All this hurt his arm severely, but he paid no heed.
“Now,” he announced, “we’re quite ready for business. Come along!”
Together they pushed the boat off; it glided smoothly out onto the breast of the great current.
“I’ll paddle,” she volunteered. “You mustn’t, with your arm in the condition it is. Which way?”
“Up—over there into that cove beyond the point,” he answered, baiting up his hook with a frog that kicked as naturally as though a full thousand years hadn’t passed since any of its progenitors had been handled thus. “This certainly is far from being the kind of tackle that Bob Davis or any of that gang used to swear by, but it’s the best we can do for now. When I get to making lines and hooks and things in earnest, there’ll be some sport in this vicinity. Imagine water untouched by the angler for ten hundred years or more!”
He swung his clumsy line as he spoke, and cast. Far across the shining water the circles spread, silver in the morning light; then the trailing line cut a long series of V’s as the girl paddled slowly toward the cove. Behind the banca a rippling wake flashed metallic; the cold, clear water caressed the primitive hull, murmuring with soft cadences, in the old, familiar music of the time when there were men on earth. The witchery of it stirred Beatrice; she smiled, looked up with joy and wonder at the beauty of that perfect morning, and in her clear voice began to sing, very low, very softly, to herself, a song whereof—save in her brain—no memory now remained in the whole world—
“Stark wie der Fels,
Tief wie das Meer,
Muss deine Liebe, muss deine Liebe sein—”
“Ah!” cried the man, interrupting her.
The alder pole was jerking, quivering in his hands; the leather line was taut.
“A strike, so help me! A big one!”
He sprang to his feet, and, unmindful of the swaying of the banca, began to play the fish.
Beatrice, her eyes a-sparkle, turned to watch; the paddle lay forgotten in her hands.
“Here he comes! Oh, damn!” shouted Stern. “If I only had a reel now—”
“Pull him right in, can’t you?” the girl suggested.
He groaned, between clenched teeth—for the strain on his arm was torture.
“Yes, and have him break the line!” he cried. “There he goes, under the boat, now! Paddle! Go ahead—paddle!”
She seized the oar, and while Stern fought the monster she set the banca in motion again. Now the fish was leaping wildly from side to side, zig-zagging, shaking at the hook as a bulldog shakes an old boot. The leather cord hummed through the water, ripping and vibrating, taut as a fiddle-string. A long, silvery line of bubbles followed the vibrant cord.
Flash!
High in air, lithe and graceful and very swift, a spurt of green and white—a long, slim curve of glistening power—a splash; and again the cord drew hard.
“Maskalonge!” Stern cried. “Oh, we’ve got to land him—got to! Fifteen pounds if he’s an ounce!”
Beatrice, flushed and eager, watched the fight with fascination.
“If I can bring him close, you strike—hit hard!” the man directed. “Give it to him! He’s our breakfast!”
Even in the excitement of the battle Stern realized how very beautiful this woman was. Her color was adorable—rose-leaves and cream. Her eyes were shot full of light and life and the joy of living; her loosened hair, wavy and rich and brown, half hid the graceful curve of her neck as she leaned to watch, to help him.
And strong determination seized him to master this great fish, to land it, to fling it at the woman’s feet as his tribute and his trophy.
He had, in the days of long ago, fished in the Adirondack wildernesses. He had fished for tarpon in the Gulf; he had cast the fly along the brooks of Maine and lured the small-mouthed bass with floating bait on many a lake and stream. He had even fished in a Rocky Mountain torrent, and out on the far Columbia, when failure to succeed meant hunger.
But this experience was unique. Never had he fished all alone in the world with a loved woman who depended on his skill for her food, her life, her everything.
Forgotten now the wounded arm, the crude and absurd implements; forgotten everything but just that sole, indomitable thought: “I’ve got to win!”
Came now a lull in the struggles of the monster. Stern hauled in. Another rush, met by a paying-out, a gradual tautening of the line, a strong and steady pull.
“He’s tiring,” exulted Stern. “Be ready when I bring him close!”
Again the fish broke cover; again it dived; but now its strength was lessening fast.
Allan hauled in.
Now, far down in the clear depths, they could both see the darting, flickering shaft of white and green.
“Up he comes now! Give it to him, hard!”
As Stern brought him to the surface, Beatrice struck with the paddle—once, twice, with magnificent strength and judgment.
Over the gunwale of the banca, in a sparkle of flying spray, silvery in the morning sun, the maskalonge gleamed.
Excited and happy as a child, Beatrice clapped her hands. Stern seized the paddle as she let it fall. A moment later the huge fish, stunned and dying, lay in the bottom of the boat, its gills rising, falling in convulsive gasps, its body quivering, scales shining in the sunlight—a thing of wondrous beauty, a promise of the feast for two strong, healthy humans.
Stern dried his brow on the back of his hand and drew a deep breath, for the morning was already warm and the labor had been hard.
“Now,” said he, and smiled, “now a nice little pile of dead wood on the beach, a curl of birch-bark and a handful of pine punk and grass—a touch of the flint and steel! Then this,” and he pointed at the maskalonge, “broiled on a pointed stick, with a handful of checkerberries for dessert, and I think you and I will be about ready to begin work in earnest!”
He knelt and kissed her—a kiss that she returned—and then, slowly, happily, and filled with the joy of comradeship, they drove their banca once more to the white and gleaming beach.
CHAPTER IV
THE GOLDEN AGE
Stern’s plans of hard work for the immediate present had to be deferred a little, for in spite of his perfect health, the spear-thrust in his arm—lacking the proper treatment, and irritated by his labor in catching the big fish—developed swelling and soreness. A little fever even set in the second day. And though he was eager to go out fishing again, Beatrice appointed herself his nurse and guardian, and withheld permission.
They lived for some days on the excellent flesh of the maskalonge, on clams from the beach—enormous clams of delicious flavor—on a new fruit with a pinkish meat, which grew abundantly in the thickets and somewhat resembled breadfruit; on wild asparagus-sprouts, and on the few squirrels that Stern was able to “pot” with his revolver from the shelter of the leafy little camping-place they had arranged near the river.
Though Beatrice worked many hours all alone in the bungalow, sweeping it with a broom made of twigs lashed to a pole, and trying to bring the place into order, it was still no fit habitation.
She would not even let the man try to help her, but insisted on his keeping quiet in their camp. This lay under the shelter of a thick-foliaged oak at the southern end of the beach. The perfect weather and the presence of a three-quarters moon at night invited them to sleep out under the sky.
“There’ll be plenty of time for the bungalow,” she said, “when it rains. As long as we have fair June weather like this no roof shall cover me!”
Singularly enough, there were no mosquitoes. In the thousand years that had elapsed, they might either have shifted their habitat from eastern America, or else some obscure evolutionary process might have wiped them out entirely. At any rate, none existed, for which the two adventurers gave thanks.
Wild beasts they feared not. Though now and then they heard the yell of a wildcat far back in the woods, or the tramping of an occasional bulk through the forest, and thou
gh once a cinnamon bear poked his muzzle out into the clearing, sniffed and departed with a grunt of disapproval, they could not bring themselves to any realization of animals as a real peril. Their camp-fire burned high all night, heaped with driftwood and windfalls; and beyond this protection, Stern had his automatic and a belt nearly full of cartridges. They discussed the question of a possible attack by some remnants of the Horde; but common sense assured them that these creatures would—such as survived—give them a wide berth.
“And in any event,” Stern summed it up, “if anything happens, we have the bungalow to retreat into. Though in its present state, without any doors or shutters, I think we’re safer out among the trees, where, on a pinch, we could go aloft.”
Thus his convalescence progressed in the open air, under the clouds and sun and stars and lustrous moon of that deserted world.
Beatrice showed both skill and ingenuity in her treatment. With a clamshell she scraped and saved the rich fat from under the skins of the squirrels, and this she “tried out” in a golden dish, over the fire. The oil thus got she used to anoint his healing wound. She used a dressing of clay and leaves; and when the fever flushed him she made him comfortable on his bed of spruce-tips, bathed his forehead and cheeks, and gave him cold water from a spring that trickled down over the moss some fifty feet to westward of the camp.
Many a long talk they had, too—he prone on the spruce, she sitting beside him, tending the fire, holding his hand or letting his head lie in her lap, the while she stroked his hair. Ferns, flowers in profusion—lilacs and clover and climbing roses and some new, strange scarlet blossoms—bowered their nest. And through the pain and fever, the delay and disappointment, they both were glad and cheerful. No word of impatience or haste or repining escaped them. For they had life; they had each other; they had love. And those days, as later they looked back upon them, were among the happiest, the most purely beautiful, the sweetest of their whole wondrous, strange experience.
He and she, perfect friends, comrades and lovers, were inseparable. Each was always conscious of the other’s presence. The continuity of love, care and sympathy was never broken. Even when, at daybreak, she went away around the wooded point for her bath in the river, he could hear her splashing and singing and laughing happily in the cold water.
It was the Golden Age come back to earth again—the age of natural and pure simplicity, truth, trust, honor, faith and joy, unspoiled by malice or deceit, by lies, conventions, sordid ambitions, or the lust of wealth or power. Arcady, at last—in truth!
Their conversation was of many things. They talked of their awakening in the tower and their adventures there; of the possible cause of the world-catastrophe that had wiped out the human race, save for their own survival; the Horde and the great battle; their escape, their present condition, and their probable future; the possibility of their ever finding any other isolated human beings, and of reconstituting the fragments of the world or of renewing the human race.
And as they spoke of this, sometimes the girl would grow strangely silent, and a look almost of inspiration—the universal mother—look of the race—would fill her wondrous eye’s. Her hand would tremble in his; but he would hold it tight, for he, too, understood.
“Afraid, little girl?” he asked her once.
“No, not afraid,” she answered; and their eyes met. “Only—so much depends on us—on you, on me! What strength we two must have, what courage, what endurance! The future of the human race lies in our hands!”
He made no answer; he, too, grew silent. And for a long while they sat and watched the embers of the fire; and the day waned. Slowly the sun set in its glory over the virgin hills; the far eastern spaces of the sky grew bathed in tender lavenders and purples. Haze drew its veils across the world, and the air grew brown with evenfall.
Presently the girl arose, to throw more wood on the fire. Clad only in her loose tiger-skin, clasped with gold, she moved like a primeval goddess. Stern marked the supple play of her muscles, the unspoiled grace and strength of that young body, the swelling warmth of her bosom. And as he looked he loved; he pressed a hand to his eyes; for a while he thought—it was as though he prayed.
Evening came on—the warm, dark, mysterious night. Off there in the shallows gradually arose the million-voiced chorus of frogs, shrill and monotonous, plaintive, appealing—the cry of new life to the overarching, implacable mystery of the universe. The first faint silvery powder of the stars came spangling out along the horizon. Unsteady bats began to reel across the sky. The solemn beauty of the scene awed the woman and the man to silence. But Stern, leaning his back against the bole of the great oak, encircled Beatrice with his arm.
Her beautiful dear head rested in the hollow of his throat; her warm, fragrant hair caressed his cheek; he felt the wholesome strength and sweetness of this woman whom he loved; and in his eyes—unseen by her—tears welled and gleamed in the firelight.
Beatrice watched, like a contented child, the dancing showers of sparks that rose, wavering and whirling in complex sarabands—sparks red as passion, golden as the unknown future of their dreams. From the river they heard the gentle lap-lap-lapping of the waves along the shore. All was rest and peace and beauty; this was Eden once again—and there was no serpent to enter in.
Presently Stern spoke.
“Dear,” said he, “do you know, I’m a bit puzzled in some ways, about—well, about night and day, and temperature, and gravitation, and a number of little things like that. Puzzled. We’re facing problems here that we don’t realize fully as yet.”
“Problems? What problems, except to make our home, and—and live?”
“No, there’s more to be considered than just that. In the first place, although I have no timepiece, I’m moderately certain the day and night are shorter now than they used to be before the smash-up. There must be a difference of at least half an hour. Just as soon as I can get around to it, I’ll build a clock, and see. Though if the force of gravity has changed, too, that, of course, will change the time of vibration of any pendulum, and so of course will invalidate my results. It’s a hard problem, right enough.”
“You think gravitation has changed?”
“Don’t you notice, yourself, that things seem a trifle lighter—things that used to be heavy to lift are now comparatively easy?”
“M-m-m-m-m—I don’t know. I thought maybe it was because I was feeling so much stronger, with this new kind of outdoor life.”
“Of course, that’s worth considering,” answered Stern, “but there’s more in it than that. The world is certainly smaller than it was, though how, or why, I can’t say. Things are lighter, and the time of rotation is shorter. Another thing, the pole-star is certainly five degrees out of place. The axis of the earth has been given an astonishing twist, some way or other.
“And don’t you notice a distinct change in the climate? In the old days there were none of these huge, palm-like ferns growing in this part of the world. We had no such gorgeous butterflies. And look at the new varieties of flowers—and the breadfruit, or whatever it is, growing on the banks of the Hudson in the early part of June!
“Something, I tell you, has happened to the earth, in all these centuries; something big! Maybe the cause of it all was the original catastrophe; who knows? It’s up to us to find out. We’ve got more to do than make our home, and live, and hunt for other people—if any are still alive. We’ve got to solve these world—problems; we’ve got work to do, little girl. Work—big work!”
“Well, you’ve got to rest now, anyhow,” she dictated. “Now, stop thinking and planning, and just rest! Till your wound is healed, you’re going to keep good and quiet.”
Silence fell again between them. Then, as the east brightened with the approach of the moon, she sang the song he loved best—“Ave Maria, Gratia Plena”—in her soft, sweet voice, untrained, unspoiled by false conventions. And Stern, listening, forgot his problems and his plans; peace came to his soul, and rest and joy.
&n
bsp; The song ended. And now the moon, with a silent majesty that shamed human speech, slid her bright silver plate up behind the fret of trees on the far hills. Across the river a shimmering path of light grew, broadening; and the world beamed in holy beauty, as on the primal night.
And their souls drank that beauty. They were glad, as never yet. At last Stern spoke.
“It’s more like a dream than a reality, isn’t it?” said he. “Too wonderful to be true. Makes me think of Alfred de Musset’s ‘Lucie.’ You remember the poem?
“‘Un soir, nous étions seuls,
J’étais assis près d’elle . ..’”
Beatrice nodded.
“Yes, I know!” she whispered. “How could I forget it? And to think that for a thousand years the moon’s been shining just the same, and nobody—”
“Yes, but is it the same?” interrupted Stern suddenly, his practical turn of mind always reasserting itself. “Don’t you see a difference? You remember the old-time face in the moon, of course. Where is it now? The moon always presented only one side, the same side, to us in the old days. How about it now? If I’m not mistaken, things have shifted up there. We’re looking now at some other face of it. And if that’s so it means a far bigger disarrangement of the solar system and the earth’s orbit and lots of things than you or I suspect!
“Wait till we get back to New York for half a day, and visit the tower and gather up our things. Wait till I get hold of my binoculars again! Perhaps some of these questions may be resolved. We can’t go on this way, surrounded by perpetual puzzles, problems, mysteries! We must—”
“Do nothing but rest now!” she dictated with mock severity.
Stern laughed.
“Well, you’re the boss,” he answered, and leaned back against the oak. “Only, may I propound one more question?”
“Well, what is it?”
“Do you see that dark patch in the sky? Sort of a roughly circular hole in the blue, as it were—right there?” He pointed. “Where there aren’t any stars?”
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