s weapon to carry loaded, I am determined to
take my revolver. If necessary I shall consider myself quite justified
in shooting him to save our lives and those of thousands of others."

At this we both laughed; somehow the idea of Bastin trying to shoot Oro
struck us as intensely ludicrous. Yet that very thing was to happen.

It was a peculiarly beautiful sunset over the southern seas. To the
west the great flaming orb sank into the ocean, to the east appeared
the silver circle of the full moon. To my excited fancy they were like
scales hanging from the hand of a materialised spirit of calm. Over the
volcano and the lake, over the island with its palm trees, over the seas
beyond, this calm brooded. Save for a few travelling birds the sky
was empty; no cloud disturbed its peace; the world seemed steeped in
innocence and quiet.

All these things struck me, as I think they did the others, because by
the action of some simultaneous thought it came to our minds that very
probably we were looking on them for the last time. It is all very well
to talk of the Unknown and the Infinite whereof we are assured we are
the heirs, but that does not make it any easier for us to part with the
Known and the Finite. The contemplation of the wonders of Eternity does
not conceal the advantages of actual and existent Time. In short there
is no one of us, from a sainted archbishop down to a sinful suicide, who
does not regret the necessity of farewell to the pleasant light and the
kindly race of men wherewith we are acquainted.

For after all, who can be quite certain of the Beyond? It may be
splendid, but it will probably be strange, and from strangeness, after a
certain age, we shrink. We know that all things will be different there;
that our human relationships will be utterly changed, that perhaps sex
which shapes so many of them, will vanish to be replaced by something
unknown, that ambitions will lose their hold of us, and that, at the
best, the mere loss of hopes and fears will leave us empty. So at least
we think, who seek not variation but continuance, since the spirit must
differ from the body and that thought alarms our intelligence.

At least some of us think so; others, like Bickley, write down
the future as a black and endless night, which after all has its
consolations since, as has been wisely suggested, perhaps oblivion is
better than any memories. Others again, like Bastin, would say of
it with the Frenchman, plus ca c