CHAPTER IX
HEADWAY AGAINST ODDS
Stern gazed at this alarming object with far more trepidationthan he would have eyed a token authentically labeled: "Direct fromMars."
For the space of a full half-minute he found no word, grasped nocoherent thought, came to no action save to stand there,thunder-struck, holding the rotten leather bag in one hand, thespear-head in the other.
Then, suddenly, he shouted a curse and made as though to fling itclean away. But ere it had left his grasp, he checked himself.
"No, there's no use in _that_," said he, quite slowly. "If this thingis what it appears to be, if it isn't merely some freakish bit ofstone weathered off somewhere, why, it means--my God, what _doesn't_it mean?"
He shuddered, and glanced fearfully about him; all his calculationsalready seemed crashing down about him; all his plans, half-formulated,appeared in ruin.
New, vast and unknown factors of the struggle broadened rapidly beforehis mental vision, _if_ this thing were really what it looked to be.
Keenly he peered at the bit of flint in his palm. There it lay, realenough, an almost perfect specimen of the flaker's art, showingdistinctly where the wood had been applied to the core to peel off themany successive layers.
It could not have been above three and a half inches long, by one anda quarter wide, at its broadest part. The heft, where it had beenhollowed to hold the lashings, was well marked.
A diminutive object and a skilfully-formed one. At any other time orplace, the engineer would have considered the finding a good fortune;but now--!
"Yet after all," he said aloud, as if to convince himself, "it's onlya bit of stone! What can it prove?"
His subconsciousness seemed to make answer: "So, too, the sign thatRobinson Crusoe found on the beach was only a human foot-mark. Do notdeceive yourself!"
In deep thought the engineer stood there a moment or two. Then, "Bah!"cried he. "What does it matter, anyhow? Let it come--whatever it is!If I hadn't just happened to find this, I'd have been none the wiser."And he dropped the bit of flint into the bag along with the otherthings.
Again he picked up his sledge, and, now more cautiously, once morestarted forward.
"All I can do," he thought, "is just to go right ahead as though thishadn't happened at all. If trouble comes, it comes, that's all. Iguess I can meet it. Always _have_ got away with it, so far. We'llsee. What's on the cards has got to be played to a finish, and thebest hand wins!"
He retraced his way to the spring, where he carefully rinsed andfilled the Cosmos bottle for Beatrice. Then back to the Metropolitanhe came, donned his bear--skin, which he fastened with a wire nail,and started the long climb. His sledge he carefully hid on the secondfloor, in an office at the left of the stairway.
"Don't think much of this hammer, after all," said he. "What I need isan ax. Perhaps this afternoon I can have another go at that hardwareplace and find one.
"If the handle's gone, I can heft it with green wood. With a good axand these two revolvers--till I find some rifles--I guess we're safeenough, spearheads or not!"
About him he glanced at the ever-present molder and decay. Thisoffice, he could easily see, had been both spacious and luxurious, butnow it offered a sorry spectacle. In the dust over by a windowsomething glittered dully.
Stern found it was a fragment of a beveled mirror, which had probablyhung there and, when the frame rotted, had dropped. He brushed it offand looked eagerly into it.
A cry of amazement burst from him.
"Do I look like _that?_" he shouted. "Well, I won't, for long!"
He propped the glass up on the steel beam of the window-opening, andgot the scissors out of the bag. Ten minutes later, the face of AllanStern bore some resemblance to its original self. True enough, hishair remained a bit jagged, especially in the back, his brows weresomewhat uneven, and the point to which his beard was trimmed was farfrom perfect.
But none the less his wild savagery had given place to a certainaspect of civilization that made the white bearskin over his shoulderslook doubly strange.
Stern, however, was well pleased. He smiled in satisfaction.
"What will _she_ think, and say?" he wondered, as he once more took upthe bag and started on the long, exhausting climb.
Sweating profusely, badly "blown,"--for he had not taken much time torest on the way--the engineer at last reached his offices in thetower.
Before entering, he called the girl's name.
"Beatrice! Oh, Beatrice! Are you awake, and visible?"
"All right, come in!" she answered cheerfully, and came to meet him inthe doorway. Out to him she stretched her hand, in welcome; and thesmile she gave him set his heart pounding.
He had to laugh at her astonishment and naive delight over his changedappearance; but all the time his eyes were eagerly devouring herbeauty.
For now, freshly-awakened, full of new life and vigor after a soundnight's sleep, the girl was magnificent.
The morning light disclosed new glints of color in her wondrous hair,as it lay broad and silken on the tiger-skin.
This she had secured at the throat and waist with bits of metal takenfrom the wreckage of the filing-cabinet.
Stern promised himself that ere long he would find her a profusion ofgold pins and chains, in some of the Fifth Avenue shops, to serve herpurposes till she could fashion real clothing.
As she gave him her hand, the Bengal skin fell back from her round,warm, cream-white arm.
At sight of it, at vision of that messy crown of hair and of thosegray, penetrant, questioning eyes, the man's spent breath quickened.
He turned his own eyes quickly away, lest she should read his thought,and began speaking--of what? He hardly knew. Anything, till he couldmaster himself.
But through it all he knew that in his whole life, till nowself-centered, analytical, cold, he never had felt such real,spontaneous happiness.
The touch of her fingers, soft and warm, dispelled his every anxiety.The thought that he was working, now, for her; serving her; strivingto preserve and keep her, thrilled him with joy.
And as some foregleam of the future came to him, his fears droppedfrom him like those outworn rags he had discarded in the forest.
"Well, so we're both up and at it, again," he exclaimed,common-placely enough, his voice a bit uncertain. Stern had walkednarrow girders six hundred feet sheer up; he had worked in caissonsunder tide-water, with the air-pumps driving full tilt to keep deathout.
He had swung in a bosun's-chair down the face of the Yosemite Canyonat Cathedral Spires. But never had he felt emotions such as now. Andgreatly he marveled.
"I've had luck," he continued. "See here, and here?"
He showed her his treasures, all the contents of the bag, except thespear-point. Then, giving her the Cosmos bottle, he bade her drink.Gratefully she did so, while he explained to her the finding of thespring.
Her face aglow with eagerness and brave enthusiasts, she listened. Butwhen he told her about the bathing-pool, an envious expression came toher.
"It's not fair," she protested, "for you to monopolize that. If you'llshow me the place--and just stay around in the woods, to see thatnothing hurts me--"
"You'll take a dip, too?"
Eagerly she nodded, her eyes beaming.
"I'm just dying for one!" she exclaimed. "Think! I haven't had a bath,now, for _x_ years!"
"I'm at your service," declared the engineer. And for a moment alittle silence came between them, a silence so profound that theycould even hear the faint, far cheepings of the mud-swallows in thetower stair, above.
At the back of Stern's brain still lurked a haunting fear of the wood,of what the assegai-point might portend, but he dispelled it.
"Well, come along down," bade he. "It's getting late, already. Butfirst, we must take just one more look, by this fresh morning light,from the platform up above, there?"
She assented readily. Together, talking of their first urgent needs,of their plans for this new
day and for this wonderful, strange lifethat now confronted them, they climbed the stairs again. Once morethey issued out on to the weed-grown platform of red tiles.
There they stood a moment, looking out with wonder over that vast,still, marvelous prospect of life-in-death. Suddenly the engineerspoke.
"Tell me," said he, "where did you get that line of verse you quotedlast night? The one about this vast city--heart all lying still, youknow?"
"That? Why, that was from Wordsworth's Sonnet on London Bridge, ofcourse," she smiled up at him. "You remember it now, don't you?"
"No-o," he disclaimed a trifle dubiously. "I--that is, I never wasmuch on poetry, you understand. It wasn't exactly in my line. Butnever mind. How did it go? I'd like to hear it, tremendously."
"I don't just recall the whole poem," she answered thoughtfully. "ButI know part of it ran:
'......This city now doth like a garment wear The beauty of the morning. Silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theaters, and temples lie Open unto the fields and to the sky All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.'"
A moment she paused to think. The sun, lancing its long and level raysacross the water and the vast dead city, irradiated her face.
Instinctively, as she looked abroad over that wondrous panorama, sheraised both bare arms; and, clad in the tiger-skin alone, stood for alittle space like some Parsee priestess, sun-worshiping, on her towerof silence.
Stern looked at her, amazed.
Was this, could this indeed be the girl he had employed, in the olddays--the other days of routine and of tedium, of orders andspecifications and dry-as-dust dictation? As though from a strangespell he aroused himself.
"The poem?" exclaimed he. "What next?"
"Oh, that? I'd almost forgotten about that; I was dreaming. It goesthis way, I think:
'Never did the sun more beautifully steep In his first splendor valley, rock, or hill, Ne'er saw I, never felt a calm so deep; The river glideth at his own sweet will. Dear God! the very houses seem asleep, And all this mighty heart is standing still!......'"
She finished the tremendous classic almost in a whisper.
They both stood silent a moment, gazing out together on that strange,inexplicable fulfilment of the poet's vision.
Up to them, through the crystal morning air, rose a faint, small soundof waters, from the brooklet in the forest. The nesting birds, below,were busy "in song and solace"; and through the golden sky above, aswallow slanted on sharp wing toward some unseen, leafy goal.
Far out upon the river, faint specks of white wheeled and hovered--aflock of swooping gulls, snowy and beautiful and free. Their pinionsflashed, spiralled and sank to rest on the wide waters.
Stern breathed a sigh. His right arm slipped about the sinuous,fur-robed body of the girl.
"Come, now!" said he, with returning practicality. "Bath for you,breakfast for both of us--then we must buckle down to work. _Come!_"