CHAPTER I
BEGINNINGS
A thousand years of darkness and decay! A thousand years ofblight, brutality, and atavism; of Nature overwhelming all man's work,of crumbling cities and of forgotten civilization, of stupefaction, ofdeath! A thousand years of night!
Two human beings, all alone in that vast wilderness--a woman and aman.
The past, irrevocable; the present, fraught with problems, perils, andalarms; the future--what?
A thousand years!
Yet, though this thousand years had seemingly smeared away allsemblance of the world of men from the cosmic canvas, Allan Stern andBeatrice Kendrick thrilled with as vital a passion as though thatvast, oblivious age lay not between them and the time that was.
And their long kiss, there in sight of their new home-to-be--alonethere in that desolated world--was as natural as the summer breeze,the liquid melody of the red-breast on the blossomy apple-bough abovetheir heads, the white and purple spikes of odorous lilacs along thevine-grown stone wall, the gold and purple dawn now breaking over thedistant reaches of the river.
Thus were these two betrothed, this sole surviving pair of humanbeings.
Thus, as the new day burned to living flame up the inverted bowl ofsky, this woman and this man pledged each other their love and loyaltyand trust.
Thus they stood together, his left arm about her warm, lithe body,clad as she was only in her tiger-skin. Their eyes met and held true,there in the golden glory of the dawn. Unafraid, she read the messagein the depths of his, the invitation, the command; and they bothforeknew the future.
Beatrice spoke first, flushing a little as she drew toward him.
"Allan," she said with infinite tenderness, even as a mother mightspeak to a well-loved son, "Allan, come now and let me dress yourwound. That's the first thing to do. Come, let me see your arm."
He smiled a little, and with his broad, brown hand stroked back thespun silk of her hair, its mass transfixed by the raw gold pins he hadfound for her among the ruins of New York.
"No, no!" he objected. "It's nothing--it's not worth bothering about.I'll be all right in a day or two. My flesh heals almost at once,without any care. You don't realize how healthy I am."
"I know, dear, but it must hurt you terribly!"
"Hurt? How could I feel any pain with your kiss on my mouth?"
"Come!" she again repeated with insistence, and pointed toward thebeach where their banca lay on the sand.
"Come, I'll dress your wound first. And after I find out just howbadly you're injured--"
He tried to stop her mouth with kisses, but she evaded him.
"No, no!" she cried. "Not now--not now!"
Allan had to cede. And now presently there he knelt on the fine whitesand, his bearskin robe opened and flung back, his well-knit shoulderand sinewed arm bare and brown.
"Well, is it fatal?" he jested. "How long do you give me to surviveit?" as with her hand and the cold limpid water of the Hudson shestarted to lave the caked blood away from his gashed triceps.
At sight of the wound she looked grave, but made no comment. She hadno bandages; but with the woodland skill she had developed in the pastweeks of life in close touch with nature, she bound the cleansed woundwith cooling leaves and fastened them securely in place with lashingsof leather thongs from the banca.
Presently the task was done. Stern slipped his bearskin back in place.Beatrice, still solicitous, tried to clasp the silver buckle that heldit; but he, unable to restrain himself, caught her hand in both of hisand crushed it to his lips.
Then he took her perfect face between his palms, and for a long momentstudied it. He looked at her waving hair, luxuriant and glinting richbrown gleams in the sunlight; her thick, arched brows and hazel eyes,liquid and full of mystery as woodland pools; her skin, sun-brownedand satiny, with abundant tides of life-blood coursing vigorously inits warm flush; her ripe lips. He studied her, and loved and yearnedtoward her; and in him the passion leaped up like living flames.
His mouth met hers again.
"My beloved!" breathed he.
Her rounded arm, bare to the shoulder, circled his neck; she hid herface in his breast.
"Not yet--not yet!" she whispered.
On the white and pink flowered bough above, the robin, unafraid,gushed into a very madness of golden song. And now the sun, higherrisen, had struck the river into a broad sheet of spun metal, overwhich the swallows--even as in the olden days--darted and spiraled,with now and then a flick and dash of spray.
Far off, wool-white winding-sheets of mist were lifting, lagging alongthe purple hills, clothed with inviolate forest.
Again the man tried to raise her head, to burn his kisses on hermouth. But she, instilled with the eternal spirit of woman, deniedhim.
"No, not now--not yet!" she said; and in her eyes he read her meaning."You must let me go now, Allan. There's so much to do; we've got to bepractical, you know."
"Practical! When I--I love--"
"Yes, I know, dear. But there's so much to be done first." Her womanlyhomemaking instinct would not be gainsaid. "There's so much work!We've got the place to explore, and the house to put in order,and--oh, thousands of things! And we must be very sensible and verywise, you and I, boy. We're not children, you know. Now that we'velost our home in the Metropolitan Tower, everything's got to be doneover again."
"Except to learn to love you!" answered Stern, letting her go withreluctance.
She laughed back at him over her fur-clad shoulder as her sandaledfeet followed the dim remnants of what must once have been a broaddriveway from the river road along the beach, leading up to thebungalow.
Through the encroaching forest and the tangle of the degenerateapple-trees they could see the concrete walls, with here or there abit of white still gleaming through the enlacements of ancient vinesthat had enveloped the whole structure--woodbine, ivy, wisterias, andthe maddest jungle of climbing roses, red and yellow, that ever made anest for love.
"Wait, I'll go first and clear the way for you," he said cheerily. Hisbig bulk crashed down the undergrowth. His hands held back the thornsand briers and the whipping hardbacks. Together they slowly made waytoward the house.
The orchard had lost all semblance of regularity, for in the thousandyears since the hand of man had pruned or cared for it Mother Naturehad planted and replanted it times beyond counting. Small and gnarledand crooked the trees were, as the spine-tree souls in Dante'sdolorosa selva.
Here or there a pine had rooted and grown tall, killing the lessertribe of green things underneath.
Warm lay the sun there. A pleasant carpet of last year's leaves andpine-spills covered the earth.
"It's all ready and waiting for us, all embowered and carpeted forlove," said Allan musingly. "I wonder what old Van Amburg would thinkof his estate if he could see it now? And what would he say to ourhaving it? You know, Van was pretty ugly to me at one time about mypolitical opinion--but that's all past and forgotten now. Only this iscertainly an odd turn of fate."
He helped the girl over a fallen log, rotted with moss and lichens."It's one awful mess, sure as you're born. But as quick as my arm getsback into shape, we'll have order out of chaos before you know it.Some fine day you and I will drive our sixty horse-power car up anasphalt road here, and--"
"A car? Why, what do you mean? There's not such a thing left in thewhole world as a car!"
The engineer tapped his forehead with his finger.
"Oh, yes, there is. I've got several models right here. You just waittill you see the workshop I'm going to install on the bank of theriver with current-power, and with an electric light plant for thewhole place, and with--"
Beatrice laughed.
"You dear, big, dreaming boy!" she interrupted. Then with a kiss shetook his hand.
"Come," said she. "We're home now. And there's work to do."
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