A road of dull smooth white wound from this gateway over the countryside toward the river. Animals, strange of aspect, were slowly dragging carts.
A city was off there, along this nearer bank of the river—a stretch of houses more closely set. City! It seemed some primitive village. All this—primitive; as though here might be some lost Indian tribe of our early ages. The field workers, garbed in vivid colors. Their squat little carts, slow-moving with broad-horned oxen. The quiet village strung along the calm-flowing river. All picturesque and primitive.
But Alan knew it was not barbarism, but decadence. Civilization had reached its summit, and declined. Fallen back, to this.
Lea was in advance of Alan and San. She turned into a small gateway. They passed through a garden profuse with flowers. A low house stood here, half hidden by the verdure. An old man was at the doorway—a stalwart old fellow with a furious white beard; a shaggy white mane of hair; a robe of sober gray, monklike with its rope about his bulging middle.
He greeted Lea and San with a gesture of affection. He stared open-mouthed at Alan. Lea explained to him swiftly. And then came relief to Alan. This old patriarch spoke what he doubtless called the ancient English. He said slowly, with a meticulous, careful intonation:
"I thank you for saving Lea from Wolf Turber."
"But we've got to locate them," Alan insisted. "How can we? With this cloak? Yes, it belongs to my sister."
"I will take you shortly to my instrument room," said the old man. "I have had Lentz, my assistant, preparing the Time-vision—we cannot do it more quickly."
They had talked now for perhaps half an hour—old Powl, as he was called, interpreting for Lea and San. He was their grandfather. It was he who had discovered the secret of this Time-traveling tower. He had built it; and had constructed also a series of instruments which he called Time-vision. He was, in this age of decadence, one of the few living scientists. And he was a language student as well—he had trained himself in many of the dead languages of the past.