She paused, and breathed more freely.
“We are safe for a while now,” she said. It was hard to listen composedly to her words, so sweet was the tone of them.
She wound and twisted through the stores, we following, and brought up at a door which a stranger, likely, never would have found. This she unlocked, passed us through, and secured behind us. The air was dank and musty, and despite the lantern there were uncanny patches of phosphorescent light on walls otherwise invisible as yet. The space was roomy, the floor earthen. It proved to be a large cellar-like chamber with a low ceiling supported by stone pillars groined into arches, and was paved, furnished with grated windows, and sweet and dry. Here were immense stores: American-tinned provisions in astonishing abundance; bale upon bale of cloth of many kinds; modern farming implements, and machinery and tools for sawyers, carpenters, cabinet-makers, upholsterers, and many other useful trades; and at one side an array of firearms and ammunition.
Beela was watching me in my astonishment, for not the smallest item of this store had I seen in use by the natives.
“Don’t you know what it all is, Choseph?” she asked.
I shook my head.
“It is the cargo of your vessel.”
I was speechless. Two things were clear: one, that the water-tight bulkheads in the Hope had not given way (which accounted for her pursuit of us instead of sinking), and the other, that the natives had carefully repaired all the water-damage possible. The thorough care of the cargo very likely had extended to the vessel herself.
My emotion was profound. I wrung Beela’s hand, but something in my eyes made her dim and floating. Only vaguely could I see the sweet uplift and happiness in her face. Christopher was standing apart like a man of wood except that his eyes were living. If he needed any expression from me of the almost cruel joy that filled me, he gave no sign, but stood in the pathetic loneliness that forever invested him.
“We must go on,” said Beela. “It is time for the king’s privy council.”