“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!”