SHADOWS OF WAR
A blue and flickering gleam of light, dim, yet persistent,
seemed to enhalo a woman's face; and as Stern's weary eyes opened
under languid lids, closed, then opened again, the wounded engineer
smiled in his weakness.
"Beatrice!" he whispered, and tried to stretch a hand to her, as she
sat beside his bed of seaweed covered with the coarse brown fabric.
"Oh, Beatrice! Is this--is this another--hallucination?"
She took the hand and kissed it, then bent above him and kissed him
again, this time fair upon the lips.
"No, boy," she answered. "No hallucination, but reality! You're all
right now--and _I'm_ all right! You've had a little fever
and--and--well, don't ask any questions, that's all. Here, drink this
now and go to sleep!"
She set a massive golden bowl to his mouth, and very gently raised his
head.
Unquestioningly he drank, as though he had been a child and she his
mother. The liquid, warm and somewhat sweet, had just a tang of some
new taste that he had never known. Singularly vitalizing it seemed,
soothing yet full of life. With a sigh of contentment, despite the
numb ache in his right temple, he lay back and once more closed his
eyes. Never had he felt such utter weakness. All his forces seemed
drained and spent; even to breathe was very difficult.
Feebly he raised his hand to his head.
"Bandaged?" he whispered. "What does _that_ mean?"
"It means you're to go to sleep now!" she commanded. "That's all--just
go to sleep!"
He lay quiet a moment, but sleep would not come. A score, a hundred
thoughts confusedly crowded his brain.
And once more looking up at her in the dim blue gloom of the hut where
they were, he breathed a question:
"Were you badly hurt, dear, in--in the battle?"
"No, Allan. Just stunned, that's all. Not even wounded. Be quiet now
or I'll scold!"
He raised his arms to her and, weak though he was, took her to his
breast and held her tight, tight.
"Thank God!" he whispered. "Oh, I love you! I love you so! If you'd
been killed--"
She felt his tears hot upon his wasted cheeks, and unloosened his
arms.
"There, there!" she soothed him. "You'll get into a fever again if you
don't lie still and try not to think! You--"
"When was it? Yesterday?" he interrupted.
"Sh-h-h-h! No more questions now."
"But I want to know! And what happened to me? And the--the Lanskaarn?
What about them? And--"
"Heavens, but you're inquisitive for a man that's just missed--I mean,
that's been as sick as you have!" she exclaimed, taking his head in
both hands and gazing down at him with eyes more deeply tender than he
had ever seen them. "Now do be good, boy, and don't worry about all
these things, but go to sleep--there's a dear. And when you wake up
next time--"
"No, no!" he insisted with passionate eagerness. "I'm not that kind!
I'm not a child, Beta! I've got to know--I can't go to sleep without
knowing. Tell me a little about it, about what happened, and
then--then I'll sleep as long as you say!"
She pondered a moment, weighing matters, then made answer:
"All right, boy, only remember your promise!"
"I will."
"Good! Now listen. I'll tell you what the old man told me, for
naturally I don't remember the last part of the fight any better than
you do.
"I was struck by a flying stone, and--well, it wasn't anything
serious. It just stunned me for a while. I came to in a hut."
"Where I carried you, dearest, just before I--"
"Yes, I know, just before the battle-ax--"
"Was it an ax that hit me?"
"Yes. But it was only a glancing blow. Your long hair helped save you,
too. But even so--"
"Skull cracked?"
"No, I guess concussion of the brain would be the right term for it."
She took his groping hand in both her own warm, strong ones and kissed
it tenderly. "But before you fell, your raking fire along the wall
there--you understand--"
"Cleaned 'em out, eh?" he queried eagerly.
"That's about it. It turned the tide against the Lanskaarn. And after
that--I guess it was just butchery. I don't know, of course, and the
old man hasn't wanted to tell me much; but anyway, the ladders all
went down, and the Folk here made a sortie from the gate, down the
causeway, and--and--"
"And they've got a lot more of those infernal skeletons hanging on the
poles by the fire?" he concluded in a rasping whisper.
She nodded, then kept a minute's silence.
"Did any of 'em get away in their canoes?"
"A few. But in all their history the Folk never won such a victory.
Oh, it was glorious, glorious! And all because of you!"
"And you, dear!"
"And now--now," she went on, "we're not prisoners any more, but--"
"Everything coming our way? Is that it?"
"That's it. They dragged you out, after the battle, from under a big
heap of bodies under the wall."
"Outside or inside?"
"Outside, on the beach. They brought you in, for dead, boy. And I
guess they had an awful time about you, from what I've found out--"
"Big powwow, and all that?"
"Yes. If you'd died, they'd have gone on a huge war expedition out to
the islands, wherever those are, and simply wiped out the rest of the
Lanskaarn. But--"
"I'm glad I didn't," he interrupted. "No more killing from now on! We
want all the living humans we can get; we need 'em in our business!"
Stern was growing excited; the girl had to calm him once more.
"Be quiet, Allan, or I'll leave you this minute and you shan't know
another thing!" she threatened.
"All right, I'll be good," he promised. "What next? I'm the Big Chief
now, of course? What I say now _goes?_"
She answered nothing, but a troubled wrinkle drew between her perfect
brows. For a moment there was silence, save for the dull and distant
roaring of the flame.
By the glow of the bluish light in the hut, Stern looked up at her.
Never had she seemed so beautiful. The heavy masses of her hair,
parted in the middle and fastened with gold pins such as the Folk
wore, framed her wonderful face with twilight shadows. He saw she was
no longer clad in fur, but in a loose and flowing mantle of the brown
fabric, caught up below the breast with a gold-clasped girdle.
"Oh, Beatrice," he breathed, "kiss me again!"
She kissed him; but even in the caress he sensed an unvoiced anxiety,
a hidden fear.
"What's wrong?" asked he anxiously.
"Nothing, dear. Now you _must_ be quiet! You're in the patriarch's
house here. You're safe--for the present, and--"
"For the present? What do you mean?"
"See here." the girl threatened, "if you don't stop asking questions,
and go to sleep again, I'll leave you alone!"
"In that case I promise!"
And now obedient, he closed his eyes, relaxed, and let her soothingly
caress him. But still another thought obtruded on his mind.
"Beatrice?"
"Yes, dearest."
"How long ago was that fight?"
"Oh, a little while. Never mind now!"
"Yes, but how long? Two days? Four? Five?"
"They don't have days down here," she evaded.
"I know. But reckoning our way--five days?"
"Nearer ten, Allan."
"_What?_ But then--"
The girl withdrew her hand from him and arose.
"I see it's no use, Allan," she said decisively. "So long as I stay
with you you'll ask questions and excite yourself. I'm going! Then
you'll _have_ to keep still!"
"Beta! Beta!" he implored. "I'll be good! Don't leave me--you
_mustn't!_"
"All right; but if you ask me another question, a single one, mind,
I'll truly go!"
"Just give me your hand, girlie, that's all! Come here--sit down
beside me again--so!"
He turned on his side, on the rude couch of coarse brown fabric
stuffed with dried seaweed, laid his hollow cheek upon her hand, and
gave a deep sigh.
"Now, I'm off," he murmured. "Only, don't leave me, Beta!"
For half an hour after his deep, slow breathing told that the wounded
man was sleeping soundly--half an hour as time was measured where the
sun shone, for down in the black depths of the abyss all such
divisions were as naught, Beatrice sat lovingly and tenderly beside
the primitive bed. Her right palm beneath his face, she stroked his
long hair and his wan cheek with her other hand; and now she smiled
with pride and reminiscence, now a grave, troubled look crossed her
features.
The light, a fiber wick burning in a stone cup of oil upon a
stone-slab table in the center of the hut, "uttered unsteadily,
casting huge and dancing shadows up the black walls.
"Oh, my beloved!" whispered the girl, and bent above him till the
loosened sheaves of her hair swept his face. "My love! Only for you,
where should I be now? With you, how could I be afraid? And yet--"
She turned at a sound from a narrow door opposite the larger one that
gave upon the plaza, a door, like the other, closed by a heavy curtain
platted of seaweed.
There, holding the curtain back, stood the blind patriarch. His hut,
larger than most in the strange village, boasted two rooms. Now from
the inner one, where he had been resting, he came to speak with
Beatrice.
"Peace, daughter!" said the old man. "Peace be unto you. He sleeps?"
"Yes, father. He's much better now, I think. His constitution is
simply marvelous."
"Verily, he is strong. But far stronger are those terrible and
wonderful weapons of yours! If our Folk only had such!"
"You're better off without them. But of course, if you want to
understand them, he can explain them in due time. Those, and endless
other things!"
"I believe that is truth." The patriarch advanced into the room, and
for a minute stood by the bedside with venerable dignity. "The
traditions, I remember, tell of so many strange matters. I shall know
them, every one. All in time, all in time!"
"Your simple medicines, down here, are wonderful," said the girl
admiringly. "What did you put into that draught I gave him to make him
sleep this way?"
"Only the steeped root of our _n'gahar_ plant, my daughter--a simple
weed brought up from the bottom of this sea by our strong divers. It
is nothing, nothing."
Came silence again. The aged man sat down upon a curved stone bench
that followed the contour of the farther wall. Presently he spoke once
more.
"Daughter," said he, "it is now ten sleeping--times--nights, the
English speech calls them, if I remember what my grandfather taught
me--since the battle. And my son, here, still lies weak and sick. I go
soon to get still other plants for him. Stronger plants, to make him
well and powerful again. For there is haste now--haste!"
"You mean--Kamrou?"
"Yea, Kamrou! I know the temper of that evil man better than any
other. He and his boats may return from the great fisheries in the
White Gulf beyond the vortex at any time, and--"
"But, father, after all we've done for the village here, and
especially after what Allan's done? After this wonderful victory, I
can't believe--"
"You do not know that man!" exclaimed the patriarch. "_I_ know him!
Rather would he and his slay every living thing in this community than
yield one smallest atom of power to any other."
He arose wearily and gathered his mantle all about him, then reached
for his staff that leaned beside the outer door.
"Peace!" he exclaimed. "Ah, when shall we have peace and learning and
a better life again? The teaching and the learning of the English
speech and all the arts you know, now lost to us--to us, the abandoned
Folk in the abyss? When? When?"
He raised the curtain to depart; but even then he paused once more,
and turned to her.
"Verily, you have spoken truth," said he, "when you have said that
all, all _here_ are with us, with you and this wondrous man now lying
weak and wounded in my house. But Kamrou--is different. Alas, you know
him not--you know him not!
"Watch well over my son, here! Soon must he grow strong again. Soon,
soon! Soon, against the coming of Kamrou. For if the chief returns and
my son be weak still, then woe to him, to you, to me! Woe to us all!
Woe, Woe!"
The curtain fell. The patriarch was gone. Outside, Beatrice heard the
click-click-click of his iron staff upon the smooth and flinty rock
floor.
And to her ears, mingled with the far roaring of the flame, drifted
the words:
"Woe, woe to him! Woe to us all--woe--woe!"