CHAPTER IV
"TO-MORROW IS OUR WEDDING-DAY"
Purple and gold the light of that dying day still glowed acrossthe western sky when the stanch old Pauillac, heated yet throbbingwith power, skimmed the last league and swung the last great bend ofthe river that hid old Storm King from the wanderers' eager sight.
Stern's eyes brightened at vision of that vast, rugged headland,forest-clad and superb in the approaching twilight. Beatrice, wearynow and spent--for the long journeys, the excitements and griefs ofthe day had worn her down despite her strength--paled a little andgrew pensive as the massive structure of the cathedral loomed againstthe sky-line.
What thoughts were hers now that the goal lay near--what longings,fears and hopes, what exultation and what pain? She shivered slightly;but perhaps the evening coolness at that height had pierced her cloak.Her hands clasped tightly, she tried to smile but could not.
Allan could notice nothing of all this. His gaze was anxiously bent onthe earth below, to find a landing for the great machine. He skimmedthe broad brow of the mountain, hardly a hundred feet above the spiresof the massive concrete pile that still reared itself steadfastly uponthe height facing the east.
All about it the dense unbroken forest spread impenetrable to the eye.Below the bold breast of the cliff a narrow strip of beach appeared.
"Hard job to land, that's one sure thing!" exclaimed the man, peeringat the inhospitable contours of the land. "No show to make it on topof the mountain, and if we take the beach it means a most tremendousclimb up the cliff or through the forest on the flank. Here _is_ asituation, Beatrice! Now--ah--see there? Look! that barren ridge towestward!"
Half a mile back from the river on the western slope of the highlands,a spur of Storm King stretched water-worn and bare, a sandy spitdotted only sparsely with scrub-pine.
"It's that, or nothing!" cried the man, banking in a wide sweep.
"Can you make it? Even the clearest space at this end is terriblyshort!"
Allan laughed and cut off power. In the old days not for ten thousanddollars would he have tried so ticklish a descent, but now his mettlewas of sterner stuff and his skill with the machine developed to apoint where man and biplane seemed almost one organism.
With a swift rush the Pauillac coasted down. He checked her atprecisely the right moment, as the sand seemed whirling up to meetthem, swerved to dodge a fire-blasted trunk, and with a shout took theearth.
The plane bounced, creaked, skidded on the long runners he had fittedto her, and with a lurch came to rest not ten yards from an ugly stumpdead ahead.
"Made it, by Heaven!" he exulted. "But a few feet more and it wouldn'thave been--well, no matter. We're here, anyhow. Now, supper and a goodsleep. And to-morrow, the cathedral!"
He helped the girl alight, for she was cramped and stiff. Presentlytheir camp-fire cheered the down-drawing gloom, as so many other timesin such strange places. And before long their evening meal was incourse of preparation, close by a great glacial boulder at the edge ofthe sand-barren.
In good comradeship they ate, then wheeled the biplane over to therock, and under the shelter of its wide-spreading wings made theircamp for the night. An hour or so they sat talking of manythings--their escape from the Abyss, the patriarch's death, their tripeast again, the loss of their little home, their plans, their hopes,their work.
Beatrice seemed to grieve more than Stern over the destruction of thebungalow. So much of her woman's heart had gone into the making ofthat nest, so many thoughts had centered on a return to it once more,that now when it lay in ruins through the spiteful mischief of theHorde, she found sorrow knocking insistently at the gates of her soul.But Allan comforted her as best he might.
"Never you mind, little girl!" said he bravely. "It's only anincident, after all. A year from now another and a still morebeautiful home will shelter us in some more secure location. Andthere'll be human companionship, too, about us. In a year many of theFolk will have been brought from the depths. In a year miracles mayhappen--even the greatest one of all!"
Her eyes met his a moment by the ruddy fire-glow and held true.
"Yes," answered she, "even the greatest in the world!"
A sudden tenderness swept over him at thought of all that had been andwas still to be, at sight of this woman's well-loved face irradiatedby the leaping blaze--her face now just a little wan with longfatigues and sad as though with realization, with some compellinginner sense of vast, impending responsibilities.
He gathered her in his strong arms, he drew her yielding body close,and kissed her very gently.
"To-morrow!" he whispered. "Do you realize it?"
"To-morrow," she made answer, her breath mingling with his."To-morrow, Allan--one page of life forever closed, another opened.Oh, may it be for good--may we be very strong and very wise!"
Neither spoke for the space of a few heart-beats, while the wind madea vague, melancholy music in the sentinel tree-tops and the snappingsparks danced upward by the rock.
"Life, all life--just dancing sparks--then gone!" said Beatriceslowly. "And yet--yet it is good to have lived, Allan. Good to havelighted the black mystery of the universe, formless and endless andinscrutable, by even so brief a flicker!"
"Is it my little pessimist to-night?" he asked. "Too tired, that'sall. In the morning things will look different. You must smile, then,Beta, and not think of formless mystery or--or anything sad at all.For to-morrow is our wedding-day."
He felt her catch her breath and tremble just a bit.
"Yes, I know. Our wedding-day, Allan. Surely the strangest since timebegan. No friends, no gifts, no witnesses, no minister, no--"
"There, there!" he interrupted, smiling. "How can my little girl be sowrong-headed? Friends? Why, everything's our friend! All nature is ourfriend--the whole life-process is our friend and ally! Gifts? Whatneed have we of gifts? Aren't you my gift, surely the best gift that aman ever had since the beginning of all things? Am I not yours?
"Minister? Priest? We need none! The world-to-be shall have got faraway from such, far beyond its fairy-tale stage, its weaknesses andfears of the Unknown, which alone explain their existence. Here onStorm King, under the arches of the old cathedral our clasped hands,our--mutual words of love and trust and honor--these shall suffice.The river and the winds and forest, the sunlight and the sky, thewhole infinite expanse of Nature herself shall be our priest andwitnesses. And never has a wedding been so true, so solemn and so holyas yours and mine shall be. For you are mine, my Beatrice, and I amyours--forever!"
A little silence, while the flames leaped higher and the shadowsdeepened in the dim aisles of the fir-forest all about them. In thevast canopy of evening sky clustering star-points had begun toshimmer.
Redly the camp-fire lighted man and woman there alone together in thewild. For them there was no sense of isolation nor any loneliness. Shewas his world now, and he hers.
Up into his eyes she looked fairly and bravely, and her full lipssmiled.
"Forgive me, Allan!" she whispered. "It was only a mood, that's all.It's passed now--it won't come back. Only forgive me, boy!"
"My dear, brave girl!" he murmured, smoothing the thick hair back fromher brow. "Never complaining, never repining, never afraid!"
Their lips met again and for a time the girl's heart throbbed on his.
Afar a wolf's weird, tremulous call drifted down-wind. An owl,disturbed in its nocturnal quest, hooted upon the slope above toeastward; and across the darkening sky reeled an unsteady bat, farlarger than in the old days when there were cities on the earth andships upon the sea.
The fire burned low. Allan arose and flung fresh wood upon it, whilesheaves of winking light gyrated upward through the air. Then hereturned to Beatrice and wrapped her in his cloak.
And for a long, long time they both talked of many things--intimate,solemn, wondrous things--together in the night.
And the morrow was to be their wedding-day.