"Robertson, Morgan - Futility" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robertson Morgan)

the rail; while the three watchers approached again, and the little white figure below climbed the upper bridge steps.

The survival of the fittest," he rambled, as he stared into the fog; "cause and effect. It explains the Universe --- and me." He lifted his hand and
spoke loudly, as though to some unseen familiar of the deep. What will be the last effect? Where in the scheme of ultimate balance --- under the law of
the correlation of energy, will my wasted wealth of love be gathered, and weighed, and credited? What will balance it, and where will I be? Myra, --- Myra,"
he called; "do you know what you have lost? Do you know, in your goodness, and purity, and truth, of what you have done? Do you know ---"

The fabric on which he stood was gone, and he seemed to be poised on nothing in a worldless universe of gray-alone. And in the vast, limitless emptiness
there was no sound, or life, or change; and in his heart neither fear, nor wonder, nor emotion of any kind, save one --- the unspeakable hunger of a love
that had failed. Yet it seemed that he was not John Rowland, but some one, or something else; for presently he saw himself, far away --- millions of billions
of miles; as though on the outermost fringes of the void --- and beard his own voice, calling. Faintly, yet distinctly, filled with the concentrated despair
of his life, came the call: "Myra, --- Myra."

There was an answering call, and looking for the second voice, he beheld her --- the woman of his love --- on the opposite edge of space; and her eyes
held the tenderness, and her voice held the pleading that he had known but in dreams. "Come back," she called; "come back to me." But it seemed that the
two could not understand; for again he heard the despairing cry: "Myra, Myra, where are you?" and again the answer: "Come back. Come."

Then in the far distance to the right appeared a faint point of flame, which grew larger. It was approacbing, and he dispassionately viewed it; and
when he looked again for the two, they were gone, and in their places were two clouds of nebula, which resolved into myriad points of sparkling light and
color --- whirling, encroaching, until they filled all space. And through them the larger light was coming --- and growing larger --- straight for him.

He heard a rushing sound, and looking for it, saw in the opposite direction a formless object, as much darker than the gray of the void as the flame
was brighter, and it too was growing larger, and coming. And it seemed to him that this light and darkness were the good and evil of his life, and he watched,
to see which would reach him first, but felt no surprise or regret when he saw that the darkness was nearest. It came, closer and closer, until it brushed
him on the side.

"What have we here, Rowland?" said a voice. Instantly, the whirling points were blotted out; the universe of gray changed to the fog; the flame of
light to the moon rising above it, and the shapeless darkness to the form of the first officer. The little white figure, which had just darted past the
three watchers, stood at his feet. As though warned by an inner subconsciousness of danger, it had come in its sleep, for safety and care, to its mother's
old lover --- the strong and the weak --- the degraded and disgraced, but exalted --- the persecuted, drugged, and all but helpless John Rowland.

With the readiness with which a man who dozes while standing will answer the question that wakens him, he said --- though he stammered from the now
waning effect of the drug: "Myra's child, sir; it's asleep." He picked up the night-gowned little girl, who screamed as she wakened, and folded his pea-jacket
around the cold little body.

"Who is Myra?" asked the officer in a bullying tone, in which were also chagrin and disappointment. "You've been asleep yourself."

Before Rowland could reply a shout from the crow's-nest split the air.

"Ice," yelled the lookout; "ice ahead. Iceberg. Right under the bows." The first officer ran amid-ships, and the captain, who had remained there, sprang
to the engine-room telegraph, and this time the lever was turned. But in five seconds the bow of the Titan began to lift, and ahead, and on either hand,
could be seen, through the fog, a field of ice, which arose in an incline to a hundred feet high in her track. The music in the theater ceased, and among
the babel of shouts and cries, and the deafening noise of steel, scraping and crashing over ice, Rowland heard the agonized voice of a woman crying from
the bridge steps: "Myra, --- Myra, where are you? Come back."

Chapter:
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IV