CHAPTER XI
A THOUSAND YEARS!
Sickened with a numbing anguish of fear such as in all his lifehe had never known, Stern stood there a moment, motionless and lost.
Then he turned. Out into the hall he ran, and his voice, re-echoingwildly, rang through those long-deserted aisles.
All at once he heard a laugh behind him--a hail.
He wheeled about, trembling and spent. Out his arms went, in eagergreeting. For the girl, laughing and flushed, and very beautiful, wascoming down the stair at the end of the hall.
Never had the engineer beheld a sight so wonderful to him as thiswoman, clad in the Bengal robe; this girl who smiled and ran to meethim.
"What? Were you frightened?" she asked, growing suddenly serious, ashe stood there speechless and pale. "Why--what could happen to mehere?"
His only answer was to take her in his arms and whisper her name. Butshe struggled to be free.
"Don't! you mustn't!" she exclaimed. "I didn't mean to alarm you.Didn't even know you were here!"
"I heard the shots--I called--you didn't answer. Then--"
"You found me gone? I didn't hear you. It was nothing, after all.Nothing--much!"
He led her back into the room.
"What happened? Tell me!"
"It was really too absurd!"
"What was it?"
"Only this," and she laughed again. "I was getting supper ready, asyou see," with a nod at their provision laid out upon theclean-brushed floor. "When--"
"Yes?"
"Why, a blundering great hawk swooped in through the window there,circled around, pounced on the last of our beef and tried to fly awaywith it."
Stern heaved a sigh of relief. "So that was all?" asked he. "But theshots? And your absence?"
"I struck at him. He showed fight. I blocked the window. He wasdetermined to get away with the food. I was determined he _shouldn't_.So I snatched the revolver and opened fire."
"And then?"
"That confused him. He flapped out into the hall. I chased him. Awayup the stairs he circled. I shot again. Then I pursued. Went up twostories. But he must have got away through some opening or other. Ourbeef's all gone!" And Beatrice looked very sober.
"Never mind, I've got a lot more stuff down-stairs. But tell me, didyou wing him?"
"I'm afraid not," she admitted. "There's a feather or two on thestairs, though."
"Good work!" cried he laughing, his fear all swallowed in the joy ofhaving found her again, safe and unhurt. "But please don't give meanother such panic, will you? It's all right this time, however.
"And now if you'll just wait here and not get fighting with any morewild creatures, I'll go down and bring my latest finds. I like yourpluck," he added slowly, gazing earnestly at her.
"But I don't want you chasing things in this old shell of a building.No telling what crevice you might fall into or what accident mighthappen. Au revoir!"
Her smile as he left her was inscrutable, but her eyes, strangelybright, followed him till he had vanished once more down the stairs.
* * * * *
Broad strokes, a line here, one there, with much left to theimagining--such will serve best for the painting of a picture likethis--a picture wherein every ordinary bond of human life, the nexusof man's society, is shattered. Where everything must strive toreconstruct itself from the dust. Where the future, if any such theremay be, must rise from the ashes of a crumbling past.
Broad strokes, for detailed ones would fill too vast a canvas.Impossible to describe a tenth of the activities of Beatrice and Sternthe next four days. Even to make a list of their hard-won possessionswould turn this chapter into a mere catalogue.
So let these pass for the most part. Day by day the man, issuing forthsometimes alone, sometimes with Beatrice, labored like a Titan amongthe ruins of New York.
Though more than ninety per cent. of the city's one-time wealth hadlong since vanished, and though all standards of worth had whollychanged, yet much remained to harvest.
Infinitudes of things, more or less damaged, they bore up to theirshelter, up the stairs which here and there Stern had repaired withrough-hewn logs.
For now he had an ax, found in that treasure-house of Currier &Brown's, brought to a sharp edge on a wet, flat stone by the spring,and hefted with a sapling.
This implement was of incredible use, and greatly enheartened theengineer. More valuable it was than a thousand tons of solid gold.
The same store yielded also a well-preserved enameled water-pail andsome smaller dishes of like ware, three more knives, quantities ofnails, and some small tools; also the tremendous bonanza of a magazinerifle and a shotgun, both of which Stern judged would come into shapeby the application of oil and by careful tinkering. Of ammunition,here and elsewhere, the engineer had no doubt he could unearthunlimited quantities.
"With steel," he reflected, "and with my flint spearhead, I can makefire at any time. Wood is plenty, and there's lots of 'punk.' So thefirst step in reestablishing civilization is secure. With fire,everything else becomes possible.
"After a while, perhaps, I can get around to manufacturing matchesagain. But for the present my few ounces of phosphorus and the flintand steel will answer very well."
Beatrice, like the true woman she was, addressed herself eagerly tothe fascinating task of making a real home out of the barrendesolation of the fifth floor offices. Her splendid energy was no lessthan the engineer's. And very soon a comfortable air pervaded theplace.
Stern manufactured a broom for her by cutting willow withes andlashing them with hide strips onto a trimmed branch. Spiders and dustall vanished. A true housekeeping appearance set in.
To supplement the supply of canned food that accumulated along one ofthe walls, Stern shot what game he could--squirrels, partridges andrabbits.
Metal dishes, especially of solid gold, ravished from Fifth Avenueshops, took their place on the crude table he had fashioned with hisax. Not for esthetic effect did they now value gold, but merelybecause that metal had perfectly withstood the ravages of time.
In the ruins of a magnificent store near Thirty-First Street, Sternfound a vault burst open by frost and slow disintegration of thesteel.
Here something over a quart of loose diamonds, big and little, roughand cut, were lying in confusion all about. Stern took none of these.Their value now was no greater than that of any pebble.
But he chose a massive clasp of gold for Beatrice, for that couldserve to fasten her robe. And in addition he gathered up a few ringsand onetime costly jewels which could be worn. For the girl, afterall, was one of Eve's daughters.
Bit by bit he accumulated many necessary articles, including sometooth-brushes which he found sealed in glass bottles, and a variety ofgold toilet articles. Use was his first consideration now. Beauty camefar behind.
In the corner of their rooms, after a time, stood a fair variety oftools, some already serviceable, others waiting to be polished, groundand hefted, and in some cases retempered. Two rough chairs made theirappearance.
The north room, used only for cooking, became their forge and oven allin one. For here, close to a window where the smoke could drift out,Stern built a circular stone fireplace.
And here Beatrice presided over her copper casseroles and saucepansfrom the little shop on Broadway. Here, too, Stern planned toconstruct a pair of skin bellows, and presently to set up the altarsof Vulcan and of Tubal Cain once more.
Both of them "thanked whatever gods there be" that the girl was a goodcook. She amazed the engineer by the variety of dishes she managed toconcoct from the canned goods, the game that Stern shot, and freshdandelion greens dug near the spring. These edibles, with the blackestof black coffee, soon had them in fine fettle.
"I certainly have begun to put on weight," laughed the man afterdinner on the fourth day, as he lighted his fragrant pipe with a rollof blazing birch-bark.
"My bearskin is getting tight. You'll have to let it out for me, orelse stop such
magic in the kitchen."
She smiled back at him, sitting there at ease in the sunshine by thewindow, sipping her coffee out of a gold cup with a solid gold spoon.
Stern, feeling the May breeze upon his face, hearing the bird-songs inthe forest depths, felt a well-being, a glow of health and joy such ashe had never in his whole life known--the health of outdoor labor andsound sleep and perfect digestion, the joy of accomplishment and ofthe girl's near presence.
"I suppose we do live pretty well," she answered, surveying theremnants of the feast. "Potted tongue and peas, fried squirrel,partridge and coffee ought to satisfy anybody. But still--"
"What is it?"
"I _would_ like some buttered toast and some cream for my coffee, andsome sugar."
Stern laughed heartily.
"You don't want much!" he exclaimed, vastly amused, the while he blewa cloud of Latakia smoke. "Well, you be patient, and everything willcome, in time.
"You mustn't expect me to do magic. On the fourth day you don'timagine I've had time enough to round up the ten thousandth descendantof the erstwhile cow, do you?
"Or grow cane and make sugar? Or find grain for seed, clear some land,plow, harrow, plant, hoe, reap, winnow, grind and bolt and present youwith a bag of prime flour? Now really?"
She pouted at his raillery. For a moment there was silence, while hedrew at his pipe. At the girl he looked a little while. Then, his eyesa bit far-away, he remarked in a tone he tried to render casual:
"By the way, Beatrice, it occurs to me that we're doing rather wellfor old people--very old."
She looked up with a startled glance.
"_Very?_" she exclaimed. "You know how old then?"
"Very, indeed!" he answered. "Yes, I've got some sort of an idea aboutit. I hope it won't alarm you when you know."
"Why--how so? Alarm me?" she queried with a strange expression.
"Yes, because, you see, it's rather a long time since we went tosleep. Quite so. You see, I've been doing a little calculating, offand on, at odd times. Been putting two and two together, as it were.
"First, there was the matter of the dust in sheltered places, to guideme. The rate of deposition of what, in one or two spots, can't havebeen anything less than cosmic or star-dust, is fairly certain.
"Then again, the rate of this present deterioration of stone and steelhas furnished another index. And last night I had a little peek at thepole-star, through my telescope, while you were asleep.
"The good old star has certainly shifted out of place a bit.Furthermore, I've been observing certain evolutionary changes in theanimals and plants about us. Those have helped, too."
"And--and what have you found out?" asked she with tremulous interest.
"Well, I think I've got the answer, more or less correctly. Of courseit's only an approximate result, as we say in engineering. But thedifferent items check up with some degree of consistency.
"And I'm safe in believing I'm within at least a hundred years of thedate one way or the other. Not a bad factor of safety, that, with mylimited means of working."
The girl's eyes widened. From her hand fell the empty gold cup; itrolled away across the clean-swept floor.
"What?" cried she. "You've got it, within a hundred years! Why,then--you mean it's _more_ than a hundred?"
Indulgently the engineer smiled.
"Come, now," he coaxed. "Just guess, for instance, how old you reallyare--and growing younger every day?"
"Two hundred maybe? Oh surely not as old as that! It's horrible tothink of!"
"Listen," bade he. "If I count your twenty-four years, when you wentto sleep, you're now--"
"What?"
"You're now at the very minimum calculation, just about one thousandand twenty-four! Some age, that, eh?"
Then, as she stared at him wide-eyed he added with a smile.
"No disputing that fact, no dodging it. The thing's as certain as thatyou're now the most beautiful woman in the whole wide world!"