The sail caught the breath of the breeze. The banca moved slowly forward, trailing its wake like widening lines of silver in the moonlight.
And Beatrice, strong in her trust of him, her confidence and love, lay down to sleep while the wounded man steered on and on, and watched her and protected her. And over all the stars, a glory in the summer sky, kept silent vigil.
Dawn broke, all a flame of gold and crimson, as they landed in a sheltered little bay on the west sh.o.r.e.
Here, though the forest stood unbroken in thick ranges all along the background, it had not yet invaded the slope that led back from the pebbly beach. And through the tangle of what once must have been a splendid orchard, they caught a glimpse of white walls overgrown with a mad profusion of wild roses, wisterias and columbines.
"This was once upon a time the summer-place, the big concrete bungalow and all, of Harrison Van Amburg. You know the billionaire, the wheat man? It used to be all his in the long ago. He built it for all time of a material that time can never change. It was his. Well, it"s ours now. Our home!"
Together they stood upon the shelving beach, lapped by the river.
Somewhere in the woods behind them a robin was caroling with liquid harmony.
Stern drew the rude boat up. Then, breathing deep, he faced the morning.
"You and I, Beatrice," said he, and took her hand. "Just you--and I!"
"And love!" she whispered.
"And hope, and life! And the earth reborn. The arts and sciences, language and letters, truth, "all the glories of the world" handed down through us!
"Listen! The race of men, our race, must live again--shall live! Again the forests and the plains shall be the conquest of our blood. Once more shall cities gleam and tower, ships sail the sea, and the world go on to greater wisdom, better things!
"A kinder and a saner world this time. No misery, no war, no poverty, woe, strife, creeds, oppression, tears--for we are wiser than those other folk, and there shall be no error."
He paused, his face irradiate. To him recurred the prophecy of Ingersoll, the greatest orator of that other time. And very slowly he spoke again:
"Beatrice, it shall be a world where thrones have crumbled and where kings are dust. The aristocracy of idleness shall reign no more! A world without a slave. Man shall at last be free!
""A world at peace, adorned by every form of art, with music"s myriad voices thrilled, while lips are rich with words of love and truth. A world in which no exile sighs, no prisoner mourns; a world on which the gibbet"s shadow shall not fall.
""A race without disease of flesh or brain, shapely and fair, the wedded harmony of form and function. And as I look, life lengthens, joy deepens, and over all in the great dome shines the eternal star of human hope!""
"And love?" she smiled again, a deep and sacred meaning in her words.
Within her stirred the universal motherhood, the hope of everything, the call of the unborn, the insistent voice of the race that was to be.
"And love!" he answered, his voice now very tender, very grave.
Tired, yet strong, he looked upon her. And as he looked his eyes grew deep and eager.
Sweet as the honey of Hymettus was the perfume of the orchard, all a powder of white and rosy blooms, among which the bees, pollen-dusted, labored, at their joyous, fructifying task. Fresh, the morning breeze.
Clear, warm, radiant, the sun of June; the summer sun uprising far beyond the shining hills.
Life everywhere--and love!
Love, too, for them. For this man, this woman, love; the mystery, the pleasure and the eternal pain.
With his unhurt arm he circled her. He bent, he drew her to him, as she raised her face to his.
And for the first time his mouth sought hers.
Their lips, long hungry for this madness, met there and blended in a kiss of pa.s.sion and of joy.
BOOK II
BEYOND THE GREAT OBLIVION
CHAPTER I
BEGINNINGS
A thousand years of darkness and decay! A thousand years of blight, brutality, and atavism; of Nature overwhelming all man"s work, of crumbling cities and of forgotten civilization, of stupefaction, of death! A thousand years of night!
Two human beings, all alone in that vast wilderness--a woman and a man.
The past, irrevocable; the present, fraught with problems, perils, and alarms; the future--what?
A thousand years!
Yet, though this thousand years had seemingly smeared away all semblance of the world of men from the cosmic canvas, Allan Stern and Beatrice Kendrick thrilled with as vital a pa.s.sion as though that vast, oblivious age lay not between them and the time that was.
And their long kiss, there in sight of their new home-to-be--alone there in that desolated world--was as natural as the summer breeze, the liquid melody of the red-breast on the blossomy apple-bough above their heads, the white and purple spikes of odorous lilacs along the vine-grown stone wall, the gold and purple dawn now breaking over the distant reaches of the river.
Thus were these two betrothed, this sole surviving pair of human beings.
Thus, as the new day burned to living flame up the inverted bowl of sky, this woman and this man pledged each other their love and loyalty and trust.
Thus they stood together, his left arm about her warm, lithe body, clad as she was only in her tiger-skin. Their eyes met and held true, there in the golden glory of the dawn. Unafraid, she read the message in the depths of his, the invitation, the command; and they both foreknew the future.
Beatrice spoke first, flushing a little as she drew toward him.
"Allan," she said with infinite tenderness, even as a mother might speak to a well-loved son, "Allan, come now and let me dress your wound. That"s the first thing to do. Come, let me see your arm."
He smiled a little, and with his broad, brown hand stroked back the spun silk of her hair, its ma.s.s transfixed by the raw gold pins he had found for her among the ruins of New York.
"No, no!" he objected. "It"s nothing--it"s not worth bothering about.
I"ll be all right in a day or two. My flesh heals almost at once, without any care. You don"t realize how healthy I am."
"I know, dear, but it must hurt you terribly!"
"Hurt? How could I feel any pain with your kiss on my mouth?"
"Come!" she again repeated with insistence, and pointed toward the beach where their banca lay on the sand.