The man who mastered time
face.
I murmured something intended to be reassuring and made the mistake of
taking a step forward. It was the worst thing I could have done, for her
frightened scream rang out through the house. I guess by then I was
thoroughly confused. I turned back toward the curtain. I would escape
from the house--come back some other time. Or should I pick her up now,
and run with her? She was small, frail. I could carry her easily; escape
almost as quickly with her, perhaps, as by myself. And shoot back at
anyone--anything--that followed.
I found myself back at her couch. She had withdrawn to the further side
of it, huddled against the wall. Her horrified eyes were on my face, but
she did not scream again.
There was a noise behind me, and I swung about. The curtain was parting.
There was a figure there. I could not see it plainly; it was in the
darkness, and I was in the light. I aimed the Collinger, pressed the
trigger. Simultaneously, a tiny pencil-point of light seemed to spring
at me from where the figure was standing. A brief, very tiny but
horribly intense glare flashed in my eyes.
I was in darkness; everything went black. I did not fall, but reeled
sidewise. I heard a mocking laugh and footsteps coming toward me; a hand
struck me across the mouth.
It is terrible to fight in total darkness. I stumbled aimlessly
somewhere, and felt the Collinger twisted from me. But when I lurched
in that direction, my outflung arms met only empty air. Again a hand
struck me across the mouth; again that mocking laugh. My assailant was
playing with me.
I was unhurt, and desperately I rushed to where I thought the room's
exit might be. But strong fingers gripped my shoulder and I was flung
violently sidewise. I must have struck my head against something as I
went down. My senses faded; the last thing I remember was that jeering,
mocking laughter floating out of the darkness.
CHAPTER FIVE
When I came to, I was still lying where I had fallen. Striking my head
had knocked me out momentarily. I heard voices; some one was kneeling
beside me. I opened my eyes, but everything was black. I remember
feeling my head; It was not cut. I was unhurt, and I struggled to a
sitting position. Whoever it was beside me, now stood up and moved away.
The girl's voice came to me out of the darkness. The low words were
unintelligible--yet they were words not wholly unfamiliar in ring.
The darkness was full of little darting red spots. And my eyes pained
me; the backs of my eyeballs were burning. I was blind. I had thought
the light in the room had suddenly been extinguished, and a vague idea
that my antagonist could see in the dark had possessed me. But it wasn't
so. He had blinded me with the tiny flash of light that had struck into
my eyes.
My head was still reeling from the blow it had received when I fell.
They carried me, half conscious, into some other room, and left me
lying on something soft. I closed my eyes, but I could not shut out
those darting red spots. At last, I must have drifted off to sleep.
When I awoke it was morning. The red glow of the sunrise was coming in
through a small aperture up near the ceiling. I could see it; the
blindness had passed. My head was still ringing and my eyes still pained
me, but I was uninjured. I was on a low couch, with a fur rug under me.
My overcoat lay beside me on the floor. The whole thing seemed like a
dream, but finally I got it straightened out in my mind.
I was in a fairly large bedroom. Two windows of heavy transparent
material were up near the ceiling. Opposite the windows was a doorway
with a curtain. I slipped into my overcoat, searching its pockets. My
cap was there, but the compass and the flashlight were gone and my
Collinger had already been taken from me.
The storm outside seemed to have passed. The house was dead silent. I
went to the curtain; beyond it was a small hall, empty, and with another
curtain at its further end. This I pushed aside cautiously. I was
looking into the main living room of the house, and met the direct gaze
of a man who was lounging there.
I dropped the curtain hastily, but he had seen me and sprung to his
feet--a powerful man, taller than myself, with gray, loose-fitting
trousers and naked torso. I retreated back to the bedroom; the fear of
what he might do to me, blind me or worse, made me anything but anxious
to encounter him again.
He followed and was upon me, twisting me by the shoulders to face him.
He was a man of about thirty-five with black hair, long to the base of
his neck; a smooth-shaven, strong, rugged face; keen gray eyes beneath
black, bushy brows; a nose a little like a hawk, and a wide mouth with
thin lips. It was the sort of face that bespoke power and cruelty--a
nature born to dominate its fellows. His gaze was searching, puzzled. I
knew he was trying to make me out--wondering what manner of man I was,
and where I had come from. He spoke to me. I could not understand the
words, but again I got the impression that they were familiar English
words spoken differently. I answered him. I don't remember what I said,
but he frowned and pushed me from him, toward the couch.
I had decided to appear docile. I stumbled to the couch and sat down on
it. He stood in the center of the room, regarding me, and I managed what
I hoped might be an ingratiating smile. This seemed to appeal to him,
for he smiled back. Then he swung about and left the room.
For a while I sat quiet. The girl--where she was I did not know. I would
have escaped without her if I could, but escape did not seem possible;
at least, it was more of a risk than I cared to take. The feeling came
to me that even now as I sat on the couch, I might be observed. How
could I tell whether someone was watching me from behind some hidden
orifice, through which, as I turned my gaze that way, that tiny,
blinding beam of light would spring at me?
It was too big a chance. I would wait, and when I knew better what I had
to contend with, watch for an opportunity to escape.
The room was fairly light now, with that queer, reddish light. I could
see the sky, brilliant with a glorious red sunrise, through the little
windows overhead. I moved the table and climbed on it; outside was snow,
tinged with red. I was at an east end of the house, perhaps next to the
girl's room.
At a corner of the building nearby sat one of the dogs--like a gigantic
shaggy wolf, quiet but alert. His head was fully six feet above the
ground as he sat there, squatting on his haunches. He heard me open the
window, and trotted quietly over to look at me. My fascinated stare met
his eyes squarely--eyes that seemed to hold an almost uncanny human
intelligence. He seemed satisfied with the situation, for he trotted
back to the corner of the house and sat down again. But he was still
watching me.
I dropped to the floor. The incident had left me shuddering. What manner
of brutes were these, with gleaming, tusk-like teeth, dripping jowls and
a power in those tremendous muscles that must have far exceeded the
strongest horse! And eyes that might have been human! At that moment,
escape seemed further away than ever.
For three days they fed me in that room. A woman came mostly. She wore a
loose, shapeless robe of dark cloth. It was dowdy-looking. Her hair was
iron-gray, long to her waist, twisted into a bundle and bound with
strips of dark cloth. Her face was thin, careworn. She brought me my
food; some kinds of cooked meats and starchy vegetables, like potatoes.
She was kind enough, but grim, as though I were an unpleasant task that
her conscience made her discharge punctiliously.
I tried to talk to her, but she couldn't understand me, nor I her.
Afterward, I learned she was the older man's old maid daughter. The old
man himself came in a few times; a smooth-shaven, stalwart man of about
seventy, dressed in wide, flowing trousers and naked above the waist.
Sometimes he wore a short little house jacket. His name was Bool. The
younger man--the master of the house--was named Toroh. He came in and
sat by me a few times, always intent on seeing that I was properly cared
for. But there was no mistaking the fact that he would have killed me
without compunction had I annoyed him; and I could not forget his
sardonic laughter when he had blinded me.
I've been telling you about my first three days in the house. I did not
see the girl except once, just for a moment. I was not held to the room,
although I stayed there almost constantly. And one or the other of those
dogs was outside all the time. After the first day, I grew bold enough
to go into the living room.
Once, when I was sitting alone in the main room, the girl entered. She
stood in the doorway, and for the first time I realized how small and
slight she was. She looked almost Egyptian--I mean her manner of dress.
She was wearing a blue-colored cloth wound wide about her hips, with a
dull red sash hanging knee-length down one side; sandals on her bare
feet; breastplates of metal, and a broad, low-cut collar of cloth with
little coins on it that widened to cover her shoulders. And her golden
hair was parted forward over her shoulders in plaits that ended with
little tassels.
She was standing there staring at me, and this time there was no fear in
her eyes--only curiosity. My heart leaped; it was what I hoped for most.
I could do nothing toward planning to get her out of the house as long
as she continued to be afraid of me.
I smiled at her in as inoffensive and friendly a fashion as I could. Her
eyes fell, then came up and I could see she was wondering at my clothes;
my shoes, trousers, shirt and tie. Abruptly I realized that, except for
my garb, I probably did not look extraordinary or frightening to her.
The thought gave me new courage. I stood up, and spoke. At once she
turned and ran from the room.
We were a strange household, but after a time, except for having my
meals alone, I found I could move about pretty freely. Once Toroh
brought me my electric torch, and, making sure I did not aim it at him,
he made me light it. I knew he believed it a weapon. I thought this a
good chance to convince him I was friendly. I smiled and shined it into
my eyes, to show him it was harmless. He grunted and, taking the
flashlight from me, tossed it across the room, indicating it was of no
use or further interest.
Then he produced my Collinger and made me show him how to operate it.
But he was too clever to let me hold it; he did not let it get out of
his hands. When he had fired it at a mark out the doorway, he grunted
again and laid it on the snow. At a distance of twenty feet he stood
with some object in his hand which he did not show me. Abruptly the
Collinger flew into fragments! All its cartridges had been exploded
simultaneously. The bullets whistled past us, startling Toroh as much as
they did me. Later I learned he had exploded it by something akin to
radio. He picked up the remains and when he got back into the house, he
tossed my broken weapon away disdainfully. It was the attitude a soldier
of today might have toward an Indian warrior and his bow and arrow.
Toroh, I learned later, thought I had come from another planet. He had
seen my plane the morning I hovered over the house. No one from another
planet had been to the earth for centuries. But history told of them,
and he thought I was one of them, come again. He treated me kindly
enough--probably because I did not anger him or cross him in any way.
But I had seen him strike the girl in the face, and one day he struck
the woman. I have never seen such a look of sullen, repressed hatred as
she gave him. She seemed to hate her father, too. Later, I often saw him
cuff her when she annoyed him.