Authors: George England
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.
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 though 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
clam-shell 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.
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 etions seuls,
J'etais assis pres d'elle . ..'"