Stern saw that the terraces would have to be blasted and leveled, roads and stairs built along the face of the rock and down to the river, stalactites and stalagmites cut away, chambers fashioned, and a vast deal of labor done; but the rough framework of a cliff colony undeniably existed here. He doubted whether it would be possible to find a more favorable site without long and tedious travels. "I guess we'll take the apartments and sign the lease," he decided toward noon, after they had clambered, pried, explored with improvised torches, and penetrated far into some of the grottoes. "The main thing to consider is that we can find darkness and humidity for the Folk by day. They mustn't be let out at first except in the night. It may be weeks or months before they can stand the direct sunlight. But that, too, will come. Patience, girl--patience and time--and all will yet be done." Yet, even as he spoke, a strange anxiety, a prescience of tremendous difficulties, brooded in his soul. These were not cattle that he had to deal with, but _men_. Could he and Beatrice, rulers of the Folk though they now were, could they--with their paltry knowledge of the people's language, superstitions, prejudices and inner life--really bring about this great migration? Could they ravish a nation from its accustomed home, transplant it bodily, force new conditions on it, train, teach, civilize it? All this without rebellion, anarchy and failure? "God!" thought the engineer. "The labors of Hercules were child's play beside this problem!" His heart quaked at the thought of all that lay ahead; yet through everything, deep in the basic strata of his being, he knew that all should be and must be as he planned. Barring death only, the seemingly impossible should come to pass. "I swear it!" he murmured to himself. "For _her_ sake, for theirs, and for the world's, I swear it shall be!" At high noon they emerged once more from the caverns, climbed the steep cliff face, and again stood on the heights. Facing northward, their gaze swept the lower river-bank opposite, and reached away, away, over the rolling hills and plains that lay, a virgin forest, to the dim horizon, brooding, mysterious, quivering with fertility and wild, strange life. "Some time," he prophesied, sweeping his arm out toward the wilderness--"some time all _that_--and far beyond--shall be dotted with clearings and rich farms, with cottages, schools, towns, cities. Broad highways shall traverse it. The hum of motors, of machinery, of industry--of life itself--shall one day displace the cry of beast and bird. "Some time the English tongue shall reign here again--here and beyond. Here strong men shall toil and build and reap and rest. Here love shall reign and women be called 'mother.' Here children shall play and learn and grow to manhood and to womanhood, secure and free.