"Allan!"
"Well?"
"Suppose you never went again? With the population we now have, and the natural increase, wouldn't civilization reestablish itself in time?"
"Undoubtedly. But think how long it would take! Every additional person imported puts us ahead tremendously. I may never be able to bring all the Folk, all the Lanskaarn, and those other mysterious yellow-haired people they talk about from beyond the Great Vortex. But I can do my share, anyhow. Our boy here may have to complete the process. It may take a lifetime to accomplish the rescue, but it must be done!"
"So you're determined to go again?"
"I am! I must!"
She seized his hand imploringly.
"And leave us? Leave your boy? Leave me?"
"Only to return soon, darling! Very soon!"
"But after this one trip, will you promise to train somebody else to go in your place?"
"I'll see, dearest!"
"No, no! Not that! Promise!"
She had drawn his head down, and now her face close to his, was trembling in her eagerness.
"Promise! Promise me, Allan! You must!"
Suddenly moved by her entreaty, he yielded.
"I promise, Beta!" he exclaimed. "Gad, I didn't know you were so deadly afraid of my little expeditions! If I'd understood, I might have been arranging otherwise already. But I certainly will change matters when I get back. Only let me go once more, darling--that'll be the last time, I swear it to you!"
She gave a great sigh of relief unspeakable and kept silence. But in her eyes he saw the shine of sudden tears.
Allan had been gone more than four days and a half before Beatrice allowed herself to realize or to acknowledge the sick terror that for some hours had been growing in her soul.
His usual time of return had hitherto been just a little over three days. Sometimes, with favorable winds to the brink of the Abyss, and unusually strong rising currents of vapors from the sunken sea--from the Vortex, perhaps?--he had been able to make the round trip in sixty hours.
But now over a hundred and eight hours had lagged by since Beatrice, carrying the boy, had accompanied him up the steep path to the hangar in the palisaded clearing.
How light-hearted, confident, strong he had been, filled with great dreams and hopes and visions! No thought of peril, accident, or possible failure had clouded his mind.
She recalled his farewell kiss given to the child and to herself, his careful inspection of the machine, his short and vigorous orders, and the supreme skill with which he had leaped aloft upon its back and gone whirring up the sky till distance far to the northwestward had swallowed him.