Authors: George England
The boat rocked. Another man came creeping forward, holding to the
gunwale to steady himself. Stern saw him vaguely through the drifting
vapor by the blue-green light of the cresset at the bow.
He was clad in a coarse kind of brownish stuff, like the first,
roughly and loosely woven. His long hair, pure white, was twisted up
in a kind of topknot and fastened there by pins of dull gold. Bearded
he was, but not one hair upon his head or chin was other than silvery
white—a color common to all these folk, as Stern was soon to know.
This man, evidently seeing with perfect clarity by a light which
permitted the engineer only partial vision, also examined Stern and
made speech thereto and nodded with satisfaction.
Then he put half a dozen questions to the prisoner with evident
slowness and an attempt to speak each word distinctly, but nothing
came of this. And with a contemptuous grunt he went back to his
paddle.
"Hold on, there!" cried Stern. "Can't you understand? There were two
of us, in a—machine, you know! We fell. Fell from the surface of the
earth—fell all the way down into this pit of hell, whatever it is.
Where's the girl? For God's sake,
tell me!
"
Neither man paid any heed, but the elder suddenly set hollowed palms
to his lips and hailed; and from across the waters dully drifted
another answering cry.
He shouted a sentence or two with a volume of noise at which the
engineer marveled, for so compressed was the air that Stern's best
effort could hardly throw a sound fifty feet. This characteristic of
the atmosphere he well recognized from work he had often done in
bridge and tunnel caissons. And a wonder possessed him, despite his
keen anxiety, how any race of men could live and grow and develop the
evident physical force of these people under conditions so unnatural.
Turning his head and wrenching his neck sidewise, he was able to catch
a glimpse of the water, over the low gunwale—a gunwale made, like the
framework of the boat itself, of thin metallic strips cleverly
riveted.
There, approaching through the mists, he got sight of another boat,
also provided with its cresset that flung an uncanny shaft of blue
across the jetty expanse—a boat now drawing near uncles the urge of
half-seen oarsmen. And farther still another torch was visible; and
beyond that a dozen, a score or more, all moving with dim and ghostly
slowness, through the blind abyss of fog and heat and drifting vapors.
Stern gathered strength for another appeal.
"Who
are
you people?" cried he passionately. "What are you going to
do with us? Where are we—and what kind of a place are we in? Any way
to get out, out to the world again? And the girl—that girl! Oh, great
God!
Can't
you answer something?"
No reply. Only that same slow, strong paddling, awful in its
purposeful deliberation. Stern questioned in French, Spanish and
German, but got not even the satisfaction of attracting their
attention. He flung what few phrases of Latin and Esperanto he had at
them. No result. And a huge despair filled his soul, a feeling of
utter and absolute helplessness.
For the first time in his life—that life which had covered a thousand
years or more—he found himself unable to make himself intelligible.
He had not now even recourse to gestures, to sign language. Bound hand
and foot, trussed like a fowl, ignored by his captors (who, by all
rules, should have been his hosts and shown him every courtesy), he
felt a profound and terrible anger growing in his heart.
A sudden rage, unreasoning and insensate, blazed within him. His fists
clenched; once more he tugged, straining at his stout bonds. He called
down maledictions on those two strange, impassive, wraithlike forms
hardly more than half seen in the darkness and fog.
Then, as delirium won again over his tortured senses and disjointed
thoughts, he shouted the name of Beatrice time after time out into the
echoing dark that brooded over the great waters. All at once he heard
her voice, trembling and faint and weak, but still hers!
From the other boat it came, the boat now drawing very near. And as
the craft loomed up through the vapors that rose incessantly from that
Stygian sea, he made a mighty effort, raised himself a little and
suddenly beheld her—dim, vague, uncertain in the shuddering bluish
glare, yet still alive!
She was crouching midships of the canoe and, seemingly, was not bound.
At his hail she stretched forth a hand and answered with his name.
"Oh, Allan! Allan!" Her voice was tremulous and very weak.
"Beatrice! You're safe? Thank God!"
"Hurt? Are you hurt?"
"No—nothing to speak of. These demons haven't done you any damage,
have they? If so—"
"Demons? Why, Allan! They've rescued us, haven't they?"
"Yes—and now they've got me tied here, hand and foot! I can't more
than just move about two or three inches, blast them! They haven't
tied you, have they?"
"No," she answered. "Not yet! But—what an outrage! I'll free you,
never fear. You and I together—"
"Can't do anything, now, girl. There may be hundreds of these people.
Thousands, perhaps. And we're only two—two captives, and—well—hang
it, Beatrice! I don't mean to be pessimistic or anything like that,
but it certainly looks bad!"
"But who are they, boy? Who can they be? And where are we?"
"Hanged if I know! This certainly beats any dream I ever had. For
sheer outrageous improbability—"
He broke off short. Beatrice had leaned her head upon her arms, along
the gunwale of the other canoe which now was running parallel to
Stern's, and he knew the girl was weeping.
"There, there!" he cried to her. "Don't you be afraid, little girl!
I've got my automatic yet; I can feel it under me, as I lie here in
this infernal boat. They haven't taken yours away?"
"No!" she answered, raising her head again. "And before they ever do,
I'll use it, that's all!"
"Good girl!" he cheered her, across the space of water. "That's the
way to talk! Whatever happens, shoot straight if you have to shoot at
all—and remember, at worst, the last cartridge is for yourself!"
"I'll remember," she answered simply, and for a little space there
came silence between them.
A vast longing possessed the man to take her in his arms and hold her
tight, tight to his fast-throbbing heart. But he lay bound and
helpless. All he could do was call to her again, as the two canoes now
drew on, side by side and as still others, joining them, made a little
fleet of strange, flare-lighted craft.
"Beatrice!"
"Yes—what is it?"
"Don't worry, whatever happens. Maybe there's no great harm done,
after all. We're still alive and sound—that's ninety-nine per cent of
the battle."
"How
could
we have fallen like that and not been killed? A miracle!"
"The machine must have struck the surface on one of its long slants.
If it had plunged straight down—well, we shouldn't be here, that's
all. These infernal pirates, whoever they are, must have been close
by, in their boats, and cut us loose from our straps before the
machine sank, and got us into their canoes. But—"
"Without the machine, how are we ever going to get out of here again?"
"Don't bother about that now! We've got other more important things to
think of. It's all a vast and complex problem, but we'll meet it,
never fear. You and I, together, are going to win! We've got to—for
the sake of the world!"
"Oh, if they'd only take us for gods, as the Horde did!"
"Gods nothing! They're as white as we are—whiter, even. People that
can make boats like these, out of iron bars covered with pitched
fabric, and weave cloth like this they're wearing, and use oil-flares
in metal baskets, aren't mistaking us for gods. The way they've
handled me proves it. Might be a good thing if they weren't so
devilish intelligent!"
He relapsed into silence, and for a while there came no sound but the
cadenced dipping of many paddles as the boats, now perhaps a score in
number, all slowly moved across the unfathomed black as though toward
some objective common point. Each craft bore at its bow a fire-basket
filled with some spongy substance, which, oil-soaked, blazed smokily
with that peculiar blue-green light so ghostly in its wavering
reflections.
Many of the folk sat in these boats, among their brown fiber nets and
long, iron-tipped lances. All alike were pale and anemic-looking,
though well-muscled and of vigorous build. Even the youngest were
white-haired. All wore their hair twisted in a knot upon the crown of
the head; none boasted anything even suggesting a hat or cap.
By contrast with their chalky skins, white eyebrows and lashes, their
pinkish eyes—for all the world like those of an albino—blinked oddly
as they squinted ahead, as though to catch some sign of land. Every
one wore a kind of cassock of the brown coarse material; a few were
girdled with belts of skin, having well-wrought metal buckles. Their
paddles were not of wood. Not one trace of wood, in fact, was anywhere
to be seen. Light metal blades, well-shaped and riveted to iron
handles, served for propulsion.
Stern lay back, still faint and sick with the shock of the fall and
with the pain, humiliation and excitement of the capture. Yet through
it all he rejoiced that the girl and he had escaped with life and were
both still sound of limb and faculty.
Even the loss of the machine could not destroy all his natural
enthusiasm, or kill his satisfaction in this great adventuring, his
joy at having found after all, a remnant of the human race once more.
"Men, by the Almighty!" thought he, peering keenly at such as he could
see through the coiling, spiraling wreaths of mist that arose from the
black water into the dun air. "Men!
White
men, too! Given such stock
to work with—provided I get the chance—who shall say anything's
impossible? If only there's some way out of this infernal hole, what
may not happen?"
And, as he watched, he thrilled with nascent pride, with consciousness
of a tremendous mission to perform; a sense that here—here in the
actual living flesh—dwelt the potentialities of all his dreams, of
all the many deep and noble plans which he and Beatrice had laid for a
regenerated world!
Men they certainly were, white men, Caucasians, even like himself.
Despite all changes of superficial character, their build and cast of
features bore witness that these incredible folk, dwellers upon that
nameless and buried sea, were the long-distant descendants of
Americans!
"Americans, so help me!" he pondered as the boats drew onward toward
what goal he knew not. "Barbarians, yet Americans, still. And with
half a chance at them, God! we'll work miracles yet, she and I!"
Again he raised his voice, calling to Beatrice:
"Don't be afraid, little girl! They're our own people, after
all—Americans!"
At sound of that word a startled cry broke from the lips of Stern's
elder boatman, a cry which, taken up from boat to boat, drifted dully
through the fog, traversed the whole fleet of strange, slow-moving
craft, and lost itself in the vague gloom.
"Merucaans! Merucaans!" the shout arose, with other words whereof
Stern knew not the meaning; and closer pressed the outlying boats. The
engineer felt a thrill run through the strange, mysterious folk.
"They knew their name, anyhow! Hurrah!" he exulted. "God! If we had
the Stars and Stripes here, I wager a million they'd go mad about it!
Remember? You bet they'll remember, when I learn their lingo and tell
them a few things! Just wait till I get a chance at 'em, that's all!"
Forgotten now his bonds and all his pain. Forgotten even the perilous
situation. Stern's great vision of a reborn race had swallowed minor
evils. And with a sudden glow of pride that some of his own race had
still survived the vast world catastrophe, he cheered again, eager as
any schoolboy.
Suddenly he heard the girl's voice calling to him:
"Something ahead, Allan—land, maybe. A big light through the mist!"
He wrenched his head a trifle up and now perceived that through the
vapors a dim yet steady glow was beginning to shine, and on each side
of it there stretched a line of other, smaller, blue-green lights.
These, haloed by the vapor with the most beautiful prismatic rings,
extended in an irregular row high above water level.
Lower down other lights were moving slowly to and fro, gathering for
the most part at a point toward which the boats were headed.
"A settlement, Beatrice! A town, maybe! At last—men,
men!
" he
cried.
Forward the boats moved, faster now, as the rowers bent to their
tasks; and all at once, spontaneously, a song rose up. First from one
boat, then another, that weird, strange melody drifted through the
dark air. It blended into a spectral chorus, a vague, tremulous, eerie
chant, ghostlike and awful, as though on the black stream of Acheron
the lost souls of a better world had joined in song.
Nothing could Stern catch of the words; but like some faint and far
re-echoing of a half-heard melody, dream-music perhaps, a vaguely
reminiscent undertone struck to his heart with an irresistible,
melancholy, penetrant appeal.
"That tune! I know it—if I could only think!" the engineer exclaimed.
"Those words! I almost seem to know them!"
Then, with the suddenness characteristic of all that drew near in the
fog, the shore-lights grew rapidly bigger and more bright.
The rowers lay back on their paddles at a sharp word of command from
one of the oarsmen in Stern's boat.
Came a grating, a sliding of keels on pebbles. The boat stopped.
Others came up to land. From them men began clambering.
The song died. A sound of many voices rose, as the boatmen mingled
with those who, bearing torches, now began gathering about the two
canoes where Stern and Beatrice still were.