Already he saw the Anthropoids were within a hundred feet of the

abutment. He could plainly see their squat, hideous bodies, their

hairy and pendent arms, and the ugly shuffle of their preposterous

legs, as at their best speed they made for the cliff.

Three or four poisoned darts fell clicking on the stones about him.

Howls and yells of rage burst from the file of beast-men.

One of the horrible creatures even--with apelike agility--sprang up

into the guy ropes of the bridge, clung there, and discharged an arrow

from its bamboo blow-gun, chattering with rage.

Stern, running but the faster, plugged him with a forty-four. The

Anthropoid, still clinging, yowled hideously, then all at once dropped

off and vanished in the depths.

Full drive, Allan hurled himself toward the entrance of the bridge. It

seemed to him the beasts were almost on him now.

Plainly he could hear the slavering click of their tushes and see the

red, bleared winking of their deep-set eyes.

Now he was at the rope-anchorage, where the cables were lashed to two

stout palms.

He emptied his automatic point-blank into the pack.

Pausing not to note effects, he slashed furiously at the left-hand

rope.

One strand gave. It sprang apart and began untwisting. Again he hewed

with mad rage.

"_Crack!_"

The cable parted with a report like a pistol-shot. From the bridge a

wild, hideous tumult of yells and shrieks arose. The whole fabric, now

unsupported on one side, dropped awry. Covered from end to end with

Anthropoids, it swayed heavily.

Had _men_ been on it, all must have been flung into the rapids by the

shock. But these beast-things, used to arboreal work, to scaling

cliffs, to every kind of dangerous adventuring, nearly all succeeded

in clinging.

Only three or four were shaken off, to catapult over and over down

into the foaming lash of the river.

And still, now creeping with hideous agility along the racked and

swinging bridge that hung by but a single rope, they continued to make

way, howling and screaming like damned souls.

One gained the shore! At Allan it bounded, crouching, ferocious,

deadly. He saw the tiny, venomous lance raised for the throw.

"_Flick!_"

He felt a twitch on his arm. Was he wounded? He knew not. Only he knew

that with blind rage he had flung himself on the second rope, and now

with demon-rage was hacking at it desperately.

The snapping whirl of the cable as it parted flung him backward.

He had an instant's vision of the whole bridge-structure crumpling.

Then it vanished. From the depths rose the most awful scream, quickly

smothered, that he had ever heard.

And as the bestial bodies went tumbling, rolling, fighting, down the

rapids, he suddenly beheld the bridge footway hanging limp and swaying

against the further cliff.

"Thank God! In time, in time!" he panted, staggering like a drunken

man.

But all at once he beheld two of the Horde still there in front of

him--the one that had flung the dart and another. They were advancing

at a lope.

Allan turned and fled.

His ammunition was all spent, he knew that to face them was madness.

"I must load up again," thought he. "Then I'll make short work of

them!"

Fortunately he could far outstrip them in flight. That, and that

alone, had already saved him in the past week of horrible pursuit

through the forests to northward. And quickly now he ran down the

terrace again--down to the caves below. As he ran he shouted in

Merucaan:

"Out, my people! Out with you! Out to battle! Out to war!"

Half way upward down to Cliff Villa he met Frumuos toiling upward. Him

he greeted and quickly informed of the situation.

"The bridge is down!" he panted. "I cut it! The further shore is

swarming with enemies. Two have reached this side!"

"What is this, O Kromno?" asked the man anxiously, pointing at Allan's

shoulder. "Have they wounded you?"

Allan looked and saw a poisoned dart hanging loosely in his left

sleeve. As he moved he could feel the point rubbing against his naked

skin.

"Merciful Heaven!" he exclaimed. "Has it scratched me?"

With infinite precautions he loosened and threw off his outer garment.

He flung it, with the dart still adhering, down over the cliff.

"Look, Frumuos!" he commanded. "Search carefully and see if there be

any scratch on the skin!"

The man obeyed, making a minute inspection through his mica

eye-shields. Then he shook his head.

"No, Kromno," he answered. "I see nothing. But the arrow came near,

near!"

Stern, tremendously relieved, gestured toward the caves.

"Go swiftly!" he commanded. "Bring up every man who still can fight.

All must have full burdens of cartridges. Even though the bridge be

down, the enemy will still attack!"

"But how, since the great river lies between?"

"They can climb down those cliffs and swim the river and scramble up

this side as easily as we can walk on level ground. Go swiftly! There

is no time to lose!"

"I go, master. But tell me, the two who have already reached this

side--shall we not first slay them?"

Allan thought. For the first time he now realized clearly the terrible

peril that lay in these two Anthropoids already inside the limits of

the colony.

He peered up the pathway. No sign of them above. Their animal cunning

had warned them not to descend to certain death.

Now Allan knew they were at liberty inside the palisades, waiting,

watching, constituting a deadly menace at every turn.

In any one of a thousand places they could lie ambushed, behind trees

or bushes, or in the limbs aloft, and thence, unseen, they could

discharge an indefinite number of darts.

It was now perilous in the extreme even to venture back to the

palisade. Any moment might bring a flicking, stinging messenger of

death. Those two, alone, might easily decimate the remaining men of

the colony--and now each man was incalculably precious.

"Go, Frumuos," Allan again commanded. "For the moment we must leave

those two up there. Go, muster all the fighting men and bring them up

here along the terrace. I must think! Go!"

Suddenly, before the messenger had even had time to disappear round

the first bend in the path, Allan found his inspiration.

"Regular warfare will never do it!" he exclaimed decisively. "They

have thousands where we have tens. Before we could pick them off with

our firearms they'd have exhausted all our ammunition and have rushed

us--and everything would be all over.

"No; there must be some quicker and more drastic way! Even dynamite or

Pulverite could never reach them all, swarming over there through

miles of forest. Only one thing can stand against them--_fire!_

"With fire we must sweep and purge the world, even though we destroy

it! _With fire we must sweep the world!_"

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE BESOM OF FLAME

Stern was not long in carrying out his plan.

Even before Frumnos had returned, with the seventeen men still able to

bear arms, he was at work.

In Cliff Villa he hastily lashed up half a dozen fireballs, of coarse

cloth, thoroughly soaked them in oil, and, with a blazing torch,

brought them out to the terrace. Old Gesafam, at his command, bolted

the door behind him. At all hazards, Beta and the child must be

protected from any possibility of peril.

"Here, Frumnos!" cried Stern.

"Yes, master?"

"Run quickly! Fetch the strongest bow in the colony and many arrows!"

"I go, master!"

Once more the man departed, running.

"Gad! If I only had my oxygen-containing bullets ready!" thought

Stern, his mind reverting to an unfinished experiment down there in

his laboratory in the Rapids power-house. "_They_ would turn the

trick, sure enough! They'd burst and rain fire everywhere. But they

aren't ready yet; and even if they were, nobody could venture down

there now!"

For already, plainly visible on the farther edge of the canyon, scores

and hundreds of the hideous little beast-men were beginning to swarm.

Their cries, despite the contrary stiff wind, carried across the

river; and here and there a dart broke against the cliff.

Already a few of the Anthropoids were beginning to scramble down the

opposite wall of stone.

"Men!" cried Allan commandingly, "not one of those creatures must ever

reach this terrace! Take good aim. Waste no single shot. Every bullet

must do its work!"

Choosing six of the best marksmen, he stationed them along the parapet

with rifles. The firing began at once.

Irregularly the shots barked from the line of sharpshooters; and the

little stabs of smoke, drifting out across the river, blent in a thin

blue haze. Every moment or two, one of the Horde would writhe, scream,

fall--or hang there twitching, to the cliff, with terrible, wild

yells.

Stern greeted the return of Frumuos with eagerness.

"Here!" he exclaimed, scattering the arrows among half a dozen men.

"Bind these fireballs fast to the arrowheads!"

He dealt out cord. In a moment the task was done.

"Sivad!" he called a man by name. "You, the best bowman of all! Here

quickly!"

Even as Sivad fitted the first arrow to the string, and Stern was

about to apply the torch, a rattling crash from above caused all to

cringe and leap aside.

Down, leaping, ricochetting, thundering, hurtled a great boulder,

spurning the cliff-face with a tremendous uproar.

It struck the parapet like a thirteen-inch shell, smashed out two

yards of wall, and vanished in the depths. And after it, sliding,

rattling and bouncing down, followed a rain of pebbles, fragments and

detritus.

"Those two above--they're attacking!" shouted Stern. "Quick--after

them! _You, you, you!_"

He told off half a dozen men with rifles and revolvers.

"Quick, before they can hide! Look out for their darts! _Kill! Kill!_"

The detachment started up the path at a run, eager for the hunt.

Stern set the flaring torch to the first fireball. It burst into

bright flame.

"Shoot, Sivad! Shoot!" he commanded. "Shoot high, shoot far. Plant

your arrow there in the dry undergrowth where the wind whips the

jungle! Shoot and fail not!"

The stout bowman drew his arrow to the head, back, back till the flame

licked his left hand.

"Zing-g-g-g-g!"

The humming bowspring sang in harmony with the zooning arrow. A swift

blue streak split the air, high above the river. In a quick trajectory

it leaped.

It vanished in the wind-swept forest. Almost before it had

disappeared, Sivad had snatched another flaming arrow and had planted

it farther down stream.

One by one, till all were gone, the marksman sowed the seed of

conflagration. And all the while, from the rifles along the parapet,

death went spitting at the forefront of invasion.

Another boulder fell from aloft, this time working havoc; for as one

of the riflemen sprang to dodge, it struck a shoulder of limestone,

bounded, and took him fair on the back.

His cry was smashed clean out; he and the stone, together, plumbed the

depths.

But, as though to echo it, shots began to clatter up above. Then all

at once they ceased; and a cheer floated away across the canyon.

"_They're_ done, those two up there, damn them!" shouted Stern. "And

look, men, look! The fire takes! _The woods begin to burn!_"

True! Already in three places, coils of greasy smoke were beginning to

writhe upward, as the resinous, dry undergrowth blossomed into red

bouquets of flame.

Now another fire burst out; then the two remaining ones. From six

centers the conflagration was already swiftly spreading.

Smoke-clouds began to drift downwind; and from the forest depths arose

not only harsh cries from the panic-stricken Horde, but also beast and

bird-calls as the startled fauna sought to flee this new, red terror.

Shouts and cheers of triumph burst from the little band of defenders

on the terrace as the sweeping wind, flailing the flame through the

sun-dried underbrush, whirled it crackling aloft in a quick-leaping

storm of fire.

But Stern was silent as he watched the fierce and sudden onset of the

conflagration. Between narrowed lids, as though calculating a grave

problem, he observed the crazed birds taking sudden flight, launching

into air and whirling drunkenly hither and yon with harsh cries for

their last brief bit of life.

He listened to the animal calls in the forest and to the strange

crashings of the underwood as the creatures broke cover and in vain

sought safety.

Mingled with these sounds were others--yells, shrieks, and

gibberings--the tumult of the perishing Horde.

Swiftly the fire spread to right and left, even as it ate northward

from the river.

The mass of Anthropoids inevitably found themselves trapped; their

slouching, awkward figures could here or there be seen in some clear

space, running wildly. Then, with a gust of flame, that space, too,

vanished, and all was one red glare.

The riflemen, meanwhile, were steadily potting such of the little

demons as still were crawling up or down the cliffside opposite.

Surely, relentlessly, they shot the invaders down. And, even as Stern

watched, the enemy melted and vanished before his eyes.

Allan was thinking.

"What may this not result in?" he wondered as he observed the swift

and angry leap of the forest-fire to northward. "It may ravage

thousands of square miles before rain puts an end to it. It may

devastate the whole country. A change in the wind may even drive it

back on us, across the river, sweeping all before it. This may mean

ruin!"

He paused a moment, then said aloud:

"Ruin, perhaps. Yes; but the alternative was death! There was no other

way!"

Now none of the attackers remained save a few feebly twitching,

writhing bodies caught on some protuberance of rock. Here, there, one

of these fell, and like the rest was borne away down stream.

Through the heated air already verberated a strange roar as the

forest-fire leaped up the opposite hillside in one clear lick of

incandescence. This roar hummed through the heavens and trembled over

the long reaches of the river.

The fire jumped a little valley and took the second hill, burning as

clear as any furnace, with a swift onward, upward slant as the wind

fanned it forward through the dry brush and among the crowded palms.

Now and then, with a muffled explosion, a sap-filled palm burst. Here,

or yonder, some brighter flare showed where the fire had run at one

clear leap right to the fronded top of a fern-tree.

Fire-brands and dry-kye, caught up by the swirl, spiralled through the

thick air and fell far in advance of the main fire-army, each outpost

colonizing into swift destruction.

Already the nearer portion of the opposite cliff-edge was barren and

smoking, swept clean of life as a broom might sweep an ant-hill.

Tourbillons of dense smoke obscured the sky.

The air flew thick with brands, live coals and flaring bits of bark,

all whirling aloft on the breath of the fire-demon. Showers of burning

jewels were sown broadcast by the resistless wind.

Stern, unspeakably saddened in spite of victory by this wholesale

destruction of forest, fruit and game, turned away from the

magnificent, the terrifying spectacle.

He left his riflemen staring at it, amazed and awed to silence by the

splendor of the flame-tempest, which they watched through their

eye-shields in absolute astonishment.

Back to Cliff Villa he returned, his step heavy and his heart like

lead. In a few brief hours, how great, how terrible, how devastating

the changes that had come upon Settlement Cliffs!

Attack, destruction, pestilence and flame had all worked their will

there; and many a dream, a plan, a hope now lay in ashes, even like

those smoldering cinder-piles across the river--those pyres that

marked the death-field of the hateful, venomous, inhuman Horde!

Numb with exhaustion and emotions, he staggered up the path, knocked,

and was admitted to his home by the old nurse.

He heard the crying of his son, vigorously protesting against some

infant grievance, and his tired heart yearned with strong father-love.

"A hard world, boy!" thought he. "A hard fight, all the way through.

God grant, before you come to take the burden and the shock, I may

have been able to lighten both for you?"

The old woman touched his arm.

"O, master! Is the fighting past?"

"It is past and done, Gesafam. _That_ enemy, at least, will never come

again! But tell me, what causes the boy to cry?"

"He is hungered, master. And I--I do not know the way to milk the

strange animal!"

Despite his exhaustion, pain and dour forebodings, Allan had to smile

a second.

"That's one thing you've got to learn, old mother!" he exclaimed.

"I'll milk presently. But not just yet!"

For first of all he must see Beatrice again. The boy must cry a bit,

till he had seen her!

To the bed he hastened, and beside it fell on his knees. His eager

eyes devoured the girl's face; his trembling hand sought her brow.

Then a glad cry broke from his lips.

Her face no longer burned with fever, and her pulse was slower now. A

profuse and saving perspiration told him the crisis had been passed.

"Thank God! Thank God!" he breathed from his inmost soul. In his arms

he caught her. He drew her to his breast.

And even in that hour of confusion and distress he knew the greatest

joy of life was his.

CHAPTER XXIX

ALLAN'S NARRATIVE

The week that followed was one of terrible labor, vigil and

responsibility for Stern. Not yet recovered from his wounds nor fully

rested from his flight before the Horde--now forever happily wiped

out--the man nevertheless plunged with untiring energy into the

stupendous tasks before him.

He was at once the life, the brain, the inspiration of the colony.

Without him all must have perished. In the hollow of his hand he held

them, every one; and he alone it was who wrought some measure of

reconstruction in the smitten settlement.

Once Beatrice was out of danger, he turned his attention to the

others. He administered his treatment and regimen with a strong hand,

and allowed no opposition. Under his direction a little cemetery grew

in the palisade--a mournful sight for this early stage in the

reconstruction of the world.

Here the Folk, according to their own custom, marked the graves with

totem emblems as down in the Abyss, and at night they wailed and

chanted there under the bright or misty moon; and day by day the

number of graves increased till more than twenty crowned the cliff.

The two Anthropoids were not buried, however, but were thrown into the

river from the place where they had been shot down while rolling rocks

over the edge. They vanished in a tumbling, eddying swirl, misshapen

and hideous to the last.

With his accustomed energy he set his men to work repairing the damage

as well as possible, rearranging the living quarters, and bringing

order out of chaos. Beta was now able to sit up a little. Allan

decided she must have had a touch of brain-fever.

But in his thankfulness at her recovery he took no great thought as to

the nature of the disease.

"Thank God, you're on the road to full recovery now, dear!" he said to

her on the tenth day as they sat together in the sun before the home

cave. "A mighty close call for you--and for the boy, too! Without that

good old goat what mightn't have happened? She'll be a privileged

character for life in these diggings."

Beta laughed, and with a thin hand stroked his hair as he bent over

her.

"Do you remember those funny goat-pictures Powers used to draw, a

thousand years ago?" she asked. "Well, he ought to be here now to make

a sketch of you handing one to our kiddums? But--it was no joke, after

all, was it? It was life and death for him!"

He kissed her tenderly, and for a while they said nothing. Then he

asked:

"You're really feeling much--much better to-day?"

"Awfully much! Why, I'm nearly well again! In a day or two I'll be at

work, just as though nothing had happened at all."

"No, no; you must rest a while. Just so you're better, that's enough

for me."

Beatrice was really gaining fast. The fever had at least left her with

an insatiable appetite.

Allan decided she was now well enough again to nurse the baby. So he

and the famous goat were mutually spared many a _mauvais quart

d'heure_.

Tallying up matters and things on the evening of the twelfth day, as

they sat once more on the terrace in front of Cliff Villa, he

inventoried the situation thus:

1--Twenty-six of the Folk are dead.

2--H'yemba is disposed of--praise be!

3--Forty still survive--twenty-eight men, nine women, three children.

Of these forty, thirty-three are sound.

4--The Pauillac is lost.

5--The bridge is destroyed, and eight of the caves are gone.

6--The entire forest area to the northward, as far as the eye can

reach, is totally devastated.

7--The Horde is wiped out.

"Some good items and some bad, you see, in this trial balance," he

commented as he checked up the items. "It means a fresh start in some

ways, and no end of work. But, after all, the damage isn't fatal, as

it might easily have been. We're about a thousand times better off

than there was any hope for."

"You haven't counted in your own wounds just healing, or the terrific

time you had with the Horde," suggested Beatrice. "How in this world

you ever got through I don't see."

"I don't either. It was a miracle, that's all. From the place where I

descended for a little repair work, and where they suddenly attacked

us, to the colony, can't be less than one hundred and fifty miles. And

such hills, valleys, jungles! Perfectly unimaginable difficulties,

Beta! Now that I look back on it myself, I don't see how I ever got

here."

"They killed both the men you had with you?"

"Yes; but one of them not till the second day. You see, the carburetor

got clogged and wouldn't spray properly. I realized I could never

reach Settlement Cliffs without overhauling it. So I scouted for a

likely place to land, far from any sign of the cursed signal-fires.

"Well, we hadn't been on the ground fifteen minutes before I'm blest

if one of my men didn't hear the brushwood crackling to eastward.

"'O Kromno, master!' said he, clutching my arm, 'there come

creatures--many creatures--through the forest! Let us go!'

"I listened and heard it, too; and somehow--subconsciously, I guess--I

knew an advance-guard of the Horde was on us!

"It was night, of course. My search-light was still burning, throwing

a powerful white glare into the thicket about a quarter-mile away,

beyond the sand-barren where I had taken earth. I turned it off, for I

remembered how much better the Folk could see without artificial light

in our night atmosphere.

"'Tell me, do you see anything?' I whispered.

"The other fellow pointed.

"'There, there!' he exclaimed. 'Little people! Many little people

coming through the trees!'

"For a moment I was paralyzed. What to do? There was no time now for a

getaway, even if the machine hadn't been out of order. My mind was in

a whirl, a rout, an utter panic. I confess, Beatrice, for once I was

scared absolutely blue--"

"No wonder! Who could have helped being?"

"Because you see, there was no way out. Lord knew how many of the

little fiends were closing in on us; they might be on all sides. The

country was much broken and absolutely new to me. I had no defenses to

fight from, and it was night. Could anything have been worse?"

"Go on, dear! What next?"

"Well, the Horde was coming on fast, and the darts beginning to patter

in, so I saw we couldn't stay there. I had some vague idea of

stratagem, I remember--some notion of leading the devils away on a

long chase, outdistancing them and then swinging round to the machine

again by daylight, and possibly fixing it up in time to skip out for

home. But--"

"But it didn't work out that way?"

"Hardly! I emptied my automatics into the brown of the advancing pack,

and then retreated, flanked by my two men. They were keen to fight,

the Merucaans were--always ready for a mix--but I knew too much about

the poisoned arrows to let 'em. We stumbled off through the woods at a

good gait, crashing away like elephants, while always, apelike,

creeping and hideous, the little hairy beast-people stole and

slithered among the palms."

Beatrice shuddered.

"Heavens!" she exclaimed. "I--I'd have died of sheer fright!"

"I didn't feel like dying of fright, but I infernally near died of

rage when in about five minutes I saw a flicker of flame through the

jungle, and then a brighter glare."

"They burned the Pauillac?"

"I guess so. I never went back to see. They probably burned the

planes, and tried to batter up the rest of it with rocks and things.

They wrecked it all right enough, I guess. _That_ was for the attack

we made on 'em from its safe elevation at the bungalow. Well--"

"What then?"

"I can hardly remember. We trekked south, as near as I could reckon

it, or south by east, with New Hope River as our objective-point. Oh,

what's the use trying to tell it all? You know the jungle at night?"

"Wild beasts, you mean?"

"And snakes, Beta! _Some_ sensation to step on a copperhead and then

leap off just in time to miss the snap of the fangs, eh?"

"Oh, don't Allan! Don't!"

"All right; I'll skip that part. Anyhow, we hiked till daybreak, when

my men began to complain of severe pain in the eyes. I had to stop and

rig up some shields for them, and smear their hands and faces with mud

to keep off the sun. Well, we managed to eat a little fruit and get a

drink of water; but as for rest, there was none. For inside an hour,

hanged if the darts didn't begin dropping again!"

"They'd come up with you!"

"Maybe. Or else it was another group of 'em. No telling. The whole

country seemed to swarm with the devils. Anyhow, we had to mosey

again. But--well--one of the darts got home on my best fighter.

And--h-m!--he didn't last five minutes. He turned a kind of

bluish-green, too. And swelled a good bit. I'll spare you the details,

Beta. At any rate, we had to leave him. So there were only two of us

now, and God knew where home was, or how many thousand of the hairy

devils were lying in ambush on the way. So then--"

"What did you do?" she asked, shuddering.

"We hiked, and kept on hiking! All day we beat and trampled through

the forest, and toward night there was no more go in us. So we decided

to make a stand. Pretty objects we were, too, torn and bruised, mired

from swamps clear to our waists, and a mass of scratches and bruises!

Well, we hadn't long to wait when the attack was on again.

"I gave my one remaining man the spare automatic, and showed him how

to handle it; and for about an hour we stood off the devils. But they

flanked us, and all at once my man grunted and pitched forward. I'm

damned if they hadn't driven a spear clean through his lungs!

"After that, good God! it was just a man-hunt, endless and horrible,

through trackless wilds, over hills and mountains, through valleys,

across rivers, Heaven knows where! But I always tried to keep my wits

and beat to southward, hoping, ever hoping I might reach the New Hope.

Well--now and then I could get far enough ahead to snatch a bite or a

drink. Twice I slept--twice, in about a week; think of that, will you?

Once in a hollow tree, and once under a rock-ledge. Only a few hours

in all. But it helped. Without that I couldn't have got through."

She took his hand, and kissed and caressed it.

"My Allan!" she whispered, while in her eyes the tears started hot.

"You suffered all that just to come home again?"

"What else was there to do? The last few days I hardly knew anything

at all. It was a daze, a dream, a nightmare. There was so much pain in

every part that no one part could hurt very much. The bushes pretty

nearly stripped every rag of clothes off me--and the skin, as well. My

sandals went all to pieces. I lost my sense of direction a hundred

times, and must have often doubled on my tracks. I ate and drank what

I could get, like an animal. Once, in a period of lucidity, I remember

finding a nest of fledgling birds. I crunched them down alive,

pin-feathers and all! Well--"

"My boy! My poor, lost, tortured boy!"

"When they wounded me I never even knew. All I know is that the spear

wasn't one of the poisoned ones. Otherwise--"

"There, there! Don't think about it any more, darling! Don't tell me

any more. I know enough. It's too awful! Let's both try to forget!"

"I guess that's the best way, after all," he answered. "I found the

river somehow, after a thousand or two eternities. Instinct must have

guided me, for I turned upstream in the right direction. And after

that, all I remember is seeing the bridge across to Settlement

Cliffs."

"And so you came home to us again, darling?"

"So I came home. Love led me, Beatrice. It was my chart and compass

through the wilderness. Not even pain and hunger could confuse them.

Nothing but death could ever blot them out!"

"And after all you'd been through, dear, you did what you did for us?

Without resting? Without delay or respite?"

"That's life," he answered simply. "That's the price of the new world.

He who would build must suffer!"

Her arms embraced him, her breath was warm upon his face, and in the

kiss that burned itself upon his eager lips he knew some measure of

the sweetness of reward.

CHAPTER XXX

INTO THE FIRE-SWEPT WILDERNESS

Less than three weeks after the extermination of the Horde,

Stern had already completed important measures looking toward the

rehabilitation of the colony.

The damage had been largely repaired. Now only some half-dozen

convalescent cases still remained on the sick-list. What the colony

had lost in numbers it had gained in solidarity and a truer loyalty

than ever before felt there.

All the survivors, now vastly more faithful to the common cause than

in the beginning, showed an eager longing to lay hold of the impending

problems with Stern, and to labor faithfully for the future of the

great undertaking.

The fishing, hunting and domestication of wild animals all were

resumed, and again the sound of hammers and anvils clanked through the

caves.

Under Stern's direction, half a dozen men crossed the pools in boats,

descended the north bank of the river, and got hold of the cut bridge

cables.

Stern shot a thin line over to them by means of a bow and arrow. With

this they pulled a stouter cord across, and finally a strong cable.

All hands together soon brought the bridge once more up the cliff,

where it was lashed to its old moorings.

Barring a few broken floor-planks, easily replaced, only slight damage

had been done. One day's labor sufficed to put it in repair again.

The parapet was rebuilt and a wall constructed across the end of the

broken terrace. Work was begun on new cave dwellings, with great care

not to weaken the strata and so invite another disaster.

Stern, very wise by now in gauging the barbarian mentality, undertook

no direct punishment of such as had been led away by H'yemba. But he

gathered all the Folk together in the palisade, and there--close to

the mutely eloquent object-lesson of the little cemetery--he made them

a charweg, a talk in their own speech.

"My people!" cried he, erect and strong before them all, "listen now,

for this thing ye must know!

"The evil of your hearts, thinking to prevail against me and the Law,

hath brought ye misery and death! Ye have rebelled against the Law,

and behold, many are now dead--innocent as well as guilty. The

landslide smote ye, and enemies came enemies far more terrible than

the dreaded Lanskaarn ye fought in the Abyss! But a little more and ye

had all died with battle and disaster. Only my hand alone saved

ye--all who still live to breathe this upper air.

"Men! Ye beheld my doing with the earthquake and the Horde! Ye beheld,

too, my answer to H'yemba, the evil man, the rebel and traitor. Him ye

saw hurled, bleeding, from the parapet! That was my answer to his

insolence! And if not he, then who can ever stand against me?"

He paused, and swept them with his glance, letting the lesson sink

deep home. Before him their eyes were lowered; their heads bowed; and

through them all ran murmurs of fear and supplication.

"My Folk! Rightly might I be angered with you, and require sacrifice

and still more blood; but I am merciful. I shall not punish; I shall

only teach, and guide, and help! For my heart is your heart, and ye

are precious in my eyes.

"But, hark ye now, and think, and judge for yourselves! If any ever

speak again of rebellion, or of treason, and seek to break the Law, on

his head shall be the blood of all. For surely woe shall come again on

us. In your own behalf I warn you, and ye shall be the judges. Now

answer me, O my Folk, what shall be done unto any who rebels?"

"He shall die!" boomed the voice of Zangamon. The loyal fighter, now

lean and gaunt with great labors, but still powerful, raised his

corded hand on high. "Of a truth, that man shall die!"

"What death?" cried Stern.

"Even the death of H'yemba! Let him be cast from the parapet to death

in the white rushing river far below!"

All echoed the cry: "Death to all traitors, from the rock!"

"So be it, then," Stern concluded. "Ye have spoken, and it shall be

written as a Law. From Execution Rock shall all conspirators be cast.

Now go!"

He dismissed them. While they departed and filed down the terraces to

their own homes, he stood there with folded arms, watching them very

gravely. The last one vanished. He nodded.

"They'll do now!" said he to himself. "No more trouble from that

source! Another milestone passed along the road of self-control,

self-government and communal spirit. Ah, but the road's a long one

yet--a long and hard and stony road to follow!"

Next day Stern began making his plans for the recovery of the lost

aeroplane.

"This is by far the most important matter now before the colony," he

told Beatrice, watching her nurse the boy as they sat by the fire,

while outside the rain drummed over cliff and canyon, hill and plain.

"Our very life depends on keeping a free means of communication open

with the mother-country of the Folk, so to call it, and with the

city-ruins that supply us with so many necessary articles. No other

form of transportation will do. At all hazards we _must_ have an

aeroplane--one at least, more later, if possible."

"Of course," she answered; "but why not make one here? Down there in

your workshop--"

"I haven't the equipment yet," he interrupted; "nor yet the necessary

metal, the wire, a hundred things. All that will come in time when we

get some mines to work and start a few blast-furnaces. But for the

present, the best and quickest thing to do will be to look up the old

machine again."

"But," she objected, terrified at thought of losing him again: "but I

thought you said the Horde wrecked it!"

"So they did; but beasts like that probably couldn't destroy the vital

mechanism beyond possibility of repair. That is, not unless they

heaped a lot of wood all over it, and heated it white-hot, which I

don't think they had intelligence enough to do. In any event, what's

left will serve me as a model, for another machine. I really think

I'll have to have a try for it."

"Oh, Allan! You aren't going to venture out into the wilderness

again?"

"Why not, dearest? You must remember the forest is all burned now;

perhaps for hundreds of miles. And the Horde, the one greatest peril

that has dogged us ever since those days in the tower, has been swept

out with the besom of flame!"

"Which has also surely destroyed the machine, even if _they_ haven't!"

she exclaimed, using every possible argument to discourage him.

"I hardly think so," he judged. "You see, I left it in a wide

sand-barren. I think, on the whole, it will pay me to make the

expedition. Of course I shan't take less than a dozen men to help me

bring it back--what's left of it."

"But Allan, can you find your way?"

"I've got to! That machine must positively be recovered! Otherwise

we're totally cut off from the Abyss. Colonizing stops, and all kinds

of hell may break loose below ground before I can build another

machine entire. There are no railroads running now to the brink," he

added smiling; "and no elevators to the basement of the world. It's

the old Pauillac again or nothing!"

The girl exhausted all her arguments and entreaties in vain. Once

Allan's mind was definitely made up along the line of duty, he went

straight forward, though the heavens fell.

Four days later the expedition set out.

Allan had made adequate preparations in every way. He left a strong

and well-armed guard to protect Settlement Cliffs. By careful thought

and chart-drawing he was able to approximate the probable position of

the machine. With him he took fifteen men, headed by Zangamon, who now

insisted he was well enough to go, and ably seconded by Frumuos.

Each man carried an automatic, and six had rifles. They bore an

average of one hundred cartridges apiece, and in knapsacks of

goat-leather, dried rations for a week. Each also carried fish hooks

and a stout fiber line.

The party counted on being able to supplement their supplies with

trout, bass and pickerel from countless untouched streams. They might,

too, come into wooded country, if the fire had left any to northward,

and here they knew game would be plentiful.

One thing seemed positive in that new world: starvation could not

threaten.

Cloudy and dull the morning was--yet well-suited to the needs of the

Folk--when the expedition left Settlement Cliffs. The convoy, each man

provided with eye-guards and his hands and face well painted with

protecting pigment, waited impatiently in the palisade, while Allan

said farewell to Beta and the little chap.

For a long moment he strained them both to his breast, then, the

woman's kiss still hot upon his lips, ran quickly up the path and

joined his picked troop of scouts.

"Forward, men!" cried he, taking the lead with Zangamon.

Some minutes later Beatrice saw them defiling over the long, shaking

bridge.

Through her tears she watched them, waving her hand to Allan--even

making the baby shake its little hand as well--and throwing kisses to

him, who returned them gaily.

On the far bank the party halted a minute to shout a few last words to

the assembled colonists that lined the parapet of the terrace.

Then they turned, and, striking northwest, plunged boldly into the

burned and blackened waste.

Long after the marching column had disappeared over the crest of the

second hill Beatrice still watched. Up on the cliff-top, with the

powerful telescope at her eye, she followed the faint, drifting line

of dust and ash that marked the line of march.

Only when this, too, had disappeared, merged in the somber gray of the

horizon, did she sadly and very slowly descend the path once more,

back to the loneliness of a home where now no husband's presence

greeted her.

Though she tried to smile--tried to believe all would yet be well, old

Gesafam, glancing up from her labors at the cooking-hearth, saw tears

were shining in her beautiful gray eyes.

Barbarian though the ancient beldame was, she knew, she understood

that after all, now as for all time, in every venture and in every

task, the woman's portion was the harder one.

CHAPTER XXXI

A STRANGE APPARITION

At a good round pace, where open going permitted, the party

made way, striking boldly across country in the probable direction of

the lost aeroplane.

Some marched in silence, thoughtfully; others sang, as though setting

out upon the Great Sunken Sea in fishing boats. But one common purpose

and ambition thrilled them all.

A man less boldly resourceful than Allan Stern must have thought long,

and long hesitated, before thus plunging into a desolated and unknown

territory on such a hunt.

For, to speak truth, the finding of the needle in the haystack would

have been as easy as any hope of ever locating the machine in all

those thousands of square miles of devastation.

But Stern felt no fear. The great need of the colony made the

expedition imperative; his supreme self-trust rendered it possible.

From the very beginning of things, back there in the tower overlooking

Madison Forest, he had never even admitted the possibility of failure

in any undertaking. Defeat lay wholly outside his scheme of things.

That it could ever be his portion simply never had occurred to him.

As they progressed he carefully reviewed everything in his mind. Plans

and equipment seemed perfectly adequate. In addition to the

impedimenta already mentioned, a few necessary tools, a supply of

cordage for transporting the machine, and three bottles of brandy for

emergencies had been judiciously added to the men's burdens.

Each, in addition, carried a small flat water-jug, tightly stopped,

slung over his shoulder. Allan counted on streams being plentiful; but

he meant to look out even for the unexpected, too.

He had wisely taken means to protect their feet for the long tramp. In

spite of all their opposition he had made them prepare and bind on

sandals of goat's leather. Hitherto they had gone barefooted at

Settlement Cliffs; but now that w as no longer permissible.

The total equipment of each man weighed not less than one hundred

pounds, including tools and all. No weaklings, like the men of the

twentieth century, could have stood the gaff marching under such a

load; but these huge fellows, muscular and lithe, walked off with it

as though it had been a mere nothing.

Allan himself bore an equal burden. In addition to arms and provisions

he carried a powerful binocular, the spoil of a wrecked optician's

shop in Cincinnati.

Underfoot, as the column advanced in a long line, loose dust and

wood-ashes rose in clouds. The air grew thick and irritating to the

lungs.

Now and then they had to make a detour round a charred and fallen

trunk, or cut their way and clamber through a calcined barricade of

twisted limbs and branches. Not infrequently they saw burned bones of

animals or of Anthropoids.

Here and there they even stumbled on a distorted, half-consumed

body--a hideous reminder of the vanquished enemy--the half-man that

had tried to pit itself against the whole-man, with inevitable

annihilation as the only possible result.

The distorted attitudes of some of these ghastly, incredibly ugly

carcasses told with eloquence the terrified, vain flight of the Horde

before the all-consuming storm of fire, the panic and the anguish of

their extinction.

But Allan only grunted or smiled grimly at sight of the horrible

little bodies. Pity he felt no more than for a crushed and hideous

copperhead.

The country had been swept clean by the fire-broom. Not a living

creature remained visible. Moles there still might be, and perhaps

hares and foxes, woodchucks, groundhogs and a few such animals that by

chance had taken earth; but even of these there was no trace.

Certainly all larger breeds had been destroyed.

Where paradise-birds, macaws and paroquets had screamed and flitted,

humming-birds darted with a whir of gauzy wings, serpents writhed,

deer browsed, monkeys and apes swung chattering from the

liana-festooned fern-trees, now all was silence, charred ashes,

dust--the universal, blank awfulness of death.

Naked and ugly the country stretched away, away to its black horizon,

ridge after ridge of rolling land stubbled with sparse, limbless

trunks and carpeted with cinders.

A dead world truly, it seemed--how infinitely different from the lush,

green beauty of the territory south of the New Hope, a region Stern

still could make out as a bluish blur, far to southward, through his

binoculars.

By night, after having eaten dinner beside a turbid, brackish pool,

they had made more than twenty miles to northwestward. Stern thought

scornfully of the distance. In his Pauillac he would have covered it

easily in as many minutes.

But now all was different. Nothing remained save slow, laborious

plodding, foot by foot, through the choking desolation of the burned

world.

They camped near a small stream for the night, and cast their lines,

but took nothing. Stern gave this matter no great weight. He thought,

perhaps, it might be a mere accident, and still felt confident of

finding fish elsewhere.

Even the discovery of three or four dead perch, floating belly up,

round and round in an eddy, gave him no clue to the total destruction

of all life. He did not understand even yet that the terrific

conflagration, far more stupendous than any ever known in the old

days, had even heated the streams and killed there the very fish

themselves.

Yet already a vague, half-sensed uneasiness had begun to creep over

him--not yet a definite presentiment of disaster, but rather a

subconscious feeling that the odds against him were too great.

And once a thought of Napoleon crossed his mind as he sat there

silently, camped with his men; and he remembered Moscow, with a

strange, new apprehension.

Next morning, having refilled their canteens, they set out again,

still in the same direction. Stern often consulted his chart, to be

sure they were proceeding in what he took to be the proper course.

The distance between Settlement Cliffs and the machine was wholly

problematical; yet, once he should come within striking distance of

the scene of his disaster, he felt positive of being able to recognize

it.

Not far to the south of the spot, he remembered, a very steep and

noisy stream flowed toward the east, and, off to northwest of it rose

a peculiarly formed, double-peaked mountain, easily recognizable.

The sand-barren itself, where he had been obliged to abandon the

machine, lay in a kind of broad valley, flanked on one hand by cliffs,

while the other sloped gradually upward to the foot-hills of the

double mountain in question.

"Once I get anywhere within twenty miles of it I'm all right," thought

Allan, anxiously sweeping the horizon with his binoculars as the party

paused on a high ridge to rest. "The great problem is to locate that

mountain. After that the rest will be easy."

At noon they camped again, ate sparingly, and rested an hour. Here

Allan brought his second map up to date. This map, a large sheet of

parchment, served as a record of distances and directions traveled.

Starting at Settlement Cliffs he had painstakingly entered on it every

stage of the journey, every ridge and valley, watercourse, camp and

landmark. Once the goal reached, this record would prove invaluable in

retracing their way.

"If the rest of the trip were only indicated as well as what's past!"

he muttered, working out his position. "One of these days, when other

things are attended to, we must have a geodetic survey, complete maps

and plans, and accurate information about the whole topography of this

altered continent. Some time--along with a few million other necessary

things!"

The third day brought them nowhere. Still the brule stretched

on and on before them, though now, far to right, Allan occasionally

could glimpse a wooded mountain-spur through the binoculars, as though

the limits of the vast conflagration were in sight at least in one

direction.

But to left and ahead nothing still showed but devastated land.

The character of the country, however, had begun to change. The

valleys had grown deeper and the ridges higher. Allan felt that they

were now coming into a more mountainous region.

"Well, that's encouraging, anyhow," he reflected. "Any time, now, I

may sight the double-peaked mountain. It can't heave in sight any too

soon to suit _me!_"

There was need of sighting it, indeed, for already the party had begun

to suffer not a little. The perpetual tramping through ashes had

started cracks and sores forming on the men's feet. Most of them were

coughing and sneezing much of the time, with a kind of influenza

caused by the acrid and biting dust.

The dried food, too, had started an intolerable thirst, and water was

terribly scarce. The canteens were now almost always empty; and more

than one brook or pool, to which the men eagerly hastened, turned out

to be saline or hopelessly fouled by fallen forest wreckage, festering

and green-slimed in the cooking sun.

In spite of the eye-shields and pigments, some of the men were already

suffering from sunburn and ophthalmia, which greatly impaired their

efficiency. Their failure to take fish was also beginning to

dishearten them.

Allan pondered the advisability of suspending day travel and trekking

only by night, but had to give over this plan, for it would obviate

all possibility of his sighting the landmark, the cleft mountain.

Though he said nothing, the pangs of apprehension were biting deep

into his soul.

For the first time that night the idea was strongly borne in upon him

that, after all, this might be little better than a wild-goose chase,

and that--despite his desperate need of the Pauillac engine--perhaps

the better part of valor might be discretion, retreat, return to

Settlement Cliffs while there might still be time.

Yet even the few hours of troubled sleep he got that night, camped in

a blackened ravine, served to strengthen his determination to push on

again at all hazards.

"It can't be far now!" thought he. "The place simply can't be very

far! We must have made the best part of the distance already. What

madness to turn back now and lose all we've struggled so hard to gain!

No, no--on we go again! Forward to success!"

Next morning, therefore--the fourth since having left New Hope

River--the party pushed forward again. It was now a strange

procession, limping and slow, the men blinking through their shields,

their hands and faces smeared with mud and ashes.

Painfully, yet without a word of complaint or rebellion, they once

more trailed over the fire-blasted hills on the quest of the wrecked

Pauillac.

Hour by hour they were now forced to pause for rest. Some of the

impedimenta had to be discarded. During the forenoon Allan commanded

that most of the fishing-gear and part of the cordage should be thrown

away.

Toward mid-afternoon he sorted out the tools, and kept only an

essential minimum. Now that they had seen no possible need for

ammunition, he decided to leave half of that also.

The tools and ammunition he carefully cached under a rock-cairn and

set a tall, burned pole up over it, with a cross-piece lashed near the

top. The position of this cairn he minutely noted on his map. Some day

he would return and get the valuables again.

Nothing could be spared from the provision packets, but these were

much lighter, anyhow. This helped a little. But Allan could see that

the strength of his men, and his own force as well, was diminishing

faster than the burden.

So, with a heavy heart, now half inclined to abandon the task and turn

back, he surveyed the horizon for the last time that night in vain

search for the landmark mountain of his hopes.

Morning dawned again pitilessly hot and sun-parched. By five o'clock

the party was under way, to make at least a few miles before the

greatest heat should set in.

Allan realized that this must be the crucial day. Either by nightfall

he must sight the mountain or he must turn back. And with

fever-burning eagerness he urged his limping men to greater speed,

chafed at every delay, constantly examined the horizon, and with

consuming wrath cursed the Horde which in its venomous hate had

brought this anguish and disaster on his people.

Just a little past eight o'clock a cry suddenly burst from Zangamon,

who had left the line during a pause to look for water in a near-by

hollow.

Stern heard the man's hoarse voice unmistakably resonant with terror.

To him he ran.

"What is it, Zangamon?" he cried thickly, for his tongue was parched

and swollen. "What have you found? Quick, tell me!"

"See, O Kromno! Behold!" exclaimed the man, pointing.

Stern looked--and saw a human body, charred and distorted, face

downward on the blackened earth. Up through the back something

projected--something hard and sharp.

He stooped, wide-eyed, staring at the thing.

"A spear-head, so help me!"

Then he realized the truth. They had found one of his slaughtered

companions of the terrible flight from the Horde!

Stern recoiled. Shocked though he was, yet a certain joy possessed

him. For now he knew he could not be far from the path of success. The

wrecked machine, he knew, could not lie more than one or two days'

march ahead. If the party could only last that long--

The others came hobbling. When they, too, saw the mournful object and

knew and understood, a deep silence fell upon them. In a circle they

surrounded the corpse of their murdered comrade, and for a while they

looked on it with woe.

Allan realized that he must not let inaction, thought and fear prey on

them, so he commanded immediate burial of the body.

They therefore dug a shallow grave in the baked soil, and, taking good

care not to touch the poisoned spear-head, carefully laid their

companion to rest. Over the filled-in grave they heaved rocks.

"Does anybody know his name?" asked Allan.

"He was called Relzang," answered Frumnos. "I knew him well--a

metal-worker, of the best."

"That's so--now I remember," assented Stern. "What was his totem?"

"A circle, with a bird's head within."

"Let it be placed here, then."

Their best stone-cutter roughly hewed the mark in a great boulder,

which was set on top of the pile. Then nothing more remaining to do,

the exploring party once more pushed forward.

But Allan could sense that now even its diminished strength had

greatly lessened. Discouragement and forebodings of certain death were

working among the men.

He knew he could not hold them more than a few hours longer at the

outside.

During the noonday halt and rest, under a low cliff, he made a

charweg, saying:

"O my people, barring the matter of the patriarch's death, I have

always spoken truth to you. Now I speak truth. This shall be the last

day. Ye have been brave and strong, uncomplaining in great trials, and

obedient. I shall reward ye greatly. But I am wise. I will not drive

ye too far. The end is at hand.

"Either I see the cleft mountain by to-morrow night or we return. I

shall push no farther forward than the march of one day and a half.

After that I shall either have the flying boat or we shall go quickly

to our safe home at Settlement Cliffs.

"Be of good heart, therefore. The return will be much easier and

shorter. We can follow the picture of the way that I have made.

Despair not. All shall be well. I have spoken."

They greeted his promise with murmurs of approbation, but made no

answer, for body and soul were grievously tried. When he gave the

order to advance again, however, they buckled into the toil with a

good heart. Their morale, he plainly saw, had been markedly improved

by his few words.

And, now filled with hot, new hope, once more he led the painful

march, his binoculars every few minutes swinging round the far horizon

in a vain attempt to sight the longed for height.

But other events were destined and were written on the book of fate.

For, as they topped a high ridge about five o'clock that

afternoon--dragging themselves along, parched and spent, rather than

marching--Allan made a halt for careful observations from this

vantage-post.

The men sank down, eager to lie prone even for a few minutes on the

ash-covered soil, to hide their eyes and pant like hard-run hunting

dogs.

Allan himself felt hardly the strength to remain upright; but he

forced himself to stand there, and with a tremendous effort held the

glass true as it slowly scoured the sky-line to north and west.

All at once he uttered a choking cry. The glass shook in his wasted

hands. His eyes, staring, refused their office, and a strange purple

blur seemed to blot the horizon from his sight.

With the binoculars he stared at a point N. N. W., where he had

thought to see the incredible apparition; but now nothing appeared.

"Hallucinations, so soon?" he muttered, rubbing his eyes. "Come, come,

buck up! This won't do at all!"

And again he searched the place with his powerful lenses.

"My God! but I _do_ see them--and they're real--they're moving, too!"

he exclaimed. "No hallucination, no mirage! They're _there!_ But--but

what--_What can this mean? Who can they be?_"

Tiny and clear against the dazzling background of the afternoon sky he

had perceived a long line of human figures trekking to southeast over

the distant hill-top, almost directly toward the point where his

exhausted troop now lay inert and panting.

CHAPTER XXXII

THE MEETING OF THE BANDS

Convinced though Stern now was of the reality of the amazing

sight he had just witnessed through his binoculars, yet for a long

moment he remained silent and staring, utterly at a loss for any

rational explanation of the remarkable apparition.

Exhausted in body and confused in mind, he could hit upon no answer to

the riddle.

Might these be some detached and belated members of the Horde? No; for

their figures and their gait, as he now for the third time studied

them through the glass, were unmistakably human.

But if not Anthropoids, then what? Enemies? Potential friends? Some

new and strange race, until now undiscovered?

A score of possible explanations struggled in his mind, only to be

rejected. But this was now no time for questions, analysis, or

thought. For, even as he looked, the end of the line came to view,

then vanished down the blackened hillside.

Invisible, now that they no longer stood silhouetted against the

sky-line, the strange company had disappeared as though swallowed up

by the earth. Yet Stern well knew that they were coming almost

directly down upon him and his little party. Already there was

pressing need for swift decision.

What should he do? Advance to meet these strangers? Risk all on a mere

chance? Or turn, retreat and hide? Or ambush them, and kill?

He found himself, for the moment, unable to make up his mind. Yet,

should a pinch arise and the last contingency become necessary, he

felt a powerful advantage. He was positive his little band, armed as

they were, could easily wipe out this column. But, after all, must he

fight?

His questions all unsettled and his mind confused from the terrible

exhaustions of the march, he waited. He surveyed the neighborhood,

with a view to possible battle.

On his left rose a ridge that swung to northward between the advancing

column and his own position. On his right an arroyo or gully, choked

with fallen tree-trunks and burned forest wreckage, descended in an

easterly direction toward a rather deep valley. In this gully he saw

was ample hiding-place for his whole force.

"Men!" he addressed them; "it is strange to tell, but there be others

who come against us there!" He pointed at the far crest of the sawlike

highlands, where now he thought to see a hazy, floating pall of dust.

"Until we know their purpose and their temper we must have care. We

must hide ourselves and wait. Come, then, quickly! And prepare your

guns against the need of battle!"

His words aroused and heartened his exhausted men. The prospect even

of war was welcome--anything in place of this unending trek through

the burned wilderness.

Zangamon cried: "Where be those that come, O Kromno? And what manner

of men?"

"Yonder," indicated Stern. "I know not who, save that they be men.

Wait but a little and you shall know. Now to the ravine!"

All got up, and with more energy than they had shown for some time,

they trailed to the gully. Here they were soon well entrenched, with

weapons ready. Stern now felt confident of the situation, however it

might turn.

They waited. Some little talk trickled up and down the line, but for

the most part the men kept quiet, watching eagerly.

Now already the dust of the advancing column had grown unmistakably

visible, drifting downwind in a thin haze that ever advanced more and

more to the southeast, came nearer always, and rose higher in their

view.

"Be ready, men," cautioned Stern. "In a few minutes, now, the foremost

will pass over that blackened hilltop there ahead of us!"

Higher and thicker grew the dust. A far, shrill cry sounded; and some

minutes later the breaking of wood became audible as the column cut

through a charred barrier.

Stern was half standing, half lying in the arroyo, only his head

projecting over a charcoal mass that once had been a date-palm.

His weapon hung, well balanced, in his hand. All along the edge of the

gully other pistol and rifle barrels were poked through debris.

Forgotten now were sore and wounded feet, thirst, hunger, ophthalmia,

discouragement--everything. This new excitement had wiped all pain

away.

Suddenly Allan started, and a little nervous thrill ran down his

spine. Over the top of the hill they all were watching a moving object

had suddenly become visible--a head!

Another followed, and then a third, and many more; and now the

shoulders and the bodies had begun to show; and now the whole advance

guard of the mysterious marching column was plainly to be seen, not

more than a quarter-mile away.

Allan jerked the binoculars to his eyes, and for a long moment peered

through them.

His eyes widened. An expression of blank amazement, supreme wonder and

vast incredulity overspread his face.

"_What?_" he exclaimed. "But--it's impossible! I--it _can't_ be--"

Again he looked, and this time was forced to believe what seemed to

him beyond all bounds of possibility.

"_Our own people! The Folk!_" he cried in a loud voice. And before his

men could sense it he was out of the ravine.

His first thought was a relief expedition from Settlement Cliffs; but

how could there be so many? Those who had remained at the colony were

only twenty-five, all told, and in this long line that still at a good

pace was defiling down the hillside already more than fifty had come

to view, with more and ever more still topping the rise.

Utterly at a loss though he was, incapable of seeing any clue to the

tremendous riddle, he still retained enough wit to hail the column,

now passing down the slope some three or four hundred yards to

westward.

"Ohe, Merucaan v'yolku!" he shouted between hollowed palms. "Yomnu!

Troin iska ieri!"

Already his men had scrambled from concealment, and were waving hands

and weapons, cloaks, burned brush wood, anything they could lay hands

on, to attract attention. Their shouts and hails drowned out the

master's.

But the meaning of the words mattered little. For the column on the

hillside, understanding, had stopped short in its tracks.

Then suddenly, with yells, it dissolved into confusion of its

component parts; and at a run the People of the Abyss swarmed to the

greeting of their kinsmen and their own, the colonists.

Barbarians as the folk still were, they met with a vociferous

affection. A regular tangi, or joy-wailing, followed, and all

crowded vociferously about Stern, with hails of "Kromno! Long live

our Kromno, our great chief!" in their own speech.

But Allan, dumfounded by this incredible happening, broke the ceremony

as short as possible. The sight of these unexpected reenforcements

dazed him. He managed to keep some coherence of thought, however, and

flung rapid questions, to which he got scant answers.

Amazed, he stared at the newcomers, now shouting with their relatives

from the colony in wild abandon. To his vast astonishment he saw that

they had contrived eye-shields similar to those of his own party, and

that they had likewise painted their faces.

They had supplies as well-dried fish, seaweed, crated waterfowl, and

even fresh game. Allan's astonishment knew no bounds.

He laid a compelling hand on the shoulder of one, Rigvin, whom he

remembered as a mighty caster of the nets on the Great Sunken Sea.

"Oh, Rigvin!" he commanded. "Come aside with me. I must have speech at

once!"

"I come, O Kromno. Speak, and I make answer!"

"How came ye here without the flying boat? How did ye escape from the

Abyss? Whither went ye? Tell me all!"

"We waited, Kromno, but you came not. Did you forget your people in

the darkness?"

"No, Rigvin. There has been great distress in Settlement Cliffs. The

flying boat is lost. Even now we seek it. Enemies attacked. We

destroyed them, but had to sweep the world with fire, as ye see. Many

things have happened to keep me from my people. But how came ye here?

How have ye done this strange thing, always deemed impossible?"

"Harken, master, that I may tell it in few words! Later, when we reach

the colony whereof you have spoken, we can make all things clear; but

now is no time for a great talking."

"Go on quickly!"

"Yea, I speak. We waited for you many days, O Kromno; but you came not

again. Days on days we waited, as you measure time. Sleepings and

wakings we waited eagerly, but no sign of you was seen. Then

uneasiness and fear and sorrow fell upon us all."

"What then?"

"We held a great charweg there at the Place of Bones, near the

Blazing Well, to take thought what was best to do. For you were our

chief; and our very ancient law commands that if any chief be in

distress, or deemed lost, the Folk must risk all, even life, to save

and bring him once more to his own.

"For many hours our wisest men spoke. Some declared you had deserted

us, but them the Folk cried down; and barely they escaped the boiling

vat. We agreed some calamity had befallen. Then we swore to go to

rescue you!"

"Ye did?" exclaimed Stern, much moved. "Gods, what devotion! But--how

did ye ever get out of the Abyss? How find your way so straight toward

Settlement Cliffs?"

"That is a strange story, and very long, O Kromno! All our elders took

thought of what ye had told us so often, and they made a picture of

the way. We fashioned protections for the eyes and skin, as ye had

said.

"Then the wise men recalled all the ancient traditions, which we had

long deemed myths. They looked, also, upon certain records graven in

the rock beyond the walls, past the place of burial. They decided the

way might still be open past the Great Vortex and through the long

cleft, whereby our distant fathers came.

"But they said it might mean death to try to pass the Vortex. They

forced none to go. Only such as would need try."

"A volunteer expedition, eh?" thought Allan. "And look at the size of

it, will you? These people are without even the slightest

understanding of fear!"

"Thus it was arranged, master," continued Rigvin. "Eight score and

more of us offered to go. All things were quickly made ready, and much

food was packed, and many weapons. In fifteen long canoes we started,

after a great singing. Men went in each canoe to bring back the

boats--"

"They didn't even wait for you? But if ye had been lost, and sought to

return, what then?"

"There was to be no return, master. All swore either to find you or

die!"

"Go on!" exclaimed Allan, deeply moved.

"We sailed across the Sunken Sea, O Kromno, and reached the islands of

the Lanskaarn. There we had to fight and thirty were killed. But we

kept on, and in two days, watching for the quiet time between the

great tempests, entered the Vortex."

"You all got through?"

"No master. There was not time. Many were lost; but still we kept on.

Then on the fourth day we reached the great cleft, even as our

traditions said. And here we camped, and sang again, and once more

swore to find you. Then the boats all returned, and we pushed forward,

upward, through the cleft."

"And then?"

Rigvin shook his head and sighed.

"O Kromno," he answered, "the story is too long! We be weary, and

would reach the place whereof ye have told us. Later there will be

time for talk. But now we cannot tell it all!"

"Ye speak truth, Rigvin!" he exclaimed. "I, too, have many things to

tell. It cannot be this day. We will lead ye to the colony. We, too,

need rest. My men are in sore straits, as ye see!"

He gestured at the groups gathered along the edge of the ravine. A

great noise of talking rose against the heated air; and food and

water, too, were being given to the Settlement men by the newcomers.

Stern knew the day was saved. Deep gratitude upwelled in his heart.

"Nothing that I can ever do will repay men like these!" thought he.

Then, all at once, a sudden hope thrilled him, and he cried:

"Oh, Rigvin, one thing more! Tell me, in your long journey from the

brink, have ye chanced to see a cleft mountain with two peaks on

either hand?"

"You mean, master--"

"A mountain; a high jut of land, with two tops, side by side--like two

grave-mounds?"

Rigvin stood a moment in thought, his soot-smeared brows wrinkled with

the effort of trying to remember. Then all at once he looked up

quickly with a smile.

"Yea, master!" he cried. "We saw such!"

"Where, where? For God's sake, where was it?" ejaculated Stern,

gripping him by the arm with a hand that shook with sudden keen

emotion.

"Where was it, master? Thus one day's marching."

Rigvin wheeled and pointed to northwestward.

"And ye can find it again?"

"Truly, yes. Why, master?"

"There, near that mountain, lies the wreck of the vlyn b'hotu, the

flying boat, Rigvin! Lead us thither! We must find it. And then

Settlement Cliffs!"

Through all his exhaustion and his pain he knew that now the goal was

close at hand. And beyond toil, suffering and hardship once more

beckoned prosperity and peace and love.

CHAPTER XXXIII

FIVE YEARS LATER

Long before daybreak that morning, the thriving village of

Settlement Cliffs, capital and market-town of the New Hope Colony, was

awake and astir.

For the great festival day was at hand, the fifth anniversary of the

founding of the colony, to be celebrated by the arrival of the last

Merucaans from the depths of the Abyss.

The old caves, now abandoned save for grain, fruit and fish

storehouses were closed and silent. No labor was going forward there.

The nets hung dry. From the forges, smithies and work-shops along the

river-bank at the rapids arose no sounds of the accustomed industry.

The road and bridge-builders were idle; and from the farms now dotting

the rich brule across the river--each snug stone house, tiled

with red or green, standing among its crops and growing orchards--the

Folk were coming in to town for the feast-day.

The broad wooden trestle-bridge across the New Hope echoed with hollow

verberations beneath the measured tread of two and four-ox teams

hauling creaking wains heaped high with meats, fruits, casks of cider,

generous wines, and all the richness of that virgin soil.

On the summer morning air rose laughter from the youths and maidens

coming in afoot. Sounded the cries of the teamsters, the barking of

dogs, the mingled murmur of speech--English speech again; and the

fresh wind, bearing away a fine, golden dust from the long roads,

swayed the palm-tops and the fern-trees with a gentle and caressing

touch.

All up and down the broad, well-paved street of the village--a street

lined with stone cottages, bordered with luxuriant tropic gardens, and

branching into a dozen smaller thoroughfares--a happy throng was

idling.

Well clad in plain yet substantial weaves from the vine-festooned

work-shops below the cliff, abundantly fed, vigorous and strong, not

one showed sickness or deformity, such as had scourged the human race

in the old, evil days of long ago.

Loose-belted garb, sandals and a complete absence of hats all had

their part in this abounding health. Open-air life and rational food

completed the work.

No drugs, save three or four essential ones, and no poisons, ever had

crept in to menace life. Wine there was, rich and unfermented; but the

curse of alcohol existed not. And in the Law it was forever banned.

On the broad porch of their home, a boulder-built cottage facing the

broad plaza where palms shaded the graveled paths, and purple, yellow

and scarlet blooms lured humming-birds and butterflies, stood Beatrice

and Allan.

Both were smiling in the clear June sunlight of that early morning. A

cradle rocked by Gesafam--a little older and more bent, yet still

hardy--gave glimpses of another olive-branch, this one a girl.

The piazza was littered at its farthest end with serviceable,

home-made playthings; but Allan, Junior, had no use for them to-day.

Out there on the lawn of the plaza he was rolling and running with a

troop of other children--many, many children, indeed.

As Beatrice and Allan watched the play they smiled; and through the

man's arm crept the woman's hand, and with the confidence of perfect

trust she leaned her head against his shoulder.

"Whoever could have thought," said he at last, "that all this really

could come true? In those dark hours when the Horde had all but

swallowed us, when we fell into the Abyss, when those terrible

adventures racked our souls down beside the Sunken Sea, and later,

here, when everything seemed lost--who could have foreseen _this?_"

"You could and did!" she answered. "From the beginning you planned

everything, Allan. It was all foreseen and nothing ever stopped you,

just as the future beyond this time is all foreseen by you and must

and shall be as you plan it!"

"Shall be, with your help!" he murmured, and silence came again.

Together they watched the holiday crowd gradually congregating in the

vast plaza where once the palisade had been. Now the old wooden

stockade had long vanished. Cleared land and farms extended far beyond

even Newport Heights, where the Pauillac had first come to earth at

New Hope.

Well-kept roads connected them all with the settlement. And for some

miles to southward the primeval forests had been vanquished by the

ever-extending hand of this new, swiftly growing race.

"With my help and theirs!" she rejoined presently. "Never forget,

dear, how wonderfully they've taken hold, how they've labored,

developed and grown in every way. You'd be surprised--really you

would--if you came in contact with them as I do in the schools, to see

the marvelous way they learn--old and young alike. It's a miracle,

that's all!"

"No, not exactly," he explained. "It's atavism. These people of ours

were really civilized in essence, despite all the overlying ages of

barbarism. Civilization was latent in them, that's all. Just as all

the children born here under normal conditions have reverted to

pigmented skin and hair and eyes, so even the grown-ups have thrown

back to civilization. Two or three years at the outside have put back

the coloring matter in every newcomer's iris and epidermis. Just so--"

A sudden and quickly-growing tumult in the plaza and down the long,

broad street interrupted him. He saw a waving of hands, a general

craning of necks, a drift toward the north side of the square, the

river side.

The shouts and cheers increased and cries of "_They come! They come!_"

rose on the morning air.

"Already?" exclaimed Allan in surprise. "These new machines certainly

do surprise me with their speed and power. In the old days the

Pauillac wouldn't have been here before noon from the Abyss!"

Together, Beatrice and he walked round the wide piazza to the rear of

the bungalow. The home estate sloped gently down toward the cement and

boulder wall edging the cliff. In its broad garden stood the stable,

where half a dozen horses--caught on the northern savannas and

carefully tamed--disputed their master's favor with the touring car he

had built up from half a dozen partly ruined machines in Atlanta and

other cities.

Up the cliff still roared the thunder of the rapids, to-day untamed by

the many turbines and power-plants along the shore. But louder than

the river rose the tumult of the rejoicing throng: "They come! They

come!"

"Where?" questioned Beta. "See them, boy?"

"There! Look! How swift! My trained men can outfly _me_ now--more luck

to them!"

He pointed far to northwestward, over the wide and rolling sea of

green, farm-dotted, that had sprung up with marvelous fecundity in the

wake of the great fire.

Looking now out over the very same country where, five years and a

month before, she had strained her tear-blinded eyes for some sign of

Allan's return, Beatrice suddenly beheld three high, swift little

specks skimming up the heavens with incredible velocity.

"Hurrah!" shouted Allan boyishly. "Here they come--the last of my

Folk!"

He ran to the corner of the piazza and on the tall staff that

dominated the canyon and the river-valley dipped the stars and stripes

three times in signal of welcome.

And already, ere the salute was done, the rushing planes had slipped

full half the distance from the place where they had first been

sighted.

A messenger ran down the gravel driveway and saluted.

"O Kromno!" he began. "Master--"

"Master no longer!" Allan interrupted. "Brother now, only!"

The lad stared, amazed.

"Well, what is it?" smiled Allan.

"The Council of the Elders prays you to come to help greet the

last-comers. And after that the feast!"

"I come!" he answered. The lad bowed and vanished.

"They aren't going to let me out of it, after all," he sighed. "I'd so

much rather let them run their own festival to-day. But no--they've

got to ring me in, as usual! You'll come, too, of course?"

She nodded, and a moment later they were walking over the fine lawn

toward the plaza.

On the far side, in a wide, open stretch that served the children

sometimes as a playground, stood the great hangars of the community's

air-fleet. Beyond them rose workshops, their machinery driven by

electric power from the turbines at the rapids.

Even as Allan and Beatrice passed through the cheering crowd, now

drifting toward the hangars, a sound of music wafted down-wind--a

little harsh at times, but still with promise of far better things to

be.

Many flags fluttered in the air, and even the rollicking children on

the lawns paused to wonder as swift shadows cut across the park.

On high was heard the droning hum of the propellers. It ceased, and in

wide, sure, evenly balanced spirals the great planes one by one slid

down and took the earth as easily as a gull sinks to rest upon the

bosom of a quiet sea.

"They _do_ work well, my equilibrators!" murmured Allan, unable to

suppress a thrill of pride. "Simple, too; but, after all, how

wonderfully effective!"

The crowd parted to let him through with Beatrice. Two minutes later

he was clasping the hands of the last Folk ever to be brought from the

strange, buried village under the cliff beside the Sunless Sea.

He summoned Zangamon and Frumuos, together with Sivad and the three

aviators.

"Well done!" said he; and that was all--all, yet enough. Then, while

the people cheered again and, crowding round, greeted their kinsfolk,

he gave orders for the housing and the care of the travel-wearied

newcomers.

Through the summer air drifted slow smoke. Off on the edge of the

grove that flanked the plaza to southward the crackling of new-built

fires was heard.

Allan turned to Beta with a smile.

"Getting ready for the barbecue already!" said he, "With that and the

games and all, they ought to have enough to keep them busy for one

day. Don't you think they'll have to let us go a while? There are

still a few finishing touches to put to the new laws I'm going to hand

the Council this afternoon for the Folk to hear. Yes, by all means,

they'll have to let us go."

Together they walked back to their bungalow amid its gardens of

palm-growths, ferns and flowers. Here they stopped a moment

to chat with some good friend, there to watch the children

and--parentlike--make sure young Allan was safe and only normally

dirty and grass-stained.

They gained their broad piazza at length, turned, and for a while

watched the busy, happy scene in the shaded street, the plaza and the

playground.

Then Beta sat down by the cradle--still in that same low chair Allan

had built for her five years ago, a chair she had steadily refused to

barter for a finer one.

He drew up another beside her. From his pocket he drew a paper--the

new laws--and for a minute studied it with bent brows.

The soft wind stirred the woman's hair as she sat there half dreaming,

her blue-gray eyes, a little moist, seeing far more than just what lay

before them. On his head a shaft of sunlight fell, and had you looked

you might have seen the crisp, black hair none too sparingly lined

with gray.

But his gaze was strong and level and his smile the same as in bygone

years, as with his left hand he pressed hers and, with a look eloquent

of many things, said:

"Now, sweetheart, if you're quite ready--?"

CHAPTER XXXIV

HISTORY AND ROSES

Allan sat writing in his library. Ten years had now slipped

past since the last of the Folk had been brought to the surface and

the ancient settlement in the bowels of the earth forever abandoned.

Heavily sprinkled with gray, the man's hair showed the stress of time

and labors incredible.

Lines marked his face with the record of their character-building,

even as his rapid pen traced on white paper the all but completing

history of the new world whereat he had been laboring so long.

Through the open window, where the midsummer breeze swayed the silken

curtains, drifted a hum from the long file of bee-hives in the garden.

Farther away sounded the comfortable gossip of hens as they breasted

their soft feathers into the dust-baths behind the stables. A dog

barked.

Came voices from without. Along the street growled a motor. Laughter

of children echoed from the playground. Allan ceased writing a moment,

with a smile, and gazed about him as though waking from a dream.

"Can this be true?" he murmured. "After having worked over the records

of the earlier time _they_ still seem the reality and this the dream!"

On the garden-path sounded footfalls. Then the voice of Beatrice

calling:

"Come out, boy! See my new roses--just opened this morning!"

He got up and went to the window. She--matronly now and of ampler

bosom, yet still very beautiful to look upon--was standing there by

the rose-tree, scissors in hand.

Allan, Junior, now a rugged, hardy-looking chap of nearly

sixteen--tall, well built and with his father's peculiar alertness of

bearing--was bending down a high branch for his mother.

Beyond, on the lawn, the ten-year-old daughter, Frances, had young

Harold in charge, swinging him high in a stout hammock under the

apple-trees.

"Can't you come out a minute, dear?" asked Beatrice imploringly. "Let

your work go for once! Surely these new roses are worth more than a

hundred pages of dry statistics that nobody'll ever read, anyhow!"

He laughed merrily, threw her a kiss, and answered:

"Still a girl, I see! Ah, well, don't tempt me, Beta. It's hard enough

to work on such a day, anyhow, without your trying to entice me out!"

"_Won't_ you come, Allan?"

"Just give me half an hour more and I'll call it off for to-day!"

"All right; but make it a short half-hour, boy!"

He returned to his desk. The library, like the whole house now, was

fully and beautifully furnished. The spoils of twenty cities had

contributed to the adornment of "The Nest," as they had christened

their home.

In time Allan planned even to bring art-works from Europe to grace it

still further. As yet he had not attempted to cross the Atlantic, but

in his seaport near the ruins of Mobile a powerful one hundred and

fifty-foot motor-yacht was building.

In less than six months he counted on making the first voyage of

discovery to the Old World.

Contentedly he glanced around the familiar room. Upon the mantel over

the capacious fireplace stood rare and beautiful bronzes. Priceless

rugs adorned the polished floor.

The broad windows admitted floods of sunlight that fell across the

great jars of flowers Beta always kept there for him and lighted up

the heavy tiers of books in their mahogany cases. Books

everywhere--under the window-seats, up the walls, even lining a deep

alcove in the far corner. Books, hundreds upon hundreds, precious and

cherished above all else.

"Who ever would have thought, after all," murmured he, "that we'd find

books intact as we did? A miracle--nothing less! With our

printing-plant already at work under the cliff, all the art, science

and literature of the ages--all that's worth preserving--can be still

kept for mankind. But if I hadn't happened to find a library of books

in a New York bonded warehouse all cased up for transportation, the

work of preservation would have been forever impossible!"

He turned back to his history, and before writing again idly thumbed

over a few pages of his voluminous manuscript. He read:

"March 1, A. D. 2930. The astronomical observatory on Round Top Hill,

one mile south of Newport Heights, was finished to-day and the last of

the apparatus from Cambridge, Lick, and other ruins was installed. I

find my data for reckoning time are unreliable, and have therefore

assumed this date arbitrarily and readjusted the calendar accordingly.

"Our Daily Messenger, circulating through the entire community and

educating the people both in English and in scientific thought, will

soon popularize the new date.

"Just as I have substituted the metric system for the old-time chaotic

hodge-podge we once used, so I shall substitute English for Merucaan

definitely inside of a few years. Already the younger generation

hardly understands the native Merucaan speech. It will eventually

become a dead, historically interesting language, like all other

former tongues. The catastrophe has rendered possible, as nothing else

could have done, the realization of universal speech, labor-unit

exchange values in place of money, and a political and economic

democracy unhampered by ideas of selfish, personal gain."

He turned a few pages, his face glowing with enthusiasm.

"April 15--The first ten-yearly census was completed to-day. Even with

the aid of Frumuos and Zangamon, I have been at work on this nearly

two months, for now our outlying farms, villages and settlements have

pushed away fifteen or twenty miles from the original focus at the

Cliffs, or 'Cliffton,' as the capital is becoming generally known.

"Population, 5,072, indicating a high birth-rate and an exceptionally

low mortality. Our one greatest need is large families. With the whole

world to reconquer, we must have men.

"Area now under cultivation, under grazing and under forests being

actively exploited, 42,076 acres. Domestic animals, 26,011. Horses are

already being replaced by motors, save for pleasure-riding.

Power-plants and manufacturing establishments, 32. Aerial fleet, 17 of

the large biplanes, 8 of the swifter monoplanes for scout work. One

shipyard at Mobile.

"Total roads, macadamized and other, 832 miles. Air-motors and

sun-motors in use or under construction, 41; mines being worked, 13;

schools, 27, including the technical school at Intervale, under my

personal instruction. Military force, zero--praise be! Likewise jails,

saloons, penitentiaries, gallows, hospitals, vagrants, prostitutes,

politicians, diseases, beggars, charities--all zero, now and forever!"

Allan turned to the unfinished end of the manuscript, poised his pen a

moment, and then began writing once more where he had left off when

called by Beatrice:

"The great monument in memory of the patriarch, first of all our

people to perish in the upper world, was finished on June 18. Memorial

exercises will be held next month.

"On June 22 the new satellite, which passes darkly among the stars

every forty-eight hours, was named Discus. Its distance is 3,246

miles; dimensions, 720 miles by 432; weight, six and three-quarter

billion tons.

"On July 2, I discovered unmistakable traces either of habitations or

of their ruins on the new and till now unobserved face of the moon,

hidden in the old days. This problem still remains for further

investigation.

"July 4, our national holiday, a viva-voce election and Council of

the Elders was held. They still insist on choosing me as Kromno. I

weary of the task, and would gladly give it over to some younger man.

"At this Council, held on the great meeting-ground beyond the hangars,

I again and for the third time submitted the question of trying to

colonize from the races still in the Abyss. If feasible, this would

rapidly add to our population. The Folk are now civilized to a point

where they could rapidly assimilate outside stock.

"In addition to the Lanskaarn, a strong and active race known to exist

on the Central Island in the Sunken Sea, there remain persistent

traditions of a strange, yellow-haired race somewhere on the western

coasts of that sea, beyond the Great Vortex. Two parties exist among

us.

"The minority is anxious for exploration and conquest. The majority

votes for peace and quiet growth. It may well be that the Lanskaarn

and the other people never will be rescued. I, for one, cannot attempt

it. I grow a little weary. But if the younger generation so decides,

that must be their problem and their labor, like the rebuilding of the

great cities and the reconquest of the entire continent from sea to

sea.

"In the mean time--"

At the window appeared Beatrice. Smiling, she flung a yellow rose. It

landed on Allan's desk, spilling its petals all across his manuscript.

He looked up, startled. His frown became a smile.

"My time's up?" he queried. "Why, I didn't know I'd been working five

minutes!"

"Up? Long ago! Now, Allan, you just simply _must_ leave that history

and come out and see my roses, or--or--"

"No threats!" he implored with mock earnestness. "I'm coming, dearest.

Just give me time--"

"Not another minute, do you hear?"

"--to put my work away, and I'm with you!"

He carefully arranged the pages of his manuscript in order, while she

stood waiting at the window, daring not leave lest he plunge back

again into his absorbing toil.

Into his desk-drawer he slid the precious record of the community's

labor, growth, achievement, triumph. Then, with a boyish twinkle in

his eyes, he left the library.

She turned, expecting him to meet her by the broad piazza; but all at

once he stole quietly round the other corner of the bungalow, his

footsteps noiseless in the thick grass.

Suddenly he seized her, unsuspecting, in his arms.

"My prisoner!" he laughed. "Roses? Here's the most beautiful one in

our whole garden!"

"Where?" she asked, not understanding.

"This red one, here!"

And full upon the mouth he kissed her in the leaf-shaded sunshine of

that wondrous summer day.

CHAPTER XXXV

THE AFTERGLOW

Evening!

Far in the west, beyond the canyon of the New Hope River--now a

beautifully terraced park and pleasure-ground--the rolling hills,

fertile and farm-covered, lay resting as the sun died in a glory of

crimson, gold and green.

The reflections of the passing day spread a purple haze through the

palm and fern-tree aisles of the woodland. Only a slight breeze swayed

the branches. Infinite in its serenity brooded a vast peace from the

glowing sky.

A few questing swallows shot here and there like arrows, blackly

outlined with swift and crooked wing against the vermilion of the

west.

Over the countryside, the distant farms and hills, a thin and rosy

vapor hovered, fading slowly as the sun sank lower still.

Scarcely moved by the summer breeze, a few slow clouds drifted

away--away to westward--gently and calmly as the first promises of

night stole up the world.

An arbor, bowered with wistarias and the waxen spikes of the new

fleur de vie, stood near the woodbine-covered wall edging the cliff.

Among its leaves the soft air rustled very lovingly. A scent of many

blossoms hung over the perfumed evening.

Upon the lawn one last, belated robin still lingered. Its mate called

from a sycamore beyond the hedge, and with an answering note it rose

and winged away; it vanished from the sight.

Allan and Beatrice, watching it from the arbor, smiled; and through

the smile it seemed there might be still a trace of deeper thought.

"How quickly it obeyed the call of love!" said Allan musingly. "When

_that_ comes what matters else?"

She nodded.

"Yes," she answered presently. "That call is still supreme. Our

Frances--"

She paused, but her eyes sought the half-glimpsed outlines of another

cottage there beyond the hedge.

"We never realized, did we?" said Allan, voicing her thought. "It came

so suddenly. But we haven't lost her, after all. And there are still

the others, too. And when grandchildren come--"

"That means a kind of youth all over again, doesn't it? Well--"

Her hand stole into his, and for a while they sat in silence, thinking

the thoughts that "do sometime lie too deep for tears."

The flaming red in the west had faded now to orange and dull umber.

Higher in the sky yellows and greens gave place to blue as deep as

that in the Aegean grottos. The zenith, a dark purple, began to show a

silver twinkle here and there of stars.

A whirring, roaring sound grew audible to eastward. It strengthened

quickly. And all at once, far above the river, a long, swift train,

its windows already lighted, sped with a smooth, rapid flight.

Allan watched the monorail vanish beyond the huge north tower of the

cable bridge, sink through the trees, and finally fade into the

gathering gloom.

"The Great Lakes Express," said he. "In the old days we thought

seventy miles an hour something stupendous. Now two hundred is mere

ordinary schedule-time. Yes--something has been accomplished even now.

The greater time still to be--we can't hope to see it.

"But we can catch a glimpse of what it shall be, here and there. We

must be content to have built foundations. On them those who shall

come in the future shall raise a fairer and a mightier world than any

we have ever dreamed."

Again he relapsed into silence; but his arm drew round Beatrice, and

together they sat watching the age-old yet ever-new drama of the birth

of night.

Half heard, mingled with the eternal turmoil of the rapids, rose the

far purring of the giant dynamos in the power-houses below the cliff.

Here, there, lights began to gleam in the city; and on the rolling

farmlands to northward, too, little winking eyes of light opened one

by one, each one a home.

Suddenly the man spoke again.

"More than a hundred thousand of us already!" he exulted. "Over a

tenth of a million--and every year the growth is faster, ever faster,

in swift progressions. A hundred thousand English-speaking people,

Beta; a civilization already, even in a material sense, superior to

the old one that was swept away; in a spiritual, moral sense, how

vastly far ahead!

"A hundred thousand! Some time, before long, it will be a million;

then two, five, twenty, a hundred, with no racial discords, no mutual

antipathies, no barriers of name or blood; but for the first time a

universal race, all sound and pure, starting right, living right,

striving toward a goal which even we cannot foresee!

"Not only shall this land be filled, but Europe, Asia, Africa and all

the islands of the Seven Seas shall know the hand of man again, and

own his sovereignty, from pole to pole!"

His clasp about Beatrice tightened; she felt his heart beat strong

with deep emotion as he spoke again:

"Already the cities are beginning to arise from their ashes of a

thousand oblivious years. Already a score of thriving colonies have

scattered from the capital, all yet bound to it with monorail cables,

with electric wires and with the ether-borne magic of the wireless.

"Already our boy, our son--can you imagine him really a man of thirty,

darling?--elected President on our last Council Day, guides a free

people--a people self-reliant and strong, energetic, capable,

dominant.

"Already the inconceivable fertility of the earth is yielding its

bounties a hundred fold; and trade-routes circle the ends of the great

Abyss; and all the vast territory once the United States has begun to

open again before the magic touch of man!

"Of man--now free at last! No more slavery! No more the lash of hunger

driving men to their tasks. No more greed and grasping; no lust of

gold, no bitter cry of crushed and hopeless serfdom! No buying and

selling for the lure of profit; no speculating in the people's means

of life; no squeezing of their blood for wealth! But free, strong

labor, gladly done. The making of useful and beautiful things,

Beatrice, and their exchange for human need and service--this, and the

old dream of joy in righteous toil, this is the blessing of our world

to-day!"

He paused. A little, swift-moving light upon the far horizon drew his

eye. It seemed a star, traveling among its sister stars that now

already had begun to twinkle palely in the darkening sky. But Allan

knew its meaning.

"Look!" cried he and pointed. "Look, Beatrice! The West Coast

Mail--the plane from southern California. The wireless told us it had

started only three hours ago--and here it is already!"

"And but for you," she murmured, "none of all this could ever possibly

have been. Oh, Allan, remember that song--our song? In the days of our

first love, there on the Hudson, remember how I sang to you:

"Stark wie der Fels,

Tief wie das Meer,

Muss deine Liebe,

Muss deine Liebe sein?"

"I remember! And it has been so?"

Her answer was to draw his hand up to her lips and print a kiss there,

and as she laid her cheek upon it he felt it wet with tears.

And night came; and now the wind lay dead; and upon the brooding

earth, spangled with home-lights over hill and vale, the stars gazed

calmly down.

The steady, powerful droning of the power-plant rose, blent with the

soothing murmur of the rapids and the river.

"Seems like a lullaby--doesn't it, dearest?" murmured Allan. "You

know--it won't be long now before it's good-by and--good night."

"I know," she answered. "We've _lived_, haven't we? Oh, Allan, no one

ever lived, ever in all this world--lived as much as you and I have

lived! Think of it all from the beginning till now. No one ever so

much, so richly, so happily, so well!"

"No one, darling!"

"But, after toil, rest--rest is sweet, too. I shall be ready for it

when it summons me. I shall go to it, content and brave and smiling.

Only--"

"Yes?"

"Only this I pray, just this and nothing more--that I mayn't have to

stay awake, alone, after--after _you're_ sleeping, Allan!"

A long time they sat together, silent, in the sweet-scented gloom

within the flower-girt arbor.

At last he spoke.

"The wonder and the glory of it all!" he whispered. "Oh, the wonder of

a dream, a vision come to pass, before our eyes!

"For, see! Has not the prophecy come true? What was then only a

yearning and a hope, is it not now reality? Is it not now all even as

we dreamed so very, very long ago, there in our little bungalow beside

the broad, slow-moving Hudson?

"Is _this_ not true?"

I see a world where thrones have crumbled and where kings are dust.

The aristocracy of idleness has perished from the earth.

I see a world without a slave. Man at last is free. Nature's forces

have by science been enslaved. Lightning and light, wind and wave,

frost and flame, and all the secret, subtle powers of earth and air

are the tireless toilers for the human race.

I see a world at peace, adorned with every form of art, with music's

myriad voices thrilled, while lips are rich with words of love and

truth--a world in which no exile sighs, no prisoner mourns; a world on

which the gibbet's shadow does not fall; a world where labor reaps its

full reward--where work and worth go hand in hand!

I see a world without the beggar's outstretched palm, the miser's

heartless, stony stare, the piteous wail of want, the livid lips of

lies, the cruel eyes of scorn.

I see a race without disease of flesh or brain, shapely and fair, the

married harmony of form and function; and, as I look, life lengthens,

joy deepens, love canopies the earth--and over all, in the great dome,

shines the eternal star of human hope!

End of Project Gutenberg's Darkness and Dawn, by George Allan England