Oh, but it was queer to lie there under the keen scrutiny of that eye in the heavens! It made the prickly ants swarm up Franky's thighs and sides until the sensation grew unbearable. Hate, fierce hate of the murderous, beautiful thing droning up there in the azure sky above its curious misty circle made him see everything red, made him want to yell and shriek. For Margot was in danger, somehow—somewhere—while one lay helpless as a log....
"Steady, old child!" whispered Franky to himself, warningly. "You're going off your chump. Hold still!"
And he held still. The Buzzard ceased to buzz, and floated on, droning. He fancied that he felt its shadow darken and pass over him, moving from his head to his feet. The noise of the tractor stopped. Reflected in the area of a skewed wall-mirror he saw the machine volplane down, and alight without a falter in the Market Place—before the smoking ruins of the Town Hall.
CHAPTER LXI
LYNETTE DREAMS
Upon that same night in October nearly five weeks following the breaking of the Woe Wave, Lynette Saxham had a strange dream.
It seemed to her that she saw piled up in one colossal heap the riches of all the world, the world we know and the world we have forgotten; the treasures of all ages piled up higher than Kilimanjaro, or Aconcagua, or the cloud-mantled peak of Mount Everest. To her feet as she stood spell-bound amongst the foothills, rolled jewelled crowns, and huge barbaric torques and diadems of rough gold, precious cups, vases, and chargers; outpoured treasures of precious stones and wrought gems of inconceivable beauty and vileness, wondrous fabrics, marvels of sculpture, weapons, armour and coins of age beyond the ages—rude discs of tarnished gold, stamped with the effigies of forgotten kings. Orders, decorations, the paraphernalia of Pomp, the stage-properties of Power, the symbols of every religion, save One, were mingled in the stupendous pile, and a terrible Voice cried:
"Gone is the age of pride in possession! Chattels and fardels are no more! The days have spilt like pearls from a broken necklace! Time has eaten the years as the moth a garment of wool! Foredone, foregone, finished! Who now will gather riches from the Dustheap of the World?" And as new avalanches of treasure rolled downwards to the reverberation of that thunderous shout, a Hand of Titanic proportions hurled down upon the heap a war-chariot of beaten gold, with great scythed wheels, and jewelled harness; and that vision changed, and the dreamer was drowning, deep down in clear green seas, under the rushing keel of a huge barbaric War-galley that was all of gold, arabesqued and bossed with jewels, and coral, and pearl.
And the sense of suffocation passed, and a wonderful cool peace flowed in upon Lynette. She seemed to be led by a beloved hand that had been dust for years, into a bare walled place through which a thin breeze piped shrilly. Someone was there, doing some manual labour. He turned, and with a shock of unutterable rapture Lynette was looking in the face of her lost boy.
Bawne had grown thin and seemed taller. His temples had hollowed, his plume of tawny-gold hair hung unkempt over his wide white forehead. But his blue eyes were as sweet as ever. She had never realised how like they were to Saxham's in shape and colour, and in expression, until now. He thrust his lower jaw out and knit his brows slightly, as though her face were fading from his vision, and he wished to fix in mind the memory of its well-loved features: