on the road of civilisation at which I stand in my little hour of existence.
That of Bastin was mildly interested, no more.Obviously, with half his mind he was thinking of something else, probably of his converts on the main island and of the school class fixed for this hour which circumstances prevented him from attending.
Indeed, like Lot's wife he was casting glances behind him towards the wicked place from which he had been forced to flee.
Neither the past nor the future had much real interest for Bastin; any more than they had for Bickley, though for different reasons.The former was done with; the latter he was quite content to leave in other hands.If he had any clear idea thereof, probably that undiscovered land appeared to him as a big, pleasant place where are no unbelievers or erroneous doctrines, and all sinners will be sternly repressed, in which, clad in a white surplice with all proper ecclesiastical trappings, he would argue eternally with the Early Fathers and in due course utterly annihilate Bickley, that is in a moral sense.
Personally and as a man he was extremely attached to Bickley as a necessary and wrong-headed nuisance to which he had become accustomed.
And I! What did I feel? I do not know; I cannot describe.An extraordinary attraction, a semi-spiritual exaltation, I think.
