Long before daybreak that morning, the thriving village of Settlement Cliffs, capital and market-town of the New Hope Colony, was awake and astir.
For the great festival day was at hand, the fifth anniversary of the founding of the colony, to be celebrated by the arrival of the last Merucaans from the depths of the Abyss.
The old caves, now abandoned save for grain, fruit and fish storehouses were closed and silent. No labor was going forward there. The nets hung dry. From the forges, smithies and work-shops along the river-bank at the rapids arose no sounds of the accustomed industry.
The road and bridge-builders were idle; and from the farms now dotting the rich brule across the river--each snug stone house, tiled with red or green, standing among its crops and growing orchards--the Folk were coming in to town for the feast-day.
The broad wooden trestle-bridge across the New Hope echoed with hollow verberations beneath the measured tread of two and four-ox teams hauling creaking wains heaped high with meats, fruits, casks of cider, generous wines, and all the richness of that virgin soil.
On the summer morning air rose laughter from the youths and maidens coming in afoot. Sounded the cries of the teamsters, the barking of dogs, the mingled murmur of speech--English speech again; and the fresh wind, bearing away a fine, golden dust from the long roads, swayed the palm-tops and the fern-trees with a gentle and caressing touch.
All up and down the broad, well-paved street of the village--a street lined with stone cottages, bordered with luxuriant tropic gardens, and branching into a dozen smaller thoroughfares--a happy throng was idling.
Well clad in plain yet substantial weaves from the vine-festooned work-shops below the cliff, abundantly fed, vigorous and strong, not one showed sickness or deformity, such as had scourged the human race in the old, evil days of long ago.
Loose-belted garb, sandals and a complete absence of hats all had their part in this abounding health. Open-air life and rational food completed the work.
No drugs, save three or four essential ones, and no poisons, ever had crept in to menace life. Wine there was, rich and unfermented; but the curse of alcohol existed not. And in the Law it was forever banned.
On the broad porch of their home, a boulder-built cottage facing the broad plaza where palms shaded the graveled paths, and purple, yellow and scarlet blooms lured humming-birds and butterflies, stood Beatrice and Allan.
Both were smiling in the clear June sunlight of that early morning. A cradle rocked by Gesafam--a little older and more bent, yet still hardy--gave glimpses of another olive-branch, this one a girl.