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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/17355-h.zip b/17355-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..26ec0ef --- /dev/null +++ b/17355-h.zip diff --git a/17355-h/17355-h.htm b/17355-h/17355-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..814c04d --- /dev/null +++ b/17355-h/17355-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3738 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Runaway Skyscraper, by Murray Leinster</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 65%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + hr.short {width: 45%;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + + + .center {text-align: center;} + + + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Runaway Skyscraper, by Murray Leinster + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Runaway Skyscraper + +Author: Murray Leinster + +Release Date: December 19, 2005 [EBook #17355] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RUNAWAY SKYSCRAPER *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/mlrstitle.gif" alt="title page" width="600" height="380" /></div> + +<h1>The Runaway Skyscraper</h1> +<h3> <i>by</i> Murray Leinster </h3> +<p class="center">COMPLETE IN THIS ISSUE.[<a href="#note">*</a>]</p> +<hr /> +<h3>I.</h3> + +<p> +The whole thing started when the clock on the Metropolitan Tower +began to run backward. It was not a graceful proceeding. The +hands had been moving onward in their customary deliberate +fashion, slowly and thoughtfully, but suddenly the people in +the offices near the clock's face heard an ominous creaking +and groaning. There was a slight, hardly discernible shiver +through the tower, and then something gave with a crash. The +big hands on the clock began to move backward. + +</p> +<p> +Immediately after the crash all the creaking and groaning +ceased, and instead, the usual quiet again hung over everything. +One or two of the occupants of the upper offices put their +heads out into the halls, but the elevators were running +as usual, the lights were burning, and all seemed calm and +peaceful. The clerks and stenographers went back to their +ledgers and typewriters, the business callers returned to +the discussion of their errands, and the ordinary course of +business was resumed. + +</p> +<p> +Arthur Chamberlain was dictating a letter to Estelle Woodward, +his sole stenographer. When the crash came he paused, listened, +and then resumed his task. + +</p> +<p> +It was not a difficult one. Talking to Estelle Woodward was at +no time an onerous duty, but it must be admitted that Arthur +Chamberlain found it difficult to keep his conversation strictly +upon his business. + +</p> +<p> +He was at this time engaged in dictating a letter to his +principal creditors, the Gary & Milton Company, explaining that +their demand for the immediate payment of the installment then +due upon his office furniture was untimely and unjust. A young +and budding engineer in New York never has too much money, +and when he is young as Arthur Chamberlain was, and as fond +of pleasant company, and not too fond of economizing, he is +liable to find all demands for payment untimely and he usually +considers them unjust as well. Arthur finished dictating the +letter and sighed. + +</p> +<p> +"Miss Woodward," he said regretfully, "I am afraid I shall +never make a successful man." + +</p> +<p> +Miss Woodward shook her head vaguely. She did not seem to +take his remark very seriously, but then, she had learned never +to take any of his remarks seriously. She had been puzzled at +first by his manner of treating everything with a half-joking +pessimism, but now ignored it. + + +</p> +<p> +She was interested in her own problems. She had suddenly +decided that she was going to be an old maid, and it bothered +her. She had discovered that she did not like any one well +enough to marry, and she was in her twenty-second year. + +</p> +<p> +She was not a native of New York, and the few young men she had +met there she did not care for. She had regretfully decided +she was too finicky, too fastidious, but could not seem to +help herself. She could not understand their absorption in +boxing and baseball and she did not like the way they danced. + +</p> +<p> +She had considered the matter and decided that she would +have to reconsider her former opinion of women who did not +marry. Heretofore she had thought there must be something the +matter with them. Now she believed that she would come to +their own estate, and probably for the same reason. She could +not fall in love and she wanted to. + +</p> +<p> +She read all the popular novels and thrilled at the love-scenes +contained in them, but when any of the young men she knew became +in the slightest degree sentimental she found herself bored, +and disgusted with herself for being bored. Still, she could +not help it, and was struggling to reconcile herself to a life +without romance. + +</p> +<p> +She was far too pretty for that, of course, and Arthur +Chamberlain often longed to tell her how pretty she really was, +but her abstracted air held him at arms' length. + +</p> +<p> +He lay back at ease in his swivel-chair and considered, +looking at her with unfeigned pleasure. She did not notice +it, for she was so much absorbed in her own thoughts that she +rarely noticed anything he said or did when they were not in +the line of her duties. + +</p> +<p> +"Miss Woodward," he repeated, "I said I think I'll never make +a successful man. Do you know what that means?" + +</p> +<p> +She looked at him mutely, polite inquiry in her eyes. + +</p> +<p> +"It means," he said gravely, "that I'm going broke. Unless +something turns up in the next three weeks, or a month at the +latest, I'll have to get a job." + +</p> +<p> +"And that means—" she asked. + +</p> +<p> +"All this will go to pot," he explained with a sweeping +gesture. "I thought I'd better tell you as much in advance as +I could." + +</p> +<p> +"You mean you're going to give up your office—and me?" she +asked, a little alarmed. + +</p> +<p> +"Giving up you will be the harder of the two," he said with +a smile, "but that's what it means. You'll have no difficulty +finding a new place, with three weeks in which to look for one, +but I'm sorry." + +</p> +<p> +"I'm sorry, too, Mr. Chamberlain," she said, her brow puckered. + +</p> +<p> +She was not really frightened, because she knew she could get +another position, but she became aware of rather more regret +than she had expected. + +</p> +<p> +There was silence for a moment. + +</p> +<p> +"Jove!" said Arthur, suddenly. "It's getting dark, isn't it?" + +</p> +<p> +It was. It was growing dark with unusual rapidity. Arthur went +to his window, and looked out. + +</p> +<p> +"Funny," he remarked in a moment or two. "Things don't look just +right, down there, somehow. There are very few people about." + +</p> +<p> +He watched in growing amazement. Lights came on in the streets +below, but none of the buildings lighted up. It grew darker +and darker. + +</p> +<p> +"It shouldn't be dark at this hour!" Arthur exclaimed. + +</p> +<p> +Estelle went to the window by his side. + +</p> +<p> +"It looks awfully queer," she agreed. "It must be an eclipse +or something." + +</p> +<p> +They heard doors open in the hall outside, and Arthur ran +out. The halls were beginning to fill with excited people. + +</p> +<p> +"What on earth's the matter?" asked a worried stenographer. + +</p> +<p> +"Probably an eclipse," replied Arthur. "Only it's odd we +didn't read about it in the papers." + +</p> +<p> +He glanced along the corridor. No one else seemed better +informed than he, and he went back into his office. + +</p> +<p> +Estelle turned from the window as he appeared. + +</p> +<p> +"The streets are deserted," she said in a puzzled tone. "What's +the matter? Did you hear?" + +</p> +<p> +Arthur shook his head and reached for the telephone. + +</p> +<p> +"I'll call up and find out," he said confidently. He held +the receiver to his ear. "What the—" he exclaimed. "Listen +to this!" + +</p> +<p> +A small-sized roar was coming from the receiver. Arthur hung +up and turned a blank face upon Estelle. + +</p> +<p> +"Look!" she said suddenly, and pointed out of the window. + +</p> +<p> +All the city was now lighted up, and such of the signs as they +could see were brilliantly illumined. They watched in silence. +The streets once more seemed filled with vehicles. They darted +along, their headlamps lighting up the roadway brilliantly. +There was, however, something strange even about their +motion. Arthur and Estelle watched in growing amazement and +perplexity. + +</p> +<p> +"Are—are you seeing what I am seeing?" asked Estelle +breathlessly. "<i>I</i> see them <i>going backward</i>!"</p> + +<p> Arthur watched, and collapsed into a chair. </p> +<p> "For the love of Mike!" he exclaimed softly. </p> +<hr /> +<h3>II.</h3> +<p> +He was roused by another exclamation from Estelle. + +</p> +<p> +"It's getting light again," she said. + +</p> +<p> +Arthur rose and went eagerly to the window. The darkness was +becoming less intense, but in a way Arthur could hardly credit. + +</p> +<p> +Far to the west, over beyond the Jersey hills—easily visible +from the height at which Arthur's office was located—a faint +light appeared in the sky, grew stronger and then took on a +reddish tint. That, in turn, grew deeper, and at last the sun +appeared, rising unconcernedly <i>in the west</i>. + +</p> +<p> +Arthur gasped. The streets below continued to be thronged +with people and motor-cars. The sun was traveling with +extraordinary rapidity. It rose overhead, and as if by magic +the streets were thronged with people. Every one seemed to +be running at top-speed. The few teams they saw moved at a +breakneck pace—backward! In spite of the suddenly topsyturvy +state of affairs there seemed to be no accidents. + +</p> +<p> +Arthur put his hands to his head. + +</p> +<p> +"Miss Woodward," he said pathetically, "I'm afraid I've gone +crazy. Do you see the same things I do?" + +</p> +<p> +Estelle nodded. Her eyes wide open. + +</p> +<p> +"What <i>is</i> the matter?" she asked helplessly. + +</p> +<p> +She turned again to the window. The square was almost empty +once more. The motor-cars still traveling about the streets +were going so swiftly they were hardly visible. Their speed +seemed to increase steadily. Soon it was almost impossible to +distinguish them, and only a grayish blur marked their paths +along Fifth Avenue and Twenty-Third Street. + +</p> +<p> +It grew dusk, and then rapidly dark. As their office was on +the western side of the building they could not see that the +sun had sunk in the east, but subconsciously they realized +that this must be the case. + +</p> +<p> +In silence they watched the panorama grow black except for +the street-lamps, remain thus for a time, and then suddenly +spring into brilliantly illuminated activity. + +</p> +<p> +Again this lasted for a little while, and the west once more +began to glow. The sun rose somewhat more hastily from the +Jersey hills and began to soar overhead, but very soon darkness +fell again. With hardly an interval the city became illuminated, +and then the west grew red once more. + +</p> +<p> +"Apparently," said Arthur, steadying his voice with a conscious +effort, "there's been a cataclysm somewhere, the direction +of the earth's rotation has been reversed, and its speed +immensely increased. It seems to take only about five minutes +for a rotation now." + +</p> +<p> +As he spoke darkness fell for the third time. Estelle turned +from the window with a white face. + +</p> +<p> +"What's going to happen?" she cried. + +</p> +<p> +"I don't know," answered Arthur. "The scientist fellows tell +us if the earth were to spin fast enough the centrifugal force +would throw us all off into space. Perhaps that's what's going +to happen." + +</p> +<p> +Estelle sank into a chair and stared at him, appalled. There +was a sudden explosion behind them. With a start, Estelle +jumped to her feet and turned. A little gilt clock over her +typewriter-desk lay in fragments. Arthur hastily glanced at +his own watch. + +</p> +<p> +"Great bombs and little cannon-balls!" he shouted. "Look +at this!" + +</p> +<p> +His watch trembled and quivered in his hand. The hands +were going around so swiftly it was impossible to watch the +minute-hand, and the hour-hand traveled like the wind. + +</p> +<p> +While they looked, it made two complete revolutions. In one +of them the glory of daylight had waxed, waned, and vanished. +In the other, darkness reigned except for the glow from the +electric light overhead. + +</p> +<p> +There was a sudden tension and catch in the watch. Arthur +dropped it instantly. It flew to pieces before it reached +the floor. + +</p> +<p> +"If you've got a watch," Arthur ordered swiftly, "stop it +this instant!" + +</p> +<p> +Estelle fumbled at her wrist. Arthur tore the watch from her +hand and threw open the case. The machinery inside was going +so swiftly it was hardly visible; Relentlessly, Arthur jabbed +a penholder in the works. There was a sharp click, and the +watch was still. + +</p> +<p> +Arthur ran to the window. As he reached it the sun rushed up, +day lasted a moment, there was darkness, and then the sun +appeared again. + +</p> +<p> +"Miss Woodward!" Arthur ordered suddenly, "look at the ground!" + +</p> +<p> +Estelle glanced down. The next time the sun flashed into view +she gasped. + +</p> +<p> +The ground was white with snow! + +</p> +<p> +"What <i>has</i> happened?" she demanded, terrified. "Oh, +what <i>has</i> happened?" + +</p> +<p> +Arthur fumbled at his chin awkwardly, watching the astonishing +panorama outside. There was hardly any distinguishing between +the times the sun was up and the times it was below now, as the +darkness and light followed each other so swiftly the effect +was the same as one of the old flickering motion-pictures. + +</p> +<p> +As Arthur watched, this effect became more pronounced. The tall +Fifth Avenue Building across the way began to disintegrate. +In a moment, it seemed, there was only a skeleton there. Then +that vanished, story by story. A great cavity in the earth +appeared, and then another building became visible, a smaller, +brown-stone, unimpressive structure. + +</p> +<p> +With bulging eyes Arthur stared across the city. Except for +the flickering, he could see almost clearly now. + +</p> +<p> +He no longer saw the sun rise and set. There was merely a +streak of unpleasantly brilliant light across the sky. Bit by +bit, building by building, the city began to disintegrate and +become replaced by smaller, dingier buildings. In a little while +those began to disappear and leave gaps where they vanished. + +</p> +<p> +Arthur strained his eyes and looked far down-town. He saw a +forest of masts and spars along the waterfront for a moment +and when he turned his eyes again to the scenery near him it +was almost barren of houses, and what few showed were mean, +small residences, apparently set in the midst of farms and +plantations. + +</p> +<p> +Estelle was sobbing. + +</p> +<p> +"Oh, Mr. Chamberlain," she cried. "What is the matter? What +has happened?" + +</p> +<p> +Arthur had lost his fear of what their fate would be in his +absorbing interest in what he saw. He was staring out of the +window, wide-eyed, lost in the sight before him. At Estelle's +cry, however, he reluctantly left the window and patted her +shoulder awkwardly. + +</p> +<p> +"I don't know how to explain it," he said uncomfortably, +"but it's obvious that my first surmise was all wrong. The +speed of the earth's rotation can't have been increased, +because if it had to the extent we see, we'd have been thrown +off into space long ago. But—have you read anything about +the Fourth Dimension?" + +</p> +<p> +Estelle shook her head hopelessly. + +</p> +<p> +"Well, then, have you ever read anything by Wells? The 'Time +Machine,' for instance?" + +</p> +<p> +Again she shook her head. + +</p> +<p> +"I don't know how I'm going to say it so you'll understand, +but time is just as much a dimension as length and breadth. +From what I can judge, I'd say there has been an earthquake, +and the ground has settled a little with our building on it, +only instead of settling down toward the center of the earth, +or side-wise, it's settled in this fourth dimension." + +</p> +<p> +"But what does that mean?" asked Estelle uncomprehendingly. + +</p> +<p> +"If the earth had settled down, we'd have been lower. If it had +settled to one side, we'd have been moved one way or another, +but as it's settled back in the Fourth Dimension, we're going +back in time." + +</p> +<p> +"Then—" + +</p> +<p> +"We're in a runaway skyscraper, bound for some time back before +the discovery of America!" + + + + +</p> +<hr /> +<h3>III.</h3> +<p> +It was very still in the office. Except for the flickering +outside everything seemed very much as usual. The electric +light burned steadily, but Estelle was sobbing with fright +and Arthur was trying vainly to console her. + +</p> +<p> +"Have I gone crazy?" she demanded between her sobs. + +</p> +<p> +"Not unless I've gone mad, too," said Arthur soothingly. The +excitement had quite a soothing effect upon him. He had +ceased to feel afraid, but was simply waiting to see what had +happened. "We're way back before the founding of New York now, +and still going strong." + +</p> +<p> +"Are you sure that's what has happened?" + +</p> +<p> +"If you'll look outside," he suggested, "you'll see the seasons +following each other in reverse order. One moment the snow +covers all the ground, then you catch a glimpse of autumn +foliage, then summer follows, and next spring." + +</p> +<p> +Estelle glanced out of the window and covered her eyes. + +</p> +<p> +"Not a house," she said despairingly. "Not a building. Nothing, +nothing, nothing!" + +</p> +<p> +Arthur slipped, his arm about her and patted hers comfortingly. + +</p> +<p> +"It's all right," he reassured her. "We'll bring up presently, +and there we'll be. There's nothing to be afraid of." + +</p> +<p> +She rested her head on his shoulder and sobbed hopelessly for +a little while longer, but presently quieted. Then, suddenly, +realizing that Arthur's arm was about her and that she was +crying on his shoulder, she sprang away, blushing crimson. + +</p> +<p> +Arthur walked to the window. + +</p> +<p> +"Look there!" he exclaimed, but it was too late. "I'll swear to +it I saw the Half Moon, Hudson's ship," he declared excitedly. +"We're way back now, and don't seem to be slacking up, either." + +</p> +<p> +Estelle came to the window by his side. The rapidly changing +scene before her made her gasp. It was no longer possible to +distinguish night from day. + +</p> +<p> +A wavering streak, moving first to the right and then to the +left, showed where the sun flashed across the sky. + +</p> +<p> +"What makes the sun wabble so?" she asked. + +</p> +<p> +"Moving north and south of the equator," Arthur explained +casually. "When it's farthest south—to the left—there's always +snow on the ground. When it's farthest right it's summer. See +how green it is?" + +</p> +<p> +A few moments' observation corroborated his statement. + +</p> +<p> +"I'd say," Arthur remarked reflectively, "that it takes +about fifteen seconds for the sun to make the round trip +from farthest north to farthest south." He felt his pulse. +"Do you know the normal rate of the heart-beat? We can judge +time that way. A clock will go all to pieces, of course." + +</p> +<p> +"Why did your watch explode—and the clock?" + +</p> +<p> +"Running forward in time unwinds a clock, doesn't it?" asked +Arthur. "It follows, of course, that when you move it backward +in time it winds up. When you move it too far back, you wind +it so tightly that the spring just breaks to pieces." + +</p> +<p> +He paused a moment, his fingers on his pulse. + +</p> +<p> +"Yes, it takes about fifteen seconds for all the four seasons +to pass. That means we're going backward in time about four +years a minute. If we go on at this rate another hour we'll +be back in the time of the Northmen, and will be able to tell +if they did discover America, after all." + +</p> +<p> +"Funny we don't hear any noises," Estelle observed. She had +caught some of Arthur's calmness. + +</p> +<p> +"It passes so quickly that though our ears hear it, we don't +separate the sounds. If you'll notice, you do hear a sort +of humming. It's very high-pitched, though." + +</p> +<p> +Estelle listened, but could hear nothing. + +</p> +<p> +"No matter," said Arthur. "It's probably a little higher than +your ears will catch. Lots of people can't hear a bat squeak." + +</p> +<p> +"I never could," said Estelle. "Out in the country, where I +come from, other people could hear them, but I couldn't." + +</p> +<p> +They stood a while in silence, watching. + +</p> +<p> +"When are we going to stop?" asked Estelle uneasily. "It seems +as if we're going to keep on indefinitely." + +</p> +<p> +"I guess we'll stop all right," Arthur reassured her. "It's +obvious that whatever it was, only affected our own building, +or we'd see some other one with us. It looks like a fault or +a flaw in the rock the building rests on. And that can only +give so far." + +</p> +<p> +Estelle was silent for a moment. + +</p> +<p> +"Oh, I can't be sane!" she burst out semihysterically. "This +can't be happening!" + +</p> +<p> +"You aren't crazy," said Arthur sharply. "You're sane as +I am. Just something queer is happening. Buck up. Say your +multiplication tables. Say anything you know. Say something +sensible and you'll know you're all right. But don't get +frightened now. There'll be plenty to get frightened about +later." + +</p> +<p> +The grimness in his tone alarmed Estelle. + +</p> +<p> +"What are you afraid of?" she asked quickly. + +</p> +<p> +"Time enough to worry when it happens," Arthur retorted briefly. + +</p> +<p> +"You—you aren't afraid we'll go back before the beginning of +the world, are you?" asked Estelle in sudden access of fright. + +</p> +<p> +Arthur shook his head. + +</p> +<p> +"Tell me," said Estelle more quietly, getting a grip on +herself. "I won't mind. But please tell me." + +</p> +<p> +Arthur glanced at her. Her face was pale, but there was more +resolution in it than he had expected to find. + +</p> +<p> +"I'll tell you, then," he said reluctantly. "We're going back +a little faster than we were, and the flaw seems to be a deeper +one than I thought. At the roughest kind of an estimate, we're +all of a thousand years before the discovery of America now, and +I think nearer three or four. And we're gaining speed all the +time. So, though I am as sure as I can be sure of anything that +we'll stop this cave-in eventually, I don't know where. It's +like a crevasse in the earth opened by an earthquake which +may be only a few feet deep, or it may be hundreds of yards, +or even a mile or two. We started off smoothly. We're going +at a terrific rate. <i>What will happen when we stop?</i>" + +</p> +<p> +Estelle caught her breath. + +</p> +<p> +"What?" she asked quietly. + +</p> +<p> +"I don't know," said Arthur in an irritated tone, to cover +his apprehension. "How could I know?" + +</p> +<p> +Estelle turned from him to the window again. + +</p> +<p> +"Look!" she said, pointing. + +</p> +<p> +The flickering had begun again. While they stared, hope +springing up once more in their hearts, it became more +pronounced. Soon they could distinctly see the difference +between day and night. + +</p> +<p> +They were slowing up! The white snow on the ground remained +there for an appreciable time, autumn lasted quite a while. +They could catch the flashes of the sun as it made its +revolutions now, instead of its seeming like a ribbon of +fire. At last day lasted all of fifteen or twenty minutes. + +</p> +<p> +It grew longer and longer. Then half an hour, then an hour. The +sun wavered in midheaven and was still. + +</p> +<p> +Far below them, the watchers in the tower of the skyscraper +saw trees swaying and bending in the wind. Though there was not +a house or a habitation to be seen and a dense forest covered +all of Manhattan Island, such of the world as they could see +looked normal. Wherever or rather in whatever epoch of time +they were, they had arrived. + + + + +</p> +<hr /> +<h3>IV.</h3> +<p> +Arthur caught at Estelle's arm and the two made a dash for the +elevators. Fortunately one was standing still, the door open, +on their floor. The elevator-boy had deserted his post and was +looking with all the rest of the occupants of the building at +the strange landscape that surrounded them. + +</p> +<p> +No sooner had the pair reached the car, however, than the boy +came hurrying along the corridor, three or four other people +following him also at a run. Without a word the boy rushed +inside, the others crowded after him, and the car shot downward, +all of the newcomers panting from their sprint. + +</p> +<p> +Theirs was the first car to reach the bottom. They rushed +out and to the western door. + +</p> +<p> +Here, where they had been accustomed to see Madison Square +spread out before them, a clearing of perhaps half an acre in +extent showed itself. Where their eyes instinctively looked +for the dark bronze fountain, near which soap-box orators +aforetime held sway, they saw a tent, a wigwam of hides and +bark gaily painted. And before the wigwam were two or three +brown-skinned Indians, utterly petrified with astonishment. + +</p> +<p> +Behind the first wigwam were others, painted like the first +with daubs of brightly colored clay. From them, too, Indians +issued, and stared in incredulous amazement, their eyes growing +wider and wider. When the group of white people confronted +the Indians there was a moment's deathlike silence. Then, +with a wild yell, the redskins broke and ran, not stopping +to gather together their belongings, nor pausing for even a +second glance at the weird strangers who invaded their domain. + +</p> +<p> +Arthur took two or three deep breaths of the fresh air and +found himself even then comparing its quality with that of +the city. Estelle stared about her with unbelieving eyes. She +turned and saw the great bulk of the office building behind +her, then faced this small clearing with a virgin forest on +its farther side. + +</p> +<p> +She found herself trembling from some undefined cause. Arthur +glanced at her. He saw the trembling and knew she would have a +fit of nerves in a moment if something did not come up demanding +instant attention. + +</p> +<p> +"We'd better take a look at this village," he said in an +off-hand voice. "We can probably find out how long ago it is +from the weapons and so on." + +</p> +<p> +He grasped her arm firmly and led her in the direction of the +tents. The other people, left behind, displayed their emotions +in different ways. Two or three of them—women—sat frankly +down on the steps and indulged in tears of bewilderment, fright +and relief in a peculiar combination defying analysis. Two or +three of the men swore, in shaken voices. + +</p> +<p> +Meantime, the elevators inside the building were rushing +and clanging, and the hall filled with a white-faced mob, +desperately anxious to find out what had happened and why. The +people poured out of the door and stared about blankly. There +was a peculiar expression of doubt on every one of their +faces. Each one was asking himself if he were awake, and having +proved that by pinches, openly administered, the next query +was whether they had gone mad. + +</p> +<p> +Arthur led Estelle cautiously among the tents. + +</p> +<p> +The village contained about a dozen wigwams. Most of them +were made of strips of birch-bark, cleverly overlapping each +other, the seams cemented with gum. All had hide flaps for +doors, and one or two were built almost entirely of hides, +sewed together with strips of sinew. + +</p> +<p> +Arthur made only a cursory examination of the village. His +principal motive in taking Estelle there was to give her some +mental occupation to ward off the reaction from the excitement +of the cataclysm. + +</p> +<p> +He looked into one or two of the tents and found merely couches +of hides, with minor domestic utensils scattered about. +He brought from one tent a bow and quiver of arrows. The +workmanship was good, but very evidently the maker had no +knowledge of metal tools. + +</p> +<p> +Arthur's acquaintance with archeological subjects was very +slight, but he observed that the arrow-heads were chipped, +and not rubbed smooth. They were attached to the shafts with +strips of gut or tendon. + +</p> +<p> +Arthur was still pursuing his investigation when a sob from +Estelle made him stop and look at her. + +</p> +<p> +"Oh, what are we going to do?" she asked tearfully. "What +<i>are</i> we going to do? Where are we?" + +</p> +<p> +"You mean, <i>when</i> are we," Arthur corrected with a grim +smile. "I don't know. Way back before the discovery of America, +though. You can see in everything in the village that there +isn't a trace of European civilization. I suspect that we +are several thousand years back. I can't tell, of course, +but this pottery makes me think so. See this bowl?" + +</p> +<p> +He pointed to a bowl of red clay lying on the ground before +one of the wigwams. + +</p> +<p> +"If you'll look, you'll see that it isn't really pottery at +all. It's a basket that was woven of reeds and then smeared with +clay to make it fire-resisting. The people who made that didn't +know about baking clay to make it stay put. When America was +discovered nearly all the tribes knew something about pottery." + +</p> +<p> +"But what are we going to do?" Estelle tearfully insisted. + +</p> +<p> +"We're going to muddle along as well as we can," answered Arthur +cheerfully, "until we can get back to where we started from. +Maybe the people back in the twentieth century can send a +relief party after us. When the skyscraper vanished it must +have left a hole of some sort, and it may be possible for them +to follow us down." + +</p> +<p> +"If that's so," said Estelle quickly, "why can't we climb up +it without waiting for them to come after us?" + +</p> +<p> +Arthur scratched his head. He looked across the clearing at +the skyscraper. It seemed to rest very solidly on the ground. +He looked up. The sky seemed normal. + +</p> +<p> +"To tell the truth," he admitted, "there doesn't seem to be +any hole. I said that more to cheer you up than anything else." + +</p> +<p> +Estelle clenched her hands tightly and took a grip on herself. + +</p> +<p> +"Just tell me the truth," she said quietly. "I was rather +foolish, but tell me what you honestly think." + +</p> +<p> +Arthur eyed her keenly. + +</p> +<p> +"In that case," he said reluctantly, "I'll admit we're in +a pretty bad fix. I don't know what has happened, how it +happened, or anything about it. I'm just going to keep on +going until I see a way clear to get out of this mess. There +are two thousand of us people, more or less, and among all of +us we must be able to find a way out." + +</p> +<p> +Estelle had turned very pale. + +</p> +<p> +"We're in no great danger from Indians," went on Arthur +thoughtfully, "or from anything else that I know of—except +one thing." + +</p> +<p> +"What is that?" asked Estelle quickly. + +</p> +<p> +Arthur shook his head and led her back toward the skyscraper, +which was now thronged with the people from all the floors +who had come down to the ground and were standing excitedly +about the concourse asking each other what had happened. + +</p> +<p> +Arthur led Estelle to one of the corners. + +</p> +<p> +"Wait for me here," he ordered. "I'm going to talk to this +crowd." + +</p> +<p> +He pushed his way through until he could reach the confectionery +and news-stand in the main hallway. Here he climbed up on the +counter and shouted: + +</p> +<p> +"People, listen to me! I'm going to tell you what's happened!" + +</p> +<p> +In an instant there was dead silence. He found himself the +center of a sea of white faces, every one contorted with fear +and anxiety. + +</p> +<p> +"To begin with," he said confidently, "there's nothing to +be afraid of. We're going to get back to where we started +from! I don't know how, yet, but we'll do it. Don't get +frightened. Now I'll tell you what's happened." + +</p> +<p> +He rapidly sketched out for them, in words as simple as he +could make them, his theory that a flaw in the rock on which +the foundations rested had developed and let the skyscraper +sink, not downward, but into the Fourth Dimension. + +</p> +<p> +"I'm an engineer," he finished. "What nature can do, we can +imitate. Nature let us into this hole. We'll climb out. In +the mean time, matters are serious. We needn't be afraid +of not getting back. We'll do that. What we've got to fight +is—starvation!" + + + + +</p> +<hr /> +<h3>V.</h3> +<p> +"We've got to fight starvation, and we've got to beat it," +Arthur continued doggedly. "I'm telling you this right at the +outset, because I want you to begin right at the beginning +and pitch in to help. We have very little food and a lot of +us to eat it. First, I want some volunteers to help with +rationing. Next, I want every ounce of food, in this place put +under guard where it can be served to those who need it most. +Who will help out with this?" + +</p> +<p> +The swift succession of shocks had paralyzed the faculties of +most of the people there, but half a dozen moved forward. +Among them was a single gray-haired man with an air of +accustomed authority. Arthur recognized him as the president +of the bank on the ground floor. + +</p> +<p> +"I don't know who you are or if you're right in saying what has +happened," said the gray-haired man. "But I see something's +got to be done, and—well, for the time being I'll take your +word for what that is. Later on we'll thrash this matter out." + +</p> +<p> +Arthur nodded. He bent over and spoke in a low voice to the +gray-haired man, who moved away. + +</p> +<p> +"Grayson, Walters, Terhune, Simpson, and Forsythe come here," +the gray-haired man called at a doorway. + +</p> +<p> +A number of men began to press dazedly toward him. Arthur +resumed his harangue. + +</p> +<p> "You people—those of you who aren't too dazed to think—are remembering + there's a restaurant in the building and no need to starve. You're wrong. There + are nearly two thousand of us here. That means six thousand meals a day. We've + got to have nearly ten tons of food a day, and we've got to have it at once." +</p> +<p> +"Hunt?" some one suggested. + +</p> +<p> +"I saw Indians," some one else shouted. "Can we trade with +them?" + +</p> +<p> +"We can hunt and we can trade with the Indians," Arthur +admitted, "but we need food by the ton—by the ton, people! +The Indians don't store up supplies, and, besides, they're +much too scattered to have a surplus for us. But we've got to +have food. Now, how many of you know anything about hunting, +fishing, trapping, or any possible way of getting food?" + +</p> +<p> +There were a few hands raised—pitifully few. Arthur saw +Estelle's hand up. + +</p> +<p> +"Very well," he said. "Those of you who raised your hands then +come with me up on the second floor and we'll talk it over. +The rest of you try to conquer your fright, and don't go outside +for a while. We've got some things to attend to before it will +be quite safe for you to venture out. And keep away from the +restaurant. There are armed guards over that food. Before we +pass it out indiscriminately, we'll see to it there's more +for to-morrow and the next day." + +</p> +<p> +He stepped down from the counter and moved toward the +stairway. It was not worth while to use the elevator for the +ride of only one floor. Estelle managed to join him, and they +mounted the steps together. + +</p> +<p> +"Do you think we'll pull through all right?" she asked quietly. + +</p> +<p> +"We've got to!" Arthur told her, setting his chin firmly. "We've +simply got to." + +</p> +<p> +The gray-haired president of the bank was waiting for them at +the top of the stairs. + +</p> +<p> +"My name is Van Deventer," he said, shaking hands with Arthur, +who gave his own name. + +</p> +<p> +"Where shall our emergency council sit?" he asked. + +</p> +<p> +"The bank has a board room right over the safety vault. I +dare say we can accommodate everybody there—everybody in the +council, anyway." + +</p> +<p> +Arthur followed into the board-room, and the others trooped +in after him. + +</p> +<p> +"I'm just assuming temporary leadership," Arthur explained, +"because it's imperative some things be done at once. Later +on we can talk about electing officials to direct our +activities. Right now we need food. How many of you can shoot?" + +</p> +<p> +About a quarter of the hands were raised. Estelle's was among +the number. + +</p> +<p> +"And how many are fishermen?" + +</p> +<p> +A few more went up. + +</p> +<p> +"What do the rest of you do?" + +</p> +<p> +There was a chorus of "gardener," "I have a garden in my yard," +"I grow peaches in New Jersey," and three men confessed that +they raised chickens as a hobby. + +</p> +<p> +"We'll want you gardeners in a little while. Don't go yet. But +the most important are huntsmen and fishermen. Have any of +you weapons in your offices?" + +</p> +<p> +A number had revolvers, but only one man had a shotgun and +shells. + +</p> +<p> +"I was going on my vacation this afternoon straight from the +office," he explained, "and have all my vacation tackle." + +</p> +<p> +"Good man!" Arthur exclaimed. "You'll go after the heavy game." + +</p> +<p> +"With a shotgun?" the sportsman asked, aghast. + +</p> +<p> +"If you get close to them a shotgun will do as well as anything, +and we can't waste a shell on every bird or rabbit. Those shells +of yours are precious. You other fellows will have to turn +fishermen for a while. Your pistols are no good for hunting." + +</p> +<p> +"The watchmen at the bank have riot guns," said Van Deventer, +"and there are one or two repeating-rifles there. I don't know +about ammunition." + +</p> +<p> +"Good! I don't mean about the ammunition, but about the +guns. We'll hope for the ammunition. You fishermen get to work +to improvise tackle out of anything you can get hold of. Will +you do that?" + +</p> +<p> +A series of nods answered his question. + +</p> +<p> +"Now for the gardeners. You people will have to roam through +the woods in company with the hunters and locate anything in +the way of edibles that grows. Do all of you know what wild +plants look like? I mean wild fruits and vegetables that are +good to eat." + +</p> +<p> +A few of them nodded, but the majority looked dubious. The +consensus of opinion seemed to be that they would try. Arthur +seemed a little discouraged. + +</p> +<p> +"I guess you're the man to tell about the restaurant," Van +Deventer said quietly. "And as this is the food commission, +or something of that sort, everybody here will be better for +hearing it. Anyway, everybody will have to know it before +night. I took over the restaurant as you suggested, and posted +some of the men from the bank that I knew I could trust about +the doors. But there was hardly any use in doing it." + +</p> +<p> +"The restaurant stocks up in the afternoon, as most of its +business is in the morning and at noon. It only carries a day's +stock of foodstuffs, and the—the cataclysm, or whatever it +was, came at three o'clock. There is practically nothing in +the place. We couldn't make sandwiches for half the women +that are caught with us, let alone the men. Everybody will +go hungry to-night. There will be no breakfast to-morrow, +nor anything to eat until we either make arrangements with +the Indians for some supplies or else get food for ourselves." + +</p> +<p> +Arthur leaned his jaw on his hand and considered. A slow flush +crept over his cheek. He was getting his fighting blood up. + +</p> +<p> +At school, when he began to flush slowly his schoolmates had +known the symptom and avoided his wrath. Now he was growing +angry with mere circumstances, but it would be none the less +unfortunate for those circumstances. + +</p> +<p> "Well," he said at last deliberately, "we've got to— What's that?" </p> +<p> +There was a great creaking and groaning. Suddenly a sort of +vibration was felt under foot. The floor began to take on a +slight slant. + +</p> +<p> +"Great Heaven!" some one cried. "The building's turning over +and we'll be buried in the ruins!" + +</p> +<p> +The tilt of the floor became more pronounced. An empty chair +slid to one end of the room. There was a crash. + + + + +</p> +<hr /> +<h3>VI.</h3> +<p> +Arthur woke to find some one tugging at his shoulders, trying +to drag him from beneath the heavy table, which had wedged +itself across his feet and pinned him fast, while a flying +chair had struck him on the head and knocked him unconscious. + +</p> +<p> +"Oh, come and help," Estelle's voice was calling +deliberately. "Somebody come and help! He's caught in here!" + +</p> +<p> +She was sobbing in a combination of panic and some unknown +emotion. + +</p> +<p> +"Help me, please!" she gasped, then her voice broke +despondently, but she never ceased to tug ineffectually at +Chamberlain, trying to drag him out of the mass of wreckage. + +</p> +<p> +Arthur moved a little, dazedly. + +</p> +<p> +"Are you alive?" she called anxiously. "Are you alive? Hurry, +oh, hurry and wriggle out. The building's falling to pieces!" + +</p> +<p> +"I'm all right," Arthur said weakly. "You get out before it +all comes down." + +</p> +<p> +"I won't leave you," she declared "Where are you caught? Are +you badly hurt? Hurry, please hurry!" + +</p> +<p> +Arthur stirred, but could not loosen his feet. He half-rolled +over, and the table moved as if it had been precariously +balanced, and slid heavily to one side. With Estelle still +tugging at him, he managed to get to his feet on the slanting +floor and stared about him. + +</p> +<p> +Arthur continued to stare about. + +</p> +<p> +"No danger," he said weakly. "Just the floor of the one room +gave way. The aftermath of the rock-flaw." + +</p> +<p> +He made his way across the splintered flooring and piled-up +chairs. + +</p> +<p> +"We're on top of the safe-deposit vault," he said. "That's +why we didn't fall all the way to the floor below. I wonder +how we're going to get down?" + +</p> +<p> +Estelle followed him, still frightened for fear of the building +falling upon them. Some of the long floor-boards stretched +over the edge of the vault and rested on a tall, bronze grating +that protected the approach to the massive strong-box. Arthur +tested them with his foot. + +</p> +<p> +"They seem to be pretty solid," he said tentatively. + +</p> +<p> +His strength was coming back to him every moment. He had been +no more than stunned. He walked out on the planking to the +bronze grating and turned. + +</p> +<p> +"If you don't get dizzy, you might come on," he said. "We can +swing down the grille here to the floor." + +</p> +<p> +Estelle followed gingerly and in a moment they were safely +below. The corridor was quite empty. + +</p> +<p> +"When the crash came," Estelle explained, her voice shaking +with the reaction from her fear of a moment ago, "every one +thought the building was coming to pieces, and ran out. I'm +afraid they've all run away." + +</p> +<p> +"They'll be back in a little while," Arthur said quietly. + +</p> +<p> +They went along the big marble corridor to the same western +door, out of which they had first gone to see the Indian +village. As they emerged into the sunlight they met a few +of the people who had already recovered from their panic and +were returning. + +</p> +<p> +A crowd of respectable size gathered in a few moments, all +still pale and shaken, but coming back to the building which was +their refuge. Arthur leaned wearily against the cold stone. It +seemed to vibrate under his touch. He turned quickly to Estelle. + +</p> +<p> +"Feel this," he exclaimed. + +</p> +<p> +She did so. + +</p> +<p> +"I've been wondering what that rumble was," she said. "I've +been hearing it ever since we landed here, but didn't understand +where it came from." + +</p> +<p> +"You hear a rumble?" Arthur asked, puzzled. "I can't hear +anything." + +</p> +<p> +"It isn't as loud as it was, but I hear it," Estelle +insisted. "It's very deep, like the lowest possible bass note +of an organ." + +</p> +<p> +"You couldn't hear the shrill whistle when we were coming +here," Arthur exclaimed suddenly, "and you can't hear the +squeak of a bat. Of course your ears are pitched lower than +usual, and you can hear sounds that are lower than I can hear. +Listen carefully. Does it sound in the least like a liquid +rushing through somewhere?" + +</p> +<p> +"Y-yes," said Estelle hesitatingly. "Somehow, I don't quite +understand how, it gives me the impression of a tidal flow or +something of that sort." + +</p> +<p> +Arthur rushed indoors. When Estelle followed him she found +him excitedly examining the marble floor about the base of +the vault. + +</p> +<p> +"It's cracked," he said excitedly. "It's cracked! The vault +rose all of an inch!" + +</p> +<p> +Estelle looked and saw the cracks. + +</p> +<p> +"What does that mean?" + +</p> +<p> +"It means we're going to get back where we belong," Arthur cried +jubilantly. "It means I'm on the track of the whole trouble. +It means everything's going to be all right." + +</p> +<p> +He prowled about the vault exultantly, noting exactly how the +cracks in the flooring ran and seeing in each a corroboration +of his theory. + +</p> +<p> +"I'll have to make some inspections in the cellar," he went +on happily, "but I'm nearly sure I'm on the right track and +can figure out a corrective." + +</p> +<p> +"How soon can we hope to start back?" asked Estelle eagerly. + +</p> +<p> +Arthur hesitated, then a great deal of the excitement ebbed +from his face, leaving it rather worried and stern. + +</p> +<p> +"It may be a month, or two months, or a year," he answered +gravely. "I don't know. If the first thing I try will work, +it won't be long. If we have to experiment, I daren't guess +how long we may be. But"—his chin set firmly—"we're going +to get back." + +</p> +<p> +Estelle looked at him speculatively. Her own expression grew +a little worried, too. + +</p> +<p> +"But in a month," she said dubiously, "we—there is hardly any +hope of our finding food for two thousand people for a month, +is there?" + +</p> +<p> +"We've got to," Arthur declared. "We can't hope to get that much +food from the Indians. It will be days before they'll dare to +come back to their village, if they ever come. It will be weeks +before we can hope to have them earnestly at work to feed us, +and that's leaving aside the question of how we'll communicate +with them, and how we'll manage to trade with them. Frankly, +I think everybody is going to have to draw his belt tight before +we get through—if we do. Some of us will get along, anyway." + +</p> +<p> +Estelle's eyes opened wide as the meaning of his last sentence +penetrated her mind. + +</p> +<p> +"You mean—that all of us won't—" + +</p> +<p> +"I'm going to take care of you," Arthur said gravely, "but there +are liable to be lively doings around here when people begin to +realize they're really in a tight fix for food. I'm going to +get Van Deventer to help me organize a police band to enforce +martial law. We mustn't have any disorder, that's certain, +and I don't trust a city-bred man in a pinch unless I know him." + +</p> +<p> +He stooped and picked up a revolver from the floor, left there +by one of the bank watchmen when he fled, in the belief that +the building was falling. + + + + +</p> +<hr /> +<h3>VII.</h3> +<p> +Arthur stood at the window of his office and stared out toward +the west. The sun was setting, but upon what a scene! + +</p> +<p> +Where, from this same window Arthur had seen the sun setting +behind the Jersey hills, all edged with the angular roofs of +factories, with their chimneys emitting columns of smoke, he +now saw the same sun sinking redly behind a mass of luxuriant +foliage. And where he was accustomed to look upon the tops of +high buildings—each entitled to the name of "skyscraper"—he +now saw miles and miles of waving green branches. + +</p> +<p> +The wide Hudson flowed on placidly, all unruffled by the +arrival of this strange monument upon its shores—the same +Hudson Arthur knew as a busy thoroughfare of puffing steamers +and chugging launches. Two or three small streams wandered +unconcernedly across the land that Arthur had known as the +most closely built-up territory on earth. And far, far below +him—Arthur had to lean well out of his window to see it—stood +a collection of tiny wigwams. Those small bark structures +represented the original metropolis of New York. + +</p> +<p> +His telephone rang. Van Deventer was on the wire. The exchange +in the building was still working. Van Deventer wanted Arthur +to come down to his private office. There were still a great +many things to be settled—the arrangements for commandeering +offices for sleeping quarters for the women, and numberless +other details. The men who seemed to have best kept their +heads were gathering there to settle upon a course of action. + +</p> +<p> +Arthur glanced out of the window again before going to the +elevator. He saw a curiously compact dark cloud moving swiftly +across the sky to the west. + +</p> +<p> +"Miss Woodward," he said sharply, "What is that?" + +</p> +<p> +Estelle came to the window and looked. + +</p> +<p> +"They are birds," she told him. "Birds flying in a group. I've +often seen them in the country, though never as many as that." + +</p> +<p> +"How do you catch birds?" Arthur asked her. "I know about +shooting them, and so on, but we haven't guns enough to +count. Could we catch them in traps, do you think?" + +</p> +<p> +"I wouldn't be surprised," said Estelle thoughtfully. "But it +would be hard to catch many." + +</p> +<p> +"Come down-stairs," directed Arthur. "You know as much as any +of the men here, and more than most, apparently. We're going +to make you show us how to catch things." + +</p> +<p> +Estelle smiled, a trifle wanly. Arthur led the way to the +elevator. In the car he noticed that she looked distressed. + +</p> +<p> +"What's the matter?" he asked. "You aren't really frightened, +are you?" + +</p> +<p> +"No," she answered shakily, "but—I'm rather upset about this +thing. It's so—so terrible, somehow, to be back here, thousands +of miles, or years, away from all one's friends and everybody." + +</p> +<p> +"Please"—Arthur smiled encouragingly at her—"please count +me your friend, won't you?" + +</p> +<p> +She nodded, but blinked back some tears. Arthur would have +tried to hearten her further, but the elevator stopped at +their floor. They walked into the room where the meeting of +cool heads was to take place. + +</p> +<p> +No more than a dozen men were in there talking earnestly but +dispiritedly. When Arthur and Estelle entered Van Deventer +came over to greet them. + +</p> +<p> +"We've got to do something," he said in a low voice. "A wave +of homesickness has swept over the whole place. Look at those +men. Every one is thinking about his family and contrasting +his cozy fireside with all that wilderness outside." + +</p> +<p> +"You don't seem to be worried," Arthur observed with a smile. + +</p> +<p> +Van Deventer's eyes twinkled. + +</p> +<p> +"I'm a bachelor," he said cheerfully, "and I live in a +hotel. I've been longing for a chance to see some real +excitement for thirty years. Business has kept me from it up +to now, but I'm enjoying myself hugely." + +</p> +<p> +Estelle looked at the group of dispirited men. + +</p> +<p> +"We'll simply have to do something," she said with a shaky +smile. "I feel just as they do. This morning I hated the +thought of having to go back to my boarding-house to-night, +but right now I feel as if the odor of cabbage in the hallway +would seem like heaven." + +</p> +<p> +Arthur led the way to the flat-topped desk in the middle of +the room. + +</p> +<p> +"Let's settle a few of the more important matters," he said in +a businesslike tone. "None of us has any authority to act for +the rest of the people in the tower, but so many of us are in +a state of blue funk that those who are here must have charge +for a while. Anybody any suggestions?" + +</p> +<p> +"Housing," answered Van Deventer promptly. "I suggest that we +draft a gang of men to haul all the upholstered settees and rugs +that are to be found to one floor, for the women to sleep on." + +</p> +<p> +"M—m. Yes. That's a good idea. Anybody a better plan?" + +</p> +<p> +No one spoke. They all still looked much too homesick to take +any great interest in anything, but they began to listen more +or less half-heartedly. + +</p> +<p> +"I've been thinking about coal," said Arthur. "There's +undoubtedly a supply in the basement, but I wonder if it +wouldn't be well to cut the lights off most of the floors, +only lighting up the ones we're using." + +</p> +<p> +"That might be a good idea later," Estelle said quietly, +"but light is cheering, somehow, and every one feels so blue +that I wouldn't do it to-night. To-morrow they'll begin to get +up their resolution again, and you can ask them to do things." + +</p> +<p> +"If we're going to starve to death," one of the other men said +gloomily, "we might as well have plenty of light to do it by." + +</p> +<p> +"We aren't going to starve to death," retorted Arthur +sharply. "Just before I came down I saw a great cloud of +birds, greater than I had ever seen before. When we get at +those birds—" + +</p> +<p> +"When," echoed the gloomy one. + +</p> +<p> +"They were pigeons," Estelle explained. "They shouldn't be +hard to snare or trap." + +</p> +<p> +"I usually have my dinner before now," the gloomy one protested, +"and I'm told I won't get anything to-night." + +</p> +<p> +The other men began to straighten their shoulders. The +peevishness of one of their number seemed to bring out their +latent courage. + +</p> +<p> +"Well, we've got to stand it for the present," one of them +said almost philosophically. "What I'm most anxious about is +getting back. Have we any chance?" + +</p> +<p> +Arthur nodded emphatically. + +</p> +<p> +"I think so. I have a sort of idea as to the cause of our +sinking into the Fourth Dimension, and when that is verified, +a corrective can be looked for and applied." + +</p> +<p> +"How long will that take?" + +</p> +<p> +"Can't say," Arthur replied frankly. "I don't know what tools, +what materials, or what workmen we have, and what's rather +more to the point, I don't even know what work will have to +be done. The pressing problem is food." + +</p> +<p> +"Oh, bother the food," some one protested impatiently. "I +don't care about myself. I can go hungry to-night. I want to +get back to my family." + +</p> +<p> +"That's all that really matters," a chorus of voices echoed. + +</p> +<p> +"We'd better not bother about anything else unless we find we +can't get back. Concentrate on getting back," one man stated +more explicitly. + +</p> +<p> +"Look here," said Arthur incisively. "You've a family, and so +have a great many of the others in the tower, but your family +and everybody else's family has got to wait. As an inside +limit, we can hope to begin to work on the problem of getting +back when we're sure there's nothing else going to happen. I +tell you quite honestly that I think I know what is the direct +cause of this catastrophe. And I'll tell you even more honestly +that I think I'm the only man among us who can put this tower +back where it started from. And I'll tell you most honestly +of all that any attempt to meddle at this present time with +the forces that let us down here will result in a catastrophe +considerably greater than the one that happened to-day." + +</p> +<p> +"Well, if you're sure—" some one began reluctantly. + +</p> +<p> +"I am so sure that I'm going to keep to myself the knowledge +of what will start those forces to work again," Arthur said +quietly. "I don't want any impatient meddling. If we start +them too soon God only knows what will happen." + + + + +</p> +<hr /> +<h3>VIII.</h3> +<p> +Van Deventer was eying Arthur Chamberlain keenly. + +</p> +<p> +"It isn't a question of your wanting pay in exchange for your +services in putting us back, is it?" he asked coolly. + +</p> +<p> +Arthur turned and faced him. His face began to flush slowly. Van +Deventer put up one hand. + +</p> +<p> +"I beg your pardon. I see." + +</p> +<p> +"We aren't settling the things we came here for," Estelle +interrupted. + +</p> +<p> +She had noted the threat of friction and hastened to put in +a diversion. Arthur relaxed. + +</p> +<p> +"I think that as a beginning," he suggested, "we'd better get +sleeping arrangements completed. We can get everybody together +somewhere, I dare say, and then secure volunteers for the work." + +</p> +<p> +"Right." Van Deventer was anxious to make amends for his blunder +of a moment before. "Shall I send the bank watchmen to go on +each floor in turn and ask everybody to come down-stairs?" + +</p> +<p> +"You might start them," Arthur said. "It will take a long +time for every one to assemble." + +</p> +<p> +Van Deventer spoke into the telephone on his desk. In a moment +he hung up the receiver. + +</p> +<p> +"They're on their way," he said. + +</p> +<p> +Arthur was frowning to himself and scribbling in a note-book. + +</p> +<p> +"Of course," he announced abstractedly, "the pressing problem +is food. We've quite a number of fishermen, and a few hunters. +We've got to have a lot of food at once, and everything +considered, I think we'd better count on the fishermen. At +sunrise we'd better have some people begin to dig bait and +wake our anglers. They'd better make their tackle to-night, +don't you think?" + +</p> +<p> +There was a general nod. + +</p> +<p> +"We'll announce that, then. The fishermen will go to the river +under guard of the men we have who can shoot. I think what +Indians there are will be much too frightened to try to ambush +any of us, but we'd better be on the safe side. They'll keep +together and fish at nearly the same spot, with our hunters +patrolling the woods behind them, taking pot-shots at game, +if they see any. The fishermen should make more or less of a +success, I think. The Indians weren't extensive fishers that +I ever heard of, and the river ought fairly to swarm with fish." + +</p> +<p> +He closed his note-book. + +</p> +<p> +"How many weapons can we count on altogether?" Arthur asked +Van Deventer. + +</p> +<p> +"In the bank, about a dozen riot-guns and half a dozen repeating +rifles. Elsewhere I don't know. Forty or fifty men said they +had revolvers, though." + +</p> +<p> +"We'll give revolvers to the men who go with the fishermen. The +Indians haven't heard firearms and will run at the report, +even if they dare attack our men." + +</p> +<p> +"We can send out the gun-armed men as hunters," some one +suggested, "and send gardeners with them to look for vegetables +and such things." + +</p> +<p> +"We'll have to take a sort of census, really," Arthur suggested, +"finding what every one can do and getting him to do it." + +</p> +<p> +"I never planned anything like this before," Van Deventer +remarked, "and I never thought I should, but this is much more +fun than running a bank." + +</p> +<p> +Arthur smiled. + +</p> +<p> +"Let's go and have our meeting," he said cheerfully. + +</p> +<p> +But the meeting was a gloomy and despairing affair. Nearly +every one had watched the sun set upon a strange, wild +landscape. Hardly an individual among the whole two thousand of +them had ever been out of sight of a house before in his or her +life. To look out at a vast, untouched wilderness where hitherto +they had seen the most highly civilized city on the globe would +have been startling and depressing enough in itself, but to +know that they were alone in a whole continent of savages and +that there was not, indeed, in all the world a single community +of people they could greet as brothers was terrifying. + +</p> +<p> +Few of them thought so far, but there was actually—if Arthur's +estimate of several thousand years' drop back through time was +correct—there was actually no other group of English-speaking +people in the world. The English language was yet to be +invented. Even Rome, the synonym for antiquity of culture, +might still be an obscure village inhabited by a band of +tatterdemalions under the leadership of an upstart Romulus. + +</p> +<p> +Soft in body as these people were, city-bred and unaccustomed to +face other than the most conventionalized emergencies of life, +they were terrified. Hardly one of them had even gone without +a meal in all his life. To have the prospect of having to earn +their food, not by the manipulation of figures in a book, +or by expert juggling of profits and prices, but by literal +wresting of that food from its source in the earth or stream +was a really terrifying thing for them. + +</p> +<p> +In addition, every one of them was bound to the life of modern +times by a hundred ties. Many of them had families, a thousand +years away. All had interests, engrossing interests, in modern +New York. + +</p> +<p> +One young man felt an anxiety that was really ludicrous because +he had promised to take his sweetheart to the theater that +night, and if he did not come she would be very angry. Another +was to have been married in a week. Some of the people were, +like Van Deventer and Arthur, so situated that they could +view the episode as an adventure, or, like Estelle, who had +no immediate fear because all her family was provided for +without her help and lived far from New York, so they would +not learn of the catastrophe for some time. Many, however, felt +instant and pressing fear for the families whose expenses ran +always so close to their incomes that the disappearance of the +breadwinner for a week would mean actual want or debt. There +are very many such families in New York. + +</p> +<p> +The people, therefore, that gathered hopelessly at the call +of Van Deventer's watchmen were dazed and spiritless. Their +excitement after Arthur's first attempt to explain the situation +to them had evaporated. They were no longer keyed up to a +high pitch by the startling thing that had happened to them. + +</p> +<p> +Nevertheless, although only half comprehending what had actually +occurred, they began to realize what that occurrence meant. +No matter where they might go over the whole face of the +globe, they would always be aliens and strangers. If they +had been carried away to some unknown shore, some wilderness +far from their own land, they might have thought of building +ships to return to their homes. They had seen New York vanish +before their eyes, however. They had seen their civilization +disappear while they watched. + +</p> +<p> +They were in a barbarous world. There was not, for example, +a single sulfur match on the whole earth except those in the +runaway skyscraper. + + + + +</p> +<hr /> +<h3>IX.</h3> +<p> +Arthur and Van Deventer, in turn with the others of the cooler +heads, thundered at the apathetic people, trying to waken them +to the necessity for work. They showered promises of inevitable +return to modern times, they pledged their honor to the belief +that a way would ultimately be found by which they would all +yet find themselves safely back home again. + +</p> +<p> +The people, however, had seen New York disintegrate, and +Arthur's explanation sounded like some wild dream of an +imaginative novelist. Not one person in all the gathering could +actually realize that his home might yet be waiting for him, +though at the same time he felt a pathetic anxiety for the +welfare of its inmates. + +</p> +<p> +Every one was in a turmoil of contradictory beliefs. On the +one hand they knew that all of New York could not be actually +destroyed and replaced by a splendid forest in the space of a +few hours, so the accident or catastrophe must have occurred to +those in the tower, and on the other hand, they had seen all +of New York vanish by bits and fragments, to be replaced by +a smaller and dingier town, had beheld that replaced in turn, +and at last had landed in the midst of this forest. + +</p> +<p> +Every one, too, began to feel am unusual and uncomfortable +sensation of hunger. It was a mild discomfort as yet, but few +of them had experienced it before without an immediate prospect +of assuaging the craving, and the knowledge that there was no +food to be had somehow increased the desire for it. They were +really in a pitiful state. + +</p> +<p> +Van Deventer spoke encouragingly, and then asked for volunteers +for immediate work. There was hardly any response. Every one +seemed sunk in despondency. Arthur then began to talk straight +from the shoulder and succeeded in rousing them a little, +but every one was still rather too frightened to realize that +work could help at all. + +</p> +<p> +In desperation the dozen or so men who had gathered in Van +Deventer's office went about among the gathering and simply +selected men at random, ordering them to follow and begin +work. This began to awaken the crowd, but they wakened to fear +rather than resolution. They were city-bred, and unaccustomed +to face the unusual or the alarming. + +</p> +<p> +Arthur noted the new restlessness, but attributed it to growing +uneasiness rather than selfish panic. He was rather pleased +that they were outgrowing their apathy. When the meeting had +come to an end he felt satisfied that by morning the latent +resolution among the people would have crystallized and they +would be ready to work earnestly and intelligently on whatever +tasks they were directed to undertake. + +</p> +<p> +He returned to the ground floor of the building feeling much +more hopeful than before. Two thousand people all earnestly +working for one end are hard to down even when faced with such +a task as confronted the inhabitants of the runaway skyscraper. +Even if they were never able to return to modern times they +would still be able to form a community that might do much +to hasten the development of civilization in other parts of +the world. + +</p> +<p> +His hope received a rude shock when he reached the great hallway +on the lower floor. There was a fruit and confectionery stand +here, and as Arthur arrived at the spot, he saw a surging mass +of men about it. The keeper of the stand looked frightened, +but was selling off his stock as fast as he could make +change. Arthur forced his way to the counter. + +</p> +<p> +"Here," he said sharply to the keeper of the stand, "stop +selling this stuff. It's got to be held until we can dole it +out where it's needed." + +</p> +<p> +"I—I can't help myself," the keeper said. "They're takin' +it anyway." + +</p> +<p> +"Get back there," Arthur cried to the crowd. "Do you call +this decent, trying to get more than your share of this stuff? +You'll get your portion to-morrow. It is going to be divided +up." + +</p> +<p> +"Go to hell!" some one panted. "You c'n starve if you want to, +but I'm goin' to look out f'r myself." + +</p> +<p> +The men were not really starving, but had been put into +a panic by the plain speeches of Arthur and his helpers, +and were seizing what edibles they could lay hands upon in +preparation for the hunger they had been warned to expect. + +</p> +<p> +Arthur pushed against the mob, trying to thrust them away from +the counter, but his very effort intensified their panic. There +was a quick surge and a crash. The glass front of the showcase +broke in. + +</p> +<p> +In a flash of rage Arthur struck out viciously. The crowd paid +not the slightest attention to him, however. Every man was +too panic-stricken, and too intent on getting some of this +food before it was all gone to bother with him. + +</p> +<p> +Arthur was simply crushed back by the bodies of the forty +or fifty men. In a moment he found himself alone amid the +wreckage of the stand, with the keeper wringing his hands over +the remnants of his goods. + +</p> +<p> +Van Deventer ran down the stairs. + +</p> +<p> +"What's the matter?" he demanded as he saw Arthur nursing a +bleeding hand cut on the broken glass of the showcase. + +</p> +<p> +"Bolsheviki!" answered Arthur with a grim smile. "We woke up +some of the crowd too successfully. They got panic-stricken +and started to buy out this stuff here. I tried to stop them, +and you see what happened. We'd better look to the restaurant, +though I doubt if they'll try anything else just now." + +</p> +<p> +He followed Van Deventer up to the restaurant floor. There +were picked men before the door, but just as Arthur and the +bank president appeared two or three white-faced men went up +to the guards and started low-voiced conversations. + +</p> +<p> +Arthur reached the spot in time to forestall bribery. + +</p> +<p> +Arthur collared one man, Van Deventer another, and in a moment +the two were sent reeling down the hallway. + +</p> +<p> +"Some fools have got panic-stricken!" Van Deventer explained +to the men before the doors in a casual voice, though he was +breathing heavily from the unaccustomed exertion. "They've +smashed up the fruit-stand on the ground floor and stolen +the contents. It's nothing but blue funk! Only, if any of +them start to gather around here, hit them first and talk it +over afterward. You'll do that?" + +</p> +<p> +"We will!" the men said heartily. + +</p> +<p> +"Shall we use our guns?" asked another hopefully. + +</p> +<p> +Van Deventer grinned. + +</p> +<p> +"No," he replied, "we haven't any excuse for that yet. But +you might shoot at the ceiling, if they get excited. They're +just frightened!" + +</p> +<p> +He took Arthur's arm, and the two walked toward the stairway +again. + +</p> +<p> +"Chamberlain," he said happily, "tell me why I've never had +as much fun as this before!" + +</p> +<p> +Arthur smiled a bit wearily. + +</p> +<p> +"I'm glad you're enjoying yourself!" he said. "I'm not. I'm +going outside and walk around. I want to see if any cracks have +appeared in the earth anywhere. It's dark, and I'll borrow a +lantern down in the fire-room, but I want to find out if there +are any more developments in the condition of the building." + + + + +</p> +<hr /> +<h3>X.</h3> +<p> +Despite his preoccupation with his errand, which was to find if +there were other signs of the continued activity of the strange +forces that had lowered the tower through the Fourth Dimension +into the dim and unrecorded years of aboriginal America, +Arthur could not escape the fascination of the sight that met +his eyes. A bright moon shone overhead and silvered the white +sides of the tower, while the brightly-lighted windows of the +offices within glittered like jewels set into the shining shaft. + +</p> +<p> +From his position on the ground he looked into the dimness of +the forest on all sides. Black obscurity had gathered beneath +the dark masses of moonlit foliage. The tiny birch-bark +teepees of the now deserted Indian village glowed palely. +Above, the stars looked calmly down at the accusing finger +of the tower pointing upward, as if in reproach at their +indifference to the savagery that reigned over the whole earth. + +</p> +<p> +Like a fairy tower of jewels the building rose. Alone among a +wilderness of trees and streams it towered in a strange beauty: +moonlit to silver, lighted from within to a mass of brilliant +gems, it stood serenely still. + +</p> +<p> +Arthur, carrying his futile lantern about its base, felt his own +insignificance as never before. He wondered what the Indians +must think. He knew there must be hundreds of eyes fixed upon +the strange sight—fixed in awe-stricken terror or superstitious +reverence upon this unearthly visitor to their hunting grounds. + +</p> +<p> +A tiny figure, dwarfed by the building whose base he skirted, +Arthur moved slowly about the vast pile. The earth seemed not +to have been affected by the vast weight of the tower. + +</p> +<p> +Arthur knew, however, that long concrete piles reached far +down to bedrock. It was these piles that had sunk into the +Fourth Dimension, carrying the building with them. + +</p> +<p> +Arthur had followed the plans with great interest when the +Metropolitan was constructed. It was an engineering feat, +and in the engineering periodicals, whose study was a part of +Arthur's business, great space had been given to the building +and the methods of its construction. + +</p> +<p> +While examining the earth carefully he went over his theory of +the cause for the catastrophe. The whole structure must have +sunk at the same time, or it, too, would have disintegrated, +as the other buildings had appeared to disintegrate. Mentally, +Arthur likened the submergence of the tower in the oceans of +time to an elevator sinking past the different floors of an +office building. All about the building the other sky-scrapers +of New York had seemed to vanish. In an elevator, the floors +one passes seem to rise upward. + +</p> +<p> +Carrying out the analogy to its logical end, Arthur reasoned +that the building itself had no more cause to disintegrate, +as the buildings it passed seemed to disintegrate, than the +elevator in the office building would have cause to rise +because its surroundings seemed to rise. + +</p> +<p> +Within the building, he knew, there were strange stirrings of +emotions. Queer currents of panic were running about, throwing +the people to and fro as leaves are thrown about by a current +of wind. Yet, underneath all those undercurrents of fear, was +a rapidly growing resolution, strengthened by an increasing +knowledge of the need to work. + +</p> +<p> +Men were busy even then shifting all possible comfortable +furniture to a single story for the women in the building to +occupy. The men would sleep on the floor for the present. Beds +of boughs could be improvised on the morrow. At sunrise on the +following morning many men would go to the streams to fish, +guarded by other men. All would be frightened, no doubt, but +there would be a grim resolution underneath the fear. Other +men would wander about to hunt. + +</p> +<p> +There was little likelihood of Indians approaching for some +days, at least, but when they did come Arthur meant to avoid +hostilities by all possible means. The Indians would be fearful +of their strange visitors, and it should not be difficult +to convince them that friendliness was safest, even if they +displayed unfriendly desires. + +</p> +<p> +The pressing problem was food. There were two thousand people in +the building, soft-bodied and city-bred. They were unaccustomed +to hardship, and could not endure what more primitive people +would hardly have noticed. + +</p> +<p> +They must be fed, but first they must be taught to feed +themselves. The fishermen would help, but Arthur could only +hope that they would prove equal to the occasion. He did not +know what to expect from them. From the hunters he expected +but little. The Indians were wary hunters, and game would be +shy if not scarce. + +</p> +<p> +The great cloud of birds he had seen at sunset was a hopeful +sign. Arthur vaguely remembered stories of great flocks of +wood-pigeons which had been exterminated, as the buffalo +was exterminated. As he considered the remembrance became +more clear. + +</p> +<p> +They had flown in huge flocks which nearly darkened the sky. As +late as the forties of the nineteenth century they had been +an important article of food, and had glutted the market at +certain seasons of the year. + +</p> +<p> +Estelle had said the birds he had seen at sunset were +pigeons. Perhaps this was one of the great flocks. If it were +really so, the food problem would be much lessened, provided +a way could be found to secure them. The ammunition in the +tower was very limited, and a shell could not be found for every +bird that was needed, nor even for every three or four. Great +traps must be devised, or bird-lime might possibly be produced. +Arthur made a mental note to ask Estelle if she knew anything +of bird-lime. + +</p> +<p> +A vague, humming roar, altering in pitch, came to his ears. He +listened for some time before he identified it as the sound of +the wind playing upon the irregular surfaces of the tower. In +the city the sound was drowned by the multitude of other noises, +but here Arthur could hear it plainly. + +</p> +<p> +He listened a moment, and became surprised at the number of +night noises he could hear. In New York he had closed his ears +to incidental sounds from sheer self-protection. Somewhere he +heard the ripple of a little spring. As the idea of a spring +came into his mind, he remembered Estelle's description of +the deep-toned roar she had heard. + +</p> +<p> +He put his hand on the cold stone of the building. There was +still a vibrant quivering of the rock. It was weaker than +before, but was still noticeable. + +</p> +<p> +He drew back from the rock and looked up into the sky. It +seemed to blaze with stars, far more stars than Arthur had +ever seen in the city, and more than he had dreamed existed. + +</p> +<p> +As he looked, however, a cloud seemed to film a portion of the +heavens. The stars still showed through it, but they twinkled +in a peculiar fashion that Arthur could not understand. + +</p> +<p> +He watched in growing perplexity. The cloud moved very +swiftly. Thin as it seemed to be, it should have been silvery +from the moonlight, but the sky was noticeably darker where +it moved. It advanced toward the tower and seemed to obscure +the upper portion. A confused motion became visible among its +parts. Wisps of it whirled away from the brilliantly lighted +tower, and then returned swiftly toward it. + +</p> +<p> +Arthur heard a faint tinkle, then a musical scraping, which +became louder. A faint scream sounded, then another. The +tinkle developed into the sound made by breaking glass, and +the scraping sound became that of the broken fragments as they +rubbed against the sides of the tower in their fall. + +</p> +<p> +The scream came again. It was the frightened cry of a woman. A +soft body struck the earth not ten feet from where Arthur stood, +then another, and another. + + + + +</p> +<hr /> +<h3>XI.</h3> +<p> +Arthur urged the elevator boy to greater speed. They were +speeding up the shaft as rapidly as possible, but it was not +fast enough. When they at last reached the height at which the +excitement seemed to be centered, the car was stopped with a +jerk and Arthur dashed down the hall. + +</p> +<p> +Half a dozen frightened stenographers stood there, huddled +together. + +</p> +<p> +"What's the matter?" Arthur demanded. Men were running, +from the other floors to see what the trouble was. + +</p> +<p> +"The—the windows broke, and—and something flew in at us!" one +of them gasped. There was a crash inside the nearest office +and the women screamed again. + +</p> +<p> +Arthur drew a revolver from his pocket and advanced to the +door. He quickly threw it open, entered, and closed it behind +him. Those left out in the hall waited tensely. + +</p> +<p> +There was no sound. The women began to look even more +frightened. The men shuffled their feet uneasily, and looked +uncomfortably at one another. Van Deventer appeared on the +scene, puffing a little from his haste. + +</p> +<p> +The door opened again and Arthur came out. He was carrying +something in his hands. He had put his revolver aside and +looked somewhat foolish but very much delighted. + +</p> +<p> +"The food question is settled," he said happily. "Look!" + +</p> +<p> +He held out the object he carried. It was a bird, apparently +a pigeon of some sort. It seemed to have been stunned, but as +Arthur held it out it stirred, then struggled, and in a moment +was flapping wildly in an attempt to escape. + +</p> +<p> +"It's a wood-pigeon," said Arthur. "They must fly after dark +sometimes. A big flock of them ran afoul of the tower and +were dazed by the lights. They've broken a lot of windows, +I dare say, but a great many of them ran into the stonework +and were stunned. I was outside the tower, and when I came in +they were dropping to the ground by hundreds. I didn't know +what they were then, but if we wait twenty minutes or so I +think we can go out and gather up our supper and breakfast +and several other meals, all at once." + +</p> +<p> +Estelle had appeared and now reached out her hands for the bird. + +</p> +<p> +"I'll take care of this one," she said. "Wouldn't it be a +good idea to see if there aren't some more stunned in the +other offices?"</p> + +<hr class="short" /> +<p> +In half an hour the electric stoves of the restaurant were +going at their full capacity. Men, cheerfully excited men +now, were bringing in pigeons by armfuls, and other men were +skinning them. There was no time to pluck them, though a great +many of the women were busily engaged in that occupation. + +</p> +<p> +As fast as the birds could be cooked they were served out +to the impatient but much cheered castaways, and in a little +while nearly every person in the place was walking casually +about the halls with a roasted, broiled, or fried pigeon in +his hands. The ovens were roasting pigeons, the frying-pans +were frying them, and the broilers were loaded down with the +small but tender birds. + +</p> +<p> +The unexpected solution of the most pressing question cheered +every one amazingly. Many people were still frightened, but +less frightened than before. Worry for their families still +oppressed a great many, but the removal of the fear of immediate +hunger led them to believe that the other problems before them +would be solved, too, and in as satisfactory a manner. + +</p> +<p> +Arthur had returned to his office with four broiled pigeons +in a sheet of wrapping-paper. As he somehow expected, Estelle +was waiting there. + +</p> +<p> +"Thought I'd bring lunch up," he announced. "Are you hungry?" + +</p> +<p> +"Starving!" Estelle replied, and laughed. + +</p> +<p> +The whole catastrophe began to become an adventure. She bit +eagerly into a bird. Arthur began as hungrily on another. For +some time neither spoke a word. At last, however, Arthur waved +the leg of his second pigeon toward his desk. + +</p> +<p> +"Look what we've got here!" he said. + +</p> +<p> +Estelle nodded. The stunned pigeon Arthur had first picked up +was tied by one foot to a paper-weight. + +</p> +<p> +"I thought we might keep him for a souvenir," she suggested. + +</p> +<p> +"You seem pretty confident we'll get back, all right," Arthur +observed. "It was surely lucky those blessed birds came along. +They've heartened up the people wonderfully!" + +</p> +<p> +"Oh, I knew you'd manage somehow!" said Estelle confidently. + +</p> +<p> +"I manage?" Arthur repeated, smiling. "What have I done?" + +</p> +<p> +"Why, you've done everything," affirmed Estelle stoutly. "You've +told the people what to do from the very first, and you're +going to get us back." + +</p> +<p> +Arthur grinned, then suddenly his face grew a little more +serious. + +</p> +<p> +"I wish I were as sure as you are," he said. "I think we'll +be all right, though, sooner or later." + +</p> +<p> +"I'm sure of it," Estelle declared with conviction. "Why, you—" + +</p> +<p> +"Why I?" asked Arthur again. He bent forward in his chair +and fixed his eyes on Estelle's. She looked up, met his gaze, +and stammered. + +</p> +<p> +"You—you do things," she finished lamely. + +</p> +<p> +"I'm tempted to do something now," Arthur said. "Look here, +Miss Woodward, you've been in my employ for three or four +months. In all that time I've never had anything but the most +impersonal comments from you. Why the sudden change?" + +</p> +<p> +The twinkle in his eyes robbed his words of any impertinence. + +</p> +<p> +"Why, I really—I really suppose I never noticed you before," +said Estelle. + +</p> +<p> +"Please notice me hereafter," said Arthur. "I have been noticing +you. I've been doing practically nothing else." + +</p> +<p> +Estelle flushed again. She tried to meet Arthur's eyes and +failed. She bit desperately into her pigeon drumstick, trying +to think of something to say. + +</p> +<p> +"When we get back," went on Arthur meditatively, "I'll have +nothing to do—no work or anything. I'll be broke and out of +a job." + +</p> +<p> +Estelle shook her head emphatically. Arthur paid no attention. + +</p> +<p> +"Estelle," he said, smiling, "would you like to be out of a +job with me?" + +</p> +<p> +Estelle turned crimson. + +</p> +<p> +"I'm not very successful," Arthur went on soberly. "I'm afraid +I wouldn't make a very good husband, I'm rather worthless +and lazy!" + +</p> +<p> +"You aren't," broke in Estelle; "you're—you're—" + +</p> +<p> +Arthur reached over and took her by the shoulders. + +</p> +<p> +"What?" he demanded. + +</p> +<p> +She would not look at him, but she did not draw away. He held +her from him for a moment. + +</p> +<p> +"What am I?" he demanded again. Somehow he found himself +kissing the tips of her ears. Her face was buried against +his shoulder. + +</p> +<p> +"What am I?" he repeated sternly. + +</p> +<p> +Her voice was muffled by his coat. + +</p> +<p> +"You're—you're dear!" she said. + +</p> +<p> +There was an interlude of about a minute and a half, then she +pushed him away from her. + +</p> +<p> +"Don't!" she said breathlessly. "Please don't!" + +</p> +<p> +"Aren't you going to marry me?" he demanded. + +</p> +<p> +Still crimson, she nodded shyly. He kissed her again. + +</p> +<p> +"Please don't!" she protested. + +</p> +<p> +She fondled the lapels of his coat, quite content to have his +arms about her. + +</p> +<p> +"Why mayn't I kiss you if you're going to marry me?" Arthur +demanded. + +</p> +<p> +She looked up at him with an air of demure primness. + +</p> +<p> +"You—you've been eating pigeon," she told him in mock gravity, +"and—and your mouth is greasy!" + + + + +</p> +<hr /> +<h3>XII.</h3> +<p> +It was two weeks later. Estelle looked out over the now familiar +wild landscape. It was much the same when she looked far away, +but near by there were great changes. + +</p> +<p> +A cleared trail led through the woods to the waterfront, and a +raft of logs extended out into the river for hundreds of feet. +Both sides of the raft were lined with busy fishermen—men and +women, too. A little to the north of the base of the building a +huge mound of earth smoked sullenly. The coal in the cellar had +given out and charcoal had been found to be the best substitute +they could improvise. The mound was where the charcoal was made. + +</p> +<p> +It was heart-breaking work to keep the fires going with +charcoal, because it burned so rapidly in the powerful draft of +the furnaces, but the original fire-room gang had been recruited +to several times its original number from among the towerites, +and the work was divided until it did not seem hard. + +</p> +<p> +As Estelle looked down two tiny figures sauntered across the +clearing from the woods with a heavy animal slung between +them. One of them was using a gun as a walking-stick. Estelle +saw the flash of the sun on its polished metal barrel. + +</p> +<p> +There were a number of Indians in the clearing, watching +with wide-open eyes the activities of the whites. Dozens of +birch-bark canoes dotted the Hudson, each with its load of +fishermen, industriously working for the white people. It had +been hard to overcome the fear in the Indians, and they still +paid superstitious reverence to the whites, but fair dealings, +coupled with a constant readiness to defend themselves, had +enabled Arthur to institute a system of trading for food that +had so far proved satisfactory. + +</p> +<p> +The whites had found spare electric-light bulbs valuable +currency in dealing with the redmen. Picture-wire, too, was +highly prized. There was not a picture left hanging in any +of the offices. Metal paper-knives bought huge quantities +of provisions from the eager Indian traders, and the story +was current in the tower that Arthur had received eight +canoe-loads of corn and vegetables in exchange for a broken-down +typewriter. No one could guess what the savages wanted with +the typewriter, but they had carted it away triumphantly. + +</p> +<p> +Estelle smiled tenderly to herself as she remembered how Arthur +had been the leading spirit in all the numberless enterprises in +which the castaways had been forced to engage. He would come +to her in a spare ten minutes, and tell her how everything +was going. He seemed curiously boylike in those moments. + +</p> +<p> +Sometimes he would come straight from the fire-room—he insisted +on taking part in all the more arduous duties—having hastily +cleaned himself for her inspection, snatch a hurried kiss, +and then go off, laughing, to help chop down trees for the +long fishing-raft. He had told them how to make charcoal, had +taken a leading part in establishing and maintaining friendly +relations with the Indians, and was now down in the deepest +sub-basement, working with a gang of volunteers to try to put +the building back where it belonged. + +</p> +<p> Estelle had said, after the collapse of the flooring in the board-room, that + she heard a sound like the rushing of waters. Arthur, on examining the floor + where the safe-deposit vault stood, found it had risen an inch. On these facts + he had built up his theory. The building, like all modern sky-scrapers, rested + on concrete piles extending down to bedrock. In the center of one of those piles + there was a hollow tube originally intended to serve as an artesian well. The + flow had been insufficient and the well had been stopped up. +</p> +<p> +Arthur, of course, as an engineer, had studied the construction +of the building with great care, and happened to remember that +this partly hollow pile was the one nearest the safe-deposit +vault. The collapse of the board-room floor had suggested that +some change had happened in the building itself, and that was +found when he saw that the deposit-vault had actually risen +an inch. + +</p> +<p> +He at once connected the rise in the flooring above the hollow +pile with the pipe in the pile. Estelle had heard liquid sounds. +Evidently water had been forced into the hollow artesian pipe +under an unthinkable pressure when the catastrophe occurred. + +</p> +<p> +From the rumbling and the suddenness of the whole catastrophe +a volcanic or seismic disturbance was evident. The connection +of volcanic or seismic action with a flow of water suggested a +geyser or a hot spring of some sort, probably a spring which +had broken through its normal confines some time before, but +whose pressure had been sufficient to prevent the accident +until the failure of its flow. + +</p> +<p> +When the flow ceased the building sank rapidly. For the fact +that this "sinking" was in the fourth direction—the Fourth +Dimension—Arthur had no explanation. He simply knew that in +some mysterious way an outlet for the pressure had developed +in that fashion, and that the tower had followed the spring +in its fall through time. + +</p> +<p> +The sole apparent change in the building had occurred above +the one hollow concrete pile, which seemed to indicate that if +access were to be had to the mysterious, and so far only assumed +spring, it must be through that pile. While the vault retained +its abnormal elevation, Arthur believed that there was still +water at an immense and incalculable pressure in the pipe. He +dared not attempt to tap the pipe until the pressure had abated. + +</p> +<p> +At the end of a week he found the vault slowly settling back +into place. When its return to the normal was complete he +dared begin boring a hole to reach the hollow tube in the +concrete pile. + +</p> +<p> +As he suspected, he found water in the pile—water whose +sulfurous and mineral nature confirmed his belief that a geyser +reaching deep into the bosom of the earth, as well as far back +in the realms of time, was at the bottom of the extraordinary +jaunt of the tower. + +</p> +<p> +Geysers were still far from satisfactory things to +explain. There are many of their vagaries which we cannot +understand at all. We do know a few things which affect them, +and one thing is that "soaping" them will stimulate their flow +in an extraordinary manner. + +</p> +<p> +Arthur proposed to "soap" this mysterious geyser when the +renewal of its flow should lift the runaway sky-scraper back +to the epoch from which the failure of the flow had caused it +to fall. + +</p> +<p> +He made his preparations with great care. He confidently +expected his plan to work, and to see the sky-scraper once +more towering over mid-town New York as was its wont, but +he did not allow the fishermen and hunters to relax their +efforts on that account. They labored as before, while deep +down in the sub-basement of the colossal building Arthur and +his volunteers toiled mightily. + +</p> +<p> +They had to bore through the concrete pile until they reached +the hollow within it. Then, when the evidence gained from +the water in the pipe had confirmed his surmises, they had to +prepare their "charge" of soapy liquids by which the geyser +was to be stirred to renewed activity. + +</p> +<p> +Great quantities of the soap used by the scrubwomen in scrubbing +down the floors was boiled with water until a sirupy mess was +evolved. Means had then to be provided by which this could +be quickly introduced into the hollow pile, the hole then +closed, and then braced to withstand a pressure unparalleled +in hydraulic science. Arthur believed that from the hollow +pile the soapy liquid would find its way to the geyser proper, +where it would take effect in stimulating the lessened flow +to its former proportions. When that took place he believed +that the building would return as swiftly and as surely as it +had left them to normal, modern times. + +</p> +<p> +The telephone rang in his office, and Estelle answered +it. Arthur was on the wire. A signal was being hung out for +all the castaway to return to the building from their several +occupations. They were about to soap the geyser. + +</p> +<p> +Did Estelle want to come down and watch? She did! She +stood in the main hallway as the excited and hopeful people +trooped in. When the last was inside the doors were firmly +closed. The few friendly Indians outside stared perplexedly +at the mysterious white strangers. + +</p> +<p> +The whites, laughing excitedly, began to wave to the +Indians. Their leave-taking was premature. + +</p> +<p> +Estelle took her way down into the cellar. Arthur was awaiting +her arrival. Van Deventer stood near, with the grinning, grimy +members of Arthur's volunteer work gang. The massive concrete +pile stood in the center of the cellar. A big steam-boiler was +coupled to a tiny pipe that led into the heart of the mass of +concrete. Arthur was going to force the soapy liquid into the +hollow pile by steam. + +</p> +<p> +At a signal steam began to hiss in the boiler. Live steam +from the fire-room forced the soapy sirup out of the boiler, +through the small iron pipe, into the hollow that led to the +geyser far underground. Six thousand gallons in all were forced +into the opening in a space of three minutes. + +</p> +<p> +Arthur's grimy gang began to work with desperate haste. Quickly +they withdrew the iron pipe and inserted a long steel plug, +painfully beaten from a bar of solid metal. Then, girding the +colossal concrete pile, ring after ring of metal was slipped +on, to hold the plug in place. + +</p> +<p> +The last of the safeguards was hardly fastened firmly when +Estelle listened intently. + +</p> +<p> +"I hear a rumbling!" she said quietly. + +</p> +<p> +Arthur reached forward and put his hand on the mass of concrete. + +</p> +<p> +"It is quivering!" he reported as quietly. "I think we'll be +on our way in a very little while." + +</p> +<p> +The group broke for the stairs, to watch the panorama as the +runaway sky-scraper made its way back through the thousands +of years to the times that had built it for a monument to +modern commerce. + +</p> +<p> +Arthur and Estelle went high up in the tower. From the window +of Arthur's office they looked eagerly, and felt the slight +quiver as the tower got under way. Estelle looked up at the sun, +and saw it mend its pace toward the west. + +</p> +<p> +Night fell. The evening sounds became high-pitched and shrill, +then seemed to cease altogether. + +</p> +<p> In a very little while there was light again, and the sun was speeding across + the sky. It sank hastily, and returned almost immediately, <i>via</i> the east. + Its pace became a breakneck rush. Down behind the hills and up in the east. + Down in the west, up in the east. Down and up— The flickering began. The + race back toward modern times had started. </p> +<p> +Arthur and Estelle stood at the window and looked out as the +sun rushed more and more rapidly across the sky until it became +but a streak of light, shifting first to the right and then +to the left as the seasons passed in their turn. + +</p> +<p> +With Arthur's arms about her shoulders, Estelle stared out +across the unbelievable landscape, while the nights and days, +the winters and summers, and the storms and calms of a thousand +years swept past them into the irrevocable past. + +</p> +<p> +Presently Arthur drew her to him and kissed her. While he +kissed her, so swiftly did the days and years flee by, three +generations were born, grew and begot children, and died again! + +</p> +<p> +Estelle, held fast in Arthur's arms, thought nothing of such +trivial things. She put her arms about his neck and kissed him, +while the years passed them unheeded.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> +<p> +Of course you know that the building landed safely, in the +exact hour, minute, and second from which it started, so that +when the frightened and excited people poured out of it to +stand in Madison Square and feel that the world was once more +right side up, their hilarious and incomprehensible conduct +made such of the world as was passing by think a contagious +madness had broken out. + +</p> +<p> +Days passed before the story of the two thousand was believed, +but at last it was accepted as truth, and eminent scientists +studied the matter exhaustively. + +</p> +<p> +There has been one rather queer result of the journey of the +runaway sky-scraper. A certain Isidore Eckstein, a dealer +in jewelry novelties, whose office was in the tower when it +disappeared into the past, has entered suit in the courts of +the United States against all the holders of land on Manhattan +Island. It seems that during the two weeks in which the tower +rested in the wilderness he traded independently with one of the +Indian chiefs, and in exchange for two near-pearl necklaces, +sixteen finger-rings, and one dollar in money, received a +title-deed to the entire island.—He claims that his deed is +a conveyance made previous to all other sales whatever. + +</p> +<p> +Strictly speaking, he is undoubtedly right, as his deed was +signed before the discovery of America. The courts, however, +are deliberating the question with a great deal of perplexity. + +</p> +<p> +Eckstein is quite confident that in the end his claim +will be allowed and he will be admitted as the sole owner +of real-estate on Manhattan Island, with all occupiers of +buildings and territory paying him ground rent at a rate he +will fix himself. In the mean time, though the foundations are +being reinforced so the catastrophe cannot occur again, his +entire office is packed full of articles suitable for trading +with the Indians. If the tower makes another trip back through +time, Eckstein hopes to become a landholder of some importance. + +</p> +<p> +No less than eighty-seven books have been written by members +of the memorable two thousand in description of their trip +to the hinterland of time, but Arthur, who could write more +intelligently about the matter than any one else, is so +extremely busy that he cannot bother with such things. He has +two very important matters to look after. One is, of course, +the reenforcement of the foundations of the building so that a +repetition of the catastrophe cannot occur, and the other is +to convince his wife—who is Estelle, naturally—that she is +the most adorable person in the universe. He finds the latter +task the more difficult, because she insists that <i>he</i> +is the most adorable person—</p> + +<p> +<a name="note">*</a> Transcriber's note: This etext was produced from the February 22, +1919 issue of <i>Argosy</i> magazine. +</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Runaway Skyscraper, by Murray Leinster + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RUNAWAY SKYSCRAPER *** + +***** This file should be named 17355-h.htm or 17355-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/3/5/17355/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + +*** END: FULL LICENSE *** + + + +</pre> + +</body> +</html> + diff --git a/17355-h/images/mlrstitle.gif b/17355-h/images/mlrstitle.gif Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6aed4d2 --- /dev/null +++ b/17355-h/images/mlrstitle.gif diff --git a/17355.txt b/17355.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d4726bc --- /dev/null +++ b/17355.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2584 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Runaway Skyscraper, by Murray Leinster + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Runaway Skyscraper + +Author: Murray Leinster + +Release Date: December 19, 2005 [EBook #17355] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RUNAWAY SKYSCRAPER *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + +The Runaway Skyscraper + +_by_ Murray Leinster + +COMPLETE IN THIS ISSUE.[*] + + + + +I. + + +The whole thing started when the clock on the Metropolitan Tower +began to run backward. It was not a graceful proceeding. The hands +had been moving onward in their customary deliberate fashion, +slowly and thoughtfully, but suddenly the people in the offices +near the clock's face heard an ominous creaking and groaning. +There was a slight, hardly discernible shiver through the tower, +and then something gave with a crash. The big hands on the clock +began to move backward. + +Immediately after the crash all the creaking and groaning ceased, +and instead, the usual quiet again hung over everything. One or +two of the occupants of the upper offices put their heads out into +the halls, but the elevators were running as usual, the lights +were burning, and all seemed calm and peaceful. The clerks and +stenographers went back to their ledgers and typewriters, the +business callers returned to the discussion of their errands, +and the ordinary course of business was resumed. + +Arthur Chamberlain was dictating a letter to Estelle Woodward, +his sole stenographer. When the crash came he paused, listened, +and then resumed his task. + +It was not a difficult one. Talking to Estelle Woodward was at +no time an onerous duty, but it must be admitted that Arthur +Chamberlain found it difficult to keep his conversation strictly +upon his business. + +He was at this time engaged in dictating a letter to his principal +creditors, the Gary & Milton Company, explaining that their demand +for the immediate payment of the installment then due upon his office +furniture was untimely and unjust. A young and budding engineer in +New York never has too much money, and when he is young as Arthur +Chamberlain was, and as fond of pleasant company, and not too +fond of economizing, he is liable to find all demands for payment +untimely and he usually considers them unjust as well. Arthur +finished dictating the letter and sighed. + +"Miss Woodward," he said regretfully, "I am afraid I shall never +make a successful man." + +Miss Woodward shook her head vaguely. She did not seem to take his +remark very seriously, but then, she had learned never to take any of +his remarks seriously. She had been puzzled at first by his manner of +treating everything with a half-joking pessimism, but now ignored it. + +She was interested in her own problems. She had suddenly decided +that she was going to be an old maid, and it bothered her. She +had discovered that she did not like any one well enough to marry, +and she was in her twenty-second year. + +She was not a native of New York, and the few young men she had met +there she did not care for. She had regretfully decided she was too +finicky, too fastidious, but could not seem to help herself. She +could not understand their absorption in boxing and baseball and +she did not like the way they danced. + +She had considered the matter and decided that she would have to +reconsider her former opinion of women who did not marry. Heretofore +she had thought there must be something the matter with them. +Now she believed that she would come to their own estate, and +probably for the same reason. She could not fall in love and she +wanted to. + +She read all the popular novels and thrilled at the love-scenes +contained in them, but when any of the young men she knew became +in the slightest degree sentimental she found herself bored, and +disgusted with herself for being bored. Still, she could not help it, +and was struggling to reconcile herself to a life without romance. + +She was far too pretty for that, of course, and Arthur Chamberlain +often longed to tell her how pretty she really was, but her +abstracted air held him at arms' length. + +He lay back at ease in his swivel-chair and considered, looking at +her with unfeigned pleasure. She did not notice it, for she was so +much absorbed in her own thoughts that she rarely noticed anything +he said or did when they were not in the line of her duties. + +"Miss Woodward," he repeated, "I said I think I'll never make a +successful man. Do you know what that means?" + +She looked at him mutely, polite inquiry in her eyes. + +"It means," he said gravely, "that I'm going broke. Unless something +turns up in the next three weeks, or a month at the latest, I'll +have to get a job." + +"And that means--" she asked. + +"All this will go to pot," he explained with a sweeping gesture. "I +thought I'd better tell you as much in advance as I could." + +"You mean you're going to give up your office--and me?" she asked, +a little alarmed. + +"Giving up you will be the harder of the two," he said with a smile, +"but that's what it means. You'll have no difficulty finding a new +place, with three weeks in which to look for one, but I'm sorry." + +"I'm sorry, too, Mr. Chamberlain," she said, her brow puckered. + +She was not really frightened, because she knew she could get +another position, but she became aware of rather more regret than +she had expected. + +There was silence for a moment. + +"Jove!" said Arthur, suddenly. "It's getting dark, isn't it?" + +It was. It was growing dark with unusual rapidity. Arthur went to +his window, and looked out. + +"Funny," he remarked in a moment or two. "Things don't look just +right, down there, somehow. There are very few people about." + +He watched in growing amazement. Lights came on in the streets +below, but none of the buildings lighted up. It grew darker and +darker. + +"It shouldn't be dark at this hour!" Arthur exclaimed. + +Estelle went to the window by his side. + +"It looks awfully queer," she agreed. "It must be an eclipse +or something." + +They heard doors open in the hall outside, and Arthur ran out. The +halls were beginning to fill with excited people. + +"What on earth's the matter?" asked a worried stenographer. + +"Probably an eclipse," replied Arthur. "Only it's odd we didn't +read about it in the papers." + +He glanced along the corridor. No one else seemed better informed +than he, and he went back into his office. + +Estelle turned from the window as he appeared. + +"The streets are deserted," she said in a puzzled tone. "What's +the matter? Did you hear?" + +Arthur shook his head and reached for the telephone. + +"I'll call up and find out," he said confidently. He held the +receiver to his ear. "What the--" he exclaimed. "Listen to this!" + +A small-sized roar was coming from the receiver. Arthur hung up +and turned a blank face upon Estelle. + +"Look!" she said suddenly, and pointed out of the window. + +All the city was now lighted up, and such of the signs as they +could see were brilliantly illumined. They watched in silence. +The streets once more seemed filled with vehicles. They darted along, +their headlamps lighting up the roadway brilliantly. There was, +however, something strange even about their motion. Arthur and +Estelle watched in growing amazement and perplexity. + +"Are--are you seeing what I am seeing?" asked Estelle +breathlessly. "_I_ see them _going backward_!" + +Arthur watched, and collapsed into a chair. + +"For the love of Mike!" he exclaimed softly. + + + + +II. + + +He was roused by another exclamation from Estelle. + +"It's getting light again," she said. + +Arthur rose and went eagerly to the window. The darkness was +becoming less intense, but in a way Arthur could hardly credit. + +Far to the west, over beyond the Jersey hills--easily visible from +the height at which Arthur's office was located--a faint light +appeared in the sky, grew stronger and then took on a reddish +tint. That, in turn, grew deeper, and at last the sun appeared, +rising unconcernedly _in the west_. + +Arthur gasped. The streets below continued to be thronged with +people and motor-cars. The sun was traveling with extraordinary +rapidity. It rose overhead, and as if by magic the streets +were thronged with people. Every one seemed to be running +at top-speed. The few teams they saw moved at a breakneck +pace--backward! In spite of the suddenly topsyturvy state of +affairs there seemed to be no accidents. + +Arthur put his hands to his head. + +"Miss Woodward," he said pathetically, "I'm afraid I've gone +crazy. Do you see the same things I do?" + +Estelle nodded. Her eyes wide open. + +"What _is_ the matter?" she asked helplessly. + +She turned again to the window. The square was almost empty once +more. The motor-cars still traveling about the streets were going so +swiftly they were hardly visible. Their speed seemed to increase +steadily. Soon it was almost impossible to distinguish them, +and only a grayish blur marked their paths along Fifth Avenue and +Twenty-Third Street. + +It grew dusk, and then rapidly dark. As their office was on the +western side of the building they could not see that the sun had +sunk in the east, but subconsciously they realized that this must +be the case. + +In silence they watched the panorama grow black except for the +street-lamps, remain thus for a time, and then suddenly spring into +brilliantly illuminated activity. + +Again this lasted for a little while, and the west once more began +to glow. The sun rose somewhat more hastily from the Jersey hills +and began to soar overhead, but very soon darkness fell again. With +hardly an interval the city became illuminated, and then the west +grew red once more. + +"Apparently," said Arthur, steadying his voice with a conscious +effort, "there's been a cataclysm somewhere, the direction of +the earth's rotation has been reversed, and its speed immensely +increased. It seems to take only about five minutes for a rotation +now." + +As he spoke darkness fell for the third time. Estelle turned from +the window with a white face. + +"What's going to happen?" she cried. + +"I don't know," answered Arthur. "The scientist fellows tell us +if the earth were to spin fast enough the centrifugal force would +throw us all off into space. Perhaps that's what's going to happen." + +Estelle sank into a chair and stared at him, appalled. There was a +sudden explosion behind them. With a start, Estelle jumped to her +feet and turned. A little gilt clock over her typewriter-desk lay +in fragments. Arthur hastily glanced at his own watch. + +"Great bombs and little cannon-balls!" he shouted. "Look at this!" + +His watch trembled and quivered in his hand. The hands were going +around so swiftly it was impossible to watch the minute-hand, +and the hour-hand traveled like the wind. + +While they looked, it made two complete revolutions. In one of +them the glory of daylight had waxed, waned, and vanished. In the +other, darkness reigned except for the glow from the electric +light overhead. + +There was a sudden tension and catch in the watch. Arthur dropped +it instantly. It flew to pieces before it reached the floor. + +"If you've got a watch," Arthur ordered swiftly, "stop it this +instant!" + +Estelle fumbled at her wrist. Arthur tore the watch from her hand +and threw open the case. The machinery inside was going so swiftly +it was hardly visible; Relentlessly, Arthur jabbed a penholder in +the works. There was a sharp click, and the watch was still. + +Arthur ran to the window. As he reached it the sun rushed up, day +lasted a moment, there was darkness, and then the sun appeared again. + +"Miss Woodward!" Arthur ordered suddenly, "look at the ground!" + +Estelle glanced down. The next time the sun flashed into view +she gasped. + +The ground was white with snow! + +"What _has_ happened?" she demanded, terrified. "Oh, what _has_ +happened?" + +Arthur fumbled at his chin awkwardly, watching the astonishing +panorama outside. There was hardly any distinguishing between +the times the sun was up and the times it was below now, as the +darkness and light followed each other so swiftly the effect was +the same as one of the old flickering motion-pictures. + +As Arthur watched, this effect became more pronounced. The tall +Fifth Avenue Building across the way began to disintegrate. In a +moment, it seemed, there was only a skeleton there. Then that +vanished, story by story. A great cavity in the earth appeared, +and then another building became visible, a smaller, brown-stone, +unimpressive structure. + +With bulging eyes Arthur stared across the city. Except for the +flickering, he could see almost clearly now. + +He no longer saw the sun rise and set. There was merely a streak of +unpleasantly brilliant light across the sky. Bit by bit, building +by building, the city began to disintegrate and become replaced +by smaller, dingier buildings. In a little while those began to +disappear and leave gaps where they vanished. + +Arthur strained his eyes and looked far down-town. He saw a forest +of masts and spars along the waterfront for a moment and when +he turned his eyes again to the scenery near him it was almost +barren of houses, and what few showed were mean, small residences, +apparently set in the midst of farms and plantations. + +Estelle was sobbing. + +"Oh, Mr. Chamberlain," she cried. "What is the matter? What has +happened?" + +Arthur had lost his fear of what their fate would be in his +absorbing interest in what he saw. He was staring out of the window, +wide-eyed, lost in the sight before him. At Estelle's cry, however, +he reluctantly left the window and patted her shoulder awkwardly. + +"I don't know how to explain it," he said uncomfortably, "but it's +obvious that my first surmise was all wrong. The speed of the earth's +rotation can't have been increased, because if it had to the extent +we see, we'd have been thrown off into space long ago. But--have +you read anything about the Fourth Dimension?" + +Estelle shook her head hopelessly. + +"Well, then, have you ever read anything by Wells? The 'Time +Machine,' for instance?" + +Again she shook her head. + +"I don't know how I'm going to say it so you'll understand, but +time is just as much a dimension as length and breadth. From what I +can judge, I'd say there has been an earthquake, and the ground has +settled a little with our building on it, only instead of settling +down toward the center of the earth, or side-wise, it's settled in +this fourth dimension." + +"But what does that mean?" asked Estelle uncomprehendingly. + +"If the earth had settled down, we'd have been lower. If it had +settled to one side, we'd have been moved one way or another, but as +it's settled back in the Fourth Dimension, we're going back in time." + +"Then--" + +"We're in a runaway skyscraper, bound for some time back before +the discovery of America!" + + + + +III. + + +It was very still in the office. Except for the flickering outside +everything seemed very much as usual. The electric light burned +steadily, but Estelle was sobbing with fright and Arthur was trying +vainly to console her. + +"Have I gone crazy?" she demanded between her sobs. + +"Not unless I've gone mad, too," said Arthur soothingly. The +excitement had quite a soothing effect upon him. He had ceased to +feel afraid, but was simply waiting to see what had happened. "We're +way back before the founding of New York now, and still going +strong." + +"Are you sure that's what has happened?" + +"If you'll look outside," he suggested, "you'll see the seasons +following each other in reverse order. One moment the snow covers +all the ground, then you catch a glimpse of autumn foliage, then +summer follows, and next spring." + +Estelle glanced out of the window and covered her eyes. + +"Not a house," she said despairingly. "Not a building. Nothing, +nothing, nothing!" + +Arthur slipped, his arm about her and patted hers comfortingly. + +"It's all right," he reassured her. "We'll bring up presently, +and there we'll be. There's nothing to be afraid of." + +She rested her head on his shoulder and sobbed hopelessly for +a little while longer, but presently quieted. Then, suddenly, +realizing that Arthur's arm was about her and that she was crying +on his shoulder, she sprang away, blushing crimson. + +Arthur walked to the window. + +"Look there!" he exclaimed, but it was too late. "I'll swear to +it I saw the Half Moon, Hudson's ship," he declared excitedly. +"We're way back now, and don't seem to be slacking up, either." + +Estelle came to the window by his side. The rapidly changing scene +before her made her gasp. It was no longer possible to distinguish +night from day. + +A wavering streak, moving first to the right and then to the left, +showed where the sun flashed across the sky. + +"What makes the sun wabble so?" she asked. + +"Moving north and south of the equator," Arthur explained +casually. "When it's farthest south--to the left--there's always +snow on the ground. When it's farthest right it's summer. See how +green it is?" + +A few moments' observation corroborated his statement. + +"I'd say," Arthur remarked reflectively, "that it takes about fifteen +seconds for the sun to make the round trip from farthest north to +farthest south." He felt his pulse. "Do you know the normal rate +of the heart-beat? We can judge time that way. A clock will go +all to pieces, of course." + +"Why did your watch explode--and the clock?" + +"Running forward in time unwinds a clock, doesn't it?" asked +Arthur. "It follows, of course, that when you move it backward in +time it winds up. When you move it too far back, you wind it so +tightly that the spring just breaks to pieces." + +He paused a moment, his fingers on his pulse. + +"Yes, it takes about fifteen seconds for all the four seasons to +pass. That means we're going backward in time about four years a +minute. If we go on at this rate another hour we'll be back in the +time of the Northmen, and will be able to tell if they did discover +America, after all." + +"Funny we don't hear any noises," Estelle observed. She had caught +some of Arthur's calmness. + +"It passes so quickly that though our ears hear it, we don't separate +the sounds. If you'll notice, you do hear a sort of humming. +It's very high-pitched, though." + +Estelle listened, but could hear nothing. + +"No matter," said Arthur. "It's probably a little higher than your +ears will catch. Lots of people can't hear a bat squeak." + +"I never could," said Estelle. "Out in the country, where I come +from, other people could hear them, but I couldn't." + +They stood a while in silence, watching. + +"When are we going to stop?" asked Estelle uneasily. "It seems as +if we're going to keep on indefinitely." + +"I guess we'll stop all right," Arthur reassured her. "It's obvious +that whatever it was, only affected our own building, or we'd see +some other one with us. It looks like a fault or a flaw in the rock +the building rests on. And that can only give so far." + +Estelle was silent for a moment. + +"Oh, I can't be sane!" she burst out semihysterically. "This can't +be happening!" + +"You aren't crazy," said Arthur sharply. "You're sane as I am. Just +something queer is happening. Buck up. Say your multiplication +tables. Say anything you know. Say something sensible and you'll +know you're all right. But don't get frightened now. There'll be +plenty to get frightened about later." + +The grimness in his tone alarmed Estelle. + +"What are you afraid of?" she asked quickly. + +"Time enough to worry when it happens," Arthur retorted briefly. + +"You--you aren't afraid we'll go back before the beginning of the +world, are you?" asked Estelle in sudden access of fright. + +Arthur shook his head. + +"Tell me," said Estelle more quietly, getting a grip on herself. "I +won't mind. But please tell me." + +Arthur glanced at her. Her face was pale, but there was more +resolution in it than he had expected to find. + +"I'll tell you, then," he said reluctantly. "We're going back a +little faster than we were, and the flaw seems to be a deeper one +than I thought. At the roughest kind of an estimate, we're all of +a thousand years before the discovery of America now, and I think +nearer three or four. And we're gaining speed all the time. So, +though I am as sure as I can be sure of anything that we'll stop +this cave-in eventually, I don't know where. It's like a crevasse +in the earth opened by an earthquake which may be only a few feet +deep, or it may be hundreds of yards, or even a mile or two. We +started off smoothly. We're going at a terrific rate. _What will +happen when we stop?_" + +Estelle caught her breath. + +"What?" she asked quietly. + +"I don't know," said Arthur in an irritated tone, to cover his +apprehension. "How could I know?" + +Estelle turned from him to the window again. + +"Look!" she said, pointing. + +The flickering had begun again. While they stared, hope springing +up once more in their hearts, it became more pronounced. Soon they +could distinctly see the difference between day and night. + +They were slowing up! The white snow on the ground remained there +for an appreciable time, autumn lasted quite a while. They could +catch the flashes of the sun as it made its revolutions now, +instead of its seeming like a ribbon of fire. At last day lasted +all of fifteen or twenty minutes. + +It grew longer and longer. Then half an hour, then an hour. The +sun wavered in midheaven and was still. + +Far below them, the watchers in the tower of the skyscraper saw trees +swaying and bending in the wind. Though there was not a house or a +habitation to be seen and a dense forest covered all of Manhattan +Island, such of the world as they could see looked normal. Wherever +or rather in whatever epoch of time they were, they had arrived. + + + + +IV. + + +Arthur caught at Estelle's arm and the two made a dash for the +elevators. Fortunately one was standing still, the door open, on +their floor. The elevator-boy had deserted his post and was looking +with all the rest of the occupants of the building at the strange +landscape that surrounded them. + +No sooner had the pair reached the car, however, than the boy came +hurrying along the corridor, three or four other people following +him also at a run. Without a word the boy rushed inside, the others +crowded after him, and the car shot downward, all of the newcomers +panting from their sprint. + +Theirs was the first car to reach the bottom. They rushed out and +to the western door. + +Here, where they had been accustomed to see Madison Square spread +out before them, a clearing of perhaps half an acre in extent showed +itself. Where their eyes instinctively looked for the dark bronze +fountain, near which soap-box orators aforetime held sway, they saw +a tent, a wigwam of hides and bark gaily painted. And before the +wigwam were two or three brown-skinned Indians, utterly petrified +with astonishment. + +Behind the first wigwam were others, painted like the first with +daubs of brightly colored clay. From them, too, Indians issued, +and stared in incredulous amazement, their eyes growing wider +and wider. When the group of white people confronted the Indians +there was a moment's deathlike silence. Then, with a wild yell, +the redskins broke and ran, not stopping to gather together their +belongings, nor pausing for even a second glance at the weird +strangers who invaded their domain. + +Arthur took two or three deep breaths of the fresh air and +found himself even then comparing its quality with that of the +city. Estelle stared about her with unbelieving eyes. She turned +and saw the great bulk of the office building behind her, then +faced this small clearing with a virgin forest on its farther side. + +She found herself trembling from some undefined cause. Arthur glanced +at her. He saw the trembling and knew she would have a fit of nerves +in a moment if something did not come up demanding instant attention. + +"We'd better take a look at this village," he said in an off-hand +voice. "We can probably find out how long ago it is from the weapons +and so on." + +He grasped her arm firmly and led her in the direction of the +tents. The other people, left behind, displayed their emotions in +different ways. Two or three of them--women--sat frankly down on +the steps and indulged in tears of bewilderment, fright and relief +in a peculiar combination defying analysis. Two or three of the +men swore, in shaken voices. + +Meantime, the elevators inside the building were rushing and +clanging, and the hall filled with a white-faced mob, desperately +anxious to find out what had happened and why. The people poured +out of the door and stared about blankly. There was a peculiar +expression of doubt on every one of their faces. Each one was asking +himself if he were awake, and having proved that by pinches, openly +administered, the next query was whether they had gone mad. + +Arthur led Estelle cautiously among the tents. + +The village contained about a dozen wigwams. Most of them were made +of strips of birch-bark, cleverly overlapping each other, the seams +cemented with gum. All had hide flaps for doors, and one or two were +built almost entirely of hides, sewed together with strips of sinew. + +Arthur made only a cursory examination of the village. His principal +motive in taking Estelle there was to give her some mental occupation +to ward off the reaction from the excitement of the cataclysm. + +He looked into one or two of the tents and found merely couches of +hides, with minor domestic utensils scattered about. He brought +from one tent a bow and quiver of arrows. The workmanship was good, +but very evidently the maker had no knowledge of metal tools. + +Arthur's acquaintance with archeological subjects was very slight, +but he observed that the arrow-heads were chipped, and not rubbed +smooth. They were attached to the shafts with strips of gut or +tendon. + +Arthur was still pursuing his investigation when a sob from Estelle +made him stop and look at her. + +"Oh, what are we going to do?" she asked tearfully. "What _are_ +we going to do? Where are we?" + +"You mean, _when_ are we," Arthur corrected with a grim smile. "I +don't know. Way back before the discovery of America, though. You +can see in everything in the village that there isn't a trace +of European civilization. I suspect that we are several thousand +years back. I can't tell, of course, but this pottery makes me +think so. See this bowl?" + +He pointed to a bowl of red clay lying on the ground before one of +the wigwams. + +"If you'll look, you'll see that it isn't really pottery at all. It's +a basket that was woven of reeds and then smeared with clay to +make it fire-resisting. The people who made that didn't know about +baking clay to make it stay put. When America was discovered nearly +all the tribes knew something about pottery." + +"But what are we going to do?" Estelle tearfully insisted. + +"We're going to muddle along as well as we can," answered Arthur +cheerfully, "until we can get back to where we started from. Maybe +the people back in the twentieth century can send a relief party +after us. When the skyscraper vanished it must have left a hole +of some sort, and it may be possible for them to follow us down." + +"If that's so," said Estelle quickly, "why can't we climb up it +without waiting for them to come after us?" + +Arthur scratched his head. He looked across the clearing at the +skyscraper. It seemed to rest very solidly on the ground. He looked +up. The sky seemed normal. + +"To tell the truth," he admitted, "there doesn't seem to be any +hole. I said that more to cheer you up than anything else." + +Estelle clenched her hands tightly and took a grip on herself. + +"Just tell me the truth," she said quietly. "I was rather foolish, +but tell me what you honestly think." + +Arthur eyed her keenly. + +"In that case," he said reluctantly, "I'll admit we're in a pretty +bad fix. I don't know what has happened, how it happened, or anything +about it. I'm just going to keep on going until I see a way clear +to get out of this mess. There are two thousand of us people, +more or less, and among all of us we must be able to find a way out." + +Estelle had turned very pale. + +"We're in no great danger from Indians," went on Arthur thoughtfully, +"or from anything else that I know of--except one thing." + +"What is that?" asked Estelle quickly. + +Arthur shook his head and led her back toward the skyscraper, which +was now thronged with the people from all the floors who had come +down to the ground and were standing excitedly about the concourse +asking each other what had happened. + +Arthur led Estelle to one of the corners. + +"Wait for me here," he ordered. "I'm going to talk to this crowd." + +He pushed his way through until he could reach the confectionery and +news-stand in the main hallway. Here he climbed up on the counter +and shouted: + +"People, listen to me! I'm going to tell you what's happened!" + +In an instant there was dead silence. He found himself the center +of a sea of white faces, every one contorted with fear and anxiety. + +"To begin with," he said confidently, "there's nothing to be afraid +of. We're going to get back to where we started from! I don't +know how, yet, but we'll do it. Don't get frightened. Now I'll +tell you what's happened." + +He rapidly sketched out for them, in words as simple as he could make +them, his theory that a flaw in the rock on which the foundations +rested had developed and let the skyscraper sink, not downward, +but into the Fourth Dimension. + +"I'm an engineer," he finished. "What nature can do, we can +imitate. Nature let us into this hole. We'll climb out. In the +mean time, matters are serious. We needn't be afraid of not getting +back. We'll do that. What we've got to fight is--starvation!" + + + + +V. + + +"We've got to fight starvation, and we've got to beat it," Arthur +continued doggedly. "I'm telling you this right at the outset, +because I want you to begin right at the beginning and pitch in to +help. We have very little food and a lot of us to eat it. First, +I want some volunteers to help with rationing. Next, I want every +ounce of food, in this place put under guard where it can be served +to those who need it most. Who will help out with this?" + +The swift succession of shocks had paralyzed the faculties of most +of the people there, but half a dozen moved forward. Among them was +a single gray-haired man with an air of accustomed authority. Arthur +recognized him as the president of the bank on the ground floor. + +"I don't know who you are or if you're right in saying what has +happened," said the gray-haired man. "But I see something's got to +be done, and--well, for the time being I'll take your word for what +that is. Later on we'll thrash this matter out." + +Arthur nodded. He bent over and spoke in a low voice to the +gray-haired man, who moved away. + +"Grayson, Walters, Terhune, Simpson, and Forsythe come here," +the gray-haired man called at a doorway. + +A number of men began to press dazedly toward him. Arthur resumed +his harangue. + +"You people--those of you who aren't too dazed to think--are +remembering there's a restaurant in the building and no need to +starve. You're wrong. There are nearly two thousand of us here. That +means six thousand meals a day. We've got to have nearly ten tons +of food a day, and we've got to have it at once." + +"Hunt?" some one suggested. + +"I saw Indians," some one else shouted. "Can we trade with them?" + +"We can hunt and we can trade with the Indians," Arthur admitted, +"but we need food by the ton--by the ton, people! The Indians don't +store up supplies, and, besides, they're much too scattered to have +a surplus for us. But we've got to have food. Now, how many of you +know anything about hunting, fishing, trapping, or any possible +way of getting food?" + +There were a few hands raised--pitifully few. Arthur saw Estelle's +hand up. + +"Very well," he said. "Those of you who raised your hands then +come with me up on the second floor and we'll talk it over. +The rest of you try to conquer your fright, and don't go outside +for a while. We've got some things to attend to before it will +be quite safe for you to venture out. And keep away from the +restaurant. There are armed guards over that food. Before we pass +it out indiscriminately, we'll see to it there's more for to-morrow +and the next day." + +He stepped down from the counter and moved toward the stairway. It +was not worth while to use the elevator for the ride of only one +floor. Estelle managed to join him, and they mounted the steps +together. + +"Do you think we'll pull through all right?" she asked quietly. + +"We've got to!" Arthur told her, setting his chin firmly. "We've +simply got to." + +The gray-haired president of the bank was waiting for them at the +top of the stairs. + +"My name is Van Deventer," he said, shaking hands with Arthur, +who gave his own name. + +"Where shall our emergency council sit?" he asked. + +"The bank has a board room right over the safety vault. I dare say we +can accommodate everybody there--everybody in the council, anyway." + +Arthur followed into the board-room, and the others trooped in +after him. + +"I'm just assuming temporary leadership," Arthur explained, "because +it's imperative some things be done at once. Later on we can talk +about electing officials to direct our activities. Right now we +need food. How many of you can shoot?" + +About a quarter of the hands were raised. Estelle's was among +the number. + +"And how many are fishermen?" + +A few more went up. + +"What do the rest of you do?" + +There was a chorus of "gardener," "I have a garden in my yard," +"I grow peaches in New Jersey," and three men confessed that they +raised chickens as a hobby. + +"We'll want you gardeners in a little while. Don't go yet. But the +most important are huntsmen and fishermen. Have any of you weapons +in your offices?" + +A number had revolvers, but only one man had a shotgun and shells. + +"I was going on my vacation this afternoon straight from the office," +he explained, "and have all my vacation tackle." + +"Good man!" Arthur exclaimed. "You'll go after the heavy game." + +"With a shotgun?" the sportsman asked, aghast. + +"If you get close to them a shotgun will do as well as anything, +and we can't waste a shell on every bird or rabbit. Those shells of +yours are precious. You other fellows will have to turn fishermen +for a while. Your pistols are no good for hunting." + +"The watchmen at the bank have riot guns," said Van Deventer, +"and there are one or two repeating-rifles there. I don't know +about ammunition." + +"Good! I don't mean about the ammunition, but about the guns. We'll +hope for the ammunition. You fishermen get to work to improvise +tackle out of anything you can get hold of. Will you do that?" + +A series of nods answered his question. + +"Now for the gardeners. You people will have to roam through the +woods in company with the hunters and locate anything in the way of +edibles that grows. Do all of you know what wild plants look like? +I mean wild fruits and vegetables that are good to eat." + +A few of them nodded, but the majority looked dubious. The consensus +of opinion seemed to be that they would try. Arthur seemed a little +discouraged. + +"I guess you're the man to tell about the restaurant," Van Deventer +said quietly. "And as this is the food commission, or something of +that sort, everybody here will be better for hearing it. Anyway, +everybody will have to know it before night. I took over the +restaurant as you suggested, and posted some of the men from the +bank that I knew I could trust about the doors. But there was +hardly any use in doing it." + +"The restaurant stocks up in the afternoon, as most of its +business is in the morning and at noon. It only carries a day's +stock of foodstuffs, and the--the cataclysm, or whatever it was, +came at three o'clock. There is practically nothing in the place. +We couldn't make sandwiches for half the women that are caught +with us, let alone the men. Everybody will go hungry to-night. +There will be no breakfast to-morrow, nor anything to eat until we +either make arrangements with the Indians for some supplies or else +get food for ourselves." + +Arthur leaned his jaw on his hand and considered. A slow flush +crept over his cheek. He was getting his fighting blood up. + +At school, when he began to flush slowly his schoolmates had known +the symptom and avoided his wrath. Now he was growing angry with +mere circumstances, but it would be none the less unfortunate for +those circumstances. + +"Well," he said at last deliberately, "we've got to-- What's that?" + +There was a great creaking and groaning. Suddenly a sort of +vibration was felt under foot. The floor began to take on a slight +slant. + +"Great Heaven!" some one cried. "The building's turning over and +we'll be buried in the ruins!" + +The tilt of the floor became more pronounced. An empty chair slid +to one end of the room. There was a crash. + + + + +VI. + + +Arthur woke to find some one tugging at his shoulders, trying to drag +him from beneath the heavy table, which had wedged itself across +his feet and pinned him fast, while a flying chair had struck him +on the head and knocked him unconscious. + +"Oh, come and help," Estelle's voice was calling +deliberately. "Somebody come and help! He's caught in here!" + +She was sobbing in a combination of panic and some unknown emotion. + +"Help me, please!" she gasped, then her voice broke despondently, +but she never ceased to tug ineffectually at Chamberlain, trying +to drag him out of the mass of wreckage. + +Arthur moved a little, dazedly. + +"Are you alive?" she called anxiously. "Are you alive? Hurry, oh, +hurry and wriggle out. The building's falling to pieces!" + +"I'm all right," Arthur said weakly. "You get out before it all +comes down." + +"I won't leave you," she declared "Where are you caught? Are you +badly hurt? Hurry, please hurry!" + +Arthur stirred, but could not loosen his feet. He half-rolled over, +and the table moved as if it had been precariously balanced, and slid +heavily to one side. With Estelle still tugging at him, he managed +to get to his feet on the slanting floor and stared about him. + +Arthur continued to stare about. + +"No danger," he said weakly. "Just the floor of the one room gave +way. The aftermath of the rock-flaw." + +He made his way across the splintered flooring and piled-up chairs. + +"We're on top of the safe-deposit vault," he said. "That's why +we didn't fall all the way to the floor below. I wonder how we're +going to get down?" + +Estelle followed him, still frightened for fear of the building +falling upon them. Some of the long floor-boards stretched over +the edge of the vault and rested on a tall, bronze grating that +protected the approach to the massive strong-box. Arthur tested +them with his foot. + +"They seem to be pretty solid," he said tentatively. + +His strength was coming back to him every moment. He had been no +more than stunned. He walked out on the planking to the bronze +grating and turned. + +"If you don't get dizzy, you might come on," he said. "We can swing +down the grille here to the floor." + +Estelle followed gingerly and in a moment they were safely below. The +corridor was quite empty. + +"When the crash came," Estelle explained, her voice shaking with +the reaction from her fear of a moment ago, "every one thought the +building was coming to pieces, and ran out. I'm afraid they've all +run away." + +"They'll be back in a little while," Arthur said quietly. + +They went along the big marble corridor to the same western door, +out of which they had first gone to see the Indian village. As +they emerged into the sunlight they met a few of the people who +had already recovered from their panic and were returning. + +A crowd of respectable size gathered in a few moments, all still +pale and shaken, but coming back to the building which was their +refuge. Arthur leaned wearily against the cold stone. It seemed to +vibrate under his touch. He turned quickly to Estelle. + +"Feel this," he exclaimed. + +She did so. + +"I've been wondering what that rumble was," she said. "I've been +hearing it ever since we landed here, but didn't understand where +it came from." + +"You hear a rumble?" Arthur asked, puzzled. "I can't hear anything." + +"It isn't as loud as it was, but I hear it," Estelle insisted. "It's +very deep, like the lowest possible bass note of an organ." + +"You couldn't hear the shrill whistle when we were coming here," +Arthur exclaimed suddenly, "and you can't hear the squeak of a +bat. Of course your ears are pitched lower than usual, and you can +hear sounds that are lower than I can hear. Listen carefully. Does +it sound in the least like a liquid rushing through somewhere?" + +"Y-yes," said Estelle hesitatingly. "Somehow, I don't quite +understand how, it gives me the impression of a tidal flow or +something of that sort." + +Arthur rushed indoors. When Estelle followed him she found him +excitedly examining the marble floor about the base of the vault. + +"It's cracked," he said excitedly. "It's cracked! The vault rose +all of an inch!" + +Estelle looked and saw the cracks. + +"What does that mean?" + +"It means we're going to get back where we belong," Arthur cried +jubilantly. "It means I'm on the track of the whole trouble. +It means everything's going to be all right." + +He prowled about the vault exultantly, noting exactly how the cracks +in the flooring ran and seeing in each a corroboration of his theory. + +"I'll have to make some inspections in the cellar," he went on +happily, "but I'm nearly sure I'm on the right track and can figure +out a corrective." + +"How soon can we hope to start back?" asked Estelle eagerly. + +Arthur hesitated, then a great deal of the excitement ebbed from +his face, leaving it rather worried and stern. + +"It may be a month, or two months, or a year," he answered +gravely. "I don't know. If the first thing I try will work, it +won't be long. If we have to experiment, I daren't guess how long +we may be. But"--his chin set firmly--"we're going to get back." + +Estelle looked at him speculatively. Her own expression grew a +little worried, too. + +"But in a month," she said dubiously, "we--there is hardly any hope +of our finding food for two thousand people for a month, is there?" + +"We've got to," Arthur declared. "We can't hope to get that much +food from the Indians. It will be days before they'll dare to come +back to their village, if they ever come. It will be weeks before +we can hope to have them earnestly at work to feed us, and that's +leaving aside the question of how we'll communicate with them, and +how we'll manage to trade with them. Frankly, I think everybody is +going to have to draw his belt tight before we get through--if we +do. Some of us will get along, anyway." + +Estelle's eyes opened wide as the meaning of his last sentence +penetrated her mind. + +"You mean--that all of us won't--" + +"I'm going to take care of you," Arthur said gravely, "but there +are liable to be lively doings around here when people begin to +realize they're really in a tight fix for food. I'm going to get +Van Deventer to help me organize a police band to enforce martial +law. We mustn't have any disorder, that's certain, and I don't +trust a city-bred man in a pinch unless I know him." + +He stooped and picked up a revolver from the floor, left there +by one of the bank watchmen when he fled, in the belief that the +building was falling. + + + + +VII. + + +Arthur stood at the window of his office and stared out toward the +west. The sun was setting, but upon what a scene! + +Where, from this same window Arthur had seen the sun setting behind +the Jersey hills, all edged with the angular roofs of factories, +with their chimneys emitting columns of smoke, he now saw the same +sun sinking redly behind a mass of luxuriant foliage. And where +he was accustomed to look upon the tops of high buildings--each +entitled to the name of "skyscraper"--he now saw miles and miles +of waving green branches. + +The wide Hudson flowed on placidly, all unruffled by the arrival of +this strange monument upon its shores--the same Hudson Arthur knew +as a busy thoroughfare of puffing steamers and chugging launches. +Two or three small streams wandered unconcernedly across the land +that Arthur had known as the most closely built-up territory on +earth. And far, far below him--Arthur had to lean well out of his +window to see it--stood a collection of tiny wigwams. Those small +bark structures represented the original metropolis of New York. + +His telephone rang. Van Deventer was on the wire. The exchange in +the building was still working. Van Deventer wanted Arthur to come +down to his private office. There were still a great many things to +be settled--the arrangements for commandeering offices for sleeping +quarters for the women, and numberless other details. The men who +seemed to have best kept their heads were gathering there to settle +upon a course of action. + +Arthur glanced out of the window again before going to the +elevator. He saw a curiously compact dark cloud moving swiftly +across the sky to the west. + +"Miss Woodward," he said sharply, "What is that?" + +Estelle came to the window and looked. + +"They are birds," she told him. "Birds flying in a group. I've +often seen them in the country, though never as many as that." + +"How do you catch birds?" Arthur asked her. "I know about shooting +them, and so on, but we haven't guns enough to count. Could we +catch them in traps, do you think?" + +"I wouldn't be surprised," said Estelle thoughtfully. "But it would +be hard to catch many." + +"Come down-stairs," directed Arthur. "You know as much as any of +the men here, and more than most, apparently. We're going to make +you show us how to catch things." + +Estelle smiled, a trifle wanly. Arthur led the way to the +elevator. In the car he noticed that she looked distressed. + +"What's the matter?" he asked. "You aren't really frightened, +are you?" + +"No," she answered shakily, "but--I'm rather upset about this +thing. It's so--so terrible, somehow, to be back here, thousands +of miles, or years, away from all one's friends and everybody." + +"Please"--Arthur smiled encouragingly at her--"please count me your +friend, won't you?" + +She nodded, but blinked back some tears. Arthur would have tried to +hearten her further, but the elevator stopped at their floor. They +walked into the room where the meeting of cool heads was to take +place. + +No more than a dozen men were in there talking earnestly but +dispiritedly. When Arthur and Estelle entered Van Deventer came +over to greet them. + +"We've got to do something," he said in a low voice. "A wave of +homesickness has swept over the whole place. Look at those men. Every +one is thinking about his family and contrasting his cozy fireside +with all that wilderness outside." + +"You don't seem to be worried," Arthur observed with a smile. + +Van Deventer's eyes twinkled. + +"I'm a bachelor," he said cheerfully, "and I live in a hotel. I've +been longing for a chance to see some real excitement for thirty +years. Business has kept me from it up to now, but I'm enjoying +myself hugely." + +Estelle looked at the group of dispirited men. + +"We'll simply have to do something," she said with a shaky smile. "I +feel just as they do. This morning I hated the thought of having +to go back to my boarding-house to-night, but right now I feel as +if the odor of cabbage in the hallway would seem like heaven." + +Arthur led the way to the flat-topped desk in the middle of the room. + +"Let's settle a few of the more important matters," he said in +a businesslike tone. "None of us has any authority to act for +the rest of the people in the tower, but so many of us are in a +state of blue funk that those who are here must have charge for a +while. Anybody any suggestions?" + +"Housing," answered Van Deventer promptly. "I suggest that we draft +a gang of men to haul all the upholstered settees and rugs that +are to be found to one floor, for the women to sleep on." + +"M--m. Yes. That's a good idea. Anybody a better plan?" + +No one spoke. They all still looked much too homesick to take any +great interest in anything, but they began to listen more or less +half-heartedly. + +"I've been thinking about coal," said Arthur. "There's undoubtedly +a supply in the basement, but I wonder if it wouldn't be well to +cut the lights off most of the floors, only lighting up the ones +we're using." + +"That might be a good idea later," Estelle said quietly, "but light +is cheering, somehow, and every one feels so blue that I wouldn't +do it to-night. To-morrow they'll begin to get up their resolution +again, and you can ask them to do things." + +"If we're going to starve to death," one of the other men said +gloomily, "we might as well have plenty of light to do it by." + +"We aren't going to starve to death," retorted Arthur sharply. "Just +before I came down I saw a great cloud of birds, greater than I +had ever seen before. When we get at those birds--" + +"When," echoed the gloomy one. + +"They were pigeons," Estelle explained. "They shouldn't be hard +to snare or trap." + +"I usually have my dinner before now," the gloomy one protested, +"and I'm told I won't get anything to-night." + +The other men began to straighten their shoulders. The peevishness +of one of their number seemed to bring out their latent courage. + +"Well, we've got to stand it for the present," one of them said +almost philosophically. "What I'm most anxious about is getting +back. Have we any chance?" + +Arthur nodded emphatically. + +"I think so. I have a sort of idea as to the cause of our sinking +into the Fourth Dimension, and when that is verified, a corrective +can be looked for and applied." + +"How long will that take?" + +"Can't say," Arthur replied frankly. "I don't know what tools, +what materials, or what workmen we have, and what's rather more to +the point, I don't even know what work will have to be done. The +pressing problem is food." + +"Oh, bother the food," some one protested impatiently. "I don't +care about myself. I can go hungry to-night. I want to get back to +my family." + +"That's all that really matters," a chorus of voices echoed. + +"We'd better not bother about anything else unless we find we +can't get back. Concentrate on getting back," one man stated more +explicitly. + +"Look here," said Arthur incisively. "You've a family, and so have a +great many of the others in the tower, but your family and everybody +else's family has got to wait. As an inside limit, we can hope to +begin to work on the problem of getting back when we're sure there's +nothing else going to happen. I tell you quite honestly that I think +I know what is the direct cause of this catastrophe. And I'll tell +you even more honestly that I think I'm the only man among us who +can put this tower back where it started from. And I'll tell you +most honestly of all that any attempt to meddle at this present time +with the forces that let us down here will result in a catastrophe +considerably greater than the one that happened to-day." + +"Well, if you're sure--" some one began reluctantly. + +"I am so sure that I'm going to keep to myself the knowledge of what +will start those forces to work again," Arthur said quietly. "I +don't want any impatient meddling. If we start them too soon God +only knows what will happen." + + + + +VIII. + + +Van Deventer was eying Arthur Chamberlain keenly. + +"It isn't a question of your wanting pay in exchange for your +services in putting us back, is it?" he asked coolly. + +Arthur turned and faced him. His face began to flush slowly. Van +Deventer put up one hand. + +"I beg your pardon. I see." + +"We aren't settling the things we came here for," Estelle +interrupted. + +She had noted the threat of friction and hastened to put in a +diversion. Arthur relaxed. + +"I think that as a beginning," he suggested, "we'd better get +sleeping arrangements completed. We can get everybody together +somewhere, I dare say, and then secure volunteers for the work." + +"Right." Van Deventer was anxious to make amends for his blunder +of a moment before. "Shall I send the bank watchmen to go on each +floor in turn and ask everybody to come down-stairs?" + +"You might start them," Arthur said. "It will take a long time +for every one to assemble." + +Van Deventer spoke into the telephone on his desk. In a moment he +hung up the receiver. + +"They're on their way," he said. + +Arthur was frowning to himself and scribbling in a note-book. + +"Of course," he announced abstractedly, "the pressing problem +is food. We've quite a number of fishermen, and a few hunters. +We've got to have a lot of food at once, and everything considered, +I think we'd better count on the fishermen. At sunrise we'd better +have some people begin to dig bait and wake our anglers. They'd +better make their tackle to-night, don't you think?" + +There was a general nod. + +"We'll announce that, then. The fishermen will go to the river under +guard of the men we have who can shoot. I think what Indians there +are will be much too frightened to try to ambush any of us, but we'd +better be on the safe side. They'll keep together and fish at nearly +the same spot, with our hunters patrolling the woods behind them, +taking pot-shots at game, if they see any. The fishermen should make +more or less of a success, I think. The Indians weren't extensive +fishers that I ever heard of, and the river ought fairly to swarm +with fish." + +He closed his note-book. + +"How many weapons can we count on altogether?" Arthur asked Van +Deventer. + +"In the bank, about a dozen riot-guns and half a dozen repeating +rifles. Elsewhere I don't know. Forty or fifty men said they had +revolvers, though." + +"We'll give revolvers to the men who go with the fishermen. The +Indians haven't heard firearms and will run at the report, even if +they dare attack our men." + +"We can send out the gun-armed men as hunters," some one suggested, +"and send gardeners with them to look for vegetables and such +things." + +"We'll have to take a sort of census, really," Arthur suggested, +"finding what every one can do and getting him to do it." + +"I never planned anything like this before," Van Deventer remarked, +"and I never thought I should, but this is much more fun than +running a bank." + +Arthur smiled. + +"Let's go and have our meeting," he said cheerfully. + +But the meeting was a gloomy and despairing affair. Nearly every +one had watched the sun set upon a strange, wild landscape. Hardly +an individual among the whole two thousand of them had ever been +out of sight of a house before in his or her life. To look out +at a vast, untouched wilderness where hitherto they had seen the +most highly civilized city on the globe would have been startling +and depressing enough in itself, but to know that they were alone +in a whole continent of savages and that there was not, indeed, +in all the world a single community of people they could greet as +brothers was terrifying. + +Few of them thought so far, but there was actually--if Arthur's +estimate of several thousand years' drop back through time was +correct--there was actually no other group of English-speaking people +in the world. The English language was yet to be invented. Even +Rome, the synonym for antiquity of culture, might still be an +obscure village inhabited by a band of tatterdemalions under the +leadership of an upstart Romulus. + +Soft in body as these people were, city-bred and unaccustomed to +face other than the most conventionalized emergencies of life, they +were terrified. Hardly one of them had even gone without a meal in +all his life. To have the prospect of having to earn their food, +not by the manipulation of figures in a book, or by expert juggling +of profits and prices, but by literal wresting of that food from its +source in the earth or stream was a really terrifying thing for them. + +In addition, every one of them was bound to the life of modern +times by a hundred ties. Many of them had families, a thousand years +away. All had interests, engrossing interests, in modern New York. + +One young man felt an anxiety that was really ludicrous because +he had promised to take his sweetheart to the theater that night, +and if he did not come she would be very angry. Another was to have +been married in a week. Some of the people were, like Van Deventer +and Arthur, so situated that they could view the episode as an +adventure, or, like Estelle, who had no immediate fear because +all her family was provided for without her help and lived far +from New York, so they would not learn of the catastrophe for +some time. Many, however, felt instant and pressing fear for the +families whose expenses ran always so close to their incomes that +the disappearance of the breadwinner for a week would mean actual +want or debt. There are very many such families in New York. + +The people, therefore, that gathered hopelessly at the call of Van +Deventer's watchmen were dazed and spiritless. Their excitement +after Arthur's first attempt to explain the situation to them had +evaporated. They were no longer keyed up to a high pitch by the +startling thing that had happened to them. + +Nevertheless, although only half comprehending what had actually +occurred, they began to realize what that occurrence meant. +No matter where they might go over the whole face of the globe, +they would always be aliens and strangers. If they had been carried +away to some unknown shore, some wilderness far from their own +land, they might have thought of building ships to return to their +homes. They had seen New York vanish before their eyes, however. +They had seen their civilization disappear while they watched. + +They were in a barbarous world. There was not, for example, +a single sulfur match on the whole earth except those in the +runaway skyscraper. + + + + +IX. + + +Arthur and Van Deventer, in turn with the others of the cooler +heads, thundered at the apathetic people, trying to waken them +to the necessity for work. They showered promises of inevitable +return to modern times, they pledged their honor to the belief that +a way would ultimately be found by which they would all yet find +themselves safely back home again. + +The people, however, had seen New York disintegrate, and Arthur's +explanation sounded like some wild dream of an imaginative +novelist. Not one person in all the gathering could actually realize +that his home might yet be waiting for him, though at the same time +he felt a pathetic anxiety for the welfare of its inmates. + +Every one was in a turmoil of contradictory beliefs. On the one hand +they knew that all of New York could not be actually destroyed and +replaced by a splendid forest in the space of a few hours, so the +accident or catastrophe must have occurred to those in the tower, +and on the other hand, they had seen all of New York vanish by +bits and fragments, to be replaced by a smaller and dingier town, +had beheld that replaced in turn, and at last had landed in the +midst of this forest. + +Every one, too, began to feel am unusual and uncomfortable sensation +of hunger. It was a mild discomfort as yet, but few of them had +experienced it before without an immediate prospect of assuaging the +craving, and the knowledge that there was no food to be had somehow +increased the desire for it. They were really in a pitiful state. + +Van Deventer spoke encouragingly, and then asked for volunteers for +immediate work. There was hardly any response. Every one seemed +sunk in despondency. Arthur then began to talk straight from the +shoulder and succeeded in rousing them a little, but every one was +still rather too frightened to realize that work could help at all. + +In desperation the dozen or so men who had gathered in Van Deventer's +office went about among the gathering and simply selected men at +random, ordering them to follow and begin work. This began to awaken +the crowd, but they wakened to fear rather than resolution. They +were city-bred, and unaccustomed to face the unusual or the alarming. + +Arthur noted the new restlessness, but attributed it to growing +uneasiness rather than selfish panic. He was rather pleased that they +were outgrowing their apathy. When the meeting had come to an end he +felt satisfied that by morning the latent resolution among the people +would have crystallized and they would be ready to work earnestly +and intelligently on whatever tasks they were directed to undertake. + +He returned to the ground floor of the building feeling much more +hopeful than before. Two thousand people all earnestly working +for one end are hard to down even when faced with such a task as +confronted the inhabitants of the runaway skyscraper. Even if they +were never able to return to modern times they would still be able +to form a community that might do much to hasten the development +of civilization in other parts of the world. + +His hope received a rude shock when he reached the great hallway on +the lower floor. There was a fruit and confectionery stand here, and +as Arthur arrived at the spot, he saw a surging mass of men about it. +The keeper of the stand looked frightened, but was selling off his +stock as fast as he could make change. Arthur forced his way to +the counter. + +"Here," he said sharply to the keeper of the stand, "stop selling +this stuff. It's got to be held until we can dole it out where +it's needed." + +"I--I can't help myself," the keeper said. "They're takin' +it anyway." + +"Get back there," Arthur cried to the crowd. "Do you call this +decent, trying to get more than your share of this stuff? You'll get +your portion to-morrow. It is going to be divided up." + +"Go to hell!" some one panted. "You c'n starve if you want to, +but I'm goin' to look out f'r myself." + +The men were not really starving, but had been put into a panic by +the plain speeches of Arthur and his helpers, and were seizing what +edibles they could lay hands upon in preparation for the hunger +they had been warned to expect. + +Arthur pushed against the mob, trying to thrust them away from the +counter, but his very effort intensified their panic. There was a +quick surge and a crash. The glass front of the showcase broke in. + +In a flash of rage Arthur struck out viciously. The crowd paid +not the slightest attention to him, however. Every man was too +panic-stricken, and too intent on getting some of this food before +it was all gone to bother with him. + +Arthur was simply crushed back by the bodies of the forty or fifty +men. In a moment he found himself alone amid the wreckage of the +stand, with the keeper wringing his hands over the remnants of +his goods. + +Van Deventer ran down the stairs. + +"What's the matter?" he demanded as he saw Arthur nursing a bleeding +hand cut on the broken glass of the showcase. + +"Bolsheviki!" answered Arthur with a grim smile. "We woke up some +of the crowd too successfully. They got panic-stricken and started +to buy out this stuff here. I tried to stop them, and you see what +happened. We'd better look to the restaurant, though I doubt if +they'll try anything else just now." + +He followed Van Deventer up to the restaurant floor. There were +picked men before the door, but just as Arthur and the bank president +appeared two or three white-faced men went up to the guards and +started low-voiced conversations. + +Arthur reached the spot in time to forestall bribery. + +Arthur collared one man, Van Deventer another, and in a moment the +two were sent reeling down the hallway. + +"Some fools have got panic-stricken!" Van Deventer explained to +the men before the doors in a casual voice, though he was breathing +heavily from the unaccustomed exertion. "They've smashed up the +fruit-stand on the ground floor and stolen the contents. It's nothing +but blue funk! Only, if any of them start to gather around here, +hit them first and talk it over afterward. You'll do that?" + +"We will!" the men said heartily. + +"Shall we use our guns?" asked another hopefully. + +Van Deventer grinned. + +"No," he replied, "we haven't any excuse for that yet. But you might +shoot at the ceiling, if they get excited. They're just frightened!" + +He took Arthur's arm, and the two walked toward the stairway again. + +"Chamberlain," he said happily, "tell me why I've never had as much +fun as this before!" + +Arthur smiled a bit wearily. + +"I'm glad you're enjoying yourself!" he said. "I'm not. I'm going +outside and walk around. I want to see if any cracks have appeared +in the earth anywhere. It's dark, and I'll borrow a lantern down +in the fire-room, but I want to find out if there are any more +developments in the condition of the building." + + + + +X. + + +Despite his preoccupation with his errand, which was to find if +there were other signs of the continued activity of the strange +forces that had lowered the tower through the Fourth Dimension +into the dim and unrecorded years of aboriginal America, Arthur +could not escape the fascination of the sight that met his eyes. A +bright moon shone overhead and silvered the white sides of the tower, +while the brightly-lighted windows of the offices within glittered +like jewels set into the shining shaft. + +From his position on the ground he looked into the dimness of the +forest on all sides. Black obscurity had gathered beneath the dark +masses of moonlit foliage. The tiny birch-bark teepees of the now +deserted Indian village glowed palely. Above, the stars looked +calmly down at the accusing finger of the tower pointing upward, +as if in reproach at their indifference to the savagery that reigned +over the whole earth. + +Like a fairy tower of jewels the building rose. Alone among a +wilderness of trees and streams it towered in a strange beauty: +moonlit to silver, lighted from within to a mass of brilliant gems, +it stood serenely still. + +Arthur, carrying his futile lantern about its base, felt his own +insignificance as never before. He wondered what the Indians must +think. He knew there must be hundreds of eyes fixed upon the strange +sight--fixed in awe-stricken terror or superstitious reverence upon +this unearthly visitor to their hunting grounds. + +A tiny figure, dwarfed by the building whose base he skirted, +Arthur moved slowly about the vast pile. The earth seemed not to +have been affected by the vast weight of the tower. + +Arthur knew, however, that long concrete piles reached far down to +bedrock. It was these piles that had sunk into the Fourth Dimension, +carrying the building with them. + +Arthur had followed the plans with great interest when the +Metropolitan was constructed. It was an engineering feat, and in +the engineering periodicals, whose study was a part of Arthur's +business, great space had been given to the building and the methods +of its construction. + +While examining the earth carefully he went over his theory of the +cause for the catastrophe. The whole structure must have sunk at +the same time, or it, too, would have disintegrated, as the other +buildings had appeared to disintegrate. Mentally, Arthur likened +the submergence of the tower in the oceans of time to an elevator +sinking past the different floors of an office building. All about +the building the other sky-scrapers of New York had seemed to +vanish. In an elevator, the floors one passes seem to rise upward. + +Carrying out the analogy to its logical end, Arthur reasoned that the +building itself had no more cause to disintegrate, as the buildings +it passed seemed to disintegrate, than the elevator in the office +building would have cause to rise because its surroundings seemed +to rise. + +Within the building, he knew, there were strange stirrings of +emotions. Queer currents of panic were running about, throwing +the people to and fro as leaves are thrown about by a current of +wind. Yet, underneath all those undercurrents of fear, was a rapidly +growing resolution, strengthened by an increasing knowledge of the +need to work. + +Men were busy even then shifting all possible comfortable furniture +to a single story for the women in the building to occupy. The +men would sleep on the floor for the present. Beds of boughs could +be improvised on the morrow. At sunrise on the following morning +many men would go to the streams to fish, guarded by other men. All +would be frightened, no doubt, but there would be a grim resolution +underneath the fear. Other men would wander about to hunt. + +There was little likelihood of Indians approaching for some days, at +least, but when they did come Arthur meant to avoid hostilities by +all possible means. The Indians would be fearful of their strange +visitors, and it should not be difficult to convince them that +friendliness was safest, even if they displayed unfriendly desires. + +The pressing problem was food. There were two thousand people in +the building, soft-bodied and city-bred. They were unaccustomed +to hardship, and could not endure what more primitive people would +hardly have noticed. + +They must be fed, but first they must be taught to feed +themselves. The fishermen would help, but Arthur could only hope +that they would prove equal to the occasion. He did not know what +to expect from them. From the hunters he expected but little. The +Indians were wary hunters, and game would be shy if not scarce. + +The great cloud of birds he had seen at sunset was a hopeful +sign. Arthur vaguely remembered stories of great flocks of +wood-pigeons which had been exterminated, as the buffalo was +exterminated. As he considered the remembrance became more clear. + +They had flown in huge flocks which nearly darkened the sky. As late +as the forties of the nineteenth century they had been an important +article of food, and had glutted the market at certain seasons of +the year. + +Estelle had said the birds he had seen at sunset were +pigeons. Perhaps this was one of the great flocks. If it were really +so, the food problem would be much lessened, provided a way could be +found to secure them. The ammunition in the tower was very limited, +and a shell could not be found for every bird that was needed, +nor even for every three or four. Great traps must be devised, or +bird-lime might possibly be produced. Arthur made a mental note +to ask Estelle if she knew anything of bird-lime. + +A vague, humming roar, altering in pitch, came to his ears. He +listened for some time before he identified it as the sound of the +wind playing upon the irregular surfaces of the tower. In the city +the sound was drowned by the multitude of other noises, but here +Arthur could hear it plainly. + +He listened a moment, and became surprised at the number of +night noises he could hear. In New York he had closed his ears to +incidental sounds from sheer self-protection. Somewhere he heard +the ripple of a little spring. As the idea of a spring came into +his mind, he remembered Estelle's description of the deep-toned +roar she had heard. + +He put his hand on the cold stone of the building. There was still +a vibrant quivering of the rock. It was weaker than before, but +was still noticeable. + +He drew back from the rock and looked up into the sky. It seemed +to blaze with stars, far more stars than Arthur had ever seen in +the city, and more than he had dreamed existed. + +As he looked, however, a cloud seemed to film a portion of the +heavens. The stars still showed through it, but they twinkled in +a peculiar fashion that Arthur could not understand. + +He watched in growing perplexity. The cloud moved very swiftly. Thin +as it seemed to be, it should have been silvery from the moonlight, +but the sky was noticeably darker where it moved. It advanced toward +the tower and seemed to obscure the upper portion. A confused motion +became visible among its parts. Wisps of it whirled away from the +brilliantly lighted tower, and then returned swiftly toward it. + +Arthur heard a faint tinkle, then a musical scraping, which became +louder. A faint scream sounded, then another. The tinkle developed +into the sound made by breaking glass, and the scraping sound became +that of the broken fragments as they rubbed against the sides of +the tower in their fall. + +The scream came again. It was the frightened cry of a woman. A +soft body struck the earth not ten feet from where Arthur stood, +then another, and another. + + + + +XI. + + +Arthur urged the elevator boy to greater speed. They were speeding up +the shaft as rapidly as possible, but it was not fast enough. When +they at last reached the height at which the excitement seemed to +be centered, the car was stopped with a jerk and Arthur dashed down +the hall. + +Half a dozen frightened stenographers stood there, huddled together. + +"What's the matter?" Arthur demanded. Men were running, from the +other floors to see what the trouble was. + +"The--the windows broke, and--and something flew in at us!" one of +them gasped. There was a crash inside the nearest office and the +women screamed again. + +Arthur drew a revolver from his pocket and advanced to the door. He +quickly threw it open, entered, and closed it behind him. Those +left out in the hall waited tensely. + +There was no sound. The women began to look even more frightened. The +men shuffled their feet uneasily, and looked uncomfortably at one +another. Van Deventer appeared on the scene, puffing a little from +his haste. + +The door opened again and Arthur came out. He was carrying something +in his hands. He had put his revolver aside and looked somewhat +foolish but very much delighted. + +"The food question is settled," he said happily. "Look!" + +He held out the object he carried. It was a bird, apparently a +pigeon of some sort. It seemed to have been stunned, but as Arthur +held it out it stirred, then struggled, and in a moment was flapping +wildly in an attempt to escape. + +"It's a wood-pigeon," said Arthur. "They must fly after dark +sometimes. A big flock of them ran afoul of the tower and were +dazed by the lights. They've broken a lot of windows, I dare say, +but a great many of them ran into the stonework and were stunned. I +was outside the tower, and when I came in they were dropping to +the ground by hundreds. I didn't know what they were then, but if +we wait twenty minutes or so I think we can go out and gather up +our supper and breakfast and several other meals, all at once." + +Estelle had appeared and now reached out her hands for the bird. + +"I'll take care of this one," she said. "Wouldn't it be a good +idea to see if there aren't some more stunned in the other offices?" + + * * * * * + +In half an hour the electric stoves of the restaurant were going at +their full capacity. Men, cheerfully excited men now, were bringing +in pigeons by armfuls, and other men were skinning them. There was +no time to pluck them, though a great many of the women were busily +engaged in that occupation. + +As fast as the birds could be cooked they were served out to the +impatient but much cheered castaways, and in a little while nearly +every person in the place was walking casually about the halls +with a roasted, broiled, or fried pigeon in his hands. The ovens +were roasting pigeons, the frying-pans were frying them, and the +broilers were loaded down with the small but tender birds. + +The unexpected solution of the most pressing question cheered +every one amazingly. Many people were still frightened, but less +frightened than before. Worry for their families still oppressed +a great many, but the removal of the fear of immediate hunger led +them to believe that the other problems before them would be solved, +too, and in as satisfactory a manner. + +Arthur had returned to his office with four broiled pigeons in +a sheet of wrapping-paper. As he somehow expected, Estelle was +waiting there. + +"Thought I'd bring lunch up," he announced. "Are you hungry?" + +"Starving!" Estelle replied, and laughed. + +The whole catastrophe began to become an adventure. She bit eagerly +into a bird. Arthur began as hungrily on another. For some time +neither spoke a word. At last, however, Arthur waved the leg of +his second pigeon toward his desk. + +"Look what we've got here!" he said. + +Estelle nodded. The stunned pigeon Arthur had first picked up was +tied by one foot to a paper-weight. + +"I thought we might keep him for a souvenir," she suggested. + +"You seem pretty confident we'll get back, all right," Arthur +observed. "It was surely lucky those blessed birds came along. +They've heartened up the people wonderfully!" + +"Oh, I knew you'd manage somehow!" said Estelle confidently. + +"I manage?" Arthur repeated, smiling. "What have I done?" + +"Why, you've done everything," affirmed Estelle stoutly. "You've +told the people what to do from the very first, and you're going +to get us back." + +Arthur grinned, then suddenly his face grew a little more serious. + +"I wish I were as sure as you are," he said. "I think we'll be all +right, though, sooner or later." + +"I'm sure of it," Estelle declared with conviction. "Why, you--" + +"Why I?" asked Arthur again. He bent forward in his chair and fixed +his eyes on Estelle's. She looked up, met his gaze, and stammered. + +"You--you do things," she finished lamely. + +"I'm tempted to do something now," Arthur said. "Look here, Miss +Woodward, you've been in my employ for three or four months. In all +that time I've never had anything but the most impersonal comments +from you. Why the sudden change?" + +The twinkle in his eyes robbed his words of any impertinence. + +"Why, I really--I really suppose I never noticed you before," +said Estelle. + +"Please notice me hereafter," said Arthur. "I have been noticing +you. I've been doing practically nothing else." + +Estelle flushed again. She tried to meet Arthur's eyes and +failed. She bit desperately into her pigeon drumstick, trying to +think of something to say. + +"When we get back," went on Arthur meditatively, "I'll have nothing +to do--no work or anything. I'll be broke and out of a job." + +Estelle shook her head emphatically. Arthur paid no attention. + +"Estelle," he said, smiling, "would you like to be out of a job +with me?" + +Estelle turned crimson. + +"I'm not very successful," Arthur went on soberly. "I'm afraid I +wouldn't make a very good husband, I'm rather worthless and lazy!" + +"You aren't," broke in Estelle; "you're--you're--" + +Arthur reached over and took her by the shoulders. + +"What?" he demanded. + +She would not look at him, but she did not draw away. He held her +from him for a moment. + +"What am I?" he demanded again. Somehow he found himself kissing +the tips of her ears. Her face was buried against his shoulder. + +"What am I?" he repeated sternly. + +Her voice was muffled by his coat. + +"You're--you're dear!" she said. + +There was an interlude of about a minute and a half, then she pushed +him away from her. + +"Don't!" she said breathlessly. "Please don't!" + +"Aren't you going to marry me?" he demanded. + +Still crimson, she nodded shyly. He kissed her again. + +"Please don't!" she protested. + +She fondled the lapels of his coat, quite content to have his arms +about her. + +"Why mayn't I kiss you if you're going to marry me?" Arthur demanded. + +She looked up at him with an air of demure primness. + +"You--you've been eating pigeon," she told him in mock gravity, +"and--and your mouth is greasy!" + + + + +XII. + + +It was two weeks later. Estelle looked out over the now familiar +wild landscape. It was much the same when she looked far away, +but near by there were great changes. + +A cleared trail led through the woods to the waterfront, and a +raft of logs extended out into the river for hundreds of feet. +Both sides of the raft were lined with busy fishermen--men and +women, too. A little to the north of the base of the building a +huge mound of earth smoked sullenly. The coal in the cellar had +given out and charcoal had been found to be the best substitute +they could improvise. The mound was where the charcoal was made. + +It was heart-breaking work to keep the fires going with charcoal, +because it burned so rapidly in the powerful draft of the furnaces, +but the original fire-room gang had been recruited to several +times its original number from among the towerites, and the work +was divided until it did not seem hard. + +As Estelle looked down two tiny figures sauntered across the clearing +from the woods with a heavy animal slung between them. One of them +was using a gun as a walking-stick. Estelle saw the flash of the +sun on its polished metal barrel. + +There were a number of Indians in the clearing, watching with +wide-open eyes the activities of the whites. Dozens of birch-bark +canoes dotted the Hudson, each with its load of fishermen, +industriously working for the white people. It had been hard to +overcome the fear in the Indians, and they still paid superstitious +reverence to the whites, but fair dealings, coupled with a constant +readiness to defend themselves, had enabled Arthur to institute a +system of trading for food that had so far proved satisfactory. + +The whites had found spare electric-light bulbs valuable currency in +dealing with the redmen. Picture-wire, too, was highly prized. There +was not a picture left hanging in any of the offices. Metal +paper-knives bought huge quantities of provisions from the eager +Indian traders, and the story was current in the tower that Arthur +had received eight canoe-loads of corn and vegetables in exchange +for a broken-down typewriter. No one could guess what the savages +wanted with the typewriter, but they had carted it away triumphantly. + +Estelle smiled tenderly to herself as she remembered how Arthur had +been the leading spirit in all the numberless enterprises in which +the castaways had been forced to engage. He would come to her in a +spare ten minutes, and tell her how everything was going. He seemed +curiously boylike in those moments. + +Sometimes he would come straight from the fire-room--he insisted on +taking part in all the more arduous duties--having hastily cleaned +himself for her inspection, snatch a hurried kiss, and then go +off, laughing, to help chop down trees for the long fishing-raft. +He had told them how to make charcoal, had taken a leading part in +establishing and maintaining friendly relations with the Indians, +and was now down in the deepest sub-basement, working with a gang +of volunteers to try to put the building back where it belonged. + +Estelle had said, after the collapse of the flooring in +the board-room, that she heard a sound like the rushing of +waters. Arthur, on examining the floor where the safe-deposit vault +stood, found it had risen an inch. On these facts he had built up +his theory. The building, like all modern sky-scrapers, rested on +concrete piles extending down to bedrock. In the center of one of +those piles there was a hollow tube originally intended to serve +as an artesian well. The flow had been insufficient and the well +had been stopped up. + +Arthur, of course, as an engineer, had studied the construction of +the building with great care, and happened to remember that this +partly hollow pile was the one nearest the safe-deposit vault. The +collapse of the board-room floor had suggested that some change +had happened in the building itself, and that was found when he +saw that the deposit-vault had actually risen an inch. + +He at once connected the rise in the flooring above the hollow +pile with the pipe in the pile. Estelle had heard liquid sounds. +Evidently water had been forced into the hollow artesian pipe under +an unthinkable pressure when the catastrophe occurred. + +From the rumbling and the suddenness of the whole catastrophe +a volcanic or seismic disturbance was evident. The connection of +volcanic or seismic action with a flow of water suggested a geyser or +a hot spring of some sort, probably a spring which had broken through +its normal confines some time before, but whose pressure had been +sufficient to prevent the accident until the failure of its flow. + +When the flow ceased the building sank rapidly. For the fact +that this "sinking" was in the fourth direction--the Fourth +Dimension--Arthur had no explanation. He simply knew that in some +mysterious way an outlet for the pressure had developed in that +fashion, and that the tower had followed the spring in its fall +through time. + +The sole apparent change in the building had occurred above the +one hollow concrete pile, which seemed to indicate that if access +were to be had to the mysterious, and so far only assumed spring, +it must be through that pile. While the vault retained its abnormal +elevation, Arthur believed that there was still water at an immense +and incalculable pressure in the pipe. He dared not attempt to tap +the pipe until the pressure had abated. + +At the end of a week he found the vault slowly settling back into +place. When its return to the normal was complete he dared begin +boring a hole to reach the hollow tube in the concrete pile. + +As he suspected, he found water in the pile--water whose sulfurous +and mineral nature confirmed his belief that a geyser reaching deep +into the bosom of the earth, as well as far back in the realms of +time, was at the bottom of the extraordinary jaunt of the tower. + +Geysers were still far from satisfactory things to explain. There +are many of their vagaries which we cannot understand at all. +We do know a few things which affect them, and one thing is that +"soaping" them will stimulate their flow in an extraordinary manner. + +Arthur proposed to "soap" this mysterious geyser when the renewal +of its flow should lift the runaway sky-scraper back to the epoch +from which the failure of the flow had caused it to fall. + +He made his preparations with great care. He confidently expected +his plan to work, and to see the sky-scraper once more towering +over mid-town New York as was its wont, but he did not allow the +fishermen and hunters to relax their efforts on that account. They +labored as before, while deep down in the sub-basement of the +colossal building Arthur and his volunteers toiled mightily. + +They had to bore through the concrete pile until they reached the +hollow within it. Then, when the evidence gained from the water +in the pipe had confirmed his surmises, they had to prepare their +"charge" of soapy liquids by which the geyser was to be stirred to +renewed activity. + +Great quantities of the soap used by the scrubwomen in scrubbing +down the floors was boiled with water until a sirupy mess was +evolved. Means had then to be provided by which this could be quickly +introduced into the hollow pile, the hole then closed, and then +braced to withstand a pressure unparalleled in hydraulic science. +Arthur believed that from the hollow pile the soapy liquid would +find its way to the geyser proper, where it would take effect in +stimulating the lessened flow to its former proportions. When that +took place he believed that the building would return as swiftly +and as surely as it had left them to normal, modern times. + +The telephone rang in his office, and Estelle answered it. Arthur +was on the wire. A signal was being hung out for all the castaway +to return to the building from their several occupations. They were +about to soap the geyser. + +Did Estelle want to come down and watch? She did! She stood in the +main hallway as the excited and hopeful people trooped in. When +the last was inside the doors were firmly closed. The few friendly +Indians outside stared perplexedly at the mysterious white strangers. + +The whites, laughing excitedly, began to wave to the Indians. Their +leave-taking was premature. + +Estelle took her way down into the cellar. Arthur was awaiting her +arrival. Van Deventer stood near, with the grinning, grimy members +of Arthur's volunteer work gang. The massive concrete pile stood +in the center of the cellar. A big steam-boiler was coupled to a +tiny pipe that led into the heart of the mass of concrete. Arthur +was going to force the soapy liquid into the hollow pile by steam. + +At a signal steam began to hiss in the boiler. Live steam from +the fire-room forced the soapy sirup out of the boiler, through +the small iron pipe, into the hollow that led to the geyser far +underground. Six thousand gallons in all were forced into the +opening in a space of three minutes. + +Arthur's grimy gang began to work with desperate haste. Quickly +they withdrew the iron pipe and inserted a long steel plug, +painfully beaten from a bar of solid metal. Then, girding the +colossal concrete pile, ring after ring of metal was slipped on, +to hold the plug in place. + +The last of the safeguards was hardly fastened firmly when Estelle +listened intently. + +"I hear a rumbling!" she said quietly. + +Arthur reached forward and put his hand on the mass of concrete. + +"It is quivering!" he reported as quietly. "I think we'll be on +our way in a very little while." + +The group broke for the stairs, to watch the panorama as the runaway +sky-scraper made its way back through the thousands of years to +the times that had built it for a monument to modern commerce. + +Arthur and Estelle went high up in the tower. From the window of +Arthur's office they looked eagerly, and felt the slight quiver as +the tower got under way. Estelle looked up at the sun, and saw it +mend its pace toward the west. + +Night fell. The evening sounds became high-pitched and shrill, +then seemed to cease altogether. + +In a very little while there was light again, and the sun was +speeding across the sky. It sank hastily, and returned almost +immediately, _via_ the east. Its pace became a breakneck rush. Down +behind the hills and up in the east. Down in the west, up in the +east. Down and up-- The flickering began. The race back toward modern +times had started. + +Arthur and Estelle stood at the window and looked out as the sun +rushed more and more rapidly across the sky until it became but a +streak of light, shifting first to the right and then to the left +as the seasons passed in their turn. + +With Arthur's arms about her shoulders, Estelle stared out across +the unbelievable landscape, while the nights and days, the winters +and summers, and the storms and calms of a thousand years swept +past them into the irrevocable past. + +Presently Arthur drew her to him and kissed her. While he kissed +her, so swiftly did the days and years flee by, three generations +were born, grew and begot children, and died again! + +Estelle, held fast in Arthur's arms, thought nothing of such trivial +things. She put her arms about his neck and kissed him, while the +years passed them unheeded. + + * * * * * + +Of course you know that the building landed safely, in the exact +hour, minute, and second from which it started, so that when the +frightened and excited people poured out of it to stand in Madison +Square and feel that the world was once more right side up, their +hilarious and incomprehensible conduct made such of the world as +was passing by think a contagious madness had broken out. + +Days passed before the story of the two thousand was believed, but +at last it was accepted as truth, and eminent scientists studied +the matter exhaustively. + +There has been one rather queer result of the journey of the +runaway sky-scraper. A certain Isidore Eckstein, a dealer in jewelry +novelties, whose office was in the tower when it disappeared into the +past, has entered suit in the courts of the United States against +all the holders of land on Manhattan Island. It seems that during +the two weeks in which the tower rested in the wilderness he traded +independently with one of the Indian chiefs, and in exchange for +two near-pearl necklaces, sixteen finger-rings, and one dollar in +money, received a title-deed to the entire island.--He claims that +his deed is a conveyance made previous to all other sales whatever. + +Strictly speaking, he is undoubtedly right, as his deed was +signed before the discovery of America. The courts, however, are +deliberating the question with a great deal of perplexity. + +Eckstein is quite confident that in the end his claim will be +allowed and he will be admitted as the sole owner of real-estate +on Manhattan Island, with all occupiers of buildings and territory +paying him ground rent at a rate he will fix himself. In the mean +time, though the foundations are being reinforced so the catastrophe +cannot occur again, his entire office is packed full of articles +suitable for trading with the Indians. If the tower makes another +trip back through time, Eckstein hopes to become a landholder of +some importance. + +No less than eighty-seven books have been written by members of +the memorable two thousand in description of their trip to the +hinterland of time, but Arthur, who could write more intelligently +about the matter than any one else, is so extremely busy that +he cannot bother with such things. He has two very important +matters to look after. One is, of course, the reenforcement of the +foundations of the building so that a repetition of the catastrophe +cannot occur, and the other is to convince his wife--who is Estelle, +naturally--that she is the most adorable person in the universe. He +finds the latter task the more difficult, because she insists that +_he_ is the most adorable person-- + +[* Transcriber's note: This etext was produced from the February 22, +1919 issue of _Argosy_ magazine.] + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Runaway Skyscraper, by Murray Leinster + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RUNAWAY SKYSCRAPER *** + +***** This file should be named 17355.txt or 17355.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/3/5/17355/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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