Beatrice seized the old woman's hand and kissed it in a burst of gratitude.
"Oh--if I could only believe you!" she sobbed.
"It will be so! What could happen to him, so strong, so brave? He must come back! He will!"
"What could happen? A hundred things, Gesafam! One tiny break in the flying boat and he might be hurled to earth or down the Abyss, to death! Or, among your Folk, he may have been defeated, for many of the Folk are still savage and very cruel! Or, the Horde--"
"The Horde? But the Horde, of which you have so often spoken, is now afar."
"No, Gesafam. Even to-day I saw their signal-fires on the horizon."
The old woman drew an arm about the girl. All barbarian that she was, the eternal, universal spirit of the feminine, pervading her, made her akin with the sorrowing wife.
"Go rest," she whispered. "I understand. I, too have wept and mourned, though that was very long ago in the Abyss. My man, my Nausaak, a very brave and strong catcher of fish, fought with the Lanskaarn--and he died. I understand, Yulcia! You must think no more of this now. The child needs your strength. You must rest. Go!"
Gently, yet with firmness that was not to be disputed, she forced Beatrice into the cave, made her lie down, and prepared a drink for her.
Though Beta knew it not, the wise old woman had steeped therein a few leaves of the ronyilu weed, brought from the Abyss, a powerful soporific. And presently a certain calm and peace began to win possession of her soul.
For a time, however, distressing visions still continued to float before her disordered mind. Now she seemed to behold the Pauillac, flaming and shattered, whirling down, over and over, meteor-swift, into the purple mists and vapors of the Abyss.
Now the scene changed; and she saw it, crushed and broken, lying on some far rock-ledge, amid impenetrable forests, while from beneath a formless tangle of wreckage protruded a hand--his hand--and a thin, dripping stream of red.
Gasping, she sought to struggle up and stare about her; but the drugged draft was too potent, and she could not move. Yet still the visions came again--and now it seemed that Allan lay there, in the woods, somewhere afar, transfixed with an envenomed spear, while in a crowding, hideous, jabbering swarm the distorted, beast-like anthropoids jostled triumphantly all about him, hacked at him with flints and knives, flayed and dismembered him, inflicted unimaginable mutilations-She knew no more. Thanks to the wondrous beneficence of the ronyilu, she slept a deep and dreamless slumber. Even the child being laid on her breast by the old woman--who smiled, though in her eyes stood tears--even this did not arouse her.