Beyond the Great Oblivion

CHAPTER XVI. FINDING THE BIPLANE

The way up the shores of Narragansett Bay was full of experiences for them both. Animal life revealed itself far more abundantly here than along the open sea.

“Some strange blight or other must lie in the proximity of that terrific maelstrom,” judged Stern, “something that repels all the larger animals. But skirting this bay, there's life and to spare. How many deer have we seen to-day? Three? And one bull-buffalo! With any kind of a gun, or even a revolver, I could have had them all. And that big-muzzled, shaggy old moose we saw drinking at the pool, back there, would have been meat for us if we had had a rifle. No danger of starving here, Beatrice, once we get our hands on something that'll shoot again!”

The night they camped on the way, Stern kept constant guard by the fire, in case of possible attack by wolves or other beasts. He slept only an hour, when the girl insisted on taking his place; but when the sun arose, red and huge through the mists upon the bay, he started out again on the difficult trail as strong and confident as though he had not kept nine hours of vigil.

Everywhere was change and desolation. As the travelers came into a region which had at one time been more densely populated, they began to find here and there mournful relics of the life that once had been--traces of man, dim and all but obliterated, but now and then puissant in their revocation of the distant past.

Twice they found the ruins of villages--a few vague hollows in the earth, where cellars had been, hollows in which huge trees were rooted, and where, perhaps, a grass-grown crumble of disintegrated brick indicated the one-time presence of a chimney. They discovered several farms, with a few stunted apple-trees, the distant descendants of orchard growths, struggling against the larger forest strength, and with perhaps a dismantled well-curb, a moss-covered fireplace or a few bits of iron that had possibly been a stove, for all relics of the other age. Mournful were the long stone walls, crumbling down yet still discernible in places--walls that had cost the labor of generations of farmers and yet now lay useless and forgotten in the universal ruin of the world.

On the afternoon of the fifth day since having left their lean-to by the shore of Long Island Sound, they came upon a cañon which split the hills north of the site of Greenwich, a gigantic “fault” in the rocks, richly striated and stratified with rose and red and umber, a great cleft on the other side of which the forest lay somber and repellent in the slanting rays of the September sun.

“By Jove, whatever it was that struck the earth,” said Stern, “must have been good and plenty. The whole planet seems to be ripped up and broken and shattered. No wonder it knocked down New York and killed everybody and put an end to civilization. Why, there's ten cubic miles of material gouged out right here in sight; here's a regular Panama Canal, or bigger, all scooped out in one piece! What the devil could have happened?”

There was no answer to the question. After an hour spent in studying the formations along the lip of the cleft they made a detour eastward to the shore, crossed the fjord that ran into the cañon, and again kept to the north. Soon after this they struck a railroad embankment, and this they followed now, both because it afforded easier travel than the shore, which now had grown rocky and broken, and also because it promised to guide them surely to the place they sought.

It was on the sixth day of their exploration that they at last penetrated the ruins of Providence. Here, as in New York, pavements and streets and squares were all grassed over and covered with pines and elms and oaks, rooting among the stones and shattered brickwork that lay prone upon the earth. Only here or there a steel or concrete building still defied the ravages of time.

“The wreckage is even more complete here than on Manhattan Island,” Stern judged as he and the girl stood in front of the ruins of the post-office surveying the débris. “The smaller area, of course, would naturally be covered sooner with the inroads of the forest. I doubt whether there's enough left in the whole place to be of any real service to us.”

“To-morrow will be time enough to see,” answered the girl. “It's too late now for any more work to-day.”

They camped that night in an upper story of the Pequot National Bank Building on Hampstead Street. Here, having cleared out the bats and spiders, they made themselves an eerie secure from attack, and slept long and soundly. Dawn found them at work among the overgrown ruins, much as--three months before--they had labored in the Metropolitan Tower and about it. Less, however, remained to salvage here. For the smaller and lighter types of buildings had preserved far less of the relics of civilization than had been left in the vast and solid structures of New York.

In a few places, none the less, they still came upon the little piles of the gray ash that marked where men and women had fallen and died; but these occurred only in the most sheltered spots. Stern paid no attention to them. His energies and his attention were now fixed on the one task of getting skins, arms, ammunition and supplies. And before nightfall, by a systematic looting of such shops as remained--perhaps not above a score in all could even be entered--the girl and he had gathered more than enough to last them on their way to Boston. One find which pleased him immensely was a dozen sealed glass jars of tobacco.

“As for a pipe,” said he, “I can make that easily enough. What's more I will!” More still, he did, that very evening, and the gloom was redolent again of good smoke. Thereafter he slept as not for a long, long time.

They spent the next day in fashioning new garments and sandals; in putting to rights the two rifles Stern had chosen from the basement of the State armory, and in making bandoliers to carry their supply of cartridges. The possession of a knife once more, and of steel wherewith readily to strike fire, delighted the man enormously. The scissors they found in a hardware-shop, though rusty, enabled him to trim his beard and hair. Beatrice hailed a warped hard-rubber comb with joy.

But the great discovery still awaited them, the one supreme find which in a moment changed every plan of travel, opened the world to them, and at a single stroke increased their hopes ten thousandfold--the discovery of the old Pauillac monoplane!

They came upon this machine, pregnant with such vast possibilities, in a concrete hangar back of the Federal courthouse on Anderson Street. The building attracted Stern's attention by its unusual state of preservation. He burst in one of the rusted iron shutters and climbed through the window to see what might be inside.

A moment later Beatrice heard a cry of astonishment and joy.

“Great Heavens!” the man exclaimed, appearing at the window. “Come in! Come in--see what I've found!”

And he stretched out his hands to help her up and through the aperture.

“What is it, boy? More arms? More--”

“An aeroplane! Good God, think o' that, will you?”

“An aeroplane? But it's all to pieces, of course, and--”

“Come on in and look at it, I say!” Excitedly he lifted her through the window. “See there, will you? Isn't that the eternal limit? And to think I never even thought of trying to find one in New York!”

He gestured at the dust-laden old machine that, forlorn and in sovereign disrepair, stood at the other end of the hangar. Together they approached it.

“If it will work,” the man exclaimed thickly; “if it will only work--”

“But will it?” the girl exclaimed, her eyes lighting with the excitement of the find, heart beating fast at thought of what it might portend. “Can you put it in shape, boy? Or--”

“I don't know. Let me look! Who knows? Maybe--”

And already he was kneeling, peering at the mechanism, feeling the frame, the gear, the stays, with hands that trembled more than ever they had trembled since their great adventure had begun.

As he examined the machine, while Beatrice stood by, he talked to himself.

“Good thing the framework is aluminum,” said he, “or it wouldn't be worth a tinker's dam after all this time. But as it is, it's taken no harm that I can see. Wire braces all gone, rusted out and disappeared. Have to be rewired throughout, if I can find steel wire; if not, I'll use braided leather thongs. Petrol tank and feed pipe O. K. Girder boom needs a little attention. Steering and control column intact--they'll do!”

Part by part he handled the machine, his skilled eye leaping from detail to detail.

“Canvas planes all gone, of course. Not a rag left; only the frame. But, no matter, we can remedy that. Wooden levers, skids, and so on, gone. Easily replaced. Main thing is the engine. Looks as though it had been carefully covered, but, of course, the covering has rotted away. No matter, we'll soon see. Now, this carbureter--”

His inspection lasted half an hour, while the girl, lost among so many technicalities, sat down on the dusty concrete floor beside the machine and listened in a kind of dazed admiration.

He gave her, finally, his opinion.

“This machine will go if properly handled,” said he, rising triumphantly and slapping the dust off his palms. “The chassis needs truing up, the equilibrator has sagged out of plumb, and the ailerons have got to be readjusted, but it's only a matter of a few days at the outside before she'll be in shape.

“The main thing is the engine, and so far as I can judge, that's pretty nearly O. K. The magneto may have to be gone over, but that's a mere trifle. Odd, I never thought of either finding one of these machines in New York, or building one! When I think of all the weary miles we've tramped it makes me sick!”

“I know,” she answered; “but how about fuel? And another thing--have you ever operated one? Could you--”

“Run one?” He laughed aloud. “I'm the man who first taught Carlton Holmes to fly--you know Holmes, who won the Gordon-Craig cup for altitude record in 1916. I built the first--”

“I know, dear; but Holmes was killed at Schenectady, you remember, and this machine is different from anything you're used to, isn't it?” Beatrice asked.

“It won't be when I'm through with it! I tell you, Beatrice, we're going to fly. No more hiking through the woods or along beaches for us. From now on we travel in the air--and the world opens out to us as though by magic.

“Distance ceases to mean anything. The whole continent is ours. If there's another human creature on it we find him! And if there isn't then, perhaps we may find some in Asia or in Europe, who knows?”

“You mean you'd dare to attack the Atlantic with a patched-up machine more than a thousand years old?”

“I mean that eventually I can and will build one that'll take us to Alaska, and so across the fifty-mile gap from Cape Prince of Wales to East Cape. The whole world lies at our feet, girl, with this new idea, this new possibility in mind!”

She smiled at his enthusiasm.

“But fuel?” asked she, practical even in her joy. “I don't imagine there's any gasoline left now, do you? A stuff as volatile as that, after all these centuries? What metal could contain it for a thousand years?”

“There's alcohol,” he answered. “A raid on the ruins of a few saloons and drug-stores will give me all I need to carry me to Boston, where there's plenty, never fear. A few slight adjustments of the engine will fit it for burning alcohol. And as for the planes, good stout buckskin, well sewn together and stretched on the frames, will do the trick as well as canvas--better, maybe.”

“But--”

“Oh, what a little pessimist it is to-day!” he interrupted. “Always coming at me with objections, eh?” He took her in his arms and kissed her. “I tell you Beta, this is no pipe-dream at all, or anything like it; the thing's reality--we're going to fly! But it'll mean the most tremendous lot of sewing and stitching for you!”

“You're a dear!” she answered inconsequentially. “I do believe if the whole world fell apart you could put it together again.”

“With your help, yes,” said he. “What's more, I'm going to--and a better world at that than ever yet was dreamed of. Wait and see!”

Laughing, he released her.

“Well, now, we'll go to work,” he concluded. “Nothing's accomplished by mere words. Just lay hold of that lateral there, will you? And we'll haul this old machine out where we can have a real good look at her, what do yore say? Now, then, one, two, three--”