_ BOOK III. THE AFTERGLOW
CHAPTER XII. CHALLENGED!
After many hours of profound and dreamless sleep, Allan awoke filled with fresh vigor for the tasks that lay ahead. His splendid vitality, quickly recuperating, calmed his mind; and now the problems, the anxieties and fears of the day before--to call it such, though there was neither night nor day in this strange place--seemed negligible.
Only a certain haunting uneasiness about the girl still clung to him. But, sending her many a thought of love, he reflected that soon he should be back again with her; and so, resolutely grasping the labor that now awaited him, he felt fresh confidence and hope.
After a breakfast of the familiar sea-weeds, bulbs, fish and eggs, he bade Vreenya (who seemed devotion incarnate) summon the folk for a great charweg, or tribal council, at the Place of Skeletons.
Here they gathered, men, women and children, all of fifteen hundred, in close-packed, silent masses, leaving only the inner circle under the stone posts and iron rods clear for Allan and for Vreenya and some half-dozen elders.
The rocky plaza-floor sloping upward somewhat from the dungeon, formed a very shallow natural amphitheater, so that the majority could see as well as hear.
No platform was there for their Kromno to speak from. He had not even a block of stone. In the true native style he was expected to address them on their own level, pacing back and forth the while.
In his early days among them he had seen one or two such gatherings. His quick wit prompted a close imitation of their ceremonies and ancient customs.
First, Vreenya sprinkled the open space between the poles and the dungeon with a kind of sea-weed swab dipped in the waters of the boiling vat, then with a bit of the coarse brown cloth washed Allan's lips--a pledge of truth.
The councillor raised both hands toward the roaring flame back there by the cliff, and all inclined themselves thereto, the only trace of any religious ceremony still remaining among them.
Allan likewise saluted the flame; then he faced the multitude.
"O my people," he began, striving to speak clearly above the noise of the fire-jet, his voice sounding dull and heavy in that compressed atmosphere, "O Folk of the Merucaans, I greet you! There be many things to tell that you must know and believe. I have come back to you with great peril in my flying-boat to tell you of the upper world and all its goodness.
"Easily could I have stayed in those places of light and plenty, but my heart was warm for my people. I thought of my people night and day. The woman Beatrice thought of you. The ancient man thought of you. Alone, we could not enjoy those happy places. So I returned to tell you and to show you the way to liberty. Thus have we proved our love for you, my folk!"
He paused. Silence overhung the assemblage save for the fretful cry of children here and there, squeezed in the press or clinging to their mothers' backs after the fashion of the Merucaans.
Afar, on the walls, the faint and raucous quarreling of the sea-birds drifted through the fog. Allan drew breath and began again:
"In those places, my people, those far places whence your forefathers came, are many wonders. Betimes it is dark, as always here. Betimes a great fire mounts into the upper air and make the whole world brighter than around your flaming well. In the dark time lesser fires travel in the air. Of birds there are many kinds, strangely colored. Of beasts, many kinds--I cannot make you understand because none of you have ever seen any animal but fish and bird. But I speak truth. There be many other creatures with good flesh to eat, and the skins of them are proper for soft clothing.
"Here you have only weeds of the sea. There we have tall growing things, many hundred spedi high, and rich fruit, delicious to the taste, grows on some kinds. In a few words, it is a place of wondrous plenty, where you can all live more easily than here, and with more pleasure--far--"
Again he ceased his discourse, but still continued to pace up and down the open space under the swaying skeletons on the poles above.
Through the dense press of the Folk murmurs were wandering. Man spoke to man, and many a new thought was coming now to birth among those white barbarians.
The elders, too, were whispering together: "So runs the ancient tradition. So said the ancient man! Can it be true, indeed?"
Stern continued, more and more earnestly, with the sweat now beginning to dot his brow:
"It were too long, my people, to tell you everything about that land of ours above. Only remember it is richer far and far more beautiful than this, your place of darkness and of clouds. It is the ancient home of your fathers in the very long ago. It is waiting for you once again, more fertile and more beautiful than ever.
"My errand is to carry you thither--two or three at a time. At last I shall be able to take you all.
"Then the world will begin to be as it once was, before the great explosion destroyed all but a few of your people, who were my people once. Will any of you--any two bold men--believe my words and go with me? Will any be as brave as--the patriarch?"
He flung the veiled taunt loudly at them, with a raising of both arms.
"I have spoken truth! Now answer!"
He ceased, and for a short minute there was silence. Then spoke Vreenya:
"O Kromno, master! We would question you!"
"I will answer and say only the thing that is."
"First, can our people live in that other, lighter air?"
"They can live. We have prepared caves for you. At first you shall not see the light. Only little by little you shall see it, and you and your children will change, till at last you shall be as I am and as your people were in the old days!"
Vreenya pondered, while tense interest held the elders and the Folk. Then he nodded, for his understanding--like that of all--was keen in spite of his savagery.
"And we can eat, O Kromno? This flesh off beasts you speak of may be good. This strange fruit may be good. I know not. It may also be as the poison weeds of our sea to us. But, if so, there are fish in those waters of the upper world?"
"There are fish, Vreenya, and of the best, and many! Near the caves runs a river--"
"A what, master?"
"A going of the waters. In those waters live fish without number. At the dark times you can catch them with nets, even as here. The dark times are half of each day. You shall have many hours for the fishing. Even that will suffice to live; but the flesh and fruits will not hurt you. They are good. There will be food for all, and far more than enough for all!"
Vreenya pondered again.
"We would talk together, we elders," he said, simply.
"It meets my pleasure," answered Allan. "And when ye have talked, I desire your answer!"
He crossed his arms, faced the multitude, and waited, while the elders gathered in a little group by the dungeon and for some minutes conferred in low and earnest tones.
Outwardly, the man seemed calm, but his soul burned within him and his heart was racing violently.
For on this moment, he well knew, hung the world's destiny. Should they decide to venture forth into the outer world all would be well. If not, the long labor, the plans, the hopes were lost forever.
Well he knew the stubborn nature of the Folk. Once their minds set, nothing on earth could ever stir them.
"Thank God I managed that lie about the patriarch!" thought Allen quickly. "If I'd slipped up on that, and told them he died at the very minute the sunlight struck him, it would have been all off, world without end. Hope it doesn't make a row later. But if it does, I'll face it. The main and only thing now is to get 'em started. They've
got to go, that's all there is about it.
"Gad! After all, it's a terrific proposition I'm putting up to these simple fishers of the Abyss. I'm asking them, just on my say-so, to root up the life, the habits, the traditions of more than a thousand years and make a leap into the dark--into the light, I mean.
"I'm asking them to leave everything they've ever known for thirty generations and take a chance on what to them must be the wildest and most hare-brained adventure possible to imagine. To risk homes, families, lives, everything, just on my unsupported word. Jove! Columbus's proposal to his men was a mere afternoon jaunt compared with
this! If they refuse, how can I blame them? But if they accept--God! what stuff I'll know they're made of! With material like that to work with, the conquest of the world's in sight already."
His eyes, wandering nervously along the front ranks of the waiting Folk, dimly illumined by the dull blue glow of the fire-well that shone through the mist, suddenly stopped with apprehension. His brows contracted, and on his heart it seemed as though a gripping hand had suddenly laid hold.
"H'yemba, the smith, again! Damn him! H'yemba!" he muttered, in sudden anger strongly tinged with fear.
The smith, in fact, was standing there a little to the left of him, huge and sinewed hands loosely clasped in front of him, face sinister, eyes glowing like two malevolent evil fires.
Allan noted the defiant poise of the body, the vast breadth of the shoulders, the heavy hang of the arms, biceped like a gorilla's.
For a minute the two men looked each other steadfastly in the eye, each measuring the other. Then suddenly the voice of Vreenya broke the tension.
"O Kromno, we have spoken. Will you hear us?"
Stern faced him, a strange sinking at his heart, almost as though the foreman of a jury stood before him to announce either freedom or sentence of death.
But, holding himself in check, lest any sign of fear or nervousness betray him, he made answer:
"I will hear you. Speak!"
"We have listened to your words. We believe you speak truth. Yet--"
"Yet
what? Out with it, man!"
"Yet will we not compel any man to go. All shall be free--"
"Thank God!" breathed Allan, with a mighty sigh.
"--Free to stay or go, as they will. Our village is too full, even now. We have many children. It were well that some should make room for others. Those who dare, have our consent. Now, speak
you to the people, your people, O Kromno, and see who chooses the upper world with you!"
Once more Allan turned toward the assemblage. But before he had found time to frame the first question in this unfamiliar speech, a disturbance somewhat to the left interrupted him.
There came a jostling, a pushing, a sound of voices in amazement, anger, approbation, doubt.
Into the clear space stepped H'yemba, the smith. His powerful right hand he raised on high. And boldly, in a loud voice, he cried:
"Folk of the Merucaans, this cannot be!" _