"Well, the sooner we get at it, the better. We"d do well to take a look at the inside."
The front door, one-time built of oaken planks studded with hand-worked nails and banded with huge wrought-iron hinges, now hung there a mere sh.e.l.l of itself, worm-eaten, crumbling, disintegrated.
With no tools but his naked hands Stern tore and battered it away. A thick, pungent haze of dust arose, yellow in the morning sunlight that presently, for the first time in a thousand years, fell warm and bright across the cob-webbed front hallway, through the aperture.
Room by room Allan and Beatrice explored. The bungalow was practically stripped bare by time.
"Only moth and rust," sighed the girl. "The same story everywhere we go. But--well, never mind. We"ll soon have it looking homelike. Make me a broom, dear, and I"ll sweep out the worst of it at once."
Talking now in terms of practical detail, with romance for the hour displaced by harsh reality, they examined the entire house.
Of the once magnificent furnishings, only dust-piles, splinters and punky rubbish remained. Through the rotted plank shutters, that hung drunkenly awry from rust-eaten hinges, long spears of sunlight wanly illuminated the wreck of all that had once been the lavish home of a billionaire.
Rugs, paintings, furniture, _bibelots_, treasures of all kinds now lay commingled in mournful decay. In what had evidently been the music room, overlooking the grounds to southward, the grand piano now was only a ma.s.s of rusted frame, twisted and broken fragments of wire and a considerable heap of wood-detritus, with a couple of corroded pedals buried in the pile.
"And _this_ was the famous hundred-thousand-dollar harp of Sara, his daughter, that the papers used to talk so much about, you remember?"
asked the girl, stirring with her foot a few mournful bits of rubbish that lay near the piano.
"Sic transit gloria mundi!" growled Stern, shaking his head. "You and she were the same age, almost. And now--"
Silent and full of strange thoughts they went on into what had been the kitchen. The stove, though heavily bedded in rust, retained its form, for the solid steel had resisted even the fearful lapse of vanished time.
"After I scour that with sand and water," said Stern, "and polish up these aluminum utensils and reset that broken pane with a piece of gla.s.s from up-stairs where it isn"t needed, you won"t know this place.
Yes, and I"ll have running water in here, too--and electricity from the power-plant, and--"
"Oh, Allan," interrupted the girl, delightedly, "this must have been the dining room." She beckoned from a doorway. "No end of dishes left for us! Isn"t it jolly? This is luxury compared to the way we had to start in the tower!"
In the dining-room a good number of the more solid cut-gla.s.s and china pieces had resisted the shock of having fallen, centuries ago, to the floor, when the shelves and cupboards of teak and mahogany had rotted and gone to pieces. Corroded silverware lay scattered all about; and there was gold plate, too, intact save for the patina of extreme age--platters, dishes, beakers. But of the table and the chairs, nothing remained save dust.
Like curious children they poked and pried.
"Dishes enough!" exclaimed she. "Gold, till you can"t rest. But how about something to put _on_ the dishes? We haven"t had a bite since yesterday noon, and I"m about starved. Now that the fighting"s all over, I begin to remember my healthy appet.i.te!"
Stern smiled.
"You"ll have some breakfast, girlie," promised he. "There"ll be the wherewithal to garnish our 18-k, never fear. Just let"s have a look up-stairs, and then I"ll go after something for the larder."
They left the down-stairs rooms, silent save for a fly buzzing in a spider"s web, and together ascended the dusty stairs. The railing was entirely gone; but the concrete steps remained.
Stern helped the girl, in spite of the twinge of pain it caused his wounded arm. His heart beat faster--so, too, did hers--as they gained the upper story. The touch of her was, to him, like a lighted match flung into a powder magazine; but he bit his lip, and though his face paled, then flushed, he held his voice steady as he said:
"So then, bats up here? Well, how the deuce do they get in and out?
Ah! That broken window, where the elm-branch has knocked out the gla.s.s--I see! That"s got to be fixed at once!"
He brushed webs and dust from the remaining panes, and together they peered out over the orchard, out across the river, now a broad sheet of molten gold. His arm went about her; he drew her head against his heart, fast-beating; and silence fell.
"Come, Allan," said the girl at length, calmer than he. "Let"s see what we"ve got here to do with. Oh, I tell you to begin with," and she smiled up frankly at him, "I"m a tremendously practical sort of woman.
You may be an engineer, and know how to build wireless telegraphs and bridges and--and things; but when it comes to home--building--"
"I admit it. Well, lead on," he answered; and together they explored the upper rooms. The sense of intimacy now lay strong upon them, of unity and of indissoluble love and comradeship. This was quite another venture than the exploration of the tower, for now they were choosing a home, _their_ home, and in them the mating instinct had begun to thrill, to burn.
Each room, despite its ruin and decay, took on a special charm, a dignity, the foreshadowing of what must be. Yet intrinsically the place was mournful, even after Stern had let the sunshine in.
For all was dark desolation. The rosewood and mahogany furniture, pictures, rugs, bra.s.s beds, all alike lay reduced to dust and ashes. A gold clock, the porcelain fittings of the bath-room, and some fine clay and meerschaum pipes in what had evidently been Van Amburg"s den--these const.i.tuted all that had escaped the tooth of time.
In a front room that probably had been Sara"s, a mud-swallow had built its nest in the far corner. It flew out, frightened, when Stern thrust his hand into the aperture to see if the nest were tenanted, fluttered about with scared cries, then vanished up the broad fireplace.
"Eggs--warm!" announced Stern. "Well, this room will have to be shut up and left. We"ve got more than enough, anyhow. Less work for you, dear," he added, with a smile. "We might use only the lower floor, if you like. I don"t want you killing yourself with housework, you understand."
She laughed cheerily.
"You make me a broom and get all the dishes and things together," she answered, "and then leave the rest to me. In a week from now you won"t know this place. Once we clear out a little foothold here we can go back to the tower and fetch up a few loads of tools and supplies--"
"Come on, come on!" he interrupted, taking her by the hand and leading her away. "All such planning will do after breakfast, but I"m starving! How about a five-pound ba.s.s on the coals, eh? Come on, let"s go fishing."
CHAPTER III
THE MASKALONGE
With characteristic resourcefulness Stein soon manufactured adequate tackle with a well-trimmed alder pole, a line of leather thongs and a hook of stout piano wire, properly bent to make a barb and rubbed to a fine point on a stone. He caught a dozen young frogs among the sedges in the marshy stretch at the north end of the landing-beach, and confined them in the only available receptacle, the holster of his automatic.
All this hurt his arm severely, but he paid no heed.
"Now," he announced, "we"re quite ready for business. Come along!"
Together they pushed the boat off; it glided smoothly out onto the breast of the great current.
"I"ll paddle," she volunteered. "You mustn"t, with your arm in the condition it is. Which way?"
"Up--over there into that cove beyond the point," he answered, baiting up his hook with a frog that kicked as naturally as though a full thousand years hadn"t pa.s.sed since any of its progenitors had been handled thus. "This certainly is far from being the kind of tackle that Bob Davis or any of that gang used to swear by, but it"s the best we can do for now. When I get to making lines and hooks and things in earnest, there"ll be some sport in this vicinity. Imagine water untouched by the angler for ten hundred years or more!"
He swung his clumsy line as he spoke, and cast. Far across the shining water the circles spread, silver in the morning light; then the trailing line cut a long series of V"s as the girl paddled slowly toward the cove. Behind the banca a rippling wake flashed metallic; the cold, clear water caressed the primitive hull, murmuring with soft cadences, in the old, familiar music of the time when there were men on earth. The witchery of it stirred Beatrice; she smiled, looked up with joy and wonder at the beauty of that perfect morning, and in her clear voice began to sing, very low, very softly, to herself, a song whereof--save in her brain--no memory now remained in the whole world--
"Stark wie der Fels, Tief wie das Meer, Muss deine Liebe, muss deine Liebe sein--"
"_Ah!_" cried the man, interrupting her.
The alder pole was jerking, quivering in his hands; the leather line was taut.
"A strike, so help me! A big one!"
He sprang to his feet, and, unmindful of the swaying of the banca, began to play the fish.
Beatrice, her eyes a-sparkle, turned to watch; the paddle lay forgotten in her hands.
"Here he comes! Oh, _d.a.m.n!_" shouted Stern. "If I only had a reel now--"