Could he and Beatrice, rulers of the Folk though they now were, could they--with their paltry knowledge of the people's language, superstitions, prejudices and inner life--really bring about this great migration?
Could they ravish a nation from its accustomed home, transplant it bodily, force new conditions on it, train, teach, civilize it? All this without rebellion, anarchy and failure?
“God!” thought the engineer. “The labors of Hercules were child's play beside this problem!”
His heart quaked at the thought of all that lay ahead; yet through everything, deep in the basic strata of his being, he knew that all should be and must be as he planned.
Barring death only, the seemingly impossible should come to pass.
“I swear it!” he murmured to himself. “For her sake, for theirs, and for the world's, I swear it shall be!”
At high noon they emerged once more from the caverns, climbed the steep cliff face, and again stood on the heights.
Facing northward, their gaze swept the lower river-bank opposite, and reached away, away, over the rolling hills and plains that lay, a virgin forest, to the dim horizon, brooding, mysterious, quivering with fertility and wild, strange life.
“Some time,” he prophesied, sweeping his arm out toward the wilderness--“some time all that--and far beyond--shall be dotted with clearings and rich farms, with cottages, schools, towns, cities. Broad highways shall traverse it. The hum of motors, of machinery, of industry--of life itself--shall one day displace the cry of beast and bird.
“Some time the English tongue shall reign here again--here and beyond. Here strong men shall toil and build and reap and rest. Here love shall reign and women be called ‘mother.’ Here children shall play and learn and grow to manhood and to womanhood, secure and free.