Authors: George England
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.
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.