"But they will not. Suppose you had been proud of your strength. Suppose
you had not been compelled to keep it a secret. Suppose you could have
found glorious uses for it from childhood--"
"In the mountains," Hugo whispered, his eyes bemused, "where the sun is
warm and the days long--these children growing. Even here, in this
place--"
"So I thought. Don't you see, Hugo?"
"Yes, I see. At last, thank God, I do see!"
For a long time their thoughts ran wild. When they cooled, it was to
formulate plans. A child taken here. Another there. A city in the
jungle--the jungle had harboured races before: not only these Mayas, but
the Incas, Khmers, and others. A modern city for dwellings, and these
tremendous ruins would be the blocks for the nursery. They would teach
them art and architecture--and science. Engineering, medicine--their
own, undiscovered medicine--the new Titans, the sons of dawn--so ran
their inspired imaginations.
When the night was far advanced and the camp was wrapped in slumber,
they made a truce with this divine fire. They shook each other's hands.
"Good-night, Hugo. And to-morrow we'll go over the notes."
"I'll bring them."
"Till evening, then."
Hugo lay on his bed, more ecstatic than he had ever been in his life. By
and by he slept. Then, as if the ghosts of Uctotol had risen, his mind
was troubled by a host, a pageant of dreams. He turned in his sleep,
rending his blankets. He moaned and mumbled. When he woke, he understood
that his soul had undergone another of its diametric inversions. The mad
fancies of the night before had died and memory could not rekindle them.
Little dreads had goaded away their brightness. Conscience was bickering
inside him. Humanity was content; it would hate his new race. And the
new race, being itself human, might grow top-heavy with power. If his
theory about the great builders of the past was true, then perhaps this
incubus would explain why the past was no more. If his Titans disagreed
and made war on each other--surely that would end the earth. He quailed.
Overcome by a desire to think more about this giants' scheme, he avoided
Hardin. In the siesta hour he went back to his tent and procured the
books wherein his father had written the second secret of life. He
crammed them into his pocket and broke through the jungle. When he was
beyond sight and sound, he dropped his machete and made his way as none
but he could do. With his body he cut a swath toward the mountains and
emerged from the green veil on to the bare rocks, panting and hot.
Upward he climbed until he had gained the summit. To the west were
strewn the frozen billows of the range. To the east a limitless sea of
verdure. At his feet the ruins in neat miniature, like a model. Above,
scalding sun and blue sky. Around him a wind, strangely chill. And
silence.
He sat with his head on his hands until his thoughts were disturbed. A
humid breath had risen sluggishly from the jungle floor. The sun was
dull. Looking toward the horizon, he could see a black cloud. For an
instant he was frightened, the transformation had been so gigantic and
so soundless. He knew a sudden, urgent impulse to go back to the valley.
He disobeyed it and watched the coming of the storm. The first rapier of
lightning through the bowels of the approaching cloud warned him again.
Staunchly he stood. He had come there to think.
"I must go back and begin this work," he told himself. "I have found a
friend!" The cloud was descending. Thunder ruminated in heaven's garret.
"It is folly," he repeated, "folly, folly, folly in the face of God."
Now the sun went out like an extinguished lamp, and the horizon crept
closer. A curtain of torrential rain was lowered in the north. "They
will make the earth beautiful," he said, and ever and again: "This thing
is not beautiful. It is wrong." His agitation increased rapidly. The
cloud was closing on the mountain like a huge hand. The muscles in his
legs quivered.
"If there were only a God," he whispered, "what a prayer I would make!"
Then the wind came like a visible thing, pushing its fingers over the
vegetation below, and whirling up the mountain, laden with dust. After
the wind, the rain--heavy, roaring rain that fell, not in separate
drops, but in thick streams. The lightning was incessant. It illuminated
remote, white-topped peaks, which, in the fury of the storm, appeared to
be swaying. It split clouds apart, and the hurricane healed the rents.
All light went out. The world was wrapped in darkness.
Hugo clutched his precious books in the remnants of his clothing and
braced himself on the bare rock. His voice roared back into the storm
the sounds it gave. He flung one hand upward.
"Now--God--oh, God--if there be a God--tell me! Can I defy You? Can I
defy Your world? Is this Your will? Or are You, like all mankind,
impotent? Oh, God!" He put his hand to his mouth and called God like a
name into the tumult above. Madness was upon him and the bitter irony
with which his blood ran black was within him.
A bolt of lightning stabbed earthward. It struck Hugo, outlining him in
fire. His hand slipped away from his mouth. His voice was quenched. He
fell to the ground.
After three days of frantic searching, Daniel Hardin came upon the
incredible passage through the jungle and followed it to the mountain
top. There he found the blackened body of Hugo Danner, lying face down.
His clothing was burned to ashes, and an accumulation of cinders was
all that remained of the notebooks. After discovering that, Professor
Hardin could not forbear to glance aloft at the sun and sky. His face
was saddened and perplexed.
"We will carry him yonder to Uctotol and bury him," he said at last;
"then--the work will go on."