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Title: Deluge
Author: Wright, S. Fowler [Sydney Fowler] (1874-1965)
Date of first publication: 1927
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   New York: Cosmopolitan Book Corporation, 1928
   [first U.S. edition]
Date first posted: 5 March 2018
Date last updated: 5 March 2018
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #1511

This ebook was produced by
Al Haines, Cindy Beyer, Mark Akrigg
& the Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE

Italics in the original printed edition are indicated _thus_.

Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected.

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DELUGE

by S. Fowler Wright






TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Prelude
  Book I. Martin and Helen
  Book II. Claire
  Book III. Martin and Claire
  Book IV. Helen and Claire
  Book V. Three




PRELUDE


To an observer from a distant planet the whole movement would have
appeared trivial. There was probably no point at which land either sank
or rose to one five-thousandth of the earth's diameter. But water and
land were so nearly at one level that the slightest tremor was
sufficient either to drain or to flood them.

The surface trembled, and was still, and the Himalayas were untroubled,
and the great tableland of Central Asia was still behind them, but the
tides lapped the foothills to the south, and India was no more, and
China a forgotten dream.

Once before the earth had trembled along the volcanic fissure which was
then the fertile Eden of the human race, and a hundred legends and the
Mediterranean were its mementoes.

Now it sank again, slightly and gently, along the same path. It was as
though it breathed in its sleep, but scarcely turned, and Southern
Europe was gone, and Germany a desolation that the seas had swept over.

Ocean covered the plain of the Mississippi, and broke against the
barrier of the Rockies. The next day it receded, leaving the naked
wrecks of a civilization that a night had ended.

There were different changes southward, where the Saharan desert
wrinkled into the greatest mountain range that the world had seen, and
the sea creatures of the West Atlantic learnt in bewildered death that
the ocean had failed them.

In the Indian tropics a hundred leagues of sea-slime that had known the
weight of mile-deep waters steamed naked to a torrid sun.

The subsidence of the first night must have been comparatively local. It
was nothing more than an extension of the Mediterranean basin, which had
flooded the lower lands of Spain and Italy and part of France.

In England, as in Europe generally, the intervening day had been used in
such attempts at escape as may be made by a cockroach in the middle
floor when the lantern finds it.

The sea offered nothing, for the western coast was piled with the
wreckage of the North Atlantic and the Irish Sea. There were no ships
coming to the southern ports that day. There had been none in sight when
its dawn had risen. The night-wind had swept the Channel clear, and if
any had outlived the gale, which is not to be reasonably supposed, they
must have been hurried far to south, where wind and water poured into
the vortex.

The air offered a slight hope for the few who could avail themselves of
its possibility. When the wind lessened, during the day, there were
those who tried it, and may have lived, if they were able to find a
place of safety before the storm resumed, but at best they could not
have been many, and their hope was slender.

To most there came the blind instinct of northward flight, and as the
pressure of the gale slackened, it had crowded many of the main roads
with burdened stumbling crowds, or jammed them with motor vehicles which
could make little progress against uprooted trees, and fallen poles, and
blown wreckage, which confronted every mile of the smooth surfaces on
which they had been accustomed to the high speed for which they paid so
frequently in the deaths of their drivers, and in the slaughter of their
fellow-men.

Now, when they felt that speed would have been their salvation, they
could not gain it; but it would have availed them nothing. When the
horror of the next night was over, Scotland, Wales, and all the heights
of Northern England had disappeared forever. Only, by some freak of
fate, the cause of which is beyond knowing, some portions of the midland
plain were still above the ocean level, with unimpaired fertility, and
some life upon them. Larger portions had been drowned by the wild floods
that receded when all life had ended, and the salt-soaked fields could
only return in the course of gradual years to a reduced fertility. There
was little of human life that remained, even on the higher ground; for
those whom fire and storm had spared fled northward, to their own
undoing, and few from the pasture-country to southward (one of the least
populated portions of the England of that time) had had the good fortune
to come so far, and no farther; but life there was, both of beast and of
man--life equally released from its accustomed slavery, lawless,
confused, and incompetent.

The wild creatures of the woods adapted themselves the more readily to
the new conditions. The change was only one of reduced caution, or of an
added boldness. Man had ceased to count for the moment, and the fox
walked where he would. To the rabbit it meant only that, if he had one
foe the less, the others slaughtered with an assured impunity. To his
undrowsing watchfulness it made no change at all.

Rats increased in the deserted ruins, and the owls fed freely.

The domesticated animals adjusted themselves more easily than their
tyrants. The cat hunted now for food, as she had done for sport before.
Sheep broke out from ruined fences, or where a tree fell in the
hedgerow, and gathered into larger flocks, and rams fought for their
leadership. The lambs were grown, and the roaming dogs had not yet
combined to molest the flocks. Within a week, the sheep had collected on
the high open fields; and a herd of horses had gathered in the meadows
of a river which still flowed on its shortened course--horses that
wheeled with a flash of sudden hooves if a strange sound startled, or a
strange object stirred in the grass as the wind found it, and came round
in a galloped arc with tossing necks and lifted tails, to face the cause
of their flurry. They were a strangely assorted troop of mare and
gelding, of every size and color, from shire horse to pony, absurdly led
by a bright-eyed, half-grown yearling, who took the unchallenged right
of the only male among them.

Herds of cattle lurked in the woods, and splashed in shady pools; the
pigs, too, were in the woods, to which the sows that roamed loosely
round the farm buildings, finding that the morning meal was no more
forthcoming, had led their hungry litters. They lay also in the potato
fields, and would find their way later into the corn and to the acorn
harvest, so that they ran no risk of scarcity, and before the winter
came they would have worn the rings from their noses, and be able to
burrow for a score of succulent roots that the woods could offer, as
their free-roaming ancestors had done in the England of an earlier
millennium.

Men fared more hardly. It was upon their artificial environment that the
storm spent its force. There were many thousands whom this environment
destroyed, quite literally, beneath its falling dbris. Those who
escaped from such catastrophe were less capable than the beasts they
despised, either to find a temporary security, or to provide for their
bodily necessities when the storm subsided. They had used their boasted
intelligence to evade the natural laws of their beings, and they were to
reap the fruits of their folly. They had degraded their purblind and
toothless bodies, until even those which were still reasonably sound in
heart and lungs, in liver and kidneys, were incapable of sustained
exertion without continual food, or of retaining warmth without the
clumsy encumbrance of the skins of superior animals, or by the weaving
of various vegetable substances.

Every natural law that their lives had denied and their lips derided was
now released to scourge them. They had despised the teaching of the
earth that bore them, and her first care was given to her more obedient
offspring.

It was not only that they were physically ill-adapted for life on the
earth's surface, but the minds of most of them were empty of the most
elementary knowledge of their physical environment.

Released in a day from the most elaborate system of mutual slavery that
the world has known, they were unused to the exercise of mental
initiative, or to independent action. They were accustomed to settle
every issue of life, not by the application of any basic rules, or
instinctive preferences, or by the exercise of reason, but under the
blind guidance of their specialized fellow-men, or by assiduous
imitation of the procedure of those around them. The great majority of
them were engaged in repetition work which had not originated in their
own minds, and made no call upon them for analysis, decision, or
judgment.

Their perceptions were blinded by physical deficiency. They were
incapable of clear thought, or of decisive action.

They were under a further disadvantage, which was not less serious
because of a less obvious kind.

They had been restrained from many evil (and some admirable) courses,
not by experience of their probable consequences, nor by observation,
nor tradition, but by laws which exacted utterly illogical penalties.
When the fear of these penalties was removed, they reacted variously to
instincts undisciplined except by a restraint which no longer operated.

It had been a natural correlative of such conditions that where there
had been no law to coerce them they (or at least many among them) had
lacked the self-control needed for the dignity or even the decencies of
physical existence, and had developed communally concealed habits which
would have appalled the instincts of any cleanly beast. The bodies of
many of them were rotten from the contagious horrors of the degradation
in which they had lived, and the deluge did no more than hasten them to
a swifter and more seemly end than they would otherwise have
experienced.

The bodies of many others had been mutilated by expert practitioners,
who had removed portions of decayed or diseased organs, or glands, or
other parts, of the uses of which they were ignorant. Their enfeebled
vitality had been subjected to the attacks of various kinds of external
and internal parasites, from the effects of which many thousands died
every year. But the warnings of these endemic diseases had been
unheeded, or misread, and they had either striven to defeat them by
operation or inoculation, or resigned themselves to them, as to the
effect of a natural law, rather than attempt to recapture the conditions
of life and health which would render them superior to the attacks of
such vermin.

Even the evidence supplied by their domesticated animals, which
developed a corresponding series of diseases and infirmities, as their
conditions of life were approximated to those of their masters, was
disregarded. The pain and danger without which the degenerate bodies of
their women were incapable of procreation was accepted as an unavoidable
evil, although a study of the experiences of the various breeds of their
domestic sheep would have supplied them with knowledge of the conditions
under which these dangers or discomforts would have been largely
avoided, even under the conditions of existence to which they had
descended.

There was scarcely a man of all their millions who was not warned of
these evils in a parable which had reached them from an earlier world,
but they had united to deride it, some as a literal episode of primeval
history, and others as an idle tale.

It remained to discover what would be brought to birth from the wrecks
of such a civilization, when the fallen girders of its erections had
rusted, and the coal-smoke cleared, and the fresh sea-air blew over the
recovered greenness of the fields that they had once polluted.




BOOK I. MARTIN AND HELEN


May 31 was Whitsunday. It was one of those rare days that the English
climate would sometimes give to those who had grown weary of its more
sinister vagaries, green and cool and sunny after a week of showers. It
was on that day that Mrs. Templeton lunched at the Websters'. She was
the wife of a newspaper proprietor; a lean, short-haired, painted woman,
such as were common at that period. She had no children, and made a
boast of her barrenness, which she implied was deliberate. "Besides,"
she said, "how could we afford it, with income tax as it is, and a new
car to be bought in the autumn? And then the cost of education!--I
always think it is so wicked to bring a child into the world to be
handicapped afterwards. Charles? Oh, men are so sentimental, and so
inconsiderate--they never think what it means to us women--as Bishop
Storr said at the last Congress.... Oh yes, I think your babies are
_beautiful_--I dote on children--but I do hope you won't be silly
again----"

And two days later--well, perhaps it was time.

The woman spoke with the assurance of one whose vices were popular, and
who felt it was her hosts, rather than herself, who were on the
defensive, for the crime of having two children in the nursery; and
Helen was always polite to a guest, and had special reasons of
importance (as they appeared then) for conciliating Mrs. Templeton. As
for Martin, several years of law-court practice had taught him to
conceal opinions till they were needed, and he contented himself with
eliciting casually that she was a seventh child, and agreeing that there
was something to be said for small families.

****

It was that night that the wind rose. It blew against the house with a
steady pressure, free from gusts, and there was a continuous whining
sound from the trees, very different from the rustle and creak of
swaying boughs that is usual in time of tempest.

Martin, wakeful in an unusual restlessness, found it hard to turn his
mind from this sound. It seemed to him that the trees whined in a
conscious terror, and as though to an implacable power which they had no
hope to propitiate.

The wind increased. He heard the loud crack of a tree-trunk that had
snapped at the strain. There were many noises in the night. There was a
crash, as though a chimney fell at the further end of the house. But
Helen slept quietly through it, and while she did so, he would not rise
to disturb her.

The wind came from the north. The room in which they slept had a
northern wall, but the windows were on the western side. The door was on
the south. It opened to a passage leading to the room where the children
slept. There was no sound to alarm him from that direction.

The side of the house from which the sound of falling had come was
vacant that night. The servants--a married couple--had been given leave
over the weekend. The sudden illness of a brother had occasioned the
absence of the nurse since the previous afternoon. They were alone in
the house.

It was toward morning, in an interval of broken sleep, that he heard the
telephone ringing in the room below with an unmistakable urgency. He
rose and went down.

He found that it was a call from the local police station to tell him
that a tree had fallen across the road adjoining his premises, and
broken the fence of his field. Had he any animals loose in the field,
and, if so, would he take steps to secure them? The inspector added that
he had had so many accidents reported during the last hour that he was
short of staff to deal with them. Could Mr. Webster's man put some
warning light upon the obstruction, such as would last till sunrise?

Mr. Webster's man was away, but Mr. Webster would do it. The inspector
was hurriedly grateful. He rang off. Martin went upstairs to dress
hastily.

Helen was still sleeping peacefully, and when he waked her sufficiently
to explain why he was going, she only said, "Don't be long; it's too
cold to stay out at this time of night," and was asleep again as she
said it.

The house lay at some distance south of the road, and the wind blew from
the north, so that it faced him almost directly as he entered the drive,
to which the house stood sideways, facing west, and though the trees
must have done something to break its force, he found that he could
stand against it only with difficulty. He switched on the drive lamps
(for the night was still dark) so that he found his way easily, though
every yard was an effort, as though the air into which he stepped were
solid substance into which a foot must be forced with difficulty.

Turning to the right when he left the drive, and passing a row of
adjoining cottages, he came to the place of the accident. An elm had
fallen across the road, scattering the bricks of a wall which had
bounded the field in which it grew, so that he stumbled against one of
them while the dark barrier of the fallen trunk was still at some
distance. On his own side, it had crashed through a high fence of
palings, which had fallen for several yards on either side. A flashlight
torch which he carried showed the giant bole stretching far into the
field, and beyond a shadowy mass of broken or uplifted branches. Having
fixed the torch with some labor, and the help of a pocket-knife (rather
neatly, as he thought), on the fallen trunk, so that the wind should not
displace it, and it would be a warning, however feeble, to any
approaching traffic, he made his way back to the house.

The steady violence of the wind was still increasing. Turning in at the
gate he found it difficult to move forward without falling. Had it come
in gusts of such a force, it must have been impossible to do so, but the
pressure was so regular that the muscular effort needed for its
resistance could be gaged with accuracy, and the greatest difficulty was
to avoid an acceleration of pace, when moving before it, which would
have become uncontrollable.

As he made his way to the house, he heard a heavy rumbling sound behind
him, which he at first supposed to be thunder; but when it came a second
time, he recognized the fall of some large building that the wind had
demolished.

But no fear for his own house, which was very solidly built, entered his
mind, and he regained it with a sense of relief and of recovered
security.

He was of the temperament that a high wind exhilarates; and the lives of
most people of that time were so bare of unexpected incident, that any
unusual physical occurrence, even of a threatening character, had an
effect of pleasurable stimulus, and dim atavistic instincts moved
slightly in their sleep, though they might not waken.

It is a thing almost incredible to tell, but it is simply true, and
illustrates the intolerable monotony of their days, that a great
industry had arisen which was occupied in collecting daily information
respecting the actions or accidents of their fellow-men, and informing
others concerning them, so that every day millions of people dissipated
their time in learning (and at once forgetting) that a woman of whom
they had never heard before, nor would hear again, had left her husband;
or that a husband had broken his wife's head; or a servant had taken his
master's property; that a building had been accidentally burned in a
distant town; or a child drowned in a river fifty miles away; and even
events of much greater triviality were repeated in a series of unending
monotony; yet the collection of such details over a vast area gave to
their readers, whose intelligences were dulled by the conditions of
their existence, an illusion of surrounding incident; and so they would
spend their daily time in the absorbing of such vicarious excitement,
while the actual conditions in which they existed were such that they
might sometimes lack food or clothing for their children, and the land
around them was neglected, or roughly cultivated by the machines which
they produced in their crowded settlements, and which had replaced the
living men and women by whom the work had been more efficiently
performed in earlier days.

Of the joy of present living, of the captured meal and the barred door,
of brief safety after hazard, of ecstatic rest after exhaustion, they
knew nothing, either by imagination or by experience. So hateful were
their own existences, and so hopeless were they of any change or
improvement from their own exertions, that many thousands of them found
relief in periods of temporary forgetfulness, during which they were
enabled, by a supply of imaginary narrations, to occupy themselves with
the supposed emotions or actions of invented lives....

As we have seen, the house-front faced sideways to the wind's course,
and it was owing to this circumstance that Martin was able, after a
moment's breathless struggle, to close the door again when he entered
it.

As he did this, he became conscious that the telephone was again ringing
steadily, and he went to it in anticipation that he would hear an
inquiry as to the work which he had just completed; but a voice was
speaking already as he raised the receiver.

"_...should be held in readiness until more is known. Message ends.
Home Office message begins. Broadcast by all means available. Post
public notice this effect in all offices. Terrible calamity in Southern
Europe. Land subsidence, and Mediterranean overflowing. Spain and Italy
believed submerging. Telegraphic communications ceased except through
Denmark. Believed no occasion alarm here, although gale increasing.
Movements of population will greatly embarrass Government's efforts to
meet emergency. Public notice ends. Instruct all local authorities take
immediate steps control provisions. Arrange population evacuate all
unstable buildings. Close all banks. Suspend all transit services,
awaiting further instructions. Government taking necessary steps
maintain essential services. Precautions in cities against fire urgently
necessary. Panic movements of population to be..._"

The voice ceased, and the instrument no longer responded to any effort
to rouse it. It was clear that he had received the end, and then the
beginning, of a message which was being repeated incessantly for the
benefit of all who could hear it.

Martin went upstairs slowly. He was excited rather than shocked or
alarmed by the stupendous nature of the catastrophe. His mind was too
active for his feet to move very rapidly. Was it really true? And would
his own country sink also into the abyss, and they with it? Was it safe
to stay in the house, and if not, what should be the alternative? What
food was there in the house, and could any tradesman reach them if this
storm should continue? Would the court be closed, or ought he to attempt
to reach it? Thank Heaven, that brief----The fowl house would never
stand this wind--the hens would be loose among those young savoys in the
morning, just planted out, if they weren't dead--he must wake Helen;
could anyone sleep through this wind? He would see that the children
were safe before he did so; if they were awake, he would bring them to
her.

So he went first to their room, and found them sleeping as he had hoped,
and the sight, illogically enough, gave him a feeling of the stability
of established things, so that he went to look out of their window in a
quieter and more skeptical mood. He would do nothing rashly. Those who
lost their heads at such a time were the ones who suffered now, and were
ridiculed afterwards.

The window was over the front door, and he could see the trees on the
further side of the drive. They were not swaying at all, but bent before
the wind so low that he could see over some of them (for the dawn was
faintly widening) to a field beyond that was usually hidden entirely.
And then the wind ceased. It ceased absolutely, and as suddenly as a
clock ticks. The bent trees leapt upward.

There was a moment's pause of stillness, and then the wind came again
with a sudden and augmented blast, a triumphant downward rush that swept
the tortured trees before it. Some that had resisted the gradually
increasing pressure half the night now screamed and snapped, or fell
full length, with a rending of deep roots, and tons of green-turfed soil
flung loose around them. It caught up gate and fence, and carried them
like paper till they were flung against a wall that held them back for a
moment, and then fell itself in an equal ruin. A crash and rumble of
falling bricks came from the farther end of the house at the same
moment. Martin supposed it to be another chimney falling. The noise
roused him to the need for action. He went quickly toward the bedroom
where he had left his wife an hour earlier, but she met him on her way
to the nursery. There was no time for explanations then.

"Are they safe?" she asked.

"Yes," he said, with an affected carelessness, "but they'll be safer
outside till the storm quietens. We must go out by the back door. Get
yourself some clothes while I fetch them." He went back, and made a
hurried bundle of each, wrapping up their clothes with them in shawl or
blanket, and before he had done it, there came a louder, nearer crash
than before, with an afterfalling of masonry, and the plaster fell
heavily from the ceiling. A rush of wind came with it, and the door of
the room, which he had left half open, banged loudly. He tried to open
it, but it resisted his efforts. He had the living bundles, one under
each arm at first, as he did this, but found that he must lay them down
if he were to hope to gain his freedom. He pushed them under the bed, as
the place which would be safe at least from the falling ceiling. The
younger one, a child of two, was crying, loudly no doubt, though the
storm drowned it. The elder, nearly twice her age, watched him in a
wide-eyed excitement, and said something that he could not hear. She did
not appear conscious that her cheek was bleeding freely where the
falling plaster had caught it.

He tried the door now with both hands, but it was jammed too tightly to
yield to any force that he could apply. He called loudly to Helen, but
could hear no answer. He looked round for a weapon which he could use to
break it down. He felt sure now that there would be no escape alive
unless it were done very quickly. But at the next instant there came an
augmented blast of storm, that rocked the house to its foundations. He
heard a straining and cracking of woodwork, and a rush of wind in the
passage without, and then the door was flung open with a force which
might have killed anyone standing near, as it swung backward to the wall
behind it.

With a bundle under either arm, Martin fought his way from the room,
step by step, against the howling force of the tempest. As he gained the
main landing, he realized that the structure of the house was still
standing, and the stairs were clear, but the bedroom to which Helen had
returned was wrecked and piled with dbris. A chestnut-tree, which grew
close against the house on that side, and of the safety of which he had
sometimes doubted in times of milder storm, had fallen upon it. The
great tree had broken through the roof and outer wall, and the inner
wall and door were scattered across the landing.

Burdened as he was, he stumbled on past the stair-head, struggling
against the wind and calling Helen's name as he did so, but receiving no
answer. He gained the edge of the room, and saw that a part of the floor
was broken, and the next step would have precipitated him to the space
below. He paused there for a moment, keeping difficult footing, in
distraction of mind between the fear that she might be somewhere there,
in desperate need of aid, and the desire to place the precious lives he
carried in some comparative safety. In the end, the logic of fact
compelled him. He could not search so burdened, nor did he know that she
might not be already in safety. Where the room had been was now a rubble
of fallen bricks and slates and beams, with the great bole of the tree
leaning across them, and its shattered boughs intruding.

That anyone could have lived beneath that avalanche was beyond
probability.

Slowly, in a reluctant misery, he turned away, and had soon made a
successful issue from the rear of the house, and across the stable yard,
where he received a cut from a flying slate, which would have had more
notice in quieter times, and, so, by a struggling, falling course, to a
stack of last year's hay, which was still standing in the field, and
which he had made his objective. It was over the ridge, and so protected
slightly from the wind's full pressure, but when he reached it, he found
that its thatching, and much of its upper portion, had been torn off and
scattered.

He rested beneath it for a few moments, gaining strength and breath for
further effort, but dared not leave the children there, as he had first
intended, lest they should be smothered by a further subsidence. He
realized that safety was not easily to be found, and yet to get back was
urgent, and to do that, against the torment of wind which was now
raging, it was imperative that he should be relieved of his burdens.

There was a marl-pit close at hand, which gave a moment's hope, till he
recalled the steepness of its more sheltered side, and the deep pool it
held; there was a larger one, with a dry bottom, farther away, and on
this he decided.

It was of unusual width and depth, even for a district where these old
pits were frequent, and often of considerable size. It was on the edge
of a clump of oak-trees, but these were to the south, so that there
would be no danger from them while the wind held from its present
quarter. There were some old hawthorns growing within it, on the slope
of its northern bank, so that the tops of the trees were about level
with the field's edge.

Here he made his way, and slid and stumbled down its easier slope, and
found a sandy spot that was nearly level beneath the hawthorns, and laid
his bundles down, and could at last think with some clearness, which had
been impossible while the burdened struggle with the storm continued.

The younger child, warmly wrapped and covered from the wind, was
surprisingly sleeping, but the elder was wide-awake, with excited,
wondering eyes. She looked doubtful as he rose to go, and her lip
trembled, but when he laughed and told her that she must be good and he
would soon be back and her mother also, and that they would have
breakfast under the trees, she took it as a new game, and only said,
"Muvver come soon?" as he turned away. "Yes, very soon," he said with a
light assurance he was far from feeling, wondering whether she could
still be living, or if they or he would be alive when the day ended.

He paused a moment as he gained the pit's edge before he climbed out to
meet the force of the screaming hurricane which raged round him. There
was still no rain, but the sky was darkened with low, black clouds that
hurried southward at a rate that looked fantastic, and the air had
become strangely cold, so that he shivered as the wind met him.

Beneath the clouds, the whole of the southwestern horizon was of the
color of heated copper.

This he saw first, because he had climbed to the west of the pit, where
the ascent was easier, but when he looked to the further side he was
startled by the evidence of nearer calamity. Heavy smoke was driving
across the field from the fallen ruins of the house which he had left
but a few moments earlier, and from the eastern wing a pillar of flame
bent as the wind's gusts gripped it.

He was never clear in his mind as to how he got back to the burning
building. But he had the sense to keep on up the field, so that he
should approach it to windward.

When he had done this, in short time or long, he had a moment's relief
in the consciousness that he was not too late, if any rescue were
possible.

He stood at last holding to a root of the upturned tree, and partly
sheltered from the wind by the mass of earth which it had torn up, but
which still held it; and perhaps it was then that he was first
subconsciously aware that the heat and suffocation of the air he
breathed were not entirely due to the burning of his own house, which
the wind blew from him, but to the greater conflagration of the city on
the outskirts of which he lived, and which must have involved it
entirely within a few hours, if it had not then done so. With it, the
wind brought a faint, continuous, wailing cry, as of the gathered
lamentation of thousands, and beneath his feet a half-fledged thrush
fluttered feebly with a broken wing.

Before him, the wall of the house was still standing, to the height of
the first floor. The great tree which had broken the roof and the upper
story was supported now by the whole structure on which it leaned, its
breadth of branch distributing its weight very widely, but it looked as
though at any moment the ruin must collapse entirely.

Though the lower wall stood, the window, which opened to the ground, had
been blown or broken inward, and by this gap he was able to climb over a
dbris of fallen bricks, and beams, and shattered furniture, and broken
boughs, searching fearfully in a shadowed gloom, to which the smoke of
the burning wing was already penetrating, till a voice from the further
side said with eager urgency, "Are you safe?"

"Yes," he said, "but are you?"

"I felt sure you'd save them. I don't know. But move carefully."

He was struggling, in natural haste, toward the side from which the
voice came, but now paused as she continued, while his eyes became more
accustomed to the gloom, and helped him to understand what she told him.
"Wait a moment, and listen. I am pinned under a beam. I don't feel hurt
at all, but I can't move, and I don't know whether I am really injured.
I didn't care to struggle hard till you came, because, as you can see,
its full weight is not on me now, but if I moved I might bring it. I
felt sure when you did not come, and I did not hear them cry, that you
had got them safe. You wouldn't all have been killed at once. So when I
heard nothing, I just waited. Where have you left them?"

He answered briefly, his mind occupied in overcoming, without any
resulting disturbance, the obstacles that still divided them. The
thoughts that the whole edifice might collapse at any moment, that a
hasty movement might bring disaster, that the fire was advancing its own
argument of urgency, and that the children would almost surely die
unless he should return to them safely, left no mental leisure for the
needless words which they had spent so much of their lives in
exchanging. He was one who had lived by words, and he was to find their
use again under very different conditions, but there was an earlier
lesson to be learned of their more frequent futility.

He saw that, when the tree fell, the first substantial impact had been
given by a great lateral branch which grew toward the house, and which
must have struck the roof and penetrated inward and downward as the tree
leaned over.

From this cause, as also from the fact that it was built less strongly,
the partition wall had been broken down lower, as well as more widely,
than the outer one, so that its ruins had given little support to the
cataract of brick and slate, of board and rafter, which had descended
through the broken floor of the bedroom.

When the crash came, as she afterwards told him, Helen had been standing
at an open wardrobe which was placed between the windows. A moment
earlier these windows had been blown in on either side of her, with a
rush of air which had nearly thrown her off her feet, but she had held
her ground, and urged by this catastrophe, she had given up the attempt
to clothe herself further, and had just gathered the contents of the
wardrobe into her arms when the roof descended upon her. Blinded by dust
and plaster, she continued to clutch the door of the wardrobe with one
hand, the other arm being filled with the loose clothes she had
gathered, while the floor gave way at the further end, causing the
wardrobe to slide rapidly forward, carrying her before it; but, probably
owing to the pull of her weight on the door, it swung round as it did
so, so that it was beneath her as it was precipitated into the room
below. It fell on its back, which smashed very easily, as, like most of
the furniture of those days, the parts which were usually hidden were
made of thin and worthless wood.

She found herself lying across it, with the loose clothes beneath her,
feeling no pain, and thinking herself free to move when she would, but
choked and blinded by the dust. A fresh fall of bricks and rubble came a
moment later, at the further side of the room, and she lay awhile
uncertain whether it would be more or less risky to remain still or to
attempt escape.

As the dust began to clear, and no further fall came, she attempted to
rise, and was surprised to find her legs immovable. A heavy rafter lay
across them, itself bearing a mass of dbris, but so placed that its
further end was supported upon the ruin of the inner wall, and holding
her only, she thought, as in a gentle vise, with pressure rather than
weight. Indeed, she found that with a little twisting she got one leg
entirely loose, and would have drawn it from beneath the beam but for
the discomfort of the position which would have resulted. But when she
attempted to release the other, at the first pull there was a slight
movement among the broken bricks on which the beam was resting, and it
settled down more heavily, so that the leg which she had loosed before
was held again, and the other felt the pain of an increasing weight and
pressure. There was an ominous slipping also in the dbris which the
beam supported, and being confident that Martin would find her, she had
decided to remain quiet for a time in the hope that he could cooperate
in a safer method of release. After that she had felt faint, though she
knew no cause, and had since been sleeping or half conscious, so that
the time had seemed but a few minutes till she was aroused by his
coming.

Martin could not tell what risk he took in the work of the next few
moments. He tried to reach her with as little disturbance as possible,
but as he did so an eddy of denser smoke rolled in from the hall, and he
could see nothing clearly. The next moment it came more thickly in a
pause of wind, with a blast of heat, and a flame glowed in the hallway.

He felt along the beam to where her legs were beneath it. He said: "When
I call I will lift with all my strength, and you must pull them out
instantly. I can't say whether I shall be able to do it, or for how
long, or what will follow, but it seems the best chance we have. Are you
ready? Now."

Then the beam lifted, tilting somewhat from one end, with some noise and
confusion of falling bricks.

Helen said, "I think they are clear now," and cautiously, not knowing
how far its supports might have shifted, he lowered the beam. It rested
much as before, and then her voice came again, with an undertone of fear
for the first time: "I can't get up. I am too weak. My legs are cramped,
but I think there's something else wrong. Could you lift me?"

"Rather," he said lightly, and indeed he was relieved so greatly that
they could escape the fire, that he hardly felt the fear of what this
incapacity might imply, as he would have done in other circumstances.

The wind was blowing again with recovered force, and they were less
choked and blinded than they had been, but the fire in the hall was
closer, and a sudden spurt of flame from the stairs lit them, so that he
saw her plainly for the first time, lying almost face-downward, on the
heap of clothes she had been collecting.

She tried to raise herself when she saw him. "Bring the clothes," she
began, and then her smile changed to an expression of sudden agony, and
she sank forward in a faint from which she did not recover until he had
carried her out of the burning building into a heavy rain which was now
falling. The wind seemed more moderate, and though the rain was
strangely cold for the season, it felt even pleasant as he left the
stifling heat, the discomfort of which he had scarcely realized in the
excitement of the rescue. He breathed deeply of the cooler air as he
crossed the lawn, his relief that she was alive and recovered contending
with fear as to the extent of her injury, anxiety to return to the
children, and the consciousness that their food and all other
necessities of life were lost within the burning building.


[II]

To the habits of those days, a marl-pit in a time of soaking rain was no
fit place in which to lay an unconscious and injured woman, but he could
think of no better resort, nor could he do other than unite her with the
children if he were to go in search of food, as he surely must if their
lives were to be long continued. He had realized already that they were
faced by more than ordinary catastrophe, and that they must rely upon
themselves if they were to find means to survive it.

During this time, and for many hours afterwards, he was too occupied
with their own immediate needs to concern himself with larger issues,
except as they were thrust upon him; but he could not be unaware that
the northwest sky was now a lurid height of flame, where the city burnt,
in which a hundred of those whom he had known most intimately had been
sleeping but a few hours before. The wind was no longer steady, but
veered in sudden gusts, as though it were drawn at times by the rising
of the heated air. When it blew toward the burning city it was cold, and
the rain was mixed with sleet; but when it came straight from the north
it felt as though it were too hot and dry for the rain to cool it,
though it could but have passed at a mile's distance the furnace of that
appalling tragedy.

But with the wind and the rain behind him, he made quick progress down
the sloping field, and, reaching the pit, he went round to the easier
side, and there sat and slid down it as best he could till they had
reached the place where he had left the children.

Hawthorn and undergrowth made an insufficient screen from the rain that
was falling, and as they grew only on the steeper side of the pit it was
not easy to find a place beneath them both dry and level. He could see
nothing better than the elder bushes beneath which the children had
retreated, and there at last he laid her, treading down a space of grass
and nettles, and breaking away the lower branches that gave insufficient
space to stoop beneath them.

The fear that Helen had not escaped without some serious injury had been
growing upon him as he carried her, and noticed her exhaustion and
wavering consciousness, but doubt was certainty as soon as he raised the
loose wraps and dresses on which she had lain, and which he had lifted
with her. Below her waist they had been soaked in blood which had dried,
and in a fresh stream which must have broken out when she moved, and
which still continued to drip from them.

Another moment disclosed the injury. On the left side, across the lower
ribs, a piece of broken glass had made a wound about six inches long,
though not, he thought, very deep.

"It hasn't killed me?" she asked lightly, though with anxious eyes.

"No," he answered, in the way of the world that they had known, where
there was always leisure for words, whatever else might be lacking, so
that a man might be expected to handle them skilfully, though he would
be of little use with spade or chisel; "you'll die of old age before
that kills you. But you've lost a lot of blood, and you'll have to lie
quite still, and the question is how I can make you comfortable, and get
all that is needed for you and the children."

As he spoke, he saw that her eyes had wandered ruefully to the ruined
dresses, and then forgot them in the realization of the children's
safety, and with a sudden consciousness of all that was lost or left, he
bent and kissed her. "You will soon be well," he said, "and nothing
matters, if you are safe and the children."

They talked quietly for a few minutes, trying to comprehend the
catastrophe which had fallen upon the world, and to adjust their minds
to its necessities; and then she called to the children, who were crying
quietly in a frightened way, to come to her, and comforted them, telling
them that she was hurt in falling, but would soon be well, and making a
game of everything.

Meanwhile Martin had improved their shelter to some extent, breaking
down some of the lower growth, so that they could be brought more inward
and gain some shelter from the bank itself, as well as from the trees
above them, and had placed the various garments and the children's
bedclothes--the only things they had saved--in the driest spot he could
find.

Helen lay in the dressing-gown which she had put on when she first rose,
and would have no other covering, nor was she willing that he should
examine her wound again when he suggested that they ought to be sure
that no broken glass had been left in it.

"Perhaps you think I ought to lose some more blood," she said, "but I
would rather have breakfast."

Martin could sympathize with that feeling, as could the children, who
were becoming fretful with hunger. They were all used to a ready meal
when they rose in the morning. A marl-pit might have blackberries in
September, but at the end of May it offered no evident nourishment. The
world's fate became a less urgent matter than the meal they were
needing.

It would be tedious to tell the work of the next few hours in detail.

Three times Martin went out and returned loaded with such necessities as
he could discover, while the wind fell and the rain ceased, and the sky
became covered with a reddish, smoky haze, beneath which the wet ground
steamed visibly, and, as it dried, which it did very quickly, the
atmosphere was one of oppressive and increasing heat, as of an oven.

During this time they saw no living person. If any but themselves had
survived the ravages of fire and storm--and they supposed that many must
have done so--they were cowering in such cover as they could find, or
had fled in other directions. Such wind as continued blew towards the
city--fortunately, no doubt, for them, as it was fortunate also that
they were on higher ground, and that a ridge divided it from them; but
it was clear that it still burnt, and indeed the whole sky, with its
smoky haze, and horizons of molten copper, gave an impression of a world
in flame.

Up to this time, through the physical exhaustion of his body, Martin's
mind had worked in a dazed and almost mechanical manner, only dimly
realizing the shadow of catastrophe beneath which their lives had
fallen, and it may have been the effect of food, and a brief interval of
rest, which made him so much more alertly conscious as he left the pit
for the fourth time; but the dullest mind--and his was very far from
that--would have been waked to some excitement when the red haze of the
southern sky was transformed to a sudden sheet of flame, and a low
rumble followed, as of a great noise at a great distance, and continued
for some time, but with a gradually decreasing volume, till he could not
tell certainly whether or when it had entirely ceased, while his
strained hearing became aware that a low inarticulate murmur, as of the
wailing of millions, was in the air continually.

But he turned away from the southern sky, which had resumed its previous
aspect, and went on up the field in a mood of lively speculation as to
the nature of the catastrophe which had overwhelmed the world he knew;
and in doubt as to whether the worst had yet come upon them, and in what
way, if at all, he could best protect his own from its dangers.

His objective was now the row of cottages beyond his own grounds. He
thought that if they had fallen, but had not burnt, he might find there
many things of value, and also that there would surely be some people
still living who might be helpful, or who might need help which he could
give them.

In his first hope he was disappointed. The row of cottages, from end to
end, was a smoking ruin. For though many buildings were separately
strong or sheltered enough to withstand the force of the gale, yet in
the cities, where the older or frailer fell, and any fire was started,
the wind would spread it very quickly, and such fires were too numerous
for any organized resistance to be offered.

In the country districts, many buildings that fell would have escaped
unburnt but for a prevalent custom of leaving enough hot ashes in their
grates at night to make the restarting of the fire an easy process in
the following morning.

In the towns, the fusing of electric wires may have been a frequent
cause of conflagration.

Anyway, the cottages were burned, and the only sign of life was a small
dog that ran round them.

On a paved yard which had divided one of the cottage fronts from the
road, a boy was lying. It seemed that he had jumped from one of the
upper windows. It was no great height, but he may have climbed or been
thrown clumsily from a small window, and fallen on his head, from which
blood had flowed. An arm lay awkwardly, as though the shoulder were
dislocated. His clothing was charred in places, but the wind must have
blown the fire from him, so that he was scorched rather than burned. He
was plainly dead.

As Martin stooped over him to assure himself that no help were possible,
a rat ran from his clothing. It darted aside, evidently expecting a hole
beneath the wall which was no longer there. Then it turned in an
instant's indecision, and Martin's foot, in a revulsion of antipathy,
came down upon it. It ran on a few paces unsteadily, as though partially
stunned, and he stamped on it again--and again--till all movement
ceased.

He felt an illogical satisfaction, as though he had successfully defied
the blind and terrible forces by which the boy had perished, and had
avenged his death.

He went on along the road. It was a quiet byway, running east and west,
and the flight of the surrounding inhabitants had been by other ways.
But the wall along its northern side was in ruins, and the bricks were
scattered across it at several places. Where the elm had fallen he came
to a new horror. Near that point there was a slight bend in the road. A
motor, driven at a high pace round the curve, had been unable to slacken
speed quickly enough to avoid the impact. It was evident that it had
taken a somersault over it, flinging forward a woman who had been
driving, and who now lay in a heap in the middle road.

The instinct of service led Martin to approach her. She lay in a pool of
her own blood. She was not dead, for her eyes moved, following him as he
bent over her. He spoke, but she did not answer. He thought to move her
by the roadside, but when he touched her, she shrank, and moaned
pitifully. What could he do? He saw that she was hopelessly injured. It
might have been kind to kill her, but of this he was incapable.

He was sick of horrors, and his inclination was to return to Helen
without seeking further for the things they needed. Seeing that the
cottages had shared the fate of his own house, it became doubtful how
far he might have to go to obtain them.

But he became aware that his hands were red from the blood of the woman
that he had tried to succor. He would wash them before returning. He
remembered that there was a stream at a short distance, and crossed the
ruined wall and a park-like enclosure beyond to reach it.

While he did this he regained the nervous control that he had almost
lost, and decided that it would be cowardly to return without making a
further search. He had no doubt that he had left his family in safety.
It was not his presence which they would need, but the things which he
could find for their food and comfort.

He crossed another field, and came in sight of a farmhouse that was
still burning. Avoiding this, he crossed a hollow, beyond which he
thought he saw the thatched roof of a cottage. It proved to be no more
than a deserted cattle-shed which the storm had spared, as though in
derision. As he entered it, a hen ran cackling between his feet. He
found a nest and several eggs.

Pleased with this booty, he resolved to continue along the higher
ground, making a circuit of the hollow which he had crossed, and so
return by a somewhat different route, foraging as he went.

It was then that he became aware that he was walking unsteadily. He sat
down on the ground, feeling uncertain whether he had done so by
compulsion or of his own volition.

A piece of wall, very solidly built, that had withstood the tempest of
the previous night, leaned over, and fell with a crash of brick and
masonry, and a cloud of dust, that spread chokingly around him.

He felt a sensation as when a lift starts suddenly downward. After a
time he got up and continued his way. If the ground were still sinking
(as it must have been, and as it must have continued to do with a very
steady and gradual motion, till it had descended some hundreds of feet
below its previous level) he had become so accustomed to the movement
that it had ceased to affect him consciously.

It did not give him any premonition of fresh disaster, as would have
been the case had the earth quaked violently, or been torn apart. Its
storm-beaten surface seemed quiet and peaceful enough, under a smoky
pall of sky that was liver-colored in places and a glowing copper in
others. It was solid earth to the view, and unshaken.

Martin made slow progress. It was a larger circuit than he had supposed,
and the way through the fields was impeded by hedges which had few gates
in the direction he was attempting. He was conscious of an increasing
weariness, natural to the length and nature of the exertions which he
had made since the previous night, and of an intermittent giddiness, and
a feeling of sickness, which may have had a different cause.

At last he felt compelled to rest, where a fallen fence gave a drier
seat than the ground could offer, and some support behind it, and here
he remained, only dimly aware of the passing hour, till he noticed that
the sun was near its setting, and rose in a belated haste, with the fear
that he might not have completed his homeward journey before the light
should fail him.

Even then, his concern was not that he should have any difficulty in
returning, but only lest the length of his absence should have caused
anxiety to Helen. He did not think that he had far to go. Though the
familiar landmarks were obliterated or broken, he felt sure that he was
not far from the road which he must have crossed a mile or two further
west when he set out. Once there, he could find his way in the dark. It
was downhill, too, and easy going. After his rest he made a good pace.
He was soon descending toward the hollow along which ran the lane to
Goring Dene. He could follow that lane....

But the lane to Goring Dene was under thirty feet of water that was
rising, foot by foot, on the sloping field that he had crested to gain
it.

Martin stopped. There was no way here. He could not easily understand
what had happened. A chill of fear was at his heart which he would not
heed. What stream, what river, could have risen thus? What flood could
have filled it?

He went on along the crest of the field, climbing to a wider view. A sea
of turbulent water stretched beneath him, dull red beneath the copper
sky. He realized with a shock of horror that the whole city must be
under water. He thought--he hoped--that it would not have reached to
where he had left those who were dearest to him. But how could he reach
them?

On his left, the water stretched to the horizon. It heaved as it
advanced in long, rolling curves that did not break, except here and
there, where the higher ground was not yet deeply covered.

It may seem strange that it rose so gently. It is not difficult to
imagine that there were places where a swirling torrent of ocean poured
into the abyss of a sinking continent with a rush that carried it far on
across the face of land from which it must ultimately be withdrawn by
the law that rules its level--indeed, it was such a torrent that swept
the central plain of Europe, and left it sown with salt, empty, and
desolate. There may have been places also where the lifting land threw
off the weight of waters that it had carried since the dawn of history,
with a force that hurried it, a mile-high wave, against an equal wall of
advancing water, to break in tumult that men may have beheld, but could
not live to tell.

But here the water rose with an amazing quietness, as the land sank,
foot by foot, without evidence of either tilt or fracture.

The main rush of the Atlantic was to the mighty hollow that had formed
in the Mediterranean basin. But here it brimmed gently to the falling
land....

To Martin it bore no aspect of gentleness. He had no assurance--he had
no reasonable hope--that it would not continue to rise till the last
foot of land had disappeared beneath it, yet with a tenacity of purpose
and loyalty of affection which were fundamental, he continued to make
his difficult way along the edge of the advancing flood in the failing
light, seeking for some point at which it would be possible for him to
return to the rescue of those whom he had left in this unsuspected
peril.

It was in vain. The night fell, and the water was around and beneath him
on every side. He could not doubt that they were dead, nor could he hope
that there were many hours of life before him.

Till the dawn came, he sat unmoving on a fallen rail and watched the
moonlight on the ruffled face of the waters.

He could not doubt that they were dead. Yesterday, such an incident, the
deaths of his wife and both his children, would have brought a sense of
desolation, of irretrievable loss; he would have felt as though the
world had ended.

Now that it appeared that there was indeed an end to all the world he
knew, their deaths did not affect him in the same way. They did not
afflict him with a sense of separation. Only, he regretted bitterly,
that he had not been with them: that he should have seemed to have
deserted them at such a moment.

But he had no wish to live, as he had no expectation. His world was gone
in the night. He was left there for the moment, by the caprice of
Fortune, till the next tremor of land or rise of tide should sweep him
to the common fate of his race.

So he sat, neither desirous of sleep, nor aware either of cold or of
hunger. Awed, rather than miserable: even elated by the greatness of the
events around him.

He sat and watched the moon on the water.

So the dawn found him. It came, a faint widening of gold, in a sky that
the night-wind, which had blown steadily from the northwest, had cleared
of the polluting dust of yesterday. The pale gold flushed rose-pink over
half the sky, and was reflected upon the waters.

He watched the dawn advance, august and passionless, indifferent to the
triviality of human destiny; indifferent and serene, though there should
be no man living to observe its beauty, and, as he looked, he knew that
life would continue.

Realizing this, he felt sorrow, as the night had been powerless to bring
it. He knew that it must even be possible that his own life would
continue, and realizing this, he felt fear.

He became conscious of pain and hunger. He rose stiffly, and was aware
that he was very cold.

He felt the warm rays of the level sun, and an impulse of satisfaction,
if not of pleasure, moved beneath the desolation of his mind.

He looked round, and resignation left him; he was a human atom once
again; a private in the losing battle with death which is the common
destiny of his race.

The water was around him on every side. It swept in a strong current but
twenty feet beneath the place on which he was standing. It ran
northeastward, troubled by a crossing wind, but with no great roughness
of surface. It broke against the steep slope beneath him with a
continued murmur. It sparkled in the sunlight. It was scattered over
with many drowned and broken things. A dead ox drifted past. Other
things. But he saw neither man nor woman. Only, at the last, washed to
his feet (for he had descended, as he gazed, to the water's level),
there came a human arm, torn from its trunk by some mechanical violence,
with a bundle of drenched parchments still clutched in the dead hand,
which was plainly that of a woman.

He went to the top of the little knoll on which fortune had marooned
him. The water was round him on every side.

He looked in the direction of his own home. There was nothing there now
but the level waste of the flood. He remembered that Helen had been too
injured to walk. She could not swim. She would not have left the
children. There was no hope, no faintest hope, that the seas could have
spared them.

He wondered whether he might find them floating in the water, but he saw
that even that hope must be fruitless. The current was sweeping
everything to the northeast, far out and beyond him.

He considered the possibility that he could himself escape from his
present confinement. He saw that the water was not rising--had even sunk
somewhat from its highest level--and though it surrounded his place of
refuge, it did not appear to be of more than two or three feet in depth
on the northern side, and of a width of about twenty yards, beyond which
the ground rose again, and gave prospect of a wider range and a greater
security.

He watched it for a few minutes, wondering whether it were still
declining, so that an hour's patience might give an easier passage. He
supposed that there would be tidal changes, apart from the vital
question of whether the land had settled to a final stability. Certainly
the water had been higher than it now was. But that might only be
because it had swirled further up the slope at the first rush. He
observed no change during the few moments that his patience lasted. Then
he stepped in.

It was not an easy crossing. He waded more than waist-deep in places,
and though there was no such current as hurried past on the other side,
yet the water that was diverted to this side of the knoll was flowing
steadily in the same direction, and made it difficult to keep his feet
and a straight course to the nearest point of the dry ground before him.

He stumbled once over an obstacle the water hid, and recovered himself
with difficulty, drenched to the shoulders.

Having dry ground beneath him once again, he wrung out his soaked
garments as best he could, but he was in no mood to linger. Even beyond
the calls of thirst and hunger, or of any physical discomfort, was the
desire to gain the highest point he could, and learn how much of solid
land was still remaining around him.

When he gained this view, he was relieved of any immediate apprehension,
for though he saw little either to south or east but wastes of
wrack-strewn water, it was equally evident that the land remained
unflooded for at least a space of some miles in the opposite directions.

Relieved of the fear that he had been marooned on a spot of land too
small for human sustenance, he turned his thoughts to the primitive
necessities of the wild--food, and water, and shelter from the
certainties of rain and cold.


[III]

The first day he saw no man. His search for food was so far fortunate
that he came upon the little heap of articles which he had thrown aside
on the previous night, when he had first tried to outrun the water, that
he might go to the rescue of his family. Among these were the broken
remains of the eggs that he had been carrying, from which he was able to
recover a sufficient part of their contents to provide the meal he was
needing.

Beyond that he got little. He searched in deserted gardens. He ate
lettuce and radishes. He made a slow and meager meal of green peas that
had scarcely begun to form in the pods. He ate half-grown gooseberries,
green and hard. He searched in charred ruins for food which was not
there.

In the evening he came upon an isolated tool-shed in a large garden.
Built in a very sheltered corner, it was still standing. There he lay
down and slept.

That day he remembered clearly, but he had little recollection of those
that followed.

He must have been ill for days. The shock to mind and body, the unusual
exertions, the effects of wet and exposure, and of unsuitable food, had
their natural consequences.

Had he been unsound in any vital organ he would have had little chance
of recovery. As it was, he probably owed his life to the fact that the
shed had been used by a gardener who had left a pot half full of cold
tea.

This, being desperate with thirst, and after an interval of illness, of
which he could not guess the duration, he found, and drank. In a
cupboard he found a lump of moldy bread, which he chewed as he lay.

After this he had a time of healthful sleep, and then staggered
uncertainly into a sunlit world.

He had little strength, but the instinct for life was strong and his
constitution uninjured.

Of the succeeding days his memory was blurred and dream-like.

Though he had little strength, he had much patience. He lay for many
hours over a burrow, till he had caught a rabbit in his bare hands. He
cooked it, somehow, for there had been matches in the shed, and he made
a fire of wood without difficulty.

He followed a strayed hen, it seemed for days, till he had found the
place where she was laying.

He dug up potatoes, still unripe and small, but which he could cook till
his matches ended. He learned to eat raw beans.

Strength came again, and with it the desire to adventure further.

He searched among ruined houses, but was several days before he had any
means of making another fire.

His greatest find at this time was a sack of sharps in a farm
outbuilding, and a small quantity of bran. When he had secured a further
supply of matches he made this meal into a kind of thick soup, and it
was delicious to his altered palate.

He came on a woman who had sustained life, with an amazing vitality,
crawling upon the ground, and dragging after her a broken leg.

He stayed beside her, doubtless prolonging her life, and almost
certainly increasing her misery, after the tradition in which he had
been educated. He could not save her life, for which an amputation would
have been the only hope, and that was beyond his skill or resources.

She died unconquered, as she had lived, being too great for
circumstance. She died with a faith serene and untroubled. Having fought
hard for life, she accepted death confidently. "_Though He slay me yet
will I trust Him_," she quoted, when the fever slackened.

She lay unconscious for two days before he was sufficiently sure that
she was dead to bury her from the flies.

After that, he came on an open drain in a deserted highway, at which a
navvy was blindly excavating. The man begged his assistance for the
useless labor. He was plainly mad, and when Martin declined to help him
he made a murderous attack, from which Martin escaped with difficulty.

He wondered how the man lived.

He avoided that stretch of road for the following days, until he came on
the man again, then in a condition of raving insanity. He mistook Martin
for his Creator, and cursed him in words unfit for reproduction.

In the end Martin was compelled to kill him with his own pick.

At this time Martin did not go far from the shore which overlooked the
place of the ruins of his own home. When his physical needs were
satisfied, he would sit for many hours gazing over the water. His body
recovered strength. His health became more vigorous than it had ever
been, but his mind lacked incentive to do more than provide for his
immediate necessities.

His reason told him that the whole earth could not be under water. He
expected continually to see the smoke of some approaching steamer.

But the seas remained empty.


[IV]

The hours passed very quickly to Helen after Martin left her. He had
provided as far as possible for her comfort during his absence. Food and
water were near to her hand. Fire was beneath her and within her reach,
but it was not cold. He had left a stock of broken wood, sufficient to
keep it alight till his return, if it were used with discretion. She
could easily throw it on, piece by piece, from where she lay. She let
the children scramble on the side of the pit, guiding them with her
voice to avoid the brambles and the steeper places, but they soon came
back to her. Tired by the excitement of their strange experience, they
were glad to nestle against her, and slept, one on either side, in the
warm safety of her arms.

Among the attempts which have been made by mankind to solve the enigma
of conscious life, its end and its beginning, the most rational (as it
may foolishly seem to an imperfect knowledge) is that of the
transmigration of souls. With this theory there is commonly linked one
of progression or penalty, by which each incarnation is controlled by
the conduct of the individual in the one which preceded. Whether true or
false, the two theories are without necessary sequence. It would be as
probable to postulate that the ego is unalterable, and that the
incarnations it may undergo are not rewards, or penalties, or of any
educational purpose, but are rather a series of tests of its quality, by
which its value is proved under different conditions and with
conflicting environments.

However this may be (if it be at all) it appears evident that there is
little difference in the nature of mankind when tested by circumstances
the most refined or the most barbarous, or when compared over the
longest periods of recorded history. Of this there is no clearer proof
than in the actions of individuals whose conditions are sharply changed
by natural convulsions, by war, or famine, or by the sudden acquisition
of unusual wealth.

To each of those who had survived the first assaults of flood, and fire,
and tempest, the test came, which was as though they approached a new
incarnation without losing the memory of that which had preceded it.

Helen, her mind stunned by a catastrophe too sudden and too vast for
immediate comprehension, and knowing only doubtfully the extent to which
civilization had fallen before it, felt, rather than thought, as she lay
unsleeping between her children. She had no consciousness of immediate
danger. She supposed that, for the time at least, to be over. She had no
fear that Martin would not return as he had promised. She was not of a
nature that worries over imagined evil, and her confidence in him was
habitual. But her thoughts moved uncertainly, as does an insect whose
nest is broken or removed in its absence. The furniture of her mind had
become worthless. Thoughts of her home, neighbors, recreations,
pleasures, garments, engagements, would obtrude or betray her into a
moment's forgetfulness, only to be thrown aside with the realization
that they had no further meaning. Her brain brought her the accustomed
memories, to find itself always repelled and its tributes rejected.
Beyond this, it had nothing to offer, except the enigma of the future,
to which it could supply no answer.

So she lay, and felt only, while it commenced its patient task of
covering rejected thoughts, and arranging new facts in readiness for the
time when she should require them.

But there were some things which it was not asked to change, but rather
to call to an added consciousness, and first of these was that instinct
that held dominion separate from herself, however willingly she might
foster it in every cell of her body. The instinct which her generation
had been persuaded to betray, to their own undoing. Her arms tightened
round the two that slept so confidently in their protection--arms so
pitifully weak to shield them against the blind forces that wrecked the
earth around her. Out of a sudden agony of prayer, her soul rose to that
height of God-in-man which is the tragic greatness of humanity, and
before which Death itself is ashamed and impotent. She knew the weakness
of her arms, and was not daunted. She knew the strength of her
opponents, and was resolute to resist them. They should not suffer,
though the whole world fall.

The hours passed, and Martin did not return. The sun, which no longer
shone down into the pit, but touched the bushes on its eastern side with
the golden light of evening, told her that she was not deceived as to
the time which had passed. She determined to test her ability to stand.
Drawing herself carefully from between the sleeping children she rose
painfully. She was stiff and bruised, but the numbness had gone from her
side, though it hurt her sharply. It hurt her, too, if she breathed
deeply. It hurt her more if she touched it. But she was glad she could
stand.

She had never been credited with any physical courage. She would be
startled by a dog's bark. She would walk wide of a quiet cow. She would
certainly have run in terror from a rat had it advanced boldly upon her,
though it were as absurd as though a cat should offer battle to an
elephant. But she had that high quality of passive courage which can
face pain and wounds, after their infliction, with a more resolute
spirit than is possible to many who may more lightly take the risks
which incur them.

She soon found that she could move more easily, and that she could more
exactly gage her capacity to do so without hurting herself too sharply.
She busied herself in many little activities of which she had thought as
she lay. She waked the children and fed them. She had a meal herself.
She was hungry, and there was no good purpose in waiting to share it
with Martin. Surely he would not be long now? The sun must be near
setting.

Casually she looked at the further side of the pit, was puzzled by what
she saw, and looked more closely. While she did so, a wave swirled over
the edge, spilling through the bushes, and splashing into the hollow.

Her mind poised blank for a moment, and then waked to full consciousness
of its meaning. She knew that the field below the pit sloped downward,
though only gently. Beyond it, stretched miles of lower land to the
river valley. Water flowing over the edge could only mean an inundation
beyond conception. Before the next swirl of the rising water fell over
the edge with a louder noise, and in a fuller volume, her purpose had
taken shape, and she had commenced its accomplishment. With no thought
of saving anything but their bare lives, and with even Martin forgotten,
she was climbing up the bank, with the two children under her right arm,
while she used her left as best she could to support her in the burdened
climb. There was one chance--so small a chance--if she were not too late
already. Her memory searched for details of every drop and rise in the
ground before her. She decided that she was not yet too late--but how
fast might not the water be rising around her? She _must not_ be too
late.

She was on the edge of the pit now, and cast a glance around, though she
did not delay for an instant. Mile on mile the water stretched
interminably to southward. In the shallowness of the foreground, trees
rose and hedges showed. There was no regular succession of waves, but
the surface heaved irregularly as it advanced. It was covered by dbris
of a thousand kinds. The low sun glorified it.

As she looked, a fox ran past, carrying a cub in her mouth. The creature
did not mind her.

She became conscious that the children, roughly held and dragged through
weed and brier, were crying in a frightened way. She was running now,
though weakly enough, up the field, and changed the younger one to her
injured arm. It is the highest evidence of her courage that her voice
could soothe them. Sensitive to her mood, they became quiet with a
consciousness of drama, but not of tragedy, as she bore them.

Her progress was not rapid, for she was weak and burdened. There were
obstacles also to surmount, or avoid as best she might. But she knew her
purpose, and her spirit used the little strength she had to its last
atom of energy. Nature held the scale that trembled to the verdict of
death, watched it--and let her go.

It was half a mile beyond that there had been a public park, where some
skiffs were kept on a small lake for hiring. The park lay in a hollow,
lower than the level which the water had gained already. But the land
around was higher. It might be under water now, but she thought not.
When it filled, it would do it quickly. How quickly, she could not tell.

Her way was shortened by the fact that the park wall was fallen, and it
was that which made the final difference. She gained the pond when water
was already pouring into the hollow. She found the boats had broken from
their moorings, and had been driven against a bushy bank on the further
side. Leaving the children, she had to wade in waist-deep to reach them.
Two of them were damaged. She found one that seemed sound. Fortunately,
it was more stoutly built than the others, which were river skiffs of
the lightest kind. She pulled it through the water to where she had left
the children. Water was draining into the pool at a hundred points by
now. The water was up to her armpits at one point as she waded back. The
place where she had laid the children down was covered, but they had
retreated before it. Grounding the boat, she lifted them in, and sat
down on a thwart--and waited. There was nothing more to be done. She had
no sculls. The water was now rising so rapidly that the boat lifted from
the bank almost before she was seated. Fortunately, it rose gently and
evenly. As there was no outlet at first, there was no strength of
current until the smaller trees were flooded, and the expanse of water
was wide and fairly clear around her. Then the boat began to drift
rapidly. It seemed that water was pouring out as well as in now, and
they were swept to where the stumps of a row of elms that the storm had
snapped showed raggedly above the flood. There was nothing to be done.
She could only watch and wait for death--if death were coming. She put
the children in the well of the boat, and sat there with them, thinking
that the lower they were the better the boat would balance. The boat
struck something which held it. It leaned somewhat as the current
pressed it. Some water splashed over. Then the rising flood lifted it,
and it righted suddenly. They swept at perilous speed between the broken
elm boles.

Almost immediately after, another current struck them. They were whirled
round for a time in a vortex which finally hurried them along the side
of the row of stumps through which they had come, and out into a wide
sea of troubled water over which darkness was falling.

She baled out the water which the boat had taken. She and the children
were wet and cold, and the night was coming. If they survived it, what
hope was there in a world that the floods had covered? For the first
time she thought of Martin. Doubtless he was dead. She supposed that few
could be living. She did not know. She looked over the edge of the boat,
and a dead dog floated past.

She thought of Martin, and she had no wish for life to continue. She
felt the pain of her injured side, and the exhaustion which had overcome
her, and she thought that death could not be distant. She looked at the
children, who crouched together with wide, frightened eyes that
questioned the darkness, and she knew that she must not die if the
floods spared them.

Leaning against a thwart she drew them to her and made herself their
pillow. She was soaked and cold, and it was a poor bed to offer, but
there was no better to be done. It was best for them to sleep while they
could.

In the later night the moon looked down upon a little boat that turned
and tossed in a troubled water. A woman lay where she had slipped on to
the floor of the boat. It had shipped some water which washed over her
face at times, but she did not heed it. Pillowed on her breasts, the
children that she had saved slept peacefully. Born of a race of women
that had learnt to esteem their children as less than their pleasures,
who would even pay to have them murdered in their own bodies, she had
redeemed her own soul at the bar of God, and whether she were dead or
living was a little thing.

****

It was the next morning that a group of men stood on a stretch of
moorland that had been purple with heather before the curse of coal had
blackened it, and was now the shore of a new sea.

They saw a boat that had grounded gently a hundred yards out, but with
deeper water before them. They could not see whether it held anything
living, but it would be a desirable possession under their new
conditions of life. But who could swim? No one, unless it were Tom. But
Tom Aldworth shook his head. He could swim, but very little. The
inducement was not sufficient. Besides, he was not friendly with the
men, nor they with him. He was an acquitted murderer, and as such he was
entitled to and received much less good-will than would have been
accorded to one who had confessed, and would be hanged tomorrow. But
then--was there not a movement in the boat, and, perhaps, a cry, though
a weak one?

Tom Aldworth took off his coat.

As he did so the cry came again. It was the cry of a child that pressed
against a mother who was very cold and did not answer.




BOOK II. CLAIRE


Claire Arlington stood on the edge of what had once been a steep
hillside in the Upper Cotswolds. Now it was lapped by a tide that rose
within eighty feet of the summit.

Steep though the slope might be, it was still green with the sparse
Cotswold herbage, which grew so thinly that the white chalk showed
between it, and yet the sleek, long-barreled cow that grazed on the
cliff-top was evidence that it was not lacking in nourishment.

Claire was not thinking of cliff or cow, but gazing with troubled eyes
upon the desolation of a quiet sea.

Looking north, she saw no sign of land, though a whitening of broken
water here and there beneath her told of shallows which a lower tide
would leave uncovered.

There was no sign of the Malverns. If any of the higher lands of Wales
had escaped the deluge, they were too low or too distant for her sight
to reach them.

Only to the northeast was there at times a doubtful hint of land. If she
were only sure--She was a strong swimmer. Once she had tried to cross
the Dover Straits, and had been balked by the tide when within but a
short distance of the French coast. If she could only be sure that land
were there--or of how far it might be.

It was but a few weeks ago--she had not counted the days, for count of
days had ceased to matter--since she had spent long hours of darkness
floating as best she might amidst the buffeting of continual waves, to
find, when the dawn came, that she was drifting fast towards a vision of
green land, and then to realize that the current which bore her near
would sweep her past it, and then to battle backward, yard by yard,
until the sun had risen high above the horizon, and she was aware at
last that she was clear of the current's force, and each tired stroke
decreased the distance to the waiting land.

Then the land on which she climbed had seemed the most blessed thing for
which a living creature could pray; and now she loathed it, so that
death itself might seem less bitter.

Death? No; her heart told her that she had no will that way, whatever
life might mean.

She stood there for a long time silent, gazing at the sea, the while her
mind went back to recollection of all that had happened since she had
survived that night in which so many millions must have perished.

Her husband among them--there was no possible hope that he could have
lived. An invalid, awaiting an operation in a nursing home in
Cheltenham, she would have been with him on the previous day, if the
great storm had not made it impossible. She felt no keen regret. The
horror had been too great. It had numbed her mind. And she knew that
though she had loved him in a way, and there had been no differences
between them, the bond had not been as strong as she had been taught
such bonds should be. Pity rather than love--pity for a man maimed and
disfigured in the prime of life--and then he had been querulous, and
exacting, and jealous--so she knew, though she did not let the thought
take form. But she was glad that the baby had not lived--for she could
not have saved it--and how she had grieved when she had been told--but
who could have foreseen?

Yes, there was no chance that he lived; not Cheltenham only, but all the
land beyond--Ireland, perhaps--had gone. It was only a few days ago that
a southwest wind had risen, and she had watched the great Atlantic
rollers sweeping past, and felt the high surf drench her, even at that
height, as she had seen and felt upon the Cornish headlands in the days
gone by.

Yes, that life had left her, with all its obligations, all its
occupations, its loves and friendships--perhaps she would have regretted
them more keenly had not the new urgencies--But anyway, they were gone,
and here she stood--free.

_Free!_--a fierce anger lit the somber gaze of wide gray eyes, and
strong teeth bit a bleeding lip as the thought stirred her. She was the
Eve--perhaps the only Eve--of the new world, and her sole thought was of
risking life itself to reach that doubtful streak of land, and so escape
her heritage--or perhaps to gain it?

If she could only be sure that land were there! For she knew quite
clearly that whatever life might hold she did not mean to die. Then did
she mean to yield? Like a trapped mouse her mind went backward and
forward to find escape from a problem which gave her no solution.

She recalled how she had climbed the hill from the bay where she had
landed, and found a cleft in the hilltop where three cows crouched and
shivered, and how they had come to her, as though for protection from
the terror of a failing world, and she had drawn milk from one of them,
and slept on the short turf in the warmth of the rising sun, and wakened
to know that the noon was past, and to find the cows in a recovered
serenity grazing quietly around her (and the cows were hers, let Jephson
say what he would!), and so, with another meal of new milk to ease the
thirst with which she woke, and clothed only in the bathing-dress in
which she had landed, she had set out to explore the land that the
floods had spared, and seek for further food and garments, and shelter
for the night to be.


[II]

Climbing clear of the grassy hollow in which the cows had found their
safety, she had reached an undulating space of land about half a mile
broad, and beyond that a depression, in the center of which was the ruin
of a farmhouse. The hollow of this depression in which the house stood
was actually below the new sea-level, but the ground rose again on the
further side. What had been a lofty upland had become an island of an
area of a square mile or two only, but, on the southern side, there was
another space of land of about equal extent, divided by an arm of water
which receded at low tide, so that it was possible to cross it with
little difficulty. This further island had been swept over by the
floods, and was bare of any life, though it now stood some feet above
the water.

Of this she learnt later. What she first saw was that two men were
standing by the ruined house, and so, thinking little of her spare
attire in her eagerness to meet with living creatures of her own kind,
she had hurried down the slope, while they crossed the more level space
beneath her. And with those men she had lived for the past days in the
ruined house--and how she loathed them!

They had been days of urgent toil, but without privation or any real
discomfort. She thought of the tales she had read of people marooned on
desert islands, and of their quarrels, and of the love that always
followed. But the men in those tales were types rather than individuals,
and these were--Jephson and Norwood. She noticed that she always thought
of Jephson first.

Neither of them was a native of the district. Jephson was a joiner by
trade. He had been the foreman employed on the job of repairing the
dilapidated farmhouse in which they were now living. He was a native of
Birmingham. He had preferred to live on the premises, while his men
lodged in the village. That had saved his life, though the room in which
he had slept on the first night had fallen in, and he had been cut and
bruised. The lobe of his left ear had been almost severed, and for lack
of the aid of anyone with skill to stitch it, it would always hang
loose.

He was a man of medium height, very broadly made, and with a heavy,
resolute step. His arms were long and very hairy, the hands coarse and
spatulate. He had a tuft of straw-colored beard, and a stiff mustache
projecting like that of a walrus. His front teeth were decayed and
broken. His head showed a skimpy fringe of yellow hair, around a natural
tonsure. His eyes were small, deep-set, and intelligent, sometimes lit
with a humor which was rarely kindly. His voice was deep, and his speech
came with deliberation.

He was of an intense acquisitiveness. He had lost a wife and some
children, but he was more concerned as to the fate of a sum of three
hundred pounds that he had deposited in the Municipal Bank of his native
town. He was not of a type of mind that could easily realize that money
had no intrinsic value.

It was probably a penurious habit arising from this feature of his
character which had led him to live on the job rather than lodge in the
village near.

It was clear to him that the house was his, as he had been on the spot
when the floods came, and that Norwood and Claire could live there by
permission only. His money was gone, but "Findin's is keepin's now" was
the first law he announced for the regulation of his new dominion.

Certainly he knew best how to deal with it, and under his expert and
energetic hands it soon began to lose the ruined aspect that age and
storm had bestowed upon it.

He claimed also a dozen sheep that were running loose on the hill,
because "the lands goes with the house," and with the same argument he
disputed Claire's contention that the cows were hers; a contention first
made in jest--for what difference did it make when there was milk for
all?--but afterwards in earnest, when she found that even here the
privileges of property might be employed to coerce her.

Norwood was a man cast from a very different mold. His name had been
known to her before as a professional cricketer of international
reputation. He had been playing at Cheltenham in a three days' match,
which began on the Saturday before the storm. A too convivial evening
had been followed by a Sunday of heavy sleep, after which he had started
out in the evening for a long walk, which experience had taught him was
the best way to recover his condition after such an episode. He had been
on the hilltop, and about to turn back, calculating that he would reach
his hotel in time for three or four hours' sleep before play would be
recommenced, when the storm had struck him, and he had lain there for
many hours with no more protection than a pile of stones where a wall
had fallen. When the force of the wind slackened, he had made his way to
the farmhouse, and had remained there during the flood and earthquake of
the following night, after helping the bruised and bleeding Jephson to
disentangle himself from the collapse of the upper room in which he had
been sleeping.

He was a man of about thirty-five, tall, handsome in a rather weak and
swaggering way, better educated than Jephson, but with far less
knowledge or capacity for overcoming the practical issues of life. He
was fair-haired, clean-shaven, with the healthy brick-red complexion of
the athlete, and showing his vice only in a rather watery appearance of
eyes that had still been clear enough to watch a fast ball from the
bowler's hand until the perfect timing of the stroke should drive it
hard and low to the distant boundary.

The sudden oblivion of the world he knew had left him with a sense of
stupefaction, from which he had only gradually recovered, to inquire
what his companions thought had happened to "poor Lil"--a sister, as
they understood--with rather maudlin pathos.

The condition of the lives of these three derelicts was controlled at
first by the configuration of the little bay in which Claire had landed.
Narrow at its entrance, it curved to the right hand and widened into a
pool, which shallowed as the tide fell, so that the green of the flooded
grass could be seen clearly through the water. Other things could be
seen there also; and other things were left uncovered by the tide on the
gently shelving beach of the bay.

For the sea-floor, which had been England, carried an empire's wealth,
and the great tides washed it out of the buildings that held it, or
broke them down and released it, to add to all that had floated since
the flood had risen, and the little bay was like a trap to catch them.

And all these things they toiled to save without ceasing, under
Jephson's restless urgency. Nothing would he admit to be too cumbersome
or too worthless to be dragged up from the tide level. When that had
been done, there was the harder task of carrying all that was of
sufficient value over the higher ground and down to the house. Norwood
was the more disposed to grumble at this incessant toil, but though
Jephson's eager greed was unattractive in its intensity, Claire could
see the reason which underlay it, and did her part, and more than that,
in the common labor. Even timber might be worth more than they could
easily estimate, for the trees on this island, which had been a hilltop,
were little more than shrubs, and fuel for the winter, which must surely
come, might not be easy to find.

For the most part, Jephson worked with a tireless vigor at the repairing
of the house, so that there might be weather-proof space for the storing
of the salvage when they had dried it. He only asked for his companions'
help when something had to be done which required extra hands or
strength; and he would come once to the beach with them each day to see
what the tide had brought, remaining only if his help were needed, but
urging them by ceaseless question and sarcasm, and by his own example,
to yet greater efforts.

During this time there was little of any real intimacy between these
uncongenial companions that disaster had thrown together. At first the
restraint of the civilization of yesterday, the shock of the
overwhelming calamity, and the urgency of their labors had combined to
defer the inevitable difficulties of adjustment that were before them.

Once or twice a conflict of wills had flared into sudden anger, that
might die down as quickly, but left a subtle difference of mutual
relations behind it.

In the first days Claire had inclined to feel that Norwood was the more
tolerable companion, and the arrangement of labor caused them to be much
together, while Jephson worked at the house, but neither was in any way
congenial to her.

Then there was the day when the first of the dead sheep was washed into
the bay. There had been many sheep on the uplands, but it was several
days before the first of them came ashore; after that some trick of the
tide brought several others, but it was over the first one that the
quarrel had arisen.

Claire was a woman unused to shirk an unpleasant task, if its need were
clear, but her experiences had not been those of a butcher. Swollen and
sodden, the carcass was repulsive to look at.

"That there sheep will need skinnin', Mrs. Arlington," Jephson had
remarked. He had addressed her up to that time with that degree of
polite formality.

"Not by me, Mr. Jephson," she had replied pleasantly enough, but with an
intention of finality.

"Nor I," said Norwood, with a glance of disgust at the still floating
carcass, "and what the hell do we want with the skin of a rotten sheep?"

Norwood spoke with irritation, born of an earlier difference. Neither of
the two men had yet accepted the leadership of the other, nor found the
terms of a smooth-working partnership. They were like two armies which
are maneuvering for position before the battle joins, and perhaps it was
from that reason, or because Jephson was not as clear in his own mind as
to the degree of rottenness or inutility of the object of his cupidity
as he would have liked to be, that Norwood's question was left
unanswered.

He looked at Claire with a dangerous humor in his deep-set eyes, and
spoke with a deliberate slowness.

"Mrs. Arlington, you'll skin that sheep, an' no 'umbug! Yes, my wench,
you will. We all does our part here."

He walked away for a few yards, and looked back. She had not moved, and
was regarding him with an amused contempt which hid some inward
uncertainty. "Or I'll larn you what you don't want, nor I, neither."
With which cryptic remark he had gone off and left them.

She had remained silent and thoughtful for some time, while she realized
several things more clearly than she had done previously. One was that
there is no more "romance" in a community of three people than of
thirty, or of thirty millions--probably much less, because the choice of
intimacy or of companionship is so much more limited.

Norwood said nothing. Barelegged, he was hauling some broken timber
clear of the receding water, and did not ask her assistance.

The dead sheep had grounded and lay half out of the water.

She walked over to it and surveyed it with distaste.

"Is it really worth doing, Mr. Norwood?" she asked in a judicial tone,
intended to convey that she would decide the question on its merits
without reference to Jephson's rudeness.

Norwood, who probably knew no more than herself as to the value of such
a hide, or of the method of salving it, had looked across with disgust
and hesitation. "Beastly job," he had replied vaguely, and then, after a
moment's pause, he had added impulsively: "Call me George, and I'll help
you." It was just that which had decided her to undertake the loathsome
task, and to do it unaided.

It reminded her that familiarity from her companions might be worse than
rudeness.

She had made a hard and filthy labor harder than it need have been
through her ignorance, and she had worked with a growing conviction that
if the product of her occupation were really of any value, neither she
nor either of the men had the necessary knowledge to utilize it, but it
was done at last in a ragged way.

The next day had brought a worse horror, for it was a human body that
the tide gave them after a week of wandering at the waves' mercy. Of her
own instinct she would have closed her eyes and waded out and pushed the
dreadful thing at a pole's end back through the channel by which it had
entered, but here another aspect of Jephson's character was revealed. He
had, as she had already recognized, no religion whatever beyond a few of
the crudest superstitions only half believed, but he held to the ritual
of burial with the foolishness of the class from which he came. It is
bare justice to say that he did his part on this occasion, not resting
till a grave had been opened in the chalky soil and the ghastly remnant
of what had once been human deposited, with some reading of prayers
above it.

It had seemed to Claire that he derived satisfaction, if not actual
enjoyment, from this procedure, but, however that might be, the incident
renewed the consciousness, through that single evidence, of the
appalling catastrophe from which they had emerged with lives uninjured.
For a few hours it had subdued the ego in each of them.

It was some days after that--but they went uncounted--that Norwood
dragged ashore a wooden chest containing little of value, but in which
he found a bottle which he slipped stealthily into his pocket, thinking
that it was unobserved by Claire, who was working beside him. She was
slightly startled, because there had been an understanding that nothing
salved should be retained by any one of them, except by consent, but she
said nothing.

Shortly afterwards they returned to the house together, and the
occurrence left her mind. Jephson's news might have banished a more
important incident. The fresh water had failed them. The house had been
supplied from a well, and surprisingly enough, had they considered it,
the supply had continued after the subsidence of the land which gave it,
but that afternoon Jephson had drawn some to fill a cask which they kept
for the cows to drink when they came for milking, and noticed that the
well was much higher than usual, and then that the cows, which usually
drank it eagerly, breathed over it and turned away. He had tasted it and
found it salt.

At the first hearing she had scarcely realized the magnitude of the
disaster. They did not drink water. Milk was too abundant. One of the
cows had calved, and they left her alone, but the other two were in full
milk. She had milked them thoroughly morning and evening, knowing that
they would go dry if she failed to do so. They drank what they could,
and they threw the rest away. What else could they do? Had she been
expert in the making of cheese or butter there was no time. Everything
was subordinated, and rightly so, to the saving of that which the sea
brought them. They did no cooking. They had no fires in the house. Once
or twice when Jephson had wanted one for some process of the building on
which he labored, he had lit a fire of rubbish outside, and then they
had boiled some vegetables from the garden. Mostly they lived on foods
which the sea had given. Among them were some tinned fish and a crate of
bananas. There were other things put aside, including a side of bacon,
and there were potatoes in the garden waiting the time to dig them. They
had no fear of starvation. There were sheep, too, when they were needed.
But they had no flour.

They slept in separate rooms, which they had made more or less their
own, and which they kept as they would, though each of them now had its
share of salvage, and would have had still more but that the labor of
carrying to the house was much greater than that of saving from the sea.

Night and morning they met to eat in the common kitchen, and talked of
the day's doings. Beyond that they ate when and what they would, but
there was no time for life's amenities.

Jephson had a sense of order, though little of personal cleanliness, and
he kept the kitchen roughly clean and tidy.

So they lived.

The sea had brought them quantities of clothing, mostly damaged, and
much of it otherwise useless.

There was a large case of ladies' gloves--many gross. Claire could not
have worn them had she wished to do so; they were all a size too small.

A suit of men's overalls, of which the sea had also delivered a
consignment, was the most useful dress she had for the work she was
doing; and when they were not working they slept.

Boots were the greatest need. Those which the men had were wearing out,
and there was no means of replacement. Claire had landed without any.
She had tried going barefoot. It had not been any real hardship on soft
turf, or on the mud which the tide left, till she had trodden on some
broken glass and must go bandaged and lamely. The next day she found an
old discarded pair of women's boots in the house. They were too large,
and one was burst at the toe, but they were stoutly made, and she
stuffed them till they would fit sufficiently. When the foot healed she
went bare again. What life was left in the boots should be kept for the
winter days....

That night they talked of nothing but the failure of the well and what
it might mean.

Milk was plenty, and salt water must do for washing. But milk must fail
unless the cows were watered.

They knew that there was a small and muddy pool about half a mile away,
where they supposed that the sheep drank, and where the cows had drunk
till they commenced to fill the cask as an inducement to them to come
for the milking. But they knew that this pool had been shrinking, and it
might now be dry entirely.

It had been infested with gulls, of which there had been many thousands
round the island after the storm. There were fewer now; many must have
found a more congenial home, which proved that there was land within the
distance that their flight covered. But many remained. They settled in
great flocks on the lower island during the day, returning at night to
roost on the hillsides of the higher land.

Norwood said that there was one place on the lower island around which
they always flew most thickly. Perhaps there was fresh water there. It
was a poor chance, but it was worth trying. He proposed that Claire and
he should go in the morning to inspect it. Claire had answered that one
was enough. She would go to look at the state of the pool where the cows
used to drink.

Jephson said that he would go there himself. If it were full there was
no need for immediate worry. If not, he might want them all to work at
opening the well. He had an idea that it might be possible to locate the
place where the salt water entered, or to tap the fresh separately. It
did not sound hopeful.

Norwood had pressed Claire to go with him in the morning. She had
answered shortly, and gone to her room. It had been the only one on the
upper floor which had withstood the storm. A solid room. And there was a
good lock on the door.

The securing of that room had been the one success she had scored on the
day she arrived. It had been unfurnished, except for a heavy wooden
bedstead, which might almost have been regarded as a part of the house
itself. Now the appearance of the room was something between that of a
marine store and a broker's shop.

She walked over to one of the windows, and as she leaned out she heard
the voices of the men disputing through the open window of the room
beneath her. She knew, as it seemed instinctively, that the water was
forgotten, and that she was the cause of their anger.

Norwood's voice was the louder, but it was not one that carried well,
and she could not hear the words. It rose once or twice in defiant
tones, but more often it sounded sulkily, or as though he were giving
way with reluctant expostulation. Once she heard Jephson clearly:
"You'll keep off the wench till..." The remainder of the sentence was
lost. Till what? Of the word "till" she was sure.

Tired though she was, she had lain awake for a long time that night,
restlessly questioning the future and seeing no tolerable issue. She had
courage, and the quality of mind that is frank with itself, as with
others. She was woman, with a full experience of life behind her.
Isolated as they were, she knew that it was natural that the thoughts of
the men should turn to her, and hers to them for that matter. But she
knew that she loathed them both, so far as any physical contact were
concerned. Yet how could it end? The ocean showed no land. It showed no
sail. She was the only woman of her world as far as she could know it.
Was it natural that she should hold them off forever? Was it right?

There were two of them, and perhaps in that lay her immediate safety. It
gave some choice also. But she had no wish to exercise it. She doubted
whether the greedy coarseness and physical deficiences of Jephson
repelled her more utterly than the invertebrate dulness of her more
frequent companion. Perhaps it did; and yet she knew that there was more
manhood in the house-builder, however ugly and brutal it might be.
Probably if it came to open violence between them Jephson would win,
though he was the older and smaller man. So she had thought that night.
Now she knew.

But she had had no wish that they should quarrel concerning her. Only a
vague thought that, at the worst, she might play one off against the
other.

Then she had been startled at a sudden aspect of baseness in this
atavistic instinct, that she should think of appealing to either against
the other when she had no thought to reward him for his championship.

It might be hard to avoid. At best it was a mean and perilous way. Yet
what else was there to hold to? She had fallen asleep with this enigma
unanswered.


[III]

The following morning she had risen early, and because the sun shone and
the air was buoyant, she was able to face the future more hopefully.
Whatever of sinister meaning might be in the words she had overheard, at
the worst they implied a respite. "Brave men die once, but cowards die
many times," she had thought gaily enough. And how many dead there were!
Surely she should be able to laugh in the sunlight.

She found the cows were smelling round the cask, but the supply of milk
was undiminished. Either they had found water, or its failure had not
yet affected them.

She carried in the milk carefully, with an added sense of its value. The
men were waiting, and while they ate and drank they agreed on the plan
that had been proposed the night before.

Jephson would go to inspect the pool on their own island. She and
Norwood would explore the lower one, only they would separate and each
take half the work of surveying it thoroughly. Jephson had plans
already, if all else should fail, for the building of cisterns for
rain-water. He was calculating on a change of weather, and wished to be
ready to take full advantage of it.

Norwood seemed more cheerful than usual. He made trivial jokes and
laughed at his own wit. The difference of the previous night appeared to
be forgotten.

Claire and he had started out together intending to do their work of
salvage before crossing the channel, which they could do only when the
tide was at its lowest, some hours ahead.

They found little to occupy them. The sea was smooth, and the wind off
the shore. There were two more of the dead sheep floating in, and they
were of one mind to start them out again on their interrupted voyage.
They had found that if any unsavory items that the ocean brought were
dismissed again through the narrow entrance of the bay, the next tide
would often return them unless they were started round the southern
side, when the current caught them and they were seen no more. They had
no use for dead sheep, however recent their decease might be. There was
a difference on that point. Jephson said that they might have come from
some land left just above the sea-level, to which they clung till the
sea washed them off one by one. It was impossible to disprove it. He had
even suggested that they might be fit for eating. If they were, their
looks belied them.

Anyway, Claire and Norwood had been of one mind in poling them out of
sight and reach before fresh debate could arise. What remained of the
tide's largess had been only the broken remnant of a wicker chair, a
wooden hay-fork, also damaged, and a battered chicken-coop that had a
long-dead hen entangled in the bars, against which it must have
struggled frantically when the flood swept over it.

It was the poorest haul they had had, and took little time to deal with.
So they crossed the island at leisure, Norwood still in unusual spirits
and talking of the game in which he excelled. He seemed to forget that
the very grounds of his triumphs were beneath the ocean, and that few
things were more certain than that he would never handle a bat again, as
he expounded his theory of the best method of playing back to a swerving
ball or of the result of bowling "round the wicket" to a left-hander. As
he became absorbed in his subject she almost liked him, and she was well
content to lead him on, and able to do so, for she had captained a
cricket team in her college days, though she would have given all the
cricket grounds that were ever rolled for a tennis racket and net, with
a good opponent beyond it.

So they had come to the channel, and being anxious to commence their
exploration, they had waded over while the water was still knee-deep and
with a pull that nearly took their footing more than once as they
struggled against it.

She had expected he would object to separating, though it would
obviously halve the time that the survey would require, and had been
determined to insist upon it, but he did not do so, agreeing readily
that she should follow the right-hand coast and he the left, and that
they should meet at the further end. By that means they would discover
whether there were any stream such as must require an outlet, and should
that fail, they could return across the inner land in search of any
possible pool in the hollows.

A moment after she left him she disturbed a small bird of the finch
kind, which fluttered past her, and because she had seen no sign of such
life since the flood came, but only the stronger sea-birds, she turned
to look after it. Norwood was still standing where she had left him. He
had a flask at his mouth, which he quickly withdrew and slipped into a
side pocket when he saw her looking back.

Following the curves of the land, her walk may have been a matter of two
miles. The tide, being low, had exposed a portion of the hillside
sloping gently down for most of the distance. At one point there was a
considerable stretch of more level land that the lower tides discovered.
It was a melancholy view of drowned herbage and the dbris of land and
sea.

She had worked thoroughly, though with little expectation, making short
detours inland where any hollow invited it. The place where Norwood had
said that the gulls settled was on her side. She found it to be a flat
field which the high tides covered, leaving large shallow pools when
they retreated, in which the birds waded and fed. There was no hope of
fresh water there.

She had become used to horrors, but had never realized the full tragedy
of the flood so vividly as she did that morning, walking on land over
which it had swept and receded, leaving a hundred piteous relics of a
world's destruction. Her mind was clear and vacant to think of what was
lost and of what might be. Why of all the millions of English men and
women had they three been saved? She knew that the men were worthless
beside so many that the seas had taken. Were they indeed to be the
parents of a new race? Was she----? Her mind revolted fiercely. Was the
whole world overwhelmed, or was that the nightmare horror of a few weeks
only, from which some passing ship would soon release them? She looked
with longing seaward, but the bare horizon gave no answer.

She had nearly reached the farther point at which Norwood should join
her when she came to a more dreadful sight than any which she had
encountered previously.

In the fold of the hillside, just below the flatter top on which she
walked, there had been a clump of fir-trees which the tide had
uncovered, and entangled in these trees were the remains of a group of
people who had climbed to this refuge, and there had perished. It does
not bear words to tell it.

She had gone on to the meeting-place and sat down on the cliff-edge to
await her companion. The sun shone warmly, the wind was pleasantly cool,
the sea sparkled beneath her, but her own mood gave no response. She had
been taught that the earth had seen many such upheavals. Even the Bible,
which her teachers had derided, contained the record of one such
catastrophe. She had learnt and believed, but it had meant nothing to
her, and now...

"Because things seen are mightier than things heard" her mind was in
fierce rebellion against the cruelty of a blind Nature or a regardless
God.

At the best, it was all so futile. And yet, was it? If she did not
understand, how could she judge it? As so many millions of her kind had
done before when faced with the blind forces that betray them to
tragedy, she had striven desperately to break the intolerable veil of
the enigma in which we live. She remembered the mood of Rua: "...and
death is the better part." It was always true, it always had been. It
was the way of refusal which even God could not take from the creatures
for whose miseries He was ultimately responsible, and which He made His
jest. A man could destroy himself if he would. So could the whole race,
if God did not--as it seemed He was doing now.

To that extent they were free. But they did not want to die. Then life
must be a boon worth having, with all its pains and losses. But they
were not allowed to live. "Death is the better part." The man who wrote
that line was dead now. Had he found it to be so? He had died in Samoa.
Was there any Samoa today? Might there not be much nearer lands from
which ships were now steering to search the wrecks of Europe and to
bring aid and rescue? It was hard to guess. But surely the whole land
surface of the globe need not have suffered because a part of Western
Europe had sunk--and very gently as she realized--a few furlongs below
sea-level.

Again she had looked seaward. Shallows there were, breaking the long,
slow swell of the water into whitening waves that lessened as the tide
rose over them, but of land no sign, nor could her gaze, "lifted in hope
to spy Trailed smoke along the sky," find any hope for its searching.
Her mind still thought in the phrases of a dead literature, but the
world to which it had belonged was ended, and would be utterly
forgotten.

While she had watched and thought, a wind had freshened from the
northwest and the sky had clouded. It was still bright overhead, but on
her right hand a flying storm came from behind and moved over the water
to southward. The sea had become restless and broken, and she could see
that a heavy rain was falling. And then: "_I do set my bow in the
cloud._" The words came back to her as she had heard them read, and they
had caught her attention once in childhood when she had been half asleep
in the corner of a church pew on a drowsy summer evening.

The bow showed first in the south, stretched upward, and curved over
till it descended above the land behind her. For a short minute it stood
out complete, and then it shortened at its southern end and faded upward
as it had risen. It was indistinct for a moment, and then she lost it
entirely.

Her reason reminded her that if a covenant had been given it had been
broken. She knew the physical incidence of the phenomenon she had
witnessed, and she had been trained in the habit of thought that assumed
that to understand the process of an event is to destroy its marvel or
its significance. Yet she knew that she felt differently. She realized
that men had always been dying. Death being inevitable, surely it
mattered little that many had died the same night. If there were life
beyond, it could not be when men died, nor how they died, but how they
lived that mattered.

While life lasted it had always its problems; even now to her.

And then, just as her mind had reverted to its own immediate
difficulties, Norwood's arm had come round her neck, and his drunken
kisses were on her mouth. No doubt the spirit-flask which he had
secreted and emptied was partly responsible. Possibly, had she been in a
different mood, and had he approached her differently, the result might
have been different also, though, he being that which he was, it seems
unlikely. Roused in such a manner from the mood in which he found her,
she reacted with a fierce revulsion. She was sickened by the stench of
his drunken breath. She was not afraid at all. Naturally self-reliant
and robust, she did not doubt that she could protect herself quite
effectually. It was with a fresh anger that she realized that he was
stronger than she. He said little or nothing. The method of his
love-making revealed the weak brutality of the man. To her indignant
protest he muttered something about having got his chance "where that
old fool can't interfere." He had got her arms pinned to her sides so
that she could not use them, nor could she resist his strength
sufficiently to gain her feet, but her mind was cool and determined. She
recognized that she must try to do him some serious injury or
disablement. Even if she got free for a moment she knew that he could
overtake her. There was no help whatever but in herself. She could not
use her feet from the position in which he had caught her. She could not
prevent his kissing her face and neck, and her efforts to do so seemed
to amuse him only. She would use her teeth if the chance came, but she
must not warn him by an abortive effort.

Suddenly she became limp in his arms as though exhausted or consenting.
He thought his purpose won, and his hold relaxed in consequence. But she
had seen a piece of wood that lay on the turf near, as the flood had
left it. It was a mere strip, about a foot long, but it might make a
sufficient weapon.

She wrenched herself loose, snatched it up, twisted round as he caught
her again, and brought it down on his face with the force of
desperation. The next moment he had loosed her with a curse, and they
had both risen and stood confronting one another.

The wood, little more than lath, had broken in her hand. It had
inflicted an ugly bruise on his forehead, but the worse damage had been
caused by a bent nail projecting from the wood, which had made a long,
deep tear beneath the cheekbone, which was bleeding freely.

It was a disconcerting wound, but by no means sufficient to disable him,
or to have deterred a more resolute man. Probably the game would still
have been his, had he played it better. Women have been taken by force
often enough from the time of the Sabines, or of the children of
Benjamin, and have learnt to kiss their captors.

But Norwood had had enough.


[IV]

That had been yesterday. She had recrossed the island in advance of
Norwood and swum the channel while the water was still high, so that, as
he could not swim, it was some hours before he could follow.

She had been elated with the ease of her victory, and greeted Jephson
with more than usual affability. He told her that there was still some
water in the pool, but that it was low and muddy. Many birds were
resorting to it, and the sheep drank there, as their tracks showed. Now
that the cows were also going, it must soon be dry unless rain came. He
proposed that they should all work in the morning at fencing it off,
which would keep it clean, and they could dole it out at their
discretion.

He had asked what they had found, and then, perhaps foolishly, she had
told him of Norwood's attempt against herself, and of how she had foiled
it.

He had heard her in silence, and then looked at her for some time in a
speculative way before saying: "We'll wait till he comes back, and then
I'll do the talking."

It had been late when Norwood returned, and he had seemed reluctant to
face the older man, muttering something about having had an accident,
and passing on to his room.

Jephson had made a motion to stop him, and then turned back. "He don't
count," he said shortly, and had sat down opposite to Claire, with a
table between them, and spoken with the slow deliberation of one who had
thought and decided. It was not an argument, but a verdict.

"Now, my wench, see here. You're in my 'ouse, and you're my gal, an'
you'll do what I says. I'm master 'ere and you'll both larn it--or go.
P'r'aps you know where. I doesn't."

"But the cows are mine, Mr. Jephson," she had interposed, reverting to
the earlier argument in what she had meant to be a light and friendly
tone, but he had continued unheeding. He spoke now with a slow emphasis
that left no doubt of his meaning.

"When--I--want--you--I'll--'ave--you. An' that won't be long neither.
You're mine. You may larn it soon, or larn it late, but you've got to
larn it." He brought a heavy hand down flatly on the board. "But don't
you think as you'll use your tricks wi' me. By Gawd!"--and his eyes
fixed on her own, that tried to meet them steadily, and he raised his
voice in a burst of anger--"I'd tan you till you couldn't walk for a
week--nor sit. But you're one to see sense," he added more quietly, "an'
I ain't greedy no'ow. I don't want no quarrels. A wench ain't worth it.
When I say you're hisn, you're hisn, an' when I say you're mine, you're
mine."

He had looked at her for a long moment in silence, as though waiting for
her to answer, and then, apparently satisfied, as she made no response,
he had risen and walked out.

Then she had gone to her own room, and behind the futile safeguards of
lock and bolt had blamed herself for the cowardice that had made no
answer, and congratulated herself on her discretion, and had tried to
persuade herself that it was wisdom rather than fear which had impelled
her to silence.

Certainly she had needed time for thought, but thought had brought no
comfort. Were they the only men that the world held, it made no
difference. She loathed them both. The sight of Jephson in the yard
beneath, busily measuring some timbers, his mind full of his proposed
fencing of the pond, did nothing to reassure her. In his slow,
deliberate mind he had weighed her up, and told her what her fate would
be. Then he had reverted to more important problems.

She thought of the cowardly brutality of the man who had assaulted, and
then of this other who would be content to share her with him, so long
as he were recognized as the master. He wouldn't even keep her to
himself if it should mean a quarrel. "A wench ain't worth it." Was she
to live at the will of such as these, and bear their children?

Surprisingly, she had gone to sleep very quickly, and had slept so well
that she had not heard Jephson at work on the outside of her door. Not
that he cared whether she heard him.

Perhaps he had given her more thought than she supposed. Probably he
quite understood the feeling toward himself underlying the polite
friendliness with which she usually addressed him. He prided himself on
his practical efficiency, and he would not have spoken so confidently
had he not "measured the job" as he put it to his own mind.

She had waked early from a strange dream of sinking into immeasurable
depths and with an unaccountable feeling of giddiness, and hearing no
sound from the rooms below, where the men slept, had resolved to come
out and find the cows to drive them down for the milking. Leaving her
room, she had noticed that a heavy bolt had been fixed to the outside of
the door. It had not been shot to confine her, and left her to puzzle
over the intention which it indicated. Probably to confine her should
she give further trouble till she should be starved into complacency.

It gave her fresh food for thought--thought which hardened into a
determination not to be coerced by such men, nor by such methods, and
yet which could form no plan by which their lives could combine, and she
maintain her integrity, if they united against her.


[V]

Over these events which have been briefly told, and over others which
there is no need for telling, Claire's mind had wandered as she watched
a calm sea wrinkle to a summer breeze; but as she found no issue, she
resolved that she must play for time until she had contrived some plan
by which she could play for safety, and that she would gain nothing by
rousing the suspicion that she was not returning with the cows as usual,
or by leaving the men to make common cause against her while she was
absent. On her way back to the house the feeling of giddiness with which
she had waked returned, but more strongly, so that she staggered, and
part of the milk was spilled. For some time she lay on the turf while
the sky swayed above, and she felt as though the ground were sinking
beneath her. But this passed, and she rose with a feeling of
unaccustomed sickness.

She found the men together at their morning meal when at last she came
in with the milk pail. She knew that they had been discussing her from a
look which Norwood gave before his glance fell nervously beneath her
own, but neither spoke, and it was her own policy to draw their thoughts
to the day's work, as though the incidents of the previous one were
forgotten. Norwood's face was not a pleasant sight, the forehead swollen
and discolored, and the left cheek caked with dirt and blood, which he
had omitted to wash lest the bleeding should start afresh. But it was
not a subject to which any of them was likely to allude. Jephson had
other things on his mind, and was proceeding to explain his program and
to allot to each of them the task by which they could best assist it,
when an event happened of the kind which so often shows the vanity of
human forethought or apprehension.

Claire's fears and Jephson's plans went the same road when a thin stream
of water from the yard outside hesitated for a moment on the sill and
trickled down into the kitchen.

The kitchen was the oldest part of an old house, and was built at the
time when floors were sunk, so that the strewn rushes should not be
drawn out by careless feet. Probably it had then been the best room in
the house, which had since decayed and been rebuilt around it. Its
floor, now flagged, was several inches lower than the yard from which
the water dripped so gently, yet with a quietly increasing volume.

Claire noticed it first, but did not speak, which was a measure of her
mental aloofness, and it was a few seconds before she had realized its
significance. Jephson saw it next, and knew its cause in a moment, but
he was a man of slow speech, and he stared silently while his mind
grappled with the problem which it presented.

Norwood saw it last, and jumped up with an exclamation of vague
astonishment. The next moment Jephson was leading the way to the yard,
where a thin layer of water was spreading outward from the well-mouth.

It was clear that the sea had broken into the well and that the water
would continue to rise until it found its own level. Claire, who had
often noticed, as she had gained the crest of the ridge in her daily
journey to the little bay, how much lower than the sea was the hollow in
which the house was built, realized that it would rise until the house
and all their possessions were submerged beneath it, unless it could be
checked effectually.

Was there any possible means of so doing? It is not easy to stop the
ocean, but it was evident that Jephson thought it worth attempting.

The slowness with which the water rose made it clear to his mind that
the sea could only be percolating through very gradually. Surely this
tendency could be checked if the well were filled?

He looked round for the quickest method of doing this, and the next
minute they were all three heaving bricks from a pile of loose rubbish
in the yard into the splashing mouth of the well. The well was at the
side of the yard which was furthest from the house, covered by a wooden
flap, against a low wall that divided the yard from the garden. As the
heap of bricks and stones was rapidly diminishing, Jephson fetched a
pick, and, with a few expert strokes, demolished the old side walls so
that they also fell into the water. Soon there was a gap in the rear
wall also, which had found the same sepulcher. Then he began to break up
the yard itself, while the other two, having fetched spades to his
instructions, were shoveling garden earth through the gap in the wall.

But the well seemed insatiable, and still the water rose. Claire and
Norwood were above its level, for the garden was a foot or two higher
than the yard, but Jephson was now working in six inches of water, and
it was clear that, despite all their efforts, it was still rising, and
more rapidly than before.

Jephson paused a moment, leaning on his pick, and called to Claire to
ask when the tide would be at its highest. She had learnt to judge this,
so that they should choose the best times for their salvage operations.
She looked at the sun, and answered that it was nearly full. He asked
her if she could tell whether it were higher than the upper story of the
house if she went to the edge of the ridge to look.

"I can tell you that without going," she answered. "It would cover the
house entirely."

But Jephson would have her go and look again, and she went rather than
argue, having already decided that their labor was a waste of effort.

Jephson knew it too, but he grasped at any hope, however feeble, and
worked on doggedly. He had a wild thought of dragging their possessions
to the upper floor and remaining there, and perhaps being able to sally
out when the tides fell. He could build a house on higher ground, and
they could gradually remove their property to it. But this would be
useless if the whole house would be under water continually. In that
case they had better commence to save what they could.

Claire went up the hillside quietly. When she reached the top she looked
round in wonder, for the sea was but a short distance beneath her. The
lower island had disappeared.

She realized after the first moment's surprise that something was
happening more serious than the flooding of the well, and that while
they had toiled at their useless task, the whole island had been quietly
sinking beneath them. After all, it was scarcely wonderful. Rather it
was difficult to understand why this little space of land had remained
uncovered when so much of higher ground had subsided. Anyway, it was not
a time for theorizing over the inexplicable. She had no doubt that the
island was doomed, and in a moment her resolution was formed to take
that desperate chance which she had debated in the earlier morning. She
would swim for life, as she had done on the night when the floods came.
To do this she should start from the north side of the island, which was
nearly a mile away. It would be well to be clear of the land before the
final subsidence. For her companions she could see no hope, and towards
them she felt no obligation. She was disinclined to descend the hollow
again. At the least, it was loss of time when time might be priceless.
At the worst, if the sea should overflow while she were there, it might
pour in from every side, making such a caldron as would drown the
strongest. She could not tell; she could only imagine.

Yet she felt she could not leave them unwarned, and so she went,
reluctantly enough, back to the house, round which the water had risen
several inches and had spread widely over the lower ground around it.

Jephson turned eagerly as she approached, and called to know if the
whole house would be covered, and she could only shake her head in reply
till she was near enough for explanation. Both men stopped their work
and looked at her anxiously as she reached them. The water was pouring
out from the well-mouth, and it was evident that their work had been
ineffectual to check it. There must have been tragedy in her face which
had alarmed them before she spoke, but when she did so it was very
quietly.

"It is no use doing that. You must save yourselves if you can. I think
the island is sinking."

Norwood went white, and his jaw dropped as he heard her. He had the type
of mind which was able to realize at once that she spoke the truth, but
was incapable of making any fight against it.

Jephson was less receptive. He answered roughly, but not without a
nervous note in his voice: "Nonsense, wench. You can't tell me what's
wrong. It's the sea's in the well. That won't drown us."

"Mr. Jephson," she said with a quiet intensity which vanquished his
incredulity, "you can believe me or not, but the sea is almost level
with the ridge above us. You can think where you'll be when it pours
over. I am going to save myself, if I can. I don't know what you can do.
Perhaps you could make a raft. But I should do it quickly."

She had turned away and waded to the kitchen before he found an answer.

The pail of milk was still on the table, and she stooped to it and drank
till she could drink no more.

Her mind was very clear, rising to the occasion with a curious feeling
of exaltation. She was not troubled or afraid at all. Rather was she
conscious of a great relief, as of one who has been released from
impending tragedy by a supernatural power after all hope had ended.

When she came out of the kitchen the two men were running up the slope,
Norwood far in advance. She turned away, and had nearly gained the
higher ground on the inland side, when a roaring sound behind caused her
to look round quickly. She saw a great spout of water shoot up from the
well-mouth, flinging high into the air the bricks and earth with which
they had endeavored so laboriously to choke its passage.

She looked over to the further side, and saw Jephson waving furiously to
her to join them. He shouted something which she could not hear. She
thought the word "boat" was repeated, but could not be certain.

Anyway she was not going. She shook her head and turned away resolutely.
She had done with them forever.


[VI]

As she walked over the level down, the scene was peaceful and very
quiet.

The sky was clear, the sun shone, and a breeze of a pleasant coolness
blew from the west, tempering the sun's heat.

Once or twice the ground swayed beneath her, but the tremor was so
slight that it might have passed unnoticed had she not been alert to
such indications.

She saw that the sheep were huddled together in a frightened group, but
the cows grazed placidly. The gulls were restless and very talkative.

She began to doubt whether the subsidence had not ceased, but she did
not change her purpose.

One by one she discarded her clothes the while she walked, throwing them
aside as things of no further value. She came at last to the cliff-side
where she had stood in the earlier morning, but she stood now bare of
the unsightly garb which had seemed to typify the life from which she
was escaping. The waves broke about ten feet below her when she raised
her arms and dived to meet them.

She swam straight out from the land with strong, slow strokes till she
was about a mile away, and then turned on her back and floated gently.

A long hour passed, and still she could see the island, though she
thought it lower in the water, and still she did not get the sign for
which she had hoped and waited.

At length it came, in a line of sea-birds that flew up from the sinking
land and turned their flight to eastward. The direction troubled her.
She had the fancy that land lay to the northeast, and that there, if at
all, it might be within a distance that she would be able to reach
before her strength should leave her.

Birds might fly further than human limbs could swim, and their choice
might be death to her, but she had resolved to take the sign when it
came, and so, putting her doubts aside, she turned and followed.

She could still see them, flying steadily and straight forward. Surely
there was land beyond, however far, and she must not fail till she
gained it. It was noon overhead. She had about nine hours of daylight,
and a short and moonlit night to follow. She felt fresh and confident.
She knew that there could be no land for many miles, or it would have
been visible from the cliff-top, and so she settled down to swim
steadily, and to rest her mind with other thoughts as she did so.

As the afternoon passed, the sky became clouded, and a gusty wind came
behind her, raising short and choppy waves. She was conscious that the
water was not as warm as it had been, but she still swam easily.

A lonely gull passed overhead, flying in the same direction, and renewed
her courage.

She raised herself from time to time to search for any sign of land
above the tossing waters....

Now there was a chill of fear in her heart, but she forced it down and
would not heed it.

She could still float for many hours, and the land might show at any
moment.

Then, as she rose on a wave's lift, she saw a plank that floated in the
trough beneath her. In three strokes she had gained it. Here at least
was a place of rest, where she could recruit her strength and courage.

The plank was long and heavy. She thought that if she could lie upon it
for a time she could rest the better. But when she tried this she found
that it turned over with her. After several trials she found the best
she could do was to lie upon it with her legs in the water. The sun was
low now, and showed from a clear west, though the upper sky was clouded.
It warmed her somewhat, but she was the more sensible of fatigue now
that she had relaxed. She was suffering from hunger, too, and from
thirst, and the fear came that if she rested long she would be too
chilled and stiff to have courage to leave her refuge.

Already she was beginning to tell herself that it might be the safer way
to drift with the plank, hoping that it would bear her to some land
before exhaustion should have forced her to loose it.

She was tempted also by the thought that the night was near. Might she
not pass the very land which would save her if she should go on in the
darkness?

To rest till morning--it was an alluring thought, with her tired arms
slackened across the plank, but her reason told her that if she were
weak now she would be weaker then.

_And she was not weak, and she would not die!_ She loosed the plank, and
struck out toward the advancing night.

After that she must have swum for several hours with a will which
refused defeat, but with a steadily reducing vitality. She became dazed
and half conscious. Once she struck something sharply, some floating
object, and the shock roused her, but it had disappeared in the
darkness. She felt that if she could have obtained food and drink she
still had strength to continue. "This is how people drown," she thought,
"and are too tired to know when death takes them." Then she thrust the
thought away, and raised herself on a wave's crest in the vain hope of
the shadow that would be land. She saw nothing. Nothing but the light of
the half-moon on the tossing waters. It was still night, but there was
the first faint grayness of dawn along the east. She saw that she had
lost heed of direction, and had been swimming north when the blow roused
her. Did it matter?

Wearily she turned, and struck out once more toward the east, as she had
resolved when her mind was alert and vigorous.

It was not long after, for the moon had not yet paled to the dawn, that
she became aware that the sea around was broken and turbulent. Hope came
with this realization, and with hope the strength to make a final effort
if she could see its objective. She could see no land, but there must be
banks around her on which the sea was breaking. She calculated that the
tide must be about at its lowest. At high tide these banks would be
covered too deeply even for the waves to feel them. There was no help in
that.

Still she struggled on with some increase of hope and purpose. Once her
foot touched ground, or so she thought, as she sank between wave and
wave in a place of foam and buffeting, and then, as she rose again, she
saw a stretch of land, low and black, on her left hand, against which
the waves broke heavily, and past which she was drifting.

In a second her exhaustion left her. There was a moment's fear as she
realized that it was not her own strokes but a strong sea current that
was carrying her, and that it was a mere point of shallow land which was
already passing. But her mind was alert and awake once more, as though
it had been saving itself for this emergency--awake with the clarity
which comes when it is long since food has been taken. She realized that
as the land passed, the current would lose its force, and that she might
be able to gain it the more easily on its further side.

It was but a few minutes later that her feet grounded on a muddy bottom,
and she waded out on to a level of mud and weed which the higher tide
would submerge again before the sun had reached its meridian.

That was all.

She went on in the growing light in the hope of drier land--and the sea
met her.

There was no hope here of food or of water. She was on a mere bank that
the sea had drowned, and would drown again in a few hours' time; and
yet, though the disappointment was bitter, she was not despondent. She
had a feeling of a battle won; and was content to wait for what the
fuller light should show her.

Rain came with the dawn. A heavy storm that was soon over, but that
washed the salt from lips and hair, and refreshed her exhausted body. It
was warm rain. It came so heavily that she was able to make a cup of her
hands and catch enough to drink, little by little, till her thirst had
left her.

Then the storm passed over, and the low sun shone warmly.

Looking round as the air cleared, she saw that higher land rose abruptly
from the sea a few miles to northward. Feeling that she had already won
to safety, she thought of how she could rest for a time before
undertaking the final swim which was still before her. The land on which
she stood, which had once been a part of the high downs of Oxfordshire,
had been stripped bare of its surface soil by the corroding tides, and
would, no doubt, be worn lower by every sea that swept over it. It was
no inviting couch, but she had scarcely lain down before she was
sleeping heavily. The sun, gaining power as it rose, dried her drenched
hair and warmed her naked limbs, while a great cloud of sea-birds,
flying from the higher land, descended around her, to feed on that which
the ocean left them.

Cautious at first, they were soon moving fearlessly around, till one
doubtfully pecked at a foot which had lain so long without motion; but
she only turned in her sleep, and did not wake, though the movement
startled the birds into a clamorous cloud that was some minutes before
it settled.

A returning wave swept up to her, lapping for a moment against her back
and retiring for a little distance. It came again, and rippled gently
round her, and almost at once it had spread over the flat land. She
waked with the salt water in her mouth, struggling to her feet to see
nothing but water around her, and unable for a time to remember where
she was, or how she came to be there.

Then she was conscious of a great lassitude, and of stiff and aching
limbs. She felt incapable of swimming for a hundred yards, and the land
which was her only safety was at least three miles away. Her heart sank
as she looked, but she had no choice but to attempt it. Should she stay
where she was she would soon be washed off, as the great waves, which
were now breaking vainly against the land, and sending on their gentler
couriers that flooded round her feet, would reach and overwhelm her.

She waded through the deepening waves toward the quieter side on which
she had landed, and slid gently into the water.

In after years she was to remember that morning's effort more vividly
than all the toil of the day and night which had preceded it. For now
her mind was alert from sleep, while her body was tired, as it seemed,
intolerably. She had not done half a mile before she had decided that
she could never hope to reach the land which rose so plainly before her.
It seemed that only the instinct to defer the inevitable as long as
possible caused her to make each weary stroke with a feeling that she
would never be able to attempt another. She thought also that she made
no progress, that she was swimming too weakly to do so, at times even
that the land receded further from her. She had, as she thought, been
many hours in the water, though the sun's height gave a shorter record,
before the first hope came, which was less a hope than an awakening of
fear--to fail at last, and with the land so near!

Weakly but stubbornly she struggled on, supported less by the remains of
her physical strength than by the determination that she would not die,
which she had formed in the hours of vivid life and self-confidence. It
was as though her will had become too weak to change the fixed
intention, so that she was powerless to release her body from the toil
to which she had bound it--and then her foot caught an obstruction in
the water. She lowered herself at once, in hope of grounding, but found
it still too deep. She had struck a submerged rail only, but ahead,
distant only by the width of a narrow field, she saw a hedge which stood
almost clear of water. Very soon she was wading along it, in a mere few
inches of advancing waves, only keeping the ditch's space away, till she
came to an iron gate, still on its hinges, through which she passed, to
feel beneath her feet the tar-smooth surface of the Oxford road.

Soon she was clear of the water, struggling weakly along the uphill
road. She could scarcely direct her course, and her footsteps wavered
from side to side in the white dust which had blown along the deserted
surface, but she withstood the longing to lie down at the roadside, with
a final effort of her failing will. Food she must have, and would, of
some kind, before the luxury of sinking into oblivion with the knowledge
that life was won from the waters.

Quiet close-cropped fields extended on either hand. Sheep fed in one of
them, and some rooks were moving. Then she came to a wooden gate on the
left hand, opening to a stony cart-track. The track fell, and turned, so
that she could see no more than that a faint smoke was rising. Here she
entered, the sharp stones cutting her feet till she walked on the grassy
edge of the track. Soon she saw a cottage of gray stone, built under the
hillside, that the storm had spared, and the smoke rose from its
chimney.


[VII]

Whatever damage the storm might have occasioned, there was no longer any
sign of its effects in the neatness of the little garden which
surrounded the cottage. It was an unconscious tribute to the atmosphere
of the place that, faint as she was, she turned to latch the little
wooden gate, when she had passed through it.

As she walked up the neat tiled path, she became acutely conscious of
her lack of clothes, the convention of a lifetime protesting the more
vigorously because of the old-world peace of the scene before her.

Fearfully she looked through the little window before venturing to knock
at a door which stood very slightly open. She saw a red-tiled room, with
a kitchen-grate in which a slack fire smoldered. Before it a black cat
dozed. There was no one there, and very cautiously and quietly she
pushed the door wider and stepped into the room.

She thought that her bare feet made no sound, but a weak voice from a
room above called to know if anyone was there. She stood still,
hesitating how to reply, and meanwhile the cat rose sleepily, yawned,
and came over to her, purring as she smoothed her side against a naked
ankle.

Silently Claire surveyed the room. At the far left corner the stairs
opened. A tall clock ticked against the left-hand wall. Opposite to her
was a horsehair sofa with a dark rug lying upon it. Beside her, on the
right hand, was the window, and on the further side was the hearth.
There was a table in the center of the room, and on it was a large
square biscuit tin, a teapot, and the dbris of an uncleared meal. At
this sight all other consciousness left her mind. The pot was half full
of cold tea, and this she drank from it, without delay of pouring. The
tin was nearly full of oatmeal biscuits.

The call from the room above was not repeated. The cat had slipped
upstairs, and may have been supposed to have caused whatever noise had
been overheard. When she had eaten some of the biscuits, she found the
desire for sleep was stronger than the call of hunger. Even to her
exhaustion the sofa was not inviting. It had an arm at each end, so that
it was impossible to lie upon it at full length, and its horsehair
covering showed a broken spring. She took the rug, and, stretching
herself upon the hearth, drew it over her, and was asleep in a moment.

****

As the light was beginning to lessen through the narrow window, though
it was still day without, a sheep dog pushed his way through the
half-open door and stood growling doubtfully for a moment. Then he
walked over to sniff at the invader of his master's kennel.

Claire was still asleep, though the first heaviness of her exhaustion
had left her. She had thrown off the rug, and lay face-forward, her head
pillowed on a bent arm. Dreaming, she was conscious only of a swirling
depth of green water that moved beneath her, of a drift of low gray
clouds overhead, and of the continual waves that fell and lifted. She
would be far down in the hollow, or struggling up the smooth slope of
the side, or on the crest for a moment, gazing over an expanse of
heaving water in search of the horizon-line of land that never came, and
always, hour by hour, there was the one outstretched arm and the other
that came over--and over--and over--

So she dreamed; and the dog, that had no human speech, though he could
understand it well enough, sniffed doubtfully and knew her dreaming.
Satisfied that here was no occasion for enmity, he lay down beneath the
table and waited till the door pushed wider and his master entered.

It was an old man that came in, walking vigorously, though he leaned on
a heavy stick. He saw the outstretched body on the hearth and paused in
a natural bewilderment. His senses were less acute than those of the dog
and his thoughts were slower. Seeing that she slept, he approached more
nearly. In his own way he learnt, as the dog had learnt, that she had
come through the waters. Her body sparkled with salt, and a ribbon of
black seaweed that had curved round her thigh had drawn away as the
fire's heat dried it.

He saw a woman very finely formed, with a body well fitted to overcome
the floods which had been fatal to millions. She was not slim; indeed
was rather solidly made, so that she might have given an impression of
heaviness had she been differently proportioned. But she was long of
limb, contrasting in this respect with the majority of the women of her
civilization. He saw a woman young, but mature. A face from which sleep
had cleared the traces of bodily fatigue and mental exhaustion. A square
and resolute chin, beneath lips that could smile very easily. Lips very
slightly parted, showing teeth that were large and white and regular. A
broad, low brow, beneath a tangled mat of curling hair. Dark-brown hair,
showing black in the shadow, with a doubt of red where the fire caught
it.

The shepherd gazed at the sleeping woman with puzzled eyes, while the
dog stood beside him, his alert glances moving from one to the other.
Then the old man turned to the stairs, and soon there was a murmur of
voices in a room above. He came down heavily on the creaking treads,
and, as he did so, the woman stirred, half wakened, and pulled the rug
over her.

Standing at the stair foot, he struck the tiled floor sharply with his
stick. Her eyes were open now, though still troubled with sleep and with
the thought of waters which overwhelmed her. She rose stiffly, drawing
the rug round her. The shepherd spoke four words only, "My daughter
wants 'ee," and pointed with his stick to the stairs. She went past him
to the room above.


[VIII]

Claire lived for several weeks in the shepherd's cottage. She found that
her adventure had only transferred her from one island to another,
though this was larger than the one she had left. There were no human
inhabitants except themselves. As the storm abated the scattered
population had fled northward and doubtless perished. Only the old
shepherd, having a bedridden daughter, had declined to leave her. Of him
Claire knew little more on the last day than at the first meeting.
Thoughts he must have had, but they were not articulate. Emotions he
must have had, but they were not audible. Character he had, of which the
main feature appeared to be a stolid though unintelligent loyalty. He
had saved what he could of his master's flocks, and he still served
their needs with his usual slow-moving diligence. His master's house was
in ruins, but he did not touch its contents except to excavate some
needed food from its larders, and perhaps his first impulse to that
arose from the fact that his master's pigs were still living, and that
meal must be found to feed them.

The farm was nearly half a mile away. Fowl still ran loose around it.
The disposal of their eggs appeared to have been the old man's most
difficult problem. They had not been his responsibility previously. Now
that everyone else had gone he must do the best he could. But if he
should collect them, how could he take them to a market that no longer
existed?

Except as it involved a practical difficulty of this kind, he appeared
to be hardly aware of the changes which had taken place around him.
Claire judged the dog to be far the more sensitive to the world's
tragedy which had spared them.

No less, Claire saw that in his own manner he had the slow efficiency
that came from an ancestry which might have engaged in the same labors
for millenniums. Food and warmth, clothes and shelter, these were the
four needs of man, and his mind went no further. Of the drowned wealth
which the sea cast them, as it must be casting it wherever dry land
still stood above the waters, he took no heed unless it were of some
direct and obvious utility. For the rest, if it were trapped in the
ruins of fence or hedge, there it might remain till the sea reclaimed
it.

Yet Claire realized that his hold on life was firmer, he was more surely
rooted, he was a hundred-fold more able to supply the needs of his own
existence, than, say, Norwood had been, or than would have been many
thousands of others who would have despised his life and derided his
stupidity.

She had no doubt that when the winter came provision would have been
made for the needs of life till spring returned. Here were safety and
peace. But it was not these she was seeking.

The old man's daughter had been bedridden for several years with a
spinal injury which at one time had been thought permanent, but an
operation had been recently performed which had offered hope of
recovery. The doctors had told her that after a certain period she
should be able to use her legs, and that there was no reason why
strength and health should not be regained. But though the time had
passed, being faced with a catastrophe which had wiped out the world for
which she cared and all the pleasures for which she had longed, she had
made no effort.

She was a thin, peevish girl of about twenty years. Her hair and
eyebrows were of a straw color so light as to be almost white. Her mind
was shallow and unformed. She was evidently glad of Claire's coming. She
commenced with feelings of envy and admiration, and an eager curiosity,
developing, as Claire's larger and more generous nature gained upon her,
into a worship which was as genuine and deep as any feeling of which she
was capable.

Under the influence of the stronger will she commenced to make efforts
to regain the use of her feet, and in a few days was able to cross the
tiny room, which she now shared with Claire, without assistance.

The room was a horror to Claire. It was just half the size of the
living-room below. It had one tiny window, which had rarely been opened
till she came, and was only opened now with much argument and querulous
protest unless the day's heat should become unbearable.

Claire discovered that the window in the old man's room had been
securely nailed up, as the remedy for a broken catch.

She had frightened the girl by suggesting that her father could not live
forever, and that if she did not learn to walk she might be left
helpless. To such a nature the idea of loneliness was as terrible as
incapacity. She implored Claire not to leave them.

But Claire would promise no more than that she would return at some
future time should she be able to do so.

For her resolution was fixed, nor did she disguise from herself the
intention which underlay it.

Land lay to the north. Land within easy sight, though it seemed no more
than islets such as those she had known already, or flats which the
higher tides swept over, where no human life could be.

But what might be beyond them?

She could not tell; but she would find a mate to her own liking if the
world held him.

For some weeks, none the less, she stayed in this quiet haven, waiting
for such weather as would assist her purpose. At first it was warm and
fine at intervals, but with high northwest winds. There were days of
heavy rain. The sea was tempestuous.

She waited for a quiet sea and for a southerly wind, or the calm which
sometimes comes when midsummer is receding.

Meanwhile she almost lived in the water, swimming far out every day,
unless the sea were too rough even for her temerity. Once she was able
to regain the land only after many hours of exhausting struggle; a
needed warning, when she had begun to feel that the ocean had no power
to drown her.

She had clothed herself carelessly enough in garments which the girl
gave, and which she enlarged to fit her, and in some which she found at
the farmhouse or from the sea's tribute. But she knew that these things
must be left behind. The grave itself is scarcely more obdurate in its
rejection of earthly treasures than was the way by which she wandered.

Only she made herself a bathing-dress to replace that which she had left
behind on the first island, and this she now wore continually, to be
ready when the chance offered.

It came on an August day, when the sky was white with high cumulus
clouds and the sea breathed quietly. There was a slight breeze from the
southeast. She had left the cottage in the early morning with no settled
purpose and with no word to suggest that she might not be returning,
though she had eaten with unusual heartiness, as one who did not know
when or where the next meal would be taken; but when she had walked to
the north side of the island, where the ground sloped very gradually,
and the full tide, pausing on the turn, shone smooth and shallow, she
knew that the sea's call had come, and waded out to meet it. Casting off
her garments with an exaltation of mind similar to that which she had
felt when occupied before in the same way, she reached the deeper water,
and the swell of a long wave raised her gently from her feet and bore
her outward.




BOOK III. MARTIN AND CLAIRE


The later summer came, and Martin was still alone. He had made his
headquarters about a mile away from his first location.

There was a single line of railway that had at one time carried some
considerable traffic till the opening of another line had rendered it
useless. The owners, for tactical financial reasons of no interest
except to themselves, had continued to run a nominal service of an
engine and a single coach upon it once daily. Apart from that, it had
been unused for many years.

This line, meeting a high ridge of ground which extended from that on
which Martin had taken his first refuge, was carried through a rather
long tunnel.

By this time Martin had realized the urgency of making provision of food
and warmth and shelter for the colder days which he supposed to be
approaching.

He explored the entrance to this tunnel and found it to be dry for some
distance.

There were recesses at intervals in the dark walls where he might cache
the stores which he intended to accumulate. Here was a place which even
the dogs, now becoming wild and wolf-like and a continual menace, would
be unlikely to penetrate.

More important still, there was a hut for the use of workmen, small, but
very strongly built, at the side of the line at the tunnel entrance, and
beside it there was a large dump of stacked coal.

Martin was now foraging with the skill of experience and over a wider
area. He had discovered isolated houses, which had not burnt and which
still contained many useful things, however much they might have been
wrecked by storm, and their contents damaged by sun and rain. He had
learnt his present needs and could gage his future requirements.

He began a regular course of collection and storage.

The entrance to the tunnel was in a deep cutting between high banks
topped by fence and hedge with fields beyond them. There was no road
adjacent. He used to approach by different routes so that there should
be no clear path to his hiding-place. There was a stile at the top of
the bank on the western side of the line, with rough steps leading down
to the northern entrance to the tunnel, and to the hut which was on the
opposite side.

He would not make a practice of using this, but finding a large slab of
stone in the adjoining field he had a fancy to balance it precariously
on the top rail of the fence, thinking that if anyone should approach,
especially in the night-time, when he might be sleeping in the hut, the
intruder would be sure to overset the stone and its descent would arouse
and warn him.

He did not know what he feared, but he was becoming wild and shy, as
were the creatures around him.


[II]

The summer waned and the days shortened, but the heat continued, though
not without wind and storm and some intervals of heavy rain.

Martin's stores accumulated till a day came that altered his life to its
foundations, and put a swift end to the purpose for which he had worked
with such patient industry.

He went out that morning, as he had gone several days previously, to the
prosaic task of digging potatoes, which was quickly accomplished, and to
the more laborious work of carrying them back to his hiding-place.

The last three months had made him leaner, browner, and more muscular
than when he had parried Mrs. Templeton's shallow blasphemies across the
polished oak and shining glass and silver of his own dining-table. He
still found means to shave, and to keep his hair short and untangled.
His clothing was sufficient, though roughly used, and showing evidence
of having been collected from miscellaneous sources.

He carried a light bamboo-shafted spear, a relic of Asian travel, which
he had pillaged from the hall of a ruined house, and which he had found
useful in protecting himself from dogs and cattle. He walked lightly and
silently, with eyes that were alert and cautious.

He went by a woodland path that showed no change, and might have looked
the same a thousand years earlier, leaving it for a narrow lane which
was already deeply choked in herbs and grasses.

At the foot of the lane, where he would have crossed a wider road to the
garden he sought, he came to a trampled place, and to the body of a dead
woman.

She was young and had something of the comeliness of youth and health,
marred by an expression of stubbornness or stupidity. Now her face was
distorted from a death of violence. It was evident that she had been
brutally handled and that she had resisted fiercely. Perhaps she would
not have died had she not fought her persecutors with such savage anger.

But dead she was, and her death must have been very recent, for Martin,
stooping to ascertain if any aid were possible, found that she was still
warm. Her clothing was torn and disordered. Her arms were discolored
with bruises, and one was dislocated at the elbow.

After the first impulse of pity and horror, Martin looked round
cautiously. He did not think this to be the work of one man, or of two.
And men who would be capable of such a crime were not the kind which he
would wish to meet without warning. He could do no good here. He
retreated up the lane.

In a sheltered place he sat down and thought. He had not supposed that
he was the only man living in a space of land which he knew to be many
miles in area, and of which he did not know the northern or western
limits. He had been puzzled that he had seen so few signs of human life,
though he recognized that but for Helen's accident he might have joined
the rush to northward of which he had seen evidences when he had been
foraging for her necessities while she lay in the marl-pit.

But he had been less keen to search for others than to watch the shore
for any sign of deliverance which might approach from the outer world.

Now there was evidence that men were near in some number--violent and
lawless men. And the woman, whom he supposed that they had seized from
some other community, even after the brutalities which she had suffered,
showed by her appearance that she had been leading a sheltered and more
civilized life than his own.

It was puzzling in several aspects.

While he considered it, he heard voices approach along the other side of
the hedge against which he was sitting. The voices were rough and surly.
He could not understand all they said, but it was plain that they were
discussing the recent tragedy, which one of them regarded as a pleasant
sport, and against which the other grumbled, as at a waste of good
material that might have been conserved for other occasions, and for
which he blamed the violence of a man that he described as "Muster
Bellamy."

"Wull, here he come," said the first voice, "tell 'im."

The second voice became silent.

Martin, crouching in the ditch, knew that a man crossed the lane about
twenty yards away. He could not see him clearly without exposing
himself, which he would not risk, but he had an impression of a huge and
brutal form, nearer seven feet than six in height and of a corresponding
bulk. He heard the men meet, but the protestant evidently considered
that silence would be more discreet than speech. The only words that
reached him concerned the snaring of rabbits.

He remained in the ditch for some minutes, and might have done so longer
had he not realized that anyone coming up or down the lane could not
fail to observe him.

He crept through the hedge to the further side and made his way along
it, watching alertly for any sound or motion.

As he approached the wood, he heard voices again. He decided not to
venture through it. Should he be able to do so unobserved he might be
seen as he crossed the open field beyond; he might be followed, even
without his own knowledge, and his lair be at the mercy of these
intruders.

It was almost equally dangerous to remain where he was.

He wanted time for thought before he could decide whether, or in what
way, to approach these men or to avoid them entirely.

He decided to set out in the opposite direction, making a wide detour,
and not returning homeward until the night should hide his movements.

With this object he proceeded with a furtive caution further than he had
yet penetrated to the westward, taking a southward bend after some miles
of progress, without any further sound or sign of human life, had
increased his confidence. He came to a place of slag-heaps and silent
shafts, where the face of the land was still blackened by activities
which were now ended, it might be hoped forever.

At last he came to the sea. In a little sheltered hollow, where he could
not be seen until after he would have heard the sound of approaching
footsteps, he sat down and watched the water.


[III]

The sun moved slowly down toward the west, and Martin sat and pondered
the events of the earlier day. Solitary as he was, he had no mind to
join the brutal crowd that he had overlooked in the morning. Still less
was he willing to expose the precious store he had accumulated to their
use or waste. He saw that it would be hard to remain unnoticed should
they continue long in the neighborhood. New and difficult problems might
be at hand for solution. But they might not remain. He decided to regain
his lair as secretly as he might, and to lie hidden there, for a time at
least, in the hope of their passing.

But it would not be easy to cross the wilderness of slag-heaps and
deserted shafts under continuous cover during the day or without
accident in the darkness. He decided that the dusk would be his best
time, either at night or morning. In the old days the earth was the more
vacant of wakeful life when the sun came, but now he was less sure how
it would be. Men might sleep in the heat of the day. They might like to
find cover when the dusk was near. They might be watchful when the light
stirred. Besides, he had no will to wait there through the night-time.
He would start when the sun set, and there would still be light enough
to guide him through the wood when he reached it. There he would wait,
and cross the last fields in the darkness. In a return by a straighter
way, the distance was not very great. That would be easy; and the safer
choice. In the morning the lightest time would come when the path would
be plain to all, and the need for concealment greatest.

After his decision to wait, his thoughts wandered. He thought of Helen
and the children that he had lost. There was no sane hope that they were
still living. He felt an almost intolerable loneliness; and yet they
seemed very far. Life was so different now.

His gaze sought absently over the tossing sunlit waters. The tide came
in strongly with a wind behind it. It was nearly full now.

There was no beach such as the old shores offered to the tide's
caresses. No stretch of sand or rocks, no space of shells or seaweeds,
where air and water had changed dominion twice daily since the dawn of
time. No mile-wide belt of teeming life and myriad strange activities.
Only a stretch of sloping pasture land, green enough down to the
tide-line, where lay a ridge of dbris washed from ocean depths and
ruined lands, and below that the surface was salt and brown and beaten.
There had been no fence to divide the field from the slag-heap on which
he lay; only at one place the scattered bricks of an old wall, and some
way out in the water (for the ground sloped very gradually) there rose
the gaunt stump of a broken tree that the storm had snapped some twelve
feet from its base. Relieved of its weight of boughs, the deep roots had
held against the tempest and the first rush of the flood that had swept
over it; and, stubborn in its death, it still resisted, for a time, the
ceaseless pressures of the patient tides.

All this Martin watched idly. No doubt, in time, the sand would spread,
and limpets cling in rocky pools. Already he had observed places where
the level rose more sharply and the sea had washed off the softer soil,
and rocks were showing. It was all change--death and change--change and
death--and yet he knew that life was sweet in the sunlight. Why else
should he sigh for the thought that nothing lasted? Why else should his
heart ache so bitterly for those who should have been beside him to
share it?

Something moved--was it a bird?--on the water. Far out--for his sight
was keen--he saw it. It was like the arm of a human swimmer: the arm of
one who swam slowly and very low in the water.

It seemed incredible, but it was so.

Mile beyond mile the desolate water stretched before him. Here and there
it might show white and troubled where the land would scarcely be
covered at fall of tide, but he knew that there was no land where life
would have survived, nor had he seen a soul since....

And while he wondered, and very slowly, at little more than the tide's
pace, the swimmer came on. He was sure now that it was a man. He did not
think of a woman. Could he give aid? Caution withheld him. If there were
more evident need----But as yet he preferred to watch, and he shifted
his position for one of better cover.

Then he saw that the swimmer had felt land and was erect for a moment.
Then he was swimming again. Then he rose and commenced wading shoreward.

With a sudden amazement, and with an underthought of excitement, Martin
realized that she was a woman. A wild thought came that it might be
Helen who had returned, and then a pang of sorrow that it was not she.

She came up from the water in the evening light, walking unsteadily as
one in the last stage of exhaustion, and suddenly threw up her arms with
a sound that was between laughter and a cry of exaltation, and walked on
for a few steps further, and fell forward on the turf and did not move.

Martin hesitated. His weeks of wild and solitary existence, few though
they were, and the experience of the morning, had taught him caution.

Was she alone? His eyes searched the sea, but they found nothing to
explain her coming. Then he saw that she had risen to her knees and was
commencing to pull off the sodden bathing-dress that clung so closely
round her.

It was a chivalrous instinct of his earlier life that caused him to rise
and hail her as he observed her purpose.

She stopped at once, and came quickly to her feet as he did this.

She stood still, and he advanced towards her.

He saw a woman beautiful of face and form. Young, and strong, and
desirable.

She looked back without fear, but her glance was alert and doubtful.

She saw a man who was still young, though he had been younger. He was
lean and straight, but not tall: somewhat taller than herself, perhaps,
but looking shorter in the rough soiled clothes which he was wearing. He
was bronzed by the sun, and his eyes were gray and keen, but they were
eyes that did not tell his thoughts unless he willed them to do so.

He was not the hero of her dreams, but he was something better than
Jephson, and her tired mind told her to trust him.

They stood silent for a time that seemed long, though it was not. At
last he said: "You need food and rest. You had better come with me."

"Yes," she said, and commenced to move forward.

"Will you have my coat?" he asked, seeing how drenched was her only
garment. He made a motion to give it.

"No," she said, and after a pause: "It will dry."

She seemed too tired for speech. Her eyes were dark with fatigue.

After a few steps, she put a hand on his arm as though for support or
guidance. "Is it far?" she asked. He shook his head in reply, as though
infected by her own reticence, but he was careful in choosing the softer
way.

After a time he offered her his shoes, but she would not take them.

It was not yet dark, but he resolved to risk the return, avoiding the
bank-tops and any place where they would show on the skyline.

Even in this desolation, that had been befouled by human folly beyond
the rest of the earth's surface, the green places were spreading, and it
was seldom difficult to find a way where bare feet could pass uninjured.

When they gained the shelter of the wood they were walking more rapidly.
She appeared even to hasten, as though anxious to complete the distance
before her strength should fail her. Her mind was blank of all but
weariness and the desire for sleep. His was wary now, with eyes and ears
alert for any sound or motion.

But they came through it in safety, and he paused at the edge of the
open field with a hand upon her arm to detain her till he felt assured
of its solitude.

The unmown grass was knee-deep, and they made slow progress through its
heavy swathes.

"Is it far?" she asked again, but did not appear to hear his answer.
There was a gorse-bush in their way, and she would have stumbled into it
badly had he not drawn her aside.

It was evident that she could not go much farther. With every step that
approached his hiding-place he was more anxious lest they should be
seen. He looked at her doubtfully. He did not think he could carry her
far.

He tried to rouse her to a last effort, realizing that if she once
stumbled and fell it would not be easy to stimulate her to further
progress. He spoke loudly, as to one who was deaf.

"We are very near now. But we must hasten. There is danger here. There
are men about who must not see us."

He could not have struck a better note. It penetrated the dim weariness
of her mind, waking the thought of all from which she had fled, and the
purpose that had driven her. She went on at a hastened pace across the
final field, and slipped and stumbled down the steep bank of the
cutting.

When she waked in the shelter of the hut, she had no memory of how she
had reached it, but only of a waste of tossing waters and of a distant
shore toward which she struggled, but which she knew that she would
never reach.


[IV]

Martin looked at her as she slept. She had fallen forward as he pointed
to the bed which he had made in a corner of the cabin and had been
asleep in an instant. He had prepared food, and tried in vain to rouse
her to share it.

It would be better, he thought at last, to let her sleep till the
morning. Her single garment had dried while they walked, and he had
covered her with his own blankets.

Now he looked down somewhat doubtfully at the prize of his day's
hunting. Certainly it was the strangest find that he had dragged home to
his hidden lair--and the most desirable? He was not sure.

How could he tell that she might not have friends at no great distance?
friends to whom she might wish to return tomorrow, and to whom she would
betray his hiding-place? He was not a man of war, but a lawyer; and he
knew that the reign of law was over. He must be prepared to conform his
life to--

                                     the simple plan
               That they should take who have the power,
                 And they should keep who can.

But his training had taught him not to vex his mind with a problem till
all its factors were known. In the end he would act according to the
impulses of his nature, which would hold; though creed and law seemed to
have been swept away in the deluge.

He covered her carefully. Then he collected such other garments and rugs
as he had accumulated and made a bed for himself. He considered
whimsically that had this happened a few months earlier he would have
felt compelled to make his bed outside the hut. Well, the night was warm
and he would not have minded that. But he knew that he should not have
done it for her sake or his own, but in obedience to the almost
intolerable tyranny under which a community of men such as he had known
will coerce their fellows.

Now he was free for the adventure of life untrammeled--or at least
trammeled only by forces that are at once beneficial, and blind, and
impartial. So he thought; but who has ever foreseen the future?

He did not wake till the August sun was high, and found his companion
still sleeping heavily. There had been rain in the night, and the banks
of the cutting were steaming to the increasing warmth of the morning. It
meant that there was water in the ditch at the further side of the
metals, such as he could use for all purposes except drinking, and that
water need not be fetched from the stream till the next day.

He washed and dressed with something more than his usual care, and then
remembered that he had not arranged the stone last night in its usual
position, and he climbed the bank and adjusted it.

Then he prepared a meal. With some reluctance he drew on the store of
pressed beef and biscuits which were his assurance of life during the
colder months to come. There were eggs already boiled. There was water
to drink. He had no mind to light a fire, nor to go foraging while a
stranger was in his home.

Then he sat and watched her for a time as she slept. He was not easily
hurried either in thought or action.

Would she wish to stay when she waked? Would she wish to betray him to
others? She was a delight to watch as she slept. Rest had smoothed the
fatigue from her face, and the healthy vigor of the open life she had
been leading had resumed its right. Trained to the knowledge of men, he
judged of her favorably both in mind and in body. There was an instinct
in him which desired her fiercely. But she was a stranger as yet.

It crossed his mind that a bolder man would take that which the gods
gave, and with shorter thought for the morrow. Was he of a lesser
manhood--or more scrupulous? He decided that he was nothing better than
cautious, and he was not sure that he did not despise himself for that
quality. Cowardice was its familiar friend. But his will ruled, and his
thoughts left it unshaken.

Still--he did think. He imagined her as his wife and with children
around them. He was not without experience of life. Neither, he thought,
was she. She was not over-young, and she had not the look which is so
commonly characteristic of the unwedded woman whose first youth is over.
He could foresee many difficulties, changes, troubles. This hut, so
convenient and sufficient----"Hostages to fortune"--there was much still
to be learnt from the wisdom of an age that had ended.

He became aware that he was hungry, and laid a quiet hand on her
shoulder to wake her.

After a time the touch roused her. She opened wondering eyes to the
dusky interior of the cabin. She had no memory of how she got there. She
was conscious of stiffness and of a pleasant lassitude. He remained
silent, and confidence grew as she watched him.

At last he spoke: "Will you tell me how you came?"

He did not ask her who she was, for such a question would have lost its
meaning. People were no longer other than themselves, or that which they
appeared to be.

She said: "I swam to the land. I had been all day in the water. I cannot
remember since."

"Yes, I saw you land," he replied. "I helped you here. Have you no
friends?"

"No," she said, "I am quite alone."

He was glad at the word, but she was afraid that she had spoken
imprudently and became silent.

"You will need food," he said, "there is breakfast waiting outside." He
went out.

She followed a few moments later. She moved stiffly, but in the
close-fitting bathing-dress she appeared tall and graceful and of a fine
vitality. He was conscious that his heart was beating more rapidly, but
his manner gave no sign as he asked: "Are you warm enough in that dress?
I can find you clothes of a kind."

The tone and the words pleased her, and she laughed for the first time,
giving him open friendly eyes as she answered.

"Oh, no, it is warm enough; and I am used to this. I don't think I
should care for yours. Let's have breakfast first, and then we can think
of other things. If you knew how hungry I am----!"

She had glanced at the torn and clay-soiled clothes he wore as she
answered, and he was the more self-conscious as they approached the meal
before them.

But of that, at least, she was not critical. She became aware that her
hunger was ravenous.

There had been a rough table in the hut, which he had dragged out on to
the metals to make more room in the interior. It stood sufficiently far
under the tunnel to be protected from the rain of the night, and he
cleared it of the litter of unsorted spoils which had been piled upon
it, and laid the meal with a greater formality than he had been
accustomed to use. Stools, which had also been expelled from the hut,
were now requisitioned.

They sat opposite one another, neither forgetting the courtesies due to
host or guest as their training had taught them, yet aware that the old
restraints were broken and that each was playing a lonely hand in which
human law and convention and privilege would take no part. The only laws
that concerned them now were those which are fundamental and inexorable.

Outside, a lark sang to the morning.

As he divided the meal, he made an apology for its lack of variety, and
she laughed in answer: "I have never enjoyed the look of one in my life
so much. Do you know that it is more than twenty-four hours since I have
eaten? And how far I have swum since then!"

He waited for her to continue, but she fell silent. They were both
friendly, but guarded. Could she say that she had risked the waters to
escape from men she despised or loathed; and then again from a secure
and peaceful place, because she sought a man that would content her? Not
yet, anyway.

On his part, he spoke of his solitary life and of the magpie-store he
was accumulating, but he avoided any allusion to those he had lost, nor
would he mention that his most precious things were in a recess a
hundred yards down the tunnel, where even those who might invade and
spoil his cabin would be unlikely to find them.

The constraint of each increased with the consciousness of the reticence
of the other. As she ate she reflected that she could not stay there
unless she were prepared to face a greater intimacy than she was yet
disposed to grant--and he had shown no sign that he desired it!

On the impulse of a sound instinct she rose as the meal ended and held
out her hand. She gave him a glance of frank gratitude as she said: "I
cannot thank you enough. You have been too kind. You may have saved my
life. I think I will get on now."

He was not prepared for this, and he took the offered hand while
scarcely conscious of his answering words: "It was nothing. It was a
pleasure."

As she turned away he knew that he did not want her to go like that, but
of what he did want he was uncertain. She was already half-way up the
bank when he called to her to come back. She hesitated, and he called
more urgently. "You cannot go that way unless you know the trick of the
stone."

At this she paused, being puzzled. It crossed her mind also that she
ought to have asked if there were any service she could render him in
return for his hospitality.

She came back doubtfully.

"Where were you going?" he asked.

She answered lightly. "I am going to see the world. I have had enough of
sea-water. Perhaps I shall follow your excellent example and do a little
collecting. Judging from what I see, I don't think I shall starve. Or
perhaps," she added, "I am on an island again, and it is all your
property? If you would give me a limit?"

He saw that her mind went back to some earlier experience, but he did
not ask it. He said simply: "You can go if you wish. But I can tell you
some things first which may help you."

He sat down at the foot of the bank, and after a moment's hesitation she
sat down beside him.

He said: "There is sea to the south, and on the east it is very near. I
do not know how far there may be land to the west or north, but until
yesterday I had supposed myself to be the only one living. Then I saw a
party of men. I did not like them, and hid. You might differ, but I
think if you should join them you would regret it. There may be others
living of whom I do not know. I had explored several miles before
yesterday and had seen no one. There are cattle and neglected crops, and
there are some houses that did not burn. Certainly you need not starve.
If you meet with those men, I ask that you will not tell of this
retreat. They were of the kind which wastes, but does not store, and
what I have would be scattered."

"Of course, I wouldn't do that," she answered readily. "But what kind of
men are they?" She was not at all sure that she did not want to meet
them.

He said: "I did not see much of them, nor did I wish to see more."
Briefly he told her what he had seen.

She was silent, and he went further. "You can stay here for a time, if
you will, or longer; but you know what it must mean if you do so. You
are alone, and it may be best for both." But she was silent and made no
response. He could not tell what she thought, but he felt that he was
blundering, and that neither of them was prepared for an instant
decision. Only he was determined now that she should not go.

His trained faculty of compromise showed him the way to avoid the issue
successfully. He said: "Suppose you stay for a week. We can be friends
for that time, and you can help me in many ways. Then you can go if you
will, and I am quite sure that you will not betray me."

"Yes," she said, "I do not know--no, I mean I certainly should not
betray you to anyone. Anyway, I will stay today if you really wish it."

He was surprised at his own pleasure as he gained this concession,
though she rose as she said it, and stood doubtfully, as though half
regretting already, and with a shyness that she had not shown
previously.

If there were any lesson of his past life which he had learned beyond
forgetting, it was the folly of the extra word after the point is won.
He turned the subject instantly, and resolving to trust her wholly, he
asked her help to remove some of his stores to the further cache which
he had commenced in the depths of the tunnel.

She agreed, of course; but added a question as to whether there were any
possibility of finding clothes if she sought them. She knew that if the
weather changed the need might become urgent at any time. She had a
further thought that she would rather seek them for herself than take
them from him, even though there should be anything suitable among his
goods, which was not very probable.

He answered: "Yes, I think we could find something, but we will go
together. The other matter can wait. Most of the houses were burnt. It
is astonishing how few escaped fire when the storm overthrew them. When
they were in rows or groups they were always destroyed, as far as I have
yet explored, but some escaped that were solitary, and there are still
many things to be found uninjured in the ruins. Some of them might be
made more comfortable than this tunnel; but I think we are safer here,
for a time at least.

"Your best chance would be at a house about two miles away, part of
which is still standing, and it is in the direction where we are least
likely to meet those we would avoid."

He considered a moment. Their worst danger was that they should be seen
as they started, and their hiding-place be located. Besides, the
shortest way was through the tunnel.

"Do you think you could walk bare-footed through the tunnel?" he asked.
"It is a long way. Or could you make use of my shoes? I know they are
too large."

"No," she answered; "my skin ought to be thick enough now. I can walk on
the sleepers. Have you a lantern?"

Yes, he had that.

They went back into the hut together, and prepared for the expedition.
He produced the lantern, and a clean sack, and a large basket.

He showed her his armory. There were two trophies of travel which he had
taken from the hall of the house to which they were going. A
hunting-knife with sheath and belt, and a five-foot spear with a bamboo
shaft.

She laughed at the quaint weapons, and when she understood that he
intended to carry them she supposed that it was as a protection against
the men he had seen on the previous day.

"No," he answered, "they are too numerous. If we see them our only
chance would be in flight or to attempt friendly relations, which I
don't think would be possible. But there are cattle the way we are
going, and they are wilder than they were. The cows with young calves
are the worst. One of them would have had me down but for a lucky thrust
which caught her in the mouth, and after that I had to walk backwards
for a time, threatening her with the point, till I gained shelter.

"I always take the spear when I go that way now. You can have the knife
and belt, though I don't suppose you will need it. But it is useful for
many things."

He showed her also an automatic pistol with a store of ammunition which
he had found, and which he now proposed to hide in the depths of the
tunnel.

"Why don't you take it with you if there is any danger?" she asked. "I
suppose you can use it?"

He answered frankly: "I never fired a shot in my life, but I know how it
is made, and how it works. I had to defend a man last February who was
accused of murder, and had been shot at with such a weapon, and it was
necessary that I should know how it acted. But it is best that I should
not take it now, for the reason I have explained already."

It was the first allusion he had made to his previous life, and it took
her thoughts at once to the trial of which he spoke, which had been a
universal topic of the time.

"Then you are Martin Webster?" she asked.

"Yes," he said, "I was--I don't know what I am now." They were both
silent after that, while she adjusted her mind to this new conception of
his personality, and his went back to the triumph of the crowded court,
when the words _Not Guilty_, for which he had fought for three strenuous
days, came from the foreman's lips.

"I suppose he really did it?" she asked, as they started along the
tunnel.

"Oh, yes," he replied at once, showing that their minds had been on the
same track, "but the verdict was right all the same--as the wrong
verdict often is--or was."

They were silent again, their minds reverting to a catastrophe too great
for speech and a future beyond foreseeing.

The tunnel was about a quarter of a mile long. After the first hundred
yards it bent slightly to the right, so that the entrance was no longer
visible. Water dripped from the roof, and there were wet pools underfoot
as they advanced toward the point of light which marked the further
exit.

They came out between high banks, topped with thick hedges, but these
banks decreased in height as they proceeded till they reached the locked
gate of a level crossing. There was no road here, but a cart-track only
at the side of a field of beans, the crossing being nothing more than a
right-of-way for the farmer whose land the railway had divided.

It was characteristic of Martin's caution that he had not marked his
passage by forcing the lock, but had climbed over with the loads which
he had brought back from the ruined house which they were seeking.

There had been no collieries on this side of the line, and now that the
murky atmosphere, which had been an unlifting blight upon the midland
plain, was gone forever, the fields showed as fairly as though no
pollution had ever touched them.

The cart-track followed the side of a tall hedge, and then passed
through a small wood, emerging on a steep and narrow lane, which
descended between high wooded banks, the trees often meeting overhead.

They heard cattle breaking through the undergrowth as they crossed the
wood, but they did not see them, nor anything living larger than a
magpie, till they were at the foot of the lane, when they came on a
large and shaggy dog as the road turned. They were within a few yards
only when they became conscious of each other's presence. The dog backed
a few paces, growling savagely. Its hairs bristled, and it advanced
again, seeming disposed to rush them.

They had both halted abruptly. Martin was slightly in advance. He had
the spear in one hand, and the empty sack was thrown over his left
shoulder. Claire was carrying the basket with the lantern within it.

On an instinctive impulse he threw the sack at the dog's head, and it
checked it for a moment. Then he waited with the spear lowered, grasping
it firmly in both hands. Every instant he expected it to charge. It was
a large and savage brute, and he felt that he should be in a poor case
if the spear broke or were brushed aside when it did so.

It moved from side to side, watching the spear-point that moved with it.

Claire stood behind, frightened, and very conscious of her bare legs and
scanty covering.

The dog would not advance or retreat, and he felt that the tension could
not continue.

"Draw the knife," he said, without taking his eyes from the dog for an
instant, "and then throw the basket at it."

She drew it out, and the sight of the straight, keen blade gave her a
moment's confidence. He had thought that the basket would divert the
dog's attention the while he thrust with the spear, but she threw it
badly, and it passed over its head unregarded.

She saw that she had failed, and picking up a large stone threw it with
all her force. It was a poor throw enough, but it fulfilled its purpose.
It struck the brute on the shoulder, and as he flinched sideways, a
second too late to avoid it, Martin thrust, striking beneath the side of
the throat. The dog sprang back, howling. Martin could not tell how deep
had been the wound beneath the thick matted hair, but the blade was red,
and blood was falling fast where the dog stood. For a moment it stayed
uncertain, and then turned and fled down the road.

"That's a good job," he said, with a deep breath of relief. "It might
have been awkward."

"Yes," she said, "thanks to you. I was horribly frightened."

"So was I," he answered. "But you see that the spear can be useful."

They went for some distance along the road--already turning green on the
footpath, though there was little sign of life, as yet, in the poisoned
dust of a narrow roadway--and then took to the fields again, till they
came to the house they sought.

It had been somewhat old, but very solidly built beneath a rise of
ground which had sheltered it from the direct force of the tempest. With
fallen chimneys, and lifted roofs, and blown-in windows, it yet held
some semblance of its original shape, and gave some shelter to the
furnishings which remained within it.

They crossed a garden which had once been well-kept, and was already
choked with weeds and ravaged by beast and bird; a rabbit starting from
beneath their feet, and a covey of partridges making off along the
hedge-side. They passed a wide, paved yard, scattered with broken slates
and timbers and the bricks of a fallen chimney. At the door he paused.

He said: "The things we seek are most likely to be on the upper floor.
To search there will mean some climbing, which is not very easy or safe.
Suppose I collect everything which is likely to be of interest to you
and bring it down, and meanwhile you could fill the basket with
vegetables from the garden, which we shall be glad to have."

"Thanks," she said, "but I would rather see for myself. I expect I can
climb where you can."

But he would not give way, and, seeing that, she became equally
obstinate. She would not have been averse from his plan, for she was
unexpectedly tired, the exertions of the previous day having had their
effect upon her, but the same cause rendered her less equable than
usual, and the search was one which she would rather undertake herself
than leave to him.

Seeing that she would not otherwise give way, he told her his real
reason. "When the roof fell there were two people in the upper rooms.
They were dead when I searched there. They were not a pleasant sight
then; they will not be so now. But please yourself."

She laughed at that, thinking of the dead sheep she had skinned and of
far worse things that she had seen on the island where first she landed.

"I am not a child," she said, but as she said it her will weakened, and
she added: "But it shall be as you wish."


[V]

It was very hot in the garden. She filled the basket with such peas and
beans as mice and birds had spared, and then with larger vegetables, and
after that she came to some wall fruit-trees, now striking upward shoots
from amidst a rubble of fallen brickwork, and picked a dozen large, ripe
plums that the crowding wasps had not yet ruined. Half of these she ate,
and half she saved for Martin with a scrupulous honor.

He was to call her when he was ready, and she sat down and waited. Her
mind was on the possibilities of her new life. It seemed to hold the
beginnings of wonderful, and perhaps of dreadful, things. She thought of
Stevenson's pregnant line, written of a woman whose circumstance was
little different from hers: "To bear the weight of the desert, and the
babes of a kinless man."

With a clear perception of all it meant, she resolved that if she should
accept such a union she would give something better than the parasitic
affection of Victorian women, or the barren selfishness of their
descendants. In the exaltation of this mood she felt a renewed
resentment that Martin should have thought her unfit to accompany his
search. When the next occasion came...!

It was just then, as she was drowsing into quietude, that she was
aroused to alert attention by the sound of a heavy body that broke
through the snapping bean-sticks. The next moment the head and shoulders
of a large sow pushed its way through, and came grunting and rooting
toward a bed of weed-choked beetroot, which grew up to the edge of a
narrow path, on the further side of which she was seated.

She rose hastily.

The sow lifted her head, stood a moment, and came forward, the objective
appearing to be the basket that was on the ground beside her.

She became aware that a number of half-grown pigs were following the sow
at no great distance, plowing through the tangled growths of the
neglected garden with much scuffling and squealing.

Claire took a step forward, shouting at the sow to scare her, but she
continued to advance. Her impulse to leave the basket to its fate became
almost irresistible. Bare feet and legs are a poor equipment for such
contest. But the resolution which she had just made had sufficient force
to hold her. She realized the courage that was needed if men were to
dominate in the changed conditions of life, and stepped boldly before
the basket.

The animal hesitated again, but years of wandering round the farmstead
had left her without the fear of man, which is instinctive in those that
have been born to the wilderness, and her recent months of savage
freedom, in which there had been no creature to thwart her will, had
given a confidence which she had not previously known.

She jerked her head angrily, and advanced with a deep grunt and the
menace of open jaws.

Had Claire been her real objective, or had she known how to use her
strength, there could have been only one possible issue to such an
argument in spite of the knife which opposed her.

Had Claire shown a second's lack of confidence the result might have
been the same. As it was, her glance met the small, cunning eyes boldly,
and the knife slashed at the advancing head.

The sow dodged the stroke with surprising agility, and an angry snap of
jaws that could have cracked a thigh-bone without effort. But in an
instant Claire had repeated the stroke, and the knife-point caught in
the nostril of the flinching snout.

With a squeal of pain the great pig turned and dashed away through the
garden, with her half-grown litter, startled by the sound of their
mother's terror, following her in a wild confusion.

Claire stood for a moment to watch them, flushed and exultant, her head
lifted, a drop of blood falling from the knife she held, showing, in the
close-fitting bathing-dress, that neither concealed nor distorted, like
a statue of triumphant womanhood, combining all that is best in savagery
and civilization. Then her mood broke into laughter at her trivial
victory.

The confused outcries of the flying litter died into distance, but left
a sound of regular and persistent squealing, which became more dominant
as the other noises died. It came from the further end of the ruined
garden, penetrating and monotonous. It needed little wisdom to guess
that one of the flying troop was intrigued in some arresting
catastrophe, and less than the curiosity of her maternal ancestor to
incline Claire to its investigation.

She found a young boar-pig caught in a gap in the garden palings. It
seemed that a blind rush at a hole which was scarcely large enough for
its passage had carried it half-way through, bending back a piece of
broken pale, which its strength might have been sufficient to break
entirely, but it happened, unfortunately, that there was a projecting
nail which had caught into its back. If it pushed forward it drove the
nail deeper. Either it could not wriggle back or it lacked the sense to
attempt it. What could it do but wriggle at intervals till the pain of
the nail in its protesting ribs caused it to desist and squeal for the
help of a mother who was already becoming indifferent to the claims of
her half-grown offspring, and who was now fully occupied with a pain
which she could not rub out of her snout, however deeply she buried it
in the cool dampness of the soil of the ditch to which she had resorted?

Claire knew little of pigs, except under the post-mortem circumstances
in which they had unwillingly contributed to the nourishment of her own
body. She vaguely supposed them to be greedy and obstinate, which they
are, and dirty and stupid, which they are not. The squeal of a pig does
not awaken human sympathy as readily as the cry of a calf or lamb. There
are reasons for this, as for everything, and the subject is not without
interest, but a consideration of pigs is outside the scope of this
record.

But Claire's instinct for nearly thirty years had been to go to the help
of any calling need. She tore away a tangle of kidney beans which had
grown over the fence, that she might see what was wrong more clearly.
She decided that if she pulled the animal backward she could get it
clear without any great damage or difficulty. She grasped its hind legs
with that purpose, but as she touched them it wrenched them free
vigorously. It renewed its efforts to struggle forward, and pain and
fright gave fresh volume to its vociferations. I think that, had it
taken its attempted rescue more quietly, Claire would have pulled it
free, and it might have galloped off to be the father of hundreds. But
the attitude it showed stirred in her a more primitive instinct than
sympathy--that of capture and acquisition. Why should she not secure it?
She realized that the uses of a boar-pig are limited. But a pig is pork.
In fact, the pork before her was as fine as free range and abundant
feeding could make it. Had it been less plumply rounded it might then
have been rooting with its companions in the ditch where its mother
lamented.

Claire had a practical mind, and could act with promptness and vigor, or
she would not have been enjoying life in the sunlight when so many
millions of her kind had perished.

She looked at the pig and she looked at the knife which she had still
carried in her hand as she had come to the scene of action, and had laid
on the ground as she knelt to investigate.

They seemed made for one another.

But though she was unpracticed in procuring the decease of pigs, she
felt sure that it would be wrong to commence operations by assaulting it
in the hindquarters. It seemed more natural to approach it at the other
end. But that end was beyond her reach, and she did not know how
difficult it might be to get round to it. "_Never the time and the
place_," she thought whimsically, as she pondered the problem. It
occurred to her also that if she should approach from the other side the
pig might make a successful effort to wriggle backward and be lost
entirely.

The hunting instinct had not waked in her mind for twenty seconds before
she was searching the dbris of the garden for the thing she needed. She
found it quickly enough in a length of rope which had been pegged down
to mark the edge of a path which someone had been trimming backward and
had left unfinished.

Two minutes later half a hundredweight of protesting pork, its hind legs
tightly bound together, was being hauled backward from the palings.


[VI]

Claire looked at her capture, which was floundering awkwardly among the
trampled weeds, her foot upon the end of the rope that tied it, in some
doubt as to her immediate purpose. Then she put the knife back into its
sheath and decided to carry the pig to the house and consult with Martin
as to its destiny.

It was less easy than she had supposed. Had it been dead it would not
have been a very light or easy burden. Alive and wriggling, and with its
front legs kicking vigorously, it was an awkward and very slippery load.

Martin, roused by the continued disturbance, and coming through the
garden to discover its origin, met her as she approached the house, an
animal looking half as large as herself struggling furiously under her
right arm and emitting squeals which were limited only by the capacity
of very healthy lungs.

Martin laughed. "I thought the sties were empty. But may I ask where you
are carrying the author of this delightful concert?" he asked.

Claire was hot and breathless, furious with herself for the folly that
had taken a living burden when a dead one could have been carried so
much more easily. She bit her lower lip in a way she had when her temper
failed. She was carrying the animal with her right arm round its middle
and her left hand holding an ear to stave off the wriggling head, the
sharp teeth and growing tusks of which she did not view with entire
complacence. And why hadn't she tied its front legs? she thought
angrily.

As Martin spoke, the pig, perhaps stirred to fresh effort by his
approach, succeeded in a backward struggle that brought its tied hind
legs to the ground, from which she recovered it with difficulty.

"It wasn't in a sty. It won't much longer. Don't you know what pigs are
for?" she replied somewhat confusedly, but Martin understood well
enough, and also that he had failed to strike the right note, as he had
failed before, with this new companion. There was a grim meaning in that
emphatic phrase, "_It won't much longer_," that made him realize that he
had still much to learn of the character of the woman before him.

With a changed tone, he said quickly: "You've done well to catch it,
anyway. Let me help." But she refused curtly. She did not know why she
was so angry. She said: "There is enough here to repay you for what I
shall eat till I go tomorrow. I like paying my debts."

They entered the house together by the back door into a large kitchen
which was uninjured, except that some plaster had fallen from the
ceiling, and that rust had spread on range and stove.

She dropped her burden on to a stone sink that was under the window,
bringing the rope forward as she did so, and after a brief struggle
succeeded in tying the front legs, after which it lay helpless enough
though by no means reduced to quietude, either of lungs or of body.

"Are you proposing to kill it here?" he asked, feeling himself reduced
to the part of a spectator at this unexpected episode.

"Yes, where else?" she replied reasonably enough. "Do you want it to
make this row forever? And won't there be less to carry?"

"You seem to know," he said. "Have you often killed them?"

"No," she answered shortly, "but if I don't know how I soon shall. I
know you strike their necks, and then they 'stare like a stuck pig.'
I've often wondered why. Have you?"

This was a little incoherent again, but he answered with an exactitude
which was a result of professional training rather than mental pedantry.

"If you mean have I wondered, no, I can't say I have. If you mean have I
killed pigs, no again. But I have seen it done. If I may humbly suggest,
I shouldn't hold the knife as though you intended decapitation, nor
should I lean over it in that affectionate manner, for reasons which you
will learn if you do. There is a traditional preference for driving the
blade straight in, and you might turn it this way if you wish to qualify
in the art."

Claire drove the long, keen blade down with a vicious thrust, and it was
really Martin's fault that it was done with such force that the point
came out at the back and was blunted on the stone below.

She stood back the next moment, the dripping knife in her hand, not
having wholly escaped the deluge of blood for which Martin's enigmatic
warning had not fully prepared her, looking with a sudden revulsion of
feeling at the body that still squealed and struggled before her.

"Oh," she said, "I haven't killed it now! Why didn't you do it?"

"I don't think it will quarrel with you on that score," he answered
dryly, and as he spoke she knew that its movements were becoming feebler
and the squeals were fainter.

He saw the reaction from which she suffered. "There's no need to stay
here," he said. "Come into the next room and see what I have found for
you."

The adjoining room to which they passed was full of dull and heavy
furniture, which must have given an effect of musty age even when it was
occupied. Now it had an atmosphere of stale depression, and yet
suggested an unimaginative stolidity before which even the tempest which
had wrecked the world had retired defeated.

On a round mahogany table in the center Martin had collected a pile of
dresses and other clothing, which he turned over for Claire's
inspection, for her own hands were obviously unfit to touch them. They
had belonged to at least two women, and half of them were much too small
for her use. They were serviceable rather than attractive, and those
which attempted finery were the least tolerable of all. Some had been
damaged by the weather; others, retrieved from the interiors of solid
chests or other receptacles, were in better condition. A miscellaneous
collection of shoes and boots completed the exhibition.

They went back to the kitchen, where the body of the pig now lay inert
and flabby on the sink, over which Claire found a tap from which water
still ran; and here she cleansed her hands, and then returned to the
inner room, where she sorted out as much of the gathered spoils as could
be packed into a swollen sack; Martin assuring her that he had already
sufficient store of such requirements as would enable her to repair or
alter them to her use.

Then she retrieved the abandoned basket from the garden, and finally
they joined forces in a recovered amity to assault the body of the pig.

They started an hour later, beneath a midday sky of cloudless heat, and
made a burdened but uneventful way back to the entrance of the tunnel,
where they paused to light the lantern before entering it. Here, half
hidden in the long grass of the embankment, beneath the shadow of the
wall, there was a small, solid padlocked structure with "Danger:
Explosives" painted in red across its door, and beneath it, beside the
line, there lay a rail-trolley such as was commonly used by repairing
gangs on lines where the traffic was not too frequent for their safe
employment.

Martin had previously tried to get this trolley on to the line, but had
found it beyond his single strength to raise it. He had brought a
crowbar on a previous day in the hope that it would solve the problem,
and now looked at it with increased hope. It was one of many things in
which two could do more than twice the work of either.

But he looked at his companion with hesitation. It was not his nature to
be inconsiderate, nor unobservant. He saw that she was approaching
exhaustion. He said: "If you can help me I think we can get this trolley
on the rails, and then I can punt you home. Will the effort be worth the
relief which will follow? It is not really far through the tunnel."

She answered with unconscious gratification at the attitude he showed,
both in tone and manner, but with some unwillingness to admit the
fatigue which was overcoming her, "Yes, I am tired; but I can help. What
do you want me to do?"

He showed her how best she could assist him, and as the work proceeded
she became aware how carefully he avoided any abortive effort, and used
the strength of both to the best advantage till he had achieved his
purpose, and the trolley stood on the rails for which it was built.

"Have you defended an engineer as well as a murderer--and a pork
butcher?" she asked as they stood somewhat breathlessly surveying their
completed labor.

He was pleased by the implication, as men always are at the suggestion
of proficiency in an occupation which is not theirs, but answered
lightly: "We learn a little of many things in my profession, but nothing
thoroughly--or at least we did. Some of them come in useful now, but not
many."

They laid their spoils on the trolley, and being seated upon it, Martin
began to propel it forward, using the spearshaft as a pole for the
purpose. As the trolley kept to the rails, they would have traversed the
darkness easily enough, even without the help of the lighted lantern.
Claire was too tired for speech, but she was conscious of a contentment
such as she had not experienced since the first night that she had
struggled against the waters. Not since then, till now, had she met with
man or woman to whom she could talk as to a comrade, or an understanding
equal, and she felt that he was hers if she would, and, perhaps, if she
would not, he would still take her. There was a paradoxical pleasure in
the thought, and she sank her head on the soft sack and was asleep on
the instant.

Martin looked at her sleeping. Very weary she looked, but very comely
also, and very surely desirable. He wondered anew what distance of
space, or hazard of adventure, had sent her to him from the empty reach
of sea. But for the men that he knew to be wandering near, a nightmare
of possibilities, he would have thought of her as the Eve of a lonely
Paradise. The mystery of her coming he could at least discover when she
waked, for he felt that she would answer with a frankness which she
might not have offered in the earlier day. He saw that she had strength
and grace very far beyond the average of women, and he concluded that
she must have suffered from more than ordinary exhaustion on the
previous day for its effect to continue so obviously.

She waked when the trolley stopped, stretching yawningly as she stepped
from it. "I think I could sleep forever," she said, laughing at herself,
"and, oh, I should be so hungry if I were not too thirsty to think of
anything except water."

The mention of water reminded him of their most urgent necessity. "We
have only a little left," he said, "that is fit to drink. Let us have a
meal now, and then you can sleep all afternoon while I fetch some more."

She considered this plan, but without enthusiasm. "I shall sleep all
right," she said; "I think it would be difficult for anything to keep me
awake much longer. But why not wait till evening, and we would go for
the water together?"

The truth was that the shadow of uncertainty, which is inseparable from
every parting under wild and primitive conditions of life, was rendering
her unwilling that he should go alone. She remembered what he had told
her of the camp that was near the stream. She had another thought, at
which she shuddered. Suppose he were away and they came in his absence
and found her sleeping? "No," she said, "I couldn't sleep here alone. I
should be terrified."

She spoke lightly, but he saw that she was serious, and was pleased to
see it.

"Very well," he said, "I can go on moving our goods down the tunnel. I'm
not tired, and it will be cooler than in the sun. We'll go together when
it's dusk. It may be safer then."

She noticed the unconscious "our" with a satisfaction kin to his own,
though she gave no sign; and it was in one of the rare moods of mutual
sympathy that are so seldom and so brief, even among those of an
established intimacy, that they ate their meal together.

When Claire had retired to the hut, Martin worked diligently to remove
the remainder of his possessions into the greater secrecy of the
recesses that were in the sides of the tunnel. For some distance inward
they were fairly dry, more so on one side than the other, and now that
he had the use of the trolley he made rapid progress. He purposed to
remove all traces of habitation from the outside, at least until he were
assured that the unwelcome strangers had left the neighborhood. Glad
though he was of the new companionship which the seas had sent him, he
saw well enough that it had closed any possibility of a peaceful or
neutral meeting with men of the character they had shown, and that it
was an urgent necessity to arrange for flight or hiding. His inclination
was to secrete his property and then to wander away until they could
return with security. He felt that hiding-places could be found where
they would be less easily located, and from which they could escape more
readily.

When he came to survey the carcass of Claire's successful hunting, his
eyes had an expression of humorous uncertainty. Pork was good food
enough, but the weather was hot and his appetite for it was limited.
They had no means of salting it, and he was somewhat hazy as to the
procedure. He had never defended the proprietor of a bacon-curing
establishment. Finally he cut out a portion of the loin, which he
resolved that they should cook for the evening meal, and suspended the
remainder in the damp coolness of the inner tunnel.

He delayed to rouse her till evening, and when he did so, proposed that
they should go for the needed water, and leave the preparation of a
further meal till their return, to which she agreed very readily.

They set out at once, each carrying an empty bucket, and Martin
fastening on the knife which had already proved its utility.

"Won't you take the spear also?" she asked doubtfully. She had a feeling
of uneasiness about this expedition, such as she had not known when they
went out in the morning--a premonition of evil. Perhaps the fellowship
of the intervening hours had already brought some sense of
responsibility, some loss of freedom, rendering her more susceptible to
the suggestion of any outer hostility. Perhaps it was only because they
were going in the direction of those whom they did not wish to meet.

Anyway, the hours of sleep had brought a change of feeling, as they do
so frequently, as though the seeds of thought and emotion had matured in
the resting mind.

It was not only that fatigue had left her, and that her feet moved
lightly, and her spirits were buoyant, but there was a nervous
consciousness of Martin's nearness, even though he were not in her line
of vision, a sense at once of elation and of timidity, a shyness to
which she was little used, an acute awareness of the scanty garment that
covered her, an instinct of resentment that he should so observe her,
and under all a desire to draw his glance, and a disappointment that she
was not more sure that she did so.

From these conflicting feelings there had come a relieved assent at his
prompt suggestion of occupation and movement, and then the foreboding
doubt to which she would not listen--for she knew that water must be
fetched--but which gave its tone to her voice as she asked, "Won't you
take the spear also?" from which he knew that she was troubled.

He shook his head, but added in explanation: "We shall have the full
buckets to handle on our return. It is silence which is most important,
and, of course, not to spill them. We must avoid clanking them if we
can. But probably I am careful about nothing, and the men I saw may be
miles away."

It occurred to her that but for her coming he would not have had to take
this risk so soon, but it was futile to apologize for that now. She
shook herself free from the fear that vexed her. "Right," she said;
"lead the way then, and we must remember not to chatter."

They climbed the steep bank and lay for some minutes at the top, looking
beneath the hedge before they ventured further.

The balanced stone was still poised on the top rail of the stile. The
rank meadow that sloped down before them was empty of any visible life.
Martin considered that there could be no probable reason why the men
should move secretly if they were still in the neighborhood. Far to the
right a kestrel hovered in the sky, but that proved nothing. A rabbit,
avoiding the thick growth of the neglected meadow, ran along the further
side of the hedge. Soon a wood-dove flew overhead and settled on the
trees of a little coppice that lay at the left hand and beneath them. It
seemed a good sign.

"Come now," he whispered, but added: "Don't speak unless you must." He
was still cautious, and remembered how far voices will be carried on
silent summer evening air, and how easily a conversation beginning low
may rise to an accustomed level.

She nodded only in reply. A pleasant sense of adventure was succeeding
to the earlier fear now they were moving. They lifted the stone aside
and crossed the stile with their buckets in silence.

Undisturbed, and undisturbing of anything beyond the size of a
field-mouse, they went on until they came to the stream they sought.

It was slight and shallow enough, not more than knee-deep if occasional
pools were avoided, but moving briskly and showing a clear bottom. What
it may have shown three months earlier, before the earth had cleansed
herself from the pollution which stained her, is another matter.

There were pollard willows along the bank, which was about eight feet
above the water at the place at which they reached it, and it fell too
steeply for their purpose. They stood for a moment, somewhat screened by
the branches, hesitating in which direction to look for an easier slope,
when they were arrested by a burst of song from the opposite bank.

It was the voice of a man who came along a path on the further side. He
did not appear to observe them, and a common instinct caused them to
stand motionless, trusting to stillness and the intervening branches.

He came along by the side of the stream till he was almost opposite
where they stood, and then climbed over a gate and went off by a
field-path which branched away from the water.

He was very short and very fat. His clothes were soiled and torn. He
wore a very dirty, parti-colored cap. He walked jauntily, considering
his weight, but stumbled as he cleared the stile as though he were not
over-sober.

Martin, trained to judge men quickly, wondered whether he had been a
jockey, and were now consoling himself for years of abstinence no longer
necessary.

He tried to catch the words of the receding song:

                 "When you saw the legs of Sal, you
                 Bought her up for half her value."

Presumably a mare; and more certainly an ex-jockey. Not formidable, but
a man to avoid. The face had shown gross and vicious as he passed them.
More serious, he was not the kind to be alone and so merry. He was a
sure evidence that there were others about who might be of a different
quality.

Very cautiously they skirted the willowed bank till they found a spot
where it shelved down gently to a shallow bog. The opposite bank was a
thicket of elderberries and hazels, on which the fruit was already
black, and the nuts were ripening.

They sat down on the bank-side, and Claire proposed that they should
stay there till the dusk came. It seemed safer than to venture again
across the open fields. It was strange to think how disquieting had
become the sight of a fellow-man.

Martin agreed, but reminded her that they had intended to cook a meal on
their return. She did not mind that. Even the suggestion of the waiting
pork did not move her. She was vaguely frightened, and did not want her
Eden to be disturbed by strangers.

Martin, on the other hand, felt some relief, which he told himself was
illogical. The man meant others, who might be very different. Still, the
fact stood that the one they had seen was contemptible. He felt an
increased assurance of his capacity to avoid them or to deal with them
successfully if a collision should occur. The man had the effect of
farce where he had looked for tragedy. But Claire was right all the
same, and it was best to wait. Surely they were safe among the bushes
from any probable oversight.

Safe or not, it was very pleasant as the heat decreased. The sun was
setting, and it was almost cool by the waterside in the shade of the
branches.

They began to talk very quietly. After a few abortive suggestions Martin
made a direct attack upon his companion's reticence.

"When I saw you first I was inclined to wonder whether the coming of
Aphrodite might not be a recurrent incident in the world's history, but
the bathing-dress and a sufficient knowledge of English--and a
disposition to understudy Diana rather than the more amorous goddess--is
it rude to wonder--or to ask?"

She answered slowly: "No, it's quite natural. I might have told you
before." She smiled slightly. "If I don't introduce myself no one else
will. I know who you are, so it's only fair. But how shall I begin? My
name is Claire. Do you want to know that I took a B.A. at Newnham? I
went through the war, which mattered so much once, as a motor driver. I
once had a scratch on the arm from a shrapnel bullet, of which I think I
was rather proud, but it is becoming increasingly hard to find. I was
twenty-nine last April, which usually means thirty--or more. I have had
a baby which died. I had an invalid husband who cannot now be living. I
once nearly swam the Channel--but not quite. Finally, I swam here."

She paused, and they were both silent, and so still that a vole landed
on the narrow edge beneath their feet and commenced a careful toilet
without observing their presence. Her words had called up memories of so
many things that were best forgotten. Or were they? It was hard to tell.

After a time she resumed in a different tone. "But I know I didn't
answer your question. What you want to know is where I came from and
why, and what I've been doing for the last few months, and what I can
tell you of any other land which is still above the water. Well, there
is not much to tell. This is the largest space of dry land I've seen
since the flood came, and it's not very large as far as I know yet.

"I lived on one island for the first few weeks with two men, and left it
because I was rather tired of their company."

She glanced at him as she said it, but he was looking at the water and
gave no sign of his thoughts. She went on quickly.

"At least, I'm not sure whether I left it or it left me. We seemed to
have similar intentions just about the same time. Anyway, we left each
other. I lived on another island with an old man and his daughter for
about the same time. I found it dull, and came here where things seem
livelier. But I don't intend to stay six weeks anywhere again. It might
grow into a habit too strong to break. I shall go on in the morning."

Martin did not think her serious, but he read the challenge in her
words, and realized that the jest might be earnest if he took it too
casually.

"I don't think you will," he said quietly, with eyes that her own
avoided, "and I shall be sorry if you do. I have been very lonely. And,"
he added more lightly, "you might go further and fare worse, you know.
Did the jockey please you so greatly?"

"Beast," she said curtly, startling him for an instant, till he realized
that the brief epithet was not for him, and then they were silent for a
space again. Neither of them was so inexperienced of life as to be blind
to the road which opened before them, or unaware of what it held.
Neither was of the kind which gives way lightly to a casual passion.
Both were aware of an attraction that drew them strongly together. Both,
from different standpoints, were afraid of impulsive action. The old
restraints were broken down, the old safeguards were swept away, and
they knew not what, if anything, would succeed them. Caution that was
half a fear lest he should act with impulsive folly, and half a fear
lest over-haste might defeat his purpose to win her, controlled his
words, and held back the hand that pressed the ground behind her. Only
he was fixed in mind that she should not leave him. Only, perhaps, would
he have learnt the strength of his own purpose had she attempted to do
so.

Pride, on her part, held her to an equal reticence. Not at any price
should he have cause to think, through glance or word, that she was free
to the familiarity of a day's acquaintance, or willing to mate with the
first man to whom the chance of her wandering might bring her. She
realized that he knew nothing of her, but by the account which she
herself had given, and that only by her own reactions to him could she
give evidence of her veracity. The restraints of law and of a thousand
hounding conventions were gone, it might be, forever, but the mean of
human nature was unaltered, and each of those who still lived would
continue its demonstration. Eons pass; dynasties fall, and races perish;
land and water change as the earth's surface shrinks or wrinkles; the
earth swings outward into glacial space and all life ceases, except in
frozen seas or deep-sea slime; the call of her sister planets woos her
sunward again, and life awakens in new forms with an indomitable
vitality; invincible in defeat, life goes forward, as it seems, with
faith inflexible toward an eternity of disasters, of which there is no
one that knows a beginning or can forecast an ending; and through it all
there is that which is changless--_Plus a change, plus c'est la mme
chose_.

But Claire and Martin did not think of life, because they were
living--living the supreme conception of the earth's Creator, which is
eon-old and as unborn as tomorrow.

So they sat silent, while the shadows lengthened, in no haste to move,
and feeling an easeful security in the quiet cover of the surrounding
thickets, and then--there was a movement behind, and Martin looked round
quickly. He saw a huge form towering over them. He saw a swarthy brutal
face, coarse and fleshy, with matted hair overhanging it, and a black
stubble of beard. He saw eyes that were murderous, but without rage.
They were eyes that enjoyed murder. He saw a massive, hairy arm that
grasped a sledge-hammer halfway up the handle, making it look small and
light for his purpose.

He saw all this in an instant, for as he saw it the sledge was raised to
strike him. A second later, had he stayed or had he tried to rise, his
life would have ended; but on the impulse of his fear he slipped down
the bank, and the blow missed.

It was that second later, and no more, that Claire had seen his movement
and would have followed--to find the giant's hand was in her hair, and
that she was caught beyond escaping. Yet she struggled for a moment, and
may have saved Martin's life in the action, for her captor, having got
his grip firmly, turned his attention from her, and with an oath of
anger flung the heavy sledge after him just as he was gaining the bushes
on the other side of the little stream. Gripped by the hair as she was,
she had seized the arm that held her in her raised hands, and though she
had no strength to win her freedom, she had so shaken his balance that
the throw went wide--wide enough, at least, to pass over Martin's
shoulder, missing the head at which it was aimed, and at the same moment
Martin had disappeared in the protecting shelter.

Claire fought for a moment in a frenzy of fear and loathing, as she felt
the strength, and looked up at the brutal face of her captor, but she
was too sane to continue when it was so plainly useless. Holding her at
the length of a hairy arm, with a fistful of hair in his grip, he raised
and shook her like a rat, while with his other hand he caught the only
garment she wore, at the back of the neck, and ripped it off her. She
cried out sharply at the indignity, whereat he brought a heavy hand down
on her back and shook her once again. Then, satisfied that he had taught
her quietness, he tucked her under his arm and carried her away, just as
(the thought crossed her) she had carried the squealing pig on the
previous day.

She heard the giant chuckle to himself as he strode on, but at least she
would not make the pig's mistake and kick to no purpose, or to be repaid
with further violence. She remembered how she had used her chance
against Norwood in a like emergency. This was a more formidable danger,
but the lesson held. She would wait her time and save her strength to
take its advantage fully. But what chance would be here?

They came, as the darkness fell, to an open glade in the oakwood where a
wood fire was burning. About a score of men and two women were seated or
moving round it. The smell of roasting pork told that they also had
found that pigs were running loose in the woodland. A cart stood in the
shadow, and two horses were tethered.

Heads were turned as the burly giant approached with his burden, and
rough voices questioned. He answered nothing till he had entered the
circle.

"Here's luck, boys," he growled in a voice that was almost genial, as he
threw Claire on the ground and put one heavy booted foot between her
shoulders. "All in turn; but I'm first," he said, and called to one of
the women who came up with some lengths of rope. She was lean and
slatternly, with a straggle of straight gray hair, and eyes that showed
bloodshot in the firelight. She bound Claire's ankles tightly, and then
her hands behind her back. As she did this she muttered to herself with
an evil satisfaction. "A pretty piece," Claire heard, "but she'll be
dead before morning." She hated the hag more fiercely even than the man
whose foot was on her shoulders, though the rough nailed boots cut her
to the flesh, and left a row of bleeding stripes along her back as he
dragged it off when he saw that she was tied securely.

Lying helplessly on her face, Claire's range of vision was somewhat
limited, but she could turn her head from side to side, and realizing
that they had done with her for the moment she began to consider her
position.

The woman who had tied her was now sitting on the ground at her right
hand a few yards away, facing the fire. There were others beyond, but
she could not see clearly. The fire was large and very hot, and they sat
down at some distance from it, making a wide circle. There was the trunk
of a tree at her left, and her captor sat beside her with his back
leaning against it. Her head and shoulders were full in the firelight,
and he could see at once should she make any effort to release her
hands. She could see little of the other men. The one who had caught her
was clearly the leader of the gang, and it seemed that they gave him
space very liberally. The other woman had brought him food on a
meat-dish, and a great pot of drink, and she supposed that they were all
engaged on their meal, though she could not see them. It needed little
foresight to tell that her time would come when the feast ended.

She began to regret that she had not fought more strenuously while she
had at least the free use of her limbs to aid her, and one man only,
however formidable, from whom to escape. Now they would all be against
her. Or would they? If she could raise strife among them she might yet
find safety in the confusion. She supposed that they had been
respectable, or, at least, law-abiding men but a few weeks ago. Surely
all could not have degenerated so quickly to the brutal level of the one
that had seized her. Yet what did she know of the results which come
when the restraints of law are lifted, to enable her to judge this
probability? The men she had met so far had given her little cause for
confidence. There was Martin. But he had bolted when the test came, she
thought bitterly. Was it possible that brutality and cowardice were the
controlling forces which ruled when authority and order left the world?
Yet there might be one decent man among them to whose protection she
could appeal, and who would think some risk for such a prize to be worth
taking.

She looked up at the huge and brutal form beside her, and she knew that
the hope was vain. She remembered the way in which he had grasped the
heavy sledge half-way down the haft with his right hand, while his left
had subdued her. Then something cold touched her between the ankles and
she started sharply. The face on which she gazed looked down on her
suspiciously. She took a kick in the ribs and an order to be quiet, with
a curse for emphasis. She let her head fall, and her eyes were hidden.

In the shadow, where her feet lay, she knew that a knife was slowly
cutting through the cords. Then they were free, and for some moments
nothing more happened. She wondered whether anything more _would_
happen. She did not doubt that it was Martin who had so contrived to
help her. Now she must choose her time. If she sprang up quickly she
might disappear in the shadows, and it might not be easy to find her.
But she was unsure how well she might be able to move with her hands
tied behind her back, or how much she would be able to see at first as
her eyes left the firelight. If she fled noisily they would find it easy
to follow. Then she closed her eyes, thinking that they would be more
prepared for the darkness. But she must not be long. To delay might be
to lose the chance which was offered.

She looked up to see whether her captor's eyes were upon her, and met
them gazing down with a greedy anticipation. He was leaning back on the
tree-trunk, his meal ended. The froth of liquor was on his mouth, and he
licked the pork-grease from his hand as he regarded her. She thought
fearfully that she had delayed too long. Any moment the monstrous filthy
hand might reach down to grip her by arm or hair. Could she avoid him
quickly enough if he should do so?

He saw the fear in her eyes with a chuckle of anticipation. In
imagination he felt her struggling beneath the violence of his hands and
the weight of his body. Then he saw her gaze go past him with a startled
wonder, which was veiled in an instant. He was not quick to perceive,
nor used to fear, but a premonition of danger made him turn his head to
the point above him that had caught her notice, but the next instant it
sagged forward as though he slept. He remained in that position for a
few moments, and then his body fell sideways; but it fell unnoticed
amidst the pandemonium that surrounded it.


[VII]

Martin Webster had the qualities and defects of his legal training and
practice grafted on to a personality that must now prove itself under
new conditions and adapt or perish. The quick agility by which he had
avoided the blow of the descending sledge was some evidence of
adaptability. The swiftness with which he perceived that he would not be
followed, as the aggressor would be more interested in retaining the
prey which he had already captured, and that the two objects were
incompatible, is perhaps to be credited rather to his earlier practice,
as may be the coolness with which he stopped, when the branches hid him,
and doubled back to obtain possession of the sledge, even before he
could tell whether its owner would cross the little stream to attempt
its recovery.

To keep cool, and to score every possible point in the game--that had
been his life's learning. To take no needless chance, to move only when
you must, or when you were sure, had become equally habitual.

Many a man, having a companion seized by such violence, and having the
aggressor's weapon in his possession, would have attempted an immediate
rescue. Some would have found the assault upon himself alone a
sufficient provocation. Martin was of a cooler and more cautious kind.
The fact that the man had attempted his murder would not have stirred
him to take the slightest risk or exert effort for vengeance, apart from
any fear that the outrage might be dangerously repeated.

He was capable of being moved by the impersonal consideration that the
brute was unfit to live and might do evil to others, but such springs of
conduct rise in the intellect, and are not productive of blind or
impulsive action.

Claire was the acquaintance of a few hours only, but already he had
resolved to possess her. Besides, he was of an instinctive loyalty, and
he was not destitute of the primeval instinct which was revealing in
such diverse ways the characters of those who had survived the deluge.
If he were not constrained by any overpowering impulse to rush blindly
to her rescue, neither did it cross his mind that he could abandon her
to her captor.

From the hazels that concealed him he watched the exhibition of
brutality, and the monstrous strength which stripped and shook and beat
her into passivity.

Wrath came to him as he watched, and the wish to kill, but his
self-control was unshaken. The dusk favored him. As the giant strode on,
too assured of his own strength to expect pursuit or to dread it, Martin
followed him closely, the woman's white body gleaming in the failing
light, and making his task the easier. When they came to the camp-fire
he was obliged to approach with an increased caution. He was not daunted
by the fact that the man had found companions. His mind, trained to
avoid the unproved assumption, knew that with numbers contention of
different wills might operate to help, as probably as their unity might
conspire to resist him.

When he saw that the giant's coming was received with quietness, and
that he dominated his companions, he saw also that no immediate violence
was intended. He wriggled up as silently as a rabbit moves, patience
overcoming his lack of practice in such maneuvers. He perceived that
Claire's feet were so deep in shadow that no one sitting in the circle
of light would be able to see them. The knife was keen and sharp, and
his greatest care was to avoid cutting the flesh in the darkness, the
ankles lying over one another, and being very tightly tied. It was done
at last, and they were free and uninjured. To do that had been obvious.
The next step was less easily decided. He felt that the decision could
be made with leisure, for some time would be needed for the circulation
to be fully restored to the bound feet, which might be vital to their
escape. He considered, as she had done, the chance that she could leap
up suddenly and escape in the darkness. He did not like it. The light
fell on her hands, and he decided, though reluctantly, that he could not
release them unnoticed while her captor was watching beside her. Then he
weighed the thought, if he killed him, should he have time to loose her
hands before the others would be upon him? Appearing the more audacious,
reason told him it was the safer plan to attempt.

He would not only have destroyed the nearest and most formidable of
their enemies, but the one who would be most likely to call the word
which would rouse the others to any swift and combined activity.

He thought first of the knife, recognizing that he must strike without
mercy, and that there could be no time for a struggle. He knew that his
opponent could break his back with one hand should he bungle the first
stroke and be exposed to reprisal. Hesitating where to strike, he
thought of the sledge hammer that lay beside him. Strangely, for one of
his logical practice, he felt less compunction about destroying his
antagonist through that means than by the knife, remembering that the
attempt upon his own life had been by that method.

He knew that every second would count when once he had struck the blow,
and he laid his plans very carefully. He moved round the back of the
tree, memorizing the mossy roots so that he could return without
stumbling. Then he raised the sledge in both hands and stepped out from
the shadow. Claire saw him as he did so, and their eyes met for an
instant. Almost, this glance undid them. The victim's head turned as the
blow descended. The hammer struck its object, but not with the full
force which must have smashed it in, however hard it might be. It struck
a glancing blow only. But it was enough. And the marvel was that it was
all so swift and silent that it passed unnoticed.

Had Martin anticipated such a possibility it is likely that they might
both have escaped before any opposition had been aroused. As it was, he
had returned round the back of the tree and was already cutting the rope
that held her hands before his movements, which aimed at speed rather
than secrecy, caught the notice of the hag that was seated nearest.
Claire had risen at once when she realized the attempted rescue, and was
standing sideways to the firelight so that he could see what he did,
when the woman screamed and pointed.

"Keep still," he said sharply, as he heard it, and the next moment she
was free. They might have escaped, even then, without conflict, had not
a little red-haired man with a rat's face, who was on the further side
of the fire, thrown a short-legged stool with such force and accuracy
that it brought Martin to the ground for a moment. In the meanwhile
others were running round from both sides. Seeing that the nearest, who
had come from beside the woman who still screamed and pointed, would be
on him before he could rise, Martin caught up the stool by the leg and
threw it at his feet. The man stumbled over it, and fell sideways into
the fire. He lay thus, his face in the glowing heart of the wood, till
one who was behind him caught him by the legs and pulled him clear. He
screamed so horribly that the attention of everyone was distracted for a
moment toward him. Action is swift at such a crisis. In the seconds
during which the man had stumbled over the thrown stool, fallen, and
been pulled free, Martin had passed the knife into Claire's hand and
caught up the sledge to face the group that were coming toward him from
the other side of the fire. Claire had run three or four yards away,
supposing Martin behind her. At the first scream she looked back. She
saw Martin, the sledge in his two hands, ready to wield it against the
group of men, and separated from them only by the body of their leader;
but they were all looking sideways to where the burnt wretch writhed and
screamed on the ground, as was Martin also. Only the woman who had given
the warning, the same who had bound her hands and feet so brutally, was
unmoved by his torment. She had caught up a hatchet and was creeping
furtively to strike at Martin from the back. There was no time for
warning, and to have given it could only have diverted his attention
further from the men that might rush him at any moment. There was no
time for thought: there was scarcely time for action.

With the knife in her still numbed hand, Claire ran forward. She was
scarcely conscious of the force with which she struck at the side of the
scraggy neck till she felt the weight of the wretched body pull on her
hand; till it collapsed entirely and slid off the knife. It lay kicking
and bleeding, but there were no screams here; the knife had done its
work too well.

Claire did not stop to see it. She caught at Martin's hand, and together
they disappeared into the darkness. They were twenty yards away when the
pursuit began, and they might have outdistanced it easily had not Claire
stumbled at that moment into a tangle of brambles, which brought her to
her knees and tore her at every movement of her bare body in a hundred
places.

The emergency was too serious for such obstacles to control it. She
struggled on into a clear space, when Martin, who had turned and
followed, caught her arm and pulled her down beside him, for the
pursuers were around them on every side, and he remembered how her white
body showed in the darkness. But running from the light of the fire, and
confused by their own noises, they neither saw nor heard that whom they
sought were in their midst, and they had soon spread out in a loud and
futile search for those that they had left behind them.

Claire and Martin began to investigate their position very cautiously,
for they were still so near to the camping-place that they could hear
the voices, and sometimes the words, of those who had remained there,
and those who had pursued them were beating the wood at no great
distance. They found that they were close to the bole of a large tree,
with a rough bark,--an oak, most probably--with a wall of brambles
before them. They tried crawling round the trunk, but found the brambles
on the further side were closer and higher, so that they could make no
progress. They decided that it would be safer to remain where they were
than to venture out until the search should be over.

They could now see very dimly. The night was moonless and cloudy. A star
showed occasionally, but was quickly hidden. Their sight of sky was
limited by the oak branches above them. The night was very warm, and
there was no dew. The brambles formed a screen of impenetrable blackness
around them.

Lying side by side, the thoughts of each turned inevitably to the
companion that fate had brought so strangely, and to so swift an
intimacy. In Martin's mind there was an exhilarating sense of victory
and possession. He was elated by the success of his rescue. That he had
won, he would hold. Claire was less sure of herself. She was grateful to
her deliverer, but she was not one who gives lightly or decides on
impulse. Now she had no mind to give, but she might be in the mood to be
taken. Her most conscious thought was of her lack of covering and of how
she might find some garment before the darkness left her.

She was grateful that he made no movement to touch her.

Then they heard the noise of men returning, three or four of them it
seemed, disputing loudly, with foul oaths for argument.

It was clear that they planned to beat the woods when the light came,
and that Claire was their objective.

They came nearer and nearer. At last one of the men stumbled against the
outer edge of the patch of brambles into which Claire had fallen. She
felt Martin's arm draw her down lower and closer. Pulling himself free,
the man's foot caught, and he fell heavily. There was the loud report of
a rifle. The flash lit them, and they lay still, wondering whether they
had been observed. A voice cursed the fallen man for his folly. A groan
answered. The men were grouping now within three yards of where they
lay. A match spluttered. The groans continued. They understood that the
man had shot himself as he fell. He was being roughly pulled to his feet
and stumbling away between them. Possibly the injury was not very
serious.

One man lingered. He put an investigating boot into the dark tangle of
briars and brambles. He called out that there was cover for half a
score. His companions, concerned to get the wounded man moving, were not
impressed. The doubter compromised with his suspicions, realizing that a
further exploration would be painful and unsupported. He fired into the
bushes. The hidden pair made no motion as the report sounded, and the
bullet passed over them. The man stood listening for a moment, and then
they heard his heavy feet receding.

As the tension ended Claire became conscious of the arm that held her.
She endeavored to move apart, but Martin had no will to loose her.
Rather, he drew her closer.

"Please," she said, as she endeavored to release his arm. She tried to
speak lightly, but there was a nervous note in her voice that betrayed
agitation.

"You are mine, now," he whispered in reply. "I will never loose you."

A sudden anger seized her. She struggled fiercely, pulling her right arm
free from his hold. "Loose me now," she said, "or you will be sorry in a
moment."

He knew that she had the knife, and he challenged her boldly.

"You can kill me, if you will; but while I live I will never loose you."

There was a moment's silence.

"You know I cannot," she said at last, "but I can cut your arm till you
move it."

He laughed at that, forgetting those in the camp that might hear him.
"If you cut one arm, I shall use the other," he answered. "It is only
death that will part us. While we live you are mine."

"For always?" she said doubtfully, but with a new tone in her voice that
was in itself surrender.

"For always, and always," he answered, and he heard the knife drop from
her hand.

"It is all so strange," she said in a low tone, as though she thought
aloud, "...and so different... I don't know..." But he did not
heed her, and she sighed and gave her lips to his kisses.


[VIII]

There was a faint moonlight when they resolved to leave their shelter.
The camp had been still for some hours, and they could not tell whether
any watch were kept, but there could be nothing gained by waiting. The
knowledge that there were at least one or two rifles in the possession
of the gang, against which their own weapons would be of little avail,
made it imperative that they should be far away before the darkness
lifted.

Martin cut very quietly through the prickly screen which surrounded
them, and then carried Claire across it so that she escaped with no more
than one last embrace from an overhanging brier, which tore her flesh as
he bore her forward and it strove to hold her. She did not dare to call
aloud to delay him, and before he knew, it was left behind them. He had
been glad to hold her in the joy of the sudden intimacy which had taken
them, but he was short of breath when he released her in a clear aisle
of the wood, for she was little less than his own height and of such a
figure as weighs more heavily than its appearance indicates.

Martin's plan of action was already clearly outlined in his mind, and he
told her briefly as they hurried through the shadows of the woodland
path.

"We cannot stay in the tunnel. They know the direction from which we
came, and when they search in the morning they will be certain to find
it. They would close both openings, and we should be caught like netted
rabbits. If they did not ferret us, we should have to come out, or
starve, sooner or later. But if we go back quickly we can load the
things we most need on to the trolley and escape upon it. I have an idea
that if we set fire to the hut and the dump of coal beside it they will
be drawn to the blaze and we can escape at the further end of the tunnel
in a greater security."

She said: "Yes, we must go back first. I must have the clothes. And then
we can't escape too far, or too quickly. But shall we stop for the
water?"

It was a good thought, he agreed, and need delay them but little. At
least, it took them only slightly aside from their shortest way, but
after they had found and filled the buckets, which were still where they
left them, they found their progress was slower, and much of the water
was spilt as they hurried on. Still, they did not propose to stay in the
tunnel, and it might be of little importance.

The dawn was growing as they neared their destination, and as the sky
cleared and a light breeze moved over the meadows, the air became
chillier than it had been in the summer night, as it sometimes will as
the day opens, and it was not only the outraged convention of a
lifetime, but a more physical discomfort which caused Claire to dive so
quickly into the hut where the sack of clothing lay, the moment that she
could put down the bucket, which she had been obliged to handle
carefully as she descended the steep embankment.

She might have stood for the goddess of summer, as Martin saw her
disappear through the door of the hut, round-limbed and tall, and with
the effect which results from fineness of line rather than actual
slenderness. She had one of those perfectly proportioned bodies which
come unmarred through the ordeal of motherhood, and it gleamed all the
more whitely for the scars and bruises which showed on back and
shoulders from the brutalities of the earlier night and the red wheals
of the bramble scratches. Martin looked at her with admiration, and with
a sense of possession, and a fierce fighting instinct to hold her with
his life if need be, such as was not commonly experienced in the more
tepid atmosphere of his earlier world; for what was there to rouse it?

He was moving coal so that there should be no remaining gap between it
and the hut when she came out. He meant the blaze to be a good and a
lasting one.

She had found stockings, and shoes that were not unsightly, and a
nondescript dress of some thin material, and she looked not unlike an
exceptionally attractive housemaid if the subtler indications of head
and hands were left unheeded.

"By Jove," Martin exclaimed as he saw her, "what a shame!" and only
partly pleased her.

"It won't fit so badly," she said, "when I've had time to alter it, and
there are other things which will be useful. What can I do to help? We
can take this, can't we?"

She hauled out the sack of clothing, somewhat lessened in bulk, and
lifted it into the trolley.

Martin assented, of course. He proposed that they should have a good
meal first, and then load and go.

He did not think that haste was urgent. If their pursuers should awake
so early they would have their own hunger to think of first: when they
started searching they would probably take some time before they found
the tunnel. Even if they did so, to escape should not be difficult. The
trolley would make better speed than anyone could do by running through
the fields overhead.

Claire was of the same mind; she was very hungry, and well content to
leave his judgment unquestioned.

They ate freely, talking gaily the while, and looking forward to
exploring the deserted country together. Both of them looked younger
than yesterday. Life was theirs for the moment, and they exulted in its
possession.

Loading up took a long while. Martin had accumulated a large quantity of
things, many of which he was unwilling to leave. The capacity of the
trolley was limited. Among many things it was hard to say what could be
replaced in the future. There were hesitations and changes. Things had
been hastily moved on the previous day, and some that were most
important could not easily be found. The morning was well advanced when
they were ready. But they had little anxiety. The plan was good, and
they did not fear that both ends of the tunnel would be approached at
the same time. They were elate and confident.

The plan was good; but Joe Harker spoilt it.

Joe was the ex-jockey that they had seen on the previous night and
dismissed from their minds so easily. That was a mistake. Had Martin
seen him three months earlier he might have judged differently. It is
difficult to associate obesity with the cunning knave or the dangerous
villain. But his gluttony was incidental only, his cunning was as
fundamental as the greed which had now broken out in a released
direction. Three months ago he had been on the point of retiring from
his profession. He was rich, and he was tired of the abstemiousness that
it required. He had run a bookmaking business through the relative of a
lady friend, and if anything had been suspected it had not been proved;
he had ridden crookedly more than once or twice, enough to fill his own
pockets and those of his friends, but not often enough to bring him
under the notice of the stewards. He had celebrated his resolution not
to ride again with a drunken orgy at a roadside hostel. He had sunk down
unnoticed on the floor of a marquee in the hotel grounds, where the
storm had found but did not rouse him. The tent was flattened by the
wind, and a falling pole struck him to a deeper unconsciousness. Better
men around him died or fled northward to a certain destruction, leaving
him to crawl out dazed and suffocated from the heavy folds of the tent,
to find a changed world that was already settling itself to a recovered
serenity.

The gang had accepted his company, though he was not of their kind, for
he was soft and plausible in his manner, had a gross and merry wit which
they could understand, with an endless store of shameless tales and
reminiscences which he could relate without fear of consequences now
that the world he knew had ceased to be; and beyond this, he had proved
a capacity for finding food and drink which approached the miraculous.
He was of a restless alertness, active in his own way when sober, and
his eyes missed nothing.

He liked to forage alone, and to win a cheap popularity by leading
others to the things he found if they should be too much for his own
requirements. It was this habit which had led him to the cutting in
Martin's absence on the previous day, and an insobriety which was more
assumed than real had not prevented him from seeing them as they had
watched him in a fancied hiding.

His cunning mind was turning over how best he could use his knowledge to
his own advantage, when his plans had collapsed at the appearance of
Claire and her captor.

He had not joined the pursuit, for he was a man of peace--not from lack
of courage, for his nerve was iron, but because he despised the taking
of a needless risk, and the crudity of violent methods repelled him.

In the half-deserted camp he had surveyed the body of their fallen
leader with an appearance of solicitude. He had been forward in
suggesting that others should lift it into a position of greater
comfort. Nothing more was attempted. There was no one of any surgical
experience among them. If he had any knowledge of the treatment of
wounds, he did not see that anything would be gained by disclosing it.

It was after the chase had returned, and the sleeping camp was silent,
that he had walked over to look at the sprawling bulk of the felled
body. Certainly it was not dead. It was breathing heavily. It might be
dying. A broken skull was at least a probability. There was, in fact,
nothing worse than a pulped ear and a fractured cheekbone. The lucky
turn of the neck and the brute strength of the huge head had saved their
owner from any heavier damage.

Joe, listening to the labored breathing, and gazing at the bruised and
blood-stained face, decided that he was of no account for the moment,
even if he were not settled forever.

He was glad of that, for the gross-natured giant was the only man there
that he really feared. He could manage Donovan and the rest, even
Rat-face; but this man had black and violent humors, which would change
in a moment, and no one could understand their cause or avoid their
consequences.

He walked away and lay down under the wagon. Everyone slept on the bare
ground while the weather was warm and dry. There was no forethought
among them. They wandered at random, wasting and plundering. So far,
drink and food had been abundant. The complicated controls of
civilization were lifted from them. The slave-labor, which had been the
price at which they had been allowed to eat and breed, was no longer
compulsory. They wandered blindly in an ecstasy of indolent
self-indulgence broken by bouts of violence. Only Joe had sufficient
prescience to lie where he would be protected from a sudden storm.

He lay awake, scheming how he could make most use of his knowledge.
Perhaps the two would fly, now that they had been discovered, and the
hut could be his, with all its stores. But there were difficulties. He
was of a nature that could not endure solitude. He must be with those of
his own kind on whatever terms. Then it was certain that the search
would recommence in the morning, and that the tunnel would be examined.
There would be little care for the injuries that their companions had
suffered, but they would hunt for the woman. It was the lack of women
which marred the paradise of their new life, and which had led to the
tragedy of a few days ago. If the men had been less drunk, and the fool
had not fought so fiercely, it need not have happened. It had been
stupidity to cause her death--sheer waste, which he always hated.

No, he would not like to live in the hut alone, and there would be the
fear that they might come back. He had seen too much of their fighting
ways to meet them alone. He meant to have the woman, but he meant that
others should do the fighting. But why should there be any quarrel, if
they found him there when they returned? He could ingratiate himself
with them. After that, there were many ways by which a man could die,
and the girl would be his. His fertile mind leapt forward to plan the
murder. A tale of a treasure hidden in one of the open shafts around
them, or of a cry that he heard coming from it. A push behind for the
man that leaned forward to listen.

But the flaw in all this planning remained that the search would be
certain to find the tunnel. He did not think they would catch the girl.
She would escape at the further end. He had seen how quickly the trolley
could be poled along the rails. He had no mind to stay there alone on
the chance that they would return after they knew that their
hiding-place was discovered, and that their goods had been spoiled and
scattered. His mind turned to a better plan. They must be caught as they
emerged from the further end of the tunnel, and the man killed and the
woman captured. But he could not do it alone. He thought it probable
that they had no firearms, or they would have used them already. Two men
should be enough to settle the matter without his help, and not too many
with whom to share the woman afterwards. There might be quarreling then,
but he could trust himself to contrive that it should be with each other
rather than with him. Smith and Donovan were the ones he needed. They
had two of the four rifles that the camp contained, and they disliked
each other already. So he planned.

It was when the faint moonlight assisted the light of the dying fire
that he moved cautiously round the camp and roused the two men whose
help he needed.

Before dawn they had made their bargain, swearing such oaths as he
supposed would bind them. He was to lead them to where they could shoot
the man and capture the woman, and the three of them were to make off
together, sharing her between them.

It was not long after Martin and Claire had left their perilous hiding
that the three men crept silently from the sleeping camp.

They passed the body of their wounded leader and the dead hag that still
lay beside him, her head in a pool of curdled blood. The man who had
fallen in the fire was still enough now, lying face-downward. Someone
had mercifully kicked him on the head till he ceased screaming, and he
had not moved since then.

The man who had injured himself with his own gun was also sleeping at
last, a swathe of bloody bandages covering a hand from which a finger
was missing.

There was evidence enough that they were seeking those who could defend
themselves with some ability, but the argument of magazine rifles is one
that is not easily answered, and Joe, having no rifle of his own, or
ability to use it, felt quite comfortable as to the safety of the
rearward position which he intended to occupy in the campaign he was
organizing.

He led his party straight to the embankment that overlooked the further
end of the tunnel. He calculated that their intended victims would be
certain to emerge there sooner or later, whether in voluntary flight or
through having been dislodged from the end they occupied. Even though
they remained undiscovered by his late companions and had no intention
of fleeing, he had learnt that they made expeditions in that direction,
and it could only be a question of time before they would fall into the
trap which awaited them.

The plan was simple, as great strategy usually is, and would have had an
excellent prospect of success, even had not Martin and Claire been
working strenuously to support it, not only with their essential
presence, but with a selection of all that would be most useful to
Claire's captors, and supplying the speediest means of removing
themselves when they had seized her.

However, they knew nothing of the reception which Fate was preparing,
and when they had at last set fire to the hut, and to the dump of coal
beside it, to such good purpose that a great column of smoke was rising
straightly in the still air, they set out very gaily.

They had planned to wait for a time, till the smoke should have had time
to draw any searchers to the end of the tunnel which they were leaving,
but the heat became so great, and the smoke (some of which the direction
of the draught through the tunnel inclined inward) was so discomforting,
that they started almost immediately, poling themselves along at a
leisurely pace, and reserving their strength for the speed which they
intended to raise when they should be in the greater danger of the open
country.

The faint light of the lantern illuminated the hanging body of the
unhappy pig as they passed it, but Martin did not appear to notice, and
Claire silently suppressed a feeling of annoyance, which she knew to be
unreasonable. She was not sure that she had not been a fool, but in any
case its natural destiny had been frustrated by larger issues.

It would take more than that to vex her mood of this morning. She
wondered whether Eve may not have felt a like elation when she left the
narrow confines of Eden for the adventure of the larger world.

Jestingly, she propounded this problem.

The words raised a question in Martin's mind which he had not previously
considered, but, after a moment's silence, he responded to her mood, and
answered with a similar flippancy.

"I'm afraid that you're one of those numerous people who have never read
the Book of Genesis. If you ever do, you'll find that Adam was turned
out alone, presumably for not keeping his wife under control. Probably,
being a woman, she wormed her way under the palings to join him. It is
presumed that she did this, because the next verse tells us of the birth
of Cain."

Then he continued more seriously. "But I haven't asked you yet whether
you're a Christian Scientist or a Plymouth Sister?"

She laughed in answer. "Does it matter now?" And then with a swift
change of intuition to the mood of his own mind: "Oh, but I see what you
mean! No, I don't think we shall differ."

_Did it matter now?_ He wondered. Had the world in which it was so
respectable to profess sectarianism, and so _outr_ to profess
Christianity, really perished? Having the type of mind that
instinctively disentangles the teaching of Christ from the accretions of
the centuries which have obscured and degraded it, he had never
sympathized with the chatter about progressive revelations or the
substitutions of ritual observance for unwelcome truth which he had
watched around him. But _did it matter now_? If any number of the men of
the white races survived, Christianity, in some form, would survive with
them. Would such a catastrophe as had taken place drive them back to the
essentials of the faith they held? Might it even induce them to give the
precepts of their Leader a belated trial? It could scarcely be hoped. He
remembered the terrible prescience of the words of Christ.

So his mind wandered; and then he knew that they were nearing the end of
the tunnel, and Claire was speaking as she blew out the lantern. "Had we
better go cautiously or get up speed?"

"Oh, push ahead," he said. "The sooner we're clear of these parts the
better. I've no doubt it's quiet enough now. Have you got the pole I
made for you?"

"Yes," she said, picking it up to supplement his own efforts, and so,
rousing the trolley to a greater speed, they passed out into the
sunlight.


[IX]

The men that Joe had chosen to join his ambush do not concern us, except
so far as they illustrate some aspects of that civilization from which
the floods had cleansed at least a portion of the earth's surface. They
were not types. No man is: no individual can be. But they were typical
in many ways of the disease which festered within the body of a
civilization which was insensitive to its own corruption.

Even the Victorian complacency had been more conscious of this
corruption, and had been more concerned to correct it, than had been the
age which had succeeded. Later, when a million of their best lay dead in
Flanders and Gallipoli, and beneath the ocean which their ancestors had
conquered and ruled for centuries, what could be hoped from a nation
which allowed the seas to be surrendered in peace which had been held in
war? which allowed its children to be crowded in noisome and indecent
dens for lack of housing, while a million men stood idle, because it
dare not defy the treasonous policy of a workmen's union?

Their ancestors, finding their own children too numerous for the frozen
lands that bore them, had won at the sword's point the fairest island
that the northern seas contained, and held it through a millennium of
change and war.

Themselves, with lands their parents won for their heritage lying
vacant, were content to deny life to their own children rather than
exert themselves to cross the seas to possess them. It may be that they
would have sunk from this apathy into a final degradation and become the
degenerate slaves of more virile races; it may be that reaction would
have set in, or that the mercy of another war would have given them a
further trial at the bar of nature; but the seas had spoken to a
different purpose. Good or bad, their harvest was over now, and it
remained only to test the nature of the seed they had left for the
fecundity of a further spring.

Donovan was a man who would have been of little account under any
conditions of life or system of education. His Irish father had settled
by some chance in a Staffordshire village, and had allied himself to a
woman there whose thriftless ways had been too evident to enable her to
marry among those who were more familiar with her. They had lived
narrow, quarrelsome, and unwholesome lives, and had died of the diseases
which were bred by dirt, by alcohol, and by preserved and contaminated
foods. Their son, with the heavy shapeless lower features of the
cross-bred Erse, but without the humor or the soft speech which went far
to redeem them to a tolerable humanity, had something of the coarse
vitality which often follows the mating of different races. He was
capable of sustained physical exertion. He had few ideas of his own and
little initiative. He had an unimaginative brutality which took the
place of courage. His idea of warfare was to shoot from behind a hedge.
He enjoyed watching rats or rabbits killed by dogs in a confined space.
He liked to watch the footballers that were hired for his entertainment
by his local club, and to shout abuse at those against whom they played.
If his own side lost he was prepared to vituperate them with equal
violence. His idea of humor was the representation of a discolored nose;
of wit, an allusion to the excretions of the human body. His instincts
were primitive, and he was incapable of thought without physical or
emotional incentive. Under a training adapted to his mentality, and
mated at an early age to one of his own kind, he might have led a
harmless and decent existence as an agricultural laborer.

Instead of that, he had been introduced to foul and filthy living, he
had been compelled to dark and filthy toil in caverns to which men
should never have penetrated. He had been compelled to attend a school
for several years, where the inevitable physical detriment of herding
large numbers of young animals in one pen, be they children or chickens,
had not been compensated by any useful instruction. He had vacuously
attempted to memorize the climate of Patagonia, but he had learnt
nothing of the decent conduct of life in his own inferno. He had not
taken part in the recent war, having been retained by the mine which
employed him. He had frequented a shooting gallery, and with his present
weapon he could be relied upon to hit something within six feet of the
object at which he aimed if it were in his immediate vicinity.

Smith was of a different and more dangerous kind. A man of forty, of a
lean and battered aspect, he had a high, thin nose, eyes that were at
once cold and predatory, and a close, thin-lipped mouth which seldom
opened except for an exclamation of profanity or an obscene jest. His
hair was black, straight, sleek, and scanty. He was reticent as to his
past, but called himself an Australian, probably slandering a continent
when he did so. He had certainly been in that country for some years,
and had there volunteered for the war, actuated by a ferocity which was
drawn to any scene of violence, and by a vague expectation of plunder
and of opportunities for the rape of women.

He had won a commission, been decorated, court-martialed, and dismissed
from the service for conduct of the sort that is not advertised, on
evidence which might have been considered insufficient in a civil court.
He was obsessed by a debased sexuality, such as is stimulated by the
excitements and restraints of an unhealthy civilization, and which Freud
appears to have supposed, very foolishly, to be the common curse of
humanity.

An urban population, knowing nothing of animals, has quaintly given the
name of "animalism" to this lowest of human vices, but it has no
affinity to the loyalty of a rat to his doe, or the tenderness of a wolf
for his mate. It is, in fact, the vice which, among all the outrages by
which humanity has defied the laws of its Creator to its own undoing, is
most alien from anything existing among the wild creatures which men
have left unmurdered, nor has it any approximate parallel among those
that they have brought into servitude and association.

He had maintained an appearance of efficiency and neatness even in his
present environment. The most exacting of sergeants-major would have
been satisfied by the condition of the rifle which he was hoping to use
to such congenial purpose. He boasted, truly enough, and it was readily
believed, though he had not proved it, that he could shoot with a deadly
accuracy.

Joe Harker's tactics, like his strategy, were of a Napoleonic
simplicity. A hundred yards from the mouth of the tunnel, half-way up
the embankment, there grew a clump of that dwarf species of birch which
fed the reindeer on the arctic plains, and while no longer common in
England, showed a capacity to spring up on any spot which was kept clear
of heavier timber while remaining uncultivated. Behind this cover he
stationed his two riflemen with orders not to shoot till their victims
were actually beneath them.

Being unarmed, he could assist most usefully by hiding behind the little
hut which stood by the entrance of the tunnel. When they had shot the
man, the girl would most probably run back to that refuge, when he could
turn her from the cover she sought. If she ran in any other direction
they would chase her together. But he supposed that she would yield to
the threat of the rifles without such difficulty. She might be too
frightened to run at all.

So they took their stations and waited.

The tactics were good enough, but the best of generalship must finally
depend upon the capacity of the officers and men which it employs. It
chanced that Donovan took the position which was nearer the mouth of the
tunnel. They were both well hidden, but he was in a position to see, and
to fire if he wished, before his companion could do so. Smith could get
a clear shot only at that part of the line which was directly beneath
him. Doubtless, that was the time for which to wait, and if they did so
their positions were of equal advantage. But it happened that Smith had
little confidence either in Donovan's skill or discretion. He thought,
rightly enough, that he could have carried through the enterprise much
better had he been single-handed, and wondered why Joe had not been
content to enlist his assistance only.

Joe might have come to the same conclusion had he not felt that he would
be safer if they were a more numerous party, in which either might be
incited against the other if he should feel it expedient.

Smith was rightly confident that if the shooting were left to him there
would be no hitch in the program. He wanted it done efficiently, and he
wanted the pleasure of doing it. He did it in imagination a dozen ways
as he lay and waited. Finally he decided that he would drill the man
through the head and then nick the woman on both buttocks. Just to make
her jump. She would be none the worse, and would show his brand ever
afterwards. If she tried to run after that, a threat to shoot again
should be sufficient to stop her.

But he did not want Donovan to blunder in and spoil the neatness or
claim the credit of his efficiency. Also, they did not want the woman
shot, and he was correct in thinking that if Donovan aimed at Martin he
would be in somewhat less danger than anyone else who might be near him.

So the end was that he proposed to Donovan that he should shoot first,
and that Donovan should hold his fire till he saw the result of the
first shot. Donovan refused with a grunt. He asked why. No man likes a
reflection on his own skill. He had sense enough to see that if he
consented to take a back seat in the attack he might be expected to
occupy the same position when they came to reap the fruit of the success
they anticipated. A suggestion that he should change places roused a
deeper suspicion and received a curter refusal. Smith tried a last card.
It was evident that Donovan could get the first shot in the positions
they occupied, and after the dispute they had now had he would be quick
to take it. He proposed that they should toss for positions, and to this
the gambling instinct of his companion responded. They tossed, and
Donovan won. Smith then proposed that they should toss again, on the
understanding that if he lost he should definitely resign the first
shot. Donovan agreed, after some arguing, tossed, and won again. It was
an operation in which he was not easily cheated, and, in fact, each of
them was too well aware of his opponent's qualifications to do more than
watch for any lucky chance of dishonesty.

After this, Smith resigned himself to the position. He had no doubt that
Donovan would miss, nor that his own bullet would find its victim a
second later.

Meanwhile the hours passed. The sun was high enough now to make them
uncomfortably warm, and the bushes before them gave no shelter from it.
They were finding it much easier to drowse in the heat than to keep
alert and watchful, when their attention was attracted to the column of
black smoke that rose from the fire that Martin had started. But for
that, it might have been that the trolley would have been well under the
ambush before Donovan would have been awake to its coming. As it was, he
had his rifle in readiness as it came out of the darkness. The dispute
in which he had been engaged had left him with a dull suspicion of his
companion's purpose and a resolve that nothing should rob him of the
first shot which the coin had given. The trolley was not ten yards clear
of the tunnel when he fired. Of the bullet, no more can be said than
that it went somewhere in the direction of the equator, and there we
must leave it.

Neither Claire nor Martin could see very clearly. The sudden light
dazzled them. But their senses were alert for any warning of danger, and
a rifle-shot is sufficiently plain in its meaning. Before its echo died
they had stopped their way and were pushing back for shelter. They were
helped by the fact that the gradient at that point was slightly upward,
and the trolley reversed and slipped backward the more easily in
consequence.

Smith guessed in an instant what was happening, leapt to his feet, and
fired over the bushes. With no time to aim, he so far justified his
skill that the bullet struck the wheel over which Martin was leaning.
Donovan fired again, and the trolley disappeared.

Cursing at each other and at the escaping quarry, the two men plunged
down the bank.

Joe had watched what had happened with a mixture of wrath and amazement
at the folly which had spoilt his plan, but he made no motion to join
the pursuit. He had seen an automatic pistol which lay ready to hand for
the use of those they were hunting. But he made no motion to delay his
companions. He had no objection to any risk they might take for his
prospective advantage. Having no suspicion that their opponents were
armed, and confident in the rifles they carried, the two men entered the
tunnel together.

Martin saw them coming and stopped the trolley. He thought rapidly. They
were already in darkness, while the men showed clearly with the light
behind them. To retreat further would be to involve all in an equal
obscurity. To strike a match would be to invite their own destruction.
Rightly or wrongly, he thought it best to hold their ground and fight it
out if the men came further. The next moment they were off the trolley
and crouching behind it together. He had loaded the pistol before they
started, and now tried to recall the arguments as to the action of such
a weapon in which he had once engaged in so different an atmosphere. He
knew that it would continue to discharge so long as he pressed the
trigger. He must remember that. Had he not heard it urged with much
forensic eloquence that at a time of excitement a man might continue the
pressure involuntarily? He must not waste his shots in such a manner. He
must keep cool. He must shoot to kill. Should he aim straight or low?
and at what distance? He was less clear on these points, and a mistake
might be fatal.

The men were still advancing, but more slowly now. They were not yet
used to the darkness.

Claire's voice came, very low, and sounding cool enough, though her
heart beat as though it would choke her. "Do you know how to use it?"

He said: "I shall manage."

A second later she spoke again. "If you like to let me--it might be
safer--I shall not miss--I was taught in France."

"No," he said, "it wouldn't do to miss," and passed her the pistol.

She knew then that she had won a man on whom to lean in any crisis. She
had no fear of missing.

The men were nearer now. They could see the trolley, though not clearly.
Donovan, a little in advance, lifted his rifle. "Hands up," he called
vaguely to the darkness. Smith, standing back, with eyes accustoming
themselves to the shadows, was searching for Martin. He meant to shoot
at sight. They had no use for prisoners. "Don't shoot the woman," he
said, his thought recurring that Donovan would blunder somehow. But
Donovan's mistakes were ended.

Claire rose deliberately. She fought for her man's life, and to keep
herself clean of their hateful hands. There was no thought of mercy in
her mind, and if her heart still beat hard she did not know it. She
fired twice at the man that was nearer. Donovan screamed out. His rifle
rang on the rail. He staggered and fell forward. "Oh, Gawd, she's got
me," he sobbed. But no one heeded.

Claire was running forward, firing as she went at a figure that crouched
and dodged to avoid her bullets, and still made better speed than she.
Martin ran with her, the spear in his hand. The thought of both was to
reach the flying figure before it should have leisure to turn and aim.
Smith's only thought was to run clear of the death-trap into which he
had fallen.

Three times Claire missed him, and it was her last shot that found his
ankle. He pitched forward as he ran. Claire saw his face as he twisted
round, but found her pistol was empty. Martin was close beside him, the
spear leveled. "Oh, kill him quickly," she said: "_I saw his face._" She
was conscious only of a frenzy of loathing.

Smith had no wish to be killed. He realized instantly that the pistol
was empty. He grasped the rifle, which had left his hand as he fell, and
swung it round in Martin's direction. Claire snatched the barrel. It
swung right and left as they struggled, the one to point it at Martin,
the other to direct it from him. It went off twice.

Martin thrust with the spear, but the wounded man twisted sideways. "Oh,
be quick! I can't hold it," Claire panted. "Kill him somehow." Martin
thrust again, and almost missed, but not quite for the blade came out
wet. He drove it in again, missing Claire's knee by an inch, as the
wounded wretch pulled her down with the rifle which she would not loose.
But this time he made no mistake. He felt the sharp blade sink into the
belly of the struggling form, and drove it in--inwards and upwards.
Claire was conscious that the rifle was in her own hands only. She rose
to her feet, breathing with difficulty.

"Thank God, that's over," said Martin. But was it? With a common impulse
they looked toward the mouth of the tunnel, in fear of further
antagonists. They saw Joe Harker, who stood there for a moment now that
the shots had ceased, and vanished quickly as he saw that they had
observed him.

Martin stopped to pick up the rifle and to search the dead man for any
ammunition he carried, and they made their way back to the trolley.

Donovan gave no sign of life. He lay where he had fallen. They secured
his rifle also and a further handful of cartridges.

Claire became conscious that the front of her dress was soaked with
blood.

They remained for a time in a mutual hesitation as to their next course
of action. There was, in fact, nothing to prevent them continuing their
first intention. There was no one to withstand them, and pursuit would
have been improbable. But they could not know this. They had no
knowledge of the completeness of their victory. Besides, they were both
unused to scenes of violence or bloodshed. They were excited and shaken.
They found that they were of one mind to retreat further into the dark
security from which they had adventured so hazardously, and take thought
and counsel as to the position in which they stood.

Having done this, they decided that their case was unpleasant but not
desperate. They had abundance of food. They had some water, and the
wetness of the inner tunnel assured them that they would not perish of
thirst, though the moisture it provided might not be of the most
palatable kind.

They did not think that an attack would be very easily successful, or
that their opponents would adventure it lightly after the lesson that
they had received. If they remained in the middle tunnel and watched in
turn, a surprise would be difficult. They did not think that their
enemies could be very numerous, and they would be at the disadvantage of
having to guard two widely separated points. It was at least doubtful
whether they would have sufficient persistence to besiege them under
such conditions for any lengthened period.

On the other hand, the central tunnel was a very noisome habitation, not
to be willingly endured for many hours, and incessant watchfulness would
be irksome. To remain in darkness would be intolerable; to use a light
would give away an advantage, the value of which could only be tested by
experience, which might be fatal.

The plan on which they resolved was to return to the other entrance and
to observe whether the fire had died down and whether there were any
evidence of the presence of their enemies or attempt to attack them from
that direction. They decided to leave the trolley so that they could
move more silently, and more quickly take shelter if they should find it
needful.

In the inmost part of the tunnel they retreated into one of the recesses
which broke the wall at regular intervals, and lighted a candle there
while Claire exchanged her blood-soaked garments for others from the
bundle she had taken, and they examined their weapons.

They were of one mind that they would fight to the last extremity rather
than that Claire should fall into the hands of those that sought her,
but they were unused to the decisive logic of violence and would be
instinctively reluctant, even now, to initiate it.

Martin proposed that Claire should remain in the comparative safety of
their retreat while he went on alone to investigate, but the quick "No,
no," which she gave to that proposition, in a tone which was at once
abrupt and appealing, showed how far her mind had fallen from its normal
serenity.

They examined the rifles which they had captured, pooling their
knowledge. They were the newest service pattern, deadly enough in expert
hands, but Martin found them heavy and awkward to handle. He took one,
but he did it reluctantly. He preferred the lighter, simpler weapon
which had already done good service. But the other rifle Claire would
not take. She, too, had her preference for the lighter pistol, which she
understood and had proved, and for the knife, which it now seemed
natural to have so belted that her hand could reach it quickly.

After all, the spear went with them. For when they started they decided
that no light should betray them, and Claire, whose hands were free,
proposed to take it so that she could touch the wall to guide them as
they walked. And thus they went, quietly and quickly enough under the
dripping roof of the tunnel, Claire walking nearer to the wall and
feeling her way in the increasing gloom, for owing to the bend in the
tunnel the darkness became denser as they advanced toward the further
entrance, and Martin walking with a light hand on her shoulder and the
loaded rifle under his left arm.

They spoke little and very low, not knowing how sound might carry, and
for that reason the time seemed the longer till they reached the bend
and should have seen the white light of the opening; but they found here
a hot and heavy atmosphere smoke-laden and oppressive to breathe,
through which a light blazed for which the sun was not responsible.

It was evident that, though the hut might be ashes, the dump of coal had
not burned itself out, and the heat would deter anyone from exploring
the tunnel-mouth while it lasted.

The silent walk had given Martin time to reflect upon their position,
and his first conclusion had been that they had done foolishly to leave
the trolley. While they were at this end it was liable to capture should
a second invasion occur, which was not likely, but possible.

It was mobile. It gave some cover against attack. It held the choice of
their possessions. He proposed that they should return to it and move it
to such a spot as they might select to hold for defense. He had a vague
design that they should prepare barriers at some distance on either
side, whether by stretched ropes or pits, such as would secure them
against surprise in the darkness. If lights were used, their assailants
would be under a disadvantage for which they might pay very dearly.

He doubted whether even the hope of seizing Claire would be sufficient
to induce men to such a risk after the losses they had suffered.

Claire assented readily to his proposal. She was getting too tired to
think of much beyond the oppressive atmosphere in which they moved. The
hero or heroine of fiction is rarely disabled at any physical or
emotional crisis by the minor ills of mortality, but Claire's experience
was different. Both she and Martin had reached a point of bodily health
which had been rarely known in the civilization which had left them, but
the strains and excitements of the last three days had been beyond the
normal endurances to which she was equal, and now she was conscious that
her head throbbed painfully and that her first desire was for clean air,
to climb out into the wind and light, and sleep--and sleep.

Martin, less emotional, more detached, his body used to a severer mental
discipline, was less near to the exhaustion of his nervous resources.
His mind was occupied with ultimate issues rather than present
discomforts.

Claire kept beside him, making no complaint or protest, even when his
anxiety to regain possession of the trolley led him to urge a faster
pace through the darkness, but she was only partly conscious of what she
did, her mind fixed upon the moment when she could sink down upon the
trolley, making some kind of resting-place of the load it carried. She
watched impatiently as its bulk began to show against the light of the
entrance towards which they moved.

She knew that Martin was speaking, and answered something, though she
did not hear him.

As they approached it, with eyes accustomed to the darkness, Martin was
satisfied that it still stood as they had left it. Beyond, the entrance
to the tunnel showed blank and empty. He was relieved and satisfied.

But they were none too soon. Claire was asking, in a voice that sounded
tired and distant, if she might rest while he propelled it to the place
he wished, and he was already assenting, with a sudden, contrite sense
of her exhaustion, when she saw that which roused her to sudden
wakefulness. "_Look_," she said, in a fierce, changed voice, and struck
from his hand the match which he had ignited to guide her to the rest
she needed.


[X]

The sun was high in the sky when the felled giant, who had been groaning
and moving restlessly, sat up and scowled at a deserted camp. He was
unsteady on his feet, and his head swam dizzily, but he rose as well as
he might and made search for food and drink. Food--of sorts--was
plentiful, and there was a store of bottled beer in the cart. He drank
heavily. He ate, though it was agony to the fractured bone. After a time
his head felt clearer. He had but one thought, which dominated even the
pain of his throbbing wound--to take vengeance upon the man who had
injured him and the woman who had occasioned it.

He walked round the forsaken camp and stared gloomily at the dead
bodies. He concluded, wrongly, that there must have been more than one
who had attacked them. The two horses, loosely tethered, were grazing
quietly. There was no sign of life. Even the old woman and the man with
the damaged hand had gone with the rest. He did not care where they had
gone, or what number of enemies he had to face. Had he not once killed
or maimed a dozen men in a Shanghai bar when a fury took him? He had
caught them by arm or leg and flung them round against wall and table.
Then he had fought his way back to the engine-room of his ship, and when
the police had followed, the captain had politely informed them that if
it were Bellamy that they wanted they could arrest him there; and they
had gone back for further force, and other business had prevented them
from returning. That was before another incident had caused a sudden
inland flight from the docks at Liverpool, and he had become the
attendant demon of a Staffordshire furnace. But those days were over
now, and a man could do as his anger willed, and none would stay him.
His mental processes were never complicated, and on this occasion they
saved him from needless hesitation. He knew the direction in which he
had found the pair he sought, and with no plan in his mind, he set out
to hunt them.

He passed the spot where they had found sanctuary during the night, and
stopped to stare at it. In the daylight the cut and trampled brambles
seemed a very feeble protection. He saw the sledge which Martin had left
when he carried Claire across the thorns, and picked it up with a frown
of satisfaction. But he did not mean simply to kill them. In his
imagination he tore them in his empty hands. They suffered gross and
fantastic violences.

He went straight on till he was clear of the woods, and then the black
column of smoke led him to the cutting, where he found his companions
gathered.

It was at the same time that Joe Harker came along the bank-top, singing
to himself as he came. After the fashion which is attributed to the
medieval minstrels, he would compose his thoughts into doggerel verse
which he hummed to his own music, as Martin and Claire had heard at his
first acquaintance. It was usually a cheerful strain, for Joe was a man
who enjoyed living, and no less now that he could eat his fill without
detriment to his financial prospects.

             "Donovan's taken a meal of lead,
             Donovan's dead; Donovan's dead.
             Dick Smith was settled with steel instead,
             But Joe preferred to be left unfed.
             The dead men 've gone where the dead men go,
             But they'll find it's harder to deal with Joe."

He viewed Bellamy's recovered vitality with a disfavor which he was
careful not to indicate. The furnaceman scowled at his cheerfulness; it
was a mood for which he had no use. But Joe gazed back into the
repulsive face, red on one side and streaked and livid on the other,
with unchanged serenity. He had information to give. He usually had; and
he knew its value.

There were about half a dozen men grouped on the edge of the embankment
when Bellamy and Joe approached it from their different directions, and
it appeared that they might just as well, or as badly, have been
anywhere else from there to the antipodes for any difference that their
presence made.

Reddy Teller, the rat-faced individual who had thrown the stool the
night before, imagined himself to be in charge of operations in the
absence of better men; but it is at least doubtful whether this opinion
were shared by those around him.

So far the only plan he had evolved had been to persuade the men who had
the two remaining rifles to fire some oblique shots into the
tunnel-mouth and shout to their quarry to come out, under various
ghastly penalties should they delay to do so. There had been no response
to these persuasions. The inducements offered might have been open to
criticism. The heat of the burning coal, which deterred the attacking
party from a close approach, would have been at least equally forbidding
to anyone emerging from the inside; and finally, there was nobody there.

But, to do Mr. Teller justice, it is not easy to see what more he could
have done so long as his attention was confined to that end of the
tunnel, while the fire continued. At this time it was still in full
blast at its source, and had spread through the dry grass upon the
further embankment. That had burnt itself out to the hedge that topped
it, or nearly so, but they drew further back as they became aware that
the nearer side was now bursting into flame, which was soon to set the
fence ablaze against which they were leaning.

"Boys," said Joe, grinning amiably, "how about two ends to a tunnel?"
The question was received with a chorus of explanation and argument. It
appeared that the larger half of the party had held the opinion that
Martin and Claire had left the tunnel at that end when they lit the
fire, and had started in pursuit accordingly. They had evidently tired
of the enterprise after a mile or two of disappointment, for they could
now be seen returning in the distance, a quarrelsome and dispirited
party. It was a hot day.

The others who had remained had held the opinion that they were not
likely to leave the safety of the tunnel unless compelled, and that they
would prefer to remain at the end to which the fire gave some
protection.

Joe replied by narrating what had occurred, only varying facts by the
statement that he had seen Smith and Donovan slipping away with the two
rifles in the early morning, and had followed out of curiosity to
discover their purpose. It was a version likely to be less unpopular
than a more veracious narrative, and neither Donovan nor Smith was in a
position to contradict it.

Bellamy's distorted scowl was unchanged while he was speaking. He looked
as though he were still partially stunned by the blow he had received.
Perhaps the pain that throbbed in his cheek, and the beer that he had
swallowed so freely, assisted to confuse him. But the brutal mind held
tenaciously to its purpose. His eyes did not leave Joe's face as the
tale was told, and when it was over he spoke two words only: "'Twas
them?"

Joe chuckled. "Oh yes, 'twas them. You could choke the man with one
hand. But the bitch'll fight."

Joe spoke with malice. He was more than willing to incite the wounded
giant to seek his prey in the tunnel. He was adroit in his implication
that the man was not formidable. It amused him to think of the great
brute falling as he had seen Donovan and Smith that morning. It would
amuse him equally to see the woman kick with the giant's hand on her
neck. He loved sport. In the end he meant to have her himself, but the
risks were for others. If anyone understood him it was Teller, who
watched him cunningly.

But his words were needless and unheeded. Bellamy's purpose was fixed
before he spoke, and his next move was unpleasantly decisive. He had the
sledge in his right hand and he thrust his left under Joe's elbow. The
movement was too unexpected for Joe to avoid it.

"Show us, lad," he growled in a tone that was almost friendly, but when
Joe did not move he pulled him forward with a sudden threatening
ferocity.

Joe was no coward. He felt the pressure of the huge hand that dragged
and bruised him. He saw that he must depend upon his own wits if he were
not to risk the fate of those whose lives had already paid for their
imprudence. "Right," he said, with his usual grin of amiability, "I'll
show you." He started back along the hedge-side, adapting his pace as
best he could to the giant's heavy stride with an appearance of
alacrity. But the bruising grasp on the fat arm did not relax, nor,
characteristically, did it occur to Joe to attempt any resistance. It
would have been useless in any case. Even had he won a moment's freedom
he was no runner in his present form. Slow and heavy though Bellamy
might be, he would have caught him in twenty yards. But Joe trusted his
wits to save him.

It was not more than a ten minutes' walk; would have been less than that
but that the hedge-side path did not follow the shorter course of the
tunnel and that the way was steep at first, though it took the hill at a
slant.

Joe tried conversation, wishing his companion to think him as keen as
himself upon the dangerous ferreting that he had undertaken. He got no
answer.

He took refuge in one of the tuneless songs which, whether impromptu or
the issue of previous cogitation, appeared to be inexhaustible. They
were mostly of a pattern which left a doubt in the hearer's mind as to
which of the themes of the Persian poet--"Horses and women"--had
supplied their inspiration. Possibly Joe himself was no clearer.

                         "Never a skinnier
                         Jade of Virginia----"

he commenced very cheerfully, but nothing further will ever be known of
the sequel of these ambiguous lines. Bellamy shook him savagely. He
desired no diversions from the object of their expedition.

Joe went on in silence.

It was when they came to the fence that edged the top of the bank above
the entrance to the tunnel that he was able to use his wits for his
skin's safety. He remembered that Smith had brought a miner's lamp for
use if they should have decided to explore the tunnel after the murder
which they had planned. No doubt it still lay where he had been in
ambush behind the birches.

They could not well climb the fence arm-in-arm, and Joe's willingness to
go first, and his suggestion that they should use the lamp, dispelled
any doubt the furnaceman may have felt; or he may have become careless
of his companion's movements now that he had guided him to the place he
sought.

Anyway, he let Joe scramble down the bank in advance to where the lamp
lay, and then, when they had lit it, to continue ahead till they had
reached the rails.

When Joe waited for him there and walked by his side to the tunnel
entrance, he made no further effort to hold him. Perhaps, as he thought
himself close to his intended victims, his clouded mind lost
consciousness of other matters. Anyway, Joe carried out the plan he had
formed. They went up to the very mouth of the tunnel together, and then
with a sudden spurt of agility, Joe turned and bolted up the further
bank. Bellamy took no heed of him whatever. With the lamp in one hand
and the sledge in the other, he went on between the metals.

Finding that he was not followed, Joe turned on the bank and waited. A
long minute passed. Then a rifle-shot reverberated loudly. He thought
that he heard the bullet pass, and concluded reasonably that it had left
its objective uninjured. Two other shots followed, but less loudly,
followed by a longer silence. At last he ventured to the mouth of the
tunnel. He stood there for some time, alert to retreat at the first sign
of life that the dark entrance might offer; but nothing moved. As his
eyes adapted themselves to the shadows he could see dimly the bulk of
the loaded trolley. Curiosity striving with caution, he went a few steps
forward. He came to the body of Smith. It lay between the metals, face
upwards. It had bled very freely. Curiosity died.

He was not normally sensitive to the unseen, but he felt that death, and
the menace of death, were around him. He believed that he was watched,
though he could see no one.

With his instinctive preference for mental rather than physical
conflict, he tried to propitiate the darkness, calling to the unknown to
inquire if any help could be given.

His voice sounded hollow and unnatural, and an echo returned it.

There was no other response, either of sound or motion, and he turned
back to the sunlight.


[XI]

It cannot be known whether Bellamy saw the light before Claire's hurried
action extinguished it. He may have done so, but the sequel leaves it in
doubt.

He walked forward steadily, flashing his lamp from side to side, the
heavy hammer in readiness. He moved as one who searches for cockroaches.
His sole concern appeared to be that his prey should not pass him in the
darkness.

The civilization which persecuted motherhood and yet regarded human life
as a super-sacred thing was beneath the waters, and the incidents of the
last two days had emancipated Claire from its superstitions by the hard
logic of circumstance. Since the last sunset she had escaped the
extremity of degradation, she had won a lover, and she had killed twice
without mercy. Yet she was by nature sensitive, kindly, and chivalrous
beyond the custom of women. To any other living creature she would have
reacted differently, but the sight of this man, the memory of the
indignities which she had suffered, of the fate which had shadowed her,
roused her to an implacable hatred. She did not fear him, though she was
still black from the blows he had given her; she did not think of
flight; she felt that it was Martin's place to kill him.

Martin was cooler. He had won the fight, and he had won the woman. His
adversary had won nothing but a broken head. He had no occasion for
bitterness. But Claire's tense whisper, "Don't fire too soon; make
sure," told him how she felt.

Anyway, he saw quite clearly that he must shoot to kill, and had no
doubt that he should do it. He wondered at the folly of their opponents
who came in small numbers to be shot down when a rush of many might
overwhelm them.

He was behind the shelter of the trolley, Claire being on his right. He
rested the rifle on the impedimenta with which it had been loaded.
Bellamy walked between the metals directly toward them. Martin did not
think he could miss, though he was unused to the weapon. He wondered how
hard it would kick. If he missed, he could fire again. So he waited. In
fact, under the hypnotism of Claire's admonition, he waited too long.

The giant form was not twelve paces distant when he fired. It did not
seem possible to miss; but miss he did. The furnaceman's neck was grazed
by the bullet, that was all. Up to that moment he had shown no sign that
he observed the trolley though he was so close upon it. But as the shot
was fired he ducked and ran round the right-hand side before Martin
could get another shot at him.

Claire saw him coming upon her and met him bravely. She fired twice.
Both shots hit their object, and the second caused the giant to falter
in his stride, but they did not stay him. And then he had struck the
pistol from her, and one huge hand was on her throat choking the cry
which she would have uttered. She struck fiercely with her right hand at
the loathsome face that was so close to her own in the half-darkness,
hitting the fractured cheekbone, and caused the great head to flinch and
groan, but it would have availed her nothing against the strength which
was choking her had not her rescue come at the instant.

Martin let the rifle go as he realized what was happening, caught up the
spear which was leaning beside him, paused only for an unavoidable
second because Claire was between him and her attacker, and then thrust
as she swayed aside in the struggle. It was no mortal wound, but the
blade cut through the tendons of the leg, which gave way so that the
huge form collapsed to the ground, dragging Claire with him. But he
loosed his grasp as he fell, and the next instant she had struggled
free.

The sledge-hammer was dropped as he fell, but lay close at his hand.
Knowing how he could throw it, Martin snatched at it, catching it near
the head in his left hand just as Bellamy got it at the other end. His
strength would have been no match for his opponent, but he jabbed at the
clutching hand, and it loosened, and he was able to pull the hammer
clear. He stood a few paces back, with Claire beside him. There was
something bestially repulsive in the sprawling form that was
incapacitated, without any mortal wound, and that was making grotesque
efforts in the half-light to rise and reach them. Claire, her throat
painful and her breath still coming with difficulty, was conscious only
of fear and a hysterical desire to end the horror. "_Oh, kill him, kill
him_," she urged, and did not know that her voice was no more than a
hoarse whisper.

Martin hesitated, with less than his usual logic. Their opponent seemed
helpless, and there were deep instincts which objected to the killing of
a fallen foe under such circumstances. While he paused a large stone
came under Bellamy's groping fingers. Rising on his other arm, he threw
it with all his force. It hit Martin over the left temple, and he fell
where he stood.

After that Claire killed him. If she might otherwise have hesitated she
had no choice when she saw him crawling toward Martin. She ran forward
and got the spear a second before his hand would have reached it.

Then began a scene of which she would never afterwards think willingly,
though she was to see much of bloodshed and much of horror in the days
to be. She circled round the sprawling bulk, giving it quick stabs
whenever she could, while keeping clear of the great hands that made
desperate efforts to reach her, well knowing that if she should once
fall into that fatal hold her life would end very quickly. Nor could she
safely stab, except where his hands could not reach the spear, or so
quickly that he had no time to grasp it.

It was only when he was weakened by a dozen thrusts that she got him
fairly in the throat, and as she pulled the spear free that time she
knew that it was over, and with the thought knew that her own
consciousness was leaving her.

Had Joe ventured to a fuller investigation he would have found Bellamy
still twitching slightly in a pool of his own blood, while Martin lay
stunned a few paces distant, with Claire faint and unconscious beside
him.

But Joe went back, wondering whether Bellamy might not be chasing them
through the tunnel to where the fire would block, or his companions
seize them.

If that were so, he wished to be in at the death. If Bellamy had failed,
it would be a chance for better brains, and he thought he knew where to
find them.




BOOK IV. HELEN AND CLAIRE


There are women who are incapable of tragedy. An invincible triviality
protects them.

Mary Wittels was of this order. Fortune, which had endowed her with a
mysterious malady, variously reported as neuritis, rheumatism, or
sciatica, but which she honestly believed to be peculiar to herself,
had, with an almost equal kindliness, appointed her lodge-keeper to the
Staffordshire mansion of the Earl of Hallowby. No one who knew the earl
would be likely to suppose that she received any remuneration from that
source, and it was therefore a natural development in the social
disorder of which she was a by-product, that she should support herself
by the retailing of gossip in return for the offerings which her
neighbors gave her. She did this without malice, and became, in the
course of years, somewhat expert in distinguishing between that which
was authentic and that which would bring discredit upon her should she
extend its publicity. With a generosity which is seldom duplicated,
Fortune befriended her again when it was spreading ruin over a
continent. Unable to join the wild flight to northward (even had her
common sense been insufficient to prevent such a folly), she owed her
life to two further circumstances.

First, the Earl of Hallowby was a gambler. Not being a bookmaker, and
being too stupid even for successful dishonesty, he lost continually, as
honest gamblers are apt to do. There is nothing here to regret. His
money passed into other hands. They may have been better able to control
it for the common good: that they were less so is not easily to be
imagined. Being short of money, he fell among lawyers, who gave him good
advice, and robbed him further with an air of detachment which gave
their procedure an appearance as of the inevitability of natural law
rather than of human ingenuity.

He desired to cut down an avenue of trees which his ancestors had
planted, and inquired of them whether the conditions on which he held
the estate (which was entailed) would permit him to do so. They informed
him that it was a doubtful point which the Courts must settle. The
question depended upon the construction of a single unpunctuated
sentence in a document which had been drawn in their own office. In the
course of two years the Courts had decided it as he desired,
incidentally saving the life of Mary Wittels, for the avenue extended to
the lodge gate and would surely have overwhelmed her. The timber was
sold, a large part of the proceeds remaining in the hands of the legal
gentlemen he had trusted. They signed a strip of colored paper, and
their bankers transferred a substantial sum from "Clients'" to "Office"
account when they received it. It was all most orderly. They robbed him
strictly according to scale, and their intelligence was such that they
would have considered it dishonest to charge him more than the rate
agreed by the trade union to which they belonged. The bureaucracy took
its share of the plunder with a like urbanity.

The Earl of Hallowby did not doubt that the propriety of felling trees
could be affected by the appearance of red stamps on blue paper, and
that those who had brought these colors into juxtaposition were entitled
to a third of the proceeds of the avenue to which they related. In the
end it made no real difference except to Mary Wittels.

The second point on which Fortune had befriended her was that the lodge
was very squat in shape, and was built of heavy stone blocks. Unlike
most buildings of its kind, and possibly because it was built against a
bank which rose steeply at the northern side of the lodge gates, its
roof had a single slope to southward.

It would be wrong to say that Mary was not affected by the storm. She
was destined to remember it for many years as the night when her larder
window was blown in with disastrous consequences to a pot of strawberry
jam which Mrs. Swadkins had given her. The next day her leg was
troublesome, and, supposing that callers would be few in such weather,
she lay in bed.

When the storm fell, and the road became congested with a flying crowd,
she remarked to herself (quite truly) that it was "wurs nor a bank
'oliday." She got up to close her window from the noise, and asked the
passers what was "up" to explain their haste. But they took no notice,
or replied with nonsense such as should not be spoken to an elderly
person who asks a question politely. She was too sensible to believe
them, and the latch clicked sharply as she closed it with less than her
usual calmness.

During the evening she had been wakened sharply from a pleasant doze by
a sensation of sinking, which had left her faint and dizzy. At the same
time the clock had slid perilously along the mantel-shelf and the china
dogs had fallen. There had been a noise of earth and stones that rattled
upon the roof from the ivied bank above it. No doubt, in that lay the
whole explanation, and she knew how _that_ must have happened. Drat them
boys!

As the day passed, the hurrying crowd passed with it, and the moon
looked on an empty road and a small gray building in which Mary was
sleeping peacefully. No doubt Mrs. Swadkins would call in the morning
and tell her the news. There must be a fair somewhere.

The morning came, bright, and warm, and peaceful, and though Mrs.
Swadkins did not call she had other visitors. They were some men from
the mine. They carried the body of a woman, and asked leave to lay it on
her bed. They had two children with them wrapped in their coats,
children that were alert with hunger, but shy of strangeness, aware that
they were kindly held, but looking ever with a pleading wonder at the
still form on the bed which they had tried so hard to waken.

Tom Aldworth was one of these men. He was wet through as though he had
been in the pond. She guessed an accident, but she could get no
reasonable details. As to that, she never did. It was two days before
anyone had the sense to tell her the real news; that the Hall had been
burnt down while she slept, and no one had got the engines from
Netherfield. There had been floods, too, worse than those of 1910 if
they told the truth--but "folk will exaggerate." It seemed that most of
her old neighbors moved away after the Hall was burnt. Anyway, they no
longer came to see her. And those who did come, after a time, brought
her more fish, and less of other things, than she needed.

Also, a few days after the storm, there was trouble among the miners and
some strange men that had come into the district. Other changes came as
changes will; but they did not greatly affect her. Ten years after, she
died.

I should be sorry to give the impression that Mary Wittels was an
exceptionally foolish woman. She had, among other things, the practical
helpfulness that is common to those who live lonely lives and minister
to their own necessities.

She quickly discovered that Helen was not dead, and fortunately for
Helen she knew nothing of medicine. There were very few doctors or
nurses of that time who would not have worried the faint spark of life
into extinction, after the fashion of those who poke too zealously at
the faint effort of a flickering fire till it gives up the unequal
contest. It would have been unfair to blame them. They had been taught
to do so many things, some of them of a quite useful or comforting
nature, few of which would have done any harm to a healthy body. They
had also developed an expert technique for rendering death as arduous
and prolonged as possible. It would not have occurred to them that a
life which had survived the exertions which had prostrated its body, and
the exposures of the night, would be very unlikely to retire when that
body was quiet, and warm, and unworried. Besides, had she died under
such circumstances, they would almost certainly have been accused of
having done nothing to save her.

If many people at the extremity of weakness were waked, and washed, and
harried to death, others were healed very skilfully. But only very few
of the poorest and lowliest of that time were allowed to die in peace.

Mary did no more than to cut off the sodden garments--partly dry where
the morning wind had reached them, but still soaked where they had been
beneath her--and to cover her warmly, giving her the hot-water bottles
which she kept for her own comfort.

She had told Tom Aldworth that he must bring milk and other things for
the children, and he returned with these later in the morning. She did
not ask how he got them.

She asked for money, which he gave her freely, but told her that the
printed slips had lost their value, as he did it. Tom Aldworth would
have his joke.

Later Helen waked to an uncertain consciousness. She drank the milk that
was offered. She knew that the two children were lifted in to her, one
on each side--there was no other bed--and she returned to a contented
oblivion.

But she did not quickly recover. There was no one to name her malady.
Were it pneumonia, or rheumatic fever, or both, or neither, there was no
one to tell her. Pain and thirst she knew; fever and delirium. Through
it all the children slept beside her. In conscious intervals her weak
hands held them. When she was at her worst, she would change to
contented sleep when the old woman lifted them in to her. And they were
very quiet and very gentle as they lay beside her, with the age-old
wisdom of children, their minds aware of the present, without the
preoccupations of the years which civilization would have destined for
them, making their later lives to pass with the deadened consciousness
of an unhealthy dream.

In the end, as the days dawned and the sunlight fell on her through the
open window, the fever left and health returned very slowly.

Through it all the old woman ministered to her, sleeping in a cushioned
chair by the hearth with her legs on another. She thought of the five
one-pound notes in the tea-caddy, and felt that she could not grumble,
though her bones ached somewhat in consequence.

Every day Tom Aldworth brought the milk and food which they
needed--except for two days, when he was absent, and food was scarce.

Then he came again, with a bruised chin and a reddened bandage round his
arm. Trouble there must have been, but it did not come near them.

Then he was as regular as before, and the children learned to look for
him, and would run to meet him along the road where vehicles no longer
passed to their danger.

But after a time Tom stopped that. He spoke to Mary vaguely of cattle
that might be wandering, and then, seeing that he had not impressed her,
more definitely of a "mad dog" that was running loose. She was alarmed
at that. Mad dogs were in her own tradition. Jim Poulton's great-uncle
had died of a mad dog's bite, and Jim had inherited the cottage at
Cross-over, and married Jane Welch in consequence. Everyone knew that.

So she approved when Tom put a new chain on the park gate, and a padlock
of which he kept the key, even though she could not have got out herself
had she wished to do so. He was so careful that he went at times through
the park itself to see that the mad dog was not there, and strengthened
the weaker spots in the fencing.

But nothing vexed them, neither dog nor cattle, and the day came when
Helen could sit out in the little porch, and Tom would stay to talk with
her.

Naturally, with returning strength, her thoughts turned to Martin. She
felt sure that he lived. She did not blame herself. She knew that Martin
would feel as she did that the first thought must be to save the
children. She could not have done this had she waited for his return.
But she realized that he must suppose that they had perished. It was her
first duty to seek him. She questioned Tom eagerly as to where he might
still be living, and the way by which she could search.

Tom did not refuse to help, but was not entirely encouraging. He saw
difficulties in such a search at which she did not guess, and of which
he was not quick to tell her.

He knew that there was a considerable expanse of country--probably half
of Staffordshire, and stretching further west than that county, above
water. On its northern portion there were a considerable number of
people living who had been arrested in their flight by the surrounding
floods. He believed the southern portion, where it was possible that
Martin might still live, to be inhabited very thinly, if at all, except
by some roving bands of licentious character, who had been expelled from
the general community, or had voluntarily left it. He had himself been
engaged in a conflict which had resulted in the expulsion of some of
these. He said vaguely that it was a question of the treatment of women.
Some had been killed on either side in this fighting.

Among those who remained she learned that there was great confusion.
There was no government. There was neither freedom nor discipline.
Appeal was made to old laws, or their authority was denied, as advantage
turned the scale.

There was no settled law of property. Each man took what he could find,
and kept what he could hold. Crimes of violence were frequent. There had
been communal acts of lawless justice. Spasmodic attempts at order and
government were springing up, and jealousies and disputes were
destroying them.

Helen saw that she would have no easy task; and there were the children
to be considered. Anyway, she must wait till she should be stronger.
Could she ask this man, who had done so much, to do more to help her? It
was while she dwelt doubtfully on this thought that an accidental
discovery unexpectedly assisted her. It was the back-sheet of a picture
paper, such as had been produced daily in millions for a race which
could afford to purchase them, but which could not exert itself
sufficiently to feed its children.

Over the top were the words "=The Watson Murder=." Beneath
was a portrait of Martin as "Leading Counsel for the Accused," and then,
in the dock with a warder on either side, "Thomas Aldworth." She had no
doubt of the identity. The name and the likeness were sufficient
evidence. She remembered that Martin, who had no regular criminal
practice, had taken the brief because he had known the prisoner's
mother. He had told her that he had done it because the boy was worth
saving, and there would be no chance for him whatever if he fell into
the hands of Burtis Kennet, or any of the lawyers who made a reputation
by defending clients who were almost always hanged at the conclusion of
their eloquence.

Having this knowledge, she hesitated as to the use, if any, to which she
could put it. She owed much to Tom Aldworth. She could not tell whether
he knew that she was Martin's wife, and were actuated by any motive of
gratitude. She had told him her name casually, not supposing that it
could have any significance. But that was after he had been waiting upon
them through the first weeks of her illness, when he could have known
nothing.

She knew that he had companions now, though she had seen nothing of
them. They might know of his past. More probably (she supposed) they
might not. He might not welcome the fact that she should be aware of it.
Nor would she care to use it to coerce him to unwilling service. She
decided to say nothing; but the knowledge made this difference, that she
had the less scruple in asking him for any further help which he might
be willing to render. This she resolved to do, but, with a fine
instinct, she first destroyed the newspaper which provided evidence of
his identity.

After she formed this resolution there was a second unusual interval of
two or three days during which he did not come. When he came he appeared
tired and preoccupied, but on her saying that she had decided to set out
the next day to find the place from which the floods had driven her, or,
at least, to see how nearly she could approach it, his reply was alert
and decisive: "You cannot possibly do that now."

She said: "I don't see that it need be such a great matter. I know where
we are now, and I don't think my home could have been more than twenty
miles from here--and perhaps not more than fifteen in a direct line. You
have told me that at least several miles in that direction" ("More than
that," Tom interjected) "is above water. I feel sure that my husband is
living, and I know where to look for him. He could not suppose that I
have escaped, nor would he search at this distance. I may be wrong in my
hope, and he may have died, but if I see how far, and in what direction,
the country was flooded, I can better judge whether this hope has any
reason to support it, and if he be alive it should not be difficult to
find him. Surely there must be some on that edge of the flood who have
escaped, and they would know if he be living."

Tom was not quick to speak. He had many things on his mind of which she
knew nothing. He had no reluctance to serve her, but she was asking more
than she knew.

He felt that there was much to explain. She had been living in a world
of which she had no realization. In the eyes of this world, she was his
woman, though she did not know it. He had only to say, "I do not want
her," and she would be very quickly taken by others. Even here, that was
so. Farther south--

He felt that he must tell her all, but he found it hard to begin. He was
not naturally eloquent. And there was a space between them that was not
easy to overcome. The friendliness of her eyes was so remote. Even her
gratitude came from a distance.

She was five years older than he, and he knew that she regarded him as a
boy. The natures of men and women had not changed, though they were
reacting differently to a new environment.

She saw that he was silent and embarrassed, which was significant of
something exceptional, for his words and actions were usually of a
direct simplicity.

They were standing outside the door of the lodge when she first spoke.
She was of the same height as he, though she appeared taller. She looked
at him in some wonder at his silence, and his eyes fell before hers. She
saw a young man, short but broad, strongly built, with a blunt-featured
face, showing character rather than intellect. Not a weak face, but one
that a child would trust in an instant, as her own children did trust.
As she trusted.

He was conscious that here was the woman for whom he longed, of whom he
dreamed, whom he had saved and guarded, standing before him in a
recovered loveliness, in his power, and dependent upon him. His surely
by the strongest rights, and his to take without restraint except only
the restraints of his own nature if such there were.

His by every right! What would she say if he told her? And the time had
come for the telling.

A fear struck her that he might know that Martin was dead.

She spoke in a voice that was low and troubled. "You have something to
tell me. Shall we sit here?"

She led the way to a rustic seat by the gate, which he had repaired for
her use.

It was afternoon, and the babies were asleep on the bed. The old woman
dozed by the hearth. They were alone beneath the unchanging trees. Only
the weed-grown drive showed that the hand of man had been lifted from
the land that he had once tamed to his purpose.

Tom spoke awkwardly at first, not knowing how best to begin, but the
woman he addressed was neither child nor fool, and she may have already
guessed or imagined more than he supposed of that which he had to tell
her.

"You couldn't go alone," he began. "You couldn't go alone _anywhere_. I
couldn't take you safely into the part you came from, unless we were a
large party. I'll find him for you, if I can--if you really want him. I
don't suppose he's alive. It isn't likely. But he saved my life once,
and now I've got to do this. But I hope he isn't."

The last expression burst out as though against his will, and he lifted
his eyes suddenly and gave her a direct glance as he said it.

"Tom!" she exclaimed. "Why on earth----" And her eyes fell, and her
voice sank into silence.

"You've got to understand," he said doggedly. "If we leave here at all,
you've got to go as my wife. It's the only possible way. If you don't
want me, you must choose someone you like better. They wouldn't help you
to find a man that's gone. It isn't sense. You couldn't expect it."

"But," she said, "I thought you told me--I know there's no law now--but
I thought you said that you had driven out the men who----"

He interrupted her. "So we have. So we did. Some of us got killed doing
it. Some more of us may get killed tomorrow. We haven't finished yet.
That's another tale that I've got to tell you. Then you'll understand
better. We've given the women more choice than we have ourselves. But
they've got to choose. I'd better tell you how it began.

"When the earthquake came, the land broke north of here. It's as though
it broke across and was pushed up. If you go north, you come to a high
cliff and look down on sea. Nothing but sea. If you go south, it's
mostly downhill until the land comes to the sea and goes under. It's as
though it was lifted sideways, although, of course, very slightly.

"When this happened there were still a lot of people on the roads that
go north. When the roads were snapped off short they had to stop--if
they hadn't gone too far. Those behind came on to the same point, and so
there were hundreds of people along the northern edge, but few left in
the land behind them.

"Most of the people were in a state of panic. In the first weeks many
died. Some from disease and exposure, some from violence, some because
they just seemed too frightened to live. They robbed each other. They
searched ruins for plunder. It's not much better now. But some of us are
trying. We know there's a winter coming.

"I was down a mine when the first trouble came. There was a fall, and we
thought we should never get out. But we did at last, along a disused
working. I needn't tell you about that. When we were out it took some
time to find out what had happened, and longer for some of us to believe
it.

"We were a mixed lot, but we had one advantage. We knew each other, and
most of the other people were strangers.

"So we kept together more or less, and the others feared us, till we
quarreled among ourselves.

"Most of our men had lost their wives and families. If they weren't
killed in the ruins they had fled to the north and been drowned. When
they understood that this thing had come to stay, they wanted others.
That was the trouble. There aren't enough women to go round. Not nearly.
There was quarreling and fighting, and some women were taken by force
from those who were weak or friendless. Some of them were very badly
used.

"We got a meeting together to try to settle what should be done. It was
proposed that things should be left to go on as they were, and if two
men wanted the same woman they could fight it out. But most didn't like
that. The women were too few. It meant too much fighting----

"No one wanted you then. You were too ill. They didn't think you would
live. That's why you were left alone. I asked whether they would listen
to a proposal from me which would be fair to all. I said I shouldn't
claim anyone except you, anyway. So they supposed I should be fair, as
it meant nothing to me, and a lot of them listened.

"I said the only peaceable way would be to let the women choose for
themselves. I said that every woman could say which man she preferred,
and if he were willing to have her, that ended it. If he were not
willing, she must choose again. There weren't many men that were
unwilling. They were too much afraid of getting left altogether.

"But if a woman wouldn't choose, I said she must take her chance. With
only one woman to every four men, you couldn't ask those men to fight
for a woman to keep her unmarried, unless she'd a good reason to show
for it. Anyway, they wouldn't have done it. I had done all I could.

"But a lot wouldn't agree. There was a man named Rattray--he got
killed--and Jerry Cooper, and a big brute named Bellamy. They wanted to
dice for them, or to have them in turn, one way or other. We quarreled
over that, and drove them out. Some went with Bellamy, and a lot more
with Cooper. We were all the better without them.

"But they are wandering about to the south, plundering what they can
find. I don't think they have any women at all. Certainly not many. We
didn't think they'd dare to come near us again, but last week some men
from Bellamy's gang came in the night and stole a girl from a place
about a mile from here.

"We knew we'd got to stop that, so a number of us set out to search. I
was one of those who found her. She was dead. But we know who did it.

"Tomorrow morning we're going out to hunt them. There are about forty of
us who are willing. We intend to kill the lot. They will be no loss, and
there will be no safety for anyone till it's done. We shan't interfere
with Jerry's gang, unless they interfere with us, but I expect it will
come to the same thing in the end. It must.

"We've got to make a new start, and we ought to make it a good one."

"But," she said, her mind striving honestly enough to visualize the
things he told and to understand them fairly, and yet reducing them to
the personal equation, as a woman will, "it doesn't seem a good start to
make women marry against their will. It seems savage to me."

"It's not much use saying that," he answered shortly, "unless you can
tell me a better way. A way that'd _work_. We haven't tried it long, but
it seems better than it used to be. Of course, it's different from if
there were more women. You've got to look at things as they are."

"But what should you do if a woman refused to make a choice at all?" she
asked anxiously.

"They don't," he said bluntly, and she fell silent. She thought that she
must find Martin at any cost, at any risk; and to do this she had only
the aid of the man beside her, to whom she owed so much, and to whom, in
the eyes of all that remained of her civilization, she belonged already.

Her mind went off on a fresh track. "I suppose," she asked, "you let
them be married properly? You haven't abolished marriage as one of your
improvements on the old order?"

He stared at her in a moment's silence before he answered.

"We haven't got any registrars, if you mean that, and the churches went
with the rest. It's not that that makes a marriage." His meaning was,
perhaps, more clear than his grammar. "And the clergy haven't been very
fortunate in surviving. There was one man who started preaching about
hell-fire, and Bellamy threw him over the cliff before anyone could
interfere. It was one of the reasons for driving Bellamy out, though I
don't think any of us had enjoyed the preaching. We thought we had
troubles enough. The flood's rather washed religion out, hasn't it?"

"I don't know that," she said quietly, "if it were true a year ago, it
must be true today. A flood cannot change it--even such a flood as this.
But I see how you felt. It wasn't quite the right kind of preaching for
those who heard it. But I think that men must always have a religion.
They will rather have a bad one than none at all."

"I don't know," he said, "I never had much. But things are all wrong as
they are. And getting worse--and they'll go on getting worse, unless we
can find someone to boss them."

He fell silent. Both of them had the same problem in mind behind the
conversation that screened their dispositions for a battle that must be
fought out before they parted.

As he did not continue, she asked a question natural to one of her
social and political experiences. "If there's so much confusion, why
don't you have a meeting, and choose someone to govern, someone to get
things in order?"

He laughed shortly. "Yes, it sounds easy. We tried that. But how could
people choose who were all strange to each other? And who was to say who
was to vote and who wasn't? Some said the women should vote, and some
wouldn't have it. We quarreled over that, and got no further. You have
to begin somewhere. We've got no start. And most of them didn't come,
and wouldn't have cared what we voted. They were looking for food. But
I've learnt one thing. It's only strength that counts. Anyway, it's only
strength at the start. But they'll most die when the cold comes, if
nothing's done. There's a lot that are dying now. It isn't all the best
men that got saved. Votes? No, by God!" His voice rose to a sudden
energy that startled her, for she had never heard it from him before.
"I'll tell you this. There are forty chaps that are coming with me
tomorrow, and if we knew of any man who was fit to boss this show, he'd
have his chance, and if that damned Butcher tried to stop it, he'd go
after his motor----"

"After his motor?" she inquired in some natural confusion, that did not
pause to ascertain whether Butcher was a surname, or indicative of an
occupation which had a necessary and honorable place in the social order
from which she came.

"Oh yes," he said, "the lads sent the motors over the cliff. Best thing,
too."

He did not explain why these evidences of the progress of civilization
had received such treatment.

"Now, _he_ could have done it," he began again, and she knew at once of
whom he spoke, though no name passed between them. "I almost wish he
were here." He turned to her with the vigor of a sudden resolution, and
she knew that the moment of decision was upon her. "I'll tell you what
I'll do, and I'll tell you why. But I shall want a promise from you.

"He saved my life once. I was caught, and tried for murder. I'd done it,
right enough. I told him that. I didn't see I was much wrong. It was
Dick Winter who started it. He asked me to join him for a lark in a
burglary at a house near where we lived. Of course, I said 'Yes.' I'd
have said 'Yes' to anything. Life was so dull then. We didn't know what
was coming. If I had, I'd have waited. And then I should have stayed at
Tanner's Green Colliery, and been drowned, and shouldn't have been here
now. Life's a queer game, however we play it.

"We thought the place was empty, but when we got there Dick funked. He
said he'd stay outside and watch. I never saw him again.

"I went in, and I hadn't picked up anything before I had a pistol bullet
by my ear, and a voice shouting to me to put my hands up. I put them up
right enough, but there was a table by where I stood with a stick lying
on it, and my hand went up with the stick in it, and came down just as
he fired again. He didn't hit me--I don't know whether he meant to--I
think he was too scared to know himself--but I hit him. He was dead next
day. They said he had a very thin skull--and the stick was a loaded one.
How was I to know?

"I got away, but they caught me. They proved there were two of us, and
that one stayed outside. They proved that I was one of the two. They
proved a lot, but they couldn't prove who was with me, and they couldn't
prove which of us went in. I'd had the sense to wear gloves.

"So I was sent for trial. My lawyers wanted to defend it differently,
but he had his own way. He wouldn't trouble about anything except that
they couldn't prove it was I that went in. He just held on to the one
point that even a murder case has to be proved, and it was their
business to prove it, not ours to prove I didn't. We didn't trouble to
dispute that I was one of the two.

"I didn't think he'd win it, but he got the judge half-way with him, and
the jury went the rest. I suppose they all thought I was guilty by the
line we took, but it came off right in the end.

"Now I'm not going to take his wife if he's alive and wants her. I'm not
that sort.

"I'll look for him where you say, and if he's there I'll bring him back.
You can't ask more than that.

"But if I can't find him, you're mine, and you've got to promise that
first. I'll look for him straight enough, and if he's not found you're
mine in a month from now. I won't ask whether you'd rather I found him.
I'm doing this for him, not for you. I'll never ask that. But you've got
to promise first. I've done something for you already--I dare say I want
you more than he ever did. And you can't go now and pick up another girl
in the next street. I think that's a fair deal all round, and I hope
you'll say the same."

He looked at her rather anxiously, but there was an expression of dogged
determination about his mouth, which told her that he was prepared to
fight for what he thought his rights, though he might not wish to do so.

She said: "Even if you don't ask, I must tell you. You have been good to
me, and the babies, and I know we might have died but for you. I can see
that we owe our safety to you all the time. I'm not ungrateful. I
suppose it's generous of you to say you'll help me at all, if you feel
as you say; but I don't care for you in the way you mean. I don't care
for you in the least. It's the truth, and it's best said. If you'll help
me, I'll thank you, and if you won't I'll set out alone."

"Oh no, you won't," he said. "I go on my terms, or not at all."

She flashed into sudden anger. "If you think you'll get me that way,
you're just wrong. You never will. I'd kill myself sooner."

"No, you wouldn't," he answered, her anger turning his own mood to a
smiling geniality. "You'll find we'll get on well enough. You'll be glad
enough before long. Besides, you forget the babies."

Yes, for the moment, she had forgotten the babies. Her heart sank at the
thought, for she knew that, at the worst, she must yield at last. She
might put off her decision, she might escape in the night, but what fate
would be hers in such a world as he had shown her? What fate would come
to her children?

He seemed to understand her thoughts, for he went on. "You think it's
hard now, but it isn't really. If he's dead, you must marry someone.
That's sense. That's what women are made for--and men. You can't stop at
two babies. You're too good for that. We're learning to look at things
straight, and to see clearly."

It was a strange wooing, without any familiarity or attempted
tenderness. He had his own ideas of honor, and he would do nothing till
they were agreed upon the death of the man who had once fought to save
him; but he had made her feel that she was in his power, and that he
would have his way in the end. She knew also that it might have been
worse, and that there was some right in the claim he made. She showed
how far she had weakened when she said: "Anyway, a month would be far
too short a time to prove anything."

"No, it wouldn't," he answered. "You don't understand how things are. If
he's alive, I'll find him in less than that. But it's that or nothing. I
needn't go at all."

"You won't go alone," she said, "I shall come with you."

"No, you won't. You couldn't. You _won't_ understand," he said with a
note of unusual exasperation. "You're safe here, fairly safe, because
this road leads nowhere now, because there's twenty or more of us
camping between you and the land side, because they know I'm not one to
play tricks with, because they haven't seen you since you were carried
in, washed-out and dead-looking, because they don't know you're well
again. But you won't be very safe when I'm away, and you won't be safe
at all if I don't come back, unless I promise you to someone I can trust
before I go."

"If I don't come," she asked, "how shall I know that you have really
searched?"

"Because I say so, and because I needn't do it, and because I've told
you why," he answered, and in the end she promised. What else, she
thought bitterly, could she do? And yet she was not wholly unhappy. She
believed that Martin lived. She believed that Tom would play fair. She
believed he would find him. She had trusted so often to Martin, and he
had never failed her yet. Surely he would come before it should be too
late. And she had saved his children! She believed that she would meet
him yet without reproach or sorrow.

She lay awake that night for a long time, praying that he would come
back before the month should be over, and meanwhile, in the warmth of
the forest night, in the deep grass that grew between the oak and the
brambles, Martin held a woman down beneath an arm that was tense with
passion, and gave his answer to a voice that pleaded: "_For always, and
always?_"


[II]

They were twenty-nine men, not forty, who met Tom Aldworth next morning.
Some who had promised did not come, having good reasons or bad ones.

Some of those who did, were unwilling that so many should set out
together, not trusting those who would be left.

In the end he set out with twenty-two others, of whom he was the actual
though not an elected leader.

His position was given tacitly in recognition of a proved and stubborn
courage, and a mind that was always sure of its own purpose. They had
found him ready and unflurried in moments of difficulty, with a
straightforward habit of mind that sometimes made a muddled issue look
simple. It had become a saying among them that "you are always sure of
Tom."

They had learned to recognize in him also a sense of equity which gave
confidence, and the value of which was realized in the lawless chaos to
which they had fallen.

This chaos is sufficiently indicated by the smallness of the force which
was now setting out. It is true that it was comparatively well armed and
equipped for its purpose, which its members had little doubt of their
ability to fulfil. But their aim not being merely the defeat, but the
extermination of Bellamy's gang, properly required a decisive
superiority in numbers, as well as in spirit and weapons, and it is less
than creditable to the majority of those who had joined before in the
common interest, to expel the more brutal elements of the community,
that they should have been absent now. But there was not here a
sufficiently urgent necessity or immediate danger to unite them in more
than verbal indignation. They were agreed that vengeance must be
executed, but most of them were content that the necessary exertion
should be their neighbor's portion. Even of those who had definitely
promised their help nearly half were absent.

But neither Tom nor his companions were greatly worried by these
defections. The men who had assembled represented the best and the
boldest elements in the fortuitous community to which they belonged.
They all had firearms, either their own property or borrowed from
neighbors for the purpose of this expedition. The gunroom of a country
house, which had been occupied by a nobleman of the game-preserving
order, and which had escaped the ravages of storm and fire sufficiently
for its armament to be little damaged, had supplied the majority with
the lethal weapons they carried. But it was somewhat surprising to
observe how generally the survivors of this world catastrophe had been
able to produce or discover arms with which to defend themselves or to
assist their depredations.

On the other hand, Bellamy and his followers, having been taken by
surprise, had been disarmed before their expulsion, and even the four
rifles which we have seen them to have possessed had been subsequently
acquired, and their existence was not known, though it was obvious that
they might have found some means to arm themselves afresh in the course
of the nomadic plundering by which they lived.

Only in the event of Cooper's band obtruding themselves into the
argument, which did not appear a probable contingency, was any serious
fighting anticipated.

A long chase, with a scattering of those they sought, was an issue of
which they were more fearful, and to avoid this they were concerned to
move with speed and secrecy, and to surprise their intended victims.

It does not appear that there was any doubt among them as to the
justice, as there was certainly none as to the expediency, of their
intention. The men of Bellamy's gang could not all be equally guilty,
and some might be entirely innocent of the abduction and murder which
they were avenging, but, to the mind of Tom Aldworth at least, the
problem was capable of only one solution.

The men who had been expelled with Bellamy had been of such character
that they had looked to him as a natural leader: they advocated
conditions of life which would have destroyed any possibility of a
decent reconstruction of the civilization which had been swept aside.
The incident which had occurred was a natural consequence of such an
outlook.

The evil must be dug up from the root if they would not spend future
years in abortive picking of its poisonous seedpods.

In looking at the position from the outside, it must be recognized that
a community in which men predominated so largely could not easily adjust
itself without conflict.

Nature, holding an impartial scale, would not fail to secure that the
men most fitted to the new conditions should become the fathers of the
next generation, although an individual life might fall to the dice of
chance.

It was the exceptional fate of these people to have to live through
conditions the most opposite in human experience. Having abolished the
name of slavery, they had evolved a severity of social discipline beside
which the average circumstances of the world's slaveries would be of a
licentious freedom. Suddenly they were removed from these restrictions
to a condition more chaotic than those which had prevailed among the
savages of Central Africa before they had bent their necks beneath the
foot of the European.

****

The little force marched lightly, three pack-horses in their rear being
sufficient for their equipment.

Before noon, following the London road, they had left twelve of its
milestones behind them. They could have made more rapid progress, but
they were controlled by the pace of scouts who were moving cautiously
forward through the fields on either side, which were often too
overgrown for easy passage even where the necessity for cover did not
embarrass them.

Their way was through the wooded beauties of Cannock Chase, which,
washed by rain and fed on clean sea-air, were recovering from the
pollution which had degraded them. The highroad itself, showing a
hardened and petrol-poisoned surface, still lay, a gray wheal from the
whip-lash of civilization, across the face of the land.

It would have shown little change from what it had been three months
before but for the piteous dbris of the northward flight, which was
still scattered upon it. These relics of disaster, together with the
ruins of walls and buildings, the wrecks of trees, and poles, and wires,
would have made vehicular progress slow, if not impossible, without a
clearance, for which there was no inclination among those who had
survived the event which caused them. Even the led horses often advanced
with difficulty, and this was sometimes increased by their own
nervousness, as when one of them stubbornly refused to pass the rusted
wreck of a limousine, which appeared to have turned a somersault in the
middle road after striking a hand-truck which it had overtaken and now
lay with the clean-picked bones of a human arm projecting from beneath
it.

But for a party of men on foot the road still allowed a quicker and
easier passage than the fields and woodlands could offer. It was also
safer, for the cattle, which were becoming wilder with every week of
their recovered freedom, were disposed to avoid it, lurking rather by
the sides of pools or in wooded places.

At the end of twelve miles they came to a point where the main road no
longer supplied either a direct route to their objective or the cover
which they felt that the remainder of their march required.

Here it crossed the cutting along which ran the single line of rail with
which we are already familiar, and it was by this route that it was
resolved to continue the advance, in ignorance, of course, of the events
which had drawn the gang they sought to occupy it a few miles further
south.

Students of military history know how wide is the gap between the
theoretic and actual speeds at which even a small force in the lightest
marching order can advance into a hostile territory.

The track between the metals was good enough, though it was now grown
with a variety of coarse weeds, obscuring the sleepers, against the
edges of which the horses stumbled frequently, but before that stage was
reached they had to be persuaded to the descent of a bank which was too
precipitous for their liking, and after the load of the first had been
overset, it had been decided that it was necessary to unpack them and
carry their burdens to the foot of the bank, where they were reloaded.
Being so lightened, the horses made no further trouble about the
descent, but an hour of tiring work in an afternoon of oppressive heat
had been necessary, and when three or four miles further advance had
been made, the desire for a second halt (for they had rested for some
time before leaving the road) became too general to be ignored in a
force which knew no more discipline than is derived from a spirit of
good-will and the inspiration of a common purpose.

It was Tom Aldworth's proposal, the common sense of which had been
easily approved by his companions, that they should endeavor to locate
the camp they sought before the darkness came, but that they should not
make any near approach until the night had fallen. Then they would
surround it completely and attack it when the light returned.

As they approached the climax of their enterprise, Tom was conscious of
an uneasy fear lest they should be met in a manner too pacific for their
own intentions. His disposition was far from implacable, and he realized
that what may be planned in the heat of indignation or at the dictates
of reason may be difficult to execute in cold blood at a later period.

He would have been very honestly indignant had it been suggested that he
desired that any of his companions should be killed or wounded, yet, so
illogical are the instincts of humanity, he did almost articulately hope
that those whom they pursued would offer violent resistance to the fate
which he intended for them.

But plans and fears alike were wasted. Possibly no action, probably no
campaign in the world's history, has conformed to the tactical or
strategic anticipations of either leader. Even Sir John Moore was forced
at Corunna to give reluctant battle; even King John (a very able
strategist) lost his mobility in the Wash; even Nelson--and Tom Aldworth
was none of these.

Yet he showed more discretion than has distinguished some generals of
international eminence, for when a faint haze of smoke was observed to
be ascending about half a mile before them he halted at once, drew his
little force into cover, and sent Jack Tolley forward, on the blind side
of the hedge, to ascertain its meaning. He felt that his caution had
been justified when the quiet of the late afternoon was disturbed by the
thudding echo of rifle-shots a few moments later.

The scout returned speedily. He had the virtue of reporting that which
he saw with a literal accuracy, neither blurred by imagination nor
confused by comment.

He stated that there was a tunnel about half a mile ahead, at the
entrance to which a dump of coal had burnt itself out, and that the
embankment on either side had also been alight, with the fencing above
it. At one place it was still smoldering. A dozen men and a woman, some
of whom he recognized as having been driven out with Bellamy, were
watching the entrance to the tunnel. Two of these had rifles, and shots
from these were fired into the tunnel at irregular intervals. But
Bellamy was not among them, nor was Smith, of whom they were
particularly in search.

These facts were capable of an explanation which was accepted too
lightly. The gang might have quarreled among themselves, and Bellamy,
with those who still held with him, be besieged in the tunnel to which
they had retreated.

If they were engaged in destroying each other, there did not appear to
be any urgent necessity to interfere. Certainly they did not wish to
fight Bellamy's battles.

There appeared to be no reason why they should hurry their plans to such
an extent as to disclose their presence before the darkness fell. They
pitched camp in a wooded hollow near the line.

Recognizing that a tunnel has two exits, Tom sent the scout to explore
further. He discovered that Joe had enlisted the help of four of the
gang, who were throwing up a barrier which was already becoming a
serious obstacle to anyone who should seek to come out at the further
end.

Being men skilled in the handling of pick and shovel, they had made
rapid progress, working two from either side and avoiding exposure to a
direct line of fire by raising a mound before them as they advanced.
They were cutting a trench of considerable depth across the entrance to
the tunnel, and had removed a section of the rail as they did so. Joe
had no intention of allowing Claire to escape in the night.

He sat on the bank, in the pleasant coolness of the evening air, smoking
placidly and watching the labors of those that he had induced, by
whatever promises, to carry out his plans.

As he did so he hummed his satisfaction at the increasing mortality
which afflicted his companions. He had no doubt that Bellamy was dead.
There had been the shots--and then the silence, and that was hours ago
now.

            "Bellamy lies on the cinder track;
            They die of something, and don't come back.
            I don't care what, and I don't care who,
            For they're far too many when girls are few."

He thought with much contentment of the dead, contorted body which he
had seen in the tunnel. He thought he could contrive that there would
soon be others. He flicked a gnat from his wrist before it had time to
bite. He had a very sensitive skin....

The scout's report made it clear to Tom that the occupants of the tunnel
were undergoing a siege of a determined character, but gave no cause to
alter the supposition that the gang had quarreled among themselves. On
his return, the scout had noticed that a cart was being brought into the
field beside the line, and that the besiegers were evidently intending
to camp there for the night.


[III]

War is an art, not a science. Its practice has been compared to the
strife of the chessboard, but there is no similarity. To approach a true
comparison we must imagine the game of two players whose sight should be
so imperfect that they would see clearly only on their own side of the
board; the portion from which their opponent's pieces would advance to
attack them being dimly visible or in absolute darkness.

It is obvious that Martin and Claire might have left the further end of
the tunnel without opposition after their defeat of Smith and Donovan,
and again after the death of Bellamy, had they then been in a condition
to do so. Even when Joe returned for the third time with his four
assistants it is doubtful whether any one of them, having no firearms,
would have stood his ground against a resolute sally. But they could not
know this. They were afraid of the risk, and their fear was reasonable.

Yet when they saw the barrier being raised which would render it
difficult for themselves and impossible for the trolley to pass out by
that exit, they were disposed to regret that the risk, however great,
had not been taken.

It was evidence of a settled purpose to besiege them, which was, in
itself, daunting. It showed that their success in killing those who had
invaded the tunnel had not been decisive in its results. They had only
the vaguest knowledge of the number or personalities of their opponents.
Others might have joined whom they had not seen at the camp. They
realized that they might be attacked at any moment, either by night or
day, or they might be merely blocked up until discomfort or starvation
should dispose them to make terms with their besiegers. They must be
incessantly alert for an attack that might never come.

To Reddy Teller the position was very simple, and he had no intention of
prolonging it. Among those of the gang that still lived he was--apart
from Joe, who was scarcely reckoned to be one of them--the most capable,
the most resolute, and possibly the least scrupulous. It was his
disadvantage that he was not popular. Yet the plan that he
proposed--after Joe had left them--was adopted readily enough. It was
simply that they should wait for the darkest hour of the coming night,
and then creep in silently and without lights.

If their opponents should be awake and in equal darkness they would have
the advantage of numbers, while being otherwise on an equality; if their
opponents should have any light they would be at a disadvantage, and the
man could be shot and the woman taken with little risk. It sounded
simple, and Teller, though not otherwise an attractive character, was
not lacking in the courage or resolution to carry it out, as we may
judge from the promptness and accuracy with which he threw the stool
when he first came under our notice.

He had been content for Joe to occupy himself in blocking the further
end. It not only prevented the escape of their intended prey, but it
removed Joe and four others from the scene of the successful action
which he anticipated. Reddy planned to be on the spot when Claire was
captured, and he did not mind how many others should be absent. _The
fewer the better fare_, was his motto.

Joe was equally assured of the superiority of his own strategy. He had
acquired a wholesome respect for the prowess of those they sought, and
he was well content that others should take the risk of the capture. He
was not even disposed to think that the first attack would succeed. He
might have countered his rival's proverb with _He laughs longest who
laughs last_.

No doubt Joe was underrated by his new companions. He was not a heroic
figure. He never had been that, and his newly acquired obesity was of an
undignified order. They knew nothing of the cool and skilful riding
which had made his reputation in a world that was already losing
reality. He might prove a Napoleon of the new days, but even Napoleon at
Acre... It is so difficult to be wise before the event.

And even Napoleon might have failed to provide against a foe of the
proximity of which he was entirely ignorant. Fate was unkind to the
military dispositions both of Reddy and Joe in this particular.

Tom Aldworth, better informed of the position on the chessboard than
were any of the four whom we have already considered, and having the
further advantage that he was aware of the extent of his ignorance, was
yet left by the scout's report the victim of an indecision which he did
not disclose to his companions.

It had been clear to his earlier mind that the whole gang must be
destroyed, and that hesitation today would be the regret of tomorrow. He
had influenced others to this opinion. Having a habit of thought which
was direct rather than subtle, he told himself quite honestly that he
still held to the same view. It was immaterial that all might not
(indeed could not) be equally guilty of the outrage that had brought
this verdict upon them. They had labeled themselves by the leader and
companions that they had chosen. But the absence of Bellamy and of the
one of whose guilt they were the most certain, the fact that the gang
(as it appeared) were fighting among themselves, and the possibility
(however unlikely) that the difference might be of the nature of a moral
revolt against Bellamy's leadership, disquieted his mind, because he
felt unable to decide on the right course of action until he were more
fully aware of the facts, and he had a reasonable conviction that their
purpose would never be fully carried out should they commence to parley.

He sat silently facing this problem while his companions slept around
him. They were tired after the day's march. It had been understood that
they would do no more till darkness came. Four of their
number--condemned to vigilance by the verdict of a spun coin--were
watching from the surrounding cover. They did well to sleep.

But Tom Aldworth, leader in fact if not in name, and therefore servant
of all, must wake and think. After doing which he rose and walked over
to Ellis Roberts, who opened his solitary eye and sat up as he
approached.

Ellis Roberts was a spare, grizzled Welshman who had migrated from the
Corris Valley to the Cannock coal-fields when the importations of
Portuguese slate had resulted in the closing of many of the poorer mines
in the former locality. He had lost his left eye, and had been fortunate
to escape so lightly, when a comrade's carelessness in the blasting
operations in which they were employed had endangered the lives of a
dozen men, and he had risked his own to warn them.

"Ellis," said Tom, "we ought to find out what's going on in the tunnel.
Could you get six of the boys to go with you--or more if you think you'd
need them--and catch one of the men at the other end? I expect he'd tell
us. There are only five men there, and it shouldn't be difficult to
surprise them. They'll be watching the tunnel, not the bank above. If
you catch one (or more, for that matter) and settle the rest, you'll
need to bring him back here, and leave enough of the boys to take their
place. We mustn't let Bellamy escape, or the others. But there can't be
many shut in or they'd need a larger force at that end to hold it. It
looks like one, or two at most. But they must have some reason for
wanting him, or them, very badly."

"You mean catch one and kill the rest?" said Ellis. "Did Tolley see who
they were?"

"Jack Tolley got close enough to count them, and he says that he's sure
of Ted Watson and Navvy Barnes. There was one man that he didn't know,
and he thinks the fourth was Hodder. He's not sure of him. He didn't see
any arms. These four were working--blocking the exit from the tunnel.
There was a little fat man beside, but he's sure that he hadn't seen him
before. He wasn't one of those that were with Bellamy when we turned
them out. He was sitting on the bank by himself."

Ellis thought for a moment, and then said: "I think six ud do. If we
surprise them, six is as good as sixty, and if we don't they'll run and
be lost in the dark. Barnes wouldn't fight, nor Watson. They'd scare too
easy. Hodder might, if he's there.... Yes, I'll do it."

He got up and went round the camp to pick the help he needed.


[IV]

Martin, his mind struggling to recover consciousness of its environment,
was aware of Claire's voice from the darkness. His head throbbed
painfully, but she had drawn it to the comfort of her lap, and he had no
disposition to move or speak. He did not understand clearly what she was
saying. It was by an effort of reluctant will that he asked at last: "Is
he dead?" He knew that there were many things of which he should be
thinking, many things that he ought to do, but he did not want to
remember them. He would face them at the next moment--and the moments
passed. When he brought himself to speak he did not know that his voice
was scarcely audible.

Claire answered quietly. "Yes, he's dead. There's no need to worry about
him, or anything."

He relapsed into silence, which she did not attempt to break.

When she had recovered from her own fainting--the first that her life
had known--and had found Martin still unconscious as he had fallen, she
had risen to the emergency, as some women will. She lost even the
feeling of exhaustion which had previously overpowered her. She had
located the injury more by touch than sight in the half-light of the
tunnel, and had found means to bathe and bandage it with clean linen
from her store of clothes on the trolley. But first she had found and
reloaded the pistol, which now lay near to her hand, and as she sat
against the rails with Martin's head on her lap, she watched and
listened incessantly, her eyes on the arc of light at the entrance, her
ears alert for any faintest sound that might come from the darkness
behind her.

As she watched she thought. She saw with an increased clarity, in the
light of her new experiences, that it was necessary to face the altered
conditions of life without evasion or flinching, and that only those who
could do so successfully would be likely to survive them.

Different though they were--widely different, both in character and in
mentality--she and Martin were alike in this, that they could think
honestly and were capable of acting without regard to prejudice or
convention as their reasons prompted.

She knew that Martin had hesitated to shoot a fallen man, and that it
was owing to that moment's weakness that he himself was now helpless.
She did not blame him. Far from it. But she recognized that it was an
error for which the price must be paid. For this time she did not think
the price would be heavy. She had gained an increased confidence now
that Bellamy was dead. She was alert and cautious, but she was not
fearful. She recognized that Martin's need was time for recovery, and
that every moment in which nothing happened was a moment gained on their
side.

But for the future, if they desired life, they must learn to shoot first
and to think afterwards. Ultimately, she realized that force rules under
whatever guise.

Were they, then, to degenerate to conditions of savagery? Surely it did
not follow. In material things, in most of the luxuries to which they
had been used, there must be great changes if they were to live on this
small and isolated territory. There must be hard work, hardships,
privations. But she saw that this was an entirely separate question.
Hardship and poverty are not inconsistent with nobility of life and
conduct. Ultimately, that must depend upon the characters of the people
concerned, upon the social order that they build, upon those whom they
choose to regulate it, or who are imposed upon them by force or craft.
In the next generation it must depend upon the children that they bear
and upon the training they give them.

Somehow, from the survivors of the civilization that had been swept
away, a new tribe must be formed, a basis of mutuality established: and
its nature would depend at the first upon the characters of those who
had escaped the deluge. There must surely be some who were different
from those that she had yet met--and the more of the higher and the
fewer of the baser sort the better it would be. Her mind went over those
that they had killed. So far as she could judge them they would have
been little help for the new community. Her reason told her that
Martin's life and her own were the more valuable. Still, it was by
successful violence, and through no other quality, that they were alive
at the moment. She thought of those they had killed. Four. She did not
include the man who had fallen into the fire. That was not their doing.
For that matter, she did not know that he was dead. But there was the
woman that she had killed, and there were the men that lay between them
and the daylight.

Startled by the thought, she realized that of the four, three had met
their deaths at her own hands. Was she stronger than Martin? She knew
she was not. More capable? Not that either. Braver or cooler in danger?
She did not think so. Was she more blood-thirsty, more merciless? She
did not think that either. Even two days ago she would have regarded it
as incredible that she should take life time after time. It was not
significant that it had been her part to kill them. It was just how the
cards had fallen.

Anyway it was loathsome work. She had seen enough of what hostile
violence can do to the human body when she had been nursing in France,
but those wounds had been almost all from the blind force of explosives,
and she had never been on the actual scenes of hostilities. In books men
fought and died with a discreet gentility. A sword went neatly through
the body, a bullet entered the head, or the heart (for the fatal cases),
or the lungs (for those that were to reach an interesting
convalescence). It was all done with propriety. There was none of this
ghastly scuffling, _With confused noise, and garments rolled in blood_.
The old Hebrew poet who wrote that must have seen fighting.

Her mind reverted to the man whose head was on her knees. It was true
that he had hesitated where she would not have done so. It seemed that
the event had proved him wrong. She did not avoid the issue, nor did she
doubt him. She was content--more than content--with the man she had
found and chosen. She would be true to him till life failed her, as he
would be true to her. She was as sure of him as of herself, and she was
glad of her choice. She did not doubt that he was wiser, as she knew
that he was stronger than she. Perhaps he saw more broadly, more truly,
than she was able to do. To see all sides does not conduce to prompt
action. She had seen that force was the ultimate court of appeal. But
was it the ultimate height, or the ultimate depth only? _And yet show I
you a more excellent way._ That was also a thought that must be faced
without flinching.

Her mind attacked the problem from a different angle. Why was there the
need for violence? What induced or required it?

She saw herself clearly as the cause of these deaths. She had brought
death when she landed. It was incidental that any of them should have
come from her hand. But they were hers equally, whoever might deal the
blow. And why was it?

They fought because they were men and they wanted the same woman. That
was natural. In a way it seemed right. She fought for her own choice
among them. That seemed right, too. It was right that the best man
should succeed among those who desired her. It was not only best for the
individual, it was best for the race. There was the mystery of the
further life. Of children that would or would never be.

Among all the impulses that urge mankind there can be none where the
stake is greater than that.

It was right that the best man should have her, be the price what it
might.

But if one of them should have killed Martin would she not be his by the
same law? What was best, and by what standard of judgment? There was
confusion here. Confusion of two ideals. The right of the man's strength
and the right of the woman's choice. Could they accord, and, if not,
which was the higher?

It would be interesting to talk it all over with Martin at another time.
His mind was better than hers. He could analyze more clearly, perhaps
more coldly, than she. She had learned that already.

Thinking of this, she realized another aspect of the problem of life
which confronted her. She knew quite well that Bellamy had not seized
her with any purpose of comradeship or permanent union, of mutual
obligation or ultimate parenthood. He had obeyed a fierce instinct which
worked without thought of her welfare, or any further purpose than to
satisfy its own craving. Having done this, and being of a kind that
takes no thought for the future, he would have passed her over to his
companions for the same purpose. They would have pursued their purpose,
though she should have been injured by their collective brutality. She
might have died. She had heard of what had happened to another unhappy
woman a few days before.

But this horror was not natural. It was incidental to the fact that the
men who had survived appeared to be so much more numerous than the
women. Even so, she knew that all men would not act in the same way.

Martin would not. Yet she remembered that he had taken her himself very
promptly, not without violence, and it was to hold her that he had been
fighting. What was the ultimate distinction?

Love and lust--in the language of Victorian subterfuge. But she knew
that that distinction was less than honest. Martin had not desired her
less than those men. She would have instinctively resented the
supposition. Nor was it for love of Martin, whom she had never met, that
she had risked her life in the waters. She saw clearly that if she had
not met Martin--if he had never lived--she would have sought another,
and probably found him. That was no cause for shame.

It was in the free choice of mating, the acceptance of its obligations,
the loyalty that held as fast in distress as in prosperity, that the
difference lay. She saw clearly that the desire of man for woman, or of
woman for man, is not a base thing that can be sanctified with
difficulty, but a sacred thing that can be too easily degraded.

It was while she thought thus in the darkness that Martin stirred and
spoke again, his voice stronger and clearer than it had been previously.
"I don't think I'm much hurt. What happened?"

She told him briefly. He answered: "I was a fool--a slow fool. But he
didn't seem dangerous. I shan't make that mistake again. You did well."
He fell silent. He went over all that had happened. He recognized that
the woman whom the sea had given him was one that might not be equaled
among a thousand. One fit to survive while millions round her had
perished. He saw that she was one of those who had come through, not by
blind chance that saves or slays as it will, but by her own strength and
courage. Many of the unfit might still be living, but there should be
enough of those who had survived by their own exertions to improve the
race of the future. One of these was surely the woman that now was his.
Was he such a one? He was less sure. Anyway, he was very fortunate in
having gained her.

It was natural, from such a thought, that his mind reverted to Helen.
Suppose she had lived.... He knew that she could not have come
through their recent perils as Claire had done. She had not the physical
strength of the woman who had trained herself in battle with the power
of the waters that were destined to overwhelm her race. She had not the
courage. She had not the nerve--not, at least, of the same kind.

There was no disloyalty in his thought. Only a sharp pang of regret for
the days that were gone forever, for the lost love, the lost
comradeship. Suppose that she were still living? It was a fantastic
thought. His reason told him that it could not be. But if she were?
Would he not rise to seek her at the first hint of such a possibility?
He knew that he would, and that Claire would have no power to stay him.
Would she wish to? Would she come with him on such an errand? He
wondered. He looked up to eyes that could be dimly seen in the shadows.
Eyes that he had already learned to trust and know. Gray eyes, wide and
clear, under brows that were black and heavy. Eyes that were not looking
at him now, but gazing watchfully at the arc of light where the tunnel
opened.

He knew that she was not one to think or to act meanly. Yet what she
would say or do in such a case was beyond his knowing. Ought he to have
told her of Helen? What use was there in waking the pain of the drowned
past?

He tried to turn his thought to the urgent needs of the moment, but the
fancy held him.

Fifteen miles away, Helen, sitting beside her sleeping children, with
the shadow of Tom Aldworth's threat on her mind, prayed with a fierce
intensity. Surely Martin lived! Surely, if he lived, he would find her!
She did not think of another woman. She would not have cared if she had.
She knew so well that his love was hers--she knew him so well. But she
did not know that he lived, though she would not allow herself to doubt
it. He _must_ come back. He must save her.

So she prayed as the light fell. Did her thought reach him?

At least, his mind was on her. Suppose, he thought, that she still
lived, by some miracle that was beyond his guessing. He should go back
to her. That, at least, would be right. Did he wish to desert Claire?
No, never that. Ought he to do so? He had pledged himself to her, in
good faith and without reservation. There might be a child--hers and
his. He was not troubled by the old laws; they were gone. But what would
be right in such a case? It was strange that he should wonder over a
question that could never arise and which he could not solve.

Could a man be equally loyal to two women at once? Reverse the thought.
Would he have shared Helen with another man? Would he share Claire? The
thought was monstrous. Yet wherein was the difference? He saw that there
is one. In the old days people had chattered of the "equality of the
sexes." Probably they had meant nothing. They seldom did. If they meant
anything they did not know what it might be. They were trained to avoid
logical thought. If their minds came against a custom, a convention,
they would not face it; they turned aside and thought crookedly. He saw
that there is a difference. If a woman live with two men the parentage
of her children is doubtful. If a man live with two women there is no
such confusion. Each child knows its father and mother. Each mother
knows her own child. There are other differences. It is flouting facts
to ignore them.

Yet his mind went further, and he saw that there is something under such
conditions which the woman suffers which the man does not. All the
children are his, but they are not hers. Here is root enough for a
fierce jealousy--for a fierce hatred.

His mind was on the issues of polygamous marriage, not on casual
physical infidelities. He had never interested himself, except as his
professional work had required it, in the baser ways of mankind.

All this was academic speculation only. Helen was dead. He knew that.
Yet it was an instinct of loyalty both to her and to Claire which
decided him that Claire ought to know. Or was it that Helen's prayer was
not unheard, and that this impulse came as its answer? It may have made
some difference in the end that Claire's mind had been prepared for that
which must follow. It is hard to say.

Anyway, he told her. He told her of Helen and of the children. He did
not disguise his sorrow. He did not suggest any possibility that they
could still be living. Helen could not even swim; and the flood would
have overwhelmed the strongest. Besides, he knew that she would never
have left the children.

When he finished, Claire said simply: "I am sorry. If you can think of
any hope, we will search for them together, when we get clear of this."
She did not doubt that she meant it. She was not one who lightly yields,
or who readily shares beyond reason, but her mind was on the mother and
the two children that the floods had swallowed. She was glad, as she had
been before, that her own child had not lived.

Martin felt that she spoke with sincerity, and her sympathy deepened his
affection for her. So she gained by her giving: proving, as she did so,
that there were still powers in the world besides the rule of violence
which had seemed supreme as she had considered it. _And yet show I you a
more excellent way._ Perhaps there were other powers that were not yet
dead.


[V]

As they talked, they watched the entrance to the tunnel, and the time
came when they noticed the blocking operations that Joe initiated. The
significance was obvious. The killing of those who had first attacked
them had not disposed of their danger. Rather, it seemed to have led to
a more determined and systematic investment.

Naturally, the question rose of whether the other end were being blocked
in the same way. If it were, there was an end to any hope of escaping
upon the trolley. They would have to fight it out there to the last, and
must be destroyed in the end, unless they could annihilate their
opponents, or inflict such losses that they would decide to leave them.
And they did not know how numerous they might be. The prospect was not
hopeful. Its realization brought Martin to his feet, with a decision in
his mind. He was unsteady at first, and his head was painful, but beyond
that he was none the worse. He said: "We must see if they are closing
the other end. If so, we've got to fight it out here, and we've got to
think how we can injure them, and how much, and how soon, and how often.
If we can do it safely, we must strike first, and not wait till they
come at us. Every man we can kill or wound is one more step to safety.
But if they haven't closed that end, we'll try to get out tonight as
best we can, and take the chance of the dark."

Claire said: "Do you feel fit?"

"Yes," he answered, "I'm well enough, and it's my own fault if I'm not.
I shan't make that mistake twice."

They shared a meal, for which both were more than ready, allowing
themselves a light, as it seemed unlikely, from the activity at the
tunnel-mouth, that any immediate attack were intended. Even if they were
to be invaded from the other end, and the work they now watched were
mainly to prevent their flight, it was natural to conclude that the
attack would not come till the hole should have been securely stopped.

Then they mounted the trolley, extinguishing the light again, and poled
cautiously toward the other end.

The night was falling as they approached it. The fires had died down,
though they still smoldered. They ventured close to the entrance,
encouraged rather than otherwise by a random bullet. The danger was
small, as the shots came obliquely from the top of the embankment, and
they were evidence that no enemy was penetrating stealthily inward
through the darkness.

They could not observe that the line had been disturbed at this end, and
Claire's impulse, now that they had decided to sally out, was to take
the chance at once; but Martin differed.

"They won't start pulling rails up tonight, if they haven't done so
already," he said reasonably. "And we shall have a better chance toward
the morning. If they want us to come out, they've probably set a trap a
little further on. Suppose we found the line pulled up, and a dozen of
them around it? But in a few hours they'll be asleep, more or less, and
the darkness will make us equal.

"What I propose is this: we'll just pole ourselves clear of the
entrance, and then push the trolley on, and leave it, and take our
chance up the bank. If they expect us to try to escape that way, it will
deceive them, and in the dark we ought to get clear. We must just let
our things go. Our lives are worth more than they are."

So it was agreed, and to fit them for what was before them they arranged
to sleep and watch in turn; Martin, in spite of his wound, insisting
successfully on the first spell of this vigil.


[VI]

It was three hours after dark when Ellis Roberts came back to the camp.
There was no man with him except the prisoner he had captured. He had
come quietly enough, for his hands were tied, and Ellis led him in a
noosed rope which tightened round his neck very easily. It had been
necessary on several occasions to stop for Ellis to loosen it, in spite
of all his prisoner's efforts to avoid any pull upon it. Progress under
such conditions had not been rapid, but Ellis would take no chances.

The camp was awake now. They had risked a fire in the hollow, having
decided that those they sought were sufficiently occupied to be unlikely
to discover it.

In the flickering light they crowded round Ellis and his prisoner. Ellis
passed the halter to the nearest. "Take him, someone," he said, and sat
down on a fallen tree. "Boys," he said, "I want a drink." His single eye
gleamed with its usual intelligence as he set down the mug, but his
tanned and wrinkled face looked pale in the firelight. They saw a long
cut across the back of his left hand on which the blood had dried, for
he had not troubled to bind it.

Tom came through the group, and sat down beside him. "Hurt, Ellis?" he
said.

Ellis followed his glance, and looked down on the injured hand. "That's
naught," he said; "but I've got a bash in the ribs. Reckon it won't
count by tomorrow." He sat silent. He was never quick of speech. They
waited impatiently.

"Tell us, Ellis," Tom urged.

He seemed to rouse himself with an effort. "They're mostly dead," he
said at last. "We did the job right enough. They killed Bill Horton. Ted
Wrench got a knock on the head that's left him silly. He'll be right
enough. I've left them to guard the way out. The rails are pulled up,
but it's not really stopped. I didn't see the fat man, but the rest are
done for. When we----" His voice, that had become slower and less
distinct as he went on, now sank to silence.

"Better lie down, Ellis; you're fair done," said a man near him. Ellis
did not hear. His mind was back in the fight. He had been wrong about
Navvy Barnes. He had come at them like a wild beast through the bullets,
his shovel whirling round his head as he did so. It had struck Bill
Horton on the back of the neck, and he had fallen forward with his head
half severed from his body. Then Barnes had come at him, and for an
instant their glances had met in the firelight. He had seen the
murderous rage in the eyes of the cornered man, as the shovel swept
round toward him. He had fired, coolly, with careful aim, and because a
bullet is more speedy even than the swiftest motion of human hands, the
blow that struck his side had lost most of its force. He had fallen, but
he had been up again in a moment. He had led his prisoner here, though
every step had been painful. It was strange that it was so hard to think
how, or to be sure where he was----

It was Jack Tolley who caught his arm as he slipped forward.

They made him as comfortable as they could, but his injury was beyond
their skill or resources. They found a badly bruised side, and evidence
of a broken rib. They thought that he might be better when he had slept.
But in the morning he was dead.

His mind had been clear, for a time at least, after they had laid him
down, and his words showed that he had little doubt of what was coming.
"Jack," he had said, "if I go out, she's yours, if you'll have her. But
you must look after the kid."

Jack had looked round at his companions. "You heard that, boys?" he
asked, and they had nodded in answer....

Tom looked at the prisoner. It was the man called Hodder. The man that
"might" fight, if he were cornered. Ellis had not been sure.

Hodder was a short awkward man, somewhat bent in the back. He might be
middle-aged. It was hard to say. He was rather like a battered ape in
some aspects. He could use pick and shovel well enough. Beyond this, he
had habits rather than character. How he would react to new
circumstances was difficult to forecast. Even the folly of the past
civilization, which had affected to believe that all men were equal
(whereas there were no two alike in all its millions), would hardly have
contended that he would be likely to benefit by the curious compilations
of fact and theory which they required their young to assimilate, or, at
least, to remain unoccupied for a period of years which might be
utilized in that way.

When the time came for choosing, he had chosen Bellamy. There was
nothing else against him of any definite kind.

"Now, Hodder," said Tom, "where's Bellamy?"

Hodder shook his head. Actually, he did not know.

"There's a branch over your head," said Tom, "a good, strong branch. I
shall hang you there if you don't answer."

"Can I go if I does?"

"We'll see about that," Tom answered, whose own mind was not clearly
decided on that point; "but you'll certainly hang if you don't. Where's
Bellamy?"

"In the tunnel."

"Is he alone?"

"I dunno; Joe said as he went in."

"Then who's with him?"

Hodder looked puzzled. "I dunno that," he said doubtfully. Tom glanced
upward. He thought, with some excuse, that Hodder was wilfully reticent.
Hodder, who had some excuse for his difficulty in following the line of
examination, made haste to add: "There's likely him and the gal."

Tom did not follow this statement, but it made him realize that he was
not questioning to any good result. If the paradox be excused, his mind
was illuminated by the fog it had raised. He tried a broader method.

"Tell me," he asked, "what you know about those who are in the tunnel,
and why you were shutting them in."

Hodder was not good at narrative. If, under the influence of a due
allowance of beer, he indulged in reminiscences among his mates, he
might repeat himself a score of times before any coherent meaning
emerged from his rambling sentences. But fear is a sharp spur, and he
started off now with a hurried confusion, which had almost the effect of
fluency.

"Muster Bellamy"--the title which the floods had somehow swept from the
speech of men, sounded queerly to those who heard it--"Muster Bellamy
stole 'is gal. A fair 'ot un 'er is. 'Er knifed Sal, 'an got clear.
Struck 'er 'ere." (A hairy paw rubbed the left side of his neck.) He
grinned with the pleasure of the recollection. It was a fault of
articulation that caused Tom to suppose that it was Sal's ear that had
suffered. Not knowing the lady, he let the point pass without further
elucidation. "We lost 'em in the dark, and Joe Timms shot 'is own 'and.
Joe says as 'ow they killed Smith. I dunno that. It was Sal as tied 'er.
Muster Bellamy 'ad just 'ad 'is pork. 'E looks round, and down it come.
Knocked 'im flat, it did. Reddy throws the stool and down 'e come. Over
the fire it were. 'E throws it back, and Spink falls in the fire. On 'is
face, he does. Muster Bellamy's gone to fetch 'em out. Fair devils they
be."

He paused, his face in a kind of hellish ecstasy, as his mind recalled
the violences which he had been privileged to witness, after nearly
fifty years during which it had been mainly fed on the records of crime
and shame which the reporters of the daily press had collected for the
mental diet of his kind. For forty years the power of reading which had
been driven into his boorish brain had been exercised in no other way.
He had been given this mysterious power, for which he had not asked, and
had been fed on filth for its use. But he had only read of crime before,
and now he had been privileged to see it.

He stood silent now, fully believing that he had given a full and clear
explanation of the events of the last two days.

Tom shared his delusion. To his mind it seemed clear that there had been
a quarrel in the band which had developed to a murderous affray, in
which both men and women had joined. A woman had killed another of her
sex, and then fled into the tunnel with a male companion, pursued by the
vengeance of the friends of the murdered woman. Bellamy appeared to have
ventured in alone to deal with them. That seemed likely enough.

There was nothing in the tale to excite sympathy for the fugitives. But
it was all evidence that the gang must be stamped out. Tom saw that more
clearly than ever. Ellis was hurt already. Bill Horton was dead. Bill
had been a better man than the best of Bellamy's gang. Such things would
go on while they remained.

There were points in the picturesque confusion of Hodder's statement
which Tom should have noticed. Points which suggested a less simple
explanation than that which he accepted so quickly. Points which Martin
would have seized in a moment. But Tom had neither Martin's brains, nor
his legal training.

He did, however, make one further effort. He asked: "Who is the fat
man?" He remembered that he had been apparently in charge of the
operations at the further end of the tunnel, and that Ellis had failed
to catch him. He was not one of the original gang.

Hodder stared a moment. He could not understand why the question was
asked. The caution of the under-dog had taught him to be slow in such
circumstances. He said, at length: "That's Joe. The jockey."

Tom was puzzled. Jockeys are seldom fat. But it might be a nickname,
perhaps given in derision. It didn't matter anyway. He said: "Was he in
the fight?"

"Not 'e," said Hodder, "'e don't fight. 'E don't count nowt."

"But you said he shot his own hand?"

"No, I dain't," Hodder protested with a flicker of indignation. "That
were Joe Timms." His mind was puzzled by the stupidity of his
questioner, who could not tell one Joe from another.

Tom gave it up.

There remained the question of what to do with the prisoner. There were
no jails now. It must be kill or loose. He did not think the man
dangerous.

"Now look here, Hodder," he said, "I ought to hang you, but we don't
want to, unless you make us. We've come here to settle Bellamy and all
his lot. If you do as you're told, and give no trouble, you won't get
hurt. If you don't, you'll very soon be a dead man. You can go where you
will, but we shall hunt you down, and you'll be shot like a rabbit."

Hodder looked round the group that were watching him. They were men to
fear. Men to obey. Men with whom he would be safe. He had no love for
danger. He was well content to remain.

They took the noose from his neck. They untied his hands. He watched Tom
go off into the night with a dozen men. He was told to stay in the camp
with the two who remained. "Will they kill Muster Bellamy?" he asked his
new companions. His only regret was that he would not be there to see
it.


[VII]

It would be idle to narrate the dispositions by which Tom and his
companions surrounded and surprised the camp of their enemies. Tom was
something less than a military genius, and the information would add
nothing to the records of the art of war. In itself, the operation
lacked interest, because they found it empty.

One of the horses had gone. They attached no importance to this, if they
were aware of it, but it was actually of far greater moment than the
absence of the men they were seeking. Had they done so, it would have
made no difference, for the animal, under Joe's able guidance, was
already some miles away. It was a good many years since she had felt
anyone on her back who knew how to ride, and the experience recalled the
far-off days of prideful youth, before a shaft had galled her. Joe rode
with a purpose, and though the night was cloudy, he was able to keep a
fairly direct course, and he knew when it was better to trust the mare
than to depend upon his own judgment. He had time enough, and he made
good progress through the night.

Besides the remaining horse, they found Joe Timms of the damaged hand.
He made no resistance. He was not aware of the sanguinary intention with
which they had called so unexpectedly. He made no objection to telling
them that Reddy and the rest had started to explore the tunnel about an
hour earlier. Had he been asked more, he might have given a more
coherent narrative than Hodder had supplied, but, in fact, he was not.
He was of a somewhat higher intelligence than Hodder. He had been a
laborer of the lowest type in the old order. Coarse, foul-mouthed,
brutal, and commonplace, he had yet kept within the laws of the
civilization which had produced him. His only trouble had been a fine of
forty shillings for throwing a live kitten on to the fire, and even this
had been on a Saturday night, when it could not be expected that he
would be entirely responsible for his actions. Tom dealt with him as he
had done with Hodder. He received the same promise, but judged that it
would not be kept if there should come a safe opportunity of breaking
it.

The fact that the camp was empty raised a fresh problem, which his
companions looked to Tom to resolve. They had accepted without protest
his assumption of control when he had sent Ellis on his successful
foray. They had left him to question Hodder and to decide his fate. They
had let him plan the attack which had won them an empty shell. It was
natural that they should now look to him for guidance when an unexpected
situation confronted them.

Tom's inclination was always toward the most direct solution of a
confronting problem. He could plan with some intelligence when plans
were needed, but his instinct was for the frontal attack. It is
sometimes a successful method, but it is not economical.

Now he decided on a direct pursuit through the tunnel. This was
hazardous enough, as operations in the dark are bound to be, but there
was this to be said for it, those whom they pursued would have no reason
to apprehend an attack from the rear, and would be very unlikely to have
taken any precautions against it; also, the further end of the tunnel
was held by so small a force that a collision could scarcely fail to be
disastrous to those who had been stationed to hold it if the whole of
Teller's band should emerge upon them.

Tom decided to follow Reddy with the best speed they could make, and
dispatched Jack Tolley to warn the little party who had captured the
further exit, both of the forces with which they might have to deal and
of the attack which he would be making upon their rear.

Jack Tolley made his way very speedily, having the faculty which
remembers a path which has once been followed, and which is not confused
by the darkness. He was in good hope that he would arrive before Reddy's
party, they having, presumably, to make a cautious and contentious
passage, and was sure that he would do so before Tom Aldworth's pursuit
should have arrived, even if it were not delayed by any earlier
opposition.

First he was, but none too soon for his purpose. He found the little
party crouching under the barrier which had been raised across the
entrance and listening to a sound of rifle-shots which came at irregular
intervals from the cavity of the tunnel. They told him that they had
first heard them about half an hour earlier, and at a much greater
distance. Two or three times since there had been pauses of silence,
after which they had sounded nearer. They had not thought of danger to
themselves as they leaned over the earth-mound listening to this enigma
of conflict, till Harry Swain had been struck by a bullet. Since then
they had crouched under the barrier, uncertain whether to attempt to
obstruct the issue of the tunnel occupants should they attempt it. They
were obviously relieved that Jack had come to advise and reinforce them.

They had, perhaps, some excuse for vacillation. Of the six men that
Ellis had chosen to accompany him, Bill Horton lay dead under the bank,
Ted Wrench sat nursing a bandaged head, and fully convinced that he was
unfit to assist them further, and Harry Swain, whose collar-bone had
suffered in its collision with the stray bullet already mentioned, was
obviously off the active list, though he was less ready to admit it.

They had stamped out the fire which had been first lighted by the gang,
of which Hodder alone was now living, and around which they had since
warmed themselves very cheerfully, considering that it would make them
easy marks for anyone who approached from the tunnel darkness. But
Tolley, with better judgment, proposed that it should be started again,
and so built that it would throw its light on anyone who should attempt
to clamber out of the tunnel. With himself, there were four unwounded
men, and two of these stationed on each side of the embankment, and
being amply supplied with firearms, could make the exit sufficiently
hazardous and would be able to distinguish friends from foes, while it
would be difficult for anyone to see them across the glare of the
firelight.

If, as he anticipated, they would soon encounter a rush of Reddy's
party, with Tom in chase, an oblique fire would be less dangerous to
their own friends than one directed down the course of the tunnel. The
fate of Harry Swain was a warning too clear to be disregarded.

The plan being agreed, the fire was quickly waked into a fresh activity,
a supply of wood for the night having been collected by its first
builders, and they then arranged themselves as Jack had suggested.

The night was much chillier than had been those that preceded it. It was
cloudy also, with a fine rain which was little more than mist falling at
intervals. But it was not very dark, and was becoming less so, for the
moon was rising and the clouds were of no great density.

Jack Tolley kept his eye on the black arc of the tunnel and his rifle
ready, but his thoughts wandered. His weapon was a sporting rifle of a
very light pattern, and had been ignored by his companions, who
preferred something of a more formidable aspect.

But it suited Jack. It bore a famous name. It was as neat, and slim, and
precise as its owner. It was as well-kept as when he had picked it from
the rack in the gunroom. Jack's neatness had been a joke in the miner's
cottage where he used to lodge. He had been a clerk at the mine. He had
risked his life to give aid and warning when the cage had jammed in the
main shaft. Probably he had saved his life by the risk which had
appeared likely to lose it. He was a clerk who had come through--a
living proof that a man may be greater than his environment.

He had been accurate in his work. He had been accurate in all he had
done since. His companions still joked at his neatness.

Now his thoughts wandered, but they were not without discipline. It was
natural that as he lay there he should think of some of his poaching
exploits in the old days. Expeditions so coolly planned, so carefully
executed, that no one had ever guessed them, unless it were his parents
in a Yorkshire village to whom he posted the game. But he must not think
of them. He supposed that they had perished. He had trained his mind not
to think of the old things. But there was Madge. He would have Madge if
Ellis died. He supposed Ellis would die. He was the last man to make a
fuss about nothing. He must have felt that he was fatally injured or he
would not have spoken as he did. Jack did not hope he would die. His
thoughts were clear and clean. But if he did... He had tried to get
Madge for himself. He could not understand why she had chosen Ellis. A
man twenty years older than he--or she, either. A man with one eye. He
wondered how she would like the change. He knew just how she had felt to
himself. He was too neat, too precise. He was not romantic. He thought
she had liked him better with the fuller acquaintance of the recent
weeks. They had been strangers when the choice was made. But she had
been loyal to Ellis. It would not have crossed his mind to suggest that
she should be otherwise. And there was to be a child. So Ellis evidently
thought. Well, he would do his best for it. Ellis was a good man. But
perhaps he would not die. Perhaps he would die himself. He might get
killed in this hateful scrimmage before the night was over. He thought
of Bill Horton lying at the foot of the embankment beneath him, with
other men that he did not know. It might have been he instead of Bill.
It might be his turn next. Tom was right. They must end it, and then
find some way to live peacefully.... There was a sound of shots in
the tunnel. A sound of voices and of running feet. A man was scrambling
over the barrier. Did he know the face in the firelight? His finger
pressed the trigger, and the man fell backward.


[VIII]

It had been agreed that Martin should take the first watch. He did not
intend that there should be a second. He was resolved that Claire should
have what sleep she could, and he did not intend that many hours should
pass before they made the attempt on which they had decided. He knew
that their chances would be less when the moon had risen. About a
quarter of an hour before moonrise would be best. At that time they
might get clear in the dark and would then have an increasing light to
guide their flight. He turned his plan over in his mind and found it
good. Even a few yards of start, and it would be hard to keep their
trace in the darkness. In the morning they would be far away--free.
Safe. Nothing that he had gathered mattered beside that possibility.
Death tonight, or many years of life--with Claire. It was a great risk
for a great prize.

So he saw it. He saw also that his plan had one defect. They might be
attacked earlier. He must be prepared for that. Thinking of this
possibility, he had an idea.

It was about the same time that Reddy had an idea also. They were both
good ideas, but they did not harmonize. Reddy's ideas concerning the
rising of the moon, if any, were of the vaguest; but he wished to get
the job over before Joe should return, and that might happen at any
time.

His idea was true to the type of his mind, having a simple but effective
cunning.

To search a tunnel some hundreds of yards in length in total darkness
for two people who have shown already that they have both the will and
the power to kill, is not an attractive program. Reddy had no desire to
run any risk, but he had faced it lightly, because he was sure that he
could think of a way of carrying it out with safety. He had first
thought of a silent crawl through the darkness and a deadly blow or a
fatal shot at the man who sat or lay in a lighted place. If his victim
should have a light, that would still be the best way. But he might not.
Then they must advance hand-in-hand across the width of the tunnel. That
seemed obvious, or otherwise their prey might elude them. They might
pass them in the dark and give a clear road of escape. But he did not
like the idea of the human chain. He had wit enough to see that it would
not advance with silence and regularity. If one end of the chain should
encounter those they sought there would be instantaneous confusion. They
might escape very easily. Or the woman might be killed. They must avoid
any risk of that. Or they might kill each other in the darkness. He saw
that they must have a light. But he did not like the idea of being a
target for bullets that might come out of the darkness. Hence his idea.
They would move in two columns, feeling the wall on either side as they
did so, and the two foremost men would carry a rope stretched across the
width of the tunnel with a lantern slung at its center. This would be if
the tunnel showed no light or till they should see one. Then they could
extinguish their own light if it seemed well. This method would enable
them to advance rapidly and in comparative safety, while the stretched
rope would make it impossible that their victims should pass unnoticed.

They had only two rifles, but it is doubtful whether this could be
considered a disadvantage to the attack as he planned it, which did not
aim at a long-distance duel. Firearms are of a promiscuous danger in a
scuffle in the darkness. And the woman must not be risked. Tigress
though she might be, she would yield quickly enough when she saw that
the man was dead. If not, she must be knocked on the head with
moderation. A very quietening procedure.

Though they were short of rifles they were well supplied with a
miscellany of lethal weapons--pistols, knives, bludgeons, hatchets, and
a sheathless sword, which made its owner unpopular as a close companion.

It is the part of a good historian to appreciate the points of view of
all the protagonists whose acts he chronicles. We observe that these men
started down the embankment in an excellent humor. If their enterprise
were somewhat more hazardous than the ferreting of rabbits it had also
the hope of a richer prize. They were hunting the royalest game that a
man may. They had run her to earth, and they had no doubt that they
would have her out before morning.

****

Martin's plan was this. He considered the possibility of their enemies
venturing into the tunnel instead of going soundly to sleep during the
time that he was allowing them, for that purpose.

It was a disconcerting possibility. They had had fighting enough. All
they wanted was to escape in safety. He wondered whether it would be
possible to hide in such a way that a hostile search might pass them,
leaving the way to safety open behind it. He could see no possibility
till it occurred to him that such an attempt would be sure to enter by
the right-hand wall, as the ashes of the fire must have fallen across
the leftward side of the entrance, and must be deep and hot, and would
naturally be avoided. Also, they would be moving as silently and
secretly as possible. They would be in greater fear of being observed
from the inside as they entered than when they were in the darker
interior. Suppose that Claire and he should hide in the shadow of the
further wall and very close to the entrance--would it not be almost
certain that the search would pass them? The position would be so
unexpected. But that would mean waking Claire and leading her to a place
of waiting which would lack the comfort of the bed which he had made for
her on the trolley. Though aware that he was weighing two questions of
widely different importance, he was reluctant to do this. He had thrown
off most of the load from the trolley (for what more did it matter?)
leaving only an outer pile of such things as would give protection at
front and sides to anyone lying upon it, with a bed of blankets and rugs
in the center. So prepared, it was not only a couch for her immediate
rest, but would give them all possible protection when they should
venture out. They had taken it back beyond the bend of the tunnel and
had placed their lighted lantern between the rails about thirty yards
away. They had loaded the rifles that they had collected and laid them
side by side on the trolley; the spear was there also, but its shaft had
cracked in the course of its last struggle with the heaving body of
Bellamy, and, till it should be repaired, its days of good service were
over.

A conviction that they ought not to stay there longer conquered his
reluctance to disturb her. "Claire," he said softly. There was no
answer. He leaned over, speaking more loudly. He touched her shoulder.
He felt her hand that was under her cheek. The fingers closed on his
own, but she did not wake. She murmured something inarticulate, and
relapsed into a deeper slumber.

Why should he not go alone to see whether his plan were practicable
before disturbing her? He was sure that she would not wake. She was in
no likely danger, while he would be between her and the obvious
entrance. He would be a very short time away. There might be a guard
placed in the tunnel entrance already. But if so it would be well to
know. It would be desirable in any event to survey the position before
they should venture out. It might be better to do that now than
immediately beforehand. If he should attract notice it would arouse
vigilance, which might relax again as the hours passed. When they _did_
venture it should be without preliminary warning, and at the utmost
speed to which they could urge the trolley.

These arguments seeming sound, he acted accordingly. He armed himself
with the knife and the automatic. He did not take the lantern, not
wishing Claire to be alarmed by its absence should she awake before his
return, and because he wished to run no risk of observation from the
outside. He felt his way along the wall in the darkness.

He found the entrance to be much as he had expected, and was satisfied
that his plan had been good. Its weakness was that it was now too late
to execute it.

He looked for a moment at the shadowy sides of the embankment and at a
sky in which a few stars showed between the cloudier spaces.

It was very peaceful and very still. He wished that they could start out
at that moment. His inclination was to get it over, either for good or
evil. But he was not accustomed to act upon impulse. He knew that if any
watch were kept it would be more likely to be wakeful now than at a
later hour of the night. He was not sure that it might not be best to
avoid the trolley entirely and to creep quietly up the nearer bank. Even
if they were stayed they could shoot quickly, and there would be a good
chance of escape in the night.

He was about to return, having resolved to awake Claire and discuss his
newer plans, when he was aware of movements--quiet, stealthy movements
that were out of sight on the further side of the tunnel. Round the edge
of the wall, very dimly, he saw a face appear. He crouched back, his
pistol in readiness. After a few moments of silence he heard a cautious
whisper. A lighted lantern came into view. It showed the rat-like face
of the originator of the enterprise. Reddy had at least one quality
which is needed for successful leadership. He led.

Now the men were crawling into the tunnel, _and spreading across it_.
They were between him and Claire before he had realized the danger. He
crouched as low as he could. So far the lantern was held back. He saw
the light gleam on a rifle-barrel or two. There were a dozen men. More.
Should he ever return to Claire? Would she ever know what had happened?
Would she think that he had deserted her? At least she would not do
that. He could kill some of them before they killed him. But what would
her fate be afterwards? He saw that he ought not to have come so close
to the entrance, but it was too late to regret it. Should he run out and
so draw them to follow him? But they might not do so. He knew that it
was Claire that they really sought.

Suppose he did so, and they merely put a guard at the entrance, and went
on to surprise her?

Better to follow them unobserved if that should be possible, or to fight
it out here if he should be discovered.

It seemed strange that they did not see him. More or less, some of them
must have done so, but not clearly enough to know that he was not one of
themselves.

They were lining up now against either wall, the two men who had the
rifles leading on either side. It had been decided that the last couple,
not the first, should have the rope and the lantern. The rope would not
then impede their companions if a rush forward should be needed. They
did not think of retreat. Also, they would be in advance of the light,
and probably nearer than their quarry would realize.

The last man on Martin's side came over with the rope in his hand. They
were to draw it taut before the lantern should be slung upon it.

He did this, giving no attention to Martin, but as they commenced to
move forward he noticed that someone was behind him. He half turned, and
made space for Martin to pass him.

"Now, mate, move ahead," he said roughly. The man at the other side of
the rope was pulling it forward.

On a sudden impulse, that formed as the chance came and the danger
threatened together, Martin raised the knife in his hand, and struck
with the strength of desperation and the bitterness of the dilemma to
which his rashness had betrayed him.

The knife struck the back of the man's neck, severing the spinal column,
and penetrating for half its length. There was a sound from the victim
like a little cough; nothing more. For a second Martin's hand clutched
the haft of the knife convulsively, with the man's weight pulling upon
it. Then, with a saner impulse, he let it go, and caught at the rope
already slipping from a nerveless hand.

During their momentary altercation the man next in advance had gone
forward a few yards. No one noticed what had occurred. Reddy was further
ahead, on the other side. If anyone were puzzled as to what the scuffle
might mean, he was not sufficiently so to start an investigation that
did not concern him. They wanted speed--and silence. Martin felt the
rope pull, and went forward. His knife was gone, but he had his pistol
ready in his free hand. He saw that he was safe for the moment. He
waited his chance.

They went on thus till they came to the bend in the tunnel, on rounding
which they saw the light between the metals. Very dimly the trolley
showed beyond it.

They were advancing very silently. Probably Claire was still
sleeping--trusting to the vigilance of a man who had failed her. He
could not tell how far ahead the foremost of the line might be, but so
long as he went on and did nothing he knew that the danger approached
her in advance of any help he might render.

Now he saw them, as they came level with the light ahead. His plan was
formed now. They were not far in advance. There is an instinctive desire
to keep together on such occasions.

He would wait till he came to the light ahead, and then drop that which
he carried, and run forward. The suddenness of the movement might allow
the seconds which would enable him to get there first. If Claire were
awake she would probably shoot him before he could hope to be
recognized. He must chance that. But he must not start while the light
was ahead. He must not run _into_ the light. That would be to make
recognition too probable. Recognition from those around him. That must
be avoided if possible. While they took him to be one of themselves he
had his chance. At the worst, he could use his pistol, and that would
warn her.

Probably he was right in wishing to leave the light behind him, but he
found the next moment that he had no choice in the matter.

Reddy had conceived an objection to the device of the rope being
revealed, as it must to anyone who might watch from the darkness, if it
were passed over the stationary light. He had crawled back, and was
speaking to the man who had the other end of the rope. Courageously
enough, though his danger differed from anything which he could surmise,
he was now walking over to speak to Martin.

That settled it. Martin gave the rope a jerk which swung the lantern
wildly in the air, and then loosed it.

It went out as it smashed on the ground, and there was darkness round
them, though there was light ahead.

As it fell, the flash of Martin's pistol streaked the darkness. He had
aimed at Reddy, but could not tell with what effect. He ran up the
center of the line as he had never run in his life before. There were
cries around and behind him. A rough hand grabbed his arm, and he ran on
struggling. He changed the pistol to his other hand and fired, and the
hand loosed him. The trolley was close now. From it, a rifle-shot burst,
as it seemed, in his very face. He felt the sting of the powder. He was
just on the point of turning to run round the trolley, and he never knew
whether he had fallen instinctively to avoid the danger of a second
shot, or had stumbled upon the rail, as he did so, but down he came.
"Don't shoot, Claire," he called, as he struggled to his feet, only half
aware in his excitement of the pain of a bruised shin-bone.

"Yes, I knew," she answered, "I fired past you. Can you pole us back?
They are too close."

He was on the trolley now, and a few vigorous pushes were sufficient to
widen the distance. As he paused, a figure came between them and the
light, and she fired again.

She said: "I've got that one. I think I missed before." A hoarse voice
from the darkness confirmed her opinion, almost in the same phrase. "She
got me," it called out, "the damned vixen!" Martin wondered how he knew
or guessed that it was a woman that fired. Possibly her face had shown
by the flash of the shot. He felt for another rifle, and lay down beside
her. He would not use the remaining bullets in his pistol, keeping it in
reserve in case there should be an attempt to rush them.

There was a pause now, and they lay with ears and eyes strained to read
the messages of the darkness, but they did not speak. Explanation must
wait.

The lantern still burned on the ground where they had laid it. No one
went near it. No one passed between them and the light again. But there
were faint whispers and stealthy movements along the sides of the
tunnel. They began to fear that if they fired again it might bring a
rush. Without such a provocation, the attack might be delayed, their
enemies being unable to communicate safely now that they were so close,
and unlikely to start such a movement except in concert.

Very quietly, Martin laid down the rifle, and picked up the pole again.
He propelled the trolley about twenty yards backward. There came no
sound of pursuit.

He picked up the rifle again. He fired into the black vacancy before
them--again and again. Claire did the same. The reports were deafening
in the narrow tunnel.

"Blast the swine! they've got me now, Reddy," came another voice. There
was a sarcastic comment to the effect that he was not much hurt or his
voice would be different. There was a growl for them to be silent.
Martin and Claire fired together at the place from which the voices
came, which was disconcertingly near them.

A scream answered, piercing the stillness. It was repeated again and
again. It was so shrill and agonized that it hardly sounded like a human
voice.

It appeared to infuriate the companions of the wounded man. They seemed
to abandon their purpose of taking Claire alive, and opened fire on the
trolley.

Martin and Claire had the experience now of lying close while the
bullets passed above them, or jarred upon the frame of the trolley.

Martin poled backward again, and just in time to avoid a rush of their
enemies. One man grabbed the side of the trolley. Claire brought her
rifle round, but he caught at the barrel, deflecting it as she fired.
Then the load upon that side over which he was attempting to clamber
gave way, and he fell backward, dragging the rifle with him. She had to
loose it to save herself. The next moment it was being used against
them. In the excitement of the struggle they had not noticed that the
light had increased around them, but now they saw that not one lantern
but several lit the scene, and in the hands of men who carried them
openly. There were many shots now. It seemed that their enemies were
fighting among themselves. They crouched close, for it seemed that the
bullets were everywhere, but ready to defend themselves again as the
need should come.

"What's here?" said Tom Aldworth's voice. "Shoot the man, but don't hurt
the woman."

Martin had his pistol covering him as he said it, but he did not fire.
He laughed easily, the sound coming strangely in the sulphurous inferno
in which they confronted one another. "I didn't think you'd murder me,
Tom," he said quietly.

Tom knocked up the rifle of a man beside him. "Friends here," he
shouted. Actually, the danger of further violence was over. The only two
of Bellamy's gang who were left alive were racing toward the further
exit, where they supposed that their friends would be waiting, there to
fall to the rifles of Jack Tolley and his companions.

Bellamy's gang was ended.

Tom looked at Martin as though he found it difficult to understand that
he were here. He did not ask what chance could have brought him into
such a company. The thought of the narrowness of his escape was upon
him. Suppose that he had allowed Martin to be killed by his companions!
How could he have broken the news to Helen? Would she ever have forgiven
him? He did not think so. But what difference did it make? With Martin
living, his chance was over. His thought passed to the woman who had
been Martin's companion. There was an aspect of intimacy between them
that was unmistakable. As he looked, he saw her lay her hand on Martin's
arm. She said something, to which he replied with a glance that had more
than admiration or affection in its significance. After all----


[IX]

Tom told Martin in the morning.

It is to his credit that he did this when he might have let him go in
ignorance, and Helen might conceivably never have heard of his continued
existence. For Martin wished to go. He met Tom in the morning while
Claire still slept, and the camp was stirring lazily under a sun that
already approached its meridian, and he asked this as a favor.

He began on it at once. He said: "Tom, I don't know who these men are
that are with you, or what your quarrels may be. I won't ask what would
have happened to us last night, if you hadn't known me. I think you
saved my life, so if you owed me anything before, we may call it level.
I'm only asking one thing, and that is that we may get clear away now.

"We have been fighting for two days to save my wife" (so he called her)
"from the men with whom you seem to have had your own quarrel, and I
don't want to have to start again. Your companions may be a decent lot.
I don't know, and I don't ask, but we want to get away by ourselves, and
I think I can trust you to help us. You can have our goods, except what
we can carry away in our own hands. I am only asking you for my wife's
safety. The rest can go."

Tom was surprised. His mind had been too busy with his own trouble to
consider the aspect in which he and his companions were likely to appear
to Martin. He began on the minor issue.

"We didn't know they were yours. You didn't say. Which are they? But
you're quite safe here, and your--the woman. But there are things which
I must explain. Let's sit down and talk it over."

He led the way to the fallen tree where he had sat with Ellis Roberts
the night before. Ellis lay dead now a few yards away. They had covered
him from the flies. He must be buried before they moved. There were
others to bury. They had learnt that it is not wise to leave dead men
for the dogs to find. They grow savage and more bold on such diet.

Tom pondered before he spoke. He was sorely tempted. "His wife." It
seemed clear that Helen was not missed or wanted. Suppose he let Martin
go as he wished? Helen would be his in a month's time. Suppose that she
should learn it later? Could he not say: "I found him with another
woman, whom he called his wife. It is evident that he did not want to
return to you. It was the kindest thing to conceal it." Nor was it
likely that Helen would ever know. Martin's name had not been asked or
mentioned. Why should it? He might go--forever. Life was precarious
enough for all today. Especially so for a lonely man with an attractive
woman beside him.

But Tom could not bring himself to do this. He had given his word to
Helen. There was the old debt to Martin, which should be paid. Beyond
that, he had another plan. He meant to offer Martin the monarchy of the
narrow lands that the deluge had left. He thought that they could seize
it together, and that Martin could save it. But he did not forget
Claire, and found some hope in the thought. He felt that it justified
him in beginning on other things before giving the news that Helen
lived.

"You mustn't think," he began, "that we're like the brutes that attacked
you. We came here to make an end of them, and found you'd done half the
work already. If you'll tell me what the things are that you claim I'll
see that you have them, if they're not too many, and if they're things
that you really need. You can't expect more than that. It's all looting
now. No one earns anything. No one makes anything. No one grows
anything. If we find anything it's ours, but only if we need it. There's
no law now for anything, but that's understood, and seems fair."

Martin said: "All the things in the tunnel were my own collecting, but I
don't want to argue that. Shall we take what we can carry, and leave the
rest? I'm glad they found the pig."

For, after all, Claire's hunting had not been wasted, and a smell of
roast pork was in the air.

"I expect that will do," Tom answered, "but, you know, it's all lawless.
Most of the boys here will listen to me, and we're all trying to get
some order, but if we don't agree, the weak have to give way, or we
fight it out. There's nothing else to be done. And nothing's done that
needs many of us to agree before we start it. And no one works for the
future. Everything's too uncertain. We're just living on what's been
done in the past, most of which can't be replaced. Some of them seem to
think we can go on plundering forever. They're not even saving seed.
What we want is someone who will take control, and make the rest obey
him. If you would do it----"

Characteristically, Tom went straight to his objective. Martin did not
appear to notice. He cut into the moment's pause with a question of his
own. It was vital to any decision as to remaining among them.

He said: "There's one thing that puzzles me. I'd been living here alone
for some weeks. Then I came on this gang that you call Bellamy's. Now
I've met yours, who seem a more decent lot. There may be others. But
I've only seen two old women, and two young ones, and of the two young
ones, one was dead, and the other--I mean my wife--swam here from
another piece of land. Are all the women dead?"

"No," Tom answered, "there are still some alive, and some children, but
the men are the most numerous. You see, we're a mixed lot. Just some of
those who happened not to have got too far to the north when the ground
gave way in front of them. I suppose more of the men than the women got
clear of the wrecked houses and the fires--and some of the worst of the
men, those who only cared for themselves--were among the survivors.

"Then there were those of us that were shut in the mine. When we got
clear it was too late for us to go on northward and get drowned. We
should just have walked into the sea. We were about two hundred, and
that made a big difference. We found the village in ruins. A few of the
women who had not been hurt were still there. Those that wouldn't leave
till they knew that their men were dead. They came off best. Got their
men again, and saved their lives as well. It was a queer chance. But
most were gone----

"So there was quarreling over the women. It wasn't all the men's faults.
Some women are devils. But some men are brutes, too. It all needs a
fresh start."

Tom hesitated a moment, and then thought he saw a way of bringing out
his more personal news in an easy way. It had got to be done somehow. He
took the plunge. "There was one woman that I helped to save the morning
after we got clear of the pit. We found the sea at our doors. Most of
the men were searching in the ruins of their houses, but it was a
ghastly work, and there was no hope. Those that had escaped knew that no
one was left alive in the wreckage. Most of them had bolted. Some of us,
who hadn't any families to look for, went to the water's edge. We wanted
to see whether the land were still sinking. There was a boat that looked
empty grounded a little way out. Then we thought that there were
children in it. I swam out. I was the only one that could swim. It
wasn't far. There was no danger." Tom felt that it would be unfair to
imply that he had saved the lives of those that the boat had held.
Perhaps also he was reluctant to come to the dramatic part of his
narrative. "I got it, right enough, and paddled it ashore. It was quite
easy. There was a woman in it that seemed dead, and two children----"

"_Two children?_"

The question came with an abrupt incisiveness that Martin had not used
since he had last been in a court of law, and which he had not often
used there, except to a witness whom he knew to be lying.

"Yes, sir. There were two children," Tom answered, his mind reacting to
the form in which the question came. Martin had listened up to that
point with an alert attention, for he was obtaining information from the
one man that he could trust, on which must depend his decision of
remaining with them or taking the chance of the lawless solitudes around
him. But at the news that the children had been two, a sudden hope had
leapt and died as he realized its absurdity. Yet, though his reason
dismissed the thought, its coming had put him on guard and his voice was
level and toneless, and his eyes inscrutable as he asked the next
question. It was with the expression he would wear when a hostile
counsel was inflicting a damaging cross-examination upon his chief
witness, and no one who watched could judge whether he knew that he was
beaten or was prepared to over-trump the trick when his turn came for
the playing. He asked, in a tone of casual interest only: "Did they
live?"

"Yes," said Tom; "there was nothing wrong with the children. They were
cold and wet, but they were right by the next day. The woman was nearly
dead. But we nursed her through. She's well now." Martin said nothing.
He continued to look at Tom as though implying that there was more to be
told. It was a habit that had got many a foolish extra word from all but
the wariest. Tom blundered on. "It's a funny thing that I thought she
was your wife till I met you last night. She told me so."

"What is her name?"

"Helen."

"Is she well now?"

"Yes, quite."

"Is she... married?"

"No. She believes you are still living. I came partly to look for you."

"Are the children well?"

"Yes."

"Why were you doing this for her?"

Tom answered straightly. "Because she promised to marry me if I failed
to find you."

"If you should fail... she would have no choice but to marry you?"

The incisive question startled Tom, who was unconscious that his grammar
had been corrected. Probably Martin was also, but it was a revelation of
character that he should do it at such a moment, as was the power of
inference that the question showed.

Tom answered frankly. "No, I don't see that she would. It's a rule we
made. She must marry someone. To all the rest she's my woman now. It's
that that's kept her safe."

"How far is she away?"

"About twelve miles, or fourteen." He looked at Martin, and said
abruptly: "Do you want her?"

Martin answered quietly. "She is my wife, Tom. I think you've been very
good to us." He saw clearly enough that Tom had some cause for his
question. He saw that the position was conventionally difficult. He did
not know what its issue would be. But he was not consciously troubled.
The joy of knowing that Helen lived, and his children, was too great. He
was not aware of any difference in his feeling for Claire. He had gained
a great confidence in her loyalty, and in a largeness of nature which is
not most common to her sex, during their brief period of intimacy. It
crossed his mind, always inclined to the analytic, that he ought to feel
differently, but the fact was that he was anxious to tell her. Anxious
to ask her to share his joy!

This did not prevent him realizing Tom's standpoint with an equal
clarity. He saw that Tom had hoped that Helen would fall to his share.
He might still hope it. How would Tom act if he should realize that that
hope were lost? He might turn awkward. Or he might ask for Claire.
Certainly the knowledge that he claimed Helen as his wife must diminish
his right to protect Claire if it were known among these men in whose
power they were. He thought he could trust Tom. But he took no risk that
could be avoided.

"Tom," he said, "it isn't you and I that can settle this. The women must
have a voice. How soon can we get back?" He added: "I will tell Claire.
But I think this is between ourselves. It would do no good for others to
know till we've talked it out."

Tom saw that. Suppose Claire wouldn't give Martin up? Suppose Helen
wouldn't forgive such an infidelity? There was hope here, though of a
doubtful sort.

"It's no one's matter but ours," he said. "That's true. We could be back
by tonight."

Martin left him to seek Claire.

But Tom found that they could not be back "by tonight." Had that been
possible many things might have ended differently. But Tom's impatience
was wasted on men who were tired and who saw no need for such haste.
There was spoil to collect and pack. There were some grounds to be
tended. There were dead men to be buried. It was agreed that they could
not move till the next day. What was the haste? Knowing nothing of the
activities of an ex-jockey, scarcely, indeed, knowing of his existence,
Tom could give no answer.

There was trouble enough for the remainder of the day in dividing the
plunder of Bellamy's camp and of the stores which Martin had
accumulated, and on which he urged no claim, partly because his mind was
on other issues and partly for more politic considerations.

The bickering ended in a sudden outburst of anger, in which Bob Stiles
stabbed Tedman under the arm, and would probably have paid for it with
his life had not half a dozen of their companions interfered to part
them.

It was just then that Tom noticed Claire and Martin coming over the
fields toward the camp together. He had not seen either of them since
his conversation with Martin, now some hours ago. They were talking
eagerly as they came, but there was no sign of ill-will between them.
Tom thought, not without some justification, that the omen was favorable
to the hope which he would not willingly lose, even now. But things had
not occurred as most people would have expected. They seldom do.

When Martin had gone to seek Claire, whom he had left asleep at the
hedge-side, he had found her place vacant; but guessing what her purpose
would be, he had been in time to see her disappearing into the wood that
bordered the stream on the banks of which they had been first
encountered by Bellamy.

When the fight of the previous night had ended, and they had realized
that they had nothing to fear from Tom and his companions, the reaction
had brought consciousness of an exhaustion that was both mental and
physical. Claire would gladly have sunk into sleep on the spot from
which their last defense had been made, but even then she had felt the
impulse to get back to the open skies from the foul darkness of the
tunnel, made more hateful by the dead bodies with which it was now
littered and by the stenches of blood and powder that hung in the damp
air. She had readily agreed to Martin's suggestion that they should make
the necessary effort to reach the camping-place of their new companions.
But reaching there, and being provided with such comfort as the camp
could offer, she had fallen into an instant slumber beneath a wild-grown
hedge, sheltering her from the light rain that would clear with the
approaching dawn.

But when she waked in the broad daylight, and cast off the blankets that
had been given for her use, rising with a vague sense of well-being and
of danger past, she was appalled at the filth and disorder of her
garments and at her own condition. More urgent even than the call of a
very healthy appetite was the desire for water and to improve her
appearance before she should have confidence to move among the strange
men who were already busy with the morning meal. She observed Martin
engaged in the conversation with Tom, of which we already know the
import. She had not the remotest premonition that it could affect her
own future. Her one thought was to cleanse herself from the filth in
which she had slept. She remembered the little stream. She had no fear
of any danger. In the confidence of completed victory she did not even
give a thought to the cattle and other animals that were becoming a
menace to those who walked unarmed or incautiously. She started over the
field at as good a pace as the heavy swathes of unmown grass and some
annoying stiffness in her own limbs would allow her. She had thought to
be back before Martin should have observed her absence, but she had not
reached the stream when she heard his pursuit, and turned to greet him.

She was gay at heart, with the joy of victory and freedom won, and the
exhilaration of sunshine and a south sea-wind, and was surprised that he
did not respond more readily to the mood in which she met him.
Misreading the thought behind his eyes, which were serious, though with
an elation of their own, she said, "You are no better," in a tone of
light defiance.

He caught her meaning with the quickness which they always showed to
each other's moods, and answered: "I am much worse. You are delightful
always. But a bath will suit us both."

Her words recalled him to a sense of his own physical condition which
the news of Helen's escape had obliterated. He was very hungry, with an
appetite that he had rarely known in the old days--an appetite enforced
by muscular and nervous excitements and by the clean sea-air that was
round them. Left to his own choice, he would probably have gratified it
before he had satisfied the desire for a more superficial renovation.
But he followed her feminine preference without protest. He had news
which he was anxious to tell her. News so great that all else seemed
dwarfed beside it.

Yet he did not tell it at once. It seemed too great to be mentioned
casually as they splashed in the little stream, and Claire sought for
places that were deep enough for the exercise which she loved and which
had brought her safely through the perils of a drowning world.

In the delight of a recovered cleanliness, she must wash clothes also
that were caked with tunnel mud, and a blood-soaked stocking. For she
had only learnt on waking that a bullet must have grazed her heel as she
lay on the trolley. Beyond that she had no damage except a few bruises,
of which she had not known till she saw them, and the marks of Bellamy's
blows on her body.

Martin had some bruises also, and the left side of his face was
discolored by the effect of Bellamy's successful marksmanship.

They sat on the bank at last, in a bushy shelter, while the sun dried
the garments which Claire had spread upon the branches above them. They
had no fear of oversight or of interruption. Claire was now the more
anxious to get back to the camp. "I could eat a sheep," she said
vividly.

Martin answered: "They were eating that young pig you captured. I hope
they'll leave some for us." He changed to a more serious tone as he
continued. "But I've had some great news this morning. I was only
waiting till we could really talk to tell you. Tom Aldworth says that
Helen is alive and in safety."

If her heart paused for an instant she did not show it. She said: "And
the children?"

"Yes," he answered.

She looked at him with the wide-open glance which he had learnt to
trust. "I am very glad," she said simply. She looked down to the water.

After a moment's pause she said, "We ought to go quickly," and was
silent again.

He found a difficulty in speaking which he had not expected. He felt
that Claire would take her own line, and that it was already clear to
her what it must be. He did not want to give her up. He did not love her
the less because of the joy of knowing that Helen lived. That was a
fact. It might be right or wrong, natural or unnatural, but it was a
fact, and they were facts that counted now. The days of divorce courts
were over. They were no longer ruled by the terrors of a vile publicity,
by the hectic filth of the daily press. They could decide for themselves
in matters which were theirs only. So he thought, with less than his
usual wisdom. There can be no concourse of men, civilized or savage,
large or small, in which the individual will not be persecuted to
conform to the opinion of others. It is the inevitable penalty of
congregation. They would learn that before long, and in unexpected ways.

She startled him by her next words, which came low and as though spoken
to herself as she still gazed at the water: "I am glad that I shall have
your son."

"You cannot possibly..." he began.

"Yes, I think I shall," she said confidently. She lifted her eyes to him
again as she continued. "We have done nothing wrong. Neither of us. We
couldn't know.... Will she mind?"

"No," Martin answered, "she will understand," and then as he spoke he
doubted.

He knew Helen, with the confidence and intimacy of a union which had
been almost perfect in sympathy, and--to a point--he was sure.

He was sure that it would make no division between them. He had once
said to her when a business necessity was taking him away for a month or
two: "I don't believe you'd mind if I found someone else to console me
while I'm away."

She had smiled her answer, as though it were a question of little
import, "Not if you wanted to."

"But," he had added, "you'd want to know all about it when I came back."

"Why, of course," she had answered. That was obvious. She was of the
temperament that finds it almost as pleasurable to watch life as to
share it. She would have regarded a mental infidelity as of more import
than a merely physical one.

So far he was sure. But how she would feel toward Claire was another
matter. Here he was less certain. And of the future--he could not tell.

He knew that both Helen and Claire were capable of generosities beyond
the average of women--capable of large generosities in the decisive
issues of life. But that is to be great at the great moments; and the
small moments are many.

But Claire was speaking again. "I'm glad," she said, "that you told me
before you knew." The meaning was clearer than the words. Perhaps she
was right. He did not see that it mattered. She added: "She will be so
glad you are alive...."

He was realizing more clearly than he had done before that the issue was
between the two women rather than between himself and them. He did not
yet realize that, even now, they would not be able to escape from the
opinions of others--that these might be decisive. He did realize that
Claire had taken it well, and it added to the exaltation that was
natural as he thought of this unlooked-for recovery of those who had
been dearest to him. Certainly, Claire had taken it well--he might say
with a nobility of outlook which he had no right to claim. For Helen
could be no more than a name to her. Perhaps she did not greatly care?
But he did not think that. He would have little right to complain if it
were so. But he did not want to lose her. He did not intend to lose her.
He must talk it over with Helen. He thought that she would understand.
But there was Claire's standpoint also. It must wait till they met.

It may seem strange that neither Claire nor Martin should have met the
issue with straight words. Did they mean to part or to continue
together? If they decided that they must part, would it be with laughter
only, or with tears and kisses? There was no word of parting. There were
neither kisses nor tears. Both of them had assumed that Martin would
return to Helen immediately. They were not of the characters to consider
any other possibility. And Claire had assumed that she would go also.
"_We_ ought to go quickly." Beyond that she kept her counsel. That was
simply because she saw that nothing could be resolved till she met
Martin's wife. It was between her and Helen.

From a different angle, Martin felt in the same way. An instinctive
loyalty to Helen prevented him from discussing the future, even with
Claire, until he had first agreed it with the one whom he recognized to
have the first right to decide.

Claire rose, stretching herself luxuriously. It was good to be alive in
the sunlight. She felt the clothes above her. They were dry enough.
Anyway, she was too hungry to wait longer. She began to dress.

Martin rose also. He saw blackberries.


[X]

On the way back Claire said: "Are there many people alive where we are
going?"

Martin told her what he had learnt from Tom. He added that the confusion
appeared bad enough. "Tom said they needed someone to boss them. He
offered me the job. He seemed to think he had it in his gift."

"Did you accept?" she asked with a quickened interest.

"I didn't answer."

"You could do that. It would be rather fun," she said thoughtfully.

"It would be hard work," he answered; "there's always some fun in that.
It would mean that many would pay for one's mistakes instead of a few
only. It would mean that I should probably get murdered in the end--and
very likely deserve it. Yes, it would be fun enough."

"Shall you accept it?"

He laughed at the idea. "I hadn't thought of it seriously. If I ever
accept such a position I shall have ascertained first that it is offered
in earnest."

They were talking of the life which could be developed under the new
conditions and of the possibilities which it offered of building
something better than had been previously, when Tom saw them returning.

He met them with his own trouble. Could nothing be devised to stop the
quarreling over the spoils, which was threatening the harmony of the
expedition? Like many others before them, they were finding that success
is more disintegrating than failure.

There was discord over the ownership of the cart and horse which had
been seized. Discord over the right to load it. Acute disputation with
the owners of the pack-horses, as to their right to burden their
quadrupeds with captured articles too bulky for any manual transit, to
the exclusion of those which they had brought for the general welfare.
Discord over principles of distribution: Could each man keep that which
he found? Was he entitled to all that he could carry, or ought they to
share alike? How could they value the articles that they plundered? How
many pots of raspberry jam would be equal to a pair of ivory earrings?

Martin listened, and said: "You can't draw lots. Everyone would get what
he doesn't want. Even choosing in turns wouldn't be satisfactory. Why
not have an auction?"

Tom stared at that. "What could they bid?" he asked, "and who could they
pay? You mustn't forget that money has no value now."

"I don't," said Martin; "it never had. But we can pretend, as we used
to."

Tom did not appear enthusiastic. "It would never be agreed," he said,
"because some have plenty of money, and some have none. Some have thrown
it away, and some are hoarding it. They cannot believe that its value is
over." He did not say that he was one who had destroyed it. To be fair,
it was not that which was first on his mind.

"I don't think that matters," Martin answered; he was thinking quickly,
and a plan had formed which might have more far-reaching effects than
those who accepted it would be likely to contemplate. He explained it to
Tom, who said it would do well enough if the boys would agree. Jack
Tolley would be the best one to explain it to them. Jack was called, and
understood it almost before Martin had finished speaking. He would tell
them all that it was the best way.

It was about an hour later that the contents of the captured camp, with
Martin's own accumulations, were collected in the center of a ring from
which no man was absent.

Claire, watching curiously, observed a new Martin in the man who
addressed them from the same stool which had been flung backwards and
forwards two nights ago with such tragic consequences.

The voice, modulated easily to the necessities of the occasion, was
coolly dominant, as he explained the conditions which the men had
individually accepted already. Jack Tolley stood beside him with a
notebook which had been rescued, somewhat soiled, from the tunnel-floor,
where it had been carelessly flung by one of the seekers of booty who
had scorned its utility. Now it contained the name of each man on a
separate page, with a sum of twenty pounds to his credit, as
remuneration for his share in the expedition.

Against that credit he could bid as high as he would for any article
that he wanted. When it should be exhausted he must bid no more until
those who had balances still to their credit had also completed their
expenditure. If all or any of them should have credits still left when
the spoils were distributed, they should remain for benefit on the next
occasion of such a distribution.

Martin told them plainly, though without protest, that most of the goods
before them had been found and stored for his own use, but as they had
come to his rescue (however unintentionally), and as he hoped to be one
of them in the future--the news of Helen's existence among them had
compelled him to this decision, at least until he had found her--he was
willing for them to be distributed. There were a few articles only that
he wished to retain for himself or Claire, of which he read a list, and
they were removed without protest.

The auction went smoothly. It was of no moment to anyone but the buyers
that prices should be high, and Martin made no effort to raise them.
They were erratic in comparison to the original value of the articles,
as was natural. He sold the horse and cart on condition that they should
not be claimed until they had been used on the return journey for the
general benefit of the expedition--a very popular solution, which
reduced their value to a very moderate figure, even in the eyes of the
original claimant.

When it was over, there was a sense of orderly solution, which was
gratifying to men who had recently seen so much of the evils of anarchy.

The succeeding hours were spent in the separate packing of the goods of
the party, and in allocating their means of transit. Even with the help
of the captured cart, they would march heavily. When this had been done,
it was evident, even to Martin's concealed impatience, that no move
could be made before morning.

Toward evening there was thunder, with a storm to southward. They missed
the worst of this, but the rain reached them for a few minutes, and
drenched them quickly.

It was as warm as ever when the storm had passed, but a fire must be lit
for the drying of soaked garments. Round this fire they sat, at a
respectful distance, but in the conventional circle which is older than
history. To sit round a fire--to place a bed against a wall--these are
primal instincts which operate without reason, or, at times, against it.

Martin joined the circle, in the absence of Claire, who had wandered
apart. She did not want to talk further. She felt that, till Helen had
been told, there was no more to be said.

Martin found that the conversation fell as he approached the circle. He
was welcomed well enough, but a silence followed. He sat down by Jack
Tolley, who began at once to tell him of the disordered life of the
community from which they came. Then he stopped abruptly and jumped up.
"I'd better speak to them," he said, and followed a little group who
were withdrawing from the further side of the fire, arguing as they
went.

Jack came back in a few minutes. The men did not return with him. He
spoke to another man, who rose and went after them. He sat down by
Martin again, and continued the interrupted conversation.

Then Tom Aldworth, who had not previously joined the circle, came behind
them. He called Jack, who rose at once, and went with him.

Martin realized that there was a subject of interest which he was not
asked to share. He was not greatly concerned, for his thoughts were on
more personal matters. He was glad to be quiet.

A man sat near him, smoking a short and dirty pipe. He did not speak,
but he gazed at Martin with a silent fascination, so that finally he was
constrained to observe him. He had the red skin of the beer-drinker, the
hirsute ornaments of a goat, and the brown eyes of a spaniel.

"What's the trouble?" Martin asked idly. He recognized the man as one
who had bid an unexpected and needless pound for a marble statuette
which had been found incongruously among the lumber of Bellamy's camp.
No one else wanted to be burdened with it. He might have had it for
sixpence. He was the man they called Monty.

Now he said: "Trouble is they doesn't know they've made their minds up,
and Tom's only just tellin' them. They'll know now." He continued to
gaze at Martin with his dog-like eyes. "We wants a good killer," he
added, with a wistful satisfaction in his voice, as of one who watched
the opening of an unexpected heaven. Martin felt that he was the subject
of this unexpected description.

"Do you mean that I am 'a good killer'?" he asked, with some curiosity.

"Best we've met, you bet. And the gal. Fine gal 'er be." He spoke in the
tone of one who pays reluctant tribute. He added: "But gals ain't no
good. Rotten bad they be." He spoke with the conviction of an experience
of which he would not risk repetition. Here was one to whom the paucity
of women would bring no grief. Martin wondered what had led him to
volunteer for such an expedition--to risk his life to avenge a dead
woman who did not concern him. Actually it was the hero-worship which
was more necessary to his happiness than any feminine ministrations.
Once it had been Jack 'Obbs and Andy Wilson. Lately it had been Tom
Aldworth. Today it was Martin Webster. Behind the bleared eyes, and the
beer-reddened skin, there was the soul of a romantic. Perhaps a cleaner,
healthier life might yet do something for this man, whose father had
been a drunken sot, and whose grandfather had been among the foremost
statesmen of his day.

Martin thought with some surprise, some amusement, and some hesitation,
of the character which appeared to be attributed to him. He had been
less conscious of successful killing than of the perpetual danger of
getting killed. He felt the idea that he was of a sanguinary
disposition, or of exceptional ability in the use of arms, to be absurd.
Yet his reason told him that the dead bodies which had been strewn in
camp and tunnel must have appeared rather numerous. They did not know
how naturally it had all happened. He wondered whimsically whether they
were considering him for the office of champion to the community. He was
not a man of his hands. He had had enough of single combats to satisfy
him till his life ended.

Tom came back, and Jack Tolley. There were others behind them.

Tom said with a new formality: "Mr. Webster, they've all asked me to
speak to you. We want you to boss this show."

Martin realized that this was a serious proposition; at least, in its
intention. He rose, and faced them.

"Will you tell me just what you mean?" he said quietly.

"We mean just what we say," Tom answered. "You can say what you want
done, and we'll see you get it. We want someone who can say what's
needed, and get the whole thing straight. We want law," he added, "but
not like the old days. We didn't like them, and we don't like what we've
got now. We want law--but not lawyers."

Martin said: "But I'm a lawyer myself."

Tom answered quickly: "Then you know what we mean when we say that we
don't want any more. We want laws we can understand; and not too many.
We want things _done_. We want to be told what needs doing most. If we
quarrel, we want someone to whom we can go to decide it. We don't want
to tell one man, who tells another, who takes it to another, where we
all lie our best, and then find that the one who decides has never
understood it properly, and that the one who loses has to pay them all
five. But that's by the way. You know what law used to be, and you can't
think that we want that again. But we think you're straight, and you're
the best man we have, and we'll do what you say, if you'll get on with
the job."

Jack Tolley interposed before Martin could answer. But "interposed" is
misleading. He did not break in hurriedly, nor did he risk the second's
delay which might have enabled Martin to commence his reply. He picked
his moment with the neat accuracy with which he would have balanced a
column.

"There's one thing about which we should like to be sure, which we
should like you to promise. We don't want the law altered about the
women. Some of us didn't like it at first, but it's working now, and we
don't want it changed."

He was thinking of Madge, bequeathed to him by the dying Ellis. Knowing
the wish of the man that she had first chosen, and faced by the
necessity of making a second choice promptly, he did not doubt that she
would have him. It was true that he spoke for others besides himself,
but it was he who had suggested that they should make this condition.

Martin saw his risk clearly. Here were a score of men, half of them from
one mining community, who would naturally hold together, asking him to
accept the control of a fortuitous population of some hundreds, for the
majority of whom they had no right to speak. They professed the wish to
give him a free hand, and in the same breath, their two spokesmen
stipulated, the one that he should be sparing in the laws that he made,
and that they should be administered simply, the other that a very crude
marriage law which they had instituted should be continued to
perpetuity.

It was immaterial to consider whether their ideas were good or bad. It
was the evidence that he would be in the hands of a demagogy unless he
were firm at the commencement, which was important.

"I am sorry to refuse you," he said, "but I cannot accept your offer."

Tom looked disconcerted. He would not have been surprised had Martin
discussed conditions, but he had not expected so blank a refusal.

He answered with equal directness: "Will you tell us why?"

"Yes," Martin said readily, "I will tell you. It is because you ask more
than you think, and offer less.

"You offer what is not yours to give. How can a score of men speak for
hundreds of others, who do not know me?

"You offer me a free hand, and qualify it before you have finished
speaking.

"You say that you think I could steer your ship to safety. You may be
right or wrong. You are probably wrong. But if I could, it would be as
captain. It would not be as chairman of a committee.

"I have not asked for such a position. I do not ask it now. I will tell
you just what it means. It means that you would profit by my successes,
and that I should pay for my failures. It means that I should wake while
you sleep. It means that my anxieties would never cease: that my work
would never end. You are asking for my whole life, which is the price of
such precedence.

"If I were to accept such an offer, if I were to take the risk of
accepting it from you, who are not a tithe of those for whom you profess
to speak, or whom you propose that we should coerce to the same end, it
must be on my own terms, which are that you make none. None whatever.

"If I alter your marriage laws, they must be altered. If I tax you to
half that you have, you must pay me without question. If I tell you to
hang your best friend you must fetch the rope with a good will.

"I may do none of these things, but it is a risk you take. You must
either trust, or not trust me. I will be captain, or nothing. I will not
consult the boatswain as to the sails I carry.

"I will have no committees. No voting. No wasted hours of talk. No
follies of compromise.

"The time may come for these things, and if it should, I will tell you.
But that time must be of my choice, and not yours.

"If you do not like these terms, you can refuse them. You may be wiser
to do so.

"If you like them, I will have them written down, and they shall be
signed by every man here. But it must be those terms or none."

He paused for their answer. He scarcely expected assent, though he had
learnt to rely upon the influence of his voice and personality, but he
knew that it was the one chance, if chance there were, of success in
such an enterprise.

Tom spoke impulsively. "I'll sign that." There was a chorus of
supporting voices, among which Monty's was audible.

Jack asked coolly: "What about those who don't?"

"We shall turn them out," Martin answered; he knew that audacity only
could carry this thing through successfully. "Those who won't sign must
go elsewhere. They may be glad to come back. But we must have a
community that is not divided. We will give the choice to each in turn,
and they must sign, or go."

"Are you speaking only of those here, or of everyone who is left alive?"
Jack asked again.

"I mean those here first, and then everyone," Martin answered.

"And the women?" said Jack.

"Yes, and the women." He had not, in fact, thought of them till the
question was put, but he did not hesitate in his answer.

He waited for the next question. It was evident that Jack was not one to
be hurried. The pause had given men time to think, and he judged that
the result would depend now upon Jack's decision, of which there was no
indication. But he asked no more questions. He said: "I will sign. I
think it's a good way."

Martin looked round and saw nothing but assent and eagerness. He noticed
Claire standing at the back of the group. He said: "Boys, I'll tell you
why I've asked this. We've got a chance, if the land holds firm beneath
us, such as comes once in a million years. A chance to start fresh--and
to start free. I shall want the help of all of you. But it must be one
man only who chooses the way we go--or we shall go nowhere. A few steps
this way, a few steps that, and we are back where we were. I may not
always lead you the best way, but I shall not walk in a circle. We know
the best things of the life behind us, and we know the worst, and it
will be our own fault if we don't make something better than has been."

He said no more. He knew the use of words, and he knew their limits. He
told Jack Tolley to write out the declaration for the men to sign. It
was drawn in simple but emphatic words, an undertaking without
embroidery or appeal to unseen powers. Martin had not practiced for
seven years in English law-courts without learning that a man who will
bear false witness or betray his fellows is not deterred by the
blasphemy of an oath.

It was written in the notebook which had been used to record the items
of the auction. One by one the men signed it, on the tailboard of the
captured cart. There was no man who refused or hesitated. At the end
Claire came forward. "I thought women were to sign also?" she asked
Jack, who was superintending the ceremony. He held out the pencil.

Having it in her hand, she hesitated for a moment, and then wrote
firmly.

Later Martin went down the list with Jack, learning the names and some
biographical particulars of his first subjects.

At the end he found the signature _Claire Webster_. Was it a declaration
of war with Helen? He did not think that. Was it at least a sign
that----But it was waste of effort to speculate. In a few hours he would
know.




BOOK V. THREE


Martha Barnes cleaned her pre-deluge doorstep. It was the only part of
her original tenement which was still available for such ministrations.
Martha was a widow. She was the sister-in-law of Navvy Barnes, of whose
end we know, though we have lacked time to survey the previous details
of an ill-spent life. Martha occupied the end house in the mining
village. She was a small, scraggy, white-faced, sharp-featured woman
with a shrill and bitter tongue. She had four children, of whom the
eldest boy was old enough to be down the mine when the storm broke.

Of the three others, one had been killed by a falling wall, but she had
rescued two at the cost of some burns which still disfigured her face
and arms.

Having her son in the mine, it had not occurred to her to join the rush
to the north, which had crowded the highroad that ran through the length
of the village and had stampeded most of her neighbors.

When Davy appeared, she had lost no time before instructing him to
commence the rebuilding of their ruined home.

He was a moon-faced youth, showing more resemblance to a burly alcoholic
father than to the mother that bore him. To that mother he had learnt to
yield an unquestioning obedience, and he had set to work very promptly
to the erection of an edifice of balks and pit-props, undeterred by the
fact that the remaining inhabitants of the ruined village had deserted
it in favor of the scattered houses of the countryside or for the wrecks
of the pleasanter village of Cowley Thorn, about two miles away.

Now there was shelter again for the Barnes household. There was dry
storage for the various articles which his mother's foresight directed
Davy to collect. There was a tethered cow on the rough grass beyond the
slag-heap, and there were two young pigs snoring in well-fed contentment
in a sty which had been erected among the ruins of the deserted village.
And the front doorstep, on which none of the departed inhabitants had
ever dared to place a polluting foot, was as clean as ever.

This wooden hut, in which Martha defied the fate that had swept a score
of nations to oblivion--and which may be taken as symbolizing the
spirit, at once hopeless and indomitable, in which our sentient life
faces the blind forces of the inanimate which may destroy it at any
moment--contained another inhabitant. When Sir John Debenham left the
ruins of his country house in the neighborhood of Fenny Compton, he had
been breathing heavily as he took the steering-wheel of the limousine in
his podgy and unaccustomed hands. His chauffeur, who had incurred a
broken arm in the endeavor to save some of his master's possessions, he
left to his fate, but his wife and daughter cowered (with a pet lapdog)
in the upholstery behind him. It was only a week before that Sir John
had been warned to avoid excitement, and had paid a fee of five guineas
for this somewhat obvious wisdom. His plethoric disposition was
ill-adapted for the excitements and dangers of the chaotic flight in
which he was involved, as he cut perilously into the congestion of the
Warwick road. He survived several accidents. He escaped others by such
miraculous chances that his frightened wife gained confidence that
Providence had risen to the occasion, and was acting as might be
anticipated where people of their importance were jeopardized among the
ruck of inferior humanity. But his breathing did not improve as the day
lengthened, and as they ran down the slope of the road toward the ruins
of the village beside which Martha was giving some attention to her own
burns, and more to her rescued children, it was the head of a dead man
which lolled over a steering-wheel from which the hands had fallen.

Fortunately the road bent somewhat at that point, and a damaged cyclist
was the only evidence of its aberration which the car left on the road
as it plunged into the field that sloped downward on the left-hand side.

Sir John's wife was dead. Providence should be able to look after
itself, even though it had shown its incompetence to protect the
Debenham family, but it must have heard some emphatic comments on its
deficiencies when the lady encountered it upon the heavenly pavements.

Her parents were dead, but Sybil Debenham was alive, with a cracked head
and a broken leg, from which injuries she would doubtless have died
where she lay but for the assistance which she received from Martha
Barnes, of whose household she became a regular inmate. Her leg was
mended, only a slight limp illustrating the inferiority of amateur to
professional setting. Her head bore a scar which was concealed by her
lengthening hair. She was an ineffectual fluffy girl, who had been
carefully trained to incompetence. Now, in wiser hands, she was being
inured to many useful occupations, including the care of the two younger
children. "To larn yer, when yer has brats o' yer own," as Martha
bluntly told her. Under such conditions, and separated irrevocably from
Coxon's Pills, which her mother had honestly believed to be necessary to
the continued existence of the human race, she was gaining a health
which she had never previously imagined. Saved by the effects of her
accident from the dangers of the earlier anarchy, she had been
successfully claimed by Martha at a later stage as the bride-elect of
the moon-faced Davy, an allocation to which she had given a frightened
assent when the alternative of passing into the hands of strangers had
been thrust upon her. She was even learning to find an unacknowledged
pleasure in the shy and silent worship of the youth for whom it appeared
that she had been destined by the caprice of so strange a fortune. And
as she gained in strength, and in willingness and capacity for the
unfamiliar household tasks which were thrust upon her, his sharp-voiced
parent became somewhat less skeptical as to her fitness to fulfil so
honorable a destiny.

Martha, busy on the already mentioned doorstep, raised her head and
looked up the road down which Sir John's car had once so abruptly
descended. Like the Dictator: "North looked she long and hard"--only it
was southeast on this occasion. Then, like the Dictator, she took prompt
and energetic steps to meet the observed emergency.

She bent down to her work; she called into the interior of the
three-roomed hut with which Davy's energy had already enriched them,
without lifting her head in that direction.

"Davy," she said, "listen 'ere, and don't show yerself. Go out at the
back, and make 'aste to Ted Nuttall's. Tell 'im Cooper's gang's on the
way, an' there'll be 'ell to pay if they don't clear the women out
sharp. Then borrow Ben Todd's bike, an' get out by Sowter's Lane, an'
find Tom Aldworth. Tell 'im that while 'e's 'untin' that 'ulkin'
Bellamy, there's Jerry come to call, an' 'e'd better be back today, or
there'll be no cause to 'urry. 'E ought to be somewer back on the main
road by now. Yer'll get through wer the Plast'rer's Arms stood at the
corner."

Davy had learnt obedience from infancy. Having received instructions
which may not be as clear to the reader as they were to him (which was
of the greater importance), and which were designed to prevent his
premature collision with the invaders, he did not argue nor ask, but
laid down the tool which he had been sharpening on the grindstone
(looted on the instructions of a far-seeing parent), and set out on his
appointed mission.

He heard his mother's voice as he departed, instructing Sybil to remove
herself and the children to a place of safety among the deserted ruins,
with a judicious threat to her offspring that they would be tanned till
they cudn't stan' should they fail in silence or promptitude.

Having completed her dispositions in the face of the approaching enemy,
Martha resumed her doorstep.


[II]

There was dawn in the northeast sky when Joe Harker, riding somewhat
wearily, for he suffered from too many weeks of soft living, had
approached the locality in which Jerry Cooper had established himself
and his following.

Jerry Cooper was of a character very different from that of the brutal
Bellamy. He had been a builder's merchant in a South Midland town, his
real occupation having been that of city councilor, in which position he
had used his opportunities for patronage and (indirect and legalized)
peculations to such good purpose that he had become known as the richest
man in his native city, and was honored and trusted accordingly. It was
only a few months earlier that it had been discovered that an alderman
of his city, being a poor man with an invalid family, had very culpably
employed the services of some municipal workmen for the repairs of his
personal property. The matter was an open scandal. The wretched man, who
had given a large part of his time to the thankless service of his
native city for nearly forty years, had robbed it clumsily and openly of
17 4s. 11d. Naturally, he resigned the office which he had dishonored.
There were many who would have let the matter rest there, in view of the
age and previous services of the culprit. But Councilor Cooper felt
differently. In a speech of homely eloquence he dwelt upon the
importance of maintaining the purity of municipal life, and urged his
colleagues that natural sorrow for the delinquent's fall should not
blind them to the public duty that was thrust upon them. In the result,
the necessary resolution which consigned their late alderman to the
lawyers' clutches was passed by a small majority of very uncomfortable
men (the honest members of the council being a minority), and he was
tried before a judge, who condemned him to serve a term in the common
jail to vindicate the importance of maintaining the purity of municipal
life.

It is fair to place on record that the judge did this with a genuine
sorrow, honestly supposing that he had fulfilled a public duty by this
contempt for the principles of the Christianity which his country
professed to reverence. The editor of the local newspaper, having
written a leader concerning the vindication of the purity of municipal
life, remarked that he was "damned sorry" in the privacy of his own
home. But Councilor Cooper had no regrets. It was impossible to feel
anything but contempt for a man who could rob so clumsily, or who could
have felt the need to do so, after neglecting so many years of
opportunity of enriching himself at the expense of the city he
served....

Councilor Cooper had lost his office. He had lost his property, which
had consisted largely in "eligible building sites" and in ground-rents
which his industry had "created." He had lost most of the things he
valued. But he had not lost his character.

As he had ruled there, he would rule here. As he had been efficient
there, he was efficient here. Under his directing energy the ground
floor of a straggling stone farmhouse had been repaired and roofed. Its
newer and more extensive farm buildings, which, having been erected
strong and low, had suffered less than the house, had been repaired
equally.

Here he had established himself with his following, which consisted of
twenty-seven men and five prostitutes. There were no women or children.

He lived and worked for one object--the overthrow of those who had cast
him out, and for his dominion over them.

He would have pointed with confidence to the results which his
organization had achieved already as evidence of his fitness for the
precedence on which his mind was set.

He had already explored the limits of the land which the seas had
spared, and knew its extent, resources, and remaining inhabitants better
than Tom Aldworth or any other member of the larger community had
exerted himself to do.

He had searched in every possible direction until he had obtained
sufficient arms and ammunition for the equipment of his followers. He
had captured sufficient horses to mount them. Stalls and byres once
filled with rows of milch cattle were now occupied by these animals. He
had never previously mounted a horse, but he had now trained himself for
the rough riding of the wilderness of the countryside, and all but three
of his followers, who were physically incapable from various causes,
were practiced daily in the same manner.

His object was the creation of a military force, the efficiency of which
would compensate for the smallness of its numbers, and which would
enable him, at the right moment, to strike such a blow as it would not
be necessary to second.

He did not expect any attack to be made upon himself in the meantime,
being well informed of the shiftless and divided ways of those over whom
he intended to assert a natural supremacy, but he took precautions, both
against that possibility and against the possibility of insubordination
among his own followers.

The house in which he lived was barred and barricaded as though it were
besieged already. It was occupied by the three inefficients already
mentioned, who acted as his menial servants, by the five prostitutes,
who were lodged here nominally for their own security, but actually so
that he might control the rotation in which they bestowed their favors
upon his obedient followers, and by a trusted guard of an officer and
five men, in whose loyalty he had sufficient reason for confidence. The
remaining men, divided into three similar troops of six, each with its
own officer, slept in the ruined barns, which would be sufficiently
rebuilt for their comfort before the winter cold should require it.

Joe, coming early to this military establishment, and inquiring for its
proprietor, was received by men who were alert and civil, but who
declined to conduct him to "the Captain" till the opening of the house
door should announce that its inmates were stirring. They gave him food,
for food was plentiful. They fed and groomed a tired horse, for that was
a task of which they had learned the importance. Had Joe attempted to
leave they might have shown him a different temper, but he had no such
intention. He was too tired even to be normally observant. Where he ate
he slept, till he was stirred by a foot that invaded his ribs with
little ceremony, and a voice that told him that the Captain would see
him.

Joe was not taken into the house. He was led to a repaired shed, in
which the officer of Troop Three, who was responsible for the
commissariat and for such farming operations as were connected
therewith, kept his records and balanced his accounts.

Joe found himself confronted by "Captain" Cooper, who was seated at the
further side of a deal table.

He let Joe stand while he scrutinized him with hard eyes in a
blue-jowled face.

But Joe, though still somewhat sluggish of mind from interruption of the
sleep he needed, was as cool as he.

"Who are you?" said the Captain, accenting the final syllable in a way
which was something less than complimentary.

"Joe Harker," And then as one who drops a bomb from a casual hand:
"Bellamy's dead."

Jerry Cooper started inwardly. The news was of importance to his plans.
He had watched the desultory wanderings of Bellamy's gang with a natural
contempt, and had already decided to assimilate it as soon as he should
be ready to do so. But not till then. He was a business man.

His pulse may have quickened, but his face gave no sign as he answered.

"I didn't ask you about Bellamy, but about yourself."

"And I told you both," Joe grinned in unabashed response, "but I'll take
it back if you don't want to know."

"I want to know what I ask," Jerry said sternly.

"Well, you know it now," said Joe, who was not deceived by this apparent
lack of interest in the news he brought. "I can go, if I'm not wanted."

"No, you can't."

"Well, I don't want to," said Joe with unruffled good humor.

"You might." There was menace in the curt reply, for there was a lack of
respect in Joe's attitude which Jerry Cooper was not accustomed to
encounter.

Joe said nothing. This was too much after the pattern of interviews with
owners, with whom bargains were made which were not for public
knowledge, for him to be disconcerted. As usual he had information for
sale, and he knew its value.

As he said nothing, but continued to smile comfortably, Jerry had the
next word.

"What were you?"

"A jockey."

Jerry stared in an open astonishment. A less cautious man would have
called him a liar without reflection. This obese individual--but the
name brought memories--Harker, who rode Mustard for the Morley Stakes.
He had made ten pounds on that race. Could this be the man?

"Then you can ride now?"

"I rode here."

"Where from?"

"About ten miles away."

"Cross country?"

"Yes."

"Why did you come?"

"I wanted better company than I'd got."

"Do you want to join me?"

"I might."

"You will." There was the same tone of menace that Joe had heard before,
but it left him unruffled.

Jerry Cooper changed his manner. He became the successful tradesman
interviewing the traveler to whom he could give or withhold the order on
which his month's commission depended.

He pointed to a stool. He turned aside from the table. He adopted a
gruff and distant geniality.

"Tell me about it," he said.

Joe took the stool, for he was tired of standing, but he did not
commence his narrative.

"I won't work," he remarked with a note of finality, as though that had
been the subject of conversation. "I can find things out if I'm left
alone."

Jerry nodded. "I want a man like that." Then, as Joe continued silent,
he added: "I don't buy goods I've not seen. I shall pay you fairly.
You'll get what you're worth."

"Then I'll get enough," Joe answered amicably. "Bellamy's dead, as I
told you before----Fighting over a girl----There's a girl and a man
wandering loose. I don't know where from. Bellamy stole the girl. Then
she got clear, and they broke his head. They're devils to fight. Then he
followed them into a railway tunnel. He didn't come back. Now there's
Tom Aldworth, and Jack Tolley, and their lot, trying to wipe out what's
left of the gang. They're all fighting each other. It's a fair mix-up.
If you drop on them now, you can get what's left. I want the girl."

"Could you manage her?" said Jerry. "She sounds a live one."

"Easy," said Joe, grinning responsively. "Tie and starve. Let me try?"

Cooper nodded. "It's fair pay," he said amicably. "But we're not going
there first." He got up, and led the way to the door. "Let me see you
ride," he said curtly, with a return to his earlier manner.

Joe followed him at an easy amble that kept close enough to the heavy
stride of the taller man.

Councilor Cooper had not been fat, but he had been described as
"beefy"--even as of a comfortable circumference. Captain Cooper was hard
and fit. He moved quickly despite his weight.

Joe did not want exercise. He wanted sleep. But he did not think that
objections would be well received. Nor did he want to waste time. He
wanted to see the anticipated expedition set out.

He quickly demonstrated that he could ride. There was not one man under
Jerry's orders who had understood how to ride a horse before he drove
them and himself to acquire the knowledge. Horse-riding had almost died
out in the England of that time.

But here was a man, as Jerry quickly realized, who could see at a glance
what a horse could do, and could coax him to it. He was just the man
that he needed to control his stables, and to teach riding to his new
recruits. For he would have no one but mounted men in the force he was
molding. He believed in mobility.

Joe received this proposal without enthusiasm. He preferred a lazier
life. Captain Cooper changed the subject, questioning him closely about
the events with which we are already acquainted. When he had obtained
all the information with which Joe could supply him, he stood frowning
thoughtfully for a time, and then walked into the house, leaving Joe
standing.

Half an hour later the leaders of the three troops were summoned into
the house. They came out with an air of suppressed excitement, and
commenced preparations for marching, but Joe found them indisposed for
conversation.

After a time, Cooper came from the house, spurred and belted, and with a
more military aspect than he had shown previously. He came straight to
Joe. He said: "We are taking three troops. Your own horse will be tired.
You can pick a mount from Number One Troop. Get a meal, if you want one.
We start at noon."

"I can't fight," Joe said cautiously. He wanted to be on the spot,
but----

"You weren't asked," Jerry said, with contempt. "You must look after
yourself."

At noon they started. They took no baggage. What each man carried of
food, or utensils, or ammunition, was strapped with his blanket behind
the saddle. They were equipped for speed--and for some added burdens on
their return.

They moved with scouts ahead, and with outriders on either flank, as
though invading a hostile country, though there was little enough of
reason for supposing that any attack would be made upon them. Every man
had a rifle of some kind, though the patterns varied. Some wore cavalry
sabers, though their appearance was rather of mounted infantry of the
looser kind. They rode in single file, for the roads were blocked and
cumbered, and it was often the easier way to avoid them in favor of
hedge-side paths which were trampled by the wild life that was
increasing in the deserted fields.

When they had gone on for an hour, Joe pushed his way forward.

"Captain," he said, as he drew level, "we're off the way. We're riding
too far north."

Cooper turned upon him with a burst of inexplicable ferocity. "You
damned ape!" he said. "Who asked your interference? Keep your place, and
your mouth shut."

Joe fell back wondering.

Before night, being no fool, he had guessed their objective. They were
not riding to the attack of Aldworth's little force, or to rake in the
remnants of Bellamy's gang, but to make a raid, in Tom's absence, upon
the unsuspecting community from which the best men were absent.

They halted for the night in a sheltered hollow, having accomplished the
last miles with cautious movements under all available cover. They had
met no man, and felt some confidence that no one had seen them.

In the morning the distance would be short, and the horses fresh for the
double burdens which they must bear should the raid succeed in its
object.

As they halted, the Captain came up to Joe. Being in good spirits, he
spoke with a renewed affability: "I keep my word. You shall have the
girl, if we get her, as I intend we shall. If we don't, you shall have a
pick from the others." He went on: "Do you know where Tom Aldworth
lives?" Joe had to confess to an unusual ignorance. "It is no matter;
Rentoul does. You'll go there with him and Bryan. It will need men who
can ride. Tom has a wife, and there are two children. I don't know
whether they're hers. Bring the lot." He added: "There'll be no fighting
there, unless Tom's back."

Joe made no objection. It sounded easy work--with two others to do it.
He was quite sure that Tom would not be back.

They lay quietly during the night, no fires being allowed, and a wide
ring of covert sentinels protecting them from the risk of unsuspected
observation.

In the morning their Captain showed no haste to move, and the sun was
high when he called them together, and explained his purpose: "Boys," he
said, "we haven't moved early, because we're giving the men time to
leave the houses, and get scattered. You can shoot any that come your
way. The more the better. But I want quick work, and I don't want you to
get hurt. You're more use alive. If they've got guns, they'll have left
them at home, and by when they get back we shan't be there. But if they
were all at home, it would be just a fight from house to house. It isn't
shooting we want here.

"We shall ride straight past the mine, and on to Cowley Thorn. Troop Two
will take the houses up the stream. Troop Three will go through the
village. Troop Four will keep with me, except Bryan and Rentoul, who
know their job already. Fifteen women's the catch we want. I won't go
with less. But we don't want fighting here. Only speed. Each troop keeps
together. You must get the best catch you can. I don't promise you each
the one you carry off. It's teamwork. But the better you catch, the
better for all.

"I'll tell you where we meet again, when we pass the spot. After that,
we ride south. They won't expect that, and they'll probably lose the
track--if they follow at all. But they don't ride, mostly.

"Two miles out, we shall put the women down, and they'll be walked home
by Barton and Pleshleigh Ash. Troop Two will guard them. They won't be
followed. If any follow us at all, they'll come on after the hoof-marks.
We'll make them clear in the right place.

"We shall go on from there, and scout for Tom Aldworth's lot. He's fair
sure to come back by the highroad. We ought to make an ambush there that
they won't live long to remember."

He spoke with confidence. He believed, with some reason, that he had
trained his men to a far higher efficiency than that of any that they
were likely to encounter. And he felt that the plan was good. He might
have attacked Tom first, but the advantage of surprise might have been
lost at the village, and this was essential. The men there, and along
the adjoining coast, were formidable from their numbers, though not
otherwise to be accounted seriously. Surprise was everything. He had not
meant to make such a move till the days were shorter, but the
opportunity of Tom's absence, and of defeating him separately when he
should have been presumably exhausted by previous fighting, was too good
to be lost.

It was about an hour to midday when they descended the road that showed
the ruined mining village on its northern side, and observed that there
was a single erection with evidence of occupation, and that a woman was
cleaning her doorstep before it.


[III]

Captain Cooper reined his horse, and looked down at the kneeling Martha.
Martha wrung out her flannel, and looked up at the Captain.

He would never be a graceful horseman, but he sat the great bay he was
riding easily enough. He looked fit to lead in a better cause than that
in which he was now engaged.

He said: "It seems to take a long while to clean it."

She answered quickly: "There's some cleans what they don't dirty, an'
there's some as dirties what they don't clean."

There was a possibility of meaning here which he did not probe. Instead,
he asked: "Where's the gaffer?"

"I'm gaffer here," she said shortly.

"Come, missus, you don't live here alone."

"The children's up for the berries in Cowley Wood. They don't stay home
all the day," she answered.

Captain Cooper looked at her veteran figure, and at the meager,
burn-scarred face, with the straggly wisps of graying hair around it. He
looked back at his men: "Anyone want her?" he asked, with a sardonic
smile. The men grinned in answer. The long line of horsemen was in
motion again. Martha turned into the house. The clatter of horses became
fainter. She heard a shot from the valley. She looked pleased. Davy was
a good boy!

The first house beyond the ruined village stood well back from the road,
with a field behind it, and beyond that a straggling copse. It had been
rebuilt sufficiently to give shelter. Smoke came from a stove-pipe
chimney.

They saw a woman running to seek refuge in the copse. Some warning she
must have had, for she was already in flight when they came into view of
the house.

The bay horse plunged, and the Captain kept his seat with difficulty.
There was the report of a rifle.

The Captain saw a red mark on the horse's counter, where the bullet had
scored it. He was not lacking in courage. "Come on, men," he shouted.
They clattered down the road to the gate.

The man did not wait to fire again when he saw how his first shot was
received. He ran out of the back of the house after the woman.

A stern word from the Captain checked the pursuit, which would have
scattered his men to so inadequate a purpose.

"Forward," he said, "and keep together. You know the orders."

They went on down the road.


[IV]

Among the minor insanities of the England that the floods had covered
had been the production of motor cycles capable of moving on a smooth
surface at such speeds as must obviously result in many deaths and
injuries on its crowded highways. Such deaths and mutilations did occur
in unregarded thousands, not only the riders themselves but many
innocent pedestrians being destroyed or maimed without effectual
protest, in a country which was oppressed with countless laws, but was
without intelligent government. The "vested interest" of those engaged
in the production of these vehicles was alone sufficient to prevent any
active intervention by governments which depended upon the corrupt
financial support of the wealthier sections of the community, which were
almost openly collected, and euphoniously described as "party funds."

Instead, therefore, of suppressing a nuisance so murderous and so
useless (for most of the riders of these vehicles were actuated simply
by the desire to escape for a brief interval from the enforced monotony
of the mechanical slavery in which they lived, and after rushing over
the public roads would return abortively to the place from which they
started) by the obvious method of preventing the manufacture of machines
of a power and speed which could have no legitimate utility, a system
was developed of fining those who committed various technical or other
offenses against an elaborate system of regulations of little practical
value. The money so collected went to swell the huge funds controlled by
a complicated system of local bureaucracies. It followed that any man
could endanger the peace and safety of the community if he were prepared
to pay for an uncertain proportion of these incidents; that the public
were quietened by the illusion that steps had been taken for their
protection; and that the administrators of the official funds profited
at the cost of their neighbors' blood.[1]

-----

[1] That this statement does not misrepresent the position is shown by
the fact that a single individual was fined _over forty times_ for
dangerous driving in various forms, without any steps being taken to
cause him to discontinue the practice.

-----

One of these machines had been owned by a friend of Davy Barnes, who had
initiated him into the mysteries of its control, and had allowed him
some practice in riding it--an occupation which was promptly vetoed by
the good sense of his mother when it came to her vigilant ears. Her mind
was little occupied by any consideration for the welfare of the
community, but she pointed out that he could risk his life in the mine
as much as any reasonable youth should desire, and that his earnings
were of importance, not only to herself, but to the younger children.

Happy in the knowledge that he could now use one of these lethal
instruments with his mother's sanction on the cumbered highroad, Davy
hurried to convey the warnings which she had enjoined upon him, and
proceeded to the acquisition of the only motor bicycle that remained in
working order and supplied with the necessary fuel to incite its
activities.

Ben Todd was absent; but Davy was not delayed by that circumstance. Had
the privileges of friendship or the greatness of the emergency been
insufficient to justify its abstraction, his mother's orders would have
been exoneration for a much greater delinquency.

Davy had a reputation for simplicity, but he was not a fool. He
understood very clearly why he must take the side-road that his mother
had indicated, and that haste was needed.

He was not slow, having inherited much of the physical ability of his
mother, but the petrol-tank had to be filled, and some adjustments made,
before his machine was able to career, back-firing joyously, upon the
public road.

To follow Tom by the direct way, he would have had to strike the main
road, continue along it until he had passed the deserted village and his
mother's cottage, go on up the hill, and turn off to the left at the
hilltop by the southern road which Tom had taken two days before, and by
which Jerry had planned retreat.

To do this would have been to encounter Jerry's force, with its natural
consequences. His mother's directions had provided, as far as possible,
against this danger. Yet the highroad must be crossed, and for a short
distance he must continue along it, before he would come to the
side-lane he was seeking.

It followed that Jerry Cooper riding at the head of the ten men who were
still with him, and coming briskly round a bend of the road, observed a
motor-cyclist approaching at a quick wobble from the opposite direction.

The cyclist could not have failed to observe so large a troop of
horsemen before him, yet he came on unregardingly.

Jerry had a quick and practical mind. He saw the lane that turned south
two hundred yards ahead, and guessed the cyclist's objective. He saw
that even though they should put their horses to the gallop, it was a
race which they could not win. He gave a quick order to halt and fire.

The horsemen spread out across the road, each firing as quickly as he
could come up clear of the men that had been riding before him. They
fired from the saddle. The half-trained horses jibbed and flurried, and
some confusion resulted.

The shots came thickest as Davy approached the turning, making a wide
curve to avoid the dbris of a fallen wall. A bullet dinted the handle
bar. Another struck the front wheel, and left a spoke projecting at
right angles to its original purpose. A third rattled the petrol-tank.
The machine bounded perilously over a brick-end, and disappeared round
the corner. "A crowded hour of glorious life" might never come to Davy
Barnes, but he had had half a minute. Half a minute of ecstasy. His
broad face beamed with delight. There was nothing better that life could
give until his mother's fiat should deliver to his custody the waiting
Sybil.

But Jerry Cooper sat the great bay, frowning. He knew already that the
surprise had failed. Now Tom would be warned. He was a business man. He
knew when to cut a loss. He did not think that Tom could be very near.
He did not think that Davy could continue his erratic course very much
further. He knew the state of the roads. There was time yet. He would
like to carry off Tom's household. They would be useful hostages, at the
least. But he did not think that the need for hostages would arise. He
did not wish to abandon the men he had sent to fetch them.

He was too cool-headed to defeat himself as some men will, but he
changed his plans on the instant. It was no use thinking of attacking
Tom now. Tom would be warned. He would not lose men and risk prestige in
a useless skirmish. And he would draw his scattered force together at
once. They would carry off what they could, and retreat by the direct
road--the way they came.

He looked round at the disordered group that had pulled up behind him.
He turned his horse.

"Fall in," he said sharply. "It's no picnic. We're betrayed somehow.
Look alive."

He led the way back at a quick trot, and turned off at the road to
Cowley Thorn. He would join the troop which he had sent that way a few
minutes earlier.

An hour later, sitting prudently behind a bolted door, Martha heard the
clatter of their retreat.

Jerry, riding ahead, looked doubtfully at the cottage. If he
thought--but time was not to be wasted, and the door was closed. He had
no proof.

Behind him came a double line of horsemen, variously laden. They did not
lack spoil. But they had only three women, willing or unwilling. And two
saddles were empty. There were white faces also, and blood-stained
bandages among the troop. They had found the houses empty. They had
beaten a wood or two. They had killed more than one man, including a
wifeless individual whom they had discovered in a hammock in a
weed-choked garden reading "David Copperfield." It was a silly murder,
but yet the man may be envied. He had had three months of blissful life,
without work and without debts, and he died as the summer waned.

Jerry Cooper led the way up the hill. He halted on the top where the
roads forked. The jockey should have been here by now, with Rentoul and
Bryan. He hoped they had not failed. Rentoul had brains. So had the
jockey. He looked back on an empty road. He did not think they would
fail. They might have found it necessary to take another way. Rentoul
knew the country. But he had said that he would wait here. He liked to
teach the men that they could trust his word. And he liked to be obeyed.

For half an hour he kept the troop standing there in the heat of the
afternoon sun. Now and then a horse pawed restlessly or a bridle
jingled. Otherwise they sat silent and motionless.

Then he gave the order to ride forward. He knew when to cut a loss.


[V]

The road to Cowley Thorn turned left from the main road, slanting
somewhat backward and curving till it ran almost due west.

Further on, on the same side, but striking in a more northerly
direction, was the road that had once led to the mansion of the Earl of
Hallowby and to the village of Lower Hedford, which was now under water.

It was up this road that Joe and his two companions had turned their
horses, under the guidance of Rentoul, who had scouted over the district
during the summer nights until he knew his way better than most of those
who had not lost their right to live there.

Among the men who had followed the lead of Jerry Cooper, he was,
perhaps, the most decent. A love of adventure, a genuine admiration for
a man who seemed stronger and more capable than those who opposed him,
joined to a certain callousness of temperament, had led him to follow
Jerry Cooper, and he was not of the kind to lightly admit an error or
leave the side he had taken.

Riding now at a brisk pace, which had outdistanced the rest of the party
(and cleared the main road too soon to encounter the approaching Davy),
but not so as to tire their horses for the harder work which was before
them, the three men fell into conversation upon the orders which they
had undertaken.

Joe was anxious that the abduction should be carried out with sufficient
speed to insure that they should not be left behind the retreat of their
companions. He had a plan in his own mind, but before he proposed it he
inquired as to the intentions of his companions.

Bryan, a coarse-featured man with a large wen under the left eye and the
general aspect of a stage assassin, thought that the presence of the
children would make it easy. "She can't run far with the kids, and it's
most like," he said, "that she won't leave them. If they're indoors we
shall have them out easy enough."

Joe suggested that they might persuade them to come by quieter methods.

"It's dirty work, anyway," said Rentoul.

Bryan stared.

Joe said: "Tell her we've come from Tom, and she'll go quiet." He liked
the easier way, and he knew that violence is almost always stupid.

They turned their horses into the by-road. So far they had seen neither
man nor woman. A distant shot as they took the corner told them that the
other troops were at work, and that some resistance was offered, but all
seemed peaceful here.

Yet they had not gone a hundred yards along the narrower road when a
shot came from the wooded roadside behind them. There was a high bank on
the left along this road. It would have been a hopeless folly to
dismount and search for their assailant. With a common impulse they
quickened pace to get beyond range of the danger. Rentoul was lying
forward as though to reduce the mark he might give for a second shot.
They did not think that he might be wounded. But the chestnut mare he
rode, who had known her rider's ways for two months of lonely scouting,
was aware that something was wrong. She slackened pace and stopped at
the roadside. He half slipped, half fell from the saddle. He reached a
hand to his back and felt under the shoulder blade. It came back
reddened.

His companions reined up for a moment, and then rode on.

"He's out," said Bryan.

Joe had no intention of risking delay for a wounded man. He had a
practical mind. "There'll be two for one of us to manage," he said.
"You'd better take the kids."

Bryan did not reply.

The chestnut mare stood by her master, puzzled and nervous, but she did
not offer to leave him, though the smell of blood frightened her as she
breathed over the prostrate body. After a time she began to feed at the
roadside.

Joe and Bryan rode on. It was awkward that Rentoul should have been
knocked out. It was he that knew the park and the way to enter. Still,
they could not easily go wrong now. So they thought; but they lost time
by continuing to the lodge gates, which they found to be secured beyond
their means of forcing. To climb them would have been little benefit
unless they were prepared to haul their captives over on their return.

They went back, seeking for a place where they could break through the
palings most easily. There had been no sign of life from the lodge.

They had to go back for some distance, thanks to Tom's repairing energy,
before they found a place where they could force a gap without any great
difficulty.

Here they entered, and riding through a growth of bracken which rose to
their horses' shoulders, under oaks that had withstood the storms of
three centuries, they came on to the main drive and turned toward the
lodge they were seeking.

Then they pulled up sharply, for a woman stood on the path before them.

"Let me speak," said Joe, and walked his horse forward, taking his cap
from his head.

Helen's heart beat with fear, but she had seen that there would be no
time for concealment--they had come so silently over the mossy turf--and
she stood her ground bravely.

"I have a message," Joe said, "for Mrs. Aldworth; are you she?"

"No," said Helen, "at least, I am--I think you mean me."

"Tom says that Jerry Cooper's coming, and you won't be safe here. He's
sent us to bring you away."

Helen looked at the men, and did not trust them. Yet it might be true.
She temporized.

"I cannot leave the children," she said. "Is there really much danger?"

Joe answered: "We are to bring the children with us. Tom said there were
two. But we can't wait. He sent three of us, and one was shot as we came
up the road."

Helen still doubted, but his words turned the scale. The message said
that there were two children, and regarded their welfare as well as her
own. Also, she had heard the shot. The tale seemed true, and the danger
must be very near.

"Need we get any things?" she asked. "Is there time? The children are
close at hand."

"Better come as you are," said Joe, whose mind was on an opposite danger
from hers.

She called the children, who were playing in the woods only a few yards
away.

"You'll take the kids," said Bryan, speaking for the first time. Joe did
not prefer this, but he did not want an altercation before the woman,
who might take alarm. He looked at the children. They were light enough.
One before, one behind. He could manage. Their mother lifted them, and
with Bryan's help they were strapped securely. They were timid of his
strangeness, but keen on the unexpected pleasure of the ride.

"Much better this way than any fuss," thought Joe.

It was Helen's turn now to mount. She stood doubtfully beside the
unattractive Bryan.

"Shall I get up behind you?" she said doubtfully.

"No," he said, "in front." He reached a hand, and she jumped easily
enough with a foot on his stirrup. He drew her up roughly. Handcuffs
clicked on her wrists. A rope was twisted. He threw her over so that she
hung like a sack above the horse's neck, her loose hair trailing. She
was powerless even to struggle.

Joe surveyed his companion's methods with some disgust.

"Better have done it quieter," he said.

Bryan turned on him with a sneer. "It's all done quiet enough. She won't
hurt. A few jolts won't kill her. Don't I want me hands free to fight?
We're not clear yet."

"Right," said Joe; "but get her safe to the Captain." He grinned with
his usual amiability. He had no mind to quarrel with Bryan. If he killed
her it wasn't Joe that would get the blame.

They debated by which way they should return. They had no wish to ride
back along the road where Rentoul had fallen. There might be other
bullets in waiting. They decided to cross the park. There must be a road
on the further side, so they thought.

They looked back and saw an old woman staring at them curiously from the
door of the lodge.


[VI]

We have seen already how minor factors, unknown and incalculable, may
defeat the soundest-seeming plans and deride their contrivers.

So had it happened again; for though the tactical defeat of Jerry Cooper
by Martha Barnes may be considered a direct issue of superior
generalship, the fact that Tom Aldworth's force had passed from his
control into that of a man who was hurrying back to a lost and recovered
wife must be recognized as being outside the possibility of foresight or
calculation.

It was owing to the impetus of this circumstance that the returning
force was within four miles of the road-junction at which Jerry had
halted, when a motorcycle was observed to be making a determined, though
somewhat tortuous, advance towards them.

For Davy, though not without accident, had done better than Jerry had
anticipated. The primary necessity of carrying out his mother's
instructions had given both confidence and caution. It was not a
probable supposition that the cycle would venture on any rebellious
escapades; it was unthinkable that failure should result from his own
default.

Martin was walking with Claire at the head of a tired and laden
procession, only kept in motion by the fact that their new leader was
ahead, and that both he and Claire were as burdened as any. But Davy did
not know him, and addressed himself to Tom, to whom his message had been
directed.

"Mother says as Jerry Cooper's come a-callin'. 'Ur sez yer'd better
'urry now, or yer needn't 'urry at all."

He found himself the center of an excited group of questioners, to whom
he gave a sufficient account of his experiences to prove that he carried
more than a rumor of panic.

He showed the broken spoke, the leaking petrol.

Martin stood on the outside of the group, listening and resolving.

His mind, behind the habitual calm of his manner, had been in a state of
hardly controlled excitement since the episode of the night before.

Always in the front of his consciousness was the coming meeting with
Helen. There would be so much to tell--so much to hear. There was Claire
also to be introduced--explained--included.

Behind this anticipation there was the thought of the power that had
come so strangely into his hands. If he could make it real! It was such
a chance! He had but a score of followers. They might be able to bring
others. They appeared sure of that. Sure of the power they could give
him. But how to use it if it should come? He must be cautious and
patient. He must give his life to their service. He knew that there is
no other road to any real supremacy. He must walk as burdened as any.

He must be ruthless also. He had not practiced in English law-courts
without learning the evils which had been eating the heart of the
nation. There would be a cleaner social order to build up. There would
be evil practices to suppress. Diseases to be stamped out. There would
be new controls to be devised. There would be a hundred practical issues
to be determined promptly. What could be conserved of the old wealth? of
the old knowledge? What was worth the saving?

So he had thought, and Fate, as usual, dealt the cards, and here was the
need for action, prompt and decisive. Action which, he saw, might
establish or confound him on the threshold of the dream with which his
mind was exultant.

The men had got what they could from Davy. Some of them were already
throwing down their burdens and loading rifles, which had been put aside
as though their use were ended.

He advanced through the group. He said to Davy: "You said there were
twenty of them. Are you sure there were no more?"

Yes. Davy was sure. About a score. All mounted.

Martin turned to Tom. "If they've got clear, have we horses to follow?"

Tom shook his head. They had nothing better than their own legs. "But if
they've taken the women we'll soon catch them. They can't keep riding
forever. They'd come to the water."

"Tom," said Martin, "think hard. Which way will they clear out? They
must have timed the raid when they knew you'd be absent. They've seen
this boy come to warn you. They fired to stop him. They won't come back
this way. Do you know where they camp?"

Tom shook his head. "Not one of us knows that. But they went off first
down the Belsham Road. They'd be likely to go the same way. They
couldn't go far by any other, unless they came here or walked into the
sea. They'd keep that road--for the first three miles, anyway."

"How many of these men have families that may be in danger now?"

Tom looked round. Five there were--or six if we must reckon Jack
Tolley's interest in the unconscious Madge. Five who had left children
or women to the doubtful protection of others while they came on this
venture. And there was Helen, and hers. His own matter, and Martin's.
But he owned that she would be fairly safe. The park was far off and
solitary. In a hurried raid, in which they would keep together, they
would be unlikely to find her.

Martin's resolution failed for a moment only. He knew the right thing,
and he could not ask of others what he would not do himself. Suppose
Tom--But he must take the risk.

He spoke to the men.

"Boys," he said, "every minute counts now. If any of you haven't thrown
down everything but what he'll need in a fight, he'd better do it
quickly. The three wounded men will stay here, and the women and Hodder.

"The rest of you will follow me. We're going to try to cut off their
retreat. It's a poor chance, but it's the best. But I say this, if any
of you want to go straight to protect his own I don't forbid that. He
can fall out. But I think he'll find he's not needed at all, or he'll be
too late. In two minutes we march."

He looked at Tom with an anxiety which he did not show. If Tom elected
to go to the relief of Helen he could not forbid it after what he had
said, and he was conscious how it might appear in some possible
developments. And he wanted Tom. He was the best man he had. But he felt
that he had done right. It was the best chance, and it was his duty to
lead it.

But Tom made no motion to go. It was Jack Tolley who spoke. He said: "It
sounds the best chance, and you'll need us all if it's Cooper's gang
that you're fighting. You know how we feel. We'll come if you tell
us--but not else. We want orders for that."

He looked round, and the men nodded.

Martin saw that there was some reason in the attitude he took up. If he
were ordered he would come. He would not have it said afterwards, under
unforeseeable circumstances, that he had been told that he could go to
Madge's succor and had not done so.

"Right," Martin said. "You will all come. Who knows the way best? We
want to cut into the Belsham Road before it forks below Sterrington
Church."

He knew the road well enough. He had cycled along it more than once in
the old days. The fields and lanes were another matter. But Jack
volunteered readily. He could have found his way in the dark. Had done
so, in fact, on the moonless nights that the poacher loves.

Claire touched his arm. "You won't want me?" she asked.

He hesitated for a second. He had learned to rely upon her so much in
their four days' intimacy. And he knew that they might need every hand
that could press a trigger. Perhaps if she had not raised the question,
but had just come, he thought... But it was not women's work. And
women were so few now! It was not a question of what he wished. He had
no right to allow it. He shook his head. "No. You must stay here with
the others. I hope you've seen your last fight."

"May I go to Helen?" She pointed to the cycle that Davy was holding in
readiness. "He says he can take me."

"Yes," he said. He was surprised and grateful that she should have
proposed it. He thought that she would be safer that way than in the
fighting. But he was relieved also. "Will it carry you?" he asked, with
an eye on the leaking tank. Davy grinned affirmatively.

The men were already streaming back along the road, for Jack was leading
them in that direction toward a field-path which would be speedier than
a more direct attempt across the wild-hedged pastures.

Martin went to the cart to get his own rifle. Claire came beside him.
"I'll have the pistol," she said, "if you don't want it." She ran back
to the waiting Davy. "Good-by," she called, "and good luck. You'll find
them safe tonight." She did not look round for a reply.


[VII]

Martin hurried past the sacks and bales and bundles that had been cast
aside by his followers, and which were now being collected by the
inefficients whom he had appointed for that duty.

He was making no use of the horses. They were only four. They were
tired. And his men could not ride. And the way they were taking might
not be easy for mounted men. Four good reasons. They would not have been
of any conceivable utility. The three pack-horses had been overloaded,
and were lame and exhausted. The one remaining horse for the cart was in
a worse case. It had been impossible to bring it along the line, and it
had been started off in the early morning to make a detour of some miles
by rough and rutty ways. It was being urged on with difficulty when
Davy's appearance proved its unexpected deliverance, and demonstrated to
its simple intellect that Providence is not entirely blind to the
sufferings of the innocent.

Martin pushed on rapidly till he had regained the head of the column. He
said to Jack: "How much time can we have?" Jack calculated. "We shall be
in Ekin's Lane in twenty minutes. It's a mile from there to Sterrington.
A mile and a bit. The roads don't run so far apart till the split comes
at the church.... It ud have been four miles back, and more, and
three miles on the other road. We save nigh two hour."

"Shall we do it?"

Jack doubted. "They'll make good speed," he said, "when they're clear of
the hill. It's a good road. About the best that's left."

Martin knew that this must be so. The road ran high, between low hedges
and open fields. It was wide and well-ditched. It had little roadside
growth, beyond a low thorn or a clump of elder. Earthquake and storm
might have left it clear for all its length.

There was little comfort in that. But he recalled with more satisfaction
that the road fell before it forked at Sterrington. There was cover
there. A good place for an ambush.

"Can you manage a better pace?" he said. Jack broke into a trot beside
him. The column straggled behind.


[VIII]

Claire had proved her nerve a score of times since the night when it
seemed that the whole earth had failed her and she had kept afloat in
the waters. She had done some things at which she could shudder
afterwards, wondering whether it were not a nightmare from which she
would wake to the familiar outlines of the wistariaed window of her
Cheltenham home. But she had not previously occupied the precarious rear
of a motorcycle that rushed along a wreck-strewn road at a speed that
was sometimes twenty miles an hour, and that varied continually as it
swerved and jibbed and shot forward at a different angle.

She would almost have preferred to have to face the brutality of Bellamy
once again, certainly have preferred to stand up to the rifle of the
approaching Donovan.

Yet they had no accident. They passed more than one group of excited
people, whose activity was plainly of the talking kind, at whom Claire
looked curiously, and who looked at the strange woman that Davy brought
from nowhere with a livelier wonder.

They turned into the road that led to the lodge without any incident
that is worth recording, and had gone but a short distance along it when
they observed a saddled chestnut mare that grazed at the roadside.

At the sound of their coming it lifted a sudden head and appeared about
to gallop away, but an urgent word from Claire--the first she had
uttered--brought the machine to a halt. She jumped off.

"Davy," she said, "wait a moment. I want that horse."

She did not intend to remount the cycle under any earthly circumstance.
She was still alive. She would be content--and grateful.

She walked up to the horse. A man lay near, on the roadside grass. She
bent over him doubtfully. She had seen men die. She had seen men dead.
She knew that death was here.

The man's face was young, and not evil. It drew her eyes. It was the
face of one who had taken the adventure of life gaily. He had been shot
in the back. She wondered on which side he had fallen.

The mare came nearer. She stretched her head toward the dead man.

Claire had a feeling that his spirit was beside them. That there was
something which he would have explained if he could. His face was
peaceful. He did not look as though he had grudged his end. She had a
feeling that he was glad that the bullet had found him. It might be thus
that an Overruling Power had turned him from a wrong path he had chosen.
Who knows?

She laid a hand on the mare's neck, and their eyes met. "You've got a
mistress now," she said, smoothing the glossy shoulder.

She began to shorten the stirrups.

"Can yer ride 'er?" said the wondering Davy.

"Davy," she answered, "I learned to fall off a horse before I was six;
but I haven't learned to fall off your carrier yet, and I don't want to
begin. Have we much farther to go?"

"Not far," Davy answered her. It was about a quarter of a mile to the
gates of the drive, but Tom had left them locked. He did not think that
they could get in by that way.

"Very well," said Claire, "we must find another."

She mounted, and they went forward side by side, at no great pace, with
an eye to the high fence that bordered the park on their right hand.

They came to a gap where it had been broken down. "We had better go
through here," Claire said, "or, at least, I will. You wouldn't get the
bike through the wood. I think you can go home, Davy. I ought to find my
own way now."

She turned the mare to the side. There was no footpath, but a slight
bank of grass and then a shallow ditch before the broken paling. The
ditch was wet from the storm of the night before. Rain had been heavy in
that part. She saw hoof-marks in the soft mud. They were quite fresh. A
sudden terror chilled her. She had said: "You will find them safe
tonight." Would he? Was she too late?

Davy was bringing the cycle over the grass behind her. He did not want
to be left behind.

"It's no good, Davy," she said. "I'm riding fast."

She pushed the mare through the gap.

He saw them plunge into the bracken, and the oaks hid them.

Five minutes later Mary Wittels looked up at a woman who sat astride on
a chestnut mare before her door and questioned her eagerly.

The woman had no hat. Her short, dark hair was in a tumbled disorder.
There was a bruise on her forehead. She wore the dress of a housemaid,
and a leather belt, with a long sheathed knife and a heavy pistol.

Mary's shrewd old eyes surveyed her, and she answered respectfully. She
had lived to see funny times. She did not know why she was dressed up
like that. She might be play-acting. But Mary knew a lady when she saw
her. Knew her by her voice and words, and by her easy seat in the
saddle.

"No, ma'am," she said, "they seemed to go willin'. An' then, when she
was up it seemed as how he threw 'er rough-like over the 'orse....
No, I'd never seed them before.... No, they didn't go back under the
trees. They rode straight for the 'all."

Claire tried to learn what were the other exits from the park and what
roads might be beyond them, but it was many years since Mary had been
fifty yards from her own door. She explained that the Earl had objected
to people crossing the park. The gate on the further side had, she
believed, been blocked up years ago. There was nothing beyond but
Bycroft Lane, and that led nowhere but to Farmer Richards', as folk said
wasn't there now.

Claire thanked her hurriedly with an absurd pre-deluge feeling that she
ought to give her a shilling, turned her horse, and rode rapidly up the
drive.

She had no doubt that Helen had been abducted, either by force or by
fraud, by some members of Cooper's gang. Only twenty minutes ago. The
old woman had been exact on that point. She had noticed it by the aged
timepiece which still ticked against the wall, as little altered as
herself by the collapse of Europe.

Claire thought quickly. She had only a vague idea of the geography of
the surrounding district. But it was clear that when they crossed the
park they must be riding away from the direction by which they came, and
by which they must ultimately return. It seemed clear, also, that Tom
would have time to cut off the retreat of the gang if they were still
operating in this manner. So far, good. (As to this, a careful
calculation may leave us in some doubt. A good horse will cover much
ground in an hour. Certainly, had they returned by the direct road they
would not have kept Jerry waiting for the full half-hour he allowed
them, and then he--But we anticipate.)

Claire supposed them to be better acquainted with the country than
herself, but here she was excusably mistaken. They had relied on Rentoul
for guidance, and Rentoul was dead. If we explore causes we shall find
that it is the nameless firer of the shot that killed him who did more
to bring these events to their destined end than all the anxious thought
and subtle planning of Jerry Cooper or Joe, of Claire or Martin, of all,
indeed, but Martha Barnes, who is in a class by herself.

Claire's geography was vague, but she saw that they must come round to
the right sooner or later to regain the highroad and to rejoin their
companions. Could she cut them off if she should attempt the same
direction at a sharper angle? It seemed the right thing to do, but she
did not like to leave the drive on which she rode much faster than she
could hope to do over the rough ground of the park, in which the
rabbit-burrows were a continued menace to her horse's feet.

She passed the ruins of the hall on her left, a heap of ashes and
blackened, fallen stonework, and then saw the weed-dimmed sign of a path
on her other hand that crossed what had been a space of open lawn and
struck into the woods beyond. Its track was plain, for the gravel weeds
had grown less rankly than the grass on either hand. Claire turned her
horse and rode rapidly, with a new hope in her heart. She saw that those
she pursued might have taken the same way, in which case she could only
hope that a greater speed would enable her to reach them before they
could gain the protection of their companions; but they might have kept
to the main path, which would give the better hope of an easy exit for
their burdened horses, and if so, she might hope to have them.

Anyway she had a straight path and a good horse--how good she was only
beginning to realize--and she must make the best speed she could.

So she came to the limit of the park and found that the last few yards
sloped down to a high fence, over which a ladder of steps allowed
pedestrian passage, but she saw no means by which her horse could cross
it. She was about to make her way along the side of the fence, in hope
of some more practicable exit, when she heard the sound of hooves, and
voices in disputation.

On the further side of the fence there was a deep and narrow lane,
obviously the Bycroft Lane of which the old woman had told her. Even on
the higher ground of the park, which was level with the fence-top, it
was too deep for her to see how great was the fall, but on the left hand
the ground rose sharply on both sides of the fence, and in such a way
that she could look up to the lane itself as it descended toward her.

It was a narrow, twisting lane, deep-rutted by the wheels of centuries,
choked now with a five-foot growth of docks and nettles and a thousand
hedge-weeds.

Claire looked up and saw two horsemen descending. The foremost was
loaded with two children, one before and one behind. She saw his face,
and recognized an earlier acquaintance with a start of natural
astonishment. He saw her at the same moment, and the sight stopped in
mid-sentence the raillery with which, for whatever purpose, he had been
infuriating his companion's temper.

"Devil take us both," he ejaculated, "it's the fighting bitch!" The
expression may have been lacking in respectful courtesy, but was not
without some justification. He felt a prudent satisfaction in the living
shields that were before and behind him.

Now Claire, who, as we know, had a strong will and a resolute courage,
had done what seemed to her to be the obvious and only thing when she
had ridden to the rescue of Martin's wife and children. But she had no
natural gift for strategy. She had done what Martin would not have done
in forcing an issue thus without any settled plan as to how she should
act when the crisis came, and now that it had arrived she was in no mood
to fear it.

Certainly she had no fear of Joe, on whom she looked with contemptuous
physical repulsion. She had always hated fat men!

The other man was less distinctly visible.

But it is fair to recognize that she would probably have acted in the
same way had Jerry Cooper himself encountered her with such a booty. As
to whether that should be accounted to her credit, two opinions are
possible.

To her mind (which yet lacked any subtlety for its contrivance) it was
clear that she must attempt a rescue.

Indignation and contempt gave her a moral ascendency over her
antagonists, and supplied the impulse of her first audacity.

Even while the exclamation of the ex-jockey left his mouth, his horse's
descent in the steep lane carried him out of Claire's view. In another
moment they would have ridden past beneath her.

She reined her horse back for a few yards and rode straight at the
fence.

It was a reckless leap. Taken, it is true, at the level of the
fence-top, but from a distance of several yards, and into a depth which
she could not see. Some credit is hers that she was not thrown clear of
the saddle, but it is due to fortune only that the mare came down on
four feet and uninjured.

She came down within a few yards of the advancing horsemen. The startled
animals plunged and swerved. There was a second's confusion, while
Claire recovered her seat and control of her horse, and Bryan found
himself jostled into the hedge so that he kept his saddle with
difficulty. As he reined his mount back into the middle of the narrow
lane he found himself looking into Claire's eyes at two yards' distance.
He had a short-barreled carbine, loaded, in a holster at his right hand.
He wrenched at it hastily. Claire saw the action, and her hand went to
her pistol. The two weapons came up together, but the smaller, lighter
pistol was an instant earlier. The one shot followed the other as
quickly as a clock ticks, but the carbine was already falling from a
broken arm.

Claire looked at the man that was disarmed before her. In his aspect,
though she hardly knew that she had paused, lay the answer to the
question, should she spare or kill? Had he been such as Rentoul I
suppose that there would have been a different issue. But Claire had
been taught already that the obtuse superstition of her earlier training
that all human life is of an equal sanctity was no longer tenable.

She looked at the man, and at the woman who was carried so brutally at
his saddle-bow. She fired again, and again. The body rolled from the
saddle.

But Joe, who had a better seat and a cooler head than the dead man or
the living woman, was away already. He had pulled his horse straight and
pushed past the chestnut's tail even before she had recovered her feet
from the leap or Claire had realized how she had landed. He was riding
down the lane as fast as the rutted weed-choked surface and the burdens
that he carried rendered possible, or at least prudent, for even in
peril Joe was a cautious man.

The two women stood facing one another beside the waiting horses and the
body of the dead man. It was not the meeting which Claire had purposed,
but Fate deals the cards, though there may be freedom to play them.
Claire had noticed the handcuffed wrists as she had helped Helen from
the horse. She had turned to the dying man, and found the key she sought
in the first pocket she searched. Now their hands met as she released
her--rival?--her enemy? She looked at Helen with an interest which her
protagonist could have no cause for feeling. She was not of a jealous
nature, but that meanest of human passions stirred in her heart as she
did so.

We have seen too little of Helen. We may look, as Claire looked--it is
but the hurried glance of a moment, for Joe is making off down the lane,
with eyes on his horse's steps, and ears alert for any following sound.

There was something more than personal in the contrast of these two
women, whom a hundred chances had conspired to bring together so
strangely.

Had they met four months ago, in the old ways, there would have been
differences of character and outlook such as often make for friendship.
But today those differences had widened to a point which would have
seemed beyond thinking.

Helen knew of the changes which had come. She had been told. She had
intelligence to realize what it must mean. In that first emergency, when
she had fought for her children's lives, she had shown that she was not
without courage or resource, if the call were great enough to rouse her.

But since then her illness, and the isolation in which she had lived,
had held her from any actual contact with the new conditions. And she
had always been one to look at life, rather than to face the arena's
dust, or to seek its triumphs. Her life had been in her husband, and in
her home, and in a lively interest in the events of the outer world.

Now she stood dizzily, and her hair--which she had never cut off after
the last craze of the world which had ceased to be--was disheveled.

But, apart from that, she showed no change from the conditions which
were gone forever.

The hope--however faint--that Martin might return at any moment as the
result of Tom's promised search had caused her to dress with more than
her usual care. It is idle to ask what she wore. The fashion of one year
was the derision of the next. It is equally idle to ask how she
contrived it. She had skill with hand and needle; and when had a woman
failed at such devices, since the first monkey sat in some convenient
tree-fork, and sewed the leaves that should make a mystery of her sex?

Claire looked, and knew. She was conscious of her own garments.

Claire saw a woman of her own height, who looked taller: of her own age,
who looked younger. Helen was in robust health, but, beside Claire, she
looked fragile. She had a charm, a wild-rose beauty, with which Claire
well knew that she could not compete.

Claire had little vanity. She did not doubt that her own judgment would
be that of others. She might have a man's friendship, but it was here
that his eyes would turn with the desire which makes a woman's heart
beat quickly. And Claire was a woman. And when she thought of a man, she
meant Martin.

All this was thought or seen as the handcuffs parted. Hands touched.
Slim hands, fine and white, with rose-pink nails, were loosed by larger
hands that were unclean, and scratched, and scarred, and hardened by
many a rough task of recent days.

Claire would have been less than woman had she failed to observe the
contrast, had she not wished that her own nails were unbroken.

All this took no time in the doing.

Helen looked at the bruised face and uncouth dress of her abrupt
deliverer, but she scarcely saw them. She may be excused some
bewilderment, and her mind was on one thing only.

She said: "Can you save them?"

Claire said: "Can you ride?" She looked at the dead man's horse.

Helen hesitated for a second. She could not ride, as she could not swim.
Yet for her children's safety there was nothing that she would not have
ventured.

But the second's hesitation was Claire's answer. Besides, she thought
(without unkindness), she would be useless.

"You had better wait here," she said. "My horse is faster." Bryan's was
obviously not of the quality of the chestnut with which Rentoul's
scouting had been accomplished. "I will bring them to you."

Her foot was in the stirrup as she spoke, and her leg went over the
saddle.

She looked at Helen again. There was much that should be told before
Martin met her. Things he would rely upon her to have told. And there
was no time. But at least she could say something.

"I came to tell you that Martin is alive, and may be here before night.
We have been good friends, Martin and I. More than friends. I ought to
tell you that. I will bring you the children."

It was more than she had clearly intended to say. She had meant to say
simply that Martin was alive, and the rest had followed.

She saw joy leap into Helen's eyes. She did not know whether she
realized or regarded the meaning of the words that followed. She rode on
down the lane.

Helen stood looking after her. Mechanically her hands went up in an
endeavor to rearrange the mass of brown-gold hair, and desisted, having
no means to fasten it.

Claire was right. She had hardly heard. There is nothing that conveys
character, or gives warning or confidence, so surely as the human voice.
Helen had heard a voice which had the largeness of Claire's own nature.
It had said: "Martin is alive--I will bring you the children." What else
could matter?

Helen laughed uncertainly. She said aloud: "She is like a valkyrie." She
could have kissed her feet.

She went down the lane. She expected to meet her at any moment returning
with the rescued children. She came to the highroad. She went on, and
saw neither horse nor rider, but she saw something which quickened her
pace along the smoothness of a tarred road, which was still clear of any
growth, though few men trod it.

It was the peculiar devilishness of the civilization which the seas had
ended that it had dug death from the earth's interior. The surface of
the earth had been adapted by its Creator, through incalculable periods
of preparation, for the support of sentient life, and with such life, on
and above its surface, and for a few inches below it, it was crowded,
life-in-life, small and large, to a miraculous minuteness, and with a
bewildering complexity. It seemed the design of the Mind that formed it,
that not an inch of this precious surface, redeemed for a brief while
from the barren wastes of ether by gigantic operations continued through
incalculable periods of time, should be destitute of the life for which
it had been made ready. But this civilization, sinning in this direction
far beyond any which had preceded it, tore up the living surface of the
earth, and smeared it with the dead matter below, from which life shrank
back, baffled and terrified. Men substituted the dead smoke for the
living light, the dead steel for the living hand, the dead steam for the
living horse, fatuously believing that they progressed toward some
higher plane of being than that which their Master had provided for
them.

They boasted that they had increased the possibility of human life on
the earth's surface, not having the wit to see that they had not
increased its area of potential fertility by a single inch, nor found a
method of cultivation more intensive than that of the spade in a man's
hand; and that, at the most, they could only claim that they had made it
possible for large numbers of the race to crowd together at a distance
from the food on which their lives depended.

They did not see that every yard of the earth's surface which they
deadened with coal or steel, with tar or petrol, every process which
they carried out by the forces of dead matter rather than by the
activities of living cells, definitely decreased the total of animate
life, whether human or vegetable, which the earth could bear.

Three months had passed since the earth trembled, and its surface sank,
but this stretch of highroad still ran, cursed and bare, between the
wild-grown hedges. Running east and west, it had borne little of the
wild rush to the northward. A fallen elm lay across it. It bore the
skeleton of a dead sheep that the dogs had eaten. Otherwise, for the
most part, it was smooth and vacant.

But Helen did not regard these things. She scarcely saw them when, two
hundred yards away, a child stood uncertainly, very bruised, and lost,
and tearful.

For the next hour Helen remained seated on the fallen tree, holding a
sleeping child in her arms, and watching an empty road. Then she rose
doubtfully, and went homeward. She supposed it was there that Martin
would seek her. There she might find news, or means of succor. She went
back by the way she had come; hope, anxiety, and anticipation,
contending for supremacy in her heart.


[IX]

I shall have failed very thoroughly in interpreting the character of
Claire Arlington (or Webster, if we allow it to be reasonable that a
woman should adopt the name of the man with whom she has established the
most intimate of human relationships) if it has not become evident
already that she was one who would strike straight and hard for any
object to which her purpose turned, without over-careful calculating of
either risk or cost in the gaining.

She rode down the lane at a pace which would have appalled the cooler
mind of the man she followed. At every stride she risked a stumble in
the hidden weed-grown ruts, but she came through safely, as audacity
may, and swung round into the highroad, to find that she had made up
most of the time that she had lost in the freeing of Helen, and that
Joe, now riding hard enough, was but a short distance before her.

As she came down the lane she had not been thinking of Joe, or of the
children, but of a more personal problem. The pang of jealousy which had
stirred her heart as she had observed the loveliness of the wife that
Martin was about to recover had quickly died, finding no nourishment in
an unaccustomed soil. But the conviction remained that Helen's right not
only was that of a chronological precedence, but was irrevocably
established in a feminine superiority which it would be futile for her
to attempt to challenge. She was accustomed to the knowledge that there
were few women, among the score of millions that had dwelt around her,
against whom she could not compete in the sports of either land or
water. Of this she thought but little, but in more feminine comparisons,
she was of a convinced humility. With such a wife, could she hope that
Martin would continue to regard her? It was not sense to suppose it.
Friendship would continue, surely. But beyond that--nothing. Friendship
with Helen? How would Helen take the tale which she had come to tell
her? She felt that she had nothing to excuse. She would not be
apologetic. If Fate had loaded its dice for their undoing, it was
against herself they had fallen. But as to how Helen would take it, she
considered, as Martin had done before, and like Martin--she was not
sure.

She did not calculate that if she should succeed in the recovery of the
children, she would have placed Helen under any obligation of gratitude.
It was not the kind of thought to which her mind was native. Besides, it
was not for Helen that she was attempting it. It was because they were
Martin's children. Her relations with Martin being what they were, it
was an action which was obvious and inevitable. It was an affair of the
family. She did not think this. It was of the fundamentals, on which we
all act without thinking, though they are not the same for all of us.

So she came into the highroad, and saw Joe but a short distance before
her. The distance was lessened when Joe came to the fallen elm.

It is needless to say that he was a good horseman. The horse he rode was
the best of six, for he had done his own choosing. It might have jumped
the tree easily enough, but it was a large tree, and Joe did not know
his mount. He did know enough to be doubtful, and he was always
cautious. Then, the horse was awkwardly burdened.

Instead of taking it as it came in the middle road, he turned to the
further side, where the fallen bole was slimmest. Here, on the grassy
edge of the road, he scrambled rather than jumped the horse across it.

By this time Claire was close behind. She rode straight at the tree. The
chestnut took it like a swallow. She cocked a backward ear for her
mistress's approval.

Claire laughed aloud. "Good girl," she said. The chestnut's pace
quickened.

There is a school of theologians which asserts that the souls of animals
(if it allow them to have any) are of an inferior quality to those which
have been bestowed upon the human race. Dogmatic theology is of no
importance, unless we regard it as a form of mental gymnastics. The only
safe deduction from this particular speculation is that theologians are
not horsemen.

A man may talk to his fellow-man for a week, and yet may not reach the
understanding which may be born in an hour between a horse and a trusted
rider.

The chestnut could not mention that she had come that way, in the early
morning hours, half a score of times before, with Rentoul on her back.
It was a jump she knew. Whether modesty or truth would have constrained
her to tell it is beyond knowing. Nature withheld the temptation.

Joe looked back, and, for the first time he was anxious. He saw that the
mare had spurted, and the distance shortened behind him. He could get a
little more from his own horse, but not much.

He had a pistol, which he had obtained at Cooper's camp, though it was
against his prudence to show it unless the need were final. It may be
questioned why he did not relieve himself from such pursuit by using it,
either against the horse, or against the woman.

The explanation is simple. He regarded Claire as his own property. She
was the reward which Cooper had agreed should be his portion, if she
should fall into their clutches. Now, very humorously, she was riding in
the direction he required, and--he did not doubt--to her own undoing.
His mind went forward to the spot at which the raiders were to assemble
when their spoil was taken. He did not doubt that some of them would be
there already. They would not be visible till the hilltop should be
gained, and then it would be too late for flight on a horse that would
be already exhausted. He pictured the troop burdened with a score of
captives--tied and protesting. A score of screaming, weeping,
struggling, or secretly contented women. None but he would have brought
his capture riding obediently behind him. He was well pleased also with
the result of his venture. Helen had escaped, and his two companions had
been shot down, but that showed how perilous had been the enterprise
which he had come through successfully. He would have brought off the
children. They would be sufficient hostages for any purpose. A man will
do as much to save two members of his family as though three were in
jeopardy. So he supposed. Two--or one. That had become a practical
question. He looked back again at the pursuit. The chestnut ran easily.
He had looked back so often thus when the last lap opened. No man living
could better judge of the capacity of the horse that shortened the
distance behind him.

If Claire could ride well enough, he knew that the next hundred yards
would see them neck to neck, and it was a risk that he had no mind to
take. He had not stayed to see the end of Bryan, but he had heard the
shots, and it was Claire who had come clear of the conflict. She was the
"fighting bitch." She should keep her place in the rear.

He resolved that he must drop one of the children. He would have liked
it to be the elder, but it was Joan who was serving as an involuntary
shield for his back, and her work was too useful to terminate. He loosed
the younger, Mary, and pitched her into the grassy ditch at the
roadside, where she lay for a time before rising, bruised and
frightened, but without any serious injury. Joe had endeavored to throw
her so that she should not strike the hard road, nor suffer useless
damage. It is right to record that as a fact; it would be wrong to give
him any credit for this consideration. Like many of his type he disliked
to inflict pain. When he avoided it, he was considering his own feelings
only. He would not have lost a finger to save the lives of a hundred
children, had they been ten miles away. They might have been boiled
alive, and he would have grinned untroubled.

Claire saw the child fall, and her eyes, which could be soft enough at
the right time, hardened, as they had done when she fired into the body
of Bryan. It was the look which Helen had caught, as she had looked up,
and seen a fierce and merciless light in large gray eyes under black and
meeting brows, which was in her mind when she said: "She is like a
valkyrie." It was a look which she would long remember, which had
printed on her mind one aspect of Claire's character as an indelible
record.

It was then that Claire first looked at Joe with the resolve to kill
him. But Joe had no wish to be killed, and we have seen that he had some
adroitness in avoiding danger.

Claire supposed that he had dropped the child with some thought that she
would stop to pick it up, and that he would escape with the other. But
she had no mind for this (of which, indeed, he had not thought--he had
acted under the spur of necessity). But, for the moment, his lightened
horse made a better pace: the distance did not shorten between them.
Rather, it lengthened slightly. For more than that, Joe made no effort.
He would not waste the strength of his horse beyond the need of the
moment.

We have seen what was in Joe's mind, but why did not Claire fire at the
horse before her? The answer is simple again, though it may seem foolish
to many. She did not think of it. Her quarrel was with the man: she had
none with the horse. It was not an idea which would be likely to come to
her mind, or one that she could have received without repulsion; or
adopted, except in the most desperate of emergencies.

So they passed the end of the lane that led to the lodge up which she
had gone an hour ago on Davy's wobbling chariot, passed the lane on the
left, down which Davy had dodged away from the bullets, passed the road
to Cowley Thorn on the right. They passed a group of excited men, the
dismounted Davy among them. Some of them were armed. They appeared to be
collected there with no definite purpose. They waited to hear of the
doings of those of a more resolute kind--and meanwhile it was a
sufficient occupation to question Davy.

They gazed in a loose-mouthed wonder at the flying riders. One man
fired. The bullet, vague as the mind that sent it, broke a high twig in
a distant hedge.

The road was now less clear than it had been. There were fallen walls
and trees, and shattered fences, which human industry had been
insufficient to more than partly clear at the worst places.

Pace must slacken at times, but, with Joe's skilful riding, the distance
held.

Now they were near the ruins of the mining village, and the hill rose
before them. Joe felt that the game was almost over, as indeed it was.
He used a sharp spur as the ground commenced to rise beneath them. He
had been saving something of his horse's strength for just this effort.
He did not give Claire credit for a similar strategy. But in this he was
wrong. For some time she had been riding the chestnut well within its
capacity. She had seen the rise of the hill long before they had reached
it, and had resolved that it was there that she would call for the
sudden effort which should draw level, and give her the shot which would
not risk the child. As soon as the ground rose she would do it. The
pistol was in her hand already. But how often do things happen as we
intend them?

Joe's gelding felt the spur, and quickened a stride that was already
slackening on the rising ground. Claire's chestnut felt an urgent heel,
and heard a voice that called her to a further effort. Joe's practiced
ear caught the quicker beat of the hooves behind him. He looked round,
and the look was fatal.

Twenty yards ahead Martha stood at her cottage door, a yard-broom in her
hand. She had heard of Claire. Davy was not a youth to gossip in the
village street before reporting at his own headquarters. Martha judged
the position with an instant accuracy. The broom spun beneath the legs
of the flying horse.

Had Joe been looking, the result might have been different. He was a
clever rider. As it was, the gelding did not come to a complete
disaster, it broke its stride, staggered, and came to its knees a few
yards further down the road. But Joe, riding with turned head and a
slack rein, shot clean out of the saddle, and lay motionless.

Claire dismounted beside him. The child, strapped to his back, had
fallen with him, but he had been a useful pillow to break her fall.
Claire loosed her, with a wary eye on the sprawling form beneath, which
made no motion. Joan was unhurt and untroubled. She seemed to recognize
Claire as a friend, and to trust her without scruple. She looked at her
with excited eyes, but without fear. She said something which Claire
could not clearly follow.

Claire lifted her in her arms, and looked again at the fallen man. He
might be dead. It was more than likely that he would recover.

Anyway, she could not shoot him there, now that he had fallen, and in
the sight of the child. She put the pistol in her belt.

She lifted the child, and swung back into the saddle. She thought,
"Another horse may be worth having." She caught the gelding's rein, and
he trotted beside her. So she rode back through the group that still
talked and did nothing. They looked at her with a new wonder, but no one
stayed her.

Martha had retired behind a closed door after the broom left her hands.
She watched from a window. Now she came out again. She picked up the
broom. She noticed, with some annoyance, that it now had a cracked
stale. She looked at the silent figure on the road. There might be
compensation here. She stooped over him. She could observe no injury.
Her hand went into an inviting pocket.

"No, you don't," said the voice of Joe. He grabbed her wrist, and she
struck at him with the broom to free it.

He struggled to his feet. "No, mother, I'm not hurt," he said, with his
usual grin, "you won't search me this time. I've got a pistol." He
appeared to bear her no ill-will. It was not evident that he realized
that it was by her hand that he had fallen.

"I couldn't move till that hell-bitch cleared," he added, in a needless
explanation.

He had had many a worse fall than that. There was nothing more than a
cut hand, and a bruised knee.

Martha looked at him shrewdly, but she made no answer. She went in and
shut the door.

He went up the hill.


[X]

It has been said with truth that a campaign is won by the general who
makes the fewest mistakes, where all make many.

The operations which we are now considering illustrate this axiom.

Captain Cooper had advanced to his anticipated surprise with caution. He
had scouted far ahead, and on either flank, though the prospect of any
resistance to an advance which could not have been foreseen was remote
enough.

Now that he was retiring, he was less careful, when he was in the
greater danger, though he could not know it.

The danger, if such there were, would appear to be from the rear, but
the fact is that he regarded the adventure as ended when he gave the
order for the retirement.

He was in a black mood. He did not hide from his own mind that he had
been defeated without a battle. He had been defeated by Martha Barnes,
though he was ignorant that he had been outmaneuvered by a woman. He had
lost two men killed, and two missing (who were killed also), besides the
jockey. A total of three women, and some miscellaneous booty, was a poor
set-off. He was poorer also by three horses.

He rode at the head of the retreating column, his mind on what had been,
rather than on anything which might be. He knew when to cut a loss.

Had he thrown out his flank-riders with his usual discretion they could
not have failed to observe the breathless line of riflemen who were
approaching Sterrington, as he rode down to the place which had been a
village. There was no village now. Fire and storm had destroyed it. But
the squat tower of the church still showed among such trees as had
survived to screen it.

The road ran steeply down, narrow, between high hedges, with the church
on the right, and a rise of meadow on the left. It was toward the crest
of this leftward ridge that Martin's little force were now straining.
They aimed to have descended, and lined the hedges on either side of the
road, before Jerry's band should have appeared.

Martin knew that they would show conspicuously on the crest, he could
not tell for how far; he went on first with Tom to the shelter of a
stunted thorn.

He saw the line of laden horsemen riding down the lane. Failure. He was
too late by ten minutes.

He took it quietly, though the disappointment was bitter.

"We're too late, Tom," he said. "Can you see who they've got?"

"They've not got much," said Tom, "if they tried for the women. I can
see three. There's Nance Weston for one. She's not much loss. There's no
man here that would risk a finger for Nance. The second's Goodwin's
Tilly. I wonder how they got her. Goodwin lives far enough off. I can't
see the third."

Martin's eyes followed the road. He never ceased to fight a case till
the judgment was given.

"Tom," he said, "can't we cut them off higher up, if we hurry?"

Tom answered alertly enough. "We might, if we keep along the ridge--if
they take the south road. They won't make much pace up the hill. It ud
be a near thing either way."

It was a chance--no more.

The road forked beyond the church, and if they took the more northern
route it was good-by to Goodwin's Tilly as well as to Nance the
worthless.

If they should turn to the south, there might be time, or there might
not. The way across the fields would be the shorter, and the more level.
But it might be rough, and slow walking. In the end, it must depend upon
the pace at which the horses were ridden up the hill.

Fortune favored the attempt in so far that the raiders came on to the
southern road. Had Tom or his friends had sufficient enterprise to
locate Jerry's camp in earlier days they would have known that they
would be certain to do so.

For the rest, though Fortune gave something to the importunity with
which Martin had wooed her favors, yet she did it with a niggard hand,
as though she grudged her surrender.

Jerry Cooper, leading the column on his great bay, reached the hilltop
at a walk, for the pace had slackened on the ascent, and looking round
as he did so, saw a dozen men, with Tom and Martin leading, coming
across a field of oats in which the cattle had wandered. What had not
been eaten had been trampled flat enough to make little obstacle for the
runners, but they were scant of breath, and could do little toward an
extra spurt, when they saw that they were again too late for their
purpose.

Martin judged the position quickly. If his men should halt and fire from
where they stood, the leaders of the climbing column might suffer, but
the others, toiling up the hill behind, would take their places. It
might soon be that they would be engaged in a duel in which his own men
would be exposed, while their opponents would have the protection of
hedge and ditch. He was not disposed to stake the lives of his men in
such a conflict.

Besides, he had left Jack Tolley, with half a dozen others, to follow
the road's course, and come up in their rear. That was to prevent the
backward flight of horsemen who could not be pursued on foot to any
possible purpose. But he had to consider now how that portion of his
force would come into action.

He called out: "Come on, men. Don't stop to fire." He continued to run
forward.

He saw Cooper, sitting coolly enough, lift a rifle to his shoulder, and
fire twice. Other figures were showing beside him. He turned, waving an
arm, and shouting to those behind. Then he spurred forward. He meant to
get his force clear, if he could, by the speed of their horses' legs.

Very nearly he did it. Of the fourteen men that were still with him,
nine got through without a shot being fired to stay them. With these men
he rode back into his own farm-yard as the evening was falling. They had
dropped much of their plunder. They had brought Nance Weston. He had
ridden out with eighteen men the day before--besides the jockey. He came
back with nine. Two more men rode in the next morning. Joe came also, on
foot. A weary man.

Martin's troop, finding nothing but a fallen gate to stay them, had run
into the road while the rearmost five were still breasting the hill. One
of these fell at the first shot. The others rode back down the hill. At
the foot, Jack's party blocked them. Two of them had women on their
horses' cruppers. This held back the men's fire, and seeing this, there
was an attempt to ride through them. At this one man succeeded. Another
was shot down in the attempt.

The shrill voice of Goodwin's Tilly saved the life of her captor, whom
she persuaded to yield, and who was afterwards useful in betraying the
secrets of the band. Whether Goodwin had any cause for satisfaction in
this development is less than doubtful. But that is another story.

Betsy Parkin, a foolish woman who had been slow to believe the danger,
and too late in attempted flight, had slipped down from her captor's
horse with unexpected agility as he had halted at the first uncertainty.
She hid in the ditch, being a prudent woman, till the firing ceased. Her
captor, relieved of her retarding weight, had leaped his horse over the
hedge, or forced it through it, and was first seen making off at as good
a pace as the heavy soil of a field of unhoed mangels permitted. He was
followed by half a score of bullets, which caused him some palpitation
(for he had a weak heart), but did no further damage. He was the other
man who got home in the morning. Martin marshaled men that were tired,
but triumphant. It had not been the decisive stroke for which he had
hoped and planned, but it was sufficient, and a bloodless victory.

They collected the recovered booty. They put the women on the captured
horses. They marched back well content with the leader that Fate had
sent them. They saw nothing of Joe, who had very prudently left the road
when he found that the appointed rendezvous was deserted.


[XI]

As the little force, tired but hilarious, straggled down the hill,
Martin realized that victory had brought no respite from the
responsibilities which he had undertaken so readily.

He knew that a sound military policy would have dictated an immediate
pursuit of the fleeing Cooper. But he judged this to be impossible. A
word to Tom confirmed this opinion. The men were divided between a
desire to seek their scattered homes, and a wish to recover the booty
which they had left on the earlier road. Both desires were natural
enough. They had not the cohesion of a military force.

His own wish, no less than theirs, was to escape to his private
interests--to his recovered family. But he was the first among them--and
he was the servant of all.

When they came to the junction of the road at the hilltop, he inquired
for any man that could ride to take the news of victory to the waiting
camp, and to order that the cart and pack-horses should be brought
forward. It was only four miles away, and the cart could be sent back
for a further load if that should be necessary.

There was difficulty about finding a man who could ride. One was pushed
forward at last, who was alleged to have become expert by illicit
exercise of pit-ponies. His seat in the saddle suggested that he had not
transgressed very frequently, or to any personal advantage.

Martin saw that there were matters that must not be left to chance to
determine. There were the horses, and some other things, which must be
auctioned in the previous manner. There might easily be disputes,
arising from the promiscuous way in which the men had abandoned their
possessions, at the last call to action. If he would have freedom for
himself, he must delegate the authority which he had taken. He called
the men together, and appointed a later hour for these divisions. With
these, Jack Tolley would deal, as his own deputy. He thanked them for
the way in which they had marched and fought. He told them that they
were free to go their own ways, till they should hear of his further
plans.

They cheered him with a good will. There was a note of life in the
sound, as of a new spirit in the community.

Martin turned to Tom. He assumed that it was he who would lead him to
Helen. But Tom excused himself. He had no wish to be present at such a
meeting. Discretion and inclination were at one on this point. He
remembered that Claire had gone ahead. The situation was ambiguous
enough. He would leave time for explanations, and for Helen to realize
it. He had not lost hope.

He suggested that a guide could easily be found who would show the way
to the lodge. He said that he was anxious to see some of the men who had
not been with them--men on whom he could rely to support Martin's
authority, if they should be informed of it in the right way. If he
might, he would follow at a later hour.

Martin was well content. He had no wish that there should be onlookers
at his first meeting with Helen. He found a ready guide in Davy, who was
still relating his experiences to a changing audience. What Martin heard
from him increased his haste. Davy told him of the dead man on the road
to the lodge; of the hoof-marks, and the broken paling; of a rush of
flight and chase which had passed with clangor of flying hooves along
the gaping street; of how Claire had ridden back with a child in her
arms, and a captured horse at her bridle. In the last three months Davy
had seen several things happen. Momentous things. But not after this
kind. It had been better than a circus of his childish memory. Better
than the Tipton cinema, whose glories were forever departed.

So far, good. Certainly Claire had justified her offer to go to Helen's
protection. The rescued child stood out as a clear fact from the
narrative. All else might be well. But might she not have ridden to
avenge, as well as to rescue? Might he not be going to a reunion in
which Death was a partner?

"Davy," he said, "can you ride?"

Davy's moon-face was blank with denial.

"Well, you soon will."

The group of lounging listeners stared at the voice of curt authority
with which Martin commandeered the best of the horses, which were being
unloaded beside them, and at the alacrity with which his wishes were
followed.

Betsy, getting down with more deliberation than she had shown on the
hillside, and answering some rough chaff concerning the absent Parkin
with an unbroken good-humor, found herself bustled to the ground with
unexpected celerity.

Davy, in another minute, was hoisted to a precarious eminence, where he
must clutch at Martin's belt and await disaster, as he pitched and
swayed upon his bruised and jolted way.

So they came to the lodge gates after a short and hurried ride, which
was long to both, though from different causes. Lock and padlock yielded
to the keys which Tom had provided.

Within the gate they came to a brown gelding, loosely tethered, and to a
chestnut mare that grazed freely beside it.

Martin fastened his own horse.

"You can go now, Davy," he said. The door of the lodge was closed, and
it was by an effort of will that he stepped toward it.


[XII]

Claire had hesitated as to the route by which she should return to the
lodge. She had an uncertain recollection of having asked Helen to wait
for her in the lane, but she might not have done so. It was almost
certain that she would have followed Claire as far as the main road, and
that she would have the child that Joe had thrown down. The child might
be hurt. In any case it would be natural to carry her home.

Then Claire had the two horses. She did not wish to abandon them. Though
she had leapt down into the lane she knew that she could not reverse the
process. If she should take the horses that way there she must leave
them. And there was the child in her arms.

For every reason it seemed best to go straight to the lodge. There she
could leave Joan. There she could leave the horses. If Helen were not
returned she could cross the park on foot and pass the stile without
difficulty. Little time would be lost, and she would be sure to meet or
find her.

So she did. She handed Joan to Mary Wittels, who showed little surprise
or emotion. She set out over the park and found it a much longer way
than she had supposed.

She climbed the steps and came down almost on the body of Bryan. The man
lay with staring eyes and distorted face. He had not died easily. He was
not good to look on. It was not a pleasant sight for the woman who
killed him. Her thoughts warred discordantly. He had deserved his fate.
Would there be any hope of peace or decent living while such men
continued? Who made her his judge? Was there man or woman left alive
whose hands were as red as hers had become in four short days of
violence? How long would she walk immune, should these feuds continue?
She thought of herself lying tomorrow as he lay today. "_He who liveth
by the sword_..." It was just enough....

But she had saved those that she set out to rescue. She had been loyal
to Martin. Martin, whose child might be in her own body. Then she must
shoot quickly indeed. It was not for herself, but for her child also.

Had she done rightly so to risk her life, when her child's might be at
stake also? She saw that she had had no choice. Had she declined she
would have been as a mother who tempts her son to cowardice or dishonor
to secure his safety. For while a woman carries a son in her body it is
not his life only, but his character, his honor which is in her keeping.

Had she done otherwise, how could she have expected to have a son worth
having? She thought only of a son.

With such thoughts she went down the lane. Like the park, it was longer
than she had thought it. Toward the bottom she came on Bryan's horse,
but she could not catch it. It had the distrustful mood of one that had
been unfortunate in its rider. It moved on before her, almost colliding
with Helen as she appeared at the end of the lane, with Mary in her
arms.

Claire called to her before they met. "She is safe at home." Helen did
not ask whom she might mean. She said: "Has he come?"

"No," Claire answered, "but he may be here any moment. He has taken the
men to cut them off somewhere if he can as they retire. I didn't
understand more than that."

"The men? Then Tom's back?"

"Yes. It was Tom who told him that you were here."

They were both silent for a time. Helen wished to ask many things, but
they were for Martin to answer. It was on him that her mind was fixed.
And she was half afraid of Claire. Fear and a depth of gratitude
contended with a doubting wonder.

Claire had much to say also, but she was in no haste to begin. She
wondered how much Helen understood of what she had said already.

As to that, Helen understood well enough--at least, verbally. How much
it implied was a larger question.

It was Helen who made the first move--perhaps naturally, having the most
to learn. Besides, she was as incapable of a moral cowardice as Claire
would have been of a physical weakness of a kindred kind. When her
question came it was of a very deep simplicity.

"Why did you come?"

Claire did not answer at once. Instead, she said: "Shall I take the
child?"

She held out her hands.

It was a natural question, for Helen had carried it for a long time. She
looked less fit for such a burden than, in fact, she was.

She hesitated for a moment, and then accepted. But Mary clung to her
mother. Her eyes watched Claire incessantly. She was not frightened. But
her arms held to her mother.

They went on as they were.

Then Claire said: "I came to find you. We were afraid there might be
danger. Martin could not come at once. They had chosen him for their
leader. He wanted to stop them if they should have carried anyone off."

This was vague to Helen. She knew even less than Claire of Cooper's
gang, or of the politics of the new life. "Did he ask you to come?"

"No," said Claire, not clear as to what the question might intend, but
keeping to the fact, as her way was, "I offered when I saw that he could
not. We did not think that there was any real danger, but I thought he
would be glad for me to come. And I wanted to talk to you. Of course, he
had told me about you. But he had believed you were dead."

"He could not help thinking that," Helen answered quickly. She would
imply no blame to Martin, even by silence.

"Don't you think I had better tell it from the beginning?" Claire said.

"If you like," was the answer, in a tone which was polite but had become
distant. It implied that it was a matter of no importance--or, at least,
of no importance to Helen. That was how Helen felt, or tried to. What
Martin might have done while he believed her dead was a matter between
themselves. She would not discuss him with Claire. She needed no apology
from her. Martin knew now that she was alive, and, naturally, it would
be the end of any intervening episode. If there were any difficulty
Martin would know how to deal with it. He always did. Why had the woman
come to her? Well, as to that, she had come to save her from danger. She
had saved her--and the children. Helen remembered the position from
which she had been rescued. It was not a pleasant thought. It was the
affront to her dignity that she resented. It had been an ignominious
posture.

But Helen would be just, even to her worst enemy, though she might not
love him. She did not know to what fate she might have been carried, or
her children, but she knew that Claire had ridden swiftly to her rescue
when she learnt her peril--ridden alone to face two men at the risk of
her own life. But even for this she thanked Martin rather than Claire.
Even though he could not come himself he had known how to protect her.
He had known whom to send. Martin would do the right thing. He always
did.

If this woman of the reckless leap, of the quick shot, of the murderous
eyes (for that vision persisted) had been useful to Martin as she had
been useful to her, if she had given him pleasure when his own wife was
absent, she would be grateful--grateful and friendly--but Claire was
outside the intimacy of their lives, and that she must understand.

Claire understood the rebuff very well, but she was not easily
snubbed--gray eyes, frank and straight, looked into blue ones that did
not fall, though the color deepened beneath them, and the tone was
gentler than the words in which she answered.

"It is not if I like at all. It is because you must know. He thought you
dead. He pledged himself to me, '_for always and always_.'" There was a
tone of reminiscence as she quoted, a note of Martin's voice which Helen
knew, and for the first time this thing was real to her, though she
would not admit that it could menace. "Then we heard that you were
alive. I shall not try to hold him from you. I could not if I would. I
know that, now I have seen you. But I should not have tried. You have
the first right. I came here to tell you. But it must be clear between
us. I am not second. I may bear his child, and that child is as yours.
It shall have no second place. My honor is your honor, and Martin's. I
may give up all besides, but not that."

Helen said: "Were you married?" The question arose from her seclusion of
the past three months, but she was no fool, and had regretted it before
she heard the note of scorn in the answer.

"_Married!_ I have just told you that I may bear his child."

Helen made some amend in the friendlier tone in which she asked a
question that went deeper. "Did you love him?"

Claire paused for her answer. She knew that she had taken the peril of
death to seek a man to her liking and to avoid those from whom she
shrank. She was seeking the best she could, and after that first
repulsion she had taken the first that came. It was bald fact, and she
did not shirk it.

She answered with the disarming candor which was the strongest weapon of
a mind that had little of subtlety.

"He was the man that I chose. If it had not been he I might have chosen
another. So might you."

Helen's emotions were deep and shy. They did not open readily to a
passing caller. They could always be approached most easily by way of
intellectual stimuli. She acknowledged the directness of the thrust with
a new respect for her antagonist--and perhaps a new liking.

Before she had framed her reply Claire continued. "It is not only that I
chose him. He chose me. You cannot alter that. He thought you were dead,
or it would not have been. I know that. He is of that kind. So am I. If
you were not living I could not give him what you will, but I could give
him--different things."

Helen was not quick to speak even now. She could not think or speak with
this straight-thrusting simplicity. Her mind was too complex. But she
had her own intellectual candor, and it admitted _touch_ a second time.

She knew Martin with the clarity of a long companionship, of a love
which was as passionate as her nature allowed, of a loyalty which would
not have faltered at a far worse pass than was now confronting her, of
an intellectual intimacy that Claire might never have equaled, and she
saw with this clarity that Claire's words were true. There was a side on
which Claire might content him as she never could, even though she might
agonize to do it, even though Martin's loyalty, which she did not doubt,
might never own it, even to the secrecy of his own mind.

With this thought there came also a fuller realization of the generosity
of her rival. She might be secure in her mind that she could hold her
own against a hundred Claires. But Claire had not known this. She had
not known--and she had come to give.

All the fineness of her nature was in the simplicity of her answer. "I
am sorry. Tell me."

Hearing it, Claire knew that all that mattered had been told already,
but it was just that which was needed to make it easy to tell the rest.

She said: "It is a few days, but a great deal has happened. You must be
tired with the child. Shall we rest?"

They were in the park now, and they sat down at an oak's foot. Claire
realized that she was tired also. The day was advanced, and she had had
neither food nor rest since Martin's impatience had started the laden
march in the early morning. She felt the apathy of exhausted nerves and
tired muscles, and would have been glad to rest in silence. But she told
the whole tale. Not only of the last few days, but of her first struggle
for life in the night of a drowning world, of her horror of the men with
whom Fortune threw her, of her further challenge to Death that she might
escape them, of her life with the old shepherd and his daughter, of her
further search, and of how Martin had found her; of their first
companionship with its distrusts, and of how quickly they faded, of her
capture by Bellamy and of the fight that followed, of the night among
the brambles, of the fighting in the tunnel, of the killing of Bellamy,
of the last attack that had so nearly destroyed them, and of how Tom's
party had rescued them without intending to do so. All this she told,
and of the day that followed, with a convincing bareness, in short,
clear sentences that made it real to Helen, who was always responsive to
the spoken word.

She understood, as she heard, the conditions of the outer life, of which
Tom had told her so vaguely. For the first time it became vivid--and
near. Little as Claire made of her own part, it did not need any great
imagination to see what she had been to Martin in those tensions of
conflict. She saw also--for Claire did not disguise it--that it was for
her that he had run the risk, for her that he had fought so desperately.
Claire rose in her regard as something that Martin had valued--and
Martin judged well.

Also she saw that Claire had a stronger case than she had attempted to
set up. "_For always and always._" It was not the kind of pledge which
can be broken with honor. But it had been given in good faith. And
Martin had not known. It was a pledge that, so she thought, he could not
keep. Claire saw that. But it was hard on Claire.

Her mind, seeing many sides and with characteristic intellectual
impartiality, saw questions yet to come which were not easy to answer.
She looked ahead, and her mind was troubled. She longed for Martin to
come. She wanted to talk it over with him. He would tell her what it
would be right to do.

She felt now that it was due to Claire to say more than she had yet
done, but Claire did not invite it.

Mary had been playing around them, and Claire had coaxed her to her arms
at last, where she nestled confidently.

Claire looked down at the sleeping face with a new tenderness in her
eyes. She said: "Tell me how you saved them."

But the tale was not told then, for Helen had seen that Martin came to
her through the bracken.


[XIII]

Claire looked away. She had seen Helen in Martin's arms. She had run to
him, so that it was at some distance that they met, for Claire had not
moved. She saw Helen in the arms of the man that was hers--and hers. She
thought that she was weeping. It was an abandon of emotion that she had
not looked for in Helen. It was not in her own way, and she had not
thought it to be Helen's. She saw that these two had had a common life
for years--common interests, children--the comradeship which is more
than all in marriage, and is so often absent. It had seemed that the
grave had closed between them, and miraculously it had opened again, and
life was renewed--and dearer for the separation which had befallen.

Beside this, what was she? The love of a summer night. The comrade of a
tunnel fight. The episode of a mood--of a moment.

It was so different from what it might have been; from what she had set
out to win.

She had dreamed of the solitudes and dangers of an empty world, of the
weight of the wilderness. She would have endured these with Martin.
_Endured?_ They would have been a joy beyond words.

But Fate had given her to him, and held her with a tie that she might
ignore but which she could not break. It had brought her back from the
clean solitudes, from sky, and grass, and sea to the commonness of the
life of a new barbarity, for so she felt it.

And there was no way to break loose. She was no longer free. No longer
single. There might be a child.

She became aware that she was very tired.

She looked up, and they were standing before her. They were
hand-in-hand, and Helen's eyes were radiant.

Martin was looking at the child. She lifted it to him, and as he took
it, and as it half waked and nestled down against him (as it had done in
those so different days three months ago, and as it would do again, with
little thought for the interval), their eyes met, and she was aware that
Martin understood: that in some way which she had not previously
apprehended as possible, his reunion with Helen had not divided them.

"How did you get them back?" he asked. She wondered how he knew or
guessed, and he saw the question in her eyes, and added: "Oh, Davy told
me. I didn't know you could ride."

"It was really nothing," she answered, with a recovered lightness in her
tone which made ease for all of them, "it wasn't really I. I simply rode
him hard. I had the better horse. She's a beauty! But he could ride
better than I, which made it longer. It was the man you said was a
jockey. I thought I should have him the next minute, and I suppose he
thought the same. Anyway, he looked round, and just then an old woman
threw a broom at his horse's legs. He was thrown clear of the horse,
with the child behind him. She wasn't hurt--scarcely frightened. I left
her with the old woman." She added: "He had thrown Mary from his horse
before then. Helen picked her up. I could have killed him for that."

"Didn't you?" said Helen, guilelessly enough. But she had gained an
impression that death was the routine experience of those who met
Claire's displeasure.

"No," said Claire, "I left him in the road. He didn't move, but I don't
think he could have been much hurt. It was a simple fall. But I brought
his horse."

Martin said: "He had cleared off before we came that way; I expect he
was shamming. He would have been better dead."

They walked back to the lodge together. The conversation on the way did
not exclude Claire; Martin was adroit to prevent it, but she realized,
though without bitterness, that it would have been better that they
should have been alone together. She resolved that that should come very
quickly.

After arrival there was a difference. The limited space of the little
room, the slender resources of the tiny larder, must provide rest and
refreshment. Helen felt the responsibility of a hostess, though the
place was scarcely hers. She felt almost in the same relation to both
Claire and Martin, and exerted herself accordingly. Mary Wittels took
the invasion good-humoredly. She was reluctant to occupy her accustomed
chair until assured that seats (of some kind or other) were available
for her visitors, whose status (by her own standards, which were not
entirely foolish) was plain in spite of the dirt and disorder of the
quaint attires in which they were dressed, by their own caprice, or by
that of Fortune.

But they could not stay in the lodge. They had realized that, before Tom
came with his plans for their deliverance.

There was but one room and one bed, on which Helen had slept with the
children, and another which Tom had improvised for the old woman when it
became evident that Helen's lengthened stay would make it unreasonable
for her to continue with nothing better than the chairs which she had
first utilized.

It was a physical impossibility to trespass upon her more than Helen had
done already. But Tom had thought of that.

He had thought of many things during the last few hours.

There had been dim dreams in his mind for many weeks of what might be
done to bring light and order into the wrecks of a social system which
had itself been chaotic. But he had sufficient wisdom to know that he
would not be wise enough to achieve it. Something he had done. Some
things he had influenced. To have attempted more would have been to fail
entirely.

But in Martin he believed that they had found the man that was needed.
And he was one in whom he had an exceptional confidence, acquired in an
exceptional way.

He had sat in the dock while a hired advocate struggled, with all the
ingenuity of one of the subtlest brains in a profession that makes a
trade of subtlety, to interpret evidence in such a way as would procure
his destruction. That was how such matters were conducted in the England
of that day. A man accused of murder, however innocent--which Tom was
not--would at once have all the wealth of the country and its legal
ability directed against him. The police would make exhaustive inquiries
without regard to the expenditure incurred. They would unearth persons
who would exhibit incredible memories of the color of a man's shoes, or
of the shape of his necktie. Advocates would be hired at huge fees to
practice the extremity of human ingenuity in constructing a case against
him.

Being so attacked, his ability to defend himself on the same plane must
depend upon the amount of money which could be collected among his
relatives to hire lawyers of equal skill and of a corresponding
capacity. Cases occurred of persons accused of crime being proved
innocent after they had been reduced to beggary in defending the
proceedings successfully. But for them there was no restitution.

Only if a man could prove that he had no means whatever the law would
contemptuously provide him with an advocate so that the game against him
could be played with an aspect of outer decency. But if he had anything
to lose, the lawyers stripped him bare.

That was the law and the practice. The results would have been even
worse but for the fact that the individuals concerned were often better
than the system which they had been trained to serve.

Tom had faced this ordeal with the simplifying knowledge of his own
guilt (for in many ways a true charge is more easily endured, and in
some cases more easily rebutted, than one that is false) and with a
well-founded belief that there would be little hope for mercy should a
verdict be obtained against him.

He had relied, during those hours of tension, upon the man who had
undertaken his defense, and had watched his battle fought, as he could
never have fought it, with a stubborn patient tenacity that did not
attempt to minimize the strength of the case against him, but declined
to admit that it could not be conquered. He had not been over-anxious or
over-despondent during that ordeal. Strange though it may sound, he had
not been very miserable. He was not himself of the disposition that
finds trouble too easily, and he had gained confidence from the support
of the man who had made him feel that he was as concerned as himself in
the issue which they were fighting.

In that strange intimacy, when Martin Webster's brain and will had stood
between him and death as literally as he stood, in fact, between the
dock and the judge's seat, he had, perhaps, learnt more of the character
of his advocate than Martin had learnt of the prisoner that he was
defending.

He knew that Martin was not of those who go lightly into battle, who
face odds gaily and in a confidence of overcoming. Rather would he
calculate his opponent's forces to the last ounce they could offer,
estimating them at their full value and judging with a cool discretion
the possibility of defeating them. He might lead a forlorn hope very
skilfully, certainly with courage, if he should undertake it at all, but
he would know it for what it was.

As he looked unflinchingly at his opponent's strength, so would he look
unflinchingly at his own weakness. He would not disguise the truth.

And, though a lawyer, he had no natural reverence for convention or
respect for precedent. He had a singularly open and sometimes unexpected
mind.

Tom had the wit that can appreciate qualities of mind and character
beyond its own capacity. He believed Martin to be the man that could
save them.

Confused with these dreams and with this personal loyalty was his desire
for Helen and his uncertainty as to the issue which had arisen.

He had fulfilled his promise to Helen. He had found her husband. He
would have recognized this as fatal to his own hopes and having the
effect of finality, but for the presence of Claire, a confusing and
unexpected factor.

His desire for Helen was real, and his claim substantial. He had saved
her life, he had protected her through very difficult times so
completely that she had been scarcely aware of the peril in which she
lived, and by claiming her for himself he had not only saved her from
others, he had shut himself out from competition for the favors of the
remaining women of the community. In the result, he might have lost all
and gained nothing.

He deserved sympathy, though his love for Helen, with whom he may have
had less in common than he supposed, and which was the result of a
fortuitous intimacy (though that is the basis of many lifelong unions),
may not have been very deeply rooted, and his subsequent proceedings may
be condoned, though they may not be entirely defended.

He came now with the news of a suitable asylum for their necessities of
the night, and, more than that, of a place which Martin might consider
fitted for his headquarters at the commencement of his new authority. So
far, Tom's conduct had been beyond criticism. He had been industrious to
distribute the news of the adherence to Martin, to which the members of
the expedition had pledged themselves, and of his qualities of
leadership, and to enlist the support of other friends who had not been
with them. In this he had been successful beyond any reasonable
anticipation. In making inquiries for a suitable home for their new
leader he had only faced an obvious necessity, and relieved a difficulty
which Martin had already realized. If it be true also that he supposed
that there might be awkwardness as to who should accompany Martin to the
proposed location, the problem was not of his making.

He came into the little crowded room and saw at the first glance that
there was a degree of freedom and harmony which he might be excused for
not having anticipated. He had scarcely entered before Helen's hand was
out, and she was thanking him for his successful search with a voice and
manner which left no doubt of her happiness.

He had heard something of Claire's ride after Joe Harker, and his
inquiry after the children's safety brought an enthusiastic account of
her successful rescue, which gave an equal evidence of Helen's gratitude
and admiration. It was confusing to Tom.

He may be excused if he doubted whether Helen knew of the relations
which had existed between Claire and her recovered husband.

He turned to Martin to report the activities in which he had been
occupied. He ended by saying that the raiders had murdered Stacey
Dobson, and that his house would be available for Martin's residence. It
would be advisable to occupy it as quickly as possible, though there was
little risk that anyone would attempt to seize it, as it would be
supposed that Stacey's servants would now hold it, but he had arranged
with them.

This involved some explanations. Stacey Dobson, whose death we have
observed after three months of unclouded happiness in his garden
hammock, had occupied a comfortable country residence with a
southwestern aspect and a rise of ground in its rear. It may have been
already observed that most of the buildings which had escaped entire
destruction were in such situations. They were substantially built, they
were isolated, and they were protected by their position from the direct
fury of the storm which had preceded the earthquake. Not all or most of
such buildings escaped destruction, but they were the only conditions
under which it was possible that they should have even partially
survived.

Stacey was in his library when the storm commenced; he was still there
when the earthquake ended. He did not expect to survive. He observed
that he was involved in a world catastrophe, but he was not over-greatly
perturbed. He had no inclination to join the hurrying crowd that
screamed and jostled on the road without. He hated dirt. He hated
discomfort. He hated contact with his fellow-men. He was invincibly
indolent. He waited the caprice of Fate in an entirely gentlemanly
manner.

He would have displayed a similar detachment toward the visit of the
bailiffs, whom he had good reason to expect on the following morning
when the storm broke. Remembering that probability, he observed
compensations in the course which events had taken. He reflected on the
wisdom which had led him to continue his leisurely existence unperturbed
by the cloud of debt which had been enveloping him during the last few
years.

He heard the roar of the storm and the crash of falling timber. He heard
his chimneys descend, and he had good reason to suppose that the major
part of his residence was in ruins. He was not insensitive to these
events. He composed a sonnet on Mutability. He wrote it out with a neat
precision. He considered the finer points of punctuation with a
fastidious care.

His housemaid, Betty, survived, with a bruised head and with some other
minor injuries which we need not investigate.

She came to seek her master as soon as circumstances rendered it
possible for her to do so.

She told him of much which he had been able only to imagine, but which
confirmed the judgment that he had formed already.

Mr. Dobson went to the safe. He counted Treasury notes to an amount of
twenty-two pounds ten shillings, and handed them to her. He remembered
that her wages were about six months in arrears. "I don't think," he
said, "that we need trouble to deduct the insurance."

He went to his desk, and from a drawer in which his papers were very
neatly ordered, he selected some writs and various other legal documents
of a kindred kind, including a Bankruptcy Notice and a Poor-Rate
Summons.

"I think, Betty," he said, "you can burn these."

He felt quietly cheerful.

He called Betty's attention to the few articles of a fragile nature
which the room contained, which he had removed to the floor at the first
shock of the earthquake, to a spilling of ink on his desk, which he had
been too late to avert, and to a crack which was developing in the
ceiling.

The last was the most serious. "I should like Phillips to see it," he
said definitely; and then: "What about lunch?"

For the next three months Stacey had found the world going very
smoothly. All necessity for work (even congenial work) had ceased. The
brief article on Etruscan Mythology intended for the Birmingham Post
(which had become a reliable market for his single-column reflections on
miscellaneous subjects) remained unfinished. The books which had been
sent to him for (eulogistic) review by the Bookman remained unread,
unless his own caprice should desire them.

Betty remained in attendance. Phillips, a young plumber of Cowley Thorn,
to whom she had been previously engaged, directed his energies to
rebuilding a portion of the ruins, and was invited to reside upon the
premises. The young couple, as satisfied as Stacey himself with the
provisions which Providence had made for their well-being, were content
enough to wait upon him and forage for their common needs, and he was
thus enabled to continue an existence which, without suffering any
unaccustomed privations, was freed at once from the obligation of work,
and the burden of debt that had previously embarrassed him.

When his incursion into Victorian fiction, on the morning of the day
with which we are dealing, was disturbed by Phillips with the news that
Jerry Cooper's band was approaching, he had looked up from the hammock
in which he lay and answered with his usual aloof urbanity.

"My good man, they don't want me--or you. But they may want Betty. It is
a desire with which we can both sympathize very easily. But I don't see
any reason why we should let them have her. You had better take her into
Cowley Wood and lie close. You can tell her from me that lunch can
wait."

Phillips looked doubtful. "Won't you come, sir?" he asked. "They're a
rough lot."

"No, Phillips," he answered. "I'm too comfortable where I am. Besides,
if they see me here they won't suppose that anyone has left the house."

The man went a few paces and hesitated. He had a liking for his curious
master, and thought him foolish to remain.

Stacey saw his hesitation, and added: "I shouldn't waste time, Phillips,
if I were you. You might be sorry tomorrow. And don't try to go far. It
isn't running that will save you. It's lying close. Get Betty well into
the brambles. She'll be scratched now, but glad afterwards."

He returned to a consideration of the conversation of Betsy Trotwood.

It was well for Phillips and Betty that they had lost no time as he had
suggested, for it was scarcely three minutes later that the troop that
had been detailed for Cowley Thorn reined at his gate, and the next
moment two of them were riding up the garden path. They did not observe
Stacey, and had they continued through the orchard they must have seen
the fugitives crossing the field beyond. So Stacey considered, with an
unhurried mind. He raised himself and called after them. They pulled up
at the voice, and commenced to question him. They called to their
comrades to surround the house. As he had foreseen, his presence and
occupation gave them the impression that no alarm had reached here, and
they concluded that the occupants must still be about the premises.

He told them, with a careful accuracy, that he had two servants, of whom
he had seen one enter the house only three minutes ago. He suggested,
with a polite irony, that they should respect the privacy of his
residence.

They left him to search the house. Supposing that the inmates would be
in hiding, they spent ten minutes with a result which need not be
stated. They returned to Stacey with a natural anger and a request that
he should rise and assist the search. He replied that he would do so
with pleasure when the day became cooler, but at present he was too
comfortable.

The sergeant of the troop shot him through the head where he lay.
"Captain's orders," he said. "'Don't waste time. Shoot the men.' Come
on, boys. We'll get nothing here." They rode on to Cowley Thorn.

It is probable that Stacey had saved the life of Phillips and the
happiness of the woman. He did this from the same cause that had made
the payment of Betty's wages so irregular an event in earlier days. He
was himself throughout. With many faults, he had still been greater, in
one aspect at least, than were most of those that the seas had
swallowed. He had declined to be dominated by his environment. He had
lived and died as near to individual freedom as was possible in those
days.

As we have observed, it was a silly murder. Like most human actions, it
had a variety of unforeseen and unforeseeable consequences. The first of
these was that Tom, hearing of it, had promptly interviewed the
grief-stricken servants and arranged, by whatever arguments, or threats,
or persuasions, that the succession of the freehold should pass not to
themselves, as would have been most natural under the existing
conditions, but to the new leader whom he was introducing. Probably they
were well content with this solution. Both Phillips and Betty were of
the dying class of English people to whom it was natural to give
faithful service to others. There was much nobility in its ideals and
practice, and it had been succeeded by baser things, but it preferred
security to responsibility.

Tom explained the circumstances briefly to Martin and Helen. The house
was about two miles away in a direct line, but it was over three by
road, and the road was easier. The day was far advanced, and he proposed
that they should go without delay. The dead master of the house would be
already buried. Betty had promised that all possible provision should be
made for their comfort.

Helen looked doubtfully at the children, already sleeping. She was
reluctant to disturb them further. She was not prepared to leave them.
She was not prepared to suggest that Martin should go without her. She
asked Tom what accommodation they could rely upon at the house to which
he would take them.

He was not clear on that point. It was doubtful whether more had been
rendered fit for occupation than would provide for the two servants, in
addition to Stacey's own apartment. But that alone, if it were only his
library and an adjoining bedroom, would be much more than the lodge
could offer.

Claire cut the knot. She said to Helen: "Hadn't the children better stay
here for tonight? I will stay with them. It's the best way for them, and
far the safest. If you find everything satisfactory where Tom is taking
you, you can fetch them in the morning, or I will bring them."

Helen hesitated. They had scarcely left her sight since she had saved
them from the floods. But she knew that Claire spoke reasonably. They
could scarcely be safer than with Claire, who had proved both her
willingness and her power to protect them. And she wanted Martin--to
herself. She turned to him for decision. Martin turned to Tom.

"I don't think there'll be anything more to fear from Cooper's lot. Not
for some time, anyway. Is there any danger from the people round?"

Tom shook his head.

"They won't come here," he said. "They never have done. They know me too
well. Anyway, they wouldn't come for the children." He looked at Claire,
hesitated, and stopped. Then he added: "It sounds the best way."

"Very well," said Martin, and then to Claire: "If you don't mind?"

Claire laughed. "I shall like it," she said. "I shall be asleep before
you've gone two minutes."

Tom was still puzzled, but recognized that the problem was postponed,
not solved. He still thought that Helen could not know, but he was
baffled by the easy understanding which seemed to exist between Martin
and Claire, and by the apparent good-will with which she almost thrust
him into the arms of her rival.

He led the way to the new house.

But, left alone, Claire did not laugh, nor did she sleep quickly. The
old woman went to her bed. The twilight came. Claire sat beside the
sleeping children. Her eyes were somber, and she bit her lips as she had
done when she stood and watched the water from the Cotswold Hill.

She heard the tethered horses move without. An owl hooted. She got up
and barred the door.

Her glance fell on the sleeping children and softened. Should she stay
or go? It was so hard to think of what was right, and not merely of what
had been customary. She was his, as Helen was his. And he hers. But
Helen had the first right. Her mind moved in a circle. There might be
his child and hers. It should not be less. It should not be second. If
he should be the first among them, as she thought he would, then the
child was his. His eldest son. Not less than Helen's children. In no way
less. Of course she must not go. Where should she? How would she provide
for an unborn child, alone, and wandering in such a world? Where should
she bear it?

Her thoughts went to Martin. After all, it would be his child, as much
as hers. The problem was not hers alone, but his also. Perhaps he saw no
problem. She felt certain that he did not wish her to go, nor expect it.
But she saw difficulties that he might not see, if she should remain.

She was not jealous of Helen. Helen had not wronged her. Nor had she
wronged Helen; at least, not with intention or knowledge. Indeed, she
knew that she had not wronged her in any way, for she had not alienated
Martin's affection from her. Of that she was sure--and glad. Otherwise,
there would have been tragedy, where now there was none. Surely there
could be no cause except for rejoicing in the recovery of one who was
loved, and who was well worthy of the love that was given? To think
otherwise would be to think basely. Then was it a natural consequence
that she should part from Martin? Was it a good thing that they should
part? And, if so, exactly why was it?

A man could not have two wives! It was not the custom of their race. But
to state a fact (if fact it be) is not to explain it.

It was better to have one only. Probably happier for the man. Certainly
better for the woman. But if there were, in fact, two? That was the
issue which they had to face. If she removed herself, she resolved it,
perhaps in the best, perhaps in the only way. She would be equal to that
if she should think it right. But she would not sacrifice the child. Her
mind came back, full-circle, to the point from which it had started.

She knew the way in which the drowned civilization would have decided
it. A man might marry two women, each believing herself to be the only
wife he had. It would punish the man, which did no good to him, nor to
the women. A most utterly abortive stupidity. It did not punish him for
any moral wrong he had done. He might have lived with a woman for years,
promised her marriage, and then deserted her and her children to marry
another, and the law was indifferent to a monstrous wickedness. If the
deserted woman should have any means of support--if she should make no
complaint--it would not interfere. But if he were to marry two women in
a legal way, then it interfered. Its dignity was offended. It acted like
a petulant child, careless of the misery which it caused. And for the
women it had a solution of a callous stupidity. The first had all: the
second, nothing. The first was bound: the second, free. It had no regard
for their wishes; no regard for circumstances; no regard for either
justice or mercy. It was inflexible in its folly. There was no help
there, for there was no wisdom.

But those laws were dead. There was no law now--unless Martin should
make it. She thought that they were utterly free--as free as is possible
in any human circumstance. They three--she, and Helen, and Martin. There
was no law to coerce, protect, or punish. It was their own characters
which must decide. Finally, it was Helen. She had the first right.
Claire allowed that; though whether from any reasoned conviction, or
from the bias of tradition, she was not analytical enough to determine.
She would go, rather than contest a claim which Helen would not admit.
But there might be another life to consider! She would not sacrifice her
child. So her mind went round the circle again, and found no outlet.

So she thought, seeing many things clearly. But there was one thing that
she did not see, which Tom had seen from the first. Which Martin had
seen also, and which had already occupied his mind as the decisive
factor in the problem that was before them.

A low moon shone through the little window. Its square of light moved
upward to the coarse coverlet of the bed, and to the faces of the
sleeping children. Martin's children--and Helen's. With a rare
tenderness--for she was not lightly demonstrative--she bent and kissed
them. As she did so, it seemed to her that a solution came. It should be
the children first--always the children. But how, and what, did it
solve?

Comforted, but with no logical cause, she lay down and was asleep beside
them.


[XIV]

Martin and Helen were not quick to sleep either.

In the moonlit shadows of a room more luxuriously appointed than
anything to which they had been accustomed, even in the earlier days,
and in the recovered sanctuary of each other's arms, they talked long of
many things, joining again the threads of divided experience, and
looking forward to a united future the possibilities of which were
beyond their seeing.

Martin told of his loneliness, and of how Claire had come to him out of
the water. He had not sought her. He did not say this. He did not excuse
himself. He did not think of any excuse being needed. But it was clear
to Helen as he told it. He did not touch on the future. It was Helen who
said later, "It seems hard on Claire. I wonder she doesn't hate me."

"She doesn't hate you?" Martin asked. Certainly he did not wish that.

"No," Helen said, "I think she likes me a little, though we are so
different. I don't think she could hate anyone, unless they deserved it.
She's not that kind.... I shouldn't like her to hate me." The vision
came again of Claire's eyes as she had emptied her automatic into
Bryan's falling body. "I'm sorry about it all. We owe her a great
deal.... You'll know what we ought to do."

So she left the responsibility to him, as she always had done. He did
not answer, but he saw that the final decision would not be his, but
hers.

****

In the morning they waked to a new world. They waked late, and tired.
Emotion stirred reluctantly, and limbs were slow to fulfil their usual
service. But it was not an exacting world. Time had ceased to tyrannize
in the old manner. It moved inexorably, to change, to winter, to decay,
but it did it quietly. The human yoke, the complexity of interdependent
duties, had been removed. It was a new dawn, and the day would be of
their own making.

It was knowledge that Martin most needed--knowledge of the character and
conditions of the community into which he had intruded so strangely. He
wished to know many things of which he had not yet been informed, and
from a different angle than that of Tom Aldworth and his associates.

He questioned Phillips, and found him a mine of information. Deferential
in manner, offering no unasked opinion, he was yet clear in his replies,
and had obviously studied the life around him with an observant
thoughtfulness. Martin did not doubt that he had been an efficient
plumber, but his tradition was that of the English man servant of the
better kind.

Meanwhile Helen was questioning Betty with a similar experience. To her,
Helen came as a miracle. A mistress resurrected, akin in dress, and
habit, and manner to the best of those that the seas had swallowed.
Seeing Helen, she realized how great was the gulf that widened
continually between that which was, and that which had been.

They were disturbed by the sound of horses on the roadway. Phillips,
looking hastily out, announced that there was no cause for alarm. Going
toward the gate, they saw Claire dismounting lightly, with Mary in her
arm. The brown gelding was there also. Her voice, buoyant and confident,
called a greeting as they approached. She put the impatient Mary into
her mother's arms. "I'm going back for Joan," she said; and then to
Martin: "I've brought you the jockey's horse. He's not bad, but I'll
never give up the chestnut.... A king can't walk," she added with a
mocking smile.

Helen thought her different from yesterday. She had thought her taller
than she now seemed. Larger. More devastating.

"Did they worry you?" she asked.

Claire laughed again. "They didn't wake me in the night," she said, "if
you mean that. They did in the morning, or I might still have been
asleep. Do you _always_ tell them tales when it's scarcely light?"

She turned back to the gate. "I promised Joan I wouldn't wait, and I've
taken a long time to find you."

Then she turned away, and was back in the saddle in a moment.


[XV]

It has been said by those who have recovered from prolonged illness that
the desires and interests which had previously absorbed their minds are
often found to be no longer dominant. They remember, but no longer feel
them. The old fertility is dead, and the ground is fallow for a new
sowing.

So, to a lesser extent, change may come between a night and a morning.
The problems which had held Claire from sleep in the moonlight hours had
receded. She knew of them still. She knew that they must be faced; but
her mind was untroubled.

She saw her course clearly. She would take one of the children to their
parents--she could not safely carry two at once. That would necessitate
a return. There would be no awkwardness, prolonged at the first meeting.
After that, when she returned, they could talk things over at leisure.
Whatever was decided, she did not intend that there should be ambiguity
or delay. She had none of Martin's calculating caution; none of Helen's
aloofness, that would wait and watch the event, rather than be active to
form it. She liked to ride straight at a fence, without too much inquiry
as to what lay beyond it.

She did not know more than the general direction and distance of the
house she sought, as she had heard Tom describe them, but she was
confident that she would find it easily.

The morning was cooler and cloudy. There was a hint of autumn in the
air. Some leaves fell lazily.

As she rode, she looked round with a lively interest at the country of
which she thought, with a half serious, half deriding mind, as of a
kingdom into which Martin had entered. She had had no leisure to observe
it yesterday.

She had then been only subconsciously aware of the rabbits. And the
rabbits were everywhere! There would be no danger of immediate
starvation. And the old oaks--how well they had stood the storm! Great
limbs had been torn and scattered, some had been swept far distant from
their parent trunks. But the trunks stood, and some still showed a good
head of fading green above the seas of bracken.

The country lane had been well wooded, but she saw, as she had seen
elsewhere, that, apart from the great oaks of the park, the trees had
had no power to withstand the tempest, except where they had grown
thickly, and then they had been snapped short or uprooted, until a
barrier of their broken limbs had been swept and piled against those
that remained, so that the northern side of any wood showed the full
havoc of the storm, while its southern aspect (especially where the
ground had any slope to southward) might have little remaining evidence
of the ordeal that had passed over it.

But for the trees that were single, and for those that lined the
roadsides, there had been no hope at all. The single house might have
the better chance, for the danger of fire had been less, but the trees
that stood had been grouped together.

She met no man or woman, even when she came to the main road, where she
marveled at the pace at which she must have ridden yesterday when she
saw its condition.

It would have been impossible, but that the telegraph poles, being on
the south side of the road, had fallen clear with their tangled wires.
As they fell they lay. She saw that the tops of two or three poles had
been cut off and removed. But the two-handed saw that had been used for
this purpose had been cast aside when its immediate need was over, and
lay rusting.

She heard the distant sound of a hammer. Someone was working.

Surely it would be worth while to clear the roads! With sane usage their
surfaces would last for a generation. But whose duty, or whose interest,
would it be to do it? Were they to have taxes again, and all the old
organization of industrial slavery? She was glad that it was Martin's
problem, not hers.

She rode on some distance past the turning for Cowley Thorn before
deciding that it was the road which she must take, and had just gone
back and turned into it when she heard shots in an adjoining coppice.
She heard the cries of pheasants.

She was walking the horses quietly at the time, and did not alter the
pace, though she prepared to cast loose the led horse, and ride hard if
the need should arise. She had had enough of fighting--and there was the
child on her arm.

But it was Jack Tolley who came into the road, having heard the noise of
the horses. He carried a pheasant, and two rabbits. He came to her
horse's head, and she pulled up, seeing that he wished to speak.

He guessed where she was going. "You might take this," he said, holding
up the pheasant, "Betty'll know how to cook it. I expect I've shot my
last bird."

"Your last bird--why?"

"Because the Captain's sure to stop it. I only thought this morning. I
suppose we shall have to begin thinking. I've got about sixty
cartridges, and when they're gone, what use will the rifle be?"

Claire saw; but she was in a cheerful mood this morning. "Perhaps it
won't matter," she said. "There seem to be enough cartridges left to
reduce the population considerably. I suppose we shall stop sometime.
But I've been wondering about the cattle. I saw nearly thirty beyond the
hollow where the road drops. How will they do when the cold comes?"

Jack could not answer that. His knowledge of the feeding of cattle was
too vague, but he recognized that it was a question of some importance.
There was no hay, and the fields of roots were choked with weeds, and
ravaged by cattle, and sheep, and pigs. And the rabbits were everywhere.
If there were no intervention, how many of these creatures would survive
the winter, however mild it might be?

Claire, seeing that no wisdom was to be obtained from Jack as to the
future of the cattle, would have continued her way, after getting more
definite directions from him than she had had previously, but Jack kept
a detaining hand on her bridle. He had something to say of a more
personal application, but seemed to have some difficulty in commencing.

Remembering what she had heard of his own concerns, she wondered whether
he might be intending to confide a trouble, and opened the subject with
the direct friendliness which was her natural manner.

"Did Madge take it the right way?"

"Oh, yes," he said, in a tone that made it clear that that had not been
on his mind. He was, in fact, happy in the knowledge that the lady in
question had accepted the inevitable with fewer tears than he had
expected, and with an implication that the death of Ellis, however
sincerely she might regret it, was not without compensation. It may have
been the happiness of his own experience that inclined him to give
Claire a warning that was not without delicacy, in view of how little he
knew, either of herself, or of her relations to Martin. But he went on
easily. He knew what he had to say, and it was not his nature to bungle.

"I think you will like to know what is being said. It was after Tom took
them to Stacey's place. There was a crowd on the road here. They were
coming back from the auction. They all wanted to see the Captain."

"Martin?"

"Yes--and his wife. They expected you to be with him, instead of a woman
no one had seen before.

"They were puzzled--and curious. Everyone asked who you were. Women
matter now. Tom said the woman they saw was the one that had been sick,
that he had kept at the Hall lodge--his woman; and that it had turned
out that she was the Captain's wife. It sounded a queer tale. Then they
asked whose wife you were. Tom didn't seem to know how to answer. He
said it was between him and the Captain; but no one would have that.
Butcher told him it was between you and ninety men who had got no wives,
and that he was just one of the ninety."

Claire frowned thoughtfully. "Well?" she said, for Jack remained silent.

"That's all," he answered. "But I thought you'd like to know beforehand.
They may want you to decide before the day's over."

"Decide what?"

"Who you'll choose.... You know," he added, as though he were making
a personal apology, "we told you what the law is. A woman can choose the
man she will, and we all agreed to stand by her, and protect her choice.
But if she won't choose, she's for anyone that can take her."

"Jack," said Claire, "that law's dead."

"I don't know," Jack said doubtfully; "does the Captain say so? If he
does, I'll stand by him, and I suppose Tom will, and some others, but we
shall all be fighting again by tomorrow.... It wasn't a bad law--for
the women.... If you've lost the Captain, why not choose Tom?"

Claire looked at Jack, and considered. He could be trusted to say what
he meant--to say it precisely. She recognized a mental independence,
which might give trouble at a future time. He was loyal, but it was not
a blind loyalty. It was like having a cat in the house. You could not
call it to heel like a dog. But having said that he would stand by
Martin in this thing, he could be trusted to do it. She decided on the
disarming candor which was her most natural weapon.

"Jack," she said, "when the flood came, I had a husband in a nursing
home at Cheltenham. Was I right to suppose him dead, and act
accordingly?"

"Yes," he said. "How could he have lived? It's all under water there."

"Not all," she answered. "But I had no doubt he was dead. I have none
now. You see, Martin felt the same about his own wife. It seemed just as
sure. And now he has found her alive."

"So that was Tom's wife--and you've changed round?" said Jack, who may
be excused for interpreting the position in that way.

"No," said Claire, "she was never Tom's wife. He was taking care of her
till she could find out whether Martin were living."

Jack expressed no opinion on that point.

Claire added: "There's been no change at all."

Jack thought a moment. "Well, that brings us back where we were. The
Captain's got his own wife now, and it leaves you free to choose."

"I'm not free at all," said Claire.

"But you don't still reckon you're the Captain's wife? He can't have
two," said Jack.

"It's not what I reckon," said Claire, "it's the fact that counts. I
am."

"What does the Captain say?" asked Jack, not unreasonably.

"It's not a question of what the Captain says--the Captain knows," said
Claire.

"The boys won't stand for it," said Jack doubtfully. He wasn't very
clear as to what Claire meant to do, but he was sure that the sense of
the community would regard her as free for others, now that Martin had
recovered his real wife. "His real wife" was how he put it in his own
mind.

"Jack," said Claire again, "it's a long way from the Cotswolds. I've
swum most of it--not all at once. I did that to avoid two men that I
didn't like. I'd swim back before I'd take a man that I didn't choose."

"Well, they want you to choose," said Jack.

"I have chosen," she answered. She rode on.

Jack looked after her. "He'll be lucky that gets her," he said. He
became aware that the pheasant was still in his own hand. He was annoyed
at that, for his oversights were few, and he did not regard them
lightly.

Claire rode on in good spirits from the encounter. She began to see the
real difficulty of her position, which Tom had seen from the first--but
she saw it differently.

Then she delivered Mary to her mother's arms, as we have seen, and rode
back for the elder child.


[XVI]

After Claire had left, Tom came to see Martin. It was he who had given
the account of Claire and Helen which had resulted as we have heard. He
had said nothing which was either untrue or misleading. He could have
been more explicit as to the relations which he believed to have existed
between Martin and Claire, but it is improbable that that would have
made any difference to men so situated, and it might be argued that it
would have been unchivalrous to have done so.

Yet his conscience was not easy, for he was aware that he had done
nothing to avert an immediate crisis--had, indeed, regarded it with
satisfaction. He was convinced of the closeness of the understanding
which existed between Claire and Martin. He might well hope that if
Martin were forced to make an open choice, or lose Claire, he would
elect to have her rather than Helen, in which case his own claim on
Helen might be admitted by herself, and would certainly be recognized by
the community. He might hope something also from Helen's natural
resentment at the disclosure. It did not enter his mind that she would
have been told by those who (as he supposed) were most concerned to
conceal it.

He knew also that he could have averted the whole difficulty had he
allowed the conclusion to which Jack's mind had turned as the most
natural interpretation of the whole matter, and which would have been
borne out by the fact that Claire had remained at the Lodge. He could
easily have allowed it to be supposed that there had been a change by
mutual consent when it was discovered that his wife had occupied that
relation to Martin in the earlier time.

It would have been sufficiently near the truth, and it would have been
difficult for anyone to make capital from such an incident.

Tom was conscious therefore of a treachery of intention, and of a
willingness to take his own advantage from difficulties which threatened
those with whom he was associated, and which he was doing less than he
might to avert, rather than of any active betrayal. Yet it gave some
constraint to the natural openness of his manner as he met Martin, who
led him into Stacey's library, and told him to sit down, as he had much
which he wished to say.

Martin had taken a swift advantage of the amenities of his new
residence. Stacey's clothes were good, and fitted him comfortably.
Seated at Stacey's desk, and adding rapidly to a pile of notes which he
had made already, as Tom answered the questions suggested by a night of
thought, and by the information which Phillips had already given, he
reminded Tom more strongly than yesterday of the lawyer who had once
fought for his life, and saved it.

Martin was well aware as he talked that there was something troubling
Tom's mind, but he gave no sign. It would come out soon enough.

At last he said: "Listen, Tom. I don't want any false start. There's a
great deal to be considered, and when we move it must be in the right
way.

"Cooper doesn't count for the moment. We'll deal with him, but he can
wait. He won't trouble us for a day or two. But you must set someone to
watch him.

"I want you to bring me one by one the best men that you can trust, so
that I can talk to them and see what their capacities are. I shall want
them for the jobs they can do best, and, first of all, I must know them.

"Besides that, I want you to get all the signatures you can and let me
know also of any men you _can't_ trust, or who may be making trouble. If
you can get them to come I will see them also.

"For the next three days I shall stay here. I don't suppose I shall go
out at all. Then I shall want you to call a meeting of all the people
who will come, and make sure that those who are with us will be there.

"I shall be ready then to say what I want done and how it's to be
started."

Tom said: "There's one thing that won't wait."

"You'd better tell me," said Martin.

"It's about Helen--partly. There was a lot of talk after you came here
last night. They were puzzled. They hadn't seen Helen before, because no
one goes that way; the road leads nowhere now. But they knew that I had
a woman at the lodge who was called my wife."

"You've explained this before."

"Yes, but not to them. They thought your wife had come with you."

"Well?"

"Well, if she wasn't, they want to know whose she is."

"You mean Claire?"

"Yes. They mean Claire."

"Then tell them."

"I don't know."

"But I told you when first we met."

"But you didn't know then that Helen was living."

"I see. What's the real trouble, and how near?"

"There's a meeting this afternoon. All the men that want wives will be
there. They'll want Claire to choose."

"And if she doesn't?"

"Then she's any man's that can take her."

"Tom, you could have saved this trouble."

"I don't see how."

"I do. But we won't talk of that. The plan seems fair enough. We will
ask Claire to choose. I understand that the man she chooses must
consent, or the choice must be made again?"

"Yes."

Martin looked hard at Tom. "She might choose you."

"I don't want that."

Martin suggested again. "She might choose me."

Tom looked up questioningly. "Then you'd give up Helen?"

"I didn't say so. The women choose. It's your own law. It seems good
enough to me. Good enough for this occasion, anyway. But I don't know
how it will end any more than you do. I guess--but I may guess wrong.
Perhaps you'll get what you want. But I don't think you will. Nor they."

He changed his manner to a sudden sincerity. "Tom," he said, "don't you
see that I've no right to decide this? No right at all. I have no right
even to say what I think, or what I wish. The women must decide, and
_they shall have their way_."

He looked searchingly at Tom, and said quietly: "You must promise this,
Tom. The women shall have their way."

Tom looked puzzled and half sulky. He said: "Do you want them both?"

"It's not what I want that matters. It's not what's been done in the
past. It's what is. It's what's right. Neither of them may want me. Or
both. Or they may differ. They may make conditions which are
incompatible. Circumstances may arise which would make it right for me
to say what I think--even to make a choice. But till they do--unless
they do--I shall say no more. It is your own law. The women choose."

He sat silent for a moment, and Tom was not quick to answer. He was
puzzled by Martin's attitude, and could not decide whether it left any
hope for himself. He supposed that Helen knew nothing yet, and he built
something on that. He had always been taught that a man could not have
two wives. He had never thought why. It was the law. He knew vaguely
that the majority of the earth's inhabitants had a somewhat different
opinion. But these opinions were negligible because their skins were not
pink. He did not suppose that Martin intended to promote a general
practice of polygamy. It would be arithmetically difficult with the
supply of women at its present level. But the situation was scarcely of
Martin's making. It was the product of circumstance. He was under
obligation to two women, and he was leaving them to decide what should
happen in future. They might decide to share his affections. It seemed
unlikely. They might toss a coin. But that was a man's way rather than a
woman's. They were more likely to quarrel. They might both resent the
fact that he made no decided choice between them. As his first and
"legal" wife, Helen had the greater cause for resentment on such
grounds. So it seemed to Tom.

"I want your promise," Martin repeated.

"Yes," Tom said at length. "I promise that."

Martin rose at once. "Tell Jack," he said. "Have the men you can trust
in readiness if there be any sign of trouble. But I don't think there
will. You can tell them that Claire will make her own choice, and if
that means a meeting to look them over, they shall have what they want.
But you can tell them that I call the meeting now."

Tom went out, and he turned back to his work. He thought that he had
acted rightly in a position in which precedent or tradition was of no
value. Neither was it a case in which wrong had been done, and its
consequences must be endured. He could see no wrong.

Nor was he aiming to avoid a responsibility which was properly his. If
they came to him he would say what he thought was right, but it was
between themselves in the first instance. That was how he would have
ruled had such a case been brought to him for judgment. If they should
differ, then it might be his part to decide. But not till then. It would
be so much the best if the right decision should come from them.

So he thought, and waited.


[XVII]

Tom did not go far. At the gate he met an angry Claire. She rode up with
Joan on the chestnut's neck. She spoke playfully enough to the child as
she handed her to Helen, who had come out at the sound of her approach,
but her eyes were alight with anger as she turned to Tom, who had stood
aside to make way for her entrance.

It was not only what Jack had told her, though that had given cause
enough, but it had helped her to understand what had followed. There had
been men waiting round the locked gate of the lodge when she returned,
men along the road, both as she went and came, men who would not
willingly let her pass, who had justified their importunity by the use
of Tom Aldworth's name.

There was one man that she would have ridden down but for the child on
her arm, and the impulse had brought realization of how quickly the
habit of violence grows. It was five days since she had come up from the
water to the spot where Martin had watched the sunset. Five days! and a
life of difference had arisen between that hour and this.

Helen, always quicker to understand than to act, saw that something was
wrong. She had turned toward the house with Joan's hand in hers, and
would have invited Claire to follow. She had wanted a talk with Claire
herself--a talk which she foresaw would be difficult.

But when she saw how Claire had turned upon Tom, even as the child left
her arms, and of how she barred his way through the gate, and the anger
in her eyes, Helen stayed, with the child beside her.

"Tom," said Claire, "who told you I was for sale?"

Tom, though surprised by the anger he had provoked, and having already
been given sufficient of which to think, stood up to the attack stoutly
enough.

"No one," he said. "I never thought you were."

"Then why say it?"

"I never did."

"I understand that you have made me the object of an auction this
evening."

"I've done nothing of the kind.... It isn't I at all. You don't
understand...." Tom began in some confusion of mind before the
complicated inaccuracies of the case that Claire was making against him.

"Well, you can call it off."

"I can't do that," said Tom; "I didn't call it on. It was the law before
you came, and it's the law still. The Captain's just said so. He says
you can choose whom you will."

"And if I don't?"

"Then it's between you and them. It's every man for himself. We shan't
interfere. It's the best way to make your own choice. They're a rough
lot, some of them."

"Did Martin say that?"

Tom hesitated. "No, he said you'd choose."

"I see.... Whom should you recommend?"

"It's not my matter. They're not all bad."

"There's a man named Butcher. I told him that when I want to marry an
eel I shall know where to look."

"Did you tell Butcher that?" said Tom, with satisfaction. He had his own
quarrel with Butcher, which does not concern us.

Rallying his mind from the first fury of her attack, Tom saw that she
had reason for anger. It must appear to her that he was assuming that
Martin would cast her off, or even actively working to produce a
position which would oblige him to do so.

Knowing that he had an opposite intention, he felt unjustly accused,
though the truth would hardly have increased his popularity with his
present audience.

He looked at Helen, who watched the duel in silence. He wondered what
she would say could he lead Claire to disclose that it was her bond to
Martin that held her.

But no leading was needed. Claire took the fence with her usual
directness.

"You can't say you didn't know. What name did I sign in the book?"

"Claire Webster," said Tom, "but I thought now..." He looked at
Helen. He thought that Claire was forcing an issue recklessly, and
wondered how the other woman would take it. But Helen gave no sign. He
could not tell how much Helen knew; but Claire was forcing the issue.
There was no mistake as to that. She went on. "You knew whom I was with
when you found us. You knew how I signed the book. You knew we thought
that Helen was dead. You knew _everything_. Do you think you can make a
law to change me from one man to another? You say it's a law that the
women choose. But I have chosen."

She turned to Helen. "We'd better have this out now, or there'll be more
trouble in the end. No, don't go," she said to Tom, still blocking his
way. "You'd better hear, and you'll know what to tell your friends." She
turned to Helen again.

Her voice changed and softened. She said: "I suppose men will always try
to make laws for women. But it seems to me it's the facts that matter.
Martin thought you were dead. He couldn't help thinking that. I'm very
glad he was wrong--and you know how glad he is. But he thought you were
dead, and I chose him--and he chose me. I have his promise. He said _For
always and always_. I may have his child. Is his promise nothing because
you are living? I think you must answer that.

"I don't know what you will answer, but I know that what these men ask I
will never do. I cannot do that. I will have the man I have chosen, or
none.

"If I am not wanted here, I will ride away--and his child with me. It is
for you to say."

Helen felt as though her heart had stopped its beating. She tried to
speak, and the words would not form to her purpose. But her eyes did not
falter. She felt that they were waiting for her to speak, and that the
hours were passing.

But it was only a moment. Then she said. "No, you couldn't do that." She
looked at Tom, and said: "Claire will stay here because she is Martin's
wife. I am very proud that she is. She is the best of us all. There is
no first between us. It is one honor for both."

She held out her hand. They went into the house together.




THE END






[End of Deluge, by S. Fowler Wright]
