Allan made no further trips into the Abyss for about two months and a half. Before bringing any more of the people to the surface, he preferred to put all things in readiness for their reception.
He now had a working force of fifty-four men and twelve women. Including his own son, there were some seven children at Settlement Cliffs. The labor of civilization waxed apace.
With large plans in view, he dammed the rapids and set up a small mill and power-plant, the precursor of a far larger one in the future. Various short flights to the ruins of neighboring towns put him in possession, bit by bit, of machinery which he could adapt into needful forms.
In a year or two he knew he would have to clear land and make preparations for agriculture. A grist-mill would soon be essential. He could not always depend upon the woods and streams for food for the colony.
There must be cultivation of fruits and grains; the taming of wild fowl, cattle, horses, sheep and goats--but no swine; and a regular evolution up through the stages again by which the society of the past had reached its climax.
And to his ears the whirring of his turbine as the waters of New Hope River swirled through the penstocks, the spinning of the wheels, the slapping of the deerskin belting, made music only second to the voices of Beatrice and his son.
Allan brought piecemeal and fitted up a small dynamo from some extensive ruins to southeastward. He brought wiring and several still intact incandescent lights. Before long Cliff Villa shone resplendent, to the awe and marvel of the Folk.
But Allan made no mystery of it. He explained it all to Zangamon, Bremilu and H'yemba, the smith; and when they seemed to understand, bade them tell the rest.
Thus every day some new improvement was installed, or some fresh knowledge spread among the colonists.
June had drawn on again, and the hot weather had become oppressive, before Allan thought once more of still further trips into the Abyss. Beatrice tried to dissuade him. Her heart shrank from further separation, risk and fear.
“Listen, dearest,” she entreated as they sat by young Allan's bedside, one sultry, breathless night. “I think you've risked enough; really I do. You've got a boy now to keep you here, even if I can't! Please don't go! Follow out the plan you spoke to me about yesterday, but don't go yourself!”
“The plan?”
“Yes, you know. Your idea of training three or four of the most intelligent men to fly, and perhaps building one or two more planes--that is, establishing a regular service to and from the Abyss. That would be so much wiser, Allan! Think how deadly imprudent it is for you, you personally, to take this risk every time! Why, if anything should happen--”
“But it won't! It can't!”
“--What would become of the colony? We haven't got anything like enough of a start to go ahead with, lacking you! I speak now without sentiment or foolish, womanly fears, but just on a common-sense, practical basis. Viewed at that angle, ought you to take the risk again?”
“There's no time now, darling, to build more planes! No time to teach flying! We've got to recruit the colony as fast as possible, in case of emergencies. Why, I haven't made a trip since--since God knows when! It's time I was off now!”
“Allan!”
“Well?”
“Suppose you never went again? With the population we now have, and the natural increase, wouldn't civilization reestablish itself in time?”
“Undoubtedly. But think how long it would take! Every additional person imported puts us ahead tremendously. I may never be able to bring all the Folk, all the Lanskaarn, and those other mysterious yellow-haired people they talk about from beyond the Great Vortex. But I can do my share, anyhow. Our boy here may have to complete the process. It may take a lifetime to accomplish the rescue, but it must be done!”
“So you're determined to go again?”
“I am! I must!”
She seized his hand imploringly.
“And leave us? Leave your boy? Leave me?”
“Only to return soon, darling! Very soon!”
“But after this one trip, will you promise to train somebody else to go in your place?”
“I'll see, dearest!”
“No, no! Not that! Promise!”
She had drawn his head down, and now her face close to his, was trembling in her eagerness.
“Promise! Promise me, Allan! You must!”
Suddenly moved by her entreaty, he yielded.
“I promise, Beta!” he exclaimed. “Gad, I didn't know you were so deadly afraid of my little expeditions! If I'd understood, I might have been arranging otherwise already. But I certainly will change matters when I get back. Only let me go once more, darling--that'll be the last time, I swear it to you!”
She gave a great sigh of relief unspeakable and kept silence. But in her eyes he saw the shine of sudden tears.
Allan had been gone more than four days and a half before Beatrice allowed herself to realize or to acknowledge the sick terror that for some hours had been growing in her soul.
His usual time of return had hitherto been just a little over three days. Sometimes, with favorable winds to the brink of the Abyss, and unusually strong rising currents of vapors from the sunken sea--from the Vortex, perhaps?--he had been able to make the round trip in sixty hours.
But now over a hundred and eight hours had lagged by since Beatrice, carrying the boy, had accompanied him up the steep path to the hangar in the palisaded clearing.
How light-hearted, confident, strong he had been, filled with great dreams and hopes and visions! No thought of peril, accident, or possible failure had clouded his mind.
She recalled his farewell kiss given to the child and to herself, his careful inspection of the machine, his short and vigorous orders, and the supreme skill with which he had leaped aloft upon its back and gone whirring up the sky till distance far to the northwestward had swallowed him.
And since that hour no sign of return. No speck against the blue. No welcome chatter of the engine far aloft, no hum of huge blades beating the summer air! Nothing!
Nothing save ever-growing fear and anguish, vain hopes, fruitless peerings toward the dim horizon, agonizing expectations always frustrated, a vast and swiftly growing terror.
Beatrice cringed from her own thoughts. She dared not face the truth.
For that way, she felt instinctively, lay madness.
CHAPTER XXI. ALLAN RETURNS NOT
Five days dragged past, then six, then seven, and still no sign of Allan came to lighten the terrible and growing anguish of the woman.
All day long now she would watch for him--save at such times as the care and nursing of her child mercifully distracted her attention a little while from the intolerable grief and woe consuming her.
She would stand for hours on the rock terrace, peering into the northwest; she would climb the steep path a dozen times a day, and in distraction pace the cliff-top inside the palisaded area, where now some few wild sheep and goats were penned in process of domestication.
Here she would walk, calling in vain his name to the uncaring winds of heaven. With the telescope she would untiringly sweep the far reaches of the horizon, hoping, ever hoping, that at each moment a vague and distant speck might spring to view, wing its swift way southeastward, resolve itself into that one and only blessed sight her whole soul craved and burned for--the Pauillac and her husband!
And so, till night fell, and her strained eyes could no longer distinguish anything but swimming mists and vapors, she would watch, her every thought a prayer, her every hope a torment--for each hope was destined only to end in disappointment bitterer far than death.