The Afterglow

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 were to be any such. Two martyrs. I salute them!”

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!”