.

Sacrifice.
"The air in this place must be charged with some form of electricity, but the odd thing is that it does not seem to harm us," said Bickley in a matter-of-fact fashion as though he were determined not to be astonished.
"To me it looks more like marsh fires or St.Elmo lights, though how these can be where there is no vapour, I do not know," I answered.
As I spoke a particularly large ball of flame fell from above.

It resembled a shooting star or a meteor more than anything else that I had ever seen, and made me wonder whether we were not perhaps standing beneath some inky, unseen sky.
Next moment I forgot such speculations, for in its blue light, which made him terrible and ghastly, I perceived Oro standing in front of us clad in a long cloak.
"Dear me!" said Bastin, "he looks just like the devil, doesn't he, and now I come to think of it, this isn't at all a bad imitation of hell." "How do you know it is an imitation ?" asked Bickley.
"Because whatever might be the case with you, Bickley, if it were, the Lady Yva and I should not be here." Even then I could not help smiling at this repartee, but the argument went no further for Oro held up his hand and Yva bent the knee in greeting to him.
"So you have come, all of you," he said.

"I thought that perhaps there were one or two who would not find courage to ride the flying stone.

I am glad that it is not so, since otherwise he who had shown himself a coward should have had no share in the rule of that new world which is to be.