Part 2

With a groan, Downey stared at the gray, knife-lined walls that hedged him about like a fortress prison. For the first time in his life he regretted--and bitterly regretted--the care he had always taken to keep in prime physical condition. He chewed his lips in mortification to think that he had come to the twenty-third century only in order to nourish some tottering dodo with his life blood. But for one reason above all others he was stabbed with grief: a vision had burst over him of Judith's eager face and burning bright blue eyes; and with a rush of vehement emotion it came to him that he could not, must not die! How would she fare, alone and friendless in this strange century? To escape from the bleak steel walls appeared impossible; yet for her sake, more than for his own, he must find a way to avert the threatened doom.

IV

Two days had gone by. Up and down the length of a long curtained room Downey slowly paced, with drooping head and drawn white face. Sumptuously upholstered chairs and carven tables were ranged about him, as if to lend luxury to his final hours. But it was not these that he observed; his eyes were drawn constantly to the door, which was crossed with steel bars, beyond which two kilted figures stood beside an ugly black apparatus resembling a machine-gun.

Bitterly he reviewed in his mind his fruitless efforts to free himself. The windows were locked and grated; the single door was guarded, and he was under constant surveillance. Every effort had been made to render his last days comfortable--but what comfort could he take when he was held like a doomed ox in the stall, awaiting the slaughter? He had hardly slept and barely taken food; and the final irony, he thought, occurred when he was handed a steel plaque which read, "The Purple Badge of Heroism. Died for his country this Thirty-Third day of May, in the year 314 of the New Era."

"Well, guess I'm as good as dead already," he reflected as he stared at these words.

He had flung the iron plaque to the furthest corner of the room, and had sunken into a chair with his head buried in his hands, when a rattling at the door caused him to start up abruptly.

"A visitor to see the prisoner!" he heard one of the guards droning, automatically. And the other responded, as automatically, "Let her in! Let her in!"

Leaping up, he observed Judith peering dismally through the bars.

"Mort!" she cried, in tones of mingled joy and sadness; while as he sprang forward to meet her he observed that two kilted women and a guard accompanied her. He also noted--and was a little hurt at the incongruity of the fact--that she had taken pains with her make-up: she was carrying her handbag, and the rouge on her lips was particularly thick, and the powder was smeared on her cheeks in great white patches.

"Mort, I--I've done everything," she exclaimed, as she flung out both hands to him. "But it was--it was no use. They wouldn't even let me see you till this minute. I--I've come to say good-bye, Mort."

He noticed that her big blue eyes were brimmed with tears. And in the tumult of that moment his own eyes were moist. With a swift impulse, he drew her to him, bending down and pressing his lips against hers. But, even as he did so, a powerful restraint seized him against his will. Caught by a sudden spasm, he turned aside, inwardly cursing--and sneezed.

Then again he sneezed, and again, and again, with fierce explosiveness; and the tears rolled from his eyes, which began to grow red and inflamed. Seven times in all he sneezed; then, with a growl, he muttered, "Damnation! There goes my hay-fever again!"

"Your what?" the guard inquired, not quite catching the words. "What kind of fever did you say?"

"Hay-fever," Judith answered. "It's a pestilence that used to rage in the twentieth century."

"Never heard of it," said the guard; at which the girl, drawing a mirror and powder-puff from her bag, began to smear her face anew; while Downey once more sneezed violently.

"Sounds mighty dangerous!" concluded the guard; and opening a little black tube on the wall, he called into it, "Send Doctor ZX down here at once! The prisoner has a fit!"

Downey was just completing his third sneezing spell a minute or two later when the black-robed Doctor arrived. With a dismayed gasp, he stared at Downey; then opened a little case and took out a mass of batteries and wires, which he attached to the prisoner's wrists and ankles, while he damped two tubes to his ears and listened.

While he was doing this, Judith was using her powder-puff again, and Downey once more sneezed.

"I don't know just what the disturbance is," the Doctor at length decided, gloomily. "There's some hidden functional derangement. The heartbeat is too fast. And the nerve pressure is too low. It's too bad, young man, that you should have to spoil a good record."

Downey's answer was to sneeze once more.

"I can't imagine what causes the fits," meditated the Doctor, while conducting a further examination. "It's something new to medical science. For all I know, it may be contagious. Worst of all the germs are probably in your body, and would infect any head to which you were attached."

"It was considered worse than smallpox in our own time," contributed Judith.

The Doctor paced slowly about the room, shaking his aged head doubtfully; while he himself, as Judith continued operation with the powder-puff, all at once began to sneeze.

"By my old head, I do hope I haven't caught it too!" he snapped, withdrawing from Downey anxiously. And then, with sudden decisiveness, "That settles it! I'm afraid I have bad news for you, young man. All our decapitation heroes, as you know, must be in the best physical condition. We can't take the chance of having them contaminate an old head. Our rule is, 'Safety first.' So you see, young man, I am left no choice. I will have to withdraw my recommendation!"

"What?" demanded Downey, rushing toward the Doctor in a wild outburst of joy. "Does that mean I won't be decapitated?"

"Keep away from me!" snarled the Doctor, making a dash toward the door. "Of course it means that! There's no use arguing, either! Henceforth you'll have to earn your living like any ordinary head-wearing citizen!"

* * * * *

As Judith's attendants and the guard withdrew, a startling thought burst over Downey.

"By heaven, Jude," he exclaimed, "how did I happen to get hay-fever already? My death-plaque said it's only May. And you know the fever season doesn't begin till August."

Judith looked up at him with streaming eyes in which a faint light was dawning. "Silly!" she said. "Why do you think I kept rubbing so much powder on my face? Don't you remember, you always used to complain, you were allergic to it, and it made you sneeze so much?"

"Well, thank the Lord for face powder!" cried the rescued man, as he suddenly realized how long and ingeniously the girl had been planning to save him--and realized, also, what such planning implied.

"It _is_ lucky I brought my handbag with me from the twentieth century--and the face powder in it," stated the girl.

But his arms had already reached down to seize her. And, for the first time, she responded fully to his embrace.

"I--I--I didn't know how much I cared, Mort," she sobbed, "until I thought--I thought they were going to kill you!"

"Well, after all, decapitation has some merits," he smiled back. "Come to think of it, Jude, it doesn't matter much to me what century I'm in, so long as I'm there with you."