CHAPTER X
TERROR
Noon found them far advanced in the preliminaries of their hardadventuring.
Working together in a strong and frank companionship--the pasttemporarily forgotten and the future still put far away--half a day'slabor advanced them a long distance on the road to safety.
Even these few hours sufficed to prove that, unless some strange,untoward accident befell, they stood a more than equal chance ofwinning out.
Realizing to begin with, that a home on the forty-eighth story of thetower was entirely impractical, since it would mean that most of theirtime would have to be used in laborious climbing, they quickly changedtheir dwelling.
They chose a suite of offices on the fifth floor, looking directly outover and into the cool green beauty of Madison Forest. In an hour orso, they cleared out the bats and spiders, the rubbish and the dust,and made the place very decently presentable.
"Well, that's a good beginning, anyhow," remarked the engineer,standing back and looking critically at the finished work.
"I don't see why we shouldn't make a fairly comfortable home out ofthis, for a while. It's not too high for ease, and it's high enoughfor safety--to keep prowling bears and wolves and--and other thingsfrom exploring us in the night."
He laughed, but memories of the spear-head tinged his merriment withapprehension. "In a day or two I'll make some kind of an outer door,or barricade. But first, I need that ax and some other things. Can youspare me for a while, now?"
"I'd _rather_ go along, too," she answered wistfully, from thewindow-sill where she sat resting.
"No, not this time, please!" he entreated. "First I've got to go 'wayto the top of the tower and bring down my chemicals and all the otherthings up there.
"Then I'm going out on a hunt for dishes, a lamp, some oil and no endof things. You save your strength for a while; stay here and keephouse and be a good girl!"
"All right," she acceded, smiling a little sadly. "But really, I feelquite able to go."
"This afternoon, perhaps; not now. Good-by!" And he started for thedoor. Then a thought struck him. He turned and came back.
"By the way," said he, "if we can fix up some kind of a holster, I'lltake one of those revolvers. With the best of this leather here,"nodding at the Gladstone bag, "I should imagine we could manufacturesomething serviceable."
They planned the holster together, and he cut it out with his knife,while she slit leather thongs to lash it with. Presently it was done,and a strap to tie it round his waist with--a crude, rough thing, butjust as useful as though finished with the utmost skill.
"We'll make another for you when I get home this noon," he remarkedpicking up the automatic and a handful of cartridges. Quickly hefilled the magazine. The shells were green with verdigris, and many arust-spot disfigured the one-time brightness of the arm.
As he stepped over to the window, aimed and pulled the trigger, asharp and welcome report burst from the weapon. And a few leaves,clipped from an oak in the forest, zigzagged down in the bright, warmsunlight.
"I guess she'll do all right!" he laughed, sliding the ugly weaponinto his new holster. "You see, the powder and fulminate, sealed up inthe cartridges, are practically imperishable. Here, let me load yours,too.
"If you want something to do, you can practice on that dead limb outthere, see? And don't be afraid of wasting ammunition. There must bemillions of cartridges in this old burg--millions--all ours!"
Again he laughed, and handing her the other pistol, now fully loaded,took his leave. Before he had climbed a hundred feet up the towerstair, he heard a slow, uneven pop--pop--popping, and withsatisfaction knew that Beatrice was already perfecting herself in theuse of the revolver.
"And she may need it, too--we both may, badly--before we know it!"thought he, frowning, as he kept upon his way.
This reflection weighed in so heavily upon him, all due to the flintassegai-point, that he made still another excuse that afternoon and sogot out of taking the girl into the forest with him on his exploringtrip.
The excuse was all the more plausible inasmuch as he left her enoughwork at home to do, making some real clothing and some sandals forthem both. This task, now that the girl had scissors to use, was nottoo hard.
Stern brought her great armfuls of the furs from the shop in thearcade, and left her busily and happily employed.
He spent the afternoon in scouting through the entire neighborhoodfrom Sixth Avenue as far east as Third and from Twenty-Seventh Streetdown through Union Square.
Revolver in his left hand, knife in his right to cut away troublesomebush or brambles, or to slit impeding vine-masses, he progressedslowly and observantly.
He kept his eyes open for big game, but--though he found moose-tracksat the corner of Broadway and Nineteenth--he ran into nothing moreformidable than a lynx which snarled at him from a tree overhangingthe mournful ruins of the Farragut monument.
One shot sent it bounding and screaming with pain, out of view. Sternnoted with satisfaction that blood followed its trail.
"Guess I haven't forgotten how to shoot in all these _x_ years!" hecommented, stooping to examine the spoor. "That may come in handylater!"
Then, still wary and watchful, he continued his exploration.
He found that the city, as such, had entirely ceased to be.
"Nothing but lines and monstrous rubbish-heaps of ruins," he sized upthe situation, "traversed by lanes of forest and overgrown with everysort of vegetation.
"Every wooden building completely wiped out. Brick and stone onespractically gone. Steel alone standing, and _that_ in rotten shape.Nothing at all intact but the few concrete structures.
"Ha! ha!" And he laughed satirically. "If the builders of thetwentieth century could have foreseen this they wouldn't have thrownquite such a chest, eh? And _they_ talked of engineering!"
Useless though it was, he felt a certain pride in noting that theOsterhaut Building, on Seventeenth Street, had lasted rather betterthan the average.
"_My_ work!" said he, nodding with grim satisfaction, then passed on.
Into the Subway he penetrated at Eighteenth Street, climbing withdifficulty down the choked stairway, through bushes and over masses ofruin that had fallen from the roof. The great tube, he saw, was chokedwith litter.
Slimy and damp it was, with a mephitic smell and ugly pools of watersettled in the ancient road-bed. The rails were wholly gone in places.In others only rotten fragments of steel remained.
A goggle-eyed toad stared impudently at him from a long tangle ofrubbish that had been a train--stalled there forever by the finalblock-signal of death.
Through the broken arches overhead the rain and storms of ages hadbeaten down, and lush grasses flourished here and there, wheresunlight could penetrate.
No human dust-heaps here, as in the shelter of the arcade. Long sinceevery vestige of man had been swept away. Stern shuddered, moredepressed by the sight here than at any other place so far visited.
"And they boasted of a work for all time!" whispered he, awed by thehorror of it. "They boasted--like the financiers, the churchmen, themerchants, everybody! Boasted of their institutions, their city, theircountry. And _now_--"
Out he clambered presently, terribly depressed by what he hadwitnessed, and set to work laying in still more supplies from thewrecked shops. Now for the first time, his wonder and astonishmenthaving largely abated, he began to feel the horror of this loneliness.
"No life here! Nobody to speak to--except the girl..." he exclaimedaloud, the sound of his own voice uncanny in that woodland street ofdeath. "All gone, everything! My Heavens, suppose I didn't have _her?_How long could I go on alone, and keep my mind?"
The thought terrified him. He put it resolutely away and went to work.Wherever he stumbled upon anything of value he eagerly seized it.
The labor, he found, kept him from the subconscious dread of whatmight happen to Beatrice or to himself if either should meet with anymishap. The consequences of either one
dying, he knew, must behorrible beyond all thinking for the survivor.
Up Broadway he found much to keep--things which he garnered in theup-caught hem of his bearskin, things of all kinds and uses. He founda clay pipe--all the wooden ones had vanished from the shop--and aglass jar of tobacco.
These he took as priceless treasures. More jars of edibles hediscovered, also a stock of rare wines. Coffee and salt he came upon.In the ruins of the little French brass-ware shop, opposite theFlatiron, he made a rich haul of cups and plates and a stillserviceable lamp.
Strangely enough, it still had oil in it. The fluid hermeticallysealed in, had not been able to evaporate.
At last, when the lengthening shadows in Madison Forest warned himthat day was ending, he betook himself, heavy laden, once more backpast the spring, and so through the path which already was beginningto be visible back to the shelter of the Metropolitan.
"Now for a great surprise for the girl!" thought he, laboriouslytoiling up the stair with his burden: "What will she say, I wonder,when she sees all these housekeeping treasures?" Eagerly he hastened.
But before he had reached the third story he heard a cry from above.Then a spatter of revolver-shots punctured the air.
He stopped, listening in alarm.
"Beatrice! Oh, Beatrice!" he hailed, his voice falling flat andstifled in those ruinous passages.
Another shot.
"Answer!" panted Stern. "What's the matter _now?_"
Hastily he put down his burden, and, spurred by a great terror,bounded up the broken stairs.
Into their little shelter, their home, he ran, calling her name.
No reply came!
Stern stopped short, his face a livid gray.
"Merciful Heaven!" stammered he.
_The girl was gone!_