The Afterglow

“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 passage. The air, though somewhat chill, was absolutely dry and perfectly respirable, thanks to the enormously massive 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--hello, what's this? ”

Allan stopped short, staring downward at the floor. His voice reechoed strangely in the restricted space.

“A skeleton, so help me!”

True indeed. At one side of the passage, lying in a position that strongly suggested death in a crouching, despairing attitude--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.

“That's so, too--a score or more!”

Lying in an irregular oval that plainly told of a vanished cartridge-belt, a string of cartridges trailed on the concrete floor.

“H-m-m-m! Just for an experiment, let's see!” murmured the engineer.

Already he had slipped in a charge.

“Steady, Beatrice!” he cautioned, and, pointing down the passage, pulled trigger.

Flame stabbed the half-dark and the crashing detonation rang in their ears.

“What do you think of that?” cried Stern exultantly. “Talk about your miracles! A thousand years and--”

Beatrice grasped him by the arm and pointed downward. Astonished, he stared. The rest of the skeleton had vanished. In its place now only a few handfuls of dust lay on the floor.

“Well, I'll be--” the man exclaimed. “Even that does the trick, eh? H-m! It would be a joke, now, wouldn't it, if the records should act the same way? Come on, Beta; this is all very interesting, but it isn't getting us anywhere. We've got to be at work!”

He pocketed the new-found gun and cartridges and once more, torch on high, started down the passage, with the girl at his side.

“See here, Allan!”

“Eh?”

“On the wall here--a painted stripe?”

He held the torch close and scrutinized the mark.

“Looks like it. Pretty well gone by now--just a flake here and a daub there, but I guess it once was a broad band of white. A guide?”

They moved forward again. The strip ended in a blur that might once have been an inscription. Here, there, a letter faintly showed, but not one word could now be made out.

“Too bad,” he mused. “It must have been mighty important or they wouldn't have--”

“Here's a door, Allan!”

“So? That's right. Now this looks like business at last!”

He examined the door by the unsteady flicker of the torch. It was of iron, still intact, and fastened by a long iron bar dropped into massive metal staples.

“Beat it in with the ax?” she queried.

“No. The concussion might reduce everything inside to dust. Ah! Here's a padlock and a chain!”

Carefully he studied the chain beneath bent brows.

“Here, Beta, you hold the torch, so. That's right. Now then--”

Already he had set the ax-blade between the padlock and the staple. A quick jerk--the lock flew open raspingly. Allan tried to lift the bar, but it resisted.

A tap of the ax and it gave, swinging upward on a pivot. Then a minute later the door swung inward, yielding to his vigorous push.

Together they entered the crypt of solid concrete, a chamber forty feet long by half as wide and vaulted overhead with arches, crowning perhaps twenty feet from the floor.

“More skeletons, so help me!”

Allan pointed at two more on the pavement at the left of the entrance.

“Why--how could that happen?” queried Beta, puzzled. “The door was locked outside!”

“That's so. Either there must be some other exit from this place or there were dissensions and fightings among the party itself. Or these men were wounded and were locked in here for safe-keeping while the others made a sortie and never got back, or--I don't know! Frankly, it's too much for me. If I were a story-writer I might figure it out, but I'm not. No matter, they're here, anyhow; that's all. Here two of our own people died ten centuries ago, trying to preserve civilization and the world's history for future ages, if there