"We could go. We could swim the seas together. Beyond the seas--"
"I have never been beyond the seas."
"There are great and desolate mountains amidst which we should seem no more than little people, there are remote and deserted valleys, there are hidden lakes and snow-girdled uplands untrodden by the feet of men.
_There_--"
"But to get there we must fight our way day after day through millions and millions of mankind."
"It is our only hope. In this crowded land there is no fastness, no shelter. What place is there for us among these mult.i.tudes? They who are little can hide from one another, but where are we to hide? There is no place where we could eat, no place where we could sleep. If we fled--night and day they would pursue our footsteps."
A thought came to him.
"There is one place," he said, "even in this island."
"Where?"
"The place our Brothers have made over beyond there. They have made great banks about their house, north and south and east and west; they have made deep pits and hidden places, and even now--one came over to me quite recently. He said--I did not altogether heed what he said then.
But he spoke of arms. It may be--there--we should find shelter....
"For many days," he said, after a pause, "I have not seen our Brothers... Dear! I have been dreaming, I have been forgetting! The days have pa.s.sed, and I have done nothing but look to see you again ... I must go to them and talk to them, and tell them of you and of all the things that hang over us. If they will help us, they can help us. Then indeed we might hope. I do not know how strong their place is, but certainly Cossar will have made it strong. Before all this--before you came to me, I remember now--there was trouble brewing. There was an election--when all the little people settle things, by counting heads.
It must be over now. There were threats against all our race--against all our race, that is, but you. I must see our Brothers. I must tell them all that has happened between us, and all that threatens now."
V.
He did not come to their next meeting until she had waited some time.
They were to meet that day about midday in a great s.p.a.ce of park that fitted into a bend of the river, and as she waited, looking ever southward under her hand, it came to her that the world was very still, that indeed it was broodingly still. And then she perceived that, spite of the lateness of the hour, her customary retinue of voluntary spies had failed her. Left and right, when she came to look, there was no one in sight, and there was never a boat upon the silver curve of the Thames. She tried to find a reason for this strange stillness in the world....
Then, a grateful sight for her, she saw young Redwood far away over a gap in the tree ma.s.ses that bounded her view.
Immediately the trees hid him, and presently he was thrusting through them and in sight again. She could see there was something different, and then she saw that he was hurrying unusually and then that he limped.
He gestured to her, and she walked towards him. His face became clearer, and she saw with infinite concern that he winced at every stride.
She ran towards him, her mind full of questions and vague fear. He drew near to her and spoke without a greeting.
"Are we to part?" he panted.
"No," she answered. "Why? What is the matter?"
"But if we do not part--! It is _now_."
"What is the matter?"
"I do not want to part," he said. "Only--" He broke off abruptly to ask, "You will not part from me?"
She met his eyes with a steadfast look. "What has happened?" she pressed.
"Not for a time?"
"What time?"
"Years perhaps."
"Part! No!"
"You have thought?" he insisted.
"I will not part." She took his hand. "If this meant death, _now_, I would not let you go."
"If it meant death," he said, and she felt his grip upon her fingers.
He looked about him as if he feared to see the little people coming as he spoke. And then: "It may mean death."
"Now tell me," she said.
"They tried to stop my coming."
"How?"
"And as I came out of my workshop where I make the Food of the G.o.ds for the Cossars to store in their camp, I found a little officer of police--a man in blue with white clean gloves--who beckoned me to stop.
"This way is closed!" said he. I thought little of that; I went round my workshop to where another road runs west, and there was another officer.
"This road is closed!" he said, and added: "All the roads are closed!""
"And then?"
"I argued with him a little. "They are public roads!" I said.
""That"s it," said he. "You spoil them for the public."
""Very well," said I, "I"ll take the fields," and then, up leapt others from behind a hedge and said, "These fields are private."
""Curse your public and private," I said, "I"m going to my Princess,"
and I stooped down and picked him up very gently--kicking and shouting--and put him out of my way. In a minute all the fields about me seemed alive with running men. I saw one on horseback galloping beside me and reading something as he rode--shouting it. He finished and turned and galloped away from me--head down. I couldn"t make it out. And then behind me I heard the crack of guns."
"Guns!"
"Guns--just as they shoot at the rats. The bullets came through the air with a sound like things tearing: one stung me in the leg."
"And you?"
"Came on to you here and left them shouting and running and shooting behind me. And now--"
"Now?"
"It is only the beginning. They mean that we shall part. Even now they are coming after me."
"We will not."
"No. But if we will not part--then you must come with me to our Brothers."