Darkwater

Broadway. Few noticed him. Few ever noticed him save in a way that stung. He was outsid

com

com

the president, as he entered, smil

m, are yo

the messeng

ugh the comet's tail once," br

er, they say-wonderful, wonderful! I saw it last night. Oh, by the way, Jim," tur

ey wanted him to go down to the lower vaults. It was too dan

in," said the president; "but we miss two volumes of old records. Su

the messenger,

ly down the stairs. Down he went beneath Broadway, where the dim light filtered through the feet of hurrying men; down to the dark basement beneath

He started away. Then something brought him back. He was sounding and working again when suddenly the whole black wall swung as on mighty hinges, and blackness yawned beyond. He peered in; it was evidently a secret vault-some hiding place of the old bank unknown in newer times. He entered hesitatingly. It was a long, narrow room with shelves, and at the far end, an old iron chest. On a high shelf lay the two missing volumes of records, and o

oo

ent methodically to work. The cold sweat stood on his forehead; but he searched, pounded, pushed, and worked until after what seemed endless hours his hand struck a cold bit of metal and the great door swung again harshly on its hinges, and then, striking against something soft and heavy, s

e on his face, cold and still. A fear arose in the messenger's heart. He dashed up to the cellar floor, up into the bank. The stillness of death lay everywhere and everywhere bowed, bent, and stretched the silent forms of men. The messenger paused and glanced about. He was not a man easily moved; but the sight was appalling! "Robbery and murder," he whispered slowly to

ost wildly up and down, then across the street, and as he looked, a sickening horror froze in his limbs. With a ch

r written on his lips. The messenger turned his eyes hastily away and sought the curb. A woman leaned wearily against the signpost, her head bowed motionless on her lace and silken bosom. Before her stood a street car, silent, and within-but the messenger but glanced and hurried on. A grimy newsboy sat in the gutter with the "last edition" in his uplifted hand: "Danger!" screamed its black headlines. "Warnings wired around the world. The Comet's tail sweeps past us at noon. Deadly gases expected. Close doors and windows. Seek the cellar." Th

is face; then hiding himself in a corner away from the drama of death, he quietly gripped himself and thought th

alked up Fifth Avenue to a famous hostelry and entered its gorgeous, ghost-haunted halls. He beat back the nause

ave served me," he whispered

honing, ringing alarms; silent, silent all. Was nobody

verywhere stood, leaned, lounged, and lay the dead, in grim and awful silence. On he ran past an automobile, wrecked and overturned; past another, filled with a gay party whose smiles yet lingered on their death-struck lips; on past crowds and groups of cars, pausing by dead policemen; at 42nd Street he had to detour to Park Avenue to

d a man and-and see yonder dead men lying in the street and dead horses-for the love

five-rarely beautiful and richly gowned, with darkly-golden hair, and jewels. Yesterday, he thought with bitterness, she would scarcely have looked at him twice. He would have been dirt beneath her silken feet. She stared at him. Of all the sorts of men she had pictured as coming to her rescue she had not dreamed of one like him. Not that he was not human, but he dwelt in a world s

; then the thought of the dead world without

d by the breath of God,-and see--" She dragged him through great, silken hangings to where, beneath the sheen of mahogany

ng to his arm until the perfume of her breath swept hi

oping pictures of the comet which I took

ppened?" she

wered

wept across the earth this

Very

I have seen no other

d they stared

r!" she w

re i

ed for th

re i

etropolit

e for him he

he st

mly-"first, we mu

d her foot at first impatiently. She looked back an

ar in the garage in

how to drive

she an

utz rose and raced like an airplane. They took the turn at 11

he returned, and his face was g

e lost-s

ybody," he said,

ne several minutes-hou

wly back with something film-like in hi

. Out of the park, and down Fifth Avenue they whirled. In and out among the dead they slipped and quivered, needing no sound of bell or horn, until the great, square Metropolitan Tower hove in sight. Gently he laid the dead elevator

Dau

red's new Mercedes. Shall not be back

B.

nervously. "We mus

they swept over Brooklyn; from the Battery and Morningside Heights they scanned the river. Silence, silence everywhere, and no human sign. Haggard and bedraggled they puffed a third time slowly down Broadway, under th

we do?"

to take the lead, an

the telegraph and the cable-n

nd fro, and knew his burdens-the poor, little burdens he bore. When she entered, he was alone in the room. The grim switchboard flashed its metallic face in cryptic, sphinx-like immobility. She seated herself on a stool and donned the bright earpiece. She looked at the mouthpiece. She had never looked at one so closely before. It was wide a

calling to the world. The world must answe

le

spoken

he cried,

t quickly. She cried in clear, disti

g? Surely-no-was it t

ck and sarcastic mouthpiece, and the thought came again. Hope lay dead within her. Yes, the cable and the rockets remained; but the world-she could not frame the thought or say the word. It was too mighty-too terrible! She turned toward the door with a new fear in her heart. For the f

eaped to the door and tore at it, with bleeding fingers, until it swung wide. She looked out. He was standing at the top of the alley,-silhouetted, tall and black, motionless. Was

e conspiracy. She looked behind and sideways, started at strange sounds and heard still stranger, until every nerve within her stood sharp and quivering, stretched to scream at the barest touch. She whirled and flew back, whimpering like a child, until s

t-t

red slowly:

nd prosperity for the world of poverty and work. In the world behind them were death and silence, grave and grim, almost cynical, but always decent; here it was hideous. It clothed itsel

nce, lest somehow they wake these sleeping forms who had, at last, found peace. They moved in some solemn, world-wide Friedhof, above which some mighty arm had waved its magic wand. All nature slept until-until, and quick wit

lair of witchery. The gathered lightnings of the world centered here, binding with beams of

w the code?

r help-we used it f

e the water called below, and stood and waited. Long she waited, and he did not come. Then with a start she saw him, too, standing beside the black waters. Slowly he removed his coat and stood

beneath the wate

nd a great pity surged within her heart. Sh

h the dream of some vast romance. The girl lay silently back, as the motor whizzed along, and looked half-consciously for the elf-queen to wave life into this dead world again. She forgot to wonder at the quickness with which h

le. For a while she rested and sank to dreamy somnolence, watching the worlds above and wondering. Below lay the dark shadows of the city and afar was the shining of the sea. She glanced at him timidly as he set food before he

o work hard?" s

s," he

een idle," she s

r," he alm

are met together," she

the Maker o

stinctions seem-now," looking down to the great dead

-human, yester

he paused. He was a man,-no more; but he was in some larger sense a gentleman,-sen

leveler!"

world had risen before her. Slowly the mighty prophecy of her destiny overwhelmed her. Above the dead past hovered the Angel of Annunciation. She was no mere woman. She was neither high nor low, white nor black, rich nor poor. She was primal woman; mighty mother of all men to come and Bride of Life. She looked upon

them and all around, the heavens glowed in dim, weird radiance that suffused the darkening world and made almost a minor music. Suddenly, as though gathered back in some vast hand, the great cloud-curtain fe

all from his soul. Up from the crass and crushing and cringing of his caste leaped the lone majesty of kings long dead. He arose within the shadows, tall, straight, and stern, with power in his e

d to the night. It was not lust; it was not love-it was some vaster, mightier thing th

ed from out the velvet shadows vast and dark. Pearl-white and slender, she shone beneath the stars. She stretched her jewel

live

from the silence below. They started backward with a cry and gazed up

tars upon them. She covered her eyes with her hands, and her shoulders heaved. He dropped and bowed, groped blindly on his kn

s death, looking to opp

-crash

e night. All over the once dead city the lights blinked, flickered, and flamed; and then with a sudden clanging of doors the entrance to th

o bent above the girl with passionate solicitude and gazed into her staring eye

"my darling, I thought

him with strang

d, almost vaguely,

ul! You know,-but you, how did you escape-how hav

ed!" sh

and turning toward the Negro. Suddenly he stiffened and his hand flew t

her late companion curiously and

nk him-much." But she did not look at him again. As the couple

rusting the money into the man's ha

ame the answer

liked your people. If you ever want a

out of the elevators,

was

they

w m

wo

was s

and a nigger-t

is he? Let's ly

s all right-

! He had no

he c

the colored man moved slowly, with t

cried a bystander; "of all New Yo

ther hand into his pocket and brought out a baby's filmy cap, and gazed again. A woman mounted to the platform and looked about, shading her eyes. She was brow

im

h a sob of joy, cau

to the

ce of

eeting of th

g the union

e ends of e

e elder siste

awn in the

isty twilight

ck, tawny, r

uman rainbow

s wildernes

mpathy the s

radiance o

kest midnight

shadows of w

eam on the dim

Days that

y to

we all

tall and stone-

a walks w

and Bible b

ghty

ine awful

haunted City of

Lord of Lan

weak and

ke with hatred

e the Soul that

rdes that lie an

each separate

n our riven, w

en by tramplin

uilty! Lo, ou

lame the othe

n the white Sil

he Womb

earts all fl

birth-pang

led cry of Natio

n ravished of th

ess of Toil, the

of Empire, and dol

seeing, knowi

Spirit, from ou

at war and

uls in every

man God, in t

Humanity