Nearer the Hudson drew, and nearer still; and now its untroubled azure, calm save for a few cat's-paws of breeze that idled on the surface, stretched almost beneath them in their rapid flight.
"We're still a little too far north, I see," the man judged, and swept the biplane round to southward.
The ruins of Newburgh lay presently upon their right. Soon after the crumbled walls of West Point's pride slid past in silence, save for the chatter of the engines, the whirling roar of the propeller-blades' vast energy.
No boat now vexed the flood. Upon its bosom neither steam nor sail now plowed a furrow. Along the banks no speeding train flung its smoke-pennant to the wind. Primeval silence, universal calm, wrapped all things.
Beatrice shuddered slightly. Now that they were nearing "home" the desolation seemed more appalling.
"Oh, Allan, is it possible all this will ever be peopled again--alive?"
"Certain to be! Once we get those records and begin transplanting the Merucaans, the rest will be only a matter of time!"
She made no answer, but in her eyes shone pride that he could know such visions, have such faith.
Already they recognized the ruins of Nyack, and beyond them the point in the river behind which, they knew, lay Hope Villa, nestling in its gardens, its little sphere of cultivation hewn from the very heart of the dense wilderness.
Allan slackened speed, crossed to the eastern bank, and jockeyed for a safe landing.
The point slipped backward and away. There, right ahead, they caught a glimpse of the long white beach where they had fished and bathed and built their boat-house, and whence in their little yawl they had ten months before started on their trip of exploration--a trip destined to end so strangely in the Abyss.
"Home! Home!" cried Beta, the quick tears starting to her lids. "Oh, home again!"
Already the great plane was swooping downward toward the beach, hardly a mile away, when a harsh shout escaped the man.
"Look! Canoes! My God--what--"
As the drive of the Pauillac opened up the concave of the sand and brought its whole length to view, Stern and the girl suddenly became aware of trouble.
There, strung along the beach irregularly, they all at once made out ten, twenty, thirty boats. Still afar, they could see these were the same rough bancas such as they had seen after the battle--bancas in one of which they two had escaped up-river!
"Boats! The Horde again!"
Even as he shouted a tiny, black, misshapen little figure ran crouching out onto the sand. Another followed and a third, and now a dozen showed there, very distinct and hideous, upon the white crescent.