THE ARRIVAL
Turber took Nanette back to the aero. A dozen canoes had arrived now,
the treasure was nearly all loaded aboard. The Indian legends here had
told of it--these chests buried on the shore of the water, up the river
a day's journey. How it got there no one can say. Left by some Mongol
outlaw, perhaps--of that Eastern civilization which was here centuries
before and which merged gradually into these savages the white man
called Indians.
Turber had laid his plans. The renegade Dutchman--one Melyn from the
Staten Island region--had been supplied with money by Turber. He had
purchased trinkets--had bribed the Indians--organized and fitted out an
expedition.
"And now we have it, little Nanette," said Turber. "You will love me
for all this wealth and luxury and power that I will lavish upon you."
The aero was everywhere littered with the treasure. Piles of broken,
moldy chests; scattered jewels strewn in heaps in the various cabins.
Jewels fashioned in strange devices of beaten gold and silver;
anklets of gold, garlanded with insets of rubies and emeralds; a heap
of sapphires glowing like the tropic sea at night; gemmed bangles
of a myriad designs; great metal vases, ornate with hydra-headed
images--religious trappings of a heathen age, and fabulous Eastern
riches.
The aero started almost as soon as Turber and Nanette came aboard.
It flashed forward in Time; and flew slowly in Space. Not far in
Space--south down the Hudson River, across the harbor until it poised
over Staten Island.
Turber sat with Nanette in the control room. She heard Josefa's voice,
but Turber ordered the woman away. Bluntnose was at the controls. How
Josefa explained our escape Nanette never knew. Perhaps by blaming it
upon the Indian--her word was as good as his. Turber with his treasure,
and having recovered Nanette, was in too good a humor to bother with
probing it.
Nanette knew that they were upon the last of the voyage now. Headed for
the Great City of New York in the Time-world of 2445. Their permanent
home.
"No more traveling, Nanette. We will conquer the world, you and I, and
rule it together."
Nanette was frightened, but she would not let him see it. Alone now.
Alan and I, she thought, were gone from her forever.
It was a brief trip. They stopped, just for a moment, in the year 1779.
It was a fairly large settlement here now on Staten Island, and the
aero, selecting a safe landing place, came down in a field near it.
A Colonial settlement, they called it; but it was in the hands of the
enemy. Sir William Howe had landed in the Narrows two years before, and
now held all the island.
It was night again when the aero stopped.
* * * * *
Nanette sat in the control room and attentively listened to the new
voices. All English now.
"Wolf Turber, we failed--"
"Yes?" His quiet voice was unruffled. "Did the sloop get in?"
"Last week. I have been here every night since--you come late, tonight
of all nights! They're fighting over in the marshes--this traitorous
Mercer and his men."
Turber interrupted: "About the sloop, Atwood! Who cares about Mercer?"
"Gad! You can brush me aside, but I've had a hellish time."
"All right, Tony, I believe you."
"It's well you should. I had thought if you did not come tonight, by
tomorrow Mercer's troops might be here. And where would I be? Not
here--that I promise you. As it is, Sir William does not think any too
much of me. He called me somewhat of an ugly name last week. I think I
am insulted."
"Well, you didn't get the gold?"
"No. The sloop got in--ninety days from the Bermudas in weather of
the vilest sort. And then the blockade--but it got through. I have
Somerset's letter. Your money was spent--"
Turber laughed. "I fancy it was!"
"--spent in what I warrant must have been no less than a digging up of
all the beach on Cooper's Island. Treasure there was none." He added:
"I did what I could. I hope this is your last passing, egad, it had
better be, and take me with you. They'll be sending me on a still
longer journey if I stay around here."
They took him aboard. The aero hung over Staten Island and sped forward
again in Time. Through the 1800's. The 1900's. And then, while the huge
city grew under it, sped on five hundred years farther. It took only
half an hour.
Turber said: "We are here." The aero had settled--a phantom settling
down in a shadowy city. It rested on that same rise of ground on Staten
Island which in 1945 held the Turber Hospital.
It flashed to a halt in 2445. Through the windows Nanette heard the
tumultuous roar of the monstrous city. Turber led her from the aero.