I. Death, Life, and Love II. Eastward Ho! III. Catastrophe! IV. "To-Morrow is Our Wedding-Day" V. The Search for the Records VI. Trapped! VII. The Leaden Chest VIII. "Till Death Us Do Part" IX. At Settlement Cliffs X. Separation XI. "Hail to the Master!" XII. Challenged! XIII. The Ravished Nest XIV. On the Trail of the Monster XV. In the Grip of Terror XVI. A Respite from Toil XVII. The Distant Menace XVIII. The Annunciation XIX. The Master of His Race XX. Disaster! XXI. Allan Returns Not XXII. The Treason of H'yemba XXIII. The Return of the Master XXIV. "The Boy Is Gone!" XXV. The Fall of H'yemba XXVI. The Coming of the Horde XXVII. War! XXVIII. The Besom of Flame XXIX. Allan's Narrative XXX. Into the Fire-Swept Wilderness XXXI. A Strange Apparition XXXII. The Meeting of the Bands XXXIII. Five Years Later XXXIV. History and Roses XXXV. The Afterglow BOOK I THE VACANT WORLD CHAPTER I THE AWAKENING Dimly, like the daybreak glimmer of a sky long wrapped in fogs, a sign of consciousness began to dawn in the face of the tranced girl. Once more the breath of life began to stir in that full bosom, to which again a vital warmth had on this day of days crept slowly back. And as she lay there, prone upon the dusty floor, her beautiful face buried and shielded in the hollow of her arm, a sigh welled from her lips. Life--life was flowing back again! The miracle of miracles was growing to reality. Faintly now she breathed; vaguely her heart began to throb once more. She stirred. She moaned, still for the moment powerless to cast off wholly the enshrouding incubus of that tremendous, dreamless sleep. Then her hands closed. The finely tapered fingers tangled themselves in the masses of thick, luxuriant hair which lay outspread all over and about her. The eyelids trembled. And, a moment later, Beatrice Kendrick was sitting up, dazed and utterly uncomprehending, peering about her at the strangest vision which since the world began had ever been the lot of any human creature to behold--the vision of a place transformed beyond all power of the intellect to understand. For of the room which she remembered, which had been her last sight when (so long, so very long, ago) her eyes had closed with that sudden and unconquerable drowsiness, of that room, I say, remained only walls, ceiling, floor of rust-red steel and crumbling cement. Quite gone was all the plaster, as by magic. Here or there a heap of whitish dust betrayed where some of its detritus still lay. Gone was every picture, chart, and map--which--but an hour since, it seemed to her--had decked this office of Allan Stern, consulting engineer, this aerie up in the forty-eighth story of the Metropolitan Tower.