Lea and San led Alan from the tower.
CHAPTER VII
OATH OF VENGEANCE
They went down a flight of stone steps to the ground. Alan found that the tower now was set in the midst of a garden of gloriously vivid blossoms. The air was redolent with their perfume. A brook of sunlit water flowed near by. There were cool bushes and shade trees, green and brown; cool green lawns of sward; little winding paths.
A garden of a few acres. It was all inclosed by a wall of masonry—a wall some twenty or thirty feet high, looped and turreted. The figure of a man was on the top of the wall, over a gateway fairly near at hand. As they stepped from the tower his arm went up with a gesture of recognition.
Realization swept Alan. This garden, this wall, this pacing sentry—all this we had seen on the television. We had witnessed then the tower's departure; by some vagary of Nature's laws the etheric waves carrying this image had come to us of 1945.
They passed through the gateway of the wall. The guard on its top called down something; and stared at Alan curiously as they passed through.
Beyond the wall a sylvan landscape was spread to Alan's gaze. The Space of Manhattan Island. He could still recognize it. A river behind him. Another river ahead a mile or so. The Hudson shimmering in its valley. He could see the cliffs of its further bank.
Near at hand the open country was dotted with trees, checkered with round patches of cultivated fields. There were figures working in the fields. And occasional habitations—low, oval houses of green thatch.