“And if so--what then?”
“What then? Why, in case they aren't mighty nice and kind, there'll be a hot time in the old town, that's all. And somebody'll get hurt. It won't be us!”
Beatrice asked no more, for a minute or two, but the engineer felt her fingers tighten on his arm.
“I'm with you, till the end!” she whispered.
Another pregnant silence, while the nightwind stirred her hair and wafted the warm feminine perfume of her to his nostrils. Stern took a long, deep breath. A sort of dizziness crept over him, as from a glass of wine on an empty stomach. The Call of Woman strove to master him, but he repelled it. And, watching the creeping lights, he spoke; spoke to himself as much as to the girl; spoke, lest he think too much.
“There's a chance, a mere possibility,” said he, “that those boats, canoes, coracles or whatever they may be, belong to white people, far descendants of the few suppositions survivors of the cataclysm. There's some slight chance that these people may be civilized, or partly so.
“Why they're coming across the Hudson, at this time o' night, with what object and to what place, we can't even guess. All we can do is wait, and watch and--be ready for anything.”
“For anything!” she echoed. “You've seen me shoot! You know!”
He took her hand, and pressed it. And silence fell again, as the long vigil started, there in the shadow of the tower, on the roof.
For some quarter of an hour, neither spoke. Then at last, said Stern: