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Personally, I think that more allowances should have been made for them, as I hope will be the case elsewhere, since after all they only acted according to their lights." "Curse their lights!" ejaculated Bickley, feeling his throat which was bruised. "I'm glad they are out." Bastin limped away in search of his boots, but Bickley and I stood where we were contemplating the awakened Sleeper.
How bitterly I regret that I did not keep these photographs in my pocket with the map-plates. "Even if the star-maps are correct, still it proves nothing," said Bickley, "since possibly Oro's astronomical skill might have enabled him to draw that of the sky at any period, though I allow this is impossible."
When we reached the statue I learned the reason; he remembered the smell he had detected at its base on the previous day, which Bastin supposed to proceed from a rat, and was anxious to continue his investigations. We went straight to the statue, although Bickley passed the half-buried machines with evident regret.
He always came at night, and what is more I knew when he was coming, although he never gave me warning. Here I should explain that during my illness Bastin, who was so ingenious in such matters, had built another hut in which he and Bickley slept, of course when they were not watching me, leaving our old bed-chamber to myself. Well, I would wake up and be aware that Oro was coming.
With these people Bastin and Bickley talked all day long till really they became fairly proficient in their soft and beautiful dialect. They wished me to learn also, but I said that with two such excellent interpreters and the natives while they remained with us, it seemed quite unnecessary. Still, I picked up a good deal in a quiet way, as much as they did perhaps.
"Yet, even if Bickley were right and I should die and become powerless, I tell you that they are already damned. I have studied them in your books and seen them with my eyes, and I say that they are rotten before ever they are ripe, and that their end shall be the end of the Sons of Wisdom, to die for lack of increase.
"Every father is a god to his daughter, or should be; also in my day millions named me a god because I saw further and struck harder than they could. As for the rest, it came to me in a vision. Oh! Bickley, if you were wiser than you think you are, you would know that all things to come are born elsewhere and travel hither like the light from stars.
"Of this, Strangers," he said, pointing to the map, "I shall have much to say to you when I have studied the pictures of your book and compared them with others of my own." "So he has got maps," said Bickley in English, "as well as star charts. I wonder where he keeps them." "With his clothes, I expect," suggested Bastin.
The odd thing was that neither Bickley nor Bastin seemed to be aware of these nocturnal calls. Indeed, when I mentioned them on one or two occasions, they stared at me and said it was strange that he should have come and gone as they saw nothing of him.
"Look here, Arbuthnot," said Bickley, "these candles are burning low and we don't want to use up more if we can prevent it, for we may need what we have got very badly later on.
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