This train of reasoning seemed satisfactory, and Phoebe turned to resume her book.

Copernicus intercepted her as she passed the table.

"What d'ye think o' this little phonograph, Cousin Phoebe?" he said.

One of Droop's boxes stood open and beside it Phoebe saw a phonograph with the usual spring motor and brass megaphone.

"I paid twenty-five fer that, secon' hand, down to Keene," said the proud owner.

"There!" exclaimed Phoebe. "I've always wanted to know how those things worked. I've heard 'em, you know, but I've never worked one."

"It's real easy," said Droop, quite delighted to find Phoebe so interested. "Ye see, when it's wound up, all ye hev to do is to slip one o' these wax cylinders on here—so."

He adjusted the cylinder, dropped the stylus and pushed the starting lever.

Instantly the stentorian announcement rang out from the megaphone.

"The Last Rose of Summer—Sola—Sung by Signora Casta Diva—Edison Record!"

"Goodness gracious sakes alive!" cried Rebecca, turning in affright. "Who's that?"

Her two companions raised their right hands in a simultaneous appeal for silence. Then the song began.

With open eyes and mouth, the amazed Rebecca drew slowly nearer, and finally took her stand directly in front of the megaphone.

The song ended and Copernicus stopped the motor.

"Oh, ain't it lovely!" Phoebe cried.

"Well—I'll—be—switched!" Rebecca exclaimed, with slow emphasis. "Can it sing anythin' else?"

"Didn't you never hear one afore, Cousin Rebecca?" Droop asked.

"I never did," she replied. "What on the face of the green airth does it?"

"Have ye any funny ones?" Phoebe asked, quickly, fearful of receiving a long scientific lecture.

"Yes," said Droop. "Here's a nigger minstrels. The's some jokes in it."

The loud preliminary announcement made Rebecca jump again, but while the music and the songs and jokes were delivered, she stood earnestly attentive throughout, while her companions grinned and giggled alternately.

"Is thet all?" she asked at the conclusion.

"Thet's all," said Droop, as he removed the cylinder.

"Well, I don't see nothin' funny 'bout it," she said, plaintively.

Droop's pride was touched.

"Ah, but that ain't all it can do!" he cried. "Here's a blank cylinder. You jest talk at the machine while it's runnin', an' it'll talk back all you say."

This was too much for Rebecca's credulity, and Droop could not induce her to talk into the trumpet.

"You can't make a fool o' me, Copernicus Droop," she exclaimed.

"You try, Cousin Phoebe," he said at last.

Phoebe looked dubiously at her sister as though half of opinion that her shrewd example should be followed.

"You sure it'll do it?" she asked.

"Certain!" cried Copernicus, nodding his head with violence.

She stood a moment leaning over with her pretty lips close to the trumpet.

Then she straightened up with a face of comical despair.

"I don't know what to say," she exclaimed.

Droop stopped the motor and looked about the room. Suddenly his eyes brightened.

"There," he cried, pointing to the book Phoebe had been reading, "read suthin' out o' that into it."

Phoebe opened the book at random, and as Droop started the motor again she read the following lines slowly and distinctly into the trumpet:

"It is thus made clear from the indubitable evidence of the plays themselves that Francis Bacon wrote the immortal works falsely ascribed to William Shakespeare, and that the gigantic genius of this man was the result of the possession of royal blood. In this unacknowledged son of Elizabeth Tudor, Queen of England, was made manifest to all countries and for all centuries the glorious powers inherent in the regal blood of England."

"That'll do," said Droop. "Now jest hear it talk back."

He substituted the repeating stylus for the recording point and set the motor in motion once more. To the complete stupefaction of Rebecca, the repetition of Phoebe's words was perfect.

"Why! It's Phoebe's voice," she began, but Phoebe broke in upon her suddenly.

"Why, see the hills on each side of us, Mr. Droop," she cried.

Droop glanced out and leaped a foot from the ground.

"Goramighty!" he screamed, "she'll strike!" He dashed to the engine-room and threw up the forward edges of the aeroplanes. Instantly the vessel swooped upward and the hills Phoebe had seen appeared to drop into some great abyss.

The two women ran to a window and saw that they were over a bleak and rocky island covered with ice and snow.

Droop came to their side, quite pale with fright.

"Great Moses!" he exclaimed. "I warn't more'n jest in time, I tell ye! We was a-settlin' fast. A little more'n we'd ha' struck—" He snapped the fingers of both hands and made a gesture expressive of the complete destruction which would have resulted.

"I tell you what, Mr. Droop," said Rebecca, sternly, but with a little shake in her voice, "you've got to jest tend to business and navigate this thing we're a-ridin' on. You can't work and play too. Don't you say anythin' more to Phoebe or me till we get to the pole. What time'll that be?"

"About six or half-past, I expect," said Droop, humbly. "But I don't see how I can be workin' all the time. The machine don't need it, an', besides, I've got to eat, haven't I?"

"When it comes time fer your victuals, Phoebe'll watch the windows an' the little clocks on the wall while I feed ye. But don't open yer head agin now, only fer necessary talkin' an' eatin', till we get there. I don't want any smash-ups 'round here."

Copernicus found it expedient to obey these instructions, and under Rebecca's watchful generalship he was obliged to pace back and forth from engine-room to window while Phoebe read and her sister knitted. So passed the remainder of the day, save when at dinner-time the famished man was relieved by his young lieutenant.

Immediately after supper, however, they all three posted themselves at the windows, on the lookout for the North Pole. Droop slowed down the propeller, and the aeroplanes being thus rendered less effective they slowly descended.

They were passing over an endless plain of rough and ragged ice. In every direction all the way to the horizon nothing could be seen but the glare of white.

"How'll you know when we get there?" asked Phoebe.

Droop glanced apprehensively at Rebecca and replied in a whisper:

"We'll see the pole a-stickin' up. We can't go wrong, you know. The Panchronicon is fixed to guide itself allus due north."

"You don't need to whisper—speak right up, Mr. Droop," said Rebecca, sharply.

Copernicus started, looked nervously about and then stared out of the window northward with a very business-like frown.

"Is the' really an' truly a pole there?" Phoebe asked.

"Yes," said Droop, shortly.

"An' can ye see the meridians jammed together like in the geographies?" asked Rebecca.

"No," said Droop, "no, indeed—at least, I didn't see any."

"Why, Rebecca," said Phoebe, "the meridians are only conventional signs, you know. They don't——"

"Hallo!" Droop cried, suddenly, "what's that?" He raised a spyglass with which he had hitherto been playing and directed it northward for a few seconds. Then he turned with a look of relief on his face.

"It's the pole!" he exclaimed.

Phoebe snatched the spyglass and applied it to her eye.

Yes, on the horizon she could discern a thin black line, rising vertically from the plain of ice. Even as she looked it seemed to be nearer, so rapid was their progress.

Droop went to the engine-room, lessened speed and brought the aeroplanes to the horizontal. He could look directly forward through a thick glass port directly over the starting-handle. Gradually the great machine settled lower and lower. It was now running quite slowly and the aeroplanes acted only as parachutes as they glided still forward toward the black upright line.

In silence the three waited for the approaching end of this first stage of their journey. A few hundred yards south of their goal they seemed about to alight, but Droop slightly inclined the aeroplanes and speeded up the propeller a little. Their vessel swept gently upward and northward again, like a gull rising from the sea. Then Droop let it settle again. Just as they were about to fall rather violently upon the solid mass of ice below them, he projected a relatively small volume of gas from beneath the structure. Its reaction eased their descent, and they settled down without noise or shock.

They had arrived!

Copernicus came forward to the window and pointed to a tall, stout steel pole projecting from the ice a few yards to the right of the vessel.

"Thet, neighbors, is the North Pole!" he said, with a sweeping wave of the hand.

For some minutes the three voyagers stood in silence gazing through the window at the famous pole. This, then, was the goal of so much heroic endeavor! It was to reach this complete opposite of all that is ordinarily attractive that countless ambitious men had suffered—that so many had died!

"Well!" exclaimed Rebecca at length. "I be switched ef I see what there is fer so many folks to make sech a fuss about!"

Droop scratched his head thoughtfully and made no reply. Surely it would have been hard to point out any charms in the endless plain of opaque ice hummocks, unrelieved save by that gaunt steel pole.

"Where's the open sea?" Rebecca asked, after a few moments' pause. "Dr. Kane said the' was an open sea up here."

"Oh, Dr. Kane!" said Droop, contemptuously. "He's no 'count fer modern facts."

"What I can't understand," said Phoebe, "is how it comes that, if nobody's ever been up here, they all seem to know there's a North Pole here."

"That's a fact," Rebecca exclaimed. "How'd they know about it? The' ain't anythin' in the Bible 'bout it, is the'?"

Droop looked more cheerful at this and answered briskly:

"Oh, they don't know 'bout it. Ye see, that pole there ain't a nat'ral product of the soil at all. Et's the future man done that—the man who invented this Panchronicon and brought me up here before. He told me how that he stuck that post in there to help him run this machine 'round and 'round fer cuttin' meridians."

"Oh!" exclaimed both sisters together.

"Yes," Droop continued. "D'ye see thet big iron ring 'round the pole, lyin' on the ground?"

"I don't see any ground," said Rebecca, ruefully.

"Well, on the ice, then. Don't ye see it lyin' black there against the snow?"

"Yes—yes, I see it," said Phoebe.

"Well, that's what I'm goin' to hitch the holdin' rope on to. You'll see how it's done presently."

He glanced at the clock.

"Seven o'clock," he said. "I guessed mighty close when I said 'twould take us twenty hours. We left Peltonville at ten-thirty last night."

"Seven o'clock!" cried Rebecca. "So 'tis. Why, what's the matter with the sun. Ain't it goin' to set at all?"

"Not much!" said Droop, chuckling. "Sun don't set up here, Cousin Rebecca. Not until winter-time, an' then et stays set till summer again."

"Well!" was the breathless reply. "An' where in creation does it go when it stays set?"

"Why, Rebecca," exclaimed Phoebe, "the sun is south of the equator in winter, you know."

"Shinin' on the South Pole then," Droop added, nodding.

For a moment Rebecca looked from one to the other of her companions, and then, realizing the necessity of keeping her mind within its accustomed sphere, she changed the subject.

"Come now—the' ain't any wind to blow us away now, I hope. Let's open our windows an' air out those state-rooms."

She started toward her door.

"Hold on!" cried Droop, extending his arm to stop her. "You don't want to fall down dead o' cold, do ye?"

"What!"

"Don't you know what a North Pole is like fer weather an' sich?" Droop continued. "Why, Cousin Rebecca, it's mos' any 'mount below zero outside. Don't you open a window—not a tiny crack—if ye don't want to freeze solid in a second."

"There!" Rebecca exclaimed. "You do provoke me beyond anythin', Copernicus Droop! Ef I'd a-knowed the kind o' way we'd had to live—why, there! It's wuss'n pigs!"

She marched indignantly into her room and closed the door. A moment later she put out her head.

"Phoebe Wise," she said, "if you take my advice, you'll make your bed an' tidy yer room at once. Ain't any use waitin' any longer fer a chance to air."

Phoebe smiled and moved toward her own door.

"Thet's a good idea," said Droop. "You fix yer rooms an' I'll do some figurin'. Ye see I've got to figure out how long it'll take us to get back six years. I've a notion it'll take about eighteen hours, but I ain't certain sure."

Poor Rebecca set to work in her rooms with far from enviable feelings. Her curiosity had been largely satisfied and the unwonted conditions were proving very trying indeed. Could she have set out with the prospect of returning to those magical days of youth and courtship, as Droop had originally proposed, the end would have justified the means. But they could not do this now if they would, for Phoebe had left her baby clothes behind. Thus her disappointment added to her burdens, and she found herself wishing that she had never left her comfortable home, however amazing had been her adventures.

"I could'v aired my bed at least," she muttered, as she turned the mattress of her couch in the solitude of her chamber.

She found the long-accustomed details of chamber work a comfort and solace, and, as she finally gazed about the tidy room at her completed work, she felt far more contented with her lot than she had felt before beginning.

"I guess I'll go help Phoebe," she thought. "The girl is that slow!"

As she came from her room she found Copernicus leaning over the table, one hand buried in his hair and the other wielding a pencil. He was absorbed in arithmetical calculations.

She did not disturb him, but turned and entered Phoebe's room without the formality of knocking. As she opened the door, there was a sharp clatter, as of a door or lid slamming.

"Who's there?" cried Phoebe, sharply.

She was seated on the floor in front of her trunk, and she looked up at her sister with a flushed and startled face.

"Oh, it's you!" she said, guiltily.

Rebecca glanced at the bed.

It had not been touched.

"Well, I declare!" Rebecca exclaimed. "Ain't you ever agoin' to fix up your room, Phoebe Wise?"

"Oh, in a minute, Rebecca. I was just agoin' over my trunk a minute."

She leaned back against the foot of the bed, and folding her hands gazed pensively into vacancy, while Rebecca stared at her in astonishment.

"Do you know," Phoebe went on, "I've ben thinkin' it's awful mean not to give you a chance to go back to 1876, Rebecca. Joe Chandler's a mighty fine man!"

Rebecca gave vent to an unintelligible murmur and turned to Phoebe's bed. She grasped the mattress and gave it a vicious shake as she turned it over. She was probably only transferring to this inoffensive article a process which she would gladly have applied elsewhere.

There was a long silence while Rebecca resentfully drew the sheets into proper position, smoothed them with swift pats and caressings, and tucked them neatly under at head and sides. Then came a soft, apologetic voice.

"Rebecca!"

The spinster made no reply but applied herself to a mathematically accurate adjustment of the top edge of the upper sheet.

"Rebecca!"

The second call was a little louder than the first, and there was a queer half-sobbing, half-laughing catch in the speaker's voice that commanded attention.

Rebecca looked up.

Phoebe was still sitting on the floor beside her trunk, but the trunk was open now and the young woman's rosy face was peering with a pathetic smile over a—what!—could it be!

Rebecca leaned forward in amazement.

Yes, it was! In Phoebe's outstretched hands was the dearest possible little baby's undergarment—all of cambric, with narrow ribbons at the neck.

For a few seconds the two sisters looked at each other over this unexpected barrier. Then Phoebe's lips quivered into a pathetic curve and she buried her face in the little garment, laughing and crying at once.

Rebecca dropped helplessly into a chair.

"Phoebe Martin Wise!" she exclaimed. "Do you mean—hev you brought——?"

She fell silent, and then, darting at her sister, she took her head in her hands and deposited a sudden kiss on the smooth bright gold-brown hair and whisked out of Phoebe's room and into her own.

In the meantime Copernicus was too deeply absorbed in his calculations to notice these comings and goings. Apparently he had been led into the most abstruse mathematical regions. Nothing short of the triple integration of transcendental functions should have been adequate to produce those lines of anxious care in his face as he slowly covered sheet after sheet with figures.

He was at length startled from his preoccupation by a gentle voice at his side.

"Can't I help, Mr. Droop?"

It was Phoebe, who, having made all right in her room and washed all traces of tears from her face, had come to note Droop's progress.

Dazed, he raised his head and looked unexpectedly into a lovely face made the more attractive by an expression only given by a sense of duty unselfishly done.

"I—I wish'd you'd call me Cousin Copernicus," he said for the fifth time.

She picked up one of the sheets on which he had been scribbling as though she had not heard him, and said:

"Why, dear me! How comes it you have so much figurin' to do?"

"Well," he began, in a querulous tone, "it beats all creation how many things a feller has to work out at once! Ye see, I've got a rope forty foot long that's got to tie the Panchronicon to the North Pole while we swing 'round to cut meridians. Now, then, the question is, How many times an hour shall we swing 'round to get to 1892, an' how long's it goin' to take an' how fast must I make the old thing hum along?"

"But you said eighteen hours by the clock would do it."

"Well, I jest guessed at that by the time the future man an' I took to go back five weeks, ye know. But I can't seem to figur it out right."

Phoebe seated herself at the table and took up a blank sheet of paper.

"Please lend me your pencil," she said. "Now, then, every time you whirl once 'round the pole to westward you lose one day, don't you?"

"That's it," said Droop, cheerfully. "Cuttin' twenty-four meridians——"

"And how many days in twenty-two years?" Phoebe broke in.

"You mean in six years."

"Why, no," she replied, glancing at Droop with a mischievous smile, "it's twenty-two years back to 1876, ain't it?"

"To '76—why, but——"

He caught sight of her face and stopped short.

There came a pleased voice from one of the state-rooms.

"Yes, we've decided to go all the way back, Mr. Droop."

It was Rebecca.

She came forward and stood beside her sister, placing one hand affectionately upon her shoulder.

Droop leaned back in his chair with both hands on the edge of the table.

"Goin' all the way! Why, but then——"

He leaped to his feet with a radiant face.

"Great Jumpin' Jerusha!" he cried.

Slapping his thigh he began to pace excitedly up and down.

"Why, then, we'll get all the big inventions out—kodak an' phonograph and all. We'll marry Joe Chandler an' set things agoin' in two shakes fer millions."

"Eight thousand and thirty-five," said Phoebe in a quiet voice, putting her pencil to her lips. "We'll have to whirl round the pole eight thousand and thirty-five times."

"Whose goin' to keep count?" asked Rebecca, cheerfully. Ah, how different it all seemed now! Every dry detail was of interest.

Phoebe looked up at Droop, who now resumed his seat, somewhat sobered.

"Don't have to keep count," he replied. "See that indicator?" he continued, pointing to a dial in the ceiling which had not been noticed before. "That reads May 3, 1898, now, don't it? Well, it's fixed to keep always tellin' the right date. It counts the whirls we make an' keeps tabs on every day we go backward. Any time all ye hev to do is to read that thing an' it'll tell ye jest what day 'tis."

"Then what do you want to calculate how often to whirl round?" asked Phoebe, in disgusted tones.

"Well, ye see I want to plan out how long it'll take," Droop replied. "I want to go slow so as to avoid side weight—but I don't want to go too slow."

"I see," said Phoebe. "Well, then, how many times a minute did the future man take you when you whirled back five weeks?"

"'Bout two times a minute."

"That's one hundred and twenty times every hour. Did you feel much side weight then?"

"Scarcely any."

"Well, let's see. Divide eight thousand and thirty-five whirls by one hundred and twenty, an' you get sixty-seven hours. So that, ef we go at that rate it'll be two days and nineteen hours 'fore we get back to 1876."

"Don't talk about days," Droop objected. "It's sixty-seven hours by the clock—but it's twenty-two years less than no time in days, ye know."

"Sixty-seven hours," said Phoebe. "Well, that ain't so bad, is it? Why not go round twice a minute?"

"We can't air our beds fer three days, Phoebe," said Rebecca.

"But if we go much faster, we'll all be sick with this side weight trouble that Mr. Droop tells about."

"I vote fer twice a minute," said Droop. And so twice a minute was adopted.

"Air ye goin' to start to-night, Mr. Droop?" asked Rebecca.

"Well, no," he replied. "I think it's best to wait till to-morrow. Ye see, the power that runs the Panchronicon is got out o' the sunlight that falls on it. Of course, we're not all run out o' power by a good lot, but we've used considerable, an' I think it's a little mite safer to lie still fer a few hours here an' take in power from the sun. Ye see, it'll shine steady on us all night, an' we'll store up enough power to be sure o' reachin' 1876 in one clip."

"Well," said Rebecca, "ef thet's the plan, I'm goin' to bed right now. It's after eight o'clock, an' I didn't get to sleep las' night till goodness knows when. Good-night! Hedn't you better go, too, Phoebe?"

"I guess I will," said Phoebe, turning to Copernicus. "Good-night, Mr. Droop."

"Good-night, Cousin Phoebe—good-night, Cousin Rebecca. I'll go to bed myself, I b'lieve."

The two doors were closed and Droop proceeded to draw the steel shutters in order to produce artificially the gloom not vouchsafed by a too-persistent sun.

In half an hour all were asleep within the now motionless conveyance.



CHAPTER V

DROOP'S THEORY IN PRACTICE

All were up betimes when the faithful clock announced that it ought to be morning. As for the sun, as though resenting the liberties about to be taken by these adventurers with its normal functions, it refused to set, and was found by the three travellers at the same altitude as the night before.

Promptly after breakfast Droop proceeded to don a suit of furs which he drew from a cupboard within the engine-room.

"Ye'd better hev suthin' hot ready when I come in again," he said. "I 'xpect I'll be nigh froze to death."

He drew on a huge cap of bear's fur which extended from his crown to his shoulders. There was a small hole in front which exposed only his nose and eyes.

"My, but you do look just like a pictur of Kris Kringle!" laughed Phoebe. "Don't he, Rebecca?"

Rebecca came to the kitchen door wiping a dish with slow circular movements of her towel.

"I don't guess you'll freeze very much with all that on," she remarked.

"Thet shows you don't know what seventy or eighty below zero means," said a muffled voice from within the fur cap. "You'll hev suthin' hot, won't ye?" Droop continued, looking appealingly at Phoebe.

"The'll be a pot o' good hot tea," she said. "That'll warm you all right."

Droop thought of something more stimulating and fragrant, but said nothing as he returned to the cupboard. Here he drew forth an apparently endless piece of stout rope. This he wound in a thick coil and hung over his head.

"Now, then," he said, "when I get down you shet the door at the top of the stairs tight, coz jest's soon's I open the outside door, thet hall's goin' to freeze up solid."

"All right!" said Phoebe. "I'll see to it."

Droop descended the stairs with a heavy tread, and as he reached the foot Phoebe closed the upper door, which she now noticed was provided with weather-strips.

Then the two women stood at the windows on the right-hand side of the vessel and watched Droop as he walked toward the pole. He raised the huge iron ring, snapping over it a special coupling hook fixed to the end of the rope.

Then he backed toward the vessel, unrolling the coil of rope as he moved away from the pole. Evidently they were within the forty-foot limit from the pole, for Droop had some rope to spare when he at length reached under the machine to attach the end to a ring which the sisters could not see.

He emerged from beneath the bulging side of the vessel swinging his arms and blowing a mighty volume of steam, which turned to snow as it left him. As he made directly for the entrance again, Phoebe ran to the kitchen.

"Poor man, he'll be perished!" she exclaimed.

As Droop entered the room, bringing with him a bitter atmosphere, Phoebe appeared with a large cup of hot tea.

"Here, Mr. Droop," she said, "drink this quick!"

Copernicus pulled off his cap and sat down to drink his tea without a word. When he had finished it, he pulled back his chair with a sigh.

"Whillikins! But 'twas cold!" he exclaimed. "Seems mos' like heaven to get into a nice warm room like this!"

"An' did ye get every thin' done right?" Rebecca asked.

"I guess I did," he said, emphatically. "I don't want to take no two bites out o' that kind o' cherry."

He rose and proceeded to remove his fur coverings.

"Goin' to start right now?" said Phoebe.

"Might's well, I guess."

He proceeded to the engine-room, followed by Phoebe, who watched his actions with the greatest interest.

"What you doin' with that handle?" she asked.

"That sets the airyplane on the uptilt. I'm only settin' it a mite—jest 'nough to keep the machine from sinkin' down when we get to movin'."

"How are you goin' to lift us up?"

"Just let out a mite o' gas below," said Droop. He suited the action to the word, and, with a tremendous hissing beneath it, the vessel rose slowly.

Droop pulled the starting lever and they moved forward with increasing speed. When they had gathered way, he shut off the gas escape and carefully readjusted the aeroplanes until the machine as a whole moved horizontally.

There was felt a slight jerk as they reached the end of the rope, and then they began to move in a circle from east to west.

Phoebe glanced at the clock.

"Just five minutes past eight," she said.

The sun was pouring its beams into the right-hand windows when they started, but the shafts of light now began to sweep circularly across the floor, and in a few moments, as they faced the sun, it ceased to shine in from the right. Immediately afterward it shone in at the left-hand windows and circled slowly around until again they were in shadow with the sun behind them.

Droop took out his watch and timed their revolutions by the sun's progress from window to window.

"'Bout one to the minute," he remarked. "Guess I'll speed her up a mite."

Carefully he regulated the speed, timing their revolutions accurately.

"There!" he said at length. "I guess that's pretty nigh two to the minute. D'ye feel any side weight?" he said, addressing his companions.

"No," said Rebecca.

Phoebe shook her head.

"You manage right well, Mr. Droop," she said. "You must have practised a good deal."

"Oh, not much," he replied, greatly pleased. "The future man showed me how to work it three—four times. It's simple 'nough when ye understand the principles."

These remarks brought a new idea to Rebecca's mind.

"Why, Mr. Droop," she exclaimed, "whatever's the use o' you goin' back to 1876! Why don't ye jest set up as the inventor o' this machine? I'm sure thet ought to make yer everlastin' fortune!"

"Oh, I thought o' that," he said. "But it's one thing to know how to work a thing an' it's a sight different to know how it's made an' all that. The future man tried to explain all the new scientific principles that was mixed into it—fer makin' power an' all—but I couldn't understand that part at all."

"An' besides," exclaimed Phoebe, "it's a heap more fun to be the only ones can use the thing, I think."

"Yes—seems like fun's all we're thinkin' of," said Rebecca, rising and moving toward the kitchen. "We're jest settin' round doin' nothin'. I'll finish with the breakfast things if you'll put to rights and dust, Phoebe. We can't make beds till night with the windows tight shut."

These suggestions were followed by the two women, while Droop, picking up the newspaper which Rebecca had brought, sat down to read.

After a long term of quiet reading, his attention was distracted by Rebecca's voice.

"I declare to goodness, Phoebe!" she was saying. "Seems's if every chance you get, you go to readin' those old letters."

"Well, the's one or two that's spelled so funny and written so badly that I haven't been able yet to read them," Phoebe replied.

Droop looked over his paper. Phoebe and her sister were seated near one of the windows on the opposite side.

"P'raps I could help ye, Cousin Phoebe," he said. "I've got mighty strong eyesight."

"Oh, 'tain't a question of eyesight," Phoebe replied, laughing.

"Oh, I see," said Droop, smiling slyly, "letters from some young feller, eh?"

He winked knowingly at Rebecca, who drew herself up indignantly and looked severely down at her knitting.

Phoebe blushed, but replied quite calmly:

"Yes—some of them from a young man, but they weren't any of them written to me."

"No?" said Droop. "Who was they to—'f I may ask?"

"They were all written to this lady."

Phoebe held something out for Droop's inspection, and he walked over to take it.

He recognized at once the miniature on ivory which he had seen once before in Peltonville.

"Well," he said, taking the portrait from her and eying it with his head on one side, "if ye hadn't said 'twasn't you, I'd certainly a-thought 'twas. I'd mos' sworn 'twas your photygraph, Cousin Phoebe. Who is it, anyway?"

"It isn't anybody," she replied, "but it was Mistress Mary Burton of Burton Hall. I'm one of her descendants, an' these are some letters she had with her in this funny old carved box when she disappeared with her lover. They fled to Holland and were married there, the story goes, an' one o' their children came over in the early days o' New England. He brought the letters an' the picture with him."

"Well, now! I want to know!" exclaimed Droop, in great admiration. "'Twouldn't be perlite, I s'pose, to ask to hear some o' them letters?"

"Would you like to hear some of them?" Phoebe asked.

"I would fer a fact," he replied.

"Well, bring your chair over here and I'll read you one," she said.

Droop seated himself near the two sisters and Phoebe unfolded a large and rather rough sheet of paper, yellow with age, on which Droop perceived a bold scrawl in a faded ink.

"This seems to have been from Mary Burton's father," Phoebe said. "I don't think he can have been a very nice man. This is what he says:

"'Dear Poll'—horrid nickname, isn't it?"

"Seems so to me," said Droop.

"'Dear Poll—I'm starting behind the grays for London, on my way, as you know ere this, to be knighted by her Majesty. I send this ahead by Gregory on Bess—she being fast enow for my purpose—which is to get thee straight out of the grip of that'——"

Phoebe hesitated.

"He uses a bad word there," she said, in a low tone. "I'll go on and leave that out."

"Yes, do," said Droop.

"'That —— aunt of thine,'" she continued, reading. "'I know her tricks and I learn how she hath suffered that'——"

"There's another," said Phoebe.

"Skip it," said Droop, gravely.

"'That —— milk-and-water popinjay to come courting my Poll. So see you follow Gregory, mistress, and without wait or parley come with him to the Peacock Inn, where I lie to-night. The grays are in fine fettle and thy black mare grows too fat for want of exercise. Thy mother-in-law commands thy instant return with Gregory, having much business forward with preparing gowns and fallals against our presentation to her Majesty.'"

"It is signed 'Isaac Burton,'" said Phoebe, "and see, the paper was sealed with a steel gauntlet."

Droop examined the seal carefully and then returned it, saying:

"Looks to me like a bunch of 'sparagus tumbled over on one side."

Phoebe laughed.

"But what always interests me most in this letter is the postscript," she said. "It reads: 'Thy mother thinks thou wilt make better speed if I make thee to know that the players thou wottest of'——"

"What's a 'wottest'?" said Droop, in puzzled tones.

"Wottest means knowest—haven't you read Shakespeare?"

"No," said Droop.

"'The players thou wottest of are to stop at the Peacock, and will be giving some sport there.'

"Now, those players always interest me," Phoebe continued. "Somehow I can't help but believe that William Shakespeare——"

"Fiddle ends!" Rebecca interrupted. "I've heard that talk fifty-leven times an' I'm pinin' fer relief. Mr. Droop, would you mind tellin' us what the time o' year is now. Seems to me that sun has whirled in an' out o' that window 'nough times to bring us back to the days o' creation."

Droop consulted the date indicator and announced that it was now September 5, 1897.

"Not a year yet!" cried the two women together.

"Why, no," said Copernicus. "Ye see, we are takin' about three hours to lose a year."

"Fer the lands sakes!" cried Rebecca. "Can't we go a little faster?"

"My gracious, yes!" said Droop. "But I'm 'fraid o' the side weight fer ye."

"I'd rather hev side weight than wait forever," said Rebecca, with a grim smile.

"D'ye think ye could stand a little more speed, Cousin Phoebe?" said Droop.

"We might try," she replied.

"Well, let's try, then," he said, and turned promptly to the engine-room.

Very soon the difference in speed was felt, and as they found themselves travelling more rapidly in a circle, the centrifugal force now became distinctly perceptible.

The two women found themselves obliged to lean somewhat toward the central pole to counteract this tendency, and as Copernicus emerged from the engine-room he came toward the others at a decided angle to the floor.

"There! now ye feel the side weight," he exclaimed.

"My, ain't it funny!" exclaimed Rebecca. "Thet's the way I've felt afore now when the cars was goin' round a curve—kinder topplin' like."

"Why, that is the centrifugal force," Phoebe said, with dignity.

"It's the side weight—that's what I call it," Droop replied, obstinately, and for some time there was silence.

"How many years back are we makin' by the hour now, Mr. Droop?" Rebecca asked at length.

"Jest a little over two hours fer a year now," he replied.

"Well," said Rebecca, in a discontented tone, "I think the old Panchronicle is rayther a slow actin' concern, considerin' th' amount o' side weight it makes. I declare I'm mos' tired out leanin' over to one side, like old man Titus's paralytic cow."

Phoebe laughed and Droop replied:

"If ye can't stand it or set it, why lay, Cousin Rebecca. The's good settles all 'round."

With manifestly injured feelings Droop hunted up a book and sat down to read in silence. The Panchronicon was his pet and he did not relish its being thus contemned.

The remainder of the morning was spent in almost completely silent work or reading. Droop scarce took his eyes from his book. Phoebe spent part of the time deep in the Baconian work and part of the time contemplating the monotonous landscape. Rebecca was dreaming of her future past—or her past future, while her knitting grew steadily upon its needles.

The midday meal was duly prepared and disposed of, and, as the afternoon wore away, the three travellers began to examine the date indicator and to ask themselves surreptitiously whether or not they actually felt any younger. They took sly peeps at each other's faces to observe, if possible, any signs of returning youth.

By supper-time there was certainly a less aged air about each of the three and the elders inwardly congratulated themselves upon the unmistakable effects of another twelve hours.

Not long after the supper dishes had been washed, Rebecca took Phoebe aside and said:

"Phoebe, it seems to me you'd ought to be goin' to bed right soon, now. You're only 'bout eighteen years old at present, an' you'll certainly begin to grow smaller again very soon. It wouldn't hardly be respectable fer ye to do yer shrinkin' out here."

This view of the probabilities had not yet struck Phoebe.

"Why, no!" she exclaimed, rather startled. "I—I don't know's I thought about it. But I certainly don't want Mr. Droop to see me when my clothes begin to hang loose."

Then a new problem presented itself.

"Come to think of it, Rebecca," she said, dolefully, "what'll I do all the time between full-grown and baby size? I didn't bring anything but the littlest clothes, you know."

"Thet's so," said Rebecca, thoughtfully. Then, after a pause: "I don't see but ye'll hev to stay abed, Phoebe, till we get to th' end," she said, sympathetically.

"There it is," said Phoebe, crossly. "Gettin' sent to bed a'ready—even before I expected it."

"But 'tain't that, Phoebe," said Rebecca, with great concern. "I ain't sendin' ye to bed—but—but—whatever else can ye do with a man in the house!"

"Nothin'," Phoebe replied, with a toss of her chin.

She crossed the room and held out her hand to Droop.

"Good-night, Mr. Droop," she said.

Surprised at this sudden demonstration of friendship, he took her hand and tipped his head to one side as he looked into her face.

"Next time you see me, I don't suppose you'll know me, I'll be so little," she said, trying to laugh.

"I—I wish't you'd call me Cousin Copernicus," he said, coaxingly.

"Well, p'raps I will when I see ye again," she replied, freeing her hand with a slight effort.

Rebecca retired shortly after her sister and Copernicus was once more left alone. He rubbed his hands slowly, with a sense of satisfaction, and glanced at the date dial.

"July 2, 1892," he said to himself. "I'm only thirty-four years old. Don't feel any older than that, either."

He walked deliberately to the shutters, closed them and turned on the electric light. Surrounded thus by the wonted conditions of night, it was not long before he began to yawn. He removed his coat and shoes and lay back in an easy chair to meditate at ease. He faced toward the pole so that the "side weight" would tend to press him gently backward into his chair and therefore not annoy him by calling for constant opposing effort.

He soon dozed off and was whisked through a quick succession of fantastic dreams. Then he awoke suddenly, and as though someone had spoken to him. Listening intently, he only heard the low murmur of the machinery below and the ticking of the many clocks and indicators all about him.

He closed his eyes, intending to take up that last dream where he had been interrupted. He recollected that he had been on the very point of some delightful consummation, but just what it was he could not recall.

Sleep evaded him, however. His mind reverted to the all-important question of the recovered years. He began to plan again.

This time he should not make his former mistakes. No—he would not only make immense wealth promptly with the great inventions, he would give up liquor forever. It would be so easy in 1876, for he had never taken up the unfortunate habit until 1888.

Then—rich, young, sober, he would seek out a charming, rosy, good-natured girl—something of the type of Phoebe, for instance. They would be married and——

He got up at this and looked at the clock. It was after midnight. He looked at the date indicator. It said October 9, 1890.

"Well, come!" he thought. "The old Panchronicon is a steady vessel. She's keepin' right on."

He put on his shoes again, for something made him nervous and he wished to walk up and down.

The first thing he did after his shoes were donned was to gaze at himself in the mirror.

"Don't look any younger," he thought, "but I feel so." He walked across the room once or twice.

"Shucks!" he exclaimed. "Couldn't expect to look younger in these old duds, an' at this time o' night, too—tired like I am."

For some time he walked up and down, keeping his eyes resolutely from the date indicator. Finally he threw himself down in the chair again and closed his eyes, nervous and exhausted. He did not feel sleepy, but he must have dozed, for the next time he looked at the clock it was half-past one.

He put out the light and crossed to a settle. Here he lay at full length courting sleep. When he awoke, he thought, refreshed and alert, he would show his youth unmistakably.

But sleep would not return. He tried every position, every trick for propitiating Morpheus. All in vain.

At length he rose again and turned on the light. It was two-fifteen. This time he could not resist looking at the date indicator.

It said September 30, 1889.

Again he looked into the glass.

"My, but I'm nervous!" he thought as he turned away, disappointed. "I look older than ever!"

As he paced the floor there all alone, he began to doubt for the first time the success of his plan.

"It must work right!" he said aloud. "Didn't I go back five weeks with that future man? Didn't he——"

A fearful thought struck him. Had he perhaps made a mistake? Had they been cutting meridians the wrong way?

But no; the indicator could not be wrong, and that registered a constantly earlier date.

"Ah, I know!" he suddenly exclaimed. "I'll ask Cousin Phoebe."

He reflected a moment. Yes—the idea was a good one. She would be only fifteen years old by this time, and must certainly have changed to an extent of which he was at his age incapable. Besides, she had been asleep, and nervous insomnia could not be responsible for retarding the evidences of youth in her case. His agony of dread lest this great experiment fail made him bold.

He walked directly to Phoebe's door and knocked—first softly, then more loudly.

"Cousin Phoebe—Cousin Phoebe," he said.

After a few calls and knockings, there came a sleepy reply from within.

"Well—what—who is it?"

"It's Cousin Copernicus," he said. "Please tell me. Hev ye shrunk any yet?"

"What—how?" The tones were very sleepy indeed.

"Hev ye shrunk any yet? Are ye growin' littler in there? Oh, please feel fer the footboard with yer toe!"

He waited and heard a rustling as of someone moving in bed.

"Did ye feel the footboard?" he asked.

"Yes—kicked it good—now let me sleep." She was ill-natured with much drowsiness.

Poor Droop staggered away from the door as though he had been struck.

All had failed, then. They were circling uselessly. Those inventions would never be his. The golden dreams he had been nursing—oh, impossible! It was unbearable!

He put both hands to his head and walked across the room. He paused half-consciously before a small closet partly hidden in the wall.

With an instinctive movement, he touched a spring and the door slid back. He drew from the cupboard thus revealed two bottles and a glass and returned to seat himself at the table.

A half an hour later the Panchronicon, circling in the outer brightness and silence, contained three unconscious travellers, and one of them sat with his arms flung across the table supporting his head, and beside him an empty bottle.



CHAPTER VI

SHIPWRECKED ON THE SANDS OF TIME

Rebecca was the first of the three to waken. Over her small window she had hung a black shawl to keep out the light, and upon this screen were thrown recurrent flashes of sunlight.

"Still a-swingin'," she murmured. "Wonder how fur back we be now!"

She was herself surprised at the eagerness she felt to observe at last the results of their extraordinary attempt.

She rose quickly and was very soon ready to leave her room. She was longing to see Phoebe—Phoebe as she had been when a girl.

Opening her door, she was astonished to find the lamps of the main room aglow and to see Copernicus in his shirt-sleeves, asleep with his head on the table.

As she stepped out of her own room, her senses were offended by the odor of alcohol. With horror she realized that rum, the spirit of all the sources of evil, had found its way into their abode.

She entertained so violent a repugnance for liquors and for men under their influence that she could not bring herself to approach Copernicus.

"He's gone an' got drunk again," she muttered, glaring with helpless anger at the bottles and then at him.

"Mister Droop! Copernicus Droop!" she cried in a high, sharp voice.

There was no reply.

She looked about her for something to prod him with. There was an arm-chair on casters beside her door. She drew this to her and pushed it with all her might toward the unconscious man.

The chair struck violently against Droop's seat, and even caused his body to sway slightly, but he still slept and gave no sign.

"That settles it!" she exclaimed, with mingled disgust and alarm in her face.

"What's the matter?"

It was Phoebe who called.

"It's me," said Rebecca. "Can I come in?"

"Yes."

Rebecca walked into Phoebe's room, which she found darkened like her own. Her sister was in bed.

"What ever happened to you?" Phoebe asked. "Sounded as though ye'd fallen down or somethin'."

Rebecca stood stiffly with her back to the closed door, her hands folded before her.

"Copernicus Droop is tight! Dead drunk!" she exclaimed, with a shaking voice.

"Drunk!" cried Phoebe. "Lands sakes!—an'—" She looked about her with alarm. "Then what's happened to the machine?" she asked.

"Whirlin', whirlin', same as ever! Cuttin' meridians or sausage meat fer all I care. I jest wish to goodness an' all creation I'd never ben sech a plumb born nateral fool as to—oh, wouldn't I like to jest shake that man!" she broke out, letting her anger gain the upper hand.

Then Phoebe recalled their situation and their expectations of the night before.

"Why, then I ought to be gettin' little pretty fast," she said, feeling her arms. "I don't see's I've shrunk a mite, hev I?"

"No more'n I hev!" Rebecca exclaimed, hotly. "Nor you won't, nuther. Ye might jest's well make up yer mind to it thet the whole business is foolish folderols. We're a nice couple o' geese, we are, to come out here to play 'Here we go round the mulberry bush' with the North Pole—an' all along of a shif'less, notorious slave o' rum!"

She plumped herself into a chair and glared at the darkened window as though fascinated by those ever-returning flashes of sunlight.

"Well—well—well!" murmured Phoebe.

She was much disappointed, and yet somehow she could not avoid a certain pleasure in the thought that at least there was no fear of a return to childhood.

"But what're we goin' to do?" she asked at length. "If Mr. Droop's so tight he can't manage the machine, what'll we do. Here we are tied up to the North Pole——"

"Oh, drat the old Panchronicon!" cried Rebecca.

Then rising in her wrath, she continued with energy: "The's one thing I'm goin' to do right this blessed minute. I'm goin' to draw a hull bucket o' cold water an' throw it over that mis'able critter in there! Think o' him sleepin' on the table—the table as we eat our victuals on!"

"No—no. Don't try to wake him up first!" cried Phoebe. "Let's have breakfast—we can have it in the kitchen—an' then you can douse him afterward. Just think of the wipin' an' cleanin' we'll have to do after it. We'll be starved if we wait breakfast for all that ruction!"

Rebecca reflected a moment. Then:

"I guess ye're right, Phoebe," she said. "My, won't that carpet look a sight! I'll go right an' fix up somethin' to eat, though goodness knows, I'm not hungry."

She left Phoebe to dress and made a wide circuit to avoid even approaching the table on her way to the kitchen. Not long afterward she was followed by her sister, who took a similar roundabout path, for Phoebe was quite as much in horror of drink and drinkers as Rebecca.

She glanced at the date indicator as she passed it.

"My sakes!" she said, as she entered the kitchen, "it's March 25, 1887. Why, then's the time that I had the measles so bad. Don't you remember when I was thirteen years old an' Dr. ——"

Rebecca broke in with a snort.

"Eighty-seven grandmothers!" she exclaimed. "Don't you get to frettin' 'bout gettin' the measles or anything else, Phoebe—only sof'nin' of the brain—I guess we've both got that right bad!"

"I don't know 'bout that," Phoebe replied, as she began to set the small table for two. "I believe we're gettin' back, after all, Rebecca. The's one thing sure. Everybody knows that ye lose a day every time you go round the world once from east to west, an' I'm sure we've gone round often enough to lose years. I believe that indicator's all right."

"We've not ben goin' round the world, though," Rebecca replied. "That's the p'int. This old iron clothes-pole out here ain't the hull world, I can tell ye!"

"Well, but all the meridians——"

"Oh, bother yer meridians! I ain't seen one o' the things yet—nor you hevn't, either, Phoebe Wise!"

Phoebe was not convinced. It seemed not at all unreasonable, after all, that they should lose time without undergoing any physical change. She concluded to argue the matter no further, however.

Their meal was eaten in silence. As they rose to clear the table, Phoebe said:

"Th' ain't any use of goin' back to 1876 now, is there, Rebecca. Though I do s'pose it won't make any difference to Mr. Droop. He can bring out his inventions an'——"

"Not with my money, or Joe Chandler's, either," Rebecca declared, firmly. "Not as Joe'd ask me to marry him now. He'd as soon think o' marryin' his grandmother."

"Then what's the use o' goin' back any further. We might's well stop the machine right now, so's not to have so many more turns to wind up again."

"Fiddlesticks!" Rebecca exclaimed. "Don't you fret about that! Don't I tell ye it's folderol! Tell ye what ye can do, though. Open them shutters out there an' let in some sunlight. I've more'n half a mind to open a window, too. Thet smell o' rum in there makes me sick."

"We'd freeze to death in a minute if we tried it," said Phoebe, as she entered the main room.

She went to each of the four windows and opened all the shutters, avoiding in the meantime even a glance at the middle of the room. She did not forget the date indicator, however.

"Merry Christmas!" she cried, with a little laugh. "It's Christmas-day, 1886, Rebecca."

The engine-room door was open. Perhaps it was a sign of her returning youth, but the fact is her fingers itched to get at those bright, tempting brass and steel handles. Droop had explained their uses and she felt sure she could manage the machinery. What a delightful thing it would be to feel the Panchronicon obeying her hand!

"Really, Rebecca," she exclaimed, "if we're not going back to '76 after all, I think it's a dreadful waste of time for us to be throwin' away six months every hour this way."

"'Twon't be long," Rebecca replied, as she turned the hot water into her dishpan. "You come in here an' help wash these dishes, an' ef I don't soon wake up that mis'able—" She did not trust herself further, but tightly compressed her lips and confined her rising choler.

"Why, Rebecca Wise," said Phoebe, "you know it will be hours before that man's got sense enough to run this machine. I'm goin' to stop it myself, right now."

Rebecca had just taken a hot plate from her pan, but she paused ere setting it down, alarmed at Phoebe's temerity.

"Don't you dast to dream o' sech a thing, Phoebe!" she cried, with frightened earnestness.

But Phoebe was confident, and crossed the threshold with a little laugh.

"Why, Rebecca, what you scared of?" she said. "It's just as easy as that—see!"

She pulled the starting lever.

The next instant found her flying out into the middle of the main room following Droop, the table, and all the movable furniture. In the kitchen there was a wild scream and a crash of crockery as Rebecca was thrown against the rear partition.

Phoebe had pulled the lever the wrong way and the Panchronicon was swiftly reaching full speed.

"Heavens and airth!" cried Rebecca.

"Whatever in gracious—" began the dismayed Phoebe.

She broke off in renewed terror as she found herself pushed by an irresistible force to the side of the room.

"Here—here!" she heard from the kitchen. "What's this a-pullin'? Land o' promise, Phoebe, come quick! I've got a stroke!"

"I can't come!" wailed Phoebe. "I'm jammed tight up against the wall. It's as though I was nailed to it."

"Oh, why—why did ye touch that machinery!" cried Rebecca, and then said no more.

The speed indicator pointed to one hundred and seventy-five miles an hour. They were making one revolution around the pole each second—and they were helpless.

As she found herself pushed outward by the immensely increased centrifugal force, Phoebe found it possible to seat herself upon one of the settles, and she now sat with her back pressed firmly against the south wall of the room, only able by a strong effort to raise her head.

She turned to the right and found that Droop had found a couch on the floor under the table and chairs at the rear of the room, also against the south wall.

In the kitchen Rebecca had crouched down as she found herself forced outward, and she now sat dazed on the kitchen floor surrounded by the fragments of their breakfast all glued to the wall as tightly as herself.

"Oh, dear—oh, dear!" she cried, closing her eyes. "Copernicus Droop said that side weight would be terrible if we travelled too fast. Why, I'm so heavy sideways I feel like as if I weighed 497-1/2 pounds like that fat woman in the circus down to Keene."

"So do I," Phoebe said, "only I'm so dizzy, too, I can hardly think."

"Shet your eyes, like me," said Rebecca.

"I would only I can't keep 'em off the North Pole there," said Phoebe, as she gazed fascinated through the north window opposite.

"Why, what's the matter with the child!" Rebecca exclaimed, in alarm. "Air ye struck silly, Phoebe?"

"No, but I guess you'd want to watch it too if you could see that ring we're tied to spinnin' round right close to the top of the pole. There—there!" she continued, shrilly. "It'll fly right off in another minute! There! Oh, dear!"

Their attachment did indeed appear precarious. The increased speed acting through the inclined aeroplane had caused the vessel to rise sharply, and the rope had raised the ring by which it was attached to the pole until it came in contact with the steel ball at the top, when it could rise no farther. Here the iron ring was grinding against and under the retaining ball which alone prevented its slipping off the top of the pole.

"I don't see's we'd be any wuss off ef we did come loose," said Rebecca, with eyes still closed. "At least we wouldn't be gummed here ez tight's if the walls was fly-paper."

"No, but we'd fly off at a tangent into infinite space, Rebecca Wise," Phoebe said, sharply.

"Where's that?" asked her sister. "I'll engage 'tain't any wuss place than the North Pole."

"Why, it's off into the ether. There isn't any air there or anythin'. An' they say it's fifty times colder than the North Pole."

"Who's ben there?"

"Why, nobody—" Phoebe began.

"Then let's drop it," snapped Rebecca. "Dr. Kane said the' was an open sea at the North Pole—an' I'm sick o' bein' told about places nobody's ever ben to before."

Phoebe was somewhat offended at this and there was a long silence, during which she became more reassured touching the danger of breaking away from the Pole. Soon she, too, was able to shut her eyes.

The silence was broken by a meek voice from under the table.

"Would you mind settin' off my chist?" said Droop.

There was no answer and he opened his eyes. His bewilderment and surprise were intense when he discovered his situation.

Shutting his eyes again, he remarked:

"What you flashin' that bright light in my eyes so often for?"

Phoebe gave vent to a gentle sniff of contempt.

"My—my—my!" Droop continued, in meek amazement. "I s'pose I must hev taken two whole bottles. I never, never felt so heavy's this before! What's the old Pan lyin' on it's side fer?"

"'Tain't on its side," snapped Phoebe. "The old thing's run away, Copernicus Droop, an' it's all your fault." There was a quiver in her voice.

"Run away!" said Droop, opening his eyes again. "Where to?"

"Nowheres—jest whirlin'. Only it's goin' a mile a second, I do believe—an' it'll fly off the pole soon—an'—an' we'll all be killed!" she cried, bursting into tears.

She dragged her hands with great difficulty to her face against which she found them pressed with considerable energy. Crying under these circumstances was so very unusual and uncomfortable that she soon gave it up.

"Oh, I see! It's the side weight holds me here. Where are you?"

There was no reply, so he turned his head and eyes this way and that until at length he spied Phoebe on the settle, farther forward.

"Am I under the table?" he said. "Where's Cousin Rebecca? Was she pressed out through the wall?"

"I'm out here in the kitchen, Copernicus Droop," she cried. "I wish to goodness you'd ben pressed in through the walls of the lock-up 'fore ever ye brought me'n Phoebe into this mess. Ef you're a man or half one, you'll go and stop this pesky old Panchronicle an' give us a chance to move."

"How can I go?" he cried, peevishly. "What the lands sakes did you go an' make the machine run away for? Couldn't ye leave the machinery alone?"

"I didn't touch your old machine!" cried Rebecca. "Phoebe thought we'd be twisted back of our first birthday ef the thing wasn't stopped, an' she pulled the handle the wrong way, that's all!"

Droop rolled his eyes about eagerly for a glimpse of the date indicator.

"What's the date, Cousin Phoebe?" he asked.

"April 4, 1884—no, April 3d—2d—oh, dear, it's goin' back so fast I can't tell ye the truth about it!"

"Early in 1884," Droop repeated, in awe-struck accents. "An' we're a-whirlin' off one day every second—just about one year in six minutes. Great Criminy crickets! When was you born, Cousin Phoebe?"

"Second of April, 1874."

"Ten years. One year in six minutes—gives ye jest one hour to live. Then you'll go out—bang!—like a candle. I'll go next, and Cousin Rebecca last."

"Well!" exclaimed Rebecca, angrily, "ef I can hev the pleasure o' bein' rid o' you, Copernicus Droop, it'll be cheap at the price—but the's no sech luck. Ef you think ye can fool us any more with yer twaddle 'bout cuttin' meridians, ye're mistaken—that's all I can say."

Droop was making desperate efforts to climb along the floor and reach the engine-room, but, although by dint of gigantic struggles he managed to make his way a few feet, he was then obliged to pause for breath, whereupon he slid gently and ignominiously back to his nook under the table.

Here he found himself in contact with a corked bottle. He looked at it and felt comforted. At least he had access to forgetfulness whenever he pleased to seek it.

The two women found it wisest to lie quiet and speak but little. The combined rotary movement and sense of weight were nervously disturbing, and for a long time no one of the three spoke. Only once in the middle of the forenoon did Phoebe address Droop.

"Whatever will be the end o' this?" she said.

"Why, we'll keep on whirlin' till the power gives out," he replied. "Ye hevn't much time to live now, hev ye?"

With a throb of fear felt for the first time, Phoebe looked at the indicator.

"It's May, 1874," she said.

"Jest a month—thirty seconds," he said, sadly.

"Copernicus Droop, do you mean it?" screamed Rebecca from the kitchen.

"Unless the power gives out before then," he replied. "I don't suppose ye want to make yer will, do ye?"

"Stuff!" said Phoebe, bravely, but her gaze was fixed anxiously on the indicator, now fast approaching the 2d of April.

"Oh, dear! 'F I could only see ye, Phoebe!" cried Rebecca. "I know he's a mis'able deceivin' man, but if—if—oh, Phoebe, can't ye holler!"

"It's April 8th—good-bye!" Phoebe said, faintly.

"Phoebe—Phoebe!"

"Hurray—hurray! It's March 31st, and here I am!"

Phoebe tried to clap her hands, but the effort was in vain.

"I allus said it was folderol," said Rebecca, sternly. "Oh, but I'd like to throw somethin' at that Copernicus Droop!"

"Come to think of it," said Droop, "that future man must hev come back long, long before his birthday."

"Why didn't ye say that sooner?" cried Rebecca.

There was no further conversation until long afterward, when Rebecca suddenly remarked:

"Aren't ye hungry, Phoebe?"

"Why, it's gettin' along to dinner-time, ain't it?" she replied. "I don't see, though, how I'm to get any victuals, do you?"

"Why, the's bread an' other scraps slammed up against the wall here all round me," said Rebecca. "Couldn't we fix some way to get some of 'em to ye?"

Phoebe looked anxiously about and finally caught sight of her sister's knitting work near at hand. It proved to be just within reach, and by slow degrees and much effort she brought it into her lap within easy reach of both her heavy hands.

"Oh, dear!" she said, "I feel's if both my arms had turned to lead. Here, Rebecca, I'm goin' to see if I can roll your ball o' yarn along the floor through the kitchen door. The centrifugal force will bring it to you. Then you can cut the yarn an' tie somethin' on the end for me to eat an' I'll haul it back through the door."

"That's jest the thing, Phoebe. Go on—I'm ready."

The theory seemed excellent, as Rebecca had fortunately been working with a very tough flaxen yarn; but so great was the apparent weight of Phoebe's arms that it was only after a long series of trials ending in failures that she finally succeeded.

"I've got it!" cried Rebecca, triumphantly. "Now, then, I've got a slice of ham and two slices of bread——"

"Don't send ham," said Phoebe. "I'd be sure to eat it if I had it, an' 'twould make me fearful dry. I'm sure I don't see how I'm to get any water in here."

"Thet's so," said Rebecca. "Well, here's an apple and two slices of bread."

"Are you keepin' enough for yourself, Rebecca?"

"Enough an' to spare," she replied. "Now, then—all ready! Pull 'em along!"

Phoebe obeyed and soon had secured possession of the frugal meal which Rebecca had been able to convey to her.

She offered a portion of her ration to Droop, but he declined it, saying he had no appetite. He had lapsed into a kind of waking reverie and scarce knew what was going on about him.

The two women also were somewhat stupefied by the continual rotation and their enforced immobility. They spoke but seldom and must have dozed frequently, for Phoebe was much surprised to find, on looking at the clock, that it was half-past five.

She glanced at the date indicator.

"Why, Rebecca!" she cried. "Here 'tis November, 1804!"

"My land!" cried Rebecca, forgetting her scepticism. "What do you s'pose they're doin' in New Hampshire now, Phoebe?"

"It's 'bout election time, Rebecca. They're probably votin' for Adams or Madison or somebody like that."

"My stars!" said Rebecca. "What ever shall we do ef this old machine goes on back of the Revolution! I should hate to go back an' worry through all them terrible times."

"We'll be lucky if we stop there," said Phoebe. "I only hope to gracious we won't go back to Columbus or King Alfred."

"Oh, I hope not!" said Rebecca, with a shudder. "Folks ud think we was crazy to be talkin' 'bout America then."

Phoebe tried to toss her head.

"If 'twas in Alfred's time," she said, "they couldn't understand what we was talkin' about."

"Phoebe Wise! What do you mean?"

"I mean just that. There wasn't any English language then. Besides—who's to say the old thing won't whirl us back to the days of the Greeks an' Romans? We could see Socrates and Pericles and Croesus and——"

"Oh, I'd love to see Croesus!" Rebecca broke in. "He's the richest man that ever lived!"

"Yes—and perhaps we'll go back of then and see Abraham and Noah."

"Ef we could see Noah, 'twould be worth while," said Rebecca. "Joe Forrest said he didn't believe about the flood. He said Noah couldn't hev packed all them animals in tight enough to hev got 'em all in the Ark. I'd like mighty well if I could ask Noah himself 'bout it."

"He couldn't understand ye," said Phoebe. "All he spoke was Hebrew, ye know."

"Oh!" exclaimed Rebecca. Then, after a pause: "S'pose we went back to the tower of Babel. Couldn't we find the folks that was struck with the English language an' get one of 'em to go back an' speak to Noah?"

"What good would that do? If he was struck with English he wouldn't know Hebrew any more. That's what made— But there!" she exclaimed, "what ninnies we are!"

There was a long pause. After many minutes, Rebecca asked one more question.

"Do you s'pose the flood would come up as fur's this, Phoebe?"

"I don't know, Rebecca. The Bible says the whole earth, you know."

And so passed the slow hours. When they were not dozing they were either nibbling frugally the scant fare in reach or conversing by short snatches at long intervals.

For thirty hours had they thus whirled ceaselessly around that circle, when Phoebe, glancing through the window at the ring to which their rope was attached, noticed that its constant rubbing against the ball at the top of the pole had worn it nearly through.

"My goodness, Rebecca!" she cried. "I believe we're goin' off at a tangent in a minute."

"What? How?"

"The ring on the pole is nigh worn out. I believe it'll break in a minute."

"If it breaks we'll move straight an' get rid o' this side weight, won't we?"

"Yes—but goodness only knows where we'll fly to."

"Why—ain't Mr. Droop there? If the side weight goes, he can get into the engine-room an' let us down easy."

"That's so!" cried Phoebe. "Oh, won't it be grand to stand still a minute after all this traipsin' around and around! Mr. Droop," she continued, "do you hear? You'd better be gettin' ready to take hold an' stop the Panchronicon, 'cause we're goin' to break loose in half no time."

There was no reply. Nor could any calling or pleading elicit an answer. Droop had yielded to his thirst and was again sleeping the sleep of the unregenerate.

"Oh, Rebecca, what— Oh—oo—oo!"

There was a loud scream from both the sisters as the iron ring, worn through by long rubbing, finally snapped asunder.

The tremendous pressure was suddenly lifted, and the two women were free.

With a single impulse, they flew toward the kitchen door and fell into each other's arms.

The Panchronicon had gone off at a tangent at last!

"Oh, Rebecca—Rebecca!" cried Phoebe, in tears. "I was afraid I'd never see you again!"

Rebecca cried a little too, and patted her sister's shoulder in silence a moment.

"There, deary!" she said, after awhile. "Now let's set down an' hev a good cup o' tea. Then we can go to bed comfortable."

"But, Rebecca," said Phoebe, stepping back and wiping her eyes, "what shall we do about the Panchronicon? We're jest makin' fer Infinite Space, or somewheres, as fast as we can go."

"Can't help it, Phoebe. Ye sha'n't touch a thing in that engine-room this day—not while I'm here. Ye might blow us up the nex' time. No—I guess we'll jest hev to trust in the Lord. He brought us into this pickle, an' it's fer Him to see us out of it."

With this comforting reflection the two sisters brewed a pot of tea, and after partaking of the refreshing decoction, went to their respective beds.

"I declare, I'm dog tired!" said Rebecca.

"So'm I," said Phoebe.

Those were their last words for many hours.



CHAPTER VII

NEW TIES AND OLD RELATIONS

How long they slept after their extraordinary experience with the runaway air-ship neither Rebecca nor Phoebe ever knew; but when they awoke all was still, and it was evidently dark outside, for no ray of light found its way past the hangings they had placed over their windows.

There was something uncanny in the total silence. Even the noise of the machinery was stilled, and the two sisters dressed together in Rebecca's room for company's sake.

"Do you suppose we've arrived in Infinite Space yet?" Rebecca asked.

"It's still enough fer it," Phoebe replied, in a low voice. "But I don't hear the Panchronicon's machinery any more. It must have run down entirely, wherever we are."

At that moment there was borne faintly to their ears the distant crowing of a cock.

"Well, there!" said Rebecca, with an expression of immense relief, "I don't believe the's any hens an' roosters in Infinite Space, is the'?"

Phoebe laughed and shook her head as she ran to the window. She drew aside the shawl hanging before the glass and peered out.

The first gleams of dawn were dispelling the night, and against a dark gray sky she saw the branches of thickly crowding trees.

Dropping the shawl, she turned eagerly to her sister.

"Rebecca Wise!" she exclaimed. "As sure as you're alive, we're back safe on the ground again. We're in the woods."

"Mos' likely Putnam's wood lot," said Rebecca, with great satisfaction as she finally adjusted her cameo brooch. "Gracious! Won't I be glad to see all the folks again!"

She pushed open her door and, followed by Phoebe, entered the main room. Here all was gloom, but they could hear Droop's breathing, and knew that he was still sleeping under the table in the corner.

"For the lands sakes! Let's get out in the fresh air," Rebecca exclaimed as she groped her way toward the stairs. "You keep a-holt o' me, Phoebe. That's right. We'll get out o' here an' make rabbit tracks fer home, I tell ye. We can come back later for our duds when that mis'able specimen is sober fer awhile again."

Slowly the two made their way down the winding stairs to the lower hall, where, after much fumbling, they found the door handle and lock.

As they emerged from the prison that had so long confined them, a cool morning zephyr swept their faces, bringing with it once more the well-known voice of distant chanticleer.

They walked across the springing turf a few yards and were then able to make out the looming black mass of some building beyond the end of the air-ship.

"Goodness!" Rebecca whispered. "This ain't Peltonville, Phoebe. There ain't a house in the town as high as that, 'less it's the meetin'-house, an' 'tain't the right shape fer that."

They advanced stealthily toward the newly discovered building, in which not a single light was to be seen.

"In good sooth," Phoebe exclaimed, putting one hand on her sister's arm, "it hath an air of witchcraft! Dost not feel cold chills in thee, Rebecca?"

Rebecca stopped short, stiff with amazement.

"What's come over ye?" she asked, trying to peer into her sister's face. "Whatever makes ye talk like that, child?"

Phoebe laughed nervously and, taking her sister's arm, pressed close up to her.

"I don't know, dear. Did I speak funny?" she asked.

"Why you know you did. What's the use o' tryin' to scare a body with gibberish? This place is creepy 'nough now."

As she spoke, they reached the door of the strange building. They could see that it stood open, and even as they paused near the threshold another puff of air passed them, and they heard a door squeak on its rusty hinges.

They stood and listened breathlessly, peering into the dark interior whence there was borne to their nostrils a musty odor. A large bat whisked across the opening, and as they started back alarmed he returned with swift zig-zag cuts and vanished ghostlike into the house.

"It's deserted," whispered Rebecca.

"Perhaps it's haunted," Phoebe replied.

"Well, we needn't go in, I guess," said Rebecca, turning from the door and starting briskly away. "Come on this way, Phoebe—look out fer the trees—lands! Did y'ever see so many?"

A few steps brought them to a high brick wall, against which flowers, weeds, and vines grew rank together. They followed this wall, walking more rapidly, for the day was breaking in earnest and groping was needless now. Presently they came to a spot where the wall was broken away, leaving an opening just broad enough to admit a man's body. Rebecca squeezed boldly through and Phoebe followed her, rather for company's sake than with any curiosity to see what was beyond.

They found themselves in a sort of open common, stretching to the edge of a broad roadway about a hundred yards from where they stood. On the other side of the road a cluster of gabled cottages was visible against the faint rose tint of the eastern sky.

As Phoebe came to her sister's side, she clutched her arm excitedly:

"Rebecca!" she exclaimed. "'Tis Newington, as true as I live! Newington and Blackman Street!"

Suddenly she sat down in the grass and hid her face in her hands.

"What d'ye mean?" said Rebecca, looking down at her sister with a puzzled expression. "Where's Newington—I never heerd tell of Blackman Street. Air ye thinkin' of Boston, or——"

Phoebe interrupted her by leaping to her feet and starting back to the opening in the wall.

"Come back, Rebecca!" she exclaimed. "Come back quick!"

Rebecca followed her sister in some alarm. Phoebe must have been taken suddenly ill, she thought. Perhaps they had reached one of those regions infected by fevers of which she had heard from time to time.

In silence the two women hurried back to the Panchronicon, whose uncouth form was now quite plainly visible behind the trees into the midst of which it had fallen when the power stored within it was exhausted.

Not until they were safely seated in Rebecca's room did Phoebe speak again.

"There!" she exclaimed, as she dropped to a seat on the edge of the bed, "I declare to goodness, Rebecca, I don't know what to make of it!"

"What is it? What ails ye?" said Rebecca, anxiously.

"Why, I don't believe I'm myself, Rebecca. I've been here before. I know that village out there, and—and—it's all I can do to talk same's I've always been used to. I'm wanting to talk like—like I did awhile back."

"It's all right! It's all right!" said Rebecca, soothingly. "Th' ain't nothing the matter with you, deary. Ye've ben shet up here with side weight an' what not so long—o' course you're not yerself."

She bustled about pretending to set things to rights, but her heart was heavy with apprehension. She thought that Phoebe was in the first stages of delirium.

"Not myself! No," said Phoebe. "No—the fact is, I'm somebody else!"

At this Rebecca straightened up and cast one horrified glance at her sister. Then she turned and began to put on her bonnet and jacket. Her mind was made up. Phoebe was delirious and they must seek a doctor—at once.

"Get your things on, Phoebe," she said, striving to appear calm. "Put on your things an' come out with me. Let's see if we can't take a little exercise."

Phoebe arose obediently and went to her room. They were neither of them very long about their preparations, and by the time the sun was actually rising, the two women were leaving the air-ship for the second time, Phoebe carrying the precious carved box and Rebecca her satchel and umbrella.

"What you bringin' that everlastin' packet o' letters for?" Rebecca asked, as they reached the opening in the wall.

"I want to have it out in the light," Phoebe replied. "I want to see something."

Outside of the brick wall she paused and opened the box. It was empty.

"I thought so!" she said.

"Why, ye've brought the box 'thout the letters, Phoebe," said Rebecca. "You're not agoin' back for them, air ye?"

"No," Phoebe replied, "'twouldn't do any good. Rebecca. They aren't there."

She dropped the box in the grass and looked wistfully about her.

"Not there!" said Rebecca, nonplussed. "Why, who'd take 'em?"

"Nobody. They haven't been written yet."

"Not—not—" Rebecca gasped for a moment and then hurried toward the road. "Come on!" she cried.

Surely, she thought—surely they must find a doctor without delay.

But before they reached the road, Rebecca was glad to pause again and take advantage of a friendly bush from whose cover she might gaze without being herself observed.

The broad highway which but so short a time ago was quite deserted, was now occupied by a double line of bustling people—young and old—men, women, and children. Those travelling toward their left, to the north, were principally men and boys, although now and then a pair of loud-voiced girls passed northward with male companions. Those who were travelling southward were the younger ones, and often whole families together. Among these the women predominated.

All of these people were laughing—calling rough jokes back and forth—singing, running, jumping, and dancing, till the whole roadway appeared a merry Bedlam.

"Must be a county fair near here!" exclaimed Rebecca. "But will ye listen to the gibberish an' see their clothes!"

Indeed, the language and the costumes were most perplexing to good New England ears and eyes, and Rebecca knew not whether to advance or to retreat.

The women all wore very wide and rather short skirts, the petticoat worn exposed up to where a full over-skirt or flounce gave emphasis to their hips. The elder ones wore long-sleeved jackets and high-crowned hats, while the young ones wore what looked like low-necked jerseys tied together in front and their braided hair hung from uncovered crowns.

The men wore short breeches, some full trunk hose, some tighter but puffed; their jackets were of many fashions, from the long-skirted open coats of the elders to the smart doublets or shirts of the young men.

The children were dressed like the adults, and most of them wore wreaths and garlands of flowers, while in the hands of many were baskets full of posies.

Phoebe gazed from her sister's side with the keenest delight, saying nothing, but turning her eyes hither and thither as though afraid of losing the least detail of the scene.

Presently two young girls approached, each with a basket in her hand. They moved slowly over the grass, stopping constantly to pick the violets under their feet. They were so engrossed in their task and in their conversation that they failed to notice the two sisters half hidden by the shrubbery.

"Nay—nay!" the taller of the two was saying, "I tell thee he made oath to't, Cicely. Knew ye ever Master Stephen to be forsworn?"

"A lover's oaths—truly!" laughed the other. "Why, they be made for breaking. I doubt not he hath made a like vow to a score of silly wenches ere this, coz!"

"Thou dost him wrong, Cicely. An he keep not the tryst, 'twill only be——"

"'Twill only be thy first misprision, eh?"

"Marry, then——"

Here their words were lost as they continued to move farther away, still disputing together.

"Well!" exclaimed Rebecca, turning to Phoebe. "Now I know where we've ben carried to. This is the Holy Land—Jerusalem or Bethlehem or Canaan or some sech place. Thou—thee—thy! Did ye hear those girls talkin' Bible language, Phoebe?"

Phoebe shook her head and was about to reply when there was a loud clamour of many tongues from the road near by.

"The May-pole! The May-pole!" and someone started a roaring song in which hundreds soon joined. The sisters could not distinguish the words, but the volume of sound was tremendous.

There was the tramp of many rushing feet and a Babel of cries behind them. They turned to see a party of twenty gayly clad young men bearing down upon them, carrying a mighty May-pole crowned with flowers and streaming with colored ribbons.

Around these and following after were three or four score merry lads and lasses, all running and capering, shouting and dancing, singly or in groups, hand in hand.

In a trice Rebecca found herself clinging to Phoebe with whom she was borne onward helpless by the mad throng.

The new-comers were clad in all sorts of fantastic garbs, and many of them were masked. Phoebe and her sister were therefore not conspicuous in their long scant black skirts and cloth jackets with balloon sleeves. Their costumes were taken for disguises, and as they were swallowed up in the mad throng they were looked on as fellow revellers.

Had Rebecca been alone, she would probably have succeeded in time in working her way out of this unwelcome crowd, but to her amazement, no sooner had they been surrounded by the young roysterers than Phoebe, breaking her long silence, seized her sister by the hand and began laughing, dancing, and running with the best of them. To crown all, what was Rebecca's surprise to hear her sister singing word for word the madcap song of the others, as though she had known these words all her life. She did not even skip those parts that made Rebecca blush.

It was incredible—monstrous—impossible! Phoebe, the sweet, modest, gentle, prudish Phoebe, singing a questionable song in a whirl of roystering Jerusalemites!

Up the broad road they danced—up to the northward, all men making way for them as, with hand-bag and umbrella flying in her left hand, she was dragged forward on an indecorous run by Phoebe, who held her tightly by the right.

On—ever on, past wayside inn and many a lane and garden, house and hedge. Over the stones and ruts, choking in clouds of dust.

Once Rebecca stumbled and a great gawky fellow caught her around the waist to prevent her falling.

"Lips pay forfeit for tripping feet, lass!" he cried, and kissed her with a sounding smack.

Furious and blushing, she swung her hand-bag in a circle and brought it down upon the ravisher's head.

"Take that, you everlastin' rascal, you!" she gasped.

The bumpkin dodged with a laugh and disappeared in the crowd and dust, cuffing, pushing, scuffling, hugging, and kissing quite heedless of small rebuffs.

When they had proceeded thus until Rebecca thought there was nothing left for it but to fall in her tracks and be trampled to death, the whole crowd came suddenly to a halt, and the young men began to erect the May-pole in the midst of a shaded green on one side of the main road.

Rebecca stood, angry and breathless, trying to flick the dust off her bag with her handkerchief, while Phoebe, at her side, her eyes bright and cheeks rosy, showed her pretty teeth in a broad smile of pleasure, the while she tried to restore some order to her hair. As for her hat, that had long ago been lost.

"I declare—I declare to goodness!" panted Rebecca, "ef anybody'd told me ez you, Phoebe Wise, would take on so—so like—like a—a——"

"Like any Zanny's light-o-love," Phoebe broke in, her bosom heaving with the violence of her exercise. "But prithee, sweet, chide me not. From this on shall I be chaste, demure, and sober as an abbess in a play. But oh!—but oh!" she cried, stretching her arms high over her head, "'twas a goodly frolic, sis! I felt a three-centuries' fasting lust for it, in good sooth!"

Rebecca clutched her sister by the arm and shook her.

"Phoebe Wise—Phoebe Wise!" she cried, looking anxiously into her face, "wake up now—wake up! What in the universal airth——"

A loud shout cut her short, and the two sisters turned amazed.

"The bull! The bull!"

There was an opening in the crowd as four men approached leading and driving a huge angry bull, which was secured by a ring in his nose to which ropes were attached. Another man followed, dragged forward by three fierce bull-dogs in a leash.

The bull was quickly tied to a stout post in the street, and the crowd formed a circle closely surrounding the bull-ring. It was the famous bull-ring of Blackman Street in Southwark.

A moment later the dogs were freed, and amid their hoarse baying and growling and the deep roaring of their adversary, the baiting began—the chief sport of high and low in the merry days of good Queen Bess.

The sisters found themselves in the front of the throng surrounding the raging beasts, and, before she knew it, Rebecca saw one of the dogs caught on the horns of the bull and tossed, yelping and bleeding, into the air.

For one moment she stood aghast in the midst of the delighted crowd of shouting onlookers. Then she turned and fiercely elbowed her way outward, followed by her sister.

"Come 'long—come 'long, Phoebe!" she cried. "We'll soon put a stop to this! I'll find the selectmen o' this town an' see ef this cruelty to animals is agoin' on right here in open daylight. I guess the's laws o' some kind here, ef it is Bethlehem or Babylon!"

Hot with indignation, the still protesting woman reached the outskirts of the throng and looked about her. Close at hand a tall, swaggering fellow was loafing about. He was dressed in yellow from head to foot, save where his doublet and hose were slashed with dirty red at elbows, shoulders, and hips. A dirty ruff was around his neck, and on his head he wore a great shapeless hat peaked up in front.

"Hey, mister!" cried Rebecca, addressing this worthy. "Can you tell me where I can find one o' the selectmen?"

The stranger paused in his walk and glanced first at Rebecca and then, with evidently increased interest, at Phoebe.

"Selectmen?" he asked. "Who hath selected them, dame?"

He gazed quizzically at the excited woman.

"Now you needn't be funny 'bout it," Rebecca cried, "fer I'm not goin' to take any impidence. You know who I mean by the selectmen jest's well as I do. I'd be obliged to ye ef ye'd tell me the way—an' drop that Bible talk—good every-day English is good enough fer me!"

"In good sooth, dame," he replied, "'tis not every day I hear such English as yours."

He paused a moment in thought. This was May-day—a season of revelry and good-natured practical joking. This woman was evidently quizzing him, so it behooved him to repay her in kind.

"But a truce to quips and quillets, say I," he continued. "'Twill do me much pleasure an your ladyship will follow me to the selectman. As it happens, his honor is even now holding court near London Bridge."

"London Bridge!" gasped Rebecca. "Why, London ain't a Bible country, is it?"

Deigning no notice to a query which he did not understand, the young fellow set off to northward, followed closely by the two women.

"Keep close to him, Phoebe," said Rebecca, warningly. "Ef we should lose the man in all this rabble o' folks we would not find him in a hurry."

"Thou seest, sweet sister," Phoebe replied, "'tis indeed our beloved city of London. Did I not tell thee yon village was Newington, and here we be now in Southwark, close to London Bridge."

Rebecca had forgotten her sister's ailment in the fierce indignation which the bull-baiting had aroused. But now she was brought back to her own personal fears and aims with a rude shock by the strange language Phoebe held.

She leaped forward eagerly and touched their guide's shoulder.

"Hey, mister!" she exclaimed, "I'd be obliged to ye if ye'd show us the house o' the nearest doctor before we see the selectman."

The man stopped short in the middle of the street, with a cunning leer on his face. The change of purpose supported his belief that a May-day jest was forward.

"Call me plain Jock Dean, mistress," he said. "And now tell me further, wilt have a doctor of laws, of divinity, or of physic. We be in a merry mood and a generous to-day, and will fetch forth bachelors, masters, doctors, proctors, and all degrees from Oxford, Cambridge, or London at a wink's notice. So say your will."

Rebecca would have returned a sharp reply to this banter, but she was very anxious to find a physician for Phoebe, and so thought it best to take a coaxing course.

"What I want's a doctor," she said. "I think my sister's got the shakes or suthin', an' I must take her to the doctor. Now look here—you look like a nice kind of a young man. I know it's some kind of antiques and horribles day 'round here, an' all the folks hes on funny clothes and does nothin' on'y joke a body. But let's drop comical talk jest fer a minute an' get down to sense, eh?"

She spoke pleadingly, and for a moment Jock looked puzzled. He only understood a portion of what she was saying, but he realized that she was in some sort of trouble.

"Why bait the man with silly questions, Rebecca," Phoebe broke in. "A truce to this silly talk of apothecaries. I have no need of surgeons, I. My good fellow," she continued, addressing Jock with an air of condescension that dumfounded her sister, "is not yonder the Southwark pillory?"

"Ay, mistress," he replied, with a grin. "It's there you may see the selectman your serving-maid inquired for."

Rebecca gasped and clinched her hands fiercely on her bag and umbrella.

"Serving-maid!" she cried.

"Ahoy—whoop—room! Yi—ki yi!"

A swarm of small white animals ran wildly past them from behind, and after them came a howling, laughing, scrambling mob that filled the street. Someone had loosed a few score rabbits for the delight of the rabble.

There was no time for reflection. With one accord, Jock and the two women ran with all speed toward the pillory and the bridge, driven forward by the crowd behind them. To have held their ground would have been to risk broken bones at least.

Fortunately the hunted beasts turned sharply to the right and left at the first cross street, and soon the three human fugitives could halt and draw breath.

They found themselves in the outskirts of a crowd surrounding the pillory, and above the heads of those in front they could see a huge red face under a thatch of tousled hair protruding stiffly through a hole in a beam supported at right angles to a vertical post about five feet high. On each side of the head a large and dirty hand hung through an appropriate opening in the beam.

Under the prisoner's head was hung an account of his misdeeds, placed there by some of his cronies. These crimes were in the nature of certain breaches of public decorum and decency, the details of which the bystanders were discussing with relish and good-humor.

"Let's get out o' here," said Rebecca, suddenly, when the purport of what she heard pierced her nineteenth-century understanding. "These folks beat me!"

She turned, grasping Phoebe's arm to enforce her request, but she found that others had crowded in behind them and had hemmed them in. This would not have deterred her but, unaccountably, Phoebe did not seem inclined to move.

"Nay—nay!" she said. "'Tis a wanton wastrel, and he well deserves the pillory. But, Rebecca, I've a mind to see what observance these people will give the varlet. Last time I saw one pilloried, alas! they slew him with shards and paving-stones. This fellow is liker to be pelted with nosegays, methinks."

"Mercy me, Phoebe! Whatever—what—oh, goodness gracious grandmother, child!" Poor Rebecca could find only exclamations wherein to express her feelings. She began to wonder if she were dreaming.

At this moment a sprightly, dashing lad, in ragged clothing and bareheaded, sprang to the platform beside the prisoner and waved his arms for silence.

There were cries of "Hear—hear!" "Look at Baiting Will!" "Ho—ho—bully rook!" "Sh-sh-h!"

After a time the tumult subsided so that Baiting Will could make himself heard. He was evidently a well-known street wag, for his remarks were received with frequent laughter and vocal applause.

"Hear ye—hear ye—all good folk and merry!" he shouted. "Here ye see the liege lord of all May merry-makers. Hail to the King of the May, my bully boys!"

"Ho—ho! All hail!"

"Hurrah—crown him, crown him!"

"The King of the May forever!"

By dint of bawling for silence till he was red in the face, the speaker at length made himself heard again.

"What say ye, my good hearts—shall we have a double coronation? Where's the quean will be his consort? Bring her forward, lads. We'll crown the twain."

This proposal was greeted with a roar of laughter and approval, and a number of slattern women showing the effects of strong ale in their faces stepped boldly forward as competitors for coronation.

But again Baiting Will waved his arms for a chance to speak.

"Nay, my merry lads and lasses," he cried, "it were not meet to wed our gracious lord the king without giving him a chance to choose his queen!"

He leaned his ear close to the grinning head, pretending to listen a moment. Then, standing forward, he cried:

"His gracious and sovereign majesty hath bid me proclaim his choice. He bids ye send him up for queen yon buxom dame in the black doublet and unruffed neck—her wi' the black wand and outland scrip."

He pointed directly at Rebecca. She turned white and started to push her way out of the crowd, but those behind her joined hands, laughing and shouting: "A queen—a queen!"

Two or three stout fellows from just beneath the pillory elbowed their way to her side and grasped her arms.

She struggled and shrieked in affright.

Phoebe with indignant face seized the arm of the man nearest her and pulled lustily to free her sister.

"Stand aside, you knaves!" she cried, hotly. "Know your betters and keep your greasy hands for the sluttish queans of Southwark streets!"

The lads only grinned and tightened their hold. Rebecca was struggling fiercely and in silence, save for an occasional shriek of fear.

Phoebe raised her voice.

"Good people, will ye see a lady tousled by knavish street brawlers! What ho—a rescue—a Burton—a Burton—a rescue—ho!"

Her voice rose high above the coarse laughter and chatter of the crowd.

"What's this? Who calls?"

The crowd parted to right and left with screams and imprecations, and on a sudden two horsemen reined up their steeds beside the sisters.

"Back, ye knaves! Unhand the lady!" cried the younger of the two, striking out with his whip at the heads of Rebecca's captors.

Putting up their hands to ward off these blows, the fellows hastily retreated a few steps, leaving Rebecca and Phoebe standing alone.

"What's here!" cried the young man. "God warn us, an it be not fair Mistress Burton herself!"

He leaped from his horse, and with the bridle in one hand and his high-crowned hat in the other, he advanced, bowing toward the sisters.

He was a strongly built young man of middle height. His smooth face, broad brow, and pleasant eyes were lighted up by a happy smile wherein were shown a set of strong white teeth all too rare in the England of his time. His abundant blond hair was cut short on top, but hung down on each side, curling slightly over his ears. He wore a full-skirted, long-sleeved jerkin secured by a long row of many small buttons down the front. A loose lace collar lay flat over his shoulders and chest. His French hose was black, and from the tops of his riding-boots there protruded an edging of white lace.

He wore a long sword with a plain scabbard and hilt, and on his hands were black gloves, well scented.

Phoebe's face wore a smile of pleased recognition, and she stretched forth her right hand as the cavalier approached.