They were scattered over various parts of the world and their presence made Omega wonder. There appeared to be no reason for them.

"I do not understand those clouds," he said to Thalma as he sat with her and Alpha in the shade of the coral tree. "Perhaps there are hidden places of moisture, that have escaped the receiving rays of this mirror."

"Let us go and see," exclaimed Thalma, her eyes agleam with a new hope.

"Let us make another voyage around the world. Alpha has never been far from home."

"That is so," he agreed. "We will go at once."

So they entered the silver ship and sailed away over the hot, dry wastes, on and on over the cities of antiquity. The ruins of New York, London, Paris and other marts of the ancients were visited in their melancholy quest for life. But even the sites of these cities were hard to find. Only the tops of the tallest structures, such as the tip of the Washington monument and the towers of office buildings stood above the ashes and sands of centuries. But not even the shadow of a cloud was seen. Still they sailed on--even skirted the dark wastes of the poles and stopped in deep valleys to test for water. Twice around the equatorial regions they voyaged in search of a new and better haven, but in vain. The insistent cry for water burned in their souls and led them back to the little lake--the last sop nature had to offer the remnant of her children.

Although the days were still hot and blistering, the nights were cold, ice often forming on the lake near the sh.o.r.e and lingering until touched by the advancing sun. Omega understood, and again a cold fear clutched his heart. Unless by some miracle of the heavens sufficient moisture should come back to the earth, no human soul could long endure the heat of the day and the freezing temperature of night.

To still further conserve the precious water of the lake, Omega now extended the folds of the cloud curtain down to its sh.o.r.es thus completely enclosing it. And as this further reduced the evaporation to a remarkable extent the hopes of Omega and Thalma took on new life. Here they visioned Alpha and his children living and dying in peace, now that the monster was no more. With the help of additional safeguards Omega reckoned that the water might be made to last many more years, and, before it could become wholly exhausted, some whim of nature might again shower the earth with rain.

Now to pa.s.s the time--for there was nothing to do except to direct the appliances about them--this last trio of mortals loved to leave the shelter of the cottage, now that they had nothing further to fear from the sea-monster, when the westering sun was low, and ramble among the shadows of the cliffs and commune with the past, until the chill of night drove them indoors. Sometimes sitting there in the dusk Thalma and Alpha would listen to Omega's rich voice as he recounted an epic story in the life of long ago. So to-day seated together on a cliff above the airship, they watched the sun descend. Thalma and Alpha had asked for a story, but Omega refused. For some time he had sat silent, his great, brilliant eyes on the flaming sun as it sank toward the rim of the earth. A great loneliness had suddenly seized him. He recognized it as a presentiment of disaster. It was beyond the a.n.a.lysis of reason, but for the first time in his life he longed to hold back that sun. Somehow he feared the advent of the night. It seemed to him that before the morning light would again flood the earth a dire calamity would befall them.

"Why so sad?" asked Thalma fearfully, and Alpha, at his father's knees, looked up in wonder.

"It is nothing," replied Omega with forced composure as he caressed the boy. "Some foolish thoughts of mine. Now as it is getting chilly I think we had better go down. Oh, how I dread this awful cold which is creeping steadily and mercilessly over the world!" he added softly, his eyes lingering on the sun.

With her usual sweet smile Thalma agreed. So they rose and floated down.

When they reached the floor of the valley they paused and regarded the cloud that screened the lake.

"It does well," remarked Omega. "It will make the water last into the years."

"Yes, and all for our boy," said Thalma proudly. Alpha had left them and was playing along the sh.o.r.e.

"It is now time that a mate for him be on the way," went on Omega wistfully. "He must have a sister, you know."

"It is true," she agreed with a glad smile.

Omega had spoken truly. Without a mate Alpha could not perpetuate the race. And so it was arranged that before the rising of the morrow's sun a new life should begin.

Science had steadily advanced the span of life. When Alpha was born Omega was two hundred years old, but that was only middle age. Thalma was twenty-five years his junior. The human birth-rate had decreased with the pa.s.sing of the centuries and nature now demanded the most exacting conditions for the propagation of the human species. Thalma at her age could not afford to wait longer. Alpha's mate must be provided forthwith.

"Alpha wants to play a while before going in," Thalma continued presently. "I will remain with him."

"Very well, dear," said Omega. "I will go on and prepare dinner."

So saying he set his face toward the cottage, but before he had taken a dozen steps he was startled by a piercing scream from Thalma. He turned swiftly, then stood paralyzed with terror and amazement. Out of the cloud curtain surrounding the lake protruded the ugly scale-covered head and neck of the monster he had believed dead! And the horrible, swaying head was darting down toward the playing boy! The monster's jaws were spread wide, its black tongue was leaping out and in like lightning, the sickening saliva was dripping upon the sand, and its awful eyes were blazing like coals. And then in a twinkling the huge jaws seized the child, the head reared back, the jaws closed, stifling the lad's screams, and it started to draw back into the cloud.

But, after the first onrush of horror, life came again to Omega's numbed senses. He darted forward with a mad cry, and as he swung through the air rather than ran, he seized a stone and hurled it at the brute's head. His aim was true and the stone struck the great brute on the bony hood above the right eye. It did not harm, but it maddened the monster.

Hissing horribly it swung Alpha high in the air and with a fling dashed him down upon the rocks. Then with a hoa.r.s.e bellow it turned upon Omega.

With its first forward lunge it seemed about to crush Thalma, who was between it and its intended victim. But the sight of her mangled child and the danger to her lord roused all the latent fury and courage in her soul and made of her a fighting demon. Like Omega she grabbed the first weapon at hand--a stone the size of a man's fist--and with the hot breath of the monster in her face she hurled the stone with all her strength straight into the red, gaping mouth.

With a blood-curdling scream the brute halted, reared backward, then ran its head back and forth over the rocks. Its loathsome body threshed about in the lake, throwing water far up on the beach. Then in its contortions it wallowed up out of the lake as it swung its terrible head about in agony, all the while hissing its challenge.

Terror-stricken, unable to move, Omega and Thalma watched it and could not understand its writhings. But as it continued to writhe and groan they understood at last--the stone had lodged firmly in its throat and was choking it to death.

Then they sprang to Alpha's side. Omega gathered him up in his arms, but he saw with one agonized glance that he was dead. His skull was crushed and it appeared that every bone in his body was broken.

Omega's heart was bursting, but he did not cry out. Holding the crushed body of his son, he raised his eyes to that G.o.d who throughout the ages had hidden His face from man, and smiled a brave smile of humility and resignation. While Thalma, understanding all, looked on dumb and dry-eyed.

Leaving the monster floundering about in its death agony, they took their beloved son to the cottage and there injected those chemicals which would forever arrest decay. Then they placed him on his cot that he might be with them to the end of life. It was then that Thalma, broken in spirit, found refuge and relief in tears which have always been woman's solace and savior.

And Omega, gazing out toward the lake, saw that the monster lay still.

They had won their long battle, but at an awful cost. Omega realized that the gigantic creature, probably deep in a water cavern, had been only stunned by the electric charges.

Thalma refused to be comforted. Day after day she wept above the lifeless form of her boy. All Omega's words of consolation, all his reasoning and faith in the wisdom and justice of all things, failed to soothe her torn heart. Nor did the promise of another child, rouse her from her sorrow. She steadfastly refused to consider another child. Life had lost its last hold on her soul, and now she was ready to surrender to that cruel fate which had given them mirages of promise and mocked their misery. In vain Omega explained that it was their duty to fight on; that they, the last of a once n.o.ble race, must not show the white feather of cowardice. He mentioned the great consolation they had of having their beloved son ever near them, though lifeless. But Thalma longed for the presence of the soul, for those words of endearment and love that had thrilled her mother heart.

Before the embalmment it would have been possible for Omega to restore life to his boy. Man had mastered all the secrets of biology and life.

He could have mended the broken bones and tissues, revitalized the heart and lungs and cleared the brain. Alpha would have walked with them again. But his personality would not have been there. That mysterious something, men call the soul, had fled forever, and so far mankind had not been able to create its counterpart. To have brought life again to Alpha would have been a travesty on the brilliant mind they had known.

Omega recalled many pathetic examples of such resuscitation where the living had walked in death.

Omega foresaw the end, but he smiled in the face of it all. He was the same kind and loving companion Thalma had always known, her every want his command and law. But no more she realized its inspiration and love.

He seldom left her side any more, but sometimes overcome with sorrow he would soar up above the peaks and commune alone with the past.

So to-day he had risen higher than usual. The red sun beat upon his body as he hovered in the hot air, his eyes fixed on the distant sky line. He gazed like a famished animal, for it seemed to him that at last a cloud must appear above that hopeless sh.o.r.e of land and sky and bring renewed life to him and his. Yet he fully realized the impossibility of such a thing. Slowly his great, dark eyes roved around the horizon. He loathed its dreary monotony, and still it fascinated him. Beyond that dead line of land and sky lay nothing but ghastly death. His many voyages in the airship and the reflecting Mirror told him that, but still he hoped on.

When at last he glided down to the cottage the sun was low. Having registered the time in his mind when he left Thalma--for countless generations man had dispensed with time-keeping devices--he realized that he had been gone just three hours. Reproaching himself for his negligence he entered the doorway, then stared aghast.

Upon Thalma's wide couch facing a painting of the ancient, green world, she had placed the body of Alpha, then lain down by his side. Her glazed eyes were fixed upon the picture, and for the first time in many weeks there was a smile about her lips.

Omega knelt by her side, took her cold hands in his and feverishly kissed her brow. With a grief too deep for tears he smiled at death, thankful for the love she had borne him. Nor did he censure the Plan of the Creator, the Plan that had led him, Omega, scion of the world's great, up to the zenith of life and now left him alone, the sole representative of its power. Thalma had pa.s.sed on, and in the first crushing moments of his agony Omega was tempted to join her. Without effort and without fear or pain, his was the power to check the machinery of life.

Crushed and broken, Omega sat by his dead, while the shadows of night entered the valley and wrapped all in their soft embrace. When would his own hour strike? He might r.e.t.a.r.d or hasten that time, but the real answer lay in that little lake out there under the stars, daily shrinking despite the cloud curtain. There was nothing more to live for, yet he determined to live, to go down fighting like a valiant knight of old, to set an example for the sons of other worlds.

But despite his brave resolution his grief for a while seemed likely to master him. Heart-broken he finally went out into the cold dusk and gazed up at the heavens appealingly.

"Alone!" he whispered as an overwhelming sense of his isolation tore his spirit. "Alone in a dead world--the sole survivor of its vanished life!"

He slumped to the ground and buried his face in the cold dust. His thoughts were jumbled in a maze of pain and sorrow. He could neither pray nor think. Gasping, dying a thousand deaths, he lay there groveling in the dust. But at last he rose, dashed the dust from his eyes and again faced the sky. He would accept the cruel mandate of nature. He would live on and try to conquer all--even death.

He cast his eyes along the sh.o.r.e of the lake, and there in the starlight loomed the form of the dead monster which, but for Thalma's unerring aim, would have been the last of earth's creatures. Omega sighed and turned back to his dead.

But despite his resolution to live the loneliness was sapping Omega's spirit. During the following weeks in a mood of recklessness and despair he allowed the cloud curtain to dissolve above the lake. Once more the sun's hot rays poured down unhindered and the lake receded rapidly.

As time went on Omega grew more restless. Only by taking many voyages around the world was he able to endure the appalling silence. He was the last traveler to visit the ancient marts of man, he was the last hope and despair of life. Sometimes he talked aloud to himself, but his words sounded hollow and ghostly in that deep silence, which only added to his misery.

And then one day in a fit of desperation he rebelled. He cursed the fate that had selected him to drink the last bitter dregs of life. In this desperate frame of mind he evolved a daring plan. He would not drink those dregs alone!