“Think! Ours are the only living human eyes that have seen this new world blotting out the stars! This explains everything--the singular changes in the tides and in the direction of the magnetic pole, decreased gravitation and all the other strange things we noticed, but couldn't understand. By Gad! What a discovery!”
The patriarch listened eagerly while Stern and the girl discussed the strange phenomenon; but when their excitement had subsided and they were ready again to hear him, he began anew:
“Verily, such was the first result of the great catastrophe. And, as you know, millions died. But among the cañons of the Rocky Mountains--so says the tradition; is it right? Were there such mountains?”
“Yes, yes! Go on!”
“In those cañons a few handfuls of hardy people still survived. Some perished of famine and exposure; some ventured out into the lowlands and died of the gas that still hung heavy there. Some were destroyed in a great fire that the tradition says swept the earth after the explosion. But a few still lived. At one time the number was only eighteen men, twelve women and a few children, so the story goes.”
“And then?”
“Then,” continued the patriarch, his brow wrinkled in deep thought, “then came the terrible, swift cold. The people, still keeping their English tongue, now dead save for you two, and still with some tools and even a few books, retreated into caves and fissures in the cañons. And so they came to the great descent.”
“The what?”
“The huge cleft which the story says once connected the upper world with this Abyss. And--”
“Is it open now,” cried Stern, leaning sharply forward.