Chapter V: Fall and Revelation

"It's rather confused in here," said the man, "but we will soon get out toward the end and then the view is magnificent. You can see up and down the river for miles and the night boat will be along in a few minutes."

"Isn't that it?" asked the woman, pointing up the river to where a cluster of lights rounded a huge bend not far away, and swung out in midstream.

"Yes," said the man, "if we listen I think we can hear her."

They both stopped, and sure enough faintly across the water came the noise of the clanking paddles of the big river steamer. With that sound also mingled the song of the night wind, for a wonder comparatively gentle, making strange, weird harmonies as it sifted through the taut and rigid bars of steel. She listened enchanted with the sound.

The big floor beams extended from one side to the other of the bridge, between the trusses at intervals of fifty feet. At right angles to them and six feet apart the stringers ran lengthways parallel to the trusses. Here and there pieces of timber false work had been thrown across the stringers for the convenience of the workmen, but as these two slowly moved toward mid-stream at last these pieces became fewer and finally there was nothing to be seen but the heavy floor beams and the lighter stringers.

After they passed the top of the pier and got beyond the small space of river bank on which the pier was set, there was nothing between them and the water, now moonlit and quivering, except these cross girders of steel on either hand beyond the planking in the tracks.

"Have you a clear head?" asked the man. "I mean does it affect you to be on high elevations? Do you get dizzy?"

"I never have," was the answer, "but----"

"I think I'll hold you," was the reply.

He grasped her firmly by the arm. The loose wrap she was wearing over her shoulders did not cover her arms and it was a bare arm that he took in his hand.

"I beg your pardon," he said quickly, "but----"

"It doesn't matter. I understand. You would better hold me, I might slip."

She was in fact as clear-headed as any woman on earth. She had stood alone and unsupported on the brink of precipices a thousand feet high, yet her heart had not beaten then as it was beating now and she had never felt the need of support before. There was something electric and compelling in the pressure of his strong hand upon the firm flesh of her round arm. She shrank closer to him, again unthinkingly, by a natural impulse.

The moon was now well clear of the brow of the highest hill. Its yellow was turning to silver and in its cold and beautiful illumination the whole river flowed bright beneath them. Every inch of the bridge was now clearly revealed in the white passionless light.

Their progress was now checked by a flat car, fortunately partially unloaded, which had been left on the track before them when the men knocked off work. They would complete its unloading in the morning. If Meade had been alone he would have crossed on one of the floor beams to the other track, but that was not to be thought of in the case of Helen Illingworth.

"Too bad," he said in deep disappointment, "I suppose we shall have to go back. I'll rout out one of the engine-drivers and get him to pull this car out of the way----"

"Can't you climb that car?"

"Certainly I can."

"Well, so can I if you help me."

"I'll help you this way," said Meade, having acquired a certain facility from his previous performance, as he lifted her up to the low platform of the truck, lower by the way than the level of an ordinary railroad car. Placing his hand upon it he vaulted to her side. They walked across it quickly, choosing the side that had been unloaded of its burden of iron for their path.

"Wait," said Meade as they reached its end.

He sprang down to the track and as she leaned forward he lifted her down also. Fifty feet away the bridge ended in the air. They were now almost directly beneath the traveler near the end of the suspended span. Its huge legs sprawled out like those of a gigantic animal on the extreme edges of the bridge on either side above their heads. The wooden platform on the track ran out half the distance to the bridge end. Slowly the two walked along it until but a few feet was left between them and the naked floor beams and the stringers carrying the ties to which the rails were bolted and the planks laid.

By the side of the track on the top of the stringers had been placed a pile of material surmounted by a large flat plate of steel which lay level upon it. It was triangular in shape, the blunt point turned inward. The base which was about six feet wide paralleled the course of the river. The plate on the top of the pile was raised about three feet above the level of the track. They stopped abreast of it.

"Can't we go any further?" asked the girl in low tones, still close to the young man, who still tightly clasped her arm.

It was a night and time in which to speak softly. Yet a whisper would not serve. Indeed there was always wind in the gorge and out there on the end of the bridge. It might be never so still on the shore but there was always a current of air where they were and it seemed to be coming stronger. The sound of it overhead was louder, and less pleasing. There was a threat in its notes as it swept through the steel. Her dress was whipped about her by its force. The drapery which she wore about her shoulders blew against him. She drew it around her with her free hand and looked at him for her answer.

"I'm afraid it wouldn't be safe to go any further," he said.

"But I must, I want to see the steamer."

"It will pass directly under the bridge."

"But this wooden platform will hide it, this and the pile of steel here."

"They have no business to pass under the bridge," said Meade. "They've been warned hundreds of times and orders have been issued."

"Why?"

"There is always danger that something might fall."

"At night with no one working?"

"Yes, even at night. We are never quite sure that everything has been made secure until we examine it. A bolt or a nut or a bar of steel or a tool, to say nothing of a beam, falling from such a height would kill anyone and the beam might sink the steamer, but they still come as near as they like. The passengers seem to wish it and the captains humor them. Besides the best water and the least current to fight against seem to be just under the bridge end yonder."

"Can't we go just a few steps nearer?"

"I would not have anything happen to you for the bridge itself and all the rest of the world."

"You couldn't say more than that, could you?"

"I could say much more than that if I----"

But she interrupted him again.

"Why can't I stand up there?"

"On that gusset plate?"

"Is that what you call it?"

"Yes, it bears the same relation to structural steel that a gusset does to a woman's dress. I don't suppose you know how to make a dress?"

"Do I not? You don't know that I have done some settlement work, do you?"

"No, but I am not surprised to find that you have done anything good and useful and beautiful."

"Well, it's hardly that last, but as it happens I could make a dress if----"

"If what?"

"If I were a poor man's wife and had to."

She laughed a little nervously.

"A dress like the one you are wearing?" he asked.

"Hardly that," she laughed again. "It took an artist to do that, and I would not want one like it in that case. I am only at best a plain sewer."

"Plain!" persisted he fatuously.

"Exactly. But can't I stand on that?"

"Wait," he answered.

He climbed to the center of it, lifted himself up and down on his feet to test it and found it solid apparently.

"I think so," he said at last, "but I shall have to put you up."

"Am I never to be allowed to climb anything myself?" she asked as he lifted her up and set her down on her feet in the middle of the plate of steel as gently as before.

"Not when I am by to help you," was his reply.

"Perhaps you do not know that I am one of the few women who have done some real mountain climbing?"

"I don't know anything at all about you except that I----"

"Oh, there comes the steamer," she cried. "I can see it beautifully from here."

"Be careful," was his answer, "you must not move. Stand perfectly steady. I am not so sure of that plate. Indeed, if you will permit me----"

He reached over from where he stood on the track below her and by her side and gathered the material of her dress into what could only be described as a bunch, which he held in an iron grasp.

"I do not think that is necessary," she said. "This plate seems as solid as the rest of the bridge and--oh, there's the steamer! She's right under us."

The big river craft was filled with light and laughter. The wind fortunately blew the smoke away from the bridge so that they had a clear and perfect view of her. There was a band playing aboard her. They heard the music above the beat of the whirling paddles, the song of the rising wind. The passengers were congregated about the rails on the upper decks staring upward. The bridge was as fascinating to them as it was to the people ashore evidently.

"How interesting," said the delighted girl. "Why don't you come up here yourself, you can see so much better?"

The man dropped her gown, lifted his right foot to the pile on the stringers to follow her suggestion. Thoughtlessly she stepped toward the outer end to give him room, quite forgetful of his caution. The gusset plate was not so securely bedded on that uneven pile as either of them had fancied. Before he could complete his step or warn her of the danger, it now bent forward. It tilted distinctly. In spite of herself, Helen Illingworth was carried still farther forward as in her excitement she sought to regain her balance and that disturbed the unstable equilibrium of the piece of steel still more. It began to slip downward, grating on the pile of beams as it moved; another second and it would be off and on its way irrevocably.

Meade threw himself at the girl. He lunged out and caught her just as she was slipping downward with the plate now almost perpendicular. To catch her he had to step to the very edge of the planking beyond which the rails ran naked on the ties.

With a tremendous effort he caught her by the waist and swung her up and in and backward. Fortunately the hypothenuse of the plate ran away from the pier or it might have swept her down in spite of all he could do. As it was he caught her furiously to his breast and stood fast on the brink quivering, heaving himself desperately backward as he sought to maintain his balance and take the backward step that meant safety.

Neither of them had said a word. A wild shout rose from the steamer as the huge plate dropped, like the blade of a mighty guillotine, straight down through the air. The floor plane of the bridge was two hundred feet above the water. The heavy piece of steel, weighing hundreds of pounds, was traveling with the velocity of a lightning flash when it neared the water. If it had struck the boat it would have cut it through like a knife. Fortunately it cleared the gangway by inches. In a second or more it had disappeared. Screams, shouts, arose from the boat which promptly sheered off into midstream.

Helen Illingworth's back had been toward Meade as he seized her. She had seen as he had everything that happened. Recovering himself at last he stepped back slowly, almost dragging her, until they were a safe distance from the edge.

"My God," he said hoarsely. "What a narrow escape."

"For the boat?"

"What do I care for the boat?"

"For me?"

"I thought you were gone."

"And so I should have been if you had not been there."

"If you had gone down I should have followed you, I swear."

His face was ghastly white in the moonlight. Sweat covered his forehead. He was shaking like a wind-blown leaf both on account of the strain of his sudden and terrific effort, and because of the reaction from the horror that had overwhelmed him as he saw her sliding.

"The whole world went black when I saw you go," he said slowly.

"Do you care that much?" asked the girl, trembling herself.

There was no necessity for maidenly reticence now.

"Care?" said the man, "care?"

"I'm all right now."

"You are more fortunate than I. I stood to lose you, you stood to lose only life. Don't you see? Can't you understand? My God!"

Suddenly he swept her to his breast as this time she faced him. She was very near him and she did not make the slightest resistance. It was the fourth time he had taken her in his arms that night, but this time there was all the difference in the world.

She had waited for this hour and she was glad. They had faced death too nearly for any hesitation now. She knew from what he had said to her that he loved her, and although he had not referred to it in any way she also knew that he had so superbly and magnificently saved her at the imminent risk of his own life. There had been swift yet eternal moments when it seemed that both of them, trembling on the brink, would follow the downward rush of the gusset plate. Now as he strained her to him, she lifted her face to him, glad that she was tall enough for him to kiss her with so slight a bend of the head.

There, under the great trusses of steel, amid the huge, gaunt, massive evidences of the power, of the might, of the mastery of man, two hearts spoke to each other in the silence, and told the story that was old before the first smelter had ever turned the first ore into the first bit of iron, before Tubal Cain ever smote the anvil; the story of love that began with creation, that will outlast all the iron in all the hills of the earth--that is as eternal as it is divine!