Beyond The Great Oblivion | Page 7

beyond this protection, Stern had his automatic and a belt nearly full of cartridges.
They discussed the question of a possible attack by some remnants of the Horde; but
common sense assured them that these creatures would--such as survived--give them a
wide berth.
"And in any event," Stern summed it up, "if anything happens, we have the bungalow to
retreat into. Though in its present state, without any doors or shutters, I think we're safer
out among the trees, where, on a pinch, we could go aloft."
Thus his convalescence progressed in the open air, under the clouds and sun and stars and
lustrous moon of that deserted world.
Beatrice showed both skill and ingenuity in her treatment. With a clam-shell she scraped
and saved the rich fat from under the skins of the squirrels, and this she "tried out" in a
golden dish, over the fire. The oil thus got she used to anoint his healing wound. She used
a dressing of clay and leaves; and when the fever flushed him she made him comfortable

on his bed of spruce-tips, bathed his forehead and cheeks, and gave him cold water from
a spring that trickled down over the moss some fifty feet to westward of the camp.
Many a long talk they had, too--he prone on the spruce, she sitting beside him, tending
the fire, holding his hand or letting his head lie in her lap, the while she stroked his hair.
Ferns, flowers in profusion--lilacs and clover and climbing roses and some new, strange
scarlet blossoms--bowered their nest. And through the pain and fever, the delay and
disappointment, they both were glad and cheerful. No word of impatience or haste or
repining escaped them. For they had life; they had each other; they had love. And those
days, as later they looked back upon them, were among the happiest, the most purely
beautiful, the sweetest of their whole wondrous, strange experience.
He and she, perfect friends, comrades and lovers, were inseparable. Each was always
conscious of the other's presence. The continuity of love, care and sympathy was never
broken. Even when, at daybreak, she went away around the wooded point for her bath in
the river, he could hear her splashing and singing and laughing happily in the cold water.
It was the Golden Age come back to earth again--the age of natural and pure simplicity,
truth, trust, honor, faith and joy, unspoiled by malice or deceit, by lies, conventions,
sordid ambitions, or the lust of wealth or power. Arcady, at last--in truth!
Their conversation was of many things. They talked of their awakening in the tower and
their adventures there; of the possible cause of the world-catastrophe that had wiped out
the human race, save for their own survival; the Horde and the great battle; their escape,
their present condition, and their probable future; the possibility of their ever finding any
other isolated human beings, and of reconstituting the fragments of the world or of
renewing the human race.
And as they spoke of this, sometimes the girl would grow strangely silent, and a look
almost of inspiration--the universal mother--look of the race--would fill her wondrous
eye's. Her hand would tremble in his; but he would hold it tight, for he, too, understood.
"Afraid, little girl?" he asked her once.
"No, not afraid," she answered; and their eyes met. "Only--so much depends on us--on
you, on me! What strength we two must have, what courage, what endurance! The future
of the human race lies in our hands!"
He made no answer; he, too, grew silent. And for a long while they sat and watched the
embers of the fire; and the day waned. Slowly the sun set in its glory over the virgin hills;
the far eastern spaces of the sky grew bathed in tender lavenders and purples. Haze drew
its veils across the world, and the air grew brown with evenfall.
Presently the girl arose, to throw more wood on the fire. Clad only in her loose tiger-skin,
clasped with gold, she moved like a primeval goddess. Stern marked the supple play of
her muscles, the unspoiled grace and strength of that young body, the swelling warmth of
her bosom. And as he looked he loved; he pressed a hand to his eyes; for a while he
thought--it was as though he prayed.

Evening came on--the warm, dark, mysterious night. Off there in the shallows gradually
arose the million-voiced chorus of frogs, shrill and monotonous, plaintive, appealing--the
cry of new life to the overarching, implacable mystery of the universe. The first faint
silvery powder of the stars came spangling out along the horizon. Unsteady bats began to
reel across the sky. The solemn beauty of the scene awed the woman and the man to
silence. But Stern, leaning