After Worlds Collide (When Worlds Collide 2)

She halted a few steps away, and he went to her.

“Father asks for you, Tony,” she said in a voice so constrained that he prickled with fear.

“He’s weaker?” said Tony.

“Come and see,” she whispered; and he seized her hand, and she his at the same time, and together through the dark they went to the cabin where lay the stricken leader.

A cloth covered the doorway so when the door opened it let out no shaft of light to betray the camp to any hovering airman of the enemy. Tony closed the door behind him and Eve, thrust aside the cloth and faced Hendron, who was seated upright in bed, his hair white as the cover of his pillow.

His eyes, large and restless, gazed at his daughter and at his lieutenant; and his thin white hands plucked at the blanket over him.

“Have they come again, Tony?” he challenged. “Have they come again?”

“No, sir.”

“Those that came, they are all dead?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And none of us?”

“No, sir.”

“Arm some of yourselves unto the war, Tony.”

“What, sir?”

“‘Arm some of yourselves unto the war,’ Tony! ‘For the Lord spake unto Moses, saying:

“‘Avenge the children of Israel of the Midianites; afterwards shalt thou be gathered unto thy people.

“‘And Moses spake unto the people, saying, Arm some of yourselves unto the war, and let them go against the Midianites.’

“How many of the Midianites have you slain, Tony?”

“More than fifty, sir,” said Tony.

“There might be five hundred more. We don’t know the size of their ship; we don’t know how many came. It’s clear they have taken possession of one of the cities of the Other People.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then we must move into another. You must lead my people into the city you found, Tony—the city I shall never see.”

“You shall see it, sir!” Tony cried.

“Don’t speak to me as if to a child!” Hendron rebuked him. “I know better. I shall see the city; but I shall never enter it. I am like Moses, Tony; I can lead you to the wilderness of this world, but not to its promised places. Do you remember your Bible, Tony? Or did you never learn it?

“I learned whole chapters of it, Tony, when I was a boy, nearly sixty years ago, in a little white house beside a little white church in Iowa. My father was a minister. So I knew the fate of the leader.

“‘And the Lord said unto Moses, Behold, thy days approach that thou must die: call Joshua’—that is you, Tony—‘and present yourselves, that I may give him a charge.

“‘Charge Joshua and encourage him, and strengthen him; for he shall go over before this people, and he shall cause them to inherit the land which thou shalt see.’ Joshua—my Joshua, Tony, we must move, move, move to-night. Move into one of their cities. ‘Thou art to pass over Jordan this day,’ Tony, ‘to cities great and fenced up to heaven.’”

Hendron stopped speaking and fell back on his pillow. His eyes closed.

“Yes, sir,” Tony said softly.

“The cities I shall never see!” Hendron murmured with infinite regret.