Chapter 7: The Leaden Chest

Not at any time since the girl and he had wakened in the tower, more than a year ago, had Allan felt so compelling a fear as overswept him then. The siege of the Horde at Madison Forest, the plunge down the cataract, the fall into the Abyss and the battle with the Lanskaarn had all taxed his courage to the utmost, but he had met these perils with more calm than he now faced the blank menace of that metal door.

For now no sky overhung him, no human agency opposed him, no counterplay of stress and strife thrilled his blood.

No; the girl and he now were far underground in a crypt, a tomb, walled round with incalculable tons of concrete, barred from the upper world, alone--and for the first time in his life the man knew something of the anguish of unreasoning fear.

Yet he was not bereft of powers of action. Only an instant he stood there motionless and staring; then with a cry, wordless and harsh, he ran toward the barrier.

Beneath his spurning feet the friable skeletons crumbled and vanished; he dashed himself against the door with a curse that was half a prayer; he strove with it--and staggered back, livid and shaken, for it held!

Now Beatrice had reached it, too. In her hand the torch trembled and shook. She tried to speak, but could not. And as he faced her, there in the tomblike vault, their eyes met silently.

A deathly stillness fell, with but their heart-beats and the sputtering of the torch to deepen it.

“Oh!” she gasped, stretching out a hand. “You--we--can’t--”

He licked his lips and tried to smile, but failed.

“Don’t--don’t be afraid, little girl!” he stammered. “This can’t hold us, possibly. The chain--I broke it!”

“Yes, but the bar, Allan--the bar! How did you leave the bar?”

“Raised!”

The one word seemed to seal their doom. A shudder passed through Beatrice.

“So then,” she choked, “some air-current swung the door shut--and the bar--fell--”

A sudden rage possessed the engineer.

“Damn that infernal staple!” he gritted, and as he spoke the ax swung into air.

“Crash!”

On the metal plates it boomed and echoed thunderously. A ringing clangor vibrated the crypt.

“Crash!“

Did the door start? No; but in the long-eroded plates a jagged dent took form.

Again the ax swung high. Cold though the vault was, sweat globuled his forehead, where the veins had swelled to twisting knots.

“Crash!“

With a wild verberation, a scream of sundered metal and a clatter of flying fragments, the staple gave way. A crack showed round the edge of the iron barrier.

Stern flung his shoulder against the door. Creaking, it swung. He staggered through. One hand groped out to steady him, against the wall. From the other the ax dropped crashing to the floor.

Only a second he stood thus, swaying; then he turned and gathered Beta in his arms. And on his breast she hid her face, from which the roses all had faded quite.

He felt her fighting back the tears, and raised her head and kissed her.

“There, there!” he soothed. “It wasn’t anything, after all, you see. But--if we hadn’t brought the ax with us--”

“Oh, Allan, let’s go now! This crypt--I can’t--”

“We will go very soon. But there’s no danger now, darling. We’re not children, you know. We’ve still got work to do. We’ll go soon; but first, those records!”

“Oh, how can you, after--after what might have been?”

He found the strength to smile.

“I know,” he answered, “but it didn’t happen, after all. A miss is worth a million miles, dear. That’s what life seems to mean to us, and has meant ever since we woke in the tower, peril and risk, labor and toil--and victory! Come, come, let’s get to work again, for there’s so endlessly much to do.”

Calmer grown, the girl found new courage in his eyes and in his strong embrace.

“You’re right, Allan. I was a little fool to--”

He stopped her self-reproach with kisses, then picked up the torch from the floor where it had fallen from her nerveless hand.

“If you prefer,” he offered. “I’ll take you back into the sunlight, and you can sit under the trees and watch the river, while I--”

“Where you are, there am I! Come on, Allan; let’s get it over with. Oh, what a coward you must think me!”

“I think you’re a woman, and the bravest that ever lived!” he exclaimed vehemently. “Who but you could ever have gone through with me all that has happened? Who could be my mate and face the future as you’re doing? Oh, if you only understood my estimate of you!

“But now let’s get at those records again. Time’s passing, and there must be still no end of things to do!”

He recovered his ax, and with another blow demolished the last fragment of the staple, so that by no possibility could the door catch again.

Then for the second time they penetrated the crypt and the tunnel and once more reached the alcove of the records.

“Beatrice!”

“What is it, Allan?”

“Look! Gone--all gone!”

“Gone? Why, what do you mean? They’re--”

“Gone, I tell you! My God! Just a mass of rubbish, powder, dust--”

“But--but how--”

“The concussion of the ax! That must have done it! The violent sound-waves--the air in commotion!”

“But, Allan, it can’t be! Surely there must be something left?”

“You see?”

He pointed at the shelves. She stood and peered, with him, at the sad havoc wrought there. Then she stretched out a tentative finger and stirred a little of the detritus.

“Catastrophe!” she cried.

“Yes and no. At any rate, it may have been inevitable.”

“Inevitable?”

He nodded.

“Even if this hadn’t happened, Beatrice, I’m afraid we never could have moved any of these parchments, or read them, or handled them in any way. Perhaps if we’d had all kinds of proper appliances, glass plates, transparent adhesives, and so on, and a year or two at our disposal, we might have made something out of them, but even so, it’s doubtful.

“Of course, in detective stories, Hawkshaw can take the ashes right out of the grate and piece them together and pour chemicals on them and decipher the mystery of the lost rubies, and all that. But this isn’t a story, you see; and what’s more, Hawkshaw doesn’t have to work with ashes nearly a thousand years old. Ten centuries of dry-rot--that’s some problem!”

She stood aghast, hardly able to believe her eyes.

“But--but,” she finally articulated, “there’s the other cache out there in Medicine Bow Range. The cave, you know. And we have the bearings. And some time, when we’ve got all the leisure in the world and all the necessary appliances--”

“Yes, perhaps. Although, of course, you realize the earth is seventeen degrees out of its normal plane, and every reckoning’s shifted. Still, it’s a possibility. But for the present there’s strictly nothing doing, after all.”