In silence and awed sympathy they inspected the mournful relics of humanity a minute, but took good care not to touch them.
“And now the records!”
Even as Stern spoke he saw again a dimly painted line, this time upon the floor, all but invisible beneath the dust of centuries that had come from God knows where.
“Come, let's follow the line!” cried he.
It led them straight through the middle of the crypt and to a sort of tunnel-like vault at the far end. This they entered quickly and almost at once knew they had reached the goal of their long quest.
In front of them, about seven feet from the floor, a rough white star had been smeared. Directly below it a kind of alcove or recess appeared, lined with shelves of concrete. What its original purpose may have been it would be hard to say; perhaps it may have been intended as a storage-place for the cathedral archives.
But now the explorers saw it was partly filled with pile on pile of curiously crinkled parchment not protected in any way from the air, not covered or boxed in. To the right, however, stood a massive chest, seemingly of sheet-lead.
“Some sense to the lead,” growled Stern; “but why they left their records open to the air, blest if I can see!”
He raised the torch and flared the light along the shelves, and then he understood. For here, there, copper nails glinted dully, lying in dust that once upon a time had been wood.
“I'm wrong, Beta; I apologize to them,” Stern exclaimed. “These were all securely boxed once, but the boxes have gone to pieces long since. Dry-rot, you know. Well, let's see what condition the parchments are in!”
She held the torch while he tried to raise one, but it broke at the slightest touch. Again he assayed, and a third time. Same result.
“Great Scott!” he ejaculated, nonplused. “See what we're up against, will you? We've found 'em and they're ours, but--”
They stood considering a minute. All at once a dull metallic clang echoed heavily through the crypt. Despite herself, the girl shuddered. The eerie depths, the gloom, the skeletons had all conspired to shake her nerves.
“What's that?” she whispered, gripping Allan by the arm.
“That? Oh--nothing! Now how the deuce are we going to get at these--”
“It was something, Allan! But what?”
He grew suddenly silent.
“By Jove--it sounded like--the door--”
“The door? Oh, Allan, quick!”
A sudden, irresistible fear fingered at the strings of the man's heart. At the back of his neck he felt the hair begin to lift. Then he smiled by very strength of will.
“Don't be absurd, Beatrice,” he managed to say. “It couldn't be, of course. There's no one here. It--”
But already she was out of the alcove. With the torch held high in air, she stood there peering with wide eyes down the long blackness of the crypt, striving to pierce the dark.
Then suddenly he heard her cry of terror.
“The door, Allan! The door! It's shut!”
CHAPTER VII. THE LEADEN CHEST
Not at any time since the girl and he had wakened in the tower, more than a year ago, had Allan felt so compelling a fear as overswept him then. The siege of the Horde at Madison Forest, the plunge down the cataract, the fall into the Abyss and the battle with the Lanskaarn had all taxed his courage to the utmost, but he had met these perils with more calm than he now faced the blank menace of that metal door.
For now no sky overhung him, no human agency opposed him, no counterplay of stress and strife thrilled his blood.
No; the girl and he now were far underground in a crypt, a tomb, walled round with incalculable tons of concrete, barred from the upper world, alone--and for the first time in his life the man knew something of the anguish of unreasoning fear.
Yet he was not bereft of powers of action. Only an instant he stood there motionless and staring; then with a cry, wordless and harsh, he ran toward the barrier.
Beneath his spurning feet the friable skeletons crumbled and vanished; he dashed himself against the door with a curse that was half a prayer; he strove with it--and staggered back, livid and shaken, for it held!
Now Beatrice had reached it, too. In her hand the torch trembled and shook. She tried to speak, but could not. And as he faced her, there in the tomblike vault, their eyes met silently.
A deathly stillness fell, with but their heart-beats and the sputtering of the torch to deepen it.
“Oh!” she gasped, stretching out a hand. “You--we--can't--”
He licked his lips and tried to smile, but failed.
“Don't--don't be afraid, little girl!” he stammered. “This can't hold us, possibly. The chain--I broke it!”
“Yes, but the bar, Allan--the bar! How did you leave the bar?”
“Raised!”
The one word seemed to seal their doom. A shudder passed through Beatrice.
“So then,” she choked, “some air-current swung the door shut--and the bar--fell--”
A sudden rage possessed the engineer.
“Damn that infernal staple!” he gritted, and as he spoke the ax swung into air.
“Crash!”
On the metal plates it boomed and echoed thunderously. A ringing clangor vibrated the crypt.
“Crash!”
Did the door start? No; but in the long-eroded plates a jagged dent took form.
Again the ax swung high. Cold though the vault was, sweat globuled his forehead, where the veins had swelled to twisting knots.
“Crash!”
With a wild verberation, a scream of sundered metal and a clatter of flying fragments, the staple gave way. A crack showed round the edge of the iron barrier.
Stern flung his shoulder against the door. Creaking, it swung. He staggered through. One hand groped out to steady him, against the wall. From the other the ax dropped crashing to the floor.
Only a second he stood thus, swaying; then he turned and gathered Beta in his arms. And on his breast she hid her face, from which the roses all had faded quite.
He felt her fighting back the tears, and raised her head and kissed her.
“There, there!” he soothed. “It wasn't anything, after all, you see. But--if we hadn't brought the ax with us--”
“Oh, Allan, let's go now! This crypt--I can't--”
“We will go very soon. But there's no danger now, darling. We're not children, you know. We've still got work to do. We'll go soon; but first, those records!”
“Oh, how can you, after--after what might have been?”
He found the strength to smile.
“I know,” he answered, “but it didn't happen, after all. A miss is worth a million miles, dear. That's what life seems to mean to us, and has meant ever since we woke in the tower, peril and risk, labor and toil--and victory! Come, come, let's get to work again, for there's so endlessly much to do.”
Calmer grown, the girl found new courage in his eyes and in his strong embrace.
“You're right, Allan. I was a little fool to--”
He stopped her self-reproach with kisses, then picked up the torch from the floor where it had fallen from her nerveless hand.
“If you prefer,” he offered. “I'll take you back into the sunlight, and you can sit under the trees and watch the river, while I--”
“Where you are, there am I! Come on, Allan; let's get it over with. Oh, what a coward you must think me!”