Chapter 9: At Settlement Cliffs

Ten days later the two lovers--now man and wife--were back again at the eastern lip of the Abyss. With them on the biplane they had brought the phonograph and records, all securely wrapped in oiled canvas, the same which had enveloped the precious objects in the leaden chest.

They made a camp, which was to serve them for a while as headquarters in their tremendous undertaking of bringing the Merucaans to the surface, and here carefully stored their treasure in a deep cleft of rock, secure from rain and weather.

They had not revisited the bungalow on the return trip. The sight of their little home and garden, now totally devastated, they knew would only sadden them unnecessarily.

“Let it pass, dearest, as a happy memory that was and is no more,” Stern cheered the girl as he held her in his arms the first night of their stay in the new camp, and as together they watched the purple haze of sunset beyond the chasm. “Some day, perhaps, we may go back and once more restore Hope Villa and live there again, but for the present many other and far more weighty matters press. It will be wisest for a while to leave the East alone. Too many of the Horde are still left there. Here, west of the Ohio River Valley, they don’t seem to have penetrated--and what’s more, they never shall! Just now we must ignore them--though the day of reckoning will surely come! We’ve got our hands full for a while with the gigantic task ahead of us. It’s the biggest and the hardest that one man and one woman ever tackled since the beginning of time!”

She drew his head down and kissed him, and for a little while they kept the silence of perfect comradeship. But at last she questioned:

“You’ve got it all worked out at last, Allan? You know just the steps to take? One false move--”

“There shall be no false moves. Reason, deliberation, care will solve this problem like all the others. Given some fifteen hundred people, at a depth of five hundred miles, and given an aeroplane and plenty of time--”

“Yes, of course, they can be brought to the surface. But after that, what? The dangers are tremendous! The patriarch died at the first touch of sunlight. We can’t afford to take chances with the rest!”

“I’ve planned on all that. Our first move must be to locate a rocky ledge, a cave, or something of the sort, where the transplanting process can be carried out. There mustn’t be any exposure to the actual daylight for a long time after they’re on the surface. The details of food and water have all got to be arranged, too. It means work, work, work! God, what work! But--it’s our task, Beta, all our own. And I glory in it. I thank Heaven for it--a man’s-size labor! And if we’re strong and brave enough, patient and wise enough, we’re bound to win.”

“Win? Of course we’ll win!” she answered, her faith in him touching the sublime. “We must! The life of the whole world’s at stake!”

Night came, and redder glowed the firelight in the gloom. They spoke of life, of love, of destiny; and over them seemed to brood the mystery of all that was to be.

The very purpose of the universe enwrapped itself about their passion, and the untroubled stars kept vigils till the dawn.

Daylight called them to begin the epic campaign they had mapped out--the rescue of a race.

After a visit to the patriarch’s grave, which they decked anew with blossoms and fresh leaves, they prepared for the journey in search of a suitable temporary home for the Folk.

Nine o’clock found them once more on the wing. Stern laid a southerly course along the edge of the Abyss. He and Beatrice had definitely decided that the new home of humanity was not to be the distant regions of the East, involving so long and perilous a journey, but rather some location in the vast, warm, central plain of what had once been the United States.

They judged they were now somewhere in the one-time State of Indiana, not far from Indianapolis. So much warmer had the climate grown that for some months to come at least the Folk could without doubt accustom themselves to the change from the hot and muggy atmosphere of the Abyss to the semitropic heat.

The main object now was to discover suitable caves near a good water supply, where by night the Folk could prosecute their accustomed fisheries. Agriculture and the care of domestic animals by daylight would have to be postponed for some time, possibly for a year or more. Above all, the health of the prospective colonists must be safeguarded.

It was not until nearly nightfall of the next day, and after stops had been made at the ruins of two considerable but unidentified towns--for fuel, as well as to fit up an electric search-light and hooded lamps to illuminate the instruments in the Abyss--that the explorers found what they were seeking.

About half past five that afternoon they sighted a very considerable river, flowing westward down a rugged and irregular valley, in the direction of the chasm.

“This can’t be the Ohio,” judged Stern. “We must have long since passed its bed, now probably dried up. I don’t remember any such hilly region as this in the old days along the Mississippi Valley. All these formations must be the result of the cataclysm. Well, no matter, just so we find what we’re after.”

“Where are we now?” she asked, peering downward anxiously. “Over what State--can you tell?”

“Probably Tennessee or northern Alabama. See the change in vegetation? No conifers here, but many palms and fern-trees, and new, strange growths. Fertile isn’t the name for it! Once we clear some land here, crops will grow themselves! I don’t think we’ll do better than this, Beta. Shall we land and see?”

A quarter-hour later the Pauillac had safely deposited them on a high, rocky plateau about half a mile back from the edge of the river canyon. Stern, in his eagerness, was all for cave-hunting that very evening, but the girl restrained him.

“Not so impatient, dear!” she cautioned. “‘Too fast arrives as tardy as too slow!’ To-morrow’s time enough.”

“Ruling me with quotations from Shakespeare, eh?” he laughed, with a kiss. “All right, have your way--Mrs. Stern!”

She laughed, too, at this, the first time she had heard her new name. So they made camp and postponed further labors till daylight again.