When the World Shook

Being an Account of the Great Adventure
of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot

by H. Rider Haggard
DEDICATION

Ditchingham, 1918.
MY DEAR CURZON,

More than thirty years ago you tried to protect me, then a
stranger to you, from one of the falsest and most malignant

accusations ever made against a writer.
So complete was your exposure of the methods of those at work

to blacken a person whom they knew to be innocent, that, as you
will remember, they refused to publish your analysis which

destroyed their charges and, incidentally, revealed their
motives.

Although for this reason vindication came otherwise, your
kindness is one that I have never forgotten, since, whatever the

immediate issue of any effort, in the end it is the intention
that avails.

Therefore in gratitude and memory I ask you to accept this
romance, as I know that you do not disdain the study of romance

in the intervals of your Imperial work.
The application of its parable to our state and possibilities--

beneath or beyond these glimpses of the moon--I leave to your
discernment.

Believe me,
Ever sincerely yours,

H. RIDER HAGGARD.
To

The Earl Curzon of Kedleston, K.G.
CONTENTS

1. ARBUTHNOT DESCRIBES HIMSELF
2. BASTIN AND BICKLEY

3. NATALIE
4. DEATH AND DEPARTURE

5. THE CYCLONE
6. LAND

7. THE OROFENANS
8. BASTIN ATTEMPTS THE MARTYR'S CROWN

9. THE ISLAND IN THE LAKE
10. THE DWELLERS IN THE TOMB

11. RESURRECTION
12. TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND YEARS!

13. ORO SPEAKS AND BASTIN ARGUES
14. THE UNDER-WORLD

15. ORO IN HIS HOUSE
16. VISIONS OF THE PAST

17. YVA EXPLAINS
18. THE ACCIDENT

19. THE PROPOSALS OF BASTIN AND BICKLEY
20. ORO AND ARBUTHNOT TRAVEL BY NIGHT

21. LOVE'S ETERNAL ALTAR
22. THE COMMAND

23. IN THE TEMPLE OF FATE
24. THE CHARIOT OF THE PIT

25. SACRIFICE
26. TOMMY

27. BASTIN DISCOVERS A RESEMBLANCE
28. NOTE BY J. R. BICKLEY, M.R.C.S.

When the World Shook
Chapter I

Arbuthnot Describes Himself
I suppose that I, Humphrey Arbuthnot, should begin this history

in which Destiny has caused me to play so prominent a part, with
some short account of myself and of my circumstances.

I was born forty years ago in this very Devonshire village in
which I write, but not in the same house. Now I live in the

Priory, an ancient place and a fine one in its way, with its
panelled rooms, its beautiful gardens where, in this mild

climate, in addition to our own, flourish so many plants which
one would only expect to find in countries that lie nearer to the

sun, and its green, undulating park studded with great timber
trees. The view, too, is perfect; behind and around the rich

Devonshire landscape with its hills and valleys and its scarped
faces of red sandstone, and at a distance in front, the sea.

There are little towns quite near too, that live for the most
part on visitors, but these are so hidden away by the contours of

the ground that from the Priory one cannot see them. Such is
Fulcombe where I live, though for obvious reasons I do not give

it its real name.
Many years ago my father, the Rev. Humphrey Arbuthnot, whose

only child I am, after whom also I am named Humphrey, was the
vicar of this place with which our family is said to have some

rather vague hereditaryconnection. If so, it was severed in the
Carolian times because my ancestors fought on the side of

Parliament.
My father was a recluse, and a widower, for my mother, a

Scotswoman, died at or shortly after my birth. Being very High
Church for those days he was not popular with the family that

owned the Priory before me. Indeed its head, a somewhat vulgar
person of the name of Enfield who had made money in trade, almost

persecuted him, as he was in a position to do, being the local
magnate and the owner of the rectorial tithes.

I mention this fact because owing to it as a boy I made up my
mind that one day I would buy that place and sit in his seat, a

wild enough idea at the time. Yet it became engrained in me, as
do such aspirations of our youth, and when the opportunity arose

in after years I carried it out. Poor old Enfield! He fell on
evil fortunes, for in trying to bolster up a favourite son who

was a gambler, a spendthrift, and an ungrateful scamp, in the end
he was practically ruined and when the bad times came, was forced

to sell the Fulcombe estate. I think of him kindly now, for after
all he was good to me and gave me many a day's shooting and leave

to fish for trout in the river.
By the poor people, however, of all the district round, for the

parish itself is very small, my father was much beloved, although
he did practiseconfession, wear vestments and set lighted

candles on the altar, and was even said to have openly expressed
the wish, to which however he never attained, that he could see a

censer swinging in the chancel. Indeed the church which, as monks
built it, is very large and fine, was always full on Sundays,

though many of the worshippers came from far away, some of them
doubtless out of curiosity because of its papistical repute, also

because, in a learned fashion, my father's preaching was very
good indeed.

For my part I feel that I owe much to these High-Church views.
They opened certain doors to me and taught me something of the

mysteries which lie at the back of all religions and therefore
have their home in the inspired soul of man whence religions are

born. Only the pity is that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred
he never discovers, never even guesses at that entombed

aspiration, never sinks a shaft down on to this secret but most
precious vein of ore.

I have said that my father was learned; but this is a mild
description, for never did I know anyone quite so learned. He was

one of those men who is so good all round that he became
preeminent-eminent in nothing. A classic of the first water, a very

respectable mathematician, an expert in theology, a student of