"Nothing except caves," Stern answered. "Let's call this New Hope

River, eh? And the cliffs?"

"Settlement Cliffs!" she exclaimed.

"Done! Well, now let's see."

For the better part of the morning they explored the face of the

palisade. Its height, they estimated, ranged from two to three hundred

feet, shelving down in rough terraces to the rocky debris through and

beyond which foamed the strong current of New Hope River, a stream

averaging about two hundred yards in width.

Up-current a broader pool gave promise of excellent fishing. It

overflowed into violent rapids, with swift, white waters noisily

cascading.

"There, incidentally," Stern remarked, with the practical perception

of the engineer, "there's power enough, when properly harnessed, to

light a city and to turn machinery ad libitum. I don't see how we

could better this site, do you?"

"Not if you think there are good chances for cave-dwellings," she made

answer.

"From what we've seen already, it looks promising. Of course, there'll

be a deal of work to do; but there are excellent possibilities here.

First rate."

Fortune seemed bent on favoring them. The limestone cliff,

fantastically eroded, offered a score of shelters, some shallow and

needing to be walled up in front, others deep and tortuous. All was in

utter confusion.

Stern saw that the terraces would have to be blasted and leveled,

roads and stairs built along the face of the rock and down to the

river, stalactites and stalagmites cut away, chambers fashioned, and a

vast deal of labor done; but the rough framework of a cliff colony

undeniably existed here. He doubted whether it would be possible to

find a more favorable site without long and tedious travels.

"I guess we'll take the apartments and sign the lease," he decided

toward noon, after they had clambered, pried, explored with improvised

torches, and penetrated far into some of the grottoes. "The main thing

to consider is that we can find darkness and humidity for the Folk by

day. They mustn't be let out at first except in the night. It may be

weeks or months before they can stand the direct sunlight. But that,

too, will come. Patience, girl--patience and time--and all will yet be

done."

Yet, even as he spoke, a strange anxiety, a prescience of tremendous

difficulties, brooded in his soul. These were not cattle that he had

to deal with, but _men_.

Could he and Beatrice, rulers of the Folk though they now were, could

they--with their paltry knowledge of the people's language,

superstitions, prejudices and inner life--really bring about this

great migration?

Could they ravish a nation from its accustomed home, transplant it

bodily, force new conditions on it, train, teach, civilize it? All

this without rebellion, anarchy and failure?

"God!" thought the engineer. "The labors of Hercules were child's play

beside this problem!"

His heart quaked at the thought of all that lay ahead; yet through

everything, deep in the basic strata of his being, he knew that all

should be and must be as he planned.

Barring death only, the seemingly impossible should come to pass.

"I swear it!" he murmured to himself. "For _her_ sake, for theirs, and

for the world's, I swear it shall be!"

At high noon they emerged once more from the caverns, climbed the

steep cliff face, and again stood on the heights.

Facing northward, their gaze swept the lower river-bank opposite, and

reached away, away, over the rolling hills and plains that lay, a

virgin forest, to the dim horizon, brooding, mysterious, quivering

with fertility and wild, strange life.

"Some time," he prophesied, sweeping his arm out toward the

wilderness--"some time all _that_--and far beyond--shall be dotted

with clearings and rich farms, with cottages, schools, towns, cities.

Broad highways shall traverse it. The hum of motors, of machinery, of

industry--of life itself--shall one day displace the cry of beast and

bird.

"Some time the English tongue shall reign here again--here and beyond.

Here strong men shall toil and build and reap and rest. Here love

shall reign and women be called 'mother.' Here children shall play and

learn and grow to manhood and to womanhood, secure and free.

"Some time all good things shall here come to realization. Oppression

and slavery, alone, shall be undreamed of. These, and poverty and

pain, shall never enter into the new world that is to be.

"Some time, here, 'all shall be better than well.' _Some time!_"

He circled her with his arm, and for a while they stood surveying this

cradle of the new race. Much moved, Beatrice drew very close to him.

They made no speech.

For the dreams they two were dreaming, as the golden sun irradiated

all that vast, magnificent wilderness, passed any power of words.

Only she whispered "Some time!" too, and Allan knew she shared with

him the glory of his vast, tremendous vision!

CHAPTER X

SEPARATION

They spent the remainder of that day and all the next in hard

work, making practical preparations for the arrival of the first

settlers. Allan assured himself the waters of New Hope River were soft

and pure and that an ample supply of fish dwelt in the pool as well as

in the rapids--trout, salmon and pike of new varieties and great size,

as well as other species.

Beatrice and he, working together, put the largest and darkest of the

caves into habitable order. They also prepared, for their own use, a

sunny grotto, which they thought could with reasonable labor be made

into a comfortable temporary home.

"Though it isn't our own cozy bungalow, and never can be," she

remarked rather mournfully, surveying the fireplace of roughly piled

stones Allan had built. "Oh, dear, if we only could have had that to

live in while--"

He stopped her yearning with a kiss.

"There, there, little girl," he cheered her, "don't be impatient. All

in good time we'll have another, garden and sun-dial and everything.

All in good time. The more we have to overcome, the more we'll

appreciate results, eh? The only really serious matter to consider now

is _you!_"

"Me, Allan? Why, what do you mean? What about me?"

He sat down on the rough-hewn bench of logs that he had fashioned and

drew her to him.

"Listen, Beta. This is very serious."

"What, Allan? Has anything happened?"

"No, and nothing must, either. That's what's troubling me now. Our

separation, I mean."

"Our--why, what--"

"Don't you see? Can't you understand? We've got to be apart a while. I

must go alone--"

"Oh, no, no, Allan! You mustn't; I can't let you!"

"You've _got_ to let me, darling! The machine will only carry, at

most, three persons and a little freight. Now if you take the trip

back into the Abyss I can only bring one, just one of the Folk back

with me. And at that rate you can see for yourself how long it will

take to make even a beginning at colonization. I figure three or four

days for the round trip, at the inside. If you go we'll be all summer

and more getting even twenty-five or thirty colonists here. Whereas,

if you can manage to let me do this work alone, we'll have fifty in

the caves by October. So you see--"

"You don't want to go and leave me, Allan?"

"God forbid! Shall I abandon the whole attempt and settle down with

you here, all alone, and--"

"No, no, no! Not that, Allan!"

"I knew you'd say so. After all, the future of the race means more

than our own welfare or comfort or anything. Even our safety has got

to be risked for it. So you see--"

She thought a moment, clinging to him, somewhat pale and shaken, but

with an indefinable courage in her eyes. Then asked she:

"Wouldn't it be possible in some way--for you can do anything,

Allan--wouldn't it be possible for you to build another machine?

Surely in the ruins of some city not too far away, in Nashville,

Cincinnati, or Detroit, you could find materials! Couldn't you make

another aeroplane and teach me how to fly, so I could help you? I'd

learn, Allan! I'd dare, and be brave--awfully brave, for your sake,

and theirs, and--"

He gravely shook his head in negation.

"I know you would, dearest, but you mustn't. Half my real reason for

not wanting you to go with me is just this danger of flying. You'll be

safer here. With plenty of supplies and your pistol you'll be all

right. I know it seems heartless to talk of leaving you, even for

three days, but, after all, it's far the wisest way. We'll build a

barricade and make a regular fort for you and stock it with supplies.

Then you can wait for me and the first two settlers. And after that

you'll have company. Why, you'll have _subjects_--for, until they're

educated, we've simply got to rule these people. It'll be only the

first trip that will make you lonely, and it won't be long."

"I know; but suppose anything should happen to you!"

He laughed confidently.

"Nonsense!" he exclaimed. "You know nothing ever _does_ happen to me!

Everything will be all right, my best--beloved. Only a little patience

and a little courage, that's all we need now. You'll see!"

Till late that night, sheltered in their cave, they talked of this

momentous step. Redly their firelight glowed upon their walls and

roof, where sparkled myriads of tiny rock-facets. Far below the rapids

of New Hope River murmured a contra-bass to their voices.

And in the canyon the sighing of the night-wind, pierced now and then

by some strange cry of beast-life from the forest beyond, heightened

their pleasant sense of security. Only the knowledge of approaching

separation weighed heavy on their souls.

From every possible standpoint they discussed the situation. Allan's

plan, viewed with the eye of reason, was really the only sane one.

Nothing could have been more absurdly wasteful of time and energy than

the idea of carrying the girl down into the Abyss each time and

bringing her up with every return.

Not only would it expose her needlessly to very grave perils, but it

would bisect the efficiency of the Pauillac. Allan realized, moreover,

that in the rebuilding of the world a time must inevitably come when

he could not always stand by her side. She must learn self-reliance,

harsh as that teaching might seem.

All this and much more he pointed out to her. And before midnight she,

too, agreed. It was definitely decided that he was to undertake the

transportation work alone.

Thus the matter was settled. But on that night there was little sleep

for either of them. For, on the day after the morrow was to commence

their first separation since the time they had awakened in the tower,

more than a year ago.

Separation!

The thought weighed leaden on Allan's heart. As for Beatrice, though

in the dark she hid her tears, she felt that grief could plumb no

blacker depths save utter loss. Only the thought of the new world and

all that it must mean steeled her to resignation.

Morning dawned, aflare with light and color, as

only a June morning in that semitropic wilderness could glow. Allan

and Beatrice, early at work, resolutely attacked their labor of

preparation.

First of all they laid in adequate supplies of fruit and game, both of

which, in that virgin wild, were to be had in a profusion undreamed of

in the old days of civilization. With an improvised lance Ahan also

speared three salmon in the rapids. The game and fish he dressed for

her and packed among green leaves in the cool recesses at the extreme

inner end of the cavern.

"No need whatever for you to leave the cave while I'm gone," he warned

her. "I'm not forbidding you to, because I'm not your master. All I

say is I'll be far happier if you stay close at home. Will you promise

me that, whatever happens, you won't wander from the cave?"

"I needn't promise, dearest. All I need to know is your wish. That's

enough for me!"

Together they set about fortifying the place. They built a rough but

strong barricade of rocks across the mouth of the cavern, leaving only

one small aperture, just sufficient to admit a single person on hands

and knees.

Allan fetched a rounded stone that she could roll into this door by

night and arranged a stout sapling to brace the stone immovably. He

supplied her well with fire-wood and saw to it that her bandoliers

were full of cartridges. In addition, he left her the extra gun and

ammunition they had found in the crypt under the cathedral.

With a torch he carefully explored every crevice of the cave to make

sure no noxious spiders, centipedes, or serpents were sheltered there.

From the Pauillac he brought his own cloak, which he insisted on her

keeping. This, with hers, would add to the comfort of the bed they had

made with fragrant ferns and grasses.

He fashioned, out of the tenacious clay of an earth-bank about half a

mile down stream, two large water-jars, and baked them for some hours

in a huge fire on the terrace in front of the cave.

When properly hardened he scoured them carefully with river-sand and

filled them one at a time, struggling up the hard ascent with a stout

heart--for all this toil meant safety for the girl; it was all another

step on the hard pathway toward the goal.

In her sleep that night he bent above her, kissed her tenderly, and

realized how inexpressibly dear she was to him.

The thought: "To-morrow I must leave her!" weighed heavy on him. And

for a long time he could not sleep, but lay listening to the night

sounds of the forest and the brawling stream. Once a deep, booming

roar echoed throughout the canyon, and thereto, hollow blows.

But Allan could not think their meaning. Only he knew the wild was

full of perils; and in his mind he reviewed the precautions he had

taken for her welfare. Bit by bit he analyzed them. He knew that he

could do no more Now Fate must solve the rest.

He slept at length, not to waken till morning with its garish eye

peeped in around the crevices of the rock doorway. Returning from his

swim in the pool, he found Beatrice already making breakfast. They ate

in silence, overborne with sad and bodeful thoughts.

But now the decision had been made, nothing remained save to execute

it. Such a contingency as backing out of an undertaking once begun lay

far outside their scheme of things.

The leave-taking was not delayed. They both realized that an early

start was necessary if he were to reach the village of the Folk before

sleep should assail him. Still more, they dreaded the departure less

than the suspense.

Together they provisioned the Pauillac, back there on the rocky

barren, and made sure everything was in order. Allan assured himself

especially that he had fuel enough to last four or five hours.

"In that time," he told the girl, "I can easily reach the rim of the

Abyss. You see, I needn't fly northward to the point where we emerged.

That would be only an unnecessary waste of time and energy. I'm

positive the chasm extends all the way up and down what was once the

Mississippi Valley, and that the Great Central Sea is fed by that and

other rivers. In that case, by striking almost due west, I can reach

the rim. After that I can volplane easily till I sight the water."

"And then?"

"Then the power goes on again and I scout for the west shore and the

village. The sustaining power of that lower-level air is simply

miraculous. I realize perfectly well it's no child's play, but I can

do it, Beta. I can find the place again. You see, I'm perfectly

familiar with conditions down there now. The first time it was all new

and strange. This time, after all those months in the Abyss, why, it

will be almost like getting back home again. It'll be quite a

triumphal return, won't it? The chief getting back to his tribe, eh?"

He tried to speak lightly, but his lips refused to smile. She frankly

wept.

"There, there, little girl," he soothed her. "Now let's go back to the

cave and see that you're all right and safe. Then I'll be going.

Remember on the third night to kindle the big fire we've agreed on

just outside your door on the terrace--the beacon-fire, you know. I'll

have to reckon by the chronometer, so as to make the return by night.

The risk of bringing any of the Folk into daylight is prohibitive. And

the fire will be tremendously important. I can sight it a long way

off. It will guide me home--to you!"

She nodded silently, for she did not trust herself to speak.. Hand in

hand they returned along the path they had beaten through the rank

half-tropic growth.

One last inspection he gave to all things necessary for her comfort.

Then, standing in the warm, bright sunlight on the ledge before the

new home, he took her in his arms.

A long embrace, a parting kiss that clung; then he was gone.

Not long after the girl, still standing there upon the windswept

terrace overlooking New Hope River, heard the rapid chatter of the

engine high in air and rapidly approaching.

A swift black shadow leaped the canyon and swept away across the

plain. Far aloft she saw the skimming Pauillac, very small and black

against the dazzling blue.

Did Allan wave a hand to her? Could she hear his farewell cry?

Impossible to tell. Her ears, confused by the roaring of the rapids,

her eyes dazzled by the shimmer of the morning heavens and dimmed by

burning tears, refused to serve her.

But bravely she waved her cloak on high. Bravely she strove to watch

the arrow-flight of the swift bird-man till the tiny machine dwindled

to a moving blur, a point, a mere speck on the far horizon, then

vanished in the blue.

Choked with anguish, against which all her courage, all her philosophy

could not make way, Beatrice sank down upon the rocky ledge and

abandoned herself to grief.

Allan was gone at last! Gone--ever to return? At last she was alone in

the unbroken wilderness!

CHAPTER XI

"HAIL TO THE MASTER!"

Eleven hours of incessant labor, care, watchfulness and

fatigue, three hours of flight and eight of coasting into the terrific

depths, brought Allan once more through the fogs, the dark, the heat,

to sight of the vast sunken sea, five hundred miles below the surface.

Throughout the whole stupendous labor he thanked Heaven the girl was

safely left behind, nor forced to share this travail and exhaustion.

Myriad anxieties and fears assailed him--fears he had taken good care

not to let her know or dream of.

Always existed the chance that something might go wrong about the

machine and it be hurled, with him, into that black and steaming sea;

the possibility of landing not among the Folk, but in some settlement

of the Lanskaarn on the rumored islands he had never seen; the menace

of the Great Vortex, of which he knew nothing save the little that the

patriarch had told him.

All these and many other perils sought to force themselves upon his

mind. But Allan put them resolutely back and, guided by his

instruments, his reason, and that marvelous sixth sense of location

which his long months of battling with the wilderness had brought to

birth in him, swiftly yet carefully slid in vast spirals down the

purple, then the black and terrifying void that yawned interminably

below.

The beam of his underslung searchlight, shifting at his will, shot its

white ray in a long, fading pencil downward as he coasted. And hour

after hour it found nothing whereon to rest. It, too, seemed lost

forever in the welter of uprushing, choking vapors from the pit.

"Ah! _At last!_"

The cry, dull in that compressed air, burst triumphantly from his lips

as the light-ray, suddenly piercing a rift of cloud, sparkled dimly on

a surface shiny-black as newly cleft anthracite.

Allan threw in the motor once more and quickly got the Pauillac under

control. In a long downward slant he rushed, like some vast swallow

skimming a pool, over the mysterious plain of steaming waters. And

ever, peering eagerly ahead, he sought a twinkle of the fishermen's

oil-flares wimpling across the sunken sea.

Moment by moment he consulted his instruments and the chart he had

stretched before him under the gleam of the hooded bulbs.

"Inside of half an hour now," said he, "I ought to sight the first

flash of the flares upon the parapet--the glow of the flaming well!"

And a singular eagerness all at once possessed him, a strange yearning

to behold once more the strange, fog-shrouded, reeking City of the

Lost People, almost as though it had been home, as though these white

barbarians had been his own people.

Men! To see men once more! The idea leaped up and gripped him with a

powerful fascination.

So it was that when in reality the first faint twinkle of the

fishing-boats peeped through the mist--and beyond, a tiny necklace of

gleaming points that he knew marked the walls of the town--his heart

throbbed hotly and a cry of eager greeting welled from his soul.

Quickly the Pauillac swept him onward. Manoeuvering cautiously,

jockeying the great machine with that consummate skill he had acquired

from long practice, he soon beheld the dim outlines of the vast cliff,

the long walls, the dull reflections of the fire-plume, the slanting

slope of beach.

And with keen exultation, thrilled with his triumph and his greeting

to the Folk he came to rescue, he landed with a whir upon the reeking

slope.

To him, even before he had been able to free his cramped body from

the saddle, came swarming the people, with loud cries of welcome and

rejoicing. Powerfully the automatics he and Beatrice had used in the

Battle of the Walls had impressed their simple minds with almost

superstitious reverence. More powerfully still his terrible fight with

Kamrou, ending with the death of that great chief in the boiling vat.

And now, acknowledging him their overlord and ruler, whom they had

feared to lose forever, they trooped in wild, disordered throngs to

do him reverence.

In from the sea, summoned by waving flares, the fishing-boats came

plowing mightily, driven by many paddles in the hands of the strange,

white-haired men.

Along the beach the townsfolk thronged, and down the causeway, beneath

the vast monolithic plinth of the fortified gate, jostled and pushed

an ever-growing multitude.

Cries of "Kromno h'viat! Tai Kromno!" reechoed--"The chief has come

back! The great master!"--and the confusion swelled to a mighty roar,

close-pent under the heavy mists blued by the naphtha-torches.

But Stern noticed, and rejoiced to see it, that none prostrated

themselves. None fell to earth or groveled in his presence. Disorderly

and wild the greeting was, but it was the greeting of men, not slaves.

"Thank God, I've got a race of real men to deal with here!" thought

he, surveying the pressing throng. "Hard they may be to rule, and even

turbulent, but they're not servile. Rude, brave, bold--what better

stock could I have hoped for in this great adventuring?"

For a while even thoughts of Beatrice were crowded back by the

excitement of the arrival. In all his wonderful experience never

before had he sensed a feeling such as this.

To be returning, master and lord of a race of long-buried people, his

own people, after all--to be acknowledged chieftain--to hold their

destinies within his hand for good or evil--the magnitude of the

situation, the tremendous difficulties and responsibilities, almost

overwhelmed him.

He felt a need to rest, and think, and plan, to recuperate from the

long journey and to recover poise and strength.

And with relief, as he raised his hand for silence, he perceived the

wrinkled face of one Vreenya, head councillor of Kamrou, his

predecessor.

Him he summoned to come close, and to him gave his orders. With some

degree of fluency--for in the months Beatrice and he had spent in the

Abyss they had acquired much of the Merucaan tongue--he said:

"I greet you, Vreenya. I greet my people, all. Harken. I have made a

long journey to return to you. I am tired and would rest. There be

many things to tell you, but not now. I would sleep and eat. Is my

house in readiness?"

"It is in readiness--the house of the Kromno. Your word is our law.

It shall be as you have spoken."

"That is good. Now it is my will that this air-boat on which I ride

should be carried close up to the walls and carefully covered with

mantles, especially this part," and he gestured at the engines. "After

that I rest."

"So it shall be," Vreenya made answer, while the Folk listened. "But,

master, where is the woman? Where is the ancient man, J'hungaav, who

sailed with you in the air-boat to those upper regions we know not

of?"

"The woman is well. She awaits in a place we have prepared for you."

"It is well. And the ancient man?"

Stern thought quickly. To confess the patriarch's death would

certainly be fatal to the undertaking. These simple minds would judge

from it that certain destruction must be the portion of any who should

dare venture into those mysterious upper regions which to them were

but a myth, a strange tradition--almost a terror.

And though the truth was dear to him, yet under stress of the greater

good he uttered falsehood by implication.

"The ancient man awaits you, too. He is resting in the far places. He

would desire you to come to him."

"He is at peace? He found the upper world good?"

"He found it good, Vreenya. And he is at peace."

"It is well. Now the commands of Tai Kromno shall be done. His house

is ready!"

While Stern clambered out of the machine and stretched his

half-paralyzed limbs, the news ran, a murmur of many voices, through

the massed Folk. Stern's heart swelled with pride at the success so

far of his mission. If all should go as well from now on, his mighty

object could and would be accomplished. But if not--

He shuddered slightly despite himself, for to his mind arose the

ever-present possibility of the Folk's custom of trial by combat--the

chance that some rebellious one might challenge him--that the outcome

might another time turn against him.

He remembered still the scream of Kamrou as the deposed chieftain had

plunged into the boiling pool. What if this fate should some time yet

be _his?_ And once more thoughts of Beatrice obtruded; and, despite

himself, he felt the clutch of terror at his heart.

He put it resolutely away, however, for he realized that all depended

now on maintaining good courage and a bold, commanding air. The

slightest weakness might at any time prove fatal.

He understood enough of the barbarian psychology to know the value of

dominance. And with a command to Vreenya: "Make way for me, your

master!" he advanced through the lane which the crowding Folk made for

him.

As, followed by the councillor and the elders, he climbed the slippery

causeway and passed through the labyrinthine passes of the great gate,

strange emotions stirred him.

The scene was still the same as when he first had witnessed it. Still

flared the torches in the hands of the populace and along the walls,

where, perched on the very ledge of the one-time battle with the

Lanskaarn, the strange waterfowl still blinked their ghostly eyes.

No change was to be witnessed in the enclosure, the huts, the wide

plaza, stretching away to the cliff, to the fire-pit, and the Dungeon

of Skeletons. But still how different was it all!

Only too clearly he remembered the first time he and Beatrice had been

thrust into this weird community, bound and captive; with only too

vivid distinctness he recalled the frightful indignities, perils and

hardships inflicted on them.

The absence of the kindly patriarch saddened him; and, too, the fact

that now no Beatrice was with him there.

Slowly, wearily, he moved along the slippery rock-floor toward his

waiting house, unutterably lonesome even in this pushing throng that

now acclaimed him, yet thanking God that the girl, at least, was far

from the buried town of such hard ways and latent perils.

At the door of the round, conical stone hut that had been Kamrou's and

now was his--so long as he could hold the chieftainship by sheer force

of will and power--he paused a moment and faced the eager throng.

"Peace to you, my people!" he exclaimed, once more raising his hand on

high. "Soon I shall tell you many wonders and things strange to

hear--many things of great import and good tidings.

"When I have slept I shall speak with you. Now I go to rest. Await me,

for the day of your deliverance is at hand!"

A face caught his attention, a sinister and, brutal face, doubly

ominous in the flaring cresset-glare. He knew the man--H'yemba, the

cunning ironsmith, one who in other days had before now crossed his

will and, dog-like, snarled as much as he had dared. Now a peculiarly

malevolent expression lay upon the evil countenance. The dead-white

skin wrinkled evilly; the pink eyes gleamed with disconcerting malice.

But Stern, dead tired, only glanced at H'yemba for a second, then with

Vreenya entered the hut and bade the door be closed.

All dressed as he was, he flung himself upon the rude bed of seaweed

covered with the coarse brown stuff woven by the Folk.

"Sleep, master," Vreenya said. "I will sit here and watch. But before

you sleep loosen the terrible fire-bow that shoots the bolts of lead

and lay it near at hand."

"You mean--there may be trouble here?"

"Sleep!" was all the councillor would answer. "When you have rested

there will be many things to ask and tell."

Spent beyond the power of any further effort, Stern laid his automatic

handy and disposed himself to rest.

As his weary eyelids closed and the first outposts of consciousness

began to fall before the attacking power of slumber, his thoughts, his

love, his enduring passion, reverted to the girl, the wife, now so

infinitely far away in the cavern beside the brawling canyon-stream.

Yearning and tenderness unspeakable flooded his soul.

But once or twice her face faded from his mental vision and in its

stead he seemed to see again the surly stare, the evil eyes, and

venomously sinister expression of H'yemba, the resourceful man of fire

and of steel.

CHAPTER XII

CHALLENGED!

After many hours of profound and dreamless sleep, Allan awoke

filled with fresh vigor for the tasks that lay ahead. His splendid

vitality, quickly recuperating, calmed his mind; and now the problems,

the anxieties and fears of the day before--to call it such, though

there was neither night nor day in this strange place--seemed

negligible.

Only a certain haunting uneasiness about the girl still clung to him.

But, sending her many a thought of love, he reflected that soon he

should be back again with her; and so, resolutely grasping the labor

that now awaited him, he felt fresh confidence and hope.

After a breakfast of the familiar sea-weeds, bulbs, fish and eggs, he

bade Vreenya (who seemed devotion incarnate) summon the folk for a

great charweg, or tribal council, at the Place of Skeletons.

Here they gathered, men, women and children, all of fifteen hundred,

in close-packed, silent masses, leaving only the inner circle under

the stone posts and iron rods clear for Allan and for Vreenya and some

half-dozen elders.

The rocky plaza-floor sloping upward somewhat from the dungeon, formed

a very shallow natural amphitheater, so that the majority could see as

well as hear.

No platform was there for their Kromno to speak from. He had not

even a block of stone. In the true native style he was expected to

address them on their own level, pacing back and forth the while.

In his early days among them he had seen one or two such gatherings.

His quick wit prompted a close imitation of their ceremonies and

ancient customs.

First, Vreenya sprinkled the open space between the poles and the

dungeon with a kind of sea-weed swab dipped in the waters of the

boiling vat, then with a bit of the coarse brown cloth washed Allan's

lips--a pledge of truth.

The councillor raised both hands toward the roaring flame back there

by the cliff, and all inclined themselves thereto, the only trace of

any religious ceremony still remaining among them.

Allan likewise saluted the flame; then he faced the multitude.

"O my people," he began, striving to speak clearly above the noise of

the fire-jet, his voice sounding dull and heavy in that compressed

atmosphere, "O Folk of the Merucaans, I greet you! There be many

things to tell that you must know and believe. I have come back to you

with great peril in my flying-boat to tell you of the upper world and

all its goodness.

"Easily could I have stayed in those places of light and plenty, but

my heart was warm for my people. I thought of my people night and day.

The woman Beatrice thought of you. The ancient man thought of you.

Alone, we could not enjoy those happy places. So I returned to tell

you and to show you the way to liberty. Thus have we proved our love

for you, my folk!"

He paused. Silence overhung the assemblage save for the fretful cry of

children here and there, squeezed in the press or clinging to their

mothers' backs after the fashion of the Merucaans.

Afar, on the walls, the faint and raucous quarreling of the sea-birds

drifted through the fog. Allan drew breath and began again:

"In those places, my people, those far places whence your forefathers

came, are many wonders. Betimes it is dark, as always here. Betimes a

great fire mounts into the upper air and make the whole world brighter

than around your flaming well. In the dark time lesser fires travel in

the air. Of birds there are many kinds, strangely colored. Of beasts,

many kinds--I cannot make you understand because none of you have ever

seen any animal but fish and bird. But I speak truth. There be many

other creatures with good flesh to eat, and the skins of them are

proper for soft clothing.

"Here you have only weeds of the sea. There we have tall growing

things, many hundred spedi high, and rich fruit, delicious to the

taste, grows on some kinds. In a few words, it is a place of wondrous

plenty, where you can all live more easily than here, and with more

pleasure--far--"

Again he ceased his discourse, but still continued to pace up and down

the open space under the swaying skeletons on the poles above.

Through the dense press of the Folk murmurs were wandering. Man spoke

to man, and many a new thought was coming now to birth among those

white barbarians.

The elders, too, were whispering together: "So runs the ancient

tradition. So said the ancient man! Can it be true, indeed?"

Stern continued, more and more earnestly, with the sweat now beginning

to dot his brow:

"It were too long, my people, to tell you everything about that land

of ours above. Only remember it is richer far and far more beautiful

than this, your place of darkness and of clouds. It is the ancient

home of your fathers in the very long ago. It is waiting for you once

again, more fertile and more beautiful than ever.

"My errand is to carry you thither--two or three at a time. At last I

shall be able to take you all.

"Then the world will begin to be as it once was, before the great

explosion destroyed all but a few of your people, who were my people

once. Will any of you--any two bold men--believe my words and go with

me? Will any be as brave as--the patriarch?"

He flung the veiled taunt loudly at them, with a raising of both arms.

"I have spoken truth! Now answer!"

He ceased, and for a short minute there was silence. Then spoke

Vreenya:

"O Kromno, master! We would question you!"

"I will answer and say only the thing that is."

"First, can our people live in that other, lighter air?"

"They can live. We have prepared caves for you. At first you shall not

see the light. Only little by little you shall see it, and you and

your children will change, till at last you shall be as I am and as

your people were in the old days!"

Vreenya pondered, while tense interest held the elders and the Folk.

Then he nodded, for his understanding--like that of all--was keen in

spite of his savagery.

"And we can eat, O Kromno? This flesh off beasts you speak of may be

good. This strange fruit may be good. I know not. It may also be as

the poison weeds of our sea to us. But, if so, there are fish in those

waters of the upper world?"

"There are fish, Vreenya, and of the best, and many! Near the caves

runs a river--"

"A what, master?"

"A going of the waters. In those waters live fish without number. At

the dark times you can catch them with nets, even as here. The dark

times are half of each day. You shall have many hours for the fishing.

Even that will suffice to live; but the flesh and fruits will not hurt

you. They are good. There will be food for all, and far more than

enough for all!"

Vreenya pondered again.

"We would talk together, we elders," he said, simply.

"It meets my pleasure," answered Allan. "And when ye have talked, I

desire your answer!"

He crossed his arms, faced the multitude, and waited, while the elders

gathered in a little group by the dungeon and for some minutes

conferred in low and earnest tones.

Outwardly, the man seemed calm, but his soul burned within him and his

heart was racing violently.

For on this moment, he well knew, hung the world's destiny. Should

they decide to venture forth into the outer world all would be well.

If not, the long labor, the plans, the hopes were lost forever.

Well he knew the stubborn nature of the Folk. Once their minds set,

nothing on earth could ever stir them.

"Thank God I managed that lie about the patriarch!" thought Allen

quickly. "If I'd slipped up on that, and told them he died at the very

minute the sunlight struck him, it would have been all off, world

without end. Hope it doesn't make a row later. But if it does, I'll

face it. The main and only thing now is to get 'em started. They've

_got_ to go, that's all there is about it.

"Gad! After all, it's a terrific proposition I'm putting up to these

simple fishers of the Abyss. I'm asking them, just on my say-so, to

root up the life, the habits, the traditions of more than a thousand

years and make a leap into the dark--into the light, I mean.

"I'm asking them to leave everything they've ever known for thirty

generations and take a chance on what to them must be the wildest and

most hare-brained adventure possible to imagine. To risk homes,

families, lives, everything, just on my unsupported word. Jove!

Columbus's proposal to his men was a mere afternoon jaunt compared

with _this!_ If they refuse, how can I blame them? But if they

accept--God! what stuff I'll know they're made of! With material like

that to work with, the conquest of the world's in sight already."

His eyes, wandering nervously along the front ranks of the waiting

Folk, dimly illumined by the dull blue glow of the fire-well that

shone through the mist, suddenly stopped with apprehension. His brows

contracted, and on his heart it seemed as though a gripping hand had

suddenly laid hold.

"H'yemba, the smith, again! Damn him! H'yemba!" he muttered, in sudden

anger strongly tinged with fear.

The smith, in fact, was standing there a little to the left of him,

huge and sinewed hands loosely clasped in front of him, face sinister,

eyes glowing like two malevolent evil fires.

Allan noted the defiant poise of the body, the vast breadth of the

shoulders, the heavy hang of the arms, biceped like a gorilla's.

For a minute the two men looked each other steadfastly in the eye,

each measuring the other. Then suddenly the voice of Vreenya broke the

tension.

"O Kromno, we have spoken. Will you hear us?"

Stern faced him, a strange sinking at his heart, almost as though the

foreman of a jury stood before him to announce either freedom or

sentence of death.

But, holding himself in check, lest any sign of fear or nervousness

betray him, he made answer:

"I will hear you. Speak!"

"We have listened to your words. We believe you speak truth. Yet--"

"Yet _what?_ Out with it, man!"

"Yet will we not compel any man to go. All shall be free--"

"Thank God!" breathed Allan, with a mighty sigh.

"--Free to stay or go, as they will. Our village is too full, even

now. We have many children. It were well that some should make room

for others. Those who dare, have our consent. Now, speak _you_ to the

people, your people, O Kromno, and see who chooses the upper world

with you!"

Once more Allan turned toward the assemblage. But before he had found

time to frame the first question in this unfamiliar speech, a

disturbance somewhat to the left interrupted him.

There came a jostling, a pushing, a sound of voices in amazement,

anger, approbation, doubt.

Into the clear space stepped H'yemba, the smith. His powerful right

hand he raised on high. And boldly, in a loud voice, he cried:

"Folk of the Merucaans, this cannot be!"

CHAPTER XIII

THE RAVISHED NEST

"It cannot be? Who says it cannot be? _Who dares stand out and

challenge me?_"

"I, H'yemba, the man of iron and of flame!"

Stern faced him, every nerve and fiber quivering with sudden passion.

At realization that in the exact psychological moment when success lay

almost in his hand, this surly brute might baffle him, he felt a wave

of murderous hate.

He realized that the dreaded catastrophe had indeed come to pass. Now

his sole claim to chieftainship lay in his power to defend the title.

Failure meant--death.

"You?" he shouted, advancing on the smith.

His opponent only leered and grimaced offensively. Then without even

having vouchsafed an answer, he swung toward the elders.

"I challenge!" he exclaimed. "I have the right of words!"

Vreenya nodded, fingering his long white beard.

"Speak on!" he answered. "Such is our ancient custom."

"Oh, people," cried the smith, suddenly facing the throng, "will ye

follow one who breaks the tribal manners of our folk? One who disdains

our law? Who has neglected to obey it? Will ye trust yourselves into

hands stained with law-breaking of our blood?"

A murmur, doubtful, wondering, obscure, spread through the people. By

the greenish flare-light Stern could see looks of wonder and dismay.

Some frowned, others stared at him or at the smith, and many muttered.

"What the devil and all have I broken _now?_" wondered Allan. "Plague

take these barbarous customs! Jove, they're worse than the taboos of

the old Maoris, in the ancient days! What's up?"

He had not long to wonder, for of a sudden H'yemba wheeled on him,

pointed him out with vibrant hands, and in a voice of terrible anger

cried:

"The law, the law of old! No man shall be chief who does not take a

wife from out our people! None who weds one of the Lanskaarn, the

island folk, or the yellow-haired Skeri beyond the Vortex, none such

shall ever rule us. Yet this man, this stranger who speaks such great

things very hard to be believed, scorns our custom. No woman from

among us he has taken, but instead, that vuedma of his own kind!

What? Will ye--"

He spoke no further, for Allan was upon him with one leap. At sound of

that word, the most injurious in their tongue, the fires of Hell burst

loose in Stern.

Reckoning no consequences, staying for no parley or diplomacy, he

sprang; and as he sprang, he struck.

The blow went home on the smith's jaw with a smash like a pile-driver.

H'yemba, reeling, swung at him--no skill, no science, just a wild,

barbaric, sledge-hammer sweep.

It would have killed had it landed, but Allan was not there. In point

of tactics, the twentieth century met the tenth.

And as the smith whirled to recover, a terrible left-hander met him

just below the short ribs.

With a grunt the man doubled, sprawled and fell. By some strange

atavism, which he never afterward could understand, Allan counted, in

the Folk's tongue: "Hathi, ko, zem, baku" and so up to "lamnu"--ten.

Still the smith did not rise, but only lay and groaned and sought to

catch the breath that would not come.

"I have won!" cried Allan in a loud voice. "Here, you people, take

this greun, this child, away! And let there be no further idle talk

of a dead law--for surely, in your custom, a law dies when its

champion is beaten! Come, quick, away with him!"

Two stout men came forward, bowed to Allan with hands clasped upon

their breasts in signal of fresh allegiance, and without ceremony took

the insensible smith, neck-and-heels, and lugged him off as though he

had only been a net heavily laden with fish.

The crowd opened in awed silence to let them pass. By the glare Allan

noticed that the man's jaw hung oddly awry, even as the obeah's had

hung, in Madison Forest.

"Jove, what a wallop that must have been!" thought he, now perceiving

for the first time that his knuckles were cut and bleeding. "Old

Monahan himself taught me that in the Harvard gym a thousand odd years

ago--and it still works. _One_ question settled, mighty quick; and

H'yemba won't have much to say for a few weeks at least. Not till his

jawbone knits again, anyhow!"

Upon his arm he felt a hand. Turning, he saw Vreenya, the aged

counselor.

"Surely, O master, he shall not live, now you have conquered him? The

boiling pit awaits. It is our custom--if you will!"

Allan only shook his head.

"All customs change, these times," he answered. "_I_ am your law! This

man's life is needed, for he has good skill with metals. He shall

live, but never shall he speak before the Folk again. I have said it!"

To the waiting throng he turned again.

"Ye have witnessed!" he cried, in a loud voice. "Now, have fear of me,

your master! Once in the Battle of the Walls ye beheld death raining

from my fire-bow. Once ye watched me vanquish your ruler, even the

great Kamrou himself, and fling him far into the pit that boils. And

now, for the third time, ye have seen. Remember well!"

A stir ran through the multitude. He felt its potent meaning, and he

understood.

"I am the law!" he flung at them once more. "Declare it, all! Repeat!"

The thousand-throated chorus: "_Thou art the law!_" boomed upward

through the fog, rolled mightily against the towering cliff, and

echoed thunderlike across the hot, black sea.

"It is well!" he cried. "One more sleep, and then--then I choose from

among ye two for the journey, two of your boldest and best. And that

shall be the first journey of many, up to the better places that await

ye, far beyond the pit!"

Straining his eyes in the night, pierced only

by the electric beam that ran and quavered rapidly over the broken

forest-tops far below, Allan peered down and far ahead. The fire, the

signal-fire he had told Beatrice to build upon the ledge--would he

never sight it?

Eagerly he scanned the dark horizon only just visible in the

star-shine. Warmly the rushing night wind fanned his cheek; the roar

of the motor and propellers, pulsating mightily, made music to his

ears. For it sang: "Home again! Beatrice, and love once more!"

Many long hours had passed since, his fuel-tanks replenished from the

apparatus for distilling the crude naphtha, which he had installed

during his first stay in the Abyss, he had risen a second time into

that heavy, humid, purple-vapored air.

With him he now bore Bremilu, the strong, and Zangamon, most expert of

all the fishermen. Slung in the baggage-crate aft lay a large seine,

certain supplies of fish, weed and eggs, and--from time to time

noisily squawking--some half-dozen of the strange sea-birds, in a

metal basket.

The pioneers had insisted on taking these impedimenta with them, to

bridge the gap of changed conditions, a precaution Stern had

recognized as eminently sensible.

"Gad!" thought he, as the Pauillac swept its long, flat-arc'd

trajectory through the night, "under any circumstances this must be a

terrific wrench for them. Talk about nerve! If _they_ haven't got it,

who has? This trip of these subterranean barbarians, thus flung

suddenly into midair, out into a world of which they know absolutely

nothing, must be exactly what a journey to Mars would mean to me.

More, far more, to their simple minds. I wonder myself at their

courage in taking such a tremendous step."

And in his heart a new and keener admiration for the basic stamina of

the Merucaans took root.

"They'll do!" he murmured, as he scanned his lighted chart once more,

and cast up reckonings from the dials of his delicately adjusted

instruments.

Half an hour more of rapid flight and he deemed New Hope River could

not now be far.

"No use to try and hear it, though, with this racket of the propellers

in my ears," thought he. "The searchlight might possibly pick up a

gleam of water, if we fly over it. But even that's a small index to go

by. The signal-fire must be my only real guide--and where is it, now,

that fire?"

A vague uneasiness began to oppress him. The fire, he reckoned, should

have shown ere now in the far distance. Without it, how find his way?

And what of Beatrice?

His uneasy reflections were suddenly interrupted by a word from

Zangamon, at his right.

"O Kromno, master, see?"

"What is it, now?"

"A fire, very distant, master!"

"Where?" queried Stern eagerly, his heart leaping with joy. "I see no

fire. Your eyes, used to the dark places and the fogs, now far surpass

mine, even as mine will yours when the time of light shall come. Where

is the fire, Zangamon?"

The fisher pointed, a dim huge figure in the star-lit gloom. "There,

master. On thy left hand, thus."

Stern shifted his course to southwest by west, and for some minutes

held it true, so that the needle hardly trembled on the compass dial.

Then all at once he, too, saw the welcome signal, a tiniest pin-prick

of light far on the edge of the world, no different from the

sixth-magnitude stars that hung just above it on the horizon, save for

its redness.

A gush of gratitude and love welled in the fountains of his heart.

"Home!" he whispered. "Home--for where _you_ are that's home to me!

Oh, Beatrice, I'm coming--coming home to you!"

Slowly at first, then with greater and ever greater swiftness, the

signal star crept nearer; and now even the flames were visible, and

now behind them he caught dim sight of the rock-wall.

On and on, a very vulture of the upper air, planed the Pauillac. Stern

shouted with all his strength. The girl might possibly hear him and

might come out of their cave. She might even signal--and the nearness

of her presence mounted upon him like a heady wine.

He swung the searchlight on the canyon, as they swept above it. He

flung the pencil of radiance in a wide sweep up the cliff and down

along the terrace.

It gave no sight, no sign of Beatrice.

"Sleeping, of course," he reflected.

And now, Hope River past, and the canyon swallowed by the dense

forest, he flung his light once more ahead. With it he felt out the

rocky barrens for a landing-place.

Not more than twenty minutes later, followed by Bremilu and Zangamon,

Stern was making way through the thick-laced wood and jungle.

Awed, terrified by their first sight of trees and by the upper world

which to them was naught but marvel and danger, the two Merucaans

followed close behind their guide. Even so would you or I cling to the

Martian who should land us on that ruddy planet and pilot us through

some huge, inchoate and grotesque growth of things to us perfectly

unimaginable.

"Oh, master, we shall see the patriarch soon?" asked Bremilu, in a

strange voice--a voice to him astonishingly loud, in the clear air of

night upon the surface of the world. "Soon shall we speak with him

and--"

"Hark! What's that?" interrupted Stern, pausing, the while he gripped

his pistol tighter.

From afar, though in which direction he could not say, a vague, dull

roar made itself heard through the forest.

Sonorous, vibrant, menacing, it echoed and died; and then again, as

once before, Stern heard that strange, hollow booming, as of some

mighty drum struck by a muffled fist.

A cry? Was that a cry, so distant and so faint? Beast-cry, or call of

night-bird, shrill and far?

Stern shuddered, and with redoubled haste once more pushed through the

vague path he and Beatrice had made from the barrens to Settlement

Miffs.

Presently, followed by the two colonists who dared not let him for a

moment out of their sight, he reached the brow of the canyon. His hand

flash-lamp showed him the rough path to the terrace.

With fast-beating heart he ran down it, unmindful of the unprotected

edge or the sheer drop to the rocks of New Hope River, far below.

Bremilu and Zangamon, seeing perfectly in the gloom, hurried close

behind, with words of awe, wonder and admiration in their own tongue.

"Beta! Oh, Beatrice! Home again!" Stern shouted triumphantly. "Where

are you, Beta? Come! I'm home again!"

Quickly he scrambled along the broken terrace, stumbling in his haste

over loose rocks and debris. Now he had reached the turn. The fire was

in sight.

"Beta!" again he hailed. "O-he! Beatrice!"

Still no answer, nor any sign from her. As he came to the fire he

noted, despite his strong emotions, that it had for the most part

burned down to glowing embers.

Only one or two resinous knots still flamed. It could not have been

replenished for some time, perhaps two hours or more.

Again, his quick eye caught the fact that cinders, ashes and

half-burned sticks lay scattered about in strange disorder.

"Why, Beatrice never makes a fire like that!" the thought pierced

through his mind.

And--though as yet on no very definite grounds--a quick prescience of

catastrophe battered at his heart.

"What's _this?_"

Something lying on the rock-ledge, near the fire, caught his eye. He

snatched it up.

"What--what can _this_ mean?"

The colonists stood, frightened and confused, peering at him in the

dark. His face, in the ruddy fire-glow, as he studied the thing he now

held in his hand, must have been very terrible.

"_Cloth!_ Torn! But--but _then_--"

He flung from him the bit of the girl's cloak which, ripped and

shredded as though by a powerful hand, cried disaster.

"Beatrice!" he shouted. "Where are you? Beatrice!"

To the doorway in the cliff he ran, shaken and trembling.

The stone had been pushed away; it lay inside the cave. Ominously the

black entrance seemed staring at him in the dull gleam of the

firelight.

On hands and knees he fell, and hastily crawled through. As he went,

he flashed his lamp here, there, everywhere.

"Beatrice! _Beatrice!_"

No answer.

In the far corner still flickered some remainder of the cooking-fire.

But there, too, ashes and half-burned sticks lay scattered all about.

To the bed he ran. It was empty and cold.

"Beatrice! Oh, my God!"

A glint of something metallic on the floor drew his bewildered,

terror-smitten gaze.

He sprang, seized the object, and for a moment stood staring, while

all about him the very universe seemed thundering and crashing down.

The object in his hand was the girl's gun. One cartridge, and only

one, had been exploded.

The barrel had been twisted almost off, as though by the wrenching

clutch of a hand inhuman in its ghastly power.

On the stock, distinctly nicked into the hard rubber as Stern held the

flash-lamp to it, were the unmistakable imprints of teeth.

With a groan, Allan started backward. The revolver fell with a clatter

to the cave floor.

His foot slid in something wet, something sticky.

"_Blood!_" he gasped.

Half-crazed, he reeled toward the door.

The flash-lamp in his hand flung its white brush of radiance along the

wall.

With a chattering cry he recoiled.

There, roughly yet unmistakably imprinted on the white limestone

surface, he saw the print, in crimson, of a huge, a horrible, a

brutally distorted hand.

CHAPTER XIV

ON THE TRAIL OF THE MONSTER

Stern's cry of horror as he scrambled from the ravaged,

desecrated cave, and the ghastly horror of his face, seen by the

firelight, brought Zangamon and Bremilu to him, in terror.

"Master! Master! What--"

"My God! The girl--she's gone!" he stammered, leaning against the

cliff in mortal anguish.

"Gone, master? Where?"

"Gone! Dead, perhaps! Find her for me! Find her! You can see--in the

dark! I--I am as though blind! Quick, on the trail!"

"But tell us--"

"Something has taken her! Some savage thing! Some wild man! Even now

he may be killing her! _Quick--after them!_"

Bremilu stood staring for a moment, unable to grasp this catastrophe

on the very moment of arrival. But Zangamon, of swifter wit, had

already fallen on his knees, there by the mouth of the cave, and

now--seeing clearly by the dim light which more than sufficed for

him--was studying the traces of the struggle.

Stern, meanwhile, clutching his head between both hands, dumb-mad with

agony, was choking with dry sobs.

"Master! See!"

Zangamon held up a piece of splintered wood, with the bark deeply

scarred by teeth.

Stern snatched it.

"Part of the pole I gave her to brace the rock with," he realized.

"Even that was of no avail."

"Master--this way they went!"

Zangamon pointed up along the rock-terrace. Stern's eyes could

distinguish no slightest trace on the stone, but the Merucaan spoke

with certainty. He added:

"There was fighting, all the way along here, master. And then, here,

the girl was dragged."

Stern stumbled blindly after him as he led the way.

"There was fighting here? She struggled?"

"Yes, master."

"Thank God! She was alive here, anyhow! She wasn't killed in the cave.

Maybe, in the open, she might--"

"Now there is no more fighting, master. The wild thing carried her

here."

He pointed at the rock. Stern, trembling and very sick, flashed his

electric-lamp upon it. With eyes of dread and horror he looked for

blood-stains.

What? A drop! With a dull, shuddering groan, he pressed forward again.

Out he jerked his pistol and fired, straight up, their prearranged

signal: One shot, then a pause, then two. Some bare possibility

existed and that she still might live and hear and know that rescue

came--if it could come before it were eternally too late!

"On, on!" cried Allan. "Go on, Zangamon! Quick! Lead me on the trail!"

The Merucaan, now aided by Bremilu, who had recovered his wits,

scouted ahead like a blood-hound on the spoor of a fugitive. One

gripped his stone ax, the other a javelin.

Bent half double, scrutinizing in the dark the stony path which Allan

followed behind them only by the aid of his flash, they proceeded

cautiously up toward the brow of the cliff again.

But ere they reached the top they branched off onto another lateral

path, still rougher and more tortuous, that led along the breast of

the canyon.

"This way, master. It was here, most surely, the thing carried her."

"What kind of marks? Do you see signs of claws?"

"Claws? What are claws?"

"Sharp, long nails, like our nails, only much larger and longer. Do

you see any such marks?"

Zangamon paused a second to peer.

"I seem to see marks as of hands, master, but--"

"No matter! On! We must find her! Quick--lead the way!"

Five minutes of agonizing suspense for Allan brought him, still

following the guides, without whom all would have been utterly lost,

to a kind of thickly wooded dell that descended sharply to the edge of

the canyon. Into this the trail led.

Even he himself could now here and there make out, by the aid of his

light, a broken twig, trampled ferns and down-crushed grass. Once he

distinguished a blood-stain on a limb--fresh blood, not coagulated. A

groan burst from between his chattering teeth.

He turned his light on the grass beneath. All at once a blade moved.

"Oh, thank God!" he wheezed. "They passed here only a few minutes ago.

They can't be far now!"

Something drew his attention. He snatched at a sapling.

"Hair!"

Caught in a roughness of the bark a few short, stiff, wiry hairs,

reddish-brown, were twisted.

"_One of the Horde?_" he stammered.

A lightning-flash of memory carried him back to Madison Forest, more

than a year ago. He seemed to see again the obeah, as that monster

advanced upon the girl, clutching, supremely hideous.

"The hair! The same kind of hair! In the power of the Horde!" he

gasped.

A mental picture of extermination flashed before his mind's eye.

Whether the girl lived or died, he knew now that his life work was to

include a total slaughter of the Anthropoids. The destruction he had

already wrought among them was but child's play to what would be.

And in his soul flamed the foreknowledge of a hunt a

l'outrance, to the bitter end. So long as one, a single one of that

foul breed should live, he would not rest from killing.

"Master! This way! Here, master!"

The voice of Zangamon sent him once more crashing through the jungle,

after his questing guides. Again he fired the signal-shot, and now

with the full power of his lungs he yelled.

His voice rang, echoing, through the black and tangled growths,

startling the night-life of the depths. Something chippered overhead.

Near-by a serpent slid away, hissing venomously. Death lurked on every

hand.

Stern took no thought of it, but pressed forward, shouting the girl's

name, hallooing, beating down the undergrowth with mad fury. And here,

there, all about he flung the light-beam.

Perhaps she might yet hear his hails; perhaps she might even catch

some distant glimmer of his light, and know that help was coming, that

rescuers were fighting onward to her.

Silent, lithe, confident even among these new and terribly strange

conditions, the two men of the Folk slid through the jungle.

No hounds ever trailed fugitive more surely and with greater skill

than these strange, white barbarians from the underworld. Through all

his fear and agony, Stern blessed their courage and their skill.

"Men, by God! They're _men!_" he muttered, as he thrashed his painful

way behind them in the night.

Of a sudden, there somewhere ahead, far ahead in the wilderness--a

cry?

Allan stopped short, his heart leaping.

Again he fired, and his voice set all the echoes ringing.

A cry! He knew it now. There could be no mistake--_a cry!_

"Beatrice!" he shouted in a terrible voice, leaping forward. The

guides broke into a crouching run. All three crashed through the

thickets, split the fern-masses, struggled through the tall

saber-grass that here and there rose higher than their heads.

Allan cursed himself for a fool. That other cry he had heard while on

his way from the Pauillac to Settlement Cliffs--that had been her cry

for help--and he had neither known nor heeded.

"Fool that I was! Oh, damnable idiot that I was!" he panted as he ran.

From moment to moment he fired. He paused a few seconds to jack a

fresh cartridge-clip into the automatic.

"Thank God I've got a belt full of ammunition!" thought he, and again

smashed along with the two Merucaans.

All at once a formidable roar gave them pause.

Hollow, booming, deep, yet rising to a wild shriek of rage and horrid

brutality, the beast-cry flung itself through the jungle.

And, following it, they heard again that muffled drumming, as though

gigantic fists were flailing a tremendous tambour in the darkness.

"Master!" whispered Zangamon, recoiling a step. "Oh, Kromno, what is

_that?_"

"Never have we heard such in our place!" added Bremilu, gripping his

ax the tighter. "Is that a man-cry, or the cry of a beast--one of the

beasts you told us of, that we have never seen?"

"Both! A man-beast! Kill! Kill!"

Now, Allan, sure of his direction, took the lead. No longer he flashed

the light, and only once more he called:

"Beatrice! O Beatrice! We're coming!"

Again he heard her cry, but suddenly it died as though swiftly choked

in her very throat. Allan spat a blasphemy and surged on.

The two white barbarians followed, peering with those strange, pinkish

eyes of theirs, courageous still, yet utterly at a loss to know what

manner of thing they were now drawing near.

They burst through a thicket, waded a marshy swale and went splashing,

staggering and slipping among tufts of coarse and knife-edged grasses,

the haunt of unknown venomous reptiles.

Up a slope they won; and now, all at once the roar burst forth again

close at hand, a rending tumult, wild, earthshaking, inexpressibly

terrible.

All three stopped.

"Beatrice! Are you there? Answer!" shouted Stern.

Silence, save for a peculiar mumbling snuffle off ahead, among the

deeper shadows of a fern-tree thicket.

"Beatrice!"

No answer. With a groan Allan shot his light toward the thicket. He

seemed to distinguish something moving. To his ears now came a sound

of twigs and brushwood snapping.

Absolutely void of fear he pressed forward, and the two colonists with

him, their weapons ready. Stern held his revolver poised for instant

action. His heart was hammering, and his breath surged pantingly; but

within him his consciousness and soul lay calm.

For he knew one of two things were now to happen. Either that beast

ahead there in the gloom, or he, must die.

CHAPTER XV

IN THE GRIP OF TERROR

As the three pursuers steadily advanced, the thing roared once

more, and again they heard the hammering, drumming boom. Zangamon

whispered some unintelligible phrase.

Allan projected the light forward again, and at sight of a moving

mass, vague and intangible, among the gigantic fronds, leveled his

automatic.

But on the instant Bremilu seized his arm.

"O master! Do not throw the fire of death!" he warned. "You cannot

see, but we can! Do not throw the fire!"

"Why not? What _is_ that thing?"

"It seems a man, yet it is different, master. It is all hair, and very

thick and strong, and hideous! Do not shoot, O Kromno!"

"Why not?"

"Behold! That strange man-thing holds the woman, Beatrice, in his left

arm. Of a truth, you may kill her, and not the enemy."

Allan steadied himself against a palm. His brain seemed whirling, and

for a moment all grew vague and like a dream.

She was there--Beatrice was there, and they could see her. There, in

the clutches of some monster, horrible and foul! Living yet? _Dead?_

"Tell me! Does she live?"

"We cannot say, O Kromno. But do not shoot. We will creep close--we,

ourselves, will slay, and never touch the woman."

"No, no! If you do he'll strangle her--provided she still lives! Don't

go! Wait! Let me think a second."

With a tremendous effort Allan mastered himself. The situation far

surpassed, in horror, any he had ever known.

There not a hundred yards distant in the dense blackness was Beatrice,

in the grip of some unknown and hideous creature. Advance, Allan dared

not, lest the creature rend her to tatters. Shoot, he dared not.

Yet something must be done, and quickly, for every second, every

fraction of a second, was golden. The merest accident might now mean

death or life--life, if the girl still lived!

"Zangamon!"

"Yea, master?"

"Be very bold! Do my bidding!"

"Speak only the word, Kromno, and I obey!"

"Go you, then, very quietly, very swiftly, to the other side of these

great growing things--these trees, we call them. Then call, so that

this thing shall turn toward you. Thus, I may shoot, and perhaps not

kill the woman. It is the only way!"

"I hear, master. I go!"

Allan and Bremilu waited, while from the thicket came, at intervals,

the savage snuffling, with now and then a grumbling mutter.

All at once a call sounded from far ahead.

"Come!" commanded Allan. Together he and Bremilu crept through the

jungle toward the thicket.

Wide-eyed, yet seeing almost nothing, Allan crawled noiselessly,

automatic in hand. The Merucaan slid along, silent as an Apache.

"Tell me if you see the thing again--if you see it turn!" whispered

Stern. "Tell me, for you can see."

Now the distance was cut in half; now only a third of it remained.

Before Stern it seemed a fathomless pit of black was opening. Under

the close-woven arches of the giant fern-trees the night was

impenetrable.

And as yet he dared not dart the light-beam into that pit of darkness,

for fear of precipitating an unthinkable tragedy--if, indeed, the

horror had not already been cons summated.

But now Bremilu gripped his arm. Afar, on the other side of the

thicket, they heard a singular commotion, cries, shouts, and the

vigorous beating of the fern-trees.

"The thing has turned, master!" the Merucaan exclaimed, at Allan's

side. "Now throw the fire-death! Etvur! Quickly, throw!"

Stern swept the thicket with his beam.

"Ah! There--_there!_"

The light caught a moving, hairy mass of brown--a huge, squat,

terrible creature, its back now toward them. At one side Stern saw a

vague blackness--the long, unbound hair of Beatrice!

He glimpsed a white arm dangling limp; and in his breast the heart

flamed at white-heat of rage and passion.

But his hand was steel. Never in his life had he drawn so fine a bead.

"Hold the light for me!" he whispered, passing it to his companion. "I

want both hands for this!"

Bremilu held the beam true, blinking strangely with his pink eyes.

Stern, resting his pistol hand in the hollow of his left elbow,

sighted true.

A fraction of a hair to the left, and the bullet might crash through

the brain of Beatrice!

"Oh, God--if there be any God--speed the shot true--" he prayed, and

fired.

A hideous yell, ripping the night to shreds, burst in a raw and rising

discord through the forest--a scream as of a damned soul flung upon

the brimstone.

Then, as he glimpsed the white arm falling and knew the thing had

loosed its grip, the light died. Bremilu, starting at the sudden

discharge close to his ear, had pressed the ivory button.

Stern snatched for the flash-lamp, fumbled it, and dropped it there

among the lush growths underfoot.

Before he could more than stoop to feel for it a heavy crash through

the wood told that the thing was charging.

With bubbling yells it came, trampling the undergrowth, drumming on

its huge breast, gibbeting with demoniac rage and pain--came swiftly,

like the terrific things that people nightmares.

Behind it, shouts echoed. Stern heard the voice of Zangamon as, spear

in hand, the Merucaan pursued.

He raised his revolver once more, but dared not fire.

Yet only an instant he hesitated, in the fear of killing Zangamon.

For, quick-looming through the darkness, a huge bulk, panting,

snarling, chattering, sprang--an avalanche of muscle, bone, fur, mad

with murder--rage.

_Crack!_ spoke the automatic, point-blank at this rushing horror, this

blacker shadow in the blackness.

The fire-stab revealed a grinning white-fanged face close to his own,

and clutching hands, and terrible, thick, hairy arms.

Then something hurled itself on Stern; something bore him

backward--something beside which his strength was as a

baby's--something vast, irresistible, hideous beyond all telling.

Stern felt the flesh of his left arm ripped up. Crushed, doubled,

impotent, he fell.

And at his throat long fingers clutched. A fetid, stinking breath

gushed hot upon his face. He heard the raving chatter of ivories,

snapping to rend him.

Up sprang another shadow. High it swung a weapon. The blow thudded

hollow, smashing, annihilating.

Hot liquid gushed over Allan's hand as he sought to beat the monster

back.

Then, fair upon him, fell a crushing weight.

Swooning, he knew no more.

CHAPTER XVI

A RESPITE FROM TOIL

The bright beam of the flash-lamp in his face roused Allan to a

consciousness that he was bruised and suffering, and that his left arm

ached with dull insistence. Dazed, he brought it up and saw his sleeve

of dull brown stuff was dripping red.

Beside him, in the trampled grass, he vaguely made out a hairy bulk,

motionless and huge. Bremilu was kneeling beside his master, with

words of cheer.

"It is dead, O Kromno! The man-beast is dead! My stone ax broke its

skull. See, now it lies here harmless!"

The currents of thought began to flow once more. Allan struggled up,

unmindful of his wounds.

"Beatrice! _Where is the girl?_" he gasped.

As though by way of answer, the tall growths swayed and crackled, and

through them a dim figure loomed--a man with something in his arms.

"Zangamon!" panted Allan, springing toward him. "Have you got her? The

girl--is she alive?"

"She lives, master!" replied a voice. "But as yet she remains without

knowledge of aught."

"Wounded? Is she wounded?"

Already he had reached Zangamon, and, injured though he was, had taken

the beloved form in his arms.

"Beatrice! Beatrice!" he called, pressing kisses to her brow, her

eyes, her mouth--still warm, thank God!

He sank down among the underbrush and gathered her to his breast,

cradling her, cherishing her to him as though to bring back life and

consciousness.

To her heart he laid his ear. It beat! She breathed!

"The light, here! Quick!"

By its clear ray he saw her hair disheveled; her coarse mantle of

brown stuff ripped and torn, and on her throat long scratches.

Bruises showed on her hands and arms, as from a terrible fight she had

put up against the monster. And his heart bled; and to his lips rose

execrations, mingled with the tenderest words of pity and love.

"We must get her back to the cave at once!" he exclaimed. "Quick!

Break branches. Make a litter--a bed--to carry her on! Everything

depends on getting her to shelter now!"

But the two Merucaans did not understand. All this was beyond their

knowledge. Ignoring his hurts, Allan laid the girl down very gently,

and with them set to work, directing the making of the litter.

They obeyed eagerly. In a few minutes the litter was ready-made of

fern-tree branches thickly covered with leaves and odorous grasses.

On this he placed the girl.

"You, Zangamon, take these boughs here. Bremilu, those others. Now I

will hold the light. Back to the cave, now--quick!"

"We need not the light, master. We see better without it. It dazzles

our eyes. Use it for yourself. We need it not!" exclaimed Bremilu,

stooping above the body of the dead monster to recover his ax.

Involuntarily Allan turned the beam upon the horrible creature. There

stood Bremilu, his foot upon the hairy shoulder, tugging hard at the

ax-handle. Thrice he had to pull with all his might to loosen the

blade which had buried itself deep in the shattered skull.

"A giant gorilla, so help me!" he cried, shuddering. "My God,

Beatrice--what a ghastly terror you've been through!"

Still grinning ferociously, in death, with blood-smeared face and

glazed, staring eyes, the creature shocked and horrified even Allan's

steady nerves. He gazed upon it only a moment, then turned away.

"Enough!" said he. "To the cave!"

A quarter-hour had passed before they reached shelter again. Allan

bade the Merucaans heap dry wood on the embers in the cavern, while he

himself laid Beatrice upon the bed.

With a piece of their brown cloth dipped in one of the water-jars he

bathed her face and bruised throat.

"Fresh water! Fetch a jar of fresh water from the river below!" he

commanded Zangamon.

But even as the white barbarian started to obey, the girl stirred,

raised a hand, and feebly spoke.

"Allan--oh--are you here again? Allan--my love!"

He strained her to his breast and kissed her; and his eyes grew hot

with tears.

"Beatrice!"

Her arms were round his neck, and their lips clung.

"Hurt? Are you hurt?" he cried. "Tell me--how--"

"Allen! The monster--is he dead?" she shivered, sitting up and staring

wildly round at the cave walls on which the fresh-built fire was

beginning to throw dancing lights.

"Dead, yes. But hush, Beta! Don't think of that now. Everything's all

right--you're safe! I'm here!"

"Those men--"

"Two of our own Folk. I brought them back with me--just in time,

darling. Without them--"

He broke short off. Not for worlds would he have told her how near the

borderland she had been.

"You heard my shouts? You heard our signal?"

"Oh--I don't know Allan. I can't think, yet--it's all so terrible--so

confused--"

"There, there, sweetheart; don't think about it any more. Just lie

down and rest. Go to sleep. I'll watch here beside you. You're safe.

Nothing can hurt you now!"

She lay back with a sigh, and for a while kept silence while he sat

beside her, his uninjured arm beneath her head.

His one ambition, now that he found she was not seriously hurt in

body, was to keep her from talking of the horrible affair--from

exciting herself and rehearsing her terrors. Above all, she must be

quieted and kept calm.

At last, in her own natural voice, she spoke again.

"Allan?"

"What is it, sweetheart?"

"I owe you my life once more! If I was yours before, I'm ten times

more yours now!"

He bent and kissed her, and presently her deepened breathing told him

she had drifted over the borderline into the sleep of exhaustion.

He blessed her strength and courage.

"No futility here," thought he. "No useless questions or hysterics; no

scene. Strong! Gad, but she's strong! She realized she was safe and I

was with her again; that sufficed. Was there ever another woman like

her since the world began?"

Only now that the girl slept did he pay attention to the two Merucaans

who, sitting by the cave door, were regarding him with troubled looks.

"Master!" said Zangamon, arising and coming toward him.

"Well, what is it now?"

"You are wounded, O Kromno! Your arm still bleeds. Let us bind it."

"It is nothing--only a scratch!"

But Zangamon insisted.

"Master," said he, "in this we cannot obey you. See? While you and the

woman talked I fetched water, as you commanded. Now I must wash your

hurts and bind them."

Allan had to accede. Together the two Merucaans examined the injuries

with words of commiseration. The "scratch" turned out to be three

severe lacerations of the forearm. The gorilla's teeth had missed the

radial artery only by a fluke of fortune.

They bathed away the clotted blood and bandaged the arm not

unskilfully. Allan pressed the hand of Zangamon, then that of his

companion.

"No thanks of mine can tell you what I feel!" he exclaimed straight

from the heart. "Only for you to guide me, to drive the man-brute, to

strike it down when it was just about to throttle me--only for you,

both _she_ and _I_--"

He could not finish. The words choked him. He felt, as never before, a

sudden, warm, human touch of kinship with the Merucaans--a strong,

nascent affection. Till now they had been savages to him--inferiors.

Now he perceived their inner worth--the strong and manly stamina of

soul and body; and through him thrilled a love for these strange men,

his saviors and the girl's.

Once more he seemed to see a vision of the future--a world peopled by

the descendants of this hardy and resourceful folk, "without disease

of flesh or brain, shapely and fair, the married harmony of form and

function"--and, as with a gesture, he dismissed them wondering, not

understanding in the least why he should thank them, he knew the world

already had begun once more to come back under the hand, under the

strong control of man.

"Sleep now, master," Bremilu entreated. "We who are new to this

strange world will sit outside the door upon the rock and watch those

fires so far above that you call stars. And the big sun-fire that is

coming, too--we would see that!"

"No, not yet!" Stern commanded. "You cannot bear it for a while. Stay

within and roll the rock against the door and sleep. The great fire

might injure you or even kill you, as it did the--"

He checked himself just in time, for "the patriarch" had all but

escaped him. Zangamon, with sudden understanding, once more advanced

toward him as he sat there by the girl.

"O master! You mean the ancient man? He is dead?"

Stern nodded.

"Yes," he answered. "He was so old and weak, the touch of the fire in

the sky--he could not bear it. But his death was happy, for at least

he felt its warmth upon his brow!"

The Merucaans kept silence for a moment, then Stern heard them

murmuring together, and a vague uneasiness crept over him.

He strove, however, to put it away; though in his heart the shame of

the lie he had been forced to tell would not be quieted.

The colonists, however, made no further speech, but presently rolled

the rock in front of the cave entrance, then wrapped themselves in

their long cloaks and lay down by the fire.

Soon, like the healthy savages they were, they were fast asleep, with

vigorous snorings.

Thus the night passed, while Stern kept watch over the girl; and

another day crept slowly up the sky, and in the cave now rested four

human beings--the vanguard of the coming nation.

CHAPTER XVII

THE DISTANT MENACE

Stern never knew when he, too, drifted off to sleep; but he

awoke to find Zangamon sitting beside him, with his cloak drawn over

his head, while Beatrice and Bremilu still slept.

"The light, master--it is like knives to me! Like spears to my eyes,

master! I cannot bear it!" whispered the Merucaan, pointing to where,

around the interstices of the doorway, bright white gleams were

streaming in.

Allan considered with perplexity.

"It hurts, you say?"

"Yes, Kromno! Once or twice I have tried to watch that strange fire,

but I cannot. The pain is very great!"

"Humph!" thought Allan. "This may be a more serious factor than I've

reckoned on. These people are albinos. White hair and pink eyes--not a

particle of protecting pigmentation. For thirty or so generations

they've been subjected to nothing but torchlight. The actinic rays of

the sun are infinitely more penetrating than anything they've ever

known. It may take months, years even, to accustom them to sunlight!"

And disquieting situations presented themselves to his mind. True, if

it were necessary, the Folk could work and take the air only at night.

They could fish, hunt and till the soil by star and moonlight, and

sleep by day; but this was by no means the veritable reestablishment

of a real, human civilization.

Then an idea struck him.

"The very thing!" cried he. "Once I can put it into effect, it will

solve the question. And the second generation, at the outside, will be

normal. They'll 'throw back' to remote ancestry under changed

conditions. In time, even if only a long time, all will yet be well!"

But now immediate labors and difficult problems were pressing. The

future would have to look out for itself.

Stern felt positive that to let the Merucaans out of the cave would

not only blind them, but might also kill them outright as well.

Their unprotected skins would inevitably burn to a blister under the

rays of the sun, and they would in all probability die. So said he:

"Listen, Zangamon! You must stay here till the dark comes again, which

will not be very long. The woman and I will prepare another cave for

your dwelling. When it is dark you can fish in the flowing water

beneath. In the mean time we will bring you your accustomed food and

your nets from the flying boat.

"You must be patient. In a short time all things shall be as you wish,

and you shall see the wonderful and beautiful world up into which I

have brought you!"

The man nodded, yet Stern clearly saw his face betrayed uneasiness,

distrust and pain. In all fairness, the Merucaans' first experience of

the upper world had been enough to shake the faith even of a

philosopher--how much more so that of simple and untaught barbarians!

Terror, violence, slaughter and insecurity--these all had greeted the

colonists; and now, in addition, they found the patriarch was dead.

Above all, they were virtually prisoners in this gloomy cavern of the

rock.

But Stern was very wise. He by no means thought of commiserating or

excusing. His only course was to make light of trials and hardships,

and, if need were, to command.

He arose, carefully stopped up the chinks around the rock at the

doorway, and bade Zangamon replenish the fire with dry sticks. Then,

Bremilu awakening, they prepared food.

Now Beatrice, too, awoke. Allan took her in his arms, unmindful of the

newcomers, and there were words of love and joy, and self-reproaches,

and a new faith plighted between them once again.

She was unharmed, except for a few bruises and scratches. Her nerves

had already recovered something of their usual strength. But at sight

of Allan's bandaged arni she turned pale, and not even his assurances

could comfort her.

They talked of the terrible adventure.

"It was all my fault, Allan--every bit my fault!" she exclaimed

remorsefully. "It all came from my not obeying orders. You see, I was

expecting you last night. Instead of staying in the cave, with the

door barricaded, I lingered on the terrace, after having piled the

signal-fire high with wood.

"I sat down and watched the sky, and listened to the river down below,

and thought of you. I must have dozed a little, for all of a sudden I

came wide-awake, shuddering with a terror I couldn't understand. Then

I heard something moving down the path--something that grunted and

snuffled savagely.

"I started up, ran for the cave, and just got inside when the brute

reached it. I rolled the stone in place, Allan, but before I could

brace it with the pole it was hurled back, and in crawled the gorilla,

roaring and snapping like a demon!"

She hid her face in both hands, shuddering at the terrible memory.

But, forcing herself to be calm, she went on again:

"I snatched up the pistol and fired. Then--"

"You hit him?"

"I must have, for he screeched most horribly and pawed at his

breast--"

"So, then, that explains the blood-marks on the floor and the great

hand-print on the wall?"

"Hand-print? Was there one?"

"Yes; but no matter now. Go on!"

"After that--oh, it was too ghastly! He seized me and I fought--I

struggled against that huge, hairy chest; he gripped me like iron. My

blows were no more than so many pats to him.

"I tried to fire again, but he wrenched the pistol away, and bent it

in his huge teeth and flung it down. But, though he was raging, he

didn't wound me--didn't try to kill me, or anything. He seemed to want

to capture me alive--"

Allan shuddered. Only too well he understood. Gorilla nature had not

changed in fifteen hundred years.

"After that?" he questioned eagerly.

"Oh, after that I don't remember much. I must have fainted. Next thing

I knew, everything was dark and the forest was all about. I screamed

and then again I knew nothing. Once more I seemed to sense things, and

once more all grew black. And after that--"

"Well?"

"Why--I was here on the bed, and you were beside me, Allan--and these

men of our Folk were here! But how it all happened, God knows!"

"I'll tell you some time. You shall have the story from our side some

day, but not now. Only one thing--if it hadn't been for Zangamon here

and Bremilu--well--"

"You mean they helped rescue me?"

He nodded.

"Without them I'd have been helpless as a child. They traced you in

the dark, for they could see as plainly as we see by day. It was a

blow from Bremilu's stone ax that killed the brute. _They_ saved you,

Beatrice! Not I!"

She kept a little silence, then said thoughtfully:

"How can I ever thank them, Allan? How can I thank them best?"

"You can't thank them. There's no way. I tried it, but they didn't

understand. They only did what seemed natural to them. They're

savages, remember; not civilized men. It's impossible to thank them!

The only thing you can do, or I can do, is work for them now. The

greatest efforts and sacrifices for these men will be small payment

for their deed. And if--as I believe--the whole race is dowered with

the same spirit and indomitable courage--the courage we certainly did

see in the Battle of the Wall--then we need have no fear of our

transplanted nation dying out!"

Much more there might have been to say, but now the meal was ready,

and hunger spoke in no uncertain tones. All four of the adventurers

ate in silence, thoughtful and grave, cross-legged, about the meat and

drink, which lay on palm-leaves or in clay bowls hard-burned and red.

A kind of embarrassment seemed to rest on all, for this was the first

time they had eaten together--these barbarians with the two folk of

the upper world.

But the meal was soon at an end, and the prospect of labors to be

undertaken cheered Allan's spirit. Despite his stiff and painful arm,

he felt courage and energy throbbing in his veins, and longed to be at

work.

"The very first thing we must do," said he, "is fix up a place for our

guests. They've got to stay here, out of the light, till nightfall.

That will give us plenty of time. I want to get them settled in their

own quarters, and bring them into some regular routine of life and

labor, before they have a chance to get homesick and dejected."

He warned the Merucaans to cover their heads with their cloaks while

Beatrice and he opened the doorway.

He closed it then, with other rocks outside, and covered it with his

own outer cloak; then, wearing only his belted tunic, he rejoined

Beatrice half-way up the path to the cliff-top. Both were armed; he

with his own automatic, she with the one they had found in the crypt.

"Our first move," said he, "will be to transport the various things

from the aeroplane. It will be something of a task, but I don't dare

leave them out there on the barrens till night, when the men

themselves could bring them in. The sooner we get things to rights the

better."

She agreed, and together they took the path toward the landing-place,

which they had christened Newport Heights. Stern felt grateful that

his right arm, his gun arm, was uninjured. The other mattered little

for the present.

An idea crossed his mind to seek out the dead gorilla and make a

trophy of the pelt; but he dismissed it at once. The beast was so

repellent that the very thought of it fair sickened him.

They reached the plane in some few minutes, found everything

uninjured, and loaded themselves with the Merucaans' goods and

chattels. Stern took the bags of edible seaweed and the metal crate of

fowl; she draped the big net over her shoulders, and together, not

without difficulty, they returned to Settlement Cliffs.

Pass, now, all the minute details of the installation. By noon they

had prepared a habitation for the newcomers, deep in a far recess of a

winding gallery which thoroughly excluded all direct sunlight.

Only the dimmest glow penetrated even at high noon. Here they stowed

the freight, built a rock fireplace, and threw down quantities of the

long, fragrant grass for bedding.

They returned to their own cave, bade the colonists once more cover

their heads, and entered, carefully closing the doorway after them.

All four dined together, in true Merucaan style, on the familiar food

of the Abyss. The colonists seemed a little more reassured, but talk

languished none the less.

The afternoon was spent in preparing a second cave; for, in spite of

all the girl's entreaties, Allan was determined to make another visit

to the village of the Lost Folk as soon as his arm should permit.

"Nothing can happen this time, dear girl," he assured her as they sat

resting by the mouth of the newly prepared dwelling. "You'll have two

absolutely faithful and efficient guards always within call by night.

By day you can barricade yourself with them, if there's any sign of

danger."

"I know, Allan, but--"

"There's no other way! Our work is just begun!"

She nodded silently, then said in a low tone:

"Yours the labor; mine the waiting, the watching, and the fear!"

"The fear? Since when have you grown timid?"

"Only for you, Allan! Only for you! Suppose, some time, you should not

come back!"

He laughed.

"We thrashed that all out the first time. It's old straw, Beta. My end

of the task is getting these people here. Yours is waiting,

watching--and being strong!"

Her hand tightened on his, and for a little while they sat quite still

and without speech, watching the day draw to its close.

Far below, New Hope River chattered its incessant gossip to the vexing

boulders. Above, in the sky, lazy June clouds, wool-white, drifted to

westward, as though seeking the glory that there promised to transmute

them into gold and crimson.

A pleasant wind swayed the forest, wherein the scarlet birds flitted

like flashes of flame. The beauty of the outlook thrilled their

hearts, leaving no room for words.

But suddenly Allan's eyes narrowed, and with a singular hardening of

expression, a tightening of the jaw, he peered away at the dim,

haze-shrouded line of far horizon to northeastward.

He cast a sidelong glance at Beatrice. She had noticed nothing.

One moment he made as though to speak, then repressed the words, and

once more gazed at the horizon.

There, so vague as almost to leave a doubt in mind, yet, after all,

only too terribly real, his keen sight had detected something which

caused his heart to throb the quicker and his eye to gleam with hate.

For, at the very rim of the world, dim, pale, ominous, three tiny

threads of smoke were hanging in the evening air.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE ANNUNCIATION

A week later all was ready for Allan's second trip into the

Abyss.

His arm had recovered its usual strength and suppleness, for his

flesh, healthy as any savage's, now had the power of healing with a

rapidity unknown to civilized men in the old days.

And his abounding vigor dictated action--always action, progress, and

accomplishment. Only one thing depressed him--idleness.

It was on the second day of July, according to the rude calendar they

were keeping, that he once more bade farewell to Beatrice and, borne

by the Pauillac, headed for the village of the Lost Folk.

He left behind him all matters in a state of much improvement.

Zangamon and Bremilu were now well installed in the new environment

and seemingly content. By night they fished in New Hope Pool, making

hauls such as their steaming sea had never yielded.

They wandered--not too far, however--in the forest, gradually making

the acquaintance of the wondrous upper world, and with their strangely

acute instincts finding fruits, bulbs and plants that well agreed with

them for food.

Allan had carefully instructed them in the use of the wonderful

"fire-bow"--the revolver--warning them, however, not to waste

ammunition. They learned quickly, and now Beatrice found her larder

supplied each night with game, which they dressed and brought her in

the evening gloom, eager to serve their mistress in all possible ways.

They fished for her as well, and all the choicest fruits were her

portion. She, in turn, cooked for them in their own cave. And for an

hour or two each night she instructed them in English.

Short are the annals of peace--and peace reigned at Settlement Cliffs

those few days at least. Progress!

She could feel it, see it, every hour. And her thoughts of Allan, now

abandoning their melancholy hue, began to thrill with a new and even

greater pride.

"Only he, only he could have brought these things to pass!" she

murmured sometimes. "Only he could have planned all this, dreamed this

dream, and brought it to reality; only he could labor for the future

so strongly and so well!"

And in her heart the love that had been that of a girl became that of

a woman. It broadened, deepened and grew calmer.

Its fever cooled into a finer, purer glow. It strengthened day by day,

transmuting to a perfect trust and confidence and peace.

Allan returned safely inside the week with two more of the

Folk--warriors and fishers both. Beatrice would have welcomed the

arrival of even one woman to bear her some kind of company, but she

realized the wisdom of his plan.

"The main thing at first," he explained, as they sat again on the

terrace the evening of his return, "the very most essential thing is

to build up even a small force of fighting men to hold the colony and

protect it--a stalwart advance-guard, as if this were a military

expedition. After that the women and children can come. But for the

present there's no place for them."

Now that there were four Merucaans, all seemed more contented. The

little group settled down into some real semblance of a community.

Work became systematized. Life was beginning to take firm root in the

world again, and already the outlines of the future colony were

commencing to be sketched in.

So far as Stern could discover, no disaffection as yet existed. The

Folk, in any event, were singularly stolid, here as in their own home.

If the colonists sometimes muttered together against conditions or

concerning the lie Allan had told about the patriarch, he could never

discover the fact.