CHAPTER XVI
THE GATHERING OF THE HORDES
"Tom-toms? So they _are_ savages?" exclaimed the girl, taking a quickbreath. "But--what _then?_"
"Don't just know, yet. It's a fact, though; they're certainly savages.Two tribes, one with torches, one with drums. Two different kinds, Iguess. And they're coming in here to parley or fight or something.Regular powwow on hand. Trouble ahead, whichever side wins!"
"For us?"
"That depends. Maybe we'll be able to lie hidden, here, till thisthing blows over, whatever it may be. If not, and if they cut off ourwater-supply, well--"
He ended with a kind of growl. The sound gave Beatrice a strangesensation. She kept a moment's silence, then remarked:
"They're up around Central Park now, the drums are, don't you thinkso? How far do you make that?"
"Close on to two miles. Come, let's be moving."
In silence they climbed the shaky ladder, reached the tower stairs anddescended the many stories to their dwelling.
Here, the first thing Stern did was to strike a light, which he maskedin a corner, behind a skin stretched like a screen from one wall tothe other. By this illumination, very dim yet adequate, he minutelyexamined all their firearms.
He loaded every one to capacity and made sure all were in workingorder. Then he satisfied himself that the supply of cartridges wasample. These he laid carefully along by the windows overlookingMadison Forest, by the door leading into the suite of offices, and bythe stair-head that gave access to the fifth floor.
Then he blew out the light again.
"Two revolvers, one shotgun, and one rifle, all told," said he. "Allmagazine arms. I guess that'll hold them for a while, if it comes downto brass tacks! How's your nerve, Beatrice?"
"Never better!" she whispered, from the dark. He saw the dim whiteblur that indicated her face, and it was very dear to him, all of asudden--dearer, far, than he had ever realized.
"Good little girl!" he exclaimed, giving her the rifle. A moment hishand pressed hers. Then with a quick intake of the breath, he strodeover to the window and once more listened. She followed.
"Much nearer, now!" judged he. "Hear _that_, will you?"
Again they listened.
Louder now the drums sounded, dull, ominous, pulsating like thehammering of a fever-pulse inside a sick man's skull. A dull, confusedhum, a noise as of a swarming mass of bees, drifted down-wind.
"Maybe they'll pass by?" whispered Beatrice.
"It's Madison Forest they're aiming at!" returned the engineer. "Seethere!"
He pointed to westward.
There, far off along the forest-lane of Fourteenth Street, a suddengleam of light flashed out among the trees, vanished, reappeared, wasjoined by two, ten, a hundred others. And now the whole approach toMadison Forest, by several streets, began to sparkle with thesefeux-follets, weaving and flickering unsteadily toward the square.
Here, there, everywhere through the dense masses of foliage, thewatchers could already see a dim and moving mass, fitfully illuminatedby torches that now burned steady, now flared into red and smokytourbillons of flame in the night-wind.
"Like monster glow-worms, crawling among the trees!" the girlexclaimed. "We _could_ mow them down, from here, already! God grant wesha'n't have to fight!"
"S-h-h-h! Wait and see what's up!"
Now, from the other horde, coming from the north, sounds of warlikepreparation were growing ever louder.
With quicker beats the insistent tom-toms throbbed their rhythmicmelancholy rune, hollow and dissonant. Then all at once the drumsceased; and through the night air drifted a minor chant; a wail, thatrose, fell, died, and came again, lagging as many strange voicesjoined it.
And from the square, below, a shrill, high-pitched, half-animal cryresponded. Creeping shudders chilled the flesh along the engineer'sbackbone.
"What I need, now," thought he, "is about a hundred pounds ofhigh-grade dynamite, or a gallon of nitroglycerin. Better still, adozen capsules of my own invention, my 'Pulverite!'
"I guess _that_ would settle things mighty quick. It would be thejoker in this game, all right! Well, why not make some? With whatchemicals I've got left, couldn't I work up a half-pint? Bottled inglass flasks, I guess it would turn the trick on 'em!"
"Why, they look black!" suddenly interrupted the girl. "See there--andthere?"
She pointed toward the spring. Stern saw moving shadows in the dark.Then, through an opening, he got a blurred impression of a hand,holding a torch. He saw a body, half-human.
The glimpse vanished, but he had seen enough.
"Black--yes, blue-black! They seem so, anyhow. And--why, did you seethe _size_ of them? No bigger than apes! Good Heaven!"
Involuntarily he shuddered. For now, like a dream-horde of hideouscreatures seen in a nightmare, the torch-bearers had spread allthrough the forest at the base of the Metropolitan.
Away from the building out across by the spring and even to FifthAvenue the mob extended, here thick, there thin, without order orcoherence--a shifting, murmuring, formless, seemingly planlesscongeries of dull brutality.
Here or there, where the swaying of the trees parted the branches alittle, the wavering lights brought some fragment of the mass to view.
No white thing showed anywhere. All was dark and vague. Indistinctly,waveringly as in a vision, dusky heads could be made out. There showeda naked arm, greasily shining for a second in the ruddy glow which nowdiffused itself through the whole wood. Here the watchers saw aglistening back; again, an out-thrust leg, small and crooked, apelikeand repulsive.
And once again the engineer got a glimpse of a misshapen hand, a long,lean, hideous hand that clutched a spear. But, hardly seen, itvanished into obscurity once more.
"Seems as though malformed human members, black and bestial, had beenflung at random into a ghastly kaleidoscope, turned by a madman!"whispered Stern. The girl answering nothing, peered out in fascinatedhorror.
Up, up to the watchers rose a steady droning hum; and from thenorthward, ever louder, ever clearer, came now the war-song of theattacking party. The drums began again, suddenly. A high-pitched,screaming laugh echoed and died among the woods beyond the ruins ofTwenty-eighth street.
Still in through the western approaches of the square, more and morelights kept straggling. Thicker and still more thick grew the pressbelow. Now the torch-glow was strong enough to cast its luridreflections on the vacant-staring wrecks of windows and of walls,gaping like the shattered skulls of a civilization which was no more.To the nostrils of the man and woman up floated an acrid, pitchysmell. And birds, dislodged from sleep, began to zigzag about,aimlessly, with frightened cries. One even dashed against thebuilding, close at hand; and fell, a fluttering, broken thing, toearth.
Stern, with a word of hot anger, fingered his revolver. But Beatricelaid her hand upon his arm.
"Not yet!" begged she.
He glanced down at her, where she stood beside him at the emptyembrasure of the window. The dim light from the vast and emptyoverarch of sky, powdered with a wonder of stars, showed him the vagueoutline of her face. Wistful and pale she was, yet very brave. ThroughStern welled a sudden tenderness.
He put his arm around her, and for a moment her head lay on hisbreast.
But only a moment.
For, all at once, a snarling cry rang through the wood; and, with anorthward surge of the torch-bearers, a confused tumult of shrieks,howls, simian chatterings and dull blows, the battle joined betweenthose two vague, strange forces down below in the black forest.
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