distance he did see or hear signs of life.
A station wagon, driven by a man in a white coat, was visible, serpentining down Sachem's Watch. Beside the man was a gray-haired colored lady--the butler's wife, Ben surmised.
Later the sound of tennis reached him and, faintly, the voices of a woman (Connie?) and a man, calling scores. He also heard a motorcycle approach the premises, but did not look up from his book in time to catch sight of its rider.
Eleven o'clock.
The novel had now captured Ben. He scarcely noticed as the butler made quiet trips to clear the breakfast table. He did notice, however, on two or three occasions when Paulus Davey went through the door, that Farr, by the door-hushed sound of his voice and by its intervals, was still on the phone. And, plainly, still agitated.
Eleven-nine.
The tennis had stopped. There was relative silence: only a very faint, incessant hum from the distant Turnpike; the chirping of birds in the shrubbery and trees of Uxmal; the remote sky-scuffle of a commercial jet carrying passengers on a course which, if Ben had given it his attention, he might have guessed would take it east and north toward Ireland. Toward Shannon Airport. Aside from that, almost nothing. The hottening, whitening sunlight, that made shadows constantly blacker and sharper; and haze transpired from reluctant leaves that half-obscured the white walls and gray steeples of Fenwich Village.
Eleven-ten.
Some further seconds.
And hell broke loose.
Ben leaped to his feet, dropping his book, as an ear-splitting scream blasted over the lawns, gardens, and the hilltop. It stopped, and came again, migrainously, enormously. In the interval Ben had heard the unmistakable wail of Fenwich Village sirens.
For seconds, he stood still, startled, uncertain.
For seconds, he insisted this instantaneous clangor could not possibly be what it seemed. And when he acknowledged the potential meaning, he still told himself it must be a mistake, or at most a practice alert.
But then he saw people streaking toward the place where he stood galvanized, half-crouched, with a dropped book at his feet.
A moment later, eyes dilated, skin a strange yellow, voice hoarse, Paulus Davey appeared. He said repeatedly and with a sort of crazed urgency, "This way, Doctor Bernman! This way, please!"
Ben finally understood. Understood the words, at least. He croaked, "Shelter?"
The butler nodded, took his arm, made him run.
The ensuing ten or twelve minutes were perhaps the most mixed-up and forever impossible-to-unscramble of any in Ben's life.
He went, with the shaken and shaking butler, through the house--the sunroom, the great living room with its recessed sitting area, and the hall. Outdoors, next: the quadrangle. Thence through a geometrical rose garden brilliant with early-watered blooms, toward a paved area beyond the open garage.
Arriving there, he was told to wait, by the frantic butler. "Don't under any circumstances go anywhere else! Just wait." Paulus Davey then ran back toward the door through which they'd emerged.
Ben waited.
But not alone for long. The courtyard rang and bellowed with the electric alarms, a battery of hooting horns. In the middle of the concrete area beside which Ben had been ordered to wait, two portals rolled apart. They were, Ben saw in a sort of pop-eyed wonder, steel. Thick steel. Very thick steel--like heavy battleship plating or submarine-hull steel. And huge. They opened to reveal a vertical shaft that went--Ben walked nearer, his muscles leaping--down and out of sight: bottomless, it would seem, and big enough to swallow a house.
Then, people. Mrs. Farr first, in a morning coat and slippers, clutching a large, lavender case to her bosom, dough-pale and sweating.
Then Lotus Li, looking almost calm, sprinting lightly, carrying nothing at all but wearing a rose-beige tennis dress. Behind her, running hard and also empty-handed, Faith. She saw Ben and rushed to his side. "I
A station wagon, driven by a man in a white coat, was visible, serpentining down Sachem's Watch. Beside the man was a gray-haired colored lady--the butler's wife, Ben surmised.
Later the sound of tennis reached him and, faintly, the voices of a woman (Connie?) and a man, calling scores. He also heard a motorcycle approach the premises, but did not look up from his book in time to catch sight of its rider.
Eleven o'clock.
The novel had now captured Ben. He scarcely noticed as the butler made quiet trips to clear the breakfast table. He did notice, however, on two or three occasions when Paulus Davey went through the door, that Farr, by the door-hushed sound of his voice and by its intervals, was still on the phone. And, plainly, still agitated.
Eleven-nine.
The tennis had stopped. There was relative silence: only a very faint, incessant hum from the distant Turnpike; the chirping of birds in the shrubbery and trees of Uxmal; the remote sky-scuffle of a commercial jet carrying passengers on a course which, if Ben had given it his attention, he might have guessed would take it east and north toward Ireland. Toward Shannon Airport. Aside from that, almost nothing. The hottening, whitening sunlight, that made shadows constantly blacker and sharper; and haze transpired from reluctant leaves that half-obscured the white walls and gray steeples of Fenwich Village.
Eleven-ten.
Some further seconds.
And hell broke loose.
Ben leaped to his feet, dropping his book, as an ear-splitting scream blasted over the lawns, gardens, and the hilltop. It stopped, and came again, migrainously, enormously. In the interval Ben had heard the unmistakable wail of Fenwich Village sirens.
For seconds, he stood still, startled, uncertain.
For seconds, he insisted this instantaneous clangor could not possibly be what it seemed. And when he acknowledged the potential meaning, he still told himself it must be a mistake, or at most a practice alert.
But then he saw people streaking toward the place where he stood galvanized, half-crouched, with a dropped book at his feet.
A moment later, eyes dilated, skin a strange yellow, voice hoarse, Paulus Davey appeared. He said repeatedly and with a sort of crazed urgency, "This way, Doctor Bernman! This way, please!"
Ben finally understood. Understood the words, at least. He croaked, "Shelter?"
The butler nodded, took his arm, made him run.
The ensuing ten or twelve minutes were perhaps the most mixed-up and forever impossible-to-unscramble of any in Ben's life.
He went, with the shaken and shaking butler, through the house--the sunroom, the great living room with its recessed sitting area, and the hall. Outdoors, next: the quadrangle. Thence through a geometrical rose garden brilliant with early-watered blooms, toward a paved area beyond the open garage.
Arriving there, he was told to wait, by the frantic butler. "Don't under any circumstances go anywhere else! Just wait." Paulus Davey then ran back toward the door through which they'd emerged.
Ben waited.
But not alone for long. The courtyard rang and bellowed with the electric alarms, a battery of hooting horns. In the middle of the concrete area beside which Ben had been ordered to wait, two portals rolled apart. They were, Ben saw in a sort of pop-eyed wonder, steel. Thick steel. Very thick steel--like heavy battleship plating or submarine-hull steel. And huge. They opened to reveal a vertical shaft that went--Ben walked nearer, his muscles leaping--down and out of sight: bottomless, it would seem, and big enough to swallow a house.
Then, people. Mrs. Farr first, in a morning coat and slippers, clutching a large, lavender case to her bosom, dough-pale and sweating.
Then Lotus Li, looking almost calm, sprinting lightly, carrying nothing at all but wearing a rose-beige tennis dress. Behind her, running hard and also empty-handed, Faith. She saw Ben and rushed to his side. "I
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