Also, he knows the secrets of the earth, and, if it pleases him, can change its turning so that earthquakes happen and sea becomes land, and land sea, and the places that were hot grow cold, and those that were cold grow hot." "All of which things have happened many times in the history of the globe," said Bickley, "without the help of the Lord Oro." "Others had knowledge before my father, and others doubtless will have knowledge after him.

Even I, Yva, have some knowledge, and knowledge is strength." "Yes," I interposed, "but such powers as you attribute to your father are not given to man." "You mean to man as you know him, man like Bickley, who thinks that he has learned everything that was ever learned.

But it is not so.

Hundreds of thousands of years ago men knew more than it seems they do today, ten times more, as they lived ten times longer, or so you tell me." "Men ?" I said.
"Yes, men, not gods or spirits, as the uninstructed nations supposed them to be.

My father is a man subject to the hopes and terrors of man.
He desires power which is ambition, and when the world refused his rule, he destroyed that part of it which rebelled, which is revenge.