CHAPTER IX.
OUT OF THE SEA.
There must have been a dozen near panics in New York that night, and in all the other great cities. Throughout all the rural districts, on every distant farm, the agriculturists were being aroused from sleep by the call of the official newscasters. It may have been a rational policy--I am not one to judge.
I stood there in the throng at Park Circle 80, watching, listening, with pounding heart. It had, this news, so much greater meaning to me! I knew what the menace could be; of all these people, I had actually seen the enemy.
Diagonally across from me, a hundred feet over the circle, close under the roof, was a strip of the huge luminous call board. I chanced to be gazing at the G segment--a column of the Gr names. They flashed past in moving letters: Gran, George; Grad, Francis M.; Grammer, Ruth--people, who might be in the crowd, for whom there was a message. And then, Grant, Geoffry. My name! Some one calling me.
I went to the nearest box. “Geoffry Grant--am I called?”
The girl clicked me into a distant connection; on the tiny mirror I saw the image of Dr. Plantet’s solemn face, with Polly behind him.
“Jeff?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve tried everywhere for you, for an hour. They said at your office you might have gone to New York.”
“Yes.”
“Where are you?”
“New York. Park Circle 80.”
“It’s come again, Jeff. Tide-water fell to-day--they figure now it’s falling more than twice as fast as it ever did before. Good luck, Jeff--”
“Yes, I know, I’ve just been hearing the official report.”
“I’ve been swamped with calls, but I wanted to get hold of you. Oh, they’re not so incredulous of us now! I’ve had twenty of them calling me, to see what I thought ought to be done.”
“Yes.” An inexplicable constraint was on me. I knew I should join with vigor whatever Dr. Plantet might plan. But I felt an outcast; something was pulling at me, away from him; making me silent, cautious of committing myself to anything.
His tense voice went on; his keen eyes showed in the mirror; I knew he was searching my face; behind him I could see Polly, reaching over his shoulder to catch sight of me.
“Jeff, they want me to-morrow or the next day in Washington. Great London will want us also. I suppose the Dolphin will be used. I don’t know why they are convinced just by to-day’s reports, but they are. This is the real menace, Jeff. They all say so, and I feel it myself.”
“Yes,” I repeated lamely.
“The oceans are falling--this time they will keep on, faster; it has come, at last. Jeff, I want you up here--”
“Yes.” It sounded so horribly stupid, my dumb repetition.
“--want you to catch the 2 A.M. mail. Polly and I will meet you at Portland--”
“Yes--no! No, Dr. Plantet!” I felt as though I had suddenly found my wits. I could not go to Maine--I was wanted, needed, elsewhere.
“No--I cannot.”
“Why not? Why, Jeff--” His voice was hurt, puzzled.
How could I explain to him? There seemed nothing to explain. I swept my hand over my cold, wet forehead. I felt like a traitor.
“No, I--I can’t come.”
It seemed as though, pressing around me in the breathless little cubby, were something of Arturo, and Nereid, and the face of young Tad Megan--here--like pressing ghosts, importuning me.
“No, Dr. Plantet--”
“Jeff, see here!” His voice was sharp. “What is this nonsense? What’s the matter with you? Speak out, lad.”
* * * * *
I clicked off the mirror connection so he could not see me. And then, with a sudden impulse that I could not check, I hung up the instrument and staggered out of the cubby. The crowd thronging the circle was in tumultuous movement now, every one struggling to get away. A surge of people and vehicles. I shoved into them, aimless, trembling. I had been a cad with Dr. Plantet. What was the matter with me? I did not know.
I stood for a moment against a direction post, trying to collect my wits. The crowd surged around me. The platforms for the near-by Yonkers District were loading up; the Jersey local flyer lay on its stage off on a side street, where the roof ended; I could see the lights through the rain, people crowding onto it.
Thoughts pressed at my aching head. Thoughts that I could not interpret. Soundless words thumping at my brain--I could almost hear them, but not quite.
Then a realization steadied me. I was not going mad. These pressing ghosts of thoughts--why, I had once heard a lecturer on telepathy describe the thing in some such fashion as this. It steadied me. Was this telepathy? Was something, some one’s thoughts trying to get through to me? I clung to the direction post, trying to fathom my feelings. Arturo? Nereid? Or was it a ghost of Tad Megan, here with me? What was he saying--
A pedestrian director came up to me.
“You all right?”
“Yes, yes, of course.”
He regarded me sharply; his hand drew me from the post. “Alcoholic?”
“No. Of course not!” I laughed.
“What’s your name?”
“Geoffry Grant.” I showed him my signature, pricked officially in the flesh of my arm.
He glanced up at the call board. “There you are--guess they want you at home. Get along now.”
I hurried away, glad to escape him. My name was again on the call board; Dr. Plantet, trying to get me to come back and talk.
I found myself in the rain, on a lower street with only one level. The rain seemed to clear my confusion. And suddenly I heard, soundlessly in my head, the thought:
“_Arturo and Tad Megan need you. Come._”
I stood against a dark shop window, with the rain drenching me. I thought intensely: “_Where? Come where?_” I murmured it, half aloud. “_Come where?_”
“_Arturo needs you. Nereid’s island--you remember? Come alone--come--come--_”
I think, in that instant, all my morbidity dropped away. The need for action spurred me. This at least seemed something tangible. Something to do. Normality came to me, I was the old Jeff Grant, not a sniveling, trembling coward, afraid of his own thoughts. And I believe I understood, in part, what had been the matter with me all these months.
I turned back to the glare of Broadway, and called Dr. Plantet.
“I’m sorry I shut off on you, Dr. Plantet. Don’t ask me--I cannot come.”
“But why?”
“I can’t tell you now, I’ll try to let you know soon.”
“But--”
Something said to me: “Keep your own counsel,” but I added: “I’ll trust you, Dr. Plantet. It’s about Arturo.”
I told him briefly I might be able to communicate with Arturo. Oh, I could not blame him for his prompt, vigorous questions! And his command:
“Jeff, you come up here to me, at once--I want to know what you mean by that!”
I could see Polly restraining him.
“No,” I said. “I cannot.”
I shut him off finally. Then I called my office; told them brusquely that if I did not report within a week they could consider my post vacant; to fill it as they wished, and to notify Dr. Plantet what they had done.
And then I boarded a vacuum cylinder in the tube for mid-Long Island, to the field where aëros could be engaged.
* * * * *
“I want a single-seater Wasp.”
The checker looked me over. “For how long?”
I had not thought of that. “Why--for about a week, I guess.”
“Guess? Don’t you know? Where’s your license?”
“You think I’m a grounder? Here you are.”
I showed him my flying license; and my name on my arm, and I wrote my signature to verify it.
“Wait,” he said. “I’ll confirm that.”
He put my signature into the telautograph on his desk; it clicked off into the air. My heart leaped. Had Dr. Plantet sent out a call to apprehend me? Would he dare?
“What’s that for?” I demanded.
“General orders. We’re taking no chances to-night. You may be who you say you are--I’m no expert at signatures.”
The Washington Archives verified me, and the release came back in a moment. I breathed easier.
“Right,” said the checker. “They passed you. Where are you going?”
“None of your business,” I retorted. “Is it?”
He grinned. “Well, I guess it isn’t. Not if you deposit the total value.”
I gave him my draft to cover the cost of the plane. He sent it off to be certified and in a moment had it back. Within half an hour I was in the air, flying west by south. I could do a fair three hundred in this machine.
Noon of the next day found me over the Pacific. I stopped at Guadalupe Island off the coast of Lower California, to refuel and take on my final provisions. And upon sudden impulse I called Polly. The mirror presently showed me her intent little face. I was relieved to see that the room behind her was empty.
“This is Jeff.”
Her face brightened. Dear little Polly! I felt like my old self now--no longer estranged.
“Yes, Jeff.” She did not question; she sat there, regarding me gravely, waiting.
“Where is your father?”
“Gone to Washington, Jeff. Early this morning.”
I had had no news, save the fragments the mechanics were gossiping over, here at the Guadalupe station.
“The tides are lower, Polly?”
“Yes. Two fathoms more--just over-night. It’s come, Jeff.”
I swore her then to secrecy. “I’m at Guadalupe Island, Polly. I’m going well, you can guess where. I can’t talk plainly--too easy for any eavesdropper. Polly, listen, it’s about Arturo, I’ve had--I think I’ve had a message from him--”
“Oh!” Her face went very grave; but her eyes were shining, “Father said last night--”
“Yes, I hinted at it to him. Polly, I’m going--I may not come back.”
“Oh--”
“I mean--not for awhile. This isn’t the sort of thing you can let the government meddle in--they’d send an expedition after me to investigate, you know they would.” I added suddenly: “Polly, I’m sorry about the last few months--I’ve acted badly--I’ve been--it’s hard to explain.”
But she understood. “Like Arturo, Jeff? I knew it.”
“Yes, I imagine like that. Only, it’s Arturo calling me, Polly. Not--not any one like Nereid. Oh, Polly dear, you understand, don’t you? It was--or I thought it was--something like that, but I’m all right now. Polly, see here--I called you for this. Later, some time I may, if I can, send you a message from--from down there. You see? If I do--don’t be frightened. If you get to dreaming--nightmares, anything like that, don’t be frightened. Whatever you think the message says--don’t you attempt to come alone!”
She was very intent. “No, Jeff. What should I do?”
“Tell your father. If you are sure we are calling you--come with him, you see? We may be able to reach you, and not him. Oh, I may be talking nonsense! I don’t know. But if you do get a call from me, or any one, don’t come alone--don’t try it, Polly.”
“No. And you know we’ll be waiting, Jeff.”
“Yes. Do the best you can. There may be bad times ahead of us all. Good luck.”
I was reluctant to cut off. But the operator checked at me for overtime. To be conspicuous was the last thing I wanted.
“Good-by, Polly.”
“Good-by, Jeff. The best of luck--and love to Arturo. Oh, if he is only safe! I’ll be praying for you.” Her fingers touched her lips for the gesture of a kiss. Dear little Polly!
I cut off. In ten minutes more I was away, with six thousand miles of ocean ahead of me to Nereid’s island.
* * * * *
It was mid-morning when I raised the tiny island. It seemed deserted, upstanding with its naked spreading base in the fallen ocean. I landed in the empty bowl which once was the lagoon. All through the hot glaring day I waited. Night came, and the half moon was high overhead. I left my Wasp and sat on a little promontory under the palms, above the naked beach.
The low ocean was rippled with moonlight. A breeze stirred the palms. Upon such a night as this, just about a year before, Arturo had sat here, waiting. I found my heart beating fast. Who would come? Some girl, like Nereid?
And doubts assailed me. Was this all, this message I thought I had received, a trick of my fancy? Why should I think it a rational telepathy? Was I a fool, to be sitting here waiting? For what?
Yet there was upon me a strong feeling which seemed growing into a definite knowledge: Arturo was nearing me. As though physically he were here, standing out of sight behind me--the accents of his familiar voice ringing in my head as though he had just spoken.
My watch showed 1 A.M. I had slept a good part of the previous night, and dozed all day. I was keenly alert, sitting tense, searching the moonlit ocean. I saw at last, a mile or so away, something black bobbing at the surface. And then a tiny beam of light, waving like a signal. I got to my feet. I had pasted a device across my flash, crudely cut from memory of the one Arturo had used. I stood and held it level, shining it out over the water.
The light out there presently was gone; the bobbing thing vanished. But after a time it showed again. Close inshore. A shadow of the rocks was there; I could not see it plainly. It landed. And then I saw figures clambering up the rocks in the moonlight. Three of them--and another stayed back by the round thing from which they had come. Three figures, coming up toward me. Two men, and a girl, white-limbed, with tossing hair.
I stood in a patch of moonlight. There was just an instant when the thought swept me that I was a fool--this was an enemy come to trap me. But I called, quaveringly, “Arturo! Arturo, is that you?”
There was a brief silence. The climbing figures stopped, gazed up and saw me. And a voice called up--a familiar voice. It was Tad Megan--not dead, nothing weird or eerie. A great relief swept me.
Tad’s voice: “There he is--I see him!”
Tad Megan, and Arturo and Nereid. I could recognize them now. The relief of it! If I had not realized what a strain I had been under. But there was nothing uncanny about this. I shouted:
“Here I am!”
They came running up. Nereid, familiar as I remembered her; Arturo, strangely garbed, grown strangely older. Tad wrung my hand.
“No--of course I’m not dead! You, Jeff--by the little gods of the airways, it’s good to see you again.”