"I think the lady's remarks quite reasonable.

It seems to me highly improbable if really she has slept for two hundred and fifty thousand years, which, of course, I can't decide, that an immortal spirit would be allowed to remain idle for so long.
That would be wallowing in a bed of idleness and shirking its duty which is to do its work.

Also, as she tells you, Bickley, you are not half so clever as you think you are in your silly scepticism, and I have no doubt that there are many things in other worlds which would expose your ignorance, if only you could see them." At this moment Oro turned and called his daughter.

She went at once, saying: "Come, strangers, and you shall learn." So we followed her.
"Daughter," he said, speaking in Orofenan, I think that we might understand, "ask these strangers to bring one of those lamps of theirs that by the light of it I may study these writings." "Perhaps this may serve," said Bickley, suddenly producing an electric torch from his pocket and flashing it into his face.

It was his form of repartee for all he had suffered at the hands of this incomprehensible pair.