Chapter IX

This Time-voyage in the Turber time-craft seemed in duration four or five hours. Crowded hours! A cosmorama of whirling eons. Turber flung us far backward in Time. I did not see any of this part of the trip. I lay in the cabin, pondering what Turber had said— wondering what I could do to escape with Nanette. And wondering if Alan really were dead.

Then Turber called me for the meal. I found Nanette white and solemn and very silent. She spoke to me, casually, it seemed cautiously. I had always known Nanette to have a will of her own; she was nimble-witted.I saw now that she was whollyon her guard. She was silent, apparently docile with Turber. Watchful. She found opportunity once to press my hand. And to murmur. “Careful, Edward—do not anger him.”

A new mood was upon Turber. He seemed in a high good humor. He was courtly with Nanette. Pleasant enough with me, but there was an edge of irony to his pleasantness.

“A long trip, Williams, but we are comfortable enough. If you cause no trouble you may sit in the control room later. A wonderful view from there.”

I asked, “Where are we going?”

“Nowhere,” he said. “In Space we are not moving. I have us poised over what you and I used to call the shore of the Hudson River. You remember it? About the foot of Eightieth Street.”

He seemed pleased to talk—probably for Nanette’s benefit, to please his vanity by exalting himself. “I’m taking us back in Time— back near the beginning of life on this earth. Then coming forward. I have several stops to make. Mere pauses—though in the year 1664 we shall have to make a longer stop. Stay there perhaps for the passing of a night. It’s a quaint world here, in 1664.” He chuckled. “It is to yield me, I hope, quite a little treasure. Gold and jewels. Money, as you know, is an all-powerful thing.”

There were just the three of us at the meal. The interior of this hundred-foot ship was capacious, but there seemed only a few people on board. Turber once made reference to the fact that upon this, his last passing, we had many people to gather. But what few I now say made a motley crew indeed! There were several men, brown, white, hairy of body, clothed in crude animal skins; heads that showed receding foreheads, upon which the tangled, matted hair grew low; dangling, gorilla-like arms. Men from some primitive age snatched up by Turber. They seemed stupidly docile, animal-like. There was a fellow who seemed the opposite extreme. Turber called him Jonas. A man of about thirty, small and slender, with a long white robe, a golden-tasseled sash, and a gold band about his forehead. His wavy brown hair was long to the base of his neck. His skin was pale white. His features delicately molded; his nose thin, high-bridged; his mouth loose-lipped. He was obsequious with Turber. He suggested Lea and San a trifle. I surmised that he might belong to their Time-world. The giant Indian, he of the flat, broken nose, was operating the controls of the ship. Turber called him Bluntnose. He was, I learned later, a Mohican Indian of New York State. Motley crew! And there was one woman. Turber addressed her as Josefa. She served us the meal. She wore a blouse and gaudy skirt with a vivid sash. Her thick hair fell on her shoulders. Her face had a barbaric beauty with a mixture of races stamped upon it. She spoke English, with occasional Spanish words intermingled.

She served us with what seemed a defiant sullenness. It contrasted with Turber’s good humor. He reached for the woman once as she passed him—reached for her with a coarse caress. But she drew away; and his grin at me was a leer of amusement.

This pantomime—which Nanette did not see—was to be plain enough. And a moment later, as I chanced to look around, I saw the woman standing watching us; staring at Nanette and Turber. And there was upon her face a blazing intensity of hate. She stood tense, hands upon her hips. Her fingers were writhing; and in the folds of her sash I saw protruding the handle of a dagger.