Authors: George England
The mighty temple stood, in fact, almost as men had left it in the
long ago, when the breath of annihilation had swept a withering blast
over the face of the earth. The broad grounds and driveways that had
led up to the entrance had, of course, long since absolutely vanished
under rank growths.
Grass flourished in the gutters and on the Gothic finials; the
gargoyles were bearded with vines and fern-clusters; the flying
buttresses and mullions stood green with moss; and in the vegetable
mold that had for centuries accumulated on the steps and in the
vestibule—for the oaken doors had crumbled to powder—many a
bright-flowered plant raised its blossoms to the sun.
The tall memorial windows and the great rose-window in the eastern
facade had long since been shattered out of their frames by hail and
tempest. But the main body of the cathedral seemed yet as massively
intact as when the master-builders of the twentieth century had taken
down the last scaffold, and when the gigantic organ had first pealed
its "Laus Deo" through the vaulted apse.
Together they entered the vast silent space, and—awed despite
themselves—gazed in wonder at the beauties of this, the most
magnificent temple ever built in the western hemisphere.
The marble floor was covered now with windrows of dead leaves and
pine-spills, and with the litter from myriads of birds'-nests that
sheltered themselves on achitraves and galleries, and on the lofty
capitals of the fluted pillars which rose, vistalike, a hundred feet
above the clear-story, spraying out into a wondrous complexity of ribs
to sustain the marvelous concrete vaultings full two hundred feet in
air.
Through the shattered windows broad slants of sunshine fell athwart
the walls and floor. Swallows chirped and twittered far aloft, or
winged their swift way through the dusky upper spaces, passing at will
in or out the mullioned gaps whence all the painted glass had long
since fallen.
An air of mystery, of long expectancy seemed brooding everywhere; it
seemed almost as though the spirit of the past were waiting to receive
them—waiting now, as it had waited a thousand years, patiently,
inexorably, untiringly for those to come who should some day reclaim
the hidden secrets in the crypt, once more awaken human echoes in the
vault, and so redeem the world. "Waiting!" breathed Stern, as if the
thought hung pregnant in the very air. "Waiting all these long
centuries—for
us!
For you, Beatrice, for me! And we are here, at
last, we of the newer time; and here we shall be one. The symbol of
the pillars, mounting, ever mounting toward the infinite, the hope of
life eternal, the majesty and mystery of this great temple, welcome
us! Come!"
He took her hand again and now in silence they walked forward
noiselessly over the thick leaf-carpet on the pavement of rare marble.
"Oh, Allan, I feel so very small in here!" she whispered, drawing
close to him. "You and I, all alone in this tremendous place built for
thousands—"
"You and I are
the world
to-day!" he answered very gravely; and so
together they made way toward the vast transept, arched with a
bewildering lacery of vaultings.
All save the concrete had long vanished. No traces now remained of
pews, or railings, altars, pulpits, or any of the fittings of the vast
cathedral.
Majestic in its naked strength, the building stood in light and
shadow, here banded with strong sun, there lost in cool purple shade
that foiled the eye far up among the hanging miracles of the roof.
At the transept-crossing they stood amazed; for here the flutings ran
up five hundred feet inside the stupendous central spire, among a
marvelous filigree of windows which diminished toward the top—a
lacework as of frost-patterns etched into the solid substance of the
fleche.
"Higher than that, more massive and more beautiful the buildings of
the future shall arise," said Allan slowly after a pause. "But they
shall not serve creed or faction. They shall be for all mankind, for
the great race still to come. Beauty shall be its heritage, its right.
"'And loveliness shall crown the waiting world
As with a garland of immortal joy!'
"But come, come, Beatrice—there's work to do. The records, girl! We
mustn't stand here admiring architecture and dreaming dreams while
those records are still undiscovered. Down into the crypt we go, to
dig among the relics of a vanished age!"
"The crypt, Allan? Where is it?"
"If I remember rightly—and at the time this cathedral was built I
followed the plans with some care—the entrance is back of the main
southern cluster of pillars over there at the transept-crossing. Come
on, Beta. In a minute we can see whether thousand-year-old memories
are any good or not!"
Quickly he led the way, ax and torch in hand, and as they rounded the
group of massive buttresses whence sprang the pillars for the
groin-vaults aloft, a cry of satisfaction escaped him, followed by a
word of quick astonishment.
"What is it, Allan?" exclaimed the girl. "Anything wrong? Or—"
The man stood peering with wide eyes; then suddenly he knelt and began
pawing over the little heap of vegetable drift that had accumulated
along the wall.
"It's here, all right," said he. "There's the door, right in front of
us—but what I don't understand is—
this!
"
"What, Allan? Is there anything wrong?"
"Not wrong, perhaps, but devilish peculiar!"
Speaking, he raised his hand to her. The fingers held an arrow-head of
flint.
"There's been a battle here, that's sure," said he. "Look,
spear-points—shattered!"
He had already uncovered three obsidian blades. The broken tips proved
how forcibly they had been driven against the stone in the long ago.
"What? A—"
His fingers closed on a small, hollow shell of gold.
"A molar, so help me! All that's left of some forgotten white man who
fell here, at the door, a thousand years ago!"
Speechless, the girl took the shell from him and examined it.
"You're right, Allan," she answered. "This certainly is a hollow gold
crown. Any one can see
that
, in spite of the patina that's formed
over the metal. Why—what can it all mean?"
"Search
me!
The patriarch's record gave the impression that this
eastern expedition set out within thirty years or so of the
catastrophe. Well, in that short time it doesn't seem possible there
could have developed savages fighting with flints and so on. But that
there certainly was a battle here at this door, and that the cathedral
was used as a fort against some kind of invasion is positively
certain.
"Why, look at the chips of concrete knocked off the jamb of the door
here! Must have been some tall mace-work where you're standing, Beta!
If we could know the complete story of this expedition, its probable
failure to reach New York, its entrapment here, the siege and the
inevitable tragedy of its end—starvation, sorties, repulses,
hand-to-hand fighting at the outer gates, in the nave, here at the
crypt door, perhaps on the stairs and in the vaults below—then defeat
and slaughter and extinction—what a tremendous drama we could
formulate!"
Beatrice nodded. Plain to see, the thought depressed her.
"Death, everywhere—" she began, but Allan laughed.
"Life, you mean!" he rallied. "Come, now, this does no good, poking in
the rubbish of a distant tragedy. Real work awaits us. Come!"
He picked up the torch, and with his primitive but serviceable matches
lighted it. The smoke rose through the silent air of the cathedral, up
into a broad sunlit zone from a tall window in the transept, where it
writhed blue and luminous.
A single blow of Allan's ax shattered the last few shreds of oaken
plank that still hung from the eroded hinges of the door. In front of
the explorers a flight of concrete steps descended, winding darkly to
the crypt beneath.
Allan went first, holding the torch high to light the way.
"The records!" he exclaimed. "Soon, soon we shall know the secrets of
the past!"
Some thirty steps the way descended, ending in a straight and
very narrow passage. The air, though somewhat chill, was absolutely
dry and perfectly respirable, thanks to the enormously massive
foundation of solid concrete which formed practically one solid
monolith six hundred feet long by two hundred and fifty broad—a
monolith molded about the crypt and absolutely protecting it from
every outside influence.
"Not even the Great Pyramid of Ghizeh could afford a more
perfect—hello, what's
this?
"
Allan stopped short, staring downward at the floor. His voice reechoed
strangely in the restricted space.
"A skeleton, so help me!"
True indeed. At one side of the passage, lying in a position that
strongly suggested death in a crouching, despairing attitude—death by
starvation rather than by violence—a little clutter of human bones
gleamed white under the torch-flare.
"A skeleton—the first one of our vanished race we've ever found!"
exclaimed the man. "All the remains in New York, you remember, down in
the subway or in any of the buildings, were invariably little piles of
impalpable dust mixed with coins and bits of rusted metal. But
this—it's absolutely intact!"
"The dry air and all—" suggested Beatrice.
Stern nodded.
"Yes," he answered. "Intact, so far. But—"
He stirred the skull with his foot. Instantly it vanished into powder.
"Just as I thought," said he. "No chance to give a decent burial to
this or any other human remains we may come across here. The slightest
disturbance totally disintegrates them. But with
this
it's
different!"
He picked up a revolver, hardly rusted at all, that lay near at hand.
"Cartridges; look!" cried Beatrice, pointing.
"That's so, too—a score or more!"
Lying in an irregular oval that plainly told of a vanished
cartridge-belt, a string of cartridges trailed on the concrete floor.
"H-m-m-m! Just for an experiment, let's see!" murmured the engineer.
Already he had slipped in a charge.
"Steady, Beatrice!" he cautioned, and, pointing down the passage,
pulled trigger.
Flame stabbed the half-dark and the crashing detonation rang in their
ears.
"What do you think of
that?
" cried Stern exultantly. "Talk about
your miracles! A thousand years and—"
Beatrice grasped him by the arm and pointed downward. Astonished, he
stared. The rest of the skeleton had vanished. In its place now only a
few handfuls of dust lay on the floor.
"Well, I'll be—" the man exclaimed. "Even
that
does the trick, eh?
H-m! It would be a joke, now, wouldn't it, if the records should act
the same way? Come on, Beta; this is all very interesting, but it
isn't getting us anywhere. We've got to be at work!"
He pocketed the new-found gun and cartridges and once more, torch on
high, started down the passage, with the girl at his side.
"See here, Allan!"
"Eh?"
"On the wall here—a painted stripe?"
He held the torch close and scrutinized the mark.
"Looks like it. Pretty well gone by now—just a flake here and a daub
there, but I guess it once was a broad band of white. A guide?"
They moved forward again. The strip ended in a blur that might once
have been an inscription. Here, there, a letter faintly showed, but
not one word could now be made out.
"Too bad," he mused. "It must have been mighty important or they
wouldn't have—"
"Here's a door, Allan!"
"So? That's right. Now this looks like business at last!"
He examined the door by the unsteady flicker of the torch. It was of
iron, still intact, and fastened by a long iron bar dropped into
massive metal staples.
"Beat it in with the ax?" she queried.
"No. The concussion might reduce everything inside to dust. Ah! Here's
a padlock and a chain!"
Carefully he studied the chain beneath bent brows.
"Here, Beta, you hold the torch, so. That's right. Now then—"
Already he had set the ax-blade between the padlock and the staple. A
quick jerk—the lock flew open raspingly. Allan tried to lift the bar,
but it resisted.
A tap of the ax and it gave, swinging upward on a pivot. Then a minute
later the door swung inward, yielding to his vigorous push.
Together they entered the crypt of solid concrete, a chamber forty
feet long by half as wide and vaulted overhead with arches, crowning
perhaps twenty feet from the floor.
"More skeletons, so help me!"
Allan pointed at two more on the pavement at the left of the entrance.
"Why—how could
that
happen?" queried Beta, puzzled. "The door was
locked outside!"
"That's so. Either there must be some other exit from this place or
there were dissensions and fightings among the party itself. Or these
men were wounded and were locked in here for safe-keeping while the
others made a sortie and never got back, or—
I
don't know! Frankly,
it's too much for me. If I were a story-writer I might figure it out,
but I'm not. No matter, they're here, anyhow; that's all. Here two of
our own people died ten centuries ago, trying to preserve civilization
and the world's history for future ages, if there were to be any such.
Two martyrs. I salute them!"
In silence and awed sympathy they inspected the mournful relics of
humanity a minute, but took good care not to touch them.
"And now the records!"
Even as Stern spoke he saw again a dimly painted line, this time upon
the floor, all but invisible beneath the dust of centuries that had
come from God knows where.
"Come, let's follow the line!" cried he.
It led them straight through the middle of the crypt and to a sort of
tunnel-like vault at the far end. This they entered quickly and almost
at once knew they had reached the goal of their long quest.