CHAPTER II
EASTWARD HO!
Practical matters now for a time thrust introspection, dreamsand sentiment aside. The morning was already half spent, and in spiteof sorrow, hunger had begun to assert itself; for since time was, notwo such absolutely vigorous and healthy humans had ever set foot onearth as Beatrice and Allan.
The man gathered brush and dry-kye and proceeded to make a fire, notfar from the precipice, but well out of sight of the patriarch'sgrave. He fetched a generous heap of wood from the neighboring forest,and presently a snapping blaze flung its smoke-banner down the breeze.
Soon after Beatrice had raided the supplies on board thePauillac--fish, edible seaweed, and the eggs of the strange birds ofthe Abyss--and with the skill and speed of long experience was gettingan excellent meal. Allan meantime brought water from a spring near by.And the two ate in silence, cross-legged on the warm, dry sand.
"What first, now?" queried the man, when they were satisfied. "I'vebeen thinking of about fifteen hundred separate things to tackle, eachone more important than all the others put together. How are we goingto begin again? That's the question!"
She drew from her warm bosom the golden cylinder and chain.
"Before we make any move at all," she answered, "I think we ought tosee what's in this record--if it _is_ a record. Don't you?"
"By Jove, you're right! Shall I open it for you?"
But already the massively chased top lay unscrewed in her hand. Withinthe cylinder a parchment roll appeared.
A moment later she had spread it on her knee, taking care not to tearthe ancient, crackling skin whereon faint lines of writing showed.
Stern bent forward, eager and breathless. The girl, too, gazed withanxious eyes at the dim script, all but illegible with age and wear.
"You're right, Allan," said she. "This _is_ some kind of record, somedirection as to the final history of the few survivors after the greatcatastrophe. Oh! Look, Allan--it's fading already in the sunlight.Quick, read it quick, or we shall lose it all!"
Only too true. The dim lines, perhaps fifteen hundred years old,certainly never exposed to sunlight since more than a thousand, werealready growing weaker; and the parchment, too, seemed crumbling intodust. Its edges, where her fingers held it, already were breaking awayinto a fine, impalpable powder.
"Quick, Allan! Quick!"
Together they read the clumsy scrawl, their eyes leaping along thelines, striving to grasp the meaning ere it were too late.
TO ANY WHO AT ANY TIME MAY EVER REVISIT THEUPPER WORLD: Be it known that two records have been left covering ourhistory from the time of the cataclysm in 1920 till we entered theChasm in 1957. One is in the Great Cave in Medicine Bow Range,Colorado, near the ruins of Dexter. Exact location, 106 degrees, 11minutes, 3 seconds west; 40 degrees, 22 minutes, 6 seconds north.Record is in left, or northern branch of Cave, 327 yards from mouth,on south wall, 4 feet 6 inches from floor. The other--
"Where? Where?" cried Beatrice. A portion of the record was gone; ithad crumbled even as they read.
"Easy does it, girl! Don't get excited," Allan cautioned, but his facewas pale and his hand trembled as he sought to steady and protect theparchment from the breeze.
Together they pieced out a few of the remaining words, for now thewriting was but a pale blur, momently becoming dimmer and more dim.
... Cathedral on ... known as Storm King ... River ... crypt under ...this was agreed on ... never returned but may possibly ... signed byus on this 12th day ...
They could read no more, for now the record was but a disintegratingshell in the girl's hands, and even as they looked the last of thewriting vanished, as breath evaporates from a window-pane.
Allan whirled toward the fire, snatched out a still-glowing stick, andin the sand traced figures.
"Quick! What was that? 106-11-3, West--Forty--"
"Forty, 22, north," she prompted.
"How many seconds? You remember?"
"No." Slowly she shook her head. "Five, wasn't it?"
Eagerly he peered at the record, but every trace was gone.
"Well, no matter about the seconds," he judged. "I'll enter these dataon our diary, in the Pauillac, anyhow. We can remember the ruins ofDexter and Medicine Bow Range; also the cathedral on Storm King. Putthe fragments of the parchment back into the case, Beta. Maybe we canyet preserve them, and by some chemical means or other bring out thewriting again. As it is, I guess we've got the most important facts;enough to go on, at any rate."
She replaced the crumbled record in the golden cylinder and once morescrewed on the cap. Allan got up and walked to the aeroplane, where,among their scanty effects, was the brief diary and set of notes hehad been keeping since the great battle with the Lanskaarn.
Writing on his fish-skin tablets, with his bone stylus, dipped in hislittle stone jar of cuttle-fish ink, he carefully recorded thegeographical location. Then he went back to Beatrice, who still sat inthe midmorning sunlight by the fire, very beautiful and dear to him.
"If we can find those records, we'll have made a long step towardsolving the problem of how to handle the Folk. They aren't exactlywhat one would call an amenable tribe, at best. We need their history,even the little of it that the records must contain, for surely theremust be names and events in them of great value in our work of tryingto bring these people to the surface and recivilize them."
"Well, what's to hinder our getting the records now?" she askedseriously, with wonder in her gray and level gaze.
"_That_, for one thing!"
He gestured at the Abyss.
"It's a good six or seven hundred miles wide, and we already know howdeep it is. I don't think we want to risk trying to cross it again andrunning out of fuel en route! Volplaning down to the village isquite a different proposition from a straight-away flight across!"
She sat pensive a moment.
"There must be some way around," said she at last. "Otherwise a partyof survivors couldn't have set out for Storm King on the Hudson todeposit a set of records there!"
"That's so, too. But--remember? 'Never returned.' I figure it thisway: A party of the survivors probably started for New York,exploring. The big, concrete cathedral on Storm King--it was new in1916, you remember--was known the country over as the most massivepiece of architecture this side of the pyramids. They must haveplanned to leave one set of records there, in case the east, too, wasdevastated. Well--"
"Do you suppose they succeeded?"
"No telling. At any rate, there's a chance of it. And as for thisRocky Mountain cache, that's manifestly out of the question, for now."
"So then?" she queried eagerly.
"So then our job is to strike for Storm King. Incidentally we canrevisit Hope Villa, our bungalow on the banks of the Hudson. It's beena year since we left it, almost--ten months, at any rate. Gad! Whatmarvels and miracles have happened since then, Beta--what perils, whatescapes! Wouldn't you like to see our little nest again? We could restup and plan and strengthen ourselves for the greater tasks ahead. Andthen--"
He paused, a change upon his face, his eyes lighting with a suddenglow. She saw and understood; and her breast rose with sudden keenemotion.
"You mean," whispered she, "in our own home?"
"Where better?"
She paled as, kneeling beside her, he flung a powerful arm about her,and pulled her to him, breathing heavily.
"Don't! Don't!" she forbade. "No, no, Allan--there's so much work todo--you mustn't!"
To her a vision rose of dream-children--strong sons and daughters yetunborn. Their eyes seemed smiling, their fingers closing on hers.Cloudlike, yet very real, they beckoned her, and in her stirred thecall of motherhood--of life to be. Her heart-strings echoed to thatharmony; it seemed already as though a tiny head, downy--soft, wasnestling in her bosom, while eager lips quested, quested.
"No, Allan! No!"
Almost fiercely she flung him back and stood up.
"Come!" said she. "Let us start at once. Nothing remains f
or us to dohere. Let us go--home!"
An hour later the Pauillac spiralled far aloft, above the edge of theAbyss, then swept into its eastward tangent, and in swift, droningflight rushed toward the longed-for place of dreams, of rest, of love.
Before them stretched infinities of labor and tremendous struggle; butfor a little space they knew they now were free for this, theconsummation of their dreams, of all their hopes, their happiness,their joy.
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