The time has come when I must speak of my relations with Yva and of their climax.As may have been guessed, from the first Ibegan to love her.While the weeks went on that love grew and grew, until it utterly possessed me, although for a certain reason connected with one dead, at first I fought against it.Yet it did not develop quite in the fashion that might have been expected.There was no blazing up of passion's fire; rather was there an ever-increasing glow of the holiest affection, till at last it became a lamp by which I must guide my feet through life and death.This love of mine seemed not of earth but from the stars.As yet I had said nothing to her of it because in some way I felt that she did not wish me to do so, felt also that she was well aware of all that passed within my heart, and desired, as it were, to give it time to ripen there.Then one day there came a change, and though no glance or touch of Yva's told me so, I knew that the bars were taken down and that I might speak.
It was a night of full moon.All that afternoon she had been talking to Bastin apart, I suppose about religion, for I saw that he had some books in his hand from which he was expounding something to her in his slow, earnest way.Then she came and sat with us while we took our evening meal.I remember that mine consisted of some of the Life-water which she had brought with her and fruit, for, as I think I have said, I had acquired her dislike to meat, also that she ate some plantains, throwing the skins for Tommy to fetch and laughing at his play.When it was over, Bastin and Bickley went away together, whether by chance or design I do not know, and she said to me suddenly:
"Humphrey, you have often asked me about the city Pani, of which a little portion of the ruins remains upon this island, the rest being buried beneath the waters.If you wish I will show you where our royal palace was before the barbarians destroyed it with their airships.The moon is very bright, and by it we can see."I nodded, for, knowing what she meant, somehow I could not answer her, and we began the ascent of the hill.She explained to me the plan of the palace when we reached the ruins, showing me where her own apartments had been, and the rest.It was very strange to hear her quietly telling of buildings which had stood and of things that had happened over two hundred and fifty thousand years before, much as any modern lady might do of a house that had been destroyed a month ago by an earthquake or a Zeppelin bomb, while she described the details of a disaster which now frightened her no more.I think it was then that for the first time I really began to believe that in fact Yva had lived all those aeons since and been as she still appeared.
We passed from the palace to the ruins of the temple, through what, as she said, had been a pleasure-garden, pointing out where a certain avenue of rare palms had grown, down which once it was her habit to walk in the cool of the day.Or, rather, there were two terraced temples, one dedicated to Fate like that in the underground city of Nyo, and the other to Love.Of the temple to Fate she told me her father had been the High Priest, and of the temple to Love she was the High Priestess.
Then it was that I understood why she had brought me here.
She led the way to a marble block covered with worn-out carvings and almost buried in the debris.This, she said, was the altar of offerings.I asked her what offerings, and she replied with a smile:
"Only wine, to signify the spirit of life, and flowers to symbolise its fragrance," and she laid her finger on a cup-like depression, still apparent in the marble, into which the wine was poured.
Indeed, I gathered that there was nothing coarse or bacchanalian about this worship of a prototype of Aphrodite; on the contrary, that it was more or less spiritual and ethereal.We sat down on the altar stone.I wondered a little that she should have done so, but she read my thought, and answered:
"Sometimes we change our faiths, Humphrey, or perhaps they grow.Also, have I not told you that sacrifices were offered on this altar?" and she sighed and smiled.
I do not know which was the sweeter, the smile or the sigh.
We looked at the water glimmering in the crater beneath us on the edge of which we sat.We looked at heaven above in which the great moon sailed royally.Then we looked into each other's eyes.
"I love you," I said.
