Darkness and Dawn Part 131

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 s.h.i.+elds, 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 fis.h.i.+ng-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 diminis.h.i.+ng 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 hoa.r.s.e 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," a.s.sented 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 p.r.o.ne 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 gla.s.s true as it slowly scoured the sky-line to north and west.

All at once he uttered a choking cry. The gla.s.s 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 G.o.d! 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?_"