An opening? No, he was mistaken. Instead, the Blues were massing there by the Goal.
Bitterly he swore. Under his arm he tightened the ball. He ran!
What?
They were trying to tackle?
"Damn you!" he cried, in boiling anger. "I'll—I'll show you a trick or two—yet!"
He stopped, circled, dodged the clutching hands, feinted with a tactic long unthought of, and broke into a straight, resistless dash for the posts.
As he ran, he yelled:
"Smash them—and—break through! . ....."
All his waning strength upgathered for that run. Yet how strangely tired he felt—how heavy the ball was growing!
What was the matter with his head? With his right arm? They both ached hideously. He must have got hurt, some way, in one of the "downs." Some dirty work, somewhere. Rotten sport!
He ran. Never in all his many games had he seen such peculiar gridiron, all tangled and overgrown. Never, such host of tackles. Hundreds of them! Where were the Crimsons? What? No support, no interference? Hell!
Yet the Goal was surely just there, now right ahead. He ran.
"Foul!" he shouted savagely, as a Blue struck at him, then another and another, and many more. The taste of blood came to his tongue. He spat. "Foul!"
Right and left he dashed them, with a giant's strength. They scattered in panic, with strange and unintelligible cries.
"The goal!"
He reached it. And, as he crossed the line, he fell.
"Down, down!" sobbed he.
Chapter XXVI - Beatrice Dares
*
An hour later, Stern and Beatrice sat weak and shaken in their stronghold on the fifth floor, resting, trying to gather up some strength again, to pull together for resistance to the siege that had set in.
With the return of reason to the engineer—his free bleeding had somewhat checked the onset of fever—and of consciousness to the girl, they began to piece out, bit by bit, the stages of their retreat.
Now that Stern had barricaded the stairs, two stories below, and that for a little while they felt reasonably safe, they were able to take their bearings, to recall the flight, to plan a bit for the future, a future dark with menace, seemingly hopeless in its outlook.
"If it—hadn't been for you," Beatrice was saying, "if you hadn't picked me up and carried me, when that stone struck, I—I—"
"How's the ache now?" Stern hastily interrupted, in a rather weak yet brisk voice, which he was trying hard to render matter-of-fact. "Of course the lack of water, except that half-pint or so, to bathe your bruise with, is a rank barbarity. But if we haven't got any, we haven't—that's all. All—till we have another go at 'em!"
"Oh, Allan!" she exclaimed, tremulously. "Don't think of me! Of me, when your back's gashed with a spear-cut, your head's battered, arm pierced, and we've neither water nor bandages—nothing of any kind to treat your wounds with!"
"Come now, don't you bother about me!" he objected trying hard to smile, though racked with pain. "I'll be O. K., fit as a fiddle, in no time. Perfect health and all that sort of thing, you know. It'll heal right away.
"Head's clear again already, in spite of that whack with the war-club, or whatever it was they landed with. But for a while I certainly was seeing things. I had 'em—had 'em bad! Thought—well, strange things.
"My back? Only a scratch, that's all. It's begun to coagulate already, the blood has, hasn't it?" And he strove to peer over his own shoulder at the slash. But the pain made him desist. He could hardly keep back a groan. His face twitched involuntarily.
The girl sank on her knees beside him. Her arm encircled him; her hand smoothed his forehead; and with a strange look she studied his unnaturally pale face.
"It's your arm I'm thinking about, more than anything," said she. "We've got to have something to treat that with. Tell me, does it hurt you very much, Allan?"
He tried to laugh, as he glanced down at the wounded arm, which, ligatured about the spear-thrust with a thong, and supported by a rawhide sling, looked strangely blue and swollen.
"Hurt me? Nonsense! I'll be fine and dandy in no time. The only trouble is, I'm not much good as a fighter this way. Southpaw, you see. Can't shoot worth a—a cent, you know, with my left. Otherwise, I wouldn't mind."
"Shoot? Trust me for that now!" she exclaimed. "We've still got two revolvers and the shotgun left, and lots of ammunition. I'll do the shooting—if there's got to be any done!"
"You're all right, Beatrice!" exclaimed the wounded man fervently. "What would I do without you? And to think how near you came to—but never mind. That's over now; forget it!"
"Yes, but what next?"
"Don't know. Get well, maybe. Things might be worse. I might have a broken arm, or something; laid up for weeks—slow starvation and all that. What's a mere puncture? Nothing! Now that the spear's out, it'll begin healing right away.
"Bet a million, though, that What's-His-Name down there, Big Chief the Monk, won't get out of his scrape in a hurry. His face is certainly scrambled, or I miss my guess. You got him through the ear with one shot, by the way. Know that? Fact! Drilled it clean! Just a little to the right and you'd have had him for keeps. But never mind, we'll save him for the encore—if there is any."
"You think they'll try again?"
"Can't say. They've lost a lot of fighters, killed and wounded, already. And they've had a pretty liberal taste of our style. That ought to hold them for a while! We'll see, at any rate. And if luck stays good, we'll maybe have a thing or two to show them if they keep on hanging round where they aren't wanted!"
Came now a little silence. Beside Stern the girl sat, half supporting his wounded body with her firm, white arm. Thirst was beginning to torment them both, particularly Stern, whose injuries had already given him a marked temperature. But water there was absolutely none. And so, still planless, glad only to recuperate a little, content that for the present the Horde had been held back, they waited. Waiting, they both thought. The girl's thoughts were all of him; but he, man-fashion, was trying to piece out what had happened, to frame some coherent idea of it all, to analyze the urgent necessities that lay upon them both.
Here and there, a disjointed bit recurred to him, even from out of the delirium that had followed the blow on the head. From the time he had recovered his senses in the building, things were clearer.
He knew that the Horde, temporarily frightened by his mad rush, had given him time to stumble up again and once more lift the girl, before they had ventured to creep into the arcade in search of their prey.
He remembered that the spear had been gone then. Raving, he must have broken and plucked it out. The blood, he recalled, was spurting freely as he had carried Beatrice through the wreckage and up to the first landing, where she had regained partial consciousness.
Then he shuddered at recollection of that stealthy, apelike creeping of the Horde scouts in among the ruins, furtive and silent; their sniffing after the blood-track; their frightful agility in clambering with feet and hands alike, swinging themselves up like chimpanzees, swarming aloft on the death-hunt.
He had evaded them, from story to story. Beatrice, able now to walk, had helped him roll down balustrades and building-stones, fling rocks, wrench stairs loose and block the way.
And so, wounding their pursuers, yet tracked always by more and ever more, they had come to the landing, where by aid of the rifle barrel as a lever they had been able to bring a whole wall crashing down, to choke the passage. That had brought silence. For a time, at least, pursuit had been abandoned. In the sliding, dusty avalanche of the wall, hurled down the stairway, Stern knew by the grunts and shrieks which had arisen that some of the Horde had surely perished—how many, he could not tell. A score or two at the very least, he ardently hoped.
Fear, at any rate, had been temporarily injected into the rest. For the attack had not yet been renewed. Outside in the forest, no sign of the Horde, no sound. A disconcerting, ominous calm had settled l
ike a pall. Even the birds, recovered from their terrors, had begun to hop about and take up their twittering little household tasks.
As in a kind of clairvoyance, the engineer seemed to know there would be respite until night. For a little while, at least, there could be rest and peace. But when darkness should have settled down—
"If they'd only show themselves!" thought he, his leaden eyes closing in an overmastering lassitude, a vast swooning weakness of blood-loss and exhaustion. Not even his parched thirst, a veritable torture now, could keep his thoughts from wandering. "If they'd tackle again, I could score with—with lead—what's that I'm thinking? I'm not delirious, am I?"
For a moment he brought himself back with a start, back to a full realization of the place. But again the drowsiness gained on him.
"We've got guns now; guns and ammunition," thought he. "We—could pick them off—from the windows. Pick them—off—pick—them—off—"
He slept. Thus, often, wounded soldiers sleep, with troubled dreams, on the verge of renewed battle which may mean their death, their long and wakeless slumber.
He slept. And the girl, laying his gashed head gently back upon the pile of furs, bent over him with infinite compassion. For a long minute, hardly breathing, she watched him there. More quickly came her breath. A strange new light shone in her eyes.
"Only for me, those wounds!" she whispered slowly. "Only for me!"
Taking his head in both her hands, she kissed him as he lay unconscious. Kissed him twice, and then a third time.
Then she arose.
Quickly, as though with some definite plan, she chose from among their store of utensils a large copper kettle, one which he had brought her the week before from the little Broadway shop.
She took a long rawhide rope, braided by Stern during their long evenings together. This she knotted firmly to the bale of the kettle.
The revolvers, fully reloaded, she examined with care. One of them she laid beside the sleeper. The other she slid into her full, warm bosom, where the clinging tiger-skin held it ready for her hand.
Then she walked noiselessly to the door leading into the hallway.
Here for a moment she stood, looking back at the wounded man. Tears dimmed her eyes, yet they were very glad.
"For your sake, now, everything!" she said. "Everything—all! Oh, Allan, if you only knew! And now—good-by!"
Then she was gone.
And in the silent room, their home, which out of wreck and chaos they had made, the fevered man lay very still, his pulses throbbing in his throat.
Outside, very far, very faint in the forests, a muffled drum began to beat again.
And the slow shadows, lengthening across the floor, told that evening was drawing nigh.
Chapter XXVII - To Work!
*
The engineer awoke with a start—awoke to find daylight gone, to find that dusk had settled, had shrouded the whole place in gloom.
Confused, he started up. He was about to call out, when prudence muted his voice. For the moment he could not recollect just what had happened or where he was; but a vast impending consciousness of evil and of danger weighed upon him. It warned him to keep still, to make no outcry. A burning thirst quickened his memory.
Then his comprehension returned. Still weak and shaken, yet greatly benefited by his sleep, he took a few steps toward the door. Where was the girl? Was he alone? What could all this mean?
"Beatrice! Oh, Beatrice!" he called thickly, in guarded tones. "Where are you? Answer me!"
"Here—coming!" he heard her voice. And then he saw her, dimly, in the doorway.
"What is it? Where have you been? How long have I been asleep?"
She did not answer his questions, but came quickly to him, took his hand, and with her own smoothed his brow.
"Better, now?" asked she.
"Lots! I'll be all right in a little while. It's nothing. But what have you been doing all this time?"
"Come, and I'll show you." She led him toward the other room.
He followed, in growing wonder.
"No attack, yet?"
"None. But the drums have been beating for a long time now. Hear that?"
They listened. To them drifted a dull, monotonous sound, harbinger of war.
Stern laughed bitterly, chokingly, by reason of his thirst.
"Much good their orchestra will do them," said he, "when it comes to facing soft-nosed .38's! But tell me, what was it you were going to show me?"
Quickly she went over to their crude table, took up a dish and came back to him.
"Drink this!" bade she.
He took it, wondering.
"What? Coffee? But—"
"Drink! I've had mine, already. Drink!"
Half-stupefied, he obeyed. He drained the whole dish at a draft, then caught his breath in a long sigh.
"But this means water!" cried he, with renewed vigor. "And—?"
"Look here," she directed, pointing. There on the circular hearth stood the copper kettle, three-quarters full.
"Water! You've got water?" He started forward in amazement. "While I've been sleeping? Where—?"
She laughed with real enjoyment.
"It's nothing," she disclaimed. "After what you've done for me, this is the merest trifle, Allan. You know that big cavity made by the boiler-explosion? Yes? Well, when we looked down into it, before we ventured out to the spring, I noticed a good deal of water at the bottom, stagnant water, that had run out of the boiler and settled on the hard clay floor and in among the cracked cement. I just merely brought up some, and strained and boiled it, that's all. So you see—"
"But, my Lord!" burst out the man, "d'you mean to say you—you went down there—alone?"
Once more the girl laughed.
"Not alone," she answered. "One of the automatics was kind enough to bear me company. Of course the main stairway was impassable. But I found another way, off through the east end of the building and down some stairs we haven't used at all, yet. They may be useful, by the way, in case of—well—a retreat. Once I'd reached the arcade, the rest was easy. I had that leather rope tied to the kettle handle, you see. So all I had to do was—"
"But the Horde! The Horde?"
"None of them down there, now—that is, alive. None when I was there. All at the war-council, I imagine. I just happened to strike it right, you see. It wasn't anything. We simply had to have water, so I went and got some, that's all."
"That's all?" echoed Stern, in a trembling voice. "That's—all!"
Then, lest she see his face even by the dim light through the window, he turned aside a minute. For the tears in his eyes, he felt, were a weakness which he would not care to reveal.
But presently he faced the girl again.
"Beatrice," said he, "words fall so flat, so hopelessly dead; they're so inadequate, so anticlimactic at a time like this, that I'm just going to skip them all. It's no use thanking you, or analyzing this thing, or saying any of the commonplace, stupid things. Let it pass. You've got water, that's enough. You've made good, where I failed. Well—"
His voice broke again, and he grew silent. But she, peering at him with wonder, laid a hand upon his shoulder.
"Come," said she, "you must eat something, too. I've got a little supper ready. After that, the Pulverite?"
He started as though shot.
"That's so! I can make it now!" cried he, new life and energy suffusing him. "Even with my one hand, if you help me, I can make it! Supper? No, no! To work!"
But she insisted, womanlike; and he at last consented to a bite. When this was over, they began preparations for the manufacture of the terrible explosive, Stern's own secret and invention, which, had not the cataclysm intervened, would have made him ten times over a millionaire. More precious now to him, that knowledge, than all the golden treasures of the dead, forsaken world!
"We've got to risk a light," said he. "If it's turned low, and shaded, maybe they won't learn our whereabouts. But however that may be,
we can't work in the dark. It would be too horribly perilous. One false move, one wrong combination, even the addition of one ingredient at the improper moment, and—well—you understand."
She nodded.
"Yes," said she. "And we don't want to quit—just yet!"
So they lighted the smaller of their copper lamps, and set to work in earnest.
On the table, cleared of dishes and of food, Stern placed in order eight glass bottles, containing the eight basic chemicals for his reaction.
Beside him, at his left hand, he set a large metal dish with three quarts of water, still warm. In front of him stood his copper tea-kettle—the strangest retort, surely in which the terrific compound ever had been distilled.
"Now our chairs, and the lamp," said he, "and we're ready to begin. But first," and, looking earnestly at her, "first, tell me frankly, wouldn't you just a little rather have me carry out this experiment alone? You could wait elsewhere, you know. With these uncertain materials and all the crude conditions we've got to work under, there's no telling what—might happen.
"I've never yet found a man who would willingly stand by and see me build Pulverite, much less a woman. It's frightful, this stuff is! Don't be ashamed to tell me; are you afraid?"
For a long moment the girl looked at him.
"Afraid—with you?" said she.
Chapter XXVIII - The Pulverite
*
An hour passed. And now, under the circle of light cast by the hooded lamp upon the table, there in that bare, wrecked office-home of theirs, the Pulverite was coming to its birth.
Already at the bottom of the metal dish lay a thin yellow cloud, something that looked like London fog on a December morning. There, covered with the water, it gently swirled and curdled, with strange metallic glints and oily sheens, as Beatrice with a gold spoon stirred it at the engineer's command.
From moment to moment he dropped in a minute quantity of glycerin, out of a glass test-tube, graduated to the hundredth of an ounce. Keenly, under the lamp-shine, he watched the final reaction; his face, very pale and set, reflected a little of the mental stress that bound him.
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