Darkness and Dawn

a thousand difficult problems closing in on every hand, he put aside his softer moods, his visions

ght he, looking in upon her where she lay, calm as a ch

hours, at the very least. I hope she'll s

last night's fire, chose a bit of burnt wood. With this he scraw

All O. K.

on the long, painful desce

n with more than double clearness by the g

not help but shudder at the numberless traces

ewelry showing--everywhere he saw them, all the way down the stairs, in every r

lled, and labor, and duty; not mourning for the dead world, nor eve

and through the universal wreck

rse, there's the Hudson; but it's brackish, if not downright salt. I've got to fi

kill, there's bound to be food enough for a while.

not to issue out, unarmed, into this new and savage world, of which he had as yet no v

said he. "That's mans first need, in a

ught a

om, or something of that sort. There's sure to be tools in a place like that." And,

and hard labor, to make his way to the desired spot.

he crevices in the metal framework and the cracks in the concrete, he managed at l

ating above, and through a gaping, jagged hole near one e

rest only here; and this awoke him to a new sense of ever-present peril. At

himself. Then, dismissing useless f

e, was in a better state of repair than the arcade. The first cellar yielded nothing of value to him, but, making

small seepage-pump, and a crumbling marble switch-boa

, Stern's brows contracted with a feeling akin to pain. The enginee

him more strongly than the little heaps of dust which marked the

he had no tim

dimwit vault. "Tools--I must have s

of it he unearthed a sledge-hammer. Though corroded, it was still

and began delving into a bed of dust that had evidently been a work-bench

e examined th

ted; "than all the gold between her

usted beyond use. So, having convinced himself that nothing more re

labor, he managed to transport

se of the outer

of ruin. Disguised as everything now was, fallen and disjointed, murdering, b

Yonder, again, he remembered the little curved counter where once upon a tim

a crumble of fine, grayish powder. S

ft and creeping vine had rooted in the pavement of the arcade, u

d struck root close to the building, and now insolently blocked that way

edge, as he went, lest he fall through an unseen weak spots into the dept

. "The street--the Square? Where are they?

m something of the changes wrought, had given

mblance of the metropolis to remain in the street. But no, nothing was the

ets that grew close up to the age-worn walls of the Metropolitan, he could make out a f

lk, no curb. And even so near and so conspicuous an object as the w

d pines flourished there as confidently as though in the h

ich was thickly overgrown with ivy and with ferns and bushes roo

ouldered each other lustily. By the state of the fresh young leav

hes of morning sunlight met his gaze, as they played and

nd which Stern knew must have fallen from the tower, the moss grew very th

en fear creeping into his heart. For this, the reasserted dominance of natu

ying to get his bearing

all-powerful, had scooped up the fragments of a ruined city and tossed them p

r, his flaming, trailing beard, his rags (for he had left the bear-skin in th

of the early barbarians of Britain, perhaps, peerin

f an oak, recalled him to his wits. Down came spiralling a fe

d to him on the odorous breeze. A wren, surprisingly tame, chippere

life, and that it had no fear. His bushy brows contracted as he watche

aised his head. Far through the leafy screen he saw th

in spite of everything--thank God!" he w

the grim engineer's eyes grew wet with tears th