Authors: George England
"Nothing can happen this time, dear girl," he assured her as they sat
resting by the mouth of the newly prepared dwelling. "You'll have two
absolutely faithful and efficient guards always within call by night.
By day you can barricade yourself with them, if there's any sign of
danger."
"I know, Allan, but—"
"There's no other way! Our work is just begun!"
She nodded silently, then said in a low tone:
"Yours the labor; mine the waiting, the watching, and the fear!"
"The fear? Since when have you grown timid?"
"Only for you, Allan! Only for you! Suppose, some time, you should not
come back!"
He laughed.
"We thrashed that all out the first time. It's old straw, Beta. My end
of the task is getting these people here. Yours is waiting,
watching—and being strong!"
Her hand tightened on his, and for a little while they sat quite still
and without speech, watching the day draw to its close.
Far below, New Hope River chattered its incessant gossip to the vexing
boulders. Above, in the sky, lazy June clouds, wool-white, drifted to
westward, as though seeking the glory that there promised to transmute
them into gold and crimson.
A pleasant wind swayed the forest, wherein the scarlet birds flitted
like flashes of flame. The beauty of the outlook thrilled their
hearts, leaving no room for words.
But suddenly Allan's eyes narrowed, and with a singular hardening of
expression, a tightening of the jaw, he peered away at the dim,
haze-shrouded line of far horizon to northeastward.
He cast a sidelong glance at Beatrice. She had noticed nothing.
One moment he made as though to speak, then repressed the words, and
once more gazed at the horizon.
There, so vague as almost to leave a doubt in mind, yet, after all,
only too terribly real, his keen sight had detected something which
caused his heart to throb the quicker and his eye to gleam with hate.
For, at the very rim of the world, dim, pale, ominous, three tiny
threads of smoke were hanging in the evening air.
A week later all was ready for Allan's second trip into the
Abyss.
His arm had recovered its usual strength and suppleness, for his
flesh, healthy as any savage's, now had the power of healing with a
rapidity unknown to civilized men in the old days.
And his abounding vigor dictated action—always action, progress, and
accomplishment. Only one thing depressed him—idleness.
It was on the second day of July, according to the rude calendar they
were keeping, that he once more bade farewell to Beatrice and, borne
by the Pauillac, headed for the village of the Lost Folk.
He left behind him all matters in a state of much improvement.
Zangamon and Bremilu were now well installed in the new environment
and seemingly content. By night they fished in New Hope Pool, making
hauls such as their steaming sea had never yielded.
They wandered—not too far, however—in the forest, gradually making
the acquaintance of the wondrous upper world, and with their strangely
acute instincts finding fruits, bulbs and plants that well agreed with
them for food.
Allan had carefully instructed them in the use of the wonderful
"fire-bow"—the revolver—warning them, however, not to waste
ammunition. They learned quickly, and now Beatrice found her larder
supplied each night with game, which they dressed and brought her in
the evening gloom, eager to serve their mistress in all possible ways.
They fished for her as well, and all the choicest fruits were her
portion. She, in turn, cooked for them in their own cave. And for an
hour or two each night she instructed them in English.
Short are the annals of peace—and peace reigned at Settlement Cliffs
those few days at least. Progress!
She could feel it, see it, every hour. And her thoughts of Allan, now
abandoning their melancholy hue, began to thrill with a new and even
greater pride.
"Only he, only he could have brought these things to pass!" she
murmured sometimes. "Only he could have planned all this, dreamed this
dream, and brought it to reality; only he could labor for the future
so strongly and so well!"
And in her heart the love that had been that of a girl became that of
a woman. It broadened, deepened and grew calmer.
Its fever cooled into a finer, purer glow. It strengthened day by day,
transmuting to a perfect trust and confidence and peace.
Allan returned safely inside the week with two more of the
Folk—warriors and fishers both. Beatrice would have welcomed the
arrival of even one woman to bear her some kind of company, but she
realized the wisdom of his plan.
"The main thing at first," he explained, as they sat again on the
terrace the evening of his return, "the very most essential thing is
to build up even a small force of fighting men to hold the colony and
protect it—a stalwart advance-guard, as if this were a military
expedition. After that the women and children can come. But for the
present there's no place for them."
Now that there were four Merucaans, all seemed more contented. The
little group settled down into some real semblance of a community.
Work became systematized. Life was beginning to take firm root in the
world again, and already the outlines of the future colony were
commencing to be sketched in.
So far as Stern could discover, no disaffection as yet existed. The
Folk, in any event, were singularly stolid, here as in their own home.
If the colonists sometimes muttered together against conditions or
concerning the lie Allan had told about the patriarch, he could never
discover the fact.
He derived a singular sense of power and exaltation from watching his
settlers at their work.
Strange figures they made in the upper world, descending the cliff at
night, their torches flaring on their pure-white hair bound with gold
ornaments, their nets slung over their brown-clad shoulders.
Strange, too, were the sensations of Beta and Allan as they beheld the
flambeaux gleaming silently along the pool or over the surface when
the Folk put forth on the rude rafts Allan had helped them build.
And as, with the same weird song they had used in the under world, the
heavy-laden Merucaans clambered again up the terraces to their
dwelling in the rock, something drew very powerfully at Allan's heart.
He analyzed it not, being a man of deeds rather than of introspection;
yet it was "the strong man yearning toward his kind," the very love of
his own race within him—the thrill, the inspiration of the master
builder laying the foundations for better things to be.
Allan and the girl had long talks about the character of the future
civilization they meant to raise.
"We must begin right this time at all hazards," he told her. "The
world we used to know just happened; it just grew up, hit-or-miss,
without scientific planning or thought or care. It was partly the
result of chance, partly of ignorance and greed. The kind of human
nature it developed was in essence a beast nature, with 'Grab!' for
its creed.
"We must do better than that! From the very start, now, we must nip
off the evil bud that might later blossom into private property and
wealth, exploitation and misery. There shall be no rich men in our
world now and no slaves. No idlers and no oppressed. 'Service' must be
our watchword, and our motto 'Each for all and all for each!'
"While there are fish within the river and fruit upon the palm, none
shall starve and none shall hoard. Superstition and dogma, fear and
cruelty, shall have no place with us. We understand—you and I; and
what we know we shall teach. And nothing shall survive of the world
that was, save such things as were good. For the old order has passed
away—and the new day shall be a better one."
Thus for hours at a time, by starlight and moonlight on the
rock-terrace or by fire-glow in their cave—now homelike with
rough-hewn furniture and mats of plaited grass—they talked and
dreamed and planned.
And executed, too; for they drew up a few basic, simple laws, and
these they taught their little colony even now, for from the very
beginning they meant the germs of the new society should root in the
hearts of the rescued race.
The third trip was delayed by a tremendous rain that poured with
tropic suddenness and fury over the face of the world, driven on the
breath of a wild-shouting tempest.
For the space of two days heaven and earth were blotted out by the
gray, hurling sheets of wind-driven water, while down the canyon New
Hope River roared and foamed in thunder cadences.
Beta and Allan, warmly and snugly sheltered in their cave, cared
nothing for the storm. It only served to remind them of that other
torrential downpour, soon after they had reached the village of the
Folk; but now how altered the situation! Captives then, they were
masters now; and the dread chasms of the Abyss were now exchanged for
the beauties and the freedom of the upper world.
No wind could shake, no deluge invade, their house among the
everlasting rock-ribs. Bright crackled their fire, and on the broad
divan of cedar he had hewn and covered thick with furs, they two could
lie and talk and dream, and let the storm rage, careless of its
impotent fury.
"There's only one sorrow in my heart," whispered Beta, drawing his
head down on her breast and smoothing his hair with that familiar,
well-loved caress. "Just one, dear—can you guess it?"
"No millinery shops to visit, you mean?" he rallied her.
"Oh, Allan, when I'm so much in earnest, how can you?"
"Well, what's the trouble, sweetheart?"
"When the storm ends you're going to leave me again! I wish—I almost
wish it would rain forever!"
He made no answer, and she, as one who sees strange and sad visions,
gazed into the leaping flames, and in her deep gray eyes lay tears
unshed.
"Sing to me!" he murmured presently.
Stroking his head and brow, she sang as aforetime at the bungalow upon
the Hudson:
Stark wie der Fels,
Tief wie das Meer,
Muss deine Liebe,
Muss deine Liebe sein! ...
The third trip was made in safety, and others after it, and steadily
the colony took shape and growth.
More and more the caves came to be occupied. Stern set the Merucaans
to work excavating the limestone, piercing tunnels and chimneys,
making passageways and preparing for the ever-increasing number of
settlers.
Their native arts and crafts began to flourish. In the gloomy recesses
fires glowed hot. Ores began to be smelted, with primitive bellows and
technique as in the Under-world, and through the night—stillness
sounded the ring and clangor of anvils mightily smitten.
Palm-fibers yielded cordage for more nets or finer thread for the
looms that now began to clack—for at last some few women had arrived,
and even a couple of the strong, pale children, who had traveled
stowed in crates like the water-fowl.
By night the pool and river gleamed more and more brightly. Boats
navigated even the rapids, for these were hardy water-people, whose
whole life had been semi-aquatic.
The strange fowl nested in the cliff below the settlement, hiding by
day, flying abroad by night, swimming and diving in the river, even
rearing their broods of squawking, naked little monsters in rough
nests of twigs and mud.
Some of the hardier of the first-arrived colonists had already—far
sooner than Allan had hoped—begun to tolerate a little daylight.
Following his original idea, he prepared some sets of brown mica
eye-shields, and by the aid of these a number of the Merucaans were
able to endure an hour or two of early dawn and late evening in the
open air.
The children, he found, were far less sensitive to light than the
adults—a natural sequence of the atavistic principle well known to
all biologists.
He hoped that in a year or so many of the Folk might even bear the
noon-day sun. Once he could get them to working with him by daylight
his progress would leap forward mightily in many lines of activity
that he had planned.
An occasional short raid with the Pauillac had stocked the colony with
firearms, chemicals and necessary drugs, cutlery, ammunition and some
glassware, from the dismantled cities of Nashville, Cincinnati,
Indianapolis and other places unidentified.
Allan foresaw almost infinite possibilities in these raids.
Civilization he felt, would surge onward with amazing rapidity
fostered by this detritus of the distant past.
He also unearthed and brought back to Settlement Cliffs the
phonographs and records, sealed in their oiled canvas and hidden in
the rock-cleft near the patriarch's grave.
Thereafter of an evening the voices of other days sang in the cave.
Around the entrance, now protected by stout and ample timber doors,
gathered an eager, wondering, fascinated group, understanding the
universal appeal of harmony, softened and humanized by the music of
the world that was. And thus, too, was the education of the Folk
making giant strides.
Progress, tremendous progress, toward the goal!
Autumn came down the world, and the sun paled a
little as it sank to southward in the heavens. Warmth and luxuriant
fertility, fecundity without parallel, still pervaded the earth, but a
certain change had even so become well marked. Slowly the year was
dying, that another might be born.
It was of a glorious purple evening late in October that Allan made
the great discovery.
He had come in from working with two or three of the hardier Folk on
the temporary hangar he was building for the Pauillac on Newport
Heights, to which a broad and well-graded roadway now extended through
the jungle.
Entering the home-cave suddenly—and it was home now indeed, with its
broad stone fireplace, its comfortable furnishings, its furs, its mats
of clean, sweet-smelling rushes—he stopped, toil-worn and weary, to
view the well-loved place.