All at once he was aware of an approaching darkness flying between him and the twinkling valley lights at an unbelievable depth below. The darkness took form as a vast black flyer mounting toward him. He unwound his mother's arms from his neck. Dimly he knew that it was a time of war, and those twinkling lights were the eyes of vast munition factories, packed with explosives.
In a slanting drop he shot toward the black figure. He did not see the face; but he knew it for his father. Lower and lower he and the black figure circled, until the night activity below could almost be made out. He avoided two beating rushes of the black wings. He grappled with the enemy.
He felt his arms pressing outward the fierce talons that sought to grasp him, his hands straining against the pulsing throat. Back, back, back he pressed--then with a mighty effort released, and flung the other, wheeling like a thrown stick, straight into the factory of death below.
Desperately his wings beat upward. A wide-tongued flash of fire bit into the night, there was a crash as if the earth burst apart.
Still half asleep, he sat up in bed. The roar rang in his ears. The house shook; fragments of window pane tinkled on the floor.
Out of bed he jumped, avoiding the broken glass, still uncertain what was dream, what reality.
Somewhere outside he heard a negro's frightened scream, and the sound of running steps.
He pulled on a shirt and a pair of working trousers, and knotted his shoe-strings. As he ran down the hall, Hollis, his tones shaking, was speaking to the doctor on the wire.
On reaching the back porch, a peculiar smell struck his nostrils--just a suggestion of a heavy odor that he knew at once. The dead fumes of dynamite--could they be blasting that close to the house? An overcharge, perhaps?
Over the sink his mother bent, washing the blood from the arm of the cook, Diana. "What's the matter, mother?"
She turned an alarmed face to his. "The glass cut her arm--nothing serious. Hollis is phoning the doctor." As he came closer, she whispered, "Artery."
She looked white and worried. "You'd better go to the mine, Pelham. It's an explosion, I think."
"Sounded very close--that first ramp, perhaps----"
He went for the car; it would be quicker, and it might be needed.