If you have seen a weather-beaten scarecrow flapping in the wind, you have some notion of his outward guise. No tramp you ever laid eyes on could have offered so preposterous an appearance.
Down over his shoulders fell the matted, dusty hair. His tangled beard reached far below his waist. Even his eyebrows, naturally rather light, had grown to a heavy thatch above his eyes.
Save that he was not gray or bent, and that he still seemed to have kept the resilient force of vigorous manhood, you might have thought him some incredibly ancient Rip Van Winkle come to life upon that singular stage, there in the tower.
But little time gave he to introspection or the matter of his own appearance. With one quick gesture he swept away the shrouding tangle of webs, spiders, and dead flies that obscured the window. Out he peered.
"Good Heavens!" cried he, and started back a pace.
She ran to him.
"What is it?" she breathlessly exclaimed.
"Why, I don't know--yet. But this is something big! Something universal! It's--it's--no, no, you'd better not look out--not just yet."
"I must know everything. Let me see!"
Now she was at his side, and, like him, staring out into the clear sunshine, out over the vast expanses of the city.
A moment's utter silence fell. Quite clearly hummed the protest of an imprisoned fly in a web at the top of the window. The breathing of the man and woman sounded quick and loud.
"All wrecked!" cried Beatrice. "But--then--"
"Wrecked? It looks that way," the engineer made answer, with a strong effort holding his emotions in control. "Why not be frank about this? You'd better make up your mind at once to accept the very worst. I see no signs of anything else."
"The worst? You mean--"
"I mean just what we see out there. You can interpret it as well as I."
Again the silence while they looked, with emotions that could find no voicing in words. Instinctively the engineer passed an arm about the frightened girl and drew her close to him.
"And the last thing I remember," whispered she, "was just--just after you'd finished dictating those Taunton Bridge specifications. I suddenly felt--oh, so sleepy! Only for a minute I thought I'd close my eyes and rest, and then--then--"
"This?"
She nodded.
"Same here," said he. "What the deuce can have struck us? Us and everybody--and everything? Talk about your problems! Lucky I'm sane and sound, and--and--"
He did not finish, but fell once more to studying the incomprehensible prospect.
Their view was towards the east, but over the river and the reaches of what had once upon a time been Long Island City and Brooklyn, as familiar a scene in the other days as could be possibly imagined. But now how altered an aspect greeted them!