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,” assented 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 prone 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 glass true as it slowly scoured the sky-line to north and west.
All at once he uttered a choking cry. The glass 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 God! 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?”
Tiny and clear against the dazzling background of the afternoon sky he had perceived a long line of human figures trekking to southeast over the distant hill-top, almost directly toward the point where his exhausted troop now lay inert and panting.
CHAPTER XXXII. THE MEETING OF THE BANDS
Convinced though Stern now was of the reality of the amazing sight he had just witnessed through his binoculars, yet for a long moment he remained silent and staring, utterly at a loss for any rational explanation of the remarkable apparition.
Exhausted in body and confused in mind, he could hit upon no answer to the riddle.
Might these be some detached and belated members of the Horde? No; for their figures and their gait, as he now for the third time studied them through the glass, were unmistakably human.
But if not Anthropoids, then what? Enemies? Potential friends? Some new and strange race, until now undiscovered?
A score of possible explanations struggled in his mind, only to be rejected. But this was now no time for questions, analysis, or thought. For, even as he looked, the end of the line came to view, then vanished down the blackened hillside.
Invisible, now that they no longer stood silhouetted against the sky-line, the strange company had disappeared as though swallowed up by the earth. Yet Stern well knew that they were coming almost directly down upon him and his little party. Already there was pressing need for swift decision.
What should he do? Advance to meet these strangers? Risk all on a mere chance? Or turn, retreat and hide? Or ambush them, and kill?
He found himself, for the moment, unable to make up his mind. Yet, should a pinch arise and the last contingency become necessary, he felt a powerful advantage. He was positive his little band, armed as they were, could easily wipe out this column. But, after all, must he fight?
His questions all unsettled and his mind confused from the terrible exhaustions of the march, he waited. He surveyed the neighborhood, with a view to possible battle.
On his left rose a ridge that swung to northward between the advancing column and his own position. On his right an arroyo or gully, choked with fallen tree-trunks and burned forest wreckage, descended in an easterly direction toward a rather deep valley. In this gully he saw was ample hiding-place for his whole force.
“Men!” he addressed them; “it is strange to tell, but there be others who come against us there!” He pointed at the far crest of the sawlike highlands, where now he thought to see a hazy, floating pall of dust.
“Until we know their purpose and their temper we must have care. We must hide ourselves and wait. Come, then, quickly! And prepare your guns against the need of battle!”
His words aroused and heartened his exhausted men. The prospect even of war was welcome--anything in place of this unending trek through the burned wilderness.
Zangamon cried: “Where be those that come, O Kromno? And what manner of men?”
“Yonder,” indicated Stern. “I know not who, save that they be men. Wait but a little and you shall know. Now to the ravine!”
All got up, and with more energy than they had shown for some time, they trailed to the gully. Here they were soon well entrenched, with weapons ready. Stern now felt confident of the situation, however it might turn.
They waited. Some little talk trickled up and down the line, but for the most part the men kept quiet, watching eagerly.