Beyond the Great Oblivion

CHAPTER XXIX. SHADOWS OF WAR

A blue and flickering gleam of light, dim, yet persistent, seemed to enhalo a woman's face; and as Stern's weary eyes opened under languid lids, closed, then opened again, the wounded engineer smiled in his weakness.

“Beatrice!” he whispered, and tried to stretch a hand to her, as she sat beside his bed of seaweed covered with the coarse brown fabric. “Oh, Beatrice! Is this--is this another--hallucination?”

She took the hand and kissed it, then bent above him and kissed him again, this time fair upon the lips.

“No, boy,” she answered. “No hallucination, but reality! You're all right now--and I'm all right! You've had a little fever and--and--well, don't ask any questions, that's all. Here, drink this now and go to sleep!”

She set a massive golden bowl to his mouth, and very gently raised his head.

Unquestioningly he drank, as though he had been a child and she his mother. The liquid, warm and somewhat sweet, had just a tang of some new taste that he had never known. Singularly vitalizing it seemed, soothing yet full of life. With a sigh of contentment, despite the numb ache in his right temple, he lay back and once more closed his eyes. Never had he felt such utter weakness. All his forces seemed drained and spent; even to breathe was very difficult.

Feebly he raised his hand to his head.

“Bandaged?” he whispered. “What does that mean?”

“It means you're to go to sleep now!” she commanded. “That's all--just go to sleep!”

He lay quiet a moment, but sleep would not come. A score, a hundred thoughts confusedly crowded his brain.

And once more looking up at her in the dim blue gloom of the hut where they were, he breathed a question:

“Were you badly hurt, dear, in--in the battle?”

“No, Allan. Just stunned, that's all. Not even wounded. Be quiet now or I'll scold!”

He raised his arms to her and, weak though he was, took her to his breast and held her tight, tight.

“Thank God!” he whispered. “Oh, I love you! I love you so! If you'd been killed--”

She felt his tears hot upon his wasted cheeks, and unloosened his arms.

“There, there!” she soothed him. “You'll get into a fever again if you don't lie still and try not to think! You--”

“When was it? Yesterday?” he interrupted.

“Sh-h-h-h! No more questions now.”

“But I want to know! And what happened to me? And the--the Lanskaarn? What about them? And--”

“Heavens, but you're inquisitive for a man that's just missed--I mean, that's been as sick as you have!” she exclaimed, taking his head in both hands and gazing down at him with eyes more deeply tender than he had ever seen them. “Now do be good, boy, and don't worry about all these things, but go to sleep--there's a dear. And when you wake up next time--”

“No, no!” he insisted with passionate eagerness. “I'm not that kind! I'm not a child, Beta! I've got to know--I can't go to sleep without knowing. Tell me a little about it, about what happened, and then--then I'll sleep as long as you say!”

She pondered a moment, weighing matters, then made answer:

“All right, boy, only remember your promise!”

“I will.”

“Good! Now listen. I'll tell you what the old man told me, for naturally I don't remember the last part of the fight any better than you do.

“I was struck by a flying stone, and--well, it wasn't anything serious. It just stunned me for a while. I came to in a hut.”

“Where I carried you, dearest, just before I--”

“Yes, I know, just before the battle-ax--”

“Was it an ax that hit me?”

“Yes. But it was only a glancing blow. Your long hair helped save you, too. But even so--”

“Skull cracked?”

“No, I guess concussion of the brain would be the right term for it.” She took his groping hand in both her own warm, strong ones and kissed it tenderly. “But before you fell, your raking fire along the wall there--you understand--”

“Cleaned 'em out, eh?” he queried eagerly.

“That's about it. It turned the tide against the Lanskaarn. And after that--I guess it was just butchery. I don't know, of course, and the old man hasn't wanted to tell me much; but anyway, the ladders all went down, and the Folk here made a sortie from the gate, down the causeway, and--and--”

“And they've got a lot more of those infernal skeletons hanging on the poles by the fire?” he concluded in a rasping whisper.

She nodded, then kept a minute's silence.

“Did any of 'em get away in their canoes?”

“A few. But in all their history the Folk never won such a victory. Oh, it was glorious, glorious! And all because of you!”

“And you, dear!”

“And now--now,” she went on, “we're not prisoners any more, but--”

“Everything coming our way? Is that it?”

“That's it. They dragged you out, after the battle, from under a big heap of bodies under the wall.”

“Outside or inside?”

“Outside, on the beach. They brought you in, for dead, boy. And I guess they had an awful time about you, from what I've found out--”

“Big powwow, and all that?”

“Yes. If you'd died, they'd have gone on a huge war expedition out to the islands, wherever those are, and simply wiped out the rest of the Lanskaarn. But--”

“I'm glad I didn't,” he interrupted. “No more killing from now on! We want all the living humans we can get; we need 'em in our business!”

Stern was growing excited; the girl had to calm him once more.

“Be quiet, Allan, or I'll leave you this minute and you shan't know another thing!” she threatened.

“All right, I'll be good,” he promised. “What next? I'm the Big Chief now, of course? What I say now goes?”

She answered nothing, but a troubled wrinkle drew between her perfect brows. For a moment there was silence, save for the dull and distant roaring of the flame.

By the glow of the bluish light in the hut, Stern looked up at her. Never had she seemed so beautiful. The heavy masses of her hair, parted in the middle and fastened with gold pins such as the Folk wore, framed her wonderful face with twilight shadows. He saw she was no longer clad in fur, but in a loose and flowing mantle of the brown fabric, caught up below the breast with a gold-clasped girdle.

“Oh, Beatrice,” he breathed, “kiss me again!”

She kissed him; but even in the caress he sensed an unvoiced anxiety, a hidden fear.

“What's wrong?” asked he anxiously.

“Nothing, dear. Now you must be quiet! You're in the patriarch's house here. You're safe--for the present, and--”

“For the present? What do you mean?”

“See here.” the girl threatened, “if you don't stop asking questions, and go to sleep again, I'll leave you alone!”

“In that case I promise!”

And now obedient, he closed his eyes, relaxed, and let her soothingly caress him. But still another thought obtruded on his mind.

“Beatrice?”

“Yes, dearest.”

“How long ago was that fight?”

“Oh, a little while. Never mind now!”

“Yes, but how long? Two days? Four? Five?”

“They don't have days down here,” she evaded.

“I know. But reckoning our way--five days?”

“Nearer ten, Allan.”

“What? But then--”

The girl withdrew her hand from him and arose.

“I see it's no use, Allan,” she said decisively. “So long as I stay with you you'll ask questions and excite yourself. I'm going! Then you'll have to keep still!”

“Beta! Beta!” he implored. “I'll be good! Don't leave me--you mustn't!”

“All right; but if you ask me another question, a single one, mind, I'll truly go!”

“Just give me your hand, girlie, that's all! Come here--sit down beside me again--so!”

He turned on his side, on the rude couch of coarse brown fabric stuffed with dried seaweed, laid his hollow cheek upon her hand, and gave a deep sigh.

“Now, I'm off,” he murmured. “Only, don't leave me, Beta!”

For half an hour after his deep, slow breathing told that the wounded man was sleeping soundly--half an hour as time was measured where the sun shone, for down in the black depths of the abyss all such divisions were as naught, Beatrice sat lovingly and tenderly beside the primitive bed. Her right palm beneath his face, she stroked his long hair and his wan cheek with her other hand; and now she smiled with pride and reminiscence, now a grave, troubled look crossed her features.

The light, a fiber wick burning in a stone cup of oil upon a stone-slab table in the center of the hut, “uttered unsteadily, casting huge and dancing shadows up the black walls.

“Oh, my beloved!” whispered the girl, and bent above him till the loosened sheaves of her hair swept his face. “My love! Only for you, where should I be now? With you, how could I be afraid? And yet--”

She turned at a sound from a narrow door opposite the larger one that gave upon the plaza, a door, like the other, closed by a heavy curtain platted of seaweed.

There, holding the curtain back, stood the blind patriarch. His hut, larger than most in the strange village, boasted two rooms. Now from the inner one, where he had been resting, he came to speak with Beatrice.

“Peace, daughter!” said the old man. “Peace be unto you. He sleeps?”

“Yes, father. He's much better now, I think. His constitution is simply marvelous.”

“Verily, he is strong. But far stronger are those terrible and wonderful weapons of yours! If our Folk only had such!”

“You're better off without them. But of course, if you want to understand them, he can explain them in due time. Those, and endless other things!”

“I believe that is truth.” The patriarch advanced into the room, and for a minute stood by the bedside with venerable dignity. “The traditions, I remember, tell of so many strange matters. I shall know them, every one. All in time, all in time!”

“Your simple medicines, down here, are wonderful,” said the girl admiringly. “What did you put into that draught I gave him to make him sleep this way?”

“Only the steeped root of our n'gahar plant, my daughter--a simple weed brought up from the bottom of this sea by our strong divers. It is nothing, nothing.”

Came silence again. The aged man sat down upon a curved stone bench that followed the contour of the farther wall. Presently he spoke once more.

“Daughter,” said he, “it is now ten sleeping--times--nights, the English speech calls them, if I remember what my grandfather taught me--since the battle. And my son, here, still lies weak and sick. I go soon to get still other plants for him. Stronger plants, to make him well and powerful again. For there is haste now--haste!”

“You mean--Kamrou?”

“Yea, Kamrou! I know the temper of that evil man better than any other. He and his boats may return from the great fisheries in the White Gulf beyond the vortex at any time, and--”

“But, father, after all we've done for the village here, and especially after what Allan's done? After this wonderful victory, I can't believe--”

“You do not know that man!” exclaimed the patriarch. “I know him! Rather would he and his slay every living thing in this community than yield one smallest atom of power to any other.”

He arose wearily and gathered his mantle all about him, then reached for his staff that leaned beside the outer door.

“Peace!” he exclaimed. “Ah, when shall we have peace and learning and a better life again? The teaching and the learning of the English speech and all the arts you know, now lost to us--to us, the abandoned Folk in the abyss? When? When?”

He raised the curtain to depart; but even then he paused once more, and turned to her.

“Verily, you have spoken truth,” said he, “when you have said that all, all here are with us, with you and this wondrous man now lying weak and wounded in my house. But Kamrou--is different. Alas, you know him not--you know him not!

“Watch well over my son, here! Soon must he grow strong again. Soon, soon! Soon, against the coming of Kamrou. For if the chief returns and my son be weak still, then woe to him, to you, to me! Woe to us all! Woe, Woe!”

The curtain fell. The patriarch was gone. Outside, Beatrice heard the click-click-click of his iron staff upon the smooth and flinty rock floor.

And to her ears, mingled with the far roaring of the flame, drifted the words:

“Woe, woe to him! Woe to us all--woe--woe!”