She subsided meekly and sat down beside him on the portable cot. She said, "I too have the same feeling, Darling Charles."
"Listen, honey," he told her after a minute. "You say you have never dreamed of a man like me?"
"How could I?" she countered simply. "In my time no man such as thee exists. Perhaps the king in London Town, or the Crown Prince...."
"Listen, honey—the only chance we have to stay together is to go out of here together on the same bed." He gave the couch beneath them a slap.
"Durst we?" Her voice was tiny but there was a compensating blaze of sudden hope in her blue eyes.
"We'll dare anything," Justin retorted, "because the worst thing that could happen to either of us right now is to be separated. We durst—now the question is, who goes back into whose time?"
"I should love to visit thine era, Darling Charles."
"I'd love to have you," he replied. "But for ten years now I've been wanting to see yours. We're going back to your life together."
"But Charles!" Her eyes grew round with fright. "Ye can't! Think on it—we might awaken in bed together and—"
"Would that be bad?" he asked.
"Nay—but there is my mother. She well might—"
"And what about my wife?" he countered quietly.
She seemed to leap a full foot away from him, her eyes blazing. She whispered, "Charles—you never told me you were married!"
"I'd be a pretty poor man if some woman hadn't picked me out," he replied. "Furthermore, I have not been in love with my wife for a good many years—nor she in love with me."
"But this is horrible!" the girl moaned.
Justin scowled at her, utterly taken aback by her reaction. Other hints she had dropped came back to him, Dr. Phillips' pitying words about her problem. He said, "I take it then that you are involved with a married man in your time."
She flared at him, "Nay, I amnotinvolved—though all about me, even my father, aye, even my mother, seem to wish me on my backside with this horrid old man. They say 'tis for the good of this or the welfare of that that I should give myself to him—me, who cannot stand the stench of his very breath!"
Justin had slipped from the cot. Facing her he said softly, "All the more reason that I should go with you.Ican take care of this unwelcome suitor and at least I shall not have a wife in your time for almost two hundred years to come—unless of course I marry you."
"That would be highly improper, not to say felonious," she retorted but he could sense the softening in her voice.
He said, "No more improper than coming to my world and having my wife catch us in bed together. How would you explain that to your sweet New England conscience? Or perhaps we'd better call off the whole thing."
"Nay, Charles," she said simply and stood up and was briefly in his embrace. After a little, her face puckered with worry, "But Darling Charles, howamI to explain thee? And how will ye survive? Ye'll arrive in midwinter in ye'r outlandish costume without a groat to ye'r name."
"Wait a minute." He thrust her from him again and pondered the problems that would face him should he and Deborah actually be successful in their effort to flee Belvoir together.
"Yes, Charles?" she asked him after awhile.
"It'll be all right," he told her, "if we can just get over the hurdle of your parents. I'll need a little money, some clothes."
"Those I can get ye," she replied promptly. "I have a small savings in my cupboard—'tis not much—just what I've saved from dress-making these two years past. And I can get ye some of father's cast-off garments. But what will ye do then, Darling Charles?"
"I'll have my problems, never fear," he told her. "But you seem to have forgotten one thing in my favor—I have lived two centuries in the future, Debby."
"And prithee, how will't avail thee in my time?" she asked him.
"Just this way," he stated confidently. "I know what the course of great events will be in thy—in your time, honey. Once I have obtained the ear and trust of someone with money to speculate I'll be able to take care of myself, never fear."
"And that is work for a man like yourself?" Deborah looked at him doubtfully. "Somehow it seems to me dishonest," she told him. "Ye'r taking unfair advantage."
"And what is fair in love and war?" he countered.
"'Tis a wicked and foolish saying—or so my mother has told me," the girl replied.
"But you'll do it—you darling!" He pulled her close to him and she made no resistance. They were still locked together when a throat was cleared in the doorway.
Dr. Phillips regarded them benignly. "I must say," he remarked, "that compared to some of the lewd sights I have witnessed here in Belvoir, it is refreshing to see a couple as well-favored as yourselves embracing. But that was not the purpose of my visit. I have come to say farewell."
"Then it's coming soon?" Justin asked him quickly.
"Perhaps you two have been too—er—occupied to hear but the five-minute signal sounded a brief while ago. I wish you both good luck."
Deborah broke from Charles, ran to the elderly don and planted a buss on his cheek. He fluttered like a moth, visibly touched, said, "Thank you, my dear," and added quite irrelevantly, "'Twill be a great relief to return once more to my breeches."
"Come quickly!" Deborah whispered when they were once more alone.
He needed no urging, raced on tiptoe behind her to her cubicle. Hurriedly she scrambled onto her portable bed, reaching for Justin as he climbed on from the other side. There was scarcely room for both of them.
She whispered, "Charles, I'm afeard."
"We're together, darling," he whispered back.
She was silent for a brief while. Then she whispered, "Have ye no children?"
"None," he replied. "Marie has no wish to spoil her figure."
For some reason this seemed to dispel both Deborah's jealousy and guilt. She held him closer still and murmured, "Poor Darling Charles. No wonder ye dreamt of other women."
"No wonder ..." he replied, scarcely knowing what he said. For at that moment sleep crept over him irresistibly.
Once again he was in the extinct odd little train, emerging from the choking tunnel. Miraculously, rumpled nightgown and all, Deborah was with him. Her blue eyes were red with smoke and she was coughing and frightened. She managed to gasp, "What is it—what is this horrid thing?"
He held her close and said, "It's a part of my dream, darling."
Even as he spoke and wondered how and why his dream should be dominant it changed. The rectangular windows of the old wooden coach grew indistinct. The car roof seemed to grow dimmer, finally to vanish altogether.
Against the starlit black of space were outlined the spars and ropes and masts and sails of a full-rigged sailing ship. They stood on its gently rocking poop and forward and below Justin could make out the waist and, beyond, the rise of the forecastle and the sharp lift of the sprit from the bow.
He looked at Deborah, saw how the breeze caught her hair and whipped it like some magnificent pennant of brownish gold and saw that she was speaking to him, crying, "This ismydream, Darling Charles—and I like it far better than thine."
"So do I," he replied, over-whelmed utterly by the miracle.
They floated slowly down until the sky once more was blue above them, first a dark unlikely blue, then lighter and increasingly familiar in hue. Once more Justin saw the earth flatten out and the first white woolly clouds appear.
But from then on all trace of similarity with his own dream ended.
They were entering Boston Harbor and in his excitement Justin held Deborah's hand so tightly that she cried out and he relaxed his grip with a murmur of apology.
"Castle William!" he murmured as they swept past the chief harbor fortification, from which an English ensign flapped gaily in the breeze.
Where the South End now rests was only water and, beyond it, the highlands of Dorchester and Nantasket rose in wooded splendor, innocent of the grime of industrial tenements and factories. They rounded a headland and, slowly, Boston itself swam into view.
Justin let out a cry of sheer delight. There was the old city—little more than a large town by twentieth-century standards with its fewer than twenty thousand inhabitants—its numerous spires and church steeples topping its hills, its houses and buildings crowding the wharves to which were moored fishermen, coasters and ocean ships, their masts making an intricate and fantastic pattern against the sky.
Then darkness whirled briefly about them and they seemed to be plucked from the deck of the white ship by a sort of whirlpool. Justin cried out, involuntarily, again felt the firm softness of Deborah's hand pressed against his lips. He was lying on the edge of a bed whose bottom seemed to be spilling over the side.
"Deborah?" sounded a shrill matronly voice from somewhere beyond a door, closed and invisible in the darkness. "Deborah, are ye all right? I thought I heard ye cry out."
"Just a dream, mama. I'm quite all right," the girl called back. There was a nervous silent wait, the sound of scuffling footsteps growing fainter, then the slam of another door.
"I thought surely ye'r outcry would have them all about us," said the girl reprovingly. "Ye'r really here with me after all and methinks ye'll be a great problem, if not my ruination forever."
VII
The long winter night was unrelieved by any hint of dawn when Justin scrambled through a hurriedly-opened window, dropped to the gently slanting roof of a one-storey shed attached to the Wilkins house and slid safely into a deep pile of snow.
Working his way clear to the rutted icy alley that passed for a street, Justin's chief impression was not wonder at the miracle that had actually transported him backward through time into the Old Boston of his dreams. It was a combination of uncertainty, befuddlement and utter physical discomfort.
In the first place the cast-off clothing of her father that Deborah had managed to procure for him from an upstairs hall closet was extremely uncomfortable. Made of coarse homespun it felt like steel wool against his skin. There was no underwear to ease the contact, nor had Deborah thought of any.
A chill east wind from the Bay knifed up the alley and chilled the marrow in his bones. Bitterly he recalled that the climate of north-eastern America had been growing steadily warmer for more than a century in his own time. He had returned to the very depths of the cold era.
Nor was he used to strange and narrow streets, slippery with ice, littered with refuse and utterly without lights. Holding with one hand to the cocked hat Deborah had loaned him, he groped his way with the other stretched out before him.
From the Wilkins house he was to proceed east on Mills Street, past Arch Street, until he came to Long Lane. There he was to turn right until he reached, on the corner to his left, a house, a full storey higher than the structures around it. He was to rap the knocker until a Mrs. Cooper answered and tell her that Sam Wilkins had sent him.
The small "hoard" Deborah had given him clinked in the cloth pouch she had tied round his waist. In spite of his discomfort he felt his thoughts soften at her generosity, as well as at its pitiful smallness. She was, in truth, a lovely thing to happen to any man.
He found the house and banged the heavy brass doorknocker with congealing fingers. After awhile a faint light glimmered through the fan-glass above the door, to be followed by the metallic sounds of a bolt being thrust back. The door opened a crotch and, above a wavering candle, a long-chinned toothless crone peered out at him and said, "What devil's business bringsyeto my door at this heathen hour?"
"Mrs. Cooper?" Justin asked, his teeth chattering.
"Aye, that I be," was the wary reply. "And who mightyebe?"
"The name is Justin," he replied. "Sam Wilkins sent me here in the hope of obtaining lodging for the night."
"Hmmp—there's little enough left of it," came the sharp reply. "Ye needn't think 'twill gain thee a short fee. That'll be a shilling and tuppence extra for rousing me at such an hour."
Justin willingly disgorged the required sum with rapidly numbing fingers and was led by the grumbling old crone to a small but unexpectedly clean second-floor chamber overlooking the street. With its white-washed walls, small mullioned window, wood fireplace, bureau, bed, table and chair—all these of hard dark maple—and knitted sampler on the wall, it might have been any of thousands of "Colonial" restorations in suburban homes of his own epoch.
Since there was no wood in the fireplace, Justin undressed quickly, glad to be out of his raspy clothing, and crawled naked between sheets almost as rough. But fatigue quickly overcame him and he fell into a dreamless sleep of sheer exhaustion.
He was awakened by a pock-marked mulatto girl who was apparently in the process of changing his chamberpot. She informed him as he rubbed sleepy eyes, "Ye slept through breakfast, Master. Mistress Cooper ast me to tell ye there's a young leddy downstairs to see ye."
Justin got out of bed in a hurry as soon as the slave had left. He let out a gasp as his bare feet struck the icy floorboards, crawled hastily into his ill-fitting clothing. He had to break ice in the basin.
Deborah was awaiting him downstairs in the parlor. Wearing a full-skirted tight-bodiced gown of light blue wool that matched her eyes, with blue-and-white bonnet, she looked to Justin delightfully quaint and breathtakingly lovely. She rose from the settee on which she had been waiting and came eagerly to him.
But when, after a warm kiss of greeting, he sought to embrace her further she danced away, laughing and saying, "Not now, Charles. Ye'll have Mistress Cooper saying dreadful things about me. 'Tis a fine winter's morning outdoors. I came to show ye the sights."
He went upstairs for his own borrowed cloak and by the time he got down she had already donned hers, a warm-looking grey wool wrap with grey woolen mittens to match. Outside the sun was bright and the night chill was off the air. Deborah said, watching her own breath congeal and mingle with his, "I had to come and see that ye made Mistress Cooper's safely. I lay abed and fretted for ye all night long."
"You don't look it," he told her.
Then he looked at the snow-covered city about him. There it stood, the Boston of his studies, of his dreams, the quaint old shops and houses and taverns, many with overhanging eaves and gables, the ancient signs, some fresh, some weathered, the innumerable and oddly-designed weather vanes and chimney pots.
Yet his next impression was one of dinginess. The snow, piled high on either side of the street, looked almost as dirty as snow that had lain for awhile in the side-streets of his own Boston. A narrow passageway had been dug out and even as he and Deborah watched a horse-drawn cart, laden with night-soil, and an ox-cart, evidently proceeding north to market, stood motionless, facing one another, while their drivers indulged in the mutual invective city and countrymen have invoked in like dilemmas since the invention of the wheel.
"What horrid words!" said Deborah, feigning shock. Justin took her arm and they edged past the incipient combatants, about whom a crowd of rough-looking customers was beginning to collect.
A gust of wind caused Deborah's cloak to billow about her and she tugged him away to the half-shelter of the rope-walk, where despite the weather a few hardy souls were engaged in splicing and reeving and other intricate arts of rigging and sailmaking.
A gong rang in Justin's memory. He said, "Where does Sam Adams live?"
"Ye know of him?" she countered, added, "That big run-down house at the next corner. What would ye of Master Adams, Charles?"
"Never mind, honey," he told her but his thoughts were humming. Sam Adams, of course—here was his opportunity, not only to survive in Old Boston, but to do it creditably in Deborah's eyes. Surely the so-called father of the Revolution would not be able to refuse the aid of a man who knew the course of the future.
Anxiety struck him. He said, "You aren't a supporter of the Court Party are you, Debby?"
Her eyes widened in surprise. Then she said, "Nay, not yet—but unless certain folk cease plaguing me in the name of the Colony I shall become so in self-defence."
"Don't switch," he assured her, relieved.
They walked the streets of the Old Town, down Belcher's Lane and the Battery March, whence they could see scarlet-coated soldiers at frigid sentry duty atop the Fort ramparts. They warmed chilling bodies with boiled beef and bacon and steaming buttered Medford rum at Stratton's tavern just off King Street, then on to the Province House toward Beacon Hill.
Look at the palladian gable of that small but stately structure, at the gilded lion and unicorn that adorned its cornices, Justin reflected it looked scarcely younger than when he had paused on his way home in the dusk to survey it a scant sixteen hours—or rather a hundred and ninety-two years—away. If anything, in his own era, it was rather better kept up.
Then they rambled back along Rawson's Lane to Milk Street and Deborah's house, which by daylight proved to be a stoutly comfortable dwelling in obvious good repair. To his surprise Deborah bade him enter. He followed her inside, said, "How are you going to explain me, honey?"
"I'm not," she replied with a flicker of dimple. "There's no soul here but ourselves."
He pulled her close and for a few blissful moments they embraced. Then, again, Deborah pushed him away. He looked at her, said, "What's wrong?"
"Ye must leave quickly," she replied. "I have something to attend to and with ye around I cannot."
"Is it your mission from Ortine?" he asked her.
"If that were all," she replied, "I'd willingly defy Ortine and all the de'ils in hell for ye, Darling Charles—but there is far too much involved."
He argued but to no avail, reluctantly took his leave. By a steeple clock he saw that the afternoon was still young. He might as well, he thought, put his time along to good use. So he made his way directly to the ramshackle doorway of Sam Adams' ramshackled old house.
An immense shaggy Irishman, his face pitted by the universal pockmarks of the era, opened the door to his knock. His free fist was clenched about the handle of a large pewter mug and his accents were slurred as he said, "What have we here?"
"I'd like to speak to Mr. Adams," Justin said.
The giant roared, "Sam!A peasant to see ye—with the voice of a man fro' the moon!"
There was a murmur from within and Justin entered a house whose interior looked as threadbare and ramshackled as its facade. He was taken to a disorderly looking study where a tall red-faced genial-looking man, whose coat was glossy with gravy stains, regarded Justin not unpleasantly and said, "Ye wish to see me?"
"I do," replied Justin, his knees weak. Glancing at the glowering Irishman behind him, he added, "On a matter of some confidence, Mr. Adams."
Adams glanced at his companion and said, "I doubt me much that this honest-looking stranger wishes me ill. Outside, Will."
Memory rang another gong within Justin's head. Will—that could mean only Will Molineux, tough rugged South End mob leader and soon-to-be captain of the town's Liberty Boys, a vital lower-bracket cog in the machinery that ultimately set up revolt against the Crown in Boston.
"Now, Master...?" said Adams inquiringly.
"Justin—Charles Justin," he said. "I must ask you to accept some of my story on its face—otherwise I fear you will find it incredible. However, I think I may be of use to you."
"I'll be glad to hear ye out—if ye take not too long," said Adams, indicating the papers on his desk.
Justin decided to plunge directly into his proposition. He said, "To what use would you be able to put a man who could foretell the future in your behalf?"
Adams' face became hard as flint. He said, "I know not who ye be or whence ye come—but I ha' not the time to sit and listen to such childish prattle."
"Please, Mr. Adams—I shan't take long," Justin put in desperately. "I'm a Bostonian like yourself but I come from a different time—from two centuries in the future to be exact."
Something in the sincerity of his plea won Justin a reprieve. "Very well, Master—Justin—if that be ye'r name. Ye'r accent is odd enough to account for such a story—not that I credit ye with truth for a moment. Since ye know so much of what ye termye'rpast, mayhap ye can tell me something of mine own."
Justin said, "You and your father made the first open attacks on the Crown, following the return of Louisburg to France in seventeen forty-six after its capture by Massachusetts men. You have run through a fine inheritance and are incapable of conducting any sort of business because your interest lies in politics. You graduated several notches higher in your class in Harvard than your young cousin John of Braintree.
"At the moment you are seeking some means of renewing the fight against the Crown. You are in the process of organizing the North and South End mobs of Boston to that purpose, uniting them into a controllable body that will obey your commands. Will Molineux, in the next room, is one of your chief aides...."
"Thus far ye have told me nothing that is not common knowledge." But Adams frowned slightly as he spoke.
"Is it generally known how well you have organized the mobs, Mr. Adams?" said Justin. "Is it generally known that you are counting, perhaps at this very moment, upon the enforcement of Writs of Assistance to re-rouse the opposition to the Crown that has lain dormant so long?
"Is it generally known that your opposition to the mother country is based upon a snubbing you received from a British officer in an ale-house fifteen years ago?"
"Enough, young man," said Adams. "Ye are either what ye say ye are—in which case ye'r a wizard—or ye'r a spy sent here by my enemies to muddle me with poor advice. Ye know too much about me and I know too little about ye. Now get out!"
There was no mistaking the anger in those genial brown eyes as Adams rose to his feet. All at once Justin realised he was going to call Molineux, have him chased out of town, perhaps beaten. After all, there was no police force in the Boston of 1761.
Moving quickly he picked up a heavy paperweight, evidently once an Indian axe-head, that lay atop a stack of foolscap on the desk, and struck Adams on the head with it before he could call for help. The oft-called Father of the Revolution fell forward across his desk. Justin bolted.
Molineux, who had been facing a front window in the other room turned and made a menacing move. "In there!" cried Justin. "Mr. Adams has fainted. I'll get help."
Feeling like an errant coward, Justin fled.
VIII
Behind Justin, moments later, Will Molineux, brandishing his pewter tankard, emerged from Sam Adams' house, roaring his rage and anger. Even as he cut for Long Lane, Justin once again felt a curious undefinable flicker of memory—the same that had troubled him while listening to Ortine—and once before recently on an occasion he could not recall.
For a few brief moments, while Justin slithered up the uneven icy surface of Long Lane, Molineux's shouts were blanketed by the corner buildings. But before Justin had proceeded more than fifty yards past his lodging place of the night before, a rising outcry struck his ears—ominous not only because of its closeness but because it no longer issued from one throat. Evidently Molineux's gang was joining the chase.
To his right the uninviting walls of close-set shops and houses offered no refuge. But to his left the houses were larger and fewer, with stretches of solid wooden fence between. If he could only get through into the inner-block area of yards and gardens, he might be able to cut across them to Arch Street and thence to the Wilkins house.
The hue and cry was growing louder by the moment—his pursuers would emerge in sight of him and the chase would be as good as over unless he did something and did it quickly.
Providentially he stumbled, stretched out a hand, struck a small door in the fence which gave under his weight. With a sobbing gasp of relief Justin lunged through it, shut it behind him, leaned against it, panting, while the sounds of pursuit swept past.
Getting through the various yards and gardens was not easy because of the deep snow. It took him a good fifteen minutes but he finally worked his way through a manure-hole—mercifully the cold weather kept it from reeking—into a barn.
Horses, well wrapped but chilly, stamped in their stalls as he made his way to the front of the building. Justin found a small door, slipped through it and made his way to the snowpile against the Wilkins shed.
Luckily there was no lock on the window of Deborah's room. Justin crawled through it, sick with relief, closed it after him—and promptly skidded on the hardwood floor with a snow-covered heel and crashed into a small table by the bed.
Before he had time to put the table back up Justin heard heavy masculine footsteps on the stairs, heard Deborah protesting, "But I promise ye—there's no one there. It must ha' been the old house creaking."
The bedroom door was wide open. Justin stood there, unable to think of a thing to do. He wondered what sort of man Deborah's sire would be like.
While he waited helplessly, Justin irrelevantly saw the spider lying on the floor, half beneath the bed. He must have left it in his pajama pocket, Debby must have found it and put it on the table he had overturned. Out of sheer reflex action Justin stooped to put it in his pocket.
He rose reluctantly, his eyes first noting a pair of large black shoes with silver buckles, then heavy white hose covering long sturdy legs, grey kneebreeches and waistcoat and a maroon broadcloth coat with silver buttons.
Atop this tall stocky body was a square not-unhandsome face, distinguished by a rather flat nose, a low broad forehead, angry hazel eyes and some of the fieriest red hair Justin had ever seen. The hazel eyes were regarding him even balefully.
"And who in hell beye?" the newcomer inquired. He swung about as Deborah appeared behind him in the doorway, the back of one hand to her mouth. He said, "Is this some scurvy trick to put me further still in the thrall of my wretched wife?"
"Charles!" Deborah whispered reproachfully. "Ye promised...."
"I know it," Justin replied desperately, "but I had to hide somewhere. There's a mob chasing me through the streets."
"But e'en so ..." the girl began, then hesitated as the faint sound of the hue and cry could be heard from the streets outside.
The red-headed man's voice was sharp as the crack of an Australian bullwhip. He said, "That's Will Molineux!" Then, fiercely, to Justin, "What have ye done to bring Will and his cutthroats on ye'r tail?"
"I had a little trouble with Mr. Adams," Justin murmured.
"So!" The big man took a menacing step toward him. He glanced at Deborah, who appeared stricken, then said, "'Twould appear there is more in this entire episode than meets the eye. Mayhap ye'r one with my wretched wife and her wretched Tory friends."
He took another step toward Justin, obviously measuring him for a blow. Deborah gave a little cry and leapt forward, seizing his right arm and dragging upon it with all of her weight.
"Please!" she cried. "Please, Master Otis...."
Otis! Justin was stunned. The resemblance to his well-known portrait was unmistakable. Here was James Otis, the brilliant and powerful young Boston lawyer who first, in that very month of February, in that very year of 1761, stood up for four hours in the Province House and defied the right of the Crown to issue the unlimited search warrants known as "Writs of Assistance" in order to check smuggling.
Here was the man who resigned his lucrative position as King's Advocate for Massachusetts, defied his wealthy Tory wife and all his wife's friends to make the first open plea for Colonial freedom.
Here was the man who gave heart to the Adamses, to Hancock and, in a vastly widening circle, to the Virginians Patrick Henry and, later, Thomas Jefferson. Here was the man who led Boston toward freedom until the tensions of his own career and domestic life drove him at length to madness.
Worse, as Justin quickly realised, here was the man to whom Deborah's friends and family were asking her to give herself. Justin understood their motives all too well. Apparently, unless he found some outlet away from his strife-torn home, Otis' friends already feared for his sanity. Employing an age-old therapy they had selected Deborah to supply that outlet.
Even in the misery of the moment, Justin found his mind ranging back to Ortine and his motives in having the girl go through with her assignment. In untampered-with history the girl must have turned Otis down. Perhaps in that turn-down Ortine read the outraged pride that had led Otis to stand up and make his revolutionary speech. By having the girl acquiesce Ortine figured, probably correctly, that the attorney would never be so inspired. The chain reaction that led to Independence Hall, to Saratoga, to Yorktown, would not have been touched off.
Justin saw, as if in slow-motion, Otis fling back his arm to clear it of the girl's desperate grip—saw her tossed against the wall. Her head struck with a sickening thud and she dropped to the floor in a pathetic unconscious heap.
Justin forgot about his near-worship for James Otis and sprang forward to do battle. He landed a hard right high on the lawyer's cheek, then felt the snow on a heel again betray him into slipping. Out of the corner of an eye he caught a quick glimpse of a large fist emerging from a ruffled cuff and arching directly toward his own jaw. He felt a jarring impact....
Justin found himself once more lying on a portable bed in one of the cubicles of Ortine's Belvoir dormitory. His jaw hurt and there was a tender spot over his right ribs that would, he knew, grow sorer with time.
He sat up, rubbing his chin, discovered he was still wearing the ill-fitting clothing with which Deborah had fitted him out. He glanced around—and his heart did a ground-loop. Alongside his own cot was another—and on it lay the girl.
Justin forgot his own sorenesses and went to her, put a hand on her face, felt his knees turn to oil as he discovered her face was warm, felt the rhythmic softness of her breath against his fingers.
She opened her eyes and smiled—and Justin felt his insides melt at the trustful happiness of her expression. He said, "It's all right, Debby dear—Ortine's brought us back to Belvoir."
"As long as we're still together," she whispered. Then, frowning, "My head hurts in back—a little."
A familiar sardonic voice spoke from the doorway. "I am glad," said Ortine, "that you find your return here so pleasant. I don't suppose you have the slightest inkling of what this unexpected insanity of yours has cost."
Justin considered for the first time the possible consequences of what he and Deborah had just managed to accomplish. He said, "We fouled up the works?"
Ortine stared at him for a long moment. Only by rigidity of manner did he give indication of the anger he must have felt. He said, "You show rather more discernment than I had expected, Justin—but I fear you still fail to realise the enormity of your sabotage.
"Time, as you conceive it, has no meaning for me, of course—yet I have had to spend vast amounts of it, searching, searching the entire course of human history, to select the exact men and women for my purpose, the exact moments in which they could be effective.
"The essence of my entire plan was simultaneous alteration of the historic line," Ortine went on. "Only thus could the salvation of humanity be effected without dislocation amounting to chaos. By your insane romantic aberration you two have disrupted the entire process."
Justin thought it improbable that Deborah could understand much of what their host was saying, yet the impact of his tone upon her was dynamic. She slipped from her bed, skirts whirling, marched up to Ortine and said, "I care not what ye think, Master Ortine. Neither Charles nor I asked to be brought here. Aye, and furthermore I'll not have ye using that tone to Charles."
Ortine said to Justin, "Perhaps we'd better talk this over in private."
"So ye can soft-talk Charles into doing ye'r bidding—and leave me to face Master Otis alone?" Deborah's defiance was magnificent and Justin put an arm around her.
He said to Ortine, "Since time is of no account to you, perhaps you'll give us a little of it together."
"As you wish." Ortine shrugged and turned to leave. "I shall await your summons."
"What did he mean?" Deborah asked Justin, when he had gone.
Justin studied her briefly, kissed her, then said, "Debby, just how did our friend explain himself toyou?"
"Oh...." The girl looked vague for a moment. "He told me that if I failed to heed Master Otis' plea the redcoats would come to Boston and burn my home and kill my father and mother and brothers—aye, and ruin me."
Suddenly Deborah's arms were around him tightly, her worried face peering searchingly into his. She said, "Through my willfulness will all these dreadful things come to pass, Charles darling?"
"Debby," he told her gently, "I don't know. But I'm going to find out."
"Ye'll not desert me?" she pleaded.
He smiled down at her. "Debby, I don't think I could desert you if it meant the end of the world—and it may yet."
"Ye'r jesting," she said. "Kiss me."
He did—and again they were interrupted by a throat-clearing in the cubicle doorway. Dr. Phillips said in his old-fashioned London accents, "I don't quite ken why our friend has brought us back—but I see things are the same betwixt the two ofyou."
"Why, Dr. Phillips!" exclaimed the girl. "Ye'r clad in ye'r breeks now."
"I thought it might be a wise precaution before returning to my nap," said the professor mildly.
Justin said, "Come in, Doctor." He set Deborah on her cot, swung onto his own, while Dr. Phillips accepted the one chair in the cubicle. He seemed not at all surprised to find two beds where one had stood before.
"Dr. Phillips," said Justin, "I've been hoping you'd turn up here again. On our first visit I saw a Roman soldier down the hall toward the dining saloon. He was with a Mohammedan-looking female. Do you have any idea of who he is—or what his assignment is?"
Dr. Phillips nodded. "Aye," he said. "I forget his name—it is of no moment in history. He is—or was—a mere field officer in the suite of a Judaean sub-Praetor during the reign of Augustus."
"And his assignment?" Justin asked quietly.
"I believe to the best of my memory—" Dr. Phillips frowned as he delved into his own mind—"that this chap was supposed to arrest a fellow named John Something-or-other outside of Jerusalem and hold him on a trumped-up charge."
"I take it," said Justin, "that Roman Judaea has not been one of your fields of study."
"Gracious no!" replied the don. "My only knowledge of Latin is derived from an effort to study its imprint, if any, on the pre-Christian tongues of Northern Europe—including Scandinavia."
"Thank you, Dr. Phillips," said Justin, slipping off his couch again. "By the way, how do you summon Ortine when you want him?"
"Just press this button," said Dr. Phillips, indicating a circular buzzer almost invisible against the wall near the corridor door. "Well, in that case I'll be going."
IX
Ortine sauntered in. He nodded pleasantly, said, "That was quicker than I'd dared hope. Thanks, Justin—and you too, Deborah Wilkins. You have reached your decision together?"
Deborah spoke quietly, firmly, said, "Charles is my master. What he decides, I shall obey."
"Remarkable—this strange emotional fusion," Ortine remarked to the banker. He sat down, added, "Of all human madness love is the most difficult to understand."
"You should be used to it by now," Justin told him.
Ortine sighed and said, "Some things one cannot get used to. But come, Justin, I trust you are going to be reasonable."
"I'm going to ask you a few questions before coming to a definite decision," said Justin.
"Sane enough," Ortine replied amiably.
Justin began, "On my first visit here I noticed a Roman legionary a few doors down the corridor."
Ortine nodded. "Right—Marcus Rutilius Catanio. A very well-balanced young man."
Justin said, "When you first discussed with me the madmen of history who have succeeded—you'll pardon an apparent digression—it occurred to me afterward that you failed to mention the Christ."
Ortine made a deprecatory gesture. "My dear fellow, I can never be certain how deep such spiritual beliefs go in any of you humans. I thought it more tactful...."
"This Marcus Rutilius What's-his-name," Justin went on. "From what Dr. Phillips just told me, it is his job to prevent the Christ from going to Jerusalem."
There was a gasp from Deborah but Ortine ignored the interruption. He said, "Of course, Justin. It is my intention to remove much of the world's sense of guilt by preventing your Christ from dying on the Cross."
"I thought as much," Justin nodded. "I have also considered what such a removal of guilt, as you call it, would do to our world. It would not only mean the end of Christianity—it would mean it never had a beginning. For a Christ without his martyrdom would no longer be a Christ."
"I had no idea you'd be shocked," said Ortine, puzzled.
"I'm not shocked," replied Justin. "What has me baffled, Ortine, is your true purpose. You say that the salvation of our world rests upon elimination of all but those you choose to call sane men—the dull plodding fellows who never upset applecarts. Are you sure that these human vegetables are the ones to make a world worth living in?"
"Possibly not," said Ortine, unabashed. "But they will at least make a world in which people can live. Consider, Justin, you are one of them—a prime example. Or you were until very recently."
"I'm well aware of that." Justin shot a quick tender glance at Deborah. He added, "As a matter of fact I'm just beginning to understand what a living death I've been enduring."
"A pity you've changed," Ortine told him. He sighed.
"Ortine," said Justin, "you say you cannot control humans. Yet I feel certain that I have recently seen you twice in human guise—once as Will Molineux in Sam Adams' house, the other as Corinne Forrester in my own office." He looked at Ortine's cigarette, recalled Corinne's Cuban cigarettes, added, "You're quite a smoker, aren't you?"
Ortine hesitated, then said, "It's a pity I couldn't put this experiment into work with a finish date about fifty years before your time, Justin. Dr. Phillips would have been ideal. Unfortunately I must use all of the lapsed time of human history or the whole procedure is worthless—it must be complete and simultaneous. Which is why you and"—with a polite nod—"Deborah were able to make such a botch of it.
"You're quite right about my appearances, of course," Ortine went on. "There are a few people, in whom my strain is especially strong, folk I can actually control to some degree. Naturally I have tried to put such persons in positions close to my probable subjects."
"How did you happen to take up the role of Satan?" Justin asked him quietly. Behind him Deborah gasped again and Justin reached out a hand for her to hold. A faint stirring of her fingers suggested she must be crossing herself.
Ortine looked distressed. He said, "Really, there was nothing deliberate about it. It's something that—well, it just happened." He dropped his cigarette onto the floor, pulled out his case, offered a smoke to Justin.
"Consider my mission. To perform it successfully it was vital that I should become intimately acquainted with humanity not merely on the surface but inside, where fears and motives dwell. How better could I conduct such a delicate test than by testing people? And how better test them than by trying the strength of their so-called decent impulses?"
"You might have something there," said Justin. "But you mention your strain being strong in some of us. Just how does that fit in with what you've told me of your mission?"
Ortine actually appeared embarrassed. He said, his eyes not meeting Justin's, "Of course, you must by this time have surmised that I am polymorphous...."
"Who's she?" Deborah asked.
It stopped both men. Ortine looked puzzled—Justin was unable to suppress a chuckle. Seeing hurt overlaying the worry in her eyes, he said, "It merely means he is a lot of people at once, honey. I didn't mean to laugh."
"Oh," she said, a trifle vaguely.
Ortine said, "I don't suppose it could happen on another planet in your entire galaxy—it's rather embarrassing. Having quickly surveyed the entire course of your history until now I decided to go all the way back to the beginning."
"You must have found yourself dealing with some rather rough customers," Justin suggested.
"To a visitor like myself there is little choice between you and the Neanderthal," replied Ortine.
"I'm not sure the analogy is a happy one," said Justin.
"Perhaps not—but it should give you some idea, Justin." Ortine did not appear to relish criticism any more than a human. "As a matter of fact I didn't go back quite that far. The Sumerians were quite early enough for my purposes.
"In various parts of the world I became a creature analogous to the woman your Judeo-Christian legend calls Lilith. Since only females actually spawn in your world it appeared logical to me that they were the more important. But something was missing. Merely playing goddess to these alien creatures told me little about them. So, in a dozen carefully screened and selected human settlements around your world, I stepped down from my pedestal and became—Eve."
"Good Lord!" said Justin. "You mean that you, an alien...."
"Yes." Ortine's expression was sour. "In at least a half-dozen bodies I conceived! Furthermore, once it had happened, there was no escaping or altering those particular bodies until the child was born."
"I don't quite see how it could happen," said Justin.
"Neither did I at first," said Ortine unhappily. "Mind you, I am in my own universe what could be very roughly compared to a roving social analyst in yours. And here I was, alone, in this situation.
"It took me some time to find the answer. Ultimately, of course, I discovered the reason for my disaster. Despite the vast distortion differences that must occur in any creature or thing that makes a voyage from sub-space to your space, I discovered that I was—in polymorphic form, of course—a highly developed member of a highly developed species corresponding in my universe to yours.
"If I brought a Piltdown woman to Belvoir and induced you to mate with her—don't shudder, I have no intention of doing so—she would ultimately conceive. I could not accept this resemblance at first, any more than you could accept similarity to a Piltdown female. But there I was, mortally chained to beings on your planet through a most elementary process."
Deborah said, her voice shaking, "Charles, he's joking, isn't he?"
Justin shook his head, said to Ortine, "So your strain became inextricably intermixed with ours. But how does that account for your playing Satan?"
"My dear Justin!" Ortine spread his hands wide. "Consider my position. What had originally been a most impersonal mission had become a matter of the deepest personal concern. Confidentially, I have never since—or at least within the past few hundred generations—been able to materialize on Earth itself."
"Why not?" Justin asked him.
"Because of the risk," replied Ortine. "Suppose, as a man, I were killed accidentally or murdered. Suppose, as a woman, I conceived again—I can assure you my desires in such matters are perhaps even stronger than those of your species.
"Each such accident—and in the early days I had my share—is weakening. I have only so much life force and no means of replenishing that which is spent—not in this universe. Hence I have had to indulge in what you might term economy of forces."
"Playing the devil...." Justin reminded him.
"Dammit, don't interrupt. I am quite capable of image projections—hallucinations to you. These I have indulged in frequently when I thought such appearances needful or considered them diverting. In some of them, for various reasons, I have assumed some remarkable shapes."
"How about these folk you can influence directly?"
Ortine regarded Justin irritably, said, "Surely you know enough of Mendel's Law to be aware that dominant strains will pop up again and again, even in a recessive capacity. When mine recurs, as it does in every generation, I am able to exercise over them more control than I can over others."
"How much control can you exercise over someone else—say over me?" Justin asked Ortine quietly.
"I think you can answer that for yourself," said Ortine.
Justine thought it out quickly. If Ortine could actually control him, save when he was unconscious or on the rim of sleep, there would have been no need to bring him to Belvoir at all.
Ortine met his gaze frankly—and Justin, from his long experience of judging living beings, some of whom were perhaps as devious as Ortine himself, decided the other was lying—or at any rate revealing but an expedient fraction of the truth.
Why, he wondered, didn't Ortine simply kill Deborah or himself. The answer to that was obvious. If he could have done so he certainly would have—especially after Justin and Deborah had balluxed up his whole scheme.
Which meant that he couldn't, for all the miracle of his ship and his polymorphism and his ability to span time at will. Justin wondered why his host was so helpless, decided he might as well accept the fact.
"All right," he said, "so it's a stalemate—correct?"
"I wouldn't be too sure," said Ortine. His eyes turned toward Deborah but he spoke to Justin. "The matter of inbred belief is or can be a vital factor. I believe you have heard, in your own enlightened era"—there was a trace of irony in the phrase—"of primitive Haitians and Africans who have succumbed to voodoo for no other reason than that they believed in it and thought someone had put a death-curse on them."
"I have heard of them," said Justin. "But I've been thinking of another factor in our first discussion. We discussed your so-called madmen—but what of sane men?"
"What of them?" Ortine looked troubled.
"Let's look at some of the most successful," Justin offered. "For instance, Ghengis Khan. Now there was a sane man—he fought only for self preservation. And each time he won a victory he was forced to preserve it and himself by winning more. So he destroyed a continent and caused the deaths of, say, fifty million innocent people. He left marks on the world that are still with us—the deserts of Central Asia, the fear-psychology of Russia under Czar or Commissar. Do you call him insane?"
Ortine made an impatient gesture, said, "Of course he was sane. It was his time and environment, not himself, that were at fault."
"You're rationalizing," said Justin. "I could name some other sane men of prominence—Timur the Great, Attila, Metternich, Stalin. Find me any saner men."
"Who are these strangers of whom ye speak?" asked Deborah.
The men ignored her. Ortine said, "In the case of each there were extenuating circumstances...."
"And," said Justin, "I can name you some sane men who, for one reason or another, failed—which can only be called a blessing to mankind. Rokh-ud-Din, the last emir of the Assassins, for instance—or Lucullus or Louis Fourteenth or Bismarck or Robespierre. Now certainly no saner, less imaginative, more honorable man than Robespierre ever lived. Yet he virtually destroyed a great revolution by his very sanity."
For the first time Ortine looked seriously annoyed. He said, "On what range of experience do you base your judgment of what is beneficial for humanity or not, my dear Justin? This is ridiculous—why should I argue with you?"
"Because you've got to persuade me to do your will or your entire scheme will collapse," Justin told him calmly.
"You're risking the person you love most," said Ortine.
"Not yet," replied Justin. "And here's something else that has me stopped—if you're so anxious to save our planet from its so-called ruin, why are you taking the very steps that will lead to its speedy destruction?"
"Consider," said Ortine, regaining his self control, "if my plan is followed your planet will suffer a certain retrogression, of course. Now think what such a retrogression will mean—it will mean no A-bomb, no airplanes, none of the modern destructive machinery. In that way your planet will be aeons from self-destruction."
"You'll force us back to the caves!" cried Justin.
"Not quite." Ortine smiled. "Not quite, my dear Justin. Why not enjoy a good dinner before we resume our little chat?"
X
There were a number of small changes in the clothing of the diners in Ortine's incredible restaurant. The eighteenth-century lady had removed her towering headdress to reveal a closely shaved round pate, the white-haired woman from medieval England had managed to don a shift—and of course Dr. Phillips had his trousers. But most of the diners appeared the same.
There was a general air of festivity about the repast. Apparently the bulk of the visitors had expected no return to the paradise of Belvoir and were resolved to enjoy its luxuries to the hilt. But Justin and Deborah said little, barely toyed with their food.
"Darling Charles," said the girl softly, "what d'ye think is going to happen now?"
"I don't know," said Justin honestly. He captured her near hand, added, "Dear Debby, will you go with me no matter what?"
She answered him with her eyes.
When they returned to their cubicle, after a brief walk in the garden, Ortine was awaiting them. He said, "Well?"
Justin studied him. Finally he said, "Ortine, we've made up our minds. We're going back—together. But this time we're going back intomyera."
Deborah gave vent to a little cry of joy. Ortine flicked ashes on the floor. "You still don't seem to understand, my dear Justin," he said. "Ican'tallow that. I might, of course, be willing to make some concessions. I could arrange things for Deborah so that she will succeed without having actually to give herself to James Otis.
"I might even be able to rig some sort of happiness for you, Justin—say a liaison with Corinne Forrester." Reading Justin's expression correctly he added quickly, "No, of course, that would not do now. But I could influence some very likely facsimile of your young lady here and perhaps get you clear of your present unhappy domestic arrangements."
"That I don't doubt," said Justin. "But what guarantee can you give us that you will?" And, as Ortine colored slightly, "We go together or we don't go at all. In either case you're cooked."
"An odd expression to use toward me," said Ortine thoughtfully, "I assure you I can make things extremely unpleasant for Deborah."
"I don't doubt that either," Justin told him. "But to what avail?" He hesitated, then plunged into a statement he had been considering through dinner. "Ortine, I don't think you give a damn what happens to our world. I don't believe you give a damn about our sun going nova."
Ortine said silkily, "Very well, Justin, whatdoyou believe—where I am concerned?"
"I think you'd have taken off from here like a shot if it weren't for your becoming inextricably entangled with the human race through your multiple-Eve disaster. I have no idea of the effect of plural birth upon a polymorphous being but I have a hunch it is serious. I think you've got to destroy all of us to get away. Otherwise none of this makes sense."
"Then why shouldn't I simply stay on?" Ortine inquired caustically.
"I'll tell you why," replied Justin. "You've got to get away because we're beginning to learn too much. Sooner or later the existence of this ship of yours is going to be discovered—youare going to be discovered. And when that happens, you're in the wrong galaxy and your physical weapons will be as useless as your psychological weapons are useless against an educated mind and spirit."
Ortine said, "You have reared quite a structure upon a few involuntary hints, a smidgin of knowledge and a long train of intuition." He smiled ruefully, added, "I might as well confess you are remarkably close to the truth—not a bullseye but close."
"Thank you for that," said Justin ironically.
"You needn't feel too proud of yourself," Ortine told him. "I suppose the indications are there for anyone to read who is able to. You're right about my mission. Mine is merely an experimental flight to crash the barrier between your space and mine—incidentally, I believe, the first to do so successfully.
"Unfortunately my ship emerged into this galaxy on a collision course for a planet of your system, shattering it into what you know as the asteroids. As a result of the damage it caused I was forced to moor to Earth in an effort to effect repairs.
"I could not make such repairs alone—hence I was forced to develop the dominant species to a point where its members could actually do some of the heavy work. The construction needed, while minuscule in comparison to my ship, was immense in relation to men—immense and generally senseless."
"The Tower of Babel," mused Justin, "and the pyramids...."
"And the basalt water city of Ponape and scores of other structures whose size has always seemed to exceed the needs of their purpose," Ortine affirmed. "Call them jacks if you wish—that was their primary function. At any rate, thanks to the labor of humans, my ship has at last been readied for its return flight."
"And if you should return successfully what will happen?"
Ortine shrugged. "I belong to an aggressive race," he said simply. "We have already conquered one universe. Need I say more?"
"And your communications are ineffective?" Justin asked.
"Yes, thanks to the crash. But don't let your hopes rise too high, Justin. When my plans are complete human science and knowledge will be irreparably set back."
"So youareafraid of what we're beginning to learn."
"Afraid? That is an emotional word but I suppose in a parallel way I am." Ortine paused, added, "Your species is aggressive too. As I have already told you, we are very similar."
"Why not simply cut and run and then come back in force and destroy us?" countered Justin.
"Time is much less simple than you people seem to think," said Ortine. "The few months it would require us to organize such an expedition in my universe would be the equivalent of several centuries in this one. And by that time, if you have not destroyed yourselves, you may know as much as we."
"So you plan to destroy us," said Justin.
Ortine replied, "You should know better than that, Justin. Why should I trouble to bring all of you here, why should I have spent the time and labor I have on this experiment—when I could blast your planet out of hand?"
Justin studied him for a moment, then said, "I can think of a pair of possible reasons, Ortine. One—your extra-space weapons might not be effective in this universe. Two—from some of the things you have dropped about polymorphous conception and birth, you may not be able to dis-ally yourself from humanity so easily."
Ortine studied Justin in turn, then said, "You're wrong about my weapons—they have long since been adjusted to operate in your space. But Iamsaddled with you—allof you. I am like a man with a diseased appendix—save that in this instance my appendix numbers three to four billion."
"You mean you are actually part of us—and we of you?" asked Justin, appalled at the thought.
"Unfortunately, yes—in what you would call a physiological sense but one which is painfully physical to me," Ortine replied. "Now consider my plight in terms of your own appendicitis. Such major disasters as battles and natural catastrophes are like recurring attacks. An atomic war might well rupture my very fabric.
"Naturally deaths in smaller quantities or lesser disasters do not noticeably affect me—but the destruction for which your world may be heading is more than I can risk. Therefore I have had to take steps, first to obviate the possibility of atomic war, secondly to lower the population. These are the twin purposes toward which I have conducted my experiment. If I were to wipe out humanity, as I easily could, I should myself die."
"I think I understand," Justin told him, frowning. "By removing human imagination—you call it madness—you plan not only to reduce human population to a nubbin but to rig things so that the remnants will eliminate themselves in a manner practically painless to yourself. Am I right?"
Ortine hesitated, then said, "Consider again the man with appendicitis. If it bursts and he has no proper medical care he will die. But if it withers away, then he is free of the diseased organ."
"And for that purpose you expect me to go through with your assignment?" asked Justin. "You'rethe one who's mad!"
"I think not," said Ortine, rising. "I happen to know how all-powerful the peculiar form of insanity you humans call love can be. For instance...."
He extended a hand casually toward Deborah. At once a wall of flame sprang up around the cot on which she was sitting. She screamed and shrank back, cowering and covering her eyes. Justin sprang toward her, stood in the midst of the fire.
"Come," he told her but she refused to believe the fire was illusory. She screamed again, said, "Ye'r a de'il too, Charles!"
"Stopit!" cried Justin to Ortine.
"Certainly." At once the flames vanished. Deborah looked at Charles piteously. "Charles, he's going to burn us alive. HeisSatan!"
"You want to go back to your own time alone, my dear?" Ortine had strolled casually to the other side of the bed.
Deborah gave him a long look, replied, "Nay, I'll take my chances wi' ye'r hellfire, Master Devil."
"I can ensure that the importunities of Master Otis will meet with no success," offered Ortine. "I can see that you wed a fine young man of family with a mansion near North Square."
"Ye cannot give me Charles," Deborah said fiercely.
Ortine lifted a sardonic eyebrow at Justin. He said, "I'll give you a few minutes alone with her, my dear fellow. For her own sake and yours I hope you can talk some sense into her."
He strolled out and Deborah flung herself on Charles, sobbing her fear. He said when she had calmed a little, "Dear Deborah, you'vegotto understand. Ortine's fire is real only if you believe it. You saw me standing in it unsinged."
"I know!" she sobbed. "My eyes saw and my poor brain understood but the rest of me couldn't believe."
"You can thank your preachers for that," said Justin. "They've been playing right into the hands of Ortine all along. Now that you've seen I can't be hurt you've got to believe yourself. Otherwise I'm afraid...."
"Else what?" she asked tremulously.
"Otherwise there's no hope for us, honey. If we can't stand together against him we might as well both be dead. It will mean the death of the world as we know it." He looked close into the depths of her blue eyes. "Do you think you're strong enough—with me at your side?"
"I—don't—know," she replied. "Darling Charles, can't ye see how much Iwantto be strong? But can't ye understand how little it will avail us if, after I promise, I fail?"
He sighed, automatically patted his pockets for a cigarette.
The spider! It was still there. Justin pulled it out, looked at it. When Corinne Forrester had questioned him about its uses other than as a waterproofer, he had not given her an answer.
Deborah touched the odd little sprayer with a forefinger, said, "I found this in ye'r nightdress when I put it away. What is it, Charles?"
He hesitated, made up his mind, said, "It's an invention from my own time, honey. It shelters against cold—and against heat. Providence must be with us."
"Against heat? How does it work, Charles?"
"Here—I'll show you." He pressed a tiny button, spraying some of the transparent plastic across the palm of his left hand.
"'Tis as magical as Master Ortine's devices," cried the girl.
"Perhaps," replied Justin. "Now stand very still, honey—I'm going to give you a coat of this stuff. Then you'll have nothing to fear from Ortine's flame illusions."
"Ye'r a very wonderful man, Charles," she told him proudly.
"We'll soon know," he replied, then got busy and sprayed her with it all over, not sparing even her hair and lashes.
Finished, he returned the spider to his pocket, said, "Now let him do his worst. Are ye—are yousureyou want to come back with me, honey? There's going to be one hell of a row over you."
"I'll be withye," she said simply.
Ortine returned. He bowed to his guests, said, "Well, I hope this is our last session."
"We've reached an agreement," Justin told him.
"An intelligent agreement?"
"Quite. We're going back together—to my time."
Ortine's smile was not pleasant. He said, "This may sound a trifle trite but don't say I didn't warn you." Then, to Deborah, "For your information this may be quite painful while it lasts—or whileyoulast."
"Don't be afraid, honey," Justin told her.
"I'm not." The countenance she lifted to his was radiantly assured. "Not any more."
Ortine hesitated, his hand half outstretched, and said, "I truly hate to disillusion you, Justin."
"We'll see how your tricks prevail against love," said Justin.
"Love!" The word seemed to infuriate Ortine. He gestured at them and the room became a cubicle of fire. For a fraction of a second Justin flinched involuntarily and during that time he could actually feel the heat. Then, once more in control of himself, he stood quietly amid flames that neither seared nor burned.
Deborah locked up at him and smiled, the blaze flickering against her face. Her hand found his, pressed it tightly, and she smiled.
The flames vanished. A weary Ortine shook his head in bafflement. He said, "All right, you two—you win. I'll do anything you wish. Anything to get you out of here."
XI
When Justin came to he felt as if he had been wrapped in several layers of flour sacking. Then, with returning consciousness, he discovered himself to be lying in his own bed in the house on Louisburg Square, wearing the coarse heavy clothes Deborah had given him.
Deborah! A quick glance to his left revealed her lying beside him. He put out a reassuring hand to stroke her face, felt its plastic coating, got out of bed in a hurry.
"Come on," he said, "let's get that stuff off of you."
She moved like a girl in a trance. Her eyes ranged from the bed itself to the electric light on the bedside table, to the telephone, to the carpet, to the walls—then at last to Justin.
"Don't let it throw you, honey," he told her. "Think how I felt when I woke up inyourbed."
She said in a near-whisper, "Butthis—this is more wonderful than Belvoir itself!"
"Prepare yourself for another shock, honey—a twentieth-century bathroom. We're going to get you cleaned up."
It was like showing a child its first Christmas tree. It took Justin a full fifteen minutes to get Deborah safely ensconced in a hot tub. He emerged, perspiring, carrying her clothes, and deposited them on a chair, then began to strip off his own ill-fitting garments.
He stopped in the process of disrobing, picked up the phone, dialed the Ritz and reserved a suite. He had no intention of having Marie walk in to find Deborah there with him.
He found the spider again in his pocket, sat down on the bed to examine it once more. On impulse he squirted some of the remaining plastic on his hand, picked up a lighter, ran the flame beneath it. The stuff flamed up like benzine, blistering his palm before he could extinguish it. Justin shook his head and tossed it onto the table, feeling more sweat bead his forehead.
This, he decided, was one invention he was definitely going to turn down—if he still had his job with the Ninth of Boston, come the morning. He got out of his absurd clothes, scratched his flanks with relief, rummaged in the wardrobe for an extra robe.
Deborah called for help. She was having difficulty getting the plastic out of her hair. Justin stood her under the shower, soaped her head and turned on the warm water. "We'll get you a decent shampoo at a beautician's tomorrow, honey," he told her.
It was at that moment that Marie appeared in the doorway. She looked at Justin, then at Deborah incredulously. She was carrying the blue-and-white dress of the girl from Old Boston in her hand. She said, "I was going to ask you what this was, Justin—but I see there's no need."
Justin turned off the water, tossed the girl a towel, escorted his wife to the bedroom, shutting the bathroom door behind them. He glanced for the first time at the clock beside the telephone, discovered it was past two A.M. Ortine had had his little joke—instead of returning them to the banker's house at the moment of his first summons, he had allowed a few hours to elapse.