Rolla scarcely heard. An enormous idea had just occurred to her. She
had told the girl to think of Dulnop and Corrus; but was it not
equally true that they should think of all the other humans, their
fellow slaves, each of whom had suffered nearly as much? Was not the
fire equally precious to them all?
She started to explain this to the girl, then abruptly gave it up.
It was no use; Cunora's mind was not strong enough to take the step.
Rolla fairly gasped as she realized, as no Sanusian had realized
before, that she had been given the responsibility of rescuing A
WHOLE RACE.
Fire she must have! And since she could not, dared not, seek it
here, she must try the other side of the world. And she would have
to do it--alone!
"So be it!" she said loudly in a strange voice. "Ye stay here and
wait, Cunora! I go on!"
And for fear her resolution would break down, she immediately crept
over the edge. She clung to the rock as though expecting to be
dragged from it. Instead, as she let her feet down into the
blackness, she could feel solid rock beneath her body, quite the
same as she had lain upon a moment before. It was like descending
the opposite side of an incredibly steep mountain, a mountain made
of blackness itself.
The women gave one another a last look. For all they knew, neither
would gaze upon the other again. Next moment, with Cunora's
despairing cry ringing in her ears, Holla began to crawl backward
and downward.
She could plainly see the sun's level rays above her head, irregular
beams of yellowish light; it served slightly to illuminate her
surroundings. Shortly, however, her eyes became accustomed to the
darkness; the stars helped just as they had always helped; and soon
she was moving almost as freely as on the other side.
Once she slipped, and slid down and to one side, for perhaps ten
feet. When she finally grabbed a sharp projecting ledge and stopped,
her vision almost failed from the terrible effort she had put forth.
She could scarcely feel the deep gash that the ledge had made in her
finger-tips.
After perhaps half an hour of hard work among bare rocks exactly
like those she had quit, she stopped for a prolonged rest. As a
matter of course, she stared at the sky; and then came her first
discovery.
Once more let it be understood that her view was totally different
from anything that has ever been seen on the earth. To be sure, "up"
was over her head, and "down" was under her feet; nevertheless, she
was stretched full length, face down, on the rock. In other words,
it was precisely as though she were clinging to a cliff. Sky above,
sky behind and all sides; there were stars even under her feet!
But all her life she had been accustomed, at night, to see that
broad band of silver light across the heavens. She had taken it for
granted that, except at two seasons of the year, for short periods,
she would always see "the Silvery Way." But tonight--there was no
band! The whole sky was full of--stars, nothing else!
It will be easier to picture her wonder and uneasiness if she is
compared mentally with a girl of five or six. Easier, too, to
appreciate the fact that she determined to go on anyhow.
Mile after mile was covered in the darkness. Rolla was on the point
of absolute exhaustion; but she dared not sleep until she reached a
spot where there was no danger of falling. It was only after braving
the gale for over four hours in the starlight that Rolla reached a
point where she was no longer half crawling, half creeping, but
moved nearly erect. Shortly she was able to face the way she was
going; and by leaning backward was able to make swift progress. In
another half-hour she was walking upright. Still no explanation of
the mystery!
Finding a sheltered spot, she proceeded to make herself
comparatively comfortable on the rock. Automatically, from habit,
she proceeded to keep watch; then she must have remembered that
there was now no need for vigilance. For she lay herself down in the
darkness and instantly fell asleep.
Three hours later--according to the time kept by the watchers on the
earth--Rolla awoke and sat up in great alarm. And small wonder.
It was broad daylight! The sun was well above the horizon; and not
only the Sanusian but the people on the earth were vastly puzzled to
note that it was the western horizon! To all appearances, Rolla had
slept a whole day in that brief three hours.
Shortly her nerves were steady enough for her to look about,
uncomprehendingly, but interestedly, as a child will. There was
nothing but rock to be seen; a more or less level surface, such as
she had toiled over the day before. The day before! She glanced at
the sun once more, and her heart gave a great leap.
The sun was rising--in the west!
'"Tis a world of contraries," observed Rolla sagely to herself.
"Mayhap I shall find all else upside down."
She ate heartily, and drank deep from her gourd. There was not a
cupful remaining. She eyed it seriously as she got to her feet.
Another look back at that flat expanse of granite, which had so
gradually and so mysteriously changed from precipice to plain, and
Rolla strode on with renewed vigor and interest. Presently she was
able to make out something of a different color in the distance, and
soon was near enough to see some bona-fide bushes; a low, flowerless
shrub, it is true, but at least it was a living thing.
Shortly the undergrowth became dense enough to make it somewhat of
an effort to get through. And before long she was noticing all
manner of small creatures, from bugs to an occasional wandering
bird. These last, especially, uttered an abrupt but cheerful chirp
which helped considerably to raise her spirits. It was all too easy
to see, in her fancy, her lover helpless and suffering in the power
of those cold-blooded, merciless insects.
In an hour or two she reached the head of a small stream. Hurrying
down its banks as rapidly as its undergrowth would permit, Rolla
followed its course as it bent, winding and twisting, in the
direction which had always been north to her, but which the sun
plainly labeled "south." Certainly the sun mounted steadily toward
the zenith, passing successively through the positions corresponding
to four, three and two o'clock, in a manner absolutely baffling.
About noon she came out of the canon into the foothills. Another
brief rest, and from the top of a knoll she found herself looking
upon a valley about the size of the one she called "home."
Otherwise, it was very different. For one thing, it was far better
watered; nowhere could she see the half-dried brownishness so
characteristic of her own land. The whole surface was heavily grown
with all manner of vegetation; and so far as she could see it was
all absolutely wild. There was not a sign of cultivation.
Keeping to the left bank of the river, a much broader affair than
any she had seen before, Rolla made her way for several miles with
little difficulty. Twice she made wide detours through the thicket,
and once it was necessary to swim a short distance; the stream was
too deep to wade. The doctor watched the whole affair, purely as a
matter of professional interest.
"She is a magnificent specimen physically," he said in his
impersonal way, "and she shows none of the defects of the African
savages."
And such was his manner, in speaking of his distant "patient," that
Billie took it entirely as a matter of course, without the slightest
self-consciousness because of Van Emmon and Smith.
All this while Rolla had been intent, as before, upon finding some
of the coveted crystals. She had no luck; but presently she
discovered something decidedly worth while--a fallen tree trunk, not
too large, and near enough to the bank to be handled without help. A
few minutes later she was floating at ease, and making decidedly
better time.
A half-hour of this-during which she caught glimpses of many
animals, large and small, all of which fled precipitately--and she
rounded a sharp bend in the stream, to be confronted with a sight
which must have been strange indeed to her. Stretching across the
river was--a network of rusty wire, THE REMAINS OF A REINFORCED
CONCRETE BRIDGE.
There was no doubt of this. On each bank was a large, moss-grown
block of stone, which the doctor knew could be nothing else than the
old abutments. Seemingly there had been only a single span.
The woman brought the log to the shore, and examined the bridge
closely. Instinctively she felt that the structure argued a high
degree of intelligence, very likely human. A little hesitation, and
then she beached her log, ascended the bank, and looked upon the
bridge from above.
A narrow road met her eyes. Once it might have been twice as wide,
but now the thicket encroached until there was barely room enough,
judged the doctor, for a single vehicle to pass. Its surface was
badly broken up--apparently it had been concrete--and grass grew in
every crack. Nevertheless, it was a bona-fide road.
For the first time in a long while, Rolla was temporarily off her
guard. The doctor was able to impress her with the idea of "Follow
this road!" and to his intense gratification the woman started away
from the river at once.
Soon the novelty of the thing wore off enough for her to concern
herself with fresh food. She discovered plenty of berries, also
three kinds of nuts; all were strange to her, yet she ate them
without question, and suffered nothing as a result, so far as the
doctor could see.
The sun was less than an hour from the horizon when the road, after
passing over a slight rise, swung in a wide arc through the woods
and thus unveiled a most extraordinary landscape. It was all the
more incredible because so utterly out of keeping with what Rolla
had just passed through. She had been in the wilderness; now--
A vast city lay before her. Not a hundred yards away stood a low,
square building of some plain, gray stone. Beyond this stretched
block upon block--mile upon mile, rather--of bona-fide residences,
stores and much larger buildings. It is true that the whole place
was badly overgrown with all sorts of vegetation; yet, from that
slight elevation, there was no doubt that this place was, or had
been, a great metropolis.
Presently it became clear that "had been" was the correct term.
Nothing but wild life appeared. Rolla looked closely for any signs
of human occupancy, but saw none. To all appearances the place was
deserted; and it was just as easy to say that it had been so for ten
centuries as for one.
"There seems no good reason why I should not go farther," commented
Rolla aloud, to boost her courage. "Perchance I shall find the magic
stone in this queer place."
It speaks well for her self-confidence that, despite the total
strangeness of the whole affair--a city was as far out of her line
as aviation to a miner--she went forward with very little
hesitation. None of the wild creatures that scuttled from her sight
alarmed her at all; the only things she looked at closely were such
bees as she met. The insects ignored her altogether, except to keep
a respectful distance.
"These masters," observed Rolla with satisfaction, "know nothing of
me. I shall not obey them till they threaten me." But there was no
threatening.
For the most part the buildings were in ruins. Here and there a
structure showed very little damage by the elements. In more than
one case the roof was quite intact. Clearly the materials used were
exceptional, or else the place had not been deserted very long. The
doctor held to the latter opinion, especially after seeing a certain
brown-haired dog running to hide behind a heap of stones.
"It was a dog!" the doctor felt sure. To Rolla, however, the animal
was even more significant. She exclaimed about it in a way which
confirmed the doctor's guess. On she went at a faster rate, plainly
excited and hopeful of seeing something further that she could
recognize.
She found it in a hurry. Reaching the end of one block of the ruins,
she turned the corner and started to follow the cross street.
Whereupon she stopped short, to gaze in consternation at a line of
something whitish which stretched from one side of the "street" to
the other.
It was a line of human skeletons.
There were perhaps two hundred in the lot, piled one on top of the
other, and forming a low barrier across the pavement. To Rolla the
thing was simply terrible, and totally without explanation. To the
people on the earth, it suggested a formation of troops, shot down
in their tracks and left where they had fallen. The doctor would
have given a year of his life if only Rolla had had the courage to
examine the bones; there might have been bullet holes, or other
evidence of how they had met their death.
The Sanusian chose rather to back carefully away from the spot. She
walked hurriedly up the street she had just left, and before going
another block came across two skeletons lying right in the middle of
the street. A little farther on, and she began to find skeletons on
every hand. Moreover--and this is especially significant--the
buildings in this locality showed a great many gaps and holes in
their walls, such as might have been made by shell-fire.
This made it easier to understand something else. Every few yards or
so the explorer found a large heap of rust in the gutter, or what
had once been the gutter. These heaps had little or no shape; yet
the doctor fancied he could detect certain resemblances to things he
had seen before, and shortly declared that they were the remains of
motors.
"Can't say whether they were aircraft or autos, of course," he
added, "but those things were certainly machines." Later, Rolla paid
more attention to them, and the doctor positively identified them as
former motor-cars.
The sun had gone down. It was still quite light, of course; darkness
would not come for a couple of hours. Rolla munched on what food she
had, and pressed on through the ruins. She saw skeletons and rusted
engines everywhere, and once passed a rounded heap of rust which
looked like nothing so much as a large cannon shell. Had the place
been the scene of a battle?
Just when she had got rather accustomed to the place and was feeling
more or less at her ease, she stopped short. At the same time the
doctor himself fairly jumped in his chair. Somewhere, right near at
hand, on one of the larger structures, a bell began to ring!
It clanged loudly and confidently, giving out perhaps thirty strokes
before it stopped. The stillness which followed was pretty painful.
In a moment, however, it was broken as effectively as any silence
can be broken.
A man's voice sounded within the building.
Immediately it was replied to, more faintly, by several others. Then
came the clatter of some sort of utensils, and sundry other noises
which spoke loudly of humans. Rolla froze in her tracks, and her
teeth began to chatter.
Next moment she got a grip on herself. "What difference doth it
make, whether they be friend or enemy?" she argued severely, for the
benefit of her shaking nerves. "They will give thee food, anyhow.
And perchance they know where liveth the magic stone!"
In the end Rolla's high purpose prevailed over her weak knees, and
she began to look for the entrance to the place. It was partly in
ruins-that is, the upper stories-but the two lower floors seemed, so
far as their interior could be seen through the high, unglazed
windows, to be in good condition. There were no doors on that
street.
Going around the corner, however, Rolla saw a high archway at the
far corner of the structure. Approaching near enough to peek in, she
saw that this arch provided an opening into a long corridor, such as
might once have served as a wagon or auto entrance. After a little
hesitation she went in.
She passed a door, a massive thing of solid brassy metal, such as
interested the doctor immensely but only served to confuse the
explorer. A little farther on, and the corridor became pretty dark.
She passed another brass door, and approached the end of the
pavement. There was one more door there; and she noted with
excitement that it was open.
She came closer and peered in. The room was fairly well lighted, and
what she saw was clear-cut and unmistakable. In the middle of the
room was a long table, and seated about it, in perfect silence, sat
an even dozen men.