"That's a woman for you!" I grunted disconsolately. "Better late than clever! Hell, Hank—you mean we're doomed to sit here in nothing, looking at worlds of food and liquid, until we check out from malnutrition?"
Hank said staunchly, "We ain't gonna give up that easy, Jim. We're gonna keep on tryin'. Mebbe by plain dumb luck I can work us back to our own proper place in Time."
And thus we started anew our time-hopping. Hank's fingers went to work on the cryptic studs and keys. Again we became the wraithlike visitants of fourscore and umpteen odd, incredible worlds. We saw one in which great bearded Norsemen ruled America ... another in which the Union Jack flapped above the docks of a great sea-port ... dozens upon dozens of Americas we saw, and each of them was, by some guess, quite plausible and logical. Had Leif the Lucky's colony not been wiped out by the pox ... had the Sons of Liberty not roused the colonists to rebellion against George III ... had Aaron Burr not duelled and killed Hamilton ... had Columbus not believed himself headed toward the Indies....
Hank's brow was as smooth as a corrugated washboard by now, and there was nervous haste to even his customarily placid fingers as he continued to press our shimmering buggy forward along the transverse lines of maybe.
"It ain't logical!" he moaned once, softly. "Even if they is diff'rent circumstances, they oughta spring from each other outa certain points. Like the pictures you see of fam'ly trees, or genee-ologies. But we ain't getting nowhere an' we ain't gettin' there fast!"
Meanwhile, I was getting hungrier by the minute. I don't know why it is, but there's nothing will make a man want to eat more than the knowledge that the cupboard is bare. My thoughts were not nearly so concerned with the wonders I was viewing than with visions of ten-inch T-bone steaks smothered in mushrooms ... roast fowl ... cranberry sauce and gravy ... fried country ham with apples ... things like that.
And the drink question was even more acute. After all, we had been caged up in our little egg, now, for several hours. We were beginning to feel puh-lenty thirsty, and our desire for water was not lessened by the thought that it was impossible to get any.
That's when it began to seem to me that everywhere we visited, food and drink were prominently displayed. Once we landed in the middle of a gigantic banquet-hall. Tables groaned with dainties fit for a king—and sure enough, there was a king seated at the head of the table! He was a mighty sick-looking king, though, when he laid eyes on us! He let loose a howl in what Helen claimed was modified Spanish, and dived under the table. We left hastily, before his Kingship should leave his subjects kingless.
I've often wondered, since, how many legends sprang from our visitations. There must have been hundreds of wild stories told by Indians, Frenchmen, Englishmen, Spaniards and Dutch who saw a shadowy egg with three wraiths in it appear suddenly out of nowhere, and as quickly disappear.