He tried to speak boldly and with nonchalance, but the girl's keen ear detected at least a little of the emotion that was troubling him. She kept a moment's silence, while the quivering lights drew on and on, steadily, slowly, like a host of fireflies on the bosom of the night.
"Why don't you get the telescope, and see?" she asked, at length.
"No use. It isn't a night-glass. Couldn't see a thing."
"But anyhow, those lights mean men, don't they?"
"Naturally. But until we know what kind, we're better off right where we are. I'm willing to welcome the coming guest, all right, if he's peaceful. Otherwise, it's powder and ball, hot water, stones and things for him!"
The girl stared a moment at the engineer, while this new idea took root within her brain.
"You--you don't mean," she faltered at last, "that these may be--savages!"
He started at the word. "What makes you think that?" he parried, striving to spare her all needless alarm.
She pondered a moment, while the fire-dots, like a shoal of swimming stars, drew slowly nearer, nearer the Manhattan shore.
"Tell me, are they savages?"
"How do I know?"
"It's easy enough to see you've got an opinion about it. You think they're savages, don't you?"
"I think it's very possible."
"And if so--what then?"
"What then? Why, in case they aren't mighty nice and kind, there'll be a hot time in the old town, that's all. And somebody'll get hurt. It won't be us!"
Beatrice asked no more, for a minute or two, but the engineer felt her fingers tighten on his arm.
"I'm with you, till the end!" she whispered.
Another pregnant silence, while the nightwind stirred her hair and wafted the warm feminine perfume of her to his nostrils. Stern took a long, deep breath. A sort of dizziness crept over him, as from a glass of wine on an empty stomach. The Call of Woman strove to master him, but he repelled it. And, watching the creeping lights, he spoke; spoke to himself as much as to the girl; spoke, lest he think too much.
"There's a chance, a mere possibility," said he, "that those boats, canoes, coracles or whatever they may be, belong to white people, far descendants of the few suppositions survivors of the cataclysm. There's some slight chance that these people may be civilized, or partly so.
"Why they're coming across the Hudson, at this time o' night, with what object and to what place, we can't even guess. All we can do is wait, and watch and--be ready for anything."
"For anything!" she echoed. "You've seen me shoot! You know!"