“California,” he repeated still again, then, “I must get there.” He shifted his hand lower upon the stick, and moved nearer to Anthony by a step; the patch of sunlight shifted up to his hat and fled.
“You could try the freight cars,” Anthony suggested. The stooping, neatly-brushed figure, the stony countenance, had become, in an intangible manner, menacing, obscurely dangerous. The fingers were drawn like a claw about the club. Then the arm relaxed, he seemed to shrink into hopeless resignation. Beyond the leafy arcade Anthony could now see the countryside spread out in sunny fields, fleecy, white clouds shifting in the sea of blue.... Suddenly a great flame shot up before his eyes, a stunning shock fell upon his head, and the flame went out in a whirling darkness that swept like a black sea over a continent of intolerable pain. He heard, as if from an immense distance, a thin voice pronounce the single word, “California.”
XXX
A GRIPPING wave of nausea recalled Anthony to consciousness; a deathly sickness spreading from the pit of his stomach through his entire being; his prostrate head, seeming stripped of its skull, was tortured by the dragging fronds of the ferns among which he lay. He sat up dizzily. Through the leafy opening the fleeting forms of the clouds shifted over the sunny hills. The stream slipped silently through the grass. He staggered down the slight incline, and, falling forward upon the ground, let the water flow over his throbbing head. The cool shock revived him, and he washed away a dark, clotted film from his forehead and cheek.
His wallet, with his ticket to California and store of money were gone. He started in instant, unsteady pursuit of the man who had struck him down and robbed him. But, at the edge of the wood he paused—how long had he lain among the ferns? the sun was now high over his head, the morning lapsed, the other might have had three, four hours' start. He might now be entrained, bound for California, searching for Alfred Lukes. A sudden weakness forced him to sit at the roadside; he lost consciousness again for a moment. Then, summoning his youth, his vitality, he rose, and walked unsteadily in search of assistance.
He had proceeded an intolerable mile, wiping away a thin trickle of blood that persisted in crawling into his eye, when he saw a low roof amid a tangle of greenery. He stopped with a sobbing breath of relief. He was delirious, he thought, for peering at him through the leaves he saw the countenance and beautiful, bare body of a child, as dark and tense as bronze. A cloud of black hair overhung a face vivid as a flower; her crimson lips trembled; then, with a startled cry, the figure vanished.
He made his way with difficulty over a short path, overgrown with vines and twisted branches, and came abruptly upon a low, white house and wide, opened door. An aged and shapeless woman sat on a chair without a back, cutting green beans into a bright tin basin. When she saw him she dropped the pan with a clatter, and an unfamiliar exclamation of surprise.
“I've been hurt,” Anthony explained; “knocked silly and robbed.”