The Runaway Skyscraper | Page 5

"It seems as if
we're going to keep on indefinitely."
"I guess we'll stop all right," Arthur reassured her. "It's obvious that
whatever it was, only affected our own building, or we'd see some other
one with us. It looks like a fault or a flaw in the rock the building rests
on. And that can only give so far."
Estelle was silent for a moment.
"Oh, I can't be sane!" she burst out semihysterically. "This can't be
happening!"
"You aren't crazy," said Arthur sharply. "You're sane as I am. Just
something queer is happening. Buck up. Say your multiplication tables.
Say anything you know. Say something sensible and you'll know you're
all right. But don't get frightened now. There'll be plenty to get
frightened about later."
The grimness in his tone alarmed Estelle.
"What are you afraid of?" she asked quickly.
"Time enough to worry when it happens," Arthur retorted briefly.
"You--you aren't afraid we'll go back before the beginning of the world,
are you?" asked Estelle in sudden access of fright.

Arthur shook his head.
"Tell me," said Estelle more quietly, getting a grip on herself. "I won't
mind. But please tell me."
Arthur glanced at her. Her face was pale, but there was more resolution
in it than he had expected to find.
"I'll tell you, then," he said reluctantly. "We're going back a little faster
than we were, and the flaw seems to be a deeper one than I thought. At
the roughest kind of an estimate, we're all of a thousand years before
the discovery of America now, and I think nearer three or four. And
we're gaining speed all the time. So, though I am as sure as I can be
sure of anything that we'll stop this cave-in eventually, I don't know
where. It's like a crevasse in the earth opened by an earthquake which
may be only a few feet deep, or it may be hundreds of yards, or even a
mile or two. We started off smoothly. We're going at a terrific rate.
What will happen when we stop?"
Estelle caught her breath.
"What?" she asked quietly.
"I don't know," said Arthur in an irritated tone, to cover his
apprehension. "How could I know?"
Estelle turned from him to the window again.
"Look!" she said, pointing.
The flickering had begun again. While they stared, hope springing up
once more in their hearts, it became more pronounced. Soon they could
distinctly see the difference between day and night.
They were slowing up! The white snow on the ground remained there
for an appreciable time, autumn lasted quite a while. They could catch
the flashes of the sun as it made its revolutions now, instead of its
seeming like a ribbon of fire. At last day lasted all of fifteen or twenty

minutes.
It grew longer and longer. Then half an hour, then an hour. The sun
wavered in midheaven and was still.
Far below them, the watchers in the tower of the skyscraper saw trees
swaying and bending in the wind. Though there was not a house or a
habitation to be seen and a dense forest covered all of Manhattan Island,
such of the world as they could see looked normal. Wherever or rather
in whatever epoch of time they were, they had arrived.

IV.
Arthur caught at Estelle's arm and the two made a dash for the elevators.
Fortunately one was standing still, the door open, on their floor. The
elevator-boy had deserted his post and was looking with all the rest of
the occupants of the building at the strange landscape that surrounded
them.
No sooner had the pair reached the car, however, than the boy came
hurrying along the corridor, three or four other people following him
also at a run. Without a word the boy rushed inside, the others crowded
after him, and the car shot downward, all of the newcomers panting
from their sprint.
Theirs was the first car to reach the bottom. They rushed out and to the
western door.
Here, where they had been accustomed to see Madison Square spread
out before them, a clearing of perhaps half an acre in extent showed
itself. Where their eyes instinctively looked for the dark bronze
fountain, near which soap-box orators aforetime held sway, they saw a
tent, a wigwam of hides and bark gaily painted. And before the
wigwam were two or three brown-skinned Indians, utterly petrified
with astonishment.
Behind the first wigwam were others, painted like the first with daubs

of brightly colored clay. From them, too, Indians issued, and stared in
incredulous amazement, their eyes growing wider and wider. When the
group of white people confronted the Indians there was a moment's
deathlike silence. Then, with a wild yell, the redskins broke and ran,
not stopping