Darkness and Dawn | Page 4

cried:
"What is it? What does all this mean? Tell me!"
To him she clung.
"Tell me the truth--and save me! Is it real?"
Stern looked at her wonderingly. He smiled a strange, wan, mirthless smile.
All about him he looked. Then his lips moved, but for the moment no sound came.

He made another effort, this time successful.
"There, there," said he huskily, as though the dust and dryness of the innumerable years
had got into his very voice. "There, now, don't be afraid!
"Something seems to have taken place here while--we've been asleep. What? What is it? I
don't know yet. I'll find out. There's nothing to be alarmed about, at any rate."
"But--look!" She pointed at the hideous desolation.
"Yes, I see. But no matter. You're alive. I'm alive. That's two of us, anyhow. Maybe there
are a lot more. We'll soon see. Whatever it may be, we'll win."
He turned and, trailing rags and streamers of rotten cloth that once had been a business
suit, he waded through the confusion of wreckage on the floor to the window.
If you have seen a weather-beaten scarecrow flapping in the wind, you have some notion
of his outward guise. No tramp you ever laid eyes on could have offered so preposterous
an appearance.
Down over his shoulders fell the matted, dusty hair. His tangled beard reached far below
his waist. Even his eyebrows, naturally rather light, had grown to a heavy thatch above
his eyes.
Save that he was not gray or bent, and that he still seemed to have kept the resilient force
of vigorous manhood, you might have thought him some incredibly ancient Rip Van
Winkle come to life upon that singular stage, there in the tower.
But little time gave he to introspection or the matter of his own appearance. With one
quick gesture he swept away the shrouding tangle of webs, spiders, and dead flies that
obscured the window. Out he peered.
"Good Heavens!" cried he, and started back a pace.
She ran to him.
"What is it?" she breathlessly exclaimed.
"Why, I don't know--yet. But this is something big! Something universal! It's--it's--no, no,
you'd better not look out--not just yet."
"I must know everything. Let me see!"
Now she was at his side, and, like him, staring out into the clear sunshine, out over the
vast expanses of the city.
A moment's utter silence fell. Quite clearly hummed the protest of an imprisoned fly in a
web at the top of the window. The breathing of the man and woman sounded quick and
loud.

"All wrecked!" cried Beatrice. "But--then--"
"Wrecked? It looks that way," the engineer made answer, with a strong effort holding his
emotions in control. "Why not be frank about this? You'd better make up your mind at
once to accept the very worst. I see no signs of anything else."
"The worst? You mean--"
"I mean just what we see out there. You can interpret it as well as I."
Again the silence while they looked, with emotions that could find no voicing in words.
Instinctively the engineer passed an arm about the frightened girl and drew her close to
him.
"And the last thing I remember," whispered she, "was just--just after you'd finished
dictating those Taunton Bridge specifications. I suddenly felt--oh, so sleepy! Only for a
minute I thought I'd close my eyes and rest, and then--then--"
"This?"
She nodded.
"Same here," said he. "What the deuce can have struck us? Us and everybody--and
everything? Talk about your problems! Lucky I'm sane and sound, and--and--"
He did not finish, but fell once more to studying the incomprehensible prospect.
Their view was towards the east, but over the river and the reaches of what had once
upon a time been Long Island City and Brooklyn, as familiar a scene in the other days as
could be possibly imagined. But now how altered an aspect greeted them!
"It's surely all wiped out, all gone, gone into ruins," said Stern slowly and carefully,
weighing each word. "No hallucination about that." He swept the sky-line with his eyes,
that now peered keenly out from beneath those bushy brows. Instinctively he brought his
hand up to his breast. He started with surprise.
"What's this?" he cried. "Why, I--I've got a full yard of whiskers. My good Lord!
Whiskers on me? And I used to say--"
He burst out laughing. At his beard he plucked with merriment that jangled horribly on
the girl's tense nerves. Suddenly he grew serious. For the first time he seemed to take
clear notice of his companion's plight.
"Why, what a time it must have been!" cried he. "Here's some calculation all cut out for
me, all right. But--you can't go that way, Miss Kendrick. It--it won't do, you know. Got to