CHAPTER XXIX
SHADOWS OF WAR
A blue and flickering gleam of light, dim, yet persistent,seemed to enhalo a woman's face; and as Stern's weary eyes openedunder languid lids, closed, then opened again, the wounded engineersmiled in his weakness.
"Beatrice!" he whispered, and tried to stretch a hand to her, as shesat beside his bed of seaweed covered with the coarse brown fabric."Oh, Beatrice! Is this--is this another--hallucination?"
She took the hand and kissed it, then bent above him and kissed himagain, this time fair upon the lips.
"No, boy," she answered. "No hallucination, but reality! You're allright now--and _I'm_ all right! You've had a little feverand--and--well, don't ask any questions, that's all. Here, drink thisnow and go to sleep!"
She set a massive golden bowl to his mouth, and very gently raised hishead.
Unquestioningly he drank, as though he had been a child and she hismother. The liquid, warm and somewhat sweet, had just a tang of somenew taste that he had never known. Singularly vitalizing it seemed,soothing yet full of life. With a sigh of contentment, despite thenumb ache in his right temple, he lay back and once more closed hiseyes. Never had he felt such utter weakness. All his forces seemeddrained and spent; even to breathe was very difficult.
Feebly he raised his hand to his head.
"Bandaged?" he whispered. "What does _that_ mean?"
"It means you're to go to sleep now!" she commanded. "That's all--justgo to sleep!"
He lay quiet a moment, but sleep would not come. A score, a hundredthoughts confusedly crowded his brain.
And once more looking up at her in the dim blue gloom of the hut wherethey were, he breathed a question:
"Were you badly hurt, dear, in--in the battle?"
"No, Allan. Just stunned, that's all. Not even wounded. Be quiet nowor I'll scold!"
He raised his arms to her and, weak though he was, took her to hisbreast and held her tight, tight.
"Thank God!" he whispered. "Oh, I love you! I love you so! If you'dbeen killed--"
She felt his tears hot upon his wasted cheeks, and unloosened hisarms.
"There, there!" she soothed him. "You'll get into a fever again if youdon't lie still and try not to think! You--"
"When was it? Yesterday?" he interrupted.
"Sh-h-h-h! No more questions now."
"But I want to know! And what happened to me? And the--the Lanskaarn?What about them? And--"
"Heavens, but you're inquisitive for a man that's just missed--I mean,that's been as sick as you have!" she exclaimed, taking his head inboth hands and gazing down at him with eyes more deeply tender than hehad ever seen them. "Now do be good, boy, and don't worry about allthese things, but go to sleep--there's a dear. And when you wake upnext time--"
"No, no!" he insisted with passionate eagerness. "I'm not that kind!I'm not a child, Beta! I've got to know--I can't go to sleep withoutknowing. Tell me a little about it, about what happened, andthen--then I'll sleep as long as you say!"
She pondered a moment, weighing matters, then made answer:
"All right, boy, only remember your promise!"
"I will."
"Good! Now listen. I'll tell you what the old man told me, fornaturally I don't remember the last part of the fight any better thanyou do.
"I was struck by a flying stone, and--well, it wasn't anythingserious. It just stunned me for a while. I came to in a hut."
"Where I carried you, dearest, just before I--"
"Yes, I know, just before the battle-ax--"
"Was it an ax that hit me?"
"Yes. But it was only a glancing blow. Your long hair helped save you,too. But even so--"
"Skull cracked?"
"No, I guess concussion of the brain would be the right term for it."She took his groping hand in both her own warm, strong ones and kissedit tenderly. "But before you fell, your raking fire along the wallthere--you understand--"
"Cleaned 'em out, eh?" he queried eagerly.
"That's about it. It turned the tide against the Lanskaarn. And afterthat--I guess it was just butchery. I don't know, of course, and theold man hasn't wanted to tell me much; but anyway, the ladders allwent down, and the Folk here made a sortie from the gate, down thecauseway, and--and--"
"And they've got a lot more of those infernal skeletons hanging on thepoles by the fire?" he concluded in a rasping whisper.
She nodded, then kept a minute's silence.
"Did any of 'em get away in their canoes?"
"A few. But in all their history the Folk never won such a victory.Oh, it was glorious, glorious! And all because of you!"
"And you, dear!"
"And now--now," she went on, "we're not prisoners any more, but--"
"Everything coming our way? Is that it?"
"That's it. They dragged you out, after the battle, from under a bigheap of bodies under the wall."
"Outside or inside?"
"Outside, on the beach. They brought you in, for dead, boy. And Iguess they had an awful time about you, from what I've found out--"
"Big powwow, and all that?"
"Yes. If you'd died, they'd have gone on a huge war expedition out tothe islands, wherever those are, and simply wiped out the rest of theLanskaarn. But--"
"I'm glad I didn't," he interrupted. "No more killing from now on! Wewant all the living humans we can get; we need 'em in our business!"
Stern was growing excited; the girl had to calm him once more.
"Be quiet, Allan, or I'll leave you this minute and you shan't knowanother thing!" she threatened.
"All right, I'll be good," he promised. "What next? I'm the Big Chiefnow, of course? What I say now _goes?_"
She answered nothing, but a troubled wrinkle drew between her perfectbrows. For a moment there was silence, save for the dull and distantroaring of the flame.
By the glow of the bluish light in the hut, Stern looked up at her.Never had she seemed so beautiful. The heavy masses of her hair,parted in the middle and fastened with gold pins such as the Folkwore, framed her wonderful face with twilight shadows. He saw she wasno longer clad in fur, but in a loose and flowing mantle of the brownfabric, caught up below the breast with a gold-clasped girdle.
"Oh, Beatrice," he breathed, "kiss me again!"
She kissed him; but even in the caress he sensed an unvoiced anxiety,a hidden fear.
"What's wrong?" asked he anxiously.
"Nothing, dear. Now you _must_ be quiet! You're in the patriarch'shouse here. You're safe--for the present, and--"
"For the present? What do you mean?"
"See here." the girl threatened, "if you don't stop asking questions,and go to sleep again, I'll leave you alone!"
"In that case I promise!"
And now obedient, he closed his eyes, relaxed, and let her soothinglycaress him. But still another thought obtruded on his mind.
"Beatrice?"
"Yes, dearest."
"How long ago was that fight?"
"Oh, a little while. Never mind now!"
"Yes, but how long? Two days? Four? Five?"
"They don't have days down here," she evaded.
"I know. But reckoning our way--five days?"
"Nearer ten, Allan."
"_What?_ But then--"
The girl withdrew her hand from him and arose.
"I see it's no use, Allan," she said decisively. "So long as I staywith you you'll ask questions and excite yourself. I'm going! Thenyou'll _have_ to keep still!"
"Beta! Beta!" he implored. "I'll be good! Don't leave me--you_mustn't!_"
"All right; but if you ask me another question, a single one, mind,I'll truly go!"
"Just give me your hand, girlie, that's all! Come here--sit downbeside me again--so!"
He turned on his side, on the rude couch of coarse brown fabricstuffed with dried seaweed, laid his hollow cheek upon her hand, andgave a deep sigh.
"Now, I'm off," he murmured. "Only, don't leave me, Beta!"
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p; For half an hour after his deep, slow breathing told that the woundedman was sleeping soundly--half an hour as time was measured where thesun shone, for down in the black depths of the abyss all suchdivisions were as naught, Beatrice sat lovingly and tenderly besidethe primitive bed. Her right palm beneath his face, she stroked hislong hair and his wan cheek with her other hand; and now she smiledwith pride and reminiscence, now a grave, troubled look crossed herfeatures.
The light, a fiber wick burning in a stone cup of oil upon astone-slab table in the center of the hut, "uttered unsteadily,casting huge and dancing shadows up the black walls.
"Oh, my beloved!" whispered the girl, and bent above him till theloosened sheaves of her hair swept his face. "My love! Only for you,where should I be now? With you, how could I be afraid? And yet--"
She turned at a sound from a narrow door opposite the larger one thatgave upon the plaza, a door, like the other, closed by a heavy curtainplatted of seaweed.
There, holding the curtain back, stood the blind patriarch. His hut,larger than most in the strange village, boasted two rooms. Now fromthe inner one, where he had been resting, he came to speak withBeatrice.
"Peace, daughter!" said the old man. "Peace be unto you. He sleeps?"
"Yes, father. He's much better now, I think. His constitution issimply marvelous."
"Verily, he is strong. But far stronger are those terrible andwonderful weapons of yours! If our Folk only had such!"
"You're better off without them. But of course, if you want tounderstand them, he can explain them in due time. Those, and endlessother things!"
"I believe that is truth." The patriarch advanced into the room, andfor a minute stood by the bedside with venerable dignity. "Thetraditions, I remember, tell of so many strange matters. I shall knowthem, every one. All in time, all in time!"
"Your simple medicines, down here, are wonderful," said the girladmiringly. "What did you put into that draught I gave him to make himsleep this way?"
"Only the steeped root of our _n'gahar_ plant, my daughter--a simpleweed brought up from the bottom of this sea by our strong divers. Itis nothing, nothing."
Came silence again. The aged man sat down upon a curved stone benchthat followed the contour of the farther wall. Presently he spoke oncemore.
"Daughter," said he, "it is now ten sleeping--times--nights, theEnglish speech calls them, if I remember what my grandfather taughtme--since the battle. And my son, here, still lies weak and sick. I gosoon to get still other plants for him. Stronger plants, to make himwell and powerful again. For there is haste now--haste!"
"You mean--Kamrou?"
"Yea, Kamrou! I know the temper of that evil man better than anyother. He and his boats may return from the great fisheries in theWhite Gulf beyond the vortex at any time, and--"
"But, father, after all we've done for the village here, andespecially after what Allan's done? After this wonderful victory, Ican't believe--"
"You do not know that man!" exclaimed the patriarch. "_I_ know him!Rather would he and his slay every living thing in this community thanyield one smallest atom of power to any other."
He arose wearily and gathered his mantle all about him, then reachedfor his staff that leaned beside the outer door.
"Peace!" he exclaimed. "Ah, when shall we have peace and learning anda better life again? The teaching and the learning of the Englishspeech and all the arts you know, now lost to us--to us, the abandonedFolk in the abyss? When? When?"
He raised the curtain to depart; but even then he paused once more,and turned to her.
"Verily, you have spoken truth," said he, "when you have said thatall, all _here_ are with us, with you and this wondrous man now lyingweak and wounded in my house. But Kamrou--is different. Alas, you knowhim not--you know him not!
"Watch well over my son, here! Soon must he grow strong again. Soon,soon! Soon, against the coming of Kamrou. For if the chief returns andmy son be weak still, then woe to him, to you, to me! Woe to us all!Woe, Woe!"
The curtain fell. The patriarch was gone. Outside, Beatrice heard theclick-click-click of his iron staff upon the smooth and flinty rockfloor.
And to her ears, mingled with the far roaring of the flame, driftedthe words:
"Woe, woe to him! Woe to us all--woe--woe!"
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