ed me, and
those calculations were long and difficult. Also twice he must visit the
place whither we shall go tomorrow, and that took time."

"Then it is close at hand?" I said.

"Humphrey, be not foolish. Do you not remember, who have travelled with
him, that Oro can throw his soul afar and bring it back again laden with
knowledge, as the feet of a bee are laden with golden dust? Well, he
went and went again, and I must wait. And then the robes and shields;
they must be prepared by his arts and mine. Oh! ask not what they are,
there is no time to tell, and it matters nothing. Some folk are wise and
some are foolish, but all which matters is that within them flows the
blood of life and that life breeds love, and that love, as I believe,
although Oro does not, breeds immortality. And if so, what is Time but
as a grain of sand upon the shore?"

"This, Yva; it is ours, who can count on nothing else."

"Oh! Humphrey, if I thought that, no more wretched creature would
breathe tonight upon this great world."

"What do you mean?" I asked, growing fearful, more at her manner and her
look than at her words.

"Nothing, nothing, except that Time is so very short. A kiss, a touch,
a little light and a little darkness, and it is gone. Ask my father Oro
who has lived a thousand years and slept for tens of thousands, as I
have, and he will say the same. It is against Time that he fights; he
who, believing in nothing beyond, will inherit nothing, as Bastin
says; he to whom Time has brought nothing save a passing, blood-stained
greatness, and triumph ending in darkness and disaster, and hope that
will surely suffer hope's eclipse, and power that must lay down its
coronet in dust."

"And what has it brought to you, Yva, beyond a fair body and a soul of
strength?"

"It has brought a spirit, Humphrey. Between them the body and the soul
have bred a spirit, and in the fires of tribulation from that spirit has
been distilled the essence of eternal love. That is Time's gift to me,
and therefore, although still he rules me here, I mock at Fate," and she
waved her hand with a gesture of defiance at the stern-faced, sexless
effigy which sat above us, the sword across its knees.

"Look! Look!" she went on in a swelling voice of music, pointing to the
statues of the dotard and the beauteous woman. "They implore Fate, they
worship Fate. I do not implore, I do not worship or ask a sign as even
Oro does and as did his forefathers. I rise ab