"Oh, Allan, I feel so very small in here!" she whispered, drawing close to him. "You and I, all alone in this tremendous place built for thousands--"
"You and I are _the world_ to-day!" he answered very gravely; and so together they made way toward the vast transept, arched with a bewildering lacery of vaultings.
All save the concrete had long vanished. No traces now remained of pews, or railings, altars, pulpits, or any of the fittings of the vast cathedral.
Majestic in its naked strength, the building stood in light and shadow, here banded with strong sun, there lost in cool purple shade that foiled the eye far up among the hanging miracles of the roof.
At the transept-crossing they stood amazed; for here the flutings ran up five hundred feet inside the stupendous central spire, among a marvelous filigree of windows which diminished toward the top--a lacework as of frost-patterns etched into the solid substance of the fleche.
"Higher than that, more ma.s.sive and more beautiful the buildings of the future shall arise," said Allan slowly after a pause. "But they shall not serve creed or faction. They shall be for all mankind, for the great race still to come. Beauty shall be its heritage, its right.
""And loveliness shall crown the waiting world As with a garland of immortal joy!"
"But come, come, Beatrice--there"s work to do. The records, girl! We mustn"t stand here admiring architecture and dreaming dreams while those records are still undiscovered. Down into the crypt we go, to dig among the relics of a vanished age!"
"The crypt, Allan? Where is it?"
"If I remember rightly--and at the time this cathedral was built I followed the plans with some care--the entrance is back of the main southern cl.u.s.ter of pillars over there at the transept-crossing. Come on, Beta. In a minute we can see whether thousand-year-old memories are any good or not!"
Quickly he led the way, ax and torch in hand, and as they rounded the group of ma.s.sive b.u.t.tresses whence sprang the pillars for the groin-vaults aloft, a cry of satisfaction escaped him, followed by a word of quick astonishment.
"What is it, Allan?" exclaimed the girl. "Anything wrong? Or--"
The man stood peering with wide eyes; then suddenly he knelt and began pawing over the little heap of vegetable drift that had acc.u.mulated along the wall.
"It"s here, all right," said he. "There"s the door, right in front of us--but what I don"t understand is--_this!_"
"What, Allan? Is there anything wrong?"
"Not wrong, perhaps, but devilish peculiar!"
Speaking, he raised his hand to her. The fingers held an arrow-head of flint.
"There"s been a battle here, that"s sure," said he. "Look, spear-points--shattered!"
He had already uncovered three obsidian blades. The broken tips proved how forcibly they had been driven against the stone in the long ago.
"What? A--"
His fingers closed on a small, hollow sh.e.l.l of gold.
"A molar, so help me! All that"s left of some forgotten white man who fell here, at the door, a thousand years ago!"
Speechless, the girl took the sh.e.l.l from him and examined it.
"You"re right, Allan," she answered. "This certainly is a hollow gold crown. Any one can see _that_, in spite of the patina that"s formed over the metal. Why--what can it all mean?"
"Search _me!_ The patriarch"s record gave the impression that this eastern expedition set out within thirty years or so of the catastrophe. Well, in that short time it doesn"t seem possible there could have developed savages fighting with flints and so on. But that there certainly was a battle here at this door, and that the cathedral was used as a fort against some kind of invasion is positively certain.
"Why, look at the chips of concrete knocked off the jamb of the door here! Must have been some tall mace-work where you"re standing, Beta!
If we could know the complete story of this expedition, its probable failure to reach New York, its entrapment here, the siege and the inevitable tragedy of its end--starvation, sorties, repulses, hand-to-hand fighting at the outer gates, in the nave, here at the crypt door, perhaps on the stairs and in the vaults below--then defeat and slaughter and extinction--what a tremendous drama we could formulate!"
Beatrice nodded. Plain to see, the thought depressed her.
"Death, everywhere--" she began, but Allan laughed.
"Life, you mean!" he rallied. "Come, now, this does no good, poking in the rubbish of a distant tragedy. Real work awaits us. Come!"
He picked up the torch, and with his primitive but serviceable matches lighted it. The smoke rose through the silent air of the cathedral, up into a broad sunlit zone from a tall window in the transept, where it writhed blue and luminous.
A single blow of Allan"s ax shattered the last few shreds of oaken plank that still hung from the eroded hinges of the door. In front of the explorers a flight of concrete steps descended, winding darkly to the crypt beneath.
Allan went first, holding the torch high to light the way.
"The records!" he exclaimed. "Soon, soon we shall know the secrets of the past!"
CHAPTER VI
TRAPPED!
Some thirty steps the way descended, ending in a straight and very narrow pa.s.sage. The air, though somewhat chill, was absolutely dry and perfectly respirable, thanks to the enormously ma.s.sive foundation of solid concrete which formed practically one solid monolith six hundred feet long by two hundred and fifty broad--a monolith molded about the crypt and absolutely protecting it from every outside influence.
"Not even the Great Pyramid of Ghizeh could afford a more perfect--h.e.l.lo, what"s _this?_"
Allan stopped short, staring downward at the floor. His voice reechoed strangely in the restricted s.p.a.ce.
"A skeleton, so help me!"
True indeed. At one side of the pa.s.sage, lying in a position that strongly suggested death in a crouching, despairing att.i.tude--death by starvation rather than by violence--a little clutter of human bones gleamed white under the torch-flare.
"A skeleton--the first one of our vanished race we"ve ever found!"
exclaimed the man. "All the remains in New York, you remember, down in the subway or in any of the buildings, were invariably little piles of impalpable dust mixed with coins and bits of rusted metal. But this--it"s absolutely intact!"
"The dry air and all--" suggested Beatrice.
Stern nodded.
"Yes," he answered. "Intact, so far. But--"
He stirred the skull with his foot. Instantly it vanished into powder.
"Just as I thought," said he. "No chance to give a decent burial to this or any other human remains we may come across here. The slightest disturbance totally disintegrates them. But with _this_ it"s different!"
He picked up a revolver, hardly rusted at all, that lay near at hand.
"Cartridges; look!" cried Beatrice, pointing.