_ BOOK II. BEYOND THE GREAT OBLIVION
CHAPTER VI. TRAPPED!
"That's not the truth you're telling me, Allan," said Beatrice very gravely. "And if we don't tell each other the whole truth always, how can we love each other perfectly and do the work we have to do? I don't want you to spare me anything, even the most terrible things. That's not the cry of a bird--it's wolves!"
"Yes, that's what it is," the man admitted. "I was in the wrong. But, you see--it startled me at first. Don't be alarmed, little girl! We're well armed you see, and--"
"Are we going to stay here in the tower if they attack?"
"No. They might hold us prisoners for a week. There's no telling how many there may be. Hundreds, perhaps thousands. Once they get the scent of game, they'll gather for miles and miles around; from all over the island. So you see--"
"Our best plan, then, will be to make for the banca?"
"Assuredly! It's only a matter of comparatively few minutes to reach it, and once we're aboard, we're safe. We can laugh at them and be on our homeward way at the same time. The quicker we start the better. Come on!"
"Come!" she repeated. And they made their second start after Stern had assured himself his automatic hung easily in reach and that the guns were loaded.
Together they took their way along the shadowy depths of the forest where once Twenty-Third Street had lain. Bravely and strongly the girl bore her half of the load as they broke through the undergrowth, clambered over fallen and rotten logs, or sank ankle-deep in mossy swales.
Even though they felt the danger, perhaps at that very moment slinking, sneaking, crawling nearer off there in the vague, darkling depths of the forest, they still sensed the splendid comradeship of the adventure. No longer as a toy, a chattel, an instrument of pleasure or amusement did the idea of woman now exist in the world. It had altered, grown higher, nobler, purer--it had become that of mate and equal, comrade, friend, the indissoluble other half of man.
Beatrice spoke.
"You mustn't take more of the weight than I do, Allan," she insisted, as they struggled onward with their burden. "Your wounded arm isn't strong enough yet to--"
"S-h-h-h!" he cautioned. "We've got to keep as quiet as possible. Come on--the quicker we get these things aboard and push off the better! Everything depends on speed!"
But speed was hard to make. The way seemed terribly long, now that evening had closed in and they could no longer be exactly sure of their path. The cumbersome burden impeded them at every step. In the gloom they stumbled, tripped over vines and creepers, and became involved among the close-crowding boles.
Suddenly, once again the wolf-cry burst out, this time reechoed from another and another savage throat, wailing and plaintive and full of frightful portent.
So much nearer now it seemed that Beatrice and Allan both stopped short. Panting with their labors, they stood still, fear-smitten.
"They can't be much farther off now than Thirty-Fifth Street," the man exclaimed under his breath. "And we're hardly past Second Avenue yet--and look at the infernal thickets and brush we've got to beat through to reach the river! Here, I'd better get my revolver ready and hold it in my free hand. Will you change over? I can take the bag in my left. I've got to have the right to shoot with!"
"Why not drop everything and run for the banca?"
"And desert the job? Leave all we came for? And maybe not be able to get any of the things for Heaven knows how long? I guess not!"
"But, Allan--"
"No, no! What? Abandon all our plans because of a few wolves? Let 'em come! We'll show 'em a thing or two!"
"Give me the revolver, then--you can have the rifle!"
"That's right--here!"
Each now with a firearm in the free hand, they started forward again. On and on they lunged, they wallowed through the forest, half carrying, half dragging the sack which now seemed to have grown ten times heavier and which at every moment caught on bushes, on limbs and among the dense undergrowth.
"Oh, look--look there!" cried Beatrice. She stopped short again, pointing the revolver, her finger on the trigger.
Allan saw a lean, gray form, furtive and sneaking, slide across a dim open space off toward the left, a space where once First Avenue had cut through the city from south to north.
"There's another!" he whispered, a strange, choked feeling all around his heart. "And look--three more! They're working in ahead of us. Here, I'll have a shot at 'em, for luck!"
A howl followed the second spurt of flame in the dusk. One of the gray, gaunt portents of death licked, yapping, at his flank.
"Got you, all right!" gibed Stern. "The kind o' game you're after isn't as easy as you think, you devils!"
But now from the other side, and from behind them, the slinking creatures gathered. Their eyes glowed, gleamed, burned softly yellow through the dusk of the great wilderness that once had been the city's heart. The two last humans in the world could even catch the flick of ivory fangs, the lolling wet redness of tongues--could hear the soughing breath through those infernal jaws.
Stern raised the rifle again, then lowered it.
"No use," said he quite calmly. "God knows how many there are. I might use up all our ammunition and still leave enough of 'em to pick our bones. They'll be all around us in a minute; they'll be worrying at us, dragging us down! Come on--come on, the boat!"
"Light a torch, Allan. They're afraid of fire."
"Grand idea, little girl!"
Even as he answered he was scrabbling up dry-kye. Came the rasp of his flint.
"Give 'em a few with the automatic, while I get this going!" he commanded.
The gun spat twice, thrice. Then rose a snapping, snarling wrangle. Off there in the gloom a hideous turmoil grew.
It ended in screams of pain and rage, suddenly throttled, choked, and torn to nothing. A worrying, rending, gnashing told the story of the wounded wolf's last moment.
Stern sprang up, a dry flaming branch of resinous fir in his hand. The rifle he thrust back into the bag.
"Ate him, still warm, eh?" he cried. "Fine! And five shots left in the gun. You won't miss, Beta! You can't!"
Forward they struggled once more.
"Gad, we'll hang to this bag
now, whatever happens!" panted Stern, jerking it savagely off a jagged stub. "Five minutes more and we'll--arrh!
would you?"
The flaring torch he dashed full at a grisly muzzle that snapped and slavered at his legs. To their nostrils the singe of burned hair wafted. Yelping, the beast swerved back.
But others ran in and in at them; and now the torch was failing. Both of them shouted and struck; and the revolver stabbed the night with fire.
Pandemonium rose in the forest. Cries, howls, long wails and snuffing barks blent with the clicking of ivories, the pad-pad-pad of feet, the crackling of the underbrush.
All around, wolves. On either side, behind, in front, the sliding, bristling, sneaking, suddenly bold horrors of the wild.
And the ring was tightening; the attack was coming, now, more and more concertedly. The swinging torch could not now drive them back so fast, so far.
Strange gleams shot against the tree-trunks, wavered through the dusk, lighted the harsh, rage-contracted face of the man, fell on the laboring, skin-clad figure of the woman as they still fought on and on with their precious burden, hoping for a glimpse of water, for the river, and salvation.
"Take--a tree?" gasped Beatrice.
"And maybe stay there a week? And use up--all our ammunition? Not yet--no--no! The boat!"
On, ever on, they struggled.
A strange, unnatural exhilaration filled the girl, banishing thoughts of peril, sending the blood aglow through every vein and fiber of her wonderful young body.
Stern realized the peril more keenly. At any moment now he understood that one of the devils in gray might hurl itself at the full throat of Beatrice or at his own.
And once the taste of blood lay on those crimson tongues--good-by!
"The boat--the boat!" he shouted, striking right and left like mad with the smoky, half-extinguished flare.
"There--the river!" suddenly cried Beatrice.
Through the columns of the forest she had seen at last the welcome gleam of water, starlit, beautiful and calm. Stern saw it, too. A demon now, he charged the snarling ring. Back he drove them; he turned, seized the bag, and again plunged desperately ahead.
Together he and Beatrice crashed out among the willows and the alders on the sedgy shore, with the vague, shifting, bristling horror of the wolf-pack at their heels.
"Here, beat 'em off while I cut the cord--while I get the bag in--and shove off!" panted Stern.
She seized the torch from his hand. Up he snatched the rifle again, and with a pointblank volley flung three of the grays writhing and yelling all in the mud and weeds and trampled cattails on the river verge.
Down he threw the gun. He turned and swept the dark shore, there between the ruins of the wharves, with a keen reconnoitering glance.
What? What was this?
There stood the aged willow to which the banca had been tied. But the boat--where was it?
With a cry Stern leaped to the tree. His clutching hands fumbled at the trunk.
"My God! Here's--here's the cord!" he stammered. "But it's--been cut! The boat--
the boat's gone!" _