CHAPTER XXXVIII

THE SUN OF SPRING

"What altitude now? Can you make-out, Allan?"

"No. The aneroid's only good up to five miles. We must have made two

hundred, vertically, since this morning. The way the propeller takes

hold and the planes climb in this condensed air is just a miracle!"

"Two passengers at that!" Beatrice answered, leaning back in her seat

again. She turned to the patriarch, who, sitting in an extra place in

the thoroughly overhauled and newly equipped Pauillac, was holding

with nervous hands to the wire stays in front of him.

"Patience, father," she cheered him. "Two hours more--not over three,

at the outside--and you shall breathe the upper air again! For the

first time the sunlight shall fall upon your face!"

"The sun! The sun! Oh, is it possible?" murmured the aged man.

"Verily, I had never thought to live until this day! _The sun!_"

Came silence between these three for a time, while the strong heart of

the machine beat steadily; and the engineer, with deft and skilful

hand, guided it in wide-swept spirals upward, ever up, up, up, back

toward the realms of day, of life, once more; up through the fogs and

clouds, away from heat and dark and mystery, toward the clear, pure,

refreshing air of heaven again.

At last Stern spoke.

"Well, father," said he, "I never would have thought it; but you were

right, after all! They're like so much clay in the potter's hand now,

for me. I see I can do with them whatever I will.

"I was afraid some of them might object, after all, to any such

proposition. It's one thing for them to accept me as boss down there,

and quite another for them to consent to wholesale transplanting, such

as we've got under way. But I can't see any possible reason why--with

plenty of time and patience--the thing can't be accomplished all

right. The main difficulty was their consent; and now we've got that,

the rest is mere detail and routine work."

"Time and patience," repeated the girl. "Those are our watchwords now,

boy. And we've got lots of both, haven't we?"

"Two passengers each trip," the engineer continued, more practical

than she, "and three trips a week, at the most, makes six of the Folk

landed on the surface weekly. In other words, it'll take--"

"No matter about that now!" interrupted Beatrice. "We've got all the

time there is! Even if it takes five years, what of that? What are

months or even years in the life-history of the world?"

Stern kept silence again. In his mind he was revolving a hundred vital

questions of shelter, feeding, acclimatization for these men, now to

be transported from a place of dark and damp and heat to the strange

outer regions of the surface-world.

Plainly he saw it would be a task of unparalleled skill, delicacy, and

difficult accomplishment; but his spirits rose only the higher as he

faced its actual details. After all that he and Beatrice had been

through since their wakening in the tower, he feared no failure to

solve any questions that now might rise. By care, by keeping the Folk

at first in caves, then gradually accustoming them to stronger and

brighter light, more air, more cold, he knew he could bridge the gap

of centuries in a few years.

Ever adaptable, the human body would respond to changed environments.

Patience and time--these would solve all!

And as for this Folk's barbarism, it mattered not. Much better such

stock to rebuild from than some mild, supine race of far higher

culture. To fight the rough battles of life and re-establishment still

ahead, the bold and warlike Merucaans were all that he could wish.

"Imagine _me_ as a school-teacher," suddenly exclaimed the girl,

laughing: "giving the children A B C and making them read: 'I see the

cat'--when there _aren't_ any cats nowadays--no tame ones, anyhow!

Imagine--"

"Sh-h-h!" cautioned Stern. "Don't waste your energies imagining

things just yet. There's more than enough real work, food-getting,

house-building in caves, and all that, before we ever get to schools.

That's years ahead yet, education is!"

Silence again, save for the strong and ceaseless chatter of the

engine, that, noisy as a score of mowing machines, flung its

indomitable challenge to gravitation out into the fathomless void on

every hand.

"Allan! Allan! Oh, a star! Look, look! _A

star!_"

The girl was first to see that blest and wondrous thing. Hours had

passed, long, weary hours; steadily the air-pressure had sunk, the

vapors thinned; but light had not yet filtered through the mists. And

Allan's mind had been sore troubled thereat. He had not thought of the

simple reason that they were reaching the surface at night.

But now he knew, and as she cried to him "A star!" he, too, looked and

saw it, and as though he had been a little child he felt the sudden

tears start to his weary eyes.

"A star!" he answered. "Oh, thank God--a star!"

It faded almost at once, as vapors shrouded it; but soon it came

again, and others, many more; and now the first breath of the cool and

blessed outer air was wafted to them.

Used as they had been, all these long months--for now the year had

turned again and early spring was coming up the world--used to the

closed and stifling atmosphere of the Abyss, its chemicalized fogs and

mists, the first effect of the pure surface-air was almost

intoxicating as they mounted higher, higher, toward the lip of the

titanic gulf.

The patriarch, trembling with eagerness and with exhaustion--for he

was very old and now his vital forces were all but spent--breathed it

only with difficulty. Rapid was his respiration; on either pallid

cheek a strange and vivid patch of color showed.

Suddenly he spoke.

"Stars? You see them--really see them?" faltered he. "Oh, for my sight

again! Oh, that I might see them once, only once, those wonderful

things of ancient story! Then, verily, I should be glad to die!"

Midnight.

Hard-driven now for many hours, heated, yet still running true, the

Pauillac had at length made a safe landing on the western verge of the

Abyss. Again the voyagers felt solid earth beneath their feet. By the

clear starlight Stern had brought the machine to earth on a little

plateau, wooded in part, partly bare sand. Numb and stiff, he had

alighted from the driver's seat, and had helped both passengers

alight,

The girl, radiant with joy, had kissed him full upon the lips; the

patriarch had fallen on his knees, and, gathering a handful of the

sand--the precious surface of the earth, long fabled among his Folk,

long worshipped in his deepest reveries--had clasped it to his thin

and heaving breast.

If he had known how to pray he would have worshipped there. But even

though his lips were silent, his attitude, his soul were all one vast

and heartfelt prayer--prayer to the mother-earth, the unseen stars,

the night, the wind upon his brow, the sweet and subtle airs of heaven

that enfolded him like a caress.

Stern wrapped the old man in a spare mantle, for the night was chill,

then made a crackling fire on the sands. Worn out, they rested, all.

Little they said. The beauty and majesty of night now--seen again

after long absence--a hundred times more solemn than they had ever

known it, kept the two Americans from speech. And the old man, buried

in his own thoughts, sat by the fire, burning with a fever of

impatient longings for the dawn.

Five o'clock.

Now all across the eastern sky, shrouded as it was with the slow,

silent mist-wreaths rising ghostly from the Abyss, delicate pink and

pearl-gray tints were spreading, shading above to light blues and to

purples of exquisite depth and clarity.

No cloud flecked the sky, the wondrous sky of early spring. Dawn, pure

as on the primal day, was climbing from the eastern depths. And,

thrilled by that eternal miracle, the man and woman, hand in hand,

awaited the full coming of the light.

The patriarch spoke.

"Is the sun nigh arisen now?" he queried in a strange, awed voice,

trembling with eagerness and deep emotion. "Is it coming, at last--the

sun?"

"It'll be here now before long, father," answered Stern.

"From which direction does it come? Am I facing it?" he asked, with

pitiful anxiety.

"You're facing it. The first rays will fall on you. Only be patient. I

promise you it shall not fail!"

A pause. Then the aged man spoke again.

"Remember, oh, my children," said he, with terrible earnestness, "all

that I have told you, all that you must know. Remember how to deal

with my people. They are as children in your hands. Be very patient,

very firm and wise; all will be well.

"Remember my warnings of the Great Vortex, so very far below our sea,

the Lanskaarn, and all those other perils of the Abyss whereof I have

spoken. Remember, too, all the traditions of the Cave of Records. Some

day, when all else is accomplished, you may find that cave. I have

told you everything I know of its location. Seek it some day, and find

the history of the dead, buried past, from the time of the great

catastrophe to the final migration when my ancestors sought the lower

sea."

Another silence. All three were too deeply moved for any speech. And

ever mounting higher, brighter and more clear, dawn flung its glories

wide across the sky.

"Help me that I may stand, to greet the day!" at last the patriarch

said. "I cannot rise, alone."

Stern and the girl, each taking an arm, got him to his feet. He stood

there facing the east, priestlike in venerable and solemn worship of

the coming sun.

"Give me each a hand, my children," he commanded. In Stern's hand,

strong, corded, toil-worn, he laid the girl's.

"Thus do I give you each to each," said he. "Thus do I make you one!"

Stern drew Beatrice into his arms. Blind though the old man was, he

sensed the act, and smiled. A great and holy peace had shrouded him.

"Only that I may feel the sun upon my face!" breathed he.

All at once a thinning cloud-haze let the light glow through.

Beatrice looked at Stern. He shook his head.

"Not yet," he answered.

Swiftly uprose the sun. The morning wind dispelled the shrouding

vapors.

"Oh, what is this warmth?" exclaimed the patriarch, trembling

violently. "What is this warmth, this glow upon my face? This life,

this--"

Out toward the east he stretched both hands. Instinctively the

priestlike worship of the sun, old when the world was still in

infancy, surged back to him again after the long, lost centuries of

darkness and oblivion.

"The sun! _The sun!_" he cried, his voice triumphant as a

trumpet-call. Tears coursed from his blind eyes; but on his lips a

smile of joy unutterable was set.

"The sun! _At last! The_--"

Stern caught his feeble body as he fell.

Down on the sands they laid him. To the stilled heart Stern laid his

ear.

Tears were in his eyes, too, and in the girl's, as Stern shook his

head, silently.

Up over the time-worn, the venerable, the kindly face they drew the

mantle, but not before each had reverently kissed the wrinkled

forehead.

"Better thus," whispered the engineer. "Far better, every way. He had

his wish; he felt the sunshine on his face; his outgoing spirit must

be mingled with that worshipped light and air and sky--with dawn--with

springtime--"

"With life itself!" said Beatrice.

And through her tears she smiled, while higher rose the warm,

life-giving sun of spring.

BOOK III

THE AFTERGLOW

CHAPTER I

DEATH, LIFE, AND LOVE

Life! Life again, and light, the sun and the fresh winds of

heaven, the perfect azure of a June sky, the perfume of the passionate

red blooms along the lips of the chasm, the full-throated song of

hidden birds within the wood to eastward--life, beauty, love--such,

the sunrise hour when Allan and the girl once more stood side by side

in the outer world, delivered from the perils of the black Abyss.

Hardly more real than a disordered nightmare now, the terrible fall

into those depths, the captivity among the white barbarians, the

battles and the ghastly scenes of war, the labors, the perilous

escape.

All seemed to fall and fade away from these two lovers, all save their

joy in life and in each other, their longing for the inevitable

greater passion, pain and joy, their clear-eyed outlook into the vast

and limitless possibilities of the future, their future and the

world's.

And as they stood there, hand in hand beside the body of the fallen

patriarch--he whose soul had passed in peace, even at the moment of

his life's fulfilment, his knowledge of the sun--awe overcame them

both. With a new tenderness, mingled with reverent adoration, Stern

drew the girl once more to him.

Her face turned up to his and her arms tightened about his neck. He

kissed her brow beneath the parted masses of her wondrous hair. His

lips rested a moment on her eyes; and then his mouth sought hers and

burned its passion into her very soul.

Suddenly she pushed him back, panting. She had gone white; she

trembled in his clasp.

"Oh, your kiss--oh, Allan, what is this I feel?--it seems to choke

me!" she gasped, clutching her full bosom where her heart leaped like

a prisoned creature. "Your kiss--it is so different now! No, no--not

again--_not yet!_"

He released her, for he, too was shaking in the grip of new, fierce

passions.

"Forgive me!" he whispered. "I--I forgot myself, a moment. Not

yet--no, not yet. You're right, Beatrice. A thousand things are

pressing to be done. And love--must wait!"

He clenched his fists and strode to the edge of the chasm, where, for

a while, he stood alone and silent, gazing far down and away,

mastering himself, striving to get himself in leash once more.

Then suddenly he turned and smiled.

"Come, Beta," said he. "All this must be forgotten. Let's get to work.

The whole world's waiting for us, for our labor. It's eager for our

toil!"

She nodded. In her eyes the fire had died, and now only the light of

comradeship and trust and hope glowed once again.

"Allan?"

"Yes?"

"Our first duty--" She gestured toward the body of the patriarch,

nobly still beneath the rough folds of the mantle they had drawn over

it.

He understood.

"Yes," murmured he. "And his grave shall be for all the future ages a

place of pilgrimage and solemn thought. Where first, one of lost Folk

issued again into the world and where he died, this shall be a

monument of the new time now coming to its birth.

"His grave shall lie here on this height, where the first sun shall

each day for ages fall upon it, supreme in its deep symbolism. Forever

it shall be a memorial, not of death, but life, of liberty, of hope!"

They kept a moment's silence, then Stern added.

"So now, to work!" From the biplane he fetched the ax. With this he

cut and trimmed a branch from a near-by fir. He sharpened it to a flat

blade three or four inches across. In the deep red sand along the edge

of the Abyss he set to work, scooping the patriarch's grave.

In silence Beatrice took the ax and also labored, throwing the sand

away. Together, in an hour, they had dug a trench sufficiently deep

and wide.

"This must do, for now," said Stern, looking up at last. "Some time he

shall have fitting burial, but for the present we can do no more. Let

us now commit his body to the earth, the Great Mother which created

and which waits always to give everlasting sleep, peace, rest."

Together, silently, they bore him to the grave, still wrapped in the

cloak which now had become his shroud. Once more they gazed upon the

noble face of him they had grown to love in the long weeks of the

Abyss, when only he had understood them or seemed near.

"What is this, Allan?" asked the girl, touching a fine chain of gold

about the patriarch's neck, till now unnoticed.

Allan drew at the chain, and a small golden cylinder was revealed,

curiously carven. Its lightness told him it was hollow.

"Some treasure of his, I imagine," judged he.

"Some record, perhaps? Oughtn't we to look?"

He thought a moment in silence, then detached the chain.

"Yes," said he. "It can't help him now. It may help us. He himself

would have wanted us to have it."

And into the pocket of his rough, brown cassock, woven of the

weed-fiber of the dark sea, he slid the chain and golden cylinder.

A final kiss they gave the patriarch, each; then, carefully wrapping

his face so that no smallest particle of sand should come in contact

with it, stood up. At each other they gazed, understandingly.

"Flowers? Some kind of service?" asked the girl.

"Yes. All we can do for him will be too little!"

Together they brought armfuls of the brilliant crimson and purple

blooms along the edge of the sands, where forest and barren

irregularly met; and with these, fir and spruce boughs, the longer to

keep his grave freshly green.

All about him they heaped the blossoms. The patriarch lay at rest

among beauties he never had beheld, colors arid fragrances that to him

had been but dim traditions of antiquity.

"I can't preach," said Stern. "I'm not that kind, anyway, and in this

new world all that sort of thing is out of place. Let's just say

good-by, as to a friend gone on a long, long journey."

Beatrice could no longer keep back her grief. Kneeling beside the

grave, she arranged the flowers and the evergreens, on which her tears

fell shining.

"Dust unto dust!" Stern said. "To you, oh Mother Nature, we give back

the body of this friend, your son. May the breeze blow gently here,

the sun shine warm, and the birds forever sing his requiem. And may

those who shall come after us, when we too sleep, remember that in him

we had a friend, without whom the world never again could have hoped

for any new birth, any life! To him we say good-by--eternally! Dust

unto dust; good-by!"

"Good-by!" whispered the girl. Then, greatly overcome, she arose and

walked away.

Stern, with his naked hands, filled the shallow grave and, this done,

rolled three large boulders onto it, to protect it from the prowling

beasts of the wild.

Beatrice returned. They strewed more flowers and green boughs, and in

silence stood a while, gazing at the lowlier bed of their one friend

on earth.

Suddenly Stern took her hand and drew her toward him.

"Come, come, Beatrice," said he, "he is not dead. He still lives in

our memories. His body, aged and full of pain, is gone, but his spirit

still survives in us--that indomitable sold which, buried alive in

blindness and the dark, still strove to keep alive the knowledge and

traditions of the upper world, hopes of attaining it, and visions of a

better time to be!

"Was ever greater human courage, faith or strength? Let us not grieve.

Let us rather go away strengthened and inspired by this wonderful life

that has just passed. In us, let all his hopes and aspirations come to

reality.

"His death was happy. It was as he wished it, Beatrice, for his one

great ambition was fully granted--to know the reality of the upper

world, the winds of heaven and the sun! Impossible for him to have

survived the great change. Death was inevitable and right. He wanted

rest, and rest is his, at last.

"We must be true to all he thought us, you and I--to all he believed

us, even demigods! He shall inspire and enlighten us, O my love; and

with his memory to guide us, faith and fortitude shall not be lacking.

"Now, we must go. Work waits for us. Everything is yet to be planned

and done. The world and its redemption lie before us. Come!"

He led the girl away. As by mutual understanding they returned to

where the biplane lay, symbol of their conquest of nature, epitome of

hopes.

Near it, on the edge of the Abyss, they rested, hand in hand. In

silence they sat thinking, for a space. And ever higher and more

warmly burned the sun; the breeze of June was sweet to them, long-used

to fogs and damp and dark; the boundless flood of light across the

azure thrilled them with aspiration and with joy.

Life had begun again for them and for the world, life, even there in

the presence of death. Life was continuing, developing,

expanding--life and its immortal sister, Love!

CHAPTER II

EASTWARD HO!

Practical matters now for a time thrust introspection, dreams

and sentiment aside. The morning was already half spent, and in spite

of sorrow, hunger had begun to assert itself; for since time was, no

two such absolutely vigorous and healthy humans had ever set foot on

earth as Beatrice and Allan.

The man gathered brush and dry-kye and proceeded to make a fire, not

far from the precipice, but well out of sight of the patriarch's

grave. He fetched a generous heap of wood from the neighboring forest,

and presently a snapping blaze flung its smoke-banner down the breeze.

Soon after Beatrice had raided the supplies on board the

Pauillac--fish, edible seaweed, and the eggs of the strange birds of

the Abyss--and with the skill and speed of long experience was getting

an excellent meal. Allan meantime brought water from a spring near by.

And the two ate in silence, cross-legged on the warm, dry sand.

"What first, now?" queried the man, when they were satisfied. "I've

been thinking of about fifteen hundred separate things to tackle, each

one more important than all the others put together. How are we going

to begin again? That's the question!"

She drew from her warm bosom the golden cylinder and chain.

"Before we make any move at all," she answered, "I think we ought to

see what's in this record--if it _is_ a record. Don't you?"

"By Jove, you're right! Shall I open it for you?"

But already the massively chased top lay unscrewed in her hand. Within

the cylinder a parchment roll appeared.

A moment later she had spread it on her knee, taking care not to tear

the ancient, crackling skin whereon faint lines of writing showed.

Stern bent forward, eager and breathless. The girl, too, gazed with

anxious eyes at the dim script, all but illegible with age and wear.

"You're right, Allan," said she. "This _is_ some kind of record, some

direction as to the final history of the few survivors after the great

catastrophe. Oh! Look, Allan--it's fading already in the sunlight.

Quick, read it quick, or we shall lose it all!"

Only too true. The dim lines, perhaps fifteen hundred years old,

certainly never exposed to sunlight since more than a thousand, were

already growing weaker; and the parchment, too, seemed crumbling into

dust. Its edges, where her fingers held it, already were breaking away

into a fine, impalpable powder.

"Quick, Allan! Quick!"

Together they read the clumsy scrawl, their eyes leaping along the

lines, striving to grasp the meaning ere it were too late.

TO ANY WHO AT ANY TIME MAY EVER REVISIT THE

UPPER WORLD: Be it known that two records have been left covering our

history from the time of the cataclysm in 1920 till we entered the

Chasm in 1957. One is in the Great Cave in Medicine Bow Range,

Colorado, near the ruins of Dexter. Exact location, 106 degrees, 11

minutes, 3 seconds west; 40 degrees, 22 minutes, 6 seconds north.

Record is in left, or northern branch of Cave, 327 yards from mouth,

on south wall, 4 feet 6 inches from floor. The other--

"Where? Where?" cried Beatrice. A portion of the record was gone; it

had crumbled even as they read.

"Easy does it, girl! Don't get excited," Allan cautioned, but his face

was pale and his hand trembled as he sought to steady and protect the

parchment from the breeze.

Together they pieced out a few of the remaining words, for now the

writing was but a pale blur, momently becoming dimmer and more dim.

... Cathedral on ... known as Storm King ... River ... crypt under ...

this was agreed on ... never returned but may possibly ... signed by

us on this 12th day ...

They could read no more, for now the record was but a disintegrating

shell in the girl's hands, and even as they looked the last of the

writing vanished, as breath evaporates from a window-pane.

Allan whirled toward the fire, snatched out a still-glowing stick, and

in the sand traced figures.

"Quick! What was that? 106-11-3, West--Forty--"

"Forty, 22, north," she prompted.

"How many seconds? You remember?"

"No." Slowly she shook her head. "Five, wasn't it?"

Eagerly he peered at the record, but every trace was gone.

"Well, no matter about the seconds," he judged. "I'll enter these data

on our diary, in the Pauillac, anyhow. We can remember the ruins of

Dexter and Medicine Bow Range; also the cathedral on Storm King. Put

the fragments of the parchment back into the case, Beta. Maybe we can

yet preserve them, and by some chemical means or other bring out the

writing again. As it is, I guess we've got the most important facts;

enough to go on, at any rate."

She replaced the crumbled record in the golden cylinder and once more

screwed on the cap. Allan got up and walked to the aeroplane, where,

among their scanty effects, was the brief diary and set of notes he

had been keeping since the great battle with the Lanskaarn.

Writing on his fish-skin tablets, with his bone stylus, dipped in his

little stone jar of cuttle-fish ink, he carefully recorded the

geographical location. Then he went back to Beatrice, who still sat in

the midmorning sunlight by the fire, very beautiful and dear to him.

"If we can find those records, we'll have made a long step toward

solving the problem of how to handle the Folk. They aren't exactly

what one would call an amenable tribe, at best. We need their history,

even the little of it that the records must contain, for surely there

must be names and events in them of great value in our work of trying

to bring these people to the surface and recivilize them."

"Well, what's to hinder our getting the records now?" she asked

seriously, with wonder in her gray and level gaze.

"_That_, for one thing!"

He gestured at the Abyss.

"It's a good six or seven hundred miles wide, and we already know how

deep it is. I don't think we want to risk trying to cross it again and

running out of fuel en route! Volplaning down to the village is

quite a different proposition from a straight-away flight across!"

She sat pensive a moment.

"There must be some way around," said she at last. "Otherwise a party

of survivors couldn't have set out for Storm King on the Hudson to

deposit a set of records there!"

"That's so, too. But--remember? 'Never returned.' I figure it this

way: A party of the survivors probably started for New York,

exploring. The big, concrete cathedral on Storm King--it was new in

1916, you remember--was known the country over as the most massive

piece of architecture this side of the pyramids. They must have

planned to leave one set of records there, in case the east, too, was

devastated. Well--"

"Do you suppose they succeeded?"

"No telling. At any rate, there's a chance of it. And as for this

Rocky Mountain cache, that's manifestly out of the question, for now."

"So then?" she queried eagerly.

"So then our job is to strike for Storm King. Incidentally we can

revisit Hope Villa, our bungalow on the banks of the Hudson. It's been

a year since we left it, almost--ten months, at any rate. Gad! What

marvels and miracles have happened since then, Beta--what perils, what

escapes! Wouldn't you like to see our little nest again? We could rest

up and plan and strengthen ourselves for the greater tasks ahead. And

then--"

He paused, a change upon his face, his eyes lighting with a sudden

glow. She saw and understood; and her breast rose with sudden keen

emotion.

"You mean," whispered she, "in our own home?"

"Where better?"

She paled as, kneeling beside her, he flung a powerful arm about her,

and pulled her to him, breathing heavily.

"Don't! Don't!" she forbade. "No, no, Allan--there's so much work to

do--you mustn't!"

To her a vision rose of dream-children--strong sons and daughters yet

unborn. Their eyes seemed smiling, their fingers closing on hers.

Cloudlike, yet very real, they beckoned her, and in her stirred the

call of motherhood--of life to be. Her heart-strings echoed to that

harmony; it seemed already as though a tiny head, downy--soft, was

nestling in her bosom, while eager lips quested, quested.

"No, Allan! No!"

Almost fiercely she flung him back and stood up.

"Come!" said she. "Let us start at once. Nothing remains for us to do

here. Let us go--home!"

An hour later the Pauillac spiralled far aloft, above the edge of the

Abyss, then swept into its eastward tangent, and in swift, droning

flight rushed toward the longed-for place of dreams, of rest, of love.

Before them stretched infinities of labor and tremendous struggle; but

for a little space they knew they now were free for this, the

consummation of their dreams, of all their hopes, their happiness,

their joy.

CHAPTER III

CATASTROPHE!

Toward five o'clock next afternoon, from the swooping back of

the air-dragon they sighted a far blue ribbon winding among wooded

heights, and knew Hudson once more lay before them.

The girl's heart leaped for joy at thought of once again seeing Hope

Villa, the beach, the garden, the sun-dial--all the thousand and one

little happy and pleasant things that, made by them in the heart of

the vast wilderness, had brought them such intimate and unforgetable

delight.

"There it is, Allan!" cried she, pointing. "There's the river again.

We'll soon be home now--home again!"

He smiled and nodded, watchful at the wheel, and swung the biplane a

little to southward, in the direction where he judged the bungalow

must lie.

Weary they both were, yet full of life and strength. The trip from the

chasm had been tedious, merely a long succession of hours in the

rushing air, with unbroken forest, hills, lakes, rivers, and ever more

forest steadily rolling away to westward like a vast carpet a thousand

feet below.

No sign of man, no life, no gap in nature's all-embracing sway. Even

the occasional heap of ruins marking the grave of some forgotten city

served only to intensify the old half-terror they had felt, when

flying for the first time, at thought of the tremendous desolation of

the world.

The shining plain of Lake Erie had served the first day as a landmark

to keep them true to their course.

That night they had stopped at the ruins of Buffalo, where they had

camped in the open, and where next morning Stern had fully replenished

his fuel-tanks with the usual supplies of alcohol from the debris of

two or three large drug-stores.

From Buffalo eastward, over almost the same course along which the

hurricane of ten months ago had driven them, battling at random with

the gale, they steered by the compass. Toward mid-morning they saw a

thin line of smoke arising in the far north, answered by still another

on the hills beyond, but to these signs they gave no heed.

Already they had seen and scorned them during their first stay at the

bungalow. They felt that nothing more was to be seriously feared from

such survivors of the Horde as had escaped the great Battle of the

Tower--a year and a half previously.

"Those chaps won't bother us again; I'm sure of that!" said Allan,

nodding toward the smoke-columns that rose, lazily blue, on the

horizon. "The scare we threw into them in Madison Forest will last

them _one_ while!"

Still in this confident, defiant mood it was that they sighted the

river again and watched it rapidly broaden as the Pauillac, in a long

series of flat arcs, spurned the June air and whirled them onward

toward their goal.

Nearer the Hudson drew, and nearer still; and now its untroubled

azure, calm save for a few cat's-paws of breeze that idled on the

surface, stretched almost beneath them in their rapid flight.

"We're still a little too far north, I see," the man judged, and swept

the biplane round to southward.

The ruins of Newburgh lay presently upon their right. Soon after the

crumbled walls of West Point's pride slid past in silence, save for

the chatter of the engines, the whirling roar of the propeller-blades'

vast energy.

No boat now vexed the flood. Upon its bosom neither steam nor sail now

plowed a furrow. Along the banks no speeding train flung its

smoke-pennant to the wind. Primeval silence, universal calm, wrapped

all things.

Beatrice shuddered slightly. Now that they were nearing "home" the

desolation seemed more appalling.

"Oh, Allan, is it possible all this will ever be peopled

again--_alive?_"

"Certain to be! Once we get those records and begin transplanting the

Merucaans, the rest will be only a matter of time!"

She made no answer, but in her eyes shone pride that he could know

such visions, have such faith.

Already they recognized the ruins of Nyack, and beyond them the point

in the river behind which, they knew, lay Hope Villa, nestling in its

gardens, its little sphere of cultivation hewn from the very heart of

the dense wilderness.

Allan slackened speed, crossed to the eastern bank, and jockeyed for a

safe landing.

The point slipped backward and away. There, right ahead, they caught a

glimpse of the long white beach where they had fished and bathed and

built their boat-house, and whence in their little yawl they had ten

months before started on their trip of exploration--a trip destined to

end so strangely in the Abyss.

"Home! Home!" cried Beta, the quick tears starting to her lids. "Oh,

home again!"

Already the great plane was swooping downward toward the beach, hardly

a mile away, when a harsh shout escaped the man.

"Look! Canoes! My God--_what_--"

As the drive of the Pauillac opened up the concave of the sand and

brought its whole length to view, Stern and the girl suddenly became

aware of trouble.

There, strung along the beach irregularly, they all at once made out

ten, twenty, thirty boats. Still afar, they could see these were the

same rough bancas such as they had seen after the battle--bancas in

one of which they two had escaped up-river!

"Boats! The Horde again!"

Even as he shouted a tiny, black, misshapen little figure ran

crouching out onto the sand. Another followed and a third, and now a

dozen showed there, very distinct and hideous, upon the white

crescent.

Stern's heart went sick within him A terrible rage welled up--a hate

such as he had never believed possible to feel.

Wild imprecations struggled to be voiced. He snapped his lips together

in a thin line, his eyes narrowed, and his face went gray.

"The infernal little beasts!" he gritted. "Tried to trap us in the

tower--cut our boat loose afterward--and now invading us! Don't know

when they're licked, the swine!"

Beatrice had lost her color now. Milk-white her face was; her eyes

grew wide with terror; she strove to speak, but could not.

Her hand went out in a wild, repelling gesture, as though by the very

power of her love for home she could protect it now against the

incursion of these foul, distorted, inhuman little monsters.

Stern acted quickly. He had been about to cut off power and coast for

the beach; but now he veered suddenly to eastward again, rotated the

rising-plane, and brought the Pauillac up at a sharp tilt. Banking, he

advanced the spark a notch; the engine shrilled a half-tone higher,

and with increased speed the aero lifted them bravely in a long and

rising swoop.

He snatched his automatic from its holster on his hip and as the plane

swept past the beach, down-stream, let fly a spatter of steel jacketed

souvenirs at the fast-thickening pack on the sand.

Far up to the girl and him, half heard through the clatter of the

motors, they sensed a thin, defiant, barbarous yell--a yapping chorus,

bestial and horrible.

Again Stern fired.

He could see quick spurts of water jet up along the edge of the sand,

and one of the creatures fell, but this was only a chance shot.

At that distance, firing from a swift-skimming plane, he knew he could

do no execution, and with a curse slid the pistol back again into its

place.

"Oh, for a dirigible and a few Pulverite bombs, same as we had in the

tower!" he wished. "I'd clean the blighters out mighty quick!"

But now Beatrice was pointing, with a cry of dismay, down, away at the

bungalow itself, which had for a moment become visible at the far end

of the clearing as the Pauillac scudded past.

Even as Stern thought: "Odd, but they're not afraid of us--a

flying-machine means nothing to them, does not terrify them as it

would human savages. They're too debased even to feel fear!"--even as

this thought crossed his brain he, too, saw the terrible thing that

the girl had cried out at sight of.

"My God!" he shouted. "This--this is too much!"

All about the bungalow, their home, the scene of such happy hours, so

many dreams and hopes, such heart-enthralling labors, hundreds of the

Horde were swarming.

Like vicious parasites attacking prey, they overran the garden, the

grounds, even the house itself.

As in a flash, Stern knew all his work of months must be undone--the

fruit-trees he had rescued from the forest be cut down or broken, the

bulbs and roots in the garden uptorn, even the hedges and fences

trampled flat.

Worse still, the bungalow was being destroyed! Rather, its contents,

since the concrete walls defied the venomous troop.

They knew, at any rate, the use of fire, and not so swiftly skimmed

the Pauillac as to prevent both Stern and Beatrice seeing a thin but

ominous thread of smoke out-curling on the June air from one of the

living-room windows.

With an imprecation of unutterable hate and rage, yet impotent to stay

the ravishment of Hope Villa, Stern brought the machine round in a

long spiral.

For a moment the wild, suicidal idea possessed him to land on the

beach, after all, and charge the little slate-blue devils who had

evidently piled all the furnishings together in the bungalow and were

now burning them.

He longed for slaughter now; he lusted blood--the blood of the

Anthropoid pack which from the beginning had hung upon his flank and

been as a thorn unto his flesh.

He seemed to feel the joy of rushing them, an automatic in each hand

spitting death, just as he had mown down the Lanskaarn in the Battle

of the Wall, down below in the Abyss. Even though he knew the

inevitable ends poisoned spear-thrust, a wound with one of those

terribly envenomed arrows--he felt no fear.

Revenge! If he could only feel its sweetness, death had no terrors.

Common sense instantly sobered him and dispelled these vain ideas. The

bungalow, after all, was not vital to his future or the girl's.

Barring the set of encyclopedias on metal plates, everything else

could be replaced with sufficient labor. Only a madman would risk a

fight with such a Horde in company with a woman.

Not now were he and Beatrice entrenched in a strong tower, with

terrible explosives. Now they were in the open, armed only with

revolvers. For the present there was no redress.

"Beta," cried he, "we're up against it this time for fair--and we

can't hit back!"

"Our bungalow! Our precious home!"

"I know." He saw that she was crying: "It's a rotten shame and all

that, but it isn't fatal."

He brought the Pauillac down-wind again, coasting high over the

bungalow, whence smoke now issued ever more and more thickly.

"We're simply hamstrung this time, that's all. Where those devils have

come from and how many there may be, God knows. Thousands, perhaps;

the woods may be full of em. It's lucky for us they didn't attack

while we were there!

"Now--well, the only thing to do is let 'em have their way for the

present. Eventually--"

"Oh, can't we _ever_ get rid of the horrid little beasts for good?"

"We can and will!" He spoke very grimly, soaring the machine still

higher over the river and once more coming round above the upper end

of the beach. "One of these days there's got to be a final reckoning,

but not yet!"

"So it's good-by to Hope Villa, Allan? There's no way?"

"It's good-by. Humanly speaking, none."

"Couldn't we land, blockade ourselves in the boat-house, and--"

Her eyes sparkled with the boldness of the plan--its peril, its

possibilities. But Allan only shook his head.

"And expose the Pauillac on the beach?" he asked. "One good swing with

a war-club into the motor and then a week's siege and slow starvation,

with a final rush--interesting, but not practical, little girl. No,

no; the better part of valor is to recognize force majeure and

_wait!_ Remember what we've said already? 'Je recule pour mieux

sauter?' Wait till we get a fresh start on these hell-hounds; we'll

jump 'em far enough!"

The bungalow now lay behind. The whole clearing seemed alive with the

little blue demons, like vermin crawling everywhere. Thicker and

thicker now the smoke was pouring upward. The scene was one of utter

desolation.

Then suddenly it faded. The plane had borne its riders onward and away

from the range of vision. Again only dense forest lay below, while to

eastward sparkled the broad reach where, in the first days of their

happiness at Hope Villa, the girl and Allan had fished and bathed.

Her tears were unrestrained at last; but Allan, steadying the wheel

with one hand, drew an arm about her and kissed and comforted her.

"There, there, little girl! The world's not ended yet, even if they

_have_ burned up our home-made mission furniture! Come, Beatrice, no

tears--we've other things to think of now!"

"Where away, since our home's gone?" she queried pitifully.

"Where away? Why, Storm King, of course! And the cathedral and the

records, and--_and_--"

CHAPTER IV

"TO-MORROW IS OUR WEDDING-DAY"

Purple and gold the light of that dying day still glowed across

the western sky when the stanch old Pauillac, heated yet throbbing

with power, skimmed the last league and swung the last great bend of

the river that hid old Storm King from the wanderers' eager sight.

Stern's eyes brightened at vision of that vast, rugged headland,

forest-clad and superb in the approaching twilight. Beatrice, weary

now and spent--for the long journeys, the excitements and griefs of

the day had worn her down despite her strength--paled a little and

grew pensive as the massive structure of the cathedral loomed against

the sky-line.

What thoughts were hers now that the goal lay near--what longings,

fears and hopes, what exultation and what pain? She shivered slightly;

but perhaps the evening coolness at that height had pierced her cloak.

Her hands clasped tightly, she tried to smile but could not.

Allan could notice nothing of all this. His gaze was anxiously bent on

the earth below, to find a landing for the great machine. He skimmed

the broad brow of the mountain, hardly a hundred feet above the spires

of the massive concrete pile that still reared itself steadfastly upon

the height facing the east.

All about it the dense unbroken forest spread impenetrable to the eye.

Below the bold breast of the cliff a narrow strip of beach appeared.

"Hard job to land, that's one sure thing!" exclaimed the man, peering

at the inhospitable contours of the land. "No show to make it on top

of the mountain, and if we take the beach it means a most tremendous

climb up the cliff or through the forest on the flank. Here _is_ a

situation, Beatrice! Now--ah--see there? Look! that barren ridge to

westward!"

Half a mile back from the river on the western slope of the highlands,

a spur of Storm King stretched water-worn and bare, a sandy spit

dotted only sparsely with scrub-pine.

"It's that, or nothing!" cried the man, banking in a wide sweep.

"Can you make it? Even the clearest space at this end is terribly

short!"

Allan laughed and cut off power. In the old days not for ten thousand

dollars would he have tried so ticklish a descent, but now his mettle

was of sterner stuff and his skill with the machine developed to a

point where man and biplane seemed almost one organism.

With a swift rush the Pauillac coasted down. He checked her at

precisely the right moment, as the sand seemed whirling up to meet

them, swerved to dodge a fire-blasted trunk, and with a shout took the

earth.

The plane bounced, creaked, skidded on the long runners he had fitted

to her, and with a lurch came to rest not ten yards from an ugly stump

dead ahead.

"Made it, by Heaven!" he exulted. "But a few feet more and it wouldn't

have been--well, no matter. We're here, anyhow. Now, supper and a good

sleep. And to-morrow, the cathedral!"

He helped the girl alight, for she was cramped and stiff. Presently

their camp-fire cheered the down-drawing gloom, as so many other times

in such strange places. And before long their evening meal was in

course of preparation, close by a great glacial boulder at the edge of

the sand-barren.

In good comradeship they ate, then wheeled the biplane over to the

rock, and under the shelter of its wide-spreading wings made their

camp for the night. An hour or so they sat talking of many

things--their escape from the Abyss, the patriarch's death, their trip

east again, the loss of their little home, their plans, their hopes,

their work.

Beatrice seemed to grieve more than Stern over the destruction of the

bungalow. So much of her woman's heart had gone into the making of

that nest, so many thoughts had centered on a return to it once more,

that now when it lay in ruins through the spiteful mischief of the

Horde, she found sorrow knocking insistently at the gates of her soul.

But Allan comforted her as best he might.

"Never you mind, little girl!" said he bravely. "It's only an

incident, after all. A year from now another and a still more

beautiful home will shelter us in some more secure location. And

there'll be human companionship, too, about us. In a year many of the

Folk will have been brought from the depths. In a year miracles may

happen--even the greatest one of all!"

Her eyes met his a moment by the ruddy fire-glow and held true.

"Yes," answered she, "even the greatest in the world!"

A sudden tenderness swept over him at thought of all that had been and

was still to be, at sight of this woman's well-loved face irradiated

by the leaping blaze--her face now just a little wan with long

fatigues and sad as though with realization, with some compelling

inner sense of vast, impending responsibilities.

He gathered her in his strong arms, he drew her yielding body close,

and kissed her very gently.

"To-morrow!" he whispered. "Do you realize it?"

"To-morrow," she made answer, her breath mingling with his.

"To-morrow, Allan--one page of life forever closed, another opened.

Oh, may it be for good--may we be very strong and very wise!"

Neither spoke for the space of a few heart-beats, while the wind made

a vague, melancholy music in the sentinel tree-tops and the snapping

sparks danced upward by the rock.

"Life, all life--just dancing sparks--then gone!" said Beatrice

slowly. "And yet--yet it is good to have lived, Allan. Good to have

lighted the black mystery of the universe, formless and endless and

inscrutable, by even so brief a flicker!"

"Is it my little pessimist to-night?" he asked. "Too tired, that's

all. In the morning things will look different. You must smile, then,

Beta, and not think of formless mystery or--or anything sad at all.

For to-morrow is our wedding-day."

He felt her catch her breath and tremble just a bit.

"Yes, I know. Our wedding-day, Allan. Surely the strangest since time

began. No friends, no gifts, no witnesses, no minister, no--"

"There, there!" he interrupted, smiling. "How can my little girl be so

wrong-headed? Friends? Why, everything's our friend! All nature is our

friend--the whole life-process is our friend and ally! Gifts? What

need have we of gifts? Aren't you my gift, surely the best gift that a

man ever had since the beginning of all things? Am I not yours?

"Minister? Priest? We need none! The world-to-be shall have got far

away from such, far beyond its fairy-tale stage, its weaknesses and

fears of the Unknown, which alone explain their existence. Here on

Storm King, under the arches of the old cathedral our clasped hands,

our--mutual words of love and trust and honor--these shall suffice.

The river and the winds and forest, the sunlight and the sky, the

whole infinite expanse of Nature herself shall be our priest and

witnesses. And never has a wedding been so true, so solemn and so holy

as yours and mine shall be. For you are mine, my Beatrice, and I am

yours--forever!"

A little silence, while the flames leaped higher and the shadows

deepened in the dim aisles of the fir-forest all about them. In the

vast canopy of evening sky clustering star-points had begun to

shimmer.

Redly the camp-fire lighted man and woman there alone together in the

wild. For them there was no sense of isolation nor any loneliness. She

was his world now, and he hers.

Up into his eyes she looked fairly and bravely, and her full lips

smiled.

"Forgive me, Allan!" she whispered. "It was only a mood, that's all.

It's passed now--it won't come back. Only forgive me, boy!"

"My dear, brave girl!" he murmured, smoothing the thick hair back from

her brow. "Never complaining, never repining, never afraid!"

Their lips met again and for a time the girl's heart throbbed on his.

Afar a wolf's weird, tremulous call drifted down-wind. An owl,

disturbed in its nocturnal quest, hooted upon the slope above to

eastward; and across the darkening sky reeled an unsteady bat, far

larger than in the old days when there were cities on the earth and

ships upon the sea.

The fire burned low. Allan arose and flung fresh wood upon it, while

sheaves of winking light gyrated upward through the air. Then he

returned to Beatrice and wrapped her in his cloak.

And for a long, long time they both talked of many things--intimate,

solemn, wondrous things--together in the night.

And the morrow was to be their wedding-day.

CHAPTER V

THE SEARCH FOR THE RECORDS

Morning found them early astir, to greet the glory of June

sunlight over the shoulder of Storm King. A perfect morning, if ever

any one was perfect since the world began--soft airs stirring in the

forest, golden robins' full-throated song, the melody of the scarlet

tropic birds they had named "fire-birds" for want of any more

descriptive title, the chatter of gray squirrels on the branches

overhead, all blent, under a sky of wondrous azure, to tell them of

life, full and abundant, joyous and kind.

Two of the squirrels had to die, for breakfast, which Beta cooked

while Allan quested the edges of the wood for the ever-present

berries. They drank from a fern-embowered spring a hundred yards or so

to south of their camp in the forest, and felt the vigorous tides of

life throb hotly through their splendid bodies.

Allan got together the few simple implements at their disposal for the

expedition--his ax, a torch made of the brown weed of the Abyss,

oil-soaked and bound with wire that fastened it to a metal handle, and

a skin bag of the rude matches he had manufactured in the village of

the Folk.

"Now then, en marche!" said he at length. "The old cathedral and the

records are awaiting a morning call from us--and there are all the

wedding preparations to make as well. We've got no time to lose!"

She laughed happily with a blush and gave him her hand.

"Lead on, Sir Knight!" she jested. "I'm yours by right of capture and

conquest, as in the good old days!"

"The good new days will have better and higher standards," he answered

gravely. "To-day, one age is closed, another opened for all time."

Hand in hand they ascended the barren spur to eastward, and presently

reached the outposts of the forest that rose in close-ranked majesty

over the brow of Storm King.

The going proved hard, for with the warmer climate that now favored

the country, undergrowth had sprung up far more luxuriantly than in

the days of the old-time civilization; but Stern and Beatrice were

used to labor, and together--he ahead to break or cut a path--they

struggled through the wood.

Half an hour's climb brought them to their first dim sight of the

massive towers of the cathedral, rising beyond the tangle of trees,

majestic in the morning sun.

Soon after they had made their way close up to the huge,

lichen-crusted walls, and in the shadow of the gigantic pile slowly

explored round to the vast portals facing eastward over the Hudson.

"Wonderful work, magnificent proportions and design," Stern commented,

as they stopped at last on the broad, debris-littered steps and drew

breath. "Brick and stone have long since perished. Even steel has

crumbled. But concrete seems eternal. Why, the building's practically

intact even to-day, after ten centuries of absolute abandonment. A

week's work with a force of men would quite restore it. The damage

it's suffered is absolutely insignificant. Concrete. A lesson to be

learned, is it not, in our rebuilding of the world?"

The mighty temple stood, in fact, almost as men had left it in the

long ago, when the breath of annihilation had swept a withering blast

over the face of the earth. The broad grounds and driveways that had

led up to the entrance had, of course, long since absolutely vanished

under rank growths.

Grass flourished in the gutters and on the Gothic finials; the

gargoyles were bearded with vines and fern-clusters; the flying

buttresses and mullions stood green with moss; and in the vegetable

mold that had for centuries accumulated on the steps and in the

vestibule--for the oaken doors had crumbled to powder--many a

bright-flowered plant raised its blossoms to the sun.

The tall memorial windows and the great rose-window in the eastern

facade had long since been shattered out of their frames by hail and

tempest. But the main body of the cathedral seemed yet as massively

intact as when the master-builders of the twentieth century had taken

down the last scaffold, and when the gigantic organ had first pealed

its "Laus Deo" through the vaulted apse.

Together they entered the vast silent space, and--awed despite

themselves--gazed in wonder at the beauties of this, the most

magnificent temple ever built in the western hemisphere.

The marble floor was covered now with windrows of dead leaves and

pine-spills, and with the litter from myriads of birds'-nests that

sheltered themselves on achitraves and galleries, and on the lofty

capitals of the fluted pillars which rose, vistalike, a hundred feet

above the clear-story, spraying out into a wondrous complexity of ribs

to sustain the marvelous concrete vaultings full two hundred feet in

air.

Through the shattered windows broad slants of sunshine fell athwart

the walls and floor. Swallows chirped and twittered far aloft, or

winged their swift way through the dusky upper spaces, passing at will

in or out the mullioned gaps whence all the painted glass had long

since fallen.

An air of mystery, of long expectancy seemed brooding everywhere; it

seemed almost as though the spirit of the past were waiting to receive

them--waiting now, as it had waited a thousand years, patiently,

inexorably, untiringly for those to come who should some day reclaim

the hidden secrets in the crypt, once more awaken human echoes in the

vault, and so redeem the world. "Waiting!" breathed Stern, as if the

thought hung pregnant in the very air. "Waiting all these long

centuries--for _us!_ For you, Beatrice, for me! And we are here, at

last, we of the newer time; and here we shall be one. The symbol of

the pillars, mounting, ever mounting toward the infinite, the hope of

life eternal, the majesty and mystery of this great temple, welcome

us! Come!"

He took her hand again and now in silence they walked forward

noiselessly over the thick leaf-carpet on the pavement of rare marble.

"Oh, Allan, I feel so very small in here!" she whispered, drawing

close to him. "You and I, all alone in this tremendous place built for

thousands--"

"You and I are _the world_ to-day!" he answered very gravely; and so

together they made way toward the vast transept, arched with a

bewildering lacery of vaultings.

All save the concrete had long vanished. No traces now remained of

pews, or railings, altars, pulpits, or any of the fittings of the vast

cathedral.

Majestic in its naked strength, the building stood in light and

shadow, here banded with strong sun, there lost in cool purple shade

that foiled the eye far up among the hanging miracles of the roof.

At the transept-crossing they stood amazed; for here the flutings ran

up five hundred feet inside the stupendous central spire, among a

marvelous filigree of windows which diminished toward the top--a

lacework as of frost-patterns etched into the solid substance of the

fleche.

"Higher than that, more massive and more beautiful the buildings of

the future shall arise," said Allan slowly after a pause. "But they

shall not serve creed or faction. They shall be for all mankind, for

the great race still to come. Beauty shall be its heritage, its right.

"'And loveliness shall crown the waiting world

As with a garland of immortal joy!'

"But come, come, Beatrice--there's work to do. The records, girl! We

mustn't stand here admiring architecture and dreaming dreams while

those records are still undiscovered. Down into the crypt we go, to

dig among the relics of a vanished age!"

"The crypt, Allan? Where is it?"

"If I remember rightly--and at the time this cathedral was built I

followed the plans with some care--the entrance is back of the main

southern cluster of pillars over there at the transept-crossing. Come

on, Beta. In a minute we can see whether thousand-year-old memories

are any good or not!"

Quickly he led the way, ax and torch in hand, and as they rounded the

group of massive buttresses whence sprang the pillars for the

groin-vaults aloft, a cry of satisfaction escaped him, followed by a

word of quick astonishment.

"What is it, Allan?" exclaimed the girl. "Anything wrong? Or--"

The man stood peering with wide eyes; then suddenly he knelt and began

pawing over the little heap of vegetable drift that had accumulated

along the wall.

"It's here, all right," said he. "There's the door, right in front of

us--but what I don't understand is--_this!_"

"What, Allan? Is there anything wrong?"

"Not wrong, perhaps, but devilish peculiar!"

Speaking, he raised his hand to her. The fingers held an arrow-head of

flint.

"There's been a battle here, that's sure," said he. "Look,

spear-points--shattered!"

He had already uncovered three obsidian blades. The broken tips proved

how forcibly they had been driven against the stone in the long ago.

"What? A--"

His fingers closed on a small, hollow shell of gold.

"A molar, so help me! All that's left of some forgotten white man who

fell here, at the door, a thousand years ago!"

Speechless, the girl took the shell from him and examined it.

"You're right, Allan," she answered. "This certainly is a hollow gold

crown. Any one can see _that_, in spite of the patina that's formed

over the metal. Why--what can it all mean?"

"Search _me!_ The patriarch's record gave the impression that this

eastern expedition set out within thirty years or so of the

catastrophe. Well, in that short time it doesn't seem possible there

could have developed savages fighting with flints and so on. But that

there certainly was a battle here at this door, and that the cathedral

was used as a fort against some kind of invasion is positively

certain.

"Why, look at the chips of concrete knocked off the jamb of the door

here! Must have been some tall mace-work where you're standing, Beta!

If we could know the complete story of this expedition, its probable

failure to reach New York, its entrapment here, the siege and the

inevitable tragedy of its end--starvation, sorties, repulses,

hand-to-hand fighting at the outer gates, in the nave, here at the

crypt door, perhaps on the stairs and in the vaults below--then defeat

and slaughter and extinction--what a tremendous drama we could

formulate!"

Beatrice nodded. Plain to see, the thought depressed her.

"Death, everywhere--" she began, but Allan laughed.

"Life, you mean!" he rallied. "Come, now, this does no good, poking in

the rubbish of a distant tragedy. Real work awaits us. Come!"

He picked up the torch, and with his primitive but serviceable matches

lighted it. The smoke rose through the silent air of the cathedral, up

into a broad sunlit zone from a tall window in the transept, where it

writhed blue and luminous.

A single blow of Allan's ax shattered the last few shreds of oaken

plank that still hung from the eroded hinges of the door. In front of

the explorers a flight of concrete steps descended, winding darkly to

the crypt beneath.

Allan went first, holding the torch high to light the way.

"The records!" he exclaimed. "Soon, soon we shall know the secrets of

the past!"

CHAPTER VI

TRAPPED!

Some thirty steps the way descended, ending in a straight and

very narrow passage. The air, though somewhat chill, was absolutely

dry and perfectly respirable, thanks to the enormously massive

foundation of solid concrete which formed practically one solid

monolith six hundred feet long by two hundred and fifty broad--a

monolith molded about the crypt and absolutely protecting it from

every outside influence.

"Not even the Great Pyramid of Ghizeh could afford a more

perfect--hello, what's _this?_"

Allan stopped short, staring downward at the floor. His voice reechoed

strangely in the restricted space.

"A skeleton, so help me!"

True indeed. At one side of the passage, lying in a position that

strongly suggested death in a crouching, despairing attitude--death by

starvation rather than by violence--a little clutter of human bones

gleamed white under the torch-flare.

"A skeleton--the first one of our vanished race we've ever found!"

exclaimed the man. "All the remains in New York, you remember, down in

the subway or in any of the buildings, were invariably little piles of

impalpable dust mixed with coins and bits of rusted metal. But

this--it's absolutely intact!"

"The dry air and all--" suggested Beatrice.

Stern nodded.

"Yes," he answered. "Intact, so far. But--"

He stirred the skull with his foot. Instantly it vanished into powder.

"Just as I thought," said he. "No chance to give a decent burial to

this or any other human remains we may come across here. The slightest

disturbance totally disintegrates them. But with _this_ it's

different!"

He picked up a revolver, hardly rusted at all, that lay near at hand.

"Cartridges; look!" cried Beatrice, pointing.

"That's so, too--a score or more!"

Lying in an irregular oval that plainly told of a vanished

cartridge-belt, a string of cartridges trailed on the concrete floor.

"H-m-m-m! Just for an experiment, let's see!" murmured the engineer.

Already he had slipped in a charge.

"Steady, Beatrice!" he cautioned, and, pointing down the passage,

pulled trigger.

Flame stabbed the half-dark and the crashing detonation rang in their

ears.

"What do you think of _that?_" cried Stern exultantly. "Talk about

your miracles! A thousand years and--"

Beatrice grasped him by the arm and pointed downward. Astonished, he

stared. The rest of the skeleton had vanished. In its place now only a

few handfuls of dust lay on the floor.

"Well, I'll be--" the man exclaimed. "Even _that_ does the trick, eh?

H-m! It would be a joke, now, wouldn't it, if the records should act

the same way? Come on, Beta; this is all very interesting, but it

isn't getting us anywhere. We've got to be at work!"

He pocketed the new-found gun and cartridges and once more, torch on

high, started down the passage, with the girl at his side.

"See here, Allan!"

"Eh?"

"On the wall here--a painted stripe?"

He held the torch close and scrutinized the mark.

"Looks like it. Pretty well gone by now--just a flake here and a daub

there, but I guess it once was a broad band of white. A guide?"

They moved forward again. The strip ended in a blur that might once

have been an inscription. Here, there, a letter faintly showed, but

not one word could now be made out.

"Too bad," he mused. "It must have been mighty important or they

wouldn't have--"

"Here's a door, Allan!"

"So? That's right. Now this looks like business at last!"

He examined the door by the unsteady flicker of the torch. It was of

iron, still intact, and fastened by a long iron bar dropped into

massive metal staples.

"Beat it in with the ax?" she queried.

"No. The concussion might reduce everything inside to dust. Ah! Here's

a padlock and a chain!"

Carefully he studied the chain beneath bent brows.

"Here, Beta, you hold the torch, so. That's right. Now then--"

Already he had set the ax-blade between the padlock and the staple. A

quick jerk--the lock flew open raspingly. Allan tried to lift the bar,

but it resisted.

A tap of the ax and it gave, swinging upward on a pivot. Then a minute

later the door swung inward, yielding to his vigorous push.

Together they entered the crypt of solid concrete, a chamber forty

feet long by half as wide and vaulted overhead with arches, crowning

perhaps twenty feet from the floor.

"More skeletons, so help me!"

Allan pointed at two more on the pavement at the left of the entrance.

"Why--how could _that_ happen?" queried Beta, puzzled. "The door was

locked outside!"

"That's so. Either there must be some other exit from this place or

there were dissensions and fightings among the party itself. Or these

men were wounded and were locked in here for safe-keeping while the

others made a sortie and never got back, or--_I_ don't know! Frankly,

it's too much for me. If I were a story-writer I might figure it out,

but I'm not. No matter, they're here, anyhow; that's all. Here two of

our own people died ten centuries ago, trying to preserve civilization

and the world's history for future ages, if there were to be any such.

Two martyrs. I salute them!"

In silence and awed sympathy they inspected the mournful relics of

humanity a minute, but took good care not to touch them.

"And now the records!"

Even as Stern spoke he saw again a dimly painted line, this time upon

the floor, all but invisible beneath the dust of centuries that had

come from God knows where.

"Come, let's follow the line!" cried he.

It led them straight through the middle of the crypt and to a sort of

tunnel-like vault at the far end. This they entered quickly and almost

at once knew they had reached the goal of their long quest.

In front of them, about seven feet from the floor, a rough white star

had been smeared. Directly below it a kind of alcove or recess

appeared, lined with shelves of concrete. What its original purpose

may have been it would be hard to say; perhaps it may have been

intended as a storage-place for the cathedral archives.

But now the explorers saw it was partly filled with pile on pile of

curiously crinkled parchment not protected in any way from the air,

not covered or boxed in. To the right, however, stood a massive chest,

seemingly of sheet-lead.

"Some sense to the lead," growled Stern; "but why they left their

records open to the air, blest if I can see!"

He raised the torch and flared the light along the shelves, and then

he understood. For here, there, copper nails glinted dully, lying in

dust that once upon a time had been wood.

"I'm wrong, Beta; I apologize to them," Stern exclaimed. "These were

all securely boxed once, but the boxes have gone to pieces long since.

Dry-rot, you know. Well, let's see what condition the parchments are

in!"

She held the torch while he tried to raise one, but it broke at the

slightest touch. Again he assayed, and a third time. Same result.

"Great Scott!" he ejaculated, nonplused. "See what we're up against,

will you? We've found 'em and they're ours, but--"

They stood considering a minute. All at once a dull metallic clang

echoed heavily through the crypt. Despite herself, the girl shuddered.

The eerie depths, the gloom, the skeletons had all conspired to shake

her nerves.

"What's _that?_" she whispered, gripping Allan by the arm.

"That? Oh--nothing! Now _how_ the deuce are we going to get at

these--"

"It _was_ something, Allan! But what?"

He grew suddenly silent.

"By Jove--it sounded like--the door--"

"The door? Oh, Allan, quick!"

A sudden, irresistible fear fingered at the strings of the man's

heart. At the back of his neck he felt the hair begin to lift. Then he

smiled by very strength of will.

"Don't be absurd, Beatrice," he managed to say. "It couldn't be, of

course. There's no one here. It--"

But already she was out of the alcove. With the torch held high in

air, she stood there peering with wide eyes down the long blackness of

the crypt, striving to pierce the dark.

Then suddenly he heard her cry of terror.

"The door, Allan! The door! _It's shut!_"

CHAPTER VII

THE LEADEN CHEST

Not at any time since the girl and he had wakened in the tower,

more than a year ago, had Allan felt so compelling a fear as overswept

him then. The siege of the Horde at Madison Forest, the plunge down

the cataract, the fall into the Abyss and the battle with the

Lanskaarn had all taxed his courage to the utmost, but he had met

these perils with more calm than he now faced the blank menace of that

metal door.

For now no sky overhung him, no human agency opposed him, no

counterplay of stress and strife thrilled his blood.

No; the girl and he now were far underground in a crypt, a tomb,

walled round with incalculable tons of concrete, barred from the upper

world, alone--and for the first time in his life the man knew

something of the anguish of unreasoning fear.

Yet he was not bereft of powers of action. Only an instant he stood

there motionless and staring; then with a cry, wordless and harsh, he

ran toward the barrier.

Beneath his spurning feet the friable skeletons crumbled and vanished;

he dashed himself against the door with a curse that was half a

prayer; he strove with it--and staggered back, livid and shaken, for

it held!

Now Beatrice had reached it, too. In her hand the torch trembled and

shook. She tried to speak, but could not. And as he faced her, there

in the tomblike vault, their eyes met silently.

A deathly stillness fell, with but their heart-beats and the

sputtering of the torch to deepen it.

"Oh!" she gasped, stretching out a hand. "You--we--_can't_--"

He licked his lips and tried to smile, but failed.

"Don't--don't be afraid, little girl!" he stammered. "This can't hold

us, possibly. The chain--I broke it!"

"Yes, but the bar, Allan--the bar! How did you leave the bar?"

"Raised!"

The one word seemed to seal their doom. A shudder passed through

Beatrice.

"So then," she choked, "some air-current swung the door shut--and the

bar--fell--"

A sudden rage possessed the engineer.

"Damn that infernal staple!" he gritted, and as he spoke the ax swung

into air.

"Crash!"

On the metal plates it boomed and echoed thunderously. A ringing

clangor vibrated the crypt.

"_Crash!_"

Did the door start? No; but in the long-eroded plates a jagged dent

took form.

Again the ax swung high. Cold though the vault was, sweat globuled his

forehead, where the veins had swelled to twisting knots.

"_Crash!_"

With a wild verberation, a scream of sundered metal and a clatter of

flying fragments, the staple gave way. A crack showed round the edge

of the iron barrier.

Stern flung his shoulder against the door. Creaking, it swung. He

staggered through. One hand groped out to steady him, against the

wall. From the other the ax dropped crashing to the floor.

Only a second he stood thus, swaying; then he turned and gathered Beta

in his arms. And on his breast she hid her face, from which the roses

all had faded quite.

He felt her fighting back the tears, and raised her head and kissed

her.

"There, there!" he soothed. "It wasn't anything, after all, you see.

But--if we hadn't brought the ax with us--"

"Oh, Allan, let's go now! This crypt--I can't--"

"We will go very soon. But there's no danger now, darling. We're not

children, you know. We've still got work to do. We'll go soon; but

first, those records!"

"Oh, how can you, after--after what might have been?"

He found the strength to smile.

"I know," he answered, "but it didn't happen, after all. A miss is

worth a million miles, dear. That's what life seems to mean to us, and

has meant ever since we woke in the tower, peril and risk, labor and

toil--and victory! Come, come, let's get to work again, for there's so

endlessly much to do."

Calmer grown, the girl found new courage in his eyes and in his strong

embrace.

"You're right, Allan. I was a little fool to--"

He stopped her self-reproach with kisses, then picked up the torch

from the floor where it had fallen from her nerveless hand.

"If you prefer," he offered. "I'll take you back into the sunlight,

and you can sit under the trees and watch the river, while I--"

"Where you are, there am I! Come on, Allan; let's get it over with.

Oh, what a coward you must think me!"

"I think you're a woman, and the bravest that ever lived!" he

exclaimed vehemently. "Who but you could ever have gone through with

me all that has happened? Who could be my mate and face the future as

you're doing? Oh, if you only understood my estimate of you!

"But now let's get at those records again. Time's passing, and there

must be still no end of things to do!"

He recovered his ax, and with another blow demolished the last

fragment of the staple, so that by no possibility could the door catch

again.

Then for the second time they penetrated the crypt and the tunnel and

once more reached the alcove of the records.

"Beatrice!"

"What is it, Allan?"

"Look! Gone--all gone!"

"_Gone?_ Why, what do you mean? They're--"

"Gone, I tell you! My God! Just a mass of rubbish, powder, dust--"

"But--but how--"

"The concussion of the ax! That must have done it! The violent

sound-waves--the air in commotion!"

"But, Allan, it can't be! Surely there must be something left?"

"You see?"

He pointed at the shelves. She stood and peered, with him, at the sad

havoc wrought there. Then she stretched out a tentative finger and

stirred a little of the detritus.

"Catastrophe!" she cried.

"Yes and no. At any rate, it may have been inevitable."

"Inevitable?"

He nodded.

"Even if this hadn't happened, Beatrice, I'm afraid we never could

have moved any of these parchments, or read them, or handled them in

any way. Perhaps if we'd had all kinds of proper appliances, glass

plates, transparent adhesives, and so on, _and_ a year or two at our

disposal, we might have made something out of them, but even so, it's

doubtful.

"Of course, in detective stories, Hawkshaw can take the ashes right

out of the grate and piece them together and pour chemicals on them

and decipher the mystery of the lost rubies, and all that. But this

isn't a story, you see; and what's more, Hawkshaw doesn't have to work

with ashes nearly a thousand years old. Ten centuries of

dry-rot--that's _some_ problem!"

She stood aghast, hardly able to believe her eyes.

"But--but," she finally articulated, "there's the other cache out

there in Medicine Bow Range. The cave, you know. And we have the

bearings. And some time, when we've got all the leisure in the world

and all the necessary appliances--"

"Yes, perhaps. Although, of course, you realize the earth is seventeen

degrees out of its normal plane, and every reckoning's shifted. Still,

it's a possibility. But for the present there's strictly nothing

doing, after all."

"How about that leaden chest?"

She wheeled about and pointed at the other side of the alcove, where

stood the metal box, sullen, defiant, secure.

"By Jove, that's so, tool Why, I'd all but forgotten that! You're a

brick, Beta! The box, by all means. Perhaps the most important things

of all are still in safety there. Who knows?"

"Open it, Allan, and let's see!"

Her recent terror almost forgotten in this new excitement, the girl

had begun to get back some of her splendid color. And now, as she

stood gazing at the metal chest which still, perhaps, held the most

vital of the records, she felt again a thrill of excitement at thought

of all its possibilities.

The man, too, gazed at it with keen emotion.

"We've got to be careful this time, Beatrice!" said he. "No more

mistakes. If we lose the contents of this chest, Heaven only knows

when we may be able to get another glimpse into the past. Frankly, the

job of opening it, without ruining the contents, looks pretty stiff.

Still, with care it may be done. Let's see, now, what are we up

against here?"

He took the torch from her and minutely examined the leaden casket.

It stood on the concrete floor, massive and solid, about three and a

half feet high by five long and four wide. So far as he could see,

there were neither locks nor hinges. The cover seemed to have been

hermetically sealed on. Still visible were the marks of the

soldering-iron, in a ragged line, about three inches from the top.

"The only way to get in here is to cut it open," said Allan at last.

"If we had any means of melting the solder, that would be better, of

course, but there's no way to heat a tool in this crypt. I take it the

men who did this work had a plumber's gasoline torch, or something of

that sort. We have practically nothing. As for building a fire in here

and heating one of the aeroplane tools, that's out of the question. It

would stifle us both. No, we must cut. That's the best we can do."

He drew his hunting-knife from its sheath and, giving the torch back

to Beatrice, knelt by the chest. Close under the line of soldering he

dug the blade into the soft metal, and, boring with it, soon made a

puncture through the leaden sheet.

"Only a quarter of an inch thick," he announced, with satisfaction.

"This oughtn't to be such a bad job!"

Already he was at work, with infinite care not to shock or jar the

precious contents within. In his powerful hands the knife laid back

the metal in a jagged line. A quarter of an hour sufficed to cut

across the entire front.

He rested a little while.

"Seems to be another chest inside, of wood," he told the girl. "Not

decayed, either. I shouldn't wonder if the lead had preserved things

absolutely intact. In that case this find is sure to be a rich one."

Again he set to work. In an hour from the time he had begun, the whole

top of the lead box--save only that portion against the wall--had been

cut off.

"Do you dare to move it out, Allan?" queried the girl anxiously.

"Better not. I think we can raise the cover as it is."

He slit up the front corners, and then with comparative ease bent the

entire top upward. To the explorer's eyes stood revealed a chest of

cedar, its cover held with copper screws.

"Now for it!" said the man. "We ought to have one of the screw-drivers

from the Pauillac, but that would take too much time. I guess the

knife will do."

With the blade he attacked the screws, one by one, and by dint of

laborious patience in about an hour had removed all twenty of them.

A minute later he had pried up the cover, had quite removed it, and

had set it on the floor.

Within, at one side, they saw a formless something swathed in oiled

canvas. The other half of the space was occupied by eighty or a

hundred vertical compartments, in each of which stood something

carefully enveloped in the same material.

"Well, for all the world if it doesn't look like a set of big

phonograph records!" exclaimed the man. He drew one of the objects out

and very carefully unwrapped it.

"Just what they are--records! On steel. The new Chalmers-Enemarck

process--new, that is, in 1917. So, then, that's a phonograph, eh?"

He pointed at the oiled canvas.

"Open it, quick, Allan!" Beatrice exclaimed. "If it _is_ a phonograph,

why, we can hear the very voices of the past, the dead, a full

thousand years ago!"

With trembling fingers Stern slit the canvas wrappings.

"What a treasure! What a find!" he exulted. "Look, Beta--see what

fortune has put into our hands!"

Even as he spoke he was lifting the great phonograph from the space

where, absolutely uninjured and intact, it had reposed for ten

centuries. A silver plate caught his eye. He paused to read:

METROPOLITAN OPERA HOUSE,

New York City.

This Phonograph and these Records were immured in the vault of this

building September 28, 1918, by the Philavox Society, to be opened in

the year 2000.

Non Pereat Memoria Musicae Nostrae.

"Let not the memory of our music perish!" he translated. "Why, I

remember well when these records were made and deposited in the

Metropolitan! A similar thing was done in Paris, you remember, and in

Berlin. But how does this machine come _here?_"

"Probably the expedition reached New York, after all, and decided to

transfer this treasure to a safer place where it might be absolutely

safe and dry," she suggested. "It's here, anyhow; that's the main

thing, and we've found it. What fortune!"

"It's lucky, all right enough," the man assented, setting the

magnificent machine down on the floor of the crypt. "So far as I can

see, the mechanism is absolutely all right in every way. They've even

put in a box of the special fiber needles for use on the steel plates,

Beta. Everything's provided for.

"Do you know, the expedition must have been a much larger one than we

thought? It was no child's play to invade the ruins of New York,

rescue all this, and transport it here, probably with savages dogging

their heels every step. Those certainly were determined, vigorous men,

and a goodly number at that. And the fight they must have put up in

the cathedral, defending their cache against the enemy, and dying for

it, must been terrifically dramatic!

"But all that's done and forgotten now, and we can only guess a bit of

it here and there. The tangible fact is this machine and these

records, Beatrice. They're real, and we've got them. And the quicker

we see what they have to tell us the better, eh?"

She clapped her hands with enthusiasm.

"Put on a record, Allan, quick! Let's hear the voices of the past once

more--human voices--the voices of the age that was!" she cried,

excited as a child.

CHAPTER VIII

TILL DEATH US DO PART

"All right, my darling," he made answer. "But not here. This is no

place for melody, down in this dark and gloomy crypt, surrounded by

the relics of the dead. We've been buried alive down here altogether

too long as it is. _Brrr!_ The chill's beginning to get into my very

bones! Don't you feel it, Beta?"

"I do, now I stop to think of it. Well, let's go up then. We'll have

our music where it belongs, in the cathedral, with sunshine and air

and birds to keep it company!"

Half an hour later they had transported the magnificent phonograph and

the steel records out of the crypt and up the spiral stairway, into

the vast, majestic sweep of the transept.

They placed their find on the broad concrete steps that in the old

days had led up to the altar, and while Allan minutely examined the

mechanism to make sure that all was right, the girl, sitting on the

top step, looked over the records.

"Why, Allan, here are instrumental as well as vocal masterpieces," she

announced with joy. "Just listen--here's Rossini's 'Barbier de

Seville,' and Grieg's 'Anitra's Dance' from the 'Peer Gynt Suite,' and

here's that most entrancing 'Barcarolle' from the 'Contes

d'Hoffman'--you remember it?"

She began to hum the air, then, as the harmony flowed through her

soul, sang a few lines, her voice like gold and honey:

Belle nuit, o nuit d'amour, souris a nos ivresses!

Nuit plus douce que le jour, o belle nuit d'amour!

Le temps fuit et sans retour emporte nos tendresses;

Loin de cet heureux sejour le temps fuit sans retour!

Zephyrs embrases, versez-nous vos caresses!

Ah! Donnez-nous vos baisers!

The echoes of Offenbach's wondrous air, a crystal stream of harmony,

and of the passion-pulsing words, died through the vaulted heights. A

moment Allan sat silent, gazing at the girl, and then he smiled.

"It lives in you again, the past!" he cried. "In you the world shall

be made new once more! Beatrice, when I last heard that 'Barcarolle'

it was sung by Farrar and Scotti at the Metropolitan, in the winter of

1913. And now--you waken the whole scene in me again!

"I seem to behold the vast, clear-lighted space anew, the tiers of

gilded galleries and boxes, the thousands of men and women hanging

eagerly on every silver note--I see the marvelous orchestra, many, yet

one; the Venetian scene, the moonlight on the Grand Canal, the

gondolas, the merrymakers--I hear Giulietta and Nicklausse blending

those perfect tones! My heart leaps at the memory, beloved, and I

bless you for once more awakening it!"

"With my poor voice?" she smiled. "Play it, play the record, Allan,

and let us hear it as it should be sung!"

He shook his head.

"No!" he declared. "Not after you have sung it. Your voice to me is

infinitely sweeter than any that the world of other days ever so much

as dreamed of!"

He bent above her, caressed her hair and kissed her; and for a little

while they both forgot their music. But soon the girl recalled him to

the work in hand.

"Come, Allan, there's so much to do!"

"I know. Well now--let's see, what next?"

He paused, a new thought in his eyes.

"Beta!"

"Well?"

"You don't find Mendelssohn's 'Wedding March,' do you? Look, dearest,

see if you can find it. Perhaps it may be there. If so--"

She eyed him, her gaze widening.

"You mean?"

He nodded.

"Just so! Perhaps, after all, you and I can--"

"Oh, come and help me look for it, Allan!" she cried enthusiastic as a

child in the joy of his new inspiration. "If we only _could_ find it,

wouldn't that be glorious?"

Eagerly they searched together.

"'Ich Grolle Nicht,' by Schumann, no," Stern commented, as one by one

they examined the records. "'Ave Maria,' Arcadelt-Liszt--no, though

it's magnificent. That's the one you sing best of all, Beta. How often

you've sung it to me! Remember, at the bungalow, how I used to lay my

head in your lap while you played with my Samsonesque locks and sang

me to sleep? Let's see--Brahms's 'Wiegenlied.' Cradle-song, eh? A

little premature; that's coming later. Eh? Found it, by Jove! Here we

are, the March itself, so help me! Shall I play it now?"

"Not yet, Allan. Here, see what _I've_ found!"

She handed him a record as they sat there together in a broad ribbon

of mid-morning sunlight that flooded down through one of the

clearstory windows.

"'The Form of the Solemnization of Matrimony, by Bishop Gibson,'" he

read. And silence fell, and for a long minute their eyes met.

"Beatrice!"

"I know; I understand! So, after all, these words--"

"Shall be spoken, O my love! Out of the dead past a voice shall speak

to us and we shall hear! Beatrice, the words your mother heard, my

mother heard, we shall hear, too. Come, Beatrice, for now the time is

at hand!"

She fell a trembling, and for a moment could not speak. Her eyes grew

veiled in tears, but through them he saw a bright smile break, like

sunlight after summer showers.

She stood up and held out her hand to him.

"My Allan!"

In his arms he caught her.

"At last!" he whispered. "Oh, at last!"

When the majesty and beauty of the immortal

marriage hymn climbed the high vaults of the cathedral, waking the

echoes of the vacant spaces, and when it rolled, pealing triumphantly,

she leaned her head upon his breast and, trembling, clung to him.

With his arm he clasped her; he leaned above her, shrouding her in his

love as in an everlasting benison. And through their souls thrilled

wonder, awe and passion, and life held another meaning and another

mystery.

The words of solemn sacredness hallowed for centuries beyond the

memory of man, rose powerful, heart-thrilling, deep with symbolism,

strong with vibrant might--and, hand in hand, the woman and the man

bowed their heads, listening:

"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here to join together this man and

this woman in holy matrimony--reverently, discreetly, advisedly,

soberly. Into this holy estate these two persons present now come to

be joined."

His hand tightened upon her hand, for he felt her trembling. But

bravely she smiled up at him and upon her hair the golden sunlight

made an aureole.

The voice rose in its soul-shaking question--slow and powerful:

"Wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded wife, to live together in

the holy estate of matrimony? Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honor,

and keep her in sickness and in health, and keep thee only unto her,

so long as ye both shall live?"

Allan's "_I will!_" was as a hymn of joy upon the morning air.

"Wilt thou have this man to thy wedded husband, to live together in

the holy estate of matrimony? Wilt thou serve him, love, honor, and

keep him in sickness and in health, and keep thee only unto him, so

long as ye both shall live?"

She answered proudly, bravely:

"I will!"

Then the man chorused the voice and said:

"I, Allan, take thee, Beatrice, to my wedded wife, to have and to

hold from this day forward for better, for worse, for richer, for

poorer, in sickness and in health to love and to cherish, till death

us do part, and thereto I plight thee my troth."

Her answer came, still led by the commanding voice, like an antiphony

of love:

"I, Beatrice, take thee, Allan, to my wedded husband, to have and to

hold from this day forward for better, for worse, for richer, for

poorer, in sickness and in health to love and to cherish, till death

us do part, and thereto I give thee my troth!"

Already Allan had drawn from his little finger the plain gold ring he

had worn there so many centuries. Upon her finger he placed the ring

and kissed it, and, following the voice, he said:

"With this ring I thee wed, and with all my worldly goods I thee

endow. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy

Ghost. Amen."

Forest, river, sky and golden sunlight greeted them as they stood on

the broad porch of the cathedral, and the clear song of many birds,

unafraid in the virgin wilderness, made music to their ears such as

must have greeted the primal day.

Suddenly Allan caught and crushed her in his arms.

"My wife!" he whispered.

The satin of her skin from breast to brow surged into sudden flame.

Her eyes closed and between her eager lips the breath came fast.

"Oh, Allan--_husband!_ I feel--I hear--"

"The voice of the unborn, crying to us from out the dark, 'O father,

mother, give us life!'"

CHAPTER IX

AT SETTLEMENT CLIFFS

Ten days later the two lovers--now man and wife--were back

again at the eastern lip of the Abyss. With them on the biplane they

had brought the phonograph and records, all securely wrapped in oiled

canvas, the same which had enveloped the precious objects in the

leaden chest.

They made a camp, which was to serve them for a while as headquarters

in their tremendous undertaking of bringing the Merucaans to the

surface, and here carefully stored their treasure in a deep cleft of

rock, secure from rain and weather.

They had not revisited the bungalow on the return trip. The sight of

their little home and garden, now totally devastated, they knew would

only sadden them unnecessarily.

"Let it pass, dearest, as a happy memory that was and is no more,"

Stern cheered the girl as he held her in his arms the first night of

their stay in the new camp, and as together they watched the purple

haze of sunset beyond the chasm. "Some day, perhaps, we may go back

and once more restore Hope Villa and live there again, but for the

present many other and far more weighty matters press. It will be

wisest for a while to leave the East alone. Too many of the Horde are

still left there. Here, west of the Ohio River Valley, they don't seem

to have penetrated--and what's more, they never shall! Just now we

must ignore them--though the day of reckoning will surely come! We've

got our hands full for a while with the gigantic task ahead of us.

It's the biggest and the hardest that one man and one woman ever

tackled since the beginning of time!"

She drew his head down and kissed him, and for a little while they

kept the silence of perfect comradeship. But at last she questioned:

"You've got it all worked out at last, Allan? You know just the steps

to take? One false move--"

"There shall be no false moves. Reason, deliberation, care will solve

this problem like all the others. Given some fifteen hundred people,

at a depth of five hundred miles, and given an aeroplane and plenty of

time--"

"Yes, of course, they can be brought to the surface. But after that,

what? The dangers are tremendous! The patriarch died at the first

touch of sunlight. We can't afford to take chances with the rest!"

"I've planned on all that. Our first move must be to locate a rocky

ledge, a cave, or something of the sort, where the transplanting

process can be carried out. There mustn't be any exposure to the

actual daylight for a long time after they're on the surface. The

details of food and water have all got to be arranged, too. It means

work, work, _work!_ God, what work! But--it's our task, Beta, all our

own. And I glory in it. I thank Heaven for it--a man's-size labor! And

if we're strong and brave enough, patient and wise enough, we're bound

to win."

"Win? Of course we'll win!" she answered, her faith in him touching

the sublime. "We must! The life of the whole world's at stake!"

Night came, and redder glowed the firelight in the gloom. They spoke

of life, of love, of destiny; and over them seemed to brood the

mystery of all that was to be.

The very purpose of the universe enwrapped itself about their passion,

and the untroubled stars kept vigils till the dawn.

Daylight called them to begin the epic campaign they had mapped

out--the rescue of a race.

After a visit to the patriarch's grave, which they decked anew with

blossoms and fresh leaves, they prepared for the journey in search of

a suitable temporary home for the Folk.

Nine o'clock found them once more on the wing. Stern laid a southerly

course along the edge of the Abyss. He and Beatrice had definitely

decided that the new home of humanity was not to be the distant

regions of the East, involving so long and perilous a journey, but

rather some location in the vast, warm, central plain of what had once

been the United States.

They judged they were now somewhere in the one-time State of Indiana,

not far from Indianapolis. So much warmer had the climate grown that

for some months to come at least the Folk could without doubt accustom

themselves to the change from the hot and muggy atmosphere of the

Abyss to the semitropic heat.

The main object now was to discover suitable caves near a good water

supply, where by night the Folk could prosecute their accustomed

fisheries. Agriculture and the care of domestic animals by daylight

would have to be postponed for some time, possibly for a year or more.

Above all, the health of the prospective colonists must be

safeguarded.

It was not until nearly nightfall of the next day, and after stops had

been made at the ruins of two considerable but unidentified towns--for

fuel, as well as to fit up an electric search-light and hooded lamps

to illuminate the instruments in the Abyss--that the explorers found

what they were seeking.

About half past five that afternoon they sighted a very considerable

river, flowing westward down a rugged and irregular valley, in the

direction of the chasm.

"This can't be the Ohio," judged Stern. "We must have long since

passed its bed, now probably dried up. I don't remember any such hilly

region as this in the old days along the Mississippi Valley. All these

formations must be the result of the cataclysm. Well, no matter, just

so we find what we're after."

"Where are we now?" she asked, peering downward anxiously. "Over what

State--can you tell?"

"Probably Tennessee or northern Alabama. See the change in vegetation?

No conifers here, but many palms and fern-trees, and new, strange

growths. Fertile isn't the name for it! Once we clear some land here,

crops will grow themselves! I don't think we'll do better than this,

Beta. Shall we land and see?"

A quarter-hour later the Pauillac had safely deposited them on a high,

rocky plateau about half a mile back from the edge of the river

canyon. Stern, in his eagerness, was all for cave-hunting that very

evening, but the girl restrained him.

"Not so impatient, dear!" she cautioned. "'Too fast arrives as tardy

as too slow!' To-morrow's time enough."

"Ruling me with quotations from Shakespeare, eh?" he laughed, with a

kiss. "All right, have your way--_Mrs._ Stern!"

She laughed, too, at this, the first time she had heard her new name.

So they made camp and postponed further labors till daylight again.

Morning found them early astir and at work. Together they traversed

the tropic-seeming woods, aflame with brilliant flowers, dank with

ferns and laced with twining lianas.

In the treetops--strange trees, fruit laden--parrakeets and flashing

green and crimson birds of paradise disturbed the little monkey-folk

that chattered at the intruders. Once a coral-red snake whipped away,

hissing, but not quick enough to dodge a ball from Stern's revolver.

Stern viewed the ugly, triangular head with apprehension. Well he knew

that venom dwelt there, but he said nothing. The one and only chance

of successfully transplanting the Folk must be to regions warm as

these. All dangers must be braved a time till they could grow

acclimated to the upper air. After that--but the vastness of the

future deterred even speculation. Perils were inevitable. The more

there were to overcome the greater the victory.

"On to the cliffs!" said he, clasping the girl's hand in his own and

making a path for her.

Thus presently they reached the edge of the canyon.

"Magnificent!" cried Beatrice as they came out on the overhang of the

rock wall. "With these fruitful woods behind, that river in front, and

these natural fortifications for our home, what more could we want?"